Previewing the 2007 Mardi Gras Film Festival

The 2007 Mardi Gras Season in Sydney features a month of queer arts, sporting and social events culminating in the world famous Parade and Party. Orginally a spontaneous gay rights demonstration, the parade now ranks with Rio and Venice as one of the largest street carnivals in the world.

For the fourteenth year, the event also includes the Mardi Gras film festival, the largest gay, lesbian and transgender cinema showcase in the Southern Hemisphere. Running February 15th to March 1st, the festival screens over 200 films in 75 sessions covering this year's three themes: perversion, subversion and reversion.

From where I'm sitting, it seems the line-up can be roughly divided into high-quality world cinema and borderline exploitative b-movies and low-budgeters.

The latter seem to sell-out even when they're real stinkers. Queer audiences, like every other audience, need to see their culture, lifestyle and identities reflected back to them on the big screen. But how many films in the multiplex really do that? People are ready to line-up and pay for the priviledge, and until this thirst is quenched with enough year-round cultural output to enable discerning critical choices, the stinkers are guaranteed their slot in the official selection.



All you can eat...

Not that there's anything wrong with trashy entertainment or bronzed six-packs, and if that's what you're after, Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds - starring and Boy Culture are your first ports of call.

I saw Q. Allan Brocka's Boy Culture at the Melbourne Film Festival last year. It's out in selected American cities on March 23rd. This slick Seattle-set romantic comedy follows the trials and tribulations of three flatmates who take a while to realize they're a love triangle. The cynical voice-over is often quite funny, which makes up somewhat for a rather uninventive screenplay and uneven tone.

Q. Allan Brocka also directed the first Eating Out, which owes its success mostly to the eye candy on display and its exploitation exploration of the stereotypical gay male fantasy which consists in turning the hot straight buddy. If you didn't get your fill the first time around, don't miss Sloppy Seconds...

Proving that queer cinema can laugh about itself is Todd Stephens' Another Gay Movie, or as it's often called, the gay American Pie (I thought American Pie was pretty gay myself but...). This over-the-top low-budget comedy attempts to disguise its rather sappy coming-of-age story under layers upon layers of tongue-in-cheek raunch. Not that the heteronormative romantic comedy doesn't need redefining, but really, where's John Waters when you need him?



THE WORLD ON A PLATTER

Thanks to the pink dollar, many of these easy-on-the-eyes genre flicks will end up on DVD. Where the Festival truly excels is in its quest to bring to the screen those foreign films not likely to get distribution here.

I've already written about Whole New Thing, a superbly-written Canadian coming-of-age indie which deserves a wider audience.

Here's a few I'm really looking forward to:

• I loved the award-winning A Thousand Clouds of Peace, from Mexican writer-director Julián Hernández. His follow up, Broken Sky, comes across as more accessible without losing the minimalist style, sparse dialogue and stunning photography.
• No Regrets was a surprise hit in Korea, an emblematic of the country's progressive embrace of independent and specialty cinema. This first feature directed by an out Korean director is a well-acted love story between a poor student supplementing his income in a gay bar and a closeted conservative client.
• Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson headline The Dying Gaul, a psychological thriller by Craig Lucas.

From Manila with Love

I'm very curious about Filipino cinema at the moment, and I'm thrilled that the program includes a few new titles from our Asian neighbours.

• Stray Cats (Mga Pusang Gala) charts two parallel love stories. Marta, a middle-aged advertising executive, won't commit to her boyfriend Steven, while her gay friend and landlord, Boyet is equally reluctant to commit to his young stud.
• Mel Chionglo's Twilight Dancers in a sensuous and impressionistic portrait of male dancers in Manila bars, his third in a trilogy (Midnight Dancers, Burlesk King) in what appears to be a whole genre created by Lino Brocka with the 1988 hit Macho Dancer.
• Summer Heat (Kaleldo) is the follow up to Brillante Mendoza's festival hit The Masseur, and chonicles a summer in the life of three motherless sisters in a small Filipino town.
• Israeli filmmaker Tomer Heymann's new documentary Paper Dolls, recently took home the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Heymann spent five years with queer Filipinos in various stages of gender transition as they flee stigma at home to build new lives in Tel Aviv.
  

Queer Kino: A History of German Queer Cinema

German film critic and academic Axel Schock will introduce each screening in this mixed-bag retrospective, co-curated by the Goethe Institut.

I'd skip Maybe Maybe Not (Der Bewegte Mann), a mediocre fish-out-of-the-water comedy where the straight fish must negotiate the perils of the gay scene when his girlfriend throws him out

However it's a rare opportunity to see Fassbinder's Fox & His Friends on the big screen again. Rarer still is the chance to catch the "first gay feature film ever made", the 1919 silent film, Richard Oswald's Different from Others (Anders Als Die Anderen). This landmark film will be shown with Carl Dreyer’s silent classic, Michael, and will be accompanied by a live musical performance.

The Festival ends on March 1st with a preview of that infamous second Capote biopic, Infamous, starring Toby Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Gwynneth Paltrow, Sandra Bullock and Daniel Craig.

For a PDF of the full program, click here.


| previous post: Adelaide Film Fest preview | latest post |

Previewing the 2007 Mardi Gras Film Festival

Previewing the Adelaide International Film Festival 2007

150 NEW FILMS

Sick of the cold award-season leftovers served each week at your local cinema? Why not fly to Adelaide where 150 new films will be screened as part of the 2007 Adelaide International Film Festival, which runs February 23rd to March 4th in South Australia. It's only 720 miles from Sydney, or 10,600 miles form New York!

The event will open with the world premiere of Adelaide-born Michael James Rowland's Lucky Miles, about a group of Iraqi and Cambodian refugees stranded on a remote part of the Western Australian coast. Closing Gala is the new Rolf de Heer, Dr Plonk, a black and white, silent comedy set 100 years into the past and shot with a hand-cranked camera.

In between, residents and lucky visitors (including, hopefully, yours truly) will have been treated to 65 features, 24 documentaries and more than a handful of shorts representing 44 different countries. 17 of these features will be world premieres.



WORLD CINEMA

Australian audiences will finally get a chance to see key works celebrated by a small clique of critics and cinephiles over the past 6 months or so. These international festival hits arguably represent auteur cinema at its best, and include György Pálfi's Taxidermia, Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth, Hong Sang-Soo's Woman On The Beach, Alain Resnais's Private Fears in Public Places, Jia Zhangke's Still Life and Andrea Arnold's Red Road.

Six commissioned feature films from the New Crowned Hope Festival, which took place in Vienna last November, will also come to Adelaide. For this festival celebrating Mozart’s 250th anniversary, artistic director Peter Sellars commissioned completely new works from contemporary, international artists in the fields of music and opera, architecture, the visual arts and film. The aim is to use Mozart's themes as both inspiration and a springboard for contemporary works reflecting on issues at the heart of this new century. Selected films shown here include Paz Encina's Paraguayan Hammock, Tsai Ming-Liang's I Don't Want To Sleep Alone and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century.



AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

AIFF is the only Australian festival that both screens and finances films. This puts them in the enviable position of being able to present 12 world premieres of new Australian works made with the support of the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund.

They've got a good track record too: titles which were partially financed by the fund and premiered at the fest include Sarah Watt's Look Both Ways and Rolf de Heer's Ten Canoes.

This year, AFFIF-funded titles include The Home Song Stories starring Joan Chen and feature documentary Kalaupapa - Heaven by veteran filmmaker Paul Cox, about a tropical paradise just 20 minutes from Honolulu which for the past 140 years has been one of the world’s most famous leprosy colonies.

Other new Australian titles of note include the Brenda Blethyn-starrer Clubland, also at Sundance, and Daniel Krige's West, a low-budget hard-edged drama set in the suburban badlands west of Sydney.

DOCUMENTARIES

The documentary component is very strong again this year, with a spotlight on Frenco-German broadcaster ARTE and the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam. The Festival also coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Australian International Documentary Conference, which will seek to answer the question: what is the purpose for documentary in our society?

The 2007 Adelaide Film Festival will lead the way as the first CO2 free film festival in Australia. The festival is keen to explore ways that filmmakers and media content creators can practice what they preach and lower their CO2 footprint. As part of this ongoing discussion, it will host a forum called Planet Greencode, where pactitioners are encouraged to contribute ideas to make films with "zero impact'. Meanwhile the Ecoscreen sidebar will showcase films tackling environmental issues, including the coffee industry doco Black Gold.

Other non-fiction highlights include Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (screening as part of a sports-themed selection) and Air Guitar Nation, which follows contestants from the East Coast air guitar championships in New York City to the world finals in Finland.



SEEN 'EM

Here's a few films screening at AIFF that I've seen already.

Call Me Mum (Margot Nash, Australia)

In this highly-stylised series of interlinked monologues, five characters unravel a complex and moving tale of mothering, race relations and family in Australia.

The Host (Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea)

Bong Joon-Ho is sure to become a cult figure after he visits Adelaide to present his hugely enjoyable monster opus.

Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwal, Canada)

Seasoned documentarian Jennifer Baichwal and cinematographer Peter Mettler follow photographer Edward Burtynsky to China and Bangladesh, observing changes in landscapes due to industrial work and manufacturing.

The Sun (Alexandr Sokurov, Russia)

An austere but gorgeous study of the final days of Emperor Hirohito's reign as Japan is forced to capitulate to the allied forces in 1945.

Exiled (Johnny To, Hong Kong)

Set in photogenic Macau, this sequel of sorts to The Mission is a beautifully executed genre film from one of Hong Kong's most prolific director.

I Don't Want To Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-Liang, Taiwan-Malaysia)

Tsai's relocates to Kuala Lumpur for his latest exploration of loneliness and alienation in the Asian metropolis, again featuring a great performance from Lee Kang-Sheng.


SPECIAL EVENTS

Paolo Cherchi Usai, the director of Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive and one of the world’s most respected film historians and scholars, has made a silent film which explores the impending crisis of visual culture and its reflection in politics and society. Passio will have its World Premiere at the event, and I, for one, cannot wait. Arvo Pärt’s Passio, based on the Passion in St John’s Gospel, will be performed live by The Theatre of Voices with musical accompaniment by organist Christopher Bowers Broadbent (UK), the Adelaide Chamber Singers and musicians from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the internationally acclaimed Paul Hillier.

Noah Cowan, co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival will be at the Festival as the Natuzzi Award Jury President. Other jurors include Mick Harvey (The Bad Seeds), Nobel prize winning author J.M.Coetzee, directors Clara Law and Ana Kokkinos, Australian Film Institute CEO James Hewison and TV host Margaret Pomeranz.

| previous post: Confession of Pain | latest post |

Previewing the Adelaide International Film Festival 2007

Reaching for the painkillers (Confession of Pain)

Here's an atmospheric thriller directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, whose competent Infernal Affairs (remade as The Departed) and its sequels are credited for revitalizing the HK film industry. Getting top billing are the handsome and talented Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro, reunited 13 years after Chungking Express. Even the supporting cast leaves little to be desired, with roles for Shu Qi (Three Times) and Jinglei Xu (Letter from an Unknown Woman)...

It's no surprise then that Confession of Pain should arrive front-loaded with infernal hype. Unfortunately, this A-list team doesn't deliver, and it may take another remake for the potential of this half-decent script to be fully realised.

Hei (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Bong (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are friends who met on the force. While Hei has risen in the ranks, Bong is on a downwards spiral, fueled by alcohol and grief following his girlfriend's suicide. It seems only the company of a San Miguel hostess (Shu Qi) stops him from topping himself too. When Hei's father in law is brutally murdered, Bong - now a private detective - is enlisted by Hei's wife Susan (Jinglei Xu) to find what the police couldn't: the murderer.

As the investigation progresses, it's clear to everyone involved that the killer lurks closer than previously anticipated. In fact, it's made crystal clear to the audience so early on in the picture that instead of a clever whodunnit we are left to ponder how long it will take for our hero to catch up.

Well it takes him a while. Gaping plot holes and unwarranted twists and turns don't help. In the meantime we are distracted with moody shots of Hong Kong and Macau, two island cities as photogenic as the good looking cast. In fact the urban landscapes upstage the actors almost completely.

It's hard to believe these men's stories. Hei and Bong lose everything because of the women they love, but Hei's wife and Bong's girlfriend are too underwritten for this dynamic to convince entirely. Leung and Kaneshiro are entirely watchable, but it's never clear what made Bong and Hei friends in the first place, or why they are so blind as to the other's intentions. The actors are like puppets, their movements, expressions and reactions seem to come from string-pulling rather than from within.

Swapping the break-neck thrills of Infernal Affairs for the melancholy atmospherics of Hong Kong noir might've worked with a more sober, restrained direction. Instead we've got circling cameras, unecessary visual effects, overwhelming music and the amphetamine-induced editing more usually found in Tony Scott pictures.

There was promise in the premise but the result is painful indeed, and a rather dull sort of pain it is too.

Confession of Pain is currently out in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. French release March 28th.

| previous post: Thai Cinema: a book review | latest post |

Reaching for the painkillers (Confession of Pain)

Thai Cinema (A Book Review)

This year Thai cinema is celebrating the 80th anniversary of its first indigenous feature, Luang Anurakratthakarn's Double Luck (Chok Song Chun) released by the Bangkok Film Company July 30th 1927. Since then Thai cinema has known an eventful history, reflecting the political and social changes which have rocked the country.

Movies were used by the government in the 30's and 40's as propaganda tools, by the studio system in the 50's and 60's to peddle star-driven 16mm entertainment, by students and journalists in the 70's to give voice to their anti-establishment ideology, by greedy investors in the 80's and 90's to exploit teen audiences.

1997 was the year Thai cinema broke out onto the international festival circuit, changing the way the country perceived its own filmmakers and introducing a flicker of hope in a rather bleak industry. That year saw debuts by three key filmmakers:

• Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's Fun Bar Karaoke (Fan Ba Karaoke) was the first Thai film in a decade to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival; His subsequent films have been omnipresent on the festival circuit, with most getting picked-up for distribution in the West: 6ixtynin9 (1999), Monrak Transistor (2002), Last Life in the Universe (2003), and Invisible Waves (2006);
• Nonzee Nimibutr's first film (written by Wisit Sassanatieng), Dang Bireley & the Young Gangsters (2499 Anthaphan Khrong Mueang) proved a big hit, attracting audiences beyond the usual teen demographic. He had further hits with ghost story Nang Nak in 1999 and erotic drama Jan Dara in 2001.
  
• Oxide Pang's Who Is Running? saw the gifted ad director make a name for himself in the movies; He went on to direct several thrillers and horror films in Bangkok and Hong Kong with diminishing returns (including The Eye and its sequels);

For the past decade Thailand has been a rising star on the global movie scene despite the Asian economic downturn and the recent tightening of censorship laws.

In 2000 Yongyoot Thongkongtoon's directorial debut Iron Ladies - about a team of transvestite volleyball players - broke down national barriers and achieved commercial success, spawning a host of sequels and copycat comedies.

In 2001 Sassanatieng's psychaedelic western Tears of the Black Tiger was the first ever Thai film to make it into Cannes (it's only now getting a US release through Magnolia), followed a year later by Blissfully Yours, the stunning debut by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The latter quickly built a solid reputation thanks to the sublime Tropical Malady and Syndromes of a Century (the fist Thai film ever to go to Venice).

Beyond festivals and arthouse cinemas, Thai films also broke out into the international multiplex thanks mainly to the Tony Jaa actioners Ong Bak and The Protector (Tom Yam Goong), the latter being the third-highest grossing foreign-language film in the US in 2006.



This fascinating history, along with current trends in Thai cinema, is expertly chronicled in Thai Cinema / Le Cinema Thailandais, the first book published by Asiexpo Editions. Asiexpo is better known in France for its Asian Film Festival, which has been running for twelve years in my home town of Lyon. Director Jean-Pierre Gimenez is now launching a collection of books entitled Asian Connection, of which this is the first volume.

Through the Festival, strong ties have been established with film critics and academics living in Thailand, many of whom contribute insightful articles collated in this bilingual French/English edition, first published in November 2006 to coincide with the Festival's special focus on Thailand.

The 20 articles focus on subjects such as censorship and piracy, Thai movie posters and the unique Thai filmgoing experience. There's a great article on the identity crisis in new Thai cinema, written by Anchalee Chaiworaporn, who runs the essential Thaicinema.org. There are portraits of Ratanaruang and Weerasethakul as well as filmmakers lesser known in the West. No stone is left unturned, with subjects including action films, indie films, documentaries and shorts.

The translation work isn't perfect, but the effort which has gone into documenting this emergent cinema is nothing short of exemplary. The book - which can be ordered here - also comes with a fantastic DVD featuring over two hours of documentaries, interviews and a slide show of vintage Thai movie posters.

Other interesting links on Thai Cinema:

• The most important Thai directors poll at Thaicinema.org
• Anchalee Chaiworaporn's New Thai Cinema article for FIPRESCI
• Criticine's indispensable Thai cinema page, which includes a conversation with journalist and critic Kong Rithdee (also a contributor) and a conversation with the editors of Bioscope Magazine
• Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's 21-minute promotional short for Nike: Total Bangkok
• Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal's got the lowdown on what to expect in 2007
• Kong Rithdee's got the latest gossip on the infamous Bangkok Film Festival
  

All this reading as whet my appetite. Thankfully I work next to Little Bangkok in Sydney: my plan Monday lunchtime is to track down Thai DVD's for the films I haven't yet seen.

| previous post: Spice up your plex life | latest post |

Thai Cinema (A Book Review)

Reclaim the Screens (spice up your plex life)

'Going to the movies' has a quaint ring in the age of the plasma-screen home entertainment system, the iPod and video-on-demand.

So begins A.O. Scott's thoughtful article about our decreasing affection for the movie theatre. Fortunately, it's not a pessimistic piece about the end of cinema as we know it, but rather a hopeful look at how we can nurture a love for the big screen in the next generation of filmgoers, our kids.

Technology is rapidly changing the way we watch film. The "shrinking screen" effect is one of the subjects of David Denby's recent article in the New Yorker (debated here, here, here and here).

Currently, technology seems to be pushing us further from the communal experience of experiencing film in a movie theatre and validating our increasingly atomised and individualistic lifestyles.

Perhaps one day technology will bring us back to the theatre? I could see this happening in two ways:

• A major technological breakthrough might add another dimension to the experience in the same way that the arrival of sound did in the 1920's or colour in the 40's (I can't think of any major recent breakthroughs except perhaps Imax, which seems to be packing them in...);
  
• Digital projetion and the end of 35mm might bring down the costs of distributing and exhibiting films and thus bring ticket prices down.
  

Another factor that I believe would bring many of us back is susbsidised specialised exhibition. Government funding for arthouse cinemas could mean the following:

• a better, wider selection of films (able to compete with DVD releases) as distributors and cinemas afford to take more risks.
  
• a better cinema environment where high ticket prices, smelly popcorn and cinema ads are made less necessary by diminished financial pressures.

This requires two things which most Western governments seem to have given up on: treating film as a work of cultural or artistic value instead of a product, and substracting culture from the free market rules which govern the trading of commodities in our globalised capitalist societies. These subsidies still exist in France, but they're under threat. As for the US, the UK and Australia, even mentioning government assistance out loud is a hangable offense...

Of course cinemas and festivals don't have R&D labs or lobby groups at their disposal. That's not to say nothing can be done. I love running into programmers with innovative ideas to spice up the communal filmgoing experience, even on a small scale. Until a wider debate starts on the future of big screen exhibition, it's local intiatives such as these which give me hope.

When you think about it, moviegoing hasn't known many improvements or innovations in the past 30 years. Perhaps if there was more to watching a film than the passive experience of being herded in like cattle, asked to sit through half an hour of noisy ads we never asked for, being shown a film created by marketeers and thrown back out into the street with empty pockets, we might be more inclined to return to the cinema.

Here are some of these ideas... They may offend purists, though of course they're not meant to replace traditional screening. They won't bring back audiences in droves, far from it, but I do like the idea of playing around with the sacro-sanct cinema experience and perhaps speaking to a different audience in the process...


1. iPod commentaries

One of the selling points of DVD's are the extras, which often include directors' commentaries. Wouldn't it be simple (and cheap) to record such commentaries and offer them as free downloads on the internet. We could then sit in the cinema with our iPods and watch films on the big screen while listening to an extra audio track.

Of course this only works if you've already seen the film, but it might encourage repeat viewings for new releases, while giving new life to repertory and cinematheque programs.

For film buffs and university students, imagine commentaries by academics, filmmakers and critics...


2. Videoke

Having lived in Tokyo and Hong Kong, I can measure the popularity of karaoke. Of course I can't sing to save my life, so it's not my first choice for a night on the town. I can, however, quote freely from some of my favourite films.

I first saw video karaoke (or videoke) at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The concept is simple: you choose a scene from a library of movie clips, which is then projected on the big screen with English karaoke-style subtitles. You can then get up there alone or with friends and act out the scene as it's played, a mic in one hand, a beer in another.

It's more than just a good laugh, it's a great way to celebrate and share one's cinephilia while discovering new films worthy of cult status.


3. Kino

The first ever monthly Kino night is about to be launched in Sydney, but the idea is hardly a new one. This open-mic night for filmmakers is a great way to network and see short films in a relaxed environment (usually a bar with projection facilities). Participants have just a month to write, shoot and edit their film, which is then projected to an audience in a cabaret-style screening.

The Kino movement began 6 years ago in Montreal as a dare between friends and has now morphed into a global phenomenon, spreading throughout the planet to include Kino chapters in Montreal, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Lausanne, Vienna, Brussels, Adelaide and Sydney.

The aim of Kino is to place film makers in an ‘act now' mindset and to shoot and show their films as a way to learn about the craft... and have a good time. The result is an unpredictable cinema of fresh ideas and unforseen moments.

4. Participative cinema

People have talked back at the screen since the dawn of the medium, but it thankfully isn't a widespread practise. In some cases however, it can add to the fun of seeing something trashy, camp, or overly familiar. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one such example, with people 'performing' and 'interacting' with the film at midnight screenings around the world.

Some cult films lend themselves quite well to audience participation. Sing-a-long to the Sound of Music has been a successful staple with queer audiences (and others) at festivals the world over. There have been shriek-a-longs and bitch-a-longs to Showgirls, and I once heard of a boo-a-long to Spike Lee's She Hate Me.

One of the most indelible early filmgoing memories for me is going to see Jonathan Demme's Talking Heads concert movie Stop Making Sense at the Castro cinema in San Francisco, aged 9. The music was turned up loud and viewers started spontaneously dancing in the aisles and in front of the screen. Now that's audience participation.


5. Beer goggles

One thing DVDs allow is the possibility of having a drink while watching the film. Whether it's having a glass of scotch with Kiss Me Deadly, sipping a Pinot Noir while watching Sideways or gulping down a few in front of Beerfest (you know who you are!).

The 70's midnight movies phenomenon owed a lot to the ability to consume alcohol or pot in the cinema. And why not? Many communal activities involve one or the other. In Sydney a few cinemas allow viewers to take a glass of wine or a beer into the cinema, though not many are aware of the fact.

I know many people who prefer a night at the pub than at the local cinema, but who came in large numbers when I've programmed films in licensed theatres...


6. Taking it outside

Another exhibition variant taking off big time here in Sydney is outdoor cinema, with four competing nightly screenings in different sites across the city (that I know of). Bringing a picnic and some wine, lying in the grass as the night falls and the fruit bats fly overhead, sharing the experience with friends - there's something special there.

Of course the weather doesn't allow for screenings anytime or anywhere. If the great outdoors are unavailable there's still the drive-in!


7. Taking it elsewhere

Screening films in bars is a way to bring cinema to the people while keeping the communal experience (add a film quizz and you're set!).

More and more organisations are combinging film with art, music or theatre to create new entertainment experiences, such as Future Shorts' Future Cinema. Others are screening modern classics in theme-related venues: Dead Poets Society at Oxford, of Halloween in a disused coffin factory... Meanwhile kids are setting up their own screenings in pubs and warehouses, for titles that distributors wouldn't touch with a bargepole, just so they can share their cinephile discoveries with others.

The demand is there, but film watching habits have evolved while the one-size-fits-all cinema-going experience is basically not much different from what it was 50 years ago.


8. Recombine, remix & recycle

Blending music and film can be done in a variety of ways, including as part of a music festival featuring live acts.

Some friends of mine have experimented with a clever way to blend the two together, perhaps inspired by Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which synchs to uncanny effect when played with The wizard of Oz.

The idea is to ask a band to create or improvise a live soundrack to their favourite cult film, perhaps incorporating their own tracks, alternate dialogue, sound effects... It goes further than live musical accompaniment, though. The music is then performed in synch with the film, with a sound engineer mixing in real time between the film's audio track and the band's performance.

The result is a hybrid experience which re-combines the visual and permorming arts and re-cycles cult classics.

---

Have you come across any augmented, enhanced or modified screenings? Can you think of ways to spice up the film going experience?

| previous post: Zuilhof's chronicles | latest post |

Reclaim the Screens (spice up your plex life)

Zuilhof's Chronicles

In 2005 I attended the Rotterdam International Film Festival. It was one of the most enlightening experience both as a film festival organiser/programmer and as a cinephile.

What makes Rotterdam so successful in my view are three key ingredients:
- a carefully nurtured audience with immense reserves of curiosity;
- the Hubert Bals Fund which brings films by innovative and talented filmmakers from developing countries closer to completion and in doing so uncovers potential selection titles way upstream;
- the amount of resources and energy invested in programming.

The programmers at IFFR not only know their stuff, they spend months on the road keeping up to date with filmmaking efforts around the world, shining the spotlight on nascent national cinemas and under-represented filmmakers. They don't just visit the big festivals either, they stray from the beaten path in the hope of encountering work that isn't on the radar. I call them the Lonely Planet programmers.

In 2005, a highlight of the program for me was the superb curatorial work gone into the S.E.A. Eyes sidebar. This spotlight on the young and upcoming generation of independent filmmakers in the South East Asian region featured some real discoveries and - amongst other things - championed Malaysia as a creative microcosm to keep an eye on.

Braving harsh censorship laws, limited industry infrastructure and non-existent support for independent production, young artists in Kuala Lumpur are actively making films and organising screenings - bringing together members from all of Malaysia's major ethnic communities (Malay, Chinese and Indian). Even Tsai Ming-Liang recently chose KL for his jaw-dropping new film, I Don't Want To Sleep Alone.


This visionary showcase (and a couple of trips to Malaysia) inspired me to program the Malaysian New Wave sidebar at my own Festival in Manchester a few months later, and invite several filmmakers over from Kuala Lumpur to present their films. We screened UK premieres of many shorts and features by filmmakers such as Yasmin Ahmad, James Lee, Ho Yu-Hang and Tan Chui-Mui as well as a retrospective of the essay films of Amir Muhammad. Some of these directors have become celebrated icons on the festival circuit.

The man behind S.E.A. Eyes is Dutch programmer Gertjan Zuilhof. I can't recommend his blogs with more enthusiasm. His latest series, entitled A Programmer's Chronicles, are an insightful and highly readable travelogue and world cinema commentary.

We talk at length about what downloadable cinema will do to commercial distributors and exhibitors, but what about film festivals? Zuilhof tells us about his experiences with a new kind of cinephilia, built around the pirate DVD shops of South-East Asia - and how it relates to the inspiring debates between buyers and programmers waiting for their screening booths in video libraries at major festivals from Pusan to Rotterdam.

Zuilhof also writes at length about Malaysian cinema and other promising stirrings in the loins of South East Asia (please see also Criticine for its indispensable critical forays in Malaysian and South-East Asian cinema). What really fascinates me in his writing is the effervescence of tiny ideas on the future of film distribution and exhibition, inspired by practises and traditions far removed from our not-so-flexible Western mindset.

These thought bubbles might not lead to revolutionary breakthroughs (though his Futsal tournament for film industry reps seems like a crazy/good idea) but they certainly get the imagination going... Check back here soon for my own thoughts on new strands in film exhibition.

| previous post: Festival Beat (Rotterdam & Berlin) | latest post |

Zuilhof's Chronicles

Festival Beat (Berlin & Rotterdam)

Summer is starting in earnest here in Oz, but I'd happily give up the beach and the heat for the frozen pleasures of Europe's winter Festivals, particularly Rotterdam and Berlin.

I have fond memories of the Berlinale, which I attended as a budding cinephile in 1998 (my friend and I snuck into press conferences to chat to Penelope Cruz, pretending to be journalists) and as an accredited festival programmer in 2003 (when Winterbottom won for the amazing In This World).

The event runs from February 8th to 18th and Festival director Dieter Kosslick has just announced the first titles in the official selection.

Local production will be represented by the world premiere of Yella by German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Ghosts). Europe will also present the world premiere of Belgian-German-British co-production Irina Palm, starring Marianne Faithfull as a 50-year-old widow who is so desperately in need of money that she unwittingly accepts a job in a sex club. It's Belgian director Sam Garbarski’s second film after the acclaimed The Rashevski Tango.

Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd and Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German are two of the American films present in the official line-up, ensuring good star wattage on the red carpet. It'll be the first time these titles screen outside the US.

Was there ever a more overrated filmmaker than two-time Oscar-winner Bille August? His latest film is Goodbye Bafana which will make its debut in Berlin. Screening on the 17th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison, it tells the true story of James Gregory (Joseph Fiennes), a white prison guard whose life is profoundly altered when he meets the prisoner Nelson Mandela, whom he ends up guarding for more than twenty years. Dennis Haysbert (Far From Heaven) plays the ANC activist.

The title I'm most excited about so far is I Am A Cyborg But That’s Ok by South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Old Boy), a love story set in a psychiatric hospital. The cast includes Korean superstar Rain and Lim Soo-jung (A Tale of Two Sisters).

For its 57th edition, the Festival is dedicating a showcase to American director Arthur Penn, considered one of the precursors of the New Hollywood era and helmer of such classics as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Alice's Restaurant (1969) and Night Moves (1975). Arthur Penn will be awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement.



Meanwhile in the Netherlands, Rotterdam director Sandra den Hamer has also announced an initial line-up.

I attended the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005, where I saw nearly 50 features in 10 days, and I can safely say it boasts perhaps the best programming in Europe. That was the year I discovered and fell in love with the new wave of Malaysian cinema. Rotterdam has a long tradition of being a discovery festival, an opportunity to shine the spotlight on under-represented filmmaking regions.

The festival opens with the world premiere of director Esteban Sapir's La Antena (The Antenna, Argentina).

Current titles competing for the Tiger Awards include:

• La Marea by Diego Martinez Vignatti (Belgium) set in Argentina;
• Fourteen by Hirosue Hiromasa (Japan);
• Die Unerzogenen by Pia Marais (Germany);
• Does it hurt? The First Balkan Dogma by Aneta Lesnikovska (Macedonia), in which the Dutch-resident filmmaker attempts to shoot a Dogma film in her native country;
• Bog of the Beasts by Claudio Assis (Brazil);
• How Is Your Fish Today? the feature début by the London-based writer and film maker GUO Xiaolu;
• Love Conquers All, the feature début by the Malaysian director Tan Chui Mui. The film won the New Currents Award during the Pusan Film Festival.
• Ex Drummer by Koen Mortier (Belgium), brings to the screen famous Flemish writer Herman Brusselmans’ novel of the same title.

The VPRO Tiger Awards Jury will include Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye (Summer Palace) and Toronto International Film Festival director Piers Handling. Festival programmers Ludmila Cvikova and Gertjan Zuilhof are blogging about their fascintating work as programmers here and here respectively.

The event also runs the wonderful Trainee Project for Young Film Critics, which offers up to six international film criticsunder 30 years old the chance to get acquainted with the festival and world cinema. Applications are closed for 2007, but keep an eye out for 2008!

The Festival kicks off on January 24th.

| previous post: A Pompidou Diary, part 2 | latest post |

Festival Beat (Berlin & Rotterdam)