daily tiger
42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam #8 Thursday 31 January 2013 ZOZ voor Nederlandse editie
(news P3)
(my dog killer / matei child miner / hill of pleasures / sudan P5)
(my stolen revolution P7)
CineMart Awards Last night, the Awards for the Best CineMart projects of 2013 were presented at the closing party of the 30th CineMart in Rotterdam’s wellknown Euromast venue.
Dominik Graf
photo: Ruud Jonkers
The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (with a cash prize of €30,000) for Best CineMart 2013 Project with a European partner was presented to The Giant (Jätten) by Johannes Nyholm (Denmark/Sweden), a co-production by BeoFilm Productions (Denmark) and Garagefilm International (Sweden). According to the jury: “A film project by a talented filmmaker who is taking the step from successful short films to his feature debut.” The ARTE International Prize (consisting of a cash prize of €7,000) for Best CineMart 2013 project went to The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos (Ireland/United Kingdom/Greece), a production by Element Pictures. According to the jury: “An exciting and original film project by one of the most talented filmmakers of the past ten years.” And the WorldView New Genres Fund Development Award (€5,000) for Best CineMart 2013 project was won by Lucrecia Martel’s Zama (Argentina/Spain), a co-production by Lita Stantic Producciones (Argentina) and El Deseo (Spain). According to the jury: “A visually overwhelming historic film project with a unique approach, by one of South Americas most influential directors.” The jury of the CineMart Awards was made up of Olivier Père (ARTE France Cinéma), Petri Kemppinen (Finnish Film Foundation / Eurimages representative), Annamaria Lodato (ARTE France), Himesh Kar (WorldView) and Amy Richardson (Worldview).
Art and craft Subject of a major IFFR retrospective, German director Dominik Graf discusses his career with Mark Baker
Dominik Graf, according to film critic Olaf Möller writing in this year’s IFFR catalogue, is regarded by many in Germany as one of that country’s “three or four major contemporary auteurs”. Outside of the German-speaking world, however, his name is not so familiar. The “auteur” tag also sits uneasily with the man himself, who frequently refers to himself as more of a “craftsman”. A selection of his impressive, varied oeuvre – which ranges from TV crime thrillers to the philosophical Munich: Secrets of a City (München – Geheimnisse einer Stadt) and his latest film, the documentary portrait of writer/director Oliver Storz Avalanches of Memory (Lawinen der Erinnerung) – screens in IFFR’s Signals: Dominik Graf strand. Action
His first love, Graf says, wasn’t film at all, but music. “I played in bands and I studied music a bit, but I was afraid I loved music too much to make it my profession”, he confesses. “About the same time, I saw the first films that I really liked. I was about 22, in Munich, and I decided to try the high school [Munich’s University of Television and Film]. From then on, I slowly developed a real love and passion for film.” Graf overcame initial misgivings (“I worked as a set manager and watched directors and thought, I
couldn’t do that, it’s too demanding”), going on to build up an oeuvre over the past thirty-odd years that goes far beyond the made-for-TV crime dramas (Fahnder, Polizeiruf 110) for which he is mainly (and justly) celebrated. “If you really want something, it changes you. You change so you can ‘play’ the role of a director”, he recalls. “It’s not a child’s game making movies, and especially making action movies. They’re not used to making action films in Germany. I think they don’t even really want to. Everything in this area, like [his most well-known crime genre features] The Cat (Die Katze) and The Invincibles (Die Sieger), anything action-packed, you have to really grapple with the system. When you are finished, they say, ‘Yeah, it looks quite good’, but still they are not sure.” Land of hope
Perhaps, then, the future of such exciting projects is not so much on the big screen, but on the small screen – or small screens, as suggested by IFFR’s Changing Channels strand? Graf is not convinced of the value of cross-media developments for the kind of work he wants to make, particularly in the German context. “Some directors who can handle all these changes can maybe combine their way of working with these new techniques, the new distribution models”, he says. “But you still need money. And in the German situation at the moment, there is no way to raise independent money.”
“When I started out [in the mid-1970s], it became cheaper and cheaper to make genre films in Germany; and then they went straight to television. But you can’t make genre films for television anymore.” “From the 60s through the 70s, there was one masterpiece after another on German television. Up to Heimat – this I think was the high-water mark of German TV. Television was the land of hope. But then, ever since ‘Die Wende’ [the beginning of the end of the GDR], television changed its image and now we have a situation where I think people don’t love German television anymore. I think people watch it because there’s nothing else there.” “I recently heard a quote from Oliver Storz on why TV programmes are getting worse and worse these days and how when you say anything about this, the programme-makers just shrug and say, ‘That’s what people want to see’. Storz said: ‘That’s not even real cynicism. That’s the cynicism of cowardice.’ I really think he hit the nail on the head there.”
wave, and I think this wave will take him much further. But what really interested me in film, even back when I started making movies, was what happened in the middle – not the small art house films, and not the big commercial films, but the area in between.” Extensive feature
Graf’s latest project however sounds more – dare I say – ambitious? Produced by Bavaria Film, which produced his features The Gamblers (Spieler, 1990) and The Invincibles (Die Sieger, 1994), the project is billed on Bavaria’s website as “Dominik Graf back on the big screen at last”. Graf has also written the screenplay for this historical drama himself. “I am currently preparing for the edit of the film, which is about Friedrich Schiller and his romantic involvement with two aristocratic sisters”, he reveals. “It’s called The Beloved Sisters (Die Geliebten Schwester). It will be an extensive feature film.” Perhaps the modest craftsman is indeed more of an auteur that he himself admits.
Experimentation
“I thought it was great what Hollywood did in the 1970s – you could say Apocalypse Now is a great experimental film. That was usual at that time. And this is something I demand from German television – to have enough money to be able to take risks. The TV stations have completely forgotten this. But there will be a future on the big screen: look at successful directors like Tarantino, for example. They have really caught a
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The Invincibles
PHOTO: HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, ﾂｫGARTENBAUKINOﾂｻ, VIENNA 2001
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Sympatico CineMart chief Marit van den Elshout looks back on a busy edition. By Nick Cunningham
“This year’s CineMart was a success because we made it a kind of test-run”, pointed out market head Marit van den Elshout yesterday after the 2013 event. “It was the second year of Boost! but the first year of Art:Film, and this is a way in which we want work with projects in the future. We want to see what more we can offer to the projects throughout the year in pre-care and after-care.” The Art:Film closed session on Sunday constituted less a pitch event and more an open and intimate discussion on the issues pertinent to the genre, and the possibilities that collaboration may offer. “I think it’s important to stress it is all done from a film perspective. Our knowledge of the art world is a little limited, but we can apply our experience in facilitating business effectively. One of the most important things we discussed on Sunday was the development and funding of projects. Funds have rules, they need scripts, they need treatments, they have all these requirements. It seems like there is more money in the art world, but the money is easier to access. So how can you combine the two?” It’s impossible to predict how the CineMart batch of projects will develop in the future (although Van den Elshout again pointed out the IFFR programme this year boasts 16 films that started their careers at CineMart). Nevertheless, David Verbeek’s Dead & Beautiful received confirmation of €300,000 production funding from the Netherlands Film Fund, while Alex van Warmerdam’s Number Nine (Graniet Film) re-unites him with Borgman partners Epidemic (Belgium) and Angel Films (Denmark). Van den Elshout says that she will “institutionalise” the Power Lunches, following the high level of talk this year. Top Dutch and Scandinavian funders and producers
went head-to-head at the first lunch on Monday to work out areas of co-pro sympatico, while the possibility for US and European production collaboration filled the agenda the next day. “It was interesting as the process of financing your film is so different when you are not working within a subsidised system”, she says. Rotterdam Lab moderator David Pope pitches in about an event that introduced 74 fledgling producers, nominated by 29 international film bodies, to the great and the good of international trade talent. “Candidates very quickly made use of one of the key assets of the Lab, which is the peer group”, he says. “So the level of interaction was very strong. There are already people talking about co-operation which is a key sign that the Lab is working. They were very proactive in setting up meetings with people who were here to participate in CineMart as well.” Van den Elshout is equally happy with the Industry Office. One new consultant, Louis Tisné, gave attending filmmakers the benefit of his wisdom and experience, and the ten panels ranging across subjects from rights clearance to exploiting archive were well attended. “That is what Rotterdam is all about, to add value to everything you do. Not just the projects and the Industry Office and the Lab, but also the Video Library, the press and industry screenings. Everything together completes the puzzle.” Van den Elshout reserves the final word for departing colleague Jacobine van der Vloed: “Jacobine is going on to new adventures. We have worked together for 10 years, not always at CineMart, and in that time she has been instrumental in setting up the Lab, improving it and finding new partners. We will miss her very much. But I don’t think she’ll be gone forever. I’m sure our paths will cross in the future”
Chained app Life for international film financiers is about to become easier. That is the hope of Paris-based production, financing and distribution outfit Backup Media as it unleashes its brand new app, Moviechainer. Feed in the contractual data and the new Moviechainer app will link all the information together in an easily comprehensible way. “For the first time, you can actually visualize complex waterfall structures and revenue sharing models,” Backup’s Jean-Baptise Babin enthuses. Backup has partnered up with the Cannes Market and Cinando to provide the app. In its most basic form, it will be free to download and use three times. “Initially, we launched it and developed it because we have over 500 titles to handle. It is something that we needed internally”, Babin states.
Fiona Tan
The app is not “job-specific”. Whether you’re a writer or a distribution partner or producer, you should be able to use the new app. Moviechainer will be launched formally at Berlin’s European Film Market next week. If the new app catches on, the days when harassed execs had to wrestle their way through reams of Excel sheets and other documents to understand the financing of their films could soon be over. Backup, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in Rotterdam last year, has overseen the packaging and financing of over a hundred films. Its projects have won 20 prizes at leading festivals. Its recent co-productions include Matteo Garrone’s Reality (screening at IFFR) and the portmanteau film 7 Days in Havana. GM
Soda announces new offshoot UK film company Soda Pictures has set up a new arm, Soda Film + Art, to support new work from artists. The company is to be run by experienced curator/producer Elena Hill. “Knowing that more artists wanted to move into feature filmmaking and raising funds for this, it would be really important to have a distributor that really understood what the work was. I felt Soda would be a good partner for this kind of venture and expansion”, Hill comments. One project the company is already developing is a feature doc about celebrated London restaurant St Johns founded by Fergus Henderson and famous for its “nose to tail” eating and offal-focused menu. This is being made by TJ Wilcox. Soda Film + Art will be working with Wilcox’s gallery Sadie Coles. A treatment is already in place. The company has already picked up Lebanese Rocket Society by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.
Artists lined up to work with include Omer Fast (whose short Continuity has been screening in the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films). “We will bring in artists through the art world and filmmakers through the film world”, Soda Managing-Director Eva Gabereau comments. Soda Film + Art will produce as well as distribute work. While releasing some projects in conventional ways through cinema and DVD, the company will also explore other forms of distribution. These are likely to include “limited edition” versions of some of the work. The company will also work with galleries and museums. Alongside film showings, the aim is to organize exhibitions and installations. In certain cases, Soda Film + Art will act as producer on the projects it supports. In other cases, it will act as an agent, helping artists find sales agents and producer partners. GM
Together again Dutch auteur Alex van Warmerdam is enjoying a reunion with some old friends. During the CineMart this week, it has been confirmed that Angel Films in Denmark and Belgian outfit Epidemic have both come on board to coproduce his new feature Number Nine (working title). The same two partners also cooperated on Van Warmerdam’s previous film Borgman, which will be released by Cinéart at the end of the year. Number Nine is being made through Graniet. Fortissimo handles world sales. Meanwhile, another CineMart project, David Verbeek’s Chinese-set psychological thriller Dead & Beautiful, is now close to completing its financing. Lemming Film’s Eva Eisenloeffel has confirmed that the Netherlands Film Fund has now contributed €300,000 to the €1,190,000 film. A sales agent will be confirmed shortly, as will a final coproduction partner.
photo: Corinne de Korver
History of art A CineMart project by Fiona Tan explores the boundaries of cinema. By Geoffrey Macnab
Video artist Fiona Tan has been in Rotterdam this week pitching her experimental project Future Histories in the CineMart. This promises to have one of the more adventurous releases of any recent Dutch movie. Tan is planning two very different versions – one for cinema and the other for DVD/VOD. “I am interested in testing the boundaries of what cinema can be and I really feel we are in a period of transition”, the filmmaker declares of her strategy. Future Histories will explore the idea that “we are at the end of an era.” Tan has observed the way the financial crisis in the Western world has gradually turned into a full-blown socio-political crisis. “It is affecting our emotions. We are feeling a bit scared and a bit insecure. In every country, it has a different diagnostic”, Tan muses. “This is a question I started asking myself: are we living at the end of an era?” Another question that nagged away at the artist was whether we are also living “at the end of cinema.” The main character is MP, a nameless individual who has lost much of his memory and is on a journey Tan likens to ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ (albeit a Gulliver for the digital age). The film will unfold in eight or nine chapters. Tan is contemplating shooting each in a different medium. Celluloid, digital, archive footage, drama and documentary elements will all be thrown into the mix. Cinema, Tan believes, can no longer be categorized as
the huge screen in front of which “people sit eating their popcorn.” It can now just as well be found on the smallest mobile devices. “I am interested in experimenting with that and seeing where that can take you, but because I am an artist who has been working in installations, working spatially and thinking about size and scale, presentation conditions and what that does to a work, it is very logical to be thinking about two different versions of the film.” Tan points out that the film will work very differently on a small screen than it will in a cinema. “Large widescreen shots are less impressive on a laptop. The edit will probably be faster for the small screen. It is also a different audience – it’s younger people watching things on YouTube more than people going to the cinema these days.” Although still at an early stage, the €950,000 project (part of the Art:Film initiative) has already secured €300,00 from the Netherlands Film Fund. “Yeah. It’s a house to live in!” Tan jokes of the Fund’s substantial investment. “It means we can really get cracking now.” Future Histories is being produced through Family Affair Films. “Some people know my work already and other people have no idea,” Tan says of the would-be co-producers and distributors who’ve been turning up for meetings in de Doelen. Tan acknowledges this isn’t the typical CineMart project, but insists Future Histories will be a film, not a gallery piece. “People have been asking me for years, ‘When are you going to make a feature film?’ There is a great hunger from the world of cinema for what artists can bring in.”
BAL Goes to Cannes BAL, the Buenos Aires-based co-production market for Latin American projects held in April, will both clip its wings and take flight later this year, manager Ilse Hughan tells the Daily Tiger. The market, part of BAFICI, will discontinue its section for written submissions and instead put all its efforts into the Works in Progress section, which now offers filmmakers the tantalising prospect of the chance to pitch their work at the Cannes Market the following month before a selection of sales agents, co-producers, distributors and festival programmers. Hughan inked the deal this week with the Cannes Marché’s Jerome Paillard.
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“We think there are too many co-productions in the world and too many markets in Latin America”, says Hughan. “There is a lot less money around, in Europe especially, and for the industry it is becoming incredibly difficult to choose where to go, with which market, to which country – so we decided it is time for something new. We want everyone to know that BAL goes to Cannes. We hope people will react enthusiastically. This step to Cannes will be very, very important for the filmmakers to have their partly-shot film out there in the world, and at the biggest festival in the world they can really build up their network.” NC
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Under the skin My Dog Killer probes the unsettling views of its teenage protagonist. By Ben Walters
“I’m interested in outsiders”, says Mira Fornay, Slovakian director of Hivos Tiger Awards Competition contender My Dog Killer (Môj pes Killer) . The film is story of Marek (Adam Mihál), an alienated teenager in a small village on the Slovak-Moravian border who shuttles unsatisfactorily between his fractured family and a local group of skinheads, feeling truly at ease only with his dog, Killer. A family dispute brings him into contact with his estranged mother and her young half-Roma son – a source of shame from a racist perspective, upping the stakes in Marek’s already fraught struggles with identity. Fornay – whose short Small Untold Secrets played at IFFR in 2003 and whose debut feature Foxes was in Bright Future in 2010 – shot on 35mm, using no musical score and favouring long takes, off-kilter compositions and natural light. She also cast non-professionals as the story’s skinheads, spending two years getting to know people familiar with the movement. “They’re not playing themselves, but of course they use a lot of their background”, says Fornay. “I worked with a larger group and selected the nicest, most communicative guys. They still don’t talk too much. We did some workshops and I said, ‘You have this problem – sort it out.’ After one sentence, they started to fight.” Marek’s situation regarding his non-Caucasian half-brother provoked some unsettling discussions. “Some said they’d move out of the town to avoid problems with friends. One guy who’s not in the film was very extreme – he told me, ‘First I would kill the mother and in the end kill myself because you cannot live with
it.’” For all this, Fornay maintains that “this is not a story about the skinhead movement. All human beings have a very big desire to belong somewhere.” These non-professionals also influenced the film’s form. “I gave them small cameras and they shot their ordinary lives. That’s where the concept of the weird compositions and long takes came from: they would just put the camera somewhere and leave it and do something. I like to make weird compositions anyway, but they helped me to make the right weird compositions.” Fornay hasn’t yet shown My Dog Killer to her cast. “I think they’ll be very pleased to see themselves in the film, but then they’ll hear what people think about it and that might cause a conflict – not with me, but for them, because they might feel like, ‘Oh, yeah, we are bad guys...’.”
Hivos Tiger Awards Competition My Dog Killer / Môj pes Killer – Mira Fornay Thu 31 Jan 12:00 DJZ (press & industry) Fri 01 Feb 12:15 PA6 Sat 02 Feb 13:15 PA1
The eyes of a child Alexandra Gulea’s debut is an evocative portrait of an 11-year-old runaway. By Edward Lawrenson
When casting the young lead of her debut feature, Romanian director Alexandra Gulea knew that her actor would have to have the inner resources to endure a “difficult shoot”. Matei Child Miner (Matei copil miner), which received its world premiere in Bright Future and is competing in the Big Screen Awaard, revolves around 11-year-old Matei, who runs away from his small town in the Carpathians, spends a night sheltering with a shepherd and ends up sleeping rough in Bucharest. “We were shooting with a small crew in the middle of winter so I knew it would be very hard.” Alexandru Czuli auditioned for a smaller role, but Gulea knew immediately that he was her Matei: “He’s ultra-sensitive but he has an incredible strength underneath. I tried other kids and I had a feeling they couldn’t do it.”
The resulting film combines closely observed details of Matie’s immediate surroundings – that make use of Gulea’s background in documentaries – with quietly magical moments that express her young protagonist’s wide-eyed take on the world. “It’s my vision of childhood”, she says. “There is an age when reality is imprecise. Things happen – and you don’t know why they do because you don’t have a context for them.” Gulea, who studied in Germany, worked with German cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider (The Robber), who lends the winter landscapes a sombre majesty. “I wanted someone who doesn’t know the area, a fresh pair of eyes.” Produced for under €600,000, Matei Child Miner is yet to find a sales agent, but Gulea says they’ve had approaches following the IFFR premiere.
Bright Future Matei Child Miner / Matei copil miner – Alexandra Gulea
Fri 01 Feb 15:30 PA7
Down by law Leaving the factory IFFR’s programme of Sudanese shorts showcases local talent. By Edward Lawrenson
“A friend of mine, who worked as an assistant director and a cameraman, he knew one of them; we met them and decided it is a film, and we thought, let’s do it.” Mohammed Hanafi is explaining the impulse behind his short documentary Nomads, an affectionate record of the musical talents of a group of car mechanics in Khartoum who have a double life in a soul band playing local clubs. Screening the film in a selection of shorts from Sudan, Hanafi is speaking to the Daily Tiger with fellow Sudanese director Bahaeldin Ibrahim, who is bringing Cinema Behind Bars to the IFFR. Making films in Sudan is a challenging business, and Hanafi see parallels between the make-do philosophy of his subjects and the DIY ethos that informs his own work. “They are just like us,” says Hanafi, “we are trying to make cinema from nothing with simple equipment and zero budget; they are the same, they have to finance themselves to play their concerts, but they love it.” A more melancholy portrait of the restricted opportunities for filmmakers in Sudan is provided by Cinema Behind Bars, Bahaeldin Ibrahim’s atmospheric essay
Hill of Pleasures offers a sobering portrait of a Rio favela. By Nick Cunningham
about a derelict movie theatre in the north of the country. “Forty years ago, cinema-going was far more common,” says Ibrahim, “now we have only two or three theatres.” Both directors benefited from workshops convened by cinema activist Talal Afifi, who was involved with setting the Sudan Film Factory up, in conjunction with the Goethe Institute, in 2010. The initiative invites international filmmakers to collaborate with and provide advice to local directors. Ibrahim admits the political situation in Sudan is not encouraging for filmmakers in the immediate future, but views the Sudan Film Factory as a project that will help strengthen the sector. He cites the problems he and his colleagues face in securing permission to shoot in public places as an example of the obstacles facing the growth of a viable sector: “If you want to get permission you have go to the police station, then they send you to security, then they send you somewhere else. It’s difficult.” “You have to take your camera,” Hanafi adds, “and wait till the street is empty and shoot quickly.”
It may afford unparalleled views over Rio and Sugarloaf Mountain, but the eponymous Hill of Pleasures within Maria Ramos’ doc (a world premiere in Spectrum) is anything but. The title refers to the natural elevation which contains one of Rio’s most notorious favelas, and which has been the object of intense focus from the ‘Police Pacification Unit’. In the film, Ramos and her crew embed themselves within the community and follow police and residents alike as the process of ‘pacification’ – removal of lawlessness – continues. Equal screen time is given to representatives of both sides of what seems a cavernous social divide. “The film is about this attempt to deconstruct history, an attempt at a dialogue; establishing a rule of law and building a bridge to civil society; bringing normality to the streets; [bringing about] what the middle classes are used to – the rights and the duties of the citizen – to the favela”, Ramos stresses. “That’s why the film talks about this reconciliation, about how hard it is to forget the past and how hard it is to forget prejudices, because both the police and the community have a lot of prejudices. Both have years of hatred.”
Following Justice and Behave, Hill of Pleasures (Morro dos Prazeres) is the final part of a ‘polemical’ trilogy investigating the Brazilian law and justice system, and how the country’s underclass is socially and economically disenfranchised. “The two other films have been extraordinarily well received”, Ramos comments. “Even today, they are discussed in universities and law schools. They use the DVDs of the films to give lectures and to discuss the system. So I am very happy that those two films can create a reflection; this is why I made them.” At one point in the film, the chief of police lectures his officers about the success of their work to date, telling them that only three officers were murdered in the favelas in 2011, against 23 five years before. Ramos argues however that the purpose of her film was never to chronicle the success of the police strategy. People still get killed, she says. The provocation of the community by gangs members continues. And drug dealing is still rife. “This film is made to raise questions, not to answer them”, she contends. “And not every policeman is kind.”
Spectrum Hill of Pleasures / Morro dos Prazeres – Maria Ramos
Thu 31 Jan 11:45 LV1 Sat 02 Feb 14:15 LV5
Spectrum Shorts Sudan’s Swinging Film Factory
Thu 31 Jan 14:00 LV6
Nomads
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Colofon Daily Tiger NL: Anton Damen (hoofdredactie), Kim van der Meulen (eindredactie), Joost Broeren, Paul van de Graaf, Sietse Meijer, Maricke Nieuwdorp, Nicole Santé, Veerle Snijders (redactie), Loes Evers, Rik Mertens, Pete Wu (web), Sanne de Rooij (marketing en communicatie), Marieke Berkhout (traffic) UK: Edward Lawrenson (editor-in-chief ), Nick Cunningham, Geoffrey MacNab, Mark Baker (editors), Ben Walters (web) Met medewerking van: Harriëtte Ubels Programmainformatie: Chris Schouten, Melissa van der Schoor Coördinatie A-Z: Saskia Gravelijn (tekst), Amanda Harput (beeld) Fotografie: Felix Kalkman, Bram Belloni, Corinne de Korver, Marije van Woerden, Ruud Jonkers, Nichon Glerum, Nadine Maas Vormgeving: Sjoukje van Gool, Laurenz van Galen, Gerald Zevenboom Drukker: Veenman+ Acquisitie: Daily Productions Oplage: 10.000 per dag, Volkskrantdag 12.000
Speak, memory The testimony of female exiles who suffered under the Iranian revolution is the subject of a disturbing new film at IFFR. By Geoffrey Macnab
photo: Nichon Glerum
Tea House Today Fragments of strange Iranian Westerns by Persian amateur John Ford in Kamran Heydari’s My Name Is Negahdar Jamali and I Make Westerns. The Tea House also presents one of the actual movies, with simultaneous translation by Kayan director Maryam Najafi. Tea House/Gallery Inside Iran, Schouwburgplein 54, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
ish Daily d €8,50 * ********
Shopping • eating • drinking • sleeping
Nahid Persson Sarvestani
Several middle-aged women are sitting around a kitchen table in a house in Sweden. They look as if they could be gossiping about their friends and neighbours. In fact, they are all Iranian exiles. They all experienced time in prison after the Iranian revolution. They were tortured, and many of their friends were executed. In her new feature documentary My Stolen Revolution (a world premiere in IFFR’s Signals: Inside Iran this week), Nahid Persson Sarvestani brings these women together. The experience is as cathartic for her as it is for them. She wasn’t arrested herself. She fled Iran the day the police came for her. Her brother was taken in her place and executed six months later. The idea for the film came to Sarvestani after the disputed 2009 election in Iran. Now based in Sweden, where she is a successful director (with credits ranging from The Queen and I to Prostitution: Behind The Veil), she realized that many young Iranians with links to the opposition were again being arrested and tortured. “It was the same pictures, the same images we had 30 years ago when we [fought] the revolution.” Sarvestani felt guilt that she had survived when her brother was killed. “Seven or eight police came to my parents’ house at 11 in the evening. When I wasn’t at home, they took my younger brother”, the director recalls. “I thought during all those 30 years that it was my fault he was executed.” Sarvestani tells the grim story about how she stayed in hiding in Iran with her young daughter before being smuggled out of the country on a tiny motorboat. First, she went illegally to Dubai. Then, she headed to Sweden, where she was finally given refugee status. Impoverished, she took jobs as a cleaner and hospital worker before enrolling at the university. Only slowly did she discover her vocation as a filmmaker. Now, three decades on, she has brought together her old leftist comrades from the 1979 Revolution. The women who came to visit her hadn’t seen one another for many years. They were desperate to share memories. Sarvestani herself felt like an outsider – she was the only one who hadn’t been in prison.
None of the women broke, in spite of the torture and intimidation they faced behind bars. They still show extraordinary dignity and defiance today. “You don’t know how you will react in that situation. How do you react if somebody hurts you?” the director muses. “I hope I would be like them if I was arrested.” Not everybody was so strong. Many prisoners ended up collaborating with the regime. When Sarvestani tried to tell her own story, the women weren’t interested. “I tried to tell them how difficult it was when I went from Iran but for them, it wasn’t anything compared with what they faced in prison. They had so much to tell. It was good for them. They said it was like therapy.” The film includes some gruelling footage of hangings and shootings of prisoners in Iran. The extent of their suffering was self-evident. Sarvestani had always wondered just how her brother had coped in such a nightmarish environment. Thanks to the women who had been sitting around her kitchen table, she eventually found out. One of them provided a contact to her brother’s cellmate. She travelled to the US to meet him. He refused to be filmed on camera because he was too ashamed. (He had co-operated with the regime.) Nonetheless, he was able to tell her just how bravely her brother had faced his grim fate. One of the paradoxes about Iran is that this is a deeply patriarchal society, but one in which the women remain very strong. “Women [in Iran] talk as if they are free. They are very strong”, Sarvestani reflects. “When we were in leftist organisations, we knew about our rights. I can say that I am more free than a Swedish woman!”
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witte de withstraat 16 • 3012 BP Rotterdam • www.hotelbazar.nl reservations: 010-206 51 51 (hotel & restaurant)
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Press & Industry Screenings Thursday 31 January PROGRAMME CHANGES
Cinerama 4
Ginger and Rosa from 20.30 to 13.45 de Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal (CHANGED) Lesson of the Evil Cinerama 5, 09:00 (CANCELLED)
de Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal 10:15 Me Too
•FLM•
SP
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Alexey Balabanov, Russia, 2012, DCP, 83 min, Russian, e.s.
A killer, a musician, a friend of the musician, a prostitute and an old man embark on a journey to a so-called ‘Belfry of Happiness’. A high-speed and highly ironic road movie about reversals of fortune. Maestro Balabanov’s most personal film. 12:00 My Dog Killer [wp]
Marek has no real friends except his guard dog and hangs out with skinheads. When his dispirited mother reappears in his life, Marek faces a horrible predicament. An authentic and hypnotic chronicle of a sluggish existence always on the verge of explosion. 13:45 Ginger and Rosa
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Wang Bing, France/Hong Kong, 2012, DCP, 89 min, Mandarin, e.s.
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A circus is set up by the sea where the wind is cold and the audience scarce. While the shows are entertaining, the tensions among performers grow by the day. Angèle loves Elliot but the dangerous Heroy is determined to win her over by any means. With Denis Lavant, Béatrice Dalle and Iggy Pop.
Three sisters aged 10, 6 and 4 have to cope more or less on their own in a remote mountainous region of Yunnan. Terrible poverty in China, shown with gripping compassion by today’s best documentary maker. 12:30 Shorter version of Three Sisters, Vulgaria which premiered in Venice.
SP
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Pang Ho-cheung, Hong Kong, 2012, DCP, 92 min, Cantonese, e.s. •FLM•
Ai Weiwei, China, 2012, Video, 102 min, Mandarin, e.s.
SP
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The successful Pang Ho-cheung is an all-rounder, from romantic hit comedies to humorous gangster films. Because he can do everything, he can also make sex films. And these are also humorous and even absurd. Don’t expect any unvarnished sex, but plenty of corny humour.
•FLM•
11:15 Claun (Part 1: Ayana’s Week of Adventures) [wp]
CC
•blauw•
Felipe Bragança, Brazil, 2013, DCP, 69 min, Portuguese, e.s.
Dream and reality mingle in this fable for young and old. An adventurous quest for the killers’ identities starts when Ayana’s father disappears, just before carnival. She slowly unravels the secret traditions of the masked Brazilian carnival clowns. 13:00 Sightseers
Claun
SP
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Ben Wheatley, United Kingdom, 2012, DCP, 89 min, English, d.s.
Caravan trip through the English countryside turns out very different from expectations. No tourist attractions such as the Pencil Museum for the tender couple Tina and Chris, but a great murder vacation. Hilarious black comedy by the very talented Brit Ben Wheatley.
Investigation into the suspicious death of a campaigner who disappeared under the 14:45 monstrous wheels of a mine 14:30 Drug War SP truck. Artist and social activist La fille de nulle part SP Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2012, Ai Weiwei put a team on the case DCP, 107 min, Mandarin, e.s. Jean-Claude Brisseau, France, and shows a wealth of sensitive Five years ago, ‘Gangstermeister’ 2012, DCP, 91 min, French, e.s. material the Chinese government Johnnie To brought an overdose Michel is a retired widower who had tried to keep secret. of dazzling Hong-Kong films to devotes his days to writing an Rotterdam and plundered all essay, partly to avoid missing his the local antique shops. He has late wife. One day, a homeless moved his territory to mainland young woman breaks into his China and they certainly won’t quiet life. Before long, his house forget it. Masterclass in the becomes the stage for mysterious better gangster films. Nominated phenomena. for The Big Screen Award. •paars01•
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SP
Sally Potter, United Kingdom/Denmark, 2012, DCP, 86 min, English
SP
09:00 Ping’an Yueqing [ep]
Mira Fornay, Slovakia/Czech Republic, 2013, DCP, 90 min, Slovak/Czech, e.s.
BF
Sophie Blondy, France, 2012, DCP, 98 min, French, e.s.
18:15 Alone
Cinerama 3
TG
Cinerama 5
•FLM•
10:15 L’étoile du jour
ADMISSION WITH P&I ACCREDITATION ONLY
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London in the Swinging Sixties. The start of the sexual revolution, alongside protests against the Cold War. Ideological differences and painful treachery test the friendship of two teenagers. Elle Fanning plays a beautiful role in this new film by Sally Potter.
L’étoile du jour
La fille de nulle part
Vulgaria
Ginger and Rosa
Me Too
Alone
09.00
09:30
10.00
BF 80’
BF
BF
BF
SP 83’
12:30
13.00
13:15
14:00
14.00
98’
136’
SP
89’
79’
TG
115’
14:30
Fine, Thanks Mátyás Prikler
SP
BF 81’
TG
13:30
13:45 Ginger and Rosa SP Sally Potter 90’ CHAngeD SP Odayaka Uchida Nobuteru
86’
100’
SP
Drug War Johnnie To122’ 15:30
16:45
16:45
16.00
Ninah’s Dowry Victor Viyuoh SP 120’
16:15
BF
17.00
95’
5 Jahre Stefan Schaller
130’
BF
84’
BF
TS
TG
17:30
82’
85’
BF
87’
95’
18:30
18:30
BF
19:00
BF
72’
TG
128’
96’
98’
BF
Alone Wang90’Bing
BF 110’
19:30
BF
90’
SP
20.00
92’
SP
SP
TS
93’
102’
temps
SP
90’
89’
BF 80’
A Fallible Girl Conrad Clark
96’
67’
21:30
Diego Star
SP Frédérick Pelletier
BF
91’
SP
22:00
22:15
23.00
80’
89’
BF
KM
24.00
96’
105’
112’
120’
KM
CC
101’
128’
SP
Nairobi Half Life David ‘Tosh’ Gitonga
BF
92’
SP
SP
119’
84’
82’
RG
95’
118’
24.00 24.00
92’
101’
SP
80’
BF
DG
BF
SP
BF
107’
SP
97’
93’
BF
BF
SP
Three Stories Kira Muratova
68’
Passions Kira Muratova
Chen Chieh-jen
84’
Easy Rider James Benning
23.00 23.00
Errors of the Human Body
BF
SP
96’
80’
Vulgaria Pang Ho-cheung
75’
Hélène Fillières
Eron Sheean
Hwy
The Complex
Mike Ott
BF
22:30 Une histoire d’amour
22:30
Rengaine Rachid Djaïdani
115’
SH
GFP Bunny Tsuchiya Yutaka
Voice of Rotterdam 22:30
Hans Heijnen
104’
Siegrid Alnoy
22:30
22.00 22.00
Hotte im Paradies Dominik Graf
Rotterd@m Shorts 2 verzamelprogramma
92’
22:00
SP
22:00
22:00
22:00 Pearblossom
Frankenstein’s Army Richard Raaphorst
21:30 Lonely Bones
103’
BF
Ma belle gosse Shalimar Preuss
22:30
22.00
22:15
Éden Bruno Safadi
Low Tide Roberto Minervini
129’
21:45
22:15
22:15
Japan’s Tragedy Kobayashi Masahiro
TG
Kidd Life Andreas Johnsen
22:00
In the Fog Sergei Loznitsa
21:45
SP
21:45
88’
21:45 Miroir mon amour SP
BF
21:45 Lee Towers: The
22:15 Happiness Building 1
22:15
Prófugos Pablo Larraín
Los salvajes Alejandro Fadel
36 Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit
21:30
SP
21.00
107’
21:15
SP 100’
SP
Jean-Charles Fitoussi
20:15 L’ enclos du
Odayaka Uchida Nobuteru
Die Welt Alex Pitstra 20:00
SP 108’
Emperor Visits the Hell Luo Li
19:45 The Hunter and the Skeleton BF
99’
SP
Lesson of the Evil Miike Takashi
Kid Fien Troch
19:30
19.00
19:15
19:15
BF
Drug War Johnnie To
Lasting Jacek Borcuch
86’
19:15
Jiseul O Muel Kira Muratova
SH 84’
SP
Vulgaria Pang Ho-cheung
89’
102’
20:00 Among Grey Stones KM
Shorts 1
Ifa Isfansyah
DG
20.00 20.00
19:15 Die Freunde der Freunde
Dominik Graf
19:30
89’ 20:00
Reality Matteo Garrone
74’
Surprise Film
Io e te Bernardo Bertolucci 20:00
SP 90’
BF
Karaoke Girl TG Visra Vichit Vadakan
19:30
18:30 Atambua 39°
19:15
19:00 Men of the Earth
Riri Riza
Celsius
19.00 19.00
21.00 21.00
One Day When the Rain Falls
19:30 The Flaneurs #3
20:15
verzamelprogramma
19:15 Rotterd@m
19:15
89’
19:15 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 3
90 Minutes Eva Sørhaug
101’
SH
BF
Bellas mariposas Salvatore Mereu
Alone Wang Bing 180’
La Playa D.C. Juan Andrés Arango
18:45
18.00
BF
18:15
BF 70’
Sérgio Andrade
Kayan Maryam Najafi BF 72’
82’
BF
105’
BF
BF
RG 85’
80’
17:45 A floresta de Jonathas
Vladimir Todorovic
Poor Folk Midi Z
SP
BF 100’
BF
The Delivery Guy 18:15 Andrey Stempkovsky
18.00 18.00
95’
SP Inori Pedro González-Rubio
and Gentlemen
György Pálfi
17:30
Mouly Surya
17:00 Wondering Alien Directors
17:00
BF
Miss Lovely Ashim Ahluwalia
The Patience Stone Atiq Rahimi 16:45
De nieuwe wereld
Wadjda Haifaa Al Mansour
107’
Watchtower SP Esmer Pelin
16:30
17.00 17.00
verzamelprogramma
16:45 What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love
90’
16:45 Final Cut: Ladies
17:15 DEAD BODY WELCOME
Kees Brienen
Krivina Igor Drljaca
17:00 Malody
Aaron Douglas Johnston
Quinceañera
143’
Landscape
BF
85’
I.D. Kamal Karamattathil Muhammed
DG 88’
Sunshine Boys Kim Tae-Gon
mir nicht nach
91’ 16:15
SP SP
16:00
16:00
In the Fog Sergei Loznitsa
La noche de enfrente 14:30 Raúl La Ruizfille de nulle part Jean-Claude Brisseau
74’
89’
SP 14:45
TG
TS
101’
14:15
13:15 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 4
Fat Shaker
16.00 16.00
BF
16:30
16:30 My Sister’s
CC
BF
MovieZone Award
80’
KM
80’
Noche Leonardo Brzezicki
Leones Jazmín López
16:15
16:15 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 2
Dominik Graf
15:45
SP 80’
17:00 Disappearing
Avanti popolo Michael Wahrmann
15:45 Dogs Are Said to See ...
TS
15:30
15:30 Dreileben: Komm
15:30
15.00
105’
Post tenebras lux Carlos Reygadas
BF
Hwy
Mike Ott
14:00 Sudan’s Swinging Film Factory
SH
Yosep Anggi Noen
and Other Illnesses
137’
The Boring Life of Jacqueline Sebastián Silva
Carne de perro Fernando Guzzoni
14:15
14:15 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 1
RG
BF
II
They’ll Come Back Marcelo Lordello
L’étoile du jour Sophie Blondy 13:15
111 Girls Nahid Ghobadi / Bijan Zamanpira
Tiedan
13:00 The Love Songs of
Hao Jie
Les chevaux de Dieu Nabil Ayouch
SS
14:00
92’
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology Sophie Fiennes
12:45
12.00
12:15
Studio
90’
75’
85’
Peter Strickland BF
SP
12:3069’ Japan’s
13:00
15.00 15.00
117’
15:00 Peculiar Vacation
80’
Second Class Citizens Kira Muratova
13:45 Dummy
12:30 Berberian Sound
Our Nixon Penny Lane
12:00
My Dog Killer Mira Fornay
11:45 Comrade Kim
142’
14.00 14.00
verzamelprogramma
14:15 How to Describe a Cloud
David Verbeek
13:45 Pearblossom
13.00 13.00
72’
91’
DG
the Big Wide World
78’
SP
95’
BF
12:00 Getting to Know KM
Kira Muratova Dominik Graf
at Me
RG
11:30 Memories Look
Song Fang
164’
RG
SP
11:45 Eine Stadt wird erpresst
11:45
85’
11.00
78’
Sleepless Night Jang Kun-Jae
10:15 Men of the Earth
Melaza Carlos Lechuga
10:00
SP 70’
De nieuwe wereld Jaap van Heusden
Las lágrimas Pablo Delgado Sánchez
09:45 Night of the Foxes
Falls
09:15 When Night
Ying Liang
85’
75’
Programmaschema donderdag 31 januari Public Screenings Thursday 31 January Oude Luxor de Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal Schouwburg Grote Zaal Pathé 1 Pathé 2 Pathé 3 Pathé 4 Pathé 5 Pathé 6 Pathé 7 Cinerama 1 Cinerama 2 Cinerama 3 Cinerama 4 Cinerama 5 nungen einer Reisenden
09:45
Hill of Pleasures Maria Ramos
11:45
Die Erbin Ayse Polat
verzamelprogramma
12.00 12.00
11:30 Empire of the Sun
11.00 11.00
11:15
Celluloid Man Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
Bernadette Weigel
09:00 Fahrtwind – Aufzeich- BF
Cinerama 6 Cinerama 7 LantarenVenster 1 LantarenVenster 3 LantarenVenster 5 LantarenVenster 6
10.00 10.00
II
84’
TS
SP
77’
12:30 Vulgaria BFGoes Flying SP L’étoile du jour diverse regisseurs 81’ Sophie Blondy Pang Ho-cheung 98’ 13:15 Après mai 92’ 11:15 13:00 CC Olivier Assayas Claun Sightseers Felipe Bragança Ben Wheatley SP Tragedy Kobayashi Masahiro
Taboor Vahid Vakilifar
10:15 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 5
Lasting
110’
Public&Screenings Friday 1 February Press & Industry Screenings Thursday 31 January Press Industry Screenings Thursday 31 JanuaryAdmission with P&I accreditation only 09.00 09.00
10:00
10:15 Me Too Oude Luxor de Doelen Alexey Balabanov Jurriaanse Zaal de Doelen 09:00 Ping’an Yueqing SP Jurriaanse Zaal Ai Weiwei Cinerama 3 Schouwburg 10:15 Grote Zaal Cinerama 4
Pathé 1 Cinerama 5 Pathé 2 Pathé 3 10:00
Kleuren en afkortingen
Hivos Tiger Awards Competitie
TG
SP
BF
TS
Prijzen voor de nieuwe generatie. Zestien genomineerde filmmakers strijden met hun eerste of tweede speelfilm om drie gelijkwaardige Hivos Tiger Awards.
Tiger Awards Competitie voor Korte Films
Prijzen voor kort maar krachtig. Drieëntwintig films korter dan zestig minuten zijn geselecteerd voor deze competitie, waarin drie gelijkwaardige Canon Tiger Awards for Short Films te winnen zijn.
Bright Future
Vers bloed. Eerste of tweede speelfilm van filmmakers waarvan het festival in de toekomst nog veel goeds verwacht.
Spectrum
SH
Rotterdam op zijn breedst. Het festival selecteerde actueel, krachtig en vernieuwend werk uit alle windstreken, van veteranen tot minder bekende regisseurs.
Spectrum Shorts
II
KM
DG
De kracht van kort: films van één tot negenenvijftig minuten lang, uit alle windstreken. Ze worden gebundeld in verzamelprogramma’s of in combinatie met lange films vertoond.
Signals: Dominik Graf
Retrospectief van Dominik Graf, de belangrijkste chroniqueur van het hedendaagse Duitsland. Met een oeuvre van zestig producties – voornamelijk voor televisie – het best bewaarde geheim van de Duitstalige film.
Signals: Kira Muratova
Voor het eerst is het volledige oeuvre van een van de meest uitzonderlijke Oost-Europese kunstenaars van de afgelopen vijftig jaar buiten Rusland en Oekraïne te zien. Een onnavolgbaar en onweerstaanbaar oeuvre dat geen grenzen kent.
Signals: Inside Iran
CC
Actuele Iraanse cinema en videokunst, afkomstig uit het levendige undergroundcircuit van Teheran waar galeries ontmoetingsplaatsen zijn voor makers en publiek.
Signals: Changing Channels
RG
SS
De fraaiste voorbeelden van ‘episodic storytelling’ met televisie- en internetseries die gemaakt zijn door onafhankelijke filmmakers, voor één keer groot(s) te zien op het scherm of in de speciale weblounge in Cinerama.
Signals: Sound Stages
Niet beeld, maar geluid staat centraal in Sound Stages. Het festival als jukebox, met een keur aan filmische klankervaringen en live performances, installaties, optredens en films die de oren strelen. Binnen, maar nadrukkelijk ook buiten de bioscoopzaal.
Signals: Regained
Een greep uit het geheugen van de cinema. Met aandacht voor het experiment, gerestaureerde klassiekers, speciale evenementen en exposities, en de huidige opvattingen over film, geschiedenis en beeldcultuur. Vast onderdeel van de sectie Signals.