quote of the week

“Creation comes when you learn to say no.”
(Madonna, The Power of Good-bye (1998))

my list of 58th Berlinale best films

1. Bam gua nat/Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea (2008))
2. RGB XYZ (David O'Reilly, Ireland (2008)) [short]
3. Invisible City (Tan Pin Pin, Singapore (2007))
4. Udedh Bun (Siddarth Sinha, India (2008)) [short]
5. Kabei/Our Mother (Yamada Yoji, Japan (2008))
6. Mompelaar/Mumbler (Wim Reygaert/Marc Roels, Belgium (2007)) [short]
7. Yasukuni (Ying Li, China/Japan (2007))
8. Haze (Anthony Chen, Singapore (2008)) [short]
9. Tout est parfait/Everything Is Fine (Yves Christian Fournier, Canada (2008))
10. Frankie (Darren Thornton, Ireland (2007)) [short]

“the torch“ #26 – Reflections on “4:30” by Royston Tan

How do you describe, how do you relate a passion? No matter what you come up with, there is always some kind of wall between you on the inside and the outer world that you try to communicate your feelings to. This wall – it’s ineradicable, hardly permeable at all, and even if it happens to be a screen, this basic truth still applies. Then again, film certainly, above all else, tells us about emotions, it affects us, moves us or inspires on many different levels but always touches on our emotional strings for sure. Thence its power to impact, to change your life – rarely, but it can. As a matter of fact, emotions in filmmaking not only are the products’ most valuable asset, but also steer the process of their coming about in various profound ways and need to be tended to, their positive drive kept alive because it’s crucial. Success and commitment – these terms constitute the key parameters to measure a sustained passion by, whatever aspect of the craft you may think of. Read up on one such (very personal) account: here.

(pic©mo)

58th Berlinale 2008 – back on track?

After last years’ prolonged suffering and many complaints about an allegedly sagging programme, especially in the main competition, this latest edition fared rather well with the critics. Myself, I can hardly tell how good it’s really been. After all, there just wasn’t enough time for me to meaningfully survey not even all that interested me in the first place, much less every film that seemed promising. So I’ll abstain from passing judgment, but simply take those assessments as they come; and they are mostly quite positive.
In 2008 the Berlin International Film Festival saw a re-accentuation of its political (if not moral) agenda with “Tropa de elite” by José Padilha (Brasil) bagging the festival’s top prize: the Golden Bear for best feature. There has also been a record-breaking turnout (again), indicating that Berlin indeed is the place for all film to go! Documentaries have been very strong once more and well received by audiences; short films have finally been curated as befits an event of this standing; and formal accuracy and a sense of creative (self-)control also figured prominently this year, it seems. No real trend, then, but certainly many valuable ideas and points to pick up and explore further. Let’s see what happens next…

(pic©berlinale.de)

quote of the week

“[B]ut so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh.”
(Hermann Melville, Moby-Dick, or The Whale (1851))

10/1 – Berlinale Day 10

58^th Berlinale wraps with its “Berlinale Kinotag” today, screening a selection of this year’s programming to the non-festival public and hopefully adding further to what – once again – has been a record-breaking audience attendance. So, we’ve been spared the snow, what else?

23^rd Panorama
“Tout est parfait/Everything Is Fine”, Yves-Christian Fournier (Canada)
Triste. Goodbye, juvenile suicide static. Addicted, attached: to life? Moody.

Finis!

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Day 9

38^th Forum expanded
“Years When I Was a Child Outside (Family Multi-channel)”, John Torres (Philippines)
A migrant voice seeks others to redeem the disenfrenchized view.

Congratulations to every one participant and winner!

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Day 8

More shorts, please!

Actually, I’m surprised to find the short film programming this year to be anything but lacklustre or dull. So I went for a second helping – in which package no. I clearly tops the odd number III.

58^th Berlinale Shorts I
58^th Berlinale Shorts III
In sound and colour (from observation to twist): positively mad.

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Day 7

In keeping with tradition, it was about time for my very own J-day to carry this thing one step further. And it turned out one of those –ism days (nationalism, chauvinism, militarism, fascism, Tennoism), filled to the brim with such things it apparently is impossible to escape for very long, and provoking ambivalent sentiments as well as a revitalized need for some research. History formation, forms or rites of public commemoration, their respective political implications – these seem recurring topics in quite a few recent films. Interesting!

58^th Berlinale Competition
“Kabei/Our Mother”, Yamada Yoji (Japan)
An elegiac Showa epic, truthful and touching, our filial duty.

38^th Forum
“Yasukuni”, Ying Li (China/Japan)
Troubled, troubling, troublesome picture of addressing a painful binational past.

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Day 6

(Above all, so they say, this is about recovering lost ground…)

58^th Berlinale Competition
“Bam gua nat/Night and Day”, Hong Sang-soo (South Korea)
Love in times of displacement – strong portrait of male respectability.

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Day 5

An open panel discussion on international co-productions in a room filled with film folks and their ambitions: soon enough all the oxygen would be used up, but since it’s all about rising to the challenge, no-one budged an inch from their goals. Bottom line to any project remains, that to soar, you first have to acknowledge the realities of the industry; well seasoned professionals in the field shared their experience and provided some insight into crucial business matters.

6^th Berlinale Talent Campus
“Together Forever?”
Talent connects people and places – seal the deal and pitch!

Now let’s get back to film…

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Day 4

Meeting up with people under a clear and shining winter sky – that’s quite a formula I should think!

58^th Berlinale Shorts I
(in competition) “Haze”, Anthony Chen (Singapore)
When you’re young, the horizon can seem a tangible limit.

(pic©berlinale.de)

quote of the week

“They would come to be rivals – which was the natural relationship between men. They would be like animals fighting in a cage; and the cage was time.”
(Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles (1998))

10/1 – Berlinale Day 3

Getting into the mood slowly but steadily now, I once again found my start to be a documentary and facing an issue of filmmaking technique as well as one of subject matter: every starting point to my believe better be pivotal – and so it turned out:

38^th Forum
“Invisible City”, Tan Pin Pin (Singapore)
Substantial record of diminishing memories – what choices will you make?

The world of Berlinale sure looks good from here!

(pic©berlinale.de)

10/1 – Berlinale Days 1&2?

In for no start: I think there has been better timing before than having a cold and being busy just now…

So this is going to be a belated start to this year’s Berlinale for me – let’s hope for the best though!

(pic©berlinale.de)

“the torch“ #25 – Commercial Independence

Everybody wants to strike it big, win the lottery and go home with the main prize – for luck or achievement, what does it matter, really? And undoubtedly, money is a valuable asset better to be had in sufficient supply; especially so when your prime ambition is with film and filmmaking, that incurable inclination to lavishly spend as much and as unreasonably as you possibly can (and preferably somebody else’s $s at that). But there are strings attached with funding obtained from outside sources, the government’s pots or some investor’s neat calculation, and the young auteur is afforded to be just enough of the young entrepreneur as well as to prevent the thing from backfiring – commercially or artistically. For when push comes to shove, those two are inseparable and need to be balanced if not entirely reconciled.
Well, how to? Or, what’s so wrong with that? Questions unanswerable – but happily debated nonetheless: here.

(pic©mo)

quote of the week

“If you like, I will summarize another tale for you, well and skillfully – mind you take it in – telling how gods and mortal men have come from the same starting-point. The race of men that the immortals who dwell on Olympus made first of all was of gold. They were in the time of Kronos, when he was king in heaven; and they lived like gods, with carefree heart, remote from toil and misery. Wretched old age did not affect them either, but with hands and feet ever unchanged they enjoyed themselves in feasting, beyond all ills, and they died as if overcome by sleep.”
(Hesiod, Works and Days (around 700 BC))

Berlinale 2008 begins

Yes, it’s been a whole year and here again comes the big show we’ve all been waiting for, the one event that unlike any other manages to blissfully transform our city of Berlin for some ten days running into a continuous celebration of film and film internationalism: the 58^th Berlin International Film Festival aka Berlinale! I certainly can’t wait, especially since last year’s edition wasn’t particularly shining. So let’s all hope for an outburst of silver screen glory to light up this winter scenery of the bleakly factual world out there, and let’s make this an occasion to remember!

Surely the outlook, the concrete programme that is, doesn’t look too bad, I guess – but of course you can never know until you know, right? There’s many a familiar name included in the line-up (as usual) but hopefully there will be some fresh discoveries to make as well. As for Singapore, Anthony Chen has his latest short film “The Haze” entered in the respective competition – and I wish all the best for that one. Yamada Yoji (last year’s best, remember?) graces us again with “Kabei/Our Mother”, and the Talent Campus, now in its 6^th edition already, will definitely offer lots of inspiration and new insights into international co-production rules-of-the-game, so I hope.

As far as proto-ymagon is concerned, I will stick with the tested quantity of last time’s 10/1 formula: ten words per film to give you my first impressions as I proceed on my visual journey day by day. Stay tuned!

(pic©berlinale.de)