HIDDEN TALENTS HAILED BY NEW GALLIC GALLERY

In her two decades as one of French cinema’s most influential producers, Anne-Dominique Toussaint has guided to international glory such award winners as Respiro (2002), Caramel (2007), The Hedgehog (2009), The French Kissers (2009), Where Do We Go Now? (2011) and Bicycling with Moliere (2013). While in Melbourne for the MIFF season of her latest production, Jacky and The Kingdom of Women, Toussaint (pictured, below) told SCREEN-SPACE that her latest project explores the multi-faceted creativity of the great film artisans…

“I’ve been a producer for 24 years now and have produced a lot of films but I felt it was time for a new type of challenge,” said Toussaint, a woman whose elegant, sophisticated presence draws many admiring glances during our chat in Melbourne’s Sofitel motel. “I have opened an art gallery in Paris called Galerie Cinema. We will be displaying artistic works but only those from filmmakers or other people who have a direct link to cinema.”

Having worked with so many of the talents synonymous with European cinema, it seemed a natural progression for the producer to find an outlet for the full scope and scale of her colleague’s visions. “There are so many people in the world of film who are creative in so many ways, such as photography or sketching or painting, so to discover this side of these talented people is so gratifying and so much fun,” Toussaint says.

Her latest curation will launch in September with a display of photographic art from French director Cedric Klapisch (L’Auberge Espagnole, 2002; Russian Dolls, 2005; Paris, 2008; Chinese Puzzle, 2013). After a two month run, Galerie Cinema will present a tribute to the works of photographer Cindy Sherman from the American actor James Franco (pictured, right). Says Toussaint, “It is a very different creativity to what I am used to, the production and creation of films, but it is also the same thing, helping to bring the visions of talented people to an audience.”

Although the end result may be hung on a wall or stand on the gallery floor, Toussaint is determined to keep the link to her filmic roots intact. “It is still about cinema,” she says. “For me, it will always be about the world of cinema, but it is another type of relationship with the world of film.”

The unique endeavour is situated at 26 rue Saint-Claude (pictured, left) in the French capital’s artistic 3^rd arrondissement. The exhibition space has a long history with the display of creativity in many forms; until recently, it housed the renowned Eric Mircher Gallery as well as operating as a creative community hub known as ‘sometimeStudio’.

As is the case with all the most successful film producers, Anne-Dominique Toussaint does not lack for ambitious vision. Should the Paris location prove successful, expect a Galerie Cinema near you. Says the producer, “It is my dream to open up a Galerie Cinema in cities all over the world, in New York, and maybe here in Melbourne, and one in Beirut, a city that I love.” 

Full details of the exhibition schedule for Galeries Cinema can be found on their Facebook page here.

POSSIBLE WORLDS OFFERS IMPOSSIBLE ROSTER OF FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

Given the bracing originality and unique visions of the films programmed, there is a sweet irony to the almost clichéd progression of the Possible Worlds Film Festival. The annual celebration of offbeat US and Canadian works began as a small, passionate project for Matthieu Ravier and his non-profit cultural collective, The Festivalists; nine years later, it is one of the key film events on the Australian social calendar. In 2014, an even split of nine US titles and nine Canadian features means audiences are spoiled for choice. To help your decision-making, here are the five standout films that SCREEN-SPACE rank as Possible World’s ‘must-see’ movies…  

YOUNG ONES (Dir: Jake Paltrow; 100 mins; pictured, above) 
What’s it about? Water is to director Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones as ‘guzzoline’ is to George Miller’s Mad Max. A landowner living in the dustbowl that was once civilization must protect his family from the ruthless drifters of the desert planet. But could the ultimate threat come from within the very walls of his own home?
Why should I see it? ‘Post-apocalyptic Western’ is reason enough; the striking trailer, another. An indie-sector dream cast (Michael Shannon, Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult and Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee) working dark and dusty with such grand themes of survival, morality and desire, perched on the edge of a new, dangerous world landscape.

TRIPTYCH (TRIPTYQUE; Dirs: Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires; 94 mins)
What’s it about? Robert Lepage’ theatrical head-scratcher Lipsynch become a live venue sensation (it played to sellout crowds at the 2009 Sydney Festival). Interweaving three vivid inner-city narratives – the bookseller, the jazz singer, the neurologist – into a compelling, confounding whole proved revelatory theatre. The celebrated Lepage, with co-director Pedro Pires, now brings his work to the screen, both honouring its stage roots while embracing, with new vigour, the technologies of the new canvas.
Why should I see it? Because I have absolutely no idea what to expect! Having earned an Ecumenical Jury Special Mention at Berlin’s Panorama strand, it is clear that this deeply personal vision will be a challenging experience. Lepage has the astonishing creative credentials to make this something special…

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY (Dir: Alan Zweig; 89 mins)
What’s it about? Documentarian Alan Zweig takes a typically idiosyncratic stab at understanding how the cultural history of the Jewish people fuels the hilarious acts and inspirational neuroses of some of the greatest comedians of all time.
Why should I see it? Both the old (Rodney Dangerfield, Henny Youngman, Jackie Mason) and the young (Howie Mandel, Marc Maron, Andy Kindler) are called upon to analyse the heritage that has helped them form their acts. It is not often that the words ‘exhaustively researched’ and ‘hilariously funny’ can be used to describe the same movie.

OUR MAN IN TEHRAN (Dirs: Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein; 85 mins)
What’s it about? Ken Taylor was the Canadian Embassy chief played by Victor Garber in Ben Affleck’s Oscar winner, Argo. A great film, no argument, but littered with dramatic licence. In this Canadian doco, the real Taylor sets the story straight about his role and the compassionate view his country took when they hid the six American diplomats at the height of the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979.
Why should I see it? For all the tweeking of facts that Affleck indulged in to make for compelling cinema, the true drama is in the feats of these very real people. Seeing their pure ordinariness and now knowing the heroes they became makes for a potent film experience. Won the Newport Beach Film Festival 2014 Outstanding Documentary trophy.

THE AUCTION (LE DEMANTELEMENT; Dir: Sebastian Pilote; 111 mins)
What’s it about? Bouchard & Sons is one of the oldest traditional lamb farms in rural Canada. But the proprietor Gaby (Gabriel Arcand), with no heir to pass the farm to and a daughter in dire financial need, is faced with the closure of his family business. Legacy, memory and the strength of tradition in a world of heartless progress are all examined in Sebastian Pilote’s moving drama
Why should I see it? Shot on 35mm film stock, the visual richness of the rustic, rural setting is reason enough; DOP Michel La Veaux won the Quebec industry Jutra Award for his lensing. A elegant, achingly melancholy script from director Pilote (which earned him the Cannes Film Festival SACD honour) and the Best Actor Genie Award for Gabriel Arcand certainly sweeten the deal.

The 2014 Possible Worlds US and Canadian Film Festival screen September 7-17 in Sydney with Perth and Canberra seasons to follow. For full details visit the official website.

SUFF 2014 PREVIEW: SUBVERSIVE SCHEDULE SET TO RATTLE SYDNEY PSYCHE

The 2014 Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF) enters its 8^th year topped and tailed by two of international cinemas most buzzed-about films, ensuring the event, overseen by the dedicated duo of Stefan Popescu and Katherine Berger, further strengthens its reputation as a genre festival of global standing.

Opening the event on September 4 is New Zealand horror comedy Housebound, the directorial debut of Gerard Johnstone and coming to SUFF from a triumphant South-by-Southwest screening. It represents the second time this year that the Kiwi film community has snared a coveted festival slot across the ditch; in June, the vampire mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows closed out the Sydney Film Festival.

The centrepiece of the Closing Night festivities on September 7 will be the German adaptation of Charlotte Roache’s  coming-of-sexuality bestseller, Wetlands (Feuchtgebiete), from fearless filmmaker David Wnendt (Combat Girls, 2011). Carla Juri (pictured, right) stars as Helen, Roache’s teenage protagonist obsessed with the sights, sounds and smells of her changing body. Wnendt was drawn to the project after a campaign pleaded that the novel never be made into a film due to its graphic nature; thumbing his nose at puritanical convention, the director opens his film with excerpts from the letter that kickstarted the movement.

Ten Australian Premieres highlight one of the strongest SUFF line-ups in recent memory. These include Leah Meyerhoff’s dark, fantastical spin on adolescent romance, I Believe in Unicorns, which scored the Grand Jury honours at this years Atlanta Film Festival; the highly-anticipated Amazonian cannibal epic, The Green Inferno, from horror maestro, Eli Roth; Zack Parker’s prickly pregnancy thriller, Proxy, starring Joe Swanberg and Alexia Rasmussen (pictured, top); the bleak, bare-bones misfit romantic odyssey Shadow Zombie, from filmmaker Jorge Torres-Torres; Richard Bates Jr, whose debut effort Excision wowed Sydney Film Festival audiences in 2012, returns with his sophomore effort, Suburban Gothic; and, Japanese ‘Guru of Gore’ Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, a relentlessly energetic, fiercely original assault on the senses from the director of the SUFF 2011 entrant, Guilty of Romance.

No more defining figure captured the complex purity of the underground cultural movement than William S Burroughs. SUFF, in conjunction with scholar and longtime supporter of the Festival, Jack Sargeant, will honour the great man with the Special Event screening of Andre Perkowski’s Nova Express, a radical, confrontational vision based upon the Burrough’s sci-fi novel of the same name.

Fifteen factual films make up the Feature Documentary strand of the program, including several hitting our shores for the first time. The bizarre, blood-soaked career of the ultimate shock-rocker is examined in the Canadian pic, Super Duper Alice Cooper, from co-directors Sam Dunn, Reginald Harkema and Scot McFadyen; Matt Wolf traces the evolution of the first century of youth culture in his demographic defining work, Teenage; Phil Healy’s and JB Sapienza’s character study ode to American oddness, My Name is Jonah (pictured, right); and, direct from its world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, Michael Dahlstrom’s meditative, unforgettable study of food industry practices, The Animal Condition.

The craft of filmmaking and the warped personalities that populate the fringes of our cinema landscape feature in several SUFF sessions. The enigmatic visionary that is director Leos Carax (Holy Motors; The Lovers on The Bridge; Pola X) is afforded his own mesmerising semi-hagiographic study in Tessa Louise-Salome’s Mr X; having wowed audiences in across the world, Andrew Leavold brings to Sydney his obsessive study of The Philippines’ biggest, smallest film star in The Search for Weng Weng; and, Allison Berg and Frank Kerauden study the warped, wonderful life of John Wojtowicz, the real-life anti-hero and hedonistic icon whose short career as a bank robber inspired the classic film, Dog Day Afternoon.  

The vibrant global short film community always welcomes the annual SUFF gathering, which provides rare big-screen sessions for films that are often on the very edge of the experimental and avant-garde. Six different short film strands are scheduled this year, with works from the US (including the World Premiere Paul Turano’s Toward the Flame); Sweden (Sara Koppel’s provocatively-titled Little Vulvah & Her Clitoral Awareness; pictured, right); Brazil (the World Premiere of Julia Portella and Melina Schleder’s Damn You, Vougue); Canada (Veronica Verkley’s The Working Cat’s Guide to The Klondike); and, Austria (the first Australian screening for Markus Wimberger’s Bloody Monster).

And continuing an alliance established several festivals ago, SUFF will screen a selection of works from the Fetisch Film Festival, which unspools annually in the German city of Kiel and presents works of confronting eroticism. This year, the strand presents Jan Soldat’s BDSM-themed A Weekend in Germany; Canadian Matthew Saliba’s humiliation-vs-true-love drama, Eroticide; and, Loops, an episodic Danish work from Steen Schapiro which poses the question, ‘Why do we separate daily life and sexual needs?’

The 2014 Sydney Underground Film Festival runs Thursday September 4 to Sunday September 7 at The Factory Theatre, Marrickville. Full details can be found at the official website here.

A CHANGE OF SEASONS: THE JEFF CANIN INTERVIEW

With the wealth of debate on key issues and the availability of broadcast quality technology, the 'enviromental documentary' has become a ubiquitous genre. To rise above the new wave of 'message movies' takes keen insight, a fearlessness in one's filmmaking and a commitment for the long term. Director Jeff Canin is at the forefront of green-themed 'advocacy cinema'; his works with Cathy Henkel, most notably 2008's The Burning Season, have been recognised internationally. His first solo directorial effort, 2 Degrees, realeased under the banner of his recently-formed company Green Turtle Films, tackles the injustices brought upon the planet by world leaders at the Copenhagen 2013 Climate Change Conference as well as one small township's brave effort to tackle the issue of global warming. Ahead of a screening of his film at Sydney's Chauvel Cinema on August 20, Canin (pictured, below; with DOP, Damian Beebe, in the South Australian hinterland) spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about the all-consuming passion that the environmental documentary demands...    

What were the motivating forces that inspired the 2 Degrees film and intiative?

My previous film, The Burning Season, ended at the Climate Change Conference in Bali in 2007. I was struck by the enormity of what governments were trying to achieve and fascinated by the machinations of the whole process.  Machiavelli would have had a field day. I've always been motivated by the desire to make a difference, and felt it was important to follow the negotiations until the meeting in Copenhagen, which was supposed to produce a legally binding agreement for significant cuts in carbon emissions. The working title was ‘The Road to Copenhagen’. But all through 2009, the mantra repeated over and over was ‘2 degrees’ and how vital it was to keep global temperature rises to below 2 degrees. Yet even this was controversial, because the small island states believe that any rise above 1.5 degrees is the kiss of death. But the industrialized countries believe that they can survive a rise of 2 degrees, and economically, anything below this will be too difficult and expensive. So the title of the film is also somewhat sardonic.  

What were your goals heading into production?

My goal was to make the highly convoluted United Nations process accessible for the general public. And through our interesting characters, inspire them to look at their own lives and ways they could reduce their own personal carbon emissions.  

The toughest lines to walk in an advocacy piece are between the message-based aims and what makes it ‘entertaining’. What were the ‘dos and don’ts’ you adhered to provide that balance in 2 Degrees?

We knew that a whole series of talking heads would kill the film. But how else do you explain the incredible complexity of what was going on? So we tried to interview people on the run, in situ as it were, rather than formal sit down interviews. We also tried to interview as many women as we could, as it was mostly men in suits. And to show the colour of where we were, especially outside the negotiations, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ecuador, for instance. Showing footage of forest dwellers and their struggle to survive, especially in the Congo (pictured, right).  Those images humanize and give a face to the issue.

The lack of action at Copenhagen 2013 in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence made for some gut-wrenching scenes; experts who base their entire lives substantiating truths were clearly shaken when the inaction of our leaders became evident. What was the experience of being there like?

It was your classic multi car pile up on a freeway, but in ultra slow motion. We watched the delegates struggling through this tortuous process, often negotiating right through the night, desperate to produce an outcome that was more than cosmetic and result in real emission reductions (pictured, left; the press corps assembled in Copenhagen). And to watch in complete disbelief as the world leaders arrive and spend two days making posturing speeches purely for the TV audiences back home, instead of sitting down to iron out the remaining issues. It was unbelievably frustrating, and was only tempered by how exhausted we all were.  

2 Degrees is a film of two distinct halves - the Copenhagen 2013 coverage and then the intimacy of the Port Augusta scenes. How did you settle on the structure of the film?

We tried to weave the two stories together from the beginning, but it just didn't work. When it's so complicated, you have to keep it flowing or people lose track.  We needed the Port Augusta story to provide the inspiration and counter the depressing saga of Copenhagen. So we set up the problem: the almost insurmountable task of getting 194 countries to agree on anything substantial. Then we contrast that with communities taking action and not waiting for world leaders to act. (Politicians) are not leaders, they are followers, and will not do anything that is an electoral risk. They will always follow behind the public, which is why we need to take action first and pressure our governments to follow. 

The strong central figure of Port Augusta mayor Joy Baluch (pictured, below) paints a crucial picture of the passion needed to fight for this, for any, cause. How would you best describe both her contribution to the film and being in her company during filming?

Joy's contribution to the film was immense. She is such a great character, and also because of her impact on us. Her courage was extraordinary. She was dying of cancer and in immense pain all the time we were filming her, but you would never know it from the footage.  We'd arrive to film and she would be in agony, but she wouldn't hear of delaying the shoot. "I'm in pain whether I'm in bed or doing the filming, so let's do it," she’d say. She was willing to do whatever she could to help the film come to life. It was so hard to see, yet we were so moved by her courage and determination to fight to the end. It was very humbling, and constantly put things into perspective. People find her incredibly inspiring, and I feel very lucky to have met her.

Are you ever concerned that in the future 2 Degrees will become a kind of ‘I told you so’ document, used to chart the terrible decline of our planet? Or is their still time for significant change?

I'm not a climate scientist so I don't know if it’s too late. I'm not sure anyone does. But in case it's not, we have to do everything we can to reduce our own personal carbon emissions, and pressure our governments to do more. And vote in governments that are going to take action, instead of kowtowing to the fossil fuel industries and letting them off the hook. The ‘big buck’ actions need to come from governments: banning all future coal exploration, phasing out existing coal mines, rapidly developing of solar thermal power and other renewable energy sources. Setting emission reduction targets that match what the science demands. We have to stop electing leaders like Tony Abbott who thinks, in his words, "climate change is crap.” It's extremely difficult to get anything significant through the UN process, when any one country can derail the negotiations. But having Governments there like the current Australian one guarantees the top down UN led process will fail. 

Catch a glimpse of the 2 DEGREES movie from Green Turtle Films on Vimeo.

TRUE GRIT: THE TOM SKERRITT INTERVIEW

Tom Skerritt has never sought A-list recognition, preferring projects that challenge and engage his craft. From early credits that would become counter-culture classics (M*A*S*H; Harold and Maude), works that encompass his maturation as a character actor (The Turning Point; Ice Castles; Steel Magnolias; Top Gun) to the accomplishments that continue to emerge after five decades on screen and stage, the Detroit native has an built an avid fan base and industry reputation the envy of many. Closing in on his 81^st birthday, the actor spoke to SCREEN-SPACE on July 4, a few hours before taking the stage at Melbourne’s Astor Theatre for a sold-out Q&A screening of his most iconic performance, as Captain Dallas, in Ridley Scott’s Alien…

“I was so lucky to be with a wonderful group of actors,” says Skerritt (pictured, below; Skerritt, far right, on-set with Sigourney Weaver, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto), who exhibits no tiredness despite jetting in from Los Angeles only hours before. He has spent a good part of 35 years recounting the production and phenomenon that is Alien, yet offers recollections with an engaging exuberance. “The film is based on the same principles as Hitchcock used, meaning that we all know that terror is out there but we are not quite sure where or what it is. You know something bad may happen if you turn the corner but you don’t quite know what it is,” he says. “Your mind really is the scariest thing you can confront.”

This visit represents a long overdue return to Australia for the actor, who followed Scott’s outer-space monster movie with A Dangerous Summer, a bushfire saga shot in New South Wales in late 1979. It is a largely forgotten work, not least by its leading man. “I recall the experience, sure, but I forgot the name of it. What’s it called?” Skerritt laughs. “I came here because I’d never been to Australia, it was a subject that I was interested in and, frankly, they were paying good money. But we were assured they were going to do rewrites, which I don’t believe ever happened, and some of it was just very ‘soap opera’.” Despite being produced by the great Hal McElroy and with a strong cast in place (“Wendy Hughes was such a wonderful person, as was James Mason,” Skerritt recalls), it proved to ultimately be less than the sum of its parts. “The producers had a lot of footage from a summer of terrible bushfires around Sydney so they thought, ‘Let’s make a movie out of that’,” says Skerritt with a laugh. “Which was fine, because you can start anywhere and make a good story out of it, but you’ve got to do the work.”

Twenty-five years prior, Skerritt arrived back home after military service and quickly became enamoured with the arts; a major in English studies led to a passion for writing, painting and photography. “Somewhere along the way I became very curious about the theatre from the point of view of a shy and self-conscious young man, just wondering how it might help me get out of this shell that I was in,” recalls the actor. “I wound up out in Los Angeles with a vision of being a film director. I did a lot of television back then but I really wanted to start directing and writing my own shows.” (pictured, left; Skerritt in NBC's The Virginian, 1964)

He hit Los Angeles just as the ‘Golden Age of Television’ was blossoming, and worked consistently. The behind-the-scenes talent and pace of production proved invaluable for the young actor. Skerritt recalls, “I worked with some extraordinary directors (which) helped me hugely as an actor and as a writer. Each skill works in unity with and affords a degree of sympathy for the other and learning and applying that means you can work on anything without letting your ego get in the way. Knowing what writers do, what directors do, what editors do, all that knowledge brings a richness to the work an actor does.”

One of those directors was Robert Altman, who warmed to the young actor’s eager, raw talent and attitude, guiding Skerritt through both career and life decisions. The friendship led to the break-out role of Capt ‘Duke’ Forrest, in a film that changed the Hollywood landscape, Altman’s Oscar-winning military satire, M*A*S*H. “He was my mentor and that is how I got the job,” Skerritt says. “I responded to his talent, of course, but also his philosophy about work and his approach to the business.” The set was a legendarily anarchic one, the suits of 20^th Century Fox clashing constantly with the anti-establishment production. Skerritt is still surprised by the hit that it became. “Oh, we had no way of knowing that it was going to be as extraordinary as it turned out to be,” he laughs.

M*A*S*H was also the first of Skerritt’s standout performances in ensemble pieces; he is at his very best in roles that draw the best from others – Fuzz (1972; opposite Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch and Jack Weston); The Devil’s Rain (1975; with Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert and Ida Lupino); The Turning Point (1977;co-starring Anne Bancroft, Shirley Maclaine and Mikhail Baryshnikov); Alien, of course (1979); Top Gun (1986; pictured, right, with Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards and Michael Ironside); Steel Magnolias (1989; with Sally Field, Julia Roberts and Maclaine again); and, his greatest TV success, Picket Fences, for which he won a Lead Actor Emmy.

“I respond best to actors who, like me, don’t take it all too seriously and don’t try to show-off,” he offers, when asked to define his philosophy on acting. “I learnt very early on from the likes of Bob Altman and Hal Ashby that the great directors make the filming experience a creative effort. Plant a seed inside the actor, ask them to grow and develop their character, show them a level of trust with the script. Actors who really have a talent will embrace the challenge to grow.”