FESTIVALS
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(1) Istanbul International Film Festival 2006
A QUARTER of a century old, Istanbul International Film Festival (April 1-16, 2006) has come a long way. The galas, the distinguished guests – no less than Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu – special screenings, celebrations, homages, tributes, documentaries, films from the world film festivals, Turkish cinema, human rights and freedom to women sections, and last but not the least, the competition. In Istanbul, you can find more sections than the total number of films shown in some festivals. Then again, this is a festival that wears several hats: a film festival that tries to bring the best of the latest to its discerning audience; a showcase that aims at displaying the most recent crop of Turkish cinema to the foreign guests; and a two-week long cinematheque for the film lovers, trying to fill the gap left when the city's cinematheque was closed many years ago by one of the cuntas and never re-opened.
The opening film of this year was Merry Christmas by Christian Carion, a France-Germany-UK- Belgium-Romania co-production inspired by an actual event from WWI, which sounds more fiction than fact. In the hands of Carion, who used his filmic licence rather liberally, it rolled more like a fairy tale. After all, what would you call it when men broken by war are trembling in the ditches in their overcoats, a beautiful blond woman sings her heart out in a sheer little garment, oblivious to the sub-zero temperature! Cynicism aside, this is a war film that touches the hearts of many and when violence is raging everywhere around us, it gives hope to the hopeful to see enemies shaking hands because it is Christmas.
In the international competition section, films on themes of arts and artists or adaptations from literary works competed for the Golden Tulip. A delightful work in this section was Kan shang qu hen mei (Little Red Flowers) by talented sixth generation director, Zhang Yuan. Based on a novel by Wang Shuo, entitled Could be Beautiful, this wonderful film told the story of a precocious little boy left alone in a boarding school where individuality has to be restrained for "one's own good." The time is ripe for such "education" as the Communist Revolution has just settled in, but little Qiang is too bright to be a plain conformist.
The competition for Turkish cinema displayed a wide range of films that could not give a reasonable idea to the foreign guests as to the direction Turkish cinema has taken. There were as many styles and stands as there were films, and local opinion differed rather sharply from the foreign one. Hacivat karagöz neden öldürüldü? (Killing the Shadow) by Ezel Akay was the favourite of the local critics but most foreigners missed the point amidst all the seemingly unnecessary screaming. Dondurmam kaymak (Ice Cream, I Scream) did not leave much impression either although we've learned later that it was chosen as Turkey's entry to the Oscars.
Mustafa Altoklar is an important filmmaker in his own right although most of the time, he catches the attention of the local press by simply being "mediatic" as they call him. His Beyza'nin kadnlar (Shattered Soul) was shot meticulously and had it possessed a more balanced and plausible script, it could have been a successful experiment of a little explored genre in contemporary Turkish cinema-crime thriller. Furthermore, the identity question, which seems to be at the core of the narrative, could have given the film a definite socio-political dimension had it been exploited more deeply and this would have brought the film to another level, more in tune with the present Turkish reality. Instead, the protagonists' different personalities – good housewife, sex maniac, selfless schoolteacher, religious fundamentalist, etc etc- were left up in the air and did not lead to a coherent thought process.
Iki genç kz (Two Girls) by prolific Kutlug Ataman has made the rounds of many festivals before being shown in this festival. It is a vibrant, poignant coming of age story involving two girls – one from a traditional family from the outskirts of town and the other from a fractured family uptown. But this is not a poor kid, rich kid story, as neither is rich. However, the values of their environments are different. The excellent music by Turkish pop group Replicas, the performances of the two girls and particularly Hülya Avar's performance as the childlike mother of the uptown girl are remarkable. The film catches some foreigners off-guard who think Turkey is a rural country where all women cover themselves and adhere to the dictates of Islam. They wonder if the lifestyles depicted in the film reflect the reality. After all, how can Muslim girls be so free, or even "promiscuous" as one critic commented. For those weaned on socially committed rural dramas when it comes to so-called "developing world" cinema, Two Girls is an eye-opener, and there is nothing exaggerated about it.
One film in this section left a strong impression on the foreign audience. Be vakit Times and Winds) by Reha Erdem. This is one director who is not afraid to try different genres and different subject matters but it is not very hard to find a running thread through his films, or a prominent theme such as humanity and the pains of being a human being in a rapidly changing world. Daily life in a little village is structured around the five prayer times and three children are captured by the flow of time. There is pain but each pain gives the strength to cling to life evermore. A moving film that handles its subject in a subtle way.
In the same section, Babam ve Olum (My Father and Son) by Çaan Irmak was one of those three-handkerchief films although local audience gave it full support. At the core of the film is the military coup of 1980 and its pains but an earnest confrontation with this painful history has not happened yet in Turkish cinema. Now and then filmmakers pick up the subject but turn around it in such an abstract way that those who are not familiar with this dark spot in Turkish history are perplexed to say the least.
As the films in various international sections of the festival have already been shown elsewhere and have been written about extensively, perhaps it is more reasonable to continue the voyage with the Turkish films and take a look at the section, "Award Winning Turkish Films of 25 Years." A gem from Atf Ylmaz, the master of masters who passed away in May leaving behind countless films, Bir yudum sevgi (A Taste of Love, 1984) celebrates women with choices. It is the eighties and feminism has finally arrived in Turkey and one cannot expect less from Atf Bey, affectionately called "the director of women"s films'. In another Atf Ylmaz gem, Ad Vasfiye (Her Name is Vasfiye, 1986), four men who have played an important role in her life describe one woman-woman as seen from man's point of view. Amansz Yol (Desperate Road, 1985), Anayurt Oteli (Motherland Hotel, 1986), Gizli yüz (Secret Face) and Akrebin yolculuu (Journey of the Clockhand, 1997) from the only true "auteur" of Turkish cinema, Ömer Kavur, who also passed away not long ago; Mays sknts (Clouds of May, 1999) and Uzak (Distant, 2002), by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Turkish Tarkovsky according to many critics. These are only a handful of Turkish films that have made their mark over the last twenty-five years.
Last but not the least was an important tribute to an important figure, Erden Kral, with screenings of not only Hakkâride Bir Mevsim (A Season in Hakkâri, 1983) and Mav Sürgün (The Blue Exile, 1993), but also a rare piece, Ayna (The Mirror, 1984), which holds the mirror to the inner world of a young peasant woman torn between duty and desire.
AWARDS
- Golden Tulip
A Cock and Bull Story by Michael Winterbottom - FIPRESCI Award
- International Competition
A Cock and Bull Story by Michael Winterbottom - National Competition
Times and Winds by Reha Erdem - National Competition
Best Turkish film
Times and Winds by Reha Erdem - Best Director Kutlug Ataman for Two Girls
(2) Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2006
"This year we have reason to celebrate two anniversaries," reflected Eva Zaoralová, artistic director of the 41st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (20 June-8 July 2006). "It was exactly 110 years ago, on 15 July 1896, that this famous spa town first set eyes on the Lumière brothers' invention and, fifty years later, the first postwar summer of 1946 saw the launch of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), back then also held in the neighbouring town of Mariánské Láznì (aka Marienbad)." Indeed, had not Karlovy Vary been forced by FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) rules to alternate with Moscow for the A-Competition summer festival slot during the socialist era, then Eva Zaoralová and KVIFF president Jiøí Barto¹ka might well be celebrating the spa festival's 60th anniversary. And that would make Karlovy Vary-Mariánské Láznì one year older than Cannes!
Karlovy Vary, widely recognized by cineastes and festivaliers as one of the top events on the festival calendar, benefited mightily some years back when its tandem directors chose to bypass the specious glamour of other key festivals to place all their chips instead on films by promising independents and veteran directors from Central and Eastern Europe. In turn, the program has been fatten out with several award winners at Cannes, Berlin, and Venice. No wonder, then, that hundreds of young film fans backpack each summer to Karlovy Vary to devour six films a day, soak up spa concerts and rock bands, and sleep off the revelry in the parks if need be.
Some film professionals are also known to book their rooms at the Grand Hotel Pupp and other five-star hotels a year in advance, while newcomers marvel at the courtesies showered on them at restored inns and renovated guest houses. This year's balmy weather, of course, made Karlovy Vary all the more enjoyable. The rock-band concert by the popular "Festival Band" – spearheaded by Sofia's Stefan "Kita" Kitanov, Warsaw's Stefan Laudyn, and Karlovy Vary's own Stefan Ulrik – was a rousing, standing-room-only affair at an outdoor midnight gathering.
You could find anything and everything to your taste among the 266 entries from 63 countries at this year's KVIFF. The categories alone hinted of a veritable feast of quality auteur cinema in 21 different sections: Feature Film Competition, Documentary Competition, East of the West Competition, Official Selection Out-of-Competition, Documentary Films Out of Competition, Special Events, Tribute to Jan Nìmec, Horizons, Another View, Forum of Independents, Variety Critics' Choice, Czech Films 2005-2006, Sundance at Karlovy Vary, Sundance Documentary Fund, Celluloid Dreams Presents Matthew Barney, Visions of Seven – Youth Through the Eyes of French Filmmakers, Focus on British Films, Tribute to John Huston, Tribute to Martin Holly, Midnight Screenings, and Treasures from the National Film Archive.
Personally, I was pleased to see that veteran Czech director Jan Nìmec was not forgotten. Film historians credit his Démanty noci (Diamonds in the Night, Czechoslovakia, 1964), the story of two boys escaping from a transport train during the Second World War and surviving in a forest on their wits, as one of the key films of the Czech New Wave. A year later, he directed the equally important O slavnosti a hostech (The Party and Its Guests, Czechoslovakia, 1966), a political parable on the mechanism of power as mirrored in positions taken by prominent guests invited to a mysterious dinner party by an unknown host. Later, during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Jan Nìmec secretly filmed the resistance among the Czech population, smuggled the footage out of the country, and had the material edited into Oratorium pro Prahu (Oratorium for Prague, 1968) for foreign television stations with Variety critic Gene Moskowitz speaking the commentary. His highly critical short film subsequently banned, Nìmec was blacklisted and in 1974 forced to leave the country to work in Sweden and West Germany. At KVIFF 2006 Nìmec presented his new experimental film, Toyen, a homage to a woman painter with the pseudonym Toyen (1902-1980), who had hid poet Jindøich Heisler in her bizarre flat in the Prague suburb of ®i¾kov during the war. More of a fictional, avant-garde mesh of images and associations than a factual documentary on the surrealist painter, Toyen was well received at Karlovy Vary and deserves further exposure on the international festival circuit.
Karlovy Vary opened with Kim Ki-duk's Shi gan (Time, Korea), the rather bizarre story of a young wife in a happy marriage, who nonetheless fears that her husband might one day tire of her face, so she opts for plastic surgery to remake herself into a "new woman" – with foreseeable complications. A regular at KVIFF, Kim Ki-duk was honoured in 2002 with a retrospective tribute and has returned faithfully with a new film each year ever since. The festival closed with Debbie Isittová's delightful Confetti (UK) – a comic fiction-documentary about three young British couples aching to win "the most original wedding of the year" awarded by a fictitious "Confetti" magazine. Since each couple has a different hangup – Hollywood nuts, tennis buffs, nudist lovers – it adds to the goofy merriment.
Karlovy Vary 2006 hit pay-dirt by inviting the prestigious Sundance Film Festival to present past award winners, both features and documentaries, from the festival archive. This tip-of-the-hat paid off on awards night, when Laurie Collyer's Sherrybaby (USA), the hit of the Sundance festival last January, was awarded the Crystal Globe, while the film's lead actress, Maggie Gyllenhaal, received the prize for Best Actress. As much heart-rending melodrama as it is hard-hitting rehabilitation documentary, Sherrybaby chronicles the efforts of a young mother to win back the affections of her little daughter upon being released from prison for drug abuse. Family intrigues over who should have care of the sensitive young daughter eventually upset the apple-cart just when Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal) seems to be getting a new hold on her life.
Jan Høebejk's Kráska v nesnázích (Beauty in Trouble, Czech Republic) was awarded a share of the Special Jury Prize. Inspired by one of Robert Graves's sad love poems with the same title (his poetry is generally regarded as among the finest produced in the English language during the 20th century), Beauty in Trouble sketches the dilemma of a young wife and mother (Ana Geislerová) torn between two loves – on the one side for her beloved but luckless husband, on the other for an elegant Czech-Italian gentleman who can offer security for herself and her two children: her dilemma is heightened even more when family members interfere. A finely crafted social drama, this is the sixth time that director Jan Høebejk has collaborated with screenwriter Petr Jarchovský and cameraman Jan Malíø on the team's favourite theme of love and redemption as interpreted in a typical Czech community and played out against traditional Czech mores. "My people are all first class professionals," said Jan Høebejk in an interview. "I don't see any reason why I should change any of them when they are a huge advantage to me."
The other half of the Special Jury Award went to Ivan Cherkelov and Vassil Zhivkov's Obarnata elha (Christmas Tree Upside Down, Bulgaria-Germany), a touching omnibus tale linking six different stories around the theme of a towering spruce tree cut down in the mountains to serve as Sofia's community Christmas Tree. As the festive holiday approaches, young and old protagonists in each of the stories are faced with the question of the meaning of life, and how they can come to terms with loneliness, disappointments, and bitter twists of fate. Seldom has a Bulgarian feature film taken the pulse of a post-socialist society that is still wrestling with social and political forces that have turned their lives "upside down."
Other entries that deserve mention for documented historical content were Alexander Rogozhkin's Peregon (Transit, Russia) and Ensieh Shah-Hosseini's Shab bekheir farmandeh (Goodbye Life, Iran). In Alexander Rogozhkin's Transit the setting is Chukotka (aka Chukchi) in northeastern Siberia in 1942 at the height of the Second World War. As the story goes, the Soviet Union, short of aircraft, collaborated with the United States on an unusual lend-lease program that brought old fighter planes across the Bering Strait to be "repainted" with red stars for Soviet war use. All well and good, save for the exaggeration that the Yank pilots flying from Alaska happen to be women aviators! In Ensieh Shah-Hosseini's Goodbye Life the period is the opening salvo of the Iraq-Iran War in 1980-82, when the fronts changed hands in a bloody and bewildering maze of suffering and death. The terrors of the war are seen through the eyes of a woman reporter who has gone to the battlefield for a curious and puzzling personal reason: as a fragile individual prone to suicide, she uses the war experience as a form of questionable "psychotherapy"! All the same, the devastation on the landscape reaped by the war with Iraq – a taboo theme in Iranian cinema until only recently – is clearly visible in Goodbye Life, a conscientious film that deserves further festival exposure.
The Documentary Competition was one of strongest in recent memory. In the over 30-minute category the prize was shared by Timo Novotny's Life in Loops – A Megacities RMX (Austria) and Juan Carlos Rulfo's En el hoyo (In the Pit, Mexico), documentaries that appeared to be two sides of the same coin. As the title hints, Timo Novotny's Life in Loops is a "remix" of passages taken from Michael Glawogger's award-winning Megacities (Austria, 1988), an eye-catching portrait of teaming life in four great cities: Bombay, New York, Moscow, and Mexico. And Juan Carlos Rulfo's In the Pit, awarded the top prize in the World Documentary Competition at this year's Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the everyday of workers as they go about the risky task of constructing a freeway in Mexico City. In the under 30-minute category the prize went to Andreas Horváth's Views of a Retired Night Porter (Austria), an updated profile of the same watchdog porter who had epitomized the malevolence of communist surveillance in Krzysztof Kie¶lowski's classic documentary Z punktu widzenia nocnego portiera (Night Porter's Point of View, Poland, 1977). Guess what? Despite all that's happened over the past 30 years, the old watchdog still adheres to the misguided methods of the good old days!
As for my own preference in the Documentary Competition, I was particularly taken by Sergei Loznica's powerful Blokada (Blockade, Russia). The first film to document the 900-day blockade of Leningrad that began on 8 September 1941 and lasted until 1 March 1944, Blockade portraits the sufferings and deaths of more than a million inhabitants in mute images without dialogue or commentary. Only street sounds are added to animate the footage with appropriate undertones. Running at 52 minutes, the film was edited and reassembled from approximately four hours of film footage made available to Sergei Loznica from a Russian film archive. "There is much more footage still to be found in the archive, said Loznica in an interview. "But this was all I was allowed to see and use." Two other documentaries impressed for their authenticity as chronicles of life and times among a people with rich cultural traditions. In Marko ©kop's Iné svety (Other Worlds, Slovakia-Czech Republic) the focus is on the East Slovak village of Saris, where communities of Ruthenians, Gypsies, and Jews live peacefully side by side. The film deservedly received a Special Mention from the international jury. And in Harutyan Khachatyan's Poeti veradardze (Return of the Poet, Armenia) the story of Jivany, a legendary itinerant poet-balladeer who lived at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, is rendered in a poetic context. When a sculptor has finished his monumental tribute to the poet, he mounts it on a truck and travels from Yerevan to Jivany's birthplace. Along this surreal odyssey from the present into the past, the local populace sing the poet's traditional texts against a mystical landscape.
Several films in the East of the West Competition (a forum for films from Central and Eastern Europe) could easily have contended for top awards at Karlovy Vary had they not already done so at other international film festivals. Among these was Alexei Gherman Jr's Garpastum (old Latin for Ball Game, Russia), a haunting sketch of pre-World War One days that opens with a fascinating scene of young Serb anarchist Gavrilo Princip on his way to assassinate Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Another was Yury Moroz's Tochka (The Spot, Russia), a hard-hitting documentary about the miserable lot shared by three Moscow street prostitutes under the severe hand of pimps and cops. Also, Nurbek Egen's Sunduk predkov (The Wedding Chest, Kirgizstan-Russia-France-Germany) won critical praise as a quaint comedy about a naive young man returning home from Paris to his native Kirgiz village with a French girlfriend on his arm – only to discover that his mother has already prepared the wedding chest for his marriage to a native girl of her choice.
The Prize for Best Film was awarded to Milena Andonova's Maimuni prez zimata (Monkeys in Winter, Bulgaria-Germany), an interwoven tale about the fate of three pregnant women in three different decades – the 1960s, the 1980s, and the 2000s. A film that also accurately mirrors the country's social and political conditions during those times, Monkeys in Winter features fine acting performances by Bonka Ilieva-Boni, Diana Dobreva, and Angelina Slavova in the respective stories. It should be added that director Milena Andonova, along with her producer Nevena Andonova, are daughters of the late Metodi Andonov, whose Kozijat rog (The Goat Horn, 1972) still ranks as the greatest box office hit in the history of Bulgarian cinema. By an odd coincidence the Special Mentions in East of the West were given to films with similar themes. In Szabolcs Hajdu's Feher tenyer (White Palms, Hungary) a one-time gymnast prodigy returns to Budapest from Canada to compete again in a tournament – and find himself. And in Oleg Novkoviæ's Sutra ujutru (Tomorrow Morning, Serbia & Montenegro) a man returns from Canada to Belgrade to celebrate his wedding with family and friends – only to experience a world of contradictions.
One entry in East of the West should not be missed, but don't let its odd title confuse you. Corneliu Porumboiu's A fost sau n-a fost? (12:08 East of Bucharest, aka Did It Happen or Not?, Romania). [More on this film in my Cannes Sidebars report in this issue.]
Following the close of the Karlovy Vary film festival, a selection of Central and Eastern European entries were programmed from July 9 to 19 in two Prague venues, the Aero and the Svìtozor, under the title "Echoes of the 41st KVIFF." The series included Alexander Rogozhkin's Transit (Russia), Andrzej Baranski's Several People, Little Time (Poland), Alexei Gherman Jr's Garpastum (Russia), Milena Andonova's Monkeys in Winter (Bulgaria), and Ode to Joy (Poland) by the directorial trio of Anna Kazejakova-Dawidova, Jan Komasa, and Maciej Migas. Thus Karlovy Vary is expanding its mission to guarantee Czech exhibition of key festival entries from neighbouring countries as well.
AWARDS
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
- Crystal Globe – Grand Prix
Sherrybaby (USA), dir Laurie Collyer - Special Jury Prize – ex aequo
Kráska v nesnázích (Beauty in Trouble, Czech Republic), dir Jan Høebejk
Obarnata elha (Christmas Tree Upside Down, Bulgaria-Germany), dir Ivan Cherkelov, Vassil Zhivkov - Best Director
Joachim Trier, Reprise (Norway) - Best Actress
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sherrybaby (USA), dir Laurie Collyer - Best Actor
Andrzej Hudziak, Pare osob, maly czas (Several People, Little Time, Poland), dir Andrzej Baranski - Special Mention
L'enfant d'une autre (This Girl Is Mine, France), dir Virginie Wagon
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
- Best Long Documentary – ex aequo
Life in Loops (A Megacities RMX, Austria), dir Timo Novotny
En el hoyo (In the Pit, Mexico), dir Juan Carlos Rulfo - Best Short Documentary
Views of a Retired Night Porter (Austria), dir Andreas Horváth - Special Mention
Iné svety (Other Worlds, Slovakia-Czech Republic), dir Marko ©kop
EAST OF THE WEST COMPETITION
- Best Film
Maimuni prez zimata (Monkeys in Winter, Bulgaria-Germany), dir Milena Andonova - Special Mention – ex aequo
Feher tenyer (White Palms, Hungary), dir Szabolcs Hajdu
Sutra ujutru (Tomorrow Morning, Serbia & Montenegro), dir Oleg Novkoviæ
NON-STATUTORY AWARDS
- International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize
Valkoinen kaupunki (Frozen City, Finland), dir Aku Louhimies - Ecumenical Prize
El destino (Destiny, Argentina-Spain), dir Miguel Pereira - Don Quixote Prize (FICC – International Federation of Film Clubs)
Reprise (Norway), dir Joachim Trier - Special Mention
Shab bekheir farmandeh (Goodbye Life, Iran), dir Ensieh Shah-Hosseini - Czech Television Award – Independent Camera Prize
– Forum of Independents
Play (Chile-Argentina), dir Alicia Scherson - Právo Audience Award
Iné svety (Other Worlds, Slovakia-Czech Republic), dir Marko ©kop - Awards for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema
Jan Nìmec, Czech Republic
Andy Garcia, USA
Robert Shaye, USA
(3) Cinefan New Delhi Festival 2006
When I asked an informed critic for an opinion as to which was the most important film festival in India today, he named Osian's Cinefan in a close tie with the Trivandrum International Film Festival – with the caveat, of course, that Cinefan in New Delhi primarily presents Asian cinema, while Trivandrum (aka Triruvananthapuram, to use the official name) in Kerala opens its doors wide to international film fare. As for the long-running International Film Festival in India (IFFI), a government-sponsored affair based in Goa for the past couple of years, I was told that it ranked third at best, although a larger attendance was recorded last year. In other words, Goa, a resort city populated mostly by tourists from home and abroad, has had to work hard to attract a movie-mad Indian public from across the country.
Two other festivals were also thrown into the melee: Kolkata (Calcutta) and Mumbai (Bombay), both feeding upon major production centres with long traditions for supporting auteur directors. Some other Indian film festivals were named in passing – the Mumbai International Festival of Documentaries, Shorts, and Animation Films, for instance. And there's also a growing film festival in Pune, where the country's National Film Archive and National Film School are located.
Under the tireless leadership of Osian's Neville Tuli (founder-chairman) and Cinefan's Aruna Vasudev (founder-director), the 8th Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema in New Delhi (14-23 July 2006) set new standards of Asian cinema excellence. "For six years I have built Osian's with a relatively clear vision," said Neville Tuli. "Recently Osian's became the proud owners of Minerva cinema in Mumbai, the site of what is about to become the 'Osianama,' a unique integrated arts and film institution." And he added: "Hopefully this time next year Osian's-Cinefan will be simultaneously functioning in Delhi and Mumbai, itself a major integrating step forward." To this end, Indian filmmaker Mani Kaul has joined Osian's as creative director for the new film house at Osianama.
Aruna Vasudev, too, feels that Osian's-Cinefan is growing by leaps and bounds. "In the eight years since the launching of our festival, Osian's-Cinefan has undergone sweeping changes – from 20 films in 1999 as Cinefan, the Cinemaya Festival of Asian Cinema, to 120 films now as Osian's-Cinefan." And she emphasized that "along the way we have added a competition for Indian cinema and, most importantly, IBM2 – the Infrastructure Building for Minds and Markets covering a multitude of events, from the Talent Campus to seminars and Round Tables, debates and panel discussions on a range of subjects, to exhibitions of popular and fine arts, and an auction of Film Memorabilia."
This year's 215-page catalogue, accurate down to the finest detail, offered credits, synopses, bio-filmographies, past awards, comments, and directorial notes on the 120 films from 30 countries in the program. Four international juries were summoned for the Asian Competition, Indian Competition, NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema), and FIPRESCI (International Critics). Most of the screenings at the triple-screen Siri Fort complex and the adjunct at the Alliance Française were sell-outs. Cinemaya's Latika Padgaonkar organized a two-day international media roundtable titled "Beyond Cinema" with such leading critics of Asian cinema as France's Max Tessier and Britain's Tony Rayns. One of the master classes at the Talent Campus, courtesy of the Berlinale and the Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe-Institut) in India, featured eminent French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière – whose book, In Search of the Mahabharata – Notes of Travels in India with Peter Brook, 1982-1985, had been translated into English by Aruna Vasudev. Filmmakers, critics, and guests were quartered comfortably at the Imperial Hotel and the Taj Mahal.
Besides the Asian and Indian Competitions, the festival program embraced a wide range of Asian cinema under some rather teasing title: Asian Frescoes (awarded Asian films of the past couple seasons), Indian Osean (new Indian productions), Arabesque (Arab cinema), Cross-Cultural Encounters (how Western countries treat Asian themes), The Middle Path: A Focus on Buddhism (classic and recent films on Buddhism), In-Tolerance (wars in the Near East and Southeast Asia), Special Screenings (eg the world premiere of a directorial debut by renown Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah), Stanley Kwan Retrospective (moderated by British critic Tony Rayns), Ritwik Ghatak Retrospective (to commemorate the Bengal director's 80th birthday), and New Theatres Retrospective (legendary Calcutta production company launched in 1931). To top it all off, Taiwan's Peggy Chiao was honoured with the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to Asian cinema as author, critic, screenwriter, and producer. For many, Peggy Chiao was, and is, the backbone of New Taiwan Cinema.
Osian's-Cinefan 8 opened with the world premiere of Pan Nalin's Valley of Flowers (India-France-Japan-Germany), a folkloric tale about bandits and bounty hunters that spans two centuries from the days of the Silk Road to the early 19th century. This "Eastern" is particularly noteworthy for its splendid shots of the Himalayan mountain passes. The festival closed with one of the finest comedies ever to emerge from Iran: Jafar Panahi's Offside.
The setting is a soccer game at overcrowded Azadi Stadium in Tehran – not just any soccer game, for Iran is battling Bahrain in a key match to qualify for the World Cup in Germany. Six dauntless Iranian girls use their wits and disguises to enter the stadium as boys, hoping that their assortment of caps, dress, pennants, and painted faces will squeeze them by the guards at the gate. One even dons a soldier's uniform, an indiscretion that could easily lead to family disgrace and a jail sentence. The girls never get to see the game – instead, they are placed "offside" in a pen under the guard of a friendly soldier who wants to watch the game as badly as they do. The rest is an ongoing dialogue between the girls and the guards about the whys and wherefores for forbidding women to enter a soccer stadium in the first place. Illogical answers to logical questions can bring howls of laughter.
A packed house for the world premiere of Naseeruddin Shah's Yun hot toh kya hota? (What If?) was a foregone conclusion. And, indeed, the popular Indian actor has directed another moving memorial to victims of the 9/11 airlines hijacking. Placing Indian passengers in the foreground of the tragedy – just as Paul Greengrass's United 93 (USA-UK) fictionalized what might have happened on the hijacked 9/11 United Airlines flight that crashed into a field instead of the intended White House – Naseeruddin Shah focuses on the fates of four individuals from different social backgrounds who connect with a flight in Boston while on their way from India to separate destinies in the States. Of the four narratives the one that tugs at the emotions the most is the story of a young girl who, thanks to a long-lost father she has just come to know, joins his amateur folkloric troupe on a tour of American cities. One scene in the film is a standout: when the troupe appears at an American Consulate to obtain their collective visas, they spontaneously burst into an hilarious improvised performance of their song-and-dance routines. Stateside Indian-American audiences will love it!
Jeffrey Jeturian's Kubrador (The Bet Collector, Philippines) was awarded Best Asian Film. For three days we follow Amelita (Gina Pareno), an aging woman bet collector, who makes her living on the streets of Manila by working the numbers racket. Called jueteng, the illegal numbers game dates from as far back as the Spanish colonial period. Since Amelita depends on jueteng for her livelihood, and her customers wouldn't have it any other way, she is not at all taken back by a police arrest. The next day, she's back on her numbers beat again. Gina Pareno's loose, hands-on performance in this docu-drama won her the Best Actress award. And, in a first of its kind, The Bet Collector, already the recipient of the International Critics (FIPRESCI) Award at the Moscow film festival in June, was voted the FIPRESCI Award again at New Delhi. If nothing else, the double-whammy guarantees further festival exposure and possibly an arthouse release.
By coincidence, Kutlug Ataman's Iki genc kiz (Two Girls, Turkey), awarded the Special Jury Prize at New Delhi, had also been awarded amply over the past year at Turkish festivals in Istanbul, Antalya, and Ankara. The story of two rebellious teenagers in Istanbul – one is the daughter of an attractive woman-of-the-world, the other is a waif from the outskirts – they meet at shopping malls and hip corners of the city with no other aim in life than to escape from their drab family milieu. Two Girls is the kind of film that disturbs, for the troubles mutually faced by the girls at home and on the street are all too familiar.
A similar "city film" in the Indian Competition, Subrato Sen's Bibar (Calcutta, Unabashed), merited Best Actor and Best Actress for, respectively, Subrat Dutta and Tannishtha Chatterjee. Based on a novel with the same title, Calcutta, Unabashed exposes the soft underbelly of the fast-moving financial world, where bribes and corruption are the order of the day. Stripped of a traditional family ethic and a coherent moral code, a young go-getter in a finance company compromises whatever his values he has left in his carefree life when he meets a high-class call-girl and then takes to drinking to wash away his guilt. The traditional code is also at the core of Ramachandra RN's Suddha (The Cleansing Rites), awarded Best Indian Film. The story of family in a provincial Karnataka village of South India, tensions surface among the relatives when a decision has to be made in regard to the ritual burial on a grand scale of the grandmother of once-powerful landowning gentry. Who should perform the rites? Who is to pay for the funeral? And what to do afterwards with a decaying estate that none of the descendants want to look after? As confirmed by many attending the Osian's-Cinefan festival, these are questions all too familiar in a modern-day India still chained to a feudal past.
The NETPAC Award went to Khongdej Jaturanrassamee's Cherm (Midnight My Love, Thailand) "for its warm and humorous approach to an interpersonal relationship as interpreted by two outstanding acting performances." Programmed in the Asian Frescoes section, Midnight My Love comes across as a tongue-in-cheek, deadpan, slapstick-style melodrama about a lonely middle-aged taxi driver taken by the charms of a bar-girl who dreams of opening a bridal shop one day. Letters written by the taxi-driver to a DJ on a radio station that plays old-time hits blend with dream sequences on both sides. A low-key film, Midnight My Love deftly teases and tickles the emotions.
Another film in the Asian Frescoes program that impressed was Hur Jin-Ho's Wae chul (April Snow, Korea). Hur Jin-Ho's string of tragic love stories have already rendered him auteur status in South Korean cinema. His Christmas in August (1998), the story of a police woman in love with a photographer afflicted with a terminal illness that he tries to hide, was a hit at the Korean box office and on the international festival circuit. So, too, was his One Fine Spring Day (2001), the bittersweet story about a sound recording engineer hopelessly in love with an anchor-woman at a local TV station. In April Snow a car crash leaves two lovers in a coma, a situation that proves quite embarrassing to both spouses when they are called to the hospital. Gradually, however, the betrayed husband and wife get to know each other, enough to appreciate the twist of fate that has brought them together – only to part when one crash victim recovers and the other does not.
As for the best Asian film on view at Osian's-Cinefan, my vote goes to Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Iklimler (Climates, Turkey). [More on this film in my Cannes report in this issue.]
In the retrospective honouring Ritwik Ghatak (1925-1976) were seven films by this Marxist thinker and revolutionary filmmaker. Ajantrik (Pathetic Fallacy, 1958), Bari theke paliye (The Runaway, 1959), Meghe dhaka tara (The Cloud-Capped Star, 1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat, 1961), Subarnarekha (note: the name of a river, 1962), Titas ekti nadir naam (A River Named Titas, 1973), and Jukti takko aar gappo (Arguments and a Story, 1974), an overlooked contemporary of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak's central theme was the partition of Bengal. One of the films in the retro brought back memories.
Back in January of 1988, while on a six-week trip through India, I paid a visit to Ritwik Ghatak's modest studio on a backstreet in Calcutta at the invitation of his son. There, on the white-washed wall of the studio, he projected a worn and scratchy print of The Cloud-Capped Star. The story of the sacrifices made by the eldest daughter of a refugee family from East Bengal, as they struggle for survival on the outskirts of an overcrowded city, I have never forgotten that projection until this day. As Satyajit Ray once stated, "Ritwik was one of the few truly original talents in the cinema this country has produced." Hopefully, the Ritwik Ghatak retro will find its way abroad.
AWARDS
Asian Competition
- Best Film:
Kubrador (The Bet Collector, Philippines), dir Jeffrey Jeturian - Special Jury Prize:
Iki genc kiz (Two Girls, Turkey), dir Kutlug Ataman - Special Mentions:
Ontarjatra (Homeland, Bangladesh), dir Tareque and Catherine Masud
Gu lian hua (Love's Lone Flower, Taiwan), dir Tsao Jui-Yuan - Best Actress:
Gina Pareno, Kubrador (The Bet Collector, Philippines), dir Jeffrey Jeturian - Best Actor
No award given
Indian Competition
- Best Film:
Suddha (The Cleansing Rites), dir Ramachandra PN - Special Jury Prize:
Nayi Neralu (In the Shadow of the Dog), dir Girish Kasaravalli - Best Actor:
Subrat Dutta, Bibar (Calcutta, Unabashed), dir Subrato Sen - Best Actress:
Tannishtha Chatterjee, Bibar (Calcutta, Unabashed), dir Subrato Sen
- FIPRESCI (International Critics) Award
Kubrador (The Bet Collector, Philippines), dir Jeffrey Jeturian - NETPAC Award (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema):
Cherm (Midnight My Love, Thailand), dir Khongdej Jaturanrassamee - Lifetime Achievement Award
Author-critic-producer Peggy Chiao Hsiung-ping (Taiwan)
(4) Montreal World Film Festival 2006
Amidst speculations as to its presence and particularly its future, Montreal World Film Festival (24 Aug-4 Sept, 2006) opened the curtain with optimism and pride to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Gone were the star-studded days, lavish parties and long queues in front of the theatres, but the aficionados were still there, rain or shine, and the program, true to its commitment, was diverse and explorative, with evident partiality to the lesser known cinemas.
Over two hundred features from at least 76 countries – from Haiti to Afghanistan with a good dose of French films – stirred up the curiosity of the public habitually fed on Hollywood products. The multi-ethnic and multi-cultural make-up of Montreal was evident in the diversity of the languages spoken in the corridors, especially in the way many people were trying to see a film from their own country that perhaps would cure their nostalgia in a dark room on a wide screen. The abundance of films from Iran, for instance, almost turned the corridors of the Quartier Latin multiplex into a social club and the Chinese, Indian or Latin American Montrealers were just as enthusiastic for the short voyage back home without emptying the purse.
Among the 22 films in competing for the Grand Prix of the Americas, US films were conspicuously absent. Canada was represented by one film, Stéphane Lapointe's The Secret Life of Happy People, which was also the closing film of the festival. Chinese filmmaker Dai Sijie's The Chinese Botanist's Daughter, set in the 1980s China was co-produced with France and Canada.
Notable Bengali filmmaker Goutam Ghose's latest film Yatra (The Journey) evoked the Mughal glories that inspired many splendid films depicting the kotha, where sophisticated dancers indulged with men of means. Set in two parallel time zones, the film graciously moved the spectator back and forth- from dream to reality – in a very subjective way. Despite its irreproachable qualities, however, The Journey failed to engage the audience; the casting was not appropriate and the pieces somehow did not connect.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf packed up his Makhmalbaf Film House in Tehran sometime ago to seek brighter futures where he can breathe the fresh air of freedom. However, this move has not been beneficial to his craft. His Sex and Philosophy, shot in Tajikistan did not deliver what was expected and Shaere Zobale-ha, (Scream of the Ants) which he shot in India – from Rajasthan to Varanasi – does not justify its existence.
A young couple from Iran (the man speaks English with a French accent and utters some French sentences now and then, which even surprises his wife, but not the audience who knows that it is a French co-production), travel to India to search for the Perfect Man. Now and then, there are tirades (and lectures) about Hinduism which are naive, as are the shots of the funeral rites beside the Ganges river. When I saw this film earlier in New Delhi with an Indian audience, I admired their patience for not having walked out after the first ten minutes.
A crowd pleaser was a film from Japan, Naga Sango (A Long Walk) by Eiji Okuda about a doomed friendship between an embittered old man and an equally embittered child abused by her imbalanced mother and her violent boyfriend. Evidently, it was not an easy role to play for a five year old girl and it is a mystery how the director extracted such performance from her. Her presence at the festival certainly heightened emotions and led to some cynical comments concerning the attention the film received.
From China, Snow in the Wind by Yang Yazhou was about cinema and life in a remote corner of northwest China. The talented director's previous film, Loach is also a Fish was also shown in the festival in the World Cinema section.
From Canada, Hunt Hoe's horror comedy, First Bite, starring David La Haye was shown in Out of Competition along with Lonely Hearts (US) by Todd Robinson starring John Travolta and Salma Hayek.
In the Focus on the World Cinema section Iki genc kiz (Two Girls) by Kutlug Ataman from Turkey (please see my review of Istanbul); from the Czech Republic Vìra Chytilová's Hezké chvilky bez záruky (Pleasant Moments); from the US, Just Like the Son by Morgan J. Freeman were some of the other noteworthy entries.
In the Documentaries section, Montrealer Phyllis Katrapani's poetic essay, Within Reach, in seven parts explored the relationship between people, objects and memory, and the artist. A house one moves into that carries the traces of a family friend who is no more; a little child who navigates her way in a big world by trial and error – incessantly trying to button her jacket; people who leave their home to search for a different life in a new country who carry objects from home as if memory is not reliable – a ring, an alumni book, few grains of earth from hometown; eyes that speak without words. With her previous Ithaca and Home Within Reach somehow completes the "home" trilogy, somewhat settling the accounts (interrogations) of the director or those others born in a country different from their parents' origins, who try to attribute a meaning to their special identity.
During this 30th anniversary, the festival paid tribute to Quebec actor Rémy Girard with the screening of The Decline of the American Empire (Denys Arcand, 1986), Kalamazoo (Marc-André Forcier, 1988), In the Belly of the Dragon (Yves Simoneau, 1989) and The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand, 2003); to French actress Bulle Ogier; Swiss actor Bruno Ganz and Kiyoshi Atsumi, the Japanese actor with "Tora-san" reputation.
Egyptian Shadi Abdel Salam's Al-Mummia (The Night of Counting the Years,1969) was shown as a "re-discovered classic."
The closing night the defiant and no-less-than-triumphant Serge Losique, the eternal president of the festival announced the dates of the next year's festival. With the loss of the sponsorships from main governmental organizations – Telefilm Canada, Sodex, etc.- the last two years have been stressful. But as far as he was concerned, it was business as usual.
AWARDS
- The Grand Prix of the Americas ex aequo
Naga Sango (A Long Walk, Japan), dir Eiji Okuda
O Maior Amor du monde (The Greatest Love of All, Brazil), dir Carlos Diegues - Special Prize of the Jury
Snow in the Wind (China), dir Yang Yazhou - Best Director
Hans Petter Moland (Norway), for Comrade Pederson - Best artistic contribution
Guy Dufaux (France-Canada) for Dai Sijie's The Chinese Botanist's Daughter - Best Actress
Ni Ping (China) in Snow in the Wind by Yang Yazhou - Best Actor
Filip Peeters (Belgium-Spain) in Hell in Tangier , dir Frank van Mechelen - Best Script
Warchild (Germany-Slovenia), dir Christian Wagner - FIPRESCI and Ecumenical Jury
Naga Sango (A Long Walk, Japan), dir Eiji Okuda - Most Popular Canadian Film and Public Prize
Dai Sijie's The Chinese Botanist's Daughter (France-Canada) - First Prize for Short Film
Revolution (Belgium), dir Xavier Diskeuve - Jury prize for Short Film
Checkpoint, dir. Ben Phelps
(5) Toronto International Film Festival 2006
North America's largest film festival came and went with some 350 films for its 31st edition. Toronto's prominence has as much to do with it being Hollywood's choice of setting for its fall product launches as it does with its time-sensitive obligation to introduce the currency of world cinema to domestic theatrical markets. This year however, films endowed with prestigious budgets or prizes failed to garner general favour. Here are notes on ten titles deemed too unfamiliar by a mainstream media fixated on familiarity:
2:37 (Murali K. Thalluri, Australia 2006) – In a stunning debut, a director just past his teenage years injects the high school coming-of-age genre with a subversive dose of adrenaline. Opening with the discovery of a suicide in a school but without revealing the deceased, 2:37 peels away in flashback and introduces several characters all in various extremities of growing pains. Who then will die at their own hands? Conceived as a radically different whodunit, Thalluri's chronological and narrative rhythms are exceptional, and although dotted by some aching overplay, this amateur ensemble is otherwise first-rate.
Belle toujours (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal-France 2006) – More an inspired experiment than a "sequel," Belle toujours follows where Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour left off 39 years ago. Michel Piccoli reprises the rapacious Henri Husson, but Bulle Ogier replaces Catherine Deneuve's Séverine. After reuniting by chance in Paris, Husson learns that Séverine has abandoned her deviant past for a life of seclusion. But for her, the question of whether he had divulged her secret still haunts her bitterly. Too respectful of Buñuel to provide 'the' answer, De Oliveira gleefully teases this issue instead, and allows the resulting joke to fall squarely on one obvious party.
The Bet Collector (Jeffrey Jeturian, The Philippines 2006) – The popular but illegal Philippine pastime of jueteng (a lottery where two sets of numbers are wagered) underpins the story of a bet collector who earns her keep by nibbling on the meager commissions of her syndicate. Thinly disguised as social commentary (the opening titles preface that jueteng kickbacks have allegedly enriched the former and current presidents), Jeturian's eye trains on the pawns inhabiting the lower echelons of the game. Gina Pareño's performance as the kubrador provides a captivating study of the dilemmas that this social habit generates.
Bliss (Sheng Zhimin, China 2006) – A rewarding experience awaits the patient viewer of this quiet observation of a Chongqing family fractured by circumstance – when the ashes of a retiree's estranged first wife are sent to him long after he has remarried. Although the effect is muted, the upheaval on both his families is no less distressing. Disguised as a brooding essay on mortality and existential anxieties, episodic scrutiny of individual characters culminates in a fuller, more satisfying portrait. Chongqing, doused in perpetual mist, offers a compelling metaphor for the miasma-like quality of tensions that are always simmering but never quite erupt.
Exiled (Johnnie To, HK-China 2006) – Johnnie To can charm after all. After tedious attempts at cops-and-robbers escapades in PTU and Breaking News, To scores solid footing in the triad underworld with his hat trick of Election, Election 2, and now, Exiled. Easily a spin-off from The Mission, it centres on two pairs of chummy hit men who clash between killing an associate on orders and saving him on affinity. Endlessly stylised, coupled with a compelling mix of drollness and melancholy, Exiled returns home a winner. Richie Ren's hilarious cameo completes a gifted ensemble fronted by Francis Ng, Anthony Wong, and Simon Yam.
Half Moon (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran-Iraq-Austria-France 2006) – To fulfill a long-standing aspiration, a retired Kurdish musician is determined to travel between the Iranian and Iraqi borders of Kurdistan to perform at a concert. Despite being granted official permission, the odds standing in his way include a clairvoyant's advice against the journey and a desire to smuggle a woman across the border – an exiled singer whose celestial voice the musician believes is crucial to the performance. Poignant and sublime, Ghobadi uses lyrical allegory to question the relevance of national borders and its grievous effect on Kurdish culture. Predictably, Half Moon has been banned in Iran.
Jindabyne (Ray Lawrence, Australia 2006) – A hard question in ethics moors Ray Lawrence's introspective study of this eponymous town up in arms after a group of men discover the body of a young girl during a fishing trip but decide not to immediately report the news. What they deem as inculpable in defence is quickly countered by a huge communal backlash: the police and their wives are incensed at their lack of mortification, while the victim's kin and supporters allege racism. Laura Linney excels as the town's only individual committed to righting her husband's (Gabriel Byrne) wrong.
Opera Jawa (Garin Nugroho, Indonesia-Austria 2006) – A very different spin on the musical genre, Opera Jawa unites the expertise of practitioners of Javanese dance, music and theatre alongside contemporary installation and performance artists as they perform Nugroho's adaptation of "The Abduction of Sinta" from the Ramayana, which recounts the epic tragedy of a love triangle. Each set of choreographed performances is entrancing, as is the sonorous gamelan orchestra that underscores the intricate blend of song and movement. Billed as "A Cinema Requiem," Opera Jawa uses Indonesia's multicultural specificity as a plea for universal pacifism.
Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand-France-Austria 2006) – "Incomprehensibility" is a term denoting either passive abuse or active affection levelled at Apichatpong's films. His latest is without exception. Its Thai title translating as "Light of the Century," the film is an examination of architectural space as it relates to personal memory, with the central characters inspired by Apichatpong's parents, who as doctors, raised him in hospitals. Two segments unfold congruently, where each is set in a hospital. Although both share similar characters and proceedings, they ultimately differ metaphysically. The film's antiseptic feel is perhaps not coincidental, wherein a chilling ambiance figures prominently.
When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, USA 2006) – Spike Lee's dirge in tribute of what was reportedly a natural disaster doubles as his redoubtable indictment of George Bush's administration for mishandling Hurricane Katrina. Challenging mainstream narratives, Lee's interviewees, both directly and indirectly affected, allege that the cataclysm could have been avoided had New Orleans' infrastructure benefited from solid government supervision. Unfortunately, this festering neglect would set the stage for a domino effect following the deadly deluge, with accusations against the government for being oppressive, racist, and worst, indifferent to the swelling plight – charges Lee credibly puts forth cases for.
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Last edit 14 January 2007 - kinema@watarts.uwaterloo.ca