Observed at the New York Film Festival and IFP Market

2006-11-27T16:24:00.001-08:00

‘If you see something, say something’ is what the posters on the subway suggest. It’s not an invitation to discuss last night’s TV, but a reminder to commuters to be vigilant. Yet while memories of the terror five years ago are not going anywhere, the sentiment at Ground Zero is: ‘Think back - move forward - it’s time’. New York won’t be stopped: it carries on, just like its desire for entertainment – the need to create it, exhibit it and savour it. It is why Broadway’s stock is growing, and why Autumn in the city is crammed with festivals celebrating the moving image.
New York's Lincoln Center is a much-loved constituent of the city’s arts establishment. To get an idea of it think London’s South Bank Centre relocated to Kensington. At the heart of the Center a Philip Johnson fountain adds serenity in a courtyard surrounded by the dramatically Modernist Metropolitan Opera, the State Theater and Philharmonic buildings. And in late September the Center’s Walter Reade Theater hosts the New York Film Festival (NYFF), an internationally renowned festival that exhibits films from all over the world. This year the 44th NYFF opened with Stephen Frears's hugely anticipated The Queen, with Helen Mirren. Also in the programme are films from Pedro Almodovar, Sofia Coppola, David Lynch and Guillermo del Toro. Other films to watch out for:

In 1967 Spanish director Luis Buñuel made Belle de Jour. In it Catherine Deneuve plays Severine, a frustrated housewife who turns to prostitution, and ends up in the thrall of Monsieur Husson. Manoel de Oliveira's Belle Toujours (2006) picks up the story some 40 years later with another Buñuel favourite, Bulle Ogier, reprising the Deneuve role. In de Oliveira's languid follow-up Severine becomes the unwilling object of desire when targeted by Husson, who tantalises her with a secret he told her late husband. But who has the upper hand?

Bamako (2006) is directed by Malian Abderrahmane Sissako and co-produced by Danny Glover who makes a brief appearance as a cowboy. In Sissako’s film robed magistrates sit in judgement of the IMF and la Banque Mondiale, which have been fingered by African society for the poverty, sickness and lost hopes of the continent. The only difference - the trial takes place in the courtyard of a family house while village life continues on the periphery. Of this thoughtful meditation the film’s recurring themes are cheapness of life, striving for improvement, and shambolic reality. The lasting thought is of the future, represented by children.

Before you show your blockbuster at the NYFF, if you have a desire to get behind the camera, you would do well to visit Independent Film Week (IFW), held a week earlier in Camden Town-like lower Manhattan. IFW is part of a programme of events organised by filmmakers’ organisation, the Independent Feature Project, to enable audiences to see some of the most exciting new independent movies around. Over four days the price of admission to participating independent cinemas is discounted. The event is complemented with the Independent Feature Project Market, five days of events that allow American and international filmmakers to show both completed work and work in progress. One of the primary intentions of the Market is to bring the filmmakers into contact with key figures in the film making industry who are in a position to fund, distribute or broadcast work.

While many films shown here are complete others are listed as works in progress, allowing potential investors to see an early cut of the film. It’s a useful exercise as often a filmmaker needs extra funding to complete their work. Or it may be that a broadcaster requires work that can be cut to a specific length for a television slot. Now in its 28th year the IFP Market is housed in the Puck Building, a sturdy, red Romanesque edifice, originally built to hold a printing press, in New York's trendy SoHo district, and offers a meeting place for film practitioners and industry professionals alike.

One of the many conferences marks the popular rise of 'social networking' as a means of showing work on the internet and bypassing the need for conventional methods of distribution. 'You can't be one-track anymore', was the message, urging producers of film and video pieces to seek out as many ways as new technology affords to get their work seen. On the airy top floor of the Puck, the No-Borders and Emerging Narrative sections of the Market allow producers and writers to pitch their unmade projects to industry representatives in the hope of raising enough interest to attract finance. The organisers of the event select which projects will be presented to the industry and then, rather like speed-dating, set up half-hour meetings between seller and potential buyer. Boards bearing mug shots of all the participants help pair up likely partners.

There’s a healthy British contingent of young producers in this section. Lucinda Englehart is attending to promote her feature, a Middle Eastern love story to be directed by Huseyin Karabey. Producer Analise Davis and director Chamoun Issa met at the National Film and Television School and together made the award-winning, culture-clash comedy Bilingual, set in London's Lebanese community. Davis is at the Market to raise backing for their next film together, 'It's good to meet all these people in an enclosed space’, she says, displaying admirable composure, after what must have been a highly taxing round of meetings.

Jim Wilson is co-producer of a thriller set in Uzbekistan. He was also a producer on the hit British comedy Shaun of the Dead, and is every bit the driven young Brit producer. A wiry man with ruffled dark hair, his love for films and filmmakers demonstrates how soundly he understands the process. Wilson feels the atmosphere at the New York Market is markedly different from that in the UK 'because people here are more entrepreneurial, more proactive, genuinely more positive'. The reasons for this, he believes, range from hard and fast economic ones - there's more money ('the volume of business here is off the scale compared to the UK') - to cultural ones: a paucity of imagination in many British-made films. 'They pander to an idea of what is seen as potentially successful or attractive’, Wilson contends, ‘a certain kind of chipper comedy, broad comedy, or cross-over comedy. Or a certain kind of export or heritage film with Dames in’.

Is it possible to blame the British sensibility for the state of British films? 'I think British culture is not very cinematic', confirms Wilson, 'so the dominance of theatre, the dominance of television, the dominance of a certain kind of Oxbridge literary elite comes through, compared to French cinematic culture. And historically we haven't supported our most distinctive cinematic voices'.

Some of films you can actually see at the event, rather than just talk about, are the four short dramas in the Chrysler Film Project competition. Of the 500 submissions to the competition Derek Cianfrance won one million dollars toward making his first feature, Blue Valentine. Cianfrance won the prize for his four minute short Lately There Have Been Many Misunderstandings, a comedy in which the Zimmerman family stop feuding, briefly, when a brand new 2-seater Chrysler is delivered in error.

There is a place for drama at the Market but the emphasis is overwhelmingly on documentary - both features and shorts. And these are screened at the legendary Angelika Film Center, on Houston Street. Some worth noting:

Knee Deep (dir. Michael Chandler). Each time 22 year old Josh Osborne complained about having to work in manure on the third generation family dairy farm, his mother promised that someday it would all be his. But Dad died and mom reneged on the deal. So Josh and his backwoods mates hatched a plan to kill her and keep the farm. Josh is on hand in the film to recount his half-baked ideas to drive mom off the road, hit her with a shovel and bury her in lime. He got off with a light sentence only because his mother told the judge she still loves him. Threaded through with warming portraits of the key players, Knee Deep is a series of wry observations of a down-to-earth community whose lives are suddenly made complex.

Waiting for Hockney (dir. Julie Checkoway). When a friend offers Billy Pappas, a struggling Baltimore artist an introduction to Hockney he prepares to take along his masterpiece, a detailed drawing of Marilyn Monroe - that took more than 8 years to produce. The only thing to cramp his style is his mother who’s more nervous than he. Just one of a superb collection of characters, Billy’s mom sets the comic tone. While he prepares for his big meeting, her day - and those of her friends – stands to be ruined by her never-ending commentary. Hearing the verdict from the great man is one more reason to see this documentary, which won a completion award at the Market.

Plenty of themes unite the films in exhibition. Most obvious is the continuing response to September 11th. Both at home and abroad filmmakers feel drawn to reflect the lives of those directly affected or those facing the consequences of the resulting Western actions. Other films take on relatively smaller scale themes of human identity, body image or disability.

Keith Maitland’s Keep Your Ear on the Ball chronicles a year close up with four teenagers at a Texan residential school for the blind. All four lost their sight in their teens and achieve differing levels of success in coping with the loss and with life. When Isaac's retina detached following an accident his grandparents had no insurance to pay for emergency eye surgery. This year he leaves the farm, where he lives in Paris, Texas, for his first year at the school. Chas is in his last year, but drops out and moves into his own apartment. He plays goalball and loves to rap, and of his blindness complains, 'I can't even watch Family Guy'. But he cannot pay his way and struggles to get his electricity turned back on and avoid eviction. Will he achieve the general diploma he needs in order to enrol at college?

Most remarkable about the telling of these stories is the approach used by the filmmakers to give a sighted audience an impression of the world from the non-sighted subjects' perspectives. Rotoscopic animation, used previously in films by fellow Texan director Richard Linklater, provides an extremely real rendition of life. With just coloured outlines on a black background the world for the sighted viewer suddenly becomes an enormous, isolating experience, just as it must be for freshman Denise when she negotiates a busy intersection with only sounds to guide her.

The film, made on digital video, has taken one and a half years to reach this stage. The filmmakers begged and borrowed much of the budget. The four and a half minutes of animation included were provided at considerably less than the going rate for what is still a rare technique. Producer Patrick Floyd and Maitland seem to have a following, judging by the reaction from their appreciative audience. Maitland, whose red goatee and Willie Nelson t-shirt are reminiscent of a Linklater film, recognises the huge boost his project has gained through the Market, attracting great interest from financiers and other filmmakers. 'It's amazing,’ says Maitland, ‘I had meetings with people I couldn't have got on the phone before'.

A fellow filmmaker that Keith Maitland enjoyed meeting is Nancy Stevens, director of the documentary short We Also Dance. Stevens, who once danced with the Martha Graham Company, scored an early success with her short film I'm taking Tango Lessons; it ran for three years on American public service television and became something of a cult classic. For her latest film Nancy returned to the dance studio, but this time, like Keith Maitland, she concentrated on blind and visually impaired people.

The subjects in Stevens's film experience loss of vision to varying degrees: seven year old Julianna, born with no eyes, plays baseball in a visually impaired team and takes tap lessons in order to connect with her sighted friends; Greg, who’s 52, suffers from pigmentary glaucoma, takes part in national country dancing world championships and was a graphic designer before losing his sight.

Fiercely independent, and determined to prove her ability, Thirty year old Kristin enjoys ballet and has hopes of becoming a ballerina, despite being visually impaired since birth. 'If she focuses out of one corner of one eye then she can see, but everything is a blur,' says Stevens, who has always been fascinated by blindness. 'Kristin is how I would be', Stevens says, 'I would be really pissed off. [Kristin] is upset with society and she is upset with all the things she can't do.' But the film isn't only about the hardships faced by its subjects, rather it celebrates their successes. 30 year old Mana has no sight and formed her own modern dance company, which often tours abroad.

In the 37 minute short Stevens includes performances from all the participants, including one from the Precision Ballroom Ensemble for seniors. Using a single camera she doesn't include whole performances, nor does she shoot repeat performances. She trusts her dancer’s instincts when filming: 'I can anticipate when to move down to the feet, when to move up to the face, when to pull out. I like to make the viewer feel like he or she is 'under the tutu''.

How can dancers with little or no vision make sure they are where they need to be, especially in performance? There is a section in the film where Mana works with a choreographer who tells her she must learn to walk straight. But if you are unable to see, what do you consider straight?

Forthright and tremendously engaging, in a way that seems to have been perfected by true New Yorkers, Stevens is yet another example of how the independent filmmaker functions in order to make their films. She began making documentaries after a career as an advertising copywriter and art director, and still accepts commissions. Now a grandmother, the slight-framed powerhouse, with a smile of generous proportions, comments how much she admires the young filmmakers who come to New York and wait tables and take temping jobs in order to make their film. 'I think of artists who buy these huge canvasses and have things framed. They spend so much money and who ever sells anything?' Nancy Stevens has sold her documentary work, but despite receiving grants, is yet to make her money back from a project. In order to be considered for a strand on public television there are endless hurdles and the competition is fierce. 'We almost got funding from ITVS (the Independent Television Service, providing independently-made content to US viewers). We were in the final 12 of 2000'. But like Maitland, and Wilson earlier, the response has been encouraging, with executives showing great enthusiasm for We Also Dance.

It's heartening to think of this event giving filmmakers a helping hand towards much longed-for commercial exposure, as well as fuelling the passion to keep the cameras turning and audiences watching. The foremost concern of documentary may not be all-out entertainment, but like other popular art forms some documentaries do greatly entertain. And any filmmaker would hope that if we, the audience see something we like, we say something.

Seun Okewole (September 2006)

At the movies...

Observed at the New York Film Festival and IFP Market