Controversial. Shocking. Brilliant. These are some of the words use to describe Canes Film Festival winner Titane. For an episode of the Chat Cinema Podcast, we devoted the show to Julia Ducournau’s hardcore work.
Click Below to see what we think.
Tag: cinema
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By Leonardo?
I screened The Lost Leonardo at the Tribeca Film Festival 2021. The art world is full of intrigue, a world all to itself filled with cultural elites.
4 out of 5 stars.
The Lost Leonardo directed by Andreas Koefoed.
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Crossing Genres With Mixed Results
At the Tribeca Film Festival this year there were the obligatory premieres. Despite the natural anticipation some program choices were questionable. Take for example the Wyatt Rockefeller directed Settlers. For its world premiere at Tribeca, expectations were good. After all, it is a Sci-Fi Western film from a debut director with an interesting cast.
“Johnny Lee-Miller was seemingly performing a Masterclass in non-acting.”
The Storyline in a Nutshell
As the narrative limps forward, a group of bandits fail in their attack on the family outpost. However, one bandit called Jerry survives and kills Reza. Showing no remorse, he attempts to integrate into the family, attempting to prove himself. Although Ilsa somewhat warms to him, after thirty days she tries to shoot him. Jerry will then kill her in the ensuing struggle.
After losing her parents, the film becomes the survival story of Remy. We watch her do this in the face of predatory men. She learns this was the dark secret her parents kept from her. Remmy resents Jerry’s presence and grows up sullen and rebellious. Her only true friend is the loyal but mute robot, called Steve, found in a storage unit.
Settlers is a seemingly ambitious film. Setting it on Mars is high concept. The problem is that this Mars looks exactly like a studio. Perhaps that’s the point: A seemingly fascinating distant world does disappoint. It is a wasteland, a primitive but bland year zero.
The only commendable points of Settlers is that it does have its own unique atmosphere. Brooklynn Prince then later Nell Tiger Free (as the older Remmy) also give stand-out performances. It’s also interesting to see her grow from child to young woman. These positive aspects could have made Settlers a quietly impressive piece of work. However, the other actor’s hammy performances let the film down.
Settlers premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on 18th June. It was released on 30th July on digital platforms.
~ By Steven Yates
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Bentonville Fest
Our first Bentonville Film Festival. The Arkansas event started in 2015 continues it’s tradition of championing diversity and inclusion in the cinema field.
Keep checking back here for news and reviews.
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Elena talks to Chat Cinema
Lithuania actress Zygimante Elena Jakstaite talks about being a part of the EFP Shooting Stars program.
″Elena proves a force of nature, full of passion and raw energy that virtually leaps off the screen”, a quote from the casting panel.
Click Below to see the interview.
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Belarus on the VERGE
Reading the headline about the Ryanair flight intercepted to Belarus, a story straight from a Cold War novel, suddenly the world was back in an East versus West game of high stakes chest. President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for almost 3 decades with no signs of exiting the stage. After the the 2020 election demonstrators took to the street demanding accountability and change.
While interviewing Director Aliaksei Paluyan about his film COURAGE,a documentary on thethe current Belarus political sitaution, he said something that hit me, “Minsk is equal flying distance from Berlin as Paris.”
The exclusive interview with Aliaksei.
After the Roman Protasevich hijacking, do you feel safe?
It would be a lie If I said I feel safe, There is a feeling of fear by all of Lukashenko’s critics. I think more about safety.
I’ve not lost control, but I have held to my goal of telling the truth.
A Lost Moment
Were you expecting a “Ceausecu Moment” during the demonstrations?
Yes. No one wanted violence. If there is a civil war, the protesters don’t have guns. This is a movement of moral choice. Our choices were taken away from us. The country does not want to be a geopolitical chess piece between the east and the west. Belarus’s destiny must be decided by us not in foreign capitals.
There is a wrenching scene, standing outside the prison, is this a tradition in Belarus?
There are 350.000 detainees in the country. Not a tradition! A tragedy! This was the hardest scene to shoot. How to understand the emotion? Women reading a list of the disappeared. The nightmare of waiting for loved ones outside a prison, while inside, people are tortured. The crowd applauses when detainees are released.
You can see sense of loss in the guard’s eyes, especially the young ones. People on both sides are broken.
When Dzianis speaks about being abused in prison in the 90’s. It left me in doubt concerning hope. Oppression has been handed down, is this right?
It was important to bring this fact to the audience. Lukashenko has been power since 1994. I used archival footage to show how long this has been going on. He is not a dictator, he is a tyrant abusing his own country, declaring war on his people. Many turned a blind’s eye what was happening.
Political
Are you political?
I can’t say I’m political. It is impossible not say anything cause the of critical situation. The trauma is huge.
The wife, Maryna, was the most pragmatic of the characters. She says, “What’s Next?”
She’s a mother.
What about the play and the actors, what happened?
All the performers were detained for a while. They knew the possible consequences. That is the courage. Keep fighting, overcoming the fear and hopeless.
Pavel left for Kiev. The Director of Photography is still in Belarus. After the Ryanair event, Myrna left on the last flight out. Denis was blackballed. He can not work anywhere.
Courage was screened in May with English subtitles
Running Time: 90 minutes
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The Futurist Filmmaker
Filmmaker Alton Glass could have gone the easy way to make his film POV:Points of View, but decided to push filmmaking technology to a new realm. For some, the future will have the same choices as the present and past.
The interview with Mr. Glass.
Are you a futurist/technologist?
I enjoy both but I’m just a Storyteller using technology to prototype and reimagine the future.
You used state of the art cinema technology to tell an all too familiar story, is this irony?
Yes irony on many levels. I’ve learned narratives and algorithms are essentially the same thing. The impact and evolution of both can be beneficial or detrimental in many ways.
In your vision of the future, should citizens be concerned about the state?
Citizens should be aware and examine what’s happening with the state so you have agency at all levels where your civil liberties can be impacted.
What attracted to you filmmaking? Was there a particular film or director?
Robert Townsend and Michael Shultz who made Five Heart Beats and The Last Dragon. I fell in love with how they captured characters and their journey of growth. I love discovering the hidden gifts that we often don’t know was inside us all this time when you thought you were not enough no matter what time in your life. We create reality and I enjoy seeing those ups and downs as that power unfolds on screen or in any medium.
How will VR influence filmmaking?
I’ve heard the term Story living by Vicki Dobbs Beck at ILM and I think there’s a convergence of the two worlds of traditional filmmaking and immersive technology that will evolve into something special. I’m still learning so the influence and reward I see now is challenging storytellers to think outside the frame and understand the richness of a multi dimensional world. VR takes you from filmmaking to literally world building.
It might not be my generation who brings VR to it’s fullest potential but I’m happy to plant the seed and see where diverse voices will take immersive storytelling in the years to come.
POV:Points of View screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. Running Time: 16 Minutes
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A Modern Decameron
An interview with artist and film director Rita Hui on her film Decameron. A
Your film is about resilience, how would define this?
I think after 2019, we (the Hong Kong people) have ben mental prepared about the action from the government. During the time in 2019, one of the slogan which become the most important mind set of HK people “攪炒” “ Laam Chow”, what’s the meaning is “I want mutual destruction”/ “I want damage on all sides”/ “If we burn, you burn with us”. We have prepare the worst scenario, so we won’t surprise of what the government will do to the people. Also. The resisted become the daily activity, that is the normal life we have during the time in 2020, after the social movement in 2019.
Everyday life in Hong Kong seemed routined, what were you saying to the audience with these settings?
One of the question we asked mostly in the early 2020: “How can we go back to the normal life?” and the further question is “ What’s normal life?” That’s the question we asked when we start to brainstorming the production, and also we want to capture the change of our daily life routine. Authority can easily change the daily routine, and the people can’t do anything to responded. When I go back to the history, hong kong history, and I found the pattern of history was make. The history is repeated. This is not the first time, to give a chance of the authority to control the people freedom. How we re-created the narrative of the daily routine, which is important.
The Decameron, tales set during a plague, your title “Decameron” please explain the reference.
After finishing the film, we concerned that how can we explain, or situate the theme of film for overseas audience by creating an English name. Decameron came across in my mind, it is a 14th-century Italian novel by Boccaccio. This novel set its plot during a pandemic society, several people escaped from that pandemic and start telling story each other to kill time. Those stories revealed how the society was corrupted. The link between Decameron and nowadays Hong Kong is the downward spiral like initiating National Security Law (which means Reform in the point of view of government) happening in every single day, under the shadow of Covid-19 pandemic. And through the film, you can read different pieces of ours daily life, especially before NSL, it is a hybrid situation (we fight against the Virus and fight for freedom).
Hong Kong is a city with a complicated past, forced separation, now, what looks an unwilling reunification, with parts in different worlds, as a person and a city, how do you process these positions?
This is a very difficult question. I don’t know how to position myself nowadays. The complicated past of Hong Kong, the colonial city, the immigration people, what we learn about democracy and freedom, human right from the past history, we hope we can be the master of our city. Now, the National Security Law become everything, we don’t have the free speech anymore, we cant have our own emotion and creativity, we cant stand on our position, even I don’t know maybe my film is “allowed” or not “allowed” to show in Hong Kong under the red line. We don’t know where’s the red line. The film, maybe become the evidence of crime, that would make our crew in danger. Are we breaking the laws? I don’t know. What’s Law? What’s the nation security?
Why the nation security much important than people safety? We have lot of question, especial nowadays. In 2020, the daily routine I want to created in Decameron, which is the resisted from daily life. But in 2021, we hear the bad news day by day, and we can’t do anything. The powerless feeling become our collective emotion, and we don’t know what is next. The film, maybe cannot pass the censorship in Hong Kong, and the film for Hong Kong which is not able to be show in Hong Kong.
Decameron was screened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.
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Round Up from Tribeca
The Tribeca Film Festival ended last week. I got a bit busy, but, I have a run down of the films I screened:
The Last Film Show
Legend of The Underground
Lost Leonardo
Queen of Glory
Kubrick by Kubrick
Miss Panama
Bitchin: Sound and Fury of Rick James
Last Meal
Mark, Mary and Some Other People
Liza Anonymous
Accepted
Nando
Ferguson Rises
Jackie Collins
Stay Tuned for all my reviews and summaries.
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Tribeca-The Fury
When I saw this film on the Tribeca Film Festival Schedule. I put it on my list. Bitchin:The Sound and Fury of Rick James tells the story of a Funk Master Rick James from the highs and lows.
Stay Tuned for the review.
