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The AFI FEST Interview: BUSTER’S MAL HEART Director Sarah Adina Smith

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Sarah Adina Smith’s sophomore feature is the story of Jonah, a man who has been split in two by grief — one who lives in the woods and another who is trapped at sea — with each incarnation looking for a reckoning with God. Actor Rami Malek delivers an exceptional performance, playing fractured parts of the same man and imbuing each persona with a wholly different performance. Kate Lyn Sheil and DJ Qualls round out the cast, as Jonah’s sensitive wife and a drifter who contributes to Jonah’s downward spiral, respectively. Director/writer Smith expertly crafts a darkly humorous and touching film that explores the nuances of the human condition with elements of conspiracy theory and quantum entanglement. BUSTER’S MAL HEART is a visceral, mind-bending mystery that will keep you pondering long after it turns your world upside down.

AFI spoke with Smith about the film.

AFI: This film deals with some pretty complex ideas — identity fracturing, parallel realities. Talk about how the premise of this screenplay came to you.

Sarah Adina Smith: The idea for BUSTER’S MAL HEART grew pretty naturally out of [my 2014 film] THE MIDNIGHT SWIM. Both movies propose a cosmology, seen through the eyes of a so-called “insane” character.

Suppose that your soul is a traveler along the path of everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. THE MIDNIGHT SWIM shows us a character becoming conscious of that path.  BUSTER’S MAL HEART takes it one step farther, showing us a character who rebels against that path.

THE MIDNIGHT SWIM was about a woman who was never fully at peace with being born, who chooses a conscious death. She’s the psychological equivalent of an astronaut — boldly launching herself into the darkness, surrendering herself to fate with eyes open. She successfully achieves conscious reincarnation. Her journey is an illumination of the path of eternal recurrence — the ceaseless unfolding of space-time that churns out the magnificent picture show we call “reality.”

BUSTER’S MAL HEART is about a character who feels in his bones that there’s something essentially messed up about the great machine of the universe. The protagonist, Jonah, rebels against God, or lack thereof. He refuses to be a player in a game where he didn’t create or consent to the rules. He was born with a bad heart; that was his Fate. But he found love — tangible love — through his wife and daughter…and refused to let go. BUSTER’S MAL HEART puts forth the idea that love can defy the laws of the universe. That love has the power to rip space-time a new one.

We are all in pursuit of peace. We want release from a cycle that has no end. Because Hell is real, kinda. Hell is the dark factory that processes energy and creates all the beautiful events in the world. I am grateful for Hell because here I am, enjoying these momentary glimpses of “Heaven.” (The beautiful picture show of passing cataclysms.)

For the vast majority of eternity other than the tiny blip of our existence, we are the fuel that runs that factory. Our bodies are no different than the fire of every sun that was ever born…all energy that ever materialized longs to escape.  We know for certain that we will die. That our bodies will become fuel for the great machine. The good news is that history repeats itself. The better news is that it’s never fully the same. We’ll rise again from the muck and live another blip.

Jonah is a man who wants release from the whole comedy show. He wants to be truly free. But freedom doesn’t mean anything if you’re enclosed by a cage with no walls. It isn’t possible.  Buster’s heart cries out for a reckoning with God or gods or even just nature. He demands it. And he succeeds in calling that trial to session through the sheer power of his heart.

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AFI: Why did you choose the film’s very specific setting — both in Montana and in the years leading up to the millennium?

SAS: One half of Jonah charges up the mountain seeking a reckoning with his maker, but encounters only the void. The other half tries to escape a reckoning with his maker down south, and is washed to sea, forced into a conversation he doesn’t want to have.

I chose Montana because it’s the place where Americans go to find themselves in solitude and seek a conversation with the divine. We also shot in the ocean off the coast of Mexico. I specifically wanted to shoot in Mexico because it’s the place where (archetypically) Americans go to run away from their sins and avoid fate.

AFI: How did Rami Malek come on board the project?

SAS: Casting the lead role was the biggest challenge because I was set on casting a Latino actor for the role, which I had written to be bilingual in Spanish and English. My producers and financiers felt equally strongly that we should cast a native Spanish speaker. We spent about six months trying to find the right fit and kept striking out on availability. It finally became clear that if we were going to make the film in 2015, we needed to broaden our search.

But it was really important to me that we cast an actor of color in the role because the character Jonah feels like an outsider in an otherwise very white community. We made a new list and pretty quickly we all realized that Rami Malek was at the very top. This is before MR. ROBOT came out, so I had only seen his work in SHORT TERM 12 and THE PACIFIC, but I thought he was incredibly compelling.

Plus, I did a tarot card reading and the cards don’t lie. I can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. Rami’s a disciplined craftsman and his own toughest critic. He’s one of the hardest working, most inventive and gracious actors I’ve ever met.

AFI: You have a knack for casting great character actors in your films, like Beth Grant in THE MIDNIGHT SWIM and Toby Huss and Lin Shaye in BUSTER’S MAL HEART. How does that casting process work for you?

SAS: Oh man, thank you for saying that. I really love casting. I had the great pleasure of working with the casting director Samy Burch on this movie and she brought so many beautiful ideas to the table.

Toby Huss had been on my radar from HALT AND CATCH FIRE. He has this natural charisma that I find very compelling — he’s playful and serious at the same time. Kind of a jester in the very best and most honorable sense of the word.

I believe it was my producer Travis Stevens who brought Lin Shaye to my attention. Lin’s such a terrific fit for the role. She’s an extremely dedicated actress, fiercely intelligent and a truly wonderful person. In the moment of a scene, Lin is all heart, which is a joy to watch.

AFI: We’ve had the chance to watch you grow as a filmmaker. What lessons did you learn on [AFI FEST 2014 Breakthrough Award winner] THE MIDNIGHT SWIM that you carried over to BUSTER’S MAL HEART?

SAS: THE MIDNIGHT SWIM taught me to trust my instincts, to stay open to surprises and to carry the heavy weight of a feature on my shoulders from start to finish.

I had a really hard moment in the middle of editing THE MIDNIGHT SWIM — kind of a heart of darkness. Because I had lived through it once, I knew it would likely come again on BUSTER. It did come, I was just more prepared to deal with it this time around. I learned to have more faith in the process and to release myself just a bit to fate, over which I have very little control.

BUSTER’S MAL HEART screens at AFI FEST 2016 on Wednesday, November 16, as part of New Auteurs.

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FILM REVIEW: Laurence Anyways (Dolan, 2012): Canada

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Reviewed by Larry Gleeson.

affiche_bigViewed during the Santa Barbara International Film. Laurence Anyways, is a visual feast as Canadian director, Xavier Dolan, tells a love story between two highly charged individuals, Fred, played by Suzanne Clement a fashionable female film and television producer, and Laurence, played by Melvil Poupad, an up and coming successful, thirty-something in his own right who has decided he wants to be a woman and that he’s always wanted to be a woman. Imagine that!

While definitely viewed as a game-changer  Laurence’s decision to become a woman  isn’t really the central focus of the film despite the amount of attention Dolan provides for it as we see Laurence first few awkward moments and then his full on embodiment and womanly maturation.  Nevertheless, the film wouldn’t have the soul to evolve without the essence of Fred as his fiance. Despite all the hype about the film being a caricature of a transvestite it’s a real love story between Fred and Laurence that takes place over the course of the ten years we are privy to in Mr. Dolan’s long tale.girlfriend for this film is really a portrait of their relationship over the course of ten years. They play wonderfully off each other, immediately conjuring intimate undercurrent  relationship squabbles, shared amusements, and deep understanding of one another and each ones  personal and emotional needs.

Laurence isn’t gay per se, yet Fred unequivocally states she wants to be  with a man. Respectfully and with tremendous courage both Laurence and Fred try to go with it. Also of interest to note about Laurence  – his mother, played by Nathalie Baye,  hated her son but now loves her daughter. Poupad really seems to capture the very assertive yet conflicted nature of Laurence as he meanders emotionally revealing deep scarring in his psyche. Yet by the end of the film it’s become obvious Suzanne Clements has literally stolen the show with her round-robin buildup of intense emotional pandering to the man she so deeply loves and it’s her eyes that treat the viewer to Laurance’s transformation.

Undoubtedly, Dolan is establishing himself as a filmmaker and editor of quite some skill, having won awards at Cannes and at Toronto, and here takes on the costume design as well. Granted often said the clothes don’t make the man but in Laurence Anyways, the costumes illuminate the characters and raise them to a level of such visual delight I would venture to say these costumes help make the characters and assuredly radiate their inner  light. In addition, Dolan seems to  handle the  obvious story beats with a crisp, elegant, and understated style and permeates the screen with an eye for color, pattern, and composition and with a solid dose of fetishism. He also cuts a mean musical score here as well using Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to accompany a superb montage of raw emotion as the causality of the  relationship implodes.

The film runs at 2:45 minutes. In my opinion, the story needs a little more brevity. Still, I give it a strong endorsement as it hits a home run with the 80’s nostalgia, the actor’s powerful performance levels,  the gorgeous cinematography, and the colorful characters magnified so profoundly by the  extraordinary costume design. Highly recommended.

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Hollywood

VIZIO and the American Film Institute Collaborate to Showcase the Intersection of Art and Technology at AFI FEST 2016

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RVINE, Calif., Nov. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — VIZIO, Inc. announced today its third-year of collaboration with the American Film Institute, highlighted by a sponsorship of AFI FEST 2016 presented by Audi. With a joint mission to celebrate the art of filmmaking, the partnership between AFI and VIZIO connects cinema and technology to enhance the home entertainment experience. This year, VIZIO will showcase its complete VIZIO SmartCast line-up, including the VIZIO SmartCast™ P-Series™ Ultra HD HDR Home Theater Display collection, in the VIZIO Lounge at The Hollywood Roosevelt during the festival. The displays feature High Dynamic Range with Dolby Vision™ and HDR10 content support, culminating in a cinema-like entertainment experience at home.

VIZIO will host the Special Closing Night Gala Presentation of AFI FEST, featuring a red carpet celebration and screening of Patriots Day, directed by Peter Berg.  The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Benoist and Michelle Monaghan and depicts an account of Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis’ actions in the events leading up to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the aftermath, which includes a city-wide manhunt to find the terrorists behind it. The Special Closing Night Gala Presentation of Patriots Day will take place at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Thursday, November 17 at 7:00pm.

(Excerpt from release http://www.prnewswire.com)

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The AFI FEST Interview: Peter Bogdanovich on Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE

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Ranked at the top of AFI’s list of the greatest films of all time, Orson Welles’ portrait of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (a thinly veiled stand-in for William Randolph Hearst) is brilliant, blistering and beautiful. The story moves through the tragedies and triumphs of Kane’s life, from a happy childhood in snowy Colorado cut short; to a towering ascendance in the newspaper industry; a dysfunctional marriage with a tone-deaf wife he tries desperately to mold into a great opera singer; and a cloistered existence in his palatial home, Xanadu. Welles’ superb cast, many from his own Mercury Theatre, is made up of some of the most vibrant stars of the 1940s, including Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane and, of course, Welles himself, who perfectly captures the aging Kane with a deft mix of sensitivity and ferocity. Gregg Toland’s innovative cinematography is now the stuff of legend, putting the deep focus technique on the map with shot after shot of crisply layered foreground and background images. If this is your first or 100th time seeing this landmark film, make sure to catch it at AFI FEST 2016 in a restored DCP, courtesy of Warner Bros. Classics.

The screening will be followed by an AFI Master Class with Welles expert Peter Bogdanovich, who spoke to AFI about CITIZEN KANE ahead of AFI FEST.

AFI: CITIZEN KANE turns 75 this year. Why do we still talk about it today?screen-shot-2016-11-09-at-9-33-57-pm

Peter Bogdanovich: It’s a landmark film, not just Orson Welles’ best film but a masterpiece. It was a masterpiece then in 1941 and still is. It’s a brilliant symphony, and is exciting to watch. Everything about it is dynamic, and that very dynamism is the camouflage for the extremely sad story Welles tells. You’re not moved to tears by CITIZEN KANE really, except as a kind of thrillingly done film.

AFI: What was it like seeing the film for the first time, in 1955?

PB: I was 16, and I was quite bowled over by it. I thought it was brilliant. I’ve seen it, I think, 10 or 12 times since then. I saw it the other day on television briefly. You can’t resist it. Everything about it is brilliant. The performances are amazing, and Orson himself, his performance is extraordinary. People spend so much time talking about the direction that they don’t notice how brilliant that performance is. It was everybody’s first film, which makes it even more extraordinary. It’s amazing to realize that all those people had never made a movie before.

AFI: Would you say that much of contemporary cinema is indebted to the style and direction of CITIZEN KANE?

PB: It’s funny because it’s not that extraordinary in terms of the technique. He used a pretty simple technique in many ways. A lot of long takes. The scene goes on, and you don’t notice how long it goes without a cut. That wasn’t that common, though a lot of filmmakers in that period did do shots like that, but not to the degree that Orson did. Years later, I said to him, “What do you think is the difference between doing a scene in one shot or in many cuts?” He said, “Well, we used to say that’s what distinguished the men from the boys.” The whole thing, the construction of the story, the flashback structure — it wasn’t any one thing that was unusual. It was the whole production. It’s a very depressing story. There’s not a shred of hope at the end. It’s all very downbeat, but the style of the film, the way he made it, the overlapping dialogue, the flashback structure, some surprising camera angles — the whole thing made a tremendous impression if you were sensitive to what he was doing.

AFI: How was the film received in 1941, versus years later when you first saw it?

It got great reviews in its original release, except in The New York Times. [Critic] Bosley Crowther didn’t care for it much. He thought the central character was shallow. It couldn’t play in a lot of theaters because the Hearst organization had blacklisted it. So, as Orson said, they couldn’t make money if they couldn’t get a theater. That’s why it failed. Orson suggested they open it in tents around the country. It was not shown for many years, but it was brought back to New York in 1955, to a small art house, and that’s where I first saw it. That’s when it started to gain this reputation.

READ MORE: 15 Facts About Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE — America’s Greatest Film Turns 75

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AFI: You had a close relationship with Welles for many years. How did he feel about the film?

PB: He didn’t want to talk about it much. Orson did THE DAVID FROST SHOW [as guest host] in 1970  and I was there. He had a guest, [author] Norman Mailer, and after the show they went to Frankie and Johnnie’s in Manhattan and I joined them for dinner. We sat down and Norman said to Orson, “There’s a great shot in CITIZEN KANE…” and Orson said, “Oh, no, Norman, not CITIZEN KANE.” Norman looked perplexed for a minute and then said, “Oh, yeah, I guess it’s like me and ‘The Naked and the Dead,’” meaning that both Norman and Orson were plagued by the notoriety of their first effort. It was the only picture that anybody ever talked to him about, and he was irritated about it because he’d made other pictures that nobody saw. It depressed him actually. It was a struggle to get him to talk about KANE. Reluctantly he talked about it; I would trick him into it sometimes.

AFI: When Welles began CITIZEN KANE, did he know he was making a masterpiece?

PB: I couldn’t say. I think he thought he was making a pretty good picture. The thing about CITIZEN KANE is it’s very cold, and there are moments that are touching, but they’re few and far between. It’s not an emotional picture. KANE is relentlessly negative, but what makes it exciting is the way it’s told, and the way it’s acted and the way it’s done, really. It’s almost as though he’s saying that it’s only through art that we can really survive. The artistry of the picture is what gives it its lift, because if you examine the story, it’s pretty bleak.

AFI: How has CITIZEN KANE influenced your own seminal work?

PB: I can’t say I was influenced by CITIZEN KANE directly. I was influenced by Orson’s thinking, and things he said to me. But I wasn’t particularly influenced by the film. I wasn’t influenced by the technique of it as much as by the youthful spirit of it. I was influenced by a general feeling of fearlessness. CITIZEN KANE was nominated for Best Picture, but what won was HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY by John Ford, an emotional film about the dissolution of a family. CITIZEN KANE is a cold film about the dissolution and tragedy of a man who loses everything, including his soul.

CITIZEN KANE screens AFI FEST on Sunday, November 13, at 1:30 p.m.

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(Source: http://www.blog.afi.com)

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The AFI FEST Interview: Tributee Annette Bening, Star of 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

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Annette Bening has triumphed on both stage and screen since the 1980s. Early in her career, she scored a Tony® nomination for her Broadway debut in COASTAL DISTURBANCES. She has four Academy Award® nominations to her name, for THE GRIFTERS (1990), AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999), BEING JULIA (2004) and THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010), plus an Emmy® nomination in 2006 for MRS. HARRIS.

This year, AFI FEST highlights her role as a single mother in 1979 Santa Barbara in Mike Mills’ 20TH CENTURY WOMEN — one of her best performances yet. As Dorothea, Bening is a force of nature, channeling a smart, resourceful woman who anchors a rambling bohemian house with a slew of perfectly era-specific itinerants. Additionally, in RULES DON’T APPLY, the festival’s Opening Night Gala directed by and starring Bening’s husband Warren Beatty, she brings her sparkling charisma to a crucial supporting role.

AFI spoke with Bening about her films in the festival.

AFI: What initially attracted you to the character of Dorothea, and how did you join the project of 20TH CENTURY WOMEN?

Annette Bening: Mike Mills called and asked me to read the screenplay; we then met and had dinner. We talked extensively about his ideas, his mom and the character of Dorothea. Shortly after that he asked me to play Dorothea, and we’ve been talking about her ever since.

AFI: The film has an excellent and varied supporting cast, all of whom orbit around Dorothea in different ways. Can you talk about what it was like working with Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, Elle Fanning and Lucas Jade Zumann?

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AB: We were a tight and loving ensemble, thanks to Mike Mills putting us together in rehearsal in immediate and imaginative ways.  We danced, improv’d, did specific acting exercises and got to know each other. It was challenging and penetrative work, where we searched ourselves and each other to find the hearts of the characters. Hopefully that shows on the screen.

AFI: Does Mike Mills’ vision of 1979 resonate with your experience of it? 

AB: I was 19 in 1979, and for me, Mike is contextualizing that time in his own unique way.

AFI: One of the many great things about 20TH CENTURY WOMEN is how it grapples with the idea of confusing and contradictory expectations about femininity and masculinity. As an actress, was it exciting to tackle this?

AB: In rehearsal and preparation, intellectual ideas are naturally at play. In performance, these ideas become nascent for me, and I’m trying to listen, respond and be in the immediate moment with my fellow actors.

AFI: You have a supporting role in the festival’s Opening Night Gala, RULES DON’T APPLY, written and directed by and starring your husband, Warren Beatty. Do you two have a collaborative relationship when working together on set?

AB: Working on RULES DON’T APPLY with my husband was for me a dream come true. He’s a great director, enjoying his actors with zeal and humor. He’s demanding and exacting in the best way and even let me improvise a little, and that’s my favorite thing.

20TH CENTURY WOMEN screens on Wednesday, November 16, as a Gala Tribute; RULES DON’T APPLY screens on Thursday, November 10, as the Opening Night Gala.

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Feature Film, Hollywood

FILM REVIEW: R100 (Matsumoto, 2013): Japan

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Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed during the AFI Filmfest 2013.

“R100,” directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto, half of the Japanese comedic phenomenon, Downtown, is an absurdist Japanese comedy about an average, everyday family man, Takafumi Katayama, played by Nao Ohmori, leading an average everyday hum-drum, existence who decides one day to join a rather unusual club, a BDSM (Bondage and Discipline Sadism and Masochism) club surreptitiously named “Bondage.” Bondage has some rather interesting rules. For example, all activities must take place outside the club in real life settings, the customers must be submissive at all times and no touching allowed. The “masochist manifesto” promises to lead to “a revelation of the self.” Furthermore, the club” membership is for one year and once entered into cannot be cancelled under any circumstances.

True to its original roots, the club and its employees, a slew  of dominatrices known as “Queens” begin a wide range of orchestrated hi-jinks  upon an unwitting Mr. Takafumi Katayama. He is punched, kicked, whipped until achieving an erotic release visualized by a rippling effect upon Mr. Katayama’s aural body.

At first the practices and the situations have a fairly unobtrusive element but it doesn’t take long before they penetrate Mr. Katayama’s inner circle of family and employer.  The public humiliations and the physical abuse wear heavily on Mr. Katayama as his employer witnesses a particularly offensive restroom scene against the submissive Katayama. The line is crossed when the Bondage bounds Mr. Katayama’s young son.

Deciding enough is enough, Katayama makes the call to terminate his membership. The club, however, has other ideas and begins sending very dangerous and bizarre characters to eliminate Katayama. Here the storyline goes into warp drive with characters and situations passing through absurdity into irrationality. One character, Queen Big Mouth, devours another human being in a snake-like fashion. Another scene shows a group of businessmen producers exiting the theater discussing what they’ve just seen trying to make sense of the director’s over-the-top choices. The film the audience is seeing becomes a rough cut film in post-production. All the while, the screen depiction of a filmmaker director at age 100 exploring his sexual fantasies in a movie theater through a film underscores the absurdity of the  Japanese social mores of acceptable behavior. Point in case, when Mr. Katayama tries to report the club’s unlawful sexual activities to the police, he’s mocked and dismissed handily for getting what seems to be too much of a good thing.

In my opinion, Matsumoto is just throwing the kitchen sink at the audience landing bits and pieces trying to hit the mark with as many patrons as possible. He blends aspects of film noir, slapstick, zen and S&M. It’s not so much quality as it is quantity. Seemingly, being present and in the moment is a requirement for enjoying Matsumoto’s midnight submission, “R100.” Admittedly, I found many of the scenes quite funny and found myself laughing joyously. I also found many scenes that weren’t so funny and found myself scratching my head. So I guess it stands to reason (or does it?) why the show won the Midnight Category at the Toronto International Film Festival. Unfortunately for me, I saw the film on a Monday afternoon, Veterans Day to be more specific. Warmly recommended for mature audiences.

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The AFI FEST Interview: THE EYES OF MY MOTHER Director Nicolas Pesce

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Beautifully lensed in black and white, Nicolas Pesce’s debut feature THE EYES OF MY MOTHER immediately immerses the viewer in its Gothic atmosphere with a jarring act of violence that disrupts the seemingly bucolic life of a Midwestern Portuguese-American family. Francisca, the young daughter of a farmer and his surgeon wife, carries the effects of witnessing this terrible event into adulthood and perpetuates the cycle of violence to a chilling degree. Played with magnetic intensity by Kika Magalhães, the character of Francisca provides an uncommonly personal look at psychosis. While Pesce never pretends to understand or explain the roots of her actions, by planting the film squarely in Francisca’s point of view, he gives us an uncomfortable yet enthralling experience with this unique horror film.

AFI spoke with Pesce about the film.

Nicolas Pesce
Nicolas Pesce

AFI: This is an austere, minimalist horror movie fable told from the point of view of an increasingly extreme serial murderer. How did you make your protagonist sympathetic?

Nicolas Pesce: There was a constant balance we all had to maintain to tread this line between sympathy and disgust. For us, it was all about showing the audience every aspect of the character’s life, good and bad. You may not agree with Francisca’s actions, but a glimpse of understanding helps to make the character more sympathetic. The film is not about an evil woman. It’s about a lonely woman, and that’s how we always handled it.

AFI: Why shoot in black and white? It’s interesting that, though there are period elements in the film, the time and place are never immediately clear. 

NP: The black and white instantly tells the audience what type of horror movie is in store for them. It puts the film into a different lexicon of movies, and whether you’re familiar with American Gothic or not, the visual style creates a moody atmosphere that’s an extension of the main character’s psyche.

AFI: While THE EYES OF MY MOTHER is indeed disturbing, much of the violence takes place off-screen. Why?

NP: If I showed the violence on screen, you could look away and protect yourself from the imagery. But if I only give you a hint as to what’s happening, you’re mind fills in all the gaps, and suddenly without even trying, you’ve got this horrible image in your mind’s eye, and you can’t look away from that. It’s about making the audience scare themselves rather than me doing it for them. We’re all the best at scaring ourselves in exactly the way that scares us. I set up the scare, and you do the rest.

AFI: You wear your influences on your sleeve — David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Takashi Miike and even Michael Haneke. What attracts you to this kind of extreme filmmaking? 

NP: All those filmmakers have one very important thing in common. They have the ability to make the most banal, ordinary thing frightening. Whether it’s the actor’s performance or the music or the movement of the camera work, these filmmakers manage to unsettle in really abstract ways, manipulating the audience’s mood unknowingly and in oddly ordinary ways.

AFI: THE EYES OF MY MOTHER was the first project of Borderline Presents, the collective of established indie directors Josh Mond, Sean Durkin and Antonio Campos. How did this collaboration begin?

NP: I met Josh Mond while he was in post on his film JAMES WHITE. I helped him edit for a few weeks, but we became fast friends. I was soon welcomed into the family and they helped me put this film together. They saw a like-minded collaborator in me, but also a filmmaker who had a different voice than the three of them. They oversaw the project every step of the way from prep to production to post. Their experience, advice and opinions were invaluable. To have such brilliant filmmakers, whom I respect so much, looking out for the good of the film was more than I could ever ask for. They did everything in their power to help me make the best possible movie I could make, always trying to find the core of what I was trying to do, and getting the best version of it out of me.

THE EYES OF MY MOTHER screens at AFI FEST 2016 on Tuesday, November 15 and Wednesday, November 16 as part of the festival’s American Independents section.

(Source:www.blog.afi.com)

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AFI FEST 2016 World Cinema Lineup

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AFI FEST 2016 presented by Audi has unveiled its expansive, annual World Cinema lineup. World Cinema showcases the most acclaimed international films of the year and features 33 films from 28 countries, including seven official Best Foreign Language Film Oscar® entries: DEATH IN SARAJEVO (DIR Danis Tanović), THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI (DIR Juho Kuosmanen), IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD (DIR Xavier Dolan), JULIETA (DIR Pedro Almodóvar), LAND OF MINE (DIR Martin Pieter Zandvliet), NERUDA (DIR Pablo Larraín) and THE SALESMAN (DIR Asghar Farhadi).

Pictured above: THE SALESMAN

WORLD CINEMA

AFTER LOVE (L’ÉCONOMIE DU COUPLE) – Joachim Lafosse returns to AFI FEST with his latest feature, which follows a married couple going through the turmoil of divorce in full view of their twin daughters. DIR Joachim Lafosse. SCRS Mazarine Pingeot, Fanny Burdino, Joachim Lafosse. CAST Bérénice Bejo, Cédric Kahn, Marthe Keller, Jade Soentjens, Margaux Soentjens. Belgium | France

ALBÜM – In this surreal comedy, things go awry when a Turkish couple tries to cover up the fact that they are adopting their new child as opposed to having a natural birth. DIR Mehmet Can Mertoğlu. SCR Mehmet Can Mertoğlu. CAST Şebnem Bozoklu, Murat Kılıç, Rıza Akın, Mihriban Er, Ali Meriç, Müfit Kayacan, Sencar Sağdıç, Şafak Karali. Turkey | France | Romania

BORIS WITHOUT BEATRICE (BORIS SANS BÉATRICE) – Upon receiving a mysterious letter, a proud, wealthy man must reassess who he is in this existential thriller. DIR Denis Côté. SCR Denis Côté. CAST James Hyndman, Simone Élise-Girard, Denis Lavant, Isolda Dychauk, Dounia Sichov, Laetitia Isambert-Denis, Louise Laprade, Bruce LaBruce. Canada

THE COMMUNE (KOLLEKTIVET) – Thomas Vinterberg returns to AFI FEST with this 1970s-set ensemble piece looking at a young couple who start a collective in the big vintage house where the husband grew up. DIR Thomas Vinterberg. SCRS Thomas Vinterberg, Tobias Lindholm. CAST Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen, Helene Reingaard Neumann, Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen, Lars Ranthe, Fares Fares, Magnus Millang, Julie Agnete Vang, Anne Gry Henningsen. Denmark | Sweden | Netherlands

CROSSCURRENT (CHANG JIANG TU) – A cargo ship captain falls under the spell of a mysterious book of poetry, and it sends him on an unexpected journey up the Yangtze River. DIR Yang Chao. SCR Yang Chao. CAST Qin Hao, Xin Zhilei, Wu Lipeng, Wang Hongwei, Jiang Hualin, Tan Kai. China. This screening is co-presented by the China Onscreen Biennial (COB) 2016 and is the closing night screening of their Los Angeles series.

DEATH IN SARAJEVO (SMRT U SARAJEVU) – Director Danis Tanović turns the luxurious Hotel Europa in the heart of Sarajevo into an ideological battleground in this Silver Bear winner out of the Berlinale. DIR Danis Tanović. SCR Danis Tanović. CAST Jaques Weber, Snežana Vidović, Izudin Bajrovic, Vedrana Seksan, Muhamed Hadžović, Faketa Salihbegović-Avdagić, Edin Avdagić, Aleksandar Seksan. France | Bosnia and Herzegovina

THE DEMONS (LES DÉMONS) – A 10-year-old boy begins to act out in frightening ways in this coming-of-age horror film. DIR Philippe Lesage. SCR Philippe Lesage. CAST Edouard Tremblay-Grenier, Pier-Luc Funk, Yannick Gobeil-Dugas, Vassili Schneider, Sarah Mottet, Mathis Thomas, Victoria Diamond, Laurent Lucas. Canada

A DRAGON ARRIVES! (EJHDEHA VARED MISHAVAD!) – This unique postmodern pastiche reenacts the confounding circumstances surrounding the 1965 suicide of an exiled political prisoner. DIR Mani Haghighi. SCR Mani Haghighi. CAST Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, Ehsan Goudarzi, Kiana Tajammol, Nader Fallah, Ali Bagheri, Kamran Safamanesh, Javad Ansari. Iran

FRANCA: CHAOS AND CREATION – In this incisive documentary, director Francesco Carrozzini creates an intimate portrait of his mother, Franca Sozzani, the legendary editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue. DIR Francesco Carrozzini. FEAT Franca Sozzani, Karl Lagerfeld, Bruce Weber, Baz Luhrmann, Courtney Love. Italy | USA

GRADUATION (BACALAUREAT) – When a doctor’s bright young daughter is assaulted the day before her final exams, he will do anything to make sure her scholarship to Cambridge isn’t jeopardized. DIR Cristian Mungiu. SCR Cristian Mungiu. CAST Adrian Titieni, Maria Drăguș, Lia Bugnar, Mălina Manovici, Vlad Ivanov, Gelu Colceag, Rareș Andrici, Petre Ciubotaru. Romania

THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI – Based on a true story, Finland’s official Best Foreign Language Film Oscar® entry follows boxer Olli Mäki as he prepares for the 1962 world featherweight championship match. DIR Juho Kuosmanen. SCRS Mikko Myllylahti, Juho Kuosmanen. CAST Jarkko Lahti, Oona Airola, Eero Milonoff, Joanna Haartti, Esko Barquero, Elma Milonoff, Leimu Leisti, Hilma Milonoff. Finland

HARMONIUM (FUCHI NI TATSU) – A Japanese couple’s quiet life is disrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance recently released from prison. DIR Koji Fukada. SCR Koji Fukada. CAST Tadanobu Asano, Mariko Tsutsui, Kanji Furutachi, Taiga, Momone Shinokawa, Kana Mahiro. Japan | France

HOME – When a teen recently released from a juvenile detention center befriends another troubled young man, their shared alienation threatens to erupt in violence. DIR Fien Troch. SCR Fien Troch, Nico Leunen. CAST Sebastian Van Dun, Mistral Guidotti, Loïc Batog, Lena Suijkerbuijk, Karlijn Sileghem, Els Deceukelier, Robbie Cleiren, Yavuz Saçikara. Belgium

I, DANIEL BLAKE – In Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner, an ailing carpenter and struggling single mother join forces against the bureaucratic system keeping them down. DIR Ken Loach. SCR Paul Laverty. CAST Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Dylan McKiernan, Briana Shann, Kate Rutter, Sharon Percy, Kema Sikazwe. UK | France | Belgium

IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD (JUSTE LA FIN DU MONDE) – Xavier Dolan’s latest stars Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux as a volatile family reeling from the bad news brought home by an estranged son. DIR Xavier Dolan. SCR Xavier Dolan. CAST Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, Léa Seydoux, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard. Canada | France

JULIETA – In Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, a woman is left to navigate tragedy and survival with her daughter after the death of her husband. DIR Pedro Almodóvar. SCR Pedro Almodóvar. CAST Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Dario Grandinetti, Rossy de Palma. Spain

LAND OF MINE – Tense and thrilling like THE HURT LOCKER, this film follows the adolescent German soldiers assigned to clear a Danish beach of its buried mines after World War II. DIR Martin Zandvliet. SCR Martin Zandvliet. CAST Roland Møller, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman, Emil Belton, Oskar Belton. Denmark

LAYLA M. – When a young Muslim woman radicalizes and moves from Amsterdam to Jordan, she discovers a very different situation than she anticipated. DIR Mijke de Jong. SCRS Jan Eilander, Mijke de Jong. CAST Nora El Koussour, Ilias Addab. Netherlands l Belgium l Germany l Jordan

MALGRÉ LA NUIT – A man must descend into the world of pornographic snuff films in search of his lost love. DIR Philippe Grandrieux. SCRS Philippe Grandrieux, Bertrand Schefer, Rebecca Zlotowski, John-Henry Butterworth. CAST Kristian Marr, Ariane Labed, Roxane Mesquida, Paul Hamy, Johan Leysen, Sam Louwych, Aurélien Recoing. France | Canada

MISTER UNIVERSO – In this charming documentary and fiction hybrid, a young man of the circus embarks on a quest to find a legendary strongman. DIRS Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel. SCR Tizza Covi. CAST Tairo Caroli, Arthur Robin, Wendy Weber. Austria | Italy

NERUDA – Chile’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar® centers on poet and senator Pablo Neruda, who went into hiding to escape arrest. DIR Pablo Larraín SCR Guillermo Calderón CAST Luis Gnecco, Gael García Bernal, Mercedes Morán, Diego Muñoz, Pablo Derqui, Michael Silva, Jamie Vadell, Alfredo Castro, Marcelo Alonso, Francisco Reyes, Alejandro Goic, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba. Chile

THE NET (GEUMUL) – Kim Ki-duk’s most controversial film to date centers on a North Korean fisherman who inadvertently drifts into South Korean waters, altering the course of his life forever. DIR Kim Ki-duk. SCR Kim Ki-duk. CAST Ryoo Seung-bum, Lee Won-gun, Kim Young-min, Choi Guy-hwa. South Korea

NOCTURAMA – Bertrand Bonello’s latest follows a pack of Parisian teenagers over the course of one day as they carry out a series of planned attacks throughout the city. DIR Bertrand Bonello. SCR Bertrand Bonello. CAST Finnegan Oldfield, Vincent Rottiers, Hamza Meziani, Manal Issa, Martin Guyot, Jamil McCraven, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laure Valentinelli, Ilias Le Doré, Robin Goldbronn, Luis Rego, Hermine Karagheuz, Adèle Haenel. France l Germany l Belgium

OLD STONE (LAO SHI) – When a timid cab driver helps an accident victim to the hospital, his decency is rewarded with a nightmarish decent into an unforgiving bureaucratic machine. DIR Johnny Ma. SCR Johnny Ma. CAST Chen Gang, Nai An, Wang Hongwei, Zhang Zebin, Luo Xue’er. China | Canada

THE ORNITHOLOGIST (O ORNITÓLOGO) – In the latest fever dream from João Pedro Rodrigues, an ornithologist is tossed from his kayak and finds himself on a wild, mesmerizing, blood-soaked journey downriver. DIR João Pedro Rodrigues. SCRS João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata CAST Paul Hamy, Xelo Cagiao, João Pedro Rodrigues, Han Wen, Chan Suan, Juliane Elting. Portugal | France | Brazil

PANAMERICAN MACHINERY (MAQUINARIA PANAMERICA) – In this witty and comedic debut, a group of Mexican workers stage a dysfunctional showdown when their factory goes bankrupt. DIR Joaquín Del Paso. SCRS Joaquín Del Paso, Lucy Pawlak. CAST Javier Zaragoza, Ramiro Orozco, Irene Ramirez, Edmundo Mosqueira, Delfino López, Cecilia Garcia, Cesar Panini, Javier Camacho, Israel Ruiz. Mexico | Poland

THE RED TURTLE – In Studio Ghibli’s beautiful first co-production, a shipwrecked man struggles to escape a deserted island but he’s kept from doing so by a giant sea turtle. DIR Michael Dudok de Wit. SCR Michael Dudok de Wit. France | Japan

THE SALESMAN – In Asghar Farhadi’s latest, a husband seeks revenge against the perpetrator who attacked his wife in their apartment. DIR Asghar Farhadi. SCR Asghar Farhadi. CAST Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Babak Karimi, Farid Sajjadi Hosseini, Mina Sadati, Maral Bani Adam, Mehdi Kooshki, Emad Emami. Iran l France

THINGS TO COME (L’ AVENIR) – Isabelle Huppert plays a passionate philosophy professor dealing with two quietly monumental life events. DIR Mia Hansen-Løve. SCR Mia Hansen-Løve. CAST Isabelle Huppert, André Marcon, Roman Kolinka, Edith Scob, Sarah Le Picard, Solal Forte, Elise Lhomeau, Lionel Dray, Grégoire Montana-Haroche, Lina Benzerti. France | Germany

THE UNTAMED (LA REGIÓN SALVAJE) – The lives of a young mother, and her husband and brother are thrown into upheaval with the arrival of a mysterious woman who shows them how to access the most intense pleasure they’ve ever known. DIR Amat Escalante. SCRS Amat Escalante, Gibrán Portela. CAST Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza, Edén Villavicencio, Andrea Peláez, Oscar Escalante, Bernarda Trueba. Mexico | Denmark | France | Germany | Norway | Switzerland

THE WOUNDED ANGEL (RANENYY ANGEL) – Four adolescent boys in rural Kazakhstan deal with the harsh realities of post-Soviet life in this second feature by the director of HARMONY LESSONS. DIR Emir Baigazin. SCR Emir Baigazin. CAST Nurlybek Saktaganov, Madiyar Aripbay, Madiyar Nazarov, Omar Adilov, Anzara Barlykova, Timur Aidarbekov, Kanagat Taskaraev, Rasul Vilyamov. Kazakhstan | France | Germany

WÙLU – An honest but frustrated worker living in Mali resorts to drug-running to make ends meet, and soon finds himself embroiled in a conflict that stretches all the way to Al Qaeda. DIR Daouda Coulibaly. SCR Daouda Coulibaly. CAST Ibrahim Koma, Inna Modja, Ismaël N’Diaye, Jean-Marie Traoré, Habib Dembélé, Mariame N’Diaye, Quim Gutierrez, Olivier Rabourdin. France | Senegal

YOURSELF AND YOURS (DANGSINJASINGWA DANGSINUI GEOT) – In the latest from Hong Sang-soo, one painter searches for the woman he has just broken up with, while she — or her dopplegänger — pursues quasi-romantic encounters with other men. DIR Hong Sang-soo. SCR Hong Sang-soo. CAST Kim Jooh-yuck, Lee You-young. South Korea

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(Source: http://www.blog.afi.com)

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FILM CAPSULE: Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013): USA

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By Larry Gleeson.

Viewed during the AFI Filmfest 2013.

Nebraska, written by Bob Nelson, is the latest film from two-time Oscar winning screenwriter and acclaimed director, Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways, About Schmidt, Election, Citizen Ruth). Nebraska, takes us on a 750-mile black and white journey from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska. Along the way, an emotional healing occurs amid some exceptional dialogue and strong character development.

The character arc of the protagonist, Woody Grant, an elderly man with a touch of dementia, played by veteran journeyman and Hollywood legend, Actor Bruce Dern, an elderly man with a touch of dementia, is fully realized, in my opinion, as we see his willingness to fight for what is his and his ultimate acceptance of his lot in life.  And, much like his 2004 Sideways,  Payne utilizes the road trip structure to bond the two main characters and he also revisits the cantankerousness of character eccentricities as in his 2002 film About Schmidt. 

Nevertheless, it’s the performance of Dern as Woody Grant that makes the film what it is. Throughout his career, Dern has played a plethora of despicable characters and lays a claim to being the only actor to kill Hollywood legend, John Wayne on screen  in The Cowboys, (1972). Before the screening at the Graumann’s Chinese TCL Theater Mr. Dern was given a Hollywood tribute. Quentin Tarantino gave an introduction to the “acting national treasure.”

The film opens with Woody walking on the shoulder of a well-traveled highway. He tromps up towards  the camera and before long the police arrive and escort Woody home to his antagonistic wife Kate, played by June Squibb. She’s at wits end with Woody’s antics and his adamant, persistent posture in going to Lincoln to get his million dollar prize money which turns out to be nothing more than a Publisher’s Clearinghouse type of sweepstakes notification enticing the recipient to order magazine subscriptions. Kate unable to deal with her husband calls upon her sons, David, a local electronics salesman played very convincingly by Will Forte,  and Ross, a back-up local newscaster, played by Bob Odenkirk. As siblings often do, the two disagree on their father’s situation with David, recently put off by his girlfriend who decided to move out leaving David by his lonesome, seizing the moment to spend time with his dad by driving him to Lincoln so Woody can collect his million dollars but also so he can get to know his dad again.

Along the way the two make a stop after an accident in the town where Woody grew up complete with the relatives and locals who stayed and who believe Woody has become a millionaire. Mr. Payne born in Omaha, Nebraska paints quite a caricature of the local populace. The small town is believable enough. Yet, the characters that inhabit the town might be a stretch. For example, Woody’s two nephews draw a strong resemblance to Disney’s Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Adding into the mix is Kate Grant’s full on personality, an overly harsh, yet comedic, belittling better-than-thou Catholic, in a most memorable graveyard scene. On the other hand, Stacy Keach who plays Woody’s former business partner, Ed Pegram delivers with the utmost believability the dark side of a partnership/friendship when he believes Woody’s come into some easy money.

Overall, Alexander Payne delivers a film in black and white that not only entertains but also delivers a visual portrait of a small Midwestern town in an economic downturn, bypassed by mainstream America while showcasing the sense of loneliness and the eccentricities it has caused.

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How AFI Fest honors trailblazing women along with its gala premieres

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News

 The 30th AFI Fest hits Hollywood Boulevard Thursday with, appropriately enough, a strong emphasis on movie history.

Of course, the American Film Institute’s L.A. film festival will also bring its usual program of glitzy award season premieres, fantastic foreign and independent productions, new discoveries and live talent from all over the world to the Chinese Theatre complex and other venues along the boulevard by the time it concludes on Nov. 17.

But from its opening night gala premiere — Warren Beatty’s ode to Howard Hughes’ Hollywood of the 1950s Rules Don’t Apply — to the local bow of acclaimed contemporary musical La La Land and even a 75th anniversary restoration of the greatest film of all time, Citizen Kane, AFI Fest 2016 will be honoring the past while looking toward the future.

“Showing Rules Don’t Apply and La La Land together is almost like fish in a barrel,” notes the fest’s director of programming, Lane Kneedler. “They’re about our town.”

And then there’s the event’s most beloved tradition: Once again this year, AFI Fest will be free to the public.

 

“There’ll be a few other things that are special,” festival director Jacqueline Lyanga understates about the 30th anniversary edition. “We’re featuring three trailblazing women from cinema history; Ida Lupino, Anna May Wong and Dorothy Dandridge; we’ll be showing their films in our Cinema’s Legacy section.”

Asked if the honoring of pioneering actress-turned-director Lupino and early Asian- and African-American stars Wong (an L.A. native, by the way) and Dandridge indicated an emphasized diversity theme this year, Lyanga provided perspective.

“For us, it really represents the scope and the range that is showcased at AFI Fest,” she explains. “Across the program, we have a remarkable amount of diversity in terms of women (33 of the nearly 120 features and shorts were female-directed) and in terms of filmmakers and artists and actors of color. It’s not something that’s special, actually, for this year, it’s something that we’ve seen in the programming year after year. We just look for great work; we don’t look for specific quotas.”

Among the splashier stuff they’ve come up with, AFI Fest’s programming team has added

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Natalie Portman portrays Jacqueline Kennedy in the Kennedy biopic, Jackie.

the Natalie Portman-starring Kennedy biopic Jackie, a tribute to Annette Bening with a screening of her upcoming 20th Century Women, another tribute to French national treasure Isabelle Huppert with her Paul Verhoeven-directed Elle and, for closing night, Mark Wahlberg’s Boston Marathon bombing docudrama Patriots Day to its Galas list.

The festival’s Special Screenings section offers the first local glimpses of other upcoming hot properties such as the Robert De Niro-starring The Comedian, Jessica Chastain’s showcase as a high-powered D.C. lobbyist Miss Sloane, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest creepfest Split, acclaimed German comedy and Oscar entry Toni Erdmann and the premiere of Disney’s animated Polynesian spectacular Moana.

“ Moana is going to be a fantastic evening,” Kneedler promises. “We’re going to have all of Hollywood Boulevard Moana’d-out that night.”

Anticipated international auteur films making their L.A. debuts at AFI include Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation from Romania, Brit Ken Loach’s Cannes Film Festival prize-winner I, Daniel Blake, Spanish bad boy Pedro Almodovar’s latest Julieta, Pablo Larrain’s Chilean biopic Neruda, Iranian Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, South Koreans Kim Ki-duk’s The Net and Hong Sang-soo’s Yourself and Yours and the Philippines’ Lav Diaz’s Venice Film Fest winner The Woman Who Left.

And many, many more. Plus a lot of stuff even the most devoted followers of the international movie scene probably haven’t heard about. There are films from 46 countries at AFI this year.

“One of the goals of the festival is to contextualize the year in cinema as best we can, in a place where people who are in the industry, the filmmakers, the general public, the cinephiles, the movie fans, everyone can come together and talk about movies,” Lyanga explains. “And, also, to not only think about the films that have won awards and are known about and lauded at Sundance, Berlin, Cannes or Telluride, but to bring to light films that we think are incredible that may have been off the radar. That’s part of what you’ll see in our New Auteurs, American Independents and World Cinema sections.”

Some titles Kneedler and Lyanga advise checking out include the American indies Always Shine by Sophia Takal, Buster’s Mal Heart by Sarah Adina Smith and starring Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek, and the Kris Avedisian-directed and -starring Donald Cried. They also suggest sampling Brazil’s Kill Me Please, Kenya’s Kati Kati, the French/Qatari co-production Divines and the Austrian/Italian Mister Universo amid the bounty of imported offerings.

The festival also will host a technology showcase, panels with the year’s outstanding indie and documentary talents, family- and student-oriented programs and, in case you need more classic movie connections, documentaries on film’s ultimate samurai Toshiro Mifune and mother/daughter icons Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher.

For the full schedule, to reserve tickets and all other stuff, go to afifest.afi.com.

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