DOKLeipzig To be a Festival Guest
… and a jury member means that you are treated well, very well indeed. You are in a nice hotel, you get a per diem so you can go and buy yourself a wienerschnitzel or a curry-wurst, and a beer and lots of coffee, to stay awake and alert when you go to the warm cinema halls or down to the market videotheque, where you get a booth and just need to log in and write the title of the film, and vupti (do you say so in English?) the film comes up on the screen. Full service in other words and good meeting places to say hello to old and new friends. I am in one of the many juries, the one for safe and healthy workplaces, 8 films have been picked from the overall programme, and the jury has to choose one of the 8, a creative documentary on the subject of work.
The local newspaper reports daily on the films and this morning the film journalist characterised the film “48” (PHOTO) by Susana de Sousa Dias as a radiodocumentary with some images connected. He is totally wrong as he can read in the review(s) both Allan Berg and I made after seeing the film at Cinema du Reel this year in March – it got the Grand Prix at that festival.
A couple of grumpy remarks to the otherwise professional festival: Last night a film was cancelled because the projection machine could not screen NTSC HD format – why was that not checked in beforehand? And in the same cinema (Wintergarten), at the repeat of the very same film, the organisers allowed the audience to enter when the projection had started, around ten times getting their faces into the screen! Come on organisers, tell the doormen NOT to allow any entrance during screenings. Respect for the films!
