Mas y Mas Septembre 09

mรกs ymรกs monthly newsletter of NISI MASA

metamorphosis

polaroid: Toprak @ Nisimazine Lima, photo by Eva Sancho

SEPt09 report: nisimazine lima interview: elizabeth r.salgado my father, my lover (strella)

portrait:

clara guillaud

agenda

15. sept.

Script Contest Deadline for the sending of script translations for the European Jury.

23. sept - 4 oct.

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Nisimazine Festival do Rio,

editorial

You won’t be the same!

All the various dramaturgy courses I’ve ever taken (and trust me, there are many) have focused seriously on the same thing while talking about the structure of a story: THE CHANGE. The Aristotelian way of thinking about cinema is still a big hit - at least in Finnish film schools. It’s been pounded into my head that all stories have a beginning, a middle and an end - and when it comes down to it, there MUST be a change: someone’s life has to change for good, and as for single scenes, there has to be a change in each one of them as well.

As almost a decade of film studies has made me realize, the structure-loving teachers have every time been thrilled when presenting a metamorphosis in a film. Isn’t it so fabulous that this girl turns into a butterfly by the end? How visual, how unique, what a change!

What a good student – who knows the trick!

I’m sorry to say it once again, but film schools have done a lot of harm here as well. I don’t want to crush the way of thinking about classical character-driven dramaturgy, but I’ve always preferred concentrating on the matter of metamorphosis more by causing a change in the viewer, not necessarily in my characters. And while building up a story, I prefer the change or even the complete metamorphosis of a character happening mentally. A visual metamorphosis is usually best as a metaphor, and hasn't

necessarily got anything to do with the development or under-development of a character in the film.

This month’s theme is “metamorphosis”, referring to the change of the monthly newsletter of NISI MASA. As you’ve already seen on the cover, the name of the monthly is not Nisimazine any more. In order to avoid any possible confusion between Nisimazine during festivals and the monthly, we thought better to use these magical words in Spanish, trying to give you more and more each month…

A new design accompanies this new name as well. The other metamorphoses are the new Spotlight page, which tells about the latest NISI MASA projects, and News, which is now on 2 full pages!

Atso sums up metamorphosis in cinema in his article (page 3): film itself as an art form is based on the simple idea of change - movement, something is changing before our eyes. In this issue you can also find out what metamorphosis and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind have to do with each other (page 4, by Eftihia); the interesting story of Turkish super heroes by Ilkin and more...

You will also read Claudio and Eva’s greetings from the magical city of Lima (page 8) which tell about the Nisimazine Lima workshop on the Spotlight page.

Lastly, you will have chance to meet a Nisimasian through the portrait of Clara Guillaud from NISI MASA France.

Enjoy!

by Hannaleena Hauru

Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordinators Maximilien van Aertryck and Gülcin Sahin Design Maartje Alders

Contributors to this issue: Hannaleena Hauru, Ilkin Mehrabov, Atso Pärnänen, Eva Sancho Rodríguez, Gülçin Sahin, Claudio Sánchez, Eftihia Stefanidi.

credits NISI MASA (European Office) 10 rue de l’Echiquier, 75010, Paris, France; Tel/Fax: + 33 (0)1 53 34 62 78 + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 Email europe@nisimasa.com Website www.nisimasa.com

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A

s a generation which grew up with superhero movies, watching speaking cars and flying men, seeing rock or movie stars changing their bodies with the help of plastic surgery or movie technology and believing that nothing is impossible, these kinds of metamorphosis are not so surprising for us…

On the other hand, personal metamorphoses in our lives, understandings and relationships are much more intriguing for us. Believing in what we see is up to how we look at it…

by Gülçin Sahin

dossier

metamorphosis

The Freshing Up Act

Metamorphosis as a word is something that could be used to describe two things: A) A biological process of which you supposedly tried to learn something in school or B) An event in a Parisian modern art gallery for a small, self-important circle of long scarf users.

But what is metamorphosis for filmmakers? Does a director go through something like it when he switches from one genre to another or is he simply a very talented craftsman who can deliver the goods? How do we reclassify the Bergman before and after Persona? Do we need to?

Robert De Niro gains and loses weight for roles, Stallone pumps up muscles... Today technical tools have developed enough so that both could be done with CGI, as the summer blockbusters prove, even if the result is not the same.

As audience members we all want to be entertained safely with fa-

© Anıt Film

It’s never easy to become a hero How does an ordinary spaceship pilot become the man who saves the world? Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (Turkish Star Wars) shows this metamorphosis with the following steps: your ship crashes on a desert planet, you have to battle with an army of furry, skeleton and robot enemies appearing from nowhere, fall in love with a beautiful blonde, witness her abduction by a villainous Wizard, lose your best friend in a fight, and boil the ancient golden sword and brain in a large pot before forging them into a pair of gloves. From then on you are ready to defeat villains, reunite with your beloved blonde and eventually save the world.

Filled with “borrowed” scenes from Star Wars and music from Indiana Jones, this grotesquely ridiculous Turkish sci-fi movie was directed by ÇetinİInanç in 1982 and later on gained cult status, especially among lovers of trash cin-

miliar things, but also offered something new. A check-up on this season's clothing in a way. Thus sequels. Some, not many, better than their originals. In Gremlins a nice Mogwai changes into a Gremlin and the sequel reshuffles the cards with a bigger budget and creative freedom for the director.

Something new, something old, something blue...

Kubrick was expected to offer something totally different every time and when he did, but not in the form of “different” that was expected, it would often take years for the opinion regarding his movies to go through a change as well.

But if you forgot, is it not all about motion? Moving images that change before our eyes. Blend into each other so that they form a connection, or not. Besides, perhaps the film stays the same but hopefully the viewer develops, finds, sees new things with every screening.

by Atso Parnanen

ema. Anyone who wants to watch this true “masterpiece” of Turkish cinema and witness the real superhero formation process, just search it on video.google.com!

The above-mentioned kind of “recycling” scenes from other movies actually was never an exception in Turkish cinema. As early as in 1952, Orhan Atadeniz shot Tarzan Istanbul’da (Tarzan In Istanbul), a movie with nearly two thirds of its 90-minute runtime being footage of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies. In one of his interviews Orhan Atadeniz told a funny story of how they, in order to prevent copyright lawsuits, edited original Tarzan footage by reversing it, i.e. if in the original film a lion was entering from the right of the frame, in their version it was on the left!

In any case, it was a pleasure to meet with superheros of the world in national cinema, through local reinterpretations... by ilkin Mehrabov

dossier

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metamorphosis Erase and Rewind

Metamorphosis of a Spotless Mind

© Film Distribution

Break-ups are like small deaths. In a strange way, you bury your loved one and try to move on, as if nothing has changed or no one has swiftly disappeared. And you do aim for your rebirth though failing to understand how the world can still remain intact. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is the ultimate break-up story, engaging sci-fi levels in the most romantic and sophisticated way. But it is also a film about metamorphosis, when a machine promises mind erasing services. In an attempt to eliminate the signs one has to re-play the relationship, re-visit places, smells and quotes. Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) enter that mind-controlled time machine and travel through a backlog of mundane moments that relationships are made from. Resisting time is a challenging task though as both characters will try to survive its healing supremacy: they will audaciously refuse to be cured. But are they able to defy their transformation? Michel Gondry has proved that transmutation is a process that can run into your veins until one day you wake up as something else (in one of his extreme cases, a woman transforms into a chair, see Tokyo!). A French chameleon who also conquered the music video industry with visual pieces of art, Gondry has undeniably a penchant for artists in disguise. With a playful manner, he also introduced the exuberant side of

My father, my lover

Director Panos H. Koutras is telling the story of a metamorphosed father-son relationship in his movie Strella: A woman’s way.

Yiorgos leaves the prison and his lover/ prison friend after 15 years, and just after meets with a transsexual called Strella and falls in love. In the meantime he is looking for the son who he hasn't seen since he went to prison.

When he comes back to his village to sell his house he learns that there is gossip about his son, who became a transsexual… It doesn’t take Yiorgos so long to figure out that Strella is his son. When this reality comes to the surface by a surprising cut of the story, the magic of the love disappears. In fact Strella has found his father after long years but when he faced him he could not build a “normal” relationship and left things to their natural circulation, becoming his lover. According to him, in the end the father and son loved each other but in a different way. After facing reality Strella and Yiorgis can’t decide how to keep each other and stay apart for a while. But the film is preparing an optimistic final -again surprisingly- one that enlightens Yiorgis. This tough man, who was in prison for a lifetime because of his strict family background, then finds himself in a metamorphosed family, with a metamorphosed son, but still happy because of loving and being loved.

by Gülçin Sahin

© Focus Features

A woman's way (Strella) Greece, 2009

metamorphosis, in Be Kind Rewind: celebrating an ingenious imagination, Hollywood blockbusters where viewed through the prism of Jack Black’s lowbudget inspirations. Ultimately, Be Kind Rewind was a documentation of the raw visual tricks that Gondry used in Eternal Sunshine in its most intelligent form. The latter is infused with these optical illusions, reflecting the mind that begins to forget. However, the changes are mostly generic, arising from the narrative and the on-stage world. Hence, as the story unfolds, the obliteration takes place subliminally and the viewer only feels the changes but can hardly locate its references. Like in most of Charlie Kaufman’s scenarios, they, as characters, try to determine their lives by imposing new versions of themselves.

Except that the multiplicity of personas makes one forget the original.

The spotless mind is, in fact, full of signs, rearranged in a million ways that obscure any sense of reality.

Sooner or later, since metamorphosis cannot be prevented, the characters will start recycling dreams, sentences and guilt into a life-sized collage of the subconscious. Exactly like we do in break-ups.

But at least after rain comes sunshine.

Hopefully, eternal.

by Eftihia Stefanidi

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dossier

metamorphosis

Interview: Elizabeth R. Salgado

Elizabeth R. Salgado is a young filmmaker who is originally Brazilian and now lives in Amsterdam. We had the chance to meet her during the Matter of Taste project, for which her short film 'Pasta Day' was selected. The film is about a man, Gianni, who lives in a naturally wild and isolated area and cooks for 40 dogs… She has a second documentary project about Gianni, this one with his lover Vali Myres. Here is an interview to learn more about Elizabeth and her project.

What are the issues that interest you the most in film?

I’m mostly interested in people and their complexity. I’m always trying to understand the motivations of my characters.

That’s for me the main issue; firstly I understand their motivation then I have to find the right formula to show it in a cinematic way.

I’m fascinated about passionate people, who are completely obsessive. Obsessive with work, obsessive with someone or possessed of a dream... Because of their passions, they build a cage by themselves to live in. It is not necessarily a negative thing; many people need to have a cage to live in peace. I try to make the inner feelings of my characters visible for others who watch my films.

In your film Trivial, you are dealing with the metamorphosis of the modern human being, who doesn’t do anything other than working, eating and sleeping and thus becoming so similar while changing so much in the sense of his own nature. How did the idea of the film develop?

In my films to tell a story, I choose a concept, a clear framework. I always have reality in my mind, but I film it to approach the essence of people and things. I work on a line between documentary and art, and shift from one to another. It is a transforming work with which you can discover things; create a new reality with a perspective that compresses deeply the story and its layers.

In Trivial I tried to show that the three characters: the cook, the guard and the prisoner were all part of the rut of a cold and automated world. They were all prisoners of their daily routines.

Your new project is about Vali Myers, a famous painter of 60s. Her lovers, who had a similar fate after living with her for a while, experienced a metamorphosis - even turning into her in a way.

Vali Myers is a woman who is passionate,

Photo by Andrei Tanase

bohemian, and wild… She could affect everyone around her. She had mostly young lovers, she taught them her art, philosophy and lifestyle. It was like a new world opened for them. One of them was Gianni, he gave his life to Vali Myers and yes, somehow he became her. I think all started with love (he was 18 when he met her), then it became an obsession (until his 36) and then on, to live her life became a way to avoid an ordinary life as an ordinary man. He could be Gianni Menichetti, a creation of Vali Myers. Some of his own words can describe better what I mean: “Living with Vali I have been born into a new life, and what I was and what I am to this day is utterly her creation. People have God as their creator, at least I could choose mine.”

We are still looking for funds to be able to finish the project.

What was the most fascinating thing about Gianni that made you mostly focus on him?

His obsessive love for her, the way he lives and where he lives. He is the watch-

dog of Vali Myers in the ‘Garden of Eden’, it’s a beautiful place with a nostalgic and powerful sphere. In this place I could tell a lot of him without words and I like to work with images rather than words.

Do you think each love story is a metamorphosis in itself?

Yes, absolutely. When you get very close to somebody you pick up a lot of his/her personality, it’s normal. But, I think some people pick up more than others; there is also this thin line between sane and insane. Gianni for example crossed this line and is happy with it.

What is the biggest metamorphosis in your life?

Maybe I’m living the biggest metamorphosis of my life right now. At least it is the first time in my life that I want to stop smoking, start a family, make money and buy a car. I don’t know if it will succeed as a filmmaker…

by Gülçin Sahin

www.elizabethsalgado.com

news

6 SCRIPT CONTEST Jury Meeting Brussels

MATTER OF TASTE The DVD compilation of the project including the selected shorts will be ready by mid-September!

KinoDynamiqueJena

Calling filmmakers, actors and musicians. kino5 Vienna and FILM e.V. Jena are organising the first KinoKabaret in Jena Germany (here called KinoDynamique).

KinoDynamiqueJena will take place from the 24th September to the 2nd October.

The theme will be `Global Dimensions´.

And the slogan is `Do well with nothing, do better with little, but do it right now´ There will be three sessions of 60 hours each, with screenings on the 26th and 29th of September and on the 2nd of October.

The Jury Meeting of the 8th Script Contest will be held from the 3rd to the 8th of November 2009 in Brussels (Belgium).

The jury members will select 12 winners to attend the European Short Pitch workshop in 2010. Alongside the Jury Meeting, a seminar workshop will take place to share the different experiences of each member organisation about funding opportunities. The main objective is to improve the skills and methods of each NISI MASA member association and strengthen the whole NISI MASA network itself.

After the last screening on 2nd October there will be a final public event, which is planned to be a common ground, open for discussions among the filmmakers, the organizers and the audience.

Closing date for application is September 11th 2009.

For registration and more information please visit kinodynamiquejena.blogspot.com or kino5.net

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screenings

SLOVAKIA Saturday 12.9.09

The Cinetrain films will be screened at the Cinematik Festival in Piešt'any.

bulgaria Tuesday 15.9.09

On 15th of September, NISI MASA Bulgaria, Seven will organize an award ceremony for the winning scripts and screen some Matter of Taste selected shorts.

estonia

Thursday 24.9.09 On 24th of September NISI MASA Estonia will be officially launched. Several NISI MASA films including Matter of Taste selected shorts will be screened during the event.

finland

NISI MASA Finland, Euphoria Borealis ry is organising a 4-day event of the Matter of Taste project in partnership with DocLounge, Love & Anarchy and Dodo.

The main lines of the 4 day programme are:

Thursday 24.9.09 Collaboration with Doc Lounge, film Bananas

by Fredrik Gertten will be screened, afterwards there will be a discussion on the 3 themes of the Matter of Taste project.

Friday 25.9.09 Collaboration with Love & Anarchy, film Food Inc. by Robert Kenner will be screened with the participation of the director. There will be a discussion after the screening.

Saturday 26.9.09 Collaboration with Dodo, 3 feature length documentaries plus a group of selected shorts of Matter of Taste project will be screened.

Sunday 27.9.09

Closing event in the evening in a cozy lounge.

For the details of these last three events please follow the web site of the project: www.matteroftaste.eu

spotlight

nisimazine lima

NISI MASA, in collaboration with FIPRESCI, recently organised a Nisimazine workshop in Lima, Peru during the Lima Film Festival. (from 6th to 15th of August 2009) You can still read the Nisimazines published during the festival online at www.nisimazine.eu!

Here are the viewpoints of two participants of the workshop.

Claudio Sánchez, Bolivia Lima, a magic place

Photo by Victor Idrogo

This workshop was somehow, magically, tailor made for me: a Spanish-Salvadorian who grew up in the Netherlands and was pretty new to this whole writing thing.

A group of Europeans, South Americans from Andean countries and Peruvians provides a very interesting environment to work in. Things tend to become less self-evident and subject to reflection, your own immediate judgments and preconceptions take a back-seat to curiosity and inquisitiveness. I loved the open-hearted discussions we had about every kind of subject, such as the conceptions Europeans and Latin Americans have of each others cinema.

This may have been a culturally enriching experience, but most of all, we were there to learn. Our tutor Dana Linssen has an amazing capacity to break down the essentials of the task at hand, while being encouraging, stimulating and patient. Our unflappable editor Matthieu Darras invited other critics to come talk to us during the workshop. It would have been nice to go deeper into aspects of writing, but the discussions and comments that made up our daily editorial meetings offered a lot of new insights.

This workshop was slightly haunted by a

lack of organization, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. The informal atmosphere made people comfortable to try new things. It was incredibly helpful to discuss assignments with fellow participants, often providing inspiration or pointing out the solution staring you in the face.

Meanwhile, a festival dedicated to Latin American cinema was going on. I wish I was able to reflect how interesting and diverse that subject is. All I can say is that this experience has made me know and love it even more and that is, like my love of writing, probably here to stay.

Photo by Victor Idrogo

Eva Sancho Rodríguez, The Netherlands

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Let’s open your eyes in Lima and adjust your watch to 24 scenes per second.

The film festival begins with a wide variety of activities that go beyond the screening programme. NISI MASA and FIPRESCI organize a film journalism workshop in collaboration with Vertigo magazine, official journal of the Festival of Lima. The publication of Vértigo with a Nisimazine attached will be the result of the workshop involving ten young journalists of Europe and Latin America.

It is time to look at the current Latin American filmmaking, which is like looking into a mirror more closely.

It is common to see someone talking or smiling to cameras: directors and actors, reporters and onlookers who walk between them in the hallways or various exhibition halls. Luckily I came across Mario Sábato, the son of Ermesto Sábato, one of the most important Latin American writers of the twentieth century. He is the director of one of the most anticipated documentaries Ernesto Sábato, mi padre. It's shocking to see Sábato junior, ask someone in the press office if it is really him and take a deep breath to recognize those glazed eyes of the man who makes his film as a Bach melody.

No doubt La teta asustada was one of the films I wanted to see, the critics divided between those who consider it a great work and those who question how Claudia Llosa focuses on the social reality of Peru. The truth is that Peruvians are very proud of the movie that is today recognized throughout the world. Llosa and her second film surprised me, seduced me to open the roads to meet again in Lima and to know and explore beyond Cinema. Peru is such a magical country with many different flavors and colors.

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portrait

25-year-old Clara Guillaud is the new president of NISI MASA France since the last spring. She has just finished her studies in Paris, where she did a master in European Cultural Management and has also a bachelor in Cinema (University Paris).

She is so motivated to get involved with NISI MASA more intensely, that we made an interview to learn more about her.

How did you meet NISI MASA? I met NISI MASA almost 3 years ago. Actually I heard about NISI MASA while I was in Kosovo in 2006/7, doing an EVS (European Voluntary Service). I met Lulzim Hoti from 7 ARTE in Mitrovica, and he told me about the network. Then back in France in autumn 2007, I started my master, and I decided to do my paper on the NISI MASA network. Thus I had the occasion to meet the European Office staff, Matthieu, Joanna, Jude and Emilie. I have been welcomed to take part in the 2008 G.A. in Alba, which was a great time since I met almost all the NISI MASA member associations. And after that I have been to a NISI MASA France meeting, and started to get involved in the activities of the NGO! (Cinepudding in Paris, and national coordinator/reader/jury member in Zagreb for the Script Contest 2008).

Can you talk a little bit about this experience in Kosovo? Why did you choose Kosovo?

I made an EVS during one year in Kosovo (from November 2006 to October 2007), in the city of Gjilan/Gnjilan. I did my EVS in the Agency for Local Democracy.

The reason I did it in Kosovo is that I really wanted to do my EVS in the Balkans area. Indeed I wanted to go in Southern Eastern Europe, to know more about this part of Europe, because I had the feeling that a lot of things could be very interesting there.

My mission was to write articles about the youth situation, and the youth NGOS, in order to encourage cooperation between European associations and Kosovan associations by giving information. I also did a photo-reportage about the young people in Kosovo since 50 % of the population is under 30 years old. Thus I had the chance to meet a lot of people in Kosovo, and also in some other Balkans countries. This EVS was such a great experience, that it has led me to keep working with Kosovo when I was back in France. Indeed for example I co-organized an Open air film

Photo by Seb Houis

festival in July 2009 in Kosovo, in the region where I did my EVS.

short films have been screened during the festival.

Could you tell me more about cooperations with different NGOs that you did in the past and that you want to do in the future?

I think it is a good idea to set up cooperation between different NGOs since it allows to combine different good energies together, and to get people together to support a project. For example with NISI MASA France we may be partner of a German and European project called “My Europe Film Festival” this year.

NISI MASA France realised a project called 'Rush Up'. You made a call for images that people were not able to edit or use. Can you talk a little bit about this project? What was the main idea, how was this reproducing process?

It was a great and very interesting project. The main idea was to share and exchanges rushes that had not been used and edited, in order to create short films. Each European participant sent a personal and original 60min tape with rushes that they did not edit.

Then, each participant received a tape that did not belong to them and should edit a short movie with that tape, during the summer 2008!

by Gülçin Sahin and Maryline Poux

I am also involved in another NGO, with whom I organised last July the 1st edition of the Open air film festival in Kosovo (in the region of Gjilan/ Gnjilane). NISI MASA and 7 ARTE have been partners of this festival, and some of the NISI MASA network’s