1. Nisimazine
SUNDAY 15 MAY 2011
Cannes
#3 A Magazine by Nisi Masa, European Network Of Young CinemA
17 filles
cast from 17 Filles, photo by Martina Lang
Footnote
Sundance Institute

2. NISIMAZINE CANNES
Sunday 15 May 2011/# 3
A magazine published by the NISI MASA in the
framework of a film journalism workshop
for young Europeans
with the support of
the ‘Youth in Action’ programme of the EU
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editorial
Director of Publication Matthieu Darras
Editor-in-Chief/Layout Maartje Alders
Editor Jude Lister
Tutor Paolo Bertolin
by Ľuboš Bišto (Slovakia)
Contributors to this issue
Ľuboš Bišto, Levente Czehelszki
Let’s imagine that the Cannes Film Festival all co-create is actually made out of personal Andris Feldmanis
is a film. It is not a film featuring the stars, impressions captured by the eyes. They are Anne-Sophie Meusburger, Martina Lang
nor a documentary about what happens in the best cameras you can get anywhere. In Elisabeth Renault-Geslin
Cannes. It is a multi-genre piece that can this way you are the director of photography Miklós Vargha, Patrícia Veszpremi
only be seen once in a lifetime. No reruns as well. But let’s not forget that you are the Coordinators Jass Seljamaa, Merli Antsmaa
are possible. Everyone involved with the screenwriter, editor, and costume designer Eva Ujlakyová, Jana Dandárová
festival is a star in this movie. The old star as well. If you thought you were not busy
system has to make way to the new rising enough, then maybe you should reconsider. NISI MASA 99 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis,
stars of Cannes. We all have our parts and we 75010, Paris, France.
all have to stage something during the course Anything is possible here. So there is just Phone: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38
of the festival. Sooner or later, we all explore one thing to keep in mind. There would be in Cannes: +33 (0) 6 32 61 70 26
what it means to be an actor in Cannes. May- no festival and no film if it weren’t for you. europe@nisimasa.com
be now, when realizing it, we can walk the That is the reason why you should care about www.nisimasa.com
red carpet better than the celebrities. the looks of your own movie. And even if I
am not sure what my part of the film will
We are also the directors of this film. We can look like, I know I will try to make it as full
make decisions and change the course of ac- as I can.
tions. Some of us are having our directorial
debuts; others are enjoying the routine of the
64th Cannes film directing. The film that we
BY MARTINA LANG (AUSTRIA)
,
picture of the day

3. film of the day
17 Filles
© ARCHIPEL 35
Delphine et Muriel Coulin (France)
Critics’ Week
Inspired by real events, 17 Filles, the the audience is very close to the cha- film, the last travelling shot accompa-
first feature film from sisters Muriel racters. The strong presence of lands- nying it, the girls motionless on their
and Delphine Coulin, tells the story of capes – the beach, the sea and the cliffs bed, looking to sleep with any average
a group of high school girls falling pre- – opposed with the geometry of the city boy to evade their intransigent parents,
gnant one after the other. The narration drives the girls from the oppressive the mystery of their acts… The directors
focuses on five of them, the inseparable cage of their buildings to the promise of seem to take their inspiration from The
hard core and its leader, the first to get change and infinity. The accuracy of the Virgin Suicides, adding their own perso-
pregnant. In a little French town by the five young main actresses adds to the nal takes on the theme. Between Sofia
sea, life is narrow and the girls are in emotion of their so-felt captivity and Coppola and Céline Sciamma (Water
conflict with their families. To find a the urgent need to escape their fate. Lilies, Un Certain Regard, 2007), 17
way out, they decide to become pre- Filles continues the tradition of young
gnant all together. The film of course evokes the memory girls in distress in their not-so-golden
of a certain teenage movie with five cage, with grace and great talent.
The mise en scène expresses a true and young sisters committing suicide one
pure sensitivity towards the teenage after the other in order to escape their By Elisabeth Renault-Geslin (France)
years. Close-ups of skin and sounds of family and their depressing future: the
breathing bring the senses forward and voiceover beginning and ending the
Trabalhar Cansa
Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas (Brazil) - UCR
(Hard Labour) review
Even though Juliana Rojas and Marco
Dutra’s Trabalhar Cansa competes for
© DEZENOVE SOM E IMAGENS
the Camera d’Or open to first features
only, this is not the directors’ first time
in Cannes. Their shorts O Lençol Branco
and Um Ramo were screened respecti-
vely at the Cinefondation in 2004 and at
the Critics’ Week in 2007.
Mixing the social chronicle and the fan-
tastic genre, Trabalhar Cansa portrays
a family of three that is struggling with
money. The husband Otávio has lost There is literally a skeleton in the clo- Brazil is witnessing for some years now
his job, whereas his wife Helena opens set. Still the skeleton is not actually in a rapid growth of its GDP, Rojas and
a grocery store that is not doing quite a closet, but behind a crumbling wall in Dutra clearly and cleverly state that the
well. Helena hires a new maid, Paula, the grocery store. Once the monster is country’s middle class is still suffering.
who similarly has a money problem. out, Trabalhar Cansa concludes with a
More importantly, all the characters bewildering shout of Otávio amongst by Ľuboš Bišto (Slovakia)
keep their resentments hidden and that a large assembly of unemployed shou-
is what matters the most in the end. ting thirty something men. Whereas

4. reviews
© RECTANGLE PRODUCTIONS
La Guerre est déclarée
Valérie Donzelli (France) - Critics’ Week
La guerre est déclarée truly begins with moments of magic and esprit.
A young woman and a young man meet in a club and fall for each
other. The perfect matching even shows in the pleasurable coincidence
of their names as they are called Romeo and Juliette. Valérie Donzelli´s
second feature then rapidly progresses with images full of vitality and
joy until the day they learn about their son´s brain cancer. This could be
the decisive moment for the plot to turn toward pain and resentfulness.
But Donzelli manages to treat the subject in a non-dramatic, almost
light-hearted way. A fact indeed impressing since Donzelli and her
co-scriptwriter and actor Jérémie Elkaim are actually transferring their
own stories onto the screen.
What makes La guerre est déclarée exceptional and exhilarant is its
mixture of authenticity and playful storytelling. The film comprises
several years and shows how the Parisian couple adjusts to the serious
illness of their child. But in the same way as Romeo and Juliette try to
make the best out of the situation, Valérie Donzelli attaches to other as-
pects and outlines the importance of personal happiness, family bonds
and love. Suffering and laughter naturally blend into each other and
by the end a whole rollercoaster of emotions has been presented. La
guerre est déclarée takes an often comical and strongly life-affirming
perspective on how to cope with inevitable strokes of fate.
by Anne-Sophie Meusburger (Austria)
Footnote (Hearat Shulayim)
Joseph Cedar (Israel) - Official Competition
The leading UK
R
CALLSFOONS
gateway to the
world’s most I SI –
SUBMPRIL
There is no way a movie about Dealing with the unpleasant topic
prestigious short two researchers dedicating their of rivalry inside a family, and
4 A UNE
film awards
including
30 J lives to the Talmud, and competing how this disturbance destroys
with each other all the time, could relationships, Footnote succeeds
Academy Awards®, be worth watching. This is exactly in providing enough twist and
BAFTAs, Cartoon what I thought, before I went to emotion, maybe even some laugh-
D’Or & European the screening of Footnote. Luckily ter. The intuitive editing by Einat
Film Awards Joseph Sedar’s film belied my usual Glaser-Zarhin strengthens the script
All films under pessimism. The main conflict is that fast-paced rhythm. Writer-director
30 minutes are eligible the two rivaling university profes- Joseph Sedar always carefully
sors happen to be father and son. chooses where to put his camera,
The elder Eliezer Scholnik, whose so the story is told through beautiful
ALL FILMS UNDER 90 SECONDS work was never really appreciated, compositions, making its visual
(Deadline 5 Sept)
is quite jealous about his descen- style appealing. Definitely an outs-
depict.org A Project
dant’s success. Eventually it seems tanding film.
like Eliezer is about to receive the
Submit at encounters-festival.org.uk
highest award from the Ministry of
Education, but it turns out to be a by Levente Czehelszki (Hungary)
Submissions powered by tremendously stupid administration
mistake; the jury actually dedicated
the award to the son.

5. interview
interview
Sundance Institute
Alesia Weston
Celebrating its 30th birthday, the Sundance
Institute is strongly represented this year
in Cannes with five films that benefited
its Feature Film Program selected.
Nisimazine met the Program’s associate
director Alesia Weston.
Photo by Miklós Vargha (HUNGARY)
How does the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program work?
The year-round Feature Film Program is designed to support emer-
ging filmmakers working on their first or second features through
Screenwriters Lab, Directors Lab, a Creative Producing Lab, as
well as Awards or Grants (the Sundance Institute/NHK Filmma-
kers Award, the Sundance Institute l Mahindra Global Filmma-
kers Award). Beyond these, the support of the Sundance Institute
continues throughout the life of the film from inception through
completion. In the Screenwriters Lab, the fellows are mentored by
veteran screenwriters. The month long Directors Lab provides an
opportunity to work with a professional cast and crew on four, five
scenes from the script under the guidance of creative mentors.
The Sundance Institute is celebrating its 30th birthday. How
have your operations changed since the beginning, three de-
cades ago?
The program has evolved a great deal since it began with the Direc-
tors and Screenwriters Labs. Over the years, under the leadership
of Michelle Satter, it has become increasingly comprehensive, ex-
tending the support throughout the life of a project at key stages of
the process. We have seen that our ongoing presence can make the
difference between a film getting made or not, or encourage it to Five films of the Cannes film festival were supported by Sun-
find its best form. So, we are always thinking of new ways to help dance Institute’s Feature Film Program: Porfirio, Martha
the filmmakers move forward. Marcy May Marlene, Elena, The Slut, Return. Can you tell us
something about them?
What are the criteria for entering your feature film programme? They are all so different and individual to the filmmakers. But in
The typical point of entry is the Screenwriters lab. We look for all cases, there is an originality to the ideas or a new perspective
original voices, stories we haven’t seen before or, in some cases, on something we may already know. The filmmakers have been
familiar stories told in new ways. Filmmakers working on their first stubborn (in the best sense) about honoring their vision, which is
or second feature from the US and international ‘regions of focus’ increasingly difficult, given the collaborative nature of the medium
are considered based on full length screenplays and their previous and pressures facing them nowadays. The films are disquieting,
work (i.e short films, theatre pieces, visual art or other writing). thought provoking and risky and we are always proud to stand
behind that.
Sundance is focused on independent films. Are they still ‘inde-
pendent’? Does cinema matter?
The term independent has obviously evolved and morphed over I think it does matter, more and more, given its reach and potential
the years, and represents films made in a variety of ways. In almost to broaden what we know and understand about the world. There is
all the cases of filmmakers we work with, there is very little real still nothing quite like the intimate access it gives us into the most
infrastructure to support them – their vision is their own (whether unlikely places – be it to worlds away or the bedroom in the house
it is an original story, or requires them to forge a new technique, next door or the mind of a teenager. And as pure entertainment or
non traditional structure, or tone) while working within certain an art form, I can’t imagine a world without it.
parameters of the form – and the producers are piecing it together
in entrepreneurial ways. Even though there is a larger ‘independent By Ľuboš Bišto (Slovakia)
film industry’, I don’t think there is any question that it is powered
by an independent spirit and independently constructed films.

6. photos by Andris Feldmanis, Martina Lang and Miklós Vargha

7. in focus //
from top to bottom: Augustine, Khibula, The Train Station
l’Atelier
As Wide as the Web
Amongst film profes- ple living far away become inhabitants of
a giant global village. But has the internet
sionals, the expression got the potential to connect movies with
the audiences just as movie theatres used
‘new media’ tends to to do?
become the new life- The media consumption of the younger
line –after the 3D- for generations is radically different from that
attracting audiences. of the older filmgoers. They watch videos
and films on YouTube, they blog, face-
Nisimazine investigated book or tweet their preferences. Could
these platforms become a new channel
on how the projects at between movies and the audiences? Pro-
this year’s L’Atelier ducers, filmmakers all seem to be aware
of the influence and impact of new media,
face –and embrace- the yet the success at prestigious festivals still
enjoys utmost priority. However, the spark
challenges of online is there; some projects are in full swing on Online casting & gloomy prophecy
marketing. the Internet. Online castings, aid campai-
gns, short films available in VOD: global A newcomer, Alice Winocour, posted
marketing online is now fully available online the call for casting for her first
“Auteur cinema became disconnected with feature Augustine, thus opening up the
and more cost-effective.
wide audiences”, so the disillusioned sta- world of acting to the less celebrated
tement goes. Art house films are targeted circles looking for talents still undisco-
at prestigious festivals and at the circles
An Iraqi multimedia campaign
vered. Among Cannes’ recurrent parti-
of professionals in order to win support cipants is David Verbeek, who premie-
The selection of L’Atelier stretches from
for upcoming projects; just as most of the red R U There last year in Un Certain
one end of the globe to the other: 15
directors and producers selected in L’Ate- Regard. His new project Full Contact
projects, 15 countries, 15 patterns of a
lier where they look for funding for their further highlights his obsession of dis-
rich tapestry of themes and genres. From
subsequent films. It is also common sense connectedness through technology as
existentialist fantasies (Of Our Economic
to say that internet connects people. Peo- a gloomy prophecy for the new media.
Situation), through the dissolution of
identity in a virtual reality (Full Contact) Certainly, using this mere technology for
to the violent immobility of youth (Lu- promoting the film is part of the whole
ton); from a political thriller (El Mudo) project. Yet, many projects still rely on
to a coming-of-age youth drama (Il Sud the prestige of festivals, which remain
è Niente), from suicide bombers (The the most reliable ways of connecting
Train Station) to quixotic patriarchs (Mr with potential audiences. This is the
Kaplan). case for example of Georgian filmmaker
George Ovashvili, who comes to Cannes
National identity is marketable in itself. to develop his second feature, Khibula,
Mohamed Al-Daradji, a rising Iraqi direc- after the success of The Other Bank.
tor - as his producer Isabelle Stead states
- “resurrects Iraqi film industry from the Of course, websites and other new media
brink of extinction”. He did it through a have long become channels of promotion
multimedia campaign exploiting all pos- for filmmakers. It is a widespread saying
Follow our coverage online on sible platforms, from social networking today that “if you do not have a profile
through radio and television to the wide on Facebook, it is as if you did not even
www.nisimazine.eu screen, in order to bring relief and aid exist”. Although there is no proof or
New videoblog of to the people of a shattered country. His guarantee that more people will turn up
film-to-be The Train Station will show a on cinema screenings, yet, it is already
Indian independent cinema different side to the stereotypes connected building a solid relationship with new
to Iraq as a war-torn country, just like Al audiences. This is one possible future of
Photo Gallery Daradji’s previous films did. Meanwhile, cinema.
his production team showcases a new mo-
Extra reviews del of “engaging with audiences beyond By Patricia Veszprémi (Hungary)
the cinema”.

8. 36
illustration: giadafiorindi.altervista.org
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF SHORTFILMS
DOCUMENTARIES AND SCREENPLAYS
22-30 JULY 2011 | REVINE LAGO - ITALY