Nisimazine Cannes 2009 #7

#7 THURSDAY 21 MAY 2009

from Vincere by Marco Bellocchio © OFFSIDE SRL

Karaoké Mussolini on screen Magaly Solier

NisiMazine Cannes

A Magazine Published By NISI MASA, European Network Of Young Cinema

NISIMAZINE CANNES

Thursday 21 May 2009 / #7

editorial

A magazine published by NISI MASA with the support of the ‘Youth in Action’ programme of the EU

by Andrea Franco

EDITORIAL STAFF Director of Publication Matthieu Darras

Maartje Alders Jude Lister Layout Maartje Alders Tutor Lee Marshall

Editors-in-Chief

B

azin used to say that the filmic frame was an open window onto the world. The Cannes Film Festival chose for this year’s official poster a still from Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, which is actually a good example of that Bazinian bon mot. Here, we find that window within the frame symbolizing the gate to the cinema.

And what we ask ourselves when we see this image on every corner is: What is there beyond that window? What is she going towards? What mysteries lie behind that light?

I can’t stop picturing her fascinated expression of discovery and wonder. An expression that we can also imagine for the first film spectators of the old theatres, when illuminated by the screen’s light and muffled by the music of a piano at the end of the lounge, they discovered that new world called cinema. And so am I: I’m climbing the mountains that Monica Vitti is watching; I’m travelling to lots of unknown countries, drenching myself in their cultures and their people, gaining knowledge of their stories and their feelings.

This is a world which, despite being quite elitist and commercial, always finds a place for forgotten industries: because that’s the objective of film festivals, isn’t it? Countries like Malaysia, Serbia or the Philippines have the opportunity to introduce themselves, to ignore their censorships and restrictions. For that, for making cinema more accessible beyond its native frontiers and definitively, for opening the window, thank you.

NISI MASA 10 rue de l’Echiquier, 75010, Paris, France. + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 europe@nisimasa.com www.nisimasa.com

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BY LUIS SENS

,

all the articles can be read online at

Contributors to this issue

Natalia Ames, Eftihia Chatzistefanidi Andrea Franco, Marta Musso Mark Racz, Luis Sens Laura Talvet, Enrique Vivar Coordinators Joanna Gallardo Maximilien van Aertryck, Gulçin Sahin

Shahram Alidi, director of Whisper with the wind, SIC

picture of the day

© Tanjung Aru Pictures

film of the day

Karaoké

Chan Fui Chris Chong (Malaysia), QR

nder the trees of a small village in Malaysia, life seems magnified by the eye of an explorer. The faces of its inhabitants are weary and their skin reflects a strange, magical glow. “It’s been a long time since you’re gone” is the first song to be played in the local karaoke bar, and inexplicably we become aware of the presence of someone who’s been trying to come back. As a spirit returns to a familiar place, slowly circulating around his acquaintances, this forgotten land becomes sacred and mysteriously haunted.

A first feature nominated for the Camera D’Or, Karaoké is about Betik, a young man returning to his home town, full of dreams for a new life, only to find that eve-

review P

atrizia and Walter, an elderly couple of circus performers, live in a caravan outside the city. Their life has its everyday routine, until something quite unusual happens: Patrizia, who is looking for her dog, instead finds a little abandoned child, 2-year old Asia. Finding a desperate note in the girl’s pocket, she brings the child home and decides to take care of her, hoping her mother will appear. In spite of Walter’s first reaction to inform the police, everybody soon

ryone is like a stranger. In his circle he appears out of place; above all, the relationship with his mother lacks intimacy, as if the years have left nothing but bitterness.

This awkward environment urges him to search for identification through external references: a rediscovery of the homeland he once belonged to.

Is this a coming of age tale? Well, as the narrative is exceptionally subtle, the viewing experience is not as simple as that.

Chan Fui Chris Cong pins down an elusive mood; nostalgia in the present tense. Beautiful aerial scenery, a strict line of magnificent trees, distant glances at the windows of a bare house: these are all

La Pivellina becomes charmed by the little thing, including Walter himself.

It gets harder and harder to imagine leaving her.

Far from the lifestyle of la dolce vita, this young Italian-Austrian directing duo’s first feature is a deeply natural, neo-realistic story about a particular way of life in Italy. The atmosphere is composed of grey walls and empty, disconsolate encampments, accentuated by unsettling steadycam shots. Little by little, one

wonderfully examined with primitive inquisitiveness. The gaze sways between the inhabitants - a dancing camera that instinctively follows without interrupting - or, sometimes, stays entirely motionless, only to observe. Still, the onlooker’s great distance provides full perspective, highlighting the compactness of anything that dwells on this ground.

Still, if Karaoké is about the end of innocence, this is achieved through the intangible emotionality that cinema - and its creators - can provoke. What remains is an eternal rural landscape, a place that appears as solid rock in contrast with its dwellers’ perpetual mobility. The power of the space is so strong that it scarcely leaves

any room for human emotions to arise. They are all buried under its soil.

In this light, the “karaoke” concept doesn’t carry any popular connotations. The tunes are interludes, an acoustic commentary that compensates for the verbal void.

A hypnotizing mixture of ethereal matt greens and melancholic blues, the Malaysian entry for the Directors’ Fortnight serenely surrounds you with its unique approach to reminiscence and undisclosed grievance.

Karaoke songs were never so in tune.

by Eftihia Chatzistefanidi

Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel (Austria, Italy), QR

realizes that the characters are not interpreted by professional actors. Instead, all the protagonists are part of a real circus.

While living on the breadline already in their real lives, they now have to face a difficult human situation as well, which requires them to stick together more than ever.

by Laura Talvet

© Vento Film

U

© EuropaCorp / Madchance

review

Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (USA) QR

I Love You Phillip Morris

and although we would expect such a duo to create lavishly comic entertainment, the two have actually managed to make their love seem completely natural, and serious. Credit goes to the talented actors who have handled their characters with great respect. The audience, however, might start to lose its orientation.

The film depicts Steven Russell (Carrey), a conman who alternates between jobs and commits plenty of credit frauds. Eventually he gets imprisoned, only to escape in several inventive ways. Along the way, Phillip (McGregor) becomes his partner, just to remind him that love doesn’t cost a thing…

G

ay love is surprisingly not the main issue in I Love you Phillip Morris, a film based on Steve McVicker’s book of the same title. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor play a gay couple,

The significant feature of Phillip Morris, which has probably caused its lack of distribution so far, is that even if there is a certain dose of humour, the film does not dwell upon it. In

contrast, there are strong dramatic lines under the film’s Hollywood skin which are welldelivered, but unfortunately provoke a slight confusion.

This elaborate mixing of genres doesn’t end here, as Phillip Morris is also a based on a true story. Steven Russell, an ingenious fraud, took advantage of the bureaucratic blindness in the US to make his way up. Considering the fact that there aren’t any biographical signs until the film’s very end, it comes out as a forgotten note that what we saw was a biopic.

If there is a reference to Spielberg’s Catch me if you can, I’m afraid that what you would be trying to catch here is a theme. But, otherwise, the film stands out with courageous honesty.

by Eftihia Chatzistefanidi

B

esides realising numerous design and advertising contracts for exclusive brands all over the world, the French creative team H5 has now come out with a thrilling short animation film, entirely built out of the logos and characters associated with everyday products.

The story is simple. California; Roland McDonald (a terrorist) is being followed by the Michelin Men (the police), and while he is taking hostages, a giant earthquake takes place, covering the whole land with some kind of dark liquid (Coca Cola?). It breaks down all the powerful skyscrapers, leaving two survivors on a tiny piece of green earth: Bob’s Big Boy mascot (one of the hostages) and Esso’s pin-up girl.

Behind the typical action scenes, which seem to be taken from different American thrillers, an impressive visual artwork has been created, reminiscent of a monopoly-game, in which we recognize all the biggest brands of our time.

They are actually the symbols of our modern world, our common language – a monopoly inside our minds, meaning that everything can be measured in marketing terms.

But can it? H5’s excellent humour reminds us that there’s still a chance to think in a different way: for as long as there is a woman, a man and an apple (Mac), there could be another Milky Way, somewhere in the universe.

by Laura Talvet

critics’ week shorts

©Autour de Minuit

Logorama H5 (France)

PHOTO by Andrei Tănasă

interview

Andrei Tănasă

Director of Mc Russia, Cinetrain Screening at Semaine de la Critique

Andrei Tănasă attended last year’s NISI MASA Cine Train project, traveling across Russia alongside other young film enthusiasts from across Europe. The journey served as a context for him and his teammates, two other aspiring filmmakers, Florian and George, to test their skills and come up with a short. The result was a documentary called McRussia, dealing with the rapid growth of fast food chains in Russia and the preference of the people for this kind of service.

Tell us a little about how you ended up aboard of the Cinetrain project While attending NISI MASA’s European Short Pitch 2008 in France, I found out about the idea of a film workshop taking place in Russia, on the Transsiberian route. Shooting a film while traveling almost 10 000 km, through Siberia, on a train – it sounded more than exciting.

When the project became official, I applied right away.

What about the team you were part of? Did it work smoothly?

Well, it wasn’t a walk in the park, that’s for sure. When you have to team up with two people you never met, shoot and complete a film in less than 3 weeks while constantly moving around, in a country you’ve never been to, where people speak a language you don’t understand, there’s little chance to make it work smoothly. Florian, George and I had our ups and downs in the process but we managed to stay “on the same page” even if sometimes our views on the

topic were quite different. The film was done and that’s what matters the most.

Where did your idea come from and what was your strategy?

I once read a news article about the rapidly-growing fast-food industry in Eastern Europe. I was surprised to find out that Russia is the country where Mc Donalds has the most stable business and each of their restaurants has three times more customers than in European countries. After a few online meetings with the team, we all agreed to find out why Russian people like hamburgers so much.

After the first days of shooting I realized that the ‘classic’ investigation film approach was not the way to go. The footage we had at that point was predicting a quite boring film. While having a burger & fries with my team in a fast-food restaurant in Ekaterinburg, I decided to change the concept and spice up the story by telling it as if it was

a personal video travel journal.

Florian, the german sound designer of our team was going to play the main character: a young economics student determined to do a video market research in order to pass one of his exams.

Was your short presented at other screenings beside the ones during the tour?

Mc Russia was never screened individually. I don’t know if the film works on its own, outside the project context. The six Cine-train films are strongly connected and they hardly make sense if watched separately.

Was this experience rewarding for you as an emerging filmmaker?

I learned a lot about myself as a filmmaker and as a person while taking part in this project.

Working with unknown people, in unknown territories is a great exercise for a film director. It challenges you on many levels: communicating skills, diplomacy, staying calm and focusing in stressful situations. It’s a great way to test your capacities and discover your limits. It doesn’t really matter if the results are different than what you were expecting. Workshops are about teaching, practicing and testing, not creating masterpieces.

Cine-train made me rediscover the pleasure of documentary

filmmaking, raw and simple as it should be, and reconfirmed the reasons that made me “choose” this profession. And on top of that I got to ride the legendary Transsiberian train – a dream come true!

by Mark Racz

CINETRAIN SCREENINGS Thursday 21st of May 11:00 AM ESPACE MIRAMAR Rue Pasteur

in f o cus Falling in love with the Duce Filippo Timi is the latest on a very long list of actors who have played the role of Benito Mussolini. Il Duce is a character who lends himself well to cinema, and the reasons why a whole country put its destiny in the hands of a megalomaniac lunatic are in a way easier to comprehend for showbiz experts

from Fascists on Mars © Fandango

from The Great Dictator© Charles Chaplin Productions

Mussolini

than historians. The myth of the great speaker, seductive

been questioned in Italian cinema, which has always made fun of fascist followers rather than the Duce himself. This respects the fact that Italians were genuinely in love with him and took pride in fascist liturgies - which now seem as ridi-

from Vincere © OFFSIDE SRL

‘tombeur de femmes’, passionate lover and warrior has never

culous as when Charlie Chaplin depicted them in The Great Dictator, to this day the best film ever made on the two most tragic and comical characters of contemporary history.

W

hile international cinema has represented Mussolini since 1940 (with The Great Dictator), it was only in the 60s that Italian fiction started dealing with this figure, preferring a more serious, dramatic approach.

Vincere also follows this path.

It tells the story of a woman whose dedication to Mussolini, which started long before he became the Duce, is absolutely totalitarian. Ida Dalser was an emancipated, modern woman who sold all her fortunes to support her young, revolutionary socialist, anticlerical husband Benito. When he later repudiated her and her son, Ida did not give up and tried

to get him back in any way possible, becoming so dangerous to his rise that he had her committed to an asylum, where she died, the symbol of a country that blindly followed its leader to a catastrophic end.

Filippo Timi, this year’s big rising star of Italian cinema, is handsome and charming, as charming as Rod Steiger was in Mussolini: ultimo atto,

by Carlo Lizzani, or Bob Hoskins in Mussolini and I, on the tragic betrayal of his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano.

In 1993 the then brand new star Antonio Banderas played a young Benito who was basically interested

in women and revolution, making him so nice that it aroused protests. This now forgotten TV series marked the end of a few taboos on the way Fascism is perceived

by Italians: a mixture of repulsion and pride that can too often be summarized in the common belief that he did many good things for his country before the alliance with Hitler, the real bad guy. A small masterpiece that came out recently, Fascists on Mars, by former TV star Corrado Guzzanti (he was fired from public television after Berlusconi was elected), underlines the way fascist culture still affects Italians’ political views: the

immaturity, the desire for a strong leader to follow, and the need for a charismatic figure to make them proud.

By the way, it’s a funny coincidence that this film is being released while Berlusconi is struggling with all the fuss over his supposed affair with an underage girl.

If we were to believe the image of the Duce as the archetypal Latin lover, we might see once again the truth behind the common saying: “History always repeats itself twice, only the first time it’s tragic and the second time it’s a farce”.

by Marta Musso

BY LUIS SENS

portrait

Magaly Solier

Lead actress in Altiplano, SIC

She could have been just another Peruvian girl, living in the Andes, taking care of her crops and singing in local contests. But someone saw something in her. This someone was Claudia Llosa, the filmmaker who found Magaly Solier in one of the poorest areas of Peru and asked her to attend a casting for a movie.

T

hat was the beginning of a unique career, peculiar because nowadays Solier is one of the best actresses in Peru, even though she never took acting lessons before her first leading role in Llosa’s Madeinusa. Now, with four movies and an album, she is not only a celebrity in her country but also a muse for foreign directors. Audiences around the world admire her authenticity; not only in front of the camera but also in every interview she gives.

Nisimazine was no exception. In a warm and friendly talk, Magaly told us what has changed in her life in these last years. “Now I am more confident, I talk more.

Before I was not able to talk like this with the journalists, now I can’t stop!”, she says, laughing.

“I haven’t changed much, but my lifestyle has. I miss the home

food, I miss everything I had in my garden back home”, she says, but also adds that now she enjoys new things that she did not have in her life in the Andes. “I have bought a computer; I created my songs with it. I’m updating with the technology and thanks to it I have accomplished my dream of releasing an album. I wanted to do it since I was eight years old”.

Actually, Warmi, her first musical work, has kept her focused on recording and concerts for the last few months, and that’s why she hasn’t been in another film since Altiplano (selected for this year’s Semaine de la Critique), directed by Peter Brossens and Jessica Woodsworth.

Her previous work includes Claudia Llosa’s Madeinusa and The Milk of Sorrow, as well as Dioses by Josué Méndez. The roles Magaly has accepted have been closely related to her life

experiences: she has seen cases of child abuse (as portrayed in Madeinusa) and post-traumatic distress in victims of terrorism (as in The Milk of Sorrow), and feels compelled to denounce these dramatic realities. In fact, the environment she comes from (the southern Andes of Peru) has suffered over past years with problems of violence and extreme poverty, and she has gone through these situations without losing her faith in the possibility of change.

interesting, I’m glad that they are interested in the topic of mining.

They dared to denounce, they were not afraid of saying what really happens in my country”.

Altiplano has the potential to be controversial in Peru, but Magaly is not worried about it. “Some Peruvian people have a complex, they don’t want to talk about their bad issues, and they criticize these kinds of movies without having seen them.

That happened when The Milk of Sorrow won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, but it makes me laugh”.

Now, in Altiplano, she is Saturnina, a young Peruvian woman who confronts multiple tragedies in a town suffering the consequences of irresponsible mining. “She is a very different character; she is not like Fausta, from La teta asustada. Saturnina is very active, she protests, she stands up against the injustice and defends what she loves”, she points out. About working with Brossens and Woodsworth, she says that “they were very different to the style of direction I was used to. They gave me a lot of freedom to perform”.

In fact, Magaly cares more about the importance of calling attention to the problems of Andean people than about the critical reception. “I would like to keep working in movies with this kind of message, which denounces things nobody talks about”, she states, confirming that this actress is not just a powerful presence onscreen but also a conscious and committed young woman who is only just starting to show her inner magic to the Nworld.

ISI MASA

Magaly accepted to work in Altiplano because of the denunciatory content of the script. “The vision of these directors is really

by Natalia Ames

European Network of Young Cinema

www.matteroftaste.eu