“With love from the front” (eng. My Dear Theo) on CPH:DOX 2025

This is a text that I took from the FB of Alisa Kovalenko, if you go to that you will also notice the many people Alisa is thanking for the encouragement to make the film:

I didn’t believe at the beginning that from these small fragments of the past, letters and a small part of the shot fragrant footage on the front, could be born a movie, something intact, some fusion of memory, time…

After all, like so many of our other movies in the last 11 years, this movie should not have been… It was neither filmed nor intended to become a movie… In the first months of the full-scale war, cinema seemed to have lost all meaning and I was doing completely different tasks, but the camera stayed around as usual, just to capture some little moments to remember. She spent most of her time in her backpack, in sandbags, in blinders and trenches, lying and filled with smoke, dust and sand, lying as a silent reminder of the past, which was distant and pushed by a new reality. I wrote more than I filmed, wrote many letters then to my 5 year old son Theo in case i die and have something important to leave to him about me and all of us…

Only later did I begin to realize the deeper value of what I managed to preserve. People very close to me, brothers killed on the frontline they were also parents.. And I thought a lot about this movie, as a memory town between us and our children. After all, most of us parents have come to the frontline for our children’s future and it was important for me to remember that… So this movie for me became first and foremost about the light, tenderness, love that is so important to leave in the hearts of our children, our loved ones, even in death…

Today we can finally officially say that the world premiere of “With Love From The Front” (eng. My dear Theo) will be held on March 23 in Copenhagen, at one of the best festivals of documentary cinema, – CPH: DOX. It is particularly nice to have a Prime Minister in Denmark, a country that is one of the few European countries that provides financial support to Ukraine for weapons, which is in fact the most important support for our defense.

Pleased to invite everyone who will be at CPH:DOX for our premiere screening.

First thanks for the existence of this film Marina Stepanska which felt something special and valuable in my materials, otherwise all this would remain in the archives indefinitely.

A big and warm thank you to everyone with whom we worked on the film, everyone who inspired and supported, all my Ukrainian and French families.

And a separate big thank you to my dear brothers who have been with me side by side these first months of the full-scale war on the frontline.

passed away the other day, 70 years old. A brilliant documentary director who expanded the Danish way of storytelling in that genre through his focus on the essayistic approach. Poetic reflections on human life, philosophical, superb in their visual interpretation that were made together with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle in the trilogy that Jens Loftager first of all will be remembered for: “Words” (1994), “War” (2003) and “Faith” (2017). My colleague Allan Berg (who died last year in March) put together intros to the trilogy, in English and Danish:

Two widely different images of religious faith create a contrasting and thought-provoking totality in Jens Loftager’s new film, “Faith”. The Danish priest Karsten plays music to his confirmation students to help them trust their own qualities and dare to flourish in life. At the same time we meet three Japanese Buddhists, who never had that opportunity, but who are now thinking about their lost youth when they were members of the religious Aum group which committed a terrorist attack in Tokyo in 1995. Across stages of life and cultures, ‘Faith’ explores how religious faith can both make people fit for life and able to understand ourselves better, but also push us to make extreme choices, which we will later regret and find difficult to understand. The film is the last part of Loftager’s trilogy, which started with ‘Words’ (1994) and continued with ‘War’ (2003).

KOMMENTAR

Jens Loftagers nye film får premiere på CPH:DOX. Den fornemme plakat er lavet af Claus Lynggaard, som også har tegnet filmens grafik, så Tro venter vi nu på med spænding, den er jo noget så sjældent som sidste værk i en trilogi af filosofiske filmessays, konklusionen på én filmkunstnerisk tanke fastholdt gennem mere end to årtier.

Hvis man er så heldig at have adgang til et uni-login kan man forberede sig på en virkelig lykkelig måde ved at gense eller måske for første gang se trilogiens to første film Ord (1994) og Krig (2003) på FILMCENTRALENS smukke og effektive streaming…

ORD (1994)

”En skildring af ordets magt – og afmagt. En påvisning af ordets undertrykkende – og befriende muligheder. Med Salman Rushdie og Václav Havel som toneangivende symboler veksler filmen mellem statements fra en række verdensberømte forfattere, arkivmateriale fra brændpunkter i det 20. århundredes kamp for (og undertrykkelse af) ytringsfrihed – fiktioner, bl.a. “Tusind og een nats eventyr” i hvilke Scheherezade fortæller historier for at overleve. Udover Havel og Rushdie medvirker Joseph Brodsky, Paul Auster, Günter Wallraff, Mario Vargas Llosa, Villy Sørensen, Inger Christensen, Julio Llamazares, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Kemal Kurspahic (fra Sarajevo-avisen Oslobodenje) og Aziz Nesin.” (Filmcentralen)

KRIG (2003)

”Det tyvende århundrede har i vores del af verden været præget af krig, ikke mindst de to verdenskrige og konflikten i eks-Jugoslavien. For de, der oplever en krig, repræsenterer den destruktion og død, men under rædslerne trives også håb og næstekærlighed. I filmen mødes billedernes skønhed og beretningernes gru i et forsøg på at forstå menneskets adfærd og oplevelse af sig selv under og efter krigens ekstremer. Med afsæt i optagelser fra krigenes skuepladser fortæller en række vidner om tab, smerte, angst, afmagt, dilemmaer, ydmygelser, kampe og kz-lejre. Men også om betydningen af at forblive menneske i alle situationer.” (Filmcentralen)

filmcentralen.dk or filmstriben.dk – if Danish citizen – is where you can find films by Jens Loftager. Or go to the Video Library of the Danish Film Institute.

This is a copy-paste of an article in FNE Daily, written by Alexander Gabelia:

VILNIUS: Lithuanian director/writer/producer Arūnas Matelis is currently in production with his new long documentary G.H.1 / G.V.1, which he calls “a very, very challenging film”.

G.H.1 investigates the bond between a human and an animal, and also the connection between one dog and another. A pet owner, stroking their companion for the last time, knows this: what stays forever is not sadness or pain, but the memory of true friendship and love.

“When we talk about the world of pets, of dogs or puppies, we are talking about ourselves. We are talking about people who feel less lonely because they have someone to care for, someone worth sacrificing for. This is a very, very challenging film. Films with animals are some of the hardest to make. At first, we wanted to take on all the risk ourselves, experiment, and once we had laid down the ‘true foundations,’ to invite others to join in the creation of this film. Additionally, the producing strategy aims to provide the director with full creative freedom on this journey, a path of artistic experimentation and exploration in crafting a unique cinematic language for such a challenging film. This period also allows the crew to acclimate to the demanding shooting conditions”, Arūnas Matelis told FNE.

G.H.1 is produced by Algimantė Matelienė and Arūnas Matelis through Lithuanian Studio Nominum in coproduction with Lithuanian Kino Kontora.

The project is supported by the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) and the LATGA Association. The total budget is 260,000 EUR.

“This time, we are consciously and strategically prioritising national production. The Lithuanian Film Centre, the National Public Broadcaster’s support, the tax incentive, our studio Nominum investment allow us to generate 75% budget and to concentrate attention on the beginning of filming. And it was crucial not to spent time searching for coproducers, co-funding, which would delay the shoot. The strategy is to start looking for coproducers, funds, TV presales, distributors, when the film’s idea is no longer just on paper, in the director’s mind, or in test shoots, but in the actual material itself”, Arūnas Matelis also said.

The shooting is taking place in Lithuania, Finland and Estonia. It began in 2024 and will conclude in 2025.

The film will be completed and released in 2026.

Here are the five films that were nominated to compete for the Documentary Oscar:

Black Box Diaries – Shiori Ito, Eric Nyari and Hanna Aqvilin

No Other Land – Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham

Porcelain War – Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev, Aniela Sidorska and Paula DuPre’ Pesmen

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat- Johan Grimonprez, Daan Milius and Rémi Grellety

Sugarcane – Nominees to be determined

Chosen by the Documentary Branch of the Academy from the shortlist that was published in December:

“The Bibi Files”
“Black Box Diaries”
“Dahomey”
“Daughters”
“Eno”
“Frida”
“Hollywoodgate”
“No Other Land”
“Porcelain War”
“Queendom”
“The Remarkable Life of Ibelin”
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
“Sugarcane”
“Union”
“Will & Harper”

I have seen two of the nominated films – “No Other Land” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” – plus trailers from the other three, but impossible to judge from these promotional clips. However, strong personal stories, except for “Porcelain War”, that communicates poetry with the war in Ukraine as background.

From the 15 shortlisted I was surprised that otherwise praised all over “Dahomey” was not chosen and I would have loved to see “Queendom” nominated. Amazing film.

Two documentary film festivals, different in orientation, both with selections of high quality films, many categories, I will with this text focus on some titles from the main competition category of FIPADOC, that starts tomorrow in Biarritz and from ArtDocFest that runs from the 1st of March till the 8th of that month.

Some films will be shown in both festivals. Let me mention “Happiness to All” by Czech Filip Remunda, who shot the film from 2016 to 2024, a strong portrait of charismatic Vitaly Parasyuk, “… a nuclear physicist and record holder in extreme cold-exposure training, (who) makes his living as a bricklayer and lives below the poverty line.” We see him with his mother, who used to be an acclaimed scientist during USSR, we see him getting married in Novosibirsk, his home town, at a ritual in ice-cold water (!), we see and hear him comment on the Putin-regime; a political awakening has been caught by Remunda, who won awards at the Jihlava FF. Now you can watch the film in Biarritz or in Riga.

Putting on the “We are Red, we are White” Danish glasses let me notice that “Balomania” by Sissel Morell Dargis will be shown in Biarritz – I wonder how many festivals this monster success has been to… – and in the Baltic Focus in Riga, I see with pleasure that three Danish documentaries have been taken for the competitive Baltic Focus in Riga, “Afterwar” by Birgitte Stærmose, praised on this site as is “Echo of You” by Zara Zerny, and “A Place in the Sun” by Mette Carla Albrechtsen, that I have not seen.

FIPADOC also has a competitive category called “European Stories” that includes Slovak Marek Sulik’s “Ms.President” and Ukrainian Olha Zhurba’s “Songs of Slow Burning Earth”, both reviewed on this site, the latter I consider as the best documentary of 2024. And then I am very curious about Vladimir Perovic “Goodlands” about his motherland Montenegro. I know Perovic from his short films and from saying hello at many editions of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade.

ArtDocFest in Riga presents “Trains” by Maciej Drygas, IDFA winner, also praised on this site, a short film by one of my favourite Latvian directors Viesturs Kairiss, the strong story from Ukraine by Juri Rechinsky, “Dear Beautiful Beloved”, the personal Polish “In Limbo” by Ukrainian Alina Maksimenko and “Of Caravan and Dogs” by Askold Kurov and an anonymous co-director about “The journalists and activists threatened with long prison sentences and forced to make difficult moral choices in the midst of total war censorship: should they stay or leave the country, should they go to jail or save their team, should they adapt to the new reality or stay true to their principals and close their media? Shot during one decisive year, before and after the invasion, the film portrays the last defenders of democracy in Russia and gives a glimpse of hope for another future… with two Nobel Peace Prize winners Dmitriy Muratov of “Novaya gazeta”, and NGO “Memorial” among them.” In the program presentation the founder and leader of the the festival Vitaly Mansky mentioned that there are no Russian films in the programme but with “Happiness to All” and the film of Kurov, who lives outside Russia and probably other works there are lots to dig into.

Have a nice festival in – hopefully, I have been there in snowstorm – sunny Biarritz. And I will be in Riga for Film School teaching, maybe a film or two in the evening.

Three generations. The protagonist, teenager Roosi, her mum and dad, divorced – and the one who writes this review, a senior citizen and a film blogger who hopes for a better world and believes in change coming from young ones like Roosi, who grew up in a commune, not a good place for a child, she says in one of the clips Margit Lillak brings from the film she made from the commune, “The Circle”. Roosi moved from the commune and lives with her mother.

Margit Lillak has followed Roosi for ten years from when she was 8 years old. You see that in the film, the connection from the director to her protagonist is close, the director is in the picture several times, once when parents call her to say that they can’t get hold of her… when she is in Germany thanks to a scholarship she has obtained to be in a Robert Bosch school in Freiburg Germany (from the school’s website: … “About 200 students from all over the world live and learn together for two years, exploring how they can contribute to a more peaceful and sustainable world.”

Will get back to the Bosch school… before that in the film you see Roosi as a very energetic “early” teenager, who takes photos and performs in dancing. From my opinion on a very skilled level. It’s her way of expressing herself, it’s fresh and joyful as is her participation in demonstrations for a better climate. In that way she follows her mother, a climate activist, but with an optimism, whereas the mother has a dark view on in which way the world is going. Roosi demonstrates creative skills, is this the direction she goes, I asked myself with hope, nodding to the fine sofa sequences, where mum and daughter discuss and mostly disagree – and tease each other, i.e. Roosi teasing her mother.

It changes in Freiburg. We don’t really get to know the school and its pedagogy but we see Roosi cutting her dreadlocks; is the film saying that she is getting into “normal”, no fun any more, it is serious business. Being in Freiburg means getting a diploma that can be used later in her life. An important dialogue she has with her mother concerns her visit to an anarchist camp, where she was attracted to the view – contrary to her mother. the hippie’s – that advocating for a better climate has to include a change in the way societies are built. She states this in a dialogue with her mother, who still thinks that Roosi (also) should focus on achieving skills for manual work.

If I got it right Roosi, after Freiburg, was now interested in getting one more scholarship to go to the US. Subject: Society, Politics, Economy? I am not a spoiler but the film suggests at the end that this could be the way that Roosi, no longer a wild joyful teenager could take. Politician?

No objection, I write this on the day where Donald Trump is to be inaugurated as President of USA for the next four years…

Margit Lillak has made an important film about a young Estonian/European teenager – well she is probably not that age any longer – now a young woman, who has the talent to make change happen.

The film has a straight forward, with a few flashbacks to the commune time – Lillak has made a strong loyal-to-Roosi film, easy to follow, that with Roosi herself contributing with many cellphone shots strongly to a film that can travel. A fine non-prestigious film for all three generations.

The film is shown at the Festival in Trieste these days. GO!

Estonia, 2005, 93 mins.