That wonderful tiny Love Camel aka: Andrea Novarin has
been staying with me attending the Berlinale International Film Festival. We’ve had a blast together arguing and
carrying on in utter nonsense. On his last day in Berlin Camel
took me to breakfast around the corner on the Marlene D. street of Lebener
Strasse to a relatively new trendy boite called MokaLola where I had the most
divine egg scramble with herbs and a plump croissant. The owner was a spritely Turkish fellow who saw us
standing outside and promptly invited us to come inside. You never get that kind of gracious treatment
at restaurants in Berlin. Usually it’s
the opposite along with a frown.
So sad that Camel is going back to London, but I am
happy for him as he has a brand new job working with the Internet Movie
Database in Bristol. Camel had worked
for many years at the British Film Institute.
His new employ begins in March and he will sublet his beautiful and
conveniently located London flat and move to Bristol where he has a six month
contract. Camel took me to Sunday brunch
at More Café at Nollendorky Platz. I
have had lots of nice meals at this place, but the service and food was a
little lacking on this particular visit.
Camel has been such sweatheart treating his Vagimule doll to an early
birthday din din at Santa Maria and buying me a new computer as my last one
went kaput. I don’t have a good track
record when it comes to technologies.
Love Camel and Jewish Muslim Daniel Hendrickson were
my escorts to the Salzgeber Editions Sissy Magazine yearly Berlinale shindig
this time located at their new digs on Prinzessinin Strasse at
MoritzPlatz. Jan Kuenemond the elfin
editor of Sissy Mag is a cute, softspoken and sincere little booty pie that so many men and women in Berlin have the hots for. The soiree was fun. A
woman from Leipzig who I believe runs a kino there was this year’s winner of
the Salzegeber Prize.
Berlin parties never get down and dirty as people are
too reserved here to let themselves go in the way that I require, but there was a
hefty and generous buffet provided by an establishment called Hillmann , and
free flowing liquor all night which makes up for the general Berliner social
awkwardness. Seen cavorting about: legendary filmmaker Monika Treut looking svelte and lovesexy, Manuel Schubert
of FilmHighlights Magazine with his
juicy pal Olivier and a posse of large peniled accolytes, humpy Toby Rauscher, French
actors Jeremy Renier and his lover Gaspar Ulliel who met while filming the Yves
Saint Laurant biopic, intellectual studkin Christian Weber with Ramon Zuercher
whose film Das merkwuerdige Kaetzchen (The Little Cat) is screening as part of
the Forum section of the Berlinale.
The film that excited Love Camel the most at the
festival was a Dutch/German production called Its All So Quiet(Boven is het
Stil) an austere and subtle six reeler from Netherlandic auteur Nanouk Leopold. The hornpig in the Camel was pickled pink by
a Babylonian gorgon of a supporting player named Martijn Lakemeier who was the
films youthquaking eyecandy.
The other night I saw a late screening of Deshora by
Argentine Barbara Sarasola-Day which started off nicely with a premise
involving a middle aged couple and a young interloper who I didn’t find all
that attractive. What Deshora needed
was Mehdi Dehbi the Arab/French star of Je Ne Suis Pas Mort(I’m Not Dead). This boy and his perfect hair and pillow lips
kept me completely enthralled. I guess
Mr.Dehbi’s director Medhi Ben Attia is also wrapped up in the house of Mehdi
Dehbi, bathing him in nice languid closeups.
The director must be a closet shrimp-aholic because he lingered just a
little too long on his star’s beautiful and manly bare feet in one early
scene. The best way to describe Je Ne Suis Pas Mort is
to say it’s a magical realism version of Freaky Friday with fey Frenchman
Emmanuel Salinger in the Barbara Harris role, and the luscious Mr. Dehbi as
Jodie Foster. I could even forgive the
film for letting glamour girl Maria de Medeiros run amok, but If I was them I
would excise that horrible theatre scene-yuksville.
Excitement was stirring as I attended the world
premiere of my former German\Polisch student Marcin Malaszczak first feature
Sieniawka. This flicker is a majestic
tone poem, dazzling in its slowcore visual detox and Anti Benjamin Britten soundscore. The Cinestar 8 house was SRO and I predict
that my lovely young Marcin is going to emerge as a major film talent that
everyone will be squawking about. Not
only did he direct the film but he was also the cinematographer. Yowza!
Saturday I had to rush to Kino Internationale to catch
a screening of Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. I
hadn’t seen it in almost ten years when it played at the American
Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd with a post screening Q&A
with the films star Michael York.
It was important to me to see Cabaret here in Berlin
where it really resonates. Under the
Berlinale Classics Retrospektive banner that highlights new restorations I was
a bit perplexed as this is one restoration
that could benefit from a little
more fiddling. But I shan’t get all
nitpicky, after all the film is 42 years old, and its just as magical as when I
first saw it upon its initial release in 1972 when I was in grade school. I can’t get over how young Ms. Minnelli is,
and Marisa Berenson is a pure vision of
fragile loveliness. The films associate
producer Harold Nebenzal told a bunch of amazing stories before the screening
that I had never heard before. Can you
imagine gossip that the Vagimule doll doesn’t know about concerning a Hollywood
musical film?
Also saw the odd documentary Naked Opera featuring a
terminally ill middle aged status queen obsessed with Mozart’s Don Giovanni and
an ungainly pumpkin in the form of French blue movie ingenue Jourdain Foxx. I don’t really know what to say about this
bad looking digital concoction or why I went to see it other then liking the
title.
The opening of the 8th Forum Expanded at Kino Arsenal
was very Fidel Castro porn translation as provided by Daniel Haji Henderson
using his best Virginia O’Brian deadpan voiceover to the wonderful Cuban docu
For the First Time(Por Primera Vez) where a Guantanamo Bay Village of peasants
get their first taste of cinema, from Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times.
Everyone in Kino I was in a whimsical mood, led by a
relaxed and sparkling Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus doing a
marvelous job as moderator and being very playful with the crowd along with
host Harum Farocki with able assist from Uli Ziemons, Angela Melitopoulos,
Nanna Heidenreich, the first family of German Arthouse Cinema La Gregors, Constanza
Ruhm and projectionist Anselm at the giant editing machine.
The next program that was part of Living Archive
restored digitalization featured the discovery by Goldsmith scholar Nicole Wolf
that Deepa Dhanraj’s 1986 documentary film
What Happened to this City? That she had been trying to find was hiding in
plain site at the Arsenal’s archive all along.
Hollywood actor Tim Robbins taking time out from his jury duties was one
of the notables in the crowd along with the delightful wife of Harum Farocki,
Antje.
Saw the wonderous Robert Siodmak film made in France
in 1938 Mollenard which isn’t dated in the least, but actually touches on some
themes that are quite current.
Was so happy I got to see Richard Foreman film Once
Every Day at HAU 1 that was part of Forum Expanded. The film features a young lanky Jewish man of
such inescapable beauty and presence that I wanted to see more of him on the
screen. Being the HavaNagila queen that
I am my lust couldn’t be satisfied. This
young man looked like a Jewish Anthony Perkins circa 1960 when he starred in
the film Tall Story with Jane Fonda where he plays an unlikely basketball
player.
It was my first time at HAU under the new artistic
director. The brightly lit décor is
horrible. Even someone in radiant youth
would look flat and washed out with the lighting employed in the lobby and bar
areas. The new furniture is also
horrid. Everyone I talked to was
complaining about it, and told me its even worse at the WAU café.
Didn’t get to see the end of the movie as I promised
my friend I would see his movie that was screening as part of Panorama
section. Richard Foreman was supposed to
be in Berlin for his screening at HAU I but his plane was cancelled because of an east coast blizzard.
A sexy Korean friend of mine worked on the movie
Behind the Camera by director E J-Yong where he supposedly directs a feature
film via Skype. The best part of the
movie was the older Korean actress who reminds me of what Margaret Cho will be
like in 25 odd years. I really liked the
opening short Jury by elderly first time director Kim Dong Ho.
This morning I rushed out of the house to meet Daniel
Hendrickson the Jewish Muslim at this new Turkish boite on Potsdamer Strasse at
Kleistpark. The food and atmosphere is
quite charming but we had to scarf the food down to make it to the Forum
Expanded panel discussion at this museum next to the Kulture Forum. Film historian Marc Siegel was the moderator
along with gorgeous German/Bolivian curator Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz and
artist/filmmaker Nelville d’Almeida, Thomas Valentin and Cesar Oiticica the
nephew of Helio Oiticica whose film about his legendary uncle is the
cornerstone of the Forum this year. So
much gleamed from the panel discussion touching on Quasi Cinema, Tropicalia,
Experiments in Cosmococa and Walking Delirium.
I beg you to go and see the documentary by Cesar. You won’t regret it.
Tonight is the big installation event at the Liquidrom(Natural Hot Spring Spa)
which is another must see happening of Forum Expanded and will definitely be
the talk of the festival. There are some
surprises that I won’t divulge here you just have to see it for yourself. Going to take a disco nap so i don't look like the walking dead later tonight at the Liquidrom----ta!
