(An)Other Irish Cinema: Rouzbeh Rashidi

 

Here's the second part of our look at the 3 filmmakers who make up (An)Other Irish Cinema....

 

Rouzbeh Rashidi (born in Tehran, 1980) is an Iranian independent filmmaker. He has been making films since 2000 when he founded the Experimental Film Society in Tehran. Since then, he has worked completely apart from any mainstream conceptions of filmmaking. He strives to escape the stereotypes of conventional storytelling and instead roots his cinematic style in a poetic interaction of image and sound. He intentionally rejects scriptwriting, or any other form of written pre-planning.

His films are inspired by and constructed around images, locations, characters and their immediate situations. The stylistic elements that make up his distinctively personal film language include the use of natural light, non-professional actors, slow paced rhythms, abstract plots, static shots and minimal dialogue. He employs a wide range of different formats and devices to make his films, including video, Super-8mm, webcam and mobile phone cameras. His consistently low-budget work is entirely self-funded and made with complete creative freedom.

Rouzbeh Rashidi has directed and produced forty short films. Since 2008, he has focused on feature projects, making six full length films:
Light & Quiet (2008), Only Human (2009), Bipedality (2010), Reminiscences of Yearning (2011), Zoetrope (2011) and Closure of Catharsis (2011).

Rashidi's films have been screened in film festivals nationally and internationally in Iran, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, UAE, USA, Hungary, India, Italy, Greece, France, England and Brazil.

He moved to Ireland in 2004 and currently lives and works in Dublin.
Affiliations : Experimental Film Society, (An)Other Irish Cinema, Remodernist Film

 

For more information, please visit www.rouzbehrashidi.com

(An)Other Irish Cinema: Donal Foreman

On Friday, Drifting Clouds Cinema Group will present the short films of (An)Other Irish Cinema, which is infact 3 cinemas: the cinema of Rouzbeh Rashidi, Donal Foreman and Maximillian Le Cain. I'm going to be posting some background info on each of the filmmakers in the run-up to the screening. And first up, is Donal Foreman.... Donal Foreman (born in Dublin, 1985) has been making films since he was 11. From his very first films, he has explored different forms of improvisatory and collaborative filmmaking methods in an effort to find a filmmaking process that is transformative, fun and not simply a means to an end. The seven fiction shorts that he has written, directed and edited since 2006 are all collaborations with the cinematographer Piers McGrail and a range of actors and non-actors. Each film is created through a mixture of script, rehearsal and improvisation. They share a concern with notions of togetherness, solitude, memory and escape, paying close attention to the sensual minutiae of human behaviour, relationships and interaction with urban spaces - as well as the textural and expressive qualities of light, colour and sound. He is a graduate of the National Film School at IADT and an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus. As a freelance film critic, he has written for several international publications including Cahiers du Cinema. He is also one of the four organisers and programmers of Dublin's Experimental Film Club. His website is ww.donalforeman.com

The Great Acting Blog: "Drifting Clouds"

Check out the video, it's the trailer for (An)Other Irish Cinema.

 

I've long been skeptical of the notion that the actor should not have control over his work and his life. I hold the opinion that the actor is an artist in the same way a filmmaker or a playwright is (or a painter), and, as such, should look to define an aesthetic and develop that aesthetic by constructing a body of work over a lifetime. The actor should take responsibility for his work, and seek out the culture he wants to participate in, and if he cannot find that culture, he should strive to create it.

It was with this point of view I founded my film club, Drifting Clouds Cinema Group a little less than a year ago. The object of the group is to spread the word about films I love, and organise nights out at the movies. I'm the type of person who always nags my friends to go and see a new masterpiece I've discovered, and Drifting Clouds gives me the platform to take that one step further, and actually become a disseminator of cinema culture, and therefore, help to create the very culture I want to participate in as an actor.

It was through Drifting Clouds I met Dublin based filmmaker Rouzbeh Rashidi, and we have since completed our first collaboration, a feature film called Closure Of Carthasis (which you'll be hearing a lot more about) and we plan to collaborate again in the future. And it was through Rouzbeh I was offered the chance to screen the short films of (An)Other Irish Cinema.

(An)Other Irish Cinema is actually three cinemas, in addition to Rouzbeh Rashidi, there is Donal Forman and Maximilian Le Cain. As their website informs us, they are resolutely independent filmmakers based in Ireland, and have each built up extensive filmographies, working in complete creative freedom. Having already screened their short film program in Ireland, Italy and Brazil, I became very excited by the prospect of presenting the work by three filmmakers each with his own distinct and compelling vision, and yet united by a shared love of cinema, which is clearly present in the finished films.

Interestingly, Rashidi, Forman and Le Cain state on their website that by creating (An)Other Irish Cinema, they “propose the possibility of an/other filmmaking culture in Ireland”. Well, Drifting Clouds, based in London, is proud to participate in the creation of this culture by presenting the work of (An)Other Irish Cinema.

 

Drifting Clouds Cinema Group will present (An)Other Irish Cinema on February 4th at Monty's Bar And Lounge, Brick Lane. Entry is free and the program starts at 7pm.

If you would like to learn more about (An)Other Irish Cinema, please visit their website:

www.www.anotheririshcinema.blogspot.com

Trailer for (An)Other Irish Cinema

 

(AN)OTHER IRISH CINEMA
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Drifting Clouds Cinema Group
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Friday, February 4th, 7 pm

@ Monty's Bar, 149 Brick Lane, London. February 2011

What is ‘(An)Other Irish Cinema’ ?
‘(An)Other Irish Cinema’ is actually three ‘other’ Irish cinemas …

It is the work of three resolutely independent filmmakers based in Ireland who have built up prolific filmographies over the past decade in complete creative freedom, taking full advantage of the liberty for experimentation that low-and-no budget production offers. Although the visions audiences discover in the films of Donal Foreman, Rouzbeh Rashidi and Maximilian Le Cain are very different, they are linked by the use of exploratory, non-script-based approaches to filmmaking and by a keen awareness of the cinema histories that have explored the medium’s possibilities far beyond the accepted rules of the multiplex.

Foreman, Rashidi and Le Cain formed ‘(An)Other Irish Cinema’ as a platform for joint screenings, to showcase their work and, in so doing, to propose the possibility of an/other filmmaking culture in Ireland.

(An)Other Irish Cinema will be getting its London premiere with a 90 minute programme of films hosted by the Drifting Clouds Cinema Group, which "supports and promotes diversity and independence in our film culture by spreading the word about the films we love and organising nights out at the movies".

anotheririshcinema.blogspot.com/​

Flyer For (An)Other Irish Cinema Screening

Hope to see you there!

The Great Acting Blog: "Gobbledegook?"

“But I think actors are always having to achieve the problem before they can express overcoming the problem” - Colin Firth. I like Colin Firth, he's alright. I've been a fan of his since I first noticed his work in The English Patient back in mid-90s. Unlike many actors who treat the production as merely a showcase for their “talent”, Firth seems simply to play the scene as well as he can and not worry about anything else, always excluding the non-essential. He also seems to be committed to the form (cinema), and is a good example of an actor who's kept his head down and striven to be the best actor he can be, quietly building a substantial body of work in the process. We don't associate him with the very silly cacophony that can sometimes accompany star actors. Firth has grown over the years, while many of his apparently more glamorous colleagues have diminished. When Firth performs, you know you're going to get something honest and true, his work warms us. Although I have not yet seen the King's Speech, I did recently watch A Single Man and absolutely loved Firth's performance in it,  it's a very good example of what I'm talking about. However, when I read the above quote, I thought it was gobbledegook at first, the sort of actorly waffle which encourages the modern fashion of denigrating acting and actors, as evidenced by the widespread use of the derogatory term “luvvie”. But then I re-read it, and thought a little bit more about it, and soon realised that Firth's theory of acting here, is not dissimilar to my own. In Firth's case,  he was referring  to making his stammer authentic for his character in the King's Speech. Firth's “problem” then, is the technical challenge of perfecting the stammer, and “achieving the problem” means mastering the stammer technically as an actor, and “express overcoming the problem” means what the actor actually does  when trying to overcome the character's problem as per the script, or put another way, portraying the character's struggle to deal with his speech, literally what we, the audience, see unfolding in the finished film. So Firth cannot strive to banish the stammer until he has given himself a stammer. Another example would be Charles Laughton in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, who famously insisted that his fake hump be made of real weight, so that he had to literally carry the burden through the scenes, as Quasimodo would've done. And in performances where the challenge for the actor is not necessarily externally technical, ie – cosmetics or physical adjustments are not required,  then the actor still needs to give himself a problem to solve, concurrent to the character's problem. Recently I played a scene where the other guy had a gun pointed at my head and my character had to talk his way out of it, so I gave myself the problem of convincing the other actor he's making a terrible mistake. I posted Firth's words on various social media sights a few days ago, and got a range of responses, from people mocking Firth through to others who interpreted his words into their own technical language. What do you think?

Drifting Clouds presents (An)Other Irish Cinema

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