Nisimazine Karlovy Vary 2013

28th June - 6th July 2013

East of the West

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary

content

Page 3

Editorial

East of the West

10 Euro Directors to Watch

Page 6 - 7

Interview with Lenka Tyrpรกkovรก

Pages 30-31 Pages 32 -33

Pages 8-9 Pages 10 -11

Review Floating Skyscrapers Interview with Tomasz Wasilewski Photo Reportage Review and interview The Arbiter Review and interview Intimate Parts Review and interview Dual Interview Withering Interview Adria Blues East of The West Reviews

Pages 34-35

Pages 12-13 Pages 14-15 Pages 16-17 Pages 18-19 Page 20 Page 21 Pages 22-24

Pages 36-37 Pages 38-39 Pages 40-42 Page 43

Review and interview NINA Review and interview Eat, Sleep, Die Review and interview Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart Interview In Bloom Photo reportage 10 Euro Directors to Watch Reviews Credits

editorial

For many westerners, the East is a mythical land. It’s maybe where they go for holidays, in the search of legends and adventures. It’s where immigrants come from, disrupting their cozy status quo. It’s where there used to be communist regimes. This vagueness, much like a black hole, draws in many a perception of the countries of Eastern Europe. The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has committed to changing this situation for the better. They have recently wrapped up their 48th edition- which we were glad to be a part of-, proving again that all of Europe has a lot to offer in terms of cinema.

In the same vein, the festival continued its collaboration with European Film Promotion and Variety presenting the non-competitive section 10 European Directors to Watch. Though this affirmation is not valid for all the films selected here, the emphasis was quite clearly on promoting European film makers whose films are not only standing out through their artistic qualities, but also through their potential economic viability. A rare feat within a universe of Hollywood blockbusters, these directors prove that Europeans are skilled in genre movies and crowd pleasers, just as much as in character dramas. They don’t all stay in the realistic realm or in the present, nowadays time and space. They don’t appeal exclusively to minimalist aesthetics, but they can also do glossy cinematography and conventional story-telling and editing.

While the 10 European Directors to Watch show that European cinema as a whole is on par with the requests and desires of the public of a more commercial cinema, the East of the West section manages to bring across a different idea. It emphasizes, at the same time, the great diversity and the many similarities among the countries of Eastern Europe, as well as between them and those of Western Europe. While there were some quite remarkable pieces of film-making in this year’s programme, the value of the selection as a whole actually had to do more with the ability of these films to portray the countries they are coming from- individually and in an European context. We can understand how the Russians are as passionate as they are conservative (Intimate Parts). We glimpse into the moral dilemma of the young Serbians, torn between the hope of a better future and their country and culture (Withering). We are presented with what would be a typical love story if it weren’t that the lovers were both men and it happened in Poland (Floating Skyscrapers); we can then understand that while Western Europe openly discusses same-sex relationships and even allows these couples to marry, past the invisible line into Eastern Europe things are far from being the same.

We didn’t enjoy all the films equally- we couldn’t have - and our reviews will show it. But we thoroughly enjoyed the experience of Karlovy Vary. And part of that was the fact that we were presented, as last year, and, hopefully, as we will next year, with a window overlooking a number of cultures mostly obscure to the Westerners. They are clashing and co-existing and creating individual expressions in cinema. It is not only the agreed-upon and awarded film-gem that stands out every year, but the selection as a whole. It’s as if Karlovy Vary has volunteered to do the PR for Eastern Europe- directed both inwards, and outwards, to the many international guest of the festival.

In what follows, we invite you to discover the reasons and the work behind putting together the East of the West section from programmer Lenka Tyrpáková. This should be good to set the right mood to keep turning the pages and explore our coverage of the East of the West and 10 European Directors to Watch sections. We hope it reflects the diversity of the selection and the great atmosphere of the festival. As for the Nisimazine team, we sure hope we’ll be able to report back from Karlovy Vary next year as well. There’s no thermal baths like film thermal baths!

by Mirona Nicola

east of the west

east of the west

Lenka Ty

KVIFF Pr

Lenka Tyrpáková is one of the programmers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Mirona Nicola met her in her during the 48th edition of the festival to ask her about the East of the West competition and responsability of festivals to promote young filmmakers.

What is your position within the festival?

I am the festival’s programmer. This year it’s my 9th year already, but in the programming department for 5 or 6 years. I’m focused on the Central and Eastern European countries, because I studied Eastern European Studies before, so now it helps me while working with the filmmakers from this region. I also know the languages, which is very helpful for selecting the films, meeting the people and knowing the cultural background.

How do you actually select the films?

We have a lot of films submitted for pre-selection, around 2000 films for the whole programme. We also go to the festivals, and some countries organize special screenings for us. So, for example, a colleague of mine goes to Canada and for 3 days she is watching Canadian films. Then she makes the pre-selection, she brings us the films, and then we watch them together and we decide.

Could you talk a bit about this year’s East of the West selection?

Each of them has something interesting that is why we are showing each of them. It’s a very interesting selection this year, I think.

The films are varying by genres, visual styles and by topic they are dealing with. If I would have to talk about one case in particular, I would mention the Polish film Floating Skyscrapers. I’m very happy that we have this film, because we kind of discovered the director.

This is his second film, last year he was here with his first feature, In the Bedroom which was screened in the International Competition Forum of Independents. It is a very interesting film, visually it is very strong, and also the story is pretty brave for Poland. We are always very happy when the directors come back, and this was one of the cases.

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 6

Thinking about what you do as a programmer in general, do you consider you have a mission to promote these young di-

rogrammer

rectors?

Yes. In this special case that was it. Before our festival Thomas Wasilewski’s film was screened at some national festival, but no one really knew him. And after he was in Karlovy Vary people kind of discovered him. It helped him a lot. It always feels good to discover new talents.

Do you take the audience in consideration when you program?

Yes. It was the case this year with the film Intimate Parts, the Russian film, which is kind of an audience-friendly film. It tells a lot about Russian society today, just not in an overly serious or tragic way, but with humour. From the beginning, I thought it would be a film loved by the audience, and it really worked out this way.

interview

yrpáková

Has the economic crisis affected the way you work?

I don’t think so. I don’t feel it that way. We just have more independent, low-budget films submitted, the film makers are just managing somehow.

How do you interact during this festival with programmers coming from other festivals? Do you work closely with them to help them do their selection?

We do meet sometimes, but we are not really influencing them, because they have their own preferences. They are free to watch what they want. Sometimes we give them our private choice, we tell them about our preferences maybe. That is because we know the festivals, the films they usually present.

You are one of the few festivals that focuses more on Eastern European cinema in this specific cultural way. Do you know of other festivals doing the same? And why do you think this is a necessary thing to do?

I know in Germany there are two festivals which are focused only on this region- Cottbus and Wiesbaden. I think there are so many talents to be discovered and shown to the people. And also so many topics that are important to talk about. So I think this is the mission of such festivals and sections dedicated to Eastern European cinema.

interview by Mirona Nicola

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 7

Floating Skyscrapers

by Tomasz Wasilewski // Poland

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 8

The focus of Floating Skyscrapers is on the most important questions in the life of young people: career and love. In the centre of the classical melodrama narrative is a love triangle between Kuba, a successful athlete, his girlfriend, Sylwia, and a new friend, Michel, who they meet at an exhibition opening. In the beginning, Kuba denies his feelings towards Michel, but as time passes, he admits that he does have them. Therefore, his life turns upside down. Due to the overwhelming love he feels both his career and his private life fall apart. The plot would work as a romance in a Western-European environment but in this Central-European context, where homophobia is still a current problem both in a political and everyday level, it can’t be anything else but a melodrama.

The visual world of the movie is memorable, especially the special compositions and the underwater scenes. Besides the portraying of deep love, sexuality is also depicted on a relatively open, passionate but still not provocative way. The several close-ups of Kuba’s face help the viewer to get close and empathize with him.

Both the script and the direction of Tomasz Wasilewski are excellent: we can see complex situations, realistic conflicts, well constructed characters with understandable motivations. Only the family relationships of Kuba and Michel are unrealistic and not detailed enough.

review

Even though queer movies are produced in Poland since the mid 1980’s, the struggle for LGBT equality in the last couple of years’ encourages more and more scriptwriters to turn towards the stories of this community. This year Malgoska Szumowska’s In the name of… was screened at the Berlinale and Tomasz Wasilewski’s second feature film, Floating skyscrapers won the East of the West section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Hopefully the success of these movies will help the Polish equality movement reach its aims.

The three main actors played in TV- series and short movies before. Luckily, this time they could challenge themselves with a feature film. It was obviously a good decision, first of all because of Mateusz Banasiuk’s acting.

I absolutely agree with the Jury’s decision.

Floating Skyscrapers is a well-done movie, accompanied by impressive film music, it is absolutely worth to watching.

East of the West Winner

review by Lilla Puskás // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 9

interview

Tomasz W

Director of ‘Floating Skyscrape

Tomasz Wasilewski is one of Poland’s most promising young stars behind the camera. Last year his debut feature In the Bedroom was a major hit in the festival circuit, which included a stop at the Kaunas International Film Festival, where Nisimazine had a chance to catch up with him. At Karlovy Vary we met up again with him once again in order to hear all the details of his new controversial film, Floating Skyscrapers.

What is Floating Skyscrapers about?

The films I make and the scripts I write are about love. That is the content of Floating Skyscrapers which has a complex situation: it’s a story of finding oneself and one’s way in life by fighting for the thing you love; about a relationships between two men, a guy and a girl, mother and son, father and son. For me and the actors it was a journey inside human beings where we tried to reach the deepest levels of human sensibility.

How did you choose such an unusual title?

When I was in New York for the first time, around the age of 13, my father took the family to the UN and as we were taking a family photo I had two words for the skyscrapers in Manhattan: floating skyscrapers. I told myself that one day I’m going to make a movie with this title. So I combined the title with this script and when I thought about the emotions, they seemed to fit.

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 10

What is your new outlook when it comes to homosexuality in Polish film?

There is another Polish movie, In the Name of, screened at Berlinale, that is also touching the subject. It is something new for Polish cinema. Until now we didn’t have gay or lesbian protagonists. There was a void for these characters so Floating Skyscrapers opens up a new subject. When we were making the movie we never thought about it being controversial, but we are only now thinking about it when being asked. We only tried to tell a story about real people. Of course, we chose the characters and the topic to do something for the first time, but the most important thing was to tell the truth. That’s why there is not a lot of social background, but emotions. I wanted to tell this story through people, their love and pain, so it would be easier for the viewer to combine and understand the characters.

ers’ - East of the West Winner

What are the reactions from Polish viewers so far?

It still wasn’t screened in Poland. The world premiere was at Tribeca Film Festival, the European one here, in Karlovy Vary, and the Polish premiere is going to be at New Horizons in Wroclaw. I’m very excited about it. I’ve talked to some Poles here and heard some very good things about the movie: they told me it’s a good movie, not considering it to be a gay story, but just found it touching. Some will see at as a gay movie and not like it, but that’s art.

interview

Wasilewski

How did you decide to have such a main character?

It was important to try to escape the clichés as much as I could, as I didn’t want a movie about a poor gay victim because it’s a cinema stereotype. When we started the rehearsals, the most important topic was love and for the first two months we didn’t consider gender at all, only emotional reactions. When we added gender, it changed the whole script once again but it had the basis of real emotions. I wanted to make the main character as common as he could be. It is more fascinating to deal with this problem in such an environment.

Did you have any major production challenges?

It was an independent movie without a big or closed budget and it was difficult to find money for it. I started shooting it before the première of my first movie, so nobody in Poland knew who I am and what I’m capable of. But the producers liked the script, and decided to make it.

Any future projects at this point?

I already have a script for my next movie and will still work on it in next months. The working title is United States of Love and it’s about women. Just like in my first movie, In the Bedroom, where the main character is a 40-year old woman, this topic interests me the most in cinema. Women are a mystery and I find women protagonists fascinating. We have amazing actresses in Poland. In Floating Skyscrapers the women are very strong and I would never consider my movie as gay, just a movie with a gay plot. The guy is in love with a girl and a man and those characters are very equal. Until recently we had only male protagonists in Polish cinema.

interview by Nino Kovačić

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 11

nisimazine rotterdam shorts // 15

The Arbiter

by Kadri Kõusaar // Estonia

The Arbiter, a film about an ordinary man who creates a theory on people’s uselessness to society that one day decides to go on a killing spree in the name of his ideaology. We met with the director Kadri Kõsaar and the main actor Lee Ingleby to find our more about this impressive effort.

What is the motivation of the main character of The Arbiter? How is his ideology shaped exactly?

Lee: As he says, he doesn’t care if somebody is black or white, rich, poor, a prostitute or a housewife, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is what the individual brings to society, what the rest can benefit from him.

Kadri: Exactly. It is very evident in the judging scene, where there’s like a panel of judges in his dream.

Why did you find it important to add the character of the daughter? Did you want to have a witness for everything that happens?

Kadri: Yes, the daughter is necessarily a moral counterpoint, because there had to be somebody who asks normal questions, like Why?, What? Like what we would ask. Some people have told me that the daughter is sort of weak and innocent and the father dominates her. You can see what happened in the 1930s in Germany when the whole nation silently accepted what was happening to the minority. And also some people forget that she’s a child, she doesn’t have to be fighting against the father, but eventually she does.

What is the role of classical music in the movie? Is there any connection between The Arbiter and Clockwork Orange?

Kadri: There can be, actually. Classical music is what he values as classical art. He even talks about it: he is happy that his daughter shares his musical preferences. For me it was interesting to combine classical music with electronic one. One crucial scene is also in the night club, where he forcefully puts Bach on and all the regular people disappear. So in his opinion they have to be sent to

sizes that he selects only according to people’s usability for the society, he also kills in order to take revenge on a pedophile maniac and to prevent a presumed assassination of an Islamic fundamental sect. Although it is over-explained, it is still a clever idea that John doesn’t decide on race or religion. It generalizes the question of ethnic hate and helps the viewer to focus on the psychological processes.

The director-scriptwriter’s debut movie, Magnus won Golden Lily Award at GoEst festival in 2008, but at the same time, resulted in serious ethical debate in press both in Estonia and abroad. Several viewers probably feel attacked by The Arbiter as well, but not necessarily because of the provocative and uncomfortable topic, much more due to the exaggeration and the problematic way of portrayal. For instance, a disagreeable scene is the sequence of the ,,concert”, where, for some reason, ritual elements of Sufism and Occultism are absolutely mixed up.

There’s a significant difference in the depth of the different characters’ portrayal. John’s character is complex and well built-up, we learn his motivation properly. Despite his cruelty he is understandable or even likeable in the beginning of the movie, but later the viewer’s approach to him changes a lot. Ronja’s portrayal is more superficial, not mentioned her mother’s.

a gas chamber, because they don’t have this high taste. They escape from Bach, hence they are not valuable human beings, they have no taste, they are stupid, they should be sterilized. Not killed, because he is a good man, but they don’t deserve to have off-springs. You know, he is really rational.

As I read on the website of the movie, first of all you are a writer but you have experiences as a DJ as well. How did you become a filmmaker?

Kadri: I still do radio programs for fun. It was a natural way I would say, because I drew comic strips, made music shows since I was 13 and wrote for magazines and then wrote novels. I was always connected with art, music and literature, so in the film I combine them. It was totally logical. People could say you are not in film school, why do you want to make films? But what is a film? I think every idea tells you what it has to be, also in terms of other artistic genres. I also have an idea for a novel at the moment, and it has to be a novel. I’m just a victim of those ideas. I know, It sounds a bit schizophrenic, but the idea tells me what to do and I’m doing.

Kleber Mendoça Filho

The Arbiter works as a genre movie, as a psychological thriller with elements of melodrama, satire and visceral horror. The tension increases progressively due to the dramaturgy, the visuals and the combination of dark ambient and Bach’s music. Without all the contradictions it could have been a great movie.

interview

Unfortunately, this is not the only inaccuracy in the movie. Since the plot spins around John’s ideology, it’s inconsistency is very disturbing. Even though he empha-

review

Kadri Kõusaar’s second feature film is about an ordinary man, a Cambridge scientist who, after his private life breaks down, finds a new goal in life. In the name of his own ideology, which corresponds to the race theory at some points, he starts to purify the society from the undesirable ones. On the killing spree he is accompanied by his daughter, even though they hardly know each other.

review by // interview by Lilla Puskás // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 15

Intimate Parts

by Natasha Merkulova and Alexey Chupov // Russia

Natasha Merkulova and Alexey Chupov’ Intimate Parts explores the bodies and lives of modern Muscovites in an arthouse film that opens the doors to their sacred desires.

What was the reaction to the film in Russia?

Natasha: We were really surprised. We thought that this movie will get a very controversial reaction from the audience, but after it was screened for the first time in Kinotavr film festival in Sochi we were like swimming in a big wave of love in which we kept swimming until now.

Aleksey: Almost everybody loved it. We met only a couple of people who didn’t like it. Everybody was coming to tell us how they loved it and that the film is about them and even that, after seeing this movie, they wanted to go and have sex very quickly.

How is the topics of sexuality dealt in Russia? Is society still conservative and are there any taboos or censorship, or is it liberal?

Natasha: I think that it is actually a myth that

Russian society is conservative. Everything is alright with sexuality. But there are people who are still stuck in the old mentality.

Aleksey: It happens so that in the last two years some people who play such a conservative part, and do it very actively, came to the political arena. Five years ago we didn’t have so much public moral defenders that are initiating some laws against immorality. Such people are very active in the media, in the parliament and so on. Their activity is noticeable and that is why it is creating a conservative atmosphere. In cinema, they shoot the movies with erotic elements.

And if you go to the theatre, which is one of the most progressive parts of our cultural life, you will see what you would not even see in cinemas. Also in literature, they do not have any restrictions.

Natasha: I would describe the situation like this: our parents understand that we are having sex, but they prefer not to think about it.

Did you try to depict the contemporary society of Moscow or did you create your own fictional reality in the film?

Ivan, a hedonistic open-minded photographer, believes in complete freedom and is convinced that people are born to be happy. Ivan is getting ready for the exhibition in which he closely portrays the genitals of men and women. Juxtaposed to this central character, Lyudmila is, at first sight, a typical soviet bureaucrat whose duty is to save the morality of the Russian nation, so she tries to prohibit Ivan`s exhibition. But after work, she hurries back home for another orgasm aroused by her precious dildo. Alexey can`t sexually desire his wife anymore, so he starts meeting his pshychologist friend to whom he gives away all his yearnings. For example, that he is attracted to ugly women. A woman, obsessed with her unfulfilled maternity instict and her husband, realizing he is a homosexual. At a glance they all seem to have everything a person needs – a happy family, money, so-

cial status. But they still lack something, and they try to fill it with their own intimate desires. All the characters connected to the multi-narrative story break their limitations. But where can this lead?

Intimate parts shares not only a strong dose of black humour, but also the strong and enjoyable visual and cinematographic qualities. The filmmakers show their interest in unconventional human body features as the Czech photographer Jan Saudek. His nudes talk about the individual erotic freedom, and this films dose the same in a similar manner. The camera is concentrated on the faces of the actors. By using a mostly minimalist set, long shots and dim pastel colors, filmmakers either create the feeling of reality or distance the viewer from the action. This reminds of Roy Andersson`s You, The Living. The ironical notes are created not only by dialogues and situations, but also by associative, contrasting or similar editing strategies.

review

In their black tragicomedy, Intimate Parts, first-time directing duo Natasha Merkulova and Alexey Chupov investigate more than the “intimate parts“of contemporary Moscovites’ bodies. They also mock their deepest personal secrets and desires by stating that everybody is a pervert. The film is giving a hyperbolized picture of society, in aesthetics mixing Jan Saudek and Roy Andersson`s You, The Living.

Intimate Parts depicts Freudian ideas by digging out our desires and intimate secrets, making fun of all of it. And then it throws back into our faces: “Everybody is a pervert.” Just a pervert.

interview

Natasha: Our film universe, at first, is the people who surround us. It is a real world that we are showing. But is not a story about Moscow. It is a story about people living in a modern megalopolis.

That is why we invited an acclaimed Estonian cameraman, Mart Taniel, to look at Moscow through his eyes.

Aleksey: He does not live there, he is not used to this city and so we hoped that he would have another view of the atmosphere of the city. Of course, we also invited Mart Taniel because we admired his works. Autumn Ball, where he took care of the cinematography, is our favourite movie. We are very glad that Mart found time to work with us for our project, because he is very busy in Estonia where he is living and working.

You are using a kind of “beauty of ugliness” aesthetics in the film, how did you come up with it?

Natasha: It is strange for me talking about the ideal body. Who said that this is beautiful and this is not? I become very angry when someone tries to dictate me the standards of beauty.

In this movie we are taking off the clothes from both women and men, and we are showing them as they are, and they are beautiful.

review and interview by Jorė Janavičiūtė // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary //17

Dual

by Nejc Gazvoda // Slovenia Denmark - Croatia

We met up with slovenian filmmaker Nejc Gazvoda to discuss about his new film Dual, a generational portrait of the young people immigrating to follow their dreams.

on Skype. I really liked her and I said to the producers they should bring her to Slovenia just for one day, and there she had also a live audition. This is how I found her, and I think it was a very good choice.

Can you please shortly summarize the plot of Dual?

It is a love story that takes place in Ljubljana, but for me the main theme is freedom and searching for dreams of the young generation.

The topic of immigration is definitely important.

I think a lot of young people in Slovenia think about this right now because of the economical crises and the politicians who take care of themselves instead of the people as they should. I’m still in Slovenia, but I’m also thinking a lot about the topic of immigration, it is an important question for me right now.

Why did you add a Danish character to the storyline? Why did you choose Denmark?

As you can see, the film is a love story between a Slovenian girl and a Danish girl and they are going to Greece. So it’s like the whole Europe is somehow connected through it.

This was the main reason for my choice. She also could have been from another country, of course, but I think I made a good decision because we are very different and very similar at the same time. We are both small countries, both have maybe similar view of life, but at the same time, very different. So it was a very interesting topic for me to research.

How did you find Mia Nielsen-Jaxon for the role of Iben?

I found Mia through a Danish agency, she couldn’t come to the audition, because she was in Thailand, so we made the audition

Is this play with languages, the game of understanding / not understanding / misunderstanding based on personal experiences?

The encounter of the Danish Iben and the Slovenian Tina is quite fatalistic; they meet accidentally at Ljubljana Airport. They spend a night in the city and ramble.

Tina rediscovers her well-known city through the lens of a tourist. While they fool around in the empty city like in a huge playground, they realize step by step that they are not only attracted to, but also need each other. The title, Dual, refers to their relationship which starts in a special phase of their life.

Yes, I travelled a lot with my first film and I saw that this kind of things happen. Not like in the film, but they do happen. And it’s really interesting that sometimes not understanding the language can be even more beautiful then understanding it. And Danish language is something what not many people understand, and the same stands for the Slovenian.

How did you find the music for the movie?

I was thinking that I need some Danish music for the film, and I just wrote it in Youtube and I found this Copenhagen Sessions where many bands play covers. I listened to it for a couple of hours until I finally found these girls and I said, this is perfect!

I felt that this is so good for this film that I wanted to use only this song. So, all the music in the film comes from that song. When the phone rings, when the people sing it, all of these are their melody.

There’s an interesting play with the sound in the movie: there are conversions between diegetic and non-diegetic music (all the film music comes from one single wellchosen track). In addition, background noises sometimes absolutely disappear for a short while and this instantaneous silence gives the impression of astonishment. The video clip-like sequences in the beginning and the end of the movie make up an interesting framing. In addition, the movie contains memorable scenes which prove Nejc Gazvoda’s great facility in creating a special atmosphere.

All in all, Dual is a fresh, playful movie with young spirit but at the same time it deals with serious questions.

A viewer expecting something deep may perceive the movie as too superficial, but in fact it quite accurately reflects young adults’ facile and light-minded attitude.

interview

The plot recalls Richard Linklater’s Before sunrise/ sunset/ midnight trilogy, the storyline is very simple and melodrama-like. The focus is on the characters, first of all on Tina, portrayed by Nina Rakovec who was already awarded for A trip. She manages to be just as genuine here, making great use of facial expressions. Mia Jexen played first of all in Danish TV-series before.

The role of the joyful and adventurous Iben fits her, but she overacts a bit and the result is sometimes distressing.

review

After being nominated for 10 awards and winning 4 of them for the low-budget A trip, Nejc Gazvoda also made his second feature film about the young generation: the twenty-something-year-olds’ emotions, plans and chances. The motif of secret is in focus again; this time both of the two protagonists have something to hide.

Are you already working on your next project?

I am, but very slowly. I think this one will take time, because I want to make something very different that I could surprise myself.

review and interview by Lilla Puskás // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 19

interview

Miloš Pušić & Branislav Trifunović

Director and actor of Withering // Serbia Serbian filmmaker Miloš Pušić and actor Branislav Trifunović were at Karlovy Vary to promote their latest venture, Withering. We sat down with both of them to have a long chat about the film.

What is Withering exactly about?

Miloš: My second feature film is set at “the end of the world”, in a small abandoned village in Serbia, and it’s a story about a guy who wants to sell his land to find a better future abroad. He’s ready to do anything to achieve that, even sell his father’s grave. His mother and neighbour want him to stay. It’s a life story of everyone in Serbia who thinks about leaving or staying every day.

Was it your the intention to tackle the phenomena of rural Serbia dying out?

Miloš: It was one of the ideas, but also about the withering of relationships between people, their warmth and care for each other. This was most important to me. Dying out of the villages is just a consequence of people becoming more distant and caring only for themselves.

Did you feel any resentment towards your character?

Branislav: I didn’t judge the character because I’m a part of that generation that was thinking of leaving and the character is so close to me. We made a film to pose questions, not to give judgemental answers about those who want to leave or stay. I believe that all the sides are right in their own ways. I think that the audience around the world will ask themselves the same questions: why am I leaving and is there a chance for a better life at home?

Miloš: From the first preparations for the film, one of the things we agreed upon is that we want to make a compassionate story to make even the terribly wrong actions of the characters come across as understandable.

How was it working on site-specific locations and with nonprofessional actors?

Branislav: The people from the village were really helpful and happy to have somebody else there. They also felt comfortable about being in the movie. It was good for the professional actors because we were feeling their rhythm. We talked to them and put that experience in our way of thinking and acting, which gave a certain richness to the movie.

Miloš: I liked that combination of professional and non-professional actors because I believe that they take good things from each other. Non-professionals learn how to concentrate and focus and professionals put bits of their lives into the characters.

Any major production challenges, especially in the light of the Serbian Ministry of culture decision not to give any funding to films this year?

Branislav: Two years ago we won the award given by the Serbian Ministry of Culture for this script, but we only got maybe 30% of the needed budget. We were lucky to make it, although it was hard to find the money for post-production. Serbian film-makers are tough and we’re always trying to find solutions to make movies and somehow it works. But it’s on the verge of being impossible, and every producer who makes a movie in Serbia should be declared a national hero. I’m expecting some medals for that.

Miloš: I’m not so sure.

Branislav: It’s a big thing to be in such a festival with a low budget movie that doesn’t appear to be such. Also, there will be some other good Serbian movies out this year.

interview interview

Miroslav Mandić

Director of Adria Blues // Slovenia - Bosnia Bosnian director Miroslav Mandić hits the East of the West competition with Adria Blues, a comedy toned portray of a depressed rock star who lost his path during the war in Bosnia.

How personal is this film to you? How much of your own experience have you invested in the characters?

I know quite a few people, who were very productive and creative during ‘80s, but after the beginning of the war they got so disgusted with what was happening around, that they just couldn’t work anymore. I guess I was one of them for a while, it took me about ten years to get out of this circle of automatic work that I used to do. Apparently there were some relevant films made about the obvious atrocities of the Balkan war. At the same time I was thinking about the casualities of the war and the people who are getting depressed by it and turn completely passive – this combination is worth telling a special story about it.

What is the story of Adria blues?

It’s about an ex-rocker, Tony Riff, who was very known by the end of the ‘80s and had stopped performing some time around the beginning of the war in Bosnia, due to the reasons that we gradually discover in the film.

He married his fan in Slovenia and he plays Tetris every day. This annoys his wife who supports both with a peculiar phone-sex business. The plot is about her trying to get him to perform as she tricks him to go to a hotel on the Slovenian coast where there is a comeback concert arranged for him, but he refuses it and then everybody around him tries to get him to Was it you intention to make a film that works as a sort of perform. an antidepressant, moving away from the usual dark warTo an extent, the plot is melodramatic and the film could also be aftermath films from the ex-Yugoslav region? regarded a comedy. Was it your initial intention to have this bitter- What adds this optimistic tone for you?

It’s a tricky one. The ending... it seems that the main characsweet combination?

You surprised me there. It’s a story that explores a relationship and it de- ter has moved on. He made quite a step when finally decided serves to be shown as a love story, but I don’t perceive it as a melodrama. to perform. On the other hand, he has no place to live, so, it That would require wonderful, but nevertheless fake emotions. This is doesn’t mean a happy ending for the couple. Existentially he a tough, sweaty and somewhat shitty love story of two people who are is homeless, emotinally he is depressed, but his life still befed up with each other, but cannot live without each other as well. It’s a comes slightly brighter due to this step he made. And I think complex and delicate thing and I wouldn’t call it a melodrama. As far as that the young band and the girl also add more optimistic tone comedy is concerned, I thought that the story based only on the couple to the ending. would be too depressing so I tried to incorporate other people who could provide us with humour as a relief.

interviews by Nino Kovačić // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 21

Miracle

Parajadnov

by Juraj Lehotskỳ // Slovakia - Czech Repyblic

by Serge Avedikian, Olena Fetisova // Ukraine - France

Miracle takes a closer look at people living on the periphery of society. It is a story about financial and emotional poverty, which are, according to the movie, in causal relation. The fifteen-year-old Ela gets into a correctional facility and from now on, she is always locked somewhere: her room, a car, a garage, a hotel room. But like all teenagers, she also has desire for freedom. She has to face many problems, and first of all it’s lack of understanding she finds in her environment, her solitude and unplanned pregnancy.

The film is the biopic of Sergei Paradjanov (1924-1990), born in Tbilisi from Armenian parents, the author of world cinema masterpieces such as Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (also known as Wild Horses of Fire) and The Color of Pomegranate. A total artist and dissident, even if he never considered himself one, appreciated worldwide for his own iconoclastic and visionary style, he was admired by European auteurs and an appraiser of Tarkovsky and Pasolini.

The movie suggests that her fate is sealed and unhappiness is necessarily a part of her life. This is what her mother and also her boyfriend tell her, as if bad fortune would be something inheritable. The question is how does Ela relate to this theory. She doesn’t seem to be a passively suffering character: she has ability to change her condition.

Even though these are important and heavy questions indeed, they appear in the movie more like clichés. The realism of the movie lies absolutely not in the plot, but in the documentary-like sequences from the girls’ institution, the play of the amateur supporting actors, the genuine locations and Michaela Bendulova’s dispassionate and authentic acting as Ela. In addition, Juraj Lehotskỳ’s experiences in documentary film-making are obviously utilized in Miracle.

In my opinion, the greatest value of this movie is the sensitivity for the small details, both visually and dramaturgically. The best example for this attentiveness is the close-up of the girls’ hands with chipped nail-polish, which unites the girls’ dreams and chances in the institution in one frame. Concerning the dramaturgy, these important details are the sequences when Ela stays alone for a while and starts to behave naturally, appropriated for her age, and plays with objects surrounding her. The most expressive one is the scene when she plays with the ultrasound photo of her pregnancy, showing her lack of maturity for having a baby.

The relation between generations is also important in the movie: although Ela doesn’t find the common voice with representatives of her generation, nor of her parents’, she still communicates easily with old people and children. Who knows, maybe it shows some hope for her future.

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 22

by Lilla Puskás

Moving between historical narrative and stylish artistic research, the film talks about the man and the artist (film director, sculptor, drawer..), following key stages of his life between Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia and France.

The portrayal of a man totally submersed in his art, his intolerable behaviour and, as a result, being persecuted, arrested and imprisoned by the Soviet authorities.

In symbiosis with the historical elements, the directors Avedikian (also actor) and Fetisova wish to offer with their own visual creations the essence of the character and the film is basically their passionate homage. To give the idea of Paradjanov`s approach to cinematic art, inserts recall somehow the mute era alongside his fascinating essential vision of cinema as visual art, through some modern experimental games like photography tricks and stop motion animation, digital juxtapositions where Avedikian acts above Paradjanov original film footage and provocative collage works with the Soviet propaganda manifestos. Paradjanov looks very similar to Méliès, indeed.

Beyond this probably (un)desired effect, a considerable, construction of mise en scene suggests a stratified symbolic work on images (as in the remarkable scene of a telephone conversation in jail).

But how is Paradnajov depicted? Avedikian works a lot on gestures and facial expressions of a strong unpredictable man openly convinced of his genius, declaring it with a deliberately auto-ironic complacency, as in the funny scene of Mastroianni`s visit. We are in front of a man conscious of his role as a free artist, influential but controversial to others’ eyes, who seems to play with misunderstanding. The fact is that Paradnajov is perhaps the only character in the film, with background actors around him. This sterilizes a bit the issue of the artist-collaborators-censorship that would have deserved more attention.

Paradjanov is a co-production between post-soviet countries where the artist has been and lived. As you know about the man and artist, you will probably have the curiosity of discovering the cinema of Sergei Paradjanov and that would surely be a valuable intention.

by Yuri Lavecchia

The Unsaved

The Girl from the Wardrobe

The Unsaved is the debut feature film of Moldovan director Igor Cobileanski, co-written by one of the Romanian New Wave flagmen, Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest; Police, Adjective). The story focuses on an indolent 19 year-old boy trying to find his place under the sky, the style of the film being reminiscent of the aforementioned Wave.

The capability of film to be a visual shortcut to the most extravagant parallel and alternative realities, as well as to present the possibility of escapism from the everyday is probably the most potent characteristic of the film media. In The Girl from the Wardrobe, a Polish debut by Bodo Kox, that potential is used up with unusual visual creativity and care for the characters.

by Igor Cobileanski // Romania - Moldova

by Bodo Kox // Poland

Viorel is a shiftless 19 year-old boy living in a small Moldovan town with his widowed mother, who reproaches him that he does not have a job and he lacks ambitions. He spends most of his time wandering with his pal Goose, who is a drug dealer. Viorel helps him to distribute weed via the mailbox system. The clients leave the money in the mailboxes and in the cover of night Viorel takes them and leaves the weed instead.

Viorel`s aimlessness in life is contrasted with Goose`s dream to fly with his hang glider, into which he invests the earnings from the illegal business.

But soon Viorel starts to be interested in one of the mailbox owners – a young hairdresser, Maria, who turns out to be the girlfriend of on of Goose`s former partners, which is now in jail. Viorel finally seems to be set on path – he decides to quit the weed business and starts working in the kitchen of the local police station. But his dream to stay with Maria soon is threatened by his discoveries and it turns a slow-pacing story into whirling course of events.

The Unsaved is a well-made character led drama with a slice of absurd humor, done in a typical New Wave language, though out of proportion to such masterpieces as 4 Month, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The realistic acting used here is also characteristic of the Romanian Wave. Cinematographer Oleg Mutu (4 Month, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; In The Fog) uses a slightly moving camera or long shots which are reinforcing the feeling of reality and giving the impression that the events are evolving on their own, the camera merely being an observer.

The film explores the notions of the good and the bad and tests the significance of intentions versus consequences. It also provides a glimpse into the social aspects of contemporary Moldovan reality which it criticizes as lacking prospects and purpose, as a world with no clear direction. Realism is also the esthetic convention, the grim mood being constructed through desaturated colors and filming in actual locations.

by Jorė Janavičiūtė

In this tragicomic story of three very different people and their specific types of loneliness, a common thread of unselfish love is tangled between them. It is there for the viewer to follow and untangle it in the way he or she prefers. Jacek takes care of his brother Tomek who has the savant syndrome, and partly to this, Jacek is unable to have a stable relationship. Across the hallway lives Magda, suffering from severe social anxiety and drug-induced hallucinations. She spends most of her time sleeping and hallucinating in the closet. At times we get immersed into Tomek’s and Magda’s alternative worlds, into scenes that seem to be projected directly from the cortex of the characters; a hyper-realist space that is, nevertheless, part of the same film reality. While Tomek observes the sky full of Zeppelins, a rainforest portal is opened for Madga in her closet.

The Girl from the Wardrobe is not only visually haunting at times, but holds a steady pace throughout, particularly due to well written dialogues.

Also, well directed and timed comic moments and very good performances by all of the main and side cast make the film easy to follow and fun to watch. A disciplined and convincing role of the autistic Tomek, played by Wojciech Mecwaldowski, communicates well with the role of his brother Jacek, performed without a fault by Piotr Głowacki, making the two a loveable duo on screen.

Since the film was both written and directed by Bodo Kox, due to his specific sense of stylization and imaginative filmmaking we can look forward to his future takes on alternative universes when it comes to intimacy and relationships.

by Nino Kovačić

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 23

The Sea

Velvet Terrorists

by Jdir: Alexandra Strelyanaya // Russia

by Pavol Pekarcik, Ivan Ostrchovsky, Peter Kerekes // Slovakia

A young, dandy fashion photographer escapes his unsettling urban environment to find a piece of mind in a village and its endless scenery at the North Sea. While filming the locals who tell him tales of the past and the sea, he meets a girl, innocent and folk-wise, and naturally (as opposites attract, right?) they fall in love. This romanticist fiction recipe is however intermixed, broken up and patched with documentary-like interviews with the locals, that resemble an anthropological inquiry, with further attempts to spice it all up by fusing visual and verbal poetry. Uh, now that sounds heavy! Does the concept float, allowing the film to hold its head above the water?

Three Slovak documentary directors, Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík and Peter Kerekes came together for a full-length documentary film. Velvet Terrorists depicts Stano, Fero and Vladimir - three resistance fighters to the Soviet regime, who have served time for their disobedience, and currently live their lives still strongly affected by the Soviet era. All the protagonists are connected not only by their rebellion, but also by the affection towards explosives and the motive of love. In this ironical documentary, the directors also play with fictional elements such as re-enactments.

The documentary is divided into three parts, each dedicated to one of the three characters.

It can be said that the intention and pretensions set forth in the fiction/faction poetic feature The Sea seem to be set up quite high, considering the multiple forms and styles, as well as clear references to the film tradition of Dziga Vertov’s Man with the movie camera aesthetic wanderings and Tarkovsky’s poignant visual style.

However, The Sea is stylistically burdened and overweight, anchoring the two main characters by not allowing them to evolve any further then the proclaimed romanticist stereotype. Also, it does not give enough respectful space to the interviewees, among whom there are some quite colorful and interesting characters. Due to this heavy stylistic impregnation, over-usage of ellipses and metaphors, all the characters seem to be only mediums of the author’s own poetic declamations. The mentioned film references also seem to lose most of their significance due to this. The main character could be understood as the central medium for the viewers, their fantasy peephole...wouldn’t we all rather be chillin’ by North Sea then stressing over “him-leaving-her”, in a stuffy theater hall?

An epiphanic question comes at one point to the photographer’s mind: “Is it life, or a film?”. Indeed, my friend, indeed. Perhaps the question that needs to be answered first is: what do you consider life and film to be?

Although potentially interesting in several ways and certainly visually rewarding, The Sea finally just doesn’t seem to hold enough water.

by Nino Kovačić

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 24

Stano planned to blow up a speaker’s platform in a stadium on the night before the May Day celebrations. He was sentenced to five years behind bars. Nowadays he is a construction worker, tearing down old soviet buildings while he searches for a companion and reminisces about his long lost love.

Fero tried to be a foreign spy and eventually plotted to assassinate President Husák in the hope of unleashing an anti-communist revolution, ending up in prison. Life with his wife and two teenage sons, to whom he tells about his past and shares with his experiences of blowing up cars, seems to be ideal, but is he truly happy? We see him calling and searching for his past girlfriend, and partner in crime, who appears to still be important to him.

Vladimír engaged in repeated anti-regime activities, most of them involving the destruction of public billboards, being imprisoned several times.

At present he is casting a young girl to take her on a mission: explode billboards with commercials as a sign of rebellion against consumerist culture. During the preparations and training he reveals his memories and experiences, including his relationship with his ex-wife, who left him because he was in jail most of the time.

The filmmakers chose an interesting and unconventional form of telling the story and portraying characters, managing to do it in a dynamic format, even though the film looks a bit naïve at some points. Using re-enactments, playful editing and illustrative music, the film gives an ironical view of the protagonists. Nevertheless, as director Ivan Ostrochovský claims, the irony here is used not to mock them, but instead to reduce the pathos from their figures. As a result the film also plays with the concept of hero, but without giving it a specific perception.

by Yuri Lavecchia

10 Euro Directors to Watch

Nina

by Elisa Fuksa // Italy

The Italian filmmaker Elisa Fuksa was one the 10 directors selected by the EFP and Variety to be included in this year´s edition of the 10 European Director to Watch at the Karlovy Vary. We the opportunity to catch up with her to talk about her latest film Nina.

Could you please briefly tell the storyline of Nina?

It’s very simple. The hottest summer in Rome and a lonely girl has to take care of the dog of a friend. She moves to a new house in a new area where she’s completely unknown; it’s like a vacation, full of strange encounters which will somehow change her life. But only in a tiny way because she won’t become a new person in the end of the story, but she finds a new freedom, the idea that being like others is not that bad.

How did you find the main character of the movie?

Nina in my mind was always my actress, Diane Fleri, she is half Italian and half French, it is what I was looking for my character, a face, that is not only Italian, something more univer-

sal. In fact, my movie tried to be as international as possible, we had the shooting in a certain neighborhood that is a kind of ,,new Rome” with white, rational buildings, there’s nothing to see from the classical architecture like Renaissance, Baroque, etc. Where we shot, that was a white, neutral space where the character could act in a free way.

Buildings and urban spaces are emphasized in the movie. Do you have a special interest in architecture?

Well, I’ve studied architecture and my mother and father are architects. Probably that’s why my movie is full of architecture. But I’ve never wanted to be an architect, I don’t like it. It is something that is more like a disease for me, because it is so much inside me… But at the same time, I think that life takes place in architecture. It’s very banal as a concept, but it’s real. So I use architecture, but I don’t love it.

Is your movie on some way connected to other art forms, like theater, music, or photography?

When you make a movie, you don’t think about

What does it mean to you to be selected into Variety’s Ten Euro Directors to Watch?

It’s a very good opportunity, I think maybe this selection can lead me somewhere else out from Italy.

I love my country, and I’m already working on a new script for an Italian producer, but in the meantime I want to explore the rest of the world. I think it is a good opportunity to find a new way of telling stories. I’m ready to go anywhere. I might go to Iceland, for instance, to make a movie there.

Are you already working on such a project?

I’m actually writing a very light story about Iceland, but now I’m really concentrated on my next Italian movie. It’s going to be a comedy. We’ll see.

review by // interview by Lilla Puskás // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 31

European Film Promotion / Nikolas Samalekos

these things, or at least I didn’t. You think you are the first and the last person in the world, you and your crew, the rest stops existing. So while I was shooting I never thought about photography or any other art forms. Not even other movies. But the music has a huge role in the movie, because Nina is also a kind of collection of things I love.

And music is one of these things, I really wanted to make music. Until I was 21, I thought I will become a soprano singer, then I understood that wasn’t the right choice.

interview

Nina doesn’t want to be unconventional, she is just afraid of having an ordinary life, a decent job, a house or a boyfriend. But at the same time, she longs for all of these. Instead of a classical plot, sequences of Nina’s summer activities, temporary jobs, quest for friendship and love enchain on screen in a repetitive narration which makes time stand still. The focus is on Nina’s romantic relationship with Fabrizio and the evolving friendship with her neighbour, the 10-year-old Ettore.

It’s worth to mention the impressive visual world of the movie: frontal set-ups which are rooted in traditions of photography, postcard-like frames which portray Rome’s emblematic places, symmetrical compositions, reflecting surfaces, frame-within-a-frame takes, and other ingenious set-ups where aquariums, bird cages and other items are used in a way which creates the illusion of split screen. Besides the visual fascination, everyone who likes the music of Mozart and Bach will definitely enjoy every single minute in the screening room.

review

A metropolis during a hot summer in the Mediterranean: everybody left for holidays. Nina is nearly the only one who stayed in Rome to take care of pets whose owners are away. Her solitude is expressed through the empty spaces which she walks across from time to time. The whole city can be considered as Peter Brook’s bare stage. A stage which is suitable for performing: singing, dancing, behaving oddly; being different then others.

Eat, Sleep, Die

by Gabriela Pichler // Sweden

Eat Sleep Die was one of the greatest underground success of the last few year. Our reporter Nino Kovacic met the director, Gabriela Pichler, for a chat about her breakthrough work.

What is Eat, sleep, die about?

It’s a film about a young woman, Raša, an ordinary Swedish woman, trying to stay with her father and friends in her village. She is working in a factory and gets laid off work, so she struggles to stay in her environment and not move away to work some place else. I’m proud we’ve made a film that’s not based on sex, drugs and violence.

How did you choose the cast?

All the main characters are first time actors.

We had a long period of research and casting to find the characters that would inspire the script and the locations for filming. Nermina Lukač is a newborn film-star.

Is this your first collaboration with the director Gabriela Pichler?

Yes, she is one of the most interesting direc-

tors in Europe right now. We had an intense collaboration during the scriptwriting and shooting of the film, as I was also her assistant director. It was inspiring to follow the film so closely. I usually am the assistant director on the films I produce which makes me really close to the project.

What is your perspective on the problems tackled in the film: of Sweden today and its welfare state system when it comes to the immigrant and labour rights issues?

Sweden was a country were people came to study about our social welfare system, but we have been destroying it for the last 20 years.

Nowadays we have the same situation as the rest of Europe: unemployment and factories moving out of the country for cheaper labour and this affects all of us. Sweden is still a country that welcomes a lot of refugees and immigrants and there are always discrimination problems among the working class. The main misunderstanding in the debates around it is that the problems are identified as racial, and not class, which is where the differences really start.

The intention of Eat, sleep, die is, as Gabriela Pichler put it, to “redefine the image of today’s Sweden, have a tough female character and celebrate father-daughter relationship”?

Yes, it satisfying to have a strong female character who doesn’t spend her time in front of the mirror, but is very much alive and fighting for a goal. Also, it’s important to show a strong relationship between a father and daughter that you rarely have on film. We’ve also shown Swedish people outside of big cities and their suburbs, which are the places where you normally see the immigrants in films.

Did you encounter any major production challenges, considering that it took three and half years to make the film?

This is not so unusual. It’s specific that we didn’t write the script at the table but went out and met people, found situations and went to different locations. All of this inspired different characters and places where we shot the film. It wasn’t shot chronologically because the actors didn’t have any problems with the jumps. It’s challenging to produce and keep the spirit up for a first-time-director feature, like keeping up the energy everyday when shooting 40 days in a row, because it’s such a long process.

The film’s social criticism is played out slowly and subtly. It probably reaches its climax when a gleeful motivational short film is shown to cheer the unemployed. Its sunny depiction of the dynamic Swedish society directly contradicts the often bleak existence of the main characters. While the film does not entirely transcend its subject matter - let’s be honest, the arbitrary lives of working classes just aren’t very interesting to begin with - it will resonate with many audiences for being well acted, well directed and sincerely realistic.

interview

The decision to work with non-professional actors adds to the overall naturalism of the film, emphasized with the documentary-like visual style. The shaky handheld camera finds inter-

The described sense of insecurity reminds the themes of the Jason Reitman hit Up In The Air. Eat, Sleep, Die also plays out a bit like a Dardenne brothers movie set in a Scandinavian context. Although mostly rather sombre, the film does find some humour, warmth and hope from the situations of its characters. For example, Rasa has an up and down relationship with his father as they, while hard pressed to provide even for themselves, try to be there for each other.

review by Andreii Limets // interview by Nino Kovačić // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 33

European Film Promotion / Nikolas Samalekos

The film revolves around Rasa, played like a small force of nature by Nermina Lukac. She is a fiercely independent character who has been forced to grow up sooner than most youngsters her age. She packs vegetables at a factory but hard work is not enough to prevent her from being targeted for layoff after company cutbacks. She encounters the troubles of a young, barely educated and rough-mannered immigrant looking for a decent job within today’s economy. The film also explores her relationships with her friends and her father, who despite his flailing health seeks work abroad. Lukac is the standout from a cast of amateur actors and non-actors, many of them actual immigrants. Milan Dragisic, playing Rasa’s father, for instance, read the call for casting from a newspaper ad and, being unemployed at the time, thought it would be an interesting experience.

esting micro-emotions through a wide range of close-ups and scenes with the characters at their most intimate and vulnerable. Some of those are not far from great. A perfect example is the one with Rasa, on an otherwise ordinary workday, observing other workers being called upon one by one to see their employer, presumably to receive their three months notice.

Every glance of the characters is counted for as the tension builds while she is waiting if it would be her turn next.

review

In Eat, Sleep, Die debutant director Gabriela Pichler deconstructs the Swedish welfare state, one that has been touted worldwide as the beacon of prosperous democracy and social acceptance. Just like Ruben Östlund’s terrific Play a year ago, the film follows a seldom-seen narrative, that of people at the lower end of Scandinavian society, not completely belonging, not feeling accepted or valued.

Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart

by Mika Ronkainen // Finland

A new documentary film by Finnish director Mika Ronkainen pictures musician Kai Latvalehto and his father taking a road trip to Sweden, where they used to live in the 1970s. The venture sees them dealing with the past and their identity and reaching a close relationship.

You depict identity problems of Swedishorigin Finns in your film. Do you think they can be familiar to international audiences?

At first, I thought that this film might not travel, because it is a very special thing between Finland and Sweden, but I don’t think you need to be an immigrant to understand that feeling the main character of the film has.

It is universal to feel like an outsider somewhere.

Why is this topic important?

It touches something very human in us. The film is basically about accepting who you are and the fact that you cannot really change the past.

In the film we can see that there still is a tension between Finns and the Swedes, can you talk more about it?

Finland has always been the little sibling compared to Sweden. We always had this kind of complex against Swedes. And, I think, that is also something that can be found all over Europe, for example, Czechs and Slovaks.

People from other nations can relate to the film too. And another important thing in the film is the father-son story, which is naturally something that everybody can relate to.

How did you find the main character?

I have known Kai for twenty years already.

We used to play in the bands in Oulu back in the 90s. He never spoke about his childhood to anybody. Some five or six years ago he contacted me asking if I have noticed that in Sweden there are a lot of SwedishFinnish musicians who become popular. I remembered that he had lived in Sweden and I considered that he is thinking that if he had stayed in Sweden, he would be one of those.

But instead, he was in Finland, playing dull Finnish rock. I loved the irony of this obser-

The film closely observes the trip of the father and the son. While travelling in the car, they talk much to each other, and they do so as intimately and sensitively as they never did - revealing secrets and crying together.

Viewers become witnesses to how the father and son are bonding to reach a really close relationship.

Kai has a beautiful family and is a pretty famous rock musician in Finland, but he is unhappy, because he feels trapped between two cultures and he starts to miss the life he never had in Sweden.

The director alternates the father and son trip with songs performed live by Swedish Finnish immigrants written back in 70s about their life. However, they are performed by contemporary bands in the places along the characters` trip. This helps to create a floating, dreamy mood for the musical road documentary and helps the viewers to better grasp the idea of generations.

And what was Kai`s reaction when he saw the film?

He was very touched, just like his father. I remember when his father saw the film for the first time, he stood up from the sofa and looked at me with teary eyes and said, “This will remain with us“. I was also really touched by that comment.

There are various bands playing in your film, how did you decide to place them there?

The music that I use originally comes from the 1970s. It was written by the Swedish-Finnish musicians. I found a compilation album released by a Finnish record company in 1974. This album has been forgotten. I was really touched by the lyrics and amazed by the stories in the songs, because they spoke so clearly and touchingly about the lives of Finnish immigrants in Sweden.

European Film Promotion / Nikolas Samalekos

vation. When he contacted me, I started asking him about his childhood in Sweden and that was the first time he talked about it. And it was a very emotional conversation, he told me everything, we spoke for several hours and he cried several times during the conversation.

interview

The topic the film is dealing with is an issue specific to the region – the identity of Finns of Swedish origin, and the inferiority complex linking back to the time when Finland used to be a part of Sweden. But still, the film can still be understandable for audiences from other nations, because this kind of issues can be found in many countries in Europe, where territories that are separate nowand which are in a disproportionate balance of powerused to belong to the same country.

review

A new musical road documentary by Finnish film director Mika Ronkainen Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart depicts a musician Kai Latvalehto, who suddenly starts to feel as an outsider in his country, Finland. Together with his father, he takes a trip back to their past in Sweden, where they used to live in his childhood, back in the 70s.

interview by Jorė Janavičiūtė // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 35

European Film Promotion / Nikolas Samalekos

interview

Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Gross Directors of In Bloom // Georgia

We met, in collaboration with Cineuropa, the directors of In Bloom, Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross. They told us about their work with non-professionals actresses and the problematic Georgian social context of the 90s, the backdrop for the story in the film.

Can you please briefly introduce the context of the movie?

Simon: It’s a Georgian film taking place in the 90s, quite hard times in Georgia. It’s about two 14 years old young girls, their friendship, how they grow up, how they struggle with young men and family and how they survive during this period.

problems emerged in the society as violence and then, people didn’t know to eat on the following day, no bread, no electricity, every days there were problems. Now we don’t have these kind of problems in Georgia but, in my opinion, the society is still searching for its own identity.

How did you come across those two actresses and how did you work with them?

Simon: We had a very long period of casting, almost one year and then, basically it was clear that we had to look for non-professionals because at that age in Georgia they usually are not professional. We basically took photos from schools in Tbilisi so we collected hundreds and hundreds..

We also started to go to school breaks, looking for girls on the streets and backyards and together with the casting director we invited groups of teenagers. Step by step we found those two and we also had a lot of preparation for the shooting with movie actress.

Did you rehearse a lot with the shots you prepared in advance?

Simon: Yes, we sometimes just shot two or three shots a day, we really need a lot of time for a shot of a single scene. We need four or five hours for one shot and then just shot five, six or seven takes. However we didn’t need more, I mean, the main work was actually the rehearsing done before.

...and what about the fact that there is a gun in the film that everyone in Georgia should have. Do you think that this mentality is still present today?

Nana: I don’t think so, but it depends very much on the difficulty of the times because people have kind of these ideas when they really have problems, problems to solve for their survival. Now there are not these kind of problems in society, the work of the police is good and I don’t think it is a nowadays ‘way of living’ in Georgia.

How did you work with the cinematographer Oleg Mutu?

Did you give specific direction to him? How was the work process?

Simon: Basically, working with the mise-en-scene means to plan together the scene and Oleg was really focusing on actors, moving the camera around, so the work was always about the actors and aiming to catch things in the right moments. It was not like a technical set-up like ‘ok, we put the camera here and then we put the actors in front’. It was always an other way, moving around.

The movie is pretty much a snapshot of Georgia’s history. How is it today, what would you say about the main differences between that period you have shot and the situation today?

Nana: Of course, there are a lot of differences between 90’s and today. After the break down of Soviet Union many

interview by Domenico La Porta // Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 37

Escape

The Deflowering of Eva van End

Norway, XIV A.D. Ten years after the Black Death`s extermination, desolation reigns, a family still holds on to the hope of a new life. The first part of the story, accompanied by a fully hopeful music score, shows a surviving family searching for a land to settle down in. But, without any delay, we see what a lawless reign is: uncontrolled violence. A young girl, Signe, is witness firstly to the carnage of her family and then is taken hostage by a clan led by Dagmar, a beautiful and ruthless woman. The help of Dagmar`s little daughter Frigg gives her a chance to escape.

A film by Dutch directing debutant Michiel ten Horn, The Deflowering of Eva van End is a tragicomic tale about a middle-class family meeting the embodied idea of perfection and done in an aesthetics similar to Wes Anderson.

by Michiel ten Horn // The Netherlands

by Roar Uthaug // Norway

Roar Uthaug directs a medieval survival drama as a raw and ferocious fairy tale. The plot opens with Signe`s personal damage and then focuses on her fulfilment through survival and revenge. Drama is key not only for the heroine Signe, but also for the villain Dagmar, so the script doesn’t forget to flashback Dagmar’s tragic past that made her so cruel to others and possessive toward her daughter. The story recalls a typical issue of fairy tales: the attribution of identity through an episode of growth in childhood. When Signe decides the time for revenge, she attributes herself a role to save her helper, Frigg. On the other side, what betrays Dagmar is precisely her weakness of role/identity (of motherhood), and that’s what ultimately allows the girls to survive. The two young girls will have to take care of themselves in a desolate land and this is probably more of challenge to fate than death. This episode marks deeply their growth.

Despite a predictability in plot and a certain urgency to reach the end, Escape, a low budget production, does not fail to show the quality of its technique. The well-finished cinematography and the soundtrack work, while enhancing the stunning Norwegian landscapes, where forests and fiords would say much more than a background, like the sky above the two girls’ life path.

by Yuri Lavecchia

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 40

The family of the van Ends lives in a small suburbia. Our perspective to the film is their youngest daughter, Eva. She is an ugly duckling teenager, she is bullied at school, her face is unemotional, she barely talks, but if she does, nearly no one listens to her. But an exchange program starts at her school.

A “perfect”, blond, angelic looking, well-mannered German student, Veit, arrives at her home. Soon he is adored by nearly everybody. His presence calls over the desires, obsessions and secrets of the family members. Eva secretly falls in love and feels some kind of unconscious lust to the German student.

The Deflowering of Eva van End dynamically and satirically poses and answers the question of what happens to the ordinary middle class family when it faces the perfect. But what is perfection? Maybe it is not important?

The characters of the film are constructed from stereotypes, especially Veit.

His perfection is revealed through the his perfect looks and his actions such as making breakfast for the tired mother, doing meditation, being a vegetarian or giving to charity to help African children. The family in The Deflowering of Eva van End meets perfection in a way similar to Pasolini`s Theorem, where a beautiful stranger comes to an Italian family and seduces every member, transforming their lives and plunging them into despair. Just that here the characters are openly constructed from clichés and it helps to invert tragedy to farce.

The playful aesthetics and irony in the film also helps to create colourful tragicomedy rather than tragedy. Toybox asethetics, saturated lensing and strict framing inevitably recalls the movies of Wes Anderson. Also, the director emphasizes quite strict manner of acting, even though the slight line of acting sometimes is crossed – some moments are are overacted and fall out of the context. But still, a newcoming director copes with a hard directing task resulting in a film that is extremely enjoyable to watch and undeniably shows a lot of potential.

by Jorė Janavičiūtė

The Broken Circle Breakdown The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas

by Felix van Groeniningen // Belgium

How do humans face the loss of a loved one? Or better, how can a couple survive after the loss of their 6-year-old daughter? The young Belgian director Felix van Groeningen beautifully shows how Elise and Didier try to overcome this terrible experience together. So far, the story of The Broken Circle Breakdown doesn’t seem anything new as it can remind us (perhaps too much) of Declaration of War, the autobiographical film by French filmmaker Valérie Donzelli from 2011. But as the story progresses, the dramatic tone proposed by van Groeningen increases and the aesthetics (and musical) decisions reinforce the film as a devastatingly sad and hopeless story.

The film sets its start in a hospital, where Maybelle, a little girl, is being tested through a very painful procedure under the concerned look of her parents. Soon we are transported six years before, to the first meeting of Elise and Didier (wonderfully played by Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh). Felix van Groeningen narrates very brightly the early years of the couple: she’s a tattoo artist and he sings and plays the banjo in a bluegrass band. After their first encounter, the audience knows about the extraordinary nature of their relationship, without the need of watching cheesy unreal moments.

The music is very important in the film, as it is part of the life of the protagonists and, in a way, helps to make the loss more bearable for them. There is unforgettable tenderness in the moments when Didier’s band welcomes the little Maybelle after the first operation, or the marriage proposal.

In short, The Broken Circle Breakdown is the decisive entry of Felix van Groningen in the international spotlight thanks to his narrative style filled with beauty, something that seemed almost impossible with a story infused with such sorrow.

by Lucía Ros Serra

by Elyna Psykou // Greece

It seemed like a rational plan: ratings for a TV show are down and Antonis Paraskevas, an aging host, and his producer come up with a solution to create their own exclusive media content that would get their program back to the center of the public’s interest. They fake Paraskevas’ kidnapping. Antonis spends time in an abandoned hotel, following the reports on himself and reminiscing of the glory days, before he would make a spectacular comeback that would to be a per excellence media event, a part of celebrity history.

The film is inspired by a true case in Brazil: victims of contracted killings had a purpose to ensure exclusive on-scene reports for a certain TV station. The eternal return of Antonis Paraskevas is a an insightful comment on today’s media culture and can also be interpreted as an allegory of the current austerity crisis in Greece.

Central questions of the self-constructed media events and a narcissistic media-induced culture are tackled mostly around the main character. His motives are gradually unveiled and his personal transformation turns him into a man without any scruples, a psychopath. The film relies on the strong performance by Christos Stergioglou, his gestures and mimicry.

Still, there remains a feeling of unused potential of the plot and other characters that would have push the very intriguing and contemporary media manipulation issues even further.

In an open ending, we see Antonis metaphorically walking to his publicized immortality and continuous glory, postponing his return. The scene puts us right into the core of genuine narcissism. Is this what a dehumanized media future holds for us?

by Nino Kovačić

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 41

Traffic Department

The Color of Chameleon

by Wojtek Smarzowski // Poland

by Emil Christov // Bulgary

Polish action-thriller Traffic Department already set a new box office record in Poland: four months after it was premiered, more then 1 million viewers have already seen it. Wojtek Smarzowski is not only liked by the audience, but also by festival juries: he already received an honorable mention at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival for The wedding in 2005, in addition to another 17 awards for his previous feature films.

At first sight, The Color of the Chameleon, the debut feature of Bulgarian director Emil Christov seems a serious deal: desaturated colors and cold tones in a sequence in which we see a mother arguing with the principal of her child’s school. Actors looking grim and pale. Two minutes later the serious tone of the film is completely lost: the discussion between the school´s principal and the mother revolves around the constant onanism of the pre-teen and how law should forbid it.

His new movie follows seven traffic police officers in Warsaw, who can also be considered as the representatives of the seven deadly sins.

Among them, the focus is on Ryszard Król and his story. After a night of heavy drinking in a brothel, Król finds himself in the suburban area of Warsaw, not far from the corpse of his colleague. No wonder that he is the main suspect and he also had a reason for murdering him, but he is not the only one. The “falsely accused man on the run to prove his innocence” is a typical thriller narrative, common in the 40’s film noir movies and made especially popular by Alfred Hitchcock. It is an exciting dramaturgical base indeed, and in Traffic Department it makes the traffic cop to turn into a professional crime scene investigator.

The movie’s popularity lies in the capability of keeping our attention, in professional editing, dark humour, and last, but not least in a satirical reflection on the contemporary Polish society. Its heterogeneous visual universe is based on an exciting combination of real footage from CCTV cameras, low-quality mobile phone recordings, and scenes recorded with a handheld digital camera. Fast cutting, many shocking sequences complete the movie and make it a real entertainment.

by Lilla Puskás

Nisimazine Karlovy Vary // 42

After this first sequence, Christov sets clearly his intentions within the film: a spoof on the absurdity of communism in the late 80s. The child, Batko, grows into an intelligent and charming young man who is hired by the secret police as a spy in the service of the Bulgarian communist regime.

After being fired as a result of an error, Batko decides to form a parallel spy network in order to dismantle the existing regime by manipulating a group of young intellectuals and theorists of sex.

This comic and absurd spy story doesn’t reach the audience completely, but tries very hard to catch their attention with different cinematographic references, which are occasionally ridiculous (chocolate eggs with red and blue wrap as the pills Matrix), or others that work perfectly (continues references to Casablanca with which the protagonist fantasizes in idyllic black and white sequences).

Despite its interesting setting (photography is remarkable), the charisma of its star (actor Ruscen Vidinliev) and the contrast of its proposal with the absurd humor, the film may be too chaotic and unstructured for a mainstream audience.

by Lucía Ros Serra

editor: Mirona Nicola (Romania), Fernando Vasquez (Portugual) Writers: Lilla Puskás (Hungary), Yuri Lavecchia (Italy), Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania), Nino Kovačić (Croatia), Mirona Nicola (Romania) Lucía Ros Serra (Spain), Andreii Limets (Estonia) photographers: Lucía Ros Serra (Spain), Yuri Lavecchia (Italy), Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania).

Photographies of Variety’s 10 Euro Directors to Watch by: European Film Promotion / Nikolas Samalekos layout and photo edition: Lucía Ros Serra (Spain) original design: Maartje Adlers (Netherlands) Very special thanks to Tereza Perinova, Vítězslav Chovanec, Domenico La Porta, Ana Stanic, Nikolas Samalekos This is a publication of:

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director of publication: Fernando Vasquez (Portugal)

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