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Day 10- September 8: Silver Leopard vs Venice Lions Sounds like baseball? It's not. It's a quite different kind of sports. It's called festival marathon. And Hong Kong director Fruit Chan is one of the best athletes in this class. 4 films in 4 years and more than 10 awards on the festival circuit . A trilogy, made much faster than Star Wars, and known as the 1997 trilogy. And a new one in preparation of which Durian Durian is the first installment. Screened in competition at Venice less than one month after Little Cheung won the Silver Leopard at Locarno, Durian Durian is the first part of the new triptych that will concentrate on post-annexation imbalances in Hong Kong and China. The little dish-washing girl seen in Little Cheung comes back in this film but serves only as a link, as the main character is a young mainland woman earning her living through prostitution in Hong Kong. "Durian Durian" is the name of a strange prickly, evil-smelling but sweet-tasting fruit. A metaphor for Fruit Chan's character's constant search for hope in a hostile world.
On the eve of the Festival's closure, the industry office has released a few figures about attendance at the 2000 edition. A few figures testify to a definitely upward trend: 22 131 six-days passes sold (19 931 in 1999), 2362 journalists (1433 Italians and 929 foreigners), 4.000.000 pages requested on the official Biennale website (1.250.000 in 1999) with 70% of visitors from overseas. The 15th edition of the Critics' Week concluded today in rewarding Claudia Tomaz's Noites. Check out our interview with this very young Portuguese director.
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Screened
in the official competition section, Xavier Beauvois's Selon Matthieu
met with a very lukewarm reception. This "cold melodrama" ("frozen"
according to the daily newspaper of the Biennale) is the story of a metamorphosis.
That of Matthieu, who, after the cruel dismissal and sudden death of his
father, sees his idealistic search for justice and darker lust for vengeance
dissolve into submission and apathy. Nathalie Baye (Best Actress Award
at Venice last year) gives a fine performance as a compassionate bourgeois
woman. Emphasis on the drama through Bach and Normandy lanscapes strangely
evokes Bruno Dumont's L'Humanité. Will Selon
Matthieu cause a sensation of its own at the Venice awards?
The
name of Tiziano Sossi may be unknown to you, but this Italian journalist
has warmed the hearts of many a film-lover by publishing a dictionary
of female directors. The first edition of the book, which lists 1000 names,
is quite unexpensive (around 20 dollars) and has sold well in libraries
and at the festival. "It was important to write such a book"
said the author. "Because the number of women directors has been
steadily increasing over the years and many of them are still not listed
in traditional movie dictionaries. There have been many pioneering female
directors in the world of cinema. And it is also interesting to have a
closer look at films made by former actresses. These films allow them
to express themselves on a much more personal level. Jodie Foster set
the example indeed. I also want to emphasize that women directors do not
necessarily make movies about women. Look at Kathryn Bigelow. Would could
say that Point Break is made by a woman?" "Writing
this book took me 6 years. I had to go through a long, exhaustive research
process. Checking and double-checking any single piece of information.
Festival catlogues helped me a great deal. And there is a festival in
Italy dedicated to women directors, in Turin. Unfortunately, I found out
a bit late about Créteil, but they are very interested in the book."