5 Broken Cameras – New Directors/New Films 2012
Writer/Directors: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
Music: Le Trio Joubran
Palestine/Israel/France, 2011
26 March 2012, Walter Reade Theater, NYC
“How do we deal with our anger? Something new.”
A first-hand record of resistance to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian town of Bil’in, seen through five cameras: the first exploded by an Israeli gas canister; the second smashed by Israeli settlers; the third pierced by an Israeli military bullet intended for the film-maker; the fourth demolished in a car crash into an Israeli barrier; the fifth destroyed by yet another Israeli bullet. The cameras witness Israeli settlers burning Palestinian olive trees, Israeli soldiers attacking Palestinian children, and the murder of a young Palestinian man defending an Israeli protester from her own government. An essential work.
New Directors/New Films website
Histórias Que Só Existem Quando Lembradas | Found Memories – New Directors/New Films 2012
Director: Julia Murat
Writers: Julia Marat, Maria Clara Escobar, Felipe Sholl
Music: Lucas Marcier
Cast: Sônia Guedes, Lisa E. Fávero, Luiz Serra, Josias Ricardo Merkin, Antonio Dos Santos
Brazil, 2011
25 March 2012, Walter Reade Theater, NYC
A symphony of silences, rich with distant thunder and the sound of the forest. A palpable sense of heavy atmosphere and exquisite attention to the innumerable details of daily life in a fictive village of eleven elderly people who have forgotten how to die.
Madalena bakes bread. Antonio prepares the coffee. At midmorning the church bells ring, summoning the villagers to mass and they all share a midday meal together.
One day, Rita, a city girl, arrives looking for a place to stay. Initially reticent, the townsfolk gradually open up to her, sharing their stories and allowing themselves to be photographed.
What does it mean to be free? Be surprised.
Pinhole photography like you have never seen. Quito is the artist. Guy Madden would flip.
New Directors/New Films website
L’exercice de L’État | The Minister – New Directors/New Films 2012
Writer/Director: Pierre Schöller
Cast: Olivier Gourmet, Michel Blanc, Sylvain Deblé, Zabou Breitman
France, 2011
25 March 2012, Walter Reade Theater, NYC
Dreaming of a beautiful woman crawling into an alligator’s maw à la Helmut Newton, Transport Minister Bernard Saint-Jean (Olivier Gourmet) is jolted awake by a 2 a.m. call from his right-hand man Gilles (Michel Blanc) that propels him to the scene of a fatal bus crash in the mountains. Hours later, still shaken by the experience, Saint-Jean tags along uninvited to the trailer home of a chaumeur inconnu (Sylvain Deblé) hired by his staff so his regular driver can go on parental leave for a month.
Bookended by two horrific, senseless accidents, L’exercice de L’État explores human isolation via a nuanced procedural about the internal workings of government.
New Directors/New Films website
O Som Ao Redor | Neighboring Sounds – New Directors/New Films 2012
Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Cast: Irandhir Santos, Gustavo Jahn, Maeve Jinkings, W.J. Solha, Irma Brown, Lula Terra, Yuri Holanda
Brazil, 2012
24 March 2012, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
Masters and servants circle each other in deadly embrace, in a paranoid urban fantasy played out against a background of guilt and hatred engendered by Brazil’s plantation history.
Shot in a cloistered upper-middle class enclave in Recife and in Pernambuco´s rain forest region, the sociological thriller O Som Ao Redor builds to a climax of generational revenge with the inevitability of a shark attack. Writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho layers hyper-realistic scenes of domesticity onto a backbone of the uncanny, effectively conjured by almost-subliminal exploitation of an urban legend, circulated in Recife in the 1990s, of a feral spider-boy who broke into apartments of the rich by scaling building exteriors (see Mariana Lacerda’s Menino Aranha).
Brilliantly directed, with a diverse cast of memorable characters in perfect low-key performances that erupt tectonically.
Romance Joe | Ro-Maen-Seu Jo – New Directors/New Films 2012
Writer/Director: Lee Kwang-kuk
Cast: Kim Yeong-pil, Shin Dong-mi, Lee Chae-eun, David Lee, Kim Dong-hyeon, Jo Han-cheol, Ryu Ui-hyeon, Kim Su-ung, Park Hye-jin, Jo Deok-je, Seo Yeong-hwa, Baek Ik-nam, Park Su-min, Bae Dan-hui, Bang Yeong-bae, Lee Dal, Gwak Ja-hyeong, Kim Sae-byeok, Jo Jae-yun
South Korea, 2011
24 March 2012, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
A tabang girl guides a despondent film director down the rabbit hole via a slit wrist, first opened in a lonely suicide attempt in the woods and repeated among a number of protagonists in a brilliant evocation of M.C Escher’s “Drawing Hands”.
At times channeling Woody Allen and Wong Kar-wai by way of Lewis Carroll, first-time auteur Lee Kwang-kuk crafts a series of deceptively simple, entertaining scenes into a fascinating labyrinth of a film about death-defying/embracing storytelling worthy of a modern-day Scheherazade.
Perfectly realized scenes and precise video cinematography combine with a spare original score to produce an effect that will not let the viewer go, long after the credits roll.
New Directors/New Films website
Serbuan Maut | The Raid: Redemption – New Directors/New Films 2012
Serbuan Maut | The Raid: Redemption
Writer/Editor/Director: Gareth Huw Evans
Action Choreographers: Iko Yuwais, Yayan Ruhian, Gareth Huw Evans
Music: Mike Shinoda, Joseph Trapanese
Cast includes: Iko Uwais (Rama), Donny Alamsyah (Andi), Ray Sahetapy (Tama Riyadi), Yayan Ruhian (Mad Dog), Pierre Gruno (Lieutenant Wahyu), Joe Taslim (Sergeant Jaka), Tegar Satrya (Bowo), Eka “Piranha” Rahmadia (Dagu), Verdi Solaiman (Budi), Ananda George (Ari)
Indonesia/USA, 2011
22 March 2012, Walter Reade Theater, NYC
A second collaboration of Welsh director Evans and Indonesian martial art Pencak Silat experts Iko Yuwais and Yayan Ruhian, The Raid “documents” a rookie police SWAT team raid on an impenetrable housing project deep in the heart of Jakarta’s slums that has become a safe house for the city’s most dangerous murderers and gangsters under the watchful eye of a psychopathic crime-boss.
“We’re not here for good reasons,” one of the officers says, and sure enough, the mission has been leaked, and the rookie fighters find themselves massively outnumbered in a lethal game of cat and mouse with machete-wielding low-lifes, for 90 minutes of relentless and savage close-quarters shoot-outs and punishing martial-arts combat sequences. No redemption in sight, but terrific fight direction, art and sound design.
Et Maintenant, On Va Où? – New Directors/New Films 2012
Et Maintenant, On Va Où? | Where Do We Go Now?
Director: Nadine Labaki
Music: Khaled Mouzanar
Cast: Claude Baz Moussawbaa (Takla), Leyla/Layla Hakim (Afaf), Nadine Labaki (Amale), Yvonne Maalouf (Yvonne), Antoinette Noufaily (Saydeh), Julian Farhat (Rabih), Ali Haidar (Roukoz), Kevin Abboud (Nassim), Petra Saghbini (Rita), Mostafa Al Sakka (Hammoudi), Sasseen Kawzally (Issam), Caroline Labaki (Aïda), Anjo Rihane (Fatmeh), Mohammad Aqil/Akil (Abou Ahmad) (as Mohammad Akil), Gisèle Smeden (Gisèle)
France/Lebanon/Italy/Egypt, 2010
21 March 2012, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
In a poetic-choreographic opening sequence, women in black – half in hajib, half wearing crosses – march to a cemetery divided into two based on faith.
A remote mountain village relies on two boys who make a dangerous trek over a broken bridge and through combat zones to supply the villagers with newspapers and goods, and who with their friends brave landmines to find a signal for nightly open-air telecasts of soap operas and news broadcasts.
War is breaking out between Muslims and Christians all over Lebanon, and the women of the village collaborate to prevent war from taking root in their homes.
Working with a village ensemble of more than a hundred non-professional actors and a troupe of Ukrainian exotic dancers, Nadine Labaki expertly portrays multilayered human relationships across faiths and cultures.
Labaki maintains a balance between comedy and tragedy, aided by charming musical numbers, lifting the film from local polemic to universal fable.
What would you do, to stop war?
Lebanon’s nomination for the foreign-film Oscar, Et Maintenant, On Va Où? premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and won the People’s Choice Award (Best Narrative Feature) at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011).
New Directors/New Films website: http://newdirectors.org/film/where-do-we-go-now-et-maintenant-on-va-ou/
Ang Babae sa Septic Tank – Berlinale Forum 2012
Ang Babae sa Septic Tank | The Woman in the Septic Tank
Director: Marlon N. Rivera
Cast: Eugene Domingo (Mila/Herself), JM de Guzman (Bingbong), Kean Cipriano (Rainier), Cai Cortez (Jocelyn), Jonathan Tadioan (Arthur Poongbato), Carlos Dala (Mila’s Son), K.C. Marcelo (Mila’s Daughter), Cherry Pie Picache (Mila/Herself), Mercedes Cabral (Mila/Herself ), Lani Tapia (Documentary Mila), Sonny Bautista (Security Guard), Aaron Ching, Buddy Saramat, Carlon Matobato, Cheeno Macaraig.
Philippines, 2011
Fri Feb 17
Cubix 9 (European Premiere)
“With this film, we go to the festival in Berlin!”
Written by Chris Martinez and directed by Marlon Rivera, Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (The Woman in the Septic Tank) is the most successful independent film in the history of Philippine cinema, winning best actress, best screenplay, best director and best film at Cinemalaya. Very rare for a home-grown indie, it was picked up for a commercial run by one of the country’s biggest film companies and became the highest grossing independent Filipino film, the Philippines’ entry for the 2011 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, and was short-listed for the Oscar.
The title may be a sly reference to Mario O’Hara’s Babae sa Breakwater (Woman of Breakwater), one of a legacy of fine movies dealing with poverty in the Philippines, which rightfully garnered festival screenings and critical praise in the first decade of the 21st century, but also inspired lesser efforts dubbed as “poverty porn” and “cinema of misery”. Ang Babae sa Septic Tank, which takes deft aim at these preconceptions of Filipino film and society, was my favorite of the 2012 Berlinale.
Ang Babae sa Septic Tank begins with a film-within-the-film Walang-Wala (“Have Nothing”), a stereotyped portrait of Mila, the destitute mother of seven children (or maybe nine) who dolls up her pre-teen daughter (or maybe son) to pimp her/him out to Mr. Smithberger, an elderly Western sex tourist (or maybe Asian, or Filipino).
We learn that three young film-school graduates – director Rainier de la Cuesta (Kean Cipriano), producer Bingbong (JM de Guzman) and production assistant Jocelyn (Cao Cortez) – are planning their first film, engineered as the ultimate in poverty porn, as their route to fame and fortune on the international festival circuit, and ultimately to the foreign-film Oscar.
In the course of one day, they brainstorm possible treatments of their project as a gritty no frills neo-realist film, a glossy musical, an over-the-top melodrama, and a docu-drama. On a scouting expedition, they visit the Payatas dumpsite, whose denizens expertly deconstruct their car.
Wanting a big name for the lead in their movie, the team imagines Mercedes Cabral (Serbis) and Cherry Pie Picache (Foster Child) in the role of Mila before setting their sights on the grand diva Eugene Domingo.
First-time director Marlon Rivera’s crack comedic timing showcases spot-on performances by Kean Cipriano, JM de Guzman, and Cao Cortez and notable cameos by Mercedes Cabral and Cherry Pie Picache. But the film’s backbone is Eugene Domingo’s generous, affecting, and wildly funny performance, including a manic master class in the three acting styles of a Filipina diva. Vincent de Jesus’s accordion-inflected score is perfectly at one with this brilliant farce.
Berlinale Section: Forum
Film website: http://www.angbabaesaseptictank.com/
Film trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqDG_P96Rb0
Update: Ang Babae sa Septic Tank will be screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 23-28 May 2012.
friends after 3.11 – Berlinale Forum 2012
friends after 3.11
Director: Iwai Shunji
Featuring: Miyuki Matsuda, Kokoro Fujinami, Masashi Gotô, Tetsunari Iida, Yasumi Iwakami, Hitomi Kamanaka, Eriko Kitagawa, Takeshi Kobayashi, Hiroaki Koide, Takeda Kunihiko, Yasuyuki Shimizu, Yû Tanaka, Takashi Uesugi, Tarô Yamamoto
Japan, 2011
Thu Feb 16, Delphi Filmpalast (European Premiere)
We should take this work at face value, as not so much a film as an introduction to a group of newly discovered friends, to promote collaborations that extend beyond education and entertainment, to survival.
After the 3/11/11 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster, film maker and Sendai native Iwai Shunji (Swallowtail Butterfly, New York I Love You) traveled Japan with actress Miyuki Matsuda, junior idol Kokoro Fujinami, and actor Tarô Yamamoto to witness the unprecedented devastation of Fukushima and interview a diverse group of anti-nuclear activists in wide-ranging conversations around science, politics, economics, and personal responsibility for both the local tragedy and our global future.
Masashi Gotô, a former nuclear plant architect, details how government-corporate nuclear policy focused narrowly on probable occurrences, leaving exceptional events such as powerful earthquakes and tsunamis out of plant design and contingency plans.
Decrying the lack of courage to release information that will cause embarrassment, journalist Takashi Uesugi relates how the news media do not challenge claims of government and industry that Japan is safely free from radiation, even though the Fukushima disaster released more radiation than the Chernobyl meltdown, which itself released more radiation than the Hiroshima attack.
Reached by Skype, film maker Tan Chui Mui tells of Malaysia’s full-court press to develop nuclear power on the island nation and open a huge rare-earth refinery near the village of Gebeng, Pahang, claiming that both are safe while forbidding media access to the construction sites.
Professor Hiroaki Koide, of Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, offers a heart-felt apology to the Japanese people for his role in the lead-up to the disaster, while earnestly seeking a generation of new nuclear researchers, not to develop the industry further, but because “we will need people to clean up the trash.” Professor Koide expresses perhaps the most representative statement of this important conversation: “I’d choose to live again to do that work.”
They call them bodhisattvas.
Berlinale Section: Forum
Escuela normal | Normal School – Berlinale Forum 2012
Escuela normal | Normal School
Director: Celina Murga
Argentina, 2012
Wed Feb 15, Delphi Filmpalast (European Premiere)
Opening with urban students’ pre-dawn journey to a 19th century school building, first-time documentarian Celina Murga sets the stage for a very Fred Wiseman institutional portrait, capturing an historic Argentine high school in transition with an “observational camera subtly attuned to the traces of the political in the everyday.”
We follow an indefatigable principal as she tracks down absentee teachers, teaches a new custodian how to fill the soap dispensers, and locks down a classroom to quarantine a biting dog.
We observe – surprise – that Argentinian kids are good looking. Morning assembly is like a room full of soon-to-be-discovered supermodels. But as classes begin, we learn that these students are also motivated and engaged. A civics class is enlivened by the objections of an atheist girl who objects to the term “God” in the Argentine constitution and organizes a “Fifth-year party” to oppose the incumbent “Centennial party” in the upcoming student council elections, with the goals of salvaging the school library and improving school lunches.
Murga takes us to a reunion party of the class of 1928, a room of beautiful, spirited women who provide essential historical context. The Normal School of Parana was founded to train teachers who would be sent out to the provinces to “normalize” the mix of immigrants coming to Argentina from around the world to create an officially sanctioned Argentine society. Built for 800 students, the school is now responsible for more than twice that number, and the change from dictatorship to democracy has created enormous changes in education policy.
“It used to be a sanctuary for learning and now it’s a lot more than that…and a lot less.”
I don’t know, but from what I can see, these kids are all right. With luck, their voices will inform the next stage of American education.
Murga is shooting her third feature film, La tercera orilla (The Third Side of the River), with Martin Scorsese as executive producer.
Berlinale Section: Forum
Recent Posts
- 5 Broken Cameras – New Directors/New Films 2012
- Histórias Que Só Existem Quando Lembradas | Found Memories – New Directors/New Films 2012
- L’exercice de L’État | The Minister – New Directors/New Films 2012
- O Som Ao Redor | Neighboring Sounds – New Directors/New Films 2012
- Romance Joe | Ro-Maen-Seu Jo – New Directors/New Films 2012
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