It's always nice to hear about a new festival on the block offering something a bit different and the upcoming inaugural Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF)promises to be a pretty special celebration of short film, with 150 shorts (docs, fiction, animation, music video, artists' film...) being screened from 30 countries. But what's really lovely about it is the setting - these shorts will be shown in historic venues around York. A festival after our own hearts, ASFF will use 15 different locations around the city, so the discerning attendee can explore York's medieval halls, historic buildings and contemporary art spaces as they watch. Lovely, lovely, York-y short film greatness.
There's a good selection of Masterclasses taking place during the festival too, including sessions with Ivana MacKinnon (associate producer of Slumdog Millionaire) and screenwriter Mark Hermann (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Brassed Off, Little Voice).
As for the selection of films themselves... we really shouldn't play favourites, we know, but a quick scan of the very full programme throws up some great films that you might have missed at this year's Branchage, so do look out for INERTIA (Todd MacDonald), NOAH'S ARK (Sam Meech), THE HOLIDAY (Ida Akesson), SILENT THINGS (Rob Brown), JOIN THE DOTS (Jessica Lux), PARIS/SEXY (Ruth Paxton), ORRIBLE (Giles Ripley), COTE D'AZUR (Caroline Ward), WAR DANCE (Ed Edwards), and also here's a shout for the very funny THE MAESTRO (Chris & Ben Blaine), which we haven't screened, but have very much enjoyed.
'Paris/Sexy' Ruth Paxton
'Inertia' Todd MacDonald
Aesthetica Short Film Festival takes place 3rd to 6th November 2011. The festival organisers say 'Explore York. Experience Film.' We say 'Yes, okay, that sounds pretty special'.
Only 8 days to go untilGrassroots festivaltransforms the Val de la Mare dam into a lovely Eco Friendly one-day music festival with all the little extras that make Grassroots gorgeous - like amazing Jersey Pottery global streetfood for sale. And twice the normal number of bars...
Natch, Branchage will be going, hanging in the eco village, crunking in the favela funk dance arena, swapping our recycling for drinks tickets. Chilling out, maxing, relaxing... the usual.
Headlining this year is the Blues man whose voice hits you where it hurts, Seasick Steve, with Arrested Development second on the bill - oh to hear Everyday People in late Jersey sunshine, yes!
Also on the line-up, Easy Star All-stars, Backbeat Soundsystem, Mat McHugh, Ben Howard, Josh Flowers, Rick Jones, and DJing in the dance arena, Bag Raiders, Brad Baloo, Mr Bongo Soundsystem and The Uplifter.
To get you in the mood for the main event, here's one of Seasick Steve's many Jools Holland live performances...
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ENTER OUR TICKET COMPETITION!
Win a pair of tickets for Grassroots Festival 2011 on 23rd July by answering this question:
"Grassroots takes place at Val de la Mare reservoir. Which classic 1978 film did Branchage screen down at the dam last year?" (Clue: it was neither a bird nor a plane.)
Emailinfo@branchagefestival.com with your answer in the subject line. A winner will be drawn at random on Monday morning and the tickets will be posted out to you in time for the festival.
Before the memories of Sheffield's tremendous festival of documentary films -Doc/Fest 2011 - fade, here's our run down of the event and some of the great films we saw, and it was all watched over by the godfather of documentary filmmaking, the mighty Albert Maysles.
Bad photo of Albert Maysles. Disclaimer: photographer was too in awe to get closer.
Maysles (who made seminal 'Cinema Verite' films with his late brother David, including Gimme Shelter [shown at Branchage 2008], and Grey Gardens), was at Doc/Fest to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award, give a masterclass and introduce a few of his films. Despite being made in 1968, Maysles' Salesman shone out as one of the greatest films in the festival. This portrait of door-to-door Bible salesmen travelling across America in the late 60s is as touching, funny, eloquent, honest and endearing as it is revealing, in its subtle capturing of a time and a place.
We also caught a few early screenings of soon-to-be-released films to watch out for. First up,Life In A Day - a composite of footage of 'everyday life' filmed by the good people of planet Earth on July 24th 2010. Director Kevin Macdonald is a versatile kinda guy - he's won BAFTAs for both docs (Touching The Void) and fiction (Last King Of Scotland), as well as an Oscar for the astonishing One Day In September. Regardless of the type of film he's making, they're always stunning because he really knows how to shape a story and keep the audience enthralled. Life In A Day is no exception - and it's hardly surprising that it runs you through the gamut of human emotion, as it's a film about human lives - the little things, the big things, the mundanities, the tragedies, the sinister, and the loving - all around the world. (Well, around most of the world, but the limits to the footage they got in are more than understandable).
Next, already in cinemas, and highly recommended, Asif Kapadia's extraordinary bio-pic of Formula One driver and Brazillian national hero Ayrton Senna. Senna's magnetic charisma and passion for driving, for his religion, and for life makes his story utterly captivating. Lovers of Formula One should be frothing at the mouth with the glut of race footage in this film, but people who associate F1 with blaring tellies to be avoided on Sunday afternoons (yup, hi, right here) will be equally charmed and mesmerised by the man and by the film.
Strangely enough Calvet also traces the life story of one charismatic, larger-than-life man, but this one was a runaway, gangster's body guard and addict, running his life into the ground, until at his very lowest point - locked in a house in Nicaragua on a three month diet of drugs and paranoia - he discovered that he could purge himself of his torments by painting. There's a long way to go from that point to the man we meet in the film, retracing the crucial moments of his life across the globe and trying to hunt down his long-abandoned son. It's impossible to look away from Calvet and the film, like the man, is fast-paced, brutal in its honesty, colourful and surprisingly sensitive for something that feels so brash.
Another big film at Doc/Fest coming to a screen near you (in August) was Project Nim- again, in a way, a portrait of the life of a man. Except of course Nim isn't a man, he's a chimpanzee, who was raised like a human child as part of a 'scientific' experiment to see if chimps could be taught to use (sign) language to communicate with humans. Well, it's a bit like science, except shockingly irresponsible and ill-advised from start to finish. Nim's story is a tragedy - and Oscar-winning director James Marsh's handling of the chimp's life tale is probably one of the most humane treatments Nim ever received.
Last but not least, a shout out for Just Do It: A Tale Of Modern Day Outlaws. Clearly a film that was challenging to make from start to finish, it's a rare look behind the scenes at activist groups like Climate Camp and Plane Stupid, following them through their clandestine planning sessions to their surprisingly well organised direct action attacks. Don't go to this film to if you're looking to find a discussion about whether activism is an effective way to deal with climate change, but definitely watch it to see some properly passionate people who are fed up with feeling impotent in the face of global problems, and so take matters into their own hands. The surprising meat in this story isn't so much about young 'uns chaining themselves to railings and breaking into power stations (impressive as that is), but about police powers to silence the dissenting voice - hair-raising to say the least.
Brilliant festival, run seamlessly, thanks in no small part to the lovely atmosphere fostered throughout and Doc/Fest's legion of wonderful volunteers.
There are hundreds (literally) of documentaries to watch this weekend at Open City London Documentary Festival. The programme of films is stunning, covering a massive range of non-fiction titles and featuring appearances and screenings from giants of documentary filmmaking like Christi Puiu, Penny Woolcock and Pawel Pawlikowski.
WIN TICKETS TO MAN ON WIRE
1pm, Thursday 16th June, at UCL's Darwin Theatre
The very first screening of the very first Branchage Film Festival was Man On Wire. The film went on to win an Oscar, and it holds a special place in our hearts. A dramatic and arresting mixture of reconstruction and original footage, the film recounts Philippe Petit's 1974 wire walk between the Twin Towers, 1350 feet above New York. Man On Wire feels like more of a heist movie than a documentary - it's doc filmmaking at its most cinematic and magnificent.
To celebrate the wisdom of Open City for putting it back up on the big screen, we're giving away a pair of tickets to the screening this Thursday 16th June at 1pm.
TO ENTER, emailinfo@branchagefestival.comwith 'MAN ON WIRE' in the subject line, and we'll select a name at random first thing on Wednesday morning (15th June) and email the winner.
Fiona Fletcher, Branchage Manager, dons her sunnies and gets ready for some swanning around...
The Croisette is sweltering and the usual suspects, industry big wigs, critics, chancers and super-tans arrive in force to the other-worldly Cannes Film Festival.
After a calf toning uphill quick march to breezy apartment I hit the Lumiere with a lucky ticket for Cannes opener, Woody Allen's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. The audience absorbs this nostalgia jest, starring Owen Wilson as self-effacing wannabe writer Gil Pinder and Adrian Brody in a fine tongue-in-cheek turn as Salvador Dali (!) not to mention first lady of France Carla Bruni as a museum guide! Glad to also see rising Brit star Tom Hiddleston (who Branchagers may remember from Joanna Hogg's UNRELATED at the 2009 fest) play a convincing F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Next morning an early rise for Gus Van Sant's quirky teen mortality romance RESTLESS - with a heavy lidded wink to Hal Ashby's 1971 classic HAROLD AND MAUD.
Much anticipated competition film WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay) proves worthy of the hype as well as the sunburn as the eager queues stretch out in the lunchtime heat. A deeply disconcerting and stunningly composed film about a mother son relationship awry from the start.
Escaped crowds and sunk into the patch of beach fronting the British Pavilion. They have a whole host of British features to promote as well as a packed schedule of production and finance advice, director talks and pitching sessions over the course of the festival.
Word on la rue is that competition film erotic debut feature SLEEPING BEAUTY (by novelist turned director Julia Leigh) is one to watch, plus Sundance contender MARTHA, MARCY, MAY, MARLENE which is described by Variety as "expertly crafted and cinematic storytelling".
I'm look forward to Dardenne brothers' A KID WITH A BIKE, plus Lars von Trier's MELANCHOLIA and... well some sleep mainly! Chow for now earthlings x
I must say, after attending Tribeca for the past three years, that 2011 has had the best line-up thus far. Documentaries, in particular, had a strong showing (I’ve already written about a few of them in previous entries, so I’ll refrain from mentioning those again here). Sold-out audiences greeted Gone, about a mother searching for answers after her adult son suffers a mysterious death in Vienna; and When The Drum is Beating, which charts the modern history of Haiti through the prism of Septentrional, one of its most popular big bands.
DONOR UNKNOWN
A fascinating subject is covered in Donor Unknown, which observes the gathering of the children of a prolific sperm donor. The offspring of “Donor 150” come together and find their donor -- an eccentric hippie in Venice, California -- via an article in the New York Times. The film helps us to expand the meaning of family, and shows us that, indeed, what us humans crave is a meaningful connection. Ironically, this doc won “Best Documentary” at Tribeca in the “Online” viewing category. Um, whatever happened to connecting and movie-watching as a collective experience?
SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL Another Tribeca winner, in the “Best Editing in a Documentary Feature” category, Semper Fi: Always Faithful, follows Jerry Ensminger, a Marine veteran whose young daughter is one of several victims of cancer produced by toxic dumping at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Ensminger is fierce and measured in his investigations, and witnessing the fight that numerous cancer survivors and families put up against a numb military bureaucracy is life-affirming. There was nary a dry eye in the audience during the Q&A with filmmakers Rachel Libert, Tony Hardmon and Ensminger.
KORAN BY HEART Greg Barker’s Koran By Heart is a more conventional crowd-pleaser. Taking the winning formula of other kids-in-competition films (e.g. Spellbound), this doc takes place in Cairo, where hundreds of Muslims congregate to participate in the world championship of Koran recitation. Ages of the participants range from people in their 20s to as young as seven-years old. The filmmaker follows three main characters -- all of them not older than 12 -- and they’re all compelling. At 77 minutes, the film is perfect for family movie night, with great role models in bright-eyed, dedicated protagonists. The adult presence is personified by one of the judges in the competition, an Imam who advocates a moderate Islam. The film was financed by HBO and thus it will receive plenty of airtime.
LIKE WATER
My ever-growing curiosity about mixed martial arts is indulged in the satisfying Like Water by first-time director Pablo Croce (named “Best New Documentary Director”). On the surface, it’s a portrait of Ultimate Fighting Championship Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva as he prepares to defend his title against a powerful contender. In a more elemental way, however, this is the story of good versus evil. Silva is a dark-skinned Brazilian, a charismatic, innate fighter with graceful moves and easygoing personality. His opponent, Chael Sonnen, is a bulky white man from Portland, Oregon, who is easy with explicit racist and xenophobic taunts. The piece does a great job of creating suspense (will Silva snap out of his complacency?), while leaving no doubt who will claim the championship title.
DESPICABLE DICK AND RIGHTEOUS RICHARD
Speaking of redemption, in Despicable Dick and Righteous Richard, a former alcoholic in recovery travels throughout the U.S. to see family and past lovers, seeking to make amends. Predictably, the film is full of awkward encounters. But these feel real; while Richard’s friends and family are eager to get to know this new man, they remain skeptical. Richard himself is heartbreaking. Trying to stay present as he exorcises his past is a hard, yet commendable task.
CAIRO EXIT | MY LAST ROUND
I didn’t catch much on the narrative end of the festival. The selection I did watch -- Cairo Exit and My Last Round -- reflected Tribeca’s increasing interest in global filmmaking, for which it should be applauded. Too bad they both were rather mediocre. The Egyptian Cairo Exit has a Romeo and Juliet romance between a Muslim and a Christian at its center. As such, it is intensely melodramatic. I preferred its quiet moments, and didn’t even mind its fantasy happy ending. In contrast, My Last Round, an entry from Chile, is a bit too quiet. In this film, a love triangle between a journeyman middle-aged boxer, his young boyfriend, and the latter’s new crush on his female co-worker, cannot but end in tragedy. That much is predictable. I did find the performances affecting and very moving at times -- I just wished there wasn’t so much lull in between the moving of the plot.
THE BLEEDING HOUSE
Horror is one of my favorite genres, so after much “eating-your-veggies” with all the documentaries I was consuming, I was ecstatic in indulging my craving with The Bleeding House. What can I say? I know not to expect much beyond some predictable chills and thrills, but I was disappointed. A mysterious traveling man seeks shelter after his car breaks down in the woods. The hosts are a dysfunctional family (is there any other kind in horror?) with a really weird teenage daughter (she displays a remarkable bug collection in her room that would make any entomologist envious). They also hold a deep, dark secret. Can you guess what’s coming? Mystery man speaks in odd phrases punctuated by a folksy Southern accent? Check. Mystery man did not end up there by coincidence? Check. Mystery man sees himself as a messenger of God delivering punishment, but manifests as a psycho into slicing and bleeding out family members, hence the title of this gem? Um, check. The film doesn’t work because it fails in one crucial way: make the audience care. For a more masterful take on a traveler as trickster/avenging angel, please see Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger, where all the bleeding is internal.
SHORT FILMS
The festival’s shorts programmes were a mixed bag, as expected. The best selection was the one I was dreading the most: under the programme title “Impressions of Memory,” it showcased experimental work. Predictable elements included extensive use of archival footage; looping images; black and white as well as psychedelic colors; and asynchronous sound. Aside from this minor peeve, there were several gems. Highlights were the hypnotic After The Fire by Jacques Perconte, The D Train by the veteran New Yorker Jay Rosenblatt, the coyly sexy Strips by Felix Dufour-Laperriere, and the nostalgic process art piece Bye Bye Super 8 by Johan Kramer. My favorite, though, was Melissa Friedling’s Garden Roll Bounce Parking Lot, an affectionate portrait of kids reflecting on a forgettable piece of pop culture that nevertheless holds meaning for them.
Filmmaker Q&A following the Impressions of Memory shorts programme
There were several fascinating short docs -- a category that handily trumped its narrative counterpart, in my opinion. (This could be the subject of a debate about whether short-form documentaries are intrinsically better than short narratives. We won’t conduct that debate now -- don’t worry!) Rick Rodgers profiles a rock-duo in Crash & Burn, at the moment when one of its members decides to transition from male to female. San Francisco’s role in the history of representations of sex in the U.S. is the subject of Smut Capital of America (which had a delightful cast of talking heads, including the hilarious John Waters). In Jonathan VanBallenbergue’s Guru (Special Jury Mention), a motivational speaker is revealed as suffering from severe bipolar disorder.
Perhaps the reason I’m hard on the narrative shorts is that filmmakers stay formulaic due to the time limitations of the category. In several instances -- Marion Pilonwsky’s The Ride (starring a menacing Anthony LaPaglia) and Nightlife by Shandor Garrison -- the set-ups and conclusions are stories we have seen before, over and over. Even when contexts and characters were slightly tweaked, as in those in Jon Kauffman’s Storm Up The Sky (Hasidic Jewish brothers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn) and Vinz Feller’s Down This Road (Latino father and twelve-year old son in Washington Heights), the end results were disappointing. An exception was the Student Visionary Award winner Rooms by Joanna Jurewicz. In it, a luminescent Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays an immigrant maid who forges an unexpected connection with one of her hotel’s guests. And even though I could see the ending of this one coming, my heart still broke for her.
Tribeca still has way more “product” than many other festivals, perhaps to fit a city with such large and diverse tastes. It’s the kind of festival where you have to sit down and “study” the programme to make your selections (and indeed, it pays to do so -- ticket prices are not cheap). But I also learned that sometimes it’s in the letting go and going with the flow that lovely discoveries are to be found.
In a previous entry, I briefly remarked on the documentary Our School by Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma. I first became acquainted with this project when I participated in IFP’s Documentray Rough Cut Lab last year. Mona and Miruna were there, too. Back then, I previewed scenes from their film and also had many conversations with this team. Imagine then my delight when I attended the doc’s World premiere at Tribeca this year. I was lucky to make one of the sold-out screenings. Our School is a longitudinal film that follows the paths of three Roma schoolchildren of different ages as they navigate Romania’s mandate to integrate their schools - previously, Roma and non-Roma went to separate (and unequal) institutions.
Stylistically, the film unfolds with little interaction with the filmmakers, more of an observational piece a la Frederick Wiseman (but without the really long takes). Characters are engaging, which helped me become invested in their journeys. I especially appreciated seeing the Roma community depicted in a complex and compassionate manner. During the filmmaker Q&A, the production team (which included emerging editor Erin Casper, first recipient of the Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship for her work on Our School) was able to fill in some of the gaps left by the film’s open-ended finale. In a moment of levity, when Casper was asked about her process working with so much footage covering a long span of years, co-director Nicoara joked that the editor could now speak Romanian with a Transylvanian accent.
Our School filmmakers: (L-R) Erin Casper, Mona Nicoara, and Miruna Coca-Cozma
Another one of my favorite Tribeca entries this year also happens to come from fellow participants in IFP’s Lab, Michael Collins and Marty Syjuco. Set in the U.S., Spain, and the Philippines, Give Up Tomorrow, records the struggle to win the release of an innocent man wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of two sisters. The film is a relentless indictment of a corrupt political and judicial system, and of the vestiges of colonialism that still haunt a country and its people. I remember chatting with Syjuco about the challenges of editing a documentary that uses material collected from various sources (newscasts, archival, original interviews, re-enactments, etc.) and throughout almost 8 years. That this team has created a film that isn’t only engaging and coherent, but also immensely powerful, is nothing short of amazing.
I’m proud and grateful to have been a part of the lab with these amazing filmmakers.
It’s been a whirlwind of movie-watching at Tribeca, and so this will be a short entry. Most screenings have been sold out from the get-go. Great news for the festival! As much as I’ve seen so far, I’ve also been at the cut-off point in the RUSH line queue. Two highlights have been the documentaries OUR SCHOOL by Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma and GIVE UP TOMORROW directed by Michael Collins and produced by Marty Syjuco. I will write more about those two projects on my next entry, but suffice it to say for now that I predict they will do well in the festival circuit. For now, here are a couple of photos so you get a sense of the festival’s ambiance.
While we've been sunning ourselves over the long weekend in the UK, New York has been enjoying a feast of films at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Our man in NY, Felix Endara, has given up sleeping, eating and mooching about in order to round up the festival for Branchage folk far and wide.
Please give it up for Part 1 of Felix's Tribeca round up:
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OF TRIBECA
For me, the tenth annual Tribeca Film Festival started not with a bang, perhaps; but rather with several drip-drops of the remaining Spring showers. And yet, the first film I caught was the charming portrait of sushi chef as master artist, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Beautifully shot, the doc records minutely all the elements that go into the creation of a master chef - not just Jiro’s attention to detail, but his willingness to sacrifice family and leisure for a larger purpose. Jiro’s two sons follow in his footsteps, with varying degrees of success. I enjoyed learning about this fascinating character; less interesting was the repeated use of shots of chefs constructing a roll and placing it on a square plate.
Another fascinating portrait was revealed in Marie Losier’s Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, which premiered earlier this year at Berlinale. The film depicts the romantic relationship between Genesis P-Orridge, British pioneer musician of industrial sounds with bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV; and Lady Jaye, an American dominatrix and performance artist. Their connection so deep, the couple decides to merge into one by undergoing cosmetic surgery to resemble each other. The remarkable result is named “Pandrogyne,” their ultimate art collaboration. I found their connection moving, and I also appreciated learning about industrial music and Genesis’ process in creating music. At the same time, his voice and point of view were so dominant, I missed hearing Lady Jaye’s perspective. In this sense, as dedicated a lover as Genesis appears, this ballad comes off one-sided.
In The Loving Story, we are witnesses to an important mark in U.S. history. Richard and Mildred Loving were a married inter-racial couple in the 1960s, a time when miscegenation was still illegal in 20 states. The film makes extensive use of archival footage to recount their fight to have their relationship recognized and accepted. Ultimately, by taking their case to the Supreme Court, in 1967, the Lovings helped to change the course of racial relations in this country, inching us closer to fairness and justice.
Another pioneer who chooses to take it to the legal courts - to fight for her right to play on a tennis court - is the subject of Renee. Born Richard Raskind in New York, 1934, and becoming Renee Richards in the 1970s, she moves to California to start life anew; but leaves behind an ex-wife and young son. While there, she makes waves as the newest tennis sensation to surface in women’s tennis. Rumors of her transsexual status create controversy and backlash, to the point of the U.S. Tennis Association banning her from entering the U.S. Open unless she can confirm her female status. Richards sues and wins her right to play in the tournament. As an amateur tennis player, I vaguely recall hearing of Richards as a teenager. Watching this doc helped to fill in some memory gaps, and added another layer of complexity to Richards, shown self-realized as a woman, but deeply guilty for abandoning her son, an adult struggling with addiction.
It’s been an impressive first week of movie-watching and I commend Tribeca for a great line-up. I caught up briefly with filmmaker Mona Nicoara, whose documentary about Roma schoolchildren, Our School, is making its debut here. I met Mona a year ago, as we were both fellows of IFP’s Documentary Rough Cut Labs. We had great chats about where we were both at with our projects, and met her production team, including her editor, the lovely Erin Casper (recipient of the first Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship). I know all screenings of Our School are currently sold out, but I’m still going to line-up in the RUSH queue and try to see this amazing project.
What would a movie filmed in Jersey over a period of 50 years be like? What if the camera operators were the people who live in the Island? If the stars were their families and friends? And if the setting was the living rooms, gardens, fields and beaches of Jersey?
We want to make this film installation, and we want to make it with you. If you have a stash of Super 8 footage, make it part of Super 8 Island – a film installation featuring footage of Jersey, shot by the people of Jersey.
Fritz Stolberg is an artist who works with found footage and archive material. He’ll be coming to Jersey to gather as much footage as possible and transform it into a film installation that documents Island life over the decades. He’ll be working with Bristol-based musicians This Is The Kit to create a soundtrack to the installation, and the whole thing will culminate in a special one-off event at Branchage Festival 2011. Or so is the aim!
What will the film installation be about? That all depends on your footage. It’s an exciting and unknown quantity and Fritz will use the footage itself to guide him.
Liberate the Super 8 memories in your attics and see them become part of a document of Jersey.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED:
If you have footage you’d like to share, however special or seemingly ordinary, please contact Sam Heinrichs on marketing@branchagefestival.com, or call the Branchage office on 020 7739 1074 and tell us a bit about it.
DEADLINE FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: WEDNESDAY 1ST JUNE 2011
(please ensure you contact us before this date so that we have enough time to make the magic happen!)
PLEASE NOTE: Fritz and the Branchage Team understand how special this personal footage is and will treat it with the utmost care, you won’t lose a frame.
Branchage went to the insanely enjoyable True/False Film Festivalin Missouri last week. We're extremely proud to be associated with this very special documentary festival, and we fell in love with the town of Columbia, MO. Here are some thoughts on some of the films we saw...
On the Saturday evening of the True/Falseweekend, the film festival hosted a gameshow called Gimme Truth. The panel of documentary filmmakers had to decide which of ten two-minute locally-made documentaries was 'true' and which was total fiction. Each film shown to panel and audience was either 100% factual or 100% made up. The panel struggled to correctly peg even half the films. The audience loved it.
It's no great shakes to point out that the tension between realness and fakeness was always going to be prominent at a festival called True/False, but T/F 2011 seemed to revel in paddling about in the murky waters of Documentary Truth. It's been forty-odd years since the heyday of the Maysles brothers, but there's often still a hankering after verite and a strange amount of stick thrown at docs that stray too far into artifice. (What bothered people more about CATFISH, for example - that the filmmakers were taking advantage of a vulnerable (and possibly ill) documentary subject, or that they were trying to take the savvy viewer for a ride?).
Gimme Truth gameshow
A panel event on 'hybrid documentaries' (so very) early on the Friday morning of the festival looked at reenactments, dramatisations and staged scenes, with four intimidatingly interesting panelists, and led us to check out Marcin Sauter's NORTH FROM CALABRIA.
This Polish imagining of a perfect rural village is filled with dozy eccentrics, agreeable visitors, strangely imaginative teens, a lot of pottering, a little sputtering, a significant amount of muttering, some indulgent friendships, some incomprehensible amateur dramatics, some inappropriate giggling and a tender selection of old love, new love, young not-really-love and unlikely courting... It's an absolute delight from start to finish. Marcin Sauter went off in search of the village he wanted to make a film about, and by taking 12 actors with him he created that village. His portrait of Chelmsko Slaskie gorgeously renders everything that is enigmatic, special and idiosyncratic about mundane life.
In a post-screening Q&A Sauter took pleasure in not revealing which of the villagers are his actors - they may have been brought in and given a brief, but their interactions are still real enough. (Sidenote: here's to Q&As with witty deadpan Polish directors speaking through cheery translators - as Sauter spoke you couldn't guess he was finishing with a joke until the brilliant translator laughed as she was about to say it. It was perfect).
Fellow panelist Clio Barnard's actors are as clear as Sauter's are obscured. Using actors to lip-sync to recorded interviews with the family and neighbours of the late playwright Andrea Dunbar has an extraordinary effect - distancing you from the characters in THE ARBORwhile simultaneously connecting you to them and their stories more intimately than you ever really feel with talking heads interviewees. There's something eerie about the disembodied voices emanating but not quite emanating from the characters you are watching, as they move like slow, ominous ghosts through the kitchens and bedrooms of the Buttershaw Estate where Dunbar lived her whole short life. The performances are just extraordinary, feeling so real even while you know they are not, as the cast act along to every stutter, sob, false start or mis-placed breath of the source interviews, and it all comes out in deliciously thick Bradford accents (that required subtitling for the American/international audience).
Added to this are blistering performances of Dunbar's plays (themselves autobiographical) staged with just some shabby furniture in the middle of the grassy quad of the Estate. The crowd gathered around to watch includes other actors from the film and a rabble of confused or intrigued local inhabitants. So many levels of truth, acting, and reality here.
In the panel discussion, Barnard mused that all documentary involves some level of artifice - some decision of the filmmaker, the cinematographer, the editor, that alters 'reality'. In THE ARBOR she is interested in exposing all of that artifice and flagging up the discrepancy between realness and what you can possibly portray in film. She does that here to stunning and moving effect. (Someone more pretentious might say it's Brechtian in its frame-breaking qualities. But not us, no...)
And then there was LA BOCCA DEL LUPO. At once a document of the love story of weather-beaten ex-convict Enzo and Mary, who waited patiently for him; and a sultry, evocative love-note to the weather-beaten city of Genoa through the ages. And it's also a rejoicing in the weirdness of people, with strange barmen performing an inscrutable dance to camera... Pietro Marcello's film is flagrant and beautiful in its constructedness, using reams of layered archive footage of Genoa, cut into lengthy shots of Enzo (both character and actor) wandering the cobbled streets, or hanging at his fruit stand. Marcello conjures a rich, poetic, scruffy kind of an Italian world, ancient but in flux. And then, all of a sudden, all that is replaced by the most extraordinary, long, fixed camera joint interview with Mary, who talks, and Enzo, who sulks indulgently. Marcello informed the audience after the screening, that's not an interview, it's a confession.
We heard that Oliver Laxe's YOU ARE ALL CAPTAINS is another film from T/F that would fit in with this lot, but there were only 4 days and 40-odd films to watch plus panels, parades and parties... so we've asked for a DVD and will post an appendix another time...
But the film that started the festival for us was Robert Greene's FAKE IT SO REAL, and although it doesn't use actors, or lip-synching, or wear its artifice on its sleeve, it depicts so tenderly the balancing of fake and real (specifically in American independent pro wrestling) that it nicely set the tone for a weekend of True/False-ness at True/False. And with audiences as astute and engaged as those at T/F the similarities between wrestling and documentary-making (shaping reality to make it entertaining? creating narrative to keep an audience hooked? developing characters that people will engage with? all while trying to seem 'real'?) won't have gone unnoticed.
FAKE IT SO REAL, though, following a week in the life of the director's cousin and his wrestling team, is captivating and charming, and with a cast of amazingly strange characters it doesn't need to do much faking.
What this trailer captures is the eccentricity, the posturing, the play acting and the real physical stresses and pains. What you'll have to wait for the film to appreciate is the love, the sense of community and camaraderie, the teasing, the efforts, the skill, the sense of a man finding something he's pretty good at when maybe he wasn't so good at too many other things... the sense of a man who's spent a lot of years not fitting in and searching for a place for himself finding it in communion with a group of other men who may be a bit like that too... And when it comes to the earnest rookie Gabriel, determined to fine tune his wrestling persona as a make-up wearing angel, you find yourself rooting for the most cringingly watchable underdog imaginable. When Gabe mentions that his ex-girlfriend has a restraining order against him, uncle-like fellow wrestler David whistles, 'oh, so you're that guy'.
Beautifully and intimately shot, and tightly edited with an eye for humour, gentle mocking, and the sweetness of storytelling, FAKE IT SO REAL is a nugget of joy.
It's painfully trite to say, but FAKE IT SO REAL kicked off our True/False weekend with a reminder that the faking of it can add to the real of it, the False of it adds to the True of it, and it's all the other stuff - the heart of it - that makes the difference.
March March: Rain couldn't rain on T/F's parade
No room here to write about how mentally brilliant all of the rest of the festival was, but just enough space to cram in a shout out for all of the people who run True/False and who make it so pleasurable and easy to enjoy - you'll spot them at 10am creeping around behind panelists adjusting microphones, peddling back and forth across town on their push bikes all day, charming their guests over nibbles in the evening, and wiggling on the dance floor at 4am. Every day of the festival. Always grinning.
Roger Allam has just won the Olivier Award for best actor for his role as Falstaff at the Globe.
Allam with his gong, and another person
Anyone at the Opening Night screening of 2010's Branchage festival will know the award was well deserved, as Roger treated the audience in Jersey's Opera House to an impromptu delivery of Falstaff's famous monologue. He got a thunderous standing ovation... and even more impressively it earned him a steak at the Royal Yacht afterwards from a Branchage-Team-in-awe.
Allam as Falstaff at the Globe
Roger had flown to Jersey directly from a matinee performance at the Globe last September, as we were opening the festival with a screening of TAMARA DREWE, in which he starred.
Congratulations to him. Congratulations to one and all.
Just a couple of weeks to go until this year's Birds Eye View Film Festival, 8th to 17th March. So much going on at the festival - with fiction features, docs, shorts, fashion films, restrospectives, music vids and training events - that we've done a little pre-digesting for the Branchage Blogage. Just picking out some of the little gems we're looking forward to....
Starting off with DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDEon Friday 11th March - Birds Eye View have commissioned the wonderful Blue Roses (aka Laura Groves) to write a soundtrack to John S Robertson's 1920 version of the famous Jekyll and Hyde story. This film is just everything that was utterly brilliant about the very early horror movies, tremendously and freakily acted by John Barrymore. We can't wait to see it on the big screen with Blue Roses' live score. Here's her myspace to get a feel for her brilliance.
Brilliant range of documentaries showing as well, and we're looking forward to catching these three in particular: SELF MADE- Turner Prizewinner Gillian Wearing's debut feature follows members of the public using Method acting to access personal memories and experience. It's been called 'startlingly original' and was the talk of the town at London Film Festival.
BEV have also managed to score a special preview screening of the new doc by Oscar-nominee Lucy Walker (nominated for WASTE LAND, which is out in the UK this week). New film COUNTDOWN TO ZERO (at BEV on Weds 16th March) is an investigation into nuclear arms - the history, the politics and the risks. The screening is followed by a masterclass with Lucy Walker.
And then there'sGUILTY PLEASURES- bit lighter maybe, but we can't wait for this UK doc all about Mills & Boon readers around the world. And they said romance was dead!
Great fiction features too of course - we'll definitely be watching Susanne Bier's IN A BETTER WORLD, Kelly Reichardt's MEEK'S CUTOFFand Lena Dunham's TINY FURNITURE, but also looking forward to the UK Premiere of NIGHT CATCHES US, starring Anthony Mackie, on Weds 9th March. 'Searing' is a word that's being used a lot to describe this drama about the legacy of Philadelphia's Black Panther movement. And a 'pounding' new score by The Roots. Watch the trailer, just watch this trailer. Great, huh?
Deep breath - there's also... Bloody Women, their season of horror films including seminal silents by women pioneering the genre, recent classic horror movies made by women, and a panel discussion on women's role in the genre. It's going to be HORRIFIC.
We've spent the last happy hour wallowing around the excellent programme for YARNfest 2011 coming up in mid-February and it looks like it's going to top last year's brilliant debut festival. So much good stuff. If we ever diarised anything, we would undoubtedly diarise this...
YARN celebrates storytelling - through film, theatre, music, illustration and literature. That means you get a company of actors improvising randomly-selected films, you get live illustration to spoken word, you get a crash course in making your own zine. YARN somehow manages to feel totally grounded and unpretentious and just filled up with really interesting, unusual, creative and fun events.
Here's the top three events that have really piqued our interest (but all the rest looks ace too, honest!)
Lights! Camera! Improvise! The Improvised Movie Live On Stage
Sunday 20th Feb 5pm-6pm // The Book Club // £3
The audience suggest a genre, location, theme and title. The company improvise the whole movie; complete with action sequences, captivating plot and a thrilling live film score. There's even DVD extras. www.thescatpack.co.uk
Illustrationarium – LIVE!
Sunday 20th Feb 6.30pm-8.30pm // The Book Club // £3
Hear the words and see the story illustrated live.Authors, storytellers and illustrators, include Chris Cleave, Helen Smith, Rachel Rose Reid, Neil McFarland, Carlos Garde-Martin, and, Luke Waller.
And this one, oh my, this is a sure sell out right?
Cover Wars – The Buddha of Suburbia
Monday 21st Feb 7.30pm-10pm // The Queen of Hoxton // £5
Four illustrators representing illustration networks across London will pit their pens, pencils, brushes and glue against each other in a battle to create the best book cover for Hanif Kureishi’s ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ live on the night. Hanif Kureishi will read excerpts on the night as well join Jon Gray of Gray318 on the judging panel.
Henry Cavill has been cast as Superman for the new installment of the superhero saga scheduled for release late 2012.
Did you know Henry Cavill is from Jersey? Which explains why he has such super qualities, like being really good at acting, and the whole being able to fly thing. Those are the two main reasons he got the role.
It's all to do with drinking milk from Jersey cows.
Being cast as Superman means Henry Cavill's career will soar to great heights, and we think he's brill and thoroughly deserving. There will be a lot of school friends, family and neighbours in Jersey waiting with excitement to see Henry in his tights and cape. Exciting times!
Last Wednesday night Branchage took over the beautiful Shoreditch Church for the matrimonial ceremony to end all matrimonial ceremonies.
Musical interlude: vocal group the Barefoot Howlers
The event, 'Branchage Proposes Marriage', celebrated the rituals and traditions of marriage across the world and the ages, with a glorious selection of black&white cinema, live piano scoring, groups of musicians, wandering performers, and rare Balkan wedding vinyl playing.
The String Quartet: Rhosyn
The congregation
A week on, the honeymoon is over, but the blushing bride is still basking in the memory of her Big Day.
Thanks to all the performers, set-builders, artists, technicians and friends who participated in our nuptials.
We are saddened to hear the tragic news that Trish Keenan, lead singer of Birmingham electro-pop group Broadcast, died yesterday morning.
The BBC reports she died of pneumonia as a result of contracting swine flu during the group's pre-christmas tour.
We met Trish and her partner James Cargill in 2008 when they came to Jersey to perform at Branchage as part of a night of artists represented by Warp Records. Warp have released a statement saying 'This is an untimely, tragic loss and we will miss Trish dearly - a unique voice, an extraordinary talent and a beautiful human being. Rest in peace.'
Today, a guest blog post from Assistant Extraordinaire Sam Taylor, pondering how he found his way to the Branchage... (and we're gosh darn glad he did).
Hi there! For me, that is Sam Taylor, Branchage was an event I was clueless about until 2 years ago. What brought on this drastic change you say? Whilst doing an AS in media studies, my teacher asked me if I’d like to represent Branchage for the school, Victoria College, a job which I can honestly say I was abysmal at, was it nerves? Who knows, at the time it was quite a daunting prospect, and juggled with the ‘responsibilities’ of a budding six former probably not the most mature decision to have made. Thankfully, despite that blunder, I have now been helping out wherever I can for two consecutive festivals.
It may not sound much at first to be running odd-jobs here and there, but regardless of said impression I was actually dead chuffed to be part of the events, making sure that tickets were delivered (relatively) on time, and that everyone was in the mood for a good time!
Hopefully I helped out at the festivals, I definitely know I had a blast; and as a result opted to help Xanthe (as best I could) with the opening of her current event in Jersey ‘Whatever Else Remains’, an art exhibition that promises to be equally as incredible for any buyers as it is for the hyper-active 18 year old, thrilled that he’s got the chance to be close to so much art (that’s me, by the way.)
Personally my favourite pieces that are being exhibited are from the street-art spectrum of sales, whereas the Hirst’s and Emin’s are, I find, just dead boring; I mean how clueless do you have to be to think that four differently coloured spots are worth thousands?! Maybe I have no taste...
At the Roundhouse, London, SUNDAY 19th DECEMBER 2010.
Watching Nikolaus Geyrhalter's mesmerising documentary Our Daily Bread is more like gradually tracking through a series of stunning photographs, each one a tableau of modern industrial food production in some form. From soulless production lines to doomed animals it's a slow and meditative journey through this massive, surreal and disturbing industry. Beautiful, eerie, at times witty, often unpleasant, there are some humans dotted throughout the mechanised landscape, but interaction is limited in this nearly wordless hygienic world.
The Studio Theatre at the Roundhouse, Camden, consistently puts on brilliant, one-off, very special Special Events, we like this, and we like the fact that on Sunday 19th December they're putting on Pevin Kinel's inspired live score to the Our Daily Bread. Also what's nice is that it's in association with Branchage and the utterly excellent film and music websiteThe Quietus.
Branchage commissioned this soundtrack for our 2010 festival, and as it was only on once, in Jersey, and in a barn on an organic farm, there are lots of people out there who won't have had the chance to see it. Now is your time.
We're very proud to be associated with this event.
You can read more and buy tickets on the Roundhouse websiteor join the facebook event and share it with your pals.
Branchage is a lively boutique film festival on the island of Jersey, dotted in the waves of the English Channel.
Annually, Branchage hosts an array of diverse and raucously entertaining films, dazzling special events, talks, exhibitions, training and education.
The festival gathers films by some of the worlds most talented directors and hunts out the freshest new talent to bring a selection of now and then, long and short, true and false.
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