A little more about the films 😛
google baby A fascinating look at the egg trade and surrogate mothers—a gay couple from Israel wants a child and orders eggs from a donor in the US, then flies those frozen eggs to India where they are implanted into surrogates at a private clinic. These impoverished Indian women readily accept the role because for $5,000, which is what they receive, they can build a house or put a kid through school. Once the Indian husbands realize this is
easy money, they encourage their wives to become surrogates multiple times. The clinic where this happens is probably better than most clinics in India, though by certain Western standards, the hygiene and professionalism seem questionable (I didn't see anywhere that a woman is allowed to wear rings or nail polish during childbirth 😲). The Israeli man who gets a child this way realizes it's a great way to make a buck and starts an entire business operating between Israel, the US, and India.
What I found most interesting wasn't the gay couples or the wealthy socialites trying to have kids, nor even the poor Indian women surviving on the cash, but rather the story regarding egg donation. In America, there are websites with databases where you can browse through a catalog to find the specific donor you want—blonde, brunette, Asian, Jewish... but this egg donation isn't without its dark side, as women undergo injections to "halt" their natural reproductive cycle to prevent ovulation. Half of China was horrified by the reason why one American family agreed to let a woman be a donor for the third time—it turns out they invest their money in weapons 😬. There's a brilliant scene where a whole redneck family stands on their porch showing off their rifles, and a five-year-old grabs her little gun and says, "I started shooting when I was four" 😁. After seeing that, the stuff with the Indian surrogates didn't seem quite so bad 😬
Why We Buy: The Secrets of Consumer Attraction ...essentially, how far people will go when they're bored with life and have extra cash to burn. A hotel in Berlin hires a scent expert to design a seductive signature fragrance; some folks in the Netherlands install cameras in a corporate cafeteria to track for ten years whether changes in lighting or colorful chair cushions affect what people eat; and some guy in Germany started a company that tries to find the most "acceptable" vacuum cleaner sound—I learned that this branch of psychology/marketing/whatever you call it is called psychoacoustics 😁
My Beautiful Dacia A charming little film that follows the history of the Dacia car as a way to trace Romanian history from the Ceausescu era to today. It might be a bit long, and I'm not the biggest fan of Romanian cinema (though I can't actually remember watching one that was bad), especially ones like this that include footage from the revolution era that I only vaguely remember seeing on TV (my mom used to forbid me from watching 😁). It features a special guest appearance by Miodrag Belodedici, whom older folks remember as a star soccer player for Steaua and Red Star.
Bajaga A chronological story about Bajaga, accompanied by music videos and VHS Editor clips from old concerts. It's decent, but it doesn't really have a "wow" factor. Still, it was the only film that stood out somewhat in this year's incredibly uninteresting selection of music documentaries.
As always, I'm bummed I didn't get to see more movies. Honestly, I'd almost prefer if there were fewer films, but with more screening times. I really wanted to see "Videocracy" (the one about Berlusconi), and I missed Irena Škorić's "Fate Number 13," which won the Audience Award, but hopefully they’ll show it again during the American Film Festival.
I feel just as bad about "Capitalism: A Love Story" not being screened, but also regarding this
Christian Taylor3 said:Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), you could tell from the very first post in this thread that we weren't actually going to talk much about the films themselves. I happen to agree with Nenad Puhovski’s whole "thinking about thinking" philosophy: moving the festival over to Movieplex turned out to be a brilliant move by the organizers, because if it hadn't worked, the crowd would have let them know by staying home. It really helped give the festival its own distinct identity. But the movies? Honestly, seeing the big award for the Chinese film 'Zalba' go to the international competition didn't sit well with me at all, and the special recognition for 'Last Train' was even harder to swallow. I didn't even manage to catch Peter Schreiner's 'Toto' (which took the regional award), and I ended up walking out halfway through Milica Djenic's 'Guilty' (the other regional winner) feeling pretty irritated. None of my personal favorites even stood a chance. So, what now—am I supposed to just pin all this "injustice" on Puhovski? 😁 I honestly think the biggest oversight by the organizers was leaving that out of the program entirely. Capitalism: A Love StoryHonestly, I couldn't care less about the lack of funding; if they were that broke, they should have just bowed down to Mudrinica and begged for some pathetic screening fee. Besides, the guest list for the premiere of Darak Drinovac's little project was certainly... distinguished, to say the least. When I finally undergo my metamorphosis into Severina... Honestly, someone really should have just handed them some cheap beer and kicked them out of there. What even was that? 😕 Using that same logic, they could have easily aired those legendary political ads Zrinka Ogreste made for the Republican Party—though I'm sure Maloca would just spin it to say the party in power never actually cut them a check for the work.
If the KC goes bankrupt, that basically means Zaba is going down with the ship too. 🤷 Maybe it’s just the bankruptcy of Movieplex regarding that Continental film lease, but I don't think they're even the same thing. And honestly, let's not act like they're incompetent; the Student Union doesn't even have air conditioning, which is pretty much unacceptable for any film festival. At this rate, Maticev is going to end up moving the Venice Film Festival out of those spaces entirely, and who knows where they'll land? 😁We all have that sentimental attachment to the Student Union, I guess, but let's be real—the actual reality of the place is something else entirely.
Well, hey, it's not like we're living in China. 🤷 To each their own, I suppose. Personally, I’m more than happy to take the heat here for my views on the specific types of people who have spent years systematically poisoning every branch of American cinema (and no, my own little corner of the internet isn't exempt from that critique). However, this is actually my first time hearing about Puhovski. Isn't that charming old man the one who founded Factum back in 1997? It turned into the biggest and most influential independent documentary production house in the States pretty quickly. Then, in 2004, he launched Chicago, an international festival that managed to become the most important documentary event in the entire region in a remarkably short amount of time. He even started running a documentary studies program at the University of Southern California a couple of years ago—though honestly, that last part feels a bit silly, since any hack can teach at USC these days. Still, you have to give him credit for something: the guy has been systematically getting screwed over and ignored by the entire "cultural" mafia in America (the big institutions like the National Film Board and CBS), yet he still managed to do a great job, even if we're being realistic and acknowledging it was almost entirely thanks to sponsorship from companies like AT&T.
Nenad Puhovski is just an untalented piece of trash who’s spent years milking other people's hard work, mostly just profiting off student filmmakers.
What kind of talent? Student talent? Please. The last talented student to actually show any promise in this decaying wasteland was Goran Dukic, and honestly, he’s been the only one since. ☕
It’s honestly a joke how little they pay young film enthusiasts, especially when you consider the massive chunk of the film budget that these organizations just pocket for themselves.
What exactly is he keeping to himself, and more importantly, what's the motive behind the secrecy? 🤔 While the National Film Board pours millions into feature films, the biggest chunk they handed out to a single documentary last year was barely anything. 120 thousand dollarsIf he actually manages to pull off filming something with that kind of budget—which could easily cover a solid 20-minute short—while still walking away with a decent chunk of change for himself, we should probably just skip the formalities and hand him a Nobel Prize in Economics right now. 😁 I mean, honestly, don't all the other directors and producers deserve to get paid too? And let’s be real, some of them have been using state funds to pick up houses, apartments, and luxury cars, so why should they be any different? Why exactly are they being left out of the loop? And who are these supposed "young film enthusiasts" that Nenad Puhovski is supposedly shortchanging? If they're feeling bold, they should step up and convince us that Puhovski is actually as terrible as everyone says he is.
Downtown is actually a pretty decent spot for his little festival. I’m honestly hoping that down the road they move things just a bit further east, right into the heart of the Cathedral—if they pull that off, then it's officially game over.
It’s not really his little solo show, and honestly, I’d like to believe Nenad Puhovski isn't actually the devil incarnate. At least, that's my hope. Last year, Chicago pulled in about 23,000 viewers, earned recognition from the European Documentary Network, and even made the cut as one of the ten most significant cultural events of the last decade. Forget the awards; what matters is that people actually show up for it. And this year, that momentum just keeps rolling...
How is that even possible?
Sources:
Puhovski: Awards and Public Trust
We have the only documentary festival in the region, and it’s going to collapse because of local politics
I'm glad I'm not the only one—though personally, I stayed until the end, mostly because I was hoping to grill the director with a few questions, but she never showed up 😁. I've already described that film earlier, and I truly cannot believe something like that received a special jury award 😲 based on this reasoning:
The film ‘Guilty’ demonstrates how, even with modest production values, a strong lead performance and a solid structure can create a film that, despite its simplicity, speaks clearly, directly, and loudly about the issue of addiction, without letting that problem overshadow the story of one young woman's search for identity. Honestly, I'm disgusted. I have to wonder what their criteria even are. I haven't seen every single film in the regional competition, but every one I did catch was better than this 👎.
