Report

Toronto 2008: Slow food, fast festival

Every year, people grumble. Every year, someone points out how much worse it is than before. And every year, there are films that pull everyone out of the doldrums and guarantee it all continues. Welcome to the world of film festivals, and to this season’s Toronto International Film Festival in particular: bigger, brighter, more overwhelming, less intimate, and in the end, exactly as satisfying as the films each audience member happens to stumble into.

topics: art film, film festivals, film history, genre films, independent film, international film, world cinema

Platform

Stephen Olsson and Link TV

Nestled in a quiet office between Telegraph Hill and the Embarcadero in San Francisco’s Waterfront District, hard by the advertising agencies and KGO, Link TV provides a wide-angle antidote to the standard television news mix of hit-and run stories and doltish commercials. The free public-interest channel, founded in 1999, aims to inform Americans about corners of the globe, notably the Middle East, that tend to be oversimplified or ignored by other broadcast media. Link TV’s programming encompasses international documentaries, music, news and culture, from works that might be familiar to regular film festivalgoers to pieces that never received any U.S. exposure. Its lineup of original programming includes the highly respected "Mosaic," a daily digest of news from the Middle East, and "Global Pulse," a three-to-five minute daily segment. Link TV flies under the radar hereabouts because it’s only available to San Francisco cable subscribers on weekends. (The educational access channel, Comcast 27, is the place to find Link TV beginning midnight Friday through 7 a.m. Monday. Check out the Web site, www.linktv.org, for more information.) The core audience of five million weekly viewers gets the channel via satellite, on channel 375 on DirectTV and 9410 on Dish network. We sat down with Stephen Olsson, a veteran Bay Area documentary maker and Link’s senior director of original programming, to get the scoop.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, political film, tv, world cinema

Take Two

Arghya Basu evokes the mystical and everyday in "A Listener's Tale"

If the Castro Theatre is the church of San Francisco cinephilia, then the Yerba Buena screening room is surely its laboratory—it’s only too fitting that leading curator Joel Shepard is spotlighting the idiosyncratic programming voices of five San Francisco independents for the museum’s upcoming Bay Area Now exhibition. Besides rounding up important international features (e.g. Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone) and oddball retrospectives (e.g. Phil Chambliss: Arkansas Auteur), Shepard also has a penchant for screening otherwise unhyped films which do not hew to typical genre norms. A case in point is A Listener’s Tale, a lovely if unclassifiable mixture of ethnography and poetic reverie which screened at last winter’s Rotterdam Film Festival.

In spite of the earnest attempts of academic critics to problematize both the conception and consumption of filmed representations of indigenous "others," filmmakers have been drawn to exotic cultures and landscapes since the Lumière Brothers first introduced lightweight cameras.

topics: bay area, documentary, world cinema, yerba buena center for the arts

Insider

SFIFF51: California Newsreel at 40

What will you do on your 40th anniversary? If you’re California Newsreel, you’ll continue to do the same as you always have: producing and distributing film and video as a means of social change. Founded in 1968, the San Francisco-based Newsreel is the oldest nonprofit, social-issue documentary film center in the United States, with a library that includes Made in L.A. (Hecho en Los Angeles), which follows three Latina garment workers through a groundbreaking lawsuit and consumer boycott; This is Nollywood, an examination of the technical, economic, and social infrastructure of Nigeria’s booming film industry; and The Other Europe, which (among other stories) looks at the 2004 deaths within a group of illegal Chinese immigrants in Morecambe Bay, England — the worst industrial accident in Britain in 25 years.

How have audiences, and Newsreel itself, changed over the years? California Newsreel principal Cornelius Moore sat down with SF360 via email and gave his thoughts on the state of the company, film’s role as an instrument of social change, and Newsreel’s status on MySpace.

The 51st S.F. International Film Festival celebrates California Newsreel’s 40th with a panel on Bay Area political documentary May 3, and screens the CA Newsreel film Faubourg Tremé May 3, 6, and 7.

topics: african american cinema, african cinema, bay area, directors, distributors, documentary, political film, san francisco, world cinema

Global Lens

Since its inaugural year in 2002, the Global Lens film festival has gotten around, rather restlessly around, crisscrossing the country from Manhattan to Vashon Island with many far-flung points in between like a Beatnik with a yen for riding the rails. Which is more or less the idea. Except that instead of setting out to discover America, the traveling series of recent Third World cinema — a cornerstone of the nonprofit Global Film Initiative (GFI) — is out to help overwhelmingly passportless Americans discover the world.

There is, you might agree, a certain urgency involved. Formed in the wake of 9/11 by Susan Weeks Coulter and Noah Cowan (the latter of the Toronto International Film Festival), GFI seeks to harness the power of cinematic storytelling to promote what its founders see as much needed cross-cultural dialogue between Americans and their neighbors at home and in the so-called developing world.

Combing through, as well as cultivating, the Third World’s often fledgling independent film industries through its grant and acquisition programs, San Francisco-based GFI has been bringing some of the best narrative cinema being produced today in the Global South to American audiences unlikely to encounter it any other way. It’s not just that Americans don’t travel abroad much either. With independent movie theaters and art houses a thing of the past in many American towns, a series like Global Lens can present an all too rare alternative to the multiplex fare.

But what, you may ask, has Global Lens to offer a cosmopolitan film fest feeding-ground like the Bay Area? In some cases, it’s a Bay Area premiere, in others, it’s a deserved second chance to see fine independent films like opening night’s “Of Love and Eggs” (2004), by Indonesia’s Garin Nugroho, which screened (along with his most recent work, the stunning “Opera Jawa”) at the San Francisco International but failed to find an American distributor despite wide acclaim on the international festival circuit. GFI (whose collection numbers 37 films to date) takes up such films in its flexible filmmaker-friendly acquisition agreements and not only tours with them but — in partnerships with First Run Features and First Run/Icarus Films, respectively — eventually makes them available to the home video and education markets. Supplemented by an educational program of free screenings of select films to high school students and downloadable discussion guides for educators, Global Lens also reaches out to Bay Area youth like few other film festivals.

“As a curated series, Global Lens differs from festivals because it is both a cinematic showcase, and distribution source for new and emerging works from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East,” explains director of programs Santhosh Daniel. “Films are screened theatrically as part of our touring series, and then released in home video, on television, and non-theatrically as part of our Global Lens film collection, providing longevity beyond a one-time festival screening.”

Another film clearly worthy of a second look this year is “Kilometer Zero,” the spare and sardonic 2005 feature by Paris-based Iraqi Kurdish filmmaker Hiner Saleem (“Vodka Lemon”), which impressed but also ruffled feathers at Cannes in 2006 with its distinctly Kurdish perspective on the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. With a little distance from that moment (much like the implication of an evolving journey in the title’s reference to a practical and symbolic starting point), the film’s ambivalent stance from the Kurdish north of Iraq concerning the US toppling of the genocidal and deeply despised regime of Saddam Hussein seems less an uncomfortable retort to the indictment of US imperialism (marked the previous year by Palme D’Or-winner “Fahrenheit 9/11”), than a historically and culturally rooted viewpoint that is at the same time a sly send-up of militarism and nationalism itself. With a complex set of human loyalties and relationships at play, as well as an understated theatricality mocking top-down nationalism’s callow certainties and patriotic platitudes, “Kilometer Zero” reveals the theater of war as a theater of the absurd, full of needless pain and strife as well as alternately gentle and bitter human comedy — all of it amid a land that both the film’s unlikely Kurdish hero and his equally unlikely Arab traveling companion agree is paradise on earth, while vehemently disagreeing about whether it is properly Kurdistan or Iraq.

In addition to “Of Love and Eggs” and “Kilometer Zero,” Global Lens 2007’s choice lineup offers seven more features and a program of seven shorts from more than a dozen countries. The series pulls into town next weekend (following stops in Memphis, Scranton, Little Rock, and other hinterlandings) for more than two weeks worth of screenings in a dozen Bay Area locations — including off-the-beaten-track film venues with strong neighborhood cultural centers like St. John’s Presbyterian and the Bayview Opera House, as well as stalwart fest housers like the Roxie. Countries explored by contributing films this year include Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, and South Africa.

“Global Lens has no political bent or cultural leaning as a series,” stresses Daniel. “All the films are chosen solely based on their artistic and narrative quality. Some films may have had a strong run on the festival circuit, but for the most part, the cinematic perspectives one finds in the series are fresh and unique.”

topics: film festivals, san francisco, world cinema

10+ new foreign films to watch out for at fall festivals

Searching for the newest, best and most anticipated in world cinema at this fall’s film festivals is no easy feat. Let’s face it: the year’s most significant foreign-language pictures probably already premiered last summer in Cannes. Many of these films will be showing up again in Venice, Toronto and New York—from "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "The Last Mistress," and "Persepolis" to "Secret Sunshine" and "Silent Light"—and it’s often the case that the majority of what’s new on programmers’ plates doesn’t compare. But, of course, with 101 world premieres at Toronto alone, one can hopefully expect another 5 – 10% of positive returns.

We can’t promise the following list of far-flung fall premieres will live up to expectations. But they’ll be the ones that buyers, critics and journalists will be checking off their lists.

[SF360.org editor’s note: This story appeared originally in indieWIRE on Sept. 5, 2007.]

1. "Cargo 200," directed by Alexei Balabanov
Festivals: Telluride, Venice, Toronto
World Sales: Intercinema
Following his iconoclastic "Brother" and "Of Freaks and Men," Russian maverick Alexei Balabanov’s new film "Cargo 200"—a code name for Russian soldier’s corpses transported from war zones—is, according to one online viewer, "a retro horror-trip" through a Soviet Union "that is stinking, sadistic and sick." Set in 1984 Soviet Union, the plot is described as a thriller where the daughter of a big-shot government officer is kidnapped by a sadistic police captain who falls in love with her in a very twisted way. Unabashedly violent, Variety’s Alissa Simon calls the film "a disturbing, gleefully black comedy" that "definitely has something to say about the country."

2. "The Deuxieme Souffle," directed by Alain Corneau
Festivals: Toronto
World Sales: Wild Bunch
Toronto Galas should always be approached with more caution than lust, but those prone to mainstream French fare may find their match with Alain Corneau’s adaptation of the Jose Giovanni story that spawned Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1966 classic gangster film of the same name. Starring foreign box-office-mainstays Daniel Auteuil (as the hardened criminal Gu) and Monica Bellucci (as the woman he loves), the film tells the story of Gu’s final odyssey: having escaped from prison and being hunted by police, he agrees to take part in one more heist to allow him safe passage over the border into Italy. Toronto’s catalogue (prone to exaggeration mind you) promises a "thrilling-white knuckle" adventure, with "energetic set pieces [that] channel the baroque artistry of Hong Kong action cinema" and some of France’s "greatest actors [pushed] to their breathtaking limits."

3. "A Girl Cut in Two" (La Fille coupee en deux), directed by Claude Chabrol
Festivals: Venice, Toronto, New York
World Sales: Wild Bunch
Part of the resurgence of the old New Wave, Chabrol’s latest satirical look at France’s sexual and class struggles has generated a mostly positive response out of its Venice premiere. French starlet Ludivine Sagnier plays a Lyons TV weather girl who is caught between two men, a distinguished author (Francois Berleand) and a handsome young rake (Benoit Magimel). Screen Daily critic Jonathan Romney reports that the film offers "plentiful style and psychological finesse, if few surprises," while Variety’s Lisa Nesselson found it to be "a pleasantly disturbing, nominally voyeuristic romp in the territory Chabrol knows best." Chabrol remains a recurrent, albeit minimal force, on U.S. arthouse screens with recent modest films like "Comedy of Power" and "The Flower of Evil," and his latest looks like it could be a return to form.

4. "Help Me Eros," directed by Lee Kang Sheng
Festivals: Venice Competition, Toronto
World Sales: Fortissimo Film Sales
Directed by Lee Kang Sheng, the Taiwanese actor known for his lugubrious starring roles in the films of Tsai Ming-liang, "Help Me Eros" is "a provocative, darkly comic and sexually daring film," according to press notes, executive produced by his longtime collaborator Tsai. Following on the promise of Lee’s excellent 2004 Rotterdam-winning directorial debut "The Missing," "Help Me Eros" is set during an economic crisis. Ah Jie (Lee) loses all his money and meets Chyi over a suicide hotline. Repeatedly rejected, he begins to project his fantasies of Chyi on Shin, a new girl working at the betelnut stall.

5. "The Loves of Astree and Celadon" (Les Amours d’Astree et Celadon), directed by Eric Rohmer
Festivals: Venice Competition, Toronto, New York
World Sales: Rezo Films International
Set in an idyllic 17th Century rural France, veteran French New Waver Eric Rohmer’s latest romance chronicles the chaste affair between a shepherd Celadon and the shepherdess Astree. After a fight, Astree tells Celadon she never wishes to see him again. Celadon throws himself into a river out of despair, but he’s secretly been rescued by nymphs and sets out to be near his love again—without breaking Astree mandate, he returns as a woman. Variety’s Ronnie Scheib writes the film’s "fantastic third act more than makes up for such occasional slogging" in the movie’s beginning. Though in his late 80s, Rohmer has shown little sign of slowing down, and while his most recent features ("Triple Agent," "The Lady and the Duke") haven’t exactly crossed over, he continues to show a sharp wit and desire for innovation that may pay off in what is reportedly his cinematic swansong.

6. "Jar City," directed by Baltasar Kormakur
Festivals: Karlovy Vary, Telluride, Toronto
World Sales: Trust Film Sales
After stumbling with the Euro-American pudding "A Little Trip to Heaven," Icelandic up-and-comer Baltasar Kormakur ("101 Reykjavik," "The Sea") bounces back with this acclaimed police thriller set in contemporary Iceland. Based on the Icelandic novel "Tainted Blood," the film is already a local Icelandic box-office hit and award-winner and won praise after its Karlovy Vary international premiere from Variety’s Eddie Cockrell. "‘Jar City’ reps a supremely confident stride into mass-appeal genre fare [for Kormakur]," he writes. The film concerns an investigation into a murder, which opens up a wider chasm of crimes and corruption, the death of a young girl many years ago, and a mysterious genetic disease; early reviews have also singled out the film’s expressive use of Iceland’s landscapes.

7. "Lust, Caution," directed by Ang Lee
Festivals: Venice, Toronto
U.S Distributor: Focus Features
Win an Oscar; take that prestige capital and go off to make an X-rated Mandarin language historical drama. Thirteen years after "Eat Drink Man Woman," director Ang Lee returns to his mother tongue for an erotic espionage thriller set during WWII in Shanghai that’s already drawing mixed reviews out of Venice. While Variety’s Derek Elley called it "a long haul for relatively few returns" and the Observer’s Jason Solomons likened it to a Ming vase ("while it’s a wondrous object to behold, it somehow lacks a sense of passion"), that won’t keep fest-goers from making their own verdict. "In the Mood for Love"‘s Tony Leung stars as Yee, the head of the secretive service of the collaborationist Chinese government, who is seduced by Mrs. Mak (newcomer Tang Wei), a member of an anti-Japanese resistance group.

8. "Mongol," directed by Sergei Bodrov
Festivals: Toronto
U.S. Distributor: Picturehouse
Veteran Russian director Sergei Bodrov ("Prisoner of Mountains") unveils the first of installment of his Genghis Kahn trilogy in Toronto. With a $10-12 million budget, the film isn’t the most expensive to come out of Russia’s bourgeoning industry, but it is one of the most high profile. Filmed in multiple languages in Kazakhstan, the story follows the early life of the infamous conqueror, who was cast out as a slave before returning to take power and reestablish his family. Starring Japanese star Tadanobu Asano ("Zatoichi"), the film promises stunning vistas and epic battle sequences, but we’re holding off on declaring it a dramatic victory until we see it.

9. "The Past" (El Pasado), directed by Hector Babenco
Festivals: Toronto
World Sales: ThinkFilm International
Any film with international Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal is bound to be a hot commodity, and with Oscar-winning Argentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco ("Carandiru") at the helm, the movie’s stock potentially rises even further. Bernal stars as Rimini, a young translator who in the midst of divorcing his wife of 12 years becomes involved with a younger woman, which sparks a vengeful response on the part of his former love. Adapted from Argentine writer Alan Paul’s novel of the same name, the movie marks a move away from Babenco’s familiar territory of outcasts ("Pixote," "Kiss of the Spiderwoman") to more straightforward dramatic terrain of men and women, love and loss.

10. "Useless" (Wu Yong), directed by Jia Zhang-ke
Festivals: Venice, Toronto, New York
World Sales: Memento International
Billed as a documentary, Chinese maverick Jia Zhang-ke’s latest work cuts together three portraits of clothing: from indiscriminate workers toiling away under the fluorescent lights in a Canton garment factory to Chinese designer Ma Ke preparing to unveil her newly established brand "Useless"—which places the clothes in dirt—to a small tailor’s shop in China’s northern mining region. Jia provided the unexpected foreign sensation at last year’s festivals, winning a 2006 Golden Lion for his last-minute entry "Still Life." Together with last year’s "Dong," Jia continues to reaffirm his skills as a master of the cinematic craft, whether documentary or fiction or somewhere in between.

11. "La Zona," directed by Rodrigo Pla
Festivals: Venice, Toronto
World Sales: Wild Bunch
This first feature from award-winning Mexican shorts filmmaker Rodrigo Pla has major Mexican-Spanish backing, "Y Tu Mama Tambien" star Maribel Verdu, and a Variety rave from Jay Weissberg to bolster its launch: "Set within an exclusive gated community surrounded by slums in Mexico City, the pic tackles issues of privilege, responsibility and group mentality in subtler ways than descriptions might convey," he writes, "finishing it all off with a punch." With reportedly impressive performances and equally dazzling art direction, "La Zona" could emerge as one of the fall circuit’s most exciting discoveries. Playing in the special Venice Days sidebar and Toronto’s Discovery section, the film may be flying under the radar for now, but one stellar trade review is sometimes all it takes to rise to the surface.

topics: lists, world cinema