Indie filmmaker, student filmmaker, but too old!

No worries, this is only me after a long night. Phh..Nothing special, just an allergy attack. No one knows really, but at least now I can view the world as flat, 2d experience. It should be OK in 3 days, so I'm really almost enjoying it.

What I don't enjoy lately is my age. I mean, I don't have a problem being 30 (in 3 days!), but I do have a problem with not being able to participate in the Berlinale, for example. If they haven't heard yet, 40 is the new 30, so they really should adjust themselves.

Anyway, I go on working on my script. I left a message to the camera woman I want today. She makes films herself and she is really busy, but I hope she could be my camera woman anyway. She is very talented and also easy to talk to, which is a good starting point in a director-camerawoman relationships!

The university published today the courses for next year. I'm really excited about it, there seems to be so many interesting courses for the 3rd year of film school....But I know that many lectures have the gift of giving great titles for their courses, but then the course itself is totally shit.

Pfff...should get my script done by now. It's hard. Especially with one eye only.

Independant Filmmaker, Independant Actors

Grrr. I love actors. I have shooting dates for my film: 16-21 October. Hmm. Gotta start find my actors: One woman, two men and one old white shirt. This is really the best part of the life of a film director (besides the parties).

The picture above is of an actor who worked with me on a film, one year ago.

Also I've heard about this film festival in Iceland. It's next month, I hope to go there.

A filmmaker's job in the industry

Sometimes I think it's such a shame, all those brilliant people trying so hard to get a job that is so below their level. Many students, for example, are searching jobs in the post production industry. They think they want to be editors, or compositors, or whatever. So they send 100 cvs, to all post production studios, and get zero response. Then two years after they find out a friend of the son of their mother's friend is an assistant editor in a studio. They wait a few months and a position becomes available: a runner! They get the dreamy job. A year after, they still deliver tapes to angry assistants, coffee to angry customers or drugs to angry editors.

Some of them will maybe proceed and become assistant editors, and even editors, someday. But so many others are just wasting their time, energy and qualities on those stupid jobs, that anyway were created just for the sake of "classes" within the industry. And what's even more bothering is, most of those roles pay shit, or sometimes even not pay at all.

I used to work for a post production company that specialized in commercials. The atmosphere was shit, but I didn't have much contact with the people since my job was backing-up those systems (Flame machines), and that was usually early morning, before anybody arrived. Some of the Flame people got no money for half a year, and also then they got very little. They of course worked just as anybody else.

I feel bad asking for people to work on my film without paying them anything, but I don't have any budget yet. But when companies that make millions still don't pay their employees - nobody should take part in this. We all worth piece of this cake we help baking.

Films, not masterpieces, please!

Finally I've passed that exam, for which I had to watch 30 films in a very short time (hard life for a film student, we don't always have the time to watch all those movies we want to when we want to, so it adds up). After watching films such as: "Disorderly orderly", "Lady Eve", "All about Eve", "Bride of Frankenstein", for days, I felt like watching a film, don't care which, as long as it was NEW.

It's funny, I came to study film and I can hardly find the time of watching normal movies. You know, just go to the dvd library and take what LOOKS good, not necessarily a well known masterpiece. I must say that for now I'm quite fed up with masterpieces, or at least the well-known masterpieces of cinema. I WANT TO DISCOVER THEM MYSELF. That's it.

So, since I just renew my registration at the dvd library, I felt free to take whatever seemed interesting, without recommendations. I took 3 films: "Rabbit Fever", "Hard Pill" and "The Beautiful Washing Machine".

First I watched "Rabbit Fever". I liked the idea: all women get hooked on a the rabbit, which is a magnificent vibrator. It's a mocumentary, and I thought that this genre is probably the one I watch least, so why not give it a try. After watching the movie I can say that the idea is nice, but the film is less. It happens many times, but i get that feeling more often in documentaries. Somehow filmmakers find great stories, but don't make them into great films. In "Rabbit Fever" I felt the format of documentary-like film was misused. The story was still just its title, nothing developed. Yes, there was a character with a conflict, but we came here for the rabbit, and all we got is a bunch of women on the verge of --masturbation? It's not enough. "The rabbit" is for me its title and poster. All the rest is only potentially there.

Second was "Hard Pill". This one's about a sad gay taking a pill hoping it will make him straight and happy. I felt like I was watching "Queer as folk - the movie". Gay stereotypes with problems which are...too easy to understand. Shallow, maybe?

I think the problem of both "Hard Pill" and "Rabbit Fever" is that they were not even trying to use cinematic language. They are not films - they are dvds. I watched them while my friend was next to me with his laptop, surfing gaydar for some action. Is this the future movies? Those that are OK, watchable also without full attention? When you have nothing to miss but a line of dialog?

My third film for that evening was "The Beautiful Washing Machine". It's a Malaysian film from 2004, and I think this director also loves Tsai Ming Liang, like me. But more of this after I watch it again, without gaydar on the side, today.

A filmmaker in an ocean of films

"All about Eve" is a movie that I enjoy watching. It keeps surprising me, and I still enjoy finding so many references to this film in other films. Intertextuality is fun! As a film student I get to watch sometimes 5 and more films a day. So this week I've watched "All about Eve", "All about my mother" and "Opening night". What a beautiful coincidence!
I haven't thought of it thoroughly, but I think it would be interesting to compare those films in the way they present the relationship between the sexes.

In the original "All about Eve" things seems more free, liquid, it is clear that love is the real bond between two people. This love is so pure and satisfying, that it does not need anything but itself. Young Eve can't seduce Bill, simply because he loves his diva. They don't need to have a kid together as a sign for their love.

In "All about my mother" things get trickier. It's not so trivial to talk about gender, and also love is not so clear anymore. Only a child is a sign for a long-lost love. Life gets harder, much more complex. The purity of love finds no place.
I should give it more thought. I have this paper to write (film studies!!) so perhaps I could choose one of those films, I'd guess it would be "Opening Night". Why is this film is a work of art?
But before that, I must go now to the video library and take 4 other films, including the funny (so I've heard) "Disorderly Orderly". My eyes can't rest...

A happy link for a filmmaker

A new website was launched, and it offers movie reviews from Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper. I tried to search for some rare films but of course that is not what this is about. But if you look for some mainstream movie review, it's not a bad place to start. Load time was shorter than I'd expected, it is indeed a comfortable site.

So, agree with their review or not, this is a great spot for movie buffs.
Click here to check it out.

I watched "I was born, but" of Ozu earlier today. He always makes me laugh, even with no sound (the film is from 1932, quite extreme for a silent film, but those Japanese took their time).
I remembered "Good Morning", a later film by Ozu, also featuring two kid-brothers. Many similarities. Love them both. Ozu was such a great actors' director.

A scriptwriting workout

I opened the weekend's paper today, Haaretz (www.haaretz.co.il), on the literature section, and there was a short story in the corner of the first page. It was very short, I'd say 100 words, and it described the moments in life of a man shutting his life down and going to bed. Very simple, but it made me think. This actually could be the exercise I've been looking for, to start thinking about my characters better.

I will write this scene for each of my characters. How they switch their life off and go to sleep. How they lay in bed, what do they see just before they fall asleep. I am very excited about this exercise, and I feel that after writing this I will meet my true characters.

Saw this great Werner Herzog film on TV yesterday, "Where the green ants dream", it's a fantastic piece that has it all: interesting and unsolved characters, truth, enigma, reality, fiction, surrealism, landscapes, time.

I will maybe write my next paper for uni about this film. I should argue why a specific film is a work of art. Shouldn't be hard with this one, but gotta be interesting.

Slow cinema, slow life

It's just hot. The white sun makes it all looks the same. We live nowhere, we see nothing.

I am very slow in the summer. I walk out of the house to buy my goat-milk, I go up my street, slowly, every step is another lifetime under the white sun. I turn my head at times, a kid goes with his father, laughs. His voice stays in my head for another eternity. Everything looks the same, everything's yellow-gray. There's no air. I think I will make my film in the autumn.

I read this interesting discussion (http://unspokencinema.blogspot.com/2007/07/slow-film-festival.html) about slow cinema. I remembered a short film by Polanski, I forgot the name, maybe it was Murder? Anyway, i think that's what i'd call slow cinema.

Saw Nashville yesterday. I didn't like it so much, but I'm not sure why. It has of course interesting moments, but they are quite trivial now. Maybe it was different when the movie came out. The music, suprisingly, wasn't all that bad.

Another thought of alienation

I was thinking about Tsai Ming Liang again. I really enjoy his films. I dont try hard, I simply enjoy them. I know they are slow and have few dialogues, but it almost never bores me. It's a journey I enjoy taking, and this is why I go to the cinema.

I read this post on Paul's blog (Melbourne Film Blog: MIFF Day 8) and it made me think maybe most of the people, and I mean most of film-festival people, see it different. And that's a real phase of alienation, that I feel. Right now.

But the good part is, Tsai still makes films, and they are still screened. Yey, we won!

I will go see Ratatouille this afternoon.

Alienation is a filmmakers' utopia

After watching Stromboli in the cinematheque yesterday (my review can be found on www.gilyotina.com) I thought about how different things are now.

It was a hot day, as every summer day in Tel Aviv is, very humid and unbearable. The cinema was the great escape. We were all watching Ingrid Bergman suffers on the island, suffers when she not understood or accepted, suffered from the lack of civilization. But what we, the spectators, experienced, was very different. A rare piece of heaven, untouched, full of beautiful black rocks and surrounded by crystal clear water. So much nature, how can she not appreciate it?

Of course the world of the movie is different. But suddenly I realized the connection between Rossellini, Antonioni and Tsai Ming Liang. We changed as human beings, and the alienation we experience now is more connected to urban civilization than to nature and god.

And what is the connection between the god that Ingrid Bergman searches for and the "children of the neon god" of Tsai Ming Liang?

I'm rewriting my script now. It should be shot in October but I'm not sure about it. Maybe it will be a winter film.