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You’re a feral Athenian teen. Your days are hazy and monotonous. You spend them running wild in the only home you’ve ever known, the rotting 2004 Olympic stadium. Time passes through violence. You fist fight with your gang and operate a Pit Bull mating business for cash.

You’re experiencing life inside Park, Sofia Exarchou’s much anticipated debut feature, part coming of age love story, part gritty social commentary. Exarchou, an Athens native, belongs to a new generation of filmmakers behind the avant-garde cinematic movement branded as Greek New Wave. Many critics have linked the birth of the genre with the economic turmoil the country has faced over the last 10 years. While Park is lighter on the weird and heavier on the realism than the genre’s forerunners – Dogtooth (2008), Alps (2011), Attenberg (2010) – it maintains focus on themes of alienated youth and works to destabilise national identity.

The setting of the abandoned 2004 Greek Olympic stadium is laden with metaphorical significance. The arena is often referred to as Greece’s ‘white elephant’; the space now resembles one of the country’s ancient ruins rather than a £6 billion state-of-the-art government built sports venue. What was once a source of hope and pride for the country now serves as a relentless reminder of its collapse.

With Park Exarchou seems to be digging through the rust and rubble from this collapse and looking at what’s been left underneath. What she finds is youth, 21^st century youth that has been saddled with the country’s collective nostalgia for a ‘glorious past.’ Despite their lives of rusted, dirty pools and grimy showers, the kids in Park try to forge their identities, to experience love and tenderness but, like the arena itself, sink lower and lower into the earth, pulled down into a decaying rubbish pit. Unable to even dream of what might be above the pit’s walls, they are swallowed up, along with all hope for the future.

Let’s begin by talking about the film’s distinct and highly symbolic setting. What gave you the idea for using the abandoned Olympic village in Athens?

I wanted to portray a group of kids living in an abandoned place in a social environment that gives them no escape and no hope for the future. I wanted the place to remain somewhat abstract so that it could take place anywhere in the world. Of course the Olympic Village has a lot of symbolic meaning for Greece. The Olympic games in 2004 provided a great deal of hope for the whole country but ultimately marked its collapse. Now it exists as this no man’s land not because of a war or something like that but as a no man’s land created by the Olympic games and I find that fascinating to talk about.

The film features a brilliant set of amateur actors. I’m curious about how you cast the film and what traits you were looking for in your actors?

When we were in the second and third rounds of casting we started doing group auditions so that we could see how the actors would relate to each other. We tried to create a dynamic group that would be full of different characters. At the beginning of shooting I did a lot of improvisation with the kids so that I could determine which elements of the characters pre-existed within the actors. I wanted to know who was more aggressive, who was funnier, who was stronger and who would become the leader. The script created the characters but I wanted to see the real kids inside the characters, I tried to let them be themselves within this environment.

All of the characters, particularly Anna, seem to perform their feelings with their bodies. I was wondering what methods you used in directing the actors to convey so much brilliant emotion but with so little dialogue?

This was a big part of improvisation. The script called for a lot of aggression so we used a lot of warm up games to help the actors reach that place. In fact the arm wrestling scene was a warm up game, it started as a small scene in the script but because we did it so many times it became something important to the film. I think the emotion in the film stems from the fact that these kids are teenagers and the energy that the film calls for is all there inside of them. It’s in their bodies and the way they act so I really tried to let them express that and then I just put the camera close enough to capture it. The actor who played Anna was also a dancer and an ex athlete in her real life so she shared a lot of similarities with the girl in the script. She had trained to be a gymnast but she had to stop around age 16 which was very difficult for her but it meant that she really understood how important the character’s injuries were. We worked a lot with that.

In terms of physical space, to what extent is the idea of environmental determinism at play in the film? I got the feeling that the park itself is in some way responsible for the actions and fates of the kids. How did you work with the set to communicate this during the process of filming?

The film is all about the connection between the space and the kids, it revolves around the idea of depicting the outcome of putting such young people with all this energy and the dreams they have for their lives inside a place that gives nothing and that has no life. The place has a lot to do with the kid’s actions because they are trapped there so all of their animalistic behavior stems from this tension in their everyday lives. When we work with the kids and the set it was all about ‘ok now you’re trapped in the lockers and you are hot and you want to have a shower let’s try to express this feeling and create a reaction when the water comes out.’ The space isn’t totally responsible for their actions but it is their only way of life. The kids are twelve, fourteen years old so they’ve spent almost all their lives in this aggressive place and that aggression becomes a part of who they are.

The viewer is made to feel as if they too rove wildly about the park with the kids. Can you talk about the camera technique that you used in conveying this sensation and why this was important to the narrative?

That was a big part of what I intended to do. I wanted the viewer to experience what it’s like to live like that; that was the most important element of the film to me. When I started the writing the script there was no high narration or big drive for the kids. I did this because I wanted to be honest about their reality, the fact that when you live in a place like this it’s very rare to have any big dreams. I didn’t want to build a mainstream narrative where the protagonist dreams of doing something with their life; the protagonist’s biggest dream is just to escape this place. I wanted the audience to try and inhabit this psychological place during each moment of the film, either by keeping the camera trained closely on the kids or by the way the kids move within the frame. This was all done in the hope that the viewer would leave the cinema with a small sense of what it’s like to live in a place like this, and when I say a place like this I mean any kind of place with the same problems. I tried to be really conscious of this.

The film seems to portray sex as something hostile and violent but also as something starkly intimate. How did you strike this critical balance?

Sex is a huge aspect of the film. It’s a subject that says a lot about the relationship between Anna and Dimitris but it can also be found in the tourist resort, with the character of the mother and with the dog mating. The kids are trying to express themselves through sex but it’s very difficult for them because their environment is so aggressive. This is where the struggle originates. The kids have feelings and you understand there’s a sensitivity to them that they’re trying to communicate this but that they don’t know how. This struggle comes through in different ways throughout the film but sex was the most important vehicle for exploration.

The narrative feels very much propelled by a search for national identity. Could you talk a little bit about the significance behind Anna and Dimitris’s interaction with the British teens on holiday?

I think the film talks about the concept of home, finding a place, finding a father or finding somebody that will take care of you, so it’s a search for something that involves all of that. Of course national identity plays a big role in this search. The film is about Greece, and all the identity issues bound up in the Olympic games, how we feel about our national identity and what makes us proud or shouldn’t make us proud. This idea is communicated through the kids, the feeling that they’re searching for something real. They are ready to go after it and they hope that there will be something out there for them. The sequence with Anna, Dimitris and the British teens was important to the film because it’s the one moment when they’re given the chance to relate to kids their own age and they hope they will find and feel something through this. They’re ready to sing the English songs and be part of the same games. Ultimately they don’t find what they’re searching for and the sequence becomes a sad moment in the film.

Park is rich in symbolism. It feels as if the wild dogs represent certain character’s identity, what was your intent in likening the humans to animals?

It started with the image of two kids who supervise dog mating; it was one of the first ideas I wrote down about this film. At first I didn’t realize how important it was to the story but gradually everything around this subplot began to hold meaning for me. I wanted to depict these kids almost as orphans. They’re alone; moving around this place that makes them so aggressive, and this image of them seemed very close to one of stray, wild dogs. I wanted to show what happens when you trap an animal or a person by drawing a parallel between the two. I also wanted to emphasize the way the kids try to care for the dogs and treat them well even though they haven’t had parents that look after them. I thought this would develop the viewer’s understanding of the kid’s emotions and the depth of their feelings. The parallel between the dogs and the kids makes us afraid that they will share a fate and this cycle shows the viewer a lot about what it’s like to live in this place.

The film clearly articulates a specific anxiety about the decay of human beings, specifically Greek society in this case. The end feels very bleak and hopeless and we sense the continuation of a destructive cycle. What are your thoughts on the wider political climate in Greece and the country’s future?

I believe that as a director you show the reality, you depict a world, and then you leave it for the viewer to experience and decide how they feel about it. After screenings there are always people coming to me and asking if these children are alright now and better off because they were in the film. The answer is no, they are not better because they just played a role in a film, they’re still immigrants trying to survive in a crisis-stricken Athens. I would really like to make a film with a lot of hope and have people coming out of the screening happy but the reality of the situation is so much sadder than the film. I’m not just talking about the Greek reality. I’m talking about Europe in general. For instance, most of the abandoned facilities that I used in the film are now used as a home for Syrian refugees. The story I tell might look bleak or sad but the reality of it already far surpasses what I depict in the film. I would like to find something positive to say as a response to this question but the truth is that my feeling about Europe right now is that we’re in huge crisis and that we have to find a new way to think about things and we must act as soon as possible.

For a closing question Sofia, what are your thoughts on representation and diversity in the film industry from the perspective of a female filmmaker?

I like that this is something that we’re talking about more. I think that whenever there’s more conversation about a subject it means that something is going to get a little bit better at least. I hope we reach a point where neither I nor any other female filmmaker will have to answer this question because it treats female direction like a genre film. I hope one day there will be no concept of a female director or a male director and that we can see a film without needing to discuss gender of the director. I still think there is a lot to be done before everyone can be treated the same. I believe that the core of cinema as an art form is diversity; there are so many different people working in the industry, so many different ideas being put together and so many different minds. We have to embrace that and we have to work toward that direction in every possible way.

Park is screening at the BFI London Film Festival. You can get your tickets here: PARK

Screenings:

Thursday 13 October 2016 20:45, Vue West End Cinema

Saturday 15 October 2016 15:30, Prince Charles Cinema

Words: Elly Arden-Joly

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You might remember we wrote about A Bigger Splash – the new erotically charged thriller from Luca Guadagnino – during the BFI’s London Film Festival last year where it was well received by critics and audiences alike. Loosely based on 60s French classic La Piscine (which features a dangerously handsome Alain Delon) and featuring the not inconsiderable talents of Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson and Wonderland all time-fave Tilda Swinton, the movie is out early next month. To tide your inner Tilda-fangirl/boy over until then, there’s a juicy new trailer out full of sunwashed landscapes, sexual tension and the general sense that this is set to be pretty damn thrilling.

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If your Facebook has ever blown up with pictures/funding requests/self-congratulatory statuses from someone who has got to base camp (or higher) on Mount Everest, you might have been duly impressed and even fancied giving it a go yourself. Well, after seeing Jennifer Peedom’s new theatrical documentary, SHERPA, you may think twice before making climbing Everest your New Year’s resolution. Having won the Documentary Competition prize at the BFI’s London Film Festival Awards, we were expecting big things from the piece, and it didn’t disappoint.

Taking a previously untrodden route into the well-worn subject of the world’s tallest mountain, SHERPA examines Everest from (unsurprisingly given the film’s title) the perspective of the Sherpa who service and facilitate the “Everest Industry”. By closely following a few Sherpa, as well as an expedition company owner, the film gives these all too often maligned and forgotten people a much-needed voice. When we see and hear that huge groups of Sherpa (whose annual income is earned mainly in the summer climbing period) are required to navigate Everest’s dangerous Khumbu Icefall to take the baggage and camping equipment needed for Westerners to climb, the immense – and arguably unnecessary – risks these men undertake becomes ominously clear. Sure enough, halfway through the film the worst occurs, leaving 16 Sherpa dead on one of Everest’s “darkest days”.

The social and political aftermath of the tragedy is a gripping and deeply moving watch that transcends the bounds of its genre. The picture’s lush visuals and jaw-dropping cinematography should come as no surprise to anyone given the director’s previous work and the sheer beauty of Everest itself, but SHERPA has a much wider appeal: at heart it’s an incredible and often harrowing story, something not lost on the film’s producer, John Smithson (127 Hours and Touching the Void), who we were lucky enough to interview about his role in making SHERPA a reality.

What attracted you to the project?

I thought it was a really interesting approach to Everest. There’s been lots of things done about Everest but I thought this was a different approach and that it was an untold story to do it from the point of view of the Sherpa: this angle that we all rather take them for granted as more and more stuff is taken up the mountain for all the Westerners who go there. The Sherpas have got to lug all the stuff up and this puts them under great risk. So I thought it was a really interesting story and I really liked the director and thought she was very talented.

So that’s why I did it, but obviously we didn’t know the story would be quite the one we got because of that day in April 2014 when over 16 Sherpas died. We knew we had a very different film but we also knew we had a more powerful film. Following the aftermath of the avalanche gave the film a much stronger and more powerful storyline: a structural spine.

You weren’t expecting that to happen, so how did it pan out and what how did you decide upon the direction the piece took?

I remember meeting before filming in Australia for a big planning session about the film we were hoping to do and thinking, ‘this might be completely redundant’, because it’s Everest and anything can happen. We thought there might be an emergency or some terrible storm or maybe an accident (because it’s a dangerous place), but we never in a million years imagined that the worst day in Everest was going to occur. And it was going to be directly relevant to our story – because one of our stories was about the dangers of the ice wall. We knew we couldn’t make one film and we didn’t know what material we would have to make the new film. When the Avalanche happened we had no idea what was going to on in the mountain, we just kept filming.

After the clash of the cultures that occurred when the emotion of the Sherpas transformed into anger and a real sense of injustice and a desire to seize back control of the mountain, we knew we had a different story and a much more powerful one on which to hang the things we had originally wanted to discuss.

You also worked on Touching the Void and 127 Hours, what is it that makes you want to produce films that focus on human endeavor and challenge?

You’ve sort of answered the question there when you talk about “human endeavor”. I’m fascinated when people are pushed to the limit, and beyond. It may be the incredible challenge of climbing a mountain, it may be the incredible survival skills shown by Jeff Simpson (the guy from Touching the Void) or Aaron Ralston – the real life man portrayed in 127 Hours). At the end of the day I regard myself as a storyteller; it’s about amazing stories. There is an intense human interest because it’s all about the human condition. SHERPA was a different film in some respects but it was about the most incredible clash of the cultures and a huge tragedy with devastating personal consequences in the most dramatic and iconic of places: the tallest mountain in the world. I’m not really interested in the standard extreme sports films, I want fantastic stories.

What are the specifics of your role in the piece?

Jen, the director, approached me because she had seen Touching the Void and because I was experienced in doing Theatrical Documentary. Producing can mean many things, and in this case I was more of a Creative Producer. Theatrical Documentaries are very different from say, TV ones. It’s got to work on a big screen and feel like a big documentary. The whole point of theatrical is that you’re filling a movie theatre. So the director wanted support on that and secondly, you’ve got to raise finance so I was involved in bringing on Universal.

Are you ever tempted to undertake these challenges!

I don’t actually enjoy heights which is the funny thing! I’ve been to some extreme places but I’m not a climber or a mountaineer – though I do love being in the mountains. I’m not an extreme sportsman I just find it a fascinating story area – Scott and Shackleton or Mallory have always fascinated me. My interest is always as a storyteller.

SHERPA releases in cinemas now and will be broadcast globally on Discovery in 2016. Find listings at www.sherpafilm.com

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A Bigger Splash

The British Film Institute have just wrapped up their 59^th London Film Festival and it didn’t disappoint: it’s the UK’s largest public film event with 240 films from 72 countries shown – including a premiere of Danny Boyle’s new biopic Steve Jobs – and it all finished with a high profile awards ceremony at Whitehall’s Banqueting House with guests such as Martin Freeman, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Ian McKellen (who presented the BFI’s fellowship award to Cate Blanchett) in attendance.

Wonderland didn’t miss the opportunity to take full advantage of the festival being on our doorstep, and we managed to catch more films in the past week than some manage in a year. Highlights for us were the coming of age drama Petting Zoo – watch out for Devon Keller as she’s sure to go onto big things after this breakout role – and devastating Holocaust drama Son of Saul, which is a harrowing portrait of one man’s experience of the Final Solution. Also a standout was Official Competition Winner Chevalier, a dryly amusing study of competitive masculinities that concerns six men embarking on a series of challenges whilst stuck on a boat.

Chevalier 

Son of Saul

The long standing Sutherland Award (which is presented to the director of the most original and imaginative first feature in the Festival) was won by Robert Egger, whose 17^th century piece, The Witch, is a chilling and intelligent take on the horror film that takes place in Puritanical New England and confronts the gender implications of the witchcraft mythology. The Documentary competition winner meanwhile, was Sherpa, directed by Jennifer Peedom, which explores the lives and families of the Sherpas and, in the words of the Competition Jury, leaves us “with an appreciation of the sacrifices the Sherpa community has made for over six decades.”

Sherpa

The BFI’s work is always positive, creative and important, so it was wonderful to see that this year’s London Film Festival represented the best of what the Institute does: finding and rewarding unique and exciting filmmaking. If, for some unfortunate reason, you didn’t manage to get to any of the showings this year, make sure you head to the BFI website (or their Southbank building in London) to find out more about what you missed and what to get excited about next.

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The British Film Institute at Southbank is always a must-visit for cinephiles (not to mention they have a great website full of film recommendations for those ‘what shall I watch, nothing-on-Netflix’ moments) so any Londoners should be as excited as we are that the 59^th BFI London Film Festival starts today. It’ll run till the 18^th October, will show 240 films from 17 countries and features a huge range of cinema, from delicately poised arthouse to subversive documentaries and everything in between – so there really is no excuse not to see something. To help you choose, Wonderland present our top picks, but check the BFI for full listings.

Petting Zoo

Micag Magee gives us a filmic bildungsroman set in Texas that shows the state less as the lush, sun washed idyll that we sometimes see on screen, and more as a scorched, rusted world of trailer-parks and tricky decisions. Newcomer Devon Keller shines as a senior-schooler who must grow up quicker than expected when she falls pregnant in this languid, observational picture.

PETTING ZOO (2015) by Micah Magee [trailer] from Richard Lormand on Vimeo.

A Bigger Splash

Loosely based on 1969’s La Pisicne, which features a classic performance from the impossibly suave and attractive Alain Deloin (seriously, have a Google), A Bigger Splash stars Wonderland favourite Tilda Swindon alongside the legendary Ralph Fiennes. It’s a unique and deeply psychological film that is part black comedy and part erotic-thriller: unpredictable, sexy and steaming, this is Luca Gaudagnino follow-up to his previous collaboration with Swindon, I am Love.

Sunset Song

Terrence Davie’s adaptation of Sunset Song – a 1932 novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon often considered to be a 20^th century classic of Scottish literature – is a big, brave drama about family tragedy set just before the first world war. It’s a lavish epic full of lush cinematography and has a grandeur of scale that is fitting for such an iconic novel.

Brooklyn

An American-cinema mainstay, the immigrant tale, is given a fresh spin in this story of an Irishwoman (Saoirse Ronan) who undertakes the journey to America on her own. A sweet and touching film that’s just the right side of corny, Ronan’s performance in particular is worth the price of admission.

High Rise

Tumblr-hero and impossibly-nice-guy Tom Hiddleston stars in this exploration of class and anarchy that is set in a brutalist apartment-tower designed and presided over by an architect played by veteran thespian Jeremy Irons. Visually impressive, High Rise is a worthy addition to an illustrious line of British dystopian pictures that includes A Clockwork Orange.

Evolution

A contender for the Best Picture category at the festival, this poetic film by French director Lucile Hadžihalilović follows a young boy who makes an unsettling discovery on the island he calls home. The vastness and the symbolic depth of the ocean has always made it a powerful motif in literature and film, and the neo-surrealist flourishes of Evolution are an important contribution to that tradition.

Desierto

The Mexican-American border has long proved fertile ground for filmmakers, particularly in the Western context – Tommy Lee-Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) is a lesser known picture that makes wonderful use of that controversial and racially-charged border. In Desierto, Jonás Cuarón creates a thriller of astonishing tension that sees immigrants pursued by a racist and murderous vigilante: terrifying and tragic, the director’s sophomore effort is a must-see.

The BFI London Film Festival runs from the 7th-18th October

Words: Benji Walters

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(1) Celeste and Jesse Forever

Rashida Jones of Parks & Recreation and Saturday Night Live regular Andy Samberg star as a young married couple going through a divorce – but a couple that just so happens to live in the same house. Still. Co-written by Jones, the film is filled with intelligent, witty dialogue, complete with cringeworthy scenes familiar to anybody who’s ever been in a relationship that just won’t die.

(2) Everybody has a Plan

A Spanish-language identity thriller with Lord of the Rings actor Viggo Mortensen pulling double duty as identical twin brothers. Agustin feels trapped in his marriage and suddenly announces to his wife that he wants nothing more to do with their plans to adopt. Soon after, his twin Pedro turns up, and tells him that he is terminally ill with cancer. Realising that they’re each unhappy in their respective lives, they devise a plan to swap identities – but Agustin unintentionally becomes embroiled in Pedro’s criminal world. A riveting, modern take on the film noir genre.

(3) Great Expectations

Does anyone do ‘slightly unhinged’ better than Helena Bonham Carter? As Miss Havisham in the latest film adaptation of Dickens’ Great Expectations, the actress leads a cast of fine British acting talent, many of whom have are no stranger to the Harry Potter franchise themselves. Jeremy Irons stars as Pip, the orphan boy who receives a large sum of money from an anonymous benefactor and moves to London to live as a gentleman.

(4) Ginger & Rosa

Inseparable BFFs Ginger and Rosa were born on the same day and at 17, are tumbling towards adulthood in drizzly 1960s London. Ginger (Elle Fanning) turns political activist while Rosa (newcomer Alice Englert) gets involved with Ginger’s father. A cast of accomplished, familiar faces (Christina Hendricks, Annette Bening) guide the girls through their tumultuous time of self-discovery. Watch out for a star turn by the young Fanning, who gamely adopts an English accent.

(5) Amour

Winner of this year’s Palm d’Or award, Amour is a riveting, intimate portrayal of unconditional affection and heartfelt warmth that had Cannes audiences sobbing into their Riveria sleeves. Georges (Trintignant) does his best to support his wife Anne (Riva) when she suffers a stroke that leaves her partly paralysed and speechless, clinging onto a love that is fast deteriorating with Anne’s health. Bring tissues.

(6) Seven Psychopaths

In Martin McDonagh’s follow up to the hilariously profane In Bruges, the director re-enlists Colin Farrell to play screenwriter Marty, who accidentally gets entangled in an LA dognapping crime ring, led by his best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) and Hans (Christopher Walken). Expect expletive-laden hijinks from razor-sharp writer McDonagh – and if that isn’t enough to convince you, Tom Waits makes a surprise cameo (but we’re not giving you any hints on this one).

(7) The Hunt

Set in a close-knit community in Denmark, Mads Mikkelsen stars in his Cannes award-winning portrayal of a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of abusing children. As the lie spreads, everyone turns on Lucas in 21st century Crucible-style hysteria. Mikkelsen’s superbly nuanced performance shows that he’s more than just your regular Bond villain.

For more information about films and showtimes, visit www.bfi.org.uk/lff.

Words: Ellen Falconer

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