Archive for the ‘Georgia’ Category
February 10, 2010
It may be true that all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun, but children have been an integral element since the Lumieres photographed a baby’s luncheon in 1895. Berlin’s Generations sidebar continues the tradition with over 50 features and shorts for and about those unknowable little buggers we like to call “the kids.” In the final installment of our preview, their stories range from life on the Georgia streets to South Korean orphanages to Michael Cera’s overactive imagination. Click on the titles to watch trailers.
Read the first part of our Berlin: Generations preview.
Read the second part of our Berlin: Generations preview.
Susa
Susa is a 12-year-old whose job delivering bootleg vodka takes him to some of the grimier corners of Georgia. He’s threatened by the police on one side and street gangs on the other. This grim existence is alleviated only by the promise that Susa’s father will one day return. Rusudan Pirveli’s feature debut also screened in the Bright Future sidebar at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival.
Te extraño (I Miss You)
Director Fabian Hofman’s film is set among Argentine exiles living in Mexico. The teenager Javier is haunted by the memory of his older brother, who was killed by the military junta. Everybody wants to Javier to be the leader Adrian was. But all Javier wants is to be himself—whoever that is.
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Tags:A Brand New Life, Berlin Film Festival, C.D. Payne, Fabian Hofman, Hippolyte Girardot, Hors la vie, I Miss You, Kim Sae-ron, Koji Masunari, Michael Cera Portia Doubleday, Nobuhiro Suwa, Ounie Lecomte, OVA, Peter Karena, Rotterdam Film Festival, Rusudan Pirveli, Susa, Te extraño, The Well, This Way of Life, Thomas Burstyn, Uchu Show e Yokoso, Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni, Vihir, Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW, Yeo-haeng-ja, Youth in Revolt, Yuki & Nina
Posted in 2010, Argentina, Festivals, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea | Leave a Comment »
January 22, 2010
The Rotterdam International Film Festival introduced the VPRO Tiger Awards in 1995. Each year, three prizes are awarded to filmmakers for their first or second film. Winners have included Lou Ye (Suzhong River) and Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy). In contention this year are a host of deadly serious films, tackling family relationships, leave-taking of many stripes and that old stand-by sex … often in the raw and ragged manner of contemporary cinema. The contenders also comprise a tour of emerging cinemas from Costa Rica to Georgia.
Agua fría de mar (Cold water of the Sea)
The pitch: A couple looking to sell their property on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast meet a seven-year-old stray.
Their lives are changed forever? Well, the tot certainly throws emotions and class boundaries into sharp relief in Paz Fabrega’s debut feature.
Alamar (To the Sea)
The pitch: A young man goes on a fishing trip with his father in the Caribbean’s Chinchorro reef.
Lots of booze and marlin to be had? It’s certainly an exercise in male bonding. Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s documentary approach to his story means the egrets get as much attention as the relationships.
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Tags:Agua fría de mar, Alamar, Animal Factory, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Autumn Adagio, Away from Her, Ben Russell, Betelnut, C’est déja l'été, Charlotte Lay Kuen Lim, Cold water of the Sea, Fuwaku No Adagio, Guangban, Inoue Tsuki, It's Summer Again, Johan Philip Asbaek, Kenji Mizuhashi, Kissing in Public, La vie au Ranch, Les signes vitaux, Let Each One Go Where He May, Levan Koguashvili, Lifadiande nüer, Mama, Martijn Maria Smits, Michael Noer, Miyoko, Miyoko Asagaya kibun, Mundane History, My Daughter, Nikolay Renard, Paz Fabrega, Püha Tõnu kiusamine, Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, Quchis dgeebi, R, Rei Shibakusa, Rotterdam Film Festival, Shinichi Abe, Shinsaku Fukuda, Sophie Deraspe, Sophie Letourneur, Street Days, Sun Spots, The Temptation of St. Tony, The Woman Who is Beating the Earth, To the Sea, Tobias Lindholm, Veiko Ounpuu, Vital Signs, Yang Heng, Yelena Renard
Posted in Canada, China, Costa Rica, Estonia, France, Georgia, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand | Leave a Comment »
January 20, 2010
The second half of the Bright Futures slate at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival is dominated by homecomings. Documentary filmmakers go back to their roots to perform their investigations into history both personal and political. Sometimes it’s the dislocation which throws the contradictions of society into sharp relief. With all this brow-furrowing going on, it’s a relief to find some old stand-bys like the British comedy of embarrassment and a coming-of-age-among-the-tulips tale. The IRFF runs between January 27 and February 7. Oxygen tents will be available after the screening of The Sentimental Engine Slayer.
Mijn Enschede
The pitch: In 2000, the Dutch city of Enschede was ripped apart by a deadly fireworks factory explosion. Native filmmaker Astrid Bussink revisits the scene.
There’s still some fallout? It’s a personal journey of sorts. Bussink left the city the day the factory blew up. Since then she’s won awards for short documentaries like The Angelmakers and brought her first feature, The Lost Colony, to Rotterdam in 2008. Living within spitting distance of the memorial, the film filters the question of who’s to blame through her efforts at understanding.
Nuit Bleue
The pitch: Another story of return. Corsica is seen through the eyes of a homecoming expat, which reveal its patriarchal social structure and beautiful landscape.
I’ll book my vacation soon. It’s not all Lonely Planet eye-candy. Artist Ange Leccia has branched out into film to experiment with sound. There’s no dialogue anywhere in the film.
Immersive! The notes, however, do promise Serge Gainsbourg’s “Ne dis rien” on the soundtrack.
That’s funny. In the Bright Futures sidebar, you take your laughs where you can find them.
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Tags:A Summer Family, Andrea Seligmann Silva, Ange Leccia, Astrid Bussink, At the Drive-In, Black Book, Georgia, Halina Reijn, Hsu Ronin, Iwana Masaki, Jaap van Heusden, Jeremy Isaacs, Mark de Cloe, Mijn Enschede, Nick Whitfield, Nuit Bleue, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Orhan Pamuk, Oscar van Rompay, Renny Harlin, Rotterdam Film Festival, Rusudan Pirveli, Separations, Shocking Blue, Skeletons, Street Days, Susa, Tales from Kars, The Angelmakers, The Annunciation, The Lost Colony, The Mars Volta, The Sentimental Engine Slayer, Win/Win
Posted in Brazil, China, Festivals, France, Georgia, The Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom | 2 Comments »