Balkan cinema panorama at Thessalonik
For the 14th year, the Balkan Survey section of the TIFF showcases a selection of the most important Balkan films of this year. “Initiatives such as the script-development Balkan Fund and the Balkan Works in Progress event -inaugurated last year and providing opportunities to buyers, distributors and festival organizers to discover projects in the final stages of production- make our aim to promote Balkan cinema in the international market a reality. The chief goal of the section, nevertheless, is to build a bridge of communication between filmmakers of the region and an international audience, having played its part in the crossover of Balkan cinema from the background to the foreground of European filmmaking”, notes Festival Director Despina Mouzaki.
Since its early beginnings, the Balkan Survey Section, programmed by Dimitri Kerkinos, has acted as a supporter and precursor of the success of –among other countries’- Romanian film, which in recent years –peaking with the 2007 Cannes Palme D’Or, Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - has made itself felt in the context of European filmmaking. This year’s section presents a tribute to Romanian director Nae Caranfil, accompanied by a publication. 47 year-old Caranfil, guest of the 43rd TIFF with Filantropica, is a filmmaker positioned between the previous generation and the “new wave” of Romanian cinema. His narrative style, different from the minimalism of the new generation of Romanian directors, is characterized by acuity and a sense of humour, through which critical social issues are approached. Amongst the films screened are E pericoloso sporgersi (1993), in which the communist era is addressed, Asphalt Tango (1996), a comedic road movie with Charlotte Rampling and Caranfil’s latest film, The rest is silence (2007), the most expensive production in the history of Romanian cinema.
Another director to represent Romanian cinema in the 48th TIFF, despite his tragic absence, is Cristian Nemescu, whose debut film, California Dreaming (winner of this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard Award and participant in the 2004 Balkan Fund and Balkan Works in Progress event), is a tragicomic examination of the Romanian temperament. The Romanian roster includes an award-winning short (Sundance and San Francisco), A tube and a hat by Radu Jude, a singular road movie about the relationship of a seven year-old boy with his father.
The films of the section, originating from various Balkan countries, nevertheless find thematic common grounds. As in A Tube and a Hat, the rapport between a father and his teenage son is also at the center of the German-Croatian film Armin. Directed by Ognejen Svilicic, it deals with the war and the impasses it has bestowed upon the former Yugoslavia. In the Serbian film Trap, a raw and realistic drama with noir elements directed by Srdjan Golubovic, the same dead-ends shape themselves in the form of an ethical desert. As in his previous film, Absolute Hundred (Audience and Best Actor Awards at the 42nd TIFF), Golubovic proposes that six years after the fall of Milosevic, [Serbian society] remains unchanged in its intolerance and egocentrism”.
More universal in their approach are Semih Kaplanoglu’s observations in the film Egg, the first part of a trilogy. Influenced by Bresson and Tarkovsky, the Turkish director, a guest of the section for the third time, states that cinema is a clearly philosophical endeavor. On the opposite end of that spectrum, Kaplanoglu’s compatriots Sirri Sureyya Onder και Muharrem Gulmez, with their debut film International, take on the coup d’etat of 1980 with a satirical touch, bringing out the tragic irony of the period’s events.
The opening film of this year’s Balkan Survey section is a German-Turkish co-production. “If Head On was a film about love, The Edge of Heaven is a film about death, in the sense that every death is a birth: they both open doors to other dimensions”, says Fatih Akin about his latest work, which won the Screenplay and Ecumenical Jury Awards in Cannes. Akin will attend the 48th TIFF and will act again as a guest dj, as he successfully did 2 years ago while in Thessaloniki with Crossing the Bridge. Rade Serbedzija, the Croatian protagonist of Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces, to be screened in the 48th TIFF Special Screenings Section, will also perform a live concert with his band.
In addition to the films from Turkey, Romania, Croatia and Serbia, the Balkan Survey will include participations from the rest of the Balkan countries. For the third consecutive year, the TIFF audience will vote for the best Balkan film, for an award of 2.000 euros.
