Category Archives: Peccadillo

Do you have Armandic syndrome? I hope so.

The great Napoleon – looking as if he won’t quite make it out after pre-drinks.

Time for a brief history lesson. Last Thursday marked the 200^th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, where the brilliant Napoleon Bonaparte was finally undone (just sing the ABBA song in your head for the whole story – you probably already are). Defeated by Arthur Wellesly, better known as the 1^st Duke of Wellington, on 18 June 1815, Napoleon was, for a time, Europe’s biggest name.

But ‘biggest’, perhaps, for all the wrong reasons. Since his defeat and subsequent exile to the bizarre, volcanic island of Saint Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, there has been persistent speculation on the reason for Napoleon’s perpetual strive for grandeur, fame, conquest and empire. The most touted answer: he was short.

Napoleonic complex, basically ‘angry little man’ complex, is something we’ve all encountered stood in the queue at Starbucks, Boots or in a theme park (why are they always stood in queues if they’re so easily enraged?) In honour of Napoleonic complex, and all those angry little men out there who secretly need a hug – we thought we’d come up with a new complex named after a misunderstood French guy – Armandic complex!

Armand is the central character in Alain Guiraudie’s (STRANGER BY THE LAKE) rowdy French sex comedy KING OF ESCAPE. In the film the squidgy, loveable tractor salesman Armand has a whole village of randy farmers fall in love with him, completely unwittingly. Everyone has that guy in their life, who’s maybe slightly overweight with a frumpy demeanour, who just doesn’t pick up on his own weird hotness. These are the Armands of the world – and we must cherish them – as the rise of Instagram is turning everyone into pouty-selfie-belfie-gym-monsters hell-bent on a photoshop surreality.

So – Armandic complex. Symptoms: being over-weight (squidgy), smelly (musty), lazy (loveable). Not realising how attractive you are. Frequent running into a forest with a youth. Excessive cravings for under-researched aphrodisiacs (watch the film).

Prescription: Ignore mirrors and beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. You are not. You are an Armand – stay true to your Armandic complex and, if you have time, have a quick look at the Battle of Waterloo’s page on Wikipedia and learn something, for god’s sake!

The great Armand – looking sexy, and up for anything, as ever.

Riot in a donut shop? It must be PRIDE season!

DRAG IT OUT IN THE OPEN!

Most of us know the story of June 27, 1969 – when police raided The Stonewall Inn and New York’s gay community rioted in the streets for three long, game-changing nights: events now widely accepted as the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement.

Ten years before that, however, in the arid, utopic city of Los Angeles the queer community was already fighting worthy, rowdy battles: namely in a late-night eatery called Cooper’s Donuts.

Perched between two gay bars – Harold’s and the Waldorf – the donut shop sounds like the 1950s LA equivalent of one of the Chicken Cottages in 2015 Soho, London: a late night hang-out for gays, hustlers, queers, lesbians and trans folk.

But it wasn’t always as much fun as that sounds: one hot night in May 1959 two cops turned up and started harassing the clientele, checking IDs, randomly arresting some drag queens and younger men. This time, the crowd had had enough, and soon a full blown booze-and-baked-goods fueled riot ensued.

So – to kick off Pride season – have a donut today (and a drink, and maybe a quick cruise in a Krispy Kreme if you fancy it). But don’t forget those down-n-outs, queens, queers and prostitutes that were the original voices for the emancipation of the entire LGBTI community today.

Peccadillo’s Favourite Sundance Hits

“Sundance was started as a mechanism for the discovery of new voices and new talents” – Robert Redford

Even if you’ve never been to Sundance, but have been immersed in the chilling, and thought-provoking films that have come out of it, then you know what it stands for. You can discern its tastes, its independent, rough-around-the-edges sensibilities, and the fact that it’s actually not sunny but usually freezing cold. There’s that great episode of The Simpsons, where Lisa walks from screen to screen looking for a film to enjoy, but can only find films of heroin-addicted clowns slowly scratching their faces with needles. That’s Sundance.

In an industry that year-on-year seems to become even more polluted with inane blockbuster sequel-prequels-part-three of massive, sugary, cartoonish franchises, Sundance remains a rare beacon of hope for intelligent, socially observant and progressive film-making, shining defiantly in shivering Utah.

Two of our releases this year – Desiree Akhavan’s APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR and Sophie Hyde’s 52 TUESDAYS – are Sundance films. Desiree actually filmed the moment she told her mum she’d been accepted – which is well worth a watch. Here’s some of the festival’s biggest success stories – all with that irreverent, unmissable Sundance edge.

1. Blood Simple (1984)

The Coen Brothers – regarded as the masters of Indie cinema – made their debut at the Sundance Film Festival with BLOOD SIMPLE. Their signature style of mixing comedic elements with a homage to the dark film noir genre surprised audiences and the Jury, which resulted in them winning the Grand Jury Prize and went on to gross around $4 million, not bad for a debut! Usually following a complex story which spirals into a cannon of lies, shock and laugh-out-loud moments, BLOOD SIMPLE looks at the story of a bar-owner out for revenge when he suspects his wife cheating on him. Like all Coen films, the film builds to an unforeseen and climatic ending! Be sure to also check out their cult classic FARGO (1996), and one of my favorites from the brothers: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007).

2. Run Lola Run (1998)

Breathless is the word to describe this film, literally! Watching Franke Potente run for her life in a race against time, she’s on a mission to obtain 100,000 Deutschmarks with an attempt to stop her boyfriend Manni from robbing a supermarket. The perfect fit for Sundance, with its edgy style of editing and pulsating rock soundtrack, the film is heavy in thematic explorations of free will and psychedelic trips into the unknown. With its unique mix of what ifs captured in a repetitious sequence of events, the film captures the very essence of an Independent Film Festival. You can imagine everyone running to see the film, hence the Audience Award won at the festival!

With a budget of DEM 3,500,000, the film went on to gross $8 million in the USA.

3. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT became “the film to watch” before it had even hit Sundance! Directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez conducted a viral campaign in which they presented the film as a real documentary. Not being the first film to use found footage, the film is still regarded as one of the best hand-held camera horror films to date. The film mixes styles of amateur acting against believable footage – it paved way for the many horror films which followed using these techniques. During Sundance, the filmmakers distributed flyers asking people to come forward with any information regarding the whereabouts of the “missing” students – talk about creating buzz!

The film became the success story of 1999, making $248 million worldwide. Not a bad return on a budget of an estimated $60,000!

4. Memento (2001)

Before he became an A-list director of thinking-person’s blockbusters like the Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception, director Christopher Nolan grabbed Hollywood’s attention with the ingenious thriller Memento – a story told in reverse about a man with a form of amnesia that prevented him from making any new memories.

It landed at Sundance 2001, where American distributors expressed admiration for the film but were reluctant to buy it, claiming it was too confusing. The film ended up being distributed by its studio, Newmarket Films, and went on to earn $40 million. It won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Awards, but ultimately lost the Grand Jury Prize to The Believer, – which introduced the world to Ryan Gosling.

5. Saw (2004)

A lot can be said about the SAW franchise (not always positive), but we cannot forget director James Wan’s first SAW, as an entry into the serial killer, slasher genre. Using the tired mechanism of a masked clown serial killer, the film still holds as an intense gore infested story of survival, which pleased horror fans after every screening was sold out. It didn’t take long for Lionsgate at Sundance to pick it up before the film had even premiered. A smart move, the film went on to generate a cult following over the years and has made over $100 million worldwide, and six sequels followed. Unfortunately most of them fall into the Hollywood horror slush of pop-corn entertainment!

6. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

In a huge bidding war, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE resulted in Fox purchasing the rights to the film in one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival of $10.5 million. After numerous standing ovations from the audience, the film went on to gross more than $100 million worldwide. A road movie based on a dysfunctional family, who are determined to take their youngest daughter to compete in a beauty contest on the other side of the country – all inside a Volkswagen T2 Micro Bus. Its not difficult to be sweetened by Abigail Breslin’s performance of Olive. We can’t help but relate to the dysfunctional family and the feelings one gets when positioned in a place of “not-belonging”. It is a fresh take on a family, which seems to get ignored due to the numerous fluffy “perfect family” types constantly being pumped out by Hollywood. For that year, Little Miss Sunshine brought out the sun in a usually cold and dark Utah! Even though it didn’t win an award at Sundance, the film continued to bag countless awards including a pair of Oscars for writer Michael Arndt and actor Alan Arkin.

7. Man On Wire (2008)

One man, one wire, one goal! This intense and nerve-shredding film, captures an eerily, yet beautiful portrait of Philippe Petit’s attempt to walk on a wire from one tower of the World Trade Center to the other in 1974. While one can see why the audience were impressed and shocked at the same time, festivalgoers awarded the film both the Jury and Audience awards in the World Cinema Documentary category. The film plays like an action film, yet poised with a surreal touch of artistic achievement, traversing sky high without safety, an astounding stunt that would put some of Hollywood’s big action stars to shame!

The awards kept coming, as the film won the prestigious double-header of both BAFTA and Oscar and made a worldwide gross of $5,617,067.

8. Beasts Of The Southern Wild (2012)

Carried forth by non-actors and a real Louisiana community, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD became a success when the film won the Grand Jury Prize and the Excellence in Cinematography Award. Hushpuppy, a six year old girl part of the Bayou community in Louisiana, finds herself on a journey of poetic discovery, in which she must accept nature’s path and the unraveling mysteries of the universe. As the ice caps melt, and the water rises, she and the small town are faced with an army of pre-historic creatures named Aurochs. Beautifully shot in surreal like landscapes and the town known as Bathtub; the film starts of as a documentation of the struggles of a young orphan girl in a town in danger of being wiped out due to global-warming. The film then switches to an almost post-apocalyptic struggle of storms, rising waters and terrifying creatures. The film received four Oscar-nominations, including one for child star Quvenzhané Wallis, the youngest ever nominee in the Best Actress category – at just nine years of age.

9. Appropriate Behaviour (2014)

Our own, proud little piece of Sundance history is Desiree Akhavan’s understated and unequivocally brilliant APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR. A sleeper festival hit, but a slam with the UK critics and audiences, this upbeat but devastatingly realistic indie comedy is Sundance through and through and demonstrates how the festival – although many bemoan its pandering to the studios – maintains and upholds its original mission of nurturing new talent.

10. 52 Tuesdays (2014)

Sophie Hyde’s film won Best Director at Sundance, and will be in UK cinemas from us later this summer. 52 TUESDAYS explores the intimate story of a mother-daughter relationship, as Billie’s mother reveals plans towards gender transition. Filmed over the course of a year, once a week, every week – only on Tuesdays, shows a unique style in filmmaking that brings a rare authenticity to this emotionally charged story of desire, responsibility and transformation.

As the world is slowly moving in the right direction towards equality, it is films like this that offer a beautiful insight into a topic many are unaware of and highlight the positive change that is happening in the world. Look out for 52 TUESDAYS coming to cinemas later this summer!

What’s Left Of Us: Our Top 5 Post-Apocalyptic Films

What’s Left of Us – D. Christoph Behl (2015)

“During the process of the movie I discovered that, in a post-apocalyptic world, love might be the last resource.” – Christoph Behl

Where would you hide out when all hell breaks loose? Who would you survive with? How would you survive when humans are not the only danger around? When it comes to post-apocalyptic films, we can’t help but put ourselves into the same situation (or at least I do), and wonder what would you do?

In order to survive, Axel, Jonathan and Ana have to learn to live together and overcome explosive human emotions; love, anger and even hate for one another. What’s Left of Us is a story of survival in a claustrophobic bunker in post-apocalyptic Argentina. Scavenging for food and water, the three survivors must battle the undead in a gripping and terrifying drama that convincingly portrays what life would be like at the end of the world.

With the release of our DVD – I look back at some of cinemas best post-apocalyptic zombie films to date; which explore these themes of survival, trust and human emotions. Here are my top 5:

1. Night of the Living Dead – D. George A. Romero (1968)

George A. Romero’s classic black and white zombie film focuses on a group of people who hide away in a farmhouse while the dead roam the hills outside. Tension is built as the group find ways to co-operate with each other in an attempt to fend off the zombies. Confined in a small space, the film pushes the limits of how far people are willing to go to survive. Concerned with the outbreak outside, the group have an even bigger threat inside…just what lurks inside the basement? This film holds its own as one of the best zombie films ever made, if your looking to get into the zombie genre I would recommend you start with this one, as it paved way for the many zombie films which followed.

2. Dawn of the Dead – D. George A. Romero (1978)

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

Romero is back again! In my opinion the best zombie film of all time, which resulted in many remakes across the years. The film looks at a group of survivors who are closed off inside a giant shopping mall; while attempting to survive the outbreak, the group clear out the mall and turn it into their new home. An original idea of using space as a tool for survival; the film brings a comedic element to the way the survivors inhabit the many stores within the mall. There is a nice break from all the violence and gore as you watch the survivors go shopping for a new fur coats or trying on diamonds while dining at expensive restaurants. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last forever!

3. 28 Days Later – D. Danny Boyle (2002)

All hell breaks loose on the streets of London…after 4 weeks of a mysterious virus consuming the living, a group look to find sanctuary before it’s too late. A great entry into the zombie/apocalypse genre; director Danny Boyle brings a challenging film of chaos, destruction and a sense of sadness to the streets of London. Faced with an open city where vulnerability becomes your main concern, 28 Days Later brings a fresh new element of danger to the genre with the use of its fast paced zombies. Might I add, the film starts off with a naked Cillian Murphy on a hospital bed – nice!

4. REC – D. Jaume Balaguero (2007)

A television reporter and cameraman are quickly faced with a life and death situation as they’re locked inside a quarantined apartment block with an unknown virus. The original REC (before its many American remakes), uses the handheld camera effect to build tension across the dark corridors of the building. The residents are placed into uncertainty as they must work together to find a way out of the building. Easily one of my favorite handheld camera films, not only for the atmospheric tension that it builds but the lead actress Ángela Vidal’s performance captures the very essence of what it means to survive. If you’ve yet to watch any of the REC’s I would highly recommend starting with this one.

5. Mad Max – D. George Miller (1979 – 2015)

Mad Max is easily regarded as one of the best apocalyptic movies of all time. With a young and sexy Mel Gibson in the 1979 original, the film created an epic portrayal of a man out for vengeance after his partner, wife and son are murdered. Faced with biker gangs in revealing tight costumes, Max must travel the desolate landscapes of post-apocalyptic Australia in search for justice. With the release of 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road this week, I’m super excited to see Tom Hardy take on the role of Mad Max in an epic battle of survival. Although the film does not deal with a zombie outbreak, Max is faced with an even bigger threat: humans. When the world has ended, which road will you take to survive?

– by Serden Salih

Masculinity, love and superheroes in FUTURO BEACH

Karim Ainouz is a director from Brazil, described by LITTLE WHITE LIES as “poised to become a major force in world cinema”. We sat down with Karim to talk about the themes and tensions in his new film – FUTURO BEACH.

FUTURO BEACH is at once a love story, a family story, a travel story…How did all of these elements evolve and come together in this film?

When we imagine the film, we thought of a story about courage and fear, about character that are brave and cowardly at the same time. We wanted to talk about the times we live in – when trepidation is everywhere. We have immersed ourselves in a conservative moment, a moment where religion, intolerance and a wish for stability are ever present. Adventure, risk-taking, and danger are no longer very welcome, so we pictured a story that could encompass all of that, a story that could be relevant – we imagined a film about passion, voyage and discovery. We envisioned a film in which the characters would love unconditionally, a story of men, but men who make mistakes and who are vulnerable and lack bravery at times.

Having the guts to leave everything behind and reinvent your life was the idea at the core of Praia do Futuro. It’s something that we all desire but are often afraid of. Maybe because we have to leave so much behind in order to actually take the leap. The film is a portrait of characters that have the courage to take this step, to take the plunge to somewhere completely unknown. The sensation of doing this is embedded in the title of the film itself – future, future, moving forward.

I come from a generation where taking risks was mandatory – we wanted to change the world. These days I have the sense that this kind of collective utopian thinking is not so present anymore. Praia do Futuro is in a sense fuelled by that wish to begin anew, to confront things, to engage in unexpected possibilities.

The challenge was to develop the main characters as facets of the same idea, we had to achieve a tone that was truthful to these ideals – ultimately to express it all through the characters and their actions, the perils they undertake, the journeys they embark on, and the mistakes they end up making along the way. Besides all the travel and adventure, there was also the wish to draft a male melodrama. A contemporary, intimate melodrama inhabited only by male characters but without villains.

Konrad is an Afghanistan war veteran, he is a motorbike racer, he loves speed and to explore the world. He has been through so much danger and loss. Donato is a lifeguard, a lifesaver, an almost immaculate hero. Ayrton is a rebel, a badass and an angry kid who has been forgotten by his beloved older brother, Donato. They each represent different facets of masculinity and they are propelled by a strong passion for one another. We see so many action films where the action revolves around fights and death and loss. Here I wanted to use “action” as trigger for life.

Your three main characters – Donato the lifeguard, Konrad the motorcycle racer, and Ayrton the rebellious youth – are all risk takers and dreamers. What inspires them seek out faraway adventure, speed, and excitement? Do you think of them as romantic characters, idealists, daredevils?

I had always wanted to make a film about super heroes, about romantic masculine super heroes that would cross the world and confront anything for love. My last films have portrayed mostly female characters and I was eager to dive into a journey of male characters. But I wanted these characters to be textured, daring, imperfect and contradictory.

The main characters in Praia chase after their dreams, no matter what the cost. So there is definitely something romantic and idealistic about them. I wanted them to pulsate with a physicality with bravery but also to be clearly made of flesh and blood, to make mistakes, to be frail. And it is so beautiful to see them fall apart and pull themselves back together throughout the movie.

I has this picture of a character that had a relevant, heroic profession. That’s when the idea of a lifeguard came to mind. The idea for the first character imposed itself on us very quickly, the beach, the lifeguard, the silence and the secrets of the lifeguard.
Next came the question of danger. There is a Fassbinder movie I like very much called Ali: Dear Eats the Soul (1974), and I always have its title in my mind. I wanted my characters to be fearless. But it is important that this boundless courage does not make them immune to fear. It is the contradiction between the fear they sometimes experience and their true heroism that ultimately makes them empathic and singular. This is the friction that interested me and made me fall in love with them. I think what inspires them to seek adventure, speed and excitement is this wild determination to go on – and the movie could almost be called “Courage Feeds the Soul.”
Each character is dealing with an absence or a longing. Are they each trying to save themselves in different ways? And are they also trying to save each other?

What ultimately drives them is desire, the desire to experiment, to explore, and to live life to its fullest. And when you do that you always end up leaving things behind, embracing certain things and abandoning others.

And in these journeys, the characters endure loss. Konrad’s loss of his best friend renders him weak and helpless. And that’s when he meets Donato, who helps him move ahead and cope with the loss and they fall in love. So Donato leaves his brother and family behind and flees with Konrad to a new life. Then it’s Konrad who saves Donato, who takes him out of his comfort zone and presents him with a whole new universe. And Donato vanishes into this new world. And later, Donato’s young brother, now a teenager, comes back to find him, to confront him, which ultimately saves Donato from the same and cowardice he feels for having vanished without explanation.
I think the matrix of the film is the figure of the man who risks his life to save the life of another.
The film is structured in a prologue, three chapters and an epilogue. Almost like a literary adventure, a travel novel where the three characters are the pillars of every chapter. Every movement is structured on the different route embarked upon by Konrad, Donato and Ayrton.

In the particular case of Donato, I wanted him to do something absolutely unexpected, I wanted him to disappear and to emerge on the other side as someone completely different. I have always been fascinated by people who fade away and start their life again somewhere else. We did a lot of research about the real life characters in order to imagine Donato. And in his case in particular the question of sexuality is an important triggering element for that move.

A profile on cult FUTURO BEACH director KARIM AINOUZ

Ainouz’s first feature debut, MADAME SATA, premiered in 2002 at the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard and has won over 40 prizes in national and international film festivals.

His following films, LOVE FOR SALE and I TRAVEL BECAUSE I HAVE TO I COME BACK BECAUSE I LOVE YOU (co-directed by Marcelo Gomes) premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Orizzonti, in 2006 and 2009. LOVE FOR SALE won the Grande Coral – First Prize at the Havana Film Festival among another 50 awards, and I TRAVEL won the Grand Prix Coup de Coeur of the 22nd Rencontres Cinemas D’Amerique Latine of Toulouse, France, amongst 20 other prizes.

Between 2006 and 2008 he directed the HBO TV series Alice, which played in all of Latin America and the US and in 2010 he directed one of the fragments of the collective film Desassossego, which premiered at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam. His feature, The Silver Cliff, premiered at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival and won Best Director at Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.

In 2011 Ainouz directed a short for the 2011 Destricted Collection Brazil and was invited to direct a commissioned film for the Sarjah Biennial 10. He also collaborated with Olafur Eliasson creating the video installations YOUR EMPATHIC CITY for Videobrasil Festival.

Recently he shot, in Germany and Brazil, his next feature, FUTURO BEACH. He also took part in the project Cathedrals of Culture, a documentary TV series in 3D and 2D that explores how six significant and very different buildings reflect our culture. The project has Wim Wenders as executive producer and features Ainouz as one of the directors. Ainouz was invited as jury to the Cannes Film Festival for the Cinefondation and Short Film Competition in 2012 and to the Heiner-Carow Award at Berlinale in 2013. He was also a jury member at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and Tokyo Short Shorts Film Festival among others.

As invited lecturer Ainouz has been to Princeton University – Princeton, Brikbeck College – London, MIT – Bostopn, EICTV – Cuba and SFAI – San Francisco.

From 1989 to 1992, he worked as assistant director to Todd Haynes and assistant editor to several feature films. In 1992, Ainouz began to devote himself to his own film projects and directed several shorts and documentaries including SEAMS aand PAIXAO NACIONAL. His work as visual artist has been shown at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Sao Paoulo Biennial and Temporare Kunsthalle Berlin. He was part of the Cannes Residency, Cinefondation, and a resident artist of the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and of the DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service. He is co-writer of the films BEHIND THE SUN by Walter Salles, CINEMA, ASPIRINS AND VULTURES by Marcelo Gomes and LOWER CITY by Sergio Machado.

Karim holds a degree in Architecture from the University of Brasilia and in Cinema Studies from New York University. After his Master’s he enrolled in the Program of Independent Studies of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

An interview with Diemo Kemmesies, director of SILENT YOUTH

Q: The plot of your film is very simple and straightforward. It’s a character-driven piece, but at the same time devoid of heavy use of dialogue as a dramatic device. When watching it, I got the impression that improvisation played a significant role in developing the scenes. Is that a fair assumption?

A: Some people think that we used improvisation, but that’s not really the case. There are 2 scenes with some improvisation, the beginning of the scene on the balcony and the waiting for the toast in the kitchen.

The rest was completely scripted by me. I’d like to work more with improvisation in the future, but that requires far more time than we had available (we shot the film in 12 days).

Q: Long takes with minimal action, natural dialogue, lack of music (except for the end) and observation of the mundane make Silent Youth a perfect example of realist cinema. Was that a conscious decision? Are you a fan of realism in cinema? And if yes, who are your favourite realist filmmakers?

A: When I first started out, my films lacked that sense of reality, mostly due to my background in theatre. Later on, inspired by the “Berlin School” movement and the works of Dardenne brothers, I realized that sense of vivid reality intensified the movie experience for me.

I wouldn’t say that Silent Youth is realistic in the true sense of the word. The film employs an aesthetically-raw style, but ultimately, it is all carefully fabricated. This is evident in some of Kirill’s words. Is he always telling the truth or is he making it up? Nonetheless, while experiencing the film, it all feels real.

You sit together with Marlo next to Kirill and feel how awkward and complicated it is. I would like for the audience to have an authentic experience in the cinema and take away something meaningful from it.

You can see that my film is highly inspired by Gus van Sant, especially in the way he works with time and thoughts.

Q: Near the beginning of the film, Kirill talks to Marlo about his accident in Russia where he was beaten up. With the events in Russia now, this is actually quite a timely subject. Was the incident in the film inspired by any personal experience of your own or someone close to you?

A: It happened to a close friend of mine, but it had nothing to do with being gay or not. He just befriended the wrong crowd in a rough city like Moscow.

I had a screening in Kiev and the audience was laughing during that scene. It has become such a cliché that a western European thinks this can only happen in Russia.

Q: Do you think your background as someone who comes from East Germany has had any influences on your work?

A: Yes, it has certainly been influential. Until I was 14, I learned in the school that capitalists were evil, communism was the future and something like gay didn’t exist. But soon after, I learned that being a capitalist is cool, communism is the past and that my country was sold out to the former neighbours.

After that, a lot of West German film-makers made comedies about stupid East Germans and the evil communists.

When I now go back to my home town, I can see a lot of scared and frustrated people, which includes the generation that barley knows the East German times.

So yes, I have something that drives me to tell stories in the way I see it and I also have a connection to the East European way of making films.

Q: It seems you’ve led a colourful life in the respect that you started out as an electrician followed by your service at the military and your work at a commune in France. You also founded a magazine named, “Blicklicht” and now work as a software programmer. What were your motivations in pursuing a life in so many different fields and how do you think it has affected you art?

A: In a way, I have a typical biography for someone from East Germany at my age. There was no straight way to go. Everything was new and also my parents couldn’t give me any wise word of advice.

Learning to be an electrician came from GDR (German Democratic Republic). The same goes for the army. Back then, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. No one asked me that question before. In the prison called army, I began questioning myself about my future. Soon after, I left and went to the commune in France.

I started to articulate myself and my ambitions. I first got involved in theatre and finally became a filmmaker. I always feel bad about the hours of my life that I wasted away and think I should have done something fruitful. However, my varied life experiences provide me with a great deal of stories to tell. It also enables me to see the difference between a worker and an actor who is trying to play a worker.

Q: What do you look forward to most on your visit to the Iris Prize and what do you hope to take away from it?

A: I’m really glad that the festival is screening my film and I hope it reaches as wide an audience as possible. It’s my first time visiting the island (UK) so I’m very curious about the environment and the people and the audiences’ response to the film.

– Interview by Amir Abdolrazaghi for the IRIS Prize Festival, Cardiff.

Poor, but sexy: BERLIN on film

When Klaus Woweriet, Mayor of Berlin in the early noughties, declared Berlin ‘poor, but sexy’, he prompted a new wave of expats to pile into the city looking for some free, or at least very cheap, love. For many, from Christopher Isherwood to Bruce LaBruce, Berlin is about one thing: emancipated sex. (Isherwood himself once summed it up perfectly in three words: ‘Berlin means boys.’)

We’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Germany’s most fascinating city – love because of the culture, boys, girls, the unsurpassed Berlinale film festival, and hate because said festival takes place in February of every year, when it is absolutely, unspeakably cold.

Because Paris and New York usually get an unfair amount of fawning, frothing film coverage, we thought we’d pay homage to this peculiarly idiosyncratic city, and some of the brilliant films that’ve been made there.

1. Metropolis (1927)

Although not set in Berlin, but in a futuristic, urban dystopia, Fritz Lang’s 148-minute magnum opus was made there. Also – Lang was inspired to make the film on first seeing the New York skyline, so maybe this doesn’t belong here. But – seeing as it’s one of the most important (and controversial – you should look up some of Lang’s ‘techniques’ for creating ‘authenticity’ on set…) films of all time, I couldn’t not pop it in.

2. Cabaret (1972)

Now we’re talking. When I first saw this film, it wasn’t the decadent, sexy club scenes that stayed with me: what did was the haunting scene where the handsome young Nazi sings ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’ and the strange, seductive way this seduces the town folk at the country fair, who all start to join in. The scene is perfectly, almost violently juxtaposed to the rest of the film, and demonstrates, to devastating effect, the counter-forces to Berlin’s hedonism that grow throughout the film. A scary scene, and a brilliant film about a lost era and a city to be reclaimed.

3. Goodbye Lenin (2003)

A clever tragicomedy about a mother-son relationship, but also a powerful political drama about the ridiculousness of Berlin’s division. But don’t be put off by its grand satirising of both socialism and capitalism, the film is, first and foremost, a comedy, and well worth your time. Also – a lot of what I know about Berlin’s history comes from this film, so if you’re keen to learn and have fun (and who isn’t?), definitely check it out.

4. The Lives of Others (2006)

THIS is a heavy-handed drama if ever there was one – worth watching especially for central actor Ulrich Muhe’s central performance. An intense thriller stuck in the nightmarish, Orwellian world of 1984: Muhe plays an agent of the secret police sent to spy on a writer and his lover, but soon finds himself totally absorbed, perhaps obsessed, with their relationship. Moreover, guys, the title is amazing.

5. Otto (2010)

Subtitled ‘Up with dead people’; Bruce LaBruce’s queer cinema classic is a porno parody political nightmare at 24 frames per second; in other words, it’s pure Berlin. What other city could produce a film about a gay zombie looking for flesh, both for sex and for food? Unparalleled, inimitable, watch it if you dare.

6. Berlin 36 (2013)

Hitler’s relationship with the Olympics is fascinating. Next time you’re in Berlin, be sure to visit the Nazi Olympic park for some fascinating insights into how the Nazis approached this Attic world event. In Hitler’s view, once the world had been conquered by fascist ideology, Berlin would become a kind of global athletic capital, where the Olympics were to be held every year.
But don’t let me bore you with my lecture (and it is a lecture!) – this is a powerful emotional drama about Aryan policy and racial discrimination in Weimar Berlin, inspired by true events and a great portrayal of living in Berlin in the late 1930s.

7. Silent Youth (2015)

Our new movie – SILENT YOUTH – pulsates with the sexual intensity you can’t elude on the streets of Berlin. About two boys who meet by chance and discover themselves in each other, the film could be read as an allegory for everyone’s first experience of Berlin. Featuring some beautiful, lingering shots of the city’s abandoned runways and dark, romantic underpasses, the Berlin of Marlo and Kirill’s film is one which resonates with us all.

BONUS MOVIE: Futuro Beach (2015 – coming later this year!)

Apparently this is the first German-Brazilian co-production film ever made! A masterful technical achievement, FUTURO BEACH is hot as hell even though half of it is set in deepest, darkest Berlin winter. Stay tuned for when this film hits cinemas in May – it’s definitely one to catch on the big screen.

Big Gay Horror Show: Peccadillo’s Top 10 Queer Horror Flicks

There’s always been something queer, something camp about horror. It inhabits that weird space between reality and fiction, between fear and horniness, that gay people (for some reason) seem to know so well. The connection between screams and queens might be (without wanting to get all political) something to do with the fact that, sadly, simply growing up is a bit of a horror show for a lot of gay people – even today.

Anyway – to celebrate the release of our latest weird, wonderful horror – Till Kleinert’s relentlessly glorious THE SAMURAI – I thought I’d run down my favourite horror films that dabble in the dark art of homosexuality.

1. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Featuring one of the best and gayest hairdos ever committed to screen, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is camp as hell. A creature is shunned from society for his despised ‘condition’ and his creator is lured away from his own wedding night by the seedy and eccentric Doctor Pretorius – and forced to create a new mate for his own monster. That mate is the BRIDE, who is effectively a drag queen.

2. Psycho (1960)

I don’t want to pander to the stereotype that every gay man has a warped and warping relationship with his mother, but Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal PSYCHO undoubtedly occupies its own queer space in film history. Plus, Anthony Perkins’ was legendarily closeted and, (is it just me?), he’s oddly hot. A queer, Oedipal nightmare which I bet you want to watch again after reading this!

3. A Nightmare on Elm-Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Out actor Mark Patton (who plays Jesse, the sexually confused lead) has called himself one of the first ‘scream queens’. The tagline for this 80s anti-classic was, quite unbelievably, ‘THE MAN OF YOUR DREAMS IS BACK’. A gym coach gets SPANKED TO DEATH in the shower, for crying out loud. This film is, without doubt, terrible, but, as it’s many times been called ‘the gayest horror movie ever made’, we couldn’t not give it a starring role in this list!

4. Death Becomes Her (1992)

Meryl Streep. Playing a musical theatre star. Wants to outdo, possibly kill her rival (the glorious Goldie Hawn), and live forever. Need I say more?

5. Heavenly Creatures (1994)

The female of the species is more deadly than the male. So proves LORD OF THE RINGS director Peter Jackson’s campy classic HEAVENLY CREATURES, starring a young and porcelain Kate Winslet as the young school girl who falls in love with another young school girl. Enough of a horror film in itself, and it’s this unforgiving blend of dreadful reality with sumptuous fantasy that makes this a ‘horror’ in the true trembling, shuddering etymological roots of the word.

6. American Psycho (2000)

When it’s recently been suggested by a US study that 1 in 25 business leaders might be a psychopath, year on year Mary Harron’s study of violence and financial capitalism becomes more and more relevant. Reasons why this film is gay? Christian Bale is hot as hell in it, especially in that scene where he’s having sex with a woman but blows kisses to himself in the mirror. Reasons why this film is horrifying? Christian Bale is hot, as are a lot of those City boys, but there’s no escaping that their business, actions and behaviour are increasingly becoming more dangerous and pernicious and it won’t be long until they throw a chainsaw at someone whilst screaming, covered in blood, in their pants.

7. Pornography – A Thriller (2011)

Whilst I’d like to wax lyrical about how this is a campy, trashy underground genre flick you love to hate, it’s actually quite frightening. A lot of people watch it expecting trash, sex, gore, and whilst there certainly is that, there’s also something profound, unnerving and uncanny bubbling beneath the surface of this Lynch-meets-THE-FLUFFER puzzle.

8. Vampires: Brighter in Darkness (2012)

Now we’re talking. The tagline for the film is the wince-inducing ‘How Deep Is His Bite?’, but believe me, once this film has bitten you won’t be forgetting it any time soon. Shot on a nano-budget in an English castle, filmmaker Jason Davitt’s achievement is commendable, even though the film is totally, totally mad. Love it or hate it, whatever you do, watch it.

9. Jack and Diane (2012)

This is a movie about a lesbian relationship that could, quite literally, get torn apart. Especially when the werewolf transformations start occurring. I personally think this film is yet to receive the attention it deserves: it’s cute, the soundtrack is stunning, and Kyle Minogue makes a cameo as a horny, tattooed woman-lover so, yunno, double gay points.

10. The Samurai (2015)

Well, this is why we’re here in the first place. Although queer horror always does something new, something original, something you’ve not seen before, THE SAMURAI does that with unfettered, gay-as-hell abandon. It’s a bloody, sweaty, sexy genre debut from cult filmmaker TILL KLEINERT where a wild-eyed man in a wedding dress leers straight-laced rural cop Jakob into a dark, solidly Freudian forest and unleashes a side to him Jakob had no idea existed… If you love horror, love queer, love anything on this list, then you’ll lap this up faster than a vampire in Red Cross centre.

MD Tom Abell: Celebrating 15 Years of Peccadillo Pictures

Tom Abell: 15 Years of Peccadillo Pictures

2000 AD; the name of the galaxy’s greatest comic, the beginning of a new millennium and the year that Peccadillo Pictures was born.

Originally the company was going to be called Piccadilly Pictures in honour of Mark Finch and Tony Kirkhope, two of Tom’s friends who previously organised The Piccadilly Film Festival and had both met untimely deaths. Fortunately the name was already registered to another company, so Peccadillo was suggested as a good replacement (thank you Nicky Gallani) as being the old English word that Piccadilly was derived from.

The company was started on a small loan and originally operated from a desk in Tom and Kahloon’s bedroom, but within a year had a room of its own.

The first film to be released by Peccadillo Pictures was DROLE DE FELIX by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau.

The first VHS / DVD release was LIKE IT IS by Paul Oremland (Yes, VHS was still very popular back then)

The Peccadillo logo was designed by Steve Edwards and is based on Bam Bam, Tom and Kahloon’s cat, who was the office manager until the office moved to Hoxton in 2004. Sadly Bam Bam died in 2009 just before her 23rd birthday.

Peccadillo

Noun: A triumphant little sin.

Company Directors Tom and Kahloon at the Peccadillo Pictures’ 15th Birthday Party

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