Destaques > 30ª Mostra > 22/10/2006
TALKS AT THE MOSTRA
Julia Loktev
Julia Loktev: An Unknown Face for Terror
Selected for the 30th Mostra with Day Night Day Night, title that intends to convey an idea of terrifying continuity, filmmaker Julia Loktev visited São Paulo to be present in the exhibition of her second feature (the first is Moment of Impact, a documentary about her father, screened at the 22nd Mostra). She is director, screenwriter, co-editor and co-producer of the film that, in spite the fact of being a fiction, is inspired on a real fact and is completely verisimilar. Loktev was inspired by the news of a woman, suicide bomber, who was arrested while roaming the streets of Moscow in the exact place the filmmaker had been a week before. In addition to this, Loktev added her post-September 11th uneasiness (she lives in New York and filmed the collapse of the World Trade Center) with a premise that came to her mind and seemed unbearably probable: the presence of a young woman suicide bomber in Manhattan.
However, Loktev was not interested in exploring the possible political contexts of the situation. She developed an existential drama from the silent doubts of this 19-year-old girl. The film has few dialogues and few characters. It revolves around the main character, someone lost in the streets of New York, studying her personal motivation and questionings. Loktev mentions other piece of news she read, about a Chechen woman who was also arrested with a bomb, but that had bought a bunch of bananas just before the failed attack. “My film is about this, about bananas. After all, what drove this woman to stop by a fruit stand before sacrificing herself?”, she questions. In addition to that, she constructed her character based on the way Joan of Arc was treated in the movies, whether played by Jean Seberg or by modern Milla Jovovich, or especially the martyr as viewed by master Carl H. Dreyer.
The director didn’t want a famous actress to personify this “heroine”. She needed an unknown face. She interviewed 650 young women and chose Luisa Williams, who was not an actress. She was a babysitter and saw the ad for the auditions during one of her strolls when working. Out of the blue, she felt that she needed to face this challenge. Loktev mentions that, during the audition, it was possible to see the intense flow of thoughts that characterizes the main character. The choice was made. And it seems that Williams does not think about investing in her career as an actress, because she is currently working in a movie rental store. In any case, she was perfect for unveiling the conviction that turns into weakness and submission in her potential suicide saga.
Without resorting to any music, Loktev comments that the sound (the real/ambient soundtrack) was decisive to define the psychological profile of the plot. She worked with Felix Andrew, Gus van Sant’s sound mixer in Gerry (2002, 26th Mostra), Elephant (2003, 27th Mostra) and Last Days (2005). With his help, the filmmaker sculptured the sound and elaborated even more her young woman’s test of faith and conviction. Therefore, Day Night Day Night is a certificate about a greater possibility, a greater terror: the terror of personal doubt as motive power for radical actions. The world is packed with radical actions!
Sean Garrity: Playing with Other People’s Lucidity
Actor Jonas Chernick was the one who offered the original handwritten screenplay of Lucid for his friend (and future co-screenplay writer) Sean Garrity to direct. What caught Garrity’s attention in this true nightmare unsleeping psychologist Joel Rothman (performed by Chernick) lives in was the possibility of investigating the structure of the dream, how a human being gives in to the dream world. Chernick’s own father suffers from insomnia, which is the contrary of what many people think: it’s a symptom of psychological uneasiness, not a disease. Therefore, Garrity insisted on beginning his film as if it were a TV commercial, in order to become completely familiar with the spectator. But the photography becomes more crooked as the main character goes to hell, to the point that one completely loses the sense of what is in fact real. Is the story you’re watching truly happening? The open ending is a toast to this doubt.
Garrity was also fascinated by the fallible narrator. In the beginning, Joel is sure he controls his own life and owns the truth. As the time goes by, his self-assurance is swept away by the fact that his three patients, who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder, begin to doubt his lucidity. Each one of these characters is sure of their fears: Sophie (Lindy Booth), a suicidal junkie who believes herself to be immortal, lives in a existential drama; Chandra (Michelle Nolden) believes the city is shrinking, and acts as if she were in a thriller; and Victor (Callum Keith Rennie), who suffers from persecution syndrome, feels like he’s in a spy movie. Putting all these disorders together, unsleeping Joel suffers because he was abandoned by his wife and rejected by his teenager and somnambulistic daughter. It’s a human freak show that leads to a surprising closing.
When asked whether he had cast actress Lindy Booth (who recently starred horror movies Wrong Turn, Dawn of the Dead and Cry Wolf) to attract the young public that is into fantastic cinema, he answered he only wished he was so smart. The fact that Booth has done some known films, even though she herself is not so famous, is because the part of Canada that speaks English doesn’t have a star system, according to the director. Since it’s very close to the US, only American actors are famous in Canada. Canadian spectators themselves don’t know their own countrymen. If there are famous names like that of Mia Kirshner, that is due to Hollywood movies in which she participated, such as The Black Dahlia, by Brian de Palma. She started her career in Atom Egoyan’s films.
His main character in Lucid is always turning on his own heels, never going anywhere. Garrity, on the contrary, has traveled a lot: he has lived in Toronto and Buenos Aires and he has lived for three years between Japan and Asia. His first feature, curiously entitled Inertia, 2001, has his own screenplay, is a 4-language movie and ends in “Brazil” (actually shot in Vancouver, close to palm trees). His next project will be a Canadian/Brazilian co-production, which will take place in Canoa Quebrada (State of Ceará), in 1990, when Garrity visited the place with plans to stay two days and stayed for two weeks. Garrity knows the town is not the same he knew – he’ll have to find new locations –, but what he wants is to show the feeling he had during his visit: that of a post-modern version of Casablanca. Canoa Quebrada represented a post-hippie community, almost perfect, a multicultural epiphany that united citizens from all over the world who arrived there and stayed there for a very long time (or even forever). It’ll be a requiem to a town and to a lifestyle that no longer exist.
Tania Hermida: A Landmark
When she sets her mind to something, the Ecuadorian Tania Hermida is the kind of person who will not give up until she achieves what she aimed for. It was moved by this same strength that she abandoned everything else and dedicated three years of her life to the making of How Much Further, her first feature film. All the effort she put into it was worth it. After going through a truly difficult time to find resources to shoot the film, going from door to door and resorting to all possible public instances, Hermida is now enjoying the fruits of her hard work. In an interview for the Jornal da Mostra conducted at the restaurant Terraço Itália in São Paulo, the director revealed that How Much Further has become a kind of landmark in the cinematography of that country. Her feature has already brought more than 130 thousand spectators to the theaters in the seventeen weeks it is being screened, a record for a national production. It is also the first Ecuadorian film to be screened at the Mostra.
For Hermida, the acceptance by the public was good to show possible investors that Ecuadorians are willing to go to the movies and check local production. And more: that investing in a national film may be a good business. The director disapproves of the war between independent filmmakers and big producers. She understands that dialogue is the best option. For her, it is interesting to talk to each other and show the advantages of investing in the country’s production. Following the steps of Brazil and Argentina, three months ago Ecuador passed a film incentive bill creating a national fund to be used in the production, post-production and distribution of Ecuadorian movies. For Hermida, having laws regulating production is essential in countries like Ecuador and Brazil. Governments have to admit that movies are culturally important for any country.
Another positive aspect indicated by Hermida is the education of film professionals in the country. She graduated in Film from International School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, and revealed that her technical team was formed by professionals that, like her, had to leave Ecuador to study abroad. On the contrary, the members of the crew who worked in the production of How Much Further came from three film courses now available in Ecuador. Even so, the director makes a point of stressing the importance of leaving the country and getting to now other cultures. She believes that a future filmmaker must live some time abroad and broaden their conception of the world.
TALKS AT THE MOSTRA: KIRILL MIKHANOVSKY
Unravelling his own version of Brazil
Kirill Mikhanovsky was born in Moscow and moved to the United States in his teens. So how did he first come into contact with Brazil, the setting for Sonhos de Peixe, his first feature film as a director? It was Caetano Veloso’s “fault”. In 1995, Kirill watched (and watched it again two more times) Pedro Almodóvar’s The Flower of My Secret, movie in which Caê sings "Tonada de la Luna Llena" in Spanish. It was love at first sight. Right from the beginning he tried to know the Brazilian singer`s complete repertoire, and slowly, he made new discoveries to the point that he was able to put together his own collection of MPB (Brazilian Popular Music). He believes that our music is an authentic ambassador to Brazil since national character is expressed in it very strongly. MPB is not just “exotic” to foreign ears, but it also has a transcendental quality. Thus, Kirill considers himself just another "victim" to the quality of Brazilian music.
For six years he has used these references to create an image of Brazil. He arrived here in 2001, went to visit the tourist sights that did not interest him at all (“they are zoos for tourist”), and lived in São Paulo for some time, a city that he considered quite difficult to unravel. Then he went to Baía Formosa, in Rio Grande do Norte state, where he lived for a month. It is a fishermen’s village that, although located very near to the famous local beach Praia da Pipa, was still closed for tourism. It was there he discovered that it is possible to live without any stress, with a slow and lazy type of energy. He experienced the purity and nobility of nature to make Sonhos de Peixe.
When he was making the film, he also found out that composer Johann Sebastian Bach has a lot to do with the Brazilian atmosphere. Furthermore, he used two of Luiz Gonzaga in a diegetic way (when music is listened to indirectly, in this case on the radio of a bar and of a bus). So, Bach and Gonzaga establish an organic unit. Mikhanovsky resorted to amateur actors, with the exception of Phellipe Haagensen and a small part by Chico Diaz, to seek the authentic image of the Brazil he knows. This is the authenticity that he will seek for in his future career.
Aaron J. Wiederspahn: How it Feels to Unravel Filmmaking
He is truly a tyro, for he has neither studied Cinema nor directed any short films, video clip or advertisement before “intuitively” premiering with the feature The Sensation of Sight. Aaron J. Wiederspahn is also a second-time traveler, because he had never left the United States before presenting his film at the San Sebastián Festival, in Spain. His second international flight brought him directly tothe 30th Mostra, in São Paulo. Therefore, the curious biography he sent to the Mostra’s database, and which is included in the catalogue, is not weird. This crazy reverie includes the vision of a thousand year old man riding a big white buffalo. For Wiederspahn, what he has done before is of little interest. What matters is that this his first feature film originated from the need to tell a story of a recurrent dream: he has dreamt about an encyclopedia salesman three times. The debuting filmmaker had to figure out the story of this character. This is how the urgency of the cinema, to which he will always be faithful, was born.
Then, Wiederspahn created such a fascinating character that it caught the attention of great actor David Strathairn, who co-produced the film. He is the main character, a kind of critical court buffoon, in a plot that involves common anxieties of the universe, such as the ideas of loss, abandonment and despair, which may lead to hope and triumph. According to him, this human quest is ancient was already present in ancient Greece. He describes himself as a kind of dreamer – “Dreams feed humanity”, he argues –, Wiederspahn points out that excellence in filmmaking is in the human being, in his capacity to unite and embellish mankind. His sources of inspiration do not deny his contemplative view on movies: he says he is especially inspired by the Russian Andrei Tarkovski, but also by the French Robert Bresson, the Hungarian Béla Tarr and by the Greek Theo Angelopoulos.
This is why Wiederspahn is startled to find out that some people consider his film a “typical Sundance” independent production. “My feature film is neither pop nor is it as easy to watch as Garden State or Little Miss Sunshine”, he replies. He goes on to say that he invites the spectator who is willing to dive into another time and space. The very first scene, five minutes of complete silence, promotes this dive. The story he wants to tell and the film he wants to make are compassionated towards the characters and bide their time, without speeding up their needs. Once again, he mentions with clarifying pertinence the writings by Jorge Luis Borges.
Even though there are filmmakers he admires, Wiederspahn does not want to imitate anybody. Cinema is like an open field for him to discover his own voice, his unique life perspective. “What matters in life is communication, this is the key”, he adds, in a kind of mystical, but nowhere near hippie-like chat. And cinema, according to him, is the greatest of arts. “It is the sum of all arts and the best translation of every moment lived. At the end of the day, this is what matters”, he concludes.
Gianfranco Quattrini: A Film About the New Moral
Filmmaker Gianfranco Quattrini, 34, is from Peruvian-Swiss ascendancy. He was born in Lima, Peru, moved to Chicago when he was 1 year old, and started his cinematographic career in Buenos Aires, when Argentina was going through an economical crisis. Then he moved to Switzerland and is now premiering his feature film Chicha tu Madre. It’s a Peruvian-Argentinian production that emphasizes the connections between both cultures and the effects they had on the director himself. Quattrini says his film was the most successful Peruvian film of the last few years. He has already left São Paulo and is headed to Buenos Aires, where his film will première in the beginning of November.
To foreign spectators, it’s important to know that “chicha” has many different meanings. It’s a typical liquor; the chicha culture is the popular, spontaneous, street culture very much present in the plot, and you can already recognize it on the film’s official website, www.chichatumadre.com ; a chicha of things may be a mixture of many parts; and it’s also a depreciative observation. Summing up all these meanings, you have the film, co-written and co-produced by Quattrini. The film was also produced by his cousin Ernesto González Quattrini, and together they founded Primi Quattrini, that also means “first cash”.
To play secondary roles, Quattrini uses many known Peruvian actors among the popular and the showbiz ones. He also remembers that, when it was screened at the independent Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival this year, it was compared to Mario Monicelli’s commedia dell’arte (a director who attended the Political Italian Film Retrospective, with An Average Little Man). The main character, Julio César (Jesús Aranda), is a good loafer who lives out of air, with no expectations. It was not for nothing that Quattrini asked Aranda to gain 22 lbs. Through this character, the filmmaker questions the new moral of the Latin Continent, the flexible ethics that was standardized (also in Brazil, as he well knows). Julio César is an amateur tarot-card-player – in off, his voice narrates the mystical consciousness of the plot – and also gets involved with a second league soccer team.
He ended the conversation by saying that one of his future projects will be shot in the Iquito Amazon rainforest, very close to where Werner Herzog shot his Fitzcarraldo (1982). It’ll tell the story of a rock star that goes into the jungle for drug rehabilitation, and there he finds the motivation to make a great show in the woods. No one will carry a boat up the river, like Herzog/Fitzcarraldo did, but who will take the sound equipment?
Damián Cukierkorn: The Cup of the Excluded
A World Cup in which national teams are formed exclusively by homeless men. It was while reading an article about this unusual sports event that the young director Damián Cukierkorn had the idea to make a documentary, The Other Cup. In 2004, Argentina was to take part for the first time in the competition held in Göteborg, Sweden.
Soccer in Argentina is just like it is here in Brazil: a nation’s passion. Cukierkorn reminds us that although the World Cup for the Homeless brings together more than forty national teams from different parts of the world, it is hardly advertised by the press. “In Argentina, the few times it was mentioned, it was a target for criticism”, he says. Damián also states that the main issue was whether it would be better to invest the money spent on the event to help these people’s situation. The filmmaker decided to ask the players whether they preferred to represent Argentina or to receive the money spent on expenses.
Even after receiving some criticism, Cukierkorn points out that the World Cup for the Homeless, or The Other Cup, as he prefers to call it, helps the players regain their self-esteem. Many of the participants, in fact, were able to leave the streets. “Some were hired to play for Argentinean second division teams”, he happily affirms. The Other Cup shows the preparation, the expectations of the players and proximity of the trip to Sweden. From the cold steps at Buenos Aires’ train station, where the trip begins, to the heart of the first world, are seven days that changed forever the life of these men. “They all preferred to take part in the Cup”, says Kukierkorn.
Alex Frayne: Exploring Australia’s Outbacks
The Australian Alex Frayne has directed many short films, but he considers only The Longing (2003) to have good quality. To his surprise, it has been sold internationally and has made some profit. With this money it was possible to pay for his first full-length film, Modern Love, without needing any help from the government. Right away, he realized that for his next work he will give better thought to the title, since be it in Moscow, Croatia or Sao Paulo, his film is always thought of as a “love film”: “There were many young girls in the audience at the Mostra, and I’m sure they were surprised at the film’s storyline.” After all, it is a psychological thriller with a touch of horror and which, at the end, suffers a turnaround in tone.
Frayne affirms that Australia is not an urban country. Its large cities, like Sydney and Melbourne, are the same as any other metropolitan area on the planet. What makes Australia different are its vast, arid, rich and mysterious plateaus. He talks about the tradition that local films have of exploring the fear and suspense that surrounds this scenery, like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), by Peter Weir, Mad Max (1979), by George Miller and more recently, Wolf Creek (2005), by Greg McLean. Frayne describes his film as a noir in a western style setting. There are many pauses – “There are no dialogues for the first fifteen minutes”, he adds – and from just the images all the action can be understood. It is not for nothing that screenplay writer Nick Matthews is also the film’s director of cinematography. “It isn’t a hip or funky script, like the ones by Quentin Tarantino”, explains the filmmaker.
To help the atmosphere and surroundings, the soundtrack by Tom Heuzenroeder was also crucial. With reminiscences of Ennio Morricone`s soundtracks for Sergio Leone’s western spaghetti, the film works in a strange way, as the director puts it himself, with a piano, whistles and the occasional guitar. Actually, Frayne is a jazz pianist, whose masters include Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Chick Corea and Weather Report (also Jaco Pastorius` teacher). To wrap up, he also talked about the importance in defining the perfect place. The chosen place was the surroundings of Lake Alexandrina which has a somewhat somber history and deadly vibrations. As it appears, it is just right...