Posts Tagged ‘film’
Lebanon Very Big “Kteer Kbeer” Film
Since its release in September, Film Kteer Kbeer (Very Big Shot) has received a considerable amount of local and global admiration, and garnered applause from many for its exceptional concept and execution.
Directed by Jean Bou Chaaya, the gripping film introduces us to three headstrong brothers living in a shady area in Beirut.
Led by the eldest brother Ziad, brilliantly portrayed by actor Alain Saadeh, the threesome organizes a devious scheme to transport a large quantity of drugs across the border.
They devise a plan to make a feature film on an unfortunate couple, in order to transport their illegal products across the border.
Sounds simple enough, right?
The result is an hour and a half of serious drama mixed with hilarious one-liners and surprising blasts.
The cast, which includes the brilliant Wissam Fares – starring opposite Tarek Yacoub and Fouad Yammine, excel at giving realistic portrayals of middle class gangsters who are on their last attempt to escape poverty, and achieve their dreams of opening a decent (and crime-free) restaurant.
The abrupt ending results in questioning the morals of politicians all the while subtly addressing the difference between religions in Lebanon.
This is absolutely not your cliched film of love and war.
The Marrakech award-winning film gives a detailed depiction of suburban struggle through meticulous art direction and story-telling.
We definitely recommend that we all rally and support the growth of local talent and local productions.
Film Kteer Kbeer is currently showing in theaters all around the country including Grand Cinema, CinemaCity, and Abraj.
You can watch the trailer here:
This sucker for details and control: Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was missing. The office he was using at MGM’s West 55th Street world headquarters in New York was empty. Kubrick was to supervise the national release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and nobody knew where he was this morning.
Stanley is the usually punctual film director and I, his summer intern, was not aware of his whereabout.
Tim Deegan, Director of Guest Services, recalls on Unframed: A Summer with Stanley Kubrick.
Stanley being off of his own very meticulous grid, was unexpected, especially since he had control over MGM’s distribution of his movie. The studio executives needed him available to approve their plans, practically every day.
Very few filmmakers had ever achieved that level of control and power over how their movies were marketed and exhibited. Kubrick already had final cut rights as a director, won after his experience with Spartacus.
Final approval being given to a movie director for the marketing and distribution release strategies of his movie was just beginning to become a Hollywood deal point for the most successful filmmakers.
2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1965-68; GB/United States). Stanley Kubrick on set during the filming. © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Another mystery quickly developed when the studio received a call from the manager of the Loews Capitol Theatre, MGM’s 5,500-seat showcase theater on Broadway (second largest in New York after Radio City Music Hall’s 5,700 seats).
The projectionist was threatening to go on strike and close the theater, which meant no more showings of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Someone from MGM had gone into the projection booth and was using a chisel to file the aperture frame to remove the built up dust from the carbon arc projectors so that there would be sharp, not fuzzy, edges on the theater screen.
The arclight, or carbon-arc lighting, was the illumination source in movie projectors at the time. As the carbon rods burned down, they smoked and threw off dust that would adhere to the edges of the aperture frame with the result of projecting fuzzy edges on the screen.
Kubrick did not like the distraction of fuzzy edges, so he brought his chisel into the projection booth to clean the edges so 2001 would be seen with crisp, clean edges on the screen.
The mystery of the location of Kubrick was solved, and all future projectionists of 2001: A Space Odyssey would receive written instructions from the director stating how he expected his movie to be projected.
2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1965-68; GB/United States). The astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) in the storage loft of the computer HAL. © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
The smallest details, such as removing the built-up arc-light dust, never escaped Stanley Kubrick, who was always finding new ways to ensure that his standards were met.
The studio had given him an office with a small conference room attached to it, where he stationed me with his instructions.
First thing every morning I was to go to the international newsstand on Broadway and collect newspapers from every major American city.
Next, I was to tear out the page that had the ad for 2001 and place it on top of the pile for that city.
The perimeter of the conference room floor was lined by stacks of tear sheets from newspapers from all of the major cities, with the most recent ads being placed on top of each city’s pile. Kubrick showed me how to measure advertising space using an agate ruler that equated fourteen lines to an inch, which was how advertising space was measured and purchased.
Equipped with my resources, I would wait for the phone to ring and hear him say something like “Chicago, June 20,” or “Miami, July 15.” Quickly, I would pull the tear sheet from the stack and measure the lines of advertising and compare it to the advertising schedule the studio promised him.
The under or over differential was all he wanted to know. I would stick my head through the connecting door and make a simple report such as “Chicago, June 20, under by six inches (or 84 lines).” I never found an overage. The studio was constantly purchasing less ad space than they promised him, and he always challenged them and insisted on additional advertising to make up the difference.
What was a revelation to me was not so much his meticulous process and attention to even the smallest details, but his absolute power.
I was being paid by the studio to work for him as an auditor to uncover their deficiency and tell him. As a very young teenager, I realized how important it was for Kubrick to control every aspect of his movies, and to this day—from 2001 to Lolita to A Clockwork Orange—one can see what a difference that attention to detail made.
5 Broken Cameras, Oscar-nominated, and controversy on Palestinian Documentary?
Posted on: February 13, 2013
Controversy engulfs Oscar-nominated Palestine documentary
Oscar-nominated “5 Broken Cameras” has become a source of controversy among this year’s Oscar nominations, following Israel’s apparent appropriation of ownership in the wake of its nomination in the Best Feature-Length Documentary category.
The film collects together years’ worth of footage of demonstrations surrounding the struggle of the Palestinian villagers of Bilin, near the West Bank apartheid wall, which Palestinian film maker Emad Burnat originally collected together for Electronic Intifada.
Immediately following the film’s nomination, Burnat issued a statement saying: “This is one of the happiest moments of my life.
Chris Newbould posted on Jan 28, 2013 in Middle East digital production
The village of Bilin is celebrating because of international support of my film. As a child I remember watching the Oscars on TV … I don’t recall seeing films about Palestine, the occupation or our struggles. Times have changed.”
It wasn’t long before the situation became more complicated.
Almost immediately following the nomination, the Israeli press, as well as sections of the US media, began referring to the film as an ‘Israeli’ one, with even the Israeli Embassy in Washington describing it as such when Tweeting its delight at the film’s nomination.
Burnat, unsurprisingly, disagreed, stating on his Facebook page that the film is a: “Palestinian film … My story, my village story, my people’s story, seven years I was working on the film.”
Certainly the subject matter is hardly one you would expect Israel to be queueing up to applaud in the absence of an Oscar nomination, but things become yet more complicated as the film did indeed receive Israeli funding, as well as Palestinian and French funding, and also had two directors – Burnat himself, and Israeli co-director Guy Davidi.
Davidi seems to have attempted to play down the furor, conceding that the film is both Palestinian and Israeli, and stating that he does not feel films should come with citizenship.
Indeed, technically the film’s citizenship should be of no relevance in this case.
It has not been nominated in the ‘Foreign Film’ categories, so no origin needs attaching to it for Oscar purposes, while both the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the Palestinian Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions National Committee have confirmed it is not boycottable under their own regulations, which do not require the boycotting of artists who receive Israeli funding, providing their work is independent from the will of the Israeli state and government.
However, it seems the battle lines over ownership of the film have well and truly been drawn now, and indeed Burnat was quoted recently by a journalist at Australia’s Middle east News Service as saying: “If Israel continues to state that it is an Israeli film, I will pull the film from the Oscars. If Academy awards organizers would present Five Broken Cameras as an Israeli film – I won’t not there … all said and done it’s a Palestinian film. It was filmed here and presents the story of the village.
People in Bil’in say ‘we made a film that documents a seven years’ struggle to remove fence, and in the end you go to Israel and hand them over a gift?’ On the street they do not understand what is a co-production.”
The story seem set to run and run right up to the Oscar’s and beyond”.
The point is that this is not in a category where the national origin of the film is an issue, like in the Foreign Film category. For the Israelis to go around saying this is an “Israeli” production while in fact it is a Palestinian film about the struggle of a Palestinian village against Israel is total hypocrisy meant basically to steal the film’s thunder.
Note: The interview on CNN of Palestinian film maker Emad Burnat https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/five-broken-cameras-film-director-speaks-up-on-cnn-who-is-emad-burnat/
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