2 Chinese films nominated for top honors at Tokyo International Film Festival

This year’s Tokyo International Film Festival is set to take place in less than a month, and two Chinese-language films are in the final competition for the top Tokyo Grand Prix.

The two films are Mr. No Problem by mainland director Mei Feng and Shed Skin Papa by Hong Kong director Roy Szeto. Mr. No Problem, shot in stylish black-and-white, is a three-act fable set in wartime Chongqing. It focuses on the indifferent rich, the head clerk on a farm, and some young intruders. Based on a 1943 short story, the film is screenwriter Mei Feng’s directorial debut and stars well known comedian and actor Fan Wei.

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Still from Mr. No Problem, by Chinese film director Mei Feng. (Photo courtesy of Tokyo International Film Festival)

Comedy Shed Skin Papa calls to mind the tale of Benjamin Button. As a frustrated director faces debt and a divorce, his elderly father suddenly regains his youth. Elements of history and romance then unfold. Adapted from a play by Norihiko Tsukuda, the film stars Hong Kong actors Francis Ng and Louis Koo.

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Still from Shed Skin Papa by Hong Kong film director, Roy Szeto. (Photo courtesy of Tokyo International Film Festival)

A total of sixteen films have been selected to compete for the highest honors in Tokyo. They also include Italy-France-Switzerland co-production Seven Minutes and After You’re Gone from Russia.

Established in 1995, the Tokyo International Film Festival is among the most competitive film festivals in Asia. This year’s event will open on October 25th and feature more than 200 films from around the world.

(Source: http://www.english.cri.cn)

7 new films, Cannes winners, and Mike De Leon classics in this year’s QCinema film festival

Manila (CNN Philippines Life) — Three years ago, Quezon City launched its first independent film festival, QCinema, as a platform for young and emerging filmmakers and, according to Mayor Herbert Bautista, to establish the city as a film capital like Bangkok and Hong Kong. The festival opened with three competition films, awarded with ₱500,000 post-production grants each. Over the years, it has expanded into a sprawling international film festival, not only producing some of the most memorable Filipino films in recent years, but opening its slate to Philippine premieres of international films from prestigious film festivals around the world such as Cannes, Locarno, and Berlin.

This year, the lineup includes diverse picks from around the world and a new competition program, “Asian New Wave,” featuring films from young filmmakers around the region.

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Martin Del Rosario stars as Nico in Prime Cruz’z Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B (Photo credit: Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B/Facebook)

 

The main competition slate features seven films from Filipino directors:

  • Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B by Prime Cruz stars Ryza Cenon and Martin Del Rosario. The film is about a manananggal who falls in love with a brokenhearted boy.
  • Baboy Halas: Wailings in the Forest by Davao-based filmmaker Bagane Fiola features a Mindanaoan cast. It tackles the life of one of the last old Manobo families in the mountains of Mindanao and how they cope with some unusual changes in their environment.
  • Best. Partee. Ever. by first-time filmmaker Howard “HF” Yambao stars JC De Vera as a discreet gay man who spends five years in jail for drug pushing.
  • Hinulid by Kristian Sendon Cordero stars Nora Aunor as a woman who returns home in Cagbunga, Camarines Sur to bury her son in their village that is watched over by the Tolong Hinulid (Three Dead Christs). The cast is all Bikol.
  • Patay na si Hesus by Victor Kaiba Villanueva is a Cebuano comedy-drama which stars Jaclyn Jose as Isay, a single mother of a dysfunctional family who learns that her ex-husband, Hesus, has died.
  • Purgatoryo by Roderick Cabrido is about the death of Ilyong who is killed by the police after he was caught stealing. This sets a chain of events involving the complex relationship of gambling lord, a policeman, a funeral parlor owner, and her two helpers. The film stars Bernardo Bernardo and Arnold Reyes.
  • Women of the Weeping River by Sheron Dayoc is about Satra, a widow living in Southern Mindanao who befriends an aging woman in the village to help her hold peace talks with a rival family.

The short film competition has eight entries:

  • Hondo by Aedrian Araojo
  • If You Leave by Eduardo Dayao
  • Kung Saan May Naiwan by Joshua Joven and Kaj Palanca
  • Nang Lumipad ang Batang Agila by Mihk Vergara
  • Padating by Gabrielle Tayag
  • Papa’s Shadow by Inshallah Montero
  • Sayaw sa Butal by Victor Nierva
  • Viva Viva Escolta by Janus Victoria

The new competition program “Asian Next Wave” features six entries from filmmakers from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

Aside from the competition films, the festival is also screening acclaimed films from international film festivals such as Ken Loach’s Palme D’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, João Pedro Rodrigues’s Locarno winner, The Ornithologist, and the animated film companion to Train to Busan, Seoul Station. Park Chan-wook’s Cannes shocker, The Handmaiden opens the film festival.A focus on acclaimed director Mike De Leon will feature his restored classics, Kakabakaba Ka Ba?, Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising, and Hindi Nahahati ng Langit. Newly restored films Laurice Guillen’s Kasal? (1980) and Butch Perez’s Haplos (1982) will also premiere.

A screening of the Three Colors trilogy, Red, White, and Blue, will also be held on the 20th death anniversary of the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski.

The QCinema International Film Festival will be held on October 13 to 22.

*Featured image: Nora Aunor stars in Kristian Sendon Cordero’s Hinulid, a Circle Competition entry in this year’s QCinema International Film Festival. (Photo credit Hinulid Facebook page)

(Source: cnnphilippines.com)

 

Hosoda hopes to surpass anime legend Miyazaki

Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Olivier Fabre

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-5-01-37-pmTOKYO —

Mamoru Hosoda, one of Japan’s young anime directors hoping to lead the industry after the retirement of legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki, says he hopes to surpass his boyhood hero one day, but don’t look for Miyazaki in his movies.

“That won’t happen. It is only right that different directors create totally different works,” Hosoda, 49, told Reuters TV ahead of the Tokyo International Film Festival next month where a retrospective of his work will be shown.

“I think there are movies that only I can create and movies that only I know how to make people enjoy them,” he said.

Hosoda’s rise to fame culminated with his 2015 box office hit “Boy and the Beast”, which grossed over 5.8 billion yen ($57 million) to become the second most watched movie in Japanese theatres that year.

His movies are colorful and vibrant and appear to follow in Oscar-winning Miyazaki’s footsteps. However, Hosoda regularly chooses themes related to family and identity, which disappoint some fans who seek the more immersive fantasy provided by works out of Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli.

“The Boy and the Beast” explores the relationship between a paternal beast-father figure and a run-away child. His previous film, “Wolf Children”, centered on a single mother raising children fathered by a werewolf.

Hosoda said his deeper exploration of the meaning of self-identity in an extremely homogeneous nation are often lost on viewers.

“I think there are possibly people in the audience here who were not able to understand that. And that, in a way, is representative of Japan today,” he said.

Hosoda is hopeful for the future of Japan’s animation industry despite the fact that more and more animators rely on computer graphics to polish their work.

“There are, or should be, multiple correct ways to express oneself in animation,” he said.

“If you start saying that only Disney or Pixar animations are the right kind of animations, that just becomes very boring. If everything needs to have computer graphics,then you lose a lot of the richness in expression available in animations,” he added.

“The World Of Mamoru Hosoda” retrospective runs from October 25 to November 3 at the Tokyo International Film Festival and will include movies such as the critically acclaimed “Summer Wars”.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.

(Source: http://www.japantoday.com)

Catch the Spirit! Taos Shortz Film Fest 11th Edition Open for Submissions

Be part of the Taos Shortz Film Fest!

The Taos Shortz Film Fest prides itself on innovative, creative programming and many opportunities for networking…2017 is no exception.

The Taos Shortz Film Fest is looking for films that surpass the normal standard. Exceptional storytelling, films that transport cinemites to an alternative world and culture, creative camera shots and impeccable production. We strive to bring our audience the best of short filmmaking.

  • Documentaries, animations and experimental films are encouraged.
  • Films directed and produced by Native Americans are encouraged.
  • One shot films are encouraged.
  • Films with a TRT of between 3 and 15 minutes are ideal.

We invite you to bring your adventure of creativity to the mountains and mesas of Taos, New Mexico. Submit your film now!

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Screening over 80 global short films to a captive and enthusiastic audience.
  • A hands on “Drones in Cinema Workshop” with Aerocus Aerials and other qualified UAV technicians.
  • A Native American shorts program with introduction by Chris Eyer ( director of Smoke Signals).
  • 4:20 mix and meet / filmmakers and public invited.
  • Socials and parties every night with drink specials.

Submit your film today for your chance to win and join Taos Shortz Film Fest! Regular deadline ends Nov 11.

Hope to see you there!

(Source:www.filmfestivallife.com)

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) returns with his particular brand of justice in the highly anticipated sequel JACK REACHER:  NEVER GO BACK.  When Army Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who heads Reacher’s old investigative unit, is arrested for Treason, Reacher will stop at nothing to prove her innocence and to uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy involving soldiers who are being killed. Based upon JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK, author Lee Child’s 18th novel in the best-selling Jack Reacher series, that has seen 100 million books sold worldwide.

 

 

Paramount Pictures and Skydance Present

A Tom Cruise Production  An Edward Zwick Film

 “Jack Reacher:  Never Go Back”

Executive Producers Paula Wagner Herb Gains David Ellison Dana Goldberg

Produced by Tom Cruise, p.g.a. Don Granger, p.g.a. Christopher McQuarrie

Based on the book “Never Go Back” by Lee Child

Screenplay by Richard Wenk and Edward Zwick & Marshall Hershkovitz

Directed by Edward Zwick

 5271bf98-e242-4e1a-9ff1-0f0e82c44afd1

 Cast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany, Robert Knepper

Scheduled Release: October 21, 2016

 

(Source: Paramount Studios press materials courtesy of Casey Spiegel)

How Arab cinema is making a name for itself at the world’s biggest film festivals

Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Kaleem Aftab

Arab film has become “more political and courageous” since the Arab Spring

The biggest growth area in cinema seems to be film festivals catering for Arab film. Just over a decade ago, Arab cinema was the runt of the world. Outside of Egypt, there were barely any films made, and those made in Egypt catered for the massive domestic market.

Now films from Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar are commonplace at the world’s biggest film festivals and with distributors hesitant to release foreign language films, an explosion of festivals has taken place, often providing the only opportunity for audiences to see some of the best award winning films of our times.

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Baya Medhaffar as Farah in Leila Bouzid’s French-Tunisian drama As I Open My Eyes,
which picked up the BNL People’s Choice Award at the Venice International Film Festival.

 

This week, the third Safar film festival takes place in London, and on the horizon is the Aan Korb BBC Arabic Film Festival. Across the globe, some of the main festivals include the Arab Film Festival taking place in America in October and in April is the Middle East Now Festival.

Earlier this year, the Directors Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival opened with Mohammad Diab’s Clash. Set in the aftermath of the ousting of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in June 2013, it will play in competition at the London Film Festival in October. The film sees protestors of all political hues arrested and thrown into the back of a police van, where most of the action takes place. The film explores the societal and political implications of the overthrow on the populace.

“The first step of every civil war is dehumanising people,” director Diab says. “The first step of solving that is humanising people. This is what the film is trying to do.”

And with Islamic fundamentalism, the Syrian refugee crisis and the fall out from wars in the Middle East continually dominating the news, audiences are turning to movies to find out more, and to hear an alternative version of events.

Those venturing out to see these new Arab films will find tales that are far from the social and political melodramas that the Arab states used to back – films that were designed to impart a positive social message. Now the movies are far more radical. “I think that since the Arab Spring and maybe a year or two before there has been a shift,” says Safar Film Festival curator Rasha Salti. “The films have become more political and courageous.”

Salti says of the shift, “It’s a result of the Arab Spring and also the burden of addressing the every day by making films with a didactic message has gone. I think that’s because in part social media allows you to be didactic. If you witness sexual harassment in Cairo then everybody can film it and put it on social media immediately and that has become a medium to show it. Filmmakers no longer feel that they have to make a film about that, as being the only place for that voice to be heard.”

This is also helped by the ability to find funds to make films that are not from the government. “There is less state help for films, thank God,” says Salti. “Because that comes with strings attached.”

Another reason for the plethora of film festivals is that Arab films do not get regular distribution. The market for foreign films has collapsed around the world. This month in the UK, Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta became the first subtitled film since the Raid in 2014 to break £1 million. With distributors not wanting to take a risk, films from the Arab world, as well as those from Africa and southern Europe have found themselves increasingly marginalised. The only place to see them on the big screen is at film festivals.

Those that go to see the films at SAFAR will be in for a surprise by the range of genres and the quality. As I Open My Eyes, by Leila Bouzid is a film about a Tunisian female rock singer, trying to make sense of her life, in the summer before the start of the Arab Spring. It’s a film with energy, verve and great music that recently won Best Film at the East End Film Festival.

Sélim Mourad’s This Little Father Obsession  is a hybrid picture that blends fact and fiction, reminiscent of Italian realism. Salti enthused about Let them Come, a film that deals with the so-called ‘Years of terrorism’ in Algeria in the early 1990s. At the London Film Festival, there will be the world premiere of Emirati filmmaker Ali Mostafa’s dystopian sci-fi thriller The Worthy and the UK premiere of the raucous Saudi comedy Barakah Meets Barakah starring Internet sensation Hisham Fageeh.

What is also noteworthy about Arab cinema is the number of female filmmakers. At the forthcoming Arab Film Festival of America, 40 per cent of the 59 films that will be presented are made by female filmmakers. There are films from Mai Masri,  Heidi Salman and Nadine Salib. On the horizon, exciting British Arab filmmaker Zeina Durra is working on her second film. One of the most anticipated films of 2017 is Marjoun and the Headscarf by the phenomenal Susan Youssef.

Yet the picture is not without dark clouds. Salti points out that as the world has moved to embraced Arabic film, the Arab world has started to be skeptical of the latest wave of filmmakers, especially those offering a critical eye on Arab dictatorships, or showing sex and prostitutes, as does Morocco’s Much Loved.

The biggest growth area in cinema seems to be film festivals catering for Arab film. Just over a decade ago, Arab cinema was the runt of the world. Outside of Egypt, there were barely any films made, and those made in Egypt catered for the massive domestic market.

Now films from Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar are commonplace at the world’s biggest film festivals and with distributors hesitant to release foreign language films, an explosion of festivals has taken place, often providing the only opportunity for audiences to see some of the best award winning films of our times.

This week, the third Safar film festival takes place in London, and on the horizon is the Aan Korb BBC Arabic Film Festival. Across the globe, some of the main festivals include the Arab Film Festival taking place in America in October and in April is the Middle East Now Festival.

Earlier this year, the Directors Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival opened with Mohammad Diab’s Clash. Set in the aftermath of the ousting of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in June 2013, it will play in competition at the London Film Festival in October. The film sees protestors of all political hues arrested and thrown into the back of a police van, where most of the action takes place. The film explores the societal and political implications of the overthrow on the populace.

“The first step of every civil war is dehumanising people,” director Diab says. “The first step of solving that is humanising people. This is what the film is trying to do.”

And with Islamic fundamentalism, the Syrian refugee crisis and the fall out from wars in the Middle East continually dominating the news, audiences are turning to movies to find out more, and to hear an alternative version of events.

Those venturing out to see these new Arab films will find tales that are far from the social and political melodramas that the Arab states used to back – films that were designed to impart a positive social message. Now the movies are far more radical. “I think that since the Arab Spring and maybe a year or two before there has been a shift,” says Safar Film Festival curator Rasha Salti. “The films have become more political and courageous.”

Salti says of the shift, “It’s a result of the Arab Spring and also the burden of addressing the every day by making films with a didactic message has gone. I think that’s because in part social media allows you to be didactic. If you witness sexual harassment in Cairo then everybody can film it and put it on social media immediately and that has become a medium to show it. Filmmakers no longer feel that they have to make a film about that, as being the only place for that voice to be heard.”

This is also helped by the ability to find funds to make films that are not from the government. “There is less state help for films, thank God,” says Salti. “Because that comes with strings attached.”

Another reason for the plethora of film festivals is that Arab films do not get regular distribution. The market for foreign films has collapsed around the world. This month in the UK, Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta became the first subtitled film since the Raid in 2014 to break £1 million. With distributors not wanting to take a risk, films from the Arab world, as well as those from Africa and southern Europe have found themselves increasingly marginalised. The only place to see them on the big screen is at film festivals.

Screen Shot 2016-09-28 at 5.27.27 PM.png
Mohamed Khan’s 2015 Before the Summer Crowds 

Those that go to see the films at SAFAR will be in for a surprise by the range of genres and the quality. As I Open My Eyes, by Leila Bouzid is a film about a Tunisian female rock singer, trying to make sense of her life, in the summer before the start of the Arab Spring. It’s a film with energy, verve and great music that recently won Best Film at the East End Film Festival.

Sélim  Mourad’s This Little Father Obsession  is a hybrid picture that blends fact and fiction, reminiscent of Italian realism. Salti enthused about Let them Come, a film that deals with the so-called ‘Years of terrorism’ in Algeria in the early 1990s. At the London Film Festival, there will be the world premiere of Emirati filmmaker Ali Mostafa’s dystopian sci-fi thriller The Worthy and the UK premiere of the raucous Saudi comedy Barakah Meets Barakah starring Internet sensation Hisham Fageeh.

screen-shot-2016-09-28-at-5-29-44-pm
Salem Brahimi’s 2015 film, Let The Come

What is also noteworthy about Arab cinema is the number of female filmmakers. At the forthcoming Arab Film Festival of America, 40 per cent of the 59 films that will be presented are made by female filmmakers. There are films from Mai Masri,  Heidi Salman and Nadine Salib. On the horizon, exciting British Arab filmmaker Zeina Durra is working on her second film. One of the most anticipated films of 2017 is Marjoun and the Headscarf by the phenomenal Susan Youssef.

Yet the picture is not without dark clouds. Salti points out that as the world has moved to embraced Arabic film, the Arab world has started to be skeptical of the latest wave of filmmakers, especially those offering a critical eye on Arab dictatorships, or showing sex and prostitutes, as does Morocco’s Much Loved.

“In the Arab world there are less film festivals than 10 years ago,” recognises Salti. “This is partly because film festivals are expensive to host, but also because they also require a modicum of freedom and in some countries the state of policing expression and exhibition is worse than before the Arab Spring.”

London Film Festival 5-16 October, Arab Film Festival (venues in California) Oct 7-16

(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk)

Tokyo film festival lineup to include 12 Indonesian films

Twelve Indonesian films will be screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) slated to run from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3.

Athirah, a film inspired by Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s mother and directed by Riri Riza, is set to be featured in the Crosscut Asia section alongside 10 other Indonesian movies. This particular section is dedicated to Asian films with a focus on a country, a director, an actor or a certain theme. For this year, the TIFF has decided to feature movies from Indonesia dubbed Colorful Indonesia.

screen-shot-2016-09-28-at-10-55-38-am
Athirah,  a film inspired by Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s mother and directed by Riri Riza, is set to be featured in the Crosscut Asia section of the Tokyo International Film Festival alongside 10 other Indonesian movies. (Photo credit: Shuttercock/-)

Athirah, a film inspired by Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s mother directed by Riri Riza, is set to be featured in the Crosscut Asia section of the Tokyo International Film Festival alongside 10 other Indonesian movies. (Shutterstock/-)

In addition to Athirah, other Indonesian movies scheduled in the section are Catatan Dodol Calon Dokter (Stupid Notes of Doctor Candidate) by Ifa Isfansyah that is slated to premiere in Indonesia on Oct. 27, musical film Ini Kisah Tiga Dara (The Story of Three Girls) by Nia Dinata, which is inspired by the 1956 movie Tiga Dara by Usmar Ismail, Filosofi Kopi (Coffee Philosophy) ( 2015 ) by Angga Dwimas Sasongko, Sendiri Diana Sendiri (Lonely Diana Alone) ( 2015 ) by Kamila Andini, Fiksi (Fiction) ( 2013 ) by Mouly Surya, Someone’s Wife in the Boat of Someone’s Husband ( 2013 ) by Edwin, and Lewat Djam Malam (Past the Curfew) ( 1954 ) by Usmar Ismail. It will also screen three films by Teddy Soeriaatmadja, namely About a Woman ( 2014 ), Something in the Way ( 2013 ), and Lovely Man ( 2011 ).

Meanwhile, Salawuku by Pritagita Arianegara, which follows a journey of two people in Seram Island in Maluku, will represent the archipelago in the Asian Future section.

(Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com)

French director Jean-Jacques Beineix to head jury for 29th Tokyo International Film Festival

More than 200 films will be screened, with 16 taking part in the competition section, at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) running from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3.

The 29th TIFF will take place at Roppongi Hills in Minato Ward.

Jean-Jacques Beineix, director of “Diva” and the Oscar-nominated “Betty Blue,” is heading the jury, which includes Japanese director Hideyuki Hirayama, Hong Kong director Mabel Cheung, Spotlight producer Nicole Rocklin and Italian actor Valerio Mastandrea.

The 16 films in the competition section were selected from among 1,502 titles from 98 countries and regions.

During the 10-day affair, there will also be unique film-related events at the festival’s venues, including stage appearances, Q&A sessions and symposia featuring celebrated guests.

Among the guests will be Mamoru Hosoda, who is being honored this year with his own section in the Animation Focus category called “The World of Mamoru Hosoda.”

He was also at Monday’s news conference in the Toranomon Hills complex announcing the festival lineup.

(Source: Staff Report http://www.japantimes.co.jp)

Highlights From Tom Ford’s TIFF Interview About His New Film, “Nocturnal Animals”

Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Anjli Patel

Nocturnal Animals, the second feature length film directed by Tom Ford, centers on a man’s cathartic, vengeful healing process in the aftermath of a great love lost. Taking the form of a story-within-a-story, Ford employs precise visuals — a skill mastered in his day job as a fashion designer — to segue from one story to the other.

Set simultaneously in the upper echelons of Los Angeles and barren West Texas, these distinct backdrops symbolize the great divide that Susan, Amy Adams’ art dealer character, perceives between her and Edward, her novelist ex-husband played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Susan’s inability to reconcile her needs and desires is the cause of her unhappiness and the couple’s demise. However, nearly two decades later when she has long since moved on with her life, Susan is forced to come to terms with that relationship when she unexpectedly receives a novel written by Edward and dedicated to her.

The film is emotionally gripping and at times difficult to watch, a departure from the melancholy A Single Man, Ford’s directorial debut, which seven years ago also premiered in North America at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Last week following the second screening of Nocturnal Animals, Ford sat down with Cameron Bailey, the artistic director of TIFF, to discuss the film at length. Below are highlights from their conversation.

Ford on the role of style in his films:

“I think because of my other life [as a fashion designer] people usually gravitate to style. In filmmaking unless [style] serves a purpose and helps tell the story, it’s not important. Substance is for me what’s important.”

Ford on the take home message of the film:

“When you find someone in your life, someone that’s important to you, someone who you connect to, don’t let them go. Hold on.”

Ford on fueling consumption:

“Style really has to serve a character, and so there is a real purpose for Susan’s very pristine, cold life. I think it’s something that our society and our culture constantly tells you, ‘this is going to make you happy; you’ll be happy if you have this, you’ll be happy if you have that’ and in my other life I am one of those people responsible for doing that, but I’m very divided about it. I grew up in New Mexico in a much simpler way. Whenever I can, I escape to my house there, to the desert, to the sky, and I feel much more in touch with the earth, and the planet, and why we’re here. And so it is something that I struggle with.”

Ford on the West Texas narrative in the film:

“I have a couple of lives. I grew up in Texas. I know West Texas very well. I have so many cousins there. I lead a life in Los Angeles, in London, but I also have a ranch in New Mexico. I ride horses, I have cattle, I know that world very well, and what I wanted to do was contrast those two worlds — Susan’s slick, cold world is colored in a way that is very blue-toned, it’s very cold. Yet when we have color in her world, it’s quite sharp and quite garish, whereas the inner novel is green, the colors are different, they’re deeper, they’re richer, and then of course her flashback. I think often when many of us remember the past, it’s very vivid and warm because we have a tendency, at least I do, to remember the past in a nostalgic way.”

Ford on Amy Adams:

“Editing Amy, there is not a bad take, a bad moment. She does so much with her face, she is a spectacular actress. … I would say [Amy is] one of the best actresses working today who can tell — she telegraphs with her face what she’s feeling. And I find Amy’s eyes incredibly soulful. … If you know Amy and look into her eyes, you can’t help but feel something, and I wanted that to really come through in the part of Susan.”

Ford on the art in the opening scene:

“All of the art in the film is real. The original artists let us use their work. I usually don’t like a film about the art world where the art is fake because somehow it doesn’t have the same emotion that real art does. [The art in the opening scene] is the one and only piece of art that I created because I had to imagine myself, ‘okay, I’m an artist, and what is it that I want to say.’ I’ve lived in Europe for the last 27 years, so I decided, ‘alright, I’ll tell a European perspective of where America is today.’

I think America used to be thought of as kind of a country of beautiful, tanned, tits and ass, Farah Fawcett in a little red swimsuit, all teeth and hair, and I think a lot of the world today thinks of America as gluttonous, overfed, aging, decaying in a sense. And that was my original intention, which is why these women are wearing little bits and pieces of Americana. So I wanted to create a sort of absurd, conceptual art because Amy then later says everything is junk, our culture is junk.

However, that completely changed. I shot these women — they were the most beautiful people. They were so free, they were so excited, they were so happy, they were so joyful, and I fell in love with them. I fell in love with everything about them. And I realized after I shot them that in a sense they were a microcosm of what I was trying to say about the world. … They’re so glad to be here, and it’s because they have let go of our perception of what they’re supposed to be, and that is what is trapping Amy’s character Susan — she’s trying so hard to be what she thinks she is supposed to be, and she’s miserable. And these women were so joyful because they’ve let go of that. They’ve let go of this idea of what we’re supposed to be. And so [the art] became something quite different in the film.”

(Source: http://www.papermag.com)

Photo by Joe Schildhorn/BFA.com