Next Cinema Lounge

The Cinema Lounge meets on Monday, February 10 at 7:00pm to discuss this year's Oscar race. Tell us who your picks are and why. We'll vote on our favorite performances and films of the year and come up with our own nominations.

Cinema Lounge, a film discussion group, takes place the second Monday of every month at 7:00 PM at Borders Books, 600 14th St., NW in Washington, DC (near the Metro Center Metro stop).

IFFRotterdam: From Real to Reel

By Jim McCaskill

Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The 32d International Film Festival Rotterdam ran from 22 January to 2 February 2003. Few countries and festivals are as fanatic about film as this one is. Hundreds of films were shown in eleven categories. The emphasis this year was on films based on reality. Most were feature length films in the Main Program section but there was also the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition, The Hubert Bals Fund awards, Cinema Regained, Main Program Shorts, Film Makers in Focus (honored this year with retrospective showings of their films were France's Jean-Claude Brisseau (Choses Secretes, Un jeu brutal, De bruit et de fureur along with 6 others), India's Girish Kasaravalli (Deepa, Ghatashraddha, Kraurya and 3 other films), Canada's Guy Maddin had 13 feature and short films including the world premiere of Cowards Bend the Knee. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster was the first Artist in Focus with films at the festival and five spatial installations at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum. Continuing with the installation art program was [based upon] TRUE STORIES with a collaborative project that included the International Documentary Film Festival of Marseille, the Witte de With centre for contemporary art at the Nederlands Fotomuseum that saw a wide array of offerings: art, feature films, shorts and websites.

There is still more: There was the first ever curated survey of Australian indigenous film that included features, shorts and a couple or recent documentaries. Included in this were two recent feature films by non-indigenous film makers that look head on at the divide between the colonized and the colonizers: Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence and Rolf de Heer's The Tracker. Both films stared David Gulpilil in tracker roles. He won the Australian equivalent of the Best Performance Oscar for The Tracker.

Exploding Cinema offered dozens of offerings that are raw and real. This began seven years ago with the invasion of electronic media. Now called -stat.ic it focuses on the lively and unexpected. The festival catalogue says, "We write -stat.ic as the term can be found in dictionaries. The spelling immediately suggests something of a hesitation, the temporary cession of a flow of energy, a hiccough. On the other hand the hyphen indicates that many combinations and associations are possible (electrostatic, geostatic, etc.) The starting point is interaction and combination; friction that crackles or can even make sparks fly."

If that was not enough going on, the Rotterdam Film Parliament 2003 looked at two proposals. The first proposal was "This house believes current policies regarding film production in Europe are in danger of permanently smothering the emergence of a potentially 'visionary' cinema." The second proposal looked at the distribution crisis with the motion, "This house believes that the brutal truth is that without distribution subsidy there are no solutions to the problems faced by the European film business." It is widely recognized that with production companies going bankrupt, independent sales agents closing down, and pay-TV channels backing out of financial arrangements art films have difficulties being distributed.

An exhausting ten days in Rotterdam but I did find time to see 40 films and interview four directors and two stars. These interview will be on future Storyboards. I had seen a dozen or more films at other festivals in the past five months that also ran here.

Recommendations
My top dozen picks and strongly recommended are: Noi Albinoi (Dagur Kari, Iceland/Germany/UK/Denmark 2003), Whale Rider (Niki Caro, New Zealand/Germany 2002), A Cold Summer (Paul Middleditch, Australia 2002), Remake (Dino Mustafic, France/Turkey 2003), Extrano (Strange, Santiago Loza, Argentina 2003), L'Imbalsamatore (The Embalmer, Matteo Garrone, Italy 2002), Il piu giorno della mia vita (The Best Day of My Life, Cristina Comencini, Italy 2002), Defense d'aimer (No Way to Love, Rudolphe Marconi, France 2002), Rachida (Yamina Bachir, France 2002), The Death of Klinghoffer (Penny Woolcock, UK 2003) , Lilja 4-Ever (Lukas Moodysson, Sweden 2002), and Respiro (Grazia's Island, Emanuele Crialese, Italy/France 2002).

Very Good: Omnibus 174 (Jose Padilha, Brazil, 2002), Dracula--Pages from a Virgin's Diary (Guy Maddin, Canada 2002), Zendan-e zanan (Women's Prison, Manijeh Hekmat, Iran 2002, Le Fils (The Son, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France 2002), Ren min gong che (Public Toilet, Fruit Chan, South Korea/Hong Kong 2002).

Good: Valentin (Alejandro Agresti, The Netherlands 2002), Hukkle (Hickup, Gyorgy Palfi, Hungary 2002), Bheeshanaye athuru kathawak (A Drop in the Reign of Terror, Amarnath Jayatilaka, Sri Lanka 2003), Man, Taraneh, panzdah sal daram (I'm Taraneth, 15, Rassul Sadr-Ameli, Iran 2002), Un homme sans l'occident (Untouched by the West, Raymond Depardon, France 2002), De arm van Jezus (The Arm of Jesus, Andre van der Hout, The Netherlands, 2003), Sasfar-e markan-e khahestari (Journey of the Gray Man, Amir Shashab Razavian, Iran/Japan 2002), Gololed (Mikhail Brashinsky, Russia 2003), Devcatko (Girlie, Benjamin Tucek, Czech Republic/Slovenia 2002).

Not Recommended: Chou jue deng chang (Enter the Clowns, Cui Zi'en, China 2001).

Awful: Tani tatuwen piyabanna (Flying With One Wing, Asoka Handagama, Sri Lanka 2002).

Two films from China deserve special mention. Both represent something unusual from Good Old "Show Me Your Script and Do Not Vary" China. Queer Cinema. Usually filmmakers have great difficulty making this genre. These directors did not because there is loophole in the law. The laws cover film not DVD. It would be impossible to monitor millions of DVDs made each year in China. These two films, Public Toilet and Enter the Clowns, may never play in a cinema in China but they are at film festivals. Enter the Clowns shows the problems that someone with a DVD camera and a will to make movies. You need more. You need training and a script. Not just point and shoot.

More information on this festival may be found at the website.

AWARDS
The 32nd International Film Festival Rotterdam announced the following awards:

Whale Rider (Niki Caro, New Zealand/Germany) has accomplished the impossible. It won the Audience Award at Toronto, Sundance and now the Canal+ Audience Award in Rotterdam. This is a captivating story of a young girl's struggle to accomplish her destiny. This film is based on Witi Ihimaera 1986 book, The Whale Rider. It was inspired by his daughter asking, "Why can't girls be heroes?" Ihimaera remembered his Maori childhood and wrote the novel in his New York City apartment overlooking the Hudson River. Fernando Meivelles's City of God (Brazil) and and the documentary Entre et avoir (To Be and To Have) by Nicolas Philibert were second and third. To Be and To Have was reviewed in an earlier Storyboard and remains my favorite documentary of 2002.

Three films were recognized for the VPRO Tiger award. Fourteen first or second films were in the running for this special recognition. Each filmmaker will be awarded Euro 10,000 and have their film shown on the VPRO cable channel in The Netherlands. The films are: Extrano by Santiago Loza (Argentina) for being "a confident and mature debut that takes a bold risk, inventing its own visual language to describe the outer and inner world of a man who has become a stranger to life." Jiltoo-neur na-e him (Jealousy is My Middle Name) by Park Chan-Ok (South Korea) was a winner because the jury felt that was "an ambitious film about human relations, written and directed with confidence and sensitivity, and supported by strong ensemble acting." The third winner was S Ljubov' Ju, Lilja (With Love, Lilya) by Larisa Sadilova (Russia) as this film "confirms the remarkable talent of a new Russian filmmaker. Set against an almost documentary background, the film depicts with humanity and humor and an outstanding performance by Marina Subanova, the everyday struggle of an ordinary woman."

The jury of the international film critics, FIPRESCI, gave its award to Mu di di Shanghai (Welcome to Destination Shanghai) by Andrew Cheng (China) for "its stylistic and visual innovation in a digital format and for its timely fictional report on changing conditions in contemporary China."

Forty-five films in the co-production market were considered for the Euro 15,000 Prince Claus Fund Film Grant. The jury gave the grant to La Nuit de la verite (The Revealing Night, Fanta Regina Nacro, produced by Acrobates Films France/Burkina Faso).

The Circle of Dutch Film Critics (KNF) gives an award to a director's first or second film that has not found a distributor in The Netherlands. 45 films were considered and the KNF Award was given to Sud senaeha (Blissfully Yours) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand for "its original narrative construction, quirky humor, playful use of drawings, effortless shifts of mood, and its subtle exploration of the politics in regard to illegal immigrations. This film caused spirited debate among the jury members and is certain to polarize its audience."

The MovieZone youth jury gave its award to Dagur Kari's Iceland/Germany/United Kingdom/Denmark film, Noi Albinoi.

Zendan-e zanan (Women's Prison) by Manijeh Hekmat (Iran) was the winner of the first Amnesty International-DOEN Award at the IFFRotterdam. The jury felt that Hekmat's "sensitive portrayal of the lives of a broad cross section of women in Iranian society over a 20 year period and its effective use of prison life as a metaphor for that society" was the best of the ten films nominated. The jury gave Jose Pahilha's Bus 174 a Special Mention "for its incisive criticism of the live TV broadcast of news events and its multi-faceted analysis of the plight of the street children of Rio de Janeiro."

Interviews with Kari and Loza will appear in future Storyboards.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACADEMY AWARDS AT IFFRotterdam
Fourteen of the the films nominated for Oscar consideration were at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The nominees are interesting as two international audience favorites were not included: Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her and Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention. The later was my favorite but could not be considered by the Academy as it from Palestine. And that is not a country. My favorite films are listed first.

Strongly Recommended: Abouna (Mahamat Saleh Haroun, Chad), Lilya 4-Ever (Lukas Moodysson, Sweden), Rachida (Yamina Bachir, Algeria), The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismaki, Finland), The Sea (Baltasar Kormakur, Iceland), The Son (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium), Wild Bees (Bkohdan Slama, Czech Republic) This film was reviewed February 2002.

Very Good: City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Brazil), 'm Taraneh, 15 (Rassul Ssadr-Ameli, Iran).

Good: Hukkle (Gyorgy Palfi, Hungary).

Films I was unable to see: A Transistor of Love Story (Pen-ek Ratanaruas, Thailand), House of Fools (Andrei Konchalovsky, Russia), Mondays in the Sun (Fernando Leon de Aranoa), Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea), The Best of Times (Chang Tso-chi, Taiwan).

STATISTICS
Europe's largest film showcase closed Sunday, 2 February, breaking its previous attendance records. This year their were 355,000 admissions to 600 feature and short films, video and art installations from around the globe.

A record number 798 film professionals attended the festivals co-production market. Many of the forty-five selected CineMart projects can now look forward to further financing. Festival co-director and CineMart director Sandra den Hamer said, "Generally there seems to be growing audience interest in the type of prod cut we support in Rotterdam, both in the market and in the programme. Rotterdam increases its international impact and sharpens its profile of intelligent filmmaking by selecting the same kind of quality cinema for both the festival and the CineMart."

Many of the directors and festival guest appeared in debates, talk shows, introductions and Q and As: U.S. director Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch-Drunk-Love) became an audience favorite; director Ed Lachman (Kids) appeared (almost) naked for the daily festival journal; Peter Sellers interviewed Aboriginal-director Richard Frankland (Harry's War and No Way to Forget) in one of the public debates; Canadian 'Filmmaker in Focus' Guy Maddin captured public attention with both his extraordinary films, and his film installation Cowards Bend the Knee (a world premiere commissioned by The Power Plant, Toronto was honored by a Special Mention by the FIPRESCI jury. Two bands performed live at the screenings of film in which they appeared: popular Czech fold band 'Cachomor' (featured in Petr Zelenka's Rok Dabla (Year of the Devil) and Dutch Band 'De Kift', collaborators in Andre van der Hout's De arm van Jezus (The Arm of Jesus).

Total box office receipts: Euro 1,200,000. Total number of attending directors: 331. Total number of journalists: 493 (219 were international journalists and 274 Dutch).

SYNOPSIS OF FAVORITE FILMS
A Cold Summer. This is a collaborative film between the three main actors and the director. They are all running from something in their past. When Bobby (Teo Gebert) and Tia (Olivia Pigeot) meet by accident the last thing they want is a relationship. Bobby is hell bent on a journey of self destruction and in Tia he finds a willing companion. They begin a brutal and damaging relationship fueled by sex, alcohol and deceit. Tia's only refuge is her childhood friend Phaedra (Susan Prior), a trusting and optimistic confidant. Tia's tragic denial of her present life begin to infect Phaedra's undying faith in commitment and love. Through desperation, Phaedra dives into an unfamiliar and hostile world but it is her strength and compassion that pushes Bobby and Tia into confronting their worst fear--honesty.

Director Paul Middleditch's second film (Terra Nova was his first) is a compelling, powerful and honest portrait of the truth behind three individual lives. The drams is so confronting that we experience a mixture of hilarity and tragedy. Despite its raw gritty realism the film exudes a rare beauty and compassion.

Defense d'aimer (No Way to Love). Another film drawn from reality. The director was at Villa Medici working on another film when the idea for this film came to him. Like the lead character, his brother had recently died of AIDs. In the film the star Bruce (played by the director, Rudolphe Marconi), recipient of a Villa Medici grant, arrives in Rome, prepared for a year long stay. His brother has died. His girlfriend has left him. As the days go by, cut off from the rest of the world and his usual reference points, he learns to live in the imposing surroundings of this magnificent, solemn palace with its strange gardens, and in the company of the other artists. He meets Matteo (Andrea Necci), a young Roman working in the Villa's office. Little by little, Matteo insinuates himself into Bruce's life. He introduces Bruce to the city and its churches, paintings, fountains, and statues. Matteo is always around Bruce. Troubled and unsettled by Matteo's resemblance to his brother, Bruce allows himself to be dragged into an unusual relationship lacking any clear boundaries. He is swept away on a cruel journey of initiation, full of tense waiting interspersed by brutal games of love. Then Aston (Echo Danon) arrives. She's fascinated by serial killers. When Bruce wants to put a stop to things, it's too late. He is overtaken by twisted relationships, emotionally troubled, caught up by his own madness, failings, dark places.

L'Imbalsamatore (The Embalmer). Several years ago the tabloids of Rome were filled with the tragic story of a triangle involving an taxidermist (a middle-aged dwarf, with connections to the local underground), his hunky assistant and a hooker. Peppino, played by Ernesto Mahieux, meets Valerio (Valerio Foglia Manzillo) at the zoo and entices the tall, friendly young man to be in assistant. Peppino can not express his desire for Valerio so he arranges double dates with prostitutes. When Valerios meets Deborah (Elisabetta Rocchetti), a drifter who quickly works her way into his bed and his home. Peppino goes along with the arrangement for a while but resents her intrusion. Death overshadows this well crafted film.

Noi Albino (Noi the Albino). Is he the village idiot or a genius in disguise? 17 year old Noi (played by the director's childhood friend Tomas Lemarquis who is around 30 years old) drifts through life on a remote fjord in the northwest of Iceland. In winter the fjord is cut off from the outside world, surrounded by ominous mountains and buried under a shroud of snow. Noi dreams of escaping from this white-walled prison with Iris (Elin Hansdottir), a city girl who works in a local gas station. But his clumsy attempts at escape spiral out of control and end in complete failure. Only a natural disaster will shatter Noi's universe and offer him a window into a better world. Noi Albino collected the FIPRESCI Award at the recent Gotteborg, Sweden, International Film Festival.

Remake. Dino Mustafic's first feature film tells three tragic stores in one. The first is about the young Bosnian Moslem Tarik, who is working in Paris in 1993 on a film script about the life of his father Achmed. The second story is about Achmed, who experienced the outbreak of the Second World War in Sarajevo. And finally there is the story of Tarik during the city's 1992 occupation, where he was violently separated from his aged father.

Mustafic provides a sophisticated look at the stories of the father and son ass they cross and run parallel. He shows how both are arrested during the various wars and sent to work camps, he shows the horrors they experience and the way in which they get their freedom back. Wars and the accompanying histories repeat themselves.

This is more than a war film. It is also a coming-of-age drama, with scenes in which Achmed and Tarik (with an intervening period of fifty years) go out with their friends, have fun, fall in love. That was the time when Tarik played with his best friend Miro, who was later forced to fight on the Serbian side.

Whale Rider. This film may have the best commercial success of any of these films. Audiences everywhere have taken to this charming story of valor. Based on the novel by award-winning New Zealand writer Witi Ihimaera (The Matriarch, Tangi). He was inspired to write the book while living in an apartment in New York overlooking the Hudson River. "I heard helicopters whirling around and the ships in the river using all their sirens - a whale had come up the Hudson and was spouting. It made me think of my home town, Whangara and the whale mythology of that area." His daughters had gone to a number of action movies and asked why the boy was the hero and the girl was helpless. "So I decided to write a novel in which the girl is the hero and I finished the book in three weeks."

In this small New Zealand coastal village, Maori claim descent from Paikea, the Whale Rider. In every generation for more than 1000 years, a male heir born to the Chief succeeds to the title. The current Chief's eldest son, Porourangi (Cliff Curtis--Uncle Billy in Once Were Warriors, Pablo Escobar in Blow; also in Training Day, Three Kings among other films), fathers twins--a boy and a girl. The boy and mother die in childbirth. The surviving girl is named Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes in her first film and was 11 years old at time of filming). Grief-stricken, her father leaves her to be raised by her grandparents. Koro (Rawiri Paratene--Mulla in What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, also in Rapa Nui for producer Kevin Costner) her grandfather who is the Chief, refuses to acknowledge Pai as the inheritor of the tradition and claims she is of no use to him. But her grandmother, Flowers (Vicky Haughton--Hira Hita in Her Majesty) sees more than broken line, she sees a child in desperate need of love.

Koro is blinded by prejudice and even Flowers cannot convince him that Pei is the natural heir. The old chief is convinced that the tribe's misfortunes began at Pai's birth and calls for his people to bring their 12-year-old boys to him for training. The future leader will be revealed to him.

How Pei overcomes this and prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her people make this an fascinating film.

Calendar of Events

Previous Storyboards

January, 2003
December, 2002
November, 2002
October, 2002
September, 2002
August, 2002
July, 2002
June, 2002
May, 2002
April, 2002
March, 2002
February, 2002
January, 2002
December, 2001
November, 2001
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August, 2001
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April, 2001
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December,2000
November, 2000