DAILY TIGER
40TH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM #1 THURSDAY 27 JANUARy 2011
Rutger Wolfson
NEDERLANDSE EDITIE Z.O.Z
photo: Ruud Jonkers
Thinking big As the IFFR celebrates its fortieth anniversary, artistic director Rutger Wolfson tells Edward Lawrenson how the festival has stayed true to its original remit while growing ever larger.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Rutger Wolfson says, two days before the opening of the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam. His attitude is relaxed and confident about the coming programme, despite speaking not long after the withdrawal of The King’s Speech as the closing-night film. “It’s something that’s been picked up by the press but I’m not too worried about it” he says about this lastminute glitch, and in fact will announce later that day David O’Russel’s The Fighter as the new closing night title. Uncompromising
This year’s fortieth anniversary IFFR will, Wolfson explains, be “a bit of a celebration.” Currently reading a biography of IFFR founder Hubert Bals, Wolfson has been reflecting on the event’s history. “It’s fun to read about those sometimes chaotic first few years of the festival, but what strikes me most is that we have stayed true to the original artistic principles of the festival. We’re still focussed on new work and we still have this uncompromising, outspoken programme.”
“The only difference,” Wolfson says, “is scale. The festival has become incredibly big – and I think it’s quite exceptional for any cultural event to reach the scale of Rotterdam and at the same time maintain its artistic profile”. With some 353,000 visits last year, IFFR is the largest cultural event in the Netherlands. “The current wisdom is that scale entails superficiality,” says Wolfson. “There is a strong belief that, if you want to reach more people, you have to simplify things; you have to come up with a simpler message. And vice versa: people think if you have depth, you can only do it on a small scale. The festival is the perfect demonstration that this is a misconception; that you can be ambitious about what you want to say and do, and at the same time have a very large scale.” Ambition
This grand ambition is evident in the IFFR’s key fortieth anniversary strand, XL. Taking its title from the Roman numeral for 40 (as well as the popular abbreviation for ‘extra large’), the initiative will see the festival reach out to Rotterdam audiences by hosting special events and screenings at 40 city-wide venues. The XL project is part of a wider focus on live events and performances. Wolfson is especially looking forward to Sight Unseen, the performance on Monday 31 January by IFFR Tiger juror (and
Sonic Youth founder) Lee Ranaldo and filmmaker Leah Singer at Lantaren Venster (which has this year moved across the river). “I’m a fan”, he says of the influential 80s band. While reflecting on IFFR’s original artistic remit, Wolfson says that the commitment to bold new work is “the part of the job that comes really naturally”, pointing out that he is especially excited about the Tiger selection this year. He continues: “The thing we have to think about is logistics, how best to present the programme.” Facing the prospect of a reduction in the government arts spend hitting IFFR’s budget (which this year stood at €7.2 million), Wolfson is clear there will be challenges ahead: “The thing is, we don’t know yet how the cuts for state and city funding will pan out.” But he remains sanguine: “It’s a concern, of course, but we realise we have strong cards with which to find alternative financing – we’re a strong brand and we have a super-large audience base. We should be able to find some solutions there.” One such solution came in the form of a major new sponsorship deal from cable company UPC. As well as committing to support over three years, the company also has a film-on-demand platform, allowing the IFFR to offer its films, especially the Hubert Bals-Funded work. “It’s another way for us to help these films find an audience,” Wolfson says.
Next step
This year’s IFFR will also see the premiere of two projects that grew out of last year’s Cinema Reloaded, a crowd-sourcing initiative that invited donations from cinemagoers to fund short films. The first screening of the films by Cinema Reloaded directors Alexis Dos Santos and Ho Yuhang will take place on Sunday 30 January, in front of an audience of hundreds of their ‘co-producers’. Styled as an “experiment”, Wolfson offers an overview of the results. “We learned many things, some really practical – like how to improve our website – some conceptual: we realised, for instance, that the commitment of the filmmaker was a key factor in making it work, in keeping the engagement with the audience going.” “We’re continuing to think about the next step,” he says. “We might offer the platform to filmmakers who have little access to traditional funding structures, perhaps African filmmakers. Like with telecommunications. Africa could never really have landlines, because it was too expensive, but once mobile phones were introduced they made a big leap forward.” Another aspect is securing new partners. “One of the conclusions is that, for us as a festival organisation, it’s a lot of work,” says Wolfson, “If you look at other crowd-funding platforms, they have a full-time staff. We were doing it with a group of people who were also working on the festival.”
Feel the XL-ence When you have a set of initials like XL, why apply them exclusively to a number? It’s the IFFR’s 40th birthday this year, but that doesn’t mean that audiences will be attending an event creaking into stagnant middle-age – far from it. For XL, read extra large: and extra legwork, as audiences are encouraged to visit 40 XLs (extra locations) over the ten days of the festival, each new venue chosen for its uniqueness and vibrancy. “Basically it was a bluff,” reveals XL curator Edwin Carels. “The reason for XL was firstly that we didn’t want to be too retrospective, because when you celebrate such an anniversary it is only natural that you go back into your past and say this and this was great, but we didn’t want this, so we translated the 40 into Roman numerals, allowing us by a simple play of numbers or figures to come up with a concept for a celebration that we could share with the city.” Carels is at pains to point out that the 40 projects at each of the 40 locations will be contemporary and new: “projects we would have programmed within the festival anyway, with or without the XL alibi”. What’s more, his experience gained in sourcing new venues across Rotterdam for numerous film events over the
New festival fund At last-night’s opening ceremony, the Tiger Film Patrons’ Fund, a new joint initiative between IFFR and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds to raise private finance for festival-related projects, was announced. Against a backdrop of reduced state backing for the arts, the Fund will provide an opportunity for individuals to make private donations to the IFFR. The Fund will be established as a Registered Culture Fund and administered by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, an organization with long-standing expertise in arts patronage. IFFR managing director Janneke Staarink knew that the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds hadn’t administered a film fund before. “The Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds doesn’t usually team up with separate arts organisations. For them, we are a pilot project,” she says of the Tiger Film Patrons’ Fund. The Fund will be open to individuals making a minimum donation of €300 per annum, over the course of five years. This minimum donation marks a step up from the festival’s existing ‘Tiger Friends’ initiative, members of which pay €50. Patrons will, however, be able to claim 50 percent tax back – and, Staarink suggests, can look forward to being invited to special IFFR events, such as screenings and talks. Staarink admits the economic climate for the arts in the Netherlands is “a concern”, but says the IFFR is “well positioned” to withstand the looming cuts. “We’re really big,” she says, “We have a loyal audience and good sponsors.” She continues: “My goal is to increase commercial and private support for the IFFR without impacting the festival’s image. But I’m not worried we’re not going to survive”. EL
years held him in good stead as he sought out the strangest and most idiosyncratic locations for the XL project. He was also keen to come up with the right idea for the right place. “The film or exhibition must be in tune with the context of where we are showing it,” he comments. One of Carels’ favourite choices of partner – “maybe the most atypical, but at the same time the most apropos,” he observes – is the Worm Club, the self-monikered “institute for avant-gardistic recreation”, that joined with the festival to take over a fitness club and “invest it with our taste in film, our taste in music and our type of personal trainer.” Anybody with an XL pass can turn up for fitness sessions, but will be offered the full festival experience. “When you are cycling in the gym, you won’t be watching CNN or Oprah, you will be watching new short films and a selection of highlights that the festival, together with Worm, has concocted.” Other XL features of the 40th IFFR include the making of a documentary by acclaimed Dutch filmmaker Frank Scheffer, titled Tiger Eyes, to mark the past four decades of IFFR; the issue of an anniversary DVD boxed set and a festival website focus on 40 moments from the festival’s history. NC
Edwin Carels at the XL venue Your Space
Broadening the base Despite uncertain times for the Hubert Bals Fund, the scheme maintains its strong reputation. By Nick Cunningham.
Hubert Bals Fund chief Iwana Chronis spoke to the Daily Tiger on the eve of IFFR 2011, which boasts 27 HBF-backed films in its programme, including three Tiger Awards competitors: Sivaroj Kongsakul’s Eternity (Thailand); Sri Lankan Flying Fish (Sanjeewa Pushpakumara) and Vipin Vijay’s The Image Threads (India). Eternity received digital production funding in 2009, while Flying Fish received post-prod funding in 2010. The Image Thread received its HBF script and project development funding in 2004. The stated aim of the Hubert Bals Fund is to provide grants to facilitate the development and completion of “remarkable or urgent feature films and featurelength creative documentaries by innovative and
talented filmmakers from developing countries.” Chronis will be operating on a reduced budget of €900,000 this year, the result of a scaled-back contribution from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and reduced support from the Hivos-NCDO Culture Foundation. The government contribution from March 2011 will be €675,000, to be further reduced to €600,000 in March 2012. Support from the Netherlands-based Doen and Dioraphte Foundations remains unchanged. “We are definitely feeling the cutbacks in culture and development aid which are happening at the moment in the Netherlands,” she commented. “We are right in the middle of those two sectors, and I guess we’re being slapped from both sides.” Chronis is nevertheless pursuing other possibilities to bolster Fund coffers from new sources. “We are trying to increase our financial base,” she continued. “It is necessary. The way politics is now in the Netherlands, we have to open up to
other potential financiers. If we receive positive responses from potential financiers we may be able to operate on the same level [as 2010].” In 2010, a series of Fund-backed films were lauded at top international film events. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives picked up the Palme d’Or at Cannes, while Li Hongqi’s Winter Vacation was awarded the Golden Leopard at Locarno. In addition Tilva Ros (Nikola Lezaic) won the Heart of Sarajevo award at the Sarajevo International Film Festival. “The reputation of the Hubert Bals Fund is very strong, and this reflects in the fact that there are other international funds that are being set up and modelled on us,” Chronis stressed. “It is an indication that the formula works. Also the fact that we receive so many applications every year – around 750 – is the best indication as to how the international industry is viewing us.”
Janneke Starink
photo: Daniel Baggerman
Iwana Chronis
photo: Nadine Maas
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From the lab
One Eye on the Future
The Binger Lab is gearing up for hectic Rotterdam and Berlin campaigns as a slew of filmmakers and alumni pitch and screen projects they have developed with the support of the Amsterdambased institute.
Aneta Lesnikovska’s Loud is one of five Binger projects to be pitched at Rotterdam’s CineMart. The title has also been selected for the Berlin Co-production Market. The other Binger projects to receive the CineMart nod are The Mechanicals, produced by Nicole O’Donohue and to be directed by Leon Ford, Marinus Groothof’s The Sky Above Us, a project that picked up the NPP
The Sky Above Us
Kodak Prize in Utrecht in September 2010, Joke Liberge’s Overnight and Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie. The opening film of the IFFR, Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Jan Vogel’s Tiger competitor Wasted Youth, is produced by current Binger creative producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis. Another film in the Tiger competition, Vete más lejos, Alicia (Alicia, Go Yonder),
Alicia, Go Yonder
was directed by current Binger filmmaker Elisa Miller. In addition, Alexis Dos Santos’ long-awaited Cinema Reloaded short Random Strangers will world premiere in Rotterdam, following a December 2010 shoot. “Rotterdam has a unique place in our hearts,” comments Binger director Gamila Ylstra. “It’s great to be back here and present our Binger filmmakers, their projects and their films. Not only do we have Binger projects in the official selection of CineMart, but also 20 talented writers and four creative producers currently taking part in our Writers’ Lab will attend the co-production events.” “Another example of synergy with the festival is the Cinema Reloaded film Random Strangers by Alexis Dos Santos,” she contin-
Sandra den Hamer
photo: Bram Belloni
A year after its official launch, EYE (the new institute for film in the Netherlands) is at the centre of a ferocious debate about the future of Dutch public film funding. By Geoffrey Macnab.
The Dutch coalition government has made it clear that it expects to make severe cutbacks in cultural spending. No one yet knows exactly what these cuts will mean for the film industry. However, under director Sandra den Hamer, EYE is already preparing for the stormy times ahead. “We have to look at how we can survive with less subsidy,” Den Hamer declares. The picture regarding the forthcoming cuts is blurred and confusing. Many arts organizations have their budgets in place until 2012 under agreements struck with the previous government. However, last autumn, at the time of the Holland Film Meeting, some were predicting that funding for film would fall by between 20% and 25%. Anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders’ egregious remarks about art being a “left-wing hobby” set the tone for what was becoming an increasingly fractious debate. For 2012, Den Hamer clarifies, “there is already a general measure of 2% cuts for everybody. In 2013, this is 5% ... and then from 2014, there should be a new policy [for government support of the arts].” The government’s declared aim is to reduce spending on the arts by €200 million, from the current budget of around €950 million a year. The Arts Council of the Netherlands is drawing up a policy plan for the arts, to be delivered in the spring. Then, in the summer, the Ministry will finally reveal just where and how the axe will fall. Commitment
Radnom Strangers
ues. “While at the Binger, he shot the film in his Amsterdam apartment, with his roommate and Binger filmmaker Samy Challah in the lead, and fellow filmmakers as crew.” The 2011 Berlinale will stage two world premieres of projects developed at the Binger, Bullhead by Michael R. Roskam and Swans by Hugo Vieira da Silva. The opening film of Berlin’s Generation strand, Griff the Invisible, is directed by Leon Ford and produced by Nicole O’Donohue, both of whom are at the Binger developing their project The Mechanicals, pitching at CineMart. NC
On its first birthday, EYE – which unites the Filmbank, Holland Film, the Netherlands Institute for Film Education and the Filmmuseum – is already at the heart of policy making and cultural debate. “We are absolutely not an ivory tower organisation,” Den Hamer says of the institute’s commitment to Dutch film culture. The extent of EYE’s influence is underlined by the many guises in which the institute will be seen in Rotterdam this week. Former IFFR director Den Hamer is also on the festival’s Tiger Awards jury. EYE’s distribution arm will be handling the Dutch releases of several IFFR titles, among them Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry, Pablo Larraín’s Post Mortem, Kornél Mundruczó’s Tender Son – The Frankenstein Project, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg, Cristi Puiu’s Aurora and Andrei Ujica’s The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu. Together with the Rotterdam City Archives, EYE is also behind the restoration of Friedrich von Maydell’s The City That Never Rests (1928), shot by celebrated cameraman An-
dor von Barsy. The film offers a modernist portrayal of 1920s Rotterdam akin to that of Berlin in Berlin: Symphony of a City. The screening also ties in with the exhibition of von Barsy’s photographs at the Nederlands Fotomuseum. EYE is supporting experimental work and educational initiatives at IFFR. Drawing on its huge archive, EYE will also be showcasing new restorations of key films from German auteur Werner Schroeter. Collaboration
EYE’s sister organisation The Netherlands Film Fund (headed up by Doreen Boonekamp) is currently pushing for the introduction of a Dutch tax break or soft money schemes. In recent years, the Dutch have lost out on inward investment because they haven’t been able to offer international producers an equivalent to the Belgian tax shelter or the Luxembourg CIAV system. Some have suggested that, in the current tough economic climate, it would make sense to merge EYE with the Film Fund. Den Hamer points out that there is a “strict boundary” between an organisation responsible for film promotion, heritage and education and an outfit like the Film Fund, which invests directly in production. However, Eye International (the promotional arm of the Institute, formerly known as Holland Film) helps facilitate co-productions and international collaboration. “It is very closely connected to the policies of the Fund,” Den Hamer says of the outfit. Eye International, headed by Claudia Landsberger, and the Film Fund are shortly expected to announce an initiative to support international distributors who pick up Dutch movies. The idea is to help underwrite their Prints & Advertising and dubbing costs. EYE is also at the forefront of the new initiative to digitize Dutch cinemas (again an initiative that the Film Fund is supporting). The aim is to achieve digitization within two years. “At this moment, we are in a selection process for an integrator who will take care of the whole digitization of the screens”, Den Hamer says. The Institute will continue to work very closely with Dutch festivals. Obviously, if Dutch cinemas all do go digital, that should provide greater flexibility in programming – and an opportunity for the films that IFFR showcases to reach an audience even outside the festival fortnight. Building
These are still early days for EYE. The organisation is yet to move into a new home, in an impressive modernist building in the Overhoeks district of Amsterdam. (Den Hamer says she is confident she and her staff can take up residence some time next year.) “Apart from the real building, we’re also building a
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new organisation. If you look at the activities of EYE in Rotterdam, you can only see the value of co-operation,” Den Hamer declares. “We will present some new films we have bought for distribution in the Netherlands. We will also present films from our collection, restored films, and films from our experimental cinema collection. And we are introducing a new initiative called Instant Cinema, which is a community for artists’ cinema on the web”, Den Hamer reflects. “EYE covers everything from promoting experimental cinema to promoting Dutch films abroad. That’s the value of this new initiative: that you can combine activities and expertise.”
Remembering Rotterdam As part of our commemorative coverage of the IFFR’s fortieth anniversary, contributing editor to Time Out London, Geoff Andrew, shares his most vivid memories of the event.
I must have attended over a dozen IFFRs now, and since there’s always much to enjoy, it’s very difficult to select one favourite moment. Hearing Simon Field sing karaoke during his final year as festival director definitely wouldn’t qualify, and it’s not really fair to select one of my annual Indonesian diners. Spending several hours talking to Nicolas Philibert for the first time (he later became a great friend) at a Unifrance dinner would be a contender, as would attending a fascinating lecture by Peter Wollen; visiting an exhibition of artefacts by Jan Svankmajer; watching João César Monteiro’s memorably bizarre The Hips of John Wayne, or finally catching up with Kiarostami’s CloseUp in a mockumentary retrospective that also included the underrated Dadetown. Of course, there have been so many terrific films to consider, but if I really had to choose one screening that sticks in the memory above all, it would probably have to be the first film I caught at the 1997 festival. I saw it thanks in part to Tony Rayns, who urged me to check out the first feature of a filmmaker he felt was unusually promising. The film was The Day a Pig Fell into the Well, and the director, of course, was Hong Sangsoo; as so often, Tony was right. And that screening sums up what Rotterdam has been about for me: the spirit of discovery.
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Fast and furious Argyris Papadimitropoulos, co-director of IFFR opener and Tiger contender Wasted Youth, says it’s an exciting time to be making films in Greece right now, despite the crisis. By Edward Lawrenson.
“It’s a movie that’s shot today, about today.” So says Argyris Papadimitropoulos of Wasted Youth, the film he co-directed with Jan Vogel and that opened the IFFR last night. It’s an apt remark. Filmed last year in Athens, Papadimitropoulos and Vogel, who had worked together on commercials, had the idea in June 2010 to make a film about the aftermath of Greece’s economic crisis. A month later, they had started production on a mostly improvised drama about two characters over the course of a summer’s day in present-day Athens: 16-year-old, happy-golucky skater Harris (Harris Markou) and middleaged policeman Vasilis (Ieronimos Kaletsanos), who is juggling an unhappy home life and worries about the ongoing financial crisis. “We never wrote it,” explains Papadimitropoulos, speaking ahead of the film’s world premiere. “Jan and I rented an office in the centre of Athens. We started interviewing teenagers, thinking of ideas, making a mood board with pictures we took. It was really fast. We decided: no script, just a clear storyline about these two central characters.” “We didn’t go to state funders or big distributors”, he says about the fast turnaround between initial idea and production. “We didn’t want anyone to have a say on the film, except for me and Jan.” Papadimitropoulos recalls how the budget (around €200,000) came together: “I went for advice to one of my best friends, George Karnavas, who is a general manager for a big production company. He said, ‘This film has to be done. Give me a week’, and managed to find some brave people in Greece to back the film.” Finding Harris Markou, the charismatic young man who plays the lead teenager, was key to the film. “We asked some older skater guys, and they suggested him, because he’s very outgoing and
Wasted Youth
funny,” says Papadimitropoulos: “We pretty much followed him: his life informs the story.” “Jan and I are young”, says 34-year-old Papadimitropoulos, “but to teenagers, everyone is old. So we had to win their trust.” He joined Harris and his pals when they went skating, but admits to almost breaking his leg: “I’m a really lousy skater. But I’m good at partying, which is another thing teenagers love.” The relationship between real life and the fictional world of the film became blurred in other ways too. The wedding that Harris and his pals drunk-
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enly crash was a real ceremony, held for Papadimitropoulos’ brother. That evening’s shoot remains Papadimitropoulos’ highlight of the production. “My brother’s wedding was a fantastic moment, it was a real wedding. I asked the whole crew to dress smartly like they were shooting a video. I told my parents that the kids were going to come in with their skates and they were going to ruin it a bit. But the grown-ups really enjoyed it in the end.” For Papadimitropoulos’ professional cast, the improvised approach was initially daunting. “I remember Ieronimos getting really pissed off at the
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beginning,” recalls Papadimitropoulos about his lead man. “He was asking, ‘what do I do now?’ I was asking him, ‘Should I tell you what to do?’, then he said, ‘Yeah, that’s what directors do’, and it was very stressful for him.” Once shooting got underway, Papadimitropoulos continues, Kaletsanos and his other established actors really enjoyed the process – especially working with the young non-professionals. Kaletsanos gives a strong performance, withdrawn and taciturn; a man desperately troubled by the climate of economic uncertainty. This sense of profound worry is a key feature of Wasted Youth: “Many people have suffered, they’ve lost their jobs,’ says Papadimitropoulos. “But the most important thing is the psychological impact, people are really scared living under the breath of fear; fear stops people from doing things.” Talking a day after his countryman Giorgos Lanthimos received a foreign-language Oscar nomination for Dogtooth (produced by Athina Rachael Tsangari, whose Attenberg is also playing in IFFR), Papadimitropoulos is positive about filmmaking in Greece right now. “It’s really the best era for Greek cinema right now. There are lots of people of my generation and we’re doing stuff all the time,” he says, noting he was associate producer on Syllas Tzoumerkas’ 2010 film Homeland, and that Tzoumerkas repaid the favour by playing Vasilis’ colleague in Wasted Youth. “Financially, things are difficult”, says Papadimitropoulos, “so we can only do it this way. It’s very exciting because you do things on the spot. When there’s no money to be given, you don’t have to wait for it – I don’t spend three years in the queue at the Greek Film Center.” Wasted Youth – Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel
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