A boy, a cat, summer music and cigarettes from the kiosk in Felini’s Amarcord

The new waves of American independent film are ridden by the disciples of Cassavetes, David Lynch, Jarmusch, Linklater, who, albeit a little late, define their (our) generation from the end of the XX century. They know the core of genres, which is why they play two genres in one film, yes, two genres, like two guns, are taken out by a dreamer from Hammer to Nail in a melodrama+comedy Ping Pong Summer. Onur Turkel wrote, directed and played the immature, rugged and bitterly skeptical Turk from Brooklyn in the one-man comedy with a vampire finale and soft-pornographic background which is SUMMER OF BLOOD. 

A similar (independent) budget surrounding is where Denis Côté  from Montreal dwells, a passionate filmmaker who followed his Golden Bear for direction in 2003 for suspence+drama VIC+FLO SAW A BEAR with a return to Berlinare this year with a documentary about a loud and clear roar of a man stuck in flywheels of ruthless capitalism. In this way Côté expresses his understanding of the modern times, not just through a story of two felon lesbian, but also through the voice of a man who finds it harder and harder to see joy in his work. Look, a cat! Off! So, when this third of planetary selection (360 degrees) from American continent is enriched with the memory of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s childhood, spent in a Chilean village with a Stalinist father and a mother with an uncanny resemblance of Felini’s tobacco woman in Amarcord, then we realize that it is the story, the narration, complex and unpredictable, where all the flavor and the essence of independent filmmaking lies, whether old or new. Therefore Jodorowsky’s DANCE OF REALITY is one more chosen story in the ocean of the untold ones, and Alejandro is yet another never-grown boy. And again this cat. She will knock something down! and another boy stands with his little friend on a balcony in Caracas , talking about junior prom, while he secretly thinks about his mother, single, unemployed and sad in the Venezuela film Pelo Malo (BAD HAIR). This film is not only independent and freely-made, but also mostly created by women (production, screenplay, direction), and women are the most capable of being independent creatures in the world, at least they say s… Off! This cat is getting boring. Off!

I don’t know where I was, it’s the cat. Oh, well, let’s do it this way:

STRANGE LITTLE CAT, a debut film by Ramon Zürcher is one that encourages (above all youthful and full of ideas) us to be independent and free in everything. Just like… OFF… yes, just like a cute little kitten. Now go away. Yes. The best film in the selection is… a film that is called cat, but is not about cats, but about us, inactive, nervous and rushed cats’ pet. Yes yes, about us, who need nothing except SEX, DRUGS, AND TAXATION! We don’t need to eat, or breathe, we only care about sex, drugs and bills. We don’t need more. Not even a mat, mat (not a cat). But if you take a close look at a film of this title, Sex, Drugs & Taxation, made in abundance of detail and with different stories poured into one about two great friends, very close but very different, then you will come to the conclusion that the young Danish director Christoffer Boe, just like Ramon Zürcher, is the new hope of European drama, and thus film, independent of course, and quite Chekhovian. Translated into film language, Checkovian would be – Fassbinderovian!

The only documentary in this year’s 360 degrees selection is ALBHABET by Austian documentary filmmaker and explorer Erwin Wagenhofer, about how many talented children suffer in inactive educational systems, everywhere in the world, and is another necessary dilemma we need to deal with, if we want more freedom and independent spirit to grow in our children that it ever grew in us.

However, not it’s time for me to wrap up this story into a conclusion which would be dry, but magnificent – everyone will make films. Everyone!

Anyone who can persuade  Michel Houellebecq, the most sold French writer to be kidnapped and have a good time at it – FILM IT; anyone who can imitate a little kitten and has a new idea – FILM IT; anyone who knows more than twenty people who will immediately come when they call them – FILM IT; anyone who likes pictures flying under their nose, constantly in a rhythm – FILM IT; tireless, curious, agile – FILM IT, FILM IT!

(Translated by Dženana Huseinović)

Trailers' Playlist here
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1ggSuC5RTERis3GBuZDSkbWjP45JCPzZ