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Human Rights Watch Film Fest '15: Nonviolence & Revolt
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Features
- Published on Thursday, 18 June 2015 17:20
- Written by Nora Lee Mandel
The Yes Men Are Revolting
The New York stop of The Human Rights Watch Film Festival (June 11 - 21, 2015) at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center, provided intense, close-up views of some of the worst problems people inflict on people in the United States and around the world. The most hopeful feature documentaries seek nonviolent solutions, justice, and perseverance against all odds.
Nonviolent Protest and Working Within The System
“Why are revolutionaries so grim?” was asked of leftist philosopher Herbert Marcuse at a lecture I attended in the early 1970’s. He sneered a response. But for 20 years, “The Yes Men” have creatively wielded humor and chutzpah to confront capitalism. In their 2003 eponymous debut, they infiltrated corporate meetings as if they were World Trade Organization representatives with a radical message. In The Yes Men Fix The World (2009) they joined with environmental organizations such as Greenpeace to focus their lively pranks on corporate-created catastrophes, such as the chemical disaster in Bhopal, and profit-taking from Hurricane Katrina. Now in their ‘40’s, they are here helped by co-director Laura Nix to seriously document how they face personal and professional challenges to continue their brazen style of activism. From each of their hometowns, there’s the revealing perspective that their parents’ and grandparents’ Holocaust experiences inspired them to question authority from their youths. They now struggle with changing relationships (Jacques Servin, from Tucson, AZ, known as “Andy Bichlbaum”, lets startled environment activists in homophobic Uganda know he’s gay) and a growing family (Igor Vamos, a.k.a. “Mike Bonanno”, transplants from upstate NY to his wife’s Scotland), as well as each other. Will they manage to, um, capitalize on a new generation of activists around the world, as seen in 99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, and the rise of social media to mobilize and dramatize climate change? This informative and entertaining joint portrait is an encouraging start. The Orchard theatrical release rolled-out on June 12
Canadian filmmaker Paul Cowan and Palestinian artist Amer Shomali (whose visa problems with the U.S. and Israel prevented him from attending the premiere) use humor in the most unlikely place – the occupied West Bank. A narrator adopts the tone of “Once upon a time in Beit Sahour” a town of 10,000 people near Bethlehem, to tell the story of an effort at nonviolent resistance during the First Intifada in 1988 that turns into an absurdist comedy in the spirit of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Archival footage, interviews with now-older participants, reenactments of their younger selves filmed on site in the same locations, drawings, and amusingly anthropomorphic talking animals in stop motion animation (benefitting from the resources of the renowned animators of the National Film Board of Canada) are creatively edited into a multi-media collage.
Idealistically impractical, a peacenik on an Israeli kibbutz sells 18 cows to the townspeople who are used to being goat shepherds and have no experience with cows, as becomes obvious to the perturbed (English-speaking) cattle, including Goldie, Ruth, Lola, and Rivka, each with a distinctive personality. Determined to boycott Israeli goods, a calamity of slapstick errors keeps thwarting the villagers’ avoidance of Tnuva, an Israeli cooperative with a milk distribution monopoly. Worse, the military governor (who shrugs through his essential interview) links this economic issue with political resistance to the occupation and declares “These cows are dangerous for the security of the state of Israel." Ironic hilarity ensues as the town unites to try to hide the cows and their "Intifada milk" from soldiers, that reminded me of Norman Jewison’s 1966 Cold War comedy The Russians Are Coming, with a much more rueful ending.
Kino Lorber theatrical release rolled-out June 19.
The “Spring” is “the Arab Spring” of 2011 and the title covers the launch of a multi-media project, produced by Abigail Disney, Sally Jo Fifer, Gini Reticker and Regina Scully, of international social media outreach, a feature documentary, and a series of six very moving short films (streaming at http://www.nytimes.com/video/trials-of-spring), each focusing on, through interviews and news footage, a different woman activist about what brought her to protest in 2011 and what has happened to her since – from tragic to exile to continually inspiring:
- Bahrain: Our Oath - directed by Lauren Feeney about Dr. Nada Dhaif;
- Egypt: Life’s Sentence - directed by Dalia Ali and Feeney about Hend Nafea;
- Libya, Wake Up Behghazi! - directed by Cameron Hickey and Zainab Salbi about Salwa Bugaighis;
- Syria: Brides of Peace - directed by Feeney about sisters Kinda and Lubna Zaour;
- Tunisia: Keeping the Promise - directed by Mona Eldaief and Feeney about Ghazala Mhamdi; and,
- Yemen: When Is the Time? - directed by Feeney and Sarah Ahmed about Belquis Al Lahabi
In the project’s centerpiece premiere, Reticker followed-up and expanded on the report from Egypt to include more detail on the political evolution of the now 23-year-old brave and stubborn Hend (featured in a 2012 New Yorker piece), and the people who have replaced her disapproving family in her life for crucial solidarity– a maternal older mentor, a young woman supporter, and her legal team. Each tells their story of the protests and the personal aftermath. This is a sobering look at the impact on women, in particular, beyond the slew of too-quickly optimistic documentaries about the “revolution”, such the Oscar-nominated The Square (Al Midan). She step-by-step walks through her changes from Tahrir Square, to the “double revolution” she staged at her rural village home when her family locked her up, to her brutal treatment by police and the courts, and copes with a life sentence hanging over her. We see her grow in confidence as she works for the legal rights organization that takes up her case and many, many others, and passes on to their clients her hard-won knowledge and empathy. A post-filming update: her lawyers have now recommended that she go into hiding while they still hope to ameliorate her harsh sentence.
Claudia Paz y Paz is what a Hollywood hero should look like! After decades of dictatorship, civil war, civilian slaughter, assassinations of prosecutors, and a rising homicide rate (a narrator solemnly intones over archival footage of the terrible numbers and horrible atrocities), an International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala demanded an open and objective process for the appointment in 2010 of the next head of the national Public Prosecutor’s Office. To everyone’s surprise, President Álvaro Colom chose Paz because she scored highest in the selection committee’s evaluations. The human rights activist and champion of the indigenous population launched a tumultuous four-year term as the country’s first woman in the post.
Taking her at her word for establishing a new era of openness and transparency, Dutch filmmakers Joey Boink and Sander Wirken follow her, in intimate cinema verité, throughout her difficult and fraught term that is exhilarating and tense. The first villains she faces down are the bureaucrats in each regional office, where silent smug men sit around conference tables with arms folded. She warns they must show progress in the new uniform database of crimes, victims, perpetrators, cases brought and adjudicated -- or they won’t get paid. Reeling off the shameful stats in their jurisdictions, the petite mother, casually dressed with long red hair, insists they go after both kingpins who have killed for political and territorial gain, and drug gangs killing for market share. (“Impunity” is constantly thrown around as a jargon term for the whole corrupt system, not quite how it’s used in American English.)
When a new president is elected in her second year, another Old Guard villain out of central casting, the head of a well-funded business organization, mocks her crusade in extended interviews, and sneers at her mentor, a murdered archbishop who first investigated the regime’s crimes. In trial footage, she persists against the leader of the former military junta (cue the scornful Latin American general), and wins on the charge of genocide, a first by any domestic court anywhere. Traveling on a whirlwind schedule with security guards and special trusted police, she is tearfully embraced by families of victims and indigenous massacre survivors, as the conviction rate goes up 35%. And then the opposition really goes out after her in the media, the legislature, and the courts, shown in a torrent of clips and sound bites. For those of us not familiar with recent Guatemalan history, the suspense ratchets up – Can she persevere until the end of her term? Another term? Can she make lasting change? Heck, will she survive? This documentary has all the drama of a wrenching bio-pic!
A lot of South American political stereotypes are shaken off in this exuberantly refreshing quest to bring that hopey changey thing to Colombia. In a country known for drug lords, Marxist guerrillas, and brutal paramilitaries, every family has been touched by violence. In 2010, college philosophy professor/former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus is sure his grassroots and community organizing ideas to stop the violence can be put into practice on a national level, so he runs for president. Danish director Andreas Dalsgaard tags along with him and the dedicated volunteers he inspires through the campaign and four years through to the next election.
While following in the close-access style of seminal election documentaries, from Primary (1960) to the Oscar-nominated The War Room (1993) (cinema verité pioneer DA Pennebaker was in the crew on the former and co-director of the latter), this fresh, unconventional campaign is amazingly uncynical, even as professional politicians come on board to help when it looks like he has a chance (and are more leery of the camera). Mockus seems to care less about winning and more about convincing an entire country -- one person, then one rally and another city at a time -- that civil society is possible.
Small groups with Green Party T-shirts, super-hero capes, chants, and anti-violence slogans (like the film’s title), songs, body paint symbols, and props (like pencils as in mightier than the sword) become large throngs, and they enthusiastically surge into the run-off. His support is driven by a new generation of optimistic first-time voters, like 22-year-old Katherine Miranda who canvases neighborhoods while tearfully explaining how her father’s death motivates her new career. Just when the impossible dream has a chance, the establishment hits below the belt with a political consultant’s dirty tricks buzz saw of rumors, lies, and fears straight out of Rachel Boynton's Our Brand Is Crisis (2005) and seen similarly close-up in Marshall Curry’s Oscar-nominated Street Fight (2005). It’s a rude reality check for all. Though the quixotic candidate’s joyful, artistic tactics could be (uneasily) shifted to a Fascist and/or Peronist demagogue, Mockus goes a mighty step further, even as his steps falter due to Parkinson’s. Under pressure to be ordinary, he instead uses the entire experience as a teaching moment in commitment to democracy in action for all his supporters. His shining example finally converts key professional politicians who cannily catch the peaceful wave. This is a rare upbeat selection for a usually depressing festival.
To learn more, go to: http://ff.hrw.org/
Cannes Film Fest 2015: And the Winner Is...
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Features
- Published on Sunday, 24 May 2015 19:20
- Written by Marian Masone
Drumroll please…
The haze of nonstop filmgoing over twelve days in the south of France lifted on Sunday night as the 2015 edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close. The closing night film, Ice and the Sky, directed by Luc Jacquet, was preceded by an hour-long awards ceremony in the Theatre Lumiere. For the press corps, that means watching a live feed from the nearby Theatre Debussy. Since the stars are out of earshot, the press can be very vocal if they disagree with the jury’s choices.
The festivities were hosted by French actor Lambert Wilson, who suavely strolled the stage as he set the stage for the competition prizes. (Other sections gave out awards on the two preceding days.) This year’s jury was headed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and they were joined onstage by the rest of the jury: Jake Gyllenhaal, Sienna Miller, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, singer/songwriter Rokia Traoré, Quebecois filmmaking wunderkind Xavier Dolan, Spanish actress Rossy de Palma, and French actress Sophie Marceau.
The ceremony was fairly straightforward, but can someone tell me why the festival thought it was necessary to have John C. Reilly and the Fly Boys do a rendition of “Just a Gigolo”? It was a strange moment. The audience seemed to be sitting in stunned silence, but there was rousing applause when they finished.
Agnès Varda received the Palme d’honneur. It’s similar to an honorary Oscar (TM), given to titans of cinema who have never received the Palme d’or, and it was previously announced. She was clearly moved and spoke eloquently about the field and remember her late husband, Jacques Demy. A lovely moment. Varda is a brilliant filmmaker and this prize was long overdue.
Herewith the awards, along with commentary or personal observations here and there:
The Camera d’or for best first feature went to Land and Shade by Colombian director César Augusto Acevedo. A new award, not part of the awards this evening, was the L’Oeil d’or for best documentary. Translated as Golden Eye, it mimics the first feature award (Golden Camera) in that the winner was chosen from all the documentaries shown in any section of the festival. The same rule applies for first feature - they can be in any section of the festival. This year’s winner was shown in Critics’ Week. This new prize went to Marcia Tambutti Allende’s Beyond My Grandfather Allende.
Best Screenplay went to Michel Franco who also directed the film Chronic, the story of a home health aid (played by Tim Roth) who lives through his dying patients. Franco said that the film began when his film “After Lucia” won Un Certain Regard in 2012. Roth was on that jury and so began their collaboration. Roth was in the audience to cheer his director on.
Best Actress was shared by Roony Mara for her role as a young sales clerk who falls in love with a married woman in the 1950s in Todd Haynes’ Carol and by Emmanuelle Bercot in Mon Roi directed by Maïwenn. Interestingly, Bercot also directed the festival’s Opening Night film, Standing Tall. The Best Actor prize went to (I called it) Vincent Lindon for his striking turn as a middle aged man caught in the struggle to find a job and do right by his family during these terrible economic times in Stéphane Brizé's The Measure of a Man. A mesmerizing performance.
Best Director went to Hou Hsiao-Hsien for The Assassin, a beautifully wrought tale of a young woman trained in martial arts in ninth century China. The film reads like a painted scroll; too bad Cannes doesn’t give out awards for art direction. A jury prize was given to The Lobster, a strangely dark and funny with a bite film by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose film Dogtooth was a hit on the festival circuit a few years ago.The Grand Prize, which is akin to second place, was given to Son of Saul, a first feature film by Hungarian filmmaker Lázló Nemes, for his claustrophobic concentration camp horror story.
Finally, the Palme d’or went to Jacques Audiard for Dheepan about Sri Lankan refugees in France. This was a bit of a surprise, and it didn’t sit well with everyone: among the press watching one could hear a smattering of boos. Clearly other films were favorites. But Audiard happily took to the stage, bringing his two leads with him, to take the much deserved praise.
Everyone will be talking about these awards for a few more weeks, before attention turns to other festivals. And in a few more months, we’ll start handicapping Cannes 2016! Truly, it never ends.
The Future of Film
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Features
- Published on Friday, 22 May 2015 16:49
- Written by Marian Masone
Among the main competition and the other official sections of Cannes (Un Certain Regard, Directors Fortnight, Critics Week), there are many outlets for emerging filmmakers. Every year, more and more opportunities open up on the Croisette for these young artists.
Since 2010 the Directors Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) has initiated a cultural program to provide access to all areas of filmmaking and appreciation for students who might not otherwise have the opportunity. Called The Fortnight in La Bocca (a neighborhood on the outskirts of Cannes), filmmaking workshops are held from October through April. Kids work with professionals to make short films which will be presented in the Fortnight’s theater (the Theatre Croisette) during the Cannes film festival. The students also attend screenings, work in critical writing workshops and get to meet filmmakers at the festival. The finished short films are shown before the repeat screening of the Fortnight’s best film winner (this year that winner was Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s “Embrace of the Serpent”).
The festival’s Cinéfondation, written about here in past years, is still going strong with various means of filmmaker support. The Residence of the Cinéfondation is a Parisian retreat where, twice a year a half dozen filmmakers are invited to live for four and a half months in order to work on scripts for first or second feature films. While they work in Paris, the residents of the spring section are taken to Cannes for the duration of the festival to get as much networking and film watching in as possible.
But there are also programs that take place specifically in Cannes. The Cinéfondation has its own competition of student films. The jury for the the Cinéfondation also juries the short film competition, and what an impressive group: This year the jury included French actress Cécile de France, Lebanese filmmaker Joana Hadjithomas, Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski and French director/screenwriter Rebecca Zlotowski (who has won a small slew of awards for her first two feature films, “Belle Épine” and “Grand Central”). Their jury president was non other than master Mauritanian director and producer Abderrahmane Sissako (“Bamako” and last year’s Academy Award foreign film nominee “Timbuktu”).
This year the winner was American filmmaker Pippa Bianco for her film “Share,” which was made at the AFI Directing Workshop for Women in Los Angeles. After these awards were given out, we strolled down the Croisette to the Martinez Hotel where an elegant black tie dinner was held for all of the Cinéfondation participants. There Pippa told me how honored she was to receive her prize from Mr. Sissako. All in all, a perfect moment.
At the dinner I also met two participants in the Cinéfondation’s Atelier. The Atelier project brings 15 directors to Cannes along with their producers and arranges high level meetings with possible financiers so their projects may get needed support. Kirsten Tan from Singapore is looking for financing for his film “Popeye,” and Görgy Kristóf of Hungary was in Cannes with his feature project, “Out.” Success for them is just around the corner.
In the Cannes market, outside of the official sections, filmmakers really mean business, and that includes students. The Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia presented a market screening of “Ovation for Oscar,” a short film commissioned by the school on the occasion of a huge Oscar de la Renta exhibit at the college’s museum. Directed by alum Ryan Curtis and produced by MFA candidate Tyler Reid, the film follows fashion and marketing student Sloane Mayberry as she works with the team organizing the exhibit.
After the screening, we spoke briefly - about the school, about filmmaking and about fashion. Sloane was dressed impeccably (she would be able to get on the red carpet, wearing a beautiful pair of heels!) and she talked about the excitement of working with de la Renta when she interned at the company. Ryan and Tyler discussed the supportive atmosphere of SCAD (as it is known) - Ryan was asked back to make the film after graduating, and the film was financed by the college (the entire crew seemed to be current or former students).
Other SCAD alumni made appearances on the Croisette: Wyatt Garfield, who graduated in 2007, was DP on the Critics’ Week selection “Mediterranea,” which was directed by Jonas Carpignano (who himself an alumnus of the Cinéfondation Residence). The short film “Too Cool for School,” written, directed and produced by a trie of SCAD alum also appeared in Critics’ Week. Yet another short film, “Southsouthwest” written, produced and directed by Madison Hamburg, made an appearance in the market’s Short Film Corner.
The Savannah College of Art and Design pulls no punches: Students get educated there, but the school seems to continue supporting them as they strive to make their way in their chosen fields. It’s good to know someone has your back.
Cannes Film Fest 2015: Fashion Police
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Features
- Published on Wednesday, 20 May 2015 18:28
- Written by Marian Masone
The biggest kerfuffle in Cannes has been the dress code and the shocking revelation that many women (of a certain age, to some observers) were turned away from the red carpet because they were not wearing high heeled shoes.
As many know, the evening screenings of the films in competition at Cannes are formal affairs. Tickets state dress code as tenue de soiree, that is, evening dress and smoking, as in a tuxedo. And everyone who has a ticket (or invitation, as they are delicately called here) has to walk the red carpet and climb the steps up to the Lumière Theater. The carpet is monitored by security who appear to be the original fashion police: if you are not dressed up to code, they will turn you away, invitation or non.
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his correspondent has been witness to such tragedies: in one of my first years at Cannes, I saw a man, impeccably dressed in a chocolate Armani suit which fit him like a glove. Everything matched, from his tie to his shoes. But because the shoes were brown and the tie was not a bow tie, he was expelled from the line in short order. It should be noted that I witnessed this close up: I was standing right behind him in wide black “palazzo” pants, shiny only because they were old, and was wearing flats - yes flats - they had holes in the back (they were hand-me-downs), but big rhinestones on the front. I was quickly shown the way to the red carpet. Go figure.
I have always held that women could play it a bit faster and looser in the evening wear department. Men had to have that bow tie, while women could get away with cocktail length dresses, nice pants and, yes, flats. I have seen some quite inelegant outfits parade down the carpet. But let’s face it, many of the people walking these carpets are working stiffs - journalists, film programmers and the like. Many of them are dressed up because the evening screening is the only one they can attend, so they do the bare minimum.
Back on this year’s carpet, some men were also getting refused because of their shoes. One producer had silver sparkly loafers (very of the moment). But he was almost refused entry until a well-known distributor vouched for him. Another angle to this is that if you are with a film, it is difficult for security to turn you away - Christine Vachon, of Killer Films and producer of Todd Haynes’ film Carol in the competition, posted a photo of the big, black, bulky boots she wore to the film’s red carpet premiere last week.
The festival brass said this was not really a big problem (and Festival director Thierry Fremaux finally said definitely that heels are not required for the red carpet). But even the cast of Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario - Emily Bunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro - had to comment. Blunt decried that women should just wear flats (although she showed up on the carpet in heels), while the menfolk threatened to wear heels themselves on the red carpet (never happened). This was the faux pas that would not go away.
In fact, I like getting dressed up for the movies. For a long time, opening night of the New York Film Festival was black tie and it seemed to bestow a certain respect on the films and the filmmakers: you and your film are valuable, are worthy. But we can’t be fanatics about it. May years ago in New York, the film commission from one the Carolinas threw a black tie party for the New York Film Festival at the Russian Tea Room. Very fancy. I helped at the door since the people from down South didn’t know who most (ok, all) of the guests where. A guy showed up in black jeans, black turtleneck, black leather jacket, says hi to me and walks in. The film commission rep was about to run after him and throw in out (no tuxedo). I had to point out to him that the transgressor was filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. I think he’s cool enough!
Times change, and so do styles. If, in fact, you (as in a festival’s administration) decide that the highest elegant standards must be upheld, then do two things: Distribute a VERY detailed fact sheet for festival attendees - with visual aids - telling them what they can and cannot wear on the carpet (caveat: flats MUST be permitted). And on the carpet itself, don’t have security be the style arbiter - have actual stylists at all the entries to give a thumbs up or thumbs down!
Okay, that’s a bit tongue in cheek (especially the stylist part). But it seemed that the protocol office didn’t know whether or not there was a “no flats” policy. Here at the 68th Cannes Film Festival, one would hope that the entire staff was on the same page. After all, they’ve had 68 years to practice.
