Festivals

As the Berlinale enters its 5th day and film theatres are filling up with film critics and movie fans, the Berlin International Film Festival is hosting the European Film Market. In its tenth year at the Martin-Gropius Bau Center, this year’s EFM presented Industry debates focussing on current issues in the film and media industry.

The 66th Berlin film festival opened on February 11, having secured a number of high-profile participants and screenings for its ten-day run. Hollywood stars such as George Clooney and Channing Tatum graced the red carpet on its opening night, while Meryl Streep is presiding on the festival jury as it deliberates over the winner of the top prize, the Golden Bear, and the legacy of such high-profile figures as Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Ettore Scola are celebrated in special tribute events.

Can one first date be interesting enough to fill 80 minutes? Yes, when the couple in question happens to be Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama. Their often-mentioned first rendezvous is the subject of Southside With You (the title referring to Chicago’s Southside where they both lived).

Mere days before the political primaries begin, which will eventually lead to selecting his successor, Barack Obama is all the buzz in Park City after the festival screening of Southside with You, screenwriter/director Richard Tanne’s debut film which recounts a very special day in the lives of the people we now refer to as the First Couple. Tanne’s film details the Obamas’ first date – although Michelle (Tika Sumpter) may (and does) have something to say about that characterization in the film! On that summer day in 1989 Chicago Harvard law student Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) in his late twenties is spending the summer back in Chicago interning at a prestigious law firm where his advisor is fellow Harvard alumna Michelle Robinson.

He co-wrote movies such as The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, produced Brokeback Mountain, founded and ran Focus Features (2002-2013), where he oversaw the production and distribution of Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Kids Are All Right, but this year, at the age of 57, James Schamus arrived at Sundance Film Festival with his directorial debut Indignation, which he adapted from Philip Roth’s novel of the same name. “I never really had any particular envy or urge over the years to direct,” he explained at an HFPA-hosted dinner in Park City.

Only Cannes has more events than Sundance. A serious party hopper could easily start around 3pm every day and not get home until a good 12 hours later.

Climate change, gun control (or lack thereof), ISIS, women’s rights, gender issues, a privileged socialite’s life, poetry, and music – these were the most timely themes of the documentaries that premiered at the Sundance festival over the past ten days. There was no shocking doc that had people lining up around five blocks (and not getting in) like last year’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

Indignation. Directed by James Schamus.