Some images captured at the Festival…before my camera swallows them forever due to the odd fausse manip’.
Carabinieri and Polizia, yet another protocol.
Sweeping it under the carpet, Italian style?
Renzo Piano’s three lead cupolas, bening fairies around the Festival’s crib…
Impressionist Carabinieri.
Sakuran by Mika Ninagawa opened the Focus selection at the Festival del Cinema di Roma on Friday. The movie debut was at the 2007 Berlinale and Gaia Morrione – the curator of Focus – chose this film for opening the spectrum of the Japanese retrospective which spans from Rashomon to Porco Rosso. Presenting the movie on stage, Ninagawa illustrated how the roots of Sakuran bathe in manga culture.
I didn’t know anything about the movie and all I had read was a hint of the plot. I expected a typical “Eve against Eve” crêpage de chignon situation, but with Oiran bathed in magnificent costumes and Japanese esthetics instead of belle époque or hollywood backdrops. It was much more than that!
From the first frames I was plunged in a full Almodovarian universe – violent primary colors, raucous women fighting against each other in the best movida tradition, and irony! If you expected some sanitized sushi aesthetics, forget about it, here it’s about hearty tonkatsu filling your visual stomach!
Anna Tsuchiya has the insolence of a Japanese Christina Ricci and her character, Kiyoha is both stubborn and slouchy. The reconstruction of 18th century Japan has the irony and humor seen in Takeshi Kitano, and in the Tokyo’s Yoshiwara pleasure district we feel at home, in the Atame! apartment and in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin rouge.
Childhood flashbacks have muted and pastel tones, with scenes remembering the more classic Japanese period filmography, mixed in with some Ingrès suggestions (take the furo gynecée scenes). Utamaro‘s prints textile and sexual intricacies take central stage during the girl’s apprenticeship in the pleasure quarter. Primary colours shout louder and louder and the movie dives in its full chromatic force as the little girl becomes Kiyoha and then a courtesan, an Oiran, after a self-contained, perfectly gory cameo reminiscent of Hana Bi.
The movie is a visual feast, and Ringo Shiina’s Heisei Fuzoku soundtrack mirrors this abundance, with rock, pop and big band sounds thrown in as a communication code devised to share the emotional state of our heroine, climbing from ingénue to absolute celebrity like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.
But this is a love story, and a happy end one!
Well how was it? Potentially awesome.
The DJ set was extraordinary. The magnetic power of DJ Krush got us with our eyes and ears glued to the man’s hands – we are pretty sure there was a small dose of Sly Mongoose too in his mix. Very elaborated and with sudden breaks of silence – pure poetry interspersed with manga visuals.
Then Martux_M put the concrete walls of MAXXI in motion.
I know how it feels in your stomach when an oil tanker engine is being tested inside the factory. Pistons pump, the camshaft is a giant clockwork and the rhythmic thunder is such that you feel that the whole engine may move forward any moment. With the powerful Forbidden colours industrial remix it looked like the whole MAXXI staircases may collapse and fall down!
When we looked around us what did we see? Nobody dancing, people trying to put up a sort of an attitude, girls in little black dresses (oh my gggawd!!) which could look right in a formal corporate dinner and men with angular frames trying to look blasé. But they were so boring. And half our age on average.
Thanks god there was a cosplay group, sporting colors and glorious manga outfits. I didn’t feel alone with my Hendrix-meets-rising-sun uniform and Captain Harlock hair. At last someone who was trying to have a great time in a anime-style party!
The video installation by Iraci was evocative and oniric, the location was an ideal backdrop: the MAXXI is Capitan Harlock starship Arcadia! The sinister/funny Gino De Dominics oeuvres got a Akihabara twist under the beams of light.
So yes everything felt very contemporary and awesome. Except the people. The Focus crew created an outstanding event and did an excellent job in putting Rome in the middle of something, mixing all the right ingredients. But people is the ingredient that the art directors cannot influence. A part from the Japanese and the gay component who were the only ones who tuned in and followed the rhythm.
That’s the problem in Rome. People never let themselves go. Call it being cynical, or social conscious (but in a petit-bourgeois, little-black-dress way). I call it plain conformist, afraid of “e se poi faccio una brutta figura?”. Jeez, who cares…did you come here to collect some sort of social points or to have a good time?
So the event could have been awesome, but most of its the potential did not unfold. The aftertaste was one of wasted art, music and effort. The atmosphere wasn’t simply there. There was no energy. It was like being among the living dead.
That’s why we love Berlin. Berlin ist spontan.
The opening of the fifth edition of the International Rome Film Festival will be framed by innovative and spectacular forms created by Zaha Hadid for the Maxxi. The National Museum of the 21st Century Arts will be hosting a guest night entitled “The Empire of signs”, characterized by performances, music, and videoinstallations realized by the Focus section, which this year turns its spotlight on Japan. The evening will see the presence of Dj Krush and of pianist Chihiro Yamanaka, who will be playing electronic music and jazz, while Dj Krush, Yori Suzuki and Martum_m will be projected on a screen made of tulle. Three Oiran models (Japanese courtiers) will be performing under the direction of artist Junko Koshino. Stefano Iraci’s screenings will be projected on an installation of mirrored – film installation. Several Japanese chefs will be demonstrating the best way to prepare sushi, while guests enjoy their sushi buffet.
Photos: all StripedCat as usual except anime by animenewsnetwork.com
The 5th Festival Internazionale del cinema di Roma will start tomorrow. Our friend Gaia invited us today to the inauguration of Mika Ninagawa’s photographic exhibition. For the Occhio sul Mondo/Focus selection Gaia selected this year Japan, one of my favourite obsessions!
Ninagawa’s photos are magnificent, chatoyantes and beautifully installed. And it was fun to be surrounded by Japanese women, so elegant and quirky at the same time! A small portion of Omotesando was tonight at Renzo Piano’s Auditorium.
I miss Tokyo. It’s been a couple of years now since my latest late-night jet-lag food hunts in Hanzomon. Those quiet promenades across Meguro after work. Or the orderly crazyness of the Ginza underground line and those orderly swipes of my Pasmo card. And I miss tonkatsu at Marunouchi.
Back to Rome, It was nice to see many people – Gaia included – putting the finishing touches to the Festival, be them a call with the press or nails to boards and posters on the walls. A feeling of things taking shape in the cold night, the wind from the north having just embraced Rome like a winter coat.
The red carpet is magnificent with a glorious bamboo and flower installation by Ninagawa. Actually I shot plenty of pictures but for some reason the files got corrupted…so you will have to trust me.
Tomorrow night the Festival opens at Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI – the most Tokyoïte of Rome spaces with Junko Koshino, Hiroyuki Nakano, Chihiro Yamanaka. Spinning the records there will be Dj Krush, Martux_M, Dj Manga. Stefano Iraci will be nursing the videoinstallations and Cliche’ will take care of the video art.
Will the atmosphere be of true commitment in having a great time, like in the best Tokyo parties (read: lots of alcohol, cigarettes and dancing like there’s no tomorrow) or buttoned-up and blasée as usual in Rome?
Photo – ©mika ninagawa Model: Anna Tsuchiya
Rinascente department store, Sunday morning. Outside temperature 25*C. Inside temperature: Santa Klaus. Something didn’t feel quite right. I immediately left the premises, my shopping istantly re-routed to the external garden shop – somehow buying a small lemon tree made more sense to me.
Summer is lazily loosing ground. The first starlings are zooming in the sky above the Tiber at about 5.45 each evening – the ambassadors of Winter are here presenting their credentials – but plants on the balcony keep on blossoming enjoying the sun, after enduring it.
Our closets are like pre-89 Berlin: a contradictory space where light jackets and coats, sock-less loafers and 50 DEN collants, woollen scarves and sunglasses live side by side in parallel. Two meteorological systems co-existing in the same cramped territory, two clothing ideologies facing each other across a no-man’s-land: viscose…
Time for a photographic round-up of Summer’s slow fall in Rome. Enter Early September, a sea of clouds storming in the sunset around an urban lighthouse, the hospital’s tower in our Roman neighborhood.
A Tiber veduta at sunset, on a mid-October night. Grand Tour cold and warm hues, Flemish palette and Roman indifference. Everything goes.
Last week, 8.00 in the morning, going to work. Rome fights against the arrival of the cold from the north. The first snow on the Appennines (where the hell is my scarf?).
On a sunny Sunday morning MAXXI Godzilla pays its concrete tribute to Rome, bowing to the ochre oldies.
A Thursday night in October, rushing past the Ara Pacis on my way to a vernissage, half past six. I had to stop and stare to this sky. My Own Private Tiepolo.
Going to a vernissage in the middle of the week after work is one of the pleasures of the Fall season. Tonight my dear friend Michele invited me to join him and our mutual friend Francesca to the inauguration of Armin Linke’s exhibition “Il corpo dello Stato” at the MAXXI in Rome.
Actually it was Francesca who a couple of years ago introduced me to Linke’s œuvre. One of my favourite photographic books is Linke‘s “book on demand”, which features cherry-picked photos of my beloved cities: Rome, Berlin and Trieste in between.
The exhibition unveils the hidden sacred spaces of this double-headed capital, Rome. Photos of the Quirinale, the Senate, Bank of Italy, the Vatican. But also of the RAI State television, the Foreign Office, the Supreme court.
The stillness of the photos reminds me those artificial boardroom landscapes created by Thomas Demand, but this times they are real. Some spaces have garish colour schemes, think salmon and peacock – true 1980s furniture nightmares. But then in a waiting room at RAI an unexpected dynamism animates a sculpture of Santa Chiara – saint of the television and media – moving and shaking in her tunic, in X-Factor style, staring inspired to an heavenly Jury.
Graphite gray and dumb glass walls dominate the control centers of the State television RAI and of the Bank of Italy minting facilities. They remind me of countless power station monitoring rooms, underground command centers and even something more disturbing – my visit to the STASI Hohenschoenhausen HQ is still very recent.
Others spaces are not angular but visually soft, plush, rich and ornate. Brocade, velvets, tapestries, porcelains, cushions, rococo, baroque, boiseries, even the words resonate with colours, textures, complex patterns and decorations.
Moquettes and rugs grow silent in the underwood of many of these palatial landscapes. Close-up, a vivid red/white intricate pattern on a carpet in StPeter’s cathedral floats like a wavy sea of thinly sliced wagyu beef. Bishops full of mercy lay face-down on it for the investiture ceremony.
David Hockney and his Californian swimming pool landscapes come to mind when facing a photograph of the former Mussolini gym at the Foro Italico, now turned conference hall. A white spiral staircase, turquoise seats, lascivious flamingo pink carpets and an ephebic bronze posing in the middle.
Rome’s Mosque designed by Portoghesi with its sea of pinstriped ocean blue moquette mimics the lanes of the Foro Italico great swimming pool. Two photos, one pattern. Full immersions.
It took Linke many months in getting permits for shooting in these hardly accessible premises, but the result is magnificent. A surreal view of Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso and Purgatorio – all those waiting rooms.
I hope I have succeeded in triggering your curiosity – the exhibition is compact but very intense. The catalogue is a gem. And the photographer is a Berliner.
Photo: jrp ringier catalogue http://www.arminlinke.com/ (and delicious wagyu beef in a Tokyo’s supermarket)
It is official. It is impossible to purchase a People’s Republic of China map in Rome. Unless you want to buy a Michelin folding driving map…
For a week after work I went every evening to a different trusted bookstore and asked for a wall map of China. The answer was always the same: “Oh we have THE WORLD, EUROPE and ITALY. Er…no…China…no we don’t have that!!”.
And my reply has been each time “Pretty Euro-centric, uh? Maybe it’s time you start thinking about stocking them…?!”. Needless to say, when I enquiry if at least they can oder one for me, the answer is “Well…not really” but they mean “We don’t serve lunatics here”.
I am sorry if I am soooo ignorant, but you know, I would find it useful to have a map on my wall detailing all provinces and main cities apart from the most well-known ones. Because you know, I am not so familiar with them. I know that Xi’an is in the Center, and Chonquing is roughly south from Chengdu. But hey, all the provincial capitals and prefecture cities are not so top of mind to me.
Having a map to look up while I’m on the phone would help me remember that Hangzhou is in the Zhejiang province. After all, the company I work for is growing the proportion of sales done in PRC quarter after quarter and this happens in many companies at the moment. The MEEEEDIA in Italy talk every day about China. It would be handy to be visually acquainted with the position of Shenyang on the map in the same way as the one of Hamburg. After all, this are what maps are for. Visual top of mindness, without having to open books or notebooks or iPads.
But maybe in Italy maps are bought for office decoration only.
I guess I will have to keep looking up my trusted “Doing business in China” book edited by The Economist for my quick checks. Having said that, it is indeed a poor country the one who is not even curious to look beyond its nose. Poor Matteo Ricci from Macerata (Marche, Italy) is turning in his grave.
BerlinRomExpress met recently with Frank Sippel, real estate entrepreneur and Swiss citizen. Sippel is the owner of Malzfabrik in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, a former Schultheiss Beer malt factory. Inaugurated in 1921, stripped of its equipment by Russian troops in 1945, the massive factory was back in operation between 1950 and 1996. Its four iconic ventilation shafts have been dominating the skyline of Tempelhof for almost a century.
Sippel bought the industrial cathedral in 2005 and over the past two years has been gradually rolling out a re-utilization and re-cycling concept. With Swiss pragmatism and respect for the genius loci of the malt factory.
BRX – that is, BerlinRomExprsess – interviewed Frank Sippel on the stairs of the Kellerei building, in the Malzfabrik courtyard. Sun, berliner luft. After all, who said CEOs should be interviewed at their desk?
BRX – Mr Sippel, you animated a visit of the Malzfabrik recently and shared with the public the industrial legend of this factory. Why did you buy it? how did this adventure start?
FS – I bought Malzfabrik 5 years ago. During ther first 3 years I observed its developments and the existing tenants – at the time there was the KitKatClub. Gradually we then started working both on a new lease concept and the actual bric-and-mortar aspects, with an eye to security and preservation. It wasn’t a massive overhaul, but a respectful refurbishment. For example, the machine hall is almost unchanged in its appearance but – compared with KitKatClub times – can now be safely used for events, concerts or presentations because it meets the security standards.
BRX – As a part-time Berliner how much time do you dedicate to the Malzfabrik?
FS – About 50% of my time. I am a real estate manager, my company is Zürich-based. But here I am a private investor. The Malzfabrik takes up to 60-70% of my time when we’re in construction phase, so in the Summer months I’m definitely here more often. Right now another building of the complex is being readapted and will be ready by October.
BRX – What is the profile of the average Malzfabrik tenant?
There are both temporary and permanent leases, big and small spaces for companies and individual artisans/entrepreneurs. We recently hosted the architecture workshop Palomar5, and across the courtyard where we are now there is a goldsmith’s atelier. The bigger spaces are leased for art exhibitions.
BRX – Switzerland being big on contemporary art, do you have links with the Basel art scene, such as the artbasel fair?
FS – Yes, I try to bring my personal influence as a Swiss citizen. So I started from my own network. At Malzfabrik there are Zürich galleries, space for exhibitions, in the Kellerei building here we have Distict but also some young and promising start-ups, like Mesami and Transporting Ideas.
BRX – The surface of the Malzfabrik is just huge, 27,000 square meters. Do you already break-even on your utility bills with the first tenants?
FS – Actually, in the future we may well be net sellers of electric power. We want to go further and develop the electric power potential of the Malzfabrik. I want to realize a unique, innovative concept, combining location management and infrastructure for the production of power from water and heat. Malzfabrik is an unique investment.
BRX – Unique, innovative…but also profitable?
FS – …ecologic. Let’s look at it on a different way. Our objective is to work out a solution responding to the needs of all the stakeholders who live and influence this space. The execution of our own electric power production project will be a function of both capacity and critical mass. Geothermal, solar and wind, we definitely could be net sellers of energy and – what matter most – carbon-neutral.
BRX – What’s your investment horizon?
FS – I designed a five-year plan. Financial and ecologic sustainability are key. As per the energy profit-and-loss, many variables are still unknown. The key is the mix of capacity and destination. We have more and more temporary and permanent leases. Yet a shoe atelier has different energy requiments and safety measures compared with a storage business. We are in the early stages. The Malzfabrik’s sheer size and the combination of business models under its roof being still a work-in-progress, we will unfold its electric power production potential as we progress with the location management.
BRX – Talking about energy, here in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough the Gazometer is now the HQ and heart of Euref – the European Energy Forum. Do you see any space for synergies between the two historical industrial heritage sites in this part of town and their new lives?
FS – Euref is a very inspiring and interesting project. Of course I cannot speak on their behalf, but I like what I’m seeing. I’ve been following the developments for the past 3 years and I’m happy to see it’s definitely happening. We would definitely like to strike a partnership with Euref, possibly at the senior partner level. I like the concept a lot.
BRX – What is the relationship between the Malzfabrik and the city of Berlin and its institutions? Is the Malzfabrik a foundation (Stiftung) or a GmbH?
FS – We are a normal real estate GmbH. We are not supported by the public sector or Berlin Partner. They do know us, recommend us as a venue for events but we do not receive funds.
Even if it’s a private investment the Malzfabrik is here in the public interest. For this reason we frequently open the doors to Berlin’s citizens. The mission is to turn this beautiful industrial heritage site into a useful project also for the city, both realistic from the financial point of view and sustainable. We do not aim at getting public money. Also because we like to retain a certain freedom of action. And I want to make a mark. Especially in Berlin.
BRX – What do you mean by making a mark in Berlin? As an entrepreneur, a Swiss citizen or both?
FS – I want to make a mark in the sense of bringing in a different mentality. It’s a matter of being realistic. A matter of hard work. I want to instill a few positive values but more importantly, share them with the city. Don’t get me wrong, Malzfabrik is not meant to be a Swiss enclave. We’re Swiss for one day (on Schwiiiiztag) but the remaining 364 days of the year are Berlin days. We should not forget that.
BRX – What kind of values do you want to share with Berlin?
FS – Sustainability. But also citizen responsibility. Citizens – be they individuals or companies – are ultimately taxpayers too.
Public funding is necessary and sometimes essential. Many good projects have arisen in Berlin in the recent years thanks to public funds. But as a citizen one needs to take responsibility for the public money.
I must say that Swiss citizens are more realistic on this matter. One cannot claim public funding for any project and ask for tax breaks. The same applies to companies. It simply doesn’t work like that, there is no free lunch. There’s always a tax payer behind public money. At the same time in Berlin there is a strong prejudice on capitalism. I don’t think that capitalism has to be a bad thing by definition.
BRX – Berlin is rich in post-industrial spaces and it’s where the squat culture and capitalism clash. There is a strong contrast in town between spontaneity and speculation, legendary squats and glossy condo developments. “Kiez” – local neighborhood spirit – and plain gentrification. Where should the Malzfabrik sit in this spectrum?
FS – It’s true. Many factories in Berlin are occupied for free still today. But none invests on them, be it public or private money. In many cases there is no plan and no future either.
Then there are these spaces which have been given a second life. But they are no longer authentic. The Kulturbrauerei in Prenzl’berg is a magnificent space, but the refurbishment has been a dash too radical. In Kreuzberg there are beautiful Höfe and in Alte Schönhauser Strasse in Mitte too but they’ve been turned in sanitized complex, glossy and elitarian. Or look at the Hackesche Höfe, definitely pretty but soulless and touristy. Pretty does not necessarily rhyme with authentic.
BRC – If your view is neither post-punk schmaltzy sentimentalism nor glossy ghetto gentrification…then what view is it?
FS – Look around you. There’s dust at Malzfabrik but no dirt. Brickwork and windows are scarred but no glass panes are missing. It is a building which lives its life – its new one – and keeps on telling a story, an authentic one, at the same time. The people who work in it are both inspired by the premises and the legend of the people who worked here over the past century. This helps in bringing their ideas into reality. This project involves a certain amount of respectful refurbishment but most of all it’s a matter of putting together a great group of people.
BRX – The Malzfabrik slogan is “For visionaries, artists, snoopies, idealists, creatives”. What’s your view on Berlin’s creativity and potential? Is the Malzfabrik a sort of incubator? …does Berlin need yet another one?
FS – Berlin is a very creative city, and there’s a lot to be done. The truth is, Berlin has a huge gap between potential and reality. Firstly, this is partially due to the lack of money, it’s not the Berliners’ fault. Secondly, size matters. Berlin is so huge and has so much empty real estate. Scale can be an issue, cost-wise. But lastly…it is also a city where people complain a lot.
Let me tell you something. I spent nights and nights on this idea over the past few years. Discussing, philosophizing until dawn with creative friends in bars in front of a glass of wine. Sharing ideas and plans for putting together a concept for Malzfabrik, but one which could actually work. It takes careful planning, a certain amount of time and a lot of discipline.
Berlin is the city where everyone has a concept. But most of the times it’s never turned into reality. This leads to frustration. You need to walk the talk, do it. Then you can talk about it. Just having concepts and complaining won’t do the trick but only produce more frustration. This is why I want to bring a lot of change and initiatives who can live together under the roof of Malzfabrik.
BRX – …is Malzfabrik going to be hip?
FS – I hope this place will never be hip. Hip places – or neighborhoods – are just shooting stars which go dark fast. Malzfabrik has always been here. It has to remain a very local presence and a sustainable one. It’s got to be useful. And interesting. And inspiring. A good place. ♦
Photos: StripedCat
More info on http://www.malzfabrik.de
