40. Filmfest Munich
Recap and Top 5
To celebrate its 40th birthday, the Filmfest Munich hit memory lane hard. At every screening, in every cinema, like your drunk but lovable aunt at a family gathering, it regaled us with a montage of its bygone moments of glory. When you (sweet summer child) wandered into one of the festival cinemas, you were almost assaulted by a powerpoint presentation of pictures taken in the eighties and nineties, showing Hollywood stars as they were barely stars (baby Tilda Swinton, young Selma Hayek with Robert Rodriguez), stars in their prime (Ralph Fiennes), stars at the zenith of their stardom (Michael Caine), and stars who shouldn’t have been invited in the first place (Roman Polanski). Auntie FM always in their midst, desperately thinking of what to do with her hands.
After a while, I stopped paying attention to her stories, however. Aren’t we here to watch movies? Whatcha got for me, auntie? Although there seemed to be no apparent theme to the festival except for it being its 40th birthday, the movies I’ve seen and those I chose as my top 5 turned out to have something in common. A red thread woven through their very being – memories.
In Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Anna Hints; Estonia 2023) the tradition of the South Estonian smoke sauna comes to life in an extraordinary film project. Over 7 years director Anna Hints met dozens of women of all walks of life and led them to the sauna. In the wet, barely lit, cavernous, almost womb-like cabin the women opened up - told stories of great trauma, grief, but also joy and life in general. Set to a lilting soundtrack and old Estonian folk songs sung by the participants themselves, the movie envelops the audience in a mist of mysticism, intimacy and love. The level of care the documentarians put into every aspect of the movie is so mind-blowingly subtle that you sometimes forget that there was a camera and boom mic present at every step of the way.
The same day I witnessed this magical movie and thought it couldn’t get any better, I also saw Band (Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir; Iceland 2022). In a hybrid of documentary and fiction, the real life band The Post Performance Blues Band, of which Örnólfsdóttir is a member, tries to finally have a real break-through without compromising their artistic vision. In their struggles to find mainstream success, they lose money and members and contemplate just quitting outright. Still they move forward – redefining the meaning of success in the process. In addition to being great musicians, the ladies from the titular band are also great actresses (or at least they’re great at playing themselves), and Örnólfsdóttir’s style of filmmaking is playful and quite unconventional.
The next day, I was pumped. How couldn’t I be? The previous movies were great, so I sat down in the theater, still ignoring auntie’s old-folk stories (oh so many old people), and watched Fancy Dance (Erica Tremblay; USA 2023) instead.
Set in the Seneca-Cayuga Nation Reservation in Oklahoma, the movie stars Lily Gladstone as Jax, a hard-boiled lady who does everything to get by and take care of her niece Roki, since her mother has gone missing. Day in day out, Jax is split between her duties as an aunt and trying to find her sister, which also entails getting (any) authorities to believe that her disappearance is serious enough to finally list her as a missing person. As the child protection services deem Jax unsuitable for raising Roki and relocate her to Jax’s (white) father Frank and his wife, Jax hat to hustle even more to find her sister and get her niece back. The movie shows the stark contrast between the external and internal. We’re shown how the world mistreats native women, deeming them a nuisance at best and unimportant and invisible at worst, but also how great the bond between them and their culture has to be to withstand this treatment.
Days went by, sprinkled with some more photo collages and a couple enjoyable movies, until we arrived at day 5 of the festival. At this point, I was kind of tired and couldn’t bring myself to do anything else than stare at whatever was in front of me, which was, you guessed it, the greatest hits powerpoint presentation. In my youthful (?) arrogance, I’ve ignored the memories of the Filmfest pretty much since day one, considering them to be too old and crusty (which they were) to warrant my attention, but when I looked up, halfway through the festival, the old people, the bygones were actually gone. Instead, new photos had appeared on the screen. Photos from this year’s premieres, red carpet, events, workshops and Q&As. There was Anna Hints in mid jump in her Smoke Sauna Sisterhood tee, there was Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir at the premiere of Band and so many more new exciting filmmakers…
…never mind, the movie was about to begin and this day was about to test the limits of my perception and memory.
In Dalìland (Mary Harron; USA 2022) brilliant director Mary Harron mixes her own memories of 1970s New York with our collective memories of Salvador Dalì and his posse during their stay at the St. Regis Hotel in 1974. As James, a young art gallery assistant, stumbles into the world of Dalí, he soon becomes enthralled by their wild parties and orgies. As his relationship with Dalí and his beloved Gala becomes as toxic as their own relationship and he uncovers some well-intended art fraud, the young man is forced to leave the fantasy that is Dalíland. A whirlwind of art, faces and arguments – a wonderland one enters and leaves forever changed, like a midsummer night’s dream. The performances are on point, especially from Ben Kingsley and Barbara Sukowa as Dalí and Gala respectively, and the cinematography is nothing other than wondrous.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to leave wonderland as soon as I thought I would, as I stumbled into a showing of Augure (Baloji; Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, South Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Augure begins like a typical prodigal son story, as Koffi returns to his hometown from Belgium to make peace with his family and introduce them to his wife and soon to be mother of his twins. Koffi has been shunned by his very traditional and, in his opinion, backwards, family, as a sorcerer, because of his birthmark, which covers a large part of his face. As his plan goes horribly awry, he has to reconsider what his birth place actually means to him and his children. But wait…. pretty soon the story becomes uninterested in Koffi and gently shoves him aside to reveal another POV, and then another. In the end Baloji weaves an intricate story of family, tradition, loss and violence, which no one can escape. Beautiful, ethereal and very very intense.
Although the rest of the festival kind of went by in a blur, these are the movies that stuck out to me the most. The last time I looked up at the projection of the assorted memories of the festival, the old photos were all gone. No young Hollywood celebrities used to make the festival seem more worldly, no revered rapist directors. What was left was us. Our experiences, the Q&As with the most fascinating people, the talks, artists beaming into the audience, ready to talk for hours about this thing they just made. Young exciting directors, the future of the industry.
Every movie on this list was, in the end, in one way or another about the power of memory. About preserving them for yourself and others — and this is what a birthday is all about, isn’t it? Looking back on the past and then pivoting and looking forward to the future.
Honorable mentions:
1. Mami Wata: A Nigerian folklore in beautiful black and white about the place of tradition in the face of progress.
2. The Other Widow: A touching exploration of grief, when you’re supposed to bottle it up.
3. La Hija de Todas las Rabias: A terrible situation, teeming with life and hope against all odds.
4. The Persian Version: Being a second generation immigrant is hard.
5. A Man: Great mystery, great resolution and a twist. What else do you want?
