I have been here in Skopje for three days and the festival is exactly like I expected it to be. High quality selection, totally relaxed atmosphere, outdoor screenings at Kurshumli An in the old city, a workshop with the title ”visual narration” and the legendary talks under the fig tree. Tonight we are going to announce the jury decisions, including the one where I was a juror together with Anton Calleja from Eurimages and Vladimir Blazhevski, filmmaker and teacher from here and there – Macedonia and Serbia. I will tell you about the winners tomorrow, but here you have the titles of the 8 films in the main competition, we were watching – with links to the reviews, which have previously been brought on this site:

21 x New York by Piotr Stasik

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

The Girl Down Loch Änzi by Alice Schmid

Dixieland by Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3877/

Woman and the Glacier by Audrius Stonys

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3818/

Machines by Rahul Jain

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3772/

Normal Autistic Film by Miroslav Janek

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

Chavela by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi

Untitled by Michael Glawogger and Monika Willi

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3788/

http://nov.makedox.mk/en/main-program-2017/

This review is written by Mina Stanikic, young Serbian film critic, who took part at 23rd SFF as part of Talent Press.

After having his debut PARALYSES screened at the majority of regional festivals, up-and-coming Serbian director Dušan Zorić hits the international scene with his second short LOVE. This new production moves Zorić to the next level, as the film premiered at Visions du Réel in Nyon early on this year. At just finished 23^rd Sarajevo Film Festival, LOVE was competing for the Heart of Sarajevo in the official student selection. Unfortunately, LOVE did not grab the Heart of Sarajevo, but it surely grabbed and gripped hearts of many in the audience.

Zorić used the trick we have already seen in Gaspar Noe’s latest film: naming it LOVE, but dealing with what, at first, rather seems to be sex.

Zorić, however, does not show endless soft porn scenes, but moves straight to the point, which turns out to be porn itself. LOVE is a documentary on porn industry in the Serbian capital, for whose questionable existence Zorić had interest, saying “I wanted to see if porn is still being made in Belgrade”. As it comes to light, porn is indeed still shot in Belgrade, which gave Zorić the chance to meet young porn actor Stefan, the protagonist of the film, whose example he uses to depict Serbian porn industry.

I will be free to divide the film’s narrative into three chapters. In the first one the director focuses on Stefan’s character and personality in a very subtle, yet efficient way, by asking questions such as “Who is your favourite Harry Potter character?”. This simple question frames Stefan in the “Harry Potter generation”, immediately making him a part of a community seen as harmless and even desirable, making a juxtaposition to his porn actor label. There are numerous similar examples, making film’s content relatable for the audience, who, as assumed, has little knowledge on personal lives of porn actors.

As the narrative unfolds, the film moves on to the porn film set, where Stefan is accompanied by a porn director and two actresses. The aesthetics of this, second, part of the film is striking – porn is being shot in a ruined house exterior on an improvised bed. Even though Zorić’s focus is still on Stefan and his relations to the rest of the porn film crew, the DOP Milan Petković manages to capture this unique surrounding that even feels somewhat indie, and attributes to the overwhelming impression of this almost absurd scene. Speaking of camerawork, it is hard not to notice the appearance of the fingers and microphone in the mise-en-scéne, but it fits in the friendly atmosphere and character’s casual behaviour in front of the camera, adding to the afterimage of the LOVE crew being fully accepted by the porn actors and vice versa. 

LOVE presents a story that develops in a logical continuum: in the last chapter Zorić moves his characters out of the natural habitat of a porn industry professional, into the crowded public spaces. Nevertheless, this does not happen without a tiny sparkle in the second part hinting where the film is heading – towards love. However, it never becomes clear what drives Stefan or his co-workers, what their motives for getting involved in the porn industry are. Further on, it seems that LOVE could easily be transformed into a feature-length film, as the viewer is left with a significant number of unanswered questions that tickle curiosity, causing the “I want more” effect. The film’s end opened to the viewer’s imagination only adds up to this effect, but also creates the possibility for the sequel, that I would be hoping for.

With this being Zorić’s first documentary, brave and interest-catching as it is, I suggest we should keep a close eye on his future projects.

Serbia, 2017, 16 mins.

www.sff.ba

I had come to Sarajevo with the idea to discover this city apart from memories of war and violence in order to honour the city’s life and present instead of concentrating on its  grim past. I soon discovered this idea to be very naive. In a place where parks are cemeteries and schools bear plates with the names of their dead pupils on the still granade-sprinkled walls, how could one deal with the past by just forgetting it?

The wonderful Sarajevo Film Festival, an important referring point for the Balkan region and beyond, seems to point at the elaboration of this dark heritage in its entire selection of films. „Dealing with the past“ is thus the perfectly fitting title not only for a section within the festival of already existing documentaries as well as projects still to be done.

It even fits with the red-carpet screenings I have been able to watch during the week, where the question whether it is possible to forgive and how, is a sort of red thread. With Aki Kaurismäki’s  „The other side of hope“ as festival opener, signs were given that

the hope lies in the change of ourselves dusty habits towards a new humanity, which may improve not only the lives of those arriving in search for a future, but also our owns.

Fatih Akin’s “In the fade“ instead, proposes a grim solution for his protagonist, who doesn’t succeed to achieve state punishment for the neo-nazi couple who has murdered her husband and son. „If my husband was at my place, he would have smashed their heads“ is the sense of the leading idea of a film which doesn’t reach the deepness of Akin’s earlier works, a pity as it is based on real facts of contemporary Germany.

The Bosnian-Croatian-Slovenian-German co-production „Men don’t cry“ (Photo) is a very courageous attempt to put the post-war situation in the Balkans into a well-written screenplay: a group of men from the former enemy states Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia has accepted the paid-for invitation to a sort of psychological reconciliation meeting held by a Slovenian NGO. Obviously there are strong words, a lot of alcohol and violence and even burning cars and bloody fights before some little sign of mutual confidence shows up, when the apparently strongest and most exasperate men in the group leave some of their protective shields behind. It is not easy to imagine a similar situation in the real world, but still it recounts a parable of what may be the way to make people with deep inner wounds live again close to each other.

Special guest Joshua Oppenheimer offers a similar vision during his exhaustive masterclass on „The Act of Killing“ and „The Look of Silence“, when a woman in the audience tells about the supposed existance of a „gene of evil“. Oppenheimer replies that he discovered during the shooting of his two films, that violence may start from small violent acts, which then request a following bigger act in order to justify the former one within the violent person’s inner psychology. According to him the „trick“ to overcome their boasting and the genocide offender’s lies to themselves, was to remind them they were humans by sending the protagonist Adi (the brother of one of their many victims in „The Look of silence“) as an optometrist curing their eyesight.

A different approach to a similar issue is Danish Lars Feldballe-Petersen’s „The Unforgiven“ within the same festival section „Dealing with the past“. It obviously cannot reach Oppenheimer’s multi-faceted and deep-layered masterpieces,  but nevertheless is very worth watching. Bosnian muslim soldier Esad has committed multiple war crimes during his two months of serving as a guard in a prison for Serbian war prisoners. After his own arrest and ten years of prison, Esad is not able to find a way back into life and feels the need to apologize and ask forgivness to who has been between his victims. The scenes of the actual encounters with the few victims who accept to meet their perpetrator, unfortunately have a very staged look and atmosphere, and someone in the audience says he doesn’t believe Esad’s will to truely apologize. On the other hand, it is rare to hear a war criminal saying that there is no kind of excuse to what he did and that no one had forced him to do so. 

I found it particularly interesting to observe my own prejudices and inner cries for help, when during the screening I tried to put in order my own vision of good and evil, of victims and perpetrators.

The Sarajevo Film Festival and the invited filmmakers show us some impressive idea of how to deal with the past and how to approach the future of this region, and, by the way, it may be good ideas for other regions of the world, too.

Georg Zeller is a filmmaker based in Bolzano/Italy.

www.sff.ba

Tuesday night back to the region. After Sarajevo comes Skopje in Macedonia. I will be in the jury, 8 films to watch, creative documentaries – indeed they are. More about them later. But here are copy-pastes of two lyrical texts from the organisers with filmmaker Petra Seliskar leading MakeDox that is much more than a festival:

“On 19th August, when the storks are taking off, we are opening the eighth edition of MakeDox, honoring Louis Daguerre, the Sputnik, Belka and Strelka. The savoring of grapes has already begun, so let’s enjoy its descents as a toast to Dionisys.”

“Doc Talks under the Fig Tree… Someday, hundreds of years from now, who knows if people would believe that every summer, countless storytellers would gather under the old magnificent fig tree in the backyard of the unique Kurshumli An in Skopje just to talk until nightfall. Just to give words to the images in their heads, words that created unbelievable images in front of the listener’s eyes… every summer, for years. Join us in the shade of the fig tree, lets’s enjoy while we still can.”

http://nov.makedox.mk/en/home/makedoxfestival/

Whenever my wife and I need a break (she from Netflix series, me from documentaries), we watch the Fawlty Towers series with John Cleese. His wife Sybil does what she can to make the hotel owner Basil (Cleese) behave but he can not resist to humiliate German guests – ”don’t mention the war”, she says, but he does – and the French get their treatment as well, when one of them complain about the wine. Hilarious. Still wonderful even if 40 years old.

John Cleese (photo), master of silly walking, got the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Film Festival the other day. So well deserved for his long contribution to film and television.

But many others got awards as well – I focus on documentaries and documentarians:

The Bulgarian cat activists (see post above) Mina Mileva and Vezela Kazakova got €6000, the Arte International Relations Cinelink Award for their project ”Cat in the Wall”, Macedonian producer Atanas Georgiev and his directors Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska got €30.000 from TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) for their ”Honeyland” which is in post-production. I saw material from the film at the RoughCut Boutique, looked good, very promising. As is another one presented at the Boutique event, ”What Comes Around” by Reem Saleh, a close-up of a poor family in a poor district of Cairo. It got the Restart Award, €20.000 in kind support.

My friends in the documentary jury Gitte Hansen (First Hand Films) and Claas Danielsen (CEO of MDM in Leipzig) chose together with renowned Serbian director Zelimir Zilnik to play safe and go for both aesthetics and content with ”City of the Sun” by Rati Oneli from Georgia and ”Kinders” by Brothers Riahi from Austria/Iran. You can read about all the awards on link below.

http://www.sff.ba/en/news/10756/23rd-sarajevo-film-festival-awards 

 

 

Back from Sarajevo, now here comes important info that waited some days to be brought. Namely the information about who were the winners at the DokuFest in Prizren. I bring some of the categories with the jury motivations – always appreciate when festivals publish them. This is not that often I am afraid. But the great people down there in Kosovo do:

INT’L DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION/FEATURE DOX – WINNER

EL MAR LA MAR by Joshua Bonnetta, J.P. Sniadecki.

Jury: Carmen Gray, Cíntia Gli, Melody Gilbert, Rodolfo Castillo-Morales, Wood LIN.

Statement: With 16mm film, the filmmakers gaze into time and the desert landscape at the border between U.S. and Mexico. Signs of human life are barely visible, but the empty desert along with the soundscape serves as a vivid metaphor of everything invisible, yet influential, to our daily lives. The geographical, ideological and political aspects are also illuminated through the narrative structure as the journey unfolds. El Mar La Mar is a beautiful poem and a highly political statement in the contemporary context with sincerity.

The same jury gave the “Special Mention” to 69 MINUTES OF 86 DAYS by Egil Håskjold Larsen.

Statement: A sensitive film that depicts the journey of a family through innocent eyes, in difficult and uncertain times of both political and social unrest, where many approaches towards the core of this film, proper or problematic could be interpreted.

HUMAN RIGHTS – WINNER:

THE WAR SHOW by Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon

Jury: Laura Limani, Mante Valiunaite, Miranda Pennel

Statement: The jury was impressed by the film’s well-crafted form, intimacy of its camera and reflective quality of its narration.
The film manages to provide a close view of the resistance in Syria; it is a beautiful homage to political activism and ultimately, an intimate story of friendships lost too soon. What begins as a personal story transforms into a tale of journalistic courage and a commitment to document the brutal impacts of war on human lives from up-close.

The same jury gave the “Special Mention” for the HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD to A FEELING GREATER THAN LOVE by Mary Jirmanus Saba.

Statement: An important and timely investigation of labor histories and working class solidarity in Lebanon in the period shortly before the civil wars.

BALKAN DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION – WINNER:

BUFFET ELJEZARA by Goran Dević

Jury: Karen Cirillo, Mimi Brody, Ognjen Glavonić,

Statement: We award BUFFET ELJEZARA (Steel Mill Café) as an expertly crafted portrait of a community grappling with the economic realities of a dwindling population. It deftly captures the café’s owners and visitors with subtle humor and an intimacy that conveys how difficult it is to say goodbye to one’s home.

The same jury gave the “Special Mention” to ONI SAMO DOLAZE I ODLAZE by Boris Poljak.

Statement: ONI SAMO DOLAZE I ODLAZE /THEY JUST COME AND GO is a visually playful and jaw-dropping allegory, dedicated to subtly painting a world in which, from dawn to dusk, human life in different stages of desire and uncertainty is captured in all its directionless interweaving.

The same jury gave the BEST BALKAN NEWCOMER AWARD to MY LIFE WITHOUT AIR by Bojana Burnać.

Statement: We award MY LIFE WITHOUT AIR for its fresh and original visual approach and striking cinematography. With an assurance not often seen in a debut film, Bojana Burnac trusts her subject and audience and lets the story slowly unfold to reveal the personality and reality of a very private world-record holder.

The same jury gave the “Special Mention” to Gora by Stefan Malešević.

Statement: A special mention goes to Stefan Malešević’s visually striking and effortlessly rich meditation on a community of mountains and nature, animals and men. The time, tradition, rhythm and rules of life at GORA are, with the author’s curiosity and observation, brought closer and more familiar to those who might never have a chance to visit this part of the world.

More winners on:

www.dokufest.com 

The wonderful film couple Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, Bulgarians, who with their fine films “Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Serviceand “The Beast is Still Alive” have raised discussions and anger in their home country, run a company called Activist 38. The other day they demonstrated their activism in quite another field. This is what Mileva wrote on her FB wall:

When entering Sarajevo for the CineLink Industry Days we found these brothers. We’ve had to rescue them from underneath a massive lorry. The ginger one was ready to be flattened curled up right under the huge tire. We’re supposed to talk about “Cat in the wall” here but what to do with these two?

We had a drink with the two yesterday. Mina Mileva told us how she survives as an animation artist in London, Vesela Kazakova lives in Sofia, is an actress, has performed on theatre and in films and of course in “The Beast…”.

But they are almost never in their homes travelling as they do to festivals and markets raising money for the next project – or saving animals… Bravo! Below links to reviews of their two films:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3672/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2747/

First a brief intro for those who don’t know about the excellent Rough Cut Boutique initiative, that is a joint programme created by the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Balkan Documentary Center, focused on documentary films from the region of South East Europe and Caucasus, films in post-production. 5 chosen projects are offered tailor made coaching by editors and other documentary experts.

After a session in Sofia (where the Balkan Documentary Center is placed, run by Martichka Bozhilova) the Boutique, that worked for days in a room in Hotel Europe, led by Rada Sesic, presented the 5 projects to documentary interested people at the Sarajevo Film Festival, including me.

Sorry to say, I was not really impressed by the quality. The simple question you put to yourself, when you attend a pitching/presentation like this: Woiuld I like to see that film when finished? Do the films have cinematic quality, do they play with many layers…

One did, one stood out – ”Srbenka” by Nebosja Slijejcevic from

Croatia, produced by the company Restart. The synopsis goes like this – In the winter of 1991 a 12-year old girl Aleksandra Zec was killed. She was Serbian. Although the perpetrators admitted the crime, nobody was ever sentenced for it. 25 years later, theatre director Oliver Frljic prepares a theatre play about the case. The work process brings out to the surface hidden traumas: rehearsals become a collective psychotherapy, and 12-year old actress Nina (who is Serbian but has problems to say so, from that the title) feels as if the war had never ended…

Beautiful in form and content, I am curious to see the final result. Here I was presented with 10 minutes.

The other projects were two from Hungary ”Ghetto Balboa” (Arpad Bogdan), great cinematography but… and ”Paying a Visit to Fortuna” (Matyas Kalman) about lotto winners, need more filmic sense… and Hungarian/Romanian ”Hands of God” (Laszlo Barna) about a roma violonist who has Parkinson… and ”The Other Side of the Medal” from Romania (Denisa Morariu) about the gymnast Andreea Raducan, who won Gold at the Olympics in Sydney in 2000 but was disqualified because of doping = a substance found in a flu pill. The filmmakers behind this had not found their form yet.

Photo from one of the sessions here in Sarajevo.

www.sff.ba