Date posted: October 29, 2006

Shoot Me Film Festival

The Hague, The Netherlands (October 26-29, 2006)

This year my hometown hosts the second edition of the Shoot Me Film Festival. The Festival is a showcase for independent, contemporary and original films, which are shown in cinemas and on location. The idea of showing on location is fun, last year's location included a tram tunnel, with the audience on one side of the track and the screen on the other, although I must say that once you're watching the film the location no longer matters. In the end you're just staring at a wall.

I went to see a series of documentaries inside the former strongroom of a bank. It was fun to enter through the massive steel door and to be surrounded by all those safe-deposit boxes. One documentary that I saw was a collage of snapshots from Beijing, City Scene by Zhao Liang. There was no voice over, no music and no subtitles. Just images shot with a handheld digital camera. The film only lasts about 30 minutes, but as far as I'm concerned it could have gone on for another hour. Zhao Liang has captured the reality of everyday life in Beijing, the dynamism of a rapidly changing city and the state of confusion this brings about.

We see a man practising his golf swing on a lawn in front of a housing estate with a smoking chimney in the background. We see a man giving a woman a massage on the street. Both wear white masks against the exhaust fumes. As the man starts swinging and shaking the woman's arm the camera zooms out and behind them a large building site comes into view. We see a group of people practising Tai Chi on an overpass and two men throwing bricks at each other in a neighbour's quarrel. We see a sheepdog trying to mate with a dog less than half his size in front of a billboard announcing the development of some Olympic Games related project.

The succession of scenes is surreal or hyperreal or whatever you want to call it. It brings out what I like about China, the extreme contrasts and juxtapositions, between well, everything and everything.

The idea behind Boxers and Ballerinas, which I saw in an abandoned department store, is simple: just follow the lives of two pairs of young people with the same profession in two different countries. In Boxers and Ballerinas these are, you guessed it, two boxers and two ballerinas, one living in Havana, Cuba, the other of Cuban descent, but living in Miami. It is a fascinating documentary, although I have to say that I found the standard movie length of 90 minutes a bit too long.

Boxers and Ballerinas, directed by Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, beautifully portrays the dreams and aspirations of four young people at the beginning of their career. But it also brings out the difference growing up in two countries with different political and economic systems makes. It would have been easy for a film such as this to swing in favour of one political and economic system, that of the US, but the film makers have refrained from making a judgement and let the images and their protagonists speak for themselves.

The film also contrasts different forms of freedom. It is true, Yordenis, the Cuban boxer, and Annia, the Cuban dancer, both would like to be able to travel freely abroad. Paula, the Cuban-American dancer, and Sergio, the Cuban-American boxer, can travel freely, but they don't have the money to do so. Sergio's father loses his job and Paula's mother, a Cuban dancer who fled to the US, lacks funding for her own dance company. Paula and Sergio's lives are therefore marked by worries about money, whereas Yordenis and Annia lead relatively privileged lives, since they are supported by the state.

As an artist, in the end, what you want, apart from recognition, is to do another project. For this you need time and money. You don't need a sports car, a big house or a 50,000 dollar watch, unless you want to use it as material for your next project. As a sportsman, what you want, is to improve yourself and to win the next match. Dancers, by the way, have much in common with sportsmen in this respect, because they also always want to improve themselves. This is what unites the characters in Boxers and Ballerinas.

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is that of the welcome Yordenis' parents and neighbours have prepared for him when he returns from Havana to his hometown Santiago. School girls in uniform sing for him as he stands in front of his mother's house and a young dancer dances for him in the street. It reveals a sense of community that has somehow been lost in the US and other Western societies. Across the world streets and towns prepare a hero's welcome for their local stars, but to me this felt different, more genuine perhaps, because with what little they have they tried to do something special.

I didn't have time to see many more films. I was also rather disappointed by the turn-out at the screenings I attended. Especially Boxers and Ballerinas deserves a large audience. It is visually enticing and bound to make you think. By the way, if you're an independent filmmaker, you can also submit your work to the festival.