Re:Frame ZeLIG – Stories in transition

This text is written by Emanuele Vernillo, who is Head of the Three – Years Training in Documentary Filmmaking at ZeLIG

The words we most often use in times of change speak of necessity: the need to renew, to make space for what is new, to set ourselves in motion and move forward. At ZeLIG we have chosen to embrace this change by taking up the legacy of a thirty-year journey that remains unique in the landscape of European film education.

We recognize and hold fast to the original intuition: to dedicate ourselves to documentary in its most varied and unexpected forms, where it becomes cinema, art. That intuition still lights our path today. Documentary, in its freest forms—even when it merges with other genres or ventures into non-linear storytelling—offers a rare possibility: to imagine a cinema that is open, flexible, ever-regenerating. A cinema that constantly reinvents its languages, as every true art form and every living industry must. It is no coincidence that series, fiction films, animation, virtual reality, even gaming, draw on the creative force of documentary in order to evolve and move forward.

The change we are experiencing is not a rupture but a continuation, a red thread running through our history. It is the same thread that has always tied us to the world of cinema and its industry: observing, engaging, and at the same time staying rooted in the real—rooted in people, in communities, in the stories around us. We want to keep this spirit alive and project it into the future with renewed energy.

Today, documentary is above all a hybrid form. It is the crossing of boundaries. It is the possibility of new combinations. To walk this path is to embrace an artistic vision that is also political and social. As members of a human community made of different languages, colors, smells, and embraces, we believe that becoming hybrid is a necessary response to the identitarian drifts of these dark times. For us, documentary, auteur cinema, and hybrid forms—linear or non-linear—are resistance, sometimes even of civil resistance, in a world where those in power would rather see us reduced to a single face, a single voice, a flattened identity. We, on the other hand, affirm that we can only save ourselves by mixing. This is the most valuable lesson we have learned in recent years, at ZeLIG and in the world. 

IDFA: Guest of Honor Susana de Sousa Dias: Retrospective and Top 10

From press release of yesterday: IDFA is proud to present Portuguese filmmaker, curator, and academic Susana de Sousa Dias as the festival’s Guest of Honor, with a Retrospective and Top 10 selection. Known for her singular approach to archival images and cinematic form, de Sousa Dias has built an internationally acclaimed body of work that interrogates dictatorship, colonial legacies, and the fragile terrain of memory.

The director has had the attention of this site for decades. Colleague Allan Berg set up “a collection of posts about the early films of Susana de Sousa Dias. Here follows some quotes:

“Still Life. Faces of a Dictatorship (2005) the traumatic past of Portugal under Salazar. The film is 77 mins. long without any narration, built on archive from the 48 years between 1926 and till 1974, when the carnation revolution happened. The archive includes news, war footage from the colonies, propaganda films and photos of political prisoners. The musical score for this film, by António de Sousa Dias, is exceptional, first you wonder why but then you see what it does to the images, making a reflective distance and opens for a new both intellectual and emotional interpretation.”

And words of Allan Berg, translated and edited from Danish: “The portraits of the Secret Police appear calm and clarified for a long time on the screen. The ugly operation has lent the beauty, dignity and authenticity of the models… the images are carefully worked on so their aura become visible. The naked sound of the voices from the conversations are treated like was it delicate music. So it becomes delicate music. It is about the political crime of the Portuguese dictatorship… it is so horrifying and wild, and it is conveyed with such a beautiful and calm clarification”. (Posting from Cinéma du réel, March 26 2010).

Bravo IDFA!

Baltic Sea Docs/ Stonys & Sautkin & Niewiera

There were many new talents at the Baltic Sea Docs – and there were filmmakers, who have been awarded many times for their works. Audrius Stonys is one of them. He was a new talent, when the Baltic Sea Docs started, the Forum it was called at that time, the 1990és, when it took place on the island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Now, here in Riga, he came with a project that is going to be produced by his daughter, Marija! “Bright of the Invisible” is the title and let me quote Audrius from the catalogue:

… a meditation on faith, doubt, and the search for sacredness in a disencharted world. It invites the viewer to pause and consider whether the presence of God might still dwell among us – not in miracles, but in the humble grace of ordinary people…

When Audrius came to Bornholm, he showed excellent short documentaries like “Antigravitation”. I suggested him to go back to this format before making the feature that he pitched here in Riga. A great trailer indeed.

Ivan Sautkin is the Ukrainian filmmaker who made “A Poem for Litlle People”, that I reviewed here on this site concluding “…a rich and beautiful film in the fragmented way it is made – Sautkin is the cinematographer himself I understand – with the way it embraces those who help and those who are helped. And its audience.”

“DNA of the Nation” is the film that he pitched here in Riga with two young female producers, Ukrainian Ivanna Khitsinska and Lithuanian Ringailé Lešcinskiené. It features the “father of the Nation”, the poet Taras Shevchenko, who lived in the 19th century, same decades as Hans Christian Andersen, and it involves the story of a man, who is willing to take a DNA test to prove that he is “a direct descendant” of Shevchenko. On the photo you see a woman looking in cards telling us that the film will be a success! Yes, we want a new cinematic embracement!

Niewiera with the first name Elwira will be known by readers of this site – for “The Prince and the Dybbuk”, that opened the Magnificent7 Festival back in 2018, and for “The Hamlet Syndrome”, both films praised for their artistic quality and the latter for its actuality. Here Elwira came to pitch “Women and War” introducing three Ukrainian women, survivors of captivity, torture and sexual violence – now undergoing therapy… Needless to say more

BUT claiming that Elwira Niewiera is a HERO. This morning she told me and my wife, we follow her on FB, that she has collected 1 million Euros in connection with the screenings of “The Hamlet Syndrome”, to help the Ukrainians with material etc., for the paramedics in the war. Amazing. A great filmmaker and an activist.

Baltic Sea Docs – Hope and Loss

There is hope! That was my reaction this morning at the first round of pitching at the 29th Baltic Sea Docs in Riga. I thought so when I met the Hungarian film project “Kind of Adults” by Rita Balogh and Peter Akar, shot over a period of 5 years, as they write in the catalogue: self-shot and observational footage, full of energy and dynamic it is, young people with opinions, living life, enjoying to be together, breaking rules. It won’t survive, Orban and his regime, were my
thoughts, hoping. Later on I met Julianna Ugrin, Hungarian producer with quite a track record. She asked me, what I thought of the project. I expressed my enthusiasm to what I had seen, she said yes, but they are all leaving the country… Hope she is wrong!

My other feeling of Hope came a bit later of the morning, when “Rapland” was pitched by producer Oona Saari and director Milna Alajärvi. A documentary musical from Lapland full of Life and Music and the wish for independence. Not only music but also Art with a smiling competent pitcher, the director, simply making me happy watching, what she was showing. Great rapping and singing, hope it will come through in the final film; remember that pitching is 3 minutes of visuals and 4 minutes of talk followed by questions and answers from a panel.

Ivars Zviedris, a wonderful documentarian, whose work I have written about on this site, https://filmkommentaren.dk/ivars-zviedris-documentarian-new-film-faithful-until-death/, was there as well with “A Guide to Grief”. His daughter took her own life. Very strong, very moving, a lot of warm feelings from me goes to Ivars. From the catalogue:

By sharing an honest, personal story in a rich cinematic language, the film offers a space for reflection and connection – allowing audiences to better grasp the often inexpressible of loss.’

There were two films presented in the “Coming Soon” section of the festival. I loved “Under the Red Light” by Joris Skudra, presented here in Riga in 2022 and now soon to be released.

About the Lithuanian photographer Romualdas Požerskis (photo), who made great photos in his traveling around the world. What got me totally, was the sequence, where Požerskis reflects on his loss of his wife. They were together for around  half of his life, 40 years.… These scenes are so well made and of course – I am now 78 years old, I have the same thougths: I don’t want to be alone, please!!!

Magnificent 7 Festival Belgrade

Text from festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, Magnificent 7 festival in Belgrade:

The Magnificent Seven festival, created as a cinema holiday for numerous devotees of modern European documentary film, has successfully presented top achievements and the most significant authors of the contemporary European documentary scene for the past 20 years. This year, certainly one of the most turbulent in the last few decades in Serbia, the entire culture suffered unexpected blows from the institutions that are in charge of nurturing, encouraging and developing it, and thus the festival found itself under the attack of those illegal and undeclared measures of repression, discrimination and elimination. First of all, the elimination of superb culture as too subversive and dangerous for the dark order now nakedly based on brutality and primitivism.

Since its first edition, The Magnificent Seven festival has been  dedicated to the mission of presenting high-quality cinema documentaries that helped us to discover the world from which we were exiled during the nineties, to recognize our true place at the beginning of the XXI century, to understand better ourselves and to be enriched by unforgettable new experiences. But an equally important mission was to present the real Belgrade, the spirit of this area and our culture to eminent European guests, together with the magnificent festival audience. Genuinely impressed prominent documentarians are still spreading the word throughout Europe and the world about what they found to be an amazing festival and a bright city always open to new trends and ideas, which has been enchanting them year after year with its warm atmosphere and people. In this dramatic year, in addition to fantastic historical ups and downs, to the horror and despair of many of us Belgrade has suffered drastic destruction. One of the darkest points is the triangle between the festival’s  venue, the Serbian Parliament and the Assembly of the City of Belgrade, an area where the festival atmosphere has been intensively spreading in previous years.

In addition to all that, threats, brutal violence in the streets, people being taken away as in the times of notorious military junta dictatorships, led the festival to the most difficult but inevitable decision – this year’s edition of  The Magnificent Seven will not take place in the planned September date. If the basic meaning of the word festival is a celebration, then for the expected celebration of a modern documentary film, we beleive that at this moment we have neither the opportunity, nor the reason, nor the right. Still, despite everything, we hope to meet again in the near future.

Photo from 2019, Zoran Popovic and Tue Steen Müller with the Parliament in the background, where a demonstration took place. Today it looks different: https://orf.at/stories/3404233/

Baltic Sea Docs/ Audrius Stonys

Memories… Audrius Stonys was at the Balticum Film & TV Festival in the beginning of the 1990’es. He and Arunas Matelis were the young talents, who showed short documentaries in the Kino Gudhjem on Bornholm. Films like “Antigravitation” and “Earth of the Blind”. Later came “Uku Ukai”, “Alone”, “Countdown”… and together with Kristine Briede “Bridges of Time” that gives us the story of the poetic Baltic documentary cinema with Herz Frank and Uldis Brauns and Ivars Seleckis and…

Audrius is here in Riga with a project, “Bride of the Invisible” that in a beautiful way follows up on the short films mentioned above.

He is now a veteran, he is a grandfather, his daughter is here with her husband – Marija Stonyté is the producer of her father´s film-to-be (!), his son by the way, Paulius, is a cinematographer, very much in demand, yes it is a film family – Audrius is also making tv portraits together with his father and sister, Aiste Stonyté.

In 2013 my late colleague Allan Berg made “Audrius Stonys, Collected Posts on his Works”, you can google it, Allan admired Audrius, met him year after year on Bornholm and wrote beautiful texts about his films. In Danish. RIP Allan.

And – photo – here we are, Audrius and me, in a room where the pitching training takes place. Lovely moment, thank you for your films and the many times we have met in Vilnius and around the world!

Baltic Sea Docs Workshop

After a long first day of the Baltic Sea Docs, the tutors were invited for dinner on top of Riga. Two of the tutors come from Georgia and Ukraine: Salomé Jashi and Darya Bassel. Both of them play an important role for documentaries in their country.

Salomé is head of the documentary association DOCA that is fighting against the horrible conditions for filmmaking in the country. DOCA is boycotting the Georgian Film Centre that now is run by people in the ministry of culture performing censorship. You have to be careful, when someone is knocking on your door… needless to say that Salomé is a great filmmaker, hope you have seen “Taming the Garden”.

Darya is behind the annual festival DocuDays in Kyiv, she is a producer and a constant communicator on what is going on in her country at war. Yesterday morning she was talking to the participants of the Baltic Sea Docs about the film she was producing, Olha Zhurba’s masterpiece, Songs of Slow Burning Earth. Mikael Opstrup was the moderator for the good informative session.

It’s a scoop to have the two here in Riga!

Olha Zhurba: Songs of Slow Burning Earth

I had big expectations after Olha Zhurba’s first long documentary “Outside” – https://filmkommentaren.dk/olha-zhurba-outside/ – and I was not disappointed. “Songs of Slow Burning Earth” is a film that will stay in Ukrainian documentary history. And internationally as a film that should be watched by everyone, who wants to experience the Ukrainian human consequences of a war in a neighboring country. It has the potential to reach a wide audience ALSO outside the festivals, where it tours now, will tour in the coming year(s) and will win awards because of its extraordinary sure cinematic style. Every little thing is thought of in a film that takes its viewers from the Russian full scale invasion till today. It is informative and emotional. And of course also containing footage that can go into the Ukrainian war archive to be used, when the war is over or before for the trials will come. 

This first paragraph looks like a conclusion and it is in a way; knowing that many refrain from reading a whole review before watching, I hope it will make readers go to their festival to have the same experience I had – or disagree… The film will in November be shown at Verzio in Budapest and at IDFA in Amsterdam and probably at many other festivals.

The start: Landscape images and brief audio bits of people, who call “emergency services” with worried questions about explosions near their homes… ending with “is it war?”, answer “it looks like”. Cut to a railway station with people almost fighting to enter a train to get away; some go, some trains are cancelled; the loudspeaker voice calls for “show respect”, “do not spread panic” but anger is present and “let the children get in first”. Cut to a driver with tears in eyes, he comes from and/or goes to Mariupol. A desperate old woman: “I only have my bathrobe”, “my city is gone!” Displaced people around her try to comfort her, “but you have your family”… Emergency calls come in again. Olha Zhurba collects documentary moments with an enormous sensitivity, she is present with her eye and this viewer – a grandfather – suffers, whenever her camera has caught a child, like the one who sits on luggage at a station.

And yet comes a sequence from Mykolaiv from a bakery 18 km from the front line (through the film the distance to the front line). It reminds me of Humphrey Jenning’s film “Listen to Britain” from 1942, two years into that war, “never give up”. Followed by a scene with people queuing to get the bread and a close up of burned corn in a field. A clip from a school, “close your eyes what is your dream”, kids are asked before they run to the shelter.

The most touching 9 minutes long sequence is filmed from a car on the road. In the beginning you have no clue, what happens but then you understand, why people along the road kneel down, and it goes right to the heart. A coffin with a hero is brought home and more will come it is being said. And close to the front line a boy is “playing war” and he tells about the place that was Russian and now is liberated, “we lived 9 months with Russians here”.

Olha Zhurba has visited a medical centre where soldiers are treated, prosthesis are fixed, two new ones from knee down, training, they are being taken care of… What do you think is the future, what do you hope will be the future of Ukraine, (high?)school children are asked, and Zhurba cuts to a state school in Central Russia, where feet, you don’t see faces, are marching, one-two, one-two… And I look at the face of a boy, it could be any boy from anywhere, but he is a boy living in a country at war in a neighboring country, only 2000 km from where I live.

Watch this film: To use the title of a series by Latvian Juris Podnieks: Hello Do You Hear Us?

Ukraine, Denmark, Sweden, France, 2024, 95 min

Baltic Sea Docs Begins this Week, Gathering 26 documentary Projects

The 29th edition of Baltic Sea Docs, the long-running documentary co-production forum in Riga, is set to run from 31 August to 5 September. The forum will feature 26 documentary projects within its industry programme, alongside film screenings for audiences in Riga and multiple regional towns.

Originating in Denmark and, since 2006, organized by the National Film Centre of Latvia, Baltic Sea Docs has served as a documentary hub in the region for nearly 30 years. The forum is dedicated to showcasing feature-length creative documentary projects that originate from, or focus on, the wider Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus.

“​​We are delighted to witness the continuous growth of the forum, both in its international reach, through attending guests and decision-makers, and in the increasing interest from observers, which is especially strong this year,” says Zane Balčus, Baltic Sea Docs manager. “We look forward to welcoming both established filmmakers – including Audrius Stonys, Elwira Niewiera, Ivan Sautkin – and strong emerging talent to Riga to present their new projects. Also, this year, we are proud to host the highest number of partners’ awards, a wonderful sign of collaboration and mutual support, and above all, a source of new opportunities for filmmakers.”

This year’s forum line-up includes 22 new projects in development and production, and four returning projects in post-production, representing 14 countries altogether. Returning teams in the ‘Coming Soon’ section seek festival partnerships and sales agents, while new projects benefit from intensive training and potential financing partners. The selection features a strong presence from the Baltic states, alongside projects from Ukraine, Finland, Poland, and other countries in the region.

Ahead of the pitching sessions, project teams will take part in a preparatory workshop led by documentary consultants Tue Steen Müller and Mikael Opstrup (Denmark). The tutor team also includes directors Salomé Jashi (Georgia) and Mia Halme (Finland), producer Darya Bassel (Ukraine), sales agent Liselot Verbrugge (the Netherlands), and editor Phil Jandaly (Sweden).

On 4–5 September, the projects will be pitched to a panel of decision-makers, including representatives of sales companies (e.g. Lightdox, Rise and Shine, Dogwoof, CAT&Docs); broadcasters (NHK, TG4, ZDF/Arte, TV3, SWR, Suspilne, LRT); film festivals (PÖFF, goEast FF, EBS International DOC FF, IDFA, Thessaloniki IDFF,); and production companies (Corso Films, Éclipse Film, Tanjo Films), among others, followed by one-to-one meetings.

As the forum continues collaboration with notable industry partners, projects presented at Baltic Sea Docs can receive various awards, ranging from post-production services to expert consultancy sessions, and accreditations at leading forums and festivals such as IDFA, Sheffield DocFest, DOK.forum Munich, East Doc Platform, and Movies That Matter. Additional awards include the BBposthouse Award (€3,000 in post-production services) and the TV3 Group Award, offering a broadcast slot on TV3 channels and TV3 Play, as well as Baltic Sea Docs consultancy award.

In collaboration with Baltic Creative Europe MEDIA Desks and Association Avantis, Baltic Sea Docs will host the seminar “Factual Content for Young Audiences – Challenges and Opportunities” on 3 September. Filmmaker Sigrid Klausmann (Germany) will share her experience creating documentaries specifically for young viewers, while Róisín Ní Thuairisg (TG4, Ireland) will discuss strategies to reach young audiences through social network campaigns. From the US, Johnny Ramos and Jesse Perez Antigua (DCTV) will present their work with youth and media, followed by a panel debate on engaging young audiences across platforms.

Baltic Sea Docs film programme will open on 2 September at Riga’s Splendid Palace with Dmytro Hreshko’s “Divia” (2025), an observational film on environmental destruction during the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine, which was pitched at Baltic Sea Docs in 2023. The film programme will also feature previous Baltic Sea Docs projects “9-Month Contract” (2025, Human:Rights award at CPH:DOX) by Ketevan Vashagashvili, “Letters from Wolf Street” (2025, premiered at Berlinale) by Arjun Talwar and “On Sacred and Profane” (PHOTO) by Giedrė Beinoriūtė, among other titles.

Baltic Sea Docs is organized by the National Film Centre of Latvia and supported by the Creative Europe MEDIA programme and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. More information about the participating film projects and the full programme is available on the Baltic Sea Docs website: http://balticseadocs.lv/.

Kristina Nikolova: In Hell With Ivo

Jury Special Award at the Sarajevo FF.

And a text taken from the press kit of the best publicist I know, Greek Dimitra Kouzi:

“Bulgarian queer artist and songwriter Ivo Dimchev transforms personal and social hardship into provocative public and intimate private spectacles, boldly exploring sexuality, identity,
faith, and activism in a liberating celebration of queer visibility.”

Ivo is a brilliant singer and performer and the film goes with him to public concerts and to so-called home concerts. Have to confess that I was not hooked by the film but for the end scene, where he is doing his music at home with his parents, asking them questions after a poetic song that obviously moves the parents, at least the mother. There is intimacy and tenderness in that scene. The parents will go to heaven with Trump, Ivo wants to go with Jesus to Hell; he is Christian and he wants to go, where all his friends are. The parents think Trump is generous. You sense Ivo has had a hard childhood, what is the worst, physical or mental abuse, he asks. Mother says physical, father says mental…

Bulgaria, USA, 78 mins.