Once Upon A Time In Izola

text by Paolo Bernardi

The countdown has already started. You have time till Saturday before the high noon train comes. While waiting you should keep your target within range and be ready to shoot. But keep your Colts in the pocket - in this case your mobile phones will be more useful, because the Man coming from far away is not Frank Miller but Christopher Coppola. The Idea of PAH-FEST is not new at all, neither original. Some years ago those young Frenchmen from Les Cahiers had already spoken about liberation from traditional cinema, labelling it »Le Cinema du Papa«. They started to »desecrate« the camera, using it as a pen, putting it on the street, making it skate - they decided to move it down from the tripod (symbol of the motionless of a shooting style, and also of the motionless of a system allowing few people to express themselves) towards »real« life. These were the foundations, but PAH-FEST goes beyond.

We need another shock... and Coppola's got it. He is not Frank Miller, ok, but he can be as bad as The Bad Lee Van Cleef. His dream could be summarized as »The Man without the Movie Camera«, a world where everybody can tell a story. How can it happen? It is simple, he's cancelling the interface: not only profaning and humiliating the camera but also destroying it, deleting it from the shooting process. The interface exists (it has to, after all) but it is something so close to us we can consider it as our fifth limb: the mobile phone. Coppola trasforms us into a giant camera. We lie completely outside »Hollywood« topics (PAH stands for Project Accessible Hollywood but could mean Project Anti Hollywood)... on the other side of the river. But this idea raises some questions. Is it correct that everyone can say everything and show it to everyone? Directors should have the great task of educating - and only a huge moral convinction can afford that. Are we really sure we want to watch everything? Couldn't it be dangerous? Anyway, be ready: on Saturday at noon Christopher is announcing the theme of the Izola Cell Phone Art competition. You have been warned!