Berlin 2005 : the Talent Press

Friday, February 18th 2005

From Finland with Love and Hate
Reality Is In the Eye of the Beholder: Ghosts in Berlin
Sign It!
Remembering the Silence of Friends (SOMETIMES IN APRIL - Competition)
A Director's Actor (An Interview with Tadanobu Asano)
Creative Intercourse Finally

From Finland with Love and Hate

Aku Louhimies is one of the most talented young Finnish directors who has proved himself during the last five years. His third full length feature, FROZEN LAND (PAHA MAA, 2004), was presented at the Berlinale Film Market yesterday.

His first two films, RESTLESS (LEVOTTOMAT, 2000) and LOVERS & LEAVERS (KUUTAMOLLA, 2002) both told stories of modern youth in Finland . Both are very realistic and well-directed, and show truthful relationships. In his early work Louhimies focused on modern life, loneliness and sexuality.With the third feature, FROZEN LAND, he reached a new level.

RESTLESS was based on Camus' Stranger, but for FROZEN LAND he found inspiration from Leo Tolstoy's "Faux Billet". The film, focusing on survival and the difficulties of forgiving, has also strong influences from Dostojevski. The story deals with many tragic human destinies, and its structure recalls 21 GRAMS by Alejandro Inarritu in that the episodes dissolve into each other in a non-linear way. But Louhimies' is easier to follow because his rhythms are slower.

A very realistic picture of today's Finland includes unemployment, alcoholism, murder, revenge, depression and drug-addiction - problems that are not visible for a person looking at the country from outside.
It's one of the darkest and most depressing Scandinavian films ever, even though lately there has been a number of them. As Finns have very strong and weird sense of humour, there are some very comical episodes in FROZEN LAND, but the humour is as black as night. And of course, it's always winter or fall outside.

At the same time, Louhimies sees his upside-down heroes and heroines in a very humane way. He is clearly on their side - you must feel sorry for them, regardless of the terrible acts they commit.

All of his films have been big critical and financial successes, but FROZEN LANDS' psychological exactness and artistic maturity combined with a sharp social eye promise that Louhimies can and will step out of Kaurismäki's shadow.

Maria Ulfsak

Reality Is In the Eye of the Beholder: Ghosts in Berlin

In a recent interview, Director Christian Petzold said "Real life in film is always only a caricature". This can be reduced even further because the idea that there is any "real" life in the first place is questionable. And in essence, this is what his latest film is very self-consciously about. He talked at the 2005 Berlinale Talent Campus about his film, now screening in competition at the Berlinale.

In GHOSTS, Petzold doesn't peddle in platitudes or pander to the myth of "normality". The entire film is infused with the philosophy that reality is in the eye of the beholder.

To hear Petzold talk was absolutely beguiling: you rarely encounter a director who is so articulate about his work, even in translation, and has such emotional intelligence. On the other hand, GHOSTS is so necessarily subtle that too much exposition risks suffocating the film.

The idea for the film had two geneses for Petzold: a group of "missing children" notices in a post office in France, and a Grimm's fairytale he read to his daughter, called "The Shroud". In this fable, a woman's longing for her dead child keeps the ghost somewhere between heaven and earth, in the twilight zone. In GHOSTS, Nina is an itinerant girl who can't remember her family; Francoise is a mentally strained mother searching for her daughter who was abducted years ago when she was 3. When they find each other in Berlin, the film becomes an overlapping of their different imaginings, and with the power of their longings they each infuse the other with their own "reality".

In the session Petzold suggested that screen culture reflects society's longing for a cohesive narrative to make sense of the world. But no such stories exist in film, there are just attempts; a cohesive narrative in film as in the world, is impossible. And so Petzold leaves it deliberately ambiguous whether Nina really is Francoise's lost daughter. "But I think cinema is full of ghosts in a non-literal sense. They are created by the thoughts of another, but they are not a state of being or idea, but a character, a person; they DO things. They LIVE."

The film has a voyeuristic undertone: the scenes are shot with steadicam rather than dollies, allowing the camera to get very close to the actors without throwing of the naturalness of their performance; the sound design is such that you feel like you are following Nina when she walks through the park. In one especially provocative sequence Nina and her friend Toni dance together, their intimacy broken by the gaze of a man in the film, but also by our own curiosity.

Although this film works on a cerebral level, it is not essentially a thinking film, but a feeling one. What makes the story work is the emotionally intuitive use of colour, sound, and minimalist cinematography, and the intimacy of the performances. However I think it is better not to be too seduced by the intention behind the film. Is it really worth breaking a beautiful thing to find out how it works?

Dee Jefferson

Sign It!

It's winter in Berlin, the snow which fell a few days ago hasn't melted yet in the parks and the windy weather sends most of the festival-goers into warm cinemas. However, there are a few of them who manage to resist the meteorological hardships of the German capital for hours on end. It´s day seven of the 2005 Berlinale, the most important premiere being Wes Anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU starring Bill Murray and Cate Blanchett. The casting has aroused the fans, who were not to be seen outside the Hyatt Hotel previously, when less known actors and filmmakers were present at the festival.

We are a few minutes away from the press conference of the film, and at the back door of Hyatt there are around thirty people waiting. The crowd is definitely smaller than in Cannes, but they are at least as enthusiastic as at the French Riviera. We begin by mixing among them, trying to see who might be open for a short discussion. It is not easy to get in touch with them, because they fear that if they start to talk with us, they could lose the place they have guarded for some time. This why we are refused by a nice blonde German girl and her friends too, arguing in perfect English that their English is not good enough for an interview.

Alexander (18 years) came from Frankfurt and he'd just got an autograph from director Wes Anderson. This is not his first festival. Two years ago he was in Cannes, but it was much more difficult there to get photos and autographs. We are probably the cause of that: "There are too many press at Cannes" we are told. He has "not so many" autographs this year. He managed to collect 15, but he has some big names: Keanu Reeves, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins. At this moment somebody begins to shout "Bill Murray, Bill Murray". But it is only his zeal, the actor is not here yet.
Victor (49) is from South-America, but he has lived for 20 years in Berlin. He came here to get a signature on his piece of paper from Anjelica Houston: "I like this woman very much" he said. Our discussion is interrupted by the arrival of the actress, and Victor disappears into the crowd. Miss Houston isn't very generous with her fans. She enters the building quickly. After this we meet Fabian (23) who is a big autograph-collector from Bremen.He got a signature the day before from Daniel Day Lewis, now from Wes Anderson. He has around 30 autographs, but right now he is upset, because it seems that Bill Murray won't show and he came especially for him. Fabian usually asks "press people" in order to know who will arrive and when the press conferences take place.

Cate Blanchett shows up, so we have to wait a little bit as she tries to honour everybody. Claudia (22) is the happy owner of a very fresh Blanchett autograph. During this year's Berlinale, she collected around 20 signatures from American and "a lot of" from German stars. She confesses that usually they have to wait 4-5 hours to get an autograph. Bill Murray hasn't arrived yet, and we don't have the patience of Claudia to wait for him. As we are already cold enough we leave the field for a good hot coffee in the lobby of a warm cinema. An article is not worth frozen fingers.

Zsolt Gyenge

Remembering the Silence of Friends
SOMETIMES IN APRIL - Competition

SOMETIMES IN APRIL is an intense, moving depiction of the atrocities in Rwanda that happened only a decade ago and was ignored by most of the world-both in the centre of power and our private lives. As the first big-budget movie to depict this relatively recent civil war between the Hutus and Tutsis, it portrays starkly the fate of a Rwandan family, torn apart by ethnic struggles through a series of flashbacks.

Written, directed and executive produced by Haitian-born director Raoul Peck, the film starts with Martin Luther King's words: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." What happened in Rwanda was not about civilization; it was about greed, arrogance and power. The story traveling from April 2004 back to April1994 links us to the past through the memory of three survivors.

It follows the journey of Hutu Captain Augustin Muganza who is forced to relive the genocide when he receives a letter from his brother, who is detained for his role as a broadcaster at an extremist political radio station that provoked the killings with propaganda. Muganza, now a teacher, is reluctant to respond to his brother's call to attend the U.N. tribunal investigating the genocide. He has to deal with a troubled past that includes the unknown fate of his Tutsi wife and children, and the death of a friend. In the end, the three of them recall what they have been through.

On the other hand, SOMETIMES IN APRIL shows the indifference of a world that dismissed the genocide as routine African bloodshed. Unfortunately, what went on in Rwanda is, in a way, lost in the generic category of genocide. Anger, tension, humiliation, trauma, pain and tears are inherent in any genocide experience. So though the film, shot in real locations with documentary footage, depicts both the harsh reality of genocide and the world that chose not to intervene with conviction, the genocide does not shock us, thanks to media overkill.

Peck pulls off the tricky balance, drawing in the viewer without emotional exploitation. SOMETIMES IN APRIL succeeds in telling its sad and potent story through modest and realistic visuals.

The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 claimed the lives of one million people and forced 3.5 million men, women and children into exile. SOMETIMES IN APRIL, one of the competition films at this year's Berlin Film Festival, is a genocide film showing what we should commemorate is not only one of the lowest periods for civilization in human history, but also the sins of the colonialist powers.

Müge Turan

A Director's Actor
An Interview with Tadanobu Asano

"Tadanobu Asano is probably the best actor in the world today" declares famed cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Coming from Doyle, who has worked with some of the finest performers in cinema today, from Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung (in the films of Wong Kar Wai), to Gong Li and Michael Caine (in EROS and THE QUIET AMERICAN), a statment such as this is not one to be taken lightly.

With no formal training as an actor, Asano's acting career began when his father, an actor's agent, encouraged him to audition for a part in a television a drama. This became his first acting role, though, he stresses, it was not necessarily this path that he had in mind "I wanted to do something where I would work for and with people, in open spaces, in the media. It didn't have to be as an actor."

Asano's eminent rise on the international film circuit has not been merely chance. He chooses his collaborators carefully, "The director is the most important part of the film", he remarks, "I put more faith in them than on the script". His recent filmogrography re-affirms that, having worked with such leading lights in contemporary cinema as Takashi Miike (ICHI THE KILLER), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (BRIGHT FUTURE), Takeshi Kitano (ZATOICHI), Shinya Tsukamoto (VITAL), Hirokazu Koreeda (DISTANCE) inside Japan, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien (CAFé LUMièRE) and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE) outside of Japan. Making films outside of Japan has not been difficult for Asano, and the language barrier has not proven to be a problem on the set "Pen-Ek was very careful to explain things very clear, in very slow, understandble English".

A passionate musician since his High School days, Asano performs with his band Peace Pill when not working on films. "His background as a musician" Doyle point out, "informs the natural rhythm in his acting."

Inspired to see what the work may come out like should he pick up the camera himself, he recently directed TORI, a film set in five sequences, distinct in style and theme, that were borne out of his dreams. "It was a great experience", Asano announces, "I really enjoyed working with friends", seeing them on screen, and using their music in his work.

Asano's next project is another collaboration with the LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE team. He will be flying to Thailand to shoot INVISIBLE WAVES, re-uniting the team of director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and scriptwriter Prabda Yoon.

Alexis Tioseco

Creative Intercourse Finally

Only four films, but the 50 or so people who took part in producing them would likely have derived more fun than others from their participation at this year's Berlinale Talent Campus.

The films, of course, were the four shorts made as Talent Movies of the Week, which come up on screen at the House of World Cultures on Thursday evening as part of the grand finale for this year's programme.
At the workshop that was held earlier in the day at the theatre in HWC, titled How Did that Movie Get Made, it turned out to be an appropriate spotlight on how the lucky talents took the opportunity to realise their previously submitted idea for a short film. And as the moderator of the discussion, Sandy Lieberson said, "The best film education is to make a film."

It is obviously what the Indian talent, Debalina Majumder, did in directing one of the shorts, A STRANGER IN A BIOSCOPE. It is the only documentary among the four, and the funniest film, with Debalina in front of the camera interviewing people in her Calcutta accent about the various aspects of Berlin and German life that amused her.

"One of the things that helped in knocking the idea into shape is that I had never been to Berlin. Then when I arrived the airport, I did not realise I had to pay €1 for the trolley, which I could always get for free in India."
The first culture shock became an idea for the film. If she could get the trolley, she thought, she could make the film. She is one of the very lucky ones at the Talent Campus this year, said Thomas Struck, the Talent Manager. Her entry for the Shoot Goals, Shoot Movies! Competition, JOY RUN, is seen as one of the most interesting. Her script for the short film, Struck said, was also one that the Talent Campus knew could not be ignored.

It is certainly an Indian party, as another Indian talent, Sainath Choudhury, also directed one of the short films, CATARACT. His bio does read like the ultimate talent. He was part of the Talent Campus in India, and was selected for the Berlinale on the quality of his football entry, VILLAGE FOOTBALL. And when a director was needed for the short film, based on the advice of Water Salles, the mentor for the talents this year, the lot fell on Choudhury. Working with a German scriptwriter and a Brazilian cinematographer, among others, in shooting the film clearly demonstrates the creative intercourse that producing the films in one week has achieved for those involved.

The two other films, SOUVENIRS from Berlin, by a talent from the Czech Republic and BOM! shot by Turkish and Swiss talents showed just how much could be achieved in one week in making a film.

Thanks to technical assistance from Berlin-based Sabotage films, shooting was as good as it could get, even on DV and Canon cameras. Each film had two days to shoot, two to edit, another two to add sound and the last one day for grading and mixing. "We shot on digital but we managed to upgrade the camera a bit with film lenses and 35 mm adaptors. But shooting a talent movie was a special situation, and we managed to achieve very high standards giving the limitations of the situation," said Karsten Aurich, one of the producers of the film. His experience as the line producer for the popular German film, THE EDUKATORS certainly contributed a lot to the making of the Talent Movies of the Week.

Steve Ayorinde

© FIPRESCI / Berlinale Talent Campus 2005

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