MWFF 2014: The Summer House

DAS SOMMERHAUS / THE SUMMER HOUSE

2014, Colour, Germany, World Competition 

Production Team

Director: Curtis Burz

Screenwriter: Curtis Burz

Cinematographer Andreas Gockel, Peter Sebera

Editor Curtis Burz

Cast: Sten Jacobs, Anna Altmann, Jaspar Fuld, Nina Splettstöber, Stephan Bürgi, Natascha Zimmermann

Music Bastian Schick

Film production and Sales: Prod. & Ventes/Sales: Focusingfilms, Behmanstrass. 65, 10439 Berlin (Allemagne), tél.: (+49-30) 7153 06 56, curtisburz@hotmail.com

Director

Born in Mediasch, Romania in 1970, Curtis Burz immigrated to Germany as a child and studied acting and directing at the Bremen Theatre Institute. He began making short films in 2002 with Mark Morrisroe – Polaroids 1959-1989 and feature-length films in 2006 with EDUCATED PEOPLE. Among his other works: Virginia (2006), Adoleszenz (2006), Homeland Stories (2010), WILL MCBRIDE - BOYS STORIES (2011), I NEVER TOLD YOU WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING (2011), GIVE ME ANOTHER YEAR (2012), his first fiction feature, and NORA (2013), the last two shown at the MWFF. 

Official Synopsis

"When family man and successful architect Markus meets the 12-year-old son of his colleague, he feels an immediate affection for the boy." 

The photo above shows several production team members just before the press conference at the Montreal World Film Festival 2014. From left to right: actor Stephan Bürgi, actrice Anna Altmann, Director and Screen writer Curtis Burz, cameramen Peter Sebera and Andreas Gockel. Below are the film's official poster and actrice Anna Altmann.

Curtis Burz, the director of the film, is a professional psychologist - it is what he does for living when not shooting films in his spare time. This is his third film. It deals with exactly the same very difficult issues that he faces with his clients in his professional practice. The film is not easy to watch as one realises in what type of a personal hell live some very respectable-looking people with prestigious jobs and equally successful positions in the society. 

As one watches the film it become painfully obvious that regardless of the respectful veneer, these people are quite empty, not even capable of any interesting or meaningful conversations or utterances. Their attention is focused on themselves, to large extend on their sexual needs and desires, probably because sexual gratification and the variety it offers (like swapping partners, group sex, or desiring adolescent or child partners of the same sex to fulfil their sexual appetites) makes them feel more fulfilled and probably even more alive.

Yet it is clear these types of sexual pursuits do not make them happier but spiral them into bigger and bigger mess, drawing into an inescapable vortex all those who surround them. The direction of the spiral is downward. There is a progressive personal degradation which brings on the abuse of others, of children, not only sexually but also when letting a child to observe the drama of a grown-up's despair (the attempted hanging by the girl's mother).

One can only conclude that the apparent emptiness of those people stems from the fact that their lives are only based on material circumstances and on the fulfilment of their personal needs. There is no spiritual dimension to their lives, no higher values or understanding of their existence. This film shows that the modern society has robbed people of their true core, of their spiritual dimension, the higher meaning of which would have structured them spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, as well as energetically in such a way as to establish a solid base on which to build their lives and relationships, leading to much greater and more real personal fulfilment.

Although a discussion of personal problems in a psychologist's office might bring a temporary relief from inner tensions, and a person might learn not to act on his or hers urges, those urges would not go away. No amount of talking with a psychologist would bring a permanent solution and a true healing unless the person succeeds in recapturing and re-establishing his own higher spiritual essence which would restructure his being in an upward spiral.

This film had a budget of only 700 Euro. There was no pre-written script, only a synopsis of the story line was given to the actors. Before every scene the director told the actors what was required of them to portray, and the scenes were improvised, which in itself is quite remarkable.

Top Image courtesy MWFF 2015 and the Director of the film.
All other photos by Nadia Slejskova.
© Nadia Slejskova

Master of the Universe: Documentary 2013

Master of the Universe


PRODUCTION TEAM:

Director: Marc Bauder

PRODUCERS: Marc Bauder, Nikolus Geyrhalter, Markus Glaser, Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Borres Weiffenbach
EDITING: Rune Schweitzer, Hansjorg Weilbrich
SOUND: Michel Klöfkorn
MUSIC: B. Flesihmann

LANGUAGE: German
SUBTITLES: English
COUNTRY: Germany, Austria
YEAR: 2013
RUNTIME: 88 min.

WEBSITE: http://www.bauderfilm.de

Official Site: http://www.geyrhalterfilm.com/en/master_of_the_universe

Production Company: Bauderfilm, NDF Geyrhalterfilm, Hessischer Rundfunk, Sudwestrundfunk, arte

International Sales: Autlook Films

The film won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the Locarno festival.

This is a very powerful documentary with only one protagonist, a former investment banker Rainer Voss who talks about the financial system and his career in an empty and eerie office tower in Frankfurt's financial district. An initial reaction of many people to this type of a topic would be a disinterest. They might think such a film could not be artistic and would be simply boring. Yet this is certainly not the case of Master of the Universe. This film's way of presenting its subject, its stark cinematography, as well as the choice of sound and music, frame perfectly the subject matter and the protagonist. All of these elements reveal to the viewers a world they have never believed is as sordid as it is. All film's elements help little by little to reveal the dark side of the banker's financial stratosphere, a universe of its own, completely devoid of any social reality or responsibility, a predatory world only concerned with growing its wealth and profit. The film also reveals the protagonist's inner struggle with himself and his past, of which he does not seem at first to be aware.

I question whether Reiner Voss had agreed to be filmed and interviewed as a means to exorcise his inner "financial demons". At the beginning of the film he speaks at times quite boisterously and even with some degree of pride about his financial life and success, about his sky-rocketing career which assured him making 100,00 Euros per month. But the energetic notes eventually fade away, especially in the last third of the film. Whereas at first the spectator might have marvelled at the man's meteoric success, climbing up so quickly and accomplishing so much, towards the end of the film the same spectator will start to understand how the rarefied, sterile, and impersonal world of high finance has moulded this man into becoming an anonymous peg in the huge financial machine so he would serve and promulgate this quite absurd and unreal monster-machine into the never-ending growths and expansion. The financial world has used Voss, has chewed him up and made him do what it wanted, and than it spat him out (he was downsized), thus finally leaving him to face his own humanity and his personal troubling consciousness. In a sense, it seems that participating in the film has helped him to come back to his inner human core faster, and to come face to face with the deep remorse and sorrow he has held hidden inside him.

The last third of the film is the most fascinating. It is stated there that nobody really has a total overview of everything that is going on in a single financial institution such as a bank, and nobody therefore takes a responsibility for the financial outcomes that might shake up the whole world. The blame for some failure is often passed on to the lower echelons of the institution, such as a trader, and the management comes out of it clean. Therefore, nobody really has an overview of the financial system that is running our collective lives. Moreover, what is indeed quite horrific, some financial instruments even such as bonds are set up in such a way that they can be used improperly and even destroy the financial base of entire countries. There is an allusion to that in the film's Trailer bellow. My only regret is that the film does not explain more in detail how that destruction and robbing of the countries is made to be legal,  how is it possible to buy a bond for only a fraction of the price and demand from the impoverished government such as Greece to pay more than 3 times of what was invested, to pay back the 100% face value of the bond. Who approves such bond transactions knowing their destructive power? Are only German banks profiting in such a shady way with bonds, or some other institutions and even private individuals as well?  

The insufficient explanation of the above subject might be due to some legal concerns. Right at the beginning of the film it is stated that both parties - the film makers and Mr. Voss - had consulted their lawyers as to what can be discussed in the film and what should be avoided, as not to bring any harm to themselves and others. 

Film's Trailer




To see - à voir:  

The film will be show as part of RIDM's Docville series at the Cinéma Excentris in Montreal on February 27, 2014, at 8 pm.

http://cinemaexcentris.com/Docville-Master-of-the-Universe

MWFF 2013: Best Actress

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

JÖRDIS TRIEBEL
Best Actress, film WESTEN (WEST)

The Montreal World Film Festival 2013 Prize for the Best Actress was awarded to JÖRDIS TRIEBEL for her lead role in the film WESTEN (WEST) by Christian Schwochow (Germany). The prize is well deserved since her acting in this film is quite remarkable and very powerful. It is well appreciated to honour an actress who can interpret a character with such intensity and edginess required for the part.

Below are photos of Jordis Triebel during the Montreal World Film Festival. The two pictures just below were taken before the press conference at the Hyatt Hotel on August 25, 2013. 

Below on the left is a photo of Jordis Triebel at the press conference. On the right Jordis Triebel relaxes at the Hyatt Hotel's terrace.

Here is the Official Synopsis of the Westen:

"Two suitcases, a schoolbag, a plush toy – that’s all Nelly Senff and her son Alexei take with them to begin their new life. A Volkswagen stops in front of their house in East Berlin. Nelly is nervous. The year is 1978. It’s summer, three years after Wassilly’s death. Nelly’s boyfriend and Alexei’s father died in a car accident in Russia. Since he is dead, Nelly wants to leave too. Away from the GDR, to leave the grief and the memories behind. To get a fresh start. That should be possible in the West, or so Nelly believes. When she leaves, when she gets into the car, she is wearing a floral dress, But over there in the West, she doesn’t know anybody. The first place of refuge for immigrants from the East is Marienfelde, a cramped emergency camp in West Berlin. Marienfelde is a hotspot between two political systems. And the place where her past catches up to her. The West German secret police take her aside for interrogation; they ask her about Wassily. Nelly has to decide whether she will let the trauma of the past destroy the future she had in mind for her and her son."

Information about the film's production team:

Director : Christian Schwochow

Screenwriter : Heide Schwochow. D'après le roman/Based on the novel: Lagerfeuer. De/By: Juli Franck

Cinematographer : Frank Lamm

Editor : Jens Klüber

Cast : Jördis Triebel, Tristan Göbel, Alexander Scheer, Jacky Ido

Music : Lorenz Dangel

Film production and Sales : Thomas Kufus, Katrin Schlösser, Christoph Friedel, Zero One Film GmbH, Lehrterstr. 57, 10557 Berlin (Allemagne), tél.: (+49-30) 390 66 30, office@zeroone.de 

Click on images to enlarge them.

Image at the top courtesy of MWFF.

All photos in this article by Nadia Slejskova.

© 2013 Nadia Slejskova

MWFF 2013: Gaming Instinct

Gaming Instinct
Spieltrieb


PRODUCTION TEAM

Director : Gregor Schnitzler

Screenwriter : Kathrin Richter, Jürgen Schlagenhof

Cinematographer : Andreas Berger

Editor : Georg Söring

Cast : Michelle Barthel, Jannik Schümann, Maximilian Brückner, , Richy Müller, Ulrike Folkerts, Sophie von Kessel, Helmut Berger, Isolde Barth,

Music : Gerd Baumann

Film production and Sales : Markus Zimmer, Clasart Film & Fernsehproduktion GmbH, Kaufingerstr. 24, 80331 Munich (Allemange) tél: (+49-89)4506 10 24, zimmer@tmg.de Ventes/Sales: Carlos Hertel, TM International, Munich (Allemangne), hertel@tmg.de

OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS

"Fourteen-year-old Ada, expelled from her previous school for fighting, arrives at Bonn’s Ernst Bloch High School. An intelligent girl who prefers her own company, she has problems with her bourgeois schoolmates. The only people she respects are the elderly history teacher Höfi, who is able to challenge her fierce intellect, and the young Polish sports teacher, Mr. Smutek, who encourages her passion for running. When a new student, 18-year-old Alev, arrives at the school, Ada is attracted by his cool. Multi-ethnic Alev lives with his mother Amila and is friends with Grüttel, Tom and Bastian, who are his own age and live in a residential unit that is part of the school. Ada feels herself also drawn to Alev in a physical way, but Alev, not without self-awareness, tells her he is impotent. Nonetheless, the two gradually grow closer and Ada falls in love. Eventually, Alev explains to her his theory of the “gaming instinct", which views people as characters in a game and their behaviour as gaming moves. When Mr. Höfling, one of the few people both Ada and Alev respect, commits suicide, Alev decides to put one of his elaborate game plans into practice. And Ada is its starring character." 

This film, shown at the Montreal World Film Festival 2013, is at times hard to watch as it portrays a type of violence which is not exactly physical. It is a psychological and a moral type of violence that fully involves physical senses of both characters, even when only voyeuristic, as in the case of the male character. 

Two teenagers are involved in deceit, manipulation, blackmail and extortion. They totally luck respect for a person who had treated them well, their teacher. They strip him of his dignity and moral integrity. In the process, they commit these same crimes also towards themselves, towards their inner human core.

At the end, the main preoccupation of the heroin is revealed - she is the one who won the game. Incredibly, she really cherishes the acknowledgement of this fact by her partner in crime, whereas should she had grown through her ordeal, she basically would not have cared at all what he thought. As this scene of her having won plays itself out towards the end of the film, it becomes more than obvious that unfortunately she has not gained any understanding as to what it was they have done, into what really sick place both of them had fallen. No regrets or guild are being expressed; no moral dilemma seems to exist for either of them. Moreover, the film ends by showing us a very satisfied-looking heroin, with a happy smirk on her face, first riding  a motor bike into the sun-lit seaside scenery, then walking through the ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi where the famous phrase “Know Thyself” is carved in the stone. It become painfully apparent that she has not won, as what she was told by her crime partner, but has actually lost, since she has failed herself and others as a human being and has not come to fully (and it appears even partially) to comprehend this fact.

MWFF 2012: Invasion

INVATION
Montreal World Film Festival

2012 / Colour / 104 min / Germany - AustriaWorld Competition (feature film)

PRODUCTION TEAM

Filmmaking : Dito Tsintsadze  
Scriptwriter : Dito Tsintsadze
Photography : Ralf M. Mendle  
Montage : Karina Ressler
interpreters : Burghart Klaussner, Anna F., Merab Ninidze, Heike Trinker, David Imper, Jasper Barwasser
Production House : Thanassis Karathanos, Karl Baumgartner, Ebba Sinzinger, Vincent Lucassen, Pallas Film GmbH, Mansfelder Str. 56, 06108 Halle, Saale (Allemagne), tél.: (49 345) 6787 323, office@pallasfilm.de / WILDart Film, Pfeilgasse 32/1, 1080 Vienne (Autriche)

Official description of the film:

INVASION

Joseph is mourning the death of his beloved wife. At the funeral, some unexpected visitors introduce themselves as relatives of his deceased wife, a woman named Nina and her son Simon. They invite Joseph to Simon's Kendo tournament where he meets Simon’s wife Milena. Before long, Nina asks Joseph if the young couple could live at his place for a while. As time passes, Nina seems to be showing up at Joseph's with increasing frequency, and soon her boyfriend and Milena's son Marco have taken up residence in his house. Although Joseph had initially been pleased to have company, not least to take his mind off his recent loss, these new sub-tenants become increasingly aggressive in their behaviour, practically forcing their way they into his life. Is Joseph simply being paranoid or is his the victim of a real, brutal home invasion?

In my opinion, this film is about a brutal home invasion which ends in an even more brutal murderous resolution, from which none of the surviving characters, regardless of how mistreated they were, should have come out with a clean consciousness, although they actually do. Moreover, the film presents an “idyllic” ending with what appears to be a loving couple walking through a beautiful scenery into a misty future, love being the trophy for the brutality committed. Maybe in the Middle Ages it was OK to take the law into one’s own hands, since the society did not present any infrastructure for doing it otherwise. But in our modern world other means exist to rid oneself of the blatant abuse, rather than defiling one’s soul with murder.

Yet, I heard a different opinion from festival’s professionals who attended the Press Conference with the director of the film Dito Tsintsadze, and I wonder if that idea had not originated with the director himself. The people I talked to claimed that the entire and very graphic invasion and the ensuing murders were not real but only represented a metaphor for having to “kill” many surrounding people who prevented a man and a woman to love each other. They thought that the misty shots of an ally in the beginning and the end of the film were to signify that the whole film was only a metaphor. Since the supposed “metaphor” was by so many degrees more vivid and graphic in comparison to the bleakness and briefness of the shots of the ally by the lake at the beginning and the ending of the film (though those shots were very beautiful), it is really very hard for me to see the entire film in between as being only a metaphor. Also, a supposed “loss” of memory at the very end of the film concerning those who were killed does not imply to me that those characters never existed and were simply only metaphors. It rather shows that the survivors would prefer to forget everything that took place and brush it off as never existing. If the director indeed attempted to present the entire film as a metaphor, than, in my opinion, he did not entirely succeed.

On the other hand, the director was very successful with the purely cinematographic means of structuring individual shots, the way he presented his visual narrative, and also with how carefully he chose the camera’s shooting angles and the shapes and colours of the film’s imagery. Also, the actors did a commendable job of portraying the intended personages of the film’s drama.

In the film, Marco, the small boy, plays an ominous role. He is introduced to the viewer as being a peculiar child, and appears at first to be retiring and even somewhat dim-witted. But for me that impression faded the moment I saw him to wink at his mother across a table, and her winking back at him. I knew right away that this was not a gratuitous element included in the film for no purpose. Shortly after the murders began. The second incident of Marco's facial gesturing occurs just before Nina’s murder, when by waving his palm up and down in front of his face he presents to Nina in rapid succession a smiling and a serious face, both expressions looking like an unreal mask. The symbology of that was clear: the niceties of smiles were ending and serious business was to take place.

Marco's playing with a toy car controlled from a distance was also ominous. At first he drives it in the courtyard where his stepfather terrorizes him with physical training. His stepfather was the first to be killed. Next, the boy drives the car at Nina, his stepfather’s mother. The car forces Nina to jump into the swimming pool where she is killed. And then he goes into Nina’s boyfriend’s office and handles his gun. That was a clue as to who was next in line to go.

A question begs itself to be asked: did Marco have some evil powers to manipulate the reality at a distance, or was he simply used to control the supposed “metaphor” of the film? If he was used as such, than what is the moral implication of utilizing a child character in order to facilitate presentation of violence in a film?

As for the boy's mother Milena, she is shown standing behind a window in a scanty nightwear rearranging her hair. Joseph, the old man and the owner of the house, sees her through the window in his bedroom while lying in his bed. And apparently she knows it. Shortly after she enters his bedroom and immediately initiates sex.  Her husband, the boy’s stepfather, budges into Joseph’s bedroom in search for her, but she manages to escape. Later, we see Milena once again displaying herself in the same window, with Joseph watching her from his bed. But this time she goes into the attic. Joseph rushes out of his room and bumps into her husband who is once again looking for his wife. They both climb into the attic only to see Nina’s boyfriend engaged in an abusive sexual activity with Milena. Although we find later on that Nina’s boyfriend is Marco's father, there are no motivating clues in the film why his mother Milena had to go to the attic and endure abuse. Maybe it was simply to lure Joseph and her husband into the attic to instigate the first murder in the film? Was the Milena simply a super manipulator?

One of the festival's professionals I talked to interpreted the film in this way: the second part of the film represents hallucinations of Joseph, the old man, a metaphor of what he would have wanted to happen in order to end up with Milena, the young woman. The hallucination sequence starts after the man throws everybody out of his house and then comes back into the seemingly empty house on Christmas Eve.  Yet soon he is not alone. Not only the people he threw out but many others start pouring into the living room through various doors, holding candles and sparkles in their hands, very reminiscent of a surprise birthday party. This scene is supposedly the beginning of Joseph’s hallucinations since it was unbearable for him to be alone in his huge house on a Christmas night. 

The invasive birthday–like party on the day when many celebrate the birth of Christ quickly deteriorates and marks the beginning of the murders. I am not really sure what was intended by the party's symbology.

In this interpretation of the film as hallucinations of an old and lonely man, the final scene of the film, where Joseph is walking hand in hand with Milena and her son Marco along the misty winter ally, I was told that Joseph is actually all by himself, in the same way as he is alone in the very beginning of the film, and there is nobody with him. The last scene of the film is simply Joseph's hallucination as to what he would have liked to have.

Is this film simply about a mental illness of an old man? Somehow I never got that impression when I watched it. Joseph appeared to be the most stable of all the people portrayed.

The interpretation that the second half of the film is about hallucinations of an old man also seems to contradict as to what I was told the director said at the press conference. He stated that it was hard to tell what would happen between Joseph and Milena in the future, how their relationship would progress.

One can ask whether the film director, being also the screen writer, chose to portray all the violence in order to exorcise his own demons? It is well known that the creative process requires a deep involvement of the creator’s mind and spirit, of his entire being, and entails, to a varying degree, a projection of oneself into the work being created.

The film seems to mystify the viewers without providing the real clues as to what is attempted to be portrayed: a reality,  metaphor, or mental illness - hallucinations? There might be those who would object that the film’s point is to erase any lines between the reality, metaphor and hallucination. Yet, even if that was so, I still feel the film has not succeeded in doing this type of thing effectively.

I would invite the readers of this post to see the film and to decide for themselves how to perceive the portrayed: as totally real, where none of the present seem to be perturbed about crimes taken place; as a metaphor to achieve love; or as hallucinations of a lonely man? If this were reality, ask yourself how would have you acted in a similar situation? Keep in mind that if what is portrayed is a true brutality towards others, then we have been really desensitized as to not react to it in disgust, similarly as the characters portrayed. In addition, in real life these types of conflicts could have been resolved through law channels and not through gratuitous crime.

In case the film is only a metaphor, then it would not have required extremely graphic and even bloody portrayal of violent acts. The people who were “preventing” love between Joseph and Milena could have been very elegantly and artistically eliminated, for instance, with a simple stroke of a brush, instead of polluting our minds  with violence, and making many of us even more desensitized to watching brutality than we already are.

And if the film is about hallucinations, then why should one really care about what type of violent private mental imagery - hallucinations a perturbed, lonely, ageing man has, even when artfully cinematographically depicted? If there is a reason for us to care, than this point should have been made much stronger in the film.

Although the film appears to have a clear story line, it failed to present clearly its intent, or get us involved in the characters’ and our own humanity.

MWFF 2012: Shifting the Blame

Shifting the Blame
Montreal World Film Festival

2012 / Colour / 93 min / GermanyFirst Films World Competition

PRODUCTION TEAM

Filmmaking : Lars-Gunnar Lotz  
Scriptwriter : Anna Maria Prassler
Photography : Jan Prahl  
Montage : Julia Boehm
interpreters : Edin Hasanovic, Julia Brendler, Marc Ben Buch, Pit Bukowski, Natalia Rudziewicz
Production House : Matthias Drescher, Philipp Knauss, FFL Film & Fernseh-Labor LB GmbH & Co. KG, Hoferstr. 20, 71636 Ludwigsburg (Allemagne), tél.: (49) 7141 488 84 33, specht@ffl.de / info@ffl.de


Official description of the film:

SHIFTING THE BLAME (SCHULD SIND IMMER DIE ANDEREN)

Ben is given the chance of a new beginning in the idyllic "Waldhaus". As one of seven juvenile offenders he is expected to develop his social skills and experience security in a family-like community. But when he meets his housemother Eva, he is shocked: she is one of his victims. His brutal assault on her was never resolved. Ben does his best not to attract attention, but Eva soon starts to suspect something. "With almost Shakespearean force and a differenciated view, Lars-Gunnar Lotz paints the portrait of a young offender guilty of violent crimes who serves his sentence in an open prison. The complexity of guilt and forgiveness is dealt with meticulously and the often stereotyped profession of the social worker is rehabilitated."-- Joachim Kurtz (Die Zeit)

At the beginning of the film we see a brutal crime being committed by an animal –like being in a human form. At the end of the film we see the same person who fully reposes his human nature and all his human qualities. This film does not only deal with the moral but most directly with the spiritual nature of a man. It portrays evil and examines the issues of repentance and forgiveness, where the theme of forgiveness is especially in the forefront. Eve, being a true professional, chooses to control as best as she can her personal suffering and the revulsion towards the criminal who attacked her. She barely holds her restrain not to reveal Ben as her attacker. She chooses silence and waiting  in order to allow the criminal to fully come to terms with what he has done, to assume the full responsibility for it, to confess publicly his crime, and to ask for forgiveness from the very center of his being.

If you ever had a hard time forgiving anybody, this might be a good film for you to see.

Shifting the Blame - Trailer

MWFF 2011: Taste the Waste

Montreal World Film Festival

Taste the Waste

Director: Valentin Thurn
Script: Valentin Thurn
Photography: Roland Breitschuh
Editor: Birgit Koster
Germany, 36 min.
Production company: Astrid Vandekerkhove, Valentin Thurn, Schnittstelle Koln/Thurn GbR, Marsiliusstr. 36, Cologne 50937

Official Film Synopses:

 Taste the Waste

"On the way from the farm to the dining table, more than half the food produced ends up in the garbage. Most of it before it ever reaches consumers. Why are such huge quantities of food being destroyed? The film seeks explanations from supermarket staff and managers, bakers, food inspectors, welfare recipients, politicians, farmers and bureaucrats. It's a system that everyone takes part in: supermarkets get rid of "old" food to make way for the new. And we encourage the practice…"

The film presents an excellent exposition as to how and why a huge amount of food is wasted, ending up in landfills before it even arrives to homes or restaurants, and also as leftovers. At the end of the film a statement is made that in Europe and North America the amount of food that goes to waste equals the quantity with which the entire world could be fed three times over. This is really terrifying in view of all the hunger that goes on in the world. How many malnourished children are there? How many people go to bed hungry? Yet the process by which the food gets to the tables in the modern civilized societies could hardly be described as civil. It lacks the main principles of civility: it misuses a huge amount of human labour as well as fossil energy and other resources involved in food production, with total lack of sincere aspiration to feed properly all the people in the world.

I highly recommend for everybody to see this documentary and reflect on what could be done to save the wasted food.

taste the waste - trailer

Maybe one of the solutions how to conserve food and energy could be found in restructuring our cities in such a way that people could start growing their fresh produce right in the cities. That would eliminate the transportation and food selection process that results in a huge quantity of food being thrown out into dumpsters.

The Ecocity congress that is taking place in Montreal right now deals with many sustainability issues, including urban agriculture. I am describing some of the initiatives of growing food in Montreal in my blog Now Event.