Impressions and critique from DL 2008

The 4th edition of Directors Lounge is now over.
Sabrina Small and Jacob Birken were writing about Directors Lounge 08, on a daily base.
Read here.
Posts on China program can be read too : Jump they say, China is Tired, China is Naked.

Directors Lounge 2008!

The program is online!

Directors Lounge 2008 7.-17. February 2008 Berlin

The fourth Directors Lounge Berlin will take place from 7. - 17. february, at the time of the 58th Berlin International Festival. Expect video art and experimental film from all flavors and parts of the world.
More than 250 international artists, specials, accompanied by DJs and VJs ensure ten cosmopolitan days and nights..

Special on China : Impressions of China.

This fresh selection of Chinese works gives another look on the independent production from Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing today, showing various styles and impressions. It consists of 3 programs. Program 1, "Memory and Urban Development" focuses on the effects of the rapid change on all levels in contemporary China and mixes documentary, experimental, video art, fiction. Program 2, "Short Stories : Attitudes and Expressions", deals with the relationships between the individual and the group, between individuals, between men and women. They display a certain attitude and way of thinking that city youngsters adopt.
In addition to these programs, a performance video and a video installation will be screened.

Directors Lounge 2008

• The fourth Directors Lounge Berlin will take place from 7. - 17. february, at the time of the 58th Berlin International Festival. Expect video art and experimental film from all flavors and parts of the world. Several curated programs, specials, accompanied by DJs and VJs ensure ten cosmopolitan days and nights..
Once again we will offer a hideaway, a relaxed space for filmmakers, videoartists and everybody interested in experimental forms of cinema and videoart.

• The screenings are followed by nights of music and specials. The Lounge as a club, the spot to dance the night away.

• As the name suggests – Directors Lounge will always be a meetingpoint, a place to have a drink and to lounge around with other friendly lizards

7 - 17th february 2008 Berlin Mitte, Friedrich Str. 112A

daily from 6 pm - open end

Directors Lounge 2008

A special on China will be presented.

Chinese Videos in Nantes

Le Lieu Unique in Nantes welcomes Fragments for a special screening on Friday, November the 23rd at 8:30 pm in collaboration with Directors Lounge.
Le Lieu Unique. Salon Musique. No admission fee.

The evening is divided into two parts: a selection of international works compiled by Directors Lounge and a selection of Chinese videos proposed by Fragments.

This double program offers a different vision and illustrates a questioning on the theme of memory, the changing of the organization of society (social architecture, construction of the natural or transformed environment, the place of the individual), of the interdependence between individual and collective histories. The particular interest in all these art works also lies in the preoccupation of the notion of public space and its applications for creative and reflective purposes.

Program

Directors Lounge contemporary art and media (Berlin) – (around 45 minutes)

Memory et history (ies) : Construction/Destruction/Reconstruction

Untitled # (Masha Godovannaya, Russia, 2005) 3’52 min
Da qui sopra il mare (Mauro Santini, Italia, 2003) 10’37 min.
Crazy love (Yoel Díaz Vásquez, Cuba, 2007) 3'19 min.
Construct (2 moments in Beauty)(Maja Borg,UK/Sweden,2006) 6min
Solo fur Ramallah (Andreas Rost, Germany, 2005) 4’50 min
Under Twilight (Jean Gabriel Périot, France, 2006) 5’10 min.
Shanghai Shanghai (Zhenchen Liu, France/China, 2006) 11’37 min.

Fragments
中国录影带 : Chinese videos (around 65 min)
Memory and society/personal memories and the individual in society
记忆和社会/个人记忆和社会中的个体

Rice and Coins (MaiZi, 2007, 1 min)
Floating Memory (Liu Wei, 2001, 10 min.)
New Road (Xiaopeng, 2007, 9 min)
The Bridge (Xu Xin, 2007, 16 min.)
Terrace (Song Di, 2006, 12 min.)
Perform (MaiZi, 2007, 1 min)
Dian Dian (Liang Yue, 2002, 9 min)
Memories (Zhang Xuezhou, 2007, 5 min)

The complete program can be downloaded here

Fragments • www.fragments-media.com • info@fragments-media.com

Directors Lounge contemporary art and media • www.directorslounge.net • dl@directorslounge.net

SIFF - Shanghai International Film Festival

SIFF 2007.6.16-24
website

Nominees of 10th SIFF Asian New Talent Awards are as follows :

Bliss by Sheng Zhiming (China)
Synopsis:
This is a story about a family living beside the river. Like all the other families, every member of the family seems close to each other, but in fact they are miles apart, and everyone have a secret that they cannot share....

Saigon Eclipse by Othello Khanh (Vietnam)
Synopsis:
Kieu, a beautiful and talented actress, is starring in a film directed by Kim, an American/Vietnamese who has come back to Vietnam to become a part of the new wave of Vietnamese film culture. The film is being produced by her Uncle Henry and her mother Ba Tu. It is a seemingly wonderful situation until the fragile family balance is disrupted when Kieu falls in love with her director, and Uncle Henry’s mounting gambling debts shut down production of the film...

On The Wings of Dreams by Golam Rabbany Biplob (Bangladesh)
Synopsis:
Mid-thirties young man Kabiraj is only a canvasser who sells ointments and allied herbal medicines in the village weekly markets by canvassing the virtues of the products. One evening Kabiraj returns home with a second-hand trouser with a number of pockets for his son Ratan. His wife finds some foreign currency notes in its pocket while she was washing the trouser. They think that these currency notes to be of great value and huge money, but they are ignorant of how to exchange them...

The Cold Flame by Yang Shufeng (China)
Synopsis:
In 1944, Sister Maria from France turned the church established by her missionary father into a temporary hospital for wounded soldiers. After a cruel battle with Japanese, KMT Captain XUE Youfang was sent to the hospital with serious injuries. There he met DU Jingxuan, a girl of 14 years old, who came here for shelter with her younger brother. The life without parents forced to act mature. She protected herself with lies and distance from others. Du gradually became attracted to Xue who was still in coma.…

The Case by Wang Fen (China)
Synopsis:
Dasam and his wife own a small guesthouse in an ancient town at the foot of the Snow Mountain. His wife is a bit plump and not beautiful, and she takes good care of him like his mother did before. One morning, Dasam comes across a case which is floating along the river and, upon opening it, is astonished to find it filled with the frozen body parts of a woman. Around the same time, a strange couple arrive at the guesthouse...

The Touch of Fate by Pan Chih-yuan (Taiwan)
Synopsis:
Da Yu, a 15-year-old boy, likes to loiter in this lonely city. He has no emotions and doesn’t know how to express his feelings, just because he is a so-called unwelcome problem student. One day, facing the insult of teacher, Da Yu fights back with violence. Accidentally, he meets A Li and Lao Liao, and begins a life between two fingers...

The Crossword Monologues by Hideaki Kataoka (Japan)
Synopsis:
If you took the inner thoughts, or monologues, of various strangers living in different parts of the world and lined them up as if in a crossword puzzle, these monologues could eventually create a conversation. Zoé, Sakura, Jennifer, Maria form a conversation through their monologues though they live different time and space...

Denias, Singing On The Cloud by John De Rantau (Indonesia)
Synopsis:
This movie is based on a true story of real struggle of a boy named DENIAS, who came from Aroanop, a small village at Jayawijaya Mountain in western Papua Island.

For Horowitz by Kwon Hyung-jin (South Korea)
Synopsis:
Kim Ji-soo is a 30-year-old single woman. She is suffering from an inferiority complex rooted in an unfulfilled dream to become a famous pianist like Vladimir Horowitz. Ji-soo acquires a small piano studio in the outskirts of Seoul to make a living. But one day, she bumps into a strange boy, Gyung-min, and realizes that he’s a musical genius with an absolute pitch.

Veyil (Hot Sun Light) by Gurunathan Vasanthabalan (India)
Synopsis:
Murukesan likes watching movie in theatre, but one day he was caught by his father red-handed from the theatre after he bunks school. The child is severely punished and he runs away from home after taking money and jewels. He is taken in a theatre and slowly the theatre becomes his home. He falls in love with Thankam a beautiful girl, but their love story doesn’t have a happy ending.

The Asian film nominees of 10 SIFF Jin Jue Awards are as follows :

The Knot by Yin Li (China)
Eye in the Sky by Yau Nai-Hoi (Hong Kong)
Radio Star by Lee Joon-ik (South Korea)
Love and Honor by Yoji Yamada (Japan)
Bizan by Isshin Inudou (Japan)
The Go Master by Tian Zhuangzhuang (China)
Shanghai Red by Oscar Luis Costo (China / USA)

Summer Palace

Summer Palace by Lou Ye, China, 2006.

synopsis : China, 1989. Two young lovers play out their complex, erotic, love/hate relationship against a Chinese volatile backdrop of political unrest. Beautiful Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her boyfriend to study in Beijing, where she discovers a world of intense sexual and emotional experimentation, and falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Their relationship becomes one of dangerous games, as all around them, their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom.
Cannes 2006.
Download the press kit in English

Brief notes : With a duration of almost 2 and half hours, the film does feel its length and surely it could have been shortened. The music also could have been less been used, some scenes are unbearable because of the dramatized music (piano and violin are really too much), other aspects which I found quite awkwardly used : the history background, which unfortunately felt too far from the purpose of the film, as if dropped from nowhere, it needed to be more developed. Otherwise, the acting is fine, the sex relationships - one of the reasons of the ban - are well dealt which makes a difference from the usual mainland Chinese films, and some characters and some parts are more appealing and stand out more. However Suzhou River remains far more interesting in all kinds of aspects and is much better handled.

Cannes....

Naomi Kawase received the Grand Prize for her film, The Mourning forest (Mogari no mori, Japan) and Jeon Do-yeon received Best Actress Award for Secret Sunshine by Lee Chang-dong (South Korea).

Secret Sunshine by Lee Chang-dong, with Jeon Do-Yeon, Song Kang-Ho. 2007. South Korea.

synopsis : Sin-ae moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her dead husband was born. As she tries to come to herself and set out on new foundations, another tragic event overturns her life.
link to festival's page.

The Mourning Forest by Naomi Kawase, with Shigeki Uda, Machiko Ono, Makiko Watanabe, Kanako Masuda, Yohichiro Saito, 2007, Japan.

synopsis : Shigeki lives in a small retirement home. He feels comfortable and happy here with the other residents and the gentle and caring hospital staff. Machiko, one of the home’s staff pays special attention to him. However she is secretly haunted by the loss of her child. After celebrating Shigeki’s birthday Machiko decides to take him for a drive in the countryside. Making their way along the scenic back-roads the car is forced into a ditch by a land-slide and it is here that they embark on their journey of discovery together. As Shigeki determinedly heads off into the forest, Machiko has no choice but to follow. After two exhausting days trudging through the dense wood they finally arrive at Shigeki’s wife’s tomb.

link to festival's page.

The Prix France-Culture is awarded yearly by French national public radio during the Cannes Festival to a filmmaker for career achievement. The 2007 prize went to Cambodian Rithy Panh "for the intensity of his work and his commitment to the presentation of Cambodia's cinematographic memory." Charlotte Rampling was president of the jury.


Cannes website.