Doker Moscow Russia

In a break of the Danish television 3 hour long coverage of the re-election of President Putin – instead of falling asleep – I checked facebook and saw that the organisers of the independent documentary festival in Moscow had chosen the opening film, Polish Marta Prus ”Over the Limit”, for festival that runs April 12-17. A fine choice of course – the film is excellent and the characters are Russian.

I have since the first edition of the festival been a fan of what Irina Shatalova and Nastia Tarasova, and their team, have set up. This is the fourth edition and it includes a main competition of feature docs, a short film competition, docs for kids, masterclasses, discussions.

Other films in the main competition are ”A Woman Captured” by Hungarian Bernadett Tuza-Ritter (shown these days at CPH:DOX and is the opening film on friday 23rd at DocuDays in Kiev), the touching Dutch film ”Alicia” by Maasja Ooms, the equally moving Belorussian film about women in prison, ”Debut” by Anastasiya Miroshnichenko and French Emmanuel Gras Congo-film ”Makala”. 14 films are shown in the main competition.

High quality, a focus on how people live around the world.

https://www.midff.com/

Marie-Clémence Andriamonta Paes: Fahavalo

”I’ll try to tell you the story”, says the weak old man in a blue shirt with a hat on his head. He is adressing the camera crew. ”I was 22 in 1947”, the year that is the focus of the film, the year when a rebellion took place led by the ”Fahavalo”, the enemies it means, against the French who had colonised Madagascar. An uprising against the Vazaha, the French, the Europeans. He was one of the freedom fighters and he paid his price, 8 years and 9 months in prison. The rebels were hiding in the forests and long after they were defeated, many of them were still there.

That old man is just one of the storytellers in the film. A handful of other men and women still alive are the witnesses found and involved in the film by the filmmakers. In conversations, which are conversations and not interviews – and conversations that most of the time include listeners, relatives, children and grandchildren, who want to hear and – you sense that – are proud of what they did back then. The tellers are mostly ordinary (hate that word) people but there are also some, who have studied this crucial point in the Malagasy history… The way they talk is wonderful. They like to bring to life the dramatic stories about what happened, and about how life was, these 70 years ago, and they often do it in a flowerish, metaphoric language, helped by questions from the film crew. It is no secret that there is a film crew, who asks and respects and are curious on behalf of the viewer. Oral history at its best. At one sequence one of the old men starts his talk but is interrupted by one of the relatives, who says ”don’t talk so much, get to the point”, but behind the camera the filmmakers object: Let him talk. This is why one gets to love the people in the conversations: they are given space to express themselves. And it is an evidence of the love and cinematic competence the filmmakers have dedicated to the film.

A few words more on Malagasy history at that time: During WW2 many Malagasy men were going to Europe to fight with the French against the Germans. At the same time the official Madagascar was supporting the French Vichy government led by Marechal Pétain. For that reason the English occupied Madagascar during WW2. After the war the soldiers came back – for their support to France de Gaulle had promised them independence. It did not happen. Instead Madagascar became a part of France Union, a colony. This disappointment led to the rebellion. As one says: ”A lot of Malagasy blood was spilled back then”. Another sweet old man says that “de Gaulle colonised us to help us”!

The film is built as a journey in history and literally to find the survivors. Along and through mountain tunnels, passing lakes and rivers, bigger and smaller villages, inside and outside houses. The Film as a Film is excellent. Content and form go hand in hand. The scoop is that at the same time as you experience a historical event told as old men and women remember it – the insurrection against power and colonialism – it is also, through the images, giving the viewer a sense of the island of today. Daily hard life in the countryside as it was also at that time, like building a house from clay, carrying food and goods in baskets on their heads, cooking at a fireplace outside… With rituals like the Sikidy – I am not able to tell you what it is, but fascinating to watch.

A sequence to make you understand the way the film is shifting from then to now and back again: A man talks about the many rebels who were being killed in battles, where they fought with spears and machetes against guns and knives; cut to a poor cemetery where you find the inscription ”The Tomb of the Brave”; cut to a lake where a lonely man in a canoo is paddling; cut to the same motif in the past in one of the extraordinary black/white archive scenes that the film is full of; cut to animals crossing a river… and all that accompanied by the captivating accordéon music composed by Régis Gizavo, who is from Madagascar. It’s superb!

And I love the long scenes like the one, where a boy is cutting wood meant to give fire with a big knife. It is no surprise for me, who knows what cameraperson César Paes has been doing before together with Marie-Clémence as producer and co-director; he has ”a documentary eye” and knows a poetic situation, when he feels or sees one. There are many.

On the photo above you see cameraman César Paes, assistant director and set photographer Tiago Paes, Berthe Raharisoa, in her white dress, a lively lady, born in 1925, who was part of the MDRM. In the film she sings the anthem of the resistance party. Lovely!

And to the right director and producer Marie Clémence Andriamonta Paes, as the name indicates she is half Malagasy, half French. It is of course a huge advantage that she speaks the language and can communicate directky with the witnesses.

All I know about Madagascar, I know from Marie-Clémence and César Paes and their films. Way back from the 1989 “Angano… Angano”. That we bought for distribution in Denmark. It is so beautiful and well shot that our grand master of Danish documentary, Jørgen Roos, thought it was shot on 35mm film. Thank you for that and “Mahaleo” and more films and let this new wonderful film travel!

France, 2018, 90 mins.

http://fahavalo-film.com

CPH:DOX 2018/ Exit

KAREN WINTHER: EXIT

“How do you get out of the closed and often violent milieu among extremists without risking your life? Norwegian filmmaker Karen Winther has taken the journey herself. With her past as a right-wing extremist, she visits other defectors in the United States, Germany and Denmark, where she meets the former Danish left-wing activist Søren Lerche and the Frenchman David, who spent six years in prison as an accomplice in a terrorist attack in France. Jihadis, Nazis and violent Antifas: All the people whom Winther meets on her journey have broken with their past and are now living with the consequences. ‘Exit’ is an exploratory firsthand account about de-radicalisation and about the tough exit which leaves those involved looking back and asking the same question: Why me? The excitement and the clear sense of identity as a rebel and as a part of a group on a mission are among the obvious answers. But the truth is often more complex, and what they most often have in common is regretting the bitter mistakes of the past.” (CPH:DOX programme)

KOMMENTAR

Det er en beslutsom films beslutsomme slutscene. Manuel har skåret igennem sin tøven og har pakket det nødvendigste og er på flugt med sit barn til et nyt hemmeligt sted, fordi de tidligere venner i organisationen har fundet ham. Han er igen på flugt i sit eget land, i Tyskland, han er nødt til at beskytte barnet og sig selv. Jeg har ved gennem 80 minutter at være med Karen Winther på hendes gentagne møder lært ham at kende, og er med hende og hendes film faktisk kommet til at holde af ham, dette voldelige og fredelige menneske.

Det er en rigtig god film, det er en aldeles vedkommende og sober tv-dokumentar, en tilbageskuende jeg-fortælling i filmens nutid med en undersøgelsesrejse efter lignende fortællinger og samtaler med vigtige velformulerede vidner som denne de-radikaliserede mand. Alt skildret i et ordentligt og tvivlende og tænkende journalistisk essays form. Filmen er beregnet til tv, tror jeg, og den vil bestemt kunne findes på tv den kommende tid, men jeg vil lige så bestemt anbefale at se den i en biografs mørke koncentration nu det, er vil jeg igen tro, enestående muligt. Der er meget at lytte intenst til, fine nuancer i sjældne formuleringer at opfatte og vende og dreje i billedsidens vignetters korte hvile. Mine fordomme om moralsk og politisk radikalisering er blevet grundigt rystet.

Karen Winther: Exit, Norge, 2018, 83 min. Præsenteres på CPH:DOX 2018, som har visninger tirsdag, torsdag og følgende søndag: https://cphdox.dk/program/film/?id=571 (Datoer, tider, steder, billetter)

CPH:DOX 2018/ Lost Warrior

NASIB FARAH OG SØREN STEEN JESPERSEN: LOST WARRIOR

Mohammed was just three years old when he was sent away from Somalia without his parents to a better life in England. As a teenager in London he got involved in crime and ended up in prison where he became radicalised. As a 19-year-old he was extradited to Somalia, where he landed straight in the arms of the terrorist organisation Al-Shabab. But when Mohammed finds out that Al-Shabab is not a liberation movement, but kills innocent people, he decides to flee. As a 23-year old he is living undercover in Mogadishu in the hopes of hiding from Al-Shabab. Here, he meets Fathi who was born in London, but sent to Somalia to be ‘reeducated’. They get married and when Fathi returns home to London she is pregnant with their child. ‘Lost Warrior’ follows the young couple’s attempt to be united as a family and to create a future for themselves and their son, Yassir. But Fathi and Mohammed are caught in the global politics of the day. Where to go? And what are his options now? They are also caught in their own culture, where the demands to maintain traditional and religious patterns is not at all consistent with being a young person in a modern world.

KOMMENTAR

Jamen det er jo en kærlighedshistorie og den fortælles sådan. Der er forhindringer, politiske, juridiske, administrative, kulturelle, familiemæssige, og i denne umulighed er der alligevel korte løsninger og øjeblikke af mulig lykke, i en scene snakker de tæt sammen om farverne på europæiske pas, og i den smukkeste scene forsøger han at placere et øresmykke med sine fumlende hænder så nær hendes ansigt og hvisker genert undskyldende: det er min første gang. Det er regulært spændende og det er meget ungt. Der er de to og der er deres barn, som både er sammenhængskraften og udmattelsen. Fortællingen begynder midt i det hele og slutter der, fortællingen er en række kapitler i de tres dannelseshistorier kombineret til en familiehistorie. Hele tiden i to byer, i to verdener, i to kulturer, hvor de tre er én historisk fremspirende kultur, dannet i det nye moderne, det nye modernes unge familie, som er bundet i det globale, men med en længsel mod det nye lokale sted.

Det er et stærkt hold, som fortæller den historie: filmen åbner i fotografisk skønhed, et vidunderligt gadebillede med mange filmhistoriske mindelser om stedet for handlingen med det samme roligt defineret, fortsætter i lutter regelbundet billedskønhed med lange scener på række, alle med Henrik Bohn Ipsens tydelige signatur, vel at mærke ikke påskrevet, men indarbejdet sammen med Anita Hopland. Et filmfotografisk mesterværk.

Filmoptagelsernes fortælling skrider roligt og omhyggeligt frem i klart afgrænsede scener, som alle holder deres intensitet til sekundet før de dør og så bringes videre i en ligesom umærkelig intens, stadigt stigende spænding, et drama af overblik og ro, endnu et klippekunstnerisk mesterværk af Steen Johannessen.

Personinstruktionen og det velforberedte arrangement i en lang række af disse scener af replikfyldt og gestiktydeligt samvær, ja, det er for en stor del en iscenesat dokumentarfilm, efterlader hver af disse en sjælden tilfredsstillelse af dybere forståelse og kompliceret anfægtelse hos mig,

Det er et dristigt kunstnerisk eksperiment, det er opdateret iscenesat dokumentarisme, det er i alle detaljerne (fotografi, klip, lyd, dialog, dekoration…) rene og ganske klare stiliserede, improviserede, ekstemporerede eller altså iscenesatte samvær og samtaler uden mislyde for mig at høre. Lost Warrior er modigt kontrolleret filmkunst af instruktørduen Nasib Farah og Søren Steen Jespersen.

Det en vigtig problemfyldt historie, hvis både juridiske, etiske og socialantropologiske sider i min oplevelse af fortællingens virkelighed behændigt i klippet bringer mig i anfægtelsens tvivlende syv sind, når jeg lytter til den britiske advokats i samtalen med den fortabte kriger og til onklen fra hans familieklans besindige rådgivning i scenerne med ham, dels krigeren alene, dels hvor krigeren har sin mor med. Men, men de to besindige voksne har jo kun små, omend vigtige biroller og fylder ikke nok til at fungere som mine helte, jeg som publikum i biografen holder med, knytter min identitet til. Men de er mig nærmest.

For jeg kan slet ikke komme i kontakt med de to unge, specielt ikke med ham, finder ham som 23 årig barnlig og urimelig og mærkeligt uerfaren trods sin angiveligt begivenhedsrige fortid som selvhjulpet barn, gangster, udvist efter afsoning og deserteret hellig kriger. Hun er lettere at forstå som ung mor i et britisk-somalisk hjem med genkendelige generationsmodsætninger. De to er imidlertid overdådigt smukke, de er overvældende selvoptagne, især han, og min forståelse for deres ungdomskultur svigter.

Onklen, som griber ansvarligt objektivt analyserende ind, bliver min nærmeste helt i filmen, advokaten analyserer jo blot og lægger med en beklagelse sagen bort i den således helt centrale skype scene, som sammenfatter den episode i den tre personers dannelsesroman Lost Warrior er, en episode, som både begyndes og afsluttes in medias res. Så jeg har et problem: jeg nyder uansvarlig filmværket på dets smukke overflade, men jeg kan ikke trænge ned i dets indholds skarptkantede dybde uden tvivl, tvivl… Men at forårsage anfægtelse hører jo netop filmkunst til.

Danmark, 2018. 82 min. Produktion: Helle Faber, Made in Copenhagen med fast hånd må jeg tro i det komplicerede værk som hun præsenterer på CPH:DOX 2018:

https://cphdox.dk/program/film/?id=515 (Datoer, tider, steder, billetter)

http://www.madeincopenhagen.dk/da/den-fortabte-kriger

Tsymbal & Smoljanski: Two Painters…

… Oscar Rabin and Valentina Kropivnitskaya, their lives and their art. I knew the name Rabin in beforehand and that he is exiled, living in Paris now, 90 years old, but I had never really heard the story about him as an artist in the USSR and I did not know that his wife Valentina was such an excellent artist. All that was clarified because I met Alexander Smoljanski at DOK Leipzig, who invited me to watch the two films about the artist couple. The film are introduced like this on the website:

”This is a film project in two parts showing the story of the leader of the Soviet underground artists, painter Oscar Rabin, and his wife, painter Valentina Kropivnitskaya. It is a story of painters who never betrayed their artistic principles and always fought to show how powerful a weapon nonviolent resistance can be – it’s a story of love, art and human dignity.”

I learned a lot from the two films. About the Lianozovo group of so-

called non-conformist artists from a small village outside Moscow, who rebelled against the official social realism; that was late 1950’es beginning of 1960’es. And I was reminded of the importance of the Bulldozer Exhibition in 1974 with Rabin as one of the main organisers – the bizarre name comes from the fact that the KGB sent, yes, bulldozers with water canons to stop the exhibition. It is said to have changed the art scene in USSR.

Oscar Rabin (th) sammen med kollegerne Youri Jarki og Alexander Gleser 1974

And it changed the life of Oscar Rabin, who with his family was expelled from the country to live in Paris.

The 2018 film about Rabin, made in this year where he is 90 years old, is shot in Paris with an enormous archive from his (almost) first years in USSR and including the known material with Kruschev calling modern art for perverse. Rabin’s childhood is explained, he is interviewed and colleagues and art critics talk about him. The Greek art collector Costakis and his important is mentioned in this film about an ”unofficial artist”.

And Rabin is the main storyteller in the film from 2015 about his wife Valentina Kropivnitskaya, who died in 2008. Their close love story is told by Rabin in his studio in Paris; he does so in a beautiful caring way, where he talks about this outsider in the Lianozovo school, who went her own way as an naíve artist, making fine delicate works – she used colored pencils like children do – it’s a artist who talks with love about his modest and shy wife, who did not say a lot and was not interested in publicity. In Sovietunion she painted animals, in France she turned to landscapes, dreamerish, the title of this film is rightfully ”In Search of a Lost Paradise”.

Two fine artists living and working in quite limited space. Portrayed in a classical way – lots of interviews, commentary, archive, works – conventional, yes, but the characters stand out as extraordinary.

In Search of a Lost Paradise, 2015, 52 mins. Director: Evgeny Tsymbal. Script and production: Alexander Smoljanski.

Oscar. 2018. Directors: Evgeniy Tsymbal and Alexander Smoljanski.

The film is quite new so I have no information on its festival life yet. But Rabin is celebrated in many countries where the film will get its place, I’m sure,

http://oscar-rabin.web61.server4.configcenter.info

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/bulldozer-underground-exhibition-revolutionised-russian-art

 

CPH:DOX 2018/ The Cleaners

HANS BLOCK OG MORITZ RIESEWIECK: THE CLEANERS

”What responsibility do Facebook, Google and YouTube have for what is being posted on their sites? And what power do they have to shape the public discourse through censorship? Two questions that are currently preoccupying legislators and politicians. But who are the people who actually try to keep the internet clean? Meet five Filipino ‘content moderators’ who have the unrewarding job of keeping social media free from offensive content, but who also work full-time in a legal and ethical grey zone between freedom of expression, censorship and commercial interests. ‘The Cleaners’ brings us into the underworld of the internet, where the debates are already raging. 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube and 2.5 million posts created on Facebook. Every minute. Every day. And the media giants’ influence on everything from presidential elections to the number of likes for one’s status updates is now so enormous that legislation can no longer ignore it.” (CPH:DOX programme)

KOMMENTAR

Han her på et still fra dokumentaren er content moderator, han er anonym, men dog ikke sløret som et andet mere forsigtigt vidne. Han er fra Manila, han arbejder der i et firma, der næsten som et almindeligt rengøringsfirma tilbyder de store på nettet som Facebook og You Tube og dem en smule nedefter i almægtighed at fjerne brugernes snavs fra deres sider beregnet til social medieaktivitet i det vældige og ufattelige betydningsfelt mellem frie ytringer og utallige økonomiske, politiske og moralske begrænsninger og hensyn. Utugtige billeder, frygtelige billeder, falske nyheder, politiske spamangreb og visse uacceptable gruppers agitation: Ignore or delete. Simpelthen skelne mellem ondt og godt, som en af hans kolleger fra arbejdsboksen ved siden af i firmaets værksted udtrykker det. Man kan, synes jeg, se Hans Blocks og Moritz Riesewiecks dokumentar alene for de filminspirerede afsnit med ham og hans kollegers skyld.

Man kan også se dokumentaren for Nicole Wongs skyld, det vil de to instruktører mene, da de har bragt hende i front med sine langt mere sofistikerede holdninger, som jeg ikke så umiddelbart som cleanernes ja eller nej har baggrund og mulighed for at opfatte med det samme. Vil jeg forstå hendes synspunkt, må det være langt mere middelbart end dokumentarens argumenterede journalistik kan tilbyde mig, dens nok næstvigtigste vidne er fra den anden sociale medieverden, hun er fra et helt andet overvejelses- og beslutningslag med sine erfaringer som juridisk rådgiver i Obamas administration og fra tilsvarende opgaver i Googles ledelseslag. For så senere at forstå hende, må jeg først læse meget mere og se dokumentaren flere gange. Det er meget rimeligt, sådan har jeg det ofte. Og man kan helt bestemt se dette tv-program alene på grund af de vigtige interviews med Wong og en række tilsvarende kompliceret artikulerende vidner.

Længere opklippede afsnit med reportage er skudt ind imellem: En fotokunstner sidder i sit værksted og fjerner, nej, dekonstruerer et foto af et bestemt barn druknet under en oversvømmelse, arbejder omhyggeligt med en skalpel i den fotografiske overflade, så der blot bliver et hvidt omrids, en skygge som af en engel. Det er egentlig smukt, et icon som fotografiet af den lille nøgne pige i en gruppe flygtende fra et flyangreb med napalmbomber, som alle i min generation kender. ”Det er et icon” siger content moderatoren, han har hørt ordet, hørt, at det er det, ”vist nok fra krigen i Viet Nam.” Men det overtræder reglen om gengivelse af genitalier, især børns, så det må væk. Delete. En maler arbejder et andet sted i verden med sit portræt af den amerikanske præsident nøgen og med lille penis. Ignore or delete?

Enkelte afsnit, eller hvad jeg skal kalde disse dokumentarens linjeskift i rapportstil, er fuldstændig og ren tabloid, omnibus, ugeblad og magasin. De er med vilje lavet for en åbenbart nødvendig breddes skyld, men de svækker den alvorlige dybde i Blocks og Riesewiecks værk, og grebet medfører det banale faktum, at alt er aldeles tekstbåret, alle billedscener er illustrationer til det, som siges. De eneste filmiske scener er de statements, som bevarer lyd og billede sammen. Alle spørgsmål er imidlertid klippet bort, så det er slet ikke samtaler, faktisk heller ikke interviews, jeg oplever som seer, men netop statements, udtalelser, citater fra et oprindeligt samværs helhed.

De fineste, mest interessante af disse er så dem, som de medvirkende content moderators, disse cleaners leverer. De gør dermed dokumentaren værd at se. De er også smukkest fotograferede scener, jeg ved ikke rigtigt, hvorfor jeg mener det. Låner billedet den medvirkendes oprigtighed og særlige aura? Er det journalistiske essay indlejret i dette lag, eller kunne det være det? Tænker jeg hver gang.

Dokumentaren i sin meget bevidste, sin teknisk fremragende, konsekvente og meget styrede helhed mangler nemlig sit essay, sin personlighed, sin intellektuelle synlighed, sin journalistiske værdighed. Den brede, underholdende, jeg synes tvivlsomme, henvendelse har overtaget overvejelsen og tvivlen. Men den er, hvad tv-dokumentaren The Cleaners vil og overdådigt lykkes med. Den er flot visuelt færdiggjort og overbevisende dygtigt produceret som den tv-dokumentar den bevidst vil være, fuldstændig i sin genres stil. Ja, den er stilren. Men er den så fremragende? Spørger jeg imponeret mig selv og mumler et usikkert nej.

Men gå under alle omstændigheder ind og se selv efter, som kollega Müller ofte skriver, og bliv elegant underholdt og lær som jeg gjorde, måske for første gang også som jeg gjorde, hvad en content moderator er. Disse mennesker er for mig dokumentarens uforglemmelighed, de er så almindelige og alvorlige og sympatiske, ja, søde mennesker i deres koldblodige manøvrering i deres arbejdsområde mellem Facebooks og You Tubes og Googles regler og deres firmas regler og så til når det kommer til beslutningen i brøkdele af et sekund deres egen smag og moral. 25 tusind gange i døgnet (eller var det pr. vagt?) denne hurtige afgørelse: ignore or delete.

Tyskland 2018, 90 min. Vises på CPH:DOX 2018: https://cphdox.dk/program/film/?id=583 (Datoer, tider, steder, billetter)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/cleaners-review-1076159 (Anmeldelse med god baggrundsorientering)

East Doc Forum 2018

Huge cinema for the highlight of the East Doc Platform 2018. After masterclasses, presentations, individual meetings at the market, receptions – all held in the good atmosphere that the IDF (Institute for Documentary Film) is so good in creating, and has been doing since the start of this century – it was show time for 24 projects, many of them coming from the 3 week long development programme EO, Ex Oriente.

The two main tutors of EO, Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti and Danish Mikael Opstrup, were again the presenters of the projects, an enjoyable and easy job for the two football aficionados, who maybe suffered a bit after having seen Tottenham lose to Juventus at ”our” Indian restaurant ”The Londoners”!

On the 8th of March, International Women’s Day, Vehkalahti welcomed the first pitching team, Polish

Malgorzata Goliszewska and Katarzyna Mareja, whose ”Lessons of Love” will be a tribute to a woman, who spent 30 years with an alcoholic husband, raised 6 children and now wants her own life, eventually with a nice man, she meets, when she goes dancing. She is wonderful and it will be a good film. 100 hours, two versions, 40 minutes of scenes to show at the one-to-one meetings after the Forum.

I will mention some more projects from the 24 – I loved ”Amoosed” by Czech Hana Novakova, whose passion is ”man and moose” and whose film will ”make you laugh by its sheer playful surrealism and touch you and make your heart melt”. The director will be in the film; what she showed in the trailer had this craziness that we often miss in modern documentary. Totally different, of course, is the new project by Polish Hanna Polak after her succesful ”Something Better to Come”. The title is ”Angels of Sinjar, Yazidis – 21st Century Genocide”, the latter referring to ISIS wanting to exterminate the Yazidis in Iraq. Polak was in Iraq shooting, the project was – as always – presented carefully and in a professional way by producer Simone Baumann. A strong, with graphic scenes, trailer.

No surprise that Hanna Polak’s film project was one of the winners – see the list in the next post – of the East Doc Platform. And for me quite as obvious was it that Estonian Marianna Kaat with her ”The Last Relic” received the main award in Prague. She has filmed in Yekaterinburg, the city where the last zar was killed by the bolsheviks 100 year ago, in July 2018. I guess Kaat wants the film to be ready for that occasion, I hope she can, so her film about modern Russia (with Stalinists, monarchists and activists) can enlighten us viewers with what is going on in the country, where Putin will be re-elected on March 18. Kaat presented the project at the Baltic Sea Docs in September and I was disappointed. What happened I asked the director? I found my main character, she said, 21-year-old Left Block activist Igor Frolov, who with his charismatic young appearence made the teaser convincing, full of energy.

One more Polish – amazing what comes from that country – is ”Of Animals and Men” by Lukasz Czajka, a fantastic story about a couple, Jan and Antonina Zabinski and their fight for animals and the heroic way they saved between 100 and 300 jews during the war. The story is simple, Zabinski set up the Warsaw Zoo in the late 1920’es; the zoo was destroyed when the Germans came – they took a lot of the animals to Germany – but the family stayed in their home at the zoo, hiding jews, also in the empty animal cages. The film will apart from this amazing historical event also be a warm love story between Jan and Antonina, who came back to the zoo when the war was over.

Readers of this site will maybe remember the many times I have written about Peter Kerekes (”66 Seasons”, ”Cooking History”…), who is a true auteur with his own style and humour. As in this one, ”Wishing on a Star”, where he introduces Luciana, astrologist, who has a specific, simple method ”to change your destiny by taking a trip on the day of your birthday”. The trailer was refreshing – the clients of the astrologist all want Love and Luciana suggests them to go to far away places. Kerekes: Luciana and the most famous Italian meal lasagna come from the city of Naples. I imagine this documentary following a ”lasagna concept”: a lot of layers mounted on top of each other, creating an unforgettable delicious taste… Multilayered, yeah, that is what we want documentaries to be.

In the following post you can read which projects were awarded in Prague at the East Doc Platform.

Photo Michal Hancovsky.

The Winning Projects at EDP in Prague

– EDP standing for East Documentary Platform.

Photo: The Last Relic (d. Marianna Kaat (to the left), p. Dorota Roszkowska) and Angels of Sinjar. Yazidis – 21st Century Genocide (d. Hanna Polak, p. Simone Baumann (to the right). Photo: Michal Hančovský.

East Doc Platform Award
 The Last Relic – Marianna Kaat 
Producers: Marianna Kaat, Dorota Roszkowska 
Production companies: Baltic Film Production (Estonia), Arkana Studio (Poland)

HBO Europe Award 
Angels of Sinjar. Yazidis – 21st Century Genocide – Hanna Polak
Producers: Hanna Polak, Simone Baumann 
Production companies: Hanna Polak Films (Poland), Saxonia Entertainment GmbH (Germany)

Czech TV Co-production Award
 Angels of Sinjar. Yazidis – 21st Century Genocide

The Current Time TV Award
 Holy Culture! – Ksenia Gapchenko
Producer: Maria Chuprinskaya 
Production company: Ethnofund (Russia) 

The Place of Love – Liuba Ziamtsova
Producer: Maria Yahorava 
Production company: Illusion Film Company (Belarus)

Golden Funnel
 Amoosed! – Hana Nováková 
Producer: Kateřina Traburová 
Production company: GURU Film (Czech Republic)

IDFA Forum 
Journey to the End of the Night – Ksenia Elyan 
Producers: Max Tuula, Maria Gavrilova, Alexander Rastorguev 
Production company: Marx Film (Estonia)

Speed Meetings at DocsBarcelona
 Wishing on a Star – Peter Kerekes
Producers: Erica Barbiani, Ralph Weiser, Peter Kerekes, Petra Oplatková
Production companies: Videomante (Italy), Mischief Films (Austria), Artcam Films (Czech Republic), Peter Kerekes Film (Slovakia)

DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Meetings 
Lessons of Love – Malgorzata Goliszewska, Katarzyna Mateja 
Producer: Anna Stylinska 
Production company: Warsaw Film Center (Poland) 

DOK Preview Presentation
 Hacking Friendship – Oleksiy Radynski 
Producer: Lyuba Knorozok 
Production company: Lyuba Knorozok (Poland) 

Sheffield Doc/Fest Award
 In the Name of Allah – Francesco Montagner
Producer: Pavla Janoušková Kubečková 
Production companies: nutprodukce, FAMU Prague (Czech Republic) 

If/Then Short Pitch Award
 Blackandwhite – Zoe Eluned Aiano, Anna Benner
Producers: Linda Dedkova, Martin Hůlovec
Production company: Punk Film (Czech Republic)

Modern Times Review Spring 2018

… with the subtitle ”The European Documentary and Non-fiction Magazine” is out with its 3rd printed version, and let me start with a strong promotion of what is ridiculously cheap, 28€ per year:

”A yearly subscription gives you the spring and fall issues of Modern Times Review, full access to all (soon 1000 articles from the last 20 years) online articles, and the monthly documentary screenings.”

I met the chief-editor Norwegian Truls Lie in Prague the other day, where he brought the magazine to the big documentary community attending the East Doc Platform and the One World Festival. He told me that this spring issue of the magazine comes out with a focus on films that are being shown at the festivals in Thessaloniki, Prague, Oslo, Copenhagen, Nyon, Krakow. Within the 24 pages there are small interviews with the festival directors of the mentioned festivals to give you an idea of where their focus lies. It’s nice and informative.

Otherwise – and most important – the quality of the reviews and articles are high. Let me mention two excellent writers, Nick Holdsworth and Neil Young. The first has an impressive analysis of the controversial Czech documentary ”The White World According to Daliborek” (PHOTO) by Vit Klusak, the latter, Neil Young, gets a whole page to write a beautiful article on short films based on his visit to the International Film Festival Rotterdam. ”Short documentaries has a capacity to dazzle and delight”, he writes and reviews in details two Ukrainian short films, Tobias Zielony’s ”Maskirova” and Anna Jermolaewas ”Leninopad”. It is a scoop that Lie has Neil Young to write about shorts in the magazine. I am sure many readers know Young from his (long) documentary reviews in Hollywood Reporter… And he gets around, Neil Young, who told me that he was at 28 festivals last year. Gosh!!!

Again a big Bravo to Truls Lie for continuing what was done with the DOX Magazine. A tribute to the documentary genre. SUBSCRIBE!  

www.moderntimes.review

EDN Award to DOC Lab Poland

Adam Ślesicki and Katarzyna Ślesicka receive the 2018 EDN Award for their work in establishing and running DOC LAB POLAND, which is the largest and most multi-faceted program for documentary filmmakers organized in Poland for Polish projects. The initiative supports auteur-driven creative documentary filmmaking and features a comprehensive program for the development of film projects. In addition to development support, DOC LAB POLAND also connects the European documentary industry to the Polish documentary scene, thereby making the strong creative tradition of Polish documentary more widely known and accessible.

With regards to the selection of DOC LAB POLAND for the 2018 EDN Award, EDN Director Paul Pauwels states: “In times where national authorities and state structures seem to care less about freedom of expression, democratic values and creative artists, it is essential that we have initiatives fighting for the rightful existence of the documentary genre as an artistic expression and cornerstone of our democratic society. It is important to have organisations that create European collaborations and bridges to other national industries, especially in times where political structures tend to focus more on national preferences. I therefore believe it is a logical step to recognize DOC LAB POLAND through the EDN Award 2018 for their outstanding contribution to the European documentary culture”.

The award was presented to Adam Ślesicki at The EDN Award ceremony on March 6, 2018 during the Docs in Thessaloniki pitching forum organized by EDN in the framework of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century.

Photo: Adam Slesicki right, Ove Jensen EDN left.

www.edn.dk