KROK '97: A Long Voyage Down The Dnieper River
From the deck one has a perfect view of the long staircase down to Odessa harbor, which Sergei M. Eisenstein made world famous through his film Battleship Potemkin. None of the Festival guests miss a chance to walk up those steps to the city of Odessa. It seems as if the lovely, picturesque Mediterranean-like city of Odessa blows the mourning away from the faces of the Festival guests.
After dinner, the competition screens the German feature Katherina and Witt (100 min., 1997) by Mariola Brillovska and Charles Kissing. With brutal images essentially reduced to symbols, the film tells an adventure, love story about two Interpol agents assigned to solve the largest art theft of all time. This film, too heavy with dialogue and text, tries to level harsh criticism against the commercialization of art, art dealers, and poses many legitimate questions about the "true" meaning of art in today's society. But I'm afraid that Katherina and Witt itself may be an object of the shady art market and its attendant subsidies which it criticizes.
The cultural highpoint of the fringe events must be the recital in the cinema theater by a popular Odessa satirist. The Russian and Ukrainian speaking guests enjoyed themselves immensely, laughing until their cheeks hurt. Unfortunately for me the evidently witty text of the songs remained a complete mystery.
Saturday, August 16
Today's competition screening includes Casting by the old Italia master Guido Manuli. The gags have all been seen before in other places. Hard as I may try, I just can't find women's large breasts waggling funny anymore. Although technically unobjectionable, this film, which lacks any originality, failed to arouse laughter.
Quest by Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach really deserved to win the Oscar. Nevertheless, the film doesn't hold up after several viewings. The story is set up so flat that actually after the second time it loses its punch.
Bristol, England's Bolexbrothers head Richard Hutchinson presented in competition Mike Booth's The Saint Inspector. Hutchinson confided to the nightly press conference that he had already been able to sell the film to more than 16 television broadcasts worldwide. Likewise, he used the opportunity to screen spontaneously for the public the latest commercial (with a budget of £120,000) from his firm for Carlsberg Beer. The 20-second spot, directed by Dave Borthwick using 3D model animation, shows a Snowman in a refrigerator who sees a handsome young couple drinking beer in a fresh summer meadow. Lured by the advertised product, the Snowman leaves his frosty life-supporting environment to go out in the meadow where he devotes himself to the cool drink and .....
The highlight of today's program was the retrospective of the films of Igor Volchek. Volchek, who revealed himself to be a talented pianist and entertainer at some of the earlier KROK Festivals, studied piano at the Minsk State Conservatory and then participated in the Advanced Courses for scriptwriters and animation film directors in Moscow. It was there that he acquired an adeptness in animation under the tutelage of Chitruk, Norstein, Nazarov and Khzhanovsky. Today, he is the artistic director of Belarus Film Studio in Minsk where he teaches animation. Capriccio (1986), his most personal and most autobiographical film, represented the climax of the festival for me and it underlined his expertise as an author and director. He is an animation artist who has yet to be discovered internationally.
KROK also offers more special programs which I will not be able to attend. Amongst these there are retrospectives of the work of Monique Renault, Natalya Orlova Chemyshova, Fedor Chitruk, Vyacheslav Kotionochkin and Eugen Sivokon. Other programs include a retrospective of Ukrainian animation, a program on the theme of "Cinema about Cinema," "Eros and Anima," "Computer Animation from SIGGRAPH," and more. In other words, a diverse festival program is offered.
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