Nisimazine Cannes #2

Nisimazine the magazine by NISI MASA - European Network of Young Cinema

CANNES

Tuesday 20th May 2014

#2 Catch Me Daddy The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby Amour Fou Self Made from Catch Me Daddy by Daniel Wolfe ŠEmu Films LLP

#2

CREDITS

Editorial

NISIMAZINE CANNES 14 -25 May 2014 th

Edition #2

by Mirona Nicola (Romania)

The biggest talk at and around the Cannes Film Festival this year is the fact that women are not only allowed into the sacred temple of cinema, but that, in fact they are paraded in through the first door. And this is not for the purpose of being reminded that they are beautiful and wear nice dresses, but to reinforce the idea that they are talented and worthy of a spotlight at least as wide as their male counterparts’.

The goal is clear and the approach could not be more straight forward, but the actual outcome remains yet to be seen.

But regardless of (positive) discrimination, there is another debate that reaches further than Cannes- that about the role of film festivals and, complementary, that of film critics. Although it has been covered for quite a while now, it is still worth having, especially in this context- because this is Cannes and because we’re here to persuade young critics that film criticism does not have to be a dying art/ craft.

Cannes is a festival that, unlike others recently, is not particularly concerned to attract a general audience- they keep them busy enough with chasing the stars around. Judging by the selection and the size of the press queues, the festival is set to get critics writing. The number of representatives for each press outlet has dimi-

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nished, but not the same can be said about the lines in front of the screening rooms.

It has a lot to do with the fact that online film magazines or blogs are thriving. They are the ones who have changed the game, the ones who have redefined the notion of a tight deadline for everybody.

This has two important implications. The first is that critical thinking and a good style are no longer enough; they have to be doubled by speed and a 24/7 internet connection. Secondly, information about the films reaches the public virtually within seconds of the end of each screening. So debates spur at an accelerate pace with hundreds of participants joining in, the line between professionals and amateurs is blurred. As “babylonian” as this is, at least it means it gets us all talking about cinema, it prompts us to take a critical stand, it gives us the custom of questioning things- not for the sake of indictment, but for learning the habit of forming an opinion and taking on the responsibilities that this involves.

Bref, film criticism is dead; long live film criticism in all way, shape or form! We like to be ones to practice what we preach, and the articles that follow are a good example.

A magazine published by NISI MASA in the framework of a film journalism workshop for young Europeans EDITORIAL STAFF Director Fernando Vasquez Coordinator Mirona Nicola Guest Tutors Anna Smith and Lee Marshall Layout Francesca Merlo Contributors to this issue Robert Arnott, Alexandra Fechete, Simran Hans, Bernardo Lopes, Mirona Nicola, Martin I. Petrov, Andrei Sendrea NISI MASA European Network of Young Cinema 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis 75010, Paris, France +33 (0)1 48 01 65 31 europe@nisimasa.com www.nisimasa.com www.nisimazine.eu Special thanks to Christine Aimé, Jean- Charles Canu, Dany de Seille

With the support of the Youth in Action of the European Union. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information

©Alexandra Fechete (Romania)

Picture of the day

contained therein.

#2

Catch Me Daddy

review

© Robbie Ryan

Daniel Wolfe, UK/Directors’ Fortnight

Sometimes going to the movies is like going for a ride. Some directors will let you drive and let you choose which way to go and what you want to see. Others want to have total control and show you only what they want you to see. Catch Me Daddy belongs to the latter category. While it is definitely a controlled experience, the driver in this case, Daniel Wolfe, certainly knows what he’s doing.

The film/car ride metaphor is very well suited for Wolfe`s debut feature because Catch Me Daddy is, as the title suggests, a game of hide and seek with an honor killing twist. A young Pakistani girl has run away from home with her white boyfriend and a gang of relatives and hired white thugs are combing the Yorkshire countryside in search of them.

The film takes its time, slowly building up momentum, collecting the characters one by one and skillfully sewing them into the plotline. The lonely caravan-dwelling retired guy with a cocaine addiction, the dangerous looking very attentive Middle Eastern father carrying his young daughter, the young interracial couple living in a trailer park. While the audience is busy trying to figure out who all these people are and what brings them together, they are unaware that their ride is building speed.

“I got to do what I love, running”, that was what the main actress answered when asked about her first filming experience.

Everybody is running in this film, chasing or being chased, either in a car or on foot, and the physicality of their effort is an important point the film makes. Their fatigue, flushed faces and shortage of breath are all transferred to the spectator through a skilled combination of hand held camera, naturalistic acting and lighting and an intense audio score.

Daniel Wolfe has a lot of experience directing music videos and Catch Me Daddy stands out as a an unusual combination of

realism (most of the actors were street cast, natural setting) and non-diegetic music. Indeed, a car ride is not the same without some music playing in the background, and the director uses the soundtrack in two different ways: as a means for somatic transfer from the character to the spectator, and as a way of enhancing the performance of his, mostly, nonprofessional cast. The music sets the inexperienced cast in the right mood and they manage to deliver complex, strong, and very emotional performances.

After the screening the director shared his views on how the script was developed over time, the emphasis of dialogue as texture rather than information, working with non-professional actors and how the actual script was shaped on location. In short, improvisation played a major part, but every frame, action, words or audio score, is in the right place, nothing is redundant, contrived or shallow. The reason for this is that Catch Me Daddy has a very solid structure.

The structure is shaped and held in place by very smart punctuation techniques that give the film a breathable rhythm. The violent chase is paced by the music, hilarious sequences that work on the principle of comic relief and an almost surrealist animal imagery, matching the various characters to different animals (the sleazy drug dealer has a yellow snake pet for instance).

Wolfe’s masterful editing and choice of music makes the ride highly enjoyable and it feels like it could last for ever. The film does end tough, and Wolfe’s choice of brutally throwing the spectator out of the car will certainly split the audience.

by Andrei Sendrea (Romania) 3

#2

review grass of Tompkins Square Park, surrounded by tiny glowing fireflies. It is this attention to the details of their love story that makes their separation all the more painful to watch. While both actors bring a palpable chemistry to their respective roles, it is Chastain who truly shines. A radiant vivacity lurks beneath her grief and sadness, Chastain’s wide eyes conveying a fiery depth that makes it easy to invest in her story.

For the most part, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is an accomplished first feature, though some of the film’s dialogue is a little clunky, with lines like “tragedy is a foreign country” spoken in earnest. The film is lifted by its strong supporting cast, which includes a roster of impressive names including William Hurt, Isabelle Huppert and Viola Davis.

Davis in particular is a joy to watch, her straight-talking psychiatrist’s sharp cynicism cutting through occasionally po-faced script.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby Ned Benson, USA/ Un Certain Regard

What happens when Harvey and Bob Weinstein see your double feature at the Toronto Film Festival? Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them is what happens. Originally conceived as two separate films (Him and Her), writer-director Benson recut his first feature just in time for the Cannes submission deadline. The result is a smart, carefully-crafted romantic drama that looks at life and death through the lens of love.

Former anthropology student Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) and indie restaurant owner Conor (James McAvoy) are madly in love. Whether they’re doing a dine-and-dash in an East Village restaurant or making out like teenagers in the front seat of Conor’s car, their romance is so intense, it verges on insanity. That is, until a tragic event splinters the couple, forcing them to question who they are when they aren’t within the confines of a relationship.

Benson lights the film using two distinctive colour palettes; Conor’s perspective is shot in shades of moody blue, while Eleanor’s scenes are characterised by a warm golden glow. This subtle shift in lighting enables Benson to represent both perspectives, allowing him to show how different people mediate grief and heartbreak. However, this technique hints that the original iterations of the film are two tonally different mood pieces – pieces that might work better individually.

Though Benson claims that it was his decision, not the Weinsteins’, to condense Him and Her into a shorter single film, it’s frustrating to watch it with the prior knowledge that we aren’t being given the full story.

Benson has revealed plans for two-stage distribution; a wide release for Them and an art house release for Him and Her. Sensitive, moving and eschewing saccharine, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them is a worthy addition to the American indie canon. However, while this two-hour cut is deeply felt, more commercially viable option than the original version, there is the nagging sense that the other, less polished versions might be even more compelling.

Benson tracks the rise and fall of Eleanor and Conor’s magnetic pushpull relationship, though it’s the moments of love rather than loss that work the best. One particularly tender scene sees the two lying in the

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by Simran Hans (United Kingdom)

#2

reviews match for the dour writer. Her previous film Lourdes involved a wheelchair bound woman looking for miracles in tacky religious tourist sites. It excelled at exploring the confusion and desperation that religion can eke out of people in need.

While the film might seem deadly dry on the surface, it hides a surfeit of knowing bleak humour. There is much amusement in seeing the stilted upper class meetings being gatecrashed

by Von Kleist’s beautifully blunt statements about the meaningless of life and the cruelty of human beings. Hausner showed a deft comedic touch in Lourdes as well, making wry nods to the absurdity of religious tourism. This is echoed in the farcical attempts to cure Henriette of her mystery illness, the crudity of early medicine providing several laughs.

Amour Fou

Jessica Hausner, Austria/Un Certain Regard Biopics are treacherous terrain for a filmmaker to traverse. So often we see exciting lives reduced to mundane reconstructions, momentous events in their history turned into a cinematic tick list. Literary biopics are in their own way a risk; how does one transfer the inner life of a writer onto the screen, externalize the humour, the despair, the beauty of their work?

These are pertinent questions when we come to look at Jessica Hausner’s new film, Amour Fou. The film follows the life of Henriette, a well-to-do housewife and mother in early 19th century Berlin. She lives a sanitised, zombified existence, bowing down to her stiff husband and mothering her porcelain doll offspring.

The arrival in her life of the writer Heinrich Von Kleist enlivens in her something that she never thought existed. Despite his melancholic disposition, she turns to him when she falls gravely ill. Von Kleist, meanwhile, is desperate to end his own suffering but needs an accomplice to help him achieve it.

Amour Fou is somewhat of an oddity, a film with distinct niche appeal. The film most likely works much better with some knowledge of Von Kleist in tow. His short stories are notable for their intensity, their religious fervour yet atheism, and propensity towards chaos. In this way Hausner is perhaps a perfect

Self Made

Self Made © Ziv Berkovich

Shira Geffen, Israel/ Critics’ Week

Some days waking up feels like the bed broke right under you, like you don’t know who you are anymore, like everybody, including yourself, seems to have lost it. When it’s not just a feeling and all these things actually happen, you can end up with a telling story. It is not meant to be believable, which does not make it any less real.

Director Shira Geffen repeatedly intertwines the paths of two female characters, Michal and Nadine. The first is Israeli, the latter is Arab. Their lives could hardly be any different, but in many ways they are dealing with the same issues. Relationships, the perspective of motherhood, self expression, personal and societal idiosyncrasies all come at them with bullet speed.

There is no denying that having this story placed in the social and cultural context of the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the motors of the film. The now customary checkpoint that Nadine has to pass every day on her way to work in Jerusalem has her interacting with a young female soldier. They are never on the

The Austrian director frames the characters with a ruthless, razor sharp eye; the static, awkward angles make it seem as if the characters are aware that they are being watched through a television screen. This style of film making finds kinship with her native compatriot Ulrich Seidl, who shoots his players in an uncompromising, almost vicious way, picking up on the characters flaws and insecurities. Hausner is perhaps a more forgiving director, but they share the same humanist values. The art direction by Martin Gschlacht is rich but overly manicured, adding to the sense that the characters are living closeted lives.

A period piece about Heinrich Von Kleist will not have audiences running towards the cinema, but those few who give in to its mannered, ironic whims will find much to admire. The two performances by Birte Schnoink and Christian Friedel are reliably in keeping with the rest of the film, as awkward as a teenager and just as angst ridden. Yet there is an emotional core to the film in these two disparate personalities coming together in a duet of shared despair. While Hausner’s film could never really replicate the intensity and singularity of Von Kleist’s work, we get a vivid sense of the man behind them.

by Robert Arnott (United Kingdom)

same wavelength, but there seems to be a mutual understanding that they are just caught up in roles that the current context has assigned to them somewhat at random.

Michal, on the other hand, suffering from what seems to be a generalized and recurring amnesia, refuses to answer a question on her opinion about the conflict. But it seems like even if she had known who she was on that particular day and did not have random people walking in and out of her house, she still would not have been keen on answering yet another question on the matter.

The absurdity of the situation is not always easy to take in and it really requires the viewer to enter a ‘game space’ from the very abrupt beginning. For the most part, the script relies on black humour in its sketch-like structure, held together by smooth camera movements. An adolescent that is apparently groomed to become a suicide bomber is asking Nadine for help with his homework. The fact alone that he is bothering with that days before he is probably going to die is irrational, especially when compared to the solution he gets offered for his math problem. If two cyclists depart from a point A at different times and circulating with different speeds, when will they intersect?

It depends on the number of checkpoints, of course.

Calling Self Made a film about cultures clashing would be an oversimplification, as would be the case for calling it a film about the multiple facets of womanhood. The film intertwines both these themes and has them supporting and enhancing each other. Michal and Nadine don’t have the same skin colour, they speak different languages, their day to day lives unfold in settings that are world apart but nevertheless overlap. When, with the camera sliding along on their tracks, they switch places, nobody seems to notice it, nor do they themselves seem to be surprised by it. The backdrop is different, the challenges stay the same.

by Mirona Nicola (Romania)

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#2

Daniel Wolfe

interview

Director of Catch me Daddy, UK/Directors’ Fortnight

Daniel Wolfe’s feature debut, Catch Me Daddy, which premiered in the Directors` Fortnight, has people talking about it in the queues. We caught up with this well known music video director to find out the story behind his aesthetic choices.

Let’s begin with the ending, it has a lot of potential to frustrate. Did you consider the reaction of the audience?

Different people are reading different things into this ending.

What I wanted to end up with was a father and daughter in a room, face to face. Leave people with the simplicity of that image but also it’s complexity, the huge gulf between them. And to posit some hope of reconciliation: the father, a broken man and the daughter, almost reduced to an infant. Early on, I brought in friends to watch the film. I love the John Sayles movie, Limbo. As the title suggests it leaves you absolutely in limbo... but I don’t think is too much of a limbo ending. We got a good response in early screenings so we ran with it.

This is not a political film, but there is a hint in the taxi driver scene, that they all know these things happen and they look the other way.

To me, he’s one of the more interesting characters because he’s a classic case of people projecting their own notions and prejudices. To us, the taxi driver is a good guy, he’s a offering a way out, and for a moment she connects with him. The boyfriend is paranoid, he overreacts, the guy is taking the right road. Some people will read the film and say “oh, he’s in on it as well”. And that’s interesting to look at how people respond to material really, but he’s the only help they get offered in the film.

Was narrative ambiguity a deliberate choice?

I don’t like much exposition in cinema, I like people to work stuff out, I like the audience to do some amount of work. We wanted to have a slow build, and have people put in the pieces together.

There are some clues of their situation, but also we wanted to show her naivety, she doesn’t fully understand the situation, she loves her father. It’s like their just playing and one day she’ll go home.

You spent eight month street casting, how did that affect your story?

The story massively evolved through street casting. These stories happen, they are minority stories but at the same time by meeting lots of people inevitably you come across these stories.

We met a girl, she was much to old to play the lead, but she was on the run from her family and she was in a house with her white boyfriend. We spent the afternoon drinking tea with them, and getting their story. It helps with the dialogue, the authenticity, getting to know the world.

Did you have in mind any specific visual aesthetic during the chase scenes?

We wanted everything to be fairly matter of fact. If you see a fight in the night club, it doesn’t last very long, bouncers come in and it’s over. We wanted to have a kind of realistic feeling: you’re walking upon the moors and you stand up and you actually can’t see. We walked home every night, and if you forgot your torch you couldn’t see anything. They’re the tropes of a thriller but we didn’t want any big, blown out scenes. Even the car chase, is quite downplayed, he drives pretty fast and turns the lights off.

Just having a believability to that.

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You don’t like to call it realism but there is a certain authenticity to this movie. At the same time you use nondiegetic music. Is that a stylistic mark, something you put forward in everything you do?

No, and that is an interesting point, because a lot of the cinema I am drawn to doesn’t use non-diegetic sound and there was a kind of assumption that we would go that route. However, I worked with my brother, he did the film with me. He’s a musician, I direct music videos and listen to a lot of music. You see some music video director’s transition and the film looks like a music video, I didn’t want to do that either. As we started to explore the locations, we played music in the car and then in the edit, we wanted to create a score, which my brother wrote with Daniel Thomas Freeman. Certain songs really capture the feeling, it’s quite a mix but they are all kind of codeine induced music.

by Andrei Sendrea (Romania)

#2 #1

Youth Cinema in America

The gap between the European and the American film industry could hardly be any larger. The realities vary in so many spectrums, making it impossible to create many parallels. Nevertheless the challenge is just too irresistible and all important when it comes to youth film. In what way does the reality of a young filmmaker in America differs from one in Europe?

So in order to begin to scratch the surface of such distinctions between the two sides of the Atlantic we visited the Short Film Corner. Quickly we found that what we in Europe perceive as fundamental does not exactly apply in the USA. The American “can do” pragmatic attitude is clearly in contrast with the analytical and progressive system we have set up in the European academic system. Outside of academia the disparity is even larger. While in Europe we revel at events such as the Berlinale Talent Campus, in the US they have gone for a much more hands-on approach.

One good example is Campus Movie FEST, by now a regular presence at the Cannes Film Festival. The free initiative, formed over a decade ago, has a very clear format, focusing as much on the production of content as on its exhibition and distribution.

As Abe Mohammadione, VP of production for the organization, puts it: “The thing that is unique about our festival is that we provide the equipment ourselves and give filmmakers one week to make a 5 minute film. Then we have a red carpet event on each campus where we show and award the top movies. At the end of the year we also have a large event in Los Angeles where we gather hundreds of filmmakers.”

Most European festival programmers would agree that compared to many other countries, American short film submissions are not necessarily a rarity, but there is unquestionably a shortage. As a key figure in the largest experience of its kind in the USA, Mohammadione has little doubts when it comes to finding reasons why young American filmmakers are so dissociated from the international film festival circuit: “Until we came to Cannes seven years ago I don´t think our students ever thought about submitting a film to the Short Film Corner. I think there is a lack of knowledge in America in relation to opportunities for shorts in the European market.”

Andrew Wang, one of three American young filmmakers (Melissa Loi and Wade Neistadt) we spoke to, said, when asked about

focus

festival submissions: “So far I have only sent it to two festivals in America. I just have not personally been that confident in my work, specially enough to send it internationally”.

For Abe Mohammadione the question is mainly related to the lack of continuous educational dialogue regarding festivals: “ Young American filmmakers won’t stray that far from local film festivals. There is not a lot of conversation on how to prepare to send a short to a festival. There is such a sense of immediate gratification in the States right now that these filmmakers want people to see it right away. They rather send it out to Facebook friends and hopefully someone is going to know someone that likes the film and takes notice.”

There are also cultural aspects to this paradigm. “In America we have very short attention span. You would think shorts would be popular. People think shorts are something that you make in school before you make features, there is no middle ground. They are just exercises as oppose to an actual form of art (laughs) “, added Mohamadione.

The horizon for the short film scene may look drastically different in America, but it is definitely not all gloom and doom, and there is much to be excited about on those shores.

Geographically the United States has been witnessing a sort of production exodus out of the usual centres of production, that is transforming the usual process of entering the job market.

“A lot of states have began tax break programs to attract film and TV crews to go outside of Hollywood. In Atlanta, North Carolina, Detroit or Louisiana there is tons going on. Before you had to go to LA or NY and that was it. Now people can go to university, build up crews and work in their own town. These little pockets are diversifying the industry while having a huge impact. In Atlanta alone there are probably three or four Hollywood productions being made at any given time. It has become a seriously successful hotbed for film”.

Despite its limitations in the short film sector, which in many ways reflect some of the problems in Europe, America has obviously been particularly good in bringing new figures into the scene. It will be interesting to see how new developments will continue to open paths for young filmmakers.

by Fernando Vasquez (Portugal) 7