German

Cinequest’s Charlie Cockey: The Man Who Goes to Film Festivals

by
Charlie Cockey (photo courtesy Around the World in 14 Films)
Charlie Cockey (photo courtesy Around the World in 14 Films)

Charlie Cockey is at a film festival.  (Actually, right now he’s probably traveling between the Berlin International Film Festival and Cinequest.)   But, whenever you read this, the odds are that he’s sampling cinema at a film fest somewhere.

Cockey, the international film programmer for San Jose’s Cinequest, attends twelve or more international film festivals each year.  He never misses the great Berlin and Venice fests, and also makes the rounds of the European national film showcases in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and other countries.

Cockey is Cinequest’s film scout extraordinaire and responsible for the most singular films on Cinequest’s program, the movies unlike any you have seen before.   In my recent Why Cinequest is essential, I highlighted three of his gems from last year’s Cinequest:  the German dark comedy Oh Boy (the debut from talented writer-director Jan Ole Gerster), the absurdist Czech comedy Polski Film and the offbeat The Dead Man and Being Happy, with its gloriously wacky road trip through the backwaters of Argentina.  (My favorite Charlie Cockey selection is the unsettling 2011 Slovak Visible World – which is creepy even for a voyeur film.)  Cockey found 12 of the films in last year’s Cinequest, and has brought as many as 17.

Cockey, who lives in the Czech Republic’s second city Brno, speaks English, Czech, German, French, Italian and Romanian.  That’s helpful, but the national film festivals usually have English-subtitled “festival version” screenings for distributors and festival programmers (plus non-subtitled screenings for the local public).

How did an American guy come to live in Brno?  “A Czech woman tied my shoelaces together,” Cockey replies.  Before he had acquired his Czech language fluency, he was sitting in a darkened Czech theater and was surprised to see no subtitles on the film.  Needing to ask the woman next to him for help with the translation, he touched her hand and sparks flew, or at least one literal spark from static electricity.  Fourteen years later, the two are still partners.

What are Charlie Cockey’s tips for sampling movies at a festival? Like any festival-goer, he chooses screenings based on the buzz, the director and sometimes a gut feeling.  He doesn’t mind bad movies because “if a film’s not working, I leave”.  He adds, “The mediocre ones are tough because you need to stick it out”.

First and foremost, Charlie Cockey is a man who devours culture in any form – books, music, cinema, food – with a voracious but discerning appetite.  Cockey’s journey brought him from the East Coast and Idaho to 1960s San Francisco as a musician and as a road manager for a band.  He opened San Francisco’s first science fiction bookstore (Fantasy, Etc) and ran it for the last quarter of the 20th Century.  “There are no accidents,” he says.  “Only surprises.”

Extremely generous with his knowledge and taste, Cockey loves to share the most precisely individual recommendations of books and movies.  He relishes the memory of helping a boy – dragged into Fantasy, Etc by his parents – discover a genre of literature (in this case fantasy) that spawned a new love of reading.  And he couldn’t resist quizzing me about my interests and then recommending an extremely obscure collection of letters from a German intelligence official in WWII – a book that I NEVER would have otherwise considered but which turned out to be a great read.

Here’s how to experience Cinequest the Charlie Cockey way: “Find films as you live life – by being open, prepared, ready, flexible and friendly”.

Follow The Movie Gourmet on Twitter for my continuing coverage of the 2014 Cinequest.

Barbara: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you

by

As Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you”.   Barbara’s suspenseful story is set in Cold War East Germany, so everyone is indeed being watched by the Stasi and informed on by their closest associates.  Barbara is a doctor who has applied for an exit visa and has therefore been exiled to the hinterlands from a top Berlin hospital.   Harassed by the Stasi, she is ever aware of everyone’s motives.  She is played by Nina Hoss in a performance that is extraordinarily controlled, alert and suspicious.

Barbara herself is driven by two imperatives – to escape from East Germany and to provide expert and compassionate medical care.  The story is a series of moments, some seemingly random, which tie together as the story builds to the climax, when the doctor must bet her life on a decision.

Barbara was co-written and directed by Christian Petzold (he won the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear for his work).  Given that’s it difficult to imagine how anyone else could have improved Barbara, I’ll be looking for Petzold’s next movie.

Cinequest: Oh Boy

by

Ranging from wry to hilarious, the German dark comedy Oh Boy hits every note perfectly.  It’s the debut feature for writer-director Jan Ole Gerster, a talented filmmaker we’ll be hearing from again.

We see a slacker moving from encounter to encounter in a series of vignettes.  Gerster has created a warm-hearted but lost character who needs to connect with others – but sabotages his every opportunity.  He has no apparent long term goals, and even his short term goal of getting some coffee is frustrated.

As the main character wanders through contemporary Berlin, Oh Boy demonstrates an outstanding sense of place, especially in a dawn montage near the end of the film.  The soundtrack is also excellent – the understated music complements each scene remarkably well.

Oh Boy plays again at Cinequest on March 9. 

The Robber: robbing and running, but why? and who cares?

by

The title character in The Robber/Der Rauber finishes a six-year prison term for bank robbery and immediately and compulsively robs a bank.  He doesn’t care about the money, he is simply driven to rob banks.

He has spent his six years in prison obsessively training, and he wins the Vienna Marathon when he gets out.  Along the way, his running ability helps him make dramatic escapes.  The role of the robber is very physically demanding, and he is well-played by Andreas Lust (Revanche).

It’s a well-acted and at times beautifully shot movie, but the story by writer-director Benjamin Heidenberg lets us down.  Why is the robber so compulsive?  How did he get to be so alienated?  Since he shows no emotion or human connection, why should we care?

There exists an excellent German bank robbery drama with lots of running, plus a great character, so I recommend Run Lola Run on DVD.