Filmfest Oldenburg honors filmmakers Bruno Barreto, Scott McGehee and David Siegel

16. Internationales Filmfest Oldenburg
16th to 20th September 2009


Brazilian director, writer and producer Bruno Barreto’s will be presented in the festival’s retrospective.
This year’s tribute goes to American directing duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel.


Retrospective Bruno Barreto
His first short film was done at the tender age of 10, aged 17 he finished his feature debut (“Tati, The Girl”) and only four years later the enthusiastic director had his international break-through with the highly acclaimed comedy “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands”. To this day the lighthearted fantasy about the young and frivolous Flora is one of Brazil’s most successful movies with an audience of more than 12 million. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe as best foreign language film in 1979. 1988 Barreto moved to the US and started working with established stars such as Robert Duvall, Andy Garcia, Kevin Spacey, Dennis Hopper or Gwyneth Paltrow. 1996 he shot the passionate sensual drama “Carried Away” with Dennis Hopper as the aging, responsible school teacher who falls for a dangerously seductive student. Amy Irving`s performance opposite Hopper was equally convincing. Barreto was married to her from 1996 to 2005 while they were working on several films together (she starred in “Bossa Nova”, “A Shadow Of Force” and other films). With “Romeo and Juliet Get Married” he returned to Brazil to cast a satirical look at his home country’s frantic football fans. Barreto is always drawn back to his hometown Rio de Janeiro. “Her beauty can only be grasped when you’re in love” he explained in an interview. He devoted the breezy comedy “Bossa Nova” to the city as a “beautiful love letter”. Carried by the driven Bossa Nova sounds of Tom Jobims the paths of the protagonists cross many times as they get lost in a maze of passionate affairs. He also did the suspenseful polit-thriller “Four Days in September” in Brazil which got nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1998 Oscars. His latest movie is the moving, honest and critical “Last Stop 174” where he turns to the dark side of Rio: Poverty, drugs and crime are the face of the slums, with naked children fighting for bare survival. This moving drama was nominated as Brazil’s entry to next year ’s Oscars. The script is written by Bráulio Mantovani (“City of God”). Bruno Barreto will attend the festival as guest of honor from September 16th to September 20th and give a personal introduction to his films.

Tribute Scott McGehee and David Siegel
For more than 15 years the American directing duo has been successfully making films, baring the depths of the human soul with every single one of them. Their output is characterized by their different viewpoints and the always present questions of truth and fate which are at the centre of all their films. Their latest work dealing with the duality of life and of their views is “Uncertainty”. A young couple is faced with an unexpected pregnancy and the classic dilemma: Do they want the baby or will it get in the way of their plans? He throws a coin and two stories unfold, which despite their discrepancies run remarkably parallel and both take a surprisingly clever turn.

Their career started in California: David Siegel graduated in architecture from Berkeley and went on to study painting and photography. Scott McGehee studied literature when his passion for film manifested and he changed his major to film theory and Japanese film history. After the first steps as short film makers the provocative duo premiered in 1994 with “Suture” the gripping black and white story of two dissimilar brothers who meet at their father’s grave, throwing both into deep identity crises. The breath taking neo noir film was hailed at Cannes and won the award for best director at International Film Fest Sitges. Their follow up “The Deep End” premiered at the Sundance Festival. Tilda Swinton gives a stunning performance as the fragile, self-sacrificing yet cool mother in an intimate and intelligent thriller.

Words can hold power – they can kill, bring truth to light and hold hidden meaning. “Bee Season” shows how the juggling of words can deconstruct a whole family. When the overtly religious Saul realizes that his daughter has a special way with words he retreats from his family. His desire to win spelling-bees becomes an obsession.
Scott McGehee and David Siegel will attend the festival in Oldenburg as guests of honor and present their films to the audience.