May 2013
Nisimazine cannes shorts & camera d’or
Camera D’OR Pages 6 -7 Pages 8 - 9
Ilo Ilo (Winner) Salvo (Winner Critics’ Week)
Un Certain Regard Page 12-13 Page 14-15 Page 16 Page 17
Quinzaine
Pages 18- 19 Pages 20-21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 -25 Page 26 -27
Tore Tanzt Sarah Prefers To Run La Jaula de oro, Bends Miele, Fruitvale Station
Les garçons et Guillaume, à table ! Les Apaches L’escale, Ate ver a luz Last Days On Mars The Summer Of Flying Fish Jodorowsky’s Dune Focus on Alejandro Jodorowsky
Critics’ Week Page 30-31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34-35 Page 36 Page 37
The Lunchbox Los Dueños Nos héros sont morts ce soir To Those In Peril Les recontres d’apres minuit Focus on Canadian cinema
Out of Competition Page 38 Page 39
Shepard And Dark, Monsoon Shootout Bite The Dust, Max Rose
Page 40-43
Photo impression by Elisabeth Renault-Geslin
Festival Shorts Shorts Competition Page 46-47 Page 48-49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53
37° 4 S Whale Valley Bishtar az do saat, Condom Lead Inseki To Impotence Mont Blanc, Olena, Ophelia Safe Focus Worlds of Cannes
Cinéfondation Page 56-57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62-63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66-67
In Acvariu Seon, O Sunce, Waiting for the Thaw Needle, Stepsister The Magnificent Lion Boy Pandy Duet Asunción, Babaga Contrafabula de una niña dissecada All The Things, Exil, Going South Focus Crowdfunding
Quinzaine shorts Page 70-71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74-75
Gambozinos Man Kann Nicht, O umbra de nor Solcito, Swimmer Focus Women
Critics’ Week Shorts Pages 78-79 Pages 80-81 Pages 82-83 Page 84 Page 85 Pages 86-87 Page 88 Page 90
Come And Play Pleasure The Opportunist Agit pop, Breath me, Butter Lamp Ocean, The Patio, Vikingar Interview Rodrigo Areias Focus Spielberg Credits
editorial
You only need to embark on a short journey through our archives, which is fast becoming a virtual museum of the film festival world, to come to the most obvious of conclusions: Nisimazine is the ultimate International Film Festival hopping machine. For several years now, this project has organized film criticism workshops and special coverage editions of most major and medium size film festivals throughout the European continent and beyond, having reached South America and the Middle-East with some regularity. Throughout this journey we always feed our two main obsessions: Up-and-coming feature filmmakers and the so often forgotten and neglected, yet hugely important and creative, world of shorts. All editions are special in their own way, as each festival has a different soul, context and purpose. However, there is one annual stop that holds a special place in Nisimazine´s soul. Yes, it was in CANNES where the adventure first started and without it this ambitious project perhaps would have not reach its well deserved place in the film criticism universe. You would think that 8 years on this would be the time to get nostalgic and reminiscent of the past. Fear not, Nisimazine has always been and will always be about the future and that is exactly what you will find here. In these pages you will encounter details on a new wave of Indian filmmakers marching away from the Bollywood stereotype, with films like Lunchbox (page 32) or Monsoon Shootout (page 18); The rebirth of Italian cinema with the award winning film Salvo (Page 8); The surreal and disturbing world of young Scottish filmmaker Paul Wright (Page 26); or the sexy and provocative vision on body abuse and pornography by Swedish newcomer Ninja Thyberg (page 74). This year we brought the largest group ever to the south of France. For twelve days 16 of the brightest young European film critics from Germany, The Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom formed a formidable and tireless team that covered extensively the Camera D´Or, Cinefondation and Official Shorts competitions, including the parallel sections of the Critic´s Week and the Director´s Fortnight. We had to “endure” over 100 film screenings; strolled for miles on end through the “dingy and grim” sidewalks of the Croisette; “survived” endless end of the day networking cocktail’s by the Mediterranean sunset; and worst of all, attended some of those late night parties that Cannes is so in ”famous” for (not that many actually). Honestly, if it wasn’t for the heavy rain in the first week this would have been scandalously “unbearable”. So, if you want to know who will be the big names in film for the next two to three years you came to the right place. There is a multitude of film reviews, interviews with the most exciting and fresh filmmakers the world has got to offer, and in focus articles on several key subjects, all waiting to be read. So put on your sunglasses, make yourself a cocktail and let us take you to CANNES.
by Fernando Vasquez
caméra d’or
The Caméra d’Or (“Golden Camera”) is an award of the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the Cannes’ selections (Official Selection, Director’s Fortnight or International Critic’s Week). The prize, created in 1978 by Gilles Jacob, is awarded during the Festival’s Closing Ceremony by an independent jury.
Ilo Ilo
by Anthony Chen Singapore // Quinzaine // Caméra d’Or
This isn’t your first taste of Cannes, having been here a few years ago with a short film. Has your experience differed now that you’re presenting a feature? Anthony: Definitely. Short films are presented as a program, so you’re one of many. With a feature, it’s more of a challenge. When you’re making a 90120 minute film and you have to sustain a story and visual images for that period of time, it really takes skill. Ilo Ilo depicts the relationship between a family in Singapore and their live-in maid. Why did you think it was an important story to tell? Anthony: When you’re in your midtwenties, as I was when I began to think
about this film, your childhood comes back to haunt you and you begin to see things differently. We had a maid who looked after my brothers and I for around 8 years – a very common thing in South East Asia. She left when I was 12 and we lost contact, but the memory of her was haunting me. Looking back, things weren’t as simple as they once seemed and I wanted to discuss that. You’ve been to two film schools. Do you think going to film school is a necessary step for a filmmaker? Anthony:Well there are a lot of famous directors who are not trained at film school, life experiences shaped them and some are really just geniuses to begin with. When I first went to film
6 // nisimazine cannes 2013 // interview by robyn davies // review by filippo spreafico // photo by fernando vasquez
The tacky family apartment welcomes Terry, a Filipino housemaid, who will take care of enfant terrible Jiale workaholic parents in the looming Asian crisis of 1997-8. Mr. Chen “had to make this film in order to move on”, defining it “very humble and very passionate”; his 3-years semi-autobiographical endeavor was directed towards recreating a feeling of historical authenticity and intimacy, instances that are powerfully brought into existence from the inner tension that arises with the return of the memory of childhood. The result is honest and convincing: the thick characters, both moving and entertaining, grow organically within the escalating crisis that swiftly redefines family relationships. Jiale and Terry are the outsiders of a sedulous society stuck in its class rules, cultural hierarchies, family appearances, stock market, lottery games, self-help gurus and
What drives you to make films? Anthony: I think filmmakers are driven by obsession. You obsess about a certain subject, a person you saw on the street, a character, and you don’t stop until you get to the bottom of that obsession. That’s how films get made!
The detail and a neat camera work let the film breathe amiably without stealing the viewers’ focus, which is consistently on a script that gives itself away with efficacy and sensitivity. The psychological depth of the characters is due to an excellent ensemble acting and wellcalibrated work of editing.
Ultimately, Chen offers an honest tale held together by a sharp eye on Singaporean society, all the while keeping his narration and dialogue with the current crisis in the western world. The recipe is very local, yet the taste is universal. Anthony Chen was awarded with the Camera d’Or for best debuting feature, prize that makes Ilo Ilo the first Singaporean film to win at Cannes. This is Chen’s second award at the Croisette, as in 2007 his short film Ah Ma (Grandma) won a Special Mention in the Palme d’Or for Short Films competition.
Can you tell me a little about the film community in Singapore? Anthony: It’s a very small, almost ‘pubescent’ film industry. For a long time we had a sort of vacuum, where no films were being made at all, but then we started up again about 15 years ago. There are very few audiences that know anything about Singapore cinema, or that it even exists! It’s growing, but I’m not sure if it’s necessarily in the right direction. We only really have 2 genres of film: comedy and horror. My sense is that the next 3-5 years will be very exciting, hopefully with a wave of new filmmakers.
interview
school at 17, it was about building the foundations. But when I went again to do my masters, it was really about holding the craft and finding your voice. I wouldn’t have been able to make the films I make today without going to film school. I’ve had some fantastic tutors over the years and they opened my eyes to possibilities.
uninspiring schoolmasters; while their acting ventriloquizes Chen’s satirical palette. Jiale is Chen’s homologous for rebelling to the banality of a vacuous society, while Terry is the subaltern element reversing the role-structure of the madam-maid relationship.
review
Ironically called after the Filipino district, Ilo Ilo is a work of both biographical and documentary styles. Debutant Anthony Chen’s feature speaks of a middle class Singaporean family through the perspective of the young son, Jiale, and tastes of mum’s cake: the ingredients are good and if spotted by large distributors it should sell very well.
Caméra d’ Or
interview interview
Salvo
Grand Prize
by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza Italy // Critics’ Week // Grand Prix
One of the great winner´s of this year´s edition was Salvo, a film by one of the most dynamic duos in modern italian cinema. We caught up with both directors before they collected one of the main award of the Critic´s Week. Rita, the short you made in 2010, already contained most of the elements of the feature Salvo. What is the movement that brought you from Rita to Salvo? Fabio: “In reality we made Rita after having written Salvo. Since we worked a lot on the characters, we made Rita in order to test some of the most fundamental scenes of Salvo and most specifically to reflect on how to visually render the perspective of a character who does not see. Our choices convinced us and helped us to secure the necessary funding to make the feature. Salvo was written between 2008 and 2009 and the short was shot in summer 2009.” The film’s sense of paralysis is palpable both in the dialogues and in the depiction of Palermo. Is Rita’s blindness is a metaphor for this inescapable condition, a sort of tragic and ineffable fate? Fabio: “We are from Palermo and we strongly questioned ourselves on what kind of society our characters would have found themselves. This society is oppressed and lives in this oppression without knowing anything else. It is a blind society that does not look for alternatives, a society which is in turn reflected in Rita and Salvo’s different blindness’s. The collision of the two produces something impossible, forcing the characters to create a new form of life that the world they live in does not allow. Here we find the tragic. However this is a tragedy that is not complete as it transforms into ridicule, it becomes ironic. The perennial reiteration of the tragedy of failed renovation becomes in fact a farce. Farce and tragedy are the two indivisible traits of Sicilian culture”.
sibility of change derives from a certain social context. We believe in the possibility of individual change through a path that in our film is described by redemption and the quest of freedom. The film’s theme is imprisonment. There are many prisons in the film: Salvo lives in a tiny room; Rita is put in a prison cell. But the film speaks of the possibility for the protagonists to take a free choice that obviously is in conflict with the world they belong to. In the end Rita survives and leaves and will probably be able to take free choices. Therefore, the hope is there but it is linked to the change of the individual, it must be your change, your personal responsibility and it is not up to social or political change, to which we believe less.” So we can say that Salvo is Rita’s savior? Antonio: “Yes, hers and of himself.” Fabio: “The roles are mixed, complicated, upturned. Destinies are indissolubly linked together. True, Salvo does not manage to leave but the change that the meeting of the two produces allows him to give a full and totalizing sense to his life.” Now you arrived in Cannes. What do you expect can happen for your future projects? Antonio: “Salvo starts as a very local story but then one realizes that it contains universal themes that go well beyond its geographic connotations.” Fabio: “So we believe Cannes will help Salvo being shown also outside of Italy. We are counting on the possibility of making a second film which we are already working on.”
Antonio: “Also this sense of immobility derives from a general condition felt throughout the country. This impos-
interview by filippo spreafico // photo by lucia ros serra // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 9
Tore Tanzt by Katrin Gebbe Germany // UCR
What does it feel like to be in Cannes with your first film? It’s incredible and it took me a while to realize that I’m really here. I see myself more as an artist than as a filmmaker. Some people think that filmmaking is not an art. In Cannes, people think different of course. But when you find the right material and get euphoric about it, the movie is always going to end up somewhere. Even if it is not Cannes. What is Cannes anyways? Cannes is a compliment, you meet a lot of people and the weather is nice. But I think you can also be happy somewhere else. Cannes is not the ultimate benchmark.
Why did you become a filmmaker? I knew that I wanted to become an artist. But as a student at a small town highschool I had no clear idea of what art actually was. Since I liked the school and the people there, I went to an art academy in the Netherlands, the AKI in Enschede. I took courses on painting, sculpturing and also on film. And then a professor showed us Pasolini´s Salo, which is very provocative. And I suddenly realized how powerful a movie can be. I felt like I could express a lot more with this medium than with photography or painting.
Divided into three chapters –faith, hope and love - the movie shows a glimpse of reality in which Tore’s endless willingness to sacrifice turns into a symbol of Jesus’ suffering. The performance by the young actor Julius Feldmeier is profoundly touching and intimate. The hand-held camera floats like a Holy Spirit through the movie, following Tore’s pain in this portrait of religious conservatism. At first, one might think that Gebbe only portrays Tore as
Is that the reason for Tore Tanzt being such a powerful movie? I think I made a powerful film because I’m very powerful myself. I wouldn’t go for quiet cinema. I do pay attention to details, but I always want it to be powerful in some way. Do you want to be provocative? I like filmmakers who take risks. (...) But I think it’s really about doing something that sticks to people’s minds. You can’t do that by presenting a perfect happy ending. Actually that sounds strategic, but then as an author and filmmaker you have to be strategic in a way. I want to convey a
review
Though his background remains unclear, Tore is a vulnerable young man looking for a family he can belong to. What begins as an unexpected friendship between a lost soul and a supposedly charming family man gradually turns into torture. The boy becomes the target of cruel abuse designed to test his faith in Jesus, as the man, Benno, proves himself to be a sadistic monster.
a naïve Christian who believes a broken car will start to work again as long as he prays to Jesus, but she doesn’t. Instead she slowly reveals dark deficits on both sides of the religious fence.
Tore Tanzt doesn’t support religion neither judges it an evil. In the end the movie is more than just a realistic depiction of religious Puritanism. It also explores the dark ability of the human mind to turn into a merciless machine. When power relations are involved, even seemingly innocent victims are capable of the most horrible deeds. The subtle storytelling of the 30-year-old director leaves little room for hope, the title of the last chapter. The only moments in which Tore seems truly happy is when he dances with Benno’s 15-year-old stepdaughter Sanny, but for the greater part of the film, Tore is really dancing with the devil.
message and not just provide entertainment that people forget about the next day.
interview
The German debuting filmmaker Katrin Gebbe is one lovely lady. At the screening of her first feature Tore Tanzt in Cannes, she charms the audience with a funny chat, honest smile, and sparkling eyes. All the more surprising is the disturbing nature of her directorial debut (which she also scripted) about the young Christian punk Tore, who moves in with the family of a man he meets by chance.
How do you position yourself within the landscape of German cinema? I don’t feel the need to fit in anywhere. Hopefully the nomination in Cannes will enable me to remain that independent and convince people in Germany to give me the chance to continue making movies like Tore Tanzt.
review by kris derks // interview by sophie charlotte rieger // photo by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 13
Sarah Prefers To Run by Chloé Robichaud Canada // UCR
Why did choose the subject of running? Well I thought it was a great metaphor for what my character was living because in a way she’s running from life, but she’s also running towards her dream. So the contradiction and the metaphor of running was interesting. Visually, to run is beautiful [opposed] to if she was in administration and wanted to be a doctor or whatever. How long did you spend researching the running world? I met a coach one year ago but I wanted to start the writing without knowing about running – to have a naive writing at first and write what I felt was good for Sarah. And then I talked with the coach and helped me add some details. And the actresses had to be with a coach for six months, intensively.
When they were training where you getting some of it on film to experiment with shot types? Yeah, when they were practicing it gave me ideas and ideas even for the script. Close to the shooting I saw some interesting stuff that I didn’t know about that came after [the research and training]. Is that a method you’d try again? At first I just wanted it to be what I had in my mind and then do the research. I think it’s important to decide what’s the core of it. There are many pastoral shots in the film – were they found by location scouting or had you had those places in mind for a long time? Some of them come from when I was
Sarah is a twenty-year-old student whose life revolves around running. Her detachment from the people around her is omnipresent. She doesn’t really feel close either to her family, to her friends from the track team or her roommate Antoine who she finally marries to get state support. She is just as detached from the cinema audience. Chloé Robichaud films her protagonist mainly from a distance, rarely using close ups of her face. Static frames and a sparing use of reverse-shots make the movie feel oddly staged despite its naturalistic coloring and convincing actors. The director gives her audience the same feeling of alienation her heroine is struggling with. We might not be able to understand Sarah, but we can feel her isolation and disorientation. Robichaud, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie, does not make it crystal clear why
And would you carry on writing and directing or would you be open to direct someone else’s scripts? I want to write. [My next feature] it’s close to finish and I would like to direct again.
This is a movie about identity, about finding one’s true self. Antoine is struggling just as much with the idea of masculinity as Sarah is experimenting with the extent to which she should fit in with the female gender stereotype. To make her viewers understand this process, Robichaud risks alienating them by presenting a heroine who is not easy to sympathize with. However in the course of the movie the camera and the audience get closer to the main character and are allowed quick glimpses beyond the surface of her sometimes mask-like face. By making us comprehend Sarah’s struggle, the film carefully challenges us to question our own categories and stereotypes. The last of three ‘fortune-cookie’ inter-titles to appear in the course of the film can be taken as a conclusion: “The answer doesn’t lie in a cookie”.
One of the great lines in the script is the question to Sarah about what she would do without running. What would you do without cinema – if someone took away your passion? I had to think about that; when I was writing I had to think, “Okay, what would I do if I didn’t have cinema?” And I don’t know – that’s what I like to do in life. And some people have to face that – not being able to do what you want to do – and have to look at a plan B. Sarah doesn’t want to have a plan B. I don’t know what I would do, I’m like Sarah.
interview
young...I thought if I would be a filmmaker “this would be a nice place to shoot”. But at the same time, with the DoP, we took several months, since I had the script. It’s been 4 years since I started the work and I wanted to work with her. Even when we were at school we took some days just to see things, and we saw everything we could use for the running part. Everything is chosen.
Sarah is having problems fitting in. There are hints that she might be gay, but the story does not focus on the heroine’s sexual orientation. Whether she is interested in girls or boys, or both, is just another of the categories Sarah tries to avoid. Sarah prefers to run is all about not being pigeon-holed as she copes with the problems of growing up. Whenever she tries to force herself into those schemes she ends up unhappy.
review
Just one year after Chloé Robichaud’s short Chef de Meute was nominated for the Short Film Palme d’Or the Canadian filmmaker is already back in Cannes with her beautiful feature debut Sarah prefers to run, this time competing for the much sought-after Camera d’Or prize. Again she confronts her audience with a solitary heroine who struggles to find her place in life.
review by sophie charlotte riger // interview by piers mccarthy // photo by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 15
Bends
La Jaula de oro
by Diego Quenada-Diez // Mexico // UCR
by Flora Lau // Hong Kong // UCR
There are certain stereotypes concerning Latin American cinema: Close-Ups of burned-out faces, dust that covers all colors, long shots of chaotic city architecture and trains with people sitting on top, desperately trying to reach America. The uncompromising La Jaula de Oro by Diego Quenada-Diez delivers those stereotypes in a painful but satisfying way.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, is what the beautiful character study Bends tells the audience. The film shows two intersecting storylines of people living in uncertainty and in need of help, but who ignore the signs and desperately try to be selfsufficient. In a subtle way, where nothing is too outspoken, Bends demonstrates that lack of communication is a recipe for trouble.
Diez tells the story of three young teenagers from Guatemala trying to reach Los Angeles. There is nothing said about where they come from, it is all about where they are going. Dangers lie not only in crossing the American border but even more in crossing the continent. The gap between the dream of a new life in the USA and the South American reality is highlighted by a recurring dream image of visual beauty: White snowflakes against a black background. The simple idea of watching snow must be enough to risk everything. Yet, instead of falling in the trap of an overly melodramatic destruction of children’s dreams the movie just observes calmly what is going on. In fact the characters seem to face re-
ality just as adults. Although they are very young they know about what they are risking. For instance, in the opening shot the girl cuts her hair and makes herself look like a boy. She knows what can happen to her if she looks too feminine. The minimalistic performances of the teenagers are superbly captured with moments of innocence, fear and hope. Diez does not put his ego in the way of the story. He is deeply concerned with what is going on instead of trying to give a certain style to his debut feature. n the most hopeless way the film is not afraid of leading to bleak conclusions. It is more about social reality than stories of individuals. Diez gives an extract of daily happenings. Therefore his screenplay feels refreshingly open-ended. In a strange sense dreams get fulfilled in La Jaula de Oro, but the snowflakes are not only beautiful. They are cold and the filmmaker lets the audience and his characters discover the black background behind the snow.
by Patrick Holzapfel
Without knowing much about the main character, Fai, his daughter and his pregnant wife, you would say this was a perfectly happy family. In fact it’s not all that great. They live in China, where the taxes on registering a second baby are higher than he can afford. Things would be different if they lived in Hongkong,only a couple of miles away, where Anna, Fai´s boss, is living a life of wealth and luxury. Being her driver in Hongkong probably fills him with envy. Yet, in reality, Anna’s not doing well either. She lives all by herself since her rich husband left her, a fact she hides from the outside world by buying things she actually can’t afford anymore. In her eyes, Fai´s more simple life looks like an ideal situation. The setting of the China and Hong-
kong border is striking. Technically both cities are part of the same country, so you shouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Nevertheless people speak a different language and have different laws. The location of Bends shouldn’t only be seen as a logical place to set the story, but also as a metaphor for the unnecessary frictions in human relationships, leading to difficult situations where people fail or resist to really communicate. First-time director Flora Lau intelligently illustrates the contrast between how people act in public and how they actually feel. She shows an interesting view of the world as a place where people need help, while nothing gets better because everybody is too preoccupied with their own life. Things get tricky when people don’t speak their minds and start assuming things, instead of asking and talking. Where one person would think to be solving a problem, the other gets sucked into more trouble.
by Fabian Melchers
Fruitvale Station
Miele
by Ryan Coogler // USA // UCR
by Valeria Golino // Italy // UCR
A window tiles, a door opens, a beautiful young woman comes out of a room and takes off her latex gloves. She sits down on a chair. The camera moves away from her, with a backward tracking shot, down the hallway of a luxurious apartment. This first camera movement is premonitory of Valeria Golino’s whole film; just like the camera furthers away, the entire feature recoils from a problem that will remain untouched, despite a nice packaging.
rooms every once in a while, heavy metaphoric cutaway pictures of planes crossing the sky. All goes well until a client requests a change in procedure. Watch out, turning point! Insistent close-ups of the old client’s face act as a warning sign. The cynical gentleman is far from being sick and just wants to commit suicide. The film focuses on Miele’s fervor to convince the man to stay alive and on the friendship developing between the two lost souls.
Irene, aka Miele, her professional nickname, is an athletic young woman, who spends her free time swimming, jogging, cycling and listening to music - which gives rise to a very seducing soundtrack that adds no value because of its clumsy use. Although ambiguous at the beginning of the film, Irene is not a serial killer but an angel of death. She takes big paychecks in exchange of a lethal dose of a barbituric for dogs. She helps sick people die and disguises it as suicides. The very actual topic of Euthanasia is raised, as much as in Bellocchio’s La Bella Addormentata, but will it be questioned this time?
Everything turns into a melodramatic affair. Glossy Jasmine Trinca can’t embody the struggle of conscience Valeria Golino wanted to press heavily in her first feature. Miele is very predictable, heavy, and doesn’t manage to find a space for debate. Don’t try to be subtle with elephant feet in a slippery porcelain shop.
The illegality of the product often takes Miele to Mexico, where she strolls as a gothic tomboy: Plane trips and hotel
by Cécile Tollu-Polonowski
Plucked straight from Sundance, the much-anticipated Fruitvale Station is the story of Oscar Grant, a turbulent but good-willed young man who was fatally shot by the police in several years ago. This first feature from Ryan Coogler is a modern tragedy that walks the line of convention until its explosive and subversive end. The tale of troubled youths trying to change for the better is not new, and Fruitvale Station begins in a largely familiar way. We follow Oscar through a day in his life, during which he vows to quit his life of petty crime, remain faithful to his girlfriend Sophina and be a good father to his daughter. Yet, these scenes you´ve seen countless times retain originality through a couple of methods, both of which are essential to the film’s success. First, there’s the film’s focus on human emotion. Tender moments with his mother and daughter to acts of kindness with total strangers, allows for a sympathetic point of view of an otherwise ‘bad man’. This humanity is refreshing, and perhaps more prevalent because of the moment at which the film begins – the ‘bad’ Oscar is only ever referenced, not witnessed. More significant is the real subtlety
behind the overall execution. While there is an emotional focus, the film never seems to be forcing sentimentality upon the viewer, allowing instead personal conclusions to be drawn. It’s very discreet about building a sense of community throughout, from people´s interactions to impromptu party scenes. This makes the ultimate act of violence all the more destructive, not just an effect on a person but an intrusion on a community. The film respects the viewer’s capability of understanding rather than spoon-feeding them controversy. The performances are collectively solid, with Robert B. Jordan succeeds in keeping focus on his honest yet temperamental character; Octavia Spencer is strong as ever in a matriarchal role; while Melonie Diaz gives a fraught and tender show as Sophina. All are aided by Coogler’s effortless script and his handle on natural dialogue. The conventional approach that Fruitvale Station takes may cause it to be dismissed as just another indie film. Yet, the respect it pays to its audience sets it apart from its predecessors, and it’s safe to predict that Coogler will rise to new heights.
by Robyn Davies
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 17
review interview
Art Cinema Award & SCD Award
Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table ! By Guillaume Gallienne // France // Quinzaine
Guillaume Gallienne’s first feature film adapts his play where he interpreted all the characters of his childhood to understand how everyone thought he was gay. Through the screen, he experiences the power of cinema and brings life to those he used to play himself on stage. Little Guillaume always thought he was a girl because his mother differentiated him from his brothers by always calling them: “Boys and Guillaume, dinner”. So he spent his youth imitating female gestures and ways of speaking to please her. Regardless of as much as he loves his mother and tries to be a girl, she never seems to be happy. Eventually he discovers he is a boy and this brings him into improbable and burlesque misunderstandings during his whole life. On stage Gallienne was impersonating all the characters. On screen, he only plays his mother and himself as a little boy. This increases the feeling that he and his mother are apart from the others. He is so close to her, so much so that most people confuse their voices. The result is that Guillaume misses an identity his whole childhood.
He takes his revenge in his film by choosing an omniscient point of view to take on board the audience with him. We can travel everywhere in his youth through his voice-over, like we thought only Sacha Guitry could do. Here Gallienne shares his pleasure for costumes and fancy dress, learnt in his early years. We jump from his bedroom to the Court of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (himself disguised as Sissi), to his mother appearing to him in the middle of his Irish boarding school toilet to tell him it is ok boys masturbate at night in the dormitory. Gallienne achieves to make us laugh loudly as he shapes a very smart and peculiar piece of work, traveling between places and periods of his life where he always stays the little boy and the comforting grown-up to declare his love to his mother.
text by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 19
Les Apaches by Thierry de Peretti France // Quinzaine
What was your first idea when you started Les Apaches? The main idea behind the film was to tell a Corsican story. It is a small island with a complex history, politically and socially. Very few movies were shot there or talk about its political issues. So my first goal was certainly to talk about Corsica in cinema. You said Corsica gathered all the contradictions of the contemporary world, what are they? It is an island, so like any island it’s a small world, there is a pastoral life, small villages, traditional families and immigrants, all together. The youth there is very
interesting because it is a huge mix of people. And politics, Corsica has a strange political history during the last decades. What difficulties did you have doing the movie? They were financial! I had no difficulties to shoot there or find actors, but like with any feature without a shooting star I had problems raising money. It took me 3 years, it’s a long time for a short story like this. You are an actor as well, was it always a wish to make a movie? Yes but I remain an actor first of all. Before doing Les Apaches, I
Back to 2013, Peretti’s Apaches are all aged between 16 and 19, but live in Porto Vecchio, on the French island of Corsica. Born in Corsica himself, Peretti wanted to make a movie that talked to his people, at least as much as to the rest of the world. Well known for criminality and mafia, Corse is rarely the focal point for cinema, limiting itself as a mere tourism magnet. Here Peretti was inspired by a true story that happened in Corsica a few years back, about a group of teenagers who break into a villa, party all night and steal a valuable rifle. Unfortunately for them, the local estate agent who sold the house to a Parisian couple discovers what happened and sends his men after the youths. The situation escalates forcing the protagonists to commit the worse acts. Thanks to a great cast of local actors, who speak a mix of Muslim Corsican teenager slang (to them the French people living in the
How did you endorse your new job as a director? I didn’t go to school but I watched a lot of movies, did stupid short films. In a way, directing is the same gesture and energy in theater or cinema. There are more differences between two films than between these two jobs What do you prefer, acting or directing? I think I prefer acting. It is more
The contradictions of the island itself are the real stake of this movie. The action is placed in Porto Vecchio, at the very south of Corsica, where Moroccan, Portuguese and Corsican people meet French tourists. With the Corsican beautiful landscape in background, these teenagers are confronted with massive wealth and to a world they don’t belong to. Stealing seems then to be their only way to afford clothes and cell phones. The film, which is only 1h25 minutes long, is almost rough: no complicated camera moves or fancy sets and props, apart from the sumptuous villa, and a natural light atmosphere bring us close to the protagonists.
Peretti´s film is without judgement, and the world in which women are treated like sexual objects, where older brothers are feared suddenly feels very realistic. This sense of veracity is particularly emphasized by the fact all actors locals and familiar with the story that inspired the plot. The reality depicted in Les Apaches, is their reality, but maybe not for much longer.
physical, but honestly, it is my first feature so technically I know much more about acting. As an actor, did you want to interfere with the directing? No, when you act it is pretty difficult to get the whole process of the movie, you don’t have a clear idea of what it is going to look like! So I never did. Will you go on making movies in the future? I have a few ongoing projects yes. Once you understand what making film is, you don’t want to leave it anymore. So i hope it will be very soon.
interview
also spent a lot of time directing theater plays. There I couldn’t catch the reality as strongly as I wanted to. Pictures were a way to better show reality.
continent are called “Gaulois”) Thierry de Peretti succeed in taking us into a real contemporary drama.
review
Les Apaches, the title of Thierry de Peretti’s first long feature, competing at the Director’s Fortnight, refers to the name given in the beginning of the century to the young gangs of criminals in the Parisian district of Belleville.
text by melanie de groot van embden // photo by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2012 // 21
L’escale
Atè ver a luz
by Kaveh Bakhiari // Iran // Quinzaine
by Basil da Cunha // Portugal, Switzerland // Quinzaine
Kaveh Bakhiari is a young Iranian director who on his way to presenting his previous short-movie, The Suitcase, in Athens, learnt that his cousin Mohsen (to whom the film is dedicated) had been released from prison after a 4 month long incarceration, due to his status as an illegal immigrant.
With Até ver a luz, Swiss born Portuguese director Basil da Cunha returns to Cannes with his debut feature, following two successful shorts in 2011 and 2012. His first feature is stylish, gritty and an anthropologically inclined study of petty criminality among the afro-Portuguese community in Lisbon, which hints at greater things to come.
Therefore the film takes place at Amir’s boarding house, an Iranian immigrant who accommodates and helps his compatriots, including Mohsen, by smuggling them through borders in the direction of more welcoming countries. In this hostel Kaveh discovers the poverty-stricken daily life of these illegal immigrants, whose only crime is to wish for a life worthy of a human being. The documentary opens with sheet covered windows, to prevent the neighbours from looking in, on which are superimposed the shades of the railings around the boarding house. This visual effect delivers a metaphorical message: in addition to not circulating freely, illegal immigration is also a mental prison. The daily life of an illegal immigrant is a succession of hindrances that makes the easiest things, such as going outside to buy toothpaste, “an
unimaginable risk”. Thanks to the use of a subjective camera Bakhiari portrays each of Armi’s tenants head-on, as if they were talking to us, allowing the spectator much stronger identification. The abrupt movements of the handheld camera, which echo our own trembling when they see the police, reinforce this feeling of total immersion. We find ourselves gasping for breath and questioning in front of absurd situations. Having said all of the above it is important not to forget that there are moments of laughter, such as when they notice they all have the same brown tuxedo: a owner of a tuxedo shop makes them believe they absolutely need it to succeed in smuggling. Receiving an interminable standing ovation, the spectators, moved to tears, showed an overwhelming reaction here in Cannes. This is a harrowing documentary resulting from the necessity of showing this unbearable urgent reality. Kaveh signs an act of resistance without compromise.
by Leila Hamour
The film revolves around Sombra, a small time criminal among a community of tough guys. Sombra stands out from the crowd due to his dreadlocks and his aversion of the mob lead by bleached blonde gangster Olos. He lives by night and finds solace in his friendship with a young girl and his pet iguana. We sense he wants to escape, but first he has a debt to settle with Olos. Da Cunha’s cast is comprised of nonactor friends of his and the performances feel natural, giving an insight in to their underground world. Pedro Ferreira is a solid lead, with broken teeth and long locks, which suggest a colorful history beyond this story. He is particularly fun to watch when he visits his aunty, by entering her flat through the window, before being berated for
his life choices and failings. The film’s naturalism does come at a price, as da Cunha’s loose, improvisational approach to his script dilutes the sense of narrative drive. While Sombra has a clear motivation within the film, the story often wanders from his predicament, opting to depict rather than narrate. As a result the film struggles to command attention towards its conclusion. However, the director´s sensibility for visual poetics shows us that he is certainly a filmmaker with promise. In a manner reminiscent of Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant, he uses the images of Sombra’s iguana to hint at a richer world outside of criminal banality. Até ver a luz is a film that represents a director with considerable technique, but is caught between the desire to improvise and the need for scripting coherence. With time da Cunha’s will surely find the middle ground in his technique and Até ver a luz will be seen as an important stepping-stone.
by Tom Cottey
Last Days In Mars by Ruairí Robinson // UK // Quinzaine
Since Ridley Scott’s Alien many spaceexploration films have focused on perils and perdition in lonely atmospheres. Ruairí Robinson’s first feature, Last Days on Mars, is one such film clearly influenced by Scott and other works such as Event Horizon and Sunshine. It does not offer much more than what has come before it yet is an extremely impressive debut that hits all the right notes for fans of the sub-genre. Centred on Mars explorers with a few hours left until returning to Earth, the first half of Last Days on Mars is a measured analysis of an alien terrain shot and crafted through CGI beautifully. The second less artistic, half amps up the pace once the crew become infected. The style that swaps from a measured character and landscape study to a fast-paced thriller is not so jarring, thanks to Robinson’s clear direction. How Robinson constructs the film is incredibly mature and knowing; he clearly understands genre, CGI and practical filmmaking. For what would imaginably be a CGI-heavy and clichéd Hollywood
version, Robinson’s independent production allows a more solemn, realistic and frightening take on astronauts and aliens. The lead astronaut is Liev Schreiber, brilliant throughout, though somewhat overshadowing actors like Elias Koteas and Olivia Williams, regrettably. Schreiber stands out as the least passé character of the group, instilling some originality.
The Summer Of Flying Fish by Marcela Said // Chile // Quinzaine
Experienced with the art of documentary filmmaking, Chilean director Marcela Said had been longing to make a feature film. She passed the test with flying colours as her first feature The Summer of Flying Fish was presented in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight selection.
Some parts may seem predictable and there are examples of stock characters, yet they are truisms of the genre that cannot always be ignored. For what Robinson is hoping to achieve (an accomplished, entertaining entry into the sci-fi horror genre) he should not be faulted; his mise-en-scène is impeccable, creating a-near flawless ambience. It´s a smartly-written, elegantly executed genre-piece. It may not inject much new blood into space-exploration horror but it will deservedly find its audience.
The film focuses on Manena, a teenage girl who is spending the summer with her sister in the beautiful family home at the Chilean countryside. Accompanied by many guests, her father, a rich Chilean landowner, is occupied with just one thing: the invasion of carps in his beautiful private artificial lagoon. While he gradually uses more radical methods, Manena has her first romantic experiences, jealousy and a broken heart. She slowly learns about a world that silently co-exists alongside her family’s: that of the Mapuche Indian workers who stand up to her father, representing a conflict that dates back to America’s first conquistadores.
by Piers McCarthy
Portraying scenes of tension between the local Mapuche natives and
white landowners like Menena’s father, Marcela Said’s technique mixes slices of melodrama with naturalistic choices as shooting on location. This make that the film sometimes feels as much as a docu-drama rather than an actual fiction film. This phenomenon is the result of the use of non professional actor by the director, which allows a more organic and realistic depiction of life in the remote Chilean countryside, with the recognizable Latin American minimalism marks that we have come to expect from modern films from the region. The Summer of Flying Fish doesn’t develop itself into a concrete narrative. Instead it portrays series of impressionistic images of nature in Chile and ghostly morning haze. These mysterious scenes with fog and mist that return throughout the film are used as a metaphor to highlight the lack of visibility of the Chilean conflict, reminding us that the hidden problem remains unaddressed.
by Kris Derks
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 23
Judorowsky’s Dune By Frank Pavich USA // Quinzaine
Yesterday was the premiere of Jodorowsky’s Dune. I thought you were almost in tears at the end. Definitely, it was so overwhelming. Not only was it my first feature, it was also the first movie I had seen in Cannes, so I did not know what was going to happen. I had no idea that they would put those lights on you, that the applause would be so enthusiastic and that you were suppose to stand up. That felt like success to me. How did you first get in contact with his films? For a long time they were not available, so basically I got to know them through underground videotapes.
Those were not subtitled, fuzzy and breaking up, but the more I saw them on these horrible quality tapes, the more I fell in love with them. It is like Richard Stanley says in my movie: “they show things from a parallel universe”. It was a revelation to know that people around the world were so wildly ambitious. I stumbled across the history of Dune and it dawned on me that I needed to get the story out there properly. In 1999 N.Y.H.C. was released, your short documentary about the New York hardcore enthusiasts. You focus on outsiders: What attracts you to them? I am interested in the fringes of
society because they are underrepresented and they need to get their voice out there. Those poor hardcore-loving guys are never a subject of interest and Jodorowsky is a famous artist, but still he does not get the respect that he deserves. In The Holy Mountain there are astounding dolly shots that are completely planned out: he is not a variété style director. That is why he storyboarded every single frame of Dune and how it became so important to us to make these storyboards come to life. Your movie is about the passion for filmmaking, more than highlighting the downside of this
Jodorowsky is clearly not only a passionate filmmaker, he is also a man who knows how to tell a story. The level of enthusiasm and sense of humour with which he talks about his dreamproject, works in a contagious way. You can listen to every detail he’s telling with a broad smile on your face, even though some of it might be a bit to good to be true. Did he really just happen to come across all those famous and talented people, and did they really agree so easily to be part of his film? In the end, the answer to that question doesn’t really matter.
filmmaking itself, but rather to entertain the audience with this amazing story filled with passion for moviemaking. With an energetic and creative style, narrated via interviews with a large number of film critics, producers and directors eager to explain the importance of Jodorowsky’s project, this documentary almost comes through as a feelgood-movie, even though we know the final outcome must have caused a major letdown to everyone involved. That amount of love and optimism is what makes Jodorowsky’s Dune such a delightful and fascinating film.
review
The documentary tells the story about Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s insanely ambitious project to make Frank Herbert’s classic novel Dune into a movie. The project went over its budget and it never got made. At least not by Jodorowsky. We now know that David Lynch did manage to make it work. Jodorowsky couldn’t bear to watch the film when it came out in 1984, especially because Lynch was a filmmaker that would actually be right for the project, he explains in this documentary. But his son forced him to go, bringing his father to the verge of tears, until he realised Lynch had done something completely different. With a sparkle in his eyes he tells the audience how happy he got when he saw how terrible the movie turned out to be.
That’s Jodorowsky for you. A man who’s extremely passionate about his work, but who also knows how to swallow his loss. The message Jodorowsky’s Dune sends to the viewer is that you should always try to be as ambitious as you can imagine, and that failing while doing so is irrelevant.
Jodorowsky’s Dune could be compared to documentaries like Hearts of Darkness, about the horrors during the making of Apocalypse Now, or Lost in La Mancha, that has a similar setup for Terry Gilliams cursed Don Quixote- a film that never saw the light of day. Yet Pavich’s film is different in an important way. His main priority is not to give insights into
story. Why did you choose not to take a more critical position? Jodorowsky says that he creates great artists and he is right. All of his children are incredible. Brontis told me that the process of Dune has taught him to be very precise in his body and his acting. That has helped him in the rest of his career. I do not think it is to me to criticize his father, because Alejandro does it himself. He asks himself: why did I put my twelve-year-old son through that? He feels horrible But he also knew it was important for the bigger picture and it was necessary to move forward.
interview
Picture this: Salvador Dalí as a futuristic emperor, an obese Orson Welles hovering around in space, music by Pink Floyd and visual effects that outdo 2001: A Space Odyssey. Oh, and this would all take up around twelve hours, maybe even twenty. Preposterous? Impossible? Well, it only came this close to actually being part of film history. Upcoming talent Frank Pavich has made a wonderful documentary about it. Jodorowsky’s Dune is intriguing, inspiring, and above all immensely entertaining.
© damien rayuela
interview by laura van zuylen // review by fabian melchers // photo © damien rayuela // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 25
interview
FOCUS
the cinematic rebirth of alejandro jodorowsky
C
annes 2013 marked an enormously significant year for 84 year old Chilean auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky. The Director’s Fortnight featured The Dance of Reality, his first film in 23 years, which includes his sons in the lead roles and his wife as Costume Designer. In the same category American director Frank Pavich presented his documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, in which Jodorowsky recounts the tale of his failed, yet inspiring attempt to make Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi Dune. For Alejandro Jodorowsky, a director always concerned with a state of inner renewal, 2013 is the year of cinematic rebirth. Yet it was 1990 when Alejandro Jodorowsky released his last feature film, The Rainbow Thief. Starring Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif and Christopher Lee, it was undoubtedly the most famous cast that Jodorowky successfully assembled on screen, following his failed Dune project starring Dali, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger. However, The Rainbow Thief is generally considered a footnote of the Jodorowsky canon. The reason for this is that, compared with his seminal midnight movie El Topo, his transgressive masterpiece The Holy Mountain and his bloody, sexualised horror Santa Sangre, the film is less Jodorowskian in its vision and narrative trajectory. Narrative trajectory in Jodorowsky’s films has a very specific, spiritual significance. Stemming from his training with Buddhist master Ejo Takata, Jodorowsky’s films concern inner liberation from dogmatic ideologies, currencies, religions and sociological trends that contort the human soul away from its natural state of being. In El Topo we follow a violent and chauvinistic cowboy (played by Jodorowsky himself), who is reborn enlightened and learns what is it to love wholeheartedly. When he dares to take his newfound love out into the world he causes great tragedy; the perverted, discriminatory society from which he came is not ready for such a statement of truth. It is understood that while making The Rainbow Thief, the producers pressured Jodorowksy not to change the script, effectively crushing his directorial voice. If we can consider studio film production a dogmatic ideology, then producing The Rainbow Thief was a contortion of the human soul. As such The Dance of Reality is a significant spiritual moment for Jodorowsky. In an interview with FilmComment he said of the film: “It’s a picture I’m doing to lose money, not to gain money.” The film was funded partly with money Jodorowsky has saved over the last 30 years and partly with the help of fans, in a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Shot on the RED Epic digital camera, with a cast comprised largely of his family (his son Brontis plays his Stalinist father, with supporting parts for his other sons Christobal and Adan), The Dance of Reality is a modern and relevant endeavor for Alejandro Jodorowsky. That he has been able to assemble the project in such a personal manner signifies that he has been liberated once again and reborn like his transformative cowboy of El Topo. The film itself is a fantasy in which a young Alejandro experiences the repair of the troubling real-life relationship he had with his parents. It is the most emotional film of Jodorowsky’s career (with an aged Jodo narrating passionately) and indicates a poignant moment from a man who claimed to have bitterly thrown his address book into the sea, when he left Chile for France in his early twenties. And yet it is not just The Dance of Reality that captures Jodorowksy in a state of passionate rejuvenation. Emotionally affecting in a different way is Jodorowksy’s Dune, which captures Jodorowsky’s youthful intensity is on display perhaps more vigorously than ever. He recalls a time when he met with Pink Floyd, to propose they write the soundtrack to Dune. When he met with them they were eating hamburgers, which provoked Jodorowsky to swear at them and condemn their eating of big macs, when presented with his mind-expanding project. In rare moments Jodorowsky seems lost for words. When looking back on his failure he asks “why?” with sadness in his eyes, Pavich capturing his feelings as if filming an open wound. But the significant factor in Jodorowsky’s Dune is how the story of the making of Dune is more miraculous than most films. There is a cathartic power in the story, which is also utterly inspirational. Jodorowsky concludes that when you are setting out on an endeavor you should declare “yes! We are going to do it!” and when you fail you should proclaim, “yes! We are not going to do it!” They are wise words for a man in his 80’s who has just completed a feature after over two decades of trying. But Cannes 2013 also marks a new star born from the Jodorowsky family. His granddaughter Alma Jodorowsky (daughter of The Dance of Reality star Brontis) appeared in a supporting role in Palme d’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Colour. The bold presence of the Jodorowsky troupe in Cannes 2013 has been testament to the continued impulse for creativity, ingenuity and youthfulness inherent in Alejandro. Since Only God Forgives director Nicholas Winding Refn also chose to dedicate his film to Jodorowsky, it seems that for years to come the great transgressive director will inspire others to declare “yes! We are going to do it!”
text by tom cottey // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 27
nisimazine cannes 2012 // 29
The Lunchbox by Ritesh Batra India // Critics’ Week
In The Lunchbox two people from different class and backgrounds find in each other a confidant by an error in Bombay’s lunchbox system. Has a lunchbox ever has been wrongly delivered? I was working on a documentary about Bombay’s 125-year-old lunchbox deliverysystem and the statistics show that only one in a million lunchboxes is ever delivered to the wrong address. The procurers told me little stories about the houses where they picked them up and their occupants: one woman cooks something new every day, other´s smell the same every day. I got struck by the idea of an error in the system and realized: this would never happen, but what if it did. Simultaneously the question arose whether the delivery to the wrong address would be a mistake or a miracle.
The characters live in an environment with no computers and are text-messaging on paper, using these lunchboxes – in fact the film is quite nostalgic. Why is that an interesting topic for a young director like you? I am only thirty-three, but I think I am an old soul; all my friends are old. The idea of age has always fascinated me. When I was growing up I would go into the shower and there was as specific smell, spread by my father. Then two years ago I went into my own bathroom and I noticed the same sent. Then I realized how much alike my dad and I are. That is why more than anything else The Lunchbox is about time: the characters are reconnecting to their surroundings through nostalgia. In India things have changed so fast in the last two decades and we have not had the time to process that. These two people do not fit
The Lunchbox tells the story of Saajen (played by Life of Pi actor Irrfan Khan), a soon-to-retire widower who is disenchanted with life, and Ila, a lovely but lonely young housewife. Their paths unexpectedly cross following a mix-up in the busy lunchbox service, where Ila’s meal she prepared for her husband is delivered to Saajen’s desk. Through a series of notes transported via this green lunchbox, the two become unlikely confidantes, and soon discover that they have more in common than they might ever have imagined. The plot might sound like something straight out of a romantic comedy, and it certainly displays some of the common genre tropes. Both leads have their respective ‘sidekicks’, for one, who go on to provide much of the film’s comedic value. Saajen’s comes in the form of his new coworker Shaikh, an enthusiastic and eager youth who serves as an amusingly stark contrast to the older man. Ila’s sidekick figure is that of her elderly neighbour, affectionately referred to as Auntie. She is heard but never seen, a disembodied voice that frequently shouts down advice from the flat above.
The lunchbox-system is very specific to Bombay. Why are your creative collaborators and financial sources so remarkably international? Working with an international crew came natural to me. After growing up Bombay I went to film school in NYU, where I quit after getting into the Sundance Lab. The shorts I made afterwards travelled all over the world. For this film the economics were tied to the creative contribution. To be honest to the story, the lives of these characters needed to unfold slowly. Aesthetically that fits more naturally into the tradition of Europe or America.
As the title might suggest, food plays an important role, and not only in making viewers’ mouths water. It’s the primary tool of communication, both between characters and between filmmaker and viewer. The daily arrival of Ila’s lunchbox (and its contents) at Saajen’s desk doesn’t just allow for the pair to correspond, but it becomes a way of communicating Batra’s intent. The lunchbox is an emotive trigger, building tensions and impact, representing fears and signifying just how much is at stake in terms of the characters’ happiness.
The Lunchbox may take place in India, but the themes that lie at its heart are universally recognisable. Intimacy, loneliness, fear of change – the film never loses sight of these, but also delivers some hope in overcoming them. In one of the notes passed, Saajen muses “I think we’d forget things if we had no one to tell them to.” This film will certainly be talked about, but it’s unlikely that anyone will have trouble remembering this charming story.
The camera work and use of spacing really aid in highlighting the personal journeys that are taken, most notably in the scenes of Saajen’s commute. Close-up shots standing in the middle of a suffocating crowd progress to less invasive shots of him at the window, reveling in his newfound freedom. The bustling soundscape of traffic, children playing and men singing help to form a familiar and intimate taste of India.
India is marked by an explosion of sounds and colours and the professionals are used to an exaggerated style. So if I would team up with them, I would be working against the aesthetics they are used to. I did not want such a collaboration. In India we need to trust our audiences more: there are one billion people in India, and they will not all come to see this film, but we do have to start realizing that it is okay to make movies with a different tone and style. At the same time I think that, more than Bollywood, this is a story that might speak to six billion people: the locality and specificity makes it universal.
interview
into the present time; they are left behind.
While The Lunchbox undoubtedly gives a nod to the romcom, it steers clear of any expectations and doesn’t make decisions solely to cater the audience. It’s a credit to Batra’s direction and writing skills that we can care significantly about the characters and feel uplifted by them without the plot ever going down the traditional ‘happy ending’ route.
review
Ritesh Batra proves that Indian cinema isn’t all Bollywood with his debut feature, an uplifting indie film about finding solidarity and overcoming universal fears.
review by robyn davies // text by laura van zuylen // photo by lucia ros serra // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 31
Los Dueños
Special Mention
by Augustin Toscano and Ezequiel Radusky // Argentina // Critics’ Week
There is a certain film historic liability in making a movie about poor employees enjoying the benefits of an empty house while their employers are not there. Bearing in mind the huge footsteps of films like Viridiana or La cérémonie, the two Camera d’Or contenders Augustin Toscano and Ezequiel Radusky do pretty well in avoiding the obvious solutions and find an original take on the subject. Thinking of Argentina’s past one cannot ignore the resonating political message. The parable of the rich owners at a rural estate representing colonial power whereas Sergio and his working family represent the oppressed colony is a common narrative device in Argentinean cinema. The workers sneak into the house at night to have fun when nobody is there. They aspire to the decadent life style of their patrons. Though just as the calm lake with mirrored trees that
pops up in the film turns the world upside down, the film turns around this rather Marxist image. The newly-arrived daughter of the householder who is presented as a lonely nymphomaniac does not only bring much sexual tension into the family itself but also tries to seduce Sergio. Cleverly writte,n the film develops a mutual appetite for the live you cannot live, the man you cannot sleep with. In a memorable scene the sisters and the workers change their clothes to dance together. Yet the reality, it seems, is not as attractive as the desire for it. In there lies an ironical statement about class struggle and the ongoing crisis of decolonization. Within the first third of the movie you can hear animals in almost every scene which suggests that man cannot
escape natural forces. Although Toscano and Radusky have a theatrical background they capture this role-play of human behavior with pure cinematic means. The constant use of high contrasts in combination with deep focus shots that set the world of the foreground against the world of the background add to the experience. Nevertheless it is a pity that the film lacks physicality. Given the erotic tension that the scenes with the sister provoke, it would have been even more effective to be closer to the characters and their bodies instead of following this very conceptual approach. This is why Los Dueños ends up being a great parable with clever writing and directing but never really touches reality. Maybe desire is more attractive.
by Patrick Holzapfel
Nos héros son morts ce soir by David Perrault // France // Critics’ Week
In a bizarre union of black & white Nouvelle Vague style, Béla Tarr-esque dark irony and Lucha Libre style wrestling, David Perrault’s Our Heroes Died Tonight is a sublime, yet puzzling achievement that probably shouldn’t have worked. Despite being a filmic melting pot of references and ideas, it is an ambiguous but mesmerizing film that eventually defies comparison. Set in France in the early 1960’s, Our Heroes Died Tonight revolves around a wrestler called Simon. In the ring Simon wears a white mask and is known ominously as ‘The Spectre.’ When his friend Victor returns from the Algerian war, Simon gets him a job wrestling as his villainous opponent, a black masked brute named the ‘Butcher of Belleville.’ Actors Jean-Pierre Martins and Denis Ménochet bring muscular physicality to their roles,
yet there is an emotional undercurrent that contradicts their appearance; the frustrations and insecurities of both men are on show. The excellent supporting cast make up a tapestry of intriguing personas, from Simon’s Serge Gainsbourg loving girlfriend Anna to the otherworldly gang boss Tom. The film’s stark black and white photography (by cinematographer Christophe Duchange) perfectly underscores the elemental conflict between the wrestlers, but the film delves beyond style to look at the psychological effects of the Algerian war. As Victor’s post-traumatic stress forces him to see his villainous wresting role negatively, Simon offers to trade masks making Victor the hero. Gradually Victor overcomes his negative self-image, giving way to ungrateful arrogance. The film’s score waltzes throughout the narra-
tive in a hypnotic manner that at times means the film’s style smothers the impetus for plot. The film also utilizes visual motifs, such as a dream sequence featuring the black mask to lay Victor’s fears on heavily. However, there is something so enthralling in each of the film’s period framing of wrestling, the Algerian war and French cinema that it manages to transcend its faults. As the film builds towards its climax Perrault throws in an utterly bizarre character called the Finn, played by Pascal Demolon. His performance is delivered with such comic energy that he risks stealing the show, but the film’s dark moral ambiguity keeps us in a state of strange contemplation. Ultimately Our Heroes Died Tonight is an art film of the most absurd and entertaining kind.
by Tom Cottey
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 33
For Those In Peril
by Paul Wright UK // Critics’ Week
Stories and legends from the sea are a big part of the film, is it a cultural fact, specific to Scotland? I grew up in a similar village on Scotland´s east coast, so the ocean is part of my everyday life. I grew up with these stories and legends so the idea was to have a character old enough to know better than becoming obsessed with all those myths as a way to possibly get redemption. Those stories exist for thousands of years so it was interesting to take one of them and making it a part of the film, it raises the stake and it gives an epic dimension to the film, like heaven will return to earth if he could conquer this devil figure which symbolises the bad.
How did the idea came to your mind? Does it have something to do with a personal experience? It took me a while to admit it but looking back I have obviously used my own experiences. I grew up in a small village 30 seconds walk to the ocean, so it has inspires me in the atmosphere, visuals and sounds of the film. I lost my father when I was quite young, at an age you know what is going on but you can’t totally accept the finality of death. Why did you use all those different film formats? The simple version of the story is a love story, a strange love story between this two brothers, and I
post-traumatic stress to something more sinister. Flashes of surrealism do a more obvious job of suggesting his spiralling mindset, but it’s his interaction with others that proves more unnerving. From his painful oblivion to those around him to his inappropriate relationship with his brother’s fiancé, Aaron’s grip on reality slackens the more he participates in the real world.
Set in an isolated fishing village, the film opens in the aftermath of a tragic accident at sea, in which five young men have perished. Only Aaron is alive and, struggling to come to terms with the disaster that has also killed his older brother, he is both wracked with survivor’s guilt and suffocating beneath the dreadful blame that the entire community has placed on him. As his grieving mother Cathy watches helplessly, Aaron sinks deeper into the throes of mental illness. Fuelled by urban myths and fantastical legends, he soon becomes convinced that he’ll find his brother alive, and that he’ll return him and the rest of the men to the town so that things can go back to the way they were.
In many ways Wright’s film is reminiscent of Lenny Abrahamson’s dark coming-of-age drama What Richard Did. Both are adept at capturing a sense of place and community (Scottish and Irish, respectively) through well-considered visuals. They also share a masterful command of dialogue and vernacular, meaning we never doubt the legitimacy of the teens that inhabit these worlds. The structure and editing of For Those In Peril does an excellent job of supporting the film’s overall tone. It’s disjointed and claustrophobic: inserts of pixelated news reports and old video footage set against the grim seaside events, all very much reflecting Aaron’s state of mind.
wanted Michael to be a real presence in the film. So using these home made videos was very important to have him as a real character, not just talking about him. The use of those entire formats was a key for the film to fully explore characters and give a depth to the different states of mind of Aaron. And those different formats allow us to create sensory feelings that add an emotional intensity to the film. What are your first impressions of Cannes, are you happy to be here? Excepting the weather it’s great. But I’m happy to be here espe-
If there’s fault to find in Wright’s work, it perhaps lies in its attempt to maintain a dramatic, almost poetic mood throughout. The frequent internal monologues can at times feel contrived, and the tone sometimes pervades a sense of melodrama. However it’s all dedication to the film’s message, and the surprising, gripping final scene is a huge pay-off. This is definitely one to watch.
cially because the audience reactions are very positive. People are obviously connecting with my film, which is amazing. I couldn’t have asked for more as a starting place for the film and for me. It gives it a better chance of getting it out there so people can see it. It won’t be for everyone, but we hope it really has impacted the ones that have liked it.
interview
It’s an ambitious premise but Wright doesn’t shy away from it. Instead, he attacks head-on, determined to portray such emotional turmoil with accuracy regardless of the effect on the viewer’s comfort. It is a difficult watch – consistently grim without much respite, but it works. Particularly impressive is the subtlety with which we realise Aaron’s transition from understandable grief and
review
Paul Wright has certainly pulled no punches with his debut feature film, a surreal and mythical masterpiece that tackles grief at its very rawest. The Scottish filmmaker represented British cinema – which has been largely shunned this year – at the Critic’s Week strand of the festival with the bold and experimental For Those In Peril, a picture in competition for the illustrious Camera d’Or prize.
review by robyn davies // interview by leila hamour // photo by fernando vasquez // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 35
Les rencontres d’après minuit by Yann Gonzales // France // Critics’ Week
With his first feature Les rencontres d’après minuit, Yann Gonzalez goes on exploring his visual language in its form and substance. Borrowing a surrealistic logic, it is no surprise the script, with sex as the guiding principle, is as much improbable as uncertain. Following his last short movies intriguing atmosphere, Yann Gonzales takes us this time to Matthias and Ali’s apartment, a young couple looking for invigorating sexual experiences. In order to make an orgy, in company with their cross-dresser maid, they are waiting for their guests: The slut, the teen, the stud and the star. We enter in the film as in a dream, a dream where temporality is suspended. Matthias and Ali’s apartment, the main setting of the film, is reduced to the bare minimum: very
36 // nisimazine cannes 2013
graphic lights, mattresses on the floor and a table. It is as if the vacuity of the space was meant to be inhabited by the physical and emotional presence of the guests to come, while introduced by a sensory jukebox that plays music and phosphorescent lights, depending on the mood of the person that touches it. The low-budget aesthetic is clearly influenced by cinema bis, claiming its artefacts, its cheap special effects and it’s 80’s flashy neon lights. Though we can’t deny it feels good to see something different from the social cinema in which many French filmmakers have fall in, the mix doesn’t work: an oneiric nightmare overwhelmed by too many references where characters seem as lost are we are, using a language as coarse as poetic and as frontal as illegible.
The film could have been considered as a colourful and mystic journey into the characters’ unconscious, an intermediate place between life and death, a kind of modern Dante’s purgatory. Instead we feel like we’re coming right away from a boring collective psychological session, drown into a succession of references that brushes past plagiarism. If Gonzalez was clearly aware of the danger of falling into an autistic world with an abstruse language, unfortunately he didn’t manage to avoid it. We greet the audacious gesture that has nevertheless, an original and promising potential.
by Leila Hamour
During one Canadian talent panel talk at Cannes all three directors discussed and highlighted their shared experiences with community filmmaking and funding. They all praised the financial support available whilst also mentioning the difficulties. Robichaud talked about the “struggle getting financed”; the young filmmaker also shed light on the independent side of things whereby she used her own money when funding might have been too tough to acquire. In spite of occasional problems, Moneo recognised the benefits of Canadian funding. He asserted that, “Financing is difficult in Canada but I go to film school in America and it’s lot more difficult for them than it is for us. We know where we need to go to get a film funded but down there it’s all private investment so they’ve got to
Canada may be a much larger country than the USA but its film industry is far smaller. The aforementioned pie cannot feed all of the young new Canadian filmmakers as America’s often can. Not able to produce as many features, shorts and programmes as the US, Canada has therefore continually struggled with getting a wide audience. So close to a country famed with releasing thousands of box-office successes, Canada is still slightly overshadowed by its US neighbour. Despite this, however, every year Canadian cinema brings forth a new and well-received gem. As Sébastien Pilote was keen to point out, “For three years we’ve been at the Oscars for Best Foreign language film [War Witch, Monsieur Lazhar, Incendies] which is amazing for us being such a small province [Quebec]. So it’s an amazing time for Canadian cinema right now.” This string of critical triumph is not just limited to awards ceremonies either, and festivals all over the world are supportive of the country’s work. Cannes is one such festival, with this year bringing back Pilote, Robichaud and Moneo from previous years there, as well as several other shorts directors. Taking a trip to the Canadian pavilion in the International Village you are among not just two or three visitors, but scores of guests and talent. At the 66th Festival de Cannes the Canadian work aims to highlight the bountiful landscape and artists. All wanted to show their hometowns in their new films. Robichaud and Pilote within the Quebec region offer French-speaking dramas, straight-forward with their presentation of their homeland. Moneo, on the other hand, wants to shake impressions up as he ruminates that “people often think of rural Canada as this beautiful, pastoral landscape yet I’ve always thought of it as very strange and the people (even though my family’s there) very odd...[There’s] a slight mystery in that landscape that’s fun to shoot and fun to explore.” Showing or subverting the land of their country will doubtlessly aid Canada’s commercial and critical push forward – showing people the various environments for education and entertainment. In the end, the three directors (and more) are doing so exceptionally well with their respective films, extending the path Canadian cinema is taking to reach out to a huge audience.
by Piers McCarthy
FOCUS
For years Canadian cinema has been criticised for not embracing its culture and roots. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz starred American-born actors, The Statement in 2003 was lead by Michael Caine and a film like Porky’s is unrecognisable as a Canadian product. Some directors are clearly interested in venturing out but this year’s group of Canadian directors at Cannes are wonderfully in favour of their homeland for shooting. Robichaud stated, “I wanted my first feature to be set in my hometown. I wanted to show that landscape – it’s part of what I see every day” Moneo and Pilote added to this impulse with the former saying “I’ve zero interest in filming in a city or in America.” Additionally, Pilote supplied his thoughts about the advantages of his country’s film industry - “I was at Sundance at one point and standing beside an American filmmaker [and] I felt like a king because our country has such easy access to funding (even if it’s not always easy to get it). It’s a public investment in Canada (as it’s from taxes) but in America it’s all private and you have to pay it back or else you lose your house!”
put a lot more effort into trying to track down funding than we do. We’re definitely looking at a smaller piece of pie.”
a conversation on canadian cinema
W
hile the big studios of Western filmmaking are usually associated with America, more and more filmmakers flock to Canada. In the biggest cities – Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver – an increasing amount of films are being shot in and around the Canadian epicentres. With all the success the three big cities have had with industry business it does not affect the filmmakers born and raised in Canada. On the contrary, the work of contemporary Canadian filmmakers has gone against the fierce American tide and is always unique and personal. This year’s 66th Cannes Film Festival brings two Québécois directors (Sébastien Pilote and Chloé Robichaud) and one Saskatonian (Jefferson Moneo), all with work inherently native.
Shepard And Dark
Monsoon Shoutout
The first documentary feature by Treva Wurmfeld, competing for the Caméra d’Or, is a beautiful tribute to friendship. It tells the story of two pals, the playwright and actor Sam Shepard and the writer Johnny Dark, who have been best friends for 47 years.
Amit Kumar’s first feature is a simple yet convincing crime thriller with an interesting dramaturgic structure and popcorn effect. Rookie policeman, Adi, leaves home on the first day of his job. His mother tells him the devise of his deceased father: “In life, there are three paths, the good one, the bad one, and the middle one”. This will announce the unexpected and well-written structure of Monsoon Shoutout, traceable after seeing the crucial scene of the film repeating on three occasions (Reminiscent of Tom Tykwer´s Run Lola Run).
by Treva Wurmfeld // US // Cannes Classics
One of the main sources that the director draws on are letters exchanged and carefully collected. For 250.000 dollars Sam and Johnny give them to the Texas University, which wants to publish a book of them. Johnny, the obsessive archivist who kept the letters, recordings, photographs and any sort of memories on shelves, sorted into folders which he delightfully calls “books of people”. Sam, who always had a more or less nomadic way of life, brings only a box with a few letters. How does it feel to look back into so many memories? Was their friendship always so strong? Can we fix the mistakes from the past? Silent and hidden behind her camera, Treva Wurmfeld leaves the floor to those hilarious characters, who show real complicity and read out laud some
hilarious conversions they had 20 years ago. Knowing the lack of spontaneity that a camera can generate, the ease with which they reveal themselves is charming. Sam is the famous and confident playboy while Johnny the sensitive and truthful friend. Throughout the years they shared homes and lived like a family, and Sam even married Johnny´s stepdaughter. Yet, there are always two sides to every story. If their friendship is celebrated in the first part, the documentary takes us slowly to a darker side, where regrets and resentments take over. It´s here the film catches the real complexity of the personalities and seem to tell us that even best friends are never able to fully enter each other´s world. We are tempted to cry and laugh at the same time and for this exact reason this is a movie that all best friends should watch.
by Melanie de Groot van Embden
by Amit Kumar // India // Midnight Screening gangster runs away, gets killed or is only wounded? Is there a right decision for Adi, unaware of whether this man is guilty or not? The answer will come only in a surprising twist which shall not be revealed here. Each of the three stories unfolds Adi’s moral dilemma slightly differently, while including all of the typical elements of a gangster film: Good cop vs Bad cops, violent gangster versus young naive policeman, gore elements and cheesy romance.
Bombay is corrupted at its core, as the police-chief makes his subordinates look for a gangster-king who is well protected by the spheres of power. Adi tracks him down at his first investigation. One night, of heavy monsoon rain, he ends up in a dead-end street, pointing his gun at Shiva, one of the gangster-king’s soldiers, making a decision that will change the course of the events and his fate.
Sure, Monsoon Shootout draws on clichés but with a hint of derision that simultaneously conjures them up. It unites a thriller’s tension with colourful documentary-style images of Bombay that denounces, maybe a bit too obviously, some aspects of society: corruption, prostitution and misery. Yet, the film is not another Bollywood production, nor an Indian input to a society of casts. It is an honest entertaining film with great rhythm, a good plot and exciting action scenes.
What difference does it make if the
by Cécile Tollu-Polonowski
Bite The Dust
by Taisia Igumentseva // Russia // Out of Competition In this highly amusing and bizarre tragic comedy the 24 year old Russian Taisia Igumentseva portrays a village of just ten inhabitants where everyone is set in their own ways. Divorce, for example, is not an option, unless the locals move somewhere else. But then the apocalypse is announced. In this pressure cooker situation relationships shift and social boundaries disappear, as everyone is going to hell. But what if the end of the world never comes? The newly graduate Igumentseva won the Grand Prix of Cinéfondation last year with her short film Road to. Now she is back with her first feature film. She creates a forgotten microcosm, giving us no clear sense of place or time. In it she demonstrates a lively sense of visual humor. Her set designs are imaginative, showing for instance an iron that is also a radio and an aviator that has created a real life robotic-like version of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The obsolete technology, dingy houses and dreary landscapes reflect the sleepy lives of the villagers.
The black comedy acting style also fits into Igumentseva’s remote hamlet but unfortunately the stylization comes with a price. In its core structure most of the characters remain caricatures and only one of them has an intriguing personality: the widow in mourning, an outcast intellectual, who lives in a homemade movie theatre, with hand drawn pictures of iconic movie posters such as (the also apocalyptic) The Shining and Titanic. She might have a symbolic function, enforcing the idea of a pre- and after view on the fall of the Soviet Union, but in contrast to the others she has something much more forceful: she has the power to move the public. She gives this esthetic debut a soul and makes it a project that might be a valuable example for other young directors.
by Laura van Zuylen
Max Rose
by Daniel Noah // USA // Special Screening 87 years old Jerry Lewis has been brought back on screen for what seems like a last tribute from director Daniel Noah in his first feature film. The question is, what could have been more morbid as the story of once famous and now wasted diminished pianist who discovers that is dead wife had an affair during his only official recording? After his beloved wife’s death, Max Rose is surrounded by his overly caring and crying granddaughter and son. Alone at last in his house, he finds a message from another man embedded in his wife’s powder compact. His world falls apart and he begins to have hallucinations of her talking to him as he questions the meaning of their 65year union. Not one cliché about grief or regrets is eluded from this corny TV movie, as we witness a pale copy of the Jerry Lewis we once knew during a laborious scene where he plays imaginary instruments with his pals. The feeling of permanent embalmment is never
contradicted by any try in the story or the dialogues to lighten the subject. No subtext or metaphor, just plain boring aging chit-chat. As Lewis himself said at the premiere screening: “Is it my funeral”? Well, when the end credits finally appear, it definitely looks like one. Black and white archives show the young Jerry Lewis in recording sessions, only to cut to images of him nowadays. What could be more striking or painful to watch ? And what tribute is that ? What was Jerry Lewis feeling while watching this pompous end credits editing of his past life in the film theatre where the movie premiered? Mine was a feeling of embarrassment, and the applause of the audience after the screening felt awkward.
by Elisabeth Renault-Geslin
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 39
festival shorts
shorts competition
37°4 S
by Adriano Valerio France // Short Film Competition
How did this project come about? I heard from a friend about this island in the south Atlantic, called TristĂŁo da Cunha. It is a very remote island and it is where you have the most isolated community in the world, only 270 people. You can only reach this place from a boat that leaves from Cape Town, it is a fisherman boat that takes one week to get there. It was just very fascinating the way this people live in the middle of the ocean. I decided to go there because I wanted to have a human experience and a life experience and at the same time start to research to write a feature film about this island. I had a great time. I thought that I also wanted to shoot a short film, especially to understand how it could work. There was never a fiction film shot there before. What attracts you in the island? In a filmic sense, the nature is really wild and
you really feel the four elements. The sea can be so strong. I’ve never seen this before in my life. Also the volcano and the wind is so strong sometimes. You really feel the presence of the elements. You really realize that you are completely isolated, that your daily routine is so far away from you and that was something that I felt in my stomach, much more than in my brain. I also found it incredible interesting how this people are simple, in the best conception possible. They are so generous, doors are always opened. I realized that I think a lot on the theme of journeys or my themes are speaking about journeys. I think that I am seeing a generation of, especially middle class Europeans, that have a chance, thanks to the Erasmus program and to local companies, to travel a lot. In the past I believe that people were moving because there was a political reason to move, escape from dictatorship for example or because of extreme poverty or
Anne has decided to leave her boyfriend Nick for Great Britain, though the film makes us unsure whether her departure is in the future or in the past (flashbacks or flash forwards). Nevertheless the lyrical atmosphere is conceived by the clash between the voice-over and the photography. Voice-over is sometimes a weak storytelling format, but it works well in this case. We assume it to be Nick’s inner voice telling us that Anne has not left yet. Although the things said are down to earth, the words are recited almost as in a poem and absorb us in the closed community with a childlike openness and insignificant details, such as his plans to name his boat “G-Force”, after a Liverpool football player, or his grandfather love for golf.
song break up and from that moment on we get the feeling that he is mostly trying to convince himself: he keeps on repeating it is all going to be fine.
review
In a short that touches various cords, Italian director Adriano Valerio shows us a striking, intimate view on first love and pointless hope through the eyes of a teenage boy. A boat on a wild sea takes us away to the minuscule island Tristan de Cunha, surrounded by endless miles of Atlantic Ocean.
The cinematography conflicts with the main character’s predominately lighthearted tone. The images are documentary and hard colored and the camera displays him all alone in a dark-skied no man’s land. The frequent use of back shots, recall the cinematographic trademark of Béla Tarr, especially as Nick walks through a windy mountainous landscape. These shots send a similar message because they show a person moving but a life standing still.
When the two youngsters do appear together in one shot, it is shown like a memory. They dance in an empty pool, but their figures are blurry, as if they are ghosts. It feels like we are participating in a sort of funeral.These young people do not seem too excited about the future, but rather in mourning about the past.
Special Mention
The voice-over seems to be dictated by Nick’s favorite song, which is also about a young couple who have been together since childhood. Just like the song, Nick starts off hopeful. However, near the end, he tells us the lovers in the
How did you react to this selection for competition at Cannes? It was a big surprise when I got the call that I was in the competition. I was writing in front of my
computer when I picked up the phone. I know that every year they receive 35 hundred movies, so the first reaction I had was: “these people must be so nice to call 35 hundred people saying they were not selected” so I kept on writing. It is amazing for me because it is the place where you want to tell your story and it is a great audience from all over the world. On top of it I hope that it can help my project, because when you are chosen out of such a lot of people they know who you are. It’s a bit easier to speak about my next projects now.
interview
because they were aristocratic. Now many people, like myself, are living between different places and different languages. Then I see people, when they reach my age, I am 35, they start questioning their roots. In Tristan I discovered this attachment to their roots, to their family, to their place and the history of the island. There are so many exterior elements that are telling them to leave but they want to stay. Even after the volcano eruption they wanted to return.
© damien rayuela
review by laura van zuylen // interview by fernando vasquez photo © damien rayuela // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 47
Whale Valley by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmunsson Iceland // Short Film Competition
Do you like to shoot your own work or you are open to do other people’s stories? I started out as a screenwriter both in video art and fine art and then into screenwriting, and I really enjoyed the writing process, but I often thought about this, directing someone else piece and I would definitely do it. What is it about the process of writing that you like so much? It is an organic process, when you are in the writing stage you are working a lot with your own consciousness. You know, you have so much time and you are just by yourself developing. When you start directing
you have all this crew of people and you are all together and then that is nice as well. But I enjoy putting down words and choosing them correctly so they create an image in your brain, so people will see the film as I want them to see it. And maybe it could be also because I was a little dyslexic and I had a really hard time reading novels, but in a script is perfect for dyslexic people, because it is short and simple and then you have a lot of lines in between (laughs), yes the script format is great. How was shooting in such a remote location? The biggest obstacle was the weather, it was terrible the whole time. It
The visuals are made of rugged grey landscapes, beautifully shot plane surfaces, and an outlying Icelandic fjord where a small family lives. We discover this “shutter island” through eyes of a child. Arnar, a teenager, is hanging himself in a shed. Ivar, the playful and grounded little brother, medium of the film, catches him doing it and runs away. He runs after his little brother and makes him promise that he won’t tell this secret to their parents. They silently share a cigarette sitting in the middle of a plain. Back home, Ivar keeps his secret as promised, and goes to bed silently after having dinner.
capacity of conveying the feeling of a dehumanised world of deep isolation. At this stage Ivar can only get comfort from animals, from a dead whale to the horses that literally approach him.
review
Mixing tenderness and fragility with jealousy, admiration and common experiences is not an easy task, especially if one is to effectively stage the complicity of siblings on screen. In Whale Valley siblinghood is rendered through a game of silences, looks and the simple act of tenderness that embellish the end of a very touching story.
Whale Valley concentrates on the desolation and isolation felt by the young boy, who looks for attention by provoking his brother. He is caught in his game. This could end badly, and yet Arnar will save him. This shakes up both of them and unites them as brothers. And at night again, Arnar invites the little Ivar in his bed, a very tender scene which illustrates the power of their bond. This might be a detail, however it is a crucial one, which universally speaks to all of us who share the experience of having an older “sibling”
Special Mention
We get the feeling that Ivar is the survivor, the only one alive in this environment. On the following day, his father is sharpening a scythe: death is definitely wandering around. A stranded dead whale gives the occasion for an excursion and the beautiful wide shots strike us for their
Is there a big filmmaking community in Iceland? We have an old generation that I really respect and like but now there is a new generation standing up. It is a small country, so we get to know each other quickly, so I know Runar Runarsson (from Volcano, last year in Cannes) very well, we even worked together. I think it is easy
to have a chance to do what you want in Iceland, but it is probably easy anywhere now with the new technologies.
interview
was raining and really windy, but at the same time we knew that it looked much more beautiful in this terrible weather. We also spent a lot of time finding the right locations so we would only have to move maybe twice.
Iceland has just been through a turbulent crisis. How did that impact the local film community? There was an impact because the film fund was cut in half, but it also had a positive impact, a lot of Hollywood projects began to be shot in Iceland, as the currency went down and it became affordable. They kind of saved us throughout that period, and now the film fund has risen up again and it is looking good for Iceland at the moment.
interview: fernando vasquez // review: cécile tollu-polonowski // photo: fernando vasquez // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 49
Bishtar az do saat
Inseki To Impotence Condom Lead by Omoi Sasaki // Japan
by Mohammed Abunasser and Ahmad Abunasser // Palestine
Deep in the night a car jumps a red light. Are the people driving criminals on the run? Yes and no. It’s a young and anxious couple on their way to the hospital. She is feeling ill but not about to give birth as one might initially think. They know they have just committed an inexcusable crime which cannot be left unpunished in modern day Iran.
The nightmarish Meteorite + Impotence is so dense in symbolic language that it´s on the edge of collapsing on itself. The dark and threatening atmosphere is compelling, but the film is so abstract that finding what Japanese director Omoi Sasaki wants to say is demanding.
Brothers Arab and Tarzan deliver the first ever Palestinian short to appear in competition at the festival, a film about finding intimacy and hope in the most disastrous of places.
by Ali Asgari // Iran
At the hospital they’re told that she needs surgery but not without first showing their Ids: the nightmare begins. The two main characters had extra-marital sex and now run the risk of being arrested or having to call their parents. A sense of helplessness seems to triumph. More than two hours by Ali Asgari handles a very sensitive topic in Iranian society by subtly denouncing its pervasive patriarchal system. Sex before marriage is forbidden, and a woman must rely on her father or husband to lead her life in most senses. Greatly directed and accentuated by a nervous hand-held camera, the identification with the two protagonists’ vortex of despair and confinement comes shockingly easy, though Ali Asgari doesn’t fall in a trap of commonplace. As the noose tightens around their necks, their complicity does not crumble in front of possible heavy consequences and they don’t accuse each other or throw away their responsibilities until the very end. They struggle in a precise directed fight (which of course reminds of Asghar Farhadi) until the hopeless situation finally separates them. Flowing into an open and helpless end, this efficient and explosive short film is yet another great sample of contemporary Iranian cinema. by Cécile Tollu-Polonowski
To give a solid review of the film you might need to recap the movie frame by frame. This would deprive you the pleasure of getting sucked into the dreamlike world Sasaki conveys. So let’s stick to a short description. In the opening scene we see a man ashamed he is unable to have sex and a gigantic meteorite floating in mid-air above the earth in the next shot. Aside from the plot, which could be explained in many ways, there are recurring images of growing mushrooms. There is no point in taking all of this literaly. The film is not about a man being impotent in a world facing imminent destruction. It reads as a metaphor for a more universal message. Mushrooms are a symbol of long life happiness, whereas a meteorite symbolises inescapibility towards change. As in the film it is blocking the sky, it could be commenting on confinement. Yet, many other interpretations are possible. With an ominous soundtrack and almost no dialogue, Sasaki let’s his viewers chew on the strong imagery. Is Meteorite + Impotence a story of unconditional love in uncertain times of repression and restriction? No definitive answer is given, so it might be better for every single viewer to find his own interpretation. A question remains: given its opaqueness, will this film ever leave a profound impression?
by Fabian Melchers
Condom Lead, a title spun from the 2009 Israeli offensive ‘Operation Cast Lead’, focuses on a young family in Gaza amidst the throes of war. The husband and wife make desperate attempts to maintain intimacy throughout the disruption, but ceaseless explosions and a frightened baby render their efforts impossible. Their failings are visually represented through the rapidly increasing number of condom ‘balloons’ scattered around their home, one for each thwarted attempt. There’s a dark humour to the story, most apparent in the way in which the condoms, once intended for adult use, soon become the baby’s new toys. It’s dark and intense in general, with the majority of scenes taking place at night with minimal light. Entirely devoid of dialogue, the soundtrack is instead made up of the oppressive drone of helicopters and airstrikes, broken up only by the frequent crying of the child. It’s enough to drive you crazy, a statement that goes a long way in empathising with those living in constant warfare. For a film centred on such personal and national devastation, the ending is commendably hopeful. The change in atmosphere is reflected both visually and audibly. With a beautiful final shot, such a stark contrast to the rest of the film, the Nasser brothers succeed in delivering their powerful message: love can still exist in times of hate.
by Robyn Davies
Mont Blanc
Olena
Ophelia
We have seen the story told in Mont Blanc, directed by the young Belgian filmmaker Gilles Coulier, thousands of times: the last trip of a father and son in which they will reunite and reconcile themselves after a long problematic life. This premise may not be able to stand out on a short film selection as powerful as the Official Competition, but it is true that the sensitivity with which it is shot makes it worth watching.
Love is blind and 25-year-old Elzbieta Benkowska shows how it can blur our judgement. Withstanding a melodramatic angle, the Polish director makes us witness a turning point in the destructive relationship of 2 young Ukrainian lovers who travel from Poland to Sweden. Benkowska’s film is not a masterpiece but does have some great ideas on a visual level.
Annarita Zambranno’s short may be called Ophelia, referring to the tragic figure of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but the Italian director managed to make a film that is much ado about nothing. Two young boys find a dead half-naked young girl at the beach, pale with stark eyes. In a The Trouble with Harry sort of way they hide her, without realizing the outcome.
With glamorous and grotesque Cannes on the background, Olena underlines that the life of common people is intriguing and important. These two runaways are not distinguishing themselves in a remarkable way: they charm the viewer with realism. Naturally played, the actors subtly give us a gallant inside view. The personalities of their roles are mostly defined by their problems, so the viewer never gets truly involved. Too bad, because the film is based on Benkowska’s own experiences so the film could be a lot more captivating and personal.
This is precisely the problem: there are no consequences. Zambranno created a shallow, non-committal fairy-tale. John Everett Millais’ painting made Ophelia a symbol for the conservation of youth and beauty by death and it has been hinted in numerous ways. Lars von Trier did it explicitly in Dogville , The Antichrist and Melancholia; and Kore-Eda Hirokazure even more subtly in Air Doll, where the blow-up doll ends up lying in a pile of garbage.
by Gilles Coulier // Belgium
Gilles Coulier shows an astonishing maturity by narrating that need of an old man to see Mont Blanc one last time; a task entrusted to his son with who, we deduce, he has never had a good relationship. The van ride becomes a metaphor for the relationship between father and son, an almost non-existent one emphasized by a trip lacking communication and intimacy. At this point, Coulier doesn’t hesitate to use all the elements of cinema language at his grasp to develop this idea of distance: the use of de-saturated colours, general shots of a white and cold landscape as the one that surround the famous Mont Blanc and the most effective tool of them all, the exchange of silences and glances. The choice of the actors is the definitive game to make the story work. Both bring to life this father and son with rough and rural characters with a common feature: an ample beard. This shared characteristic is one of the most interesting aspects of the short film, giving a shivery contrast among both characters: the great abyss that is sensed in their relationship against the strong bond of being father and son. In the end, despite all the differences, they are very much alike.
by Lucía Ros Serra
by Elzbieta Benkowska // Poland
However that is forgivable as this short film is visually promising. The director sets her characters in a landscape dictated by train tracks. Olena’s world is not romantic pink or happy yellow, instead it´s colored green elements in costumes, environment and the whole shades of the picture. It shows the intoxication of love: when a final decision is made, the presence of green drops on the background, implying that Olena’s sight has cleared up. Not so much embedded in feminist discussion as much as in individualism, the film is a plea for making your own choices and acceptance of the fact that you are alone in the end. Having said this, fortunately Benkowska never gets cynical.
by Laura van Zuylen
by Annarita Zambranno // France
Zambranno’s Ophelia does not add anything innovative or valuable to the way the character has been represented in art and popular culture before. You could speculate that in here there is a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, since she is washed ashore and the sea is cinematographically emphasized. That would have been an interesting addition to the tradition; you could defend that this girl dies insane of sadness as well, willing to give her life for her love. However, since Zambranno does not expand this idea, it becomes just a fleeting association. She could have focussed more on the conflict between the boys or choose an unorthodox photographic style, but she neglects to take risks in any way. Ophelia herself would have done it differently.
by Laura van Zuylen
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 51
Safe
by Byoung-Gon Moon // South-Korea // Official Competition
It´s no real surprise to see Safe, by the Korean director Byoung-Gon Moon, taking away the main Short Film Award this year. This is a cleverly written and formidably acted tense affair, that will leave you on the edge of your seat, unlike much of the competition on display at the festival. The plot revolves around a young girl who works as a cashier at an illegal beating house, somewhere hidden in an unnamed Korean city. She is brave and intelligent enough to develop a scheme where she frequently rips of the costumers to the point of desperation. As such, her own boss showers her with compliments and monetary gifts, regardless of the fact that she is ripping him off as well. Her illegal actions seem to have no impact
52 // nisimazine cannes 2013 //
whatsoever in her attitude, until the day a frequent client loses his nerve and changes her destiny in a bloody rampage. There is no way of speaking about the main concept of the film, and it´s title, without giving away the master stroke Moon applies in the end, which deserves to be concealed and enjoyed on the big screen and not on these lines. Suffice to say that, most likely, the final twist will be a memorable one and repeated with regularity in the coming years. Moon exhibits the amazing sense of rhythm that we have come to expect from Korean cinema. The fast and trickery editing makes the plot flow into a progressively thrilling end.
Palme d’ Or
Much like Chan-Wook Park in the Oldboy trilogy before, he managed to recreate the seedy environment of the Korean underground and illegal scene with great skill. The sets, though simple, are effective in making the audience feeling the claustrophobic day to day of an illegal betting booth. The acting is equally noteworthy, with Minji Lee giving a great performance of a young and ambitious girl in not too pure scenery. Overall Safe is an exhilarating and electrifying thriller film from a young filmmaker that begins to show enough talent to leave his mark in the very near future.
by Fernando Vasquez
WORLDS OF CANNES:
peripheries, violence and subjective elevation Cannes is one of the most significant sociological happenings in the Western world. Here, the films presented are both witnesses and representatives of our times; as such, they are documents that deserve a specific analysis beyond the mere “x out of 10” judgment. Despite our survival to the long awaited end of the world, 2013 is again a year of financial crisis; with it, social discontents are sprawling, political extremisms are rising and the need to reconstitute a credible idea of democracy is urgent. Cannes is situated within this framework that willy-nilly affects the Grand Jury and festival organizers as much as the last person queuing for a film she or he will never watch. Restricting my scope of inquiry to 6 features, all made by European directors, I set the goal of finding potential recurring themes and more or less open references to this social climate of uncertainty. The films I analyzed are Salvo by Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadionia, The Selfish Giant by Clio Barnard, For Those in Peril by Paul Wright, Miele by Valeria Golino, Grand Central by Rebecca Zlotowski and Bite the Dust by Taisia Igumentseva. Below, a summary divided in three themes: The allegory of crisis: violence and chaos in the periphery. In the films, external forces control destinies in social groups removed from the so-called centers. Salvo is a tale of redemption set against the backdrop of an asphyxiating Palermo, a city told through chilling radio accounts, while Salvo and his Mafia boss are living “like rats, as this is our lives and we cannot get anything else”. The two British films, For Those in Peril and The Selfish Giant shockingly portray fragmented societies ruled by fear and violence. The former is set in a
Scottish sea village in which Aaron, only survivor of a shipwreck, is socially excluded and believes that “the devil [hidden in the sea] is inside everyone and everyone will disappear”. In the latter, Arbor and Swifty are teenage scrap-boys confronting the total abandonment from their families and the institutions in a dingy, post-apocalyptic English countryside. Miele, on the other hand, treats of people who willingly decide to die due to untreatable diseases; but Mr. Grimaldi asks Miele: “If the disease is invisible is it less worth it? … Today’s stupidity is inescapable”. More direct are Grand Central and the ironic Bite the Dust. Ms. Zlotowski tells the story of a small working community facing a poisonous nuclear power factory inexorably affecting Gary, the main character, and the surrounding blooming nature. Bite the Dust goes straight to the point when TVnews in a mini Russian community reveals that a “massive coronal emission” is just a couple of days away, and is predicted to wipe out 90 percent of humanity. The lone characters in search of meaning: Another trademark of these films is the focus on subjective efforts and the quest for affirmation beyond society. The protagonists of the films tend to be vessels of change despite their enormous difficulties in fighting oppressive environments and indirectly become examples to create a better society. Rita and Salvo belong to separate Mafia clans but they set together towards a journey of liberation from their ‘blindness’ as both have to fight established roles they absorbed and overcome the surrounding social paralysis. Aaron (For Those in Peril) desperately seeks his dead brother in an oneiric attempt to convince his fellow villagers that the town is cursed and that the sea can return its victims if the devil is defeated. Arbor and Swifty (The Selfish Giant) are determined in their desire to help their families and rely on their friendship in order to support each other face the world’s complete lack of empathy. In Bite the Dust and Grand Central the characters try to escape the impending threats by delving
into passions and love romances. The elevation from society: solutions derive from the exploration of a radically different existential plane, and love—and this is how these films propose a way out. Aaron is lapidary: “we all forgot how to love, how to dream. We need to go back to how it was before; we need to go back”. In order to save society it is necessary to embrace a new way of being human, to acknowledge that continuing on the same road is suicidal. The societies against which the protagonists fight are the result of the progressive loss of a human dimension and the eclipse into fear and cowardice. Salvo and Rita try to break free by discovering sides of themselves unknown before, and they ventriloquize directors Piazza and Grassadionia, who believe that change in society is only possible through individual infinite dedication and desire. Boundless friendship is also at the base of the turning point in The Selfish Giant, as Arbor manages to defeat the ‘Giant’ Kitten, the scrap dealer, who epitomizes the ugliness of a deaf and selfish society. Bite the Dust is ambiguous in its finale, although each character soon realizes that if the world is not over, certainly the “nearly missed” unleashed a stream of novelty in their lives. In the current circumstances, European filmmakers speak through specific thematic choices although their films all seem pinpoint the necessity of liberating individuals from the impersonal and oppressive arms of society, both physically and spiritually. Cannes might not be an exact barometer of the cultural status of Europe, however tackling film as cultural documentation might enrich the significance of an otherwise unidirectional reading of this incredibly dense film festival.
by Filippo Spreafico
FOCUS
cinĂŠfondation
ﾃ始 Acvariu (In the Fishbowl)
by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu Romania // Cinﾃｩfondation
While watching your film I got a sense of this very observational style that combines tragic and humor in a very innocent way. Is that something you aim for? I think that In the fishbowl does not follow a documentary style. I was not going for this. The shots are very long but I actually think it is something different. They way I approached In the fishbowl is connected to the story. From a break-up, to a make-up, to a break-up, to a make-up again you have to give the audience some time to be able to swallow all these kind of things. I tried to do this by using long shots and slow fades to black and I think it works. But it just came naturally. I looked at my notes with the anecdotes of my friends and I had these feeling that this could work as a story.
The focus of cinema lover Jurgiu is not on characters or feelings but more on the existential absurdity of an on and off relationship. He is not interested in subjective feelings or a melodramatic approach. It is more about giving the viewer room to relate to the different situations. Jurgiu tries to find a reason behind certain behaviours that many have experienced in their personal life. Compared to many other entries in the student film section In the fishbowl takes realism as a value as opposed to a style.
graduation film for Jurgiu and his crew. Long sequences without cutting, minimalistic yet effective lighting and the description of daily life situations shape the films coherent form. It is a distant, almost cold approach to a very emotional topic. Therefore the movie allows witnessing a neutral glimpse at suicidal and pubertal tendencies in young adults. Laughing and Crying, hating and loving go together in this film experience.
review
In Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s In the fishbowl escape seems impossible. His quiet and observational style proofs to be perfectly fitting as a counterpart of the emotional rollercoaster his characters live through. In undulations the story moves through the ongoing battle of a couple who love each other too much to separate and hate each other too much to be happy. Every time one of them decides to break off the other holds on to an almost lost relationship. The young director successfully creates a movement that resembles that of fishes in a fishbowl. There is no beginning and no ending to it.
Sometimes one feels that it must have been hard to capture such an enormous change of emotions in a short film and it does not come as a surprise that Jurgiu has been finishing his first feature film in the meantime. Yet, with In the fishbowl he allowed the audience to watch young people struggling with their lives, and in the most positive way you go out of the film theatre with a lot of questions on the film and yourself.
CinĂŠfondation 3rd Prize
Are stories of friends and relatives what inspire you most? Well, for my short films I worked like that. It is not that I gather stories or something. My method is just talking to people, recording discussions, recording them talking about everything. I research the internet and research You Tube. The hardest thing is that you get a lot of material and then you have to find the one idea that is really worth telling. Knowing that you just have finished your first feature film I asked myself if your short films helped you in directing your first feature?
Of course my shorts helped me. Even financially because it was much easier to contact producers and the same producer as In the fishbowl ended up producing my feature. And even though the feature is very different in terms of subject and approach from my shorts it helped to go through the experience of directing shorts. I still want to do them. I have a lot to learn. I haven’t found what people call a style yet.
interview
Nevertheless the realistic style of New Romanian Cinema is clearly visible in this
text by patrick holzapfel // photo by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 57
Seon
O Ŝunce
Waiting For The Thaw
A young woman takes her adolescent neighbour in after she finds him on the stairs of her apartment. He claims a turbulent family situation has left him alone but as she spends more time with him she begins to think there is another reason for his desire to enter her house.
When animation is hand-drawn in this century of prevalent CGI, the archaic style is nicely refreshing and nostalgic. Eliska Chytková’s O Ŝunce is a scratchy, exuberant and crazy short, etched with a rawness seldom seen nowadays.
Road movies come in all shapes and sizes: from hippies searching the American dream in Easy Rider to a clownfish looking for his son in Finding Nemo. Yet all have in common the fact that it’s not the destination that counts, but the journey itself. The setup for the subdued Waiting for the Thaw is similar; only this film´s length leaves you space to decide how the story can unfold.
by Soo-Jin Kim // South Korea
For a simple storyline, director Soo-Jin Kim piles on the mystery and a handful of themes to add quality to the lack of quantity. Within the parameters of short filmmaking he is clearly not fazed by the limitations of what can be explored. Seon will warrant multiple viewings, with each watch notifying you of another motif. The film achieves more tension than many feature thrillers. Perfectly storyboarded and edited, the film glides through its humble length, leaving you yearning for more. The casting of the boy, KyuYoung Choi, may be unsubtle at points, muddying the restrained ambience. Myung-Ha Lee, on the other hand, excels at portraying the confused carer, balancing fear and good will with finesse. Seon is more about the execution and craft of the film. Not only does it have the aesthetic attributes of a feature, it’s also advanced in its mise-en-scène and construction. Kim finely threads the fabric of his short, giving it great maturity and value. The lack of music aids the atmosphere. Not knowing what path the story may take is enhanced by no sound cues. Noticeable is the fact that the boy has no discernible features apart from his jittery disposition, altogether adding to the ambiguity of his intentions. You can create your own theories and pick apart certain shots; the puzzle of the boy’s being there is, by the end, wonderfully vague.
by Piers McCarthy
by Eliska Chytková // Czech Republic
Two of the film’s most noticeable facets are its animation and its mad story. The former includes bright and bold aesthetics, with emphasis on shape and colour. As the palette and dimensions are experimented with, so is the basis of storytelling. The film follows a little old woman who heads to the butchers to buy some ham. On her way she walks past a fountain whereupon two stone angels become alive and fly up in the sky. Up there, one angel – slightly devilish – starts playing God with levers controlling matter which back down on earth in and around the butcher are altering frantically. The action is incessant. The mishap at the hands of the mischievous “angel” is funny to watch, and the idea is quirky and cute, even if it’s not a seminal piece. The overall product looks like a series of mad doodles. As well as looking energetic, the sound mixing pounds through the speakers. The stereo recording of odd sound effects and voices is obviously less painstaking than the drawing, leaving all the technical proficiency to be found in the sound. Observations about everyday life are humorously captured by Chytková. Elderly women trotting along, silicon-injected models parading through the streets and scrawny slinky salesman all have such character, even if they’re only seen for a split second. She is playful with every figure in the frame; imagination clearly courses through the director´s veins.
by Piers McCarthy
by Sarah Hirrt // Belgium
The film introduces two brothers as one of them moves out of his partner’s house. Together with their sister they load his belongings into a van and take off. Victor is obviously struggling to reconnect, having not spoken much to his siblings while living with his girlfriend. His brother Valéry is worried about his extremely pregnant wife. Tension rises when the van breaks down, leaving the three in the blistering cold. This short movie is not so much about getting chairs and closets from A to B, but about frozen family ties in need of thawing out. Belgian director Sarah Hirtt has found a simple but effective way to show how rough it can be to deal with the past. By literally letting her film come to a halt, she poses an interesting question about the actual possibility of getting a relationship back to where it once was. While there is room for hope, it also seems unlikely that these characters - their lives having headed in completely different directions- will ever really fraternize like we’ve seen happen in numerous road movies. With little dialogue to use, the three actors do a terriffic job in showing this uncertainty, making this fine short film above all a very human and honest one.
by Fabian Melchers
Nisimazine Karlovy Vary Special 2013
Needle
Cinéfondation 1st Prize
by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh // USA // 1ier Inspired by the rich culture of children’s cinema in Iran, Anahita Ghazvinizadeh started to work on a trilogy of short films, of which Needle is the second. Originally planned to be shot in Iran and reworked the script to American voices, the events in this film seem unreal and detached, yet fascinating at the same time. Lilly’s parents are not exactly a match made in heaven. She is a teacher with a craze for cleaning and orderliness; he is a sloppy doctor who doesn’t really stick to hygiene rules. She sits up straight, wears gloves all the time and has an upside-down smile on her pale face. He awkwardly tries to communicate with her, but doesn’t succeed. The title of Needle does not refer to Lill´s peircings, as Lilly’s mom “needling” her husband about everything is the only ‘needle’ that really matters. The situation seems to make the young girl shy and introverted, while simultaneously longing for social interaction and recognition. The blue chewing-gum she sticks on windows and mirrors before putting it back into her mouth - knowing her mother is obsessed with hygiene – could be seen as a cry for the attention she badly needs. Needle presents a carnival of misunderstandings between Lilly and her parents, and Ghazvinizadeh beautifully shows the girl’s struggle with her parents’ fights. Her miserable stares seem to ask the audience to help her to get out of the situation. She looks straight into the camera with sad eyes, waiting for someone to finally understand her jokes, in which she reverses words to give them new meaning (park becomes krap).
by Kris Derks
Stepsister by Joey Izzo // USA
Though it has the makings of an amusing dark comedy, Stepsister unfortunately turns out to be a dime a dozen psychological drama about the fear of accepting change into your life, and having the courage to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of someone you love. With a few humorously uncomfortable moments, this film certainly has a nice, playful start. Set in sunny San Francisco, the story revolves around Anna, a young woman confronted with the fact that her stepbrother Matt is getting married, which means she will be on her own in the short future. Matt’s fiancée Beth does her very best to get things off on the right foot, but all Anna does in return is make sure her future sister in law feels as uncomfortable as possible. It’s a funny premise but unfortunately the situation gets turned upside down when Anna shares a secret that makes Beth hesitate about her soon-to-be husband. Is this is actually true? Or is Anna is making it up to get rid of the new invader? Without giving away the answer it is suffice to say that director Joey Izzo’s focus is not really on the plot, but on Anna’s state of mind. He delivers his message with subtlety, leaving something to think about for the audience, which is definitely admirable. Yet, once analysed it all feels like breaking through an open door. It’s understandable that Izzo wanted to make a universal movie, so in that sense it’s not strange he chose growing up and letting go as main themes. It is a charming film, while it lasts, but as soon as the end credits appear on screen all that remains is the feeling that it was all a bit too safe and uninspired to stand out.
by Fabian Melchers
Between the 28th of June and the 6th of July Nisimazine will be in the Czech Republic covering the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, one of the most vibrant and influential film festivals in Europe. Don´t miss a thing and keep your eyes open for another imminent ebook release.
www.nisimazine.eu nisimazine cannes 2013 // 59
The Magnificent Lion Boy by Ana Caro // UK) // Cinefondation
Ana Caro’s student film provides us with a heartwarming and slightly different look at the expectations of society, addressing the potentially damaging effects that could occur from passing judgment and fearing the unknown. When a gentleman stumbles upon a feral child during a trip to Africa, he is determined to return the boy to Victorian London to integrate into British life. But despite his efforts, the child is shunned by the general public, his unfamiliar and unreserved behaviour deemed more suited to a freak show exhibit than a functioning member of society. Bringing this boy into his world proves to be life changing for the gentleman, and a dramatic conclusion causes him to rethink his entire belief system.
With such elegance rooted in its animation style, The Magnificent Lion Boy could only have come from the National Film and Television School. The viewer is smoothly guided through a living and breathing sketchbook, constructed entirely from charcoal drawings but with almost photographic detail at times.The use of colour is also well thought out, and the palette transitions coincide with shifts in the film’s emotional stance to make it atmospheric throughout. The voice acting is of a high standard – as you’d expect from the likes of Hugh Bonneville and Andy Serkis. But the film’s strength lies in its plot. It’s a beautifully told story that succeeds in asking important questions about the obsession with conforming to the expectations of
others, and the sad yet peaceful note on which it ends is hauntingly memorable.
by Robyn Davies
Pandy
by Matus Vizar // Czech Republic // Cinefondation
Pandy is an environmental, dark, surrealistic analysis of the darwin theory. According to Darwin, species survival depends on their ability to adapt to their environment. In this hand-drawn animation movie, panda’s with purple tongues and yellow teeth are portrayed at the light of our modern and consumerist world. Once upon a time, there was a panda eating bamboo in a Chinese forest. A video game visual at the edge of the screen takes the pulse of its “Bamboo energy� left in his body. This permanent threat and the odd drawing style are palpable and makes one fear the worse. Indeed, the panda is sold and sent from China to a creepy Czech zoo, where bodybuilding tattooed dolphins stand alongside
captive half-eagles half-lions. This evil and smoky zoo has a taste of apocalypse, and for our panda it will be the place of long agony where zoo keepers feed them more with pills than bamboos. No voice-over nor dialog but a great spacy electronical soundtrack and very good sounds effects plunges us into an X-files Alien like paranormal world. Flying in a sort of semi conscious state, drugged by the pill, the panda is turned into a marketing product which sadly reminds of Knut, the over mediatised and famous polar bear of the Berlin Zoo. At this moment, the film turns into a psychedelic music video which makes one question the future of the species and the absurdity of a world that turns pandas into junkies.
If the panda seemed harmless in the beginning, it takes another shade in the second half of the film. As the rhythm and the music accelerates, the panda grows and colonizes the city. Eventually, the message of the film changes drastically: Greenpeace is depicted as a bloody terrorist organization while pandas become emotionless ogres. It is at this stage that it becomes hard to identify the good from the bad within Darwinism but it is definitely worth to go along in this trip!
by Melanie de Groot van Embden
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 61
Duet
by Navid Danesh Iran // Cinéfondation
How did you come up with the idea of Duet’s plot? It all started with one image in my mind: two women are facing each other, but every time one of the two looks at the other, she turns her head away, never looking in each other’s eyes. I started asking myself questions about the story behind this image. As I’m very interested in relationships between people, I decided the women where the lover and the ex-lover of Hamed, one of the characters in the movie. Duet asks questions like: Can we forget our past? Can we forget our memories? And more importantly: what should we do with our memories in our future lives?
What challenges did you face while making your short film? The process was very hard, because I had to shoot the film twice. The first time we shot 50% of the movie and suddenly the owner of the shop where the main part of movie takes place didn’t want to cooperate with us anymore, so we needed to find a new location. My crew worked very hard, especially the actors. They have been practicing for 40 days, 5 hours a day, before we started shooting. Also writing the script was challenging. As the five characters in Duet are all equally important, I needed to introduce them all in a very short time, with powerful dialogues that say a lot with little words. I ended up rewriting the script 23 times.
Although stories revolving around old lovers are widely portrayed in cinema, Danesh’s 24-minute-film sheds light on another story: The uncomfortable and insecure feelings a current partner can experience when they realize their lovers will meet their ex again after many years. These feelings are subtly portrayed by the beautiful minimal piano music that plays in the car radios of both Hamed’s wife and his ex-girlfriend. It obviously has a significant meaning to the people involved in this realistic slice of life, although we don’t find out why.
Persian culture is characterized by Taarof, as the art of excessive politeness and humility, which is also visible in Duet. When Sepideh wants to pay for the CD she buys in the record shop, the owner initially refuses to accept her money, but on second thoughts he gives in anyway. Whether or not Sepideh’s kindness towards her ex-lover is also an act of Persian courtesy stays hidden behind her headscarf.
Do you prefer to shoot your movies in Iran? Yes, definitely. Iran has many stories, because Iranian people are very complicated. This is highly interesting and valuable for good cinema. Movies such as A Separation also have very complicated characters. In the next years I possibly want to make a feature film in Iran, as already I have been offered to make my short Duet into a feature.
interview
What do you want people to remember after seeing your movie? After the screenings I asked some people in the audience to describe my film, and they actually told me things that were not in there. They filled in the plot’s gaps with their own experiences in life. This makes me happy, as my goal is to make people think after the film. I hope that when they walk out of the cinema and someone asks them about their opinion on the movie, they can’t answer because they want to process what they saw.
That is exactly why this short film works: We don’t know why Hamed and Sepideh ever split up, we don’t know what memories they have together, and we don’t know what will happen now that they meet each other again. But Danesh still succeeds to keep his audience involved as Duet makes you wonder about your own life and the people we crossed paths with at some point. Can we ever truly forget someone? Or shouldn’t we even try?
review
‘Around,’ is the short answer Sepideh gives to her ex-lover Hamed when he asks her where she has been all this time. The two meet each other in a record store in an unnamed Iranian city. Both married, they know that this rendezvous cannot mean more than a casual catch-up. The Iranian young filmmaker Navid Danesh captures their suppressed and forgotten feelings in his sixth short film Duet. Initially Sepideh is reluctant to open up to Hamed, but the few sparkles of recognition in her eyes give away her true feelings. Duet is an intimate short film, and the camera often closely follows the main characters in shallow focus shots.
text by kris derks // photo by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2012 // 63
Asunción
Babaga
Contrafabula de una niña dissecada
by Camila Luna Toledo // Chile
by Gan de Lange // Israel
by Alejandro Iglesias Mendizábal // Mexico
Chilean director Camila Luna Toledo focuses on a banal yet key worker in most organizations: the receptionist. This girl, Asunción, is even more unnoticeable than her job, with her colourless shirt and severe hair-do, held in place with bobby pins. Yet, transparent women have sexual desires too. Toledo shows a subtly, well-balanced, and a fearless will to be perverse, portraying how this woman struggles with being true to her religion, her job and her hunger for passion.
Babaga, directed by Gan de Lange is a short fantasy about a solitary female creature who lives in the woods. She has a pantomime face, with a long nose and chin and a birds nest hairstyle. The film is a carefully crafted work, but much like Babaga herself, it remains emotionally distant.
Cannes is no exception when it comes to the shunning of genre cinema, but there are exceptions. Contrafabula de una niña dissecada, by Mexican newcomer Alejandro Mendizábal, is one of those cases, fusing surrealism and social commentary with great success.
At the beginning of the film we see her creating a clay doll. She heads back to her home where we witness, in an effective and disturbing form, thousands of other voodoo dolls. Before long she uses one of them to resurrect a Young Man buried near her house. Babaga covers his eyes and gradually he begins to fall for her unusual charms.
Gizella, a young girl whose parents decide to organize a party for her 15th birthday, is expected to finalize with a memorable speech. Her upper class roots demand all formalities, but in this surreal environment, with the stereotypical presence of a dwarf butler and a unicorn, the experience quickly turns into dark, sinister and bizarre terrains.
In a country where Catholicism is still prevalent in society, Asunción is quite bold. She is asked to keep an eye on the security guard, who she fancies even if he is suspected of “inappropriate actions” with students. The director suggests that ingeniously: the skittish Asunción slides her fingers sensually on his security shack, notices some dust, and saves it in a handkerchief. When she lies in bed she tightly holds it in her hand. Most of the action takes place during the night. That seems logical, because darkness makes it possible to hide out and it is a sexual time as well, but at the same time it feels redundant and therefore a little cheap. The classical cinematography, however, works. To intensify the actions and to get us increasingly involved, Asunción is presented with a handheld camera and a lot of close-ups. That serves the obscene voyeurism, so Toledo gets away with it. Somehow Asunción recalls Ulrich Seidl’s Paradies: Glaube both of them show a self-mutilating and self-humiliating side of religion and lust. It is clear that Toledo still has a long way to go, but she made a good start.
by Laura van Zuylen
64 // nisimazine cannes 2013
The film is foremost a feat of production design. Gan de Lange who writes, directs and acts here also works as art director and it shows in her attention to detail in the prosthetics, makeup, set and locations. However, de Lange’s gifts for visuals overtakes her focus for structuring the narrative. The film assumes that we sympathize with Babaga for her solitary life, but that is not so easily achieved. Any backdrop to her predicament is shallow and the same applies to the Young Man who falls for her. Why is he so predisposed to treat Babaga with affection? This should have been explored, but we are left with a rigid emotional exterior that masks the emotive possibilities.
The conservative dinner party is turned upside down as Gizella´s body falls victim to a strange phenomenon that covers her in vegetation, while the initially formal dinner becomes a bloody feast, with the guests devouring the head of a horse like mindless zombies. The plot is way too chaotic to try and find symbolic concepts between the lines, even if they are evidently ever present.
In a climactic scene Gan de Lange suggests that the young man has found the beauty hidden within her; it is perhaps the most affecting moment in the whole film. The filmmaker has proven herself to be a visually talented director, but next time let´s hope for a bolder thematic approach.
It is not in the meaning of the story that this film proves itself a worthy. It´s great strength lies in the absurd ambience and stylish approach by Mendizábal, who recreated a series of unforgettable images that are both haunting and captivating. In a Roy Anderson kind of ambient, this film stands as a brave and uncompromising piece, where logic is swiftly replaced by the creativity of a filmmaker that brought the festival a healthy dose of absurdity.
by Tom Cottey
by Fernando Vasquez
All The Things
Exil
Going South
by Sebastian Schjaer // Argentina
by Vladilen Vierny // Belgium
by Jefferson Moneo // Canada
Argentinean director Sebastian Schjaer’s film, All The Things, is an austere and well-acted drama about misunderstandings between a couple. Reminiscent in part of Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, this is a promising drama that fails to utilise its short duration to the fullest.
The short movie Exil starts with the sound of the murmuring sea. It is dark, an immigrant washes up to the shore. He is exhausted. Next, we see the first hours of a black man on a Western beach; bewildered, alienated, disillusioned.
Jefferson Moneo’s love for his local landscapes is the unmistakable heart of Going South. There are elements that feel borrowed or imitated but the pictorial projection of his homeland is strikingly unique. The story concerns a young woman, Martha (played by the late Shana Dowdeswell – to which the film is dedicated) dulled by the rural, monotonous life she’s leading. One afternoon a mysterious man drives up to her asking for directions south. Seeing him she is overcome with lust and a desire to ride away with him.
The film begins with Luisa, tightly framed in a solitary tracking shot, entering a hospital for an appointment. She is visibly forlorn by the doctor’s conclusion, but assumes the façade of happiness when she returns home to babysit Diego´s nephew León. We sense that there is something preventing her from opening up to Diego, evoked by Schjaer’s shrewd, naturalistic blocking and shallow depth of field. In the evening, Miguel, a friend more keen on drinking and smoking, visits them. He prevents the couple engaging with one another, and he also occupies too much screen time. Schjaer could have used this time to explore the greater conflicts between the couple, which essentially hinges on Diego’s insecurity about her fidelity. Most central to the film are its performances, both solitary and intimate. When Luisa and Diego finally share a scene together in bed, Schjaer judges the details of their performance superbly. Their failing to communicate after a long relationship is distressing and Schjaer captures their stagnating ability to relate honestly with validity. The film concludes on a rare wide shot, which summarises the film’s theme of jaded romance adequately. However, this shot would have required a longer glimpse of the relationship; ultimately we recognise the tragedy, but don’t wholly share its emotional intensity.
by Tom Cottey
The young director Vladilen Vierny, was born in Russia, moved to Belgium, attended film school in Paris, and will be living in California next year. He must know what it feels like to be disorientated in a unknown country, the central theme of his 16-minuteshort. The immigrant in Exil is observed from a distance, the camera never comes close. Together with the eerie soundtrack this makes for a detached and alienated feeling that represents the immigrant in a foreign land, not able to understand the world around him. Kites, playing kids, old wrinkled women in bikini: everything makes sense in this scene, except the dark man wandering on the beach. Exil doesn’t have a plot. Rather it portrays the prominent black skin on a white men’s beach full of western faces, and at the same time the invisibility of a person that doesn’t belong. At night, the immigrant sleeps in the middle of the beach. When morning light dismantles the scene, we see the man lying on the cold sand, hugging a coca-cola bottle. Despite the fact that he unintentionally seems to embrace Western capitalism, a car brushes past him. He is still invisible.
by Kris Derks
With Moneo juxtaposing the notion of “home sweet home” with his location work and the protagonist’s yearning for escape, Going South is slightly confused with its message. The negative representation of the area is undoubtedly revolved around the people that inhabit it – the Canadian version of rednecks – yet contrasted with the sheer beauty of the surroundings. In the end it seems to largely promote Canada, rather than just devaluing one province. You instantly feel the isolation of the prairie town, with some static shots that hold you within the barren environment. Further to that the cinematography, that includes dazzling shots of skylines, envelope the frame in whiteness or darkness always firmly planting you in the moment. Taken as a negative or positive point, the characters also enable you to feel familiar to the trashy and unexciting locale. As an auteur Moneo is building up an interesting collection of country-based stories. Going South is nothing special in narrative terms but it is well edited and beautifully shot.
by Piers McCarthy
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 65
FOCUS // Crowdfunding Unlike the directors who stay in $900-pernight rooms in the beautiful hotels that line the Boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes, the 36-year-old American director Jeremy Saulnier is crashing with his producers and crew at an apartment they found online near the train station. Their crowdfunded movie Blue Ruin was accepted to the festival, bringing their team of young filmmakers to the Riviera. They represent an approach that is increasingly seen at a festival whose films are generally financed with comparatively exces-
sive budgets by Hollywood studios, foreign distributors, rich investors and government film funds. Saulnier and his crew raised more than $27000 on the popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. According to Kickstarter, around 10% of the films accepted into the Sundance and Cannes film festivals last year were funded this way. Also in this year’s selection, several movies are –partly- funded by online donations.
short films Crowdfunding, where large numbers of people donate small sums of money to a project, helps filmmakers raise money without the urge for them to go to Hollywood. Or at least, most films that are currently funded in this way only need small budgets. The number of fruitful campaigns drops significantly every couple thousand dollars you climb. In 2011, there were 1084 successful short film productions funded on Kickstarter. The $1000 – $3000 budget range dominates with 371 (34%) of the total amount of money. But crowdsourcing your film brings a gain that isn’t only financial. Minor investors are not only euro’s, but also eyeballs. Their interest generates early onset marketing. While many people might give little money to a friend’s Kickstarter-backed film, such a donation is–more often than not–a show of faith in an unproven product.
hollywood Will we also see Hollywood studios dip their toes into the crowdfunding waters? Perhaps. The American independent film production and distribution company Troma turned to its fans online for funding, and the campaign to front a movie based on the television show Veronica Mars through crowdfunding broke records for the fastest project ever to raise $1 million on Kickstarter. The first day brought in $2.5 million. But for now, the ‘Veronica Mars’ case seems to be an exception to the rule and it is unclear whether that method is going to work outside of a particular set of circumstances. Even the creator of the series, Rob Thomas, expressed doubts, attributing the success of his campaign to the fact Veronica Mars is a brandname product people want to see. Even if a feature film raises enough money, one can question its later success. Raising money through crowdfunding has the potential to cannibalize possible box office for fan-projects like the Veronica Mars movie. Sponsors are the main audience, so while a project like this may raise enough cash to get made, there are no guarantees that the actual film will really make a profit. Besides, the herd mentality of Hollywood will mean more projects, but it will also mean the success rate
will probably go down over time. The longer crowd funding exists, the more prevalent its usage becomes, and the easier it is to become ignored. This reminds us of the early 90’s independent film boom: when there were less people making these movies, it was easier to get attention, but an increasing number of filmmakers making low budget independent films, it requires more to get attention. Nevertheless, there are other potential avenues for big budget films to make use of crowdfunding. The crowd sourced budget can be used as seed money to attract further investment from studios and producers. A high-profile Kickstarter campaign would demonstrate that the project has sufficient interest to be a lucrative initiative. For a studio like Warner Bros the real value of a Kickstarter-funded film is much stronger, as it provides much more reliable data than a survey asking whether one would like to see Veronica Mars made into a feature film.
equity crowdfunding Until now, Crowdfunding has worked through a rewards-based system: People donate to film projects and get rewarded by for instance onscreen credits. But equity crowdfunding sells small amounts of equity to many investors, and allows investors to see a return on their money. This hybrid between Kickstarter and private investment could in turn increase the amount of crowdfunding coin available to filmmakers. In Europe, 15 per cent of all platforms focus on crowd-investing, whilst in the US this system is still illegal. The JOBS act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act) should make equity based crowdfunding possible in the US by removing the ban on publically seeking investors in the near future. This will pave the way for funding portals to start equity-based crowdfunding, giving more startups an opportunity to find a place to raise capital. Whether crowdfunding will truly become an important necessity for future filmmakers is still up for grabs. But in Cannes the young filmmakers, thanks to the democratizing advantages of crowd-funding and lowbudget equipment, are creating inroads in what has traditionally been a club for elites.
by Kris Derks
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 67
Quinzaine shorts
ILLY Short Film Award
Gambozinos
João Nicolau // Portugal // Quinzaine
review
Portuguese director João Nicolau is no newcomer to the Director´s Fortnight. Gambozinos is already his third short to be screened in this section. This year he presents a movie about the everyday struggles of a little boy in a summer camp. While his hero feels a close connection to nature and its creatures, the summer camp activities are a bore to him. João Nicolau visualizes the difference between these two surroundings by contrasting the greens and browns of the forest with the candy colored interior of the camp facilities. While the outside offers peace and security to the hero, the inside is a place of constant struggle. On the one hand the supervisors seem to infantilize the kids with oversimplified games and a clownish attitude. On the other hand the protagonist has to face “grown-up” problems like trying to get the attention of his crush or defend himself against bullying teenage boys. In Gambozinos the author is not telling a story, but rather offering what appears like a photo album, depicting different scenes of his hero’s summer holiday: boys sitting by the pool, children playing
bingo, the hero enjoying the peace and quiet of the garden. The static frames and sparing use of dialogue underline the impression that this is more a series of animated photographs than a movie. Yet there is more to João Nicolau’s film than just a look at an arbitrary summer camp. He starts with an almost fairy tale like scene in which his hero discovers a mysterious wild creature in the nocturnal forest which becomes his – maybe imaginary friend. While the little boy doesn’t socialize with the other kids, the mysterious being seems to give him the strength to meet the challenges camp life has in store for him. Unfortunately João Nicolau wants to put too much into this visually appealing short. It’s a story about first love as well as standing up to one’s enemies. In addition to that, the fairy tale like plot never really blends in with the realistic part of the film and therefore leads to confusion, making it hard for the viewer to connect with the story and its hero.
text by sophie charlotte rieger // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 71
Man kann nitch alles auf einmal tun, aber man kann alles auf einmal lassen.
by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo // Switzerland // Quinzaine In Mann Kann Nicht life is a book in the first person that articulates around the key moments of the narrator’s childhood. From her conception to her puberty a women’s voice tells with the same pure and powerless tone her version of the story.
in, but the tone and the dark random choice of pictures make’s one feel that life is imperfect.
Even though told in the first person, the girl growing up isn’t the main character of the film. Her mother and father pull the strings of her life which is emphasized by the neutral tone. In happy like tragical moments, the girl just endured her parent’s idea of education, regrets and frustration.
The choice of archives works at some point but becomes distracting; the abrupt editing of images and sound makes it difficult to follow. The author seems to help us from becoming too familiar with the main characters. Her film is less fictional than political and the childhood is less the topic than adventure: Have no regrets and make your own experience.
Using anonymous archive pictures of Swiss television, Marie Elsa Sgualdo seems to create a distance between the personal story that is being told and the real purpose of the movie. Behind the words, behind the black and white shots of the everyday life Switzerland after WWII, the author speaks for more than a single soul. Chapter after chapter, song after song, the Switzerland of the 50’s is depicted as a bucolic environment to grow up
Dreams are balanced by responsibilities, and the irrational love for the absent mothers grows.
The combination from archive, voiceover and a soundtrack works well but seems sometimes confused and leaves a lot of directing questions open. If probably not for everybody’s taste, the film can find its place within the art house community.
by Melanie de Groot van Embden
O umbra de nor
by Radu Jude // Romania // Quinzaine
Everything about O umbra de Nor by Radu Jude feels as if it was filmed the very moment it happened. Following the priest, Florescu, who visits a family he knows due to the imminent death of the young mother, the film develops many stylistic devices that have helped to establish Romanian Cinema as one of the most important Filmmmaking centers in Europe. The family expects something of the priest he cannot deliver: A miracle. There is nothing special about the daily routine of Florescu. During the first minutes Jude presents the priest as a regular man, wearing plain clothes and driving through the city. The director does not explain the behind his limp, nor does he judges the behavior of any character. The camera is only interested in the movements and actions of Father Florescu. The focus is on the very essence of the struggle a human being has with such a job. Jude finds the essence in the tiny little details, the moments when nobody else is watching.
Satirical and humorous elements exist in the midst of the grayness and gritty realism. As the priest begins to recite a prayer for the dying soul he gets interrupted by the family. They tell him that the mother does not want to die and therefore he should make another prayer. The uncomfortable situation that follows could be right out of a comedy. The film touches many different topics like religion or family but does greatly in leaving them open for viewer’s judgment. Nevertheless O umbra de Nor cannot be considered to have a completely neutral take on its themes. The redundancies of the endlessly repeated prayers that favor routine as opposed to personality give an almost sarcastic view on religion. Yet, the film is carried by its main character who suffers during his job, just as anyone else. There is no ideology to it. It is just a life and this is what Romanian Cinema and Radu Jude’s O umbra de Nor succeed heavily in catching.
by Patrick Holzapfel
Solecito
by Oscar Ruiz Navia // Colombia // Quinzaine
Léaud was 14 at that time, full of energy, skipping school to go and do the casting, and was of great inspiration for Truffaut. Similarly, the two young teenagers that Ruiz Navia recruited from a local school might as well have been of similar inspiration. In Solecito, the castings of Camila and Maicol are followed by a staged meeting which is partly fictional and partly documentary. The two teenagers alternate each other in front of the camera, answering with frankness to the director’s questions, the voice behind the camera. Where are they from? What are their hobbies? It does not take long before Camila starts telling the story of her last relationship. The director asks about details, about their break up. Right after, it’s Maicol´s turn. He is Camila’s young exboyfriend. What if? What if the director tried to bring them together once again by letting them play side by side?
Fade to black. Titles. The two initially do act. They are not speaking naturally, probably feeling the pressure of the nearby and ever present camera. Gradually it happens: enveloped into their own role, reality magically emerges to offer us the sweetest of bad images. It does not really matter whether Solecito is completely staged or is it a faithful documentary, and whether Oscar Ruiz Navia had already developed the story before interviewing them in the first place. By bringing casting, real story and fiction together, he delivers a touching film while experimenting with form, all the while maybe managing to bring these two young lovers together again.
by Cecile Tollu-Polonowski
Swimmer
by Lynne Ramsay // UK // Quinzaine One of the most anticipated shorts to feature at Cannes this year comes from UK director Lynne Ramsay, who most recently achieved great success with her feature adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). The film in focus here is Swimmer, an impressionistic look into the mind of a young endurance swimmer as he makes his way through British waters. The film is about as experimental as they come, favouring a strange and intrusive sound design rather than any real dialogue (save for snippets from British films, including Lord of the Flies and the Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner). The visuals are beautiful, if not claustrophobic, framing the lone swimmer against a rural backdrop shot entirely in black and white. The attempt to delve into the thoughts of this athlete on his arduous journey is certainly an effective one. We experience his feelings of self-consciousness, wishing to be invisible as he lurks beneath the surface and glances at disembodied feet on the riverbank. We get an invitation into his physical
pain, visualised through a defensive attack from wild children, one where screams become muscle aches and arrows are lactic acid. The sense of isolation is overwhelming, embodied in a single shot of the swimmer floating alone in the middle of a lake, the presence of unfamiliar and disconcerting noise constant. But while this feat of physical endurance is something to be admired, the endurance of the viewer is not so impressive. The techniques that work for 4 or 5 minutes simply don’t work for 16, no matter how accurate the portrayal. The length of the film seems somewhat self-indulgent, too focused on pure experimentation and lacking any real substance. There’s no doubt that Ramsay is an accomplished filmmaker, but Swimmer is avant-garde to excess and fails at sustaining focus.
by Robyn Davies
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 73
FOCUS // The role of Cannes in breaking away with sexism in cinema In 2012, there was a lot of talk about the conspicuous absence of fe-
I used my first visit to the French festival to investigate the alleged
male directors in the main competition of the Festival de Cannes. Back
sexism in Cannes.
then, the French feminist group La Barbe launched a petition in which
The first step was to detect the people in charge of the Official Selec-
they accused the festival of reducing women to their appearance,
tion. An inglorious task to begin with. Unfortunately there is no transpar-
serving as mistresses of ceremony or walking the red carpet in sexy
ency concerning the selection process. The festival homepage does
dresses, instead of being invited as filmmakers. “There is no doubt
not provide any information on the responsible committee. Neither does
that greater space needs to be given to women within cinema”, Thierry
the press office or anybody else that I talked to in this matter. I was
Frémaux responded to these accusations. “But it’s not at Cannes and
advised to write to the head programmer, Mr. Frémaux himself, and ask
in the month of May that this question needs to be raised (…).” He fur-
him about the selection process, but he never wrote back. Truth that
thermore assured the protestors that he would never choose a movie
secrecy is important to avoid external pressures during the selection
on the basis of the director’s gender.
process, but why else is this such a secret? Is it because transparency would reveal that an all male committee complacently assembles a
Yet, what can we make of this promise, given the fact that in spite of all
male dominated selection year after year?
the criticism concerning the 2012 selection there was only one female director, namely Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, in this year’s main competi-
Even if that is the case it doesn’t serve as an answer for the general
tion? Do we have to accept that there are just not enough female film-
question about the lack of female directors in Cannes. The problem is
makers out there or rather that the movies they produce lack the quality
way more complex and to fully understand it we have to take a step
to be screened at a major festival? I don’t think so. So because I don’t,
back and take a look at popular culture in general. Sexism is still om-
nipresent but mostly invisible. The big feminist
consequence lack the “wide audience appeal”
battles have already been fought – and won
and rather fit the description of having an “origi-
– but our media abounds with sexist images
nal aim and aesthetic”.
that we rarely recognize as such. In film we are so used to certain ways of storytelling and the
When Thierry Frémaux says that sexism in
“male gaze” that we just perceive them as being
the movie industry and cinematic culture is not
“normal”.
something you can change in Cannes he is probably right. To detect and get rid of sexist
Talking to female filmmakers in Cannes I
structures in popular culture will be a long proc-
realized that even though they rarely feel the
ess and require our full attentiveness.
responsibility to do so, they choose to tell stories in a different way. Like Canadian filmmaker
“Everybody has this idea about the male artist”,
Chloé Robichaud: “There are not a lot of films
female director Ninja Thyberg says, “It’s hard
with women that are in from the beginning till
to find one reason, but it’s something that goes
the end”, she says, talking about the protagonist
through so many levels of the whole society.” To
of her movie Sarah Prefers to Run. “Sarah is
underline this argument she points out that the
everywhere in the film. And she is really differ-
Discovery Award of the Semaine de La Critique
ent from what we know about women in films.
which provides the winner with – and this is a
There is no cliché of femininity.”
quote of the official website – “8 000 Euros to write his first feature film“.
Breaking with the rules of storytelling – constructing narratives around a female hero or
Having said this, female presence at the festi-
disrupting prevalent gender stereotypes – is not
val this year was considerable at other levels,
accordant with our viewing habits and there-
with women, such as Jane Campion, Isabel
fore makes a movie appear “different”. On the
Coixet and Agnès Varda, among others, assum-
homepage of the Festival de Cannes, the main
ing key positions in the different juries.
competition is described as “auteur cinema with a wide audience appeal”, while the section Un
Festival programmers cannot change the
Certain Regard is said to include movies that
world, but they can play a vital part in question-
have an “original aim and aesthetic”. Given the
ing general modes of perception. As the most
described tendency that women directors dis-
important and influential film festival in the
tance themselves from mainstream cinema, it is
whole world, Cannes does have a responsibil-
actually no surprise that only one of them ended
ity to look into the future rather than to confirm
up in the main competition whereas almost half
the status quo over and over again. Doing its
of the contenders in the Un Certain Regard sec-
best to include more female filmmakers is part
tion were female.
of that. If Cannes doesn’t lead the way towards a cinematic future devoid of sexism, then who
As long as mainstream cinema is dominated by
will?
male directors, male writers, and male producers, female directed movies will be different, in
text by sophie charlotte rieger // nisimazine cannes 2012 // 75
critics’ week shorts
Come And Play by Daria Belova Russia / Germany // Critics’ Week
What was the starting point for Come and Play? It all started with this feeling that you have when you are in Berlin. In the first years, it’d really hit me. I would always feel it, it was striking and shocking. Maybe it is also because I’m Russian: we grow up with war literature, war films. It is a very important element for us. At night, in Berlin, you step out of a bar and then you see the name of the street...directly a picture strikes up of what was there before: you can imagine where the army was standing, the tanks, etc. There are many bullet shots and marks of WW2. All the trees and buildings are the same than back then, they saw it. And now in the present time they see you. What would they have in mind if they could tell something? And at the same time everything coexists with party and artistic life. The other starting point was something visual: a picture of a tree and Grisha doing a handstand.
A lonely child plays in a park with a false gun to an imaginary “war game”, when suddenly his imagination becomes real, delivering him to the tanks and the explosions in an apocalyptic Berlin, where borders between past and present no longer exist. The first images of the short film show the main character, Grishka, drawing a child on a steamed window, which under the effect of the air fades away: a premonitory disappearance that signs the end of innocence. Visions of War spring from everywhere. Soldiers, a ground covered with dead bodies, Grishka seems locked up in the past of the city: powerful black and white war imagery spreads under our eyes that seem to be coming straight from Second World War archives.
the same height as Grishka, unveil a threatening and dominating nature.
review
Daria Belova is a Russian director who settled in Berlin a few years ago. This is undoubtedly the starting point of her award winning short film Come and play, which recalls her memories and first impressions on her arrival in the German capital.
The horror of the war superimposed on the violence of human relationships condemns the little boy to humiliation and dehumanization. No matter where Grishka runs to, each place leads him further into the absurdity of the war, like this man who literally tries to go inside a wall. As for this man and the Loreley which Grishka recites the poem at the beginning of the film, there will be no exit for him, except death.
Through a poignant and beautiful aesthetic, obviously inspired by Tarkowski’s Ivan’s childhood, Belova depicts Berlin as a symbol of the painful history of humanity. She carries out a very dark reflection on the weight of history on humans beings: the story of a city taken hostage by a past that does not let go.
Discovery Award
The frequent return to panoramic and long side dollies in the park plunges us into a labyrinthine space where the trees, shot with a long angle at
How did you work with the quotes? For example, to me,
the scene with the hands on the tree relates to Cocteau? The hands on the trees and Cocteau? It was unconscious, we were shooting and this idea came to me, I did not think about it while doing it. Afterwards, you can also see Polanski and Repulsion in it. It was important for me to work with quotes of black and white films about the war and its perception through children´s eyes. I was thinking of Paesa, Ivan’s Childhood etc. I wanted to follow these films at the beginning, on a visual aspect, and then to break them from the inside.
interview
How did you develop the ‘script’ and the structure of the film? The visual part is essential to me. Generally when I start writing a script, I write very visually, I don’t begin with a story. I come up with small visual situations that I wrote down together with camera positions. They grow and unite in the film. I had many images coming separately. I assembled like a mosaic. I wanted to create a dream or a memory: Many layers are not clear or very logically related, but it all stays together.
interview cecile tollu-polonowski // review by leila hamour // photo elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 79
Pleasure by Ninja Thyberg Sweden // Critics’ Week
Why did you choose to make a movie about a porn shot? I’ve been interested in the porn industry for a long time (...) I studied a lot of porn on YouPorn, which is the biggest website for free porn. Then I was really curious about those people. Who are they behind the stereotypes? (…) And also I particularly like to work with power in relationship to the body (…). I’m really interested in exploring identity, sexuality and group dynamics. So porn is a very good subject. The coloring of your movie is almost porn-style, really bright and shiny. Why did you choose this style? The most important thing for me was
not to make it dirty, because I think that is the way porn has been treated in movies most of the time. It has been depicted really rough, dirty and grainy, with a shaky hand camera kind of feeling. I really wanted to do it totally different (…) and to flirt a little bit with the audience, to make them want to see it by using nice colors and a shiny, glossy surfaces. How did you find your actors? I had very long casting sessions in different cities in Sweden. But I found both Jenny and Christian, who play the male and female leading roles by putting out an ad on a website for actors. (…) There were a few people who had been in porn that contacted
Nevertheless her decision seems drastic and not fully thought out and at points she appears to be overwhelmed by the task at hand. Her male co-star tries to discreetly talk her out of it through flirting and appealing to the
me and wanted to be part of it, but I didn’t want that because then I wouldn’t have been able to talk as openly about my opinions on the porn industry. Can you picture yourself doing something more explicit? Definitely. I want to do a feature on the same subject in which I would like to show the sex scenes as well. In the short there are no sex scenes, just the preparations. (…) I’m thinking, maybe you could do a really good animation to make it look like a real sex scene. Or you could fake it. You see Christian’s genitals [in “Pleasure”] but it’s a fake. So maybe it’s pos-
review
Set on the backstage of a pornographic film, the short tells us the story of a beautiful blond porn actress determined to make her mark in the sex industry by accomplishing a feat none of her colleagues have managed to achieve, a double anal scene. The failed attempts, and the tears caused by them, by other female porn actresses are not enough to deter her from her resolutions. Ironically it is not the money that seems to drive her willingness to abuse her body in such a way, although in the porn industry that factor is never to be neglected. In fact her attitude appears to be a lot more related to the challenge of the scene, and perhaps more important, her inner necessity to prove herself and everyone around her that she is unique.
special personal relation they have developed throughout their time working together. Most interesting about the film is Thyberg´s depiction of the young actress´s physical preparation for such an “epic” scene. You would think that such a plot would be bordering on the repulsive, but the absurd variety of instruments and techniques that the character has to use, and through the use OF subtle comedic tricks, Thyberg managed to transform the whole situation into a funny affair, with hilarious results at points. Stylistically the film is spotless. The glossy lighting and the excess of bright pink and yellow colours all over the set and characters give you a sense of the sterility and rubbery environment so typical of a porno shot. Having said this, the acting in here is a key element in transforming the instant and fake relationship between the two porn actors into something much more personal, convincing and most important captivating.
Canal + Award
Pleasure is a great achievement in the sense that it is a provocative and clever look at body abuse in a world so frequently deprived of good humour.
sible to fake the whole thing. As for the audience: Maybe people get uncomfortable if it’s too much nudity and sex scenes. And it’s also hard with the actors. I don’t want to ask them to have sex for real. I would try to find a way to work around that. By Sophie Charlotte Rieger (Germany)
interview
Young Swedish director Ninja Thyberg has throughout the last few year´s proved herself as one of the most promising young female directors in Europe, with her previous short, Afro, being selected at several festivals and gathering much praise along the way.
review by fernando vasquez // interview by sophie charlotte rieger // nisimazine cannes 2012 // 81
The Opportunist by David Lassiter USA // Critics’ Week
Where did the idea of The Opportunist originate? Nick, our lead actor, is one of my best friends and also my roommate in Los Angeles, and we’ve been talking about working together for a while. I was thinking about what Nick is like as a person, before he is an actor; he’s a very charismatic storyteller.
authentic. Have you experience of this character in real life? I remember seeing a guy at a concert pushing through a crowd. Somebody challenged him and he gave this guy this look. You could just tell that there was no reason to continue the conversation; this person was genuinely unhinged.
I’m also interested in people who aren’t necessarily who they say they are. People who wear a character are kind of shape shifters. It’s a magical skill and I was interested in watching a character who has this ability, but uses it for nefarious reasons.
What were your stylistic and narrative references? I’m a fan of really tight character dramas. I love the work of the Dardenne brothers, the Belgium filmmakers. I also love a film called Un Prophète (A Prophet) by Jacques Audiard, also an amazing character piece and there’s a film called Martha Marcy
Nick’s character feels troublingly
Aided by a brilliant, energetic and sometimes disturbing electronic soundtrack, The Opportunist is a stylistic triumph. The editing and the acting are particularly worthy of mentioning, as both produce brilliant and subtle perspective changes, in very short amounts of time, transporting the viewer into different states of mind. Initially we witness a somewhat nervous and not so secure character preparing himself to begin his act. Suddenly he is on full attack mode, clearly showing him with a menacing viewpoint. Along the way a certain affinity develops and by the end you are almost cheering for someone you are well aware is a liar and a cheat. The main strength of the film is the pristine character development. Lassiter has managed to do what so many have tried and failed in the past,
May Marlene. Sean Durkin and the Borderline guys are amazing filmmakers. How did you choose the music? There are two French techno DJs named Gesaffelstein & Brodinski who make this very dark, pulsating, sexy, sinister music and it felt immediately like it belonged in the world of this character. It was like the anthem inside his head. What was really amazing is when we finally showed those guys the film not only did they love it, but they also want to help us promote it. Have you any more plans with this character? The film really
review
This is the story of a young man whose argumentative skills are used as an effective and dangerous weapon of frequent manipulation and deception. Be it crashing into a student house party, answering a pubescent provocation or humiliating a rapist, he uses his talent to get his way, and with great success.
create an amazingly likable bastard that leaves the audience thirsty for more. Reminiscent of Patrick Bateman in Mary Harron´s American Psycho, in The Opportunist the hero, who is also a villain, is the single engine of the story. The plot becomes almost irrelevant, as what will strike you the most is the charming seduction game the character will perform on you.
From most of the shorts in competition this year The Opportunist is perhaps one of the few examples that could and should be taken a step further and easily make the transition into a feature format, has it possesses within all the trademarks of an intriguing and captivating story. In fact, the film’s main fault is the fact it does not go on for longer. The Opportunist will unmistakably not have much of a strong impact within art house circles, even though this is a well thought out film with many layers and textures. As such it is no surprise it leaves Cannes without an award. Nevertheless, it holds much potential to become an indie cult piece. This is a provocative and fresh film that, if taken further, could be the beginning of a new trend in North American independent cinema.
leaves you with a taste for more! People seem to be hungry for more with this character. We’re definitely in the process right now of trying to see where this character goes, if there’s more with this character and if not necessarily with this exact character then more in this world. In this dark, nighttime, underground world; questions about people’s intentions and morals. Those are things, I think, that will fascinate me for a long time.
interview
One of the very few North American short films to have made it to Cannes this year, The Opportunist ended up stealing the show in many ways.
interview by tom cottey // review by fernando vasquez // photo by elisabeth renault-geslin // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 83
Agit pop
Breathe Me
by Han Eun-young // South Korea
by Hu Wei // China / France
Agit Pop by Nicolas Pariser can be considered as a representativea of a new movement in French cinema. The tendency of young filmmakers like Yann Gonzales or Antonin Peretjatko, steps away from a realistic approach into a more artificial direction. With Agit Pop Nicolas Pariser takes this cinema to a theatrically-staged extreme inside the office of a cultural magazine.
Welcome to an unusually eventful night in Seoul where the enveloping cityscape frames the story of a difficult birth in a tiny flat, the improbable escape from inept policemen and a morning dawn by the river, all with a newborn in the rucksack.
In Butter Lamp France based Chinese director Hu Wei stages a series of conceptual photographs of nomadic Tibetan people in front of numerous blown-up backdrops. The film is shot as if through the lens of the photographer’s camera and the setup remains the same throughout. As different groups of Tibetans assemble on screen they form comic and ironic group portraits.
by Nicolas Pariser // France
There is lots of cursing and screaming going around the different departments of Agit Pop, that is about to release its final edition. The question on everybody´s tongue is which department gets the honor of the last cover. Stressed out faces with too much make-up, heavy jealousy and heavy smoking show that Pariser is not a master of understatement. It seems more like Pedro Almodovar onstage. Pariser is obviously aiming for comedy and therefore fails in giving his absurd situations a common motive or deeper meaning. The film mainly just creates loosely connected situations that feel too acted-out to be taken seriously. It forces itself into spontaneous situations like a sudden music act that neither feels real to its own style nor to the principles of the new French cinema movement, because throughout the whole film melancholy is an important factor and a mood that the characters cannot get rid of. So the sometimes hilarious observations about the daily office world are drowned in frisky self-importance and Agit Pop never quite fulfils what could have been possible.
by Patrick Holzapfel
Han Eun-Young’s short film makes justice to the category by convincingly painting a story that makes full filmic sense in its succession of absurdities. Breathe me is inspired by the news report of a baby born floating in a cradle. The film is the invented reconstruction of the story, attempting at analyzing a social issue through the experience of a young couple. Han Eun-Young works with verve and vision and gives birth, excuse the pun, to a fully enjoyable mixing of genres that reflects the plot’s development and the characters’ mutual misinterpretation. Seoul is made of a balanced mosaic of blood, rain and capitalism; a depiction sharp as the knife bought in the local minimarket that initiates the series of misunderstandings. The film is initially ambiguous in its composition as the characters’ roles are not clearly established, however the realization is so crystal clear that it satisfies the eye and engages the viewer in an obscure tragicomedy of errors that unveils the ironic side of an apparently functional society. Breathe me is clever and well-built, dark and compact, with an excellent cinematography. This is an absurdly full-blown tragedy of a country living in a paradox of affluence and restricting social conventions. Rarely one sees a short that manages to move from being a thriller to an unexpected comedy.
by Filippo Spreafico
Butter Lamp
Hu Wei’s changing backdrops range from sites of great political and cultural significance including the Great Wall of China, Tianamen Tower and the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan home, Potala Palace, to the more absurd, such as Disneyland, Beijing´s Olympic Stadium and a Hawaiian beach. The film is less a narrative than a documentary highlighting the unique cultural position of the nomadic Tibetan people. While people from many cultures around the world would recognise and identify the landmark backgrounds, the Tibetans seem continually out of place. While the film remains one-note in its technique, the cultural juxtapositions create a developing cultural critique of the way in which nomadic people live. At virtually no point in the film do the Tibetans seem at home, apart from perhaps the Potala Palace, where its spiritual significance is abruptly removed in the name of a snapshot. The final shot of the film is of particular impact, as Wei allows an alteration in the camera setup. He smoothly zooms in on a shot of an uncompleted bridge, which perhaps metaphorically signifies the gradual, but challenging bridging of civilisations between China and Tibet. It is a powerful moment that gives the cultural feat a duel sense of distance and hope.
by Tom Cottey
Ocean
by Emmanuel Laborie // France Ocean is the summer story of a reflective and sensitive boy’s realization that life gives and takes away. The film works quite well in transporting the viewer into sugary childhood memories, while its imposing cinematography slightly perturbs the full swing of a rather eventful plot. Emmanuel Laborie’s third short is set on Landes region, on the Atlantic coast of a late seventies France. The main character is a ten years old boy who stumbles into the adult world during the summer holidays, tainted by his parents’ impending separation and the death of a man at sea. Laborie makes a pastiche of fictional and semi-autobiographic situations, uniting a Parisian boy’s vacations with the universal of the audience’s memory of pre-puberty, to convey a very nuanced feel, adorned with the sound of crickets at night and the itching of salt on the skin. The film is a nostalgic take on “the best time” of life. The glossy cinematography makes a summer postcard out of a well-conceived film, and ends up adding calories to an already well nourishing cake. Young Adam Lenglet’s acting, as the young child, is adorable and realistic, although it loses impact in a story that does not ‘suspend our disbelief’ and is frankly recycled and unimpressive. The film’s message is rather pointless and unimaginative while it does not propose very valuable insights on childhood in memory; it rather assembles a series of clichés hiding behind a satiny cinematography that works more as a decoy. Laborie’s emotional investment in the rural areas of France has probably found a better incarnation in his documentary work.
by Filippo Spreafico
The Patio
Vikingar
by Aly Muritiba // Brazil
by Magali Magistry // France/Iceland
Second part of a trilogy, The Patio refers to the trinity from its initial shoot, as the patio wall against which the camera is pointing at has the emblem of three Brazilian football teams. However the sport inside the prison is Capoeira, a martial art that defines a country made of differences; it is a chant of slavery, therefore a chant of freedom and courage.
The love between father and son is a timeless and universal topic that Magali Magistry’s Vikingar cleverly puts in perspective. The film, which destroys the moral codes of conducts between men and women, makes the effect of a modern tale about father and sons.
The Patio is defined by Capoeira and a peculiar still camera, looking out on the courtyard, offering a snippet of lives in a prison that we only see from the inside out, as if we were prisoners ourselves. The camera is fixed on the prison’s patio, an element of congregation of the otherwise dark internal spaces, which we do not see, but we metonymically infer through the exiguous slice of sun penetrating the patio. The prisoners hang out, converse and do Capoeira under the attentive eyes of the camera and filmmaker/ex-guard Aly Muritiba, who worked in his film’s prison. The film finds its peculiarity in the tension between voyeurism and sense of inclusion that the fixed camera and easily flowing dialogues provide. It´s a world that we never see, apart from a mimetic moment in which the prisoners’ children come in for their weekly visit. A piece of social realism on the prison, in which we do not observe any form of violence but rather it is used as a site of contemplation and reinforcement of the love bond with family and life. In the end and again in a reversed logic, a second camera angle looking inside the prison symbolizes an inmate’s newly reacquired freedom, essential theme of this simple but effective short.
by Filippo Spreafico
At work, Magnus is a Viking performer and entertains Chinese tourists while doing bloody and violent duels. Bjarni, his enemy on stage and also a foe in real life, lives together with his ex-wife and son. The game overtakes the fiction and a new duel takes place. The parallel between the viking sword fight and Magnus everyday’s struggle to raise his child, despite the distance and custody, appears more than relevant. Using a mise-en-abîme, she draws perfectly well the context of our modern society. The beautiful photography and breathtaking landscape at the beginning make us first believe in an historical reproduction. Eventually the camera zooms out and reveals the real world our actors are facing: A world in which one cannot chop out the head of one´s enemies and where fathers have to share their paternity with step fathers. Using the symbols and codes of the fairytale, Vikingar is a film for men made by a woman. The director Magali Magistry tackled this niche debate with kindness. Taking the men by the hand, avoiding any kind of victimization, the film is an invitation to consider what the new father could look like in the future.
by Melanie de Groot Van Embden
nisimazine cannes 2013 // 85
interview
Rodrigo Areias
Producer of 3X3D // Critics’ Week
by Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway and Edgar Perâ
Rodrigo Areias is a Portuguese young filmmaker and producer. He has been at the forefront of a new generation of artists to make it to the big stage, and just like Miguel Gomes or João Salaviza, much is expected of him. He was in Cannes as the producer of 3X3D, the lastest adventure of Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway and Edgar Perâ. We caught up with him to find out how such a young professional begins to work with such big figures.
At such a young age you end up producing a film directed by big names such as Jean-Luc Goddard, Peter Greenaway and Edgar Pêra. How did this project get started? This specific project belongs to a much bigger project, which NISI MASA is actually part of, which is the film production program of the Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture. We made over 50 films that have been screened all around the world by now. This is just one of those projects. We invited three experimental directors that have always questioned the barrier of the language of cinema throughout decades, to use 3D for the first time, to think 3D in a different way than the usual “Hollywood spectacle” format. So this is an experimental film of three different directors using for the first time that technology. How did the project differ from the usual? This was a different approach. Not all the films here were thought in 3D, this is something that you kind of ad afterwards and I imagine otherwise is just completely different. In here we had as a starting point the idea of questioning 3D. What is it for? What does it add to the cinema language? So the film uses that premise to start off. Do you see any future for 3D? I think mainly it´s a very easy tool to disappear and very fast. It´s like the fascination tool of cinema, it is cinema trying to be new again, but it will never be like the Lumiere Brothers. It is just a trick for the spectator that will easily disappear. Everybody wanted to see Avatar because it was the first one, theoretically, to use that technology but then interest just decreased dramatically around the world because people do not feel that this is necessary to perceive a story. But that is my opinion, not really the director´s opinion. Greenaway doesn’t like 3D at all, he was just telling me just now how he has 3 other propositions to make 3D but he is not interested in it. Godard is now making a feature film; he is shooting it right now, which will be his first feature film in 3D. And Edgar Perâ is interested in trying to do something more in 3D but in a more experimental kind of way. So, the three of them have totally different reactions to it. Well Godard is now shooting a 3D film, but in this film he says it is just a waste of time. Yes, they all experienced it differently. How was the experience of working with such huge names? Well we did quite a big program, so before we had, for example, Centro Historico by Aki Kaurismäki, Manoel de Oliveira, Victor Erice and Pedro Costa. This 3D project was different because everybody was trying, the other one was more classic, they were doing their own cinema, just combining their work and make good film together. 3X3D was easier because everybody is experimenting. For me it has been a very rewarding experience. How did you start. Have you always been a producer? I am a film director that started producing his own films and his friend´s films, and then it started growing and it never stopped. I wish I would be just a director, honestly. I still direct, but I like producing and feel able to help others to do their own films.
interview by Luisa Riviere // nisimazine cannes 2013 // 87
steven spielberg in cannes:
a festival under the influence It is a warm evening at the Croisette during the 66th edition of the Festival de Cannes. Nobody is expecting any harm. Suddenly a threatening melody appears. Everyone knows it. It is the horror-motive of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws which is shown at the Cinema on the Beach. The Trojan Horse is in the Festival for two weeks. Steven Spielberg, the President of the Jury in many circles is considered as an enemy of art house cinema. Jaws can be seen as one of the initiators of modern blockbuster filmmaking which is, or at least should be, a few blocks away from the Croisette. There is a notion of Cannes as a place for film as art as opposed to Steven Spielberg, especially nowadays, as a director of films driven by his own production companies. Nevertheless he was greeted with excitement and standing ovations during the opening ceremony. Nobody prepared for a Duel with the director who is as old as the Festival itself. Talking about Spielberg in Cannes one got the impression that everybody knows him and grew up watching Indiana Jones or E.T.-the Extra-Terrestrial. He is one the greatest superstars in film ever. Yet to what extent can Steven Spielberg be considered as a major influence on the current generation of filmmakers? Few tend to credit him as an influence; even fewer name him as an idol. Notwithstanding this generation grew up with Spielberg films. Talking with young filmmakers about him it seems as if Spielberg it is all about pursuing the American Dream. Armando Molina, for example, is a young director from Spain who went to Cannes to finish his documentary How I met Steven Spielberg. For two years he has been shooting a film about his quest of meeting the great Spielberg face to face. “He inspires me to dream big. It is his attitude towards filmmaking that has a great influence on me and my movie. His message is that you can reach every goal you set yourself “, argues Molina who wanted to create a happy ending at a festival whose intro before every film was a red carpet which lead to a stairway to heaven. Many young filmmakers in Cannes talk about Spielberg’s private life and how he fought his way up to Hollywood. “Steven Spielberg showed me that it is possible to become a filmmaker. Even if I do not reach my goal, I am deeply satisfied with what I have experienced”, says Molina wearing a T-shirt about his documentary. In the end he did not reach his Spielbergish Happy Ending. Heading downstairs in the Palais to the Short Film Corner one meets a lot of potential Spielbergs all trying to sell their
idea just like Armando Molina. It is a crazy world down there where artists act as salesmen. It seems obvious that the idea of a young men infiltrating the big studios in Hollywood and ultimately succeeding after being rejected many times is an attractive one to young filmmakers networking and trying to be discovered in Cannes. With Spielberg the romantic notion of an artist does no longer exist. He is an idol for the dog-eat-dog society that goes on below the shiny world of movies. Nevertheless there has to be something else to the legacy Steven Spielberg. Dutch critic Dana Linssen not only reasoned that Steven Spielberg has a great influence on the current generation of filmmakers in terms of topics and stories, but also suggested that as a jury president he might very well be able to identify with the ones in competition. Having a closer look at the line-up one can indeed see that there seems to be something like an ongoing advancement of classical American genres by so-called author filmmakers. From Palme d’Or winner Blue is the warmest color which can be looked at as a straight coming-of-age story, to James Gray’s The Immigrant which is pure melodrama. Also many films inside the Camera d’Or competition like the Tore Tanzt by Katrin Gebbe or La Jaula De Oro by Diego Quemada-Diez tell their stories from a teenager’s point of view just like in a lot of Spielberg films. Throughout the festival one encounters movies where children and teens are isolated against the background of a harsh adult world. Just like Spielberg in Empire of the Sun or Artificial Intelligence: AIl they try to create their own dream space, their own little world. Yet, as in Cinéfondation winner Needle by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh there seems to be no escape from reality. It is not like in Spielberg´s films where magic and happiness triumph in the end. The filmmakers have outgrown the childish fantasies of Spielberg’s cinema. Instead of watching the world in awe the children look at it with skepticism and suffer like existential figures imprisoned in their family lives and social backgrounds. The real influence of Spielberg lies elsewhere. One could see it in his eyes when he read out the name of the winners during the closing ceremony; one could see it in the eyes of the audience when the threatening melody of Jaws appeared on the beach. It is his love for movies and his respect for the medium that bounds so many in Cannes. Therefore his influence is that of a film lover in contrast to a filmmaker.
by Patrick Holzapfel
Editor in Chief: Fernando Vasquez Ebook Designer and Layout: Maartje Alders Newsletter Designer: Lucia Ros Editorial Advisor: Matthieu Darras Tutors: Lee Marshall and Dana Linssen Editorial Assistants: Lucia Ros, Luisa Riviere Writers: Laura Van Zuijlen (the Netherlands), Fabian Melchers (the Netherlands), Kris Derks (the Netherlands), Patrick Holzapfel (Germany), Sophie Charlotte Rieger (Germany), Filippo Spreafico (Germany/Italy), Cécile Tollu-Polonowski (Germany), Leila Hamour (France), Melanie de Groot van Embden (France), Piers McCarthy (UK), Robyn Davies (UK), Tom Cottey (UK), Elisabeth Renault-Geslin (France), Lucía Ros (Spain), Luisa Riviere (France), Fernando Vasquez (Portugal)
Credits
In general, the term credit in the artistic or intellectual sense refers to an acknowledgement of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.
Photographers: Elisabeth Renault-Geslin (France), Damien Rayuela (France) and Lucía Ros (Spain) Videographers: Elisabeth Renault-Geslin (France), Damien Sueur (France) Special Thanks to: Viviana Carlet, Michaela Pnacekova, Wim Vanacker, Ingunn Sjoen, Hannaleena Hauru, Jay Weissberg, Mareen Gerisch, Dany de Seille, Christine Aimé, Jean-Charles Canu, Catherine Giraud, Ingrid Bihel, Yiline Zhao all the team of Critics’ Week, Director´s Fortnight and the Cannes Film Festival as well as everyone else who directly or indirectly contributed to the production of this special edition of Nisimazine Cannes 2013. Cover photo: Ilo Ilo Back cover photo: Salvo
You can find all our coverage, extended interviews and photo galleries at
www.nisimazine.eu if you are interested to participate in Nisimazine, please drop us a line at fernando@nisimasa.com