Lesson to be learned from `Bodhy-Dharma:` Finding the right festival

ZARIETY
August 16-22,1989
Film
11
BOGOTA FESTIVAL WINNERS
L O C A R N O FESTIVAL
Winners of the "Circulo Pre-Colombino" awards at the sixth
Bogota Film Festival were:
Lesson to be learned from 'Bodhy-Dharma:'
Finding the right festival is all important
Best film: "A Dama do Cine Shanghai" by Guiherme de Almeida
Prado (Brazil).
Best director: Sergio Cabrera for "Tecnicas de Duelo" (Colombia).
Best script: Colo Tavernier O'Hagan and Claude Chabrol for "Une
Affaire de Femmes" (France).
Best actor: Frank Ramirez for "Tecnicas."
Best actress: Isabelle Huppert for "Une Affaire de Femmes."
Supporting actor: Toco Gomez for "Aventurera" (Venezuela).
Supporting actress: Vicky Hernandez for "Tecnicas."
Art direction: "A Dama do Cine Shanghai."
Cinematography: Claudio Portio and Jose Eliezer for "A Dama do
Cine Shanghai."
Original music: Hermelino Neder for ''A Dama do Cine Shanghai.''
Ed>*:ng: Justo Vega for "Tecnicas."
Sound: "The Mighty Quinn" by Carl Schenkel (U.S.).
Jury prize: "La Deuda Interna" (The Debt) by Miguel Pereira (Argentina).
Special mention: "Historia de Lagartos" (Story of Lizards) by Juan
Carlos Bustamante (Chile).
'A Dama/ Tecnicas de Duelo' take
4 prizes each at Bogota festival
Chabrol's 'Femmes'
wins 2; Argentina's
'Deuda Interna' gets
special jury prize
By PAUL LENTI
New York Brazilian pic "A
Dama do Cine Shanghai" (The
Lady From The Shanghai Cinema)
and Colombian feature ' 'Tecnicas
de Duelo" (Details Of A Duel)
shared honors at the sixth Bogota
Film Festival June 12-20, receiving four "Circulo Pre-Colombino" awards each.
Helmed by Guiherme de Almeida Prado, the '40s-style film noir
"A Dama" picked up top pic, best
art direction, original music and
photography awards, while Sergio
Carbera's comedy of manners
"Tecnicas" grabbed top director,
actor, supporting actress and editing awards.
Also receiving awards were
Claude Chabrol's "Une Affaire de
Femmes," which garnered best
actress nod for Isabelle Huppert
and best original script. Venezuelan actor Toco Gomez took home
best supporting role for his work in
"Aventurera," and MGM/UA's
"The Mighty Quinn" received a
best sound award.
Special jury prize went to the
Argentine film "La Deuda Interna" (The Debt), while the Chilean
venture "Historia de Lagartos"
(Story Of Lizards) was singled out
for a special mention.
Directed by Henry Laguado, the
Columbian fest featured 200-plus
pics unspooling at 30 Bogota sites
over nine days. Afterward, selections traveled to the cities of Medellin, Baranquilla and Cucuta.
Besides the competitive event,
fest offered tributes to the 200th
anni of the French Revolution, Argentine producer Jorge Estrada
Mora, Charles Chaplin, Colombian cameraman Jorge Ruiz Ardila
and the 30th anni of Cuban Film
Institute (Icaic).
Also featured was a children's
sidebar, a 7-pic retro of the work
of Argentine sex kitten Isabel
Sarli, attended by the actress, and
six silent American classics from
the collection of N.Y.'s Museum
of Modern Art, curated and presented by MoMA's archive chief,
Mary Lea Bandy.
DePalma s 'War' to open
Deauville fest of U.S. pix
Paris Brian DePalma's "Casualties Of War" will officially open
the Deauville American Film Festival, which holds its 15th edition
Sept. 1-11.
Also confirmed are the following major-company releases:
"Batman," "Cousins," "The
Dream Team," "When Harry
Met Sally," "Field Of Dreams,"
"Great Balls Of Fire!" and "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade."
Other features unspooling are:
"Breaking
In,"
"Jaded,"
"Heathers," "Homer And Eddie," "The Kill-Off," "Misplaced," "Mortal Passions,"
"Rooftops," "Signs Of Life,"
' "The Thin Blue Line'' and' 'True
Love."
George Roy Hill has been lined
up for a homage, alongside previously announced personalities
Kim Novak, Robert Mitchum and
Ben Gazzara.
Zanussi quits fest job
Edinburgh Polish pic director
Krzysztof Zanussi stepped down
as co-director of the Edinburgh
Ind. Film Festival just a few days
before the festival began.
Zanussi and English critic David
Robinson were appointed directors
of the 43d Edinburgh fest in
February, but Zanussi felt he was
unable to fulfill his duties because
of work commitments.
Though his resignation will have
no effect on the Aug. 12-27 fest, it
is unclear why he resigned just before the event.
Winner, criticized at
Cannes, shows just
getting into intl.
fest isn't enough
tive and many of the special and "Water. Wind, Earth" as a
screenings, so much so that Streiff double bill to an audience of thouis considering further reducing the sands, many of whom had never
number of events to allow for seen a Finnish or Iranian film before, confirms that the Piazza can
more repetitions of each.
Hopefully, by next year, the be used not only to please crowds
550-seat theater of the City Casi- but to enrich them as well.
By EDNA FAIRARU
no, now being revamped, will be
One improvement Streiff will
Locarno There is a lesson to be available to the festival once again. have to make is finding a satisfacSome carping about the pro- tory space for press conferences.
learned from this year's Locarno
prizes: It's not enough to get your gramming was inevitable, with They have helped to preserve the
film into an international festival, two awkward entries, Spain's test's intimate nature, in spite of its
you have to get it into the right "Central Station" and Holland's size, and are essential to the fest's
"Shadow Man" drawing most of well-being.
one.
The only part of next year's fest
The big winner, "Why Did the fire. Putting a tv movie such as
Bodhy-Dharma Go East," was un- "Amori in Corso" on the enor- already determined is the retroveiled in Cannes' to massive walk- mous Piazza Grande screen was spective on Russian filmmaker
outs and comments about its "ex- not seen as a wise move by many. Lev Kouleshov.
Dates for next year's fest are
cessive" length (135 minutes) and Other gambles paid off, however.
"slow" pacing. At the Locarno Showing such films as "Ariel" Aug. 2-12.
Fest, it was the favorite of not only
the judges, but the press and public as well, who praised its moving, lyrical beauty.
Asian cinema led the field this
year in Locarno. South Korea took
first place, with India's "Piravi"
and Iran's "Where Is My Friend's Locarno If the response of the shooting began and was sure the
House" grabbing second and professional audience attending picture would be taken away from
the 18-film Preston Sturges retro- him (it was not).
third, respectively.
Both Spotto and Sandy Sturges
Indeed, with three films in var- specive in Locarno is any indicaious sections, all of them highly tion, Sturges' pictures will be in have forthcoming books on the late
appreciated, Iran seems to be mak- demand next year . . . for art cir- director. Spotto, whose book,
"Madcap," is due next spring
ing its comeback into the festival cuits and film festivals.
Sturges' films, less sentimental from Little Brown, argues that
circuit via Locarno. Tehran's
willingness to supply a print of than Frank Capra's and more Sturges was America's version of
Amir Naderi's still unreleased American than Ernst Lubitsch's, Jacques Feydeau. Sturges, who
"Water, Wind, Earth" (1985), in are not only milestones of film spent much of his childhood with
spite of the director's defection to comedy but are as fresh and enter- his mother in Europe, was exposed
to French farces of that time, and
the U.S., indicated policies on taining as ever.
Spotto sees similar comic mechansuch matters are loosening.
Paving the way
isms in Sturges' plays and scripts,
The other two films to score in
and in the movies he directed.
Historian
Donald
Spotto,
a
guest
competition were "Chine Ma
Sandy Sturges is putting the final
Douleur," a Chinese story pro- at the festival for this program,
duced and shot in France, and the called Sturges the first Hollywood touches to a volume of Sturges'
grim, forbidding Austrian entry screenwriter to become a big- memoirs, to be published next
"The Seventh Continent." Like studio director, paving the way for year by Simon and Schuster. In his
winner "Bodhy-Dharma," the the likes of Billy Wilder, John later years, Sturges had begun an
two pics have been displayed in Huston and Joseph Mankiewicz. autobiography, she said, and he
He also credited "The Great Mc- wrote 400 pages of it before his
Cannes with limited success.
Ginty"
with being the first screen- death in 1959. Sandy Sturges, who
Locarno topper David Streiff,
who hopes filmmakers will heed play to get an Academy Award. married the director in 1950, editthe lesson of this year's fest and Sandy Sturges, the director's wid- ed the work and then, using addiapply to him first, is pleased with ow and the other guest for the pro- tional material such as personal
this year's edition. Audiences gram, said her late husband was letters, finished the book.
Sandy Sturges may have validatwere up 14%, in spite of the paid only $10 for the script, as a
reduced number of events; the at- concession to Paramount for let- ed the rumors concerning the imtendance record for the Piazza ting him direct it. She also men- pact of "The Power And The
Grande again was broken (by tioned his despondency when he Glory" on "Citizen Kane." At a
Turn to page 14
Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train," contracted pneumonia shortly after
which sold 8,900 tickets), and accreditations increased from 1,600
to 1,800.
Most of the controversies that
have marred past fests were gone. Golden Leopard: "Why Did Bodhy-Dharma Go East" by YongKyun Bae (South Korea).
The jury was one of the most harmonious in years, not only before Silver Leopard: "The Birth" by Shaji N. Karun (India).
its final deliberations but after as Bronze Leopard: "Where Is My Friend's House" by Abbas Kiorastami (Iran).
well — not always the case at a fesErnest Artaria Prize: "The Seventh Continent" by Michael Haneke
tival.
(Austria).
The Preston Sturges retrospecBest
actor: Adam Kamien in "Kornblumenblau" (Poland).
tive was a tremendous success, as
were the three episodes Krzysztof Fipresci prize: "Why Did Bodhy-Dharma Go East."
Kieslowski's "Dekalog," with pa- Fipresci special mention: "Where Is My Friend's House."
trons being turned away every Ecumenical jury prize: "Where Is My Friend's House."
evening and additional screenings Ecumenical jury special mention: "The Birth" and "Where Is My
Friend's House."
organized to satisfy public demand. A similar response was Barclay jury prizes for promoting distribution: "Why Did BodhyDharma Go East" and "Where Is My Friend's House.'
elicited bv the African re.trospec
Preston Sturges retrospective a big hit
with professional audience at fest
LOCARNO FEST WINNERS