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A brief look at the Rotterdam International Film Festival 2000
Hey folks, here's a bit of a report from ROTTERDAM from the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Hopefully we'll here from the likes of The Beast or Joram... but let's wait and see. I had a wonderful time last year at the festival... and hopefully will return in the next couple of years. It really is a wonderful festival and city. Here's Amsterdam Pat...
Hey Harry,
This is just a short report about the first few days of the International
Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR) in the Netherlands.
I'll start with some information of the festival.
The festival takes place since 1971. In 1999, there were more than 300,000
tickets sold, 460 titles presented at 1,060 screenings, 1,999 guests
(INCLUDING HARRY KNOWLES, as the guest of honor). All of this was covered by
487 journalist, 211 of which were foreign press. (You can naturally find all
this information on IMDB)
Last years winners included:
Tiger Award (the main award); Following (1998) - Christopher Nolan
Festen (1998) - Thomas Vinterberg won the Audience Award
The Tiger Award itself isn't very important, but a lot of movies have there
European premiere (or at least their Dutch premiemre) at IFFR.
This year the festivals runs from January 26-February 6 and the main theme
is Japanese films, since the Dutch (trade) relationship with Japan has
existed for 400 years. One of the sub-programs is called "Bad Teenage Taste"
(screening movies such as Election, The Virgin Suicides, South Park -
Bigger, Longer & Uncut)
Visit the official website for the main programme at
THIS LINK
It's the largest public film festival in Europe and the largest cultural
event in the Netherlands. It has more visitors, screenings and films every
year. Harmony Korine (julien donkey-boy), Terrence Stamp (The Limey) are
some of most known people walking around here (along with a lot of Japanese
directors).
The program has some similarities with Sundance. For instance "But I'm a
Cheerleader", "Absolute Giganten" (Gigantics), "The Cup", "New Waterford
Girl", "Not One Less", "The Virgin Suicides."
It is also showing interesting movies such as "Swimming", "Fucking Amal"
(Show Me Love), "Moloch", "American Movie", "Lies", "Wildside", "Todo Sobre
Mi Madre" (All About My Mother), "Boys Don't Cry", "julien donkey-boy",
"Felicia's Journey", "Rosette", "Ghost Dog - The Way of the
Samurai", "Strike". Not to mention all the main-stream American movies,
which are always released MONTHS after the US release in the Netherlands.
(The opening-movie was "The Insider")
So far I've seen 15 movies in the last 5 days and I'll see another 15 during
this week. I don't have time to write short reviews and my personal opinion
now (will do later this week!), because the Japanese Sci-Fi "The Dimension
Travellers" starts in half an hour and I'm going to see that.
I CAN already tell you the public favorites. After three days no movie was
able to knock down the Swedish film Fucking Amal (Show Me Love) of the
charts. Today that finally happenned.
The current Top 10 movies (the number one will win the public's choice
award) are:
Tuesday January 1, 2000
1. Solas
2. De Grote Vakantie (Dutch film)
3. Fucking Amal (Show Me Love)
4. Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother)
5. GhostDog: The Way of the Samurai
6. Boy's Don't Cry
7. Erleuchtung Garantiert
8. The Winslow Boy
9. The Cup
10. The Insider
This will definately ALL change. Being John Malkovich, Absolute Giganten
(Gigantics), Not One Less, might still make the list by the end of the week.
The biggest disappointments so far have been "Holy Smok"e (though I thought
it was OK), "Topsy-Turvy", "Lies", and the director's cut of The Wild Side
(a.k.a. Wildside, starring Christopher Walken and Anne Heche).
Fun movies have been the Japanese horror-succes "Ring", the original
Japanese version of "Princess Mononoke" (with an introduction by the
director!), "The Cup" and lots more, but I have to go!
call me "Amsterdam-Pat"
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+ Expand All
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Okay, so they showed THE RING and PRINCESS MONONOKE. What other Japanese films? And can you get THE RING on tape (or DVD or VCD) over here yet?
-
It depends on where you are, but at least Japanese DVDs of THE RING and its first sequel, THE SPIRAL/RASEN, have been available for quite some time. As far as I know, it's encoded Region 2 with no English subtitles.
For those who wants THE RING more explanation, THE SPIRAL was shown in tandem and the double-feature proved highly popular among kids -- extremely so for the meager budget that could be equal to almost one middle-budget feature. The success lead to the third installment, THE RING 2, an inexplicably logic-conflicting spin-off, quickly followed. And a prequel to the first, THE RING 0 is currently shown theatrically in Japan. -
sorry ik kon het niet laten. (this is Dutch and it doesn't concern you)
Cheers -
What's Ghost Dog all about?
-
Is that a spelling mistake..?
-
Well, surprise, surprise. I posted reviews of the movies I saw in the festival on a different website (mostly attended by Americans) and got 1 response (from another European).
Harry, I saw somebody at the festival who was your spitting image and was about to say hello when I heard him talk Dutch, so that settled that.
Anyway, my top three of the festival was:
1) Egoyan: "Felicia's Journey"
2) Kitano: "Kikijuro"
3) Zhimou: "Not one less"
Harry, if you want to here more of the movies I saw (I saw about 12), let me know and I'll mail them to you.
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Ja sorry dat kon ik weer niet laten.
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I watched Ring 0 this afternoon. It isn't as good as the first two films (not counting The Spiral, which wasn't horrifying in the least) but it was a good movie, especially the latter half of it. It's the tragic story of Saneko Yamamura - you know, the girl in the white dress with the long hair... If you like creepy horror films that evoke a strong sense of dread, do yourself a favor and do whatever you have to do to get copies of both Ring and Ring 2. Even if you don't understand a word of Japanese, you can appreciate them.
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Again, it's Dutch and it doesn't concern you guys. Believe me I'm just borred.
-
You're an ignorant fuck Darth Bond, how are you going to write off a jim jarmusch that easily.
The man is a genius and I am very much looking forward to this movie. -
Amsterdam doesn't has any good cinema's Rotterdam has many. Amsterdam doesn't have a film fund, ROTTERDAM has. Amsterdam only has a small documentary fesatival, ROTTERDAM has the biggest filmfestival of Europe Conclusion:Amsterdam sucks, ROTTERDAM RULES
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