The Cambridge Film Festival Review 2019

PRESENTS THE

Photo © David Riley 2019

CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW

INSIDE: - A bunker at the edge of the world - A.I.’s journey to self awareness - How King Kong found his voice

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Baltic countries. It therefore comes as a great surprise when we see the way Gorbachev is able to break down these conceptions and arguments in a succinct and digestible manner.

Herzog and Singer nail the balance of informing newcomers to the subject as well as engaging the attention of those who lived through the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The way that Herzog can build a narrative through his interview technique as well as through his filmmaking is quite something to behold: he ices out his line of questioning with a firm grasp. The documentary is deeply humanising, with a keen focus on its core as we are allowed to examine the person behind the image. The film harnesses a fair analysis of the political ideologies across the globe, and reflects on the completely precarious state of the world from 1985 to 1991.

The figure before you is seated calmly, waiting to be introduced. An unfamiliar wave sweeps over you, as flashbacks from history run like a ticker tape: Chernobyl, the collapse of the iron curtain, the nuclear arms race. This man not only sat in the centre of some of the most pivotal moments of the 20th century, but also played a crucial role in the changing of the world’s political landscape.

MEETING GORBACHEV reasserts the importance of approaching historical MEETING GORBACHEV spans six months and documentaries from both past and future, three interviews, during which the notorious exploring the subject contextually with a fair director Werner Herzog takes a candid and critical eye. approach to finding out what really went on behind the scenes during Gorbachev’s time - Elle Haywood in office. One has some initial hesitations MEETING GORBACHEV screens at 21.00 on about how these interviews with the last Mon 21st at the Arts Picturehouse, and at leader of the Soviet Union will play out.

15.30 on Wed 23rd at the Light Cinema.

The portrayal of communism, socialism and the red states in Western History books strongly assert the demonisation, corruption and slavery of this political agenda across the

Does a three-hour long film always have to be described as ‘epic’? Wang Xiaoshuai’s latest offering, premiered this year at the Berlin Film Festival, certainly qualifies for the 180 minute plus category.

That’s a long time in Row H (other rows are available) but it passes in flash, and indeed there was a certain sorrow saying farewell to the characters that Xiaoshuai brings to life in a gripping family drama set against the seismic changes taking place in China between the end of the Cultural Revolution and the late 90s.

The story follows the life trajectory of industrial workers Yaojun (Wang Jingchun) and his wife Liyun (Yong Mei). This was the China of the one child policy and much of the film’s landscape deals with the pain and joy of this communist party attempt at social engineering. Their one beloved son, goaded by his mates to swim in the nearby reservoir, tragically drowns. The grieving couple adopt another boy, who has grown into a very unhappy out-of-control teen.

So Long My Son directed by Wang Xiaoshuai

Screening on Sun 20th at 14.30 and Wed 23rd at 10.00, at the Arts Picturehouse.

Xiaoshuai keeps up our interest (and that’s putting it mildly) by jumping the story back and forward between the mid 80s, when Liyun and Yaojun are in Maoist garb, and the later period when a touch of consumerism has come even to their extremely humble dwelling, with its one cold tap and tendency to sudden flooding. Each jump in time is done with a fleeting deftness, the lightest of brush strokes and indeed there is a painterly quality about Xiaoshuai’s landscapes. His lens often serves as an eyewitness, a sudden recall of memory; action is often going on in the far distance, and the hand-held camera sometimes makes us feel that we are intruding into a private but compelling narrative.

If you were to see one film in this festival, then consider this one. All human life is there as well as a fascinating insight into Chinese life in a time of social upheaval. The scale is vast, the stories are intimate - surely a definition of epic.

- Mike Levy

DISTANCES

directed by Elena Trapé

Screening on Sat 19th at 17.45, at the Arts Picturehouse.

College reunions that go wrong as old friends try to recapture the past - it’s a tried and tested movie formula, from John Sayles’s RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN to Lawrence Kasdan’s THE BIG CHILL and Kenneth Branagh’s PETER’S FRIENDS. In DISTANCES, Alex’s friends travel from Barcelona where they hung out together, to Berlin where Alex (Miki Esparbe) now works as a designer. It’s the heavily pregnant Olivia’s (Alexandra Jimenez) idea to celebrate Alex’s birthday weekend by arriving unannounced at his front door, a surprise already treated with misgivings by the other friends: Eloi (Bruno Sevilla) and Guille (Isak Ferriz) accompanied by his new partner Anna (Maria Ribera).

immediately start showing their cracks: Olivia’s surly partner back in Barcelona resents her visit; Anna has been fired from her architect’s job in Hamburg and loathes Germany. Comfortably-off Guille can’t resist needling his friends over their shortcomings, especially Eloi who is back with his parents after losing his flat, and spends most of his time on Tinder.

All this is revealed in DISTANCES’ first third, by which time the audience may want to join Alex, disappearing overnight as the others bicker and try to track him down via their mobiles. Olivia tries to salvage the weekend by spending the Saturday making a cake, alone in the apartment until Marion (Saskia Rosendahl) arrives: it’s she whose name is on the mystery box, and it’s clear Alex is Alex himself is less than happy about the avoiding her too. The scene between the two surprise, scrambling to tidy his roomy but women is at the heart of the film: touching dingy apartment as the others wait by the and funny and explaining much of the entryphone, and hiding a large box which background to this misbegotten adventure... has Significance written all over it, as well as a name which will be revealed in due course.

- Andrew Nickolds Once reunited, the friends’ relationships

HOPE GAP

directed by William Nicholson Following in the footsteps of many a play adapted for the screen, be it An Inspector Calls or any amount of Shakespeare, HOPE GAP brings the Tony award nominated play to the screen twenty years after its original debut at the Chichester festival.

Jamie. But with his long absences prior to the start of HOPE GAP, and the mirroring of their relationship in Jamie’s own, it is clear that the damage has spread further than their home, and their lives.

To describe a divorce as a tragedy may seem Unlike some plays adapted for the screen, exaggerated, yet this is how Grace feels HOPE GAP takes full advantage of its about the situation. She describes Edward as eponymous location: filmed in both Seaford having “murdered” their marriage, and as and Yorkshire, and set in the former. As a he leaves, struggles to find her place in this seaside town, it reflects the narrative of altogether different world. much of the film. The beach, the centre point A sumptuous score, compelling characters, of the town, is in reality a partly artificial and beautiful visuals ensure that the former construction, having been recreated from play finds its place as a film, having taken dredging in the 1980s. Like the relationship Grace’s emotional journey to heart. It between Edward and Grace, it is adapting to provides something of a template for another this new life, even if that requires serious stage productions to take a similar path, and change. Seaford is also quite literally at the if they are only partly as good as this, there is end of the train line, reflecting the position much to look forward to.

in which Edward and Grace have unwittingly

- James Ashworth found themselves. As with many seaside towns, it has declined since its former Screening on Fri 18th at 18.30 at the Light heyday, as Edward and Grace call back to the Cinema; and Sat 19th at 20.30 at the Arts “good years” they spent raising their son, Picturehouse.

The highly anticipated MARRIAGE STORY is Noah Baumbach’s 11th feature film - but even if you’re unfamiliar with his earlier work, you have a treat in store. This mesmerising film certainly lives up to the excitement which has surrounded the production since its announcement.

MARRIAGE STORY documents the rise and fall of Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie’s (Adam Driver) relationship, marriage and eventual divorce. Baumbach has taken something seemingly pedestrian, something that is often taken for granted in our society, and infused a fresh perspective into the breakdown of a marriage. Three in one marriages end in divorce, something to which our society has slowly become numb.

Baumbach exposes the true agony which a broken marriage can inflict on the individuals involved, and the collateral damage that ensues.

that accompany divorce, and maintains this authenticity in every single scene. Her stunning performance is an amalgamation of all the best aspects from her career. After the controversies which have surrounded her over recent years, from casting choices to her support of Woody Allen, it’s so gratifying to finally watch her reclaim and fulfil her potential.

Laura Dern demonstrates her excellent comedy talent as attorney Nora Fanshaw.

Her character anchors Nicole; despite being created by a male writer, both female women are empowered and complex in their characterisation, and complement one another perfectly.

The strength of this film lies in its honesty and authenticity, as well as its originality: it portrays truth, and with a fresh perspective.

An incredibly rare find.

- Fiona Hughes Scarlett Johansson is masterful as Nicole, a woman who simply wants what’s best for MARRIAGE STORY screens on Sun 20th at herself, after what has felt like a lifetime 21.00 at the Arts Picturehouse; and on Tue of living through her husband. Johannsson 22nd at 13.00 at the Light Cinema. inhibits the complex range of emotions

Marriage Story

directed by Noah Baumbach

FILMFARSI

directed by Ehsan Khoshbakht

Meet the director at the Festival screenings for a Q&A! Now that cinema is well past its centenary,

their revenge on the decadence of filmfarsi’s

one of the joys of watching old films is the glimpse it gives you into a long-gone past.

Old movies can be like a moving archaeology – revealing a world of clothes, social habits, manners and norms that otherwise are consigned to the history books.

song and dance, sexual innuendo films by destroying the footage and burning down the cinemas. Khoshbakht’s documentary begins in fact with torching of a picture house in South East Iran in which 377 men, women and children were killed.

Ehsan Khoshbakht’s documentary is a fine example of using popular film to explore social tectonics. None were higher on the political Richter scale than in the Iranian revolution that threw out the old Westernleaning Shah in the late 1970s.

One may ask how Khoshbakht was able to show us clips from that era if the Ayatollah’s men threw them on the bonfire. The answer is that even in the most repressive years, there was a lively trade in underground VHS tapes of the films. As a young man, these were meat and drink to the fledgling director.

One of the great strengths of the film is his analysis of the movies – behind the dross, he claims, were clues to the seeds of the Shah’s overthrow. Look very carefully, he urges, and see what lies beneath the surface. It’s a fascinating dig.

Flimfarsi, he tells us as invisible narrator, was a pejorative term given to the explosion of Iranian cinema after the bloody coup in 1953. A repressed population was rapidly exposed to new cinemas and an avalanche of home-made, often very cheaply produced films. Such was the appetite for films in Farsi that all expense was spared in churning out

- Mike Levy

a consistent diet of cheap comedies and wild Meet the director at the Arts Picturehouse melodramas. screening on the 26th at 13.30 and the Khoshbakht allows us many glimpses into Emma College screening on the 27th at a domestic cinema which vanished with the 16.15. revolution. The revolutionary guards took

Sound comes first. That’s the key wisdom that documentary MAKING WAVES: THE ART OF CINEMATIC SOUND, directed by Midge Costin, imparts through interviews with sound designers, effects editors, sound mixers, and film directors.

Sound is paramount: the often unsung genius of sound is of utmost importance to the creation of immersive cinema. Sound is primal: a lyrical voiceover from legendary sound designer Walter Murch states that sound is“the first sense that’s plugged in” as we tune into the world from the womb.

And sound is first in a more literal sense, too: Thomas Edison first began dabbling in motion pictures to accompany his invention of the phonograph. Without sound, film isn’t film as we know it.

Costin’s background is as a sound editor and professor sound editing at USC, so MAKING WAVES is appropriately educational in its aims. Through talking-head interviews with sound designers and directors like Gary Rydstrom, Ben Burtt, Steven Spielberg, and David Lynch, alongside clips from their notable works, it traces the history of sound’s relationship to the moving image. Beginning

in the silent era and chronicling the advance in technology and technique over the decades, from the early days of THE JAZZ SINGER to the magic of STAR WARS to the intensity of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, it sheds light on all aspects of sound and soundtrack from ADR to foley, crowd sounds to room tone, score to effects. Yet it doesn’t feel like an academic lecture, but rather an invigorating chance to see an artistic and emotion-driven creative process at work. These sound professionals are something like mad scientists, animating life out of bits and pieces of noise, mixing new combinations of sound and distorting them or layering them to form stunning creations.

Murray Spivack, sound designer on KING KONG, recalls recording roars at the zoo and then playing them backwards—creating sounds for a creature that did not exist.

It’s an entertaining watch (and, of course, listen) for anyone who loves movies, and who’s interested in learning that why we love movies is due in no small part to sound.

- Katie Duggan Screening on Fri 18th at 15.00 and Sat 19th at 13.00 at the Arts Picturehouse.

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound directed by Midge Costin

BROTHERS, directed by Turkish film maker Ömür Atay, tells the unique story of Yusuf (Ege Yazar), a 17-year-old boy who is sent to prison for an honour killing against his sister.

After Yusuf is released, his brother Ramazan (Caner Sahin) becomes his carer and is responsible for making sure Yusuf becomes a functioning member of society. Underneath Ramazan’s caring persona, however, is a deep guilt and toxic lifestyle in which he runs the risk of involving his vulnerable younger brother.

going out of his way to pamper him and buy him gifts - but does he have an ulterior motive?

BROTHERS offers an intense insight into a culture and lifestyle many people will not have experienced or understood. Atay depicts the volatile, passionate dynamic that many siblings share, and amps it up to 100, showing the extreme and sometimes shocking sacrifices we are capable of making, when driven by moral beliefs and family loyalty.

At the core of BROTHERS is the deep complexity that can be found in a relationship between siblings: they will do anything to protect another, their love can be toxic as well as compassionate. A sibling can ruin your life, or restore it. A character study like no other, BROTHERS is a tale of co-dependence, love, and the destruction that comes with them.

The opening scenes of BROTHERS are slowpaced, focusing on Yusuf’s experience in prison, and his silent guilt over his sister’s killing. Yusuf is very quiet, countering any interrogation with ‘It doesn’t matter’ or ‘We know what happened’. At first, it’s frustratingly difficult to engage with Yusuf, but once we begin to witness the dynamic - Josh Ragan (Deputy Editor) between the two brothers, we begin to understand a little more about him. It’s clear BROTHERS screens at the Arts Picturehouse that Ramazan really cares about his brother, on Fri 18th at 19.15 and Sun 20th at 10.00.

“I don’t want to dream inside.”

What happens to dreams deferred by imprisonment? MEN INSIDE ventures inside the walls of Baumettes prison in Marseille, France, giving a rare glimpse into the lives of its 2,000 inmates, many of them under the age of thirty, who live in isolation from the outside world.

The documentary is filmed in an unintrusive, fly-on-the-wall style, remaining impartial and not attempting to narrativise the prisoners’ experiences. We’re therefore allowed to immerse ourselves in the lives of these men who have been abandoned by society, and rendered invisible via their confinement.

The sound design makes heavy use of silence, emphasising the intense quietness of the prison at certain times, a quietness which can quickly and easily erupt from unspoken frustration into cacophony and chaos. And yet not all can communicate so easily: one confesses that he knows only a little French, while another arrives and tells the guard that he is deaf, and will have to communicate in writing and lip-reading with the officers who do not know sign language.

The filmmakers’ presence remains offscreen, and while this means that the overarching message is not always clear, Viallet and his team seem to underscore the importance of simply listening. The men share their similar back stories and laugh with one another, and the viewer feels almost like an intruder. One recounts the strange period in which he and his father were imprisoned in the same cell, while others chat about getting busted for carjacking and other repeat offenses; a nineteen-year-old is already on his fourth sentence, while another man claims to be on his forty-fourth charge. If they have nothing on the outside, being inside becomes a habit, a drug they just cannot seem to quit, and the documentary only hints at the shortcomings of the legal and economic systems that fail these men and perpetuate such cycles of crime...

- Katie Duggan

Screening on Sat 19th at 20.00 at Emma College and Tue 22nd at the Light Cinema at 18.00

Men Inside

directed by Jean-Robert Viallet

MONOS, directed by Alejandro Landes, is an invitation to open our eyes and see. Beside a bunker at the edge of the world, children play football while blindfolded and, as the film opens, the audience are as blind as the children.

rules, rituals, names, norms (or lack thereof), and freedoms about sexuality and gender presentation. The most striking part of the film is its gorgeous imagery. Incredible shots of mountainous cloudscapes create images of a precipice on the edge of the world. Clouds, lit from below by gunfire and flares, blanket the world hiding a conflict that, for now, is distant from us. Sumptuous images of jungle foliage freshly damp with dew and bubbles flowing under turbulent rivers invite us to see the beauty of the natural world amidst human violence.

We are dropped into an unknown conflict in an unknown country with child soldiers governed by an unknown organisation. Like the children, we remain blind to the brutality of these children’s lives until, under new leadership, the child soldiers turn to ferality, chaos, and murder. MONOS invites us to see ecstatic truth against brutal unreality in a MONOS starts with the children and the film that uses cinema to its fullest potential. audience blinded, and ends with our eyes fully opened to its brutal unreality. As the The child soldiers, the Monos, guard a ferality and madness of the jungle recedes, kidnapped engineer who they call Doctora we are faced with a tearful and accusatory (Julianne Nicholson) and operate under stare as one of the children looks straight into the command of a leader known only as the camera while we, the audience, are asked Messenger (Wilson Salazar). In their isolated “What should we do with this unidentified bunker with their only role being to guard person?� this prisoner-of-war, the Monos have their own micro-society seemingly with their own - Simon Bowie

Monos

directed by Alejandro Landes

Screening on Sun 20th at 18.30 at the Arts Picturehouse, and on Wed 23rd at 10.30 at the Light Cinema.

Secretaries: A Life For Cinema

directed by Raffaelle Rago and Daniela Masciale Forget Fellini, it’s all about Fiammetta Profili as SECRETARIES: A LIFE FOR CINEMA shines a light on the women behind some of Italy’s most famous producers, directors and distributors. The film introduces six secretaries and PAs who remember their careers in the Italian film industry as they supported both emotionally and administratively the “geniuses” of Italian cinema.

A life for cinema, and it is really their lives they gave to it, some for over 30 years.

Marriage and pregnancy sparked anxiety for their employers, to the point where nannies would be hired to allow the women to return to work a matter of days after giving birth.

Despite the romantic and warm retelling of working in an industry at its most magical, these women, who strived for independence, to work for their own money, were still being caged by the industry and the men they Many of the women worked alongside these worked with. At times, even through the men at pivotal points in their careers: Dino reminiscent smiles, there is still an absence De Laurentiis was opening his studio and of freedom.

Goffredo Lombardo was producing THE LEOPARD (1963). What audiences will begin SECRETARIES: A LIFE FOR CINEMA is a to realise is that these “secretaries” were humorous and eye-opening glimpse into the so much more, they were casting agents world of these women and through them, on set, film extras and considered family a new perspective into the lives of these to the men that employed them. Several famous men which many of us will not have of them eventually becoming managers seen before. and COOs, these women were the glue of - April McIntyre the industry, with unrivalled knowledge of elements of production, they were essential Screening on Tue 22nd at 17.30 and Wed to the running and success of the men in the 23rd at 16.00 at the Arts Picturehouse. forefront.

The rise of A.I. machines has been shown in many forms across science fiction, usually culminating in an “us or them” showdown for supremacy of the planet. While this eventuality may still be in our future, HI, A.I. strives to document the parts of the AI’s journey to self-awareness that aren’t shown in movies – the awkward adolescent phase that consists of weird bodies, underdeveloped conversational skills, and uncanny sex robots.

is gifted an interactive robot called Pepper by her son, to keep her company and give her someone to talk to. Problem is, Pepper isn’t all that interested in what Grandma has to say. Alongside these two main threads, the documentary also checks in with other forms of burgeoning A.I. – including a weirdly hypnotic scene that follows a helium balloon tiptoeing around on a pair of spindly robotic legs – while Harris and Darling debate questions of how robots will further change our lives, and what the landscape of “We live in a strange world, and it appears the future might look like. to be getting stranger.” These words, spoken by neuroscientist, philosopher and best- While not all the robots shown are as selling author Sam Harris in conversation successful in their application as Harmony, with robot ethics expert Kate Darling, does Isa Willinger’s documentary does a great a great job of distilling what HI, A.I. intends job of exploring where we currently stand to demonstrate. Ranging from the practical with the development of A.I. and robotics. to the utterly bizarre, this documentary The stories that are presented in HI, A.I. are offers a wide overview of the ways in which deeply human, and serve to show us that humanoid robots are slowly being integrated this technology has more to offer than just into our society. murderous HAL 9000s and Skynets.

In California, Chuck picks up his robot partner, Harmony, fresh from the factory, and starts to get to know her as their unusual love story blossoms on a cross-state road trip. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Grandma Sakurai

- Ben Johnston Screening on Sat 19th at 16.30 at the Arts Picturehouse and Mon 21st at 11.00 at the Light Cinema.

Hi, A.I.

directed by Isa Willinger

It Must Be Heaven directed by Elia Suleiman

Screening on Sat 19th at 14.30 and Tue 22nd at 19.15 at the Arts Picturehouse.

Elia Suleiman’s latest film emphasises his role as a cataloguer of experience, applying his vignette style to a story of globalised Palestine, to the condition of self-imposed exile, and an observation of the oddities of the world. He addresses the charge, clearly inspired by real life, that his films commit preterition: a French producer tells him his films aren’t “Palestinian enough”, while a verbose New York film professor charges him as being “the perfect stanger”.

Suleiman’s cinema is a political cinema - how could it not be? But his method of engagement is unique: circuitously meaningful, inviting certain readings, possibly ridiculing them. He’s interested in spaces, the incidents which occur in them: jokes, schemes, repeated cues, looks, and gestures. All this amounts to an examination of his Palestinian identity by a kind of contrasted exemplification — a reminder of Marianne Moore’s line: ‘Omissions are not accidents.’

IT MUST BE HEAVEN begins in Nazareth, Suleiman’s home, as the director’s stand-in (played by Suleiman) attempts to go about a daily existence marred by quotidian hostilities and threats. The sense of community rupture that was present in DIVINE INTERVENTION is here multiplied and made odder, more pernicious: at a bar, two brothers dine with their sister, glaring at Suleiman the entire time. Suleiman repeatedly finds a neighbour stealing lemons from another neighbour, always handy with an excuse. Lastly, as he drives to the airport, a police car is speeding next to him: in the front seats, two officers swap sunglasses and check the reflections to see which shades look coolest on who, while in the backseat sits a blindfolded young girl, uncannily pointing herself in Suleiman’s direction.

So he escapes, and his escapades are no safer. He travels to France, watching with blank astonishment as the various stupidities of European modernity demonstrate themselves before him, Tati-like: such as the technological buffoonery of the French police, riding Segways in beautiful circles of movement, which couldn’t be less effective in solving crime.

While IT MUST BE HEAVEN is not excoriating in the way DIVINE INTERVENTION is, nor moving in the way of THE TIME THAT REMAINS, it is his funniest film, the comedy laced up with Suleiman’s elegant, rebarbative vision.

- Marc Nelson

directed by Ferid Boughedi

Camera D’Afrique

In the opening moments of CAMÉRA D’AFRIQUE, a man addresses the camera with a smile.

He knows the audience is eager to see a film, an enthusiasm he shares. “Here in Africa,” he says with a smile, “we love the cinema.”

Through extensive voiceover narration and clips from landmark films, the 1983 Tunisian documentary gives an historical account of the growth of independent African cinema, and showcases the innovative and tenacious spirit of African filmmakers who have fought to tell African stories onscreen despite limited financial resources and lack of support.

The African camera and its cinematic eye developed out of a necessity to combat stereotypes, and an intense hunger for Africans to see themselves onscreen. Boughedir gives a concise introduction to film on the African continent through voiceovers, and chronicles the numerous challenges African filmmakers have faced throughout cinema’s history. African independent cinema has always been deeply interested in rebellion: African films had the potential to threaten the European monopoly on African screens and challenge the dominance of European cultural influence. This meant that even when African films were made, they faced difficulties in distribution, and as a result many of them remain unknown by much of the African public or western distribution networks.

The film offers an insightful look into a piece of cinematic history that was for so long suppressed and does what African cinema has long been setting out to do—showing Africa through its own filmic eye, and putting the camera in the hands of its people.

- Katie Duggan All content © TAKE ONE MAGAZINE 2019 Editor-In-Chief: Rosy Hunt Managing Editor: Jim Ross Deputy Editors: Lydia Lowe and Josh Ragan Photographer: Dave Riley

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BA (Hons) Film Studies BA (Hons) Film Studies and Media Studies BA (Hons) Film and TV Production MA Film and TV Production