Nisimazine Cannes 2011 Issue #7

Nisimazine THURSDAY 19 MAY 2011

from Chatrak (Mushrooms) by Vimukthi Jayasundara

#7

Cannes

A Magazine by Nisi Masa, European Network Of Young CinemA

Vimukthi Jayasundara 0slo, 31. August Australian cinema

NISIMAZINE CANNES

Thursday 19 May 2011/# 7 A magazine published by the NISI MASA in the framework of a film journalism workshop for young Europeans with the support of the ‘Youth in Action’ programme of the EU

Editor Jude Lister

by Maria Ulfsak (Estonia)

written by an “official” critic or just a funloving film blogger who actually works as a builder or an aerobics instructor, if the text is interesting?

I actually don’t have an answer to all of those questions. It is nice that we have so much interesting and intriguing information about films online and that everybody can publish themselves via imdb.com, blogs, comments, Facebook and other such places. But at the same time I really hope that in twenty years I can still take my newspaper (emphasis on the word “paper”, not an iPad or a laptop or something else they haven’t invented yet) on a Saturday morning, have some coffee and read a proper review of a film written by a grumpy old film critic I know and can trust.

Tutor Paolo Bertolin Contributors to this issue

Ľuboš Bišto, Andris Feldmanis Eva Kincsei, Martina Lang Anne-Sophie Meusburger, Vivian Saglier Lukas Traber, Maria Ulfsak, Miklós Vargha Patrícia Veszpremi Coordinators Jass Seljamaa, Merli Antsmaa Eva Ujlakyová, Jana Dandárová NISI MASA 99 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, 75010, Paris, France.

Phone: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 in Cannes: +33 (0) 6 32 61 70 26 europe@nisimasa.com www.nisimasa.com

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With all the journalists around in Cannes, it has made me wonder about the profession of a film critic. Who is a professional film critic? Stereotypically it used to be a grumpy elderly man or woman (more often a man), with dirty glasses and a packet of cigarettes, writing for a daily newspaper. These days film journalism and film criticism has changed a lot. Because of the recession there is less space in the newspapers for the culture, and film journalists and critics have been amongst the first to get fired. At the same time we have more and more film journalism and criticism on the Internet. Everybody can write about film online, whatever they want.

But how do we know if it is reliable? Professional? What does the word “professional” even mean in the context of film criticism?

And is it important for a reader if the text is

Editor-in-Chief/Layout Maartje Alders

BY Miklós Vargha (HUNGARY)

Editorial

EDITORIAL STAFF Director of Publication Matthieu Darras

picture of the day

film of the day

© MOTLYS AS

Oslo, 31. August Joachim Trier (Norway) - UCR

A city is an entity, an ecosystem of its own. No matter the size, there is a collective mind working. People are not the ones in charge anymore. Oslo, 31. August

by Joachim Trier opens with a montage of documentary shots, including a voiceover of different people sharing their personal feelings about the city of Oslo. The found footage-like images focus viewers’ attention on the city. The beginning of the film - in direct parallel with the ending - shows every place the main character visits on the day of 31st August. On the whole, Joachim Trier successfully creates a story that is much more than a portrait of one day in a city.

Oslo, 31. August is only Joachim Trier’s second feature after the acclaimed Re-

prise. The Norwegian director doesn’t live in Oslo anymore, but his deep relationship with the city is palpable in both of his films. The other thing that remains from the first picture is the leading actor Anders Danielsen Lie, who played Philip in Reprise, stars in the role of Anders in Oslo, 31. August.

After the introductory montage, we get to see Anders waking up next to a girl.

A few moments later, he tries to commit suicide by drowning himself in a lake.

The film shows us his endeavours to give his life one more chance. Through a series of meetings and events his personal history gets revealed. He was a drug addict, lost his girlfriend, and cannot get a job.

However, by the end of the first half of the

La Nuit, elles dansent Filming is all about power. A choice is made between those who can be given access to representation, and those who can’t. La Nuit, elles dansent presents a world almost deprived of men: they are shadows popping out of other shadows and used as mere foils. In the erotic? dancing industry as depicted here, they are just the hands that provide the money and the gaze that triggers the show. Here the client is no more omnipotent; he is indebted to the dancers for their performance. True to the system of donation established by Marcel Mauss, Isabelle Lavigne and Stéphane Thibault reverse the usual balance of power and endow women with superiority.

Reda is at the centre of this swing. She is a widow raising her seven children in Cairo.

Through her fighting spirit, she has made a business of her family by employing her daughters as night dancers, and training them from a young age. The family house

review © Les Films du tricycle

Isabelle Lavigne & Stéphane Thibault (Canada) - QR

movie, the ending becomes quite clear.

He will try to commit suicide again. The absence of anticipation is intentional and is positive for the movie’s rhythm.

The character of Anders is well-acted; Anders Danielsen Lie is convincing in portraying the protagonist’s deep internal conflicts. Shot with a hand-held camera, the framing’s constant movement implies another sort of turbulence: not physical, but psychological. Oslo, 31. August is a very personal look at the everyday reality of a city. It reminds us that even if we co-create the life of a city, the latter will remain and we will have to go.

By Ľuboš Bišto (Slovakia)

is a theatre divided into dressing rooms whose empress is the Godmother/madam.

At night the girls turn into fairies, but fairies that take taxis to work, and get arrested for being underage.

The dancers’ bodies are exposed in their whole sensuality. But is there any power in controlling the men’s gaze? Can the reification of bodies be really reversed into strength? The men’s lust is a constant cause

for arguments, and Reda is continuously led to defend her girls like a counsel in court.

But through speech, she also becomes the judge who returns the verdict. In negotiation and speech really lies the power of women; Reda exemplifies it as she takes the narration of the documentary hostage and supplants the directors.

by Viviane Saglier (France)

Sauna on Moon (Chang E)

reviews

Zou Peng (China) - SC

Breathing (Atmen)

Karl Markovics (Austria) - QR

A young guy is sitting next to his mother, able to talk to her for the first time in around nineteen years, because she gave him away to an orphanage when he was still a baby. The topic of their discussion is smoking cigarettes. The mother mentions that she used to smoke a lot, but didn’t smoke when she was pregnant with him. “Good Girl” and a bored expression is what she gets for an answer.

Scenes like this, which could make one cry and laugh at the same time, make Breathing (Atmen) by Austrian director Karl Markovics an extraordinary movie, that represents the mood of Vienna perfectly. Without trying to show the city in a glorified way, the film gives the audience a sense

of the country’s famous black humour. Characters that pass you by in this city every day are captured in a way that even Austrian cinema has seldom portrayed so authentically.

Yet Breathing isn’t a picture for an Austrian audience only. Featuring a strong, emotional story with a central performance from an impressively naturalistic young amateur actor, Karl Markovics, usually known for his own acting work, manages to put his beautifully-shot debut movie on a level with the best Austrian movies of recent years - and with this year’s highlights of the Cannes Film Festival.

by Lukas Traber (Austria)

Sauna on Moon by Chinese director Zou Peng is a smoothly flowing, impressionistic poem about the mundane everyday life of a brothel, subtly photographed with a mildly rippling musical score. For the struggling owner and prostitutes of the brothel, to break away from their grim reality is as impossible as to take a sauna on the moon.

Though the story may be sad, it is presented with such a naïve and innocent tone that one almost feels being a prostitute at Wu’s place is as pleasant as a family vacation.

It is quite hard to construct a story from the narration, as the plot line is quite thin: we see a bunch of dreamily sketched characters loosely connected by the brothel, who share the same ambitions: to get away from their dreary environment. The greyish blue tone of the images, together with the soundtrack, adds

up to create an air of innocent vagueness.

The relationship between Mr. Wu and his girls imparts a tone of warmth. His fatherly concern and caring towards the girls manifests itself in many absurdly humorous scenes, like the one in which he buys sadomasochist accessories for the girls to boost their business. He then shows the dolled-up girls how to use them while he himself tries on a nice piece of gag.

In the end, Wu manages to resurrect his rattling business while some of the girls leave the place. For the ones staying everything will remain the same. Their only consolation may be that living in a community in Wu’s brothel is still like an island in a deserted reality.

by Eva Kincsei (Hungary)

from top to bottom: Bear, Toomelah, Snowtown

//in focus

Australia If you hear about Australian cinema and you aren’t a big movie buff, the first film that comes to mind is probably something like Mad Max or Crocodile Dundee. You may also think of all the Australian actors who managed to start Hollywood careers in recent years, such as Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Heath Ledger. But Australian cinema shouldn’t be reduced to this kind of mainstream access.

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival people are able to experience very different kinds of Australian films, ranging from the black comedy short Bear to the naturalistic drama masterpiece Snowtown.

Watching these movies will likely give you the impression that you underestimated the film business that this continent was able to establish over the course of movie history. Australia was actually involved in the world of cinema right from the beginning. Since starting out as a pioneer for feature films with the movie The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906, there have been gems now and then, like Jedda, the first Australian film shot in colour which, like this year’s Toomelah, featured aboriginal actors and had the honour to be featured at the Cannes Film Festival or the Tarantino-like Two Hands, which made Heath Ledger into a superstar. Yet Australia has failed until now to become a place you associate with great cinema - a fact that taboo breaking movies like Snowtown might be able to change.

Facing a dark chapter of Australia’s recent history, adapted into a movie experience that isn’t easy to watch, but at the same time feels like something new and important, Snowtown has its own unique style and the possibility to become something that will stay in people’s minds for a long while. Someday maybe it will even be called a milestone in the country’s cinematic history.

Another Australian movie that managed to interest quite a big audience was Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty. Although the film met with a variety of reactions, the fact alone that an Australian debut movie made it into the competition for the Palme d’Or shows that Australia’s movie industry should be followed closely.

By Lukas Traber (Austria)

interview

Nash Edgerton Director of Bear (Short Film Competition)

How hard has it been for you to become a director in Australia?

I didn’t really plan to become a director. I started out as a stuntman, and the first short I made, I made to put stunts on my show reel. I had so much fun making the thing that I wanted to continue directing. So, I didn’t go to film school or anything. Out of the fun, at some point I realized that I want to keep doing this.

Your movies are fun, black comedies without social commentary.

How hard was it to get a project like this financed in your country?

My first few shorts I financed by myself, so they were made really cheaply, most of the equipment was borrowed and so on. I made this film called Lucky and it played at a festival called Racefest, which tours around the world. In Italy a lady came to me, and told me that she liked it and wanted to buy it for her television station. She asked me if I was working on something else and I told her about Spider, the prequel of Bear. That’s how I came to make Spider. With Bear it was easier because Spider had already won some prizes at festivals.

Aside from your own career, are there many ways to become involved in the movie business in Australia?

There are a few different avenues.

Every major city in Australia has its film school, and there are many avenues to fund films as well, like the Government’s Screen Australia, with the support of which Bear was made. It’s a pretty good year for Australian cinema - my short and three other features and a bunch of films in the market as well. Justin Kurzel, the director of Snowtown, is actually a good friend of mine; we are at the same production company doing music videos, and David Michôd, the director of Animal Kingdom, wrote Bear and Spider with me. So we are basically some friends, who all work on each other’s films and help out, and it feels like a good time.

interview Director of Chatrak (Mushrooms) - Directors’ Fortnight

Vimukthi Jayasundara

Photo by Martina Lang (AUSTRIA)

What is the main theme of your new movie?

It is about the urbanisation of Asia. The main character is an Indian architect, who has been working in Dubai for a long time and is now coming back to his own country to work on those new, incredible, huge constructions in Calcutta. He left India to make more money, to be part of the modern world and he didn’t really imagine coming back again. India was in a different shape when he left and is now totally changing, becoming a more modern country. He has difficulties finding his roots, feeling guilty of having been away from his country. There is a gap between the past and the present which also shows in Calcutta’s architecture itself: On one hand the ghostly looking colonial buildings of the past, on the other hand the modern concrete architecture he helps to build. He wants to materially help the people. But in order to fulfil his duty and support his country, he eventually destroys nature.

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How was shooting in Calcutta?

It was not easy to shoot in Calcutta.

Most of the Indian movies are being shot in studios, so people are not used to movies being shot in the streets. All kinds of people were coming to see the Indian stars. We often had to play some kind of “hide and seek” in order to shoot without interruptions. So the crew separated, we put up fake stars and drove away with a small car and a

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Would you say Mushrooms is different from your former movies or is it similar in terms of storytelling and film language?

Well, it is the first movie I shot outside my country. In my other movies I was used to an open landscape. We mostly shot in remote areas and not in urban locations. But in Mushrooms, Calcutta, a contemporary city, is the main character of the movie. In my other two movies I constructed my own reality, my own imaginary world. But for this movie I had to accept the real world.

Capturing urban reality was one of the challenges I faced. Normally I like to take long shots. When you shoot in nature you have to have a sense for the mood and specific rhythm and you have to be humble in relation to the landscape. In this case that was not possible and I wanted to change the style.

Shooting in the city is totally different since the city is constructed by us. This changes matters of time and space.

camera. Sometimes the crew members themselves didn’t know if the shooting for the day was already done or not.

Do you think that people who know your former movies will be in some way surprised?

I like to keep it as a surprise. It gives me pleasure to try different things and to change myself. Keep open to anything that comes. I don’t want to be put in a box and be labelled. Of course I will always keep my past but I also try to change.

Why is it called Mushrooms?

At the very beginning there was a lot of irritation about the title. But now everybody is happy about it because it makes sense on several levels. On one hand, the movie is like a trip, a hallucination like the ones you can have after eating mushrooms. It is about a different state of mind. And on the other hand the film is about this “Mushroomian” building in Calcutta. The mushroom is also a good metaphor for a kind of living being without many roots. It just needs few conditions to grow and it appears and disappears very easily. So in the end the title has three different meanings.

How long did the filmmaking process take from the idea of the film until the editing?

It came very unexpectedly. I was working on another film when the idea came up last year. I hadn’t actually planned to do it. So we started to shoot in October / November and were finished after 30 days of shooting, with hardly any break. In comparison to my other movies, which took about one and a half to two years, this was quite different. The shooting was rather difficult because the movie constructs itself around morning, midday and evening and we often got up at 4 am in order to continue with the same light.

Are there already plans for future projects?

I have been working on a couple of projects in the last two years and this just came in between. A film in Sri Lanka is in production right now. Also I’ve been approached by US producers to make a mainstream American movie with American actors.

By Anne-Sophie (Austria)

Meusburger

While waiting for the MexicanAmerican director at the terrace of the Directors’ Fortnight, where her documentary had been screened two hours earlier, I watch how she behaves in front of the cameras. As soon as the machine is turned off her face and movements become livelier, just like half an hour later at the end of our interview. Her modest style is apparent from her low voice and inquiring yet self-confident facial expressions.

She is taking the many questions suddenly thrown at her patiently, with a friendly attitude. It is hard to picture such a woman shooting in the violent circumstances of her country, which are only conveyed through television and radio news throughout the course of El Velador.

After a bumpy start, she begins to reveal her method and approach to documenting reality. “I work with a very small crew, so I produce, shoot and then edit my films. I like this scale very much because I don’t have to look for money at this stage. You just shoot and that gives you great freedom”, she explains. This is what she did with the night watchman and the construction people of a cemetery of mausoleums for the fallen drug lords of a vicious war: she followed the life of the cemetery, the mourning widows keeping clean their lost ones’ memorials and souls. Yet, Natalia does not think in such poetic terms: she is simply an observer. The freedom from financial constraints allows her to materialize her true documenting self: “such a small scale allows me some kind of intimacy with the people and the place I am filming”, says the filmmaker. In fact, this form of capturing reality seems to be free of all barriers, except maybe the manipulative effect of framing reality into compositional pictures. This track reveals her road to motion pictures: “I wanted to become a photographer”, she admits, which explains why her film is so visually gripping.

Already while watching her movie the idea of a contrast started creeping into the back of my mind, which when I caught first sight of Natalia really solidified and realised itself as a question: “What was it like as a woman filmmaker to be filming this all male crew for such a long time?” She explains that not only did they get used to her camera rapidly but that these rugged machos trusted her more and let her into their daily lives “more than they would have done with a guy”. They took care of this tender woman in a turbulent region and protected her from many unexpected dangers. Thus the necessary intimacy was soon established.

It’s hard to escape bringing up the issue of her bi-cultural origins.

Her view again is straightforwardly put: “The different aspects of the two cultures in some cases contradict each other. Sometimes I don’t know which is really mine.

It is all about how you work with things in reality that are contradictory: in the end you just have to accept them”. This leads us to the delicate issue of the Mexican drug-war, of which she speaks moderately and without judgement, as her film does. She reveals a more humanitarian perspective to the issue of violence. The only judgment the director seemed to pass is over the media that blocks the consolation of the conflict.

The idea emerges as I ask about the controversial nature of the places of worship for people actively participating in drug-wars: “You feel the contradiction because of the media that generally gives you pictures, stories which make you scared. Humanity would be very necessary. If you think they are only criminals then you are saying they do not deserve justice, equality and all those humanitarian rights. And if we do that we are never going to end this thing”, she concludes.

portrait Director of El Velador Directors’ Fortnight

Natalia Almada Photo by Andris Feldmanis (ESTONIA) -camera by Canon

The violent Mexican war between rival drug lords seems to be one of the focuses of Cannes this year.

Natalia Almada provides us with a different approach to violence in her documentary El Velador (The Night Watchman). Meeting her revealed an independent-minded woman not yet accustomed to the swirls of prestigious festivals.

Check our vimeo channel Lukas Pittaway and Daniel Henshall (Snowtown)

Natalia does not take sides or show graphic violence, thus she does not cater for opposing opinions. She simply conveys a delicate woman’s point of view beyond the world of dramatic news reports.

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By Patrícia Veszprémi (Hungary)

bit.ly/ldlZmA

Team of Iron Sky Sci-Fi Crowdfunding

Extended Online Coverage until the end of the festival!

WORLD PREMIERE OF ON THE PLANK DIRECTED BY LEILA KILANI On the Plank (Sur La Planche) is Leila Kilani’s debut narrative feature following a number of documentaries she has directed since 2000.

Recipient of a post-production grant from SANAD, Abu Dhabi Film Festival’s development and post-production fund, On the Plank (Sur La Planche) is the only Arab entry in the Directors’ Fortnight this year.

The film explores the lives of four female friends on the run, their choices and shattered destinies.

SCREENINGS IN CANNES Venue: Hôtel Marriott, Théâtre Croisette Date and Time: Thursday - 19 May, 2011 - 2PM, 10PM Venue: La Licorne - La Bocca Date and Time: Friday - 20 May, 2011 - 9AM Venue: Cinéma - Les Arcades, Salle 1 Date and Time: Saturday - 21 May, 2011 - 10:30PM