Wonderful Losers and DocuDays UA

From wintercold Copenhagen it looks good – the documentary community performs well in many corners of the world. Facebook and newspapers bring back news from the Berlinale, where a hybrid doc/fiction, Romanian “Touch me Not” takes the Golden Bear, ZagrebDox has opened with Marta Prus fine “Over the Limit“, veteran festival in Paris Cinema du Réel has announced its program (we will get back to that), here on www.filmkommentaren.dk we have covered intensely the Docs&Talks festival, soon Copenhagen will be filled with CPH:DOX documentaries, the Oscars are close, the Americans – shame on you – will not let in the Syrian producer and a main protagonist from “Last Men in Aleppo“…

Let’s stop for a moment in Lithuania that celebrates its 100 year right now, where dear friend Arunas Matelis has his “Wonderful Losers-a Different World” running in cinemas. I was in contact with him and he told me that the film has an attendance of 9000 viewers, quite a lot for a documentary and quite a lot for a small country – he hopes, he says to me in a mail from Dublin, where the film has been shown these days, to reach around 12000. The film has found its place in commercial cinemas and Matelis is a master in promotion. Look at the photo of one of his protagonists, Danish Chris Anker Sørensen, who is carried around in the streets of Vilnius.

Arunas Matelis will at the end of this month be in Kiev for the DocuDays festival that starts March 23 and includes a retrospective of Matelis film – “Before the Flight Back the Earth“, the bicycle films and a collection of his great short films. More about the festival above.

Marie Wilke: Aggregat

REVIEW WRITTEN BY GEORG ZELLER

„Democracy. Ever heard about?“ asks the guide to the visitors of the German parliament. They have. But through little role plays and corny jokes, they are taught in a more practical way how the MP’s job influences the German society.

And the viewer of Marie Wilke’s AGGREGAT – shown at the Berlinale’s Forum section – learns how democracy works in times of political disenchantment and the reign of populism. According to her documentary, the key is the intense work of single individuals who don’t get tired of doing little steps on an everyday basis.

Wilke’s sober observations show politicians participating in workshops where they learn to reply to racist arguments, journalists who elaborate how to reach their target with the message they want to propagate,  members of regional parliaments trying to create personal contact to the population, or the political institutions opening their doors to the public in order to counterargument populist convictions.

Similar to her earlier work „Staatsdiener“ (Civil Servants, 2015), Wilke doesn’t add any kind of direct comment to her mostly rigid observational images. Strong and long black frames lead from one scene or situation to another and Alexander Gheorghiu’s camera often leaves important elements of the scene deliberately outside the frame, the viewer understands it anyway. With this stylistic approach, there is some strong resemblance to the works of one of Wilke’s teachers, Harun Farocki. But differently from many of his films, she doesn’t present her protagonists as small cogs in the machine of capitalism, but actually underlines their pro-active role in the shaping of society.  And doing so, the film even touches the viewer in a strong emotional way: leading from desperation when facing nationalist masses shouting foamy slogans, to some sort of hope, for example when a politician with Senegalese roots convinces a journalist, that being German and being member of a leading political party, he doesn’t identify himself as a minority.

Germany, 2018, 92 mins.

Docs & Talks/ 8

ALICE DIOP: ON CALL

Monsieur Mamadou Diallo. Doctor Geeraert calls for the next patient at the Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny. The patient comes into the small consultation room, where he sits for hours listening to the migrants, who come to get help, migrants without papers.

Mamadou Diallo is in pain. He is from Guinea and has been beaten up by the military. Thats all we get to know about his story and we dont need more. He has stitches in his head, he has chest and back pains, he has no place to sleep, no support.

Doctor Geeraert helps him, as he helps all the other patients, who enter the small room, where there is always a psychologist or a social worker present as well. And the camera is there to look at the patients or at the doctor, and sometimes with a cut to the third person in the room.

Its a brave film. The director has made her aesthetic choice. She invites us viewers to look at faces for 90 minutes. She stays in the room. She does not interfere.

Faces from countries outside France – Guinea, Sri Lanka, South Africa and many others appear on the screen. Faces of pain, eyes without hope,silent cries for help. Or the face of the doctor, who does what he can: making certificates that state whats wrong with the patient, giving them advice where to go for turther help and first of all making prescriptions for pills that can make them sleep, or antidepressants, or painkillers, or appointments for x-rays. Sometimes a patient walks with the psychologist to a room next door for a more intimate talk.

Bureaucracy yes indeed, doctor Geeraert does indeed look at the patients but actually his eyes are focused more at the keyboard of his computer to get his paperwork done. This is an important part of the sound design of the film.

The man on the photo is from Sri Lanka, his English is pretty bad, he knows few words, and his French is non-existent. But visits to the cosultation room are important for him and one day he brings a gift to the doctor and his assistant: the Eiffel Tower!

Also monsieur Mamadou Diallo comes regularly to the doctor. The last time we see him, he brings good news – he has been given asylum status. Oh, what a wonderful scene it is as you can sense the happiness of the doctor – you are now a free man. Yes, but he has still a strong headache, his family is in Guinea and he has nowhere to sleep. But he can now get welfare support. And he puts on a big smile, you get the feeling that he does so because the doctor is happy!

The film puts itself in the fine tradition of French observational cinema and makes you think about Raymond Depardon and of course Frederick Wiseman or the films made by Arne Bro and Anne Wivel in Denmark.

As a Docs & Talks event the film was followed by a panel debate, which mostly was too general in its approach – it was good that Maja Lvbjerg Hansen was there, she is a lawyer and gave the debate a bit power by explaining about the many, many different groups of migrants she has met – and by saying that the political discussion on beggars in Denmark was based on a lie: There are the same amount of beggars in Denmark today as there was in 2001. We look at migrants without work as criminals, she said. The bureaucracy we see in the film, we have the same. I was with a Romanian at International House to have her registered, she as sent from one to the next, and said that this reminded her of Ceaucescu times back home And it seems like the French system is better that ours – they can direct the migrants to other offices for eventual help. We can not do so.

France, 2016, 90 mins.

Docs & Talks/ 7

DIEUDO HAMADI: MAMA COLONEL / MAMAN COLONELLE

How do you ensure law, order and justice in a country that is deeply marked by decades of war and conflict? This award-winning Congolese documentary follows police officer Honorine Munyole, called Mama Colonel, a widow and mother of four. She fights an tireless struggle for women and children in a society where the police are facing cases of rape, witchcraft and child abuse – and where the men bear the visible scars after the war and are therefore seen as the primary victims. The film is a Danish premiere:

THUR 22/02 TO-DAY ! 16:30

Maman colonelle / Dieudo Hamadi, 2017, 72 min. / Eng. subtitles / 122 min. incl. debate. Postdoc at DIIS Peer Schouten and Professor at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala Maria Eriksson Baaz talk about their field work in DR Congo and discuss the challenges of building civilian institutions in a war-torn country. The debate is in English. (Docs & Talks programme)

KOMMENTAR

Det mishandlede barn har scenen der det fattige sted, hvor politichefen Honorine Munyole med sine folk er kommet til stede for at gribe ind, redde børn og kvinder fra vold og vanrøgt. Hun udspørger barnet, som står i en gruppe naboer, andre børn og tilskuere, og barnet fortæller sin forfærdende historie. Og så er det kameraet ser tåren begynde at pible frem og glide ned ad kinden og blive til én mere, blive til flere, og kameraet holder fast, og barnet fortæller, giver sig ikke hen i gråden, mærker den ikke, fornemmer ikke fugten i øjet, på kinden.

Men jeg mærker den, og filmfotografen både mærker og ser den og mærker og ser samtidig handlingen i hele scenen, og i rette sekund drejer han sit kamera, og jeg ser, at de personer, som lytter med omkring, at de også græder, stille og uden at mærke det. Et sandt øjeblik findes nu i en film, som vil blive bygget af kun sande øjeblikke.

Politichefen er heller ikke i tvivl, hun ser i dette sit lands ulykke. Hun er af regeringen sat i spidsen for en specialenhed, som skal blotlægge og reparere følgerne af Den Anden Congokrig (1998-2003), hvis uoverskuelige grusomhed var ufattelig, hvis ulykker stadigvæk ingen ende vil tage. Honorine Munyole hedder hun, Maman Colonelle kaldes hun der på stedet. Hun skal tage sig af børn som er mishandlet, kvinder som er voldtaget, mishandling og voldtægt gang på gang. Filmen følger hende på arbejde, Dieudo Hamadis kamera er altid rigtigt placeret – sådan opleves det – det er med hele tiden, nær og total, scene efter scene, begivenhed efter begivenhed, rystende historier blandet med historier om indsatser, som ændrer forholdene, skaber freden.

Dieudo Hamadi skriver med sin nye film endnu et kapitel af sit lands historie, han gør det i én uafbrudt åndeløs montage af disse optagelser, som hver for sig rummer fortællingen, som tilsammen bliver en hvileløs beretning, hvor jeg selv ser alt, forstår alt. Om tåren på kinden. Den Anden Congokrig er en kompliceret affære med utallige detaljer. Hamidis filmkunst kan på sin måde rumme hele den virkelighed i ét autentisk billede, i én montage af disse billeder det ene efter det andet. Uden indklip.

Og jeg tænker lige nu, at Chris Marker ikke har ret, at cinéma vérité alligevel findes der midt i filmkunsten. Tåren på en kvindes kind i en biografs mørke, hvor hun ser en film om en kvindes lidelse og død. Som Marker selv, som Godard, som Dreyer, som Pontecorvo laver Hamadi mesterlig sand film om krigen, om historien, om det udsatte menneske. Sådan set er al sand film dokumentar. Maman Colonelle er et sådant mesterværk.

RESUMÉ

Hvordan sikrer man lov, orden og retfærdighed i et land, der er dybt mærket af årtiers krige og konflikter? Denne prisvindende congolesiske dokumentarfilm følger politiofficer Honorine Munyole, kaldet Mama Colonel, enke og mor til fire. Hun kæmper en utrættelig kamp for kvinder og børn i et samfund, hvor politiet står over for sager om voldtægt, heksebørn og børnemishandling – og hvor mændene bærer de synlige ar efter krigen og derfor bliver set som de primære ofre. Filmen er en danmarkspremiere.

Postdoc ved DIIS Peer Schouten og professor ved Nordisk Afrika Institut i Uppsala Maria Eriksson Baaz fortæller om deres feltarbejde i DR Congo og diskuterer udfordringerne med at opbygge civile institutioner i et krigshærget land. Moderator er antropolog og filminstruktør Camilla Nielsson. Debatten foregår på engelsk. Billetpris: 95/65 kr.

TORS 22/02 I DAG ! 16:30

Maman colonelle / Dieudo Hamadi, 2017, 72 min. / eng. tekst / 122 min. inkl. debat (Docs & Talks program)

LINKS

http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2015/04/02/dieudo-hamadi-un-cineaste-a-la-courbe-du-fleuve_4608019_3246.html (om instruktøren)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mama-colonel-berlin-2017-976870 (god anmeldelse)

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikanske_Verdenskrig (kort nødvendig historisk oversigt)

Vladimir Kara-Murza: Nemtsov

According to NY Times, journalist, tv-host and political activist Karza-Murza, was in coma one year ago due to, what could have been an (the second one) attempt to poison him. Performed by Russia. He survived. The journalist, who is vice chairman of the Open Russia movement, and chairs the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, published January 12 an article in Washington Post, where he touches upon the actual ban of Alexei Navalny to run for president this year… and in the paragraph before he writes:

”Two prominent opposition leaders were planning to run against Vladimir Putin in this year’s presidential election. One was Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and regional governor, four-term member of parliament, and the only authentic opposition politician who won an election in Putin’s Russia, becoming a regional legislator in 2013. He was planning a return to the Russian parliament in 2016 and considering a challenge to Putin in 2018. The plans came to an end when Nemtsov was gunned down in the center of Moscow on the evening of Feb. 27, 2015. That, of course, disqualified him from the ballot.”

Karza-Mura is in Copenhagen tomorrow, where he shows his tv-portrait of Nemtsov and presents his view on Russian politics today.

It takes place in Cinemateket thursday at 16.15

Photo: Nemtsov and Kara-Murza

Russia, 2016, 66 mins.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/world/europe/russia-vladimir-kara-murza-putin.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/01/12/if-putin-is-so-popular-why-is-he-so-afraid-of-competition/?utm_term=.c94169fdecdf

Docs & Talks/ 6

ZANBO ZHANG: THE ROAD

It worked very well: The screening of the Chinese film followed by a talk with a good panel and an interested audience. There was full house in the cinema last night at Cinemateket in Copenhagen for the opening of the festival, that continues in the coming days.

For three years the director had followed the construction of a highway in the Hunan province – a highway that was opened in 2013. As one of the panelists, third from right on the photo, Yang Jiang, who works at DIIS (Danish Institute for International Studies) said, ”it’s a thriller and a dark comedy”, a very precise characterisation of a film that puts its focus on the people involved in the building; those who had to move from their house – the locals – those who work their – the laborers – and those who fight to get recompensation for their lost work because of assaults from hired gangsters – the fighters. The locals, the laborers, the fighters, this is how the film is chaptered, a film that has many layers and many protagonists. Mr. Meng is the man from the

construction company, who is the one who promises and promises the workers that they will be paid, and there is grandma Ou and her son, who have to move… and many, many others.

The construction company is to be supervised by the local communist party members, who are the ones to exercise the government’s plan to make a new infrastructure for China. Yang Jiang said that what we saw is just one case in the strategy for a new infrastructure and it has actually helped the Chinese economy. That has experienced a boom, said another panelist, Luke Patey, also from DIIS (outside the photo) but has not made the Chinese population in general more happy; research has proved that.

There were questions from the audience to the film and luckily Steen Johannesen, Danish editor on the film, was present. He could answer some film-related questions. One was of course why the people in the film talked so openly about corruption; there are several scenes where you actually see envelopes go from the hands of the construction company representatives to the local party members. Johannesen’s answer to that was very simple: They are open-mouthed as they know that the film will never be shown to a bigger audience! Professor Jun Liu from Copenhagen University talked about the ”red envelope” tradition in China, which is not only meant for bribing but is also a common family tradition, where older people – as an example – give the young ones money. But, he stressed, it is never revealed how much money there is in the envelope!

For me the film is about inequality Luke Patey said as an answer to a question from a man in the audience, who did not really experience, what the film wanted to say. Johannesen said that the main theme for him was the corruption. One could add the total disrespect shown in the film towards the environment or to the graves, to history that have to go because the highway, the catastrophic working conditions, the lack of organisation of the workers, the late payments and compensations, the mafia methods etc. etc.

When you create a concept like Docs & Talks you have to be sure that the film can create debate and make an audience curious to know more. This opening event presented a perfect match thanks to a good film and a good panel.

The Danish co-producer of the film is Plus Pictures/ Mette Heide, the film has been supported by DFI (Danish Film Institute), DR, SVT, IKON from Holland and others and has had a strong festival carreer.

Photo: From left Jun Liu, Yang Jiang, moderator journalist Lene Winther and editor Steen Johannesen.

China, Denmark, 2015, 95 mins.

http://www.theroad2015.com/

Corneliu Porumboiu: Football Infinite

Here comes the website description of this original Romanian documentary, so precise that there is no reason for me to add anything, after that my thoughts about the film:

They talk about the beautiful game, but for Laurențiu Ginghină, it’s not enough. Football must be modified, streamlined, freed from restraints; corners are to be rounded off, players assigned to zones and subteams, norms revised. In retrospect, he first realized that the rules of football were wrong when he was tackled during a game in his youth, in the summer holidays, on another pitch now covered in snow, but in Vaslui, not Bucharest. The tackle hit so hard it fractured his fibula, a year later his tibia broke too, on New Year’s Eve 1987, he had to walk home in the snow and no one helped him. Today he’s a local bureaucrat with an uninspiring job, it’s no wonder he prefers to talk about the game, his own version of it, to Porumboiu, his friend, the director, who’s always listening, asking questions, nearly always in frame. Ginghină’s monologues

are so rich you might think someone wrote them in advance, they proceed from the same old subject, but never stay in one place. All roads lead to football, but all roads lead away from it too, to land ownership issues, to orange farms in Florida, to political utopia and the traces left by life, to version 2.0, 3.1, 4.7, to infinity…

In the conversations with the director Ginghină compares himself to Superman and other superheroes, who lead double lives – as he does in his non-working hours, ”I revolutionise sports”, he is seeking a way to ”free the ball” including to get rid of the off-side rule. His suggestions are not welcomed by a football coach when they are tested in a sports hall, but Ginghină has new ideas. It’s not in the film but I remember Johan Cruyff saying to his players in Barcelona, ”remember that the ball never gets tired”. They should have met…

Anyway this is NOT about football, it is about a man searching for a good life, a man who has been met with obstacles, a man who knows Greek mythology, a dreamer living in a country with obstacles, a sympathetic man who was fascinated with Romania entering the EU, but disappointed today: where is the European identity… An amazing scene in the film takes place in the boring office, where Ginghină works. A man comes in with an old woman, 92 years old, who wants on paper that she is the righful owner of her land. Ginghină tries to find the person who is in charge of this area in the municipality office, he succeeds and gets to know that the application papers have been sent to Bucharest. Porumboiu, the director, has this comment, on camera: ”27 years after the revolution and she has not got her land back!”.

Towards the end of the film the father of Ginghină steps into the film and we see on a photo that Ginghină has been married without getting to know what happened with her and the marriage?

A gentle philosophical essay on passion and freedom, light in tone, yet deep in content.

Romania, 2018, 70 mins.

If you are in Berlin, there is still a screening thursday:

www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt

Agnès Varda & JR: Faces Places

The title in French is Visages Villages – more precise than the English one, as it is mostly villages the two artists visit to meet locals, take their photos, make them grand format, large scale and paste them on big walls. The name of the mobile photo booth of JR is Inside Out Project – a project it is, that the two perform and the result is the creation of a charming and warm meeting between the two of them – she 88 and he 33 – who travel to make homage to people they meet, and to places that are abandoned in the French countryside.

There is the touching sequence from the former mining town, where only one woman lives. Varda and JR put photos from the good mining times on the walls, of miners, and of the lonely woman, who is touched to see herself in that scale.

Each photo tells a story, says Varda, who as a true documentarian declares in the beginning of the film in her home/studio in Rue Daguerre in Paris that ”chance has always been my best assistant”, so let’s go. And they do and invite the audience to meet farmers, goats with and without horns, lots of cats, she is a cat lover Varda, dockworkers and their wives, a postman who is no longer coming by bike and many others.

But the film also turns its perspective towards Varda, who remembers, goes to the tiny graveyard where Henri Cartier-Bresson is buried, to Normandy where she took photos of the photographer Guy Bourdin, we are with her to the eye doctor, which is no problem for her – cut to Bunuel and his ”Un Chien Andalou” – and she wants to honour Jean-Luc Godard and make JR take off his dark glasses as she made Godard do in a short film from 1961.

This review is written with a smile on the face, I have just seen a playful essayistic documentary by a master, masterly co-directed by JR, who as Varda says is very good with old people – together they go to his grandmother, who is over 100 years old.

France, 2017, 89 mins.

Democrats Ban Lifted in Zimbabwe

This text is taken from the newsletter that came out some days ago from Doc Society with the headline “Victory for Freedom of Speech in Zimbabwe”:

We’ve just heard great news that in a groundbreaking court order, Zimbabwean High Court Judge Justice Muremba has lifted the ban on the internationally acclaimed documentary Democrats . The award-winning film chronicles Zimbabwe’s writing of its first democratic constitution during 2010-2013. In the photo is Democrats director Camilla Nielsson with Chris Mhike, from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, and MP Brian Chuma.
Bertha grantee and Good Pitch Europe alumni Camilla Nielsson had full access to the political process behind the 2013 constitution-making, led by a Parliamentary Constitutional Committee. After her resulting film, Democrats, was released in 2014, it toured the world to win more than 30 international awards for its honest fly-on-the wall account of how Zimbabweans from across the political divide worked together to produce a progressive democratic constitution. The New York Times called the film “Outstanding, urgent, vivid. Finally a film that deserves to be called necessary.” Zimbabweans, however, were not allowed to see the film as the Censorship Board banned it as “Not suitable for public viewing.”

The case was argued by human rights lawyer Bellinda Chinowawa, who called the High Court order: “A great victory for all Zimbabweans” which will assist in expanding media freedom in Zimbabwe – as intended in the Constitution. Camilla Nielsson said: “After a 3-year delay, we can now finally distribute the film in the country where it was made.”

hello@docsociety.org

CPH: DOX 2018/ 20 Films

I went for the link (see post below) that presents the programme titel-wise a-z to give you 20 recommendations, could easily have been more. Allan Berg and I will review and report when we get closer to the festival that starts in a month, March 15:

Raymond Depardon: 12 Days. RD is one of the classical socially committed French documentarians.

13, a Ludodrama about Walter Benjamin. Have no idea about this film, no director is mentioned but this made me interested: Seven years in the life of one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers, while Europe slowly falls apart around him. An adventurous essay in the spirit of Benjamin.

Bernadett Tuza-Ritter: A Woman Captured. http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4093/

Mikala Krogh: A Year of Hope

Extraordinary interpretation of the life situation of homeless children in the Philippines.

Mohamed Siam: Amal

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4087/

Emma Davie & Peter Mettler: Becoming Animal

Great filmmakers, pitched at last year’s CPH:DOX: A visionary field trip to Wyoming’s wild and vast nature becomes a philosophical reevaluation of our relationship with the world that surrounds us.

Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor: Caniba

The people behind ”Leviathan”… first catalogue lines: The Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa was imprisoned in Paris in 1981 for killing and partially eating a female fellow student. He was extradited to Japan and released due to a technical error, after which he started a career as a sushi critic, TV star, porn actor and manga illustrator.

Wiseman: Ex Libris – The New York Public Library

No introduction needed!

Agnès Varda & JR: Faces Places

Review will follow veeery soon of this Oscar-nominated film by wonderful Varda.

Boris Mitic: In Praise of Nothing

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4102/

Talal Derki: Of Fathers and Sons

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4094/

Göran Hugo Olsson: That Summer

Exciting for cinéphiles: A reunion with the iconic Beale sisters from the cult classic ‘Grey Gardens’ in a cheerful and picturesque time capsule from Long Island in the 1970s.

Mindaugas Survila: The Ancient Woods

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4086/

Milo Rau: The Congo Tribunal

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4072/

Jean-Stéphane Bron: The Paris Opera

My francophile curiosity.

Jukka Kärkkäinen & J-P Passi: The Punk Voyage

I must see what happens with the great band, and after the first film, which I loved.

Vit Klusak: The White World According to Daliborek (PHOTO)

Staged neo-nazi film, provocative… is it really so bad in Europe?

Finlay Pretsell: Time Trial

David Millar, bicycle star, a close up according to Jørgen Leth a new bicycle genre is here introduced, loves it.

Barbet Schroeder: The Venerable W.

Heard about it: Meet the Buddhist monk, islamophobe and tireless hate preacher, who is the brain behind the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.

 

Mila Turajlic: The Other Side of Everything

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4096/

 

 

 

 

 

www.cphdox.net