SARAH PLAYS A WEREWOLF (2017)

  • 1st North Bend Film Festival Is Ready, Unveils Lineup, SHIRKERS is Centerpiece Film

    [caption id="attachment_27266" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]Shirkers Shirkers[/caption] The North Bend Film Festival is right around the corner and yesterday announced the full line-up for its inaugural edition, including Cinema Vista and Something Strange feature and short film programs. In addition to the films, the weekend of August 23rd to the 26th will be rich with events that embrace the town of North Bend, once the original shooting location for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, such as a special Twin Peaks Tour, a scenic mountainside hike (offering attendees a rare chance for excursion!), and ‘Damn Fine Coffee’ mixers to kick off the mornings just right. Cinema Vista offers a spectrum of vanguard cinema with centerpiece screening SHIRKERS  and retro screening of the iconic Pacific Northwest queer feature MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO. Centerpiece Film Shirkers (Washington Premiere) USA | 2018 | 96 Min | Dir. Sandi Tan Cinema-loving teenager Sandi Tan and two friends had a big idea in 1992: They’d shoot their own super-low-budget assassin thriller on their native streets of Singapore, along with help from an American mentor named Georges. Then, one day, Georges disappeared along with all of their work. Twenty-five years later, Tan has turned her investigation into Georges’ motives, using newly recovered footage and firsthand accounts, into one of 2018’s best documentaries, an autobiography turned love letter to filmmaking dreams, especially those that have gone unfulfilled. My Name is Myeisha USA | 2018 | 84 Min | Dir. Gus Krieger A bold and visionary musical unlike anything on screen today, Gus Krieger’s MY NAME IS MYEISHA blends hip-hop, beat-boxing, dance and spoken word lyricism to tell the heartbreaking story of a teenage girl killed by police while she sat unconscious in a locked car. It’s essential filmmaking in a dynamic and energetic combination of storytelling methods precisely executed from beginning to end. Sarah Plays A Werewolf (West Coast Premiere) Switzerland/Germany | 2017 | 86 Min | Dir. Katharina Wyss Off the stage, 17-year-old Sarah drifts through her community in anonymity. But on her high school’s theater’s stage? The shy girl unleashes torrents of fiery passion, stemming from personal secrets mostly involving her unpleasant home life. As Sarah falls deeper into her performances, though, her loneliness intensifies, causing the troubled teenager to lose herself in multiple ways. Drenched in an overriding sense of despair, Swiss filmmaker Katharina Wyss’ devastating feature-length debut is a coming-of-age stunner. My Own Private Idaho (1991) USA | 1991 | 104 Min | Dir. Gus Van Sant Set in the 1990’s runaway-dominated streets of the Pacific Northwest and loosely based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, this seminal film by Gus Van Sant (GOOD WILL HUNTING, MILK) tells the tale of a narcoleptic street kid named Mike (River Phoenix) who befriends a fellow hustler (Keanu Reeves) on his journey to find his estranged mother. Film presented in collaboration with Three Dollar Bill Cinema Closing Night Film Anna and the Apocalypse (West Coast Premiere) United Kingdom | 2018 | 92 Min | Dir. John McPhail For Anna and her friends, high school graduation can’t come soon enough. Unfortunately for them, they must face a horde of yuletide undead creatures before passing on to adulthood. A zombie apocalypse-Christmas-comedy-musical (yes, you read that right), “Anna” is a salute to a genre you didn’t think you needed, while keeping you on the edge of your seat with its hilarity and heart. Piercing (Pacific Northwest Premiere) USA | 2018 | 81 Min | Dir. Nicolas Pesce After kissing his wife and baby goodbye for a seemingly normal business trip, Reed (Christopher Abbott) checks himself into a hotel room to accomplish something he’s always dreamed of: the perfect murder. As his sinister plans unfold, he soon realizes he might be in over his head with a mysteriously unhinged call girl named Jackie (Mia Wasikowska). Relaxer (Washington Premiere) USA | 2018 | 91 Minutes | Dir. Joel Potrykus Joel Potrykus’ latest film follows an obsessive couch potato slacker taking on his most epic challenge yet: to beat the impossible final level of PAC-MAN without ever leaving the couch. His desperate quest is fraught with gross-out humor and darkly comedic perils as all sense of time is lost and takes a turn towards downright mania in a satisfyingly exhilarating conclusion. Don’t Leave Home (Pacific Northwest Premiere) USA | 2018 | 86 Min | Dir. Michael Tully For her latest exhibition, American artist Melanie Thomas is focused on an old Irish myth surrounding Father Alistair Burke, whose portrait of an 8-year-old Siobhan led to the little girl’s unexplained disappearance. After receiving an invite from the enigmatic Burke to visit him in Ireland, Melanie finds that reality and myth aren’t mutually exclusive. Drenched in classical Euro-horror dread and other strange flourishes, writer-director Michael Tully’s genre hybrid is a delightfully unnerving head trip. Director Michael Tully in attendance. Screening presented by Snoqualmie Valley Real Estate. Time Share (Washington Premiere) Mexico/Netherlands | 2018 | 96 Minutes | Dir. Sebastian Hoffman A father’s holiday from Hell begins when a clerical mix-up forces his family to share their vacation home with another family. But lurking beneath the paradise resort is a shady organization with designs far worse than double bookings. Director Sebastian Hoffman’s psychological thriller expertly juxtaposes terror and surrealist comedy through weaving stories of the family man and a beaten down employee setting out for revenge from within. Screening presented by Snoqualmie Valley Real Estate. Billy (North American Premiere) Netherlands | 2018 | 90 Min | Dir. Theo Maassen Ventriloquist Gerard de Groot and his puppet Billy have been inseparable for the last ten years. Until the moment they fall in love with different women and Gerard decides to take a break from his wild dummy. Easier said than done. Theo Maassen’s promising debut is a sharp tragic comedy mixing raunchy humor and deep thoughts about a career as an artist.

    CINEMA VISTA SHORTS BLOCK

    Boundaries are made to be pushed. This visionary group of shorts showcases the work of some of today’s most innovative and forward-thinking filmmakers. Across all genres, these films represent the vanguard of cinema with stories of life, death, justice and injustice, monsters both real and imagined, and the horror and beauty that reside inside the human heart. At times tragic, fantastical, terrifying, rousing, but always exhilarating, these shorts are at the forefront of filmmaking. MOBIUS, dir. Sam Kuhn In the wake of her lover’s death, a high school student comes to terms with her suburban malaise in this dreamlike and TWIN-PEAKS-esque dose of small-town oddness. BIOPHILIA, dir. Marina Michelson Rachel and her boyfriend, a pair of Brooklynites, decide to try their hand at farming. But when a sheep dies on their watch, Rachel must make a tough decision. EUPHORIA, dir. Wynter Rhys Too focused on his adoring followers and eager paparazzi, a famous artist constantly neglects his 6-year-old daughter. His rabid fan base is ready to change that. JOUSKA, dir. Wynter Rhys A man’s dark past and guilt-ridden thoughts come to a head as he navigates a nightmare land that’s like ALICE IN WONDERLAND laced with PCP. BAILAORA, dir. Rubin Stein Clearing out bodies on the streets of a war-torn Spain, a group of soldiers encounter a young dancer whose moves have an effect beyond explanation. THE DAY MUM BECAME A MONSTER, dir. Joséphine Hopkins Divorces are extremely tough on all children, but especially for young Candice. As if being abandoned by her father isn’t hard enough, her mother begins exhibiting some very troubling new behavior.

    SOMETHING STRANGE SHORTS BLOCK

    Sometimes stories are told to make sense of a nonsensical world, to impose logic on life’s confusion. Sometimes stories celebrate this bewilderment, utilizing the strange and unexpected instead of explaining it. These surreal short films feature superheroes, tampon monsters, vengeful robots, hungry forests, ghastly futures and purgatorial loops. Collected together, this block captivates as much as it challenges convention. END TIMES, dir. Bobby Miller After randomly stumbling across a dying squirrel in a public park, a man’s day goes from odd to WTF in this delightfully morbid comedy from the director of THE CLEANSE. LOVELY LEGS, dir. Abby Thompson In an isolated forest, a young man is ready to finally part ways with his female sex robot. As they say, though, it’s always hard to say goodbye. OVUM, dir. Cidney Hue Undergoing a mind-altering medical procedure, a woman is forced to make the toughest decision of her life. A FOREST, dir. Thomas Geffrier Ready to keep the good times going, Marie leaves a party with a couple en route to a hot threesome. She’ll soon wish that she’d have just gone home alone. CIRCLE, dir. Martin Melnick Loosely based on the myth of Eurydice, this off-kilter, genre-bending allegory follows a woman whose past traumas send on a fateful and dangerous trip through Purgatory. ALLEN ANDERS: LIVE AT THE COMEDY CASTLE – CIRCA 1987, dir. Laura Moss During an infamous on-stage performance in 1987 at New York City’s Comedy Castle, stand-up comic Allen Anders lost his mind. This is the uncovered footage. BFF GIRLS, dir. Brian Lonano A trio of nerdy American girls transform into powerful and fearless Japanese superheroes in order to take down a villainous tampon monster. A coming-of-age tale like none other.

    JURY

    FEATURES JURY: Cinema Vista Program

    Haleigh Foutch Horror Editor, Collider Matt Ralston Producer, LOVE AND SAUCERS Vanessa Meyer Programming Manager, Frontières

    FEATURES JURY: Something Strange Program

    Shannon McGrew Owner, Nightmarish Conjurings Nick Bruno, Programmer, Portland Int’l Film Festival

    SHORTS JURY

    William Day Frank Producer, PSYCHOPATHS, MODEL HOME Ryan Oliver Journalist, The Playlist Emily Von Seele Journalist, Bloody Disgusting

    VR JURY:

    Dumeetha Luthra Founder, Take Pause VR Jesse Damiani Journalist, VR Scout, Forbes

    Previously announced titles for 2018 include:

    Profile (West Coast Premiere) Cyprus, Russian Federation, UK, USA | 2018 | 103 Min | Dir. Timur Bekmambetov Amy, a struggling freelance journalist looking for her next big story, pitches her editor on investigating the recruitment of European women by ISIS. Pretending to be recently converted to Islam and using an alias, she creates an incriminating Facebook profile where she begins to like and share posts themed around Islamic extremism. It doesn’t take long for Bilel, a Jihad fighter in Syria, to set his eyes on this seemingly vulnerable prey. Black Mother (Pacific Northwest Premiere) USA | 2018 | 77 Min | Dir. Khalik Allah Powerfully hypnotic and formally singular, filmmaker/photographer Khalik Allah’s second feature is documentary storytelling at its boldest. Fueled by reflective voiceovers and dreamlike visuals, presented in digital, Super 8mm and black-and-white Bolex, BLACK MOTHER transports the viewer into a Jamaica populated by clergymen and prostitutes. The result is an examination of religion, sex, and national identity that’s one truly unforgettable cinematic meditation. Braid (West Coast Premiere) USA | 2018 | 82 Min | Dir. Mitzi Peirone Two fugitive women elude capture and seek refuge at the estate of their rich and very much psychotic childhood friend where they enter a terror fueled game of make believe. A candy color, hallucinogen-fueled lunacy binge, writer-director Mitzi Peirone’s feature debut takes you on an entrancing journey of insanity through its gorgeously framed imagery, vibrant palette and cryptic narrative riddles. Model Home (World Premiere) USA | 2018 | 82 Minutes | Dir. Patrick Cunningham For a Latina single mother and her imaginative young son, being allowed to live in a dream house rent free seems too good to be true. As the mother’s obsessive and unstable mental state emerges, so too does living the American Dream devolve into a waking nightmare. Director Patrick Cunningham’s fascinating debut is a horrifying singular vision that speaks to Hispanic American identity.

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  • Film Comment Selects Reveals 2018 Lineup, Opens with “Life and Nothing More”

    [caption id="attachment_26540" align="aligncenter" width="1296"]Life and Nothing More Life and Nothing More[/caption] The Film Comment magazine’s annual cinematic showcase series, Film Comment Selects, returns for the 18th edition, February 23 to 27, 2018, featuring films curated by the magazine’s editors. The festival opens with the New York premiere of Antonio Mendez Esparza’s Life and Nothing More, an intimate chronicle of an African American family living on the margins in Florida, starring an astonishing non-professional cast. Other new works in the lineup are Ildikó Enyedi’s Berlinale Golden Bear-winner On Body and Soul; Mrs. Fang, Wang Bing’s unflinching document of an elderly woman in her final days, which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno; the North American premiere of Katharina Wyss’s powerful debut feature Sarah Plays a Werewolf, about a woman who channels her fears into theater; Govinda Van Maele’s fiction feature debut Gutland, featuring Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps; the U.S. premiere of Slovenian director Rok Biček‘s The Family, a compassionate portrait of a young man’s life over the course of 10 years; and experimental artist Bertrand Mandico’s exhilarating, gender-bending Wild Boys. In addition to these anticipated new works, the 2018 slate features a retrospective of radical filmmaker Nico Papatakis, who had a “body of work that blends anarchic fury with visceral and transcendent poetry” (Yonca Talu, Film Comment). All five features directed by Papatakis, who subversively and provocatively explored themes of race, class, gender, and politics and produced films by Cassavetes and Genet, will be screened, including the meta terrorist drama Gloria Mundi, Cannes selection Les Abysses, and Walking a Tightrope, which stars Michel Piccoli as writer Jean Genet (a personal friend of the filmmaker). Film Comment Selects will also present a 25th anniversary screening of Tom Joslin & Peter Friedman’s extraordinarily powerful documentary Silverlake Life: The View from Here, which follows Joslin and his partner Mark Massi as they struggle to live with AIDS. “It’s a rare chance to see the lively mix of films that our critics have raved about but that haven’t hit New York theaters yet,” said Nicolas Rapold, Editor-in-Chief of Film Comment. “This year’s edition is made especially exciting by a rare retrospective of the inimitable Nico Papatakis, whose work will be exciting for many to discover.”

    FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

    Opening Night Life and Nothing More Antonio Mendez Esparza, U.S./Spain, 2017, 114m “The African American single mom and teenage son at the center of this drama are lifelong residents of northern Florida but remain, at best, provisional citizens of their own country. Rendering characters they developed in tandem with their director, these non-professional but astoundingly gifted performers convey so much of what matters in so many working-class black lives.” —Nick Davis, Toronto Film Festival 2017 online coverage New York premiere The Family Rok Biček, Slovenia/Austria, 2017, 106m “Slovenian director Rok Biček started The Family as a film-school student and proceeded to film a life in full: a boy, Matej, seen growing up, watching his father die and becoming a father himself, breaking up with his girlfriend, and battling her for child custody. A twist on observational cinema, Biček’s portrait of the anti-heroic young man defies stereotypes of working-class and dysfunctional families, refrains from passing moral judgments, and retains an open fondness of his subject.” —Tina Poglajen, Nov/Dec 2017 issue U.S. premiere Gutland Govinda Van Maele, Luxembourg/Belgium/Germany/France, 2017, 107m “A stranger wends through twilit wheat fields in the exquisite opening moments of Govinda Van Maele’s fiction feature debut [starring Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps] … By the following morning he’s courted by an elder who finds him a gig and lodging—and then Gutland quietly maunders from folktale to pastoral noir to Polanski-esque uncanny and, finally, back to folk tale. Call it a ‘village film,’ with an eerie ambiance of secrets, insularity, and sinister solidarity.” —José Teodoro, Nov/Dec 2017 issue New York premiere Mrs. Fang Wang Bing, China, 2017, 86m “Wang Bing’s latest documentary trains its camera very tightly on the face of a bedridden elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer’s in a small rural Chinese village. For a while, it seems as though Mrs. Fang is content to use the camera as a tool to unflinchingly record a human being close to her final breath. Yet Wang Bing is after something completely different, as the filmmaker goes into other territory, somehow more and less tangible than a portrait of dying.” —Michael Koresky, Toronto Film Festival 2017 online coverage New York premiere On Body and Soul Ildikó Enyedi, 2017, Hungary, 116m Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin, Ildikó Enyedi’s visually imaginative film tracks the highs and lows of an unforeseen romance conducted partly through dreams. Film Comment celebrated Enyedi’s “ludic, freewheeling storytelling” with last year’s home-video release of her 1989 favorite My Twentieth Century, and her newest marks a triumphant return for this Hungarian filmmaker. A Netflix release. New York premiere Sarah Plays a Werewolf Katharina Wyss, Switzerland/Germany, 2017, 86m “Katharina Wyss’s heady debut feature centers on Sarah, a young woman channeling her powerful depth of feeling into the artistic and psychological outlet of theater. As the 17-year-old protagonist in a staid Swiss town, Loane Balthasar is unnervingly transparent, giving herself over to her character—and, like Sarah, 20 times more present than anyone around her. The film’s title captures a life fraught with energy.” —Nicolas Rapold, Jan/Feb 2018 issue North American premiere Wild Boys Bertrand Mandico, France, 2017, 110m “Some might be quick to suggest Mandico’s similarities with Guy Maddin due to his new film’s whacked-out narrative, alienating use of studio sets, and brusquely outré acting. Exiled teenagers are sentenced to hard labor on a mysterious island, left to their own devices and then transformed… All the teens are played by actresses, with ever-fearless, weather-beaten Elina Löwensohn leading the way. Little else in 2017 was quite as exhilarating, eye-popping, intoxicating, seductive, carefree, funky, sexy, and fun.” —Olaf Möller, Jan/Feb 2018 issue New York premiere 25th Anniversary Screening Silverlake Life: The View from Here Tom Joslin & Peter Friedman, U.S., 1993, 99m Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, this is one of the cornerstone documentaries abot the AIDS crisis. “Silverlake Life is about a couple, and one of the guys is filming his boyfriend, who is ill and dying. I didn’t want to represent the disease too much [in BPM (Beats Per Minute)], because I thought it was so real in Silverlake Life. I didn’t want to make the same thing because you can’t do more than this film, because it was real and it’s a very, very moving film. I love it so much.”—Robin Campillo, director of BPM (Beats Per Minute), interviewed in July/Aug 2017 issue Special Section: Five Films by Nico Papatakis “It’s become a cliché to call a filmmaker ‘rebellious,’ but from Gance to Eisenstein to Pasolini to Buñuel, the 20th century saw true rebels who fiercely defied both the cinematic and political establishments of their time. Nikos Papatakis (1918-2010)—nicknamed Nico in France—holds a profound and unique place in this lineage through a body of work that blends anarchic fury with visceral and transcendent poetry. Born in Addis Ababa to an Ethiopian mother and a Greek father, Papatakis was an outcast by nature, mocked and ostracized as a child for being biracial. Deeply rooted in personal experience, Papatakis’s films are politically, morally, and formally subversive explorations of race, gender, and class that use the medium as a vehicle of opposition and dissent.” —Yonca Talu, Sept/Oct 2017 issue Les Abysses Nico Papatakis, France, 1963, 90m This allegorical portrait of the Algerian resistance was inspired by the real-life story of the Papin sisters, two maids who brutally murdered their employers in 1930s France—also the basis for Jean Genet’s influential 1947 play The Maids and Claude Chabrol’s 1995 psychological thriller La Cérémonie. The Shepherds of Disorder Nico Papatakis, Greece, 1967, 117m The Shepherds of Disorder (aka Thanos and Despina) juxtaposes an anthropological and materialist study of a rigid rural community with the mythologically imbued, forbidden romance between a rebellious shepherd and the angelic and compliant daughter (Olga Karlatos) of a rich conservative family, engaged in an erotically charged power game. Gloria Mundi Nico Papatakis, France, 1976, 115m Papatakis’s most psychedelic film, Gloria Mundi centers on an actress (Olga Karlatos) playing an Arab terrorist who takes her role to another level. Papatakis’s virulent denunciation of consumer capitalism and a hypocritical left-wing intelligentsia that deems itself political but does not take any action, begins with a scream and ends with an explosion. The Photograph Nico Papatakis, Greece/France, 1986, 102m Papatakis’s most accessible, gripping, and poignant work is a meticulously crafted, intimate meditation on immigration and exile centering on a 26-year-old Greek man fresh out of prison (where he was tortured for being a communist’s son) who leaves for France in hopes of a better life and strikes up a complicated friendship with a distant relative. Walking a Tightrope / Les Équilibristes Nico Papatakis, France, 1992, 120m The director’s final film—starring Michel Piccoli as a fictional version of Papatakis’s friend Jean Genet—is a compendium of the themes and motifs that pervade his distinctive filmography, including the torturous nature of love, the suffering induced by exile, and suicide as an act of rebellion.

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  • 7 Feature Films to Compete at 2017 Venice International Film Critics’ Week

    [caption id="attachment_23259" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]Pin Cushion Pin Cushion[/caption] The 2017 Venice International Film Critics’ Week will screen a selection of seven debut films in competition and two special events out of competition, all presented in world premiere screenings. The Venice International Film Critics’ Week is an independent and parallel section organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) during the 74th Venice International Film Festival running August 30th to September 9th, 2017. The selection is curated by the General Delegate of the Venice Critics’ Week Giona A. Nazzaro together with the members of the selection committee Luigi Abiusi, Alberto Anile, Beatrice Fiorentino and Massimo Tria. 2017 Venice International Film Critics' Poster The DC Comics and Marvel Comics illustrator Carmine Di Giandomenico designed the futuristic cinematic muse for the 32nd edition of the independent sidebar dedicated to debut feature films. The 2017 Venice International Film Critics’ Week official selection includes:

    COMPETITION

    IL CRATERE | CRATER by Luca Bellino, Silvia Luzi (Italy) DRIFT by Helena Wittmann (Germany) LES GARÇONS SAUVAGES| THE WILD BOYS by Bertrand Mandico (France) KÖRFEZ | THE GULF by Emre Yeksan (Turkey, Germany, Greece) SARAH JOUE UN LOUP GAROU | SARAH PLAYS A WEREWOLF by Katharina Wyss (Switzerland, Germany) TEAM HURRICANE by Annika Berg (Denmark) TEMPORADA DE CAZA | HUNTING SEASON by Natalia Garagiola (Argentina, USA, Germany, France, Qatar)

    SPECIAL EVENTS – OUT OF COMPETITION

    Opening Film PIN CUSHION by Deborah Haywood (United Kingdom) Closing Film VELENO | POISON – THE LAND OF FIRES by Diego Olivares (Italy)

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