byronic :: mad bad and dangerous to know

My second day at the Berlinale.

• Fell a bit in love with Billy Bob Thornton. Turns out he’s a nice man as well as a good director. 
• John Hurt, aged 72, is getting cooler and handsomer by the day.
• Billy Bob’s film Jayne Mansfield’s Car was enjoyable. It’s an Alabama generational saga with an anti-war message; the references are Tennessee Williams and Chekhov, the style is pure Altman. What’s not to like? Some of it is a bit conventional, and the subtext is somehow lacking in depth, but it’s a well-constructed work, with a good pace, quite a few laughs, and a great ensemble cast.
• The highlight of the day was undoubtedly Winter Nomads, a Swiss film about transhumance - the ancient shepherding practice of walking sheep across land to graze on whatever’s left from the harvest season. Its charismatic protagonists (two shepherds, three donkeys, four dogs and eight hundred sheep!) make it a very enjoyable journey, which leads the viewer to consider the relationship between tradition and modernity, man and beast, landscape and ritual. It’s a delightful, lovely, touching film.
• I walked from Potsdamer Platz to Hebbel am Ufer, where the Berlinale Talent Campus is taking place. The atmosphere there is anarchic, vibrant, full of exciting new ideas and talent. You can tell some of the people here are going to make a massive contribution to the future of cinema. Went to a workshop on distribution and a lecture on digital storytelling and interactive documentary to pick up tips for some exciting things that are in the pipeline for me personally and for No Borders Magazine. More anon.
• It’s much less cold, thank god. Only one pair of socks, and thermals under jeans will see me through today. Thermal vest not needed under a thick Icelandic wool jumper.
• Discovered that the U-Bahn between Kreuzberg and the place wehre I’m staying is closed after 10pm for engineering works. That was interesting. Ugh.

My first day at the Berlinale, a few considerations:

• You really can tell the difference between -10°C and -17°C. Snow is forecast for tomorrow, which should bring the temperatures to a toasty -4°C.
• The first thing I saw this morning on my way to the Berlinale Filmpalast was a photograph of Fritz Lang on the main facade of the Deutsche Filmothek. That made me feel so good about this place. Until I spotted a photo of Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds right next to it.
• Oh, yeah, Brad Pitt is in town.
• Brillante Mendoza’s latest film, Captive, really didn’t put me in the mood for boarding the first flight to the Philippines, not so much for the kidnappings, more because of the snakes. Ghhh.
• On the other hand, Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ Meteora (shot in the Greek monastic site of the same name) made me want to travel there. Mostly in order to tell a better story about the place than the one he chose, which is a pretty standard fable of erotic passion vs spiritual devotion. (Something that Lorca, for instance, was much better at writing - unaided by quirky but dodgy animated Orthodox icons. That’s exactly what I mean.)
• Highlight so far: the Romanian film Everybody in Our Family. It’s a film about family dynamics and aggression between parents and children. It’s a black comedy infused with a sense of domestic menace that wouldn’t be out of place in a Haneke film. It’s terribly unnerving and dangerous, and yet very, very funny. I loved it. I’m terrified some American producer will see it and want to remake it with Adam Sandler in the lead, so do see it before something awful like that happens. 
• The wi-fi provision here hasn’t quite made it into the 21st century.
• Haven’t really spent any time exploring the magnificent Hauptstadt, apart from a lovely walk in Schöneberg at 8am this morning, followed by a spectacular U-Bahn ride between Nollendorf Platz and Potsdamer Platz - sun glowing bright through the frosty haze, only a few film buffs out in the streets, braving the icy temperatures.
• Angelina Jolie is a joke.

Birds Eye View Festival: Whip It

The UK premiere of Drew Barrymore’s brilliant directorial debut Whip It at the Birds Eye View Film Festival will feature a free live roller derby extravaganza on the South Bank, courtesy of the hard-rocking, hell-raising, skate-fighting London Rockin’Rollers. Whoo!

(Of course I’ll have to be Byron Maiden for the night…)

Rita Hayworth with Mayor of Berlin and future Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Willy Brandt at the Berlin Film Festival, 1959

Photo Gallery: 60 Years of Berlinale - Der Spiegel