TIFF: "Apprentice," a Painful Executioner's Song

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

 Fine movies nearly always have a specific point of view, whether that's through a polished screenplay, unusually commanding performance, or auteurial voice. In the case of Apprentice, a new drama set almost entirely in a maximum security prison, that POV is subjective, even literal on occasion. We're experiencing the story through the eyes and feelings, however repressed, of a young Malay corrections officer named Aiman (Fir Rahman). Aiman has started a new position in the rehab unit of the prison before drifting, from what seems like instinctual curiousity, towards the jail's hangman Rahim (Wan Hanafi Su), who seems from a distance callous about his job, deploying gallows humor at lunch. Rahim takes a liking to the young oddly serious man and soon he's teaching him the literal ropes -- hanging being the method of execution in Singapore. Naturally it's more complicated that that as the hangman requests a transfer for the young man to become his apprentice and as we get closer to Aiman, we're forced to rethink our first impressions of him.

His interest in the executioner is less a curiousity than an inexorable pull from his own painful past... 

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Team Experience's Most Anticipated Fall Festival Films

Oscar season is upon the horizon, dear readers. And the (un)official starting siren for the race ahead is the fall festivals. Venice kicks off tomorrow, overlapping with Telluride and Toronto in September, the comes New York and Chicago before the AFI Fest in November.

Our host Nathaniel will be heading out to Toronto in a few short days, so expect to see his responses during those days. While we can't all take in the glut of a major film festival, the fun of watching from home is hearing how the films on your radar are being received. So to let you know what we'll be waiting for, Team Experience has rallied our:

Top 15 Most Anticipated Films of the Fall Festivals

Films narrowly missing the list included Una, Voyage of Time, Loving, American Pastoral, and The Salesman. On our list you'll find five films directed by women and nine from non-US directors. We weren't at Cannes or Sundance, so not everything on our list is a world premiere (and we know you're still looking forward to those as well). Let's just say our #1 made like Katie Ledecky at the Olympics or Mo'Nique at the Oscars, but the list is still bursting with enticements. You can see previous posts on the festival lineups here and here. Chicago is just beginning to announce and Telluride doesn't announce their lineup until the start of the festival.

See what made our list and the festivals they will play after the jump...

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Elisabeth Moss Rocks The Bleeder

by Murtada

A clip should give us a small taste that makes us want to see the movie it’s from. Unlike trailers, clips can’t be manipulated with mood and music, which is why sometimes they are jarring and don’t work out of context. But not this clip.

This clip from The Bleeder has it all. It’s like a short film with a complete story. Even if you knew nothing about the movie, you’d still get a full portrait of two of its character. One is a philandering husband (Liev Schreiber), the other is his wife (Elisabeth Moss) catching him in flirting with another woman in a diner. We know the setting because of the spot on accent from Moss. And watching Moss talk we understand a lot about this marriage.

The Bleeder is a biopic of boxer Chuck Wepner who is the real life  inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa. Schreiber is Wepner, Moss is one of his wives, Naomi Watts is another. The director is Philippe Falardeau (Monsieur Lazhar). The film will be playing both Venice and Toronto film festivals in the coming few weeks. However before this clip it was very low on my radar of upcoming movies. Now I really want to see it. If only to spend more time with that intriguing character Moss plays. Let's hope there's much more of Moss insulting Schreiber and telling it like like it is in that fabulous accent.

This clip rocks, and it did its job well selling the movie. Are you now sold on The Bleeder as well?

Ava DuVernay Documentary to Open New York Film Festival

by Murtada

The Fall Film Festivals (Venice, Toronto, Telluride, New York and London) are almost upon us. Or at least the announcements of their programmes are. TIFF announces next Tuesday, Venice at the end of of July. New York announced its opening night selection this week, Ava DuVernay’s The 13th, a documentary about the high incarceration rate, particularly of African Americans, in the United States.

The title refers to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

The film mixes archival footage - from the civil rights movement, Ku Klux Klan to the Black Lives Matter movement - with modern day commentary to present the ramifications of the amendment and the history of racial inequality in the US. It’s an apt choice for all that’s unfolding in 2016. The 13th will be released in cinemas and on Netflix on October 7th.

Lupita Nyongo'o and Madina Nalwanga in Queen of Katwe

Meanwhile lists are also being made for what other movies will appear on the festival circuit. London will open with Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom, and Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe will have its European premiere there, meaning it will debut somewhere on this side of the Atlantic first. Let’s speculate what else could play at New York, based on precedent that is arbitrary and will probably mean nothing in the end. But it’s fun to speculate:

• Damien Chazelle’s La La Land - this film, with the beloved trailer, will open Venice. Another Emma Stone film, Birdman, opened Venice and closed New York, it could happen again.

• Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk - because Life of Pi opened NYFF in 2012.

• Martin Scorsese's Silence - remember when Hugo started its Oscar campaign with a surprise screening in New York in 2011?

• Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals - the rumour is that it will play in competition at Venice. Come to New York soon after, Tom. We'd like to see Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal together in a movie, too.

• Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By the Sea - there’s always a Sundance movie that makes it to NYFF, Whiplash and Brooklyn being the last two examples.

• Robert Zemeckis’ Allied - his last two films, The Walk and Flight, both played at NYFF before opening nationwide.

That's just a few titles, we will know much more in the next few weeks. Are you planning to attend any of the fall film festivals?

Interview: Wim Wenders on Every Thing Will Be Fine, 3D and Guilt

Director Wim WendersThis interview was conducted by guest contributor Amir Ganjavie, during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. Every Thing Will Be Fine was released in theatres last week.

Four years after his success with 3D in the dance film Pina, Wim Wenders is using the technology in the realm of fiction filmmaking in Every Thing Will Be Fine. One of the German auteur’s most accessible films, this psychological thriller is about the traumatic experiences of Tomas (James Franco), a writer who is dealing with the consequences of a brutal car accident. The effects of this tragedy on him and on Kate (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who has lost someone close, shape the story of the film. 3D cinematography has rarely been used for such a character-driven story with so few action scenes. Wenders is testing the limits of storytelling possibility with the technology.

AMIR: How was the experience of using 3D for such a character-driven, psychological film?

WIM WENDERS: Trauma is internalized. Something happens externally in your life and from then on it creates this thing in your mind and you have to live with it. It’s impossible to make it un-happen. It’s a pain in your life, there is guilt involved, and other people are involved with whom you have suddenly connected without wanting to, but the trauma is inside. The cinema has hitherto had to invent situations that externalize the trauma to make it visible. With 3D I felt that for the first time we had cameras that could look inside of a person and see into the soul because these cameras are almost like x-rays; they see more accurately and you cannot hide anything from them. You look at a person and you know who that person is. This might surprise a lot of people because the 3D films we have seen so far don’t prove that; actually, they have done the opposite. [More...]

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