BEAST FILM MAGAZINE by BEAST International Film Festival

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

BEAST FILM A guide to East European cinema.

Issue .1

PORTUGAL MEETS THE EAST A L L T HE S E S L E E P LESS NIGH TS OS C A R R AC E 2018 HIGH LIGH TS EXPERIMENTAL FILMS M E M ORI E S A N D T R AUMA, RE S I S TA N C E A ND H O PE E XC I T I NG D O C S O F 2018 A C I NE MA OF CON T EMPLATIO N ON SHORT - POCKET REVIEWS FROM EAST TO WEST FILM SCHOOL OFFERS

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

SUMMARY 07

POR TUGA L ME E TS T H E E A S T

A CINEMA O F CO NTEMPL ATIO N

Beast International Film Festival started not only as a desire, but also as a need. The social context of today’s Europe nourishes movement and cultural exchange like never before. ..

Slow cinema, known as a genre of art cinema filmmaking commonly described as emphasizing long takes, minimalistic and predominantly observational...

ALL THESE SLE E P LE S S NIG H TS The statement alone doesn’t seem confusing until one sees the film: it’s not a documentary at first glance, or at second glance....

ON SHORT - POCKET REVIEWS

Series of review highliting two competition categories of BEAST International Film Festival.

OSC AR R AC E 2018 H IG H LIG HTS

FROM EAST TO WEST

With the year of 2018, we get the 90th edition of the Academy Awards and we get the preliminary list of submissions for the title of Best Foreign Film...

The characteristics of cinema itself allows the creation of links between the most distant geographical areas: through image, sound and narratives - even when fictional - , the public has the chance to feel the connection and create forms of identification.

EXPERIMENTA L FILMS MEMORIE S A ND T R AUMA, RESISTAN C E A ND H OP E

FILM SCHOOL OFFERS

Although experimental and eclectic in form and content, three films in the experimental competition of BEAST Film Festival - Into the Now, Batum, and Melodies for Solo Voices - endeavor to depict time by portraying historical trauma and its residues...

If you love film production, acting, or photography, you might be interested in developing your skills and actually making a career out of it! If so, here are some facts about the departments and international students policy of three of the oldest film schools in the world, established in Eastern European countries.

18 EXCITING D OC S OF 2018 Every year, Eastern European documentary cinema surprises us with a totally different GEM. With a lot of history deeply embedded in the diverse topics they reach, and with spectacular sights to work with, these films have a totally unique vibe. ..

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

TEAM

Radu Sticlea Andre Lameiras Marta Reis Mona Al-Ariqi Isabela Olaru Teresa Vieira Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir Alexandru Ponoran Joana Canas Marques Joana Mesquita Alves Jose Antonio Cunha Ana Borges Ania Bilon Matias Lomoro Tetiana Frankuk Andreea Mircea

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

P O R TUG AL ME E TS T HE E A ST / Mona Shirin Al-Ariqi

Beast International Film Festival started not only as a desire, but also as a need. The social context of today’s Europe nourishes movement and cultural exchange like never before. The best of students searching for universities that fit their profile over the border and finding opportunities suiting their expectations further away from home is simply part of the reality in which more and more of the Eastern European citizens live in. For many years now, the Western European countries have served as example and have also helped Eastern ones. With this being a given fact, bringing the Eastern culture forward in one of the westernmost cities of Europe comes rather natural.

It was divided in three categories meant to cover the main film genres: documentary with east DOC, fiction with east WAVE and experimental with experimentalEAST. Part of it were 36 very carefully picked shorts from the last 2 years, belonging to promising young film directors. We loved each and every one of the shorts present in the competition, but when it comes to the winning ones… well, they were just too good. The winning films, The Pit directed by Anton Yaremchuk, The Test directed by Gregor Valentovic and Jazz Orgie directed by Irina Rubina deserve all the recognition they can get, so we are taking them for a tour of Portugal for everyone to enjoy them as much as we did, as part of BEAST Caravan.

The festival’s first edition was present in Porto in 5 of its best cinemas for four days with over 70 movies from 23 countries. As we thought that the beauty of mixed cultures cannot be fully expressed through only cinematic production, the audience’s schedule included a mixture of different other events meant to keep them up and running.

For the first edition, Poland played the main character with a constant presence during the whole activities of the festival. The polish identity was represented by speakers and film directors who are proud of their country and culture and were willing to enrich the festival with their experience. The workshops: Film4youth and Every year, a different country will come Anaimation, and the Masterclasses: forth presenting its best qualities to the Erasmus+ Culture2Culture: Building Peace audience. What country would you chose Through dialogue, Re/birth of a nation in next? Lithuanian documentaries of the 90s, The Just like old wines, Eastern cinema is an role of Women in the second half of the acquired taste, and once you get a holt 20th century Poland moderated by Eastern of it, it never really goes unsavoury. The European professionals and themed parties preparations for the next edition have were all part of the festival. Despite the rich already started and we are looking forward programme, the competition did represent to growing bigger and better every year to the most important part of the screenings. come.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

ALL TH ES E SLE E P LE S S NI G HTS / Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir With All the Sleepless Nights, Polish director Michal Marczak won Best Director in the World Cinema Documentary category at Sundance Film Festival 2016.

One of the myriad girls whom Kris meets at these parties asks him what he does. Without missing a beat Kris replies that he ‘looks for what he’s missing’. The film explores this theme of ‘something missing’, the boredom and the ennui of never feeling fulfilled, the defining existential angst of the millennial generation. In the age of the internet, boredom isn’t abolished by engaging in any activity, but by having ‘fun’, a type of fun which is then validated and exposed by social media, an aspect which the film neglects to capture.

The statement alone doesn’t seem confusing until one sees the film: it’s not a documentary at first glance, or at second glance. However, surprising production circumstances such as using non-actors, real locations and situations, non-professional lighting, a run-and-gun shooting style, and a crew of (sometimes) two people, allow the film to be classified as documentary, with the classification giving the film an extra layer of immediacy, immersion, and charm. Although hard to pinpoint the genre, All the Sleepless Nights is a tour-deforce directorial achievement by Michał Marczak who triple-dutied as cameraman and writer.

For Kris and his contemporaries, being bored is akin to not existing. Therefore, at its core, All the Sleepless Nights deals with death and the desire to live. Kris’s greatest fault, and perhaps the film’s too, is in his rambling search for meaning and feeling in stinking bathrooms and in the littered aftermaths of parties. At the end of one party, a disappointed girl quips, “So much was supposed to happen. And nothing The film centers on two millennial Varsovian has happened.” Kris consequently starts to hedonists who roam the city looking for women make out with her, a move both desperate and and for the meaning of life. Lacking a specific tender. plotline, All the Sleepless Nights starts when Kris and his pal Michal are two handsome protagonist Kris is dumped by his girlfriend of young Polish men of uncertain background: five years. He moves in with his best-bud Michal we figure from the film that they are well-off, and thus starts an endless succession of house capable of renting lofts with fantastic views of parties, beach parties, backyard parties, forest Warsaw on whim, and capable of carrying out parties... and strewn amongst them casually, bacchanalian orgies without holding any day grand revelatory conversations and existential jobs. We never meet their families, we don’t debates with strangers in bathrooms or with know what or if they studied, we don’t know if girls with whom Kris has just snorted cocaine. they have siblings, dreams, or fears.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

The film focuses on one aspect of their lives: the unbearable vacancy in their dreamy and naive hearts which they try to fill with drinking, drugs, and sex. Although not altogether a new subject, director Michael Marczak attempts to bring a new angle to the ‘youth, drugs, and sex’ theme: that the endless parties and hang-overs are ultimately not pointless. Kris concludes that his ‘lost year’ was the most important time of his life. But, when you’re twenty-something, what else can you say about life? And even as the film progresses towards this climactic revelation, the script fails to walk us through the necessary steps to reach the conclusion. Kris might have found meaning ultimately, but he loses the audience in the process. Director Michal Marczak sustains a consistent and powerful mood throughout the film. Using mostly natural light, Marczak aptly captures reality with all its shadows, colors, and temperatures. His camerawork, on the other hand, is dreamy. It glides through the streets of Warsaw in rain or in sunshine, reels with raving party-goers, and hovers near Kris as he dances a characteristic dance whichbecomes a motif throughout the film. The camera is up-close and personal, throwing the audience smack in the middle of the un-reined and self-centered passions of contemporary twentysomethings. All the Sleepless Nights is a film which will evoke many different feelings for many different people. For the early twenty-somethings, the film will surely elicit a catharsis, even a self-revelation here and there. For the thirty-somethings, the film will excite tearful nostalgia, and for the fortysomethings, gleeful relief that all the shitty and meaningless partying days are over.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

OSC A R R AC E 2018 HI GH L I GHTS / Isabela Olaru With the year of 2018, we get the 90th edition of the Academy Awards and we get the preliminary list of submissions for the title of Best Foreign Film. Although Eastern Europe had no nominee in the Foreign Language Section of the 89th edition, Romanian producer Ada Solomon honored us by co-producing the film Toni Erdmann, nominated for the same section. It lost the winning place to Iran’s submission: The Salesman.

brought the Bulgarians hope that the golden age of animation (1960-1990), in Bulgaria, will be revived. Last but not least, the winner of the Short Film (Live Action) section was Mindeki, an inspiring Hungarian film by Kristóf Deák.

As far as this year’s Oscars are concerned, we are still in the dark when it comes to nominees, but we do have the submissions list and it is a good one. The Foreign Language Film has a new record Another worth mentioning nominee, at the 2017 this year with 92 countries submitting a film. Some Oscars, was Bulgaria’s Blind Vaysha, directed by countries like Haiti, Honduras, or Mozambique are Theodore Ushev. Even though it did not win Best at their first try to secure an award. Among the 36 Short Film (Animated) it is still a great entry that European titles, 18 are Eastern European. 10

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

The sad story of Kostya, a 50-year-old photographer, is depicted in Ukraine’s Black Level, directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych. Even though he photographs beautiful moments of other people’s lives, as he is a wedding photographer, his life is falling apart. Everyone leaves him, his father, his girlfriend, and even his cat. The film is nicely shot and offers a great cinematic experience. It won FIPRESCI Prize for Best Ukrainian Feature at Odessa International Film Festival 2017.

Based on the bestseller Rehepapp by Andrus Kivirähk, a skillfully written novel, November is Estonia’s submission for the 90th Academy Awards. The movie is set in a pagan village and blends perfectly elements of love, magic, greed, and dark humor. The Estonian mythology is omnipresent throughout the movie, mainly represented by creatures called Kratts, worshipped by the villagers. For those not accustomed to these traditions and also those who have not read the book, the movie might be a bit hard to understand. Either way, it is a beautifully shot black and white cinematic wonder that won the Jury Award at Tribeca Film Festival 2017 for Best Cinematography in an International Narrative Feature.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

Russia’s entry, Loveless, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev is an outstanding drama about a couple that has to deal with a divorce and the bitter struggle they go through while trying to find their missing child, Alyosha, who has disappeared during one of their arguments. The film already won the ARRI/OSRAM Award for Best International Film at the Munich Film Festival and the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 2017. It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or, in the same year. Other Eastern European entries are: Albania’s Daybreak (Gentian Koçi), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Men Don’t Cry (Alen Drljević), Bulgaria’s Glory (Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva),Croatia’s Quit Staring at My Plate (Hana Jušić), Czech Republic’s Ice Mother (Bohdan Sláma), Georgia’s Scary Mother (Ana Urushadze), Hungary’s On Body and Soul (Ildikó Enyedi), Kosovo’s Unwanted (Edon Rizvanolli), Latvia’s The Chronicles of Melanie (Viestur Kairish), Lithuania’s Frost (Sharunas Bartas), Poland’s Spoor (Agnieszka Holland, Kasia Adamik), Romania’s The Fixer (Adrian Sitaru), Serbia’s Requiem for Mrs. J. (Bojan Vuletic), Slovakia’s The Line (Peter Bebjak), and Slovenia’s The Miner (Hanna A. W. Slak). We won’t know who gets to the nominees' list until the 23rd of January 2018, and then we just have to wait a bit, until the 4th of March 2018, to see who takes an Oscar home. But with these many good entries from Eastern Europe, we can only have high hopes.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

E XPE R I M EN TA L F I L M S MEMORIES AND TR AUMA, R E S IS TAN C E AN D H OP E / Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir Although experimental and eclectic in form and content, three films in the experimental competition of BEAST Film Festival - Into the Now, Batum, and Melodies for Solo Voices - endeavor to depict time by portraying historical trauma and its residues, a radical present and a call for unity, and a hopeful future filled with melodic dissonance.

Batum is a film made of memories, both personal and collective. The film connects a near drowning experience in the Black Sea with the censorship laws during Stalin’s regime. We learn the fate of Osip Mandelstam, a poet exiled for criticism of Stalin. The Great Purge, the name given to the systematic political repression during Stalin’s regime, is viscerally illustrated and equated with the experience of drowning, being washed away by the ocean, and swallowed into nothingness. Through visuals, text, and sound, director Kamila Kuc attempts to transform historical memory into a haptic experience. Into the Now is a film concerned with the present, a call for re-radicalization against the forces of turbo-capitalism and its descent into a financial capital disaster. The film is comprised of a collection of lectures, talks, interviews, and video installation pieces where the exploited, appropriated, discriminated, and enslaved people of the contemporary world muse and converse about their radicalism, about being labelled terrorist and treated as such by militant police. Although Into the Now paints a clear picture of the economic and socio-political developments since the Cold War in areas such as Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America, it leaves an open question as to how the unification of a radical anti-capitalist movement, if it can be called such, could or should happen. The answer to the question is indirectly illustrated in Melodies for Solo Voices, a performance of avant garde composer Mauricio Kagel’s song arrangement ‘The Tower of Babel’. Performers of different nationalities teach each other the lyrics of the song in their languages. We see the singers’ confusion, nervousness, and concentration as they struggle to make sense and to elocute. The frame is broken and re-arranged, evoking cubism and abstraction, a fitting tribute to one of music’s foremost post-modernist composers. In each broken frame, angles, perspectives, and movements of the camera are mixed – the result is disorienting and yet strangely harmonious. The film depicts the confusion of Babel, yet reaches for a unity beyond.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

EXCI TI NG DOCS OF 2018 / Mona Shirin Al-Ariqi Every year, Eastern European documentary cinema surprises us with a totally different GEM. With a lot of history deeply embedded in the diverse topics they reach, and with spectacular sights to work with, these films have a totally unique vibe. We have prepared a list of very exciting 2018 productions just to make sure you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss them.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

BEAST recommends you keep a close eye on all of these documentary films, and make sure you write them down in your 2018 agenda!

CONSTRUCTING PUTIN An ambitious project trying to portray Putin through different perspectives, in this way broadening outside debate . The points of focus consist of twelve portraits whose characters provide us with their personal perspective over the president. The film combines filmmaking, digital storytelling, photography, audio, social media and interactive social mapping. “We hope to allow the audience to look at Russia through “Russian” eyes” say the producers.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

THE LAST ICE HUNTERS The documentary The Last Ice Hunters from Slovenia tells the story of the present generation of hunters in the Inuit community of Eastern Greenland. Founded in 2009 FilmIT is an independent media production company, that produces and co-produces independent feature and documentary film productions. The film is Jure Breceljnik’s third documentary, and Rozle Bregar’s first. They are both visual artists and the icey sceneries are mesmerizing.

NEGATIVE NUMBERS Uta Beria’s debut feature Negative Numbers, the first Georgian/French/Italian co-production, is currently shooting in Tbilisi. The film is based on real events, which happened in a juvenile detention center in Tbilisi in the early 2000’s, when two ex-professional rugby players took up the challenge of helping the young offenders by bringing rugby into the center. They wrote down their stories while training them. The script written by Beria is based on those stories.

COSMONAUTS LIKE CHEWING GUM A nice German and Bulgarian co-production is Cosmonauts like Chewing Gum. It is a mosaic documentary that combines present timestream with archive footage and animation in a rather fictional manner. “While discovering how the past division of Europe has shaped their perception of life today, two artist friends set to find out their perfect place to be. Animation is their way to grasp the world around them, share and express ideas.” says DOCweb.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

A CINEMA OF CONTEMPLATIO N / Marta Reis

I was lucky to have my first contacts with Eastern European Cinema as a child watching animations movies presented by Vasco Granja on TV. As a film student I have studied some of the Eastern European filmmaking masters and always wanted to know this region where everyone is a magnificent Director of Photography, and natural light and sites are always perfect to shoot. As a festival organizer I have come to know great filmmakers and photographers from allover Eastern Europe, namely the Croatian One Take Film Festival in which I was so lucky to participate – much influenced in French critic André Bazin’s thinking. My own personal taste and filmmaking practice are very observational so when invited to participate in this first issue of the BEAST Film Magazine I had no choice: I started investigating and kept researching and it always came back to contemplative cinema. Of course there is a tradition of using long takes in European Cinema in general, namely the work of the acclaimed contemporary Portuguese director Pedro Costa, and also in Middle Eastern and Asian Cinema; but in this article I am going to focus mostly on the cinema produced in Eastern Europe. The information that we get in Portugal from Eastern European countries and Eastern European film is very limited so the BEAST International Film Festival is an essential event, and so is this magazine.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

F R O M THE E A ST I am choosing to use the term Contemplative Cinema, that I find more in-depth than the coined term Slow cinema, known as a genre of art cinema filmmaking commonly described as emphasizing long takes, minimalistic and predominantly observational. Simply put, some subjects require a more introspective filmmaking and certain directors pursue these themes with an incredible urge to achieve realism.

In a lecture that took place at FEST - New Directors New Films Festival (2016) filmmaker Béla Tarr called for attention that each film has its authentic length. In the same talk Tarr also evoked a melancholy that is common both to Russian, Hungarian and Portuguese societies. In his films Tarr shows the real duration of life thus creating a reflective aesthetics of ‘presence’ that enables “an ethics of seeing based on the principles of recognition, reflection and empathy” (de Luca and Jorge, Film critic David Bordwell (2007) states that: 2016). "‘Contemplative’ filmmakers aren't necessarily gloomy or sadistic, but the absence of Some directors - as is the case of some immediate reward, the hopeless pursuit of Romanian New Wave filmmakers such as happiness, the conscious realisation of human internationally awarded Cristian Mungiu – lowest instincts make this perspective a more have openly affirmed that they deliberately realistic view of the world than whatever rebelled against the previous movements and simmering in the fantasy-deluded minds of acted antagonistically producing a cinema as mainstream screenwriters.” close as possible to reality. One of the most renowned Contemplative filmmakers is Russian Alexander Sokurov but other acclaimed directors, such as Hungarian Miklós Jancsó (1921 – 2014) and Béla Tarr, Polish Krzysztof Kieślowski (1941–1996), Lithuanian Sharunas Bartas, Romanian Cristi Puiu, Ukrainian Larisa Shepitko (1938–1979) and Sergei Loznitsa, amongst many others; have also been making prodigious use of long takes and even single shot sequences.

Further data compilation and analysis has to be done but there appears to be a rising growth of the contemplative tendency from the early 1990’s on that can be associated with the Slow Movement that begun in Italy in the mid-1980’s - not only related to art but life in general. This might be an unconscious collective tendency that started intensifying within an historical context of the end of the socialist ideal and also the dissatisfaction with capitalism.

For now I invite you to enter, sit down, relax, observe, contemplate, ponder and empathize.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

ON SHOR T - POCKE T RE VIE WS / Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir Series of review highliting two competition categories of BEAST International Film Festival. Focusing on short and mediumn lenght productions, the festival intends to promote young East European talents and give a fresh perspective of this region. The films are extracted from the fiction and documentary sections of the 2017 edition.

THE TEST Alena, a 50-year-old single mother of rebellious move to. The procedural plotline unfolds alongside teenager Sara, is a violinist at a prestigious Slovakian a personal drama: Alena’s rebellious daughter has symphonic orchestra. gone against her wishes and moved in with her boyfriend. Left alone with a hamster to take care of Although set in contemporary Slovakia, a decidedly and no one to take care of her, Alena’s position in communist plotline threatens to uproot Alena’s society as well as at home are in jeopardy. life: she is called in, along with two other fellow violinists, to demonstrate her skills for the director Ultimately Alena must learn to let go of her of the orchestra, the concert maestro, and for daughter in order to maintain a relationship with unknown people from ‘the top’. The reason for the her. The bureaucratic plot-line resolves itself all too demonstration of skills and its outcome are kept in easily but with an ironic twist that the audience will the dark. Old enough to remember the bureaucratic surely chuckle at. Although the twist suggests that nightmare of the good-old-communist days, Alena times have changed in modern day Slovakia, the and her colleagues fear for their jobs. As they wait outcome for Alena’s test implies that communism for their turn to play, they contemplate different and its dark motives live on in the individuals if not jobs they could do and the different cities they could the institutions.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

RED LIGHT Red Light is a charming story of an old bus driver suggesting a foot bath every night as a means of who refuses to drive away from a broken red traffic releasing tension. There is the old lady who is light. wrapped up in personal drama, and the teenagers who pop out their cellphones as soon as things The film starts with the driver in question cleaning become heated. his bus with a fervor. It is the early hours of the morning, before the sun has risen on the horizon. When a bad-mannered police officer becomes The old man checks his phone and throws it back involved, the bus driver becomes a beacon of in his pockets with a huff and a puff. He’s certainly anarchy in his attempts at enforcing the rules and upset about something, and we don’t know what good behavior. The citizens on the bus become until the end of the film. The reason for the old man’s divided in their support of the old man. Redemption bad temper is a bittersweet reveal that strengthens comes from surprising sources, for the bickering the film’s absurdist and satiric form. passengers and for the bitter old man. When the bus driver’s day starts the film shifts into gear as a light satire, mocking everything along the road from modern-day youth to police officers. The handful of passengers who are trapped on the bus mirror society on a miniscule scale. There is the man who want to get off immediately, using force and violence. There is the old man who gently chides the bus driver to drive away from the red light,

Red Light is a little gem of a film with a stellar script, excellent direction, and an exemplary East European humor that is full of wit and chaos. Alongside a snarky plot about a light pole which stands in the way of everyone, the film succeeds in humanizing the absurd situation with its surly protagonist who belies a tender and lonely heart.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

A QUIET PLACE The quiet place in A Quiet Place, written, directed, and produced by Ronny Dorfler as his thesis film for Tisch School of the Arts, is at farm house number 261, rural Romania. The film starts with Cristina, a young woman who doesn’t seem more than 25 years of age, entering the gates of 261 uncertainly. Upon entering she gives the audience a walking tour of the place as the camera follows her around a modest but homely farm. It is quiet and peaceful. The impression of an idyllic setting is broken by the inhabitants of 261, Cristina’s family: a long-suffering, silent mother who takes her anger and resentment out on steak meat which she pounds with fervor, an alcoholic father who takes his frustrations out on his daughters by beating them up and leaving them out in the field, and a younger sister who refuses to eat food but accepts expensive presents from strangers.

The origins of the family members’ strange behavior towards each other, as well as the reason for Cristina’s return, are revealed late in the film, if ever. The film’s minimalist and realist approach leaves the audience guessing as to what sets of Cristina’s return and why the characters behave the way they do. Plot is taken for granted in favor of extreme realism. Because of lack of characterization and causality in the events, the characters come off as flat and their relationships unbelievable. The director attempts to tackle such topics as violence, poverty, humantrafficking, and prostitution by never depicting them within the narrative. Many things are implied and consequently, lost.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

BEAST Beast is a charming short film about a disappearing way of life where the relationship between man and beast was mutually beneficial and co-dependent, and the differences between the two were few and far in between. The rolling and spacious Hortobagy Steppe of Eastern Hungary where the film takes place is captured in an otherworldly cinematography, with a patient, observant camera, and wide lenses. The film somehow makes even the most urban amongst us to feel nostalgic about cattle herding. It’s perhaps not the lonely drudgery of cattle herding itself that is nostalgic but the lifestyle and the philosophy behind it which leave a strange longing in people’s hearts. The title alone is indicative of the philosophy behind the film, ‘beast’.

The shots of herders are spare in the film and even then, they are in relation to the animals. The camera lingers even as the herders exit the frame. There is no master and slave in this life, no individuality and personality in this lifestyle – all beings live to survive and to serve each other.

Beast covers four seasons on the Hortobagy Steppe in a thirteen-minute timespan. The film starts in a foggy and gray winter, the beasts (both animal and human) shuffling through mud, waiting around for the cold to finish. A mother cow licks her newly born calf, signaling the continuation of life and of the film. The beasts are more active in the spring, with the cattle grazing and bringing up their young and the herders preparing the pasture land and marking the young ones (a laugh out loud moment when a burly Hungarian runs after a terrified but Animals, from cows to birds to dogs, are framed obdurate little calf ). Summer is simple and short in no differently than the herders who tend to them. all its colors and beauty, and fall comes in the shape The first and most effective close-ups in the film of death as the film wraps up with a dog gnawing are of cows, staring indifferently into the camera. on a piece of cow femur.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

MISS HOLOCAUST At the beginning of Miss Holocaust, a clearly befuddled and disinterested group of elderly ladies are learning choreography. They totter about slowly on a make-shift stage resembling a catwalk, taking bows and following orders of a stern looking younger woman.They move to the tune of Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’, which might seem comical seeing as how the ladies are in their eighties and nineties. But a truly unsettling and absurd series of events follow as we learn that these ladies are rehearsing for Miss Holocaust, an annual beauty pageant for Holocaust survivors.

of wars, meaningless on the vacuous mouths of the usual beauty pageant contestants, are poignant and filled with eerie gravity.

One can’t help but wonder, “Who is behind this event?” or better, “Who is benefitting from this event?” Being born and raised in a post-communist country, I’m reminded of my own grandmother who is whisked away every election for ‘elderly meetings’ organized by a political party. At almost 90 years old, it’s hard to understand why my grandmother gets so enthusiastic about these party meetings which clearly fish for votes from the elderly. But The women seem bored, annoyed, and tired. The then I put myself in her shoes: it’s important for old organization and execution of the pageant is people to meet each other, to see who’s alive and abhorrently poor, chaotic at best. One wonders why kicking, to tease each other and to reminisce. the ladies put up with such ridiculousness. Well, When the days are numbered and the children are when you’re over 90 years old and have survived gone, absent, or busy with their lives, one needs a the Holocaust, what can faze you? Clearly nothing little ‘party meeting’ here and there to liven things as the day of the pageant arrives, and the dolled-up up a bit. But a Holocaust pageant seems to take the women are crammed into a limousine. One elderly usage and abusage of elderly people to another woman muses to the other, “This much work for level. only two hours and a few words.” The pageant itself is painful to watch as the women are called Aside from the questionable morals and sanity of to strut the runway and answer the usually absurd, the pageant is the film itself – the film refuses to but ironically meaningful within the context of make a point, neither to denounce nor to celebrate the event, question, “What is your message to the it. It’s understandable with such a touchy subject world and to the next generation?” as the Holocaust, but when abuse is so flagrant, one wonders where the filmmakers stood on the Their answers calling for world peace and the end subject they convey.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

GOOD MORNING, TRANSNISTRIA A distinct feeling of embarrassment and shame encroached upon me as I watched Good Morning, Transnistria, a film about a tiny, landlocked, and selfproclaimed nation between Ukraine and Moldova.

and to showcase their livelihoods (Oxana is a biology teacher while Victor is a tomb maker), the filmmakers succeed in depicting a solid and engaging portrait of life in Transnistria. However, the curiosity of this strange and desolate country is Coming from a formerly communist country myself, superseded by the filmmakers’ ideological fingerI’ve been interested in the fate of former Soviet pointing, particularly in the edit. Union countries and have tried to upkeep on the tumultuous happenings in them since the 90’s. From the onset of Good Morning Transnistria, the filmmakers mock their subjects by juxtaposing But I’d never heard of Transnistria, a nation with its contradictory images and text. A flamboyant own currency, flag, military, and car plates, as the film military parade is followed by an interview with the reveals. Transnistria sounds like a made-up country in a Disney movie about a nation of vampires, or a president of Transnistria in which he states satirical communist regime in Saturday Night Live how peace-driven Transnistria is. A sequence of sketches. It recalls to mind Krakozhia, the fallen and images of rundown Soviet style buildings and no longer recognized, and completely made-up, desolate spaces is followed by pink intertitles, regime in Spielberg’s The Terminal. “Are you happy?”, which then is followed by a quick cut of overly enthusiastic people declaring Despite its many unreal and fantastical evocations how happy they are. It’s poignant enough to see in the mind, Transnistria is a real nation, and it is the everyday struggles and pains, and hopes and an unhappy one: unrecognized, unknown, and dreams, however ridiculous they may seem to the neglected. The filmmakers follow two Transnistrians, filmmakers, of Oxana and Victor, representatives Oxana and Victor, over a course of what seems of a nation of neglected people. One can’t but feel to be a year, and through their daily lives, we get that the filmmakers breached a certain trust when a peek intothe previously undocumented, and they cloaked the film with their superior and topsubsequently exotic, lives of Transnistrians. down commentary. By giving the two wildly differing characters ample space to voice their political opinions

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

GARAGES In any communist city, collective cooperative garages were the boundaries or the margins of the city. In my country, the spaces that were once garages are now surrounded by buildings and houses. They are no longer the margins but remnants of an old order. Garages, written and directed by Latvian multidisciplinary artist Katrina Neiburga, is more than just a documentary about garages in Latvia. It is a contemplative film about masculinity and the masculine spirit, about creativity and the need for meditation. The film defines the garage as more than just a space to keep and repair cars. It is a space to run to “when you fall out with the wife”. It is a space for storing “useful things and provisions for the winter”.

come armors meticulously made of chains, guitar tuners, metal scrap sculptures, handmade bow and arrows, and bird breeders. As we watch the men excitedly describe their inventions and hobbies, we realize that we are watching not just electricians and plumbers, not just somebody’s father and grandfather, but inventors, visionaries, dreamers. They are metal sculptors, Viking armory specialists, musicologists and sound specialists, healers and environmentalists, and animal lovers! We perceive the human need for creativity as well as the need for reflection, meditation, and solitude.

The men speak with pride and love about the little spaces that they’ve built, upkept, and protected throughout the years. Writer/director Katrina Neiburga approach these men with such curiosity and affection that one wonders if the film isn’t a More so, it is a space for constructing, inventing, way for her to seek to understand her own father, and exploring. The director goes in and out of each someone who was perhaps prone to disappearing garage, talking to the men about what they keep into his garage. in their garages. And out of the belly of the beast 30

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

ISLANDS OF FORGOTTEN CINEMAS “It felt like God came down to earth,” contemplates an old man, describing his first experience of cinema. Islands of Forgotten Cinemas is an ode to the bygone era of cinema halls on the Croatian islands, when steamboats came carrying loads of film, when jealous husbands sent their kids with their wives to the cinema, and the projectors got cursed by a room full of people if the film snapped. We see the ruins of these cinema halls, the roofs knocked in by rain and storm, the plasters falling off the walls, nature creeping in through holes and cracks. We see dusty, rusty knobs, buttons, and dials, gigantic film projectors, and empty tin boxes for nonexistent film canisters, and ancient film posters.

We roam the courtyards and amphitheaters where films were projected, some still in use with chairs propped up neatly, some forgotten and neglected through time. And more curiously, we witness the activities that are taking place in what used to be cinema halls: sports, yoga classes, choir practices, dance halls, shooting practice, band practice, etc. The mélange of images are lyrically arranged over interviews with the elderly who remember their childhoods when these empty and dilapidated spaces were crackling with the energy of summer nights and stolen kisses in the dark. The keen eyes and impressive work of cinematographer Ivan Slipčević make even the millennials amongst us feel nostalgic for a time gone by of black and white films.

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

F R O M EA ST TO WEST / Teresa Vieira

"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."

brings us together. The existence of that collective memory that is consensual is due to a discourse made in several voices that includes all European nations within it.

However, the mainstream discourse shows that a substantial part of Europe is ignored The construction of an Europe united in its or silenced: since the time of Soviet Union up diversity is one of the pillars of European until today, we can observe Eastern Europe Union: an union that implies the valorisation being seen as the “other”, rarely known and of historical, political and social characteristics recognised as relevant by the centres of power of each nation while it is conducted in in Europe, avoiding their points of views, accordance to a set of values that defines it - memories and stories inside its (supposedly) European history and its (supposedly) and homogenises - the different nations. European collective memory. This union defines the European identity: a concept in constant mutation, that reveals "Eastern European memories (...) are still les itself, mostly, through the reality of the feeling lieux d’oubli rather than parts of les lieux de of belonging to the group of European nations, mémoire of the officially endorsed collective sharing a collective European memory that European remembrance (...)" (Malksoo, 2009). -"The Ballad of East and West" (Rudyard Kiplin, 1989)

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

This way, the construction of a (truly) collective European collective memory is not possible, the construction of a (truly) European identity is not achievable, the (real) European union is not accomplishable.

public.

BEAST - International Film Festival appear, this way, as a (first) bridge that brings together the (geographic) extremes of Europe. Portugal and the Portuguese have now the possibility That said, cinema - one of the main platforms of of getting to know the “others”, their stories, creation of cultural memory - has an essencial their memories, their cinema: this is the power role: through bigger productions and higher (and great importance) of the fresh vision distribution of European cinematography brough by BEAST that allows the improvement it is possible to create a form of knowledge of contemporary Eastern European cinema, and recognition of what was before (and as it also removes the space created by the commonly) seen as “the other”, distant and “unknown”. unknown. The characteristics of cinema itself allows the creation of links between the most distant geographical areas: through image, sound and narratives - even when fictional - , the public has the chance to feel the connection and create forms of identification. This way, considering the still present difficulties of Eastern European countries to take their place in European memory and history, of the still present lack of knowledge and silencing of their voices, cinema appears as a way of shortening this distance created long time ago: it is urgent to use this tool in favor of the union of the different pieces of the puzzle that is Europe!

"(...) there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!"

Identifying the weaknesses of the European “cinema industry” and the constant challenges to the distribution and circulation of films (in its social and artistic aspects), mostly due to lack of financing, film festivals are a kind of refuge, an element of great power and influence.

-"The Ballad of East and West" (Rudyard Kiplin, 1989)

Often, festivals open windows for different perspectives, different strategies, different stories and different memories, in an European context. That way, small nations and their cinematographic works have the chance to reflect upon the questions they consider relevant, artistically, and have the chance to represent those same thoughts to a broader 33

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

FILM SCHOOL OF FERS / Isabela Olaru If you love film production, acting, or photography, you might be interested in developing your skills and actually making a career out of it! If so, here are some facts about the departments and international students policy of three of the oldest film schools in the world, established in Eastern European countries. and cinema, can enroll at The Faculty of Acting; aspiring directors at The Faculty of Film Directing. Other faculties include The Operator Faculty, The Faculty of Scriptwriting and Cinematology, The Faculty of Arts, and The Faculty of Animation and Multimedia - the youngest faculty VGIK has. All specializations are between 4 and 5 years. The courses are in Russian, but the university also welcomes foreign students and offers them a Preparatory Russian Language Programme First on the list is the Gerasimov Institute of with applications to their future profession. The Cinematography in Moscow, also known as VGIK. university also has a special shortened programme The school was founded in 1919, by Lev Kuleshov for foreign citizens that hold a previous university - filmmaker and film theorist, and Vladimir Gardin degree (around 3 years), a Summer School with - film director and actor - one of the pioneers of short workshops and a tourist programme, and a fully-equipped film studio. Russian Cinema. VGIK has a multitude of faculties from which you can choose and it covers every aspect of filmmaking. The Faculty of Producer Business and Economy is preparing young producers of cinema and television and young managers at film, video and television stations. Aspiring actors, of drama theater

One of the well-known alumni of VGIK is Andrei Tarkovsky, director of Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979). More information on VGIK can be found on the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s official website: www.vgik.info .

BEAST FILM MAGAZINE 2017

every specialization, you have to pass an entrance exam in order to be enrolled. The university holds two entrance exams every year: one in June and one in September. The first is meant for Polish citizens, EU citizens who speak Polish, and citizens from any other country who hold Polish citizenship and speak Polish. This exam is held only in Polish language and those who pass do not need to pay any kind of tuition. The latter Another worth-mentioning Eastern European exam is conducted in English and is less complex. It film school is Łódź Film School, the national film is meant for international students. Those who pass school in Łódź, Poland. It was founded in 1948, by need to join a one year Polish Language Course, to Polish actor Leon Schiller. The school offers four learn the language, that costs 2000 Euro. departments: Film and TV Direction, Direction of Photography and TV Production, Acting, and Film After one year of learning Polish, you can start the Art Organization Production. actual courses of the university which are entirely in Besides the full-time studies for the Bachelor’s Polish. It might sound complicated, but if you want Degree, you can also choose to attend part-time to study at one of the most prestigious film schools studies, post-graduate full-time studies for both in Europe it’s worth giving Łódź a try! More info on Polish and foreign students, and Ph.D. studies. For their official website: www.filmschool.lodz.pl .

Besides these two, FAMU also has an international programme, Cinema and Digital Media. This is a 3-year master divided into two specializations: Screenwriting and Directing. For the 2018/2019 university year, you can apply until the 26th of March 2018 and the Skype interviews will be held in April. Last but not least, on our list, is FAMU, The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the fifth oldest school in the world, founded in 1947. The school has mostly programmes in Czech, but it also has three in English. Two of the English specializations are Photography from the Department of Photography and Cinematography at the Department of Camerawork.

As the courses are in English, FAMU International requires you to certify that you have at least a B2 English level and of course, as it is a Master programme, you should present your Bachelor’s Degree. More information about FAMU’s international opportunities on www.international. famu.cz/ .

All of the schools above are national film schools that offer public education and all of them welcome international students. So we would say that if you want to thrive in one of these fields and you also love Eastern European countries and culture, one of the film schools above should be a great choice for you!

ÂŠ BEAST International Film Festival Rua Martires da Liberdade 151, 2nd Floor, 4050-362 Porto, Portugal / www.beastfilm.pt