Archivi categoria: Film (English)

“BAD POEMS” BY GÁBOR REISZ

Article by: Cristina Danini

Translation by: Alice Marchi

As Tamàs (Gábor Reisz) is left by Anna, he doesn’t seem able to accept it. He wanders around Paris and comes back to his hometown Budapest, but he doesn’t want to talk to anybody about it. Life around him goes on, people find jobs, have children and talk about politics, but no one seems to understand him, not for real. His pain is just his, and no one else’s. Tamàs feels trapped in a mute movie where everyone passes him by, as if Anna had taken his life and his happy memories away from him. Tamàs is lost and, maybe, he really did lost himself, like it always happens when the end of a love-story hits us unexpectedly. Continua la lettura di “BAD POEMS” BY GÁBOR REISZ

“HIGH LIFE” BY CLAIRE DENIS

Article by: Chiara Rosaia

Translation by: Luca Bassani

Deconstructing the concept of genre, emptying it of any previous framework, is Claire Denis’s well-established habit. This time, the French filmmaker decided to do so through science fiction, keeping in mind her usual trademark approach.

High Life tells the story of a group of convicts, lifers and death row inmates who choose to spend the rest of their lives in outer space: in exchange for a pardon, they need to take part in an overtly suicidal scientific experiment.

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“THE FIRST MOTION OF THE IMMOVABLE” BY SEBASTIANO D’AYALA VALVA

Article by: Gianluca Tana

Translation by: Daniele Gianolio

A deafening music that dazes the listener while at the same time brings him to a far and remote place, a man who claimed to be guided by the Daevas in the composition of his lyrics and who spent his entire life in a psychiatric hospital, heavily stigmatized by the music scene of his own time. In short, Giacinto Scelsi appears to be a character taken out from the pages of a story by H. P. Lovercraft. The documentary by Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva, a descendant of the composer, succeeds in overcoming this damnation memoriae by portraying a man aware of his own means, a precursor of his time who, as often happens to the great visionaries, is not acknowledged by his contemporaries and thus, disdained. Continua la lettura di “THE FIRST MOTION OF THE IMMOVABLE” BY SEBASTIANO D’AYALA VALVA

“DRIVE ME HOME” BY SIMONE CATANIA

Article by: Tommaso Dufour

Translation by: Gianmarco Caniglia

One man from Caserta and the other from Rome: a few months ago, they did not know each other, but they have more than a few things in common. Marco D’Amore and Vinicio Marchioni are two talented actors with a solid experience. They have common theatrical backgrounds and frequent movie appearances, in addition to being well established among the public of the TV series made by the same director, Stefano Sollima, who “launched” the former with Romanzo Criminale (2008-2010) and the latter with Gomorra (2014 – ongoing). Today they are in Turin to present the first work of a young director, Simone Catania, a producer of documentary films who committed the two actors to a road movie that is touring Italy and Europe. Continua la lettura di “DRIVE ME HOME” BY SIMONE CATANIA

“LA DISPARITION DES LUCIOLES” BY SÉBASTIEN PILOTE

Article by: Fulvio Melito

Translation by: Cinzia Angelini

Sébastien Pilote presents a film that moves between lights and shadows, and socio-economic issues. The key to interpret the film and its characters is to be found precisely in the title, La disparition des lucioles: as communicated by the radio announcer, it seems that the fireflies have become extinct for unclear reasons but, certainly, because of mankind. They are small lights in the dark which transform the disquieting into something romantic, just like the protagonist, who lives in a city afflicted by the lack of work and closed in a generational immobility.

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ITALIANA.CORTI – PROGRAMME 2

Article by: Alessia Durante

Translation by: Laura Facciolo

A red door. An elevator. We are inside. That’s how Anna Franceschini, the director of What Time Is Love, shows us into a weird and forsaken place. We are in Nuremberg, and it soon becomes clear that we are in a building where toys are tested with the purpose of getting the suitability for the European Community. The images follow each other as fixed shots: a dancing panda, a saxophonist reindeer, a plastic tractor, an elephant puppet. They are suffering many tortures, because even objects can be subjected to violence.  Continua la lettura di ITALIANA.CORTI – PROGRAMME 2

“NERVOUS TRANSLATION” BY SHIREEN SENO

Article by: Beatrice Ceravolo

Translation by: Priscilla Valente

Shireen Seno’s second feature-length film is not the common coming of age. The director claims that she had the idea for it in a dream, and the relationship between real and oneiric and between interior and exterior represents the focus of the film. The audience witnesses a fundamental moment in Yael’s life, a shy child who spends her days alone waiting for her mother to come back home or listening to messages on tapes sent by her absent father. The main character’s obsessions, confusion and solitude are reproduced with the awareness of someone who experienced them and did not forget them. Seno told in a Q&A that much of herself has been poured into the character of Yael, both into her personality and into her experience of familiar expatriation. The growing  experience of the character in such a delicate moment of her life may echo something into every one of us.

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“TEMPORADA” BY ANDRÉ NOVAIS OLIVEIRA

Article by: Fabrizio Spagna

Translation by: Emiliana Freiria

What clear shots this film has, and what natural colours, free from the aesthetical and lighting limitations that some works show. Temporada has a carioca soul, thanks to the vitality and the refinement that the viewer can feel and understand from the first images, while walking the boulevards on the hills of Contagem, a southern metropolis in Brasil, a huge and contradictory country.

Continua la lettura di “TEMPORADA” BY ANDRÉ NOVAIS OLIVEIRA

“DEN SKYLDIGE/THE GUILTY” BY GUSTAV MÖLLER

Article by: Annagiulia Zoccarato

Translated by: Cecilia Facchin

Over the past few years, we have been used to see high-quality films coming from Scandinavia, and in particular Denmark. This is also proved by the fact that films such as The Hunt by Thomas Vinterberg and Land of Mine by Martin Zandvliet entered the top five Academy Awards nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. It is important to mention these films, because The Guilty (Den Skyldige in Danish), first work of young Danish director Gustav Möller, is both one of the nominees for the TFF36 contest and Denmark’s choice for the next Academy Awards.

It should be added, as pointed out by producer Lina Flint during the press conference, that “in Scandinavia there’s a generation of filmmakers who grew up with noir and wanted to offer something new to their audiences in order to promote this genre”. Möller belongs to this new wave of brilliantly written and staged noir, thanks to his brilliant and confident first work, that never ceases to impress.

Continua la lettura di “DEN SKYLDIGE/THE GUILTY” BY GUSTAV MÖLLER

“ATLAS” BY DAVID NAWRATH

Article by: Tommaso Dufour

Translation by: Giulia Quercia

Family, interpersonal relationships, forgiveness and violence are just a few of the topics that we can find in David Nawrath’s first feature film. The German director, with the producer Britta Knoller, has presented his film at the TFF36 contest. Walter (Rainer Bock) is the protagonist’s name whom, employed by an entrepreneur colluded with mob, clearing evicted residents’ houses for a living; stoically resisting to trouble and being indifferent to the youngest colleagues’ brutality and aggressiveness, he lives alone, speaks as less as he can and sleeps on the floor of his apartment. Even if it seems like the external events don’t affect him directly, his life is going to change.

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“HOMO BOTANICUS” BY GUILLERMO QUINTERO

Article by: Andrea Bagnasco

Translation by: Cristiana Manni

The botanist Julio Betancur and his assistant Cristian Castro walk through the Colombian jungle collecting and cataloguing numerous plant species.

Continua la lettura di “HOMO BOTANICUS” BY GUILLERMO QUINTERO

“CHI-TOWN” BY NICK BUDABIN

Article by: Lorenzo Radin

Translation by: Letizia Bosello

It’s funny how our concept of “self-realisation” may change. Leaving the suburbs of Chicago, learning a new sport in the streets, becoming the Horizon League’s “player of the year” for two years in a row, being a step away from the NBA and being transferred to one of the major Italian professional teams means being successful. However, someone in the audience disagrees: if a basketball player doesn’t join the NBA, he is a loser.

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“FIRST NIGHT NERVES” BY STANLEY KWAN

Article by: Gianluca Tana

Translation by: Alice Marchi

Director Stanley Kwan doesn’t need introduction. First Night Nerves represents for the director, who grew up during the Second New Wave of the Hong Kong cinema, a chance to come back home after a long absence. Even if many sequences have been filmed in a sound stage, the city plays a marginal yet fundamental role. The director sets the scene of the fictitious play Two Sisters in the Hong Kong city hall, for which a demolition proposal has been recently put forward. The director’s choice is a declaration of love for this building, where he spent a lot of time directing plays or taking part in film festivals. Continua la lettura di “FIRST NIGHT NERVES” BY STANLEY KWAN

“RIDE” BY VALERIO MASTANDREA

Article by: Alessia Durante

Translation by: Maria Elisa Catalano

Probably, only Valerio Mastandrea could title Ride (which means ‘to laugh’ in Italian) a film about pain and mourning: a title which becomes caustic and, as he declared during the press conference, a little paradoxical too. Especially considering that the protagonist Carolina laughs very little in those ninety minutes of darkness and, if not for what the other characters say to her (and to us), we would not see her laughing at all.

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“THE MAN WHO STOLE BANKSY” BY MARCO PROSERPIO

Article by: Laura Barbella

Translation by: Melania Petricola

Bodybuilder, taxi driver, thief and art dealer: Walid called The Beast is the first person that the director Marco Proserpio met after crossing the checkpoint from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Along the way the huge taxi driver told him about how he carried off four tons of cement from the artwork Donkey with the Soldier by Banksy and how he put it up for auction on eBay for 100.000$.

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“ALL THESE SMALL MOMENTS” BY MELISSA B. MILLER

Article by: Cristina Danini

Translation by: Silvia Fontana

Howie (Brendan Meyer) is sixteen years old and he’s at mercy of his life.  His parents want to divorce, or so it seems, and at school a classmate of his brother shows interest in him, but he only has eyes for the beautiful girl he takes the bus with. They have never talked to each other, she is older and he is very clumsy, but when their eyes meet, they both smile. Continua la lettura di “ALL THESE SMALL MOMENTS” BY MELISSA B. MILLER

“BLAZE” BY ETHAN HAWKE

Article by: Maria Cagnazzo

Translation by: Giulia Maiorana

The description of someone’s life through words and musical notes. This is Blaze, a film by Ethan Hawke, presented in the Festa Mobile section at the 36th Torino Film Festival. It is the story of the country singer Blaze Foley, who died at the age of 40 because of his extreme dissoluteness, or for his audacity.

The narration is a constant coming and going between past and present, as a matter of fact it unravels in three different time-frames: Blaze’s life with his muse before success; the singer after Sibyl; friends who talk about him on the radio after his death.

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“UNAS PREGUNTAS” BY KRISTINA KONRAD

Article by: Fulvio Melito

Translation by: Cristiana Manni

In 237’ of pleasant and interesting interviews, Kristina Kondrad’s documentary, Unas preguntas wants to narrate the identity of Uruguayan people, tormented and, at the same time, tired from years of poverty and dictatorial and military governments, as well as its will to live freely. The opportunity to describe what was happening on the streets with a microphone and a camera arrived in 1987. At that time began the first demonstrations, which asked the Government the abrogation of amnesty to those soldiers who during the dictatorship were convicted of many crimes like the torture and kidnap of several people. From these waves of protest came the director’s will of acting as a catalyst of ordinary citizens’ thoughts. She intentionally avoids the names of politicians, writers, distinguished people and with lively curiosity walk through streets, squares and markets, looking for answers for the numerous questions, beginning every interview with: «What is peace for you? ». Peace was the word disputed between the right and the left alliance. It was what politics promised to a tired population, both with the maintenance of impunity law and with its abrogation. In a centrifuge of election propaganda, most people had their own concept of peace and everyone wanted it.

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“ANGELO” BY MARKUS SCHLEINZER

Article by: Annagiulia Zoccarato

Translation by: Daniele Gianolio

“To accept your role in life or to rise up against it?” Angelo, the main character of Markus Schleinzer’s film competing in Torino 36, must answer this rhetorical question.

What is his role in life? Angelo was torn off from his family and land and was sold as a slave in Europe. A countess decided to buy him in order to turn the poor kid into some sort of living educational experiment. Therefore one might say that he was luckier than the average of his fellow slaves. But is it really so? The movie is set at the dawn of the 18th century, when the so-called “white man’s burden” sort of feeling was widely spread across Europe. According to it, the white, acting like a savior, would take upon himself the mission of bringing civilization to those savage and barbaric tribes and to those men who were considered as “godless, unaccustomed to hard work and born to be enslaved”. Angelo receives the upper-class upbringing, focused on music, arts and the Christian religion, and lives the well-fixed life of the nobility. However, he will never be regarded as equal by his own peers. Despite playing an important role at the Viennese court, for his entire life he will have to suffer because of the more or less subtle racism of those around him.

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