THE CINEMATIC GENIUS OF BUSTER KEATON

The brilliance of 1920s cinema is that the movies were a novelty art form, there were no rules, the norm was experimentation because there was nothing to base the art form on.
The 20's saw plenty of the experimentation in camera and editing technique, outrageous performances, increasing narrative ambition was also growing just as Buster started making movies. 

Few cinematic experiences are as joyous as watching Keaton's films with fresh eyes. His incredible films during the 1920's are revelations, filled with clever social insights and, of course an array of how-did-he-just-do-that stunt work. His screen presence remains one of cinema's most poetic: the hapless everyman whose indefatigable and reckless impulsiveness remains the source of great inspiration for contemporary viewers. The moods and emotions conveyed resonate today just as they did in the early 20th century, a testament to Keaton's keen understanding of the human experience.

Cinema geek & provocateur filmmaker Fabrizio Federico lists his Top 5 Buster Keaton movies:

1. The Navigator (1924) I loved this film so much when I was a kid, especially his miniature sized cannon that he uses on the cannibals. Two socialites get stuck on a ship and have to survive. Its priceless seeing him covered in a bed sheet thrashing about looking like a ghost, plus the films also features the first underwater sequence ever filmed, which took four weeks to film due to the early technology. Because the water was too blurry under the sea they had to go to Lake Tahoe which is famous for having crystal clear water.

2. One Week (1920) This was the first film Buster directed. Inspired by a documentary he saw about how you could purchase a house-lot and then build your own portable home in a week. I love how with Buster you never knew what was coming next, he'd trick you into feeling secure then pull the rug from under your feet - BAM!! The way the train misses his house on the track, only for the second train coming in the other direction to smash into it, must have cracked-up those 1920's audiences with it's unpredictability.

3. Sherlock Jr. (1924) This is Buster's cult movie. A dreamlike masterpiece full of early special effects and the film also works as a thesis on cinemas philosophical wisdom, of how making and watching a movie are linked. He also broke his neck on this film without even realising it until decades later. The scene where he shadows his suspect with incredible comedic timing is still one of his finest moments.

4. The Goat (1921) The gags come thick & fast in this masterpiece as Buster gets mistaken for murderer Dead Shot Dan. It's hilarious when he recognises himself in the huge mug-shot poster on the wall, his reaction is priceless, along with the clay horse falling on him, some of the humour transcends age.

Cops (1922) As his friend Fatty Arbuckle was on trial, Buster set to work on this keystone-cop's kapper which features some phenomenal on-foot chase scenes between Buster and hundreds on police extras, all chasing him down the screet, which must have been exhilarating for him to film, he was a sensational athlete. Of course he did all his own stunts which he suffered for later in life, but he was such a fast sprinter, he's like a bullet.

5. The General (1927) Based on a true story from the Civil War and filmed in Oregon.  Using real gun-powder they accidentally set fire to a forest during shooting which delayed the production. Although he was called ''The Great Stone Face'' he brings the audience into his character's pride, panic, frustration and yearning, all the while performing miraculous stunts that even Jackie Chan would envy. My fav improv bit is when he throws a piece of wood at the cannon. Between takes he would play baseball on the roof of the locomotives even knocking off his father off one of their roofs! The whole local population came from all over to watch the most expensive single shot in all the silent cinema history, the destruction of the train off the tall bridge. People even freaked out because they thought the dummy Buster put in the train drivers seat was a real person. I still cant believe how bad the film reviews were when it was originally released.           

Our Hospitality (1923) His first feature film, and also the one where he almost drowned in a wild river stunt, which they also kept in the film. You can see when Buster realises he's in trouble. His cameraman filmed the whole accident because Buster never yelled ''cut'', maybe cose he was too busy drowning. He never used scripts, ideas & gags just came to him and he'd follow through with it until he got the sequence right. Even if it meant having his stomach pumped, after the famous upside down waterfall sequence took ages to get right he'd still never give up, he was truly heroic in that sense. 

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THIS MOVIE WILL MAKE YOU TAKE YOUR MOM TO COURT - 'LOON' Trailer

Unorthodox independent films are the unsung life blood of the film industry, they have the wildest ideas and set the trends. They also have an intimidating and thrilling aura that mainstream films lack; a unique and sublime revolutionary undercurrent. 
These film auteurs are independent because they cannot stand to make the films they truly want within a system they despise. They live by their own vision and are stubborn, driven, talented, crafty, observant and tender all at the same time.

Taking risks and inventing new characters that are from the margins of society has never been Hollywood's main cultural demographic. Budget limitations mean nothing to filmmakers like Fabrizio Federico, hoodwinking is part of the game, and they are driven to tell their negative pick-up fables, ''I was stabbed with a fork while filming but I was so in the zone that I didnt feel a thing''.

Fabrizio has a desirable decadence mixed with an artistic atmosphere ''I like to put ice cubes in the actors mouths if I want a certain reaction''. His hippie, freaky teenage upbringing of moving countries has impacted his gift of the gab and his sense of adventurousness. ''When I was a kid I would get all my village friends to pretend to be the Ex-President bank robbers from the movie Point Break, I was Ronald Reagan. That's when I became a filmmaker''.
Federico appears to have two quite distinct personalities co-existing (the dysfunctional filmmaker and the blissed-out stoner) his bohemian lifestyle puts him at odd's with authority figures ''I watched a lot of surfer movies and street films as a teenager like Midnight Cowboy, Panic In Needle Nose Park, Another Day in Paradise and I always rooted for the bad guys''.

Some big themes come up in Federico's work such as injustice, soul sacrifice, addiction and strangelove.  He see's underground and experimental cinema as a force to be appreciated by a bigger international mainstream audience. ''I like the idea of treating the audience to a chaotic, compelling aesthetic, to scramble their brains. I want to show them an uncomfortable time, I feel they can take it. They are not as innocent as they look.''

Loon has a random mix of stoned, catatonic moments, mixed with subliminal Kubrick messages, which then switch to troubled intimate teenage situations in bedrooms, somewhere their parents cant hear them, ''the film is just a glorious unmade bed.''
Most importantly the film is fun and trashy but intriguing in a deeper way, full of nonlinear narlyness. At the centre lies the films Dismaland pop-culture, main character Charlie Sheen is a petty thief, tied in a folie a deux relationship with his sinister older cousin Georgia. Suddenly his chaotic life style reaches a climax, ''this movie will make you take your mom to court''. 

Authenticity of expression is a non-actors main virtuosity, meaning they are in the NOW, you can call it Zen filmmaking, they dont care about pretending to be someone else, there's no strings attached and they definitely dont give a fuck about the directors vision. But they are self-serving to express themselves, knowing that this is the only movie they will ever be in. Sometimes they use real drugs on camera to get in touch with their anxieties and phobias, and the effect is so voyeuristic it's uncomfortable viewing. 
Loon is his 3rd feature film in a body of work that is strangely cohesive and definite for such a new artist. His identity is so embossed boldly onto each film that it feels less like something he created and more like an extension of himself.

In art-house films, ambiguity and uneasiness is much more involved on a personal level, 
The big plus from the filmmakers point of view is that he has completed the movie he dreamed of and since it was zero-budget if the film bombs financially it doesn't matter.
It's a long list of filmmakers living the cinema dream this way, film outlaws such as Jim Jarmusch, Larry Clark, John Cassevetes, Todd Haynes, Abel Ferrara, Alex Holdridge and all the way to the present day. 
Loon is an irrational movie, and a natural extension to this cannon of filmmaking.

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MOVIE News: THE DEATH PARADE - THE UNHOLY SMOKE OF 'LOON'

Fabrizio Federico (filmmaker)

Death & cinema has always been a powerful union, people are fascinated by serial killers, car crashes and violence in general, but in art-house films ambiguity & uneasiness is much more involved on a personal level. ''My maxim has always been create in the dark, shine in the light'' says Loon's director Fabrizio Federico.

''I call it Mistakeology, it's best to stamp on the eggshells of Neoism. This is my darkest film yet!''
  
The lo-fi experimentalism is a big plus from the filmmakers point of view, in that he has completed the movie he dreamed of making, and since it was on zero-budget, if the film bombs financially it doesn't matter.
It's a long list of filmmakers living the cinema dream this way, film outlaws such as 
Abel Ferrara, Jim Jarmusch, Larry Clark, John Cassevetes, Todd Haynes, Alex Holdridge and all the way to the present day. 
Loon is an irrational movie, and a natural extension to this cannon of filmmaking.

''I don't want to smooth out my rough edges, like using a script or being linear, it's probably never gonna fucking happen I enjoy being spontaneous and childlike too much. Being avant-garde is normal to me, it's like a spider's web.'' 

When a director decides to use as the soundtrack to his new film, an album recorded at the cursed Boleskine house in Scotland, previously owned by the notorious magician Aleister Crowley and then Led Zeppelin's virtuoso guitarist Jimmy Page, you know that you're about to enter into Grimm's fairy tale's. But not everybody's gonna understand this film's purpose I can guarantee that. This is the cinema for the future, but the speed of the attention span of this movie is diabolical.

   ''I don't think my true fans have been born yet.''

Films such as Natural Born Killers and We Need To Talk About Kevin have addressed the issue that goes into the making of a murderer. The beauty of Loon is that it takes the primal experimental side Oliver Stone's Killers and the poetic stillness of Lynne Ramsay Kevin and transfuses them together. 

In LOON you witness the family environment, including how the NHS is responsible for encouraging the parents to judge their children and label them under the umbrella of a medical condition. But mix it with delusions of grandeur, drum lessons, a Folie à deux relationship and a lunatic streak, what you get is a ticking time bomb.

The main character Charlie brings to mind lone killers who one day snap and go on an uncontrollable rampage, such as Charles Whitman, Mark Chapman, and Jodie Foster's stalker John Hinckley Jr. A person can change his home, religion and passion but not his family. What this film understands is the root of what creates a serial killer. 
The invisible puppet master from your past trauma, pulling the strings that creates new tragedy.

''I just want people to find the movie, it's been a complete DIY operation filmed on a CCTV camera, and is only gonna be available in digital form (it's on YouTube), I've got the passion and commitment to do it all myself but to keep it simple, without going through the headache of having a team... I should treat myself to an ice cream.''

http://fabriziofederico.co.uk/

CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED - The Story of LOON

The flower children in this film are young rotten, racist & rude. 

Folie à deux (/fɒˈli ə ˈduː/; pronunciation: ​[fɔli a dø];
French for "When Two People Go Insane Together''.

At the core of the film LOON lies a folie à deux relationship between two cousins, 16 year old Charlie Sheen (who wishes to be called 'Keith' - but nobody ever calls him) and his poison minded 18 year old cousin Georgia Sheen; who's aggressive, cunning, sexual personality has hypnotised her younger cousin into doing anything. 

''I wanted the film to reflect a prescription medication weekend, it's shook up in a black & white salad bowl''.
Fabrizio Federico

Charlie is on prescription medication (you decide what his diagnosis is) and his mother (a serial killer obsessed twin) is his gate keeper. He is a walking ball of karma. Surrounded by his twisted family (the whole street is populated by the Sheen family) Charlie's behavior is becoming darker. 

Charlie is dumb, so dumb in fact that it fools people. 
He has become obsessed with learning how to play the drums and to mirror his mod teen idol Keith Moon, one of the wildest drummers of the 60's and who's generation experimented with the unraveling of social and conventional modes.

An experimental melodrama with presidential assassination bulletins, Charlie is a kleptomaniac and a compulsive liar living in an incestuous tight knit family who have created a pillow world for him to sink deeper into his lifestyle. Light, love and protection are missing in both their worlds. 
While unemployed his loner life is largely based on crime, daydreaming and pleasing Georgia's superior superwoman Nietzsche mind. 

Charlie is fucked......but how fucked?
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Year of the Rooster: 2017

Isis attacks throughout the world
Fake news - The wars on words

AI (artificial intelligence) - cool and creepily real

Donald Trump becomes president

Brexit 

North Korea's nuclear threats

Interview with filmmaker Kurtz Frausun

  Straight Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival  (2017)

What does your film Peacock express about today’s generation?

That they are desperately searching for definition. The Artist for his Muse. We are a blank and lost generation with too much empty hope. 

What social circumstances lead you to make your new film?

I broke up with my ex before the start of the film after she tried stabbing me during a nervous breakdown. She was my Muse and after losing her, especially with a threat to my life, I realized I needed to document my experience. I spent two months editing with barely any sleep. Started hallucinating, but made it through. 

What do you think about the PINK8 Manifesto & Punk Cinema?

Punk Cinema is what we need more of. Hollywood is a shit storm that, with any hope, will come crashing down on itself like a diseased temple. 

Whats next for you?

I'm opening my own gallery in Irving where I will be featuring my kinky photography work. I'm also working on a documentary about the Trans experience. 

Fabrizio Federico live in Barbados

Filmmaker Fabrizio Federico has screened his 
feature debut Black Biscuit in Barbados this week:

 Fabrizio Federico (Web Site)

 

 

Fabrizio Federico (Black Biscuit) Photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by 

Emma Woolridge & Annabel Fay Owens 

Fabrizio Federico's Art Work

The loose artwork of film director Fabrizio Federico

 

 

 

 

Mao - Fabrizio Federico's new band

Director Fabrizio Federico has unveiled his new band called Mao. With an album in the pipeline of mind bending styles and experimentations its bound to be as wild as his feature film debut Black Biscuit.

Dont Hesitate - Fabrizio Federico's feature film debut **Black Biscuit'**

Painting the town vivid for Independent Cinema and a new generation of filmmaker 'Black Biscuit' is about finding the courage to open up to the possibilities of the unknown.

2012 came wrapped in a mainstream sexual revolution that the general public is embracing.
Todays air is saturated in Art & Culture, Celebration, Music, Optimism, and Weirdness.

Enjoy it

Barbarous Ancestors - Fabrizio Federico (Black Biscuit- trailer

Film-director Fabrizio Federico's debut feature film 'Black Biscuit' has created a generation gap in cinema's guard, springing the old against the young, in an industry that has already started to seen signs of deterioration similar to what

 the music industry has experienced.

 

The 'Gutter Cinema movement', as it's being called, is sweeping the world inspiring inexperienced filmmakers to pick up their cell phones and to create feature films on micro budgets. 

 

'Black Biscuit' was made for $800, and shot on mobile phones and childrens cameras, featuring a cast of homeless people, prostitutes, pimps, handicapped, and an ex child ping pong champion.

 

In an era when film stars make up to $50 Million per picture, this can be seen as a revelation to the death of the old fashioned movie star, and birth of the street superstar.

 

Federico's new Pink8 manifesto has set the template for the future of cinema.  

Doomed & Unhinged ** Balck Biscuit / dir: Fabrizio Federico

The Future of Cinema with Fabrizio Federico

I hope that Black Biscuit gets into peoples skins. It’s an important film because this is rebel talent unlike any other.

I feel like Im the best director in the world even though I don’t know how to use a HD camera.                  Cinema’s  attitude is basic  so I’ve decided  to liberate it and take it to the next level.

I cant be tied down to one ideal, my style is screen  poetry stirred up with documentary, satire on ‘’real-acting’’, comedy, horror, and experimental fiction mixed with the unknown.

 It makes me laugh and shrug when critics get it wrong; which is more than half the time, that is the reason why I believe critics should stop writing about films and start making them.  Don’t be a critic become a creator.

They should stop being lazy. All they do is sit around and watch movies all day, I mean that isn’t going to get you laid. Put your so called ‘’expertise’’ to good use, because they  are missing out on the  ultimate experience.

Art is the greatest purity because you're  asking the viewer to choose their personal nirvana. It’s one of the best highs I’ve ever felt, and I’ve relished lots of special experiences such as love/sex, out running the cops, being on stage, instant togetherness and the occasional out of body experience.

We have to stop creative prejudice in the arts, the other big culprit of this crime other than the critics are the cinema owners. They don’t take enough chances. If a film doesn’t look safe enough they will refuse to promote the work, and eventually just bury it.

But now thanks to the internet we no longer need these middlemen. They are going to become an extinct species,  but for the moment  all they have going for them is that artists are a bit lazy when it comes to promoting and dealing with $$ figures. But that is changing very dramatically ,we’re learning. 

That goes for the high and low’s,  and Im saying it because nobody else seems to give a shit about hitting a creative edge and spreading the idea to future generations. 

In the early 70’s  for a short period of time creative film directors were treated with respect and independence. Just give us the fucking money and we will create an alternative experience for audiences swim in.

That’s why I have so much respect for Dennis Hopper’s ‘’The Last Movie’’ because that film treated the audience as equals, and his unhinged genius scared the suits.

Im not at home, but that doesn’t make me and my generation mad, we’re  just mavericks.

The Weinsteins & October Films in the early 90’s created cinema heaven for young directors. That’s when the  money men in the film industry were at their bravest. But I think they  got scared when they tip toed across,  and looked over the edge of their empire state building decision to make experimental cinema mainstream.

A creative open minded tsunami wave takes time to settle, and the greedy money men  can never manage to retain the balls to understand that  they should be promoting originality, and versatility  to audiences. If you promote they will come.

People will learn and feel more from watching reality over fiction.

The  experimental ideal  that Im talking about reached it’s pinnacle with the release of ‘’Kids’’ in 1995. That was a perfect moment. Creative freedom mixed with the big money of advertising.  

I don’t think it’s extreme. I have a young attitude so I expect people to be artistically braver.