HEARTOF THETIGER photo: Ruud Jonkers
43rd International Film Festival Rotterdam #7 Wednesday 29 January 2014
Tatiana Leite and Gustavo Pizzi (Craft, 2010) discuss their project Loveling – the story of a woman struggling to overcome her anxiety and renew her strength before sending her eldest son out into the world – at the CineMart one-on-one meetings yesterday.
Dream pitchers
Don’t exaggerate!
Another successful edition of CineMart winds up today.
It can be “What do you want from me?” or “What do you want from me?” It can be “What do you want from me” straight, but then the soundtrack of the film usually carries the weight of the question.
Michael Pattison reports After four hectic days of meet-and-greets, enterprising and pitching, the 25 projects selected for the latest edition of IFFR’s co-production market head home with a better idea of the steps they will take next in order to turn their dreams to reality. Babis Makridis, director of Pity, says, “I think some of our meetings have been very helpful creative-wise. The feedback of the professionals really helped with my thoughts on our story – they showed me new perspectives and revealed new elements of the story.” Indeed, it appears that when it comes to marketability, there is still room for story-driven cinema. Says Makridis, “I met people who are hungry for good stories. I think this is the best thing that happened today. Let’s hope for more good things tomorrow.” For those not attending IFFR as part of CineMart, the event itself can seem like an alien world. Needless to say, the event is a round-the-clock endeavor for all participants. Says acting Head of CineMart Bianca Taal, “We start daily with CineMart breakfasts at 9 a.m. The one-to-one meetings [between filmmakers and industry professionals] run from 9.30 to 5.30 p.m., with an hour-long lunch break at 1 p.m. and cocktails after the meetings end.” Of course, CineMart has by now established other strands. “In addition to the normal programme,” remarks Taal, “other events take place. On Sunday the IFFR Live Summit took place, on Monday the Art:Film Conference, and on Tuesday Creative Europe hosted two presentations. Tonight, the CineMart Awards will be handed out.” These awards are three juried prizes, which are presented each year to the most distinguished CineMart projects. The ARTE International Prize (€5,000) is given by ARTE France Cinéma to the producer of the most promising CineMart project. The Eurim-
ages Co-Production Development Award is decided by a jury that presents €30,000 to a project which is to be a European co-production. Finally, there is the Prins Claus Fund Film Grant, which awards €15,000 to a project from Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Caribbean. The latter prize is designed to support the initial creative phases of the winning film’s production process. It isn’t just producers who attend CineMart. Organisations with a wide range of aims and responsibilities interact and function in their own unique ways. Among the 682 guests at this year’s event were many film festivals, for example. As Bianca Taal notes, “Many of the festivals visiting Rotterdam are on the lookout for new films, and of course it is a place to network. In addition, at CineMart we have partnerships with various other co-production platforms. For those markets, CineMart is a good place to discover the selection and meet with producers about other upcoming projects.” We can look forward with some confidence then to watching these productions at future editions. Onward!
“people ... are hungry for good stories”
UPC Audience Award RANKINGS As of Tuesday 13:51 hours 1. Nebraska............................................................4,74 2. Starred Up..........................................................4,63 3. After the Tone....................................................4,61 4. Feel My Love......................................................4,58 5. Zombie: The Resurrection of Tim Zom .......4,57 6. The Selfish Giant...............................................4,50 7. Papusza..............................................................4,49 8. The Creator of the Jungle................................4,45
“there is still room for story-driven cinema” 12
9. Eastern Boys......................................................4,39 10. See No Evil.........................................................4,37
By Irina Trocan There can be repetitions What do you want from me? I asked you a thousand times and variations – “What the hell do you want from me?” – or shifts to a more philosophical perspective – “What do people want from me?” It can be pronounced jokingly, flirtingly, spitefully, fearfully, desperately, or with any of these tones masking any of the others (for instance, it can be told with a smile which actually masks desperation). As the title of the supercut (What do you want from me? I asked you a thousand times) suggests, it’s an incessant and badgering question; one that film talking, or we’re not allowed to discover who the characters simply can’t dismiss. In its many variations listener is; and any sequence longer than five seconds of tone and emotion, “the question would appear not in which we still haven’t heard the question becomes only synonymous with cinema”, the supercut’s author somehow problematic – or intriguing as to why it’s Savage suggests, “but is perhaps indicative of a wider taking so long. As if posing the question sooner would paradox in the human condition.” automatically precipitate the answer. “It’s an ongoing Shown as an installation in the Rotterdam Schouw project that started in 2008”, Savage says. “I will keep burg running on two parallel screens in the Foyer going until I have a thousand of them. Eventually the (daily between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.), the montage film will quite literally ask you a thousand times ‘what compiles over 350 clips from (mostly commercial) do you want from me?’ It is not uncommon for people films, as recent as 2011 and as old as 1942. Familiar to use the exaggeration of saying they’ve ‘asked you a faces of actors, familiar action sequences leading to thousand times’ a specific question. In this case, this confrontations and an over-familiar question that will literally be the case, creating a pointlessly literal might at best leave us waiting for an answer the first manifestation of a metaphorical question.” Whether ten or twenty times we hear it spoken. While watch- it’s actually pointless, however, is open to debate; one ing the film, after several repetitions, what becomes use of the supercut for us, as spectators, is to offer a interesting is where the clips are taken from and how degree of detachment from a recurrent film situation. much of it is edited in – for instance, there are several The next time we hear this question, for instance, we clips from one TV show popular among teenagers; may well dismiss the reflex of being curious with a there are some in which we can’t see the speaker skeptical “hahaha!”
international film festival rotterdam
Sergio is a punk rocker*
PRESS & INDUSTRY SCREENINGS WEDNESDAY 29 JANUARY Admission with P&I accreditation only
Artist, director, sound designer and co-director of Barcelona’s Sónar festival Sergio Caballero is fast becoming a Rotterdam regular.
•FLM•
09:00 The Hope Factory [wp]
TG
Industrial city of Norilsk: factories, cold, chemical air. The only desire of young people living here is to leave, against all odds. A docu-style, emotionally-driven drama about a young girl desperately fighting for an escape which is so blurry, and for love which is so insecure.
wasn’t questioning things so much or worrying about creating more complex structures. In La distancia, I had an intention to take the story further, to add layers, also using sound. The editing for La distancia was more complex – it is a step further. I am now wondering to myself what the next step in this process will be.” On the genesis of his short, made after La distancia, the director says: “La distancia was a three-year process, like a long walk; when it was finished, I needed a new image for the Sónar festival. Something fresher and more punky. This approach inspired Ancha es Castilla…. After the long walk of La distancia, making a short was as refreshing as jumping into a cold lake. Working for just three months, shooting just six days, all in a flat round the corner from my house. Again, we did all the sound and voices during the editing process, including the dialogues, which we made up during editing and recorded using an iPhone.” The rough, playful, “punky” aesthetic of the animated short Ancha es Castilla… was partly the result of the director’s aversion to classical animation techniques, he confides. “I hate the typical animation style, like they teach in schools. I want to see the strings. I want to see that it’s being shot in a flat, that sometimes you see it is someone wearing a costume. This is why I often shoot wide, with the real windows and doors in shot.” An approach that indeed reflects the DIY aesthetic of the original punk rock movement. “It’s not necessary to be technically perfect, as long as the energy is right”, Caballero says. “My process is more like painting – the material leads you to the result. You structure the material, but you don’ t lead it – it leads you.” Asked if he has any new fi lm projects in the pipeline, Caballero reveals that he wants to “work with ETs – extraterrestrials. ETs living in Barcelona. And it will be a series.” An idea appropriately, given his connection with IFFR, born here in Rotterdam.
11:00 Mein blindes Herz [ep]
14:00 Periscópio [ep]
Kurt suffers from Marfan Syndrome just like Christos, who has it in real life. But the film goes way beyond documenting Christos’ incurable condition. Kurt undertakes a journey in which the boundaries between perpetrator and victim are blurred. How much guilt can one endure?
16:30 Back to the Temple of the Sun [wp]
Filmmaker Tatjana Božic´ grew up in Croatia before the Balkan War. She roamed in different relationships through different countries before settling in Holland. For the film and to save her present relationship, the girl with the red hair follows her tragicomic way back to her past love affairs.
TG
22:00 Ai Weiwei’s Appeal ¥15,220,910.50 [wp]
Moving film about the inner turmoil of war photographer Lee (strongly acted by Catherine Keener), who is wrestling with her war traumas. She flees to a small hotel in Sicily, where a meeting with a young immigrant helps her in dealing with her inner demons.
Ai Weiwei, famous artist and notorious activist, does not so much direct films, he designs them. Just the way you design buildings or a political campaign. That is even more the case with this journalistic documentary, because it’s about his own arrest and incarceration, which became world news.
TG
•FLM•
09:30 L’amour est un crime parfait
SP
•paars01•
Arnaud Larrieu/Jean-Marie Larrieu, France/ Switzerland, 2013, DCP, 111 min, French, e.s.
In the wintry Alps, the life of a womanising professor (Mathieu Amalric) gets even more complicated when a pretty student disappears. Her beautiful stepmother (Maïwenn), his eccentric sister and a fanatical fan put on the pressure in a stunningly beautiful Hitchcock-like thriller with morbid humour.
•FLM•
11:45 Night Moves
Maya Vitkova, Bulgaria/Romania, 2014, DCP, 155 min, Bulgarian, e.s.
SP
•paars01•
Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2013, DCP, 112 min, English
Viktoria is an unusual child, born against the will of her mother who didn’t want to have a baby in socialist Bulgaria. She dreamed of the West. After having a daughter, her dream of freedom becomes even more impossible. Incredible, highly visual epic about dramatic paradoxes of motherhood and motherland. Based on a true story.
Radical environmentalists (Eisenberg, Fanning, Sarsgaard) plan an eco-terror attack on a dam. The moral consequences give rise to serious doubts, for both the activists and the audience. Intelligent, atmospheric eco-thriller, to which nature provides a dramatic background.
14:00 Only Lovers Left Alive
•FLM•
09:00 Fantail [ip]
BF
10:45 Ruin
16:30 Eastern Boys
BF
Impressionistic drama about two lovers, a prostitute and a factory worker, trying to flee the violence and crime of Cambodia. This engaging fable walks a thin line between dream and nightmare. Ruin won the Speciale Orizzonti Jury Award in Venice.
19:00 De la musique ou La jota de Rosset [ip] •FLM•
22:30 No More Road Trips? [ep]
•blauw•
Scriptwriter/editor for Laurent Cantet (L’emploi du temps, Entre les murs) directs overwhelming second film. Wealthy man in his 50s approaches a young Eastern European at the Gare du Nord for gay sex and the whole gang comes to visit. Three for the price of one: home invasion film, love story and thriller. Please note, all public screenings of this film will be with Dutch subtitling only.
Michael Cody/Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Australia/ Cambodia, 2013, DCP, 90 min, Khmer, e.s.
RG
•blauw•
Rick Prelinger, USA, 2013, Video, 80 min, no dialogue
Epic montage film based entirely on American amateur home movies, from many different regions and periods. And this trip down memory lane offers an active role to the audience: all viewers are explicitly invited to talk during the film, as there is no other soundtrack.
Cinerama 7
GT
Robin Campillo, France, 2013, DCP, 128 min, French/English
•geel•
Cinerama 5
•paars01•
Having turned their backs on the world, super-cool vampires Adam and Eve (Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton) spend their nights in a dilapidated house in Detroit. Later, they travel to Morocco in search of fresh blood. Jarmusch delivers a sardonic commentary on the indifference of a hip intellectual elite.
•geel•
Blonde Tania is a Maori - she thinks. She works nights at a petrol station so she can search for her father, along with her younger brother. However, the safety training she receives there has fatal consequences. Ambitious mix of light comedy and serious drama.
SP
Jim Jarmusch, USA, 2013, DCP, 123 min, English, d.s.
Curtis Vowell, New Zealand, 2013, DCP, 83 min, English
SP
•paars01•
Jean-Charles Fitoussi, France, 2013, DCP, 90 min, French/Spanish, e.s.
Fitoussi’s back with yet another delicious philosophical treat. How about spending a summer afternoon in a garden of an old house bathed in southern light, listening to Clément Rosset and Spinoza converse about the mysterious pleasure that music gives to our body and mind?
•FLM•
09:30 Ein proletarisches Wintermärchen [wp]
foto: Ruud Jonkers
•paars01•
LantarenVenster 4
TG
Mark Jackson, USA/Italy, 2014, DCP, 88 min, English/Italian
Pathé 5
SP
Ai Weiwei, China, 2014, Video, 127 min, English
A successful woman suffers from retrograde amnesia: her whole biographical memory disappears from one moment to the next. Schomberg’s intriguing and occasionally humorous second feature evokes fundamental questions about the construction of identity. With a convincing lead role by Maria Schrader.
* and a vintner, see: www.4kilos.com
•paars01•
Hergé, creator of Belgian comic book hero Tintin and inspiration of this film, was never in Peru. With his impersonator, we follow the trip that Tintin took over 90 years ago in Peru in an experimental road movie that questions cultural and geographical identities. Semi-feature: new presentation format that foregrounds the mid-length film.
Jan Schomburg, Germany, 2014, DCP, 95 min, German, e.s.
Pathé 3
SP
Marco Pando, Netherlands/Peru, 2014, DCP, 63 min, Spanish, e.s.
TG
09:30 Viktoria [ep]
•paars01•
Two men in a filthy flat care for and hate one another. One day, suddenly, a periscope appears through the floor. Who or what finds their miserable lives worth spying on? Ludicrous starting point for an unsettling, surreal and theatrical work by Goifman.
Tatjana Božic´, Croatia/Netherlands, 2014, DCP, 83 min, Dutch/Croatian/Russian/English, e.s.
22:30 War Story [ip]
SP
Kiko Goifman, Brazil, 2013, DCP, 85 min, Portuguese, e.s.
TG
14:45 Vergiss mein Ich [wp]
•paars01•
Charming domestic drama. Tamako (pop star Maeda Atsuko) has graduated, but doesn’t really know what she wants to do yet and is living with her father, who looks after her like a mother. Tamako is really good at being bored. By the maker of the infectious Linda, Linda, Linda.
Peter Brunner, Austria, 2013, DCP, 92 min, German, e.s.
13:00 Happily Ever After [wp]
SP
Yamashita Nobuhiro, Japan, 2013, DCP, 78 min, Japanese, e.s.
Natalia Meschaninova, Russia, 2014, DCP, 104 min, Russian, e.s.
By Mark Baker Having won a Tiger Award for his debut feature Finisterrae (2011), Caballero returns to Rotterdam this year with his second feature, La distancia, screening in Bright Future and a short, Ancha es Castilla/N’importe quoi, competing in Tiger Awards for Short Films. “I am really happy to be in Rotterdam again”, the director enthuses. “Winning a Tiger for Finisterrae changed everything for me. It opened all kinds of doors; touring the world and screening at more than 60 festivals. This paved the way for my second fi lm, La distancia, which was made partly thanks to being in the Art:Film section of CineMart.” As a festival, Rotterdam promotes the kind of ‘difficult’ works other festivals may shy away from, Caballero explains. “The type of work I do – which is seen as on the borders of indie and arty – the big festivals like Cannes and Berlin don’t always understand it. This is where Rotterdam can open doors for artists like me, giving me a place where I can show my work without being categorized or nailed down. Rotterdam believes in this kind of work.” So how did he make the switch from experimenting with sound and running a festival to making fi lms? “It all started with the internet really,” Caballero explains. “We started promoting the festival through the internet, and it became possible to present what we wanted to say through moving images. First I used these to promote Sónar, then I started exploring this medium for myself. At a certain point, it was a natural evolution to make a feature fi lm. I have always loved the cinema, because the audience is there – there is a concentration there, in the cinema, almost like at the opera. The audience in the cinema is part of something that happens, they enter my world. The story told by the fi lm is just the excuse to do this.” “Being my first feature fi lm, Finisterrae was not so multi-layered,” Caballero reveals. “It’s a much more straightforward trip, like a road movie. In that fi lm, I
11:30 Tamako in Moratorium [ep]
de Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal
GT
•blauw•
Julian Radlmaier, Germany, 2014, DCP, 63 min, German/Georgian, e.s.
Hope for cinema and the rejected of Europe! This comic/absurd fairytale offers a way out of despair in our harsh post-capitalist age. Georgian cleaners in a castle in East Germany preparing a party for the elite consider their proletarian options.
PRESS & INDUSTRY SCREENINGS WEDNESDAY 29 JANUARY Admission with P&I accreditation only 09.00
10.00
Hope Factory de Doelen The Natalia Meschaninova 09:00
11.00 11:00
TG
Jurriaanse Zaal
12.00
Mein blindes Herz Peter Brunner
90’
09:30
Pathé 3
13.00 13:00
TG 92’
Viktoria Maya Vitkova
14.00
Happily Ever After Tatjana Božić
14:45
TG
15.00
16.00
Vergiss mein Ich Jan Schomburg
17.00
18.00
19.00
20.00
21.00
22.00 22:30
TG
83’
95’
90’
TG
10:45
BF 83’
Ruin Michael Cody, Amiel Courtin-Wilson
BF 90’
22:30
Cinerama 5 09:30 Ein proletarisches GT
11:30
Wintermärchen
Julian Radlmaier 09:30
LantarenVenster 4
24.00 TG
155’
Fantail Pathé 5 Curtis Vowell 09:00
Cinerama 7
23.00 War Story Mark Jackson
63’
Tamako in Moratorium Yamashita Nobuhiro
11:45 Night Moves SP L’ amour est un Kelly Reichardt crime parfait Arnaud Larrieu, Jean-Marie Larrieu 111’
14:00
SP
Periscópio Kiko Goifman
16:30
SP
78’
Marco Pando
85’
14:00
SP 112’
Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch
SP Back to the Temple of the Sun
16:30
SP
22:00 63’
Eastern Boys Robin Campillo
123’
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
GT
19:00 128’
De la musique ou La jota de Rosset
Jean-Charles Fitoussi
No More Road Trips? Rick Prelinger
Ai Weiwei’s Appeal ¥15,220,910.50 Ai Weiwei
RG 80’
SP 127’
SP 90’
13