“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” Samuel Beckett
In Potenza, during the night of the winter solstice – the longest night of the year – a woman is dissatisfied with her job, three boys are trying to escape adulthood, a corrupt politician is attempting to achieve some sort of salvation, and the heart of a young boy gets broken. These are the stories that Simone Aleandri’s film, out of competition at the Turin Film Festival, weaves together; stories of characters in crisis, unstable, different stories that converge, however, in the same place: a gas station, the place where the film begins.
Los plebes, il documentario presentato nella sezione “Le stanze di Rol” del TFF, s’immerge nell’intimità dei giovani sicari millennial che vagano per Sinaloa, in Messico, al servizio dei narcotrafficanti, mostrandone le passioni e le speranze per il futuro. E, soffermandosi sull’uso che questi assassini in erba fanno dei social network per raccontare la loro doppia vita, la storia problematizza i media e offre una profonda riflessione sulla morte.
Presentato in concorso al TFF39, il primo lungometraggio del regista turco Selman Nacar è un dramma etico e psicologico, che si concentra sul processo di cambiamento fissandone ogni suo più piccolo passaggio.
A Super 8mm amateur film, made in 1975, abandoned in the director’s basement for years, seriously damaged by the humidity coming from the lake near her house: this is the starting point of Undead Voices, the documentary by Maria Iorio and Raphaël Cuomo which aims to revive the feminist film Donne emergete! by Isabella Bruno. The story of Donne emergete! is shared by many films about militant feminism: «There was not enough interest in preserving them and they were considered unworthy» commented the curator and art historian Annamaria Licciardello, emphasising how this issue adds to that of the already limited number of feminists who have tried their hand at directing, in this historical period.
Multidisciplinary artist Amalia Ulman debuted in competition at TTF 39 with her first feature film “El planeta”, already presented at the 2021 Sundance Festival. The micro-budget and a small crew of five make this debut an experiment that evokes the independent American cinema of the 1990s.
A 64 minutes and 1.700 kilometers long train trip that swings between light and darkness, plumbing a metaphysical Vietnam. It moves through the 17th parallel – the most bombed place in the world – and the Ruc settlement, a population who fans the holy fire whose extinction would cause the extinction of the world too.
It may seem like cinema does not live off-screen. It appears like a chimera that exists only when you are looking at it; but that is not true: behind every film there is an organic and heterogeneous group of people working non-stop to bring back the magic, finally, to the theatres. Through the three Masterclasses dedicated to the figure of the actor in the setting of the Turin Film Festival, it was possible to create an interesting confluence of acting and the figures that gravitate around it, offering an in-depth analysis on the several field jobs that support the performers throughout their growth.
7 giugno 1919: la piccola nazione di Malta decide di non abbassare nuovamente la testa a favore dell’Impero britannico, ribadendo la propria voglia di indipendenza. E tra gli anfratti cittadini, i tetti delle case e le piazze dell’isoletta al largo della Sicilia, comincia a sgorgare il sangue quando gli inglesi imbracciano le baionette e cominciano a imporre la loro legge.
Presentato in anteprima nella sezione Encounters dell’ultima Berlinale, dove ha vinto il Premio Speciale della Giuria, Taste, primo lungometraggio del regista vietnamita Lê Bao, approda al TFF39 nella sezione Fuori concorso/TFLAB.
Impiegata modello nel call center di una compagnia di carte di credito, Jina (Gong Seung-yeon) è una ragazza schiva e riservata, saldamente ancorata alle proprie abitudini, al placido susseguirsi di luoghi e gesti che scandiscono le sue giornate, divise tra il suo piccolo appartamento di ringhiera e il luogo di lavoro.
La sezione Incubator del TFF39 presenta il primo lungometraggio del regista thailandese Taiki Sakpisit. Partendo da un neo sul collo, passando al corpo di una bimba in fin di vita, fino ad arrivare ad un candido vestito bianco, il regista realizza il gelido affresco di un’inquietudine profonda trasformandola in pura poesia.
Julie Lecoustre ed Emmanuel Marre presentano fuori concorso il loro primo lungometraggio, una storia che si muove lungo un doppio binario: la rappresentazione quasi documentaristica degli assistenti di volo di compagnie low-cost e l’analisi introspettiva della protagonista, che non riesce a elaborare un lutto.
Un fiammifero che si accende nella completa oscurità. Questo è il simbolo su cui si regge Grosse Freiheit / Great Freedom, film diretto da Sebastian Meise in concorso al Torino Film Festival, che a Cannes ha vinto il Premio della Giuria nella sezione Un Certain Regard, e che verrà presentato dall’Austria come candidato agli Oscar 2022. Sguardi mantenuti nel tempo e tocchi evidenziati da inquadrature ravvicinate scandiscono il film del regista austriaco, insieme a sentimenti espressi tramite passaggi di sigarette, messaggi nascosti nelle pagine forellate di una Bibbia e parole taciute.
“Le stanze di Rol”, sezione parallela del TFF39 dedicata al cinema di genere, si apre con Coming home in the dark che fin dall’inizio mette in guardia lo spettatore. La famiglia Hoaganraad, in gita in un isolato tratto di costa neozelandese, si imbatte in due misteriosi vagabondi, e il dubbio è subito posto: questo incontro è stato minuziosamente pianificato o non è altro che un crudele scherzo del destino?
“Somos malas, podemos ser peores” We are evil, we can be even more evil.
The notes of a trumpet in the silence of a recording room seem to foretell the roar of an earthquake. This is how Dora Garcia’s documentary opens, almost concealing – albeit temporarily – the disruptive force of what it will be its main subject. Music is, indeed, the seed of this work, whose title is the Spanish translation of “Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte”, a song by the German composer Friedrich Holländer… if I could desire something. The delicate recording sessions alternate with the intense images of the feminist movement’s fights, which have overwhelmed Mexico City for five years. The disappointment and the unheard suffering of women have been going on for so long that the sadness, the vulnerability derived from abandonment have transformed in shield and sword at the same time. This is what the song communicates, echoing for the entire duration of the film.
Mexico, torn apart by femicides and continuous disappearings, is the centre of a global plague, of a social emergency which has to be narrated as the product of a centuries-old culture and not as the result of few, isolated cases. “Every minute of every week they kidnap our friends, they kill our sisters” sing the women of Mexico City, showing their green handkerchiefs in support of legal abortion or the colourful signs which symbolize, one by one, the rights they claim. The march is irrepressible, it permeates the city and then resolves itself into destruction: the only weapon these women have left in order to be heard. It is through union that the individual vulnerabilities interweave in a defence network which allows women and little girls to reclaim the street, a place so ordinary, and yet almost prohibited to the one who walks alone. And it is precisely to those lonely women that the chants are addressed: “You are not alone”, “If they touch one, we will all answer”, “Yes, I believe you”.
An Abbreviated Manual to Free Cinema from Reality – Avi Mograbi’s Documentarist Forays, the title of Israeli director’s masterclass, is fairly self-explanatory. It closely mirrors the title of his film, The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation, which has been presented in the TFFDoc / non-competing section, and it mirrors its approach as well.
In both cases the director starts from specific images – the full-length features Z32 (2008) and The First 54 Years in the case of the masterclass and the archive of interviews belonging to the Breaking the Silence association in the case of the film – to be able to push for deeper thoughts in the respective fields, in this case military strategy and documentary films.
Thanks to this empiric process The First 54 Years allows the director to create a manual on military occupation techniques through the observation of multiple testimonies.
In very much the same way the director has used his two films as indisputable examples during the masterclass to show off the various possibilities of reality cinema. Although the two documentaries are based on the same source material, they go in different directions leading to two very different results. Z32 is entirely based on a war veteran’s ponderings about the actions he has committed throughout his military service. The First 54 Years, on the other hand, refuses any possibility of elaborating trauma, focusing instead on witnesses’ tales which expose facts and mechanisms regarding the Israeli occupation. As previously mentioned, the source material for both documentaries is made up of soldiers’ testimonies which have been collected by Breaking the Silence, an association founded by Mograbi himself with the aim of telling the story and the brutality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to keep alive those memories which governments from 1967 onwards have attempted to erase.
Z32 was created with the idea of making a fairly straightforward film telling the story of a soldier who regrets having taken part in a retaliatory action against Palestinian policemen. The possibility of making a movie centered around the emotions and thoughts of the soldier is hampered by the fact that the man does not want his face to be shown. This was solved thanks to the director’s intuition to cover the soldier’s face with a 3D digital mask which still left his eyes and mouth visible, thus enabling him to show his emotions. This solution notwithstanding, the veteran still found it hard to express himself freely. Mograbi then decided to give the soldier a camera, to allow him to autonomously reflect upon his actions. At this time the man’s girlfriend becomes a relevant figure, given that she takes part in the soldier’s ponderings and opposing his attempts to absolve himself. At the same time, the director is questioning the moral dilemmas surrounding his film: is it fair to hide a murderer inside one’s work? It is fair to exploit his story? These thoughts are told by the director via songs, almost as if the musical were a mask used to filter his reflections, similarly to what happens to the protagonist.
The First 54 Years moves in a different direction. In this case Mograbi uses a number of testimonies from Breaking the Silence’s archives, in order to make a film made up of a series of interviews. Mograbi focuses here on tales of actions, procedures, orders and mechanisms of Israeli military operations in Palestina, leading the viewer like a military tactics expert. The director, like a modern Machiavelli, recites passages of an imaginary military occupation manual which uses the Israeli case – from the 1967 West Bank occupation to the first and second Intifadas – as an examples to prove its points. These are harsh words which contrast strongly with Mograbi as a person, in a powerful attack towards the Israeli state confirming, once again, the director’s ability to question reality, internalize it and decline it in different ways – ironically, cinically, experimentally – which are always functional to a critical analysis of the world.
Moloch (1999), Taurus (2001), Il Sole (2005), Faust (2011). Quando Aleksandr Sokurov fa riferimento alla sua tetralogia, anche solo alludendovi fuggevolmente, in un istante comprendiamo che non possono esservi dubbi: si tratta di un unico organismo estetico. Complesso, ma unitario. Un corpus coerente, inscindibile nelle sue singole parti. La follia di Hitler, la malattia di Lenin, la de-divinizzazione di Hirohito: tutte fluiscono l’una nell’altra, convergendo, coadiuvate dalla putrescenza di Faust. Un’epopea della deformazione e del collasso – fisico e ideologico a un tempo – che, paradossalmente, facorpo.
«Riprenderti con la videocamera è solo una scusa per guardarti», dice Gainsbourg a Birkin, con quel suo tono dolce e pacato, in una delle prime scene di Jane Par Charlotte, film presentato in anteprima alla 74ª edizione del Festival di Cannes – e riproposto al TFF39 nella sezione Surprise. Il film oltrepassa subito i freddi confini del documentario biografico assumendo la forma di una conversazione intima e sensibilmente viva tra madre e figlia, dove lo iato tra queste due identità (così come quello tra biografia e autobiografia) si fa sempre più labile, fino a coinvolgere anche Joe, la figlia più piccola di Charlotte.
«I have the impression that the more massive our communication is, and the more we consume points of view and opinions, the more superficial that communication gets». This is how Ronny Trocker comments on the subject of his film which, by observing the reactions of the different members of what seems to be the perfect German family – educated, wealthy and bilingual – following a little break-in at their beach house, examines human relationships and the dynamics, often disfunctional, underlying them.
Italia, il fuoco e la cenere si presenta come un viaggio poetico e onirico attraverso le dive, i fantasmi, le luci e le ombre del cinema muto italiano. Ne esplora l’essenza più materica, avvicina la propria lanterna alla carne, ai corpi, alle spalle scoperte nella penombra, agli sguardi penetranti, alle convulsioni febbrili delle dive. La componente erotica è centrale: il cinema faceva tremare i benpensanti, nelle sale buie permetteva a donne e uomini di mescolarsi. L’esplorazione cinematografica diventa esplorazione storica e dipinge la realtà di un paese in continuo mutamento, dalle scene pompose e splendenti alla decadenza e all’abisso del fascismo che si avvicinano inesorabili.
