5. Queer Lion Award: films in competition

“Schuberth. L'atelier della dolce vita”
"Schuberth. L’atelier della dolce vita" by Antonello Sarno (Italy, 37’)

Cast, credits, synopses, pictures and of all the movies in competition for Queer Lion 2011; and the calendar with the screening schedule throughout the Film Festival

Wilde Salomé
by Al Pacino (Usa, 95’)
with Al Pacino, Jessica Chastain, Kevin Anderson
Wilde Salome invites audiences into the world of Al Pacino as never before, offering a deeply intimate portrayal of the cinema’s greatest icon, playing his most demanding role: himself and King Herod. Brimming with shockingly candid moments, Wilde Salome ventures with Pacino all over the world, to London, Paris, Dublin, New York, Los Angeles and to his dressing room backstage; nothing is off limits as Al Pacino explores the complexities of the play, the trials and tribulations of Wilde’s life, and in the process offers an unprecedented look at his own. At once touching and deeply funny, Pacino’s journey in Wilde Salome is one of passion, determination and above all, obsession. Tom Stoppard, Gore Vidal, Bono, Tony Kushner, and Oscar Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland also appear in the film.

L’ultimo terrestre
by Gian Alfonso Pacinotti (Italy, 100’)
with Gabriele Spinelli, Anna Bellato, Luca Marinelli
The story unfolds during the week prior to the arrival of aliens on the Earth. An arrival announced by the world’s governments. Late fringe news which doesn’t interest anyone. On arrival the aliens find a nation which is tired and disillusioned, steeped in economic crisis. The reaction caused by the arrival of these extra-terrestrials ranges from racism to bizarre mystic-religious interpretations. This is the setting which hosts the story. The film, however, is not about the population. It follows the life of Luca Bertacci; a man with huge relational problems, his only true friend is a transsexual he’s been knowing since his childhood, a bond fortified through the years, her (him, back then) being the only one in the neighborhood not to find the kid quirky and strange. After being abandoned by his mother when he was very young, he grew up hating women. Diffident, but above all, devoid of emotions. The presence of the extra-terrestrials changes everything. The arrival of these aliens is so like the “final judgement” (to punish selfishness, greed, male chauvinism, transphobia) and yet, by the end of the film it’s almost impossible not to believe that they came to Earth just for him. Like a gift.

Jultak dongshi
by Kyungmook Kim (South Korea, 115’)
with Lee Paul, Kim Saebyuk, Lim Hyungkook
Jun, a young man of North Korean origin who had illegally emigrated to South Korea when he was a child, works in a service station. In protecting a colleague, Sun-hee, a Chinese immigrant of Korean ethnicity, from the advances of the owner, Jun gets himself fired. When he goes back to the station to demand the pay he is owed, Jun hits the boss. He runs away with Sun-hee, crossing the city and romantically repossessing places which have never belonged to them. Hyeon is a young homosexual who with the help of a video camera explores the spaces of an abandoned luxury apartment. That loft has been the theatre of his clandestine relationship with Seonghun, a middle-aged business man who maintains the spoilt and boring existence of the young man. Finally, reciprocal betrayals and lies have undermined the foundations of a relationship condemned to the invisibility and silence of a gilded prison. When the trajectories of the loneliness of the two young men meet, the two decide to end it all together. But the double suicide leads to a new genesis, and to the re-birth of the two as one.

Palácios de Pena
by Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt (Portugal, 59’)
with Alcina Abrantes, Andreia Martina, Catarina Gaspar
Haunted by their own directionless lives, two pre-adolescent girls reunite while visiting their ailing grandmother. In the midst of her fantasies of a medieval past – one consumed by fear and desire – the two girls are transformed and confront a legacy of oppression. Palácios de pena is about a culturally inherited fear in Portugal, linked to political and social oppression during the Inquisition and Fascism. It revolves around two upper-middle class adolescent Portuguese girls, juxtaposing their budding identities to a trial condemning two Moorish homosexuals to burn at the stake. Their ailing grandmother gives them an awareness of their heritage through the mechanism of desire, describing a dream where she is a judge of the Inquisition. The grandmother’s and the girls’ guilt is complicated by their relationship, that of family and love. As they love each other, so does what they represent: ignorance and the will to violently oppress.

Sal
by James Franco (Usa, 103’)
with Val Lauren, Jim Parrack, James Franco
James Franco’s Sal chronicles the final hours of the life of actor Sal Mineo, onetime teen idol and star of the blockbuster films Rebel Without a Cause and Exodus. Although inspired by actual events, the film is not a traditional biopic; rather, it takes the viewer on an intimate journey through the very last day of Mineo’s life. On February 12, 1976, Sal Mineo was no longer the marquee sensation he had once been, but he was finally, after years of heartbreaking setbacks, finding his way to becoming the actor and director he had for so long aspired to be. He was set to direct his first feature film, and was only days away from opening in a play that had already won him rave reviews in San Francisco. Sal Mineo’s life was finally coming together, only to be viciously cut short by a lone attacker and a senseless crime. In Sal, the audience is drawn into Mineo’s world and allowed to experience his final hours, both his highs and lows, the exciting and the somewhat mundane, that ultimately led to a shocking and horrifying conclusion.
Sal Mineo was 37 when he was murdered and was on the cusp of a new upswing in his career. He had started as a child star and when he was 15 acted opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, for which they were both nominated for Oscars. As a young performer Sal was incredibly successful, as both an actor and a singer, and then in his twenties, for a variety of reasons both in and out of his control, he lost the recognition he had enjoyed at the beginning of his career. He struggled through his twenties and thirties to work, never again achieving the level of success he once enjoyed. He lived the common tragedy of so many creative people who are so passionate about what they do and yet don’t have an outlet for their work. But even to the end Sal was fighting for freedom of expression and for ways to create work that was exciting and new. When he was murdered the tabloid magazines groundlessly hinted that the murder might have involved drugs or a lover, and the memory of Sal has been forever tainted by such conjecture in bad faith. This film is a portrait of a sensitive and kind artist in his last hours.

Snow Canon
by Mati Diop (France, 33’)
with Nilaya Bal, Nour Mobarak, Alban Guyon
The French Alps, February 2011. Vanina likes to hear the chalet’s parquet floor squeaking beneath her bare feet. Vanina likes to coat herself in sunscreen cream in front of the stone fireplace. Vanina likes the tawny fur of her rabbit, Souci. Vanina likes to smell the leather of the white sofa. Vanina likes to spend hours contemplating the sultry glow of the eyes of the veiled women on the postcards in her collection. Vanina likes to chat with Eloïse on the internet. But above all, what Vanina likes is her American babysitter, Mary Jane.

amore carne
by Pippo Delbono (Italy, Switzerland, 75’)
with Alexander Balanescu, Marisa Berenson, Bobo’
During the course of a series of voyages, the pocket cameras of Pippo Delbono capture unique moments, ordinary and extraordinary meetings. From a hotel room in Paris to another in Budapest, from Istanbul to Bucharest, the journeys weave a fabric of the contemporary world. Its testimonials – some famous, others anonymous – say or dance their vision of the universe. The encounters (with his mother, friends, strangers) are so many images of the world of yesterday, today and tomorrow. A world that one person recounts through music (as in the case of composer and violinist Alexander Balanescu), another through gesture (as with Marie-Agnès Gillot, étoile at the Paris Opéra), or through words (actress Irène Jacob) or even silence (as in the case of Bobò, Delbono’s iconic deafmute actor, artist Sophie Calle and actress Marisa Berenson). At times, the camera is hidden (like when the mobile phone captures the umpteenth HIV exam, a medical test the director has been keeping doing, despite knowing the answer – “positive” – since the last 22 years; what would he change in “the script of his life”, should he be able to rewrite that day, that moment?, nothing, “because I learned to look at the Death in his eyes”, because “while you keep dancing, the Grim Reaper, seated, will await” ). At times, it records the moments before a catastrophe, as in the case of the earthquake at L’Aquila. Or those after, as at Birkenau. Unrepeatable, true moments, that the eyes of Pippo Delbono see as he walks; eyes that stop, slow, seek, are unsure, discover. From one image to the next, from one text to another, one space to another, the camera speaks to us of love. Of poetry. And flesh. With all its load of passion, dark sides, suffering, tragedy and humour.

Accidentes gloriosos
by Mauro Andrizzi, Marcus Lindeen (Sweden, Denmark, Argentina, 58’)
with Cristina Banegas, Ignacio Catoggio, Lorena Damonte
Car crashes are instant art and sculptures made in seconds. At least to a certain Buenos Aires photographer, who spends his nights driving through the city in search of capturing the perfect accident. Meanwhile, another man is trying to find a legendary cock sucker who hides somewhere in the dark rooms of a gay sex club. Accidentes gloriosos tells nine different stories of death and transformation. From the man who undergoes a heart transplant and wakes up with new and strange artistic powers, to the woman who receives a last letter from her husband, written just before he freezes to death in one of history’s most dramatic polar expeditions.

Tae Peang Phu Deaw (P-047)
by Kongdej Jaturanrasmee (Thailand, 96’)
with Margot Chung, Weerasak Glunrawd, Nastnathakit Intarasut
Lek is a lonely locksmith who’s never had a girlfriend. Kong is an aspiring writer who lives with his mom. The two strangers work side by side at the shopping mall, one copying keys, the other selling tabloid magazines. Together, they hatch a plan that combines their talents. They break into apartments during the day when the owners have gone to work. They don’t steal anything, they only borrow. They borrow the lives, the loves, the things that belong to strangers. One day, they borrow more than they bargain for. Everyone has secrets and some cannot be revealed. Later, Lek wakes up in a hospital. To his confusion, everyone begins calling him Kong. He recuperates from his injuries. Every afternoon he walks up to the roof to have a smoke. There, he meets Oy, a young female patient who likes to sniff empty containers – bottles, cans, tins, anything that will take her back to the past. They form an odd friendship. After he leaves the hospital, Lek breaks into Kong’s home. He discovers secrets about his old friend that he never knew. He even meets the girl of his friend’s dreams. But where is his friend?

Would You Have Sex with an Arab?
by Yolande Zauberman (France, 85’)
A voyage through the night, from encounter to encounter, from the bars of Tel Aviv to the lanes of Jerusalem. People dance, laugh, have fun, in nightclubs. Dawn to the techno sound of a rave party in the open air. And to finish, a crazy kiss on the beach. A first kiss. Jews, Arabs, gay, straighs, transgender, all citizens of a single country: Israel. No wall separates them. One Israeli in five is Arab. And yet… A simple question takes everyone by surprise. To one set: “Would you have sex with an Arab?” To the others: “Would you have sex with an Israeli Jew?” They don’t expect it. Bothered, they laugh, hesitate, improvise, surprise themselves with their reactions. Many had never considered the question. Be together? An invisible barrier appears. Desire, too. Perhaps.
I have always liked frontiers that cross something intimate, the love between enemies who never surrender, the couples this creates. When they know each other, they do so like no-one else. They illuminate the world in a different manner. They are in a premonitory, modern place, that is, never in their own place. I like the world of night, I like dancing with the camera; I believe in dance, the dance with someone else. When it’s dark, you can’t fix your gaze, you see from the corner of your eye, like an animal. “Would you have sex with an Arab?” A crazy question, and yet so simple. The camera runs. You have to answer without being noticed. They say, they say no, surprising themselves. They laugh. The question wakes them up. You see them thinking with their whole body. They are dumbfounded (which is no small thing for Israelis). That crushing prohibition is something they feel instinctively. They have to unwind live (and often discover) their perception of the other, the enemy. “Would you have sex with an Israeli Jew?” The question also stirs Israeli Arabs. They say yes more often than no and drag us into an unsuspected world of the night. That’s what this film is. A geographic experience of an amorous nature, almost belly to belly. A sensual voyage into the mixing night of these Israeli towns that never sleep.

Schuberth. L’atelier della dolce vita
by Antonello Sarno (Italy, 37’)
The dolce vita was invented by Fellini, narrated by Flaiano and clothed by Schuberth, the tailor to “divas and queens“. In his colourful atelier in Via Condotti, the main protagonists of the international jet set and Roman high society would meet along with the stars of “Hollywood on the Tiber“, which in that period, from the latter half of the 50’s through the 60’s, was going through its most intense and frenetic season. From Loren to Lollobrigida, from Soraya to Martine Carole, all charmed by that unique style, striking and feminine to the point that there were many who at that time wrote on their wedding invitations… “The bride will be wearing a dress by Schuberth“! An eccentric character and a skilful propagandist of his own excessive image, Schuberth managed to establish an Italian style which distanced itself finally from the Parisian hegemony. But then, upon his death in 1972, his magical workshop would shortly follow him. A dazzling but brief trajectory, peculiar in the world of fashion where a designer always leaves heirs. His story is told through interviews and images from the period including those of the “media persecution” by the film press against the character of Schuberth, as well as testimony from the witnesses of the time and from the younger generation who have learnt their lessons of style and image from him.

Marécages
by Guy Édoin (Canada, 111’)
with Pascale Bussières, Gabriel Maillé, Luc Picard
In rural Canada, during a long drought, farmers Marie and Simon struggle to run their small, family-owned business. The recent, profoundly painful loss of their younger son adds to their financial troubles, while their older son, Jean, a restless teenager, is discovering his sexuality. Then tragedy strikes again: Simon dies in a work-related accident and a despairing Marie is left to nurse reopened wounds. When she becomes the object of the attentions of a stranger who witnessed the accident, Jean is left to fend for himself, his only guardian angel being his beloved grandmother, who lives happily with her female companion.