ithacafilmfest

Archive for February, 2012

Documentary on Fukushima town screened at Berlin film festival

BERLIN (Kyodo) — A documentary film featuring residents forced to evacuate their town, home to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, was screened Sunday at the Berlin International Film Festival.

“I hope nobody in the world will have such an experience like ours again,” Katsutaka Idogawa, mayor of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, said in a video message shown after the screening of the tentatively titled “Nuclear Nation” by director Atsushi Funahashi.

“We had attracted the nuclear power plant to promote our town. But I changed my mind because of the accident. While a final disposal site for nuclear waste is not set, it is quite dangerous that many nuclear power plants are built in the world,” the mayor said.

The documentary depicts residents taking shelter at a former school building in Saitama Prefecture and scenes of Futaba town, which was evacuated due to a nuclear crisis following the March 2011 quake and tsunami.

The film director said after the screening, “I hope many people in the world will look at the current situation of people from Futaba. I will continue keeping a record until they find a permanent dwelling place.”

Musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who composed piano music used in the documentary, also attended the screening.

Sakamoto said he plans to produce an album under the theme of Fukushima this summer and stage a performance with fellow musicians.

SE Asian Film Festival returns in March

SINGAPORE: The Southeast Asian Film Festival returns next month with its largest offering of cinematic works from the region.

It will showcase 20 challenging works by filmmakers from the region produced in the past two years.

Nineteen are Singapore premieres, while Myanmar will be part of the festival for the first time.

Many of the 20 films are also being shown outside their home country for the first time.

Organised by Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the films reflect and bring to the forefront a range of pertinent issues facing the region.

Director of SAM, Mr Tan Boon Hui, said: “Cinema, as a moving image medium, becomes a distinct and dynamic contemporary visual art form that examines the social and cultural transformations of today.

“Like many major contemporary art institutions around the world where films are a part of their regular programming, SAM is committed to extend the reach of our exhibitions by creating opportunities for visitors to experience the most contemporary visual art and cultural expressions of the Southeast Asian region and deliver new perspectives, through the powerful medium of cinema.”

The festival will offer the public greater insight into film-making and the Southeast Asian wave.

There will be a directors’ panel on 3 March, as well as 12 post-screening discussions with directors, producers and actors.

To provide an avenue for the works of local film makers to be presented to a wider audience, the festival will feature four Singapore films.

They include “The Legend of the Impacts” by Jeevan Nathan, “Water Hands” by Serbian-born Singapore-based director Vladimir Todorovic, as well as an animated feature film “Tatsumi” by Eric Khoo which debuted at Cannes and is Singapore’s official entry for the 2012 Academy Awards.

The festival will run from March 2-31 at the Moving Image Gallery at SAM at 8Q.

Based on the early days of the French revolution, Farewell My Queen is set to have its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, starting 9^th February, according to the news media tracking the latest film festival reviews. The backdrop is France in those days of turmoil as soon through the eyes of the Versailles staff and stars Diane Kruger of Troyfame as Queen Marie Antoinette. The French-language period film is one of the 18 flicks in the main competition, and hundreds of more would showcased in venues across Berlin over the next ten days.

Image courtesy: germany.info

The French-language period drama, starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette, is one of 18 films in the main competition, and hundreds more films will be showcased in cinemas across the city over the next 10 days.

Members of the Management Look to Add Glitz to Film Festival

The freezing cold in Berlin may prove to be a deterrent to viewership, but the film festival director Dieter Kosslick is hoping that the A-list actors set to saunter down the red carpet may counter that, helping the film festival generate the required buzz.

Another crucial matter would be the health of the film market that has grown up around the festival, attracting movie executives from the world over looking to buy and sell titles.

If critics are to be believed, the annual film festival is looking to add cutting edge to its selection this year by featuring several promising (and as yet unproven) directors in the main lineup.

It will also seek to build on the success of 2011, when Iranian divorce drama A Separation won the Golden Bear for best movie and went on to scoop a Golden Globe and two Oscar nominations.

Film Festival Jury Hoping for Hidden Gems

The jury at this year’s festival, led by British director Mike Leigh and including US actor Jake Gyllenhaal, will be looking to discover another hidden gem of world cinema.

Kosslick believes that this would once again underline Berlin’s reputation for championing films that would otherwise struggle to find an international audience.

This could be Africa’s year, as three films, Tey, War Witch and and Tabu promise to present viewers with poignant images from contemporary Africa.

Hard Hitting Films Hoping to Make a Mark at Berlin Film Festival

As ever this year, hard-hitting movies tackling difficult themes are looking to make a mark at this film festival.

Coming Home is about a girl who is locked up for eight years, and was inspired by the real-life case of abducted Austrian schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch.

White Deer Plain, which is more than three hours long, chronicles the often violent social turmoil in China throughout the 20th century.

And Just The Wind reconstructs the murder of a Roma family in Hungary and is also based on a true story.

On the lighter side, the hottest ticket in town is to see Iron Sky, a futuristic story about Nazis who had escaped to the moon in 1945 and have now launched a “meteor Blitzkrieg” on Earth.

Stalwarts of Conventional Cinema to Grace Film Festival Venue

Among the Hollywood superstars expected in 2012 is Meryl Streep, who will receive an honorary Golden Bear on February 14 when her latest movie The Iron Lady will be screened, with her portraying Margaret Thatcher. The film itself has failed to excite critics, but Street is supposed to be in the running for a ‘Best Actress’ award at the Oscars.

Angelina Jolie is due in Berlin with Bosnian war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey, while the cast of star-filled productions such as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Haywire should add to the celebrity count at the film festival.

For more film festival reviews and news, keep watching this space.