Rays of Moonlight Shades of Sunrise by vansuka chindavijak

TaBLE OF conTeNTs

THE DIRECTOR FESTIVAL FILMS _ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND _BE KIND REWIND _THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP _HUMAN NATURE

FESTIVAL VENUE _THE VENUE _SCREENING AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS _TICKETS AND SEATING _WHERE TO GO

| THE DIRECTOR

I ’ VE A LOT NOT GOOD

, A

DREAMED — MICHEL GONDRY

BUT

I ’ M

V E R Y SLE EPE R . 7

RAYS OF MOONLIGHT SHADES OF SUNRISE IS THE FIRST MICHEL GONDRY FILM FESTIVAL IN THE BAY AREA . THE FESTIVAL AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS ARE ORGANIZED BY THE CENTER OF FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL INSTITUTION. THE FESTIVAL WILL NOT ONLY FEATURE MICHEL GONDRY’S SELECTED FILMS BUT ALSO SHOWCASE HIS MUSIC VIDEOS AND ART INSTALLATION . THE FESTIVAL ALSO PROVIDE PARTICIPANTS WITH THE IDEA OF EASY FILM MAKING TECHNIQUE LIKE STOP MOTION WHICH GONDRY IS ALSO A HIGHLY REGARDED. THE FESTIVAL WILL BE HELD FROM

APRIL 29TH – MAY 7 TH, 2013 AT ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE , SAN FRANCISCO.

| THE DIRECTOR

MICHEL GONDRY

bIogrAphy

Pioneering director Michel Gondry (born May 8, 1963) is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. With a family background that consists of a number of inventors and technological innovators, Gondry, not surprisingly, is seen as a bottomless wealth of imaginative innovation. Michel Gondry is a native of Versailles in France who was raised in a freethinking family that encouraged and supported his creative endeavors; his parents harbored a deep love of pop music and the works of Duke Ellington, in particular. Gondry’s grandfather Constant Martin is often credited with creating one of the earliest synthesizers (the Clavioline), and although his father would often bemoan his own lack of musical inspiration, he kept the spirit alive by owning a shop that sold musical instruments. Though the shop would eventually go out of business due to the elder Gondry’s generosity toward burgeoning musicians (Michel claims that his father would practically give his instruments away), that generosity did extend to his immediate family, and young Michel and his brother were given a drum kit and a bass guitar, respectively, before the shop closed its doors. Subsequently forming a punk rock band with his brother, Gondry would also collaborate with his siblings on a series of short films in which the youngsters were constantly striving to break new technological ground.

| THE DIRECTOR

Though Gondry’s earliest career ambitions were to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps as an inventor, his skills as a draughtsman led him to art college in Paris, where he would form the band Oui Oui with some close friends. It was the remarkably visionary videos that Gondry created for the band that propelled his early sparks of inspiration into a virtual inferno of creativity. Mixing animation with live action to create a series of wildly surreal and strangely beautiful worlds, the videos would serve as a calling card to the world of film. It was his videos for Oui Oui (in particular the video for the song “La Ville”) that peaked the interest of eccentric singer Björk, and the two artists were soon collaborating on the video for her song “Human Behavior” from her post-Sugarcubes solo debut album. A visually extravagant study in the quirks of humans as expressed through various species of the animal kingdom, the groundbreaking video first aired in 1993, stunning viewers across the globe. Its organically outlandish images perfectly complimented the singer’s unique musical style and served as the beginning of an enduring collaboration between the two artists. Though Gondry would frequently return to work with Björk in the following years, the success of the “Human Behavior” video found such popular artists as the Rolling Stones, Massive Attack, Kylie Minogue, and Beck clamoring to collaborate with the visionary director. Always looking to create and invent new ways of shooting music videos, Gondry offered something fresh and original in each of his new efforts, effectively breathing fresh air into the somewhat stagnant (at the time) format. His video for the French band IAM’s track “Je Danse le Mia” pioneered the morphing technique that would become increasingly prevalent in

Childhood occupies the biggest part of your brain, so a lot of my memories subconsciously (and consciously) enter the videos I do.

film and video throughout the 1990s. During this time, Gondry would also helm

After joining forces with famed comic Dave Chappelle the following year

commercials for such notable clients as Levi’s, Nike, and BMW. Subsequent

for the high-energy hybrid music/concert documentary Dave Chappelle’s Block

videos for such bands as the White Stripes and the Foo Fighters found him

Party, Gondry soon returned to the realms of the fantastic with The Science

consistently working with some of the hippest bands around.

of Sleep, a surreal journey into the vivid imagination of a lonely dreamer that

Of course, it was only a matter of time before Gondry moved into feature

seemed something of a celluliod sibling to Eternal Sunshine. Of course, any fan of

film territory, and with the 2002 comedy Human Nature, he did just that. Though

Gondry knows that he has never been a director inclined to rest on his laurels, and

the Charlie Kaufman-scripted film did indeed translate his quirky and unique

just two weeks before The Science of Sleep hit stateside theaters, Gondry was

visual world onto the large screen with its original tale of a hirsute nature girl

already busy shooting his next feature, Be Kind Rewind—an unhinged comedy

who forms a tentative bond with a wild child who is being schooled in social

concerning a junkyard worker (Jack Black) whose magnitized brain erases every

skills by a repressed scientist, Human Nature ultimately proved a bit too odd for

movie in his best friend’s video store. Subsequently threatened with the loss of

mass consumption and barely scored a blip on the box-office radar. Those who

the store’s sole customer—an elderly woman showing signs of dementia—as a

were familiar with Gondry’s work, however, warmly and openly embraced the

result of the mishap, the well-intending junkman and his determined pal make

film for the most part, and it wasn’t long before the director was eying scripts

a desperate bid to please the loyal patron by reinacting scenes from a variety of

for his sophomore feature. In 2004, he once again teamed with Charlie Kaufman,

high-profile Hollywood hits.

this time for the tale of a troubled couple who have their memories of each other erased after a traumatic breakup in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The film found Gondry collaborating with an all-star cast that included the likes of Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst and Elijah Wood. A wildly creative and hauntingly humorous endeavor which proved a sizable indie hit among filmgoers looking to experience a new twist on the modern romantic fable. When it came time to hand out the coveted Oscars at the 2005 Academy Awards, Gondry found himself sharing a Best Original Screenplay award with co-screenwriters, Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth.

| THE DIRECTOR

F EATUR E FILMS Human Nature (2002) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) The Science of Sleep (2006) Be Kind Rewind (2008) The Green Hornet (2011)

Docum entarY fIlms I’ve Been Twelve Forever (2003) Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2005) The Thorn in the Heart (2009)

FILMO GRAPHY

Short FILMs L’expedition fatale (1986) Jazzmosphère (1987) My Brother’s 24th Birthday (1988) La lettre (1998) The Letter (2001) One Day... (2001) Pecan Pie (2003) Ossamuch! – Kishu & Co. (2004) Tiny (2004) Three Dead People (2004) Drumb and Drumber (2004) Tokyo!: Interior Design (2008)

mUSIC VIDEOs Crystalline / Björk

Music Sounds Better With You / Stardust

Two Worlds Collide / Inspiral Carpets

How Are You Doing? / The Living Sisters

Bachelorette / Björk

Close But No Cigar / Thomas Dolby

Open Your Heart / Mia Doi Todd

Deadweight / Beck

Paradoxal Système / Laurent Voulzy

Soleil du Soir / Dick Annegarn

Jóga / Björk

La Ville / Oui Oui

Declare Independence / Björk

Everlong / Foo Fighters

How the West Was Won / Energy Orchard

Dance Tonight / Paul McCartney

A Change Would Do You Good / Sheryl Crow

Les Voyages Immobiles / Etienne Daho

Limitless Undying Love / Sergio Hiram

Around the World / Daft Punk

Blow Me Down / Mark Curry

Cellphone’s Dead / Beck

Feel It / Neneh Cherry

Comme un ange (qui pleure) / Les Wampas

Anysound / The Vines

Sugar Water / Cibo Matto

La normalité / Les Objects

King of the Game / Cody ChesnuTT

Hyper-Ballad / Björk

Sarah / Les Objects

Heard ‘Em Say / Kanye West

Like a Rolling Stone / The Rolling Stones

Ma Maison / Oui Oui

The Denial Twist / The White Stripes

Isobel / Björk

Tu rimes avec mon coeur” – Original MC

Light & Day / The Polyphonic Spree

Protection / Massive Attack

Les Cailloux / Oui Oui

Winning Days / The Vines

High Head Blues / Black Crowes

Il y a ceux / l’Affaire Louis Trio

Mad World / Gary Jules

Army of Me / Björk

Dô, l’enfant d’eau / Jean-Luc Lahaye

Ride / The Vines

Fire On Babylon / Sinéad O’Connor

Bolide / Oui Oui

Walkie Talkie Man / Steriogram

Lucas With the Lid Off / Lucas

Un Joyeux Noël / Oui Oui

I Wonder / The Willowz

Little Star / Stina Nordenstam

Junior Et Sa Voix D’Or / Oui Oui

The Hardest Button to Button / The White Stripes

This is it (Your Soul) / Hothouse Flowers

Another One Bites the Dust / Wyclef Jean

Behind / Lacquer

It’s Too Real (Big Scary Animal) / Belinda Carlisle

Les Jupes / Robert

Come Into My World / Kylie Minogue

Human Behaviour / Björk

A l’envers à l’endroit / Noir Désir

Believe / Lenny Kravitz

Fell in Love with a Girl / The White Stripes

She Kissed Me / Terence Trent D’Arby

Star Guitar / The Chemical Brothers

Voila, Voila, Qu’ça r’Commence / Rachid Taha

Knives Out / Radiohead

Je Danse Le Mia / IAM

Mad World / Michael Andrews and Gary Jules

Snowbound / Donald Fagen

Let Forever Be / The Chemical Brothers

La Tour de Pise / Jean François Coen

Gimme Shelter / The Rolling Stones

Hou! Mamma Mia / Les Négresses Vertes

| THE DIRECTOR

ACaDEmY AWaRDS Year 2005: Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (shared with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth)

BAFTA AWaRDS Year 2005: Nominated for David Lean Award for Direction for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

AWARDS

bRAM StOKER AWARDS Year 2005: Won the Bram Stoker Awardfor Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (shared with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth)

CORK INTERNATIONaL FILM FESTIVAL Year 1998: Won the Internaltuinal Jury Award for Best Black & White Film for La Letter

DEAUVILLE FILM FESTIVaL Year 2004: Won PremiĂŠre Audience Award for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

GOThAM AWARDS

TOKYO INTErNATIONAL FILM FEsTIVAL

Year 2004: Won the Celebrate New York Award

Year 2001: Nominated for the Tokyo Grand Prix

for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and

for Human Nature

Nominated for Best Film Award

GhENT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WRITES GUILD OF AMErICa

Year 2005: Won the WGA Award (Screen) for Best

Year 2004: Won the Youth Jury Award for Eternal

Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless

Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Mind (shared with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismith

ONLINE FILM CRIT ICs soCIETY Year 2005: Won the OFCS Award for Best director and Best Screenplay, Original for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

LonDOn CrITICS CIrCLE FILM Year 2005: Nominated for ALFS Award for Director of

WAshINGTON DC AREA FILM CRITICs ASSocIATION ŕ¸ Year 2004: Won the WAFCA Award for Best Director for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

TORoNTO FILM CRITICs ASSOCIATION

the Year for ternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindvv

Year 2004: Won the TFCA Award for Bes Director for

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

SITGES-CATALONION FILM FESTIVAL Year 2006: Won the Audience award for the Science of Sleep and nominated for the Best Film

| THE DIRECTOR

DIRECTOR TALK WIth JOsh HorOwItz

“Michel is only looking for one thing: to extract a bit of magic and mystery from things.” So says Björk about her frequent music video collaborator and friend, Michel Gondry. In scores of music videos and just three feature films to his credit, the French-born Gondry is one of the most unique talents working in film today. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of the most celebrated films in years, showed off his ability to bring ingenious camera work, soulful direction of actors, and a unifying vision all to a complex script from the mind of Charlie Kaufman. Finally his storytelling abilities had caught up with his groundbreaking technical work. Gondry is the rare filmmaker who can make the everyday extraordinary, and it all starts with his wonderfully off-kilter view of the world. Josh Horowitz: There’s a dreamlike quality to much of your work. Do you dream a lot? Michel Gondry: Everybody dreams, I guess, but it’s the way you think about them or remember them that’s different. I don’t remember them a lot, but enough to find what’s quirky and interesting. I don’t like psychoanalysis too much, and I think what it says about dreams is very dated. I’ve read so much about neurobiology, which is much more captivating. It’s like the difference between astrology and astronomy. Astrology is a bunch of old beliefs. As for astronomy, it’s amazing to read a book about black holes. It’s good, because I like to compare theory with practicality. JH: The film you’re working on now is about dreams, isn’t it? Can you tell me a little about The Science of Sleep? MG: It’s like a journal of dreams in parallel with this guy’s feelings about a girl he’s fallen in love with, and how first he thinks they just have friendship and then he realizes he’s in love with her. JH: Have you finished filming it? MG: Yeah. I’m doing the editing right now. JH: How is that going? MG: It’s going. It’s hard to judge it. I really like the way the actors are. I’m not sure about the story in general. It’s very weird. JH: Your last two films were as much know for Charlie Kaufman’s writing as your directing? MG: Of course.

| THE DIRECTOR

JH: And this is your first solo writing effort?

JH: I understand you drew a lot as a child?

MG: Exactly! In my life, I would say there are three major people who have been

MG: I always drew and I played with LEGO and creative toys like that. I always

inspiring and supportive as collaborators: Etienne from my band, Oui Oui; then

liked to make systems and inventions. I have a naive way, to believe that things

Björk; and then Charlie Kaufman. And now for the first time I am on my own.

can work despite the technology or basic logic. My father said that my naiveté

JH: You’ve graduated, in a sense.

was my strength. I have this kind of optimism even when things seem undoable.

MG: Well, I didn’t graduate yet. That’s the scary thing. I will graduate if it goes

JH: It’s interesting you have that optimism to go along with the pessimism you

somewhere.

seem to have in yourself.

JH: I understand that you tend to doubt yourself a lot? MG: Yeah. JH: So doing this film essentially on your own without one of these influential collaborators must be all the more frightening. MG: I got really scared doing this movie. I get scared all the time, but this one was different. JH: Do you feel more pressure because of all of the acclaim you garnered for Eternal Sunshine? MG: Oh, yeah. Of course. It’s more pressure, but it’s not a bad pressure necessarily. A lot of people are excited to work with me. They forgive me a lot than they would before. And my own paranoia is like, “Is it based on the success of Eternal Sunshine, or because they like it?“ JH: You were born and raised in Versailles in France? MG: Yes.

MG: Absolutely. It goes in waves. JH: Did you have any experiences with a camera at home? MG: Yeah. My father, in the early seventies, bought a super eight camera, but I didn’t do crazy stuff with it. I remember doing a little bit of animation. I would do stuff with my cousin where we would run and put the camera on a tripod and take a picture every ten seconds so we could run like Superman. I wasn’t very consistent with it. I did a lot of flip books and cartoons with my cousin. My interest was animation. JH: Did you watch a lot of movies growing up? MG: Not more than anyone. I remember we watched a lot of Charlie Chaplin. I remember every Christmas they would have a festival on TV of the animator Tex Avery, who I was a big fan of. JH: And what did you want to do for a career at that point? MG: I wanted to be an illustrator or painter. I didn’t think animation could be a job. It was only when I bought a 16-millimeter camera in ‘85 or ‘86 that I started

JH: What did your parents do for work?

to realize it was something I enjoyed. I was never precise about the details. I

MG: My mom was a flute teacher. My father was a computer programmer. Before

was very much about the idea and the result. With film, you have to wait until

that, he was working in electronics, making speakers and microphones in a small

the lab processes it and when you see it, you see it all at once. You see this

company. He had this crazy hair and a crew of young women working with him.

compilation of moments put together, and I always liked that a lot. That’s why I

He looked like Johnny Hallyday, who was a big star in France. I think the girls

liked animation. You would do a little bit and a little bit and a little bit, and then

liked him.

when you see it together, it’s magic.

JH: Many have compared what you’re able to do with a camera to something like

JH: Were the videos you made for the group the first time you had tried anything

magic. Was that something you were ever into?

like that?

MG: Yeah, a little bit. I’m not so agile with my fingers and my hands, and I’m not

MG: Yeah, my first animated work with a camera was for my band. It basically was

good at manipulating people. I think magic is about how to condition people’s

like, I wanted to do animation, so I would do a little story using the music of my

perceptions and mislead them. This I’m not good at.

band. I did three little videos completely on my own using the music. We didn’t

JH: Isn’t moviemaking all about manipulating an audience in a way? MG: Yeah, there is a little bit of that. But I think there’s another quality about it, like seeing something different or more unique in everyday life and putting yourself unconsciously in what you’re doing and telling stories. That’s not manipulation. I went to see a play by Neil LaBute that was manipulative, and it was great, but I realized I could never do anything like that. It’s really twisting

even have a recording at the time. And later, after we had a record deal and I did the video, I had to deal with the band, because they were creative, especially Etienne. We collaborated, and in some ways it could be frustrating, because I would like to have had complete control. On the other hand it was good, because it was a rich collaboration. And when I met Björk, I found this collaboration to be great because it makes me grow. I guess they both opened my mind.

your emotions and misleading you to make you feel strongly about a character.

JH: Filmmaking is considered such a collaborative form. Do you feel that

And that’s like magic, and this I don’t like to do.

collaborating comes more naturally to you now?

JH: What do you bring, then, if it’s not that skill at manipulating an audience? MG: I think I bring a certain degree of naiveté that is not compatible with this way of telling a story. It’s like my son: If he wants to lie, he’s going to get caught. Something in his eye will be wrong. And I guess I have something like that.

MG: It goes both ways. Sometimes I really enjoy collaborations, and sometimes it’s good to do an idea without thinking intellectually too much. In collaborations you have to find a common ground for communication. You tend to work more with your brain than your instinct. Using instinct, you can pull out some ideas that are more surprising. But I think I’ve learned to be creative in collaborations. Even

JH: You went to an art school when you were a teenager?

when an actor comes up with a different perspective, I can find a way to use what

MG: Yeah. I went to a school from when I was sixteen to nineteen. I did a lot of

he says in a way that would not diminish it.

drawing and I met friends who were from different parts of France who had a similar way of thinking. We were not the ones who were the most verbal, but we could draw. I had a creative drive from when I was a kid. It was something that would keep me going. I was always unsure about life and death, and the only way to get me out of that was to think of material projects that I could construct.

JH: When you were starting to do videos for Björk and others, were you starting to think about doing a feature of your own? MG: No, it was years later. I would never think it would be possible until now. I didn’t have the magic to put all those pieces together and tell one story. I still doubt that. At the time I was totally sure I could never do that. And, as well, I

JH: It was around this time that your band Oui Oui began?

didn’t read much and I didn’t think I could write a story. It was something I never

MG: Yeah, exactly. That’s why school was good for me. I met people who were in

dared to think about.

these crossover positions between music and art.

| THE DIRECTOR

JH: Were there close calls before Human Nature of landing a feature to direct? MG: Yeah. I remember I did a trip to Los Angeles and I was trying to do this movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer. I showed them my ideas for the suspense and tension and fear and I did not get the job. They did not understand me. JH: Was that a big disappointment to you at the time? MG: Yeah. I was excited to do it. But I had more feelings about this [other] project that I worked on for a year called The Green Hornet. I worked with a great screenwriter, and I had a great time doing that, but the studio kind of let us down. JH: What kind of a film was it? MG: It was before The Matrix, and it had a lot of effects. I don’t like that style that

My Father said that THE naiveté was my strength. I DO have this kind of optimism, even when things seem undoable.

is too sleek and too comic-book. I like it more tongue-in-cheek like Superman lll, for instance when it’s a little bit absurd and sweet. JH: Superman lll? MG: Oh, it’s great! and when he fights with himself… JH: Had you read any of Charlie Kaufman’s work before meeting him? MG: Yeah. I had read Being John Malkovich, and I couldn’t believe how quick and easy to read it was. It was complex but unpretentious. He had this quirkiness that I was looking for, but not in a contrived way. It was from a real place. The scripts I was reading were bizarre to be bizarre, like somebody conventional would do something that’s bizarre to him–but it’s not, really. JH: Were you nervous to be working on your first feature once production was under way on Human Nature? MG: Yeah, of course. Especially when you start to do rehearsals with the actors and you don’t know how exactly to communicate with them. I did this big reading with all the actors at the table, and it was very depressing, because some of it sounded very corny a lot of the time. It was really scary.

JH: How do you look back on Human Nature? It wasn’t received very well. Did

and that, and [I wondered] why is that? And maybe this is true, and then it was

you have to make compromises?

like, “What could I do to make this different?” It’s funny how if you just take the

MG: I don’t think I made compromises. Even when I watch Eternal Sunshine, I

time to write down the problems, you can find solutions and maybe apply them.

don’t feel it’s there yet. Obviously it’s better, because it had a good response, but I still can’t really enjoy it like I do other films. I don’t know if it’s because I made it or because it’s not as good as what I wanted to see. For me Human Nature is a little bit sad, maybe even more so. I don’t feel I am watching a story. I don’t know.

JH: Did you use the same practice after Eternal Sunshine? MG: I wanted to do my next project in a way that Eternal Sunshine had not been successful. I remember the feeling I had when Eternal Sunshine was finished and I watched it on my own. I didn’t like it. I liked some of it, but overall I was happy

JH: Is it the same for your music videos?

when it was finished. It’s not the actors or the story or anything. It’s just me

MG: No, it’s easier to watch the music videos. I think they are OK. They work.

watching something I’ve done. When I watch my videos, I like it. When I watch

JH: So it’s possible for you to be satisfied with your work. MG: I hope so. I hope I will. It may take some time. JH: Did the poor response to Human Nature significantly affect how you approached Eternal Sunshine? MG: I think I was hurt by the response. I was not ready for it, because when you do a video, people don’t come to you when they don’t like it. And with a film, everyone becomes a film critic. You go to see a movie and it’s part of the process of watching a movie to say what you like and what you don’t like. And a lot of people came to me just to say they didn’t like it. I didn’t understand why they would talk to be about that. And I got to be a little depressed about it. I went into why these comments upset me, and I wrote it all in a notebook. I learned, for instance, sometimes we make a decision based on a reaction instead of as an objective opinion. For instance, I would sometimes be very reluctant to [use] Spike Jonze’s opinions when he would give me advice or comments because I felt he couldn’t see that we were different and he wouldn’t let me be myself. So I was overly reluctant. I could have used more of what he said to me if I was more relaxed. So I learned a lot of things. On Eternal Sunshine I wanted to try different

my movies, it’s painful. Maybe that’s the way I’m going to go, or maybe I’ll try different things until I like it. JH: In Eternal Sunshine, virtually all of the effects were done in-camera, as opposed to using CGI. You have Jim Carrey playing a scene with himself by having him literally running to different locations in the same shot. Why? MG: It’s generally something that’s fun. It’s exciting. I get this feeling of craft that I had when I did things as a kid and waited for the result. Like, with my cousin we would build a big bridge and a ball that would bounce on a scale and make the bridge explode, and we’d be on the side and it would go boom. This is something that I really enjoy. Doing stuff in-camera makes no sense in that it could be done so much easier in postproduction. Like this shot where there are two Jim Carreys, it would have been much easier in postproduction. But when it works, there are a lot of little elements that are unexpected. In fact the scene, as complicated as it was, made Jim’s performance better because he was so worried about doing it right. He’s not thinking about his performance, so he did it better. I think it’s hard for an actor working with a blue screen. It’s not much fun. I’ve seen movies done entirely on blue screen, and I couldn’t watch them.

ways. I storyboarded everything in miniature. And I wanted it to be like a play. I

JH: Do you think about the themes that reemerge in your work? Both of your first

wanted there to be more room for the actors. I had forty pages in a notebook

two films were very honest stories about love, for instance.

of comments like this guy who said Human Nature was rotten because of this

MG: I think about it. think there is a way you put yourself into your work.

| THE DIRECTOR

JH: How do you put yourself into your work?

cannot judge them. Björk taught me a lot of good things about that. Like, when

MG: It’s all by choosing the projects I do. Next will be the way I meet actors and

she interviews people, she always makes them feel very safe. She never puts

if we bond with each other and have common ideas and I can identify with them.

people in competition when she wants to work with them. She explained to me

And then the third step is the way I direct them. I try not to be in their face. All of

one time that if you do that, you make people feel very unconfident and then

this adds up to filmmaking that reflects the person making the film. A lot of times

you don’t know who they are. She finds qualities in people that they themselves

it’s invisible. It’s not something you can really express or put your finger on. But

don’t even know that have. So I think it was a good example of how not to

at the end of the day if you are true to yourself, after a bunch of projects, what

put people on the spot when you meet them. On the other hand, in America

you are starts to come across.

especially, people have a tendency to oversell themselves, so you have to figure

JH: Is it a good thing to you for an audience to recognize a film as your work?

out what’s true and what’s not.

MG: As long as it’s not too much [because of] the form, because I think I try to

JH: Do you react to things you see in moviemaking today?

renew the form and explore different ways. I think the common link should more

MG: I try to nor work in reaction. I’ve had that problem where I was like, I don’t’

be in the spirit. I guess it’s the way I see the world and who I am. But I don’t want

like that shot or whatever. And then you lose a little bit of your objectivity,

you to know too much. I think it’s stronger if it comes across without me trying

because you’re reacting to something you don’t like and you build up all your

to make it come across.

opinions based on that. And then you even make marketing decisions based

JH: Has the way you’ve worked with actors changed over the years? MG: It’s a slow process from doing videos, from how you try to communicate with a singer or a band and they don’t know what to do with their hand or their body. From the first day I did the video, I knew that I didn’t like. I didn’t like it when people were portrayed as heroes or stronger than who they are. And I didn’t like it when people were diminished and you made fun of them. By trying to be in between those two poles I find my way, I guess. JH: What do you look for when you meet with an actor? How do you know when

on that like, “I don’t like that, so I’ll do the opposite.” So I think I’m trying to be a little bit more relaxed and openminded, although it becomes like an ethical problem sometimes, like having guns in movies. I have a gun in my first film, and I regret it a little bit. JH: You probably don’t want to make any hard and fast rules to limit yourself. MG: No, but sometimes there is stuff. I don’t think I could possibly do a movie about a guy who has no weaknesses. I don’t think I would be interested. I would say a lot of movies I don’t like show how people are superior to each other. I think

you’re clicking?

it’s more interesting to show somebody having to deal with fear, like if there’s

MG: Well, for instance when I met Mark Ruffalo for Eternal Sunshine, he said to

a confrontation in a train and you say, ”I can’t believe nobody moved. Nobody

me, “I think I’d like my character to wear a pompadour.” I just thought it was

said anything.” I would be more interested to hear why somebody didn’t move.

sweet, and obviously when you meet the guy, you want to be his friend. He

Because in most of the cases, I would not move. I would be petrified in fear, and

doesn’t project this thing that a lot of actors project like they’re trying to impress

I would feel really ashamed about it. You always see people in situations in film

you. He was somebody normal, that was funny and sweet. I guess I find these

when they’re brave. In a way if you hear about someone being cowardly maybe

connections and I thought it would be good. I didn’t have to read with him.

you can grow from it better.

It’s hard sometimes when you read with people. They are so insecure and you

| THE DIRECTOR

I learned with music videos that you have to deal with imperfection. When it is done, it is done. You have to deliver it, and there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing is to learn for the next one. JH: Kubrick was so selective with his work that he ended up sadly only making a

saw this drummer in this band and I said. “I wish I was like him.” And I worked

few films. Are you able to go more quickly from project to project? It seems like

hard to try to impress people with my drumming, so this is not like I was trying

you are, with the Science of Sleep.

to create something unique. It’s part of the feeling of wanting to put something

MG: I learned with music videos that you have to deal with imperfection. When

out there and be creative. That’s why when you hear pop music, for instance,

it’s done, it’s done. You have to deliver it, and there’s nothing you can do about

there is a part that needs to be different and groundbreaking and new and a part

it. The only thing is to learn for the next one. I wonder if Kubrick didn’t have a bit

that makes you feel emotion and quotes something you’ve experienced before. I

of obsessive-compulsiveness with his films. But I don’t know. My son is so into

think filmmaking is somewhere in between art and industry, because you need to

A Clockwork Orange. He blasts Beethoven in his ghetto blaster when he goes to

have this kind of response from your viewer. So you can’t decide that it’s going

sleep. It’s funny.

to be completely new. What I like is the idea. It keeps me going to keep trying

JH: Looking at the techniques you’ve used and the stories you’ve told in your career, it seems like a high priority for you has always been to do or create something unique. Would you agree? MG: I think it’s partly true. In a way you want to be an artist. You want people to notice you. Obviously I think, “OK, if I do something completely different, people will notice me.” But I learned to play the drums when I was an adolescent because I thought that it would make me spacial, and I was shy and I looked like a girl. I

something and seeing if it works. It could be in the editing, the shooting, the writing, whatever.

THE DIRECTOR’S TAKE Who is the most impressive filmmaker as working today? _Ingmar Bergman What quality do the best directors share? _It’s really a combination of so many invisible qualities. Who is your favorite actor or actress of all time? _Michel Simon Finish this sentence: I’ll never direct a movie with… _a gun (again). Who is your favorite actor or actress of today? _Charlotte Gainsbourg Who would you cast as yourself in a film about your life? _John Cameron Mitchell What is your best quality as a director? _Creative chaos and precision

What is the first film you ever saw? _Le Voyage en Ballon What is your favorite film of all time? _Back to the Future What movie made you realize film was an art? _Gold Rush What movie are you consider as your guilty pleasure? _Stuck on You Who is your favorite movie character? _Grorge McFly, Back to the Future What’s your favorite movie snack food? _Bon Bons Who is your favorite director of all time? _Jean Vigo What is your greatest weakness as a director? _I won’t tell you. Finish this sentence: The perfect movie is… _Something that stays with you. What piece of advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers? _Number one is finish a project. Number two is start a project. What are you as passionate about moviemaking? _Trying to tell a story

| THE DIRECTOR

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

OVErvI EW R rated film

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American romantic fantasy film scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed

Duration: 108 min

by Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction nonlinear narration and neosurrealism to explore the nature

Genre: Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi

of memory and romantic love. It opened in North America on March l9, 2004 and grossed over US$70 million worldwide.

Release Date: March 19, 2004

Kaufman and Gondry worked on the story with Pierre Bismuth, a French performance artist. The film stars Jim Carrey and

Language: English

Kate Winslet and features Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Jane Adams, and David Cross. The title

Directed: Michel Gondry Produced: Anthony Bregman and Steve Golin Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman Story: Michel Gondry,

is taken from the poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope, the story of a tragic love affair, where forgetfulness became the heroine’s only comfort. The film was a critical and commercial success, developing a strong cult following and receiving myriad accolades, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film was lauded by critics as one of the best and most thought-provoking films of 2004, and, in recent lists, has been acclaimed as one of the best films of the decade.

Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth Music: Jon Brion Cinematography: Ellen Kuras Editing: Vaidfs Óskarsdfsmr Distributed: Focus Features Budget: $20 million Starring: Jim Carrey Kate Winslet Kirsten Dunst Mark Ruffalo Elijah Wood Tom Wilkinson

| FESTIVAL FILMS

PLoT Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and unhinged free spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) strike up a relationship on a Long Island Rail Road train from Montauk, New York. They are inexplicably drawn to each other, despite their radically different personalities. Although they apparently do not realize it at the time, Joel and Clementine are in fact former lovers, now separated after having spent two years together. After a nasty fight, Clementine hired the New York City firm Lacuna, Inc. to erase all her memories of their relationship. (The term “lacuna” means a gap or missing part; for instance, lacunar amnesia is a gap in one’s memory about a specific event.) Upon discovering this, Joel was devastated and decided to undergo the procedure himself, a process that takes place while he sleeps. Much of the film takes place in Joel’s mind. As his memories are erased, Joel finds himself revisiting them in reverse. Upon seeing happier times of his relationship with Clementine from earlier in their relationship, he struggles to preserve at least some memory of her and his love for her. Despite his efforts, the memories are slowly erased, with the last memory of Clementine telling him to “Meet me in Montauk”. In separate but related story arcs occurring during Joel’s memory erasure, the employees of Lacuna are revealed to be more than peripheral characters. Patrick (Elijah Wood), one of the Lacuna technicians performing the erasure, is dating Clementine while viewing Joel’s memories, and copying Joel’s moves to seduce her. Mary (Kirsten Dunst), the Lacuna receptionist, turns out to have had an affair with Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), the married doctor who heads the company—a relationship which she agreed to have erased from her memory when it was discovered by his wife. Once Mary leams this, she steals the company’s records and sends them to all of its clients. Joel and Clementine come upon their Lacuna records shortly after re–encountering each other on the train. They react with shock and bewilderment, given that they have no clear memory of having known each other, let alone having had a relationship and having had their memories erased. Joel tries to convince Clementine that they can start over, but Clementine states that it could inevitably end the same. But, Joel chooses to accept this, and they decide to attempt a relationship anyway, starting their life together anew.

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MOVIE IN-DEPTH DEPICTIONS OF ThE MEMORIEs

Throughout the film a wide range of film techniques are used to depict both the destruction of Joel’s memories as well as his transitions from one to another. These range from quite subtle to extremely dramatic: • The picture quality and sound resolution of the memory simply deteriorate (one example being when Joel talks with his neighbor in the lobby of their apartment.) • Use of very limited stage lighting (such as when Clementine is pulled away from Joel in the train station). • Subtle details fade from view (examples of this being when Clementine’s name fades away from the Lacuna postcard that Joel has in his hand or when the books in the Bames and Noble gradually tum white). • In one case, time and perspective seem to “loop” (the scene where Joel tries to make up with Clementine after she stormed out of his apartment, Joel finds himself unable to get from one end of the street to another—this also combines the elimination of details such as the displays of stores. Also in this scene, we repeatedly see reflections of the lamp in Joel’s apartment floating in the air). • Overt disintegration of the memories (examples of this include the car falling from the sky, the disappearance of a car that Joel and Clementine are in, the disappearance of a fence, a scene where they run through a train station with the people there “winking out”, and perhaps most elaborately, the falling apart of the beach house that Joel and Clementine were in). • Heavy sound and image distortion, faces appearing blank (when Joel and Clementine enter the erased memory of Joel speaking to Dr. Mierzwiak). • Cycling between the adult actors and their younger selves (examples of this being when Joel recalls a humiliating memory of being forced by bullies to hit a dead bird with a hammer, the footage switches back and forth between young actors playing Joel and Clementine and Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. Joel is apparently able to visualize Clementine’s youthful appearance because he had seen a picture of her as that when they were still together). • Scenes of the movie use a trompe-l`ceil (or forced perspective) effect, enabling the actors to be seen by the audience as life-sized, yet their characters are stiill existing in a smaller world.

FRaMES oF rEFERENCE

ENDInG

There are numerous frames of reference in Eternal Sunshine. One is reality,

Kaufman made it very clear in an interview included with the published shooting

shown in the group of scenes at the beginning and end of the movie that take

script that the story ended with the final scene of Joel and Clementine in the

place just before, on, and after Valentine’s Day. The rest of the scenes are taking

hallway, in which they agree to give their relationship one more try.

place in Joel’s memory; these can be subdivided into:

• It was a hard scene to write because it has to take place in one moment. I never

l. Memories that Joel gets to relive as if they were really happening (e.g., the

wanted to be happy that they got together at the end. I didn’t necessarily want

date on the frozen Charles River).

it to be sad, but I wanted to leave it up to the audience to decide whether this

2. Memories in which Joel narrates in a voiceover (e.g., the “dining dead” meal).

is just like a complete disaster waiting to happen, you know? Plus, they’ve just

3. Memories in which Joel is a participant but can break character and change

been really badly hurt and stunned by what they’ve leamed, and you can’t have

the way the scene turns out.

that much of a leap in who they are to each other and how they feel about each

4. Memories in which Joel relives various moments of his childhood with

other, in a one-page scene in a hallway at the end of the movie.

Clementine in the place of one of the people in the memory. 5. Memories where Joel watches them unfold as if they were on a television screen (his conversation with Frank in the lobby of his building) 6. Memories that had been erased and lingered on in a degraded form (e.g., the faceless beings in the Lacuna offices). Some events that actually took place during Joel’s erasure (i.e. technicians

And so the struggle was how to create this scene between them that felt believable, but brought them to another place whether there was some sense of movement. Like, either that they were going to get back together and it was going to work. or they were going to get back together and it wasn’t going to work. This “unfinished” resolution of the story is foreshadowed by the following dialogue in the scene where Joel relives the memory of approaching Clementine

Stan and Patrick’s conversation about Patrick‘s stealing Clementine’s panties)

at the bookstore where she worked after they first met at the beach party.

bleed through to memories Joel is reliving.

There is debate as to what the repeated scene of Joel and Clem playing in

Throughout the film, a useful indicator for when a particular event is taking

the snow right before the credits means. In an interview also included with the

place is Clementine’s hair color. Any time she is shown with blue hair indicates

published shooting script, Gondry said he wanted the scene of them playing in

something in the present or a memory from the recent past (from about the

the snow to loop throughout the credits. This desire apparently sprang from

time of the couple’s disengagement). Clementine has green hair during the

the initial intent (expressed in an early script) that Joel and Clementine spent

couple’s first encounter, and shortly changes it to red when they become

the rest of their lives meeting, falling in and out of love, getting their memories

romantically involved. She then changes her hair color to ‘tangerine’ orange as

erased, and then repeating the cycle.

their disengagement nears.

| FESTIVAL FILMS

However, Gondry said that this was not done, because it would ultimately

director Michel Gondry, including scenes showing the Ringling Bros. and Barnum

distract from the credits. In addition, several photo-stills that were from footage

& Bailey Circus in the streets of Manhattan.

that wound up on the cutting room floor show

Another dropped scene was one that took place in a bar where a very drunk

Joel and Clementine sitting together on the steps to Joel’s building with their

Clementine tried to make Joel jealous by coming onto another man (which

arms around each other (and dressed in the same clothes that they wore in the

might have prompted Joel’s claim in his taped interview with Mierzwiak that

hallway scene). It is unclear whether these were pictures taken for promotional

Clementine was very promiscuous). Another deleted scene that appears in the

purposes or from footage cut from the final scene at Joel’s apartment.

special two-disc DVD set is an extended scene in the doctor’s office when Mary Svevo is listening to the tape of her file. Mary is saying in the tape why she should

Deleted and moved scenes The shooting script—which has been published as a book—and early drafts contain a fair amount of material that was either left on the cutting room floor or never shot. A major change that came in editing was that the sequence of scenes where Joel and Clementine are shown (re)meeting in Montauk and then going

have the procedure done, especially after having to get an abortion. Yet another showed Joel and Clementine reading the mystery novel “The Red Right Hand” together on his couch (which in the novel Clementine is seen reading in the diner at Montauk where she and Joel (re)meet for the first time.

TArGETED MEMOrY ERaSUre

to the Charles River got moved from near the end of the movie to the beginning.

Targeted memory erasure is a fictional non-surgical procedure. Its purpose is the

According to the Kaufman interview published with the shooting script, this

focused erasure of memories, particularly unwanted and painful memories, and

was done to make sure the audience liked Clementine, as without it, their initial

it is a mild form of brain damage, which Dr. Mierzwiak tell Joel is comparable

impression of her, based upon scenes from the end of Joel and Clem’s first

to a “night of heavy drinking”, in order to relieve his fears of the procedure.

relationship, might have been too negative.

The procedure is performed exclusively by Lacuna Incorporated. The characters

Dropped scenes included dialogue on the train, dialogue in Clementine’s

of Joel and Clementine used this procedure to erase their memories of each

apartment, scenes with Joel and Naomi (the girlfriend he had before

other. As part of the screenwriting and promotion for the film, a backstory for

Clementine, portrayed by Ellen Pompeo), Joel in the Lacuna office describing

the technology was made, including a spoof website for “Lacuna, Inc.” that

his negative feelings about Clementine in more detail, and scenes showing Joel

described it. Though the procedure in the movie is fictional, recent research has

and Clementine on their first “date”. The dialogue from the deleted Lacuna

shown it is possible to successfully erase selective memories in lab mice. Such a

office scene is used later, when he is listening to a tape of himself describing

procedure may lead to cures of post-traumatic stress.

Clementine`s personality flaws, and brief moments of the cut scene showing their first “date” are mixed in with thejumble of memories Joel sees of Clementine as the erasure process comes to an end. In fact, much of the content of the film was moved around in editing. A fair amount of scenes were changed on-the-spot by

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“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot... The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind... Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.” — Mary Svevo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

| FESTIVAL FILMS

MOVIE REVIEW By Peter RaIner ( New York MaGAZIne)

Despite its tangled plot and avant-garde style, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind harks back to classic, romantic screwball comedies. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry have hit upon a novel way to dump a lover: Erase the person—literally— from one’s memory. This is what happens with Joel (Jim Carrey), a reclusive malcontent, and Clementine (Kate Winslet), a yammerer with tinted hair, who meet in Montauk in the winter and embark on a touchy-feely courtship that involves lying on their backs on a frozen river at night and pointing out constellations. These oddballs are so compatible that the eventual rupture of the relationship comes as no surprise—nothing this perfect was meant to last. The end comes when Joel discovers that Clementine, utilizing a research outfit called Lacuna, has zapped him from her gray matter. He seeks her out at the bookstore where she works, but she no longer recognizes him or remembers anything about him. Miserable without her, he puts himself through the same treatment in order to forget her. But the movie—which is essentially structured as a love story in reverse—is all about the tenacity of memory. Even as Joel, zonked out and wearing an electrode helmet, undergoes the procedure, he’s struggling to hold onto the happiness that he recollects in jagged, pungent flashbacks. His deliverance is quickly turning into a nightmare that he’s frantic to climb out of. Gondry is a celebrated video whiz who has done well by the likes of Björk and Beck; Kaufman, of course, is the screenwriter of Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, two of the most conceptually audacious American movies of the past decade. Gondry and Kaufman collaborated a few years ago on the rather unfortunate primal-man comedy Human Nature, which was pretty much all concept. To be fully realized, Kaufman’s scripts—which also include the uneven Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, about game-show mogul Chuck Barris as a CIA hit man—require a director who can finesse his narrative loop-de-loops. Jonze, who has his own background in music video, made it look so easy that audiences (and not a few critics) often overlooked the films’ depth of feeling. (Adaptation is one of the best movies ever made about the maddening business of being a writer and trying to feel your way into a character, a mood.) Without Jonze’s sureness of touch, Kaufman’s scripts tend to come across as a trickster’s fancies.

IT IS THE KIND OF FILM THAT COULD MEAN SO MUCH FOR PEOPLE AFTER THEY ’ VE LEFT THE THEATE R AND THOUGHT ABOUT IT for QUITE A WHILE.

the story and brought it to Kaufman, but it seems of a piece with his other scenarios, which are filled with characters morphing in and out of guises in squished space-time continuums. Gondry has been justly praised for his visual imagination; he sees things in the same way that Kaufman thinks: with a fractured hipsterism. But he may be the wrong director to bring out the full resonance of Kaufman’s mindscape, because his imagery heats up what is already overheated. Gondry isn’t so much collaborating with Kaufman as competing with him. When the wired-up Joel is flashing back to his bliss, it would have been quite enough for us to see those moments in all their sweet simplicity instead of jiggly and scrambled—as if we were watching a rock video about Joel’s neural pathways. For most of Eternal Sunshine, I found myself fighting off Gondry’s hyperactive intrusions in order to get at the melancholia at its core. Fortunately, the idea behind this movie is so richly suggestive that it carries you past Gondry’s image clutter. It’s the kind of film that could mean more to people after they’ve left the theater and thought about it awhile. Like Joel, they can summon up the good parts (and forget the bad). “Eternal Sunshine is so richly suggestive that it carries you past the image clutter.” Kaufman may seem like the kind of writer who makes it up as he goes along, but there’s a roundedness to what he does here, and not only in the way that everything in the story comes full circle. The characters do, too. For Joel and Clementine, their amnesia proves no match for their fated need to be together. Carrey tones down his usual herky-jerky persona much more successfully here than in The Truman Show or that flabby Oscar bid The Majestic (which were also about the hazards of memory); the role clearly touches something in him—a sense of personal loss, perhaps. Kate Winslet overdoes Clementine’s kookiness in the beginning, but then we begin to see how it functions as her armor. She’s a fragile kook. The rest of the first-rate cast includes Mark Ruffalo as a pompadoured Lacuna technician, Elijah Wood as his assistant, Tom Wilkinson as Lacuna’s doleful chief, and Kirsten Dunst as a lovestruck staffer. They seem assembled for a traditional comedy that nevertheless keeps spinning into something weirder. And yet Kaufman, despite his avant-garde ambitions, draws on a full catalogue of screwball-comedy conventions: For all his gloom, Joel, who bemoans the fact that he falls in love with any woman who shows him the slightest bit of attention, is a spiritual cousin to Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, or Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve—straight-arrow guys flummoxed by scattershot dames. The inevitability of romance was the theme of those comedies, and it’s the theme of Eternal Sunshine, too, but with a difference. This time, the love itself, when it’s finally won, isn’t glamorously appealing. It’s not even likely to last. But being in love is the only way these characters feel alive, and no void in their brains can triumph over that.

| FESTIVAL FILMS

BE KIND REWIND

OVErvI EW PG-13 rated film

Be Kind Rewind is a 2008 American comedy film from New Line Cinema, written and directed by Michel Gondry and starring

Duration: 102 min

Jack Black, Mos Def, Melonie Diaz, Danny Glover and Mia Farrow. The film first appeared on January 20, 2008 at the 2008

Genre: Drama | Comedy

Sundance Film Festival. It was later shown at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film opened on February 22, 2008 in

Release Date: Feb 22, 2008

the United Kingdom and in North America. The title is inspired by a phrase commonly displayed on VHS rental tapes during

Language: English Directed: Michel Gondry Produced: Michel Gondry, Julie Fong and Georges Bermann Screenplay: Michel Gondry Music: Jean-Michel Bernard and Melissa Manchester Cinematography: Ellen Kuras Editing: Jeff Buchanan Distributed: New Line Cinema, Pathe!, Focus Features Budget: $20 million

the medium’s heyday.

Plot In Passaic, New Jersey, the declining “Be Kind Rewind” VHS rental store owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is due to be demolished to make way for high-end development unless he can find the money to renovate his building, despite his claims that jazz pianist Fats Waller was born in that building (Waller was actually born in Harlem on May 21, 1904). Mr. Fletcher leaves on a trip for several days to join friends and memorialize Waller, leaving his only employee, Mike (Mos Def), to tend to the store. Before leaving Mr. Fletcher cautions Mike to keep his paranoid and klutzy friend, Jerry (Jack Black), away from the store. After attempting to sabotage a nearby electrical substation, believing its energy to be melting his brain, Jerry becomes magnetized, and when he enters the store the next day, he inadvertently erases all the VHS tapes in the store (as well as making the camera go out of focus, whenever he walks past it). Mike quickly discovers the disaster, and is further

Starring:

pressed when Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow), Mr. Fletcher`s friend, wants to rent Ghostbusters. To prevent her from reporting

Jack Black

a problem to Mr. Fletcher, Mike comes up with an idea: as Miss Falewicz has never seen the movie, he proposes to recreate

Mos Def

the film using himself and Jerry as the actors and cheap special effects hoping to fool her. They complete the movie just in

Melonie Diaz

time when another customer asks for Rush Hour 2. Mike and Jen‘y repeat their filming, enlisting the help of Alma (Melonie

Hal Linden

Diaz), a local woman, for some of the parts.

Danny Glover Lola Falana Mia Farrow

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Word of mouth spreads through Miss Falewicz’s nephew (Chandler Parker) of the inadvertently hilarious results of Mike and Jerry’s filming, and soon the store is seeing more requests for such movies. Mike, Jerry, and Alma quickly pass off the movies as being “sweded”, insisting the films came from Sweden and thus able to demand long wait times and higher costs for the rental. Soon, to meet demand, Mike and Jerry enlist the locals to help out in making the movies, using them as starring roles in their films. When Mr. Fletcher returns, intent on converting the store to a DVD rental outlet, he quickly recognizes that they are making more money from the sweded films than from normal rentals, and joins in with the process. However, the success is put to a halt when two court bailiffs (Sigoumey Weaver and Paul Dinello) arrive, insisting the sweded films are copyright violations, and seize the tapes and the store’s assets, crushing the tapes with a steamroller. Without any money to renovate the building, Mr. Fletcher gives up hope, and is forced to reveal to Mike that he had lied about the building being Fats Waller’s birthplace. Mr. Fletcher is given a week to evacuate the building before it will be razed. Jerry, with the help of the local townspeople, convinces Mr. Fletcher and Mike to give one last hurrah and put together a movie dedicated to Fats Waller’s life, and the two quickly warm up to the idea. On the day the building is scheduled for demolition, Mr. Fletcher invites all the locals to watch the final film. In his eagemess to start the show due to the presence of the demolition crew waiting to start the job, Jerry accidentally breaks the only TV the store has, but a nearby DVD store owner loans them his video projector, allowing them to show the movie on a white cloth placed in the store’s window. As their film ends, Mr. Fletcher, Mike and Jerry exit the store to find a crowd has gathered to watch the film through the window, including the city official and wrecking crew, and they are given a rousing applause by the gathered crowd. The final fate of the store is left ambiguous.

“The past belong to us, and we can change it.” — Miss Falewicz, Be Kind Rewind

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MOVIE IN-DEPTH SWEDING TEChNIQUE

The film introduces a term called “sweding”. It is a ficitonal word proposed by the characters of the film that is made up by Michel Gondry. What is weird aboutthe term is that one can find implications of it in the daily life of crowds in the extradiegetic space of the film. Films that were erased and recreated are referred to as having been sweded. These remakes are unedited with only a single take per scene. The tapes are described as having come from Sweden as an excuse for higher rental fees and longer wait times. Jerry fabricated the word “sweded” while arguing with Craig (Chandler Parker) and his gang. In light of the theme of sweding, director Michel Gondry sweded a version of the trailer of the film, starring himself. On the official website, users can engage in sweding, which puts their faces on the VHS cover of a movie. The Be Kind Rewind YouTube channel also encourages filmmakers to create sweded versions of popular movies. Be Kind Rewind is an excellent example of how something new and transformative can manifest out of the act of copying. It also reveals that these issues of copyright infringement are multifaceted and contextual. It is impossible to look at the issue in black and white because these user generated works serve different purposes and needs. One of the major premises of Be Kind Rewind is how movies bring people together and a way for fans to show their appreciation is through homage and replicating what they love about the original. The concept of the original website designed by Tequila reinforces an interest in online copying. Asking users to swede their favorite websites, making alternate versions of Google’s website. This website originally hosted at BeKindMovie.com has been taken off. The theme of sweding also relates to film history, in that the collectively-made remakes represent our social memories of film, and through film.

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MOVIE REVIEW BY AnN hornadaY (WashINGTON POst)

Such a far-fetched shaggy-dog yarn borders on the patronizing. But Gondry’s belief in community-based, handmade, DIY culture is infectious, and his cry against big-box homogenization (fewer choices, more copies) is a noble one The films of Michel Gondry aren’t for everyone, but viewers who vibe to his playful, cerebral, wildly imaginative sensibility might get a kick out of “Be Kind Rewind.” It’s the story of a New Jersey slacker (Jack Black) who runs afoul of a power plant and becomes magnetized, unwittingly erases every tape in his neighborhood video store, then records over the tapes with condensed, low-tech reenacted versions of the movies. Such a far-fetched shaggy-dog yarn borders on the patronizing. But Gondry’s belief in community-based, handmade, DIY culture is infectious, and his cry against big-box homogenization (fewer choices, more copies) is a noble one. Black delivers a loud, hectoring performance reminiscent of his record store clerk in “High Fidelity,” but he has moments of physical comedic brilliance, and Mos Def, as his friend and collaborator, is his usual unflappably cool self. The movie remakes are hilarious (especially a group reinterpretation of “When We Were Kings”), and the film’s climactic scene is a lyrically transporting ode to cinema that’s straight out of Preston Sturges. Finally, “Be Kind Rewind” represents its own sweetly insurgent call to action: Watchers of the world, unite, and seize the means of cultural production. You have nothing to lose but your chain stores.

SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. bY Lou LumenIck (NY POst)

A surprisingly sweet comedy showcasing a manic Jack Black, “Be Kind Rewind” is a love letter to the technology and movies of the 1980s as well as celebrating the DIY ethos of the YouTube generation. Be prepared to suspend disbelief at the outset. Though nominally set in the present, writer-director Michel Gondry asks us to accept the premise of a shop in scruffy Passaic, NJ, that rents only obsolescent VHS tapes of ‘80s classics. Black plays Jerry, a nutty part-time clerk at the store, Be Kind Rewind, who becomes electrified when he launches an assault on a neighboring power plant that results in his looking like a character in a Looney Tunes cartoon. Jerry’s newly magnetized presence instantly erases the entire stock of tapes, much to the horror of his lifelong and long-suffering pal Mike (Mos Def), who has been placed in charge while owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is out of town. When Mr. Fletcher sends his ditzy friend Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) to rent a copy of “Ghostbusters” to check up on the guys, they stall her for a few hours. Instead of buying another VHS copy or duplicating one from DVD, Jerry and Mike use a camcorder to produce their own 20-minute version starring themselves and thrift-store special effects - the funniest sequence in “Be Kind Rewind.” It’s a hit not only with Ms. Falewicz but also with other Passaic residents. Soon they’re lining up around the block for ever-more-elaborate “Sweded” (supposedly imported from Sweden) versions of other ‘80s flicks. These include “Driving Miss Daisy” with Jerry and Mike in the Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman roles, as well as their inimitable version of “Rush Hour,” arguably more entertaining than the original. Jerry has the title role in a briefly glimpsed remake of the 1933 “King Kong,” which is something of an in-joke, given that Black starred in the 2005 version. The meta surprises continue with a cast member from “Ghostbusters” who turns up as a Hollywood lawyer and puts an end to the copyright-infringing remakes. The store has been facing the wrecker’s ball for urban renewal, but Mike and Jerry launch a last-ditch effort at raising funds with an original movie based on Mr. Fletcher’s (wholly erroneous) belief that musical legend Fats Waller was born in an apartment above the store. Proudly silly, “Be Kind Rewind” has more in common with Gondry’s ephemeral French-language “The Science of Sleep” than his most famous movie, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (which was written by Charlie Kaufman). However, it shares a passion for the low-tech and the power of dreams with both of them.

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THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

OVErvI EW R rated film Duration: 106 min Genre: Drama | Comedy | Romance | Sci-Fi | Fantasy Release Date: Aug 16, 2006 Language: English, French and Spanish Directed: Michel Gondry Screenplay: Michel Gondry Music: Jean-Michel Bernard Cinematography: Jean-Louis Bompoint Editing: Julia Welfling Distributed: Gaumont and Warner Independent Picture Budget: $6 million

The Science of Sleep (French: La Science des réves, literally The Science of Dreams) is a 2006 French film, written and directed by Michel Gondry. The film stars Gael García Bemal Charlotte Gamsbourg, Miou-Miou and Alain Chabat.

Plot Stéphane Miroux (Gael García Bemal) is a man whose vivid dreams and imagination often interfere with his ability to interact with reality. He is coaxed back to his childhood home after his divorced father passes away and his mother finds him a job in a calendar printing company in France. His mother (Miou-Miou) implies the position is a creative role, and he prepares colourful drawings, each showing a disaster, for his “disasterology” calendar. However, nobody appreciates his talents and it transpires that his mother had led him on—the real vacancy is for nothing more than mundane typesetting work. While leaving his apartment to go to work one day, Stéphane injures his hand helping his new neighbor move a piano into her apartment. The new neighbor, Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), invites Stéphane into her apartment (unaware that he lives next door) where her friend Zoé (Emma de Caunes) tends to his wound. Stéphane initially forms an attraction to Zoé, though he suspects it is instead Stéphanie who likes him. Stéphane realizes that Stéphanie, like him, is creative and artistic. They plan a project for use in a shon animated film. Following the advice of Guy (Alain Chabat), Stéphane‘s sex-obsessed co-worker, Stéphane pretends that he isn’t Stéphanie’s

Starring:

neighbor, pretending to leave the building when he leaves her apartment. That night, when he is sleepwalking he writes a

Gael García Bernal

confusing note to Stéphanie that asks for Zoé’s phone number. Stéphane realizes his mistake upon waking and retrieves the

Charlotte Gainsbourg

letter with a coat hanger, unaware that Stéphanie has already read it.

Alain Chabat

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Surrealistic and naturalistic elements begin to overlap, and the viewer is often uncertain of which ponions constitute reality and which are merely dreams. One such sequence, in which Stéphane dreams his hands become absurdly giant, was inspired by a recurring nightmare director Michel Gondry had as a child. Stéphane becomes more enamoured with Stéphanie as he spends more time with her and shares his many inventions with her. He gives her a “one-second time machine”. Stéphane‘s dreams encroach on his waking life as he tries to win Stéphanie’s heart and misses time at work. He breaks into Stéphanie’s apartment, takes her small, stuffed horse toy and implants a galloping mechanism. While putting it back into her apartment, Stéphanie arrives and catches him, shocked, calling him “creepy,” Embarrassed and heartbroken, Stéphane retreats to his apartment where he receives a call from Stéphanie who apologizes and thanks him for the gift she discovers: a galloping version of “Golden the Pony Boy,” named after Stéphane. Waking and dreaming become even more intermixed. To Stéphane‘s surprise, the calendar manufacturer accepts his “Disastrology” idea and it becomes a great success. A pany is thrown in his honour, but he becomes depressed and begins drinking excessively after he witnesses Stéphanie dancing flirtatiously with another man. Stéphane and Stéphanie then have a confrontation in their hallway when Stéphane announces that he doesn’t want to be Stéphanie’s friend any longer. Stéphanie becomes very upset, offering Zoé’s phone number and reciting Stéphane‘s note. Stéphane, still unaware that Stéphanie has read the note, assumes that they are connected through “Parallel Synchronized Randomness”, a rare phenomenon he has examined in his dreams. Stéphanie offers that they discuss their issues on a date, but on Stephane’s walk to the café to meet her, he has a frightful vision that she isn’t there and she doesn’t love him. He runs back to her apartment and bangs on her door, demanding that she stop torturing him, though, in actuality, she is indeed waiting for him at the cafe. Stephane runs at her door, attempting to break it down, but winds up bashing his head and collapsing in the hall, bleeding, where his mother eventually finds him. Tired of waiting, Stephanie returns home while Stephane, coaxed by his mother and her friend, decides to move back to Mexico.

Before leaving, Stéphane’s mother insists that he say goodbye to Stephanie. In his attempt to do so, he becomes extremely crass making sexual and otherwise offensive jokes to her, and accusing her of never being able to finish something she starts. Yet he reveals that he is truly interested in her because she’s different from other people. As his antagonistic behavior pushes her to her breaking point, Stephanie asks Stephane to leave but he instead climbs into her bed and yells at her, before spotting two items on her bedside: his one-second time machine, and the boat with the forest inside of it-finished. Stephane falls asleep in Stephanie’s bed. As she checks on him to see why he has become so quiet, she gently strokes his hair. The film closes with Stephane and Stephanie riding Golden the Pony Boy across a field before sailing off into the ocean’s horizon in her white boat.

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“I’m exhausted, I’m going to wake up now.” — Stéphane Miroux, The Science of Sleep

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“Tonight I’ll show you how dreams are prepared... love, friendships, relationships. All those ships.” — Stéphane Miroux, The Science of Sleep

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“The brain is the most complex thing in the universe and it’s right behind the nose.” — Stéphane Miroux, The Science of Sleep

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MOVIE IN-DEPTH

ANALOG TEChNIQUEs Using stop-motion animation, over-and under-cranked live-action sequences, model and puppetry work, and backwards-run footage, the film is a glorious catalog of techniques. Like the Lego-animation promo Gondry made for the White Stripes’song “Fell in Love with a Girl”, these deceptively crude effects have a thrown-together charm. Scenes in which Stéphane flies through a cityscape of wobbling cardboard buildings display a handcrafted physicality (actor Gael García Bernal was actually submerged in a water tank in front of a back-projection screen) that makes a bracing change from CGI’s slick and feathery photorealism.

CHILDlIKe QUALITY The quaint, childlike effect of this jerry-built imagery keys into Stéphane’s sense of wide-eyed innocence. The central location of the hero’s dreams, for instance, is a TV studio cobbled together from cardboard boxes: the sort of thing kids would assemble on a rainy Sunday afternoon, this construction is part Salvador Dalí, part Blue Peter. The occasional abrupt shift to a more sinister tone-at one point, an electric razor (owned, significantly, by Stéphane’s dead father) writhes on the floor like a dying rodentsuggests how unprepared Stéphane is for tough adult realities.

INSPIrATION Michel Gondry stated that the character of Stephane was about 80% based on himself (the other 20% coming from Gael García Bernal’s interpretation of the character). Many of the dreams depicted in the film came from Gondry’s own dreams; the scene where Stephane has giant, cartoon-like hands came from a recurring nightmare the director had as a child. In the commentary on the DVD Gondry also implies that the romantic trauma Stephane goes through in the script was inspired by a real life unrequited love. Michel Gondry also filmed the picture in the house that he grew up in a s a child.

“In dreams emotions are overwhelming” — Stephane Miroux, The Science of Sleep

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MOVIE REVIEW bY COLIN CoVErT (sTAR TRIBUNE)

“The Science of Sleep” opens in a TV studio inside a man’s head, where the host, a manic young man named Stephane (Gael García Bernal, “The Motorcycle Diaries”) runs a sort of cooking show. He’s demonstrating how dreams are formed, dumping memories, subconscious urges, everyday events and other ingredients into a stew pot and stirring. Writer/director Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) takes a similar approach to fashioning this exuberantly creative romantic fantasy. Pouring every impulse, inspiration and outlandish image at hand into his project, he creates a dream world as visually delightful as it is merrily illogical. Stephane is a quirky, artistic sort whose run-ins with workaday reality don’t turn out well. Shy and repressed on the surface, he is a volcano of creativity, a typical lonely kid who’s over-reliant on the escape hatch of his imagination. Returning to his hometown to take a job with a calendar publisher, he’s disappointed to find that it’s a mundane routine of setting type. When the naive Stephane tries to persuade the owner to publish a calendar of his designs—a disaster-of-the-month theme, painted in a style that could be called Early Mental Institution—he gets the latest in what we sense is a lifelong series of rebuffs. Although Bernal is captivatingly funny, his Stephane, a textbook case of arrested development, is not entirely sympathetic. He gives this daydream believer a subtly creepy edge. Stephane gets a chance to connect with a kindred spirit when Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) moves into the adjoining apartment. Tall, long-limbed and gawky as a giraffe, she delights him with her own whimsical sculptures. The pair flirt tentatively and seem fated to spend their days together blissfully collaborating on art projects, bound together by love, a shared vision and Elmer’s Glue. But Stephane’s breakthrough triggers a breakdown as he begins pressing for more than his semismitten neighbor is prepared to give.

‘Sleep’ can be visually delightful. THE MOVIE “The Science of Sleep” is a poignant, lovely look at the pitfalls of the artistic soul. Gondry brings his hero’s surreal imagination to life ingeniously, turning everyday materials like cardboard, cellophane candy wrappers and felt into the building blocks of a richly textured reverie. The materials have a friendly, childlike feel, but they’re also remnants of an immature universe where Stephane remains trapped. His passion for Stephanie feels oddly presexual, the sort of crush that an intense third-grader might develop on a classmate. His final fantasy, riding off into a back-projected sunset with his dream girl on a stuffed pony, is at once achingly sweet and sad.

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HUMAN NATURE

OVErvI EW R rated film

Human Nature is a 2001 American comedy written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. It was Kaufman’s

Duration: 96 min

second produced screenplay, following his debut with Being John Malkovich; the film stars Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, Miranda

Genre: Drama | Romance | Comedy

Otto and Patricia Arquette. It was screened out of competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

Release Date: Apr 12, 2002

A philosophical burlesque, Human Nature follows the ups and downs of an obsessive scientist, a female naturalist, and

Language: English,

the man they discover who was raised in the wild as an ape. As scientist Nathan trains the wild man Puff in the ways of

Directed: Michel Gondry Produced: Anthony Bregman, Ted Hope, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman

the world (starting with table manners), Nathan’s lover Lila fights to preserve the man’s simian past, which represents a freedom enviable to most. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges exposing the perversities of the human heart and the idiosyncrasies of the civilized mind. Human Nature is a comical examination of the trappings of desire in a world where both nature and culture are idealized.

Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman Music: Graeme Revell Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones Editing: Russell Icke Distributed: Fine Line Features Budget: $6 million Starring: Patricia Arquette Rhys Ifans Tim Robbins Miranda Otto

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Plot Most of the movie is told as flashback: Puff (Rhys Ifans) testifies to Congress, Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette) tells her story to the police, while a dead Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins) addresses an unseen audience in the netherworld. Lila is a woman with a rare hormonal imbalance which causes thick hair to grow all over her body. During her 20s, Lila decides to leave society and live within nature where she feels free to exist comfortably in her natural state. She writes a book called “Fuck Humanity” (formerly “Wind in My Hair”) about her naked, savage, happy, and free life in the woods embracing nature. Then, at age 30, strong sexual desire causes her to retum to civilization and have her hair removed in order to find a partner. The partner she finds is Dr. Nathan Bronfman, a psychologist researching the possibility of teaching table manners to mice. Lila and Nathan go hiking in the woods one day. Lila sights a naked man in the woods who has believed himself to be an ape his entire life. Lila discards her clothes and chases him until he’s comered on a tree branch. The man falls off the branch and fall unconscious as Nathan comes along. Nathan brings this man to his lab where the man is named Puff. This name is after his French research assistant, Gabrielle’s (Miranda Otto) childhood dog. We

discover later from her phone call to an unknown person that she is actually an American with

a fake French accent. No one else ever hears it and it is never referred to again. First with the help of Gabrielle and later with Lila’s help, Nathan performs extensive manner training on Puff. Eventually Lila decides to take Puff back into the forest to undo his manner training and retum him to his natural state. Lila and Puff live naked in the woods together until Nathan finds them one day and Puff kills Nathan. Lila tums herself in as the murderer and asks Puff to testify on the waywardness of humanity before he retums to his home in the forest.Some days later, Puff comes back out of the forest and gets into a car with Gabrielle, they both drive off to get food. (She still speaks with a French accent).

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MOVIE REVIEW

By MICK LASALLE (SAn FRANCISCO ChRONICLE)

“Human Nature” is a sly comedy that lives up to the promise of its title. The movie explores the contest between civilization and brute impulse and does so with a combination of screw-loose zaniness and intellectual rigor. Unsurprisingly, the result is a very satisfying and original picture. Patricia Arquette plays Lila, a young woman who, at puberty, started growing fur all over her body. As an adult, in order to pass in society, she spends a lot of time shaving herself—everywhere. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Nathan, played by Tim Robbins at his uptight best, researches ways of teaching civilization to mammals. He gets the ultimate chance to test his behavior theories when he comes upon a man (Rhys Ifans) who was raised by apes. He brings him to his laboratory and sets about teaching him to be an ascot-wearing, wine-drinking lover of opera. Written by Charlie Kaufman, who wrote “Being John Malkovich,” “Human Nature” is characterized by smart, quirky dialogue throughout, though the funniest moments are sight gags involving the newly civilized ape man, who may have the veneer of refinement but is clearly hanging by a thread. In one scene he is taken to a restaurant and, in the midst of placing his order, leaps from the table and starts rubbing against the waitress. The fact that he is wearing an electric collar and knows he will be punished for this makes it all the funnier. The point of “Human Nature” is that, left to our own devices, all of us would be as impulsive and animal-like. That would hardly be worth saying, but the movie has a more subtle point—that civilization itself, far from being an instrument of civility, is the most efficient tool through which people are able to implement and get away with their most monumental acts of selfishness and sensual gratification.

I M A G I N T R A N S P O TO

F E E

PLA L

N A T I O N R T S

ACE

YOU T H A T

— MICHEL GONDRY

M A G I C A L.

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THE VENUE The Alliance Française de San Francisco is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and enhance the knowledge and appreciation of French and Francophone culture, to increase the knowledge of the French language, and to encourage interaction among French, Francophone and American people through programs in education and the arts. Michel Gondry Film Festival is taking place at The Alliance Française de San Francisco to celebrate the success in the film making career of the French filmmaker. The screening will be held at the theatre in The Alliance Française de San Francisco and the rest of the special programs will be displayed inside this venue as well. The Alliance Française de San Francisco is located at 1345 Bush Street San Francisco. For more information about the location please visit www.afsf.com

SCREEN ING April 29, 2013: Opening Night

May 3, 2013

Rays of Moonlight Shades of Sunrise opens with a

Screening: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

festive celebration with live entertainment, food and

Time: 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm

drinks. Michel Gondry will be attending the opening of the festival at 5:30 pm. Join us at the Alliance Française for a screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind then head to a lavish party to enjoy hors d’ oeuvres

May 4, 2013 Screening: Be Kind Rewind Time: 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm

from local restaurants.

May 5, 2013

Screening: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Screening: The Science of Sleep

Time: 7:30 pm

Time: 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm

April 30, 2013

May 6, 2013

Screening: Be Kind Rewind

Screening: Human Nature

Time: 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm

May 1, 2013

May 7, 2013 Closing Night

Screening: The Science of Sleep

Mix and mingle with a movie-loving crowd at the

Time: 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm

Closing Night party. Michel Gondry will be attending the

May 2, 2013 Screening: Human Nature

Closing Night party at 8:30 pm. Food and Beverages provided by the Alliance Française de San Francisco.

Time: 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm

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SPECIAL PROGRAMS hOME MOVIE FACTOrY

Along with the screening, the festival also brings you the endless imaginative work of the director Michel Gondry. The festival will not only showcase Gondry’s films but also provide the festival participants with the idea of easy film making technique like stop motion which Gondry is also a highly regarded, the exhibition of an actual set from the Science of Sleep and the showcasing of the complete music video works that the director has directed. Special Programs will be also located inside of the Alliance Française. Rays of Moonlight Shades of Sunrise Film Festival is bringing the successful interactive installation “Home Movie Factory” by French filmmaker Michel Gondry to San Francisco. Following the example of Jack Black and Mos Def in Gondry’s film Be Kind, Rewind, the installation gives participants the opportunity and resources to make a short film in under three hours. Participation in the “Home Movie Factory” is free, and requires no special training or knowledge. Ready-to-use film sets and equipment make an infinite number of storylines possible. Each small group of participants gets to work independently and has creative control over all aspects of the project, including the genre and title of their film, the script, and the acting and actual filming. After three hours, participants are able to see a screening of their film. Each film is also available to watch in the video store for all visitors. Gondry created the Home Movie Factory upon the idea that filmmaker creativity should be cultivated and shared as much as possible. After many successful runs in New York, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Paris last winter, San Francisco will be the first of these Factories to be featured in an official film festival. Home Movie Factory will bring another exciting interactive component to the festival. Michel Gondry will be attending the opening of the festival and Home Movie Factory on April, 29 2013. During the festival period the opening hours are 11 am – 6 pm daily. After the festival, the Home Movie Factory will remain open through May, 30 2013. Participation is free, but the number of participants per session is limited. If you are interested, please register in advance—groups of 5 to 15 people can also register at www.raysofmoonlightshadesofsunrise.com

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ThE SCIENCE OF sLEEP: AN EXhIBITION OF SCULPTURE & PAThOLOGICAL LITTLE GIFTS

We are pleased to present The Science of Sleep; an exhibition of sculpture and pathological little gifts by Michel Gondry coinciding with the release of his movie The Science of Sleep. Though he first rose to acclaim as a director of award-winning music videos and feature films, Gondry is also an immensely imaginative artist. In this exhibition, The Science of Sleep movie sets were presented and elaborated on as to allow their more concerted consideration as sculpture. A walk through the exhibition immersed the viewer in the sculptural experience of the movie in three dimensions.

COMPLETE COLLECTION OF MUSIC VIDEOS bY MIChEL GONDRY

If you are not a big music video fanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and who is because it is not 1985â&#x20AC;&#x201D;you may have missed some amazing work by Michel Gondry. He has been making perplexing and almost universally amazing music videos. He has got the magic touch that anyone else has not for music videos. Get no boundaries with Michel Gondry, gorge yourself on this nonstop feast of the most innovative music videos the planet has ever witnessed that will also feature in the festival. Get into another endless imaginary world of his at Rays of Moonlight Shades of Sunrise, 1345 Bush Street San Francisco. The music video works will be featuring from 4pm till close everyday.

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TICKETS AND SEATING ATTENDING ThE FEsTIVAL

TICKETS REGULAR PROGRAMS General admission : $13 Senior/ student/ disabled : $12 Children (12 and under) : $8 FESTIVAL PREMIER PACKAGE $150 general public This package includes one admission to the Opening Night film and party, each of the movie screenings, special workshops, and Closing Night film and party. Ticket prices for Opening Night and other special programs may vary. If you require wheelchair seating, notify the box office when placing an order. Valid ID required to receive discounts. DAY-OF TICKETS Each day of the Festival, tickets may be released for that day’s sold out screenings. Pending availability, tickets may be purchased online or in person at the Alliance Française office starting at 12:00 pm. Purchasing is first-come, first-served. RUSH TICKETS Last-minute tickets—known as rush tickets—may be available just before showtime when advance tickets have sold out. Approximately ten minutes prior to the screening, empty seats are counted and will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis to those in line. Cash only. ARRIVE EARLY! Ticket and pass holders must arrive 15 minutes prior to showtime to guarantee admission. Ticket or pass holders arriving less than 15 minutes prior to showtime cannot be guaranteed a seat, even with a ticket or a pass. All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges will be given to ticket or pass holders turned away after this time.

HOW TO BUY TICKETs

ONLINE Purchase online: www.raysofmoonlightshadesofsunrise.com March 30 general public on sale IN PERSON Alliance Franรงaise 1345 Bush Street (at Polk) San Francisco Film Society Cinema 1746 Post Street (near Webster) Open daily one hour before first screening of the day The pre-Festival box office is located at Alliance Franรงaise 1345 Bush Street (at Polk) March 28-April 29 Open daily 3:30-7:30 pm. THE FINE PRINT

All orders are final. No refunds, exchanges, substitutions, or replacements will be issued. Each order, except in-person, is charged a nonrefundable processing fee of $1.50 per ticket.

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WHERE TO GO THE EXPLORATORIUM The Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception Where an adult can be a kid. Exploratorium is a “handson” museum and is perfect for all ages. It is not just a museum; it is an ongoing exploration of science, art, and human perception—a vast collection of online interactives, web features, activities, programs, and events that feed your curiosity. For more than 40 years, they have offered—and continue to offer—staff and visiting artists a like–minded environment in which to give and get inspiration through events. Explore and get hands–on all about the science, art, and experience of our inner lives at the Exploratorium at The Palace of Fine Arts. 3601 Lyon Street San Francisco, CA 94123 Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10 am–5 pm Neighborhood: Marina/ Cow Hollow

TARTINE BAKERY & CAFÉ

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unique? Why not try the olive bread and the Tres Leches cake? Or even the croque monsieur?

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Sunday 8 am–2 pm

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Neighborhood: Downtown/ Civic Center

Hours: Monday 8 am–7 pm Tuesday–Wednesday 7:30 am–7 pm Thursday–Friday 7:30 am–8 pm Saturday 8 am–8 pm Sunday 9 am–8 pm Neighborhood: The Mission

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THE LAB

CARTOON ART MUSEUM

The Lab is calling itself an interdisciplinary arts

From editorial cartoons to comic books, graphic novels

organization. Since they don’t have great advertising

to anime, Sunday funnies to Saturday morning cartoons,

so you have to check out their website (www.thelab.

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org) to know what is going on, but they have totally

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San Francisco, CA 94102

655 Mission Street

Hours: Tue–Thu 11:30 am–12:30 am

San Francisco, CA 94105

Fri 11:30 am–2 am

Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–5pm

Sat 11 am–2 am

Neighborhood: Downtown

Sun 11 am–10 pm Neighborhood: The Mission

ABSINTHE BRASSERIE & BAR It is hard not to love this place. The food is well prepared, and the atmosphere is festive and charming. The French style food here not only is it pretty to the eye, it is so extremely kind to your tastebuds. 398 Hayes Street (between Franklin and Gough streets) San Francisco, CA 94102 Hours: Tue–Thu 11:30 am–12:30 am Fri 11:30 am–2 am Sat 11 am–2 am Sun 11 am–10 pm Neighborhood: Hayes Valley

EVERYBODY I GUESS. THE WAY YO ABOUT REMEMBER THAT ’ S

DREAMS, BUT IT’S OU THINK THEM OR THEM D I F F E R E N T. — MI CHEL GO ND RY

Designed and Illustration: Vansuka Chindavijak Primary Typefaces: Gotham Narrow, designed by Hoefler & Frereâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jones and DK Spiderlegs, designed by David Kerkhoff Text Paper: Strathmore 300 Series Drawing Paper Printing : Epson Stylus Pro 4880

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