52nd THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
November 4 - 13, 2011
TRIBUTES
Four diverse and distinctive directors are being celebrated this year in the 52nd edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival: American Sara Driver, Danish Ole Christian Madsen, Italian Paolo Sorrentino and Greek Constantine Giannaris.
Sara Driver, Ole Christian Madsen, Constantine Giannaris and Ulrich Seidl will attend the event to present and discuss their work with the Festival’s guests and audience.
SARA DRIVER
Sara Driver’s work as a director, writer and producer definitely falls under the category of “independent film”: she started making films in New York in the beginning of the 1980s, an ideal time for artists with low budgets, collective spirit and passion for filmmaking. Under this generic tag, however, her own films shine for their individuality and their often surrealist nature. Whether she deals with ghosts (in the form of Marianne Faithful), Chinese fairy tales or an identity-switching schizophrenic, she always succeeds in creating mysterious, entrancing atmospheres in her stories. The importance she attributes to creative elements such as cinematography and music (as evidenced for example in the Joe Strummer original soundtrack for When Pigs Fly), the bold fantasy elements and the charming humor and characters, add up to a body of work that may be comprised of very different films, but is united by the same wonderfully whimsical spirit.
All of Driver’s films will be showcased during the 52nd TIFF; in addition, Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation and Stranger than Paradise will be screened as part of the tribute, as they are the first two films Driver produced.
THE FILMS:
The Bowery - Spring (Postcards From New York), France, 1994, 10’
When Pigs Fly, USA/Germany/Netherlands, 1993, 98’
Sleepwalk, USA/West Germany, 1986, 78’
Stranger than Paradise, director Jim Jarmusch, USA, 1984, 89’
You Are Not I, USA, 1981, 48’
Permanent Vacation, director Jim Jarmusch, USA, 1980, 75’
OLE CHRISTIAN MADSEN
Ole Christian Madsen, a key member of the new wave of Danish cinema with Thomas Vinterberg and Per Fly, has left his unique stamp in his country’s prolific national cinema and the international scene. He has worked in fiction, documentary and TV, achieving an exemplary balance between the art house and commercial poles of creation. His work is not easily pinned down, as he has created a repertoire of different films, of which common denominators are commitment to understanding human relationships, a deftness with silences combined with a skill for dialogue and superb acting. He was one of the original founders of production/distribution company Nimbus Film, which produces all his films, as well as projects by Vinterberg, Dagur Kari and others.
Madsen started out his career in film with Sinan’s Wedding and Pizza King, focusing on the lives of immigrants in Denmark, a subject previously untouched by his fellow filmmakers. This was followed by the immensely popular crime TV series The Spider and Kira’s Reason, his first and only Dogma film. In 2008 he directed Flame and Citron, a WWII drama: the story of two resistance fighters, it also confronts the dark history of Danish cooperation with the Nazi regime; it went one to be one of the most commercially successful films in the history of Denmark.
His latest film, Superclasico, is the first comedy Madsen has tackled, the story of a husband whose wife has fallen for an Argentinean football player and his attempts to win her back. It is the third part of a marriage trilogy (after Kira’s Reason and Prague), and it sets a different and delightfully humorous tone in comparison to its predecessors.
THE FILMS:
SuperClasico, Denmark, 2011, 99’
Flame and Citron (Flammen & Citronen), Denmark/Germany/Czech Republic, 2008, 130’
Prague (Prag), Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic, 2006, 96’
Angels in Fast Motion (Nordkraft), Denmark, 2005, 120’
Kira’s Reason: A Love Story (En k?rlighedshistorie), Denmark, 2001, 93’
Pizza King, Denmark, 1999, 103’
Sinan's Wedding (Sinans bryllup), Denmark, 1997, 59’
PAOLO SORRENTINO
One of the most unique voices in recent Italian cinema, Paolo Sorrentino has distinguished himself with his deft, bold and diverse style, using it in a manner befitting the context and stories of each of his films. Whether the narrative focuses on real-life Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, (Il Divo) or a small-town tailor (The Family Friend), Sorrentino’s characters are complex, mysterious, deeply flawed and bursting with human desires; furthermore, his stories always seem to tap into the corruption that seeps into every facet of Italian life.
Sorrentino’s latest film (and first with an English-speaking cast), This Must Be the Place, winner of the Ecumenical Prize at the 64th Cannes IFF, stars Sean Penn as an ageing rock star who travels through America to locate and confront his dead father’s tormentor, an ex-Nazi war criminal. The idiosyncratic story, written specifically for Penn, is according to the director, “an unrelenting hunt for the unknown…not so much to find the answer, but to keep the question alive, [coupled with] my instinctive need to introduce irony into drama”.
THE FILMS:
This Must Be the Place, Italy/France/Ireland, 2011, 118’
Il divo, Italy/France, 2008, 110’
Τhe Family Friend (L'amico di famiglia), Italy/France, 2006, 102’
The Consequences of Love (Le conseguenze dell'amore), Italy, 2004, 107’
One Man Up (L'uomo in piu), Italy, 2001, 100’
CONSTANTINE GIANNARIS
Constantine Giannaris is one of the most internationally renowned Greek directors of the past two decades; this is the first time that a complete retrospective of his work is showcased. From Man at Sea, his most recent film presented here with a new director’s cut, to a multitude of previously unseen 8mm shorts and all his fiction feature films, the tribute will provide a complete picture of Giannaris’ thematically and aesthetically bold cinema.
His work frequently deals with issues of identity, often through the conditions of immigration and sexuality. In a 1992 seminal Sight and Sound article, where the term New Queer Cinema was coined, Giannaris’ work is cited as a paradigm of the prolific movement and of a new, audacious cinema that viewed sexuality as a rebellious force, going against the conservative status quo. Giannaris has received two Teddy awards in the Berlin IFF for Trojans (1990) and for Caught Looking (1992).
Central themes to Giannaris’ work are: displacement, identity, intolerance, the (economical, racial, societal) constraints that hold us back from fulfilling our desires and the hope for a better life. His second feature, From the Edge of the City (1998), chronicles the lives of young Russian immigrants of Greek descent spiraling into a world of ennui, hustling and drug use. It put him on the map of international cinema for his exceptional cinema verite approach and use of non-actors (often, but not always, characteristics of his films). His work also includes experimental shorts, a thriller, a metaphysical drama and many other reincarnations of his preferred themes, always infused with his individuality and bravado.
THE FILMS (Full list to be announced at a later date):
Man at Sea, Greece, 2011
Gender Pop, Greece, 2008, 40'
Hostage (Omiros), Greece, 2005, 100'
Visions of Europe, 25 European countries, 2004, 5'
One Day in August (Dekapentavgoustos), Greece, 2002, 106'
From the Edge of the City (Apo tin akri tis polis), Greece, 1998, 94'
3 Steps to Heaven, UK, 1995, 87'
A Desperate Vitality - The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, UK, 1992, 20'
Greeks, 1991, 25'
A Matter of Life and Death, 1991, 25'
A Place in the Sun, UK, 1993, 44'
Caught Looking, UK, 1991, 35'
North of Vortex, UK, 1991, 58'
Trojans (Troes), UK/Greece, 1990, 35'
Silences, 1990, 10'
Disco's Revenge, 1989-1990, 24'
Jean Genet is Dead, 1987, 35'
