Curious Eyes

Good intention number 1: This year I go to see all the Tiger Awards movies. The list of 2009:

À l’ouest de Pluton, Henri Bernadet, Myriam Verreault, Canada
Be Calm and Count to Seven, Ramtin Lavafipour, Iran

Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly, Edwin, Indonesië

Breathless, Yang Ik-June, Zuid-Korea
The Dark Harbour,
Naito Takatsugu, Japan
Dogging: A Love Story, Simon Ellis, Verenigd Koninkrijk
Floating in Memory, Peng Tao, China
The Hungry Ghosts, Michael Imperioli,
Verenigde Staten

No puedo vivir sin ti, Leon Dai, Taiwan

Schottentor, Caspar Pfaundler, Oostenrijk
Sois sage, Juliette Garcias, Frankrijk/Denemarken
The Strength of Water, Armagan Ballantyne,
Nieuw-Zeeland/Duitsland
Turistas, Alicia Scherson, Chili
Wrong Rosary, Mahmut Fazil Coskun, Turkije

general cinema, iffr09, iffr2009, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, tiger awards

There is a, still a little inarticulated discussion about elitism at this Toronto Film Festival. See this blog and The Toronto Sun . My comment anyway:

As a foreign and first time visitor of the Festival  I am a little modest in my own comment, but I hear around me a lot of negative comments of Festival ” tigers” – package holders like me with 30 or more tickets – , especially about the changed policy for the Visa Room Elgin screenings. Though I can not compare the difference with other years, I find the prices of the Elgin screenings ridiculous. Maybe I will blog later over simularities and differences between Toronto and Rotterdam, another big ” public oriented” Festival.

International Film Festival Rotterdam International Film Festival Rotterdam, tiff, TIFF08, Toronto International Film Festival

(photo: international film festival rotterdam)

It was a nice festival, only a few disappointments, good quality, though not much sky-high. 39 movies watched, My top 5:

• Import/Export, especially the impressing scenes in the elderly, demented people place
• Le voyage du ballon rouge
• Alexandra
• Secrete Sunshine, with a wonderful role of Do-yeon Jeon
• Cargo 200, despite some gruesome scenes

Still to be seen:

• I’m not there
• No country for old men
• Stellet Licht
• La graine et le mullet
• You, the living
• Tricks
• Flower in the pocket (when possible)
• Margot at the wedding
• The Darjeeling Limited
• The band’s visit

Oeps, that’s a lot…

International Film Festival Rotterdam, cinema cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam

Yesterday i saw the Cameron Jamie with Melvins Trilogy “BB, Krankly Klaus and Spook House” in a really sold out – 917 people – Old  Luxor. It was the combination that did it. Without the movie i should never be thrilled by The Melvins , and without the music I was probably walked out after half an hour. But now i was fascinated from start to finish. And also the movies were weird. Ok, last year i attented for the first time a Halloween party, but that was a very decent one comparing what you could see in the movie: no freyed eyeballs, no guillotines, no beheaded, no hanging, no graveyeard, as all you could see in this movie. And this Austrian Klaus was really krankly..  

International Film Festival Rotterdam, cinema cameron jamie, cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, melvins, Rotterdam

I have seen till now 3 Tiger Award films and i am turned on about what i saw till now.

•  The King of Ping Pong,  a swedish adoscolent movie in the very, very North of the country, nothing is as it looks;
• Wonderful town, a love drama in South Thailand Tsunami area;
• Cordero de Dios (Lamb of Gods), about the country’s traumatic recent history in middleclass families;

International Film Festival Rotterdam, cinema cinema, cordero de dios, International Film Festival Rotterdam, king of ping pong, Rotterdam, wonderful town

• Mio fratelli e figlio unico; again an italian movie about the struggle between brothers, right and left and the holy family? Yes, again a italian movie about the struggle between brothers, right and left and the holy family; from the screenwriters of Il Meglio Gioventu and with that movie i was even crying in the theater (and not one time );
• TBS, because of the cardboard screenplay;

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2008, cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, mio fratelli, Rotterdam, tbs

• Alexandra, a masterpiece of Alexandr Sukurov, very realistic about the madness of (Chechnian) war, without even one gunshot, with a classic role of Galina Vishnevskaya, operastar and the wife of the late cellist Rostropovich;
• Help me Eros, in the madness of Taipeh (Taiwan), when a bankrupt man freaks out completely in a world of sex and design, an I can assure you that the Animal’s Party in Taiwan does not have a member of parliament ;
• The Mourning Forest; I always liked forests, as i grown up in the (green) East of my country and this forest looks like the Mother of all Forests; also touching about the power of elderness;
• Bashing (2005), a terrifying story about mass hysteria, from Filmmaker in Focus Kobayashi Masahiro;
• Hemel boven Holland, based on the story of Mohammed B., who killed Theo van Gogh, a first appearance of dutch filmmaker Rolf van Eijk, with a beautiful – strange word in this context – play of leading actor Sabir Al Haft;

International Film Festival Rotterdam, cinema alexandra, cinema, help me eros, hemel boven holland, International Film Festival Rotterdam, mourning forest, Rotterdam, sukurov

I almost regret already that i have choosen to write this blog in a not native language. I am looking for the exact words to describe my very mixed feelings about this movie. But i will try.TBS is the dutch system for  detaining criminal people with a psychiatric disease, in forensic centres for what in the old days used to be named “psychopats” . It is in The Netherlands a controversial system, mostly because of the escape with new crimes of some detainees in the last years. Many people in the Netherlands think about it as a very “soft” system, though in reality it can be very cruel, especially when prisoners are goiing to a longstay regime, in practice most times for the rest of their lives. Exactly this theme is the subject of the movie of Pieter Kuipers and i was very curious about this movie. But at the end of the movie I was very disappointed, even angry, because i found the movie completely implausible. In scenario, in facts and also in characters. Now i can’t find the exact words why, so that i will do later, without beiing a spoiler of the content of this movie.  

International Film Festival Rotterdam cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, tbs

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2008, cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam

Yesterday i booked my first 10 films. Not especially  my most favorites, but probably some public favorites and soon sold out. Between  them ” La graine et le mulet” , astonishly not showing in The Netherlands after the Rotterdam Film Festival.   (photo:International Film Festival Rotterdam) This film won  in Venice the FIPRESCI film critics award and should be a thrilling movie  ”about life, ambitions, frustrations, courage and indolence among North African migrant families in the south of France”. 

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2008, cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam