FESTIVAL ROUNDUP



 

The London Film Festival

"This is an audience festival!" shouted a strung out box office attendant, as journalists and industry jostled to get a ticket to Walter Salles' ever popular film, Central Station. While the London Film Festival is a showcase rather than a marketplace, it seems that more and more filmmakers are coming to London looking for distribution.

The Fest runs parallel to MIFED, and, in the past, hasn’t attracted significant industry presence. It’s been happy to plod along, screening a range of previously well received and reviewed films with distribution secure, mainly from Cannes or Venice, and targeting a well established audience with glitzy gala screenings full of smiling celebs. Graham Smith from Dennis Davidson Associates pointed out, "The Festival isn't a market, and anything that happens in that regard is incidental." But, this year it seemed to most that things have seriously begun to change. This year saw a 50% increase in industry attendance, a 20% increase in press but only a 5% increase in audience.

Dominic Anciano is a Londoner who has been an audience member in years gone by and had the World Premier of his and partner Ray Burdis’ film, Final Cut, in the Fest. He commented, "I think it’s a healthy move that the filmmakers come with their good films, which attract the industry and vice versa. The kudos are definitely growing within the filmmaking community as people realize [that London] is a good place to shop their wares."

Final Cut, which stars Jude Law and Ray Winstone, enters the secretly videotaped world of Jude on the eve of his funeral. A documentary type murder mystery unfolds where the actors disarmingly play themselves. The brilliant and well traveled Gods and Monsters and the new Among Giants, from Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy and directed by Sam Miller, were other standouts in the New British Cinema section. The award was, however, tied between Rose Troche’s controversial sex comedy Bedrooms and Hallways and Caleb Lindsay’s Understanding Jane (also with Kevin McKidd).

Best first feature went to Samira Makmalbahf's much talked about The Apple. She and her father, (Mohsen, the well known Iranian filmmaker, who wrote and edited this film), saw a newscast on a Wednesday about two girls who had spent the first eleven years of their lives locked up in their house. By the Sunday of that same week, a crew was set and all the real characters in the story agreed to go in front of the camera. The realms of documentary seem to be so constantly stretched of late, and this story does it with a beauty and naiveté that reflects the young director (she was 17 when this film was made). A Special Mention went to Gaspar Noé's controversial film, I Stand Alone.

The base of the festival was in bustling Soho, with screenings scattered all around London. Trekking over Waterloo Bridge to South Bank proved too much for many Soho-based attendees, who simply ruled out screenings elsewhere. This created a fairly disparate vibe that worked against filmmakers and attendees meeting and melding, as with most festivals.

Surprise winner of the FIPRESCI International Critic’s Award was Lars von Trier’s The Idiots. There was much talk about von Trier, and about Thomas Vinterberg’s Celebration, (which many attendees felt was a superior film), as a panel was set up to discuss their Dogme ’95. Vinterberg took the stage alongside his main actor from Celebration, Henning Moritzen and Soren Kragh Jacobsen, director of the third Dogme film, Mifune’s Last. The ten filmmaking rules or constraints of the Dogme were outlined and clips of not only the first three films were shown, but part of a documentary that is to be released about the making of The Idiots. Panelists tried to convey the need to take the rules with a grain of salt. Vinterberg described their aim as a "renewal," he felt that from now on "I will think about every sound and light I put in my future films."

Moritzen provided a different angle as he felt that "the true freedom is for the actors, instead of playing to the camera, the camera follows you." Having worked with Ingmar Bergman and many other brilliant filmmakers in the past, he added that "this turned filmmaking into something joyful again. I revisited the happy movies of my early career."

An unprecedented number of Australian films screened at the Fest, but the one that had the most buzz was Craig Monohan’s The Interview. It recently won Best Picture, Screenplay and Actor (Hugo Weaving) at the Australian Film Awards, but though slickly shot, it came up just looking like an Aussie Usual Suspects. However, In The Winter Dark, James Bogle’s eerie film starring Ray Barrett and Brenda Blethlyn, was a much stronger selection.

Neil LaBute’s new biting feature Your Friends and Neighbors and Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (posters plastered on every tube station) were among the most talked about American films. Also, Shinya Tsukamoto, of Tetsuo I and Tetsuo II fame, had his new feature in the experimental section. A crazy romp through Tokyo’s urban jungle, it left audiences confused but amazed at the director’s determination. He writes, directs, produces, edits and stars in all his films. There was definitely much to navigate and enjoy, but maybe next year the dislocated feel and cynical staff can be improved.



 
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© 2005 Filmmaker Magazine