Uncle Markku was Karin’s favorite as a child. He was full of fun, wonderful to play with, joyful as uncles should be, but not always are. He introduced her to something, she did not know about before much later, when she grew up: Art. She made short films, sent them to him, he praised them and promised to put a music score to them. He kept his promise. Which she discovered after his death, when she was the one who opened the door, where he lived on his own – she and her family did not visit him for 34 years!

But there were telephone calls and Markku recorded them, and when Karin broke into his isolated house, she found an artist atelier that was unimaginable. Audio cassettes, video tapes, thousands of cut-outs from papers and magazines, paintings… A house with a room that was divided into two, one for the visual art and one for the music. Indeed, uncle Markku was a multitalented artist, who as a young man was at the Sibelius Academy and at the Academy of fine Arts; he did not finish the studies at any of them, and when a boy he was kicked out of school(s).

“The artist in his ivory tower” is that the characterisation to be attached to Markku? Not at all, and maybe, but he was in contact with the world around him… he had a job as paper deliver, which he performed during night. And he had a platonic phone relationship with Marja-Leena from the delivery company, “you are the queen of my heart”, and he actually was kind-of planning a documentary about himself. There are great clips to be used for that, one of them including his brother, Karin’s father, visiting him, and several are clips, where he goes closer to his camera to say something. Most of it is joyful but there are also photos of himself – fantastic, Rembrandt-like – accompanied by words describing moments of depression, loneliness?

I wrote to the publicist of the film Dimitra Kouzi that I wanted to watch the film as I have a weak point for Finnish documentaries – and their way of storytelling, breaking the anglo-saxon tradition; “Days of Wonder” is no exception, building a conversation between uncle and niece from the art he did. The last sequences where she is – through animation – making great collages from his cut-outs from papers and magazines, is simply amazingly beautiful as are the many sketches on paper, she finds from his, let´s call it like that, archive.

It’s a niece’s declaration of love to an uncle, you feel that during the film, made in an original way, an homage to an artist, who made art for his own sake but knew that one day his door would be opened to discover, through sound and visual, music and film and art pieces that Uncle Markku was creating for a meaning with it all. Like we all do…

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Finland, Denmark, Sweden, 2025, 88 mins.

I have always wanted to visit the festival WatchDocs in Warsaw and this year I will be there for the 25th edition, invited to be in the jury. 12 films, of high quality, as you can see if you visit the website https://watchdocs.pl/en/. But apart from the main competition – and there is also a “Green Competition” and “Polish Competition” – I am happy to see a section “Northern Lights – Scandinavian documentaries”, including films by Ruben Östlund, Margreth Olin, Markku Lehmuskallio, a wonderful classic by legendary Jörn Donner AND films by Jørgen Leth, who passed away September 29 this year.

Three films from Jørgen Leth’s enormous filmography are screened in Warsaw. The catalogue text goes like this, written by programmer Konrad Wirkowski:

In homage to the Danish master of visual metaphor who passed away this year, we present three documentaries selected from his extremely rich output. They include the documentary experimental classic, “The Perfect Human” from 1968, “Life in Denmark” – a collective portrait of the obsessions and fascinations of the Danes, and “Aarhus” – a lapidary autobiographical film about the director’s hometown, which helped shape the modern understanding of the genre. 

The two first I know by heart, the latter I look forward to watch again, “Aarhus” is the city, where also I was born. Curator of the section, Weronika Adamowska. writes about the film:

A moving self-portrait of the Danish director, journalist and poet Jørgen Leth in a nostalgic journey to his childhood town of Aarhus, through the artist’s memory-filled places. Shot in the author’s typical style of “living images,” “Aarhus” is an intimate essay about memory, youth and the power of personal memories. 

The film is from 2005.

Look at the photo, a young(er) Jørgen Leth with a newspaper under his arm – Jørgen Leth was also an excellent journalist – in front of Aarhus Cyklebane, where he spent hours and where his enthusiasm for bicycling was born. He made iconic films about bicycling, he was best Tour de France commentator ever for Danish television.

I will get back with more intro texts from WatchDocs that starts December 5. It is indeed a rich program the festival is offering its audience.

Let me start with a banality about the genre: you can learn from watching documentaries. This is the case for this film, and it is indeed a Film, about Amílcar Cabral, the revolutionary behind the fight for independence of Cap Verde and Guinea Bissau from the colonising dictatorship of Portugal. He did not experience the independence himself – he was assassinated in1973 after the long war between Portugal and African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) that he founded. The film shows that leaders like Ceaucescu and Fidel Castro were supporting the fight for independence. All these facts are in the film but after watching it I went to online sources to know more. I am sure the director will forgive me, it is in a way a compliment to him and his very personal film that has its focus on Amílcar Cabral as an agronomist, intellectual, father.

The film is based on letters, he wrote to his wives, Lena and Ana, full of love they are, he is longing to see them again in his loneliness with his soldiers and with his diplomacy. When it comes to the visual side, archive is there with Amílcar, footage from the guerilla war, but it is a film that plays with/interprets the mood of the letters – flowers, animals, beautiful faces of young women, who are taught how to handle a (machine) gun; Faces that also show fear. There is no romantic “revolutionary” touch in the film, on the contrary I sense that this is a film that through the vision of Cabral communicates an appeal to humanity.

It is a coup that the director has chosen to shoot on 16mm in a kind of staccato rhythm, to mingle his material with the archive, in the (as usual with publicist Dimitra Kouzi) excellent press material, the director says, he wanted the two sources, archive and is shots, to be blurred. It worked for me.

An appeal to humanity? We need that. A historical film that has actuality, not bad…

The film is in the Envision Competition at IDFA, several screenings are still coming up.

Spain, France, Sweden, Cap Verde, 2025, 88 mins.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

By recommendation of Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis I watched this film on a big tv screen. He was right Uldis, it is a film with a big heart. I found – on the director’s website – a synopsis that I agree to:

“Rabin, Bilkis, Afsara and a team of sex-working nocturnal mothers are arc-lighting the dark and greasy lanes of Kalighat (in Kolkata,ed.) that happened to be an independent brothel for the working class. The team forms their native film production enterprise called CAM ON, a breather that binds the hopeless members to dare to smile.They shoot their original stories and upload compelling videos reflecting on the pressing issues of the community on YouTube. Through an immersive engagement and inspired by hopes, CAM ON breaks open a new dream to fight discrimination, hostile local vested interests and corrupt police for an escape to victory – by freeing the young girls from the brothel through skills and creativity amidst the joy of storytelling.”

And I would add Meena as one of the important protagonists – she takes extra from her customers to support CAM ON, a special way of fundraising!

Rabin, however, is the central character, who picks the stories and characters. We see him doing the casting, explain to the groups, what the story is about, take lovely care of the two girls Bilkis and Afsara, who are to be shining stars of his film. The latter, Afsara is taken to a casting in a studio in the city, she fails but Rabin takes her back and gives her an important role in the film that he directs, the film in the film. There are numerous wonderful scenes to be happy about, documentary scenes, directed scenes, neorealism got into my mind, it’s all so fresh and lively and natural and of course it had to end with a public screening, where the screen is made of cloth, the announcement poster hand-written. Wonderful.

One fine emotional scene I would like to highlight – when Rabin visits his grandmother, who cooks a small meal for him, constantly asking if he wants more curry; he does not want to have any connection to his sex-working mother or end up as a pimp. (What would documentaries be without grandmothers I am asking myself!). Not to forget the fine scenes with Bilkis and Afsara, the latter in focus after the screening, alive and shining, a film star, (warning: spoiler!) with a tough part in the story Rabin wrote and shot.

The film, brilliantly put together by Bipuljit Basu, had its premiere at Sheffield Doc Fest, that is why it is not competing at IDFA, but there are still tickets for screenings to be found in Amsterdam, and for the Copenhagen audience, I would guess that the film will be picked for CPH:DOX?

India, Latvia, Finland, 2025, 1 h. 40 mins.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Yujin is the protagonist, the smart business woman who came to South Korea from the North setting up a matchmaking bureau – and marrying one of the male clients from the South, Yurok. But they are not the only couple – the photo above shows Hyojuy and Jaewu.

The film has a joyful tone and rhythm with tough moments in the background depicting, what the Northeners come from, with propaganda film clips in a – at the beginning – mosaic structure with a lot of music. Stressing the seriousness of the subject through filming a ceremony for a mother and a son, who died of starvation.

Shot over five years the characters develop, they move outside Seoul, children arrive and they produce bean paste in big barrels. The gender roles change, at least you see Jaewu cooking… later in the film at a party one of the women from the North say that if a man went into a kitchen in the North, he would lose his dick…

(Let me quote the text that is brought in the beginning of the film: “Rugged Terrain and severe winters give rise to regional stereotypes that people from the North of the Korean peninsula are “savage dogs fighting in the mud” and “fierce tigers from the forest”, while people from the South are referred to as “fresh wind and a bright moon” and “plum blossoms in the snow”.)

At the very same party, the same woman tells how she tried to flee ten times before she succeeded after being imprisoned and tortured. Dramatic scene, as is the tragic story Hyojuy comes up with: While she was away working, her little son died without her knowing. She decided to leave and she did to China being sold to a family there, got involved in a traffic accident, survived and after years bought herself the way to the South Korea.

Morten Traavik went back to do this film after “Liberation” with the group Laibach (https://filmkommentaren.dk/ugis-olte-morten-traavik-liberation-day/), also produced by VSF/ Uldis Cekulis, who this time teams up with a Norwegian and South Korean company. The film was at Pöff in Tallinn and premiered at the Sheffield Doc Fest.

Norway, Latvia, South Korea, 2025, 94 mins.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

The Envision competition, according to the IDFA festival, “shows unparalleled, stylistically arresting films, where visionary filmmakers forge new cinematic languages.” Lithuanian Aiste Žegulytė´s new film fits perfect to this definition. Her film is innovative, to say the least; it is attractive and fascinating, surprising in its narrative, serious and full of humour, and full of admiration for the Lithuanian conservators, who are in the film, doing their holy work restoring the skeletons of important noble people and altar pieces, to be shining like never before.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” or “Of land you have come to the earth you must be” – it is a film about death. And Life. More precise, bringing death to life. Of course it is, seen through the screen’s microscope circle that is what we look through almost through the whole film, and yet the circle is a few times changed to images of fungi growing and shrinking, flourishing like flowers; it’s like psychedelic experimental films, pure beauty.

An enormous research lies behind this film. Žegulytė knows her art history and she has found beautiful paintings from way back, some look like Brueghel, mostly she has chosen faces, and when the elderly lady is cleaning a painting and puts a tear in the eye of a woman, she also “put” a tear in my eye. The film has several emotional moments and at one point I think I heard from the excellent soundtrack a variation of “Autumn Leaves” composed by Joseph Kosma. Anyway, the film has a melancholic tone and its own rhythm.

The archive beginning is amazing putting documentary clips from our lives under the microscope. From birth to death. And then some cells floating around… what is this, I thought the first time I saw the film on my Mac, the next time, right now, I have seen the film on a big tv screen enjoying fully the images, being entertained and informed about how art pieces and corpses are being revived by dedicated conservators, who bring the past to the present. Incredible film!

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Det er den yngste søn Philippe som spørger sin 95 år gamle far, “elsker du mig?”. Faren tøver en kende før han siger, “jeg tror ikke jeg ved, hvad det er at elske”. Denne scene er blot én af mange, som er rørende, hvor jeg kom til at holde af både søn og far. Hvor jeg krummede tæer, fordi det var et ægte dokumentarisk øjeblik. 

Et af mange forbløffende og forbavsende øjeblikke i en forrygende film af et kæmpetalent, som med “Mors Drenge” fornyer dokumentargenren på en måde som Jon Bang Carlsen og Jørgen Leth har gjort før.

Det er spillevende og originalt fundet på at iscenesætte episoder i brødrenes liv. At invitere et orkester ind på scenen, at lade et “græsk” kor kommentere, det er klassisk teater og moderne film på én gang. Og det er morsomt at se barndomshjemmet blive rekonstrueret, læse de voksne brødres genkendelse i deres ansigter OG se hvor herligt de tre fremragende skuespillere falder ind og spiller med brødrene i de valgte episoder:

Når Jakob Cedergren kommer hjem som far fra England til mor Asta August, har et skænderi over en regning og bliver tosset over, hvordan Carstens hund Faff er i gang med at molestere hans sko. Carsten er der som barn og som voksen iagttager og kommentator efter scenen. Det er gribende, Carsten er berørt – og instruktøren “tillader” sig en gravsten for Faff, da moren fortæller Carsten, at hunden ikke er der mere.

Komedie og tragedie går hånd i hånd. Som også i scenen hvor Adrian og mor Birthe Neumann (hun er fabelagtig) er i teatret i London og har en diskussion om adgangsforholdene for handicappede til teatrene. Adrian mener ikke handicappede nødvendigvis skal ind ad hovedindgangen med en rollator, mor Jette bliver rasende og kalder Adrian nazist. Klip til Adrian på scenen som nazist. Vidunderligt.

Hun var strid Jette Dreyer og i filmen, som er grundigt researchet, får vi historien om hendes barndom i rige omgivelser, hendes dominerende far Thorvald Dreyer, som Adrian kalder for sociopat, hendes uddannelse som psykolog, klip fra tv med hende som indkaldt ekspert i terapi, og herlige arkivoptagelser fra strand og hav, som giver fortællingen et drev. Og – OMG – hendes aflysning af Michaels bryllup med et pennestrøg, som det formuleres, ikke at forglemme.

For at det ikke skal være løgn, er der også en slåskamp i filmen! Ieuan og far Hywel er de som husker, hvad der skete, da far bryder ind på drengens værelse eller rettere resterne af det efter et mislykket fysikforsøg. En stuntmand er indkaldt for at give råd til, hvordan det kunne have foregået. Den 95-årige rejser sig og foreslår hvordan, og Ieuan erindrer, at der var flere knytnæveslag end Jakob Cedergren og stuntmanden illustrerer. 

Tilbage til yngste søn Philip, som måske er den, som griber mig mest, i scenen, hvor han giver moren et spejl, et whiskyspejl (!), som giver hende et raserianfald af den anden verden. Philip kigger på, men siger at måske gik han hen og gav en undskyldning! 

Og så mødes de alle ved et spisebord med far for bordenden… den dejlige gamle mand som svigtede og som siger – igen i samtalen med Philip, “jeg mistede livet”.

Hvad der så sker, må ses i biografen! 

Forrygende Filmkunst!

Danmark, 95 mins.