Palm Springs 2008

Film: "Armin"

Actor: Song Kang-ho

Actresses: Anamaria Marinca (left), Laura Vasiliu

What makes The Palm Springs International Festival, now in its 19th year, significantly different from other festivals is that the FIPRESCI jury is expected to judge the best of all the submissions of various countries to the Foreign Language Film Oscars. In a way this makes sense because of Palm Springs proximity to Los Angeles, the self-styled 'movie capital of the world'.
    This year our jury of three had to see 53 movies. Naturally, this was impossible to do during the ten days of the festival so we had to resort to DVDs of more than half the films in the competition, not exactly an ideal situation. Thankfully for future FIPRESCI jurors, from next year, only the 'best' foreign film submissions will be screened, probably between 15 and 20, a much more realistic number.
    Despite the heavy burden of films, most of which were too bad to have any hope of winning an Oscar or others too good to win an Oscar, the festival did everything possible to make everything run smoothly, laying on cars to get to all the screenings, all of which began on time at the three main theatres.
    Although the films in our section were the already heavily lauded 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (FIPRESCI Film of the Year), Persepolis, The Edge of Heaven and The Counterfeiters, we were pleased to discover relatively unknown films of quality such as It's Hard To Be Nice (Bosnia), I Just Didn't Do It (Japan) and Armin (Croatia), the eventual winner.
    The city and climate are very pleasant, the people extremely hospitable, and the audiences, whose average age must be around 70, are receptive and enthusiastic, enjoying the vast range of excellent films on offer. In fact, the cream of world cinema in 2007. The interesting sidebars included New Israeli Cinema, New Voices, New Visions (first and second features) and Cine Latino. (Ronald Bergan)

Palm Springs International Film Festival, USA, January 3-14, 2008
www.psfilmfest.org

FIPRESCI Prizes. Our jury presented three prizes. International Critics' Prize (FIPRESCI Prize) for the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year (2007): Armin by Ognjen Svilicic (Croatia 2007). Best Actress: ex equo Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and Two Days (4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile, Cristian Mungiu, Romania 2007). Best Actor: Song Kang-ho in Secret Sunshine (Milyang, Chang-dong Lee, Korea 2007). Details

Reports

Father and Son. Ronald Bergan was impressed by the Croatian Ognjen Svilicic's Armin because of its sensitive portrayal of a father and son relationship and the subtle intimations of unseen horrors, brilliantly evoked in a serio-comic manner.
Aggressive Passivity. Adam Nayman portrays the Korean actor Song Kan-ho who won the FIPRESCI Prize as best actor, for his role in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine; and adds a brief note on Laura Vasiliu and Anamaria Marinca, the two actresses in Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days who received the FIPRESCI Prize as best actresses.
News from the East. Isabelle Danel discovers and welcomes an interesting group of films coming from East Europe, apart from Romania, seeing them as a reflection of the changing times.
     About recent changes and departures in Eastern European cinema, read also Shahla Nahid's Thessaloniki report about "Balkan Creativity"

top