San Sebastián IFF Presents Awards

Mo'Nique in PRECIOUS

The TCM AUDIENCE AWARD at the 57th San Sebastián International Film Festival was awarded to PRECIOUS, USA, directed by Lee Daniels. This is the third major festival audience award for PRECIOUS. The other two being Sundance and Toronto. Now, what will the movie do at the New York Film Festival NYFF, currently in progress?

At the SSIFF, the TVE-Another Look Jury also gave a special mention to LA MUJER SIN PIANO (The Woman Without a Piano), directed by Javier Rebollo (Spain-France). It also awarded a TCM AUDIENCE AWARD to an European film, DESERT FLOWER, directed by Sherry Hormann (Germany).

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH

The Official Selection Jury for the Film Festival decided to award the Golden Shell for Best Film to CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH by LU CHUAN (China). The movies director of photography, Cao Yu, received the Jury's Best Cinematography Award.

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH, filmed in wide screen and black and white, begins in 1937. Japanese troops have entered China's temporary capital, where their cruel occupation will be known as "The Rape of Nanjing." The film alternates between Japanese and Chinese points of view, presenting a portrait of surviving in wartime day-to-day living conditions amidst a devastated city while confronting never before encountered ethical dilemmas.

This and other awards were presented last evening at San Sebastián, Spain, in the Kursaal, with the entire media event being hosted in the Anoeta Velodrome where a broadcast of the closing gala was shown on the giant Velodrome screen. The evening was also broadcast live on the sansebastianfestivalTV channel via the Web.

The gala evening began with the showing of the final screening from the Zabaltegi-Pearls section with Johnnie To’s VENGEANCE. Following the awards, the evening closed with the screening of MOTHER & CHILD (USA), presented in person by director Rodrigo García and the actors Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington and Jimmy Smits, who made an appearance on the Velodrome stage. Also in the movie, but not at the SSIFF, are Annette Bening, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Other awards from the Official Selection went to:

BEST DIRECTOR SILVER SHELL to JAVIER REBOLLO for LA MUJER SIN PIANO (Spain - France);

JURY PRIZE FOR BEST SCREENPLAY to BLESSED (Australia);

SILVER SHELL FOR BEST ACTOR to PABLO PINEDA for YO, TAMBIÉN (ME, TOO, Spain);

SILVER SHELL FOR BEST ACTRESS to LOLA DUEÑAS for YO, TAMBIÉN (Spain);

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to LE REFUGE by FRANÇOIS OZON (France).

The President of the International Jury was LAURENT CANTET (France), and the three other males on the jury were: BONG JOON-HO (Korea); DANIEL GIMÉNEZ CACHO (Spain); and JOHN MADDEN (United Kingdom). The females were LEONOR SILVEIRA (Portugal); PILAR LÓPEZ DE AYALA (Spain); and SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF (Iran).

The FIPRESCI Award for the Best Film Made in Spain went to Catalonian director Isaki Lacuesta's LOS CONDENADOS (The Condemned, Spain).

The HORIZONTES Jury Award for films in Spanish made outside of Spain, and carrying €35,000 (€10,000 for the director of the winning film and €25,000 for its importer in Spain), went to the film GIGANTE (Uruguay) directed by by Adrián Biniez, with a Special Mention to FRANCIA (Argentina) directed by Israel Adrián Caetano. Also, the movie CONTRACORRIENTE, by Javier Fuentes-León (Peru-Colombia-France-Germany), received the Horizontes Sebastian 2009 Award.

KUTXA’s social program granted €30,000 in aid to the film by Álvaro Pastor and Antonio Naharro, YO TAMBIÉN, a competitor in the Official Selection, for highlighting the values of integration and equality, precisely the values promoted by Kutxa.

The FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Grand Prix for Best Film of the Year screening at the San Sebastián Festival was presented at the opening gala on Friday, 18 September, to THE WHITE RIBBON (Das Weisse Band, Germany), directed by Michael Haneke. In order for a movie to be given a FIPRESCI GRAND PRIX at an individual film festival, it must have won at least on major award at a major film festival. WHITE RIBBON won the Palme d'or at Cannes in May. Can't get more "major" than that. Will Germany place it in competition for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar®?

China's Olympic Opening Directed by Zhang Yimou

Zhang Yimou at press conference the day after the opening.

Okay. You read the title of this post and asked, Zhang Yimou, who? He was the chief director for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing, China, yesterday. Zhang Yimou (pronounced Yee-Mo), is one of China's best filmmakers in the so-called "fifth generation." He is my favorite, and he does not make films in English, only in Mandarin, unlike Taiwan's Ang Lee (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN), my second favorite Chinese director.

Hint: In China the last names are first. So, Zhang Yimou's given name, Yimou, is written last while his sir name, Zhang, is first. Articles in Chinese newspapers write it that way, and the IMDb often does too, but the name is generally reversed for English speakers, e.g. Yimou Zhang. In China, Ang Lee's name is written Lee Ang. So check both ways when searching on the Web.

Did you see the Olympic opening ceremony yesterday? If you didn't you will have to wait for the DVD to enjoy the synchronized performances of hundreds of people in the high tech extravaganza, that was an amazing live performance. In every Olympiad the opening ceremony grows more spectacular.

I wish to salute Zhang for his own conceived and fantastically directed production. Unfortunately, no one did at the opening. Perhaps, someone will at the closing. He will be directing that also, as he will the ceremonies for the Paralympics that follow these games, also in Beijing. As he said at a press conference today, "Yesterday was only the beginning."

Have you seen any of Zhang Yimou's movies? The first one I saw was RED SORGHUM with his favorite leading lady - - in his movies as she used to be in his real life, gorgeous Gong Li. Then, I saw RAISE THE RED LANTERN, and I was hooked.

Yesterday, in the opening ceremony Zhang included a giant yellow ball that morphed into a red Chinese lantern and, in turn, into the globe of the world. The red lantern = China, the globe = one world, only two of the symbols in the ceremony that represented the slogan for this year's Olympiad: One World, One Dream.

On top of that revolving globe Sarah Brightman, and China's current favorite male pop singer Liu Huan, sang "You and Me," the official song of this year's Olympics. Theirs was only one of many beautiful musical moments accompanied by the Beijing Ceremony Symphony. I hear the CD is in stores now.

Three of Zhang's movies have received Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominations, JU DOU, RAISE THE RED LANTERN, and HERO, but he has never taken home the statuette. I think it is because his movies are iconic Chinese, and Americans just don't know enough about China to understand them as well as they do the movies of "westernized" Taiwanese director Ang Lee.

Don't get me wrong. I like Ang Lee's movies, too. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON is spectacular and won the Best Foreign Language Oscar, but it isn't as folk-centered as Zhang's HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS. Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN won a best picture Oscar and one for Lee's directing.

On the other hand, when Lee tried sex as a subject in LUST, CAUTION, he failed. His approach was a bit too raw for most Americans. Zang's earlier movie, SHANGHAI TRIAD, is less raw with more subtlety, and is sexier, but he doesn't have the "name recognition" in the U.S. that Lee has.

Lee is Taiwanese and Zhang is mainland China. The latter's geographic location doesn't cut as much favor in Hollywood as Taiwan. Lee is definitely a more commercial (box office-favored) director than Zhang, but if you, like me, fell in love with the China of Pearl Buck in her book The Good Earth, get that sensation again each time you view a Zang Yimou movie.

I have seen all the movies mentioned above, plus Zhang's THE STORY OF QIU JU, and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. My favorite Ang Lee Chinese movie is CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. I simply can't pick a favorite Zhang movie. They are that good! Zhang's filmography on Fandango.

The numbers are in and the Olympic opening night ceremony on NBC averaged 34.2 million households in the U.S., the biggest audience ever for an Olympic opening ceremony not held in the U.S., Nielsen Media Research reported. It eclipsed this year's Academy Awards, and the finale of "American Idol," making it the biggest television event since this year's Super Bowl. The summer Olympics in Athens four years ago averaged 25.4 million households for its first night. Sydney in 2000 had 27.3 million.

The Web site NBCOlympics.com registered 70 million page views on Friday, its heaviest traffic ever. The site did not post videos, but did post still pictures. The estimated statistics for world-wide television (Internet) viewership of the opening have not yet been announced, but the count is expected to approach one billion viewers.

BERLINALE prizes awarded at jaded festival

The Bears were awarded today at the 57th International Berlin Film Festival, and some question the continued virility of the Festival. But, first, the awards:

TUYA'S MARRIAGE (Tu ya de hun shi) from China received the top prize, the Golden Bear for Best Film. It was chosen from among 22 competitors in competition at the festival by a seven-member jury led by TAXI DRIVER screenwriter Paul Schrader. The other jury members were: Hiam Abbas, Mario Adorf, Willem Dafoe, Gael García Bernal, Nansun Shi, and Malene Stensgaard.

Director Wang Quan'an's movie follows the troubles of a young farming woman in fast-changing China. It stars Yu Nan as Tuya, a herdswoman in Inner Mongolia trying to resist pressure to leave her pastures and move to the city as China's industry expands. She seeks a man who can help her look after her sick husband and two children. Director Wang Quan'an and producer Le Wang accepted the Bear. The other Chinese movie at the festival, LOST IN BEIJING (Ping Guo) and directed by Li Yu, screened too late to generate any buzz.

The Silver Bear for the Grand Jury Prize went to Argentina's EL OTRO (The Other), directed by Ariel Rotter.

Silver Bears for acting went to Argentina's Julio Chavez as Juan in EL OTRO, and Germany's Nina Hoss for her role as the heroine of the film's title, YELLA, directed by Christian Petzold.

U.S.-born Israeli director Joseph Cedar won the Silver Bear for best director for BEAUFORT, which takes place in an outpost in southern Lebanon ahead of Israel's withdrawal from that country in 2000.

The Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution 2007 was awarded to the ensemble cast of Robert D Niro's THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

French director Francois Ozon's ANGEL made its world premiere as the Festival's closing film.

As to the Festival being jaded, "Berlin film festival fails to reel in the critics," was the header for a Reuters' news release written by Mike Collett-White late in the Festival in which he quotes A. O. Scott, New York Times, as writing, "The 57th Berlinale might best be thought of as an average festival." Scott went on, to say that Berlin, once a bastion of serious cinema, has become "something bigger, more varied and perhaps less distinctive."

For instance there are critics who argue that some of the best films in Berlin this year were outside the main lineup, and wondered whether festival director Dieter Kosslick had shied away from incendiary topics. Collett-White mentions one such film, THE LARK FARM, a drama depicting the tragedy of a family almost wiped out in the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. According to him, this could have been this year's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 at the Berlinale.

Turkey continues to deny allegations by Armenia and others that 1.5 million Armenians died in systematic genocide at Turkish hands. Critic Peter Zander of the German newspaper Die Welt (The World) wrote, "The film comes at precisely the right time -- after the murder of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and threats against the Turkish Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk . . . It would have been a highlight of the Berlinale, perhaps the most important film of the year. But it's not in the main section. Perhaps they wanted to avoid the big controversy. How unfortunate."

I went to the Berlinale when it was held in the summer. They moved it to February, the Berlin Wall came down, and I no longer had an appetite to attend. Also when I went, Germany was still divided. The Festival was the showcase of East German and Eastern European movies, showing at least twice as many movies as they do today. It was a fantastic opportunity to see wonderful films that I could never see in the U.S. because of State Department restrictions, and dance the night away at the U.S.S.R.'s party.

The festival has grown rapidly in recent years, now mainly spotlighting Hollywood glamour-types and art-house films. This year, they had an agreement with Sundance to feature the top movies shown at the Sundance International Film Festival and, of course, to attract the stars of those movies. I have followed this Festival since the late 1970's, and have watched the Festival's slide. I agree that it is now an average film festival. What made it unique is gone. As we approach the end of this decade, the "old gal" ain't what she used to be. Sad.

That said, the Festival this year had some films, besides the winners, from which you will hear more this year:

IRINA PALM, starring British singer and actress Marianne Faithful; Germany's YELLA; the French biopic Edith Piaf, LA VIE EN ROSE; Germany's THE COUNTERFEITERS, based on a real Nazi plot to disrupt Britain's wartime economy by flooding it with counterfeit banknotes made by Jewish craftsmen in a concentration camp; Brazilian director Cao Hamburger's THE YEAR MY PARENTS WENT ON VACATION, about the country's military dictatorship seen through the eyes of a boy; as well as two French films, WITNESSES (Andre Techine, director) about the start of the AIDS epidemic and Jacques Rivette's DON'T TOUCH THE AXE, a version of a Balzac novella.

For more, click the link for my Film Festival Page on the right sidebar, or click the title of this post.