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...

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/