EFFF launches Database

The European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation is pleased to announce the launch of its new website and online database melies.org. The new site focuses on promoting European genre films and the Federation’s network of 22 festivals, covering 15 countries. With a combined audience of more than 450 000 worldwide, the Federation is a key economic and cultural player in the genre film industry.

The melies.org website covers the MeělieĚs d’Or and MeělieĚs d’Argent competitions of 22 prominent genre film festivals and houses a comprehensive database of innovative European genre cinema, thereby providing filmmakers, festivals, distributors, production companies and sales agents with a new resource tool.

“The idea is to continue to build on this platform and create a genuine European genre film archive, and to promote genre film in general", says Christian Hallman, Creative Project Manager and Coordinator of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation.

The new website and database were built in collaboration with Black Market Online [here], a film industry content management platform, developed by Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

"We're extremely excited about our long-term collaboration with the MeělieĚs network to build a prime resource for genre films. BMO's combining of specific film-industry features of secure content management and streaming with fine-tuned usability definitely paves the way for the platform to flourish in future", adds Sten Saluveer, Head of Development at BMO and Industry Director of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Factotum

Certificate: 15

Running time: 94 mins

Director: Bent Hamer

Starring: Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, Fisher Stevens

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Country: USA

Director Bent Hamer (Eggs) takes adapting duties on script and screen for Charles Bukowski’s 1975 novel Factotum.  Henry Chinaski (Bukowski’s alter ego) drinks, smokes and screws from job-to-job and woman-to-woman during an era of male emasculation and disillusionment.

Bukowski is a writer whose work is almost impossible to adapt.  His prose are so heavily filled with language and beauty that to accurately represent it on screen would require a ten hour film, and even at that it still wouldn’t come up to what fans of his work hoped for.  Hamer, as screenwriter, has done an admirable job in creating a cinematic offering that’s faithful to Hank’s incredibly visual works.  With large sections lifted straight from Factotum and several of his short stories and poems it’s very much a fan piece.  The screenplay reads like Bukowski, it sounds like Bukowski and has a wonderfully picaresque quality to it’s set pieces that are characteristic of the author.

Hamer’s influence comes into it’s own on screen.  It’s evident that Factotum (the film) has been updated from the book, it’s not a period piece but yet it is.  There are moments when the film feels very much a product of the now, an offering of the twenty-first century yet there are some wonderful small moments that are discarded that hint to an era.  A post depression America, a time that influenced Bukowski greatly.  His formative years coupled with the finest years of his literary god John Fante.  It’s a rich, vibrant looking film yet it’s more antique rich than fresh out of the packaging and it’s this use of camera, light and palette that guarantees the film is as timeless looking as Hank’s words on the page. 

Matt Dillon (as Chinaski) is great.  Like Mickey Rourke before him (Barfly) he’s captured that piss-sure arrogance that the man himself had in his walk, in the way he entered a room, in how he interacted with people.  Bukowski would walk into a room like he owned it and everyone around him, Dillon has that aura in his performance in spades.  It’s truly impressive, rarely has he delivered a performance that’s so powerful and yet beautifully restrained.  Lili Taylor has been one of my favourite performers for years.  She’s an actress that’s not just incredible but also incredibly underrated and as Jan she anchors the film, not to mention what’s a key relationship in the source material.  She’s Hank’s great love.  She’s crazy, but you can’t help but feel that he’s driven her halfway there.  Their relationship is fantastic, beautifully destructive and yet essential to living.  It’s toxic air yes, but it’s still air.  Taylor’s also allowed to showcase a sexual quality that she isn’t often afforded.  She has a sensual vulnerability to her that’s attractive and yet dangerous.  Fisher Stevens is also really good in his small role as Hank’s racetrack buddy.  Those chapters of Factotum had real pace, hilarity and were genuinely some of my favourites.  It would be great if we were given the similar amount of screen time between them as there is on the page because Stevens and Dillon really had something between then.

Factotum is a great example of how genuine love and admiration for a piece of literature can deliver an incredibly faithful adaptation.  The problem with that, and I can’t believe I’m saying it, is because it’s so faithful to the source material it lacks some of that crazy energy that Hank had in abundance.  It’s a brilliant and admirable adaptation but a critical element in any movie, something that’s threaded through Barfly.  Parts of the film have it.  Dillon has it, Taylor is riddled with it and some of the set pieces have a great energy on screen but overall the film cruises along at an accessible and safe speed.  Fortunately it's got some damn good writing, powerful prose and is packed with inspiration and topped off with a two fingered salute to the world and it's rules.

Equal Writes - Semi Final

A while ago we mentioned an Independent film writing competition called Equal Writes.  Thousands upon thousands entered, now the competition has been whittled down to... *dramatic music* ...ninety.  The full list of the semi finalists can be found [here] along with their project titles.  Check them out before they're culled even further to *return of dramatic music* ...seven who will ultimately pitch their projections to three eager producers.  At least one writer will be given a $2,500 option and the knowledge and connections to take their ideas from the black on white of the page to the silver screen.

Finalists will be announced on June 8th 2013.  For more details on the vision behind the challenge you can visit the website [here] or fire across an email [here].

It's a Go for Science

There are 13 hours left to give a little and help Drew Bolduc and co bring the sci-fi comedy horror Science Team to the big screen.  Bolduc is the co-director and writer of the surprise (and epic) hit of 2010, The Taint and has been documenting the course from imagination to pre-production and beyond. Why not drop by the film's Facebook [here] and then give a few greenbacks [here].

Way Down in Chinatown

Certificate: Unrated

Running time: 82 mins

Director: Eric Michael Kochmer

Starring: Justin Dray, Stephanie Sanditz, Ashli Haynes, Maria Olsen

Genre: Sci-fi, Noir, Thriller, Drama

Country: USA

Last year we publicised the funding campaign on Indiegogo for independent drama/noir/sci-fi Way Down in Chinatown.  Since then we’ve been eagerly awaiting the film driven by theatre all-rounder Eric Michael Kochmer, and it’s finally arrived.

Victor and Jessica Mitchum (Dray & Sanditz) are a theatre couple, but when they set out to fund their apocalyptic musical The Apocalypse, Tomorrow they find themselves in the midst of a world collapsing, a slow assimilation and a hit from the 1920’s that promises to have you working through the semiotic meanings long after the final credits have gone to black.

Way Down in Chinatown has a richness to it’s imagery that hasn’t been seen in cinema since Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German and before that since the glory days of the studio system and Warner Bros’ film noir factory.  Kiko Suura’s cinematography has a depth of history, understanding and shading that can only come from someone with 1. talent and 2. a knowledge and love of cinema.  Both are evident, and the use of chiaroscuro lighting coupled with make-up effects give the film a Weimarian quality.  The film is, also heavily theatrical.  It’s understandable, almost obvious given that Kochmer’s playground has been predominantly theatre.  It’s a Samuel Beckett inspired piece as directed by a David Lynch disciple and as such has an abundance of atmosphere and character.  Several of the scenes, including Ashli Haynes’ performance of Goodbye Irene are rather haunting.  Others involving Sanditz and Knifed in Venice favourite Maria Olsen are disturbing, not just visually but how it lingers afterwards.  But all are rendered wonderfully on screen, if framed somewhat theatrically.

The script is great.  I’m a big fan of the complexity and the metaphorical narratives in the script, I’m a big fan of Beckett, I’m a big fan of Lynch and without giving too much away upfront I think I’m going to be a big fan of Kochmer and look forward to seeing what comes next from him.  There are some great performances in Way Down in Chinatown.  Justin Dray in incredibly believable as Victor, the playwright, he has ‘that’ quality.  The quality that’s required to go that extra mile in Hollywoodland and no doubt there’ll be many more Dray days ahead.  Sanditz is powerful as Jessica.  She has a lot more to do than any of the performers in the film, her emotional range is a lot more complex and diverse and it's wonderful to see her treat the screen like her canvas as she paints her complex emotional self portrait across it.  She’s fantastic.  Her scenes with Dray are some of his best, her scenes with Olsen are dangerous and unnerving.  They seriously altered my mood for hours upon hours post screening.  Olsen (as Bob) and Kochmer (Ken) are fantastically creepy.  They’re Laurel and Hardy consummated on PCP and birthed while watching Eraserhead.  Their chemistry is nothing short of ecstasy on screen and I could quite happily watch them, unblinking, forever.

Way Down in Chinatown is as original a sci-fi thriller as you’re likely to see.  It’s modernist, or maybe reductionist, and highly cerebral.  It involves, connects and interacts with the audience in a way that doesn’t happen that often anymore.  It's hugely evocative of experimental pieces like Man with a Movie Camera or some of Luis Bunuel's early work and awe-inspiring.  There are moments of American noir cinema, German Expressionism and even Soviet Montage in it’s construction topped off with a theatrical finish that somehow manages to keep you at arms length, regardless of the editing.  It's a movie that focuses the audience to interrogate it, and in turn themselves.  It’s a polarising film, it’s one that you will love or hate but whatever your reaction it’ll will get the grey matter working harder than any movie you’ll see this year.