THIS WEEK FROM ROOFTOP FILMS: SWEDISH CINEMA (SHORT FILMS),THE APE, GREETINGS FROM THE WOODS
This week, rooftop films partners up with the Swedish Film Institute to bring the premiers of two feature films and one program of shorts to New York audiences, highlighting the fascinating new cinema that’s being made in Sweden but is rarely seen in the US. Bum is on the Swedish.
WEDNESDAY JULY 21 – FREE SHOW
SWEDISH CINEMA (SHORT FILMS)
Magicians skewer their assistants, bank robberies go awry, trains fall off
their tracks and lovers come and go in this wild collection of award-winning
short films from Sweden.
http://www.rooftopfilms.com/2010/schedule/27-swedish-cinema
WHERE:
Socrates Sculpture Park
3134 Vernon Boulevard,
Long Island City, NY 11106
Take the N or W train to the Broadway stop in Queens and walk eight
blocks west on Broadway (toward the East River) to the intersection of
Vernon Boulevard.
WHEN:
Wednesday, July 21
7:00 Live Music
8:30 Films Begin
THE FILMS:
INCIDENT BY A BANK (Ruben Ostlund | Sweden | 11:53 min.)
A detailed and darkly amusing account of a failed bank robbery,
recreated in a single highly-choreographed take in which over 96
people perform a meticulous set-piece for the camera. Recreating an
actual event that took place in Stockholm back in June 2006, Incident
by a Bank is an observation in real-time and a droll study of how
people act and react to the unexpected.
BYE BYE C’EST FINI (Tora | Sweden & Brazil | 14 min.)
Who says the fun stops just because you get older? Not 73-year-old
Lina Merceis, who leisurely strolls the beaches of Rio De Janeiro by
day and entertains scores of young lovers by night. Unrestricted by
the traditions of monogamous relationships or marriage, Lina’s
carefree lifestyle disproves preconceptions on aging.
SEEDS OF THE FALL (Patrik Eklund | Sweden | 17 min.)
Middle-aged couple Rolf and Eva live in a passionless relationship.
They wear and tear at each other and Eva begins to feel sexually
frustrated. One night she tries to seduce Rolf. He dismisses her but
then something happens that will change their relationship forever.
ANDERS & HARRI (Asa Blanck and Johan Palmgren | Sweden | 13 min.)
Anders and Harri are best friends. They share an interest in music.
Anders is also very fond of trains. They decide to go to Geta, where
the biggest train-accident in Sweden took place in 1918. Suddenly
there is music in the air. A film about friendship, fears, trains.
TUSSILAGO (Jonas Odell | Sweden | 13:42 min.)
West German terrorist Norbert Krocher was arrested in Stockholm on
March 31, 1977. He was leading a group planning to kidnap Swedish
politician Anna-Greta Leijon. A number of suspects were arrested in
the days following. One of the people arrested was Krocher’s
ex-girlfriend, “A”. This is her story…
INSTEAD OF ABRACADABRA (Patrik Eklund | Sweden | 22 min.)
Tomas is a little bit too old to still be living with his parents, but
his dream of becoming a magician leaves him with no other option.
Bengt, his father, just wants him to grow up and get a proper job. But
when Tomas meets his beautiful new neighbor Monica, he realizes that
there is only one acceptable course of action: he must perform his
greatest feat of magic at his father’s birthday party. Nominated for
an Academy Award in 2010.
FRIDAY JULY 23
THE APE
NY Premiere! A man awakens on the floor, covered in blood and apparently unaware of how he got there. He heads off to work, and we follow…
http://www.rooftopfilms.com/2010/schedule/30-the-ape
WHERE:
Roof of Brooklyn Technical High School
FORT GREENE
29 Fort Greene Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217
G to Fulton, C to Lafayette, 2,3,4,5 to Nevins or B,M,Q, R to Dekalb
WHEN:
8:00 Doors Open
8:30 Live Music
9:00 Film Begins
THE FILM:
THE APE (APAN) (Jesper Ganslandt | Sweden | 77 min.)
Rooftop and the Swedish Film Institute partner to present The Ape, an intense and riveting psychological thriller from one of Europe’s most daring new filmmakers. To convey a sense of perpetual disorientation, director Jesper Ganslandt used an unconventional method: the lead actor, Olle Sarri, was never allowed to read the script. Instead he was led to locations and given a set of instructions before the filming of each scene, unaware of the full plot until filming was completed. The result is at turns mesmerizing, disquieting and genuinely harrowing, but never is the film anything less than unique.
To describe the plot of The Ape much further would diminish the extraordinary experience of watching it for the first time. For stretches of the film the audience is unsure of what has unfolded prior, but as the film moves along and the backstory becomes more clear there is still a tantalizing indefinable sense that something is terribly wrong – not just with Sarri’s protagonist, but with the entire world into which we have entered. We are made to feel that we are following-perhaps even chasing – a man who acts without motivation or a sense of self. But as his story continues to move forward, Ganslandt seems to be suggesting that he is not necessarily an exceptionally damaged man, but might instead be all too typical.
SATURDAY JULY 24
GREETINGS FROM THE WOODS
NY Premiere! With a mixture of playful precision, humor and melancholy Mikel Cee Karlsson captures the dreams, relationships and everyday life of the denizens of his hometown, a tiny little village deep with the Swedish forest.
http://www.rooftopfilms.com/2010/schedule/29-greetings-from-the-woods
WHERE:
On the roof of The Old American Can Factory
Gowanus /Park Slope
232 Third St. @ 3rd Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215
F/G to Carroll St. or M/R to Union
WHEN:
8:00 Doors Open
8:30 Live Music
9:00 Film Begins
11:00 Reception in Courtyard
THE FILM:
GREETINGS FROM THE WOODS (Mikel Cee Karlsson | Sweden | 75 min.)
Impeccably composed and entrancing from start to finish, Mikel Cee Karlsson’s Greetings from the Woods is a masterful documentary about the town of Varberg, a beautiful little hamlet located deep within the Swedish forest. A former professional skateboarder and now a successful music video director, the filmmaker returned to Varberg to spend three years capturing the lovely charm and the magical and mundane habits of the longtime denizens of his boyhood home. His impressionistic portrait is filled with lovingly captured little moments: an eccentric local dressed as a Viking shops at a local strip mall; a tiny dog faces off against a herd of curious cattle; a seemingly endless parade of mopeds shoot down the road; a local photographer wanders through fairgrounds and local parks, capturing thousands of snapshots of the locals. Even the routine household rituals of Karlsson’s parents–his father playing with the cat and salting slugs in the yard, his mother vacuuming the house and falling asleep in the living room–are assembled to create a delicate, intimate, yet exhilaratingly engaging ballet of motion and stillness.
Since departing hometown years ago, Karlsson has achieved a great deal of success shooting and directing videos for many of Scandinavia’s biggest stars – most notably Fever Ray. His videos show a keen eye and inventive imagination, and have won countless awards across Europe. Nonetheless, Greetings From the Woods shows a breadth of vision and a dedication to the art of verite documentary filmmaking that signals a great leap forward for Karlsson.
One unforgettable montage starts in the waiting area of a maternity ward, with an expectant mother sitting, listening patiently–but with an unmistakable look of concern–as she listens to the almost comically pained wailing of another mother giving birth down the hall. We enter the delivery room to see the moment of birth, and the tormented cries of the mother suddenly give way to the quiet–but unmistakably messy–beauty of the mother holding her newborn in her arms for the first time; the infant is still fresh, wet and purple from the womb. A moment later the child is washed and dried by a nurse, and his screams mirror the panic his mother felt just moments earlier. Next we see the swaddled baby in his mother’s arms, sleeping peacefully, as his grandfather looks over them with a smile on his face that is at once childlike, gleeful, and serene. This sequence segues into old archival super 8 footage of the town from long ago: runners race off into the hills at a local marathon, a farmer doffs his cap, an elk stares into the camera, a sunflower towers over us, two stories in the air. The sequence ends as we discover that the footage was shot by the local photographer, and we seem him sitting in his dark living room watching these childhood home movies on an old projector. Stretched across his face is a smile that is at once childlike, gleeful, and serene.
Sequences such as these make Greetings much more than a series of beautiful images or a sentimental homage to a town. Karlsson’s film captures the distinctly Swedish character of the people of Varberg, while simultaneously communicating subtly transcendent truths about love, life, humanity, nature, and, most of all, the passage of time. Karlsson’s inspired eye behind the camera and subtly clever touch as an editor are given a perfect showcase in this extraordinary film, and Greetings From the Woods signals the emergence of a unique new talent in world cinema.
