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Daring Cinema in Thessaloniki |
A week into the festival, you've probably defined an area of expertise, such as: a) Skolimowsky b) Varda c) New Russian Cinema d) Greek Releases e) Balkan Film. But wait - don't pigeon-hole yourself. Now is the crucial point for Angelopoulos fans to explore International Competition films and Austrian cinema pros to take a second look at Jerzy Skolimowski. Explore!
Risky Home Turf
"It's as if we're at war, isn't it?" wonders the protagonist of "Ephemeral Town", the second Greek film to enter international competition, when he sees the soldiers rounding up foreigners in the fields of a hometown he no longer recognizes. The film's director, Yorgos Zafiris, will talk about his contemplative, memory-filled work at 2pm today. Meanwhile Argentina's Daniel Burman speaks to the press at 1.10pm about his international competition entry - "Waiting for the Messiah", a story giving a look inside a multicultural Buenos Aires; in it a young Jewish man ventures outside his usual sphere.
Bold Moves
In other international competition news, yesterday was the day we saw Malgorzata Szumowska's character-centered "Happy Man"; in the subtly-emotioned film, a mother and son both think that it's a secret that the mother is ill. Find out more at the director's 1.35pm press conference. Two more competition films debut today: Athina Rachel Tsangari's "The Slow Business of Going" (about a Greek-Mexican woman/ 8.30pm) and Alessandro Piva's enticingly-titled "Theheadisspinning". Tsangari speaks to the festival at 2.30pm. We heard from the director of the UK entry "Last Resort" yesterday; Pavel Pawlikowski explained that he found the lead for his film in Russia and that his film was inspired by a coastal town as well as T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland".
Fearless Camerawork
You would have to have a heart of stone to remain unmoved by Philippos Koutsaftis' "Mourning Rock". Yesterday he talked about the odyssey of making the documentary about the people and history of Elefsina, 20 kilometers West of Athens. The subject was a "forgotten Greece", he noted. It took him 10 years, 5 of which he did not view his footage, and all of which required fearless documentary excavations.
Another impressive documentary work, "The Life of Cain", about life inside a Greek prison, is the subject of conversation at 12.45.
Daring To Be Different
Texan David Green Gordon was not interested in making a film about race. His "George Washington" inhabits a kind of multicultural utopia, explained the director, reflecting what life was like for him as a "11 year old naive kid", before one faced the uncomfortable "adult" separations and categorizations according to black and white. His film was shot in North Carolina and involved a deep submersion into the community where it was filmed -whether casting in various churches and swimming pools, or sharing dinner at the homes of people involved. He wrote the script, and then, after casting the film, revised it, based on the kids' stories and personalities. The director purposefully wanted to make the time and place vague, but couldn't resist adding a picture of George Bush (Sr.) to the set a couple of times, "because it was just too funny". He and the 25 filmmakers he is lucky to work with have loads of scripts in the works.
Unafraid of Controversy
Screenwriter Ryo Yamamura from the Japanese competition film "Not Forgotten" explained (through a psychic interpreter) that people in Japan are of separate minds concerning their past involvement in World War Two - with guilt and pain stronger among the older generations. The script took four years to write and is essentially an anti-war and anti-violence film.
Viewers Wanted: Dead or Alive
Err...maybe not. But in any case, it would be nice to have you body and soul at a Marathon of Cinema To Die For, which begins at 12.30am Saturday night and ends in the wee-hours of Sunday morning with a breakfast of champions. It's the second annual such New Horizons event. The films to be shown are: "Krampack", "Money, Love, Money", and "Scarlet Diva".
Throwing Caution To The Wind
There were almost as many people at Yorgos Tseberopoulos and Renos Haralambidis' press conferences as there were at Harvey Keitel's earlier in the week.
The directors of "Back Door" and "Cheap Smokes" shared their creative visions with an involved audience. First Tseberopoulos and his crew talked about their 120,000 plus tickets film about an adolescent, which is set during the Greek dictatorship. It turns out that they found a public they didn't expect; at a Japanese film festival the audience started roaring with laughter. However the director noted that the revenge his young protagonist seeks (see trippy soup scene), was akin to the final act of an ancient tragedy. There was little tragic about actor/director Haralambidis when he spoke about his new "Cheap Smokes" (save perhaps his limited time at the podium). Haralambidis was roasted (with praise) by a critic, author, and musician friend (Panagiotis Kalatzopoulos). When it was the director's turn to speak he talked about how men, like the character he played in the last television season, were seriously mislead in trying the heavy-handed approach to relationships. He went on to defend Athens as a city which, unlike Thessaloniki, is overlooked in beauty contests. "Everyone spits on Athens," he said. "That's why I decided to defend it."
Running Headlong
Find out everything you've ever wanted to know about: New Russian Cinema (10am), Angelos Frantzis' shot-on-digital, very funny "Polaroid" (10.45), the New Horizons work of Sophie Filliers, Phillippe Faucuon, Joao Mario Grilo and Joao Pedro Rodrigues (11.15), honored guest Agnes Varda (noon!), and the directors of the most popular and talked-about Greek film of the year - "Safe Sex" (3pm). Be there to draw your own conclusions.
Quote/unquote:
"The film is a big 'I'm sorry' to women for us being excessively 'men'" - Renos Haralambidis, indie actor/director of "Cheap Smokes"
Angelike Contis
First shot, #81, 17/11/2000
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