“People don’t live in a vacuum, they live in a world determined by political and economic decisions that affect them down to the most private, the most inner part of their lives” KEN L.

Ken Loach is unassuming. His work has a richness and complexity, so often absent in modern movies, that marks a strongly humanist outlook on life and society - and yet, the films are shot in a guileless, almost documentary style allowing the audience to engage with the story and characters without any overt directorial signposting. He is the kind of artisan who brings an incredible amount of craft to their work; the kind that if you notice what they are doing, if any heavy-handedness intrudes, are not doing their job properly.
“The criterion always is to carry the story forward or reveal the character and just explore the content rather than just explore the narrative line.

“One thing is to cast people who have something in common, at least, with the part they’re playing and then they reveal themselves and they bring that depth into the films. That’s a key element and so that you try to suggest a hinterland beyond the film. It’s just a question of finding people who will have that depth and be able to reveal it and, if it works, brings a sense of a life beyond the film. That’s what you try for.”

Work of such depth is not made in isolation and Loach’s method of working relies heavily on collaborating with writers who share his humanist and political sensibilities. The writers (including Nell Dunn, Jeremy Sanford, Jim Allen and Paul Laverty) bring a strong sense of character, place and humour to the projects.

“I’ve been very lucky and worked with a few writers for a long time. The writer I’m working with the moment, Paul Laverty, and I and Rebecca [O’Brien, Loach’s producer] will talk about what’s come out of the films we’ve done in the past, the last film, and then just talk around different ideas until one really seems the one that has to be made. It comes from long conversations with the writer. The writer is the most important person in the process, often more important than the director.”

His work comes from a long tradition of social realist cinema that, arguably, began in the forties with Italian Neorealism, continuing through aspects of the French nouvelle vague, through to the British new wave of the sixties which included the work of directors like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger who dealt explicitly with the dissatisfaction and social problems within Britain. Beginning his career in television, Loach made a name for himself with the hugely innovative Cathy Come Home (1966) before moving into cinema with Poor Cow (1967) and particularly with Kes (1969) which for many remains his signature film. He continued to alternate his work between television and cinema throughout the seventies until he found himself marginalised during the eighties because his political viewpoint did not chime with the right-wing ideologies of Thatcherism. Although he was met with direct censorship, Loach refused to give up on his ideals.

“Films do, whether you want them to or not, interpret the world because you’re taking a picture of people and places. You are interpreting the world whether you want to or not, and if you’re going to interpret it then your interpretation should be, at least, coherent. Obviously, a film can be anything, a film is like prose, but if it’s to have any merit then I think that there must be some ideas that are reflected in what you do and then you have to test the validity of those ideas.”

Loach’s resurgence in the nineties, brought about by Channel 4 funding and producers Sally Hibbin and Rebecca O’Brien, has produced headline cinema; from Hidden Agenda through Riff-Raff, Land And Freedom, My Name Is Joe, and Bread And Roses, to last year’s Ae Fond Kiss; Loach’s films have garnered international prizes, critical accolades and commercial success. The uncompromising nature and integrity of his work has been bolstered by the integrity of the working relationships he has developed. And, although his films seem at odds with commercial cinema, his immediate future seems assured.

“All the films we’ve done have either made money or broken even and they are commercial enterprises, otherwise we wouldn’t survive. What we spend to make the film is linked to what we can get back either through the box office or sales to television or whatever. They are commercial projects and the budgets reflect what will be recouped.

“The people we have been working with, we’ve been working with a long time so it’s a well established pattern of finance, if we did two or three and they’d all lost heavily, well, we’d struggle. We’d be in trouble.”

The consistently high quality threshold that he maintains has helped him become one of World cinema’s respected elder statesman coupled with the bravery that sees him make films that are more complex than the norm. Generally, cinema is about winning, someone always has to win; there are obstacles in our hero’s path and they are overcome in a series of increasingly dramatic events culminating in an uplifting ending and a return to some kind of status quo (hopefully, not the denim-clad longhairs) leaving the audience little changed by the experience. Loach’s films are better than that because he knows that the world isn’t about winning or losing but the life that happens in between, that cinema can intelligently reflect and comment upon what is real rather than just being an expensive palliative.

“We try to explore just the way people live together and the interaction between social circumstances and private lives and the effects of politics on the way people live. It all interacts with the other; people don’t live in a vacuum, they live in a world determined by political and economic decisions that affects them down to the most private, the most inner part of their lives.”

Important British cinema is being made by relatively few people nowadays, the industry preferring either feel-good fare or variations on a gangster theme. Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Michael Winterbottom are the only British directors who consistently garner international praise and have refused the temptation to ‘go Hollywood’ - hopefully, to be joined by Shane Meadows and Lynne Ramsay - and while Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are often bracketed together, Loach’s projects are more political and immediate whereas Leigh’s fables tend to explore emotional ground more explicitly.

“I’ve known Mike a long time, he’s a friend - yes, I always enjoy his films. I think we do quite different films and present people in a different light. Although the films are often placed in a similar social milieu or similar locations, we’re interested in making different kinds of films; different kinds of statements. I think the similarity is more apparent than real.”

Ken Loach is in a World class of directors who continue to show that cinema can still have important things to say in an era when Hollywood, the dominant cinema in the world, seems to be ingesting itself in its quest for fatuousness.
“Writers have to write what they feel compelled to write and the same is true for filmmakers. I think European filmmakers, by and large, take a more complete view: their films reflect a more complete view of the world they experience.
“Because the American industrial cinema is so driven by formula, by how to maximise their profits, they turn film into hamburger. It’s equivalent to McDonalds, instead of being equivalent to a series of restaurants. Everything is geared to exploiting the markets rather than to making a relevant communication. So inevitably that has an impact on the kinds of films that it produces.
“I think that Asian cinema produces very complex films. Southern American cinema is very interesting and some of the most progressive films are coming from Southern America. So maybe North America should learn from Southern America for once.”

Ken is currently in post-production on his new film, The Wind That Shakes The Barley starring Cillian Murphy, looking at the Irish struggle for independence and the lead-up to the civil war of 1922.

“We’ve just finished the first cut and we’re just starting to go through and throw a lot of the stuff out. So, we’re just at quite a good stage of this … but when you’re close to it, it’s sometimes hard to say whether it’s any good or not. It may be a load of old rollocks. You never know.”
Unassuming. As ever.

The survey on Muslim communities by Channel 4’s Jon Snow in the light of the events of the 10/08.

The survey published by Channel 4’s Jon Snow on the 7th of August, highlighted what a certain section of the Muslim community made of the last events in Heathrow on the 10th of August. Coincidence, coincidence on the 07/8, three days before the incidents, John Snow of Channel 4, (The 3rd TV channel in the land) was publishing the results of that now famous survey on the Muslim community.

http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/D/dispatches2006/

The Channel 4 survey showed that some sections of that particular community felt angered by the UK foreign policy and that it was only a matter of time before the terror alert of the 10th happened.

When they say first generation Muslim, read Muslims from the Indian sub-continent (Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis…). Second and third generations, although hailing in majority from the same lands also includes an increasing numbers of members of the Africans Diasporas (North Africans from Algeria, Morocco … and Black Africans from Somalia, Nigeria…)

It is interesting to notice that one of the 10/08 plotters is said to be a young middle-class white man who converted to Islam 6 months ago. Albeit an interesting one, it is more than anything, a sensationalist fact, which implies that individuals on the fringe of society could have been ‘easily’ brainwashed and pushed to do such an act. But when one is glaring upon the calm and quiet suburban semi-detached houses, raided by the police forces on the 10th and bring to the mix what the C4 survey do reveal. One has to hammer home some alarming truths.

The results published, although predictable, highlighted again the chiasm between young Muslims and the older law-abiding generation who were simply in a broad sense happy to be offered entry to the country and a fairly comfortable way of life. It also showed an even wider chiasm with British society and its way of life as a whole, with some calling for the implementation of Shariaa (or Islamic law) in what they see as a godless land.

The younger ones have turned to a more orthodox approach to Islam than their elders with a minority of them turning to radical ideas and an even smaller one to direct action.

• A majority of those young people for example, thought that Lady Di was eliminated because she was bearing a potential heir to the UK crown of Muslim descent.
• Again, in their views 9/11 was an ‘inside job’ involving US security forces themselves.
• Iraq, Kosovo, Chechnya, Lebanon, Palestine, Are all seen as proof of a greater conspiracy against their faith and they seem to see little or no compassion from the rest of the population.

John Snow stresses that he had spoken to devout Muslim, but no real extremists, despite their strong views. They were all articulate, educated and in touch with their community.

This last alert although disruptive, can not be analyzed without the middle-east sub-plot at its core and on a more local level the Forest Gate security forces fiasco which saw 200 police officers arresting 2 Muslim men, destroyed their houses, injured one of them at gunpoint and released them a week or so later without charge. Or the unnecessary killing of a peaceful but scared Brazilian worker in the tube who was said to have connections with the 7/7 bombers.

Intelligence gathering within that community is a major issue and security forces trained to combat enemy-states from the old ‘iron curtain’ in Eastern Europe have not been able to adapt to this new kind of asymmetric warfare. Security forces have tried to recruit within that particular community, but last reports lately showed that the recruitment drive allegedly made them opened to infiltrations or maybe it was just internal resistance from organizations not inclined to be opened to broader section of the community.

Another survey about what the British public at large, think of the Muslim community will be quite interesting. You can easily predict a north-south divide on that issue. As Muslim communities in the north are on average, less integrated and less prosperous than their southern counterpart. Half or more of the 7/7 bombers came from up north where they literally live parallel lives with other communities. Whether there will be public or more subtle forms of backlash remain to be seen.

The battle-front is multiple, diverse and shifting all the time. Sensitivity is at its peak as shown by the ‘cartoon’ episode earlier this year throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Even a misplaced head butt at the world cup final took another signification when enlarged to the head butters origins and the words ‘terrorist (?)’ uttered or not…. Another proof of that sensitivity was screened when George Galloway MP and leader of the Respect movement went on live TV, the day after the survey was published and before the 10th of August, to defend his pro-Arabs views on SKY TV: http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,31200-galloway_060806,00.html

An amazing outburst it was and definitely not the last on the subject. Whether one conflict fed the anger for the other one, the Channel 4 survey seems to agree. Whether one is firmly linked on the ground, to the other remains to be proven. However, in the global age we are living in, it is difficult to believe that events can stand alone without any connections to other events happening right now and involving fellow Muslims conclude the survey and as we know, the survey was published BEFORE the foiled plot. Cautiousness and fore thinking are required in these dark hours and a fair advice would be to give the last events a week or two to simmer, before drawing any definitive conclusions.

The dividing lines are cultural, generational, religious and ultimately racial. It is indeed, the biggest challenge faced by secular, tolerant Europe for this century and maybe the next to come.

Snakes on a Plane is an action/horror film to be released on August 18, 2006. by New Line Cinema.

Written by David D’Alessandro, John Heffernan, Sheldon Turner, directed by David R. Ellis and starring Samuel L. Jackson. The film finished filming principal photography in September of 2005 including five days of additional re-shooting to raise the MPAA film rating system rating from a PG-13 to an R[1]. It is now unofficially the biggest buzzed film of all time with tremors going back as early, as the Blair Witch Project era in 99. Buzzed is the right word and for once, it is not down to cast, crew or script,…and has anyone approaching the phenomenon quite taken aback by the way it all started. SOAP, as it is now known, started as a quirky little film on a plane, post 9/11. It was difficult for any respectable producer to think about green lighting a high-profile project involving planes flying.

Sam was brought into the picture - ‘because of the title’ - and all of sudden, the producers (Craig Berenson, Gary Levinsohn and Don Granger), realized that they were sitting on a good film. The film’s working title was then changed to ‘Pacific Air flight 121′

Perceptive fans - Hollywood insiders? Outsiders? - picked up on this change of name and started writing poems, songs, bloggs, trailers,…to ‘protect’ the title? Revive it? It started a cult followed by many and like the great men once said ‘Never was so much owed by so many to so few’
How and why it started will remain a webmystery. However, the title has now became in Internet-lingo an explanation for fatalistic feelings ranging from ‘c’est la vie’ to “shit happens.” …

Here is one of those poem by SuperMatricks:

Snake On A Plane or SOAP…

Internet aphorism…
Sentence precluded of any serious meaning
If only the very serious…meaning of life….
Over-reaching the foremost tentacles
Down the deep end of the wide web
Cruising like the riding zeitgeist.

For this is the Google age, we enter a new page
Clicking away at every turning point.
We are mere mortals and should not be on a plane
For this is the moment when running from the joint

The only ghost moved on the femme fatale
She, bless her, decided to refuse the rascal

Fixing up and looking sharp
Holding the mirror like a true lady
I unleashed my lyrics in a welcoming park
I have your snake down in my plane.
I never said it would be so easy
Her smile made you feel alive
Is it possible for a snake to be on two different planes?
Was my opening chat-up line…
I could never see the reality sign
Will Hoxton ever, ever, ever be cool again?
And my head never felt so much pain
I could never, never, see, she was a real dame

And she replies: Are you always so sneaky?
Maybe cheeky, never monkey!

She smirked….almost…
Am I in?
At any cost
Magic grin…I am the boss
Think…positive like a butterfly

She gazes…Make a move?
She oozes…should I fade

I start campaigning…for my own party:
Word flowing like a proper arty..

You are the candidate, of my heart…
I’ll fly your colors to the other end of the earth
…..
.
It’s alright I’ll stay on the plane, for the rest of the flight.
She replied
Tough cookie I thought…
Browne sausage she replied
D’you know a Chinese bookie? I uttered
‘My favorite dish’ she smiled

Like I said, the snake was not for turning…hmmm just maybe for fuming
First the snake then the plane…how did it get sooo lame?
She asked.
My cover was blown ‘pff’ confetti-style…
My pride? Down the sink… ‘Sssh’ Linguini style
I’ve been plucking chicken like you all my life.
I’ve been staring at you all the flight
‘Get your snake out of here!’
The plane was still full …of other Snakes…
END.
As published on the official fanblogg: http://www.snakesonablog.com/Soooo.

Green Light

You saw the movie…liked it? Enjoyed the theater or your home cinema…? Not yet! The only problem is you haven’t seen a single frame of the film so far. The problem is the film has started a bizarre internet fever never seen before in the Google age. The problem is chat rooms, news rooms, blogg, super-community website, fansites alike…are full of it. Full of stories about the filming, the press is at it, and the growing legions of fans as well…to the point where they’ve actually been able to reorder the shooting of a few scenes and the addition of dialogues of their choice to satisfy their browsing egos. To add to the insult, I will therefore write the first review of a movie I have never seen!

Before you asked yourself, is he mad? Remember that some even made a movie of how the audition was conducted, without being there! … So let me now do my mo#*#* fu#*#*#** review!

First let’s command the fine and subtle acting genius that is Samuel Lee Jackson the first, who in his inimitable fashion has been able to deliver a performance of the highest caliber for his legions of admiring fans. Second let us remember the premises of the film: There is a plane full of snake, Samuel Lee Jackson has to save the world, and will he do it? Sure he will, but before that he will have to deliver pin-point sharp one-liners, kick some a#*#* and stutter the sentence: Get the mo#*#*#* snakes out of my m#*#*# plane!
All in the name of poetry then….

What started as a movie made for popcorn lovers - The lead should have been younger; Think Fast and Furious - made in September 2005 in Canada, is now the biggest buzzed film of all time with tremors going back as early, as Blair Witch Project era in 99(post web 2.0 then) Sam was brought in and all of sudden, the producers (Craig Berenson, Gary Levinsohn and Don Granger), realized that they were sitting on a good film. The film’s working title was then changed to ‘Pacific Air flight 121′.

erceptive fans - Hollywood insiders? Outsiders? - picked up on this change of name and started writing poems, songs, bloggs, trailers,…to ‘protect’ the title? Revive it? It started a cult followed by many and like the great men once said ‘Never was so much owed by so many to so few’
How and why it started will remain a web-mystery. However, the title has now became in Internet-lingo an explanation speak for fatalistic sentiments that range from c’est la vie to “shit happens.”

Cut to the chase….
Sam is flying a key witness from Hawaii to LA on a plane. He is an FBI agent. Sam obviously enjoy playing law-enforcement character from Jedi knights, to SWAT team leader, to private eye, to simple cop,…His character is coming straight from the Die Hard book of widow and orphan rescuer, but where Nelville Flynn has the edge on John McLane it is in his ability to deliver badaaasss one-liners while remaining ultra-cool. A ‘tour-de-force’ done effortlessly thanks to the quiet and unassuming action-packed direction of David R. Ellis. D.R.E is known to be a surf enthusiast and was in a previous life stunt coordinator on ‘cult’ films like ‘Invasions of the body snatchers’ (1978) or action 2nd unit director on ‘Patriot games’ and ‘Clear and present danger’ (1994), both with Harrison Ford…

Have you said coincidence?
Woody Allen he ain’t. But that’s exactly the point, for he is well too aware of the danger of letting angst-ridden dialogues taking over the film’s subconscious message: ‘Kill all the muthaf#*#*#*#*# snakes’. A few additional characters complete the casting, sometimes as snakes-fodder like -Tyler (Kennan Thompson) and Ashley, a married couple; Cowboy Rick (David Koechner) from Texas; Cash Money, a gangsta rapper, his bodyguards Big Leroy (Keith Dallas) and Two-Ton; Mercedes, Rachel Blanchard as a Paris Hilton look-alike…some air hostesses, puppeteer (Adam Behr)…etc. And of course the snakes, stars of the films hissing their way through the cockpit with evocative names like Scarface or Hannibal with 20 foot long Kong stealing the show.
We leave you with a few lines dropped from the trailer and hope to hear from you soon:

Nelville Flynn: It’s my job to handle life and death situations on a daily basis. It’s what I do, and I’m very good at it. Now you can stand there and be the panicked, angry mob and blame him, me and the government for getting you into this, but if you want to survive tonight, you need to save your energy and start working together.
Or the most memorable one: I’ve had it with these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane!

It’s one of those injustices we see too often in the world of art and history… An integral monument to the cultural structure of a society being sacrificed in the name of some unfulfilling, commercial purpose.

The EMD Cinema in Walthamstow was a celebrated building. It is acknowledged as one of London’s finest art deco cinemas and is scheduled by English Heritage as A Grade 2* Listed Building in recognition of its architectural significance. Built in the 1930s by Theodore Komisarjevsky, the renowned Russian stage designer, the EMD cinema is one of the only venues left in London that is designed both for live performances and film showings.

The cinema’s prominence is further made abundantly clear by the list of entertainment names that have passed into legendary status. Names such as The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, John Coltrane and James Brown have all graced EMD Cinema’s beautiful Moorish/ Spanish interiors with their presence. However, the name most associated with the cinema is none other than film director Alfred Hitchcock who grew up in Waltham Forest.

Sadly, in 2002 the cinema had to be sold and this time the buyer hadn’t had the cinema’s rich entertainment background in mind for its use- The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) plan on converting the cinema into a conference centre and place of worship. This has sparked a debate between the McGuffin Film Society along with the residents of Walthamstow (whom without the cinema will be left as the only London borough deprived of one) and the UCKG on the future purposes of the cinema.

The debate has not been resolved despite Waltham Forest Council earmarking £1 million to assist with the redevelopment of the cinema. As EMD has been one of East London’s most significant arts venues for over 70 years, let’s hope that the decision can be made so that this pillar of our cultural heritage gets restored to its former glory.

Loin du Vietnam (Far From Vietnam) is made up of seven short films made in the ‘60s at the time of the occupation of Vietnam by celebrated political directors including Jean-luc Godard and Alain Resnais.

Paulo Gerbaudo looks at the parralels between film and war then and now Loin du Vietnam is both a failure and an inspiring experiment in war cinema. The film - a politically committed documentary dealing with the war in Vietnam - after its release in 1967 proved a commercial flop and was the victim of harsh critiques and early oblivion. One rare copy of the collaborative work of a number of great politically committed directors of the period such as the French Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, William Klein, Agnés Varda and the Netherland’s director Joris Ivens has been recently screened at Cine Lumiére of the Institut Francais.

The project of the film sprang out of the convulse atmosphere of 1967 during the escalation of military operation in Vietnam, and was the result of incipient ‘68 politics with their stress on participation, assemblies and direct democracy. The film, while dealing with a decisive political issue of the period, also aimed at questioning the French film industry and the one author canon to stress the importance of collaborative work of the film crew and of different directors. On the other hand the challenge was to realise an alternative representation of the war as seen in its multifaceted and often “distant” manifestations.

To do this Loin du Vietnam undertakes an expressive experiment in the documentary format by mixing together heterogeneous materials that compose an instable collage, notwithstanding the intelligent work of Chris Marker in the cutting room. In the film different inspirations and footage, documentary and fiction, converge. The long monologue scene by Godard about the political role of the cinematography in face of the war together with scenes from La Chinoise, interviews with Fidel Castro and Ho-chi Minh sided by brief visual clips and other cinematographic virtuosities. However some of the best moments of the film are the ones that stick more directly to documentary cinema, such as the war and everyday life in Hanoi under American bombings filmed by Joris Ivens and his wife, William Klein’s documentary footage about demonstrations in the United States and Lelouch’s sequences from an American carrier.

The film represents the war in Vietnam in the form of a historical tragedy staged on different scenes. Not only battlefields, but also North Vietnamese villages, American barracks, occupied cities, TV sets in living rooms, and demonstrations in the streets of Europe and America. Hence war emerges not as a simple military confrontation but rather as a mechanism of violence and conflict spreading its tentacles through supply lines, news programs, minds and hearts.

The two themes, evoked in the film’s title, Vietnam and distance, grasp a pair of great ideas which is what the film is all about. First of all, Vietnam within this film is not just a name for a particular country in South East Asia, 10 000 miles away from American shores, but also the name for a particular political, military, social and cultural conflict, characterised by harsh oppositions both in national and international politics. Thus the film represents Vietnam not only as a war between nations but also as a civil war, as any modern war has to be. In a long sequence by William Klein in front of Wall Street, during a huge peace demonstration in New York, a group of brokers shout “Bomb Hanoi! Bomb Hanoi!”. Demonstrants engage along the march path in harsh verbal confrontations with war supporters. New York appears kidnapped by a vibrant hysteria.

The film then slides along a theatre of operations that spans through the globe. Going from the streets of Paris crowded by demonstrants and policemen to a village in North Vietnam where people are assisting to a theatre show blaming Johnson and United States, to a paddy field where a unit of the National Liberation Army is training in hiding, to the mountains of Cuba. Distance, in turn, can be read as the description of the condition of civil populations in western country during such a war and its being exposed to a mediated war fought far away but capable, at the same time, of destabilising internal society and politics. As New Yorker reporter Michael Arlen put it, the Vietnam War, was a “living-room war”. Distance is also the principle that underlies the hypertechnological war machine deployed by the U.S. in Vietnam: a system controlling death and destruction from afar. The image that opens the film is a load of bombs being moved from a supply ship to a carrier. Lelouch’s camera follows those bombs while they are stored and eventually armed on the aircraft. In the middle of the ocean, far away from the dead bodies of the American bombings it enables, the carrier becomes a metaphor of a war machine that acts from afar. Distance thus emerges as instrumental to power. A removal of the horror of war through the media and thanks to its being out-of-sight. As one of the demonstrants appearing in the film says “Americans support the war because it is far away. Would they think the same, if their cities were attacked?”. The answer is as elusive today as it was then, best exemplified in the voting patterns of the American people post 9/11.

Notwithstanding the timely political rethorics that in some parts of the film tend to lean towards an apology to Vietnam, the work provides a vibrant description of the conflict in Vietnam and the social unrest that surrounded it. After the release the work was also criticised for its ‘easy ironies’, but it is actually through those ironies that the film shows the hypocritical goodwill justifying a distant war. This is also what the film does through the way it is cut. For example by joining a popular pro-war song with the reality of a Saigon populated by prostitutes, or by showing a speech of general Westmoreland through a damaged TV screen.

Viewing such a film today inspires a reflection about the similarities and differences between the media propagation of that war and of the current one, the war in Iraq in which the U.S. and its coalition are engaging in. Vietnam was a fortunate topic for cinema, and before that, it was extensively and crudely covered by television and newspapers. The American army had, at least initially, favoured the work of journalists and camera men on the front (much more than ever happened before and after that) for propaganda reasons. So Vietnam became the first televised war, and the war began losing consensus when too many dead corpses on the screen began to disgust the American public’s dinner time.

The Iraq war has undergone a more technically developed coverage that pretends to transmit battle images in real time (through embedded journalists) as if it were a football match and always jumps quickly to the site of an attack or a bombing. In this rapidity of news coverage something has been lost. The media war coverage of Iraq has not only censored the images of blood, tortures and body bags. It has also disminished the importance of other aspects of such a war: the conditions of the civil population in the occupied country and the unrest uniting millions of people across the world in the biggest anti-war protests ever. This erasure of such decisive aspects of war is what Au loin du Vietnam tries to overcome by following the many links that the war ties through conflicts and solidarities all around the globe.

Iraq wars have, until now, not been as fortunate as Vietnam in their representations within contemporary cinema. The only fiction titles deserving attention are David O. Russell’s Three Kings (1999), the recently released Jarhead (2005) by Sam Mendes both dealing with soldiers’ stories during the 1991 conflict in Kuwait when Iraq invaded. Also Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) and Robert Greenwalth’s Uncovered: The War On Iraq (2003), both documentary films, deal with the current war in Iraq even though focusing on its role in American politics. Moreover all these films and documentaries are somehow limited to an internal vision of war as seen through the individual experience of American soldiers, citizens and their nation’s destiny and fail in providing a radical representation of war in all its complexity.

With its real-time - as much tempestive as anaesthaetised - war representation, television has produced an overload of recurrent images about the war in Iraq, restraining any space for debate, comprehension and radical analysis. In this condition it is hard to develop a committed war cinema without getting lost in easy political pedagogy a là Michael Moore or in rank paternalism in Live 8 fashion. Au loin du Vietnam can, in contrast, be an inspiration for a cinema that intends to observe war and represent what the war in Iraq means not only in terms of military and political experiences and events, but also in everyday life’s impact, in London as in Baghdad. A cinema able to document its incumbence on western countries and its consequences on the civil population of Iraq. A cinema capable of seeing war at a distance.

I wasn’t privy to the preview of the film ‘Shoot the Messenger’ to a floor full of ‘community leaders’, leading lights, notables and other luminaries…

However, what I have to say was that some organizations like Ligali, who I want to stress, usually do a good job, were quick to do the intellectual jump stating that the author Sharon Foster had engineered the whole story to get a gig at the BBC. Or was implying that unless you are willing to portray your community in a negative way you will not find employment at the BBC. Some might have divergent views on those points but I actually disagree. You can not hijack an author’s work and lay all the sins of the world on her shoulders. Her track records show that she has always focused her work on the ills of her community and society at large via Babyfathers for example, undeservedly axed from BBC’s schedule a few years ago.

The Sopranos in the US, was lambasted by some intellectual circles in the Italian-American community as a piece of anti-Italian propaganda trying to portray all Italians as outfit-related. However, in most circles and those circles are called viewers who simply enjoy good drama, it is revered as one of the best TV shows ever. The Babyfathers series never got the opportunity of a deserved second season and it was a shame. It was probably down to bad scheduling and those rumors coming from the sidelines asking for the show to be axed. Most of the talent on display, luckily found opportunities on other shows.

Reading the available news dispatches about ‘Shoot the Messenger’ the same voices do seem to be at work again and are ready to bury the show and scare the schedulers by creating negative vibes around Sharon Foster’s last outing. One aspect worth noticing, is the absence of any mention of the plot, the acting, the art direction, etc..

I believe ‘The Crouches’ was just plain bad TV, and did not deserve to see the light of day. ‘Three non-blondes’ (BBC 3 or 2 sometimes) was good comedy with three talented comedians doing what they do best: entertain. In ‘Shoot the Messenger’ we end-up with just one amazing negative reaction focusing on representation or message sent to the rest of the world, as opposed to self-reflection on whether the program is depicting some existing reality or might be of any good value. Sure, I might agree with some that she has been courting controversy and is reaping what she sowed. As did the authors of Jerry Springer the Opera’, ‘The passion of Christ’, ‘Behzti’ (dishonour) …lately. Are we in danger of reaching a stage where ‘He who turns the camera against his community will end-up excommunicated’? I hope not.

The first question I want to be answered when reading a review on any show is: WAS IT A DAMN GOOD DRAMA? If yes, then it is worth talking about representation and the consequences or its impact on a community. If it is BAD DRAMA, then we shouldn’t bother giving the project, the column inches it doesn’t DESERVE.

Ref:
Coming up tv
Babyfather

Cast:
Tobey Mcguire as Peter Parker/Spiderman, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, Daniel Gillies as John Jameson, J.K Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, Thomas Haden Church as Sandman/Flint Marko, Topher Grace as Venom, Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Conners, Adrian Lester as a Research Scientist, Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacey, Theresa Russell as Mrs. Marko, James Cromwell as Captain Stacy

Director:
Sam Raimi

Trailers:
Spiderman3 trailer / teaser

Synopsis:
A specimen from the moon gives Spiderman new powers and a black suit, while Spiderman must battle the second Green Goblin, Sandman, Venom, and other dangers. Harry Osborn’s insanity drives him over the edge and transforms him into the Green Goblin. In an effort to destroy Peter Parker he hires Flint Marko to aid him in his quest. Meanwhile Peter must balance his relationship with Mary Jane and the arrival of a new love interest, Gwen Stacy. The final showdown then pits former best friends against each other as a new villain looms on the horizon.

Trivia:
The release date for the film was set before Spiderman 2 (2004) was even released.

John Dykstra, who won an Oscar for his work as visual effects supervisor on Spiderman 2 (2004), had declined to work on the third film. Instead, Dykstra chose to work on Hot Wheels (2007). Scott Stokdyk took over as visual effects supervisor.

Topher Grace left “That ’70s Show” (1998) to star in this movie.

The over 600 latex “web” balloons in the celebration scene had to be hand-painted with a Sharpie marker.

Rukhsana Yasmin reviews Tony Gatlifs tale of two lovers on a journey to discover the land of their fathers.

Exils or Exiles tells the spirited, energetic and heartfelt story of Naima (Lubna Azabal) and her lover Zano (Romain Duris) on their journey to the land of their fathers, Algeria. Lost in the perils of immigration, these two children of the Diaspora defiantly take to the road with music as their only belonging, or as Zano puts it “music is my religion.”

Tony Gatlif, himself an immigrant to France in the 1960’s has explored the theme of Diaspora, of returning to his roots, “from my yearning to consider my very wounds. It has taken me 43 years to return to the land of my childhood,” explains Gatlif.

Shot in a simple documentary style, Exils explores displacement and the emotional place of Second Generation immigrants in France at a timely juncture, shot before the riots of October last year, it captures the anger and frustrations felt by this generation, epitomised in the displacement both Zano and Naima face. “I’m an alien wherever I go,” states Naima, having been asked “where are you from.” Her Arabic looks and name allow her a certain acceptance in Algeria, but also allows hostilely targeted at her western clothes and lack of hijaab (head scarf) and burkha (long coat). When she finally dons it, she is unhappy with her appearance, “I look like a witch,” she declares and hurries to take it off, whilst justifying it with the explanation, “I need some air.” Gatlif is careful to avoid a long discourse into the place of women in Islam and the West’s opposition to it, but succeeds in showing Naimas predicament as a young girl brought up in the West and feeling the suffocation of an alien culture that she has long ago rejected. The story unfolds of Zano and Naimas wounds being healed through their physical and emotional journey played alongside the musical journey. This reaches its climax when they are invited to heal their wounds by a Sufi Mystic, through music and dance Naima and Zano reach a trance-like state and are able to escape themselves and gain enough strength to overcome their fears and frustrations.

Gatlifs own life is mirrored in the story of Zanos father, having left Algeria at the turn of the ‘60s he arrived empty handed in France and became a street kid, experiencing delinquency and juvenile correction homes. According to his press notes Gatlif decided to meet with the actor Michel Simon, who he idolised. Simon, it is reported wrote a letter of recommendation for his agent. Next came the acting classes and five years later Gatlif secured a part on the TNP stage and wrote his first script based on his experiences at the correction home. After a series of films based around ‘drop-out’ characters, Gatlif directed Pleure Pas My Love and then Gaspard et Robinson, a buddy-movie social comedy dealing with un-employment. Latcho Drom (Safe Journey) took the audience through a vivid musical journey and is a true tribute to Gypsy music, charting the route gypsy music may have taken, through Rajasthan, Andalucia, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary and France.

Gadjo Dillo (Crazy Foreigner) followed a foreigner (again played by Romain Duris) arriving in a gypsy village in Romania looking for a missing singer who is the missing link to his dead father. Again the music plays a heavy component to this film, and like Exils, the music helps release him from his wounds. Gatlif wrote the original score for Exils and is no doubt as passionate about music as he is about film.

Whilst dealing with serious social issues Exils manages only to scratch the surfaces of them, yet remains a charming, surprising, hilarious and touching tale.

Exils is currently showing on general release.

Friday May 19th

Meeting at the UK Pavilion. Dealing with passes and accreditations. Sorting out the usual mumbo-jumbo required to cruise through the festival.

‘Volver’ from eternal ‘enfant-terrible’ Pedro Almodovar is on show and has the usual red-carpet treatment. Penelope Cruz - gorgeous in a white Balanciagga dress, or is it? - and Carmen Maura, the co-stars are with him. Penelope returns to our first director and says: “There is one and only one Pedro, he is my priority in all fields. He writes for women who are 14, 35, 50 or 80 years old, this film is perfect example; there are lots of female characters of all ages in his films. I’m sure that my career wouldn’t have been the same without Pedro, my life wouldn’t have been the same without him. I hope that in the future that this will continue. I am very grateful to possibilities given to me somewhere else, it is interesting, one can learn a lot, but I worked in the United States for seven years, and in Europe for about fifteen, but Pedro still remains truly exceptional for me.

As for Pedro Almodovar. You can’t help but feel that each film is a complex description of his obsession for his mother…A bit like Woody Allen and his New-York or Spike Lee and…well New-York too… This is what the master had to say: In Volver, I speak of the women around me when I was a child. I was brought up by women, the men being in fields, whom I practically never saw. Volver speaks of the way I grew up, listening to these women. I would hear them singing whenever I went along the riverbanks with my mother; I accompanied her from my very earliest age. That’s how I learnt a lot about dramatic art, there are many roles that I have written which were inspired by my sisters or my mother, by characters firmly anchored in reality, even if they belong to the realm of fiction. They are characters who spin extraordinary tales, which has always immensely impressed me.”

Another Palme d’or favorite is: Fast Food Nation which casts a critical eye on the fast food industry in the US, via the destinies of three main characters: a marketing executive of a fast food chain, an employee of the same chain, and a clandestine immigrant working for slaughterhouse. For this movie, Richard Linklater has been able to recruit A-list cast with Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Patricia Arquette and Bruce Willis.

Apparatchiks aplenty in sight for the tribute paid to Russian filmmaker Sergei M. Eisenstein yesterday with the screening of two of his films - Bezhin Meadow and October - Headed by the Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob, the director of the Russian State Archives for Literature and the Arts Tatiana Goriaeva, the director of the Eisenstein Memorial Naum Kleiman, and the vice-president of the Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Igor Tolstounov, a stellar night devoted to the director of the masterpieces The Battleship Potemkin and Ivan The Terrible.

20th & 21st May

We have been given a lot of business cards and collected a more impressive number. As always in Cannes, during the festival, we have late, late nights and early mornings (12:00 AM). The mix of sleep depravation, the crowd, the expectation, open the floodgate to a huge array of emotions from fascinating to scary, to fun, dull, exciting all in one. The mood changes minute by minute. Survival is the key here.
Samuel L. Jackson was dining in the Majestic on a table next to us. Al Gore on the red carpet… Otherwise you do see lots of people you think might be someone but you can never really be too sure. But that is not why we are here: We have to sell our projects and establish contacts/bridges with the industry.

The first French Film in the running for this year Palme d’Or, was Charlie Says It does re-introduce us to the films of filmmaker-actress Nicole Garcia, who was a Jury Member in 2000. Nicole Garcia returns to an essentially male world, twelve years after having directed the trio Gérard Lanvin/Bernard Giraudeau/Jean-Marc Barr in The Favourite Son. This time, the film revolves around a quartet of actors - Benoît Magimel, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Benoît Poelvoorde and Vincent Lindon - and a child - the famous Charlie embodied by the young Ferdinand Martin - whose destinies appear to criss-cross on screen. Not in a ‘crash’ way as Benoit Poelvoorde will put it: “This film is so ‘Nicole’. She is the one who entirely carries the film, the actors are relieved of any pressure. That’s why we clown around!” - Benoit stole a few grins with that one.

Nicole has made over the years, her business of filming complex male interactions and stories. Charlie Says could be another stone brought to her body of work:

“Men have this photo genius, this blend of robustness and fragility which fascinates me. They bear in them contradictions which make us wonder what they are going to become. It is these contrary tendencies which interest me. In Charlie Says, it is a question of variations on various kinds of men, about corpulences and various psychologies. This is a territory which I wanted to explore.”

After Wesh, Wesh (2002), a highly remarked debut feature film, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche introduces us to ‘Bled number One’ in the section Un Certain Regard, the “follow-up” (or prologue) entitled Bled Number One. “The end of Wesh, Wesh,” he explains, “ends with a shot of a pond after a car chase between a cop and Kamel. We then hear a gunshot but we don’t know if Kamel has been killed or not. The only thing which I do know is that Kamel was a victim of the double punishment, therefore we could make a second film: double punishment, double film! We already foresaw a follow-up by making Wesh, Wesh. Whether it takes place before or after is of little importance. Why always consider time as something purely chronological?” Kamel is barely out of prison and is expelled to his country of origin, Algeria. This forced exile obliges him to cast a critical eye upon a country in full effervescence, transformation, torn between a youthful desire for modernity and tradition.

Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche wanted to show: “The energetic manner of filming can recall that of documentary cinema, but it is true that we aren’t for all that dealing with current events. It is another relationship with time, when it isn’t necessarily a question of filming some immediate reality, in realistic way. It is simply a proposal, just to present things, not to bear judgment. (…) To write Bled Number One, I didn’t return at all to Algeria to capture something about today’s youth there. I wrote this story based my holiday memories. But it is also because I felt that things hadn’t really changed, that time passes differently there. You have the time to reflect and be, faced with the elements. (…) A film is a gesture, a burst, a job, an enterprise, an action. An action in life, a pure lesson of life. It is here that we seize something alive. For it is necessary to remain alive, no matter what happens.”

Which leads us to what Cannes, has been famous for the world over; Parties…’Snooty’ French can do parties too: The Cannes Mix program has a DJ set headed by Fred Elalouf at the Beach Cinema.

The Menu? :

- Soundtracks of French films of the 60s and 70s
- Made in Bollywood

This didn’t give us enough opportunity to find our beds. We swapped showers for after-shaves and headed the next day. - After a brunch at the Majestic….always Brunch there if you can afford it! - for the international village, where we crossed the borders from Maroc to the Netherlands and back again. It reminded to some of us, the town of Basel in Switzerland where you can cross three borders within walking distances (France, Germany, and Switzerland). We also saw a film by Daft Punk. Very interesting.

We were also moved by Nanni Moretti’s The Caiman…Great filmmaker always seem to have that obsession, they tend to film time and time again. Nanni is no different. He again speaks about politic and democracy, but avoid acting in it, which is a first, five years after having won the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room. It’s his 10th feature film, and the 5th presented in the Official Selection. Released in Italy in the middle of the controversial elections, a few days before Romano Prodi’s victory, The Caiman is the story of a young filmmaker (played by Jasmine Trinca, also in The Son’s Room) who wants to make a film about Silvio Berlusconi, and appeals to a producer in crisis of serie “Z” movies (Silvio Orlando, Moretti’s old buddy) to finance her movie. Moretti says: “The Caiman is a love story, a homage to cinema and a political films,” resumes the director, who clarifies his intentions: “I tried to tell, using the means of the motion pictures, a reality which we are no longer able to see or perceive. I think that our problem is one of habit: we’ve become used to characters and situations however truly incredible for the sake of democracy.’

Another particular highlight of the day was the last piece of a trilogy about China The Orphan of Anyang (2001) and Night and Day (2005). This time, the filmmaker allows his camera in the life of a schoolteacher close to retirement, who set out to search for his son. His wife, gravely ill, would like to see their son one last time before dying. He hasn’t given any news for a long time. The father will be welcomed by his daughter who does shifts as a hostess in a nightclub…Brace yourself for a solid family drama with confrontations aplenty.

“Luxury Car,” explains Wang Chao, “falls within the continuance of the reflections and criticisms already expressed in my first two films, on the reality and historic and political allegories of contemporary China. Here, the gap between the rich and poor, the distance which separates people from happiness, the contradictions between the social system inherited from past and the burden of the present are so many problems which I myself, as a full-fledged member of the people, feel all the weight and intensity. That’s why it made me decide to shoot the picture.”

On the party radar, at the Cannes Mix. The new wave soundtracks are honored. Can’t wait for my suit and sunglasses and rehearse my JL Godard ‘A Band apart’ moves…Which implies another night without sleep. I know, I know…

22nd & 23rd May

The ‘babe’s battle’, Halle Berry and Rebecca Romijn: Sublime visions of nature’s most famous achievement on the red carpet. For your eyes only…Their presence allegedly being required for the promotion of the third X-Men movie… As for the film, wait for the DVD release, or PSP, or Podcast, or Palm, or…On a more serious note, ‘Bamako’ by Abderrahmane Sissako. Born in Mauritania, raised in Mali, read film at the prestigious VGIK in Moscow before releasing his first work in 1990 (Le Jeu). After string of international awards (Fespaco, Perugia,…) Cannes awaited to be seduced in 2002 by Waiting for Happiness. ‘Bamako’ is out of competition…As is the seminal film about French ‘demi-god’ Zinedine Zidane. Helmed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, acted by none other than double Z or ‘ZZ’ himself. The film celebrates the bizarre cult of Zidanemania, shot in real time during a Madrid game supported by no less than 17 high-tech HD cameras, aimed solely at the artist Thierry Henry refers to as ‘the man who do stuff with his foot, you could only dream of doing with your hands’…It’s a pity the film didn’t really try to develop a narrative we would follow but rather lays on the technological foundations pitched to us beforehand. But if you enjoy seeing master at work, be my guest!
To the International village and another trip to Germany and Canada, then South Korea…That’s where the buzz is at the moment…
Kidulthood by Menjah Huda from the UK was also screened over there at 12:00 PM…Couldn’t make it, but should be up for DVD viewing, back in London…

ON THE PARTY RADAR: For two nights, the Didier Riey Group, a gypsy jazz collective will take over the Cannes Mix programme opening for the outdoors screening, made of a selection of twelve animation-shorts by Canadian Norman McLaren, featuring Horizontal Lines, Stars and Stripes, and The Grey Hen. On Wednesday, The Holy Mountain a tale about a quest for immortality by Chilean director/artist Alejandro Jodorowsky. A student of the mime Marcel Marceau (other prestigious alumni include Michael Jackson….), friend of the surrealists Topor & Arrabal. ‘El Topo’ his first mainstream movie, became a cult classic in 1970. When work dried out in films for the Chilean director, he went into comic books, working with fellow cult author Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud - Lieutenant Blueberry, adapted for the silver screen by Jan Koonen of ‘Doberman’ fame in 2004 - Van Hamme, Gal,…achieving cult-status within the comic book fraternity when releasing l’Incal and working on its follow-up: ‘The Meta-Barons saga’. If you want to grasp his influence in modern western comic-books, you would have to speak of him in the same breath as a Hayao Miyazaki(Nausicaa), Akira Toriyama (Dragonball), Katsuhiro Otomo, (Akira) or a Chris Claremont (X-men)…

24th & 25th May

TELEGRAM:

Was in Monaco. /Stop/ couldn’t be bothered to be in Cannes. /Stop/ had a few business dealings to handle. /Stop/. Didn’t have time to blog lately, sorry. /Full Stop/

Telegram, heh? What a funny thing…How many of you remember what it was to send a telegram at the other end of the world? Here we are taking this world for granted. Anyone who’s been on the French Riviera during that period of the year is aware of the fact that we are reaching the high points of the season with the Monte-Carlo tennis tournament, the Cannes festival, the Monaco grand prix, then Avignon festival in Provence, (equivalent to the Edinburgh theater festival…) and so on…We stopped in Grace and St-Tropez too…bumped into Michael Stipe, Robin Aubert, the director and lost our lawyer inside a casino…in Monaco…also known as the ‘Millionaire’s playground’ …
Formula One is the toy here…The noise, the smell, the gas, the sheer pollution it creates and with the little amount of overtaking opportunities, due to the tight confines of the roads, the Monaco Grand Prix must be an ecologist idea of hell.

With preparations in full swing it is quite difficult to drive through the city. Remember, the Monaco grand prix is the last of its kind, as the race track is made of the principality’s own streets. It’s the world’s most famous street track…

An open city as was Rome in January 1945 when the remnants of the German army occupying the ‘eternal city’ are about to surrender …A priest and a communist worker, the two pillars of post-war anti-fascism in Italy will join together to defeat Nazism. The movie buffs among you will recognize the pitch for ‘Rome, open city’ and the birth of Italian neo-realism. Black and white movies, with strong ‘real’ characters shot in the streets, as Cinecitta the babylonesque studios built by Mussolini had been bombed during the war. Serge July, editor of left-wing daily newspaper Liberation, directed a short-documentary called ‘Once upon a time…Rome open city’ showing in Cannes…

Another graceful vision, Barbie Hsu. Her sensual and timeless interpretation left very few moviegoers untouched. The actress is the lead in ‘Silk’ by Taiwanese director, Chao Pin Su: “We tried to make the best possible feature film on all levels,” explains the director. “Usually, in all Taiwanese films, the action is relatively slow and the atmosphere rather dark. I believe that we impose limits on ourselves due to various points of view, even when due to creative talent. This time, we had the good fortune of securing solid financing, which allowed us to develop our ideas with complete serenity. The entire crew is very satisfied with it. This picture is really different from the rest of Taiwanese productions.”
As for Barbie: “It was a true challenge to take on this character, I had a lot of fun playing her. Furthermore, there are terrible deaths in the film, which I greatly enjoyed from this point of view. Not to mention the end, it really touched me.”

Another timeless vision, but this one celebrates a movie dynasty. Like the Douglas, the Van Peebles, etc…Here come the Coppolas! Sofia, the daughter of Francis is back in Cannes with Marie-Antoinette (Her third movie after ‘Virgin Suicides’ - Director’s fortnight - and ‘Lost in translation’). The film charts the life of. ..’Marie-Antoinette’, queen of France during the 1789 revolution and famous for answering to a starving crowd asking for bread: ‘Let them eat cake!’
For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn’t realize to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me.” (Sofia C.)
A few recognizable faces in the casting like Steve Coogan (yes…I know!), Marianne Faithfull, Kirsten Dunst and Aurore Clement…However, Sofia is adamant she never tried to make a political statement: ‘I wasn’t making a political movie about the French Revolution, I was doing a portrait of the character Marie Antoinette and my themes are in the film. She was a symbol of decadence. It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette, more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14 and how she developed in the Cour de Versailles. I thought she was an interesting character. I have always been attracted to the 18th century in France. I knew so little about the personal side of her. The story is about teenagers in Versailles so I wanted it to have the energy of youth, a teenage feeling to it.” I am making one if I tell you that the movie is adapted from a book written by Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham also known as CBE lady Antonia Fraser…?

Anyone who’s been on the French Riviera during that period of the year is aware of the fact that we are reaching the high points of the season with the Monte-Carlo tennis tournament, the Cannes festival, the Monaco grand prix, then Avignon festival in Provence, (equivalent to the Edinburgh theater festival…) and so on…We stopped in Grace and St-Tropez too…bumped into Michael Stipe, Robin Aubert, the director and lost our lawyer inside a casino…in Monaco…also known as the ‘Millionaire’s playground’ … Formula One is the toy here…The noise, the smell, the gas, the sheer pollution it creates and with the little amount of overtaking opportunities, due to the tight confines of the roads, the Monaco Grand Prix must be an ecologist idea of hell.

With preparations in full swing it is quite difficult to drive through the city. Remember, the Monaco grand prix is the last of its kind, as the race track is made of the principality’s own streets. It’s the world’s most famous street track…

An open city as was Rome in January 1945 when the remnants of the German army occupying the ‘eternal city’ are about to surrender …A priest and a communist worker, the two pillars of post-war anti-fascism in Italy will join together to defeat Nazism. The movie buffs among you will recognize the pitch for ‘Rome, open city’ and the birth of Italian neo-realism. Black and white movies, with strong ‘real’ characters shot in the streets, as Cinecitta the babylonesque studios built by Mussolini had been bombed during the war. Serge July, editor of left-wing daily newspaper Liberation, directed a short-documentary called ‘Once upon a time…Rome open city’ showing in Cannes…

Another graceful vision, Barbie Hsu. Her sensual and timeless interpretation left very few moviegoers untouched. The actress is the lead in ‘Silk’ by Taiwanese director, Chao Pin Su: “We tried to make the best possible feature film on all levels,” explains the director. “Usually, in all Taiwanese films, the action is relatively slow and the atmosphere rather dark. I believe that we impose limits on ourselves due to various points of view, even when due to creative talent. This time, we had the good fortune of securing solid financing, which allowed us to develop our ideas with complete serenity. The entire crew is very satisfied with it. This picture is really different from the rest of Taiwanese productions.” As for Barbie: “It was a true challenge to take on this character, I had a lot of fun playing her. Furthermore, there are terrible deaths in the film, which I greatly enjoyed from this point of view. Not to mention the end, it really touched me.”

Another timeless vision, but this one celebrates a movie dynasty. Like the Douglas, the Van Peebles, etc…Here come the Coppolas! Sofia, the daughter of Francis is back in Cannes with Marie-Antoinette (Her third movie after ‘Virgin Suicides’ - Director’s fortnight - and ‘Lost in translation’). The film charts the life of. ..’Marie-Antoinette’, queen of France during the 1789 revolution and famous for answering to a starving crowd asking for bread: ‘Let them eat cake!’ For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn’t realize to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me.” (Sofia C.) A few recognizable faces in the casting like Steve Coogan (yes…I know!), Marianne Faithfull, Kirsten Dunst and Aurore Clement…However, Sofia is adamant she never tried to make a political statement: ‘I wasn’t making a political movie about the French Revolution, I was doing a portrait of the character Marie Antoinette and my themes are in the film. She was a symbol of decadence. It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette, more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14 and how she developed in the Cour de Versailles. I thought she wa