Talent Press 2009: Day 3

Siddharth Pillai: What She Means When She Talks About It
Sitou Ayité: Bringing the Past Alive
Matthew le Cordeur: Reality Is a Struggle, Deal With It
Marcos Kurtinaitis: A Fashion Victim
Jonas Holmberg: Emanating Architecture
Aaron W. Graham: Reinstating and Defying the Casting Couch Myth
Tommaso Tocci: Digital Problem Solvers

What She Means When She Talks about It
By Siddharth Pillai

At the press conference after the premiere of the much-awaited Berlinale Competition Film Everyone Else (Alle Anderen, Germany), there were surprisingly not many discussions on cinema. The questions were of a more delicate, complex substance, dealing with the matters of the heart. Love, longing, relationships, swoons and sighs. As director Maren Ade said: "It is not a film of grand issues like politics." But at its best moments, there was something so intimate, raw and real about Everyone Else that audience members seem to have gazed within themselves to find questions that they now wanted answers for.

Everyone Else, Ade's sophomore directorial effort, is a modest film about the fragility of human relationship and the toll that society and its norms can take on it. Chronicling the summer getaway of a young, upwardly mobile couple on a Mediterranean island over the course of a few days, Ade focuses on the games the couple play among themselves, which in the beginning are fun and innocent but later, as the world intrudes, acquire pretensions and deceptions. The director understands that there are no easy answers, and she views the proceedings without judgment. Unfortunately, the critics and journalists in the audience weren't ready to leave it at that.

"Explain the film's ending", asked one. "When the heroine says, 'I hate you', it's the only moment in the film that feels forced", said another. "It was the most perfect and natural of scenes", said someone else.

And then came the big one: "How long do you think the characters of the film would remain together?" Richard Linklater's luminous Before Sunrise had the lovers parting on a promise that they would meet again later, and the sequel, Before Sunset, made ten years later, explains the meaning of the ending. Like Jesse, the iconic protagonist of both films says: "It's a good test, right, if you're a romantic or a cynic."

Faced with the question about the fate of her characters, the petite Ade started to answer but stopped herself before reaching the definitive end, breaking into a recollection of how people were disappointed when she answered similar questions about her debut film. Suddenly, as if she couldn't resist it, once again she began to answer, stopping again at the cliff-hanger between love and no love. For a moment, her mouth seemed confused even as her eyes sparkled. Collecting herself, she then proceeded to disown that she was speaking as a director. She was speaking as any other person. "I don't think she will ever leave him", she said with that smile. Siddharth Pillai

Bringing the Past Alive
By Sitou Ayité

Deep in the Valley (Yanaka boshoku) , running in the Berlinale Forum, is a brilliant film by Japanese director Atsushi Funahashi. His earlier film Big River, starring Joe Odagiri, was an exquisitely photographed road movie shot in the Arizona desert in the US, about tentative friendships and the power of forgiveness. This film is completely different and so comes as a great surprise.

The direction is very impressive and he uses cinematic language effectively. Funahashi reveals an astonishing skill in combining various techniques — documentary, fiction, theatrical, and fiction devices, as well as archival film footage. In fact, fact and fiction blur seamlessly in the film. There is also a lively game played out between color and black and white — new generation directors should watch how he uses this to effect. Important scenes — such as an old man in a wheelchair watching the burning pagoda — remain off-camera.

The film is mostly shot in black and white, which lends a dignity to its subject: the possibility of rebuilding a five storey pagoda that was burnt in a fire decades ago, "lonely stones" in graveyards, the presence of spirits around us, and the current generation's notions of spirituality. The film is also edited at a stately pace, paying attention to detail with a calm confidence, whether it is observing the breeze in the branches, or a close-up of the carpenter's hand on a cool gravestone.

Though the film takes a while to warm up, connections between scenes and people are soon revealed. The film shows youngsters making huge efforts to revive a traditional pagoda in their town — they record interviews with the older generation of their memories of the pagoda, they collect old photographs, they trace home video and 8mm films and galvanize the entire community to raise support and finance to reconstruct their beloved pagoda. The director sensitizes us to the motivations of the current young video game, get-rich-quick generation, and how it can be far more sensitive to tradition, and willing to do much more for the community, than we generally suppose. In honoring tradition, in fact, the generation gap is gently bridged.

In exploring his story, the director reveals a lot about Japanese traditions in modern times. By showing a blind old woman routinely washing the graves of other people's ancestors, the filmmaker also underlines how we live in the world of spirits, but are not always aware of it. This is akin to the tradition in my country Togo as well, when, on November 1, graves are cleaned and spirits of the dead honored. Moreover, the long pauses in the film are familiar in African cinema: every spoken word is used carefully, and the director uses silences well.

There is beautiful use of mood music, including a traditional song about the pagoda sung in a sorrowful voice by an old man that makes the film even more memorable. Sitou Ayité

Reality Is a Struggle, Deal with It
By Matthew le Cordeur

Dealing with reality is a tricky business within the documentary field of film making, Tintin and I (Tintin et moi) director Anders Østergaard told Berlinale Talent Campus participants at a session of panelists who were discussing the subject. "We use different techniques to best represent the place we are filming, to make you feel like you are actually there", the Danish filmmaker said.

When filming neglects to pick up certain sounds that put the images into context, editors add sound effects that aim to represent the original sound. "We have creative license to tell the story using these methods," Østergaard said. Dramatizations, animation and interviews are other methods to add to the original footage.

The panel discussed the general issues that arise during a documentary project, especially the lack of control directors have over reality. Panelists included Egypt's Hala Galal and Israel's Michèle Ohayon and they were moderated by Campus project manager Matthijs Wouter Knol. Although nothing too in-depth or groundbreaking was discussed, the panelists showed their latest work and discussed the problems they faced during the projects.

Galal spoke about the challenges of getting academic and liberal Egyptian women to speak about the difficulties they face in their society — she lived with one family for several months before filming them in their natural surroundings. Ohayon, based in the U.S., showed a lot of her work and discussed how each documentary changed her as a person. "From the homeless women to the struggling Brooklyn's student who slept one night in my house, from the cowboy to the drug-ailed mother, I am changed forever by their stories and the impact they have on me."

In Østergaard's documentary, Burma VJ — Reporting from a Closed Country (Burma V.J: Reporter i et lukket land) the subject matter was the story of a Burmese news journalist filming under impossible conditions and trying to smuggle footage out to be broadcasted. "The Burma riots took us by complete surprise last year, changing the dynamics of the project. History was unfolding right before us and so we had to re-evaluate what we were doing there," he said. "I had a lot of pressure from my producer to change course and make a documentary as a chronicle of the events, but I refused because I didn't want to lose the sensitivities of the main subject, Joshua."

Joshua was filming his best work during the riots and as a result had to flee to Singapore. Østergaard's planning had not taken into account such a drastic situation and he moved with Joshua. There, they shot re-enactments of how Joshua filmed, such as hiding behind bushes. So the documentary is a combination of real-life footage — often quite pixilated due to the poor equipment used by Joshua — and dramatizations by the journalist himself.

It's all about logic and being able to control the uncontrollable, Ohayon explained. "When I felt uncomfortable interviewing a drug addict I stopped asking my questions and simply filmed her, until she walked away from me," she said. "That footage worked well to represent the situation as honestly as possible." Matthew le Cordeur

A Fashion Victim
by Marcos Kurtinaitis

The casting of superstar Jude Law as a transvestite brought a lot of media attention to the film Rage (USA/UK) by British director Sally Potter, who has previously directed the acclaimed Orlando and The Tango Lesson. Unfortunately, apart from Law's astonishingly courageous performance, there is not much else to be praised in this pretentious film about the fashion industry. Made on HD and with almost no resources other than actors and sound in a purely talking heads film, the movie uses its stripped-down format as a comment on the excesses of the world it portrays. Unlike other films on the beauty industry such as The Devil Wears Prada and Robert Altman's Prêt-à-Porter, Rage abandons all embellishment. It is miles from the sophisticated craftsmanship of Potter's previous work such as Orlando, and Potter makes an audacious attempt to create a very simple, raw style of filming that evokes the casual look of confessional reality TV shows. Unfortunately, her audacity is not satisfactorily rewarded.

Each character is interviewed by Michelangelo, an off-camera student making a documentary project on the fashion industry — from the stylist, model, manager and the fashion house owner, to his bodyguard and even the pizza-delivery guy. But the film is a victim of its own tight structure. What seems stylish and daring at first, soon proves to be an unfortunate choice of mis-en-scène. The "talking heads" format is very monotonous, and the script — by Ms. Potter — bristles with stereotypes and pompous lines. The story revolves around an off-screen fashion show that turns tragic with mysterious accidents involving models.

The characters speak to camera before a blue screen that turns red, yellow and orange. The camera work is basic, with occasional zooming; the lighting is flat and the editing nothing to write home about. The events occurring off-screen are suggested through sound effects, but are very artificial. Since we never discover what actually happened, or even the victims of the tragedies, we are scarcely interested in the murder mystery. We're left with a never-ending parade of statements about the role of beauty in our world, the vanity and the greed that move the fashion business, and the voraciousness of the media.

There are a few cynical remarks and insights, but these don't save a 99 minute-long piece from ringing hollow. After 20 minutes, the audience senses nothing's going to happen: many left the press screening; others slept through much of it.

The overall acting is good, with the possible exceptions of Simon Abkarian as Merlin the fashion designer, and Patrick J. Adams as the young employee Dwight Angel, who are both of caricatures. And it is embarrassing to see such wonderful performers as Dame Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest and Steve Buscemi waste their talent in this pointless film. Rage is certain to provoke in the audience what its title announces. Marcos Kurtinaitis

Emanating Architecture
By Jonas Holmberg

Watching a film you usually keep your eyes at the actors. But for every actor, there are a hundred things going on around them. The table they're sitting at, the floor lamp, the roof lamp and the background wallpaper. It's the set designer's job to choose or create all these objects.

"But I don't really think I'm working with objects", Christian Goldbeck objects. "Set designing is working with the characters, with people. You start with the character, and ask yourself: What life has this person lived? What objects should then surround her?", he says and exemplifies with the fact that parents usually have children's drawings at their walls and family photos on their desks. "It's banal, but true."

On Friday, trial drama (Frankfurt Auschwitz trials) The Reader premiered at the Berlinale, on Saturday, trial drama (Balkan war trials) Storm (Sturm) premiered and last year's dark fairytale Krabat was also screened at the festival. Despite the juridical connection, they are very different films. But set designer Christian Goldbeck has worked on them all. It's Monday morning and he looks exhausted. "There are screenings, press conferences and lots of interviews to attend, so I've been kept busy", he says. "And at night there are many parties. Now I'm very tired."

Christian Goldbeck is a trained architect, but has never built a house. Instead he went into movies. "I left architecture because it wasn't playful enough. And in architecture you can only guess who the person inhabiting your building will be. In films, the architecture emanates from the character. I think that is more interesting."

After graduating from set design school, Christian Goldbeck was confronted with a German film industry without interest in set designers. "In the eighties, there were only two types of films in Germany. The art house auteur film, usually shot on location, and the German comedy. They just didn't need set designers", he says. "Luckily I managed to find work with some small movies."

But German cinema has changed a lot since the eighties. "Period movies, thrillers, sci-fi films and other big productions all need good set design, so my work is much more valued now, and I can work with bigger budgets." Preparing for the shooting of Storm, his team built an exact replica of a Hague courtroom, and for The Reader he built a gigantic street set not even visible in the film. The outdoor shots were edited out. All his work was made for nothing.

"But those things don't hurt me anymore", he says. "When I was young I was angry with the editor when something like that happened, but I have changed. I realize now that the set design is made to support the story, not the other way around. But I still hope some street scenes will be included on the DVD." Jonas Holmberg

Reinstating and Defying the Casting Couch Myth
By Aaron W. Graham

The one true pearl of wisdom British filmmaker Stephen Frears wanted to relate to his transfixed audience during a relaxed 90 minute chat in the top floor of the Hau 3 was that he has no firm secret for casting. Joining Frears in the discussion was Danish filmmaker Ole Christian Madsen, and the person he relies on most during those early, crucial stages of casting a picture, Rie Hedegaard.

With his casting director Leo Davis by his side, Frears was quick to strip away any of the mystery that casual film watchers would imagine such an Oscar nominated director would have for his well-cast films. His was the more intuitive approach, and he bemoaned explicitly that he has no set vision in mind when dealing with screenplays, whereas Madsen has a definitive one for the actors and the characters they'll soon inhabit.  

Madsen's clip was a monstrous introductory scene for the WWII-set Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen(, showcasing a cavalcade of faces with various traits described via narration. In this case, Madsen related, the features of the faces of the various actors helped him decide; it was just as obvious as that. Watching a reality show on television one night, Madsen took notice of a woman appearing, and pursued her for a role in Nordkraft (Angels in Fast Motion). With no previous training, she was hired on the spot.

Frears discussed Dirty Pretty Things and The Queen and also mentioned the career-defining turns by both Daniel Day-Lewis and Penelope Cruz in his films, stating that because he makes them so cheaply that he needed to work with newfound stars before they discovered fame.

Frears divulged how Jack Black, a friend of John Cusack and the two screenwriters of High Fidelity, was cast. After offering it to him three months before shooting without a rehearsal, Black became nervous, refused the role he already had — unless he could film an audition.

In the end, his process works like this: after deliberating for quite some time on the actors and actresses Davis brings in, she'll undoubtedly threaten to quit, and he'll hurry up to assign the people to the roles. Most of the time, it's as uncomplicated as that. Aaron W. Graham

Digital Problem Solvers
By Tommaso Tocci

Claudia Meglin and Mark Read, mentors of the 2009 Campus Studio for the Berlinale Talent Campus, are not just post-production experts and visual FX professionals, they're a self-sufficient educational team. Like a pair of experienced sports commentators, they surf through seminars with their perfectly timed exchanges. Addressing an audience of young directors and visual artists, they discuss everything from the job philosophy to video-camera buying tips.

Claudia, calm and elegant, takes care of the overall discourse, while Mark is eager to provide examples and sharp technical insights. "She is more focused on making people work together, while I've always had a focus on making machines work together", he says, and it shows: leaving the auditorium after their "Working through Digital Workflows" class, we retreat to the dark studio where Mark and Claudia have been working with the Talents, surrounded by computers and post-production tools. Mark is so passionate that he even tapes the interview, overshadowing my small voice recorder with a giant video camera on a tripod.

You're overseeing the Talents' work through the post-production process. What is the most important aspect of that?

Claudia: Making sure they work with each other. Most of them are self-taught, which is good, but they have to work as a team. Filmmaking is about sharing ideas — the output is not that important.

You divide your time between your professional career and your educational activities. How do you combine the two?

Claudia: They're strictly related. I started out in production design, following and organizing lectures. Then I moved to the digital field, and there was nobody to teach me. So I learned by myself, and I'm now using that experience to help other people.

Mark: We've been working together for six years, sharing the same philosophical approach. We work with both the people who make technology and those who use it. It's great to be in between and have an influence on our own environment. Because when you are on a set and everything goes smoothly, it's a beautiful feeling.

You have worked with Clint Eastwood in the most recent phase of his career, involving period pieces and war movies, which need more visual effects. How do you think that changed the perspective of the most classic American filmmaker?

Mark: He hasn't changed much, but he can be more flexible, now. At Malpaso [Eastwood's production company] the codeword is "simplicity"; they still cut reels together by hand and do things in the most classic way, so when they use effects you are sure it's because they need them to reach further in what they're doing.

As in Changeling's final scene, which was originally meant to fade to black and then was reworked into a two-minute shot of 1920's L.A. It allows for reflection.

Mark: Yes. It reflects their motto, "emulate the director”. You study the general vibe of where the emotion is going, and tap into that. The effects become a part of this process and you maximize their effectiveness. Tommaso Tocci

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