dok.incubator… Bravo!

Full house at Inkonst in Malmø Sunday morning at 10. The director of the training program Andrea Prenghyova had no reason to doubt if anyone would come. But she was right in her welcoming speech: No cars, no people in the streets this morning but a full house to get acquainted with 8 films, that will be finished in the coming months. Bravo! It was the sixth season of the Prague based, three session long training that is there – to quote the brochure I got this morning – to sharpen the final cut, increase the film’s international potential, prepare an ingenious marketing strategy, create a sophisticated distribution plan, break into the international market…

The atmosphere was great. Members of the 8 pitching teams for the preview saluted each other. There were applause after the introduction by one of the tutors, applause after the introduction by the producer/director, applause after the clips etc. Too much? Maybe they overdo it, but if you see it as a tribute to the documentary as genre… If you salute that films are made which are important thematically and has a cinematic approach to the topic. Let me put it in another way: It was enjoyable to be there this morning and many could learn from the presentation concept of dok.incubator: Words of course and then a trailer AND two selected scenes. The latter is a scoop. And dangerous of course because a trailer can be seducing but scenes tell you something about, whether a filmmaker stands behind.

That is absolutely the case for ”Over the Limit” by Marta Prus

(previous film ”Talk to Me”, see http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3545/), produced by Maciej Kubicki. The camerawork (as often with Polish documentaries) is excellent catching the delicate moments with Margarita, Russian top-gymnast, being with her two trainers Amina and Irina, the latter (the one with the hat in the foreground of the PHOTO) a representative for the more than tough, brutal might be the word, Russian training system of young sportswomen. It’s an observational documentary but you feel – she said so in the beginning – that there is a director who learnt to speak Russian to make this film. Commitment!

Let me stay with the art of cinematography to mention the American documentary ”A Machine to Live In” by Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke. Amazing images from Brasilia, a film about architecture in a new way as it was said, ”from modernism to mysticism” with a beautiful voice-off text – thank you for that, let’s have more of that in documentaries, Chris Marker in memoriam. I am not sure I get in details what the film is about, but the presentation made me very curious.

Much more predictable was Norwegian Håvard Bustness ”Golden Dawn Girls”, when it comes to the theme: Greece, the nationalist party, neo-nazi it has been called, but Bustness has managed to access a wife, a mother and a daughter of leaders of the party, the men sitting in jail. The scenes shown are promising, including the director getting permission to film and having a strong discussion with one of the Golden Dawn Girls.

I fell in love with the Swedish ”Giants and the Morning After” by (three directors!) Malla Grapengiesser, Per Bifrost and Alexander Rynéus with an old friend, Finnish Mervi Junkkonen as the editor. It has a tone of humour, it has a universal theme (the depopulation of rural communities) and a nice mayor, who does his best to keep the small Ydre alive as well as some mysterious connections to the surrounding nature.

Georgian Mari Gulbiani did well with her ”Before Father Gets Back” from an area in the country, that is radicalised towards ISIS. As it was said, Gulbiani does not go with those who go or have gone to Syria to fight, she puts the focus on those who stay behind, two sweet girls, who communicate with their fathers via skype. I want to become a filmmaker, one says to her father, may I? Yes, he answers, as long as you don’t wear short dresses…

Brasilian Emilia Mello presented ”No Kings”, impressions from a fishing village in Brasil, character-driven, made me think – as we are in Sweden – of legendary Arne Sucksdorff and his film from Brasil. José Pablo Estrada is finishing his film about his grandmother, ”Mamacita”, in Mexico, a personal story about a family haunted by a traumatic background. First you get from the visuals an impression of a very unsympathetic grandmother, then a scene turns the whole thing upside down, won’t tell you, curious to see the film. Finally ”A Woman Captured” by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter, Hungarian, with a woman as a leading character, who has been ”kept by a family as a domestic slave for 10 years”. She is 52 years old. The director told us that she had paid the family to be allowed to film Marish. Quote from the catalogue: ”… after two years of shooting, she (Marish) gathers her courage and reveals her plan ”I am going to escape”. A film that raises a lot of ethical questions to the film crew.

Which can done in a couple of months with this film and a couple of others presented at the dok.incubator this morning in Malmø, as they have been picked for the upcoming IDFA festival in Amsterdam in November. Martijn de Pas from IDFA was there and told the audience that IDFA will publish their selection beginning of October.

More about the films on:

www.dokincubator.net

 

Lidia Sheinin’s Harmony Wins at M2M

From the sideline I have followed Lidia Sheinin’s fine film ”Harmony”, that won the main award at the Message2Man festival in St. Petersburg. So happy for the director. Here is a repeat of the review that I wrote, when the film was shown at Visions du Réel in Nyon earlier this year:

Grandmother is old and fragile, she can not live on her own. Her daughter with four children, 3 boys, the oldest 6-8 years old I guess, and a baby girl, moves in, to help; into a flat that has little space. Not difficult to imagine the messy consequences, the constant ”don’t do this and that” from granny, whose space is invaded, who does not eat regularly – and to imagine and see the constant exhaustion of a mother of four.

The director is there with her camera, observing, no intervention.

Watching how life goes on under these hard conditions. It’s tough to be there with the family as a viewer but it’s also life-affirming and fun because the situation is recognisable, the energy from the kids, their questions, ”why are we living here”, the patience of the mother, the despair of the granny when the screaming and crying fill the rooms – and the piano that takes so much space, has been part of her life, if it could go there would be more space…

It could take place in many corners of the world – well, in Denmark the granny would maybe have been skipped off to an old people’s home – here it is in St. Petersburg; I was happy to be with the family in a very fine and balanced documentary, on 3 generations, that you leave at the kitchen table with a smile on your face.

Russia, 2017, 59 mins.

dok.incubator in Malmø

I have promised Andrea Prenghyova, director of the praised and popular dok.incubator workshop to promote the preview that she organises in Malmø within the Nordisk Panorama this coming Sunday 24th of September at 10am at Inkonst Festival Centre.

I do so with pleasure. I have attended previous sessions and it is always exciting to see, what is coming very soon. The filmmakers are there, they show trailers and scenes, the atmosphere is accordingly warm and supportive.

8 projects… and I know some of them, look fwd. To see how far they are.

”Over the Limit” by Polish Marta Prust that follows a young sportswoman on her journey to the Olympic gold. She is Russian, will she make it through what is called ”the extreme Russian training system”. What I have seen before is very promising.

And good friend from visits to Tbilisi, Georgian Mari Gulbiani is there with a film called ”Before Father Gets Back” – and well known Norwegian Håvard Bustness who has a story about ”women inside one of Europe’s most nationalist parties”, title ”Golden Dawn Girls” and then we know where we are: in Greece.

www.dokincubator.net

Phie Ambo: … when you look away

Phie Ambos vidunderlige film træffer mig øjeblikkelig, mens jeg er uforberedt åben et meget personligt ellers næsten glemt sted, en næsten glemt erindring, en erkendelseshemmelighed, min tidligste tanke om kosmos. Juno, filmens første medvirkende, ligger og skal sove, det er åbningsbilledet. ”Er jeg et menneske eller et dyr?” spørger hun Phie Ambo som taler sagte med hende.

Da jeg var barn og lidt større dreng, husker jeg med ét, var jeg ustandselig optaget af enten, at jeg var hele verdensaltet og inspireret af atommodellen at utallige solsystemer og levende verdener var indeholdt i eller disse faktisk udgjorde min krop, var mig, eller, at nu der kun var mig, så var det mine sanser som producerede hele min omverden, hvad jeg så af ting og dyr og mennesker, hvad jeg læste og lyttede til og følte med mine fingre. Alt var mine sansninger og jeg selv var helt alene.

Tanken forlod mig, svækkedes lidt efter lidt, men forsvandt aldrig helt. For under filosofikurset som lærerstuderende lærte jeg Berkeley at kende, og det ramte mig som en boomerang efter et meget langt kast: ”… George Berkeley er vigtig i filosofiens historie ved sin benægtelse af stoffets eksistens – en bevægelse, han underbyggede med en række snilde argumenter. Han hævdede, at materielle genstande kun eksisterer, fordi de opfattes. På den indvending, at et træ i så tilfælde skulle holde op at eksistere, når ingen så på det, svarede han, at Gud altid opfatter alt.” (Bertrand Russell, 1962)

Men Phie Ambo var alligevel kommet mig i forkøbet i min private association. Først i filmen har hun anbragt et citat over hele lærredet, et citat af Lewis Carrols fra Alice in Wonderland: ”If I had a world of my of own, everything would be non sense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t.” Da jeg så filmen første gang, overså jeg advarslen. Kastevåbnet med den krumme bue må derefter være forsøgt kastet, måske bort, nu vendte det tilbage med voldsom kraft lige ind i hvad jeg troede jeg vidste helt sikkert: … when you look away!

Jeg kastes ind i Holger Bech Nielsens energiske rullen mangeverdens teorien op, vi skifter verden hver gang noget bliver målt! Og hvad er bevidsthed egentlig? Han lever i sit arbejdsværelses tavle og kridt verden, i en verden af fascinerende teorier. Jeg er med på besøget og ser med en lille sorg ham slutte sin forklaring før jeg er færdig med at indprente den, med en svamp fjerner han for mine øjne de noterede alternativer. Hos Phie Ambo fæstner sig imidlertid spørgsmålet, hvad er bevidsthed? Kan sindet være flere steder på én gang? Hun reflekterer mildt autoritativ i sin fint underfundige, blødt præcise fortællestemme (ja, filmen er speakbåret i sit afgørende lag ved siden af scenernes samvær i bevægelser og dialoger) og invier mig i Thomas Youngs dobbeltspalte eksperiment fra 1801: ”Thomas Young (GB, 1773 – 1829) lavede forsøg over lysets bølgenatur (i modsætning til Newtons partikelteori) og påviste lysets interferens bl.a. ved sit dobbeltspalteforsøg i 1803… Pointen i kvantemekanikken og i dobbeltspalteeksperimentet er, at hver enkelt foton interfererer med sig selv, og ender med at sætte en prik på skærmen. Men kun hvis mange identiske fotoner (fx fra samme kilde) sendes afsted danner prikkerne et mønster.” (Malte Olsen, Niels Bohr Instituttet i sin brevkasse, 2011). Dette er den nøgterne fysikers fremstilling, men Ambos nysgerrige barnesind og poetiske ambition for sit filmværk er ikke begrænset til videnskabsformidling, hun siger i sin fortællestemme: ”Fysikernes konklusion er at elektronen går igennem begge spalter og den går ikke igennem nogen af dem. Den kan gå igennem bare den ene spalte og bare igennem den anden, og alle muligheder, man kan forestille sig, er til stede samtidig, og elektronen gør det hele samtidig. Den er i det der hedder superposition, en tilstand hvor absolut alt er muligt.”

Superposition er herefter instruktørens og filmens centrum og kerne og arkimedespunkt, og hun forærer mig gennem sin månedlange proces med hver sit tankevækkende møde, skildret i hver sin fuldkomne filmscene sin stadigt voksende indsigt i en svimlende rutchetur af én lang bevægelse, én lang sammenfatning på filmens 84 minutter, den indsigt at holde fast i min egen lange rejse gennem mine møder med forståelse af kosmos i værker, der som hendes nu, har omgivet mit liv.

Disse møder fastholder hun uden at ryste en eneste gang i valg af kameraposition, jeg ved hele tiden, hvorfra fortællingen er fortalt, selv i den charmerende scene hvor hun selv er midt i billedet i en variant af penduleringspraksis. Og hendes smil, da terapeuten ved at se antennernes udsving fortolker karakteren af hendes tanker, det smil er kærligt dobbelt. Sådan er Phie Ambo i den grad til stede hos alle sine medvirkende, både de overbeviste og de tvivlende (de er der også i filmen), de begejstrede og de skeptiske.

Scenerne med dem, besøgene og samværene stilles på række. Theis Schmidt har fået en bundet opgave: der skulle som selve værkets inderste idé klippes i den rækkefølge, scenerne er optaget, og jeg følger så med Phie Ambo og hendes kamera med på deres opdagelsesrejse i en dagbogs kronologiske orden. Schmidt har så følsomt, loyalt stillet hendes lange scener ind i tilsvarende lange, både billedmæssigt og indholdsmæssigt ordentlige afsnit, som ikke virker påtvungne, slet ikke efterrationaliserede, dygtigt har han anvendt grafikken (som er smuk, enkel og tydelig), musikken (som isoleret er en verden for sig, men tæt forbunden med filmens bliver del af én verden), enkelte fotografiske vignetter og så den bærende fortællestemme som afgørende mørtel i filmværkets arkitektur.

Ja, scener som: ”And reincarnation. And even reincarnation”, udbryder Holger Bech Nielsen, da han med billedhuggeren som skal lave hans gravsten står på pladsen der på kirkegården og diskuterer mulighederne efter døden; og så et andet sted, hvor instruktøren i sin erkendelsesrejse er i en tvivlens krise, anbringer klipperen en lille scene med to sætninger, som på den måde bliver vigtige. Holger Bech Nielsen sidder hos sin kollega (som med ham har bærende rolle i filmen) og det er Ambos tvivl de kommenterer. Bech Nielsen siger ”But she (Ambo) could find out by some supernatural… og kollegaen afbryder ham : “Well there isn’t anything supernatural since we are in nature, right?”

Phie Ambos nye værk … when you look away læser jeg begejstret som et oprivende journalistisk opklaringsdrama i et gennemtænkt poetisk filmessays form med et personligt lag af eftertænksom selverkendelse, en tøvende beslutsom intellektuel beskedenhed. Phie Ambo lader mig møde en række fascinerende mennesker, men jeg møder  hende. Det afgørende greb i alle scenerne med alle de medvirkende vidner er en naturlig, næsten selvfølgelig, alvorlig, indforstående holdning, en omfattende empati. Dette er, tror jeg, Phie Ambos væsen, en egen kerne, en holdning uden om hendes viden, som er en nysgerighed som barnets, en dybt skildret fundamental undren. For ”alt vi kalder virkeligt består af noget, som ikke kan betragtes som virkeligt”, skrev Niels Bohr engang og det skriver Phie Ambo så på filmlærredet til sidst.

Phie Ambo: … when you look away, Danmark, 2017. 84 min. 

BIOGRAFVISNINGER

27. september kl. 16.00-18.00 på landets universiteter og forskningsinstitutioner (læs mere her). Visningen bliver efterfulgt af en live streamet debat fra Skylab på DTU med professor Anja C. Andersen, PhD Fellow Mads Vestergaard og direktør Kristian Pedersen (DTU Space). Følg debatten når den streames live på Danmarks førende forskningssite Science Report.

I oktober kan filmen ses i: 

Empire Bio, København i dagene 12. – 18. oktober.

Øst for Paradis, Aarhus i dagene 12. – 18. oktober.

Biffen, Aalborg den 11. oktober 16.30

Samt på Aalborg Universitet, København ved Open Research Seminars m. deltagelse af Phie Ambo.

SYNOPSIS

…When you Look Away is a documentary that examines the subject of consciousness in terms of quantum physics in close collaboration with scientists at the Niels Bohr Institute. What if basic causal relationships in the world don’t work like we think they do? Should we understand the relationship between our consciousness and the physical world in a whole new way? What is happening at the frontier of science, where accepted truths and wild theories collide with each other? Could a new way of understanding our human consciousness come from an entirely unexpected place? (IDFA catalogue)

Sara Broos: Spejlinger

This is a repeat of the review written last year. Because the film now has its theatrical premiere in Denmark in Posthusteatret Copenhagen tomorrow September 21st. Go watch that film!

– You have to catch the attention of the audience right from the beginning. The opening of a film is so important. Here you have to  make an invitation to the viewer, give some basic information that indicates, what he/she can expect but first of all demonstrate that you are a filmmaker, who can create an atmosphere, a tone that makes you curious, that surprises you, that gives you something special, that in this case convinces you that this is personal and not private.

Swedish Sara Broos does so with the first four minutes of her ”Reflections” (”Speglingar” in Swedish). You get a close-up of a young beautiful face in profile and thereafter of an older beautiful face in profile. A fine voice (how attractive the Swedish language is spoken like this) tells us what this is about – mother and daughter together, filmed in Latvia in a house and on a beach. The daughter, Sara, the filmmaker, invited mother Karin, painter, on a trip as a present when she became 60. Sara wanted to ask questions – a classic: I want to know more about you, mother, there is so much I don’t know.

The combination of the text of Sara, the super-stylized arranged

images that makes me think of surrealist art, the music, makes you totally drawn into the story. You even get an explanation to the aesthetic chosen; Karin takes photos of Sara and her two sisters as sketches for her paintings.

4 minutes, then on the screen ”Reflections – a film by Sara Broos” and then quite a cut to mother Karin and father Marc in their cosy

living room reading the morning’s newspapers and discussing, who is to descale the coffee machine and who is to feed the birds in the garden… It feels like Sara Broos wants to bring the film down to earth: hey we are humans like you are, a surprising and funny scene.

And then Sara and we get to know the mother’s story from when she grew up in the 70’es, tried alcohol and drugs and men, travelled… and had for years a severe crisis of bulimia. As had Sara who always wanted to be like her mother. There is a shift from mother’s to daughter’s story, there is pain but also joyful conversations between the two of them. And there is a terrible memory about a stillbirth, where Sara who waited excitingly to become a big sister never got to see the dead child. Why not, she asks.

The title’s double meaning comes out not only explicitly in the visual side of the film but also in the voice-off text of Sara, who thinks back on a chaotic childhood in an artist family, ”but there was always order in my room”. Slowly in the process of conveying her mother’s story reveal her own growing-up with crisis and getting finally to accept her own body.

It is told through use of archive photos and home video/film footage, sometimes the images are double-exposed and in a tone that changes with a change of the character of music, a couple of times with almost abstract-image sequences of experimental character. And then back to the stylized, to mother and her paintings and her face in front of the mirror putting on make-up, once accompanied by a wonderful anecdote about a woman they met in Jurmala who wanted to sell wrinkle cream. Yes, there is also a lot for us 60+, about aging.

Any objections? Well, more in the direction of taste. I have always thought that Swedish masters like Bergman and Stefan Jarl (in his nature films) sometimes became too solemn and used too many obvious symbols – Swedish Sara Broos does the same a couple of times. A matter of taste, the cinematic talent is indispensable.

http://www.broosfilm.com/#!speglingar/nludd

https://www.posthusteatret.dk/

Sweden, 2016, 76 mins.

Elvira Lind: Bobbi Jene

I had seen the film before via the vod Festival Scope on my MacBook. The vod allows only one screening but thanks to Youn Ji from the sales company Autlook I got the invitation to screen the film again, which I did on a big screen at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Together with Lithuanian film students. They enjoyed – as I did – the film. The following review includes observations and evaliuations we made at the academy. For those who know nothing about the film and its content, see the neutral description below taken from the dfi.dk.

It’s so complex. It has so many layers. It is so well built. As a fiction film you are carried from one scene to the next, from one conflict to the next. Bobbi Jene is ambitious, she wants to try on her own after 10 years with Ohad and his Israeli dance group Batsheva, where she developed to be the star. She wants to leave Tel Aviv,

and the master and pupil situation with Ohad. There are some amazing scenes with the two. Intense. I think we agreed, the students and I, that this film is characterised by energy in all scenes. It’s unbelievable how close Elvira Lind, the director comes to Bobbi Jene. She is there when all important things happen. Did she really film everything herself, a student asked. According to the credits, yes. They must have been/are close friends. There are several scenes where Bobbi addresses the camera = the cameraperson.

Bobbi Jene wants to be on her own in the US, where she is born, this fascinating woman who also has a biological clock ticking, which is shown in scenes in her home with mum and sister, who has a baby. How do you hold a baby? That world is not known to Bobbi Jene.

The love she feels for the 10 year younger Or… of course we talked about that. She is so open about it and she expresses her feelings constantly. Her smiles, her doubts, her disappointment when he does not want to stay with her in NY. I am not ready, he says and Israel is my country.

A student referred to Pina Bausch. Dancing is healing. I don’t know if the artist Bobbi Jene, who works so hard ”to get to a place where there is nothing to hide”, would formulate it like that. Her dancing is so strong and expressive, sculptural, naked both literally and as a metaphor for her search for freedom in all aspects. Her nakedness, even her voice has this fragility that you could call naked, one student said.

What a drama, what a film. I explained the students that we at filmkommentaren work with a rating system. How many pens would they give? Strong majority for 6.

The film is on the program at Nordisk Panorama that starts in a week. It must be a strong candidate for the main award!

Denmark, 2017, 96 mins.

After a decade of stardom in Israel, American dancer Bobbi Jene takes intensity to a new level when she decides to leave behind her star position at the world-famous Batsheva Dance Company, as well as the love of her life, to return to the US to create her own boundary breaking performances. A love story, the film portrays the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman’s fight for independence and her attempt to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.

Message2Man St.Petersburg

The festival in magnificent St. Petersburg started last night with an opening ceremony on the Palace Square, in rain as last year where I was there – unfortunately not possible for me to be present this year. Look at the picture of Marcel Ophüls (born 1st of November 1927) on the stage to be honoured for his contribution to the history of cinema. Let me mention the two titles that appear in all 100 Best Documentaries lists: ”Le Chagrin et la pitié” and ”Hotel Terminus”. The film shown at the opening was a restored version of ”Man With a Movie Camera” by Dziga Vertov, made in 1929… when Ophüls was two years old!

At the festival there is a series of independent Chinese documentaries and a well deserved retrospective of Helena Třeštíková’s Czech Chronicles. Also to be noticed that the trilogy of Bulgarian Andrey Paounov is in the programme, with the masterpiece ”The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories” in the foreground.

Kirsten Johnson is in international competition with ”Cameraperson” as is Lidia Sheinina with her ”Harmony”, both reviewed on this site as is Mariam Chachia’s ”Listen to the Silence”.

http://www.message2man.com/en/

Lithuanian Talents

It’s not everyone, who leaves the country – even if one of the students said that the amount, who does, equalises one full airplane per day. Going away from Lithuania to live and work in another country. He said so at the film school department of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where I was invited to teach for a week. But they should stay, these young people, even if the funding possibilities are small. The teacher said. There is a fine tradition for artistic documentaries in your country – we have written about it again and again on this site ever since it (the site) started 10 years ago. Names… Henrikas Sablevicius, Arunas Matelis, Giedre Zickyte, Giedre Beinoriute, Audrius Stonys. The two latter are teachers at the school. And are referred to again and again by the students.

Yes, I spotted talents during the week. I saw material of films

coming up, I felt energy in many of the students and curiosity to know more about what goes in the documentary world. Inspiration, that was why I was there, I could not teach them to make documentaries but I could show them how more or less experienced filmmakers have found solutions to make films that can touch heart and soul. And I could make them tell stories from topics I gave them, several of them dared to be personal, include fragments from their own lives.

Apart from directing the students to sites of festivals and vod’s and markets and workshops etc. I showed clips from many films. Every day ended with a full duration film, there was space for five films I like and know about, having met the directors. Shown on the big screen in the fine cinema of the Academy:

”21 x New York” by Piotr Stasik,

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3578/

”Twilight of a Life” by Sylvain Biegeleisen,

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3436/

”Normal Autistic Film” (PHOTO) by Miroslav Janek,

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

”The Dazzling Light of Sunset” by Salomé Jashi

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3525/

and Elvira Lind’s ”Bobbi Jene”, that I will write about, a review based on talks with the students.

And we talked about – with clips shown – Robert Frank, Jon Bang Carlsen, Herz Frank and Juris Podnieks (”Ten Minutes Older”, I never leave a workshop without showing that film), Loznitsa, Kossakovsky, Jørgen Leth, Wojciech Staron, Glawogger and many others.

Thank you students, hope to see you out there ”in the jungle”!    

Anna Eborn: Lida

Yes. Documentary is Cinema. Where the best directors know what they are doing. Have chosen a form for what they want to tell. Before shooting. This is what Swedish Anna Eborn has done with this gem of a documentary film. She is working with video and with 16mm film, she has created a superb sound design and used music so it matches the sequences. The critic has no objections!

… an extraordinary cinematic interpretation of something ordinary. No Lida Utas Andreasdotter is not an ordinary person, but her story, her destiny as a victim of geography and the related events of war and deportation is heard and told about so many times before:

She lives with her family as a child in Zmiivka (used to be a Swedish colony) in Ukraine. During the world war the family is deported by the Germans, they go to Germany, Poland and after the war they are sent to a camp in Siberia. She comes back to Zmiivka and has stayed there since then. She gave birth to four boys, two of them died as children, the two others live far away from their mother, as does her sister, there is no contact between them.

The film brings them together. On film. Not in reality. Lida is a

great storyteller – in old Swedish – she remembers her childhood, the director brings it to life, and we get a good insight to the old people’s home, where she stays, where she has a male friend, from where she goes with a younger friend Lucia to the cemetery and to the kiosk and to visit other old women, who remember some Swedish language. You have to be ”always funny and cheerful until the ass lies in the grave”, as one of them says.

Anna Eborn has been filming for years, she went to see the son Arvid to show him footage of his mother, she went to see the sister Maria, she brings them together – it is painful for them to remember. But there are also, of course, the joyful moments from childhood, and they are interpreted in the film.

A film full of magic cinematic moments and love and respect for Lida, her family and their story. As simple as that.

Sweden/Denmark, 2017, 88 mins.

The film is shown on DRK tomorrow, September 17

Photo: Kristoffer Jönsson.

The link below takes you to an interview with the director made in connection with the screening at Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland this year.

http://www.filmexplorer.ch/detail/anna-eborn-lida/

Nicole N. Horanyi: En fremmed flytter ind

Jeg vælger dette still fra filmen, fordi det er så smukt og så fordi det er fra den sammenfattende scene fra henimod slutningen af filmen. Den scene skildrer Amanda Midtgaard Kastrups vidneudsagn i sagen mod bedrageren Casper Rieper-Holm som fremstilles af skuespilleren Esben Dalgaard. Den scene kunne anbragt i begyndelsen have været fortællingens ramme. Men den er blevet en konkluderende scene, hvor betydningen ligger i instruktion, rekonstruktion og dekoration. Betydningen ligger ikke i Amanda Kastrups vidneudsagn, for det kender jeg på dette sted i filmen så godt, at jeg i den grad forstår dommerens replik om ærlighed og rigdoms modsatrettethed. Scenen er foreviget af Henrik Bohn Ipsens medlyttende og konsekvente fotografi filmen igennem, her i en fornemt værdig konklusion: denne smukke kvinde alene i vidneskranken i retfærdighedens sal.

Filmens i stedet valgte ramme præsenteres i titelsekvensen. Det er fra begyndelsen klart, at det her handler om en films tilblivelse; kameraet følger Amanda Kastrup, hun er i en optagelse og det viser sig kort efter at hun er på vej til en optagelse. Hun fortæller: Det her er min historie… det er en kærlighedshistoie… så der er en mere… han hedder Casper… hans rolle spilles af en skuespiller og jeg må nu tilføje, at han spiller godt, allerbedst til at begynde med, i kærlighedshistorien den lange tid tid den ikke er afsløret som en forførelse med det formål dels at etablere en konstrueret identitet med falsk udstråling af rigmandsvaner og charmerende væsen.

Forførelsen af Amanda begynder nu i en grafisk fortalt sms-dialog, som indkredser hende i en fascination som fører til til overgivelse: hun møder ham, tager på hotel med ham, på ferierejse: ”… jeg tror godt jeg kunne blive forelsket i Casper, rigtig grusomt.”

Jeg kan rigtig godt lide Amanda, jeg kan lide hende i hver eneste replik, bevægelse, stemning, i alle scener fra først til sidst. Amanda Kastrup bygger sit eget kunstværk opmuntret og ved hjælp af Esben Dalgaard, Henrik Bohn Ipsen, Rasmus Steensgård og åbenlyst styret af Nicole Horanyi (det ses af og til i billedet som planlagt element), bygger det og bygger det ind midt imellem Horanyis arrangerede/iscenesatte dokumentarfilm rekonstruktion og hendes andet lag i sin filmkonstruktion, en omhyggelig journalistisk afdækning i tabloidpresse stil. Præcist derimellem ligger Amandas fortælling, hendes vidneforklaring. På det sted fastholder hun urokkelig denne sin helt egen fortællings suverænt litterære værkhøjde.

Uden Amanda Katrup ingen film, står der i slutteksten. Det er rigtigt på alle planer. Jeg slutter filmen i en totalforelskelse: hvilken skøn kvinde, hvilken skøn skildring af en bedraget kvinde, som indefra ser sig selv i et drama skrevet af en fantast fra de uvirkelige omgivelser, og fremstiller dette kyniske bedrageri som det hun så og det hun nu ser med det hun hele tiden var og er: lyslevende ægte.

Nicole N. Horanyi: En fremmed flytter ind, Danmark 2017, 100 min. Premiere i en lang række biografer 14. september 2017. Filmkommentarens vurdering: 5/6, fem penne af seks.

HOLD

Medvirkende: Amanda Midtgaard Kastrup og Esben Dalgaard, instruktion: Nicole N. Horanyi, fotografi: Henrik Bohn Ipsen, klip: Rasmus Steensgård, musik: Kristian Eidnes Andersen, lyddesign: Thomas Arent, production design: Helle Egsgaard, grafik: Rasmus Lange, produktion: Made in Copenhagen, producer Helle Faber.

SYNOPSIS

Amanda meets Casper on facebook. He is heir to a significant fund. He is also divorced and has a daughter; he is not allowed to see. On top of that he has a complicated relationship with his wealthy family. That’s why Casper ends up moving in with Amanda in her small apartment in a suburb to Copenhagen, where she lives with her young daughter.

Three months go by before Amanda discovers that none of what Casper has told her about himself is true. In reality Casper’s last name is not his real name, he’s on the dole, and lives in the basement of his grandparents’ house in the small village of Præstbro in northern Jutland.

How could Amanda have been so blind? How could she let her self be so thoroughly fooled? Amanda decides to find out who the man she’s been dating really is, and in the process she discovers there are many other victims of Casper’s charm. (Made in Copenhagen)

LINKS

http://www.madeincopenhagen.dk/en/stranger (filmselskab)

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/98558.aspx?id=98558 (faktaark, DFI)

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/person/en/187662.aspx?id=187662 (Nicole Horanyi biografi)

https://vimeo.com/228198355 (trailer)