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| Innovative
Guests at Stockholm Festival
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Four guests at the Stockholm International Film Festival present in
their work inventive themes from films of this cutting edge festival.
Actress Labina Mitelskva, in the feature film festival entry Loners,
short film director Ana Martinez with festival entry Pantolonas,
feature film director Mathieu Seiler who made Orgienhaus and
I-festival director Phillipe Wohlleben.
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The
Actress
Labina Mitelskva was only 18 when she starred in Milcho Manchevskis
Before the Rain Falls, and has also had roles in Michael Winterbottoms
I want You and Welcome to Sarajevo. In Loners,
directed by David Ondricek (Czech Republic/Slovenia), she plays a
Macedonian girl who says she's looking for UFOs. According to Mitelskva,
Loners is about " lonely people, the young generation. So many catastrophes
and cruelties influence young people. On the surface everything looks
OK but if you look closer there is a kind of sorrow in the characters".
The theme in Loners is representative of several of the entries in
the international competition in Stockholm. Mitelskva says she likes
the Stockholm International Film Festival a lot, and it was on her
list of festivals to come to after the warm reception of her work
in Before the Rain Falls.
Short Film Director
Ana Martinez' short film Pantolonas, produced by her brother
who goes by 'El Nino Martinez', is a true gender bender. Martinez
who is from Madrid says she was happy that the film was accepted at
Stockholm as the visual images of the film has disturbed other festivals.
Gay film festivals are more open to the film. In truth, this is because
there is frontal male and female nudity, but the intention is to show
how women lose on the labor market for not having the right 'equipment'.
The male and female bodies are shot from the waist down while female
and male voices speak in the background. Martinez says that middle
age men seem to like the film although they are disturbed by the images
at first. Most interesting is that they tune out the female voices
while looking, whereas the women listen to the voices and have a harder
time looking. Martinez who says that she likes the films of John Huston
because his work varied from film to film, has directed TV documentaries
in Spain.
Feature Director
Mathieu Seiler's Orgienhaus, or House of Orgies, is a thriller
that is told in a suggestive and powerful style with illusions to
Lynch. Seiler who is from Zurich admits that Lynch and Polanski are
mentors. A dead girl is discovered by a traveler and a fantasy world
is created out of this mystery. The film includes bonfires set by
witches in the woods. Seiler is not alone with this theme. Another
film at the Stockholm Film Festival which uses the theme of magic
and mystery is Sylvia Dahlmen's short The Hood ( Germany), a modern
fairy tale of 'Little Red Riding Hood'.
Festival Director
Phillipe
Wohlleben represents the 'I-Festival section with his short Emergency
Brake (Germany). Shot in 35mm, Wohlleben admits that a lot of
resolution disappears in the compression required for streaming video.
The entertaining film about a chance encounter between a man and a
woman on opposite platforms in separate trains includes the sound
of an emergency brake which does not quite hook up with the images
that tell the story. Still, the director feels that improvements will
come and that the exposure over the Internet brings work to the immediate
attention of the public.
The Stockholm International Film Festival is a forum for new and inventive
work by young directors evidenced by the work of these four representatives.
Moira Sullivan |
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