Nic Balthazar's Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands) was the clear winner at
the 31st Montreal World Film Festival (23 August to 3 September 2007).
Besides sharing the Grand Prize of the Americas with Claude Miller's
Un secret (France), it received the Ecumenical Prize and was voted the
Audience Award. Not bad for a critic-turned director making his debut
feature. The story of a mildly autistic lad who is constantly put upon
by a couple bullies at a technical school, the youth retreats into his
own world and finds some refuge in video games on his computer. Before
writing and directing this screen version of his own bestselling
novel, penned to increase literacy among Belgian youths, Nic Balthazar
had also developed Ben X into a successful play.
Another audience favorite was awarded the runnerup Special Jury Grand
Prize. In Ayelet Menahemi's Noodle (Israel) a six-year-old Chinese boy
gets left behind when his mother, an illegal alien, gets picked up on
the street and deported. Left holding the bag is a middle-aged,
twice-widowed El Al flight attendant, who had employed the boy's
mother as her cleaning woman. Feeling guilty, the moreso because she
is without a child of her own, the woman's concern leads to a highly
improbable but effective solution. To return the boy to his mother,
she packs him secretly into her own onboard baggage on a flight to the
Far East!
Family tales, mostly on the morbid side, were also featured
attractions in the competition. In Latif Lahlou's written-and-directed
Samir fi adayaa (Samira's Garden) (Morocco), a woman in the prime of
life is burdened with an impotent husband. Her sexual desires and
forced isolation lead to an affair with the nephew of her husband, a
young virile male who has been placed in her care as governess. When
the relationship is discovered, the woman finds herself more isolated
than before. Although for my taste more a critique of Arabic Muslim
customs than a refined work of cinematic art, Samira's Garden was
awarded Best Screenplay and the FIPRESCI (International Critics)
Prize.
In Émile Gaudreault's self-styled comedy, Comment survivre à ma mère
(Surviving My Mother) (Canada), a negligent mother, who has just
gotten rid of her own ailing mother, decides it's time to get to know
her 21-year-old daughter better. But the more she digs into her
daughter's life, the more her own world gets turned upside down. For
who would have guessed that the nympho web-cruising daughter is
carrying on a torrid affair with the local priest! Surviving My Mother
was voted the Most Popular Canadian Film by the audience.
In Jacob Berger's 1 Journée (1 Day) (Switzerland) we follow events as
seen by individual members of a family – father, mother, young son –
throughout the course of a single day. And as fate would have it, each
person in the film views events differently and in such a way that the
audience too gets drawn into the reflective process. The
husband-father believes he might have run someone over while driving
in a morning rain. The wife-mother discovers that she has been
betrayed by her husband in the course of the afternoon. Later in the
day, the 8-year old son forms a warming relationship with the young
girl in the neighboring apartment, whose mother in turn has been
visited that morning by his father. Although the point of 1 Day is
never quite clear, the overlaps do indeed intrigue. Jacob Berger, who
collaborated on the screenplay, was awarded Best Director.
And in Volker Einrauch's Der andere Junge (The Other Boy) (Germany)
two neighboring Hamburg couples, the best of friends, don't realize
that their adolescent sons are anything but that. When one is driven
by the sadistic behavior of the other to kill his tormentor in blind
rage, his parents are drawn into the tragic affair. Andrea Sawatzki,
in the role of the afflicted and helpless mother trying to cover up
the crime, was deservedly awarded Best Actress. Volker Einrauch is a
cult director to keep an eye on. With a dozen feature films to his
credit, made mostly for television, the unexpected twists and turns in
his crime-oriented tales is what make them both amusing and engrossing
in a Raymond Chandler vein. The Other Boy, directed as usual in close
collaboration with screenwriter Lothar Kurzawa, is a crime tale that
doesn't let the cat out of the bag until the last scene.
Hollywood actor Jon Voigt was honored with a special award for
"exceptional contribution to cinematographic art." Although Voigt well
deserved his award, it was arguably for the wrong film in his
distinguished career. For he was honored in conjunction with what was
termed a "Mormonsploitation" film, Christopher Cain's September Dawn.
Indeed, the film's release sparked controversy across the breadth of
North America. In this fumbling historic epic cum romantic drama,
Voigt plays a Mormon fanatic who triggered the Mountain Meadows
Massacre in Utah in 1857, in which around 120 men, women, and children
in an Arkansas wagon train on its way to California lost their lives.
That the tragedy happened on 11 September 1857, exactly 150 years
before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center, is somewhat beside the point. The big question was
why September Dawn had to wait 20 months before its official release
on August 24, the opening day of the Montreal World Film Festival.
Back on 22 January 2006, John Anderson of the New York Times penned a
thumbnail sketch of September Dawn from a Los Angeles editing room,
predicting that "there will be fresh debate when it finally reaches
the public" – meaning that the Church of Latter Day Saints may have to
dust off its historical records. The debate began when September Dawn
opened the FFM and promptly went into release. The cascade of pro and
contra reviews (mostly contra) were so plentiful that Wikipedia opened
an individual website on the film, listing 35 nation-wide commentaries
(at this writing) on both the production and the historical event that
triggered it. In the meanwhile, the Mormon Church has taken pains to
memorialize the victims of the tragedy. LDS historians, too, are
collaborating on a book about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to be
published shortly by the Oxford University Press. It will cover the
role that Bishop John D. Lee played in perpetrating the crime, for
which he was tried and executed 20 years after the fact. Mormon Bishop
Jacob Samuelson, Jon Voigt's fictional character in the film, is based
on the real-life John D. Lee.
When I asked festival director Serge Losique whether he had
anticipated the uproar over the film, he responded that "film
festivals are there to promote dialogue, not to boycott the art of the
cinema." Further, Losique underscored how Montreal audiences still
remember Jon Voigt's stellar appearances in John Schlesinger's
Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Hal Ashby's Coming Home (1978). In fact,
during the press conference for September Dawn. Voigt was asked by a
fan when he would shoot another film with Dustin Hoffman like Midnight
Cowboy. Queried about his own view on September Dawn, Jon Voigt
summarized the film's message as "courageous and universal – it
tackles the problem of intolerance in our society."
Another FFM tribute honored French actress Sophie Marceau. Her
presence – along with that of French directors Claude Lelouch and
Claude Miller – can be reckoned a windfall for the Montreal festival.
A quarter-century ago, Sophie Marceau, the attractive daughter of a
French truckdriver, took the nation by storm when, at the tender age
of 14, she appeared in Claude Pinoteau's La Boum (The Party) (1980).
Since then, Marceau has starred in over 30 films and was once tapped
to serve as the figurative model for the French national emblem. The
FFM tribute also honored Sophie Marceau as a film director. Directed,
partially written, and starring Sophie Marceau, La disparue de
Deauville (Trivial) (France, 2007), a thriller set in a luxury hotel
in Deauville, marks her second try at directing a film. She plays a
double role in this caper about a hotel owner who has mysteriously
disappeared.
As warming as the reception for Sophie Marceau and her actor husband
Christophe Lambert was, nothing in the course of the festival matched
the standing ovation given to Claude Lelouch. The occasion was the
Montreal premiere of his Roman der Gare (Crossing Tracks), starring
Fanny Ardant as a wily pulp mystery writer who schemes to get rid of
her discontented ghost-writer before he spills the beans. As for
Claude Miller's presence at the FFM, he walked away on closing night
with a share of the Grand Prize of the Americas for a film that he had
just introduced as an official entry in the competition. Un Secret, a
Shoah tale set during and after the Second World War, delves into a
family secret that gradually unravels to reveal adultery and a
subsequent cover-up.
The FFM tribute to Fernand Dansereau marked the second occasion this
year that the veteran Canadian filmmaker has been honored by his
peers. Previously awarded the prestigious Prix de Québec, Fernand
Dansereau was one of the pioneers of the "direct cinema" documentary
movement at the National Film Board of Canada. His credits stretch
over 50 films in 50 years in the multiple capacity of director,
producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and production
manager. The Montreal festival honored Dansereau as a feature film
director with a screening of La brunante (Twilight), the fiction story
of a woman in her seventies who decides to commit suicide before
burdening her children with an oncoming Alzheimer affliction. But
before departing this world, Madeleine – played with tact and insight
by Monique Mercure, the grande dame of Québecoise cinema – revisits
favorite places of her youth on the Gaspé peninsula, together with a
young woman who is also facing a similar life crisis. Twilight was a
festival highlight.
The fourth FFM tribute was awarded to Spanish producer Andrés Vicente
Gómez. Herein lies a story. The tale of a festival war that badly
crippled the FFM – until just recently, when Vicente Gómez was elected
president of the influential International Federation of Film
Producers Associations (FIAPF). Of course, the primary reason why
Andrés Vicente Gómez was present in Montreal was to honor his
exceptional contribution to cinematographic art. At Serge Losique's
request, he presented four memorable films from his producer's
portfolio: Carlos Saura's Oh, Carmela! (1990), Fernando Truéba's Belle
Époche (1992), Álex de Iglesia's El día de las bestia (The Day of the
Beast) (1995), Santiago Segura' Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley
(Torrente, the Silly Arm of the Law) (1998).
He crowned this with one of the key films in the competition: Ray
Loriga's Teresa: el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa: The Body of Christ)
(Spain, 2006), awarded the Prize for Best Artistic Contribution at
Montreal. Indeed, Teresa: The Body of Christ, the story of St. Teresa
of Avila, is a role cut to the intellectual talents of actress Paz
Vega. Under Ray Loriga's direction, the saint is depicted not only as
a remarkable woman who founded the Discalced Carmelite Order to offset
the excesses of a corrupt 16th-century Spain. Further, her mystic
writings set her apart as a forerunner in Spanish lyric poetry.
This said, the films produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez obviously
helped the festival enormously. But the Spanish producer was also
present at Montreal in a manifest show of FIAPF support for Serge
Losique. Back in 2003, Montreal had unfortunately been stripped of its
A-festival recognition by Bertrand Mollier, at that time FIAPF's
contentious Director General, who has since left the organization.
Montreal fought back, and won, what was termed in some circles as a
festival war. That is, if a witless rhubarb was over the question of
convenient festival dates can be called a war.
The rhubarb began when the Venice festival under director Moritz de
Hadeln favored dates that would cover the first week of September.
Dates, however, that the Montreal festival had occupied for the past
quarter century. At the same time, the Toronto festival under Piers
Handling favored earlier dates in September to avoid conflict with
those of the New York Film Festival, at that time scheduled in mid
September. Although a Toronto overlap with Montreal was theoretically
possible, it was not at all probable. But Toronto had a wild card in
the deck. If Montreal could be nudged aside, then Telefilm Canada
might support Toronto's growing film market with extra funding. As a
lucrative umbrella organization, Telefilm supports Canadian film
festivals with subtitling, booking costs, guest appearances, and
related marketing patronage.
Montreal, by contrast, had regularly booked its dates with an eye on
Labor Day – a Canadian as well as American holiday – as the festival's
closing night. Furthermore, since Montreal dovetailed with the
Telluride Film Festival in the Colorado Rockies by sharing the same
Labor Day weekend, films and directors were easily interchangeable, to
say nothing of sharing print and travel costs. The fly in the ointment
was the ever changing dates of the Montreal festival. Since Labor Day
always fell on the first Monday of September, the Montreal dates
consequently shifted back and forth in the month of August and
regularly overlapped with those of Venice. And so the festival war
came to pass.
In 2003, during the Cannes film festival, Moritz de Hadeln complained
to FIAPF that Montreal was trespassing on calendar dates reserved to
Venice. He argued that the Montreal dates of that year, scheduled from
August 27 to September 7, usurped those of Venice, scheduled from
August 28 to September 8. What de Hadeln forgot to mention was that
Venice was traditionally recognized as a "September festival" – just
as Cannes was down in the FIAPF books as a customary "May festival."
To muddy the waters even more, de Hadeln argued that since both Venice
and Montreal were listed on the official festival calendar as
"Competitive Feature Film Festivals" (aka "A-Category Competition
Festivals"), the question was whether or not Serge Losique could
arbitrarily "manipulate" his festival dates without receiving the
permission of FIAPF.
The upshot? Moritz de Hadeln caught the ear of Bertrand Mollier,
FIAPF's newly appointed Secretary General. And Mollier responded by
casting his lot with Venice. Mollier not only honored Venice's
protest, but he also went so far as to cancel Montreal's membership in
FIAPF. The FIAPF decision had repercussions in Canada. Telefilm Canada
canceled its monetary support of the Montreal World Film Festival. The
blow hit hard. For the next three festivals, the FFM had to limp along
on its own, relying primarily on a faithful audience and some funding
from Montreal and Quebec film officials.
In 2005, however, the situation went from bad to worse. That's when
Moritz de Hadeln was ousted as Venice festival director, only to
accept a nebulous offer from an entertainment conglomerate to found
and organize a brand new Montreal International Film Festival. Now,
with two film festivals in Montreal – the FFM in August-September and
the MIFF in mid-October – the home audience had to decide between the
two at the ticket office. The FFM thrived. The MIFF turned out to be a
bust. Not only did the Montreal audience remain faithful to the FFM,
but key representatives of national film offices the world over also
remained loyal to Serge Losique.
Last year, for the FFM's 30th anniversary, funding from both Montreal
and Quebec coffers increased. Although not enough to celebrate an
anniversary in style. This year, according the Danièle Cauchard, FFM's
vice-president and programming director, the festival was nearly back
on course with more local, national, and international support. The
FIAPF stamp of approval came when Andrés Vicente Gómez embraced Serge
Losique on national television at the opening night gala. Danièle
Cauchard crowned this occasion at the festival press conference with a
blistering attack on Telefilm Canada for still withholding needed
funding support. Her blast drew spontaneous applause from critics and
media professionals.
This contretemps forced Telefilm Canada to issue the following news
release: "Telefilm Canada is pleased to have recently provided
financing for subtitling at the World Film Festival, in order to allow
Quebec audiences to have access to films in both official languages.
It is regrettable that during the opening of an international event, a
festival director would choose to make unfortunate comments; the focus
should instead be on celebrating cinema. Since April 2007, Telefilm
has been working closely with the FFM to conclude a viable agreement
regarding its funding for 2007-2008."
Awards
Feature Films
Grand Prize of the Americas (ex-aequo)
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Un Secret (A Secret) (France), dir Claude Miller
Special Jury Grand Prize
Noodle (Israel), dir Ayelet Menahemi
Best Director
1 Journée (1 Day) (Switzerland), dir Jacob Berger
Best Artistic Contribution
Teresa: el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa: The Body of Christ) (Spain), dir Ray Loriga
Best Actress
Andrea Sawaktzki, Der andere Junge (The Other Boy) (Germany), dir
Volker Einrauch
Best Actor (ex-aequo)
Filipe Duarte and Tomás Almeida, A outra margem (The Other Side)
(Portugal/Brazil), dir Luís Filipe Rocha
Best Screenplay
Latif Lahlou, Samira fi adayaa (Samira's Garden) (Morocco), dir Latif Lahlou
Innovation Award
D75-Tartina City (Chad/France/Morocco), dir Issa Serge Coelo
Short Films
1st Prize
Songes d'une femme de ménage (Cleaning Lady's Dreams) (Belgium), dir Banu Akseki
Jury Award
L.H.O. (Germany), dir Jan Zabeil
Zenith Awards – First Films World Competition
Golden Zenith
La caja (The Wooden Box) (Spain), dir Juan Carlos Falcón
Silver Zenith
Malos habitos (Bad Habits) (Mexico), dir Simon Bross
Bronze Zenith
Dong sun (Bamboo Shoots) (China), dir Jian Yi
Special Mention
Chelovek-veter (Wind-Man) (Russia), dir Khuat Akhmetov
Other Awards
Audience Award – Most Popular Film of Festival
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Audience Award – Most Popular Canadian Film
Comment survivre à ma mère (Surviving My Mother), dir Émile Gaudreault
Glauber Rocha Award – Best Latin American Film
Partes Usadas (Used Parts) (Mexico), dir Aarón Fernandez
Best Documentary Film
Nach der Musik (A Father's Music) (Germany), dir Igor Heitzmann
Best Canadian Short Film
La Lili à Gilles (Gilles' Lili), dir David Uloth
FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Prize
Feature film
Samira fi adayaa (Samira's Garden) (Morocco), dir Latif Lahlou
Short film
Bonne nuit Malik (Good Night Malik) (France), dir Bruno Danan
Ecumenical Prize
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Special Awards – Exceptional Contribution to Cinematographic Art
Fernand Dansereau (Canada), director, producer, writer, editor, cinematographer
Andrés Vicente Gómez (Spain), producer, writer
Sophie Marceau (France), actress, director
Jon Voigt (USA), actor
Surviving My Mother was voted the Most Popular Canadian Film by the audience.
In Jacob Berger's 1 Journée (1 Day) (Switzerland) we follow events as
seen by individual members of a family – father, mother, young son –
throughout the course of a single day. And as fate would have it, each
person in the film views events differently and in such a way that the
audience too gets drawn into the reflective process. The
husband-father believes he might have run someone over while driving
in a morning rain. The wife-mother discovers that she has been
betrayed by her husband in the course of the afternoon. Later in the
day, the 8-year old son forms a warming relationship with the young
girl in the neighboring apartment, whose mother in turn has been
visited that morning by his father. Although the point of 1 Day is
never quite clear, the overlaps do indeed intrigue. Jacob Berger, who
collaborated on the screenplay, was awarded Best Director.
And in Volker Einrauch's Der andere Junge (The Other Boy) (Germany)
two neighboring Hamburg couples, the best of friends, don't realize
that their adolescent sons are anything but that. When one is driven
by the sadistic behavior of the other to kill his tormentor in blind
rage, his parents are drawn into the tragic affair. Andrea Sawatzki,
in the role of the afflicted and helpless mother trying to cover up
the crime, was deservedly awarded Best Actress. Volker Einrauch is a
cult director to keep an eye on. With a dozen feature films to his
credit, made mostly for television, the unexpected twists and turns in
his crime-oriented tales is what make them both amusing and engrossing
in a Raymond Chandler vein. The Other Boy, directed as usual in close
collaboration with screenwriter Lothar Kurzawa, is a crime tale that
doesn't let the cat out of the bag until the last scene.
Hollywood actor Jon Voigt was honored with a special award for
"exceptional contribution to cinematographic art." Although Voigt well
deserved his award, it was arguably for the wrong film in his
distinguished career. For he was honored in conjunction with what was
termed a "Mormonsploitation" film, Christopher Cain's September Dawn.
Indeed, the film's release sparked controversy across the breadth of
North America. In this fumbling historic epic cum romantic drama,
Voigt plays a Mormon fanatic who triggered the Mountain Meadows
Massacre in Utah in 1857, in which around 120 men, women, and children
in an Arkansas wagon train on its way to California lost their lives.
That the tragedy happened on 11 September 1857, exactly 150 years
before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center, is somewhat beside the point. The big question was
why September Dawn had to wait 20 months before its official release
on August 24, the opening day of the Montreal World Film Festival.
Back on 22 January 2006, John Anderson of the New York Times penned a
thumbnail sketch of September Dawn from a Los Angeles editing room,
predicting that "there will be fresh debate when it finally reaches
the public" – meaning that the Church of Latter Day Saints may have to
dust off its historical records. The debate began when September Dawn
opened the FFM and promptly went into release. The cascade of pro and
contra reviews (mostly contra) were so plentiful that Wikipedia opened
an individual website on the film, listing 35 nation-wide commentaries
(at this writing) on both the production and the historical event that
triggered it. In the meanwhile, the Mormon Church has taken pains to
memorialize the victims of the tragedy. LDS historians, too, are
collaborating on a book about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to be
published shortly by the Oxford University Press. It will cover the
role that Bishop John D. Lee played in perpetrating the crime, for
which he was tried and executed 20 years after the fact. Mormon Bishop
Jacob Samuelson, Jon Voigt's fictional character in the film, is based
on the real-life John D. Lee.
When I asked festival director Serge Losique whether he had
anticipated the uproar over the film, he responded that "film
festivals are there to promote dialogue, not to boycott the art of the
cinema." Further, Losique underscored how Montreal audiences still
remember Jon Voigt's stellar appearances in John Schlesinger's
Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Hal Ashby's Coming Home (1978). In fact,
during the press conference for September Dawn. Voigt was asked by a
fan when he would shoot another film with Dustin Hoffman like Midnight
Cowboy. Queried about his own view on September Dawn, Jon Voigt
summarized the film's message as "courageous and universal – it
tackles the problem of intolerance in our society."
Another FFM tribute honored French actress Sophie Marceau. Her
presence – along with that of French directors Claude Lelouch and
Claude Miller – can be reckoned a windfall for the Montreal festival.
A quarter-century ago, Sophie Marceau, the attractive daughter of a
French truckdriver, took the nation by storm when, at the tender age
of 14, she appeared in Claude Pinoteau's La Boum (The Party) (1980).
Since then, Marceau has starred in over 30 films and was once tapped
to serve as the figurative model for the French national emblem. The
FFM tribute also honored Sophie Marceau as a film director. Directed,
partially written, and starring Sophie Marceau, La disparue de
Deauville (Trivial) (France, 2007), a thriller set in a luxury hotel
in Deauville, marks her second try at directing a film. She plays a
double role in this caper about a hotel owner who has mysteriously
disappeared.
As warming as the reception for Sophie Marceau and her actor husband
Christophe Lambert was, nothing in the course of the festival matched
the standing ovation given to Claude Lelouch. The occasion was the
Montreal premiere of his Roman der Gare (Crossing Tracks), starring
Fanny Ardant as a wily pulp mystery writer who schemes to get rid of
her discontented ghost-writer before he spills the beans. As for
Claude Miller's presence at the FFM, he walked away on closing night
with a share of the Grand Prize of the Americas for a film that he had
just introduced as an official entry in the competition. Un Secret, a
Shoah tale set during and after the Second World War, delves into a
family secret that gradually unravels to reveal adultery and a
subsequent cover-up.
The FFM tribute to Fernand Dansereau marked the second occasion this
year that the veteran Canadian filmmaker has been honored by his
peers. Previously awarded the prestigious Prix de Québec, Fernand
Dansereau was one of the pioneers of the "direct cinema" documentary
movement at the National Film Board of Canada. His credits stretch
over 50 films in 50 years in the multiple capacity of director,
producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and production
manager. The Montreal festival honored Dansereau as a feature film
director with a screening of La brunante (Twilight), the fiction story
of a woman in her seventies who decides to commit suicide before
burdening her children with an oncoming Alzheimer affliction. But
before departing this world, Madeleine – played with tact and insight
by Monique Mercure, the grande dame of Québecoise cinema – revisits
favorite places of her youth on the Gaspé peninsula, together with a
young woman who is also facing a similar life crisis. Twilight was a
festival highlight.
The fourth FFM tribute was awarded to Spanish producer Andrés Vicente
Gómez. Herein lies a story. The tale of a festival war that badly
crippled the FFM – until just recently, when Vicente Gómez was elected
president of the influential International Federation of Film
Producers Associations (FIAPF). Of course, the primary reason why
Andrés Vicente Gómez was present in Montreal was to honor his
exceptional contribution to cinematographic art. At Serge Losique's
request, he presented four memorable films from his producer's
portfolio: Carlos Saura's Oh, Carmela! (1990), Fernando Truéba's Belle
Époche (1992), Álex de Iglesia's El día de las bestia (The Day of the
Beast) (1995), Santiago Segura' Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley
(Torrente, the Silly Arm of the Law) (1998).
He crowned this with one of the key films in the competition: Ray
Loriga's Teresa: el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa: The Body of Christ)
(Spain, 2006), awarded the Prize for Best Artistic Contribution at
Montreal. Indeed, Teresa: The Body of Christ, the story of St. Teresa
of Avila, is a role cut to the intellectual talents of actress Paz
Vega. Under Ray Loriga's direction, the saint is depicted not only as
a remarkable woman who founded the Discalced Carmelite Order to offset
the excesses of a corrupt 16th-century Spain. Further, her mystic
writings set her apart as a forerunner in Spanish lyric poetry.
This said, the films produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez obviously
helped the festival enormously. But the Spanish producer was also
present at Montreal in a manifest show of FIAPF support for Serge
Losique. Back in 2003, Montreal had unfortunately been stripped of its
A-festival recognition by Bertrand Mollier, at that time FIAPF's
contentious Director General, who has since left the organization.
Montreal fought back, and won, what was termed in some circles as a
festival war. That is, if a witless rhubarb was over the question of
convenient festival dates can be called a war.
The rhubarb began when the Venice festival under director Moritz de
Hadeln favored dates that would cover the first week of September.
Dates, however, that the Montreal festival had occupied for the past
quarter century. At the same time, the Toronto festival under Piers
Handling favored earlier dates in September to avoid conflict with
those of the New York Film Festival, at that time scheduled in mid
September. Although a Toronto overlap with Montreal was theoretically
possible, it was not at all probable. But Toronto had a wild card in
the deck. If Montreal could be nudged aside, then Telefilm Canada
might support Toronto's growing film market with extra funding. As a
lucrative umbrella organization, Telefilm supports Canadian film
festivals with subtitling, booking costs, guest appearances, and
related marketing patronage.
Montreal, by contrast, had regularly booked its dates with an eye on
Labor Day – a Canadian as well as American holiday – as the festival's
closing night. Furthermore, since Montreal dovetailed with the
Telluride Film Festival in the Colorado Rockies by sharing the same
Labor Day weekend, films and directors were easily interchangeable, to
say nothing of sharing print and travel costs. The fly in the ointment
was the ever changing dates of the Montreal festival. Since Labor Day
always fell on the first Monday of September, the Montreal dates
consequently shifted back and forth in the month of August and
regularly overlapped with those of Venice. And so the festival war
came to pass.
In 2003, during the Cannes film festival, Moritz de Hadeln complained
to FIAPF that Montreal was trespassing on calendar dates reserved to
Venice. He argued that the Montreal dates of that year, scheduled from
August 27 to September 7, usurped those of Venice, scheduled from
August 28 to September 8. What de Hadeln forgot to mention was that
Venice was traditionally recognized as a "September festival" – just
as Cannes was down in the FIAPF books as a customary "May festival."
To muddy the waters even more, de Hadeln argued that since both Venice
and Montreal were listed on the official festival calendar as
"Competitive Feature Film Festivals" (aka "A-Category Competition
Festivals"), the question was whether or not Serge Losique could
arbitrarily "manipulate" his festival dates without receiving the
permission of FIAPF.
The upshot? Moritz de Hadeln caught the ear of Bertrand Mollier,
FIAPF's newly appointed Secretary General. And Mollier responded by
casting his lot with Venice. Mollier not only honored Venice's
protest, but he also went so far as to cancel Montreal's membership in
FIAPF. The FIAPF decision had repercussions in Canada. Telefilm Canada
canceled its monetary support of the Montreal World Film Festival. The
blow hit hard. For the next three festivals, the FFM had to limp along
on its own, relying primarily on a faithful audience and some funding
from Montreal and Quebec film officials.
In 2005, however, the situation went from bad to worse. That's when
Moritz de Hadeln was ousted as Venice festival director, only to
accept a nebulous offer from an entertainment conglomerate to found
and organize a brand new Montreal International Film Festival. Now,
with two film festivals in Montreal – the FFM in August-September and
the MIFF in mid-October – the home audience had to decide between the
two at the ticket office. The FFM thrived. The MIFF turned out to be a
bust. Not only did the Montreal audience remain faithful to the FFM,
but key representatives of national film offices the world over also
remained loyal to Serge Losique.
Last year, for the FFM's 30th anniversary, funding from both Montreal
and Quebec coffers increased. Although not enough to celebrate an
anniversary in style. This year, according the Danièle Cauchard, FFM's
vice-president and programming director, the festival was nearly back
on course with more local, national, and international support. The
FIAPF stamp of approval came when Andrés Vicente Gómez embraced Serge
Losique on national television at the opening night gala. Danièle
Cauchard crowned this occasion at the festival press conference with a
blistering attack on Telefilm Canada for still withholding needed
funding support. Her blast drew spontaneous applause from critics and
media professionals.
This contretemps forced Telefilm Canada to issue the following news
release: "Telefilm Canada is pleased to have recently provided
financing for subtitling at the World Film Festival, in order to allow
Quebec audiences to have access to films in both official languages.
It is regrettable that during the opening of an international event, a
festival director would choose to make unfortunate comments; the focus
should instead be on celebrating cinema. Since April 2007, Telefilm
has been working closely with the FFM to conclude a viable agreement
regarding its funding for 2007-2008."
Awards
Feature Films
Grand Prize of the Americas (ex-aequo)
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Un Secret (A Secret) (France), dir Claude Miller
Special Jury Grand Prize
Noodle (Israel), dir Ayelet Menahemi
Best Director
1 Journée (1 Day) (Switzerland), dir Jacob Berger
Best Artistic Contribution
Teresa: el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa: The Body of Christ) (Spain), dir Ray Loriga
Best Actress
Andrea Sawaktzki, Der andere Junge (The Other Boy) (Germany), dir
Volker Einrauch
Best Actor (ex-aequo)
Filipe Duarte and Tomás Almeida, A outra margem (The Other Side)
(Portugal/Brazil), dir Luís Filipe Rocha
Best Screenplay
Latif Lahlou, Samira fi adayaa (Samira's Garden) (Morocco), dir Latif Lahlou
Innovation Award
D75-Tartina City (Chad/France/Morocco), dir Issa Serge Coelo
Short Films
1st Prize
Songes d'une femme de ménage (Cleaning Lady's Dreams) (Belgium), dir Banu Akseki
Jury Award
L.H.O. (Germany), dir Jan Zabeil
Zenith Awards – First Films World Competition
Golden Zenith
La caja (The Wooden Box) (Spain), dir Juan Carlos Falcón
Silver Zenith
Malos habitos (Bad Habits) (Mexico), dir Simon Bross
Bronze Zenith
Dong sun (Bamboo Shoots) (China), dir Jian Yi
Special Mention
Chelovek-veter (Wind-Man) (Russia), dir Khuat Akhmetov
Other Awards
Audience Award – Most Popular Film of Festival
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Audience Award – Most Popular Canadian Film
Comment survivre à ma mère (Surviving My Mother), dir Émile Gaudreault
Glauber Rocha Award – Best Latin American Film
Partes Usadas (Used Parts) (Mexico), dir Aarón Fernandez
Best Documentary Film
Nach der Musik (A Father's Music) (Germany), dir Igor Heitzmann
Best Canadian Short Film
La Lili à Gilles (Gilles' Lili), dir David Uloth
FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Prize
Feature film
Samira fi adayaa (Samira's Garden) (Morocco), dir Latif Lahlou
Short film
Bonne nuit Malik (Good Night Malik) (France), dir Bruno Danan
Ecumenical Prize
Ben X (Belgium/Netherlands), dir Nic Balthazar
Special Awards – Exceptional Contribution to Cinematographic Art
Fernand Dansereau (Canada), director, producer, writer, editor, cinematographer
Andrés Vicente Gómez (Spain), producer, writer
Sophie Marceau (France), actress, director
Jon Voigt (USA), actor
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