Spellbinding debut feature 'Concussion' opens Frameline 37

Stacie Passon and Rose Troche in San Francisco ©Moira Sullivan

The Frameline 37 opening film "Concussion" filled the Castro Theatre to capacity in San Francisco on June 20. On hand were filmmaker Stacie Passon and producer Rose Troche. Troche had been at the Castro 19 years ago as director of the cult classic "Go Fish", and hoped that the experience would be just as good for Passon. Apparently it was, for Passon whipped out a small digital camera to take pictures for her children of the massive audience seated at the Castro waiting to see her film.

"Concussion"will receive its theatrical release in San Francisco in October so the Frameline screening was a peak preview for San Francisco. (Passon and Troche will be featured in an exclusive radio interview for Movie Magazine International San Franciso in the autumn.) This is a smart film with a provocative and captivating script (Passon),  slick edits (Anthony Cupo), brilliant camera work (David Kruta) and a soundtrack that feels Eastern set to Western instruments (composer Barb Morrison and Micki Kaufman,Tommy Mokas).

The film belongs of course to lead actress Robin Weigert who is a master at subtle facial expressions that tell it all without the need for dialogue. An ensemble cast who are equally convincing in their roles supports her.  Weigert plays Abby, a 42-year-old lesbian mom who is ignored by her partner and who doesn’t seem to have much to do. After an accident in which she is hit in the head with a baseball by her son, she decides to redecorate a loft with the help of Justin (Johnathan Tchaikovsky), a young straight man. He has many skills and later sets her up with 'The Girl' (Emily Kinney) who arranges the referrals of rich young college women who are willing to pay for a 'mature situation' with a high scale escort.  Justin somehow even signs up the married Sam (Maggie Siff)  from Abby's community outside New York. 'The Girl' is in law school and just can't get caught, so negotiations are disguised as discussions about home decoration.

Kate (Julie Fain Lawrence) seems oblivious to the needs of her partner and apparently regards her home, job and even her children as possessions. Weigert revealed that when the film opened in Berlin where it won the Teddy Award in February 2013, that she was asked if the film was making a statement about the bourgeoisie. It may sound like a strange question in the USA but it is perfectly relevant with the middle class setup of "Concussion" that does not bring a state of ‘Being’ in the existentialist sense. 

The film is a collaborative effort between Rose Troche (who won the Berlin Teddy Award in 1994 for "Go Fish") and Stacie Passon who were clearly enraptured with each other and the cast and crew on stage. Troche is a clever producer and director who has skillfully stewarded Passon in making a film of such extraordinary completion that it is mind boggling it is a first.  Passon’s 'Being' clearly shows and everyone who worked on the project admitted that the film gelled under her direction.

The subject of the film will be familiar to heterosexual as well as LGBT spectators, since monogamy and the acquisition of wealth by established couples, with or without children, can spin out of control over time, and the unknown in the outside world becomes more and more appealing. This is an intriguing subject, which the film explores with enough space for spectators to pose their own questions.

Frameline has corporate sponsors to maintain its operations, and AT&T picked up the tab for opening night. "Concussion" as a first feature is eligible for an awarrd of $7.500 from Wells Fargo in one of several competitive categories, including the Audience Award.

Frameline is a festival where there are world premieres but films like "Concussion" debuted at one of the A line festivals – Sundance --the others are Toronto, Berlin, Cannes, San Sebastian and Venice. The San Francisco festival is a public festival with a ready-made audience given the expanse of the LGBT community in the area. Some directors don’t like their films to be regarded as a “gay film” in order to reach the widest possible audience. Those who choose Frameline for their world premiere know it is just the right spot. Filmmaker Monika Treut calls Frameline, "the Cannes of LGBT filmmaking". Add to LGBT -- a 'Q' for 'queer'.

Passon and Troche at Frameline 37 ©Moira Sullivan

Jamie Babbit receives 'Frameline 37 Award'

Jamie Babbit at Frameline 37 

Jamie Babbit was honored with the Frameline 37 Award on June 22 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. It's reassuring to know that there are some well-admired talented writers, directors and actors who continually turn out brilliant work in the LGBT world. When they return to Frameline with their films it is a special event. Jamie Babbit is one of them and we always look forward to her latest creations. She is only in her early 40's but has been working for over two decades.

Babbit first gained early critical attention with her short film “Sleeping Beauties” (1999) about two women who become attracted to each other on a photo shoot. It’s an unusual shoot where Sno Blo, a dead rock star, is being made up by Heather (Sarah Lassez), a mortician from 'Rolling Headstones Funeral Home'. Clea (Clea DuVall), the photographer’s assistant, falls for Heather and wonders if she ever has worked on the living. It was just 13 minutes but an enchanting twist on Sleeping Beauty.



But I'm A Cheerleader (2000)

The next year, Babbit’s first feature “But I’m a Cheerleader" was released. There are two other filmmakers that come to mind who can do to the kitschy set design that Babbit did on this film – Pedro Almodóvar and John Waters. The film is a comedy about a conversion therapy camp where young gays are trained to be straight. Megan (Natasha Lyon), a high school cheerleader is sent to be reformed but falls for Graham (Clea DuVall).

The scary therapy is banned in California. On the same day Babbit won her Frameline award (June 22), the news broke about Alan Chambers, the leader of the largest conversion therapy group "Exodus" who resigned, apologized and admitted he was attracted to men.

When I first interviewed Babbit in Paris in 2000, I could barely pronounce her name or get a grasp on the title of this new film. She proceeded to win the Audience and Graine de Cinéphage (youth prize) awards at Créteil Films de Femmes. On stage she told the audience she was surprised she won since she had been told that the French didn’t have a sense of humor. Clearly the humor in this film and those to follow is international and has attracted a dedicated following. Babbit struck an accord with LGBT spectators from the beginning.



Stuck (2002)

In 2002, we met again in Cologne at Internationales Frauenfilmfestival (International Women’s Film Festival) where Babbit’s black comedy short screened - “Stuck”, about two aging lesbians with a long overdue spat who hit something living on a desert road with their pickup. Producer and partner Andrea Sperling and Babbit attended my lecture on filmmaker Maya Deren at the festival. Deren was about the same age as Babbit (26) when she made her first short film and the avantgarde filmmaker is one of Sperling’s mentors. Ace producer Sperling received the Frameline Award in 2007.



Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007)

We met again at Frameline five years later. I had recommended Babbit's film that screened that year at Frameline - "Itty Bitty Titty Committee"(2007) to a film festival in Sweden. The intelligent and hilarious script by Babbit, Sperling Tina Mabry and Abi Shafran is about the birth of a young woman’s political awareness and her involvement in an extremists group, which was a refreshing sign that the torch of feminist activism had been passed to a younger generation of lesbians.

After the award on June 22 and screening, Babbit and Andrea Sperling, producer of Babbit's latest film "Breaking the Girls" came up on stage with writer Guinevere Turner, one of the most productive actresses and writers in lesbian filmmaking behind several episodes of "The L Word". Multiply that by Rose Troche who was at Frameline Thursday night as producer of the opening film "Concussion" directed by Stacie Passon, and who worked on "Go Fish" with Turner.


Breaking the Girls (2013)

"Breaking the Girls" is a lesbian thriller about a double homicide. Babbit said it was made on a shoestring budget and that Sperling can make a buck stretch a long way. The tint of the film is dark, fitting the noir ambiance of the film, which today is the equivalent of the black and white of the 1950's genre. Babbit threw in some Patricia Highsmith touches - a snail that grossed out Turner but was insistent on keeping in the script.

The story opens with Sarah (Agnes Brukner) who works at a bar and is hit on by the homicidal tipsy hipster Alex (Madeline Zima). Later they return to her condo, break a few glasses make out in a hot tub and attend a party for a Taxidermy conference. As they enter the space there is a stuffed pig on its back, feet up, evoking Hitchcock. Alex falls for Sarah but its complicated since she since she hates her stepfather’s girlfriend Nina (Kate Levering) so much that vengeance gets in the way.

Davenia McFadden as Detective Ross (Breaking the Girls)

The feature has more than a few surprising twists and turns that fuel the plot. Babbit said she appreciated the humor in the audience that Frameline is renowned for during this annual 10-day festival. The slick collaboration of Babbit and Turner on the script includes casting the commanding seasoned veteran Detective Ross - the fabulous Davenia McFadden - who works to solve the homicides. Turner revealed at the Q&A that she is sometimes actor sometimes writer: when she gets sick of people she writes and when she’s lonely she acts. 

In addition to films, Jamie Babbit has directed dozens of TV shows such as "Drop Dead Diva", "United States of Tara", "Ugly Betty", "The Gilmore Girls", and "Emily Owens M.D". You will always find a female character with sharp skills in the centerfold of her films.

Babbit creates believable lesbian characters and scenarios that have endeared her to the public. She is a clever and resourceful filmmaker with a great sense of the bizarre, the comic and real and immediate LGBT issues. She clearly deserves this honor tonight at Frameline.

Aisha Tyler's outrageous stand up intoxicates 'Cobb's Comedy Club'

Aisha Tyler came out on stage of San Francisco’s Cobb’s Comedy Club on June 8 following an hilarious black and white music video from a show in 2009 at the Fillmore where she walks the streets of San Francisco assuming multiple characters. It is a unique portrait of San Francisco by one of its natives. Flanked by an exorbitantly dressed drag queen from the Castro and a Latino gang member from the Mission, she claims her space in the streets of San Francisco and its annals of history. At Cobb’s she claimed her title as one of the most brilliant stand up comedians today.

RATING FOR AISHA TYLER AT COBB'S COMEDY CLUB, SAN FRANCISCO

5

The crowd is there to celebrate Aisha Tyler:part Lana Kane “Archer” fans from the FX animated sitcom television series and part Andrea Marino fans from the first season of“Ghost Whisperer”.

Aisha Tyler, NO ASS AT ALL - MUSIC VIDEO, 2009

Tyler transformed into different personas in an electric and intuitive cascade, a litany of eclectic insights on television, racism, hotels and her husband. What is central to her show is her shrewd perception of how our differences give us our humanity. The talented African American reminds us of Jean-Paul Sartre’s claim that “we are nothing other than what we make ourselves”. Her show also illuminates one of the French philosopher’s central tenets on the human condition by “making us conscious of who we are and that we are solely responsible for our existence”. Tyler takes charge and illuminates how TV does NOT make us feel good and that we should get that. The negative messages from ads are abundant, she extolled: “you’re fat”; you’re a slob – clean your house”. She admonishes us that if we take in those messages it is our responsibility. This is an empowering rant.

The San Francisco native has the experience of growing up in a multicultural environment, after the efforts in the 70’s by Mayor George Moscone to carve up the city into broad based districts, represented by the people who lived there, not just businessmen who represented their own interests. Supervisors got together and hammered out criteria for a harmonious existence in the City. It is because of Moscone’s vision that Harvey Milk got elected. The late Mayor’s legacy is part of the magic of San Francisco and why you can sit in a club in North Beach on a Saturday night and listen to one of its most outspoken artists.

This is the San Francisco Aisha Tyler is born from and she represents this cultivated diversity. “How does that work when you go to the Midwest”, asks Tyler? Things change. Some white people can be patronizing. “On tour, someone came up and said I was so cute, she wanted to bake me a pie”. “Honey I don’t know you that well”, Aishi responded. She described a racially divided town where the white people stare at the black people when things need to be done and take turns asking each other “are you going to do it? until a Mexican comes along who says, “I’ll do it”.

Tyler reveals the intricate layers of multiculturalism in a colorful fashion in her standup and it is clear she is one of the gifted artists that undergoes a phenomenal metamorphosis when speaking to the public, becoming an altered spirit. She can deliver her material full throttle and go ballistic, then slow down, cruise, and smile, in an embodied sense of humor, a humor that genuinely goes home with San Franciscans.

Tyler’s shows are not only successful here but also all across the United States and Canada. Americans are feared in Canada says Tyler, like the Mexicans in California. She admits she hails from "the Great State of Mexico", and then adds, “they’ll get it back again”, alluding to the dark history of California where Mexico and Native American land was cheaply sold or just appropriated by the U.S. Government. Canadians fear that Americans will come and take advantage of their social democratic programs too, like the Mexicans in California, quips Tyler. Then there was someone Canada, clearly in awe, who asked her if she owned a gun.

Not all of Tyler’s show deals with race and diversity; a lot of material is focused on sex, and the battle between the sexes for sex. She is proud to be married for 19 years to a white man, and he often comes up in the show. For example, she boasts that he is good to have in the car when she is stopped by a policeman, who figures if she is with a white man she is "supervised", and waves her on.

One unique part of the show is entitled “mysterious injuries”, that freakishly occur walking though your house, explains Tyler especially when you are older. And she illuminates some of the fears of being 40 + and aging (though she claims throughout the show she is 30). She discusses alcohol (mis) use in a way that sounds like the exploits of drinking gone wrong at an AA meeting. (“I am so wasted and am supposed to be at work at 9, and it’s 9.45”.)

Much of Tyler’s material has to do with how repressed men and women are sexually, noting synthetic drugs like Viagra for sustained sexual prowess into the supernatural realm. As proof, when she is in a hotel room with her husband, they, like others, do things they would never do at home and put a glass up to the wall and compare experiences. After a night in a hotel, the bellboy serves breakfast for her and her husband - glass to the wall - “the Cowboy”.

Aisha Tyler is a powerful woman, clearly in command of herself and confident of her abilities. Although this is her commentary, one can’t help wonder why so much attention is given to men when it comes to sexuality and little to women and herself. It is almost as if by discussing male sexuality, she becomes empowered for having the guts to talk about it.This part of the script calls for more ingenuity. Here her material is a little like comedian Margaret Cho, without all the constant accolades to gay men.

In this show, stereotypes are abundant for the gay population and for the heterosexual population in San Francisco from the Mission, to nearby Marin. Diversity is visible. The warm-up act to her show is a gay Iranian man who comes out asking if the audience thought he was a lesbian because of the way he looked: short hair, casual attire - sweatshirt and sweatpants and clearly at least 100 pounds overweight sporting a “Michelin tire”. He then tells the audience he loves lesbians and asks if any are in the house. During one part of Aisha’s routine he comes out dancing when she mentions that she feels like Jennifer Beales in “Flashdance”.

Aisha Tyler defines herself as she chooses to be. The hope is that by pointing out our diversity with humor we are brought together as humanity. The approach seemed to jell with the audience, who were invited to meet her after the show. Judging by sustained applause and hysteria for over an hour, it was obvious that many felt mirrored by her powerful observations.

Reprinted from San Francisco - Examiner.com

WOW! Very complimentary review of my shows in SF:"Aisha Tyler's outrageous stand up intoxicates" exm.nr/19aTpc7 Off to Seattle next!
— Aisha Tyler (@aishatyler) June 9, 2013

66th Cannes Film Festival – Palme d’Or Winner La Vie d’Adèle

WARNING: No cell phones, no texting, no computers, with young people speaking face to face during the making of the film with real dialogue.NOT Made in the USA.

By Moira Sullivan. 

In an unprecedented decision, the jury for the official competition of the 66th Festival de Cannes, led by President Steven Spielberg, awarded the French-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche and French actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos the Palme d’Or for La Vie d’Adèle – Chapitre 1 & 2 (Blue is the Warmest Color). The prize was shared by all three, which is a confirmation that the onscreen performances were recognized as auteur work. Kechiche has proven himself a master of capturing the joy of youth on film, but equally the lead actresses of the film Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos command the screen with their raw, emotional performances as co-creators in this epic tale of two women in love. Based on a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, the film stood out among the other entries at Cannes primarily because of the creative use of the camera and editing but also the gestalt of these two exceptional actresses in screen space. The majority of film is shown in closeups and the editing aligns these spectacular shots into a cohesive story magnificently.

The story opens on the life of fifteen-year-old high school student Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos). She has a brief but meaningless fling with a classmate ends after a one-night stand, which leaves the boy in tears. Afterward, Adèle realizes she is missing something. By chance, she finds herself attracted to the beautiful Emma (Léa Seydoux), a striking girl in her mid 20’s with dyed blue tinted hair. After a brief encounter on the street where Emma is walking with her girlfriend, Adele later dreams about her. Her literature class is reading about the anticipation of desire from the 18th century novel The Life of Marianne by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, and this only serves to heighten her passion.

Kechiche is excellent in putting this essence on screen and Sedoux and Exarchopolous brilliantly help realize the ambition of the film. The actresses articulate many of the emotions of youth, which to the audience should be painfully familiar. Adèle marches in political rallies for worker rights, better education and gay pride. But her classmates’ comments are cruel when she is seen with Emma, the “tomboy”. Adèle goes to a gay bar, with a friend from school and not long after to a lesbian bar on her own where she meets Emma. An hour into the film Emma and Adèle spend the night. The sex scenes are explicit, passionate and joyful. The close-ups are so microscopic that you can see the tiny hairs on their skin.

Adèle aspires to be a primary school teacher, and Emma is a student at the School of Fine Art (École des Beaux-Arts). As their relationship develops, Adèle becomes an art model for Emma who calls her a muse. However, the differences between the two women become notable when it is time to meet their parents. Emma’s parents are acceptant of Adèle and Emma, but Adèle’s parents are unaware of their daughter’s relationship. The internalized homophobia that both women feel comes across at the dinner table. Furthermore, Adèle cannot introduce Emma to her friends after the bullying she received in school, but Emma has “cultured” art friends who nonetheless ask stupid questions, such as “is this your first time with a woman?”

Emma speaks with a friend at a party, a pregnant woman named Lise, who shares similar interests with her. Soon, she is telling Adèle to get an interest in life other than her. Emma’s world is high art culture, which differs from Adèle’s interests in primary school pedagogics and popular cinema. Emma begins to spend her evenings away discussing Egon Shiele and Gustav Klimt with Lise. And so, Emma and Adèle’s differences, which were the source of attraction, begin to polarize them and they drift apart.

Ellipses in the film time line are frequent during the decline of their relationship. Three years after Emma throws Adèle out of her home, they meet in a café. The sexual attraction is still there but Emma has a family now with Lise and her two kids. She admits she is no longer in love with Adèle. When Emma has her first art show, she invites Adèle. Lise reminds her how her presence is still in Emma’s paintings. The newer canvases in charcoal have a touch of commercialism. One of Emma’s friends claims that she is absent in her gaze in her latest work, perhaps now that Adèle is gone.

As the late French actress Maria Schneider said, “Film is the memory of our time” and to this one can add, the memory of our youth and our loves. Nowhere is that more evident than in La Vie d’Adèle. Echoing these sentiments, the Cannes critics, particularly the French, proved to be in love with the film and its characters. It is the kind of cinema that is appealing to a French audience with a strong frame of reference for literature and cinema, a predilection for good food and parties, and a vested interest in French education. Twelve out of fifteen critics cited in Le Film Français gave Kechiche’s film a Palme d’Or rating symbol.

La Vie d’Adèle is a narrative that compels the spectator to know more. At the press conference on May 23, Kechiche revealed there is enough material for two more films and is willing to put this into more chapters. In fact, he shot a total of 700 hours and cut it down to three. Both Sedoux and Exarchopolous said they are willing to go on with the story, and were surprised that so many  scenes were not in the final cut. It can be understood that further chapters will be assembled if Kechiche decides to do so.

Kechiche underlines that the film is about two people who are attracted to each other , like any other love story, and does not emphasize the implication of the sexual politics in this film. “It’s not good to delve or say anything about homosexuality”, said Kechiche at the press conference. Not only the director but also Sedoux and Exarchopoulos, who are both heterosexual, had little to say on the subject. The fact that gay marriage was hotly debated in France at the time the film was made was something Kechiche decided to avoid in Adéle, despite violent protests in the streets in Paris in April.

Kechiche has proclaimed that a revolution must contain a sexual revolution, so his film nevertheless goes a long way and makes a huge statement. As yet, he has not gone on record that gay marriage is a legitimization of same sex relationships as part of the revolution. Still, Emma and Adèle are two lesbians living in a heterosexual world, a matter the first official press conference at Cannes addressed, and as the film opens itself up to wide screen distribution, it becomes time for Kechiche and the co-creators of La Vie d’Adéle—Sedoux and Exarchopoulos—to take note.

Distributor Wild Bunch informs that the film has already been sold to the US and other countries and that the 179 hour runtime will remain intact. La Vie d’Adéle will be released in France on October 9, 2013.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

Reprinted from Film International, published in the UK.

Udine Far East Film Festival honors Kim Dong-ho

The 15th Udine Far East Film Festival opened on April 19th with a great lineup of films from Southeast Asia. The Udine festival is the largest portal of films from South East Asia in Europe, and many of the films come directly from their premiere in their country or make their international debut at Udine and this year is no exception

This festival has a success formula written all over it, even if it feels the crunch of the economy and has to be frugal. The Autumn edition of the highly regarded Oxford journal Screen wrote about the Udine recipe for success in "Counter programming and the Udine Far East Film Festival". The authors regard the festival as a high quality festival because of how it programs festival films from Asia. The authors maintain that although a film from Asia is presented at an A-list festival such as Berlin, Cannes and Venice, it gets attention primarily because it comes from Asia, not because the film is popular and given critical attention in the country of origin. The article also emphasizes that vendors at A - list festival markets are not as informed about the DVDs or films shown in the Asian market as Udine. Udine's special talent, as noted in "Screen", is selecting members for their program committee specialized in a particular country in South East Asia.

Udine chooses film after the South Korean Busan International Film Festival in October and in the interim before Cannes and Venice through special contacts from their festival committee. This makes it a special niche market for new Asian films. They also have a partnership with Busan and Venice Film Festival regarding these choices. The former head of the Venice Film Festival, Marco Muëller, is a European expert in Chinese literature so the Veneto region of which Udine and Venice became a fertile source for new films from Asia for the European and North American markets.  Many films screened at Udine have not been shown before on the festival web.

The directors often come with their films to Udine and the festival has made directors such as John Woo, Johnny To,Tsui Hark, Takeshi Miike, and Miike Kitano known in Italy.

Screen points out that the Udine audience has become in fact good experts on films from Asia, which has been demonstrated through the DVD / book market at the festival where people can buy books on Asian cinema, and films that have been shown at previous festivals.

At the 65th Cannes (2012), a special "Thai Cinema Night" was arranged for Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, an established actress. There were many programmers and marketers interested in this event. Trailers from Thai films screened at Udine were present. An actress known in Udine, Penpak Sirikul ("It Gets Better" - 2012) was on the panel for the event and as well as director Tom Waller who made – “Mindfulness and Murder” from 2012. Most people who attended the event were not aware of these films, directors and actors, so the Udine portal is confirmed as an important threshold for Europe to see fresh films from Southeast Asia.

This year the European premiere of Ip Man The Final Fight closely follows its theatrical release in Hong Kong on March 28th The setting is in postwar Hong Kong, where the Wing Chun Grandmaster, Ip Man, teacher of Bruce Lee is challenged by rival kung fu styles and must fight one last time.

Anthony Wong Chau-Sang plays Ip Man and the film is directed by Herman Yau who did the first Ip Man, the legend is born.

This year there are also three wold premieres from Japan:

Maruyama, The Middle Schooler by Kudo Kankuro , Angel Home by Tsutsumi Yukihiko, and It's Me, It's Me by Miki Satoshi who guests the festival with super pop idol Kazuya Kamenashi otherwise known at Kame, a 27 year old Dancer, singer, actor, television personality,and radio host

Other highlights this year include A Story Of Yonosuke by Japanese director Okita Shuichi who made the brilliant Woodsman and the Rain (2011)  about a film crew and young director who asks a woodman to stop sawing down trees in order to finish their shoot. The Bullet Vanishes, is a Chinese detective story set in the late nineteenth century directed by Derek Yee with an all-star cast including Lau Ching-wan and Nicholas Tse. There is also the Hong Kong action Cold War by Longman Leung and Sunny Luk, and Lost In Thailand by actor/director Xu Zheng, who holds a box office record for Chinese cinema in mainland China 

 
This year Golden Mulberry for Lifetime Achievement goes to Kim Dong-ho,  the South Korean director of the Busan Film Festival held in South Korea, which is called the "Cannes of the East".

Kim Dong-ho also presents a short film this year that was featured at the Berlin Film Festival about a jury who deliberates about the best films for a festival, a subject close to home.

The Udine festival ends on Saturday April 27th. Long live Udine!

©Reprinted from Movie Magazine International, broadcast April 23, 2013.

Far East Film Festival - Raining in the Mountain

Far East Film Festival - Share

Far East Film Festival - Cold War

Far East Film Festival - Share

Cold War

Film director:

Longman LEUNG

Year:

2012

Running time:

102'

Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine

time 11.25 AM

Far East Film Festival - Share

Far East Film Festival - Share

Far East Film Festival - Share

Far East Film Festival - Share

The Revolution Will Be Twitterized

Established Mainstream Media vs Twitter News Snippets?

"We know from crisis communication research that people typically search for corroborating information before they take a corrective action—their TV tells them there's a tornado brewing and they talk to relatives and neighbors. And now they look at Twitter."  Bill Braniff, Executive Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism.

"I have been following my friend's Facebook who is near the scene and she is updating everyone before it even gets to the news".  Email sent during Boston Marathon.

The way we get our news is changing. Paper newspapers are going digital. Digital subscriptions have forced newsprint to come up with inventive ways to package news. Nothing seems to last for long since it is impossible to compete with the immediacy of digital information. Even reading the entire paper in digital format is time consuming. 

Twitter is becoming the news preference.

Marcus Messner, a communications professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the rash of mainstream media errors [of Boston Marathon bombing news coverage] stemmed at least in part from pressure to compete with fast-flowing social media. 

"If you look at Twitter, the news snippets on the events are a lot more advanced than what you're seeing on websites or even what you're seeing on the air," Messner said. "Twitter, especially, has put a lot more pressure on news organization to get it out fast."

Social media is changing everything, that is the need for quick, cinematic messages that may or may not be accurate, information that can be skimmed in a heartbeat, and forgotten in a nano second. The paradigm shift awaits for the entire work force to adapt to the digital revolution. Standing with your pitchfork in protest as the agrarians did during the industrial revolution will not matter.

The revolution IS digitalized and will continue.

The Boston Marathon Patriot Race

The Boston Marathon is the oldest marathon in the world that began in 1897 as a patriot race. For the 117th race, over 23 thousand  runners from 92 countries were suddenly paralyzed by two young Chechnyan men with homemade bombs and IEDs.  Major gunfights in the neighborhoods of Boston put Watertown on curfew for a day. The two young men were discovered through surveillance cameras and personal digital images.  The race and manhunt was relayed around the world through mediated images. The BBC reported from someone's apartment in Watertown hooked up on Skype. The primitive weapons of two sociopaths contrast strongly with the electronic and digital surveillance. This is definitely symbolic of living in a world of opposites.

Social Media and the Boston Bombings

From Palestine to Boston

The Boston bombings were real. They were also mediated. The entire world was on live feed as the manhunt began and there was enormous support everywhere. This event is symbolic of how we deal with a real event and how far reaching its grasp can become. As much as I am irritated by the power of two corporate social media empires that have enslaved young people and diminished personal contact, this has become part of the world we live in. In Sweden the major papers report EVERY DAY about who twittered what and almost EVERYONE in mass transport is on their EYEPHONE (iPhone) in a PC society. And here I am on Blogger because I want to connect my thoughts to this vortex of mediated images.....
I am a part of it all too.

© 2013 - Moira Sullivan - Publication Date: 04/20/13
CinéFemme Forum

Créteil Films de Femmes Celebrates 35 years

35 th Year Poster by Karine Saporta 

The Créteil International Women’s Film Festival, which was held from March 22 to 31 honored veteran filmmakers and actresses who have attended previous festivals such as Margareta Von Trotta, Suzanne Osten, Mira Nair, Ulrike Ottinger, Agnes Varda, Carmen Maura, Maria Schneider and Anna Karina. 

Jeanne Balifor

The guest of honor this year was Jeanne Balifor, an actress unknown outside of Europe who selects films that are noteworthy for their extraordinary themes.  L´Age d´Ellen (Germany 2009), (The Age of Ellen) by the German director Pira Marais was screened for the occasion on Day 2 about a flight attendant (Jeanne Balifor) who decides to abandon her career after an incident in Africa when a leopard on the landing field is sedated by an animal rights activist.

Youth from the Créteil high schools and university are involved in the festival, documenting the festival on film teams, and the government supports the festival. During the year, the festival creates video workshops for them with selected themes and their films are screened in the Créteil Prefecture.

Nayat Valaud-Belkacem 

The new “Minister of Women”, Nayat Valaud-Belkacem in François Hollandes cabinet, visited the festival on Day 3 and proclaimed how important the Créteil event was. “Even the Lumière Brothers had a sister”, she declared. In the festival catalogue, she was generous in supplying ample statistics defying the myth equality has been reached by women in France: “Five percent of classical concerts are directed by women; 90% of the national dramatic theatres are directed by men; 4% of operas are directed by women, and 13% of the technicians in cultural arena are women. For the world of cinema, it is the same”, wrote Valaud-Belkacem.

Créteil nevertheless devotes itself to “the privileged exhibition of film directors around the world; it has become over time the only professional event on a major international auteur cinema long discriminated against and poorly dispersed”. It is a festival supported by both the Ministry of Culture in France, and the Creteil borough. Director Jackie Buet has been with the festival since 1979.

An invitation to the “L’Étrange” or Strange Film Festival in Paris featured two films by French filmmaker Angélique Bosio.

The first was the world première of a documentary about a virtually unknown French designer– Fifi Chachnil. In Pretty en Rose (Pretty in Pink). Fifi is known for designing fashionable lingerie and attire for women and has worked with filmmakers such as the gay team of Pierre and Gilles. Bosio spend six years making the film which she also successfully crowdfunded in part.

Bosio’s “Llik your Idols” from 2007 was also screened about the Cinema of Transgression movement of the 80’s coined by the American Nick Zedd, films which were inexpensively underground films created for shock value, often having a humorous effect.

On the final evening of the festival was a special event called an ‘avant première’ of Margareta Von Trotta's biopic  “Hannah Arendt”. Barbara Sukorow plays the German American political theorist. Arendt wrote several important books and also covered the trial of Eichmann as a reporter for the New Yorker. She was critical to how the trial was conducted and a large part of Von Trotta’s film treats this. 

The international jury selected Hemel as the best feature film of Créteil festival this year.

Grand prix du Jury Meilleur long métrage fiction
Hemel by Sacha Polak (Netherlands 2012):
The story of a woman who is lost in a series of relationships and whose father soon becomes seriously interested in a new woman, which shakes Hemel’s foundation.

Honorable mention. Mention special. The Mirror Never Lies by Kamila Andini (Indonesia, 2011):
The story of an Indonesian mother Tayung and her 12-year-old daughter Pakis whose husband is missing at sea. The film is set in the Coral Triangle and portrays the lives of the Bajo people today

Public prize for feature film. Prix du Public Meilleur long métrage fiction
Inch’Allah by Anaïs de Barbeau-Lavalette (Canada, 2012)
The story of Chloe, a young Canadian obstetrician working in a makeshift clinic in a Palestinian refugee camp of the West Bank.

Public prize for best documentary. Prix du Public Meilleur long métrage documentaire
Même un oiseau a besoin de son nid (Even a bird needs a nest) by Christine Chansou and Vincent Tritignant-Corneau (France, 2012).
The film about one million Cambodians who have lost their homes to make way for commercial development, which elicited a massive protest led by women.

Best feature, Jury Youth Prize. Prix du jury Graine de Cinéphage
Sac de Farine  (Sack of Flour), Kadija Leclere Tunisia, 2012): the story about a young girl in Belgium whose father one day arrives at her school to take her to live in Morocco. She grows up learning how to sew and knit rather than study math science and art. One day everything changes.

Créteil is clearly up to date, and defies the protocol of rival festivals with its special programming criteria. After 35 years the festival remains a maverick in the arena. 

Annette Funicello was the darling of the original Mouseketeers

April 9, 2013 9:26 AM MST 

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Annette Funicello as "Annette McCloud" is new in town and is invited to a party.

Walt Disney

Annette Funicello was the popular "Mouseketeer" whose career continued with over 20 films and television appearances after her childhood TV roles. Her passing on April 8 was sad news for babyboomers who had grown up with her. Diane Disney Miller posted a personal letter on the Walt Disney Museum blog with a poem written by Byron that she feels could have been written about Annette.

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Walt Disney

What made Funicello so endearing to the public was her wholesome and beautiful good looks, her demeanor, her ability to stand up to her boyfriends in her films, and her perpetual cheer in life. She lived her life almost as the person in her films, sticking up for herself, helping others, making others happy. There were never stories of a different persona behind Annette. She was genuine on screen, as in life.

The original Mouseketeers of the Mickey Mouse Club were only on the air from 1955 to 1960 but their faces are immortal for those who watched the popular TV show. They could all dance and sing and each had a unique personality. One of the best things about the program was that it was educational but the commercials and merchandising that were used to pay for it were not lucrative enough, which was exactly why Disney and ABC could not hammer out a deal and later cancelled it. However, the show did help in part to finance Disneyland.

Annette was the darling of them all. She seemed taller than most of them and was a big sister to the younger ones like, Cubby O'Brien and Karen Pendelton. 

The Mouseketeers continued up through 1997 with new children such as Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears who are big stars now, so it goes to show what Disney magic can do.

In interviews in the 90s's Funicello said her eternal friend was Mickey Mouse. Even if Annette retired from entertainment due to her long illness with MS, her passing yesterday evokes one of the newspaper cartoons at the Walt Disney Museum in San Franciscoshowing Mickey crying when Walt Disney passed away in 1966. This cartoon could just as well apply to Annette as one of Mickey's ardent champions.

Listen to an interview of Annette Funicello starting April 10, 10 pm Pacific time in the Movie Magazine Listening Room, a San Francisco based streaming radio program for 20 seasons nationally. The interview will be on there for a week for national and international audiences.