FNC 2017

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal

46th Edition

October 4 - 15, 2017

This year's program presents over 400 films and other cinematographic events that will be distributed over 11 days of the festival's activities. The festival will present 383 films - 167 feature films and 181 short films from 68 countries. There will be 43 world premieres, 15 international premieres, 45 North American premieresm including 50 Canadian premieres.

Festival's Opening Event

The festival will kick of on October 4, 2017, at the Place des Art's Maisonneuve Theatre with the film Blade Runner 2049 by a Quebec director Denis Villeneuve. It is his fourth Hollywood feature film with a cast led by Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 - Official Trailer

Festival's Awards Night

The festival's awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, October 14, 2017, followed by the screening of the film Loving Vincent directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman. This is an animated masterpiece that chronicles the final days of legendary painter Vincent Van Gogh through 120 of his works that required 65,000 frames hand-painted by some 120 artists.

LOVING VINCENT - Official Trailer

For more informations about the FNC, the program, film scheduling and various venues visit the FNC festival's website.

Renzo Carbonera: Stop and Listen

Stop and Listen
Documentary film by Renzo Carbonera 

Italy / 54 min. / 2010 / English subtitles

Polyphonic Choir of Ruda is one of hundreds of all-male choirs in Italy. Regardless of the fierce competition, it gained musical international hights of recognition and appreciation.

Polyphonic (polyphony) in vocal musical tradition implies singing simultaneously more than two parts, each with a melody of it's own. Choral tradition has deep roots especially in Northern Italy where local choirs are a pride of their communities. A small town of Ruda, with a population of less than 3,000 people, is located in Italy's north-est corner, about 10 km from the border with Slovenia. Their choir underwent a major decline at the turn of the millennia and a solution was sought in finding a new choir director. Unusual and maybe even controversial, the choice fell on Fabiana Nato, a female, who became the choir's director in 2004. This broke with the well established tradition of all-male-choirs being directed by a man.

The film little by little introduces a spectator to the Italian tradition of vocal choir music and to the history of Ruda's choir. It shows the type of men who let their lives to be intertwined with the life of the choir, and their reasons why they join on a purely voluntary bases without any pay. It reveals their true passion for the music they sing, their deep need to express their worldly existence through this artistic activity, and their respect and appreciation for their choir director.

The true focus of the film is Fabiana Noro, the lovely and enigmatic choir's director, the only salaried person, who resurrected the choir from their slumps and brought them to the world's recognition. This slim and elegant lady, who at first appears to be too fragile to manage a 40 men choir, became a driving force in their lives, with her iron will reinforcing their motivation and commitment to achieve perfection. Amazingly, none of the singers can even read a musical score. Their mastery is all based only on their auditory and vocal skills that they continuously train and perfect.

The film shows the problems with finding funds and the appropriate repertoire that would attract audiences. Fabiana is searching for new songs for their program, new musical challenges. Not all her venues are fruitful. Luckily, she avoids disasters that brake many creators when they try to catch the "in" styles and forms, or try to appear advanced and innovative, which could lead to their art becoming quite banal, regardless of the public's initial interest.

It is only after a conversion with a choir member that Fabiana realizes what her choir is all about, how it has to be based on what comes deep from the choir members themselves, from inside their beings, what resonates with their hearts and souls, since they are the ones who are the true instruments of their art. With that insight, Fabiana is finally able to navigate her choir to their highest successes and achievements.  

This is an inspiring film to see. It raises questions of what is true artistic authenticity, what makes true art, how to gain audiences' attention and appreciation by simply honouring and being your true self.

This documentary served as an inspiration for Renzo Carbonera to create his first full length feature film RESINA (2017), which was shown at the Montreal World Film Festival 2017 in the category FIRST FEATURE FILM. You can read more about it here.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Director: Renzo Carbonera

Story Line: Gino Pennacchi, Dino Gentili, Renzo Carbonera

Participants: Fabiana Noro, Adriano Bon, Pierpaolo Gratton, Anedi Sdrigotti, Gianni Casatto

Photography: Luca Coassin

Editing: Alessandro Sabbioni ed Ennio Guerrat

Sound: Francesco Morosini

Music: Coro Polifonico di Ruda

Production: Tico Film (Sarah Pennacchi, Gino Pennacchi)

International sales: Poorhouse International ltd (Dr Moritz Reiner)

Stop and Listen FILM TRAILER   

Article's dedicated web address.

MWFF 2017: Resina

RESINA

FIRST FILM WORLD COMPETITION
Italy

Inspired by a true story.

At the end of its last screening at the Montreal World Film Festival 2017, during the Q & A session with the director Renzo Carbonera, a woman from the audience called the film "a pearl". Indeed, this film is a real gem. The cinematography is great, the sceneries from the Northern Italy where the film action is set inspire a desire to be in that countryside, to walk on its mountainous paths, and to see those magnificent vistas in person. Yet not only visual senses grab viewer's attention, the auditory elements are foremost as they introduce the audience to the unique sound of an all male choir and to their superb singing (watch the film trailer at the end of the article). 

The film has two themes that are intertwined. One deals with the reinvention of a male choir that has come to its total decline, far from its former glory when it was winning prizes and choir competitions not only in Italy but internationally. And the second themes deals with an edgy and at first distant personage Maria, the main heroin, who returns to her native village after the disappointments in the big world, and unwittingly, and even at first unwillingly becomes the saviour, motivator, and a kind of an inspiring "guardian angel" that resurrects the choir, giving it a new sound and artistic face. In the process, she also reinvents herself and her life, overcoming her former personal and artistic rejections, and establishing her own musical career as an accomplished director of an all male choir.

The film's title RESINA in Italian means a tree resin. Resin is a liquid stored in the outer cells of trees that is highly viscous in the beginning but gets hardened when treated. It is used to manufacture lacquer, varnish, jewellery, and perfumes, and is also used to seal and hold together wooden sculptures and boats. It is an appropriate name for the film as it symbolizes the pine-wooded region where it is set, and the hardening and solidifying of both Maria's character and the choir's artistic existence from their previous amorphous states. Ending in letter "a", the word Resina sounds feminine, as if it were Maria's artistic name, representing her strength that has glued the choir and made it hold together.

The film was shot in Luserna, Maria's native village situated in the area that was annexed to Italy after the World War I, prior to that being close to the Italian border but inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The inhabitants still speak an ancient Germanic language called Cimbric which is rapidly becoming extinct. Only about 100 people in Luserna (or Lusérn in Cimbric) use this language in their everyday life. Another 100 understand it and either don't speak it or speak it badly. The population is ageing, and the new terminologies and concepts of the contemporary world cannot be expressed in this ancient Cimbric language, so it is rapidly being replaced by the modern Italian.

Make a point to see this gem of a film, it is intriguing and inspiring. You will also hear the sounds of the language as spoken by its natives speakers, the language which most likely will no longer exist within another decade or two. And you will hear their two beautiful and haunting traditional folk songs as arranged by the film's music director Luca Ciut.

Montreal World Film Festival's Official Synopses:

Male choir and female director. A family and a small community need binding together in order to face challenges of the future.

Production Team

Director : Renzo Carbonera
Screenwriter : Renzo Carbonera, Alessandro Bandinelli

Cinematographer : Harald Erschbaumer

Country : Italy

Length : 90 min.

Editor : Elena Cabria

Cast : Maria Roveran, Thierry Toscan, Alessandro Averone, Jasmin Mairhofer, Mirko Artuso, Vasco Mirandola, Andrea Pennacchi, Diego Pagotto.

Music : Luca Ciut

RESINA was inspired by a story featured in Renzo Carbonero' previous documentary film Stop and Listen (2010). You can read about this documentary film here.

FILM TRAILER on VIMEO

This is not an official trailer which will be published later this fall when the film is released in Italy. At this point, it is only a teaser.

https://vimeo.com/226657653

Director Renzo Carbonera presented his film at MWFF 2017 before the projection and answered the audiences' questions after the film ended. See the before and after photos of his on stage presentations just below.

Click on images to enlarge them. 

For more information about the festival visit the Montreal World Film Festival's website.

Article's dedicated web address.

MWFF 2017: Chinese Delegation Photo Highlights

Montreal World Film Festival

Montreal World Film Festival has great ties with the Chinese film industry. Serge Losique, the festival's president, in his youth worked on his first film in China. This year, a special Chinese section was instituted at MWFF entitled Chinese Film Festival with three best film prizes. Here are the winners in this category:

CHINESE FILM FESTIVAL

1st Prize:  THE AMBER by Chen Peng'ao (China)

2nd Prize:  THE BLOOD HOUND by Jianhua Liu (China)

3rd Prize:  ACROSS THE RIVER by Zhang Yueling (China)

On December 2, 2017, the festival also held a special press conference with all the Chinese film directors in attendance at MWFF 2017. The Chinese films artistic aspirations but mainly the promotional strategies especially in the western world were discussed. The group photo of the Chinese directors together with two key discussion and ideas animators is at the top of this article.

THE HIDDEN SWORD

The crew of the Chinese film The Hidden Sword that won the Best Artistic Contribution Prize at the festival's Closing Awards Ceremony, held two well attended special events at the MWFF 2017, both of them open to the general public:

On August 28, 2017, at Astral, they presented a Master Class with the director and screenwriter Xu Haofeng that lasted over 2 hours.

A day later, on August 29, 2017, at the Hotel Intercontinental, the film's team held a press conference where once again they talked about The Hidden Sward film, the history of the traditional sword fighting, the techniques of the masters, the necessity of the sword arts being preserved and passed onto the future generations, and also about how the film was conceived, made and promoted.

The members of the The Hidden Sward production team also attended the festival's closing ceremony on September 4, 2017 where Xu Haofeng received the prize on the Cinema Imperial stage.

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FOOTSTEPS

The team of the Chinese film Footsteps often attended screenings of other films at the festival which provided several picture taking opportunities.

Here are photos of the Footsteps director Wong Wai with his leading actors and crew members.

Footsteps consists of 4 stories dealing with the same theme of a woman's position in the society, how she behaves within a family and in a relationship to a man. The two main characters play the principal roles in all four stories which are spread from each other in 20 years periods, each story representing a one generation gap. It becomes very obvious how interestingly confident and liberated a woman progressively becomes, how much more personal freedom, power and confidence she gains.

Click on images to enlarge them. 

For more information about the festival visit the Montreal World Film Festival's website.

Article's dedicated web address.

MWFF 2017: Awards

41ST WORLD FILM FESTIVAL, MONTREAL 2017

Monday, September 4, 2017

AWARDS

FEATURE FILMS

World Competition

Grand Prix of the Americas (Best Film):

AND SUDDENLY THE DAWN / Y DE PRONTO EL AMANECER by Silvio Caiozzi (Chile)

Special Grand Prix of the Jury:

DEAR ETRANGER / OSANAGO WARERA NI UMARE by Yukiko Mishima (Japan) 

Best Director:

Maciej Sobieszczanski for the film RECONCILIATION / ZGODA (Poland)

Best Actress:

Irena Kovacevic in the film THE BASICS OF KILLING / DRUŽINICA by Jan Cvitkovic (Slovenia / Serbia)

Best Actor:

Karel Roden in the film A PROMINENT PATIENT / MASARYK by Julius Ševcík (Czech Republic/Slovakia)

Best Screenplay:

Hosein Namazi for the screenplay of his film APPENDIX (Iran)

Best Artistic Contribution (ex-aequo):

- THE HIDDEN SWORD by Xu Haofeng (China)
- ANNA KARENINA. VRONSKY’S STORY / ANNA KARENINA. ISTORIYA VRONSKOGO by Karen Shakhnazarov (Russia)

Visual Innovation Award for Transmitting the Oral Traditions:

SAYAKBAY - HOMER OF 20TH CENTURY by Ernest Abdyjaparov (Kyrgyzstan)

ZENITHS FOR THE BEST FIRST FICTION FEATURE FILMS

First Films World Competition

Golden Zenith:

THE RETURN / DOLAONDA by Chul Heo (South Korea)

Silver Zenith: 

SWEET PARENTS by David Bly (Canada / USA)

Bronze Zenith: 

THE LOST ELEPHANTS / LES ÉLÉPHANTS PERDUS by Claude Andrieux (France)

SHORT FILMS

  

1st prize:

THE LAST CHURCH BELLS / POSLEDENITE KAMBANI by Nicola Popovski (Macedonia)

Jury Award:

THE CLOWN / LE CLOWN by Maxime Genois (Canada)

Special Mentions: 

UCHEBNIK by David Csicskár (Hungary)

WOLF / VARG by Erik Andersson et Frida Kempff (Sweden)

Special Prize of Laughter:

THIS IS ED!! by Bob Hiltermann (USA)

  

CHINESE FILM FESTIVAL

1st Prize:  THE AMBER by Chen Peng'ao (China)

2nd Prize:  THE BLOOD HOUND by Jianhua Liu (China)

3rd Prize:  ACROSS THE RIVER by Zhang Yueling (China)

AWARDS OF THE 48TH STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL, MONTREAL 2017

(Held under the auspices and in collaboration with MWFF 2017)

Awards granted on Sunday, September 3, 2017

NATIONAL COMPETITION (CANADA)

Norman McLaren Award (Best Film):

LAND by Samiramis Kia (York University, Toronto)

  

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

1st Prize - Best Film of International Competition

ELENE by Sezen Kayhan (Koç University, Istanbul,Turkey)

BEST FILMS BY CATEGORIES:

Fiction Film:

THE BABYSITTER by Heli Hardy

(The Steve Tisch School of film and Television, University of Tel Aviv, Israel)

Special Mention:

NINE KNOTS / NUEVE NUDOS by Lorena Colmenares

(University of the Andes, Bogota, Colombia)

  

Animation Film:

WISHING BOX by Wenli (Lizzie) Zhang

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, USA)

Documentary Film:

OPEN DOORS by Pavel Marcano (Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

  

Experimental Film:

NIPENTHES by Jon Simvonis (AMC Metropolitan College, Athens, Greece)

For more information about the film festival visit the  Montreal World Film Festival's website.

Article's dedicated web address.

MWFF 2017: Elvis Walks Home

ELVIS WALKS HOME

WORLD COMPETITION

Albania

Montreal World Film Festival's Official Synopses:

"Mickey, an Albanian refugee without documents who lives in London, is an imitator of Elvis Presley. He works to entertain the British troops in the 1999 Balkan war. When a conflict in the wings began, he flees in his King costume and lands in the military zone. He is captured by a group of refugee children, victims of this absurd war."

The film raises issues of how people behave in extraordinary situations in war conflict zones, how much humanity and bravery a person can keep under the conditions of hatred, power struggle, the fire arms being pointed at you, and the general moral depravity of those who intent to profiteer in the most debased ways during a war. It reveals that many of those who under normal peaceful conditions function quite adequately within their community can easily turn into hard-core killers with absolutely no regard for other people's dignity, right to live, or any other rights. It also shows how the fighting sides in the Balkan conflict were ready to shoot at anything that moves, even children or UN humanitarian encampments.

A group of children, as multi-ethnic as the Balkan conflict region itself, who have lost their parents and homes are wondering through the military zone trying to reach a UN camp. Their main concern is to avoid being captured by the organized crime groups. Yet mirroring and imitating the war situation around them, they form a society of their own, with a similar hierarchical structure of a crime gang, where the gun-power rules, and where those without firearms are mistreated and ordered around. 

Mickey, an Elvis Presley impersonator, is captured by this children's group. He not only keeps his human face through various ordeals imposed on him by the children and other war structures they encounter, but is surprisingly able to master leadership and even a Rambo-like strategy and action. At the end, only one card is left for him to play to save the children's and his own life, and it requires no firearms...    

The film makes the statement that it is not guns that have the ultimate power to resolve human conflicts but rather collective values like music, culture, love and humanity. 

The director was able to cast excellent actors. Dritan Kastrati, who plays the Elvis Presley impersonator, expressed masterfully through his on-screen persona the complexity of the Balkan war. A especial mention goes to the children actors who did an excellent job to portray their juvenile gang with credibility and authenticity.

PRODUCTION TEAM 

Director: Fatmir Koçi

Scriptwriter: Jonathan Preece
Photography: Marek Wesolowski
Country: Albania
Lenght: 94 min.

Lead Actors: Dritan Kastrati, Amos Muji Zaharia, Erand Hoxha, Juli Emiri

Children Actors: KLAUS LAÇI, SAMUEL VARGU, ARMIN VARGU, VIVIAN BIAGIONI, ARBER SINANAJ, ENEA SHINJATARI, LONEL BOÇI,  GLEDI SPAHIU, JONA ANASTASI, MIKEL JAKU, NAIEL HOXHA, REIS ÇANI, NIKOL SHOSHA, LAURA ÇANI

FILM TRAILER

For more information on the festival visit the Montreal World Film Festival's website.

Article's dedicated web address.