No need to state that Thomas Riedelsheimer’s film on and with Goldsworthy, “Leaning into the Wind” is masterly done. A great artist filmed by a great cameraperson and photographer.

But what I was thinking of, watching the film last night at Magnificent7 in Belgrade, is the inspiration Goldsworthy is giving us. SEE, ENJOY THE WORLD we are living in, while we are here on this planet, and PLAY with nature. The artist has this wonderful childish way of taking leaves from the trees to put them on his hands or let them decorate the stairs in the city or flow in the water or… you can see that he enjoys it like when our grandchildren proudly take a leaf from the tree in the garden or take a stone and decorate it. Just you wait, Samuel and Anna, 4 years old both of them, when we come home, we have new things we can do in the garden with the inspiration of an artist, who in his sixties have kept the child within him.

http://www.leaningintothewind.com/

Festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film:

“The Distant Barking of Dogs” started its impressive festival and award quest at the largest documentary film festival IDFA in Amsterdam where it won the First Appearance Award.

This is a film that follows a wonderful author’s thread initiated in the unforgettable poetic achievement “Ivan’s Childhood” about a boy and a war, made by one of the greatest film art masters Andrei Tarkovski. The space is close to Tarkovsky’s, now Ukraine, but this time it happens today and the hero of the story is called Oleg. He has ten years and does what all the boys in the world do – he plays, goes to school, and most of all, he likes to wander and discover the world around him. And the world begins from his yard and the street and spreads endlessly through meadows, forests, along riverbanks. And in this world of beauty and secrets the most important places have his brother, friend and grandmother with a big heart. But the dark outline of the invisible, yet dramatically present, and dangerous war noise becomes equally important and fills a little, almost empty village. Moments in which everything turns into fear, while the film becomes even more a moving poetic antiwar story about the small and unprotected in the whirlwind of big events.

Simon Lereng Wilmont discreetly, boldly and devotedly follows the little hero in various everyday situations, creating extremely convincing collisions of carefree childhood and cruel threats of war. The camera is not merely a distant observer, but always an accomplice in permitted and secret boyish endeavors. A truly great feat of a young documentarist who breaks linguistic and cultural barriers to create a work of universal value using the language of film images.

Denmark, Sweden, Finland, 2017, 90 mins.

http://www.finalcutforreal.dk/distant-barking-of-dogs

I still remember that day in 2005 when the very first screening of a European feature length documentary took place here in Belgrade – and the Magnificent7 festival started. We had no real idea of how many spectators, who would come to the Sava Centre. It was around 1000! Who had a wonderful experience watching Thomas Riedelsheimer’s “Touch the Sound”. Now he is back with “Leaning into the Wind”, again a film about an artist, actually the second one about Andy Goldsworthy, the first one was “Rivers and Tides”. “Leaning into the Wind” is the title.

Here are some words from the director’s website:

“In 2011, during a shoot in Scotland, I met Andy Goldsworthy again. It had been ten years since we released Rivers and Tides and we had not seen each other in the interim. From the very first moment I felt like no time has passed at all – it felt as though we had just waved farewell a few days before. It felt intimate immediately and I became aware of my never-ending interest in this man and his work. People who know “Rivers and Tides” think they know Andy Goldsworthy. And so we both felt that adding a new perspective to him and his work would be fascinating.

“It has been a great time, an unforgettable experience. LEANING INTO THE WIND offers a different angle, a different perspective, another perception on many levels. It is not only an expansion of the former film but stands by itself. Another moment in time, of Andy´s life – and of my life.”

http://www.leaningintothewind.com/

This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, the directors of Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade:

This touching film story, without any interview or narrator, introduces us to the turbulent world of small, irresistible, charismatic heroes who have just arrived to a small place in The Netherlands and entered the classroom of an ordinary elementary school. For them, this is all new and confusing, they don’t fit in, they are too sensitive and scared. But like all children, they are also restless, naughty and unsubdued, and from the very first moment their brilliant teacher, Miss Kit, begins a great battle using all her skills of an excellent pedagogue. A battle in which, apart from discipline, learning and knowledge, mutual respect and dignity are top objectives.

Discreetly shot at the child’s eyes level over a period of one year, this film is a story of joy and experiences that change children and shape their world. Experienced pair of documentarists Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster with their perfectly selected participants, through masterly captured moments and true empathy with little heroes in front of their warm and penetrating camera lens, unfold moving sequences of school days and discreetly build a course of one school year. They create a brilliant visual study of learning and maturing, emphasizing at the same time the importance of those who are preparing the society of the future.

Holland, 2016, 115 minutes

http://dekinderenvanjufkiet.nl/en/

Elwira Niewiera, co-director with Piotr Rosolowski of ”The Prince and the Dybbuk”, the opening film at the 14th edition of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade, had to cancel her presence because of illness. From Berlin the Polish co-director sent this text as a sound bite. It was played before the screening:

“I am very, very sad that I can’t be there with you today. This is an exceptional festival, created by some very special people.

I would like to say a big thank you to Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, and also to Tue Steen Müller.

When we started to work on this movie, one of the Polish filmmakers told us, that even if you are making a film about someone who passed away, remember that it’s still very important for that person what kind of film you are going to make.

It was a big challenge to make a film about someone, who constantly erased/or had to erased his own traces, changing names, religion, titles or countries.

This mechanism became a way of life for him, and also a means of survival, as it allowed him to outsmart the spirit of intolerance.

Over the next few weeks, we will all be excited about the football World Cup taking place in Russia. But when we will be supporting our teams in front of the TVs, please let us at the same time remember the Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who is imprisoned in a labour camp, is on a hunger strike and is slowly dying in the very same country – in solidarity with other unlawfully convicted people.

Thank you and I wish you a nice screening and a nice opening of the festival“.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/en/index.php

This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, the directors of Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade:

Poland, Germany 2017.
82 minutes
directed by: Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski

The best documentary on cinema of The Venice Film Festival 2017. The story of a stunning mystery that is becoming more complex and unexpected as it unfolds before us.

Who was the director and Hollywood producer Michal Waszynski who worked with the biggest movie stars of his time, such as Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Orson Wells? Directors Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski are taking us to an exciting film journey through the life of a man who was known to many, but whose secrets were so deeply hidden that no one really knew him. Prince Waszynski, through the turbulent and dramatic years of his personal and world history, wrote his life story as if he directed the most fantastic film.

A superb modern documentary with an extremely complex structure in which fascinating archival footage is interwoven with shots and scenes of search, witnesses and spaces. Directorial couple Niewiera Rosolowski creates an exciting thriller, but at the same time an equally unusual history of the 20th century in Europe, from the dark times of the rise of Nazism to glamorous Hollywood spectacles. In these turbulent times, behind the curtain of dramatic events, they magically depict the hidden figure of Prince Waszynski, penetrating deeply into imaginary and irrational layers of time.

http://prince-dybbuk.com/

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