THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 84 SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
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Oldenburg
Film Fest5 FESTIVAL ODDBALLS
NOT TO MISS
A German Western, Spanish sci-fi and
a MAGA drama are among the
highlights of the eclectic lineupADAMSTOWN
If Wes Anderson adapted a German comic
book about a Wild West town filled with
talking animals and then cast amateur
actors — many of them recent refugees —
to play the leading roles, the result might
look something like Patrick Merz and
Henning Wötzel-Herber’s Adamstown.
Oh, and it’s a musical, too.JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO
THE HIGHWAY
The world’s first Estonian-Ethiopian co-
production is billed, by its Spanish-born
director, Miguel Llansó, as a “WTF thriller.”
With a plot that includes CIA agents
sporting Robert Redford and Richard
Pryor face masks, a giant death ray and
the second (and maybe third) coming of
the Messiah, you can see his point. Think a
no-budget version of The Matrix made by
someone with unfettered access to power-
ful psychedelics.MAGNETIC PATHWAYS
Speaking of psychedelia, Portuguese
director Edgar Pêra takes off on the
ultimate bad trip in this kaleidoscopic
drama focused on a single day and night in
the life of Raymond Vachs (French cinema
legend Dominique Pinon) who endures 24
hours of humiliation during his daughter’s
wedding as the city around him begins to
collapse, as if in tune with the unraveling
of his own internal convictions.CUCK
In his debut feature, Rob Lambert finds
empathy for one of the nastiest expres-
sions of Trump’s MAGA America, in a story
of an angry, unemployed loser (Zachary
Ray Sherman) — stuck caring for his ailing
mother (Sally Kirkland) — who is drawn
into the world of online extremism.IN FULL BLOOM
This tale of a down-and-out boxer given
one last shot against the reigning champ
is fairly standard, Rocky-style stuff. The
twist is the setting: post-World War II
Japan, with the pugilists — a punch-drunk
American and the reigning Japanese
champion — standing in for the opposing
factions of the New World Order. — S.R.Oldenburg Embraces the
Underdog In a tentpole-dominated
world, the iconoclastic fest doubles
down on its outsider status By Scott Roxborough
1T
he Marvel bubble has to pop
eventually, doesn’t it?” jokes
Torsten Neumann, direc-
tor of the Oldenburg Film Festival.
“People have to eventually get tired of
seeing the same films over and over.
Don’t they?”
Neumann, truth be told, is not so sure. For
the past quarter century, the bald, bespec-
tacled cinema obsessive has been bringing the
world’s oddest, most provocative and blatantly
bizarre movies to a small city in the middle of
nowheresville in northern Germany.
But as Neumann puts the final touches
on the 26th edition of the fest, which runs
Sept. 11 to 15, he’s finding less and less cross-
over between the eccentric world of old-school
indie cinema and a commercial film industry
increasingly focused on a handful of studio
tentpoles and a smattering of “feel-good
mainstream” indie movies.
“Even at the big art house film festivals, you
see the same dozen or so movies. There is less
and less space for innovation, for the avant-
garde, for cinema that doesn’t fit into easy
categories,” Neumann says.
Paul Iacovou, a producer of the documentary
The Ghost of Peter Sellers, which is screening
at Oldenburg this year, agrees. “All the risk
is being taken out of the industry — every
decision is being
backed up by data,
by keywords and
algorithms,” he says.
“Removing all risk is
a dangerous thing in
any creative field.”
Instead of giving in
to the mainstream,
for his 26th fest,Neumann is doubling down on the
weird. His 2019 edition features a
typically genre-smashing lineup of
impossible-to-classify titles such
as Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ Swallow,
a psychodrama about a newly
pregnant housewife compelled to consume
dangerous objects; MOOP, a docu-fantasy-
romantic-drama hybrid from director Arin
Crumley; and Jeffrey McHale’s You Don’t Nomi,
a documentary aimed
at redeeming Paul
Verhoeven’s t ra shy
1995 flop Showgirls
and establish-
ing it as a modern
cinema classic.
To help drive the fest’s emphasis on experi-
mentation, Oldenburg this year has unveiled
two new awards: a debut feature prize aimed
at supporting new voices, and an “Audacity
Award,” meant to honor a work of cinema that
pushes the boundaries between genre cinema
and the avant-garde.
“Audacious” is what some might call
Neumann’s ardent support of low-budget
obscurities in a world dominated by superhe-
roes and streamers, but the iconoclastic fest
director doesn’t see it that way.
“It might seem contradictory, given how
difficult things have become for the indepen-
dents,” he says, “but I think this is exactly the
right moment — just as the studios consoli-
date and the streaming companies with their
algorithms are narrowing the range of what
everyone is watching — for indie cinema to
reinvent itself.”Oldenburg
Film Festival
Sept. 11-15
Oldenburgisches
Staatstheater1 Swallow, from director Carlo Mirabella-Davis.
2 MOOP, directed by Arin Crumley.
3 Jeffrey McHale’s You Don’t Nomi.23