Berlin

Two more silent Vidor shorts.  A French speaking African immigrant drama in Forum And Abel Ferrara's American Siberia, starring Willem Dafoe. 

Images from the Siberia Press Conference

                                       

Willem Dafoe and Abel Ferrara field questions at lively press conference

                                            

Journalist and Ace conference question poser M. Seguidi of Eritria and Italy before finally settling in Berlin.  A Berlinale regular since 1999 Seguidi invariably asks the most pertinent and penetrating questions on the films under discussion

           

Abel Ferrara, 68, is an intensely independent minded American film director.

Based in his native New York he is definitely an "off Hollywood" filmmaker whose films are often highly provocative and controversial.  My personal favorite Ferrara opus is Bad Lieutenant, 1992, which starred Harvey Keitel as an egregiously degenerate New York City police officer. This was a film loaded with the kind of black humor that can have some grinning ear to ear and drive others to the exits.  Of late a frequent Ferrara protagonist has bern equally off beat American actor Willem Dafoe, who starred in Ferrara's Pasolini in 2014 which, because of certain unfirtunate artistic decisions, was a resounding flop.   I have not yet seen their latest collaboration, which IMDb describes as  "an exploration into the language of dreams" but am looking forward with a mixture of expectation and trepidation.