Talent Press 2009: Day 2

Eugenia Saul: A Hollow Film
Matthew le Cordeur: Puccini in the Middle: An Alternative Understanding of Film
Sitou Ayite: Go Meet People
Siddharth Pillai: The Part and the Whole
Jonas Holmberg: The Look of Love
Eugenia Saúl: Personal Cards and Samples of Work

A Hollow Film
By Eugenia Saúl

It is common to see badly learnt lessons in cinema, a clear influence that reminds us of another film, director or film movement, but immediately looks like a poor relation to the original. A good example of this is some independent cinema of the United States and Canada, which has taken as a role model the narrative of, for example, independent filmmakers like Wes Anderson or Sofía Coppola. Dan in Real Life or Lars and the Real Girl are two such films. They seem to pursue commercial success but disguise themselves as if it didn't really matter. This is also the case of Canadian Philippe Falardeau's latest film, the Berlinale Generation film It's Not Me, I Swear (C'est pas moi, je le jure!), a 105 minute feature film about a ten year-old boy with suicidal tendencies called Léon. In this film, there is a very clear influence from Todd Solondz. Falardeau portrays his characters the same way: he shows their suffering by putting them through a series of tortuous situations. It is a way of storytelling that always shows the director patronizing the characters he is creating.

This story is set in the suburban Montreal of the late sixties, where Léon lives with his family, dysfunctional as can be (a main topic in new American independent cinema). His parents quarrel all day long, his older brother, Jérôme, wants to be a good boy to maintain the family peace (he feels it is his responsibility). In time, Léon will make friends with his neighbor Léa, whom he "hates" at the beginning (but, of course, only because he loves her). Clichés proliferate throughout the entire film.

These are two very troubled ten year-olds: Léon has been abandoned by his mother (a frustrated painter who inexplicably runs off to Greece), and his father is as cold as can be. Léa, for her part, has also been abandoned by her father and is raised by her drunken uncle, who constantly beats her up. She has never seen a Barbie doll (this is roughly used as a grotesque metaphor to portrait her lifelong unhappiness). In the end, it is nothing more than a kids-ploitation film, guilty of being shrewdly commercial and very careful not to fall into any genres (it flirts with comedy and drama but doesn't decide for one or the other). Instead, it falls into that typical formula of narrating a story: with a hand held camera to pursue realism, with out of focus scenes and cutting every two minutes. It's a hollow film pretending to be a serious one about the deadening perils of suburban life. Eugenia Saúl

Puccini in the Middle: An Alternative Understanding of Film
By Matthew le Cordeur

Every sensory antenna in my body is on full alert. The smell of chocolate, which is being eaten close by, the taste of beer in my mouth, the comfortable feeling from sitting in a cozy theatre and, finally, the sight and sound of Puccini Conservato by Canadian filmmaker Michael Snow. The latter two senses are joined with that of late entries, dark silhouettes against the screen and hard footsteps intruding on the sound of opera composer Giacomo Puccini. These sensory feelings are confusing, but essential for viewers hoping to take something out of this complicated combination of experimental art and cinema.

Snow, considered the father of formalist film, collaborated with the founder of Paris Expérimental Publishing, Christian Lebrat (V2 Puccini), and one of Britain's most visually rich filmmakers, Stephen Dwoskin (Ascolta!), in the Tre Puccini collection. Their three films were part of a series commissioned by the Lucca Film Festival in Italy last year, which asked 20 expressionist filmmakers to explore Puccini's work.

These films are more like installations, which would normally be placed in art galleries, but for the last four years the Berlin International Film Festival has hosted a program called Forum expanded, which attempts to bridge the gap between classical film formats and art gallery experimental works. It's a refreshing alternative to feature films and demands a very different concentration. The psychological feeling it evokes is strange as viewers either lose focus, letting the music take them away, or they focus with intensity trying to control the cognitive experience.

The three selected pieces are similar in style in that each director uses extreme close-ups and distorted images to explore elements of Puccini's music. With Snow, it is the curiosity about a CD player and the understanding that listening to music via a secondary source lacks authenticity. Lebrat seeks the origin of music and does this by exploring the process a cellist undergoes to release the sound of Puccini. The out-of-focus shots create a melody in itself as the director plays with sound and visuals. Dwoskin's extreme close-up looks at an opera singer's eyes. They stare, close tightly, and then open to release a tear drop. Her intensity is unnerving. Is she staring at the audience, because a sense of responsibility suddenly came over me? What have we done to our opera singer?

The use of distorted images in Tre Puccini makes the sound even clearer, while also enabling the viewer to meditate over artistic visuals that are trying to tell us something in a more open, engaging way. The visuals not only create an atmosphere, they also direct the viewer in the way they listen to Puccini. This refreshing and experimental concept of film is complicated in its meaning, but helps audiences re-evaluate the broader power of cinema. Matthew le Cordeur

Go Meet People
By Sitou Ayité

Director-writer Vicki Psarias won the Channel 4 Talent Award for Best Filmmaker in 2007 for her short films including Broken and Rifts. A Berlinale Talent Campus (BTC) alumna of 2007, she is currently participating in the BTC Meet the Experts program presented in collaboration with Skillset.

Her short film Broken is a personal drama on what it means to be an immigrant in London, seen through the eyes of a 14-year-old Greek Cypriot girl. Rifts tells the story of two warring kebab shop owners, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, in London. I meet Vicki Psarias at HAU 1.

You were in the BTC before, and won the Channel 4 Talent Award for Best Filmmaker. How does it feel?

It's so wonderful! I'll never forget it. We were 20 people —writers, directors and so on from the UK, selected to be in the BTC 2007. I feel so honored today to be in the BTC again.

The Channel 4 Talent Award described you "a future creative hero" and "the one to watch for". Is that how you see yourself?

I don't think about what people think about me. I just want people to watch my work. I want to share it with others.

What tips would you share with the BTC Talents, so they can benefit the maximum from being here?

I would say go to the seminars, the workshops. If you are a director, go to the producers' programs. Talents must go and meet people.

Why did you choose themes related to Cyprus in your films?

Because Greeks and Cypriots are so underrepresented in films and TV drama.

Where did you raise the funds for your films?

From everywhere. We worked very hard for it. But mainly, the film was funded by The Tower Hamlets, Hackney Film Fund and The Hellenic Foundation, London.

What kind of audiences could you find for your short films?

Broken and Rifts have both been screened at film festivals worldwide, from Dinard to Argentina. Broken was a finalist both at the Kodak Awards 2007, as well as the Limelight Awards for Best Film.

Do you think short films can have an impact worldwide?

Yes. Cinemas need yarns, and short films are a medium to communicate to the world. Sitou Ayité

The Part and the Whole
By Siddharth Pillai

"Scriptwriting, scriptwriting, scriptwriting": When veteran film historian and author Peter Cowie said those words, loud applause rang through the cramped yet stately HAU 1, setting the focus on what the first program of "Suddenly, It all Happened — Turning Points in Close-Up" would be all about.

Independent producer Anne Carey started the proceedings, recalling that when Mike Mills, director of Thumbsucker, then just another fresh face with no track record, came to her with the book by Walter Kirn, she made it a point that Mills himself should adapt it into a screenplay so that he could get an intuitive feel for what the film should be. That decision would be instrumental in shaping the intimate and quiet quality of the film.

This was also echoed by writer-director Sir David Hare, who mentioned that he could only adapt a book if it gave him an instant flash of an idea the moment he finished reading it. He explained how his own personal views of the story were essential to portraying the complexity and myriad implications of prose like that of Bernhard Schlink (The Reader) and Michael Cunningham (The Hours). He also wittily elaborated on the complex dynamics that often develop behind the scenes where the writer, as he put it, plays "lawyer", defending his script as the director, the editor, and his arch nemesis, the composer, try to undermine the written word with their own improvisations and flourishes. After almost grudgingly crediting director Stephen Daldry and composer Philip Glass with a magnificent scene in The Hours that was not in the original script, Sir Hare still went on to declare, to great applause, "I wouldn't permit improvisation".

Scriptwriter and director Daniela Thomas (Linha de passe), however, stated passionately that her only priority was the existence of the film. Even if faced with destroying her script completely, she would be open to the sacrifice, painful as it is. As she talked, her idea of film emerged vividly — a dynamic creation, with the stuff of art and life, born out of collaborative efforts in which everyone involved placed the final film above all other concerns. Of all the clips that were played to illustrate the resolution of the problematic "turning points" (or, as Sir Hare would say, "Bo-Doing" scenes), it was no surprise then, that Thomas' sequences made a profound impression with their poetry and oneness.

So what is it exactly that makes a brilliant turning point or, rather, a brilliant script? There are ideas, diversions, intuition and other contrivances, but most importantly, it seems, one has to have faith in the entity above it all — the film. Siddharth Pillai

The Look of Love
By Jonas Holmberg

The only thing more boring than doing boring work, should be watching other people doing boring work. The Uruguayan-Argentinean-German co-production Gigante in Berlinale Competition tries to prove otherwise.

German leftist director Harun Farocki once made the observation that during history filmmakers have always been very interested in workers entering and leaving their factories, but not so interested in actually depicting them working — even if working is what most of us do half of our waking hours. Of course there's no lack of moving image representation of lawyers, journalists or city attorneys working, but we usually meet the working classes at the kitchen sink, not at the supermarket cashier.

Or in the supermarket surveillance centre. That's where overweight — hence the title — night guard Jara works. And refreshingly enough, at least to Farocki-style Marxists — we see him working a lot. This despite the monotonous character of his job — consisting of eating, solving crosswords and keeping an eye on the other nightshifters at the surveillance system monitor. He stares at blue toned, blurry images of the bakers kneading, the butchers carrying joints of meat, and the cleaning ladies swabbing the floors in fluorescent light. He's utterly bored. And then he runs out of crosswords.

But suddenly he falls in love with Julia, one of the cleaning ladies. And everything changes. He loves to watch her work. When she is clumsy and knocks a pile of toilet paper over, he laughs. When she has a short sexual affair with another nightshifter, he turns on the fire alarm to stop it. Tenderly, he zooms in her face, and replays the scene over and over again. He just can't stop watching.

But his omnipotence in the visual field is contrasted with his self-destructive inability in all others. His shyness drives him to obsessive stalking — here not treated as an assault but as something quite cute.

Despite the fascinating theme of panoptical romance, heavy-handed Gigante never manages to lift from the white tile floor of the supermarket. The reasons for Jara's obsession with Julia are too scantily explained, and the rough but controlled quality of the surveillance images never really marry with the spontaneous photographic style of the outdoor scenes. But finally, the film is a failure because the only thing more boring than watching other people doing boring work, is watching other people watching other people doing boring work. Even when they get (invisible) romantic kicks from it. Jonas Holmberg

Personal Cards and Samples of Work
By Eugenia Saúl

Take two hundred chairs, make a figure of eight out of them and then seat your Talents face to face. Sound a big horn every three minutes to let them know they have to switch seats. That's Global Speed Matching. Led by producer Janine Marmot, who has worked with the Quay Brothers and Chantal Akerman, amongst other important filmmakers, the Berlinale Talent Campus GSM encounter took place on Saturday, the very first day of the week long event. A feeling of excitement was in the air: around two hundred new Talents had just arrived (very tired), each of them eager to talk to as many people as possible and tell us their names, origin and field work. "I arrived today, a moment ago", says David from New York. So what is he doing here so soon? "I wanted to start as quickly as possible". The encounter took place at the comfortably multipurpose room at HAU 2, and it was crowded with Talents from all disciplines, but one category was heard more than others: writer directors filled the space.

The main line was very clear from the start: people are here to meet potential work partners (and, why not, make friends), as soon as possible. Among the nationalities were Talents from Greece, Spain, Macedonia, England, USA, Poland, Mexico, Portugal, Japan, Brazil, Russia and Taiwan. Many already had a DVD with a short film on it. GSM basically consists, like romantic speed date encounters, in a three-minute chat with the person who sits in front of you, after which you switches places to meet a new one. It is a properly democratic practice: that's the time everybody has to make an acquaintance. There will be more meetings each day of the week. The sessions are separated by field work. Directors and producers met everyone yesterday; directors meet producers and editors on Monday, directors meet writers on Tuesday and directors meet everyone else on Wednesday. Finally, there's a general session on Thursday, last day of the Berlinale Talent Campus.

This is how, for instance, Chun-Chiech Lin from Taiwan, Alice Powell from England, Yusake Fukada from Japan or Ben Kegler from Germany handed out their personal cards and samples of work. But Jane Kortoshev from Macedonia, for example, used his time differently: he showed his film around on his cell phone! A short silent black and white comedy sketch. "It's made in a Charles Chaplin style", he explained. Eugenia Saúl

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