This is the first time I covered the the International Film Festival Rotterdam. I must admit, the Dutch event unspools films selected for being different or striking instead of political. As a cinema enthusiasts, I decided to have a more open mind perspective to filmmakers, learn new cinematic languages. Story telling that ventures into new narratives. So far, I have not been disappointed. The global filmmakers showing at the festival have produced some striking features.
2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the IFFR.
IFFR 50th Anniversary
On my first day I managed to watch 3 films and 4 shorts. Not bad!
Stay tuned for coverage, features and reviews.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from Feb 1st to 7th.
An interview with film directors Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza from the Venice Film Festival.
1.This is your sixth feature film in a 30-year career that has encompassed Television, shorts and medium-length films. How difficult is it nowadays to get a film financed?
Flavia: “Escoriandoli” (our first movie) was the only film we shot with a producer. It was an interesting experience but we soon realised it was impossible to replicate it. The production pressures had too much impact on our artistic choices. We produce our films and use independent distribution channels.
Antonio: For us, getting a budget is never the main issue. We can always sort something out. A budget is useful because it offers warranties to the film. Without that guarantee, we can’t start shooting. So we look for funders.
Idea for the Film
2. Where did the idea for the story and the script of “SAMP” come from?
Flavia: The inspiration came from the ancestral landscape of Puglia. I was deeply involved in the stories from “La terra del rimorso” (The Land of Remorse), written by Ernesto De Martino.
Antonio: Flavia made a location scouting in the Triana Valley in the spring of 2001. The idea was born there. The screenplay is the result of a cycle of abandonment and reconnection with an on-again, off-again 20 year-long work.
The Sense at Venice
3. What should audiences infer from this film and take away from it?
Flavia: Our films are open to interpretation. We do not offer a truth. We just gather some thoughts. I would like the audience to grasp that sense of expressive liberty we encourage.
Antonio: The great sense of freedom and lack of interest in all forms of power.
4. What are your feelings of having the film play at the Venice Festival this year?
Actor and Director (left) Antonio Rezza
Flavia: We are happy. We can finally see if our communicative experiment works, see the reactions of an audience. We continue to seek new methods to surprise ourselves and others. I enjoy the risk.
Antonio: I was moved by the great acclaim that welcomed the film. It’s nice to feel emotions. It is very childish to vibrate to the sound of approval. But it is the only thing that keeps us attached to the world.
5. Do you feel a little cheated by the Covid-19 crisis with less people attending the festival?
Flavia: For us it is completely normal to be selected in times of crisis, it is our bizarre destiny.
SAMP screened in Competition at the 2020 Venice Film Festival.
Production Company: Rezzamastrella
Running Time: 78 Minutes
Country: Italy
Steve Yates contributes to Black and Paper.
For all things cinema, check out our Chat Cinema Podcasts.
One intriguing entry into the Venice competition program this year is Lahi, Hayop (Genus, Pan) by Lavrente Indico Diaz (better known as Lav Diaz). Those already familiar with the work of the Filipino director will know he is synonymous with slow contemplative cinema. His earlier films Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004) is ten hours long, one of the longest cinematic narrative films of all time. While some of his more recent prize-winning films, A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016), feature high on the longest ever films list. The director, a former film critic, drew from influences of work by the proponents of art cinema as Michangelo Antonioni and Robert Bresson.
Lav Diaz is also no stranger to the Venice Film Festival. His 2016 filmThe Woman Who Left won the Golden Lion. Lahi, Hayop, for the director comparatively modest in length at just over two and a half hours, still contains his trademark allegories of human greed and brutality, shot in monochrome with long takes. Dismayed by the working conditions at a gold mine, three workers journey to their home village on foot through the isolated wilderness of the mythical island Hugaw.
The weariness creates a hallucinatory effect for the three main protagonists; two mature men and a younger more capricious colleague. From here, with money, envy, and narcissism as the central themes, their relationship and events become more unpredictable and dramatic. As the recent back story unfolds, with scenes of contemporary Filipino society set against notions of the long-term effects of Japanese and American occupation.
Still Developing
Drawing allusions to the formal elements of Bertholt Brecht in its steady rhythm. Lahi, Hayop consistently uses the static camera, and almost always films at the same distance. With virtually no reference to the present, the film could be set at any time in the last 50 years. Given weight by the fact, when speaking of the film, the director’s inspiration came from a question asking him to define the human species. His urgent reply: “Despite being the better developed species, most of us still retain the demeanor and comportment of the chimpanzee or the genus Pan”. Transposed to capitalist society, the film depicts the destructive effects of the human animal, not least through greed. However, the director also finds optimism because the human brain contintues to develop. Diaz believes we will eventually become a self-actualized species, following the examples of Buddha or Gandhi.
Lahi, Hayop has been playing in the final three days of the Venice program. It was in contention for the Main Competition (Orizzonti) prize.
Along with the more high-profile feature films, we should not overlook the short film entries in Venice. I commend those that have been selected. The short film competition in Venice has programmed a total of twelve entries this year. The selection represents all regions of the world except South America.
Si
Two further films selected are screening out of competition. One, an intriguing piece titled Si by Italian director Luca Ferri. Running at just under 20 minutes, it has a split screen effect; the left side for the visuals, the right for text. In his notes, the director talks of Si as the first of five planned films representing absence. Here, a man studies a series of encyclopedic images from the Prelinger Archives, illustrating the creation of the cosmos.
Si
Humanity is conspicuously absent, represented only in its works and ruins. The man falls asleep and sinks into a nightmare of arctic hunters killing polar bears, while the compellingly melancholic soundtrack features two pieces of contemporary music by the composer Agazzi with the text linked to the director’s personal childhood memory of a suicide. Hope and redemption are also tellingly absent in this unique and pessimistic appraisal of the contemporary human condition.
The Shift
The sole entry from the United Kingdom, a Scottish film called The Shift, directed by Laura Carreira. It is a candid snapshot of contemporary social dependency in an ever increasing insecure world of employment. A young woman called Anna takes her dog for a walk in the woods, then goes to the local supermarket. Waiting at the checkout, she gets a phone call telling her she has lost her shift as a temporary worker.
The Shift
The director stated that he felt the need to represent this common but largely unaddressed social situation. The film conveys this poignant vulnerability as representation of an increasing amount of people. Shift, represents the temporary shift work and also the poignant shift in personal situation and security, as a powerless young woman sees her life change spontaneously and inexorably.
~ Steven Yates loves cinema. He is a frequent contributor to Black and Paper
Imagine Frank Zappa (who was no stranger to acting, or the absurd) in his prime starring in a debut film like Peter Jackson’s Braindead(1992) combined with Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi(1992). Chuck in elements from the anarchy of El Topo(1970) by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Alex Cox’s Repo Man(1984), but with an original take on everything. This pretty much sums up what is taking place here in SAMP, a high octane, no-rules feature by Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza. However, although it is the case with the other aforementioned directors, this is not their debut film. In fact they have been making films for nearly thirty years. This is their sixth feature film, alongside various television programs and countless short and medium-length films.
The Plot
The basic and immediate plot of a man called Samp, who, in the midst of wild dancing somewhere in old Puglia, leaves the ceremonial proceedings to inexplicably and insanely kill his mother, before ranting about her superficiality and how she somehow had failed him. After this, he visits some powerful crime boss who commissions him to start doing the same to ordinary people. The objective is the suppression of tradition and human feelings.
Without any moral justification, Samp starts taking down men, women and even children indiscriminately. Along the way, he gets paid by a pedestrian guarantor, meets poetic figures, seemingly normal people and a musician with whom he seems to form a genuine friendship. More than this, he even falls for various problematic women further causing him loose sense of reality.
INSANITY!
The director’s explaination of SAMP, a film with the pace of a journey, the dynamics of a performance, mixing traditional archaic Puglia with a modern world inflicted by violence due to economic power. SAMPis therefore a metaphor of cultural disintegration without perspective, something they claim we have always experienced. Worth noting: SAMP took nineteen years to make and the characters age together with the authors.
The stark color images of the film enliven the action. There seems to be more bullets fired here than even John Woo’s Hard Boiled(1992). The frantic pace barely slows down, only when Samp briefly pauses to monologue, justify his actions or falls in love again. The insanity of what takes place, projected in such an anarchic way. I could compare to Luis Bunuel at his most extreme. SAMP is a road movie on foot that shatters the script, captures the locations, and takes no prisoners.
SAMP is screening at Venice Film Festival in the Venice Days section. The film is out of competition in the Special Events side bar.
Steven Yates is a cinephile. He regularly contributes to Black and Paper.
The first chance for a styling to came to us via Lea Mornar. The Berlin based actress was preparing the ultimate film festival, Cannes. The South of France takes it up 4 notches in Spring. The entire film world descends on the Rivera for fun, sun, and the Red Carpet.
The Look
The mission undertaken, get Ms. Mornar noticed both on and off the carpet. Starting with the daywear we needed a complete style representing casual, elegant, and professional for the 10 days. Taking meetings or a stroll on the promenade, visual character had to speak for itself. Italian luxury brand Cividini supplied key looks perfect for La Croisette. Light, rich fabrics that breezy with designs that are sophisticated. We wanted people to notice the details. The striped suit and white blouse became her signature look immediately. Fellow attendees responded immediately to the looks commenting, “the best dressed” to “loving the style”.
Accessories, easy, Spring on the Mediterranean means, sunglasses. Not just one would do but a selection. Having a cafe at a meeting industry spot or interviewing on a yacht, the perfect pair of specs. Sunglasses can convey the dramatic, color, or hip. The brands used: Izipizi and Etnia Barcelona.
The Walk
The Cannes Red Carpet walk can make a career. As one of the Big 3 Red Carpet Events, an image goes around the world in a matter of seconds. Photographers line both sides and above the walk to the Palais. The competition is fierce. A Hadid in the rear or standing beside a Dior Couture. The dress has to impress. The walker has 2 minutes. Given this level of importance, I enlisted some help.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxm8jUBI58N/
Patrick Pham
I called Mephistopheles Productions. The studio collaborates with different Couture Brands in Paris. Feathers, embroidery, and flowing sheer gowns, materials of spectacles.
The design credentials of Patrick Pham and Ziad Nakad served Lea well. The flash and cameras clicked. We have made several global best dressed lists.
The Netflix effect is real. The streaming has effected the cinema world like no other technology. The Chat Cinema Team, Steve, Kristin, and Breck discuss the shockwaves.
theater or cinema auditorium screen with red curtains and seats
Rejection is a form of Protection
“It is not enough for a film festival to be righteous. The films shown should be engaging.” I did not attend the Berlinale this year “because of the limited space”. The likely reason, the Chat Cinema podcast I produced criticising the festival. Someone took offence.
Chat Cinema Podcast
Reading over the reviews of the 69thannual event, “the press offices rejection is a cinema lovers protection.” It feels like I did not miss much. More like, saved. I support filmmaking. But when a film festival states “your attendence is not wanted”. I can take a clue. Although, I wanted to see Monos and What She Said.
If a person is going to spend time in a dark cinema, the very least to expect is engagement on a some level, not a sermon with a heavy dose of pretensions. This has been lost on the Berlinale team.
Congratulations to Me
While there were many tributes to Kosslick for helming the festival since 2001, this years Berlinale lacked a well received Competition entry. I spoke to a writer colleague who described a film as “Just Boring!” Why the lack of high powered wattage for the creative heads final walk on the red carpet? But with celebration of Dieter continuing, why notice the many mediocre to average films? Instead, focus on the face saving self-congratulatory events took precedent. The Guardian’s festival review of “hapless” seemed fitting.
I believe women should have more opportunities to direct. Sadly, the film business has not felt this way. But I say, a female helmer can make a Heaven’s Gate like her male counterpart. Being on the political left side of social movements, the Berlinale showcased many women directors. Too bad their films were not up to par.
I asked about fest opener, screened out of Competition, The Kindness of Strangers from Danish director Lone Scherfig. The words used, “Repetitive” and “too long”. The 34 metascore out of 100 says it all. Gender does not make anyone a good filmmaker. Holland’s Mr. Jones, screened in Competition, nodded audience to sleep with its 141 minutes weightiness.
Enjoy
Regardless if the Berlinale denies Chat Cinema/Black and Paper accreditation for 2020. Allow as many Instagram Influencers on the red carpet as possible. This is a festival in a transitional crisis having lost its artistic and commercial way.
Will Carlo Chatrian change course? One can hope, taking pleasure from attending the Berlinale should not be a mortal sin.
Perhaps I will attend the the 70th edition of the Berlinale. If I am not on the blacklist for honesty.
Why not a GLAM, GLAM night out on the town? The Berlinale has rolled into the city. Stars, filmmakers, celebrities descend on the capital for work and fun.
DJ & Actor Lars Eidinger
Cheers with Moet Chandon
Luxury brand BVLGARI’s annual party is always a high point on the festival nightlife calendar. This year at The Secret Garden, an old theater in the Mitte District, the atmosphere felt electric, a good time for all. Many female attendees used the occasion to show off their Bvlgari bags while checking out the room. The chit chat centers around cinema and the offerings of the festival. Get togethers like this are occasions to meet new contacts but also a ways to renew old ones, a moment to catch up.
Never argue with an event that continues to serve Moet Chandon Champagne is my policy. If a bartender offers to pour, have good manners to say “yes”.
