Rotterdam 2009 highlights

I'm now back in NYC after an inspiring trip to the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009. I was there for almost two weeks working at the festival's own newspaper, The Daily Tiger.

And at the risk of sounding like I'm sucking up those people who hired me, I do have to say it was hands-down the best Rotterdam I've attended in the past few years. New programme sections, even a new tiger logo -- something was working despite the credit crunch.

Once you've done 'the circuit' for a few years, it almost seems like festivals start to blend into one another -- that everyone is programming the same 20 festival favorite films in a different city each month. So that's why Rotterdam seems like such a rare and refreshing festival with a true sense of identity. Sure these films are challenging and won't be to everyone's taste -- but that's better than being boring, I think. The only drawback is that Rotterdam becomes
the sort of place where one (or maybe it's just me) can be made to feel embarrassed for being drawn to a straight narrative. I almost (but not quite) watched Road House in the hotel one night because it had an easy story to follow and might have given my brain a break.

Anyway with a programme of hundreds films, there's no way I can pretend to have seen a large chunk of them (by concentrating on new films I missed out on retrospectives, for instance). But I did see nearly all the Tiger competition films (first and second features) and I thought it was a particularly strong year. Of the three winners (Breathless, Wrong Rosary, Be Calm And Count To Seven), none of them were my personal favorites, but I could see why a jury chose each. And could have easily agreed with another five Tigers that had their own merits.

Part of the credit of course goes to the veteran programmers at IFFR, and some of it also goes to the new festival director Rutger Wolfson. He was temporarily at the helm last year and was in the job more permanently this year, and I heard a lot of industry guests and film-makers remarking about how he was making an impact.

The city itself is well suited for a festival -- great cinemas (especially those enormous Pathe screens), easy walkability between venues, and enthusiastic local audiences that will seemingly sit through two hours of just about anything. One especially cool feature of IFFR 2009 was part of the Size Matters project, which saw the festival commission works by Guy Maddin, Carlos Reygadas, and Nanouk Leopold and project them on buildings in the city center. Looked very cool against the modern Rotterdam skyline (even the skyline, such as it is, is growing on me).

Of course, I think any festival experience can depend on your own personal state of mind. And for me, seeing films and interviewing filmmakers was a rejuvenating way to spend two weeks. It was busy but not the same kind of stress as doing dailies for Screen, where obviously my job is to talk to industry sources and report on news and deals (I like that stuff too). But for contrast it was nice to kinda ignore the commercial prospects and just enjoy some films. And have an
excuse for a trip to HEMA - sort of like a Dutch version of Target.

Anyway, whatever the combination this was an energising festival for me and hats off to the IFFR team, my fellow Daily Tigers, and the film-makers.

[Is all this too sickeningly positive? Maybe I need to start an alternate negativity blog where I can write about the cockroach in my hotel bathroom, those ridiculously small beer glasses, the public health hazard of frost on that metal Schouwburg square, and the fact that the Dutch can't seem to make a decent sandwich.]

But back to the good stuff -- of the films I saw, these were my favorites:

Morphia
The late Sergei Bodrov Jr's script is adapted from the autobiographical stories A Country Doctor's Handbook. Its 1917 and a doctor arrives deep in the Russian countryside, where he's got to deal with all kinds of medical crises. (Hard for this squeamish viewer to watch the amptuation scene!) He also falls in love with a nurse and develops a crippling morphine habit. A fascinating portrait of the time, and also one man's descent into addiction hell. Director Alexei Balabanov laces black humour throughout, and delivers a note-perfect ending. The kind of film people were saying could have easily been in Cannes competition, and I agree.

The Ferrari Dino Girl
Czech New Waver Jan Nemec recently got the original footage he shot in 1968's Prague Spring. It's the same footage he used in Oratorio For Prague, but now he's restored it and used it as something of a centerpiece for this inventive autobiographical project. Nemec casts Karel Roden (mostly heard through voiceover) as the director and revisits the locations of the past, when he had to smuggle his footage out of Czechoslovakia with the help of Prague's most beautiful
girl and an Italian friend. It ends with a personal reflection of Nemec's about his past and his present film-making. Very moving and funny and an inventive way of telling a personal remembrance of an important historical time.

Troubled Water
Norwegian director Erik Poppe's third feature. Almost won IFFR's audience award (which went to Slumdog Millionaire which frankly doesn't need it right now!) A film full of surprises for me -- thanks in part to its unusual structure. A kind of thriller, a kind of psychological character study, the story follows a young man just released from prison where he served his sentence for murdering a young boy eight years ago. The mother of the young boy comes back into his life and we start to follow her point of view. Moving and disturbing and shows a masterful touch from the director. Too bad the title is easy to confuse with Frozen River and Trouble The Water.

Be Good (Sois Sage)
Debut from French filmmaker Juliette Garcias. Reminded me a bit of Innocence by Lucile Hadzihalilovic. A glacially paced story about a young girl new in a country town who is lying to everyone about her past, as the truth is slowly revealed. A very unusual story about incest. I thought the lead actress Anais Demoustier was stunning and that Garcias has an amazing eye -- the film's mood was sustained by a series of artful and sometimes shocking images -- a girl's bloodied cuticles pawing at her thighs, a hand plunged into a bucket of snails, an ice cream scoop being swirled in milky water.

Turistas
Another Tiger film by a female director, Chile's Alicia Scherson. A bourgeious couple is going on holiday when their relationship takes a sudden turn, so the wife sets out on her own to a nature reserve where she's thrown into a sort of alternate society. Beautifully shot and observed, I thought this was funny and compassionate at the same time.

Unmade Beds
Alexis Dos Santos follows up his lauded debut Glue with this story of immigrants in contemporary London's east end. The script had some holes for me (do squatters really have money to go skydiving??) but it would be nearly impossible to watch this film and not have some kind of affection for its lead characters, a Belgian girl trying to get over heartbreak, and a Spanish boy looking for his father. Displays a real youthful exuberance that is hard to capture on film.

Daily Tiger English issues available here.

My Facebook pics here.