FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE GIJร N 01 SEPTIEMBRE 2012 // nยบ 2
ORGANIZA
PATROCINA
COLABORA
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01st SEPTEMBER 2012 // No 2
HOW WILL THE 50TH EDITION BE?
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RETROSPECTIVES
RETROSPECTIVES
A pioneer of the wave of Iranian cinema that has swept the world since the
production and he turned his mise en scene into a hybrid between his foreign eye – willing to absorb its adoptive culture’s idiosyncrasy – and his elaborate aesthetics. It is nevertheless interesting to see how the fact that he is a foreigner doesn’t mean – as it does in Wim Wender’s case – the need to shoot each location as if it were a set inherited from classic movies. On
80s, he opened our eyes to a movie universe filled with new and relevant stories. In this year’s retrospective FICX pays tribute to prestigious director Amir Naderi, now living in exile.
the contrary, Naderi walks every inch of New York, capturing its nuances and then reproduces them from his own aesthetic coordinates. In his first work on American soil, Manhattan by Numbers (1993), Naderi unleashed the compositional strength of his images to give us the portrait of something more than a city; an essay on New York itself. The story of an unemployed writer desperately looking for someone to borrow money from in order to avoid being evicted transforms into a declaration of intent in a land called America. When strolling through Wall Street, Naderi’s camera rebuilds its skyline to show how the sky in New York – and its working class with it – is oppressed by the skyscrapers at the heart of its business activity. That space of light not blocked by the disproportionate growth of capitalism, concentrates the values of the American Dream he doesn’t give up on in his first American movie. Up until that moment the X-ray image of an uncertain future had his characters feeling the need to change that situation, and once in a foreign land Naderi finds a reason to trust others again, and finds the help his previous heroes lacked.
By the early 1970s, the Sha of Persia’s government began a rapid decline that would result in Ayatollah Khomeini’s return from his exile in Paris and later lead to the Iranian revolution of 1979. The climate of social uncertainty encouraged a generation of moviemakers to be the eyewitnesses of that change. Amir Naderi (Abadan, 1946), together with such directors as Abbas Kiarostami or Mohsen Makhmalbaf, was one of the leading figures of that new wave.
aderi’s work revolves around the themes of uprooting and social exclusion, from which the most vulnerable elements of society suffer. A film maker with a strong sense of composition, he pays special attention to the editing and sound editing of his films, and since his first films he has cast a worried, almost documentary, look on the political reality of his country. While the Sha’s regime was carrying out an economic policy based on grand ceremonies, Naderi was shooting Tangna (1973), where he shows the hidden face of poverty in Iranian society. It is a tough story set in the underworld and reflects the exhaustion of a nation because of its leader’s excesses. But this cry for help is even louder in Tangsir (1974). In telling Zar Mammad’s story, that of a man whose life savings are stolen, he directs his most poignant criticism against the Iranian establishment: when standing in the middle of the bazaar, surrounded by the merchants who have taken part in the scam, Zar Mammad wonders who to trust when the law, religion and the market have turned their backs on him. The political impasse that followed the change in Iran forced Naderi to cast his eyes on society’s most unprotected: children. In 1985 he shot Davandeh, Iran’s flagship film on the shores of the world’s cinema. Unlike his previous works, which paid more attention to describing the collective drama silently unfolding, Naderi focuses his elaborate style on capturing reality in post-revolutionary Iran. In order to do so he uses Amiro, a child who barely makes a living in the outskirts of a harbour city. Empty bottles in the midst of the sea, bottles picked up by children in order to make some money, are an eloquent metaphor of an early youth no one cares about. And Naderi talks about the precariousness of childhood, of the worrying illiteracy and rates of uprooting, of how that evaporates – just like a half-melted block of ice a group of kids fight over – the chances for the future the country has. Naderi not only works on the visual elements of the film, an adult reality we decode through a child’s eyes, but he also shows an early creative maturity in his message that withstands any adversity. In spite of all the hurdles, Amiro enrols in a school and starts learning Farsi; he struggles to prevent social injustice damaging his future.
By : Óscar Brox News Coordinator for Miradas de Cine and co-publisher in Detour.es
Amir Naderi.
A film maker with a strong sense of composition, he pays special attention to the editing and sound editing of his films, and since his first films he has cast a worried, almost documentary, look on the political reality of his country
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Khomeini’s coming to power signalled the end of Iran’s opening up policy and a new embracing of religious dictatorship. For directors like Naderi the new regime entailed bans and restrictions that affected the distribution of his movies, which became more limited. Tired of that situation he moved to the USA looking for the creative freedom he longed for. Unlike other directors that could not stand the melancholy of exile, Naderi injected a special force, energy and sensibility into his American works. He sort of picked up where he had left off in Iran, and his American movies revolve around small portraits of characters on the brink of social exclusion. But Naderi also exacerbates his trademark mise en scene and gives more importance to the new
The almost Capra-like ending of this first movie cannot disguise one of the most relevant aspects of his American career: the wounds of the past and how to cope with being exiled. Set in a big city, his characters still live in the margins, with their backs to the family and the community. Naderi is a very symbolic moviemaker. It is not by chance that in Manhattan by Numbers the fight between classes is represented by the face-off between the main character and the bronze bull in Wall Street. He interprets everyday neurosis (unemployment, exclusion or lack of understanding) by means of his poetry. Sound Barrier (2005) is, then, both testimony of the exile he lives in and a reflection of his wish to start a new era. Naderi inspects the traces his forced exit of Iran has left in his memory through the story of a child affected by a traumatic experience that rendered him deaf and mute and who can’t hear his absent mother’s last words. By using the child’s point of view he finds a way to exorcize the pain caused by his departure while at the same time he perseveres in looking for an answer that will allow him to take his art forward. Naderi’s progressive immersion in American culture shakes his optimistic and energetic conception of his adoptive country. He ends his American stint with a rather unaccommodating movie: Vegas: Based on a True Story (2008). In it he displays his trademark attention to detail and simple stories to describe the moral crumbling of American culture. Las Vegas, the epitome of wild capitalism, is the place
urban and human landscape he finds in cities like New York or Las Vegas. He obsessively describes the backgrounds, either in black and white or in colour, and pays attention to the different paces of life in them. Upon his arrival Naderi found an American film scene in which big stories were making way for the new indie films, filled with tiny lives, marginal characters and a bizarre sensibility when shooting a generation’s concerns. He was used to limitations in The Runner (1985).
Unlike other directors that could not stand the melancholy of exile, Naderi injected a special force, energy and sensibility into his American works SELECTION OF FILMS BY AMIR NADERI
Cut 2011
Search Two 1981 (Josteju Doe)
Search One 1980 (Josteju Yek)
The Winner 1979 (Barandeh)
Vegas: Based on a True Story 2008
Sound Barrier 2005 Bastone Bianco in Turin Film Festival Critics Award in Rome Film Festival
Marathon 2002 Requiem 1975 (Marsiyeh) A, B, C… Manhattan 1997
Manhattan by Numbers 1993
Water, Wind, Dust 1989 (Ab, Bad, Khak)
The Runner 1985 (Davandeh)
Golden Montgolfiere (grand prix) in Nantes Film Festival
Waiting 1974 (Entezar) Jurt Award in Cannes Film Festival
Tangsir 1973 Impasse 1971 (Tangna)
Goodbye Friend 1970 (Khoda Hafez Rafiq)
the director chooses to present a working family’s tragedy. Intoxicated by their dream of prospering no matter what, they end up destroying their environment. The small greenhouse the mother grows her tomatoes in is the image he chooses to show how the culture of effort ends up beaten by the wish to be successful at any cost. The tomatoes squished by the bulldozer upturning the land around the family home highlight the trip to the bottom of the American dream. A director of contrasts and explorer of the details of the human condition, Amir Naderi has never stopped shooting the faces, shrieks and needs of society. Iran, the USA or Japan where he shot Cut (2011), his most recent movie - represent the different stages of a creative maturity marked by the wish to reflect every aspect (moral, aesthetic and emotional) of his time. This moviemaker who depicted the unease of his people when faced with the social injustice of a regime is transformed, in exile, in the chronicler of tiny stories in big cities. The harbour in Davandeh gave way to the never-ending American geography. Along the way Naderi added, through the strength of his images and the moral impact of his documentary-like vision, a new piece to the mosaic of today’s cinema.
This moviemaker who depicted the unease of his people when faced with the social injustice of a regime is transformed, in exile, in the chronicler of tiny stories in big cities
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01st SEPTEMBER 2012 // No 2
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LA FIRMA
By : Ignacio del Valle Writer and journalist, author of seven novels, among them El tiempo de los emperadores extraños, adapted for the big screen with the title Frozen Silence (Gerardo Herrero, 2012), and Busca mi rostro.
Drive (2011).
Writer and journalist Ignacio del Valle takes us on an emotional trip through some of cinema’s most significant and evocative titles. The magician’s sleeve is always full of shit, and cinema’s sleeve even more so. We all know stories about betrayal, power and money, such as those beautifully told by Kenneth Anger or Budd Schulberg, but without those stories the shining stars that look upon us from the lunar screens would not be possible. Cinema is a game invented by suffering and dying animals, a game with a wide range of tools and simulations to suspend time and to pitch us against it. It is a deal, an invented reality just as real as the other, a fiction to undress bodies and portray souls. In the end, cinema is a pillar against confusion. And as such, this is the game I like the most, more than literature, more than painting, more than or music. More than almost anything. Chinese named cinema Dianying, meaning “the electric shadows”, and between the moment when during a homage to him, Griffith didn’t utter a word during the whole lunch and at the end stood up, placed a movie camera on the table and said, “sirs, you have in your hands an object that can change the world”, and the moment when Ryan Gosling sits at the wheel of the dreamlike urban tale Drive is… between these two shadows is held a whole century of fun, amazement, tragedy, unease, depth, glory, ridicule, surprise… Martin Scorsese explained its importance well during an interview: “it is our history, and for every metre of film lost, we also lose other bonds with our culture, with the world surrounding us and with ourselves”. The religious animal in me revolts against the proximity of that other reality, the other world displayed on screen, impressive in its weirdness. The concern and pleasure which Antonioni’s The Night or The Passenger cause me; Joseph Losey’s exquisite work, using light to sketch Julie Christie’s beauty in The Go-Between; Visconti’s elegance in The Leopard; how Deray catalysed the chemistry between Romy Schneider y Alain Delon, making each shot in The Sinners (UK)
I have reached places I never thought could exist, and have obviously seen things “nobody would believe”
/ The Swimming Pool (USA) fizzle; Herzog’s deranged heroes or Kubrick’s sublimation of evil in The Shining. I have reached places I never thought could exist, and have obviously seen things “nobody would believe”. My horizons widened, my ambitions rocketed, my curiosity got feedback from each shot, each dialogue, each conflict. Sleepless nights and red eyes sitting in front of a TV with only two stations; hundreds of thousands of pesetas spent in videoclubs, and then euros, and then whatever comes next, spent on hours and hours of films. The sensibility of silent love in A Short Film about Love, by Kieslowski; the frailty of genius portrayed by Paul Newman in The Hustler; German expressionism completely ripped off in The Night of the Hunter; Berlanga’s laugh out loud sequence shots in La escopeta nacional. And my eyes were wide open watching that blinking light, reaching level after level of truth, depth, feelings. And while I took all this in, the boundaries between art and leisure faded and gave me a road map for my future novels. Don’t bore me, Billy Wilder whispered to me, more than anything, do not be boring. And get as close as possible to the mystery, to the enigma, which is nothing but a loved one’s breathing, a woman’s nakedness, a child’s smile. And I was fascinated by Kirsten Dunst’s body as she moon bathes naked in Melancholia; I cried as I left the Renoir cinemas after seeing the tenderness and cruelty of Let Me In; how my vision of the world was changed after seeing Martin (Hache); and the restlessness which came over me when I understood the bare sanity of Jeremy Iron’s speech in Margin Call. Everything thanks to the movies, films which were always against inquisitors, against censorship, against ignorance, against moral. Movies to make us think, feel, pass time. Movies to define me, to give myself meaning. Yes, this is without a doubt the most amusing game of them all.
Let Me In (2008).
Half a century of good film is a long, long time, and also many, many good movies. Too many to reduce them to just 20, but noblesse oblige, so FICX has selected twenty films to be shown in the season from 1st to 23rd September in Teatro Jovellanos. Including of course the first and last movies of these 50 years, the selection reflects the spirit and evolution of the key features of the festival during its intense history. Not all of those that should be here are, but all of those that are, should be. By : José Havel
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01st SEPTEMBER 2012 // No 2
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50TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL RETROSPECTIVE 1st SEP. 18:00 hours
Presentation
Presentation of the film retrospective and screening of an excerpt of the movie which opened the Certamen Internacional de CineTV Infantil, The Magic World of Topo Gigio (Le avventure di Topo Gigio. Caldura and De Rio 1961). This movie was the film début of the famous puppet created by Maria Perego in 1959, which proved quite a hit in Italian, Spanish and Latin American TV. After this introduction, Waltz with Bashir (Vals Im Bashir. Folman, 2008) will be shown.
Together
1st September / 20:30 • (Tillsammans)
Waltz with Bashir (Vals Im Bashir) Israel, France, Germany, 2008. Dir.: Ari Folman • Animation. 87 min. 46th edition - 2008
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The King and the Mockingbird 9th September / 12:00 • (Le roi et l’oiseau)
Love me if you dare
(Jeux d’enfants) • 2nd September / 20:30
15th September / 20:30
France, 1979. Director: Paul Grimault • With the voices of Pascal Mazzotti (king), Jean
Spain, 1996. Director: Santiago Matallana • With Manuel Alexandre (G. Bazán), Zoe Berriatúa
Martin (mockingbird). Animation. Colour, 81 minutes. 20 edition - 1979
(Jorge), Amparo Soler Leal (Dña. Obdulia), Javier Albalá (Álvaro), Marta Fernández Muro
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Autobiographic animation documentary written and directed by Ari Folman with the aim of retrieving his own memories and those of some of his colleagues regarding their participation in the Lebanon war in 1982 as Israeli soldiers. Events which the characters do not remember but that nevertheless cause nightmares. Lucid, beautiful, and powerful, Waltz with Bashir has the honour of being one of the most appreciated and worthy movies of 2008, thanks to its formal treatment, its sharp sense of allegory, its moving study of memory and on the capacity of human beings to accept traumatic experiences.
El ángel de la guarda
(Carmen). Colour, 84 minutes. 34th edition - 1996 With texts by the great Jacques Prévert, loosely based on The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep by Hans Christian Andersen, this masterpiece of animation keeps its visual poetry and magic intact. Set in the wonderful (and allegoric) kingdom of Takicardia, it tells the story of a humble couple that count on the aid of a challenging little bird to overcome the hurdles which a despotic king sets to their love. Its perfectionism was almost unheard of in Europe at the time – Disney standards could not be reached then in the animation of Old Europe – and its director, the ever dissatisfied Paul Grimault, left us a piece that will always excel in its creative purity and in the beauty of its socio-political discourse.
Made in Hong Kong
9th September / 18:00 • (Xiang Gang zhi zhao)
By mixing his memories of Madrid in 1981 with the failed coup d’etat of the 23rd of February, and with the birth of the movida in the background, Madrid-born Santiago Matallana completed his first movie with bizarre flair. Personal experiences and the theatre of absurdity go hand in hand to create a chronicle of the Spanish Transición from the perspective of a family whose network structure reminds us of Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. Manuel Alexandre won the best actor award for his role as the eighty-something drunken grandfather, a slightly loony former general in Franco’s army.
The Jungle Book 16th September / 12:00
Sweden, 2000. Director: Lukas Moodysson • With Lisa Lindgren (Elisabeth), Michael Nyquist
France, 2003. Director: Yann Samuell • With Guillaume Canet (Julien), Marion Cotillard
Hong Kong, 1997. Director: Fruit Chang • With Sam Lee (To Chung-Chau), Neiky Yim Hui-
USA, 1967. Director: Wolfgang Reitherman • With the voices of Bruce Reitherman (Mowgli),
(Rolf), Gustaf Hammarsten (Göran), Anja Lundquist (Lena). Colour, 107 minutes. 38 edition - 2000
(Sophie). Colour, 93 minutes. 41 edition - 2003
Chi (Lam Yuk-Ping), Wenders Li (Ah-Lung). Colour, 108 minutes. 35 edition - 1998
Phil Harris (Baloo), Sebastian Cabot (Bagheera). Animation Disney. Colour, 78 min. 6th edition - 1967
Swedish Lukas Moodysson is one of the most beloved moviemakers for audiences of the Gijon Film Festival, and Together (Tillsammans) is one of the comedies that has made that same audience laugh the hardest. They were delighted with what happened to a hippy commune left to their vital promiscuity in Stockholm in 1975. Humour, always warm and human, is used here to create a parody of hippies from the perspective of left wing ideology, based on their unfocused liberal perception of reality as opposed to the bourgeois model, which is also subject to criticism because of its hypocrisy.
Just like modern movie tales that call upon the onlooker’s child-like fantasy, following in the wake of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s and Jaco Van Dormael’s charismatic romanticism, this naïve (and perverse) story shows us the relationship of a man and a woman linked since childhood by the “I dare you” game. A children’s game based on mutual challenges, innocent at first but that ends up being the tyrannical engine of their lives, taking them to increasingly more extreme and difficult and even harmful bets. The two main characters (Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet, now international stars) are capable of anything except admitting that they love each other.
Shot with movie roll scraps which Fruit Chang picked up here and there and with money borrowed from family and friends, Made in Hong Kong is a weird thriller with a self-asserting title, in which two outcast teenagers hang out with triads in a gloomy atmosphere of uncertainty and fear of the immediate future. Set in the years of Hong Kong’s handover to China from the UK, this first chapter of The 1997 Trilogy, which was then followed by The Longest Summer (1998) and Little Cheung (1999), depicts an identity threatened by the arrival of an uncertain new socio-political situation.
One of the best known classics of world animation, Disney’s adaptation of the immortal book by Rudyard Kipling is one of those films all audiences (children and adults alike) love. It is impossible not to love Mowgli, the young wild human, Bagheera, the ever vigilant panther, Baloo, the groovy bear, the protective brother wolves, the friendly elephant platoon of Colonel Hathi, and even Shere Kahn, the fearsome tiger. It is impossible not to get carried away by the tale and the unforgettable songs of this timeless film.
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The Rescuers
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The Traveller
(Mossafer) • 8th September / 18:00
2nd September / 12:00
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Evenings
9th September / 20:30 • (De avonden)
Dirty Dancing 16th September / 18:00
USA, 1977. Director: Wolfgang Reitherman • Voices by Eva Gabor (Bianca), Bob Newhart
Iran, 1974. Director: Abbas Kiarostami • With Hassan Darabi (Qassem), Masud Zand Bakleh.
The Netherlands, 1989. Director: Rudolf van den Berg • With Thom Hoffman (Frits van Egters),
USA, 1987. Director: Emile Ardolino • With Jennifer Grey (Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman), Patrick
(Bernard). Animation Disney. Colour, 78 minutes. 15 edition - 1977
Black and white, 71 minutes. 13 edition - 1974
Rijk de Gooyer (Vader), Viviane de Muynck (Moeder). Colour, 122 minutes. 29 edition - 1990
Swayze (Johnny Castle). Colour, 97 minutes. 25th edition - 1987
Disney’s fourth animated set in the present long feature was the first big hit for the company since The Jungle Book’s release in 1967. Its success was perhaps due to the mix of veteran old school animators with younger less experienced talents. Contrary to previous Disney classics, this adventure of two mice - Bernard and Bianca, fighting to free the kidnapped girl Penny - managed to mix typical animation characters with a certain degree of realism. It is certainly one of the best films prior to Disney’s second golden age, which started with The Little Mermaid (1989).
After The Experience (1973), Kiarostami, a real master, directed this story about a complicated provincial boy, a devout football fan who is willing to do anything, with a friend’s help, in order to get enough money to go to Teheran to watch an important football game in which Iran’s national team play in the Aryamehr stadium. This is a study in human will and its consequences, framed in a reflection on the balance between good and evil, halfway between the problems of childhood and those of adulthood. A simple fable, but not simplistic, that helped lay the foundations of its director’s prestige as well as that of the so-called Persian Neorealism.
In 1983 Paul Verhoeven adapted the novel The Fourth Man (1981) by controversial writer Gerard Reve, amongst the first people in the Netherlands to publicly admit their homosexuality. More than five years later another Dutch director, Rudolf van den Berg, brought us The Evenings (1947), a generational portrait deemed to be impossible to adapt, and considered to be the Dutch equivalent of On the road by Jack Kerouac or The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. The result is a movie as outrageous as Reve’s literary work, with some daring changes with respect to the original, and unquestionably beautiful.
In the heat —never better said— of a music that in theory partakes of the quest for freedom, and with the aim of breaking boundaries from a socio-sexual point of view, the interclass summer love story between the proletarian dance teacher Johnny Castle and the idealist bourgeois Frances Houseman in early 60s America was one of the biggest hits in Hollywood in the 80s. Though less so than today, Hollywood had already begun to look towards younger audiences. This film became a sociological success that brought fame to the late Patrick Swayze, shortly after the TV series North and South (1986) and shortly before Ghost (1990), and made him more famous than the later Donnie Darko (2001) and 11:14 (2003).
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Heavy
2nd September / 18:00
The January Man 8th September / 20:30
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My Life as a Dog
15th September / 18:00 • (Mitt liv som hund)
Juno
16th September / 20:30
USA, 1995. Director: James Mangold • With Pruitt Taylor Vince (Victor), Liv Tyler (Callie),
USA, 1989. Direction: Pat O’Connor • With Kevin Kline (Nick Starkey), Susan Sarandon
Sweden, 1985. Director: Lasse Hallström • With Anton Glanzelius (Ingemar), Anki Liden
USA, 2007. Director: Jason Reitman • Ellen Page (Juno MacGuff), Michael Cera (Paulie
Shelley Winters (Dolly). Colour, 105 minutes. 33 edition - 1995
(Christine Starkey), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Bernadette Flynn), Harvey Keitel (police
(Ingemar’s mother), Tomas von Bronceen (uncle Gunnar). Colour, 101 minutes. 24 edition - 1985
Bleeker). Colour, 96 minutes. 45th edition - 2007
One of the big hits of Scandinavian cinema in the 80s, this drama has been nominated twice for the Oscars (director and adapted screenplay). It appears in 17th place in the list of 50 films which the British Film Institute considers everyone should watch by the age of 14. And that’s no surprise, taking into account the fierce sense of humour and the relaxed tenderness which Ingemar, the young 12 year old main character, uses to face trouble, disappointments and happiness in his existence in rural Sweden. He becomes progressively conscious of the need to relativize everything in life, above all our sadness and misfortunes, by comparing them to those of others.
Everything started on an old couch the day Juno McGuff, a16 year old girl, was bored and decided to deflower a friend on it rather than watching The Blair Witch Project on TV. Two months, several days and three litres of orange juice later she finds out she’s pregnant, and that opens a troubled period in her life: what to do? Developing over three seasons, Juno is a joyful, funny and delicate comedy, fortunately as distant from pro-life melodrama as it is from vulgar teen comedies (the Oscar winning script is by Diablo Cody). Ellen Page, brilliant as a smart-mouthed girl – even if deep down she is as insecure as any girl of her age – creates an unusual portrait of a teenage female.
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commissioner). Colour, 97 minutes. 27 edition - 1989 th
This long length feature by James Mangold (recipient of two awards at Gijon) is the story of Pete & Dolly, a restaurant on the side of a not too travelled road in New York. It is run by a domineering widow whose obese and introverted son, the chef, sees how his grey life and small world are turned upside down after the arrival of a wandering beautiful girl looking for a job, with whom he falls crazily in love. Contemplative, sparing, concentrated, Heavy presents an essay on loneliness, unrequited love, self-esteem and intimate fears that feels authentic and also presents a very accurate x-ray picture of rural America that leads to an efficient diagnosis.
A rather eccentric ex-cop returns to his old job to help put an end to a series of crimes committed by a psychotic killer named “the January man”, who has killed eleven women in eleven consecutive months. Irishman Pat O’Connor, future husband of co-star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, directs a black comedy (also his first movie in America) that starts out strongly and never lets go, achieving a pleasant mixture of thriller, suspense, surprise, humour and love triangles.
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50TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL RETROSPECTIVE Boys Don’t Cry 22nd September / 18:00
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(Lana), Peter Sarsgaard (John). Colour, 118 minutes. 37 edition - 1999
Adamie Inukpuk (Nanuk). Colour, 103 minutes. 32nd edition - 1994
The recreation of Brandon Teena’s real life case, that of a young Nebraska transsexual who was raped and murdered by his male friends in 1993 when they found out he was actually a woman in spite of his male looks and life, gave admirable Hilary Swank her first Oscar as an actress in a leading role, after first having won in Gijón. The film has a tragic feel, but without melodramatic excesses; is precise in its criticism, but far from being a pamphlet; upfront in its chronicle of sordid America’s white trash, but tactful; moving as a song for tolerance, even if restrained. Boys don’t cry remains a worthy film… and a bizarre one.
Shot in Siberia, Russia and Canada, Claude Massot evokes in Kabloonak (“foreigner”, in the inuit lenguage) Robert Flaherty’s famous 1920 documentary Nanook of the North. That is, he related how the latter lived for over one year with the former and his family in a soon-to-be extinct world. The Spanish title was Mis aventuras con Nanuk, el esquimal, and it is a magnificent film, a small highly recommendable jewel that went for a long time painfully unnoticed. It was Claude Massot’s debut in fiction after twenty years as a documentary maker. It also was an undeserved financial fiasco that led the moviemaker to commit suicide shortly after its release.
C.R.A.Z.Y.
LO ÚLTIMO
23rd September / 18:00
France, Canada, 1995. Director: Claude Massot • With Charles Dance (Robert Flaherty),
22nd September / 20:30
ACTOS DEL CINCUENTENARIO
Kabloonak
USA, 1999. Director: Kimberly Peirce • With Hilary Swank (Brandon Teena), Chloë Sevigny th
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Declaration of war
(La guerre est déclarée) • 23rd Sep. / 20:30
Canada, 2005. Director: Jean-Marc Vallée • Marc-André Grondin (Zachary Beaulieu), Michel
France, 2011. Director: Valérie Donzelli • With Valérie Donzelli (Juliette), Jérémie Elkaïm
Côté (Gervais Beaulieu), Danielle Proulx (Laurianne Beaulieu), Pierre-Luc Brillant (Raymond
(Romeo), César Desseix (18 month old Adam), Gabriel Elkaïm (8 year old Adam).
Beaulieu). Colour, 125 minutes. 43rd edition - 2005
Colour, 100 minutes. 49th edition - 2011
This portrait of a family which spans over two decades (from the 60s to the 80s), is created with sense, sensibility and humour, against music by Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie. A story in which a young man desperately fights against his homosexuality in order not to lose the great love his father has always felt for him, C.R.A.Z.Y. was one of the nicest surprises of the year because of its freshness, truth and accuracy. It meant the rebirth of Quebec’s cinema, rich in films on unhappy childhoods and teenage years. C.R.A.Z.Y. won the awards for best director, script, and art director in Gijón in 2005, as well as the young jury’s award to the best film.
Praise for life, a declaration of war to death itself, an open hearted love story: a young couple in love fight without holding back against the very severe disease from which their son suffers since birth. A fiction disguised as a pop melodrama that re-updates the Nouvelle Vague from a present day personal perspective, this hopeful miracle in the shape of a movie is deeply moving without ever being tear-wrenching. It was the French candidate for the Oscars, and won 6 César awards and also the Premio Principado de Asturias to the best long-length feature, as well as receiving awards for the best actor and actress in Gijón.
Benny & Joon 23rd September / 12:00
The band led by Emir Kusturica took over Teatro Jovellanos with its balkan beats and turned the stage into a dance floor
By : MERCEDES ÁLVAREZ
In the darkness of the room, the instruments awaken. The notes get longer, the beat picks up, lamps light up the tables, the audience’s attention is fixed on the stage. In the midst of this crescendo, Emir Kusturica makes his energetic entrance. Though no introduction is needed, his name resounds through the sound system in the theatre. “I’m Emir Kusturica” he cries. The No Smoking Orchestra join him with their lively notes. The movie concert starts. The soundtrack to some of the films by this Serbian director, such as Time of the Gypsies or Black Cato, White Cat, take centre stage. Far from the Balkan countries, the accordion, the violin, the saxophone, the drums, the bass and the guitar convey the revelry of the characters in his movies. There is an atmosphere of magic realism, due perhaps to violin player Dejan Sparavalo’s devilish cape, or to Kusturica’s ability to hypnotize the audience. He even gets some of its members to jump on stage with him and to imitate his moves, some of which are far removed from typical dance.
USA, 1993. Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik • Johnny Depp (Sam), Mary Stuart Masterson
The No Smoking Orchestra use Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther (1963) tunes as a transition between songs, taking us to a universe of mischief and innocence. These post-modern references are combined with spectacular instrumental juggling acts. Take for instance what Sparavalo does with the violin’s bow: first he places it in Kusturica’s shoe and then he proceeds to extract a frantic melody by moving the wood with strength and rhythm. Later he repeats the experiment, this time using the large bow of a double bass. The show is surprising due to its originality and the skill of those performing. The surprises don’t end there. At one moment when the theatre is in pitch darkness, one of the guitars flashes with the lights which outline its shape. One of the members of the band turns the instrument vigorously on itself, making it spin as though it were a fast hand on the watch on the wrist of a rock star. That’s what the No Smoking Orchestra is all about: rock and spectacle, but also folklore with hints of ska and punk, a wise mix of dynamism and (relative) calm. And all of it wrapped up in a mise en scene that recreates the imagination of Kusturica, the film director.
(Juniper ‘Joon’ Pearl), Aidan Quinn (Benjamin ‘Benny’ Pearl), Julianne Moore (Ruthie). Colour, 98 minutes. 31 edition - 1993 st
After their parents’ accidental death, Benny takes over the care of his sister Joon, a delicate and fragile girl, who is also anti-social and subject to fits of violence and rage that hinder her relationships with her surroundings. Suddenly Sam (Johnny Depp), a quirky young man who likes to use Buster Keaton’s manners, some of Charles Chaplin’s attitude and certain behavioural traits of Harold Lloyd, comes into their lives. These peculiar antiheroes try to avoid the grip of craziness and desperation by means of fantasy and tenderness, in this peculiar dramatic comedy of melancholic charm and luminous lightness.
All films will be shown in their original version with Spanish subtitles. The Traveller, The King and the Mockingbird, Made in Hong Kong and The Evenings will be subtitled both in Spanish and English.
ORGANIZA
PATROCINA
El Teatro Jovellanos antes del concierto de la No Smoking Orchestra. PENSAR AUDIOVISUAL
The No Smoking Orchestra sold out in Gijón. The audience, some one thousand people, closely followed the instructions given by the leader of the band on stage, clapping, joining in, and letting themselves by carried away by the music. Some were stood by their seats, others stayed seated. The energy of this frenetic band flooded every corner of the Jovellanos theatre. With this musical-cinematic celebration, Kusturica paid homage to FICXixon’s longevity.
Buy your ticket now at Teatro Jovellanos ticket offices or on our website (www.gijonfilmfestival.com): Ticket: 3,50 €
Enjoy our discounts (applicable only when buying at the Teatro Jovellanos ticket offices): TicketS for children under: 1,75 € “Niños buenos” TicketS: 5 tickets (choose a weekend and you’ll be able to see all 5 movies on that weekend). 14 € “Enfants Terribles” TicketS: 20 tickets (one for each movie in the season). 42 €
COLABORA
MARTA GÓMEZ LUCAS
El público antes de que la No Smoking Orchestra empiece su recital. PENSAR AUDIOVISUAL
Kusturica en concierto en el Teatro Jovellanos. MARTA GÓMEZ LUCAS
10
01st SEPTEMBER 2012 // No 2
ACTOS DEL CINCUENTENARIO
11
50 FICXixón
LO ÚLTIMO
LO ÚLTIMO
One of the major sources of your inspiration is war in Yugoslavia, which deeply marked you and your family…
writer Naomi Klein does in her book No logo, they hate you, because
The war is frequent in our area which makes us a very tragic nation. As Andric says, wars never
everything is done with an aim, and the aim is exploitation, and they ex-
solve the problems which are their origin in the first place, but they open new chapters and ask
ploit everything, everybody, everyday, as much as they can. That is why
new questions that we have to answer in a new conflict. The Balkans are the epicenter of antagonisms
this globalist system is more and more sadomasochistic.
between the West and the East. Is Kustendorf your response to the Hollywood industry? Your answer to the war was the film Underground, which was greatly acclaimed. Why, in your opinion, did people react to this story?
By : Ana Otasevic
I don’t respond to anybody or anything, I just believe in quality cinema. I want young people to enjoy a good at-
In this film people who live underground believe they live in the outside world. No-one informs
mosphere, to be able to learn, to show what they do and to find
them that the war is over and they continue to be influenced by strong propaganda. But you have the
ideas for future films. When a young director comes to Cannes Film
same situation nowadays. The world is dominated by a war economy and this type of economy is
Festival he is quite lonely in this huge machinery. There is no time to
constantly inventing wars. Humanitarian organizations, which are always speaking about humanity, are
talk, to meet and to share with others.
The Serbian director and musician delighted the audience in Teatro Jovellanos with the joie de vivre of his No Smoking Orchestra. It was his special contribution to the 50th Edition of the Gijón International Film Festival. “I am very happy that this festival has lasted so long” he said in an interview for this newspaper. He also confessed that as a teenager he never imagined that movies would play such an important role in his life. “In my youth I didn’t spend my time at the cinema watching movies to get ready for directing. I was very much enjoying life”
financed by the same sources as wars. The same groups, the same power is generating both. Those
mir Kusturica is always on the road. When he is not making movies, he is performing with his group, the No Smoking Orchestra, or transforming his architectural visions into reality. He has just inaugurated Andric city in the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, dedicated to Ivo Andric, the Nobel prize winner (1961) who inspired him. His first project, Drvengrad (“wooden city”), built in the Serbian mountains, became his home. There he established a film and music festival, Kustendorf, where young directors and seasoned moviemakers meet. Last August 7th, Kusturica showed his command of the stage at Teatro Jovellanos. The following morning this twice-winner of the Golden Palm joined el50 to look back over his career in cinema and music, and his personal life.
looks much better and much more lively. When I was shooting Life is a miracle (2004), I got this idea to
who speak of how we need to be human are starting wars. War is one of the major fuels of major eco-
Your family plays a central role in the concept of your festival…
nomies around the world.
I see the family as a mythical place. Despite the fact that things are changing and capitalism and post-capitalism
Your home in Sarajevo was destroyed during the war, but you have built a new home for yourself and your
are altering everything, I still believe in the family.
family in Drvengrad. Did everything start from a film set? There is a very fine line which separates a film set from the place you live. Sometimes a film set
This music is created to cure people, to help them go through everyday life
use the wood which was already there to rebuild the village. Another small city, Andricgrad, has been built based on your vision. Where does this urge to construct come from? In our country everything has unfortunately been destroyed. If you go to the south of France, you can find cities from the 13th century. In Serbia you have a few ruins and nothing more, although we had a civilisation in the Middle Ages. With Andricgrad I wanted to create this link with ancient times. I
When I went to Prague to study, I was there not because I was a good student, but because they didn’t know what to do with me, and apparently directing was a solution.
wanted to reconstruct a city as if it had always been there. You often say that Fellini is your cinematic father… Emir, we saw you yesterday on stage not as a movie director but as a musician. It looked as though you were directing on stage.
As a young filmmaker I learnt from Fellini’s way of thinking and from the Russian way of using the camera.
He is the main influence, but I still follow the iconography of Tarkovsky. I’ve also been very much influenced by the early Soviet cinema, Dovzhenko, Eisenstein and others. From them I
Our performance actually consists of many small movies. I am convinced that music and cinema
learned how to express and how to structure the language of cinema, which is the most important. Your
have the same structure. We use different patterns and musical crossovers to create a dionysian atmos-
have to find your own language in order to communicate with spectators. As a young filmmaker I learnt
phere in order to bring people to catharsis, which is still a way to communicate with the audience as it has
from Fellini’s way of thinking and from the Russian way of using the camera.
been since ancient times. And yet you fell asleep three times watching Amarcord (Fellini, 1973)! And is the connection with the audience always as ecstatic as it was in the Teatro Jovellanos?
I fell asleep many times. I wasn’t on track to be a film director. Everything that I’m doing today is
This happens everywhere we play! It is hard to explain. This music is created to cure people, to
not in the tradition of my family, I discovered it for myself. When I went to Prague to study, I was
help them go through everyday life. It makes them stronger, they smile more, which makes life
there not because I was a good student, but because they didn’t know what to do with me, and apparently
easier. I realized this after filming Underground, which was too serious, too gloomy for me. When I finis-
directing was a solution. I wasn’t one of those who people who would were spending time cinema, watching
hed I asked myself, what is the purpose of art today? And I believe that it should be a collective therapy,
movies to get ready for directing. I was very much enjoying life and living life. In my second book, which will be
and to achieve this music is even better than the cinema.
published in October, I have written about this early period of my life, and how I spent it in the streets, which is something which has had a great impact on me. I was not even dreaming of making a movie at the time.
Your movies and your music reflect the diversity of influences which you have absorbed throughout your foto: PENSAR AUDIOVISUAL
life. They are a mix of East and Western European cultural heritage…
Is cinema today very different from when you started? Are there no longer great leaders to follow, such
This mixture is unique in the Balkans. There aren’t many places in the world where cultures
as Buñuel, Fellini, Bertolucci?
Kusturica con el 50º aniversario del FICXixón From the Serbian mountains we return to Gijón’s Atlantic beaches, where this year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of this international film festival.
from the East and West of Europe affect people’s lives as they do in Serbia or in Bosnia. We have an
From an objective point of view, today’s cinema is ruined. It exists in the way that the Cannes
authentic tradition, which has developed over centuries, but it is impossible to define our culture. This
Film Festival exists. You have one place that generates major tendencies and others imitate it. The Cannes
What would be your message to the festival?
combination has empowered my films, made them more vivid. Our field of exploration is always open, it
Film Festival is a big institution that brings together movies that make sense, but the film market controls
When we were landing yesterday I had the feeling that we were coming to
leads us to many different possibilities, which makes our art more dynamic. It is like the Marx brothers
everything, and in this market, quantity works against quality.
the end of the world. I’m very often in Spain and I love this country. When
doing Shakespeare!
Spain is playing football I have a feeling that I’m Spanish, especially when There has also been an evolution in the way movies are made. You cannot film the movie with in the old-fas-
they play against the Dutch and when they beat the Germans. Through this
You created your own mythology of the Balkans, with its larger than life characters, its Gypsies, its
hioned way any more, and it isn’t a question of fashion or trends, but of speed. So today you have an easy
game you can project many national characteristics. I consider myself close
music, its weddings and funerals…
way to make a movie, but mainstream cinema is erasing all the human aspects. There are good movies
to Spanish football and to Spanish cinema – I’m a close friend to Pedro
These are the elements of life. In everything I do, the starting points are ideas that come
from time to time, but they are shown at the festivals and they often don’t get to the cinema. Cinema has
(Almodovar) and many other guys - and I believe in the future of Spain,
from existing material. Lately I was reading The bridge over the Drina river, probably the Ivo
also changed - 90 percent of films that are successful are stupid. In these senseless blockbusters heroes
especially after Spaniards spoke up so much against the crisis and those
Andric’s most important book. When you analyze it you find that Andric was mainly operating
don’t exist any more. And yet, cinema has an ideological mission: it has to cover major human, existential,
who are responsible for it. I am very happy that this festival has survived
political, and historical questions.
for so long. With the present crisis in cinema, festivals are becoming the
using elements from life. The hotel that he was speaking about really existed and most of the characters in the book had their duplicate in real life. I believe that any creation must grow from some image or photograph, and life is often the best photograph for the cinema, for literature, for art…
only place where we can still see good movies. Fewer and fewer good films If you don’t eat hamburgers, if you don’t like video games, or you don’t respect Hollywood, you instantly beco-
find their way into cinemas these days, because of the quantity of stupid,
me controversial, which is very dangerous. Even when you ask serious questions, as Canadian journalist and
commercial films that are being projected.
STAFF Directores del periódico: Nacho Carballo Jorge Iván Argiz Redactora jefa: Mercedes Álvarez Editor de contenidos: Jesús Palacios
Han colaborado en este número:
Traducciones: Diego García Cruz
Manolo D. Abad, Mercedes Álvarez, Óscar Brox, José Havel, Claudia Lorenzo, Ana Otasevic, Jesús Palacios.
Impresión: PROMECAL
La firma: Ignacio del Valle
Fotografía: Marta Gómez Lucas Pensar Audiovisual
Página de cómic y caricatura: Albert Monteys
SIGNUM (www.signum.es)
Diseño y maquetación:
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