Next Cinema Lounge

The Cinema Lounge meets on Monday, March 10 at 7:00pm to look at the auteur behind such classics as M*A*S*H, Nashville and Gosford Park. Suggested viewing: M*A*S*H (1970), The Long Goodbye (1973), Nashville (1975), A Wedding (1978), Popeye (1980), The Player (1992), Short Cuts (1993), and Gosford Park (2001).

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).

The 11th Annual Capital Oscars Party

By Bonnie Joranko

Join us on Sunday, March 23, 2002 for the Washington D.C. Film Society's 11th Annual Capital Oscars Party FUN-raiser held at the historic Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse, 2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia. While Steve Martin hosts at the 75th Academy Awards in Hollywood, our own Capital Oscar Party will be hosted by area film critics, Joe Barber and Bill Henry! The pre-Oscar festivities begin at 8:00 p.m. with the Academy Awards at 8:30, but the doors open at 7:15 p.m. so you can get there early to join the fun and watch the Oscars live on the big screen.

Ticket prices are $15.00 for Silver level members of the Film Society and $20.00 for non-members. Gold level members receive one free ticket per membership, but must reserve that ticket in advance. You must be 21 or older to attend. To ensure everyone's comfort and health, this year there will be no smoking inside the theater.

This event always sells out. Guarantee your ticket by sending a check, payable to the DC Film Society, to: DC Film Society, Attn: Capital Oscars, PO Box 65992, Washington, DC 20035-5992. For more information as it becomes available, please check the website or call the hotline at (202) 554-3263.

You'll want to be sure to bring cash or your checkbook (no credit cards, please) to bid for the fabulous prizes in the Silent Auction. So far, we have autographed books, posters and scripts from Academy Award nominated movies, gift baskets, dinner tickets, theater and movie tickets, and more items are still rolling in.

In addition to the Silent Auction, there are door prizes, lots of free movie promotional items, and let's not forget the ever-popular Pick the Winners contest, and more surprises. And, as if this weren't enough already, the winners of the DC Film Society's own Best of 2002 will be announced that night.

There is no better way to experience the Oscars in the Washington Metro area than to watch the Oscars on the big screen. Big isn't just better; it's best! Don't miss out on this great opportunity to relax and enjoy the broadcast in the spacious comfort of the Drafthouse's cafe tables and chairs, with affordable food and drinks. Enjoy the company of people who love movies as much as you do while watching the Oscars just as they should be: bigger than life!!!

Volunteers Needed for Upcoming FilmfestDC

Filmfest DC starts April 23 and runs through May 4. As always, volunteers are needed. If you are interested, plan to attend one of two orientation meetings:

Tuesday, March 25 – 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Cleveland Park Branch Library
3310 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
202.282.3080
Nearest Metro: The Cleveland Park station on the Red line

OR

Monday, March 31 – 6:30-7:30 p.m.
West End Branch Library
1101 24th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
202.724.8707
Nearest Metro: The Foggy Bottom station on the Blue/Orange lines

For questions, call Bill McLeod at (202) 745-9727

The 11th annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital will coincide with the spring equinox, bringing 130 documentary, animated, feature, archival and children's films to Washington, D.C. from March 13 through 23. Selected to provide fresh perspectives on environmental issues around the globe, these films represent cinematic work from 30 countries, including 70 Washington, D.C., United States and World Premieres. Most screenings include discussion with prize-winning filmmakers and scientists and are free.

Two of the Festival's animations: the Japanese film, Mt. Head, and Germany's Rocks have been nominated for the 2003 Academy Award in the category of Animated Short Film. They will be shown three times during the Festival: at the Embassy of Canada, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library and the Hirshhorn Museum. A Festival feature from New Zealand, Whale Rider, which is also a Washington, D.C. Premiere, won the AGF People's Choice Award at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival as well as the audience award for World Cinema at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

Premiere highlights include Lawrence Hott's The Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced, exploring changes to the Alaskan coast over the past century; Alexei and the Spring about survival in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; and Photos to Send in which Irish-American cinematographer Dierdre Lynch revisits the people of County Clare who were photographed by Dorothea Lange for Life magazine in the 1950s. In addition, activist filmmaker Judith Helfand will screen her toxic comedy, Blue Vinyl, exposing the hazards of America's most popular plastic, vinyl, while Ric Burns will show his portrait of the acclaimed nature photographer, Ansel Adams.

Entering its second decade in Washington, D.C., the Environmental Film Festival has become the leading showcase for environmental films in the United States. The eleven-day Festival features some of the finest in contemporary filmmaking, bringing winning selections from international film festivals to Washington, D.C. as well as launching films that subsequently win major recognition elsewhere. Selections from Wildscreen Film Festival in England, Germany's Okomedia International Environmental Film Festival, Yamagata Documentary Film Festival in Japan, the Ottawa International Animation Festival in Canada, Colorado's Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, and the United Nations Association Film Festival in California are among the highlights of the Festival.

Major themes of this year's Festival include advocacy for protecting scarce resources and human health; reflections on Chernobyl; tributes to the world's spectacular wildlife, from China's Yunnan Snub-nosed Monkey to the octopus of the deep sea; environmental and human impacts of war; and the struggles of indigenous peoples to retain their lands and traditions in the face of modernization and globalization.

The Festival celebrates the globe's protected areas, from the grand peaks of Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to the unique wildlife of Tanzania's Serengeti; built and created environments in architecture, art and photography; and personal visions of the living world. Topics encompass farming and organic food, the Chesapeake Bay's pfiesteria blight, and recycling sewage water to create clean drinking water in northern Virginia's Occoquan River watershed.

For a complete film schedule, visit the Festival website or call 202-342-2564 for a film brochure.

An Interview with Dagur Kari

By Jim McCaskill

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands. The following interview with the director of the film, Noi Albinoi (Noi the Albino, Iceland/Germany/UK/Denmark 2003) took place at the 2003 International Film Festival Rotterdam, where the film had its World Premiere. The next IFFRotterdam will be held from January 21-February 1, 2004.

Dagur Kari, an Icelandic filmmaker, was born in France where he lived for his first three years after which his parents returned to Iceland. At 21 he moved to Denmark to attend the National Film School of Denmark, graduating in 1999. His graduation film, Lost Weekend, entered 11 international festivals and won 11 prizes. His current film continues that tradition as it won the Youth Jury Award at Rotterdam. The film has been picked up for distribution in Italy, France and is scheduled for US screens later this year after the film festival circuit.

"I wanted to make my first feature film in Iceland to share my heritage," said Kari. "It was not my intention to make a typically Icelandic film. I like to make films that take place in an isolated microcosm, in a confined universe that is not really a part of the world as we know it, but not surreal either. Somewhere in between. But apart from that, I guess the film is just my version of a story that has been told over and over again: The young rebel, who doesn't fit in anywhere and tries to escape."

The film tells the story of 17-year-old Noi, played by the Icelandic-French actor Tomas Lemarquis, who lives with his grandmother on a remote fjord in northern Iceland. Most of the community consider him the village idiot while others think he is a genius. All would agree that he is eccentric as Noi practices the violin in a closet and digs a hiding place under the house. His dream of escaping this snow locked prison with Iris, the city girl working at the gas station end in catastrophe.

"Noi is a character that has been living inside me for many years," he continued, "He is even older than my interest in film. Throughout the years I have collected all kinds of ideas around him and, by the time I graduated from film school, these ideas were ripe to be locked into a script. I did not have a First Aid kit but kept him alive by placing him with good actors. In the end I kept the good parts, the intensity, the side characters."

"The film industry is so small and relatively new. The first Icelandic film was made in 1978. Making the 'first' anything brings a special energy as making the first Icelandic horror film or the first Icelandic love story." When asked about the difficulty in casting films where the country's population is 28,000 people he said, "Iceland is small and everybody knows everybody. If you sit in a bar long enough in Reykjavik you will have met all your cast and crew. For Noi I didn't go after blockbuster names. Most of the actors are new to cinema and not celebrities. I mainly went after the right types, and that is why it is a combination of non-professional and professional actors. The woman who plays Lina, the grandmother, delivers the mail in my neighborhood; I met the girl who plays Iris in a vegetarian restaurant. Many members of the cast are personal friends, like the psychologist."

"The actor who plays Noi's father has had an interesting career. He will act in a play or film then take time off for another job, like fishing. This recharges his battery and he returns to acting."

"Regarding the character of Noi, it was clear that he would need to have a very distinctive and almost alienated look. And since I do not know any Icelandic albinos of that age that are good actors, Tomas Lemarquis was by far the best choice. Not only is he a very dedicated and talented actor, but he also has the look that I wanted."

"To me heroes are extremely boring," he responded when asked if liked the loser type of character, "I mean people who can do everything. I think it's more interesting when people are miscommunicating and don't know how to deal with things. Like in sitcoms, where the characters have the same problems in every episode. They never learn and it continues for ten years! If they were heroes they would just need one episode to solve everything and move on."

When asked if Noi's hometown really existed Kari said, "The film was not supposed to take place in an isolated village. I was thinking more about Reykjavik. I wanted to create a universe that did not really exist but could exist. To me the West Fjords were most interesting because of the eerie atmosphere and beautiful, extremely visual scenery. Of course we were very dependent on snow and that was the area that was most likely to have snow. During winter it can be completely cut off from the rest of the world due to extreme weather."

How hard was it shoot in this remote area? "It was very hard. We had to depend very heavily on the snow but that winter there was almost no snow. Actually we were extremely lucky because the only snow for the whole winter fell exactly while we were shooting exterior scenes. I'm very happy that no artificial snow was used in the whole film and yet it is snowing in every shot. 95% of the indoor scenes were shot on location. The shooting schedule was tight and all in all it would have been impossible if we hadn't been in these small Icelandic villages. Very few movies have been made there so people are not fed up with film crews coming and everybody is so helpful. When in other countries you often have monstrous bureaucracy, in this area you just need to make one phone call to be able to shoot. The solution for every problem you might have is always a phone call away."

"Snow adds a lot of production design just by nature," Kari said when asked about the difficulty of shooting so much snow. "It gives a physical dimension to the film because it's difficult to move through the snow. Especially when you are being chased by cops. Physically, it is impossible to get away from a place like this. For the escape scene I tried to imitate a B-movie car chase and just added the snow as a surprise obstacle."

Without telling the ending would it fair to say the final event is a kind of punishment? "The ending is supposed to have this double meaning that sometimes the worst thing possible can also be a new beginning. You've lost everything and it is terrible but then you are also liberated from everything. For me it was the only possible escape for Noi. It is open for interpretation and the audience has to decide for themselves. I like to put a definite ending."

This film seems to mix comic and absurd elements into a tragic story. "Noi Albinoi does have strange and humorous situations and then a curse at the end," Kari continues, "I find it strange that my scripts are like a comic book but then the film itself turns out to be much more serious than anyone had expected, myself included."

"Strange thing is that at some time you lock the film and it is finished. It has grown up and moved a way from home. It is interesting to see what it does out there."

This young director finds that "Film is imprecise. You have a thousand opportunities to wish you had shot something different. So you go to editing and not knock your head against the wall. You have to make the best of what you have."

What is next for this talented director? "I have two or three ideas for film projects but none of them take place in Iceland. One is a Dogme film that I'm currently developing in Copenhagen. I think it is easier to work abroad in a foreign language. It helps to abstract things. In Iceland, I know the country and the language so well that it is a little bit difficult to get the necessary distance to create a universe of its own. It comes much easier to me when I'm abroad."

Why Dogme? "They are difficult to make. You learn a lot along the way. The film after that is a bigger production. It is nice to do a quick film in between. Dogme requires you work quickly. It is less developed then in usual productions. Because of all the Dogme rules (no make-up, no added music, no artificial lighting) as a filmmaker you learn very much. Sort of like going on a desert island with a pocket knife and survive for yourself. When you come back you appreciate what you have in your kitchen. Sort of like a refresher course in Film School.

Not certain Dagur Kari needs a refresher course yet. Maybe time to catch his breath. In addition to directing the film, he wrote the screenplay and his musical group, slowblow, did the score.

The film's international sales is in the capable hands of The Coproduction Office. They produce and sell 2 or 3 very select films a year. This year it is Noi Albinoi and Pleasant Days (that film has been re-edited and scenes added since the Edinburgh Film Festival [September 2002 Storyboard]. Previous films include Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves and The Kingdom.

Cast Credits: Noi (Tomas Lemarquis), Kiddi Beikon(Thostur Leo Gunnarsson), Iris (Elin Hansdottir), Lina (Anna Fridriksdottir), Oskar (Hjalti Rognvaldsson), Prestur (Petur Einarsson), Gylfi (Kjartan Bjargmundsson), Dabbi (Greipur Gislason).

Calendar of Events

Previous Storyboards

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