29.WFF: CHINA-EASTERN EUROPE FILM PROMOTION PROGRAMME

CHINA-EASTERN EUROPE FILM PROMOTION PROGRAMME

Last year, China produced 893 feature films, but only about 200 of them got released in their local cinemas. Chinese movies need to enter international markets to make it to the big screen. The China-Eastern Europe Film Promotion Programme, initiated last year at the 28th Warsaw Film Festival, takes an important step towards cooperation between Eastern Europe and China.

Et Hu at the 9th CentEast Market in Warsaw - fot. Bartek Trzeszkowski

       The founders of the project – Stefan Laudyn, representative of the Warsaw Film Foundation and the director of the Warsaw Film Festival, and Et Hu, the creator of the Chinese Film Factory (the first social media website for Chinese filmmakers) – perceive it as a mutually beneficial exchange. As explained by Laudyn: "On the one hand our aim is to promote Chinese cinema internationally – in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. That is why, during the CentEast Market in Warsaw we are going to have a presentation of completed films and works-in-progress from China for international sales agents and festival programmers. On the other hand, in April, we are planning to organize an Eastern European presentation in China, at the Beijing Film Market."

        Only 63 foreign movies were released in China last year. Interestingly, they took 43% of the box office. Chinese film market promises substantial profits for the non-Chinese filmmakers. However, there is a problem: "China is a country with strong central government, which protects its market," explains Laudyn. "There is a quota system – only a limited number of films per year get permission to enter the market. Also every distributed film has to be approved by the State Authority of Radio, Film & Television (SARFT)."

        One of the ways of surpassing the quota system is making an international co-production. "Making co-productions with China is a good way to enter the Chinese market," says Laudyn. Unfortunately, "in the recent years, there has been only one Polish-Chinese feature film co-production: Lovers from the Year of the Tiger, directed by Jacek Bromski." 

Stefan Laudyn at the 9th CentEast Market in Warsaw - fot. Bartek Trzeszkowski

       American blockbusters dominate the Chinese box office, leaving a very limited space for the small-budget films from other countries. The more limited the market, the harder it is to sell a foreign movie to China. "Eastern Europeans don't have the resources like the Americans, the French, the British or the Germans," says Laudyn, "but I believe we are culturally closer to the Chinese". According to both Laudyn and Hu, because of the history of their respective political systems, China feels some kind of cultural kinship with the former countries of the Soviet Union.

        It is estimated that in the next five years the Chinese film market will become the largest in the world. That is why, Laudyn quips, everyone "tries hard to get a piece of the Chinese pie." Hopefully, the still-developing China-Eastern Europe Film Promotion Programme proves to be fruitful in the future – both in artistic and business terms.    

 Kamil Chrzczonowicz

“For me this is about life, not death.” – an interview with Uberto Pasolini.

“For me this is about life, not death.”

 – an interview with Uberto Pasolini.

 The day is October 11, 2013 and the 29^th Warsaw Film Festival opens with the screening of the film “Still Life” – the story of a man (Eddie Marsan) caring for those who have been forgotten at the end of their lives by making sure they will be given a proper funeral. The director Uberto Pasolini tells about his inspirations, Eddie Marsan’s performance, the meaning of the title and the importance of acknowledging other people’s lives.

What inspired you to tell this story?

The idea came from reading an article in an English newspaper. It was an interview with a woman who used to do this job in the Westminster borough. She was often the only one present at the funerals she arranged because in the majority of cases she didn’t find any relatives. I started following two other funeral offices in south London. They told me that not only in most cases the families are not found, but even when they are, the people have no interest in participating in the funeral. I also went to the union of all the funeral offices of Greater London. The majority of people there who organize the ceremonies don’t even attend them because they are either too busy or they do that job in a very bureaucratic way. I was struck by this idea of people who have been forgotten at the end of their lives. And this image of a lonely grave, which you see at the end of the film, was really the image where my thinking about making the film took off. An interesting thing from my point of view was that whereas it started as an examination of a social phenomenon, of isolation in the western world, mainly in big cities, it became much more personal.

Have you ever felt lonely yourself?

I have felt loneliness in the last few years of my life because I’ve divorced from my wife and I don’t live all the time with my children. There are evenings when I come home to an empty house – you open the door and it’s all dark, there are no noises, no smells, no nothing, no life. I felt the loneliness of those moments and I tried to imagine what it means for those moments to be your constant in life. These people are always alone – if they’re lucky, they talk for one or two minutes to somebody who puts their food in a shopping bag at the supermarket – and that’s the extent of their human contact. What’s important to me is to be more interested in other people’s lives, not just the lives of my family or people I come into contact at work with, but people who I would not normally meet or want to talk to. I think this exchange, that interest in somebody’s life can enrich you. If the film wants to make you think about anything it is the importance of continuous exchange with other people.

Once you got the idea and the script was written, an actor for the main role had to be chosen. In your short speech before the screening you mentioned Eddie Marsan’s really scary performance in “Happy-Go-Lucky”. What made you choose this particular actor since he made you so frightened?

I do not like Eddie’s performance in “Happy-Go-Lucky”. I don’t think it’s real in spite of the fact that I’m sure there are people like that but somehow I did not believe it. I had worked with him 10 years ago, before “Happy-Go-Lucky”. In this film he played Napoleon’s valet and he had six lines and three scenes. And in those six lines and three scenes he managed to create a complete, round human character. Not only was he the real person but because of the way he interacted with the emperor, who was played by Ian Holm, he gave him a human side too, a less imperial quality. And all this doing almost nothing – because the wonderful talent and technique that Eddie has is to be able to convey complex emotions with his very, very low “acting volume”, if you want to call it that. Another great talent he has is that of generosity. It’s always about the story, the character, what the film needs, what the director’s after – and then about his performance. Both when he’s in a scene by himself and in a scene with other actors he’s very generous towards others, he takes into consideration what will the other actor need to help his or her performance. He liked the script very much and we go along very, very well. I think he’s the best thing in the film. I’m very happy because it’s the first time he’s a lead in a film – he tends to be used as a character actor and not the leading man.

Despite its gloomy subject, the film does have some humorous moments, even if they are very dark and ironic.

I like to find humor in everyday situations, a humor that belongs to the real world. I don’t look for it – when you work with a scene you catch something and you remember something. It’s not a hard work, as if you’re writing a comedy and therefore you have to say, “every scene needs to have two laughs and a visual joke.”

What made you place this story visually in a cartoonish universe? The surroundings aren’t very realistic, everything is in the shade of blue, the main character’s everyday life is very idiosyncratic and it creates humor.

For me that world is a real world. We shot in real apartments and real offices. We made some small changes to the office in order for it to be exactly the same as the office in Westminster. It’s true, there is a lot of blue color – however, during the course of the film the color gets gradually saturated as the main character’s life opens up a little bit. It’s something that most people don’t notice, which is correct, I was hoping for it to be subtle. We did a little work with the sound – it’s sort of muffled and undistinguished at the beginning and then, gradually, it becomes much more specific and distinct. Also, the camera starts moving just a little bit more, as the film progresses. Some people feel it’s a fable because they don’t know or believe that such a job exists. I think of it as something real because the central character for me is completely real – he is me. Unfortunately, that’s what I am like.

You eat a can of tuna and an apple every day?

Absolutely, that’s very much me – picking up the crumbs and putting them back in the coffee, that kind of thing – that’s what I do, it’s sad but… It goes back to what we were saying about finding comedy in real life. I try to stay away from unreal situations.

The problem with the Polish title of your movie is that it’s very unambiguous. “Zatrzymane życie” means literally “a stopped life”. The original title can be interpreted in various ways, due to the use of the word “still”. Would you say it’s a movie about something that is motionless, dead and still or about something that still exists and does not end with death?

You can read it in different ways. For me this is about life, not death – about the need to engage with other people and to remain alive by engaging with other people’s lives. It’s about recognizing other people’s lives, which is what the central character does. What he wants to do, when he collects those little things in people’s apartments and writes the eulogies, is reminding the world, which is not listening, that this person had a life which has to be recognized before it’s forgotten forever. One of the things that is really important is that he is not a sad character. He’s a bit different from us, we might wish that his life was more complex, we like the idea that his life is opening out. There is a change in him and he appreciates that but he’s not sad about his old loneliness, he doesn’t feel lonely – he’s solitary, but not lonely. It was very important that the audience didn’t feel pity for him. We shouldn’t judge it on our notion of a successful life and in the same way we shouldn’t judge the life of his neighbor. He did end his life sadly, but he had also lived a life, he had children, he had love affairs, he saved somebody from dying in a war, he was a good friend. Recognize other people’s lives and don’t judge them too much. They’re still lives. They’re as good as yours.

Jakub Michalik

The Interview with Love Building's Iulia Rugina

 Here is my 60 seconds drop, one more fruit of this year's FIPRESCI Warsaw Project: A short interview with Iulia Rugina, the director of Love Building, the recipient of the FIPRESCI Special Mention. You can watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKk4Ku-BVjc

Q&A with Uberto Pasolini: “Life is important, acknowledge that of others, do not judge it and be good at yours…”

 The title of this article may sound like the Ten Commandments of life coaching but this is how the Italian director Uberto Pasolini feels about life right now. Indeed, for him, – and for most of us - life and how we live it is important.  He shared his preoccupations on that delicate matter in his new poignant and meditative film: Still Life.

Uberto Pasolini is famous for producing the award-winning film The Full Monty among others and he is back with his latest feature film, the above mentioned Still Life, that had its premiere and first festival bow at this year’s Venice Film Festival where it screened in the Orizzonti section and snatched the Orizzonti Award for Best Director. Now, his new work opened the Warsaw Film Festival.

Still Life follows John May, a London funeral officer who arranges funerals for those who lived and died alone and attends them so that these people do not go alone to the afterlife.

Still Life is the product of a blend of Pasolini’s own life and an article he read in an English newspaper and more precisely, an interview with a woman who did this particular job for the Westminster Council borough. In fact, as Pasolini recounted, he started following another two funeral officers in Lewisham and Southwark, in South London. He discovered that the general state of the matter is a most unfortunate preponderance of either non-located relatives or ones that “have no interest in being there or participating in any way in the funeral of the person in question”. After attending as well a reunion of all the funeral officers of greater London, an assembly of thirty people, the director found out that the majority of them organize ceremonies but are, however, not present due to their own busy lives or to the fact that they perform their jobs in a highly bureaucratic and rather inhuman way. Pasolini admitted being very much struck by the “idea of people who have been forgotten at the end of their lives and are even forgotten at the last moment they spend on Earth”.

In fact, the image of a lonely grave – an image we see at the end of the film – prompted him to envisage making a film on this subject. It started as an examination of a social phenomenon, that of isolation in the metropolis of the Western world (but also in smaller cities), especially surrounding the section of the population who might have difficulties in connecting with their peers and who for that reason create relationships through the internet which are, to his mind, not real, “give and take” relationships. Deeming his life truly lucky and privileged, he became interested in lives different than his own and with them, he discovered an entirely different world. It became, however, much more personal as it came to be an analysis of “what it meant to be alone and to be lonely”. As he talked about loneliness, Pasolini expressed with certain sadness that he has felt it in the last few years of his life as he is divorced from his wife, Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman, the composer if his films, with his children living between the two parents “… you open the door and it’s all dark and there are no noises and no smells, and no nothing, no life”. And sadly, indeed, he has felt the loneliness of these moments and tried to imagine what it meant for them to be the constant in one’s life.

In that sense, Still Life also underlines the director’s attachment to the importance of his being more interested in other people’s lives, not just those of his family and the people he comes daily in contact with but also of those of people who he would not normally want to meet or talk to, whether it is his neighbor, whom he, for instance, did not know before he made this film or even the mere possibility of having coffee in a bar in the morning and have “just that exchange and interest in somebody’s life [that] makes one richer”.  Pasolini’s message to today’s younger generations is one about the significance of openness to other people coming into their lives, of remaining open to contact in order to avoid meeting the fate of some of his characters.

Moreover, the predominance of the color blue as well as desaturated colors at the beginning of the film translate in a way the “blues” the director is feeling at this stage of his life, his feelings and preoccupations about life’s emptiness without people in it   and loneliness. He confesses the protagonist was created after his own persona, “it’s me unfortunately, that’s what I’m like… picking up crumbs and putting them back in the coffee…. I eat tuna like that…”. The comic relief in Still Life comes from the repetition and the routine as well as the reality and truthfulness of the premise and the construction of the narrative, a “piece of comedy that when it’s real, it feels truthful”. If one lives alone like he does, “you do the same thing, you walk in through your front door when coming back from work or somewhere and you hang your coat always on the same peg”. The repetition to him is a completely natural component of life: “it’s how we live, how we function especially when we don’t have people to interfere with our lives…”.

What Pasolini wishes to show with Still Life is that life does not end with death.

And the title of his film, in spite of its ambiguous nature, is the perfect definition of the director’s message: “it’s Still Life because it is a life that is not moving, it’s Still Life because it’s still a life despite the fact that it’s not moving, it’s a still life because it’s a life made of stills, photographs. You can read it in different ways”. To him, the need to engage with other people and remain alive by doing so is crucial as well as recognizing other people’s lives “which is what the central character does, what he wants to do when he collects those things in people’s apartments to write eulogies, is remembering the world which is not listening that this person had a life and that life has to be recognized before it’s forgotten forever”.

In addition, Pasolini stresses that John May is not a sad about his own loneliness, that he does not feel lonely. He is just solitary. And it is important that we do not feel pity for him, nor judge him and in this regard, “it is still a life and we shouldn’t judge anybody’s life”. Pasolini advises us to “recognize other people’s lives and don’t judge them too much” and to be “good at [ours]”, an advice I am most inclined to take seriously and follow thoroughly. And we should all. Thank you, Pasolini…

Zen in the Art of Gambling vs. The Hounds of Despair

Entering the atmosphere of the festival with Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life, the tale of a veteran funeral officer reminiscent of Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan tone and Roy Andersson’s cartoonishly stylized sets, the next third days turned out to be a competition of eclectic appetizers that would not quite transition into a completely tasteful main course. Then, bit by bit, various spices began to add, some with an exotic touch to them. Guided by no other principle than the films’ divergent themes, styles and genres, we lingered in the lush red seats awaiting the film that would surreptitiously take us in and possess us to the very end. Though this is a generally elusive thing to expect, I remember certain episodes that, despite their relative cogency within the films, felt like fortuitous outbursts of visual mastery. This is an overview of the films seen during the 29^th edition of WFF, with luckily more than a handful of such unexpected moments to talk about.

The second day witnessed an oddball mix of features. The first was the Romanian comedy Love Building (directed by Iulia Rugină), conceived as a graduating project of an acting school held in real life by the main actors, the only professional actors in the film (Dragoș Bucur, Alexandru Papadopol, Dorian Boguță). The film itself plays as a graduation project led by the three, only this time it’s about mending relationships, not acting. Despite being done on a tight budget, with amateur actors and written to fit the characteristics of the available cast (an explanation for the two lesbian couples), Love Building provided just the necessary tone for audiences to unwind and have a couple of laughs before delving further into the unknown. Though the relationships do not undergo deeper examination and the film often resembles a sketchy reality show (the characters’ separate confessions support this), the director herself admits that she never knew what fate Love Building would follow, so it is fair to assume that its undercooked feel is a direct consequence of uncertainty during production. With that in mind, it’s worth mentioning that Love Building was among the fully-booked films of the WFF and one of the easiest ones to emotionally relate to, which for many cinemagoers is reason enough to see it.

Shown in the International Competition, The Gambler (directed by Ignas Jonynas), casting Jonas Mekas’ daughter Oona as Ieva, debuted with one of the most interesting narrative premises, punctuated by stunning wide shots and a menacingly outlandish electronic soundtrack very suitably sounding like the imitation of pulse. The story of Vincentas (Vytautas Kaniusonis), a paramedic who creates a gambling system based on his patients’ chances of survival as a supplementary means of income, slides downhill as soon as Vincentas is forced to choose between gambling – which is shown to expand rapidly online, attracting many users – and the woman he loves. Indeed, The Gambler devolves into a rather cheap ethical inquiry once it opposes the truly lucrative aspect of gambling with Ieva’s obstinate integrity in times of financial hardship. Despite tackling big themes such as revenge, sacrifice and the legitimacy to make money at the expense of other lives without actually making a fresh point, the film will certainly be remembered for some of its isolated episodes, which are outright complete works in themselves. I can recall at least Vincentas’ and Ieva’s story, told sensibly, without embellishments, suspended from the film’s social issues and gorgeously shot and edited as they first make love in the ward. Still, the stressed search for catharsis and the inability to juggle with the many issues at hand can all but prevent The Gambler from sinking under its own burden.

Featuring veteran actor Victor Rebengiuc, who in the last years has made a name out of playing wise and taciturn grandfather figures, and Șerban Pavlu, a new darling of Romanian cinema, The Japanese Dog is Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s debut feature set in a village close to Giurgiu. Costache Moldu (Victor Rebengiuc) spends his days commuting with his cart between the house he now his lives in (belonging to some deceased neighbours) and his own, which was hardly hit by floods, almost turned to ruin. His wife no longer alive, his son long gone away from home, he collects the objects that have survived the flood. Even though some complain it is too long, the exposition serves the task not only of establishing the film’s serenely sober tone, but also to tune in to the main character’s interior rhythm and perception of life. Jurgiu respectfully reveals Costache a bit at a time, mostly observing, not intruding his daily rituals with the urgency of action. The son’s return together with a Japanese wife and a son, which makes the talk of the village, is an event that, despite being presented without loudness, allows for Costache’s unexteriorized sorrow to creep up on the viewer. Twenty years of unsaid words have to be summed up, and in doing so Jurgiu chooses to let some exquisite shots accomplish this titanic task – the wheat field before the storm, Costache at the bottom of the stairs leading to the church and finally, him sitting silently at his wife’s grave after dusk. As father and son, Rebengiuc and Pavlu fit perfectly as a reflection of each other. The apparently insurmountable differences between them are resolved silently and culminate in the appearance of a talking toy dog, a most intriguing technological presence in the rural setting. Playing as a last ode to rural life, ripe with all the specific silences and sounds of nature, The Japanese Dog is ultimately a tale about acceptance of the other, no matter how alien their appearance might be.

While needing to balance writing, meetings and screenings, the third day was not so rich in revelations, but it marked a slow descent into despair. Screening in the Discoveries section, The Whirlpool (directed by Bojan Vuk Kosovcevic) is from a mile the oeuvre of a TV series writer and director. Bearing a borderline aesthetic sense reminiscent of sitcoms, The Whirlpool parallels three standpoints of the same story through three of its characters. Set in the 1990s in Belgrade, the narrative is a quirky mix of burlesque, bloodbaths, Balkan stereotypes, gangster film tropes and characters (which are apparently rooted in those years’ reality), war-related trauma and the paradox of Nazi Serbians, to which Emir Kusturica’s laughably hovering presence as an authority figure is added. The episodes, all centered on the same events over a span of 48 hours, are shown in succession of each other, very carefully edited and shot so that mirroring points of view can match. While documenting those years’ engulfing national fears is a noble cause in itself, the film’s essence relies too much on the metaphor’s suggestive potential – the impossible to escape whirlpool becomes tiresome at some point, and though it crystallizes into the Count’s luridly all-encompassing painting, this is not enough to keep a feeble comparison steady.

Interview with Uberto Pasolini

On the Matters of Life, Death and Canned Tuna

an interview with Uberto Pasolini

Uberto Pasolini, an Italian filmmaker most famous for his work in the production of "Full Monty", talks about his new movie, "Still Life". The film features an exquisite lead performance by Eddie Marsan, playing the role of a dedicated and orderly funeral officer, John May. "Still Life" tells a tender story about loneliness, death and holding on to life. This dark, yet quietly humorous and wholeheartedly sympathetic movie inaugurated the annual 29th Warsaw Film Festival.

Is there anything in particular that inspired you to tell the story of "Still Life"?

The idea came from reading an interview with a funeral officer in Westminster. Quite often, she was the only one present at the funeral she arranged. I was very much struck by this idea of people who have been forgotten, who fell through the cracks of society. The image of a lonely grave, which is what you can see at the end of the film, was really the image from which my thinking about the movie took off. Initially, the film was supposed to analyze social phenomena, such as isolation and loneliness in the Western world.

Did this investigation become more personal in the process?

Yes, it became an analysis of what it means for me to be alone. Five years ago, I divorced from my wife. Since then, there are evenings when I come back to an empty house: it's dark, there are no noises, no smells and… no life. The film is a way of thinking about how important it is for me to become more interested in other people's lives. Just to exchange an interest in somebody's life – I think it's enriching. If the film wants to make us think about anything, it's about the importance of the continuous communication with other people. Of course, it's an obvious thing to say, especially for young people, but it becomes not so obvious when you get older.

"Still Life" has a gloomy, yet somehow very empathetic, ironic humor. Why do you look for humor in "serious" issues, such as loneliness and death? Does it make them feel less painful?

I like to find humor in various situations in general, especially the humor that belongs to the real world. My favorite films with respect to this specific issue are the movies of the Czech New Wave, where you have both the drama and the comedy of everyday life. My first movie, "Machan", was a film about a very tragic situation of immigrants, and yet the "engine" that we found for the film was that of comedy. "Full Monty" was also about serious issues, such as desperation, unemployment and a father who is unable to feed his own son. In fact, my own father said that it was the saddest film he'd ever seen, but then again, it was also a great comedy. In the case of "Still Life" the "engine" of the movie was not comedic – that would have been inappropriate – but I think that some of the issues in the movie were heavy enough not to be rendered even heavier.

The main character of your movie lives a very still, orderly life. Are there any tangible similarities between you and John May or do you connect with him on a more abstract, emotional level?

The central character is just like me. We share the same idiosyncrasies: for instance, picking up the crumbs from the table and putting them back in my coffee...

Do you also eat a canned tuna every night?

If you live alone, like I have, you tend to repeat the same things over and over again: you come back from work, hang your coat on the same peg, end up sitting in the same chair by the table, using the same plate and fork that you used the night before. The repetition becomes completely natural when we don't have people who interfere. Of course, somebody might say: "That's impossible, nobody eats a tuna like that!" Well, actually, I do. It's sad, but true (laughs)…

            It all goes back to what we were saying about finding comedy in real life. Somebody might say that it's a written piece of comedy. But when it's good, it actually feels truthful in the sense that it doesn't feel like there's a moment that's stuck on top of a real situation. When you watch "Loves of a Blonde" by Miloš Forman, you see an absolutely extraordinary comedy, but there isn't even a second of that comedy that feels fake, constructed or forced. The real situations can be funny in themselves, you just have to observe them carefully. 

In "Still Life" Eddie Marsan plays his first leading role. Why did you decide to choose him for the role of John May?

I had worked with him before, in a film about Napoleon I made about ten years ago. In this movie, Eddie had six lines and three scenes, and in these six lines and three scenes he managed to create a complete human character. It was absolutely wonderful. Not only he was a real person, but through his interaction with other actors, he gave them a human side too. A great talent that Eddie has is to be able to convey very powerful, complex emotions with his "acting volume'' down. When he works, it's always about the story, the character or about what the director is after, and not about his own performance. I think he's the best thing in the film.

In its style your movie seems very British, but I know that you disagree with that opinion.

I think the grammar of the film is not British. My frames of reference are not British as well. I spent a year watching old Japanese films, mainly Yasujirō Ozu's. The fantastic thing about him is that he shows you how you can be extremely powerful by keeping the volume of your movies down. In general, I think it is quite easy to shock the audience with dramatic situations and "scenery-chewing" performances. I think that this style of filmmaking might capture you for a few hours, but it doesn't stay with you, because it's so different from your normal experience. Ultimately, you'll forget it, because it's completely irrelevant to your life. I know that if you turn the volume down you'll lose some people completely, they'll never get into your world. But if they'll stay with you, they'll pay closer attention, they'll focus and remember more.

The Polish title of your movie is very unambiguous. "Zatrzymane życie" literally means a "Stopped Life". The original title, "Still Life", is much more problematic. Would you say that the movie is about something that is motionless or dead, and that is why it is "still", or that it is about something that "still" exist, in the sense that it does not end with death?

The title plays on the ambiguity of the word. It's a "still life" because it's not moving and it's "still life" because it's still a life, in spite of the fact that it's not moving. It's also a "still life" because it's a life made out of photographs and because the camera pictures it that way: for instance, when we leave an apple in the middle of the table, we frame it like it's a little fifteenth-century Dutch painting.

            For me the film is about life, it's not about death. It's a film about recognizing other people's lives, which is what the central character does. When May collects all these little things in people's apartments and writes a eulogy, he wants to remind the indifferent world that this particular person had a life, and that this life has to be recognized before it's forgotten forever. What is important, is that May is not a sad character. He's different from us and we may wish that his life was better, but he doesn't feel lonely. He's solitary. We shouldn't judge him or his neighbor with regards to our own notions of a successful life. His neighbor died lonely, but he also lived: he was a good friend, he had children and saved somebody's life during the war. There are different ways of living. We should recognize the importance of other people's lives and try not to judge them so much because no matter what it may look like, what they are living is still a life, and it's as valuable as ours.

Kamil Chrzczonowicz

The end is nigh: social realism, Alienation, Concrete Night

Wednesday was the most disappointing day of the FIPRESCI screenings. Two films, both are of the most banal kind – social realist drama about male characters suffering from problems of contemporary world. One came from Slovenia (Seduce Me – troubled young adult falls in love and enters into conflict with his corrupted boss), the other, from Slovakia (My Dog Killer – a neo-nazi skinhead (again!) finds out he has a gypsy half-brother), but both could be easily made anywhere and by anyone. Bleak colors – both set in autumn, as usual with this kind of movies – hand-held “reportage” camera, sequence shots, brutal violence: you know this stuff, there’re already too many films like this.

There isn’t much to say either about Heavy Mental, a film from Poland, directed by Sebastian Buttny. It’s a character-driven dramedy about the generation of Polish thirty year olds, but these characters, usually based on one or two traits, don’t look very convincing.

The prevalence of bleak reality was disrupted by Alienation, a film directed by the Bulgarian filmmaker Milko Lazarov. Although Bulgarian-produced, this enigmatic picture has very strong presence of Greek element – to the point that the dialogues, scarce as they are, are carried on entirely in Greek through the whole first half of the film. Also, the style of Alienation is very close to that of Greek New Wave (Giorgos Lanthimos, Athena Rachel Tsangari), although Lazarov drops the most evident hallmark of this movement – inclination to absurd and quirkiness. Nonetheless, Alienation stars Christos Stergioglou (he played the father in Lanthimos’s Dogtooth), and employs other important features of the new Greek cinema – slow but rhythmically organized pace, static shots, and deliberate discordance of different elements. For instance, the film’s imagery simulates the 1970s – in production design, color, props (such as the protagonist’s car), and even the method of shooting (analog, probably 16mm, though I’m not sure), – but the setting is, in fact, modern: we can deduce that from a couple of minor details only. The story itself is also about discordance – as the title promises, we have different kinds of alienation. Stergioglou’s character talks to his mother who never responds – she’s paralyzed, – mechanically screws his wife; then appears a Bulgarian woman who doesn’t understand his language, and a deaf-mute guy. At this point Stergioglou’s attempts for communication rise to a shriek, or a howl. Alienation concludes on an apocalyptic note – the Bulgarian gives birth to a child who is to be bought by Stergioglu's charachter, and we see the newborn’s face overlapped with the grim image of hills covered by forest. The child screams, thunder rolls beneath the dark sky.

Somewhat close to Alienation in matters of tone was Concrete Night, a film directed by the acclaimed Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo that was screened in the international competition – although stylistically this film is an antithesis of the Bulgarian movie. Peter Flinckenberg’s rich, contrastive black and white imagery, sophisticated dialogues, and the films dreamlike – or, more precisely, nightmare-like – quality are opposite to Milko Lazarov’s unglamorous approach, and remind, if anything, of Bela Tarr’s work. But the apocalyptic feel is also there: the film’s protagonist teenager Simo wanders through disturbingly hostile concrete jungle of night Helsinki with his brother who divines the world after humanity.

Delusions of grandeur: Heavenly Shift, Yozgat Blues, Little Spartan

The 29th WFF has now reached its equator, and here's what I managed to watch in last two days.

Heavenly Shift, an acid comedy film noir directed by Márk Bodzsár, is another, and much more obvious, homage to Bringing Up the Dead (after The Gambler). Again, we follow a paramedic involved into illegal and vicious activities, such as profiting from letting people die, or eutanasia. The central character is Milan, a twentysomething Serbian soldier who deserts the army, flees the war-struck 1990s' Yugoslavia and ends up in Budapest. Hungarian capital city as seen by Bodzsár is kindred with Scorsese's New York - dark, neon-lit, delirious place full of lunatics and misfits of all sorts. Milan is the only normal person here - for example, his mates in the ambulance car are the megalomaniac doctor and the outrightly barmy driver who wears snakeskin boots and carries around a Chinese sword. Scorsese is not the only point of reference - Heavenly Shift is full of visual quotes and influences from cult American directors of the Nineties - Lynch, Tarantino, and Coen brothers - and, at times, the film is as hilarious as the best works of these people. Perhaps there are even too many quotes, and sometimes there's a feeling that Bodzsár prefers to put in another nod instead of inventing something own. Still, the strong, vivid imagery, offbeat gallows humor and unconventional dramaturgy make Heavenly Shift the most enjoyable experience of WIFF so far. Bodzsár who hasn't made any feature films before is certainly a director to watch.

Whereas Heavenly Shift offered a blazing, bigger-than-life vision of its setting, the Turkish Yozgat Blues (dir. by Mahmut Fazil Coskun) is an example of the contrary approach. The title assumes something like a Wim Wenders urban movie (Yozgat is a place in Turkey where the protagonist, an aging singer who looks like a moustachioed Geroge Clooney, arrives from Istanbul), but in fact, we never get to see the town - it's all interiors, all closeups and medium shots. The melancholic, subtle story of the lounge singer whose repertoir is apparently limited to a single song - a sugary Joe Dassin's ballad - is not so bad, but the movie lacks space and is banal visually, which makes it easily forgettable.

Much more ambitious was Little Spartan, yet another Romanain entry into the FIPRESCI competition, screened as a part of Discoveries section. Shot and edited in a very unpredictable manner, Dragoş Iuga's movie is a mockumentary about the rich and cranky Bucharestian dwarf Gabriel Dita (all the way he reminded me of the dwarf tycoon from Mo Yan's book The Republic of Wine, although this is probably a coincidence). Presented as a behind-the-scenes material for a fiction movie produced by and based on the life of Dita, Little Spartan is, apparently, entirely fictitious. Or not. This deliberate ambiguity that allows to classify the film to the cutting-edge category of post-documentary cinema, is Iuga's main achievement. Alas, the task of showing a (contrastingly) large character in the spirit of Citizen Kane falls flat, but nonetheless, Iuga seems to be a director who has something to offer (even if it, to a large extent, remains only an ambition) and a possibility to grow as a director - after all, as we know from Werner Herzog, even dwarves started small.

Films out of FIPRESCI competition included The Geographer Drank His Globe Away, a mostly successful attempt to fill the niche of intelligent Russian mainstream film - the niche that has for years been vacant. And also The Selfish Giant - the newest example of the good old British kitchen-sink realism and another movie to seek for greatness in someone small, this time a 12 years old troubled teenager. Among the huge skyscrapers of Warsaw's Downtown these contrasts of big and small seem exactly in place.

Day five: Thwarted treasure hunt

The preparations for a 60 seconds TV interview, have somewhat led astray my treasure hunt as my screening time has been very limited today. In this limited amount of time, I have, however, viewed two films competing for the FIPRESCI Award and thus duly completed my jury task: Dragoș Iuga’s mockumentary, Little Spartan, and Heavy Mental, Sebastian Buttny’s debut feature film. Little Spartan, screened in the Free Spirit Competition program is an off-putting and entirely fictional documentary that is the result of the director’s recording his protagonist using different media during twelve years. The story evolves around Gabriel Dita, an engineer who suffers from a lack of growth hormone receptor in his pituitary gland. The rich Romanian midget decided to produce a film inspired by his own life with a professional director. One cannot help but wonder if this is a quest for money or for love.  Along the same line, Heavy Mental is a heavy film, presented in the Competition 1-2 program. It is a tiresome and rather bizarre portrayal of the moods and spirit of the contemporary 30 year-olds in Poland, meditating on what can be called a “normal” life nowadays.

The premises of these two films may seem quite innovative, arty and even interesting to some. But to me, they are not even remotely captivating. I may seem rather harsh and I am sorry about that. But, “tomorrow is another day”…so, stay tuned for more!