DOKLeipzig 2014/ 5/ Jon Bang Carlsen
I have just left a nice chat with a former Zelig film school student – one of a handful who go to Leipzig to watch films and meet people, build contacts and enjoy masterclasses. It helps that Leipzig is such a pleasant city full of people in cafés, a market on the main square, churches to enter (Orgel Koncerten), good food many places, and Curry Wurst of course und so weiter… in other words what surrounds DOKLeipzig makes you in good mood before you enter the cinemas or the market to watch the current horrors of the world we live in!
Back to the first sentence, yes the programme of DOKLeipzig is rich, not only of films on the big or small screen (10 parallel screenings!) but also of masterclasses/presentations/debates related to the documentary. Impressive it is, indeed.
I went to the masterclass with Jon Bang Carlsen yesterday, lots of young people, who had a good time (2 ½ hour) with a director, who has been part of my professional life since he started his long career. Danish Bang Carlsen was in Leipzig because of a retrospective homage to him, 8 films, on top of that he is also a member of the main jury. The audience was spoilt with several clips and with words/sentences from the director to explain his method. Let me give you some of them: ”I don’t want to be a victim of life’s coincidences” (referring to his ”staged documentary”), ”we all become part of the landscape” (referring to his Northern Jutland background), ”I have to be able to control the visuals”, ”I love framing”, I have to find a way ”to write the visuals”, ”our personal scars give us the energy”, ”there has to be a keyhole between me and my character”, ”I find it hard to believe in pure narrative”, ”you have to make yourself vulnerable… ”Blind Angels” (2007) was made by me in a period of contemplation”, ”you have to use the stuff that happens before the brain comes in”. Clips were shown from ”Before the Guests Arrive”,
”It’s Now or Never” and the connected ”How to Invent Reality”, ”Addicted to Solitude”, ”Blinded Angels”, ”The Right Amount of Violence”.
Photo by Jon Bang Carlsen from ”How to Invent Reality” (director left, main character Jimmy right).
