Martin Cuff Consulting

CineLink is the industry development section of the Sarajevo Film Festival and it’s designed to reshape and meet the needs and expectations of Southeast Europe’s film industry. Activities take place throughout the year, including Project Development Workshops, Industry Screenings and a Coproduction Market.

It all culminates in the Regional Forum that runs for the next few days at the Hotel Europe here in the city, concentrating on key issues in the audio-visual sector of today – sustainable financing, digitalization, funding schemes, regionalization, sales etc. I’m up this morning, presenting on Film Commissions and Film Incentive Programmes and their applicability in Eastern Europe.

A silver dollar moon, flanked by wild, apocalyptic, Dali-esque clouds emerged over Sarajevo Film Festival’s famous outdoor cinema yesterday; an apt counter-point to Woody Allen’s more mundane, kitchen-sink comedy “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger” appearing on the massive screen.

It’s an ensemble piece about a group of disgruntled Londoners. These are all glass-half-full kinds of folks (maybe that’s what comes of living in London?) but they’re driven by some new-agey persuasion that they deserve better. So they try to change their lives, mostly by ditching hopeless and uncooperative partners along the way. In doing so, however, not one of them gets what they want and few of them even get what they need. Actually, in spite of the last part, it sort of reminded me of real life, except with Woody Allen narrating. And since it is in fact a Woody Allen film, it’s quirkily and steadily entertaining enough. Smiley rather than laugh-out-loud. I doubt anyone other than Woody Allen could have gotten this film to the big screen though, or attracted such an all-star cast.

Cleveland Square and the Notting Hill areas were external locations, but London itself also seems like a bit of an unloved spouse here; it’s always present but not much is made of it.

Last night at the Sarajevo Film Festival, the Fairies and I took ourselves off to Novi Grad to see The Ghost Writer, a middling-to-good film based on a captivating premise: what the hell was Tony Blair thinking when he took the UK to war?

Based on Thomas Harris’s novel, here it’s a fictional former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), who’s holed up in a borrowed house on a wintry barrier island. He hires a ghost writer (Ewan MacGregor) to re-write his non-threatening, non-controversial but eagerly awaited memoirs. But there’s foul play involved, a pending War Crimes trial, the CIA, extraordinary Rendition, Iraq, murder, the whiff of an affair, an evidently more shrewd, capable and ruthless wife. Olivia Williams once again just acts every one else off the screen, she’s transcendent as the brainy, brittle, forthright former First Lady.

(more…)

Robin Hood was by far and away my favourite childhood hero: the gang of mates hanging out in the woods far away from adult supervision, singing lewd ballads, cooking bangers over an open fire, the being super cool with the bows and arrows business, and making a living beating the crap out of the King’s men. And all the time wearing a fetching green: bonus!

So I eagerly awaited this latest rendering of the Robin Fable – this time by master revisioner, Ridley Scott. Think of it as “Robin Begins”, a reimagining the whole “before Robin Hood was Robin Hood” thing – (which I guess kind of misses the point of bothering retelling a much loved story? I refer to Tim Burton’s Alice as a yet more criminal version of this trend.)

I won’t even bother explaining the plot. Not that it’s unengaging, it’s just frakkin convoluted. But it’s Ridley Scott – and (grudgingly) Russell Crowe – and they still hold it all together in a compelling and really rather enjoyable way. The battle scenes are brutal, the detailed portrait of Medieval life is remarkable, the cast is stalwart and universally fine. If you’re wanting japes-ing, wisecracking, thigh-slapping Merry Men, watch Bad Boys. But otherwise sit down, shut up and hang on. (more…)

“Life in a Day” is the Ridley Scott-produced, Kevin MacDonald-directed doccie that’s shooting TODAY – 24th July 2010 – on location near you (and you, and you, and you…) I’m thinking The Qatsi trilogy meets A Day in the Life of…. series of coffee table books, only messier and more inspired.

As the blurb says: “Life In A Day” is a historic global experiment to create the world’s largest user-generated feature film: a documentary, shot in a single day, by you. On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.”

So what are you waiting for? Get on set.

HBO shot Fatherland in Prague in 1994 – a year in which we were somewhat pre-occupied in the Republic of South Africa – so I missed it entirely. In fact I’d never even heard of it until I caught it on tv today. Based on a Thomas Harris novel of the same name, it’s set in 1964 and starts with an intriguing premise: that Hitler defeated the Allies in 1944 and established a Nazi super-state across Europe.

Against this backdrop, President (Joseph) Kennedy is about to arrive on a State Visit to meet the 75-year old Hitler to formally end the Cold War; Hitler needs American support to finally defeat the Soviets in the East. But the Germans have a nasty little secret that threatens to derail the entire deal….. An American journalist and a German detective investigate.

It’s definitely a tv movie in size and scope, but it’s a pretty chilly thriller nonetheless. And the Nazi meets the 60s styling is impressive too.

I’m not an Angelina fan. I think beneath that glossy fat-lipped sheen she probably pupates and eats her young. But – in the same vein as, say, dinky nutter Tom Cruise or that shameless old hack, the devil’s own Nicky Cage – she has a perplexing level of success that brings her the kinds of film projects I’m loathesomely keen to watch.

In Salt, she plays an agent accused of being a Russian spy, leading to all kind of skop-skip-en-donder. It would have been so-so-yawn as yet another Tom Cruise film: the role was written for him. But whilst Angelina remains as likely a case for a Munchausen’s-By-Proxy diagnosis as I’ve ever seen, she will probably raise this above the norm.

Fascinating Podcast from Heart of Hollywood (Retro 1260 KGIL) radio on Runaway Productions and the fight to keep production in California: here.

Hollywood can now issue permits realtime. Wow. But it’s still the overwhelming sense of entitlement that astounds me…..

Endgame : crikey. In the post-World Cup euphoria, it really is just too easy to forget quite how far we’ve come.

Endgame is a real-life political thriller that charts the efforts of Michael Young, unlikely hero, to facilitate secret talks between the bitterest of enemies: the ANC government-in-exile and members of the Afrikaner elite. Against a backdrop of brute violence, thuggish intimidation, smuggled correspondence, surveillance, counter-espionage, and the bullish extremism of members of both groups, Young’s idealistic negotiations uncovered a mutual sense of humanity and respect that ultimately resulted in the unbanning of opposition parties, the release of Nelson Mandela (belated happy bday, Madiba), dismantling of apartheid and the birth of the miraculous, unlikely, vibrant nation of modern South Africa.

So: “crikey” was what went through my mind all the way through the film. I kept wanting to grab the air stewardess and say “Did you see this? Have you seen this?” and share my amazement and excitement. I’m not sure if it’s actually great cinema, but I found it powerful, personal and passionate – and I’m increasingly believing that that is in fact what great cinema’s about. If you’re South African, it’s a must-see.

Endgame – shot and beautifully brushstroked in drained, grainy, 80’s home-movie style – jumps from South Africa, to the ANC hq in Lusaka, to London, with the stand out location being the elegant Mells Park near Frome in Somerset, where the meetings took place (though this was actually shot somewhere in Berkshire – I’m trying to find out where.) There’s a scene on the rugby field at Stellenbosch High School too; that one I recognised for myself.

I’m not, generally speaking, a huge fan of politicians. My encounters with them – real or fictional – always leave me feeling a little bit tainted by all the spin and hypocrisy. State of Play, then, (starring portly Russell Crowe and flobby Ben Affleck) buys neatly into all of my wildly pre-conceived notions of political conspiracy and personal sleaze: hence I loved it.

Based on an old Beeb mini-series, the movie is a taut thriller about a curmudgeonly reporter who tries to protect his college roommate. That roommate now happens to be a congressman who’s heading a committee uncovering massive graft – and who happens also to be screwing his secretary. Twists, turns & thrills aplenty are driven relentlessly forward by a truly stellar cast (Rachel McAdam stands out).

And as the charmin’ly genteel southern home of all that Vice and Corruption, Washington DC is almost a character in itself. Even the Watergate Building plays a part. I found myself wanting to visit – which, given my opening gambit of this post, seems almost perverse.