News: MINH NGUYEN-VÔ’S BUFFALO BOY WINS FIPRESCI PRIZE AS BEST FOREIGN FILM OF 2005!
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) presented its award for the Best Foreign-Language Film of 2005 to Buffalo Boy, the debut feature directed by Minh Nguyen-Vô. The FIPRESCI jury selected Buffalo Boy from more than 50 films submitted for the Foreign-Language Academy Awards in March 2006. Most of the films were screened during the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which was also the opening venue for the films of Global Lens 2006. Winners of the FIPRESCI Prizes were announced at the Festival Awards Presentation.
Buffalo Boy, released in the U.S. through Global Lens 2005, is Vietnam’s entry in the Foreign-Language Film category for the Academy Awards. Set in the years before World War II, in the flooded lowlands of French Indochina–now southernmost Vietnam–this coming-of-age story is based on a collection of short stories about a boy herding his father’s water buffalo to higher ground to find grass during the long season of flooding. The film will be released on DVD March 21, 2006, through First Run Features (see Coming Soon in 2006). For details and the discussion guide for Buffalo Boy: Click Here.
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Now Playing: GLOBAL LENS AT MoMA IN NEW YORK CITY!
Global Lens opens its third annual series at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, with screenings scheduled through Monday, February 20th. Along with several scheduled screenings of all films in the series, Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures is featured during a week-long run February 9th–15th. Global Lens films are screened at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street. For details, schedules and tickets: Click Here.
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Coming Soon: GLOBAL LENS AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS IN BOSTON!
Global Lens returns to Boston February 22nd ’Äì March 29th, at the Museum of Fine Arts! For details, screening schedule and tickets: www.mfa.org.
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COMING SOON: GLOBAL LENS AT THE OKLAHOMA CITY MUSEUM OF ART!
Global Lens 2006 travels to Oklahoma City in March, where the films will be screened through a partnership with the Oklahoma City Museum of Art! All films will be screened in the Noble Theater, which shares the Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center with the Museum of Art. For details, screening schedule and tickets: www.okartmuseum.com.
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GLOBAL LENS FOR STUDENTS: PROGRAMS IN NEW YORK AND BOSTON!
The Global Lens Education Program for 2006 is collaborating with the Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Education in New York, and in Boston with the Museum of Fine Arts, to provide free screening programs for students. These programs provide an unparalleled opportunity for students to “inhabit” diverse cultural settings through the incomparable medium of cinema.
Through internationally-acclaimed feature films, the students are immersed in stories that may shape their understanding of how people live in cultures around the world. Each student experiences the sights and sounds, the music, culture and traditions of the streets of Beijing, a dusty highway on the border between Iran and Turkey, or a neighborhood in Soweto, South Africa.
Immediately following the screening, the students participate in a facilitated discussion designed to encourage a deeper understanding of the characters, stories and settings in the films.
Discussion guides and other curriculum support are available for download at no charge on our website, Click Here . All are in .pdf format for easy printing.
In New York:
Films are screened at 9:30 AM in
the Roy and Niuta Titus 1 Theater at MoMA,
11 West 53rd Street:
February 15: Border Café (Iran)
February 16: Max and Mona (South Africa)
February 17: Stolen Life (China)
For tickets, please call the MoMA Education Department at (212) 333 1139.
In Boston:
All films will be screened in
the Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston:
Friday, March 3: Max and Mona (South Africa)
Monday, March 13: Border Café (Iran)
Thursday, March 16: Max and Mona (South Africa)
Monday, March 20: Stolen Life (China)
Thursday, March 23: Border Café (Iran)
Thursday, March 30: Stolen Life (China)
For tickets, please call Erin Trahan at (617) 524 4679.
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News: SIFF GOES TO SCHOOL SCREENS FILMS FOR STUDENTS IN SEATTLE!
Global Lens 2006 opened in Seattle on January 13th, halfway through a record-breaking month of rain in the Northwest. Education Programs Coordinator Liza Comtois, of the Seattle International Film Festival Group, reports that the weather was not enough to keep high school students or teachers away from their screenings at the Varsity Theater in the University District–record crowds of young people attended special screenings of Border Café, Stolen Life, and Hollow City. SIFF Goes To School, the education/outreach program of the Seattle International Film Festival Group, launched this year’s Global Lens education program by inviting educators from across the Puget Sound to an Educators Movie Night event. A large turnout of teachers attended a screening of Border Café, at which they received fun SIFF gift bags and were publicly recognized for their participation.
Each of the student screenings was followed by a lively discussion with a carefully chosen facilitator, whose expertise with the country in which the film was set broadened the young peoples’ understanding. The students’ engagement in the question-and-answer sessions clearly demonstrated their interest and understanding of the issues and ideas presented in the films. After a screening of Border Café, for example, the students raised the subject of women’Äôs roles in Iran with the facilitator, Faizi Ghodsi, a native of Iran and Director of the International Student Center at Seattle University. The students wanted to know, are Iranian women aware that women in other countries are not so restricted in their choices?
Dr. Ghodsi commented that women in Iran had the right to vote long before women in the West, and that more women than men are currently enrolled in medical schools and colleges in Iran today–noting also that the situation for women is different in urban and rural areas of Iran, such as the small town portrayed in Border Café. He suggested that the short answer to this complex question is that Western societies have evolved rapidly in the past century, widening the gap between women’s experiences in Europe and the US and women in the Middle East.
One young man asked about a central element in Border Café–the food! As it is in many cultures, preparing and serving food is an important cultural connection for people in Iran. Indeed, it is Reyhan’s cooking at the café that brings other characters close to her.
Liza Comtois credits the outreach efforts of SIFF for the great turnout and the excellent facilitators that led discussions following film screenings. SIFF was able to offer transportation to the Varsity Theater, thanks to sponsorship by a local school bus company, and the Educators Movie Night that launched the education program created great enthusiasm in schools across the region.
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FOOD
FOR THOUGHT:
“Over the past decade, a new generation of international filmmakers has emerged. These artists produce work that is uniquely national in character, but not the least bit generic. Their films offer a distinct departure from fashioned and predictable storytelling, and reflect the emergence of an entrepreneurial cinema that is creatively driven, financially resourceful, adaptable, and innovative. These are the new global independents . . . And what is most exciting about the evolution of the international production arena is the promise of the personal, innovative, and creative filmmaking that these new global independents will offer us in the future.”
(Source: Geoffrey Gilmore, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, in “Point of View #9”, Daily Insider, January 20, 2006, sundance.org
COMING SOON: BUFFALO BOY AND WHISKY ON DVD MARCH 21!
Selected films from Global Lens 2005 will be released on DVD this year, through First Run Features / Icarus Films, distribution partner of The Global Film Initiative. March 21, Buffalo Boy and Whisky will join the Global Lens Collection available on DVD–Mango Yellow, Rachida, Nada, Shadow Kill, Margarette’s Feast and Angel on the Right are already available.
Buffalo Boy, directed by Minh Nguyen-Vô, was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize as Best Foreign-Language Film of 2005 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival (see story in this issue: Click Here), and is Vietnam’s entry in the Foreign-Language category for the Academy Awards to be presented in March.
Whisky, directed by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll of Uruguay, tells the story of three people whose lives are changed by a small deception intensified during a weekend together. The filmmakers won the prestigious Sundance/NHK Award for their screenplay, and Whisky was selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.
For details about buying these and other films in the Global Lens Collection on DVD: Click Here.
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Global Shorts: 15 MINUTE SHORT FILM FROM PAKISTAN ON TOUR WITH GLOBAL LENS 2006!
Little Terrorist, based on a true story, is about Jamal, a 12-year-old Pakistani boy who crosses through a minefield into India while looking for his cricket ball. While on the other side, he must find shelter from the Indian soldiers who are searching for the “terrorist” who has crossed over.  Jamal soon finds himself at the doorstep of Bhola and Rani, a Hindu Brahmin and his niece who agree to disguise the boy and hide him from the soldiers. With the two grappling with the consequences of harboring a Pakistani, and their prejudices against Muslims, Jamal’s only hope is the humanity shared by a people separated by artificial boundaries. Engaging and well paced, Little Terrorist is a film full of tension and release in all the right places.
Little Terrorist will screen with four other short films under a program entitled Global Shorts. For the first time, The Global Shorts program is designed to acknowledge emerging filmmakers from the developing world, while showcasing their short films within the larger traveling series Global Lens.  Screening at the Initiative’s partner venues, the four shorts screening with Little Terrorist are: Source of History, (Burkina Faso); Harvest Time, (China); Elephants Never Forget, (Venezuela); and More Than the World, (Argentina), a great international sampler!
Little Terrorist, written and directed by Ashvin Kumar (India, 2004), was nominated for Best Live Action Short by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2005, and was screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the London International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival.
See Global Lens 2006 Calendar) for venue locations and screening times.
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INSIGHTS: NOTES FROM CINEMART AND THE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM!
 Our Director of Programs recently returned from CineMart, the international co-production market at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. This is the fourth year that Global Film has attended the invitation-only market (January 29 – February 2nd). In this 23rd year of CineMart, 45 new projects were presented from countries such as Argentina, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Sri Lanka and South Africa.
When not meeting filmmakers at CineMart, we attended screenings arranged for film professionals. Because these are not public events, industry specialists can watch a film for a few minutes–beginning, middle or end or in between meetings.
Lunch and dinner are at all hours of the day during the Festival. Sometimes lunch is frites and mayo–piping hot, freshly made frites (fried potatoes) “met mayonnaise”–a Dutch specialty. For a New Yorker, dinner at midnight is something to take in stride–but the morning schedule still starts early, either for screenings or meetings. Sometimes one doesn’t really know what time it is because you are in the dark all day. The Festival provides a great opportunity to meet people we have worked with by email and phone for the past year, so The Initiative planned in advanced to meet with filmmakers, sales agents, producers and museum film curators.
Global Film has found CineMart to be an excellent way to review new projects while spreading the word about our Granting Program. The following projects supported by Global Film were selected for the 2006 International Film Festival Rotterdam:
Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures, Brazil, (2005)
The Dog Pound, Manuel Nieto Zas (Uruguay)
The Gaze, Sepideh Farsi (Iran)
Waiting, Rashid Masharawi (Palestine).
Kudos to The Dog Pound, which walked away with one of the Festival’s top honors, the VPRO Tiger Awards!
Among the Global Lens films introduced through CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund are:
Fuse, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2003)
Hollow City, Angola (2002)
Pin Boy, Argentina (2004)
Uniform, China (2003)
Whisky, Uruguay (2004)
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