the 27th Torino Film Festival

Torino Grand Prix

Starting this year, the Torino Film Festival presents Torino Grand Prix, an award which is given each year to filmmakers who, from the surfacing of the nouvelles vagues on, have helped renew the film language, create new aesthetic models and communicate the new trends that are the basis of the most interesting works of contemporary cinema.

This year, the prize will be given to Emir Kusturica, for the inventiveness of his films and the enthralling originality of his style. Kusturica, whose film Underground will be presented in its uncut, 6-hour version for the first time in Italy, will receive the award during the closing ceremony of the TFF.

The award will also be given to Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, for the production company's contributions to the renewal of the American film industry and for its invaluable role as an interface between classic cinema and the cinema of the future. Francis Ford Coppola will be present in Torino to accept the award and for the Italian preview of his newest film, Tetro, distributed by Bim. There will also be a projection of Coppola's 1983 film Rumble Fish and of a restored version of The Red Shoes, the 1948 masterpiece by Powell and Pressburger to which Tetro pays fervent tribute.

CULT Award - True Stories in Cinema

Collaboration between the Torino Film Festival and Cult - the satellite channel which in recent years has made a name for itself for the unpredictable and eccentric attention it pays to documentary films - was inevitable.

Both the Festival and Cult are involved with documentaries in complex and articulated ways, albeit in different spheres and spaces. For quite a while now, the Torino Film Festival has been following a path that recognizes the cinematographic power of documentaries and the fact that they have been a part of the language of cinema right from the start. Over the years, thanks to the important competition it reserves to documentaries, the Festival has carried out a central role in the revitalization of this "genre," bringing it ever closer to reality cinema than to fiction films.

The Cult Award, thus, fits in perfectly with the Festival's goal of giving increasingly concrete support to a type of cinema that is surprising for its ability to explore the world it measures itself up to and for the language it uses to recount this world. The jury will have to decide to which of the fourteen chosen documentaries they will assign the Award's 20,000 Euros in prize money. The films are varied and powerful because each chapter, each film, represents a different and powerful relationship with reality and with cinema, the real one.

27°TORINO FILM FESTIVAL

There are approximately 254 films in the 2009 Torino Film Festival including

42 world previews

21 international previews

10 European previews

74 Italian previews

Selected from over 3,500 films that were viewed (short, medium-length and feature films)

27°TORINO FILM FESTIVAL

recurring themes

Music. Guy and Madeleine on a Park Bench by Damien Chazelle, Nowhere Boy by Sam Taylor Wood, Neil Young Trunk Show by Jonathan Demme, Oil City Confidential by Julien Temple (i Dr Feelgood), Made in Hungaria by Gergely Fonyo (Buddy Holly ed Elvis Presley), Lulu & Jimi by Oskar Roehler (Elvis Presley), Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee by Shane Meadows, Rip! - A Remix Manifesto by Brett Gaylor, Byario 1989 "Dancing in the Dark" by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, Ne change rien by Pedro Costa.

 

Family. Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola, Nowhere Boy by Sam Taylor Wood, Fantastic Mr. Fox by Wes Anderson, Crackie by Sherry White, La nana by Sebastián Silva, Baseco Bakal Boys by Ralston Jover, Torso by Yamakazi Yutaka,  Lulu & Jimi by Oskar Roehler, Beautiful Kate by Rachel Ward, The Loved Ones by Sean Byrne, Hayat Var by Reha Erdem, Le refuge by François Ozon, Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser by Christophe Honoré, La bella gente by Ivano De Matteo, Zion and His Brother by Eran Merav, Come mio padre by Stefano Mordini.

Couples. The Blind by Nathan Silver, BombeR by Paul Cotter, Breaking Upwards by Daryl Wein, Claustophobia by Ivy Ho, La bella gente by Ivano De Matteo, Lulu & Jimi by Oskar Roehler, Le refuge by François Ozon, Gigante by Adrian Biniez.

Landscape. AdÁs by Roland Vranik, Baseco Bakal Boys by Ralston Jover, Crackie by Sherry White, Nord by Rune Denstad Langlo, Van Byemen's Land by Jonathan auf der Heide, Le roi de l'evasion by Alain Guiraubye, Jalainur by Zhao Ye, À l'ouest de Pluton by Myriam Verreault, Claustophobia by Ivy Ho, Yang Yang by Yu-Chieh Cheng, Hayat Var by Reha Erdem, New Denmark by Rafael Oullet, Bomber by Paul Cotter, Welcome by Philippe Lioret, Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser by Christophe Honoré, 45365 by Bill e Turner Ross, Carne viva by Jean-Charles Hue, Ghost Town by Zhao Dayong, Line by Kotani Tadasuke, O'er the Land by Deborah Stratman, Until the Next Resurrection by Oleg Morozov.

 

Journey. Chi l'ha visto by Claudia Rorarius, Nord by Rune Denstad Langlo, Van Diemen's Land by Jonathan auf der Heide, Bomber by Paul Cotter, Welcome by Philippe Lioret, Le refuge by François Ozon.

 

Television, cinema. Chi l'ha visto by Claudia Rorarius, Record 12 by Mario Conte and Simone Wendel, Double Take by Johan Grimonprez (Hitchcock), Un Sourire malicieux by Christabelle Lheureux (Hitchcock), Lulu & Jimi by Oskar Roehler (Lynch e Sirk).

 

TORINO 27 - INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM COMPETITION

The main competitive section of the festival is reserved to directors making their first, second or third film and this year presents 16 newly produced films that have not yet been presented in Italy. As always, the festival concentrates on "young" cinema and focuses primarily on searching out and discovering innovative talents that express the best contemporary trends of international independent cinema. Over the years, the festival has awarded prizes to the debut works of filmmakers like Tsai Ming-liang, David Gordon Green, Chen Kaige and Lisandro Alonso. These works belong to the cinema "of the future" and represent a variety of genres, languages and trends. Thus, documentaries (one of today's fundamental expressive "genres") will not only participate in the competition that is reserved specifically to Italian documentaries but will also participate in all the sections of the festival, including the main competition. In 2008, prizes were awarded to Tony Manero by Pablo Larraín (Best Film), Prince of Broadway by Sean Baker (Special Jury Prize), Emmanuelle Devos in Non-dit by Fien Troch (Best Actress) and Alfredo Castro in Tony Manero (Best Actor).

 

ADÁS - TRANSMISSION by Roland Vranik (Hungary, 2009, 35mm, 95')

BASECO BAKAL BOYS by Ralston Jover (Philippines, 2009, Betacam, 93')

LA BOCCA DEL LUPO by Pietro Marcello (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 67')

CHI L'HA VISTO by Claudia Rorarius (Germany, 2009, 35mm, 88')

CRACKIE by Sherry White (Canada, 2009, 35mm, 94')

GET LOW by Aaron Schneider (USA, 2009, HD, 101')

GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH by Damien Chazelle (USA, 2009, HD, 82')

MEDALIA DE ONOARE - MEDAL OF HONOR by Calin Netzer (Romania, 2009, 35mm, 105')

LA NANA - THE MAID by Sebastián Silva (Chile, 2008, HD, 94')

NORD by Rune Denstad Langlo (Norway, 2009, 35mm, 78')

LE ROI DE L'ÉVASION by Alain Guiraudie (France, 2009, 35mm, 97')

SANTINA by Gioberto Pignatelli (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 78')

TORSO by Yamazaki Yutaka (Japan, 2009, 35mm, 104')

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND by Jonathan auf der Heide (Australia, 2009, 35mm, 104')

YOU WONT MISS ME by Ry Russo-Young (USA, 2009, HD, 81')

ZHA LAI NUO ER - JALAINUR by Zhao Ye (China, 2008, HD, 92')

 

 

A MOVEABLE FEAST

"Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall was over."

This is one of the most famous incipits in the history of literature, the first lines of A Movable Feast, Ernest Hemingway's memories of Paris in the 1930s which were published posthumously in 1964. And it is exactly in the middle of the fall, when the weather in Torino can truly take a turn for the worse, that the TFF offers its public a "feast," a nonstop ramble from one screen to another, from one genre to another, from drama to comedy, horror and musicals. A feast for the eyes and a way to banish winter from inside the cinemas.

A Movable Feast is a space in movement, in which the festival proposes the most awaited previews alongside the most stimulating films from abroad; highly bizarre films and the most stringent views of reality, all to be combined according to one's personal taste. There is one small path marker: "Figures in the landscape" indicates films that have been constructed as works of narrative fiction, while "Landscape with figures" indicates films which, on the other hand, concentrate on reality cinema. There was a time when these films would have been called documentaries, but the Torino Film Festival believes that the rigid distinction between fiction and documentary is highly unjust and that it no longer corresponds to the surprising mixture of styles and emotions, the "fluidity" of contemporary cinema. Thus, no barriers, no separation, just a simple "marker" to help spectators in their choices.

 

 

Francis Ford Coppola

TETRO by Francis Ford Coppola (USA/Argentina/Spain/Italy, 2009, 35mm, 127')

RUMBLE FISH by Francis Ford Coppola (USA, 1983, 35mm, 94')

THE RED SHOES by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (UK, 1948, 35mm, 133')

 

Emir Kusturica

UNDERGROUND by Emir Kusturica (France/Yugoslavia/Germany, 1995, Betacam, 6x52')

Figures in the landscape 

À L'OUEST DE PLUTON by Henry Bernadet and Myriam Verreault (Canada, 2008, 35mm, 95')

BEAUTIFUL KATE by Rachel Ward (Australia, 2009, 35mm, 100')

LA BELLA GENTE by Ivano De Matteo (Italy, 2009, 35mm, 98')

THE BLIND by Nathan Silver (USA, 2009, HD, 72')

BOMBER by Paul Cotter (UK, 2009, HD, 84')

BREAKING UPWARDS by Daryl Wein (USA, 2009, HD, 89')

CHAN MAT - CLAUSTROPHOBIA by Ivy Ho (Hong Kong, 2009, 35mm, 100')

LA COSA GIUSTA by Marco Campogiani (Italy, 2009, 35mm, 93')

FANTASTIC MR. FOX by Wes Anderson (USA, 2009, 35mm, 87')

GIGANTE by Adrián Biniez (Uruguay/Germany/Argentina, 2009, 35mm, 90')

HAYAT VAR - MY ONLY SUNSHINE by Reha Erdem (Turkey/Greece/Bulgaria, 2008, 35mm, 121')

KINATAY by Brillante Mendoza (France/Philippines, 2009, 35mm, 110')

LE DONK & SCOR-ZAY-ZEE by Shane Meadows (UK, 2009, DigiBeta, 71')

THE LOVED ONES by Sean Byrne (Australia, 2009, 35mm, 84')

LULU & JIMI by Oskar Roehler (Germany, 2008, 35mm, 94')

MADE IN HUNGARIA by Gergely Fonyo (Hungary, 2009, 35mm, 109')

NEW DENMARK by Rafaël Ouellet (Canada, 2009, HD, 73')

NON MA FILLE, TU N'IRAS PAS DANSER by Christophe Honoré (France, 2009, 35mm, 105')

NOWHERE BOY by Sam Taylor Wood (UK, 2009, 35mm, 96')

PINK SUBARU by Ogawa Kazuya (Italy/Japan, 2009, 35mm, 96')

POLITIST, ADJECTIV - POLICE, ADJECTIVE by Corneliu Porumboiu (Romania, 2009, 35mm, 113')

PONTYPOOL by Bruce McDonald (Canada, 2009, 35mm, 96')

RECORD 12 by Mario Conte and Simone Wendel (Germany, 2009, DigiBeta, 63')

LE REFUGE by François Ozon (France, 2009, 35mm, 90')

LA STRANIERA by Marco Turco (Italy, 2009, 35mm, 108')

WELCOME by Philippe Lioret (France, 2009, 35mm, 110')

YANG YANG by Yu-Chieh Cheng (Taiwan, 2009, 35mm, 111')

ZION VE'ACHIV - ZION AND HIS BROTHER by Eran Merav (Israel/France, 2008, 35mm, 84')

 

Landscape with figures

45365 by Bill and Turner Ross (USA, 2009, HD, 90')                                                      CULT AWARD

CARMEL by Cédric Venail (France, 2009, DigiBeta, 17')

CARNE VIVA by Jean-Charles Hue (France, 2009, DigiBeta, 98')                                     CULT AWARD

COME MIO PADRE by Stefano Mordini (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 75')

COMMON GROUND by Vera Brunner-Song (USA, 2008, Betacam, 27')

GHOST TOWN by Zhao Dayong (China, 2008, Dvcam, 170')                                           CULT AWARD

GRANDMOTHER by Yuki Kawamura (Japan/France, 2009, DigiBeta, 34')

HORS SAISON by Jean-Claude Cottet (France, 2008, DigiBeta, 43')

LINE by Kotani Tadasuke (Japan, 2008, Dvcam, 52')                                                     CULT AWARD

MANIQUERVILLE by Pierre Creton (France, 2009, 35mm, 83')                                        CULT AWARD

MY OWN PRIVATE LIBRARY by Beate Kunath (Germany, 2009, Betacam, 49')

NAHIED = VENUS by Parisa Yousef Doust (The Netherlands, 2008, DigiBeta, 38')

NEIL YOUNG TRUNK SHOW by Jonathan Demme (USA, 2009, HD, 83')                           CULT AWARD

O'ER THE LAND by Deborah Stratman (USA, 2008, 16mm, 52')                                       CULT AWARD

OIL CITY CONFIDENTIAL by Julien Temple (UK, 2009, HD, 106')                                   CULT AWARD

LES RACINES DU BROUILLARD by Dounia Bovet-Wolteche (Belgium, 2009, Betacam, 53') CULT AWARD

RESISIM - FRAGMENTS by Yonatan Haimovich (Israel, 2009, Betacam, 50')                     CULT AWARD

RIP! - A REMIX MANIFESTO by Brett Gaylor (Canada, 2009, DigiBeta, 80')

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE by Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom (UK, 2009, 35mm, 78') CULT AWARD

UNTIL THE NEXT RESURRECTION by Oleg Morozov (Russia, 2008, DigiBeta, 90')             CULT AWARD

VIDÉOCARTOGRAPHIES: AÏDA, PALESTINE by Till Roeskens (France/Palestine, 2008, Dvcam, 46')

 

CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

Nicolas Winding Refn

The in-depth section of Confidential Report is dedicated to the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, a filmmaker who made a name for himself during the second half of the 1990s but whose films have been little and poorly distributed in Italy.

Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Denmark in 1970 and moved to New York with his family when he was six; he returned to Copenhagen when he was seventeen. After high school, he returned to the United States and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which he was soon expelled. He returned to Denmark and enrolled at the Danish Film School. A small Danish TV station transmitted a short that Refn had made. A producer saw it and proposed turning it into a feature film. Thus, at 26 years of age, Refn wrote and directed Pusher, an unexpected box office and critical success. Influenced by the style of Scorsese's films Mean Streets and Taxi Driver (and the novels by Hubert Selby Jr., in particular Last Exit on Brooklyn, which was turned into a film in 1989 by Uli Ledel), Refn depicts Copenhagen like New York, a mean and hard city, riddled with losers who are cynical to varying degrees, big-time and small-time pushers, prostitutes, petty crooks. A city populated by men and women who can't reconcile the bitterness of daily life with their need for affection. His second film, Bleeder, which is populated by apparently "normal" people, is a destructive and self-destructive descending spiral. Pusher II and Pusher III, which he made after his unsuccessful American transfer Fear X (a Lynch-type thriller starring John Turturro which was a box office disaster and ended up bankrupting Refn), were constructed around minor characters from Pusher who are as clumsy or ill-fated as the protagonist of the first film. The style is always nervous, his representation of the world increasingly gloomy, albeit with flashes of a Nordic, laconic sense of humor. The same happens in Bronson, an Anglo-Danish co-production which tells the story of the meanest prisoner in the entire British prison system (who calls himself Charly Bronson). In this film, the abstraction of the setting combines with the concrete violence of the film's Weltanschauung. Refn's latest film is Valhalla Rising, which was presented out of competition at the last Venice Film Festival.

The TFF presents all of Nicolas Winding Refn's films, as well as Gambler, a documentary by Phie Ambo about the difficulties encountered while preparing Pusher II.

 

PUSHER (Denmark, 1996, 35mm, 105')

BLEEDER (Denmark, 1999, 35mm, 98')

FEAR X (Denmark, 2003, 35mm, 88')

PUSHER II (Denmark, 2004, 35mm, 96')

PUSHER III (Denmark, 2005, 35mm, 104')

BRONSON (UK, 2008, 35mm, 92')

VALHALLA RISING (Denmark /UK, 2009, 35mm, 90')

GAMBLER by Phie Ambo (Denmark, 2006, 35mm, 78')

WAVES

With a total of 48 feature films and shorts, Waves is the section that confirms the Torino Film Festival's vocation to entrusting itself to cinema's most unexpected drifts, as it follows the subterranean currents of productions from all over the world. 

The programming dovetails consolidated artistic experiences, innovative expressive forms and different styles and thrusts. Waves offers a cross-section of the possibilities of contemporary cinema as it fervently highlights young filmmakers without neglecting consolidated poetic trends. This can be seen in the Tributes which we propose this year, in which the expressive research of avant-garde cinema is embodied by the works of: the young Belgian filmmaker Nicolas Provost, an extraordinary author of visionary shorts in which cinema feeds off its own imagery; the great Ken Jacobs, an icon of American experimental films, who will be present at the Festival with a collection of recent shorts and his 3-D Anaglyph Torn; and Ga-nime, a new form of Japanese cartooning created by Toei in celebration of its fifty years of productions, which combines painting, music, literature, mangas and video games. 

Waves' passion for the cinema of young directors is demonstrated by its decision to entrust the opening film to the world premiere of the film by the stateless Israeli director Lior Shamritz, Saturn Returns, a "nouvelle vague" drama that takes place in the distracted heart of Europe; as well as by its incursion into the poetic-political films of the young  Chinese director Wu Haohao, whose autobiographical diary Kun 1 Acting reflects on contemporary China with Godard-like ingenuous anger. Political experience and highly intense poetics are also present in directors like the Filipino Raya Martin, who returns to the Festival with Independencia, which transports the drama of colonialism into the story of a family hiding out in a forest; or in the film L'impossible - Pages Arrachées by the French filmmaker Sylvain George, a sans-papier poem of tales of social marginalization.

All the facets of cinema's political identity are reflected in the intense, History-making gaze of Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi. Waves has the honor of presenting the world premiere of their film  DIARIO 1989 - Dancing in the Dark, a glimpse into the memories of the Feste dell'Unità which were held in Emilia Romagna twenty years ago. This new approach to cinema also passes by way of affirmed filmmakers like Pedro Costa, who will be in Torino to present Ne change rien, a marvelous portrait in music and dark tones of the singer Jeanne Balibar; and of Naomi Kawase, whose intense film Nanayomachi offers yet another proof of this research of cinema and life.  

And if traces of noir crosses through the soft and violent languor of Call if You Need Me, which brings the Malaysian filmmaker James Lee back to Torino, a tribute to the absolute genius of crime stories will be celebrated on November 19th, which has been nominated "Hitchcock Day," thanks to two films which view the films of the maestro in personal ways: Double Take by the Belgian Johan Grimonprez studies Hitchcock's theme of doubles against a background dominated by the Cold War, and Un sourire malicieux éclaire son visage by the French director Christelle Lheureux discovers the emotional thrill of The Birds by listening to the soundtrack in a set in a forest.

All this is accompanied by a dozen extraordinary shorts which scout out the cinema we seek and love.

 

 

Feature films

CALL IF YOU NEED ME by James Lee (Malaysia, 2009, DigiBeta, 105').    

DIARIO 1989 ‘DANCING IN THE DARK' by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 60')

DOUBLE TAKE by Johan Grimonprez (Belgium/Germany/Netherlands, 2009, 35mm, 80')

PAGES ARRACHÉES by Sylvain George (France, 2009, DVD, 125')                                  

INDEPENDENCIA by Raya Martin (Philippines/France/Germany, 2009, 35mm, 77')

KUN 1 ACTION by Wu Haohao (China, 2008, DVD, 76')

NANAYOMACHI / NANAYO by Naomi Kawase (Japan, 2008, 35mm, 90')

NE CHANGE RIEN by Pedro Costa (France/Portugal, 2009, 35mm, 80')                       

SATURN RETURNS by Lior Shamriz (Germany/Israel, 2009, HD, 93')

UN SOURIRE MALICIEUX by Christelle Lheureux (France, 2009, HD, 75')

 

 

Short and medium-length films

CERRO DE LA CRUZ by Constantino Escandón (Mexico, 2009, 35mm, 12')

CONTRE-JOUR by Christoph Girardet e Matthias Müller (Germany, 2008, 35mm, 11')

DIAL M FOR MOTHER by Eli Cortiñas (Germany/Spain, 2008, Betacam, 11')

THE DIRTY ONES by Brent Stewart (USA, 2009, Betacam, 11')

ELU ILMA GABRIELLA FERRITA/LIFE WITHOUT GABRIELLA FERRI by Olga and Priit Pärn (Estonia, 2008, Betacam, 44')

JOHN WAYNE HATED HORSES by Andrew T. Betzer (USA, 2009, 35mm, 10')

LENNY by Cyril Amon Schaublin (Germany, 2009, DigiBeta, 17')

NOTTURNO by Mauro Santini (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 7')

REBECA by Gonzalo H. Rodriguez (Germany, 2009, DigiBeta, 24')

SHOOTING LOCATIONS by Thomas Kutschker (Germany, 2009, Betacam, 8')

LA TERRE DESSOUS MES PIEDS by Sophie Sherman (France, 2009, DigiBeta, 20')

TOUTES LES MONTAGNES SE RESSEMBLENT by Christelle Lheureux and Sébastien Betbeder (France/Switzerland, 2009, DigiBeta, 12')

TRIANGULUM by Melissa Dullius and Gustavo Jahn (Germany/Egypt/Brazil, 2008, Betacam, 22')

 

Ga-nime

H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE DUNWICH/HORROR AND OTHER STORIES by Shinagawa Kyo (Japan, 2007, DigiBeta, 46')

SEKISHOKU ELEGY by Hayashi Seiichi (Japan, 2007, DigiBeta, 30')

HIGHWAY JENNY by Fukushi Masaaki (Japan, 2006, DigiBeta, 30')

TORI NO UTA/THE BIRD SONG by Yoshitaka Amano (Japan, 2006, DigiBeta, 23')

 

Ken Jacobs

ANAGLYPH TOM (USA, 2008, DigiBeta, 118')

FLO ROUNDS A CORNER (USA, 1999, DigiBeta, 6')

THE DAY WAS A SCORCHER (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 8')

JONAS MEKAS IN KODACHROME DAYS (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 3')

WHAT HAPPENED ON 23RD STREET IN 1901 (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 14')

BOB FLEISCHNER DYING (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 3')

HOT DOGS AT THE MET (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 10')

GRAVITY IS TOPS (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 10')

RON GONZALEZ, SCULPTOR (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 20')

EXCERPT FROM THE SKY SOCIALIST STRATIFIED (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 18')

BRAIN OPERATIONS (USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 22')

 

Nicolas Provost

PLOT POINT (Belgium, 2007, 35mm, 15')

GRAVITY (Belgium, 2007, 35mm, 7')

SUSPENSION (Belgium, 2007, 35mm, 4')

INDUCTION (Belgium, 2006, 35mm, 10')

THE DIVERS (Belgium, 2006, Betacam, 7')

EXOTICORE (Belgium, 2004, 35mm, 27')

OH DEAR (Belgium, 2004, 35mm, 1')

PAPILLON D'AMOUR (Belgium, 2003, Betacam, 4')

I HATE THIS TOWN (Belgium, 2002, Betacam, 2')

NEED ANY HELP? (Belgium, 2002, Betacam, 7')

 

ITALIANA.DOC
A competition reserved to Italian feature-length documentaries, in film or video, never seen before. This "genre" has always been neglected by Italian distribution for cinemas and television programming. The Torino Film Festival is particularly proud of this section because over the years it has helped to acquaint the public with a new wave of filmmakers, to highlight the revitalization of Italian documentaries, to bring our productions closer to the standards achieved by other countries. The winners of the 2008 competition were Napoli piazza Municipio by Bruno Oliviero (Best Italian Documentary) and Rata Nece Biti by Daniele Gaglianone (Special Jury Prize).

 

Each program will be preceded by the projection of a short, 3-minute documentary from the web series FROMZERO - STORIE DALLE TENDOPOLI (http://www.fromzero.tv/).

For months, a team of directors recorded life in the tent cities in Abruzzo. The 12 "stars" of the documentaries give us a close-up look of their daily life since the disaster, but without the tempo and clichés of news stories. The project for the series was created by the independent production companies MOVE productions and Pulsemedia, which used the network to create an important memory archive, thus helping to actively contribute to the reconstruction in Abruzzo through the web community.

 

THE CAMBODIAN ROOM - SITUATIONS WITH ANTOINE D'AGATA by Tommaso Lusena and Giuseppe Schillaci (Italy/France, 2009, DigiBeta, 55')

LA CASA DEL PADRE by Sebastiano D'Ayala Valva (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 70')

CORDE by Marcello Sannino (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 60')

FAMILLE by François Farellacci (Italy/France, 2009, DigiBeta, 65')

GIALLO A MILANO by Sergio Basso (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 75')

HOUSING by Federica Di Giacomo (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 90')

INTERPORTO by Marco Santarelli (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 61')

INTO THE BLUE by Emiliano Dante (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 75')

JE SUIS SIMONE (LA CONDITION OUVRIÈRE) by Fabrizio Ferraro (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 82')

MAGARI LE COSE CAMBIANO by Andrea Segre (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 63')

PIOMBO FUSO by Stefano Savona (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 84')

RADIO SINGER by Pietro Balla (Italy, 2009, Dvcam, 52')

VALENTINA POSTIKA IN ATTESA DI PARTIRE by Caterina Carone (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 83')

IL VANGELO SECONDO MARIA by Pietro Pasquetti (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 50')

 

ITALIANA.CORTI
This competition is reserved to not yet presented Italian short films which are notable for the freedom and originality of their language. In 2008 the winners in this category were A chi è già morto a chi sta per morire by Fulvio Pepe (Best Short Film) and Ottana by Pietro Mele (Special Jury Prize).

 

Program 1

NOTTURNO STENOPEICO by Carlo Michele Schirinzi (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 8')

SOLO QUESTO MARE by Rossella Schillaci (Italy, 2009, Dvcam, 6')

LA CONQUISTA DELL'AMERICA by Mattia Petullà (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 20')

RIVIERA 91 by Gabriele Di Munzio (Italy/France, 2009, Dvcam, 14')

ABSENCE by Patricia Boillat and Elena Gagliuzza (Switzerland/Italy, 2009, Detacam, 16')

 

Program 2

IN BLOOM by Salvatore Cutaia and Emanuele Vara (Italy/Belgium, 2009, DigiBeta, 14')

DYSLEXIA by Gabriele Gianni (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 4')

SCORDATI by Progetto Funes (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 28')

TOMMASINA by Margherita Spampinato (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 19')

 

Program 3

L'ULTIMA ISOLA by Margherita Cascio (Switzerland/Italy, 2009, Betacam, 25')

399 B.C. by Nicola Campiotti (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 10')

UN GIORNO IDEALE by Alberto Mascia (Italy, 2008, 35mm, 16')

NEIGHBORHOOD by Cristian Guerreschi and Fiorella Pierini (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 5')

L'AMORE CI DIVIDERÀ by Federico Tocchella (Italy, 2009, 35mm, 23')

 

THE THE CULT AWARD - TRUE STORIES IN CINEMA

Fourteen films from the sections A MOVABLE FEAST and ONDE will compete for the CULT Award - True Stories in Cinema. 

A MOVEABLE FEAST - Landscape with figures

45365 by Bill e Turner Ross (USA, 2009, HD, 90')

CARNE VIVA by Jean-Charles Hue (France, 2009, DigiBeta, 98')

GHOST TOWN by Zhao Dayong (China, 2008, Dvcam, 170')

LINE by Kotani Tadasuke (Japan, 2008, Dvcam, 52')

MANIQUERVILLE by Pierre Creton (France, 2009, 35mm, 83')

NEIL YOUNG TRUNK SHOW by Jonathan Demme (USA, 2009, HD, 83')

O'ER THE LAND by Deborah Stratman (USA, 2008, 16mm, 52')

OIL CITY CONFIDENTIAL by Julien Temple (UK, 2009, HD, 106')

LES RACINES DU BROUILLARD by Dounia Bovet-Wolteche (Belgium, 2009, Betacam, 53')

RESISIM - FRAGMENTS by Yonatan Haimovich (Israel, 2009, Betacam, 50')

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE by Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom (UK, 2009, 35mm, 78')

UNTIL THE NEXT RESURRECTION by Oleg Morozov (Russia, 2008, DigiBeta, 90')

WAVES - Feature films

PAGES ARRACHÉES by Sylvain George (France, 2009, DVD, 125')

NE CHANGE RIEN by Pedro Costa (France/Portugal, 2009, 35mm, 80')

SONS AND LOVERS

The birth of a passion, the bolt of lightning, a film that catalyzed a vocation, the debt which the cinema of today pays to the cinema of the past and its maestros. The section Sons and Lovers is dedicated to all this, to the discovery of the films "of reference" of six contemporary Italian directors.

We have asked Marco Bellocchio, Davide Ferrario, Matteo Garrone, Mario Martone, Paolo Sorrentino and Gianni Zanasi to indicate a film from the past that was fundamental to the birth of their inspiration and their cultural education, and to come and share it with the public of the Torino Film Festival.

After the projection of the chosen film, each filmmaker will talk about the moment and the meaning of that discovery; a film critic will accompany them on this stroll down memory lane.

 

November 16, 5:00 p.m., PAOLO SORRENTINO presents ROMA by Federico Fellini (Italy/France, 1972, 35mm, 128')

November 17, 5:00 p.m., GIANNI ZANASI presents LA NUIT AMÉRICAINE by François Truffaut (France/Italy, 1973, 35mm, 115')

November 18, 5:00 p.m., MARIO MARTONE presentsRECORDAÇÕES DA CASA AMARELA by João César Monteiro (Portugal, 1989, 35mm, 119')

November 19, 5:00 p.m., DAVIDE FERRARIO presents LE PROCÈS / THE TRIAL by Orson Welles (France/Italy/Germany, 1962, 35mm, 118')

November 20, 5:00 p.m., MATTEO GARRONE presents IO LA CONOSCEVO BENE by Antonio Pietrangeli (Italy, 1965, 35mm, 122')

November 21, 5:00 p.m., MARCO BELLOCCHIO presents GIUSEPPE VERDI by Carmine Gallone (Italy, 1938, 35mm, 110')

 

NAGISA OSHIMA

At the beginning of the 1970s Nagisa Oshima (Kyoto, 1932) had already made eighteen feature films, immediately making a name for himself as a stringent and disconcerting maestro of a type of cinema that broke with the past, consciously exteriorizing interior subjectivity and proposing the active involvement of artists in society. His works were always critical; rather than homogenizing and simplifying the social and political contradictions of the century, he enriched them and described their most vital details. His opus must be regarded as a whole: his films and his television documentaries, his published works and his public, television persona, an activity to which he dedicated himself from the mid-1970s until a severe health problem forced his early retirement.

This recognition is the objective of the retrospective that the Torino Film Festival dedicates to Oshima. Starting with the roots of the iconoclastic power of his entire opus and finding the connection between his childhood and adolescence and the disturbing characters of his films.  The feature films he made between 1959 and 1972 offer a range of different characters and situations in works which vary in their diverse formal characteristics but share references to individual struggles against society. Oshima created his own production company and assimilated and surpassed the lessons of classic Japanese cinema with The Ceremony (1971), a balancing act between industry and creativity, and between films viewed as a collective and political undertaking and as an individual's personal expression. During the 1970s Oshima followed his parabola with determination and gained fame when the radical eroticism of one of his films (In the Realm of the Senses, 1976) caused a "scandal." He was able to make his more recent films, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983, starring David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto) and Max, mon amour (1986, starring Charlotte Rampling) thanks to his European producers. His final feature film, Gohatto (1999), with Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, was made once again entirely with Japanese funding.

Most of the feature films will be projected in reprinted copies which render the great formal beauty of the films in the Cinemascope format for which they had been conceived.

The retrospective includes a broad selection of Oshima's documentaries and works for television, which have never been seen before outside Japan.

Charlotte Rampling, the star of his 1986 film Max, mon amour, will be a guest of the Torino Film Festival and will reminisce on her experiences with the director.

 

 

AI TO KIBO NO MACHI / A TOWN OF LOVE AND HOPE (Japan, 1959, 35mm, 62')

SEISHUN ZANKOKU MONOGATARI / CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH (Japan, 1960, 35mm, 96')

TAIYO NO HAKABA / THE SUN'S BURIAL (Japan, 1960, 35mm, 87')

NIHON NO YORU TO KIRI / NIGHT AND FOG IN JAPAN (Japan, 1960, 35mm, 107')

SHIIKU / THE CATCH (Japan, 1961, 35mm, 105')

AMAKUSA SHIRO TOKISADA / SHIRO AMAKUSA, THE CHRISTIAN REBEL (Japan, 1962, 35mm, 101')

ETSURAKU / PLEASURES OF THE FLESH  (Japan, 1965, 35mm, 90')

HAKUCHU NO TORIMA / VIOLENCE AT NOON (Japan, 1966, 35mm, 99')

NINJA BUGE-CHO / BAND OF NINJA (Japan, 1967, 35mm, 101')

NIHON SHUNKA-KO / SING A SONG OF SEX (A TREATISE ON JAPANESE BAWDY SONGS) (Japan, 1967, 35mm, 103')

MURI SHINJU: NIHON NO NATSU JAPANESE SUMMER: DOUBLE SUICIDE (Japan, 1967, 35mm, 98')

KOSHIKEI / DEATH BY HANGING (Japan, 1968, 35mm, 117')

KAETTEKITA YOPPARAI / THREE RESURRECTED DRUNKARDS (Japan, 1968, 35mm, 80')

SHINJUKU DOROBO NIKKI / DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF (Japan, 1969, 35mm, 94')

SHONEN / BOY (Japan, 1969, 35mm, 97')

TOKYO SENSO SENGO HIWA / THE MAN WHO LEFT HIS WILL ON FILM (Japan, 1970, 35mm, 94')

GISHIKI / THE CEREMONY (Japan, 1971, 35mm, 123')

NATSU NO IMOTO / DEAR SUMMER SISTER (Japan, 1972, 35mm, 96')

AI NO KORIDA / IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (Japan/France, 1976, 35mm, 104')

AI NO BOREI / EMPIRE OF PASSION (Japan/France, 1978, 35mm, 108')

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (UK/Japan, 1983, 35mm, 123')

MAX, MON AMOUR (France/USA, 1986, 35mm, 94')

GOHATTO (France/UK/Japan, 1999, 35mm, 100')

EIGA SHI - KORI NO NAKANO SEISHUN YOUTH ON THE ICE (Japan, 1962, Betacam, 25')

WASURERARETA KOGUN / FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS (Japan, 1963, Betacam, 25')

ARU KOKUTETSU JOMUIN SUTO CHUSHI ZENYA / A NATIONAL RAILWAY WORKER (Japan, 1964, Betacam, 25')

HANKOTSU NO TORIDE / A REBEL'S FORTRESS (Japan, 1964, Betacam, 25')

SEISHUN NO HI / THE TOMB OF YOUTH (Japan, 1964, Betacam, 39')

YUNBOGI NO NIKKI / DIARY OF YUNBOGI (Japan, 1965, 16mm, 25')

KOKUJIN KOKKA TANJO / NATION OF NIGRO (Japan, 1966, Betacam, 25')

JOI! BANGURA / JOY BANGLA! (Japan, 1972, Betacam, 25')

BENGARU NO CHICHI RA-MAN / THE FATHER OF BANGLADESH (Japan, 1973, Betacam, 25')

DAITOA SENSO / THE GREATER EAST ASIA WAR (Japan, 1968, Betacam, 97')

GOZE - MOMOKU NO ONNA-TABIGEININ / THE JOURNEY OF THE BLIND MUSICIANS  (Japan, 1972, Betacam, 25')

KYOJIN-GUN / GIANTS (Japan, 1972, Betacam)

IKITE IRU - NIHONKAI KAISEN / THE BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA (Japan, 1975, Betacam, 50')

IKITE IRU - UMI NO BOHYO TORAKKU NO KAITEI WO YUKU / GRAVES AT SEA (Japan, 1976, Betacam, 25')

IKITE IRU - GYOKUSAI NO SHIMA SAIPAN NO KAITEI WO YUKU / THE ISLAND OF THE FINAL BATTLE (1976, Betacam, 25')

DENKI MOTOKUTO / THE LIFE OF MAO (Japan, 1976, Betacam, 66')

100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA (UK/Japan, 1994, Betacam, 66')

FUTARI NO SEKAI - OSHIMA NAGISA - ASAKURA SETSU / THEIR WORLD: NAGISA OSHIMA AND SETSU ASAKURA by Masara Misono (Japan, 1984, DigiBeta, 45')

WATASHI NO DAI ISSAKU - OSHIMA NAGISA / MY FIRST WORK - NAGISA OSHIMA by Kaname Kawachi (Japan, 1997, DigiBeta, 10')

1999 OSHIMA NAGISA - EIGA TO IKIRU / 1999 NAGISA OSHIMA - MY LIFE WITH CINEMA by Toshio Watanabe (Japan, 1999, DigiBeta, 72')

KYOTO, MY MOTHER'S PLACE (UK/Japan, 1991, DigiBeta, 50')

RUSHES FROM A DIALOGUE BETWEEN NAGISA OSHIMA AND ALEKSANDR SOKUROV (Russia, 1996, Betacam, 30')

ASHITA NO TAIYO / TOMORROW'S SUN (Japan, 1959, Betacam, 7')

CHiSANA BOKEN RYOKO / A SMALL CHILD'S FIRST ADVENTURE (Russia, 1963, Betacam, 63')

WAGA EIGA JINSEI - AKIRA KUROSAWA / MY LIFE IN CINEMA: AKIRA KUROSAWA, DIRECTOR by Japan Directors Association (Japan, 1993, Betacam, 116')

 

Nicholas Ray

He was one of the filmmakers who, dramatically and with difficulty, reinvented American cinema during the most difficult decade in the history of Hollywood, the 1950s, when rising competition by television marked the end of classic cinema and the consolidated studio system. Raymond Nicholas Kienzle (he changed his last name to Ray during World War II) was born in 1901; he was an enfant prodige who was fascinated by radio, theater, music and film. He was a pupil of Frank Lloyd Wright (one of the fathers of modern architecture) and later on, in New York during the 1930s, he became a friend of Elia Kazan, Joseph Losey and John Houseman and collaborated with them in theater and radio. He researched folk music for one of Roosevelt's New Deal government projects and during the war he was a radio speaker for propaganda broadcasts abroad. After WWII, Nicholas Ray ended up in Hollywood with his friend Kazan and began working at RKO. He specialized in noir films, thrillers, adventure movies: high - very high - B movies. Ray loved genres and his first, anomalous gangster film (They Live By Night, 1948) was followed by detective stories, gangster movies, melodramas and westerns, all marked by the power of his modern style which, twenty years before the "new American cinema," questioned the structure of the classic genres and their influence in creating the American way of life. In 1954, his "fake" western, Johnny Guitar, was a big success (even though "Cahiers du cinéma" had already marked him several years earlier as one of America's greatest filmmakers of the moment). The next year, his film Rebel Without a Cause made him famous worldwide. In his hands, color and cinemascope became instruments for focusing on the "disease" in American society.

Balanced between tradition and renewal, an eternally restless spirit, his career was sacrificed by Hollywood's obsession for blockbusters as the studio system was gasping for air. Throughout the 1960s, he lived far away from America but never managed to clinch a project. He returned to cinema in 1971, as the teacher of a group of university film students, to make the innovative, multi-vision film We Can't Go Home Again. The film was never entirely finished and is now being completed and restored thanks to the efforts of his wife, Susan. Wim Wenders, who along with Ray filmed the last stages of the disease which led to Ray's death in 1979, called him "one of the youngest men I have ever known." Nicholas Ray was true to himself to the very end.

Susan Ray has kindly given her permission for the projection of We Cant Go Home Again. She will be present at the TFF, which will contribute the proceeds of the evening of November 17th, which is dedicated to Ray, to the Nicholas Ray Foundation to help restore We Can't Go Home Again.

 

 

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (USA, 1948, 35mm, 95')

KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (USA, 1949, 35mm, 100')

A WOMAN'S SECRET (USA, 1949, 35mm, 84')

IN A LONELY PLACE (USA, 1950, 35mm, 94')

BORN TO BE BAD (USA, 1950, 35mm, 90')

FLYING LEATHERNECKS (USA, 1951, 35mm, 102')

ON DANGEROUS GROUND (USA, 1952, 35mm, 82')

THE LUSTY MEN (USA, 1952, 35mm, 113')

HIGH GREEN WALL (USA, 1954, 16mm, 27')

JOHNNY GUITAR (USA, 1954, 35mm, 110')

RUN FOR COVER (USA, 1955, 35mm, 93')

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (USA,1955, 35mm, 111')

HOT BLOOD (USA, 1956, 35mm, 85')

BIGGER THAN LIFE (USA, 1956, 35mm, 95')

THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES (USA, 1957, 35mm, 92')

BITTER VICTORY (USA, 1957, 35mm, 102')

WIND ACROSS THE EVERGLADES (USA, 1958, 35mm, 93')

PARTY GIRL (USA, 1958, 35mm, 99')

THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS (USA, 1960, 35mm, 110')

KING OF KINGS (USA, 1961, 35mm, 168')

55 DAYS AT PEKING (USA, 1963, 35mm, 154')

WET DREAMS (The Netherlands/Germany, 1974, 16mm, 89')

WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN (Unfinished) (USA, 1976, 35mm, 90')

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN by Elia Kazan (USA, 1945, 35mm, 128')

HAIR by Milos Forman (USA/Germany, 1979, 35mm, 121')

 

SPAZIO TORINO
This competition presents the best short films made by filmmakers who were born or reside in Piedmont, a geographic area that has always been a hotbed of cinematographic activity. The 2008 winner was Archive of Dreams by Tomàs Sheridan.

 

ALI DI CERA by Hedy Krissane (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 7')

ALOHA FROM HAWAII by Umberto Costamagna, Sergio Luca Loreni and Luigi Sorbilli (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 6')

L'APPARENZA by Enrico Bisi (Italy, 2008, Betacam, 5')

EVA IN CASA MIA by Matteo Michele Bisaccia (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 10')

(I) LIKE ERIKA by Giuseppe D'Oria (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 13')

MANGIAMI by Dario Ingrami and Flavio Stroppini (Italy/Switzerland/UK, 2009, Dvcam, 6')

NON ORA, NON QUI by Luca Vigliani (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 18')

NONOSTANTE I LAMPIONI by Luca Cosimato and Marco Holland (Italy, 2009, DVD, 8')

L'ULTIMO TRENO by Laurent Farò (Italy, 2009, Dvcam, 10')

WARNING SAFARI by Maximilien Dejoie (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 11')

 

CINEMA AND CINEMAS

CINEMA AND CINEMAS brings together events from the cinema of the past and moments from the cinema of the present - films whose length or exceptional nature prevent them from being featured in other sections of the Festival. From the tribute to Mario Monicelli, with the presentation of his film Joyful Laughter in a copy that has just been restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, to the massive collective film Walls and Borders, which was made by 83 directors who donated their efforts in memory of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. From another "birthday" (the fiftieth anniversary of the Nouvelle Vague, which is remembered by the film critic Jean-Michel Frodon) to a new DVD collection of classics curated by the National Cinema Museum and distributed by RaroVideo. From the brand-new splinters by the Italo-American Antonio Tibaldi to the typically-Bolognese Brustoléin, to the memories of the horrors of History and the passion for life (and cinema) of the duo Marina Piperno-Luigi Faccini. Because at the Torino Film Festival, it's all cinema.

CHARLOTTE ET SON STEACK by Eric Rohmer (France, 1951/60, 35mm, 12')

LES MISTONS by François Truffaut (France, 1957, 35mm, 18')

LE COUP DU BERGER by Jacques Rivette (France, 1956, 35mm, 30')

CHARLOTTE ET SON JULES by Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1959, 35mm, 13')

VIVRE SA VIE by Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1962, 35mm, 83')

BRUSTULEIN by Davide Rizzo (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 16')

FRÄULEIN ELSE / MISS ELSE by Paul Czinner (Germany, 1929, DVD, 90')

KINO-DREAM by Antonio Tibaldi (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 14')

LOOKING by Antonio Tibaldi (Italy, 2009, DigiBeta, 7')

RISATE DI GIOIA by Mario Monicelli (Italy, 1960, 35mm, 106')

STORIA DI UNA DONNA AMATA E DI UN ASSASSINO GENTILE - Capitoli I, II, III by Luigi M. Faccini and Marina Piperno (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 70')

WALLS AND BORDERS by VV.AA. (Italy, 2009, Betacam, 290')