Daily Tiger #4 (English)

DAILY TIGER 44th International Film Festival Rotterdam #4 Sunday 25 January 2015

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Bridgend Haruko’s Paranormal Lab. Dreams Rewired Videophilia...

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Iranian film flourishing German Angst Cunningham IFFR: Festival factor

photo: Nichon Glerum

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Signals: 24/7 Carlo Cresta-Dina Paul Miller Stray Dogs slate

ENGLISH EDITION

All smiles – the CineMart team: Emmy Sidiras, Floor van Twuijver, Nienke Poelsma, Inke van Loocke, Marit van den Elshout and Bianca Taal

Paramount Pitchers “We are called a co-production market, but we are more than that – a launching platform and a finance market too,” commented IFFR Head of Industry Marit van den Elshout on the eve of the 32nd edition of the IFFR CineMart.

By Nick Cunningham

The event opens today with 24 projects from 21 countries, with budgets ranging from the modest (Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War, Philippines: €275,000) to the high – at least in CineMart terms (Vita & Virginia, UK: €6 million). “Of course, most of our guests are producers who are trying to raise finance in their own countries for the projects they might find here, but we have crowd-funding and VOD people here too. Co-production isn’t the financing tool for independent fi lm.

The method of finance has to fit the project.”

Over the next three days the selected producer/director teams will present their projects to the cream of international production talent, which includes leading

IFFR LATE NIGHT

Tonight’s guests are director Anna Broinowski (Aim High in Creation!), who will talk about her propaganda workshop and present its winner.

Also taking part will be the winners of the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films, and Laura Citarella and Verónica Llinas, directors of Tiger contender La mujer de los perros (Dog Lady).

Tonight’s Movie Dogs Quiz will be about our own festival favourites, or the ‘IFFR Dogs’.

distributors, financiers, broadcasters, sales agents and production companies. This year, an additional prize is up for grabs: the Wouter Barendrecht Award for the best project by an emerging director, valued at €5,000 and named after one of the market’s former heads. This prize joins the Eurimages Co-production Development Award (€20,000 for a European co-pro ) and the Arte International Cinema Award for best project (€7,000).

Streamlined

Following the trend set in 2014, CineMart is an altogether streamlined event this year, reflecting the ‘less is more’ ethos of the festival as a whole – the number of Bright Future and Spectrum selections has been similarly reduced. “We have a responsibility as part of this industry of platforms, labs and training organisations that is pushing projects into the market that are difficult to finance, but even more difficult to find an audience for and distribute,” Van den Elshout stressed. “So it makes more sense to present 24 fi lms that you have very carefully selected; ones that many people want to consider being part of, as opposed to 40 projects in which there may be a few jewels. The industry doesn’t operate that way anymore. Attendees used to take 20 meetings and would hope to fund 2 or 3 projects. Now they are here for two or three days, are really focused and prepared, before they move on to Berlin.”

High potential

The project choices of Van den Elshout and her colleagues are vindicated every year in the number of selections at leading international fi lm festivals.

2014 was no different, with the likes of the Turist and Snow in Paradise (both CineMart 2012) selected for

Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, and Benjamin Naishtat’s Historia del Miedo (also CineMart 2012) selected for Berlin competition. Seven former CineMart projects are selected for IFFR 2015, including five in the Limelight section which presents fi lms that have a theatrical release in the Netherlands post-IFFR. These include Peter Hoogendoorn’s Between 10 and 12 (also selected for Venice Days 2014) and Alice Rohrwacher’s Le meraviglie. “This really says something about the high market potential of the projects we select,” said Van de Elshout.

Discoveries

Debut fi lmmakers pitching their CineMart projects in 2015 include the internationally renowned photographer Erwin Olaf with A Shining Flaw and Gaëlle Denis with La fille de l’estuaire. “Our selection process allows us to make great discoveries,” commented CineMart Head and IFFR Programmer Bianca Taal. “We were tipped about Gaëlle’s project and people are really looking out for her. Isabella Eklöf (Holiday) from Denmark is a fi lmmaker we didn’t know before but who has made amazing shorts told with her own unique tone of voice. That is for sure another project that we welcome with open arms.”

“Then there is Filipino director Khavn who is very prolific and is used to making fi lms on a very low budget, many in a year, and he has a project in hand (Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War) that we think is very suitable to present at the market. He really wants to broaden his scope and find international partners on this project, so it is very exciting to finally have him as part of CineMart after all the years of screening his fi lms in the festival,” adds Van den Elshout.

Art:Film

CineMart’s Art: Film component, which looks to forge creative and financial links between the international art and fi lm production sectors, presents three projects this year: Cactus Flower by Hala Elkoussy (Egypt);

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM

Hurrah, wir leben noch! (Agnieszka Polska, Poland/ Germany) and Phil Collins’ Mr Sing Sing (Germany/ US/UK). “It is the third year, and we are very glad that previous participants Fiona Tan (Future Histories) and Pierre Bismuth (Where is Rocky II) have almost finished their fi lms. The Art: Film section has really found its feet and people are now actively submitting very strong projects for it.”

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And so to Bed...

By Nick Cunningham

It started off with a book and ended up in a Rotterdam hotel bedroom – or three, to be exact. And not just hotel rooms, but in some of Rotterdam’s hotel lobbies and conference venues too. Edwin Carels’ Signals: 24/7 programme, located largely in the Rotterdam Hilton, Hotel Central and NHOW, is inspired by Jonathan Crary’s book, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. “Crary addresses something that few people want to address directly – how we are objects rather than subjects of our own time management, and how we are losing control of our own lifetime. And how do we protect our bedtime?

That is the last part that our economy tries to eat and colonise, our sleeping habits,” Carels stresses.

Carels further maintains that cinema, and all that it entails, is the appropriate medium to examine questions of matters temporal. “Cinema is about time and attention span. I wanted to address the issue of the awareness of our own time experience, but not fit it all into a neat programme slot. Why should any slot be feature length?” The 40-odd films, installations, compilations, performances and short/long artworks therefore range from animated GIFs lasting no longer than a couple of seconds to Kevin Jerome Emerson’s Park Lanes, an observation of people at work with a screening time of 480 minutes: equivalent to a working day.

“So having bluffed myself into this thematic

programme with this catchy title, I had to come up with practical solutions,” Carels continues. “So hotels seemed a very logical step. Because they are open 24/7, at least at this time of the year, and because you associate hotels with sleep, as that is where your temporary safe haven is, they became my new platform.”

“I am not against the cinema as a setting or an experience,” he adds. “But taking people out of cinemas is also a way of questioning their viewing habits, and you need the courage of a lot of filmmakers to participate, especially when they are told that their films will not be shown twice in a cinema but in a continuous loop in a hotel room.”

Cresta-Dina boards Brady’s Wildfire

By Melanie Goodfellow

Italian London-based producer Carlo Cresta-Dina, whose recent credits include Alice Rohrwacher’s Cannes Grand Prix-winner Le meraviglie, has boarded British writer and director Cathy Brady’s debut feature Wildfire. The feature is the first UK-based production for Cresta-Dina, who until now has focused on Italian filmmakers through his Bologna-based company Tempesta Italy. Its recently-launched twin company Tempesta UK is producing the film with London-based production company Cowboy Films, with development support from the Irish Film Board and the Wellcome Trust, which funded research for the film.

Nika Mcguigan and Nora-Jane Noone are set to star in the film revolving around the relationship between two sisters. “The script will come out of a long-process of workshopping in London and with two actresses, Nika Mcguigan and Nora-Jane Noon,” says Cresta-Dina. “There is a very strong plot at the centre which we’re still working on,” he adds. “I don’t want to reveal too much about it as yet, other than that Carlo Cresta-Dina it’s about two sisters living in contemporary Ireland.”

Nothern Irish-born Brady, who studied at the National from an impoverished family who dreams of joining Film and Television School (NFTS) in London is tipped a brass band, which is in post-production; Fräulein, as one of the UK’s hottest up and coming directing starring Italian comedy star Christian De Sica oppotalents. Cresta-Dina, who attended CineMart in 2012 site Lucia Mascino in a rare arthouse appearance; and with Le meraviglie, is at IFFR this weekend to participate Irene Dionisio’s pawn shop-set drama Le Ultime Cose, in an expert panel with Rohrwacher on the creative which translates as “last things” but this is unlikely collaboration between a producer and a director as well to be the title. as give a seminar on co-producing at the Rotterdam Lab. Cresta-Dina created Tempesta in 2008 after more New Italian productions on Tempesta’s slate include than a decade of producing features and featurethe Calabria-set Asino Vola (Donkey Flies) about a boy length documentaries under the umbrella of big

The young, auteur-focused line-up includes Heaven Knows What, which is screening in the Spectrum Section, and Ruined Heart, the latest film from Khavn De La Cruz, who is presenting his next project at CineMart.

“My aim is to focus on young, international talents, working with the filmmakers and for the filmmakers,” says Fischer. “Rotterdam is a very interesting festival for me. The selection here is very creative and out-ofthe-box and it’s a great place to find a little gem.”

Ben and Joshua Safdie’s Heaven Knows What stars Arielle Holmes as a young heroin addict who finds mad love on the streets of New York. The US-French production, based on Holmes’ own memoirs, won

production companies in Rome and London. “It was 2008, capitalism was melting, Italy was in despair and cinema was dying. I thought it was the right time to open a company in Italy to produce cinema,” says Cresta-Dina with a laugh. “The name Tempesta takes inspiration from Shakespeare, as well as a painting by Giorgione that you can see in Venice. The idea from the beginning was to scout for new talents and to grow with them,” he continues. “The first film we did was Alice’s Corpo Celeste.”

Nathan Fischer

photo: Nichon Glerum

best film and director for the brothers at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October.

Khavn De La Cruz’s Ruined Heart stars Japanese Tadanobu Asano as a ruthless hit man who falls for a prostitute, played by Mexican actress Nathalia Acevedo.

Fischer will be talking about the promotional campaign for the film in an expert panel today. “I’ll be showing the marketing materials we’ve created

Paul Miller, who was formerly the director of film financing at the Doha Film Institute (DFI), is setting up shop in the Netherlands.

By Melanie Goodfellow

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Paris-based Nathan Fischer’s new sales company Stray Dogs makes its festival debut at IFFR this year with an eclectic, four-title slate. By Melanie Goodfellow

photo: Nadine Maas

Paul Miller sets up shop in the Netherlands The veteran producer, who moved to the country for family reasons at the end of last year, has recently launched consultancy firm Internal Affairs with US-based producer Dan Lindau and is working on several feature projects under his Escape Pictures company banner.

“Internal Affairs is a consultancy advising clients on everything from best practices to film financing to production in the filmed entertainment as well as commercials,” says Miller, who will be a panellist on the expert panel on producing today and is also a speaker at the Rotterdam Lab on Monday.

“We’re already working with a company in Qatar and are probably going to start working with some companies in the Netherlands,” continues Miller, who has good contacts in the Middle East after his DFI stint.

“I am going to be producing, but I am also looking to see what opportunities there are in the Dutch film financing eco-system to see whether there is something interesting to do and whether there is something which is beneficial to the system – whether it’s a direct film fund, or some cash flow facility or a P&A fund. I think I’m well placed to act as a bridge between Europe and the US. I’d love to do something to make Dutch film travel, maybe not in Dutch but in English – there’s a lot of talent here.”

Miller’s projects in development include Saudi actress and filmmaker Ahd Kamel’ s My Driver and I. “It

Who let the dogs out?

Heaven Knows What Paul Miller

photo: Ruud Jonkers

revolves around the paternal relationship between a young woman and her long-time driver, who has been the one constant in her life,” explains Miller.

“We’re finalising the screenplay and plan to shoot this year. We’re looking at various locations in the Middle East. We’ll shoot either before or after Ramadan,” he continued. Ramadan runs June 18 to July 17 this year. It will mark the debut feature for Kamel, who prefers to be referred to simply as Ahd, after short films The Shoemaker and La Sainteté.

The actress and director is best known internationally for her performance as the glamorous schoolteacher in Wadjda. Casting is currently underway for the lead role. He is also attached as a

co-producer to Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi’s Forgiveness (previously known as The Eagle and The Butterfly) – set against the backdrop of Ireland and Lebanon – alongside Marie Masmonteil and Denis Carot at Paris-based Elzévir Films, David Collins at Irish Samson Films and Titus Kreyenburg from Una Films, Germany. Miller brought in Irish writer and director Macdara Vallely, whose Babygirl Miller produced alongside Collins, to work on the latest version of the script. “The film’s partly set against the Northern Ireland conflict and Macdara is well-placed to write about this. The script’s in a good place now, so we’re ready to reignite that and will be talking about it in Rotterdam and Berlin.”

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM

and talking about how marketing has to adapt to a project – the more creative a project is the more creative the marketing has to be. There are so many angles to market Khavn’s films. He’s such an interesting filmmaker. In the case of Ruined Heart, there’s also a great soundtrack, which will also help,” says Fischer. Khavn is presenting his new project Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War at this year’s CineMart.

The other titles on the Stray Dogs slate include Indian Partho Sen-Gupta’s Sunrise, starring Adil Hussein as a detective investigating a series of child abductions a decade after his own child disappeared, and Israeli Noam Kaplan’s Manpower, about a police officer who reassesses his job as an immigration police officer when a controversial new policy is introduced.

The first rule of suicide

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

A few years ago, Jeppe Rønde came across a news item: ‘Suicide Town’, read the headline. It was a report on a town in South Wales where several teenagers had taken their own lives. Intrigued, he researched and visited the place. He came to spend six years in the town meeting surviving teenagers, interviewing and documenting the townsfolk.

“We think we are far from it” The result is the film Bridgend, named after the town.

A disturbing look at troubled teenagehood, Rønde’s film follows Sara – this despite the actual victims being mostly male – the better to bring collective male sexual angst into relief. “She has a different sensibility,” says Rønde. “You can tell they all want her.”

Led by her policeman father, Sara returns to the town from Bristol and is drawn to the rituals of the town youth as much as her father is repelled by these. Soon, the relationship between father and daughter mirrors that of the town families, and Bridgend temporarily becomes an exploration of generational differences.

But Rønde, from Denmark, is concerned mostly with the ephemerality of youth, its insouciance and, fatally, its insufficiency. He employs a sombre cinematogra-

phy and an ominous score so that even in scenes of revelry, Bridgend’s tone seldom strays from elegiac. In one scene, the town’s teenagers drink, make-out and converse in high spirits; the audience is prevented from joining in by foreboding fostered by the film’s sound. The audience must not forgot that what it is seeing is tragic. And although based on events specific to Bridgend, Rønde believes the suicide impulse is unrestricted by geography. “We think we are far from it. But basically you don’t know. I think it’s in us all.”

No answer is given to the question of the cause of the suicides. Instead the audience gets a representation of a town in silent peril. In the real place, the suicides are never mentioned. “No one talks about it,” stresses Rønde.

“It’s like Fight Club.” A fair comparison, since Fincher’s fictional club approached cult dimensions; as do Rønde’s youths. But Rønde is not keen on taking a position.

Bridgend avoids elevating plausibility to postulation. Peer pressure, boredom, posthumous fame, and religion all factor as sources of incitement or encouragement.

Asked about the religious explanation, Rønde links this to man’s ultimate display of violence: “It is like war,” he says. “In war and in religion, you lose the self.

You follow blindly.”

Bridgend Hivos Tiger Awards Competition Sun 25 Jan 18:45 PA4; Mon 26 Jan 15:15 PA2; Mon 26 Jan 22:00 DWBZ (P&I); Tue 27 Jan 22:15 PA5; Fri 30 Jan 19:15 PA3; Sat 31 Jan 19:30 CI2

Small apartment sci-fi family story

By Mark Baker

For all its playful, exuberant, Japanese craziness, the idea for Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory – the Tiger Awards contender from young Japanese maker Lisa Takeba, who cut her filmmaking teeth in the worlds of advertising and video games before world premiering her feature debut, genre-busting The Pinkie in IFFR’s Bright Future section last year – was born of a serious event. “In 2014, the year when I was writing the script for Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory, Artificial Intelligence for the first time surpassed the capacity of the human brain”, the director says ahead of her arrival in Rotterdam for the world premiere of Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory today.

“I think we are heading towards a robot society,” she continues. “I then linked this to a traditional belief we have in Japan, that when you use an object for a long time – such a pencil or a broom – that this object will get feelings and become what we call a ‘God of Tukumo’, deserving our respect. The ‘God of Tukumo’ can even kill people in revenge if you don’t treat objects with tenderness.”

“I think this robot society that is coming will be similar to this idea of ‘God of Tukumo’ – and that there can then be heartfelt exchanges of feelings between humans and objects. This is one of the themes underlying Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory. I tried to shoot a story involving this idea of ‘God of Tukumo’.”

Another more serious theme, lurking beneath the satirical humour and often deliberately ‘home-

made’, analogue effects and hilarious ‘kung-fu’ fight scenes in Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory was family, Takeba reveals.

“The TV guy character is based on an old-fashioned television set, because for me this is a symbol of family – people used to watch together, like eating together.

Whereas nowadays people just use their mobile phones while watching TV to twitter about the Olympic Games or the World Cup. I think this can sometimes lead to people treating other people like objects, making human relationships interchangeable.”

“What I wanted to show in Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory was a warm-hearted exchange between objects and human beings. Also, I wanted to show that it is difficult for men and women to understand each other.”

Of the description of her work on the IFFR website as “romantic, loving satire”, Takeba replies: “Oh! I really appreciate that!!! My series [Wandering Alien Detective Robin, world premiere in Spectrum Shorts at IFFR 2013] is a Japanese old and small apartment sci-fi love story! And Haruko is a Japanese old and small apartment sci-fi family story!! I hope you will enjoy!!!”

Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory Hivos Tiger Awards Competition Sun 25 Jan 21:45 PA4; Mon 26 Jan 15:45 PA4; Tue 27 Jan 12:30 PA5 (P&I); Wed 28 Jan 22:15 PA5; Thu 29 Jan 14:30 LV2; Sat 31 Jan 12:00 CI3

Dreamtime

By Melanie Goodfellow

In the age of Edward Snowden, Uber, mindfulness and Google Glasses, Dreams Rewired looks at how contemporary hopes and anxieties related to our hyper-connected world are nothing new.

“We have this tendency to think that utopian dreams and concerns over loss of privacy and autonomy belong to the age of the internet, but they’re not new,” says artist Manu Luksch, who co-directed the film alongside Martin Reinhart and Thomas Tode.

Splicing together footage from 200 films dating back to the 1880s through to the 1930s, the work examines how the event of the telephone, film and television sparked similar hopes, fears and debates.

The work – which Luksch describes as a “film essay” rather than a straight documentary – features an intricately, crafted voice-over by Tilda Swinton, melding together historic fact and contemporary theories. Swinton previously voiced Luksch’s Faceless.

“We needed a voice that could articulate conviction and doubt, that could speak equally with passion and disinterest, versatile enough to inhabit different on-screen characters, and with a quality of timelessness. It was vital to smoothly transport the viewer from past to present and beyond. By not situating the viewer-listener in a definite time, the work softens the barriers to imagining possible futures,” says Luksch.

The project was born out of Reinhart’s discovery of a recording of Edmund Meisel’s long-lost soundtrack for Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin while working on the creation of a permanent exhibition on commu-

nication and media for the Vienna Technical Museum.

The find led Reinhart to connect with film historian Tode, who had researched and published on attempts to ban and censor Battleship Potemkin outside the Soviet Union. Together, they started delving deeper into the history of audiovisual media. The pair took their findings to Vienna-based Amour Fou, which boarded alongside Hamburg-based Bildschön Filmproduktion and in collaboration with ZDF/ARTE. The project is more than a historical work. Drawing inspiration from Tim Wu’s book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, the work also examines how information systems develop cyclically, beginning as open structures, which then consolidate, become tools of the establishment, only to re-open through new disruptive innovation.

“The ultimate ambition of this film is to revitalise popular debates about ubiquitous computing and media by providing the missing historical context – particularly, early electric utopias in the public imagination, and ongoing struggles for openness,” Luksch explains.

“Today, the media and data landscape is up for grabs – just as it was in the late nineteenth century. But if we don’t safeguard this landscape for the larger community, it will be grabbed and divided up, just as entire continents once were,” she continues.

Mobilisierung der Träume / Dreams Rewired CI7 Sun 25 Jan 14:30; CI5 Mon 26 Jan 19:30; LV3 Sat 31 Jan 17:30

Culture Clash

By Ruben Demasure

Former IFFR Trainee Critic Juan Daniel F. Molero is back at the festival with his first feature-length fiction, Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes), screening in the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition.

Two Lima youngsters meet, first virtually and then in real life. Luz is a teen discovering sexuality and Junior a conspiracy theorist making amateur porn. Molero wanted to unite all the languages we see in our everyday life and on our screens, including animated gifs and glitches. He believes our brain doesn’t separate

“everything clashes, not outside, but inside us.” these once they have escaped into the outside world.

Living for fifty years only with screens, a brain can’t evolve that fast. “So in the film, everything clashes.

Not outside, but inside us.”

Molero describes his film as a “hack” of different genres: comedy, boy-meets-girl movie, apocalypse and supernatural cinema. All together in “this kind of Frankenstein film”, at once (non-)fiction, experimental and video art. “I feel very comfortable in those middle grounds”, he explains. “In high school, I hung out with the stoners but also with the geeks, in the limbo between being a freak or cool. So what am I?” The filmmaker points out how syncretism (the melding of different, often seemingly contradic-

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM

tory beliefs) has always been part of Peruvian culture. When the Andean people conquered or were conquered, they always took what they felt was better and integrated it. This is seen in religion, food and music: grounds of appropriation Molero’s film also touches on. “It’s collage without found footage; you can collage upon culture, your own work and aesthetics.”

Molero’s mash-up is a reflection on how technology and media affect the way we see ourselves, life, time and space. He believes the fall of president Alberto Fujimori in 2000 relates to how his generation welcomed the internet and blogging at the same moment. Fujimori was brought down with the release of videotapes documenting corruption in all levels of society, including the media. “That gave our generation distrust and a loss of innocence.” Lead actress Muki Sabogal adds that the former ruler’s system of tabloid press hasn’t changed. “His virus is still there.”

Dealing with porn, drugs, murder and mysticism, Videophilia plays these same tactics to decode and counterattack: “Although not involved with politics on a basic level, the form is political.”

Molero deems European and South American cinema too preoccupied with realism. A possible fit for the Surrealist Really? Really programme, Videophilia could just be the most ‘fucked-up’ movie in the competition.

Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) Hivos Tiger Awards Competition Sun 25 Jan 19:15 PA7; Mon 26 Jan 12:30 PA3; Tue 27 Jan 17:30 DWBZ (P&I); Wed 28 Jan 21:30 PA6; Fri 30 Jan 16:45 LV5; Sat 31 Jan 19:15 CI5

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Today

Iranian film flourishing

By Geoffrey Macnab

Iranian writer-director Reza Mirkarimi’s Today, Iran’s official entry for best foreign film at the 2015 Academy Awards and a winner of the Best Film Award at the Rabat Festival, has been screening at IFFR this week.

Speaking in Rotterdam, Mirkarimi gave a relatively upbeat assessment of the Iranian film industry. Under President Hassan Rohani, he said, filmmakers have been allowed to re-establish “The House Of Cinema,” the syndicate/guild to which almost every Iranian filmmaker and technician belongs. This is the non-governmental institution that defends filmmakers’ rights.

The syndicate was closed in 2011 when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still in power but re-opened under Rohani in 2013. Meanwhile, Iranian directors are finding it easier to get their movies into

cinemas – not least because of the lack of Hollywood competition.

“There is a supportive politics in Iranian cinema which does not allow American movies to be shown in the theatres. The cinemas work for Iranian movie-makers.

Art movies have more opportunity to be shown.”

The director claimed that there is more variety and openness in Iranian cinema. “More views of different colours are able to express themselves.” He suggested there was a “broader spectrum” of movies which, in turn, is attracting a wider mix of filmgoers. Mirkarimi also pointed to the beneficial effect of director Asghar Farhadi’s Foreign Language Oscar for A Separation in 2012.

“It had a positive impact. Iranian cinema was already

Gorefest

known in many countries around the world, but it had never managed to win a prize of this magnitude.

This has opened up a more international distribution of Iranian cinema.”

The director, born in 1966, acknowledged that Abbas Kiarostami had been an inspirational figure for his generation. “But the generation after me, the newest generation of filmmakers, want to be different.” Younger filmmakers, he said, were making less abstract and experimental work than that of Kiarostami, with more “storytelling.”

Mirkarimi himself isn’t keen, at least in the short term, to follow the example of Farhadi and other Iranian directors and to work abroad. “Right now, I am still working and struggling with stories within my own society,” he said. “Maybe in the future…”.

The director’s new film Daughter, in pre-production, is a family drama about the conflict between generations. Today, like many other Iranian features, has a deceptively simple storyline. It is about a taxi driver

Today

taking a pregnant woman into hospital and then getting into trouble because she is not his wife.

“The bigger meanings hide themselves behind the smaller events … the viewer can go from layer to layer.

He is free to go as deep as he wants or can go, but the storyline has to be very much in front – and something everyone can grasp,” Mirkarimi said of his film.

“This has become a common language for independent Iranian movie-makers.”

Girard seeks European support for Cunningham

By Geoffrey Macnab

Rotterdam isn’t known as a genre festival but that hasn’t stopped the programming of portmanteau horror pic German Angst, a world premiere in IFFR’s Signals: Really?

Really? section this weekend.

The film, which marks the return of notorious Berlin punk surrealist Jörg Buttgereit as director of one of the three episodes, is sold internationally by Reel Suspects.

Company boss Matteo Lovadina has revealed that the film has gone to Taiwan (Movie Cloud) and Scandinavia (Njuta Films).

There is considerable interest in the film because of Buttgereit’s involvement. After all, he is the director of the controversial 1988 horror picture, Nekromantik, about a street sweeper who must clean up after bringing home a full corpse for him and his wife to enjoy sexually. The twist is that the wife prefers the corpse to him.

articles supplied by

French producer Ilann Girard, boss of Arsam International, has revealed further details of his new CineMart project, Cunningham. Geoffrey Macnab reports

German Angst

“We are very thrilled to have the premiere in Rotterdam, which is more known for arthouse. To show a horror film is kind of surprise. We are super proud and super happy to be there.” Lovadina is promising Rotterdam audiences a film that is “very, very graphic, very controversial,”

but also “sexy” and with plenty of gore. Reel Suspects acquired the project in Berlin in 2014 and has been hyping it up ever since.

“A lot of festivals are already asking for the film,” Lovadina said of German Angst, which will also be screening at Berlin’s European Film Market next month.

The 3D feature, inspired by the life and work of legendary American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, has been scripted and is being directed by Alla Kovgan. The doc will follow Cunningham from his early days as a struggling dancer in New York to his eventual emergence as one of the most influential choreographers of the twentieth century.

“It is one of those very ambitious projects about modern artists that has a lot of technology,” Girard commented of a film that, inevitably, has been compared to Wim Wenders’ Pina Bausch film, Pina (2011).

The project already has support from the CNC in France and

from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Around a third of the budget of €3,400,000 will come from the US, but Girard is in Rotterdam looking for European partners as well as for a sales agent. He points out that Cunningham’s reputation is as strong in Europe as it is back in the US – one reason he is seeking backing on both sides of the Atlantic. “We are looking for partners in Germany, Russia and the Netherlands,” Girard said. “We have had a lot of interest.”

Cunningham has been developed with the Merce Cunningham Trust, which looks after the legacy of the dancer, who died in 2009. The film’s director of choreography is Robert Swinston, who has a 31-year

history of dancing and assisting Merce Cunningham.

CineMart regular Girard (whose previous credits include March of the Penguins, Lebanon and Goodbye Bafana) has raised the possibility that parts of the film might be shown separately, as works in their own right. These are the sections dealing with Cunningham’s collaborations with other major American artists such as Andy Warhol, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg. The film will include dance sequences, special effects-driven and and a strong use of archive footage.

“What is very special about this project is that Kovgan and Robert Swinston tell me that Cunningham would have used 3D if it had been available at that time,” Girard said of what promises to be a “sensual” and immersive account of the dancer’s life and work.

Festival factor

By Geoffrey Macnab

IFFR is expecting 280,000 cinema visits during the festival, making it one of the biggest public film festivals in Europe. There are more tickets sold here than in Cannes or Venice – and only slightly fewer than in Berlin. Even so, the consensus among distributors and sales agents is that Rotterdam-style, auteur-driven arthouse cinema is in near crisis.

This is the Rotterdam paradox. Festivalgoers are prepared to pay to see films during IFFR that they wouldn’t attend at any other time. For 12 days, the Pathé multiplex is full of the most diverse selection of films imaginable, with not a Marvel superhero movie in sight.

“I guess that is the strength of Rotterdam,” says IFFR business director Janneke Staarink. “There is a big trust in us with our audience. They go to these films with us during the twelve days that maybe they wouldn’t go to if it wasn’t under our brand.”

But Rotterdam’s visitors aren’t just here for the films.

They relish what Staarink calls “the festival feeling” – the discussions, debates and social activities around IFFR. One of the goals of this year’s festival is to “spread” this much-vaunted Rotterdam spirit. This year, through its IFFR Live initiative, the festival will arrange for several film premieres to be screened simultaneously in cinemas across Europe and on VOD. IFFR Live has five films, which started yesterday with Atlantic. and then Erbarme dich – Matthäus Passion Stories on Sunday, Melody on Monday, Speed Walking on Tuesday, and The Sky Above Us on Wednesday 28.

“Does it really feel like the festivities of a festival?

That is what we are testing. The festival moment – can you spread that to other cities?” says Staarink. “I am really curious if that works.”

Staarink warns that if IFFR’s partners “sit back and wait” and simply screen the films, the initiative may not work.

“But if they use all the promotion materials…if they really also make it an event, then it must work. Everybody will feel that they are a bit a part of Rotterdam.”

Alongside IFFR Live, the festival’s other big distribution initiative is Tiger Release, through which festival films can be seen worldwide on the most popular VOD platforms, Google Play and iTunes among them.

Staarink points out that even the most dedicated festivalgoer can’t see all the titles in the Rotterdam programme. Tiger Release will provide such a festivalgoer the chance to catch up with what he or she missed. Tiger Release has been hatched together with Hilversum-based Infostrada Creative Technology.

“We want to make sure no one thinks or feels that we (at IFFR) take over the film. That’s not what you want.

You want to offer something – a system that filmmakers themselves can control,” Staarink explains.

Rights-holders will receive at least 50% of any money generated through Tiger Release. Infostrada will pay the costs for delivering the materials to the VOD platforms and will recoup their outlay. In the event that a film hasn’t earned back the cost of putting it online within two years, the rights-holder will not be

Janneke Staarink

charged. In other words, there is no financial risk for the filmmakers.

A new four-year financial plan for IFFR will be confirmed in 2017. Staarink expressed her confidence that the national government and city government will both maintain – and possibly increase – their investment in IFFR over the next funding cycle.

Meanwhile, the search for Rutger Wolfson’s successor as artistic director will begin in earnest once this year’s festival is over. (Wolfson will be departing IFFR in the spring, after the fourth edition of Curaçao

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM

International Film Festival Rotterdam, 25 March-29 March.) In all likelihood, a new artistic director will be confirmed by the Board in time for Cannes in May. “There are already people that put themselves forward,” Staarink commented of the new artistic director’s post. “For us, what is really important is that whoever this person is, he or she should have a really good sense of Rotterdam and Holland – of who we are and how we relate to local, national and international partners. It cannot be somebody from a faraway place that has never been here.”

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PRESS & INDUSTRY SCREENINGS 09.00

10.00

11.00

SH DINAMO P&I Screenings 3 comb. prog.

10:00 – 11:04

de Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal

SP Brave Men’s Blood Olaf de Fleur Johannesson 09:30 – 11:03

de Doelen Willem Burger Zaal

12.00

13.00

14.00

TG Above and Below Nicolas Steiner 11:30 – 13:30 LL Een dag

15.00

BF I Swear I’ll Leave

in ‘t jaar

17.00

Margot Schaap 11:30 – 12:44

18.00

19.00

TG Another Trip

Daniel Aragão 13:00 – 14:30

20.00

21.00

to the Moon Ismail Basbeth 17:15 – 18:35

24.00

SP Undulant Fever Ando Hiroshi 19:30 – 21:28

Moonlight Britni West 15:45 – 17:03

WF Dreamcatcher Kim Longinotto 22:00 – 23:37

Pathé 7 SP La scuola

Cinerama 2

SP Jade Miners Midi Z 11:00 – 12:44

d’estate

Jacopo Quadri 09:15 – 10:42

SP Das

Zimmermädchen Lynn Ingo Haeb 09:00 – 10:30

10:00

DINAMO P&I Screenings: 3 Combined programme, 85 min

BF Battles Isabelle Tollenaere 10:45 – 12:15

BF Forever Margarita Manda 13:00 – 14:27

SP Desaparadiso Khavn 15:00 – 16:15

Tu dors Nicole

•blauw•

War Book [ip]

EP

11:30

Above and Below [ip]

TG

Nicolas Steiner, Switzerland/Germany, 2015, DCP, 120 min, English, e.s.

Pathé 7

A couple who live in an underground tunnel in Las Vegas. A lonely guy who survives in the Californian desert. A girl who seriously plans to move to Mars.

All of them are inhabitants of today’s world, both apocalyptic and brand-new.

A mind-blowing and super-cinematic exploration of contemporary existence.

14:30

Charlie’s Country

LL

•blauw•

Rolf de Heer, Australia, 2014, DCP, 108 min, English/Yolngu, e.s.

17:15

Ismail Basbeth, Indonesia, 2015, DCP, 80 min, no dialogue

19:30

Undulant Fever [ip]

09:30

SP

•paars01•

Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, Iceland, 2015, DCP, 96 min, Icelandic/Serbian/English, e.s.

A crime sequel from Iceland, which also works without its predecessor (City State). Unambitious detective wants to kill two birds with one stone: unmask his corrupt boss and dismantle a drugs organisation. Atmospheric, cleverly written, well acted and surprising right up to the end.

TG

A dreamy, absurdist fantasy film based on Indonesian legends. Asa is the daughter of a seer. To escape her mother’s clutches, she lives hidden in a forest. One day, she is collected by a dog, who turns out to be a man sent by her mother. Sophisticated visions.

Een dag in ‘t jaar [wp]

Ando Hiroshi, Japan, 2014, DCP, 118 min, Japanese, e.s.

BF

•geel•

Award-winning debut follows the shepherd Pacifico, born soon after World War II, when so many victims fell in the beautiful landscape of the Apuan Alps.

Somewhere between the old and the new Europe. And somewhere between drama, dream and anthropology, looking for the notion of ‘creating meaning’.

After a period of rehab, the daughter of a politician in Recife has to reintegrate into society and adapt her behaviour to the wishes of her ambitious father. Aragão’s dynamic second film combines a retrocool mood with contemporary anger.

Nominated for The Big Screen Award

Britni West, USA, 2015, Video, 78 min, English

•blauw•

Longinotto’s documentary is about LL La prochaine fois Brenda Myers-Powell, who fights against je viserai leand coeur sexual exploitation supports prostiAnger 17:00 – 18:51 tutes inCédric Chicago.

Brenda knows what she is talking about: her own story, involving teenage prostitution and a life of violence and abuse, is in stark contrast to her dauntless energy and optimism.

Cinerama 2 SP

•paars01•

Documentary follows the experimental drama course given by the old Italian theatre and opera legend Lucio Ronconi every summer in a remote corner of Umbria, where young, dedicated acting talent rehearse several plays. Fascinating.

Simone Rapisarda Casanova, Canada/ Italy, 2014, Video, 90 min, Italian, e.s.

Tired Moonlight [ip]

WF

Kim Longinotto, United Kingdom, 2015, DCP, 97 min, English

Jacopo Quadri, Italy, 2014, DCP, 87 min, Italian, e.s.

La creazione di significato BF

15:45

13:00

Dreamcatcher [ep]

La scuola d’estate [ip]

•geel•

•blauw•

Desaparadiso [wp]

09:15

09:45

LL

A New Year’s Eve party. Among those present are three friends, whom we follow as they leave the party to roam through Amsterdam. Although the atmosphere is calm and at times relaxed, it slowly emerges that they share a great sorrow. In the meantime, a whole year passes by, almost nonchalantly, in the course of one day.

Daniel Aragão, Brazil, 2014, DCP, 90 min, Portuguese, e.s.

•paars01•

Pathé 5

Margot Schaap, Netherlands, 2015, DCP, 74 min, Dutch, e.s.

I Swear I’ll Leave This Town [ip]

SP

A female student falls for a senior, but the senior not really for her. He is willing to go to bed with her, but doesn’t feel love. The couple embark on a painful yet passionate experiment. A 1970s story in 1970s images. Nominated for The Big Screen Award

11:30

Empathetic actors’ film brought the lead actor the Best Actor award in a Cannes sidebar. The contrary Aboriginal Charlie has regular run-ins with the police.

There seems to be no place for him anymore in the oppressive Aboriginal community, which is subject to white law. He sets off into the bush to find his own way.

Another Trip to the Moon [wp]

What would happen if Pakistanis exploded an atomic bomb in Mumbai?

For a period of three days, a British crisis workers’ group discuss all possible scenarios. Feelings run high in this strongly acted drama, with Sophie Okonedo as the chair and Ben Chaplin as a smooth advisor, leaving the audience with the burning question: what would you do?

de Doelen Willem Burger Zaal

15:00

22:00

Tom Harper, United Kingdom, 2014, DCP, 93 min, English, d.s.

Delicate, witty drama that shines a bright, compassionate light on the doubts of restless twenty-somethings.

During a hot summer in Quebec, 22-year-old Nicole starts to suffer from insomnia - a sign that something needs to change in her life.

Brave Men’s Blood [ip]

Nathan Silver 16:30 – 17:40

•blauw•

ZONDAG 25-01-2015

DINAMO (Distribution Network of Artists’ Moving Image Organizations) distributors show recently acquired work. These titles can also be seen in IFFR’s video library during the festival.

Heaven

RG Paul Sharits François Miron 22:00 – 23:25

15:00

LL

Stéphane Lafleur, Canada, 2014, DCP, 93 min, French, e.s.

SH

SP Stinking

RR The Performer BF Transatlantique Sobieszczanski/ Félix DufourRonduda Laperrière 12:45 – 13:47 14:00 – 15:12

19:30

de Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal

TG

At first sight, small towns are not so different from one another: identical shops and identical pleasures. So Tired Moonlight mainly focuses on the inhabitants. Loosely connected to one another, their dreams and desires are what distinguishes them. Intuitive Americana movie gives an atmospheric impression of a small community.

11:00

Jade Miners [wp]

SP

•paars01•

A fascinating documentary, shot in the mountainous north of Burma. No filmmaker is welcome there, because, against the background of a civil war, the jade miners enter the deserted mines illegally. With the aid of filming locals, however, Midi Z was able to compile this portrait.

13:00

BF

Margarita Manda, Greece, 2014, DCP, 87 min, Greek, e.s.

•paars01•

Khavn, Philippines, 2015, DCP, 75 min, Tagalog/English, e.s.

What can a family do if someone disappears in a dictatorship? You can’t go to the police for help or information. Many families were affected in this way by the cruelty of the Marcos dictatorship (1972-1986). The film shows one of them as an example of paradise lost.

16:30

Stinking Heaven [wp]

•geel•

An ode to cinema as a sensation. A train thunders through a tunnel, seagulls screech above the water. An empty station, a bleak harbour and two lonely souls in a grey town. He’s an engine driver, she sells tickets for the ferry. He sees her every day in his train and is secretly in love. Is there hope for love in Athens?

The Performer [wp]

•paars01•

Nathan Silver, USA, 2015, DCP, 70 min, English, e.s.

A CPH:LAB FILM BY MÅNS MÅNSSON

RR

•blauw•

Maciej Sobieszczanski/Lukasz Ronduda, Poland, 2015, DCP, 62 min, Polish, e.s.

A portrait of Polish artist/performer/ videomaker Oskar Dawicki featuring O. Dawicki as Oskar D. in his world-famous blue jacket. A perplexing concoction of elements factual and fictional, the latter often looking more true than the former.

14:00

Transatlantique [ip]

SP

BF

•geel•

Félix Dufour-Laperrière, Canada, 2014, DCP, 72 min, English

Documentary essay about life aboard a transatlantic freighter. A microcosm, in poetic black-and-white and with an allaying soundtrack, that not only reveals the vulnerability of people in the face of technology and nature, but also shows the everyday nature of this life, in which there is space on the open seas for an improvised game of cricket.

The fragile harmony of a sober commune is cruelly disrupted by the arrival of Ann. The paranoia and drug relapse she causes result in destructive chaos.

With admirably controlled improvisations, Silver creates an idiosyncratic film that leaves a deep impression.

Cinerama 4

22:00

Paul Sharits [wp]

09:00

Das Zimmermädchen Lynn SP

•paars01•

Ingo Haeb, Germany, 2014, DCP, 90 min, German, e.s.

Midi Z, Taiwan/Myanmar, 2015, DCP, 104 min, Burmese, e.s.

Forever [ep]

12:45

SP

Lynn is a passionate cleaning lady and a secret voyeur who observes the lives of others. One day she encounters the dominatrix Chiara and immediately falls for her. A stunning film about passion and obsession, and also alienation.

Young Vicky Krieps is mesmerizing as Lynn. Nominated for The Big Screen Award.

François Miron, Canada, 2015, DCP, 85 min, English

10:45

Battles [wp]

RG

•blauw•

Long after his premature death, the impact of Paul Sharits lingers on. The prominent iconoclast and innovator provoked with fast-flickering, pulsating, colourful mosaics. The many interviews and testimonies are also a portrait of a generation of leading voices in experimental filmmaking.

BF

•geel•

Isabelle Tollenaere, Belgium/ Netherlands, 2015, DCP, 90 min, Russian/Latvian/English/Dutch, e.s.

Can a film be clinical and informative and yet also dreamy and mysterious?

Of course, and a lot more besides. That much is apparent from the beautiful Battles, an observational essay that investigates the traces recent conflicts have left in the landscape and the people at four different sites in Europe.

CONGRATULATES STRANDED IN CANTON

6

23.00

TG Tired

di significato

Simone Rapisarda Casanova 09:45 – 11:15

Cinerama 4

22.00

LL Tu dors Nicole Stéphane Lafleur 19:30 – 21:03

EP War Book Tom Harper 15:00 – 16:33

This Town

BF La creazione

Pathé 5

16.00

LL Charlie’s Country Rolf de Heer 14:30 – 16:18

OFFICIAL SELECTION

ROTTERDAM IFF 2015

would like to thank Hoofdsponsors

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INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM

Anton Damen (hoofdredactie), Radboud de Bree, Sanne de Maijer (eindredactie), Joost Broeren, Tara Lewis, Sietse Meijer, Maricke Nieuwdorp, Nicole Santé, Paul van de Graaf (redactie), Martje van Nes, Jodie de Groot, Anne van de Wetering (marketing en communicatie) English section: Nick Cunningham (editor-in-chief ), Mark Baker (copy and production editor), Melanie Goodfellow (editor),Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, Ruben Demasure, Tina Poglajen, Harriet Warman (trainees), Lot Piscaer (online) Programma informatie: Chris Schouten, Melissa van der Schoor Coördinatie A-Z: Saskia Gravelijn (tekst), Erik Diekstra (beeld) Fotografie: Felix Kalkman (coördinatie), Bram Belloni, Bas Czerwinski, Corinne de Korver, Nichon Glerum, Ruud Jonkers, Nadine Maas, Marije van Woerden Vormgeving: Sjoukje van Gool, Pascal Tieman, Gerald Zevenboom Drukker: Veenman+ Acquisitie: Daily Productions Oplage: 10.000 per dag

7