Mas y Mas May 2010

mรกs ymรกs

monthly newsletter of NISI MASA

MAY10 spotlight:

GA Linz

conversation:

Razvan Radulescu

coverart by Alexander Lundstrรถm

film: Lebend kontrolle

CONTROL

15 may

agenda

Call for Scripts European Short Pitch

11-23 may

Nisimazine Cannes 2010

editorial "Side effects include: drowsiness, apathy, and blurred vision... I'm taking two." says Sam Riley in Anton Corbijn's biopic about the lead singer of Joy Division. The Ian Curtis that "lost control" and whose suicide at the age of 23 made him, unwittingly, a solo martyr in the life guerilla of troubled artists. The power to direct and determine ones life and its many paths couldn't of course end more tragically, though it has in this form played an essential role since the very beginnings of dramaturgy. Up and then down, is how it often inevitably goes.In that sense, "the world is yours" is a sentence I wouldn't dare say to Boxer, the unfortunate protagonist of Lebendkontrolle (page 4), a very emotional and realistic glimpse of the life "out here", awarded at this years Berlinale. As it becomes apparent in Nicolas review of the film, the more sensible the approach and narration to these rise and falls, the less we'll see just another hero falling, but a friend.

Control what your are doing, as it determines who you are, and where you will go. In the artistic field the task can become a day by day struggle. A creative process based on mind control can go seriously wrong, in the worst case even becoming a true enfer.

Where are the limits (page 3)? And while Ian Curtis' tale is the one of a lonely man, he shared his artistic career with three band

members. What can be said about creative control when working as a a team? We thought that three co-scriptwriters going by the name of Control N might have something to reveal... (page 3) Now what about these side effects? What is the poisonous pill that young filmmakers swallow in despair? Razvan Radulescu, scriptwriter and tutor at this year's European Short Pitch worskhop doesn't hold his tongue on the subject. The side effects of the pill he proposes helped many Romanian filmmakers : don't compromise, be who you are. (page 5) By now you are hopefully wondering what purpose the May Mas y Mas serves... Inspiration, scritpwriting, co-production, help from outside... Have a glimpse on page 7 to find out how these keywords are all held together in a European short film development workshop the network couldn't be more proud of. And speaking about the network, Sebastiano Pucarelli braved the task to write a report of the General Assembly that was held in Linz, Austria in the end of April (no, an Icelandic organization won't be welcomed in NISI MASA unless they officially apologize for that volcano...).

by Maximilien van Aertryck

credits.

Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordination Maximilien van Aertryck Adrien Lenoir Design Maartje Alders

Contributors to this issue: Maximilien van Aertryck, Ana Agopian, Adrien Lenoir, Alexander Lundstrรถm, Arne Kohlweyer, Nicolas Oxen, Sebastiano Pucciarelli.

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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Control

dossier

To what extend do we control our creativity? Hazard and supervision, left and right hemispheres, the beauty of moving images remain a fascinating abstraction, defined by dualities and paradoxes.

Cinématographe: a martial sort of art. Prepare a film like a war.

(Robert Bresson)

by Adrien Lenoir

Imagination and Control

by Ana Agopian (Control N - Romania) Imagination and dreams belong to the right hemisphere of the brain whereas controlled, practical thinking are in the left hemisphere. Now, from my experience in the field of film making, I realized that in order to succeed in doing a project, you have to use both hemispheres of your brain equally. Imagination and control are the keys. And we all know that one person alone cannot manage both. This is why I always work in a team, whether on scriptwriting, teaching or producing.

I first encountered this problem while writing scripts.

I have been writing short and feature films for 6 years together with two very close friends: Oana Rasuceanu

(scriptwriter and PR) and Iulia Rugina (director). While working, we realized we had to be in control of the whole structure of the script but, at the same time, leave our imagination free. Scriptwriting is a craft that has really strong internal rules. You need to control the big structure, but also find original ideas.

We often faced moments when our characters became stronger then us. Little by little, when writing a script, a character starts having his own habits and needs. Because a good written character always comes to life. And when this happens, you need to let the character be free but also control the whole structure of the script so that it doesn’t run wild together with its hero.

“Alex would not do this”, “Yes, but he needs to go to the Danube Delta”, “Maybe we can give him a stronger reason to leave”. We often have discussions like this.

Where there’s more than one writer, it’s always easier to find a solution that best fits your living character.

Because we are friends and we focus on the same subject, it’s like, sometimes one of us is the right hemisphere of the brain and another one the left. There is always a fight between us, at times we are at each other’s throats, shouting and slamming doors. And then the third one comes and makes the other two reconcile. And usually “the truth” is in between. And after the big fight ends, we always find the solution - that single choice that fits the character, the action and the structure of the film.

The second time I realized the bond between imagination and control was when the three of us decided to set up a cultural foundation. We wanted to organize film festivals, summer schools for scriptwriting and other projects. So we argued about the really innovative ideas we had and the ones we, as a new foundation, could actually do. And again the hemispheres fought till we came up with a solution. And we are sure that, in time, we will do all the projects we had ideas for. But we learned there is a perfect timing for each of them. We also realized that our foundation can have only one name: Control N. It came to us from the command on the computer keyboard: press “ctrl n” and you get something new.

Because Control N is about imagination and control.

About new and control.

These are only two examples. There are more. But the idea is the same – always, when doing a project, there is a fight between imagination and control. My solution is simple: Oana and Iulia. With them I always managed to combine, in the best possible way, these two totally different hemispheres of my brain.

To what extent can one control a film? Personally, I always thought my favourite filmmakers were the ones who tried to keep their films as free as possible. I was convinced that, in order to be so brilliant film makers, Cassavetes or Pialat had to let go.

They had to let the film live by itself and forget any idea of control.

But when reading about such film makers, one discovers that they planned it all, that everything was in the script. They had complete control, surprising as it may sound.

Though there may be some exceptions (there always are), forgetting about control implies ruining a film. A film is what the director wants it to be. And in the worst case, a film is the mere reflection of somebody who had no control over what they were doing (or trying to do). Robert Bresson may be the best example at this point. He used to say that he would prepare every single aspect of his film before he shot it. Then, when directing, he would leave room for freedom and chance. Finally, he would start editing, giving the film its consistency and making it the expression of his primary idea.

According to him, this was the way to make “visible what, without him, may never have been seen”.

Hence the real freedom cannot be on the director’s side. The director follows his ideas. There is only one person who can let go, who can give themselves to the movie: the spectator. Hence some kind of paradox: a film has to be controlled by the film maker in order to let the freedom of the spectator express itself. This is similar to what Jean-Paul Sartre used to say about literature: “the auteur writes in order to address the reader’s freedom and needs this freedom to make his book come to life.” Cinema also is a dialogue between two free men: a director that expresses ideas on society or on life and a spectator that makes these ideas live and exist.

dossier

Control

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„Lebendkontrolle“

by Florian Schewe There's no strong fiction without a powerful script.

It's probably not a great new thing to state but there are many examples of how a script can be the heart and pulse of a film, or not. It's not always about establishing a great plot, it's the question of how to tell it. The question of „narration”.

Syd Field and other scriptwriting gurus are convinced that it's very easy to make a script run like a „machine“ for successful film making. It's quiet astonishing to see that the plot points of a „good“ script are still based on the theory of drama, virtually unchanged since Aristotle. The „story“ often consists in the journey of our hero, who arrives to solve his problems and to achieve his personal aims. So far, a good script seems to be just a little bit of psychology and development of the main character. That's not very creative but as effective as classical Hollywood cinema has proved it since his early days. „Realization“ can be understood as self-accomplishment of the principal characters in a film but also as a task for filmmakers, the directors themselves. The french word „réalisateur“ illustrates the task to tell a (written)story with images and to transform the linearity of literature to images.

A good example for a film who takes the power of his visual narration from a good script is the short film Lebendkontrolle by the 32-year old Florian

Schewe. The film is a prison story about Mark who gives a favor to his friend and cell buddy called Boxer during his weekend furlough. Boxer is a former fighter who reminisces about the old times and tries to maintain the shape of his tattooed body. He wants Mark to fetch his savings from his former boxing-club in order to give them to his daughter.

The authenticity of the setting and the relation between the two main characters arises from the script inspired by the personal experience of the real prisoners. The well written dialogues remain a clear and simple language with their short rough sentences, using slang without repeating clichés of jail-speech. “Authenticity” was the guideline throughout the 15 days of shooting in the prison of Görlitz in Lower Saxony. The whole team was locked in with the actors and the inmates. It’s also from this closeness and the participation of the prisoners that the film takes his credibility from.

During his weekend outside Mark accomplishes his mission but returns to his cell with a broken nose and without his girlfriend who broke up with him. He has to accept that the dreams and illusions beyond the prison walls aren't firm and that he has lost many things in which he believed.

Not a happy end but a consequent and intelligent ending for a short film that only has 30 minutes for

its story. Effectivity is necessary and depends on combining the narrative force of what is said and what we see in a film.

In terms of scriptwriting it is especially the „nouvelle vague“ in France who has changed the ideas about the processing of text to images. The french „auteur“ concept conceals the roles of director and script-writer. For Truffaut literature is the base of film-making. But that doesn't mean adaptation.

The Nouvelle Vague developed the „écriture“, the writing of films as films; meaning an emancipation of cinema as an art, independent of theater and literature.

The script for Lebendkontrolle is based and inspired by a novel, but was written for the film by David Möhring who has tightly connected it to the cinematography and the atmosphere of the setting.

Visual and textual narration are going in the same direction and complete each other. Even the hard fighting scenes of the film, or when Mark forces his girlfriend to have sex with him are balanced and explained by dialogues which are saving the sense of the action.

Credibility is a hard thing in the cinema, by definition the art of illusion. But according to Godard, "reality has to go through fiction in order to be perceived".

by Nicolas Oxen

5

Control

Razvan Radulescu

dossier

conversation with.

Does the fact that you skipped "film school education" supported a kind of individuality in the way you write your stories?

I think this is how everybody, every scriptwriter, every filmmaker should aim to make films. But in the particular case of the Romanian film school I have to say I’m glad I didn’t go there for four years.

It’s killing. I know the teachers, they are filmmakers from the old times, and no good. It’s that simple. I wouldn’t even drink a beer with them, I don’t think they have anything to tell.

Do you co-write all your screenplays?

Yes, and with one exception always with the director. I think it’s mandatory. First of all because many aspects related to what you see and what you hear come much closer to the director’s understanding of tension, fear, anguish – and those are very personal things. It’s better to have some of those belonging to the person who really makes the film afterwards. Second, if you work with a director, you have less surprises. There is of course when you write a script a path of authorship in it and ending up with a film that is completely different from what you wrote and is one of the most frustrating things in the world. Nothing from all your thinking and your raised questions and answers are properly represented on screen. It happened to me and it’s really a nightmare.

As a screenwriter and script consultant you have been one of the major figures of the so called ‘Romanian New Wave’.

Do you like this term?

No. Because I don’t believe that there is such thing as a new wave. Of course, it’s much simpler to put things in a drawer.

What happened in Romania is that for years and years and years making films for young directors was very difficult.

All young directors, in order to make films, had to fall into the steps of the previous generation. To imitate them, to please them and therefore to make their debut. And all of a sudden with Stuff and Dough by Cristi Puiu, a movie that I also co-wrote, it changed. It was a film which has no relation to any previous, which was made without any help.

And by seeing that this was possible, many others started to make films in the same way. All these young filmmakers know more or less each other but they are not friends. They just share the same enemy.

What about other countries? There is no Bulgarian nor Hungarian "New Wave" I wonder. In my youth I used to watch with vivid interest films done in Hungary and Poland. Probably the most relevant cinema in my young years were the Russian, the Polish and the Czech Cinema.

They were some sort of models. Maybe those strong models were too strong for themselves. What I saw recently from Polish cinema is not at all remarkable.

They still think about their old masters, Wajda, Kieslowski, I don’t think anything like this can be good anymore. Bulgarian cinema is not doing so great nowadays, they don’t seem to have a direction, they don’t know where to go. Financing is also a problem, that has turned out better in Romania.

So the success of the "New Wave" changed the filmmaking possibilities in Romania?

Yes, not to a full extend though, the old guys still want to do movies and they still want to do it the old way. You have to imagine that a film done by a 60-yearold director costs maybe 1 Mio. Euros and it’s seen once or twice in the cinema, with five or ten people in the cinema.

Sometimes I force myself to watch these movies. And they are really unwatchable. They are done for nothing.

What are your observations according to different cinema cultures? In Germany, where I come from, a lot of Romanian film, like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, weren’t even distributed, while in France it seems everyone has seen it...

I do believe that Germany has a different idea about cinema compared to the rest of the world. This is probably the only place in the world, where you think you make a cinema-movie and in fact what you make is a TV-drama. But they are considered by everyone, by the makers, by the Berlinale, by the critics as being “Großes Kino”. There are very few films that are produced independent from Television. In Romania, France or Belgium, TV channels participate into making films they like because they can profit from tax redemption. I think good filmmaking here will start when people will make small budget movies saying what they want to say without the TVmoney and without the hope to distribute the movies; hopefully festivals will make them known and slowly, we'll have a new system. The way it is now it doesn’t work.

by Arne Kohlweyer

Arne Kohlweyer participated in this year's European Short Pitch with his project "A day like no other". He interviewed his tutor there, the Romanian scriptwriter Razvan Radulescu.

"I wouldn't even drink a beer with the Romanian film school teachers", gives the tone. Don't just read but also write history, or how not to compromise your art.

news & screeni Videoholica Call for entries

The 3rd edition of the VIDEOHOLICA INTERNATIONAL VIDEO ART FESTIVAL 2010 will take place in the period 10 – 17 August 2010 in Varna within the framework of the 7th issue of the International Biennial for Visual Arts AUGUST IN ART..

All the applicants, who observe the rules and the deadline, will have admission to the jury, which will take place in July 2010. The final results will be announced and sent to the applicants by e-mail by the end of July 2010. The jury will make representative selection of 20 movies.

For more information, please visit: http://www.videoholica.org/en_2010.htm

VIDEOHOLICA 2010 open call will run until 30 of June 2010 and all applications are very welcome!

Holebikort Call for entries Holebikort is a new and unique short movie competition in Belgium. The purpose of this contest is to promote short movies with an LGB (Lesbien-Gay-Bisexual) theme in Flanders and Brussels. Everyone is allowed to participate in this contest, amateurs as well as professional directors from Belgium or abroad. The winner receives the sum of 700 Euros, the second prize amounts to 500 Euros and the third prize to 300 Euros. The prizes are handed over to the directors.At the latest on the 15th of October 2010 each participating short movie must be sent in on DVD. For more information visit: www.holebifilmfestival.be/holebikort

Deadline: October 15th, 2010

Cinemambiente Environmental Film Festival The 13th CinemAmbiente – Environmental Film Festival will take place next June 1st-6th, contemporaneously with the World Environment Day. This Festival is the opportunity to see the past year’s best films that explore environmental situations from diverse points of view and enrich the experience by engaging audience discussion on the film’s topics during the Festival or when on tour to communities and schools.

For more information, please visit: http://www.cinemambiente.it/

EFA Master Class 2010 The EFA Master Class 2010 "STEREOSCOPIC STORYTELLING - Creating stories and images for 3D film" will take place from 12 to 18 July 2010 in Berlin/Germany.

It will be held by French stereographer Alain Derobe in co-operation with German stereographer Florian Maier and is open for 16 European participants from the fields of film directing, cinematography, set design, editing, script and production.

Deadline for application is May 31st.

For more information and to find the application form : www.europeanfilmacademy.org

Shnit international shortfilmfestival 2010 Every year, the International short-film-festival shnit serves an outstanding menu of short masterpieces. Only thrilling, entertaining and high-quality short films find their way into the shnit-program. The genre of the selected works is trivial – the main criteria is that the film is simply “shnitastic”! shnit spares no effort to bring you a unique experience during the festival, on and beside the screen.

The festival will take place from October 6th to 10th.

For more information on the festival and applications, please visit: http://www.shnit.ch/

ings The European Short Film Script Contest is evolving!

After 8 editions of the European Short Script Contest, it is time for a change. The seventh year is always bringing reflection; now a bit more time passed and the NISI MASA network chose to develop this project. In order to reinforce the objectives of the Contest, which are discovering new talents and bringing them to make films, NISI MASA will focus on the prize of the contest: European Short Pitch. This short film development project exists now for 4 years. It combines a rewriting session with professional tutors (Savina Neirotti – Torino Film Lab, Antoine Le Bos, François Pirot and Razvan Radulescu– directors& scriptwriters and Marie Dubas – producer Les Films du Requin) followed by a pitching session in front of a European producers’ panel. European Short Pitch is supported by the MEDIA programe and is organized in partnership with the Moulin d’Andé-céci, a writing residency in Normandy (France). More than 85 scriptwriters developed their scripts in this

FRANCE

frame and more than 150 professionals attended the pitching session. Ten short films could be seen until now, and six of them will be screened during the NISI MASA Carte Blanche at the Critic’s week in Cannes this year! NISI MASA will launch the European Short Pitch call for script on the 15th of May 2010.

The agenda (dead-line, results announcement) and the age limit stay the same. One of the novelties is that there will be no specific topic. 25 selected projects will attend European Short Pitch, held in beginning of 2011.

The participants should be residents of the 17 NISI MASA EU members’ countries. Residents from Croatia are eligible and 2 participants from the 5 NISI MASA no EU members’s countries will be selected (Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Russia and Turkey).

More details about rules, dates on www.nisimasa.com after the 15th of May 2010.

11.05.10 - 19:00

On May the 11th, the Maison de l’Europe de Paris and NISI MASA France invite you to a projection of European short films. Projections will take place from 19:00 to 21:00. Here is our selection of films, which all tackle the chosen theme: mobility issues in Europe.

Two short films that were taken from the NISI MASA short pitch contest: On a Train by Barnabas Toth (France/Hungary – 2003 – 10’54) Harragas by Grégory Lecocq (Belgium – 2008 – 16’19) Two short films made for the CINETRAIN project, developed by NISIMASA and the Moviement association: Transsiberian Voices by Jochem de Vries (Netherlands), Marton Vizkelety (Hungary) & Guillaume Protsenko (France/Russia) – 10’40 Between Dreams by Iris Olsson (Finland), Natasha Pavloskaya (Russia) & Dimitris Tolios (Greece) – 9’30 For more information please visit: http://www.paris-europe.eu/spsp.php?rubrique2&mois=5&annee=2010 Subscription is mandatory, please contact: sh.bushi-cadot@paris-europe.eu

GENERAL ASSEMBLY LINZ

spotlight

8

Re-assembling the network Nisi Masa General Assembly 2010 (Crossing Europe Film Festival, 21st- 25th april, Linz, Austria) For the young newcomers as for the “founding fathers” of NISI MASA, the GA has always meant checking up on the state of the network, the annual medical examination. It’s the time and place where you learn how to dismantle and re-assemble the machine, to clean and lubricate the gears: basically you’re customising your Vespa for the new world trip you’re about to start.

This time the “NM bikers rally” was hosted by the Crossing Europe Festival of Linz, a perfectlyfitting cinema event – a festival gathering the best of quality productions from across the continent – in a perfectly-fitting city in the middle of Europe: a lively and cosy environment, welcoming you with its selected films, Linzer Torte and Danube boat cruises. Besides etiquette (I’m not working for the Linz Tourism Board), I must say that the way the festival team has hosted and involved the NM members was one of the best experiences in these 9 years of festivalwandering.

Back to the GA: 5 days to review past and future initiatives, go through finances, welcoming new members, even transform the core project of the network, the script contest. The spirit was the same so dear to our president SFK (Simone Fitzgerald Kennedy): ask not what the network wants you to do, but what you want to do with the network.

Following the path of the 2009 GA, half of the time was dedicated to group sessions where you could focus on specific issues, according to the field of interest of your national association. The other half? Plenary sessions of course, where each of you could look the others in the eyes, speak up, discuss problems of general interest, and finally... vote!

So let’s go with the results.

We now have 5 new observer members that will taste one year of NM-life, bringing the international reach of the network up to 24 associations – world record so far: Crea8ive8 (Macedonia), FEST (Portugal), Early Melons (Slovakia), Filmreakter (Luxembourg) and First Step (Albania). My Filmreakt(ion)? I really hope these Early Melons will bring new Crea8ive8 and big FE(a)STs since their very First Step(s) into our network – thank god they’re not called Franti or PIFF, otherwise it wouldn’t be that easy to play the funny guy. Talking about PIFF (Slovenia), they are now full members together with CTRL N (Romania) and NISI MASA Estonia.

Benvenuti a tutti, ragazzi.

We also have 2 new board members, Clara Guillaud and Maximilien Van Aertryck, who both have had a deep glimpse into the NM world recently and were asked to get involved, replacing Anu Aun, who will realize her first feature film, and Esra Demirkiran, subsituting Matthieu Darras as general delegate for the coming six months. So good luck Anu & Esra (& Matt) and welcome on board Clara & Max. Then a clear and concise report on finances brought to us by Joanna, who can now join the European Accountants Guild for her acknowledged expertise in the field: the budget for 2010, almost doubling; not that crazy if you think that upcoming projects include, among others, bringing filmmaking workshops and Nisimazine to the Gulf Region and even embarking on a Cine-boat in Finland and on 3 Cine-Trains heading for Istanbul.

Eventually, the restructuring of the Script Contest by turning it into a Call for European Short Pitch scripts: no more themes and a more functional selection of scripts for the ESP workshops.

That’s why, if I was to summarise in a keyword the direction NISI MASA is taking, I would probably say that after the era of visibility and the age of sustainability, now comes the time of rationalization, trying to systematize all the activities, tools and goals of the network. Not bad, for a 9 yearsold kid. But you know, NM has always been a little enfantprodige…

by Sebastiano Pucciarelli