♦ Introduction
This blog is a place for all contributors of Nisimazine to continue to write, photograph, make video and discuss cinema together after the workshops. An extension of the magazine, this is a free space to keep sharing new insights and experiences through reviews, essays, quotes, interviews and festival reports. You can join any conversation by posting comments. So…, let’s go !
Friday 7 June 2013
By Fernando Vasquez (Portugal),
7 June
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Editorials
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[en]
May was another busy month for Nisimazine. As it happens every year, we took a large group of young writers to the Cannes film festival, to cover the Camera d´Or and the different Short Film competitions. The end result of the coverage can be read, heard and seen in many different formats. A full 90 pages long ebook was recently published and can be read here on our website (press link on the right). A radio program, where all the critics had a chance to talk about their favourite and least (…)
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Thursday 14 March 2013
By Fernando Vasquez (Portugal),
14 March
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Editorials
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[en]
March 2013 is promising to be yet another nonstop month for Nisimazine, after a quick recovery from the Berlinale blues the previous month.
Our teams keeps traveling around the continent in an endless search for what is new out there, with our usual and recognizable focus on young filmmakers.
Our first stop was at the famous and leading CARTOON MOVIE forum in France, where animation took center stage, reflecting, in many ways, the growth the format has been taking within the industry. (…)
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Wednesday 13 February 2013
13 February
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Editorials
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[en]
The beginning of 2013 has been pretty much non-stop for NISIMAZINE. The year started with a short, yet intensive, stop at The Rotterdam International Film Festival, where we returned to cover the famous Tiger Shorts program, while also finding the time for a quick peek into the Spectrum Program as well. Six young writers from all over Europe dissected the productions on offer, one by one, meeting some of the most exciting and experimental young filmmakers around along the way. If you have (…)
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
By Celluloid Liberation Front,
23 May 2012
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Editorials
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[en]
As they cheered and hooted, they were far more confident than the film actors on display, who seemed ill at ease when they stepped from their cars, like celebrity criminals ferried to a mass trial by jury at the Palais, a full-scale cultural Nuremberg furnished with film clips of the atrocities they had helped to commit.
– JG Ballard in Super Cannes
Cannes is the ultimate cinematic event – a “monastic institution” in Bazin’s words – insofar as it effectively accommodates the eccentricities of art (…)
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Sunday 22 April 2012
By Andreea Dobre (Romania),
22 April 2012
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Finale Plzeň 2011
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[en]
This year’s Finále Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary, offering once again full immersion in Czech film. So if you have a cinephile interest in the country that brought us Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Jiří Menzel and Jan Švankmajer, the city of Plzeň is the place to be next week!
Animated drama Alois Nebel competes for this year’s Golden Kingfisher Award
The Feature Film Competition includes Martin Šulík’s Gypsy, coming straight from last year’s Karlovy Vary award list, or A Night too (…)
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By Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania),
22 April 2012
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Kino pavasaris 2012
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[en]
The saying that jeans and rock destroyed the Soviet Union perfectly describes the main idea of Lithuanian documentary “How We Played Revolution”. These are the words said by Václav Havel, former president of Czech Republic, and it is also recalled in the film.
Giedrė Žičkytė, the director of documentary, chose a perspective of Lithuanian rock band “Antis” (what means “Duck”) to construct a story about the events during perestroika when Lithuanians were peacefully fighting for the independence of their (…)
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Tuesday 10 April 2012
By Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania),
10 April 2012
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Kino pavasaris 2012
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[en]
The CV of Greg Zglinski is really diverse – he is not only a film director and screenwriter, but also a film producer, cinematographer, film, sound editor and film score composer. He has played guitar and bass in several rock bands too. He was born in 1968 in Warsaw, Poland, but he brought up in Switzerland. Later G. Zglinski studied in the directing department of the Polish National Film, Television and Theater School in Lodz and was a student of Krzysztof Kieslowski.
We come to see him due (…)
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Tuesday 3 April 2012
By Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania),
3 April 2012
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Kino pavasaris 2012
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[en]
Pavel Kostomarov – Russian documentary director and cinematographer who has worked with such directors as Sergey Loznitsa (Landscape, 2003) and Alexey Popogrebsky (How I Ended This Summer, 2010). He has received a number of awards including a Silver Berlin Bear for his camera work in Popogrebsky`s film.
His latest documentary “I Love You” co-directed with Alexander Rastorguev is screened in the festival this year. Directors were in search for a new film language, so they applied a kind of (…)
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Monday 26 March 2012
By Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania),
26 March 2012
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Kino pavasaris 2012
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[en]
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Tuesday 20 March 2012
By Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania),
20 March 2012
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Kino pavasaris 2012
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[en]
Telling “Goodbye” to frequent social life, delaying all the works, missing the birthdays of best friends – these things can cause serious problems, but seems so dim every time when movie festival begins. This time it is one of the most influencial film festivals in Lithuania – 17th Vilnius International Film Festival “Kino pavasaris” (what means “cinema spring”).
In general, the programme of the festival seems very promising this year – it might be caused by the fact that previous year had been (…)
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By Jorė Janavičiūtė (Lithuania),
20 March 2012
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Kino pavasaris 2012
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[en]
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Monday 20 February 2012
By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
20 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
It always intrigues me to see how people queue. For there are different ways to do so. Allow me to use generalisations, just this one time, to make it easier. The English have a culture of queuing. At bus stations in London, you come across lines of people that go for hundreds of metres. There is this unspoken rule, a societal code, that this is just what you do. In Germany, you have what they call “grapes of people” – stressful, tight formations that gather around the point of interest. (…)
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By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
20 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
In the centre of the film, there is the stroy of Dennis alias ‘Panik’, one of the skateboarders, to whom the film is also devoted to. A group of friends meets at his funeral again, which also serves as a starting point of the film’s narrative. Marten Persiel uses footage of the main three characters and best friends at the same time and mixes it with the current footage as well as some historical excerpts from East German TV (to add the communist atmosphere - which is a bit of a cliché).
The (…)
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By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
20 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
Keep the Lights On was on the list of hot candidates for the TEDDY Award, and on Friday, February 17, 2012 it also won the TEDDY Award for the Best Feature Film. The screening on the following day was thus accompanied by a hearty and joyful atmosphere for which the Berlinale audience is famous for, for that matter.
The film takes us to New York in the late 1990s. It is the age before on-line dating, the age of phone sex. Erik (Thure Lindhard) is on the phone looking for some action during (…)
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Saturday 18 February 2012
By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
18 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
It is a summer morning and Marius (Șerban Pavlu) wakes up with a hangover and swear words on his lips. He is divorced and the swearing is aimed at his ex-wife Otilia (Mihaela Sîrbu), who allows him to see his 5-year-old daughter Sofia (Sofia Nicolaescu) only occasionally. Everybody in Our Family depicts one day in a broken-up home, which develops from a family drama into a black comedy with vivid dialogues and great performances (especially Sofia Nicolaescu).
Once Marius enters his (…)
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By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
18 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
In the early stages of the production of the film, Messeeh’s producer asked the director, „so what is this film is about? The Virgin? The Copts? Or you?“ The title says it all – Messeeh’s debut film is a piece of everything. The idea for the documentary is born when, one Christmas, a relative brings a video tape allegedly capturing the apparition of the Virgin Mary. Messeeh, born in Egypt and raised in France in a family of Copts, does not see anything remarkable on the tape. His mother, (…)
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Friday 17 February 2012
By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
17 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s documentary premiered in the Competition section of Berlinale 2012 with great style. ‘You are one of the best and heartiest festival audiences in the world’ said the Taviani brothers referring to the great applause they received after the film. Together with the directors, one of the inmates Salvatore Striano appeared on the stage, which produced even greater and very cordial applause.
Cesar Must Die shows the rehearsal process of Julius Cesar in the Italian (…)
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
Kamel and his family are Bedouins. They live in small shacks, somewhere in the Negev, on land that has belonged to the family for decades. One day, Kamel returns home to find a demolition order from the Israeli authorities. While his brother becomes more and more angry at the situation, Kamel silently continues his everyday life: he is a security guard at Be’er Sheva bus station. But he knows – the day of demolition will come. The little that is spoken in Sharqiya brings out the Bedouins’ (…)
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By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
Genre Cinema and the Reality around Us
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By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
The first feature of the Austrian director Umut Dağ Kuma opened 62nd edition of the Berlinale section Panorama. The opening was grandiose, with the whole film crew coming onto the stage; however, the reception of the film was rather ambiguous.
Umut Dağ creates an image of a Turkish family in Vienna in its microcosm through the story of two women, the wife Fatma and the second wife Ayşe (Kuma in Turkish). The film starts with a wedding in Turkey, where Ayşe supposedly marries the young and (…)
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By Michaela Pňačeková (Slovakia),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
Three friends and a woman. Morocco. Love. Betrayal. Crime. Death. Yes, all the strong noir motifs are represented in the newest film Death for Sale by Faouzi Bensaïdi, which, rather than a neo-noir movie, is an inter-genre film – a mixture of different narratives as well as images.
Malik, Allal and Soufiane spend most of their time earning their living by doing petty crimes and in their spare time just smoke weed and go to dance clubs. Everything changes when Malik meets Dounia, one of the (…)
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By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
A man travels from Kathmandu to seek help from a healer in the Nepalese mountains, for he and his wife are unable to conceive a child. The healer hands him a brown mixture and orders him to return to his wife within 36 hours. So begins the journey of this man and his fellow bus travellers who all need to get to the capital as soon as possible. There is the young bride who will be married in two days; the mother who comes to help her son-in-law with his family problems; the gay man who is (…)
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By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
13-year old Libby is sent from California to Israel to live with her father whom she hasn’t seen in years. Shaul could not be less prepared for the arrival of his only daughter – the eccentric is what he calls “in between apartments”. In other words, he is homeless. As the second Lebanon war breaks out, Shaul has what seems to him a genius idea: father and daughter pretend to be refugees from the war-struck north and are taken in by a wealthy family in Jerusalem. Under the newly found roof, (…)
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By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
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[en]
The title is pregnant of meaning – Soldier / Citizen (Bagrut Lochamim) opposes two notions of being in Israel. First you are a soldier. Then you become a citizen. It is a development that is different than the one we know, one that very much shapes the identity of young Israelis.
Shot in 2006 during the Lebanon War, the film is an intimate observation of a civic studies class for Israeli soldiers at the end of their service. Landsmann impregnates herself with a DV camera into the three-week (…)
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By Mara Klein (Germany/France),
14 February 2012
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Berlinale 2012
|Translations:
[en]
“This is not an anti-zoo film”, says director Denis Côté as he steps on stage after the European premiere of his film Bestiaire. In fact, it’s not an anti-film at all. Bestiaire is a film for the audience, a film about the audience. The full-length documentary is what some would call a challenge – with no dialogue, no commentary, no clear story line. One could even argue that is not a documentary, for, as Côté recently stated in an interview, the only true documentary is captured on surveillance (…)
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Wednesday 7 December 2011
By Jude Lister (UK),
7 December 2011
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Editorials
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[en]
As we reach the end of One World Bratislava, talk in the Nisimazine office is turning to summarising the highlights of the week and the range of important issues tackled. From Burmese repression to the Arab Spring, from climate change to the fight for net neutrality – the programme has certainly offered a broad snapshot of current affairs.
Meanwhile, outside of the workshop bubble, it’s been hard not to notice a number of rapidly paced and mostly alarming developments going on in the world (…)
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By Eftihia Stefanidi (Greece),
7 December 2011
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Cannes 2011
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[en]
Las Acacias emerged from the shy corners of Critic’s Week in the last Cannes Film Festival and was my own personal treasure from the two-week film marathon. First-time Argentinian director Pablo Giorgelli silently – but masterfully – captures the subtle connections which unravel between a lonely truck driver and his passenger during their road trip across South America.
This little gem won the Camera d’Or in Cannes and received the Sutherland Award at the BFI London Film Festival. An (…)
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Saturday 3 December 2011
By Getter Trumsi (Estonia),
3 December 2011
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Editorials
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[en]
Christmas comes early for movie-enthusiasts who find exciting presents under the tree during the Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF). Similar to kids, the film-fanatics want different things, for instance new experiences and everything from documentaries to feature films, from North-America to Asia. Thus, PÖFF is organized perfectly just to benefit everybody with a variety of choices and opportunities to satisfy their cinematic-needs.
In 2011 PÖFF and the wolf (the symbol of the festival) (…)
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By Lydia Castellano (France),
3 December 2011
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Editorials
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[en]
[fr]
Here we are in beautiful but freezing Bratislava, with high expectations for the week becoming real facts day by day. The Jeden Svet Festival is full of films to watch, people to meet and places to visit, things to write, to say, and to dream about… and we want to do it all at the same time.
Is it possible? Well, of course not. But as adept multi-taskers in a hyperconnected era, we will try our best, in sickness and in health. The rhythm is getting quicker and quicker as days go by, and (…)
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By Johannes Bennke (Germany),
3 December 2011
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Editorials
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[de]
[en]
Violated human rights, catastrophes, dictatorships, ecology and revolution - after four days of the festival a panorama of topics has unfolded, which the One World Festival rallies around and which is kept under the label of activist cinema. It’s a label that sets the relation between the filmmaker and the engagement in a special light.
If one tries carefully to give an overview of the films, it seems that the least surprising request is to show injustice and put the persons responsible in (…)
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