Eye on North America

Cannes Directors Fortnight Celebration In New York

2008-07-01T16:36:00.004+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

With the American economy in the crapper and the dollar at near record lows, a trip to the Cannes Film Festival has become an inexpensive indulgence, even for the media professionals who “must” be there. For the general public, who may be curious about who goes on along the famed shores of the Riviera, the difficulty of being part of the Cannes action is doubly difficult. Well, for the past month, Cannes has been made affordable and surprisingly accessible, with the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Directors’ Fortnight at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinématek.

The “Quinzaine des Realisateurs” as it is known in France, emerged in the volatile year of 1968, when student, worker and film activists actually closed down the Festival, as part of the general uprising known as the “May events”. The Festival, which had been the very definition of elitism, needed a good pummeling, and one of the results of its trauma was the creation of a section at the event that would be shielded from the commercial pressure and paparazzi insanity and concentrate strictly on the auteur and his/her oeuvre (which the French still romantically call the “seventh art”). The Directors’ Fortnight became a haven for art appreciation, administered by the French directors’ guild and building a reputation for artistic integrity and independence.

For the past month, as New York suffers through its hottest June in half a century, the Brooklyn Academy of Music has offered (air conditioned) refuge with a survey of some of the extraordinary international films that had their first unveilings in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. The Directors’ Fortnight at 40 was mounted in collaboration with La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Unifrance, the French Cultural Services, and co-presented with FIAF (French Institute Alliance Française). This series combined past and current international selections from the 40-year history of the prestigious showcase.

The series opened on June 13 with a week-long run of Jacques Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau) (1974), starring Juliet Berto, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, and Dominique Labourier, in a recently stuck print courtesy of BFI. Following that rare week-long run, the series kicked off in earnest with a “who’s who” of international cinema superstars. First off, was German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who was represented by his most accessible and intriguing film, Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit) (1975). Next on were a pair of black-and-white films about the post-punk British music scene, Radio On by Christopher Petit (1979 and featuring Sting in his first role) and, one of this year’s arthouse hits, Control by Anton Corbijn, a wildly inventive biopic of Ian Curtis, the doomed lead singer of Joy Division.

A rare film in the series was Adhen (Dernier Maquis), the U.S. premiere of Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s latest work. The Algerian-born French filmmaker is the writer-director of such well-recognized films as Bled Number One (2006), winner of the Award of Youth at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as Wesh Wesh, qu’est ce qui se passe? (2001), winner of the Wolfgang Staudte Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Adhen, an Algerian-French co-production, set in contemporary France is about a Muslim entrepreneur who decides to open a mosque at his garage, but picks an imam that creates major controversy. Directors’ Fortnight Artistic Director Olivier Père and the director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche were present at the screening.

Other key European films in the program included Morvern Callar (2002) the second feature film by Lynne Ramsay, starring Samantha Morton; La France (2007), by critic-turned-director Serge Bozon, which stars Pascal Greggory and Sylvie Testud; Before I Forget (Avant que j’oublie) (2007), in which the director Jacques Noulot plays an HIV-positive ex-hustler; Change of Address (Changement d’adresse, 2006), a sophisticated comedy by Emmanuel Mouret; On Fire (Ça brûle, 2006), a coming-of-age by Claire Simon; and the arthouse hit The Heartbeat Detector (La Question Humaine, 2007) by Nicolas Klotz, starring Mathieu Amalric as a psychologist in the human resources department of a Parisian petrochemical corporation. The series ends this week with Béla Tarr’s hypnotic Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister Harmóniák, 2000).

One of the highlights of the series was the North American Premiere of the documentary 40x15, a compilation film of the 40 year history of the Directors Fortnight, directed by longtime Festival programmer Olivier Jahan. The film, which had its world premiere during this year’s Cannes Film Festival, offers amazing archival footage starting with its beginnings in the volatile atmosphere after May ’68. The film features interviews with such diverse personalities as Pierre-Henri Deleau (former Quinzaine director), Costa-Gavras, Werner Herzog, and the current Quinzaine director Olivier Père, who attended the special screening.

Forty years of showcasing quality and risky cinema is a rare accomplishment in this day and age. With the traditional distribution channels narrowing as the industry shifts into new media mode, many of the films so lauded at the Directors Fortnight will find a hard time to find a theatrical distributor in the U.S. and Canada. This gave the showcase at BAM a special significance…..it could be the only time that New Yorkers can even see the films on the big screen, before they head into the small screen worlds of television and dvd. The opportunity to see so many current (and classic) films was a great summer treat and a reminder that a vital international cinema is deserving of greater exposure and public awareness. Happy birthday, Quinzaine……..

UK Documentary Wins At SILVERDOCS

2008-06-26T15:55:00.003+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival announced its distinguished award winners this past weekend, culminating the weeklong Festival activities that included screening 108 films representing 63 countries, free outdoor screenings and live performances, and a five-day concurrent International Documentary Conference attended by over 650 filmmakers, film and television executives and media professionals. Winning filmmakers received over $70,000 in combined cash and in-kind prizes.

The Festival made a commitment this year to honor international documentary production with the SILVERDOCS Sterling Award for a World Feature. The winner this year was The English Surgeon directed by Geoffrey Smith. The film tells the story of British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who performs surgery in the Ukraine with the crudest tools. The director will receive $10,000 cash and $5,000 in film stock from Kodak. The jury acclaimed the film as “the most poignant and inspiring film we saw - a film that profiles two human beings who dare to step outside the system to do something extraordinary, and becomes a delicate, deep, and respectful exploration of life, death friendship and hope."

British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh resides in South London and has a practice at the local hospital nearby. But over the past 16 years, he has spent several weeks annually in Ukraine performing brain surgeries. In a country where neurosurgery barely exists, he passes on his knowledge—and suitcases of equipment—to his friend Dr. Igor Kurilets.

The English Surgeon follows Dr. Marsh on one of his visits, documenting the steep challenges to, and need for, improved care in Ukraine. The doctors treat patients with extraordinarily dangerous diseases under grueling conditions. They are often forced to improvise for a lack of equipment, such as performing one surgery with a Bosch cordless home power drill. Marsh’s extraordinary surgical skills are matched by his ability to teach; he is passing on knowledge that can save and improve hundreds more lives.

The film was produced by Evelene Productions of Leeds, UK and was distributed in the UK by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The film had its world premiere at the London Film Festival and has been seen on television in the UK and other European territories. For more information on the film, visit the official website: www.theenglishsurgeon.com.

EFP Screenings In New York

2008-06-25T16:59:00.005+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Wednesday, June 25------European Film Promotion (EFP), the pan-European association of governmental promotion agencies that represent the film industries of 25 European countries, continues its New York Industry Screenings as a way of targeting New York-based distributors, programmers and press. Over the past two days, EFP presented a program of 4 critically acclaimed European feature films with special screenings and receptions at the Tribeca Cinemas in lower Manhattan.

Films Distribution partner, François Yon believes that the screenings will offer distributors an all important follow-up opportunity to see films which have just been presented at major film festivals, including the recent Cannes International Film Festival. The four films getting the New York treatment include: No Network (Iceland, Ari Kristinsson), The Stranger In Me (Das Fremde In Mir, Germany, Emily Atef), Private Lessons (Eleve Libre, Belgium/France, Joachim Lafosse) and Eldorado (Belgium, Bouli Lanners).

No Network tells the story of Kalli, a young boy who is brought up by a single mother in the suburbs of Reykjavik. He thrives in a world of imaginary characters, where he gets most of his life experiences through screens: movies, television shows and computers. The film has won several major awards at children’s film festivals around the world, including Sprockets International Film Festival for Children, Kristiansand International Children’s Film Festival, Taiwan International Children’s TV and Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival Junior and the Audience Award at the Zlin Film Festival. The sales agent for the film is Nonstop Sales, www.nonstopsales.com

The Stranger In Me offers an emotionally devastating portrait of post-pardum depression, as a young mother plunges into the depths of despair after having her baby. As her relationship with her husband unravels, she is advised to go to a clinic, where her maternal instincts are aroused and she learns to appreciate her role as a mother. The film had its premiere at the Semaine de la Critique section of the Cannes Film Festival and is represented internationally by Bavaria Film International, www.bavaria-film-international.com

Private Lessons is a provocative story of a troubled teenager who finds emotional sustenance with an older tutor. The young man, an aspiring tennis player is taken under the wing of an established player as his family life falls apart. The relationship verges on the physical and offers an intriguing portrait of male bonding. The film had its world premiere at the Director’s Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival and is represented internationally by French-based sales agent Films Distribution, www.filmsdistribution.com

Eldorado is a worthy addition to the European tradition of the “road movie”. In this tale, a 40-something man who is facing a mid-life crisis takes under his wing a young man who he discovers breaking into his home. The two head off on a road trip to reunite the boy with his family, and in the classic tradition of this genre, both learn valuable life lessons on the journey. The film premiered at last month’s Cannes Film Festival in the Director’s Fortnight section, winning the Europa Cinemas Label Award and the Regards Jeures Prize.

The promotion effort is occurring at a pivotal time for foreign language cinema in the U.S. In the past month, three distributors who had been very active in taking on European films (New Line, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures) have announced that they will cease operations by year’s end. Another distributor who has championed European projects (THINKFilm) has been making headlines this past week as it faces economic hardships and lawsuits filed by various filmmakers who have not yet received their promised royalty payments.

Despite the recent box office successes of such films as The Lives Of Others, La Vie En Rose, Persepolis, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Counterfeiters, the landscape for foreign language films in the American market is as challenging as it has been in many decades. “We are rethinking how many sub-titled films we can really release into the market”, one prominent distributor shared with me. “The truth is that the audience for sub-titled films is aging and younger people seem far less interested in films from France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia or other important meccas of cinema. That does not mean that a well made film can have crossover appeal, but it is definitely becoming a major concern since the cost of releasing films is at record levels.”

However, recent activity at the Cannes Film Festival, although very modest by previous years’ standards, demonstrates that there is still an appetite among U.S. film distributors for well-made European films that tackle subjects or themes that are not as heavily explored in American cinema. The continued advancement of digital download technology and the new release strategy of “day-and-date” (making films available on the same date in theaters and on Video On Demand platforms on cable and satellite television) will hopefully provide enough economic incentive for more activity in the future.

As an alternative to the summer blockbuster, there remains an appetite among American audiences for intelligent, mature and well-crafted films and European films of a certain stripe. EFP’s New York Screenings initiative provides a strong platform for European films seeking US distribution. Since the program first began in 2005, approximately 25% of the films screened in this series have subsequently secured US distribution. The NY Industry Screenings are financially supported by the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Wallonie Bruxelles Images, German Films and the Icelandic Film Centre.

European Documentaries Compete At SILVERDOCS

2008-06-20T16:04:00.003+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

The SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival has, in just six short years, become the premium festival for non-fiction film in the United States. With documentary films on the rise all over the globe, tackling every subject under the sun and even revealing some considerable box office muscle, this event has become ground zero for appreciating documentary works from the U.S. and overseas and track the trends for non-fiction media of the future.

With the explosion of documentary work being produced outside the United States, this year SILVERDOCS inaugurated a competition category for international documentaries, the Sterling World Feature Competition. This significant development reflects the Festival's commitment to highlighting global perspectives and recognizing the richness of documentary storytelling worldwide.

Of the ten films competing in this competition strand (with winners announced on Saturday evening at the Festival's Awards Ceremony, and reported here in a future posting), five are European productions and two are co-productions with European partners. Most of the films are North American Premieres, giving audiences, critics and industry professionals their first opportunity to see these excellent films.

In Comeback from German director Maximilian Plettau, the focus is on German boxer Jürgen Hartenstein, a 35-year-old former middleweight champion hoping to re-enter the sport. The excellent cinematographic eye of Max Plettau’s camera follows Hartenstein as he struggles to revive his career. A roadtrip across Eastern Europe is the subject of Corridor #8, Bulgarian director Boris Despodov's chronicle of his journeys across Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia on a highway that was commissioned by the European Union to connect the Black and Adriatic seas. Designed to lift the economic hopes of the working-class residents along its route, the film makes clear that one decade and millions of euros later, little progress has been made.

UK director Geoffrey Smith offers a more hopeful vision of life in the former East Europe in The English Surgeon. The film tells the inspiring story of British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who practices medicine in an idyllic English village, but spends several weeks a year in the Ukraine performing delicate surgeries. Working with the crudest of tools in a country where neurosurgery barely exists, his skills have saved innumerable lives.

Denmark boasts two films in the competition. In Mechanical Love, director Phie Ambo explores the intriguing question of how far we are prepared to go when human intimacy becomes a rare commodity. Robots promise to make ourlives easier, but for some people they can be a stand-in for human affection. This fascinating film explores the intimate and complex relationships between people and therapeutic robots. In the blistering Milosevic On Trial, director Michael Christofferson brings us into the courtroom as former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic is on trial for crimes against humanity. The director captures the trial, in all its mundane and blood-chilling detail, and its defendant, a complex and deluded man who insisted on defending himself and ultimately died from a heart attack before facing any judgment.

Two European co-productions are also included in the competition section. In the Iran/Sweden co-production Four Wives-One Man, director Nahid Persson, an Iranian-born woman who now works in Sweden, has created a poignant, occasionally hilarious, glimpse into polygamous marriage. As the title suggests, this is no conventional union, with four wives, dozens of children, and one domineering mother-in-law, all competing for the attention of one man.

In anticipation of the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing this summer, the Chinese/German co-production The Red Race by Chao Gan is especially timely. Against the backdrop of preparations for the mega-event and escalating international condemnation over Chinese policies from Tibet to Darfur, the film chronicles the Chinese passion and obsession for gymnastics. In training centers, there’s no time for childish games as these aspiring Olympians carry their parents’ and their country’s dreams on their tiny shoulders.

These films, with their various subjects, themes and presentation styles, is evidence to a new "golden age" of documentary film that has the capacity and potential of generating audience response and serious box office monies.

Chantal Akerman: A Heroine of the Avant-Garde

2008-06-18T17:53:00.002+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Tuesday, June 17-----Chantal Akerman is a heroine of avant-garde cinema. Her most fmaous film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) devotes more than three hours to observing a woman's domestic routines before climaxing with an act of shocking violence. Since 1995, Akerman has been experimenting with video installation and exhibiting her work in museums and galleries, rather than arthouse theaters. This week, an exhibition entitled "Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time And Space" has opened at the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachussets Institute of Technology in Boston.

The exhibition is the first museum show devoted to the Belgian-born director and presents five projects, two films and three multichannel video installations, dating from her most recent work from 1995 to the present. The rogram was organized by the List Center, the Balffer Gallery at the University of Houston, the Miami Art Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis.

Akerman's work demands alot of concentration and attention from her viewers. WFilled with long, mostly silent scenes and minimalist storytelling, her cinema is one that comments on the elasticity of time....sometimes seeming very long indeed and sometimes remarkably swift and speeded up. She also takes on controversila themes, like racism in the American South (South, 1999), illegal immigration (From The Other Side, 2002), and terrorism in the Middle East (Down There, 2006).

In From The East: Bordering On Fiction (1995), she records a journey across Eastern Europe, with its many lingering nighttime views of people walking on sidewalks, waiting for buses to arrive and other normal activities. The somber light and the anticipation of something about to happen gives the piece an eerie atmosphere, haunted by the heavy legacy of World War II and the Holocaust.

The most recent piece in the show is called Women of Antwerp In November, a noirish meditation about women, smoking and the movies. Shown on several large screens, the piece features professional actresses shown smoking, waiting, looking forward. The 20 minute piece is a short one for this artist's oeuvre, but communicates everything it needs to about sorrow, joy and anticipation of either the best or the worst. It presents a tableau of soulfulness, melancholy and the essential aloneness of its subjects. It sums up her great themes and allows for a striking visual poetry. The exhibition, which will travel to museums and art centers throughout the United States over the next few months, continues through July 6 in Boston.

A Focus On European Cinema At Festroia

2008-06-16T12:47:00.003+02:00

Saturday, June 14-------Although my “beat” on this site is generally to report on European cinema in North America, I am currently in Europe attending the Festroia in Setubal, Portugal. My job here is to program and coordinate the American Independents Competition, which this year presented 8 new films from American directors.

But this Festival is remarkably European in focus, with nearly 80% of the films coming from all the countries on the continent. The Official Section, where films compete for Best Film, Best Director and Best Acting prizes, was dominated by European talents, including Free To Leave (Peter Payer, Austria), Worlds Apart (Niels Arden Oplev, Denmark), Estrellita (Metod Pevec, Slovenia), The Class (Ilmar Raag, Estonia), Black Ice (Petri Kotwica, Finland), The Bird Can´t Fly (Three Anna, The Netherlands), Mirush (Marius Holst, Norway), Empties (Jan Sverak, Czech Republic), Mermaid (Anna Melikyan, Russia), The Trap (Srdan Golubovic, Serbia) and All Will Be Well (Tomasz Wiszniewski, Poland).

In fact, Polish cinema was very much in evidence here. This year´s country spotlight, a showcase of 9 new films, was on Poland. In addition, films screening out of competition included Just Like Home (Lone Scherfig, Denmark) and The New Man (Klaus Haro). The Festival´s First Works competition, dedicated to debut directors, also was strongly European, including the films: Family Rules (Marc Meyer, Germany), Karoy (Zhanna Issabayeva, Kazahkhstan), Thieves (Jaime Marques, Spain), Out Of Bounds (Fulvia Bernasconi, Switzerland), The Art of Negative Thinking (Bard Breien, Norway), Preserve (Lukasz Palkowski, Poland), Megapolis (Ella Arkhangelskaya, Russia) and Darling (Johan King, Sweden). Short films from European filmmakers and film schools were also featured, as well as 13 short films competing for the Prix UIP, sponsored by the European Film Academy.

European star power is also being honoured at the Festival tonight. As part of the official Awards Ceremony of the 24th edition of Festroia, the Festival will honor the career achievement of Spanish actress Assumpta Serna with a Gold Dolphin award.

The talented actress has won more than 20 Best Actress prizes and has acted in more than 60 films in six languages: Spanish, Catalan, Portugese, Italian, French and English. Born in 1957, she has acted in theater and fiilms in over 20 countries. She is a board member of the European Film Academy and both a member of the American Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences and the Spanish Academy of Cinema. She was recently elected President of AISGE, the organization in Spain that deals with the task of managing and protecting the intellectual property rights of 4600 actor members.

A few of her many films are: Almodovar's Matador, the 1993 Spanish Oscar entry The Fencing Master, Maria Luisa Bemberg's film, I, the Worst of All, The Craft, Sam Fuller's Day of Reckoning, Wild Orchid, opposite Mickey Rourke, Nostradamus, with Rutger Hauer and F. Murray Abraham, Circle of Passions, with Max Von Sydow, Short Cut to Paradise with Charles Dance, and stars opposite British actor Sean Bean in the Napoleonic epic Sharpe´s Rifles, a British film-series. She recently starred in the American independent film Uncertainty, directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.

In 1997 Serna took up writing. Her first book, Screenacting, was followed by Monologues in V.O and her third book is in the works. After the release of her first book she began teaching workshops in Universities and Film Schools on the subjects of "Acting for Camera", "Directing Actors" and "The Script and the Actor".

She is also the founder of first team, an institution for film educaton that features the contribution of professionals like Phillip Noyce and Emma Thompson and aims to promote team work in the filmmaking process. Since 2000, first team has given courses in Spain, Portugal and Argentina, reaching more than 1200 actors, directors and screenwriters from all over the world.

For this American, coming to Portugal (with its beautiful countryside, abundant sunshine, sparkling waters and superb cuisine) has also been a tour of the European continent, and of contemporary European cinema. I look forward to reporting on these excellent European films as they make their way to North America in the coming months.

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Open Roads To Italian Cinema In New York

2008-06-11T11:12:00.003+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Tuesday, June 10-----The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York welcomes some of Italy ’s finest directorial talents to New York for the eighth annual Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, at the Walter Reade Theater, June 6–12. The series highlights 13 new features, a special retrospective screening of Franco Piavoli’s Blue Planet, and a selection of popular short films. Directors Gianni Zanasi, Ferzan Ozpetek, Andrea Porporati, Salvatore Maira, Wilma Labate, and actors Jasmine Trinca and Valerio Mastandrea are among the filmmakers expected to attend screenings during series.

The 2008 edition of Open Roads opened on Friday, June 6, with Silvio Soldini’s Days and Clouds, a brilliantly rendered domestic drama by the NYU-educated director of Bread and Tulips (Open Roads 2001). Starring Margherita Buy, the film follows a woman as she struggles to keep her family afloat after her husband (Antonio Albanese) is edged out of the company he co-founded. Buy won this year’s David di Donatello Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Also featured in the program are Riccardo Milani’s Piano Solo, a biographical exploration of the troubled personal life of legendary Italian jazz musician Luca Flores; Andrea Molaioli’s The Girl by the Lake, starring Toni Servillo, winner of the Pasinetti Award for Best Actor at the 2007 Venice Film Festival; and Andrea Porporati’s The Sweet and the Bitter, the story of a young man’s seduction by the Mafia, starring Luigi Lo Cascio (The Best of Youth).

Also featured in this year’s unique mix of cinematic road trips is In the Factory, a documentary celebration of the vibrant and influential world of the Italian factory, a vital heart of postwar Italy; Night Bus, debut filmmaker Davide Marengo espionage film noir with a young woman enlisting the help of a bus driver (Valerio Mastandrea) to evade the vicious gangsters trying to track her down.; and Don´t Think About It, also starring Mastandrea as an aging punk rock guitarist.

Open Roads hosted the New York premiere of filmmaker Franco Piavoli’s Blue Planet for a 25th anniversary, one-night-only screening on Tuesday night. The 1982 film, by one of Italy ’s most important experimental filmmakers, is built on rhythms that present the harmony and the contrasts between human activity and the physical world surrounding it. Legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky subsequently labeled it a “poem, concert, journey into the universe, nature and life. Not a documentary…Truly a different vision.” Godfrey Reggio, director of Koyaanisqatsi and a great admirer of Piavoli introduced the screening of Blue Planet. Anthology Film Archives will host a retrospective of four of Piavoli’s feature films from June 12-15, and Blue Planet will have a weeklong theatrical run at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater beginning June 13.

The 2008 edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema has been organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center together with the Ministero per i Beni e le Attivitá Culturali (Direzione Generale per il Cinema), Filmitalia, Cinecittá Holding in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and SNGC.

Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Season In North America

2008-06-06T17:23:00.002+02:00

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Friday, June 5-----This being June, otherwise known as Gay Pride Month, it is the heart of the gay and lesbian festival season. Currently in New York and next week in San Francisco, the best new gay-themed films will be featured at the NewFest (New York) and the San Francisco Gay And Lesbian Film Festival, part of a year-round gay and lesbian film festival circuit that continues through the summer and into the Fall in such gay meccas as Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago and at least 50 other cities.

This festival circuit is not only an important event for the local community, but an opportunity for filmmakers to showcase their works for their core audience and to possibly find greater distribution among the U.S. distributors who specialize in gay and lesbian films (including Stand Releasing, Picture This Entertainment, Here! Films, Frameline, Wolfe Media and TLA Releasing).

Several European titles are currently circling the circuit. The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela is by Icelandic director Olaf de Fleur. This unique film won the Berlin Film Festival’s Teddy Award (considered the “gay Oscar”). Blurring the lines between fiction and reality, the film focuses on Raquela, a transsexual Filipina prostitute who dreams of escaping her harsh reality for a fairy tale life in the West.

From UK director Adrian Shergold comes Clapham Junction, an episodic film in which a number of separate stories weave together over the course of one long night. The film brings together the intimate stories of the celebration of a gay wedding, a young man devoted to his grandmother, a schoolboy lusting after an older man and a shocking hate crime. Intersecting in surprising ways, these strands form a provocative portrait of modern day gay life in London.

In German/Israeli co-production Japan, Japan, by director Lior Shamriz, a gay teenager settles in Tel Aviv, but dreams of moving to Japan. In his off hours, he cruises for boys and surfs porn, which creates an exotic, sexually graphic cyberspace landscape in parallel with his mundane daily routine. Japan begins to represent all his dreams, desires and aspirations.

Italian/Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek follows up his acclaimed film Steam with Saturn In Opposition, a bittersweet ensemble drama. In the finely acted film, a group of friends re-examine their lives and relationships in the wake of an unexpected tragedy. Partners Lorenzo and Davide host regular dinner parties for their diverse group of gay and straight friends – their chosen family. When the group faces a terrible loss, each deals with it in a unique way.

Set in South Africa in the 1950s, the UK/South African co-production The World Unseen by Shamin Sharif is a drama about a taboo love affair that develops unexpectedly between two Indian women. Rebellious café owner Amina defiantly dresses in trousers and shirts and makes her own rules. When she meets the more traditional Miriam, she is immediately smitten. The film won the Audience Award at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and is certain to be one of the most talked-about of the gay and lesbian film season.

The season for gay cinema is on and European films are among its most interesting discoveries.

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LAST MINUTE U.S. PICKUPS AS CANNES FF CLOSES

2008-05-25T21:47:00.004+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

With major U.S. distribution companies, for the most part, sitting out this year’s Cannes Film Festival, there was some last minute activity as the Festival came to a close this past weekend. Among the winners announced on Sunday (a European clean sweep), only Three Monkeys, the latest film from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (who won the Best Director prize), has a U.S. distributor in place. New Yorker Films, a specialty outfit, picked up the rights prior to the Festival, capitalizing on its prior relationship with the director on his previous film Distant.

Of the other winners, there are rumors that Sony Pictures Classics, the gold standard of U.S. specialty divisions, is in final negotiations to pick up the North American rights to Le Silence de Lorna, the latest film from the Belgian brother duo, Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne (which won the Best Screenplay prize at the Festival). The company released the brothers’ previous Palme d’Or winner, The Child (L’Enfant). So far, neither Entre Les Murs, the French film by Laurent Cantent that won the Palme d’Or, nor Il Divo, the Italian film by Paolo Sorrentino that copped the Jury Prize, have a U.S. home. Obviously, this can change over the next few days or weeks.

Sony Pictures Classics is also reportedly in the final stages of closing a deal to pick up North American rights to O’Horten, the latest film from Norwegian director Bent Hamer (Kitchen Stories). The dramatic comedy, which is co-produced with Germany’s Pandora Filmproduktion, depicts the solitude and wasted resources of an aging man with warm and humor. The off-beat film presents a marketing challenge, but could benefit from the warm reception received by the Norwegian film Reprise, which has been an arthouse hit in the U.S. this Spring.

I Am Because We Are, the UK documentary about the children of Malawi, which is directed by Nathan Rissman and written, produced and narrated by music superstar Madonna, is heading to the Sundance Channel cable network in the U.S. This probably means that the film will not receive anything other than a token theatrical release. The film had its world premiere at last month’s Tribeca Film Festival and also had a gala screening in Cannes, with the “material girl” receiving the attention of paparazzi.

In a final nod to the Cannes Film Festival, the closing night film What Just Happened is being positioned for an October theatrical release in the United States via specialty distributor Magnolia Pictures. The film, which opened the Sundance Film Festival last January, was widely panned but has apparently been greatly re-edited and re-tooled. The film, a satire on the film industry starring Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, John Turturro and Stanley Tucci, is directed by veteran Barry Levinson (Rain Man). The distribution deal is not as rosy as it appears….the film was produced by 2929 Productions which is linked to Magnolia Pictures under the corporate wing of film entrepreneur Mark Cuban. The fact that it is to be distributed by Magnolia Pictures means that a higher profile deal was not forthcoming (no surprise after its disasterous premiere at Sundance).

Such are the fortunes of this year's Cannes Film Festival....perhaps we will hear of more deals in the future, but so far, most of the European films on tap will need to enter the film festival circuit in North America (Toronto, New York, Chicago) in the Fall to reach audiences.

Americans Hold Back On Buying At Cannes

2008-05-23T19:11:00.003+02:00

by Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Friday, May 23------The whooshing sound that you hear is the rapid departure of film professionals leaving in droves as the Cannes Film Festival enters its final weekend. In fact, professionals have been leaving en masse since Wednesday, with film sales offices at the Marche du Film and the local hotels virtual ghost towns. The American distribution contingent, which were on the Croisette in great numbers, have left Cannes without many major acquisitions. The tepid Cannes market continued what's been a dismal cycle for the finished-film market that began last year in Toronto.

Theatrical grosses have dropped, there's been a glut of product, and then came the closing of Warners' specialty divisions, Picturehouse Entertainment, Warner Independent Pictures and New Line Cinema. The result, insiders say, is that there will be fewer independent releases this year, and one of the casualties will certainly be for European and international films looking to North America as its major overseas market. With “foreign language” films making up a scant 2% of the box office (upped to 5% if you count English-language films from the UK, Canada and Australia), an already dismal situation could get a lot worse.

The marketplace is definitely soft. A case in point: Miramax Films. The company made a big splash last year with its $3 million purchase of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but its only Cannes-related acquisition was the film opener Blindness, which received very mixed reviews and whose box office potential seems decidedly limited. Last year, studios in a bidding war for the James Gray-directed We Own The Night (which eventually was sold for nearly $12 Million to Columbia Pictures and grossed less than $10 Million in the US), were less enthused with Gray’s current Cannes film, Two Lovers, which so far has not been picked up for U.S. distribution (highly unusual considering its cast of Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow).

Two other high-profile American films that were screened in competition (Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour epic Che and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut Synedoche New York) are also leaving Cannes without a North American distribution deal. Even the more commercially oriented Cannes market failed to seduce buyers, who took a wait-and-see attitude toward movies like Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles and Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler.

Several of the most successful distribution companies (Paramount Vantage, Focus Features and Fox Searchlight) have gotten into the producing game, making their own films in-house and relying less on finished films for acquisitions. This has been a risky strategy in the past, but distributors with enough capital and clout continue to put themselves into the in-house production world, even though a “flop” of one of those films can negatively affect the company’s final ledgers more than an outside acquision.

One of the dismaying trends at this year’s Cannes was distributors concerns that audiences will stay away from “downer films”, films that are hard-hitting and somewhat depressing (despite this year’s Oscar wins by the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood). This reluctance by major American distributors to gamble on more artistic and gritty films has left many prominent European films showcased at the Festival without a distribution deal in place (although the situation could change in the coming weeks). Films that currently have no homes in the United States and Canada include Delta (Kornel Mundruczo), Entres Les Murs (Laurent Cantet), Gomorra (Matteo Garrone), Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino), La Frontiere De L’Aube (Phillipe Garrel), Le Silence De Lorna (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) and Palermo Shooting (Wim Wenders).

European sellers are not necessarily sympathetic to American fears over less easily marketable films. As one European sales agent was quoted in one of the Cannes dailies: “The Americans are lazy, they're arrogant and too scared to do any deals. I tell them: get some balls -- your companies are all going down the toilet, maybe now's the time to get some films before it all collapses." The truth is that the prices for a film (most now figured in euros or pounds sterling) make it a quite expensive investment for smaller distribution firms. But prices tend to drop sharply in the weeks following the Festival, giving more cautious American companies an opportunity to come on board. It also allows smaller companies, that are not subsidized by a large studio or media conglomerate, a chance to snag top-line films, which has been happening more and more.

However, there have been some bright spots amidst all the gloom. IFC Entertainment, which includes theatrical distributor IFC Films and the Independent Film Channel cable network, was one of the few American companies on a buying spree. In total, the company picked up seven new titles, including Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale, Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours, Josh Safdie's The Pleasure of Being Robbed, Steve McQueen’s Hunger (which opened the Un Certain Regard section) and Anna Melikyan's Mermaid. IFC Entertainment seems more open to buying films, since its distribution model includes day-and-date releases in both theaters and video on demand on cable and satellite television networks (giving audiences the choice of seeing a new film in a movie theater or in the comfort of their own homes). While this model is still controversial, it has given the company the confidence to realize full revenue potential in a film's initial release.

Another mid-sized American company, First Independent Pictures announced that it has acquired that US distribution rights for the coming of UK coming-of-age film Sixty Six, produced by Working Title Films. Directed by Paul Weiland, the family comedy's title refers to the year that England won the World Cup. Already garnering attention from US Jewish Film Festivals, the film was executive produced by Richard Curtis (Bridget Jones' Diary, Love Actually, Notting Hill), with a cast that includes Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Marsan, Stephen Rea, Catherine Tate, and up and comer Gregg Sulkin. The film is planned to be released in New York, then Los Angeles, in early August of this year

On a final positive note, German giant Bavaria Film International made a sale to Canada’s Mongrel Media of the latest film from Doris Dorrie. Cherry Blossoms-Hanami has played at various U.S. film festivals but still does not have a U.S. distributor in place. Such is the case for many European films, making the film festival circuit one of the only places to catch the latest film from some of European’s film auteurs. It is hard to say if this situation will change in the coming months. However, what has always proven to be true, when adversity strikes, it is also accompanied by opportunity. So look for the good, the bad, and the ugly as European films continue their struggle to be seen on the large screen in the United States and Canada.

European Films Find Homes In North America

2008-05-21T04:06:00.006+02:00

Tuesday, May 20-----Despite soggy weather and a rather unenthusiastic response to most films at the Cannes Film Festival, there are a number of deals to announce for European films that have found homes with U.S. distributors. The films, all screening in either the official sections of the Festival or in the Cannes Film Market, will all be released theatrically in the United States in the next few months.

IFC Films has been among the busiest companies on the Croisette. The company has acquired a string of films, including North American rights to the latest film from French film auteur Olivier Assayas. Summer Hours (L'Heure d'Ete), which stars Juliette Binoche, is the story of three 40-something siblings whose lives collide when their mother, an heiress, dies suddenly. The film is being represented in Cannes by MK2 International. IFC Films acquired back to back Palme d'Or winners, including Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and Ken Loach's The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Last year, the company picked up 10 titles at Cannes, including Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, which won the Prize of the 60th Cannes Film Festival.

One of the few buzzed-about films is Waltz With Bashir, an animation epic by Israeli director Ari Folman. The film was co-produced by Arte France, with funding from a number of sources including the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. The film, which mixes dream-like surrealism with the harsh reality of war, is being represented internationally by the German sales company The Match Factory, and has already been sold to Italy, Benleux, Spain, Greece and to Canada’s Seville Pictures. A U.S. deal is expected by later this week.

Cloud 9 by German director Andreas Dresen has been sold to Mongrel Media for Canadian distribution and is in negotiations for a deal in the United States. The film has already been sold to various European countries, including Cooperative Nouveau Cinema for Benelux, Filmcoopi for Swizerland, Seven One for Greece, with pending sales for France and Spain. The film had its final screening today at the Marche du Film.

Liberation Entertainment, a new U.S. distribution company launched by media entrepreneur Jay Boberg, acquired the North American rights to Tokyo, which had its world premiere at Cannes. The film reflects city life in Tokyo through three narratives by three directors, including the French directors Michel Gondry and Leos Carax (the third is Bong Joon-ho). The company plans a theatrical release for the film later this year.

Strand Releasing has acquired all U.S. distribution rights to How About You, a UK/Ireland co-production directed by Anthony Byrne. The film is the story of a young girl left in charge of a residential home over Christmas and is based on the short story by Irish author Maeve Binchy. The film stars an impressive cast of film veterans, including Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton and Brenda Fricker. How About You is a co-production between Ireland’s Ferndale Films and the UK’s Sarah Radclyffe Productions, and is represented by London based international sales agency and financing company Bankside Films. Strand plans to release the film theatrically this September. Expect more deals later this week as the Cannes Film Festival moves into its final days.

Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor, Cineuropa.org

U.S. Distributors On the Prowl At Cannes

2008-05-16T11:01:00.001+02:00

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Don’t bother trying to contact American film professionals in their New York or Los Angeles offices this week… the bulk of them are cruising the Croisette at the Cannes Film Festival, looking for films that they can add to their theatrical slates. Distribution bigwigs are mixing with smaller specialty companies in a mad search for the next small European gem that could become a major box office champion. With many available titles vying for attention in the Official Competition, Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and the International Critics Week, and hundreds of others available in the Cannes Film Market, distributors will need to cover all their bases to find the golden needle in a very crowded haystack.

While there certainly were some bright spots on the U.S. theatrical landscape for European films this past year (including La Vie en Rose, Atonement, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly and Persepolis), most were very small releases that never reached the $1 Million mark in their theatrical releases. To make matters worse, news was announced just days before the start of the Cannes Film Festival that rocked the insular world of specialty film distribution in the United States.

Two active companies that were specialty divisions of media giant Time Warner (Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse Entertainment) will cease operations in the next few weeks. Both companies have been extremely active in the successful releases of both American independent and international film titles in the United States and Canada, but senior management at Time Warner made the decision that it will now distribute more specialized films through studio giant Warner Brothers or through the veteran distributor New Line Cinema (a company that was bought by Time Warner almost a decade ago, and has been responsible for the release of many independent auteurs as well as the lucrative Lord of the Rings series).

Warner Independent Pictures, which began operations in 2004, successfully released such European films as and A Very Long Engagement (France, 2004), March of the Penguins (France, 2005) and Paradise Now (France/Israel/Palestine, 2005). Its fortunes were much more modest lately, including the release of the English language version of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, which made a paltry $1.2 Million in its theatrical release.

Picturehouse Entertainment, which has only been in existence for three years, had a number of European film successes, including Tristram Shandy (UK, 2006), Pan’s Labyrinth (Spain/Mexico, 2006), Starter For Ten (UK, 2006) and The Orphanage (Spain, 2007). The company was praised for its handling of the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose (2007), which went on to win Oscars for Best Actress for Marion Cotillard and an award for makeup. However, despite its success d’estime, the film grossed less than $12 Million. When special-effects films and silly comedies make that in a single day, it was just a matter of time before the studio executives at Time Warner pulled the plug. However, the news that these two formidable divisions will no longer be in business has shaken the fragile specialty distribution to the core. If these well financed divisions, supported by their parent companies deep pockets, couldn’t make it, what chance was there for other companies?

Well, that is not really the case. Other studio specialty divisions have been extremely well. Fox Searchlight Pictures, a division of Twentieth Century Fox, has become one of the most shingles in Hollywood, including successful distribution of such European titles as The Full Monty (UK, 1997), Waking Ned Devine (UK, 1998), Sexy Beast (UK, 2001), Bend It Like Beckham (UK, 2002), L’Auberge Espanole (France, 2003), 28 Days Later (UK, 2003), The Dreamers (UK/Monte Carlo, 2004), Nightwatch (Russia, 2005), Notes On A Scandal (UK, 2006), The Last King of Scotland (UK, 2006) and last year’s Once (Ireland).

Sony Pictures Classics, the most successful of the arthouse divisions with a long history of supporting European films, is one of the major companies looking at new European titles at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Their past successes have included such landmark films as The City of the Lost Children (France, 1995), Ma Vie En Rose (Belgium, 1997), Run Lola Run (Germany, 1999), All About My Mother (Spain, 1999), Talk To Her (Spain, 2002), Goodbye Lenin! (Germany, 2004), The Triplettes of Belleville (France, 2004), Layercake (UK, 2005), Volver (Spain, 2006), The Lives of Others (Germany, 2007) and current hits The Counterfeiters (Austria), Persepolis (France) and Brick Lane (UK).

Focus Features, the specialty division of Universal Pictures, had a major success this past year with the film Atonement, which was nominated for 7 Oscars. The company not only distributes films but often produces and co-produces them, especially the films of its “in-house auteur” Ang Lee. Other important European films it has released over the past decade include: 8 Women (France, 2002), The Pianist (France/Austria, 2002), Swimming Pool (France, 2003), Brothers (Denmark, 2004), Vanity Fair (UK, 2004), Talk To Me (Spain, 2007) and In Bruges (UK/Ireland, 2008).

Other companies that will be competing for top European titles at Cannes include Miramax Films (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, The Queen), The Weinstein Company (Persepolis), ThinkFilm (My Brother Is An Only Child), IFC Films (4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days), Magnolia Pictures (Boarding Gate), Strand Releasing (The Edge of Heaven, Irina Palm), Roadside Attractions (Roman de Gare), Palm Pictures (13 Tzameti), Zeitgeist Films (Regular Lovers, Sophie Scholl) and a host of smaller companies with more irregular release patterns.

Big and small, high and mighty, well-financed and on-their-last-dollar, everyone is on the hunt for the film that can make their year, their career and their investors happy. Not easy, but hope springs eternal every May on the Cote d’Azur.

Spotlight On Polish Cinema

2008-05-13T19:02:00.002+02:00

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Poland has had an active film industry since the beginning of the 20th century and continues to be one of the most active players on the Eastern European film scene. Having produced such acknowledged film masters as Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Jan Lenica, Lech Majewski and Jerzy Skolimowski, the Polish film scene has flourished, even under the strict demands of 40 years of Communist rule. As the economic dynamo of the “new Europe” and host country to the world-renowned Lodz International Film School, a new generation of filmmakers is now emerging.

American audiences have an opportunity to discover these new talents-in-the-making at the New York Polish Film Festival, which runs from May 9 to 13 at the Anthology Film Archives, one of New York’s most committed film showcases. For the fourth time, the Festival is presenting a fascinating program featuring some of the most interesting, exciting and diverse feature, short and documentary films from Poland.

One of the Festival’s highlights occurred on Sunday evening, with the premiere at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art of Katyn, the Oscar-nominated film by film master Andrzej Wajda. The film is a recreation of one of the most shocking incidents of World War II, when Soviet soldiers slaughtered thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the forests of Katyn. A story that could not be told during the Communist regime, Wajda brings all the drama of the incident and its aftermath in an impressive sweep of historical importance. The special screening was introduced by Dr. Annette Insdorf, Director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia University and a noted writer and film critic who has written several books on films that chronicle the Holocaust.

Among the festival's films are: Savior's Square by Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze, which won Best Picture honors at the Gdynia Film Festival; Immensity of Justice by Wieslaw Saniewski; Jasminum by Jan Jakub Kolski; Extrasby Michal Kwiecinski; Tricks by Andrzej Jakimowski, which won the Best Film prize at the Miami Film Festival; Time To Die by Dorota Kedzierzawska; Tomorrow We Are Going To The Movies, which won the Best Debut film prize at the Gdynia Film Festival; Preserve by Lukasz Palkowski; and SSummer Love by Piotr Uklanski, a Polish Western (imagine that) that had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. A short film or documentary accompanies each feature.

Most of the Festival’s are award-winners in Poland and abroad but have never been seen in the United States. Leading Polish directors, actors and young filmmakers are participating in the festival, using the opportunity to present their work with audiences and to perhaps find American distributor interest. New York is home to a large Polish community so there is a strong core audience interested in films that explore Polish history and contemporary culture.
The producer of the festival is Hanka Hartowicz Productions FILMART, which has introduced Polish films to the American public at special programs at various institutions, including the first American retrospective of the films of Jerzy Skolimowski at the Anthology Film Archives last December. .

The New York Polish Film Festival is co-organized by the Association of Polish Filmmakers, with support from the Polish Film Institute, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, and the Kosciusko Foundation. Plans are in place to do a touring program of the films, giving national audiences a chance to discover these blazing new talents. For more information on the Festival, visit their website: www.nypff.com

New York Salutes Godard In The 1960s

2008-05-08T10:35:00.002+02:00

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

This May marks a milestone in recent world history. It is the 40th anniversary of the “events of 1968”, a series of revolutionary protests that spanned the globe and created social and political turmoil, particularly in the United States, England and France. While the protests centered on the escalating war in Vietnam, the main engine was a discontent with politics as usual. In France, in particular, art mixed with politics, as leading filmmakers, artists and philosophers led the charge and envisioned a proletarian state where artists, students, workers and intellectuals would fight side by side for basic human rights. The protests even reached into the vaulted ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, stopping the proceedings for the first and only time in the Festival’s sixty plus year history.

One of the key “artistic agitators” of the period was the director Jean-Luc Godard, whose prolific films of the decade were the most accurate depiction of both the promise and the doomed fatalism of the period. To mark the “events of 1968”, the Film Forum, New York’s most progressive arthouse complex, is screening a milestone five-week program devoted to Jean-Luc Godard, which began this past weekend with Godard’s breakthrough film, Breathless, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

Godard famously said of the films of this period that they “should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.” That anarchic attitude is reflected in most of his films of the decade. Throughout the 1960s, cinephiles eagerly awaited the latest film — or two— by Jean-Luc Godard, a founding father of the nouvelle vague. The former film critic for “Cahiers du Cinema” was the most innovative and prolific of his contemporaries, with each new work seemingly rewriting the grammar of film. Jump cuts, asynchronous soundtracks, self-narration, cinema as essay, cinema as collage, self-referential cinema, cinema of anarchy — you name it, Godard’s 60s oeuvre redefined “cutting edge” — and, with location and available-light shooting, now provides a near-documentary time capsule of Paris in those years.

Godard spawned a new kind of movie star, as well, with such New Wave icons as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Anna Karina, the latter doubling as the director’s muse through seven film collaborations and a rocky four-year marriage. Forty years after the tumultuous events of May ’68, one can almost see the chaos coming through the satire and social criticism in Godard’s chronicles of “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.” For this pivotal decade, Godard was a seminal force in redrawing the map of film.

Among the films to be shown over the next five weeks at the Film Forum are Breathless (1959), Le Petit Soldat (1960), A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Les Carabiniers (1963), A Married Woman (1964), Band of Outsiders (1964), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot Le Fou (1965), Two Or Three Things I Know About Her (1966), Made In U.S.A. (1966), Masculine Feminine (1967), La Chinoise (1967), Weekend (1967), Vivre Sa Vie (1968), Le Gai Savoir (1969) and his documentary on the Rolling Stones, Sympathy For The Devil (1968). This is an astonishing output for any filmmaker, and indicates how Godard felt that his films were almost newsreels or “reports from the front lines”. In total, it presents us with a daring and provocative look at the Parisian scene and the revolutionary spirit unfolding in the French capital in those moody, melodramatic and mythical days.

Strong European Showing At 2008 Tribeca Film Festival Awards

2008-05-05T09:52:00.001+02:00

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Following a packed 10-day marathon of film screenings, industry events, seminar panels and chic parties, the Tribeca Film Festival ended this past weekend with the announcement of the winners of the juried awards in several categories. The World Competition winners were chosen from 12 narrative and 12 documentary features from 18 countries. Two awards were also given to honor New York films, which were chosen from seven narrative and nine documentary features. Awards were also given for the best narrative, best documentary and student visionary films in the Shorts competition.

European films figured strongly in the winners’ circle. The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature was given to Let The Right One In (Lat den rätte komma in) by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson. Novelist John Ajvide Linquit adapted his best-seller to tell the beautifully touching tale of the first romance of 12-year-old Oskar and the girl next door, Eli….who also happens to be a vampire. The jury commented that the film was exceptional “for its mesmerizing exploration of loneliness and alienation through a masterful reexamination of the vampire myth.” Director Tomas Alfredson receives a cash prize of $25,000 plus the art award "Maternal Nocture: Clearing Storm” created by Stephen Hannock. The film has a North American distribution in place, with Magnet Releasing, the specialty arm of Magnolia Pictures.

Winner of the Best New Narrative Filmmaker prize is Turkish director Huseyin Karabey for the film My Marlon And Brando. The film, a co-production with The Netherlands and the UK, is a cross-cultural love story between a Turkish actress living in Istanbul and a Kurdish actor living in Iraq. The story is set on the eve of the American invasion and spins a unique take on the “Romeo And Juliet” legend with contemporary references. The jury praised the film for “its skillful blending of documentary style with a classic love story.” The film had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival. The director receives a cash prize of $25,000, sponsored by American Express, and the art award “Bonfire,” created by Ross Bleckner.

Best Actor honors were shared by Thomas Turgose and Piotr Jagiello, the teenage protagonists of the UK drama Somers Town, directed by Shane Meadows. Turgose plays a lad from the British Midlands who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Jagiello, who plays a Polish refugee living with his construction worker father in a working class neighborhood of London. The jury was impressed with the twin actors’ “extraordinary and exhilarating rendering of a friendship found”. The prize, sponsored by Delta Air Lines, gives each winner a business elite ticket voucher for anywhere Delta travels.

Eileen Walsh, a haunting Irish actress, won Best Actress honors for “her exquisite rendering of a lonely wife aching to be seen and heard” in director Declan Recks’ Eden. The film takes a frank look at the slow disintegration of a marriage during the week a couple celebrates their 10th anniversary. Adapted from Eugene O’Brien’s award-winning play, the film’s use of closeups and intimate editing only enhances its emotional impact. The actress receives two business elite ticket vouchers for anywhere Delta travels.

The Best New Documentary Filmmaker is Spanish director Carlos Carcas for the film Old Man Bebo. The film, which had its world premiere at the Malaga Film Festival in Spain, tells the story of Bebo Valedes, the greatest living Cuban musician who was one of the inventors of the mambo, who turns 90 this year. The joyful portrait film mixes archival footage with contemporary interviews and performance segments to offer a celebration of the man and his music. Director Carlos Carcas receives $25,000 cash, sponsored by American Express, and the art award “Maquette for Primary Compass,” created by Don Gummer.

The sole non-European filmmaker in the winners’ circle is American director Gini Reticker for her moving documentary film Pray The Devil Back To Hell. Winning the Best Documentary Feature prize for “its moving portrait of the women of Liberia, who show us how community, motherly love and perseverance can change the fate of a society.” The film, which had its world premiere at the Festival, wins for director Gini Reticker a cash award of $25,000 and the art award “Liza Minnelli,” created by Timothy White.

The Tribeca Film Festival has long demonstrated its support for local film talents. When it began, it hosted a separate “Made In New York” competition category. That has since been dropped, but the Festival still makes a point of honoring New York filmmaking talents through its New York Loves Film Award. This year’s documentary winners was Zoned In, a documentary by Daniela Zanzotto that traces the remarkable journey of a Bronx high schooler to an Ivy League university, with trenchant comments on the role of race and class in the American education system. Director Zanzotto receives a cash prize of $5000, sponsored by New York State Governor's Office for Motion Picture and Television Development, and the art award “Table Odeon,” created by Donna Ferrato.

Winner of the Best New York Feature was The Caller, directed by Richard Ledes. Acting veterans Frank Langella and Elliot Gould star, respectively, as an energy business executive, who is assisted by a private investigator in his effort to expose his corporation's corrupt practices. The jury hailed the film’s “superb use of its New York locations – from the sleek mid-town high-rises to the desolate Brooklyn Bridge piers – to create a chilling and finally stirring suspense movie; an unusual thriller whose mysterious plot finally exposes the mysteries of the heart.” The filmmakers receive a cash award of $5,000, sponsored by The City of New York Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, and the art award “Nude on Guitar” created by Ralph Gibson. Prize winning short films included Best Boy (Steph Green), Mandatory Service (Jessica Habie) and Elephant Garden (Jessica Habie).

The Cadillac Award was given to the documentary War Child, directed by C. Karim Chrobog. The American film, which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, was voted on by Festival audiences. War Child tells the story of hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal, a veteran of the 20-year civil war in southern Sudan. First-time filmmaker Chrobog follows Jal as he returns to Sudan for the first time in 18 years to reunite with his family, including the father who summoned him to war and then abandoned him. Now in his 20s, Jal is using his music to raise awareness about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan and the plight of child soldiers throughout the world. The director receives a cash prize of $25,000 and the art award “Peripheral Drift Illusion” created by Ryan McGinness.

The Festival, in presenting over 120 films from 40 countries around the world, gave its loyal audiences the chance to check the pulse of world cinema and to be introduced to the amazing stories of both real and fictional people from many different cultures. It is often said that New York is the center of the world (perhaps an overinflated statement) but for the past 10 days, the world was certainly on display in all its glory and complications for New York audiences to savor, absorb and learn from. Aside from all the glitz and the industry buzz, that could ultimately be the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival’s most important legacy.

Wallflower Press Launches New Publications At Tribeca FF

2008-05-05T09:47:00.002+02:00

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

One of the fab parties this week at the Tribeca Film Festival was the Tuesday evening bash at BAR 13, hosted by Wallflower Press, the largest publisher of film books and magazines in the United Kingdom. Yoram Allon, Editorial Director and Publisher, was in Gotham with his wife Nicky Allon and editor Ian Haydn Smith as part of the company’s North American launch of the International Film Guide, the authoritative Yearbook of International Cinema, and Film And Festivals Magazine, a quarterly publication covering the world of film festivals.

Wallflower Press arranged with the Tribeca Film Festival to distribute close to 1000 copies of the International Film Guide to Festival Industry Delegates as part of their “welcome bags” (which mainly consisted of thin brochures and gimmicky trinkets). Wallflower Press also distributed the April edition of Film And Festivals Magazine, which contains a preview article on the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as wrap and preview coverage of festivals in the first half of 2008 and various feature stories on films, festivals and how-to information for independent filmmakers.

“The Tribeca Film Festival is a perfect venue for us to reach both American and international industry professionals, filmmakers and media”, said Allon during the packed-to-the-rafters soiree. “Since taking over the publication of the International Film Guide from Variety, our goal is to make it the definitive resource on world cinema. Film And Festivals is poised to become a significant media presence with the coverage of international film festivals, world cinema and the personalities who make up our business.”

The Tuesday night fete, held in the James Bond-like Upper Lounge at BAR 13 and on the roof deck was co-hosted by International Media Resources, a New York-based public relations, marketing and editorial services company, and Columbia University Press, the trade publisher and distributor that represents Wallflower Press titles in North America. “This was a great opportunity to meet and greet Tribeca attendees and the New York film and media community”, Allon added. “We see this presence in New York as the first step in a year-long campaign to let both the North American industry and film buffs know about the books that we publish and the new media initiatives that we are launching.”

Wallflower Press is a London-based independent publishing house specializing in cinema and the moving image. The company publishes over 30 new titles each year and has recently moved into the magazine business with Film And Festivals Magazine and other publications. The company will be soon announcing various new media content creation and distribution initiatives for the coming year. For more information, consult the company website: www.wallflowerpress.co.uk

The International Film Guide, first published in 1963, is the world’s most authoritative and trusted yearbook of world cinema. The 2008 edition is a 450-page resource that covers the cinema output of over 100 countries. Special features in this double edition include: coverage of five ‘Directors of the Year’ (Fatih Akin, Suzanne Bier, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greengrass and Jia Zhangke), a detailed country focus on Germany, industry analysis on documentary and the growth of DVD production and a comprehensive listing and description of all major international and smaller local film festivals from all over the world. This may have been Wallflower Press’ first clinch with the Tribeca Film Festival, but positive buzz surrounding the publications and the fab party makes it pretty certain it is not the last. Stay tuned.

Deals Signed At Tribeca Film Festival

2008-05-02T10:44:00.001+02:00

By Sandy Mandelberger, North American Editor

Although the Tribeca Film Festival does not have a formal market, the sheer number of World and International Premieres has upped the acquisitions quotient for films participating in the program. In the past week, a number of deals were announced that have given the Festival more “industry cred”.

IFC Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena's Fermat’s Room. The Spanish drama tells the story of four mathematicians who do not know each other, but are invited by a mysterious host on the pretext of resolving a great enigma. The room in which they find themselves turns out to be a shrinking room that will crush them if they do not discover in time what connects them all and why someone might wish to murder them. The mystery thriller had its world premiere at the Sitges Film Festival, while winning top prizes at Fantosporto in Portugal and the Malaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema in Spain.

Spanish international sales company Filmax has acquired international sales rights and Spanish theatrical rights to Paraiso Travel, which had its North American premiere at the Festival this past week. The film, a US/Colombia co-production directed by Simon Brand, is based on Jorge Franco’s novel and has been a major hit in its native Colombia. In the film, a lovesick teenager follows his seductive girlfriend as they illegally travel from Medellin to New York. When they become separated, he searches through the dark canyons of New York City to find his true love. Hollywood talent agency CAA is handling North American rights on the film and a deal could soon be announced. Filmax will aggressively market the film to the European theatrical and television markets.

Britain’s Channel 4 has announced a UK television deal for Waiting For Hockney, an American documentary about the artist Billy Pappas, that had its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Festival. In the film, a young working class Baltimore man spends 10 years on a single portrait, believing it is his means to fame and fortune. But he also believes that only one man can lead him there is the famous English artist David Hockney.

Uber sales company Fortissimo Films (with offices in Amsterdam and Hong Kong) has bought all rights outside of North America for the documentary film Chevolution, which is also world premiering at the Festival. The documentary, directed by the American team of Trisha Ziff and Luis Lopez, was financed by Red Envelope Entertainment, the distribution arm of Netflix. The film examines how the famous photograph of Che Guevara became an iconic image of revolt and political engagement. The film includes interviews with actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Antonio Banderas, as well as political and cultural figures from Cuba, South America, the US and Europe. The film will be screening in the Cannes Film Market later this month.

Expect more deals to be announced as the Tribeca Film Festival closes this coming weekend.