The Sundance festival handed out many awards yesterday at the closing ceremony. I picked out two from the World Cinema Documentary section. I have seen and praised one of them, the other I am looking forward to see.

First ”Machines” by Rahul Jain that was awarded for its cinematography by Rodrigo Trejo Vilanueva. In the review on this site, I wrote: … You go with the cameraperson, who goes with the workers, there is a constant movement and an eye for the detail and for faces and for giving information about what is being produced. Yes, here is one more film that gives us evidence that you can tell in images, if you know the possibilities of the cinematic language. I was thinking of late master Glawogger and his masterpieces ”Megacities” and ”Workingman’s Death”. This debut film (!) has the same visual qualities…

And the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in Documentary went to
“Last Men in Aleppo”, directed by Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannesen, produced by Danish company Larm Film in collaboration with AMC, Aleppo Media Center.

The film premiered at Sundance, hope to see it soon. The photo I took from the FB page of good friend Talal Terkl, whose ”Return to Homs” has been reviewed and written about again and again in this site. Talal writes to the happy photo;

Great decision from the Jury of world cinema documentary competition. Last Men in Aleppo wins the grand jury prize at Sundance film festival. So proud of you Firas Fayyad, Steen Johannessen, what a big film…

http://www.sundance.org/now

… at the Finnish DocPoint Festival and it is not that Neil Young but the film critic with the same name, whose competent reviews in Hollywood Reporter and Sight & Sound I have followed with pleasure after I met Young at a couple of American Documentary Film Festival editions in Palm Springs. Here is what I read tonight from the DocPoint in Helsinki:

The film critic Neil Young has picked his favourites from our Finnish Premieres programme series. The critic’s choices are Purity and Danger (dir. Elina Talvensaari) (50 mins.) (PHOTO). Here is the DocPoint catalogue description:

Many people have an opinion about prostitution, even though few people have actual experience in the field or know anyone in the business. In Elina Talvensaari’s documentary, Purity and Danger,

Finnish prostitutes are given a voice through actors, and outdated images of seedy professionals of love are pushed aside. Five female prostitutes and one male customer share their experiences about the oldest profession in the world. What kind of thoughts come up when you can never speak about the work you are doing to others, or when a customer turns out to be the husband of a friend? What should a first-timer take into consideration? Conversing with the viewer, this documentary creates its own humane and unjudgmental world, where the seller and buyer of sex are quite equal. Sex with someone new is always an exciting experience, and even when practiced professionally, the feeling of intimacy can never be fully removed – from either of the parties involved.

AND

Once I Was a Dragonfly (dir. Elli Toivoniemi) (63 mins.) with this description:

’Leave the bugs at home’ the teacher says. Miikka Friman first became interested in dragonflies at the age of six, trying to rescue an insect squashed under the school bully’s shoe. ’Usually, people don’t like insects. We think they are disgusting and evil vermin. But that is only half the truth, ’ little Miikka’s compassionate voice explains in a home-made nature documentary. Miikka talks about dragonflies to Santa Claus, pretends to be dragonflies with his sister and, while growing up, develops into a better photographer. Twenty years after discovering his passion, Miikka is facing new challenges. Society demands him to work full-time when all the young man can think about is capturing on film the 56th species of odonates in Finland – the very last one. As we get to know Miikka, we can’t help but get to know odonates as well. The exquisitely beautiful footage of dragonfly sightings is a gateway into the cycle of nature. We learn about both birth and death, as Miikka himself ventures from his backyard into the great wide world.

http://docpoint.info/en/

The Trieste Film Festival that goes on until January 29th, and in its documentary section – and the industry part (pitching etc.) – had a special focus on the Baltic countries, with films by Audrius Stonys (Woman and the Glacier) and Ugis Olte and Morten Traavik (Liberation Day) among others… ALSO included a tribute to Vitaly Mansky with the screening of several of his films, including his personal work ”Rodnye” (Close Relations) that is an interesting film of a man – the director – who actually travels in Russia and Ukraine to find his roots and identity! (Photo, the director…)

Mansky was in Trieste for the retrospective tribute and to receive the festival’s

“The Cinema Warrior – Cultural Resistance Award”, which is “dedicated to the perseverance, sacrifice and madness of those ‘warriors’ who work- or rather ‘battle’ for cinema behind the scenes, this year (is awarded) to the Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky. Mansky’s, (whose) work has played a leading role in the Festival, which also paid homage to the filmmaker by taking a look back on his career. The accolade looks to recognise “not only the consistency in his uncompromising choice of creating cinema that always resists political pressure, but his commitment to supporting the documentary genre through his Artdocfest, a cultural project that, appearing first in Moscow, then in Riga and in other former Soviet Union cities, has always defended the idea of independent cinema, even that which is not officially sanctioned.”  

http://www.triestefilmfestival.it/album-category/vitalij-manskij-tribute/

The website of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade is up and running. The festival starts February 1st – I am happy to be part of the selection team with Svetlana and Zoran Popovic again, for the 13th time and you will have many reports from Belgrade in the coming two weeks. Here are some words that I wrote for the website/catalogue:

Welcome! Again – for the 13th time – I am looking forward to sit with the best audience in Europe in the huge hall of the Sava Center. A Cinema with a big screen and a good sound that give us spectators a unique Cinema experience.

Because this is what you, dear audience, expect from the Magnificent7 – excellent films, Cinema quality.

I am now using the term Cinema for the fourth time to remind you that documentary is Cinema. All right, let’s narrow it a bit: the films we show at Magnificent7 are documentary films that deserve to be shown on a big screen with the mentioned high quality image and great sound. Contrary to the many tv programs called documentaries, which are mostly based on putting together according to words.

Magnificent7 is the home for the documentary art form. Made by filmmakers who think in images and sound – and have something

important to communicate. Sometimes we forget that when we leave the cinema full of thoughts about, what we have seen, it is because the topic has been treated in cinema language.

2017 edition – I can promise you amazingly composed, stunning images through excellent camerawork. Big words and you might not agree or love all the films – boring if we all thought the same, right? But I think you will agree that not many words are being said in the films of Sergei Loznitsa, Audrius Stonys and Nikolaus Geyerhalter. ”Austerlitz”, ”Woman and the Glacier” and ”Homo Sapiens” do sometimes give you tears in the eyes because of the beauty they convey. It’s Cinema! Don’t talk about it, show it!

Another buzz word I would like to use in describing this year’s selection is Creativity. I dare promise you that this year brings an homage to Creativity. Not only are the films – with a boring term used by European support schemes – creative in the treatment of their stories but a couple of them actually have a focus on Creativity. That goes for Cosima Lange’s passionate journey ”Hello, I’m David” with David Helfgott, the legendary pianist and that goes for Miroslav Janek’s ”Normal Autistic Film” that a critic from Variety characterised as ”a beautifully crafted, intimate, and revealing observational portrait of five youngsters with Asperger’s Syndrome”. The film shows these youngsters having great creative skills.

Remember your school time and the good teachers you had, who have one way or the other influenced your grown up life? The ones I remember are the ones, who were using their creative skills… precisely what the wonderful teaching couple from Ireland, John and Amanda, do and have done for decades at the Headfort School – they seek to get the best out of the students. They play theatre and music, they care! It is pure pleasure to follow them in the film by Neasa Ni Chianain and David Rane, ”In Loco Parentis”.

As a film it is equally pure pleasure to watch Jérôme le Maire’s dramatic, involved and observational ”Burning Out”. But when it comes to content, I am sure you will think and feel with the hospital staff: Something has to be changed at this place. As in many other hospitals in Europe, I can say from Copenhagen.

Hello, I’m Tue – I am happy to come back at Magnificent7 in Belgrade. I hope you find the program interesting, Cinematic and creative.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/en/index.php

The photo is taken by a dear guest, Martin Rattini, producer and cameraperson, at the festival in 2016. Zoran Popovic and Tue Steen Müller. The third selector, Svetlana Popovic… will appear in photo(s) in upcoming reports from Belgrade.

… in 2016, a big step from the 78.204 in 2015, to be totally precise: 102.769. Joan Gonzàlez, the man on the top of what he calls ”the project” DocsBarcelona, is a proud man, when he gives me the numbers for the many activities that have one goal: to create and feed an audience with good films.

The Documentary of the Month, that includes 87 screening venues, had 47.776 viewers, the DocsBarcelona festivals in Barcelona, Medellin (Colombia) and Valparaiso (Chile) did 12.391, whereas online viewing via the platform FILMIN came to 33.618 and sales of DVD’s in many different places like FNAC and El Corte Inglés gave the number 8.894.

DocsBarcelona has been in existence for 20 years building up the mentioned elements to reach the audience (with the words of Gonzàlez) step by step to reach what is quite an achievement. If you want to know more, check out

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/en/

Poster from the January Documentary of the Month, Kandahar Journals.