Best of Fests
The Chinese Mayor Hao Zhou
China, 2015 DCP, color, 87 min Director: Hao Zhou Cinematography: Hao Zhou, TianHui Zhang Screenplay: Qi Zhao, Hao Zhou Editing: Matthieu Laclau, Xiaochuan Yu, Xinming Lin, Tom Hsingmin Lin Sound: Jing Xiao Production: Qi Zhao for Zhaoqi Films Executive Production: Michelle Ho for Zhaoqi Films World Sales: Autlook Filmsales Distribution for the Benelux: IDFA Bertha Fund Screening Copy: Zhaoqi Films Involved TV Channels: Knowledge Network, DR, BBC, NHK Enterprises Inc., SVT
Hao Zhou:
Houjie Township (2005), Senior Year (2006), Using (2008), The Transition Period (2009), Cop Shop (2010), Cop Shop 2 (2011), A Village Life (2011), Emergency Room China (2013), Cotton (2014)
Awards: World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Unparalleled Access Sundance Film Festival, Best Documentary River Run Film Festival, Silver Prize Millennium Film Festival, Best Documentary Newport Beach Film Festival
Yanbo Geng is the communist mayor of Datong in China, and he has put his heart and soul into realizing his dream project of restoring and reconstructing the monumental city wall. He’s convinced that when this gigantic project is complete the tourists will come pouring in, ensuring the economic future of the city. The project has led to nearly half a million residents being forced to move. In Direct Cinema style, director Hao Zhou follows the mayor over a period of two years as he attempts to balance general public interest and a sense of justice for individuals. This doesn’t prove easy, for how should one go about rehousing people who are residing illegally in the first place? This prompts debate and demonstrations. Although Geng doesn’t shy away from confrontation, he does warn, “We have our rules. Don’t try to challenge the government.” Geng is also hard on himself, which drives his wife to distraction. We discover that he is at the mercy of the party leadership, whom he believes is unsympathetic to his Buddhist outlook. But when all is said and done, temporary personal ambitions are irrelevant, because “Datong will write a significant page in China’s history!”
Pitched at the Forum 2012
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah Adam Benzine
Canada, UK, USA, 2015 DCP, color, 40 min Director: Adam Benzine Cinematography: Alex Ordanis Editing: Tiffany Beaudin Sound: Daniel Hewett Music: Joel Goodman Production: Adam Benzine for Jet Black Iris America Executive Production: Nick Fraser for BBC World Sales: Cinephil Screening Copy: The Rolling Picture Company Involved TV Channels: HBO Enterprises, ZDF, ARTE, DR
Adam Benzine: directing debut
In 1973, Claude Lanzmann started shooting Shoah, a nearly 10-hour film that many regard as the most important ever made about the Holocaust. The Frenchman worked for a full 12 years on the documentary, which was commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But making Shoah left its mark on Lanzmann. He filmed 200 hours of material in 14 countries, before spending five years editing it. And then there was the infamous confrontation with a former Nazi and his henchmen. The director described his documentary as “a film about death, not about surviving.” He explains in Spectres of the Shoah how it wore him out and almost deprived him of his will to live. Lanzmann experienced the completion of Shoah as a death, and it took a long time for him to recover from it. The now almost 90-year-old filmmaker discusses his warm friendship with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, and his teenage years in the French resistance during the Second World War. The film also features unseen material from his magnum opus.
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