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Nisimazine Cannes 15th - 26th MAY 2013
‘Bite the dust’ by Taisia Igumentseva
A Magazine by NISI MASA, European Network Of Young Cinema
Bite the dust Miele Vijay Verma & Tannishta Chatterjee
picture of the day
Editorial
Fernando Vasquez (Portugal)
Women have always played a special part throughout the history of film. As screen divas they have been largely dominant figures contributing to many of the myths that made cinema such an intriguing and popular form of artistic expression. Nevertheless their critical and commercial success behind the camera has been generally somewhat disappointing, with some remarkable exceptions of course. The more recent emergence in the scene of names such as Miranda July, Ursula Meyer, Claire Denis, Susanne Bier or Debra Granik, as well as the recent commercial hits of Kathryn Bigelow and Sofia Coppola, only to name a few, has made the issue more relevant than ever: Why don’t we see more films made by women at big film festivals? The Cannes Film Festival may not have a large amount of women in competition, but their presence is at the same time felt across the board, both in its thematic screenings as well as with figures such Jane Campion and Isabel Coixet heading two very important juries. Nisimazine has its eyes wide open on
the subject and the coming ebook will surely bring some much needed light on the debate. For now, in this second issue of our Cannes special newsletter, we decided to shake some extra salt on the discussion by focusing on two films by female directors. So do take a look at Valeria Golino´s first effort in Miele and an impressively young Russian filmmaker called Taisia Igumentseva, who appears ready to “steal the show” with her first feature Bite the Dust, screened at the out of competition section of the festival. We also had the chance to catch up with Vijay Verma and Tannishta Chatterjee, the cast of the new Indian sensation Monsoon Shootout. This year Nisimazine will be publishing a full Cannes Film Festival Special Ebook covering the entire Camera D´Or competition as well as the several shorts that compose the program of both the festival and the parallel sections. In the meantime we will be publishing several newsletters to open your appetite for what is coming.
NISIMAZINE CANNES
15th - 26th May 2013 /# 1 A magazine published by NISI MASA in the framework of a film journalism workshop for young Europeans with the support of the ‘Youth in Action’ programme of the EU
EDITORIAL STAFF
Director & Editor Fernando Vasquez Layout Lucia Ros Tutor Lee Marshall Photography Lucía Ros Fernando Vasquez
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
Laura van Zuylen, Cécile TolluPolonowski, Fabian Melchers
NISI MASA
99, rue du Faubourg Saint-Dénis 75010, Paris, France Phone: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 in Cannes: +33 (0) 6 32 61 70 26 europe@nisimasa.com www.nisimasa.com
reviews Bite the dust
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 (The Netherlands) 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?
Miele
Valeria Golino (Italy) - Un Certain Regard 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. Irene, aka Miele, her professional nickname, is an athletic young woman, who spends her free time swimming, jogging,
The illegality of the product often takes Miele to Mexico, where she strolls as a gothic tomboy: Plane trips and hotel 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. 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.
by Cécile Tollu-Polonowski (France/Germany)
interview creativity should be. Even though the script was very precise, he always left room for new things. That worked great. I really didn’t get the feeling he was a first-time director. How did you get involved in this project? Tannishta: Amit has been a friend of mine for a long time. He’s been talking about this particular idea for quite some time. Over the years we had many conversations, and at some time he decided not to give us the scripts at all. Later he wrote it all in English and made us translate everything in Hindi ourselves. It’s very nice to work with a director who really trusts his actors.
Vijay Verma & Tannishta Chatterjee Actors of Monsoon SHootout (India) Out of Competition
Indian cinema is mostly famous for Bollywood, but things are changing slowly. Monsoon Shootout is one of the films from a new generation of Indian directors that wants to prove the country has more to offer than music, dancing and happy endings. We talked to actors Vijay Verma and Tannishta Chatterjee about their experience with this new type of movie, and their collaboration with director Amit Kumar. This was Amit Kumar´s first feature. Was it dificult at all to trust him in such a big project? Vijay: I saw his short film Bypass and that just blew me away. I think it’s the best short film I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a lot while I was in filmschool. There’s not a single word
spoken in it, but it makes a statement about so many things. You don’t really come across with that kind of quality easily in India. Tannishta: I also like the certain indecisiveness he has, because he allows things to happen in a different way. That’s how I think
In the last few years indian cinema seems to be begining a new phase. How do you see the future of Indian film? Tannishta: I think in the last two years it has started changing slowly. There have been quite some films without song and dance, and without the backing of Bollywood-stars, that have been hugely successful. Films with interesting content. But film is mainly still seen as very basic entertainment. Our country is huge and most of the people are living in dreadful conditions. When they go to the cinema they don’t want to see the bad parts of the world that you already see on the news. But I think the way fiction makes you think is really different from how information is processed. Fortunately, people are slowly getting more receptive to that.
Interview by Fabian Melchers (The Netherlands)