The 19th Annual D.C. International Film Festival

An Overflow Crowd Enjoys the 13th Annual Party

By Karrye Y. Braxton, DC Film Society Publicity Committee Member

A crowd of 230 patrons was thrilled to watch the Academy Awards at the Washington, D.C. Film Society’s 13th Annual Party--"And The Winner Is"--on February 25, 2005. They kept coming ... they kept coming ... What was it that drew them? Was it the prospect of seeing Chris Rock’s mug up on the big screen, thanks again to the Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse? Was it to enjoy the quips and insights of ever-faithful co-hosts, Joe Barber and Bill Henry? Was it the numerous mentions of the 13th Annual Party by the Washington Post, even in Desson Thomson’s column, even though he was hosting the Official Oscar Party? (Thank you so much, Mr. Thomson!) Perhaps it was the tremendous list of silent auction items, including (for the first-time) two round-trip tickets on AirTran valued at $1,000.

Whatever it was, this largest crowd ever (so far!) to enjoy the Film Society’s Annual Party cheered at the entrance of the new Academy Award host, Chris Rock. In an unprecedented move, local film critics Joe Barber and Bill Henry ("The Movie Guys") gave the people what they wanted. The audience voted to watch the entire red carpet pre-show crowd. Once the festivities were underway, the Film Society’s annual party audience roared with delight at the Academy Awards Show’s first African-American male host.

Joe and Bill provided commentary after each award category, asking trivia questions that stumped many in the audience, as well as finally releasing the Film Society’s Best Of picks for each of the major categories. While Film Society members agreed with most of the Academy’s choices, as Million Dollar Baby garnered our votes for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. However, Film Society members chose Sideways as Best Picture, making the night not so predictable.

Joe and Bill also reminded the crowd of the delectable Silent Auction gifts from donors such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, AFI Silver Theatre, AirTran Airways, Allied Advertising (on behalf of the studios, Avalon Theatre, FilmFest DC, Bonnie Joranko, Landmark E St. Cinema and Matt Cowal, National Building Museum, James Parker Jr., Red Sage, Reel Affirmations, Regal Gallery Place, Round House Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, Signature Theatre, Dov S-S Simen, Terry Hines & Associates (on behalf of the studios), Theater J, Warner Theatre, Washington Jewish Film Festival, Washington Performing Arts Society, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Zola Restaurant.

Joe Barber acknowledged that Chris Rock was very funny, but “he’ll never work in Hollywood again after this show,” after Mr. Rock compared the achievements of President Bush to working at The Gap. Soon after this quip, the crowd chuckled appreciatively as Robin Williams auditioned to get his Oscar host job back with voice-overs of various animated characters while announcing the Best Animated Feature Film award nominations.

The Film Society audience stared in stunned silence as Beyoncé Knowles performed three songs, including one in French, the Best Song nominee from The Chorus, featuring the American Boy Chorus. The only other time that the audience was so quiet was during the Silent Auction match-ups, as contenders vied for prizes such as a Hotel Rwanda screening invitation signed by Oscar nominees Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo, Les Choristes Oscar-nominated song sheet music signed by Oscar nominee writer/director/composer Christophe Barratier, and Beyond the Sea soundtrack signed by director/writer/producer/star (and Oscar winner) Kevin Spacey. There were also lots of autographed posters from movies, including Maria Full Of Grace, signed by director/writer Joshua Marston and 2005 Oscar nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kinsey, signed by director/writer and Oscar-winner Bill Condon, Vera Drake signed by 2005 Oscar-nominated director/writer Mike Leigh and star Imelda Staunton, Garden State, signed by director/writer Zach Braff, our favorite from Scrubs, and The Sea Inside, signed by star and previous Oscar-nominee Javier Bardem.

During another commercial interlude, Joe Barber and Bill Henry asked who was the only woman awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for playing a man… Linda Hunt. Joe chortled, does the Oscar for Cate Blanchett playing Katherine Hepburn tout up to another Oscar for Miss Hepburn? During a break, Joe Barber suggested that the Academy show film clips with the song performances versus live song performances by stars not from the movie. At the end of the evening, the lucky clairvoyant of the “Pick the Winners” contest won a basket of prizes, beating out several others who had guessed the winners correctly. So, who will host the Awards next year? Having run up the Silent Auction prices, the audience began taking bets on this!

The Film Society owes hearty thanks to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Allied Advertising, Allison Silberberg from the Filmbiz Happy Hour, Tony Fisher and Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse, Entertainment Weekly, Terry Hines and Associates and Women in Film and Video. The Film Society in addition bows in gratitude to our stalwart volunteers, including Director Michael Kyrioglou, Associate Directors Brian Niemiec and Jim Shippey as well as Committee heads and members Jorge Bernardo, Karrye Braxton, Billy Coulter, Cheryl Dixon, Daniel Fiorito, Raiford Gaffney, Annette Graham, Larry Hart, David Horowitz, Bonnie Joranko, Kandace Laass, Stephen Marshall, Ky Nguyen, Cate Nielan, James Parker, Jr., Nina Reynoso, Adam Spector, Catherine Stanton, Linda Schwartz, Tuan Tran and of course, Liz Wagger!

An Interview with John Boorman, Director of In My Country

By Larry Hart, DC Film Society Member

“Ubuntu” is a uniquely African principle that seeks harmony among peoples by allowing absolution for transgressions in place of retribution. This principle was the basis for South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, lasting four years in the 1990s, and the subject of British director John Boorman’s new film, In My Country.

Boorman has a 40-year history of pioneering techniques in filmmaking that have been imitated endlessly, often by American directors. The revenge gangster flick, Point Blank, in 1967, showed that the world of gangsters had become more like the corporate bureaucracy we have all become frustrated in dealing with. The haunting Deliverance, in 1972, found a dark side of rural America we forgot existed in our urban and suburbanized culture and the autobiographical Hope and Glory gave us a new take on the blitz in England during World War II from a child’s point of view.

Although In My Country uses standard techniques to tell its story, the subject is still highly controversial both within and outside South Africa. The TRC, as it was known, held out the promise of amnesty for those who tortured and murdered prisoners during the apartheid regime if they confessed their crimes and could show they were following orders. The film is based on the book by Afrikaans poet Antjie Krog who covered the TRC hearings as a reporter. Screenwriter Ann Peacock, also a South African native, takes the real character of Krog, changes her name to Anna Malan (Juliette Binoche) and surrounds her with fictional characters. Washington Post (!) reporter Langston Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is bitter about his own country’s treatment of African-Americans and cannot understand the whole “Ubuntu” concept. He is determined to expose its flaws by interviewing a Col. De Jager, brilliantly portrayed by Brendan Gleeson, a composite villain who is described as the most notorious torturer for the South African police. The film also plunges into the guts of the hearings themselves, which were held in all parts of the country, with heart rendering portrayals of the victims families and their conflicting feelings.

On his promotional tour for the film, Boorman held court at the Fairmont Hotel and said that he disagreed with those artists who boycotted South Africa during Apartheid and traveled widely there at the time. “I argued that art is fundamentally subversive and that it was counterproductive not to allow these plays and films to be shown in South Africa, that they were more likely to change if they were seen,” Boorman told us. “As a result, I was able to travel beyond the cities into the rural areas and made many contacts with people who were fighting against Apartheid at great risk to themselves, very courageously.”

Boorman said he kept up with his contacts there and became determined to make a film there once Apartheid was defeated and felt Peacock’s screenplay, four years in the making, was the right vehicle. Boorman was equally enthusiastic about Juliette Bonoche’s portrayal of Krog/Malan. Boorman said he chose Binoche because of the emotional depth and and intellectual honesty that came through in Kieslowski’s Blue, one of his “Three Colors” series, and says it paid off. “I introduced Juliette to Antjie and she consumed her like a werewolf, or something. She even wore some of her clothes in the film. Antjie took Juliette on a trip to the (Orange) Free State (the home she had to leave because of her anti-Apartheid activities) and she absolutely inhabited the character by the time of the shooting. Working with her has been a revelation in that she has the ability to show fragility and strength at the same time.” Boorman said although the other characters in the film were technically fictional, they represented many similar victims stories and that the De Jager character also was based on an actual perpetrator.

As for the TRC, Boorman pointed out that the “Ubuntu” concept comes straight from the tribal experiences of the native population. “Typically, a tribe would be made up of 100 or 200 people who all knew each other intimately. There was no prison, where someone could be locked up, so they had to find some other way of dealing with crime. So the tribe would work to confront the victim with the perpetrator and after a long time it would end with understanding and forgiveness. If this failed, the only sanction would be expulsion from the tribe, which would lead to death or madness. This was Nelson Mandela’s reasoning in favoring the TRC.” Mandela, incidentally, endorsed the film, calling In My Country “a beautiful and important film [that] will engage and influence not only South Africans but people all over the world.”

Boorman said financing the film wasn’t easy and needed help from South Africa’s Industrial Development Bank, and then “cobbled together” the financing bit by bit. As for the state of filmmaking today, the septuagenarian Boorman decried the decline of American films since the so-called “golden age” of the late 1960s and 70s after which, Boorman said, “disaster fell in the form of Star Wars.” “The studios then realized the audience they were looking for was 14 year old boys and they began to make films for them and that still dominates the business. The rest of us sit in an ‘art ghetto.’ There’s this enormous gap between the blockbuster film that grosses hundreds of millions of dollars and the “art house” film that’s lucky to gross $2 million in America.” As a result, Boorman said the studios have all but abandoned financing films and just pay for the distribution. Undaunted, Boorman is working on the adaptation of a fifty year old French book by Margaret Yourcenar on the memoirs of the Emperor Hadrian. He doesn’t sound ready to give in to the studio marketing types just yet.

In My Country is scheduled to hit the DC area screens April 1.

Doin' the Kung Fu Hustle: A Short Chat with Stephen Chow

By James Shippey, DC Film Society Co-Director

A rather stormy morning was the setting for day. The washed out streets of the West End led me to the fashionable hotel where I was to meet the writer-director-star of the blender film Kung Fu Hustle. Of course, even though this was to be only his second interview of the day, things were running late. At least I can thank the concierge for providing me the New York Times (featuring a section about upcoming film festivals no less) and some mineral water. As I glanced around at the preternaturally large bowls of fruit seemingly everywhere, I was finally summoned upstairs to the penthouse, where along with a young writer from American University, we were introduced to Stephen Chow and his mostly silent translator. Chow speaks in better than passable English. [Note: the other interviewer is identified as "AU."]

James Shippey: Ok, let’s get started. First, welcome to Washington. You sure have yourself one exceptional film here. I must say will be very interesting seeing how we accept it over here. There are a lot of things in the film I would like to ask you about, as well as to some things you can add your insight. I guess first thing I would to ask you is did you always envision yourself as playing Sing, the central role in the film?

Stephen Chow: As a central character in my movie? Yes, of course, because I am Sing!
James Shippey: So you did write the role for yourself?

Stephen Chow: Yes, for Kung Fu Hustle. That is the way I do my job, you see. First, the character, we start from there. With the characters we expand to the story from all of the characters. That is how I do it.

AU: Was it a daunting job following the global success of Shaolin Soccer?

Stephen Chow: I don’t think the whole world likes soccer movies.

AU: I meant, it was your most successful film to date, finding a global audience.

Stephen Chow: Well, not really here in the States. Was it really successful here? Let me ask you, what made you want to see it?

AU: My father had told me about it. He works for the press in another city, and had obtained a screener copy of it. He liked it a lot and recommended it to me. So was it hard to follow up?

Stephen Chow: Yes, but not really. For me, there still a lot of Chinese sentiments I would like to bring to Western audiences. (Asks Shippey:). What did you think about Kung Fu Hustle?

James Shippey: Oh, I liked it.

Stephen Chow: Was there anything fresh in there for you?

James Shippey: Ah, there was something I wanted to ask you therein. I did see a lot of references aimed more at Western audiences. The Stanley Kubrick bit.

Stephen Chow: The Shining, yes.

James Shippey: And the chase with Sing and the Landlady is very much akin to what we see in Looney Tunes and Walter Lantz’s work. Those things would be more familiar to Americans and other Westerners. Was this intentional to hook Westerners into the story?

Stephen Chow: Yes, but overall it still a very traditional Chinese martial arts story. Did I make a mistake in this?

James Shippey: No.

Stephen Chow: It’s like if I were a chef. I would serve you a traditional Chinese dish, not a burger, since you can always get a burger!

James Shippey: True, and while you have these elements there, I don’t believe you made the entire film in that direction. For example, when Sing sees Buddha in the clouds, I don’t think we have the exact thing in a Western context. It still plays into a high level comedy, almost absurdist. You move the story along from the low level and mundane to the battle between Sing and the Beast, which becomes almost godlike. In recent memory this reminds us of The Matrix in structure, which, coincidentally, you also have the same martial arts choreographer. So, there are these elements, but I see that you have brought them together with the traditional Chinese elements successfully. Now, I don’t want to be putting words into your mouth, which unfortunately I think I have been doing, but was this your intent?

Stephen Chow: Yes, of course. I work with what I am familiar with, and there you go, Kung Fu Hustle, for example.

AU: In mentioning Yuen Wo Ping, I wanted to ask you about working with him. In Kung Fu Hustle there are big action sequences, like with the blind assassins. What was it like filming those? Was that something new for you?

Stephen Chow: That was the most difficult sequence I have ever made, in Kung Fu Hustle. The idea was crazy, having a musical instrument designed to kill people. One thing I want to say is that Yuen Wo Ping is such a good action director. He’s one of the best in the world. He looks so much like a grand master, but he really has an open mind. He is open to all sorts of different opinions, no matter how crazy they are. Now the fight sequence with the two musicians involved a lot of CGI. It’s quite different from the other fighting sequences, the more traditional fights (in the film) which were performed without wire work or CGI. In Kung Fu Hustle you will see some different kinds of action design, some different styles. That’s the real difficulty in this movie: how to put all of these things into one movie without confusing the audience. Don’t have them asking ‘is it Bruce Lee, or is it The Matrix, or some other thing?’ If you do it the wrong way, that becomes the problem for the audience because it is not uniform. So far, I haven’t heard any complaints about this with Kung Fu Hustle, so I think we did a good job!

James Shippey: You start the film with the (CG) butterfly, and then we move to a scene which is clearly on a soundstage, where we are introduced to the Axe gang. This suggests to us in the West, influences like The Wizard of Oz. In following that, I wanted to ask you about your use of unexpected characters becoming the heroes. Was that coming from your eastern experience, your western influences, or your desire to surprise your audiences?

Stephen Chow: That is the message behind the film. For me it is hard to judge people from how they look outwardly. What I am trying to say is that even the ordinary people; they have their strength behind them. That is my idea as why you see (in the film) the people of Pigsty, all so ordinary, but also powerful.

AU: Have you thought about making an English language film?

Stephen Chow: I’m not sure, but why not? As long as it’s a film about things I like and know how to do it, then I would probably go for it. I wouldn’t do it just for any specific market, though.

James Shippey: Would you make another film with Sing?

Stephen Chow: Yeah, actually right now I am thinking: sequel!

James Shippey: Thank you so much for taking the time, Stephen!

Make Your Movie!

The Independent Film Channel Brings "The Film Fanatic Challenge" to D.C.

An Interview with Mercedes Alvarez, Director of The Sky Turns

By James McCaskill, Storyboard European Correspondent

The 2005 IFFRotterdam made a concerted effort to highlight talented young directors. Mercedes Alvarez was just one of those selected and the choice of film The Sky Turns (El Cielo Gira, Spain, 2005) was validated when the film won IFFR's feature competition prize, the VPRO Tiger Award. In making the award, the judges said, "El Cielo Gira is a richly subjective diary of a film. Mercedes Alvarez provides us access to the last inhabitants of a village with their humorous and profound commentary on the passing of time and life and death through her simple and sincere directing. Her sense of timing and sensitivity to the light and quality of landscape was a poetic meditation, a welcome in these time of contemporary culture."

"My only previous work was a short film, African Wind (El viento africano, Spain, 1997)," Alvarez told me. "In 1998 I enrolled in Pompeu Fabra University's master's in Creative Documentary program." Alvarez worked as scenic director on Jose Luis Guerin's full length documentary Under Construction (En construccion, Spain, 2001), showing a talent for landscape that shines through her documentary. The Sky Turns is an outgrowth of the UPF master's course.

Alvarez's sensitive handling of the subject, the death of the village of her birth, in less talented hands could have descended into a maudlin film. Declining population is common to villages from Ireland to Italy. Already the population of an island in the Outer Hebrides requested to be relocated as it fell below the number needed for a viable community. "I needed to make a film marking the sad demise of Aldealsenor. It had to be a documentary using the last few elderly citizens as no actor could say what they would say... I wanted to show their own ideas of life and philosophy... These are people who are attached to a specific place, specific time." She continued, "These people talk of their truths, and it becomes as universal truth."

Dinosaur footprints are forever cast in stones around the village. That will be a reminder for ages that dinosaurs once lived here. You cannot help but wonder what will mark the thousand years of human existence in this corner of Spain. Roman soldiers bivouacked here and Roman coins are occasionally found here. In 1900 there were 300 citizens here. Then 200, then 100. That has dwindled to fourteen elderly inhabitants. Within a decade or so all will be gone. Already abandoned buildings are crumbling. This is the last generation. "I was three years old when my family left," she said. "I worked on this film for almost two years; one year filming and nine months editing. I wanted to make an intimate film, to be very close to the people. To let their confessions come through. I used a small crew to gain that closeness."

One of the last in the community is the artist Pello Azketo. Now almost blind, he continues to paint from memory. Thirty years ago he was a prolific member of the Pamplona School. Today his sight, like the last residents, this community is fading away. Out of the remaining villages two old friends emerge as the soul of the film with their poignant remembrances. In the end they, like the community, fade into the sunset.

Q&A With Danny Boyle, Director of Millions

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