Buy the SONG OF SONGS DVD...

SONG OF SONGS is now available internationally on DVD.

BUY IT at www.songofsongsmovie.com Extras include my new short Ex Memoria.

Enjoy the blog!

Josh Appignanesi, Director SONG OF SONGS

In the UK you can also buy the UK version of the disc, distributed by Soda Pictures.

Jerusalem Film Festival - and War

War has broken out. I was in Jerusalem for the film festival presenting Song Of Songs. My first time in Israel, and I really managed to pick the date. The week since I have been back in London, the extent of the awfulness of violence on all sides is becoming more apparent day by day.

There’s really not a lot to say that hasn’t been said better, one way or another, by thousands of commentators. It’s hard for me to say much about it except by way of small and strange details. In Tel Aviv on my way to Jerusalem, a few days before the hostilities broke out in the north, I was put up by Michal Boganim, a talented documentary filmmaker (see her film Odessa Odessa). We went to the beach, but when I was about to cool myself in the waters, she told me about their little ‘problem’: suicidal jellyfish that wash up on the beach each year. With some irony, I asked whether they were Palestinian jellies. It seemed an omen of worse to come, something compounded by the fact that usually the medusae appear on the first of Av, the month of the solar/lunar Jewish calendar – a time associated with mourning and the destruction of the temples. This year, however, they’d come early.

Michal with the Jellyfish...

Jerusalem is an incredibly beautiful and troubling place, deeply diverse and scarred with a moral seriousness like nowhere else. I hadn’t realised how physically apparent the political and historical and religious lines of contestation were, overlaying each other horizontally and vertically. Everything and everyone you read about in the news is there, cheek by jowl, jostling for position, in the same few square miles, visible all at once from one of the hills or towers.

Blood moon rising over the cinematheque...

The festival was fantastic, with the matter-of-fact treatment of everyone as equals that is the hallmark of Israeli life. They showed the film twice. I’d been a little afraid of the reaction, particularly from the religious. But people were extremely engaged, challenged by the film and challenging in their questions.

Namedropping: at one party I chatted with Roman Polanski, and I’m sure my attempt at the aforementioned Israeli aplomb was entirely unconvincing. I found him to be a fellow back sufferer, and he gave me the number of his physio in Paris.

Lia van Leer is a superwoman, running this festival in tough conditions year after year. I think she’s in her 80s now and shows no signs of flagging. It’s an important festival for Israel and for Jews internationally. Above all they showcase politically engaged and challenging features and documentaries from diverse voices – Israeli and Palestinian and beyond - which might not otherwise get heard. The sad thing is that this year, after the withdrawal from Gaza, more tourists and more filmmakers were starting to return to the festival. There was a real optimism. But in the mere matter of days that I attended, things have radically changed for the worse.

Pic - producer Gayle Griffiths witnesses violence in the Old City. Luckily it's only between 6 year olds.

Red Road wins Jury Prize at Cannes

So Andrea Arnold's debut Red Road wins the Jury Prize at Cannes. Very well deserved, too.

I sneaked in to the competition screening with Nicolas Chaudeurge, the editor who cut Song Of Songs. Nicolas also cut Red Road and Andrea's Oscar winning short Wasp, which first brought Natalie Press to everyone's attention, including mine.

A competition opening screening is a big deal at Cannes. Somehow I ended up in their limo with all the gawpers crowding the steel barriers trying to see if we were famous. Then up the red carpet, completely vicarious of course, and very exciting.

It's all taken insanely seriously. There's some kind of scary military guard up the steps of the red carpet. Everyone is in monkey suits. Missy Elliott or something booms out of the speakers. Thousands of onlookers. My ratty little bow-tie kept sliding off. The French really, really take their Culture seriously and they are making sure everyone knows it. It's war out there. And Natalie Press wore a fantastic frock.

The film is great and I recommend you see it. Afterward the tuxedoed audience did this much deserved but slightly weird standing ovation with rhythmic clapping. Bam, bam, bam. After about 5 minutes it became slightly sinister. I didn't know how to stop them, or if the filmmakers were likely to be sacrificed. Go see that film. It's tender and moving and true.

I ended up at a nightclub where I drunkenly asked Marilyn Manson if he was Jewish. He said he didn't think so, which is an intelligent way of answering no to that question, especially if you have some Polish in you.

Natalie's frock.
Some of you in the British industry may be amused by this picture of Paul Trijbits, head of the Film Council's New Cinema Fund, accompanied by his own private red carpet army.

Cannes screenings

Song Of Songs screened tonight in Cannes, in an out-of-festival sidebar called ACID - the French association of directors. They show 9 films at Cannes, primarily to French press and distributors to gain distribution for interesting films in France. Very nice to be invited to Cannes particularly when the film has been doing festivals for over 6 months already!

Natalie Press was here for the screening. She's also here to promote Red Road, Andrea Arnold's first feature which is in competition at Cannes.

At the end of the screening we did the Q&A together - in broken but enthusiastic French. The audience really responded to the film with the thoughtful critical approach and seriousness that any director might hope for. The French have their own language and approach to film, highly cultivated, and it's quite flattering to be seen in that light. They tend to look for meaning, which in a rather 'literary' like Song Of Songs is not a bad thing, since we constructed the film to lend itself to interpretation rather than close it down.

Here's Natalie Press and Producer Gayle Griffiths with me. Oren Nataf, the director who invited the film to screen here, stands to the right with a nice beard.

Cannes is a freakshow, the only place where the most disparate worlds of film all come together at once and utterly fail to understand each other. Tourist gawpers, Riviera rich from St Tropez with surgically-enhanced everything, right-wing Cannes divorcees with blue rinses, film businessmen on yachts setting up $80m finance vehicles with sandra bullock that go straight to video in non-US territories, and of course, the arthouse mavens driving the thing forward with their near-fascistic insistence on the importance of Kultur, etc etc etc. In the last 24 hours I've been caught in the middle of at least 3 of the above, trying to act as translator between mutually incomprehending entities... and failing.

I'm constantly reminded that Cannes is not about seeing, it's about being seen. Had lunch with a guy called Ariel Wizman in a fancy beach side restaurant. We had a nice conversation about Emmanuel Levinas, the French Philosopher, who it turned out he knew well as a child. People kept taking pictures of us - there are film crews everywhere here, filming everything - the image eating itself. In fact here was a reason, it was revealed that Ariel is a big TV presenter in France. Here's a pic.

I asked him how he squared the teachings of Levinas with his celebrity. Which was nice. Cannes, as I think I mentioned, is a freakshow. I can only hope I never get used to it.

UK Theatrical Release

Song Of Songs opened theatrically last Friday at the ICA cinema in central London. It's going to be playing there for 2 weeks as well as dates in some North London screens. Then it tours other cities. Soda Pictures are distributing in the UK.

Natalie Press and Joel Chalfen took questions with me after the screening. They've been great in supporting the film come what may. It was very exciting to have our first non-festival audience - 'real' punters. The ICA is one of very few places in the UK still taking a chance on world cinema, truly independent films and so on, so it's good to have been a part of that.

The press has started to roll in and it's been very good. The British press sometimes savage home-grown arthouse but they've been decent with us.

We were a little worried about the Jewish press too, since like most minorities their press can be a little on the conservative side and it's a somewhat controversial film with the religious and sexual themes. But they were fair too. I think we've gotten away with it.

And for those who enjoy the sharp end, a producer friend Mia Bays tells me our screen average was as good as Sympathy For Lady Vengeance - the new Park Chan-Wook film. Admittedly our screen average was only from the one screen...

Rotterdammerung

My understanding of European identity politics in general is based mostly on quips made by taxi drivers ferrying me between cinemas. According to Rotterdam's cabbies, Holland's liberal dream is imploding there under its own weight, in one version of the same thing happening across western Europe. Apparently there's a new social program here to send (largely non-white) criminal and disaffected youth to the Army to teach them discipline.

It's one version of things perhaps. The taxi drivers here are better informed than in London, perhaps, though I think Berlin's cabbies probably have the edge. Everywhere, the job seems to breed prejudice and compassion in equal measure.

Song Of Songs played in main competition at Rotterdam, the Tiger Awards. Our first international outing. It showed to rammed 600 seat screens on four separate occassions. The size of the screens was daunting. Blowing up digital video that big and having it look good didn't seem possible. But Nanu Segal's cinematography really held up. The 35mm grain blew up incredibly large and noisy and it was big and stark and austere and it just worked.

The audiences were diverse and respondive. You can tell an audience is interested in a film when over half of them stay for the Q&A. Other people watching your film is always a somewhat distancing process and often a depressing one. So it's unexpected and wonderful when people see interesting things in the film that you never could have seen yourself.

There seemed to be a reasonably large Jewish contingent, though apparently the big Jewish communities are in Amsterdam and Utrecht. Though these are close by train.

The festival is in many ways the ideal filmmakers festival. No stars, no red carpets, no posturing, though you still get to party all night if you're so inclined. It's all about new, first and second time filmmakers with an emphasis on film from developing countries. Great festival and incredibly well organised by Sandra Den Hamer. I'd always fantasised about an intelligent committed filmmaking industry existing in Europe, and was just waiting for Song Of Songs to get out there so I could have a look for myself. I found plenty of evidence for it in several people I made friends with at the Cinemart, the marketplace for new productions that runs alongside the festival proper. I'll likely be back...

Edinburgh Win!

We just won a Special Commendation from the jury at Edinburgh film festival. A sort of runner-up to the main prize of Best British film. Michael Kuhn awarded it for the film's 'wonderful artistic qualities.' So that was nice.

What made it doubly good was I'd just been handed the Sunday papers on the way into the ceremony. Gayle (the producer) pointed out Jason Solomon's review in The Observer. "This is the one I've been waiting for," the headline boomed. "A bold new voice in British Cinema," etc. A rictus like grin spread over my face, to remain there all day. Older, vastly more experienced directors said things like "It doesn;'t get better than this," and "it's downhill from here, kid."

In short we were all very pleased. Edinburgh has given Song Of Songs a future.

Blogging is weird

I'm not sure about doing a film blog. I'm not sure about blogs in general. Sure, democratisation and free speech and all that. But I can't help feeling it's also part of the encroaching capitalisation of all speech forms. Most bloggers are trying to get something 'else' out of the blog - renown, a job, DVD sales for their new film. It's the branding of the intimate. Diary as marketplace.

And as for freedom, while I am happy to share some interesting experiences with a public audience, I make sure do it while mentioning web marketing keywords like film, arthouse, Natalie Press, Josh Appignanesi, Jewish, Edinburgh, Cannes, Rotterdam, winner, film festival, etc etc. (Yes, I would like you to see my film. OK that's clear, I'll move on... )

it's a wrap

We've finished shooting Song Of Songs. The experience was gruelling and vertiginous and wonderful by turns. I'm glad to have gotten through it. There's some strong acting and nice shots in the rushes, and we shot everything we set out to shoot. Beyond that i'm not sure exactly how it went. We'll see editor Nicolas Chaudeurge's assembly cut in a week or so... think I'll sleep til then.