Travelogue—Some Film Festivals this Year

Travelogue—Some Film Festivals this Year

Stockholm, Gijon, Torino
Jared and I just returned from a European tour which consisted of Stockholm, Gijon (Spain), and Torino. Quite extraordinary all around. Highlights were meeting Tinto Brass in Torino and talking shop (we may share a distributor, and I told him about how my life was changed by seeing Caligula as a child), the Asturian cider house (and actually everything about Spain and the Spanish), the Italian hyper-intellectual audiences (and of course the food), and the serious (Bergman-fed) Swedes and their formal dinners. We met a lot of interesting and charming people on this trip, including filmmakers, press, sexologists, and cinephiles.

Gijon and Torino honored me with retrospectives, and I was followed around by photographers, who took glamour shots all over, including some in a vintage Mercedes (see below). The Gijon catalogue stated (and I quoted to a shocked audience on opening night), that whereas the character is Peeping Tom used his camera as an aggressive phallus, Anna Biller uses her camera like a "playful, extroverted clit.” {more}



On this tour I found that I am capturing more women. Women in Italy especially loved the movie. I think it’s partly because in Italy there is not a stigma attached to the idea of a glamorous woman. Italy still attaches a spiritual and maternal significance to women's beauty, from the Madonnas in the churches to Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale. But older intellectual men in beautiful suits were also nodding appreciatively when I spoke about gender, and everyone clapped when I said that I don’t think strong women should be like men. The Italian audience was the most educated and intellectual audience I’ve ever played to. I bought a number of erotic comic books and “Diabolik” pulps there, which I will write about the next time.

In Sweden we ate at a restaurant that was in a 17th century mansion. The lead actress of “Fanny and Alexander” was there, along with Paul Schrader, a lot of other directors, some writers, and some Swedish dignitaries. We ate herring, reindeer, etc. It was all very formal and old-fashioned. We also went to an ice bar, where you had to be fitted with a special parka before entering in order to not perish of cold. At my screening, the audience was very sad. They were almost pleading with me, “But does it have to be that way for Barbi?” The women especially seemed distressed. Later, the programmer told me that Swedish audiences are sad “because of Bergman.”



Spain was fabulous in every way. The filmmakers, festival people, and press were always in a great mood, ready to drink, play, and talk excitedly in all languages (I spoke mostly French). We ate dinner at 11:00 and were out at nightclubs until 4:00 or 5:00. They were taking pictures like crazy, and I was treated like the movie queen of the festival, which was fun. I am finding that they like to treat people like celebrities in Europe. After all, for all they know I could be quite famous in America! It's the opposite of Los Angeles, where even the biggest celebrities are treated like regular people. Someone in Sweden actually chased after Jared as he was getting into a car to get his autograph!

Moscow
In the summer we showed VIVA in competition at the Moscow Film Festival, which was quite an honor. Moscow is a place where the people are very real, very fierce, very smart, and speak their minds freely. It is a transitional culture, full of generational and aesthetic clashes, and with a large class and economic gap. The women were the best dressed I have seen in any city. They all wear makeup, do their hair, and wear sexy, fitted dresses, skirts, heels, and stockings. The food is fresh, exotic, organic, exciting. Restaurants are the privilege of the rich and of foreigners. The mix of Soviet, capitalist, and antique architecture is breathtaking and surreal. And of course, there’s the famous subway, with its monumental art treasures, bronze statues, art nouveau lighting, and large expanses of marble.

We created a near riot in Moscow with VIVA, which some hailed as a Fellini-like masterpiece, and which one newspaper claimed was a disgrace to the festival and to the nation itself. I think some people there were missing the irony, especially as they never had a sexual revolution. But some people, especially young people, were filled with joy at the the colors and the sexiness of it. (They do love color in Russia)! They do everything big in Moscow: the longest red carpet I have ever seen, lavish parties, all like something out of a 60s movie about rich people. They took thousands of pictures of us, but I don’t have a single one! And we were offered distribution by a Russian distributor (more news on that later).

One day we took a tour of the film studio there, Mosfilm, where all the great Russian classics were shot. We went in a bus with a group of people and saw some wonderful props, costumes, headdresses, sketches, stills, soundstages, automobiles, etc. At the end of it all we were led out to a wooded area where there was music playing and they were roasting a pig and a lamb on spits, and served us lots of salads, wine, etc. It was quite fabulous.

We've also been to Melbourne and Montreal this year, which were both great. The Fantasia Festival in Montreal lead to Canadian distribution, and we will open in various cities in Canada February with different burlesque troupes, including Skin TIght Outta Sight, which will be quite something! In addition, we are opening in Antwerp this month, and I will present VIVA at Brown University and at the George Eastman House in April of next year. See the screenings page for more information.