Festivalia #1

The hectic frenzy of another festival visit is finished and I'm now holed up in some small town I've never heard of... Paris, I think it's called. We've travelled over to these parts to be in Biarritz to attend the Festival International des Programmes Audiovisuels where 'murundak - songs of freedom' was screening in competition and, in the midst of meetings and madness we encountered an incredible bunch of filmmakers from Colombia, Hungary, France, Israel, Holland, Austria, New Zealand (eggs) and Sweden.

After three days of being shacked up in the hotel finishing off a script draft, I think I kinda threw myself on the other directors like a frisky terrier, but it was a rare pleasure to spend so much time drinking and talking and watching their films. A film festival, for me, feels like Disneyland must feel to a ten year old. I go crazy to the point of paralysis. I don't want to miss a thing so I eat too much ice cream, throw up on the first rollercoaster and then miss almost everything else. But, amid all the anxiety of films I might never see, it ended up being a beautiful experience (Cue: tears and post-bandcamp nostalgia). There were some incredible films, incredible stories, and a crew of incredibly passionate filmmakers whose desire to connect was inspiring. 

Here's some photographs... 

Keep Human

In Paris.

Killing time between festivals.

Finally, furiously, finishing a script that almost had me beat.

Haunted by the spectres of far too much romanticism about the words scribbled down around these parts.

Still, always work. Always keep human.

Broomberg / Egoyan / Chanarin

When I think about why my films deal with voyeurism, it's because that's part of what we all seek out of any film image. Making people aware of the deeply rooted desire they have to escape into a screen image is something that I find really stirring. And I think part of that is addressing exactly what it is that they're expecting to see, and then playing with that or finally delivering that, but only after some sort of process of resistance.

Words: Atom Egoyan

Images: Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin (from the must have book - Fig)

Depilation

Earlier today, while I flicked through script pages to rewrite, trying to think of bomb proof solutions, I indulged in a little procastinatory desktop clean up and found some images that I shot during a film that I made a few years back - 'Skin'. It was a brilliant and strange shoot. Over a few weeks we filmed with taxidermists willing to work with human skin, international experts on rare moths, vellum conservators, 18th century botanical academics, funeral directors, yakuza skin preservationists and, of course, the incredible subjects of the film, eX de Medici* and Geoff Ostling. Sometimes this working life is a very strange one. Now, back to it.

 

 

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* eX de Medici: "You need to be a blunt edged instrument. I’ll describe an incident so you understand what I mean. I went to the cinema recently with a friend of mine – I used to go to the cinema a lot but I hadn’t been in a quite a few years. I sat down and they were playing the ads before the main feature. The sound and the vision were incredible like this way and that[waving her arms about] ... and everybody was just sitting there and so I thought ‘geez, this is a blunt edge instrument’. My friend couldn’t hear me but I was yelling in her ear, ‘if this is what people are used to, fuck, we’ll have to change our tactics’. If people are so desensitised to everything then a mild clobbering by me is going to look subtle."