Hi there,

I got a phone call late last night as I was walking home from the office that made me very happy. “Hello Scott,” said a heavily accented voice. “I’m arriving in Paris on Friday and I can’t wait.” “Sure, Paris is slightly warmer than Warsaw at this time of year,” I thought to myself. But I hoped that wasn’t the only reason for Andrew Wolf’s excitement (who I’d met, last year, at a Polish festival). In fact, it wasn’t: “I’m bringing a camera and coming to the festival,” he said. “Great,” I thought, but then the kicker: “I’m coming down to buy some films.” Now, these are words that all of us indie filmmakers like to hear, right? Wolf certainly isn’t the only buyer coming to Paris this weekend, but his enthusiasm for our festival as THE place to come for the very best films – not only from Europe, but from around the world – makes all of the hard work seem truly worthwhile.

It’s all happened far too quickly, but it’s only a couple of days to go before the third edition of The European Independent Film Festival kicks off. We’ll be showing 103 films that have come to us from 28 countries and it promises to be an incredible event. Not only will we be screening some of the very best indie films from around the world, we have a full schedule of workshops that cover everything from editing and directing to acting and digital distribution. We are even going to have a ‘speed dating’ workshop, as we’ve been calling it, where we will put independent musicians into a room with filmmakers who need music. A good idea, right? ‘Cause I’m always on the lookout for music for my films, and figure that I’m not the only one!

The weekend is going to kick off with a boat trip along the Seine, where the directors will meet the press on a ‘bateau mouche’ and will have the opportunity to mingle and do interviews for an hour as we travel from the Eiffel Tower up to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France where the event will be held. We will then go up to the Salle Belvedere, which is up on the 18th floor of the Bibliothèque, with an amazing view over Paris, for the press conference, a cocktail party, and a short concert by indie musicians Mélissa Laveaux and “Dinner at the Thompson’s.” Then we will head downstairs for the ‘official’ opening of the festival.

Our opening film is going to be the feature film Happy New Year – London by Turkish-born Berkun Oya. It’s a very impressive effort for his first feature, and the film grabs your attention from the very beginning, when a moment of random violence on the streets of London triggers a tense and well-acted story. The plot unfolds in London, but is strongly influenced by French and Turkish cultures. I’ll let Berkun explain: “I’m deeply excited about Happy New Year – London being chosen as the opening film,” he says. “My film deals with calamitous and desperate attempts to communicate between different nationalities and the ugly power of ignorance; as such, it raises issues of great importance for a European audience. I believe that the way ÉCU approaches independent films is dignified, sincere, and affectionate. I’m happy to be a part of it.”

Saturday will come around super quick and the screening programme gets underway at 10.00 AM on four screens. Our welcome desk crew will be busy handing out badges, signing people up to workshops and pointing people in the right direction so that they can experience the great slate of films we have to offer. These are films that have made it to the big screen despite very low, sometimes non-existent, budgets and I’m honoured to showcase this exceptional talent. There will also be a party at the “Frog and Library” bar right beside the Bibliothèque – a scene of many past (mis-)adventures in years past, so bring your party gear.

Sunday is traditionally a very busy day, sore heads notwithstanding. We will kick off early again, at 10.00 AM and the judges’ pencils will be scribbling away like crazy as we count down to the awards ceremony 10 hours later. The title of ‘The Best European Independent Film’ is at stake, and I can’t wait to see which films make it to the short list – I’m thankful that I have such great people surrounding me on the jury, because it’s going to be hard to pick just one from such an impressive selection of films.

The Sunday workshop schedule is a packed full. And at lunchtime, I’ll be gathering all of the directors into one of the workshop rooms to make a big announcement, with Guy Tucker, about a company called EUROINDIE FILM DISTRIBUTION, which I believe is going to excite them – and more importantly, give them a chance to get their films out to much bigger audiences. Nokia will give a couple of talks during the afternoon to explain to us all the future of mobile phones and how films are going to be playing a big part in that future. Boulder Creek is going to be announcing it’s new distribution methodology and will be looking to sign up filmmakers on the spot.

Remember that entry to the festival is free – yes, I’m the silly bugger that pays for all of this (!), so there are no excuses not to come along and watch the future of filmmaking. I promise you a very entertaining weekend of cinema.

Check out the full schedule of screenings and workshop events, and if you haven’t already done so, send us an email to rsvp@ecufilmfestival.com to confirm you are coming.

Batten down the hatches, everyone – ÉCU 2008 is on its way!

Introduction to Copyright Issues: Not Just for Music

We have all heard about the legal issues regarding the misuse of music samples, but more recently these concerns have been spotlighted relating to film. With the advent of online video services such as YouTube and file-sharing websites offering free downloadable video files, the film industry has met a formidable foe in tech-savvy generations.

However this is not the issue here. For independent filmmakers, the journey towards making their own film can bring many harsh obstacles that Hollywood players with big budgets can more easily avoid. One such concern may be in acquiring rights to use certain components on screen. As if independent filmmakers didn’t have enough concerns, they must always be aware of country-specific copyright laws with respect to their use of objects, buildings, music, etc. in their creations.

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Heralding the alienating experience in store for the viewer, the opening scenes of “Zunar-J5/9-Dorc-48” wisp the audience through a largely deserted Berlin subway station. Filmed in black and white, this monolithic, quasi-futuristic environment seems to be looming at every turn. Suddenly the protagonist, identifiable only by his neon glowing skin, which contrasts his colorless surroundings, appears. Hastily boarding a standing train, he pauses to cast a mysterious backward glance. Already “Zunar-J5/9-Dorc-48” begins to bombard the viewer with relentless uncertainty, but for those seeking definite answers, they best look elsewhere than this masterfully-crafted experimental short from Germany’s Neue Massen Produktions.

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Because America has come to know, in recent years, names like Eric Harris, Daniel Klebold, and Seung-Hui Cho, the image with which Tracy Brown's Poptart opens – a teenage boy in a pilled blue ski mask, in an empty San Francisco parking lot, donning chains and guns and playing with explosives – will evoke for many a sense of sharp distress. Brown exploits this tension unrelentingly, building the film's narrative in a documentary style that lends disturbing credulity to the pervasive threat of terror, but also adds surprising sensitivity and depth to the protagonist. Ernie, who speaks crudely and aggressively, listens to rap, and lives in a trash-strewn ghetto, at first repels our sympathies, but when a young filmmaker and would-be mentor named Marion extracts from him his story, his character becomes more difficult to dismiss. Ernie's mother, we learn, has recently died of cancer, which she contracted from carcinogens emitted at her workplace: a factory of a corporation called Chintec. In the warehouse where Ernie keeps his weapons, a pair of his mother's high heels rests on a mantle, as a madeleine of a more peaceful time. When asked if he misses his mother, the answer, for Ernie, is painfully obvious: "I think that goes without saying," he mumbles, looking away from the camera. Seeking vengeance, Ernie turns not to high-school hallways, but rather to the factory where his mother worked, and to those, particularly, who seemed to bear a indirect hand in her death: a target, surely, still shocking, but not as cold-blooded as it otherwise might have been.

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Watching My Home Your War, a documentary that follows a middle-class Sunni family for three years during the coalition attack on Iraq, one wishes that the film were fiction. Boldly giving voice to those otherwise ignored in Western media, Australian Kylie Grey introduces us to 40-year old Layla Hassan, her husband Yassir, sister Shaima, and son Amro, each of whom recount their experiences living in war-torn Baghdad, and their frustrations with the hardships that have become their daily realities. Layla, who works as a university lecturer, is an accomplished linguist, and as such has been summoned by Saddam’s regime to serve, against her will, as a translator; she is a committed mother, and yearns for a better, democratic future for her son. Yassir, with whom Layla was matched through an arranged marriage, is kind but less ambitious, and runs a small pharmacy. Shaima and Amro, 24 and 15, both struggle with the contradictions of their ever-changing world, and cling to the shattered pieces of their old lives. The family’s willingness to risk corresponding with Grey in the throws of such conflict is remarkable, and their varied reactions to the war that consumes them are at once engaging and heartbreaking.

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”Janey Mary” follows the scurrying footsteps of the film’s title character through the destitute urban landscape of post-World War II Dublin. Adapting James Plunkett’s original short-story to film, director Paul Brady felt a profound connection to both the antiquated setting and humanitarian themes of Plunkett’s touching tale. Pathetically clad in an ill-fitting jacket, a 5-year-old Janey Mary must assume disproportionate burdens conferred upon her by her widowed mother. As she waits at the church for free bred, the mass desperation of the poverty-ravished city dramatically culminates in a powerful statement about the power of human compassion.

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It’s doubtful that even the most hardened of hearts could watch Laura Viezzoli’s short documentary, “It’s Like Flying,” without enduring a veritable emotional gauntlet. This film tells the personal tale an Albanian family’s struggle through the loss of their young son and brother, Mario, to leukemia. While a shameless director may exploit such absolutely sorrowful subject-matter to manipulate our deepest emotions, Laura Viezzoli’s complex and delicate handling of this tragedy leaves such mawkish sentimentality to the realm of day-time television. Instead, “It’s like Flying” confronts its viewers with a rich spectrum of pathos, tempering profound grief with ebullient joy, and conveying a startlingly real sense of unimaginable loss.

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Farkas, title of Tamás Tóth’s latest achievement, is Hungarian for “wolf.” The film unfolds in a small Siberian settlement, in which reindeer breeding is the community’s prime source of livelihood. When a wolf begins to attack the reindeers, not to eat but rather to suck their blood, the shepherds summon Nikolai Sergeievich, a shaman who is believed to communicate with animals. Nikolai, however, does not prove the savior that the shepherds had hoped, and it quickly becomes clear that if Nikolai is to heal the town, he must first heal himself.

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In Jose Corral Llorente’s The Darkside, the belly of the underworld beckons. Set in dingy basements and shadowed back alleys of Buenos Aires, the film portrays a reality in which evil runs rife. The protagonist, Marcos, suffers from a form of schizophrenia: he imagines himself to be surrounded by monsters, who represent physical manifestations of human sin. In an effort to strengthen the forces of the “dark side,” these monsters stalk those who embody moral good. Marcos worries that his girlfriend Eva is the prime target of these attacks, but in her name is a sly clue that Marcos’ perception may be skewed: is she really the epitome of virtue, or the symbol of original sin? But in Llorente’s film, the spiral of delusion overwhelms, and the truth takes second place to a meticulously crafted fantasy.

This dichotomy between real and unreal is echoed insightfully by the film’s form, which mixes live action with computer-generated imagery. Incredibly, 31 year-old Llorente, who has no formal training as a filmmaker, completed all the post-production work himself on an extremely limited budget – a task that Llorente describes as “both a dream and a nightmare.” Reflecting on the experience, he recalls the strain of such a challenging project: “I really wanted to run away…the question was, why should I suffer so much? I wanted holidays! But then the next day, I would wake up with new energy, and keep fighting until the next mental crisis hit. This was my emotional routine for two and a half years.” The film’s exceptional depth and detail reflects Llorente’s intense involvement in his project; most impressive is the dialogue in a comic book around which the plot unfolds, which, in its borders, recounts a diary-style narrative of Llorente’s directorial experience, but such small insightful touches infuse every aspect of the film.

Despite the hardships of independent filmmaking, Llorente maintains a passion for pursuing future projects, including developing the 19-minute-long Darkside into a feature film. When asked what he would say to future filmmakers, he excitedly offers a correction: “I’m a future filmmaker myself!” Confusing Llorente’s work with that of a more seasoned professional, however, is the easiest and most innocent of mistakes.

I won’t say much about Dans La Corde, because for French director Marc Alépée, his film’s strength lies in its suspense. There are, in truth, many strengths of this film, but I do take his point: while not a knife-edge thriller, the story relies on subtle tension and small but striking surprises that hold the viewer’s interest throughout the 16 minute film. So, I’ll reveal only that which Alépée does himself, in the film’s synopsis: “A man finds himself locked up in the dark.” The stuff, that is, of nighttime terrors and childhood fears. His only hope amidst this horror, we are told, is “dans la corde” – “in the rope.”

According to Alépée, the rope’s status as potential savior is metaphorical, even philosophical: an answer to existential questions, and a reminder that “life’s risky.” While often a somber instrument of death, the rope acts instead, here, as an exit-route, but not one without its own challenges. For the protagonist, however, it is the only point of navigation in an unfamiliar world, and thus an obstacle that must be overcome.

So too was the rope the centre of Alépée’s world, as he began to imagine how his film would unfold, for it was its image that first inspired him, he says, to develop his character’s story. Film, for Alépée, is “a really visual universe,” and in his work is reflected an intense engagement with what the viewer sees: there are few words and sparse music, but the camera shots are daring, and the screen is filled with striking colour, rich texture, and unusual light. “I want to express myself visually,” Alépée explains, “because usually, when I talk to people, I don’t feel that I am specific enough. When you express yourself visually, you really build something.”

Building something, of course, was not simply a figure of speech, but rather also a practical reality of Alépée’s filming experience. Working on a limited student budget, with only one previous project under his belt (a short experimental film called E-12, about a laboratory test on guinea pigs gone wrong), he had to be resourceful: “I just bought the nails, that’s all,” he says of his set, which moved between 5 different locations in Normandie and the suburbs of Paris, as time and money allowed. With a meticulous storyboard in hand, he recruited a crew from La Maison du Film Court to assist him with filming; he completed the extensive special effects himself, working through trial and error, and learning along the way. “I had to try again and try again and try again,” he laughs, offering to future filmmakers the advice, “you have to not think too much about how complicated it’s going to be.” That Alépée’s outlook is so focused is fortunate, because it’s the complexity that gives Dans La Corde its appeal. Layered with careful detail, the film is grounded in the overlapping threads of the protagonist’s unknown past, and his uncertain future; simple answers, for Alépée, are impossible, and, more importantly, uninteresting.

At 32, Alépée hopes to continue a career as a director, and is currently trying to secure the resources necessary to begin filming his next project, entitled Derrière Le Mur (which though not a sequel, seems to suggest, at least in syntax, that Dans La Corde hasn’t yet reached the end of its rope). With such remarkable drive and undeniable talent, there seems little doubt that Alépée’s future rests in safer hands that that of his protagonist.