YIDFF: 2003: Jurors for the International Competition

YIDFF 2003 Information

Jurors for the International Competition

The five jurors, who will decide the winners of awards including the Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize from amongst the fifteen works selected for screening in the International Competition (from an initial field of 902 entries), are introduced below.

Alain Bergala (France, film critic, director)

Member of the editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinema from 1978 to 1988, and currently teaches at the University of Paris 3, while also remaining involved in film production as a director. Publications include Roberto Rossellini. Le cinema revele (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard par Jean-Luc Godard (ed.), and Nul mieux que Godard (1999). As a filmmaker, he has not only directed feature films such as Faux-fuyants (with Jean-Pierre Limosin, 1983) and Ou que tu sois (1987), but also numerous documentaries on the arts.

Screening:
Pier Paolo Pasolini: France / 1997 / French, Italian / Video / 53 min
One episode from a French television series on film auteurs.

Christine Choy (USA, director)

Born in Shanghai, and emigrated to the USA in 1967. Producer and/or director of more than fifty works. Professor at New York University. Has also taught at Yale and Cornell Universities, and at SUNY Buffalo. Has received over sixty international awards. Works include Mississippi Triangle (1982-83), Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1991), In The Name of the Emperor (1995), The Shot Heard Round the World (1996-97), and Ha Ha Shanghai (2001).

Screening:
Sparrow Village: USA / 2003 / English, Mandarin, Miao / Video / 27 min
A documentary that follows young girls in a mountain village inhabited by the Miao people in southwest China.
Who Killed Vincent Chin?: USA / 1988 / English, Chinese / 16mm / 84 min
It is 1982 in Detroit, a city plunged into recession by the advances of Japanese corporations. Chinese-American Vincent Chin is beaten to death, but the light sentence is completely out of balance with the injustice of the murder. This work pursues the truth within the incident.

Amir Naderi (Iranian national, USA resident, director)

Born in 1945 in Abadan, a port city on the shores of the Persian Gulf in Iran. After gaining experience as a still cameraman, projectionist and assistant director, he made his directorial debut with Khoda Hafez Rafig (Good Bye Friend) in 1971. His Harmonica (1974) is known as one of the masterpieces of pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema. His two consecutive works The Runner (1986) and Water, Wind, Dust (1989) both took the Grand Prix at the Nantes Three Continents Film Festival, gaining him international acknowledgement as one of Iran’s most representative filmmakers. He later moved to USA and achieved his desire of directing a film there with Manhattan By Numbers in 1993, which was screened at the Venice Film Festival and also received a theatrical release in Japanese cinemas. Currently based in New York. His latest work is Marathon (2002).

Screening:
Marathon: USA / 2002 / English / Video / 74 min
A woman desperately perseveres through a crossword marathon, as the subways, buses, street corners and other New York scenery unfold with dazzling repercussions.

Anand Patwardhan (India, director)

Born in 1950. Completed a B.A. in English Literature at Bombay University in 1970, a B.A. in Sociology at Brandeis University in 1970, and a M.A. in Communications at McGill University in 1982. Works include A Time to Rise (1981), about Indian immigrant farm workers’ efforts to unionize in Canada; In Memory of Friends (1990), on rebuilding communal harmony in Punjab; YIDFF ’93 Citizen’s Prize winner In the Name of God (1992), on the rise of Hindu fundamentalism; and YIDFF ’95 Special Prize winner Father, Son and Holy War (1995), on the patriarchal roots of violence in India. A Narmada Diary (1996) and War and Peace/Jang aur Aman (2001) were both recipients of the Grand Prize at the Earth-Vision Film Festival.

Screening:
War and Peace / Jang aur Aman: India / 2002 / Hindi, English, Japanese / Video / 166 min
A look at modern times on a grand scale with a focus on the escalating nuclear arms race and religious tensions in India and Pakistan, and including reports on USA and Japan, the only country to be on the receiving end of a nuclear bombing.

Takamine Go (Japan, director)

Born in 1948 in Kabira Village on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa. Lived in Naha until graduating from high school, after which he entered the Kyoto University of Education on a national scholarship for exchange students (Okinawa was still under American control at the time), and began shooting 8mm movies. Made his directorial debut with Okinawan Dream Show (1974), a close look at the scenery of Okinawa around the time of its reversion to Japan, and has subsequently continued to make films about Okinawa. Directed his first theatrical film Paradise View in 1985. His Untamagiru (1989) won a number of domestic and international awards, including the Caligari Film Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. Completed Tsuru-Henry in 1998. At present he teaches courses at vocational schools and universities while working on a new theatrical film, Queer Fish Lane.