15th Pusan International Film Festival

The festival screened 306 films from 67 countries with 101 world premieres and 52 international premieres which are record numbers for the fest. Yesterday was the awards ceremony and here are the winners.

New Curents Award
The Journals of Musan, Park Jung-Bum, Korea
Bleak Night, Yoon Sung-Hyun, Korea

Flash Forward Award: Pure, Lisa Lngseth, Sweden
Special Mention: Erratum, Marek Lechki, Poland


FIPRESCI Award: The Journals of Musan, Park Jung-Bum, Korea
NETPAC Award: Dooman River, Zhang Lu, Korea
Audience Award: My Spectacular Theatre, Lu Yang, China

To check awards for documentaries and shorts go here and to browse films go here.

Carancho

I believe I watched this movie in one long sigh, probably with my mouth open all the time. I suppose is not an easy-to-watch film for many as so realistically shows what is truth in so many countries in the world. It was hard-to-watch for me because I know that I just have to go to other side of the city I’m currently living to watch live many of the things portrayed here even if insurance payouts does not really exist here as a flourishing industry. Maybe because of the last comment the film make me feel similar emotions as when I watched Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.

I was absolutely overcome by the story but this could not have been  possible if the movie was not almost flawless. Pablo Trapero’s movie is a very complete cinematic experience that successfully travels many film genres and with a film noir (strict term definition) style tells about the sleazy lawyer business that takes advantage of people misfortunes. Set in a Buenos Aires bleak suburb film slowly introduces characters, so slowly that you start to get anxious for the drama to explode and when it does you find no relief as tension only goes up. Very painful to watch but also very gratifying if you appreciate good world cinema. Yes this Trapero’s movie belongs to world cinema as absolutely goes far beyond the Latin American current cinema jungle.

As I said before, I’ll watch everything with Ricardo Darin, he’s such a multifaceted actor that since the first film I saw with him, a very long time ago, has blown my mind as he always so-well creates intense complex characters no matter the role he plays. Sleazy lawyer Sosa is no exception, as with sights, body language and facial expressions makes a non-likable character totally human in every sense of the word. Amazing. But here we also have Pablo Trapero’s real-life wife in another mesmerizing-to-watch role. My first experience with Martina Gusman was in Trapero’s Leonera (Lion’s Den), have seen some of her TV work but definitively is one actress that I’ll follow especially after watching how good she created Luján the complex young doctor that recently arrived to Buenos Aires from the provinces. Superb actors and great cast.

As a movie has a technical quality equal… no, above great world cinema. I know that many will inevitably make comparisons between this movie and the one that won the Oscar last year for Best foreign language film as both star Ricardo Darin, but not only Darin has two very different roles but also films are very different. Is precisely in the technical quality where both Darin’s stellar films have the most difference as Trapero’s film is superior to The Secret of Their Eyes. That’s how good tech specs are in this movie as absolutely are essential part of everything that happens in the narrative.

Definitively not an easy-to-watch movie but one that everyone that loves great world cinema should watch and as such I strongly recommend it; absolutely must be seen to those that chose to follow Ricardo Darin and Martina Gusman performances and most of all, to realize how Pablo Trapero is becoming a master filmmaker.

My fourth 2010 Cannes film and it’s official, I’m slowly changing my perception of the festival film quality from the so-so to the great! Hope the trend continues as I go on further exploring the films.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC

30th Blue Dragon Awards Winners

A few hours ago the award winners were announced and here they are in *RED.

Considered as a blockbuster movies award, this year among the nominations there are two films that definitively are worth watching, Mother and Thirst. So here are the nominations for the main categories.

Best Film
Take Off, Yong-hwa Kim
Good Morning President, Jang Jin
*Mother, Joon-ho Bong
Thirst, Chan-wook Park
Haeundae, Je-gyun Yun

Best Director
*Yong-hwa Kim for Take Off
Jang Jin for Good Morning President
Joon-ho Bong for Mother
Chan-wook Park for Thirst
Je-gyun Yun for Haeundae

Best Actress
Ok-bin Kim in Thirst
Ha-Neul Kim in My Girlfriend is an Agent
Hye-ja Kim in Mother
Kang-hee Choi in Aeja
*Ji-won Ha in Closer to Heaven

Best Actor
*Myeong-min Kim in Closer to Heaven
Yun-seok Kim in Running Turtle
Kan-ho Song in Thirst
Dong-kun Jang in Good Morning President
Jung-woo Ha in Take Off

To check the nominees and award winners in all categories go here for English and here for Korean. The award ceremony will be on December 2nd.

14th Pusan International Film Festival Award Winners

Recently the fest had the awards ceremony and here are the winners.

New Currents Award (tie)
Kick Off, Shawkat Amin Korki, Kurdistan and Iraq, 2008
나는 곤경에 처했다! Naneun Konkyeonge Cheohaessda! (I’m in Trouble!), So Sang-min, Korea, 2009
Special Mention: Squalor, Giuseppe Bede Sampedro, Philippines, 2009

FIPRESCI Award: Kick Off, Shawkat Amin Korki, Kurdistan and Iraq, 2008
NETPAC Award: Paju, Park Chan Ok, Korea, 2009
Audience Award: 伞 Lan, Jiang Wenli, China, 2009

Fast Forward Award: Last Cowboy Standing, Zaida Bergroth, Findland and Germany, 2009
Special Mention: Miss Kicki, Hakon Liu, Sweden and Taiwan, 2009

Sonje Award for Short Films (tie)
Somewhere Unreached, Kim Jae-won, Korea
Rare Fish, Basil Vassili Mironer, Singapore and Indonesia

Mecenant Award for Documentaries (tie)
Earth’s Woman, Kwon WooJung, Korea
The Other Song, Saba Dewan, India

To read the official press release go here.

14th Pusan International Festival

Described as the Hub of Asian Cinema the fest will run from October 8 to 16 in Korea and this year these awards will be given.

New Currents Awards – given to two best feature films selected from works of new Asian directors in New Currrents.

Flash Forward Award – newly created this year in search for new cineaste beyond Asia by introducing the first or second works of young non-Asian directors.

Sonje Award – given to the best Korean and Asian short films in Wide Angle section.

PIFF Mecenat Award – first introduced in this year, is granted to the best Korean and Asian documentary films from Wide Angle section.

FIPRESCI Award – granted to a work among Asian directors
NETPAC Award – given to best Korean film either from New Currents or Korean Cinema Today sections.
KNN Award – Audience Award

New Currents Official Selection

This year’s ‘New Currents’ is featuring twelve films from 11 different countries.

Mardi ke gilass hayash ra khord (A Man Who Ate His Cherries), Payman Haghani, Iran, 2009
慢性中毒 Dead Slowly, Rita Hui, Hong Kong, 2009 (seems interesting, visually stunning!)
나는 곤경에 처했다! Naneun Konkyeonge Cheohaessda! (I’m in Trouble!), So Sang-min, Korea, 2009
Kick Off, Shawkat Amin Korki, Kurdistan and Iraq, 2008
伞 Lan, Jiang Wenli, China, 2009 (seems interesting)
Lost Paradise in Tokyo, Shiraishi Kazuya, Japan, 2009
Mundane History, Anocha Suwichakof, Thailand, 2009
My Daughter, Charlotte Lim, Malaysia, 2009 (interesting!)
Paju, Park Chan Ok, Korea, 2009
Squalor, Giuseppe Bede Samp, Philippines, 2009
True Noon, Nosir Saidov, Tajikistan, 2009
Vihir, Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni, India, 2009

As the section has quite interesting films here are the movies in the Flash Forward Official Selection.

The Loners, Renen Schorr, Israel, 2009
Bridges, Julian Giulianelli, Argentina, 2009
Chicago Heights, Daniel Nearing, Canada and USA, 2009 (gay interest)
Cosmonaut, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Italy, 2009
Dust, Max Jacoby, Luxembourg and Austria, 2009 (wow! Very interesting and probably gay interest)
Kino Caravan, Titus Muntean, Romania and Germany, 2009 (must be seen for me)
Last Cowboy Standing, Zaida Bergroth, Findland and Germany, 2009
Magma, Pierre Vinour, France, 2009
Miss Kicki, Hakon Liu, Sweden and Taiwan, 2009 (gay interest)
The Frost, Ferran Audi, Spain and Norway, 2008 (Bibi Anderson and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, must be seen for me)
Zero, Pawel Borowski, Poland, 2009

Opening Film: Good Morning President, Jang Jin, Korea, 2009
Closing Film: The Message, Chen kuo-fu and Gao Qunshu, China, 2009

The festival has many more films in the following sections:

Gala Presentation
A Window on Asian Cinema (Vietnam’s Adrift will be shown here)
Korean Cinema Today – Panorama
Korean Cinema Today – Vision
Korean Cinema Retrospective
Ha Kil-chong, The Dreamer for New Cinema
Remembering Yu Hyun-mok
Archeology of Korean Cinema
World Cinema
Wide Angle (shorts and documentaries)
Open Cinema

If you want to check all the Special Programs in Focus and the Midnight Passion sections I suggest you use the links at the left of any of the above pages.

I spent a lot of time just browsing the sections plus reading about the movies in only two sections. This is a huge festival with many interesting films from Asia and all over the world.

Watch some trailers @ Movie On Companion

Tokyo!

A fascinating triptych with three stories set in Tokyo with the vision of three foreign directors, French Michel Gondry, French Leos Carax and Korean Bong Joon-ho. The best for me was Gondry’s Interior Design, the second best Bong’s Shaking Tokyo and the last was really hard to watch Merde by Carax.

Interior Design tells about a girl that needs to feel useful and the in the most unexpected and fantastic way she finally finds how to be and feel useful. But to me the short is also about how big cities make you feel like objects and how you tend to “accept” it as the price to live there. The short has excellent and amazing visual effects and good performances.

Shanking Tokyo is about a hikikomori (or shut-in) man that hasn’t left his house for the last 10 years and lives in perfect order and harmony. To eat he orders delivery and never looks at the eyes of the delivery person. But one day he does only to find a beautiful young woman and in that moment there is an earthquake! Many things happen until he decides to go out to the street and look for the girl with great and unexpected consequences. To me this short is about how big cities can easily drive people to live only inside their homes, the only place left where you can be yourself, have order and perfect harmony; but what seems unique (shut-in yourself) sooner than later becomes the norm. Then there is nothing left but destruction. You really have to see this short to understand what I mean. The short has excellent performance by Teruyuki Kagawa.

Merde is hard to watch, very hard. Tells about the monster/creature of the sewers that appears to scare people, until becomes violent, very violent killing hundreds of Tokyo dwellers. He is not Japanese he is a westerner. Police finally gets him, locks him but no one speaks his language. A Frenchman claims he does and finds that his name is Mr. Merde. Besides being a parody to the multiple Godzilla stories, to me the film deals with big city dwellers xenophobia and terrorist fear. Good performance by Denis Lavant that makes the creature believable and highly disgusting, revolting and very unpleasant to watch.

So this triptych is not a love letter to Tokyo, is more a critical exposition about people that live in big cities and in my opinion the stories are not particularly related only to Tokyo as I can see them happening in any other big, crowded, and inhumane big city of the world.

This is quite an interesting cinematic experience that is presented in the right order, like a meal. First you have a very light and wow! entrée; second the main dish that is too rich and hard to digest, but dessert follows and is fluffy, light and sweet. Everything is just perfect to leave you at the end feeling good and acknowledging the great experience.

Cinematography is excellent with three quite different styles integrated flawlessly into one flowing cinematic experience. The film premiered at 2008 Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section and did the festival circuit to audiences delight.

This was a great cinematic experience for me and I highly recommend it to everyone that has lived or lives in a big city. But definitively is not for all audiences as the shorts tend to be of the art cinema style. Still, I highly suggest to many that read the blog to give it a try and remember to be prepared for Merde as is hard to watch, but some viewers comments claim that is the funniest of all, so go figure.

Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @ Movie On Companion