DocAlliance: Laila Pakalnina
Readers might think that I am paid to promote the vod that is run by DocAlliance – I am not, the simple reason it has so many posts on this blog is very simple: It has high quality and is edited with competence and sense for both new upcoming directors and veterans that can give you the possibility to catch up your documentary film history.
So here we go again with Latvian director Laila Pakalnina: 20 films are offered for free until July 28. It is an amazing offer to film students, film directors who look for inspiration and film buffs – to set up your own retrospective with a director, who started her carreer with documentary shorts shot on 35mm, for cinema, most often without dialog: The Ferry (1994), The Mail (1995), The Oak (1997) – going to the playful ”Papa Gena” (2001) and the fantastic nature and man masterpiece ”Dreamland”, not to forget a long documentary from her hand from 2011, ”33 Animals of Santa Claus”. 7 fiction films are on the list for you.
I have just watched two new films by Pakalnina, not in the list, ”Marathon” (photo of director who films with a camera fastened on her head) and ”Chimney”, both of them on their way to festivals around the world, showing that she is still surprising her audience with new precise, atmosphere-filled documentaries.