internationale filmfestspiele

62.ma edizione

 

Berlino 09 / 19 febbraio 2012

 

recensioni
di Indra Erkhem

> Aujourd'hui di Alain Gomis

> HEMEL di Sacha Polak

> indignados di Tony Gatlif

> LOST IN PARADISE di Vu Ngoc Dang

> MY BROTHER THE DEVIL di Sally El Hosaini

> sharqiya di Ami Livne

> The Reluctant... di Sean McAllister

> wilaya di Pedro Pérez Rosado

> xingu di Cao Hamburger
di Noga INBAR

> Audre lorde di Dagmar Schultz
> Ulrike Ottinger di Brigitte Kramer
di Ioana Salagean

> AT THE BACK di Avi Mograbi (.pdf)

> Everybody In Our Family di Radu Jude (.pdf)

> Golden Slumbers di Davy Chou (.pdf)

> Democracy Under Attack di Romuald Karmakar (.pdf)

> francine di Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky (.pdf)
 

my brother the devil
di Sally El Hosaini
Gran Bretagna 2011, 111'

 

Panorama Special

27/30

'Let him stay. He´s so cute!' But the 19-year old Rashid (James Floyd) doesn´t want his little 14 year old brother to hang out with the 'crackalicious' DMG (Drugs Money Guns) neighborhood gang. Still, young Mo (Fady Elsayed) stands at the door´s threshold and watches how the resident crack-addict lady passes a spliff to Rashid who is sitting on an old couch in some dodgy apartment. They are 'blazing', doing 'big boy stuff' and the guys in the business are wrapping up dope and wads of money. Mo´s eyes are gleaming; he is intrigued and there is no doubt that Mo admires his older brother. Completely.

 

In the very beginning Rashid even buys him a reward, a flatscreen TV because Mo decides to stay in school and continue his education. Their hard-working Egyptian father however is deeply concerned where his son got the pricy gift from but in response Rashid asks bluntly: 'What do I want at the job center?`
In the run-down housing estates in Hackney, East London there are easier ways to make 'dough'. Eventually, Mo gets mugged and stripped off from his sneakers and Rashid´s best friend Izzy (Anthony Welsh) gets shot in front of the local corner shop. Rashid is torn between revenge, finding a proper job and keeping his little brother off the streets, away from the omni-present gang scene. His 'laying low' makes the hood´s hustlers suspicious ('Disrespect!') and Rashid´s girlfriend Vanessa (Elarica Gallacher) asks: 'Is there another girl?' But while Mo hangs out with the modest, hijab-wearing neighborhood girl Aisha (Letitia Wright) at the playground, writes rhymes and day-dreams, his older brother suddenly develops a love relationship with the artsy photographer Sayyid (Said Taghmaoui).
In between, along with almost holy sounding, spherical music, crispy close-ups fade into blurry images that let the viewer crave for some peace of mind. A soft breeze and warm sun rays are playing with the leaves in the tree in front of the apartment building and everything around seems to stand still. But wavelike, the industrial sound collage of random city noises, train rattle and police sirens hits the ear once again and the viewer is back to the pulsating beat of Hackney´s streets. Back to East London´s heavy slang, strong dialogues, wordless conflicts and then, eventually back to silence.
In his disbelief and frustration, Mo invents a terror-linked cover-up story to protect his brother but soon the word is out: Now friends turn into foes and Mo is struggling hard to accept his brother´s sexual orientation. The focus now changes, becomes crystal clear and finally it comes to dramatic violence. Mo gets wounded while trying to safe Rashid. In the end however, this only strengthens the tight bond between the two brothers and leaves them to find their own way in life.

marley
di Kevin Macdonald
Gran Bretagna/Stati Uniti 2011, 144'

 

Berlinale Special

28/30

"I don't stand for black man's side, I don't stand for white man's side, I stand for God's side." Once called 'German boy' and rejected for his bi-racial ancestry, Robert Marley grew up in St. Ann Parish in Jamaica before moving to Trench Town, Kingston where his much celebrated music career began.

"I love Bob so much that it hurts," says reggae and dub musician Lee 'Scratch' Perry. "He is a blessed soul and a blessed spirit".

 

Marley is an in-depth character study that tells of Bob Marley´s massive talent and invites the many people that accompanied him throughout his life. Marley´s mother Cedella Booker, Bunny Wailer, Neville Garrick, Jimi Cliff, Rita Marley, Cindy Breakspeare and Ziggy Marley, to name but a few, share their stories and anecdotes in a touching and sometimes surprisingly humorous way. These very personal interviews as well as original, previously unseen footage, alongside well-arranged, epic music pieces, enrich this moving documentary that is a classic for itself.

After bringing 'the ghetto uptown' to 56 Hope Road, Kingston where Marley had his house and studio, the film continues to follow his 'evangelist campaign' (Rita Marley) to London, Great Britain where 'Bob Marley and The Wailers' received not only recognition in the international music industry but the deserved respect.

In great image and sound collages, e.g. of the tour in Zimbabwe, the political turmoil in Jamaica, Marley´s last concert in Pittsburgh, USA and of Marley´s time in a health clinic in Germany, the viewer completely immerses in Marley´s inspirational legacy.

MARLEY is a tribute to one of the most talented musicians; the poetic embodiment of a worldwide movement. As a follower of Rastafarianism, Marley took a stand for peace, love and unity and still today, his message continues to bring change and transformation.

At the world premiere of Kevin Macdonald´s documentary film 'Marley' at the 62nd Berlinale International Film Festival, one of Bob Marley´s children, Rohan Marley, spoke on behalf of the family: "Enjoy the movie. Open your hearts, open your minds".

The Reluctant Revolutionary
di Sean McAllister
Gran Bretagna 2011, 70'

 

Panorama Dokumente

27/30

"A few weeks ago I thought there will be a demonstration and everybody goes home. Now I know it´s a demonstration and people go further. It´s a revolution!'"

'Change Square', Sana`a, Yemen. Thousands of people. War planes. Live bullets. Clouds of smoke. Deafening noise. Seconds later, wounded and dead are carried on stretchers; mosques turn into field hospitals. Outside, a veiled woman shouts into a microphone that she will stay with the people 'until the last drop of my blood'. Hundreds of tents are pitched up at the 'peace camp' and empty nerve gas cans ('Made in USA') lie on the bloodstained floor. Further away, people are digging graves and a fatally wounded man raises his hand for a last gesture. It´s a victory sign.

Shaky and terribly real images that go beyond the daily news, captured by British film maker Sean McAllister. While the Yemeni government does not want any international witnesses of this blood bath, McAllister bravely follows Kais, the Yemeni tour guide who desperately waits for international tourists to come into the country. First skeptical of the peaceful people´s movement at 'Change Square', he soon is determined to fight for a better life for his family and his country.
As revolution sweeps the Arab region, thousands of fearless Yemeni people are 'ready to pay the price of freedom'.
The Reluctant Revolutionary is a historic record of Yemen´s current transitioning into a new era; telling the story of the unbreakable spirit that unites its people.
At the Berlinale screening of Sean McAllister´s documentary The Reluctant Revolutionary Kais himself spoke to the audience of the martyrdom, the great sacrifice people did and their hopes.

'"February 21st will be a new birthday for Yemen and we will see a brighter future! Inshallah".

Aujourd´hui
di Alain Gomis
Senegal 2011, 86'

 

Competition

23/30

'Qu´est-ce que tu veux faire?' What do you want to do? asks his friend Sele (Djolof M´Bengue) curiously as they are walking through the streets of Dakar´s dusty concrete jungle... It is Satché´s (Saul Williams) last day. He will die.

As tradition wants it, on his last day on earth Satché wakes up in his mother´s house. Family and friends surround him, sit him down and bless and curse him as it was Judgement Day. He silently listens, his eyes wander; sometimes peacefully, sometimes heavily irritated. When the beautiful but sarcastic Nella (Aissa Maiga) awaits him in her art studio and confronts him with his deepest fears, Satché eventually sees himself faced by his own mortality and panic-strickenly sets out trying to make sense of it all. Sele´s old uncle Thierno (Jean Mendy) who washes the dead, playfully asks 'Who is next?' and illuminates Satché on the meaning of existence, before Satché makes his last visit to his wife Rama (Anisia Uzeyman) and their children.
With colorful and warm images accompanied by powerful Senegalese drums and chants, Satché is followed in his very last moments in every step. Among scenes of Dakar´s vivid street life, the extreme close-ups let the viewer sense that Satché is breathing, inhaling life with his every pore. But despite the occasional strong, theatrical dialogue, Satché´s long, peripatetic journey leaves this cinematographic piece dramaturgically incomplete.
At the 62. Berlinale Aujoud´hui was announced as the return of director Alain Gomis who 'asks questions that are too good to answer'. One is not sure if Aujourd´hui tries to capture the infinite yearning to understand life, the plain acceptance of death, its ambivalence or if it just tries to reflect Satché´s silent, wandering thoughts.

Whether intended or not, during this slightly vague and lengthy film, the viewer might ask him - or herself: 'Aren´t we all just waiting for time to pass?'

sharqiya
di Ami Livne
Israele/Francia/Germania 2012, 85'

 

Panorama

28/30

'Bismillah - God bless us.' Silently they sit together on the floor of their makeshift camp and eat. Beans are roasted in a flat pan over the open fire, dark coffee is poured from a kettle into tiny cups. It is dark already. Only the noisy electric generator bleats into the night´s silence. 'What will become of us?' asks Nadia (Maysa Abed Alhadi) quietly.

Dawn touches the arid land and soon the scorching sun appears in the vast sky. The desert wind carries desperation as Kamel (Adnan Abu Wadi) puts a stone in front of his tin shack door so it won´t open while he is gone. He is walking, walking and walking; the sand grates beneath his feet. On the bus to work, the radio news talk of the latest Israeli suicide bombings.
'A Bedouin is nothing without his land', says Kamel who wants to understand why they have to move from the lands that already belonged to their ancestors. But at the Bedouin Authority in the city it is decided; the demolition order will go ahead. And so, flashing car lights from the road reach the small camp where Kamel lives with his brother Khaled (Adnan Abu Muhareb), his sister-in-law and some livestock.
With the help of almost casual observation, 'Sharqiya' director Ami Livne captured the gravity that lies upon Israel´s Negev Desert and the Bedouin people.
But Livne´s images are not suffocating. The long shots in the desert, the deep oboe tones and the distant rhythms of a drum lend the movie a calm power. Sounds are used sparingly; sometimes notes on the piano accompany the viewer, sometimes it is only the grating sound of the sand. The few humorous moments in Sharqiya do not weaken the ominous atmosphere, do not diminish the weariness that eventually, and quite surprisingly, transforms into perseverance.
Sharqiya means 'Eastern Winds' and as main actor Adnan Abu Wadi explained at the movie´s world premiere at the 62. Berlinale: 'Sharqiya is all the winds that occur at the Bedouin community.' Abu Wadi himself is Bedouin and has already been waiting six years for an official building permission for his house in Israel. He has never stood in front of a camera before but with Sharqiya he 'put a lot of hope to deliver their sufferings to the whole world'.

lost in paradise
di Vu Ngoc Dang
Vietnam 2011, 97'

 

Panorama

27/30

"Don´t kick her face! She needs to work!" squeals the old lady with the heavy make-up on to her obedient moped driver. However, they continue to badly maltreat the sparsely clad Hanh (Phuong Thanh) who is lying on the floor. In another lantern-lit alley of Ho Chi Minh megacity, also the young Lam (Luong Manh Hai) earns his money by selling his body. He and his boyfriend Dong (Linh Son) rob the 20-year-old newcomer Khoi (Ho Vinh Khoa) but when Dong eventually also cheats Lam, everyone is left to struggle on their own once again.

Yet as fate plays, amidst life´s troublesome hardships, the sensitive Lam soon finds a companion to wash away the blues; strangely enough, it´s Khoi. Together they now share the tragedy of their sufferings and seek love and intimacy. Also prostitute Hanh befriends with the sturdy, mentally disabled Cuoi (Hieu Hien) who lives on an abandoned cutter waiting for his beloved duck´s egg to hatch.
Alongside sometimes cheesy Vietnamese music and sometimes heartbreaking violin strings, Lost in Paradise is a broken record of loneliness and love in Vietnam´s largest city, formerly known as Saigon. "This is not paradise," says the homosexual Khoi who escaped his rural past. The city where prostitutes get beaten, where existence means pure survival and where social outcasts hardly find the strength to hang on to the last bits of dignity they have left, "is a living nightmare".
At the 62. Berlinale screening of Lost in Paradise director Vu Ngoc Dang thanked the audience and explained why he is happy for the film to be showcasing at all. "Two years ago this would have been unthinkable,"' he says. "In Vietnam, the movie passed four stages of censorship. And therefore we want to thank the censors!"
With its tragic absurdity and sadness, Vu Ngoc Dang combines two story lines that perplex the viewer with its rough edges. With a famous cast of Vietnamese comedian Hieu Hien and Vietnamese singer Phuong Thanh Lost in Paradise touches on subjects and livelihoods that before were left unspoken.

hemel
di Sacha Polak
Olanda/Spagna 2012, 80'

 

Forum

26/30
"Sex is per definition unhygienic," she says and snuggles up to yet another male body. But he doesn´t like her pubic hair so after some silent contemplation she staggers into the bathroom and comes out with shaving foam and a razor. Whatever comes next, these moments are as fleeting as Hemel´s (Hannah Hoekstra) many love affairs.

"Cloudless as always!"' is a party guest´s compliment but Hemel (her name means 'Heaven' in Dutch) is a brooding storm: the bones of her skinny body seem to protrude just as violently as the words that come out of her pretty mouth. "Your lust is surpressed!" she throws at her step-brother´s innocent girlfriend amongst more explicit provocations. "God doesn´t want this" she says almost sarcastically after just having been choked during sex with yet another random guy.
After breaking up with his former girlfriend, Hemel´s father Gijs (Hans Dagelet) who successfully leads an auction house, is also quick to introduce the next. At a meeting Hemel, the 'family joker' as her dad says, meets her 'new mother' Sophie (Rifka Lodeizen) but Hemel´s reaction is 'not amusing'...
Hemel is a moving character study of a young woman who readily escapes into brief sexual relationships only to see her emotional needs fall into a painful emptiness that even the very open-hearted relation to her father can not compensate.
Shot in The Netherlands and in southern Spain, Sacha Polak´s brilliant film debut features songs that deliberately tell of a broken heart. The 'Chanson Triste', stirring opera pieces, heart-wrenching cries of the Spanish guitar or simply the long, hollow notes that are carried by the wind give voice to the relentless search for love that is presented in 'Hemel' at the 42. Berlinale Forum.

xingu
di Cao Hamburger
Brasile 2011, 102'

 

Panorama Special

30/Lode
"We´ll be the poison and the antidote..." Torrential rain beats down onto the roof of the large longhouse. People lying in hammocks and on the floor cough heavily, only the thunder seems to be louder. Penicillin has run out and the village faces an emergency that before was never known to them: half of the population has the flu. They are dying.

Eager for adventure, the three young man, 'looking for a place in the world', trade in their decent jobs for a life in the wild and enlist to explore the remote regions of Central Brazil. But the brothers Orlando (Felipe Camargo), Claudio (João Miguel) and Leonardo (Caio Blat), commissioned to built an airstrip for easy access to Brazil´s inland, soon discover that the 'unoccupied land' as the government called it, has owners already...
Xingu, based on true stories, follows the Villas-Boas brothers and their captivating struggle to define what is worth fighting for in the protection of the Xingu Indians. "They never lived within borders but now borders were the best thing".
Director Cao Hamburger´s masterpiece draws a very fine line between the good will and harm caused by the intrusion of the White men in Native land. The vivid film score brilliantly underlines the drama caused by the conflicting parties and the political distress and thereby successfully holds the viewer in suspense.
Without overly romantizing the Villas-Boas brothers´ outstanding achievement, Xingu is a great symphony of both music and nature imagery as well as the fantastic acting abilities of the main characters.
In remembrance of the troublesome history, director Cao Hamburger said that "the story should not be forgotten. Although it is 50 years ago, it is still very actual and urgent". Followed by great applause at the 62. Berlinale, actor João Miguel who played the complex role of Claudio Villas-Boas, said that filming Xingu was "unforgettable". Also the young Leonardo Villas-Boas, played by Caio Blat, deserves a special place in this cinematographic piece since in history records his story is rarely mentioned: Leonardo was involved in a sexual scandal, was rejected and became very depressed because he could not survive outside the National Park. Finally he died thereof.
In 2011, Parque Nacional Xingu celebrated its 50th anniversary. Cao Hamburger´s Xingu initially describes the mutual curiosity of the White men and the Natives and in the end, original footage shows that in its essence, the movie is not only a rediscovery of Brazil but a metaphor for the world today in which learning side by side and important values such as responsibility should be held high.
For its intriguing and powerful narrative, Xingu received the 3rd place Panorama Audience Award in the category Fiction Film 2012.

wilaya
di Pedro Pérez Rosado
Spagna 2011, 88'

 

Panorama

30/30
"Our mother died thinking of you!" "That's a bunch of crap! She died thinking of you!" Fatimetu (Nadhira Mohamed) is tall, dressed in t-shirt and jeans. Hayat (Memona Mohamed) wears a hijab and is bent over crutches. While Fatimetu checks her cell phone continuously and tries to call her adoptive parents in Spain, Hayat dilligently pours sweet tea from cup to cup. Inside the large tent it is cool and shady, the cushions on the floor look comfortable but Fatimetu is restless.

For most of her life Fatimetu lived in Spain with a foster family. Now after her mother´s death she returns to her Sahrawi roots, alientated and quite reluctantly; and has to take care of her sister Hayat who has a walking disability. Unsure of what the future holds for her, Fatimetu is torn between two worlds but Hayat, unbroken in her spirit, remarks with a smile: 'If you have a car you have freedom!'. And so Fatimetu buys a jeep and the two sisters start to deliver goods from camp to camp...
Beautifully distinctive Arab singing and traditional percussion enrich the magical images of the golden desert that Wilaya delivers alongside very subtle thoughtfulness. In the Saharan refugee camp Wilaya de Smara in the Algerian desert, a megaphone announces the times for the food pick up, vaccinations or: the handing in of adoption papers. Just as Fatimetu, many Sahrawi children are sent to Spain to receive better education; inevitably separating them from their families. With a rather slow-paced story, director Pedro Pérez Rosado draws attention on the state of the Sahrawi people and the territory of Western Sahara which still lacks international recognition.

Audre Lorde

the berlin years 1984 to 1992
di Dagmar Schultz
Germania 2011, 84'

 

Panorama Dokumente

30/30
Audre Lorde was an Afro-Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist. (1934-1992)
The beautifuly crafted film by the german filmmaker Dagmar Schultz, portraits Audre Lorde's period in Berlin between 1984 and 1992.
Profoundly affected by Lordes poetic and vision while attending one of her poetry readings, Schulz approaches Lorde inviting her to give a lecture at the John F Kennedy Institute at Berlin's free universitat, an opportunity which lorde happily accepts, leading to a serendipitous journey and research into what she finally defines as the "Afro-German" origins.
As she arrives to Berlin, Lorde starts questioning whether it is is possible to trace and portray a history, or more precisely, an "herstory" of originally born German women of African descent
Through the lectures at the university, she encounter a few of those women, who by sharing their biographies with her, expose the isolation which they have experienced along the years, detached from other Afro-Germans living in Germany.
The films follows Lorde's accomplishments in finding and bringing together those women, giving them the opportunity to meet each other and share their particular identity, always embracing a philosophy of acceptance towards differences between people.
As a political and radically engaged group, they publish for the first time in germany a publication which among other topics , traced the history of racism against the Afro-German community in the country.
Using a substantial amount of archive material shot along the period which Lorde spends in berlin, up until her death in 1992, Shulz interviews her closest friends and collegues, the portrayal of a remarkable, diverse and creative community of feminist, lesbian poets and artists, grouped around Lorde's teachings and enlightened presence. In the last part of the documentary, Schulz follows Lorde's through her final years and illness due to breast cancer, sensibly revealing an even more "larger then life" Lorde.
Overall, this is a brilliant document of the inspiring and rare personality that was Audre Lorde.

Ulrike Ottinger

Nomad from the lake
di Brigitte Kramer
Germania 2012, 86'

 

Panorama Dokumente

25/30
This year, Ulrike Ottinger, who turns 70 this year, will be honored by the Berlinale with a Special Teddy Queer film award. This comes after over 40 years of prolific filmmaking, where she has challenged the boundaries of the medium by pioneering a unique and visionary style; she started by taking her first photograph as a young child.
The documentarist Brigitte Kramer shares Ottinger's birthplace of Konstance and describes her early encounter with Ottinger's art as being a formative life experience. She creates a wellcrafted overview of Ottinger's career using interviews with Ottinger herself, collaborators, colleagues and friends, using stills and exerpts from her work as well as accompanying the artist to her recent retrospective, Floating Food.
The nomadic aspects of Ottinger's work intrinsically informs her practice, bringing a highly conscious and humorous reading of the attraction to the exotic and imbuing it with a strong feminist perspective of filmmaking. Possessed of remarkable stamina and formidable endurance, Ottinger was the first woman to make a film in Mongolia, followed by a numerous films, shot in various and remote locations around the world. Documentary cinematic techniques combined with opulent theatricality are the hallmark of her films. Lycra- clad beauties high kicking across the steppes of Mongolia and other such eye candy abound in her work; one could be tempted to make comparisons to the aesthetics of Matthew Barney.
However, the film's presentation didn't convey an adequate sense of Ottinger's process and the complexities underpinning her work. Consequently there viewer has a feeling that the collaborative relationship could have been better… it seems Ottinger's essence was lacking in this film.

indignados
di Tony Gatlif
Francia 2011, 88'

 

Panorama Special

22/30
'It´ll be alright, it´ll be alright.' This is her mantra. Whether she is waiting at the harbor to illegally board a ship or whether she is selling water bottles at the street corner. 'It´ll be alright.' Betty (Mamebetty Honore Diallo) is one of the many uncounted, undocumented, unwanted who made their way into 'Fortress Europe'. Locked away in refugee camps and branded as society´s outcasts, these souls face terrible hardships. "The things I see here, it breaks my heart," says a young African men who came to Europe for work; for making money to send home. But he did not expect such suffering, such hostility.

A few, very brief interviews, silent close-ups and random text extracts from Stéphane Hessel´s book 'Indignez Vous!' ('Time for Outrage') are thrown into the strange mix that 'Indignados' presents its audience, so to speak, on a polished silver platter, finger-wagging included. Extensive footage of demonstrations from e.g. Athens and Paris, street scene shots of the homeless and the poor and Betty who is followed on her aimless journey are fused together: A clumsy mélange that has its hyperbolic, poetic moments sprinkled on top of it but which fail to sweeten the movie´s bitter undertone.
Unfortunately the issue´s explosiveness literally meanders through the empty streets of a newly built housing district where Betty finds herself trapped and forlorn, just like the viewer. Along the way, the storyline development comes to a halt and the movie´s message becomes very diffuse (or simply gets lost). Sadly, all meager dramaturgical efforts are dragged to a final destination: the conclusion that Betty´s delusional 'It´ll be alright' mantra is not uplifting but in fact a provocation!
Despite its content-rich images, Indignados pokes only the surface of Europe´s newsworthy socio-political movement and eventually drowns in its cinematographic shallowness. A pity! It remains unclear whether director Toni Gatlif intends to show the desperate hope or the peaceful rage or whichever idiosyncrasy it is he uses to appeal to the viewer.

SITO UFFICIALE
 

62.mo internationale filmfestspiele

Berlino 09 / 19 febbraio 2012