41st International Film Festival Rotterdam #1 thursDAY 26 january 2012
Feeling strong: IFFR director Rutger Wolfson
photo: Bram Belloni
Leaner selection, brighter outlook Though there may be tougher times ahead, IFFR director Rutger Wolfson is looking forward to a strong 2012 edition, and beyond. By Edward Lawrenson
Speaking a day before the opening night, IFFR festival director Rutger Wolfson is in a positive mood. “I think the festival is very strong this year,” he says, “I feel very confident.” Maintaining a bright outlook is one of the responsibilities of any artistic director’s job description, but Wolfson goes on to explain his attitude. “I think we made some smart decisions to make the programme smaller,” he says when asked to elaborate his upbeat forecast. “We did this to have a sharper focus. And we can now give the films the attention they deserve.” Less is more
As with the last two editions, the IFFR programme is divided into three major strands: Spectrum (its showcase for established talent), Signals (its selection of themed programmes) and Bright Future (its celebration of new and developing filmmakers, under which the Tiger competition films screen). As part of their attempt to make a more concentrated edition, Wolfson and his team have now reduced the Bright Future programme by around twenty percent.
“There was some criticism – and I think rightly – that there were so many new titles, professionals coming to Rotterdam were struggling to see them all,” says Wolfson. “That’s one reason for selecting fewer titles. On a more organisational side, if there are fewer films and guests to handle, we can give these films and guests more attention.” Funding futures
These are tough times for arthouse cinema, Wolfson argues, which only underlines the IFFR’s support for independent, challenging work. “I think the economic situation for arthouse films is becoming more difficult for all kinds of reasons. For the kind of films we know and love, Rotterdam will become more important because there’s funding here – with the Hubert Bals Fund and CineMart. I think there will be fewer interesting film projects purely because of the economic situation, but their reason to be in Rotterdam will only increase.” This is one reason why Wolfson is relaxed when asked about competition for titles with the Berlinale, which takes place days after the IFFR ends. Wolfson maintains this sanguine attitude even when filmmakers the IFFR has supported in the past chose other festivals. He cites the example of Edwin’s Postcard from the Zoo, about to play in competition in Berlin.
“We couldn’t have played it in competition because he’s already won a Tiger,” says Wolfson of the Indonesian director, who has a longstanding relationship with the IFFR, “but if he’s in competition in Berlin, it’s better exposure for the film than if he were here in Spectrum. So it’s fine for us to let him go because we care about his career – even if he got Hubert Bals Fund support.” The slightly leaner selection comes against a background of cuts for arts funding in the Netherlands. The IFFR has thus far weathered the tough economic climate relatively well. “It’s OK,” says Wolfson. “About thirty percent of our funding comes from the state. It’s a four-year cycle, which ends in 2012 – our 2013 edition. So this year and next year we have the same level of funding.” He continues: “We haven’t heard yet how much money we’ll get from the government, but the signs are positive. I’m sure we’ll face a cut, but not such a dramatic cut as in other parts of the cultural sector.” Tiger model
In fact, Wolfson sees IFFR as a model for other Dutch cultural organisations in these challenging times. “We are in a very good position to experiment with new forms of raising money,” he says. “We are a very large festival, and our audience is very enthusiastic and dedicated. It feels like we can ask them to commit
a little bit more.” With this in mind, the IFFR introduced a patronage scheme last year – potential donors can sign up for different levels of membership – and recently launched a telephone fund-raising campaign. “It was quite successful”, Wolfson says of the latter initiative. “We were the first in the Netherlands to do this kind of thing – and raised 32,000 Euros, a substantial start.” He continues: “We’re learning a lot. We sense a responsibility to try things, because what’s successful here can help other institutions.” Caribbean connection
This year sees the IFFR enter into a partnership with a new main sponsor, the Curacao International Film Festival Rotterdam. Backed by the Fundashon Bon Intenshon, the IFFR is to help establish a fourday series of screenings and events in Willemstad, the capital of the Caribbean island. Working with the Fundashon Bon Internshon has been a bracing change for Wolfson. “I work a lot with big corporations and governments to raise funds, so it’s been a different dynamic working with a private foundation. I learned a lot.” Plus, the collaboration means a trip to Curacao at the end of the March for the inaugural festival. Is this something Wolfson is looking forward to? “Of course. Come on! It’s the Caribbean.”
1
Growing pains
Nick
Despite a strong performance at home and abroad, the Dutch film industry faces uncertain times. By Geoffrey Macnab It has been a topsy-turvy year in the Dutch cinema sector. Earlier this month, when the industry announced its 2011 statistics, the conclusions were very upbeat indeed: Dutch audiences turned to domestic product in increasing millions in 2011. Audience market share rose from 15.88% in 2010 to 22.38% in 2011. The total audience for Dutch films was over 6.8 million, a 52.16% hike on the 2010 figure of 4,475,760. With local films capturing 21.88% of the box-office, a Dutch movie (Will Koopman’s Gooische Vrouwen) topping the charts with a startling 1.9 million admissions (relegating Harry Potter to second place) and overall receipts of around €240 million, it was a bumper year. Kids’ movies, including New Kids: Nitro and New
Kids: Turbo, continued to attract huge numbers of cinemagoers. The first Dutch 3D movie, Nova Zembla, posted close to 625,000 admissions. “These figures, coupled with the increasing number of Dutch films selected at international festivals, is a great incentive for Dutch film professionals to further expand and exploit the potential of Dutch film in the coming years”, says Netherlands Film Fund director Doreen Boonekamp. There were obvious logistical reasons for the upsurge. Exhibitors in the Netherlands, traditionally an underscreened market, have been increasing the number of screens. Digitalisation is also well underway: one reason why 3D films feature so prominently in the ‘Top 20’ for 2011. Nonetheless, this does nothing to lessen the achievements of Dutch filmmakers in attracting local cinemagoers in such huge numbers. Perseverance
Internationally, Dutch films are also grabbing attention. Leonard Retel Helmrich’s Position Among the Stars won a Special Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and films such as The Brownian Movement, Code Blue, Shock Head Soul and Among Us screened in official selection at festivals from Berlin to Cannes and Locarno to Venice.
Terminal addiction
Rob Duyser
This year, the IFFR video library is sticking to that reliable maxim of technological practice: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Ben Walters reports
“It’s pretty much the same deal,” says the library’s Rob Duyser. “Same machines with a few user problems ironed out and ramped up accessibility.” Now in its sixth year, the video library allows IFFR professionals to view the majority of the festival programme on demand at 40 dedicated terminals on the fourth floor of De Doelen. The catalogue is also available to professionals via wi-fi. As in 2011, around 75 per cent of films are viewable, though the actual number of titles is smaller because of this year’s slimmer programme of around 550 films. There are some novelties this year, however. The library’s opening hours have been stretched to 14-hour days, from 9am to 11pm, to allow for more viewing opportunities (“the last two years we’ve been full up in here”) and, for the first time, there
Lena
“You could say Dutch films are growing up,” declares Claudia Landsberger, head of EYE International. “Dutch cinema has become a saleable product within and outside of the Netherlands. Slowly, we are getting there. Perseverance is key.” Open letter
On the face of it, the Dutch industry appears to be thriving. However, there was no disguising the unease within the sector in the face of the proposed cuts in public film funding. Last May, during the Cannes Festival, leading Dutch filmmakers wrote an open letter to State Secretary Halbe Zjilstra, making their discomfort very apparent. “A true industry has come into being,” they pointed out, but warned that cutbacks in subsidy could lead to “a reversion to the darkness of the 1980s and 1990s, when the market for Dutch films fluctuated between 0.8% and 3%.” The concern is that Dutch production may be entering a period of slow decline. 2012 is likely to be another strong year as films financed in 2010 and 2011, before the cuts were announced, hit cinemas. 2013 is when the downturn may begin. “We don’t know what deals we can strike with the government or between ourselves to counter the budget cuts,” says A-Film’s Managing Director Wilco Wolfers, also president of the Dutch Film Distributors’ Association (NVF). The first (2.2%) cuts to the budget of state body the Netherlands Film Fund will be made this year (increasing to 25% in 2013). This is why the industry is lobbying the Dutch government so hard for measures to support local producers. Ideas include a soft-money scheme for the Netherlands to attract inward investment; new piracy laws; a levy system on distribution and exhibition to generate funds for production and a ‘cashflow’ fund for gap financing during production. Local producers worry they’re not attractive coproduction partners. At present, the Dutch can’t offer international filmmakers the tax breaks they get in Belgium or Luxembourg. Nor do the Dutch have regional film funds to match those found in Germany or Sweden. Nonetheless, they continue to coproduce and remain members of Eurimages where, at the December board meeting, two Dutch-led projects received funding:
Alex Van Warmerdam’s Camiel Borgman (a Rotterdam CineMart entry last year) and Peter Kuijpers’ Heaven On Earth. Dutch films are present in Rotterdam this year, if not in the quantities you might expect. (There are none in the Tiger Competition.) The Rotterdam-set teenage drama Lena (the second film from Belgian director Christophe Van Rompaey) screens in Bright Future and Fow Pyng Hu’s third feature Nick is a world premiere in Spectrum. Meanwhile, Simon Pummell’s Shock Head Soul, a “hybrid film” about 19th-century German judge/madman and Freudian subject Daniel Paul Schreber combining documentary, fiction and animation, screens in Spectrum. Rotterdam is also hosting Pummell’s media installation The Sputnik Effect which sets out to draw visitors into the schizophrenic mind of Schreber. “Rotterdam could be very important for Dutch films if they were selected for the Tiger Competition,” Landsberger suggests. “If Rotterdam selected two Dutch films in the Tiger Competition, it would show it is embracing Dutch cinema. But this year we have none.” Healthy appetite
“We would have liked more, but we are starting to notice that production is getting a bit less in the Netherlands,” festival director Rutger Wolfson notes. Nonetheless, there are several Dutch projects in the CineMart, from Peter Hoogendoorn’s debut feature Between Ten And Twelve (inspired by events on the day the writer-director learned his sister had died in a car accident) to Urszula Antoniak’s project about female adolescence and sexuality, Nude Area (produced by Frans Van Gestel’s new outfit Topkapi). Whatever problems may lurk ahead, it is clear that the Dutch are starting 2012 from a strong position. “The mood is very positive,” Wolfers declares. “By the same token, everybody looks at the future saying ‘What is going to happen? We now have this professional industry. Will it be cut in half?’” The upside, Wolfers adds, is that the public now “see Dutch film as professional, interesting, entertaining.” The appetite for Dutch movies is clearly there and the real challenge for local filmmakers is how best to satisfy it.
photo: Corinne de Korver
will be terminals at the LantarenVenster offering professionals access to video library material. Beyond the direct environs of IFFR, the video library is complemented by an online preview platform, available to interested parties around the world. Returning for the second year, the platform originated as a tool for the development of the IFFR programme; its offering is not restricted to catalogue titles, but also includes related material. “There’s been a massive increase in use this year,” says Duyser. “We’re seeing a sixfold increase in take-up.” So far, the advent of wireless access hasn’t dampened demand for the library facilities. “People just like the booths,” says Duyser. “It’s higher quality video and I think people find it more comfortable to put the headphones on and be in their own space. Though we’ll see what happens this year with iPads. We’re ready.” In addition, visitors to Rotterdam can make use of free festival-branded wi-fi access around the city for the duration of the festival (password: WelcomeInRotterdam).
Tampopo Head and the Name of the Dogs Today at 17:00 in LantarenVenster (and again on Monday at 19:30), there is a chance to see new Dutch (short) films specially selected for screening at the IFFR by the Netherlands Media Art Insitute and the EYE film institute, in the shape of the IFFR’s NL International programme. This is made up of works that have screened elsewhere, and therefore would not normally be eligible to screen at the festival. “These works have a special appeal to international audiences,” says Claartje Opdam of the EYE institute. “So it would be a great shame to keep them to ourselves. There is so much international expertise here in Rotterdam. It’s a fantastic joint initiative, and a great chance to see some works that might otherwise be overlooked.” (MB)
3
In Your Face “Great clips, great graphics and a great dynamic soundtrack – it’s everything you want from a trailer,” Andre Freyssen of ad agency CCCP tells Nick Cunningham about the trailer he edited for IFFR 2012 Running at twenty seconds or so, the trailer comprises a blitz montage of images culled from films in selection this year, punctuated by the same handwritten adjectives deployed across this year’s poster and internet campaign – sick, erotic, crazy, wonderful, weird, profound. Cinema audiences, Freyssen claims, have responded very positively to the work. “The images, the rhythm, the music of the trailer – everybody immediately understands what the IFFR is about, and they immediately want to visit because of the richness of the materials we had access to,” he stresses. The frenetic music is supplied by London-based Japanese punkchick outfit Mikabomb, who will be performing at this year’s closing ceremony. Freyssen was also keen that the trailer underline both the sense of fun and vibrancy within the 2012 selection. “I think that the IFFR should reflect a world we
recognise,” he stresses. “Not too much arthouse. More direct. In your face. These scenes may not always be part of everyday life, but they are recognisable.” The IFFR trailer was made in response to director Rutger Wolfson’s desire to apply an energetic ‘VJ-type’ approach to the assignment. “We had the poster first,” Wolfson points out, referring to designer Rens Muis’ calligraphic 2012 campaign. (Muis, who runs the 75B agency, was also the creator of the current Tiger logo.) “Then we thought we need to make it into a trailer. I wanted to use only images from the films in the programme because that’s what the words on the poster refer to. Also, it doesn’t make sense if you’re a film festival to shoot new material when you’re competing with the best filmmakers in the world. But the trailer’s fun. It’s very energetic. And when we screen it to our colleagues, everyone cheers.”
Theo Angelopolous 1935 – 2012 As the IFFR prepared to get underway, news of the death of Theo Angelopoulos was announced yesterday The 76-year-old Greek director was killed in a traffic accident while working on his latest film, The Other Sea. “Angelopoulos was a hugely important figure in world cinema and his sudden death is a terrible loss”, said IFFR director Rutger Wolfson. “We were proud to support the development of this most distinctive voice by screening many of his early films in 1970s, and we were always pleased to welcome his later work at the festival. His influence is great and enduring, not least on the current generation of Greek filmmakers, who have been such a vibrant presence at recent IFFRs.” Trained as a lawyer and a former film critic, Angelopoulos’ breakthrough film was his masterly 1975 The Travelling
Players. That film’s haunting exploration of recent Greek history (which combined pointed references to Greek myth with stylistic vituosity) resonated through Angelopoulos’ other work. A Golden Lion for The Beekeeper (1986), the Palme d’or for Eternity and a Day (1998) – his first feature since The Dust of Time (2008) – were among the director’s many prizes. Adding to the many tributes from the film world, Dimitri Eipides, director of the International Thessaloniki Film Festival and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, told the Daily Tiger: “The untimely and tragic death of Theo Angelopoulos came as a great shock, to me and to the rest of the Greek film world. His poetic and contemplative cinema, uniquely his own, enriched the history of the medium itself, as well as the cultural history and collective memory of our country. He will be terribly missed.”
The Dust of Time
Bingham Ray 1954 – 2012 “He was part of the Rotterdam family,” former IFFR director Simon Field said of US indie movie pioneer Bingham Ray, who died earlier this week aged 57 while attending the Sundance Festival. Geoffrey Macnab reports
Images from the IFFR trailer 2012
Eurimages boards Borgman
Ray was at the forefront of the rise of US independent cinema in the 1990s. Together with Jeff Lipsky, he founded October Films in 1991. This was the company that brought such movies as Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies and Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves to US audiences. Later, as President of United Artists (2001-2004), he championed such films as Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine and Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land. At the time of his death, he was Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society. In 2000, not long after Ray left October Films, he was a juror for the Tiger Competition in Rotterdam. This was the year of Pablo Trapero’s Mundo Grua and Lou Ye’s Suzhou River. “It’s truly about the films and filmmakers,” Ray commented of his experiences at the IFFR. “Some festivals claim to be about the films, but they’re really
about the hype… This is a little bigger than Telluride, but it’s a real special feeling at Telluride. They have that here, although Telluride is a small resort town in Colorado and Rotterdam is a major European city.” “I found him very sympathetic and energetic when I met him,” Field recalls of Ray. “He was obviously a character… he proved to be an enthusiastic and committed participant. I got the sense that he was really energized by being at the festival – by being close to new filmmakers and being part of the spirit of Rotterdam. He jumped right in!” Field added that Ray was “someone who was completely at home with the cinema and the projects that are in Rotterdam… he was excited by it, and rejuvenated in many ways.” While in Rotterdam, Ray was also an active participant in the festival’s coproduction market, the CineMart. “He was at that time a leading figure in the US film industry and it was important to have him and his ideas and visions at CineMart,” Ido Abram, Director of the CineMart at the time, recalls. “What I remember is that he was very straightforward and never beat around the bush. That was important as a reality check for a lot of people with projects at CineMart.”
Bingham Ray
Producer Marc van Warmerdam commented yesterday on the Eurimages funding recently granted to his project Camiel Borgman, to be directed by his brother Alex. The project, presented at CineMart 2011 and budgeted at €3.5 million, received a cool €550,000 from the European funding institute. The Van Warmerdams’ Graniet Film is the main stakeholder in the film, with the Belgian production house Epidemic and Angel Films/The Danish Film Studios (Denmark) assuming co-pro responsibilities. “I think that this collaboration was one of one the most attractive points for Eurimages, besides the script,” Marc van Warmerdam claims. Van Warmerdam is still looking to raise a further €500,000 before the shoot, scheduled to run JulySeptember 2012. He is therefore relying on his polymath brother (Alex is also a renowned playwright and painter) to sell a number of signed and framed original prints of a new work to potential investors. “We are looking for people interested in Alex’s paintings as well as his film works,” Van Warmerdam comments. “If we make half the remaining money this way, I’ll be very happy.” (NC)
5
Home truths A night-time murder scene is the focus of Lucas Belvaux’s gripping thriller 38 témoins. Ahead of his world premiere, the director talks to Edward Lawrenson
Speaking before this year’s festival, which opens with 38 témoins (38 Witnesses), writer-director Lucas Belvaux notes that Rotterdam is an especially apt location for the world premiere. Belvaux’s film is set in Le Havre – like Rotterdam, an important European port – and much of it takes place in the city’s huge container dock. “I have a friend who is a shipping agent, and for professional reasons he’ll be in Rotterdam during the festival,” explains Belvaux. “Many ships that we filmed in Le Havre were en route to Rotterdam.” Relocation
It is at the port that the film’s lead character, Pierre, works. A marine pilot, Pierre is at home in the apartment he shares with his wife Louise when a woman is murdered outside in the small hours of the morning. Interviewing the residents of the apartment block, police are frustrated as no one admits to hearing the murder victim’s screams. When Pierre, troubled by a guilty conscience, changes his original testimony and confesses he did in fact listen to her distress call (but did nothing), he prompts the police to re-interview his neighbours, who resent Pierre’s actions. The movie is based on a book by Didier Decoin, which itself was based on the notorious 1964 case of New York murder victim Kitty Genovese, whose cries for help were ignored by local residents and passers-by. “I thought the subject itself was stronger than the actual news item,” Belvaux said of his decision to relocate the action to present-day France. “I thought I would gain a lot by freely adapting it”. Different perspectives
Belvaux was introduced to Didier Decoin’s book by actor Yvan Attal, who plays Pierre, and with whom the director worked on his 2009 kidnap thriller Rapt. “When he gave me the book, he was already in discussions to purchase the rights. So I wrote the script thinking of him.” Attal and Sophie Quinton, as Pierre’s wife Louise, both give committed perform-
6
38 témoins
ances, depicting the strain Pierre’s decision to go to the police puts on their marriage. Developing a major theme of Belvaux’s breakthrough 2002 Trilogy – in which key events in the Alpine city of Grenoble are replayed with shifting emphasis over three feature films – 38 témoins explores the distorting effect of different perspectives on a single incident. A gripping investigative thriller, the film reveals how the residents interviewed by the police have different takes on what happened on the night of the murder, investigating “the difference between what one says and what one sees and hears”.
Logistical demands
Recalling the shoot for this intimate and psychologically complex story, Belvaux admits that his favourite part of the process was working with the actors. Filming Attal playing Pierre as he does his job at sea, however, was a little “scary”. “An actor is not a harbour pilot,” says Belvaux, recalling the sequences in which Attal climbs on board a vast passing ship, “and a film crew does not consist of sailors. So there’s always a risk that someone falls into the water!” But asked whether it was a difficult shoot, he recalls the logistical demands of filming
three features at the same time for his Trilogy and deadpans: “After those movies, any other filming is easy!” Currently adapting a novel by Philippe Vilain about “the impossible love between a philosophy professor and a hairdresser”, Belvaux is looking forward to his Rotterdam premiere. “I presented Trilogy here in 2003 and have good memories of the city.” 38 témoins – Lucas Belvaux Mon Jan 30 13:00 PA1 Tue Jan 31 12:30 PA2