Stars Directing Our Fate: Millenium

The Berlin International Film Festival, February 10-21, 1999. New Directors/New Films, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 26-April 11, 1999. The Time of Our Lives and Keith Piper, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, July 15-October 17, 1999. The New York Video Festival, Walter Reade Theater, New York, July 16-22, 1999. The Blair Witch Project, a film by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, distributed by Artisan. Festival des Films du Monde Montréal/Montréal World Film Festival, August 27-September 6, 1999. Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal, Marché Bonsecours, Montréal, September 2-October 17, 1999. The Independent Feature Film Market, New York, September 17-24, 1999. The New York Film Festival, September 24-October 10, 1999. Secret Défense, a film by Jacques Rivette, presented by Fabiano Canosa. The Annual African Diaspora Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, New York, November 26-December 12, 1999.

The year 1999 has been fraught with "millennium fever," with anticipation running high in the cultural arena. One symptom of this fever has been the proliferation of lists, especially in popular culture: "The 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time," "The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll," ad infinitum. The beginning of the year brought the tension of this anticipation to bear on the major film events, with dispirited reports emanating from the Sundance, Rotterdam, and Cannes Film Festivals. But by the fall, adjustments had been made, and the critical response to the Telluride, Venice, and Toronto Film Festivals proved far more congenial. We attended the Berlin, Montréal, and New York Film Festivals, and we found worthwhile films throughout.

Attending the Berlinale (The Berlin International Film Festival) for the first time, there was the sense of disorientation. The festival is huge, with several different sections (Official Competition, Panorama, Forum, Children's FilmFest), but that wasn't a problem. Rather, it was the sense that the festival lacked a center. Most of the films premiering in the Official Competition proved to be disappointing; one example would be David Cronenberg's eXistenZ, a thriller about virtual reality gameplaying which seemed dank and rather dinky, especially in comparison to the commercial release of the Wachowski Brothers' dazzling pop phenomenon The Matrix. But that's what so much in the festival seemed like: faute de mieux. Nevertheless, the sidebar events (Panorama and Forum) yielded many unexpected pleasures. Berlin itself is a city in transition, with construction going on all over, as this reunified metropolis attempts an assertion of cultural importance. The Berlinale (the 49th) will be moving to new quarters in 2000, so there was a sense of nostalgia at the screenings in the Zoo Palast, the main hall for the Official Competition.

The Berlinale has been noted for being specifically "gay friendly"; though there is no special section devoted to lesbian and gay films, there are awards given for noteworthy lesbian and gay films. This year, one of the award-winning films was the Swedish Fucking Amal (retitled in English Show Me Love), directed by Lukas Moodysson, a charming study of adolescence. Other gay-themed films included Max Farberbock's Aimée and Jaguar, Kutlug Ataman's Lola und Bilidi-kid, Jim Falls's Trick, and Nickolas Perry's Speedway Junkie. One rarity among the gay-themed films was Amic/Amat, written and directed by Ventura Pons, because the protagonist was a middle-aged academic.

At the Panorama and the Forum, there were several excellent documentaries. One was Jim Shedden's Brakhage, a fine introductory film about the legendary American avant-garde filmmaker. Ilona Ziok's Kurt Gerron's Carousel was about the cabaret and musical theatre star, Kurt Gerron (he had appeared in the first production of The Threepenny Opera, and played the cabaret owner in von Sternberg's The Blue Angel), who flourished in Berlin's Weimar Republic...