Bruno

Sam Goetz, USA

Fiction, 2007, 34'

Derek is a misanthrophic and asthmatic boy. He is a bicycle enthousiast and wants to be strong and willy. He live with his brother Bruno, who embodies the perfect american boy, sportive and healthy, but terribly sensitive and sitcom-loving. Their coexistence is not easy, as it seems Derek is jalous of Bruno's healthy body, and bored by his over-sensitive personality, very easy to influence and somewhat childish.

Even with some lenght, the camera portraits the two brothers and ask the question of the place of each character in this closed world (Trenton, New Jersey), and how different persons can get along, but there is behind the brothership the question of how the body and the mind are linked. Which one makes the other ? Derek, trying to overhelm his asthme with his sportive efforts, while the normal life seems to be out of reach, is he pathetic or strong ? And the brother Bruno, who is the american winner, the very ordinary boy, who has no efforts to do to be a good basket player, but who can cry in front of an ordinary sitcom, and has sentenses about « lisetening to one's heart », what is he really ? None of them really accept what they are, but both are unable to change, despite how hard they try.

The camera gives an large importance to the scenery, an industrial and deserted city, while the secondary characters are only support for the two protagonists, played by two very convicing actors (which I can't say for the others). Far away from all the clichés, two contrasted young men trying to be someone...

Lacreme Napuletane (Napolitane tears)

Francesco Satta, Italy

Fiction, 18'

It's an old story in Italy : the gap between North and South, il nord and il mezogiorno, a topic for jokes and for many comic movies too. A kind of cliché. And cliché is precisely the material of this film, the first short of a former journalist from Bologna. Two men, a businessman from Milan, and a retired man, very demonstrative, from Naple, are in the same train. The secondary characters are ordinary figures of the italian comedy too : the young soldier, the couple of english tourists, the fat lady... Nothing is real in the characters, the illusion is not the goal here.

The film goes so far in the demonstrative show of indifference to illusion that the scenery moving outside the train is made by projection of old postcards of an idyllic and perfect Italy. And when a character takes a taxi, he is in a car, in front of a projection of another postcard, a wink to the old car scenes, but with a still image. All the set in false, unreal, absurd, and the public is delighted to find new inventions, to see the scratches on the postcards... This kitsh universe touches the lights too, with a too colored, overexposed photo.

Nothing's real. But this is not an experimental film. The film is served by a very clever script, with situations and dialogues that obtains a universal laugh of every kind of audience. The actors, in their caricatural roles are very credible and strong, which give a contrepoint to the climate of irreality.

This film recieved a mention from the Press Jury of Clermont Ferrand, but the great succes was for the public : in town, you couldn't mention this film without bringing a smile on the face of any one who had seen it.

I am Bob

Donald Rice, UK

Fiction, 2007, 19'

A moving plan shows us some tabloid covers, and this is our first meeting with Bob Geldof, the rock star famous all over the world for his charity actions. The camera is in Bob Geldof's Limousine. An stupid circonstances leads Bob Geldof to get stranded in a look-alike convention, alone, without money or anything to proove his identity... His only way to pay for a taxi would be to win the look alike contest...

The situation is simple, and the realisator has the subtility not to do too much from it. There are enough situations to create laugh without having to underline it with gags and funy scenes. The humour is in the atmosphere, the roles, the actors, and everything seems very natural, which enforce the laugh.

The actor who embodies Bob indeed has something of an old rockstar, and his physical credibility is onfirmed by his acting. He is the serious character in the film, the one who is in trouble and has to settle it. He is confronted with some locals (as the perfect owner of the motel), and with the look alike... Meeting Saddam Hussein in the bathroom can be surprising when you're no aware of the convention, but the reception hall crowded with Marilyn, John-Paul II, Mickael Jackson, Audrey Hepburn and so is a rare spectacle. And of course, there is another candidate for Bob Geldof...

Will he be able to hear all the comments about himself, and to sing in front of a public that expect someone who look like him, and is more ready to accept a caricature that the real person ?

This is a great film. Great actors, great script, very funny and subtle. It was awarded by the Prix Fernand Reynaud, given to the best comic film of the selection.

See the film : http://www.comedybox.tv/index.aspx?filter=picks&clip=10249

El Castigo (the chatiment)

Isabel Ayguavives, Spain

Fiction, 2006, 17'

A familly. Two boys, their father trying to be autoritive as hit father, their mother, caring and /soumise/. Every evening, the dinner is a ceremony, the father facing the TV, trying to be respected. One evening, the youngest boy doesn't like the dish : liver. « You won't get out from the table before you finish your liver ! ». The chatiment comes, an ordinary one, but this time it is applicated. The childs spend years sitting at the table, his plate of liver in front of him.

From this absurd situation, we have a point of view. This child, to whom nothing happen, who doesn't live, doesn't evolve or change is the witness of all the changes of the familly, forgotten and quiet, assuming his chatiment to the end.

The brother chenges, the mother dies, the father have a new wife with two other girls, the appartement is being remodeled... Years and years of a children life passes, and the liver is hard to end. I was surprised to check the length of the film : som many « story-time » passes, so many events are represented is a very concentrated way. The effetiveness of the narration is absolute. Everything is very fast, but never frustrating : the spectator is catched by the rythme, as a portrait of a time. And both the writing and the work with camera helps to avoid repetitivity of a movie that takes place in a single dinning room.

An Era in shown and, after this movie, you feel like knowing more about a whole generation...

Ronda Nocturna - Edgardo Cozarinski

Ronda Nocturna

Edgardo Cozarinsky, Argentina/France

Fiction, 2005, 81'

Cinematography Javier Miquelez

Editor Matine Bouqin

Sound Rodolphe Risse

Music Carlos Franzetti

With Gonzalo Heredia, Marinana Anghileri, Rafael Ferro

Buenos Aires by night. Victor is wandering, earning his life by selling his body, selling drugs. He is a part of the night life of the city, along with cartoneros, night shopkeepers, a flower seller, and in this Night of the Death, some wandering souls who come to seduce mortals. But the frontier are tigh, and the differents elements of the night can't be split off.

This film reprensent only one night, and during this night there are maybe too many things happening, of different kinds, differents universe : but if the spectator accept to be transported so quickly from one topic to another, and is not disoriented by many short scenes that are not linked by a storytelling aim, but is sensible to the will to show a panorama of Buenos Aires night, he will find many interests in this film. The secondary characters are always well represented, even in a few seconds, from the collegues prostitutes of the protagonist to the policeman protecting him, the bodyguard of an ambassador, or even « the chinese student studying in silence in a café after 2 AM », which is just a part of the set, but does exist by himself... This is a very strong point of the film : everybody looks real, present under our eyes by accident. And these small scenes are well written and directed to be efficient and evocatives. Let's add that many figurants (shop owners, cartoneros eg) are real, paid for their presence.

I'd be less enthousiastic by some longer scenes, with more dialogues, as in the end with a lot of explainations, a lot of words when it is not necessary. These scenes do not really serve the script, and slow down the rythme uselessly...

But the film is rather hold by two decicive points. The main actor, who is handsome without being a model, with a kind of indecision and instability that seems to allow anyting yo happen at any moment. He can danse in the street or play football with kids and after sharing powder with an old woman of the high society with the same ease. He is a kind of perfect witness of this night, light and uncertain but mostly aware of his place in this night. As he is present during the whole film, his rôle is capital and the choice of Gonzalo Heredia (a TV commercial actor) was wise.

The film was shot by night, in real conditions, waiting for the red sign to make a second shot, with real figurants, real cars unaware of their rôle... In these difficult condition, the photo was not easy to succeed, as most part of the light are just city light, even if often sustained by articial cinema lighting. This is an important part of the succes of this film : the movements are very clever, and often surprising and the pictures has a coldness that fit perfectly with the urban night represented. The work of the cinematographer here is brilliant and combined with the main actor gives to the movie a strong personality.

Terminus

Trevor Cawood, Canada

Fiction, 2007, 8'

A man is waiting for his metro. Comes a strange creature, made of granite cylinder (this kind of thing that prevent cars to go in some streets) comes to him, and start a danse. The man doesn't want to danse with it and try to escape. But now, he is cursed : the creature will follow him. Anywhere. Forever. No matter how hard he tries to escape, it will find him. So he has to deal with. Until he sees other people like him : one followed by a creature made of road signs, one followed by a kind of escalator...

The use of a very concrete material for animation prevent from the feeling of « ireality » of 3D creations in a filmed world. And there is something absurd, but not without sense, of these creature made from urban material. Are they double of the people, are they the emissaies of a bored city searching for distractions, or creatures of judgement ?

Distracting and inventive, a film without speeches and theory, but a curious universe with its rules...

Dans la peau (in the skin)

Zoltan Hovath, Swiss/France

Animation, 2007, 11'

The beach's bar is crowded, full of high colored people, tattooed and strong. A girl and a man meet and go to the beach. They are actors, filmed with a neat photo. But when they start their affair on the beach, something happens. Their tatooes get alive, start to move on their skin while they are making love on the beach. The girl has a siren on her chest, while the body of the man is full of agressive tatooes : centaurius, scorpio, taurus... While the bodies encounters so do the tatooes, representants of the untold meeting of soul, and the mythological fight that starts tells us the story of an orgasm.

Showing the orgasm is impossible. Words are weaks, and actors can't let us enter in their mind deep enough. Cinema is impotent for this matter, and realisators have experienced various way to metaphrise it. This film is astonishing by the way it tries to show us more than the bodies. The story of the bodies is common, while the story of the « surface » seems much deeper than this one. The centaurius aims the siren with his arrows, the salamander hug her to death, the tiger swallow her... Shall she fight back or abandon herself ? There is no fear in her innocent eyes, is it a fight or danse ? The actress looks like she feels the presence and the movements of the siren, that embodies her soul, and the pleasure, running on and under her skin.

Technically, the animations were created and incrusted on the actors skin. The result is very convicing, animation seems really projeted on the naked skins, with fluidity and a fusion close to perfection. Both images are /melanging/, and the spectator's eye recieve both stories. Something was shared.

Both animations and real filmed support have a care for precision and esthetic. Lights are imaginatives and some plans surprising. Beyond the very concrete story, and scenes depicted, there is no vulgarity, no shoking scene. Of course this is not an animation for children, but this film is, far away from any ordinary erotism, a real experience of cinema, quite a lesson of animation, of storytelling and of poetry.

Web : http://www.nadasdyfilm.ch/

Das Leichte Leben (Simple life)

Christina Schiewe, Germany

Fiction, 2007, 36'

Nina, 23, is on the lookout for love. Throu her, a portrait of a generation, shown as the product of a liberal education that gave them no references, no values. Noboby near her seems to have any value, either. She dreams of an ordered world, easier to understand.

The crudity of nude scenes tells us something : there is no separation, the body is not a protected area. But the voice off tells us all the untold things, eveything that is better avoided. When she gets pregnant, the comment starts by « when I cas a child, even when I had made a wrong thing, there was never real consequences ». This young girl, disapointed by this liberal education voted only once « for right-wing. My parents were shocked ».

Showing on screen a meaningless and ordinary life is not easy. The actors are well chosen to give an identity to those weak characters.

Shake off

Hans Beenhakker, Germany

Fiction, 2007, 9'

A long 9' plan. Of course, the realisator cheated, but we feel as if we were watching a 9' plan. Impressive, indeed. The character is a danser, who is dansing in an appartement. We first watch him throu the window, and then follow him during his danse. We really follow him, as the danser seems transported from places to places, each movement of camera can reveal a place that was not here before.

The virtuosity of the camera, the skill of the danser and the ingenuosity of the cut that creates this feeling of false continuity, everything is very precisely set up and the result is close to perfection. There is no real pretext for this virtuosity, just the idea of showing us something impressive and it works. But the risk is high to bore the public with a skilled demonstration, « here's what I can do », and the high quality of the 3D doesn't remove the feeling of coldness of many pictures.

Ryba (The fish)

Alexander Kott, Russia

2008, 14'

An isolated house, somewhere in the ice and the snow, in front of an iced lake. A whild lives with his parents. One night, the father goes away... The mother get sick, and one day is taken by an ambulance, leaving the young 10 years old boy alone.

The relation between the boy and his mother is strange, she doesn't really take care of him. For the realisator « I wanted their relation to be null. They don't have bad relations, there is no problem between them. It would be another film. Their relation is a zero ». The boy seems to be a ghost, a spectator of his mother who never watch him, a witness of her pain and her disease.

The scenary of infinite ice is beatifull. Every texture of the wood house is having more and more importance, the shelter which is getting cold too, as all relationshis are disapearing. But the boy, who does not complain, who doesn't seem afraid or surprised, continue his life, without help. Surpisingly, the movie is very funny at some moments, by some childish games, and there is absolutely no pain, sadness in the film. The hero is the boy, and he doesn't really worry. He can take care of himself, maybe better than the adults that crossed his life.

The end really desserve to be seen... the lonely child grab the sthetoscope left by the doctor who took his mother, and start listening the iced lake... until he find a fish, stuck in the ice. After a long moment of digging in the ice, he brings back home a cube of ice with a fish, and stares at it, waiting it to melt... But the fish is awakening...

With a few pictures, this short gives us so many images, without any heavy demonstration of anything. Things are happening, and we are invited to witness it, and to dream about, not to judge.

Mompelaar

Win Reygaert, Marc Roels, Belgium

Fiction, 2007, 21'

Lubbert is a man, somewhat retarded, who lives with his overbearing mother (acted by a man). Unable to speak, he goes to a walk in the flamish countryside. He meets differnts situations, differents people, and get involved in absurds situations. Is he a serial killer, when he arranges some plastic bags in the forest, filled with worms and maybe human rests ? But maybe he is a christic firuge, as after killing a touristic guide (who explains to his group the difference between grass an trees), he is followed by the 12 tourists, until his house.

It is hard to talk about the script, as one of the realisator says himself « We wrote series of scene, without necessary link. If people sees links, it's ok, but there are many ways to understand the film, and many ways not to understand it, and all are good. Actually we didn't think our film would be liked by anyone except us... ». There are links, but where poetry strats and where is stops ?

Even if the production is rather amateur, the result is a very fun and strange film, uncommon and the orginal universe has a real strengh.

This film recieved the Prix Spécial du Jury International.

Llueve (it's raining)

Alex Mendez Giner, Venezuela

Experimental, 2007, 14'

In the montains, a man is running, wounded, and ends his escape uncounscious in front of a house... The three inhabitants, two men and a woman seems occupied by very strange, maybe illegal business, but we're not able to tell exactly of what kind. They take care of the wounded man. Words are rares, and the situation is not clear. Is the woman with one of the two, or with both ? What is this key, held by one of the two, that seems to be the symbol of his power ?

Under a continuous rain, in a beautiful landscape of isolated mountain, what is really happening in front of our eyes ? The rain contributes to create a feeling of wildness and isolation of the people. To be honnest, the scenery is really beautiful, framed perfectly, and the interiors have an impressive softness of lights and clairobscurs...

But what kind of job requires them to get out, and dig in the mud ? A lot of question, and this film does not intend to answer. This is the description of a cursed place, where actions of each are conditioned, in a succession of men arriving here without past or future. In this very understated film, the rôle of the actors is dominant, and they succeed in creating the reality of a logical world, without giving us the keys to understand it.

Despite of the globaly positive judgements, I have to moderate this. The lack of implication of the audience, the lack of comprehension and enjeu doesn't help to really enter in a film, even if its qualities are real.

Meeting Philipp Barker (Clermont Ferrand 2008)

Night Vision

Philim Barker, Canada

Fiction, 2006, 24'

In the office of an analyst, a woman watches a photograph. This is a test, a kind of TAT, and she starts to imagine a story behind this photograph. The story starts... She is a mother, with two children. A sense à catastrophy, something happened that is killing all the fireflies... But their goal is to catch as many fireflies as possible, for an alchemy opération that creates pills that will help an old man to see. The story will be lead in two phases, after coming back to the analyst, the story will start again, as if the wowan is trying to rearrange a story that did not fit. The process of imagination is very realistic, as a mind pussle, piece after piece. Fascination of this very living landscape (a lake in north Canada), but fill only by the product of the woman's imagination.

It's a story of a very strict mother, who looses her children (they fall in a waterfall), but who tries to arrange things, teaching them her alchemy science and treating them as adults. It's the story of initiation, where the vision is not something given, but womething that had to be earned after a lot of efforts. It's about dedication of the youth to a cause, to this old blind man, who is trying to remember the names of the colors.

The cinematography is wonderfull. Large landscapes are shown in low saturated colors, and really seems to come from imagination. I can't remembre the number of breathing scenes, or on the water, or in the cabin during the preparation of the pills... We are transported somewhere else, on another planet, and it's impossible not to be amased by such images.

Philip Barker

[interview soon]

Philip barker's website
(with a direct link to an extract from the very beggining : link)