Buzzard: Potrykus interview at Locarno

March 6, 2015 / sucity / Comments Off

Opening today in New York City: Buzzard

Here’s my interview with Joel Potrykus, Writer, Director, Editor and co-star of “Buzzard” from the 2014 Locarno Film Festival for IndieWIRE/SydneysBuzz. (Originally posted in August 2014.)

Returning to the Locarno International Film Festival after winning for Best New Director in 2012 for his feature “Ape,” Joel Potrykus and his Sob Noisse collaborators are receiving quite the buzz in the American independent film scene. I met with Joel Potrykus during the Festival to talk about his films and “Buzzard.”

Joel Potrykus and Producer Ashley Young

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INTERVIEW

Susan’s: Highlights from the Locarno Film Summer Academy Master Class with Award-winning Director Agnès Varda

September 30, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

Agnes Varda with Stefano Knuchel at the Locarno Film Summer Academy Master Class

Stefano Knuchel, Head of the Locarno Film Summer Academy, invited me to sit in on his master class with the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival’s Pardo d’onore Swisscom winner French film director Agnès Varda.

Known as the Grandmother of the French New Wave (a term with which she takes issue, as I cite in my Conversation with Varda).Varda’s film credits include “La Pointe Courte” (1955), “Cleo from 5 to 7” (Cléo de 5 à 7, 1962), “The Creatures” (Les Créatures 1966), “Lions Love (…and Lies)” (1969), “Documenteur” (1981),”Vagabond“(Sans toit ni loi, 1985), “The Gleaners and I” (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000) and ” The Beaches of Agnès” (Les Plages d’Agnès, 2008).

Speaking to the group of international students, Varda shared her passion for cinema, photography, and installation work, with humor and honesty. Here are some highlights from Varda’s talk.

I asked Varda about finding inspiration and her writing process

I don’t search for ideas; I find them. They come to me or I have none. I would not sit at a table and think now I have to find ideas. I wait until something disturbs me enough, like a relationship I heard about, and then it becomes so important I have to write the screenplay.

I never wrote with someone else or directed together. I wouldn’t like that. I never worked with (her late husband, director Jacques) Demy. We would show screenplays to each other when we were finished.

When you are a filmmaker, you are a filmmaker all the time. Your mind is recording impressions, moods. You are fed with that. Inspiration is getting connections with the surprises that you see in life. Suddenly it enters in your world and it remains; you have to let it go and work on it. It’s contradictory.

Question from Student: How did you manage to navigate a male-dominated film world?

First, stop saying it’s a male world. It’s true, but it helps not to repeat it. When I started in film, I did a new language of cinema, not as a woman, but as a filmmaker. It is still a male world, as long women are not making the same salary as men.

Put yourself in a situation where you want to make films; whether you are woman or not a woman, give yourself the tools: maybe you intern, maybe you go to school, or read books. Get the tools.

On Filmmaking

We have to capture in film what we don’t know about.

If you don’t have a point-of-view it’s not worth starting to make a film.

Whatever we do in film is searching. If you meet somebody, you establish yourself, who you want to meet, what kind of relationship it is. Our whole life is made up of back and forth, decisions, options — and then they don’t fit.

When one is filming we should be fragile; listen to that something in ourselves. The act of filming for me is so vivid, it includes what you had in mind, and includes what is happening around you at that moment — how you felt, if you have headache, and so on. A film builds itself with what you don’t know.

Life interferes. You have friends. Kids. No kids. Then there is a leak on the wall. Everything interferes. It’s how you build the life with others.

Sometimes I go by myself to do location scouting. When I go by myself, something speaks to me in a place I’ve chosen and I know maybe we should take advantage of that. We have to be working with chance. ‘Chance’ is my assistant director.

Susan’s Conversation with director Victor Erice

September 1, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

Spanish filmmaker Víctor Erice received the Pardo alla Carriera award at the Locarno Film Festival for his extraordinary contribution to film.

The universal themes of time and memory are found in Victor Erice’s poignant and poetic features and short films. Carlo Chatrian, the Festival’s Artistic Director, comments:

Dir. Víctor Erice

“Erice’s films may be few in number, but are all extremely important in the context of modern cinema, and bear the hallmark of an independent and coherent filmmaker, who is able to give a very personal form to his stories, combining private and collective memory. ”

Born in 1940 in San Sebastian, Victor Erice’s first feature-length film “El Espiritu de la colmena” (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973), is considered one of the masterpieces of Spanish cinema. In 1983, he directed “El Sur” (The South), which as in his first feature, centers on a father and daughter relationship conveyed through memories. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Erice’s third feature, the documentary “El sol del membrillo“ (also known as The Quince Tree Sun and Dream of Light) (1992) follows the painter Antonio López and the making of his painting.

Adrian Danks writes in Issue 25, March 2003 Senses of Cinema ( http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/erice/#film):

“In “The Quince Tree Sun” we are asked, gently, to contemplate the intense, but here somewhat dissipated, connection and difference between painting and cinema. We watch the painter (Antonio López Garcia, himself a profoundly quotidian painter) attempt to capture the play of light upon the leaves and fruit of a constantly evolving quince tree, while the filmmaker (Erice, one assumes, though he is never directly present in the film) attempts to document the dynamic processes of creating and ‘imagining,’ while simultaneously showing us the painstakingly serene activity of still-life painting. Inevitably, the film can’t capture enough detail and can’t crystallize the painter’s activity into a suitable closing or defining image; while the painting loses the dynamic of light (and life) in the process of committing the tree to the canvas (but it also captures something of it as well). Nevertheless, each, painting and cinema, goes some way toward capturing the essence of its subject. This tension between a medium of movement (and thus time) and stillness or permanence (and thus a different concept of time) preoccupies Erice’s cinema.”

The Conversation

The Conversation took place on 13 August at the Locarno Film Festival. Moderator Miguel Marías and Victor Erice discussed the difference between the viewing audiences of the present and of the past — a shared point of concern that director Agnès Varda also remarked on at her Conversation at the Festival. Both Erice and Varda addressed the fact that viewers (who now have shorter attention spans) don’t watch films as before; films are watched on small screens, laptops, phones, and so on, which changes the film’s aspect ratio and the look of how the film was shot in and in what format, and in turn, the director’s visual intention.

Susan’s: Director Luc Besson talks LUCY and the Protagonist

August 29, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

The 67° edition of the Locarno International Film Festival opened with Lucy in the outdoor Grande Piazza on August 6 before a standing room crowd. At the Festival, Luc Besson described Lucy as a thriller with action. In my book Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! I write about how to develop characters in this genre.

In a thriller, your protagonist (often the ‘everyman’) must be in jeopardy and eventually outsmart the antagonist in order to survive. Readers must feel empathy for your protagonist and root for him or her to survive. The suspense must continue to build as your story unfolds with intricate twists and turns. Readers must sense the imminent danger. You must build the audience’s anticipation, uncertainties and questions, and deliver on their expectation—while keeping them guessing.

Lucy is an engaging protagonist because she is identifiable and resourceful, and uses her physical and mental prowess to survive against all odds. She is an unlikely hero.

Besson talked about his films with powerful action female characters, La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element or The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, stating:

“I think Lucy is different because Nikita, Leeloo and Joan of Arc were very powerful women with skills, whereas Lucy is a totally average girl at the beginning of this story. What was interesting for me about Lucy was to take a character, who represented Miss Average. She could have been me, or she could have been you. She had no particular characteristics. It’s the first time I took someone who is at the bottom of the ladder. She’s stupid in the beginning; she’s a student that maybe is partying too much, and sort of has a boyfriend. She’s away from home.

Modern Times, Metaphor and Visual Storytelling (The Script Lab)

August 26, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

At the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival, Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times was shown accompanied by a live orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. I had not seen the film for many years and was particularly struck by the visual storytelling and the use of metaphor; two points I detail in my book Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays!

Use visual storytelling to establish the setting and mood. Opening with a significant image will also help to grab the reader’s attention. The reader must be able to step into the world that you have created and have a complete understanding of it.

The first four shots of Modern Times:

1) Title card: “Modern Times” A story of industry, of individual enterprise – humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness”

2) An image of the second hand of a large-faced clock moving forward

3) A herd of sheep rushing forward

4) A mass of rushing workers ascending subway stairs.

In these four shots the audience is informed what the story is about from the opening title card, and the three separate shots that follow – the clock, the sheep, and rushing workers. All of this vital information is conveyed in less than 30 seconds.

Characters’ intentions, agendas, beliefs, feelings, behaviors, and so on, can be conveyed through the careful use of metaphors. In visual storytelling, metaphors can be used to illustrate the theme or themes of your script, a plot point, or a character’s action or behavior.

In Modern Times, the sheep serve as a metaphor of the rushing workers; they are the masses – the humanity.

In a more contemporary example, let’s look at Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, screenplay by Michael Arndt. The 1960’s Volkswagen van in which the Hoover family travels to the children’s beauty pageant, is a metaphor for the 60’s era of rebellion and freedom, and signifies the various family members’ desires and actions. The only way to get the van running is for the family to push it and then jump inside while it’s moving. This van-pushing routine symbolizes the family needing to work together in order to reconcile their differences. The open road, the pageant, and Richard’s get-rich schemes, are metaphors of the American dream.

In Frank S. Nugent’s 1936 review of Modern Times in the New York Times, Nugent writes:

SUSAN ASKS ‘LISTEN UP PHILIP’S’ ALEX ROSS PERRY ABOUT THE FILM’S NARRATION…AND MORE

August 24, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

“Listen Up Philip” at the Locarno International Film Festival

A discussion with writer/director Alex Ross Perry, stars Jason Schwartzman and Jonathan Pryce, and cinematographer Sean Price Williams was held on 12 August 2014. In the Concorso internazionale at the Locarno International Film Festival, “Listen Up Philip“ was also in competition for the Pardo d’oro prize, the Golden Leopard. The film won the Concorso internazionale Special Jury Prize. On 13 August, it was announced that it will also screen in the New York Film Festival.

“Listen Up Philip” – the story

Philip awaits the publication of his sure-to-succeed second novel. He feels pushed out of his adopted home city by the constant crowds and noise, a deteriorating relationship with his photographer girlfriend Ashley, and his own indifference to promoting the novel. When Philip’s idol, Ike Zimmerman, offers his isolated summer home as a refuge, he finally gets the peace and quiet to focus on his favorite subject: himself.

I ask Alex Ross Perry about his decision to use extensive narration voiced by Eric Bogosian

The narration is a gimmick. We talked about Husbands and Wives pseudo-documentary style and I think a film can have a gimmick like that. It’s an interesting way to provide twice the amount of information. It’s not cheating, for example, to tell how long the characters have known each other, and to see how to give background information about the characters. I thought since it was a film about writers this was the film to do it. I think good writing is letting the situation play out naturally.

“Listen Up Phillip”

On Jonathan Pryce’s character Ike Zimmerman

Pryce: Ike Zimmerman — he’s everything I want to be. He’s my fantasy world of someone who is nasty to people all the time. I like that he’s a cynic. I enjoyed playing a character who had no filter.

On Jason Schwartzman on his character Philip

Schwartzman: I didn’t see Philip as mean and there is something nice about saying what’s on your mind and it was one of the greatest experiences for that reason. On one hand they (Ike Zimmerman and Philip) speak their mind and they like to be around each other and on the other hand they don’t.

Why cast Jason Schwartzman as Philip?

Ross Perry: He was far and away the best person for the part. Everyone asked if I wrote this for him. I didn’t. I wish I had.

Schwartzman : We spent a month together in New York before the shoot, and we wrote every scene of the movie on notecards.

Jonathan Pryce and Jason Schwartzman in “Listen Up Phillip”

Susan Kouguell Interviews Joel Potrykus, Writer, Director, Editor and co-star of “Buzzard”

August 22, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

Joel Potrykus, Writer, Director, Editor and co-star of “Buzzard”, and Producer Ashley Young

Returning to the Locarno International Film Festival after winning for Best New Director in 2012 for his feature “Ape,” Joel Potrykus and his Sob Noisse collaborators are receiving quite the buzz in the American independent film scene. I met with Joel Potrykus during the Festival to talk about his films and “Buzzard.”

“Buzzard” : Paranoia forces small-time scam artist Marty to flee his hometown and hide out in a dangerous Detroit. With nothing but a pocket full of bogus checks, his power glove and a bad temper, the horror metal slacker lashes out.

Buzzard exists to break genre, give a middle finger to romance, spit on sentimentality, and laugh at the status quo. It’s time to bring punk back to film. —Joel Potrykus

Potrykus on “Buzzard ”

“Buzzard”

This is the final installment of the “Coyote,” “Ape,” and “Buzzard” films all starring Joshua Burge. It’s a loose trilogy. Josh does not play the same character. This is my angry young man series, the world is out to get him. Same actor, same setting, which is a dirty Midwest city landscape.

I never want to make a genre film, but I’m interested in making films taken from other genres. When people ask me: Is it is a comedy, a drama or horror? I hate to answer that; it bothers me when I try classifying it. I don’t want it to fit into some mold. I would say it’s funny, but it’s dark, and some of it is really sad. I would hope that it’s more than a dark comedy, an anti-romantic comedy.

On Writing

Some people have a rigorous writing schedule and work as a normal screenwriter. When I write a script, even when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about it. I try to set a goal; I want it done in a month, for example.

I studied film and journalism at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan. I thought to pay bills I would be a critic.

I start with a character — I hate to say “character study” that sounds generic — and then focus on one person and one character. I’m interested in the perspective of one person, and filter story through that perspective. My scripts centers on who that person interacts with.

Susan’s Conversation with Oscar Nominee Giancarlo Giannini

August 22, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

Conversation with Giancarlo Giannini

Giancarlo Giannini was honored with the Excellence Award Moët & Chandon on 13 August at the Locarno International Film Festival. The Conversation took place the following afternoon.

Following his successes in the theater, Giancarlo Giannini made his film debut in 1965 in Gino Mangini’s “I criminali della metropoli.” In 1967 this talented singer and dancer took on the popular “musicarello” genre in the film “Non stuzzicate la zanzara” directed by Lina Wertmüller with whom he worked on nine films, including “Seven Beauties,” which earned both Giannini and Wertmüller Oscar nominations in 1977. Lina Wertmüller was the first woman director to be nominated for an Oscar.

On acting

Giancarlo Giannini in “Seven Beauties”

My acting training started as a stage actor at the Academy of Dramatic Art D’Amico in Rome; one of the oldest schools in the world. I spent 12 years as a stage actor; that’s a profession you have to give your entire self to. I was like a monk.

TO READ MORE AND TO FIND OUT WHAT I ASKED GIANNINI:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/sydneylevine/conversation-with-giancarlo-giannini-20140819

Susan’s Interview with PERFIDIA director at Locarno

August 21, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

During the Locarno Film Festival I sat down with “Perfidia“ writer/director Bonifacio Angius, star Stefano Deffenu, and Sardinia Film Commissioner Nevina Satta. “Perfidia” is the sole Italian film in competition at the Locarno Film Festival where it just had its world premiere.

“Perfidia“ : Angelo, 35, is unemployed, alone and without passion. He takes comfort in a bar, dreaming of meeting a girl with whom to start a family. On the death of his mother he rediscovers his relationship with his father, Peppino, who had forgotten him.

Locarno Film Festival’s Artistic director Carlo Chatrian describes “Perfidia” “turns the father-son relationship in a provincial city like Sassari not so much into a model of the absence of relationships, but a prism through which we can read a country that has stopped communicating and is contenting itself with survival.” The filmmakers refer to it as a simple and universal story shot in Sassari that could take place in any city of the province of Italy. Bonifacio Angius states, “Knowing the places of the film makes the story even more authentic.”

SUSAN’S CONVERSATION WITH AGNES VARDA

August 18, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off

The Conversation with Agnes Varda moderated by film critic and historian Jean Michel Frodon took place at the Locarno International Film Festival on 12 August. The rain clouds cleared just as Ms. Varda took the outdoor stage. Speaking about her career in photography, filmmaking and as an installation artist, Varda offered honest insights about being categorized both as a female filmmaker and part of the New Wave, as well as anecdotes and words of wisdom about her past and present work.

Frodon: There was an important event in the history of world cinema — the New Wave. Just before the official opening of the Locarno Festival we screened “The 400 Blows,” but actually you started the New Wave with your film “La Point Courte,” which was quite original, stunning, and unlike all the others. You were no film buff, you were a woman, not a cinephile and being a woman with quite unique characteristics.

“La Point Courte”

Varda: I’m troubled with the term “New Wave”. The New Wave included a number of young, new filmmakers but to me, there was the group the Cahiers du Cinema critics who loved American films, among them Truffaut. And like me, not knowing anything about filmmaking, were Jacques Demy, Chris Marker, and me. We were farther to the left than the others. These people were grouped in the same category as if we were a group. I felt different from the Cahiers du Cinema movement. I had no knowledge of French and American cinema, and I thought structure was more important than the way the films were shot.

My references were not from film. For example: When people would put their hands on their knees, I called that an “Egyptian shot,” or I would say, “Face” rather than “close up.” I knew nothing about film jargon.

I asked Varda to expand on her feelings about being labeled as a ‘woman’ director.

Varda: That hasn’t to do with feminism it is about what I could do with cinécriture (writing on film), — the idea I had for cinema. My life as a feminist is more related to facts; fighting for contraception and people who fight for abortion rights. I have been there with women on these battles. In my film “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t” (1978) it was a time when women wouldn’t dare to speak about their problems. It was better for a while but today again it’s not so good with abortion clinics closing, and so on. I fight for that. To make a statement about that. I don’t oblige myself to make feminist films because it’s complex. I cannot make a propaganda film because cinema is more interesting. I would never film something degrading. You can speak about rape, but you cannot film it. It’s very difficult what you can show — the body of a woman, the body of a man. I give a precise point of view with extreme intensity but it cannot be made

Su-City Pictures East, LLC

Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Category: 2014 LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (page 1 of 2)

Buzzard: Potrykus interview at Locarno

Opening today in New York City: Buzzard

Here’s my interview with Joel Potrykus, Writer, Director, Editor and co-star of “Buzzard” from the 2014 Locarno Film Festival for IndieWIRE/SydneysBuzz. (Originally posted in August 2014.)

Joel Potrykus and Producer Ashley Young

READ MORE HERE:

Susan’s: Highlights from the Locarno Film Summer Academy Master Class with Award-winning Director Agnès Varda

Susan’s Conversation with director Victor Erice

Susan’s: Director Luc Besson talks LUCY and the Protagonist

Modern Times, Metaphor and Visual Storytelling (The Script Lab)

SUSAN ASKS ‘LISTEN UP PHILIP’S’ ALEX ROSS PERRY ABOUT THE FILM’S NARRATION…AND MORE

Susan Kouguell Interviews Joel Potrykus, Writer, Director, Editor and co-star of “Buzzard”

Susan’s Conversation with Oscar Nominee Giancarlo Giannini

Susan’s Interview with PERFIDIA director at Locarno

SUSAN’S CONVERSATION WITH AGNES VARDA

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Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Category: 2014 LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (page 1 of 2)

Opening today in New York City: Buzzard

Here’s my interview with Joel Potrykus, Writer, Director, Editor and co-star of “Buzzard” from the 2014 Locarno Film Festival for IndieWIRE/SydneysBuzz. (Originally posted in August 2014.)

Joel Potrykus and Producer Ashley Young

READ MORE HERE:

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