18th Stockholm International Film Festival

Since yesterday I had a very fun afternoon (saw the hilarious movie) and night (was Halloween!) today I’m in a festive mood and feel like posting here news about fests.

From November 15 to 25 this festival will be held and I wish that some of my dearest readers that live near Stockholm would be able to attend some of the screenings. As hopefully expected this year’s festival is dedicated to Ingmar Bergman and because what it says touches me deeply I’m reproducing an excerpt from a festival’s press release.

“Ingmar Bergman was one of the greatest directors ever and he will continue to inspire filmmakers, in Sweden and abroad. His exceptional work and distinguished artistry even shaped the image of Sweden and Swedes abroad.

Ingmar Bergman’s influence on Swedish film and culture in general cannot be underestimated. During the Stockholm International Film Festival the audience will be invited to re-explore Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället) from 1957.

Also during the festival, a seminar on Ingmar Bergman’s great international significance will be arranged. His artistic work is constantly regarded as a point of reference for directors within film and theatre. He leaves an impressive artistic heritage behind; a masterpiece covering more than six decades that will continue leaving impressions on the art of filmmaking and on the audience.”

The Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to director and screenwriter Paul Schrader who will be in Stockholm to accept Bronze Horse award. They will screen Schrader’s latest movie The Walker and a selection of previous films in retrospective.

The Stockholm Visionary Award will be given to Wes Anderson and they will screen his latest movie The Darjeeling Limited.

Most interesting is the event Spotlight: All you need is talent where the audience will be invited to work together with three professional directors in the project Let’s make a film. Here is scheme they will implement.

“The idea has been developed by the Stockholm film festival, and is realized together with Bubblare.se (Swedish version of Youtube), JayCut.se (online video editing) and Stopp (post-production company). Starting today (October 15), the audience can upload film ideas in the form of written text, images or film clips onto a special website. A screenplay will be put together and sent to three directors at the beginning of November. Those who contribute to the screenplay will have the chance to be present at the shooting of three short films.

The films will be published online on November 19, and the audience can vote for their favorite or re-edit the films themselves using deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes footage. All re-edited films are published on the site. The three main films will be screened at the Stockholm International Film Festival awards ceremony on November 24.”

If you want to check the Let’s make a film site (unfortunately is only in Swedish) go here.

The festival will have the following sections: American Independent, Asian Images, Collage, Competition, Dedication, Open Zone, Schrader by Schrader, Special visning, Spotlight, and Twilight Zone. Most movies are quite outstanding, but I will not list all, as there are too many; but here are some interesting movies from the sections.

American Independent
Live!, Bill Guttentag (critiques reality shows…)
Go Go Tales, Abel Ferrara (Asia Argento kissing a Rottweiler ??!!)
Interview, Steve Buscemi (Besides having Sienna Miller is a mise-en-scene shot on XD video… interesting story too!)
King of California, Mike Cahill (Michael Douglass and Evan Rachel Wood… hmm!)
Watching the Detectives, Paul Soter (Comedy noir with Lucy Liu…)
We Own the Night , James Gray (Been hearing a lot about this movie…)
Año Uña (Year of the Nail ), Jonas Cuaron (interesting movie technique…)

Asian Images
Soom (Breath), Kim Ki-duk, South Korea (described as pure art cinema…)
Mutuluk (Bliss), Abdullah Oguz, Turkey and Greece (terrible story but must be seen)
Seung Sing (Confession of Pain),Wai-keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak, Hong Kong (stars Tony Leung, cinema noir – from the directors of Infernal Affairs)
Hyazgar (Desert Dream), Zhang Lu, Korea and France (set in border between Mongolia and China makes it a must be seen for me!)
Kantoku – Banzai! (Glory to the Filmmker!), Takeshi Kitano, Japan (a film within a film…)
Ye Che (Night Train), Yinan Diao, China (Not approved to be shown in Cannes… terrible story but a must be seen for me!)
Our Time, Bappaditya, Bandopadhyay, India (four desperate countryside girls get fooled into human trafficking… )
Teeth of Love, Zhuang Yuxin, (very interesting story)

Open Zone
Les Amours d’Astree et de Celadon (The Romance of Astrea and Celadon), France, Italy and Spain (legendary Eric Rohmer latest movie!!!)

Specialvising
Gay Night: will screen four films and documentaries Red without Blue, Horse Thieves, Caress of the Creature and Lagerfeld Confidential

Competition

24 Mesures (24 Measures), Jalil Lespert, France and Canada
4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 Zile (4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days), Cristian Mungiu , Romania
Ane-eui Aein-eul Mannada (Driving with my Wife’s Lover), Kim Tai-Sik, South Korea
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Andrew Dominik, USA
Autum Ball, Velko Öunpuu, Estonia (seems interesting)
Control, Anton Cobjin, UK
Expired, Cecilia Miniucchi, USA
Garage, Lenny Abrahamson, Ireland
In The Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis, USA
Juno, Jason Reitman, USA
Mister Lonely, Harmony Korine, USA, France, Ireland, UK
The Nines, John August, USA
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, France
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Julian Schnabel, France and USA
Stellet Light (Silent Light), Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, France, Netherlands, Germany
Sukkar Bannat (Caramel), Nadine Labaki, Lebanon and France
Tai Yang Zhao Chang Sheng Qi (The Sun Also Rises), Jiang Wen, China (magic realism and widescreen grandeur… must be seen!)
Tejut (Milky Way), Benedek Filegauf, Hungary (interesting “ambient movie” with no dialogue
Voleurs de Chevaux (Horse Thieves), Micha Wald, France (Gay Interest)
La Zona (The Zone), Rodrigo Plá., Spain and Mexico
Vinnarfilm (??)

Another MOST interesting event is the ifestival described as an online film competition where users can rate the film on a 1-20 scale; ten films are presented this year via Qbrick that will do the online streaming, hope that this streaming accepts IP’s out of Sweden, so I’ll be checking for this outstanding opportunity to see some movies.

The fest site is extremely good with plot summaries and videos for most movies and I spend hours just checking the movies and reading some plot summaries. To check the site go here.