Festivals All Over
News about festivals and their selection are pouring in to the mailbox. Yes, it is indeed festival time now for documentaries as well, after the Berlinale that is strong in documentaries nowadays and “steals” a lot of attention and people. Let me – more might come – mention three of them.
Paris classic Cinéma du Réel in Centre Pompidou (March 19-29) has announced what is picked for the competition programmes – ”41 films of the International, French, First Films and Short Films Competitions is revealed! 25 World Premieres, 9 International Premieres.” The festival programmers of this festival deserves a bravo for not going shopping at other big documentary film festivals. Apparently, it has the ressources to create their own profile. The so-called thematic sections were announced the other day with a retrospective of works by British Keith Griffiths, Indian Amit Dutta, amazing Haskell Wexler and with Stan Neumann’s ”Austerlitz” as the opening film: ” A stroll across Europe in the footsteps of Jacques Austerlitz, a character from W.G. Sebald’s novel, played here by Denis Lavant.
In Prague (and 33 other cities in Czech Republic) the One World Festival (March 2-11) has a motto “Burst Through Your Bubble!”, “which which aims to combat prejudice, apathy and hearsay in Czech society…. calling upon Czechs to burst out of their protective bubbles, for example, by attending a screening of a documentary film about current topics and the discussion that follows. “We also burst out of our own bubbles while choosing some of the films, whether about Islam, South American migrants or mental illness,” Kulhánková (festival director, ed.) added. The symbol of this year’s festival is protective bubble wrap, which needs to be removed. No surprise that the festival shows “Citizenfour” by Laura Poitras, “Democrats” by Camilla Nielsson, “Felvidek” by Vladislava Plancikova, “Something Better to Come” by Hanna Polak and “The Look of Silence” by Joshua Oppenheimer in a programme that counts 114 documentaries in 12 thematic categories.
Finally a look to the North – to the Tempo Documentary Festival (March 2-8) that has focus on the City and welcomes the new film by Fredrik Gertten, “Bikes vs Cars” (photo), as the opening film. 120 films, Swedish and international, in 8 sections. After legendary Swedish director a competitive section (9 films) is named “Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award”, where you find “The Look of Silence” competing with “Silvered Water: Syria Self-Portrait”, with “Maidan” by Sergey Lotznitsa and “Rules of the Game” by Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard as dark horses….
