http://www.talentpress.org/home/0 de-de alottalog 2008-11-22T00:43:16+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1250 With TEETH, veteran character actor Mitchell Lichtenstein has become a filmmaker in his own right after acting in supporting roles for directors such as Robert Altman and Ang Lee. His film, a romantic coming-of-age black comedy, provides a fresh, new, and even sensitive, perspective on the myth of "vagina dentata", which is Latin for toothed vagina, unlike in the many Japanese films which have portrayed it as a horrific deformity.

The film centers its story around Dawn, an insecure high-school girl, who discovered early in her childhood that the organ that exists in her nether region has the ability to bite when intruded. Now in her teenage years, despite her deformity she seems genuine in her Christian obsession with celibacy. However, that obsession no longer applies when she begins to lust for a male classmate.

In various ancient folklores, a woman afflicted with "vagina dentata" is a warrior who waits for a male to conquer her and as a result cure her of her affliction. The structure of these folk tales is somewhat of the classical "quest" sort and the film follows this structure though at the same time altering it in a way that makes it more profound and more humorous. At first, Dawn cannot accept the fact that she possesses a toothed vagina, but as the film moves on, she begins to realize how it can be a blessing as well a weapon.

Though the film is directed by a male director, it is nothing if not a sensitive, even almost feminist, play on the vulnerabilities of both the male and female sex without being too exploitive with the type of story it is working with. The myth of the "vagina dentata" was sprung from the fear of men being over-powered by women. The first half of the film shows Dawn as a sexually insecure girl who has the displeasure of being sexually assaulted various times during the film. These sexual assaults have been the result of her placement of trust on men unworthy of it. The vulnerabilities of her sex, generally considered in society to be the weaker, is emphasized in the earlier scenes in the film as she is raped. But let’s not forget that even in these scenes, as her innocence and her virginity are taken away from her, she too takes something very important to the sexuality of these men – their manhood. By the end of the film, Dawn even emerges as something of a warrior queen against the overpowering of the female sex.

TEETH can also be seen as a demystification of sex. Sex in this film is no longer the act of love or lustful, erotic pleasure ride that has frequently been portrayed in cinema as. Instead, sex is seen here as a form of selfishness and betrayal. Dawn’s romantic notions of sexual fulfillment were stymied by her lover’s betrayal of her trust as when she changes her mind and no longer wants to have sex, he forces himself upon her. Another example of how sex is portrayed in such a manner is when Dawn finds out that it was her stepbrother’s ignorance which caused her mother to become critically ill, Dawn seduces him so as to take revenge on him by removing him from his penis. What exemplifies the betrayal in this scene is that her stepbrother actually loves Dawn. The selfishness of sex can be seen in that while her mother was having a seizure, Dawn’s brother was having sex with his girlfriend. Furthermore, the very act of rape is both a form of selfish fulfillment and betrayal.

The film is made even more interesting by it’s creative mise-en-scène, with various visual elements constantly reminding both the viewer and Dawn of the presence of her toothed vagina e.g. there are teeth-like structures at the mouth of the cave where Dawn is raped by her lover, and images from 1950s creature-feature films are also employed. A nuclear plant also serves as the background of Dawn’s house, allowing the audience to question if Dawn’s deformity was the effect of nuclear radiation. After all, the government has censored the school science textbooks by placing a giant sticker on top of the anatomy of a vagina...

The touching and comedic performance of Jess Weixler as Dawn is also to be commended. Her character could have very easily been reduced to an unfocused mess due to the demands of the genre of the film, but Weixler handles the character with both a sense of humor and also a sensitivity towards the character’s predicaments. Director Lichtenstein proves himself to be not only a talented actor, but also a witty and supremely entertaining filmmaker with wicked ideas. One only hopes to see what else he comes up with next.

Lim Ling Chieh ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-17T13:51:20+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1249 The most asked question at any film festival is always: “What films have you seen so far?”

It’s a reasonable question, and of course the movies we see are important. But at any festival — and especially one as rich and multifaceted as the Berlinale — our experiences are as much defined by what goes on outside the films. To say that a festival is about more than movies isn’t to belittle cinema, or to imply that it’s all just an excuse for a week-long party. However, if we accept that films are not an end in themselves but rather a way of engaging with life, then surely film festivals exist for this purpose too: as a way of being with people and being in the world. Festivals can fail in this project just as dismally as films, of course; anyone who’s been to a party full of phony industry smiles and handshakes knows this all too well. But at their best they can be an expansion of the kind of exchange, stimulation and discovery I, for one, go to the movies for.

The Berlinale Talent Campus represents a particularly fine model of this kind of festival environment. I should admit I’ve seen a pretty paltry number of films this week. But the kind of extra-cinematic experiences I’ve had have been personally beneficial in a way that — and as a filmmaker who can’t see myself doing anything else for the rest of my life, I don’t say this lightly — cinema simply can’t provide. Now might be the time to admit: life is more important than film. Besides, like director Tom Noonan said, anything that helps you become a better person helps you become a better filmmaker.

In this context, we shouldn’t be stingy in our use of the word filmmaker. I was surprised to meet a few at this Campus who were reluctant to use the word for themselves — at least not without the tag “aspiring” or “wannabe” preceding it. Such reluctance implies that “filmmaker” is a title one is allowed to assume only at a certain point. But why? If you make films, you’re a filmmaker. In fact, I would go further: anyone who contributes to film culture is a filmmaker.

While writing and directing films and writing film criticism are distinct practices for me, they are both part of the same project. When I, or anyone, tries to understand a film and communicate that understanding, or tries to alert others to the work of a neglected director; these are filmmaking activities. And looking at the work of film curators in Berlin, such as Marc Siegel’s excellent “Underground/Übersee” series in this Berlinale, has convinced me that programming can be filmmaking too.

The exchange between all these related vocations that a film festival provides is invaluable. Even more so, the fact that these exchanges can be continued and sustained over the internet means that our ability to support each other has never been so great. One of the reasons, I think, that much of the best American cinema during the 1960s and 1970s is unheard of is that independent filmmakers of the time, such as Robert Kramer or Jon Jost, were working in isolation, with no ties or even knowledge of each other’s activities. And if such work could go unknown and undistributed in the USA, one can only imagine what work we might have missed from places like Africa or South America during this time.

There’s no reason for this to happen today.

What we have at our disposal now is the capacity to support each other and our filmmaking in ways never previously imagined—and this could change the more than just the films we go to see.

Donal Foreman ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-16T15:12:02+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1246 Based on a novel by Rom Leshem, BEAUFORT (Israel) revives the events that took place before Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. It touches on a very sensitive subject — the controversial, long-running war between Israel and Lebanon. The troops stationed at the isolated Beaufort stronghold are obliged to defend their position until the last moment before withdrawing. Fear grips these young people who are already war-weary. They witness their buddies’ bloody death and injury from a relentless aerial bombardment. Explosions occur almost at random. No one knows who will be the next victim of the bloodshed. They keep asking each other why they’re here and what they’re meant to be doing.

The central character is Liraz, a 22-year-old who enjoys his role as an army officer. This young commander is more mature – and more complex – than his age. He must remain resolved to hold the fortress until the final stages. Sometimes he looks cold and dumb. At one point he just stands looking at his injured buddy crying for help desperately amid the smoke of an explosion. Liraz is accused by one soldier of not being worthy as a commander, as the orders and the circumstances change without warning. The differing opinions on defence and withdrawal are also metaphors for political divisions in contemporary Israel.

The film offers a sharp reflection on the first Lebanon War that lasted eighteen years from 1982 to 2000. In attempting to follow their orders and seize Beaufort at any cost, many innocent young people sacrifice their lives for a mere mountain, for a government that values that mountain as a symbol of victory more than its children’s lives.

Director Joseph Cedar once served as an infantry soldier in Lebanon between 1987 and 1989. And he knows exactly how to film the action with some impressive camerawork. The film ends with the eventual blowing-up of the mountain while young soldiers stare silently at the fire. Ishai Adar does an excellent job where the sound is concerned, while the solemn and stirring music exerts a strong emotional impact in evoking the tragic atmosphere of the war.

Alice Wang ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-16T11:51:07+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/4/viewentry/1245 Rakesh Sharma is a leading Indian documentarist. His award-winning FINAL SOLUTION deals with the riots against Moslems that took place in Gujarat in 2002. He participated in this year’s Campus panel "Filming in the Eye of the Storm".

How does censorship work in India?

Rakesh Sharma: By law any film that has to be screened in public or sold must have clearance from the censor board. In India, the censor board is not self-regulated by the industry but run by the government. It’s directly controlled by the ministry of information and broadcasting, which has the power to cut entire sequences or scenes. I am against censorship per se because what it implies is that there’s a group of people - whether private, official, or governmental - who pretend to know what the rest of us should watch, and that affects our artistic freedom immensely.

You came up with a clever distribution technique named “Pirate & Circulate”. What was the idea behind it?

Rakesh Sharma: When my film FINAL SOLUTION was banned by the censor board, I had two choices: I could either go to court or I could fight it. Going to court is a very laborious process and can take up to three years. During those three years you’re only allowed underground screenings. I decided to fight the ban on a political as well as a legal level. I said to myself, if they want to bury my film I’ll make sure that my film actually gets seen by more people. With that in mind we ran many campaigns, one of them being “Pirate & Circulate”: people who promised to make five copies and screen the film got a free copy from me.

You are a founding member of the Indian film festival "Vikalp". What is this festival about?

Rakesh Sharma: "Vikalp" is a group of about 250 Indian documentary filmmakers who came together to fight censorship. In 2004 the Bombay International Film Festival rejected FINAL SOLUTION even before it went to the censor board. The festival also rejected several other political documentaries, even though they were not as directly political as mine, focusing rather on sexuality, gender or environmental questions. The festival committee said they were not selected because they were poor-quality films, but we knew exactly what was happening. So we formed a co-op and decided that on the same days as the main festival we would hold a “shadow” festival. We wanted the audience to evaluate the official festival and our alternative and see for themselves which films should have been selected or not. The response was tremendous. At present the "Vikalp" has several chapters throughout India. What started as a small protest became a big movement.

Does your political commitment overcome the fear of getting hurt, getting killed even, while shooting?

Rakesh Sharma: I wait for something to give me a gut feeling, and once it has a deep emotional impact on me, I have to tell it. I have to get desperate to tell a story.
When I was shooting FINAL SOLUTION I realised there would be problems with the local government, because the party responsible for the violence was in power. I got arrested once or twice but released almost two hours later. I’ve shot a lot under difficult conditions; you develop an instinct. You understand when something’s going to happen and you’re constantly alert to it. If you’re not afraid, people who want to frighten you get confused because they’re banking on your fear.

Sarah Stähli ]]> Interviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-16T11:21:40+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1244 Fiona and Grant have been married for forty years, living in their log cabin by the lake, skiing, making love and reading to each other by a log fire. It all seems quite perfect, until Fiona (Julie Christie) starts forgetting that the stuff in the bottle is called wine and puts the pans away in the freezer. Her forgetfulness is diagnosed as Alzheimers, and one day after losing her way home she decides to check into a "retirement facility". For the first time in their marriage, the couple faces a thirty-day separation. At the end of the month, when Grant (Gordon Pinsent) goes to see his wife he finds that not only has she forgotten him but has transferred her affections to another man.

Sarah Polley’s directorial debut AWAY FROM HER (Canada) is a skilled exploration of a couple dealing with past disappointments and selective remembrances. Grant turns out to have been unfaithful to Fiona with his former students and now has to wonder if her romance with the wheelchair bound Aubrey (Michael Murphy) is some sort of revenge. Where the film slips is in failing to exploit the immense scale of the notion of memory. There is something vast and immensely evocative in the idea of forgetting - of having the minutiae of our everyday lives, our loved ones and even our own selves obliterated deep inside our own heads. Polley reduces this potential drama to at best a metaphor and at most times a mere backdrop to the “condition” afflicting the couple. When Aubrey’s wife Marianne (Olympia Dukakis) withdraws him from the facility, Fiona is pushed into a depression. Grant has to draw on his reserves of love for his wife to redeem her man and in the process, himself.

There are moments of genuine emotion in the film, particularly in the shots of Grant watching his wife share the intimacy of everyday gestures with another man. There are also flashes of humour, as when Fiona pretends to forget what Grant is talking about before giggling naughtily, “Just kidding”. Polley’s political convictions shine through in a moment of delicious irony, when Fiona, watching television in the lounge of her institution, reacts to footage of the Iraq war by saying: “How could they forget Vietnam”?

Polley has managed to extract some good performances from her cast, including the wonderfully nuanced Olympia Dukakis in the role of the practical Marianne, hungry to extract some happiness out of life. The jarring note is struck in part by Christie, whose brief was clearly to impart grace and dignity to her character. This she does by talking in the kind of measured prose that may sound profound but is annoyingly unreal after a while. She looks the image of aging dignity, but I found myself wishing the couple would risk dislodging their stiff upper lips to display some real emotion.

AWAY FROM HER is an intelligent film, with Polley using the vast snow covered landscapes to mirror her character’s state of mind. It is also at times a very moving film, raising questions on the fundamental nature of love, forgiveness and letting go. It is unfortunate that the parts do not fall into place to create a satisfying whole, making it a somewhat forgettable experience.

Taran Khan ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T18:55:29+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1243 Interviewing a dull starlet with nothing to say must be the worst nightmare of every sophisticated journalist. Conversely, being interviewed by a sarcastic and incurious journalist is what every starlet dreads. Or is it really?

INTERVIEW, directed by Steve Buscemi who also plays the lead, is a remake of the film by the late Dutch polemic writer and director Theo van Gogh. The controversial filmmaker was assassinated in 2004 as a response to the film SUBMISSION: PART, which deals with the mistreatment of women in Islamic society. Buscemi’s feature is the first part of a trilogy of van Gogh’s films, all dealing with the “battle of the sexes”. The other two films will be directed by Stanley Tucci and Bob Balaban. The film, which is partly produced by van Gogh’s producer, was shot with three cameras in sequence during nine nights in New York.

Pierre Peters, an aging war correspondent, has to interview Katya, a young actress starring in soap operas and B-movies.
Katya arrives one hour late and on arrival is mostly concerned with ordering a ‘raspberry martini’ and answering her pink cell phone, which rings constantly. Pierre has obviously done no research whatsoever and reduces Katya to her affairs and breast surgery. “I know you mainly by your reputation,” he mocks. The meeting ends abruptly after a few minutes.

But what starts out as a catastrophic encounter develops into an intense verbal battle between two very different people. Just after they separate, the two happen to meet again and Pierre ends up in Katya’s luxurious apartment. After a few drinks they start talking openly to each other. They flirt, they argue, they hurt each other. That night anything could happen, a love story, a “surrogate-father-daughter-bonding” - as Katya calls it - or even a fight. Peters, who is still half hoping to make the interview happen, is torn between sympathy for the young woman and trying to get valuable gossip for his story. In the end, truth and fiction mingle. Is Peters really the brazen journalist he pretends to be? Is Katya only playing a character from one of her soaps?

INTERVIEW is an intimate, entertaining piece and the unexpected combination of Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller is intriguing to watch. Even so, the film only manages to achieve profoundness at certain moments. Still, this is probably Buscemi’s most mature role to date. He is absolutely believable as the disillusioned, clumsy, yet, in an odd sort of way, charming Peters.

Sarah Stähli ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T18:04:58+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1242 Even if some great filmmakers, such as the Dardenne brothers, choose to use no soundtrack at all in their films, music is still one of the most important things in cinema. A soundtrack can either save or ruin a film, which makes its concept a crucial moment for both directors and composers. Such is the importance of music for filmmaking that the Berlinale, together with Volkswagen, created a competition for young composers and sound designers as part of the Berlinale Talent Campus.

“Steering Emotions”, the panel that took place on the last day of activities at the Talent Campus dealt exactly with the importance of music in films and the works done by the three participants of this year’s Volkswagen Score Competition.

Moderated by film critic Peter Cowie. Canadian director Guy Maddin (whose THE BRAND UPON THE BRAIN is being screened in the Berlinale Forum) and Polish Oscar-winner composer Jan Kaczmarek (FINDING NEVERLAND) discussed the process of composing a soundtrack for a feature film, the importance of music to set the emotional tone of a scene and how directors and composers should work together since the beginning of production so as to get the best of this partnership (or as Maddin puts it, “marriage”).

Guy Maddin, for example, talked about his fondness for music as a way to approach viewers’ emotions, saying that he is not afraid of melodramatic ups and downs. Kaczmarek, in turn, emphasised the importance of close communication between the director and the composer, not necessarily in technical terms, but talking about the emotions and messages one would like to have pass through the film.

Afterwards, the three participants of this year’s competition – Titas Petrikis (Lithuania), Ilja Coric (Germany) and Costas Fotopoulos (England) – where called on stage and the public could see (and hear) for the first time the music they composed for the three different short films (an extract of an animation film, a short documentary and a 3-minute-sequence from FINDING NEVERLAND), a rare opportunity to see how three young composers have such different approaches to the same scenes.

I’ve had the opportunity to visit Talents during their works and to talk to them about the Score Competition. Even if there is a final prize (the winner of this competition will be invited by Dolby on a trip to Los Angeles to visit one of the best sound studios in the world), all of them consider themselves winners just to be able to work with Jan Kaczmarek as a mentor and to have the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg performing the music they wrote.

As for the outcome of this experience, they would all like to compose music for feature films in the near future. For now, the winner of this year’s Score Competition will be announced at the Closing Party of the Berlinale Talent Campus.

Leonardo Mecchi ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T17:28:36+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/4/viewentry/1241 Recently filmmakers got an innovative and powerful tool to promote their pieces: Web 2.0. Susan Buice, Arin Crumley and Lance Weiler showed participants of the workshop “An Indie Filmmaker’s Guide to the Internet. Online Distribution Case Study”, how to become well known while staying out of the official distribution circuit and yet make good money of it. Susan Buice and Arin Crumley with their film “Four Eyed Monsters” are hitting charts on MySpace in America. Basically they were taking care of every step of production themselves. Now they are organising screenings in the different cities all over the country.

“We build our audiences mainly through internet: on the MySpace- and YouTube-sites, for instance the trailer of the movie can be seen. It really works and that is thanks to the promotion tools you can get totally for free”. Everybody who thinks they are missing out on living celebrities’ lives and they would accept a proposal for official distribution is wrong.

“We have already been offered a distribution but we turned the proposal down after we made a fast calculation. The company wanted to give us 15,000 dollars for worldwide copyrights. We counted that we could get the same amount of money just by selling 750 DVDs through our website, so we took the risk”, declared Susan.

They built an entire net-society on their cinematographic project. Everybody can put the trailer of their movie on their own website, they also make podcast screenings and update them constantly. This way the message spreads all over the net: friends recommend their movie to friends; people are starting to buy DVDs. Today Susan and Arin have over a million visitors at their site and they've already got back the money they had invested.

“There’s so many interesting videos on the net. The problem is that you cannot find the way to them. That’s why promoting has so much importance. I think the whole Internet will be searchable in the future”, said Susan.
She also noticed: “We were told a few times by industry people at film festivals that the best films find distribution and that there’s nothing down there, what is not distributed and should be. They are obviously wrong. Really innovative, groundbreaking movies don’t get distribution. And that’s even better because directors will profit more from it, not the distributors.”

According to Arin, “Film industry has to be reinvented and it has to happen pretty much from ground up. Firstly, there are too many goalkeepers who don’t usually find your movie valuable. Also there’s no room for all the films because there aren't so many theatres. The final thing which is not right with film industry is that it is not fun. It just gets you down so that you cannot get to the public and you loose a lot of your energy through this. That’s why we decided to change it.”

Malwina Grochowska ]]> Interviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T17:16:24+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/4/viewentry/1234 Two years after riding pillion into the limelight with the iconic MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, Walter Salles returned to the Berlinale Talent Campus this week. The fifty-year-old director with boyish looks and a youthful passion for changing the world spoke to Talents about making films with a point of view.

What makes Latin American cinema so preoccupied with social-political issues, whereas similar themes are missing from bigger film producers like India?

Walter Salles: Unlike India, we cannot describe our system as a film
"industry". It is more of a group of independent directors and small producers making a few films every year. At the same time, television is present everywhere in Latin American countries and is very powerful. That is our main competition. So simply as a survival tactic, cinema has to offer things that haven’t already been seen on the small screen. That is really the definition of a political film - to show what hasn’t been seen before, to bring voices that haven’t been heard before - and that’s where it departs from the Indian system.

You search for a Latin American identity in MOTORCYCLE DIARIES…

Walter Salles: This identity is something that is very hard to explain but easy to experience. It is for example what we felt when the character of Ernesto (Che Guevara) sees Machu Picchu in Peru for the first time in the film. Our crew comprised of Argentinians, Brazilians, Chileans, Peruvians-yet we all felt on common ground there. You connect more to stories closer to your roots — I feel more of a bond with characters in Argentinian films than European ones.
Having said that, I also feel cinema is a powerful instrument to understand the Other. Films like the Apu trilogy by Satyajit Ray or Abbas Kiarostami’s work makes me feel very close to their characters. I feel their fears and laughter and passions are very similar to those in my part of the world-that really there is no distance at all.

Don’t such films often turn into propaganda pieces?

Walter Salles: Of course this approach can turn dogmatic, which is why it is important to approach a film as a question and not as an answer.
I don’t respond to documentaries where I feel I am being led to a pre-determined conclusion. If the director has all the answers, he should not make the film. But if I feel I am on a quest with the filmmaker, who is also searching-that interests me.

The news is that you’re going to be filming Jack Kerouac’s classic American tract "On the Road".

Walter Salles: The book is very important for my generation, so when (Francis Ford) Coppola approached me after MOTORCYCLE DIARIES I felt this may be the right time to do the film. Particularly because the book is all about experiencing life for yourself, doing things first hand. This was a time when it was all about experimenting and not fitting into the mould, whereas now I feel people tend to live their experiences vicariously through reality shows for instance.
But I didn’t feel ready to make this film, so I asked to do a documentary first to prepare myself. In that film we did the journey described in the book, interviewing the Beat poets and characters who are still alive along the way. So it is a documentary that searches for fiction.

Taran Khan ]]> Interviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T16:05:16+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1233 From the Argentine EL METODO to the Hollywoodian THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, passing through the French LE COUPERET, contemporary cinema seems to be getting more and more interested in business and the world of great corporations.

As different as their approach may be, however, there is a common theme in all of them: the more the characters develop and dive in this universe, the more they lose their souls and humanity. What these films seems to want to tell us is that, to be successful in the world of business, one must leave behind feelings such as compassion, modesty and affection.

YELLA (Germany) is not an exception in its portrait of a young woman who looks for a turn in her career after the end of a troubled relationship. Yella, the main character, leaves her ex-husband and her father behind in search of a job in the Western part of Germany (and this migration of the character from Eastern to Western Germany can’t help but to bring a political tone to the film). When she discovers that her promised job no longer exists, Yella ends up finding refuge in Philipp, an executive who specializes in negotiating high-risk loans.

Philipp hires Yella as his assistant, teaching her the tricks of the trade and how to find the client’s weak point (responsible for one of the few moments of comic relief in this otherwise very tense film). The more Yella gets involved with Philipp and their business, the more she gets professional and, consequently, dehumanized.

The daily life of these characters, as portrayed by director Christian Petzold, is composed basically of offices, hotel rooms and long car trips. A very impersonal and purely functional universe, where everything is build around business. Even personal relationships are dealt with as in a negotiation, with calculated words and lots of corporal language.

But there is also an obscure side to this story, something strange in the air that is always present thanks to the great use of sound and Nina Hoss’ performance, always kind of absent and dislocated from her surroundings. We know there is something else going on, but we don’t know exactly what, which rises the tension during projection and transforms what would be a film on the business universe in a kind of inexplicable suspense.

We discover that YELLA is build on an artifice, an information omitted to the viewer until the end. However, in contrast to so many other films that make use of similar expedients, Petzold manages to sustain his film beyond and despite this artifice, thanks to his economic but precise direction and cinematography and to the remarkable performance by Nina Hoss. That way, the final turning point ends up being almost a superfluous concession to this otherwise quite intriguing film.

Leonardo Mecchi ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T15:43:09+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1232 “This is a bit of an unusual position for me as a cinematographer,” says Slawomir Idziak, renowned Polish cinematographer and frequent collaborator of both Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Zanussi, as he stands in the spotlight. Thus begins his talk on the possibilities the future holds in collaborative filmmaking. Collaborative, you say? But isn’t filmmaking already a collaborative art with its crews of thousands? Hardly, according to Idziak. He believes that the creation of the cinematic arts can still be “more interactive, more creative.”

For aspiring filmmakers in Poland, the fate of their creative development as filmmakers can be incredibly daunting as 50% of students are expelled from Polish film schools after their second year. In my country, Singapore, film students suffer from these situations as well, though only 10% of students get kicked out of my film school and not 50%. Idziak believes that film schools “should be a place that allows for failure and experimentation.” His experience as a teacher at the Lodz has allowed Idziak to witness the pain and frustration of film students in their struggle to define who they are as artists and what they are capable of, which is, as he says, “an invitation towards disaster.” Students in film schools are trained to excel in specific production roles, not encouraging an understanding of each production role.

This is a situation that I will have no problem identifying with as I venture into my third and final year in film school. After three years, each student is expected to either participate in a short film production, which I chose, or work in the industry as an intern at film companies. However, each student is allowed to choose only one aspect of film production to study during the third year before actually participating in productions. I chose directing as my curriculum for next year, but I wanted to learn more about editing, cinematography and documentary production as well. Sure, we learnt about these in our first two years, but hardly in a sufficient manner that would make us efficient in these aspects of film production. That our job on each film production is designated according our selected curriculum, as a director, I wonder how I will be able to communicate with my fellow crew members effectively?

The ego of individual crew members supports their belief that they are singular artists. “Cinema is not a place for artists,” says Idziak, but rather for craftsmen. It is a belief of Idziak’s that a resolve to these predicaments is for film schools to give students the opportunity to take on different roles in film production to create an understanding of all aspects of film production. The process of pre-production, says Idziak, should be a sharing of a wealth of ideas coming from people working in all departments of filmmaking, preventing the "christmas tree" syndrome of having too much crew on set without purpose. This "christmas tree" syndrome is a common situation in the Singaporean film industry, with interns from my school frequently finding themselves working at film companies which require them to do nothing but serve coffee or buy lunch.

It is because of this that I initially thought of Idziak’s ideas to be unrealistic and foolish. Fortunately, “filmspring” says otherwise. It is a project he developed to get people from all over the world together to make films despite their cultural differences. The filmmakers could communicate with each other prior to production through the project’s website.

In a week’s time, I will be returning to Singapore to begin pre-production on my first short film. I will surely try to create a cohesive, collaborative environment for my fellow filmmakers.

Lim Ling Chieh ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T15:36:45+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1231 ALICE’S HOUSE (A CASA DE ALICE), a slowly developing family drama set in an unidentified North Brazilian city, demands some patience from the viewer at the beginning. The opening sequences forecast just another schematic, everyday life story about the lower class. But when the sick, patriarchic relationships between family members starts to be revealed, step by step without even noticing it, we become deeply involved in the characters’ lives. Chico Teixeira in his feature debut shows man-woman relations in a macho-society from a very original point of view.

Both the story and filmic language used are far from spectacular. A little sloppy camerawork often has a documentary feel. There are a lot of close-ups, but we can also see the depressive scenarios the family lives in: an ugly flat somewhere in the suburbs and the shabby beauty salon where Alice, the title character, works. Her husband, a middle-aged taxi driver, cheats on her with a teen girl, who’s at the same time pretending to be Alice’s friend. Three sons, all in the rebellion age, are connected with intensive love-hate relationships and make Alice’s house a place buzzing with testosterone. Making a mess all over the flat, watching television, fighting with each other, they stay in the middle of the action most of the time. Nevertheless the male characters serve just as a background for female ones in this movie. The person, to whom the viewer pays most attention, is the one standing in the shadows during the whole film. It’s the grandmother, who doing her chores, being treated as a servant by her grandchildren and son-in-law. Besides that, they want to get rid of her as she’s becoming blind. Her only pleasure is listening to a fortune-teller on the radio. She seems to be invisible for everybody except her daughter.

The director draws the connection between two women brilliantly. For instance, in one significant scene on the balcony, Alice smokes a cigarette and her mother just gives her this certain look. Nothing happens, but there’s more tension in this than in all the meaningless actions taken by the men. That’s because the viewer knows that Alice still hasn't discovered the fact that her husband has been having an affair and the grandmother knows about it already. When the final struggle between brothers takes place, Alice exhibits all her suppressed anger. Then she’s the one blamed and called “crazy” by her own child. After she moves out to her lover’s place, lying that she’s going abroad, her husband puts the grandmother in a nursing home.

Meanwhile the situation at the house becomes even more tense, because Alice starts an affair with the husband of one of her costumers. The sexuality shown in Teixeira’s movie strays far from hot-tempered-Brazilian’s cliché. There are not only two affairs, but also a gently drafted hint about one of the brothers’ homosexuality. Here, and also in some other cases, the director shows that quietly suggesting is one of his favorite methods of telling stories.

Anybody, who left the press screening before the movie finished (and there was quite a few of those), missed the most beautiful and touching scene. At the finale, the grandmother, left alone in the nursing home, at last succeeds in calling the radio fortune-teller. When she’s talking on the phone, this is the very first time we get to know her name. Earlier she was just a grandmother, a mother and a servant. In the last minutes of the film she turns out to be its most powerful character.

Malwina Grochowska ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T15:30:04+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1230 Sometimes, directors fantasize about getting even with critics that wrote bad reviews about their films. We know that because a few of them take it one step further and put these fantasies in the films. For instance M. Night Shyamalan created this horrible critic character and prepared a painful end for him in his latest film LADY IN THE WATER. Here is another idea for Mr. Shyamalan: put a critic in a theater with 1,000 children, fix the camera and let him/her watch the film and observe the process of watching or trying to write the review. I come up with this idea or rather nightmare due to personal experience.

The story begins this morning at the screening of LOTTE FROM GADGETVILLE (LEIUTAJAKULA LOTTE, Estonia, Latvia), an animation film for children. I mean only for children. It is like the kind of cartoons that were on Turkish TV (but I think it is international) on Saturday mornings ten years ago. We can even give a name as a clue: Scooby-Doo. The film was looking really old school as drawing and trying to encourage the children about science. There is no reason mention that no violence was involved. It is kind of difficult to talk about a plot or story but we try really hard. The setting of the story is a small town and there is a competition of new inventions that Lotte, our main character who is an energetic dog, is involved.

The target audience of the film was children as you can conclude from my experience of watching the film with 1,000 of them. Although it is said that the film was for children five years upwards my observation was contrary. The seven-year-old that was sitting beside me rolled her eyes all the time and showed signs of being really bored. Nevertheless, the four-year-old on the other side was enthusiastic about the film. So now you have a clear picture of the audience. What about if you are a parent taking your children to this film? We might add that this is the only possibility for you to watch the film. No grown-up could see it willingly. Well, here is a solution for parents: just swallow a sleeping pill.

Nil Kural ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T15:18:36+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1229 Are short films an independent art form or primarily a springboard for feature films? Is "YouTube" the enemy of short film distribution or a helpful promotion tool? These and other questions were discussed at the Campus panel “Short Waves” yesterday afternoon.

Irish filmmaker Ken Wardrop’s short film, UNDRESSING MY MOTHER, has travelled around the world. It has proved a success, even though the film does not have the usual funny punch line, but instead a rather disturbing element to it. Still, it is a festival regular and has received several awards over the years. After winning these prizes, “the film took on a life of its own and has been doing the work itself,” according to the director. Wardrop is convinced that short films constitute a form in their own right. He compares them to short stories, which are also classified as an independent genre. Furthermore, he doesn’t necessarily see short films as a prelude to making feature films. Wardrop, currently at work on a full-length film, is overwhelmed by the task: “It’s a completely different beast”.

The other filmmaker on the panel was London-based Ralitza Petrova, originally from Bulgaria. Ralitza’s film credits include making music videos for WARP Records. Her film ROTTEN APPLES – being screened in this year’s Berlinale Short Film Competition - is a mysterious, poetic piece told from the perspective of a little boy. Petrova is interested in unorthodox narrative forms and highly sceptical of rules imposed in the film business. “Forget Robert McKee and all that bullshit, don’t listen too much to the big guys. Look at the films that have been released in recent years. Hollywood’s tired.”

Phil Ilson curates the Halloween Short Film Festival, held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. Ilson likes the idea of showing films in non-cinema locations, in music clubs and art centres – “lively places, where it’s possible for bands to play in between screenings.” He appreciates the online-explosion happening right now with "MySpace", "YouTube" etc. but firmly believes that bringing people together at a festival is still much the better option for watching films.

More business-oriented aspects were brought into the discussion by independent producer Deepak Nayar (THE WALKER). He is a founding member of the platform "filmaka.com" which gives upcoming filmmakers the possibility to participate in competitions and get instant feedback from professionals. “The internet changed the face of entertainment,” he emphasises, and stresses that filmmakers should use the media for what it is for. “You can discover films on ‘MySpace’ and get in touch with the director straight away.” At the same time he is worried about the unfocused content spreading across the net. He sees short films as a great means of ascertaining the things that matter when making a feature.

Astrid Kühl, managing director of the Short Film Agency in Hamburg and moderator of the discussion, said in summing up that no recipe for an outstanding short film exists, and underlined the general feeling that seeing short films on a big screen in a cinema remains the best way of appreciating this form.

Sarah Stähli ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T15:00:55+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1228 The date: February 14. The time: four o’clock in the afternoon. The place: HAU 1. A panel entitled “Film’s Future Lab” has just finished. This is also my last event during the Campus week. Soon the Talents will be going their separate ways. I turn off my recorder and browse my notebook. During the “Film’s Future Lab” discussion, the MySpace.com website has been frequently mentioned, so I thought, why not invite different Talents to “my space” to have a chat about the Campus programme this year?

Iranian director Sadaf Ahmadi is enrolled in the Garage Studio section. She thinks the Campus is really cool. “It’s my first year here. Everything’s going fine. You can get to know a lot of people. You may have the opportunity to make a film, to work with an international crew, and think about your colleagues’ advice and opinions.”

Actor Chiakuei Chen’s favourite event has been the casting workshop, “We’ll Get Back to You.” “It teaches me how to prepare personal information,” he notes, “and how to look for a suitable agency.” Meanwhile he also gives some serious constructive advice. “I want to learn more. The workshops for actors aren’t enough, maybe it’s because there are not many actors at the Campus. And I also think people should make up a team and practice doing something every day, rather than only attending the workshop.”

Nuria Figueras, a script writer from Spain, believes that all the workshops are very useful. “They are very practical. Because at the workshop, you can learn so much from just a few people.” Neus Olle, a cinematographer originally from Spain and now living in London, is happy that the Campus provides her with the chance to meet a lot of people. “It’s good because at any one time a lot of things are going on,” she says.

“I liked the event ‘Your Right to Music’”, says Ayn Marie Dimaya, a composer from the Philippines. “It advises us to learn how to get music legally. Because in the Philippines, most students usually don’t know how to do the music properly in the movie, what should be used and what shouldn’t be used.” In recent days, she has made quite a few friends from Singapore, Sri Lanka, and other South Asian countries… “We share stories from our individual countries. It’s fun.”

Turkish script-writer Berna Gencal appreciated the “Pitch” workshop. “It gave me some good suggestions about how to tell my stories.” The interview with Walter Salles by Peter Cowie also left a deep impression on her. “I liked both Salles and what was said during the interview.”

The intensive week has proved substantial, challenging and packed with interest. So far, so good, where the Campus is concerned.

The Talents all seem to be chasing a personal dream, and do so with love and commitment. If they’re lucky, they can pursue their personal rainbow with people they have met at the Campus. So although it’s not clear as to who will achieve his or her dream, or indeed what that dream exactly is, at least everyone knows where the rainbow is, and at least they’re all together under the skies of Berlin.

Alice Wang ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T14:45:32+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/9/viewentry/1227 Day 5 at the Berlinale Talent Campus: being on eyelevel with a sparkling future lab of burning tales fixed in the edit. ]]> About Us Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T14:05:08+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1226 What do an animator, a MySpace.com PR representative and an experimental filmmaker have in common? Those who went to the “Film’s Future Lab” panel discussion yesterday discovered the answer: not a whole lot. Intended to be a debate on “the coexistence of ‘traditional’ and ‘new media’”, the event was unfortunately a rather confused affair in which none of the panelists had anything to say to each other and frequently, nothing really to say about the topic at hand.

Animator-director Michael Arias admitted straight off that what he was going to say may not have any bearing on the future of media — and although his animation technique of combining traditional hand-drawn images with 3D technology was interesting, it did, like he said, have no bearing on the future of media. The MySpace rep plugged his bosses’ new project, “the world’s first user-generated feature film”. The film’s director, script, cast and crew are going to be selected from the MySpace community and the film will be developed interactively with the wider MySpace “public”. Finally, experimental filmmaker Graham Weinbren kicked off by explaining how he’s always asked to take part in talks about the “future of cinema”, but since he’s not a fortune-teller, he always just talks about the present instead.

Weinbren’s work involves new technology, it isn’t engaged in the internet — meaning that the only “connected” member of the panel was a spokesperson for one of the largest corporations in the world. For a discussion on the future of cinema, this is either very cynical or very dumb.

Weinbren also made the point in his presentation that, when it comes to new technology, we should keep in mind that the corporations who make them usually have a hidden agenda. Whether he made this statement with a conscious nod towards the Rupert Murdoch employee across the stage or not, it no doubt has implications for MySpace’s feature film project. What’s most remarkable about the initiative is this tag of “first user-generated feature”. Apart from the fact that it is obviously MySpace who are generating the project, this claim ignores the fact that “users” are making films everyday — including feature films. To suggest that they need corporate approval to make their work both insults them and distorts the democratic nature of the internet. Of course, it makes sense for Murdoch, in line with the “if you can’t beat’em, make them join you” philosophy that has led, for example, to the widespread co-opting of independent film into Hollywood.

The irony of all this rather uninspired discussion was that, elsewhere in the Campus, these issues were being tackled with far more acuity — albeit under a different name. The excellent “Indie Filmmaker’s Guide to the Internet” workshops that have run for most of this week have looked at the growing potential of marketing, distributing and screening films through the internet. Yesterday, filmmakers Susan Buice and Arin Crumley discussed their feature film FOUR-EYED MONSTERS, and how they’ve been able successfully connect directly to an audience—without the need for middle-men. Sorry, Rupert.

Donal Foreman ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T13:29:18+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1225 THE HALFMOON FILES (Germany) is the kind of documentary that demands concentration and attention from its viewers; we may even say a full dedication all its viewing time. At the end of the film, the story becomes kind of clear but until the end the spectator must try really hard to solve the puzzle of the story.

Eventually, film’s director Philip Scheffner is chasing a ghost from a recording. The recording is a part of the German archives and of an Indian who was a prisoner at a camp near Berlin during World War I. He and his friends were at war for the English and were capured by the Germans. This summarises the story but it is not so easy to figure out since the structure of the film is really complex and this chaos is created probably parallel to the director’s research process.

In the first scene, we hear a man trying to get permission to shoot in India and he says it’s a ghost movie. We figure out that this man we heard is the director. Afterwards, we hear the voiceover of an Indian man talking with the leaves on the background. It is followed by the image of an empty room with shelves. This image and monologue make no sense at all and the spectator is confused like the filmmaker chasing a ghost by researching a story. The confusion grows since the director made the choice of giving more importance to sound than images. Some scenes in the film is just black screen and these parts add up to nearly thirty minutes and a voice over accompanies the black screen. This makes sense if we consider that Scheffner’s starting point was a recording so he gives his audience just sound to find their way. If you protest by saying cinema is a visual art form, tough luck so you better forget about images when you see this film. Also, many different languages are spoken in the film: Hindi, German and English. Also, at some points, voices of narrators speaking different languages, overlap. So this makes the viewing experience ever harder.

At the end of the film, if you find the strength to complete the story in your head, you have an interesting experience. Because the film invites you to get completely lost and find your way out by listening, not seeing, carefully. So we were inside the head of a documentary maker researching a story for one and a half hour. Is this film a political documentary? Yes, you may even add that it is making connections with the politics of today and clearly showing the background of Germany before World War II. But it is hard to find the energy to think about the political points of the film while you are watching it and afterwards you really do not want to. The film belongs to the group of new documentaries becoming so complicated in form and narration that the story they are telling loses its importance, experimental documentary we may say.

Nil Kural ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-15T12:45:31+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/3/viewentry/1222 Sonja Heiss’ HOTEL VERY WELCOME (Germany) is an appropriate film to experience while part of the otherworldliness of the Berlinale Talent Campus. The film weaves together the experiences of five very different European tourists in Asia: Joshua and Adam, two young English guys on a drinking holiday in Thailand; Liam, an Irishman exploring India; Marion, a German woman taking part in an Indian meditation camp for Westerners, and finally Svenja, who, stuck in a hotel room in Bangkok, develops a phone relationship with a Thai travel agent despite barely being able to communicate with him.

In its exploration of the issues of identity and communication that emerge when in a foreign country, HOTEL makes an interesting comparison with LOST IN TRANSLATION (Sofia Coppola, USA). The most apparent difference between the two films is that while LOST deals with characters whose reason for traveling is business (and whose relationship, and subsequent growth, occurs inadvertently), HOTEL is about characters actively seeking something: escape, peace, connection or just a good time. Additionally, while LOST’s characters are mainly influenced by each other, with Tokyo merely serving as an appropriate backdrop, the drama of HOTEL is in the way that the characters are influenced by and interact with their environment.

However, the film’s form is such that the word drama may not at first seem like an appropriate one. Shot in remarkably warm and sensual video, on location in Thailand and India, it’s at times so naturalistic as to feel like a travelogue. The minutae of each character’s trip are acutely observed: from idle airport lounge chitchat to running for trains to hotel showers that won’t work, and the extent to which scenes are scripted or planned (clearly most of the supporting cast are non-actors) is mostly indecipherable.

This documentary-like approach means that scenes, and the film in total, aren’t structured in an obviously narrative way. But the film’s narrative is subtle rather than insubstantial. The different threads (most of which do not intersect with each other) are intercut in a way that serves to compare, contrast and raise questions about the different ways the characters exist outside of their own culture, and what they try to get out of it. This is a tactic that, handled any broader, could result in hamfisted point-making. But, treated in this delicate way, it manages to be incisive in its description (the English lager louts in particular are painfully accurate) — and yet balanced enough to remain ambiguous (the portrayal of the Indian meditation camp, for example, manages to imply the weaknesses of such a place without mocking or degrading it).

What emerges out of all this is a provocative image of what it means to travel, why we do it and how our culture coexists with others when we do. Is Liam the Irishman romanticizing when he says to his guide in the desert that it’s “the perfect place to think”? Is Marion’s wish to “find herself” in India misguided or admirable? Is there any link between the two Englishmen’s disconnection from each other and their lack of engagement with the culture they’re visiting?

Ultimately these questions exist not to be answered, but to be applied to our own lives. And for the filmmakers from 100 different cultures currently interacting at the Berlinale Talent Campus, they’re certainly timely ones.

Donal Foreman ]]> Reviews Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-14T19:21:20+01:00 http://www.talentpress.org/home/2/viewentry/1220 As a film critic from a country almost isolated due to its language (Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country in Latin America and so we don't have a full-bodied correspondence with our fellows Latin critics), a programme like the Talent Press is a one-time opportunity to learn first-hand about both film criticism and national cinematographies in other countries. Having so many cultural backgrounds involved in the programme (Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, China, India, Ireland and Singapore) only enhances the experience even more.

The first thing that came to my attention during conversations with my colleagues is the fact that, no matter how far away and different our countries are, we have pretty much the same problems as far as cinema is concerned, such as the reduced space for serious film criticism in the traditional media, predominance of Hollywood productions in movie theaters in detriment to the local production (to which India, with it's huge Bollywood cinema industry producing over 700 films annually, is obviously an exception), the necessity of pirate copies as the only way to get access to some of the greatest filmmakers nowadays (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Jia Zhangke were some of the names mentioned in this matter).

It was curious for me to observe that the situation is not very different in Europe. On the contrary, Brazil seems to have a slight advantage, according to my colleagues, of being the country where internet has strongly developed itself as an alternative space regarding both film circulation and critical reflection on cinema.

Another rare opportunity an event such as the Berlinale Talent Campus gives us is the possibility of a closer relationship with young filmmakers, both from our countries and abroad. Usually, film critics and filmmakers are separated by mutual suspicion and mistrust. During the Berlinale, however, we are able to watch films together and discuss cinema during lunch. When both sides stop seeing each other as enemies and start seeing how close our interests and passions are, what was previously seen as a taboo relationship now proves to be a quite promising one. As a matter of fact, some of my co-workers in Brazil are already making both film and criticism, following what is already a tradition in France.

So far here at the Berlinale, I've already being handled DVDs with films from several directors eager to have their works analyzed and even some scripts from filmmakers who would like a professional opinion on their projects even before they start being produced. It's true that this poses new issues to the film critic/filmmaker relationship, as this proximity can make it harder for a film critic to have an impartial opinion on the work of some directors. But that’s something both sides will have to learn how to deal with because, in the end, the gains are much bigger than the losses. For both sides and for cinema as a whole.

Leonardo Mecchi ]]> Features Oliver Baumgarten 2007-02-14T16:21:01+01:00