The winning films of the 33rd International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced Friday evening (30 January) at a glittering ceremony in festival hub De Doelen. The festival's trademark VPRO Tiger Awards for a first or second feature were presented to: Lee Kang-Sheng's The Missing (Bu Jian); Sredjan Vuletic's Hubert Bals Fund-supported Summer in the Golden Valley (Ljeto u Zlatnoj) and Jan Krüger's En Route (Unterwegs).

But these are not the only awards presented at Rotterdam, of course.

The FIPRESCI (international film critics) Award goes to Yutaka Tsuchiya for Peep "TV" Show.

The jury from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) gave its award for best Asian feature shown at the festival to The Missing, and a special mention to Diao Yinan's Uniform (Zhifu).

The Dutch film critics who make up the KNF jury also granted their award to The Missing, with a special mention going to Jang Jun-Hwan's thought-provoking sci-fi adventure Save the Green Planet.

Two further awards had already been announced, namely the Amnesty International-DOEN Award (given to a film that tackles human rights and human dignity issues), which went to Last Train (Posledny Poezd) by Alexei German, with a special mention also going to Uniform.

The young members of the MovieZone Jury also chose Summer in the Golden Valley as their festival favourite.

Following the announcement of the awards, a tribute was paid to departing festival director Simon Field by the municipality of Rotterdam in the form of the 'Wolfert van Borselen' medal, for his passionate commitment to the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Several of Simon's favourite filmmakers from around the world, including Kitano Takeshi, Catherine Breillat and Abolfazl Jalili, then presented a series of short cinematic 'homages', in keeping with the eclectic, pioneering spirit he has helped engender and for which Rotterdam is justly famous.

The winner of the KPN Audience Award will be made known tomorrow night before the screening of the closing film of this year's festival, Peter Webber's academy award-nominated Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Apartheid in spotlight at Berlin Festival
GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press

BERLIN - This year's Berlin International Film Festival features competing movies from 18 countries, and stays true to its political edge with a spotlight on South Africa's recovery from apartheid and inequality in Latin America.

The 26-film official program, announced Monday, begins Feb. 5 with "Cold Mountain," Anthony Minghella's American Civil War saga which earned Renee Zellweger a Golden Globe Award Sunday night for best supporting actress.

It's part of a U.S. contingent that also features Patty Jenkins' "Monster," starring Golden Globe winner Charlize Theron; Richard Linklater's "Before Sunset," the sequel to his 1995 film starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy; and Ron Howard's "The Missing."

Other competition entries at the "Berlinale" come from countries ranging from South Korea to Croatia.

"We have tried to bring world cinema to the `Berlinale' but at the same time to set out the themes of South Africa and Latin America," festival director Dieter Kosslick told reporters.

"As long as I am director, the Berlinale will always be in some way political, because I'm working in the tradition of the festival."

Representing the South African theme in the main competition, a decade after the end of apartheid, is "Country of My Skull," director John Boorman's look at the country's national reconciliation efforts, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche.

From Latin America - where the entries focus on poverty and inequality - come "El abrazo partido" ("Lost Embrace") from Argentine director Daniel Burman; and "Maria Full of Grace," writer-director Joshua Marston's tale of a young Colombian woman in peril after she becomes a "mule" running heroin to the United States.

Argentine director Fernando Solanas, whose film "Sur" earned him the best director prize at Cannes in 1998, will receive an honorary Golden Bear for his life's work.

The Berlinale will screen a total of 394 movies across various categories. The event, which ends Feb. 15 with the award of the top Golden Bear prize, traditionally opens the annual cycle of European film festivals.

Among the stars expected this year are Jack Nicholson with the romantic comedy "Something's Gotta Give"; Nick Nolte, who appears alongside Tim Roth and Damien Nguyen in Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's "Beautiful Country"; and Cate Blanchett, promoting "The Missing," a Western kidnap thriller.

Other competition contenders include Ken Loach's "Ae Fond Kiss," about the conflicts that arise when a Pakistani immigrant and a Roman Catholic woman fall in love in Scotland; and "Intimate Strangers," French director Patrice Leconte's comedy about a woman who confides her marital problems to a tax consultant.

While Berlin falls short of the Cannes and Venice festivals in terms of glamour, festival directors pride themselves on its accessibility to the moviegoing public.

"We are a different festival," Kosslick said. "The difference in Berlin is that hundreds of thousands of normal people go to the cinema."

ON THE NET

http://www.berlinale.de/

Film bonanza at Rotterdam begins
Curtains raised at Rotterdam for one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world
Sabbir Chowdhury

The annual filmfest at Rotterdam began yesterday amidst gorgeous festivity. This is the 33rd edition of the international film festival at Rotterdam. It will run till February 1, 2004. Rotterdam Film Festival was first organised in 1971. It was because of the efforts by Hubert Bals that Rotterdam Film Festival has become a matter of pride for the Dutch people.. 32 editions of the festival has been organised so far. In course of time, it has gained popularity and recognition. The festival is now considered as one of the most prestigious of its kind in the world, after the festivals at Cannes, Berlin and Venice. Many independent and alternative films and filmmakers were awarded the coveted VPRO Tiger Awards, making it a favourite festival of many.

To the Bangladeshi filmmakers, the festival is a favourite too. Two films by Morshedul Islam, namely, Chaka (The Wheel) and Dukhai (The life of Dukhai) were shown in the festival. Tanvir Mokammel's Lal Salu (The Tree without Roots) were also shown in the past. Both of them were offered the Hubert Bals Fund for their films.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2004 has selected sixteen films for the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition of its 33rd edition. The Competition line-up counts eight world premieres, five titles supported by the International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund and one title previously selected as CineMart Project. Four competition titles have been acquired already for release in The Netherlands: Asshak, Tales from the Sahara; The Wooden Camera; Young Gods and Three Steps Dancing.

This year's filmmaker in focus is Raul Ruiz. Ruiz was born in 1941 in Chile and since 1974, has been living in exile. Ruiz has been making films in countries like his native Chile, France, Portugal, Germany, Taiwan, Belgium, the United States, and Italy to name a few. He has made Paris his hometown. He has explored many different ways of getting films made - in cinema, television, schools, arts centres, galleries and museums. Fifteen films by Raul Ruiz will be screened. Ruiz is renowned for films like Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, Three Crowns of a Sailor, Time Regained, an adaptation from Marcel Proust, and Ce jour-la.

The sixteen films in this year's VPRO Tiger Awards Competition are: Four Shades of Brown by Tomas Alfredson (Sweden, 2004), Aaltra by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern (Belgium, 2004), Uniform by Diao Yinan (China/Japan, 2003), Somnambulance by Sulev Keedus (Estonia/Finland, 2003), Asshak, Tales From The Sahara by Ulrike Koch (Switzerland/Germany, 2004), En Route by Jan Krüger (Germany, 2003), The Missing by Lee Kang-Sheng (Taiwan, 2003), The Wooden Camera by Ntshaveni Wa Luruli (South Africa, 2004), Scent of the Lotus Pond by Satyajit Maitipe (Sri Lanka, 2004), Days of Santiago by Josue Mendez (Peru, 2004), Three Steps Dancing by Salvatore Mereu (Italy, 2003), How I Killed a Saint by by Teona Strugar Mitevska (Macedonia, 2004), Grande École by Robert Salis (France, 2004), Young Gods by J.P. Siili (Finland, 2003), Summer in the Golden Valley by Srdjan Vuletic (Bosnia-Herzegovina/France/UK, 2003), Peep "TV" SHOW by Yutaka Tsuchiya (Japan, 2003).

The three winners will be announced during IFFR 2004's Awards Ceremony on Friday January 30. Each of the three equal VPRO Tiger Award winning films will get Euro 10,000 and these films are guaranteed Dutch television screening by the Festival's main sponsor, Dutch Public Network (VPRO).

Reign in Spain

When the Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff moved to Barcelona, the people thought he was an angel. Geoffrey Macnab reports on a remarkable film portrait of Catalonia

Tuesday January 27, 2004
The Guardian

In early 1970s Catalonia, the resentment against General Franco was profound and deep. The local people still felt as if they were under foreign occupation. One of the few public places where they could speak their own language was the Nou Camp, the Barcelona football stadium. That was why the arrival of the Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff to play for Barcelona in August 1973 was treated almost as if it was a second coming. He had been lured to Barcelona by his former coach at Ajax, Rinus Michels. The team was languishing and in desperate need of a saviour, which is precisely what Cruyff turned out to be. "This gaunt, gangly little fellow who smoked like a chimney gave us back our pride," says an elderly Catalan interviewed in Ramon Gieling's new documentary, Johan Cruyff: At a Given Moment.

A series of coincidences helped cement the Dutchman's relationship with the Catalan public. Cruyff's wife was heavily pregnant. The birth was induced a few days early, so he could play in the most important game of all, against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. Largely thanks to Cruyff, Barcelona won 5-0 in a game that even now few Catalans can talk about without getting goosebumps. Then, simply because he and his wife liked the name, they decided to call their new son Jordi. This, it turned out, was the name of the patron saint of Catalonia and was forbidden under Franco's laws. When Cruyff tried to register the birth, the clerks told him he should call his son Jorge. He refused. As Jordi had been born in Holland, the authorities were powerless to stop Cruyff using the name. "But he was not aware of the immense political meaning of the name," Gieling says.

In those early months in Barcelona, Cruyff played his greatest football, but only very slowly did he begin to appreciate the real nature of the Catalan people. "Being a Catalan is as exquisite as having an orgasm," one man suggests when asked to express the essence of the Catalonian spirit and culture. "Bit by bit, you learn what makes them tick ... Soccer here wasn't just a sport but a political affair, an escape valve," Cruyff says now as he looks back on his arrival in Spain on a sweltering August afternoon 31 years ago. When he first helped Barcelona win the league, passersby would stop him on the street. They wouldn't congratulate him but would thank him instead, as if he was the hero who had delivered them from their oppressors. Not that they were always dismayed when Barcelona was defeated, just as long as they had a few sublime moments.

At a Given Moment is not a conventional sports documentary. Although the film ends with a long interview with the footballer, Gieling's real focus is on the Catalan people. Elderly waiters, the doctors who operated on the Dutchman following his heart bypass, taxi drivers, journalists, housewives, flamenco guitarists, and one or two of his old oppenents (including the former Real Madrid player Emilio Butragueno) are invited to share their favourite Cruyff moment. We see fleeting images of Cruyff in action, scoring wildly improbable goals, ghosting past defenders. We meet the chef and waiters at his favourite Barcelona restaurant. We see the ad Cruyff shot for TV after his heart operation in which he says that he had two addictions: football and smoking. "One made my life, the other almost took it away." A musician talks about Cruyff and "duende", a term that roughly means an uncanny inspiration, charm or magnetism. Everyone has a favourite Cruyff moment. For Gieling, it's from one of his games for Ajax: "When he takes the ball from behind with his heel. He is really like a kind of angel. He's not running, he is floating."

The language the interviewees use to describe Cruyff is invariably lyrical and reverential. "A painting, a play, a poem can create an experience when suddenly you feel lifted up by a great feeling of joy," Butragueno tells Gieling, adding that his former opponent gave him a similar feeling, "a feeling that goes beyond admiration and that's comparable to an artistic experience". We see old men clumsily trying to imitate some of Cruyff's great tricks. We meet women who have never married because to do so would be to betray their idol.

What intrigued Gieling was the gulf between the mythical figure Cruyff became to the Catalan people and the deadpan, down-to-earth footballer he went to meet last year at his home in Spain. The film opens with Cruyff in shirt, trousers and loafers kicking around a ball on a patch of grass high in the mountains. He tells the kid in goal he is going to blast the ball, hits it and it spirals off into the sky. We then see it bouncing down the road all the way back to Barcelona. "I thought the ball should take us from character to character. God kicks the ball back into the city."

Even today, if Cruyff makes the most banal remark, it's treated by the Catalan people as if it's a Delphic utterance. Cruyff isn't exactly a holy innocent, but Gieling insists that there is still a naivete about him. He was born with a gift, he says, "but from the age of 18, he became suspicious because he knew that people saw something in him that maybe he had not been aware of. In a way, he is still very innocent. When you sit in front of him, he'll tell you everything."

It seems there's little snobbery or arrogance about Cruyff. Gieling speculates that his humility is attributable to his background. He was 12 years old when his father died. His mother was forced to work, cleaning the locker rooms at Ajax. "That's why, to me, locker rooms are still a kind of holy place," he tells Gieling.

Not that the Dutchman was ever entirely unworldly. He loved money. In the mid-1990s, the relationship with Barcelona soured. He was sacked as trainer. "They kicked me when I was down and tried to discredit me," he says of his traumatic break with the club whose fortunes he had revived.

The fact that Cruyff ended up being so badly treated by Barcelona only adds to the myth surrounding him. The defeats and setbacks lend pathos to his story. As he tells Gieling, the low point was losing the World Cup Final with Holland in 1974. He now lives in the hills above Barcelona. He still doesn't speak a word of Catalan, but that hasn't lessened the awe in which he is still held.

Cruyff's gift as a footballer, he tells Gieling, was that he mastered the art of being in the right place at the right time."He was the philosopher of going your own way without any compromise," Gieling says. "Every Sunday, he did what he thought he should do. He never listened to public opinion. If he lost, he lost on his own terms. You can never fail if you go your own way."

· The world premiere of Johan Cruyff: At a Given Moment is at the Rotterdam festival on Thursday.

Sundance vs. Rotterdam; Differing Styles Bring Forth New International Cinema
Beginning only a week apart, the Sundance Film Festival (January 15-25) and the Rotterdam Film Festival (January 21 - February 1) will wake the American and European film industries out of their holiday stupor with the year's first cinematic unveilings. Just a day's travel (over 17 hours, with connections) between Salt Lake City and the Netherlands's second largest city and you too, along with the rare rabid film critic and festival programmer, can experience two distinct takes on new international cinema. Anthony Kaufman looks at the festivals' differences, and their overlaps, in indieWIRE's biweekly World Cinema Report. (January 14, 2004)

Berlin beams stars
Top thesps planning to attend film festival

By ED MEZA



BERLIN -- Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Jack Nicholson and Robin Williams are among the growing list of stars expected in the German capital next month for the Berlin Film Festival.
Kidman returns with "Cold Mountain" a year after the competition screening of "The Hours" won joint actress kudos for the pic's three leads. For her "Cold Mountain" co-star Law, it will be his second film to open the fest after 2001's "Enemy at the Gates."

Other high-profile attendees include Juliette Binoche, Cate Blanchett, Ron Howard, Ethan Hawke, Nick Nolte and Christina Ricci.

Nicholson is expected to be on hand for the premiere of "Something's Gotta Give," which is screening out of competition, and he is also a main focus of this year's retrospective: "New Hollywood 1967-1976. Trouble in Wonderland."

The program showcases 66 titles that transformed Hollywood moviemaking in the late 1960s and early '70s, including "Bonnie and Clyde," "Easy Rider," "Badlands," "Chinatown" and "Taxi Driver."

The Berlinale also will present retrospective "Selling Democracy -- Welcome Mr. Marshall," highlighting films from the U.S. Marshall Plan that helped revive Western Europe after WWII.

The special program will screen some of the 200-plus pics produced between 1947 and 1952 to document American aid efforts; encourage democracy, intercultural understanding and self-help; and establish a bulwark against communist Eastern Europe. Pics, made by European and American directors, were shown to the general public in cinemas and screened in schools and film clubs.

Fest director Dieter Kosslick said the pics remain relevant to today's auds in view of present-day parallels. He added that efforts were under way to bring out the Marshall Plan film collection on DVD.

The Berlinale topper also announced the recipients of this year's Berlinale Camera awards, presented since 1986 to honor film personalities who have supported the fest. This year's honorees include centenarian composer and former silent-film pianist Willy Sommerfeld, Berlin-based producer Regina Ziegler, photographer Erika Rabau and Rolf Baehr, the outgoing head of Germany's Federal Film Board.

Berlin reveals Panorama lineup
Depardieu, Testud, Zylberstein skedded to appear

By ED MEZA



BERLIN -- Brad Anderson's "The Machinist," recently unspooled at Sundance and starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and "Go Further," Ron Mann's documentary about Woody Harrelson's campaign to raise environmental awareness, are among pics screening in the Berlin Film Festival's Panorama section, which has completed its lineup of 34 features, 16 docs and 26 shorts from 32 countries, including 25 world preems.
Among stars due in town for Panorama screenings are Julie Depardieu, who stars in Daniele Dubroux's "I Am Your Man"; Sylvie Testud and Elsa Zylberstein of "Tomorrow We Move," from Belgian director Chantal Akerman; and Nicoletta Braschi, who heads the cast of Italian director Francesca Comencini's "I Like to Work."

Final entries also include "The Far Side of the Moon," Canadian director Robert Lepage's film of his legit hit, and "Wild Side" from France's Sebastien Lifshitz ("Come Undone").

The Panorama's main program will open with Israeli helmer Eytan Fox's "Walk on Water," in which a reluctant Mossad agent and a German tourist uncover the truth about the "last Nazi," while the Panorama Special opens with two films: the angst-driven Canadian arthouse indie "A Problem With Fear," by Gary Burns, and "Untold Scandal" by E J-Yong, rising star of South Korean cinema.

As usual, the eclectic section's documentary selections are decidedly political in nature. The aftermath of 9/11 and the war in Iraq inspired two projects: Helga Reidemeister's "Texas -- Kabul," a political road movie about women in war zones, and "Freedom2Speak V.2.0," a group project launched at the 2003 Berlinale and continued at the Istanbul and Cannes fests. Pic offers contributions from a host of international filmmakers including Abderrahmane Sissako and Volker Schlondorff.

Religion and political change in Iran are the topics of Iranian director Mitra Farahani's "Zohre et Manouchehr," while Madeleine Farley's "Trollywood" looks at Los Angeles' homeless people and the influence of Hollywood.

With a Berlinale focus on Latin America, Panorama is screening three docus and two features about the region. Felipe Cazals' documentary "Digna ... Worthy to Her Final Breath" attempts to find out the truth about the murder of Mexican human rights activist Digna Ochoa y Placido, while Romano Scavolini's "Che -- The Last Hours" investigates the murder of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and his comrades. Hip-hop and rap originating in the favelas of Brazil is the focus in "Fala Tu -- Lives of Rhyme" by Guilherme Coelho. Features are "The Other Side of the Street" by Marcos Bernstein and "Up Against Them All" by Roberto Moreira, both from Brazil.

New York's 1970s music scene is documented in two productions. The Nomi Song," by Berlin-based American filmmaker Andrew Horn, examines the life of German New Wave artist Klaus Nomi, while "End of the Century -- The Story of the Ramones" by Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields looks at the influential American punk band.

The international jury awarding the LVT -- Manfred Salzgeber Prize for innovative European contributions includes Eva Zaoralova, artistic director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival; Tania Blanich, associate director of the National Video Resources, Rockefeller Foundation; and Eduardo Antin, director of the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival.

A complete list of the Berlinale's Panorama lineup follows.

FEATURE FILMS:

"The Other Side of the Street," Marcos Bernstein, Brazil, France
"Up Against Them All," Roberto Moreira, Brazil
"The Far Side of the Moon," Robert Lepage, Canada
"A Problem With Fear -- Or Laurie's Anxiety Confronting the Escalator," Gary Burns, Canada
"Lost in Time," Derek Yee, Hong Kong, China
"The Story of Er Mei," Wang Quanan, China
"Avanim," Raphael Nadjari, France/Israel
"I Am Your Man," Daniele Dubroux, France
"L'Esquive," Abdelatif Kechiche, France
"Tomorrow We Move," Chantal Ackerman, France/Belgium
"Wild Side," Sebastien Lifshitz, France
"Kick'n Rush," Aage Rais-Nordentoft, Denmark
"Cold Light," Hilmar Oddsson, Iceland/U.K./Germany/Norway
"Love in Thoughts," Achim von Borries, Germany
"The Raspberry Reich," Bruce LaBruce, Germany
"The Stratosphere Girl," M.X. Oberg, Germany/Switzerland/France/U.K./Italy/Netherlands
"Walk on Water," Eytan Fox, Israel
"I Like to Work," Francesca Comencini, Italy
"Akame 48 Waterfalls," Genjirou Arato, Japan
"A Day on the Planet," Isao Yukisada, Japan
"Untold Scandal," E J-Yong, Korea
"Shouf shouf habibi!," Albert ter Heerdt, Netherlands
"Insatiability," Wiktor Grodecki, Poland/Czech Republic
"You I Love," Olga Stolpolskava, Dmitri Troitsky, Russia
"Proteus," John Greyson and Jack Lewis, South Africa/Canada
"Cachorro (Bear Cub)," Miguel Albaladejo, Spain
"The Machinist," Brad Anderson, Spain
"Beautiful Boxer," Ekachai Uekrongtham, Thailand
"Anonymous," Todd Verow, U.S.
"Brother to Brother," Rodney Evans, U.S.
"D.E.B.S.," Angela Robinson, U.S.
"Baadassss!" Mario Van Peebles, U.S.
"The Graffiti Artist," James Bolton, U.S.
"Quattro Noza," Joey Curtis, U.S.

DOCUMENTARY FILMS

"Fala Tu -- Lives of Rhyme," Guilherme Coelho, Brazil
"Go Further," Ron Mann, Canada
"Zohre & Manouchehr," Mitra Farahani, France
"Addicted to Acting," Andres Veiel, Germany
"The Center," Stanislaw Mucha, Germany
"Freedom2Speak V2.0," Markus C. M. Schmidt, Christoph Gampl, Brigitte Kramer, Marc Meyer, Uwe Nagel, Germany
"Land of Annihilation," Romuald Karmakar, Germany
"The Nomi Song," Andrew Horn, Germany
"Texas -- Kabul," Helga Reidemeister, Germany
"Che -- The Last Hours," Romano Scavolini, Italy
"Digna ...Worthy to Her Final Breath," Felipe Cazals, Mexico
"Death in Gaza," James Miller, U.K.
"Trollywood," Madeleine Farley, U.K.
"End of the Century -- The Story of the Ramones," Jim Fields, Michael Gramaglia, U.S.
"A Letter to True.," Bruce Weber, U.S.
"The Yes Men," Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, Chris Smith, U.S.

'Rings' regal with 11 Oscar noms
'Master' follows with 10 as 'Seabiscuit' gallops to third

By TIMOTHY M. GRAY

"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" topped Oscar nominations Tuesday with 11 noms, closely followed by 10 for "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World." Those two are competing for best pic with "Seabiscuit" (seven noms), "Mystic River" (six) and "Lost in Translation" (four).
The Academy consists of 15 voting branches, totaling 5,803 voters. The largest single branch is actors (1,298 voters) and the smallest is documentarians (128).

Nominations for the 76th annual Oscars were announced Tuesday morning at the Acad’s BevHills headquarters by Sigourney Weaver and Acad prexy Frank Pierson.

Final ballots will be mailed Feb. 4 and are due back on Feb. 24. Oscars will be presented Feb. 29 at the Kodak Theatre. Joe Roth is producing the Billy Crystal-hosted event, which will air live on ABC.

And the nominees are . . .

PICTURE
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (New Line), Wingnut Films
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (Twentieth Century Fox/Miramax/Universal), Twentieth Century Fox/Universal Pictures/Miramax Films
"Mystic River" (WB/Village Roadshow), Warner Bros. Pictures
"Lost in Translation" (Focus), American Zoetrope/Elemental Films"Seabiscuit" (Universal/DreamWorks/Spyglass), Larger Than Life/Kennedy-Marshall Prods.

DIRECTOR
Sofia Coppola, "Lost in Translation"
Clint Eastwood, "Mystic River"
Peter Jackson, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
Fernando Meirelles, "City of God"
Peter Weir, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

ACTRESS
Keisha Castle-Hughes, "Whale Rider"
Samantha Morton, "In America"
Diane Keaton, "Something's Gotta Give"
Charlize Theron, "Monster"
Naomi Watts, "21 Grams"

ACTOR
Johnny Depp, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"
Ben Kingsley, "House of Sand and Fog"
Bill Murray, "Lost in Translation"
Jude Law, "Cold Mountain"
Sean Penn, "Mystic River"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Shohreh Aghdashloo, "House of Sand and Fog"
Patricia Clarkson, "Pieces of April"
Marcia Gay Harden, "Mystic River"
Holly Hunter, "Thirteen"
Renee Zellweger, "Cold Mountain"

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alec Baldwin, "The Cooler"
Benecio Del Toro, "21 Grams"
Djimon Hounsou, "In America"
Tim Robbins, "Mystic River"
Ken Watanabe, "The Last Samurai"

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"The Barbarian Invasions"
"Dirty Pretty Things"
"Finding Nemo"
"In America"
"Lost in Translation"

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"American Splendor"
"City of God"
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
"Mystic River"
"Seabiscuit"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
"The Barbarian Invasions" (Canada)
"Evil" (Sweden)
"Twin Sisters" (The Netherlands)
"Twilight Samurai" (Japan)
"Zelary" (Czech Republic)

War

Jonathan Romney in Rotterdam 29 January 2004

Dir: Jake Mahaffy. USA 2004. 84 mins.

Virtually a one-man labour of love, Jake Mahaffy’s War is one of those works that French critics sometimes term a ‘UFO’ – a film that comes out of nowhere, or comes direct and unmediated from its director’s unconscious. Working over four years without no crew and no sound, Mahaffy shot the film himself on a hand-cranked camera – accounting for some evocative flickers and variations of light and speed – then added a dense soundtrack of voice-overs, background noise and cacophonous radio. A film in the true American primitive tradition, War will certainly make its mark on the festival circuit, but will be tough to place commercially, except among distributors committed to the adventurous and outre. It comes to the Homefront USA section at Rotterdam after also playing the Frontier sidebar at Sundance.

The action unfolds in a rural landscape in Pennsylvania. The film starts with a dilapidated house collapsing, and Samuel (Bertch), a young boy in makeshift protective gear, telling us in voice-over, "This is all that’s left… This is the world after the end of the world." We never know whether we are literally seeing a post-apocalypse landscape, a more metaphorical expression of the contemporary state of agricultural America, or possibly a representation of the boy’s inner world. At any rate, this world appears to function relatively normally: trains still run, radios still broadcast (mainly ranting evangelists), and the local diner is apparently still serving.

At first, little happens: portly pastor Jack Masters (Clark) sits in his car and muses about his favourite all-you-can-eat buffet, Samuel’s farmer father Jacob Jenkins (Yurick) inspects his fenceposts, and Hanky, a bald junkman (Paul Mahaffy) adjusts a strange cobbled-together network of pump machinery and inveighs against the local frog population. About an hour in, the pastor runs over Samuel’s dog, then presides over its impromptu funeral, and the film with a dazzling tableau of conflagration.

For the most part, War could justifiably be described as a bunch of people (and animals) trudging around an inhospitable landscape in bad weather: inconsistently bad weather, at that, since Mahaffy’s informal shooting schedule means that we often slip from autumn to snow-covered winter and back in the course of a single sequence. War is a figures-in-a-landscape film par excellence, and the handful of people we meet truly are figures rather than characters in the proper sense. Voice-overs, often tinged with surreal black humour, supposedly take us into their heads, but in practice the overdubbing keeps us unsettlingly detached from them, a discrepancy contributing to the film’s distinctively alien feel. A complex sound design – an elemental storm of radio and other background effects – adds to the extreme sensory vividness.

The film entirely creates its own world, but the closest recent comparisons might be with Damien Odoul’s similarly low-budget rural nightmare Le Souffle and with the sombre works of Hungary’s Bela Tarr. Even at 84 minutes, War feels slightly over-stretched, with not enough variation of tone to keep the viewer hooked, but at its most powerful, it creates a mood and a set of images guaranteed to haunt the viewer. Ragged as it is, this may well be the most primally odd US debut since Eraserhead.

Producer/int’l sales/screenplay/cinematography/editor: Jake Mahaffy
Sound: Jake Mahaffy, Will Weatherby
Main cast: Paul Mahaffy, Jef Clark, Andy Yurick, Dustin Bertch

New Rotterdam head to stay the course
Fest helmer assures that int'l focus will continue

By DEBORAH YOUNG

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1/28/04 2:21pm

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ROTTERDAM -- Rotterdam Intl. Film Festival co-director Simon Field, who is leaving when this year's shutters come down, has allayed concern about the event's future at the midpoint of this edition, unspooling Jan. 21-31.
Co-director Sandra den Hamer will hold the reins by herself next year, and both are quick to promise that Rotterdam will not move away from its international focus.

"The Rotterdam spirit will continue," den Hamer said. "I don't have particular changes in mind."

In her view, the event -- which comes after Europe's big three of Cannes, Venice and Berlin in size -- has distinguished itself from other festivals by being diverse and innovative, following world filmmaking trends into the land of videos, museum installations and beyond.

She said films will continue to be selected by six programmers, including herself, and organized around "three pillars": a film festival screening 200 features and almost 400 short films; a section of films co-financed by the Dutch-funded Hubert Bals Fund; and film projects market CineMart.

After his eight-year stint at Rotterdam, Field will remain a member of the Hubert Bals Fund selection committee.

He plans to join producer Keith Griffiths at Illuminations Film in London, where one of his first projects will be to executive produce a series of new films for the mega-festival to be held in Vienna in 2006 for the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.

"There will be a strong continuity with the spirit of Rotterdam" Field said, in his new job commissioning progressive feature films, shorts and animation for the event.

U.S. director Peter Sellars, who is coordinating the Mozart event, was at Rotterdam to introduce the sidebar Homefront USA. It brought together a wide range of directors and work, from Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" to Jake Mahaffy's Pennsylvania mood piece "War" and J. Hoberman's video compilation "George W. Bush: Superstar?"

At its midpoint, CineMart was in full swing. With 800-plus producers, directors and industry personnel in attendance, this granddaddy of project markets remains the largest of its kind.

Five of the 47 film projects being pitched to producers and financiers also will be presented at the new co-production market at next week's Berlin Film Festival.

"The majority of industry people attend both CineMart and Berlin," said CineMart chief Ido Abram, who quoted an 85% success rate for projects that get produced.

While Sundance and the earlier Golden Globes and Oscar noms cut into the U.S. presence, Miramax and Fine Line reps were in attendance.

Abram confirmed speculation that the market is likely to become "more visibly integrated" into the festival next year. "I have always felt CineMart is part of the festival. I know Sandra (den Hamer) feels the same way."

Japanese director targets realistic violence
Thu 29 January, 2004 02:33

By Wendel Broere

ROTTERDAM (Reuters) - Bullet riddled bodies, eyes gouged by chopsticks, fingers sliced off -- Japanese film director Takeshi Kitano says he wants to depict violence in his movies as realistically as possible to show its depravity.

"Violence is a very abhorrent thing that you can only despise and that is the way I want to depict it in my movies," Kitano, who also writes and acts, told Reuters in an interview.

"Films like 'Terminator', the way they approach violence, have nothing to do with reality. In most of my movies I try to depict it as realistically as possible, as painful as possible because violence is a painful thing in real life."

Kitano, in the Netherlands for the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, said computer generated images and special effects in film too often glamorised violence.

"(These) are ways in which I would never approach it because that just leads to the imitation of violence in real life," he told Reuters through an interpreter.

The director, whose popular nickname "Beat" dates from the start of his career as a comedian, said his film style was influenced by a famous picture of a suspected Viet Cong guerrilla being shot in the head by a soldier during the 1968 Tet offensive.

"That was a very shocking image. It certainly affected my way of capturing violence, especially its sudden appearance," he said.

JARRING CONTRASTS

In Kitano's work long static shots of tranquil scenes contrast sharply with violence that explodes unexpectedly across the screen in yakuza gangster movies such as "Violent Cop" (1989), "Boiling Point" (1990) and "Sonatine" (1993).

In "Violent Cop", his debut as a director, Kitano stars as a ruthless policeman. In the opening scene, his face an impassive mask, he slaps a confession out of a teenage thug.

Kitano's stoic expression remains unchanged throughout the film.

In person Kitano is softly-spoken with an easy smile. A 1994 motorbike accident in which he fractured his skull partially paralysed his face.

Besides yakuza films, 57-year-old Kitano has directed and acted in "Hana-Bi", which won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival in 1997, "Kikujiro" (1999) and the melancholic "Dolls"(2002).

Kitano -- who came to international prominence as an actor in Nagasi Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence" (1983) -- is best known in Japan for his roles on television, the comic duo The Two Beats, and for his irreverent wit and dirty jokes.

He is also an accomplished painter.

His latest movie, "Zatoichi", has been his biggest box office success as a director.

This Samurai film set in the 19th century features Kitano as the blind masseur and itinerant warrior Zatoichi, a character he compares to Zorro or Superman.

It won a Silver Lion at Venice and a top award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Despite the film's success and the popularity of Hollywood Samurai movies such as "The Last Samurai" and "Kill Bill," Kitano says a sequel is unlikely.

"I've only seen 'Kill Bill' and I thought it was great. I thought that there was going to be a certain amount of preposterousness, but what he (Tarantino) did was crazier than I thought... It's so ludicrous that it's great," Kitano said.

"I am probably going back to the films that are faithful to my origins as a film maker. I think that this kind of movie ("Zatoichi") has become a kind of career insurance policy."

Prize-winning film at Sundance, The Corporation, was conceived in 1997

Updated at 13:10 on January 28, 2004, EST.

PARK CITY, Utah (CP) - The Vancouver directors of The Corporation, a prize-winning documentary at Sundance this year, knew their film was a hit the minute it was screened.

In an interview at the Canada Lounge at the festival, directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott and screenwriter Joel Bakan said they witnessed sold-out shows at Sundance that mirrored the film's reception at premieres in Toronto and Vancouver. "People really want to see it," said Abbott. "They come out of the film and want to have other people see it."

Last weekend, the 150-minute comprehensive primer that explores the origins and development of the corporation was awarded the documentary audience honour for world cinema.

It was one of two Canadian films to win Grand Jury prizes at Sundance. The Montreal film, Seducing Doctor Lewis, directed by Jean-Francois Pouliot won the world cinema dramatic audience award.

Abbott, who won more than a dozen awards for her previous film, A Cow At My Table, said of The Corporation: "The very language behind the corporation is Amendment 14, an amendment. If we created it, we could recreate it. We're looking at the very core of the institution."

The filmmakers began work after conceiving the idea in 1997. A number of highly publicized events regarding corporations - the Enron scandal, the power crisis in California, the anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle - spurred them on to completion.

"We set out to develop a curriculum around the film and used that as a study guide," Achbar explained. "As for its spectacular success - people embracing the film - I think even business people are struggling with the same issues surrounding corporations."

Achbar, who received 22 awards for his work producing and directing the film, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and The Media, with co-director/producer Peter Wintonick, said he and Abbott felt compelled by "corporate claustrophobia" and by the "weight of the institution" itself to create a film that explains exactly what it was set up to do and what has happened to it since.

Since completing The Corporation they've received requests, they said, from educators at reputable business schools in the United States who want to use the film as a primer.

"Corporate power isn't going away any time soon," Achbar added.

The documentary is scheduled for broadcast on TV Ontario next month.

Joel Bakan, a screenwriter for The Corporation, also wrote a book slated for release in March by Penguin Books called, The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power.

"Our central idea for the film is that a corporation is an institution legally set up to be unaccountable to society.

"The perspective of the film is uniquely Canadian," he added.

"I don't think an American could have made this film."

Screenings of The Corporation were sold out at Canada Square theatres in Toronto and at Vancouver's Ridge and Tinseltown theatres just prior to the screenings at Sundance.

"We've been sold out for weeks and we've been turning people away," Bakan said, proudly pulling from his pocket a piece of the Bloor Cinema's ceiling that collapsed the night the film premiered in Toronto.

Bakan is also excited about a quote by noted social critic Noam Chomsky lauding the merits of his book.

Bakan pointed to the quote, which reads: "This fine book was virtually begging to be written."

To which Bakan added: "This film was begging to be made."

Making a move on Hollywood
NEW MOVIES ARE REFLECTING INFLUENCE OF HIP-HOP DANCING ON CHOREOGRAPHY, CULTURE
By Marian Liu
Mercury News


Hip-hop dance is infusing pop culture as never before, moving from street corners and music videos to fitness centers, dance studios and television shows.

And now Hollywood has noticed.

``Right now dance is the key focus, the main focus of everything going on,'' says Shane Sparks, a choreographer from ``You Got Served,'' which opens Friday.'' ``Honey,'' another hip-hop dance movie, opened late last year.

The hip-hop dance of today is a more choreographed form of street and club dancing, as opposed to the more free-form moves of earlier styles, such as break-dancing.

``Each move now that Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake does takes a little bit of this and that from breakdancing -- locking, popping moves -- and blends it all in,'' says Beto Lopez, a hip-hop dancer from Stockton.

The choreography also has become a mainstay at concerts.

``If you eliminate all the dancers and keep the artists there, I don't think the shows would be as incredible,'' says Shane Sparks, choreographer for B2K, IMx, Ginuwine and Brandy.

``There's a definite surge in the white neighborhood that wouldn't necessarily be exposed to hip-hop in their everyday life,'' says Keith Pinto, an MC and hip-hop dance teacher at Dance Attack in Los Gatos. ``They watch MTV, see other kids doing it and want to be a part of it. You can pretty much go to any dance studio in the Bay Area and they'll have a hip-hop class.''

To see how hip-hop dance is being mainstreamed, look no further than local high schools and fitness centers.

``That's the music . . . at school dances, so we want to learn how to dance to that,'' says Diana Schnabel, a 17-year-old junior from Willow Glen High School in San Jose.

Her high school's drama shows once showcased mostly singing and skits, but recently they have been taken over by hip-hop dance routines, she says.

Fitness centers are also taking advantage of the trend, citing it as the newest fad in exercise after yoga and Pilates.

Amanda Arnold started teaching hip-hop in June at three 24 Hour Fitness Centers in San Jose. She said that even aerobics conventions have started to include hip-hop in their repertoire.

``I grew up when hip-hop was pretty popular, and as I got older, I went to the clubs where we danced to rap and hip-hop,'' says Arnold, a San Jose resident. ``But now I'm 26 and it's old school to go clubbing, so this is what I want to do when I work out.''

People like Arnold have grown up with hip-hop and now are old enough to promote it.

``We're in control of it now,'' says Lopez, director of a breakdancing documentary called ``The B-boy Connection'' set to be released in time for the next year's Sundance Film Festival. ``We may not have Hollywood power or money, but we can promote our own events and sell our own clothing.''

Yet, even as hip-hop dance and fashion are becoming more pervasive, some say it comes with a downside. Aiko Shirakawa, a hip-hop dance instructor at San Jose's Roosevelt Community Center, says that although this trend has paved the way for many dancers, it also has fostered more suggestive dance moves.

``The young new generation is getting out there and feeling energized and inspired, but girls are left with the dances that are slutty, like striptease dancing,'' says Shirakawa, 35. ``As a parent of a 5-year-old daughter, I would be horrified and would never leave her side. I would let her take everything: jazz, popping, locking; everything but hip-hop.''

And some hip-hop dance pioneers like Ralph Casanova, who launched moves in Brooklyn as King Uprock, are disappointed that they aren't getting recognition for their contributions. Many plan to boycott ``You Got Served'' because it does not pay tribute to the history of hip-hop dance.

Yet Dave Scott, choreographer of ``You Got Served'' and of artists including B2K, Tyrese, Brian McKnight and ice skater Tara Lipinski, says the movie ``shows some rawness and is a little diluted to appeal to every artist. It does not really get into the back door of everything.

``I've seen hip-hop dance grow and kind of get drowned out by a lot of things such as stage shows, pop crews and pop,'' says Scott, who also judged the Wade Robson Project, a hip-hop television competition. ``There are different ways to represent hip-hop. It's like a big bowl of gumbo.''

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Contact Marian Liu at mliu@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-2740.

The Wooden Camera
Patrick Frater in Rotterdam 30 January 2004

2003 Dir: Ntsuaveeni Wa Lurili. UK-Fr-South Africa. 90mins.

Brazil has enjoyed five Oscar nominations thanks to City Of God, a tale of a camera-toting good guy caught in the crossfire of gang-warfare in Rio’s favelas. The Wooden Camera, the story of a video-toting South African boy with choices to make, has similar appeal stemming from its humanity and its fresh eye. The Berlinale and the forthcoming Cannes festival may include stronger pictures that bear witness to a South African film-making renaissance. But The Wooden Camera could carve a niche as an intelligent film that crosses over between adult and child audiences. The film, which played in the Tiger Awards Competition at Rotterdam, appears in Berlin’s new 14plus sidebar.

The story starts with a piece of commonplace violence in the townships of Johannesburg. A body is pushed from a passing train and the man’s worldly possessions fall into the hands of two street kids. The divergent paths of their fates are settled at that moment. Streetwise Sipho (Innocent Msimango) chooses the gun he finds, while more timid pal Mandiba (Singo) picks up a video-camera. Sipho brandishes his weapon to dominate his small posse, frighten off other street gangs and spark a spiral of increasing violence. Mandiba disguises his video-camera in a wooden housing and secretly becomes a proficient video artist.

The film takes up the Apartheid theme with the two boys both befriending Estelle (De Agrella), a rebellious white girl whose parents fear her hanging out with blacks. Estelle and Mandiba share a mentor in Shawn (Cassel), an aging do-gooder who is her music teacher and the only person Madiba cares to show his tapes to. Inevitably Estelle and Madiba become closer, sparking conflict with her parents and rivalry between Madiba and Sipho, whose motives for liking her are far more base.

Suggesting that Madiba’s sublime handheld tapes are the unedited work of such a young boy is stretching credibility, but they are much the best thing in the film. Surely they are an indication of what director Ntashavheni, a former assistant to Spike Lee, could achieve if he were allowed to cut loose. The clips paint new angles, tell wordless stories and find fresh hope in the crumbling faces and careworn architecture of the sub-bleached township.

Problematic is the quality, not of the physical acting, but the dialogue and its expression. Speech is as wooden and stilted as Mandiba’s camera case. Some of the blame for this must be attached to those who forced Ntashavheni to make the film entirely in English, though the director’s control of the natural English speakers, notably the girl’s parents, is also weak. None of this will matter to distributors in non-Anglophone territories and the film’s prospects on the festival circuit should be good.

Although not intended as a children’s film, discerning parents may find that Camera, like Rabbit Proof Fence, is a film they can enjoy alongside their kids. What it lacks in raw power and energy compared with City Of God, makes it more charming and accessible. Many of its themes have universal qualities way beyond South Africa’s ghettos: the colour-blind ubiquity of good and evil; haves and have-nots; prejudices which work both ways and the difficult choices we all have to make as we emerge from the innocence of childhood.

Prod cos: Odelion, RG And Associates, Tall Stories
Prod: Olivier Delahaye
Int’l sales: Odelion (France, UK, South Africa), Fortissimo Film Sales (rest of the world)
Scr: Yves Buclet, Peter Speyer
Cinematography: Gordon Spooner
Ed: Kako Kelber
Prod des: Jean-Vincent Puzos
Main cast: Junior Singo, Innocent Msimango, Dana De Agrella, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Fats Bookholane, Andre Jacobs, Bo Petersen, Lisa Petersen, Lynita Crofford, Nicholas Jara, Nomhle Nkonyeni, Thembi Mtshali

'Che' docu travels to Berlin
'Diaries' will screen at Cannes instead

By ED MEZA


BERLIN -- "Traveling With Che Guevara," a documentary by Italian Gianni Mina made during the shooting of Walter Salles' "The Motorcycle Diaries," has been added to the Berlin Intl. Film Festival's Panorama section.
The last-minute entry to this year's spotlight on Latin America focuses on Alberto Granado, whose travels throughout South America with friend and fellow Argentinean Guevara in 1952 are the subject of Salles' feature, which is based on Guevara's journal.

The 81-year-old Granado, who will come from his home in Cuba to the Berlinale next month along with Mina, was technical advisor to Salles during the filming of "Motorcycle Diaries."

In Mina's docu, Granado clarifies incidents, recounts his own memories and gives advice to actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays Guevara, and Rodrigo de la Serna, who portrays the young Granado.

"Reliving all this seems like a dream," Granado said about the project. "Travelling With Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary" is also the title of Granado's own account of the road trip.

The Panorama includes 17 documentaries, alongside 34 feature films. "The Motorcycle Diaries" had been expected to screen at the Berlinale but is headed for Cannes.