Talent Press 2009: The Participants

Sitou Ayite   /    Matthew le Cordeur   /   Aaron W. Graham   /   Jonas Holmberg
Marcos Kurtinaitis   /   Siddarth Pillai   /   Eugenia Saul   /   Tommaso Tocci

Sitou Ayité: The Manifestation of Talents

I became a film critic because of the environment in which I grew up. While filmmaking is not well developed in my country, I was working on a script when I was in secondary school. My passion for films was born then.
   Afterwards, during my academic year in the English department of the University of Lomé, Togo, my country, I got a training period in a local radio station. I worked there as a presenter for two years. It's the place I learnt journalistic techniques.
   The year 2006 is the one characterized in my country by "filmmaking awakening". Why? My country was among those which flourished in filmmaking during the post independent period in West Africa but by some political strategies, Togo vanished from the African and international film industry scale. So, since 1975 filmmaking has fallen into a great lethargy. 
   The early 2006 has known some young and dynamic people who raised and decided to take up the challenge in Togolese filmmaking. In the same period, a ten-day film criticism formation had been launched and I was the only girl with ten other journalists chosen to participate in the courses. From there, an association of film critics was born in Togo (AJCC-Togo) and I have been the secretary general.
   For the moment, my association and me have a huge job to do. The structures in the ministry of culture are in place but inactivity must be dashed so that everyone may sustain the film movement that is taking place. The atmosphere in which my association is working looks like that: people have a wrong conception of film criticism in my country; the fear that film critics exist only to pick out the wrong parts of their works make the filmmakers not want to associate film critics with their work. The few ones we work with (surveys estimate an average of two films shot a year) are published on www.africine.org (a website created by the African Film Criticism Federation to which my association is affiliated). It will take time to solve the problem but it is not impossible.
   My presence at the Berlinale this February is a great opportunity to deepen and share my experiences with other film critics in view of any eventual collaboration.
   For me, this festival is a kind of platform where some national film orators meet in order to generate an interactivity that will continue even after the event. Sitou Ayité

Matthew le Cordeur: Growing Pains: South African Film Enters its Adolescence

Some people view film as just a way of relaxing. I am not one of them.
   If friends put on a movie late at night, they will pass out after the first scene — but I'll stay up until the credits, no matter how tired I am. Film engages me at many different levels: the striking mise-en-scène; the logical shift in cinematography; the subtle use of hues; the dramatic angles; the stylish dialogue. Few films combine all these qualities. Being able to weigh up every aspect of a film is what lures me into the world of critique.
   The Berlin Film Festival is a global village of cinema. From the Himalayan foothills to the favelas of Brazil, people have a chance to tell their stories. Such a range of filmmaking methods is like the horn of plenty for me.
   The standard of South African film criticism is not high. Perhaps this is a legacy of apartheid censorship. Maybe it's because television was introduced only in 1975. Poorer communities, both rural and urban, still have little access to cinema, except for what is shown on public television. In the middle-class suburbs, though, film is ubiquitous. Satellite TV gives constant access to everything from Hollywood to local and alternative foreign films. Three cinema chains keep Hollywood in business, but they do reserve limited space for Bollywood and Cinema Nouveau.
   Film criticism is so limited that figures such as Barry Ronge (on SABC TV and The Sunday Times), Alan Swerdlow (SABC TV and SAFM radio) and Shaun de Waal (Mail & Guardian) rule the roost. Local critics have a hard time. At "The Witness", where I work, a reviewer dared to attack Mamma Mia! Outraged readers wrote countless letters complaining that she hadn't reviewed it in the spirit in which it was intended. Another critic slated Australia and nearly found himself banished there.
   When it comes to South African films, critics are usually patronizingly forgiving. They still see South African film as in its infancy. But signs that the dire days of Leon Schuster and cheap slapstick are numbered came with Tsotsi in 2006 and Jerusalem in 2008.
   The most sophisticated South African film criticism takes place on the Internet. On blogs, forums and Facebook, people approach each other's criticism as just another opinion. People who use the mass media, though, see critics as arrogant and as having the final voice. And they don't like that one bit. Matthew le Cordeur

Aaron W. Graham: A Lifelong Dream

Jean-Luc Godard has said that there wasn't a difference between the sense of elation he felt as a critic publishing his first article to that of the release of his first movie. I can see no reason why I should disagree: both are constant, reverberating and reflexive dialogues with the history of the art form. And if making movies are too costly affair at this moment of time for myself and others, then I look at film criticism as an appendage of filmmaking, a necessary function and, simply, a different way of Making Movies.
   I began to write about movies because of Francois Truffaut's collection of film reviews, "The Films in My Life". Ever since reading it at age thirteen, it's become a tome of inspiration. Here is a book that stood up and spoke to me, in much the same way Truffaut's films did when I caught up with them shortly after devouring his words.
   With this constant climate of frequently downsizing our weekly film critics in Canada and in North America, it's become a traumatizing field to be entering into. To be sure, it's never been a firm vocation to make a living at, but when has making money been a concern when your heart's so involved?
   For myself, over the past several months writing for "Winnipeg", Manitoba's main alternative weekly, I've experienced nothing but good will and editorial freedom in choosing what I cover and how I go about it — all within the requisite word limitations, of course. I've discovered how crucial it is to keep up with all of the latest happenings in our own distinctive filmmaking community, from Guy Maddin on down.
   Which brings me to the Internet: that bastion that enables boundless words to cascade on laptops and monitors; its monumental degree of freedom should go in hand-in-hand with the more concise print outlets, but certainly not override it.
   Visiting Berlin this February will benefit my vocation immeasurably, from hashing it out with my worldly, friendly peers to discussing film with the various experts to covering the talent campus and film festival in articles I'm positively excited to write.
   The 70mm Retrospective at the Berlin Film Festival itself — with screenings of misunderstood masterpieces like John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn and David Lean's Ryan's Daughter — will alone be a magical, incapable of duplicating experience. 
   I look forward to the surprises my trip will bring. Aaron W. Graham

Jonas Holmberg: Criticism in Confusion

My name is Jonas Holmberg. I am 26 years old, and I live in Stockholm, Sweden. I am the editor of "FLM", a film magazine I founded together with my co-editor Jacob Lundström in the summer of 2007. "FLM" was the result of our frustration with Swedish film journalism which was in desperate need of new approaches and perspectives, in-depth analysis and a broader understanding of what moving images are in the 21st century.
   I am a film journalist, above all, because I love the cinema. I love to watch films, I love to discuss and think about films. And since the machines for producing moving images are very powerful — during the last century no other machine has been more influential in the way we perceive and understand the world — I think this discussion is tremendously important. What happens on the silver screens shapes our minds, and has to be evaluated and discussed.
   The situation for film criticism in Sweden is somewhat confused. Meanwhile everybody seems to have acknowledged the recent fundamental changes in film consumption, film criticism still largely depends on the industrial schedule of Friday night premieres. In daily newspapers, the evaluative film critic writes almost exclusively about the films distributed on a semi-monopolized cinema market, despite the fact that film audiences are no longer following these schedules.
   If you accept the idea that criticism should not only deal with what is understood as artistically important, but also with what is widely consumed and culturally significant in broader terms, it is difficult to ignore that people no longer just go to the movies — they download and upload films long before their national premiere (if there will ever be one — obviously most films never reach Swedish cinemas), and they often seem to prefer online videos starring furry animals on skateboards to blockbusters or art house films. I think film critics should be attentive to these changes and how they affect the art of cinema.
   One aspect that unites Swedish national cinema and Swedish film criticism is the lack of self confidence. I think both film makers and film critics should raise their ambitions and try to believe that what they are doing is important — even if the audience for both Swedish language films and debates is relatively small. 
   I am really looking forward to the Berlinale Talent Campus, and I hope to see funny and disturbing films, and meet funny and disturbing people. Jonas Holmberg

Marcos Kurtinaitis: Tropa de Critique

As far back as I can remember, I've always loved hearing, reading, telling and making up stories. As a child, I was a compulsive reader and spectator, spending most of my free time among books, films and theatre plays. I love stories, real or fictional, and I love its characters and scenarios. I love stories translated into words on the page of a book, performed on a stage, painted on canvas, photographed… But I particularly love stories translated into images and sounds for projection on a silver screen, inside a movie theater. In terms of enjoying stories, no other way of doing it pleases me more than the true cinematic experience. I have to admit my predilection, an intimate and particular fascination with the power of synthesis and condensation of feelings that a film can convey. So, it was only natural that my professional development would lead me to dealing with stories, in one way or the other, and with storytelling through film in particular.
   Over the course of the years, I've left the position of mere consumption of stories and started creating my own: a few school theatre plays, a short stories book published when I was seventeen, some short films, some documentaries. But my capacity of analyzing, criticizing and promoting other people's stories has also developed a lot. I found out that one of my main interests in life is to observe closely the stories that our generation is telling. What are the stories that our age will, eventually, leave to the next generations. I find it very exciting to be a part of this process, to help preserve and promote the stories that will tell the people from the future a little bit about our beliefs, interests and ways of life.
   I am currently working as a programmer at the Brazilian Cinemateca, our biggest Film Archive and the governmental institution responsible for preserving and promoting filmic memory in my country. My job is to plan and produce film exhibitions and festivals at the Cinemateca, so I basically have to watch a lot of movies and select the ones I think may interest the public where I live.
   In view of that, I am very excited with the opportunity to follow a film festival as big and important as the Berlinale. Last year's winner of the Golden Bear was a Brazilian film, Tropa de Elite, and this is also very exciting for me, since I'll have the opportunity to get a feedback from German critics and festival habitués on this film and on why it was awarded — particularly because I don't like this film very much. It will be great to give a Brazilian insider's view on the film's controversial subject, and also to hear from people from everywhere else their take on the matter.
   Also, the Berlinale showcases many films that will be talked about throughout the rest of the year, so it will be great to see them first hand. By attending the festival's exhibitions, I'll get back to Brazil up-to-date with the latest and best of this year's film production so far. I am sure the Berlinale experience will give me excellent ideas for film exhibitions that I may be able to present at the Cinemateca Brasileira. Hopefully, I will also be able to do a lot of networking during the festival and bring back contacts of film archives, distributors and other cinemathéques from all over that world, that may in the future develop into cooperation between the Brazilian Cinemathéque and these institutions, to help bring films from distant parts of the world for exhibition here in Brazil. I am also looking forward to get in contact with other young film critics and filmmakers from all over the world — hopefully, this will broaden my view of these activities in other countries and maybe even develop into new friendships and possible working partnerships.
   In short, I am sure the Berlinale Talent Press experience will be a very rewarding and enriching one for me, one that will certainly contribute to improve my work as a film critic, curator and also as a storyteller. Marcos Kurtinaitis

Siddarth Pillai: In Full Technicolor

There is nothing holy about a film critic or criticism in India. The critic in India seems to be the raving ranting helpless bum stuck at the door of an overcrowded Mumbai local ready to be pushed off and trampled by the wild mobs when the station arrives. The only viable reaction to a film is the gut one. Critically acclaimed or not, hyped or not, superstars or no stars, the only emotion that can determine the fate of the film in this land of six billion is the one that it evokes collectively and instantaneously over an audience of hundreds. Movies are like celebrations, elaborate and loud community gatherings. You, the connoisseur, may have a private wine closet to savor but save it for your review. In a theatre it's the mandate of the masses. Go with the flow or prepared to be washed out.
   Dare to take a stand and you will be accused. To champion or deride a film against the tides of the public is to make yourself vulnerable to hate, rejection and a gallery of abuses that explode like Chinese fireworks. And that is exactly what keeps me going. Love-hate in full Technicolor madness. If nothing, it affirms that cinema in the country is the stuff of heightened emotions. You cannot afford to be cold. There are those who will dissect a film with cold hands, who chose to view films from pedestals and norms applicable to art house but the challenge that I look forward to is channeling the zing of these minefields of emotional outbursts with the established norms of criticism with my own personal gut region response into a review. When you achieve that it feels like you have invoked a spectral typhoon in your head. When you fail, it feels like so much dead weight.
   Being naturally distrustful of anything that threatens to form a system of belief, I have always placed full faith in cinema. I find cinema can hold everything that religion claims to be, that it can enlighten even as it allows us space to critique and comment. There are no holy cows and you always have your own space. If my blog on passionforcinema.com is the stuff of raves and rants, then my work as associate editor for "Deep Focus Film Quarterly", one of the last serious film journals in the country, teaches me about life itself. Together they have got me into Berlin. I may have been preposterous, exaggerating, but somewhere I can't help but feel I was right. Berlinale 2009 will be the biggest platform of cinema that I will have ever experienced yet and I intend to be mad and happy and somber and enlightened. If I can get it all together, well… it would be spectral winds in my head. Siddarth Pillai

Eugenia Saúl: Words Matter

I think the best way to start speaking about film criticism and about why I particularly want to be a film critic is through two different elements. The first one is a film director no other than Nanni Moretti, one of the most deep-rooted political authors of all time. The other one is an Argentinean film released in my country last year, called Historias extraordinarias by Mariano Llinás, another radical filmmaker.
   The first of the two films by Moretti that I want to refer to is Red Wood Pigeon (Palombella rossa 1989), in which Moretti in his characteristic devil-genius personality comes to a boiling point when he ends up smacking a journalist in the face and screaming "Come parlaaa! Le parole sono importantii!". Moretti there says a simple truth: words matter. "The way you speak!", he yells to her. He's right. The words we choose to speak and write about movies are an inevitable decision when it comes to writing.
   The second scene, more accurate, and maybe even more beautiful, is from Caro diario (Dear Diary, 1993). Then, Moretti comes out of a movie theatre after watching a film, and absolutely raging about a review he goes like a missile towards the film critic's house. In that crazy scene, yet so realistic and funny, so accurate and sharp, and still full of fantasy, the director sits down on the critic's bed and tortures him simply by reading out loud his own review to him. He's talking again about the responsibility of language.
   This has to do with Mariano Llinás' Historias extraordinarias. I'd say that for me that is film-making (not trying to answer Bazin's old question!). The power of words, their combination, and the stories they create when put together. Historias extraordinarias is a fiction of 245 minutes with no script to be spoken by the actors, but conducted by a voice-over throughout the entire film. It is a radical experiment that combines three main stories that at the same time bloom into a thousand more.
   Like cinema, for its natural constant mutation, film criticism forces you to make decisions. American film critic Pauline Kael used to say that she didn't know what she thought about a film until she sat down and started writing about it. It's true: to criticize a film is a dynamic process and it can't be done systematically. In my country, this is how films are mainly reviewed. Still, outside of the big media, there is a monthly film magazine (a 17 year old one!) called "El Amante", which is made with love and anger, and with everything but slackness. I work there as a proof reader and a free-lance contributor. I'm also a journalist in a newspaper called "Crítica de la Argentina", where I personally try to avoid the type of journalist Moretti goes to visit. The filmmaker almost hounds my dreams (in a good way). Eugenia Saúl

Tommaso Tocci: Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

Suddenly, nothing happened. Somehow there is an oxymoric taste to Italy's frantic disposition towards its own film industry. Apparently we like to celebrate the death of our cinema and, the next day, salute its rebirth. Stop. Go. Stop. Repeat.
   Of course, the truth lies in between, but nobody really seems to care that much. Italy is after all a country of extremes, where people find it more comfortable to run towards opposite poles than settle on reasonable middle grounds.
   This frenzy reflects the status of film criticism as well, thus affecting my professional situation directly. I regret not having an anecdote to tell about my decision to be a film critic; there was no revealing moment, or crucial movie, to shape my destiny. I've just known, for my entire adult life, that I have a keen interest in the process of understanding the work of art — and reality as a whole, for that matter.
   So I went and studied literature, hoping to learn about the absolute nature of criticism and theory. At the same time I started writing about films, and entered the world of film journalism. The results of the former step are still unclear, although I certainly lost some of my black-and-white assumptions. As for the latter, I found an insulated, self-referential environment. There is a lot of good people on the job, but few of them choose to constantly question their duty and their beliefs about the much-denigrated craft of criticism.
   I believe I'm not talking just about Italy anymore. It concerns us all. In these times of ours, criticism is at a crossroad: is it still needed, as a profession? Is there any place left for an activity that's been torn to pieces over the course of the last century? The rise of cultural studies has probably changed forever our discipline. I keep struggling to find new directions and the truth is, I like it.
   On the same note, what would I like to find in Berlin, other than the obvious excitement of a Film Festival and the novelty of the Talent Campus experience? I'm looking for differences. Some time ago I left Rome and moved to London, because I like comparing different realities, and distilling sense from the encounter with the other. Because, in the end, we all keep an eye out for the turning points of our own storytelling. Tommaso Tocci

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