| THE LOST - AND FOUND - CONTINENT : Crossing Europe 2006 |
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| Tuesday, 23 May 2006 | |
 Report from the 3rd Crossing Europe Film Festival, Linz (Austria) April 2006 [written for Tribune magazine]  SINCE its first renewal in 2004, the Crossing Europe Film Festival (CEFF) - located in the Danube-straddling northern Austrian city of Linz - has sought to bring together the most promising and accomplished young film-makers which the continent has to offer: what the festival director Christine Dollhofer rather enticingly defines as 'eccentric auteur cinema.' CEFF's conception of Europe goes far beyond the boundaries of the EU: its map is rather closer to that of Uefa, and the 2006 event included acclaimed features from Macedonia, Georgia, Russia, Turkey, Norway, Kosovo and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to a work from Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Ireland, plus a bulging sidebar of local Austrian fare. Slightly disapppointingly, the UK was represented only in the form of international co-productions. But any doubt that English has quickly become the continent's lingua franca would be dispelled by a few days at CEFF: almost all of the films were shown with English subtitles rather than the local German language, and English dominated the lively chatter in the packed bars of the cinemas before and after the screenings. Attendances were healthy - and youthful, with an average age of around 23: within less than a generation, it seems safe to bet that the vast majority of Europeans (certainly EU countries) will be able to happily watch an English-subtitled film without any comprehension problems whatsoever. This may not be especially welcome news for everyone: but if some French and German speakers are unhappy about the way their tongues are becoming increasingly unpopular among 'foreign' youngsters, they can at least console themselves that films featuring their language are maintaining a very high profile on the international scene. In Linz '06, the top prize went to Isabelle Stever's Gisela, in which a pair of immature best pals in their mid-to-late twenties lust after the title character - a married check-out operator at their local supermarket who, at first glance, is an unlikely focus for romantic ardour. But, thanks to Stever's acute script, economic direction, and a striking central performance from Anne Weinknecht, the audience rapidly also falls under Gisela's unlikely "spell." Gisela was a very popular winner with audience and critics alike, but it was arguably overshadowed by a rival competition entry which also deals - sensitively but frankly - with a menage-a-trois situation. A very strong debut from Antony Cordier, Cold Showers (Douches Froides) takes very familiar material (the coming-of-age of a teenage athlete, struggling to cope with a volatile home-life and complicated relationship issues) and comes up with something fresh, bold and absorbing. Truly sensual in its lovemaking interludes, Cold Showers also has the confidence to (a) lighten its rather intense central story with welcome flashes of wry, believable humour and (b) make its judo-star protagonist less than entirely sympathetic, especially in the latter stages when his hormones and resentments make for a combustible combination. It was a particularly good festival for French directors: Cordier's compatriot Thomas Balmes was responsible for the event's most powerful documentary, A Decent Factory. Already shown on BBC's Storyville series in a slightly different form (and under the title Made in China), it's emphatically deserving of the widest possible exposure, as it deals with pressingly topical issues of globalisation and ethical conduct in the most accessible, engaging and thought-provoking of ways. We follow representatives of the Finnish mobile-phone giant Nokia to China, where they check out whether their suppliers are adhering to agreed standards of employee treatment. The visit yields some facts which prove disturbing to the Nokia team - and may well appal viewers, especially as the factory shown (which is run by a pair of English blokes straight out of The Office) is reckoned to be one of the more 'benevolent' of employers in the area. A Decent Factory was part of Working Worlds strand - a programme of documentaries which has always been a feature of the CEFF lineup. This year's selection had a distinct Finnish flavour, with Veikko Altonen's Working Class (an intimate examination of everyday industrial labour) and Erkko Lyytinen's The North Star (in which a small, remote rural town struggles to keep its main employer afloat in the turbulent seas of globalisation) also very much worth a look. From Serbia & Montenegro, Zelimir Zilnik's Europe Next Door focusses on a small town right next to the Hungarian border - and we see first hand how the expansion of the 'prosperous' EU has quickly caused social and economic difficulties for our immediate neighbours, a situation which seems likely to persist in this particular locale given the recent breaking-off of talks on Serbia&Montenegro's accession (not to mention the imminent likelihood of Montenegro voting for independence as a prelude to EU membership.) For many people in Britain, the most noticeable feature of recent EU expansion has been the arrival on our shores of Poles: an influx which makes German writer-director Emily Atef's fictional feature Molly's Way especially timely and noteworthy. A topical variation on Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey, Molly's Way is the story of a timid woman (Mairead McKinley) from Newry who travels to a poverty-stricken town in Poland. The reason for her mission only gradually unfolds, and while it's a somewhat predictable tale - reliant on some unlikely coincidences and even more unlikely characterisation - McKinley's spirited performance and the vivid socio-economic backdrop prove more than sufficient compensation. Treading a similarly tricky tightrope between emotional intensity and sentimental melodrama is Sergej Stanojkovski's Kontakt from Macedonia, in which a young woman fresh from a mental hospital and a bear-like criminal recently released from jail are brought together by fate (and the machinations of a a romantically-minded scriptwriter). Humour once again proves a crucial element in what could easily have bogged down into a sappily soppy heartstring-tugger, and it came as little surprise when Kontakt was named the winner of CEFF 2006's Audience Award. Stanojkovski addresses the former Yugoslavia's painful legacy in the context of a simple, universal story, and does so with sufficient wit and tact to succeed where so many well-intentioned similar pictures have recently rather messily failed. Neil Young further Jigsaw Lounge coverage of Crossing Europe 2006 can be found here  |
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