nisimazine idfa #7

NISIMAZINE Wednesday 26 November 2008

#7

A Magazine Published By Nisi Masa, European Network Of Young CinemA

Valentino - The Last Emperor Project Kashmir Rishi Chamman Cover: Valentino - The Last Emperor, Matt Tyrnauer, 2008 Š Acolyte Films

amsterdam

NISIMAZINE AMSTERDAM

Wednesday 26 November 2008 # 7

Editorial

A magazine published by the NISI MASA and MeccaPANZA associations in cooperation with IDFA - International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and with the support of the ‘Youth in Action’ programme of the EU and SNS Reaal Fonds

A

big chunk of the documentary experience is sneaking a peak at the ‘exotic’, in the broadest sense of the word. Even if it’s your neighbour dancing the hoolah in his backyard. From this follows the casually-used descriptions of documentary films being mirrors of society, and you walking away with a better understanding of the ‘other’. But attending IDFA is not just for a moment imagining yourself in a hoolah-skirt.

A mirror is an inanimate object with a reflection of something that you can’t really reach.

But a documentary film is not a reflection but a component of a reality. And this makes you part of the equation whether you like it or not. The crushed ticket in your pocket, the one that you’ll find next week while looking for your keys, is proof. Especially when it reads Virginity, in which Karina the Barbie strikes a deal for which she has to expose herself more than she bargained for. The unapologetic director didn’t stop filming and you couldn’t stop watching.

He paid the girl and you paid the ticket. So what are you buying, and who? The absence of Carmen and her family at the festival, not wanting to risk being exploited again, makes you at least a suspect.

Of course, I don’t mean to stop anyone from watching documentaries. On the contrary. But let’s not talk too much about mirrors. Watching docs makes you even more a part of the world than you might have been looking for. For instance when you walk out of your door, and see your neighbourhood’s Romanian musician surfing your waste, taking away your Sunday evening leftovers.

EDITORIAL STAFF Director of Publication Matthieu Darras Editor-in-Chief Jude Lister Itxaso Elosua Ramírez Editorial Secretary Maartje Alders Layout Maartje Alders, Nina Henke Contributors to this issue Maartje Alders Robert Byrne, Anamaria Chioveanu Laura Groeneveld, Jessica Hartman Lura Limani, Rares Kövesdi Arturo Mestanza, Silvia Taborelli Coordinators Nina Henke, Ilona Mulder Alex Tirajoh, Tania Ramón Casas MeccaPANZA Bestevaerstraat 198-4 1055 TS Amsterdam +358 41 5251131 mail@meccapanza.eu www.meccapanza.eu

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

Maartje Alders

PHOTO BY Anamaria Chioveanu

P I C T U R E O F T H E D AY

Nisimazine Amsterdam ~ 26. 11. 2008 # 7

Film of the day Valentino: The Last Emperor © Acolyte Films

Matt Tyrnauer (USA, 2008)

O

ne has the feeling that the fashion world, with all its luxury, glitter and vanity is a frivolous parallel universe, free from the rules and restrictions of real life. We tend to forget that behind all the silk, fur and Swarovski crystals fashion is a commercial industry, a huge one in fact. Making profits of billions of euros, people who are in the business of selling clothes are very much aware of the impact that they have - not only by putting brand new trends onto the market, but also by taking advantage of the power of well-known labels, whose name alone is taken as a guarantee of quality.

Matt Tyrnauer’s Valentino: the Last Emperor portrays Valentino’s last two fashion shows, the latter being his 45th Anniversary Fashion Show, and the rhythm of his life and work surrounding these two events. Is he vain? Is he self-consumed? Is he something else than a pretentious short man with a tanning obsession? Tyrnauer doesn’t try

Review Far From the Villages

to answer these questions: he takes them for granted. But he does go beyond the obvious superficial caricature. The film shows clearly the genius and creativity behind Valentino’s work: at the end of 2007, he was one of very few designers who still worked on true haute couture - hand-made dresses that take hundreds of hours of work, and thousands of euros.

This film is a glimpse into how the business of fashion is self-destructive – how a man with such an enormous influence is eventually forced to leave his throne, after the company which once belonged to him is sold. Maybe not with modesty, but certainly genuinely, when asked what will happen if he retires, Valentino says “Après moi, le deluge”. Indeed, after him comes the flood.

Lura Limani

© Prince Film

Valentino Garavani is not just any man.

In the exclusive world of haute couture, he’s The Man. 45 years have passed since he and his life-partner Giancarlo Giammetti started the “Valentino Company” – which, with its high-end products, has continuously set standards on catwalks around the world. The designer’s pieces have been worn by the most glamorous women: from classic beauties such as Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn to today’s younger starlets and skinny models whose names we’re not supposed to remember.

Olivier Zuchuat (Switzerland/France, 2008)

“

I personally saw the victims being lowered into the ground”, a man says into the camera. Oliver Zuchaut’s Far from the Villages portrays life in the Djabel refugee camp located in eastern Chad. This improvised settlement holds an estimated 13 000 people who fled their villages in Darfur to escape massacre at the hands of Janjaweed gunmen.

Long tracking sequences along the camp perimeter establish your status as an outsider, and extended pans of the stark landscape provide space to contemplate the despair. You overhear women discussing their lost men, the meagreness of NGO food, and the danger that comes with leaving the camp to search for firewood.

Eschewing cinematic devices, Zuchuat‘s camera does not intrude or editorialize. There is no musical soundtrack, voiceover

narrative, or scrolling expository text. There are no close-ups. As an observer, you are not invited to participate.

Occasionally, individuals directly address the camera. One man reads a roll call of those killed in the slaughter of his village, reading deliberately from his journal. In a final sequence, a young boy shares his drawings. The crayon figures depict men with guns, bodies, and bleeding victims. He sings: “Heed no one’s rule, let’s go and join the self defence militias now.” The torch has been passed, and you have borne witness.

Robert Byrne

Nisimazine Amsterdam ~ 26. 11. 2008 # 7

Young Visions Surfing the Waste: A Musical Documentary About Dumpster Diving

A

fter the animated environmental film, here comes the first musical environmental documentary! Forget boring and traditional ways to talk about our ecological footprint, forget Al Gore’s slide show in An Inconvenient Truth or Leonardo DiCaprio in 11th Hour. Finally ordinary people are showing us - in a light-hearted way - how they have found ways to live more ethically on this planet.

There seems to be a new trend in making cinema about ecological and social matters (see also Recipes for a Disaster or Garbage! The Revolution starts at home). Besides the engagement of the stars, unknown people are putting themselves in front of a camera to demonstrate how we can have a more sustainable approach in our daily lives and escape from the conventional economic system.

© Paul Aflalo

© Paul Aflalo

Paul Aflalo, Sandra Lombardt, Tomoe Yoshihara (Canada, 2008)

Liz, Mike, Allison, Owain and Alden are five youngsters living in Montreal. They dance, sing and play in this upbeat short film which tells about “dumpster diving”. It may sound like a sport, but it’s actually a way of life. They are a kind of current human Wall-e: the principle is to reuse as much as possible, mainly finding what they need from other people’s garbage.

Filming their houses and everyday routines, they express how to become aware as consumers of how much we buy and throw away, or even how not to consume at all, singing “We are remedying wastefulness by taking trash home”. Perhaps you can follow them with the karaoke, and tomorrow who knows, you may even find your new sofa on the street.

Silvia Taborelli

Nisimazine Amsterdam ~ 26. 11. 2008 # 7

Senain Kheshgi & Geeta V. Patel: Project Kashmir In Project Kashmir, two American friends from opposite sides of the divide (one is from Pakistan, the other is an Indian Hindu) investigate the conflict in Kashmir, a volatile region between Pakistan and India which the two countries have been fighting over for sixty years.

What’s the question that comes up most after a screening of your documentary Project Kashmir?

Geeta (on the right): People usually ask us why we didn’t put lots of information in the documentary, like you would normally see on television. That’s the documentary style people expect, especially when your film is about a place […] Project Kashmir is actually a reaction to that type of documentary. There’s so much information available nowadays about how people fight in conflict zones and what the stakes are. But, as a viewer, it doesn’t make you feel anything. That’s why we took something so complicated and political, and made it personal.

Were you already friends when you started this project?

G: We knew each other because we both worked for the same arts organization and were friends. But we had never spent a lot of time together. In that sense travelling together and being in a warzone was a real Litmus test.

As the film unfolds, it looks as if the two of you are growing more distant. Was that really the case?

G: The documentary is really true to how we were in Kashmir. The whole process of what we were seeing and hearing was so overwhelming. And on top of that, to be confronted with who you are and what you believe, it really got to us.

It did affect our friendship. Not in the sense that we had any blow-out fights, but we didn't talk about these issues either. We would just get quiet, and so some sort of resentment grew, as you can tell by a couple of scenes.

Senain: It shows that when you stop talking and keep sweeping things under the rug, it just builds animosity. This is very evident in what's happening in the region, where India and Pakistan aren't even talking about the conflict and the party of the Kashmiris is never even brought to the table.

How did you find the people who guided you on this journey: Muzamil, Aarti and Khurram?

G: We did a lot of preparation before we started shooting.

Photo by Anamaria Chioveanu

Interview

We attended a few events in the US where there were Kashmiris. And from there on we met as many Kashmiris in the US as we could and discussed our ideas. Many of them were very sceptical about our project, but they still helped us meet people and connected us with their families in Kashmir. After two years, we had a list of people through the work we had done.

Most of these people were from a specific social class, because they had family in the US. So when we got to Kashmir, we branched out to as many people as we could. By the end we had met and talked to so many people, that we narrowed it down. We had about 250 hours of footage. So we could have made many different films (laughs). And we did make a couple of those!

Despite all this research and preparation, you sometimes come across as rather naïve in the film. Was that on purpose?

S: We didn't go to Kashmir with any preconceived ideas. It was quite the opposite: we wanted to be as open as posible.

We wanted to go in without a question that needed answering. We just thought: let's see what people will talk about'.

And so we talked to people for hours and hours about the history and complexity of the conflict, and how it affected their personal live and friendships. And through that, we slowly absorbed what the conflict was all about.

What was it like being in a warzone?

S: It was a whirlwind atmosphere. And in some ways very deceiving. There were days when it seemed like we were in paradise, and you nearly forgot about the conflict. But then we would sit outside our boat house drinking tea, and suddenly hear gunshots.

Is there a scene that just says it all, according to you?

S: There's a scene where Muzamil says: “This is a film about selective truth”. And he's right. We have to learn to accept each other's truth.

Laura Groeneveld

© marta nowacka @ www.deviantart.com

CALL FOR SHORT DOCS: Food & Culture Project

« Food & Culture» NISI MASA the Network of Young European Cinema is currently seeking short documentary films dealing with Food and Culture in Europe.

The themes we are looking for are extremely diverse: from the ecological and economic issues of food production, to culinary traditions and philosophies on taste, to public health and new consumer trends. Anything goes, so long as it reveals an interesting aspect of what and how we eat!

Selected works will be uploaded onto our project’s multimedia website, before being shown as part of an international programme of screenings, debates and special events, taking place across 15 different countries in June/July 2009.

Films may be up to 10 minutes in length. Deadline for submissions 30th April 2009. see www.nisimasa.com for more info

Nisimazine Amsterdam ~ 26. 11. 2008 # 7

In focus

© Stills of Virginity

Let's Make Whoopee!

A

bad time for the economy doesn’t mean a bad time for sex.

Actually, it’s bed time. This week, American newspaper The New York Times reported on an unusual experiment done

by Rev. Ed Young of the evangelical Fellowship Church. It was called the Seven Days of Sex. Its motto was: “How to move from whining about the economy to whoopee! Improve your marriage and forget your problems.”

When you deal with sex through the media, you have a good chance of being heard. The subject evokes curiosity for most of us, probably for all of us. Tabloid covers with their sex scandals, special TV shows, movie titles and even some articles, like the one you are reading right now. I wish I knew how many of you were attracted by the word at the top of the page.

In this year’s IDFA programme, you will obviously stumble across documentaries which talk about sex. Maybe they’re about the lack of it and the dilemmas involved, but it is still sex! Feeding our wildest curiosities. The sessions are sold out! But be sure that part of this audience is also there looking for answers.

How many of us are ashamed to confess to this intimate pursuit?

The dark screening room has the advantage of maintaining our anonymity.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s now address the so-called man-hunters. Ok, I agree it’s not a respectful term, but believe me you probably already met some of them. And now, they can make a career out of it. In Bitch Academy, by Russian director Alina Rudnitskaya, the women have their own special classes in order to achieve their goals. Their motivations are multiple: from scoring a millionaire to convincing their lazy husbands to have sex.

The person teaching them some naughty tips is a man - which might sound contradictory, but who would know better what a man wants? “If you want him horny, ladies, change your clothes.

It’s not about you, it’s about them”, he declares. But at the Bitch Academy you learn much more than merely getting laid; you

learn how to use it as a powerful resource. If money really rules the world, sex is one way to get it.

Another Russian documentary by Vitaly Mansky, called Virginity, depicts three immaculate girls and their ways of taking advantage of their chastity. They don’t dream about the wedding night anymore; what they’re after is money and fame. In the capital of vodka, Moscow, these young ladies try to cash in on their virginity, but find that it is now underpriced. After the deflowering, the girls are left only with some money in their bank account, a job as a stripper in a nightclub or a pink dream-car.

This movie makes the audience think about the real meaning of sex in their daily lives.

But let’s move our attention towards the boys now, and their most feared problem: sexual impotence. This ghost freaks out a lot of men; maybe you? Without shame, the British director Chris Waitt exposes the problem already presented in the title of his film; A Complete Story of My Sexual Failures. Anxious to know why he was dumped by a string of girlfriends, he discovers that his impotence is one of the answers. His journey to fix the problem represents a sort of phallocentric point of view, where the penis never has to give up. Is anyone flawless in this field?

Joining another’s sex problems is a way to confront our own faults. If not, do the audiences gained through the subject represent a sadistic side of the public? How much do we like to watch about sexuality? How much do we talk to our friends and families about it? Facing sex as part of life is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s inspiring to perceive the changing mind and how sex is being discussed, be it on the big screen, in a crowded room, or on a small screen, in the living room.

Later on the seventh day at the Fellowship Church, the newspaper was there to note the results. In short; it was a cheerful day.

Was there any doubt?

Arturo Mestanza

F

or Rishi Chamman, the seed of his love of filmmaking might have been planted when his mother named him after Rishi Kapoor, a famous Bollywood actor. Although he claims that the true realisation about his future profession came when a career test at high school indicated he should either be a film director or an agrarian.

Lelystad, where Chamman grew up, seemed to him an isolated place lacking, creativity and vibrancy. He spent a lot of time writing stories and watching Bollywood films; the advantage of the latter evidently being his affection for the genre. For him, the essence of these movies is that they are colourful, magical and form a positive escape from reality.

Upon finishing studies in journalism, he attended the Maurits Binger institute in Amsterdam, where he was taught writing and directing. Afterwards he continued his education in India at a film school. It was here that he had roles in several television series, alongside famous Bollywood actors: "When you are younger and you see for instance Tom Cruise on screen, you can never begin to imagine that you'll ever meet him and work with him. That's how I felt about working with these movie stars, who had once seemed to far out of reach for me." Later, he wrote the script for the Villa Achterwerk production Sapney- The Dream, a film about a young boy who dreams about Bollywood.

In his latest work Bollywood Blues, he again follows a young person who shares his main passion. 24 year-old Monique has the ambition to be a dancer and work in the Bollywood industry, but her parents don't see this as a realistic or fruitful future. Instead, her father wants her to leave the house as a married woman. Monique struggles with the discrepancies between the Hindu culture of her parents and the Dutch values that she sees all around her.

The director likes to play with images, and here he mixes footage of the family with footage of Bollywood films, which seems to serve as a metaphor for the relationship between Monique and her father.

Photo by Anamaria Chioveanu

Rishi Chamman

Portrait

Originally he wanted to shoot a film about three women in a difficult situation, because of the clash between their cultural heritage and their environment. Then when he was shooting at Monique's house something interesting happened: she and her mother where having a debate on the subject of living together with a partner, and her father came in to the kitchen saying: "Living together? I don't ever want to talk about this again! Animals live together, people get married!" It was then that Chamman decided his film was to be about the father-daughter relationship in this family.

During the year the film took to prepare, he became good friends with Monique. Such good friends, that Monique even let him read her diaries, in which she wrote about her ambivalent situation. She wants to live her life to what she thinks is her full potential, but at the same time doesn't want her parents to think she disrespects them. Chamman was well-informed about Monique's thoughts and feelings and in making the documentary, and could anticipate the next developments in her home. Also, when Monique decided to confront her parents with a new decision, she would call him up and warn him to come over with a camera.

For Chamman it is important to 'get out of the comfort zone".

Although he spends time with like-minded people, he also wants to be confronted with completely different visions from his own in order to keep some perspective. "I don't agree with the idea that a lot of Hindis have that men and women should be treated differently. Girls shouldn't be raised sheltered from the outside world, because it makes them naive. I prefer that they get the freedom, just like boys, to explore and make mistakes, since you learn from those and it makes you stronger�, he says.

The fact that he portrays subjects who share his passion, albeit with a different kind of situation all together, reflects back to when his parents named him. For this director born under a Bollywood star, it seems that destiny has taken its due course. No wonder he was never tempted by learning to drive a tractor.

Jessica Hartman