Akerman, To, Jacobs: preview of the Official Selection

The third 4+1 Film Festival’s Official Selection will include films such as the drama La folie Almayer (2011), by Belgian director Chantal Akerman; a thriller called Life Without Principle (2011), by the Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To; and the comedy Terri (2011), by American director Azazel Jacobs.

Prestigious filmmaker Chantal Akerman, a disciple of Jean-Luc Godard, revisits the realm of fiction with a story that delves into the tragic side of the homonymous novel by Joseph Conrad. On this occasion, this standard-bearer for women’s role in society focuses on portraying a man, Almayer, a European who has never been to Europe and was born and raised on the banks of a river in the Malaysian jungle. La folie Almayer is a poetic recounting of a family’s history and explores how one of the scars colonialism leaves in its wake is the dehumanization of man. The film has screened at festivals such Venice, Toronto and the BFI in London among others.

Life Without Principle, an economic thriller in line with Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s filmography as a specialist in detective films, is a more bellicose film that tells a series of parallel stories in which a group of two-bit gangsters attempt to benefit from the economic crisis that plagues us. The film is one of To’s most realistic stories to date. It is a faithful portrait of the world we live in as well as a brutally intimate action film that competed in the Official Selection at the Venice Film Festival. In addition, among other honours, the film was chosen by the Hong Kong Film Academy for a Critic’s Award, Best Screenplay and Best Actor, for Ching Wan Lau.

Lastly, another title worth mentioning is the moving comedy Terri by Azazel Jacobs. Jacobs’ fourth film, which has participated in festivals such as Sundance, Locarno and Gijón, explores a teenager’s universe and offers a touching tale of something as universally familiar as feeling different. The youngster is encouraged by the school’s principal to establish bonds with other equally marginal students. With its everyday poetry, Terri could be interpreted as a compassionate re-reading of Tod Browning’s Freaks, where the feeling of brotherhood prevails over the cruel parody towards which so many films about misfits tend to lean.

In the coming weeks, the Festival will announce the other films that will complete the Festival’s Official Selection. For the third year in a row, audiences in all five territories will vote to decide which film will win the 4+1 Audience Award. The festival’s viewers will evaluate titles that have been screened extensively at international festivals but have yet to secure commercial distribution in these countries.

The third edition of the 4+1 Film Festival will take place from November 21st through the 25th in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro. The Festival will receive the Honoured Guest of the next edition at the Banco do Brazil’s Cultural Center (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro, official headquarters in 2012, following a dynamic begun in 2010 by which the Festival’s official alternates among the five cities where the festival is held each year (Buenos Aires, in 2010, and Mexico in 2011). Plus, as was already the case in 2011, the Festival will also have an “on-line venue” thanks to which audiences in all five countries will have full access to the official selection from any computer or mobile devices.