DocsBarcelona is Green..
The wonderful photo above from the opening of DocsBarcelona some days ago does not represent the whole truth. Green should have been more dominant. At least according to my experience yesterday, where I was in the cinema for 6 hours attending three screenings, where two of them were with “a green message”: Mindaugas Survila’s magnificent visual poem, “The Ancient Woods” and the equally magnificent “Honeyland by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov. If you add – ok same superlative – “Aquarela” by Viktor Kossakovsky and Greek Marianna Economou’s “When Tomatoes Met Wagner” you have a collection of advocates for “we have to do something for our planet before it’s too late…”. From different angles.
This sounds very political correct but first and foremost the selection of films for DocsBarcelona has been done from cinematic criteria. And they were appreciated by the audience, I can confirm from being in the cinema hall. Colleague of Mindaugas Survila, the director of “The Ancient Woods”, Gintė ulytė from Lithuania, made a fine introduction to the film and answered questions about the patience it takes to film animals – waiting for the moose to appear – how the sound design was constructed for a film without words, how she (Ginté) had helped with the script writing as the film has a dramaturgy like any other film. The film sold around 55.000 cinema tickets in Lithuania and a good part of that income is saved for buying ancient woods to keep it for the animals and to keep us humans away… That message made the audience applaud.
As it did after the screening of “Honeyland”, where cameraman Samir Ljuma and director Tamara Kotevska charmed the audience talking about wonderful Hatidze and her life in the mountains of Macedonia. “Honeyland” has been praised on this site so no more words about its qualities, but click the link below and support what the filmmakers and Hatidze are doing… Honey with the right taste, original, as many of the spectators experience last night at the Aribau cinema at DocsBarcelona…
… where I also attended the premiere of Èric Motjer’s “Beirut – la vie en Rose”, a visit to the tormented capital of Lebanon, where the – as John Lennon would have said it – filthy rich rattle their jewels. The director has found some interesting characters, who take him to glorious parties in music video style sequences contrasted to a sympathetic Englishman, who talks about the past accompanied by his mother: those were the days. The son has not given up, he has plans for the future, and Mauricio, a super rich man sets up a shopping mall: The war in Syria is good for business in Lebanon. Oh yes!
The three screenings gave (almost) full house so I walked home to the hotel with a smile on my face. DocsBarcelona in full swing, indeed!
