Gulfs of silence cover the landscape of LA RABIA

We have a showcase on Argentina in our festival this year. Unfortunately I have not actually seen ALL the films in this showcase this year but the ones I have seen are amazing. One example is the film LA RABIA. This is the simple story of small farming families. There is a perceived slight or affront, between neighbors, some sexual infidelities and a little girl who tells too much even without speaking a word.

In fact the thing I liked best about this film was it’s overall use of silence or voiceless ness, the dominant theme of the film. Silences are what define the characters in this world whether it is the mute daughter or the cheating wife; people are expressed by what isn't said. And I think this film with its graphic depiction of animal slaughter is saying more with its silence. The biggest silence of all of course is the lie that we tell ourselves every day.

We are not in control of our lives or our worlds no more than the farmyard pig controls when the butcher's knife comes for him and the more we try to convince ourselves that we control our bodies or our fates, the more we devolve into those primal beasts exerting influence over smaller weaker being whenever and wherever we can. It’s futile to try and escape this vicious food chain and trying to only leads to rage....

LA RABIA (or rage) plays AFI FEST Thursday November 6th at 7:15 and Friday November 7th at 3:30 pm.

Digital Filmmaking and the subjective point of view

Two films at AFI FEST explore the world in unusual and original ways especially in regards to the use of a subjective point of view and image framing which heightens the intensity of a story in most unusual ways.

The films are: AFTERCHOOL from the US directed by Antonio Campos and INVOLUNTARY from Sweden and directed by Ruben Ostlund.

What’s most interesting and most similar about these two films made in the same year but from radically different cultures is this: they both use new media sources to tell their stories. In AFTERSCHOOL, the kids are drawn to You-Tube and pornography online like moths to a flame. Their lives become so enmeshed in the world of video that two characters end up getting their death captured on video camera. In INVOLUNTARY two young girls make themselves the dangerous object of desire by posing and vamping for their web cams. Besides the webcams, this stilted, unprofessional framing is the defining aesthetic of the film. This device carries thought the Swedish film most memorably in claustrophobic scenes capturing the human drama boiling over on a cross-country bus line, and in the film’s opening moment with its distant and unwavering framing heightens a startling small scale terror.

A teenage rites-of-passage drama, AFTERSCHOOL vividly captures the corrosive omnipresence of web video footage for American teens. From violent You Tube-style clips to Internet pornography, our new media is creating a tangled web of confusion for the young people going through puberty. Among them is the skinny, socially awkward sophomore Robert (Ezra Miller), who already has developed a taste for rough porn. As two girls suffer fatal drug overdoses on campus, Robert inadvertently captures the tragedy with his video camera. When his video begins circulating, the atmosphere of paranoia and unease on campus grows, and he becomes increasingly troubled and withdrawn. But AFTERSCHOOL scratches gently at this phenomenon, rather than pushing to excess. Just 24, Campos demonstrates his skill at weaving together a variety of themes and concerns: the alienated angst of voyeurism, the pervasive influence of media violence, and the empowering nature of the web cam

I loved this director’s previous effort BUY IT NOW about the real life attempt of a young girl to sell her virginity on eBay. And this latest effort is winning raves from its recent showcase at the NYFF.


And these raves are also being received from the other film, INVOLUNTARY.

It’s almost summer in Sweden. Throughout the city, people are engaging in minor indiscretions and misbehavior. Leffe likes to show off for his friends and play salacious pranks, especially when he’s drinking. A righteous grade-school teacher doesn’t know where to draw the line: she insists her fellow educators need a bit of instruction. And two young teenage girls who like to party and pose for sexy photos go a few steps too far. Inflected with an edgy, urban realism and dark, laconic wit, INVOLUNTARY offers an astute meditation on the intermingling of humans in our modern world. It's innovative in form, defiantly deeper in tone than a mere series of comic vignettes, and beautifully enacted by its ensemble cast. Director Ruben Ostlund writes about the germ of the idea behind the stories: “I played a computer game. The aim was to build and maintain a city. It was played from a bird’s eye perspective, with humans represented by small dots. One press of the icon resulted in pandemonium amongst the inhabitants. I felt that through the emotional distance, I was able to observe in an interested yet distanced manner, without judging and without any feelings of discomfort.” Ostlund replicates this effect, with astonishing success, with INVOLUNTARY.

It’s this distancing in our modern society that both of these filmmakers are clearly interested in exploring. And they do so in tremendously successful ways with these two cinematic endeavors.

AFI FEST 2008 and the Ripley Rule

Eisner winning cartoonist Alison Bechdel articulated her three rules for a movie to attract her interest thusly:

1. Does it have at least two women in it,
2. Who [at some point] talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man

Her admiration for the film ALIEN led her to name this commandment “The Ripley Rule.” Sadly it seems to become increasingly harder these days to find films, which meet this criterion in mainstream multiplex. Luckily AFI FEST comes to the rescue this year with a few films about genuine and insightful stories involving women.

From Iran there is 3 WOMEN the story of Minou, an expert weaver, who grows so obsessed with repairing a valuable old rug that she barely notices when her daughter disappears. Minou sets off on a quest, through one of Iran's most remote regions, that may both reunite her with her daughter and help her discover herself.

Another film from the middle east, NILOOFAR is about Niloofar, a 12-year-old Iraqi girl, who dreams of reading and writing, but she lives in a village where education is only for boys. Her mother, a well-known midwife, insists that Niloofar become her apprentice. While assisting her mother during a delivery, Niloofar meets a feminist woman who undertakes to educate her in secret. Unfortunately, in exchange of a field of palm trees, Niloofar's father promises her in marriage to an older man once she becomes a woman. Horrified, Niloofar does everything in her power to postpone her first period. Destiny catches up with her, but she continues to hide her womanhood from her community, until one day, the truth is revealed.

And representing the Argentine showcase is LION’S DEN. This film, which swept the Lima festival awards, follows an ill-fated and beautiful woman who, after killing her lover, gives birth to a son in prison. A brave new take on the women-in-prison genre, Trapero's movie explores the themes of redemption and survival.

Finally, kind of stretching the rules a bit is American independent film WENDY AND LUCY by director Kelly Reichart. Wendy is driving with her dog Lucy to Alaska, in hopes of a summer of lucrative work at the fish cannery. When her car breaks down in Oregon, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she faces a series of increasingly dire challenges. The latest from Reichardt (OLD JOY) affirms her status as cinema's poet laureate of the American working class.

Spanish Science Fiction

There seems to be a trend in some contemporary Spanish filmmaking toward unusual genre storytelling these days. Time travel, cloning and apocalyptic fiction are themes in films coming from the nation of Spain this year.

This trend first hit the global stage in January of this year with the premiere of Nacho Vigalondo’s TIMECRIMES at the Sundance film festival. The film won strong praise and the remake rights have already been attached to the mast of genre mutation David Cronengberg.

The Spanish science fiction slant continued later in the year at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival with the premiere of Javier Gutierrez’s BEFORE THE FALL. This film further shatters genre mold by applying a disaster movie backdrop overtop a slasher film, which sounds like a disastrous idea but somehow it works really well. This is due in no small part to the dusty Spanish setting, which infuses everything in the film with golden grit.

And the trend continued in many other films which we have unfortunately not had space for in our festival, but hope to see them pop up in some of the other fantastic genre festivals around the world this year.

It’s unclear what perfect combination of inspiration and innovation has lead to this recent resurgence of Spanish Science Fiction, but we can all be thankful for it. Now all that is left to find a fun name for this funky fresh movement. Maybe Cyberia? Or Barcelonasploiation?

The intimate POV of family documentary

Every year there are a number of fantastic documentaries that deal with personal family issues, from such an intimate perspective they seem like incredibly dramatic home movies. The Sundance FF even had a small section for these types of family dramas a few years ago, yet they don’t break these out this way any more. Probably the most successful of this type of film was Jonathan Colette’s TARNATION which was famously edited on a home computer and became one of the most highly praised documentary films of the decade.

The spectacular epic stories that come out of these modest perspectives seem to ebb and flow over the years, last year there was a relative dearth of these family drama documentaries, with notable exceptions. This year however there has seemed to be an explosion of films being discovered that are either made from within a small family or with such access as to feel internal. And these documentaries all have emotionally expansive impacts even if their scope never extends beyond the small towns they are set-in.

One possible reason for the increased visibility of these types of documentaries might be the success of documentary film festival in the US. These are the types of films which do not have easily marketable appeal but once you get an audience to view them, the have the potential to become word of mouth smash hits. And there are a number of “smaller” documentary festivals in this country, which have really seen tremendous success in the last few years. The top three festivals that come to mind and have been championing these films are Silverdocs in Silver Spring Maryland, Full Frame in Durham North Carolina and True/False in Columbus MO. Drawing from these festival and from other corners of the world, these are some of the amazing family drama documentaries:

INTIMACIES OF SHAKESPEARE AND VICTOR HUGO -- A filmmaker uncovers the true tale of her grandmother Rose Elena's friendship with Jorge, the strange, transsexual and perhaps schizophrenic man who rented a room from her. Could Jorge, Rose Elena's close companion, have been responsible for a string of unsolved murders in Mexico City?

PINDORAMA - THE TRUE STORY OF THE SEVEN DWARVES -- A wandering family of performers—all dwarves, all children of a legendary Brazilian clown—travels the countryside celebrating magic, humanity, happiness and courage. In this award-winning documentary, a team of filmmakers follows this remarkable, enchanting circus as it charms audiences.

PRODIGAL SONS -- This is a family reunion film like no other. It involves two rivals who were once like brothers, and are now like brother and sister and the DNA of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. This film is an unforgettable, moving first-person excursion into family dynamics, identity, gender and the past.

And finally, possibly most strongly to this point, there is:

OF ALL THE THINGS -- In the 1970s, songwriter Dennis Lambert had four songs in the top 100 at once, a feat previously accomplished only by the Beatles. Now retired, and selling real estate, Lambert's discovery of an unlikely cult following—in the Philippines!!—lures him back on tour. This hilarious doc captures every note.

Festival full lineup announced

I spent the last couple of weeks sad and depressed about the films that we could not find space for. But now I'm all about being excited for the films we do have!

So we announced all the films yesterday and I could not be more thrilled.

The films selected this year are more challenging and more original than the types of film we have chosen in the past. One reason it that it has been such a wonderfully original year in filmmaking is that there are many new voices in international cinema using incredibly unique storytelling styles and there are a number of more established anti establishment filmmakers who continue to challenge the very notion and definition of film.

Also we felt like it was time for the festival to evolve a bit. In the past we have always shown incredibly unique and talented fare, but as audiences become more evolved and sophisticated so must we.

We have seen a trend in many smaller film festivals across the country to become increasingly international in their selections which is wonderful but also to showcase rather melodramatic Oscar bait type dramas, in moving away from that type of programming we are trying to reflect the increased sophistication of our audiences and the continued innovation of the global filmmaking community.

I look forward to discussing it more with you here, and I hope to see you all at the festival.

An AFI film at SXSW

It's not unusual to see films by AFI students premiering at other festivals. One film premiering at SXSW in a few weeks is A NECESSARY DEATH. The film sounds intriguing and I'm excited to check it out. The premise is basically that a documentary filmmaker puts out an ad on Craigslist looking for suicidal individuals to follow for his thesis project. What caught my attention is the fact that many scenes in the film's trailer are clearly shot from inside the AFI main building. That exposed brick wall is unmistakable.

Probably my last Brad Pitt post ever

According to numerous blogs, Brad Pitt has influenced Audi to start making a hybrid vehicle. The story goes, Audi was arranging to have a car take him to some Hollywood premiere and he requested a hybrid vehicle. Audi doesn't make an Audi vehicle currently, but supposedly they are going to start now. Thanks Brad Pitt!

Also let me take this opportunity to thank Audi for sponsoring the premiere Los Angeles film festival, AFI FEST. It takes vision and courage to support the arts so strongly in America today.

Repo Man Sequel

This one is a no brainer for me. I'm a huge comics fan. I'm a huge Alex Cox fan (isn't that picture of him hilarious?) I got the unbelievable opportunity to meet him at the festival last year when we screened his latest film. I even got to do the introduction in the theatre! So here is the big weird news, Cox has written a sequel to his beloved early film REPO MAN and is publishing it in comics form. There's only a little sample online, and it looks weird and brilliant like everything he does is.

Additional good news this month is that Criterion is releasing a DVD of his long unavailable film WALKER. If you have not seen this I highly recommend it. It is one of my absolute favorites along with STRAIGHT TO HELL.

AFI FEST and Boing Boing

Basically this is a collection of some older news but I wanted to collect this someplace. In the lead up to AFI FEST last year, the best website in the world Boingboing.net mentioned a couple of things indirectly related to the festival. First, they blogged about a Sigur Ros documentary we were showing at the festival here. Next they also blogged about THE COUNTERFEITERS, and described it as a Prisoner's Dilemma film which I loved. And then the icing on the cake was the fact that two members of the Boing Boing group actually attended the festival, presenting at the DigiFest about boingboing tv. I actually found time to run down to their presentation and catch most of it, it was a delight! Very fun watching Xeni and Mark talk about plushies in the Digital Content Lab!

Congrats to Josh Raskin

Oscar noms today and as usual a bunch of AFI FEST films got nominated. I'm especially happy for the animated short I MET THE WALRUS by Josh Raskin. The short section is the most competitive and receiving recognition there is quite spectacular. Also I MET THE WALRUS won an award (pdf link) at our fest this last November. Congratulations Josh!

An oldie but a goodie

This essay is about the 2006 AFI FEST but I only just was shown it today. I want to give it a quick link because it says lots of things about AFI FEST that I agree with and the writer has a strong point of view. Unfortunately I don't hear these opinions about film being expressed enough. It's an original piece, tell me what you think.

link

Dark Horizons

The last post mentioned the Korean film THE HOST, which I was delighted we got to show at AFI FEST in 2006. It reminded me that back then I wrote this essay about our then newborn Dark Horizons section of the festival. I still like the final note of this piece as it helps me define a programming section that might otherwise be more indiscernible.

SECRET SUNSHINE is a masterpiece

I finally got a chance to see this film at LACMA this past weekend. I don't want to say too much about what happens in this film because the surprises this story holds give it most of its power. But this is one of the most amazing films I have seen all year.

I'm always quite disappointed if a film comes through AFI FEST without me having seen it. Usually so disappointed that I end up never seeing the film out of spite. I'm glad I decided to let that go and see SECRET SUNSHINE. AFI FEST has a strong history of showcasing amazing Korean films. This film will never have the mainstream success of a JSA or HOST or even a D-WARS (just kidding!)

This might be one of the most profound and brilliant films to come from any corner of the cinematic world in a long time. As an ardent and enthusiastic atheist I love the existentialist message of this film. It is articulated in such a purely cinematic way, showcasing the grammar of cinema brilliantly. From the director's statements I've heard, this is clearly his intention. The entire film is so grounded in the physical world and the base nature of objects in space that the ethereal nature of religion and misguided faith is painted as inconsequntial. Love it.

But that's what I got out of it, what did you think?

Jennifer Reeves at AFI FEST

Alright, one more picture of me introducing someone then I promise I'll lay off for a while. This is the world renowned experimental filmmaker Jennifer Reeves and myself at AFI FEST. I was first exposed to this amazing artist years ago at Boulder and have been following her stellar work ever since. Having her at our festival was literally a dream come true for me this year and made all the other crap worth it. Plus, she is also incredibly sweet in person, it's amazing to meet someone you idolize and have them turn out to be so nice. Anyway if you ever have a chance to see her work do not miss it and if you want to read what I wrote about her for the fest there is stuff here and here.

Me and Ellen Page!

It's very cool that the guys from THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS put up this picture of me and Ellen introducing the film at AFI FEST. Also I'm pretty fucking cool. Just look how cool I am.

On sex on film

If you google my name and the word "sex" this is the first link you will get. I'm not really sure what this site Fest 21 is all about but if you guys want some more content from me I'm happy to help! Basically they pulled the article I wrote about sexuality and erotica in films from AFI FEST and re-published it. I'm not complaining, I love the exposure and I'm quite happy with this little essay.

Scott Foundas vs. my old boss

These two old LA Weekly articles about former AFI FEST director Nancy Collet are interesting to pair together. In this one, Scott is basically kicking Nancy while she is down IMHO. There's not much news in the story, just kind of a announcement with a hint of Schadenfreude. Then this wonderful article came out right before the fest this year. I love Scott's praise of some truly splendid films but the guy just can't resist getting in more digs at Nancy! He goes from kicking her while she's down to dancing on her grave!

I'm a reviewer!

Some how I got my write up credited as a "review" for Adam Rifkin's LOOK. Fine with me, an interesting google hit for HLK. I got lots more hits after the festival this year, I'm finally starting to pull ahead of my dear old dad.

link