Cecily Layzell's Blog

Posted by Cecily Layzell

Just before the winners of this year’s IDFA Awards were announced on November 27, the doc festival in Amsterdam officially launched IDFA TV.

This service will provide free access to online documentaries throughout the year. Between now and the end of 2009, IDFA hopes to have 200 older titles available. These are documentaries that have already been screened on television. From early 2010, the organization will be experimenting with different kinds of payment models, in order to make newer docs available for viewing for a fee.

There are already 30 docs online, which can be sorted by genre, country, length, competitive and non-competitive programme and by festival edition, currently as far back as 1996 and as recent as 2003.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

In The Accidental Terrorist (Miki Mistrati, Nagieb Khaja), Cem Aslan, a Danish Muslim of Turkish origin and a student at Aalborg University, reflects on the causes of the radicalization of young Muslims. In his search for answers, he travels to a Bosnian prison to try and find out why Abdulkadir Cesur, also a Danish Muslim of a similar age and background, came to be serving a long-term sentence for allegedly planning a terrorist attack. Along the way, he talks to Abdulkadir’s sister and a former schoolmate, who describe him as a seemingly integrated and popular young man with dreams of becoming accountant.

The 40-minute film, which had its international premiere at IDFA and was selected for the mid-length competition, is based on an interesting – and timely – idea, but fails to deliver on content. Combining interviews, voiceover from Aslan and archive footage of Abdulkadir’s arrest and trial, the film makes a good start but is too timid in its approach.

At the end of the film, we are still left wondering what changed in Abdulkadir's life to make him drop out of college and become an ‘accidental’ terrorist; and indeed how accidental this was in light of his arrest in a house containing explosives and a suicide belt. A missed opportunity to offer a real insight into radicalization among young Western Muslims from a Muslim point of view.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

War Games and the Man Who Stopped Them was the opening film on Thursday November 19 of the 22^nd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Directed by Dariusz Jablonski, the documentary sketches a portrait of the Polish Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski who worked as a spy for the CIA during the Cold War.

The film features interviews with a number of the prominent figures involved, including the Warsaw Pact Commander-in-Chief Viktor Kulikov and the head of US espionage General William E Odom, plus extensive archive footage. The film is constructed in such a way that viewers are forced to pass judgment on Jablonski’s actions: did he betray his country or prevent a Third World War?

IDFA runs until November 29, 2009 at various locations around Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

The acclaimed Mexican Film Festival Cinemaztlán opens for its third editiion on October 28 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The program includes contemporary Mexican films and restored classics, as well as video art, debates and a party on November 1 celebrating the Day of the Dead.

Gabriel Figueroa Retrospective

As part of its restored classics section, the film festival will present a retrospective of Gabriel Figueroa (1908-1997), a leading figure in Mexican cinematography. The selection of five films in which he was involved includes Enamorada (1946) from Emilio Fernández and Nazarin (1958) from Luis Buñuel.

The Day of the Dead on November 1

To celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead on November 1, Cinemaztlán Film Festival has invited the Mexican experimental band Nine Rain to perform the new soundtrack it composed for Sergei Eisenstein's 1930's movie Que viva Mexico!. This performance will take place during the screening of the film, which is also the closing film of the Rocket Cinema Film Festival. The screening will be followed by a party with DJs.

The Cinemaztlán Film Festival runs until November 4 at various locations around Amsterdam, including De Balie and Paradiso.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

Director Lee Daniels' harrowing but hopeful film Precious has won the Cadillac People's Choice Award at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

The film stars Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton and Sherri Shepherd in supporting roles and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe in the title role. Abused by her mother and raped by her father, African-American teenager Claireece 'Precious' Jones (Sidibe) is angry, illiterate, overweight and pregnant. After being offered the chance to enroll in an alternative school, she meets literacy teacher Ms. Rain (Patton) who sets her on a new path of hope and self-determination.

The gritty tale premiered earlier in the year at the Sundance Film Festival, also bagging the audience award there. Backed by Oprah Winfrey, who was one of the movie's executive producers, Precious already looks Oscar-bound.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

Veteran American filmmaker and director John Waters was the special guest at the 2009 BUT Film Festival. Held in Breda in the south of the Netherlands from September 9-13, this young festival screens B-movies, Underground and Trash films (BUT) over five days.

The so-called 'King of Trash' made an - appropriate - appearance at the festival, where three of the movies that put him on the map were shown: Desperate Living (1977), Polyester (1981) and the original version of Hairspray (1988).

John Waters is currently working on Fruitcake. A parody of a family movie about meat thieves, said to be starring Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey, the film is scheduled for release in 2010.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

Matter of Taste, a week of culinary screenings and debates within the Lago Film Festival in Italy, has announced the winner of the Golden Frog (the festival’s logo). The award for Best Film on Food went to the short McRussia, from Romanian director Andrei Tanase. With a running time of 11’ 10”, it looks at the rising popularity of fast food restaurants in Russia.

Special mentions went to Tropezones (David Macian and Eduardo Molinari) and the excellent, wordless Tripe and Onions (Marton Szirmai). This and many of the other shorts from the program are free to view online through Daazo.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

Posted by Cecily Layzell

Alongside the awards presented for best short, best feature, best documentary and so on, the Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF), which opens August 4, also presents awards to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the film industry. Here is an overview of this year’s winners:

RIIFF Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award will this year go to actor Ernest Borgnine. Now 92, Borgnine won an Academy Award for best actor in 1955’s Marty, before going on to star in movies such as The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and The Poseidon Adventure. In total, he has appeared in 199 movies, including his most recent film, this year’s Another Harvest Moon, which will have its world premiere on August 7 at RIIFF. Previous recipients of the award are Blake Edwards, Patricia Neal and Seymour Cassel.

Nathanael Greene Humanitarian Award

The first Nathanael Greene Humanitarian Award will be presented to William Shatner, the Canadian-born actor who has had a career spanning decades, but is probably still most associated with his role in the '60s television series Star Trek. The award, named after a Rhode Island Revolutionary War hero, honors his artistic as well as his philanthropic work for organizations including The Wells Fargo Charity House, The American Tinnitus Association and the Nerine Shatner Friendly House.

Crystal Image Award

The annual Crystal Image Award recognizes established talent that has made outstanding contributions to the art of filmmaking, an emerging artist or an individual who will have a positive impact in the future. This year, the accolade will go to film composer Klaus Badelt. Born in Germany, Badelt scored commercials and films in his homeland before finding international success in Hollywood. His musical credits include The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, Mission: Impossible 2 and X-Men.

Posted by Cecily Layzell

The Malaysian director, producer and writer Yasmin Ahmad has died. She suffered a stroke on July 23, according to local media, and died of a brain hemorrhage two days later. She was 51.

After starting her career as a copywriter at advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, Yasmin Ahmad turned to film, releasing her first feature-length movie, Rabun, in 2002. She released a new movie nearly every year after that, the most recent being Talentime, first screened in Malaysia in March 2009.

Many of Yasmin Ahmad’s movies garnered international acclaim, picking up numerous awards at festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival and the Tokyo International Film Festival. At home, however, she was a controversial figure, mostly due to her depictions of inter-racial romances in a country where the main ethnic groups remain fiercely divided. 2004’s Sepet, for example, tells the story of a young Malay girl who falls in love with a Chinese boy.

Tributes have been flooding into publications such as The New Straits Times since the director’s death, a testament to her profile in her homeland, if not her popularity.