By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com
RIFF 2011: Reykjavík International Festival lineup, Honorary award for Lifetime Achievement and Jury announced
The 8th edition of Reykjavík International Film Festival opens in two weeks. The program includes new works by filmmakers Aleksandr Sokurov, Wim Wenders, Giorgios Lanthimos, Michael Radford, James Marsh, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Jonze, Liz Garbus, Kevin Smith, Béla Tarr, Lone Scherfig and Andrea Arnold.
Below is a list of the titles of the New Visions competition, Special Presentations and Open Seas categories.
New Visions – Competition
EL CAMPO by Hernán Belon (Argentine)
The newly purchased country home of young couple Santiago and Elisa, and their little child, soon turns into a disturbing place. The house, rural environment, surrounding emptiness and neighbors all make Elisa uneasy. Gradually, she worries more and more for the safety of her child.
IO SONO LI by Andrea Segre (Italy / France)
At Chioggia on the edge of a fishing lagoon, so far and so close to the Yellow River, the Venetian dialect is spoken whether you are a Dalmatian “poet” (Bepi) or a Chinese worker (Shun Li). These two characters have feelings, dreams and hopes just like in every corner of the world.
TWILIGHT PORTRAIT by Angelina Nikonova (Russia)
Sexual violence, the subtle game of revenge, feelings of uneasiness and the unpredictability of life in a tense and dramatic confrontation between a social worker and a militiaman, all played out against the backdrop of a Russia angered by and ridden with social conflict.
ATMEN by Karl Markovics (Austria)
Roman Kogler, 18, is serving time in a juvenile detention center. Once out, Roman finds a probation job at the municipal morgue in Vienna. One day, Roman is faced with a dead woman who bears his family name. For the first time, Roman wonders about his past and starts looking for his mother.
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE by Sean Durkin (USA)
Martha attempts to reclaim a normal life after fleeing from a cult. Seeking help from her estranged older sister, she is unable and unwilling to reveal the truth about her disappearance. When her memories trigger a chilling paranoia, the line between Martha’s reality and delusion begins to blur.
FOLGE MIR by Johannes Hammel (Austria)
Mrs. Blumenthal lives with her husband and both her sons in a bleak, dockside neighbourhood. She develops an intense social phobia, caused by her worries about the severe accident suffered by her oldest son, Roman. It becomes impossible for her to mix with people and she increasingly barricades herself and her family in their dark apartment, plagued by hallucinations, memories and agoraphobia.
HISTORIAS QUE SO EXISTEM QUANDO LEMBRADAS by Julia Murat (Brazil/Argentine/France)
Time stopped many years ago for Madalena and the remote village of Joutuomba where she lives alone with the memory of her dead husband. But when young photographer, Rita, arrives on scene, her life becomes more cheerful.
VOLCANO by Rúnar Rúnarsson (Iceland)
When Hannes retires from his job as a janitor the void that is the rest of his life begins. He is estranged from his family, hardly has any friends and the relationship to his wife has faded. Through drastic events, Hannes realises that he has to adjust his life in order to help someone he loves.
FEAR OF FALLING by Bartosz Konopka (Poland)
Tomek (30) left the province and decided to sort out his life in the big city. He has a career as a TV reporter and has just started a family when his father is admitted to a psychiatric hospital in his home town. Tomek decides to reach out to his father, although they haven’t seen each other for years.
OSLO, 31. AUGUST by Joachim Trier (Norway)
Anders will soon complete his drug rehabilitation. He is allowed to go into the city for a job interview. But he stays on, drifting around, meeting people from his past. Deeply haunted by all the opportunities he has wasted and the people he has let down, he ponders the possibility of a new future by morning.
HABIBI by Susan Youssef (Palestine)
In the first fiction feature set in Gaza in over 15 years, two students in the West Bank are forced to return home to Gaza, where their love defies tradition. To reach his lover, Qays grafittis poetry across town. Habibi is a modern re-telling of the famous ancient Sufi parable Majnun Layla.
ADALBERT’S DREAM by Gabriel Achim (Romania)
A work accident is re‐enacted, but the re‐enactment turns into a new accident: the worker playing the victim gets his hand cut off, as well. This latest triumph of the Romanian New Wave is set against the backdrop of Romania’s victory of Steaua Bucharest over Barcelona during the 1986 European Cup Final.
Special Presentations
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lynne Ramsay (UK / USA)
Always an ambivalent mother, Eva has had a contentious relationship with her son Kevin literally from his birth. Kevin, now 15-years-old, escalates the stakes when he commits a heinous act, leaving Eva to grapple with her feelings of grief and responsibility, as well as the ire of the community-at-large.
LE HAVRE by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland / France / Germany)
Marcel, a well-known Bohemian, must suddenly take care of a young refugee from Africa. His wife becomes seriously ill at the same time, so Marcel has to rise against the cold wall of human indifference, armed only with his innate optimism and the unwavering solidarity of the people of his quartier.
PINA by Wim Wenders (Germany)
PINA is a feature-length dance film in 3D with the Tanztheater ensemble of Wuppertal, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer Pina Bausch, who died in the summer of 2009. A sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Andrea Arnold (UK)
Based on Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights is a dark tale of passionate and thwarted love, sibling rivalry and revenge wreaked. A Yorkshire hill farmer on a visit to Liverpool finds a homeless boy, named Heathcliff, on the streets. He takes him home to live as part of his family on the isolated Yorkshire moors where the boy forges an obsessive relationship with the farmer’s daughter, Catherine. As the children grow, family members and neighbours are caught up in the family’s bitter games fuelled by overblown egos.
ALPS by Giorgos Lanthimos (Greece)
A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast and her coach have formed a service for hire. They stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by the relatives, friends, or colleagues of the deceased. Alps is a new film by Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos.
FAUST by Aleksandr Sokurov (Russia)
Sokurov’s Faust is not a film adaptation of Goethe’s tragedy in the usual sense, but a reading of what remains between the lines. What is the colour of a world that gives rise to colossal ideas? What does it smell like? This is Sokurov’s fourth film about the corrupting effects of power.
MICHEL PETRUCCIANI by Michael Radford (France / Germany / Italy)
Afflicted from birth by Brittle Bone Disease, Michel Petrucciani managed to dominate his handicap, becoming a gifted musician of international renown. Where does this sublime inspiration come from and how is it brought to light?
Open Seas
PLAY by Ruben Östlund (Sweden)
A serious yet humorous study of human behaviour inspired by authentic cases in which groups of young boys robbed other children in central Göteborg. What was remarkable about the robberies was that they followed an elaborate role-play which tricked the victims without resort to violence or threats.
NADER AND SIMIN, A SEPERATION by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)
Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father. Her request having failed, Simin goes back to her parents’, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader…
THE MILL AND THE CROSS by Lech Majewski (Sweden / Poland)
Based on the painting by Bruegel, The Way to Calvary, in which the story of Christ’s Passion is set in Flanders in 1564. We follow a dozen characters out of the 500+ present on the canvas, whose life stories unfold and intertwine. Breathtaking computer graphics situate the action within the painting.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)
Life in a small town is akin to journeying in the middle of the steppes: the sense that “something new and different” will spring up behind every hill, but always unerringly similar, tapering, vanishing or lingering monotonous roads…
TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA by Iciair Bollain (Spain / France / Mexico)
A Spanish film crew comes to Bolivia to make a revisionist epic about the conquest of Latin America. When riots break out in Cochabamba, protesting excessive fees for water, production is interrupted and the convictions of the crew members are challenged.
LES NEIGES DU KILIMANDJARO by Robert Guédiguian (France)
Despite losing his job, Michel lives happily with Marie-Claire. This happiness will be shattered along with their French window by two young men who beat them, tie them up, snatch their wedding rings and flee with their credit cards…
SIN RETORNO by Miguel Cohan (Spain / Argentine)
A young man dies in a hit-and-run accident. The guilty driver has left no traces and there are no evidences against him. A series of chance events, together with the effects of the public pressure on the legal institutions, result in the wrong man being accused.
SUPERCLASICO by Ole Christian Madsen (Denmark)
Christian is the owner of a wine store that is about to go bankrupt. His wife, Anna, has left him. Now, she works as a successful football agent in Buenos Aires and lives a life of luxury with star football player Juan Diaz. One day, Christian and their 16-year-old son get on a plane to get her back.
THE GOOD SON by Zaida Bergroth [Finland)
After an unlucky premiere the actress Leila escapes to the family cottage. The peaceful holiday with her sons is disrupted when Leila invites some friends over for a rowdy weekend. Afterwards, Leila asks unpredictable writer Aimo to stay a few days. But in the eyes of her son Ilmari, Aimo is a dangerous intruder.
THE HUNTER by Bakur Bakuradze (Russia)
Farmer Ivan Dunaev gets up early. He feeds his piglets, does paperwork, fixes the tractor, and weighs the meat he’ll take in his old pickup truck to the market to sell. He has a wife, a teenage daughter, and a young son. And he loves to hunt. His world revolves around these things. Then, one day, two new workers, Lyuba and Raya, on work release from the local prison colony, arrive on the farm. Ivan doesn’t notice it at first, but something begins to change…
SHE MONKEYS by Lisa Aschan (Sweden)
When Emma meets Cassandra, they initiate a relationship filled with physical and psychological challenges. Emma does whatever it takes to master the rules of the game. Lines are crossed and the stakes get higher and higher. Despite this, Emma can’t resist the intoxicating feeling of total control.
THE CAT VANISHES by Carlos Sorin (Argentine)
When Beatriz picks up her husband Luis from the sanatorium, her usually churlish, academic husband is suddenly friendly and cooperative, even willing to take a trip to Brazil’s beaches. When their cat Donatello disappears, Beatriz’ suspicions lead her to question her own sanity.
WITHOUT by Mark Jackson (USA)
On a remote island, a young woman becomes caretaker to an elderly man. Joslyn vacillates between finding solace in his company and feeling fear and suspicion towards him. As the monotony of her daily routine starts to unravel, boundaries collapse and Joslyn struggles with sexuality, guilt and loss.
RESTORATION by Yossi Madmoni (Israel)
This Karlovy Vary winner depicts the rich texture of modern Israeli society through the story of a man in an antique restoration workshop. In an attempt to save his business and reconnect with his estranged son, he must refurbish his own life.
DIRCH by Martin Zandvliet (Denmark)
When Beatriz picks up her husband Luis from the sanatorium, her usually churlish, academic husband is suddenly friendly and cooperative, even willing to take a trip to Brazil’s beaches. When their cat Donatello disappears, Beatriz’ suspicions lead her to question her own sanity.
Béla Tarr to receive RIFF 2011 Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cinema
The RIFF 2011 “Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cinema” will be awarded Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr. Three of his films will be screened at the festival, including his latest work The Turin Horse (2011). It can also be considered his last film as he recently announced his retirement from filmmaking.
Susan Sontag said she would want to see Béla Tarr’s magnum opus Satantango–all seven hours of it–once a year, and counts his films among those “heroic violations of the norms” on which cinema’s future may depend. Almost a mythical figure to begin with, admired by cineastes but unknown to everyone else, his reputation has grown steadily in the 21st century. Gus van Sant was deeply influenced by his work and Tarr is now seen to be part of a trajectory reaching back to, among others, Tarkovsky.
Tarr made his first film at the age of 22. In his early work he focused on the lives of underprivileged Hungarians in a near documentary-style. His visual style has evolved and is now hard to imitate: painstakingly choreographed camera movements in beautiful black and white shots that will often run minutes on end, creating first a new sense of cinematic time and then a sort of existential crisis. Although often interpreted politically, Tarr maintains that his films have a more “cosmic” dimension and are not to be seen as allegories, but simply cinema about a time, a place, and characters’ presence.
RIFF 2011 International Jury
Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen is the President of the RIFF 2011 Jury. He won international acclaim in Thomas Vinterberg’s Feast (Festen, 1998) and was nominated as Best Actor at the European Film Awards. Recent work includes Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and Tom Tykwer’s The International.
Irene Bignardi has fifteen years of experience as film critic for Italian newspaper La republicca and was also the director of the Locarno International Film Festival.
Tudor Giurgiu is a Romanian filmmaker. A former managing director of hte Romanian state television, he is now the director of the Transilvanian International Film Festival.
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