mรกs ymรกs
monthly newsletter of NISI MASA
jan10
TV SERIES flight of the conchords
peรงa piloto
report:
cinetrain 2 portrait:
On the set of Peรงa Piloto, photo by Bruna Benvegnu
elena mosholova
agenda
18 to 27. jan.
European Short Pitch, first session Moulin d'Andé-Ceci
editorial
T
he first issue of 2010, the first issue after the “years zero”, the so called first ten years of the millennium.
Time maybe to make a sort of resume of the past years. So, what was the main characteristic of the first decennium of the 21st century, speaking about cinema & Co? Is there any common ground, something that can label these ten years of cinema in the wide field of fiction? In a way, we are supporting a spectacularization of reality. Cinema became reality. The millennium was inaugurated with airplanes against sky-scrapers, really a quite typical action movie plot (well, or a video game). And it was only the beginning. Look at the end of the decade: an Afro American sitting on the chair of Lincoln. Astonishing. In a way, it’s a sign: it means that we start to think about reality using the same approach we usually adopt in watching a movie. Cinema is not the mirror of reality - something we let us tell about our daily lives. In this new era, we force reality to become cinema, entertainment. We expect our reality to become a fiction opera. The fiction complex (cinema, TV series, video games, etc) makes us as spectator in our daily life, and we act as we were in a fiction opera. So, everything becomes possible, because, to some extent, we can imagine it. In this scheme sometimes it happens that reality becomes more extraordinary than the most implausible movie. The first consequence of looking at our daily reality using the scheme of fiction, is that our life too becomes a show (our PERSONAL show).
And – annex – anyone can enjoy it. Over the last ten years the reality show has become the king of shows: many different realities have been produced, such as You want to become a cook?, You want to become a Multimillionaire? Moreover in different national “salsa” - in this case the common ground is: you CAN become a VIP; In the same breath a lot of MTV shows took part in “our lives”, turning our days, our love affairs (Cheat), our homes (Extreme makeover edition), our cars (Pimp my Ride) into shows. You ARE the main character in your daily show. I can wander around the streets of Monte Carlo by car and put that on YouTube – it’s my show for you! Or, at the opposite, a TV channel can offer me to drive the Monte Carlo GP and I become a VIP myself. The reason of interest in watching me driving stupidly, is that I am NOT a pilot – I am like one of the viewers. In this issue we explore this tendency of TV and its link to reality, through La Piovra in Russia and the influence of TV shows on US politics. Further you can read about Flight of the Conchords, Brazilian TV serie Peça Piloto co-directed by João Cândido Zacharias, the continuation of the Cinetrain project and our ex-president Elena Mosholova. As for now, I beg your pardon, I have to came back to my personal life show – the main problem actually, is to understand the genre of this fiction…! by Simone Fenoil
credits.
Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordination Simone Fenoil Dora di Nunno Design Maartje Alders
Contributors to this issue: Bruna Benvegnu, Carlos Esbert, Simone Fenoil, Adrien Lenoir, Ilkin Mehrabov, Sebastiano Pucciarelli, James Rogan, Tomas Sheridan, Eftihia Stefanidi.
NISI MASA (European Office) 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010, Paris, France Tel/Fax: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 Email europe@nisimasa.com Website www.nisimasa.com
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TV series
dossier
A NEW TV AGE
Ok, it’s happening. After years and years in which the tv was “something for dummy”, after ages in which TV grew up on the shoulders of the other media (radio, cinema) developing stories and themes taken from them… well, it’s happening. Finally, television is blowing up, with wide and interesting new programs (new tv series, documentaries, and yes, also reality). In this issue, we try to explore the television world, looking at this panorama, what’s new but with a view to the past, exploring the connection between the real world and its representation on the mirror of the television. Enjoy the tv issue!
Band meeting: Flight of the Conchords
LA PIOVRA;
A Soviet Mirror
W
orld of mafia is a cold and brutal one, yet intriguing and interesting at the same time. So it is no wonder that countless films and TV series presenting mafia from all perspectives has already been done. The American TV series Sopranos, depicting the life of an Italian-origin mob family, is one of the extremely popular examples coming right onto the mind, as well as the Godfather trilogy.
However for nearly all ex-Soviet Union people in their thirties or above, the word mafia used together with TV series always produces the same result: La Piovra, or Спрут (Sprut) as it was known in its Russian version. Firstly shot in 1984 by Damiano Damiani these mini TV series were revolving around the story of Commissario Corrado Cattani, played by charismatic Michele Placido, a decent police investigator, and his never ending fight with the Sicilian mafia, "I Culturati" group to be exact. La Piovra was extremely popular in Soviet Union, as it was seen as an unofficial mirror of the Soviet state, corrupted to its bones in the late 80s. And as Soviet film makers themselves couldn’t dare to produce a critique that harsh, clearly showing the interconnectedness of the mafia with politics, bureaucracy, cultural life and other leading aspects of society, the Soviet people fully embraced the series and considered Cattani as one of their own. Series didn’t ended after Cattani was assassinated in the final episode of the fourth season, and continued to run till 2001, but ex-Soviet audience quickly lost their interest in it, as Cattani was the main reason for people to watch them and as the life depicted in the series, the brutal battle to survive the day, was immediately becoming the usual routine for people after the Soviet Union collapse. by Ilkin Mehrabov
S
omewhere in between musical acts by two school friends who formed a band (Bret and Jemaine), deadpan ping-pong dialogues of mundane trivialities and a cast of brilliant supporting characters (‘Murray’, the nationalist incapable manager and ‘Mel’, the whimsical sole groupie), lies the success of the most random TV series you may have come across. Flight of the Conchords, New Zealand’s export of guitarbased pair of comedians, try their luck in New York City without letting their hometown pass unnoticed; it is present in every possible occasion, voice inflexion and accent intonation, and yet parodied, glorified and vivaciously mocked. Now, for those who hate musicals and find the transition from prose to singing and dancing a dreadful experience: this is your remedy. You will find that the duo’s dancing skills and vernacular song lyrics are all so awkward that the ‘impromptu’ musical bursts are not only embarrassingly justified but also incredibly uproarious! In my hard time trying to pin down what exactly made this series to stand out, I initially went for New Zealanders’ laconic and self-deprecating sense of humour. However, as Kiwi comedian John Clarke accurately stated, this type should not be attributed to only one nation; and, to be honest, neither to one TV series. I have now decided that the show's soulful ingredient is more likely to be found in the innocence of intentions; Flight of the Conchords do not pretend to be anything more than two funny buddies, parodying the humdrum in the most candid way. And this is simply what it takes for a genuine laugh. by Eftihia Stefanidi
dossier :
TV series
4
WRITING THE FUTURE:
how American TV series re-shape reality
evidence no.1
A young, non-white and unknown presidential candidate talking about “hope and unity” and winning the election: Obama’s campaign in 2008? No, The West Wing, 2005, NBC.
;
evidence no.2
A wife publicly standing by her husband after he admits he’s involved in a sex scandal, trying to save her family and life from gossip and humiliation: Hillary Clinton after Bill confessed his “improper physical relationship" with Monica Lewinsky? New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s wife after he got caught in a prostitution scandal? Both stories match, but it’s Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife, 2009, CBS.
evidence no.3
A charismatic leader coming out of the blue, bringing a message of change and using youngsters’ enthusiastic support to spread it, and promising – you guess? – universal health care: this time must be Barack Obama… No, it’s Anna, the leader of the Visitors, the humanly-disguised aliens landed on earth - and on ABC from autumn 2009.
:
W
hat are we trying to prove here? That sometimes TV series are able to capture reality to the point of anticipating it? That life imitates fiction? Let’s take the West Wing case: the introduction of the Obamalike character is 2 years prior to his candidacy for president. But writer and producer Eli Attie didn’t travel through time: former speechwriter for Al Gore, Attie saw a young politician from Chicago, not even a Senator yet, giving an inspiring speech at the democratic convention in 2004. He then asked Obama’s collaborator David Axelrod to tell him more about that man and started modelling his fictional character on him. No coincidence nor fortunetelling then, just intuition and good knowledge of the environment he was writing about. But the best of the ‘West Wing affair’ is still to come: first our ethnic minority candidate struggles not to be defined only by race, then has to face strong internal opposition from a more established Democratic figure, finally runs against a veteran Republican candidate who’s not a Bush follower, a maverick not beloved by the conservative base. And of course, he ends up winning the White House. Written in 2004, aired in 2005, actually happened in 2007-8. A bit of the same happened to husband-and-wife team Robert and Michelle King, who created and executive-produced The Good Wife: they started working on the project soon after Eliot Spitzer resigned from New York Governor in march 2008, drawing inspiration from similar cases (the Clintons, the Edwards). They simply asked themselves the right dramaturgical question: what happens to these good wives after those embarrassing press conferences where they stand at their unfaithful husbands’ side? They try to regain their life and dignity. And so it happened: just as the Kings had already writ-
ten for the character played by Julianna Margulies, with bills and rent to pay, an unemployed husband and three children, Silda Spitzer reentered the market job after 15 years in autumn 2008. In Michelle King’s words: “We've been pulling from the headlines, but lately they've been pulling from us!”.Looks like good “anticipation fiction” basically relates non-fictional stories that simply haven’t happened yet. As you may have noticed, we’re excluding the first consideration that would come to the old European critic’s mind: that these stories are carrying an ideological and political message. Take 24, often accused by the liberal media of justifying violence and even torture, and thus judged as a TV surrogate of the Bush doctrine; or take the Obama-like leader of the Visitors, promptly quoted by Fox News to show that the president’s approach is evil and ‘alien’ to America: of course you can analyse the ideological and ethical implication of such stories, but by reducing them to political barometers, you’d miss their primary essence of narrative machines and television products. Still, we can restore ethical matters for a final remark: our accounts cast a dark shadow on how easy it can be to predict and therefore to influence public opinion and electoral behaviour, in a media-dominated scenario. As soon as scriptwriters and creative producers will turn into political speechwriters and strategists, and actors and media tycoons into candidates, it will be too late for the human race... Or has it already happened? Do the names Reagan and Berlusconi mean anything to you? by Sebastiano Pucciarelli
TV series
interview.
dossier
João Cândido Zacharias is one of the directors of the Brazilian TV series Peça Piloto, along with Alice Gomes, Patrícia Fróes, Gustavo Scofano and Bruna Benvegnu. The episodes they made show us young Brazilian fashion designers in their everyday lives and creating processes. The series has style and shows how thin the frontier can be between a TV documentary and a most captivating piece of short film.
João Cândido Zacharias
Can you tell us how Peça Piloto was created? We all knew each other before. Gustavo, Patricia, Bruna and I have been friend for a long time. One day, in November 2008, the Secretary of Culture of Rio de Janeiro opened a call. It was about producing a pilot for a TV series. Fact was, we were all looking for something more in our professional lives. So we sat together and exchanged ideas to offer to the call. That’s when I brought Alice to the mix, since we both worked at Filme B (a website specialzed in the Brazilian Film Industry). Why fashion? Well, it was a subject we were all interested in, even though none of us had any actual background. But we felt there was no interest for the creative part of it yet. There were dozens of shows and series focused on the final object (the garment), but none looking at the people and the creative efforts behind those clothes. And that was our main interest: the creation, more than fashion itself.So we had this idea and won the call. Could you describe the making of one episode? We worked in teams of two. The process of filming was pretty incredible. For reasons of sponsorship, we had to broadcast the series this year. So it was a very... how can I say... fast production. From starting to shoot and delivering the last episode, it took us four months. For a series of documentaries whose main idea was to follow a creative process, it was very little time. We shot around five days with each designer. The first day was always about getting to know them. We had a very nice crew, so they all felt at ease very easily. Then we filmed their routine at work and in their personal lives. Then, the last day, we did a photo shoot with three designs they created specially for the show. The five of you are referred to as film makers or at least people who are connected to cinema. Indeed, these episodes are like short films. You focus on travels, or relationships; you like to dwell on little details (going to a night club, roller skating)… You're right about that. We all have some sort of cinema background. I graduated in film school and we all had, in one way or another, worked with cinema. In the mood, in the way images were created, we wanted to bring some “cinematical” feeling to the series. We didn't want to point a
camera at someone and blow them with questions. I think we achieved the exact space in between cinema and TV that we envisioned when thinking about the series. Also, in the relation with the designers, well, we always knew that they were characters: characters of the series but also “characters of themselves”. And what we wanted was to let those characters come to life. One of the greatest compliments we received was from the designers themselves. They all said that we captured exactly who they were. And there lies the difference from one episode to the other. They have the mood, the aura of each designer. It's as if they were co-directors of their own episodes. How do you all picture the future? More seasons of the show or making your own films? We would LOVE doing another season of the show. But it depends on sponsorship. We do have other projects, including another TV series, and a cinema documentary on Alexandre Herchcovitch, the number one fashion designer in Brazil. by Adrien Lenoir for more photos see: www.flickr.com/photos/bbenvegnu/sets/72157612695501314/ for pieces of the show: http://gnt.globo.com/Peca-Piloto/ Designers Carô and Pitty by Bruna Benvengu
5
news ESP 2010 The 1st session of European Short Pitch will take place from the 18th to the 23rd of January 2010 in Moulin d'Andé-Ceci (France) where the 25 European scriptwriters will proceed to a rewriting work of their short film and will be initiated to the technique of pitching. 14 finalists of the Script Contest will take part of it as award. This year, 5 tutors will manage the workshop:
6 Whispering in a Friend's Mouth by Hannaleena Hauru
After the nice career of If I Fall, Hannaleena Hauru just finished her new short film Whispering in a Friend's Mouth. Developed during European Short Pitch 2009, the script tells us the story of two teenagers making graffiti and have ended up kissing. The short film is subtly examining the borderline between platonic and romantic love through two linking time levels. The films was supported by the Finnish Film Foundation.
Savina Neirotti, director of Scuola Holden’s Master and the Torino Film Lab; Antoine Le Bos, scriptwriter, scriptconsultant and director of “Le Groupe Ouest”, European Center for Film Creation in Britanny (France); Marie Dubas, executive producer at “Les Films du Requin” in Paris (France); François Pirot, Belgian director and scriptwriter (Nue propriété; Elève libre…); and Razvan Radulescu, the famous Romanian scriptwriter (Boogie; 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days).
Rita
Exhibition Cannes 2009 Luis Sens
by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza Presented at the 3rd edition of European Short Pitch, Rita, from the Italians Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, has been produced and is already selected in two famous international film festival: Premiers Plans of Angers (France) and Rotterdam (The Netherlands). It’s a sensitive experience about a blind child, sheltering a young thief on the run who suddenly breaks into her home. Luis Sens, who participated in Nisimazine Cannes 2008 as photographer, currently has an exhibition in Buenos Aires, Argentina of the work he made during the workshop. His photos are impressions of Cannes during the festival and portraits of its many flamboyant visitors. The exhibition is organised by Les Inrockuptibles, Alliance France and TV5 Monde. The exhibition lasts untill the 23rd of february 2010. Address: Alianza Francesa, Av. Cordoba 946
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screenings FRANCE clermont-ferrand 29.01.10 - 06.02.10
ESTONIA
14+15.01.10
NISI MASA HUNGARY, HUNGARIAN INSTITUTE and NISI MASA ESTONIA present: Film screenings on the 14th and 15th of January 2010 in Kinomaja, Tallinn, Estonia
Thursday the 14th of January Between dreams, after it's nomination for the European Film Awards in the shorts competition, will now be screened this month at the biggest short film festival in France at Clermont-Ferrand.
FRANCE anger 22.01.10 - 31.01.10
18:00 Introduction part 1 - starting at 18:30 GEORGIA, I ALMOST LOVE YOU (Grúzia, majdnem szeretlek) D: Péter Mészáros, Hungary 56 min TILE MAIL (Csempelevél) D: Judit Feszt, Gergő Somogyvári O: Gergő Somogyvári S8/video, 23 min, documentary, 2008 part 2 - starting at 21:30 A GUEST OF LIFE — ALEXANDER CSOMA DE KÖRÖS (AZ ÉLET VENDÉGE-CSOMA LEGENDÁRIUM) D: Tibor Szemző O: István „Taikyo” Szaladják 35 mm, 80 min, documentary/experimental LOST WORLD (LETÜNT VILÁG) D/O: Gyula Nemes 35 mm, black and white, 20 min, documentary 2007 Production: Absolut Film Studio
Friday the 15th of January
Rita, by Antonia Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia developed in ESP 2009 is selected at Premiers Plans festival in Anger.
NISI MASA HUNGARY – NISI MASA ESTONIA screenings 18.00 Introduction Screening starting at 19:00 NISI MASA 'Matter of Taste' Project Films Daazo.com - Best Of More information: edina@nisimasa.ee, tel. (+372) 56632154 www.nisimasa.ee
spotlight
8
CINETRAIN 2
For the second time a train set off with a group of young filmmakers on board to cross Russia with a cinema mission. Moviement together with Mirumir Studio organised the second edition of this imaginative filmmaking project. This time around, 18 participants from 15 different countries travelled from Bishkek (Kyrgyshstan) to Moscow, via Kazakhstan, to find out about the relationship between Russia and its neighbours. Two of the directors, James Rogan and Tomas Sheridan, share some of their experiences.
James Rogan (Director-UK) movie : Gipsy Cab
C
inetrain 2009 was a madcap train ride of international filmmakers across central Asia into Russia. The theme was cultural neighbouring in the former USSR, but the crew was so diverse it could have been about how film has the power to bring disparate people together from all over the world. Among the directors alone, there was an Englishman, an Irishman, a Ukrainian, a Lithuanian and a Tajik. It was a fascinating social experiment (the organisers wondered how long we could survive without showers), but it was also a remarkably inspiring way to make a film. Documentary directors tend to be solitary creatures these days, we often travel alone with just a camera for company and then return to our darkened edit suites to obsess over our footage. Cinetrain threw us all together and for once we were able to watch other directors at
work. Imagine walking through a train carriage packed with immigrants heading to Russia and stumbling across somebody editing a film, another person shooting a scene and a third composing a film score. It seemed to make no sense to have five different crews of filmmakers pulling in different directions, but by the end of the trip, when we all watched each other’s films for the first time, I realised how exciting it was to have five very different pairs of eyes (not to mention the crews’) on the same journey. The films that emerged were totally distinctive but bound by the shared experiences of the trip. Making a film by train is an exercise in discipline, most stops only allowed for two and half days of shooting. Believe it or not, this bizarre system seemed to work: a director from London, a cameraman from Berlin and a soundman from Moscow; with three world wars between us and a history of misunderstandings, we broke through the language barrier and became a team.
Tomás Sheridan (Director–Ireland)
My initial intention was to make a film about conflicts between neighbours but I soon found out that our characters were eager to speak about a variety of issues from racism to the “good old days” to the current state of their country. It was at an editing stage that I realised that these people had entrusted me with messages for the rest of the world, a world they would probably never manage to visit and so, burdened by my sense of responsibility towards them I changed my film into an eclectic mix of stories, opinions and voices; something quite similar to scanning through the frequencies of a county we don't know, hence the name Radiostan. I must say what really touched me was the bond that formed with my crew. Somehow the discomfort of the travel and the hectic rhythms of the shoot brought us together into a family-like unit. I feel blessed with the opportunity I was given, with the people I met both on the project and along the way and with the places I saw, this was truly magical and inspired time of my life and I hope some of this magic will transpire in our film.
movie : Radiostan
R
adiostan was made as part of the Cinetrain 2009 project, with small crews and lots of passion to make a film in four weeks.
left: James Rogan below: Still from Gypsy Cab
Cinetrain helped me remember why I started documentaries: it's all about the team effort, solving problems together, discovering stories and places you couldn't even imagine... I think this spontaneousness comes across in all the Cinetrain films: the viewer is somehow involved in the filmmaker's journey. About the countries I visited...well all I can say is that I still dream of them. The variety of places we visited was incredible and people everywhere were so welcoming and forthcoming I started to wonder where all the unpleasant people where hiding.
left: Tomas Sheridan below: Still from Radiostan
portrait
9
Once upon a time in Bulgaria…
Q
Photo by Carlos Esbert
ELENA MOSHOLOVA
uelle honeur, to make a portrait of Queen Elena, President of the NISI MASA association from 2005 to 2007!
decided to involve a group of friends and to create a new NISI MASA association in Bulgaria: the Haide association, at the beginning, and the Seven.
The first time I met Elena Mosholova was in Berlin, during the Berlinale 2003. Early years of NISI MASA: we were there with some Italians, Spanish, polish, finnish and French guys, hosted by the FilmArche association thanks to a European project. I remember I saw this girl approaching us and starting speaking in Spanish: we were really surprised. I mean, a Bulgarian girl in Berlin speaking in Spanish with some Italian guys: a NISI MASA story indeed, now I can recognize. The cosmopolitan girl told us she spent one Erasmus year of studying cinema in Madrid, and she was still uncertain about the future: come back to Sofia? Try to stay in Spain? And then she started asking us: “What do you think about this ‘NISI MASA’ project?”
As chairman of these associations, she worked trying to create relationships, connections with the local / national institutions of the Bulgarian Cinema panorama (as with the Sofia International Film Festival) , and then trying to develop new particular project: it’s the case, for example, of the Seminar about Balkan cinema, (a workshop which looked for Balkan identity in the film made in the Balkan area), or like the “Nordic Panorama”, a screening festival dedicated to the films coming from North Europe.
Since the beginning, the future First Queen of NISI MASA showed her particular skill: she can transmit enthusiasm through a single smile. You can spend hours speaking about an idea, a feeling, a project, and she will always add something new: and mainly, she will underline your common view screaming: “Yes!” Or, sometimes, “si si si!” Back to Sofia, and after tasting the NM spirit, she
And finally, the last step, the creation of Filmini, festival of short films which is becoming the main event in Bulgaria for what concern the short film field. Probably his enthusiasm brings her the crown of NISI MASA. In Budapest 2005, walking through the streets of the city during the general assembly, speaking about the future of the organization, she started to say: “Well, personally, I really don’t know, I have no idea… but maybe… it would be interesting if we start working on developing the
network… and making project helping the associations to grow up… “. She started thinking and speaking about that all day long: some hours later, the assembly elected her as President of the association from 2005 to 2007, after a speech about her visions and ideas about the future path of NISI MASA. After the years of visibility, follow the years of “sustainability”: the mission was to build strong roots for the Association, developing the network activities and trying to create new interesting projects which give a unique and clear identity to NISI MASA. In a way, the NSI MASA we live in is partially a dream of these years. After the presidential experience she remained in the Board in 2007-2009, and even if at the moment she is not anymore in the NM board (she is actually a producer for a film company and she is still the chairman of Seven), you can bet, she is still thinking about new future project linked to NISI MASA. Who knows what she has in her high hat? So, Long Live to the Queen! by Simone Fenoil