Nisimazine
edition 1
review 8th September 2014
VENICE
the magazine by NISI MASA - European Network of Young Cinema
La trattativa Perez. La zuppa del demonio On the bride’s side Words with Gods 1 from La Trattativa by Sabina Guzzanti
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Editorial Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The screening is about to begin. Please turn off your mobile phones... Another Mostra Internazionale del Cinema has come and gone, which means that we’re approaching the end of the festival year. At the same time it also means that the start of the next one is close. There’s not rest for the wicked, nor for those hungry for cinema. In this perpetual quest for new voices, new talents, the past years have seen the birth (or growth) of many different smaller festivals all over the world. And while those events are great for films of all calibers to be shown, to search and find their audience, the eyes of the world are still on the big events. Some might complain about certain of the films selected, about the jury’s decision, or about the adoration for the omni-present James Franco. They express their disillusion with this festival, complaining that it being the oldest is sometimes synonymous with acting old. The answer to whether any or all those claims are true depends on who you ask. Looking particularly at the Orizzonti section, the films selected might not alway necessarily reflect (at least in appearance) the aims of this section- that of shining a light on those films that are expanding the horizons of filmmaking. Sometimes it’s rather about expanding the hori-
CREDITS NISIMAZINE VENICE 26/08 - 6/09 2014 Edition of 8th September 2014
zons of the viewers in terms of broadening their knowledge of cinema from different parts of the world, or on specific topics on which awareness is not particularly strong. What is true across the board is that an event of this size is undoubtedly a rite of passage of sorts for many filmmakers. Having your film selected in Venice is a big deal if it’s your first one, but it still matters if it’s your 15th. Even if we reduce them to star and glamour driven excuses to bring the world’s attention to cinema, big festivals still have their place and role in both the industry and the art of film. So we bid farewell to the Lido, promising to come back next year. We’re some of those that need their periodic fix of queueing for screenings and care for a door-opening press badge as they would for their first born. We’re sure you’ve found out the winners by the time you’re reading this, so if you want to see what our team had to say about them, check out our previous newsletters. While you do that, we’ll be busy rounding up our coverage of the Orizzonti section that will conclude our experience this year in Venice. Mirona Nicola (Romania)
EDITORIAL STAFF Director Fernando Vasquez Coordinator Mirona Nicola Layout Francesca Merlo Contributors to this issue Mirona Nicola, Stefano Raspa, Zorka Varga, Reka Holman, Vicky Griva, Elena Aya Boutouraki (photographer) NISI MASA European Network of Young Cinema 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis 75010, Paris, France +33 (0)1 48 01 65 31 europe@nisimasa.com www.nisimasa.com www.nisimazine.eu A magazine published by NISI MASA in the framework of a film journalism workshop for young Europeans Special thanks to Michela Lazzarin and Alberto Barbera
With the support of the Youth in Action of the European Union. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
© Elena Aya Bountouraki
Picture of the day
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review
La Trattativa Sabina Guzzanti, ITALY – Out of Competition
A bold man walks down an aisle full of locked doors and threatening police agents. He’s in a maximum-security prison and his name is Gaspare Spatuzza, a mafia affiliate who, after several years of detention, has decided to collaborate with the justice. What he has to tell to the magistrates is something that everybody was aware of, but nobody could say out loud. Spatuzza reports the hidden side of the Italian history of the last twenty years. He talks about the supposed negotiation between the mafia gangs active in the country and the Italian constitutional, political and economic power. These are the first images of Sabina Guzzanti’s new feature, La Trattativa. Guzzanti continues her long tradition of political investigation, started in 2005 with Viva Zapatero, and she confirms her qualities of a daring woman who, without uncertain terms, used both satirical and journalistic approaches to express her perspective. This new film is controversial and concerning in its attempt to reconstruct the deals that Italian State men and entrepreneurs had to carry out with some of the criminal scumbag operating in Italy, in order to find a way to coexist and thrive together. Sabina Guzzanti’s perspective is extremely original, realizing a hybrid product on the edge between documentary and fiction. All the facts portrayed- as the homicides, the bombs, the secret meetings between Mafia bosses and cops, senators and political leaders- are either presented through official documents, along with some archive footages, or through a theatrical representation delivered by a heap of wonderful actors. Their acting performance is simply stunning in terms of filling the gap in the parts where there is no historical documentation, or when this last one is missing due to cover- up. The story depicts a page of Italian chronicles that is shameful and uncomfortable for many powerful people, and this is not
surprising at all: who, amongst men who guided Italy for two decades, would be happy to be caught while making business with organized crime? The reasons for Guzzanti are quite easy to understand. In Italy, Mafia has always been a common reality, a scheme of thinking and behaving. It comes clear that for the democratic institutions there has always been a need to cooperate with it and not to harm each other. Several episodes deserve a mention: the assaults that killed brave magistrates (Falcone and Borsellino), cops who deliberately decided not to investigate further on the affairs of bosses, ministers who gave a strong kick for a mutual collaboration with common advantages. The style of the film is dynamic and compelling, and the visual technique is attentive in re-enacting the facts, trying to give them an interpretation and to bring this to the audience in a direct and outspoken manner. The narration jumps between fiction and reality in a natural and connected way, making the directing very subtle and soft, even though the point of view of Guzzanti is at times very politically oriented, and this risks to turn her view into a factious tale. The movie is a good occasion to put the spotlight on the various occasions in which, for practical reasons a recognized power had to cooperate with all the other sources of power, both legal and illegal. Thanks to that, La Trattativa is a good piece that tries to transform these ghosts and “non existent” happenings into historical bricks, so that they won’t be forgotten in the darkness of a night of consciousness and truth. Stefano Raspa (Italy)
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the very first second of the film. Perez is more than a crime story, it´s an Italian neo-noir which has its special edge exactly because of those elements that characterise the genre. De Angelis’ attitude is absolutely clear if we consider the visual aspects of the film: the strong contrasts, the cold lights and the excessive usage of glass surfaces. The night scenes, with its sinister atmosphere, are standing in contrast with the white, clean setting of the office district. The noir heritage also has an influence on the main character: the changes in Perez’s personality are mirroring the duality of the locations. The cold, rational, self-restricted public self of Perez encounters his passionate, exuberant, aggressive side. The main character, as a representative of law gradually loses his moral base because of the personal aspects of the case of Corvino. His daughter, like a true femme fatale, turns the crime story into a personal tale of suffering and revenge.
Perez. Edoardo de Angelis, ITALY - Out of Competition The first image of Perez is a landscape in the sunset. We see the mythical Naples in the morning light and with this picture the noisy, dirty, beautiful city comes to life in our minds, as the manifestation of many clichés about Italy. However, as we get closer to the location, the camera smoothly glides between the geometric skyscrapers covered with glass, and when a gloomy jay tune starts to prevail the morning silence, we suddenly understand: the director is about to reveal a Naples that we have never seen before. The young filmmaker Edoardo de Angelis chooses a dark setting for his story. In this captivating neo –noir, the core of the film is the cold and futuristic district of the Palace of Justice. Demetrio Perez, a veteran counsellor, is living his unhappy life in the spellbound of justice closed within the metallic quarter of offices. When he gets to know that his daughter’s boyfriend, Corvino, comes from a criminal family he goes into a dirty agreement with Buglione (the man who gave up Corvino) in order to protect his daughter. The crime case becomes a family issue and Perez goes beyond the rules of justice. The film’s complex storyline, with its unanswered questions and diegetic gaps, challenges the viewer to understand all the information, but the atmosphere and the main character grip our attention from
The described complexity of the protagonist is perfectly interpreted by Luca Zingaretti, for whom this wasn’t the first time playing the man of justice, since he is also well known for his role as Comissario Montalbano. In spite of this, Zingaretti declared the role of Perez as the most difficult one in his life. The man we see is an experienced old wolf who knows how to play by the rules, but first of all he is a father. Zingaretti’s presence suggests authority and weakness, lethargy and masculine aggression at the same time. The same ambiguity is valid for Corvino, who is played by Marco d’Amore (who appeared previously in the cult TV series Gomorra) as we continuously change our mind about his ‘clear intentions’ and innocence. The third person of the triptychon, the daughter, played by the beautiful Simona Tabasco, with her feminine and obstinate vibe is the perfect choice as the ‘dame to kill for’. The film of De Angelis is a successful attempt to renew the genre, not just because of the great actors and the elaborated storyline, but because the filmmaker also knows how to create an atmosphere that shows the quotidian in a different light. Zorka Varga (Italy)
9° EDITION
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Application Deadline: 30th September 2014 4
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review
first images are from the early XXth century and the film follows the history of industrialization until 1973, when the naïve belief – a utopia shared by both the communist and the capitalist worldview – in the developmental teleology collapsed due to the oil crisis, which raised awareness to issues like environmental pollution or poverty increased by forced industrialization.
La zuppa del demonio Davide Ferrario, ITALY - Out of Competition La zuppa del demonio is a documentary directed by Davide Ferrario that depicts the worldwide history of industrialization, with a specific focus on Italy, by using an amazingly edited sequence of the materials of the National Archives of Cinema d’Impresa di Ivrea, providing an in depth historical analysis. The images used mostly consist of archive footage and the title of the film refers to a quote used by Dino Buzzati to describe the production of steel in the blast furnaces of Taranto. The film aims to explore the contradictory relationship between development and backwardness, progress and poverty in a manner that is usually characteristic of scholarly work. The film can be considered a bravely experimental piece which takes the viewing experience to its extremes by using almost exclusively archive footage. These newsreels shown one after the other sometimes make the viewer struggle to take in the enormous amount of information accompanying the moving images, that are so different from the contemporary moviegoer’s regular perception. The film recapitulates the history of industrialization in chronological order using the medium of film – one of the important branches of industry itself – to visualize the events discussed. The
A slice of the intellectual history of Italy is also presented in the form of quotes by authors like Marinetti, Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini or Ermanno Olmi accompanying the images as voiceovers and not inserts, making comments that are key to providing an interpretative framework for understanding visual information. The implicit criticism induced by the critical reading of the images of the archive footage seen and the original voiceovers is made explicit by the commentary of these prominent intellectual figures. The inclusion of artists like Vertov or Mayakovsy in this intellectual tableaux proves that the film aims to deal with more than just the history of industrialization in Italy. La zuppa del demonio also emphasizes the crucial connection between filmmaking and industrialization, using film to tell the story of industrialization while actually giving a lesson in cinematic history as well. These intellectual allusion make this experience clever and not merely intellectualistic, avoiding the traps of superficial vulgar philosophy. Although the film shortly refers to the current context of industrialization in the beginning and at the very end the chronological history basically ends with the oil crisis in 1973. Integrating contemporary debates on these issues would have made the film even braver by providing a more critical approach to history instead of a somewhat nostalgic one. Apart from these minor critical remarks, La zuppa del demonio is an extremely powerful work that sometimes makes its viewers struggle to keep up their attention, but these efforts may prove to be well worth it. Ferrario’s work can be considered a scholarly masterpiece that uses scientific methodology and precision to dig deep into a topic that is mostly researched by academics working in disciplines like economics, history or sociology; and this scholastic approach doesn’t make it light to digest. This film is not an easy piece, but it is certainly a memorable bite to chew on. Reka Holman (Hungary)
The film could also be described as an unusual road-movie. The stops in different countries provide an episodic structure. The rhythm gives time for the viewer to gradually get to know the characters, their memories, plans and lives, as we immerse ourselves in the slowly developing plot. However, underneath the long discussions, the singing and the dancing there is the smouldering tension about the outcome of the journey.
On the bride’s side Gabriele Del Grande, Antonio Augugliaro, Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry, ITALY - Orizzonti (Out of Competition) Lampedusa is the prime transit point for immigrants, and the setting for tragic events, raising much controversy in the Italian media. In order to react to this problem, Gabriele Del Grande, Antonio Augugliaro and Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry decided to embark on a journey to help five Palestinian refugees. The aim was to reach Sweden, where they could ask for political asylum. To make this dream come true 23 people met at the Milan Central Station for a wedding, and alongside a fake bride they started their journey to Stockholm. The described events are extremely interesting for two reasons. The first: On the Bride´s Side is the direct presentation of the actual events. The second: the film was financed by crowdfunding, with the help of 2500 people, which is so far the biggest project in Italy. The two facts clearly show the intention of the directors to represent the film as a collective “Film Manifesto”: if we are on the side of the bride, we are on the side of those who break down the boundaries and strive for a Transnational Europe. In this sense the film is not just an art piece, but a political act which could result in 15 years of prison for the creators.
The film as a documentary is strongly related to the method of the cinema vérité, in which the interaction between the filmmaker and the subject is explicitly present. This is essential in order to put the characters into a position of reflecting on their situation. This approach has an influence on the cinematic style and theme. As the major part of the story takes place in the tight space of a car, the main focus is on the dialogues, the gestures, the exchanged looks. The interactions between the characters are followed by a single handheld camera. as they are telling their stories surpassing the kilometres. As the cinema vérité aim was to bring up social-political issues and to represent the events in a confrontational way, Del Grande triggers out the most current issues concerning the situation illegal immigrants in Europe. The creator’s biggest merit is that he managed to convey these questions in the most natural way, simply relying on the streamline of the events: the suddenly received citizenship of one of the characters confronts us with the subject of rootlessness and belonging. An abandoned house in the Italian-French borderline, with its Arabic signatures on the walls, becomes a site of collective recollection as they write up the names of those friends who were lost in Lampedusa. Ultimately, the idea of shooting a film such as On the Bride´s Side brings us closer to the issue of responsibility and assistance. The film is the positive imprint of that denied help that thousands of refugees experience on a daily basis arriving to the coasts of Italy. In the climax of the film, when the group passes the Danish-Swedish border and their faces shine up with restrained happiness, the intention of the directors meets side by side with the viewers feelings. This film is a collective warning that needs to be shared, not just because of its political relevance, but also for that original cinematic approach that is rarely seen on the Italian screens nowadays. Zorka Varga (Hungary)
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INTERview
Interview with
Sabina Guzzanti director of La Trattativa A polyhedral artist, working in the field of theatre, television, and cinema, Sabina Guzzanti is mostly known outside of Italy for a strike of political movies. Her films have often sparked discussions beyond Italy’s borders, and her latest, La Trattativa, will probably follow a similar path. We met up with the courageous director to discuss her choices in terms of her latest documentary, as well as the development of her career. What are the reasons that pushed you to make this film? It’s a very important topic for everybody. I wanted to undertake this challenge to tell a story that officially doesn’t exist. The dramatic style, that mixes documentary and fiction, intrigued me and pushed me to go further. Although I had a lot of difficulties (nobody financed me, the film was interrupted many times, the huge amount of time spent), the story always motivated me. Which criteria did you use to choose the parts to tell through fiction and the parts to tell through documentary? The criteria were functional. There are facts documented, for which we have images and others that are not registered. With the documentary style, I could express my perspective; with fiction I could make it more compelling and funny for the audience, using humoristic and satiric tones. For example, documentary and reality was more suitable to tell characters like Falcone or Borsellino. Their real sight is much more effective than an actor reproducing it. My choices were taken on a rational base; I preferred to make the aesthetic way of representation derive from the matter I had to tell. How do you expect this film will be welcomed abroad? I think that this film, even though it cannot offer an exhaustive resolution, can be appreciated and understood also abroad, because Mafia and organized crime are all over the world; western democracies come into terms with Mafia everywhere and continuously. I think that the film can help both informed and uninformed audience to better grasp what Mafia exactly is. We’re used to think about it with the classical iconography of bosses and homicides. Of course, this is a side, but Mafia is an integral part of the economic and political power. Nowadays people die at the hands of the Mafia not only violently, but also as an effect of corruption impacting the public space (healthy system, education). Mafia is a phenomenon that negatively pulls out energies from our daily life and it is necessary to understand this mechanism, both in Italy and abroad. What is the relationship between your talent and your commercial success? You’ve worked in various artistic fields, but your biggest success
came with your “going against” attitude towards power structures. The fact of “going against” has never contributed to my success. Once, when I was working in television in satiric and comic programmes like Raiot, I was much more popular and wealthier than now. When I’ve decided to take a strong position against the power, my participations in TV were erased. I’ve started making my political movies but they are independent products. They have an educational goal, rather than contributing to my fame or success. How complicated is to make movies like this one? And why is it so? Products like mine are niche, they will never reach an audience of millions. Finding investments and distribution is practically impossible. Fortunately, there are some independent producers (like BIM, production and distributing company of La Trattativa) that take this risk, even if the path is very tough and obstructed. It is so complicated simply because of political censorship. They don’t want Italians to discuss certain topics. When I looked for investments the most part of producers started blaming me for having prejudgments. Just in Lido, the film was amongst those that were most appreciated; therefore a producer should be interested to support it, because commercially it would be a good deal. Behind commercial reasons though, there are always ideological and political reasons and that’s why products like mine really struggle to find their way out in the world. Nevertheless, what really interest me are the intensity and the strength of a work, how much this product can move reactions in an audience. I think that this is much more important than the number of people who actually watch it. Why this film is so important for the current historical context ? This film talks about events occurred 20 years ago, but that they are the origins of the contemporary political and cultural situation of Italy. Nowadays, the logics that guide the political and social choices are often “Mafia type”, like ministers who assign grants to their friends rather than to who deserves them, or simply being selfish and sly in everyday life, disregarding respect for others. My film clearly cannot create revolutions, or change things overnight; but it can help to trace the root of this phenomenon, and to make it understandable and vivid in people’s mind and acts. Stefano Raspa (Italy) 6
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Words with Gods Guillermo Arriaga, Emir Kusturica, Bahman Ghodabi, Worwick Thornton, José Padilha, Hideo Nakata, Mira Nair/ MEXICO, USA - Out of Competition
Religion is part of human history. People always try to define their lives through the temporary answers religion offers. Words with Gods though, deals with multiple questions without falling in the trap to give ultimate answers. It has managed to convey different universal and cultural aspects of human religions creating a respectful and divine whole.
Japan 2011. A fisherman has lost his entire family in the destructive tsunami. He is struggling to make amends with why God didn’t choose to take him instead of his family. During a conversation with a Shinto Buddhist monk – the strongest scene of the film – he doubts God himself, raising questions of death and loss in the heaviest and most emotional story of all by the hands of horror master Hideo Nakata.
Writer and director Guillermo Arriaga gathered nine acclaimed directors and gave them a mission: to depict their thoughts on spirituality and their perception of God through different religions. Every director chose the religion he/she felt closer to without imposing or manipulating. The purpose of this mosaic was to show truthfully, through a series of diverse stories, the relationship with God. This film is innovative on how it approaches its subject, without escaping being ‘heavy’. Every short story is connected visually by the amazing animations of Maribel Martinez and is escorted by the breathtaking score of Peter Gabriel. Those 9 short stories were put in order by Nobel Prize winner writer Mario Vargas Llosa confirming the project’s ambition to be remembered beyond Venice Film Festival.
Perhaps the only politically charged film, Book of Amos of Amos Gitai, explores, through passages from the Hebrew Bible, Israel’s current state in contrast with its past. Words of social balance and equality are said during a fight between soldiers and civilians in a passionate oneshot film, on an attempt to represent divinity and define its essence.
With intense cinematography, the first story begins with a pregnant woman walking alone in the Australian desert, in order to find the perfect place to give birth. Having no dialogue, True Gods of Warwick Thornton talks about Aboriginal Spirituality and the strong relation between humans and Earth, expressing how divinity is evident more than ever when the miracle of birth occurs and that true gods are those who have the gift to create those wonders.
A Christian Orthodox priest living in the Serbian countryside takes on a journey of atonement by cleansing himself from all sin. Carrying bags full of stones, he starts climbing on a hill under the hot sun in order to purify himself from the world’s suffering. On his way up he will encounter evil, but mostly himself, realizing the necessity of suffering in order to survive. Kusturica purely elaborates on Christian faith, strengthening the importance of torture and distress for achieving grace.
After being beaten, a woman gathers her clothes and runs out of the house. Her husband will not hunt her down. He will sit on the couch unable to cope with the fact he lost everything. Wandering in the streets of São Paulo, he seeks comfort in his own existence. He has become a lonesome traveler searching for the meaning in life when he discovers a local group of Umbanda and loses himself. In The Man Who Stole a Duck Babenco has managed to give graciously a story about grief and solitude, enhancing the importance religion has when it comes to human suffering. A big wealthy family has just bought a big apartment in Mumbai, arguing over who is getting which room, doubting about where God’s room should be. Light and colorful, in God’s Room Mira Nair talks about Hinduism through the eyes of a young boy, who has trouble synchronizing with his family’s disputes. He sees through their pretentious behavior the truth about God residing everywhere around but mostly deep inside us.
Dark humour and witty dialogues infuse the story of a ruthless hitman who manages to escape from a failed mission only to be captured by destiny in a self-discovery misfortune. Examining the idea of sin and forgiveness, this tale handles Catholicism without falling into ridiculousness. Comic and smart, Alex de la Inglesia’s film offers loads of discussion.
The struggles of conjoined twin brothers on finding a solution between their different desires are shown in an intelligent and divided way in Ghobadi’s film. One is craving a sexual relationship with a woman while the other is devoted to Islam, contrasting lust and faith on a tale about duty and human nature. The last chapter of Guillermo Arriaga’s, God’s Blood, ends with Death in a poetical depiction of atheism, leaving us with mixed feelings. While the group of the directors has managed to explore courageously their own creativity, it would be useless to even try to compare them. Whether you believe or not and whatever your cultural and religious background is, you will find yourself wandering about what you saw and coming back to various aspects of this film only to realize the vibrant conversation it manages to open for humanity. Viki Griva (Greece) 7
Nisimazine calendar September 2014 San Sebastian
November 2014 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
December 2014 Nisimazine Yearbook
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