Lisandro Alonso’s heady, intoxicating Eureka opens on a pristine beach where a Native American musician sings toward the sun. None of what he says is subtitled, though it’s apparent that his personal history, as well as that of his people, colors every word. When his chant concludes, the man walks slowly inland in one of the protracted transitional sequences in which Alonso specializes. Of all the practitioners of so-called “slow cinema,” the Argentine filmmaker excels at making even the most anti-dramatic actions riveting.
Eventually, the Native singer comes to an overlook where he spots a wagon in the distance. In the back of the vehicle sits a grizzled gunslinger named Murphy (Viggo Mortensen). Up to this point, Eureka has the feel of an ethnographic documentary. But with the arrival of a bona fide movie star, the ambience shifts toward the thorny fantasyland of the American western.
The genre trappings are familiar,...
Eventually, the Native singer comes to an overlook where he spots a wagon in the distance. In the back of the vehicle sits a grizzled gunslinger named Murphy (Viggo Mortensen). Up to this point, Eureka has the feel of an ethnographic documentary. But with the arrival of a bona fide movie star, the ambience shifts toward the thorny fantasyland of the American western.
The genre trappings are familiar,...
- 10/10/2023
- by Keith Uhlich
- Slant Magazine
Since his striking, transportive drama Jauja in 2014, we’ve been waiting for Lisandro Alonso’s follow-up. News first arrived in 2018 as we learned of Eureka, an ambitious project spanning a time period between 1870 and 2019, with a focus on Native American culture and locations spanning across the world.
The story, made up of four parts, will “make the link between times and continents.” “I would like to film places, people, and cultures that I regret not to see today on big or small screens,” Alonso said. “I would be very curious to know what happened to those who then embodied the Amerindian community, how they live today, how they survive. I would really like to understand what it is like to be a Native American nowadays.”
While the production was already underway and then halted in Portugal when the pandemic hit, Variety now reports more details and the first casting news.
The story, made up of four parts, will “make the link between times and continents.” “I would like to film places, people, and cultures that I regret not to see today on big or small screens,” Alonso said. “I would be very curious to know what happened to those who then embodied the Amerindian community, how they live today, how they survive. I would really like to understand what it is like to be a Native American nowadays.”
While the production was already underway and then halted in Portugal when the pandemic hit, Variety now reports more details and the first casting news.
- 8/4/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Following his star turn in “Jauja,” a major hit at the 2014 Cannes Festival, Viggo Mortensen will re-team with Argentine director Lisandro Alonso on “Eureka,” one of the boldest upcoming art films from Latin America.
Mortensen, who takes the lead role in “Eureka’s” first part, will be joined by France’s Chiara Mastroianni, a Cesar Award best actress nominee this year for “On a Magical Night,” and Portugal’s Maria de Medeiros (“Pulp Fiction”).
In a nod towards “Jauja,” Mortensen once more takes the role of a father, here Murphy, searching for a daughter, again played by Denmark’s Viilbjørk Malling Agger, who has been kidnapped in “Eureka” by an outlaw, Randall. Despite the actors reprising similar roles, the film is not a sequel.
In addition, the setting for Part 1 of “Eureka,” entitled “Western,” is no longer Argentina’s Patagonia but a lawless township in 1870 on the U.S.-Mexico border,...
Mortensen, who takes the lead role in “Eureka’s” first part, will be joined by France’s Chiara Mastroianni, a Cesar Award best actress nominee this year for “On a Magical Night,” and Portugal’s Maria de Medeiros (“Pulp Fiction”).
In a nod towards “Jauja,” Mortensen once more takes the role of a father, here Murphy, searching for a daughter, again played by Denmark’s Viilbjørk Malling Agger, who has been kidnapped in “Eureka” by an outlaw, Randall. Despite the actors reprising similar roles, the film is not a sequel.
In addition, the setting for Part 1 of “Eureka,” entitled “Western,” is no longer Argentina’s Patagonia but a lawless township in 1870 on the U.S.-Mexico border,...
- 8/4/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Project awarded “White Mirror Award” at the 2019 Torino Script Lab.
French production company 5a7 Films is joining forces with Berlin-based One Two Films to co-produce Swiss writer/director Sarah Arnold’s debut feature Wild Encounters.
The project just received $33,300 development funding from the German-French co-production fund Mini-Traite backed by Ffa and Cnc.
The team is aiming to shoot in 2021.
The project had already received funding from the Region Grand Est and Grand Region and was awarded the new White Mirror Award at the 2019 Torino Script Lab. The project also participated in the Full Circle Lab – Upper Rhine, where Arnold and...
French production company 5a7 Films is joining forces with Berlin-based One Two Films to co-produce Swiss writer/director Sarah Arnold’s debut feature Wild Encounters.
The project just received $33,300 development funding from the German-French co-production fund Mini-Traite backed by Ffa and Cnc.
The team is aiming to shoot in 2021.
The project had already received funding from the Region Grand Est and Grand Region and was awarded the new White Mirror Award at the 2019 Torino Script Lab. The project also participated in the Full Circle Lab – Upper Rhine, where Arnold and...
- 6/26/2020
- by 1100142¦Wendy Mitchell¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Sol Bondy’s Berlin-based One Two Films has boarded Iranian helmer Rafi Pitts’ latest film, “Random Star Suicide,” produced by French shingle Les Films du Worso and set to shoot next year.
After 2016’s “Soy Nero,” Pitts again examines Americans living on the margins of society in a story that follows a young black man and a working-class veteran whose lives and destinies cross.
One Two Films is continuing its focus on international and English-language productions as it recalibrates following the recent exit of longtime partner Jamila Wenske. The company has a new office in Berlin and a slew of projects in the works as it seeks to broaden its reach as an international co-producer specialized in Germany’s soft money incentives.
One Two Films partnered with Denmark’s Profile Pictures on Grimur Hakonarson’s Icelandic drama “The County,” which premieres in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema section, and the...
After 2016’s “Soy Nero,” Pitts again examines Americans living on the margins of society in a story that follows a young black man and a working-class veteran whose lives and destinies cross.
One Two Films is continuing its focus on international and English-language productions as it recalibrates following the recent exit of longtime partner Jamila Wenske. The company has a new office in Berlin and a slew of projects in the works as it seeks to broaden its reach as an international co-producer specialized in Germany’s soft money incentives.
One Two Films partnered with Denmark’s Profile Pictures on Grimur Hakonarson’s Icelandic drama “The County,” which premieres in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema section, and the...
- 9/6/2019
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Dumont’s new feature set to star Léa Seydoux as a star journalist.
Arte France Cinema – the French cinema-arm of the Franco-German broadcaster – has boarded new films by Bruno Dumont, Philippe Faucon and Rafi Pitts in its latest funding round, the recipients of which it announced on Friday (Jan 25).
Provisionally entitled Par ce demi-clair matin, which translates roughly as “by this half-light of the morning”, Dumont’s comedy-drama is set to star Léa Seydoux and Blanche Gardin.
According to Arte, it will revolve around the downfall of a star TV journalist who gets caught up in spiral of unfortunate events.
Arte France Cinema – the French cinema-arm of the Franco-German broadcaster – has boarded new films by Bruno Dumont, Philippe Faucon and Rafi Pitts in its latest funding round, the recipients of which it announced on Friday (Jan 25).
Provisionally entitled Par ce demi-clair matin, which translates roughly as “by this half-light of the morning”, Dumont’s comedy-drama is set to star Léa Seydoux and Blanche Gardin.
According to Arte, it will revolve around the downfall of a star TV journalist who gets caught up in spiral of unfortunate events.
- 1/25/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Amat Escalante’s The Untamed (pictured) and Andrea Arnold’s American Honey will compete for the Cinemax Award for the best competition film at the Mexican festival, set to run from November 9-13.
The other selections in the Competencia Los Cabos main competition strand are: Antonio Campos’ Christine, Kristopher Avedisian’s Donald Cried, Matt Johnson’s Operation Avalanche, Gabe Klinger’s Porto, Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero, Joey Klein’s The Other Half and Kim Nguyen’s Two Lovers And A Bear.
Competing for top honours in Mexico Primero are: Maria José Cuevas’ Beauties Of The Night, Sebastián Hiriart’s Carroña, Rodrigo Cervantes’ Los Paisages, Lucía Carreras’ Tamara y La Catarina, Ricardo Silva and Omar Guzmán’s William, The New Judo Master, and Juan Andrés Arango’s X500.
Festival heads said most of the Mexico Primero entries came through the festival’s Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund.
The winners of the Cinemax Award for best film in the Competencia...
The other selections in the Competencia Los Cabos main competition strand are: Antonio Campos’ Christine, Kristopher Avedisian’s Donald Cried, Matt Johnson’s Operation Avalanche, Gabe Klinger’s Porto, Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero, Joey Klein’s The Other Half and Kim Nguyen’s Two Lovers And A Bear.
Competing for top honours in Mexico Primero are: Maria José Cuevas’ Beauties Of The Night, Sebastián Hiriart’s Carroña, Rodrigo Cervantes’ Los Paisages, Lucía Carreras’ Tamara y La Catarina, Ricardo Silva and Omar Guzmán’s William, The New Judo Master, and Juan Andrés Arango’s X500.
Festival heads said most of the Mexico Primero entries came through the festival’s Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund.
The winners of the Cinemax Award for best film in the Competencia...
- 10/11/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Bulgarian drama won the Golden Leopard as well as Best Actress for star Irena Ivanova.
Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrova’s debut feature Godless has won the top prize, the Golden Leopard, at the 69th Locarno Film Festival.
The drama also took the Best Actress award for Irena Ivanova’s performance as a nurse looking after elderly patients with dementia in a remote Bulgarian town.
In addition, the production by Klas Film’s Rossitsa Valkanova with Denmark’s Snowglobe and France’s Alcatraz Films and Film Factory, received the Ecumenical Jury’s Prize, which comes with a cash award of $20,500 (CHF20,000).
The screenplay for Godless - which is being handled internationally by Greek-based Heretic Outreach - had been supported by Torino FilmLab’s FrameWork, Sarajevo’s CineLink and the Women in Film Finishing Fund in Los Angeles.
“This prize was unusual among juries because it was a unanimous decision between all the members of our team,” the International...
Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrova’s debut feature Godless has won the top prize, the Golden Leopard, at the 69th Locarno Film Festival.
The drama also took the Best Actress award for Irena Ivanova’s performance as a nurse looking after elderly patients with dementia in a remote Bulgarian town.
In addition, the production by Klas Film’s Rossitsa Valkanova with Denmark’s Snowglobe and France’s Alcatraz Films and Film Factory, received the Ecumenical Jury’s Prize, which comes with a cash award of $20,500 (CHF20,000).
The screenplay for Godless - which is being handled internationally by Greek-based Heretic Outreach - had been supported by Torino FilmLab’s FrameWork, Sarajevo’s CineLink and the Women in Film Finishing Fund in Los Angeles.
“This prize was unusual among juries because it was a unanimous decision between all the members of our team,” the International...
- 8/13/2016
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Ralitza Petrova's Godless has won the Golden Leopard at this year's Locarno Film Festival. Further prizes awarded by the International Competition jury (President Arturo Ripstein, plus Kate Moran, Rafi Pitts, Rodrigo Teixeira and Wang Bing): Special Jury Prize: Radu Jude's Scarred Hearts. Best Direction: João Pedro Rodrigues for The Ornithologist. Best Actress: Irena Ivanova for Godless. Best Actor: Andrzej Seweryn for The Last Family. And a Special Mention goes to Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's Mister Universo. We've got the full list of all the awards. » - David Hudson...
- 8/13/2016
- Keyframe
Ralitza Petrova's Godless has won the Golden Leopard at this year's Locarno Film Festival. Further prizes awarded by the International Competition jury (President Arturo Ripstein, plus Kate Moran, Rafi Pitts, Rodrigo Teixeira and Wang Bing): Special Jury Prize: Radu Jude's Scarred Hearts. Best Direction: João Pedro Rodrigues for The Ornithologist. Best Actress: Irena Ivanova for Godless. Best Actor: Andrzej Seweryn for The Last Family. And a Special Mention goes to Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's Mister Universo. We've got the full list of all the awards. » - David Hudson...
- 8/13/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
This 66th edition of the Berlinale did not focus so much on films as it did on issues, especially the issue of mass migration including Germany’s one million immigrants being welcomed by Angela Merkel. The sentiment of the Berlinale was expressed by Festival Director Dieter Kosslick in his introductory comment, “We are 90 million Germans. What are one million Syrians? We spent billions and billions to educate our kids, to teach them what happened in the Holocaust.” Nevertheless, the controversy throughout Germany and Europe continues to grow, as it does in the U.S. about what to do about the massive wave of migration, as if there were any other place the people, dispossessed and disposed of by their governments and the governments of the west to go.
Dealing with the plight of African and Syrian refugees, “Fire at Sea”/ “Fuocoammare” by Giovanni Rosi won the Golden Bear led by the jury president Meryl Streep. All North American rights have subsequently been acquired from its international sales agent, Doc & Film by Kino Lorber who plans an autumn release. “Gianfranco Rosi captured the hearts and minds of the Berlinale this year with what will become one of the essential films of our times,” said CEO Richard Lorber. The Italian distributor 01 Distribution profited from its Saturday night Golden Bear win as the Italian box office’s Sunday profits spiked +166%. Tuesday’s take was 40% up on Monday’s box office. By Wednesday the film had taken $169.5k (€154k) and the following weekend 01 almost doubled screens to 76. Imovision took Brazil, Caramel took Spain, Curzon took U.K. Rosi previously won the 2013 Venice Golden Lion for his documentary “Sacro Gra”.
“Fire at Sea” captures today’s Zeitgeist. Though it may not be a film of the highest merit when judged over time, it is the film with the highest contemporary-social-issue-political focus.
Its story is told from a superior point of view; what misery we see of the immigrants’ plight makes us sad and depressed – though not as much as the actual footage we see daily on the news. The only uplift we receive is to witness the acts of the good physician Pietro Bartolo. He not only cares for the island’s 4,000 inhabitants as they go about their daily business of fishing, keeping house, and going to school without much interaction with the invasion of refugees, but he also cares for the 400,000 immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, treating them or identifying them as already dead. As he said at his press conference, “This has become a dramatic problem, an epochal problem. I don’t think that a barbed-wire fence can stop these people. I don’t think there’s a person on earth who wants to leave his country if he isn’t forced to.”
A noble effort, the film in many ways misses the boat. Not to say that any other film was better (I did not see them all), but to make a point about the Berlinale itself as a festival, I note here the majority of other films in the Competition all had socially relevant foci and that is the point of the Berlinale. It is to its credit that it takes a stand and to its detriment that perhaps the films chosen do not attain cinematic stature internationally. The recent years’ Golden Bear winners were (in my opinion) certainly worthy with a couple of exceptions. “Caesar Must Die” a doc about Italian prisoners engaging in the production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and “Black Coal, Thin Ice” a Chinese hard-boiled detective saga were both quickly forgotten.
Memorable winners worth noting were in 2011 with Iran’s “ Jodaeiye Nader az Simin/ “A Separation”, Romania’s 2013 “ Poziţia Copilului”/ “Child‘s Pose” and again from Iran in 2015, Jafar Panahi’s “ Taxi”.
Looking at the other films in Competition this year, Mohamed Ben Attia’s “Hedi”(Isa: The Match Factory, sold to date to Austria’s Polyfilm, Germany’s Pandora, Norway’s Mer Film, Switzerland ’s Cineworx, Taiwan’s Maison Motion) deals with a quiet man’s personal struggle for freedom from the constraints of his Tunisian society; Ivo M. Ferreira’s “Letters from War” (Isa: The Match Factory) deals with the final years of the Angolan War of Independence against Portugal in 1961-74; Danis Tanovic deals with the more recent Bosnian War as a Frenchman sits in his hotel room while a World War I Commemoration takes place in Sarajevo in “Death in Sarajevo” (Isa: The Match Factory); protests against the Nazi regime are the subject of “Alone in Berlin” (Isa: Cornerstone, the new sales company of Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder, sold to Altitude for U.K., Pathe for France. X Film, the producer keeps German rights) by Vincent Perez; in Rafi Pitts’ “Soy Nero”( Isa: The Match Factory, sold to date to Neue Visionen for Germany, Sophie Dulac Distribution for France, Ama Films for Greece, Bomba Films for Poland, Filmarti for Turkey,MegaCom for Serbia and Montenegro, Moving Turtle for Lebanon, trigon-film for Switzerland) about a 19-year-old Mexican boy dreaming of immigrating north to the U.S. who takes the route of joining the U.S. Army to fight in the Middle East in order to get his “green card”. The Philippine Revolution against Spanish Colonization is treated in a 482 minute epic “ A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (Isa: Films Boutique) by Lav Diaz. In “United States of Love” (Isa: Films New Europe sold to Imovision for Brazil and Angel for Denmark), four women share the urge to change their lives in 1990, immediately after the fall of Communism. All of these films are dealing with issues of gaining freedom today. “Being 17”(Isa: Elle Driver sold Belgium to Lumière, Brazil to F ênix, France to Wild Bunch, Serbia to McF Megacom, Switzerland to Frenetic) by Andre Techine also deals with adolescents growing up gay in a working-class neighborhood in France, another current human rights issue.
These film choices remind us that the Berlinale itself was founded in 1950 during the Cold War as West Berlin’s way of confronting East Berlin’s imprisonment of its people by flaunting its own freedom, a truly Berlin way of life which still today animates its spirit of freedom. This casts a certain character upon the films chosen by the Berlinale selection committee to this day.
A political tone of the festival was also echoed by the pronouncement “We are all Africans really” spoken by Meryl Streep when she was questioned about why the Berlin Film Festival had appointed an all-white jury (not that she was responsible for choosing the jury).
Meryl Streep’s rather blithe comment, to quote Lindiwe Dovey in The Guardian , “plunged the actress into a debate about the lack of diversity in Hollywood. At best, Streep’s comment was an attempt to show solidarity. But what she unwittingly also underlined was the absence of Africans and African filmmaking in mainstream cinema. If we really are all Africans, and if we are going to take black filmmaking more seriously, why are we not watching African films?” Again, Streep is not responsible for the Berlinale’s selection either.
Only five African films are being shown at this year's festival and they are not all sub-Saharan African, that is to say “black”, but are also North African -- that is to say of the Mena region or Arab. These are two very different aspects of the giant continent called Africa. We are seeing many films from the Mena, that is Arab and North African regions this year.
In an attempt to find answers to this question of why we are not seeing more “black” films, we attended the Berlinale World Cinema Fund’s “Africa Day”. This one-off, and therefore insufficient, day was dedicated to discussing the memory, present and future of African films. Insufficient for finding answers and for creating any call for action, the day was, nonetheless, important and for that we all should thank the German Federal Cultural Foundation for providing the funds which guarantee the existence of the World Cinema Fund until at least 2018 and to the German Foreign Office, which substantially raised its level of support allowing the Wcf additional discretion in its actions.
The presentation by Nigerian film critic Didi Anni Cheeka was a fascinating exposé of what has happened to the “archives” of Nigerian cinema. The 60s to the 80s’ post-colonial cinema is not discussed today at all and Cheeka has searched for those filmmakers, called “The Seven Ups” who worked along with such filmmakers as Chris Marker and Alain Resnais. The Ministry of Information in Nigeria gave him permission to organize the films of the 60s which were lost during the Civil War in a collective amnesia. In the process, he discovered a room closed, locked and forgotten in the 1960s at the end of the independent movements throughout Africa, a room containing movie machines and more than 2,000 cans of films laying around like dusty dead bodies. This and other sad cases have revealed that in fact, there are no archives of African cinema at all.
But even the later Nollywood producers do not have copies of their films. Memories of what Africa looked like are lost along with the artistic efforts of its cineastes. Silence has been instilled by the governments of today as well.
Cinema as culture does not really exist in Africa. To create awareness takes education, leisure, city life and a cultural and cinema community nourishing one another. More than production funds, awareness needs the support of people with ideas.
Cheeka also stated, "We have the strange situation that new cineplexes are coming up every day, but they only show Hollywood movies. It's a common problem all over Africa: High quality movies from the continent hardly find an audience or even a place to be shown. Without a market in sight, few high-quality movies are shot. Only so-called ‘Nollywood movies’, mostly produced in Nigeria in just a few days or weeks, are thriving. Nigeria's movie industry earns around Us $250 million from Nollywood movies. This is the first time an economy has been established around the notion of film. In 1999 the first Nollywood delegaton came to Sithengi, the South African Film Market and they took over. Last year in Nigeria, many layers of Nollywood were apparent; the usual low budget exploitation or dramatic movie was giving space to other kinds of film. This opens the possibility of further discussion of film economy in all Africa, from Algeria to South Africa.
Pedro Pimento, Director of the Durban International Film Festival, gave the keynote address analyzing the lack of African film and the lack of distribution for what few African films there are. This was the high point of the day as he was heard loud and clear, at least by me, as he was articulate and to the point.
Pedro Pimenta is a filmmaker and producer from Mozambique. He produced the 1997 film "Fools", the first feature film shot by a black South African, Ramadan Suleman, and the same year "Africa Dreaming" a chronicle of Africa in six acts, with the common theme the love. Pimenta is also "foreign corresponding member" of the "Association of Real Cinema" the international meeting of documentary films held at the Pompidou Center in Paris created in 1978 which invites the public and professionals to discover film auteurs. The producer-director is also the founder and director of the documentary film festival "Dockanema" in Maputo, Mozambique. The first edition was held in September 2006 with support from the Mozambican Ebano Multimedia, in association with Amocine (Mozambican Association of Filmmakers).
According to Pimenta, "the documentary is an observation and testimony which brings the spectator something which otherwise would be merely read as news and quickly forgotten. Directed by great filmmakers, it can be a work of art; made by an amateur holding a small hand-held camera, it is a daily familiar record of an historic moment. The documentary brings us closer to the great achievements of the better side of humanity even as it brings us the violent scourge of today's world. It thus gives us the opportunity to replace prejudice by solidly based judgments and to take conscious positions."
Pedro Pimenta started his movie career with the National film Institute of Mozambique in 1977. Since then, he has produced and co-produced numerous short fiction, documentaries and feature movies in his country as well as in other African nations.
Between 1997 and 2003 Pedro was the chief Technical Adviser of the Unesco Zimbabwe Film and Video Training Project for Southern Africa in Harare. As part of his function, he conceived and managed various training programs. He is one of the founders of Avea (Audio Visual Entrepreneurs of Africa) which runs an annual training program for professional producers in Southern Africa. Until December 2005, Pedro was a member of the Prince Claus Fund Awards Committee of the Netherlands.
He presented practical and pragmatic steps for a concrete approach to invigorate African Cinema.
First of all, there is no case for Africa as a country. It is too diverse and too vast. Knowing the context(s) of film, there is a solution. However, there is a total lack of reliable data vis á vis Africa, just as there has been a lack of data for the case of women in film until the past couple of years. A structure as a way to access information must be built. Experience has been accumulated for what works and what does not work in changing contexts; there are constant paradigm shifts; there is “generational regeneration” in content every few years; but all facts are anecdotal and not data oriented.
And there is the traditional value chain of cinema going like this:
The money follows from production costs to recoupment through distribution and it should be put back into film education along with production. The weakest point in the chain is exhibition.
Currently there is good energy, but there is no system. There are two recognized international film festivals and Mogadishu might be a third festival but it will take four to five years. There were attempts to create Pan African film distribution utopias, but they failed. Neither the British nor the French ever involved themselves in distribution systems and the models died.
From the mid 80s to 2000 the Imf World Bank’s involvement in Africa was built on a model of all nations feeding off of Mother Africa like a litter of trucks feeding off the oil tank that was Africa.
Today, the need to control distribution is apparent and it can generate money, but governments have made it clear that culture today is a “negative priority”. International corporations serve as African nations’ only means of survival.
While commercial distribution models have failed, the number of film festivals has increased. Out of the 54 countries in Africa, only two have no film festival. From 1980 to 2000 there were only two countries with festivals. Plus there is the current digital revolution which points to new directions one can go.
If any form of distribution reaches a critical mass like that of Nollywood, the governments can think critically about its policies. Keep an eye on the cinemas opening in Ethiopia which are based on local demands for local films. Ethiopia is currently producing 200 films per year. Uganda has informal screening spaces located all over the capital city. Pathé looks like it might have a shot in Francophone Africa. These examples all go to show there is a small cultural economy through cinema.
Morocco and Mauritius have local incentives to encourage local production.
But overall, exhibition is the weakest link in the value chain shown above.
In 2016 we see Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Iroko TV/ Buni. We see TV, African Films and TV, Vidi, On Tap TV etc.
However, I am of the belief that VOD is not the answer for Africa and African cinema. A minority of so-called middle class Africans, who do not identify or show interest for African films will have access. The majority of Africans (the market) are left on the sideline (once again) and are not really considered in any strategy.
But with 1.4 billion people, 60% of whom live in urban settings and with a majority of young people, young consumers – one out of three being “middle class”, there is a demand for entertainment. But we need to find the reality and economy of Our Cinema.
There is a demand for a mirror of oneself. The origin of an audience is Our Grandmother. What does she say about our ideas? She was the storyteller who passed our values on to this new generation. How can our creative cinema advance if we do not head this real mirror.
Here are the transversal issues:
1. Training vs. Education. There are many training initiatives in Africa, but what of film education? To train an audience, to train storytellers rather than to train support for outside production companies shooting in Africa is imperative.
2. Relevance of data. Data is limited to say the least.
3. Role of the producer in Africa’s content and support strategies.
4. Role of film festivals. By default they are the exhibitor of African content throughout Europe and they are part of a larger year-round circuit supporting African films for African audiences.
5. European support models only create two to three projects a year. This includes Hubert Bals Fund of Netherlands, Cinema du Monde of France, World Cinema Fund of Germany and Acp of the European Market.
We need new ways and a new system of support from Europe that is matched by support from Africa. Any system based on support however is not adequate.
“Screen space” is not necessarily a theater. It can be universities, museums; it might be similar to the recent attempts in Cuba of “salon cinemas” which were separate rooms in restaurants and hair salons.
Another model might be Argentina’s building of 45 digital cinemas throughout Latin America for Latin American content or the recent creation of Retina Latina, a free online service of Latin American films for Latin America.
The Market exists. There is a lot of money in Africa. The problem is that the money's offices are in London.
Pimento’s response when I sent him Meryl Streep’s comment as it was reported in The Guardian follows.
“Interesting but what bothers me really is the fact that we never really critically talk about quality (or not) of African films and also the belief that things will happen out of some divine intervention and not by triggering purposeful market dynamics .
I find also that using Ms. Streep’s comment as a way to reach some visibility does not necessarily reflect any intellectual honesty… it’s just a quick expedient for a sector of dogmatic- bordering-on-racism African filmmakers who claim the rest of the world needs to provide solutions to their problems/ frustrations/ obstacles .....
There are many less visible examples of positive African people and initiatives driven by the notion that our destiny is in our hands really and not in the hands of any international cooperation/ aid/ humanitarian system."...
Dealing with the plight of African and Syrian refugees, “Fire at Sea”/ “Fuocoammare” by Giovanni Rosi won the Golden Bear led by the jury president Meryl Streep. All North American rights have subsequently been acquired from its international sales agent, Doc & Film by Kino Lorber who plans an autumn release. “Gianfranco Rosi captured the hearts and minds of the Berlinale this year with what will become one of the essential films of our times,” said CEO Richard Lorber. The Italian distributor 01 Distribution profited from its Saturday night Golden Bear win as the Italian box office’s Sunday profits spiked +166%. Tuesday’s take was 40% up on Monday’s box office. By Wednesday the film had taken $169.5k (€154k) and the following weekend 01 almost doubled screens to 76. Imovision took Brazil, Caramel took Spain, Curzon took U.K. Rosi previously won the 2013 Venice Golden Lion for his documentary “Sacro Gra”.
“Fire at Sea” captures today’s Zeitgeist. Though it may not be a film of the highest merit when judged over time, it is the film with the highest contemporary-social-issue-political focus.
Its story is told from a superior point of view; what misery we see of the immigrants’ plight makes us sad and depressed – though not as much as the actual footage we see daily on the news. The only uplift we receive is to witness the acts of the good physician Pietro Bartolo. He not only cares for the island’s 4,000 inhabitants as they go about their daily business of fishing, keeping house, and going to school without much interaction with the invasion of refugees, but he also cares for the 400,000 immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, treating them or identifying them as already dead. As he said at his press conference, “This has become a dramatic problem, an epochal problem. I don’t think that a barbed-wire fence can stop these people. I don’t think there’s a person on earth who wants to leave his country if he isn’t forced to.”
A noble effort, the film in many ways misses the boat. Not to say that any other film was better (I did not see them all), but to make a point about the Berlinale itself as a festival, I note here the majority of other films in the Competition all had socially relevant foci and that is the point of the Berlinale. It is to its credit that it takes a stand and to its detriment that perhaps the films chosen do not attain cinematic stature internationally. The recent years’ Golden Bear winners were (in my opinion) certainly worthy with a couple of exceptions. “Caesar Must Die” a doc about Italian prisoners engaging in the production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and “Black Coal, Thin Ice” a Chinese hard-boiled detective saga were both quickly forgotten.
Memorable winners worth noting were in 2011 with Iran’s “ Jodaeiye Nader az Simin/ “A Separation”, Romania’s 2013 “ Poziţia Copilului”/ “Child‘s Pose” and again from Iran in 2015, Jafar Panahi’s “ Taxi”.
Looking at the other films in Competition this year, Mohamed Ben Attia’s “Hedi”(Isa: The Match Factory, sold to date to Austria’s Polyfilm, Germany’s Pandora, Norway’s Mer Film, Switzerland ’s Cineworx, Taiwan’s Maison Motion) deals with a quiet man’s personal struggle for freedom from the constraints of his Tunisian society; Ivo M. Ferreira’s “Letters from War” (Isa: The Match Factory) deals with the final years of the Angolan War of Independence against Portugal in 1961-74; Danis Tanovic deals with the more recent Bosnian War as a Frenchman sits in his hotel room while a World War I Commemoration takes place in Sarajevo in “Death in Sarajevo” (Isa: The Match Factory); protests against the Nazi regime are the subject of “Alone in Berlin” (Isa: Cornerstone, the new sales company of Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder, sold to Altitude for U.K., Pathe for France. X Film, the producer keeps German rights) by Vincent Perez; in Rafi Pitts’ “Soy Nero”( Isa: The Match Factory, sold to date to Neue Visionen for Germany, Sophie Dulac Distribution for France, Ama Films for Greece, Bomba Films for Poland, Filmarti for Turkey,MegaCom for Serbia and Montenegro, Moving Turtle for Lebanon, trigon-film for Switzerland) about a 19-year-old Mexican boy dreaming of immigrating north to the U.S. who takes the route of joining the U.S. Army to fight in the Middle East in order to get his “green card”. The Philippine Revolution against Spanish Colonization is treated in a 482 minute epic “ A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (Isa: Films Boutique) by Lav Diaz. In “United States of Love” (Isa: Films New Europe sold to Imovision for Brazil and Angel for Denmark), four women share the urge to change their lives in 1990, immediately after the fall of Communism. All of these films are dealing with issues of gaining freedom today. “Being 17”(Isa: Elle Driver sold Belgium to Lumière, Brazil to F ênix, France to Wild Bunch, Serbia to McF Megacom, Switzerland to Frenetic) by Andre Techine also deals with adolescents growing up gay in a working-class neighborhood in France, another current human rights issue.
These film choices remind us that the Berlinale itself was founded in 1950 during the Cold War as West Berlin’s way of confronting East Berlin’s imprisonment of its people by flaunting its own freedom, a truly Berlin way of life which still today animates its spirit of freedom. This casts a certain character upon the films chosen by the Berlinale selection committee to this day.
A political tone of the festival was also echoed by the pronouncement “We are all Africans really” spoken by Meryl Streep when she was questioned about why the Berlin Film Festival had appointed an all-white jury (not that she was responsible for choosing the jury).
Meryl Streep’s rather blithe comment, to quote Lindiwe Dovey in The Guardian , “plunged the actress into a debate about the lack of diversity in Hollywood. At best, Streep’s comment was an attempt to show solidarity. But what she unwittingly also underlined was the absence of Africans and African filmmaking in mainstream cinema. If we really are all Africans, and if we are going to take black filmmaking more seriously, why are we not watching African films?” Again, Streep is not responsible for the Berlinale’s selection either.
Only five African films are being shown at this year's festival and they are not all sub-Saharan African, that is to say “black”, but are also North African -- that is to say of the Mena region or Arab. These are two very different aspects of the giant continent called Africa. We are seeing many films from the Mena, that is Arab and North African regions this year.
In an attempt to find answers to this question of why we are not seeing more “black” films, we attended the Berlinale World Cinema Fund’s “Africa Day”. This one-off, and therefore insufficient, day was dedicated to discussing the memory, present and future of African films. Insufficient for finding answers and for creating any call for action, the day was, nonetheless, important and for that we all should thank the German Federal Cultural Foundation for providing the funds which guarantee the existence of the World Cinema Fund until at least 2018 and to the German Foreign Office, which substantially raised its level of support allowing the Wcf additional discretion in its actions.
The presentation by Nigerian film critic Didi Anni Cheeka was a fascinating exposé of what has happened to the “archives” of Nigerian cinema. The 60s to the 80s’ post-colonial cinema is not discussed today at all and Cheeka has searched for those filmmakers, called “The Seven Ups” who worked along with such filmmakers as Chris Marker and Alain Resnais. The Ministry of Information in Nigeria gave him permission to organize the films of the 60s which were lost during the Civil War in a collective amnesia. In the process, he discovered a room closed, locked and forgotten in the 1960s at the end of the independent movements throughout Africa, a room containing movie machines and more than 2,000 cans of films laying around like dusty dead bodies. This and other sad cases have revealed that in fact, there are no archives of African cinema at all.
But even the later Nollywood producers do not have copies of their films. Memories of what Africa looked like are lost along with the artistic efforts of its cineastes. Silence has been instilled by the governments of today as well.
Cinema as culture does not really exist in Africa. To create awareness takes education, leisure, city life and a cultural and cinema community nourishing one another. More than production funds, awareness needs the support of people with ideas.
Cheeka also stated, "We have the strange situation that new cineplexes are coming up every day, but they only show Hollywood movies. It's a common problem all over Africa: High quality movies from the continent hardly find an audience or even a place to be shown. Without a market in sight, few high-quality movies are shot. Only so-called ‘Nollywood movies’, mostly produced in Nigeria in just a few days or weeks, are thriving. Nigeria's movie industry earns around Us $250 million from Nollywood movies. This is the first time an economy has been established around the notion of film. In 1999 the first Nollywood delegaton came to Sithengi, the South African Film Market and they took over. Last year in Nigeria, many layers of Nollywood were apparent; the usual low budget exploitation or dramatic movie was giving space to other kinds of film. This opens the possibility of further discussion of film economy in all Africa, from Algeria to South Africa.
Pedro Pimento, Director of the Durban International Film Festival, gave the keynote address analyzing the lack of African film and the lack of distribution for what few African films there are. This was the high point of the day as he was heard loud and clear, at least by me, as he was articulate and to the point.
Pedro Pimenta is a filmmaker and producer from Mozambique. He produced the 1997 film "Fools", the first feature film shot by a black South African, Ramadan Suleman, and the same year "Africa Dreaming" a chronicle of Africa in six acts, with the common theme the love. Pimenta is also "foreign corresponding member" of the "Association of Real Cinema" the international meeting of documentary films held at the Pompidou Center in Paris created in 1978 which invites the public and professionals to discover film auteurs. The producer-director is also the founder and director of the documentary film festival "Dockanema" in Maputo, Mozambique. The first edition was held in September 2006 with support from the Mozambican Ebano Multimedia, in association with Amocine (Mozambican Association of Filmmakers).
According to Pimenta, "the documentary is an observation and testimony which brings the spectator something which otherwise would be merely read as news and quickly forgotten. Directed by great filmmakers, it can be a work of art; made by an amateur holding a small hand-held camera, it is a daily familiar record of an historic moment. The documentary brings us closer to the great achievements of the better side of humanity even as it brings us the violent scourge of today's world. It thus gives us the opportunity to replace prejudice by solidly based judgments and to take conscious positions."
Pedro Pimenta started his movie career with the National film Institute of Mozambique in 1977. Since then, he has produced and co-produced numerous short fiction, documentaries and feature movies in his country as well as in other African nations.
Between 1997 and 2003 Pedro was the chief Technical Adviser of the Unesco Zimbabwe Film and Video Training Project for Southern Africa in Harare. As part of his function, he conceived and managed various training programs. He is one of the founders of Avea (Audio Visual Entrepreneurs of Africa) which runs an annual training program for professional producers in Southern Africa. Until December 2005, Pedro was a member of the Prince Claus Fund Awards Committee of the Netherlands.
He presented practical and pragmatic steps for a concrete approach to invigorate African Cinema.
First of all, there is no case for Africa as a country. It is too diverse and too vast. Knowing the context(s) of film, there is a solution. However, there is a total lack of reliable data vis á vis Africa, just as there has been a lack of data for the case of women in film until the past couple of years. A structure as a way to access information must be built. Experience has been accumulated for what works and what does not work in changing contexts; there are constant paradigm shifts; there is “generational regeneration” in content every few years; but all facts are anecdotal and not data oriented.
And there is the traditional value chain of cinema going like this:
The money follows from production costs to recoupment through distribution and it should be put back into film education along with production. The weakest point in the chain is exhibition.
Currently there is good energy, but there is no system. There are two recognized international film festivals and Mogadishu might be a third festival but it will take four to five years. There were attempts to create Pan African film distribution utopias, but they failed. Neither the British nor the French ever involved themselves in distribution systems and the models died.
From the mid 80s to 2000 the Imf World Bank’s involvement in Africa was built on a model of all nations feeding off of Mother Africa like a litter of trucks feeding off the oil tank that was Africa.
Today, the need to control distribution is apparent and it can generate money, but governments have made it clear that culture today is a “negative priority”. International corporations serve as African nations’ only means of survival.
While commercial distribution models have failed, the number of film festivals has increased. Out of the 54 countries in Africa, only two have no film festival. From 1980 to 2000 there were only two countries with festivals. Plus there is the current digital revolution which points to new directions one can go.
If any form of distribution reaches a critical mass like that of Nollywood, the governments can think critically about its policies. Keep an eye on the cinemas opening in Ethiopia which are based on local demands for local films. Ethiopia is currently producing 200 films per year. Uganda has informal screening spaces located all over the capital city. Pathé looks like it might have a shot in Francophone Africa. These examples all go to show there is a small cultural economy through cinema.
Morocco and Mauritius have local incentives to encourage local production.
But overall, exhibition is the weakest link in the value chain shown above.
In 2016 we see Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Iroko TV/ Buni. We see TV, African Films and TV, Vidi, On Tap TV etc.
However, I am of the belief that VOD is not the answer for Africa and African cinema. A minority of so-called middle class Africans, who do not identify or show interest for African films will have access. The majority of Africans (the market) are left on the sideline (once again) and are not really considered in any strategy.
But with 1.4 billion people, 60% of whom live in urban settings and with a majority of young people, young consumers – one out of three being “middle class”, there is a demand for entertainment. But we need to find the reality and economy of Our Cinema.
There is a demand for a mirror of oneself. The origin of an audience is Our Grandmother. What does she say about our ideas? She was the storyteller who passed our values on to this new generation. How can our creative cinema advance if we do not head this real mirror.
Here are the transversal issues:
1. Training vs. Education. There are many training initiatives in Africa, but what of film education? To train an audience, to train storytellers rather than to train support for outside production companies shooting in Africa is imperative.
2. Relevance of data. Data is limited to say the least.
3. Role of the producer in Africa’s content and support strategies.
4. Role of film festivals. By default they are the exhibitor of African content throughout Europe and they are part of a larger year-round circuit supporting African films for African audiences.
5. European support models only create two to three projects a year. This includes Hubert Bals Fund of Netherlands, Cinema du Monde of France, World Cinema Fund of Germany and Acp of the European Market.
We need new ways and a new system of support from Europe that is matched by support from Africa. Any system based on support however is not adequate.
“Screen space” is not necessarily a theater. It can be universities, museums; it might be similar to the recent attempts in Cuba of “salon cinemas” which were separate rooms in restaurants and hair salons.
Another model might be Argentina’s building of 45 digital cinemas throughout Latin America for Latin American content or the recent creation of Retina Latina, a free online service of Latin American films for Latin America.
The Market exists. There is a lot of money in Africa. The problem is that the money's offices are in London.
Pimento’s response when I sent him Meryl Streep’s comment as it was reported in The Guardian follows.
“Interesting but what bothers me really is the fact that we never really critically talk about quality (or not) of African films and also the belief that things will happen out of some divine intervention and not by triggering purposeful market dynamics .
I find also that using Ms. Streep’s comment as a way to reach some visibility does not necessarily reflect any intellectual honesty… it’s just a quick expedient for a sector of dogmatic- bordering-on-racism African filmmakers who claim the rest of the world needs to provide solutions to their problems/ frustrations/ obstacles .....
There are many less visible examples of positive African people and initiatives driven by the notion that our destiny is in our hands really and not in the hands of any international cooperation/ aid/ humanitarian system."...
- 3/16/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Berlin International Film Festival continued to challenge expectations in its 66th edition, landing another auteur heavy competition line-up, albeit a slightly less sensational one than the landmark 2015 program. Although an attempt continues to be made to establish grand motifs between films in competition and the more experimental sidebars, topical issues seemed to be the name of the game across the board, particularly immigration. This culminated with this year’s Golden Bear winner, Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea, a documentary which was the clear early favorite and remained so up until the awards ceremony. Rosi has now won two major film festivals with his documentary work (previously taking home the top prize at Venice 2013 for Sacro Gra), and further solidifies an argument for the Cannes Film Festival to follow suit and allow documentary titles to play in the main competition. Berlin notably had two documentaries in the main competition this year,...
- 2/22/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Gianfranco Rosi’s Golden Bear winner faced off challenges from Jeff Nichols, Mia Hansen-Love and Mohamed Ben Attia.
Fire At Sea, Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary set on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, has topped Screen’s final Berlin Jury Grid for 2016.
Screen’s jury of international critics were in tune with the Berlinale’s international jury, led this year by Oscar-winning actress Meryl Steep, which awarded the film with the coveted Golden Bear for Best Film.
Fire At Sea led for the majority of the festival after scoring an impressive 3.3 rating, including five maximum four-star ratings.
Second place was tied by three titles, with Mohamed Ben Attia’s Hedi, Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special and Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come each clocking scores of 2.9.
Further titles to score an above-average rating were Lav Diaz’s eight-hour epic A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery with 2.8 (averaged from five submitted ratings) and Alex Gibney’s cyber warfare...
Fire At Sea, Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary set on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, has topped Screen’s final Berlin Jury Grid for 2016.
Screen’s jury of international critics were in tune with the Berlinale’s international jury, led this year by Oscar-winning actress Meryl Steep, which awarded the film with the coveted Golden Bear for Best Film.
Fire At Sea led for the majority of the festival after scoring an impressive 3.3 rating, including five maximum four-star ratings.
Second place was tied by three titles, with Mohamed Ben Attia’s Hedi, Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special and Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come each clocking scores of 2.9.
Further titles to score an above-average rating were Lav Diaz’s eight-hour epic A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery with 2.8 (averaged from five submitted ratings) and Alex Gibney’s cyber warfare...
- 2/22/2016
- ScreenDaily
Documentary Fire At Sea wins Golden Bear; Death In Sarajevo wins Jury PrizeWinners of 66th Berlin International Film FestivalGolden Bear for Best Film
Fire At Sea (It-Fr), dir. Gianfranco Rosi
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, [link...
Fire At Sea (It-Fr), dir. Gianfranco Rosi
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, [link...
- 2/20/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Golden and Silver Bears are set to be awarded shortly. Keep up with the latest here…
Refresh the page for the latest
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, Mahdi Fleifel (UK-Neth-Den)
Audi Short Film Award (€20,000)
Anchorage...
Refresh the page for the latest
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, Mahdi Fleifel (UK-Neth-Den)
Audi Short Film Award (€20,000)
Anchorage...
- 2/20/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Nothing is more universal, it seems, than border trouble. It's the heart and soul, the foreground and backdrop, of Rafi Pitts's "Soy Nero." The Iranian's fifth feature — his first in six years following "The Hunter" — begins in Tijuana, journeys to Los Angeles, and concludes in the anonymous "Na Koja-abad" (no man's land) of a Middle Eastern desert. Co-writing with Romanian screenwriter Razvan Radulescu (who worked on notable award-winners "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" and "Child's Pose"), Pitts drags his figurative approach to storytelling into the muscular realms of urban drama and wartime thriller. As a world-we-live-in dispatch, the film offers plenty of interpretable discussion points. In this righteous, sometimes gripping genre-melding work, geographical boundaries are the root of violent skirmishes, political tensions, racial prejudices, and class war. Laden with meticulously baked...
- 2/17/2016
- by Michael Pattison
- Indiewire
Neither Soy Nero [pictured] nor Genius significantly impressed critics, with Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary still comfortably top of the chart.
Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire At Sea continues to reign atop the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid, comfortably seeing off the challenges of new entries Soy Nero and Genius.
Rafi Pitts’ drama Soy Nero [pictured] impressed Tim Robey, who awarded it three-stars, but failed to strike a chord with Nicholas Weno or Daniel Klasman, who both gave it a solitary star.
Overall, the film averaged a 1.9 rating, placing it second-bottom, only above Alone In Berlin.
Michael Grandage’s biographical drama about book editor Max Perkins, Genius, tied with Soy Nero, scoring a 1.9 with Screen’s jury.
Nicholas Weno, Tim Robey, David Fear and Screen’s critic all awarded the film one-star, but Jan Schulz-Ojala bucked the trend with a four-star rating. One score is yet to be submitted.
Still sitting pretty is migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea...
Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire At Sea continues to reign atop the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid, comfortably seeing off the challenges of new entries Soy Nero and Genius.
Rafi Pitts’ drama Soy Nero [pictured] impressed Tim Robey, who awarded it three-stars, but failed to strike a chord with Nicholas Weno or Daniel Klasman, who both gave it a solitary star.
Overall, the film averaged a 1.9 rating, placing it second-bottom, only above Alone In Berlin.
Michael Grandage’s biographical drama about book editor Max Perkins, Genius, tied with Soy Nero, scoring a 1.9 with Screen’s jury.
Nicholas Weno, Tim Robey, David Fear and Screen’s critic all awarded the film one-star, but Jan Schulz-Ojala bucked the trend with a four-star rating. One score is yet to be submitted.
Still sitting pretty is migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea...
- 2/17/2016
- ScreenDaily
Neither Soy Nero nor Genius significantly impressed critics, with Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary still comfortably top of the chart.
Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire At Sea continues to reign atop the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid, comfortably seeing off the challenges of new entries Soy Nero and Genius.
Rafi Pitts’ drama Soy Nero [pictured] impressed Tim Robey, who awarded it three-stars, but failed to strike a chord with Nicholas Weno or Daniel Klasman, who both gave it a solitary star.
Overall, the film averaged a 1.9 rating, placing it second-bottom, only above Alone In Berlin.
Michael Grandage’s biographical drama about book editor Max Perkins, Genius, tied with Soy Nero, scoring a 1.9 with Screen’s jury.
Nicholas Weno, Tim Robey, David Fear and Screen’s critic all awarded the film one-star, but Jan Schulz-Ojala bucked the trend with a four-star rating. One score is yet to be submitted.
Still sitting pretty is migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea...
Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire At Sea continues to reign atop the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid, comfortably seeing off the challenges of new entries Soy Nero and Genius.
Rafi Pitts’ drama Soy Nero [pictured] impressed Tim Robey, who awarded it three-stars, but failed to strike a chord with Nicholas Weno or Daniel Klasman, who both gave it a solitary star.
Overall, the film averaged a 1.9 rating, placing it second-bottom, only above Alone In Berlin.
Michael Grandage’s biographical drama about book editor Max Perkins, Genius, tied with Soy Nero, scoring a 1.9 with Screen’s jury.
Nicholas Weno, Tim Robey, David Fear and Screen’s critic all awarded the film one-star, but Jan Schulz-Ojala bucked the trend with a four-star rating. One score is yet to be submitted.
Still sitting pretty is migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea...
- 2/17/2016
- ScreenDaily
In today's Berlinale Diary entry, I offer first impressions of Eugène Green's Le Fils de Joseph with Victor Ezenfis, Natacha Régnier, Fabrizio Rongione, Mathieu Amalric and Maria de Medeiros; Wang Bing's Ta'ang, a documentary on refugees crossing the border from Myanmar into China; Yang Chao's years-in-the-making Crosscurrent with Qin Hao, Xin Zhi Lei, Wu Lipeng, Wang Hongwei and Jiang Hualin; and Rafi Pitts's Soy Nero with Johnny Ortiz, Rory Cochrane, Aml Ameen, Darrell Britt-Gibson and Michael Harney. » - David Hudson...
- 2/16/2016
- Keyframe
In today's Berlinale Diary entry, I offer first impressions of Eugène Green's Le Fils de Joseph with Victor Ezenfis, Natacha Régnier, Fabrizio Rongione, Mathieu Amalric and Maria de Medeiros; Wang Bing's Ta'ang, a documentary on refugees crossing the border from Myanmar into China; Yang Chao's years-in-the-making Crosscurrent with Qin Hao, Xin Zhi Lei, Wu Lipeng, Wang Hongwei and Jiang Hualin; and Rafi Pitts's Soy Nero with Johnny Ortiz, Rory Cochrane, Aml Ameen, Darrell Britt-Gibson and Michael Harney. » - David Hudson...
- 2/16/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
WW2 drama with Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson scores low with the Screen jury.
Vincent Perez’s Second World War drama Alone In Berlin, starring Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson, clocked up a new low for the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid.
The film amassed a meagre 1.3 rating from seven reviews, with one yet to be submitted.
Still reigning top is Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea, which is the only film to have scored over 3 points.
New additions to the grid are Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent, which has a 2.4 rating, including one four-star award from critic Anke Westphal, and Danis Tanovic’s Death In Sarajevo, which has a 2.1 rating. Both titles have one score yet to be submitted.
Second place remains a three-way tie between Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, Mohamed Ben Attia’s Hedi and Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come.
Screening at Berlin today (Feb 16) are Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero and Michael Grandage’s [link...
Vincent Perez’s Second World War drama Alone In Berlin, starring Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson, clocked up a new low for the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid.
The film amassed a meagre 1.3 rating from seven reviews, with one yet to be submitted.
Still reigning top is Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea, which is the only film to have scored over 3 points.
New additions to the grid are Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent, which has a 2.4 rating, including one four-star award from critic Anke Westphal, and Danis Tanovic’s Death In Sarajevo, which has a 2.1 rating. Both titles have one score yet to be submitted.
Second place remains a three-way tie between Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, Mohamed Ben Attia’s Hedi and Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come.
Screening at Berlin today (Feb 16) are Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero and Michael Grandage’s [link...
- 2/16/2016
- ScreenDaily
WW2 drama with Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson failed to impress Screen’s jury.
Vincent Perez’s Second World War drama Alone In Berlin, starring Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson, clocked up a new low for the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid.
The film amassed a meagre 1.3 rating from seven reviews, with one yet to be submitted.
Still reigning top is Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea, which is the only film to have scored over 3 points.
New additions to the grid are Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent, which has a 2.4 rating, including one four-star award from critic Anke Westphal, and Danis Tanovic’s Death In Sarajevo, which has a 2.1 rating. Both titles have one score yet to be submitted.
Second place remains a three-way tie between Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, Mohamed Ben Attia’s Hedi and Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come.
Screening at Berlin today (Feb 16) are Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero and Michael Grandage’s [link...
Vincent Perez’s Second World War drama Alone In Berlin, starring Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson, clocked up a new low for the 2016 Screen Berlin Jury Grid.
The film amassed a meagre 1.3 rating from seven reviews, with one yet to be submitted.
Still reigning top is Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary Fire At Sea, which is the only film to have scored over 3 points.
New additions to the grid are Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent, which has a 2.4 rating, including one four-star award from critic Anke Westphal, and Danis Tanovic’s Death In Sarajevo, which has a 2.1 rating. Both titles have one score yet to be submitted.
Second place remains a three-way tie between Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, Mohamed Ben Attia’s Hedi and Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come.
Screening at Berlin today (Feb 16) are Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero and Michael Grandage’s [link...
- 2/16/2016
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Producer of Rafi Pitts’ Berlinale Competition title is lining up several new projects.
Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, the German producer of Rafi Pitts’ Berlinale Competition title Soy Nero [pictured], is lining up projects from Israel and Cyprus.
Twenty Twenty’s managing director Thanassis Karathanos told Screen that principal photography on Israeli filmmaker Veronica Kedar’s Family began at locations in the German city of Halle last week.
Although the film’s story is set in Israel, Family will be shot completely in Germany. It marks another collaboration for Karathanos with Mosh Danon’s Inosan Productions after working together on Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s 2009 film Ajami.
Kedar’s second feature had been pitched at the 2014 edition of the Berlinale Co-Production Market where Twenty Twenty’s second project, Christos Georgiou’s Happy Birthday, was also presented to potential co-producers.
A March start is planned for the shooting of Georgiou’s first feature since the 2008 comedy Small Crime and...
Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, the German producer of Rafi Pitts’ Berlinale Competition title Soy Nero [pictured], is lining up projects from Israel and Cyprus.
Twenty Twenty’s managing director Thanassis Karathanos told Screen that principal photography on Israeli filmmaker Veronica Kedar’s Family began at locations in the German city of Halle last week.
Although the film’s story is set in Israel, Family will be shot completely in Germany. It marks another collaboration for Karathanos with Mosh Danon’s Inosan Productions after working together on Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s 2009 film Ajami.
Kedar’s second feature had been pitched at the 2014 edition of the Berlinale Co-Production Market where Twenty Twenty’s second project, Christos Georgiou’s Happy Birthday, was also presented to potential co-producers.
A March start is planned for the shooting of Georgiou’s first feature since the 2008 comedy Small Crime and...
- 2/14/2016
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
The Berlinale's announced that the Competition lineup for its 66th edition (February 11 through 21) is now complete. The titles added today are Anne Zohra Berrached's 24 Weeks, Yang Chao's Crosscurrent, Spike Lee's Chi-Raq, Dominik Moll's News from Planet Mars, Mohamed Ben Attia's Hedi, Lee Tamahori's The Patriarch, Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern's Saint Amour with Gérard Depardieu, Benoît Poelvoorde, Vincent Lacoste and Céline Sallette, and Rafi Pitts's Soy Nero. We're collecting notes on the new additions. » - David Hudson...
- 1/20/2016
- Keyframe
The Berlinale's announced that the Competition lineup for its 66th edition (February 11 through 21) is now complete. The titles added today are Anne Zohra Berrached's 24 Weeks, Yang Chao's Crosscurrent, Spike Lee's Chi-Raq, Dominik Moll's News from Planet Mars, Mohamed Ben Attia's Hedi, Lee Tamahori's The Patriarch, Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern's Saint Amour with Gérard Depardieu, Benoît Poelvoorde, Vincent Lacoste and Céline Sallette, and Rafi Pitts's Soy Nero. We're collecting notes on the new additions. » - David Hudson...
- 1/20/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
New films from Lee Tamahori and Anne Zohra Berrached also added.
The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has completed the line-up of its Competiton programme, of which 18 out of 23 will vye for the Golden and Silver Bears. A total of 19 titles of the films are world premieres.
Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq will receive its international premiere as part of the strand, but will play out of competition.
The film stars Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris and Wesley Snipes, and is a modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.
Germany’s Anne Zohra Berrached, who premiered Two Mothers at the Berlinale’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2013, returns with 24 Weeks (24 Wochen). The film centres on the dilemma faced by a woman who is already six months pregnant when she learns that her unborn child will have Down‘s syndrome as well as a serious heart defect...
The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has completed the line-up of its Competiton programme, of which 18 out of 23 will vye for the Golden and Silver Bears. A total of 19 titles of the films are world premieres.
Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq will receive its international premiere as part of the strand, but will play out of competition.
The film stars Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris and Wesley Snipes, and is a modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.
Germany’s Anne Zohra Berrached, who premiered Two Mothers at the Berlinale’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2013, returns with 24 Weeks (24 Wochen). The film centres on the dilemma faced by a woman who is already six months pregnant when she learns that her unborn child will have Down‘s syndrome as well as a serious heart defect...
- 1/20/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Berlin film festival has finalized its competition lineup, adding final titles that will compete for this year's Gold and Silver Bears. 24 Weeks by Anne Zohra Berrached (Two Mothers) and Yang Chao's Crosscurrent are among the new titles announced on Wednesday. Hedi, the directorial debut of Tunisian filmmaker Mohamed Ben Attia, and Soy Neo, the latest from Iranian director Rafi Pitts, whose last two features, The Hunter and It's Winter both premiered in Berlin, complete the competition lineup. Meanwhile, Spike Lee's Chi-Raq and Lee Tamahori's The Patriarch will get out-of-competition gala screenings in Berlin. Other
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- 1/20/2016
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Of all the upcoming talent in the recent weeks in Mexico at the writers residency "Pueblo Magico", at Flicc, the Latin American Forum for Coproduction and New Talent, in Morelia and at Los Cabos, producer Nicolás Celis ("Heli", "We Are What We Are") stands out on many fronts.
Nico : At 29 years of age, I have worked on 20 to 25 movies. I have learned my craft from the directors I have worked with like Tatiana Huezo and Amat Escalante, to name just two.
I have created my own unique creative process and have learned about financing and distribution as well as production.
Sl: I noticed you work with Sebastian Celis. Who is that?
When our father died, my older brother who was a physicist wanted to do something with me. It was easier for him to go into film than for me to go into physics. We like spending time together. Really he is the perfect partner -- 100% trustworthy: we won't let each other down. We like the the same movies and both work a lot. Working with him brings us very close and we are more attached than ever and more interested in making long term plans. Working with my brother is very interesting. He can work well with the abstract and can understand ideas before they are totally conceived and then put those ideas onto paper. What's beautiful about film is your background is irrelevant.
Sl: What is your approach to producing films?
We always try to budget carefully. We aim to make the films for a reasonable cost which can actually be recouped. With low budgets, you can shoot quickly. We believe now is a very good time to make movies in Mexico. There is a lot of money available here through the various funding schemes, even if there is a lot of competition for that funding. With more and more people coming out of film schools that competition is only going to increase. So we are aggressively looking for private equity as well.
Sl: How did you get into film?
I was never formally schooled in filmmaking. I was rejected twice by Ccc (one of the top film schools in Mexico). In time though by helping to make shorts, I realized that I had skills that directors needed. My first short, "Ver llover" (2006)--I was unit production manager---was directed by Elisa Miller who did study at Ccc. The film went to Cannes and her second short—which I produced – went to Critics Week in Cannes and won the Palme d'Or She has returned to work with me on our upcoming feature "Skin Deep" which is now being presented as a project in development in Los Cabos. I came to realize I did not have to go to film school to be sought after. Directors seek me out now because we enjoy collaboration and they value my ability to work with them.
Sl: What are your most recent and upcoming films?
I have a number of films that are in post production or just completed.
A private screening of the documentary "Tempestad" was held in Morelia just weeks ago in its first edition of Impulso, which is only for works-in-progress. The audience for those screenings is exclusively sales agents, distributors, financiers and festival programmers who want to see films that are currently in post-production. We have big expectations for that film . We are aiming at Berlin or Cannes. This is the second documentary film by Tatiana Huezo whose first doc, “El Lugar Mas Pequeno"/ "The Tiniest Place” (which I also produced) won numerous Best Picture prizes at festivals around the world.
"Soy Negro" now is also in post. It is by Rafi Pitts from Iran and tells a story of migration to the USA from a different point of view with a Mexican touch. It has received support from the French Cnc, funds from Eurimages, Ffa in Germany, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenberg support, and Zdf/ Arte support. The Match Factory will represent the film internationally.
"Desierto" directed by Jonás Cuarón premiered in Toronto where it was acquired from Im Global for the U.S. by Stx, the new China-backed company headed by Robert Simonds and Cathy Schulman. "All of Me", the emotionally touching doc about Las Patronas, premiered in Los Cabos festival last year, won a top prize and was picked up for U.S. by Outsider Films from the new Berlin-based boutique international sales agent for award-winning docs, Rise and Shine.
"Semana Santa" whose international sales agent is Mundial was coproduced with Jim Stark, our new partner. He is the U.S. indie producer of the early Jarmusch films, Icelandic director Fridrik Thor Fridrikson, Bent Hamer and many others.
Sl: How did you join up with Jim Stark? I used to buy his films for the U.S. so I am very interested in what he is doing these days.
Jim was giving a workshop in Morelia four years ago that I attended. Later, he introduced me to Rafi Pitts in Guadalajara. And now he and I are working together on a lot of projects.
Jim makes the same sort of movies we do and is also good at raising money and making international connections. He shoots everywhere and has a couple of projects in Turkey, is still working with Icelanders and even has a project in Africa in Ivory Coast.
We're now working together on a Georgian doc and talking about other coproductions with international co-producers.
We just finished "Semana Santa" together and are finishing Tatania Huezo's new film "Tempestad".
We enjoy the process of working together. We're developing a couple of scripts based on novels we like and on our own ideas. We never know if the film will be a success or failure but we would rather have three years of a good experience working with directors we enjoy on projects we believe in than making "sure hits" or commercial films with directors we don't get along with.
Sl: You've done very well so far.
This is the most important year for us. We have finally established ourselves as an important Mexican production company involved with good directors. There are interesting voices in Mexico. We're now expanding into minority coproductions to do post and at the same time looking at foreign projects at the script stage. It's cheaper to work in Mexico than in Europe and Mexico is ready for coproductions.
It is a way to widen our reach. That's why we're working on Colombian Ciro Guerra's next film. His last film, "Embrace of the Serpent" (Colombia's submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film) is a Colombian-Argentinean-Venezuelan coproduction being sold by Films Boutique, a French-German international sales company. Its U.S. distributor is Oscilloscope. Its French distributor, Diaphana, is a producer as well as a distributor.
Our long range goal is to grow our slate of coproductions. We think it is our best strategy for beating the competition which is quickly escalating here in Mexico.
From our side we can offer all the opportunities we have for financing and the high quality of Mexican services and crew. Also the low costs here mean shooting in Mexico is not a big risk. But having access to international partners and getting additional funding from Norway or Denmark is very prestigious and increases the chances that our films will be seen and appreciated outside of Mexico.
When I can, I like to participate in international workshops, coproduction meetings and even residencies like the new one in Tepoztlan where I met you. I went to an Eave workshop with ten other producers. We still keep in touch, we work together and try to spend some quality time together and when links with these other international producers are strong it increases the likelihood we can collaborate in the future.
Nico : At 29 years of age, I have worked on 20 to 25 movies. I have learned my craft from the directors I have worked with like Tatiana Huezo and Amat Escalante, to name just two.
I have created my own unique creative process and have learned about financing and distribution as well as production.
Sl: I noticed you work with Sebastian Celis. Who is that?
When our father died, my older brother who was a physicist wanted to do something with me. It was easier for him to go into film than for me to go into physics. We like spending time together. Really he is the perfect partner -- 100% trustworthy: we won't let each other down. We like the the same movies and both work a lot. Working with him brings us very close and we are more attached than ever and more interested in making long term plans. Working with my brother is very interesting. He can work well with the abstract and can understand ideas before they are totally conceived and then put those ideas onto paper. What's beautiful about film is your background is irrelevant.
Sl: What is your approach to producing films?
We always try to budget carefully. We aim to make the films for a reasonable cost which can actually be recouped. With low budgets, you can shoot quickly. We believe now is a very good time to make movies in Mexico. There is a lot of money available here through the various funding schemes, even if there is a lot of competition for that funding. With more and more people coming out of film schools that competition is only going to increase. So we are aggressively looking for private equity as well.
Sl: How did you get into film?
I was never formally schooled in filmmaking. I was rejected twice by Ccc (one of the top film schools in Mexico). In time though by helping to make shorts, I realized that I had skills that directors needed. My first short, "Ver llover" (2006)--I was unit production manager---was directed by Elisa Miller who did study at Ccc. The film went to Cannes and her second short—which I produced – went to Critics Week in Cannes and won the Palme d'Or She has returned to work with me on our upcoming feature "Skin Deep" which is now being presented as a project in development in Los Cabos. I came to realize I did not have to go to film school to be sought after. Directors seek me out now because we enjoy collaboration and they value my ability to work with them.
Sl: What are your most recent and upcoming films?
I have a number of films that are in post production or just completed.
A private screening of the documentary "Tempestad" was held in Morelia just weeks ago in its first edition of Impulso, which is only for works-in-progress. The audience for those screenings is exclusively sales agents, distributors, financiers and festival programmers who want to see films that are currently in post-production. We have big expectations for that film . We are aiming at Berlin or Cannes. This is the second documentary film by Tatiana Huezo whose first doc, “El Lugar Mas Pequeno"/ "The Tiniest Place” (which I also produced) won numerous Best Picture prizes at festivals around the world.
"Soy Negro" now is also in post. It is by Rafi Pitts from Iran and tells a story of migration to the USA from a different point of view with a Mexican touch. It has received support from the French Cnc, funds from Eurimages, Ffa in Germany, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenberg support, and Zdf/ Arte support. The Match Factory will represent the film internationally.
"Desierto" directed by Jonás Cuarón premiered in Toronto where it was acquired from Im Global for the U.S. by Stx, the new China-backed company headed by Robert Simonds and Cathy Schulman. "All of Me", the emotionally touching doc about Las Patronas, premiered in Los Cabos festival last year, won a top prize and was picked up for U.S. by Outsider Films from the new Berlin-based boutique international sales agent for award-winning docs, Rise and Shine.
"Semana Santa" whose international sales agent is Mundial was coproduced with Jim Stark, our new partner. He is the U.S. indie producer of the early Jarmusch films, Icelandic director Fridrik Thor Fridrikson, Bent Hamer and many others.
Sl: How did you join up with Jim Stark? I used to buy his films for the U.S. so I am very interested in what he is doing these days.
Jim was giving a workshop in Morelia four years ago that I attended. Later, he introduced me to Rafi Pitts in Guadalajara. And now he and I are working together on a lot of projects.
Jim makes the same sort of movies we do and is also good at raising money and making international connections. He shoots everywhere and has a couple of projects in Turkey, is still working with Icelanders and even has a project in Africa in Ivory Coast.
We're now working together on a Georgian doc and talking about other coproductions with international co-producers.
We just finished "Semana Santa" together and are finishing Tatania Huezo's new film "Tempestad".
We enjoy the process of working together. We're developing a couple of scripts based on novels we like and on our own ideas. We never know if the film will be a success or failure but we would rather have three years of a good experience working with directors we enjoy on projects we believe in than making "sure hits" or commercial films with directors we don't get along with.
Sl: You've done very well so far.
This is the most important year for us. We have finally established ourselves as an important Mexican production company involved with good directors. There are interesting voices in Mexico. We're now expanding into minority coproductions to do post and at the same time looking at foreign projects at the script stage. It's cheaper to work in Mexico than in Europe and Mexico is ready for coproductions.
It is a way to widen our reach. That's why we're working on Colombian Ciro Guerra's next film. His last film, "Embrace of the Serpent" (Colombia's submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film) is a Colombian-Argentinean-Venezuelan coproduction being sold by Films Boutique, a French-German international sales company. Its U.S. distributor is Oscilloscope. Its French distributor, Diaphana, is a producer as well as a distributor.
Our long range goal is to grow our slate of coproductions. We think it is our best strategy for beating the competition which is quickly escalating here in Mexico.
From our side we can offer all the opportunities we have for financing and the high quality of Mexican services and crew. Also the low costs here mean shooting in Mexico is not a big risk. But having access to international partners and getting additional funding from Norway or Denmark is very prestigious and increases the chances that our films will be seen and appreciated outside of Mexico.
When I can, I like to participate in international workshops, coproduction meetings and even residencies like the new one in Tepoztlan where I met you. I went to an Eave workshop with ten other producers. We still keep in touch, we work together and try to spend some quality time together and when links with these other international producers are strong it increases the likelihood we can collaborate in the future.
- 11/15/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
As the I for Iran series has taken the Tiff Lightbox by storm, with several sold out screenings and great press coverage, Sound on Sight has taken a moment to ask some questions on what has brought the series to Toronto and the greater impacts of Iranian cinema are within an increasingly globalized world.
Brad Deane, who is the Senior Manager, Film Programmes at Tiff, and the programmer for the series at Tiff Cinematheque.
Amir Soltani, a Toronto-based film critic and contributor to The Film Experience and Movie Mezzanine, who also writes and co-hosts a podcast about Iranian films at Hello Cinema. Amir Soltani will be introducing Hamoun, Dariush Mehrjui’s incisive, ironic, and finally dreamlike study of middle-class Iranian life, on Saturday, March 28 at 3:45pm.
Check out the rest of the series schedule Here
What has brought the I for Iran series from Fribourg International Film Festival to Toronto?...
Brad Deane, who is the Senior Manager, Film Programmes at Tiff, and the programmer for the series at Tiff Cinematheque.
Amir Soltani, a Toronto-based film critic and contributor to The Film Experience and Movie Mezzanine, who also writes and co-hosts a podcast about Iranian films at Hello Cinema. Amir Soltani will be introducing Hamoun, Dariush Mehrjui’s incisive, ironic, and finally dreamlike study of middle-class Iranian life, on Saturday, March 28 at 3:45pm.
Check out the rest of the series schedule Here
What has brought the I for Iran series from Fribourg International Film Festival to Toronto?...
- 3/20/2015
- by Staff
- SoundOnSight
International co-production and co-production markets around the globe will not be the same now following the news that the internationally respected German producer-distributor Karl Baumgartner has died at the age of 65.
Known affectionately by friends and colleagues alike as ¨Baumi¨, Baumgartner hailed from the South Tyrol, but was ¨ at home¨ in different countries and cultures, working with film-makers on projects located in some of the seemingly most inaccessible or logistically nightmarish parts of the planet.
Hearing him recount the making of Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov’s Luna Papa at one of the countless co-production panels with his tales of the shooting being stopped by floods washing the set away, the outbreak of civil war and being evacuated by the Red Cross floods, one often wondered whether he purposely looked for such challenges.
Not to speak of the challenge of putting such delicate and time-consuming co-production structures together involving tried-and-tested production partners, public funders and broadcasters from across Europe and beyond...
Known affectionately by friends and colleagues alike as ¨Baumi¨, Baumgartner hailed from the South Tyrol, but was ¨ at home¨ in different countries and cultures, working with film-makers on projects located in some of the seemingly most inaccessible or logistically nightmarish parts of the planet.
Hearing him recount the making of Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov’s Luna Papa at one of the countless co-production panels with his tales of the shooting being stopped by floods washing the set away, the outbreak of civil war and being evacuated by the Red Cross floods, one often wondered whether he purposely looked for such challenges.
Not to speak of the challenge of putting such delicate and time-consuming co-production structures together involving tried-and-tested production partners, public funders and broadcasters from across Europe and beyond...
- 3/19/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
In more Berlinale news, two new episodes of House of Cards to be shown on festival closing day.
The award will be presented to Baumgartner after laudatory speeches by Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick and Aki Kaurismäki on Feb 8 before a screening of Kaurismäki’s 1991 film La Vie de Bohème.
In 1982, Baumgartner and Reinhard Brundig founded the distrubution company Pandora Filmverleih in Frankfurt, which became one of the leading players in the world of interational arthouse cinema, discovering such talents as Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurimäki, Sally Potter, Andrei Tarkovsky and Kim Ki Duk.
Pandora’s move into production has seen the company backing films by Emir Kusturica (Underground), Sam Garbarski (Irina Palm), Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre), Sergey Dvorstevoy (Tulpan), Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive), Claire Denis (Bastards), and, most recently, Fatih Akin (The Cut), to mention just a handful.
Apart from Cologne-based Pandora Filmproduktion, Baumgartner is also a partner with Thanassis Karathanos in Pallas Film, which...
The award will be presented to Baumgartner after laudatory speeches by Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick and Aki Kaurismäki on Feb 8 before a screening of Kaurismäki’s 1991 film La Vie de Bohème.
In 1982, Baumgartner and Reinhard Brundig founded the distrubution company Pandora Filmverleih in Frankfurt, which became one of the leading players in the world of interational arthouse cinema, discovering such talents as Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurimäki, Sally Potter, Andrei Tarkovsky and Kim Ki Duk.
Pandora’s move into production has seen the company backing films by Emir Kusturica (Underground), Sam Garbarski (Irina Palm), Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre), Sergey Dvorstevoy (Tulpan), Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive), Claire Denis (Bastards), and, most recently, Fatih Akin (The Cut), to mention just a handful.
Apart from Cologne-based Pandora Filmproduktion, Baumgartner is also a partner with Thanassis Karathanos in Pallas Film, which...
- 1/28/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
In more Berlinale news, two new episodes of House of Cards to be shown on festival closing day.
The award will be presented to Baumgartner after laudatory speeches by Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick and Aki Kaurismäki on Feb 8 before a screening of Kaurismäki’s 1991 film La Vie de Bohème.
In 1982, Baumgartner and Reinhard Brundig founded the distrubution company Pandora Filmverleih in Frankfurt, which became one of the leading players in the world of interational arthouse cinema, discovering such talents as Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurimäki, Sally Potter, Andrei Tarkovsky and Kim Ki Duk.
Pandora’s move into production has seen the company backing films by Emir Kusturica (Underground), Sam Garbarski (Irina Palm), Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre), Sergey Dvorstevoy (Tulpan), Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive), Claire Denis (Bastards), and, most recently, Fatih Akin (The Cut), to mention just a handful.
Apart from Cologne-based Pandora Filmproduktion, Baumgartner is also a partner with Thanassis Karathanos in Pallas Film, which...
The award will be presented to Baumgartner after laudatory speeches by Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick and Aki Kaurismäki on Feb 8 before a screening of Kaurismäki’s 1991 film La Vie de Bohème.
In 1982, Baumgartner and Reinhard Brundig founded the distrubution company Pandora Filmverleih in Frankfurt, which became one of the leading players in the world of interational arthouse cinema, discovering such talents as Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurimäki, Sally Potter, Andrei Tarkovsky and Kim Ki Duk.
Pandora’s move into production has seen the company backing films by Emir Kusturica (Underground), Sam Garbarski (Irina Palm), Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre), Sergey Dvorstevoy (Tulpan), Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive), Claire Denis (Bastards), and, most recently, Fatih Akin (The Cut), to mention just a handful.
Apart from Cologne-based Pandora Filmproduktion, Baumgartner is also a partner with Thanassis Karathanos in Pallas Film, which...
- 1/28/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
New films by Rafi Pitts [pictured], Alexander Sokurov, Benoit Jacquot and Volker Schlöndorff are among 12 projects backed by the German-French “Mini-Traité” Co-production Fund in 2013 with a total of over €3m.
At the fund’s last sitting during the German-French Film Rendez-Vous in Nancy, representatives of Germany’s German Federal Film Board (Ffa) and France’s Cnc decided to award €1.02m to three projects:
British-Iranian director Rafi Pitts’ first Stateside-project Soy Negro, which reunites him with the German co-producer of his last feature The Hunter, Thanassis Karathanos and Ute Ganschow’s Berlin-based Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, and will be produced with Paris’ Senorita Films.Philippe Harel’s adaptation of the 2010 Michel Houellebecq novel La Carte et Le Territoire, a double murder thriller with Lars Eidinger in the lead role, to be produced by Adora Films with Berlin-based Arden Film. andStephane Robélin’s comedy #FLORA63, with Pierre Richard as a 75-year-old who falls head over heels in love with a...
At the fund’s last sitting during the German-French Film Rendez-Vous in Nancy, representatives of Germany’s German Federal Film Board (Ffa) and France’s Cnc decided to award €1.02m to three projects:
British-Iranian director Rafi Pitts’ first Stateside-project Soy Negro, which reunites him with the German co-producer of his last feature The Hunter, Thanassis Karathanos and Ute Ganschow’s Berlin-based Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, and will be produced with Paris’ Senorita Films.Philippe Harel’s adaptation of the 2010 Michel Houellebecq novel La Carte et Le Territoire, a double murder thriller with Lars Eidinger in the lead role, to be produced by Adora Films with Berlin-based Arden Film. andStephane Robélin’s comedy #FLORA63, with Pierre Richard as a 75-year-old who falls head over heels in love with a...
- 12/17/2013
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
As this year’s Moscow International Film Festival readies for launch, Germany’s Media Luna New Films has picked up international distribution rights to a title in competition at the 35th edition.
The Cologne-based sales agent has secured teenage drama The Kids From The Port, the second feature from Spanish director Alberto Morais.
It will see Morais return to Moscow’s main competition, having won the Golden George and the Fipresci International Critics’ Prize at the Russian festival two years ago for his feature debut Las Olas, which also received the Silver George for actor Carlos Álvarez-Nóvia.
Media Luna has also secured the rights to Slovenian director Nejc Gazvoda’s Dual, which will have its world premiere in Karlovy Vary’s East of the West Competition on July 3.
The love story between two young women is Gazvoda’s second feature after his internationally acclaimed debut A Trip.
Media Luna will also have the international premiere of [link...
The Cologne-based sales agent has secured teenage drama The Kids From The Port, the second feature from Spanish director Alberto Morais.
It will see Morais return to Moscow’s main competition, having won the Golden George and the Fipresci International Critics’ Prize at the Russian festival two years ago for his feature debut Las Olas, which also received the Silver George for actor Carlos Álvarez-Nóvia.
Media Luna has also secured the rights to Slovenian director Nejc Gazvoda’s Dual, which will have its world premiere in Karlovy Vary’s East of the West Competition on July 3.
The love story between two young women is Gazvoda’s second feature after his internationally acclaimed debut A Trip.
Media Luna will also have the international premiere of [link...
- 6/19/2013
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Film 2012 is back at last – but too late and not for long; tussling over a title; and when Salles met Senna
Film falls from favour at the Beeb
Jonathan Ross's announcement that he is to host a new, populist film review show on ITV should send shivers down the already frail BBC arts spine. The Beeb's long-running film programme Film 2012 returns this week on Wednesday night, having been off-air for a scandalously long time and missed the year's most important film events, from Cannes, Toronto and Venice, through the summer blockbuster season, to the release of Skyfall. What's the point of that?
The show, hosted by Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh (above), has smartly avoided critical ire in the film community by inviting most of the nation's critics on to the show at some point (myself included). But, whatever one thinks of the programme's odd chemistry, it...
Film falls from favour at the Beeb
Jonathan Ross's announcement that he is to host a new, populist film review show on ITV should send shivers down the already frail BBC arts spine. The Beeb's long-running film programme Film 2012 returns this week on Wednesday night, having been off-air for a scandalously long time and missed the year's most important film events, from Cannes, Toronto and Venice, through the summer blockbuster season, to the release of Skyfall. What's the point of that?
The show, hosted by Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh (above), has smartly avoided critical ire in the film community by inviting most of the nation's critics on to the show at some point (myself included). But, whatever one thinks of the programme's odd chemistry, it...
- 11/11/2012
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Martin David (Willem Dafoe) is a mercenary hired to fly to Tasmania and hunt down the mythical Tasmanian tiger – possibly the last of its kind. Once on location in a remote wilderness, Martin comes to meet the troubled Lucy Armstrong (Frances O’Connor) and her two children. Using the Armstrong household as a base of operations, Martin sets off on regular trips to find the target he has been hired to harvest. However, it soon becomes clear that what awaits Martin in the wilds of Tasmania is the last thing he ever expected – life.
‘The Hunter’ is one of those rare films which gain a strong enough reception to warrant international distribution, yet remain obscure enough to escape most people’s attention. Doing the rounds since autumn last year, Daniel Nettheim’s slow yet haunting adaptation of Julia Leigh’s novel has appeared at various festivals and events.
Martin David (Willem Dafoe) is a mercenary hired to fly to Tasmania and hunt down the mythical Tasmanian tiger – possibly the last of its kind. Once on location in a remote wilderness, Martin comes to meet the troubled Lucy Armstrong (Frances O’Connor) and her two children. Using the Armstrong household as a base of operations, Martin sets off on regular trips to find the target he has been hired to harvest. However, it soon becomes clear that what awaits Martin in the wilds of Tasmania is the last thing he ever expected – life.
‘The Hunter’ is one of those rare films which gain a strong enough reception to warrant international distribution, yet remain obscure enough to escape most people’s attention. Doing the rounds since autumn last year, Daniel Nettheim’s slow yet haunting adaptation of Julia Leigh’s novel has appeared at various festivals and events.
- 6/30/2012
- by Brad Williams
- Obsessed with Film
Berlinale Residency, Berlin International Film Festival’s new international fellowship programme, is inviting six filmmakers with their latest projects to Berlin for four months, beginning in September 2012.
The selected participants can finalize their scripts, and develop production and distribution strategies at the Residency. Mentors will advise participants on developing and revising their scripts. In a “Script to Market” seminar with market experts, the producers and directors will explore the audience potential of their works.
The selected projects will be presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 10-12, 2013) and/or at the Guadalajara Ibero-American Co-production Meeting in March 2013.
Selected projects
Matías Bize, Chile: The Memory of Water
Screenwriters: Matías Bize and Julio Rojas
Producers: Adrian Solar, Ceneca Producciones, Chile, and Nicole Gerhards, NiKo Film, Germany
Born in 1979, this director and screenwriter first attracted international attention in 2003 with his feature film debut, Sábado, una película en tiempo real. In 2005 his drama En la cama,...
The selected participants can finalize their scripts, and develop production and distribution strategies at the Residency. Mentors will advise participants on developing and revising their scripts. In a “Script to Market” seminar with market experts, the producers and directors will explore the audience potential of their works.
The selected projects will be presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 10-12, 2013) and/or at the Guadalajara Ibero-American Co-production Meeting in March 2013.
Selected projects
Matías Bize, Chile: The Memory of Water
Screenwriters: Matías Bize and Julio Rojas
Producers: Adrian Solar, Ceneca Producciones, Chile, and Nicole Gerhards, NiKo Film, Germany
Born in 1979, this director and screenwriter first attracted international attention in 2003 with his feature film debut, Sábado, una película en tiempo real. In 2005 his drama En la cama,...
- 6/12/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
The Berlinale Festival's new international fellowship program, Berlinale Residency, has announced the six filmmakers who have been invited to work on their new projects in Berlin this fall. Berlinale Residency will help these filmmakers prepare their projects with help from mentors who will offer advice for developing and revising their scripts. The selected projects will be presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market and at the Guadalajara Ibero-American Coproduction Meeting in 2013. The six filmmakers and projects are: Matías Bize, Chile: The Memory of Water Rebecca Daly, Ireland: Mammal Samuel Maoz, Israel: As We Live Raya Martin, Philippines: New Spain Rafi Pitts, Iran: Soy Negro Sacha Polak, Netherlands: Luna “I would like to wish all of the Berlinale Residency participants a highly creative time in Berlin,” said Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. “We hope their films will find...
- 6/11/2012
- by Devin Lee Fuller
- Indiewire
To mark the release of Rafi Pitts Collection (out now!), we’ve been given three copies of the box set to give away.
Rafi Pitts is one of the most prominent filmmakers to have emerged from Iranian cinema’s new wave. Having fled the country for Europe with his family in 1981, Pitts was the first exiled filmmaker to have returned to work in Iran, producing films that have won international awards and acclaim. His highly cinematic and authentically observed works tell very human stories against the wider background of contemporary Iranian society. This 3 disc set includes
Disc 1 – Sanam Since her husband’s death, Sanam and her son Issa are exposed to an avalanche of problems, which will change the course of their destiny, forcing them to accept a life they never wanted. Disc 2- It’s Winter
A stranger arrives in town in search of work, whose eye is taken by the beautiful young woman,...
Rafi Pitts is one of the most prominent filmmakers to have emerged from Iranian cinema’s new wave. Having fled the country for Europe with his family in 1981, Pitts was the first exiled filmmaker to have returned to work in Iran, producing films that have won international awards and acclaim. His highly cinematic and authentically observed works tell very human stories against the wider background of contemporary Iranian society. This 3 disc set includes
Disc 1 – Sanam Since her husband’s death, Sanam and her son Issa are exposed to an avalanche of problems, which will change the course of their destiny, forcing them to accept a life they never wanted. Disc 2- It’s Winter
A stranger arrives in town in search of work, whose eye is taken by the beautiful young woman,...
- 5/30/2012
- by Competitons
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
★★★☆☆ Released by Artificial Eye on 28 May, The Rafi Pitts Collection brings together three of the Iranian director's most pivotal films, from the pastoral drama of Sanam (2000) through to the Tehran-based, melancholic revenge movie The Hunter (2010), via his Berlinale hit It's Winter (2006). All three films share a focal interest in the role of men in modern Iran, and whilst Pitts may not quite be in the same league as your Jafar Panahis or Nuri Bilge Ceylan (both key exponents of Islam-centric cinema), he is undoubtedly a fluid storyteller.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 5/22/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 31, 2012
Price: DVD $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Rafi Pitts retreats to the forest in The Hunter.
Iranian writer and director Rafi Pitts stars in his 2010 foreign language thriller The Hunter.
Pitts is Ali, an ex-con who makes the most of his return to a normal life by spending as much time possible with his wife and young daughter. To escape the stress of urban living, he retreats to his favorite pastime: hunting in the secluded forest north of town. After tragedy strikes his family, Ali loses control and randomly kills two police officers. He escapes to the forest, where he is soon arrested by two other officers. But when the three men finds themselves lost in their wooded surroundings, the boundaries between the hunter and the hunted begin to change…
Following its well-received rollout to dozens of international film festivals and theatrical screenings, The Hunter played in U.
Price: DVD $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Rafi Pitts retreats to the forest in The Hunter.
Iranian writer and director Rafi Pitts stars in his 2010 foreign language thriller The Hunter.
Pitts is Ali, an ex-con who makes the most of his return to a normal life by spending as much time possible with his wife and young daughter. To escape the stress of urban living, he retreats to his favorite pastime: hunting in the secluded forest north of town. After tragedy strikes his family, Ali loses control and randomly kills two police officers. He escapes to the forest, where he is soon arrested by two other officers. But when the three men finds themselves lost in their wooded surroundings, the boundaries between the hunter and the hunted begin to change…
Following its well-received rollout to dozens of international film festivals and theatrical screenings, The Hunter played in U.
- 5/18/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
With the Us and Israel insisting that "all options remain open, including military action, if Iran continues with its uranium enrichment program" and Iran snapping back that it'll stage "a reciprocal attack" if provoked, as the AP reports today, a little speed-bump in the Oscar race looks pretty damn trivial. Nonetheless, in today's Observer, Saeed Kamali Dehghan reports that "Masoud Ferasati, an Iranian writer whose views are close to those of the Islamic regime, said [recently on state-run television]: 'The image of our society that A Separation depicts is the dirty picture westerners are wishing for.' Ferasati added that political motivations were behind the many awards for Iranian films in the past two decades, and said an Oscar for A Separation should not be welcomed by Iranians." According to Dehghan, though, many "ordinary Iranians," have indeed welcomed the slew of awards Asghar Farhadi's film has garnered, beginning with the Golden and...
- 2/5/2012
- MUBI
Early in The Hunter, the brooding protagonist (played by writer-director Rafi Pitts, his face clenched like a fist) sets camp in the woods in the outskirts of Tehran, and the still, silent composition switches abruptly from day to night in the instant he takes to cock his rifle. Pitts, a chronicler of coiled despair with a limpid sense of negative space, maintains this terse combination of naturalism and impressionistic distillation as the taciturn character absorbs the injustices and tensions around him. The only job available for an ex-con is night watchman at a car factory, which leaves him with little time to see his wife and daughter. Set in the midst of Iran’s 2009 elections, the film sees the city as a procession of suffocating spaces—tunnels, industrial assembly lines, orphanages with endless rows of abandoned kids, narrow bureaucratic corridors—that can claim loved ones without batting an eye, as...
- 1/9/2012
- MUBI
In The Hunter, which was shot in the months just prior to the contentious Iranian presidential election in 2009 and then premiered at the Berlinale in 2010, writer-director Rafi Pitts plays Ali, a "taciturn graveyard-shift warehouse security guard, recently released from jail for a never-specified crime," as Melissa Anderson puts it in the Voice. "To avenge the deaths of his beloved wife and six-year-old daughter, killed during off-screen protests, Ali takes out two cops sniper-style and flees to a forest in the north. Pitts, who was born in 1967 in Iran and fled the country in 1981 for England, and cinematographer Mohammad Davudi frequently frame Ali in striking long shots: The protagonist is dwarfed by his surroundings, whether the labyrinthine entrance to his apartment building or the steep dirt incline he descends after killing the police officers. The open spaces stifle just as much as the claustrophobic hearing rooms and stairwells do in this season's other absorbing Iranian drama,...
- 1/5/2012
- MUBI
From the moment The Hunter’s colorful, rock-’n’-roll-stoked opening credits fill the screen, it’s clear that writer-director Rafi Pitts is attempting something a little different from the usual restrained Iranian neo-realism. The Hunter is as deliberate as any other Iranian art-film, building its story incident by incident, quietly following an ex-con (played by Pitts) as he learns that his wife has been killed and his daughter has gone missing in the wake of an election protest. But the movie is frequently bathed in halogen glow and deep shadow, at times looking like Taxi Driver as Pitts drives ...
- 1/5/2012
- avclub.com
We've come to expect more than a few things from Iran in recent years, and that goes for its cinema as well (at least the films we actually get to see). The country's most notable movies employ a naturalistic aesthetic, blend fact and fiction, indulge in minimalism and, in that sense, "The Hunter" is a pretty large anomaly. Rafi Pitts's fourth narrative shares genes not with Abbas Kiarostami, but with the nonexistent birth child of Michael Haneke and Nuri Bilge Ceylan -- it's a quiet and patient thriller, complete with an eye for the country's terrain and how its nasty urban dwellings, cold environment, and abominable social/political climate affect its inhabitants. Like the Turkish auteur, there are small moments of truth that touch deeply, and similar to our Austrian grandfather, there are strategic, alarming bursts of violence sprinkled throughout. In short, "The Hunter" is the first must-see of...
- 1/4/2012
- The Playlist
I've only just now caught wind of a one-time-only event that took place in the Port of Tallinn last Thursday, 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero, via Alison Nastasi at Movies.com: "An international collective of directors… contributed their shorts to the single 35mm film anthology that was screened for an audience one time — as part of Estonia's 2011 European Capital of Culture celebration — and then burned to the ground (along with the screen itself). Why, exactly? The project's website describes it as 'flying in the face of the cynicism of marketing, production, business operators, and the moral majority … dedicated to preserving freedom of thought in cinema.'" The roster of participating directors and artists is pretty impressive:
Brian Yuzna (USA), Michael Glawogger (Austria), Aku Louhimies (Finland), Ken Jacobs (USA), Gustav Deutsch (Austria), Tom Tykwer (Germany), Mark Boswell (USA), Malcolm Le Grice (UK), Aki Kaurismäki (Finland), Bruce McClure (UK), Mika Taanila...
Brian Yuzna (USA), Michael Glawogger (Austria), Aku Louhimies (Finland), Ken Jacobs (USA), Gustav Deutsch (Austria), Tom Tykwer (Germany), Mark Boswell (USA), Malcolm Le Grice (UK), Aki Kaurismäki (Finland), Bruce McClure (UK), Mika Taanila...
- 12/27/2011
- MUBI
With The Hunter (2010), director Rafi Pitts continues to spearhead the self-proclaimed ‘Iranian New Wave’ with another masterfully executed poetic-realist work that inhabits the same multifaceted Iran presented in Pitt’s previous feature It’s Winter (2006), albeit with a leaner, harsher approach to character and narrative.
Pitt writes, directs and takes the eponymous role of Ali, an ex-convict whose second chance at peaceful conformity is shattered with the accidental death of his wife in a police shootout with demonstrators. It is undetermined whether the bullet came from police or protester.
With the collected calm of a man with nothing more to lose, Ali takes his rifle, positioning himself on an embankment overlooking the motorway, and fires two precise rounds into the windscreen of a police vehicle - a disconcertingly familiar cultural and political disenchantment that many American film makers have explored in films as wide ranging as Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets...
Pitt writes, directs and takes the eponymous role of Ali, an ex-convict whose second chance at peaceful conformity is shattered with the accidental death of his wife in a police shootout with demonstrators. It is undetermined whether the bullet came from police or protester.
With the collected calm of a man with nothing more to lose, Ali takes his rifle, positioning himself on an embankment overlooking the motorway, and fires two precise rounds into the windscreen of a police vehicle - a disconcertingly familiar cultural and political disenchantment that many American film makers have explored in films as wide ranging as Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets...
- 3/1/2011
- by Daniel Green
- CineVue
After his wife and daughter are accidentally killed in the middle of a gun battle between police and insurgents in Tehran, Ali (Rafi Pitts – starring and directing), frustrated by police ignorance, indifference and bureaucracy, takes up his hunting rifle and kills two policemen on a stretch of highway. He retreats into the woods, where he is pursued by two policeman with very different attitudes towards him and their own powers and responsibilities.
*****
The Hunter begins, continues and ends on an altogether bleak, sombre footing. There are few, if any, moments of levity, very little dialogue and we are presented with scene after scene of grey buildings, sparse apartments and Ali’s dour, grief-riddled face. Pitts’ performance is not without merit, but his demeanor is so depressed, so taciturn, that it becomes nigh on impossible to connect or engage with him as a character. The deaths of his wife and daughter...
*****
The Hunter begins, continues and ends on an altogether bleak, sombre footing. There are few, if any, moments of levity, very little dialogue and we are presented with scene after scene of grey buildings, sparse apartments and Ali’s dour, grief-riddled face. Pitts’ performance is not without merit, but his demeanor is so depressed, so taciturn, that it becomes nigh on impossible to connect or engage with him as a character. The deaths of his wife and daughter...
- 3/1/2011
- by Dave Roper
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Following December's announcement of the first eight titles lined up for the Competition at this year's Berlinale (February 20 through 30), the festival has announced today that the main program is now complete. 22 films in all, 16 competing. We'll get to those in a moment, but first, today's other major Berlinale news: "In support of the convicted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, the Berlin International Film Festival is launching a number of initiatives," including screenings in five of its sections (beginning with Panahi's Offside, for which he won the Silver Bear in 2006, on February 16) and "a panel discussion with Iranian filmmakers and artists on censorship, and the restriction of freedom of opinion and expression in Iran. Iranian director and actor Rafi Pitts (The Hunter, Berlinale Competition 2010) has already confirmed his attendance." See, too, Pitts's "Open Letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." And the "participation of other filmmakers and artists living in exile as well as of...
- 1/18/2011
- MUBI
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