Nisimazine Tallinn 15th Nov. - 1st Dec. 2013
I’m the Same I’m An Other Nothing Bad Can Happen Luc Déry
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picture of the day
Editorial
Mirona Nicola (Romania)
It’s been a few days since the Nisimazine team has disembarked on the shore of the Baltic Sea- a few very eventful days! Estonia seems to be in the process of assessing and discovering its interest for culture in general, as a series of events (including some that involve the biggest cultural publication in the country) have lead to the resignation of the Ministry of Culture earlier this week. With the cultural sector being the talk of the day, the Black Nights Film Festivalalready one of the most important cultural events in Estonia- is at the forefront of the debate. This, however, has not upstaged attention given to films- on the contrary; it might even be that it has enhanced it, as a form of support. And this, in a way, comes at a right time. The festival, the result of a rapid and multilateral expansion over the past 17 years, is in the process of amping up the volume on its industry side. It could even be said that it has no choice but do so when thinking about the similar process that festivals with a longer tradition have undergone in recent years. The timing of the event might not be ideal in terms of the availability of films to premiere at the festival. Nevertheless, the festival offers good exposure of films to a market that is not necessarily very large, but seems to be very eager to expand their viewing beyond the usual commercial offering. Not only do the filmmakers get to meet and interact with the audience, but the festival organization is working on getting more of them to attend the festival and their films more exposure to press and industry peers. While Black Nights is certainly a reference for cinema from the Baltic countries, its offering spans a vast geographical territory, so there are many filmmakers that can benefit from the exposure. With several sections and sub-festivals, and now an increasing emphasis on its industry days, the BNFF has quickly evolved and expanded. One can only wonder what could be next?
NISIMAZINE TALLINN
15th Nov. - 1st Dec. 2013 # 2
A magazine published by NISI MASA in the framework of a film journalism workshop for young Europeans.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor in Chief Fernando Vasquez Assistant Editor Mirona Nicola Location Director Merli Antsmaa Location Manager Emilie Toomela Image Tutor Liis Mehine Layout Lucía Ros
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
Andrei Kartashov, Agnieszka
Pokrywka, Kris Derks,
Andra Gheorghiu
Picture of the day & Cover Laura Urbonavičiūtė
NISI MASA
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reviews I’m The Same I’m An Other Caroline Strubbe (Belgium) – Official Competition Eurasia Through a vast, lifeless landscape moves a car. An inscrutable Eastern European man drives, an adolescent girl sleeps in the trunk. This is the premise of I’m the Same I’m An Other – the sophomore effort of the Belgian director Caroline Strubbe, a film that starts in a most intriguing way, implying some sort of in media res narrative device. However, this promise is false: there will be no flashbacks, and the director will take her time to spill any light on what’s going on altogether. Not until the second half hour the viewers will be able to penetrate the mystery behind the story: on a ship that’s bringing the two to England the girl (her name is Tess) stumbles upon a newspaper from which we learn that she disappeared from home after her parents had committed double suicide. Szabolcszt (the man) has, apparently, kidnapped the girl, but during the course of the movie’s two hours she grows more and more consentient to the situation, the two of them forming a quasi-father-and-daughter relationship. In fact, the I’m The Same… is the second part of what is to be a trilogy with a continuous narrative, so the backstory is known to those who watched the first part, Lost Persons Area. But anyway, it’s not the plot that in the focus here. David Williamson’s camera obsessively examines little details in closeups – the girl’s fingernails, grease stains on a cloth, dirty spots on the walls of a rundown villa where the two stay. These insignificant minutiae form the sense of solitude that the man and the girl experience together; further emphasis on this feeling is provided by the very opposite of closeups, i.e. the static wide shots
of desolate landscapes in which Szabolcszt is often the only human being. Tess, in turn, is locked in the house, she’s only able to watch people walking around from inside. Very rarely do the two speak– they literally don’t have a common language. The body language comes to the fore – to get the point we have to look narrowly at the smallest gestures and movements of the actors. You need to be attentive to watch this subtle film, but if you are, you may get engaged with the sad atmosphere of solitude. For those who are patient I’m The Same I’m An Other will offer a beautiful story of a very unlikely relationship.
Andrei Kartashov (Russia)
abuse designed to test his faith in Jesus, as the man, Benno, proves himself to be a sadistic monster. Divided into three chapters –faith, hope and love - the movie shows a glimpse of reality in which Tore’s endless willingness to sacrifice turns into a symbol of Jesus’ suffering. The performance by the young actor Julius Feldmeier is profoundly touching and intimate. The hand-held camera floats like a Holy Spirit through the movie, following Tore’s pain in this portrait of religious conservatism. At first, one might think that Gebbe only portrays Tore as a naïve Christian who believes a broken car will start to work again as long as he prays to Jesus, but she doesn’t. Instead she slowly reveals dark deficits on both sides of the religious fence.
Nothing Bad Can Happen Katrin Gebbe (Germany) - New German Film
The German debuting filmmaker Katrin Gebbe is one lovely lady. At the screening of her first feature Nothing Bad Can Happen in Cannes, she charms the audience with a funny chat, honest smile, and sparkling eyes. All the more surprising is the disturbing nature of her directorial debut (which she also scripted) about the young Christian punk Tore, who moves in with the family of a man he meets by chance. Though his background remains unclear, Tore is a vulnerable young man looking for a family he can belong to. What begins as an unexpected friendship between a lost soul and a supposedly charming family man gradually turns into torture. The boy becomes the target of cruel
Nothing Bad Can Happen doesn’t support religion neither judges it an evil. In the end the movie is more than just a realistic depiction of religious Puritanism. It also explores the dark ability of the human mind to turn into a merciless machine. When power relations are involved, even seemingly innocent victims are capable of the most horrible deeds. The subtle storytelling of the 30-year-old director leaves little room for hope, the title of the last chapter. The only moments in which Tore seems truly happy is when he dances with Benno’s 15-year-old stepdaughter Sanny, but for the greater part of the film, Tore is really dancing with the devil.
by Kris Derks (The Netherlands)
interview a man alone in his machine it was very difficult to get the crew close to it, we had to bring in new snow very often, so that was a bit tricky. It was important for the director to make a landscape involved with the passage of time, to become dirty and more hostile. One of the visual references for the look of the film was There will be blood, the Paul Thomas Anderson film, with all that texture, the grease of the machine, the texture of the snow. Even though the story is set far from Montreal we were actually shooting half an hour from it, in a beautiful park. The trees had leaves only very high and it created an image like a prison, which is a little bit what happens to the character, when out of remorse he basically punishes himself by imprisonment in the woods, in the arm of his crime.
Luc Déry
Producer of Whitewash (Canada) Luc Déry is one of the most successful producers in Canada right now, a country that is currently going through one of its most productive periods, and has a whole section dedicated to its cinema here at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival program. One of those films is Whitewash, directed by Hoss-Desmarais, a dark comedy thriller about impresionment and survival. We spoke to Déry to find out more about his film. Whitewash is Emanuel Hoss-Desmais’s feature debut. What attracted you to this project? The director is one of the top commercial directors in Canada and does especially comedy. We were mostly known for more serious films, talking about the Middle East, mentally challenged people, but we also enjoy comedy as an audience, and we were interested in Emanuel for that. The script that he had in mind was also serious, but with underlined black humor in it.
The movie takes place during a though Canadian winter? Did the weather condition force you to change anything during the shooting? Did it influence the final outcome of the film? It’s funny because it wasn’t a particularly difficult winter. There was very little snow compared to what we’re used to, so we had to deal with the lack of snow very often. We were working around that machine so often and the story being of
How was working with Thomas Haden Church? It was a lot fun. We were a bit nervous about it. We worked with a couple of European actors in some of our films. We worked with Olivier Gourmet, but it’s a very different approach. Hollywood actors we were a little bit afraid of, but he was actually really easy to work with. We worked very long days, he wasn’t used to the cold as we are, so it was a little bit more difficult for him, but at the same time he liked it, because it made him feel like the character feels. He’s very smart and he took the role very very seriously. One of the things we were really impressed by was that he was not just coming to do a small film in Canada, he loved the script, he loved Emanuel, the director, it was a challenging role for him and he questioned every scene, every line with the director, not out of wanting to take control, but just out of wanting to the best job with the role, understanding his character as much as possible. These well known actors more often than not, they’re well known because they are terrific actors. A lot of the people say that it’s one of his best roles, if not his best role.
Interview by Andra Gheorghiu (Romania) Photo by Agnieszka Pokrywka