EFA Awards Documentary 2024

5 out of 12 films were selected for me and colleague members of the European Film Academy. I have watched them all and am still thinking, where to put my vote. And as a good schoolboy I had done my homework and watched the 12 as well. I have no objection to the 5 that are competing now and

I was happy from the 12 to watch a very different Nicolas Philibert film, “AT AVERROES & ROSA PARKS“, where the master, quoting the synopsis goes “from individual interviews to “caretaker-patient” meetings, Philibert focuses on showing a form of psychiatry that continually strives to make room for and rehabilitate the patients’ words…”, a couple of the protagonists I had met before in “On the Adamant”.

The same goes for “MARCHING IN THE DARK” (Photo) by Kinshuk Surjan from India, a very strong well told emotional film, beautiful to watch, for heart and brain. A quote from the synopsis: “Sanjivani, a young widow in rural India, grapples with devastating loss after her husband, a farmer who succumbed to the pressures of rising costs, unyielding crop failures, and volatile market prices, commits suicide – as one of thousands each year in India’s agriculture sectors. Now absorbed into her brother-in-law’s family, Sanjivani and her two children struggle to be seen and respected…” You sense the extraordinary connection of the director and Sanjivani as the film develops, it’s not so often that happens.

And one more from the 7 non-selected, “MY STOLEN PLANET“, which I loved even if I have seen so many films from Iran. Farahnaz Sharifi is the director and she uses archive material, personal and official. The director made this statement: “When we share a memory with others, it moves from private to public. This story is woven tightly with a resistance to forgetting. At a time when power structures strive to narrate history in ways that hide important and popular segments, it becomes all the more crucial to share personal details and micro-narratives.”

For one who always – in workshops also – tries to help filmmakers express themselves in a personal film language and on personal matters, I can only agree.

So now to the five, where should I put my vote: On the very personal, mother and daughter film “Bye Bye Tiberias” by Lina Soualem, On “Dahomey” by Mati Diop, a film that goes everywhere because of its passionate storytelling and the theme of colonialism, On “In Limbo” by Alina Maksimenko, a family story from Ukraine, “The documentary tells the story of my family, who suddenly finds itself in the middle of a war and is faced with dramatically difficult decisions…”, On “No Other Land” by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, a film that is very actual with its focus on the Israeli apartheid policy… I am writing this in a hotel lobby in Budapest, on the tv screen I just saw “Netanyahu congratulates Trump”, there is a lot to be depressed about these days… On “SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT” by Johan Grimonprez, who is the director being honoured at IDFA, a cinematic virtuoso work, “Jazz and decolonisation are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba”. And you see the performance of Khrushchev in the UN. “Krusse” we called him in my home, my mother loved him.

My mother who at some point decades ago asked me “when are you going to deal with real films…”, she meant fiction films with actors and action. I told her about my addiction to documentaries, showed her a lot and she understood, I think.