Voila, now it happened. I wrote this when at DOKLeipzig last year : ”Dum Spiro Spero” (photo) by author Pero Kvesic, a man who suffers behind the camera from reduced lung capacity. It’s a wonderful simple film, it has a tone, he talks so well behind the camera going around in his house, where wife and sister-in-law and son do also live, not to forget the two dogs. One could hope for one of the many awards be given to this film, produced by Nenad Puhovski.

A very pleasant surprising decision taken by the jury presided by Pawel Lozinski. Pero Kvesic was on stage saying that he had enjoyed days in Zagreb, had gone home – 900 km to Zagreb – to wake up saturday morning being asked to come back. Into the car and 900 km together with wife and friend.

The two other titles awarded was in my list of favourites from yesterday: Silver Horn for Medium lenght documentary ”Woman and the Glacier” by Audrius Stonys (who also won the Fipresci critic award and drove 11 hours with his wife from Vilnius to receive the awards) and Lissette Oroczo got Silver Horn for feature length for her courageous ”Adriana’s Pact”. The young director has made a film that keeps your attention from start till end. She wants to find out if her aunt was involved in torturing the opponents to the Pinochet régime, for which she was working in the secret police. The aunt was young and beautiful, the generals liked her, did she take part in the atrocities? It sounds like a journalistic story, an investigation, it is that in a way but the film is built like a psychological study of the two, their relationship, the love and doubt and anger. It is one of those films where you sometimes feel embarrased to watch, but it is a film that trancends the private to become personal.

Special mention – out of politeness? – to Marcin Borchardt for „The Beksinskis“ and Piotr Stasik for „Opera About Poland“.

www.krakowfilmfestival.pl

 

I saw only a few of the Polish films from the national competition but two of them I saw got awards from the jury headed by Dariusz Jablonski, who is also the head of the Polish Film Academy. In that capacity Jablonski asked the audience to hold up a paper with the text ”Release Oleg Sentsov”, the Ukrainian filmmaker and writer, who was arrested by the Russians in March 2014 in Crimea and sentenced to 20 years in jail on suspicion of “plotting terrorist acts”. Respect!

The winner of the main prize, the so-called Golden Hobby-Horse, for the best film was ”The Ugliest Car” by Grzegorz Szczepaniak, a funny and moving film about mother and son travelling in a Wartburg car, which is more than 50 year old. Bogdan… shouts the 94 year old mother when he gets too far away from her to talk with other people about the award-winning car, that is on its way to Germany to see the camp where the mother was in 1943. The son, who is physically disabled, is sooo much caring for the mother and they have beautiful conversations in the pensions that they stay in on the way. Hilarious. Sweet. There is a long international festival career waiting for this film.

The same could happen for the Silver Hobby-Horse winner, ”Stranger on my Couch” by Grzegorz Brzozowski, who manages to bring fine moments to the screen, when foreign couchsurfers with a Vietnamese or Korean or German background come to visit and end up sitting on the couch having deep conversations with the hosts about life and love. Well in one case you almost think – or hope – that the Vietnamese who lives in Germany would stay with the single moter and her son. Or the middle aged engineer who makes a messy room ready for a heavy metal musician and go to the street to play with a toy helicopter.

Photo: The winning director Grzegorz Szczepaniak (red trousers) on stage.

The national competition also includes animation and fiction films. Go to the website  and check:

www.krakowfilmfestival.pl

Below, in a previous post, some positive words about Doc Lab Poland and its Docs to Start, and now I repeat myself by talking about Docs to Go!, the presentation of 8 projects hosted by always enthusiastic and professional Rada Sesic. To Go means that the films are in post production to be released later this year or in 2018. As with Docs to Start there was a good audience, a supportive atmosphere and interesting material to be watched on the big screen in MOS1 at the Festival Centre.

If I was a festival programmer (and I am for Magnificent7 Belgrade and DocsBarcelona) I would keep an eye on two of the eight film projects presented. Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski, who made ”Domino Effect”, are working on ”The Prince and The Dybbuk”, which is announced to be ready this September. It is a fascinating story about Michal Waszynski, ”the son of a poor Jewish blacksmith from Ukraine, died in Madrid as Prince MW, Hollywood producer and exiled Polish aristocrat. The producer Malgorzata Zacharko showed wonderful material, including an archive clip where the Prince is smoking a cigarette in his palazzo in Rome. He could have played in a Visconti film with that appearance.

The other one that for me stood out was ”The Wind. A Documentary Thriller” with Michal Bielawski as director and Maciej Kubicki as producer. ”A multi-layered story about the clash between people and the forces of nature”, in the form of a documentary thriller. Location is Southern Poland/Slovakia in the Carpathian mountains. There more than strong winds can  destroy not only houses, forests, creating avalanches but can also create mental changes… the material shown with people and nature was great and surprising. Let the final film surprise us, don’t go classical, break the story-telling rules.

It was brave of the filmmakers to come with their unfinished material, trailers and raw scenes and show that to an audience. It is obvious that the Doc Lab Poland organisers Adam and Katarzyna Slesicki has the film background needed to run the development programs in a professional way. To develop new talent with respect and inspiration.

Photo: Waszynski and Sophia Loren

www.doclab.pl

 

 

 

Text that I wrote for the Daily newspaper of the festival: I started the wednesday morning at the Festival Centre moderating the „Docs to Start“ session, that is part of the impressive and super-professionally run DocLab Poland. 9 projects were pitched to be followed by individual meetings with producers, festival representatives and broadcasters after a lunch. 100 people sat in the audience, the pitching filmmakers did very well, having been for a couple of days in good tutor-hands of Danish producer Lise Lense-Møller, EDN director Paul Pauwels and DOK Leipzig’s Head of Industry Brigid O’Shea.

Let me pick three projects that I think will become good films. To exemplify the good quality: Maciej Cuske, a skilled director who is always chasing Russian stories, has a strong one in the pipeline from Chukchi Peninsula, where indigenous people live from hunting, which is a profession that is disappearing, title: „The Whale from Lorino“. And „War Watchers“ by Vita Drygas about

(yes!) war tourism = people who travel to war zones to see and experience horror, also in Syria. It is an industry, Vita Drygas said, and of course a film like that, about a quite disgusting phenomenon, will have an audience internationally. Finally Konrad Szolajski, who I know from way back, who always picks timely themes, showed a clip from „Art of Survival“, a project about the militarization of the Polish society, where volunteer paramilitary groups are growing in numbers. In the clip an 8 year old boy advocates for allowing weapons to be common property in families! Brainwashing.

And words about finished films at the festival. Some days ago I attended the screening of ”21 x New York” by Piotr Stasik at DocsBarcelona. It was very well received.

So expectations were high, when I saw that the director had a new film, ”Opera about Poland”, in the competitive categories. I got disappointed. Maybe my fault, maybe it’s the film. Maybe both. Or maybe it is quite simply that the film had too many local references. I understood that talented Stasik wants to make a statement about Poland today in the frame of an opera, with music that gets more and more aggressive, if you can say so about music, at the same time as he wants to try new ways of storytelling. Montage goes wild, split screen, images of staged scenes with Poles standing in front of the camera with voice excerpts from people, who are looking for a partner or want to sell something, or praises hysterically religion and so on so forth. I felt a sarchasm that I did not appreciate…

I have seen all 18 films in the international competition. Awards are awards, and juries are juries, and we should definitely not take it too serious, but let me play my own one-man jury:

Golden Horn: Adriana’s Pact by Lisette Oroczo for its brave and honest family story during Pinochet in Chile, where you feel embarrassed to be taken into a story that trancends the private and becomes personal.

Silver Horn, medium duration: Woman and the Glacier by Audrius Stonys for its amazing cinematography breaking the classical dramaturgy to tell the viewer about a unique place with a unique character.

Silver Horn, feature duration: The Beksinskis, a Sound and Picture Album (PHOTO) by Marcin Borchardt for its creative treatment of a personal archive through which a family drama is created that has no national border.

Curious to see what the jury decides tonight.

Content is King, we are often taught, the issue/theme is the most important, the form is only the carrier. Mostly those ”teaching” are television people, who I have often heard saying at diverse pitching sessions: ”This film is too artistic for me!”

I wonder what happens with Sergey Loznitsa’s artistic masterpiece ”Austerlitz” in terms of broadcast. Will it happen? Will it end up on television? The film which is shown in the ”German Films” section is based on Form. The director has made a clear aesthetical choice for watching the tourists, who are visiting the former concentration camps. How they walk, how they talk, how they dress, how they take pictures with their smartphones, there are (almost) no words but a strongly manufactured sound score that in the long sequences are nerve-wracking. I suffered when I saw that film.

Form, another fine director, French/Czech Stan Neumann, has said, is the face of the film, the way the content appears to the

viewer. Make it shrink, have big things become small, you are creating an imaginary object. Form is always about taking things away, explore reality and find your place in it.

I was thinking about that when I watched ”Almost There” (PHOTO) by Swiss Jacqueline Zünd, who has chosen a precise visual language to describe the three aging men, no interviews, voice over the whole way through, superb cinematography. I have to confess that I in the beginning felt distant to the three men but slowly I got closer to them = got into the film, which is far away from being a tv programme. There are loads of interview-based portraits of old men! In Zünd’s film the images are composed, there is thought about framing, the ambition is to make every image and sequence characterise the character.

You can also phrase it in another way: You have to choose your genre. Another German film shown here in Krakow is the shocking ”The Promise”, that started as a journalistic investigation into a murder case but ended up being a shakespearean drama with the young woman being a Lady Macbeth, who orders Jens Soering, the young German boy who is in love with her, to kill her parents. Or did he, the film indicates no and the viewer goes with that, when we meet Soering in a long interview decades later in the prison, where he is locked up. It’s superb journalism, it’s a harsh critique of a judicial system but it is also a love story and a psychological drama.

Choose your genre… I come to Krakow from Barcelona, where we showed Piotr Stasik’s ”21 x New York” and ”You Have No Idea How Much I Love You” by Pawel Lozinski, the president of this year’s main competition in Krakow. Both Polish gentlemen found their genre, the essay for Stasik, the chamber play for Lozinski. Both films were very well received in Catalunya as they were in Krakow last year.

The form is not ”only” a carrier of content. Having said that it’s not as simple as that. Films have to deal with something important, not necessarily something new, but then in a new way, please! So we still need the King! 

www.krakowfilmfestival.pl 

A first glance at the main competition of the festival makes me say Diversity. In terms of countries represented, in terms of duration with several films that have the television length of around 52 minutes and films which are around 80 minutes, probably targeting a theatrical distribution… and a couple which are 100 minutes or more.

When it comes to characterise the kind of films listed in this program of 17 titles, the word diversity is even more evident. I am happy that I am not a jury member, who is to compare Audrius Stonys visually stunning ”Woman and the Glacier”, a film that breaks the rules of classical dramaturgy leaving the portrait of the glaciolog to go wild into the ice making images that are like abstract paintings with Vitaly Mansky’s personal ”Rodnye. Close Relations”, a first person film with the director in the picture visiting his family in Lviv, Odessa, Donbass, Sevastopol on Crimea. A personal very timely comment from the acclaimed director. Or with the Croatian minimalistic ”Dum Spiro Spero” shot and directed by Pero Kvesic. Or with the charming feature by David Rane and Neasa Ni Chianáin, ”School Life” is the title listed, when at the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade, it was ”In loco Parentis” (Photo), but when American distribution company Magnolia took over the distribution, the title changed!   

At a time where festival after festival take stands/express opinions through their selection for the side programs, Krakow keeps the official selection, the one for the main competition, as the one where ”the best of the best” should be. Which does not mean that the films taken are free of statements or opinions. When films are taken for a festival both form and content count in the decisions being considered. And history – I am looking forward to watch ”Adriana’s Pact” by Lisette Orozco, that deals with the life of the director’s aunt during the dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile. As well as ”The General and Me” by Tiana Alexandra Silliphant that goes like this in the description ” Over the period of 25 years the director met General Võ Nguyên Giáp, a legendary hero of Vietnam’s independence wars, a number of times. She was the first American who entered the home of the “Red Napoleon”. The fruit of this friendship is a film, personal and politically involved at the same time…“. It is typical that documentaries, contrary to the more mainstream tv-documentaries, dare narrate history in first person.

I was in the jury – main competition – in 2011. It was a pleasure for many reasons. One was that we were able to honour Wojciech Staron for his masterpiece „Argentinian Lesson“, and for his cinematography, and we also had Pawel Kloc on the award list for his ”Phnom Penh Lullaby” – two very strong Polish documentaries. I still remember festival director Krzysztof Gierat’s happy smile, when we told him the result, „really…“ he said, two Polish films on the top! Another reason for the joy of being in the jury was that fellow juror Marcin Koszałka gave me tasting lessons in the many different Polish vodkas! Yes, a festival is a feast for art and the good life!

Indian director Rahul Jain said the following to the audience sunday night at the closing ceremony of DocsBarcelona, where he got the Amnesty Award:

Thank you to DocsBarcelona and the Amnesty International Jury. In my youthful idealism I’d like to think that we make art about the things that we don’t like about the world. We as filmmakers deal in the business of empathy, And empathy knows no geopolitical boundaries. In a documentary film festival, all of us here are fascinated and intrigued by the human condition. And as predictable and granted one can and should take human rights to be, every time even the simplest and most logical of notions have had to be fought for. It is certainly a privilege to be known to the world for the things you believe in. And have believed in your whole life.

A review of the film can be found on http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3772/

www.docsbarcelona.com

It was a proud festival director Joan Gonzalez, who before the award announcement last night told the audience that almost 16000 spectators had visited DocsBarcelona this year. An increase of 50%! Much to do with the festival being longer than before, and, Gonzalez told me, the media and press coverage has been bigger. For the content, Jury President Rada Sesic told me – who is head of the programming – that she found the selection of films for the Panorama very strong.

I was happy with the awards. Maite Alberdi from Chile had her second Best Documentary Prize for ”Los Ninos” (”The Grown-Ups”), the first one was for ”Tea Time”. TV3 Catalunya stands behind the award of 5000€ in cash. The New Talent Award, also decided upon by the Panorama Jury went to ”Last Men in Aleppo” by Feras Fayad.

The Latitud Award went to ”Al Otro Lado Del Muro” (”The Other Side of the Wall”), also 5000€ to be used for completion of a work, sponsored by the facility house Antaviana Films. With a special mention to the impressive film ”Los Ofendidos” by Marcela Zamora from El Salvador.

Great pleasure to see two good friends on video on the big screen for the newly established ”What the Doc” award: Audrius Stonys for ”Woman and the Glacier” and Pawel Lozinski for ”You Have No Idea How Much I Love You”. The two documentary artists were glad to share with each other an award given by a one man jury, local great filmmaker Inaki Lacuesta.

And then Rahul Jain with ”Machines” was on stage to thank for the Amnesty International Award. He made a brilliant speech that I will try to get hold of. Listen readers, Jain is only 24 years old and has made this cinematic masterpiece…

The audience decided to give Catalina Mesa the award for ”Jerico” that is wonderful warm film about wonderful warm women.

Some more local awards were given, you can check them on

www.docsbarcelona.com

Una Noche Fantastica, she said, when she came to the stage after the film ”La Chana” about her had been shown. Full house for the closing film of the 20th edition of DocsBarcelona, standing ovation in several stages – when the film was finished, when Antonia Santiago Amador, a true diva, entered the cinema and walked to the stage, and when she sat down and danced her flamenco again.

This was indeed an unforgettable night, and for me who had seen the film a couple of times before, I am happy to say chapeau to the young Croatian born director Lucija Stojevic, who studied architecture in Edinburgh, film in Prague and who is now living in Barcelona. The film is well made, the rythm found, the use of photos and archive and the footage of today superbly mixed. It’s not easy to make a film where you have to choose when to direct the camera towards the face and when towards the feet of La Chana!

You filmed my soul, La Chana said to Lucija Stojevic.

http://www.noon-films.com/portfolio_page/lachana/

I Have No Idea How Much They Loved It – but I think they did, the audience for the masterclass with Polish Pawel Lozinski. We (Lozinski and I as the moderator) enjoyed a lot what we were asked to do: Choose 7 shots/sequences from your films and talk about them. Mostly about the form, the aesthetical choices after setting up the clip with some background information on content.

”Birthday” from 1992 was the first shot, the film that won the first prize at the festival on Bornholm, Baltic Film & TV Festival. It was the first film of Pawel Lozinski, a tough one on the famous Jewish Polish writer Henryk Grynberg searching for the remains of his father, who was killed during the war. Shot on 16mm film.

Later on Lozinski made the film ”The Way It Is” from his neighbourhood (1999), ”Chemo” from 2009, which is a film he decided to do when his mother got cancer, the controversial ”Father and Son” (2013) that was meant to be a film by Marcel and Pawel together, but Marcel decided to make his own version… It did not make the conflicted relationship between them easier!

If that was the reason for Lozinski to make ”You Have No Idea…”, I asked him. Could be, he said about the film that was shown in the cinema later that same friday.

As a small gift to the audience, ”Sisters” (11 minutes) was shown, a film that Pawel Lozinski shot when he had a break in shooting ”The Way It Is”. What are you doing, the sisters asked the director when they met in the courtyard. I am making a film about interesting people in my neighbourhood, he answered. Are we interesting, they asked. See the film, Yes they are!

www.docsbarcelona.com