Penelope Spheeris. Restorations by the Academy Film Archive (curated by Mark Toscano)

Synthesis

Penelope Spheeris. Restorations by the Academy Film Archive (curated by Mark Toscano).
Tampere Film Festival (TFF)
Curated, introduced, and program notes written by Mark Toscano.
Prints: 16 mm
11+12 March 2016, Plevna 6

Synthesis
Penelope Spheeris | United States 1968 | Experimental | 8 min
    Mark Toscano: "Synthesis is director Penelope Spheeris’ first film, made in 8mm Kodachrome while she was a student at UCLA. In a seemingly near-future control room devoid of people, various readouts and calculations suggest that humankind is not altogether compatible with the grand scheme of the universe."
    AA: An early instance of cyber cinema, a vision of the computer age and the techno world, one of the pioneering visualizations of a world dominated by information technology, made in the same year when 2001: A Space Odyssey was released. This is a voyage of exploration inside a computer. The computer prints out sentences such as "synthesis impossible". The fight of man against machine is not lost. There is an alarm signal. A contemporary Nordic phenomenon is the work of Erkki Kurenniemi, including Spindrift (1966, by Jan Bark and Erkki Kurenniemi). Musique concrète.

Bath
Penelope Spheeris | United States 1969 | Experimental | 6 min
    Mark Toscano: "Made in an environment and at a time when frequent and gratuitous images of nude women permeated the work of her male counterparts, director Penelope Spheeris produced this intimate and sensual observation of a woman bathing. The appearance of Spheeris’ credit at the beginning of the film seems to ask the question: how does voyeurism change when we know the voyeur is actually a voyeuse?"
    AA:  A movie of simple observation on the perennial favourite subject of art: a beautiful naked woman taking a bath. It seems that a woman can achieve this even more sensually than a man. Pure joy.

Shit
 Penelope Spheeris | United States 1969 | Experimental | 4 min
    Mark Toscano: "Never completely finished during its original production, this snarky comic piece was rediscovered in director Penelope Spheeris’ vaults in 2010 and preserved “as is.” The titular substance plays a key role in determining an outmoded man’s role in a changing society."
    AA: A middle-aged white male dressed in a white shirt and tie has slipped on a piece of shit and lies paralyzed in the gutter. A mini story about the lack of empathy. The score: soul music. I was thinking for a moment about Alfred Hitchcock's Breakdown, with Joseph Cotten as the paralyzed victim.

The National Rehabilitation Center
Penelope Spheeris | United States 1969 | Experimental | 12 min
    Mark Toscano: "Two years before Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park (1971), director Penelope Spheeris takes the McCarran Act to its inevitable next step and shows us—via an early use of mockumentary—what the U.S. might be like if potential subversives were simply locked up en masse before they had a chance to subvert anything."
    AA: A mockumentary about U.S. black insurgents, dissident forces, the Japanese, and probable saboteurs being locked up in concentration camps. 

I Don't Know
Penelope Spheeris | United States 1970 | Experimental | 20 min
    Mark Toscano: "A truly major work, I Don’t Know (1970) observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender man who prefers to identify somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film—an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité—is the first of director Spheeris’ films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising and deeply meaningful."
    AA:  A brave early queer documentary featuring a man with breasts and a Lesbian woman living together. Intimate, revealing, humoristic. The score: a French chanson, and a song that sounds like Neil Young.

Hats Off to Hollywood
Penelope Spheeris | United States 1972 | Experimental | 22 min
    Mark Toscano: "Picking up the story first presented in I Don’t Know (1970), Hats Off to Hollywood (1972) brazenly and brilliantly mixes documentary reality with fully staged recreations/reimaginings of episodes in the lives of Jimmy/Jennifer and Dana, a loving, bickering couple who challenge the notion of homonormativity. Drugs, poverty, disease, bigotry and prostitution all figure into this disarmingly candid and often hilarious film, a remarkable work that is the apotheosis of director Spheeris’ early work, and a luminous signpost leading directly to The Decline of Western Civilization (1979-1997)."
    AA: Observations of a scene of outsiders with affinities with Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith) and Andy Warhol, in continuation to I Don't Know. Spheeris has a talent of observation of the Hollywood queer scene. The twin bath is a motif that keeps reappearing. Taboo-breaking footage and talk about syphilis and prostitution. Music: "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Bright Lights, Big City" (Jimmy Reed), slide guitar blues, soul, and fine music that I cannot identify.

No Use Walkin' When You Can Stroll
Penelope Spheeris | United States 1998 | Experimental | 11 min
    Mark Toscano: "One-time carny, bartender, and married 9 times, director Penelope Spheeris’ mother was an uncommon woman. In this sweet, funny, and moving video portrait, Spheeris gives us a vivid glimpse into the richness of her mother’s life and character."
    AA:  Shot on video, the look is that of a television screen. The story of Penelope Spheeris' mother is amazing. Let's hope that she will turn it into a feature film.

An essential contribution to our appreciation of Penelope Spheeris, best known for the Decline of Western Civilization series and Wayne's World. The prints and the colours of all films were good, as was the projection.

Mausoleum / The Mausoleum

Мавзолей. Lauri Randla | Estonia, Finland 2016 | Fiction | 26 min
PC: Aalto University / Exitfilm. P: Maira Dobele, Peeter Urbla. D+SC: Lauri Randla. DP: Peter Salovaara. S: Jorma Kaulanen. ED: Leo Liesvirta.
    Contact: Maira Dobele, www.aalto.fi
    In Russian with English subtitles.
    C: Matti Onnismaa (Stalin).
    "На сопках Маньчжурии" / "Mantšurian kukkuloilla" / "On the Hills of Manchuria".
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "The Mausoleum is a short story about the pathologist Aleksey Abrikosov who embalmed the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in 1924. Abrikosov gets a phone call in the middle of the night just before the 1936 May Day festivities and is informed that there is a fly inside Lenin's sarcophagus. No one knows how to get rid of it as Lenin lies in a sealed micro climate, designed to preserve the God of Communism forever."

AA: A macabre episode from the period of the Terror in the Soviet Union in 1936. A fly has appeared in the Lenin sarcophagus, and with only an ingenious method it can be removed: a diamond drill and a special vacuum cleaner. Stalin himself inspects the result and does not comment on the little cut that has appeared in Lenin's ear. The atmosphere of utter fear and absurd authority is conveyed very effectively.

Dada

J. Karelius | Finland 2015 | Experimental, Documentary | 7 min
P+D+M: J. Karelius.
    Contact: J. Karelius.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "On the brink of the First World War, the Dadaists made a statement that ”not them, but instead the whole world and its people have gone insane”, which brings forth similar reactions in today’s world. Is the threat of war real? Do the mega-wealthy own virtually everything on the planet, including power? Does art bow down to money and Machiavelli’s princes? DaDa: One of the perpetual tasks of the artist is to create chaos, to confuse fixed views and values, to erase the boundary between good and bad, to stand up to the academic tyranny of being right, to corrupt the current taste and to encourage the revolution of spirit."

AA: A comprehensive summary of the Dada experience. It started a hundred years ago during WWI in Zürich. We learn about Hugo Ball, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and their friends, about Cabaret Voltaire and Lenin staying on the other side of the Spiegelgasse playing chess, about Guillaume Apollinaire who died on the front, about Alfred Jarre. The name came from Russian ("da, da") or French (a rocking horse). The world had gone insane in a cloud of poison gas. Art had been destroyed. Traditional values had led to the catastrophe. The Venus of Milo was given an enema. The movement was in a constant fight with itself, riddled with personal conflicts. Huelsenbeck spread the influence in Germany. The Dada movement has many rightly heirs.

A film not only about the Dada but itself Dada, a collage of superimpositions and impossible associations.

Fantasia / Fantasy

Teemu Nikki | Finland 2016 | Fiction | 10 min
PC: It's Alive Films Oy. P: Jani Pösö. D+SC: Teemu Nikki. DP: Sari Aaltonen. S: Tuomas Seppänen. ED: Teemu Nikki. M: Janne Huttunen.
    Contact: www.itsalive.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "Tero is a farm boy, tired to eat potatoes. He wants to show his parents a new treat."

AA: An effective black comedy about the farm boy Tero, tired of potatoes, dreaming of Pizza Fantasia.

Waste No. 2 Wreck / Hyljätyt

Jan Ijäs | Finland 2016 | Documentary | 11 min
PC: Atalante Ltd. P+D: Jan Ijäs. SC: Jan Ijäs, Karina Horsti. DP: Ville Piippo. S: Svante Coléros. ED: Okku Nuutilainen. M: Matti Ahopelto.
    In English. Narrator: Rebecca Clamp.
    Contact: Atalante Ltd.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "Wreck (Lampedusa, Italy, 2015) was filmed in 2014 and 2015 in the graveyard for refugee boats on the Italian island of Lampedusa. It is story of strange change of value of garbage and rubbish."

AA: A female voice lists items from the wreck of the shipwrecked refugees on Lampedusa. It is a  surreal catalogue. We learn of the history of the island as a crossroads of ancient passages and a repository of Italian Anarchists. The safe harbour of mariners has become an important place for human trafficking. The focus is on the abandoned goods. "These ships have gone through a strange change in value". In bad condition, they have turned into rescue vessels, death vessels. The boats turn into waste, refuge, rubbish. Meanwhile, Lampedusa is a beautiful island, rated high in Trip Advisor, its fantastic beach top ranking. All the colours are just amazing. Here one of the worst maritime accidents took place. Many institutions have expressed interest in recycling and reusing the refuse and the abandoned boats.

An impressive and alarming meditation.

Wurmloch / Madonreikä / Wormhole

Turun Anikistit | Finland 2016 | Animation | 13 min
PC: Twisted Films. P: Jupe Louhelainen, Kimmo Sillanmikko. D+SC: Turun Anikistit. AN: Antti Laakso, Joni Männistö, Samppa Kukkonen. S: Tero-Petri Suovanen. ED: Petri Erkkilä. M: Tero-Petri Suovanen.
    Originalfassung auf Deutsch.
    Contact: Twisted Films, www.twistedfilms.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "Vienna 1914. Otto finds a wormhole into another dimension. It drives his mental health and relationship into ruins. While Otto seeks counseling from Freud, his girlfriend Emma also finds comfort on Freud’s couch."

AA: An anarchistic and often infantile animation in German putting through a brightly visualized blender clichés of Vienna on the eve of WWII: cavalry, cafés, waltzes, psychoanalysis. It's pornographic, it's scatological, it quotes Edgar Allan Poe's The Conqueror Worm. There is a sweet lady, her officer suitor, and Sigmund Freud in person. There is no shortage of phallic symbols or Verschiebungen. In the center of it all is a Wurmloch which in the end devours everything in a film full of anticipations of the Great War.

Vuores

Mikko Silvennoinen | Finland 2015 | Experimental, Fiction | 6 min
P+D+SC+DP+S+ED: Mikko Silvennoinen.
    Contact: at gmail
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "Quotation from the Vuores internet page: Vuores is a new district in Tampere, where nature, high-quality architecture, ecological living and the newest technical solutions are combined. Construction is planned to be finished by 2020 when Vuores will supposedly become home for 14 000 residents. A man in a suit cycles through Vuores interrupting his journey at four different spots to recite four different poems. The poems were selected to form the decoration for the surface of a wall designed by sculptor Pertti Kukkonen. The wall is located at the Writers' Park, Vuores. The poems were written by four different poets from the Tampere area: Kari Aronpuro, Kirsi Kunnas, Mirkka Rekola and Risto Ahti."

AA: A film about a poem in space: the dark clad man cycles along the sculptor Pertti Kukkonen's Poem Wall and reads aloud the poems written on it, by the prominent poets Kari Aronpuro, Kirsi Kunnas, Mirkka Rekola, and Risto Ahti. Like PMF/AAA, a film about conquering urban space via the bicycle. An interesting vision of interesting architecture and urban planning.

Kaipuu / Miss

Sanna Liljander | Finland 2015 | Documentary | 5 min
P: Petja Niva. D+SC+DP: Sanna Liljander. S: Juho Luukkainen.
    Contact: at gmail
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11 and 12 March 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "“Sometimes I try to forget that she’s gone.” What to do when your best friend leaves you?"

AA: A little girl's testimony at a private foster home where children are taken for custody. Mari came here, seemed like a stranger. One day she had dyed her hair black. Another day, she had left. The little girl's voiceover tells about a sadness which is difficult to forget. Flies are buzzing in the room.

PMF/AAA

Sami Yli-Pihlaja | Finland 2015 | Fiction – Experimental | 7 min
P+D+SC: Sami Yli-Pihlaja. DP: Sami Yli-Pihlaja, Simo Ulvi. S: Petro Niiniluoto, Tony Sheng. ED: Tony Sheng. M: Petro Niiniluoto, Tony Sheng, Sami Yli-Pihlaja.
    Contact: Sami Yli-Pihlaja at ylojarvi.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11 and 12 March, 2016, Plevna 2, Plevna 5

TFF: "A black-green short film about bicycling in an urban environment. An ecological statement."

AA: A music short film / a music video: night riders on their bicycles conquer the city that is deserted at night. The images are heavily processed, the camera is often handheld, there are glowing contours, transformations, and green fox. The roads turn elastic, the states of consciousness are altered, the limits are exceeded.

Kaasuvalotus / Gaslighting

Hetti Rönnemaa | Finland 2014 | Animation | 5 min
P+D+SC+AN+DP+Ed: Hetti Rönnemaa.  S: Aleksi Klemetti
    Contact: Hetti Rönnemaa at gmail
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11.3.2016 14:00 | Plevna 2, 12.3. 18:00 | Plevna 5

TFF: "Gaslighting is an animated short film about a woman who struggles to overcome the aftermath of her emotional abuse. The journey to recovery takes her to different places of her mind."

AA:  "Gaslighting: A form of psychological abuse used in order to instill in an extreme sense of anxiety and confusion to the point where the victims no longer trust their own memory, perception or judgment".

"The techniques used in 'Gaslighting' are similar to those used in brainwashing, interrogation, and torture that have been used in psychological warfare by intelligence operatives, the law enforcement, and other forces for decades." (A caption in the beginning of the film).

A black and white drawn and painted animation about a woman processing a traumatic experience of abuse. Visualized by disgusting leeches appearing on the skin. The dominant sound is that of water flowing. The image turns to negative, there is a glowing line drawing of an elk attacking with his horns. A figure of a man appears in dotted line contours.

Toivola / Heart of the Land

Kaisa Astikainen | Finland 2015 | Documentary | 30 min
PC: Toivola-Filmi Oy. P+D: Kaisa Astikainen. SC: Nina Ijäs, Kaisa Astikainen. DP: Markus Tynskä. S: Tuukka Nikkilä. ED: Nina Ijäs. M: Paavo Malmberg. Contact: www.toivolafilmi.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "A couple runs a small dairy farm somewhere in the heart of the Finnish countryside. The work of generations will soon come to its end, as their retirement is approaching and there’s no one left to continue the family tradition. But for one last year everything continues the same; the seasons change, and the days are filled with labor. A film about love for the land, the richness of everyday life, and the sadness of letting go."

AA: A sober and matter-of-fact documentary on the last days of a little dairy farm. The family has worked on it for generations, but there are no longer successors. It's the end of an era, it's the end of a tradition of centuries here. We get very close to the couple that have to give up after a long and fulfilling lifetime of hard work.

Pop Art Film

Jani Sorsa | Finland 2015 | Experimental | 3 min
P+D: Jani Sorsa. M: Jasor Cosmo. Contact: Jani Sorsa.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "A flickering pop art film."

AA: An ultra rapid montage of pop, bright and colourful images in a lightning fast succession, too fast to make sense, but recognizable basic images of pop appear to the rhythm of electronic dance music: Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, The Beatles, album cover art.

Ei ikinä enää / Never Again

Carlos Marroquin | Finland 2015 | Fiction | 9 min
PC: Euphoria Borealis. P: Emilia Haukka. D+SC+ED: Carlos Marroquin. DP: Martin Jäger. S: Pekka Sassi. Contact: Carlos Marroquin.
    Eevi Putro (Saara).
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "A woman finds herself trapped inside the domestic violence cycle. Old habits are hard to get rid of."

AA: A woman alone at home with a dog. Nobody answers when she tries to call. She is nervous and disturbed. She quarrels with her dog and kicks it. She hurts it very badly. She takes it to the veterinary and starts to quarrel with the vet, as well. Kari: "I can't go on with this anymore". "Let me see Emppu again. I promise I will never do it again. Saara, do not call us again". The twist revelation: it is this fragile woman who is the perpetrator of domestic violence. She has probably hurt her child, too.

Substandard / Ala-arvoinen

Mika J. Ripatti | Finland 2015 | Fiction | 12 min
P: Anssi Perttala. D+SC+ED: Mika J. Ripatti. DP: Jyrki Arnikari. S+M: Pekka Sassi. Contact: Mika J. Ripatti.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "Mediterranean sea! It has crystal clear waters, sandy beaches, sun and fun for the whole family!"

AA: A comedy about the substandard. A black and white anti-travel movie. Two middle-aged gentlemen stay in the basement like in a prison and watch boys playing outside from the rainy street from the window above. They project 8 mm films from the Mediterranean and record a commentary for the low quality film. The film is broken, a join needs to be made. "Lampedusa island near the African coast. Crystal clear waters, sandy beaches, sun and fun for all the family. Sadly now also known as the boat graveyard." "Gibraltar, with a monkey, a different kind of refugee from Africa". The boys' ball crashes their basement window. The 8 mm film starts to burn, and the situation is being seen in 8 mm. The fire extinguisher is not functioning, a Greek captain starts to play, they dance, and world outside joins in the rhythm.

Var är Thon? / Missä on Thon? / Where Is Thon?

Antti Polojärvi, Einari Paakkanen | Finland 2016 | Animation | 6 min
P: Antti Polojärvi. D: Antti Polojärvi, Einari Paakkanen. S: Pietu Korhonen. Contact: Antti Polojärvi.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "Everybody’s looking for Thon?"

AA: A playful black and white cut-out montage animation, a photomontage, a fake biography of the fictitious, legendary Thon, a time trip involving other legendary figures from Sibelius to Kennedy and Elvis.

Viikset / The Moustache

Anni Oja | Finland 2015 | Animation | 4 min
PC: Turun AMK. P: Eija Saarinen. D+SC+AN: Anni Oja. S: Janne Helenius. ED: Anna Vepsäläinen. M: Janne Saviranta. Contact: Anni Oja.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "This town is not big enough for the two of them. Nor their moustaches."

AA: A puppet animation in bright colour, an evocation of the 19th century. The protagonist sports a very long moustache, curving impressively. Other gentlemen's moustaches droop of envy. There is a competitor whose moustache is extra thick. Follows a duel of moustaches which prove capable of extraordinary tricks. The moustaches intertwine, there is a hopeless mess, it can only be solved with a pair of scissors.

Hyvästi jää / Farewell

Risto-Pekka Blom | Finland 2015 | Experimental | 4 min
    P+D: Risto-Pekka Blom. S: Petri Koskimäki. Contact: Vesa Puhakka, www.av-arkki.fi
    Song: "Oi ystäväin, oi armahain".
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "A film about the disappearance of our familiar earth and about personal longing."

AA: A playful movie. It starts with wordplay: "hyvästi jää" means both: "farewell" and "farewell, ice". The song is about taking a farewell ("Oi ystäväin, oi armahain, älä unhoita minua niin kauan kuin vereni lämmin on mä muistan sinua"". Fascinating time-lapse footage from the air, on traffic on snowy roads where people appear as black dots against a white expanse. Low angle shots of jets flying in the sky.

Rakastan Annaa / I Love Anna

Joonas Rutanen | Finland 2015 | Fiction | 11 min
PC: Making Movies Oy. P: Kaarle Aho, Kai Nordberg. D+SC: Joonas Rutanen. DP: Harri Räty. S: Pietari Koskinen. ED: Kimmo Kohtamäki. M: Joel Melasniemi. Contact: www.mamo.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 10
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "Santeri (13) looks on as older guys are driving and tuning their motor bikes and wants to be part of their world. He combs his hair and goes to meet his friend Anna (13). At Anna’s home childhood’s anarchy meets puberty."

AA: A moment from early teenage life, under-age life, a date at the farm. When Santeri visits Anna we get to see modern cowhouse circumstances. They mix drinks. They sample perfumes. They go further. It's awkward. It's a beginning. A legal age body double was used.

For Kibera!

Kibera!
Kati Juurus | Finland 2015 | Documentary | 56 min
PC: Yleisradio Oy. P: Erkko Lyytinen. D+SC: Kati Juurus. Cinematography: Jouni Soikkeli, Abdallah Musa. S: Anssi Tamminen. ED: Antti Isoaho. M: Jimi Tenor
Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 7
10 March 2016, 22.00, Plevna 2, in English with English subtitles by Minna Franssila

TFF introduction: "Boy Dallas lives in Kibera, a famous slum in Nairobi, Kenya with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, making it the second largest in Africa. Here, Dallas works as a radio personality and is known as “the voice of Kibera.” He’s inundated with stories of injustice, and Dallas increasingly starts to wonder why it is that he’s so poor. “A human life is cheap in Kibera. We are born, we survive and we die. We are just slum people.” Kibera is a “celebrity slum” where more than 200 NGOs [non-governmental organizations] are active and many famous people have paid a visit. Nevertheless, rape and murder are business as usual, the streets are filthy and there are no sewers. The little river where Dallas played as a child has dried up and is full of trash. What use are the new apartment buildings (with parking spaces!) to the residents of Kibera? As a self-taught cameraman, Dallas sets out to find out why a neighborhood that has received so much help for so long is still in such a terrible state. He talks to ambassadors and donors and sees just how different their world is from his. With his handheld camera, he reveals the harsh reality of living in Kibera."

AA: A strong documentary feature on Kibera, the "celebrity slum" of Nairobi, Kanya, as seen through the eyes of a bright local champion called Boy Dallas. "I used to be interested in music only. Then I became a journalist, the voice of Kibera". We start from immediate observations of the lifestyle which may seem exotic and colourful to a foreigner. Kenya has been receiving huge sums of development aid for decades, also from Finland since 30 years, but nothing has changed, and the people of Kibera have seen nothing of it while there are expensive housing projects realized in the neighbourhood. We start to understand how structural corruption works. Big sums of money from well-meaning helpers go to the pockets of the elite in many different ways. The journey to the reality behind the exotic facade does not end here. We see views of violence, murder, and rape. People who are desperate and without a future are able to do anything.

This film is very impressive both in its wealth of concrete observations and in the big perspective it provides.

Visually, it combines footage of raw handheld quality with professionally lit and photographed footage whenever possible.

Kihniö

Saija Mäki-Nevala | Finland 2015 | Documentary | 53 min
PC: Filmimaa. P: Markku Tuurna. D+SC: Saija Mäki-Nevala. DP: Jarkko T. Laine. S: Olli Huhtanen. ED: Samu Heikkilä. M: Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 7.
    10 March 2016 | 22:00 | Plevna 2.
    Contact: Filmimaa / Markku Tuurna, www.filmimaa.fi

TFF introduction: "Director Saija Mäki-Nevala returns to her childhood village and observes its life through the camera. She follows the life as it opens in details along the one and only road: abandoned houses, coffee room tranquility and the moments of happiness. The documentary is a portrait of a silent village, but the main role still belongs to its people. They are living peaceful life in safe Finnish community. It’s important to know each other and even if it’s hard to get permanent job, moving away is not an option. The documentary captures the spirit of our insecure times, but shows the traces of past times also. Is Kihniö more than its inhabitants? Is Kihniö just a name for the roots which we can’t either choose or forget?"

AA: A film against the grain, against mobility, modernization, trendiness, against keeping up with the turbulent change of the world. There are still villages like this, pockets of a traditional rhythm of life. These people cherish values of a quality of life that are not hectic. They do not need holidays for respite, withdrawal from the treadmill, or relaxation, since their entire life is based on a balance of activity and leisure. The film itself indulges in ordinariness, even in its music track.

Space Is the Place. Restored Psychedelia from the Academy Film Archive (curated by Mark Toscano)

Pat O'Neill: 7362

Space Is the Place. Restored Psychedelia from the Academy Film Archive (curated by Mark Toscano)
Tampere Film Festival (TFF)
    Curated, introduced, and program notes by Mark Toscano.
    All films in 16 mm
    10+12 March, 2016, Plevna 6

7362
Pat O’Neill | United States 1967 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 11 min
    Mark Toscano: "Pat O’Neill’s formative classic, named for the high-contrast film stock it generously employed, exists at some previously uncharted nexus between sculpture, animation, photography, and design. By transforming various organic and inorganic forms via hand-processing and contact-printing techniques, O’Neill renders an otherworldly, uncanny space in constant tension between abstraction and figuration, flatness and depth."
    AA: A voyage of exploration beyond the Herculean Gates of perception and consciousness, a fantasy of colour, a rhythmic experience, a sensual movie with a throb evoking intercourse, with flicker elements. There are images resembling Rorschach tests, mirror images, complementary colours, and ultra fast colour changes.

Robert Nelson: Grateful Dead (1967)

Grateful Dead
Robert Nelson | United States 1967 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 9 min
    Mark Toscano: "Like a number of filmmakers at the time, Bay Area legend Robert Nelson was given some free color film stock by the Gevaert film company in 1967, with their request that he use it to make a new film. Desiring an appropriately energetic subject matter, Nelson asked his friends The Grateful Dead if he could film them, to which they readily agreed. They gave Nelson a tape copy of their just-finished debut album, and he cut it into a climactic 9-minute collage, influenced in part by another friend at the time, Steve Reich. The picture was then precisely edited to the rhythms of the sound collage, and the resulting film won multiple awards and was subsequently shown by the Dead at countless concerts in the ensuing years."
    AA: Robert Nelson's Grateful Dead is a fascinating entry in the history of the music film, an impressive contribution to the pre-history of the music video, a film by a leading experimental artist which became a part of the corpus of the band itself. Devices include blurred vision, time lapse, extreme close-ups, negative footage, graphic inserts, rhythmic editing, superimpositions, neon flashes, and concert light show approaches. A solid Grateful Dead score.

Dana Plays: Grain Graphics

Grain Graphics
Dana Plays | United States 1978 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 6 min
    Mark Toscano: "Repeating human movements are multiplied with rephotography techniques in various configurations until what seem like millions of little film frames fill the screen. As simple gestures are magnified and multiplied, they seem to form ripples across the frame, a visual echo of the film’s gamelan soundtrack."
    AA: Another precious contribution to the canon of "visual music". The sound of the manipulated gamelan seems to evoke this elaborate study of multiplied motion. Visual means include split screen, negative, disintegrating image, image turning into ever tinier bits of mosaic, purple haze, Gestalt patterns, and graphic approaches. Interesting music.

Adam Beckett: Evolution of the Red Star

Evolution of the Red Star
Adam Beckett | United States 1973 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 7 min
    Mark Toscano: "Incredibly, this early masterpiece from Adam Beckett was made from a basic set of only six animation drawings, which were made increasingly more complex as shooting progressed. By employing his characteristic ‘infinite loop’ technique with a masterful integration of optical printing, Beckett leads us through his vast extrapolation of a single red star form into a pulsating, complex universe."
    AA: A mesmerizing work in Adam Beckett's unique and original "infinite loop" mode. Mao Zedong is crying tears in the shape of little red stars. There is a movement towards the core of the star. The animation covers continuous transformations of forms: swelling tubes, squares, circles, opening forms, including an opening star, inside which there is a film. Musique concrète.

Kathy Rose: Mirror People

Mirror People
Kathy Rose | United States 1974 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 5 min
    Mark Toscano: "This iconic, absurdist animation features numerous grotesque characters noisily inhabiting an uncertain and uneasy environment. Rose drew the entire film upside-down and lit the artwork from underneath instead of above, to achieve its subtle and strange appearance."
    AA: A truly original animation which fleetingly reminds me of the much later work of James Rizzi for Tom Tom Club, including their animated music video "Genius of Love" created by Cucumber Studios.  Based on drawn animation this is a work of miraculous transformations. The music is wonderful.

Daina Krumins: Aether

Aether
Daina Krumins | United States 1972 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 5 min
    Mark Toscano: "A sci-fi/occult/psychedelic performance film set to an original soundtrack by Rhys Chatham. This lesser-known student film from the maker of The Divine Miracle and Babobilicons marked the first time Krumins felt she had arrived at a cinematic language and process that she could use to express the otherworldly inventions of her fertile imagination."
    AA: Means of expression include abstraction, negative, superimposition, dance, and stylized colour, and motifs of imagery a snake, fish, swimmers, and a naked man. Like a musical dance choreography number executed in experimental film mode. Mark Toscano characterized Rhys Chatham's music as post-minimalist.

Skyworks: Wind + Fire
LeAnn Bartok | United States 1975 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 8 min
    Silent.
    Mark Toscano: "Bartok, at this time known more as a performance and conceptual artist, had begun to film her ephemeral Skyworks events, which involved the choreographed release of colored streamers and other objects by skydivers out of airplanes. Not content to limit the films as mere documentation, these records were transformed by her into something like kinetic time sculptures, via rhythmic rapid cutting, juxtapositions with related symbolic imagery, and allegorical performances by the artist herself."
    AA: Based on skydiving performances, an experimental film based on natural elements (the sky, the ocean, the beach), the colours red, white and blue, flames, flicker, firecrackers, flower forms, large petals, superimpositions, and time lapse. There is a strange tension. It ends with a woman lying on the beach lifting her arms towards the sky.

Chick Strand: Waterfall

Waterfall
Chick Strand | United States 1967 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 4 min
    Mark Toscano: "A gorgeous and delicately haunting film that uses hand-processing, solarizing, and contact printing techniques to transform various sequences of found footage into an ethereal and sweetly enveloping experience."
    AA: A film with an affinity with the first movie of this program, Pat O'Neill's 7362. Found footage inserts include skating, Olympic diving, goldfish, and somersaults on a trapeze. There is some Busby Berkeley style pattern choreography. This is a kinetic experiment with footage in negative, repetition, looping, abstraction, multiple superimposition, and flicker.

Will Hindle: Later That Same Night

Later That Same Night
Will Hindle | United States 1971 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 10 min
    Mark Toscano: "This little known gem from Will Hindle connects with and radically amplifies all of the disaffection and disenfranchisement he perceived in late ‘60s youth culture. Feelings of rootlessness, sadness, and a deep yearning is woven throughout the work via Hindle’s inspired shooting, editing, and inventive audiovisual techniques."
    AA: A sympathetic outsider's look into the contemporary counter-culture. Mark Toscano told us that this was the first film made in Alabama's Utopian film community. There are views of the free, alternative lifestyle of the young people. Inserts of animation, DNA, chromosomes, a passing train. Fascinating music, also incorporating "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child".

Peter Rose: Incantation

Incantation
Peter Rose | United States 1968 | Experimental, Avant-garde | 10 min
    The original 8 mm footage has been digitized.
    Mark Toscano: "A miraculous, ecstatic meditation filmed entirely in-camera in 8mm, Peter Rose’s first film employs a variety of shooting techniques, including single-framing, superimpositions, color separation filters, and calculated zooms. The discipline and rigor of the shooting, far from stifling the material, serves only to heighten the hypnotic audiovisual experience to a level of pure kinetic energy."

AA: An Islamic chant from Muslim liturgy launches the score. There is a track forward to the nature imagery with superimpositions, flicker, a simultaneous movement back and forth, between the trees, towards lucidity. An adventure in psychedelic colour. An enchanting painterly colour world.

A rewarding and inspiring show, each film introduced by Mark Toscano. All in original glorious 16 mm except the last one, shot in 8 mm, seemed to be in digital here.

Tuntematon pakolainen / Refugee Unknown

Hamy Ramezan | Finland 2016 | Documentary | 79 min
P: Veera Ikonen. SC: Veera Ikonen, Hamy Ramezan, Ali Jahangiri, Aram Aflatuni. Cinematography: Hamu Ramezan, Arsen Sarkisiants. S: Toni Teivaala. ED: Katja Pällijeff.
    Contact: ITV Studios Finland / Veera Ikonen, www.itvstudiosnordic.com
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF) National Competition 5
    In the presence of Hamy Ramezan, Ali Jahangiri, Veera Ikonen, etc.
    In Farsi and English with English subtitles and e-subtitles in Finnish.
    10 March 2016 | 18:00 | Plevna 2

TFF introduction: "In the autumn of 2015, the Finnish-Iranian Ali Jahangiri wanted personally to experience the reality faced by refugees in Europe. Ali travelled across Europe to Finland with refugees who had landed in Greece. Refugee Unknown is an authentic documentary of encounters not covered by the news."

AA: In the discussions at the cinema before and after the film the film-makers emphasized that they want to keep a distance to the stereotyped debate on the refugee crisis. Hamy Ramezan stated that human reality is simpler than the images in the media. Ali Jahangiri added that his anxiety was higher before they started the project. When these people manage to escape it is one of the most joyful moments in their lives. Ramezan said that the final long image of the boy looking at the camera in Mytilene was one of the most important moments. The boy helped Ramezan to see and go through his own feelings. It was a Mexican stand-off, a staring contest where the boy won Ramezan who was squatting with a 8 kg camera on his shoulder. The sun set, darkness fell, and everybody in the Mytilene harbour was watching them. Finally Hamy gave up. Ali and Hamy stated that the debate on refugees has gone wildly awry. Hamy: there is an attempt to lead us via fear. We must take care not to be a part of this, that the debate does not lead us too much to the side of hate. The film-makers concluded by stating that there are no such barriers in the world of children. Very soon the children are taken to school, and a process of integration is started. The world of children gives us hope.

There is a home movie approach in Refugee Unknown. Both Hamy Ramezan and Ali Jahangiri have themselves come via this route some 25 years ago.

We witness the night at sea. Refugees are dragged to the shore of the island Lesbos. There is a refugee camp at Moria. The film starts in English and continues in Farsi. The camps are surrounded by barbed wire. The black market is in full swing. There is a long sequence of children washing their faces and socks. We come to the Mytilene harbour. A happy little girl makes fun of Ali. From Mytilene, we travel to Athens. We meet greedy taxi drivers. We hear the story of the guy who was robbed. At the Greek-Macedonian border there is a huge bank for charging mobile phones. Clowns perform for children. At the Macedonian-Serbian border a Syrian-Palestinian invalid in wheelchair is helped along difficult paths. Little by little we learn details from Iran, a control society with little freedom. Alcohol among many things is strictly controlled there but a lot of drugs are used. There are many cameras recording the crossing of the border. We proceed to Croatia and follow the action of the police at the border. We proceed further to the border between Austria and Germany. People laugh when they hear that Hamy and Ali are going to Finland. "Why Finland?" "There's plenty of room in Finland. There are five million Finns only. There are 15 million people in Teheran. I'm looking for peace and comfort." A 14-year old guy from Afghanistan has lost his family during a shooting. We hear about smugglers who just throw people to the sea. Next we are on icy waters. Cut to the final shot of the boy at Mytilene in the staring contest with Hamy Ramezan.

There is an approach of humanity in this movie. It is not about facts and figures, not about the big picture. It is about the human detail. These characters are not representatives of a phenomenon but individuals. Family ties are strong. New extended families are formed during the trek. It is important to be a part of the group even in emigration.

The most memorable images are those of the eyes of children.

I have just finished reading The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. The island of Lesbos and the town of Mytilene feature prominently also in that account of the terrible 30-year war in Greece where the Persian Empire was a key player. What we are experiencing now is also a part of a very long story.

Teta Veleta - Early Letters of Pier Paolo Pasolini

Kalle Hamm | Finland 2015 | Documentary | 22 min
P+D+DP+ED: Kalle Hamm. S: Mine Gügnör. Contact: Kalle Hamm, www.beelsebub.org
    Pasolini's voice: Valter Benigni.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "The film is based on Pasolini’s early letters, texts and so called The Red Notebooks, which were written when he was age of 18-31. Video is a portrait a young man, who finds himself through the personal scandal. Video is filmed in Casarsa and Rome, where he lived while writing the texts."

AA: A distinguished and well made poetic biographical documentary on the early years of Pier Paolo Pasolini based on his early letters. Imaginative illustrations of paintings, landscapes, authentic locations, historical news footage and sound recordings of Mussolini. This film conveys a sense of mindscape of the young Pasolini.

Kielletyt leikit / Forbidden Games

Malakias | Finland 2015 | Animation | 3 min
PC: The Dead Will Rise. P+D+AN+S+ED: Malakias. Contact: Malakias
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "Silence is golden."

AA: Pornographic childhood memories about mother-to-son incest and doing it with the mother of one's best friend in the sauna. Wacky animation footage with little connection to what is being told.

One

Juha van Ingen | Finland 2015 | Experimental | 8 min
P+D+SC+DP+S+ED: Juha van Ingen. Contact: Vesa Puhakka, www.av-arkki.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "The starting point for ONE is a video taken with a mobile phone. The camera hasn’t been able to capture the original view and the resulting video contains only mystical glitch. What causes the glitch? What is the moment or subject, which was originally attempted to be documented? Is there a huge planet or a tiny cell in the video? Perhaps it is something else – a human or even God? The soundscape of ONE is homage to big questions, a mash-up of 60’s sci-fi cinema soundtracks."

AA: Abstract, non-figurative views with constantly evolving shapes from a mysterious glowing round form. The magnificent soundtrack of found science fiction music brings a sense of epic splendour to the enterprise.

Pieniä kömpelöitä hellyydenosoituksia / Clumsy Little Acts of Tenderness

Miia Tervo | Finland 2015 | Fiction | 9 min
PC: Mjölk Movies. P: Ilone Tolmunen. D: Miia Tervo. SC: Laura Immonen, Miia Tervo. DP: Päivi Kettunen. S: Janne Laine. ED: Antti Reikko. M: Johannes Wist. Contact: www.made.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "A weekend father wants to show his teenage daughter his love by taking her to a carwash, but instead of the carwash they end up on a life-changing adventure in the supermarket, at the endless sanitary towel shelf. They get “help” from an older lady who shares a bit too intimate stories of her experiences around and majorly off the theme."

AA: How awkward can a weekend father be? A caricature of a clumsy father's (Hannu-Pekka Björkman) miserable attempts to please his estranged daughter.

Miles to Go Before I Sleep / Saa uni vielä odottaa

Hanna Hovitie | Finland 2015 | Documentary | 14 min
PC: Metropolia AMK. P: Emmi Vuokko, Hanna Hovitie. D: Hanna Hovitie. SC: Noora Kuparinen, Hanna Hovitie. DP: Hanna Hovitie, Ilkka Salminen. S+M: Miikka Katajamäki. ED: Noora Kuparinen. Contact: Arto Tuohimaa, www.metropolia.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    In English with English subtitles.
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "When the protagonist was seven years old, her parents sent her away from Congo to be adopted in France. After her adoptive mother’s death, years of ordinary life in Paris turned into a nightmare. In the film she shares her story of becoming a victim of abuse and child trafficking. Through twists and turns beyond belief, she is thrown into a whirlwind of drifting between continents. The film is a journey through her memories of homes that were never truly homes. When deprived of one’s identity, can it ever be restored? In order to be able to start fresh, she must first face up to her past."

AA: This film is her first person testimony, with her voice-over, about her ordeal which started when she was sent to Paris. "My 'adoptive father' drugged me and abused me." There is illustrative footage of colours spreading out in water. On a trip to South Africa she was robbed, and the officials then detected the child trafficking case. She was taken to the orphanage, to the UNHRC Transit Center, to stay at a camp in Meheba for four years. "My case was sent to Finland. Going to a country where I do not know anyone." From beautiful Africa to cold Finland. "I still do not know why my parents sent me to France and never contacted me." A moving and heart-breaking story of being abused and abandoned.

A Sun

Lauri Harju | Finland 2015 | Animation | 8 min
P: Susanna Lätti, Lauri Harju. D+AN+DP: Lauri Harju. SC: Tero Liimatainen. S: Joni Heinonen. M: Janiv Oskar.
    Contact: Lauri Harju.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "On a small island above the clouds a father and son have different views on their daily routine of keeping up the sun."

AA: The sun keepers: a puppet animation in rustical circumstances on an island in the sky. There is a bird's nest on the ceiling. The boy plays with a hot air balloon. Chicks hatch out and learn to fly. The boy takes off in a hot air balloon. A consistent and original visual world, mixing the cosmological with the rustical.

Talvisydän / Winterheart

Jussi Hiltunen | Finland 2015 | Fiction | 19 min
PC: Pohjola-Filmi. P: Elina Pohjola. D+SC: Jussi Hiltunen. DP: J-P Passi. S: Kössi Väntänen. ED: Jussi Hiltunen, Antti Reikko. M: Hisser.
    Contact: Viivi Veivo, www.pohjolafilmi.fi
     Ville Virtanen (Eikka), Rosa Salomaa (Saija), Linda Tuomenvirta (Laura), Jonna Järnefelt (Helmi).
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March, 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "Winterheart is a story of Eikka, a cab driver in his fifties, who has betrayed his family and is now losing the connection to his teenage daughter Laura. Eikka has been unfaithful to his wife, and Laura, as well as her mother, has a reason to hate Eikka for destroying their family. One night Eikka meets Saija, a girl same age as his daughter, who claims to have been raped. Eikka gives her a lift home, but can’t forget the tragic and sad girl. He’d like to help her more, not least because she happens to know Eikka’s daughter."

AA: A panting girl, Saija, enters a taxi on a bridge. "I have just been raped". The taxi driver Eikka (Ville Virtanen) hits the would-be rapist with a bat before he learns that Saija may be telling stories. Eikka himself has been thrown out of his home as he has been having an affair. He tries to connect with his daughter Laura who is of the same age, 18, as Saija. It does not end well. There is a psychological intensity in the story.

Null Statue

Timo Wright | Finland 2015 | Experimental | 8 min
P+D+SC+DP: Timo Wright. AN: Iiro Harra. S: Taneli Bruun. ED: Veera Lapinkoski. M: Katri Onnela, Timo Wright.
    Contact: www.av-arkki.fi
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 9
    10+11 March 2016, Plevna 5, 2

TFF: "Null Statue is an experimental short film where crude oil is thrown at invisible objects, creating temporary abstract sculptures. Through editing, chaotic virtual statues are created only in time, not space. When viewed with 3D glasses, these statues come to life into the real world, evolving in front of the spectators."

AA: A 3D animation. Against a white background, black crude oil in slow motion forms abstract-looking patterns. The camera circles around it, highlighting the 3D quality of the vision. There is also footage in reverse motion. The soundtrack is hypnotic, minimalistic (piano, percussions, cello, basso, human voices).

Takaisin pintaan / Diving Into the Unknown

Juan Reina | Finland 2016 | Documentary | 82 min
P: Monami Agency / Juho Harjula, Fuglene / Therese Naustdal, Fuglene / Gudmundur Gunnarsson. D+SC: Juan Reina. Cinematography: Tuukka Kovasiipi, Jarkko Virtanen. S: Håkon Lammetun. ED: Riitta Poikselkä, Juan Reina. M: Kaada. Feat: Sami Paakkarinen, Patrik Grönqvist, Kai Känkänen, Vesa Rantanen.
    Contact: Monami Agency / Juho Harjula, www.monamiagency.com
    Tampere Film Festival, National Competition 2
    Introduced by Juho Harjula and Jarkko Virtanen.
    9.3.2016 Wed 22:00 | Plevna 2 | English title graphics and subtitles

TFF introduction: "Diving into the Unknown tells the story of four Finnish divers, who risk their lives to bring the bodies of their lost friends home. The Finnish cave divers’ worst nightmare becomes a reality, when two of the group members drown deep inside an underwater cave in Norway. After the official retrieval operation is called off by Norwegian and British authorities, the friends set off on a secret mission to try to retrieve the bodies themselves. Diving into the Unknown is more than just the extreme story of a secret operation. It is also a profound story of the groups’ unconditional friendship. This is a unique group of specialists who have to rely on each other every split second of the dive. While each of them has spent years exploring deep and dangerous caves, together they are all about to face the biggest challenge of their lives. The physical demands of this deep-water dive are nothing compared to the psychological toll it will take on everyone involved. With multiple cameras both on and under the surface, this film follows the breathtaking recovery mission as the team risks their own lives to bring their friends back home."

AA: The story of the diving calamity in Plurdalen, Norway, on 6 February 2014 when two Finnish divers drowned at the bottom of a long cave in winter. Three barely survived. After the officials failed there was a clandestine rescue mission by the team to bring the two drowned ones back home.

In the introduction to the screening we learned about the background to all this. This was from the start a film project which started in 2010. The top expert diving team had been diving in underwater caves under Budapest. Their actual goal was the world's longest cave dive in Spain - 11 kilometers. "No one knows where the cave ends". The Plurdalen dive was not considered to be exceptionally hard - it was a case of practice for diving in Spain.

The project was technically very demanding. There were two filming teams. The cave was cramped and dirty. Every two hours they had to clean their stuff. It was dangerous, but the camera gave a distance to the subject. It was necessary to concentrate on every step.

This is Hawksian material, a story of a dedicated elite group, the best in their act, who focus laconically on their mission. Their survival depends on full trust on each other's contribution.

While the material is excellent, there is tension lacking in the structure, especially towards the end, and the music feels slightly generic.

This is also an exciting entry in the great tradition of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Cousteau took us to depths that had never been filmed before. So does this team. This is a mission of transcending one's limits. The zeal involved may be hard for outsiders to understand.

The imagery is mostly based on powerful claustrophobic footage shot in narrow underwater caves in water near the freezing point. On the other hand, there is footage on the camaraderie of the team. And there are sublime, magnificent aerial views in Norwegian Lapland, incidentally, not far from Mo i Rana, home of the vaults of the Norwegian film archive.

There are also illuminative map graphics of the long and dangerous underwater cave where we can follow the course of the diving and rescue missions.

The finale takes place in Pozo Azul, Spain. The team does not give up.

FROM THE TAKAISIN PINTAAN HOMEPAGE:

Valkoinen raivo / White Rage

FI 2015. Documentary. 70 min. P+D+SC: Arto Halonen. Cinematography: Mika Orasmaa, Peter Finckelberg. M+S: Kirka Sainio. ED: Arto Halonen, Otto Heikola. C: actors playing roles during the entire picture.
    Contact: Art Films production AFP Ltd.
Tampere Film Festival (TFF). National Competition 1.
9 March 2016 | 16:00 | PLEVNA 2 | English subtitles

TFF official introduction: "This is the story of Lauri, and through him the story of other victims of both school bullying and a separate childhood trauma: victims full of white rage, which may lead to school shootings and other extreme acts of violence. The film is also about our society: a society without sufficient understanding or desire to address the emergence of school violence. Later on Lauri became an academic researcher and a respected scientist specialising in human aggression and violence. Yet when he was growing up he experienced extreme bullying. At two points – as a teen and again as a university student – he began to develop serious fantasies about committing mass murder. The documentary goes through Lauri’s life journey; how he became a carrier of white rage and how he survived this heavy burden by recognizing it and taking to action."

AA: There are two themes in this powerful film which combines documentary with fictional reconstruction: mass killings and bullying at schools and universities.

The soundtrack consists of the first person confession of Lauri who had entertained plans of mass murder at two stages of his life: at school and at the university. He had been a victim of violent harassment and bullying in both. At both stages he seeked help and found it in therapy. He identified himself as someone who looked too defenseless and too nice, an easy victim for bullying. He became an ideal target for bullying. If the bullied one switches school, he gets bullied again, since he has the stigma of the victimized. Lauri learned to dissociate himself from pain, even from physical pain and suffering. In the army Lauri was in his element with his passion for shooting, to the extent that his comrades in arms were alarmed. Even in the army he sought therapeutic help and was relieved from service.

Black rage according to Lauri is blind fury. White rage, in contrast, is not impulsive; the person is calm and collected, emotionally cold. White rage is not innate. One can control white rage all his life.

Interlaced are vintage news bulletins on the mass killings of Myyrmäki, Jokela, Kauhajoki, the planned Helsinki University massacre, and international mass killings such as Columbine and Utøya. Lauri discusses the dehumanization of the intended victims. He has also interesting remarks on the ISIS.

The taiko drum is an essential sound element in the movie, a signal of the drive of aggression.

"I will be a potential killer all my life" says Lauri who has studied aggression and violent fantasies deeply.

A disturbing film about a phenomenon that is latently much bigger than we are usually aware of.

Black Panthers (2013 restoration in 2K)

Black Panthers. © 1968 Agnès Varda

FR/US 1968. PC: Ciné Tamaris. D+SC: Agnès Varda. Cinematography: David Myers, Paul Aratow, John Shofill, Agnès Varda – 16 mm – 1,37:1 – colour. Camera assistant: Tom Luddy. S: Paul Oppenheim, James Steward - mono. ED: Paddy Monk. Featuring: H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Ron Dellums, James Forman, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale. 28 min, 31 min
    A 2013 restoration in 2K, complete with the restoration credits 29 min
    2K DCP from Ciné-Tamaris viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Agnès Varda), 8 March 2016

Black Panther Party had been established in 1966, initially as a black self-defence organization against police brutality in Oakland, evolving into a full-fledged revolutionary party.

Agnès Varda takes us to the heart of the action. There is a "Free Huey" demonstration going on in Oakland. We witness at length rallies and speeches, including by Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998). Huey P. Newton (1942-1989) is interviewed in jail. HE founded the party with Bobby Seale (born 1936). There is also an interview with Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998). We get a full introduction to the ten point program of the Black Panther Party. We witness their military training and their pride in black beauty with giant Afro hairdos.

There is a raw energy of something momentous being recorded at the right moment. There is an aspect of retaliation in the Black Panther movement, of creating an "organ of power through guns and justice through power".

There is also a probably unintentional sense of vulnerability in all this. There could be no future in all this gun bravado. But the impact of the movement on black pride, consciousness and self-respect was permanent.

The digital restoration conveys a sense of the original juicy and colourful 16 mm footage caught in the heat of the action.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON BETH MAULDIN, CRITERION, AND TOM LUDDY:

Salut les Cubains (2014 digital restoration in 2K by CNC)

Salut les Cubains. © 1963 Agnès Varda. Ciné-Tamaris, le site officiel Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy.

Hi There, Cubans. FR/CU 1963. PC: Société Nouvelle Pathé / ICAIC (Havana). D+SC: Agnès Varda. Photographs: Agnès Varda. Animation trick photography: D.S.A. - J. Marques, C. S. Olaf. ED: Janine Verneau. M: Bande originale: chants et danses afro-cubaines, cha-cha-cha, orgue de Manzanillo, Benny Moré, tangos, danson, boléro. S editing: J. Decerf. Narrators: Agnès Varda, Michel Piccoli. Dancers: Nelson Rodríguez. Featuring: Selma Diaz, Fidel Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós (President of Cuba), Benny Moré (singer), Raúl Castro, Nicolás Guillén (poet), Roberto Retamar (poet), Alejo Carpentier (writer), Wifredo Lam (avantgarde painter), Raúl Millen (artist), Renz Portocarrero (artist), Alfredo Guevara (ICAIC), Hector Garcia Mesa (ICAIC), Sarita Gomez.
Court métrage documentaire, 35 mm, 1,66:1, b&w, 28 min
    The soundtrack also includes "La Internacional", "Gracias, Fidel", rhumba, guaguancó, and charanga bands.
    Restored in 2K by CNC in 2014, with restoration credits 30 min
    2K DCP from Ciné-Tamaris with English subtitles by J. Miller viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Agnès Varda), 8 March 2016

A vivid and vibrant photomontage and photo-animation on Cuba in its exciting early revolutionary period. There has been a successful "alfabetizadores" campaign on general literacy. There is an enthusiastic feeling of "anything is possible" on the island of "tropical socialism". It is a land of sugar with great challenges with the U.S. embargo. Fidel Castro gives six-hour marathon speeches. We have a crash course on the saga of the revolution as we visit the Granma boat. We get an exciting introduction to the roots of Cuban music - Iberian, African, and French. We visit musicians, poets, painters, and the ICAIC film institute. There is a lot of dancing in this movie composed of still images.

This is a music-driven film. The soundtrack is marvellous, and if there were a soundtrack album, it would be worth listening to.

A distinguished case of digital restoration.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON LISA NESSELSON AND CRITERION COLLECTION:

Lust for Life 2 - van Gogh and Gauguin

Vincent van Gogh: A Pair of Shoes. Paris, 1886. Oil on canvas. 45 x 37,5. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Photo: WikiArt Visual Art Encyclopedia.

Lust for Life is a study of the solitude of Vincent van Gogh and his struggle to establish communication on the most profound level.

Vincent studies to become a preacher but does not pass the examination. Yet, "I want to help the unfortunate. Use me". In Borinage during his sermon he realizes that his words are empty and he must truly learn to know the coalminers, to become one of them. By committing himself to them he alienates himself even further from the official religious administration. "I don't believe in the God of the clergymen. I believe in the God of love". This aspect of Lust for Life has an affinity with other masterpieces of the 1950s such as Europa '51 (Rossellini) and Nazarín (Buñuel).

Vincent's closest ally is his brother Theo, and they are also soul brothers. All his life Theo and his family help Vincent; Théo dies only half a year after Vincent's premature death. Their common mission is "to be of use, to bring something to the world".

Vincent the amateur artist keeps drawing and painting. He is self-educated and highly self-critical. He is being helped generously by his cousin Mauve who gives him equipment, paints, and even plaster models for study exercise. Vincent paints in the wind at the coast of the sea. He struggles to overcome the iron wall between his vision and his expression, to the end agonizingly frustrated because he sees more than he can convey.

The Paris of the Impressionists is a revelation for Vincent: the colour, the light. There are vignettes in the movie on fellow artists like Camille Pissarro ("take in everything at once, trust in your first impression") and Georges Seurat (the scientific, the mathematical method, painting systematically in the studio). Père Tanguy and Toulouse-Lautrec make brief appearances. Later in the care of Dr. Gachet van Gogh learns about Cézanne, Daumier, and Manet to whom Gachet has also been a mentor. Paul Gauguin is openly scornful towards almost everybody. With the exception of van Gogh. When Gauguin sees Gogh's A Pair of Shoes he recognizes in the painting something "direct, vigorous, and honest".

Gauguin goes to Normandy, van Gogh to Provence, which inspires him to an ecstasy of creativity. The exalted Van Gogh invites Gauguin to share a house he has discovered in Arles thanks to a genial postman. But although Gogh and Gauguin connect on a deep level, they are opposites in many ways. Gogh is chaotic, Gauguin orderly. Gogh eats whatever he can grab, Gauguin can cook. For Gogh facing the living reality is essential in order to paint, Gauguin can also create without a model. Gogh worships the sacred in work, Gauguin has no patience with such matters. Gogh adores Millet, Gauguin despises him. Gogh is spiritual, Gauguin is practical. Gogh suffers from loneliness, for Gauguin loneliness is the human condition. For Gogh the inside matters, Gauguin works on the surface. Gauguin seems tough and cynical but we sense that it is his hard shell to protect his sensitivity. Anyway, shocked at the failure of communication Gogh cuts his ear off.

Little by little van Gogh approaches "a terrible lucidity". Simultaneously his seizures get more and more agonizing, until he cannot take it anymore.

Vincent van Gogh: Le docteur Paul Gachet. Auvers, 1890. 68 x 57. Musée d'Orsay. Gift of Paul and Marguerite Gachet, children of the model (1949). Photo: Google Art Project.

Lust for Life

Lust for Life. Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh.

Hän rakasti elämää / Han som älskade livet / La Vie passionnée de Vincent van Gogh / Vincent van Gogh - Ein Leben in Leidenschaft / Brama di vivere. US © 1956 Loew's. PC: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. EX: Dore Schary. P: John Houseman. D: Vincente Minnelli. SC: Norman Corwin – based on Lust for Life. A Novel based on the Life of van Gogh (1934) by Irving Stone. ED: Adrienne Fazan. DP: F. A. Young (Freddie Young), Russell Harlan – Ansco Color – prints: Metrocolor, CinemaScope. AD: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters, Preston Amesm, F. Keogh Cleason. Cost: Walter Plunkett. Makeup: William Tuttle. Copies of van Gogh paintings by: Robert Parker. M: Miklos Rozsa. S: Dr. Wesley C. Miller (rec. supv), Harold Humbrock, Ed Haight, John Logan (S ed) – Perspecta Sound. C: Kirk Douglas (Vincent van Gogh), Anthony Quinn (Paul Gauguin), James Donald (Theo van Gogh), Pamela Brown (Christine), Everett Sloane (Dr. Gachet), Niall MacGinnis (Joseph Roulin the postman), Noel Purcell (Anton Mauve), Henry Daniell (Theodorus van Gogh - father), Madge Kennedy (Anna Cornelia van Gogh - mother), Jill Bennett (Willemien), Lilnel Jeffries (Dr. Peyron), Laurence Naismith (Dr. Bosman), Eric Pohlmann (Colbert), Jeannette Starke (Kay), Toni Gerry (Johanna), Wilton Graf (Rev. Stricker), Isobel Elsom (Mrs. Stricker), David Horne (Rev. Peeters), Noel Howlett (Commissioner van den Berghe), Ronald Adam (Commissioner De Smet), John Ruddock (Ducrucq), Julie Robinson (Rachel), David Leonard (Camille Pissarro). David Bond (Georges Seurat), Jerry Bergen (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), Frank Perls (père Tanguy). Helsinki premiere: 5.4.1957 Gloria, released by Oy Metro Goldwyn Mayer Films Ab – telecast: 28.4.1972 ja 12.9.1993 YLE TV2 – dvd: 2008 Warner Bros. Entertainment Finland – VET 46337 – K12 – 3362 m /  123 min
    Locations: France (Arles, Auvers-sur-Oise, Bouches-du-Rhône), Belgium (Wallonia, Borinage), Netherlands (The Hague = 's-Gravenhage, Nuenen).
    A SFI print with Swedish subtitles by Per Helman viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Vincente Minnelli), 2 March 2016

Lust for Life. Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh, Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin.

All his film-making life Vincente Minnelli had worked for MGM's dream factory. For once he could choose a subject of his own, the life of Vincent van Gogh. With the producer John Houseman and the star Kirk Douglas he had already made The Bad and the Beautiful. Lust for Life was produced on location in Europe on a solid studio budget, and the result was a personal favourite film for Minnelli (van Gogh's namesake) and Douglas.

I have loved this film since I first saw it at UCLA in the context of MOCA's "Hall of Mirrors: Film and Art Since 1945" exhibition in 1996. Famous for his films of glamour, Minnelli here instantly demonstrates an anti-glamour stance. Already before the credits proper we see a long list of acknowledgements to art museums which had helped the film-makers with access to van Gogh's art.

Then we witness Vincent's early years as a failed preacher, and his shattering experience at the coal mines of Borinage. We are literally taken to the bottom of the pit of anti-glamour. We see child labour, the existence of the living dead, and the literally dead who have perished 2000 ft underground in the coal tunnels.

On the one hand this is an account of van Gogh's failures and disappointments, in love and in work. He never finds a true romantic partner. Friendships remain ungratifying. Key people, most importantly brother Theo, the Arles postman, and Dr. Gachet help him survive. Van Gogh fails in his private life, but he transcends his circumstances in his art which becomes one of the treasures of mankind.

Famously, van Gogh failed to sell his paintings with one single exception. Now they command top prices whenever they are on the marketplace. This subject is not new nor original, but there is something macabre in the pricing of art. Some of the most expensive prices are being paid for contemporary artworks about which one may predict that they will be worth nothing in a hundred years. Maybe the art market itself is a case of conceptual art, both mirroring and belonging to the fantastic world of high financial speculation.

Kirk Douglas in one of the most powerful performances in the history of the cinema gives us a Vincent van Gogh who is clumsy, awkward, and without social grace. At the same time we totally believe in him as a giant of the spirit and a genius of inspiration. His is an agony where art is a matter of life and death. Lust for Life is a film about the passion of art.

There is a touch of the theatrical in the performances, but it is consistent and acceptable in a story which is about experiences that are out of the ordinary.

Lust for Life is also a bold film about madness, and Kirk Douglas gives us a performance of an artist who is aware of his madness. The sequence at the mental hospital feels believable.

Lust for Life is also bold about the fact that madness and inspiration in Vincent von Gogh's art are inseparable. There is a gravity in this account that is unique and extraordinary.

This theme is crystallized in the shattering finale where Vincent paints his last painting, The Wheatfield with Crows. It is a vision to which Akira Kurosawa paid tribute in Dreams, with Martin Scorsese as van Gogh.

In his memoirs Minnelli lamented that of this favourite film of his, the colour driven Lust for Life, it was no longer possible to see a decent print. But the print I saw at UCLA was perfect.

Vincent van Gogh has been served well by film artists (including Altman, Pialat... ). The most unexpected masterpiece is Alain Resnais's Van Gogh (1947), consisting entirely of van Gogh's art - in black and white. One of its revelations is how strong the graphic element was in van Gogh.

The print we saw today was clean, but the colour was no longer perfect, although there were glimpses of the original full colour. The print gave us the full graphic force of the image and much of the colour but not all of it.

Lust for Life. Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh. Hitchcock may have seen this.

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams with Martin Scorsese as Vincent Van Gogh.

Vincent van Gogh: Wheatfield with Crows, 1890. Wikipedia. Do click to enlarge.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE FROM VINCENTE MINNELLI'S MEMOIRS "I REMEMBER IT WELL":

Panj é asr / At Five in the Afternoon

پنج عصر / Kello 5 iltapäivällä / Fem på eftermiddagen / À cinq heures de l'après-midi / Fünf Uhr am Nachmittag / Alla cinque della sera.  IR / FR / AF 2003. PC: Makhmalbaf Productions, Bac Films, Wild Bunch. EX: Siamak Alagheband. P: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. D: Samira Makhmalbaf. Ass D: Razi Mohebi. SC: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Samira Makhmalbaf. DP: Ebrahim Ghafori, Samira Makhmalbaf. M: Mohammed Reza Darvishi. ED: Mohsen Makhmalbaf. S: Farouk Fadace. C: Agheleh Rezaie (Noqreh), Abdolgani Yousefrazi (father), Razi Mohebi (poet), Marzieh Amiri (Leylomah). Language: Dari. Helsinki premiere: 18.3.2005 Diana, released by Kamras Film Group Oy with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Jarmo Åhrlund / Jan-Erik Larson – VET 200219 – S – 2930 m / 106 min
    The title is inspired by the first words "a las cinco de la tarde" in the poem "La cogida y la muerte" (1935) by Federico García Lorca. Translated into Finnish by Matti Rossi as "Häränsarvet ja kuolema" in Federico García Lorca: Andalusian lauluja [Songs of Andalucia]. Helsinki: Otava, 1967. Read the poem beyond the jump break and find the link where it is read aloud.
    A KAVI print viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Cinema: Iran), 2 March 2016

There is a sense of dignity in this disciplined and intensive vision of refugee existence in Afghanistan directed by Samira Makhmalbaf. There is an epic approach to the human catastrophe about which we learn via the plight of a refugee family: a father, two daughters, and a baby which starves to death during the trek. The protagonist is the daughter Noqreh who has qualities of responsibility and leadership. She rejects the attempts at contact by the sympathetic poet guy who, however, impresses her by a copy of a Dari translation of the poem by Federico García Lorca which inspired the title of the film.

As in García Lorca's bullfight poem, the film is about life in constant and imminent mortal danger. There are minefields everywhere. The entire country seems like a minefield. Shot on location in Kabul, there is a documentary aspect to this film. The fictional footage blends with the documentary seamlessly. The film belongs to the same great tradition as the original masterworks of Italian Neorealism such as Roma città aperta. The proximity of the calamity is so great that people forget to act, forget about the camera.

Noqreh has a twin existence. Via her father and via the Quran school she is a daughter deferential to tradition, carrying a burkha, fully covering herself. In the next moment she is a modern young woman who visits a women's class where the students are encouraged to become teachers, engineers, doctors - or even the first woman president of Afghanistan. Much of the dialogue is about the political future of Afghanistan and the possibility of a woman president, with leaders such as Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto providing inspiring models. One of the young women that are considering to become president, the one with glasses, dies in a freak mine explosion.

The recent history of Afghanistan is personified in the family saga of the young poet played by Razi Mohebi. One of his brothers was killed by Russians, another died in the civil war, and yet another was killed by Taleban.

An epic vision of Afghanistan in turmoil. The views are rich and full of life. This is a film of passion and vibrant feeling. The composition and the camera movements are assured.

The cinematography is beautiful without being prettifying. The views seem to offer a colour space dominated by something similar to the much discussed "orange and teal" syndrome. The women's dresses are blue; the colour of the desert seems to complement the blue.

The print looks beautiful and may be struck from a source close to the negative.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN: