Nisimazine Tallinn #3

Nisimazine Tallinn 15th Nov. - 1st Dec. 2013

Karnaval Heli Tiina Lokk

3

picture of the day

Editorial

NISIMAZINE TALLINN

Merli Antsmaa (Estonia)

It was last year when I said that Nisimazine Tallinn should be named Nisimazine Rebel because of its way of happening regardless of the financial situation or previous interaction with the festival (like it was more or less on the first year). By the third year the workshop has become a big part of Nisi Masa Estonia’s yearly events and is growing to be an important partner for the festival.

There is actually one mutual point with Nisimazine Tallinn and the festival – both started from the initiative of the people without any big support and both have continued and developing.

The festival has become THE film festival in Estonia and perhaps Nordic countries and this is where Nisimazine Tallinn is definitely aiming to go – to be the workshop where it is the coolest to be part of.

I am really glad that at least all the Estonians who have taken part in the workshop have become close to Nisi Masa Estonia and some have given their helping hand in coordinating different projects. NISI MASA is about networking and it is great to see happening with all of the young participants of Nisimazine.

Every year is different and special in every way. The first one was the incubation period where everything was new and every step was taken carefully, the second was like a toddler being everywhere, wanting to be part of everything and questioning about the world around. This year it is like a pre-teen state – older, a little wiser already but before the outburst of all the emotions and questioning of oneself. Nisimazine Tallinn is still a small rebel and lets see if next year will be the Teenage year – it should definitely show the direction where the workshop will be heading in Tallinn.

One thing is for sure – only the bravest daredevils come to the Black Nights Film Festival which is full of suprises and mystery.

15th Nov. - 1st Dec. 2013 # 3

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

Ugnė Česnavičiūtė, Andrei Liimets, Mirona Nicola Picture of the day & Cover Agnieszka Pokrywka

NISI MASA

99, rue du Faubourg Saint-Dénis 75010, Paris, France Phone: +33 (0)1 48 01 65 31 europe@nisimasa.com

Karnaval

reviews

Can Kılcıoğlu (Turkey) - Official Competition EuroAsia

Unfortunately, some family members are so psychotic that no matter how hard you try to forge a healthy relationship nothing will help. One cannot fully understand another if one keeps things to himself and is not willing to explore. The most usual problem between parents and children, which has been widely analyzed in film history, is once again present in Karnaval, the first feature film by Turkish director Can Kılcıoğlu, although the child here is a thirty six year old man.

Karnaval tries to depict a man’s maturation through discovering the magic of the first love, though as soon as the viewer is introduced with the character and his lifestyle the end of the story becomes clear, making you lose all the interest. The main character, Alis, lives in a car near his parent’s house and works as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Suddenly he meets a girl and you can guess what happens next. Even flashes of light humour and soft subtle music are not working in favour of this film, which resembles more a bad soap opera than a meaningful story worth watching.

In Karnaval the relationship between parents and their introverted son is revealed in a too general way. There is a mother and father who control their son´s life, but there is no effort in trying to go deeper into it. In the scenes important to the narrative the viewer’s attention unnaturally focus on secondary details, such as a horse on the street or a black cat wriggling between the legs. For the audience it is explicitly funny to see a vacuum cleaner, which looks like a robot R2D2 from Star Wars, being

taken everywhere by Alis. The instrument becomes his friend, more willing to change then the character himself. On the other hand, Serdar Orçin´s acting is creditable and deserves applauses.

There is a strange feeling that there are missing parts to this puzzle, and no matter how hard I try to build a relationship with the film nothing helps. The characters lack connection, the story is obvious and banal, and the film doesn’t impress stylistically. The acting may be an exception, but the message of the film is too simplistic: people are different and have different lifestyles, which can’t be judged or criticized. However it is worth mentioning Karnaval definitely has an audience, and will be an interesting experience for easy romantic film fans.

by Ugnė Česnavičiūtė (Lithuania)

only get worse from there. With little emotion, neither stylistically nor character-wise, the film stabs the audience with a series of increasingly disturbing acts of violence, both physical and mental. The slow camerawork, while not especially clever or stylish, has a captivatingly strong sense of confidence and self-assurance. There are some superbly crafted shots with a lot of empty space to intensify the feeling of dread.

Add the lack of dialogue and the absence of background music and the obviously intentional bleakness is complete.

Heli

by Amat Escalante (Mexico) - Mexico Bronco section Kidnappings, corruption, drug-trafficking - if you’ve been paying attention to the world news the past years, these are probably among the first keywords related to Mexico that to come to mind. However, such conflict also does give ample inspiration for powerful films. Case in point: Brazil with its City of God and The Elite Squad. Now along with a wave of acclaimed Mexican films comes Heli, a story about a family that gets in the middle of everything bad associated with the country.

The first shot of the film - a bloody head with a boot smashed up against it - establishes the menacing tone of the film. Here’s a spoiler: it will

While the title might suggest this to be a character study, it trims down the psychological nuances in favour of a more distanced overview of the gruesome events. Slowly building up the story, the film doesn’t really create any closeness between the viewer and the characters though. Considering some of the things they go through, this might not be such a bad thing, but while the performances are naturalistic, the characters remain too anonymous and the domestic aspects added to the story are too underdeveloped to add much extra value.

Heli, winner of the best director prize in Cannes, doesn’t really concern itself with creating suspense or making any judgments. This can, depending on the viewers taste, be a major strength or weakness. Much like Haneke’s films, this is a thorough demystification and deglorification of violence. It barely acknowledges the deflated value of human life, the perceived routineness of violence in Mexico and the individual’s weakness in midst of it. Needless to say, it is hard to stomach and will leave you emotionally hollow. More problematically, it’s not that absorbing intellectually or morally either. It certainly affects but considering the rough methods used, it could say more.

by Andrei Liimets (Estonia)

interview The honest answer is that I don’t know. A lot was built on intuition. You just have to be in contact with the audience.

For me it was a question of how to keep the balance. In this respect we are at the positive crossroads between art and commercial. We are making a quality event, which has also become a mass event. Estonians are a very cultural nation, but they really didn’t like cinema before. Maybe it is just that we started this at the right time.

Have you also seen numbers raising for cinema tickets in general throughout the year, outside of the festival?

First of all, the number of cinemas themselves have increased. Smaller cities wanting to host screenings of the POFF films started fighting for the renovation of their cinemas. But we are still in the beginning- because only in Tallinn, Tartu and Narva there are cinemas equipped for digital projection. So yes, I would say POFF has a huge influence in raising cinema ticket sales, but also in developing cinema. Local professionals have the possibility to make a lot of contacts, especially since we developed more and more our industry event.

Tiina Lokk

Artistic Director of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival Tiina Lokk is the maverick behind the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Together with a small and dedicated crew she has been beating all the odds for almost two decades now, bringing the world´s best films to the Estonian capital every year. The entire team of Nisimazine Tallinn Black Nights 2013 had the chance to sit down with her for a long chat. Here is a little taste of the full interview that will be published on the upcoming Ebook You have been at the helm of the Black Nights Film Festival since its inception.

How has your role changed over the years?

One side was to build up the festival, the event itself, and on the other side was to build up the organization. The first side was easy for me. I knew very clearly what I am going to do. It was just a question of when I was going to realize my dream. But to build up the organization it was absolutely another case. I am essentially a creative person. And suddenly, during the 5th edition, I realized that I had become the director and that now I should know how to build up the

organization, to take responsibility for the people, and for many other things that I didn’t know anything about, really.

The festival has grown quickly, which also created a big responsibility towards the audience, which has also grown incredibly fast. We haven’t been ready for this. Because there are two things that were never popular in Estonia- and those are cinema and circus.

How did you, then, trigger their need for the film festival?

How is the festival doing at the moment, especially with the price of the ticket increasing this year?

The ticket price is not so high by comparison with other cultural events and the regular price in cinemas. That being said, the situation is quite difficult because we are still paying our debts caused by the economic crisis. When the crisis came we were afraid that we will lose our sponsors.

That didn’t happen but instead we lost a part of the government granted money. So now we are putting a lot of effort into preserving out sponsors. Because if we are losing a sponsor, it is not so easy to get a new one. But the world is changing and that also has an influence. For example, one of our biggest sponsors used to be Nokia. And where is Nokia right now?

The programme this year is especially strong. But there are some films which many expected to see, but are not here.

Usually we are losing movies when they are in the selling process. Let’s put it like this: if you are renting out an apartment with a person living in it, you are going to get less money. One hand it is a question of trust in the relationship with the distributors. And then there is the issue of who owns the regional rights. Now it’s funny that producers start fighting, and they go and confront their distributors, because they want to be part of the festival.

Interview by Mirona Nicola (Romania) Photo by Agnieszka Pokrywka