BIFF 2015 - Up Close & Personal

The thing I love the most about BIFF, apart from the great programming, is the GV's or guest visits. They work hard to make it a filmmakers festival and invite lots of directors, producers and actors to attend the festival. It's a great chance to hear it straight from the horses mouth and to meet and greet if you are in the right place at the right time. My festival program revolved around GV's and pretty much every film I wanted to see had a GV. The glaring exception was Sion Sono but I have heard from him at past festivals and hey I got to meet him at BIFAN earlier this year. The other which was a bit more disappointing was Hong Sang Soo (his one GV was booked out very early on) and Brillante Mendoza (not in attendance) but I got to see Taklub, his latest film.

Ode to my Father - Yoon Je-kyoon

This film spans the history of South Korea from the civil war up to today and is a classic example of how to play the audiences emotions. I wept on at least six different occasions and on some I couldn't keep watching. This man is a meastro of sadness, melancholy and nostalgia and he played me like a violin. 
Zubaan - Mozez Singh
This was a world premiere and it is a debut feature plus it opened the festival, a lot of firsts!
A great movie about destiny and music is central to the plot. The music is hybrid Bollywood/modern along with some traditional spiritual Punjabi. A beautiful visual feast.

Director Mozez Singh

Sarah Jane Dias

Manish Chaudhari & 설화

Lav Diaz & Hazel Orencia (Filipino Royalty)

 Not showing any films this year but he was over to talk about work in progress of the latest film Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis and show a few clips. Having reviewed a couple of his films and conversed via email it was a real treat to meet him in person and have a bit of a chin wag.

Stop - Kim Ki duk

Hiromitsu Takeda

Kim Ki duk & fan pose for selfie

Tsubasa Nakae

The gang at the Q&A

Not his best and it did suffer from the production values, a result of shooting it on location in Japan with only him as the crew! But the acting is good and the message is right.

Office - Hong Won chan

Sungwoong Park 박성웅, Hyunkyung Ryu 류현경,Asung Ko 고아성 & Hong Wonchan 홍원찬

What a cracker this was. Tight and compelling with at least five 'jump out of your seat' moments. A thrilling story of how fucked up the office politics can get and the pressures the workers face on a daily basis.

Asung Ko 고아성

She may look cute but she is a mad, cold killer though the circumstance that compel her to such behavior are not in her control and a product of the system. She gets away with it all to apply for another intern position in a different company. She also had a role in Hong Sangsoo's film Right Now Wrong Then. Her diversity and range is very inspirational.














Highway to Hellas - Aron Lehmann
A very funny German comedy set in Greece about banking. Ironic but true!

Aron Lehmann & Producer

A Korean in Paris - Jeon Soo-il A surreal searching for movie that has many open ended questions.

Mi Kwan Lock, one of the stars from A Korean in Paris

What a absolute treat of a festival and this year I was only there for five days. Looking forward to the next already.

Busan - a view from a bus

Exiting Busan rather than catching the subway to the KTX station advantage was taken with free tickets on the Busan City Tour Bus. Sitting on the open top deck afforded some sights of the city until now unseen. And what a delight, perfect weather matched a very scenic tour. As South Korea's second largest, it's not quite the megacity of Seoul but set on the ocean it's a beautiful, big visual feast. This here the home of BIFF, I love this city!

The commute

ever building

bridges

elevated transport

more bridges

The Docks

and more docks

natural headlands

and unnatural headlands

Harbour Views

spanning the harbour

The Cinema Centre

The Fish Markets

The River

The Apartments

The sun sets on this glorious city

This was my third visit to this city and I will return, still so much to see and do. Maybe one day without the distraction of that little annual film festival they hold? We shall see.

Love & Peace in Bucheon

So I moseyed on down to Bucheon the other day just an hour and a bit by subway, south of Seoul.
BIFAN was on and i wanted to see this International Fantastic Film Festival for myself. Especially since they were presenting a Sion Sono retrospective, I am (not) Sion Sono.

I was only there for two days so I decided to see his two new films Tag and Love and Peace but all his classics were showing on the big screen and the man himself was in town to do Q&A's and a master class or two.

 When I saw Love and Peace, he was there to answer questions after the film. They translated each question and answer into Korean and Japanese and then a small group of us English speakers had our own personal translator on the fly. Not only a really fascinating film, very unlike a Sono film but just great to hear him break down the production process and hear his thinking behind some of the decisions.

and afterwards he patiently signed autographs for the throng of fans and then even allowed photo ops for the patient ones. Yes I was among them and waited till the end and we had a very stilted but warm chat. Part Japanese, part Korean and part English. I have enjoyed his films for a long time and it was so wonderful to meet such a gentle soul who is so imaginative and creative and prolific.

 You can read my review of Love and Peace for Filmed in Ether here

touched by the hand of God!

As for Tag, well maybe that's another day? But I will be seeing The Virgin Psychics at BIFF 2015 in October, actually in a few days. I hope one day to get back to BIFAN and immerse fully into their program because this massive highlight was only one of many. A really cool festival

Made in Australia

Matthew Victor Pastor is a little fucker!
Well he is as the staring role in this his debut feature, Made in Australia.
As Director he is earnest and original as actor; raw, repulsive and compelling.
This visual opus magnum is overloaded with hubris, style and spunk! but that's not a bad thing.

The title sequence  is a case in point cut in among the rugged, rocky Victorian coast which once bought tragedy to many hopeful arrivals to Australia in the form of shipwreck and death Pastor reveals himself as naked, scarred and emotionally bare bar his trusty tape recorder in an epic schlong shot and then again as a bit too close up shot!

The Epic Schlong shot that says so much!!!

But moving beyond the obvious is actually a compelling narrative, kinda coming of age, of a randy Asian Australian trying to find his place in the world, yeah and it's a pretty fucked up world too.
Set in two countries, going from the land of Oz to Hong Kong and then back again.
Is he home? Where is home? What is home? What is love?
His quest for belonging drives this personal story and it drives him to despair. The scars on his body run deeper than his flesh but we see how he gets them in a series of self abusive acts and experiences where having a good fuck seems to replenish him so he can do some more.

"Please make me come so I don't have to feel pain"

 

He is on a quest and by definition it must be dangerous and there must be discovery. And there are plenty of metaphoric dragons, witches, libertines and damsels but he is no shining white knight.

Matthew and Janice just working it all out

As director he burs the lines of documentary and fiction with a lot of the characters being themselves. There is Pastor, Mum, Dad but the standout is Janice, his Hong Kong girlfriend who shows him love but also delivers heartbreak and treachery in equal doses. Her performance is raw and real, sometimes uncomfortably so. She is the reason behind this film and she is the reason why this film works so well. These four people are referred to as 'Players' not actors, not real people. Is that Pastor trying to fuck our brain or is it more raw unbridled honesty?

The rest of the cast play roles that are based on real life events, recreations but we never really find out the extent of the artistic license, if any? All actors and players deliver the story with an uncanny sense of melodrama, slightly reminiscent of Lynches Sandy and Geoffry in Blue Velvet. It's awkward at first but as the story rolls it becomes an essential ingredient with them all walking that fine line of bad acting and emotive performance, some better than others but it's a style throughout the film and the style is triumphant when the curtain drops.

Janice being with the pain of love

Striving to tell an emotive story whilst maintain an original style to the filmmaking is pulled across the line with some just fabulous musical scoring from Andrew Tran and Matt Vongsykeo. Sound and music really make some of the scenes so powerful it's a testament to these musicians but also Pastor's editing and placement of these pieces and also the matching with the shots. Some great moments of drifting away with the sorrow to be abruptly pulled back into the violence.

 Check the trailer out but.....

......if you happen to be in Melbourne this coming weekend it is screening on Channel 31 (God Bless its Soul) Tune in at midnight on the 26th of September 2015. It's part of the MUFF Features which have been screening in this slot for a while now.

This is why we love community television.
Check it all out.








or if you are in AU you can buy it here

BIFFology 101

          Why BIFF 2015?
                                                        Well why not I say!
          Not enough you say?
                                                       OK then, well try this on for size.
First up, 3 X the usual suspects.

Hong Sang Soo presents his latest Right Now Wrong Then.
Professor, pretty girl, time warps, a palace & drinking. Same old, same old? Apparently not!
By all accounts it's a cracker, winning awards at Lorcarno (Golden Leopard & Best Actor)

this is not a trailer, just a still

Kim Ki Duk has a new one called Stop. Inspired by Fukoshima and set in Tokyo.
Looking forward to an improvement on last years One on One.

• Tsubasa Nakae  & Natsuko Hori 

Sion Sono has The Virgin Psychics, this will be the third new Sono film I have seen this year!!!!
Looks like a blend of Love & Peace & Tag??? But that's just a wild guess from the trailer.
Lookk forward to more tough school girls and his high kicking, up skirt signature shots.

ohhhh Sono!!!!

One summer blockbuster
Last year there were a few of these shown, this year it is Assassination by Choi Dong-Hoon, the man who bought us The Thieves. One of the big summer hits (over 10 millionat the box office) but they haven't shown it with subtitles yet.
Set in the Japanese occupation, it's all about an assassination squad in the Korean resistance.

Movie Poster

One from China (at least)
The Assassin by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, I now everyone saw it at MIFF but I was stuck here in Seoul.
Ethereal, period murder? One to watch according to the grapevine.

movie poster

A couple of classics
Seven Samurai, from Akira Kurosawa, the film that became The Magnificent Seven

the gang

The Housemaid by Kim Ki Young (original) 1960. Loved the remake so looking forward to the original in lucious Black & White.

tension?

And lastly for now.
Brillante Mendoza brings his latest, Taklub. Always interested in his work, a legend of the Philippines. This is another of his films with Nora Aunor, another legend.

movie poster

I'll be heading down for the first six days (I know but logistics & commitments) and am planning to see all these and fill in the gaps with a smattering of new Korean cinema.
Such a great festival and always lots of fun in between the movies. See you there?