IO, ISA meets the world: future appointments

The most intensive stage of world wide Festivals' life is just about to start, as customary Io, Isabella will be present at the hottest dates of the season. Hence, after Venice, the Nederlands Film Festival, the Festa del Cinema di Roma, the London Film Festival, IDFA, the Festival Sottodiciotto we are fully equipped to take by storm the following festivals:

Future Film Festival – Bologna, 15-20 January
International Film Festival Rotterdam – Rotterdam, 23 January-3 February
Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival – Clermont-Ferrand, 1-9 February
Berlinale – Berlin, 7-17 February

If any of our readers might be in the mood to meet us in one or more of the aboves, do not hesitate to leave a comment on this blog so that we can get in touch to partake screenings, comments and warm coffees :-)

Else, for all the "movies' forecasts", like skilled gold-miners as we are, we'll post real time the most exciting results of our tireless researches. Stay tuned.

So long!

ioisa crew

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IO, ISABELLA's DIRECTORS CONQUER THE WORLD: Lauren Greenfield's THIN nominated for Emmy Award!

It's Awards' time in the USA and, as custumary, the EMMYs will open the season. Reaching their 59th edition, the prestigious awards of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences often are, like in the case of Documentary films, a safety-net for the Oscar's flaws. Documentaries often exist in that strange world between the big screen and the small screen. Challenging nonfiction films often require funding from TV networks like PBS or HBO to be produced - though they might later earn theatrical runs or tour the film festivals' circuit –. Such films are ineligible for the limited documentary Oscar nomination. Thankfully, the Emmys make up for the Academy Awards' shortcomings. This was true last year for Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan: No Direction Home and it's even more so looking at this year's nominations listing Spike Lee's Hurricane Katrina opus When The Leaves Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and IO, ISABELLA's 2007 Competition title Thin by Lauren Greenfield.

Produced by broadcasters' helmer HBO, Thin is a poignant account on anorexia in pure Vérité style. Lauren Greenfield's passage from the Olympus of Photography to her first steps in Filmmaking could not be better assesed and rewarded. Greenfield and her DOP Amanda Micheli tip-toe their way in Florida's Renfrew Centre for eating disorders and into the inner lives of 4 patients – Brittany, Shelly, Alisa and Polly – struggling with the disease. The filmmakers built such an incredible bond of trust with their characters that they are able to access the most intimate moments in the lives of these women, who's eating disorder is exposed down to the crudest details; not for the sake of chasing the spectacular, but to offer – and successfully so – "an experiential and emotional journey through the world of eating disorders to, ultimately, provide a greater understanding of their complexity". Greenfield manages what only the gretest non-fiction filmmakers managed before her: she materialises emotions by empathising with the subjects and by mean of skillful filmaking gramar.

Thin might not be half as spectacular as a one-sided Michael Moore's multi-billion growsing film, but its simple fly-on-the-wall approach delivers both a stunning and unprecedented portrayal of eating disorders, not forgetting a few more major corollaries; this alone makes this incredible debut film a well picked candidate for the Emmy and a must-buy for any good international commisioning editor.

The 59th Emmys Cerimony will be televised by the FOX Television Network from the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium on Sunday, September 16 at 8:00 pm (ET/PT).

THIN by Lauren Greenfield (trailer)

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ANTONIONI NON-FICTION FILMMAKER

Very few are aware of the fact or even imagine that Michelangelo Antonioni was a fine and original Non-Fiction filmmaker, in fact throughtout his long carreer he shot 17 documentaries. Chung kuo - Cina, his best known non-fiction film, is a work of incredible value, not only because just to be admitted with a film crew in 1972 China was already an exceptional achievement (rumors has it that the Italian Communist Party had to negotiate a political deal with the Peoples' Republic to allow Antonioni and his crew to enter the country), but especially because of its superbe quality in cinematic terms and the unique nature of the footage. An extraordinary film for which Antonioni leaves behind the metaphisical enchantments of his fiction works and adopts an intimate gaze, on a more human/e scale, to enter the daily life of a Nation known for its absolute closure towards the strangers' eyes and its political adversion for any outside world's intrusion. The same careful and intimate look marks all of Antonioni's documentaries, first of all L'amorosa menzogna (1949), an original film on the popular phenomenon of "picture stories", a theme that Federico Fellini will develop later on in his film Lo Sceicco Bianco (1952).

In a time when most media commemorates the italian Master for his "major" works, common heritage without shade of dubt, we like not to neglect his sublime Non-Fiction production, which is little represented and celebrated, but not less worthwhile and important.

Thus, we like to point out the screening of Sette Canne e un Vestito (1949) on August 14 at the Lagunamovies in Grado (Italy); the film, of which Antonioni is also writer and editor, follows the renewal of the activities of Snia Viscosa, a factory in the North-East of Italy, after the WWII bombings of 1944 and 1945.

We further like to remind that Chung kuo - Cina has been recently released on DVD by Feltrinelli

And, least but not last, we like to publish the list of Antonioni's documentaries. We know they are very hard to find, but just in case someone might get the chance to see any of them we like to hear everything about it:

* Gente del Po, finished in 1947 (1943)
* N. U. - Nettezza urbana (1948)
* Oltre l'oblio (1948)
* Roma-Montevideo (1948)
* L'amorosa menzogna (1949)
* Sette canne e un vestito, restaured by Cineteca del Friuli in 1995 (1949)
* Bomarzo (1949)
* Ragazze in bianco (1949)
* Superstizione (1949)
* La villa dei mostri (1950)
* La funivia del Faloria (1950)
* Chung-Kuo, Cina (1972)
* Ritorno a Lisca Bianca (1983)
* Fotoromanza, music video for Gianna Nannini (1984)
* 12 registi per 12 città: Roma (promotional video for "Italia '90" World Cup) (1990)
* Noto, Mandorli, Vulcano, Stromboli, Carnevale (1992)
* Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (2004)

Here is the beginning of Chung Kuo - Cina by Michelangelo Antonioni


LINKS: Eco and Sontag comment on the Chung Kuo - Cina case

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What ever happend to Lisa Nova?

With the introduction of every "new" Medium there are a miriad of old and new formats shaping and adapting to it, to create new classics and re-invent the past, like in the remarkable case reported today by The Guardian which we like to bring to our readers attention

we report from the guardian film blog:

Introducing LisaNova was a YouTube hit less than a year after it first appeared

LisaNova is dead. This, at least, is the buzz on the net. Assuming that rumours of her demise have not been exaggerated, then LisaNova is truly worth mourning. She was the creation of comedian, actor and all round trouble-maker Lisa Donovan, whose short films mercilessly satirised the lives of American teenage girls and soon became the most-watched and subscribed-to videos on YouTube.

Her first video, Introducing LisaNova, appeared 14 months ago. Less than a year later, she was the medium's biggest star. Why Donovan might choose to kill her creation off is hard to ascertain. Possibly the Hollywood roles she has so long coveted have finally come her way? More likely, though, this is just another of her always amusing, highly elaborate scams. Remember just a few months ago she faked, quite deliberately badly, the kidnapping of several of her male subscribers.

However, scam or not, one thing's for sure: we have not heard the last of Donovan or her alter ego.

LisaNova's first post:

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DIGRESSIONS: Venice Film Festival from Griffith to Anderson

Venezia .64 is getting closer. The Venice Film Festival reaching its 75th anniversary is trying to put a firm on its organisation after the earthquake caused by the birth of Festa del Cinema di Roma (we wonder if all of these "big" Festivals are not too much for one country alone). Still trying to come to terms with the shock of the Carreer Golden Lion assigned to Tim Burton – not that he won't deserve it in a decade or so, but it does feel like a subtile scheme to attract stars, press, consensus, audience in the best populistic way –, we cast a first gaze on this year's programme and the first few things catching our attention are the following:

1) ZERO WOMEN IN THE MAIN COMPETITION! (is it coceivable that among all the good films by women about to flod the market there is none worth the Venetian Lions? Mystery on the lagoon...). The only traces of women in the director's chair are to be found in the "fuori concorso" and the "orizzonti" selections. Shari Springer Berman (together with Robert Pulcini, authors together of the beautiful American Splendor never distributed in Italy.) is the sole woman in the "fuori concorso" section with The Nanny Diaries, a light comedy, following the best of Hollywood's traditions, and another title likely to attract stars and populistic acclaim. In the "Orizzonti" section an "impressive" 4 women compete for one of the minor awards: Laura Amelia Guzman with Cochochi, Barbara Cupisti with Madri, Paloma Rocha with Anabazys and Penny Woolcock with Exodus. A total of 5 women! Anything left to say?

2) For the "Special Events" Venezia .64 features the screening of the freshly restaured version of Intolerance (1916) by Cinema's pioneer David Wark Griffith. Not to miss!

3) Wes Anderson – the guy who gave us The Royal Tenebaums and The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou – is running for the Golden Lion with his new poetic, surreal, beautiful family saga titled The Darjeeling Limited. For this new film Anderson has teamed up with the usual Owen Wilson and nonetheless than the Coppolas' clan; in fact Roman (son of Francis Ford) is producer and writer together with his cousin Jason Schwartzman, who is in turn also one of the protagonists of the film; costumes are by Milena Canonero, who scored the 2007 Oscar for Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola.

As fans of Anderson's work since the word start –he's the American Gondry and, besides the undeniable technical and formal skills, he is also one of the very few who seem to remember the negligible detail that makes Cinema synonimous of pure and simple entertainment, not a medium for critics' lucubrations, nor a blatant mirror of reality...just Cinema: a dreams' factory that, from dream to dream manages also, between a tears and a smile, to make people think – we have definetively found our darling for this year's Golden Lion: all united for Wes!

Trailer The Darjeeling Limited (2007) by Wes Anderson

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AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Saturday 28th July, at 20.30h in P.zza del Gesù (Fiumicello) during the award cerimony Provincia di Potenza and the Municipality of Maratea gave the prizes of the III edition of IO, ISABELLA INTERNATIONAL FILM WEEK, an international jury indicated the winners of the Golden Wave 2007:

1. Golden Wave for the section SHE’S HOT, CHE BAMBOLA! DONNE IN CONCORSO to:

STORM OF EMOTIONS by Yael Klopman
(Israel, 2006. Documentary, 82’ italian premiere)

Synopsis: The 1982 peace agreement with Egypt obliged thousands of people to leave their homes in the Sinai desert. From the options they were given by the Israeli government, many chose "Gush Katif" in the Gaza Strip as their new home. To progress the peace process, the Israeli government ordered the evacuation of the Gaza Strip on August 2005. This decision created political and social turmoil. The evacuation was to be the most complex and sensitive mission ever to be undertaken by the police forces. This movie is about emotions, beliefs, conscience and true brotherly love, It is a story of humanity in its finest hour

Motivations: “brave non-fiction film, that offers a unique testimony following step by step the 2005 evacuation of the Gaza Strip. A film that, using the tools and language of documentary in a precise and effective way, manages without intrusion or rethorics to tip into the most humane aspects of the story it tells. In doing so the director gives to the world an amazing document that shows aspects of the Middle East's question like none has ever had the courage to do before! Yael Klopman shows all of her skills in putting into images, without taking a stand, a painful passage in the history of a Nation”.


2. The Golden Wave Provincia di Potenza for the section THE DISCREET CHARM OF DOCUMENTARY, goes to

THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE by Martin Durkin
(Uk, 2007. Documentary, 74’)
Synopsis: The definitive response to Al Gore’s AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. This film shatters all common theories about men-made Globa Warming with the support of scientists and academics, the documentary goes as far as highlighting how politically driven campaigns against CO2 emissions will hurt the development of the Third World.

Motivation: “balanced documentary in which the director does not fear to challenge the "big guys", with excellent technics and argumentations, without forgetting a noble display of humour, the winning ingredient that keeps audiences' attention alive all the way to the end”.


3. For the section PRIMIZIE: SHE’S HOT FIRSTLING EDITION, the prize for best first film goes to:

TAKE YOUR LIFE (Nimm Dir Dein Leben) by Sabine Michel
(Germany, 2005. Fiction, 100’ italian premiere)
Synopsis: Surrealistic feature film that weaves together the life of a strange village with that of a mysterious girl who, looking for her vanished fianceé, finds instead a very special boy.

Motivation: “the film stands out for its originality, both in the script that in the directorial choices; the young director uses at best the resources she has to realise this surreal piece of work, which balances excellently all cinematic tools and devices”.

4. SPECIAL MENTIONS A:

- Anna Biller for her amazing talent and the originality of her work.
“Biller shows a talent out of the ordinary in her aesthetical research and cinematic style. A 360 degrees artist like worldwide Cinema has not seen in a very long time”.

- Maria Victoria Andino for “El Secreto de la Sangre”
“Argentinian talent of which we hope to hear more in the future; in her graduation film she shows great care for the fundamental aspects of the cinematic medium, first of all the photography”.

- Karen Gehres per “Begging Naked”
“The director follows an incredible human story, managing without flaws to transalte it into a universal tale and a beautiful documentary”.

The ending titles roll over this Third Edition of IO, ISABELLA INTERNATIONAL FILM WEEK in a colorful trail of visions and meetings of different cultures that share real emotions lived on and off the silver screen.

See you in 2008!

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IO, ISABELLA's DIRECTORS CONQUER THE WORLD: Xiaolu Guo in Pesaro

writer/director Xiaolu Guo, who with her documentary The Concrete Revolution took part in IO, ISABELLA INTERNATIONAL FILM WEEK 2005, has gained a Special Mention at the 43rd Pesaro Film Festival, her film How is your fish today was part of the competition programme "Pesaro Nuovo Cinema" which listed 8 international titles.

Here is the jury's motivation for the Special Mention:

for the incisive way in which the director couples together, without scholastic strictness, a refined aesthetical research (e.g. the voice-over that, just like a troublesome consciousness, binds and explains the images) and the passionate charge of the difficulty, today, of living in a world without projects and dreams, without direction and without a collective aim. For the clarity and subtile irony used to tell the contemporary compulsion to live through somebody else's life, like the character invented by the protagonist in order to be able to travel just about anywhere; the splendid snowy village, where perhaps it's not worth going in the real life.

We like to congratulate with Xiaolu Guo for this deserved Mention, and hope she'll be part again of our Festival for the 2008 edition.

enjoy the film's trailer

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