Neumann: Cigarettes and Diet Coke! There’s a time of the year
independent, so I’m not really complaining about that should be much stronger within the industry. Many great filmmakers choose to have their world premiere in Oldenburg, and we want to give them the best possible platform, so there’s always room for improvement. We need a bigger boat.
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14 September 2022 day 1
TFV:days.Is
Torsten Neumann: The way we do the festival, the way it’s financed, gives us a lot of freedom. We have no political need to program certain films, we are completely free. I’m pleased with the comparison, although maybe even Sundance isn’t really Sundance anymore, compared to what we’re doing.
“…if art is forced into certain areas, from the beginning,it’s propaganda…”
there a goal you haven’t achieved yet with the festival?
TFV: How did the pandemic affect that pursuit of a bigger boat? (Continued on page 3)
The Film Verdict (TFV): Festivals aim to have their own identity, but at the same time Oldenburg has been described as the European Sundance. How do you feel about that comparison?
TFV: Besides the festival, what keeps you up at night?
Neumann Opens Up With TFV
when I hate my work, as it gets more intense, but if you have a great team, which I do have, it’s a good kind of stress. And when the festival happens, there’s this strange energy you get from loving what you do, so there isn’t much sleep required on those
TFV: TIFF in Toronto pulled all of its screenings of Ulrich Seidl’s Sparta because of an article about his alleged work methods on the movie. How do you think the wish to please everyone is affecting festivals?
Neumann: Our financial position which does make us truly
OLDENBURG REVIEW DAILY 14 SEPTEMBER 2022 Page 2
Stephen Dalton, June 27, 2022
Even if the narrative logic sometimes wobbles and the
INTERNATIONAL
conceptual framework becomes a little overwrought in places, Linnenbaum’s dark fairy tale is a boldly original offering, all the more impressive for being her graduation film from the Konrad Wolf Film University in Babelsberg. World premiering at Munich film festival this week, closely followed by its Karlovy Vary launch next week, The Ordinaries is a flavoursome feast whose timely themes and genre friendly elements should help open wider release options beyond the limited realm of German language markets
THE ORDINARIES
VERDICT: A richly satirical sci fi allegory with an edge of biting social commentary, director Sophie Linnenbaum's impressive feature debut is far from ordinary.
As her inspired conceit, Linnenbaum uses the rules of cinematic drama as the blueprint for a rigidly hierarchical class system in The Ordinaries. In this dystopian society, the upper classes are Main Characters, and thus enjoy opulent lives, lavish costumes, set piece musical numbers and generous dialogue allowances. The middle classes are Supporting Characters, their lives more constrained but not without modest luxuries and potential for social mobility. Bottom of the social pecking in this cruel caste system are Out takes, who inhabit walled off ghettos and face daily hostility from the higher class groups. “They want to replace us!” is a commonly voiced anxiety. Main Characters are even allowed their own portable soundtrack generator, linked to their heart, which creates suitably heroic background music during their crucial dramatic scenes. Meanwhile, the authorities ban Out takes from generating their own music because, as one pointedly remarks, “they’re scared of what they will hear…”
The film’s young heroine Paula (Fine Sendel, charming and natural in her debut lead role) is a Supporting Character… Full Review
A strikingly confident dramatic feature debut from German writer director Sophie Linnenbaum, The Ordinaries puts a conceptually rich satirical sci fi spin on contemporary social issues. Combining self referential humour, strong visual effects and high calibre production design, the tone here is Brecht with a hint of The Truman Show, or an acerbic political allegory seen through the reality bending looking glass of Charlie Kaufman’s cheerfully bleak surrealism.
Neumann: The pandemic played into the hands of streaming platforms and all things digital, which isn’t really what we stand for. We need to keep up some digital elements, so we can keep the festival going if there’s another pandemic in the future, but the people who come to see the films in Oldenburg tend to favor the cinema over home
Ourviewing.audience
appreciates the quality of forscreenings.meetingfilmmaking,independentandtheyenjoyotherpeopleattheDigitalisnosubstitutethat.Themainfinancialissue
was that we didn’t really receive any help on the state level, only through the film fund of Lower Saxony. Culture in Germany is struggling in general, and it’s the first thing that gets sacrificed.
Heading for its European premiere at Oldenburg film festival in Germany this week, We Don’t Dance for Nothing will probably be limited to art house outlets by its unusual format, which mostly consists of still photos and voice over narration. But this left field approach should also be a selling point to the right target audience, with more festivals and specialist platforms likely to be drawn by Tai’s empathetic depiction of a marginalised global underclass and imaginative slant on timely political themes, from Hong Kong’s pro democracy movement to LGBT rights.
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Max Borg
Neumann Opens Up With TFV
Stephen Dalton, September 13, 2022
Full Review
WE DON’T DANCE FOR NOTHING
Musically rich and stylistically bold, We Don’t Dance for Nothing is a strikingly original debut feature from Chinese Greek American director Stefanos Tai. Drawing on the real testimonies of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong, Tai constructs an artful blend of docu drama fiction, photo montage flashbacks and live action dance numbers that feels experimental but never jarringly so. The film is being billed as Chris Marker’s La Jetee meets La La Land, which is a catchy pitch even if partly intended as a playful cinematic in joke. In its darker chapters, it feels closer to an almost real version of The Handmaid’s Tale.
VERDICT: A young Filipina migrant worker in Hong Kong dreams of dancing her way to freedom in Stefanos Tai's artful, imaginative photo montage musical.
(Continued)
Carmen Gray, September 13, 2022
WAY OUT AHEAD OF US
VERDICT: A vague, dreamlike lyricism is prioritised over socio political critique in Rob Rice’s collaboratively minded doc fiction portrait of a family facing uncertain futures in the Californian desert.
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Documentaries on the more creative end of the spectrum which incorporate fiction elements and use a collaborative approach to give greater agency to their subjects have been gaining greater recognition and higher profile slots at festivals in recent years. Scientist turned filmmaker Rob Rice’s first feature Way Out Ahead Of Us, which had its world premiere at FID Marseille and screens later this week at Filmfest Oldenburg, fits snugly into this hybrid, socially minded approach, in its portrait of a patch of impoverished white America in the desert of Southeastern California. The director enlisted a real couple, Mark and Tracy Staggs, for the project (Mark is also credited as a co producer along with Rice, Rui Xu, and Matt Porterfield, who is well known for his independent features capturing the societal tensions of modern America.) Mark is dealing with a terminal illness, adding to the stresses of their precarious existence — a diagnosis they are keeping a secret from their daughter Cassie (an invented character, played by Nikki DeParis, who never feels very credibly integrated into situations). Full Review
Narcosis tells a story full of life about love and loss. A close knit family is disrupted when the father fails to resurface during a professional dive. No funeral, no goodbye, just a house full of memories. Burdened by the elusive loss, Merel evades her husband’s death and everything related to it. Her
Premiering at May’s Cannes Film Festival, Krieps was recognized with the best performance prize for the Un Certain Regard sidebar. It made its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is a co production between Austria's Film AG Production, Germany's Komplizen Film, Luxembourg's Samsa Film, and France's Kazak Productions. Corsage will have a theatrical release IFC Films December 23rd . The film was financially backed by Eurimages, the Austrian Film Fund, Luxembourg Film Fund, FISA Film Industry Support Austria, the Vienna Film Fund and FilmFernsehFonds Bavaria
is Martijn de Jong’s debut feature and he wrote the screenplay alongside Laura van Dijk. Thekla Reuten and Fedja van Huêt are in the lead roles. Internationally acclaimed actress.
Dutch Director Skips to the Oscars
Corsage, Marie Kreutzer’speriod drama starring Vicki Krieps as Austria’s 19th century Empress Elisabeth, has been selected as the Austria’s entry for the best international feature film Oscar competition
Director Martijn de Jong film Narcosis has been chosen as the Netherlands’ entry to the 95th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature category. In 2014 he Directed Vrij, a tv movie, Stand By Me, a short film in 2013 and in 2010 Dicht bij mij Narcosisvandaan.
young children become entangled in their search for answers, eventually bringing the family to a hard stand. Merel has no choice but to face the loss in her own unique way.
Austria Hopes for an Oscar Nod With Corsage
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Produced by Trent of OAK Motion Pictures, Narcosis is a co production with NTR (NL) and is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Netherlands Film Production Incentive. The film will celebrate its world premiere during the Netherlands Film Festival in September and will be released in national cinemas in October. International sales will be handled by Coccinelle Film Sales.
Ominously strange cosmic events are happening in the skies above Paris in The Gravity, French Burkinabé writer director Cédric Ido’s ambitious blend of social realism, science fiction and family psychodrama. As the planets mysteriously align, turning clouds red and making the stars visible even in full daylight, a rupture in
The Gravity opens with splashy swagger, lavish James Bond style credits and an arresting flashback of two young brothers falling from a skyscraper apartment block in slow motion. In a slick visual segue, Ido then jumps seamlessly forward to the present day. Full Review
directly after its Toronto world premiere, The Gravity marks Ido’s solo cinematic feature directing debut following his warmly received collaborative drama Chateau (2017) plus a handful of TV credits. Moving beyond gritty cinema de banlieue classics like La Haine (1995) and Les Misérables (2019), it puts a refreshingly original spin on multicultural French suburban life, with a gripping pace and sharp look, even if the fuzzy narrative get a little lost in the stars. A positive festival run and genre friendly elements should help secure the wider audience that this imperfect but enjoyably off beat thriller deserves.
INTERNATIONAL
VERDICT: Social tensions and strange cosmic disturbances collide in French director Cédric Ido's imperfect but admirably ambitious genre blurring thriller. Stephen Dalton, September 14, 2022
15 September 2022 day 2
the fabric of universe appears to be imminent. Meanwhile, in the immigrant heavy suburbs that girdle the French capital, a cosmic calamity is just one more problem to add to the pile alongside squeezed finances, gang crime, racial tensions and more.
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Heading for its European launch in Oldenburg Film Festival this week
THE GRAVITY
VERDICT: An 11 year old girl has a sexual awakening when she joins an older girls’ football team, but she struggles to understand and control taboo desires.
BROTHERS
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VERDICT: A gory, suspenseful debut from Kazakhstan’s Darkhan Tulegenov offers a moody, pessimistic take on the crime thriller that interrogates class inequality and hypocrisy. Carmen Gray, Setpember 14, 2022
BRASIER
Kazakhstan is a bleak and brutal one of overcrowded unemployment centres and abusive domestic tyranny at the hands of authoritarian and self serving patriarchs, where underhand dealings and crime are often the only avenues for making ends meet and escape possible. In its consideration of the transgressive potential of lawlessness as a radical act of desperation in a kill or be killed world of inequality and corruption, and its existential take on the crime thriller, it occupies similar terrain to compatriot Darezhan Omirbayev’s successful arthouse film of a decade ago, Student (2012), albeit in a more straightforward, schematic manner.
Ben Nicholson, Setpember 14, 2022
In Brasier, Emilie Mannering’s potent coming of age short which screens this week at Oldenburg, there is a recurring motif of ashen fingers. In the film, as Pierre Amelia’s (Amelie Raposo) first carnal desires begin to emerge, she sees black soot spreading from her fingertips over her hands. It’s perhaps a pointed note of comparison that it bears a striking resemblance to the way dark magic is portrayed on the hands of witches in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in both instances feminine deviance manifests as a dark indicator on the skin. In Pierre Amelia’s case, it is less the development of sexual urges that constitute aberration as the subject of her Whenlust.
INDEPENDENT
Two brothers from polar opposite class backgrounds come together to search for their estranged father in Kazakh director Darkhan Tulegenov’s pessimistic and bloody debut feature Brothers, which mines the familiar post Soviet trope of the absentee dad to suspenseful effect. Its vision of contemporary
TFV SHORT
the film begins, nothing could be further from her mind. Having been invited to join a football team made up of older girls Full Review
Akzhol (Alisher Ismailov), having reached adulthood, must leave the orphanage where he grew up, and has been moved into an apartment in a public housing complex, where he meets a youth similarly rehoused from another orphanage, Dimash (Azat Dzumadil). With the chaotic lines at the unemployment office offering little prospect to help him meet his upcoming rent payments, he quickly falls into co operating with Dimash to split the proceeds on robberies. Full Review
Salomé (Lua Michel, the director’s daughter) has a special relationship with her maternal grandmother or Avó (Ester Catalão), a woman as voluptuous as the child is spindly. Full Review
VERDICT: Andreas Horvath’s observational documentary offers a different, meditative view of animals in captivity, whose uneventful lives without a human audience inevitably recall our own experience with the pandemic.
Deborah Young, July 9, 2022 Guess who had a very cool time during the coronavirus lockdown? According to Austrian photographer and documaker Andreas Horvath in his revealing new doc Zoo Lock Down, reports that the captive residents of the world’s bio parks went into shock and depression over the lack of human visitors have been grossly exaggerated. Far from moping despondently at the sudden lack of attention, the wonderful animals in the Salzburg Zoo seem to have had a ball having the place to themselves, with just their feeders and their medics in attendance to serve them. Though the whimsical behavior and photogenic looks of his subjects may have helped Karlovy Vary regular Horvath to a place in the Proxima competition, it is the startling clarity of his closeup photography that offers new perspectives for film audiences and makes this interface between the natural world and man made manipulation riveting. Full Review
VERDICT: Cristèle Alves Meira's feature debut is an uneven work that combines anthropological and documentary details with more supernatural elements.
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ALMA VIVA
ZOO LOCKDOWN
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A Franco Portuguese girl who’s not even ten years old finds that her grandmother might have left her a legacy she wasn’t prepared for in Alma Viva, the feature debut from Franco Portuguese actress turned director Cristèle Alves Meira. Even more than a coming of age narrative, the film is an almost anthropological exploration of village life in Tras os Montes, in northeastern Portugal, which sees wildfires rip through the mountains in summer and people accuse each other of sorcery and witchcraft. There should be an appreciative audience for this Cannes Critics’ Week title at festivals, especially because its ochre and amber visuals, courtesy of Portuguese cinematography royalty Rui Poças (Zama, Frankie, The Ornithologist) are always pleasing to the eye, though a wider breakout might be harder to achieve.
Boyd van Hoeij, May 18, 2022
INDEPENDENT
Anything goes in your 5 minute pitch, as long as it works on the platform ZOOM. Just do your thing and be creative.
(Continued on next page)
MALTA
He emphasised on how this project will continue to attract more international productions for a longer period of time and will provide the necessary opportunities for local crew to continue developing their skills.
GREECE
Malta’s first sound stage will be built on an area of 4,000 square metres at the Malta Film Studios, adjacent to the deep water tank facility. The sound stage will be the first of its kind, boasting an interior 2,000 square metre water tank overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Note: The project cannot not be part of a training or study program and must still be in the idea phase (i.e. it cannot be in a developmental phase yet or in the phase of Applicationsrealization).maybesubmitted in German or English. The pitch will take place in late October, with the opportunity of being awarded up to 10,000 euros if selected by the jury
PDF). The deadline for the application is Thursday, September 22, 6 p.m. CET. The pitch will take place in English.
Maria joined the GREEK FILM CENTRE after a career of more than thirty years at the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), spanning international co productions, documentary writing, tv show hosting and print Shejournalism.hasbeen the Head of the Co productions Dept. and the Director of International Relations of ERT, the Head of Delegation for the Eurovision Song Contests for 2019 & 2020 as well as an elected member of the EBU TV Committee
GERMANY MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein hosts XR Pitch Battle
Communications, University of Aegean.
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Minister for Tourism Clayton Bartolo highlighted the sound stage’s approval as a crucial step in the development of Malta’s film infrastructure, which will result in the creation of quality jobs together with further opportunities in the industry.“With the construction of Malta’s first sound stage, we will continue to maximise the potential for our local industry and cement it as a key economic motor for our country” stated Minister Bartolo.
On Sept. 2, the Hellenic Film Commission welcomed Ms. Maria Koufopoulou as their new Director
e. She is an alumna of the Documentary Campus 2010 and has participated in many international workshops on Shefilmmaking.holdsadegree from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and a Master of Arts degree from the Department of Cultural Technologies &
Earlier this month, Malta’s Planning Authority unanimously approved the plans for the construction of Malta’s first sound stage a long awaited and historic moment for all those
Please send your idea to Jana Ziebart: filmfoerderung.deziebart@moin(max. 1 page as
working in the local film and television industry.
MALTA TO BUILD A SUPER SOUND STAGE
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filming in London consist of:
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WHAT’S FILMING THIS MONTH
Television Series “Anima Gemella”, created by Endemol Shine Italy in Co production with RTH
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TORINO PIEMONTE
▪ Feature Film La bella Estate directed by Laura Luchetti, produced by Kino Produzioni with Rai Cinema, 9.99 Films, executive produced by Tapelessfilm Serice
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Feature Film One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins
Torino Piemonte will host filming of 5 produtions in various locations of the city center this fall including the Roman Quadrilateral, the Valentino Park, the San Salvario district including the Lumiq Studios, the former Le Nuove Prison, Villa Cimena (Castagneto Po), andLake Maggiore
London has a heavy filming stlate this September including:
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"Il Re", Sky Original TV series directed by Giuseppe Gagliardi
Netflix Series Supacell, about a group of black south Londoners who develop super powers. The show is written and directed by L
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Feature Film “Birds”, written and directed by Pau Durà and produced by Fosca Film, with Italian production oversight by Lupin Film
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TV series "Cuori", directed by Riccardo Donna and that aired on Rai1 last autumn
From, an exciting new thriller starring Jodie Comer & Katherine Waterston.
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▪ Feature Film The End We Start starring Jodie Comer and Katherine Waterson
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LONDON
▪ The Crown Season 6. The final season
▪ Baby Reindeer Bridgerton series 3 Criminal Record Loki, series 2 Slow Horses series 2 Ted Lasso series 3 Disclaimer Mrs Sidhu Investigates Mickey 7
INDEPENDENT
VERDICT: Director Colin West's soulful sci fi comedy drama balances its sentimental message with sharp jokes, strong performances and deft plot twists. Stephen Dalton, September 15, 2022
16 September 2022 day 3
A heart warming sci fi comedy drama with an undertow of midlife melancholy, Linoleum has the makings of a sleeper cult classic. Young writer director Colin West barely puts a foot wrong with just his second feature, deftly combining old school American indie values with a twisty mystery plot, a sharp script and a polished technical
package. After amassing positive festival reviews in the US, the film makes its international premiere in Oldenburg this week, with a slot at the BFI London Film Festival to follow in October. Strong word of mouth buzz, plus leading roles for relatable everyman stand up comedian Jim Gaffigan and Rhea Seehorn of Better Call Saul fame, should help
REVIEW DAILY
boost box office prospects. Set in small town Ohio in a vaguely defined time period, Linoleum initially seems to invite viewers into a comfortingly familiar, lightly nostalgic, sanitised Spielberg ian America. Cameron Edwin (Gaffigan) is a dorky suburban dad on the brink of 50 who once dreamed of being an astronaut but now hosts a cheerfully goofy Bill Nye style science for kids TV show, filmed in his own garage. His wife Erin (Seehorn) works a humdrum job at the local Air and Space Museum, while their sassy misfit daughter Nora (Katelyn Nacon) attends a generic Midwestern high school, where she is inevitably finds herself in conflict with the cool mean girl clique for her geeky, sexually ambivalent Butaura.there is weirdness on the edge of town, not least the vintage Corvette Stingray sports car that inexplicably plunges from the sky close to the Edwin family home. Full Review
LINOLEUM
DOUBLE PORTRAIT
Father Peter Hyams, can look back on a career in Hollywood that spans more than 40 years; working as his cinematographerownfor all of his work, and screenwriter for several of his films as well. The modesty he shows when he talks about his work in interviews comes across as absolutely honest, because his films are characterized by precisely this kind of modesty.
Unlike his peers of the time, Hyams is not a graduate of film school, rather he studied music and fine arts, worked as a journalist & news anchor, and eventually established himself as a writer and director in Hollywood. His first two television films from 1972, Rolling Man and Goodnight, My Love, testify to Hyams’ precise staged; but feature an elegance that all of his feature films from the cop comedy Busting(1974) to the action thriller Enemies Closer (2013) exude.
Hyams, in continuallyconversation,evokesthewonder of collective labor in film production, and to his films. And this is precisely what makes him perhaps the last true ‘auteur’ of Hollywood. It’s time to rediscover his work because films like Capricorn One (1977); 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), (1981); Timecop (1994), Star Chamber (1983) and Narrow Margin (1990), can make you believe in cinema as a place of great stories that make you wonder and think again.
The talk can be watched live on the Oeins Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/AeCJg4cMTOM
franchises while setting industry standards with original productions. Both father and son’s grandiose genre works are filled with a humility toward cinema and its laws, which are something quite different from genre conventions, and thus radically at odds with the mechanisms of today’s movie business.
TONIGHT 8:30 CET / 11:30 PDT
OLDENBURG REVIEW DAILY 16 SEPTEMBER 2022 Page 2
Fest honors father and son genre filmmakers Peter and John Hyams, with a joint retrospective.
WATCH THE LIVE CHAT WITH PETER (in Oldenburg) AND JOHN (In Los Angeles)
While Father Hayms steered the pulp fiction of his era into completely new waters, with his completely independently produced film debut One Dog Day (1997), his son, John Hyams breathed new life into the great
OLDENBURG REVIEW DAILY 16 SEPTEMBER 2022 Page 3
Wish fulfilment fantasy films about female abuse victims turning the tables on their male tormentors is a long established genre, from I Spit On Your Grave (1978) to Kill Bill (2003) to Promising Young Woman (2020). Foumbi flirts with cathartic, empowering violence but mostly frames these themes in more ethically complex terms, where complicity becomes fuzzy, survivor’s guilt deepens the trauma, and Christian concepts of mercy risk becoming a smokescreen for mass murder.
Full Review
VERDICT: Revenge is not so sweet in debut director Ellie Foumbi's gripping, horror tinged thriller about African immigrants with a shared history of violence.
Stephen Dalton, September 15, 2022
Revenge is a dish best served with a side order of cold blooded fury in Our Father, The Devil, a serious minded and finely rendered debut feature from sometime actor, producer and shorts director Elli Foumbi. Putting an unusual spin on African immigrant narratives, this slow burn but absorbing French language thriller was party inspired by real life cases of fugitive war criminals reinventing themselves and going undercover in Europe. The work of Foumbi’s father, whose United Nations job involved rehabilitating former child soldiers, also provided some dramatic juice.
Our Father, The Devil touches lightly on horror and torture porn tropes, but at heart it is an anguished morality play in the tradition of Death and the Maiden (1994). Already garlanded with handful of festival prizes, Foumbi’s impressive debut makes its German premiere in Oldenburg this week. More festival mileage should follow, with black female film makers still a depressingly rare selling point.
INDEPENDENT
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VERDICT: This ambiguous single-take drama poignantly depicts a mundane morning in a family home, subtly exploring grief and the ways we hold on and move on.
Ben Nicholson, September 15, 2022
Told in one single locked off take (which took just three attempts to film), Toshiyuki Ichihara’s Still Is mines impressive cumulative tenderness from almost radically unobtrusive observation. With the camera situated just beyond a partition, the audience stares, with relatively little obstruction, at a family as they have breakfast on a typical weekday morning. Via the
While it’s possible to initially think that Sakai’s father is just being ignored by his self absorbed family members, this reading quickly becomes untenable. As the mother (Nahoko Kawasumi) prepares breakfast for her two children (Bankoku and Jun Hosoi) and a lowkey drama begins to unfold about her forgetting to collect her son’s suit from the dry cleaner for his big job interview, the gap that has been created by his absence becomes ever more evident. This is at its most obvious and the film reaches its emotional crescendo when the son emerges from his room dressed in a suit. His mother mistakes it for his, but his sister, with a sentimental smile, notes that it is their father’s. Full Review
STILL IS
smallest indicators in their interactions as they pass in and out of the room, and the words that are spoken and what remains unsaid, Ichihara’s film accumulates an impressive perhaps even unexpected level of pathos. Primarily this is a result of the realisation, though it is never explicitly confirmed in the dialogue, that the father (Hajime Sakai) has died and is lingering in the family home from beyond the grave.
SHORT FILM
Distribution at DOCS Barcelona, and Maite López Pisonero, Deputy Director of Film at RTVE make up the jury. The Award will be presented on Saturday 24 at the Festival closing gala
The Netherlands Film Fund & IDFA DocLab support the development of groundbreaking & experimental immersive storytelling in the Netherlands. The new works premiere at the 35th edition of IDFA.
RTVE-OTRA MIRADA
Six films are to compete for the XVI RTVE Otra Mirada Award at the San Sebastian Festival announced the festival. The contenders are two titles in the Official Selection, three in New Directors and one in AlaudaPerlak. Ruiz de Azúa, director and screenwriter of Cinco lobitos; Salima Jirari El Kouaihi, Head of
Martin has worked at 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal and MGM, and founded his own companies. Martin currently runs Miracle Communications as well as Demand Film UK.
“From a wide variety of thought provoking immersive and interactive projects, we have selected two works that ask fundamental questions about being human in an abundantly non human world. Both these projects aim to extend the senses, and embark on an explorative journey into the (un)familiar, embracing the experiment.”
IRISH FILM RESTRUCTURESLONDONBOARD
This year’s Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant goes to The Butterfly Effect by Mathilde Renault and Dancing with Dead Animals by Maarten Isaäk de Heer. Each to receive a contribution up to €10,000 to develop an interactive and immersive work using emerging technologies in new and innovative ways.
IFL Chair, Carey Fitzgerald, commented on the appointments “We are delighted to welcome the new Members to the Board of IFL. With two accountants, experts in business strategy, governance, global risk, PR, Sponsorship, as well as Exhibition & Distribution, we now have a solid and well rounded Board with the knowledge and expertise to support the excellent work that IFL Director Gerry Maguire and his team are providing at IFL
OLDENBURG REVIEW DAILY 16 SEPTEMBER 2022 Page 5
Joining the Resource Committee is Strategy, Compliance & Risk Expert Paddy Oglivy, who leads the Protective Intelligence function in Swiss Re’s Chief Security Office. Prior to that, he led intelligence teams in Corporate Security, Non Financial & Enterprise Risk Management for Deutsche Bank and was a Senior Manager at Deloitte. Paddy will also lead on Business Strategy and Governance.
Following the recent appointment of Irish Film London Chair, Carey Fitzgerald, , Irish Film London (IFL) announcea a restructure of its Board of Directors.
JoJo Dye, producer of some of the biggest and best events at the Cannes, Abu Dhabi, LA and Berlin film festivals, as well as parties & conferences for varied clients, and owner of Private Members Club at the Cannes Film Festival will join as lead of Communications and UKSponsorship.Distributor, Martin Myers, will
Veteran film industry Management and Royalty Accountant, David Clark is also joining. David has specialised in royalty accounting for film, television and music companies for many years.
Absaline Hehakaya, Project Manager Selective Funding at The Netherlands Film Fund
Karen Knowles, stepping down due to other commitments, agrees to remain as a Board Advisor. Irish Film London thanks Karen for her commitment to IFL, especially through the turbulence of the pandemic.
lead Distribution and Exhibition.
AWARD ANNOUNCED
INTERACTIVEAWARDEDGRANT
17 September 2022 day 4
Therecanvas.is only a brief and subtle warning of what is to come in the opening few minutes of the film. After taking part in a funeral procession, the heavily pregnant Marie (Cyndie Lundy) is cooking,
Ben Nicholson, September 16, 2022
PARSLEY
REVIEW DAILY
chatting, and laughing with members of her local community. At one moment, she overhears her Dominican husband, Frank (Ramon Emilio Candelario) being warned by his military brother German (Pavel Marcano) that ‘El Jefe’ the Dominican leader, Trujillo wants all Haitians out. He explains that the army will
INDEPENDENT
VERDICT: Jose Maria Cabral’s historical drama about the appalling 1937 ‘Parsley massacre' in the Dominican Republic is a well-mounted but utterly harrowing picture of atrocity.
There is very little let up in Jose Maria Cabral’s gruelling drama, Parsley, which screens this week as part of the Oldenburg Film Festival. Set during one of the darkest periods of Dominican history, the film takes place in the midst of the so called ‘Parsley massacre’ which took place in October of 1937, when dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the slaughter of all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic’s north western region. Almost the entire Haitian population was either killed or forced to flee across the border over the course of six barbaric days. Restricting its focus to one woman and her family, the film presents a heart stopping, but humanising tale positioned against a brutal and bloody
come armed with a shibboleth, a phrase whose pronunciation can denote between groups of people: “any Negro who mispronounces the word ‘parsley’ is screwed.” Quite the extent of the retribution for the Creole accent is left unsaid but is quickly and violently conveyed that night.
Full Review
theatre, notably the prestigious Schaubühne and Volksbühne in Berlin. Indeed, he initially conceived Junk Space Berlin as a multimedia stage play in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. It still has the feel of an experimental theatre piece, with its stagey sets and mannered dialogue. World premiering at the defiantly independent Oldenburg Film Festival this week, this lo fi queer punk junk space odyssey is unlikely to travel beyond specialist niche interest circles. Even so, in the week of Jean Luc Godard’s death, it is heartening to see young film makers still making the kind of avant garde
Junk Space Berlin is low on action but heavy on talk, political slogans and big ideas.
Full Review
OLDENBURG REVIEW DAILY 17 SEPTEMBER 2022 Page 2
VERDICT: Juri Padel's low-budget cyberpunk thriller elevates its scrambled plot and fuzzy intentions with dazzling digital visuals. Stephen Dalton, September 16, 2022
manifesto movies that he pioneered, for all their flaws and Thelimitations.streets of Berlin are rarely glimpsed in Junk Space Berlin, which mostly takes place in the grungy subterranean depths of a mysterious chasm that has opened up in the city, ripping the Neukölln district in half. When Billie (played by real life Berlin techno DJ and recording artist Tommi Tokyo, aka Tot Onyx) disappears into this ghostly digital no man’s land beyond the reach of social media or phone signals, a trio of anxious friends and hackers set off on a perilous mission try and track her down. Marion (Otiti Engelhardt), Blue (Tamara Semzov) and Akira (Selin Kavak) also reluctantly consent to cooperate with Bird (Thomas Schimanski), Blue’s arrogant and abusive ex lover, a former state security agent who may hold some clues to Billie’s location. This risky excursion into an enigmatic forbidden zone has distant echoes of Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), which may be intentional.
INDEPENDENT
JUNK SPACE BERLIN
Any film that opens with an advance warning about throbbing strobe lights promises to be a wild ride at least. The debut feature by young writer director Juri Padel, Junk Space Berlin is a retro futuristic cyberpunk thriller with one foot in a neon lit sci fi computer game dystopia and another in the German capital’s fabled techno club scene. Judged as conventional screen drama, it is pretentious, amateurish and uneven. On the other hand it is also rich in ideas, stylistically adventurous and ablaze with cutting edge visual glitch art effects. A mess, but an admirably ambitious, sense blitzing mess. Padel has a background in
However, that is absolutely the situation that takes centre stage in Kerren Lumer Klabbers’ understated portrait, Radio Silence. Far from the melodramatic flourishes of overblown romantic gestures and the overwrought suffering of embellished break ups, this quiet film finds those small moments in which the lines of communication seem to have become crossed, eroded, or snapped clean off.
RADIO SILENCE
SHORT FILMS
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VERDICT: A silly joke on a quiet weekend away becomes a painful indicator of impending doom in this low-key Norwegian break-up drama. Ben Nicholson, September 16, 2022
When Thor (Fredrik Stenberg Ditlev Simonsen) and Linn (Sara S. Moland) go away to a remote cabin for a weekend, it isn’t apparent at least to both parties that their relationship is in its death throes.
While the film walks a fine line on the verge of magical realism, it is otherwise defined by an almost cosy naturalism. Moland and Ditlev Simonsen feel earthy and genuine, both in their playful interactions and when awkward exchanges are left hanging in the air between them. It is not that the characters lack warmth for one another, but the actors brilliantly portray the imperceptible difference between affection and real love there is a coolness that cannot, or perhaps as yet has not be quantified. In a sense, Radio Silence is as much about the moment of realisation as it is the moment of separation. Full Review
Bolivia has chosen Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s eco drama Utama as their official submission to the 95th Academy Awards, it was announced today. Kino Lorber will release Utama theatrically in the United States on November 4.
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High Hopes for Bolivia’s UTAMA as Oscar Contender
Utama is the debut feature by Bolivian photographer turned filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi and is shot by veteran cinematographer Barbara Álvarez (Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman). Utama made its World Premiere in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Dramatic Competition, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, and will screen at the BFI London Film Festival next month. The film was also an official selection at the Göteborg Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, SFFILM, and Melbourne International Film Festival, among others. Utama will be the fourteenth Bolivian entry to the Academy Awards.
Set in the arid Bolivian highlands, Utama tells the story of an elderly Quechua couple that has been living a tranquil life for years. While he takes their small herd of llamas out to graze, she keeps house and walks for miles with the other local women to fetch precious water. When an uncommonly long drought threatens everything they know, Virginio and Sisa must decide whether to stay and maintain their traditional way of life or admit defeat and move in with family members in the city.
VERDICT: Irish director John Connors makes a powerful statement with his debut dramatic feature, a gritty crime thriller about secrets, lies and trauma passed down the generations. Stephen Dalton, September 17, 2022
INDEPENDENT
against vulnerable children. So far, so bleak. But The Black Guelph is also a gripping crime thriller, an acutely well observed social drama and a stirring plea for empathy in cruel times, all driven by a high calibre ensemble cast. Connors and his team have taken painful subject matter and made it feel humane, heartfelt and often surprisingly funny. The director cites Ken Loach and Martin Scorsese as important inspirations. There are echoes of other actor driven personal passion projects here too, notably Gary Oldman’s Nil by Mouth (1997) and Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters (2002). Impressively, this indie production was shot in just 21 days in the middle of Covid lockdown, with rigorous testing that consumed a third of its modest budget, yet it still has the glossy finish of a mainstream feature. Full Review
“This is not a tourism friendly film,” laughed Irish actor writer director John Connors when he introduced the world premiere of his debut dramatic feature to a packed audience at Oldenburg Film Festival. Indeed, The Black Guelph is miles removed from the marketable Celtic cliches that
have helped boost Irishness into a global brand. This is gritty urban epic about inter generational trauma, poverty, drug addiction, sexual and physical abuse, with an undertow of political rage at the Irish government and Catholic church elites who conspired to cover up decades of crimes
REVIEW DAILY
THE BLACK GUELPH
18 September 2022 day 5
ABERRANCE
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MIDNIGHT XPRESS
originality and ambition, but it does confirm Basukh as a skilled visual stylist and master of tightly wound suspense.
deftly keeps viewers guessing about who holds the real power in this volatile set up. Is Selenge the victim of domestic abuse, or even kidnapping?
Full Review
from this domestic prison. While he force feeds her pills for some nebulous purpose, she quietly rejects and conceals them. When the pair’s snooping neighbour (Yalalt Namsrai) begins to sense something is amiss, he calls the police. But Erkhmee persuades the officers to leave, possibly with a bribe, raising the risk of violent reprisal against the voyeur next Basukhdoor.
A thirty something couple arrive at a remote wooden house deep in the snowy Mongolia hinterlands. The stern, watchful Erkhmee (Erkhembayar Ganbat) appears cautiously delighted when nervy Selenge (Selenge Chadraabal) voices her approval, but there are evidently serious tensions simmering below the calm surface. Her body marked with mysterious bruises, Selenge paints blood drenched landscapes, smashes windows and begs Erkhmee to release her
VERDICT: Director Baatar Batsukh raises the bar for Mongolian cinema with his twist heavy, visually impressive psycho horror debut. Stephen Dalton, September 17, 2022
An axe appears on screen early in Aberrance, a teasing reminder that the “Chekhov’s gun” rule also applies to skull splitting, bone chopping murder implements. Sure enough, there is plenty of bloody slaughter in this finely crafted thriller, but otherwise slasher cliches are impressively thin on the ground in Baatar Batsukh’s gripping, visually striking debut feature. Making its international debut at Oldenburg Film Festival this week, this twist heavy shocker should find a wider global audience thanks to its slick execution, genre friendly format and marketable novelty value as one of Mongolia’s first exportable horror Basukhmovies.comesto
directing from cinematography, most notably shooting Mongolia’s 2019 Oscar submission The Steed, which won multiple festival prizes including Oldenburg’s Spirit of Cinema Award. The director is also a huge fan of cult US director Darren Aronofsky, dedicating Aberrance to him in the closing credits, which helps explain his film’s stylistic homages and faint narrative echoes of Aronofsky’s feverish psycho horror curio Mother! (2017) Of course, this modestly budgeted production is not in the same league in terms of
SHORT FILMS
The debut short film of Rafael Martinez Calle, a native of Cordoba, Raw is an understated but charged depiction of an adolescent in a small town undergoing a sexual awakening. Although this
evocative short is fairly restrained in terms of dialogue, in its visual led drama it teases out both the danger and exhilaration that its protagonist, Jose (Fran Exposito) feels when he is first attracted to, and physically intimate with, a man – the handsome stranger (Fabien Charreyre Calvez). Having won awards at festivals in Spain, the film now screens in Oldenburg before going on to appear at festivals across Europe and the Americas, not least those with an LGBTQI+ focus.
VERDICT: The atmosphere is thick in this humid Andalusian-set drama in which a teenage boy encounters the first pangs of his burgeoning homosexuality.
VERDICT: Lucid dreaming and entangled destinies give an otherworldly aspect to Kalani Gacon’s intoxicating and bittersweet tale of romantic longing in Kathmandu.
THE SOUND OF DREAMING
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“Is this a dream or real life?” wonders Sonam (Reema Midhun Magar), one of the leads in Kalani Gacon’s The Sound of Dreaming. It’s a question that could be asked of the film itself, with a narrative that shifts between the past and the present, real and dream worlds, and seems to evoke notions of recurring lives experienced in cycles. Gacon’s story is based on one told to him by a friend who became preoccupied with using the idea of lucid dreaming to reconnect with a woman from his past. The film takes that premise and forges a meditation on connections made and missed as well as the notion of eternal soulmates who must find each other time and again.
In this iteration of their lives, the two are Sonam and Bikash (Saroj Shrestha). The film begins towards the end of their story, with Bikash regularly undertaking lucid dreaming to try to find Sonam, with whom he shared one magical day after he picked her up on his bike during a shift as a ride sharing motorcycle driver. She, on the other hand, is due to imminently emigrate to Australia with her husband (Rohit
Ben Nicholson, September 17, 2022
RAW
Ben Nicholson, September 17, 2022
Rumba) with whom she shares what appears to be a relatively affectionless marriage. As Bikash navigates a variety of strange dreams attempting to locate Sonam Full Review
SHORT FILMS
It is interesting to consider what, precisely, the title of the film is referring to. In the view of a society less accepting of queerness in its various forms, it is potentially Jose’s desires that might be condemned and considered vulgar. From the opposite perspective, it is perhaps the judgemental eyes of society themselves, concentrated in the form here of Jose’s father, Manuel (Nicolas Montoya) that may be what is crude. The tension between Jose and Manuel repeats throughout the film, the latter clearly suspects something of his son or at least deems him not to be quite right. Full Review
Canada: Eternal Spring
Ireland: The Quiet Girl Directed by Colm Bairéad
Bolivia: Utama
Directed by Ariel Escalante Meza
Algeria: Our Brothers
OLDENBURG REVIEW DAILY 18 SEPTEMBER 2022 Page 4
Directed by Davit Pirtskhalava
Bulgaria: Mother
Directed by Lou Yi An
Directed by Morris Mugisha
Directed by Anais Taracena
Costa Rica: Domingo and The Mist
Latvia: January Directed by Viesturs Kairišs
Montenegro: The Elegy of Laurel Directed by Dušan Kasalica
Ukraine: Klondike
EO
DOMINGO AND THE MIST
QUIET GIRL
Turkey: Kerr
Japan: Plan 75 Directed by Chie KazakhstanHayakawa: Life
Directed by Michal Blaško
South Korea: Decision to Leave
Taiwan: Goddamned Asura
Guatemala: The Silence of The Mole
Directed by Gabriel Martins
Directed by Tayfun Pirselimoğlu
Directed by Zornitsa Sophia
Armenia: Aurora's Sunrise
Germany: All Quiet on the Western Front
Slovakia: Victim
Directed by Jason Loftus
Directed by Emir Baigazin
Directed by Edward Berger
Directed by Erige Sehiri
Directed by Michael Koch
Academy Hopefuls Across the Globe
Kosovo: Looking for Venera Directed by Norika Sefa
Directed by Gentian Koçi
Directed by Park Chan wook
Belgium: Close Directed by Lukas Dhont
Directed by Carla Simón
GIRL PICTURE
Directed by Rachid Bouchareb
Uganda: Tembele
Directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi
Austria: Corsage Directed by Marie Kreutzer
Georgia: A Long Break
KLONDIKE
Indonesia: Ngeri Ngeri Sedap
Directed by Matevž Luzar
DECISION TO LEAVE
Brazil: Mars One
Albania: A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On
Hungary: Blockade Directed by Ádám Tõsér
Slovenia: Orchestra
Spain: Alcarràs
Directed by Inna Sahakyan
Tunisia: Under the Fig Trees
Directed by Bene Dion Rajagukguk
Switzerland: A Piece of Sky
Directed by Maryna Er Gorbach
Uruguay: The Employer and the Employee
Directed by Petr Václav
Directed by Alli Haapasalo
UNDER THE FIG TREES
Netherlands(Finland)
(Continued)
Finland: Girl Picture
: Narcosis
Directed by Arturo Montenegro
UTAMA
Directed by Juraj Lerotić
Ecuador: Lo Invisible
Croatia: Safe Place
Czech Republic: Il Boemo
Directed by Martijn de Jong
Paraguay: Eami
Directed by Paz Encina
ALCARRÀS
Poland: Eo
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
Directed by Manuel Nieto Zas
Panama: Birthday Boy
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Directed by Javier Andrade
Academy Hopefuls Across the Globe
