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The
Jury: Purveyors of the Leopards
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Helene
Angel (Director - France)
Born in 1967, French director Hélène Angel studied
at FEMIS from 1987 to 1991, when she graduated. During this
time, her first short films La Fin d'une Tradition
(1989) and Jeune fille en désordre (1991) made
a sensational impact. Her third short, La vie parisienne
(1995), appealing for its vitality and format rigour, won numerous
prizes (Dunkirk, Young Director's Prize at Clermont-Ferrand)
and was screened at Locarno in the Leopards of Tomorrow section.
Right from the start her films have been characterised by a
fierce and personal voice, as in Peau d'homme, coeur de
bête, her first feature film, which won the Gold Leopard
at Locarno in 1999. She is currently writing a new feature film
which is planned to start shooting in summer 2001. |
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Aoyama
Shinji (Director - Japan)
Japanese
director Shinji Aoyama at the latest Cannes Film Festival picked
up both the FIPRESCI and Ecumenical prize for Eureka,
his powerful "bus movie" (nothing like Speed)
and post-murder recovery drama with Japanese audience darling
Yakusho Koji. A versatile director employing digital video (Shady
Grove, 1999) or black and white cinemascope (Eureka),
Shinji Aoyama maintains a fascinating thematic unity through
his work, tackling mainly such themes as alienation, death and
rebirth of the human soul through traumas. He also likes to
manipulate the codes of genre movies in such films as Embalming
(a hunt for a decapitated human head) or Chinpira,
a personal rendering of yakuza movies. Born in 1964, Shinji
Aoyama studied film at the Rikkyo University, made 8 mm shorts,
was assistant director to Kiyoshi Kurosawa (King of the B's
this year at Locarno) and Daniel Schmid (Locarno's 1999 Leopard
of Honour) and has since made his own way towards international
recognition. |
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Alessandro
D'Alatri (Director - Italy)
Former "
child prodigy " who grew up on the stage, from age performing
for Visconti and Strehler, Alessandro D'Alatri (born in Rome
in 1955) then became a prolific and often award-winning commercials
director. After making a first feature film (Americano
Rosso, 1991), his greatest critical and commercial success
was with Senza Pelle (1993). This portrait of
a psychopathic and romantic young man (played by Kim Rossi Stuart)
won several awards, including the Audience Prize at Locarno.
He used the same actor in his third film, I Giardini dell'Eden
(selected for competition at Venice in 1997), based on the apocryphal
account of Jesus' youth. He has for some years now been
teaching at the Scuola Nazionale di Cinematografia (National
Film School) in Rome.
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Paz
Alicia Gardiadiego (Scriptwriter - Mexico)
Paz Alicia
Gargiadiego, born in Mexico, is considered one of the most gifted
scriptwriters in Latin America. She teaches Latin American history
as well as screen-writing. In addition to several television
films and documentaries, she scripted Ciudad de ciegos,
monologo de la suicida, directed by Alberto Cortez,
and since 1986 she has written scripts for director Arturo Ripstein,
from El imperio de la fortuna (1986) to the recent
Asi es la vida (2000). Ripstein wittily remarks
about their collaboration: "As a catholic, she introduced sin
to my films; whereas I, as a Jew, supplied guilt." She won the
Best Script Prize at Venice in 1996 for Profundo carmesi,
a theatrical melodrama about an all-consuming love affair between
an over-the-hill gigolo and an obese nurse. |
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Naum
Klejman (Critic - Russia)
Naum Klejman,
film historian and theoretician, was born in Kishinev in 1937
in the former USSR. In 1956, he became a student at VGIK (the
All-Union State Institute of Cinematography). In 1958, the release
of Ivan the Terrible awoke in him a passion for Eisenstein's
work which continues today. Having access to the director's
notes, in 1961 he wrote a thesis on Eisenstein's aesthetics.
At Gosfilmofond (the State Film Archive), he worked on the restoration
and re-creation of several of his films, then established the
Eisenstein Cabinet. Since 1963, he has given seminars all over
the world on film history and aesthetics. Since 1992, he has
been director of the first Russian cinema museum, located in
Moscow. He has been closely involved in the retrospective programme
that Locarno is devoting to Soviet cinema this year. |
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Clemens
Klopfenstein (Director - Switzerland)
Born in 1944,
Clemens Klopfenstein is an artist painter and filmmaker ; a
nomadic Swiss who has lived in Italy since 1973, he has opted
for low budgets and innovation. He often works alone, with a
hand-held camera, stressing: "You have to choose...The luxury
Rolex or Swatch. Anything in between is mediocre." After making
experimental films such as Geschichte der Nacht
(1978), he turned to fiction with the documentary comedy Eine
Nachtlang Feuerland (1981), the film which introduced
Max Rüdlinger, a recurring character in his work. From Der
Ruf der Sybilla (1984) to Das Schweigen der Männer
(1997), Swiss Cinema Prize-winner in 1998, including
Macao (1988) and Feuerland 2 (1992),
most of his films have been screened at Locarno. His latest
film WerAngstWolf is screening this year in the
"Filmmakers of the Present" section. |
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Todd
McCarthy (Critic - US)
Born in Illinois, Todd McCarthy is a critic,
writer and director of documentary films on cinema. Since 1979,
he has worked for Variety and is now its editor in chief. As
a student of literature, he was already contributing as a critic
to "Film Comment", "Cahiers du Cinéma" and
"Esquire." He is co-editor of the anthology "Kings
of the B's: Working within the Hollywood System" and in
1997 wrote the first biography about the enigmatic Howard Hawks,
called "Howard Hawks: the Grey Fox of Hollywood."
His documentaries include Forever Hollywood (1999),
which deciphers the urban legends around Hollywood, and Visions
of Light: the Art of Cinematography (1993), which won
the Oscar for Best Documentary, and explores the creative and
determining role of framing and lighting in a film's narrative.
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Shirin
Neshat (Video artist, Iran - US)
Born in Iran
in 1957, Shirin Neshat, internationally known for her work as
a video artist and photographer, currently lives in New York.
Through her photography work and video installations, she questions
Islam, and more specifically its presumptions about Woman's
role and essence. Her portraits, chronicling a hidden, mute
feminity, question so called traditional values, without violating
Muslim strictures on women's bodies. Her work has been exhibited
in the major cities of America and Europe. She has recently
had one-woman shows at the Kunsthalle Wien, the Whitney Museum
of American Art and the Tate Gallery. She has also won numerous
international prizes, including the Gold Lion at the Venice
Biennale of Visual Arts, 1999. |
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Zhang
Yuan (Director and producer - China)
Born in 1963,
Zhang Yuan is the enfant terrible of the Chinese Sixth Generation
filmmakers, who emerged after the events of Tian'anmen Square
in 1989. A graduate from Beijing Film Academy in 1989, Zhang
Yuan refused to work for the big studios and directed commercials
and music promos for MTV. Since his well-received début with
Mama (1990), Zhang Yuan alternates between documentary
and fiction - shown regularly at Locarno - about topics rooted
in the social reality of his country : the urbanisation of Beijing
in Dingzihu (Demolition and rehousing,
1988), rebellious youth in Beijing zazhong (Beijing
Bastards, 1992), the alcoholism in Erzi (The
Sons, 1995) and homosexuality in Donggong xigong
(East Palace, West Palace, 1996). His latest film, Shiqi
nian (17 years), won the Best Direction Prize
in 1999 at Venice. |
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