Baba, "Smuggled" into Locarno

Day 9 - Thursday, 10 August

After 7 years of absence, Vietnamese cinema was back tonight in Locarno for a Piazza screening of Nhat Minh Dang's Season of Guavas, a moving depiction of contemporary Vietnamese society as seen through the eyes of a simple-minded man. Although production of Vietnamese films is very low and heavily controlled by the state censorship as in China, it manages to keep an output of several films a year (often screened at the Festival des Trois Continents), and even reckons among its ranks very active female directors such as Viet Linh (Collective Flat, screened in Udine, Vesoul and Singapore) and Trinh T. Minh-ha, the recipient of many prestigious international awards. Vietnamese cinema is also very present on the web with the news bulletin of the Vietnam Movie & Television Production Association, based in Southern California (http://kicon.com/Film.html). A writer, journalist and documentary maker, Minh Dang has made numerous films set against the backdrop of Vietnam's turbulent history. "We have lost the wisdom of childhood, because in this world there is no longer a place for innocence or those who have kept their childhood soul intact," assesses the director, whose film nevertheless expresses his hopes set in the young generations of Vietnam.

The surprise film of the festival, Baba, ceased to be a surprise. The veil was lifted a little bit more today by its director Shuo Wang. "The copy of the film screened at Locarno is the only copy abroad. If the film is to be given an existence abroad, it will be through this only copy," said the director who, unable to tame the censorship in 5 years, has since quit making films and devoted himself to writing and even acting. "I won't be allowed to make the films I want to make in China," he added, "so it was preferable not to make any films at all. The censorship in China is terrible: It always boils down to just one or two persons banning your film because their tastes are not yours. But you never know who these persons are." Carried by the director's faith in cinema, Baba might very well create another surprise in the list of festival prizes.

As the festival is coming to an end, rumours about the competition winner start to expand, and Naomi Kawase's beautiful Fireflies scintillate in many eyes. But another type of rumour is also circulating around the commercial future of the film, as all the theatrical distributors who covet it would rather have it shortened (the present duration is 164 minutes). But the question is will Sento Takenori, the producer of the film and Naomi's former husband whom she divorced recently, accept to have the film modified? It seems that once more cinema and personal history are bound to collide in Naomi Kawase's brilliant and fascinating itinerary.

As for the Montecinema Foundation set up by Marco Muller and Giancarlo Olgiati, which aims to assist film production in Asia, Africa, Latin-America and Eastern Europe, it announced that 4 films backed by the foundation would take part in the 57th Venice International Film Festival: Uttara (The Wrestlers) by Buddhadeb Dasgupta (India), Dayereh (The Circle) by Jafar Panahi (Iran), Platform by Jia Zhan Ke (China) and Adanngaman by Roger Gnoan M'Bala (Ivory Coast).

Tomorrow night at the Piazza Grande, Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man will certainly not pass unnoticed. The European premiere will be followed by Todd Philipps' Road Trip, a wild student comedy of love and cheating.