[IMG:L]The Bermuda International Film Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary from March 16 through the 24th. Featuring features and shorts, documentaries and narratives, even retrospective classics from around the world, the annual even brought celebrities and cinefiles to the island.
BIFF welcomed two celebrity jurors for the feature film competition. Carrie Fisher and Richard Dreyfuss screened eight competing films to make their decisions, ultimately ending in a tie between the British comedy Cashback and Israel’s Sweet Mud. Fisher explained her vote for the Israeli film about a child choosing between life on a Kibbutz and life with his mother, who is being expelled.
“I love films that are made from the point of view of children,” she said. “The child in the film has a mentally ill mother, and tries so hard to make his mother okay. When that proved impossible, he got away. Ultimately, Sweet Mud is a very sad but hopeful film. It is a dark film with a light at the end of the tunnel. The story is very inventive.”
For more on Carrie Fisher in Bermuda, click here!
Cashback became the talk of the festival from its early screening on Sunday the 18th, setting a high bar for films to follow. The story of a supermarket janitor who freezes time to contemplate the female form as he figures out his own relationships, the comedy particularly appealed to Dreyfuss. “The film had a perfect whimsy that didn’t try to become something that it was not,” he said. “The ambition of the film has a narrow niche, and it hit the mark. It did not become unbalanced. It had a strong script, and it was exactly right.”
For more on Richard Dreyfuss in Bermuda, click here!
The short film competition had a celebrity of its own on the jury. Ben Newmark, star of the Oscar winning short film West Bank Story, came to Bermuda just to watch shorts. “I relax all day and I see two films at night and they’re short,” he joked halfway through the week. “I’m that guy that sneaks in for the short film and then bounces before the feature so I’ve got it pretty easy.”
For more on Ben Newmark in Bermuda, click here!
[IMG:R]Bermuda welcomed back its own star celebrity, Earl Cameron, with a retrospective of his films. At a screening of his very first feature, Pool of London, Cameron recoiled at his own early work. “I say [it was] frightening because that was my very first picture and some of the things when I watch myself, I feel very embarrassed for,” he said. “Some things I’m very proud of. Certain takes I would have done it different now. I like the drunk scene. I thought I was pretty good.”
For more on Earl Cameron in Bermuda, click here!
Documentaries made a splash also. One of the festival’s weekday afternoon “Chats with…” sessions featured a panel of documentary competitors discussing the craft. With subjects ranging from family secrets to rowing competitions and from Chinese traditions to Hebrew school, festivalgoers got a taste of some real life issues too. The winning documentary was Linda Hattendorf‘s Cats of Mirikitani, following the life of New York artist Jimmy Mirikitani, discussing his life from Hiroshima to 9/11.
Filmmakers seemed to spend most of the time hanging out. With each night featuring a “Late Night” gathering at a local haunt, be it an Irish pub or Moroccan café, business was confined to daytime screenings and post-film Q&As. Occasionally though, the filmmakers did want to plug their films, so Hollywood.com got some time with some of the BIFF’s most celebrated participants.
The Film: Cashback
Why It Mattered: As one of the first films to screen on opening weekend, the film’s comedy and subtle special effects made it stand out from the usual somber, issue-driven fare of the week. It also intrigued people by including the original short film that spawned it in its entirety in the body of the film.
The Filmmaker Says: Associate Producer Winnie Li represented Cashback as director Sean Ellis was already finishing his follow-up film. Despite the similarity of her film’s freeze frame effect to such American product as Click and Heroes, the Cashback crew has not been hindered.
“It was funny because at Cannes 2006, they bought a billboard on the Croisette for Cashback and I think it was right next t o a Click poster,” said Li. “We weren’t really worried because it’s quite a different film. Click is an Adam Sandler movie and he’s got a remote control, so it’s going to appeal to a different audience anyway. And hopefully, the comedy isn’t as broad in Cashback. It’s supposed to be a bit more philosophical, a bit artsier so we weren’t really worried about that stealing our idea or anything. I think it could build interest but I think the whole idea of freezing time is certainly not something we came up with. There was Out of This World, that TV series. There was definitely a few Twilight Zone episodes. So it’s not something that was so original that if we did it and other films had it, it would ruin our chances of anything. There’s probably people that wish they could freeze time anyway.”
The Bermuda Experience: Cashback came to Bermuda with a distributor already in place. Magnolia Pictures will release the film in the States this summer. “Gaumont, our sales agent, they did pretty good work. They were in touch with Magnolia. Magnolia also picked up the short film which got nominated for the Oscar because they pick up all the Oscar nominated shorts. So they already were familiar with Cashback.”
The Film: Beyond the Call
Why It Mattered: Adrian Belic returned to the BIFF after winning the audience award for Genghis Blues in 2000. He followed that up with a special mention in the documentary category this year.
The Filmmaker Says: Covering the travels of three men delivering humanitarian aid to warzones got Belic into some hairy situations himself. “We had to sneak out of Afghanistan. We were in Afghanistan October 2001 which is ancient history to most Americans but we were in there just as the U.S. began bombing but before the northern alliance signed on the fight on the US side. We were on the ground, you can see in the film the bombs falling on the ridge lines that the US was dropping. We had to get back out of Afghanistan into Tajikistan, sneak out in a 20 foot container. When they closed that door and you looked around and there was no light. There’s the old saying, when you go into the woods, you want to tell an adult where you’re going just in case. I realized no one had any clue.”
The Bermuda Experience: For his second time at BIFF, Belic was blown away by the celebrity contingent. “Bermuda’s one of those really A list festivals which it’s totally casual. I don’t have to be working here but just chatting with Richard Dreyfuss. Damn, that doesn’t happen at every festival. I just sort of complimented him and he asked me if I wax my moustache and I said I’ll see you tomorrow with it waxed because my luggage was lost today. It’s one of the few festivals that are very unique in that respect. Totally casual but everyone comes.”
The Film: The Killer Within
Why It Mattered: Director Macky Alston dominated the “Chats with…” documentary panel, sharing stories with aspiring filmmakers about how to finance their passion projects. Though the film itself did not win an award, Alston made his impact on the festival.
The Filmmaker Says: Sharing his story was great, but he was here for the film. “Well, you make a film, you work on it for so long, you’re goal is to have people see it,” he said. “So I think my first goal in coming to Bermuda was to engage these audiences and talk with them about the film that I’ve made. That said, I love the documentary community. I love being a part of it. I loved talking with the folks who were on the panel so when one’s experience can be of use to other people, that’s exciting, so I like doing that too.”
The Bermuda Experience: Having played other top festivals, Alsted marked his own BIFF anniversary this year. “Killer Within premiered at Toronto and it’s got a lot of festival play. Bermuda is like a very interesting small town that is a bit of a hothouse. People say that people know each other’s business and there’s a fascinating history. I actually have two films playing here, one is called Family Name that won the jury prize here 10 years ago. Both have secrets at their core. I love engaging the Bermuda audience on that issue because in both cases, in both films, they’re about the perfect family and peeling back the image of the perfect family and realizing of course there is no such thing as a perfect family. We all carry secrets with us. Some of them are darker than others. But how do we deal when we know the real truth about each other. So a Bermuda audience is a great one because I think that when you’re living in such a small town environment, that’s something that is very familiar, the image you put on and the backstory.”
The Film: Golden Lotus: The Legacy of Bound Feet
Why It Mattered: Also on the “Chats with…” documentary panel, filmmaker Joanne Cheng enticed BIFF audiences into the secret world of China’s most mysterious tradition. Promising to show what bound feet look like in film, festival goers were abuzz anticipating her first midweek screening.
The Filmmaker Says: Though Americans may hear about wrapping women’s feet until their bones break and think negative thoughts, it is actually a beautiful tradition. “Bound feet as a tradition of 1000 years old is one of the dark secrets of Chinese civilization,” said Cheng. “It ended in early 20s but it was still practiced in the early 40s in a remote area. I think the western audience was fascinated about the subject matter but very few materials were available when I was doing research three years ago. The most you can find is a few books, four or five books and a few of them are novels, a few of them are histories on it. Very few visual references except a few photos to really capture the feet, especially naked feet on camera was such a challenge for me because feet was considered to be a private organ. It was such an erotic symbol. Feet was the very symbol of the private part, only the husband could see. So for me, I made a huge decision to reveal the secret to the audience by revealing not only the secret of the core but also the naked feet which is the symbol of this.”
The Festival Experience: Cheng had not faced the Bermuda audience directly at the time of this interview, but recalled screening the film in China itself. “The reception was very good and I created almost like a big debate with the audience. Some audience really think this practice is horrible. Some even love the idea it was so sexual, it was so beautiful. So it’s such a heated 45 minutes of Q&A, people were crying at the end of the film. I was so surprised Chinese audience who knows this all along had such a strong reaction. Not to say the audience in the five other countries I toured, they went into the theater thinking about one thing, walked out feeling different.”
The Film: A Hebrew Lesson
Why it Mattered: As part of an international film festival, Ron Rotem’s documentary may have captured the most nationalities in a single film. His documentary follows a Hebrew class in Israel as each immigrant from around the world tries to adapt to life in a new country.
The Filmmaker Says: Though he only had five months of class time to film the movie, the stories really go on much longer. “My initial idea was to make a film like that in Denmark over a period of five years because it takes a long time for a person to get accustomed to a new place,” said Rotem. “The change is not so rapid. It’s a process that has to be recorded when you want to make a film about change. But television stations are so neurotic, even Denmark that are accustomed to being very sober people, when I proposed to them to do it over a period of five years, they didn’t say, ‘No way’ but they implied ‘Go look for your financing elsewhere.’ In Israel, we are so neurotic. The ideal situation would have been to follow them over a longer period of time. After the shooting ended and after the editing ended, I wanted to continue the shoot. But even the producer was against it and this is part of the reality of filmmaking. If you want your films to be on television, you have to make a lot of compromises. In this case, my compromise was that okay, let’s break the champagne bottle and let the film sail.”
The Bermuda Experience: Rotem was fortunate enough to be invited to the BIFF without submitting his film for approval. “We didn’t submit. They saw it in Rotterdam and they picked it up. In Rotterdam it did very well. It came in number eight in the audience award which is pretty high. I mean, they had 200 films there. It’s a fantastic film there. The way they pick films is extremely interesting and they pick the top tier. We didn’t send them a copy for viewing or anything like that.”
The Film: The First Balkan Dogma
Why It Mattered: Lars von Trier‘s Dogma style of filmmaking has been exclusive to him with his copyright and 10 rules. Filmmaker Aneta Lesnikovska is intruding on his territory.
The Filmmaker Says: Trickery pays. “This Dogma was made without money and it was based on a lie,” she said. “What I did is I went to Macedonia and I told my friends who are in the film business that the Dogma people were ready to invest money if we come up with a good story. So if they would join me in the venture and let me film them. So they all thought, ‘Okay, there’ll be money, we’ll all do films, da da da’ so they let me involve them and peek in their lives with my camera and stuff like that. And I had some scenes and scripted stuff that I told them okay, ‘Let’s try this and maybe you should play yourself in the film and stuff like that.’ And eventually, gradually they found out that I was lying and then I made the film. There were different reactions. Some of them were pretty upset but eventually they realized the concept and they thought it’s pretty crazy and experimental so they liked it. And some of them thought I’m going to pay in karmic coins for it so we’ll see.”
The Bermuda Experience: Lesnikovska felt BIFF gave her film a showcase that was not so Hollywood. “It’s been great here in Bermuda because the film is not a film about film. The film is about young people in the Balkans and a Dutch guy who comes in to film it together with me who’s Leonard Hilege, one of the best DoPs in Holland nowadays. It was great because we were personally invited by the deputy director to participate with our film in competition in the festival.”
