Layla Abyad: Letters to S.

It’s a very fine choice of style, Syrian Layla Abyad has made for her short film made in Switzerland. 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 communicating with someone dear to you back home – Sama is online from Damascus, the young woman who is talking and who you never see gives ”advice” on how to survive here in Switzerland, where a demonstration lasts one hour without any conflicts and where you can film it all, if you wish. On her way round in the country in the middle of Europe she attends a meeting with Swiss citizens, who are afraid of muslims…

”Where do I start to explain to this nice, polite old man that I have statistically more odds and reasons to fear his vote’s support for the arms industry than he has to fear the underground fanatics already killing way more Syrians than Swiss”, a quote from the very well composed commentary in a film, that ends up with words to Sama in Damascus on what to do when ”they” interrogate her and if torture is to be used…

On the production background: …5 well-known filmmakers from Syria, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine and Russia were invited to Winterthur for 5 weeks. Together with Swiss film students, they realised a short documentary about the theme „Exile“. The result is a documentary with 5 episodes and 5 personal, touching, yet provocative views of Switzerland.

Switzerland, Syria, 11 mins., 2015

http://langfilm.ch/en/catalogue

Joshua Oppenheimer

…there’s never been a deeper or more diverse time for documentary cinema… That’s how IndieWire introduces its article about the 25 documentaries four critics have found the best in the still young 21st century. And it is an impressive list of films that are to be found. Mostly American and English language films. That can be discussed of course, but what is indisputable – the two films of Joshua Oppenheimer are there, “The Look of Silence” as number 4, “The Act of Killing” as number 1.

Which leads me to turn to the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival (starts August 11), where “A Tribute to Joshua Oppenheimer” is part of the programme with a masterclass with the director, a so-called career interview that I have been asked to lead. With great pleasure! On the website of the festival Oppenheimer’s two films are presented like this:

Born in 1974, USA, two-time Oscar® nominee Joshua Oppenheimer’s debut feature film, THE ACT OF KILLING (2014 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary), was named Film of the Year in the 2013 by the Guardian and the Sight and Sound Film Poll, and won 72 international awards, including a European Film Award, a BAFTA, an Asia Pacific Screen Award, a Berlinale Audience Award, and the Guardian Film Award for Best Film.

His second film, THE LOOK OF SILENCE (2016 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary), premiered at the 71st Venice Film Festival, where it won five awards, including the Grand Jury Prize, the international critics award (Prix FIPRESCI) and the European film critics award (FEDEORA Prize). Since then, THE LOOK OF SILENCE has received 72 international awards, including an Independent Spirit Award, an IDA Award for Best Documentary, a Gotham Award for Best Documentary, and three Cinema Eye Honors, including Best Film and Best Director.

I wonder how many people have seen the two films. Does he know that, I will ask him in Sarajevo…

http://www.sff.ba/en/news/10562/tribute-to-joshua-oppenheimer

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/best-documentaries-21st-century-1201857688/

DOCAlliance /4 DESCRIPTION D’UN COMBAT

DESCRIPTION D’UN COMBAT / DESCRIPTION OF A STRUGGLE / 1960

The earth sign, the water sign, the human being sign – this is the promise land. This document, focusing on Israel and its struggle (fight) for sovereignty and identity continues Marker’s line of political testimonies. A meditative commentary on how a new state is built hovers over elusive impressionist images, hiding opportunities to make discoveries, which, albeit short-lived, are penetrating the limits of illusion. A literary essay combines with a documentary image to make a hypnotic film, which was awarded Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival (DOCAlliance synopsis)

Description d’un combat var i 1960 en etableret naiv (vrai naive) opdateret og aktuel dokumentarfilm om Israel, i dag er det et tidsdokument for mig i en eftertid, i en ny aktualitet hvor optimismen er afløst af mistro. Mistro til alt og alle. Og vigtigst for mig et kunstnerisk, et filmhistorisk dokument i Chris Markers samlede værk, som i sin filmessayskrivning peger helt frem til i dag: sådan er den opmærksomme, tænkende filmskrift bundet i sin skribent til al tid, og filmen er derved i sin erkendelses kerne tidløs.

Filmens emne er staten og samfundet og folket Israel tilbageskuende 15 år, men fæstnet i 1960’er nuet. Temaerne er at rejse, at være turist, at være observerende dokumentarfilm fotograf at se, at tænke over det at rejse, tænke over det at se og tænke over det at tænke. Og jeg slipper ikke historien, for gør jeg det blot et øjeblik, falder den sindrige filmkonstruktion sammen for mig og jeg tror det bare er en gammel folkeoplysende rejsefilm og jeg forstår ikke det jeg ser og hører, opdager ikke essayet. Mærker ikke dybden, klogskaben, skønheden.

Elementerne er omhyggeligt fotograferede filmscener, en lang række lige så omhyggeligt fotograferede sort/hvide stills, begge en overdådighed af af fint klassisk gadefotografi, landskabsfotografi i lange, rolige studier ofte kun med musikken og endelig en voice-over, en tekst præget ikke kun af viden, men af klogskab og dette skrevet ind i en høj litterær kvalitet bundet i sin tid og sit sted, 50’ernes filosofi, politik, litteratur, malerkunst, musik og filmmiljø på venstre Seinebed i Paris. Min viden om det skarptegner min forståelse af det filmessay elementerne i forening skriver. Endnu mere, havde jeg vidst mere.

Afslutningssekvensen samler filmens holdning, dens fremtidshåb for Israel: store børn i en skole står ved i koncentreret tavs opmærksomhed ved staffelier og maler. Det samler sig om en enkelt pige som maler, den kommenterende stemme bliver til en tale, en højtidelig tale om landets og hendes fremtid, se på hende gentager den dæmpet retorisk udsagn for udsagn i en opsummering… vrai naive.

Frankrig 1960, 57 min. På DOCAlliance i engelsksproget smukt restaureret version:

https://dafilms.com/film/10156-description-of-a-struggle 

Sarajevo Documentary Competition

14 films, “important stories, new voices, relevant debates”, that is how Rada Sesic, the programmer, presents the documentary competition at the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival, August 11-18. New films from the region, 4 of them world premieres.

I have seen 4 of them, to recommend with pleasure, the Arash Brothers “Kinders”, “Ultra” by Hungarian Balazs Simonyi (…Year after year, runners from around the world participate in one of the most prestigious and challenging of races, the Spartathlon – 246km from Athens to Sparta in under 36 hours… a film that is much more than a sport film), the wonderful ”Planeta Petrila” (PHOTO) by Andrei Dascalescu that I reviewed on this site, here is a clip ” a film about creativity and… a beautiful homage to a dangerous industry and those who worked there or ”died for the coal”, Macedonian Ilija Cvetkovski’s sweet ”Avec l’amour”, written together with Atanas Georgiev about the teacher and his passion for cars.

For the rest – because I have heard about them – I look forward to seeing the Georgian ”City of the Sun” by Rati Oneli, not to forget ”In Praise of Nothing” by Boris Mitic, who has talked about the film for years. I have high expectations to what this talented director comes up with.

http://www.sff.ba/

Julia Bobkova: The Last Waltz

It was shown at the Moscow International Film Festival in the international competition for documentaries, this fascinating film about Oleg Karavaichuk, composer and piano player from St. Petersburg, in which city I – during the years of visit to the M2M (Message to Man) – heard again and again producers wishing to make a film with/about the charismatic musical genius, as he is called by many. Totally understandable it is when you watch this work finished and released after his death in 2016, 88 years old.

Because he is a great musician, he is wonderful to look at, the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he dresses with a beret on his head, hair coming out anyway, his piano playing, close-ups on his hands almost smashing the piano keyboard, his behaviour when he performs at a concert recordings on a big screen standing with his back to the audience in a corner…His compositions.

A showman, yes, an akward one, in a film that primarily is built up

around one location, Komarovo, close to St. Petersburg, with archive material from 2002 and from now = 2015/16, I guess. He lived there as did and had done other famous artists like Anna Akhmatova, Brodsky, Shostakovich… A place to nurture creativity but now with Karavaichuk as the guide full of dilapidated houses or residents for rich people, who don’t care what they do to their neighbours: See the photo of the composer leaning on what remains of a fir tree cut down by his neighbour. A tragedy for him.

It is not easy to make a music documentary. In this case it starts a bit clumsy with clips from some of the many feature films, Karavaichuk has made the score to, but it finds its balance, lets him play and talk with enthusiasm about Wagner, while he is humming tunes and his whole body moves to accompany the music. There is a big difference in the happy mood of the composer in 2002 and the one in 2015/16, where he appears depressed at the end of a long life and what seems to be the end of Komarovo. His funeral is filmed and the scoop of the film is the presentation of the composition he has made to Komarovo, that he wanted to be public after his death. The visual side of this with his words – music, words, images – is grandiose. No hesitation to be pathetic. The right decision.

Let me end by giving you the well written synopsis of the film:  

”Documentary about Oleg Karavaichuk, eccentric musical genius and famous St. Petersburg composer, who takes his final stroll through Komarovo, a bay-side summer community just outside St. Petersburg where he spent his whole life and wrote most of his works. Karavaichuk wrote music for Russian cinema and became famous worldwide. He died durind the shootings of this film in June of 2016. His final piece, “The Komarovo Waltz”, unveiled here for the very first time, was written as a tribute to the place. The film is the reclusive composer’s eulogy to the community. It also serves as Karavoichuk’s farewell to audience as well as his last address and reminder of things that are truly important – love for your fellow man and virgin nature.This philosophical documentary that combines unique music by Karavaichuk, fragments of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and rare chronicle materials.”

And me again: A must for all festivals with art and music categories.

Russia, 2017, 78 mins.

http://www.karavaichuk.com/en

DOCAlliance /4 LETTRE DE SIBÉRIE

Hov, jeg ser at DOCAlliances retrospektive Chris Marker serie stadigvæk kører på deres streamingtjeneste. Jeg havde ellers belavet mig på at skrive om den post festum nu længe efter den begyndte og vi skrev om den her på Filmkommentaren, Tue Steen Müller en introduktion og jeg om en enkelt af filmene, hvorefter jeg gik i stå. Til nu midt i sommerferien.

For det var med forsigtig tøven jeg nærmede mig Chris Marker og hans film. Han er for mig en myte, den mand som skaffede råfilm til optagelserne i Chile og bagefter fik dem smuglet ud og Sara Thelle fortalte mig engang jeg besøgte hende i Paris, at den nu gamle sky mand handlede på hendes marked og boede der i nærheden med sin kat, som han sendte et portræt af, når en redaktør skulle bruge et af ham, en kat hvis katteliv i lejligheden han lavede film om, film han lagde ud på YouTube, film som jeg så og fascineredes af på grund af myten og auraen og så dette særlige autoritative greb, som jeg mærker hos visse instruktører, og det ikke på grund af myten. Det er jeg sikker på; og Sara Thelle forærede mig nyrestaurerede dvd udgaver af andre, længere og mere ambitiøse film som jeg så, men ikke forstod ret meget af, men blev optaget af nu osgså på grund af myten om disse berømte værker selvfølgelig, men alligevel især på grund af deres konsekvent sikre og gennemarbejdede storhed. Jeg var klar over, der var mesterværker iblandt.

Og så blev Tue Steen Müller og jeg som nævnt for nogen tid siden opmærksomme på DOCAlliances retrospektive Chris Marker serie og jeg tog mig på at at se de film.

Denne og de forhåbentlig følgende blogindlæg er små og spredte notater fra disse gennemsyn, blot en slags kvittering jeg bestemt er forpligtet på. For det var mere omvæltende i mig end det vil lykkes mig endog bare at antyde i det følgende som nu kommer, altså alligevel ikke post festum. Og det er godt, ferietid kan være frigjort tid, tid til at se og læse om det som ikke nåedes aktuelt. Ferietid er fordybelsesforsøgets langsomme tid, reprisens tid, gentagelsens tid. Det kan nås endnu, og det kan kun anbefales, her er linket til streamingen:

https://dafilms.com/program/628-chris-marker 

LETTRE DE SIBÉRIE / LETTER FROM SIBERIA / 1957

A documentary about this vast and in those days very mysterious Soviet area. Above all as André Bazin wrote: “A human and political geography essay about Siberian reality. Vivid writing inlighted by the camera work. The author always holds together intelligence, poetry and whimsical imagination.” (DA editor)

Filmen er et altså et essay over den sibiriske kultur, og Marker tager godt fat om det personlige udgangspunkt, hans fremstilling er i rejsebrevets form. Hans billedside er landskabsfotografi og tegnefilm.

Jeg kan godt lide de sikre greb i filmens åbning, autoriteten. Kameraet introducerer panoreringen som jeg venter vil blive gennemgående, den er langsom med den lave horisont trygt hvilende i en evighed som tilhører dette landskab, hvis stemning en koncertsanger uddyber med en sang om ræven, ørnen og rensdyret, hvem landet her tilhører. Men det vil ændre sig…

Chris Markers voice-over er causerende i sin tids kommentarstil, men den er omhyggelig arbejdet ind i en anderledeshed, som også har overrasket for et halvt århundrede siden. Ja, den samlede filmkonstruktion udnytter den vedtagne, den konventuelle form for dokumentarfilm som jeg kender fra britterne og fra danskerne i perioden – men Marker tilføjer en ånd og en klogskab og en personlighed og en alvor, som jeg ikke finder magen til i disse værkers oftest småborgerlige folkeoplysende og velmenende kulturforståelse og hele antropologi bundet ind i ministeriers og skolers ønsker. Hans samfundsforståelse og hans menneskesyn må komme fra andre territorier, tænker jeg som jo har set senere af hans film før denne.

Frankrig 1957, 57 min. På DOCAlliance i engelsksproget version.

Ai Weiwei: Human Flow

Realscreen, the trade magazine, revealed yesterday information about some of the distribution aspects of the upcoming film by Ai WeiWei, ”Human Flow”, that I am sure I am not the only one who is looking forward to see. I have picked some lines from the article: 

”Filmed over more than a year and shot in 23 countries, the doc aims to capture the scope of the global migrant crisis, which involves more than 65 million individuals searching for a better life after having been forcibly displaced due to war, famine and climate change…

The film will be distributed in the UK and Ireland by Altitude Films a deal struck by Lionsgate International on behalf of Participant Media and AC Films. Human Flow is produced by Weiwei, Chin-chin Yap, and Heino Deckert. Andy Cohen of AC Films and Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann are the executive producers. Amazon is holding the US rights.

The premiere of the film, that will have a duration of more than two hours, is not yet announced. When that is done, and we have seen the film, you can count on a follow-up on this site.

The chief editor of the film is Danish Niels Pagh Andersen.

On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWgC5pCR1AE

Ai Weiwei, in a one-minute visual, talks about his film.

Golden Apricot Festival Cancels Program

Shameful conduct at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan that ends July 16…

“We want to inform you that the ARMENIANS: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL VIEWS non-competition program is completely cancelled. We apologize for any inconveniences.” This was the content of an email that was sent to the filmmakers, whose films had been selected. Around 40 there were. The films were to be screened in a theatre that belongs to the Cinematographers’ Union of Armenia. The former director of the theatre Rouben Gevorgyants passed away June 23 and the new temporary director, when he discovered that there were two LGBT related films in the program, demanded to the festival to take them out. The festival would not do so and thus the whole program was cancelled.

Which naturally created a lot of protests from filmmakers, critics, rights activists et al., who wrote an official complaint including this: … “We condemn the actions

of both the Union of Cinematography of Armenia, that has dared to censor the special program of the Golden Apricot International Festival because of the themes broached in the films “Listen to Me: untold stories beyond hatred” and “Apricot Groves”, and the Golden Apricot management, that has sent a note to 37 film directors without any explanation, rather than putting all its efforts to restore the whole program in another venue.

By removing the program from the festival, the “Golden Apricot” is giving a green light to censorship in Armenia and confirming that in Armenia any film can be treated in an arbitrary way. Moreover, the Armenian people are well acquainted with the results of censorship when taking into consideration the incidents of censorship during Soviet times, by the Young Turks, by  the Ottoman Empire and others… We are calling upon the organizers of Golden Apricot to protect the films selected by them, instead of issuing an apology, and to restore the whole program and screen all films in another place and to publicly condemn the actions of the Union of Cinematography of Armenia. Only by restoring the program can the festival maintain and protect its former reputation.” 

Also from outside the country there was an immediate reaction – Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan and his actress and activist wife Arsinée Khanjian posted an announcement on Facebook decrying the decision to cancel the slate of films. They also argue that the best way to honor a late cinematographer is to ensure that the medium continues to flourish and proliferate:

“We are very concerned about the censorship by the Union of Cinematographers and the following decision to cancel an entire programming by the Golden Apricot Film Festival. Atom was President of the Festival for almost ten years and it’s dismaying to see a festival that we both proudly advocated for within the international film community in the name of films and filmmakers that spoke of such urgent human rights issues can be suppressed, especially when these ideas need to be discussed and brought to light,” said the announcement by the two Diasporan artists.

“Surely there is no better way to honour the spirit of an important Armenian filmmaker, Rouben Gevorgyants, than by making sure new films from Armenian voices can be seen and shared. We have never heard of a program of new films being cancelled to commemorate a cineaste’s death as a sign of mourning and respect! This claim seems, therefore, quite preposterous. We urge the Festival to review this outlandish decision. We urge the Festival to present this programme of thought-provoking work which reflects the true diversity of voices present in Armenia today and the Diaspora alike,” added the announcement.

I was in contact with Inna Sakahyan, producer and director at Bars Media and right now working on a film with a LGTB topic. She sees it very difficult if not impossible to get funding in her own country or in the region and internationally there is topic-wise a huge competition. I saw the trailer, it is excellent. Help needed!

Sources:

https://www.newsinfo.am/eng/article/view/NyZ2EX63N7

http://www.gaiff.am/

http://armenianweekly.com/2017/07/11/two-lgbt-themed-films-at-the-center-of-controversy-at-yerevans-golden-apricot-festival/   

Polish Doc Promotion

What is the best country in documentaries right now? I have for decades tried to answer that question based on what I have seen at festivals and online. When I was working at EDN at the beginning of the 2000´s I always said Finland, a country with a documentary culture that has a good financial support. Now I am not so sure that the artistic quality is the same as then, I might be wrong, whereas I can only salute what comes from Poland of original work from experienced directors and new talents. The Danes reading this will say that ”we” are also doing well, look at the amount of good films that travel to festivals, yes yes, and let me also include Norway as a country that delivers important documentaries these years.

Back to Poland and Polish documentaries. Yesterday a newsletter came in from KFF Sales and Promotion which is ”… a new branch of the Krakow Film Foundation, so far devoted to the festival promotion of Polish films under the brands of Polish Docs, Polish Shorts and Polish Animations. Starting in 2016, film promotion is also accompanied by sales, which seems to be a natural development of the Foundation’s former activities. KFF Sales & Promotion is the only selling agency of documentary films in Poland and the first one dealing with promotion of Polish documentary cinema on such a large scale. Every year, in the database of films represented by KFF abroad, there are over 70 films.”

The main emphasis in the newsletter is put on the success of Piotr Stasik’s masterpiece “21xNew York” that travels to numerous festivals in Italy, Estonia, South Africa, Macedonia, Lithuania. The film was reviewed on this site in connection with last year’s Krakow Film Festival – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3578/ – I was at a critics panel, where the film was number one but the jury decided not to give it the main award it deserved.

For more info on Polish documentaries, check this site or go to

http://polishdocs.pl/en/news/3610/21xnew_york_on_world_tour

DokuFest Kosovo/ Competitions

Many tweets fill the world of today… One for us film freaks came earlier to day: DokuFest XVI announces the full slate of films in competitions, featuring an outstanding body of work!

Yes the organisers can be proud of their work in selecting the films for the competitions which are divided into the sections ”Balkan Dox”, ”International Dox”, ”Human Rights Dox”, ”Green Dox”, International Shorts” and ”National”, the latter meaning films from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia – mostly short films.

Let me mention some of the films, that I have seen and eventually also written about on this site:

”Machines” by Rahul Jain, ”A Hole in the Head” by Robert Kirchhoff, ”Mogadishu Soldier” by Torstein Grude and Niels Pagh Andersen, ”Nowhere to Hide” (PHOTO) by Zaradasht Ahmed, ”The War Show” by Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon and ”Woman and the Glacier” by Audrius Stonys.

http://dokufest.com/