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a festival diary by olaf möller

So, that's Izola - you can fit it in a borough of my hometown and nobody would notice the change; and yet, I'm utterly incapable to get the hang of it, the lay of the land (probably to small for me...). But nice, very nice, pretty relaxed, just the kind of place to watch great films and feel fucking guilty about it: the call of the beach... but we're good little cinephiles, so we'll have joy, we'll have fun, we'll have seasons in the dark ...

Oana Stopariu for isolacinema.org

The biggest democracy of the world can anytime be placed on an equal position with Europe and even defeats when it comes to demography... Bollywood produces the biggest number of films in the world. Indian film production keeps the ascendant trend year after year, a possible social model proposed using the pattern of Holywood or just cosmopolitism and glamour. In such a strong competition, independent Indian filmmakers have a hard time surviving.

Oana Stopariu for isolacinema.org

The film selection at the first edition of Izola`s Film Festival was a unique combination of films with different approaches and locations. The music of Brazil, Russian or Iranian realities are some of the subjects presented alongside the retrospective of Slovenian films. Globalization, present in every corner of the world, and cosmopolitism find themselves at home in Izola, a small coastal town on the Adriatic shore.

oana stupariu for isolacinema.org

Apichatpong Weerasethakul - winner in Cannes, a guest in Izola

Apichatpong Weerasethakul represents a new wave of directors enriched by the wonders of progress and ways of easy reaching to the ideas that one belives in. Born in 1970, in Bankok, Thailand, with each of his films, Apichatpong Weerasethakul mixes fact anf fiction in building identities for its characters even if reality presented is not always linear as life itself keeps its surprises. Abstract and fragmented, his latest film Blissfully Yours, made in 2001, is either a real or an acted one. The answer is not quite important, but seeing the film is. Shown in Cannes, Apichatpong Weerasethakul`s first feature film is a revelation concerning the narrative structure by varying banal dialogues shatered in a time dilluation.

oana stupariu for isolacinema.org

She is frail and looks a little bit pale, so natural in her dissimulating modesty. This is Olga Oniščenko alias Lisa from the film Granny by Lidia Bobrova. Dissimulation is just one constant aspect of her acting career and modesty she defines as just being sure of values she stands for. Nowadays it is uncommon to meet an actress who is so in touch with her own self and who so easily lets go of the inner parts of her personality in order to accomplish a character in her entirety. One can recognize the Russian soul of this actress – it is so full of passion, compassion and overwhelming generosity with which she acts and spreads her talent on stage or behind camera.

Nikolai Jeffs for isolacinema.org

What, if anything, is common to the films of Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America? The first possibility in the search for useful definitions of such films could examine their conditions of production. These are frequently curtailed by economic relations of semi- or underdevelopment that influence the technical, narrative, and genre possibilities of a given film. For instance, East European science fiction or fantasy (think of Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Solaris or the use of classical trick camera in the films of Jan Ĺ vankmayer) cannot compete with the expensive special effects of Star Wars.