WHO AND WHAT ON CAMERIMAGE ...on Sunday

Sunday 26.11.2006, the second day of Camerimage Festival elapsed under the sign of main competition titles, discussions and press conferences. The author of video clips for such artists like U2, Rolling Stones - Daniel Pearl, the laureate of the Golden Frog 2006 for the lifetime achievement awards, the director Istvan Szabo and the laureate of Oscar Prize John Myhre played main parts in today Camerimage conferences. The new exhibition was opened by Jerzy Skolimowski, famous director, actor, painter and poet awarded with prizes in Venice and Berlin.

Sunday was a day of great film faest for cinema lovers. The audience was pleased to watch "Days of Glory" directed by Rachid Bouchareb with pictures by Patrick Blossiere. The largest audience appeared on the screening of "Jasminum" made by Jan Jakub Kolski with pictures by Krzysztof Ptak.

The Second World War on the Screen. The Second World War could be watched on Sunday in two acts. "Days of Glory", the main competition entrance (the cinematographer: Patrick Blossier, the director: Rachid Bouchareb, production: France, Morocco, Belgium, Algeria), tells a story of Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian soldiers, that are fighting for freedom of France during the years: 1944 - 45. The film is a genuine input to the discussion about Muslim minority in France. The history of French Arabs fighting for their country - France to the last drop of blood, encourage us to thinking about the situation of Muslim minority in France nowadays. The audience gave the "Days of Glory" a warm welcome. "Indigenes" was awarded in Cannes with Golden Palm for the main actors (Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila, Bernard Blancan and Samy Naceri). [The relation form press conference is situated below]) Australian "Kokoda" (cinematographer Jules O'Loughlin, director: Alister Grierson) is telling a story of a dramatic fight of Australian troops, isolated form the rest of the world, during the war with Japan on New Guinea.

POLAND WORMLY WELCOMED

Crowds appeared to watch polish representatives in the competition - "JASMINUM" [cinematographer: Krzysztof Ptak, reż. Jan Jakub Kolski] and "Palimpsest" [cinematographer: Arkadiusz Tomiak; director: Konrad Niewolski] [The relation form press conference is situated belo]

Polish-German production "Wholetrain" also experienced a lot of interest. [pictures: Christian Rein, director: Florian Gaag] A story of a struggle between two competing groups of graffiti makers that was partly shot in Warsaw was a cause of a hot debate with the creators of the movie. [The relation form press conference is situated below]) What is also interesting, Warsaw was the first city to give a permission for shooting the movie. The producer first wanted to shoot the movie somewhere in Germany but the administration of several cities did not give them permission. Some of them even dared to threaten the team.

AND THE OTHERS AS WELL The program of Daniel Pearl's film presentation in Grand Theatre was followed by two screenings of movies and a visual show over an hour long. The movies were: "Homesick" [pictures: Harri Räty; director: Petri Kotwica;] which bases on the novel by Robert Penn Warren "A story of Willy Stark". The man supported by some politicians, entered quick and brilliant pathway of career. The movie shows human existence dilemmas: sin, guilt, and redemption. It also gives a closer look to the nature of political corruption. The movie pictures were made by Pawel Edelman, great polish cinematographer. Edelman was granted with an European Film Award and was nominated to Oscar Awards and he also received Brown Frog at Camerimage '97 for the pictures to "Home chronicles" by Leszek Wosiewicz

The quests of the festival showed a lot of interest to Pearl's Visual show. Pearl was granted with the Special Award for Extraordinary Achievements in the Field of Video Clips and Commercials. Pearl does not only creates video clips and commercials, he also created pictures to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Pearl also met journalists and students today.

WITH ŻUŁAWSKI IT CAME OUT CHEAPER Patrick Blossier press conference ["Days of Glory", France, Morocco, Algeria, Belgium, Main Competition]

Blossier had been creating movies for 20 years now. Among many other directors he collaborated with Costa Gayras "Music Box", "Small Apocalypse" basing on a novel by Tadeusz Konwicki), Andrzej Żuławski ("Faithfulness") or Agnes Varda. When asked about his contribution to the movie by Richard Bouchareb He said that it is difficult to talk about any particular and unique imprint that he had left in this picture. The shooting was made mostly in outdoor and that means that the camera operator does not have so much opportunities to use his abilities and cannot influence director's decisions. What's more, it was a low budget production and that obviously created some limitations. "It is a very simple picture, no advanced shots. It is really difficult to talk about any complications in visual communication here" - Bossier answered.

Answering the question about whether this movie is more of "a Hollywood style" than the others Brossier's productions he said that the topic of war itself is a "Hollywood one". Besides, "Days of Glory" was the first movie about war that he was working on and before starting the production he had to learn some basics of this type of film making and story telling. He was doing that also by watching Hollywood productions. It is also worth mentioning that the movie experienced very warm welcoming in Europe (five awards for best acting at Cannes Festival), and Morocco made an accession for this movie as its candidate for Oscar Awards. That may mean that the Hollywood connotations are justified. The camera operator, when asked about some differences between the most famous directors that he had an opportunity to work with, replied that: "The collaboration with Agnes Varda was really smooth as she used to be a photographer herself and the fact that the director knows the work of a cinematographer makes it easier for both of them to collaborate. It was a little different in the case of Costa Gavras. He is mostly interested in the sense of the scene itself not the way it looks like. He would rather prefer a shot that is visually bad but has a lot of meaning instead. The easiest for me was to work with Andrzej Żuławski. That is mostly because he know a lot about lighting and that is not a standard among directors."

It appeared that his presence on this year edition of the festival is not Patric Blossier's first visit in Lodz. "I was in Lodz before, when I was shooting "Faithfulness" with Andrzej Żuławski. It left a recollection of many young people and hspitability in my memory."

THE ONLY PLACE WHERE YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT THE FILM IS THE SET John Myhre press conference

Two times Oscar Award winner, the stage designer working on movies "Dream Girls", "Memories of Geisha", "Chicago", "Ali" or "X-men" started his conference with a tribute to cinematographers: “I had an hounor to work with so many cinematographers all around the world that my presence in this place is somehow obligatory". He also stressed the fact that good collaboration between a stage designer and a cinematographer is crucial to the success of every movie. According to what he said, few times he was lucky enough to work in a perfect team. Such situation took place for example while he was working on "Chicago" The famous cinematographer made a comparison between the two musicals that he had an opportunity to work on - "Chicago" and "Dreamgirls". In the first one the most important think was to create a "dream world", magical and unrealistic. On the other hand "Dreamgirls" required creating a realistic world of 60s. and a music industry of that time. "Same film genre sometimes requires totally different approach" - he said. He also talked about his work on "Memoirs of Geisha". The most important think for him was to learn the atmosphere of the movie. That is why he first spent one month in Japan trying to learn Japanese traditional way of life and customs for example tee preparing. What is interesting - they were shooting in Japan only for four days. Tha main work was done in a artificial city created in Kalifornia. Also in case of the movie "Ali" he first had some consultations with Muhammad Ali. The production designer surprised a little bit the students of the film school from Lodz, when he said that nothing can give a young person more than work during the film creation. He personally worked as young men for free, when he even made a coffee for the team. "Thanks to the presence during the film creation, a men can observe the whole production process - these are unique skills, that you cannot learn at school" he said. He underlined also, that in this profession obligatory is passion, enthusiasm to work and reliability. Myhre used to be the first to work in the morning and he used to finish it as the last one. He was asked what he prefer, the work in real environment or the work in built, fake scenery. He said that he was interested in the final effect, he did not pay attention to the way of reaching it. "Decisively the most difficult is the work directly in old, antique buildings, that we cannot change in any way, to not destroy the human heritage."

The Threats To Graffiti Makers. The press conference of "Wholetrain" 's authors (Poland, Germany; the competition of debuts).

The story about the group of graffiti makers excited people and became the gleam to discussion. The director Florian Gaag admitted that, as a youngster, he had been fascinated by graffiti art and he decided to tell people about this culture in his debut. However, he abandoned from autobiographic plots, the story is wholly imaginary. He said that actors had been learning for three weeks how to keep cans, write and fill the shapes, but the anatomy of graffiti had been made by the most famous graffiti painters. Conference's guests were interested in relationships between the director and the cinematographer. Christian Rein admitted, that they knew each other for twenty years, so there were not any organizational or artistic conflicts. The creators of the film, told also about difficulties with finding the right place to shoot the film. Many scenes had to be acting in trains, therefore there was not any city that agreed to let their trains. The director said that, local government of one German city even had warned them, that they would informed other government about the film equip that promote vandalism among youngsters. Finally they came to Warsaw, where their Polish partner "Yeti Films" got the agreement to paint the trains and even to close partly the Central Station in Warsaw. Spectators were impressed by the music, made by the director with cooperation of famous American hip-hop stars. Gaag emphasized that hip - hop and graffiti are elements that have many common features. The music was made not only to create the atmosphere of the film but also to reflect hero's moods. Film makers emphasized also the consignment of the story - it was not made to criticize or defend the art of graffiti. They wanted to show, that graffiti makers were not just simple vandals, but representatives of important, modern culture, that sometimes should be granted. Christian Rein said, that in Poland the art of graffiti is joined with violence and brutality and the groups of painters fight with each other decisively more aggressive than in other countries. The huge satisfaction to film makers brought good reception of the film by the graffiti makers in Poland. The team was invited also by the graffiti makers form New York to present their piece of art among the people from this habitat.

Special events: JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI Painting exhibition "White-black-red"

Skolimowski - director, stage designer, actor, producer, painter, poet, writer works abroad for over 40 years. He became tired of constantly coming across obstacles while creating movies in a communist Poland and he decided to settle down in Italy and than also in Great Britain and United States of America, where he finally settled down for good in California. He debuted as a scriptwriter in a film "Innocent Sorcerers" [1960] by Andrzej Wajda than he debuted as a director of "Manuscript". His foreign debut "Start" was awarded with Golden Bear in Berlin in 1967. On the other hand "Latarniowiec" was awarded with a Special Price in Venice. Skolimowski did not avoid appearing in some movies by other creators eg. "Mars Attacks!" by Tim Burton. For many years Jerzy Skolimowski is a close friend of the festival CAMERIMAGE. This is the 2nd time he opens an exhibition of his works (the firs collection was presented 4 years ago). He is a found painter who uses a lot of colors and likes expression that reflects human mind. The collection presented today consists of 50 paintings but there is 21 presented on the exhibition. Later the exhibition will be shown in Wroclaw, Bydgoszcz, Warsaw and in Budapest and Berlin. David Lynch and many other important persons in the world of film and art appeared on the opening of the exhibition. And here comes a short interview with the artist:

Camerimage: Pictures from this collection are characterized by the freedom of thoughts expression. Jerzy Skolimowski: I am a still developing, young artist, only since recently time I can let myself for what I want, earlier I did not have the time because I had been engaged by the cinema. - Your piece of art is full of color expression and strange shapes. - I agree. Aggression, dynamism, energy come form this pictures. This exhibition is composed form minimalist elements, where I would like to show the world of conflicts and fight. Redness and whiteness are my favorite colors. - Your painting techniques are not typical. What techniques did You adapt. - I can not share this information with You, but painters used to call this method "to have a hand". - Are You ready to account your art? - I account my work by the simple question: "Do I want to have this picture on the wall in my house?". These collection suits to my taste.