Posted on Friday, 23 May 2008
To make a festival film, you must first choose a location, ideally a remote region only lightly touched by modernity, where the people say very little and an unseen authority rigorously enforces laws against smiling. You will film the landscape and its inhabitants in long takes with minimal camera movements. Though the characters will generally do very little — walk, smoke, sigh — their more significant actions characteristically will be undertaken in the absence of a discernible motive. Even as nothing much seems to happen, a mood of menace and portent will hang in the air, usually culminating in a burst of violence in the movie’s last minutes.
