Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche, Bill Plympton: AFI FEST 2008
Below are a few choices tonight, November 5, at AFI FEST 2008, held at ArcLight Hollywood. (Note: The Lion’s Den screening will take place at the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.)
Schedule and synopses from the AFI FEST 2008 website.
7:00 p.m.
Poundcake
Directed by: Rafael Monserrate. Written by: Troy Hall, Kevin Logie
Cast: Jay O. Sanders, Kathleen Quinlan, Troy D. Hall, Deshja Driggs-Hall, Kevin Logie, Rob Bogue, Marisa Coughlan
This dysfunctional family comedy with heart stars Academy Award nominee Kathleen Quinlan and Jay O. Sanders and takes place in Buffalo, N.Y., in the late ’80s. On the night before Thanksgiving, Cliff and Carol Morgan gather their three grown children—Robby, a late-night radio DJ, his hypochondriac younger brother Charlie and their adopted sister Brooke—at their favorite Chinese restaurant, the Golden Buddha, to announce that, after 30 years, they’ll be getting a divorce. Can they spend their last Thanksgiving together in a civilized manner? A fiercely original script, written by actors Troy Hall and Kevin Logie (who portray the adult brothers), is the root of this dark, outrageous, hilarious exploration how one impending divorce can affect every element of family life. POUNDCAKE pushes the family reunion film into a hysterical, emotional free-fall. Director Rafael Monserrate lets the action play out like the finale of an insane symphony, controlling the underlying fever pitch with just the right amount of restraint. The performances of the ensemble cast help make this a mesmerizing, at times disturbing comedy. Shaz Bennett
7:00 p.m.
L’Heure d’été / Summer Hours
Written and directed by: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jeremie Renier, Edith Scob
Hélène (Edith Scob) gathers her children and grandchildren at her French country estate to celebrate her 75th birthday. Their gift of a tricky-to-use mobile phone, however, seems to symbolize the 21st-century pressures that are closing in on her precious way of life. The growing sense the exquisite Hélène—the niece of a famous artist—has of her own mortality leads her to bequeath her most valuable artwork and furniture to her closest family: her eldest son Frédéric (Charles Berling), daughter Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) and brother Jérémie (Jérémie Renier). Director Olivier Assayas’s gently beautiful meditation on connection and loss traces the journey of one family’s treasures from their home to their final resting place in glass cases, where they receive only the passing consideration of museumgoers (like Hou Hsiao-hsien’s FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON [AFI FEST '07], SUMMER HOURS was commissioned by the Musée d’Orsay to celebrate its 20th anniversary). As he did in his LATE AUGUST, EARLY SEPTEMBER, Assayas uses elliptical jumps in time and unexpected shifts in perspective to tell an ensemble story in oblique, multilayered fashion. Gradually, carefully, Assayas shows how family ties, even in decent and affectionate families, inevitably erode over time. The haunting late-afternoon melancholy is well served by Eric Gautier’s fluid camera and, combined with Assayas’s confident, inventive storytelling, makes SUMMER HOURS a bittersweet elegy about love and memory and the ways in which we hold them.
8:00 p.m.
Tilda Swinton Tribute
90 minutes
Tilda Swinton began her film career with writer/director Derek Jarman, one of England’s most provocative filmmakers. Jarman was known for his sharp attacks on Thatcher-era English culture and bold and aggressive advocacy of gay liberation, and Swinton became his muse, celebrated as an independent, courageous actor willing to go anywhere. That reputation was solidified with the release of ORLANDO, Sally Potter’s meditative essay on impermanence, love, power, and politics. Playing Virginia Woolf’s aristocrat granted three centuries of life, the striking Swinton embodied both male and female identities. In the 15 years since, Swinton has moved fluidly between daring independent and quality mainstream films, where she usually plays larger-than-life mythic characters: the head of a futuristic corporation in VANILLA SKY, the White Witch Jadis in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, and a corrupt Angel Gabriel in CONSTANTINE. And with her role as a working-class wife in Tim Roth’s WAR ZONE, and as a conflicted mother in the excellent thriller THE DEEP END (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination), Swinton demonstrated her talent for realistic psychological nuance as well. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as an obsessively ambitious corporate lawyer in MICHAEL CLAYTON. This year she stars in three films: the Coen brothers‘ BURN AFTER READING, David Fincher’s THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON and Eric Zonca’s JULIA. This program includes a generous selection of clips from her outstanding filmography followed by an on-stage interview with David Poland.
9:30 p.m. — Mann Chinese 3
Leonera / Lion’s Den
Directed by: Pablo Trapero. Written by: Pablo Trapero, Alejandro Fadel, Martin Maurequi, Santiago Mitre.
Director-screenwriter Pablo Trapero (ROLLING FAMILY, EL BONAERENSE) returns to AFI FEST with this redemptive story of a young pregnant woman trying to survive in prison. This film follows the ill-fated and beautiful Julia who, after killing her lover, gives birth to a son, Tomas, in prison. Helped through her early days in prison by her fellow prisoner Marta (Laura Garcia), Julia is allowed to raise Tomas in a ward for mothers. Then, Julia’s own mother Sophia (Ellie Medieros), returns to her life, and, behind her back, begins pulling strings to gain custody of Tomas. Furious and broken, Julia tries to rebel: “My child is all I have!” But is proximity to a mother enough reason for a child to grow up in prison? The intense Martina Guzman offers a ferocious depiction of a mother fighting against odds to stay with her son, and Trapero offers a thoughtful depiction of prison life, showing us both the endearing and the bleak, the innocent and the contemptible. Shot on location, and featuring richly drawn characters, LION’S DEN gives us an entirely new, energized, poetic and sensitive take on the women-behind-bars film. Shaz Bennett
9:40 p.m.
Tulpan
Directed by: Sergei Dvortsevoy. Written by: Sergei Dvortsevoy, Gennady Ostrovskiy
Cast: Askhat Kuchinchirekov, Samal Yeslyamova, Ondasyn Besikbasov, Tulepbergen Baisakalov, Bereke Turganbayev
One of the most delightful works to come out of the Cannes and Toronto film festivals this year, Sergey Dvortsevoy’s tale centers on Asa, a Kazakh sailor who returns home and dreams of life as a shepherd on the windswept and remote plains of the Kazakh steppe. Complications ensue when Asa’s stoic brother-in-law holds back on giving him his own flock until Asa finds a wife. However, there is only one girl of marrying age in the village, and she rejects him. The elusive Tulpan, Asa’s titular beloved, will not be swayed, either by his boastful tales of battling octopi, nor by gentle persuasion. Like many rural Kazakhs, the girl has dreams of the big city. TULPAN is filled with breathtaking scenes—the birth of a lamb, a mother camel tormenting a veterinarian—all captured beautifully by the mostly hand-held camera. The film also features many memorable characters, including Asa’s best friend, a truck driver with a penchant for pornography and Russian pop, and Asa’s devoted sister and her precocious children (all remarkable performances by mostly nonprofessional actors). For his first narrative feature, Dvortsevoy, known for his award-winning documentaries, has crafted an exceptionally charming, funny and thoroughly engaging portrait of life in rural Kazakhstan. Mimi Brody
9:40 p.m.
Idiots and Angels
Directed and Written by: Bill Plympton
Following a career spanning decades, animation icon Bill Plympton thrusts his most sublimely provocative vision to date upon the world. His latest feature-length endeavor, a darkly comic fantasia without words, focuses on a vicious and dastardly fellow who haunts seedy locales. Perhaps due to his amoral intentions, he slowly is wasting away. One morning, he awakes to discover angel wings growing on his back—wings he’s unable to remove. And our savage protagonist, against his will, finds himself compelled to perform acts of kindness. Can he be weaned off of his animalistic, self-satisfying and parasitic human traits? And as our cretin is separated from his base desires, how will others respond to the wings? Will they feel a gnawing jealousy? Will they try to destroy this enlightened one and reap the Holy benefits for their own selfish gains? Utilizing the character designs and pencil drawings that have become his signature, Plympton conjures a setting of twisted magic for this visually dazzling, wonderfully irreverent and imaginatively violent cautionary tale, in which morality clashes with opportunity. Offering the viewer a mishmash of philosophical pretense and inventive imagery, Plympton unfurls a distinctive, engaging fairytale that is joyous to behold. Landon Zakheim
9:45 p.m.
Shorts 2 — Adults Only Cartoon Show
Program Running Time is 73 min
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE BURROWING OWL
Directed By: Mike Roush
USA, 2008, 6 min
Through the lens of a wildlife documentary, we meet an owl who recently lost his mate to a large predator. Can he survive in this dangerous wilderness alone?
A DAY AT THE BEACH
Directed By: Veronique Courtois
USA, 2008, 3 min
An animated look at the complexity of modern love.
SHHH (photo)
Directed By: Ben Slotover
United Kingdom, 2007, 5 min
After Heinz begins hearing strange noises coming from his walls, he unwisely enlists his friend Jim to investigate. Chaos ensues
PASSAGES
Directed By: Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
Canada, 2008, 25 min
A woman awaiting the arrival of her first child doesn’t foresee the hardships that lie ahead.
KANIZSA HILL
Directed By: Evelyn Lee
USA, 2008, 8 min
After being shot, a head and a body learn to exist independently from one another while seeking reunification.
RUN
Directed By: Melanie Mandl
USA, 2008, 5 min
Using puppets and stop motion animation, director Melanie Mandl creates a magical world that explores space, time and loneliness. Inspired by the song “Run” by the French duo Air, this film of the same name was created in painstaking detail using miniature sets and puppets to tell the story of a couple separated by a vast distance.
CUTECUTECUTE
Directed By: Clemens Kogler
Austria, 2008, 2 min
Oh hai! X thx bai!
TEAT BEAT OF SEX: Episodes 8,9,10,11
Directed By: Signe Baumane
United States, Italy, 2007, 7 min
It is a take on first kiss, first make out session, first jealousy, first sex exclusively from a girl’s point of view.
RGB XYZ
2008, 13 min
A random discovery, an eager filmmaker and the Internet combine to create the most enigmatic piece of animation ever to leave a computer.
THE DESERT WITHIN, TWO-LEGGED HORSE, Documentary Shorts: AFI FEST 2008
ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, THE BROTHERS BLOOM: AFI FEST 2008
POUNDCAKE, WITCHHUNT, KASSIM THE DREAM, OF ALL THE THINGS: AFI FEST 2008
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX, JOHNNY MAD DOG: bfi London Film Festival 2008
Pittsburg Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2008
Homo Horror: Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2008
UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US: Norwegian Black Metal at AFI FEST 2008
THE SOLOIST Cancelled: AFI FEST 2008
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