Month: April 2007

Criticism: Food and Film

Commentary

The Pulitzer Prize for criticism was announced this week, and personally, I couldn’t be more delighted that for the first time in its history, it went to a restaurant critic: Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly, whose “Counter Intelligence” column has served as my homing beacon for food exploration and discovery ever since I moved to Los Angeles about six years ago.

This is one of the world’s great culinary cities, not necessarily because of indigenous cuisines, but because of its authentic and multifaceted ethnic imports; my stomping grounds in the San Gabriel Valley, for example, are widely regarded …

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Unknown Forces

Film review, Uncategorized

Last night at the REDCAT, Thai filmmaker (and graduate of Chicago’s School of the Art Institute) Apichatpong Weerasethakul opened his first solo exhibition in the US, entitled Unknown Forces (2007). A filmmaker who often blends narrative and experimental techniques (particularly structural innovation) in his feature films, I learned he also produces and distributes avant garde works through his company Kick the Machine, and has created several video installations for gallery spaces over the years.

Unknown Forces is set up in a bare, roughly 40-foot-square, darkened room, with four large, looping video images projected on three walls, and a …

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BAFICI, Wrap-up

Film festival


In Between Days

By Robert Koehler

Good, smart festivals–and BAFICI is one of them–can dole out terrible awards. The Saturday awards capping the final days (which I’ll be reflecting upon in postings to come) were no exception. I’ll be breaking down some of the results later, but the happiest result was unquestionably my international jury’s wise selection of So Yong Kim’s In Between Days for best film (with the nifty bonus of an acting award for the film’s beautifully instinctive lead actor, Jiseon Kim). Despite being a popular title on the festival circuit since Sundance ’06, Days had yet to …

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BAFICI, Day 11

Film festival


Raya Martin’s Autohystoria

BAFICI, Day 11
By Robert Koehler

What does a film culture look like? Is it even apparent when it materializes in a certain place, a certain country? Even more important, when it disappears in a certain place, a certain country, does anyone notice?

The issues around this circulate in the context of BAFICI in Argentina (which has some kind of film culture), particularly as it is showing the films of Raya Martin from the Phillippines (which supposedly had no film culture). It centers on a community, and the crucial matter that a local film culture simply doesn’t …

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BAFICI, Day 10

Film festival

BAFICI, Day 10
By Robert Koehler

The public nature of film festivals is getting steadily mitigated by where they’re located. This dawned on me today crossing the extremely busy Avenida Corrientes, one of Buenos Aires’ major boulevards and traditionally the home to the city’s many Broadway-style theaters and cultural institutions, such as the Centro Cultural San Martin where the Lugones cinematheque is located (and immortalized in both Adolfo Aristarain’s Roma and Lisandro Alonso’s Fantasma). My hotel is located directly across the street from the Abasto shopping center, where BAFICI is primarily based. Instantly, the moment you stick your head …

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BAFICI, Day 9

Film festival

BAFICI, Day 8
By Robert Koehler

I came to BAFICI with many expectations, including what may be turning out to be a hope-against-hope of seeing at least a handful of good Argentine films. (More on that, most likely, tomorrow.) There was the additional expectation of catching up with some interesting titles from Rotterdam; again, the jury’s out, but if Vignatti’s La Marea (to name one–Pia Marais’ befuddled Tiger-winning The Unpolished is another) is everyone’s idea of a good Rotterdam film, then we’re all in trouble.

You don’t get what you want, but maybe what you need. The last thing I …

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