… at the upcoming IDFA with the title ”Shifting Perspectives: The Arab World” with a clear intention: ”IDFA offers a counterbalance to Western stereotypes that ignore the complexity of the Arabic-speaking world and keep ‘the Arab’ at arm’s length, as ”the other””.

If you want to see this program, which is excellent, you should be in Amsterdam November 17-19, where the films are screened followed in many cases by discussions.

Among the classics are two films by late Syrian documentary master Omar Amiralay, ”A Flood in Baath Country” and ”The Misfortunes of Some”. I met the gentle director when in Damascus for the Dox Box festival, that was organised by Diana El Jeiroudi and Orwa Nyrabia. Here is a text-link written for the opening of the fourth edition of the festival in March 2011 – Amarilay passed away in February that same year: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/1492/

Several of the films have been reviewed on this site:

Palestinian Mahdi Fleifel: A World not Ours, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2621/ ” A documentary of masterful narration, deeply honest, marked by the personal engagement of it’s maker and a rare artistic achievement.”

Egyptian Namir Abdel Messeeh: The Virgin, the Copts and Me” http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2011/ ”… the help of mum gets the film to be finished, the family members all end up in the film, which adds to the film’s light-hearted entertaining qualities at the same time as it gives a beautiful hommage to people far away from Tahrir Square, in a small village where someone once saw the apparation of Virgin Mary.”

Syrian Layla Abyad: Letters to S. http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3988/ ”… It works with the personal essay form, it gives an intense atmosphere, her English voice and the shift from English to Arabic is perfect, and the image never ”kills” the text, vive versa. It gives you a glimpse of what it means to be in exile in a Western European country…”.

Yemeni-Scottish Sara Ishaq: The Mulberry House http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2574/ ”… A family film? Yes. Private? No. Personal? Yes, as it is a film about a daughter, who returns to her roots… oops, now the words start to be klichés. Roots, yes but conveyed in a way so we non-yemenites easily can identify with the family, the three generations and its situation, in a film that captures the warmth and passes it on to us in a light tone that is broken when reality knocks on the door…”

Iraqi Abbas Fahdel: Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) (PHOTO), 334 minutes, one of the best, probably THE best documentary I have seen this decade-http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3645/ ”… Apart from being a warm, funny, touching film about a family, who just want to live a decent life, you can not help thinking that it should be seen by whoever is interested in seeing, what damage we (USA and the so-called coalition forces) have done to fellow citizens of the world…”

And there are films by well known directors as Raed Andoni, Malek Bensmaîl and Ossama Mohammed.

https://www.idfa.nl/en/article/94900/shifting-perspectives-the-arab-world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… like many other festivals have done holding up a sign saying ”Free Oleg Sentsov”, the Ukrainian filmmaker who was arrested by the Russian authorities in March 2014 in Crimea and sentenced to 20 years in jail on suspicion of “plotting terrorist acts”.

The Belarussian media did not want to publish the photo showing the protest, this is how it looked like – www.filmkommentaren.dk

Photo of a happy man, Lithuanian Arunas Matelis, on stage in Minsk at the Listapad Minsk International Film Festival. As I wrote some days ago the selection for the main documentary competition was very strong – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4077/ – so also from that perspective it is a true appreciation of the work by Arunas Matelis that he received not only an award as the best documentary film but also the audience award for the best documentary. The film ”Wonderful Losers: A Different World” (with coproducers from Lithuania, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia, UK, Ireland, Spain!) has now participated in two festivals (first one in Warsaw) and won 3 awards! Matelis is – by the way – used to receive awards. His previous film ”Before Flying Back to the Earth” got the main awards at DOK Leipzig and at IDFA.

The Georgian ”City of the Sun” by Rati Oneli (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3995/) received the Special Jury award and there was a diploma for the Polish masterpiece ”The Prince and the Dybbuk” (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4052/ by Elvira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski.

Both of these films are screened at the upcoming IDFA but not the film by Arunas Matelis, why not? However, it is available at the festival’s Docs for Sale.

Also to be mentioned: there were a couple of special prizes for the wonderful ”The Last Waltz” by Russian Yulia Bobkova (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3984/ and one for the fine ”Country of Women” by Aliaksei Paluyan (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4071/)

None of them are at IDFA.

Read more on the website, link below.

Photo taken by Lithuanian film critic and festival programmer Edvinas Pukšta. Thanks.

http://listapad.com/en/

PS. The jury for the documentaries – Andrei Zagdansky, Dmitri Makhomet, Zanete Ašcuka, Anna Zamecka and Gennady Kofman – advocated at the festival for ”Free Oleg Sentsov”. Respect! http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3943/

Wednesday IDFA, International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, starts. And I am going there for five nights. Due to being part of the IDFA Academy, this great initiative of the festival, where young filmmakers get the chance to meet each other, share their ideas and projects and get inspiration from cameraperson Kirsten Johnson and directors like Kim Longinotto and Frederick Wiseman to mention the most famous ones. Together with Cecilia Lidin, with whom I worked at the EDN way back in time, I will be available for meetings in the afternoon.

The last couple of days I have been preparing my stay in hopefully not too foggy Amsterdam. The festival is overwhelming with talks, masterclasses, industry screenings (very good as many take place in the mornings) and good friends invite you to premieres of their films. Happy that there is a Docs for Sale, got to find films for a couple of festivals and for writing on this blog.

Let me mention two which are scheduled in my agenda:

Lithuanian Mindaugas Survila’s new work – it’s in the First Appearance Competition – ”The Ancient Woods” is a film that I know will be visually magnificent. The director has been filming nature for years and has invented extraordinary ways of getting close to his protagonists – see the photo. I know him and his first film very well, ”Field of Magic”, as he, 8 years ago, took me and Audrius Stonys on a tour to the forest where we were met with warmth and generosity by the 7 men and women, who lived there – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/768/ – You can see that film on the website of the director, link below.

The other film is ”Time Trial” by Scottish Finlay Pretsell, who has been following the former British road racing cyclist David Millar during his last cycling season. I am very happy for Pretsell that his film made it to the Main International Competition. I have seen some clips from the film in beforehand, and the trailer on the IDFA website – Millar has charisma, I have high expectations loving this sport highly, very much because of ”our” Danish hero in that field, Jørgen Leth.

https://www.idfa.nl/en/

http://www.sengire.lt/en/

”Vladimir Meciar was the first Minister of Interior post Velvet revolution of 1989 and the threetime re-elected Prime Minister of Slovakia. He was an undeniably charismatic politician „ loved by the nation“ and his profound influence on the contemporary political climate of Slovakia cannot be doubted. His final period in government 1994-1998, was marked by an authoritarian almost autocratic rule, misuse of power in the biggest privatisation causes and scandals and unauthorised activities of the secret services. It was this governance which ruled Slovakia out of the process of being accepted in the EU and NATO…”.

These words come from the website of the film about Meciar, link below. The film that has the subtitle ”Lust for Power”, was the opening film at the Jihlava festival recently, understandable as it deals with a politician known, hated and loved in Czech Republic and Slovakia.

I met Tereza Nvotová in March in Prague this year, where she

presented some clips from the film and took me by surprise that she, less than 30 years old, could get access to a man, who otherwise has left public life and does not want to give interviews. Why did he allow Nvotová to film him? Because she is young and does not pretend to be a journalist?

Anyway, young Tereza Nvotová has made a good film. She manages to give an overview of the life of Meciar through asking several people, who worked with or for him, she keeps a personal first-person narration with herself in the picture here and there. And she brings wonderful private archive material to the screen, from when she 10 years old in 1998 ”plays” a journalist interviewing tha father of the country. Lots of archive is used.

The film is light in tone, it has the journalistic approach /where, when, where) when it unveals the life of a dictator, who in his seventies looks like a grandfather, alone maybe in his ”castle” as the director says, when she comes to visit.

Honestly, it is difficult to follow the complicated Slovakian political game, that Meciar was a part of or was setting up. For someone from outside the two countries. I would have loved to have more of him in his retired life and less facts, but maybe there is not so much more to pick from. When Nvotová asks about the kidnapping event of the President Kovac’s son, he says that he knows much more about the role of Kovac but he does not want ro say what now.

On the other hand I think I know a bit more about why Czekoslovakia was divided in 1993 with two political animals as the main players: Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar. The film goes well in the cinemas in its own country, more than 10.000 tickets sold in the first weekend.

http://www.pubres.sk/english-summary/lust-for-power

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/605/ 

I was there a couple of times, in Minsk Belarus for the film festival, that has a well chosen documentary program with Irina Demyanova as the responsible. 12 films are competing in the documentary section. I am happy I am not in the jury. Let me point at four films of high quality, written about on this site:

1. Julia Bobkova: The Last Waltz: ”… fascinating film about Oleg Karavaichuk, composer and piano player from St. Petersburg,”

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3984/

2. Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski: The Prince and the Dybbuk ”…for me “The Prince and the Dybbuk” is a strong candidate to be my Documentary of the Year.”

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3993/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4052/

3. Miroslav Janek: Normal Autistic Film

”… dynamic and playful documentary, the work of one of the most important European authors when it comes to children, especially children who don’t blend in and who are different from the majority.”

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3816/

4. Arunas Matelis: Wonderful Losers: A Different World

”…deserves to travel the world because of its cinematic qualities”

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4048/

http://listapad.com/en/programm/osnovnoy-konkurs-dokumentalnogo-kino/

The jury for the long, international documentaries at DOK Leipzig chose Ana Dumitrescu’s ”Licu-a Romanian Story” as the winner of the 60th edition of the festival. I did not watch the film in Leipzig but did so tonight on a computer and I can only nod YES to the decision taken by musician and writer Anne Clark, master documentarian Heddy Honigmann and former arte commissioner Luciano Rigolini. I copy paste their motivation:

“In a humble house, there is a very old man sitting and telling us not only his story but the story of 2 centuries. To make this possible in a film is a very difficult task which requires love for your character and an exceptional cinematic eye. In these days when the only thing that counts is viewing figures a filmmaker with almost no budget dares to say I will do it in another way. This way goes directly to our hearts, creating a filmic journey which lasts only 86 minutes but for us it is a life lesson.”

And a copy paste as well of the fine DOK Leipzig catalogue text by Sirkka Möller:

”At the age of 92, Liviu Canţer, called Licu, has lived through the extremes of the 20th century in his home country of Romania – as an alert eye witness of the World War, expulsions, Ceauşescu’s industrialisation and surveillance, the revolution of 1989 and the corrupt post-communism at the margins of the EU, he has a lot of stories to tell. But being one of the last survivors of his generation he lacks contemporaries with whom he can share his experiences. Director Ana Dumitrescu takes time for him and his recollections. She keeps visiting Licu with her camera over the seasons. She films him in his house, where the family history is always present. Slowly the two develop a relationship – in the course of the film she turns from invisible observer to a visitor for whom Licu cooks and whom he offers homemade schnapps. He displays his photo archive. The happy and sad days are fairly balanced, but a certain resignation is obvious. Dumitrescu, who grew up as a Romanian in France, creates an epic space for the history of her native country, at the centre of which we find Licu: a personal fate representing the tide of history. The black and white images, shot with minimum equipment, reveal her sensitivity as a photo journalist, which enables us to immerse ourselves in this man’s world.”

And finally a quote from the website of the film, link below:

“ ‘Licu’, my latest feature documentary, happens to be my first Romanian movie and the first film I have made with my film-production company ‘Jules et Films’.

I am French of Romanian origin and I have never lived in Romania beforehand, with the exception of a two-year photographic interlude I spent there since 2007 to 2009. I used to enjoy listening to my grandmother telling me those old-time stories. The Romania I have known is, in fact, the Romania I have learnt about from my father’s and grandmother’s memories. In a way, this movie is a reflection of my own memories as a child when I was listening to those stories about a world I had never known. A movie made of memories. It is about a world depicted from my personal perspective through the eyes of those who had lived it in their own way. I have always enjoyed listening to the others telling me their stories and browsing through old-epoch photos. For me, this film is somehow like Proust’s Madeleine.”

Romania, 2017, 86 mins.

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/

http://www.licu-film.com/