IFFI 2024, 17: Exposure, partial and full

Continuing and concluding my experiences of watching films at IFFI 2024, and walking out usually, after 30-40 minutes.

MEETING WITH POL POT France, Cambodia (Kampuchea), Taiwan, Qatar, Turkey 

Three persons credited with the Screenplay, one of them being the author of the book, When the War was over: Cambodia and the, Khmer Rouge Revolution, by Elizabeth Becker, which must have been the basis of the film. Directed by Rithy Panh.

It was nothing like I had expected from the tile and the synopsis. Well into the film, there was only talk-talk and drive-drive, and no Meeting with Pol Pot. Unable to hold on any longer for a glimpse of the Cambodian dictator, I parted company with the auditorium and took a break.

Naturally, no rating.

DRY SEASON Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia Screenwriter and director: Bohdan Slamà

This film was the Closing Film, and used three languages: Czech, Slovak and English.

About two families, one a small farmer and the other a local agri-business overlord, whom the farmer hates. The feelings are mutual. The film became a Romeo and Juliet story about the son of the overlord returning from studying abroad and renewing his love for the daughter of the small farmer. The girl constantly tries to push the boy into a conflict with his father over his unscrupulous methods of exploiting farmers. This happens every few minutes, and I got bored at the repetitive nature of the film, which moved at a snail’s pace. Exit.

MOON Austria Screenplay and direction: Kurdwin Ayub

Another film in which three or more languages are used. Here they are German, English and Arabic.

Set in Jordan, it narrates the tale of a former martial arts practitioner from Austria, Sarah, who is hired to train three sisters of one family in her area of expertise. But the sport does not interest the three girls, so why has she been hired? Indeed, why? The question rebounded and rebounded in my mind as I left the auditorium about 25 minutes into its 92 minutes’ duration. Rating? Not possible.

ALGIERS Algeria, Tunisia, France, Canada Screenplay not credited Directed by Chakib (pronounced Shakib, a Muslim name) Taleb Bendiab.

Using Arabic and French, this was one of the better films screened at the festival, and one which I could sit through till the end. A psychiatrist and a Police Inspector investigate the kidnapping of a young girl. At 92 minutes, it held my attention. Bendiab is one of the writers on the British spy series, Go Dark.

Rating: ** ½

FOTOGENICO France Screenplay not credited Directed by Marcia Romano and Benoît Sabatier

A girl dies in Marseilles. Her father arrives in the city and tries to locate persons she knew or hung out with. In the process, he discovers that she was part of a girl band and had cut a disc with them. He decides to bring the band together, as some kind of tribute to his daughter.

The man and his performance are weird, and the film, though only 94 minutes long, failed to interest me. Rating is out of question.

PUSHER 1996 Restored Classics Denmark Screenplay not credited Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Drugs, drug barons and drug dealers form the thrust of the story. A heroin deal turns sour and the Pusher is indebted to the Balkan drug baron, Milo. This is no restored ‘classic’, from my perspective. A narrow and limited panorama made things dull, although the subject was drug-related. The film had possibilities, but its hazy, jerky, handheld camera and slow narration forced me to leave after I had seen about two-thirds of the film. I will hazard a

Rating:

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s “Gaucho Gaucho” won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Sound at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. By Lucy Spicer The year may be coming to an end, but we’re not resting on our laurels. Even as we gear up to bring film lovers an exciting new slate of projects […]

The post Release Rundown: “Gaucho Gaucho” Among Sundance-Supported Films Reaching Wider Audiences This December first appeared on sundance.org.

After a trio of controversy-courting biographies, Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov will next tackle a more genteel original drama about photography shot and set in France. Described as a “chamber film” and “almost a love story” cast on a more intimate scale, the project will be Serebrennikov’s first-ever French language feature. Following 2022’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” with […]

Pushpa 2-The Rule, Review: You can Push-swag Smuggler Superhero Pa to the brink, but he’ll be back in a blink

Pushpa means flower in Hindi. Our protagonist is not a flower, but a fire. Not any ordinary fire, but as he declares, to his nemesis, Shekhawat, “wild fire.”. This ‘flowery wild fire’ learns the skill of swimming and holding his breath underwater for much longer than the average swimmer, instantaneously, when forced to fetch a cricket ball from the bottom of a pond. Apparently illiterate, or, at best, semi-literate, he lives in the Chittoor district of Telangana, so his natural mother tongue is Telugu. We watched the Hindi version, and the lip sync differs only slightly, thanks to good dubbing. Almost all the credit titles are in Hindi. Pushpa speaks to his wife and a few others, occasionally in Marathi, and masters spoken Japanese while being transported hidden in a container, to Yokohama, Japan, for about 3 weeks. He can also speak Bengali. These are some of the minor skills in which Pushpa has majored. In the pre-credit titles scene (a là James Bond movies) at Yokohama, he shows you that when he is bound by hands and feet, and suspended high above (The Rule?), lifted by a giant crane, you must suspend your cinematic disbelief totally, for what follows is a display of calisthenics that circus performers, with decades of experience and training, would shy away from, but are innate to Pushpa, and greeted with thunderous applause by fans of Allu Arjun, in the auditorium. Pushpa 2-The Rule is for them. Others are not likely to whistle or applaud at such ultra-super-human acts. And that includes some discerning and demanding critics, like me.

Okay, so the hero has the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in the 160s-180s range. He uses that to transport contraband red sandalwood from Telangana to Madras, and onwards to SriLanka. After all, he is President of the Syndicate. This syndicate consists of two types of men: First, the harvesters of the sandalwood, and second, the henchmen and ‘slaves’ of Pushpa. Both will go to any extent to deliver the pricey red sandalwood to foreign shores, where it fetches a price of crores of rupees (one crore equals ten million) per consignment. The route to the port at Rameswaram in Chennai is hundreds of kilometres long, and there are some 100 trucks in the convoy, add to that a bald super-cop named Shekhawat (a Rajasthani surname), with a scar along his pate, who will do anything to stop the Pushpakers from crossing the Telangana state borders. Never mind the fact that Shekhawat is dumb enough to let the crops grow, the trees felled, the wood cut to size, loaded on trucks and well on its way. He believes in catching the smugglers red-handed, and getting media and police glory. Also, never mind the fact that besides doing his duty as a Superintendent of Police (SP), he is not averse to demanding a large share of the spoils in order to let the business prosper, when he is in a bargaining position. Shekhawat was there in Pushpa 1: The Rise, but will not be seen in Pushpa 3-The Rampage.

Writer-director Sukumar could well have named the trilogy Pushpa SWAG, Pushpa SWAGGER and Pushpa-SWAGGIEST (assuming that the flower power runs out of ammo after Part 3), for Pushpa is nothing without the swag. He walks with one shoulder raised, wears a stone dead look, and several metallic accessories around his neck and on his hands, which he jangles time and again to remind you that they are there, and what is Pushpa without the cross-legged, inciting sitting position? It was this posture that led to his sacking as an ordinary day-labourer, carrying wood from one place to another. That he is doing so deliberately is explained in one scene, wherein Pushpa is sitting in an aircraft, thousands of feet abov

Pushpa 2-The Rule, Review: You can Push-swag Smuggler Superhero Pa to the brink, but he’ll be back in a blink

Pushpa means flower in Hindi. Our protagonist is not a flower, but a fire. Not any ordinary fire, but as he declares, to his nemesis, Shekhawat, “wild fire.”. This ‘flowery wild fire’ learns the skill of swimming and holding his breath underwater for much longer than the average swimmer, instantaneously, when forced to fetch a cricket ball from the bottom of a pond. Apparently illiterate, or, at best, semi-literate, he lives in the Chittoor district of Telangana, so his natural mother tongue is Telugu. We watched the Hindi version, and the lip sync differs only slightly, thanks to good dubbing. Almost all the credit titles are in Hindi. Pushpa speaks to his wife and a few others, occasionally in Marathi, and masters spoken Japanese while being transported hidden in a container, to Yokohama, Japan, for about 3 weeks. He can also speak Bengali. These are some of the minor skills in which Pushpa has majored. In the pre-credit titles scene (a là James Bond movies) at Yokohama, he shows you that when he is bound by hands and feet, and suspended high above (The Rule?), lifted by a giant crane, you must suspend your cinematic disbelief totally, for what follows is a display of calisthenics that circus performers, with decades of experience and training, would shy away from, but are innate to Pushpa, and greeted with thunderous applause by fans of Allu Arjun, in the auditorium. Pushpa 2-The Rule is for them. Others are not likely to whistle or applaud at such ultra-super-human acts. And that includes some discerning and demanding critics, like me.

Okay, so the hero has the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in the 160s-180s range. He uses that to transport contraband red sandalwood from Telangana to Madras, and onwards to SriLanka. After all, he is President of the Syndicate. This syndicate consists of two types of men: First, the harvesters of the sandalwood, and second, the henchmen and ‘slaves’ of Pushpa. Both will go to any extent to deliver the pricey red sandalwood to foreign shores, where it fetches a price of crores of rupees (one crore equals ten million) per consignment. The route to the port at Rameswaram in Chennai is hundreds of kilometres long, and there are some 100 trucks in the convoy, add to that a bald super-cop named Shekhawat (a Rajasthani surname), with a scar along his pate, who will do anything to stop the Pushpakers from crossing the Telangana state borders. Never mind the fact that Shekhawat is dumb enough to let the crops grow, the trees felled, the wood cut to size, loaded on trucks and well on its way. He believes in catching the smugglers red-handed, and getting media and police glory. Also, never mind the fact that besides doing his duty as a Superintendent of Police (SP), he is not averse to demanding a large share of the spoils in order to let the business prosper, when he is in a bargaining position. Shekhawat was there in Pushpa 1: The Rise, but will not be seen in Pushpa 3-The Rampage.

Writer-director Sukumar could well have named the trilogy Pushpa SWAG, Pushpa SWAGGER and Pushpa-SWAGGIEST (assuming that the flower power runs out of ammo after Part 3), for Pushpa is nothing without the swag. He walks with one shoulder raised, wears a stone dead look, and several metallic accessories around his neck and on his hands, which he jangles time and again to remind you that they are there, and what is Pushpa without the cross-legged, inciting sitting position? It was this posture that led to his sacking as an ordinary day-labourer, carrying wood from one place to another. That he is doing so deliberately is explained in one scene, wherein Pushpa is sitting in an aircraft, thousands of feet abov

https://www.filmfestivals.com/blog/the_robin_menken_reviews/my_love_affair_with_marriage

“My Love Affair With Marriage”  

Posted by Robin Menken

     Signe Baumane’s multi award-winning “My Love Affair With Marriage” is a exuberant mixed-media feature animation, a musical blend of neuroscience, gender issues and old fashion romance- gone wrong!

      Baumane’s signature style goes back to her earliest shorts in the late 90’s. Her poignant characters are sexy and pulpy-featured and, by 2014, when she made her video Tarzan and her first feature "Rocks In The Pocket”, Baumane adopted a vivid color palette.

      Baumane's "Rocks in my Pockets" was a 100-year history of depression and/ or suicide of women in her family. "My Love Affair With Marriage" is far more upbeat.

      Baumane, who is delightfully funny in person, explained that she made many films about sex because it was so interesting; then she made a film about depression, which she describes as “more interesting than sex”. Then she decided to make a film about a combination of the two- marriage!

       Born in Latvia, Baumane's film contains many satiric notions of life in the era of the Soviet Union: I.e. a repressed Soviet era funeral and a subsequent civil marriage, both culminating in an official choral recording of the State Anthem of the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the drab Soviet women, now dressed in Western ‘Slut-wear’ try to school Zelma in the new cultural norm-transactional sex for riches in the Wild Wild East era of Oligarch kleptocracy.

     A daffy animated, musical Bildungsroman, the film details young Zelma's journey to wholeness.  Zelma (Dagmara Dominczyk) begins as a questioning, spirited girl unable to fit in to the stereotypical behavior of girls in her culture.

     Like a sexy Greek Chorus, the Mythology Sirens (a trio of animated Harpies voiced by the the band Trio Lemonade: Iluta Alsberga, leva Katkovska, Kristine Pastare) comment on Zelma's crazy journey.

      As a young girl in her village on Sakhalin Island, Zelma moons after a herd of cats. (In fact, she becomes a cat when she expresses her rage). A few years later, now a Riga city dweller, she’s dreaming of her Soul Mate.

       Sent to a State school, she is initially shunned by girls and boys alike because she fights for her self respect. Modeling herself on the most popular girl Elita (Erica Schroeder), Zelma begins a devout self transformation, fueled by peer pressure, fairy tales, and the advice of her mother.

     Newly conditioned to not fight, Zelma tries crying to ward off a knife attack while her craven ‘Soul Mate’ fails to come to her defense, when a pack of school boys mug her after school.

     As a young woman, unofficially enrolled in Misogyny U, she learns to get along with men, willingly suppressing her desires, cooking, cleaning and ironing for them, even supporting them in exchange for ‘helpful’ criticism, sexual betrayal, emotional and physical abuse.

     Her first husband Sergei (Cameron Monaghan) is another artist she met in University. After the sudden death of her partying, druggie best friend Darya (Carolyn Baeulmer) shell-shocked Zelma marries Sergei. 

Marge Liiske presents the awards ceremony in Tallinn during PÖFF | Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024.

Marge serves as the Head of Industry at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

After an exciting week of networking, presentations, panel discussions, and meetings, Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event celebrated the most outstanding projects with the award ceremony. 17 awards were handed out to film projects at various stages of scriptwriting, development, or post-production, with an additional two awards recognizing promising producers.

For the first time, the guests have had the opportunity to vote for their favourite projects in each category. The winners of the public favourite award were awarded with 2.000€ worth of Yamdu subscription credit for any annual Yamdu plan or Yamdu add-on (valid thru 31.12.2025).

The European Genre Forum was given to the most promising project receiving a 25,000 euro award by ATM Virtual, consisting of one day rental of an LED stage, preceded by one day of pre-lighting for the production of a selected film.

Winner: The Dark Architect
Director and writer: Risto Tuominen
Producer: Ilkka Matila
Production company: MRP Matila Röhr Productions OY (Finland)
Co-production company: Taska Film (Estonia)

The winner was selected by ATM Virtual representatives, who also decided to give out a special mention award, who receives an option for one day of testing in Virtual Production (stage and service of VP).

Special mention award winner: Vrykolax
Director: Achilleas Gatsopoulos
Writter: Geoff Dupuy-Holder
Producers: Minos Nikolakakis, Vassilis Economou
Production company: APSHALT (Greece)

Public Favourite Award winner: Neighbour
Director and screenwriter: Oskar Lehemaa
Producer: Evelin Penttilä
Production company: Stellar Film (Estonia)

Script Pool Award was given to the most promising project receiving an exclusive opportunity to attend The Write Retreat in Mallorca, presented by Law Firm TGS Baltic.

Winner: Kingpins
Director and writer: Kristians Riekstins
Producer: Alise Rogule
Production company: Mima Films (Latvia)

Jury comment: “We are delighted to attribute the Script Pool Award to Latvian director/-producer duo Kristians Riekstins and Alise Rogule for KINGPINS, recognising an ambitious young team, who are bringing a promising genre project to the market. We are confident the Mallorca Writers Retreat will help them take the script to the next level, to reach its full market potential at home and abroad.“

The winning project was selected by the jury, including Moritz Peters, Director Marketing & Acquisitions at Plaion Pictures GMBH, Fabien Westerhoff, CEO and Partner at Film Constellation and Margrit Stärk, Director Acquisitions & Coproductions Feature Films ZDF.

The Public Favourite Award winner: Read more