33rd Créteil Films de Femmes Film Festival, Report 2

By Moira Sullivan

At the 33rd Créteil Films de Femmes Film Festival, the daughters of Italian film editor Suso D’Amico were present at a special screening of La Notti Bianche (The White Nights, 1957), by Luchino Visconti. The film that was written and edited by D’Amico stars Marcello Mastroianni as Mario, a young man hopelessly in love with Natalia, a young Italian woman played by Maria Schell. She has waited one year for her lover to return, "L'inquilino" - the tenant, played by Jean Marais, and is desperately in love. 

D'Amico, Jackie Buet, director of Créteil festival  ©Moira Sullivan

Pilar Miro's The Cuenca Crime (Spain 1980) was screened at the festival about the shepherd Grimaldos who was murdered at the turn of the century. Two of his workers are falsely accused of his death by the police and a corrupt judge and are tortured for committing this crime. The men who are savagely broken down and made out to be savages.

Maria Schneider 2001© Moira Sullivan

The late actress Maria Schneider was honored on March 29^th with a short tribute. A short film from 2005 and an interview when she was the guest of honor at Créteil in 2001 was screened. Due to the marketing power of the distributors of Last Tango in Paris, the film was widely seen, and indeed the only film that journalists wrote about after her early death. But Schneider’s career went on after her debut in a film that she did not like. Last Tango can also be seen as a fascist expose about the tyranny of power in human relationships where the 19-year-old Jeanne played by Schneider endures a series of physical and emotional assaults by the sadist Paul, played by Marlon Brando. As Schneider said "shooting Paul did me good". Her choices after being cast in Last Tango were wise, and she resisted Lolita roles offered to her by directors such as Luis Bunuel and Joseph Losey. 

Next week, more from the Créteil festival.

For Movie Magazine this is Moira Sullivan, Paris. 

© 2011 - Moira Sullivan - Air Date: 04/04/11

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