2010 archive: We have previously announced that acclaimed director and artist Shirin Neshat will be a guest at this year's Films from the South, but we've got plenty of other exciting guests as well. Read more about them here.
Beate Arnestad
Beate Arnestad is a Norwegian filmmaker who has worked at Norwegian broadcaster NRK for many years and was also based in Sri Lanka between 2003 – 2006. A few years ago she made the critically acclaimed documentary My Daughter the Terrorist. At this years Films from the South she shows her latest film, Telling Truths in Arusha, a documentary about a genocide trial in Rwanda. The film screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Arnestad.
Violeta Ayala
Violeta Ayala is a journalist and documentary filmmaker, originally from Bolivia she is now an Australian resident. In 2009 came her first full-length documentary film Stolen, which she directed together with Daniel Fallshaw. The two of them had previously made a documentary about corruption in the oil industry in North Africa, and in 2007 they made the shortfilm A Vegan in the Meat Aisle. Their film Stolen, which is being shown at Films From the South as part of «The Critical Room» seminars, has been shown at major film festivals such as the Toronto IFF and the IDFA in Amsterdam. The film deals with human rights and conditions in refugee camps in West-Sahara. The film is powerful, contoversial and has even been accused of deliberately manipulating the truth.
Siddiq Barmak
Siddiq Barmak (b. 1962) is an Afghani film director and producer. When the Taliban came to power filmmaking was banned and Barmak fled to Pakistan. All of his early work was destroyed by the Taliban. After 2001 Barmak returned to Afghanistan to continue making films. His current film is Opium War, and his previous film Osama (2003) won, among other things, the Golden Globe for best foreign film.
Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye
Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye have together directed the film Benda Bilili, a film about the Congolese band of the same name, each member of the band suffers from a disability caused by contracting Polio as children. As a group they caused great excitement when they visited Norway during the World Music Festival last year. Renaud Barret originally worked as a graphic designer, and Florent de la Tullaye as a photographer, together they have made many documentaries with a focus on urban culture and music in Africa.
Mariana Chenillo
Mariana Chenillo is a young and promising female director from Mexico. She has directed many shortfilms and brings two of her current films to the Films from the South program. The film Nora‘s Will, and a part of a shortfilm compliation Revolución (2010) created to mak the centenary of the Mexican Revolution.
Marianne Eyde
Marianne Eyde is Norwegian born, but has lived and worked in Peru for the entirity of her adult life. She is a strong advocate for farmers and indigenous Peruvians and examines how poverty forces them to live desprate and degrading lives. Her filmic style is a mix of poetry and documentary, but Eyde makes films that Peruvians themselves can identify with. In addition to short films and films for TV Eyde has directed four full-length feature films and a documentary movie. Screening at Films from the South 2010 are Los ronderos (1987), La vida es una sola (You Only Live Once 1992), La carnada (1999) and Coca mama (2004).
Xiaolu Guo
Xiaolu Guo (b. 1973) appears at Films from the South with her newest film She, a Chinese (2009). Guo grew up with her grandparents in a small fishing village in the South of China. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy, has written and has directed a series of documentary films, including the prize winning How Is Your Fish Today? In 2002 Guo moved to London where she began to keep a diary in English. These thoughts developed into her third novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, (published in Norway by Aschehoug as Fremmedordbok for kjærester). Xiaolu Guo has stated that one of her desires is to challenge stereotypical attitudes to China and the Chinese and to show a different side of the country through non-traditional, contemporary forms of expression. Films from the South are showing her documentary Once upon a time proletarian (2009).
Kim Longinotto
Kim Longinotto (b. 1952) in a British documentary filmmaker. She is known for her portraits of strong women, among them is Rough Aunties, which won the prize for Best Documentary at Films from the South in 2009. The year Kim is a guest at the frestival again, this time with a new documentary Pink Saris (2010). In this film she follows the leaders of the “Pink Gang” who struggle against violence and repression in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Havana Marking
Havana Marking is a British/American documentary filmmaker. She's best known for Afghan Star (2009), which is being shown at this years Films from the South. Afghan Star is a documentary about an Afghan version of talent contest X-Factor. She followed the TV-competition for a period of four months in Kabul. Havana Marking has 10 years experience with production of TV-documentaries. As a director she made the short film The Crippendales (2007), about a group of disabled strippers, before she broke out with Afghan Star, which won the Publics Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. As part of Films from the South, and in cooperation with The Cultural Rucksack (in Norwegian: Den Kulturelle Skolesekken), Havana Marking will introduce the film to middle-school and high-school classes in Norway.
Marlui Miranda
Marlui Miranda is a vocalist in a Brazilian music ensemble that will perform new music to accompany the Brazilian silent film classic Limite. The music has been especially composed by Bugge Wesseltoft and its performance will form part of Films from the South's 20th anniversary celebrations at the Opera House. Miranda was born in Fortaleza, North-East of Brazil and grew-up in Brasilia. She moved to Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s where she studied classical guitar with the renowned teacher Turibio Santos. She has worked as a back-up singer for Egberto Gismonti, Milton Nacimento, Jards Macale and released her first album “Olho d’ Agua” in 1979. During the 1970s she also became interested in the study of indiginous Brazilian music and has completed an extensive research project with the aim of the preservation of music from Brazilian Amazon Forests. She also worked for a time on Jazz legend Jack de Johnettes's last project.
Shirin Neshat
The well-known Iranian-exile film artist Shirin Neshat opens the 20th Films from the South festival. Last year Neshat won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Women Without Men (2009) her first feature film. She and her co-director Shoja Azari want to remind their Western audience that Iran was once a fully functioning democracy. Shirin Neshat was born and raised in Iran, but now lives in New York. She is a well-known video and photo journalist and her work has dealt with, among other topics, the relationship of women in Islam and Iran's relationship with the West. Shirin Neshat is a previous prizewinner at the Venice Biennale, and she has exhibited both at the Henie Onstad Art Centre and the Astrup Fearnley Museum.
Garin Nugroho
Garin Nugroho from Indonesia is one of the most important non-western film directors of the present day. His directorial work emerged in the mid-1980s and has since delivered a series of artistic highpoints. His visually rich work of the past two decades has also been influenced by the Indonesian political establishment and has helped further human rights causes, freedom of speech and even the construction of the new Indonesian state. Films from the South will show Blue Generation (2009). Nugrohos filmography includes, among many others, Kancil’s Tale of Freedom (1995), …And the Moon Dances (1995) and A Poet (2000).
Raoul Peck
Raoul Peck vwas the guest of honour at Films from the South in 2008. As a result of his global reach and political focus he's been given the monicker of ”The Master of Political Film”. Raoul Peck is an extremely interresting director in the international film landscape. He was born in Haiti and, grew up in both the Congo and France. Peck directs documentaries, and fictional films that bear the marks of his international background and strong social and political advocacy. He doesn't describe himself as multicultural, but as a citizen of the world. This year's Films from the South will show Moloch Tropical (2009). Pecks other films include The Man on the Shore (1993), Lumumba (2000) and Sometimes in April (2005).
Rodolfo Stroeter
Rodolfo Stroeter plays bass in a Brazilian ensemble that will perform new music to accompany the Brazilian silent film classic Limite. The music has been especially composed by Bugge Wesseltoft and its performance will form part of Films from the South's 20th anniversary celebrations at the Opera House. Stroeter completed courses in composition and double-bass in Brazil in 1980 and began a proffessional career as a double-bassist in two of the leading instrumental groups in Brazil in the 1980s. He was the inovator behind the group Pau Brasil, a Brazilian instrumental quintet who have toured in Europe, Japan and the USA and who have taken part in album recordings all over the world. As a musician he is most known through his collaboration with artists such as Milton Nacimento, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, Gilberto Gil, Joyce and Naná Vasconcelos. Stroeter lives in Sao Paulo with his wife and five children.
Naná Vasconcelos
Vasconcelos’ is a percusionist in a Brazilian ensemble that will perform new music to accompany the Brazilian silent film classic Limite. The music has been especially composed by Bugge Wesseltoft and its performance will form part of Films from the South's 20th anniversary celebrations at the Opera House. Vasconcelos’ mother was a guitarist in their hometown of Recife, Brazil, and this led to Nana being initially inspired by Villa-Lobos and Jimi Hendrix. Naná has speciliased in rhythm instruments of Brazilian origin, especially the Berimbau (A string fastened to a thin bamboo spine). Naná has a long and exciting career behind him and has, among other things, composed the soundtrack to Jim Jarmush's film Down by Law and regularly toured in Europe. Alongside his mastery of a series of drum-based instruments Naná has been a personal advocate for the promotion of the Berimbeu throughout Brazil.
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