COMING OF AGE IN CANNES

By Jordan Bayne

Cannes No.64. Côte d’Azur. Film, film, film and more films. As a matter of fact, more films than you can even imagine are made. That was my first impression last year as I popped my cherry at the Palais, bringing my 30-minute short film, The Sea Is All I Know, starring Oscar winner Melissa Leo (above), to the festival. It was overwhelming. How could so many films be made? Where are they seen? Where does the funding come from? How does one sell them? Who were these people selling the films? What are pre-sells? How is that different than distribution? How are deals made? Where did the Weinsteins fit in all this madness or even Killer Films, my heroes, where were they… What did a film commission in a pavilion have to offer me?

Gorgeous gowns and smoking suits with papillon ties walking side by side with kids on skateboards tearing up the Croisette. Beautiful women in dresses and high heels racing down the streets on scooters. The Wild Bunch party. Le Petit Majestic, and rosé, rosé, rosé. Overstimulation underappreciates the magnitude of this festival for a Cannes virgin. I returned to New York City a changed woman.

Cut to:

Cannes No.65.  Twenty-two [22] films in competition [none by a woman director -- bittersweet reality]. Primed to be a very different experience, this year I come to Cannes armed with my producing partner, Byron Habinsky of Delirium Picturehouse, and as part of the producing team on several feature projects, including my own feature script, Weight. This year there are very specific goals in mind. The difference in one year includes, but is not limited to, having drinks at the Majestic, a lovely conversation with Danny Glover at the Abu Dhabi pavilion, running into David Cronenberg at the Carlton, and having many friends on the Croisette due to the successful festival run of The Sea Is All I Know. Meira Blaustein, the co-founder and executive director of the maverick Woodstock Film Festival, and here writing for the über cool i-D magazine, and I made a pact to … Read the rest

LADY VENGEANCE: HUNGERING FOR THE RELEASE OF “BATTLE ROYALE”

By Farihah Zaman

Although I’ve been recently reminded of the fact repeatedly, it always shocks me anew to hear that Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku’s stunning, blood-soaked film adaptation of the novel by Koushun Takami, has never officially had U.S. distribution. After a spate of festival bookings, a 3D release of the film in honor of its 10-year anniversary, and a DVD and Blu-ray release from Anchor Bay, Battle Royale, original flavor, is starting to see theatrical premieres in the U.S., like the one at the Cinefamily Theater in Los Angeles in December 2011, and the New York premiere starting at the IFC Center today, a mere 12 years after the film was made. Luckily Fukasaku and his epic satire’s themes of love, war, and rebelling against authority have aged well.

I first saw the film just over 10 years ago, when I helped bring it to my college as a member of the (nerd alert) Asian Film Club, and became instantly and enduringly obsessed with its deceptively simple condemnation of unchecked government authority and insidious clamps on individual freedoms. For the uninitiated, the story follows a middle school class in modern-day Tokyo forced to fight each other to the death as a means of entertaining the nation’s people as well as reminding them of their government’s total and absolute power over their lives.

Considering the overwhelming box office success of the similarly plotted Hunger Games, avoiding comparison at this time is futile. The basic concepts are so similar that Hunger creator Suzanne Collins was often accused of full-on plagiarism, which Takami graciously responded to by saying, “If readers find value in either book, that’s all an author can ask for.” Both stories place teenagers in a complex, nationally televised gladiator-style battle as an allegory for the perversion of innocence in times of war and under totalitarian regimes, and both adaptations straddle an uncomfortable line between the indictment of youth killing each other for entertainment’s sake and taking advantage of it to entertain audiences themselves. The moments of humor (such as the infamously upbeat, kawaii instructional video that greets the newly … Read the rest

THE ‘BLUE VELVET’ PROJECT, #118

By Nicholas Rombes

Second #5546, 92:26

1. Seconds after this shot, Sandy’s father, Detective Williams, will ask Jeffrey: “Is Sandy part of this?” It’s more along the lines of a warning than a question. Sandy, in the diagonally split screen, longs so deeply not just for Jeffrey but for the knowledge/power suggested by the office of her father.

2.

Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true. –Michel Foucault

3.

Whenever the movie screen holds a particularly effective image of terror, little boys and grown men make it a point of honor to look, while little girls and grown women cover their eyes or hide behind the shoulders of their dates. There are excellent reasons for this refusal of the woman to look, not the least of which is that she is often asked to bear witness to her own powerlessness in the face of rape, mutilation and murder. Another excellent reason for the refusal to look is the fact that women are given so little to identify with on the screen. –Linda Williams, from “When the Woman Looks”

4. The frame invites us to gaze at Sandy gazing. She listens, she looks, but she does not, cannot, speak.

Over the period of one full year — three days per week — The Blue Velvet Project will seize a frame every 47 seconds of David Lynch’s classic to explore. These posts will run until second 7,200 in August 2012. For a complete archive of the project, click here. And here is the introduction to the project.… Read the rest

SEAN DUNNE ANNOUNCES DEBUT FEATURE “OXYANA”

By Nick Dawson

For some years now, I have been a big fan of the work of Sean Dunne, whose shortform documentaries are not only intelligent and compassionate but also visually accomplished and highly cinematic. Anyone looking to get a sense of Dunne’s talent should check out The Archive, his 2008 debut, or American Juggalo, which he put out last year. (To see all of his work, go to Dunne’s Vimeo page.)

Given my admiration for his shorts, I was very excited yesterday to receive an email from Dunne about the new project he’s working on: Oxyana, his debut feature. He wrote, “I truly believe in the power of good filmmaking. It can make a real difference, I’ve seen that with my other films. I think this is an important film and one that will entertain and enlighten.”

The synopsis for the film — which will be shot by Dunne’s regular d.p., Hillary Spera — is as follows:

Oceana, West Virginia, sits squarely in one of God’s blind spots. It’s one of the old coal mining communities that feeds the nations insatiable appetite for energy. Set in the middle of unbelievable natural beauty, a beauty that in the last number of years, has been marred by the Appalachian scourge of Oxycontin. Life persists, but it’s a living that few Americans could explain or even believe; closer in kind to the world of a medieval plague. Men and women die epidemically. The addicts— who are the vast majority, and all nice enough people— sell, scramble, and steal in an economy of nigh-endtimes desperation. Worn down and out by the pills, the mines, or the indignity of both, everyone is easily twice their own age, and unable to imagine an existence outside of coal, subsidies, and prescription narcotics. Things could hardly get darker— or more fucked and implausible— than in this place called Oceana.

Nevertheless, there it is. A little village in the valley of Death, where children are born, groceries are still purchased, and festivity is expressed through firearms and poor decision-making. But is this enough to live for? Is

… Read the rest

POLANSKI / PRADA

By Nick Dawson

As Jeff Wells noted, this stuff “pays the bills,” but if you’re Roman Polanski there have to be worse ways to spend your time than making little movies with the likes of Ben Kingsley, Helena Bonham Carter, Ronald Harwood, Alexandre Desplat, Dean Tavoularis and Eduardo Serra…

… Read the rest

WERNER HERZOG AND THE MAKING OF “HEART OF GLASS”

By David Licata

In 1976 Werner Herzog hypnotized his cast of actors and directed one of the strangest narrative films in the history of cinema, Heart of Glass. Alan Greenberg, then a young writer, aspiring filmmaker, and Herzog disciple, was on the set, and thirty-odd years later he, and Herzog, would like to tell you all about it. Hence, Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of “Heart of Glass” (Chicago Review Press).

Greenberg had fallen under Herzog’s spell the year before, when he was sent by a film journal to interview the director. Neither cared for that process, but the two discovered they shared the same ideas about film, music, and athletics. During this meeting Herzog mentioned an upcoming film project that involved hypnosis. The relationship was solidified when Herzog told Greenberg, “You must join with me. There is work to be done, and we will do it well. On the outside we’ll look like gangsters, while on the inside we’ll wear the gowns of priests.”

Herzog has repeatedly asserted that the hypnosis was not about controlling his actors. Before shooting he told Greenberg, “This will be done for reasons of stylization and not for reasons of total manipulation. …this use of hypnosis could give us access to our inner state of mind, starting from a new perspective.” The stylization he hoped to achieve would fit the film’s theme, collective madness.

The plot is simple and beside the point: in a Bavarian village in the late 18^th century, a glassmaker dies and takes to his grave the secret of his ruby glass. The glass factory owner goes mad trying to unearth the formula. As he goes, so too goes the village.

But this is not a madness of the stark-raving variety, this madness is more subdued, more subtle. The hypnotized actors, and many of them were nonactors, seem stilted and somnambulistic; they move as if weighed down and underwater. When the actors interact their glazed eyes look at points far off into some unknowable distance. Everyone’s timing, in speech and action, is off, everyone is … Read the rest

“OSLO, AUGUST 31ST” — A HAMMER TO NAIL REVIEW

By Nelson Kim

(Oslo, August 31st is being distributed by Strand Releasing. It opens Friday in NYC at the IFC Center.)

Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his much-loved 2006 debut, Reprise, begins with an audio montage of voices sharing their memories of the titular city: “I remember taking the first dip in the Oslo fjord on the first of May.” “I don’t remember Oslo as such, its people I remember.” “We moved to the city. We felt extremely mature.’” On the screen, stationary shots of empty city streets are followed by home movies—children at play, friends enjoying each other’s company—then back to the streets as they fill with daytime bustle. Meanwhile, the voices continue: “I remember hours on trams, buses, the metro, walking along endless roads to some mythical party where you never knew whether you were invited or not.” “I remember how free I felt the first time I came to Oslo. Then I realized how small Oslo is.” “The scent of salt on her skin.” “We had so much time on our hands.” “I remember having a best friend.” “Wonder what he’s doing now?”

After the montage concludes, the story proper kicks in. Following a botched suicide attempt, Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie, who also starred in Reprise) leaves rehab and returns to his home city for a job interview. Once he impressed people as a potential literary talent, but now, at 34, all he has to show for it is a several-years-long gap in his CV. Although Anders has kicked his heroin habit, he’s haunted by a sense of worthlessness and futility. Over the course of a day and a night, he visits old friends, wanders the streets, leaves voicemails for his ex-girlfriend, and looks for a reason to go on—or, perhaps, an excuse to check out early.

Oslo, August 31st was loosely adapted by Trier and his co-writer Eskil Vogt from Le Feu Follet, a 1931 novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. (Louis Malle’s fine 1963 adaptation, known here as The Fire Within, is available on DVD from Criterion.) Drieu was a French writer of some … Read the rest

WIN “MOONRISE KINGDOM” SWAG!

By Nick Dawson

We’re all caught up in the spirit of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (read this, if you don’t believe me!), so we’re excited to be able to give away a bunch of rather cool (and also very useful) swag related to the movie, which opens in selected cities this Friday through Focus Features.

The two Filmmaker readers who are quickest on the (email) draw can get their hands on: a T-Shirt, a set of two patches, a cooler, a canteen and a Moonrise Kingdom soundtrack.

All you have to do is email nick@filmmakermagazine.com and tell me which Hollywood movie star appeared in a 2008 commercial directed by Wes Anderson which, like Moonrise Kingdom, features a troop of boy scouts. (A quick tip: check out the Spring issue of Filmmaker for the answer!)

For one last bit of magic, click on the Moonrise Kingdom poster below to watch the movie’s trailer.

… Read the rest

KICKSTARTING “DAYS OF GRAY” IN ICELAND

By Ani Simon-Kennedy and Cailin Yatsko

We are Ani & Cailin, founders of the barely one-year-old Bicephaly Pictures, and we’ve embarked on a wild journey to make our first feature film: Days of Gray. It’s a modern-day fantastical silent film, scored by the amazing Iceland band Hjaltalín. The story follows an 11-year-old boy who lives in a timeless, barren land. His entire community must wear face masks outside to protect themselves from an epidemic that caused the people in the village next to theirs to develop strange animal mutations. The men on the boy’s side first erected a wall to keep them out and then ultimately ended up killing all of them. One day the boy discovers a girl with gill-like openings on the sides of her face: she’s the only survivor from the other side and has been living in hiding her whole life. The film follows the two of them as they overcome their fear of each other and, in the end, become friends.

We’ll be filming in July, and we just returned from ten days of non-stop meetings, casting sessions and location scouting adventures over lava fields and craters.

The challenge:

- scout 5 main locations

- cast 6 principal actors

- choose a camera and test it

- crew up locally

- re-write the script accordingly

and have more meetings a day than we could count!

We started by planning at our New York City headquarters (read: home office) with the help of Rebekka Bryndís Björnsdóttir, our associate producer and the talented bassoonist of Hjaltalín. Rebekka got in touch with the Reykjavík Performing Arts school, who recommended 27 young children, aged 8 to 13, to invite for the casting session. From 10 am to 6 pm, we saw all 27 children in rapid fire, with only 15 minutes intervals. Some kids had perfect English, some little to none, but Hrafn Jonssón, our Icelandic friend and scriptwriter, was thankfully there to translate.

Casting for a silent film is tricky, since there are no lines of dialogue to try out, yet the actors need to express the entire story through their facial … Read the rest

HEADS UP: SUNDANCE SHORTSLABS

By Nick Dawson

Strangely, the details of the 2012 Sundance ShortsLabs passed us by when they were announced a couple of weeks ago. (Particularly strange as both Scott and I are involved in panels at the NYC event in June!) So, I’m playing catch up now by posting the info on the workshops, including the first to be held in Seattle, which is currently undergoing an indie filmmaking renaissance.

So, from the press release, here’s the skinny on this year’s excellent events:

ShortsLabs offer filmmakers first-hand insight and access into the world of short filmmaking through panels and sessions with industry representatives, as well as Sundance Institute staff and alumni, on story development, production and exhibition of shorts. Featured participants for the series (vary by city) include Antonio Campos, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Durkin, Hal Hartley, Nicole Kassell, Josh Leonard, Brit Marling, Adepero Oduye, Nick Offerman and Lynn Shelton. Following the ShortsLab, attendees can stay connected with the Sundance Institute community through a monthly email with job opportunities, crew needs, and links to recommended shorts.

Notable Institute alumni who started their careers with short films are Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, Spike Jonze, Debra Granik, Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Tamara Jenkins, and Jason Reitman.

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “ShortsLabs are an extension of the more intensive filmmaking Labs Sundance Institute has hosted for more than three decades. ShortsLabs give filmmakers the opportunity to improve their storytelling techniques, learn about the world of production, and explore platforms to showcase their work in an environment that celebrates and fosters individual voices.”

Trevor Groth, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival, added, “Fueled by the enthusiastic response from last years ShortsLabs we are thrilled to do them again in New York and Los Angeles. We are especially looking forward to hosting our first one in Seattle, an area with a vibrant cinema history and a wealth of emerging filmmaking talent.”

In advance of ShortsLab: NYC on Saturday, June 16, Rooftop Films will host a screening of short films the previous day (Friday, June 15) at Open

… Read the rest