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>Festival report by Ron Holloway

>Festival report by Jim Wall, honorary member of INTERFILM (© The Christian Century)

Through the image and beyond
Festival report by Heike Kühn

During the first days of the 31. edition of the Festival des Films du Monde, one could have the impression that the rumours about an ongoing loss of quality were true. In the passing years, many film critics favoured the Film Festival of Toronto. But within this September Montreals program developed surprisingly and offered a little sensation. As well in the two main programs of the international competition, one reserved for film debuts, as in the thoughtfully investigated section “Focus on World Cinema”, one could explore rich and beautiful films. I have to admit that most of them were not found in the international competition, which suffered from a lack of aesthetic knowledge. DP75 Tartina City, for example, a contribution directed by Issa Serge Coelo from Chad (2006, winner of the festival's Innovation Award), combines a devastating story of systematically torture with a parable of the eternal return of immortal despots. Politically engaged, the film hesitates to translate its embarrassment into a language of images which reaches beyond the status of information.

A gripping vision of an ethical admonition, interwoven with a provocative film aesthetic, Ben X, the Flemish contribution of the international competition, won the prize of the Ecumenical Jury as well as the Grand Prix of America and the Most Popular Film award.

Director Nic Balthazar uses patterns of a critical view towards society and media, as we have seen them in other movies dealing with pestered juveniles, just to thwart these well known motifs in the end. Starting like the drama of the gifted, autistic child, which is driven into death by rudeness and prejudice Ben X develops a refreshingly unorthodox revenge-satire. 17-year-old-protagonist Ben is the hero of a computer game, killing monstrous creatures on the highest level. In real life the boy suffers from a condition of hyper sensitivity, leading his perception to constant implosions. From his point of view, every detail is blown up to the size of a wholesome universe; every little task is a gigantic challenge. Whereas the simple minds that make Bens life a misery, search for originality in looking alike, Ben is strikingly different: His playful reception of the world opens windows into a widened reality where he can talk fluently with fictive persons, such as the heroine of his beloved computer game. The heroine is the virtual character of a girl, which in real life is as shy as Ben. They agree to meet but fail, because Bens worst enemies make him come late. Ben compensates his disappointment by creating a ghostly companion: Visible only for him, the apparition of the girl accompanies him and suggests committing suicide.

“One has to die first”, says Bens mother, bursting into tears in front of a TV-camera.  This sentence is more enigmatical than we think. Indeed, it is a triumph of phantasy.

If only the sacrifice of the innocent moves the TV-cameras, why not fake it? After arranging his suicide, seemingly “proven” by his own video-camera, Ben appears safe and sound in a church to bring a little life into his burial. His resurrection blames the media that denied to report about the daily war at school, but is willing to capture every single tear of his devastated family. His revenge is completed by an accidentally taken mobile-picture of his humiliation in front of a yelling class, not focussing on his bitter role, but on the delighted faces of his torturers and the cheering crowd. The imagery strikes back and claims an alternative power. The Passion of Christ needs no repetition; one crucifixion is enough to save us from our sins. The scapegoats of today, states this cunning movie, shall not die, but rehearse their death as part of a cinema strategy. No use of killing, if a picture brings us back to life.

A worldly life? A spiritual life? Ben X is a fascinating example for my personally preferred film-theory: A movie with a strong and unique aesthetic is a good candidate for discussions about more or less hidden religious impacts. Why so? Maybe because digging deep into the parameters of aesthetics reveals the roots of humanism – and its blossoms, reaching for the sky. I can imagine, that Ben X is a perfect choice for one of the next "Talk Faith, Talk Film" seminars, “which were begun by, and have continued under the direction of Interfilm, North America” as James M. Wall, senior contributing editor of Christian Century magazine, located in Chicago, Illinois, USA, wrote. And he continued: “From the beginning the seminars have involved support, as well, from the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Under the leadership of the Rev. Andrew Johnston, now the pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, and formerly pastor of the Briarwood Presbyterian Church, in Montreal, Talk Faith, Talk Film, has energized and informed film viewers since its first sessions in 1997.”

Referring to the work of Susanne Langer, the art philosopher, Jim Wall suggests a way of decoding images, which, by the way, should be also the utmost concern of every film critic who deserves the privilege to write.  “The methodology appears simple enough, but most viewers fail to make the distinction, remaining largely fixed on the film’s ‘aboutness’, rather than remaining open to its ‘isness’. Sadly, this is also how many religious people also view faith and doctrine, fixing on the surface data rather than its deeper significance.”

The participants of this year seminar, held during Montreal World Film Festival, invited the members of the ecumenical jury. We were asked a complicated question: What do we expect from the movies? My colleagues, Alyda Faber, Scott Malkemus, Guy Marchessault and Roman Maurer, found these crucial keywords: Transparency and Translucency. An open minded view, which neither underestimates our imagination nor our sensitivity. A vision of mankind and world, which is universal, but neither predictable nor dogmatic. As for me, I believe in metaphors. Such as in Edward Yang's film Yi Yi (A one and a two, Taiwan/Japan 1999), telling the story of a disconnected family - the latest masterwork of the director who died in June 2007. The grandmother is the only person caring for the litter of the family, literally and symbolically. One day, she has a heart attack and is found lying next to the litter box. She goes into a coma and a doctor recommends speaking with her, luring her back to life by thrilling narrations. Her little grandson is too scared to do so. To console and distract him, he is given a photo camera. He starts photographing mosquitoes, which no one appreciates. A heartless teacher mocks about him.” There is nothing to see,” the teacher howls with laughter. “You need to look better,” the boy replies and is punished instantly. Nevertheless, he is not giving up the idea that some things are just invisible for the unsophisticated viewer. Claiming you don’t see a thing does not necessarily imply that things do not exist. Obviously, touching the sphere of religion and philosophy within the frame of childlike perception, the film confronts us with our limited and narrow perspective of the invisible and visible world. With the help of a little boy and a great filmmaker we are challenged in our stubborn belief of reality as one-way street. The next project of the boy is to photograph the back of the head of people. Interrogated by his uncle why he would do so, the boy states: “You cannot see yourself from the back.” I wonder if a philosopher could have expressed it any better. We have no idea of our appearance in the world: we neither see our backsides nor what is behind the mask people wear in order to protect themselves. A mirror is an imposturous friend, betraying us at the core of our self-understanding. A cinematographic image, referring to a sublime aesthetic, emphasizing the intense self-interrogating process of filmmaking, is a window to the world, enlightening foreign visions of life as well as the routine in which we might be stuck.

Yet, not in Montreal 2007. Experiencing the humour, passion and profound knowledge of my colleagues, routine was a stranger to us. And, we were lucky enough to see amazing films.

If Ai Quing De Ya Chi (Teeth of love, 2006) by Chinese director Zhuang Yuxin would have been shown into competition, it could have been >Ben X< greatest rival. It is almost unbelievable that this elegant piece of work is a debut.  “The teeth of love” leave their traces on the body of a beautiful woman, acting representative for so many supporters of the communist party who never doubted the almighty rules of a regime, defeating the smallest sign of individuality or personal pleasure. Starting 1977 as a role model for and cruelty against the weak and the spoiled, (we might say: the sensitive ones), the female protagonist, has to discover that love is not a party member. Violent against her own feelings as well as towards the beloved enemy, a handsome young poet, her self-abnegation is literally painful: A chain reaction of physical injuries and invisible wounds, which will never heal, marks for ten years the way of the red fundamentalist – unless she realizes that the communist credo of discipline, restricting emotions and sexuality, fights life itself. From the beginning of her medicine studies to her work as a doctor, her failing love-stories are part of a bigger frame: The private moments of a forbidden love with a married and highly ranked party member, an abortion that is detected, and the punishment of “re-education” in a factory (of course only for her), symbolize the agony of a whole decade. It’s the killing of the inner voice and the cut trough the roots of humanity that interests the filmmaker: Reflecting utter subordination and embodied self-deception, he subscribes what made the disaster of the Tiananmen Square possible.

31st Montreal World Film Festival
Report by Ron Holloway, Berlin, 15 September 2007

Nic Balthazar’s Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands) was the clear winner at the 31st Montreal World Film Festival (23 August to 3 September 2007). Besides sharing the Grand Prize of the Americas with Claude Miller’s Un secret (France), it received the Ecumenical Prize and was voted the Audience Award. Not bad for a critic-turned-director making his debut feature. The story of a mildly autistic lad who is constantly put upon by a couple bullies at a technical school, the youth retreats into his own world and finds some refuge in video games on his computer. Before writing and directing this screen version of his own bestselling novel, penned to increase literacy among Belgian youths, Nic Balthazar had also developed Ben X into a successful play.

 Another audience favorite was awarded the runnerup Special Jury Grand Prize. In Ayelet Menahemi’s Noodle (Israel) a six-year-old Chinese boy gets left behind when his mother, an illegal alien, gets picked up on the street and deported. Left holding the bag is a middle-aged, twice-widowed El Al flight attendant, who had employed the boy’s mother as her cleaning woman. Feeling guilty, the moreso because she is without a child of her own, the woman’s concern leads to a highly improbable but effective solution. To return the boy to his mother, she packs him secretly into her own onboard baggage on a flight to the Far East!

 Family tales, mostly on the morbid side, were also featured attractions in the competition. In Latif Lahlou’s written-and-directed Samir fi adayaa (Samira’s Garden) (Morocco), a woman in the prime of life is burdened with an impotent husband. Her sexual desires and forced isolation lead to an affair with the nephew of her husband, a young virile male who has been placed in her care as governess. When the relationship is discovered, the woman finds herself more isolated than before. Although for my taste more a critique of Arabic Muslim customs than a refined work of cinematic art, Samira’s Garden was awarded Best Screenplay and the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize.

 In Émile Gaudreault’s self-styled comedy, Comment survivre à ma mère (Surviving My Mother) (Canada), a negligent mother, who has just gotten rid of her own ailing mother, decides it’s time to get to know her 21-year-old daughter better. But the more she digs into her daughter’s life, the more her own world gets turned upside down. For who would have guessed that the nympho web-cruising daughter is carrying on a torrid affair with the local priest! Surviving My Mother was voted the Most Popular Canadian Film by the audience.

 In Jacob Berger’s 1 Journée (1 Day) (Switzerland) we follow events as seen by individual members of a family – father, mother, young son – throughout the course of a single day. And as fate would have it, each person in the film views events differently and in such a way that the audience too gets drawn into the reflective process. The husband-father believes he might have run someone over while driving in a morning rain. The wife-mother discovers that she has been betrayed by her husband in the course of the afternoon. Later in the day, the 8-year-old son forms a warming relationship with the young girl in the neighboring apartment, whose mother in turn has been visited that morning by his father. Although the point of 1 Day is never quite clear, the overlaps do indeed intrigue. Jacob Berger, who collaborated on the screenplay,  was awarded Best Director.

 And in Volker Einrauch’s Der andere Junge (The Other Boy) (Germany) two neighboring Hamburg couples, the best of friends, don’t realize that their adolescent sons are anything but that. When one is driven by the sadistic behavior of the other to kill his tormentor in blind rage, his parents are drawn into the tragic affair. Andrea Sawatzki, in the role of the afflicted and helpless mother trying to cover up the crime, was deservedly awarded Best Actress. Volker Einrauch is a cult director to keep an eye on. With a dozen feature films to his credit, made mostly for television, the unexpected twists and turns in his crime-oriented tales is what make them both amusing and engrossing in a Raymond Chandler vein. The Other Boy, directed as usual in close collaboration with screenwriter Lothar Kurzawa, is a crime tale that doesn’t let the cat out of the bag until the last scene.

 Hollywood actor Jon Voigt was honored with a special award for “exceptional contribution to cinematographic art.” Although Voigt well deserved his award, it was arguably for the wrong film in his distinguished career. For he was honored in conjunction with what was termed a “Mormonsploitation” film, Christopher Cain’s September Dawn. Indeed, the film’s release sparked controversy across the breadth of North America. In this fumbling historic epic cum romantic drama, Voigt plays a Mormon fanatic who triggered the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah in 1857, in which around 120 men, women, and children in an Arkansas wagon train on its way to California lost their lives. That the tragedy happened on 11 September 1857, exactly 150 years before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, is somewhat beside the point. The big question was why September Dawn had to wait 20 months before its official release on August 24, the opening day of the Montreal World Film Festival.

 Back on 22 January 2006, John Anderson of the New York Times penned a thumbnail sketch of September Dawn from a Los Angeles editing room, predicting that “there will be fresh debate when it finally reaches the public” – meaning that the Church of Latter Day Saints may have to dust off its historical records. The debate began when September Dawn opened the FFM and promptly went into release. The cascade of pro and contra reviews (mostly contra) were so plentiful that Wikipedia opened an individual website on the film, listing 35 nation-wide commentaries (at this writing) on both the production and the historical event that triggered it. In the meanwhile, the Mormon Church has taken pains to memorialize the victims of the tragedy. LDS historians, too, are collaborating on a book about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to be published shortly by the Oxford University Press. It will cover the role that Bishop John D. Lee played in perpetrating the crime, for which he was tried and executed 20 years after the fact. Mormon Bishop Jacob Samuelson, Jon Voigt’s fictional character in the film, is based on the real-life John D. Lee.

 When I asked festival director Serge Losique whether he had anticipated the uproar over the film, he responded that “film festivals are there to promote dialogue, not to boycott the art of the cinema.” Further, Losique underscored how Montreal audiences still remember Jon Voigt’s stellar appearances in John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Hal Ashby’s Coming Home (1978). In fact, during the press conference for September Dawn. Voigt was asked by a fan when he would shoot another film with Dustin Hoffman like Midnight Cowboy. Queried about his own view on September Dawn, Jon Voigt summarized the film’s message as “courageous and universal – it tackles the problem of intolerance in our society.”

 Another FFM tribute honored French actress Sophie Marceau. Her presence – along with that of French directors Claude Lelouch and Claude Miller – can be reckoned a windfall for the Montreal festival. A quarter-century ago, Sophie Marceau, the attractive daughter of a French truckdriver, took the nation by storm when, at the tender age of 14, she appeared in Claude Pinoteau’s La Boum (The Party) (1980). Since then, Marceau has starred in over 30 films and was once tapped to serve as the figurative model for the French national emblem. The FFM tribute also honored Sophie Marceau as a film director. Directed, partially written, and starring Sophie Marceau, La disparue de Deauville (Trivial) (France, 2007), a thriller set in a luxury hotel in Deauville, marks her second try at directing a film. She plays a double role in this caper about a hotel owner who has mysteriously disappeared.

 As warming as the reception for Sophie Marceau and her actor husband Christophe Lambert was, nothing in the course of the festival matched the standing ovation given to Claude Lelouch. The occasion was the Montreal premiere of his Roman de Gare (Crossing Tracks), starring Fanny Ardant as a wily pulp mystery writer who schemes to get rid of her discontented ghost-writer before he spills the beans. As for Claude Miller’s presence at the FFM, he walked away on closing night with a share of the Grand Prize of the Americas for a film that he had just introduced as an official entry in the competition. Un Secret, a Shoah tale set during and after the Second World War, delves into a family secret that gradually unravels to reveal adultery and a subsequent cover-up.

 The FFM tribute to Fernand Dansereau marked the second occasion this year that the veteran Canadian filmmaker has been honored by his peers. Previously awarded the prestigious Prix de Québec, Fernand Dansereau was one of the pioneers of the “direct cinema” documentary movement at the National Film Board of Canada. His credits stretch over 50 films in 50 years in the multiple capacity of director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and production manager. The Montreal festival honored Dansereau as a feature film director with a screening of La brunante (Twilight), the fiction story of a woman in her seventies who decides to commit suicide before burdening her children with an oncoming Alzheimer affliction. But before departing this world, Madeleine – played with tact and insight by Monique Mercure, the grande dame of Québecoise cinema – revisits favorite places of her youth on the Gaspé peninsula, together with a young woman who is also facing a similar life crisis. Twilight was a festival highlight.

 The fourth FFM tribute was awarded to Spanish producer Andrés Vicente Gómez. Herein lies a story. The tale of a festival war that badly crippled the FFM – until just recently, when Vicente Gómez was elected president of the influential International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF). Of course, the primary reason why Andrés Vicente Gómez was present in Montreal was to honor his exceptional contribution to cinematographic art. At Serge Losique’s request, he presented four memorable films from his producer’s portfolio: Carlos Saura’s Oh, Carmela! (1990), Fernando Truéba’s Belle Époque (1992), Álex de Iglesia’s El día de las bestia (The Day of the Beast) (1995), Santiago Segura’ Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley (Torrente, the Silly Arm of the Law) (1998).

 He crowned this with one of the key films in the competition: Ray Loriga’s Teresa: el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa: The Body of Christ) (Spain, 2006), awarded the Prize for Best Artistic Contribution at Montreal. Indeed, Teresa: The Body of Christ, the story of St. Teresa of Avila, is a role cut to the intellectual talents of actress Paz Vega. Under Ray Loriga’s direction, the saint is depicted not only as a remarkable woman who founded the Discalced Carmelite Order to offset the excesses of a corrupt 16th-century Spain. Further, her mystic writings set her apart as a forerunner in Spanish lyric poetry.

 This said, the films produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez obviously helped the festival enormously. But the Spanish producer was also present at Montreal in a manifest show of FIAPF support for Serge Losique. Back in 2003, Montreal had unfortunately been stripped of its A-festival recognition by Bertrand Mollier, at that time FIAPF’s contentious Director General, who has since left the organization. Montreal fought back, and won, what was termed in some circles as a festival war. That is, if a witless rhubarb was over the question of convenient festival dates can be called a war.

 The rhubarb began when the Venice festival under director Moritz de Hadeln favored dates that would cover the first week of September. Dates, however, that the Montreal festival had occupied for the past quarter century. At the same time, the Toronto festival under Piers Handling favored earlier dates in September to avoid conflict with those of the New York Film Festival, at that time scheduled in mid-September. Although a Toronto overlap with Montreal was theoretically possible, it was not at all probable. But Toronto had a wild card in the deck. If Montreal could be nudged aside, then Telefilm Canada might support Toronto’s growing film market with extra funding. As a lucrative umbrella organization, Telefilm supports Canadian film festivals with subtitling, booking costs, guest appearances, and related marketing patronage.

 Montreal, by contrast, had regularly booked its dates with an eye on Labor Day – a Canadian as well as American holiday – as the festival’s closing night. Furthermore, since Montreal dovetailed with the Telluride Film Festival in the Colorado Rockies by sharing the same Labor Day weekend, films and directors were easily interchangeable, to say nothing of sharing print and travel costs. The fly in the ointment was the ever changing dates of the Montreal festival. Since Labor Day always fell on the first Monday of September, the Montreal dates consequently shifted back and forth in the month of August and regularly overlapped with those of Venice. And so the festival war came to pass.

 In 2003, during the Cannes film festival, Moritz de Hadeln complained to FIAPF that Montreal was trespassing on calendar dates reserved to Venice. He argued that the Montreal dates of that year, scheduled from August 27 to September 7, usurped those of Venice, scheduled from August 28 to September 8. What de Hadeln forgot to mention was that Venice was traditionally recognized as a “September festival” – just as Cannes was down in the FIAPF books as a customary “May festival.” To muddy the waters even more, de Hadeln argued that since both Venice and Montreal were listed on the official festival calendar as “Competitive Feature Film Festivals” (aka “A-Category Competition Festivals”), the question was whether or not Serge Losique could arbitrarily “manipulate” his festival dates without receiving the permission of FIAPF.

 The upshot? Moritz de Hadeln caught the ear of Bertrand Mollier, FIAPF’s newly appointed Secretary General. And Mollier responded by casting his lot with Venice. Mollier not only honored Venice’s protest, but he also went so far as to cancel Montreal’s membership in FIAPF. The FIAPF decision had repercussions in Canada. Telefilm Canada canceled its monetary support of the Montreal World Film Festival. The blow hit hard. For the next three festivals, the FFM had to limp along on its own, relying primarily on a faithful audience and some funding from Montreal and Quebec film officials.

 In 2005, however, the situation went from bad to worse. That’s when Moritz de Hadeln was ousted as Venice festival director, only to accept a nebulous offer from an entertainment conglomerate to found and organize a brand new Montreal International Film Festival. Now, with two film festivals in Montreal – the FFM in August-September and the MIFF in mid-October – the home audience had to decide between the two at the ticket office. The FFM thrived. The MIFF turned out to be a bust. Not only did the Montreal audience remain faithful to the FFM, but key representatives of national film offices the world over also remained loyal to Serge Losique.

 Last year, for the FFM’s 30th anniversary, funding from both Montreal and Quebec coffers increased. Although not enough to celebrate an anniversary in style. This year, according to Danièle Cauchard, FFM’s vice-president and programming director, the festival was nearly back on course with more local, national, and international support. The FIAPF stamp of approval came when Andrés Vicente Gómez embraced Serge Losique on national television at the opening night gala. Danièle Cauchard crowned this occasion at the festival press conference with a blistering attack on Telefilm Canada for still withholding needed funding support. Her blast drew spontaneous applause from critics and media professionals.

 This contretemps forced Telefilm Canada to issue the following news release: “Telefilm Canada is pleased to have recently provided financing for subtitling at the World Film Festival, in order to allow Quebec audiences to have access to films in both official languages. It is regrettable that during the opening of an international event, a festival director would choose to make unfortunate comments; the focus should instead be on celebrating cinema. Since April 2007, Telefilm has been working closely with the FFM to conclude a viable agreement regarding its funding for 2007-2008.”

Awards

Feature Films
Grand Prize of the Americas (ex-aequo)
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Un Secret (A Secret) (France), dir Claude Miller
Special Jury Grand Prize
Noodle (Israel), dir Ayelet Menahemi
Best Director
1 Journée (1 Day) (Switzerland), dir Jacob Berger
Best Artistic Contribution
Teresa: el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa: The Body of Christ) (Spain), dir Ray Loriga
Best Actress
Andrea Sawaktzki, Der andere Junge (The Other Boy) (Germany), dir Volker Einrauch
Best Actor (ex-aequo)
Filipe Duarte and Tomás Almeida, A outra margem (The Other Side) (Portugal/Brazil), dir Luís Filipe Rocha
Best Screenplay
Latif Lahlou, Samira fi adayaa (Samira’s Garden) (Morocco), dir Latif Lahlou
Innovation Award
D75-Tartina City (Chad/France/Morocco), dir Issa Serge Coelo

Short Films
1st Prize
Songes d’une femme de ménage (Cleaning Lady’s Dreams) (Belgium), dir Banu Akseki
Jury Award
L.H.O. (Germany), dir Jan Zabeil

Zenith Awards – First Films World Competition
Golden Zenith
La caja (The Wooden Box) (Spain), dir Juan Carlos Falcón
Silver Zenith
Malos habitos (Bad Habits) (Mexico), dir Simon Bross
Bronze Zenith
Dong sun (Bamboo Shoots) (China), dir Jian Yi
Special Mention
Chelovek-veter (Wind-Man) (Russia), dir Khuat Akhmetov

Other Awards
Audience Award – Most Popular Film of Festival
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Audience Award – Most Popular Canadian Film
Comment survivre à ma mère (Surviving My Mother), dir Émile Gaudreault
Glauber Rocha Award – Best Latin American Film
Partes Usadas (Used Parts) (Mexico), dir Aarón Fernandez
Best Documentary Film
Nach der Musik (A Father’s Music) (Germany), dir Igor Heitzmann
Best Canadian Short Film
La Lili à Gilles (Gilles’ Lili), dir David Uloth

FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Prize
Feature film
Samira fi adayaa (Samira’s Garden) (Morocco), dir Latif Lahlou
Short film
Bonne nuit Malik (Good Night Malik) (France), dir Bruno Danan

Ecumenical Prize
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar

Special Awards – Exceptional Contribution to Cinematographic Art
Fernand Dansereau (Canada), director, producer, writer, editor, cinematographer
Andrés Vicente Gómez (Spain), producer, writer
Sophie Marceau (France), actress, director
Jon Voigt (USA), actor