Script / Film Magazine

Cinema is an old whore who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure.

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Bringing Casablanca Back to Life: Future Cinema’s Immersive Experience

Future Cinema is famous in London for their Secret Cinema events and immersive productions. Changing the meaning of ‘remastered in 3D’, their recent reimagining of Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca not only created an unforgettable experience, but also pushed the boundaries of cinema culture.

Over the years there seems to have been a growing number of cinephiles in the world. From enthusiasts who will camp out in the cold to be the first to see a new release to fans who go to large efforts to dress up as their favourite characters, cinema culture for many people has become so much more than watching a movie on a large screen. But can the cinematic experience be taken even further? London-based Future Cinema believes so, and have been pushing the boundaries of what was once known as ‘a quiet night out at the movies.’

2013 sees their latest creation, Casablanca,which is based on Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film of the same name. The production transformed London’s old Troxy Cinema into Rick’s American Cafe in Morocco during the Second World War. This journey back in time begins as soon as you reach the back entrance of the venue, with the cobbled stoned alleyway being guarded by French-accented military officers. The great effort and detail that was put into this captivating entrance was evident as these acting law-enforcers, taken straight out of the film, checked everyone’s ‘papers’: the tickets for the show that were made to look like passports. This unexpected and immediate introduction to the night stood as a sign that this was going to be an experience like no other.

The neon-pink sign glowed ‘Rick's Café Américain’, as the early patrons lined up outside in anticipation. However, entering the venue wasn’t as simple as one might expect, and I found myself in a spot of trouble. Trying to explain that I didn’t have my ‘papers’ because I was a reviewer was entertaining yet challenging, due to the actors never once dropping character. Lucky though, I escaped the fate of some other poor visitors, who when unable to show their tickets were subsequently lined up against a wall and told the spread their legs. Future Cinema truly were bringing the film to life.

Once allowed into the Troxy, the atmosphere relaxed and the decadence that is captured in Curtiz’s classic became apparent. With incredible detail that will thrill fans, the inside felt exactly like it did in the film. There was a cocktail bar, Moroccan dishes being served, roulette and blackjack tables, Sam playing on the piano and a range of memorable characters walking through the space. So immersive was the experience that it was actually rather difficult to know who was an actor and who was part of the audience. Ticket buyers had been encouraged to dress in 1940’s style, and they delivered with incredible commitment. The result was an enthralling experience that took the film genre to new places. While mingling with a stranger who may or may not be acting, one could find themselves suddenly being interrupted by an officer and questioned about their history. Or while playing roulette one might find themselves being begged by aHungarian wife who needs money to fly to the sanctuary of America. Some audience members were greeted by strangers and asked to dance, while others sat back and enjoyed an array of songs and performances from the film. There were so many unique occurrences happening all around that it was easy to start believing you had actually gone back in time. The only tell-tale sign that we had not been transported into cinema’s silver screen was the abundance of colour that contrasted with the film’s black and white appearance.

After many jives, secret resistance meetings, arrests and much more, the lights dimmed and Casablanca was played. The sensation of watching the film after you have just lived it was fascinating. It allowed for a greater appreciation of this classic and also revealed how authentic the immersive performances had been. Memories sparked as lines that were casually spoken earlier were repeated on the big screen, and the aesthetics of the setting and the film were perfectly matched.Casablanca had been brought to life.

The immersive production that Future Cinema had crafted was awe-worthy. Taking cinema culture in an exciting direction, Casablanca was a chance to not only see a classic, but to live it. The experience truly pushed the boundaries of the genre and created an unforgettable performance.

For more information please visit Future Cinema’s Website.

By Andrew Kingsford-Smith

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The Berlinale Film Festival – Political Controversies and Cinematic Innovation

The Early Days of the Festival

With large parts of Berlin still in ruins, the first Berlinale opened with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca on June 6th, 1951. At that time, both Cannes and Venice saw the creation of a third major film festival as a threat to their prominent status and prevented the Berlinale from gaining an “A-Festival” status. Consequently, until 1956, only the audience was allowed to decide which films won the main prize, the so-called Berlin Bears.

In the 1970s, the Berlinale took a decisive step when it increasingly began including films from the Eastern Bloc. In 1974, the first Soviet movie was screened. In 1975, a multitude of films from Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Hungary, the GDR and even the People’s Republic of China were included in the competition, while Hungarian director Marta Meszaroswon the Golden Bear with her film Adoption. As a city at the heart of the tensions of theCold War, this important step manifested the Berlinale as an open, inclusive and especially exciting festival that sought to encourage exchange and appreciation of cinema across the blocs. In 1977, the trend continued and Soviet film director Larisa Shepitko won the Golden Bear for her depiction of the trials and tribulations of Belarusian partisans in Ascent.

The Berlinale as a Political and Controversial Forum

The Berlinale defined itself as a political and innovative forum for new cinema and art. As a result, it was often the scene of controversial events and screenings. Perhaps the biggest scandal occurred in 1970, where Michael Verhoeven’s film O.K.was to be screened. The film tells the true story of a Vietnamese girl that was raped and murdered by four U.S. Soldiers during the Vietnam War. The brutal scenes were depicted in the movie. The Jury at the 20th Berlinale wanted to exclude the film from the competition, which sparked massive protests by other directors and journalists. As a result of the subsequent row, the jury dissolved and for the first and only time, the festival took place without any awards being handed out.

In 1976, Nagisa Oshima’s film In the Realm of the Senses aroused a public dispute. The film depicted actors involved in unsimulated sexual activity. The story itself was not for the faint-hearted, and was based on an incident in 1930s Japan, in which a woman named Sada Abe killed the man she was having an affair with and severed his penis and testicles. The movie was confiscated, and even though the case was dropped, it could not be shown due to the massive police presence. Director Oshima was able to smuggle in a copy of the film, however, and smaller screenings took place.

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New York on Film

New York is one of the most culturally distinctive places on the planet, so it’s no wonder that a great proportion of films are set there. The city has become a cinematic icon in itself and is recognizable the world over because of this. These films use New York as both location and subject.

New York is not a location that can be easily ignored, it affects the look, feel, sound, dialogue, and mood of all the films set in the city, but none so much as the films below which are as much about the city as they are about their characters and plots.

Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977)

Woody Allen’s Annie Hall follows Alvy Singer, a Jewish comedian who grew up in Coney Island, and his tumultuous relationship with the eponymous Annie Hall. As in so many of Allen’s films, the central character is a reflection of New York City and he feels out of place anywhere else. Annie’s move to L.A. is incomprehensible to Alvy, and when Alvy flies out to California to get her back, he criticises Los Angeles and glorifies New York to which Annie replies: ‘What’s so great about New York? I mean, it’s a dying city . . . Alvy, you’re incapable of enjoying life, you know that? You’re like New York City. You're just this person. You're like this island unto yourself.’ Allen seeks to show how New York is a unique place in America, which could be considered somewhat unreceptive to outsiders, but is a refuge for idiosyncratic intellectual people such as Alvy. Annie’s rejection of New York is ultimately also a rejection of Alvy and their relationship.

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976)

Martin Scorsese is another prolific New York filmmaker who uses the city in the majority of his films; Taxi Driver in particular is very deeply rooted in New York and depicts the underbelly of the city to create a portrait of loneliness and urban alienation. The central character, Travis Bickle, is unable to connect with other characters and remains trapped in his own subconscious. He dismisses the culture and people of New York and yearns for a ‘real’ rain that will wash it all away. Scorsese’s film is a very bleak depiction of the New York of the 1970s. Other characters in the film are also isolated and exploited, such as the prostitute Iris, who Travis attempts to rescue. Taxi Driver displays the anomie and alienation so common to a metropolis like New York. With more than 18 million people making up the city of New York, it seems that meaningful personal connections can be few and far between.

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989)

As expressed in one review of Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing ‘New York’s distinctive culture and cuisine derive from the city’s radical racial and ethnic mix; but, contrary to the textbook myth of a ‘great melting pot,’ New York is an ethnic mosaic or patchwork quilt.’ These racial groups claim parts of New York as their own, such as Harlem or Little Italy, but rather than living peacefully side by side, there is conflict between these ethnically distinctive neighbourhoods, which can result in violence. Do the Right Thing focuses in on these conflicts in New York City. Lee took care to make the film look and feel authentic by shooting on a single location on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn. The film takes place on a particularly hot day in this primarily African-American neighbourhood. This film questions how African-Americans are supposed to respond to the prejudice directed at them; does ‘doing the right thing’ mean Martin Luther King’s idealism, or the Malcolm X’s self-defence? This is a highly significant question for culturally diverse New York City and one that Lee’s film refuses to answer definitively, instead leaving the question up to the audience.

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972)

Although Chicago is more often considered to be the mafia capital during of the USA, New York crime families have the approach and confidence characteristic of New York. They, importantly, can trace their roots back to Sicily and the Sicilian culture influences how the families ‘do business and wage war’. Coppola’s classic film The Godfatherstarts with ‘Don’ Vito Corleone overseeing his daughter's wedding. His son Michael has just come home but makes it clear that he does not want to follow on his father's business. Through Michael's eyes the nature of the family business becomes clear. The film depicts the effects of social environment, how it can shape and change an individual, and how the use of violence in particular can corrupt a person.

Luc Besson’s Léon (1994)

Luc Besson’s Léon is another story about finding a connection. This time the title character Léon is a hit man and lives a singular existence, harming only those whom he has been paid to eliminate. The other of the two main characters is a young girl called Mathilda, who has had to grow up quickly due to her brutal upbringing. She survives the murder of her family by hiding in her neighbour’s apartment. When she learns of Leon's true identity, she becomes fixated on him and the world he resides in. Director Luc Besson explores the development of their relationship throughout the film. Mathilda’s infatuation with Léon leads to questions about age and maturity. Mathilda seems to be the more self-assured of the two with Léon being more simplistic or even childlike.

Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987)

Tackling a different world within New York City isWall Street, which highlights New York’s capability for luxury and greed amongst those who can afford it. Wall Street follows two stockbrokers, the younger ambitious Bud Fox and the ruthless and extremely successful Gordon Gekko. Wall Street is synonymous with greed, with Gekko’s mantra, ‘Greed is Good’ defining the 1980s, which celebrated the greed at the heart of capitalism’s ethos. Michael Douglas plays the highly successful, but ruthless and amoral stockbroker Gordon Gekko, who ambitious stockbroker Bud Fox is trying to impress. Fox soon finds himself swept into Gekko’s world of shady business deals and the ‘good life’. Gekko ultimately finds himself the victim of Fox’s ambitions, as the younger man overtakes Gekko and leaves him a broken man. The film is a parable of the way in which avarice and hubris dominate the world of Wall Street business, something which has become acutely relevant in recent years.

Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston (1989)

In the 1920s and 1930s many black people sought refuge in New York, having escaped from the racism and lack of opportunities in the South. United in New York, artists and poets from the black community founded the Harlem Renaissance.Looking for Langstonis a tribute to this movement and the allegedly gay black poet, Langston Hughes. Filmed in black and white, it depicts high-society black gay men and the jazz and dance clubs of the Harlem Renaissance. The relationship between beauty, art and politics is further explored and discussed by Essex Hemphill and Isaac Julian in the film.All this is interspersed with photographs and archive footage from this time, including some of Hughes himself and Toni Morrison, reading the jazzy poetry and essays of Langston Hughes and others. The freedom of gay men is subtly celebrated through the beautiful cinematography. It also depicts the historical background of black gay men and the oppression and homophobia they experienced from black and white people. Hughes in the film is the embodiment of the gay black pride and resistance against oppression and is celebrated as such.

Rodney Evans’s Brother to Brother (2004)

This film follows the story of Perry, a young black artist kicked out of his family home for being gay. He is stuck between the worlds of the black community and the gay community. However when he hears an elderly man recite a poem, he later recognises it when reading about the Harlem Renaissance. Perry later meets this man, Bruce Nugent, who tells him about this movement and his own involvement with it, as well as famous writers associated with it, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and their experiences. A great deal of historical material was dramatized and incorporated into the script as Rodney Evans was allowed access to over 30 hours of taped interviews with Bruce Nugent and an anthology of Bruce's art and writing. The film draws parallels between the early phase of Bruce's life and the contemporary struggles of Perry, who has to struggle with similar issues of racism and homophobia in the present-day.

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Photographer Dmitri Kasterine’s best shot: Kubrick filming A Clockwork Orange

This picture (featured in The Guardian’s My Best Shot series), moments before the camera platform he’s under started creaking and collapsed, Kubrick dashing out of the way “like a bolting rabbit”, is a real beauty.

via Sharon Linne Faulk

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HERE WE GO!

Tonight we’re finally in theaters.  Just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who liked, reblogged, tweeted or followed us for their curiosity, kindness, and support over the past few years.  From myself and the whole family that put this thing together, we love you guys.  Hope you enjoy the movie.

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The Bucket List (2007)

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Tamil Cinema, the change agent

International Woman’s Day is just a few days away and it’s interesting to note that in the recent times, we have had movies which dealt with injustices against women from filmmakers of impressive repertoire at regular intervals. First it was Easan from Sasikumar which talked about a girl from a village with colorful dreams and aspirations to make it big in life who lands in the big bad ugly terrains of city only to be stopped midway in her pursuit to get raped and to get ‘honor’ killed by her own dad. Her intelligent teenage brother wipes the perpetrators of the crime in an almost ‘difficult to trace’ manner with the latest technological tools to aid him in this mission. Then it was Mysskin’s Yudham Sei wherein a completely docile, law abiding educated family takes on the law in its hands and settles scores with baddies in a fairly new cinematic format to avenge the rape cum suicide of the daughter.

Next came Gautham Menon’s Nadunisi Naaygal which depicted an aberrated soul that went on a rampage with assorted facets of psychological anomalies as offshoots again with women at the receiving end. In all these bodies of work, women and the crimes against them remains the fulcrum. The common thread that links these movies is the basic premise of danger, that women are/may be/likely to be subjected to, which is primarily of a sexual connotation. While it may render a gratifying feel to the audience that things otherwise cannot be accomplished (by them) in real life gets done by someone in the reel life (Easan or Yudham Sei), a question also arises as to the nature of the content that is being presented and its sub-texts. Are the film makers trying to convey that it is acceptable to eliminate the offenders as it is futile to turn to judiciary or are they trying to tell that there are state-of-art techniques to make people vanish or is there an attempt to give an idea that there are different ways to bring pain to women? It is fine to assume that cinema is just an entertaining medium whose core goal is to entertain the audience but the dynamics of film viewing and its equations have changed over a period of time as this art form has the potency to have a strong influence on the weak and vulnerable minds. The lines that separate the ‘acceptable content’ from the ‘not acceptable content’ is slowly blurring and that’s where the filmmaker’s intelligence and responsibility towards society comes into play to package the content in the right manner so as to get across the right message to the right target segment because there are hoards of people out there who take cinema seriously and look for inspiration from the medium. And it is no longer ‘only for entertainment’ purpose. That’s why we have many cine stars turning to politics and political parties turning to actors to bring in an appreciable increase to their vote bank. And that’s why we have temples for movies stars and that’s the reason we have huge number of fan clubs affiliated to different stars. Some minds may still feel that the role of cinema influencing someone’s life is contentious. There could be an argument that this medium does not offer life altering courses and an individual does not become good or bad by watching cinema. This surmise could work for exceptionally strong or weak people because the former knows perfectly well the difference between reel and real and nothing much can be said about the weak minds. However, there is a huge chunk of population in between, which is extremely gullible, which is sitting on the wall waiting to jump but not knowing which side to take the leap to. It is this population that needs to be tuned into the right frequency to make a positive difference to societal set up. It is this group that requires the right kind of impetus and direction to take their life, society and nation forward. In Easan, the dad killing the daughter because she was raped, suggests a regressive thought process. Yudham Sei also followed a similar pattern where death seems to be the solution for someone subjected to such a heinous crime. Needless to say, any sexual (perverted) act against the consent is a trauma by itself and there are no two ways about its agonizing effects on the affected person. But at the same time let’s not close our eyes and thoughts to the fact that we live amidst perverse minds too and it is imperative to empower women (or the case may be) and the immediate family to help them deal with such crimes and its aftermath rather than to archaically say–‘you are raped and you are finished’. This is where change agents like cinema, should seed optimism and hope in the minds of the affected party and help instill the idea that there is more to life beyond such acts. This is where talented filmmakers, through their films can render a totally fresh and radical perspective to things which could go a long way in life. Let films be not made that would be a ready reckoner in abetting follies but let films be made with a positive purpose instrumental enough to infuse uncompromising value systems to its audience. And we do have numerous such catalysts in our film industry capable enough to bring about those amendments.

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Venice Film Festival 2012: a rejuvenated Venice

From The Master, To the Wonder, Spring Breakers to Love is All you Need, the films at this year's festival seemed preoccupied with the gulf between past and present, and explosive clashes between maturity and youth, writes Robbie Collin.

TheTelegraph.com.uk

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Criticism - Ideology

Cuba, Cult Films, Czechoslovakia, Dance, Denmark, Diasporic Cinema, Direction, Disaster Films, etc…

Read FILM REFERENCE

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AZ ARANYEMBER

Kondya the aristocrat or sweet Noemi? Civilisation or nature? Such is the Cornelian choice that faces Captain Timar. This feature film is Alexander Korda's only surviving Hungarian film.  Az aranyember Alexander Korda – 1917 Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchívum

Europa Film Treasures

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Four Days at the TCM Classic Film Festival

Ever since it was announced that Hollywood would host the inaugural (and ostensibly first annual) Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival in April 2010, the general community of film fanatics was set to buzzing. People in the Los Angeles area, and presumably those in other major urban areas like New York and Chicago, seemed enthusiastic, but that enthusiasm also seemed to be tempered by the fact that a certain degree of exposure to revival cinema, of the classic Hollywood and foreign varieties, is a more-or-less everyday phenomenon for these film fans. Even in this age of disappearing repertory screens and evaporating posts for established film critics, we in Los Angeles and New York and Chicago can be, if we choose to be, somewhat spoiled by the opportunities we are offered every month at the venues we frequently haunt.

Yes, the announcement was definitely a big deal, backed by the most compelling force in current pop culture for exposing audiences to classic films and making sure those films stay available, but many I imagine suspected that the TCM Classic Film Festival might too readily ride the straight and narrow—didn't the prospect of seeing Casablanca and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen yet again seem, I don't know, kind of ordinary? And why get excited about seeing a bunch of films you can often see here in theaters, or always on DVD? Then TCM announced the full schedule, and suddenly a lot of that talk evaporated too. Suddenly the Turner Classic Movies 2010 Classic Film Festival had acquired, even for the happily jaded, a bit of cache, not to mention all the earmarks of a major event. And of course, for all the millions of people outside of those urban areas, for whom revival cinema pretty much does boil down, if it boils down at all, to the occasional showing of The Wizard of Oz, or Singin' in the Rain or (shudder) Grease on an outdoor screen at some city-sponsored summer family-oriented gathering, the TCM festival represented not just an occasion for major geographically based cinema envy; for some it would translate into an irresistible lure as well.

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7th European Film Festival

The European Film Festival is shown in over a dozen cities across Europe every October and November. Building a shared international cultural experience, the European Film Festival programmes a fantastic array of international independent films. Become part of Europe's biggest indie film festival!

New Category for 2011

Experimental Film in conjunction with British Film in London, the European Film Festival will be including a category for Experimental Film for the 2011 Festival. The best films, will partake in a high profile London screening, as well as being in the touring festival.

go...

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Mae Murray in The Merry Widow by Erich von Stroheim, 1925. (Courtesy of Österreichisches Filmmuseum - Fotocollection)

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"Old family films mixed with my own, with an old track from my friends, Josh and Annie."

Count down, by Bernie DeChant

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9th Annual Splice This!

            Toronto's Annual Super8 Film Festival

Each year a bunch of artists are invited to make a movie. It's thematic. It's erratic. It's often romantic and always frantic. And this year it's over.

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See you in Moscow, 27+One

The International 27+One Film Festival will take place in Moscow in December, 2009. The festival will present to the public a selection of works by Russian and European filmmakers. The festival's concept is based on the idea of short films as a form that allows creating contemporary, innovative and independent films.

The festival is created by an association of EU/Russian independent Films Producers and is being co-financed by the European Commission and supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.  It will become a new platform for the cultural dialogue between Russian and European Union artists.

The festival program will showcase short films from the 27 member states of the European Union and Russia. The assumption behind the festival program is that Russia and the European Union, beyond their newly established political borders, constitute a single cultural space where exchanges and common endeavors should be pushed further. The selection will focus preferably on comedies or films having a humorous or paradoxical point of view.

27+ONE will become a platform for the short film as an independent and contemporary art form made for a broad audience. This year the "27+One" Film Festival will take place in the legendary "Pioner" cinema theater, that is reopening after the reconstruction.

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21st Century Silents

DOGMA (Wisconsin Bioscope, US 2008)

Dir., scen: Kayla Grosse; prod: Dan Fuller; f./ph: Kelsey Field; cast: Reo Glancey, Lyndsey Wurch, Robert Breitenbach, Dylan Brogan, Alex Cox, Sydney Duncan, Kate Marcus; 35mm, 88 ft., c.2' (16 fps); print source: Communications Arts Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Because coloring motion picture film by hand is so tedious, the Wisconsin Bioscope Company only uses color for short sequences that require a very spectacular effect. For Dogma, the set, lighting, costumes, and action were all designed so that the fire effect could be achieved quickly and easily. The aim was to provide the colorists with a clearly-defined, high-contrast area to paint. In this way, Dogma is as completely driven by its special effects as this summer’s Transformers movie or Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland – although on a more modest budget. To learn more about the production philosophy of the Wisconsin Bioscope Company, please visit The Wisconsin Bioscope.– Dan Fuller

IN YOUR DREAMS (Wisconsin Bioscope, US 2008)

Dir: Sydney Duncan; prod., scen: Dan Fuller; f./ph: Kelsey Field; cast: Sarah Whiteaker, Dylan Brogan, David Lammie, Rachael Cohen; 35mm, 174 ft., c.3' (16 fps); print source: Communications Arts Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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In Your Dreams is the epitome of a Wisconsin Bioscope film: short, silent, shot with a 35mm hand-cranked camera, developed and printed by hand, and closely modeled on films from before the First World War. In this case, the models were the nearly identical Rêve et Réalité (Pathé Frères) and Let Me Dream Again (George Albert Smith), two scandalous films from 1900 that expose the illicit desire hidden in a man’s unconscious mind. Because it was shot in the post-third-wave-feminist year of 2008, In Your Dreams also includes the woman’s sexual fantasies. Then it proceeds to reveal the fantasy of the fantasies! – Dan Fuller

SMOKE RINGS (Rex Carter, US 2009)

Dir., scen: Rex Carter; f./ph: John Nolan; mus: Donald Sosin; scg./des: Rob Melchior; cost: Claudie Jean Fisher; cast: Bob Ladewig, Cora Benesh, Eric C. Stevens; DigiBeta, 4'10"; print source: Rex Carter.

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A homage to the great comics of silent cinema. An affable yet hapless young man tries to impress the beautiful lady who has caught his eye at the neighbourhood speakeasy. In his way, however, are a licentious rival and a bartender with bad timing.

The finished film has a recorded piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin, who for this screening will perform his music live. – Rex Carter