Se ieri sera la proiezione del film Suffragette ha inaugurato il 33° TFF, stamattina la prima conferenza stampa dell’edizione 2015 ha visto protagonista lo stesso film. A rispondere alle domande dei giornalisti erano presenti la regista Sarah Gravon, la sceneggiatrice Abi Morgan, e una delle due produttrici, Faye Ward.
Continua la lettura di “Suffragette” di Sarah Gravon – Conferenza stampa
Article by: Danila Prestifilippo Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Not only was Suffragette shown yesterday evening to inaugurate 33th TFF, but also the film was the protagonist of the first press conference, which took place this morning. Film director Sarah Gavron, screenwriter Abi Morgan and one of its producers Faye Ward answered journalists’ questions and explained the film goals and the choices they made, in order to create the short film.
Muad (Carey Mulligan), a female worker, is the protagonist. She is a fictional character and fights together with other women, who represent really existed historical feminists like Emmeline Pankhurst (Merylin Streep). As director Gavron pointed out, the aim of this semihistorical approach was to make a connection between the women, who were given the mocking name Suffragettes and started their battle for their right to vote hundred years ago and modern women, who are still struggling with salary discrepancy, sexual violence and for their right to children protection and tutoring.
Suffragettes social movement has fought for fifty years but, if it is true that the first forty years had been a pacific struggle, in the following sixteen months the fight became more violent and cruel and almost none knows about it. The absence of films that tell us about the violence these courageous women had to endure, played a great role in persuading Faya Ward and Alison Owen to produce the film. Faya Ward stated: “We wanted the public to be aware of the importance of the sacrifices and the success related to Suffragettes fight. We also wanted to underline how their results are effective in nowadays society. We have tried to give modern spectators some contact points, in order for women not only to be politically active, but also to encourage them to be and become what they really feel they are or they could be. Our attempt was to give voice to those, who were not yet given their chance on the big screen.”
Abi Morgan, who had already been the screenwriter of movies such as The Iron Lady, emphasized that the challenge was to choose a really meaningful example of woman’s life and be able to put it in a precise historical context. She said: “On the one hand the character of Muad underlines the role of lots of passive supporters who became activists, on the other hand it investigates the reasons which persuaded women like her to put their jobs, their families and their homes at risk, in the name of a civil right”. The film focuses on the political matter and puts in the foreground these courageous protagonists, so the decision to not examine in depth personal stories was due to the fact that there are not enough literary or movie material at disposal, to which one can refer to. With reference to that, Morgan added that it was much more important to end the film with information about Saudi Arabia and its 2015 law concerning women right to vote only if accompanied by men, rather than to think at some sort of dramatization of Maud in the Hollywood style.
Sarah Gavron gave some further meaningful figures: “Still today, 66 million of women worldwide have no right to vote, 2/3 are illiterate and only 22% hold public offices. It says that the face of poverty is female and unfortunately these figures confirm it”.
The film’s aim is not only political and historical, it concerns the social matter too by denouncing and preventing the high young people abstaining rate, above all among women. Director Gavron told about the reaction of most of the female audience attending Suffragette’s introduction meetings. As she had hoped, after seeing the film, they expressed their wish to vote again because it made them aware of the sacrifices made by British feminist movement. She also reported that the troupe film (almost completely composed by women) wanted to give a clear signal during the film shooting, so they symbolically demonstrated against government by obtaining the permission to film in the House of Parliament in London, that same institutional place, which had declared against women right to vote.
Asked about a possible way to increase female presence in all sectors, starting from institutional offices, Abi Morgan answered: “We have to introduce the concept of positive discrimination and keep insisting about the importance women have within a context implying equality of the sexes. Geena Daves said “See in order to Be”: we need to have a radical attitude, to leverage the mass media but, in order to be successful, women complicity is essential”.
Faye Ward ended the press conference by making a consideration about the fact that Suffragette is a film of women who fight for their right to vote but “today the concept of fight may imply different ways. Each one of us can be what he wants to be, and this is true for both genders and all races. It is enough that we find our own voice and utter our words in every place, in political institutions or other kind of institutions.
Sayat Nova è un poeta armeno del 18° secolo, un troubadour che cantava i suoi versi in tre lingue diverse, un monaco che trascorse la sua vita nella sofferenza e nel tormento (come viene ripetuto più volte durante il film), innamorato della principessa Anna della Georgia.
Continua la lettura di “Sayat Nova” (“Il colore del melograno”) di Sergei Parajanov
Article by: Luca Bellocchia Translation by: Rita Pasci
An excellent debut film from British director Paul Katis, after working his way up directing short films. The film is based on real events that happened to Mark Wright and a small unit of British soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, on a ridge near the Kajaki dam.
To disable a Taliban roadblock, a three-man patrol offers to carry out the mission. In a dried out river bed, one of them accidentally detonates a landmine, losing his leg in the process. This triggers a tense and claustrophobic narrative, where shots of vast deserted spaces define an indifferent and merciless setting. Although the film was shot outdoors, the action takes place in a very confined space.
What’s thought-provoking is the fact that even though the film is set in Afghanistan, the indigenous population is kept at a distance from the centre of the action, apart from the very beginning of the film.
Katis favours all that is anti-spectacular, the events are told in a dry and blunt manner. The outstanding performance of the actors playing the main characters cannot leave even the most insensitive viewer indifferent.
One thing that’s astonishing is the sense of humour of the soldiers, who, despite the tragic situation they find themselves in, still manage to defuse the tension. The soundtrack is reduced to the essential, the panting of the maimed and wounded and the noises made by flies cast the viewer directly into what’s happening, making everything more real.
Kilo Two Bravo is a film that gives an opportunity to elaborate on a point of view about war that is still unexplored, namely that of real war, where young people die simply because of distraction, misunderstanding, or just pure bad luck.
Ottima opera prima dell’inglese Paul Katis, dopo una gavetta trascorsa con cortometraggi. Il film è basato su fatti realmente accaduti a Mark Wright e ad una piccola unità di soldati britannici di stanza in Afghanistan, su un crinale vicino alla diga Kajaki dam.
Una pattuglia di tre uomini si propone volontaria per rompere un blocco stradale talebano. Nel letto di un fiume prosciugato, uno di loro fa accidentalmente detonare una mina, perdendo una gamba. Questo innesca una trama tesa e claustrofobica in cui inquadrature di ampi spazi deserti forniscono una sensazione di accerchiamento e prigionia.
Si dimostra una rivelazione Osgood Robert “Oz” Perkins, figlio dell’attore Antony Perkins, con la sua prima opera da regista: February, un horror thriller. In precedenza lo avevamo visto come attore in Psycho II e più recentemente nel ruolo di sceneggiatore in The Girl in the Photografs.
February è sicuramente un film che crea atmosfera. In sala si percepiva il gelo pungente delle strade innevate, così bianche che trasmettevano un senso di serenità, ma con la sensazione che non sarebbe durata a lungo. Infatti ben presto queste stesse strade sarebbero state deturpate da strisce rosse di sangue.
Article by: Valentina Di Noi
Translation by: Chiara Toscan
Osgood Robert “Oz” Perkins, son of the actor Antony Perkins, proved to be a wonder with his first work as a director, the horror thriller February. We have already seen him acting in Psycho II and more recently screenwriting The Girl in the Photographs.
February is undoubtedly a film that creates an atmosphere. The theater was immersed in the sharp frost of the snowy streets that were so white they gave a sense of purity. However, such sensation was not meant to last, as soon those streets were going to be spoiled by trails of blood.
The film is set in Kempville, Ontario Canada. It’s February and the students of the all girls boarding school “Kempville” are getting ready to leave for their hometown for the winter break. Kate (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) are stuck at school because their parents have mysteriously failed to retrieve them. Rose finds herself forced to babysit Kate even if they are not friends but rather share resentment. At the same time, Joan (Emma Roberts), escaped from a mental health facility, is heading towards the school, while Kate starts to have a strange attitude.
In this feature film lingers not only tension but also teenage crisis and inner torments, especially through the characters of Rose and Kate. Its deconstructing montage might create confusion, however, at the end, all the pieces of the puzzle come together.
The film has no shades, only clear contrasts: the breaks between scenes as well as music change are clear.
Just one more thing: pay attention to the cutlery and Donnie Darko‘s bunny ears.
“Questioni di vita e di morte”, la sezione presentata dal Guest Director Julien Temple, non poteva che aprirsi con il film dal quale ha preso il suo titolo, A Matter of Life and Death (titolo italiano: Scala al Paradiso), realizzato nel 1946 da Michael Powell e Emeric Pressburger, regista il primo e sceneggiatore il secondo, considerati tra i massimi esponenti del cinema britannico.
Julien Temple propone una riflessione sulla vita e sulla morte come due condizioni dell’esistenza estremamente connesse tra loro, alle quali spesso il pensiero umano cerca di sfuggire, ma che bisogna, prima o poi, avere il coraggio di affrontare.
Oggi la Grecia è un paese socialmente e culturalmente in crisi, eppure il cinema nazionale è sempre molto attento nel monitorare questa crisi e nel coglierne ogni minimo segnale di movimento. Non esiste una vera e propria Scuola che riunisca la nuova generazione di cineasti greci, ma ciò non significa che non siano presenti caratteri comuni alle diverse poetiche.
Article by: Alessandro Amato
Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero
In aesthetic terms “Catharsis” means purifying the human passions that are understood and overcome with art. However, this word comes from Ancient Classic Greece and is connected with a sort of religious ritual that requires to purify both body and soul. Nowadays Greece is facing a cultural and social crisis: in few words it is an adrift country. Despite this, Greek cinema is constantly focusing on this national crisis and ready to supervise its flow. There is no real school of contemporary Greek cinema but there are several common artistic trends in these Greek movie makers.
Interruption is the first feature film by Yorgos Zois and without doubt follows this trend. This film starts with some out of focus lights blurring in a dark space. These lights stand for something not clear but alive that is going to bump soon into an unexpected future. This obscure element is actually an ancient man who’s completely naked. There’s a young blond and short haired woman with him. Those lights we have noticed at the very beginning of the film are actually Clitennestra and her lover Aegystus. Nonetheless the old man and the girl are Agamemnon and Cassandra. The starting events of The Oresteia are well known: the queen and her lover will kill the king who has come back to Troy after many years with another woman. The clash between Cassandra and the new masters of the palace occurs in a glass cube in the middle of the stage. According to mythology there should be then Orestes coming back from his exile and his vengeance versus his mother. Anyway the performance is suddenly stopped by a group of young people running through the stage and telling us they are the Chorus. Their leader is a black haired guy with an amused smile who takes some people from the audience as volunteers. They will introduce themselves and take active part in the show.
“What’s happening here is fiction or reality?” this is the question made by to a member of the Chorus to a girl.
“It’s the reality” replies the girl but she doesn’t look very convinced. The wonderful event this movie is trying to show is the theme of being guilty putting it aside for a while and playing it without misleading it. Now it’s high time to recollect Pirandello.
This movie is about a nowadays issue. At the end the young man kills himself while the theatre audience stands up thinking the tragedy came to its end. He’s another victim of nowadays spread indifference. It’s time that the actors and people taking part in the tragedy take off their clothes as a metaphor of their shame. But if they purified themselves and cleansed their guilty souls what about us and our Catharsis?
Nell’immaginaria città anglosassone Everytown è in corso la seconda guerra mondiale: guerra iniziata nel 1940 e che proseguirà fino al 2040. Questa è la ragione per cui i cittadini stessi, nipoti e i bisnipoti, non si ricordano nemmeno i motivi per i quali tale guerra fosse iniziata. Il film Things to Come è stato diretto da William Menzies, uno dei maggiori scenografi della storia del cinema, che crea un gioco visivo tra utopia e distopia.
Continua la lettura di “Things to Come” (“La vita futura”) di William Cameron Menzies
Londra, 1899. George è un brillante inventore che mette a punto un sorprendente marchingegno in grado di viaggiare nel tempo. Così inizia ad esplorare il futuro, a vedere i progressi ma anche gli orrori degli uomini (due, addirittura tre guerre mondiali). Il suo percorso lo porta lontano 800.000 anni rispetto al presente, in un futuro in cui l’umanità è divisa tra gli angelici e ingenui Eloi del mondo esterno e gli spietati e mostruosi Morlock, abitanti dei bassifondi della Terra.
Continua la lettura di “The Time Machine” (“L’uomo che visse nel futuro”) di George Pal
Mario Balsamo, dopo il successo di Noi non siamo come James Bond, vincitore del premio della giuria al TFF30, ritorna sulla scena torinese con un altro spaccato della sua vita: il documentario Mia madre fa l’attrice, uno dei quattro film italiani in concorso quest’anno al Torino Film Festival. Continua la lettura di “Mia madre fa l’attrice” di Mario Balsamo
Article by: Matteo Merlano
Translation by: Sema Udmir
London, 1899. George is a brilliant inventor who developed an amazing machine enabling a person to travel in time. And with this machine, the protagonist starts to explore the future and witnesses the progress also the failure of humanity (two, even three world wars). His route will take him 800.000 years ahead, to a future where humanity is divided between angelic and naive Eloi from the external world and cruel and monstrous Morlocks, the inhabitants of the Earth.
George Pal depicts a story in his film based on amazing novel of H. G. Wells who invented an imaginary world, reflecting very well the sci-fi of that period. Colorful pop culture does not take it very seriously, and the fierce social critique of the novel which is that the Eloi represent the rich and Victorian middle class while the Marlocks represent the working class, gives a visionary image to whom made The Time Machine precious like a jewel.
By a sort of anthology of first time lapse experiment, time travel is shown us through the season changes and the changes in fashion in time. It also shows us the history of Time Machine which is the ancestor of Delorean, an armchair with commands operated by a lever with a knob in diamond (to the limits between Steam-Punk and Trash).
Perhaps one of the last examples of Cinema of Attractions in the historical sense of the term, is the film watched all over the years and still enjoyable and fun in its vintage style. We owe to George Pal fantastic 60s cinema (especially Barbarella). However, his spiritual students such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg can not be forgotten as well. By the way, a remake of the film in 2002 (which was unsuccessful at the box office) is directed by great-grandson of Wells, Simon who used a lot the original version on his remake film with Guy Pearce in the lead role and Jeremy Irons, the head of Morlocks.
“Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads”, says Doc Brown in Back To The Future. We agree with you Doc. To travel, it is enough to sit on a comfortable armchair and to use healthy, vital and a lot of immagination.
Article by: Lara Vallino Translation by: Andrea Cristallini
MIA MADRE FA L’ATTRICE
Documentaries have often been overlooked or dimissed as not suitable for cinema screenings on the grounds that they are too specialized, although they bring to the big screen unknown or intentionally ignored realities. Conversely, after his succesful Noi non siamo come James Bond, which gained him the Jury Prize at TFF 30, Mario Balsamo makes his comeback in Turin with another slice of his life: the documentary Mia madre fa l’attrice, one of the four Italian movies in the main section of the festival.
No polar bears or exotic indigenous peoples then, here we are in fact presented with a typical emotional connection, the one between a mother and her son. Since the dawn of times, this indissoluble bond has always been subject to study, and this is still the case today. Either audiences are not tired of listening to the same old story, or perhaps a universally accepted definition has not been agreed upon yet.
Mario Balsamo shows us the very self of his mother: a tough character, a troublesome person, the woman he loved most in his life. He also reveals the difficulties in their relationship: they seem to have become more distant than ever, separated by a wall of mutual incomprehension.
However, sometimes something happens that teaches us how to look at life from a new perspective and after the events he related in his documentary in 2012, Mario is not the same man anymore. He wants to reconnect with the multifaceted woman and be finally able to love her not just as an actress but also as his mother. He takes the most important film in which his mother acted in the 1950s, Piero Costa’s La Barriera della legge, as an opportunity to get close to her again through their shared passion for the film art. Costa’s film is a constant remembrance for Silvana and an obsession for Mario, although neither of them has ever seen it.
They embark on the search for this cinematographic work, that appeared to be no longer available and that they will eventually find uninteresting once they get to see it.
But it’s a well-known fact that it’s the journey that counts. They go on the road in a Lancia Fulvia 810, around Pietrasanta and Versilia, visiting the very same places where Silvana would display her talent many years ago. We witness amusing and moving dialogues, halfway between reality and fantasy, gradually leading to a reconciliation which results in a long-awaited hug. A happy ending for the director, who may finally manage to see in Silvana Stefanini a mother, rather than just an actress.
“Hush bye bye, don’t you cry, go to sleepy little baby, when you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses…” Harper ha solo quattordici anni. Canta la ninnananna la sera, e la mattina accudisce quattro fratelli: Elias, il ribelle di 12 anni, Arri (8 anni), Ezra (5 anni) e Jonah di 2 anni. Essere la sorella maggiore non è una punizione ma lo diventa se mamma è altrove, persa in un periglioso conflitto con la propria autostima.
Continua la lettura di “God Bless the Child” di Robert Machoian e Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck
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Article by: Alessandro Arpa Translation by: Andrea Cristallini
Hush bye bye, don’t you cry, go to sleep little baby, when you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses… Harper is only 14. She sings lullabies at night and in the morning she looks after her four brothers: Elias, a 12-year-old rebel, Arri (8 years), Ezra (5 years ) and Jonah (2 years). Being the elder sister is not necessarily a punishment but it can become something close to it if mum is away, lost in a serious struggle with her self-esteem.
A blend of the cinema verité and a cinematographic remake of Tierney Gearon’s photographs, God Bless the child is the second feature film by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojda-Beck. The film, which premiered at SXSW Festival in 2015, is the American response to Hirokazu Koreeda’s Nobody Knows. As opposed to the Japanese director’s film, where the mother is an escort, in the work of Machoian and Ojda-Beck she is a depressed woman, a ghost who leaves the house at dawn abandoning her children and comes back at night, while everyone is asleep, except Harper, who has grown up against her will. “Sorry” is her only line in the film, with neither a close-up nor a single frame showing her face. The film drowns in a fog of sadness. Several group scenes are included in the film, with delicate and innocent children songs in the background. In the epic fight between the brothers in the backyard, as they wear boxing gloves resembling Hulk’s hands, game and pain merge and pain eventually makes the loser cry. God bless the child is a vivid and realistic portrait of childhood. And for a change, children are not asked to run after the film, but it’s the film itself that surrenders to their genuine interpretation. And when the sun goes down and everyone is asleep, the door opens and there she is, back again. She gets into bed with her four children, in a shroud that envelopes lonely souls. And Harper is there, staring ruthlessly at her, as life gets harder and harder: hush bye bye, don’t you cry, go to sleep little baby, when you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses.
Article by: Luca Richiardi Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero
Life is surreal.
There are movies with no soul which just try to step towards any directions without a reason. There are movies that are just empty and dreary. Well, this movie is just their opposite. “Tag” is directed by Sion Sono: it violently breaks in and manages to find a sharp conclusion both in a literal and figurative way. It confuses the feelings and perception of its audience but it doesn’t hide the fact that it has lost the sense of perception itself. This film needs to show its total dismay in order to penetrate the subconscious side of its audience and finally break through its conscious one. However, “Tag” is not addressed to an ordinary audience, for the simple reason that the movie is directed by Sion Sono. It’s a typical Japanese film with its peculiar artistic language which could by perceived as unfamiliar by a western audience, or at least by an audience not acquainted with Japanese pop culture.
This kind of audience might fail to notice the potential for social criticism hidden behind an excess of grotesque violence, which may appear then as empty divertissement: what has been defined, in jargon (particularly in the world of anime, manga and videogames enthusiasts) sa fanservice.
What exactly is fanservice? Excessive and pointless violence, schoolgirls in extra short miniskirts which are constantly lifted, eroticism, promiscuity, reification of the woman.
“Tag” contains all these elements. It’s thrown onto the screen in a shameless, exaggerated, intentionally provocative way, as if to ask: “Is this what you want?” As the film unravels, laughing at all this becomes a gesture that makes the spectator feel guilty.
This collage made of absurdities, which people may have fun in, is a heaven for “nerd” teenagers and hides a cruel and dreadful hell. It reveals itself step by step, while we follow the young female protagonist Mitsuko in her absurd suffering.
Among all this violence, torture and death, her loss of identity is what mostly harms. It makes her appear to be an empty box or a mannequin identical to many others. She looks as a figure, whose not uniform nature may be compared to that of Jesus and therefore doomed to sacrifice. It is a kind of essential sacrifice, a spontaneous gesture which gets away from this torture pattern felt as a function of a sadistic pleasure. And it takes place exactly in front of a parody which blames and despises these masses of obsessive fans.
What is such a heroic sacrifice aimed at? It is understood, its aim matches the film’s one: a sabotage internal to the system so that it can penetrate deeper and, hopefully, it can be able to reach and consequently wake up consciences, in order to take them away from this grotesque circle of hell.
Life is surreal.
Ci sono film che faticano a trovare un’anima e arrancano in mille direzioni; film che combinano il vuoto del proprio senso al tedio della visione stessa. Ecco, questo film è l’esatto opposto di tutto ciò.
Tag-Tag di Sion Sono è un film che irrompe violento in ogni direzione per poi riuscire (letteralmente e figurativamente) a tirare le fila del proprio discorso nella conclusione; un film che disorienta la percezione, ma non per celare la sua ricerca disperata di un senso smarrito, anzi. Il senso del film ha bisogno di un disorientamento totale per poter emergere nella coscienza dello spettatore. Ma sicuramente non di uno spettatore qualsiasi, perchè Tag-Tag è pur sempre un film di Sion Sono, nonché un film profondamente giapponese, che parla di e alla propria cultura e nazione, e che risulterà criptico ad uno spettatore occidentale che si trovi a digiuno di pop culture nipponica. Per questo tipo di spettatore il rischio è quello di non saper interpretare il potenziale di critica sociale nascosta dietro eccessi di violenza grottesca che possono quindi risultare divertissement fini a sé stessi: ovverosia all’incirca quello che è definito in maniera gergale (soprattutto negli ambienti di cultori manga, anime e videogames) come fanservice.
Cos’è il fanservice? Violenza eccessiva e gratuita, studentesse con gonne supercorte e che per giunta si sollevano continuamente, erotismo, promiscuità, reificazione della donna. Tutto ciò è presente in Tag-Tag. E’ buttato sullo schermo in modo sfrontato, esagerato, volutamente provocatorio. Come a chiederci: “è questo che volete?” Più il film avanza e più il gesto di ridere divertiti davanti a tutto ciò diventa un gesto colpevole. Questo carrozzone di assurdità che tanto può divertire, questo paradiso per adolescenti nerd, nasconde un inferno crudele, agghiacciante, che si rivela di minuto in minuto, mentre seguiamo Mitsuko, la giovane protagonista, nel suo calvario assurdo.
Fra tutta questa violenza e morte, ciò che più ferisce è la perdita di identità della protagonista che la rende un recipiente vuoto, un manichino uguale a tanti, una figura cristica, e, pertanto, destinata al sacrificio. Un sacrificio necessario, un gesto spontaneo che sfugge a questa logica di tortura in funzione di un godimento sadico, compiuto all’interno di una parodia che accusa proprio le masse di fans ossessivi.
Un sacrificio eroico, ma a quale scopo? E’ chiaramente il medesimo scopo che ha il film: compiere un sabotaggio interno al sistema, che possa quindi penetrare a fondo e, si spera, risvegliare qualche coscienza per sottrarla a questo grottesco girone infernale.
