In to that void steps Spirrl, which in their own words “…is a review website designed to allow filmmakers to communicate about their film festival experiences for the benefit of other filmmakers.” Useful stuff.

• Filmstock 11: The Best of the Shorts
• Filmstock 11: Oil City Confidential
• We’ve been ‘P.A.P. Smeared’
• The Prince and the Pauper
• The Host with the Most

• _grau – Robert Seidel
• Zoo – Robin Bushell
• ZOMBIE ZOMBIE: Driving Clip – Simon Gesrel & Xavier Ehretsmann
• What We’ve Found Out About Stem Cells – Richard Fenwick
• What are words worth?

Definite contender for Music video of the year along with Jarvis Cocker’s Further Complications.

• The Take-Away Shows – Vincent Moon
• Taxi!!
• Rockin’ Brooklyn – Wojtek Bozyk
• Place – Matt Clugston
• DN Special: Joy Division – Grant Gee

After reading about a group of desperate slum dwellers from Sri Lanka who daringly posed as the non-existent national handball team in order to secure their passage out of the country, producer Uberto Pasolini decided to temporarily sit in the director’s chair to bring their true life story to the big screen.

Showlinks
Machan
The Full Monty

• Machan – Uberto Pasolini
• DN LFF08: Quick Gun Murugan – Shashank Ghosh
• INSIDE THE CIRCLE Breakin’ Convention Screening
• Hotel Harabati Competition
• DN Special: Joy Division – Grant Gee

Fingers crossed I’ll be able to get Ben on for an interview. Until then enjoy the trailer.

• Sugarhouse – Gary Love
• Lovers – Carl Zhang
• Hungry for More
• Hotel Harabati – Brice Cauvin
• Helen – Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor

• Weightless – Erika Janunger
• Thunderheist: Jerk It – That Go
• These Are Your Friends & Islands – Trunk
• The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers – Duncan Bone
• Stay in My Memory – Katy Davis

I look forward to stealing his picks

• Short of the Week Makeover
• What are words worth?
• We’ve been ‘P.A.P. Smeared’
• We join the Pikapika party
• We have a look

Machan (2008)
Based on a true story, this tragicomical tale tells the story of a sports team with a difference… Living on the margins of society, under impossible pressures, a group of desperate slum dwellers find an invitation to a handball tournament in Bavaria, Germany. This one-way ticket to the West could be the answer to their prayers and a solution to all their problems… 

• DN EP 148: Machan – Uberto Pasolini
• We Dreamed America – Alex Walker
• Tokyo Cowboys – Daneeta Loretta Saft & Patrick Jackson
• They Turned Our Desert Into Fire – Mark Brecke
• The Upper Hand – Lana Schwarcz

The £11 Stockholder pass meant ridiculous value for money.

Which Filmstock was your first?

The poster says it all.

The ‘Box’ Office – get it!

The Filmstock office museum/archive thingy.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The shining light that was the VHS Bar.

We asked ‘Nustin’ how many hours of sleep they’d had during Filmstock 11.

Sophie’s Choice – Film A or Film B.

Name the Film.

Camera v Camera.

The ‘Lovers of a Dangerous Time’ crew show off their drinking games.

The Filmstock crew would even shed blood for you.

Even the Beers of the World joined in the Film watching.

• Filmstock: This One Goes to 11
• Filmstock: Establishing a Film Festival
• Filmstock 9
• Filmstock 11: The Best of the Shorts
• Filmstock 11: Oil City Confidential

Oil City Confidential tracks Feelgood’s rise from the Thames Delta (or Canvey Island as we know it), where the members started their music careers in retro style jug bands, to the rock & roll sensation they became in the late 70’s. Fueled on by energetic guitarist Wilko Johnson and charismatic lead-singer Lee Brilleaux, the band reached their pinnacle in 1976 with chart-topping album Stupidity. However, after a rise always comes a fall and when Wilko left the band a year later, their popularity soon dwindled and Feelgood mania was over.

Temple’s film is anything but just another music biography though, it’s an unusually constructed documentary where archive fiction film footage, stunning photography of Canvey Island and beautifully composed interviews, all melt into an frantic, hypnotic commentary on all things Feelgood. Although a film about a band and its four members, there seems to be two stand-out stars of Oil City Confidential; Wilko Johnson and Canvey Island. Temple appears to use Wilko (described by the director as “one of the great English eccentrics”) as frenzied narrator for the film, placing him in cinematic locations around Canvey Islands, he works the camera almost like a trained actor. Whether peering down the lens in extreme close-up or strutting across the widescreen frame, there’s no doubt the wild-eyed guitarist loves to be the centre of attention and even though he’s in a good 75% of the film, you still wish there was more Wilko. His other star, Canvey Island, has a bit of a reputation for being a dump and having some weird inhabitants (even Wilko admits people born there, below sea-level, have a ‘Submarine’ consciousness), yet through cinematographer Stephen Organ’s resourceful vision, Oil City Confidential paints it as an attractive place to visit. Creating a vision of England’s own version of the Blues ridden Mississippi Delta, Organ’s camera dwells on caravan parks, seascapes and power stations to support this vision, this really is the coastal town, that they forgot to close down.

If I was being a little harsh (which I usually am), I would have to say Temple’s latest, at 104 minutes is slightly overweight and could do with losing a bit of its bulk. Another slight grumble was at times, the director also over-egged his use of archive fiction film footage and although funny, it often felt lazy and unneeded, especially with such beautiful cinematography. Despite these slightest of complaints, Oil City Confidential is still not only the most aesthetically pleasing doc I’ve seen since Zoo, but also one of the most exhilarating documentary’s I’ve seen all year. Made even more enjoyable by the fact my girlfriend thought I was taking her to see a documentary about the Oil trade!

• Filmstock 11: The Best of the Shorts
• Filmstock: This One Goes to 11
• Filmstock: Establishing a Film Festival
• Filmstock 9: Nicolas Roeg – Puffball
• Filmstock 9: Choke

You know the sinking, gut wrenching feeling you get when your favourite TV show up and quits at the height of its success, or that band you love and adore call it a day after just a couple of kick arse albums? Well that’s something I’d always presumed wasn’t a worry I’d ever need to have when it came to film festivals but no, Filmstock, DN’s festival of choice will be no more after this weekend! I sat down with co-founders/directors Neil Fox & Justin Doherty to chat over how Filmstock has developed over the years and why they weren’t joking back in 2003 when they told me Filmstock would be; “…the festival that goes up to 11″.

Showlinks
Filmstock
Zero Balance
Exploits Of A Cultural Saboteur
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Tony Hendra

• Filmstock: Establishing a Film Festival
• Filmstock 9
• Filmstock 11: This is the End
• Filmstock 11: The Best of the Shorts
• Filmstock 11: Oil City Confidential

Das Paket – Marco Gadge
Two hardened gangsters Klaus and Bernd have to deliver a package. It has to get there in time, but a small traffic light becomes a big problem.

Das Paket is a rare type of short film, one that is full of cold, dark humour yet still manages to simmer with tension and intrigue. In this race against time, Director, Marco Gadge turns the smallest events into huge dramas and the humble traffic light, on a snow covered street, becomes the gangsters greatest nemesis.

I can Speak Swedish – David Forster & Charlene Loh
Jane buys a used car, in which she finds items that provide her with the chance to communicate with a world she once feared.

Production Design and attention to detail are key in Forster and Loh’s film and the pair create an odd, humorous world in which their Swedish obsessed heroine exists. I can Speak Swedish is a funny (ha ha), funny (weird) film, which is hugely enjoyable throughout, whilst also being extremely pleasing on the eye (shot on the Red One, the quality and definition is excellent).

Love Child – Daniel Wirtberg
A young girl enjoys the perfect life of being the only child, when one day a new family member arrives.

Swedish Director Daniel Wirtberg began his filmmaking career at the tender age of 12, at 18 he was accepted into the Czech Film Academy and now at 26 he has completed his 4th short, Kärleksbarn (Love Child). This strange tale of Family life, is as funny as it is well made and the filming style, colour palette and even titles, all work in perfect harmony to form an excellent piece of short filmmaking.

And You Keep Going – Lisa Pham
Boony and Gordo, two friends who refuse to give up on each other, smoke, fight and eat their way through another long day.

And you Keep Going is an odd, unusual, truly original film, that was, without doubt, my favourite short film of Filmstock 2009. The narrative appears (it’s not exactly the clearest of plots) to revolve around the exploits of odd couple, Boony and Gordo as they smoke their way through life and struggle to get over past experiences. If it is actually possible to embody the spirit of independent, alternative cinema within a 17 minute duration, then this is it.

Interpretation – Lin Oeding
A Romantic couple’s brief encounter with several philosophical thugs unfolds in an unusual way.

With a background in stunts for Hollywood blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers and Tropic Thunder, director Lin Oeding knows his action movies. However, with his first short film, Interpretation, the director manages to combine his knowledge of physical feats with a certain poetry and visual flair, resulting in an exhilarating debut short.

Prayers for Peace – Dustin Grella
Prayers for Peace is a narrative stop-motion animation confronting the memory of the artist’s younger brother killed in the current conflict in Iraq.

Screened on Remembrance Sunday, Grella’s Prayers for Peace was an apt and fitting film, for a day in which we remember those who sacrificed their lives in war. Drawn entirely with pastels on a slate chalkboard, this animation is technically astounding and incredibly moving.

Paintbrush – Alex Barrett
Made up entirely of stills, ‘Paintbrush’ presents portraits of ten users of a fictitious online social networking website. By detailing the information given by each user on their profile, the film explores themes surrounding identity, while also serving as a satire of online social networking.

Barrett’s film is a modern portrait of today’s digital society and the choices many of us make, to share our lives publicly on Social Networking sites. Paintbrush not only made me laugh, it seriously made me think about the amount of time we spend ‘virtually’ existing (ok time to close the Facebook tab!).

Memotekid – Marianna Morkore & Rannva Karadottir
An experimental dance film contrasting the minimalism of the dance with the overwhelming nature of the Faroe Islands.

Part Bjork Video, part cursed Ringu video, part bizarre Faroe Islands tourism video, Memotekid certainly definitely wins my ‘Most Original Short’ of the festival prize. Haunting and atmospheric, I didn’t dare take my eyes off this experimental dance film for 1 second of it’s 6 minute duration and it was a short I would happily watch over and over again.

Corvus Corax – Adam Procter
In the beginning there was nothing. Only the Raven.

Friend of the site and Filmstock regular (7 films screened at the festival over 7 years) Adam Procter’s latest animation, Corvus Corax, seems his darkest and most adult yet (although I still haven’t watched the previous film – sorry Adam). Never afraid to take advantage of the blank space, the animation, combined with eerie track 36 Ghosts IV from Nine Inch Nails LP Ghosts I-IV, creates a completely unusual view of the creation of a planet. And as usual it’s all Carbon Neutral and Creative Commons.

Offshore Bank – Thomas Barndt
A contract is a contract.

To be honest I haven’t got a clue what Offshore Bank was about, eye disease – maybe, an advert for Septic Tanque aftershave – perhaps, but whatever it’s subject, I absolutely loved it. Some reports describe it as a film about a crook who has his hearing improved, personally I would describe Offshore Bank as possibly the greatest 4-minute cinematic hallucination ever.

• Filmstock 11: Oil City Confidential
• Filmstock: This One Goes to 11
• Filmstock: Establishing a Film Festival
• Filmstock 9: Nicolas Roeg – Puffball
• Filmstock 9: Choke

How did you identify a gap?
Justin: We lived in the gap, we grew up in the gap. It was intended as a short weekend festival showing some local independent stuff and then a filmmaker emerged from New York and asked if their film could enter – and it all started from there. That’s when it expanded into a two-week festival and a lot of people supported it and encouraged us to make it bigger and go further, so we did.

Neil: When we spoke to people about movies it was evident they were having to travel to London to experience a good film event – and we thought ‘Why couldn’t we just, at least once a year, experience something good in Luton?’

What did you do about funding?
Justin: The first year we didn’t really know how much it was going to cost us. We had an initial £400 from a company in Hemel Hempstead called Alston Elliot and that lasted us nine months. We just didn’t dip in to it. We weren’t successful in getting any grants and the grant people recommended we tone the festival down, perhaps make it a week, take this angle off, take that angle off, but we were at the point where we had a two-week festival, everything was in place. All we needed was a little bit of capital. We weren’t at that point taking any money from it for ourselves, it was all being done while Neil was finishing off a degree and I was working full time.

Neil: We just asked people we knew had the money, we said this is the position we’re in and this is what we need. They saw the value in what we were doing.

Which funding body did you approach?
Neil: The Arts Council England East has been our main funder. It funded the second year as a one-off and now we’re in the middle of a three- year grant to help the organizational development, which is basically for us to stabilize the festival and work out an infrastructure for it. We get a tiny amount locally. It doesn’t really affect the running of the festival.

Justin: We get money from a section of the council from a small arts unit but not from Luton Council itself. It’s something we feel quite strongly about, not getting that sort of support this many years in. The council sponsors our venue. That’s the one thing that’s been in place since 2000. The place was given to us for two weeks for nothing. We come in and we run it; we don’t need to rely on any other staff – it’s all done through our volunteers and us, from the ticket ripping to projection.

Four years in, have you managed to make the festival financially stable?
Neil: It’s becoming more stable. We just got a business mentor who’s really good. He’s going to help us take what we know the festival can be and put it in a document which allows us to get main sponsors and forge those links with the right people to make sure that every year certain aspects of the festival are covered. Hopefully then we can make a living from it. It’s six months full-time work for which we don’t get paid and then the rest of the six months is creative time, developing meetings and working out what the next year’s going to look like and really working away to make sure that if there’s something we want for next year we can get it.

How did you find a suitable venue?
Neil: Our current venue is ideal and was the first place we came to when we began. It has a small cinema and the bar area where people can meet and hang out, which is essential to the festival. In 2001 our venue was closed so we had to use the town hall, which was a difficult task, as we had to turn it into a cinema.

How did you get the Cineworld multiplex involved?
Neil: We lucked on Cineworld really. NTL suggested we contact them and they loved the idea. They came in very late in the first year so we didn’t have much there, but since then they’ve given us a screen every day for two weeks, which is invaluable and very unusual for a multiplex to donate that space. They also buy the prints and just take the box office.

How do you get your message out to people?
Justin: I guest in a naive way you assume that if you stick it around, people who like films are going to pick it up or will be on the look out for it, which isn’t true – as we found out. In the first year we had fluctuating audiences; there we were watching a Steve Martin double bill just three of us – the organizers and one other guy.

Neil: We put it everywhere, it’s on the radio, it’s in the cinema, it’s in HMV, it was on the buses this year, it’s in the Arndale shopping centre and it’s in Luton at Large magazine. If you don’t come across it in any of those places, then you’re really not doing anything.

Justin: Our outdoor screening, which is in its third year, has helped raise the profile. We hold it the Thursday before the festival starts. This year we had 550 people watching Moulin Rouge, many of them knowing about Filmstock already, but everyone else finding a little bit more about it.

Neil: The programme for the last two years has been our main source for getting people to notice. They see this brochure that they don’t expect to see in the town. It’s a different kind of brochure.

Justin: It’s free and people can’t understand that this glossy programme’s for free. It’s our biggest expense but it’s the only way to get it out there. It’s our main form of marketing and it tells you everything you need to know and gives a little background of what we’re trying to do. We do a lot of one-to-one marketing. We talk to a lot of people individually and probably answer Filmstock-related questions 50 times a day between April and June.

Neil: We watch all the bands that play in the area, we go to all the bars and cinemas and just do the work, because those are the audiences you’ve got to let know what’s on.

Justin: A lot of people ask “Can anyone come? Is it for me?” There’s a lot of education in getting people aware that it’s not an elite thing – you don’t have to be a filmmaker to come to a festival.

Neil: You don’t have to watch French New Wave or Italian Silent cinema.

Justin: Which makes the Cineworld relationship invaluable because that is the point where people in general watch films in the town. So by putting on a teen trilogy with The Goonies, Ferris Bueller and Stand By Me it gets people there who are suddenly involved in a film festival who might have thought they’d never go to one. And so they come, and then perhaps try some short films or something else.

Is it difficult to get high profile guests at the festival?
Justin: The difficulty is getting a guest who isn’t just going to turn up, introduce their film and sign some autographs, but actual take part, which is what Jim Sheridan did this year in the Montage season. The main feature of Montage was the films he grew up with – or that stuck in his mind for whatever reason. For example, he remembers Shane being screened in a church where the projector kept breaking down and that experience always stuck with him. So far we’ve had slightly different guests like Ray Harryhausen, who is now 80, and who lived through an incredible era of films and is to a degree responsible for stop-motion animation as we know it now. He’s the kind of guest we want.

Neil: The first one is hardest because once someone commits and you can go back with their experience it’s always easier, because then someone will see that Jim Sheridan’s done it, he had a good time and has spoken kind words about it. Then they’ll be more willing to give their time because they know it’s not so much of a risk. Filmmakers are extremely busy so they need to know that any time they give over will be worthwhile all round. That’s why Jim Sheridan’s done us a favour we’ll always be grateful for.

How do you choose what is included?
Justin: The amount of entries we get grows every year and we never say only films of a certain production value will get in. There was a film made for about £10 screened this year which wasn’t really polished, but it was quite funny and there was a nice story behind it. Then at the other end of the scale we had an Italian film, which was made for $100,000 and played at Cannes and Venice, but these films are all shown together in the same session. We pick things that either we like or we think someone else will like.

Neil: We make a point of watching every film through, because films will often have a beautiful press pack and title sequence, but when you get into them they’re terrible.

In 2002 you had the first UK screening of Insomnia and this year you had Identity. How hard is it to secure these exclusive screenings?
Justin: Shrek was our first one in 2001 and that came about because we talked to Cineworld and said we wanted to do something different, and we got it three weeks before it was out. It was a lot easier than we’d expected, so in 2002 we decided to make Insomnia our opening film. With Filmstock as a festival combined with Cineworld, we were representing the best of both worlds, which distributors like. We’ve found that if there’s no reason not to – such as a title being promised to another festival – then they’ll let you show it. This year we personally approached the distributors instead of Cineworld, and as we were doing a lot of work with Columbia to locate prints for our Easy Rider/Raging Bulls season, we got Identity from them as the opening film and Nicholas Nickleby from Fox as the closing movie.

Are you responsible for making sure entries don’t breach copyright in their films, etc.?
Justin: We have a restriction that says all presented work has to be copyright-cleared. At the end of the day it’s the filmmakers’ responsibility. A big problem is certification. Each local council can decide whether or not you can show films or if they want to certify them. Luton Council wanted to certify them. So the first year we had 12 councilors sitting in a room watching these films. From the second year onwards there’s been a fantastic women at the licensing department who comes in and watches them all herself and goes through every short film we’re going to show. That was definitely a thing we weren’t expecting. There’s a lot of grey area about what pictures you can or can’t use in the brochure, so generally I call and ask. However, Vertigo Galleries, an original vintage poster gallery in London, is one of our supporters now, and they have the images so we incorporate them into the programme as part of their advertising, as they have permission to use the images for their marketing.

Any disasters?
Justin: You always get things like prints breaking or not turning up, especially with the older films. A couple of prints this year didn’t get here in time; it happens – there’s not much you can do about it. You get a disappointed crowd, but you can usually get the film back or get them to come and see the later showing if it’s been delayed. Just little things like that, but we’re impeccably organized. We normally think of everything. Just being two of us means it’s hard to miss things: the bigger the team the harder the communication.

What are the important pitfalls to watch out for in setting up a festival?
Justin: Marketing is the main thing, and you also have to work out what you’re going to show. As we grew up here, we know the area and can imagine what will go down well. If you’re planning to show short films, is there a local filmmaker thing going on? Is there a university where people make films? Is there going to be anyone to watch them? If not, you’re going to have a hard time selling that to people. Work out what you’re going to show and try to tell everyone as far in advance what you’re showing and where. If you like films, what do you do? You go to the cinema and you buy them from stores. Think about where those people go and that’s where you hit them.

Make it friendly. There’s nothing worse than a festival where you don’t feel welcome, or when you feel you’re just sitting down and watching a film. Make people know they’re part of something, either in your programme or by welcoming them and knowing their names. Ask what they’re into and suggest other things they should see. Know your films and try to get to know as many of your audience as possible. The personal touch is invaluable, it’s how people find out about Filmstock.

Plans for future festivals?
Justin: We’re quite happy with the structure. The Montage season will become the centre point, with the retrospectives and independents next, followed by the other special events. There are some directors we’re aiming to go for that will make the Montage the focus of the festival. Changes? More venues, different venues. Last year we screened Romeo and Juliet in St Mary’s church and had thousands of candles and rose petals scattered around. That was our most successful event yet – people queued round the block. The audience reaction was what we always wanted for an event like that. So more things like that. We’ve always wanted to show Jaws in a swimming pool. Next year we plan to have the opportunity for anyone who misses the short films to use their pass to the catch-up room and see the shorts they’ve missed. Screen East is also planning to run education workshops.

We joke about only doing 11 festivals and having the 11th one as a tribute to Spinal Tap. Then we can have, ‘Filmstock, the Festival that goes up to 11’, and combine it with a Spinal Tap reunion and concert.

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 1 (Autumn 2003)

• Filmstock: This One Goes to 11
• Filmstock 9
• Filmstock 11: This is the End
• Filmstock 11: The Best of the Shorts
• Filmstock 11: Oil City Confidential

I have no regrets as I went to The September Issue Masterclass with R J Cutler. He was fabulously entertaining and endlessly quotable on his films, and film-making:

It’s all about trust. You gain their trust by being yourself and by being trustworthy,

The story belongs to the subject and not to me. Ask yoursefl? Is this what they do, is this truthful?

Fly on the wall? I don’t want to fade into the background, as comfortable with being themselves with me as anyone else

As a film-maker You spend your life in places you’re not supposed to be.

Tv is a shark , it’s got to eat. And what it eats is eyeballs

and my favourite:

The biggest burden of being experienced is that you think there are things that you can or can’t do.

Bye bye Sheffield, it’s been absolutely glorious and I am shattered! I really couldn’t have asked for a better few days or more positive response to my projects, now the hard work really starts, watch this space.

The hard working Videoteque boys

The packed luggage store in Showroom 5 – serving 1800 delegates worth of bags

September Issue Masterclass with R J Cutler

Phillip Parker, researcher at large (for my project Orion and First Person Shooter) engrossed in The September Issue, with resident Doc/Fest photographer Pixelwitch on the prowl.

Team Quark – Anna Higgs, Gavin Humphries and researcher Phillip Parker

Last looks

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket

Showroom Cinema.

All Tomorrows parties edit masterclass with Nick Fenton. Truly inspiring.

All Tomorrows parties

New this year, The mighty Britdoc Bar

Stitch and pitch with craftivists.

I learnt how to knit again, first time in 20 years. I knitted and pitched, a moment of calm in a crazy festival

The a to z chatshow with AJ Schnack (all these beautiful things, about a boy) and Debbie Zimmerman (women make movies). Laid back chat on the Sheffield experience, from getting served at Mecure Point after 2 am to vod vs theatrical distribution.

The Britdoc pub quiz. We came in a valiant 3rd.

The hennaed hands of Nikki Parrott, Tigerlily Films

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket
• Fly on the wall? I don’t want to fade into the background

In the third installment of our daily Doc/Fest gems, Super 8 legend Norwood Cheek takes us through the Attack of the 50 Foot Reels filmmaking challenge.

.

A Buzz Films Production

• Doc/Fest 09 – The International Pitch
• Doc/Fest 09 – Crossover Summit
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod03 – Daisy Asquith
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod02 – Emily James
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod01 – Lee Kern

Have a read and watch,

• SotW: Countertransference
• SotW: Unlocked
• SotW: The Autobiography of Tom Stern, Chapter Six: The New Science
• SotW: Tarantino’s Mind
• SotW: Solar

As well as having 4 pitch meetings and taking part in 10×10. I still am yet to watch a single film. Today I saw:

Art docs at the chapel

Sandwich and lack of chair crisis at the delegates centre

Lisa and Dylan 10×10

All aboard the coach…

…to the gala dinner at city hall

Just a few of those 1000 shots of nordik vodka

The guilty pleasures cabaret

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket

Sheffield Doc/Fest day two sees six filmmakers pitch for a £10k DFID funded opportunity to create a 10 minute short for the Community Channel. Greg Sanderson chairs a panel of judges including Executive Producer Jane Stephenson.

.

A Buzz Films Production

• Doc/Fest 09 – Crossover Summit
• Doc/Fest 09 – Attack of the 50 Foot Reels
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod03 – Daisy Asquith
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod02 – Emily James
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod01 – Lee Kern

The time has come once again when the documentary film community converges on the city of Sheffield for Doc/Fest. With director Frank Boyd as their guide, Buzz Films‘ Jan Bednarz & Simon Wan captured the goings on at the inaugural Crossover Summit event.

.

A Buzz Films Production

• Doc/Fest 09 – The International Pitch
• Doc/Fest 09 – Attack of the 50 Foot Reels
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod03 – Daisy Asquith
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod02 – Emily James
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod01 – Lee Kern

MeetMarket this way

Directors of men who swim

Niki, c4int sales agent

Nina pope and Karen Guthrie, artists and directors, staying in Sheffield on a house boat.

The Sheffield Eye

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Fly on the wall? I don’t want to fade into the background

Excited that at some point today I will meet Phil Parker, the researcher on Orion. Up to now everything has been done by phone, email and googledoc.

First stop was to buy new headphones, in my rush for the train I forgot to the essential tool for showing my pitches.

The hubs

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket

I made it, here’s the obligiatory Sheffield steel welcome.

Who’s who at the hubs – awarding the TV sock prize to Axel Arno for best TV commissioner pitch.

Charlie Phillips, the beating heart of MeetMarket

Jason Daponte, commisioner for BBC Mobile platform and aspiring beekeeper

I am ashamed to admit we went to Rutland pub instead of going to the opening film for fish and chips and catch up drinks.

Then on to the opening party for shouted exchanges and way, way too much wine for an opening night. Interspersed with Skype calls on my almost dead iPhone, attempting to arrange a shoot in Memphis with Stewart Copeland for Orion. I’m exhausted and it’s only day one.

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket
• Fly on the wall? I don’t want to fade into the background

In my haste to finish my various edits for Friday’s dfg group 10 x 10 event – I will be showing a teaser and two scenes from my new film Orion: the man who would be king. I missed the 2.15 train to Sheffield. I had to console myself with a volcano-hot hot chocolate and the salubrious surroundings of Nottingham station platform cafe.

If this later train makes it for 4 I’ll be going to the incredibly useful Who’s Who event. In a nutshell financiers, buyers and commissioners stand up and say a couple of minutes about themselves and what they’re looking for. Last year the Brit commissioners were very much evident in their absence and there was an amusing game to be played matching the guide photo (usually taken about 10 years ago) and the current incarnation.

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket
• Fly on the wall? I don’t want to fade into the background

The edit!

The night before Sheffield Doc/Fest I am doing what most directors I know are also doing. Staying up, way past my bedtime to finish cutting a trailer on my new project, to take and show to willing ears and eyes. The aim is, as always to get projects off the ground, financed, commisioned, seen, distributed, you know the small stuff of film-making!

I’ll be keeping an adhoc photo diary of my festival experience here through the week, armed only with an iPhone and unsuitable shoes.

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to z of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• Meet, meet not quite meetmarket
• Fly on the wall? I don’t want to fade into the background

Sadly, we’ve reached the last of our London Film Festival ‘09 afternoon tea interviews, but it’s a great one to go out on. I very selfishly took up a nice chunk of time with directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, who were at LFF for the premiere of their much anticipated documentary, American: The Bill Hicks Story – a look at the life of one of the world’s greatest comedians and thinkers, as told by the family and friends who truly knew him.

Showlinks
American: The Bill Hicks Story
Bill Hicks.com
Waltz with Bashir
The Kid Stays in the Picture
La Jetee
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe After Effects

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy
• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: Starsuckers – Chris Atkins

Ever since I saw Barton Fink over 15 years ago, I knew I would forever be a fan of the Coen Brothers; their style was unusual, their storytelling unique and when settling down to watch a Coen Brothers film, you always felt like you were about to witness something spectacular. Over the last couple of years though, this feeling had to started to dwindle and I had started to question some of their filmmaking decisions (especially during the 2003/2004 period).

Entering the busiest press screening of the London Film Festival I’d attended so far, the auditorium seemed awash with anticipation, hoping to witness another Coen classic. Unfortunately, 106 minutes later the buzz had somewhat disappeared, the audience quickly departed and there was to be no spontaneous, rapturous applause for the Brothers Coen.

I’ve always been a firm believer of quality over quantity when it comes to films. The Coen Brothers however have seemed to favour the latter with seven releases in the last nine years (not including their involvement in Paris, je t’aime). During this period the creative duo have released some brilliant films, with the recent multi-award winning No Country for Old Men probably being the pick of the bunch. Unfortunately though with the release of A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan’s output for this period must be rated as well…average.

A Serious Man is a recognisably Coen Brothers’ film, filled to the brim with eccentric characters, strange going-ons, glorious period design and the essential Roger Deakins’ cinematography; it has Joel and Ethan written all over it. Unfortunately for the Brothers though, their latest release misses the tension of No Country…, the intrigue of The Man Who Wasn’t There and the comedy of O Brother, Where Ought Thou?. Instead what you’re left with is a stunning looking film, with not much else to hold your attention for 3/4’s of its 106 minute duration. Just as A Serious Man begins to get interesting with a series of dream sequences, a trippy Bar Mitzvah and an approaching natural disaster, it unfortunately comes to an untimely end.

Whatever the plot and whoever the actors, the one thing you can always count on when it comes to a Coen Brothers film is that it will look incredible. The set design, locations and costumes for A Serious Man are almost impervious to criticism and you almost feel as if you’ve been transported to 1967 and the largely Jewish suburb of St Louis Park, Minnesota. As expected, Deakins’ photography is sublime again and although it’s not his best work with the Coens, it’s still better than most of the cinematography you’ll witness this year. It’s unbelievable to think that in his 30+ years in the industry, Deakins has never won an Oscar despite eight previous nominations, I just get the feeling it’ll be ninth time unlucky this year.

A Serious Men tells the bleak, downbeat story of Larry Gopnik a family man and physics professor and we follow Larry as he begins to lose his grip on his wife, his family, his job and a series of distinctly Coen mishaps leave him homeless, smoking weed and accepting bribes from students. Ultimately though, due to pacing problems and the noticeable lack of tension or humour, Joel and Ethan’s story of mundane life, just comes across as a little too mundane its self for my liking……although, I’m sure many other will disagree.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

When talking about innovators and pioneers of the moving image, critics are always looking for the next ‘original voice’ of cinema, but seem to rarely actually discover one. Well, Warwick Thornton, debut feature director of the Cannes, Camera D’or Winner, Samson and Delilah may be one such voice. This tale of a small aboriginal community focuses on two of its youngest inhabitants, Samson, a petrol sniffing teenage boy living with his older brother and Delilah, a young girl caring for her elderly Nana. Not content with its critical acclaim at Cannes this year, Thornton’s debut has also been praised as ‘one of the most wonderful films this country has ever produced‘, by critics in its native, Australia.

Warwick had a good introduction to the world of cinema as he comes from prime filmmaking stock, his mother, Freda Glynn, was not only co-founder of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), but was its first director. Following in his mother’s filmmaking footsteps, Thornton decided to study cinematography at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and after graduating went on to compile a solid body of work which includes short films Payback, Mimi, Green Bush and Nana. For his first attempt at feature filmmaking, not content with just writing and directing this excellent movie, Thornton was also responsible for the films striking cinematography.

The multi-talented Thornton has created a powerful, almost dialogue-free feature, touching on a community and a lifestyle we all too rarely get to see on the big screen (I can count the number of films I’ve seen featuring aboriginal characters on one hand: Rabbit Proof Fence, Ten Canoes, Walkabout and Crocodile Dundee). Narratively, you could compare this story of rebellious teenagers to the likes of Larry Clark’s Kids or Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park or find similarities with this account of small town life with Harmony Khorine’s Gummo. However, Samson and Delilah doesn’t feel like any of these films and despite some similarities with previous films (which film doesn’t have similarities with others?), it manages to feel fresh and original.

With Aboriginal roots himself, Thornton doesn’t paint a pretty picture of white Australians’ treatment of its indigenous people and the majority of views we get of the young couple from outside their community are all pretty negative (although the views of Samson and Delilah from within their community are pretty negative as well). Whether it’s security guards following them around the supermarkets, townspeople exploiting them to sell their art or youths abducting Delilah, this filmmaker seems to be telling us something about the treatment of the Aboriginal people. In fact, the only non-Aborginal, helping-hand that comes to the aid of our young, fragile couple is offered by Gonzo (played by Warwick’s older brother Scott Thornton), a fellow homeless man, who despite having very little for himself, shares what he does have.

With such a lack of dialogue in his film, Thornton must have known how important audio would be to the film’s success and like two of my other favourite films from the festival, The Exploding Girl and The Limits of Control, Samson and Delilah relies heavily on sound design to create atmosphere and ambiance. Whether it be Samson’s brother’s band rehearsing the same song over and over again or the sound of the cars on the freeway under which the young couple sleep, the director uses his sound mix to highlight the daily, monotonous boredom Samson and Delilah face. Audio is also used to emphasize the isolation and remoteness both Samson and Delilah feel (whether together or apart) and at times as a viewer, you actually feel as if you’re in the mind of one half of the troubled couple.

Aesthetically, it’s a fascinating film, due to not only some interesting cinematography, but also to some unusual locations and settings, which the director takes full advantage of with his widescreen frame. Taking control of the camera himself, Thornton’s handheld lens tracks our couple on their journey, coming close at times to reveal the couple’s blossoming relationship and straying away at other points, to depict them lost in a world they don’t truly understand.

Samson and Delilah is a bleak, tough-love story, loaded with realism instead of sentimentality and although watching this film may depress some, those who love film should be completely invigorated.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

After wining the Grand Prix at Cannes earlier this year, the reputation of Jacques Audiard’s Un prophète (A Prophet) has, as expected, gone from strength to strength. The film’s continuous rise throughout the year, has seen it take its enviable place at LFF09 as the Sight and Sound Special Screening on the final Saturday of the festival.

Son of prolific screenwriter and director Michel Audiard, A Prophet’s writer and director Jacques Audiard also began his career as a screenwriter over 30 years ago, writing for his father’s 1974 film, Bons baisers…à lundi. He made the move to directing in 1994 with Regarde les hommes tomber (See How They Fall) and went on to make another four films in the 15 years before A Prophet, including the critically acclaimed Un héros très discret (A Self-Made Hero) and De battre mon coeur s’est arrete (The Beat That My Heart Skipped).

With a solid background in screenwriting, you would expect Audiard’s films to have a strong focus on character and plot and this assumption is confirmed with his latest piece. A Prophet follows Malik, a 19 year old French Arab facing six years in jail with no friends, no-one to turn to and most importantly no-one to protect him. The film tracks the young prisoner’s rise from frightened, intimidated inmate to confident, prison-system player and maybe more importantly, from boy to man. For me, the second transformation was the most interesting in the film as we witness Malik go from an uneducated, socially inept teenager, to a multi-lingual, thoughtful adult. It’s almost as if Audiard’s anti-hero is actually growing in stature on screen, right in front of our eyes. As the film progresses, we see Malik becoming more and more of a product of the system to which he belongs, yet the the more he became involved in these negative activities, the more I began to root for him. You know it’s a good film when you find yourself not only liking, but supporting a murderous, drug-trafficking criminal.

A lot of the credit for the character’s depth and credibility within the film has to go to the director’s reportedly actor driven approach. It feels as if Audiard and his cast have taken due care and attention to ensure every nook and cranny of each character’s personality and soul has been explored. This results in some eye-catching performances from the cast of A Prophet; in particular Tahar Rahim as Malik and Audiard regular Niels Arestrup as Cesar Luciano, are stand out impressive. Corsican gang-boss Luciano’s hair might be receding and his belly fat, but Arestrup still manages to portray him as a pillar of strength and a force to be reckoned with. Malik on the other hand, enters the film physically weak and easily manipulated, but through Rahim’s tour de force performance, his growth throughout the slightly flabby 150 minute duration seems immense. Rahim’s performance shouldn’t be underestimated as Malik’s transformation from young thug to respected leader is completely believable and utterly engrossing.

Story-wise, Audiard’s narrative is nothing original, yet he adds enough touches of flair and originality to make this more than just another prison drama, although comparisons are bound to be made with this year’s other French crime movie, Mesrine. Audiard attempts, with varying success, to make his film differ from its competitors with inter-titles, dream-sequences and apparitions and although the narrative is comparable to that of a Hollywood film, the approach is undoubtedly European Art Cinema.

As a surprise winner at Cannes this year [MarBelle: It also picked up The Star of London, Best Film award at LFF], I was anticipating big things from A Prophet and maybe it was because of these expectations I left the screening a little disappointed. It’s a well made, well told story and a film definitely worthy of praise, just not the cinematic explosion I’d so desperately craved.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Shot over seven years, DIG! is a feature-length documentary about musicians Anton Newcombe, leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Courtney Taylor, head of the Dandy Warhols, star- crossed friends and bitter rivals. DIG!’s director Ondi Timoner took away this year’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, with Palm Pictures hot on her heals to pick up the North American theatrical and DVD rights.

How did DIG! come in to being?
I graduated and had made two films about women in prison in Connecticut America. One of them The Nature of the Beast (1994), about Bonnie Jean Foreshaw, who was railroaded into jail, ended up on public television, which is pretty much where documentaries went back then, and it was clear to me that people weren’t really watching documentaries. I felt the problem with documentaries was that they were retrospective, and so I felt I wanted to make a film where the story was unfolding on camera. So I came out to LA to turn The Nature of the Beast into a TV movie to get Bonnie out of prison and to continue making documentaries, but make them like narrative film.

In turning The Nature of the Beast into a TV movie, I was suddenly involved with a major talent agency, which was trying to package it with Queen Latifah playing the lead, while trying to give me a title and get me out of the picture. It became clear that in the face of commercial success or commercial venture, creative integrity is definitely a fragile thing. And in that crux where art and industry meet, art can die – or it can be diluted very severely. So I began looking at where art and industry meet by looking at 10 bands on the verge of getting signed, when I heard the music of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and it blew me away. It turned out that every label was interested in them, so I went to San Francisco to meet them and that’s the first footage you see in the film.

Two weeks later they came down to play an industry showcase in LA and ended up in a fist fight pile-up by the fifth song, and I was just like, “OK, these guys are madmen and whatever’s going on with them and their music and their day- to-day life is more important than any kinda rules the industry has set up; they’re gonna play the game on their own terms if they’re gonna play it at all.” The day after the show Anton Newcombe said, “I’d like you to go and meet the Dandy Warhols; we’re gonna start a revolution together. We’re gonna revolutionise the music industry. Forget about those other bands you’re filming, we’re gonna show you how to do it in your movie.” And I was inclined to believe him.

I didn’t drop the other bands right away, but eventually my original idea, The Cut, was ripped off by MTV, which turned it into a game show. I’d brought it to them trying to look for financing and it ended up on TV in a mutated form, so I dropped the project and just picked up with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, because I realised I could look at everything I wanted to explore about art and industry by looking at these two bands. So many other bands were looking at what the industry might want from them and then trying to be that, whereas both of these bands were just who they were. I thought the Dandys were more likely to get a ticket to ride through the industry than Brian Jonestown Massacre, so the relationship and contrast between them was perfect. So, seven years later we have 1500 hours of footage and quite a tale to tell.

Was it always the plan to follow the bands for seven years?
No, it was going to be a year originally, but you just can’t look at something like that over a year; things just don’t go that fast. For the first two years we filmed very consistently and a great deal of the footage is from 96-99, and then I slowed down a bit. I also realised that the revolution wasn’t going to happen the way that Anton or I thought it would. About six months into filming, the friendship between the bands started to go sour.

I still thought the Brian Jonestown Massacre could make it and the Dandy Warhols were making it, then about three years into it I realised that Anton was too rock’n’roll for rock and was going to self destruct at every opportunity of commercial success. Then I began to look at what success really is. Is it commercial success and would Anton be alive if he was successful? He’s put out 11 records, so he’s a very prolific and alive artist, but he just has to live on the edge. If he had a home and a family life he probably wouldn’t be making this music. Meanwhile, the Dandy Warhols were on this straight-up trajectory, having issues with their record label.

The Dandy Warhols’ favourite band is the Brian Jonestown Massacre – they just don’t want to be in the same room as them necessarily. They get a lot of inspiration from them. The Brian Jonestown Massacre became obsessed about the Dandy Warhols at one point, sort of stalking them, writing songs about them, becoming really jealous of their success and at the same time disappointed in them for ‘selling out’, because in Anton’s eyes you can’t really be commercially successful without having sold out: that seems to be his perspective.

Arguably, the Dandy Warhols haven’t sold out. They haven’t changed. They’ve just been the Dandy Warhols and the fact that people like them doesn’t mean they’ve sold out. The fact is they’ve just managed to navigated the industry enough to get their music out there.

Did you have problems with access?
Well, when you film people the camera’s like a mirror, so it’s not a good idea to hold it up when they’re not happy. There were phases like when Anton was into heroin: that wasn’t a good time to be filming. I would get a little bit in here and there, but I was not as inspired to film. It was too sad and hard for me as a filmmaker to not get involved, so I stayed away as much as possible and just checked in once in a while. But at no point did either band tell me not to film. That was an incredible thing about both bands; they opened their lives up to an experiment.

Did you let them see the footage?
Yeah. The Dandy Warhols have always been big fans of DIG!. The film is mostly about the Brian Jonestown Massacre, say 70:30, so it’s a fun look for the Dandy Warhols at all the antics and shenanigans over the years of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Anton never looked at the footage until the end and I think it’s hard for him to navigate, because it has his father, who committed suicide, in it, and then there are incidents where he says things in the movie that he remembers very differently from the reality on the tape. I think it’s a big shock to his system, so I’ve heard mixed reviews from him.

What was DIG! shot on?
We started shooting the film before there was DV on the consumer market, so we shot about 400hrs of Hi8 with a Sony VX3. Then my camera was stolen at a Dandy Warhols show, so I upgraded to DV with a TRV900, then the VX1000 and finally the PD150. I use the PD150 to this day and I worship the camera. A lot of the movie was shot on that, and a good 30 per cent was shot on spy cameras. I used spy cameras back before reality TV existed, so they were very expensive. Now you can get them for 50 bucks on the internet, but back then it cost me $2500 to buy one spy camera. I needed it because of the low-light, and I didn’t want to use lights because there’s nothing like that to blow a scene – especially when people are a little bit inebriated or in a club at night. So spy cams worked very well for that. We used spy cams and Super-8 primarily for the Brian Jonestown Massacre because they have that gritty, organic feeling that Super-8 brings across. Then once we got some resources together we shot the 16mm film of the Dandy Warhols and then there’s some 35mm in there too from their more hi-end videos, so it’s a real mixed bag.

What did you use for post?
Avid! I’m an Avid editor, and Angela Strachan, who really believed in both bands and the project, contributed a crucial 20-30 grand in the form of an Avid about three years ago, so the Avid’s been like my roommate since then. People have had to try and pull me out of that room with me just going through revelations editing DIG!. In August all the drives crashed and we lost half the media. We finished the film on 3 October, but there was actually a five hour cut in July, so within 3-4 months we’d slimmed the film down from five hours to 1hour 45mins, but stay tuned for the DVD – its gonna be great. As Joel Gion from Brian Jonestown Massacre said, there’s the potential to make three movies that tell the exact same story using different footage. I couldn’t stop filming because the relationship was so extraordinary and the story just kept unfolding. It’s like the project became bigger than me; I just had to hold on to the seat of my pants and keep going.

How hard was it to cut down such a huge volume of footage?
Really hard. It was practically impossible to make it happen. Basically I had to spend many, many weeks throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what stuck. It was really painful; it’s like killing your babies or something. Someone said, “a work of art is finished not when there’s nothing to add but when there’s nothing left to take away.” I had to throw away stuff as good or better than was on the screen just to stick with the story. There are some antics and choice, choice things, but I had to just let it go.

Did you seek guidance when editing?
Yeah, Vasco Lucas Nunes our co- producer spent a lot of time in the edit bay with me. He sat with me at length and really worked with me. Then at the very end I showed Doug Pray (director/editor of Hype and Scratch) a cut when it was already down to two hours 12mins, and he helped me take it down to 1 hour 45mins, just by sitting with me for a couple of sessions and making some comments. He has an editorial adviser credit on the film; he was very helpful.

I had to finish the film because I was due to give birth that week, so I actually didn’t have the feeling that it was done, because I didn’t have that satisfactory, “OK, that’s it”. We output it and then did a polish before Sundance and cut another seven minutes out of it, and now we have our distribution deal I want to do another polish, not to cut time but just to tweak a few things I saw while at the festival. I don’t think it’s ever done for filmmakers; we’re way more critical of our work than other people.

How did you finance the project?
I didn’t raise a budget, I funded DIG! by working as a director. I produced, directed and edited a show for VH1 called Sound Affects; I did a bunch of EPKs and was nominated for a Grammy in 1998 for a piece I did about fastball. Then I did documentaries about Paul Westerberg and music videos for people such as Lucinda Williams. Very low budget music videos, but it was my bread and butter and I would just take my money and make DIG!. I looked for money at different times, but it was such a waste of time because everybody looked at the amount of footage and said, “Well, lots of luck.” Nobody could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I don’t blame them; it was a hard project to complete.

The budget was less than a million, but more than $500,000, just because it was shot over so long and there were so many journeys in it. I toured Europe with the Dandy Warhols three times, went to Japan with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and did national tours with both bands, and that costs. Plus a lot of tape, film and transfer costs, and I’ve had to upgrade the Avid and get more drive space for the film. And there’s people I brought on at different points; I brought my brother on to edit for a little while last year, and another editor, Oscar Daniels.

I kept trying to hire editors to get the perspective and just direct, but it never worked out; I just ended up having to edit it to the end. It was such a massive project that it was hard for anybody to wrap their arms around it. I was the only one with it the whole time, and had all the pieces of the puzzle in my head. I would literally lie in bed and de-reconstruct the scenes. So ultimately it came down to me being tortured till three in the morning. I would wake up with these epiphanies. One of the final epiphanies was Courtney Taylor doing the narration. I wrote it and then he and I ad-libbed and he went away and did some extra stuff which was great. It just ties the whole thing together having him tell the story. Even when the bands go their separate ways and you don’t see the bands together for the last five years of the film you’re hearing about it from Courtney.

And he did know about it and they did follow each other’s stories, even though they don’t share the same space. In the last conversation I had with him, Courtney said “My life wouldn’t be the same if Anton didn’t exist. I would have had a completely different life.” So it’s this star-crossed friendship between the two of them. They are each other’s barometer of success.

Dandy Warhols defined commercial success for the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the ability to be a good band and successful, which the Brian Jonestown Massacre couldn’t seem to do, but they defined creative integrity, the prolific nature of songwriting and the ability to ride that edge. As Peter Holmstrom said, “Courtney was either unable or unwilling to ride that edge that Anton seems to ride.” It’s a very uncomfortable place to live, but it’s an amazing place to write music from.

So what next?
I have two documentaries that I’ve been shooting. One I’m shooting in Portugal with Vasco Lucas Nunes. We’re documenting a form of bullfighting that he used to perform, it’s a very rustic form of bullfighting that’s done in Oria on the border between Portugal and Spain. It’s a very beautiful thing, where they don’t actually kill the bull. The second is a film I’ve been doing about a dam in Maui, West Africa that’s threatening one of the oldest living civilizations.

I also have a feature-length script called Fortunate Sun that people are looking at, which I wrote a while ago, about a man that spent his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit here in America. He’s basically like a rock star of the prison system. I’m really interested in individuals fighting circumstances they can’t control. Then there’s another film I would love to make about my father, but I only have the story outline not the script. I’m basically looking to do a feature next. I’ll keep doing documentaries forever, but my next move would be a feature. I also wanna keep doing music videos and a few commercials here and there, because they’re such a shot in the arm for a filmmaker who does something over such a long period of time. I’m very excited cause I have a lot of potential opportunities right now.

• Overnight
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• We Dreamed America – Alex Walker
• Tokyo Cowboys – Daneeta Loretta Saft & Patrick Jackson
• They Turned Our Desert Into Fire – Mark Brecke

Double Sundance Grand Jury prize winner Ondi Timoner, must have thought she was living the documentary filmmaker’s dream, when in 1999 she was asked to document a social experiment/art project involving 100 artists living in an underground bunker in New York for a month. However, the project soon turned into a nightmare as the life of its instigator (internet pioneer and main focus of We Live in Public), Josh Harris, started to spiral out of control.

After filming the whole experiment for a month and editing for two and a half months, director Timoner returned from pitching her project Dig! at Sundance to find the Avid system gone and the master tapes missing. In her absence, Harris had gone through the rough cut, decided he didn’t like how it made him look and took possession of everything, leaving Timoner unpaid and without a film. Ten years later the film has evolved from a story about this one experiment (and the possible birth of reality TV), to the incredible tale of the rise and fall of Josh Harris.

At an early age, Harris began predicting a future dominated by the internet and as this prediction came to fruition, he was at the head of the queue to cash in, becoming one of the key dot-com kings. After making millions with his share in Pseudo.com, a website for live audio and video streaming, which Harris later described as an art project, he went on to push the boundaries of art/society with his Quiet project, where he gathered together a community of 100 artists and scenesters to live for one month in a fabricated bunker, complete with a thorough, ‘nowhere-to-hide’ security system, under New York. Featuring a church and a firing range, the residents of Quiet were provided with everything they could need for free (including food, drink and drugs). The only thing that wasn’t free, was the footage that was shot, Harris owned that. After the project descended into chaos and the NYPD brought the experiment to an end (they believed it to be a cult) on January 1st 2000, Harris went on to his next project, We Live in Public. Whilst conducting the Quiet mission, the internet pioneer formed a strong relationship with Tanya Corrin, an ex-presenter on Cherrybomb, one of his video streaming channels and asked her to participate in his next stunt. Harris and Corrin would live out their relationship in a loft apartment fitted with 24 hour surveillance, live in front of the internet viewing public. Sharing all their intimate, personal moments, including a camera in the toilet, the couple would share their new life with anyone who wanted to see it. Obviously, this relationship didn’t last (in fact Harris now refers to Corrin as a fake girlfriend), another project fell apart and a stock market crash meant the millionaire lost it all. What happened to Harris after this point is only fractionally covered towards the end of the film, but it appears he tried to disappear from public view. Although, I doubt this is the last we’ll see of Josh Harris.

Timoner’s film is expertly crafted from vast quantities of footage and is a joyous, informative watch. The director was in a strong position when brought into record the Quiet project, as she not only became a documenter, but also a participant. Speaking after the film, Timoner confirmed this is the kind of filmmaker she is, by admitting “I’ll pick my subject up if they fall over, but I’ll film them first“. The fimmaker seems very close to her project and speaks very personally, honestly and frankly about it, especially when quizzed on the subject of Tanya Corrin. As a friend of Harris’ ex-girlfriend, Timoner still seems very unhappy with his references to her as a ‘fake’ girlfriend.

This was the second film that focused somewhat on reality TV and fame that I’d seen at this year’s LFF (in fact I saw them only hours apart). Where Chris Atkins’ Starsucker was a light, somewhat uninformative doc, We Live in Public feels like a very personal, informational, dense story. In fact, when the credits roll, you almost find it hard to believe you’d never heard of Josh Harris before and like the titles at the start of the film declared:

This is the story of ’The greatest internet pioneer you’ve never heard of’.

The only misstep in We Live in Public was the horrible inclusion of Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity at the end of the film – A far too obvious choice and far too awful song to end such a brilliant film.

• DN LFF09: Starsuckers – Chris Atkins
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill and Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy

For his third feature Passenger Side, director Matt Bissonnette decided to go back to basics and the freedom that comes from shooting a film on a low budget, with a skeleton crew. We sat down over LFF tea and cakes to discuss the process of bringing his tale of road tripping, polar opposite brothers to the screen.

Showlinks
Matthew Bissonnette
Passenger Side

• DN LFF09: Men on the Bridge – Asli Özge
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

South Korean cinema has been going from strength to strength in recent years and if Mother is anything to go by, then this rise isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Park Chan-Wook has stolen much of the praise for the nation’s growing cinematic power with his Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) and his recent take on the vampire story, Thirst (Cannes 2009, joint Jury Prize winner). Lurking in his shadow somewhat has been Bong Joon-Ho, his police drama Memories of Murder showed the potential of  this skilled craftsman, whilst The Host displayed how to make a successful monster movie with a moderate budget (The Host is a far better film than Cloverfield, Godzilla & Peter Jackson’s King Kong put together). With his latest effort Mother, Joon-Ho has once again displayed his deft touch for storytelling with his original take on the murder mystery movie.

Mother is (unsurprisingly) a tale of maternal love and a story about how far one woman will go to protect her only child. The Mother in this case is a quiet, introverted herbalist whose sole purpose appears to be to care for her backwards son Do Joon. Led on by his horny, rebellious friend Jin Tae, Do Joon finds himself falling deeper and deeper into trouble, until he’s engulfed in a serious criminal investigation where only his loving, devoted Mother will fight to clear his name. It’s a refreshing take on the ‘Who-Dunnit’ formula and the story provides moments of shock, humour and raw emotion.

As the titular mother, emphasis inevitably falls on actress Kim Hye-Ja and the film’s success was always going to largely depend on her performance. Thankfully it is a masterful performance, as the veteran actress manages to convey not only the frailties of this lone woman sucked  into a male dominated world, but also the strength she conjures from within to save her child.

Mother could almost slot into Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy, as it has a similar feel and a similar plot (the film’s plots all revolve around the title characters’ quests for answers). It’s definitely up to the quality of Chan-Wook’s work and although not as stylish as Old Boy or Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, it’s a confidently made film with some stunning imagery. The camera hangs on Kim Hye-Ja’s face and we see it spread, emotion ridden, across the screen, dominating the frame as often as possible. However, the actress isn’t the only star of this film as the cinematography takes every chance to lovingly display the Korean countryside in full panoramic glory, as we are dazzled with wide tracking shots of fields, forests and mountains.

In all honesty I knew I’d like this film from the opening seconds, I mean if an impromptu  dance in a hay field isn’t going to do it for you, then I don’t know what will.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Chris Atkins made his name with his Blair busting documentary Taking Liberties and now with his new doc he takes a look at fame, celebrity and the media. Although the director’s latest film does provide entertainment and plenty of laughs, it does seem as if the ‘facts’ it’s revealing are things the majority of it’s audience will already know:

• Kids watch too much TV – Hardly fresh and revolutionary information.
• Today’s Society is obsessed with fame – anyone who watches TV, reads newspapers or listens to the radio will already be far too aware of this.
• The media lies – Ok, so not everyone will know not to believe everything the read, see or hear, but you’d like to assume people have the smarts to question a story’s validity.

Visually this feature shows some nice touches of flair, using graphics and a set of floating magician’s hands to present information to its viewers. Atkins attempts to divulge the secrets behind the curtain of media and fame, like a magician exposing the methods of their tricks. It’s a nice metaphor and the graphics are particularly pleasant, however it does seem a little bit of a ‘party-trick’ to link segments together and make the information seem all the more revealing.

The footage in the film’s 100-minute duration does seem slightly repetitive and I began to wonder if Atkins had used a lot of the material just to fill the visual space under the voice over. At times the voice over does feel like the dominant element of this piece, which is obviously a bit of a let down when watching it on a big screen as a cinematic experience.

There are some fascinating characters in this documentary but unfortunately, just like the Ross Brothers’ film 45365, they didn’t really get enough time to settle on our screen and just as we start to become interested, they disappear.

In the end there simply wasn’t enough of a hook to Atkins’ examination of fame to keep me mesmerized for its entirety and instead I found myself drifting in and out of the film. Don’t get me wrong, at its core it’s a very entertaining and humorous film, it just felt a little lightweight (a bit like this post!), considering it’s selling itself as a ‘revelatory’ documentary.

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill and Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy

This is the best article you’ve ever read!

This is the best article you’ve ever read!

Ok, now I’ve laid down the Jedi Mind Trick I can pretty much write whatever I want.

Not content with acting, writing and producing (mostly on George Clooney projects), Grant Heslov has now turned his hand to directing, with this wacky feature produced through Smokehouse Pictures (Heslov and Clooney’s production company). The Men who Stare at Goats is based on Jon Ronson’s non-fiction bestseller of the same title and tells the story of the US military’s attempts to train a squad of Jedi-like psychic soldiers, who use mind powers as their weapons instead of guns.

The comical events of the story revolve around reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) as he escapes a broken heart by doing what all men with broken hearts do, go to war. Searching for a story in Iraq, Wilton stumbles across ex-psychic soldier (and titular Goat Starer!) Lyn Cassady, who believes he’s been reactivated on one last mission to locate his former mentor Bill Django (Jeff Bridges reprising his ‘dude’ mentality from The Big Lebowski).

I liked Heslov’s movie, but that’s as enthusiastic I’m going to get about it. It was far too hit and miss to be anything above average and if it hadn’t been for the director’s ability to assemble a formidable cast, this movie could have easily slipped below that mark. In all honesty, I don’t think it’s actually possible for any film featuring George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges to be anything less than enjoyable. With Clooney and McGregor (surely only in the film to make the Jedi references funnier) consuming most of the screen-time, it’s somewhat surprising it’s Bridges and Spacey who provide the majority of the comic moments.

The bulk of The Men who Stare at Goats’ laughs come from sight gags and slapstick-like skits, whether it’s a psychic soldier unsuccessfully trying to run through walls or another failing with a leap of faith, they do feel a little like cheap-shots aimed at new-age techniques and spiritual thinking. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little cheap humour every now and then.

I think if I had seen this film at my local cineplex style cinema, I would have been perfectly happy with what I had just viewed. Unfortunately for Heslov’s movie, I saw it at the London Film Festival surrounded by some better looking films, some funnier films, some more substantial films and The Men who stare at Goats didn’t quite rise to the level of the rest of LFF’s programme.  The fact that this was my third favourite Clooney film I’d seen in 5 days, should tell you enough about The Men who Stare at Goats.

It’s almost like the production team had such an interesting story and such a fantastic cast, they felt like they didn’t need to do anything else. Some advice Mr Heslov, well to quote the Jedi – “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”(did you like the way I just added that whole last paragraph to get a Jedi quote in?…respect my Geekness!)

• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: The Informant! – Steven Soderbergh
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

As a fan of many years and with a couple near misses in the past, today’s LFF interview is probably the highlight of the festival for me. It was my pleasure to spend some time (however brief) with director Harmony Korine, to discuss his latest offering Trash Humpers, along with the chances of us ever seeing the abandoned Fight Harm project surface.

• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: Passenger Side – Matt Bissonnette
• DN LFF09: Men on the Bridge – Asli Özge
• DN LFF09: Enter The Void – Gaspar Noe

To breakdown the plot of The Limits of Control, would be like unwrapping a riddle that’s wrapped in an enigma, the film transcends conventional narrative and is more about atmosphere and intrigue, than story and plot development. Watching Jarmusch’s film reminded me of an old quote about Jazz musicians, “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play” and with his latest feature, the cult director manages to say so much by having his characters say so little.

In essence the movie focuses on the Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé, the coolest, smoothest, most smartly dressed man you’ll seen on screen this year, if not this decade), a hit man sent to Spain to follow a treasure-hunt like trail of coded messages to his target. It almost seems that with the character of the Lone Man, Jarmusch is finally trying to erase the disappointing Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai from our (and maybe his) memory. Where Forest Whitaker’s overweight, philosophy spouting, Samurai hit man just didn’t seem very believable, Bankole’s sharply dressed, steely faced hit man of little words, seems not only plausible but downright menacing at times.

It’s a film of very little dialogue, Jarmusch instead uses a sprawling soundtrack (reminiscent of Dead Man), Bankolé’s strong face and Christopher Doyle’s striking cinematography, to paint his vivid picture.

The soundtrack, dominated by Boris, Sun O))) and Jarmusch’s own band Bad Rabbit, drones and rumbles through sections of the film, adding a sense of tension and unease. However, the director also isn’t afraid to use silence to his advantage and where not displaying his love and his respect for the movie soundtrack, he lets silence reign.

Another element Jarmusch uses to his advantage are the facial features of lead performer Isaach De Bankolé, whose chiseled good looks and unyielding eyes gives the Lone Man the level of mystery needed to make this film work. It’s one of those roles you can’t imagine anyone else filling and a performance that should elevate Bankolé from bit player to fully fledged leading man.

Christopher Doyle has made a solid name for himself in recent years, working on visually arresting movies with unforgettable images, he has become one of the top names in cinematography. His work with Wong Kar-Wai in particular, landed him critical acclaim and the cinematography for In the Mood for Love won him the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes in 2000. Doyle carries on his good work for avant-garde directors, with this wonderful piece of cinematography that complements Jarmusch’s writing idyllically. Doyle’s camera loves it’s environments and locations and seems to always find the best position or angle to perfectly set the scene or frame a character. The combination of Doyle and Jarmusch is surely one all us cinephiles have been waiting for.

I’m sure many people will criticize this film for a perceived lack of focus or for being too self-indulgent, with all of it’s film, music, art, literary and philosophy references. However, I think these are only apparent weaknesses, if you miss the whole tone of Jarmusch’s latest feature and instead of admiring his education and passion for the arts, you mistake it as a self-congratulatory pat on the back. The director references everything from William S. Burroughs with it’s title, Arthur Rimbaud with it’s opening quote and more directly, John Boorman with it’s visual style. It’s almost as if he is saying, if you like my work, maybe you should check this out (he’s like a filmic version of the Genius bar in iTunes).

“The best films are like dreams you’re never sure you really had,” the character Blondie proclaims in a one sided conversation with the Lone Man. Well if that’s true, I’m really hoping this dream is recurring.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

After the screening of Metropia, director Tarik Saleh claimed he never wanted to make an animation and even went on to declare that after watching his film he was disappointed when he realized it wasn’t live-action. The director jokingly stated he was put off animation because of the lengthy creative process he experienced when working for his father, a stop-motion animator. To be fair to Saleh, he had spent a year creating 200 faces for a puppet, only for his father to decide he could actually do the job with just 30, enough to put most people off. Despite all this, Metropia is clearly an animation (although it does contain live-action elements) and one that took six years to make.

Set in the not too distant, not too pleasant future, the world is now running out of oil and the undergrounds have been connected into a sprawling subway network beneath a dreary dystopian Europe. Metropia tells the story of Roger (Vincent Gallo – not as impressive when you can’t see his face!), a man obsessed with conspiracy and overflowing with paranoia about the ever-increasing levels of surveillance in the world in which he lives. This suspicion isn’t helped when he begins hearing voices and starts believing that someone or something is trying to control him. The film follows our anti-hero as he tries to uncover who or what is attempting to manipulate his thoughts and ultimately regain control of his life.

This is a strange looking film, faces and body-parts look photo-real, but often characters walk and move like they’re straight out of South Park or Team America: World Police. To create the distinct look, Saleh and his team used Adobe After Effects, a tool that the director admitted wasn’t ideal for creating animation (good job he wasn’t making an animation then!). Trying to avoid his film looking like just another Pixar imitation, where everything appears to be made out of ice-cream (Saleh’s words not mine), the director forced the software to create something markedly two dimensional and very memorable. I don’t know whether I liked the style of the film or not? At times it was visually breathtaking and reminded me of the Rosto A.D. short Jona/Tomberry, at other points it just looked a little disappointing.

The one thing a filmmaker should take away and consider after watching Metropia is how important it is to consider all mediums when creating your films. Even though director Tarik Saleh is usually a documentarian, he had a story to tell and decided the best way to tell it was through the use of animation methods and personally I couldn’t imagine this film done any other way…especially on the low budget of 34,000,000 Krona (about £3 million).

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) is back with another modern day tale of life, love and frequent flyer miles with Up in the Air.

George Clooney (this year is definitely the year of Clooney), plays Ryan Bingham, a middle-aged man who lives his life out of his immaculately packed, perfectly sized suitcase. Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert (he fires people!), who makes his way around America doing a job that others don’t have the balls to do. He loves his life, he loves his job and seems to want nothing more from his existence than to reach his life goal of clocking up ten million frequent flyer miles (which he’ll only be the 7^th person to do). Unfortunately, Bingham’s reality is suddenly shattered by the appearance of two women in his life. The first, Alex (Vera Farmiga), another frequent flyer with a similar outlook on life (“Think of me as you with a vagina” she informs Bingham), threatens to disrupt his whole non-committal approach to women. Whilst the other, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a self-assured, young techno-whiz, wants to revolutionize the downsizing industry by introducing firing by Web cam, essentially ‘grounding’ Bingham and the jet-set lifestyle he’s come so accustomed to. It’s a lightweight tale from Reitman and one that carries on from the same amusing, moral scattered themes we’ve seen in his earlier work. Although it was nice to see a slightly darker ending to this Hollywood story.

Right from the immaculate opening titles (another piece of work from Shadowplay, the people behind the titles sequences for Juno and Thank You for Smoking) and a snappy, smartly edited establishing sequence the tone is set. Just like Reitman’s last two features this is a smart, funny, well-constructed movie which is hard to dislike, even if at times it does resemble the best advert for American Airways ever made.

This is probably my favourite Clooney performance of the festival; smoother than the Fantastic Mr Fox and funnier (haha funny, not strange funny) than Lyn Cassady (The Men who Stare at Goats), George always seems to be at his best when riffing on his playboy image. Ryan Bingham certainly is one charismatic, captivating character and the praise for this has to go mainly to that performance. Although to be honest, Clooney plays this role with such ease, you start to question how much this on-screen persona is actually like the real-life George. The rest of the cast put in likable turns, Vera Famiga (Alex) and Anna Kendrick (Natalie) prove strong female characters in a male orientated world and Jason Bateman and Sam Elliott also bring some classic comic moments with their cameos.

My only criticism of Up in the Air would be that however amusing, however charming, it does seem a little like we’ve seen it all before. The plot is far to close to Thank You for Smoking and with another light-hearted, moving comedy I am starting to question whether Reitman has anything else to offer us (although maybe I’m being picky for picky’s sake!)

If Reitman is a one-trick pony though, then he surely has mastered that trick and however much I’d like to see him try something different I’m just going to sit back, relax and enjoy his one trick tactics for now.

• DN LFF09: The Men who Stare at Goats – Grant Heslov
• DN LFF09: The Informant! – Steven Soderbergh
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

Today’s LFF afternoon tea interview is a doubleheader with co-directors Damani Baker and Alex Vlack, who after over 11 years of patient persistence, were able to bring their documentary Still Bill to the screen; a look at the life, relationships and of course music of the legend that is Bill Withers.

Showlinks
Still Bill

• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill Ross & Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy