international film festival rotterdam Tagged Articles at Cinematical

How will you spend the 7th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks? Here's an idea: head to NYC's Two Boots Pioneer Theater for the opening night screening of Able Danger, an acclaimed independent film based around the conspiracy theory that U.S. intelligence was involved in the planning and execution of the tragic events on the morning of that infamous date. Even if you think the idea of a 9/11 conspiracy is ludicrous and in poor taste, the premiere screening should be interesting, because writer-director Paul Krik will be on hand for a Q&A. And this is the sort of city where people will likely show up for a debate. Of course, while subsequent screenings throughout the film's one-week engagement won't be attended by Krik, there could still be some engaging conversation to be had with fellow audience members. So if you can't make the initial showing, don't worry about missing out on all the fun.

The film, which stars Elina Löwensohn (Nadja) and Adam Nee, is a fictional thriller (Variety labels it a mix between The Maltese Falcon and Kiss Me Deadly) about a couple of 9/11 "truthers" attempting to expose the conspiracy using a hard-drive filled with data thought to be destroyed by a real classified government program named Able Danger. It had its world premiere back in January at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and has since screened at the Cannes Film Market (aka the Marche du Film) and opened the Brooklyn International Film Festival, where it won a special award of excellence. For more on the film, check out the website, where you can use a plane-shaped cursor to click on explosive links located on a graphic of the World Trade Center (classy!). You can also watch the film's trailer below, after the jump.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam just wrapped - here's a wrap up of the word around the Internet on the best (and worst) of the fest's offerings:

Over on Twitch, reader Peter sent in a most impressive summary of the 25 films he saw in Rotterdam, focusing heavily on the Japanese offerings at Rotterdam. A couple of fun, Kamikaze Girl-style flicks (The Great Yokai War , a children's film directed by hard cult director Miike Takashi, and Yaji and Kita - The Midnight Pilgrims, which may be "the most cheeful drugs film every made"; a trio of very "weak and nasty" films, one of which ends with three bad guys getting anally violated at a proctologist's office - ouch!); and one very good film, It's Only Talk, directed by Hiroki Ryuichi. I'll keep an eye out for that one - Peter describes it as being like Lost in Translation, which I liked very much. Peter also details other films he enjoyed, including Drawing Restraint 9, by performance artist and sculptor Matthew Barney.

Indiewire' s Mark Rabinowitz  has a great write up about Cinemart, Rotterdam's co-production market and one of the "jewels of the indie film world".

Frenchy enjoyed Reefer Madness: The Musical. (film is an adaptation of the stage version, starring the original stage cast,)and hated Analife - "crap onna stick". Ouch.

Eden, Michael Hoffman's "romantic culinary comedy", picks up the Tiscali Audience Award.

The White Light Weblog - a special programme section of IFFR, which presents a series of "drugs driven" cinema. No, that doesn't mean the filmmakers are on drugs; section features "hallucinating cinema" and "narco cinema", in which drugs appear as a plot catalyst.

 

 

 

 

Anthony Kaufman has an interesting bit up about three little gems from Sundance - Madeinusa, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, and Old Joy - which all had good showings recently at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Kaufman reports that all three films won awards at Rotterdam, but seemed to be "under the radar" at Sundance, and wonders how many Sundancers actually saw them.

Interesting question. Given that pretty much everything was sold out before the fest even started, I'd venture to guess quite a few. I actually heard some buzz here and there about Madeinusa. All three films were on my personal list of films I wanted to catch, and I missed all of them. In fact, I don't believe any of our team of four reviewers saw those films, and collectively, we saw and reviewed over a third of the films at Sundance. There are only so many films you can see in 12 days. Hopefully, a lot of the under the radar gems at Sundance will be showing up at a film festival near you - and me - and we'll have another opportunity to see them.