Farewell party for Anna-Maria Hora and Markus Adrian

Berlin filmmakers Anna-Maria Hora (31) and Markus Adrian (31), who've been fellows at VILLA AURORA in Los Angeles for the past three months, celebrated their farewell party on Friday evening, March 19, 2010.

The party took place outdoors, in the beautiful garden of Villa Aurora with its view over the Pacific Ocean, located on top of the Palisades mountains on Paseo Miramar.

During their three-month-stay at VILLA AURORA , the newlywed filmmaker couple were busy. There was the welcoming reception in January, where Hora and Adrian were showing and discussing their documentary film “Klang der Freiheit” and a month later the screening of their film “Narrenspiel” (A Foul’s Game) at Goethe Institute, where they were participating in a Q & A session afterwards. On top of that they were driving down to Watts shooting a short music video “Coming from the Projects”, they've also been working on their documentary film “After the violence – Nach der Gewalt”, which is in its final stage now. The film, inspired by a photography book "Mugshot" by Jonas Mohr and Jason Porath, is about former gang members who turned into artists. Aside from this, one could see Adrian honing his skills in a screen-writing workshop, but also as a guest at the Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium at the American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, both of them were networking at the Pre-Oscar Party at Villa Aurora.

Hence, Hora and Adrian, are certainly Doers. They're living their dream and do as much as they can to make it come true. With Anna-Maria Hora already having the experience of being a camera assistant in Roman Polanski’s Academy Award winning film "The Pianist", and both of them being Villa Aurora fellows, there is a good chance we'll hear quite a bit about them in the near future.

VILLA AURORA’s new director Imogen von Tannenberg, who used to be in charge of the translation department at Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation was at the party, as well as many of Hora's and Adrian's friends, including British screen-writer Nathan Parker (Moon), German consul Klaus Fimpel and his wife Susanne, German sound editor Michael Dressel and German actor Ronald Nitschke.

Hora and Adrian will be leaving Villa Aurora and therefore Los Angeles on March 27, 2010 to go on their well-deserved honeymoon to Panama.

written by Simone Kussatz

Farewell party for Anna-Maria Hora and Markus Adrian

1. Photo: Director of Villa Aurora - Imogen von Tannenberg (left), filmmaker Anna- Maria Hora (right)

2. Photo: Filmmaker, Markus Adrian

3. Photo: Filmmaker Anna-Maria Hora (left), Actor, Ronald Nitschke (right)
with children

4. Photo: Digital media expert, Aldo Ortiz

5. Photo: Standup comedian/producer/writer Robert Klinger and girl-friend Senior Graphic Designer at Disney, Mariya Stepanyau (left), Oscar Magallanes with girl-friend (right)

6. Photo: Villa Aurora garden

Photos by Simone Kussatz

DNJ's exhibit "Night Lights"

1. Image (Bill Sosin), 2. Image (Ginny Mangrum), 3. Image (Helen K. Garber)

Three American photographers currently exhibit their work at DNJ Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Bill Sosin, Ginny Mangrum and Helen K. Garber. The exhibit "Night Lights" is a collection of night photography, made by using completely different approaches.

Bill Sosin’s “urban impressions” were taken mainly in Chicago, shot from the inside of his car in the rain, while his windshield wipers were turned off. We see droplets either resting or dripping down his window in different directions. Whereas the backgrounds of Sosin’s images - the streetlamps, red car brake lights, pedestrians on the streets underneath pendulous umbrellas or lonely objects in storefront windows - are out of focus, the raindrops on the windows are in focus. This dual presentation gives his photographs a pointillist appeal similar to George Seurat’s paintings. Although the exhibit is called “Night lights”, the lights are not the main subject in Sosin’s images. They only play a secondary role, creating the various colors in the water. And the water in its different shapes, either in liquid or vapor form, appearing in different colors, contain an energy which Sosin felt intrigued by and experimented with. Sosin’s images are not manipulated or retouched. He conducted small color adjustments on the Camera RAW file (a hi-res file format used by professionals) and altered the color and contrast of the images according to his emotional response towards them. Through the colorful presentation of the rain in a painterly manner, Sosin’s images appear positive and poetic.

The atmosphere in Ginny Mangrum’s work is quite different. The photographs were shot in black and white and then cut and pasted onto a black canvas in Photoshop. Hence, black dominates the images. As opposed to Sosin, Mangrum shot her pictures looking from the outside in. There is no energy like that in Sosin’s rain drops; instead, everything stands still. The interiors of the public places in Mangrum’s photographs, whether a hotel lobby in Honolulu or a cabin of the Bart station at the San Francisco airport, are empty and inert. Whereas Sosin played with the rain, Mangrum played with the darkness and the psychological elements of empty spaces. After several people close to Mangrum died, she experienced a sense of the void. This is reflected in her work, where she shows how powerful the presence of living beings can be by depicting their very absence. Another aspect that distinguishes Mangrum’s work from the two others' is her conscious choice not to take pictures of people who may have wandered into the frame, to avoid the tension that creates.

While Sosin and Mangrum focused on one city at a time, Helen K. Garber put two cities together. Displayed as diptychs, she juxtaposed images of Venice, California next to images of Venice, Italy. As opposed to Sosin and Mangrum, Garber presents her black and white photographs on canvas, which gives them a painterly quality. Garber’s work -- inspired by an old photograph from 1922 showing her great aunt and uncle sitting in a gondola in the canal in the Italian Venice -- are not just beautiful presentations of two cities. They deal with issues of globalization and Garber’s shattered image of Venice in Italy. When Garber visited there for the first time in 2006, she was shocked by the throngs of tourists in crowded corridors. Hence she regards globalization critically, thinking it destroys rather than adds something to both cities. This reflects in Garber’s work, which shows both Venices with the daytime tourists gone and belonging again to their permanent residents.

Written by Simone Kussatz

Edited by Peter Frank

All contents of this site (c) belong to Simone Kussatz

Sandra Bullock won her first Oscar

Sandra Bullock won her first Oscar

Sandra Bullock received an Oscar for her role as Leigh Anne Tuhoy in the film the "Blind Side" (2009), where she plays a Caucasian wife and mother of two children, who adopts a homeless African-American teenager she then helps to succeed in school and in football.

Bullock, who is known through films such as "Speed" (1994) and "The Lake House" (2006), accepted her speech with gratitude.

"I would like to thank the Academy for allowing me in the last month to have the most incredible ride with rooms full of artists that I see tonight and that I've worked with before and I hope to work with in the future, who inspire me and blaze trails for us."

Since the film is based on a true story, Bullock also thanked the real family Tuhoy who adopted Michael Oher (the main character in the film "Blind Side"), who now is an American football offensive tackle of the Balitmore Ravens of the National Football League.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to play the mother of your family. This gave me the opportunity to do something different."

When Sandra Bullock talked about her missed opportunity to thank her German mother Helga Bullock, a former opera singer who died in 2000, for all the things she had done for her, tears filled her eyes.

"I would like to thank what this film is about for me which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from. Those moms and parents never get thanked. I, in particular, failed to thank one. So if I can take this moment to thank Helga B. for making me practice every day when I got home. Piano, ballet, whatever it is I wanted to be. She said to be an artist, you had to practice every day, and for reminding her daughters that there's no race, no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no sexual orientation that makes us better than anyone else. We are all deserving of love.... Thank you!"

written by Simone Kussatz

Photo by Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.

Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for best actor in a supporting role

Christoph Waltz received an Oscar

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz known through German TV series including "Tatort", "Derrick" and "Der Alte" won an Oscar for his role of the sagacious and cruel SS Colonel Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Film "Inglorious Bastards" (2009).

Waltz received this Oscar in the category Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and felt delighted, when Spanish actress Penélope Cruz handed him the Oscar. "Oscar and Penélope that's an über (more than) bingo."

Waltz, who studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater in New York and lives in London, accepted his Oscar with an emotional speech in fluent English, where he thanked Brad Pitt and others who helped him to be on board.

"Everybody helped me find a place. And this is your welcoming embrace and there's no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start right now. Thank you."

Written by Simone Kussatz

Photo by Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.

The Academy Awards 2010

The 82nd Academy Awards

The "Hurt Locker", a film based on accounts of Mark Boal, a freelance journalist who was embedded with an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq, won best picture Oscar during the 82nd Academy Awards, while its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman to win the directing award.

Although "Avatar" a film made by James Cameron - former husband of Kathryn Bigelow - had a vast budget and an enormous popularity, the war film won over the science fiction one.

“I would not be standing here if it wasn’t for Mark Boal, who risked his life for the words on the page and wrote such a courageous screenplay,” said Ms. Bigolow in accepting her award, which was presented to her by Barbara Streisand. "And I'd just like to dedicate this to the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. And may they come home safe. Thank you.”

Films that were also featured in the best film category include "Up in the Air", "The Blind Side", "Precious" and "District 9".

Among other winners, Christoph Waltz took best supporting actor for his performance in "Inglourious Bastards", where he played a Jew hunting Nazi officer. Mo’Nique took best supporting actress for her role as a dysfunctional and abusive mother in the film “Precious” based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire. Aside from her husband, Mo’Nique thanked Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, “because you touched it, the whole world."

Jeff Bridges, took best actor for his portrayal of a destitute country music singer-songwriter who tries to change his life after beginning a relationship with a young journalist. Although he had been nominated five times and grew up in a showbiz family, this was Jeff Bridges first Oscar. Bridges received a standing ovation. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his parents who had a great influence in his life. “Oh, my dad and my mom, they loved show biz so much. I remember my mom, getting all of us kids to entertain at her parties. You know, my dad sitting me on his bed and teaching me all of the basics of acting for a role in Sea Hunt.”

Sandra Bullock, won best actress for her performance as a loving surrogate mother in “The Blind Side.” Like Bridges, she was clearly one of the most popular ones in the auditorium, though she had never been nominated or received an Oscar before and had been best known for romantic dramas like “The Lake House “and the action film “Speed.”

"Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?" Bullock asked her cheerful audience.

The show had several Las Vegas style dance scenes and ended after three and a half hours. The highlight of the show was Ben Stiller who came dressed up head-to-toe as a Na’vi and spoke in Na’vi language to “Avatar” director James Cameron. The stage was bathed mostly in blue. During the In Memorian, Patrick Swayze, David Carradine and Michael Jackson, but not Farah Fawcett Majors was mentioned.

Where the tribute to Horror movies seemed too long, the tribute to Lauren Bacall, who received her Long-Time Achievement Award, seemed too short. The show also presented excerpts of nominated screen-plays that were projected onto a screen and read by an invisible narrator.

George Fletcher won his first Oscar for adapted screenplay and was so taken by it that he kept his acceptance speech short. "I don't know what to say. This is for everybody who works on a dream every day." In the category best documentary short subject, the Oscar went to Roger Ross Williams, who made a film about a physically disabled woman from Zimbabwe, who became part of an Afro Fusion band called Liyana, after her family had neglected her. Roger Ross William was cut off in the middle of his acceptance speech by Elinor Burkett. Since this seemed strange, he was invited by Larry King the following day to give his full speech.

The best documentary feature , presented by Matt Demon, went to Fisher Stevens and Louie Psihoyos for “The Cove”, which is a film that describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, in Japan. In his acceptance speech Stevens said: “I just want to say it was an honor to work on this film and to try to make an entertaining film that also tries to enlighten everybody.” Other than expected the best foreign language feature did not go to Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon" but to Argentinian filmmaker Juan José Campanella for “The Secret in Their Eyes” (“El Secreto de Sus Ojos”). “It is on behalf of a crew and cast that comprise mostly of people that I love and that are very close to my heart that I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language, first of all. And for letting us spend three great days in the company of incredible filmmakers.” The award was presented by Pedro Almodóvar and Quentin Tarantino.

Going into the evening the cameras kept on focusing on a somewhat grim looking George Clooney (Up In the Air) who had run along a fence and shaken hands with cheerful fans before he came into the Kodak Center. In addition, there was a short humerous film clip with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as they were sharing a bed together and being in each other's space.

The 3-D blockbuster science-fiction film "Avatar " received an award for best art direction and went to Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair. Stromberg gave a moving acceptance speech "You know, 13 years ago, the doctors told me I wasn't going to survive and I thought that this dream of standing here would never come true." The award was presented by Sigourney Weaver, who came to fame through the science-fiction film "Alien."

However, one of the most inspiring speeches in the evening came from Michael Giacchino, who received an award for Achievement in Music written for "Up", a feature which received an animation Oscar. "Thank you, guys. When I was... I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK? Thank you. Thank you."




Written by Simone Kussatz
Photo: by Simone Kussatz

Mark Johnson and Michael Haneke the day before the Oscars

After a short welcome by Bruce Davis, Academy Executive Director, Mark Johnson, Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee Chair, took over the 82nd Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium on Saturday, March 6, 2010, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The symposium started with the screening of excerpts from the films “Ajami,” “The Milk of Sorrow,” “A Prophet,” “The Secret in Their Eyes,” and “The White Ribbon.” All directors of the films were present, including Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Claudia Llosa, Jacques Audiard, Juan José Campanella, and Michael Haneke. At the beginning of his introductory speech, Johnson stressed that those five nominated films were carefully selected by a committee that consisted of about 300 members. He also defended the Academy against accusations of prejudice. “In talking earlier this week to Claudia Llosa and Juan José Campanella, the directors of the nominated films from Peru and Argentina, they expressed to me their surprise and delight that the Academy would nominate two movies from South America. When I asked why, one of them told me that’s what many film festivals would never do and that never before had two films from South America been Oscar-nominated. I was both surprised and somewhat defensive, because they might have thought we sat in a conference room upstairs in this building, and pointed at a map and picked our nominees. We’re not strategic enough and, quite frankly, not that smart enough to really care about where our nominated films come. I firmly believe that all of our selections are based purely and simply on the value of submitted films, regardless of the country. We really don’t care where a good film comes from, just that it’s good.” Furthermore, Johnson stressed that, due to the inability of Americans to embrace subtitled films, the Academy would try to do whatever it could to draw attention to these movies that are worth the effort. He also said that the nominations can have a huge significance, “not just in the pride that brings to the films of the filmmakers, but often to the filmmaking community of that country itself. Often, the nomination of a movie will ignite governmental support for its national cinema.” Johnson, who almost forgot to introduce German director Michael Haneke, said that this would be his favorite category of the Academy Awards and that this had been the strongest year since he had been the chair of that committee. Director Michael Haneke came to the Academy with three of his producers of the film “The White Ribbon,” including Stefan Arndt. Main actor Burghart Klaussner, as well as Haneke’s son and grandson, were there. Mark Johnson: All of your films have been so highly praised and given so much acclaim throughout the world, and have won film festivals and your equivalent of the Oscars and so on. To what degree is any of that meaningful to you as filmmakers, or is it really something more for the producers or the distribution companies? Michael Haneke: Ich kann nur anschliessen an das, was die anderen vorher gesagt haben. Man macht ja Filme um zu kommunizieren und jede Art von Anerkennung, seien es Besucherzahlen, seien es Preise, ist natürlich ein Zeichen, dass irgendetwas an dieser Kommunikation funktioniert. Das ist sozusagen der emotionale Teil, dann gibt es aber einen praktischen Teil. Wir sind alle in dieser Branche, immer so gut wie unser letzter Erfolg, und da sind natürlich Preise unglaublich wichtig für die zukünftigen Projekte. Well, I can only agree with what has been said up till now. You don’t make films to win prizes, you make films to communicate, and so every kind of recognition is an aspect of that, whether it’s prizes or whether it’s success in terms of box office, and that shows that the film has worked in terms of communication. That’s the emotional aspect of the prizes. The practical aspect is that in this branch, you’re always as good as your last film, and so the prizes are incredibly important for future projects. Mark Johnson: Michael, I see that your film is a screenplay that you wrote, but there is a credit to the famous writer Jean Claude Carrière. How did that come about? Michael Haneke: Der Film, also das Drehbuch, wie es ursprünglich geschrieben war, war über dreieinhalb Stunden lang und die Produzenten sagten natürlich, dass man dreieinhalb Stunden Filme nicht verkaufen und auch nicht produzieren kann, zumindest nicht bei uns, und deswegen könnten wir den Film nur machen, wenn wir eine Stunde rausschneiden. Dann hab ich das versucht und das 20 Minuten geschafft und dann gesagt, mehr ist nicht drin. Und dann hatte ich die Idee, den Carrière zu fragen, ob er mir beim Kürzen helfen kann. Dann haben wir uns getroffen und das Skript gelesen. Er hat ein paar Wochen Zeit gebraucht, dann ist er gekommen, wir haben zwei Tage gearbeitet und dann war der Film auf der Länge, die er jetzt hat. The original screenplay, as I wrote it, was three and a half hours long, and of course, the producers told me that there was no way that they could get financing and produce this film, at least not in Germany. Therefore, I was told it would be essential for me to cut the film by at least an hour. So I spent a long time working on it and managed to cut 20 minutes, and then said, “I can’t do more than that”. But then I had the idea to bring Jean Claude Carrière in and ask him to help me shorten the film. We met, we read the script, Jean Claude needed a few weeks, he came back, we worked together for two days, and as a result, the film came to its present length. Mark Johnson: That’s fascinating. So they ended up working just the two days together, and then it was a finished script. Michael Haneke: Man muss nur an der richtigen Stelle streichen. It’s just a question of recognizing the right spot to cut out. Mark Johnson: Michael, you’ve worked with some of the best actors in the world. I think of your film with Isabelle Huppert in “The Piano Teacher.” Obviously, in “The White Ribbon”, there were a number of professional actors, people I’ve seen before, but then the real stars of the film, the most significant characters, were the children. There were so many children in the film. They were spectacular. They have some of the most beautiful faces you’ve ever seen, and yet in the context, they are quite terrifying. That must have taken you a very long time to cast those children? Michael Haneke: Ja, das war meine grosse Sorge, den Film zu starten und dann festzustellen, dass diese vielen Kinder, die eine entscheidende Rolle spielen, dass ich dafür die richtigen Leute gefunden hab. Deswegen haben wir schon ein halbes Jahr vorher mit dem Casting begonnen und haben über 7000 Kinder gecastet, was relativ viel ist, und alle Kinder waren die ganze Zeit während des Drehs da und wurden betreut und vorbereitet. Es war natürlich auch in dem Drehplan eingeplant, dass die Arbeit mit Kindern, vor allem mit kleineren Kindern, mehr Zeit braucht. Wir hatten das gleiche Problem mit den Statisten, also sie haben ja da ein paar Gesichter in der Kirche gesehen. Der Film spielt zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts auf dem Lande. Die Leute damals kennen wir von Fotos, wir wissen, wie sie in dieser Zeit aussahen. Die Bauern, die heute in Norddeutschland leben, haben ihren klimatisierten Traktor und sehen aus wie jemand, der aus der Stadt kommt. Wir haben also über 200 Statisten aus dem Norden von Rumänien per Bus kommen lassen, um diese Gesichter eben zu finden. Und beim Casting der Kinder war natürlich erstmal das Talent entscheidend, aber in zweiter Linie schon auch die Gesichter, die halt Gesichter sind, die man sich in dieser Zeit vorstellen kann. That was my greatest concern, of course: that we would start with the pre-production of the film and that I would have to call my producer one day and say, I’m sorry, we have to stop. I haven’t been able to find the right faces, the right actors for their parts. This is why we started with the casting half a year before we started shooting the film. We met with over 7,000 children for the roles. They were all present during the shoot. We prepared them, we worked with them before the shoot, they had people looking after them, and we also planned this in our shooting schedule. We knew that working with children would require more time, especially with the youngest children, so we allowed them more time during the shooting. We had the same concern with extras. You’ve seen the faces in the scene in the church. The film takes place at the beginning of the 20th century. The people we know from that time, we’ve only seen in photographs. However, the farmers you find working in Germany today, real farmers, spend all day sitting in air-conditioned tractors, and they don’t look at all like farmers from that time. And for that reason, we traveled to northern Romania and chose 200 extras there, who came to us by bus. Our main concern in casting the children was, of course, that they would be talented, but secondly, that we’d find the right children who looked like the faces we’d come to know from photographs from that period. Mark Johnson: These are really remarkable faces and a fascinating detail, that you needed the faces with the lines and the sort of weather-beaten qualities that perhaps you can’t find today. Mark Johnson: Michael, you’ve done your film in black and white. Michael Haneke: Ja, ich hab das von Anfang an entschieden. Ich hab gesagt, wenn ich den Film mache, möchte ich ihn in schwarz weiss machen. Da bin ich anfangs auf eine grosse Gegenliebe gestossen, sowohl bei den Produzenten als auch bei den Verleihern. Und weil ich ein sturer Mensch bin, hab ich’s durchgesetzt und jetzt sind wir alle glücklich. I decided that from the very beginning. I said, if I make the film, I want to make it in black and white. At first, I was met with great enthusiasm from both the producers and the distributors. But since I’m a rather stubborn individual, I got my way, and now we’re all happy. Simone Kussatz: Mr. Haneke, I felt intrigued by your character Karli, the little boy with Down syndrome. What made you decide to have a child with a disability in your cast? Michael Haneke: I just wanted to resemble how village people looked, and in earlier times, there were sometimes several mentally disabled children living there. Article with Interview by Simone Kussatz