Daily Tiger #7 UK

DAILY TIGER

40TH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM #7 WEDNESDAY 2 FEBRUARy 2011

Jason Wood, Director of Programming at Artifical Eye, with Jo Blair, Senior Programmer at City Screen, at last night's CineMart Drinks, hosted by Binger Filmlab. For details of Binger's new collaboration with CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund, see page 3.

NEDERLANDSE EDITIE Z.O.Z

photo: Corinne de Korver

East is West The IFFR’s Red Westerns strand celebrates the Soviet Union’s spin on American cowboy movies.

By Geoffrey Macnab.

Blame Joseph Stalin. The Soviet leader was a big fan of John Ford westerns. In the 1930s, Uncle Joe is reported to have called in a top official from the Film Ministry, shown him a western and told him “that is what you should do.” The directive from the dictator eventually led to Mikhail Romm making The Thirteen (1936), inspired by Ford’s 1934 war film The Lost Patrol. This was one of the first ‘Red Westerns’ – that’s to say, westerns made in the Eastern bloc. The form is celebrated in IFFR’s sidebar Signals: Red Westerns.

Trophies

It turns out that Hollywood westerns were far more widely disseminated behind the Iron Curtain than is often supposed. Uzbek director Ali Khamraev (in Rotterdam for the screening of his rousing 1972 movie The Seventh Bullet) remembers that, when he was at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), he and his fellow students knew all about American westerns. “We were studying American

The Seventh Bullet

films and we knew what westerns were all about.

After the war, the Soviet authorities were showing films taken as trophies”, the 73-year-old director recalls of how so many Hollywood westerns turned up in Russia. He, too, remembers John Ford westerns with particular fondness.

In the 1960s, Khamraev recalls, The Magnificent Seven was hugely popular in the Soviet Union. He estimates that as many as 100 million people may have seen the John Sturges classic, and that many youngsters tried to imitate Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. Not that the authorities acknowledged just how many citizens were clamouring to see the film. The official box-office figures were deliberately massaged downwards.

Khamraev himself saw The Magnificent Seven five times. “There were people who would go twelve or thirteen times.” His own film The Seventh Bullet, a western-style yarn set during the 1920s Civil War, was named partially as a tribute to the Hollywood classic. What does the title mean? “The seventh bullet is always meant to kill the enemy”, the director explains.

Broken knee

This week, IFFR programmer Ludmila Cvikova (who curated the Red Westerns sidebar) admits she has been very excited indeed about one aspect of the programme – Gojko Mitic is in town! To anyone growing up in Eastern Europe in the late communist era, Mitic is a totemic figure: a kind of John Wayne of the East. Not that he played cowboys.

In movies like The Sons of Great Bear (1966) and Chingachook: The Great Snake (1967), Mitic played Native American heroes, fighting back against the ‘white man’.

When Cvikova was a kid in what was then Czechoslovakia, the Mitic films were regularly on TV. “We

were playing Indians all the time … and I was Gojka Mitic, always! All my older friends were in love with him but I was just too little.” During the late 1960s, when she was pretending to be Mitic and smoking a “peace pipe”, her irate father came running after her. “I broke my knee.”

Here in Rotterdam, Cvikovka is due to meet her idol after 30 years. What was she planning to say to him? “I think I will be shy but I think we all will tell him – oh, you were our hero when we were young!”

Range

The Red Westerns sidebar contains a wide range of films: experimental, early Soviet titles like Lev Kuleshov’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924) and Kuleshov’s

By The Law (1924); films by Lithuanian directors (1966’s No One Wanted To Die by Vitautas Zalakiavichus) and Bulgarian and Romanian movies too.

As Cvikova puts it, “you must understand, there is not one type of film. There are many, with many different heroes, made in the Soviet Republic or central Asia or Czechoslovakia or Romania.” She points out that these ‘Red Westerns’ are interesting not just because of their novelty or subject matter: they are really well-made films, and not exercises in kitsch. Many viewers, especially in the Soviet Union, thought they were watching authentic westerns. These films – the communist answer to American cowboy films – have been shown from time to time in piecemeal fashion on the festival circuit. Rotterdam offers a rare chance to see these movies together, under one umbrella.

COLLECTIVE

On a whistlestop trip to Rotterdam, Gojko Mitic was self-deprecting about his status as the Red Western’s biggest heartthrob. The Serbian former

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No One Wanted to Die

athlete, who got his job in the film industry as a stunt double on a western film shooting in Belgrade called The Sword of Lancelot, points out that certain of his films were seen by as many as 11 million people in the GDR. That was more than half the population.

After three westerns, he wanted to stop because he felt he was becoming typecast. However, the public made such an outcry that he stuck with the western genre, eventually making a dozen films, some of which he also co-scripted. No, he wasn’t especially well paid. “I liked it because we were all equal and we were all standing together as a collective. There weren’t individual stars!”

Extra FILM Egyptian film 678 has been added to the IFFR 2011 programme. The film – which picked up Muhr awards for best actress and best actor at the Dubai Film Festival 2010 – screens today at 20:00 hours in Cinerama 3.

Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim El Batout’s Hawi – a Hubert Bals Fund supported film already selected for IFFR 2011 – also screens today, at 17:30 in Cinerama 4.

Critcial mass At the second of CineMart’s ‘power lunches’, leading industry figures met over soup and sandwiches yesterday lunchtime to discuss how sales agents, festivals and critics work together.

Edward Lawrenson reports.

Kees Brienen

photo: Corinne de Korver

Going Solar Kino International’s Kees Brienen will commence shooting in India in April 2011 on his debut feature I Love You So Much Stanley, he tells Nick Cunningham.

The film will be produced by fellow Dutch production outfit De Productie, with Kino acting as executive producer. The low-budget drama is based on an episode five years ago when Brienen went to Ghana to make a film about a solar eclipse with his best friend, artist Jeroen de Rijke.

“But when I arrived in Ghana I found out that Jeroen had died,” Brienen explains. “I spent eight days arranging for the body to be returned to the Netherlands. The whole trip was fucked up, and I never saw the eclipse.”

In 2009, Brienen decided to tell the story, but to relocate it to India where, later that year, there was another solar eclipse, of which he took footage. “In

my film, I want to add a more positive ending to the story, so this time I will manage to see the solar eclipse with my dead friend.” Brienen will be taking an acting credit in his film too, playing himself, with these sequences to be directed by Elisa Miller (whose Vete más lejos Alicia competes in the Tiger Award competition).

In September 2010, Brienen received €30,000 production support from the Netherlands Film Fund for his film. “That’s not a lot to make a feature film, but then again it’s too much to do nothing with”, he comments. Brienen reminds local programmers that the film will be ready for potential selection for IFFR 2012. “Rotterdam would be the ideal place to screen this film,” he says. “Rotterdam to me is still the most beautiful film festival in the world, so it would be an honour for me to have my film here; but then again they’ve never selected any of my short films, so I’m not so positive about them selecting my feature film.”

Age of sail Leading Dutch producer Pieter van Huystee is preparing two films – one a documentary and the other a dramatic feature – about teenage Dutch sailor Laura Dekker. By Geoffrey Macnab.

Fifteen-year-old Dekker (currently midway through her attempt to become the youngest person to sail around the world) is collaborating fully with Van Huystee, as are her parents.

Dekker became the focus of worldwide media attention in 2009 when Dutch social workers attempted to stop her sailing trip. They argued she was too young; that she shouldn’t miss school; that she should be made a ward of court and that her parents – who support her trip – should lose the right to make decisions about her. Last summer, a Dutch family court gave her permission to make her voyage.

Van Huystee is making the film in collaboration with Peter Wingender of Screentime Entertainment BV.

Club Zeus picked up David Verbeek’s Club Zeus, which world premiered in Return of the Tiger and is produced by Dutch production house Revolver, has been picked up for world sales by Parisbased outfit Reel Suspects. Reel Suspects is also handling world sales on Revolver’s 22nd of May, screening in the same section. Club Zeus will hit Dutch screens at the beginning of April, distributed by Cinema Delicatessen. “We shot Club Zeus in ten days and it was made on a very modest budget,” comments producer Raymond van der Kaaij. “We are very excited that there is this level of interest in the project. It is like the icing on the cake.”

Nick Cunningham

The filmmakers have already started filming Dekker.

They say that their documentary will be intimate and closely focused.

“This is a very young girl and it’s a very special story,” Van Huystee says. “She is taking time, enjoying her trip, but also facing all the adventure and trouble of coming of age.”

The project doesn’t yet have a name, but Van Huystee is contemplating calling the documentary No Rules.

“She hates rules,” Van Huystee notes. “She was born on a ship, so she knows how to sail. She knows much better how to sail than most men.”

“It’s amazing how many people project their own story on her,” Van Huystee says. “It touches a very vulnerable element in society, whether a child should be allowed to take a dangerous decision.”

Dekker bridles against the rules imposed by adults.

Van Huystee describes her as a free spirit. “But no rules doesn’t mean no discipline. She is very disciplined, and she knows exactly what she is doing.”

The filmmakers are not allowed on Dekker’s boat.

(After all, it is a single-handed voyage.) However, her boat is equipped with tiny cameras and Dekker is able to communicate intermittently via Skype.

“She can switch on the cameras and she can Skype sometimes. She will make her own videos. When she arrives on the islands and at the various places, we can film.”

The documentary is a story of a family, as well as an account of the young sailor’s trip. “We filmed the father many times already. He is a timberman on the boats. They have a very modest lifestyle. Everybody thinks she is from a rich background. Not at all.”

At the same time as shooting their documentary, Van Huystee and Wingender are preparing a feature film script. They have financed the early part of the documentary themselves, but public broadcaster KRO is circling the project. The documentary will be available in both theatrical and TV versions.

In two weeks’ time, the filmmakers will be reunited with Dekker in the Caribbean. “We try not to take the perspective of old people worried about a young girl”, Van Huystee notes.

Moderated by Screen International’s Wendy Mitchell, the group first addressed the role of reviews of new films at major festivals. “Bad reviews obviously hurt a film’s prospects”, sales agent Fortissimo Film’s Chris Paton said. While agreeing with Screen’s chief critic Mark Adams’ assertion that “reviewers have to be honest”, Paton sometimes took issue with “the fairness of assignments”, explaining that certain films need reviewers with specialist knowledge.

“You need to think about some films before writing about them,” Bettina Brokemper, producer from Heimatfilm remarked, claiming the instantdeadline nature of blogging culture limits time for critical reflection.

“The reality is that critics are influencing audi-

ences less and less,” Sydney Film Festival director Claire Stewart noted. “Ten years ago, a festival like ours would have relied much more heavily on floating reviews to sell our titles to audiences. Now it’s about how to use social media creatively.”

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was referred to throughout as the kind of film whose success depends on positive reviews. But the results vary from territory to territory. “In France, critical support made a difference,” said Boonmee producer Simon Field, “but in other countries, you can have wonderful reviews and the film still won’t succeed.”

Boonmee was also cited when the discussion moved on to the question of whether festival prizes can help certain titles find an audience. The general view was that most festival awards mean little to general audiences, but winning a major award like the Palme d’Or can have an impact. “Sydney was the first festival after Cannes to show Boonmee,” Stewart said, “and we had an audience of 1,800. I doubt that would have happened had it not won the Palme d’Or”.

Binger Boost for HBF filmmakers Binger chief Gamila Ylstra yesterday announced the new Boost! initiative, a future collaboration between Amsterdam’s Binger Institute, CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund.

By Nick Cunningham.

Commencing March 2011, five projects per year that receive Hubert Bals Fund script development support will be selected for the Boost! Programme, during which the filmmakers will receive special on-demand script advice from the Binger, and will be allocated a personal script coach. At the end of the year, these projects will be selected within a special CineMart section, where they will be granted expert project development sessions on topics such as financing and pitching, before presenting their projects in standard CineMart fashion. The Hubert Bals Fund provides support to remarkable or urgent feature films by innovative and talented filmmakers from developing countries, and has two selection rounds per year, one in the spring,

Gamila Ylstra

the other in the autumn. The five projects will be culled from both.

“The Hubert Bals Fund selects script development projects at various stages,” says HBF head Iwana Chronis. “Some of the filmmakers are very experienced writers or directors. Some of them are working on their first feature. And with some projects, we think we can make a really meaningful boost to help them a little bit more than just providing them with financial support. The festival has a very long tradition of supporting filmmakers in their professional development, so we thought it would be a good idea that the Hubert Bals Fund joins forces with CineMart in this trajectory, also to guide these film projects throughout the year, and then not just during the festival but also to follow up at a later stage. Collaborating on this initiative with the Binger is a fantastic opportunity because they can provide us with their invaluable script expertise.”

“Boost! is what we need,” exclaims Binger boss, Ylstra. “It’s the final touch to give a project wings.”

photo: Corinne de Korver

Maharaja picks up Tree Shade Jaime Romandía of Mantarraya Producciones (Mexico) told the Daily Tiger yesterday that he has agreed co-pro terms on his CineMart project Tree Shade (Pedro González-Rubio) with fledgling French production outfit Maharaja Film, owned by the multi-tasking Mathilde Henrot, who also consults for the professional screening portal Festival Scope.

“We are very happy that we were able to find what we were looking for at CineMart,” says Romandía.

“We were looking for a French partner and we found one with Mathilde. We are also very close to finding Dutch and German partners, so it has been a very successful CineMart.”

“It’s really about the director’s work,” Henrot comments. “I picked up Alamar (2009) for MK2 when I was in charge of acquisition and sales and it was a beautiful film, very poetic and precise. From this moment on, I developed a special relationship with the director and his producer, Jaime. Basically, the main reason is to help them to find ways for their films to be made in the best possible way.”

Mantarraya’s Romandía also revealed that French distributor Le Pacte, who had signed up to release his other CineMart project Post tenebras lux, will now take a co-production credit on the project as well. Nick Cunningham

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Holy trinity R. Alverson’s New Jerusalem, which received its world premiere at IFFR on Monday, is a moving, tenderly observed study of the friendship between two colleagues in a tyre repair centre in present-day Virginia. Sean (Colm O’Leary, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alverson) is an Irish-born veteran of the Afghan war. Still struggling to come to terms with his conflict experience, he finds solace and support in his boss, Ike, a committed evangelical Christian who attempts to convert Sean.

By Edward Lawrenson.

The Sky Above

Letting it happen Tiger competitor Sérgio Borges blurs the line between fiction and reality in The Sky Above. By Ben Walters.

We’re surrounded by TV shows that occupy a middle ground between documentary and fiction – a ‘reality’, as it’s sometimes called, in which people play versions of themselves for the camera’s benefit. Brazilian director Sérgio Borges embraced a comparable approach for his Tiger contender The Sky Above, which shows three residents of the city of Belo Horizonte going through challenging periods in their lives, though with far richer results.

“We have this idea of ourselves that we want so much to be reality,” Borges suggests. “But how we project our dreams and desires into the world isn’t always how we are. I searched for people who had real stories that felt like fiction.” The three people he discovered were transsexual academic and prostitute Everlyn, who finds more emotional content in her street work than in her daytime life; Angolan-Portugese would-be novelist and father Lwei, dealing with his son’s disability and his own psychological problems; and telemarketer, football fan and Hare Krishna devotee Murari, trying to find a balance between his contrasting impulses.

“We started interviews without a camera then gradually introduced it so they could get used to it,” Borges recalls, “and the crew was small and unobtrusive. But they wanted to participate, to turn their lives into film, so that made the process easier.

Some things that you or I might hesitate to show on camera were natural for them.”

Borges initially took a hands-off approach. “I read an interview with Albert Maysles where he explained that, when working with non-actors, he preferred not to give any instructions, in case they became dependent on them. So I started by just observing them and letting it happen. Then I realised they could act on camera, so I put them in situations they weren’t used to, where they’d really get to act, then finally brought them back to a situation where they could complete their stories.” Working with editor Ricardo Pretti, Borges finally shaped his subjects’ stories. “Once they saw the film, they all felt they were well represented,” he says.

Although The Sky Above is full of local detail, its director thinks his subject is universal. “The characters show a really Brazilian way of life, but you could make a film like this anywhere – it’s a story about human beings.” Borges looks at the festival attendees all around us. “In this room, you could find three people to make a similar film. Our subjects look very different, but they just want to be loved, to be recognized, to be seen. It’s just a story about people.”

The Sky Above – Sérgio Borges

Wed 02 12:30 PA7 Thur 03 10:15 CI3 Press & Industry Fri 04 10:15 PA6 Sat 05 10:30 PA4

“Both Colm and I are zealous atheists,” says Alverson.

But what is striking about this resonant and sympathetic character study is its even-handed, non-judgmental portrait of Ike’s religious practice. “I have all kinds of issues with organized religion, particularly conservative, evangelical religion,” says Alverson, “but I wanted to use the film to provide a window on things I don’t understand.”

A scene in which Ike takes Sean to his church to worship with him was filmed among real congregants: “I went into that church – it can seat 5,000 people,” Alverson recalls. “There were 2,000 people the night we shot. It isn’t just that people are looking for an afterlife,” he says of the popularity of such places: “What I found – and I would have never had this experience had I not shot the film – is men, big tough biker types, breaking down and weeping. This is a new kind of American Christianity that is open to everyone: it operates more on a social level, it provided a platform for all these people to cry and be emotive, in the way that liberal society doesn’t really offer.”

Alverson’s approach on New Jerusalem uses some improvisation: “We work essentially in a non-scripted way, but the architecture of how the scenes operate is developed beforehand.” Casting, therefore, was “an incredibly delicate matter, because the way I work is about exploiting in a transparent way the characteristics of the individual actor.”

He knew Colm was to be Sean from early on. Actor and musician Will Oldham came on board after Alverson sent him a copy of his first film, The Builder.

“He was impressed and we started a conversation, and it went from there. It was a process of me getting to know him, and starting to figure out what he might bring to the film.”

As well as directing, Alverson operated the camera himself, working with a small crew of five. “It was emotionally exhausting for me”, he says. “I would recommend young people to do that, but I turn 40 this year and it’s unsustainable. There’s too much going on in your mind.”

Absent friends The number 125 is something of a taboo in South Korea, at least when it comes to identity cards: it marks an individual out as a North Korean defector, making it harder for them to find work or even a toehold in a society which they are in any case ill prepared for. By Ben Walters.

This is the challenge faced by Jeon Seung-Chul, central character of powerful neo-realist Tiger contender The Journals of Musan, whose heartbreaking attempts to find stability, productivity and emotional connection in his new home are played

The Journals of Musan

with delicate, moving understatement by Park JungBum. The performance is all the more impressive given that Park was also the film’s writer, director and producer.

He was strongly motivated, though. The story was closely based on the life of a close friend, and was first developed as a short film. “My friend died of stomach cancer in 2008,” Park says. “I finished shooting on January 30, two days before he died.

He couldn’t see anything because he was so ill, but after he died, I found he’d left a message on a social networking site telling me to make a feature. That’s why I made The Journals of Musan.”

Loyalty was also the motivation for Park’s casting himself, despite having previously acted only in a few shorts. “I thought I was the only person who could express his experiences,” he explains. “I knew his facial expressions, the look in his eyes, the details. It would have been harder to teach an actor that – it would have felt fake. I also wanted to feel the real pain my friend felt throughout his experiences.” A split lip was one of several physical hardships Park sustained during the demanding shoot.

He also got nosebleeds every day, he says, partly from the stress of balancing his various roles. As an actor, Park was in nearly every shot, but as a director he had opted for a flexible approach, favouring formal improvisation over storyboards. “It was very important that we had really good communication between the cast and crew,” he says. “It was a good environment – almost like family.”

Park also had problems as producer. “I misjudged the budget,” he admits. “I thought we could make the film for $30,000, but that was all spent on preproduction, so we had to suspend shooting for a few days while I raised money from friends. But the cast and crew were very supportive. They all stayed in one house – maybe that increased the unified feeling.” It’s heartening to hear that a story about the often tragic divisions between societies and individuals was executed in such a spirit of togetherness.

The Journals of Musan – Park Jung-Bum Wed 02 15:15 PA3 Press & Industry Thur 03 13:30 PA4 Fri 04 22:00 PA4 Sat 05 16:30 PA4

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Describing the budget as coming in at the “top end of low”, New Jerusalem was financed by Jagjaguwar, an independent record label with which Alverson has had a relationship since 1996 through his membership of the band Spokane. “We have three more,” he says of future projects: “The first is an experimental feature called Rabbit which we’ll shoot over three days in April with Colm and Will. In July, we’re shooting a film with American comics called Tim and Eric called The Comedy. Then we’re shooting a film called Clement around this time next year, with Will and Colm again.

It’s set in 1870s, Reconstruction-era Virginia.”

New Jerusalem – R. Alverson

Wed 02 13:15 PA6

R. Alverson

photo: Nichon Glerum

Mill and Cross The Sky Above

screenS at Louvre

Fresh from its screening in Rotterdam, Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross is headed to Paris. This evening, the film will receive its French premiere in a very unusual venue: France’s most famous museum, The Louvre. Charlotte Rampling, Rutger Hauer and Michael York are due to attend the screening.

The film, inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting Christ Carrying the Cross, has been chosen as the closing film of a season of films on art. Sales agent Wide Management reports strong interest on the film following its Rotterdam and Sundance screenings.

The Mill and the Cross

5

Life begins at 40 40 (XL in Roman numerals) locations in Rotterdam celebrate the IFFR’s 40th edition, taking films to unexpected places. The best way to get around them is on one of the omnipresent blue and yellow OV-Fiets (public transport) bikes, Eunice Báez Sánchez finds out.

What do a crèche, a miniature theatre and a fitness club have in common? All are included in the XL programme of 40 different locations throughout Rotterdam, providing a perfect excuse for locals and visitors to get to know the city from many different new points of view. XL programmer Edwin Carels explains that the idea to use the ‘XL’ was a good excuse for creating a really big, diverse, cross-discipline programme that looks forward rather than back. “In the past, I have been mostly involved in the link between cinema and the visual arts. This year, I wanted to involve some of our usual friends, but also lots of places that are less obvious, but interesting.”

The XL pass (price €11) provides access to all 40 of these venues, the ticketing policy reflecting Carels’ determination that the project be “as democratic and as open as possible.”

Alejandro Masías is one of the visitors trying to get everything he can out of the festival. He declares himself a festival fan, rather than a movie fan “I really enjoy the films. But I also enjoy the environment that is created around the festival, especially this year when there are so many other things”.

On your bike

Visiting the IFFR’s alternative locations in a typically Dutch way means hopping on a bike, negotiating the cyclepaths and getting a little bit lost in Rotterdam.

The good news is that the purchase of an XL pass gets you two days use of a public transport bike. Inge Kramer, one of the supervisors of the bike rental tent on Schouwburgplein square, says that at least 20% of her customers are non-Dutch visitors wanting to get the most out of all the extra activities around the festival. “Definitely the best way to get around the city is by bike”, she insists.

One of the obligatory sights in Rotterdam is the spec-

Remembering Rotterdam

photo: Nichon Glerum

As part of our commemorative coverage of the IFFR’s fortieth anniversary, sales agent Helen Loveridge shares her most vivid memories of the event.

tacular Erasmus Bridge. A good way to see it is to cycle across on the way to the Lantaren Venster or one of the other XL locations, such as the Nederlands Fotomuseum. Here, the outstanding work of photographer and filmmaker Andor von Barsy shows a pre-war Rotterdam that today we can only imagine.

Nearby, in beautiful Hotel New York, Austrian video artist Ella Raidel has put together an installation titled Hotel Africa, which features slam poets from Mozambique, carrying on from her Slam Video Maputo, part of the Forget Africa Programme in 2010.

Avant-garde for kids

One of the most innovative locations is just a short walk from De Doelen, opposite the Oude Luxor cinema. Your Space is a temporary crèche, a place where kids of all ages can come and sample a unique festival atmosphere, part of IFFR’s Not Kidding programme.

Between a little girl with a huge ball and boy with a candy floss, Carels explains that this particular location is his favorite, since it is also emblematic of the festival’s jubilee, being all about faith in the future. “We had a shop here last year, so this time

Binger Filmlab wishes the best of luck to

Elisa Miller

Konstantinos Kontovrakis

(current Writers Lab) writer/director of feature film Alicia, Go Yonder In Tiger Awards Competition

(current Creative Producers Lab) producer of feature film Wasted Youth Opening Film IFFR and in Tiger Awards Competition

for the outcome of the Tiger Awards Competition on Friday February 4 and presents Writers Lab September 2011 5 months / application deadline March 15, 2011 An immersion lab for writers and writer/directors to develop a great screenplay.

I wanted to do avant-garde for kids; I am convinced it is possible to serve Rotterdam quality to younger audiences.”

Another innovative experience offered by the XL programme is the Maki Ueda Palm Top Theatre in the V2 Institute for the Unstable Media, which combines technology and art to create interesting films and animations that literally fit in the palm of your hand.

The whole exhibition is made from iPhones or iPads that mimic a 3D environment. The results are fascinating and disturbing, generating striking artwork from commonly used technological devices.

Fit and happy

Other highlights of the 40 XL locations include the WORM Abnorminal Fitness Club, where you can enjoy art, film and music, while getting some exercise, and an inn where traditional Chinese kung-fu tales come to life. Talking to the Daily Tiger at the mid-point of the festival, Carels is positive about the event so far: “I’m happy,” he says, “because the artists are happy – as are the institutions we’ve been working with.”

On the last day of my first Rotterdam (1987), I was personally escorted by Hubert Bals – a great honour for me, at the time I was the assistant to legendary documentary sales agent Jane Balfour – to what I thought he had said was a reception for that eclectic genius, Raúl Ruiz. It turned out to be no such thing, but a banquet for 50 guests devised by Raúl, who had been given an allowance by the festival for food, and the run of the Hotel Centraal kitchens.

Turns out Raúl’s approach to food is just as eclectic as his films. Each course was more creative than the last, and each accompanied by a cocktail of equal creativity. Moreover, the room was full of legendary filmmakers, all chatting away in increasingly good spirits as the alcohol started to kick in. My own perfectly amiable dining companions were Jim Hickey, then director of the Edinburgh Film Festival, and Brazilian director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, sadly no longer with us. Unfortunately, I had to tear myself away after a couple of hours to head for the airport, but in 30 years in the film business I have never had a meal I remember with such fondness. The last time I saw Huub was in Cannes. As I struggled to eat a small pizza to restore the ravages of several days’ hard partying, he gave me a friendly hug and said, “You must take care of yourself!” Two months later he was gone, not having taken his own advice. I miss him still.

master film amsterdam Have you got the ambition to renew the language and practice of film making?

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Then apply for the select, international 2-year Master’s course at the Dutch national film school.

start of the course: January 2012 deadline for applications: 15 april 2011 Open evening: 1 and 11 march 2011 Check our website: www.masterfilm.nl

Creative Producers Lab September 2011 5 months / application deadline March 15, 2011 Development lab for producers to strengthen their practice of working with writers and directors as a true collaborator and creative partner.

www.binger.nl Advertentie_dagkrant_IFFRok.indd 1

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