Uldis Brauns 1932-2017 /2

The other Uldis – Cekulis – one of the producers of the film being made right now, ”Baltic New Wave”, wrote to me yesterday: Tomorrow we go with Kristine (Briede) to Saldus church, it is the biggest town on the way to Uldis (Brauns) home from Riga. There the funeral will take place. Ivars Seleckis and other old friends are coming too.

 But you should know this, since last Friday mid day, when Uldis passed away all trees in my country are like this (attached picture from our studio window 5 min ago). You remember, it’s like Uldis hair, it’s Uldis around us these days…

… and from me the second photo, taken by Uldis Cekulis as well, in the garden of Brauns, in September 2014, a hug and thank you.

The Poetic Documentary

I think we said ”poetic documentary” more than a hundred times in Aarhus during the weekend, where the mini-festival Baltic Frames took place. The theme for the festival chosen by the curators Signe Van Zundert and Niels Bjørn Wied, also included the word: Capturing the Poetic Everyday. But what is ”poetic”? I went to one of many online dictionaries, where ”Poetry” was defined like this: ”the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts”. If you take away the reference to literature, where most of the words come from when we talk about films… then maybe we get closer. But as one of the participants at the seminar sunday asked: Is a poetic documentary merely one that shows beautiful landscapes… No, was the answer from Audrius Stonys, who is – together with Kristine Briede – the director of the film under production, working title ”Baltic New Wave”, a poetic documentary, he said, can deal with any topic, it’s about the aesthetic choice and the personal angle. But, said I, if there is a poetic documentary, there must also be a prosaic documentary… Yes, said Stonys with a smile, Michael Moore does not make poetic documentaries!

Equally with a smile, Ukrainian director Roman Bondarchuk, who showed his ”Ukrainian Sheriffs” at the festival and a clip from his wonderful ”Dixie Land”, asked if Stonys found his films were ”poetic”. The answer came immediately, ”of course they are”. To go back to the definition above, ”the exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative and/or elevated thoughts”, is created through (also)

the outstanding camerawork that we saw in Aarhus performed by Bondarchuk, Berzins (who shot the two films of Viesturs Kairiss) and Laisvūnas Karvelis, who did the camera for Audrius Stonys ”Gates of the Lamb”.

By the way I once told students at the Zelig Film School that they were not allowed to use the word ”poetic” because ”poetic” can be interpreted differently depending on the eyes who watch. We then showed Wojciech Staron’s ”Brothers” and the only word I could find that would fit was ”poetic”!

Back to ”Baltic New Wave” and the old masters. Click the link below and take a look at the website of vfs, the company of Uldis Cekulis, where a 6 minutes long teaser introduces ”A story about a unique phenomenon in the history of cinema – Baltic school of poetic documentary and its creators – filmmakers from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia who broke the dogmatic poster-like propaganda documentary tradition in the Soviet Union in the 1960s by creating films that were totally different: humane, meaningful, and poetic. The story is told in a poetic road-movie ‘detective’ style…”

Three times ”poetic”, and they knew what it meant – Herz Frank, Uldis Brauns, Henrikas Sablevicius…”.

Photo (Danish Cultural Institute), from left: Festival curators Niels Bjørn Wied and Signe van Zundert, producer Uldis Cekulis, in the middle Danish Cultural Institute in the Baltics director Simon Drewsen Holmberg, Latvian ambassador to Denmark Kaspars Ozoliņš and directors Audrius Stonys and Roman Bondarchuk – after screening of ”Ukrainian Sheriffs” in Aarhus.

http://vfs.lv/baltijas-jaunais-vilnis/

Documentary of the Month: Weiner

… at the Danish Cinemateket Copenhagen January 26 – February 1.

American ”Weiner” by Josh Kriegmann and ElyseSteinberg is a well made observational documentary about the rise and fall of Anthony Weiner, the congressman whose campaign to become mayor of New York the filmmakers follow. It is one of these full-access films you seldom see made today, where politicians are protected by campaign staff and spindoctors. But Weiner has invited them to get close to follow his dramatic fall from the top, when his ”sexting” addiction is revealed again and again. Jewish Weiner’s Arabic wife Huma (Abedin) is constantly in the picture, it is quite emotional to follow her reactions to the husband’s ”mistakes”. He is trying hard to have her stand beside him, she lives up to that, at the end she stays at home when he is going to vote. You see him transporting his son in a stroller to the voting place… ”a father and his son”, this is America as is the description of the media, who do not want to hear Weiner talk politics. They even try to set up a confrontation between him and one of the women, with whom he – according to her – had phone sex with, up to five times per day… Observational, yes, but Weiner is interviewed after the fall from the sky, and he is actually sympathetic to watch and listen to.

The link below puts a focus on what happened afterwards… Huma Abedin is separated from her husband, the woman who for years were – and still is as far as I know – a close advisor to the Clinton family and took part in the campaign for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and hit the headlines when her email account with mails to Hillary was opened… for me she is the interesting character in the film.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-the-movie-weiner-tells-us-about-huma-abedin/2016/06/02/142b67b0-27ee-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html?utm_term=.da4ad6e4592b

Lise Birk Pedersen: Tutti a Casa

Vi er 83 minutter inde i filmen, her er det dramatiske højdepunkt, i billedet ser vi de egentlige medvirkende bortset fra en. Kvinden i midten er Paola, manden til højre er Alberto, manden til venstre er Mario. Den fjerde hovedperson er fraværende, det er den på det tidspunkt i filmens forløb ekskluderede Luis. Scenen sammenfatter filmens to vigtigste dramatiske forløb, den pludselige vækst, men så også uenighederne og eksklusionerne i det nye parti i Italien, Movimento 5 Stelle og nedturen for den tidligere regerende partikoalition og især den dominerende Silvio Berlusconi.

De fire var oprindeligt venner og kolleger, enige om grundlaget, at reducere eller fjerne mafiaens og alle de gamle politikeres, først og fremmest Berlusconis magt, de er enige om målet, men ikke om enkelthandlingerne undervejs. Luis blev stemt ud ved en votering blandt partiets medlemmer. Så her ved den afgørende afstemning i senatet om Berlusconis immunitet er det de kun de tre af de fire som samlet energisk råbende argumenterer, men bestemt uden at miste noget som helst af deres store charme, som jeg filmen igennem vænner mig til og bliver meget glad for, de tre plus én er yderst forskellige, men det er fornemt lykkedes Lise Birk Pedersen og Anders Villadsen at tegne dem præcist lige stærke, lige sympatiske.

Jeg ser fem tråde i konstruktionen: For det første er der skildringen af de fire personer som udvikles hver for sig: Mario som lytter til musik og har det sært med sin pistol til selvforsvar men godt i sin lænestol på sit værelse hos forældrene, Paola som er enlig mor og hjemme sidder munter på gulvet med sit barn ved et lavt bord foran tv som en ung kvinde, Alberto, som er vred og uforsonlig og angrebets mand, som drikker norgenkaffen i køkkenet stående og læsende noget aktuelt, Luis som er moderat og forhandlingens mand og lever velordnet med familien om spisebordet. Dette er den vigtige og stærke tråd, hvor Lise Birk Pedersen undersøger et politisk system gennem filmisk skildring af menige politikeres sind. For det andet er der en meget løsere og indirekte skildring af Beppe Grillo, som er uforanderlig uforandret fra første til sidste klip og af Silvio Berlusconi, hvor filmen følger hans faldende kurve til et nulpunkt. For det tredje er der en kort historie om Grillokritikeren, Adele Gambaro, som dukker op og forsvinder. For det fjerde er der Movimentos udvikling. For det femte er der Italiens politiske udvikling som bundet til alliancen mellem PD og Berlusconi. Det hele fortalt kronologisk siden 2013.

Jeg kom efter at have set de to versioner ogå til kort at se på Politikens forside 12. januar, at der i tillægget FILM var en artikel: ”Dokumentarist har brugt tre år på at demaskere populismen”, og så var der et foto af instruktøren Lise Birk Pedersen, og jeg tænkte da, at det var hvad hun måtte have sagt. Jeg læste ikke interviewet, da jeg ikke havde fået tillægget med fra naboen, hvis avis jeg overtager. Demaskering betyder jo oftest afsløring af noget grimt, men som det tilsvarende udtryk, hemmeligheden bag sløret som falder, kan der også være tale om noget sjældent og smukt. Jeg ser imidlertid ikke de to film, hverken biografversionen eller tv versionen som en afsløring af populismens nøgne udseende, jeg er efter mit ene gennemsyn slet ikke på det rene med hvad populisme er. Jeg ser derimod en velfunderet dokumentarisk beretning om fire mennesker med vidt forskellig baggrund på en løst skitseret, måske usikkert underforstået baggrund af italiensk statsstyre, sammen kaste sig i gang med et politisk projekt i et nyt parti. Det som filmen i mine øjne skildrer, er politisk handling i en ny begyndelse i disse fire temperamenter og politiske tænkninger.

Det er generøst, at filmen er produceret både som som som dokumentarfilm til biografen og som tv dokumentar, 90 og 60 minutter. Den lange version bygger på optagelserne med de fire medvirkende og på deres skildring af kampen mod Silvio Berlusconi og deres kritik af de gamle partier og deres mænd, ja, især mænd faktisk, over for det nye partis opdukken og dets stifter og leder Beppe Grillo. Den korte version bygger på det samme, vil nok koncentrere sig om den politiske situation, men gør det ved især at forkorte materialets enestående styrkepotentiale, de smukke optagelser med Luis, Mario, Alberto og Paola. Det havde synes jeg, været flottere hvis Lise Birk Pedersen i den disposition havde villet understrege de to genrers særpræg i dag, altså videreudvikle tv-dokumentaren som andet og mere end en forkortet og derved kunstnerisk svækket dokumentarfilm.

Yderligere styrkes det undersøgende og kommenterende journalistiske greb ikke i tv-versionen. Den grafiske begejstring som er uden politisk filosofisk analyse af Grillos blog fylder i begge versioner alt for meget. Egentlig er den som den bruges ligegyldig, det er jo blot en måde at organisere et politisk parti på ved talrige medlemsafstemninger. Åbningen af den lange version om det politiske system i oldtidens Rom er smukt fotograferet og klippet, men i dens populariserede og lapidariske form et BBC-greb som her er problematisk og en svaghed, oven i købet altså i front.

Men filmens styrkesider er mange flere. Der er som nævnt sidehistorien med eksklusionen af Adele Gambaro, en fin kort historie i historien, der er tilsvarende Luis’ opgør med Grillo. Der er den rystende scene med Alberto som på et ark med portrætter af kolleger cirkler afvigere fra Grillos linje ind, kolleger som Luis, som Mario. Og der er Paolas store tale ved mistillidsafstemningen vedrørende Berlusconis immunitet, en smukt klippet sekvens af smukke filmscener. Og der er også korte øjeblikke som Paolas beherskelse af tribunen ved en demonstration og der er et sted, hvor Grillo taler, hun lytter, scenens indhold er slet ikke Grillos sætninger, men dette levende portræt af hende. Og så er der fine neddæmpede steder, ofte nærbilleder af lyttende, af samtalende ved møder, hvor lyden fra optagelsen tages fra og kun musikken ledsager fotografiet, tænkepauser.

Så jeg er selvfølgelig blevet nysgerrig. Jeg må forstå Lise Birk Pedersens projekt! Det har hendes film Tutti á Casa gjort nødvendigt for mig, jeg må nu med det samme bestemt se alle hendes film, det er blevet uomgængeligt, i første omgang naturligvis Putins Kys, men så også de andre. Vil hun med sine værker skildre og fatte den filmiske undersøgelses emne og objekt gennem sine medvirkendes sind, umiddelbart og direkte og ikke ved deres replikker, ikke ved det de siger som jo mest er spontane almindeligheder, som hun her beskriver Luis klassiske, besindige mådehold i gammel anstændig borgerlighed, Marios faglighed i juraens skønhed og retfærdighed som den viser sig i barokmusikkens orden, Albertos uforsonlige robespierreske kynisme i en vrede over undertrykkelsen af sin fattige baggrund af ødelæggelsen af sin smukke by Torino med den vidunderlige FIAT fabrik og Paolas betagne forelskelse i Grillo, hendes skønne naive naturlige kraft når hun taler i bilen, i senatet, på tribunen ved valgmødet, taler med sin krops sprog, sine hænders gestik og sit ansigts lynsnare mimik? Er det det hun vil? Kernen i Tutti a Casa er nemlig ikke Grillos blog, ikke Italiens historie siden oldtiden, ikke den venlige udgave af populisme (hvad det så er). Den er disse fire menneskers spæde voksne liv med den politiske handling.

Tutti a Casa – al magt til folket? Danmark, Norge, Finland 2017, 90 min. / 60 min. Manuskript og instruktion: Lise Birk Pedersen. Fotografi: Thomas Løberg og Riccardo Gremona. Klip: Anders Villadsen og Geir Ørnholt. Produktion: Magic Hour Films, producere: Lise Lense-Møller, Bjarte Mørner Tveit og Sami Jahnukainen. Biografpremiere i DOXBIO biograferne 1. februar: http://www.doxbio.dk/kob-billet/ 

SYNOPSIS

Efter årevis med politisk korruption og en alenlang række af dysfunktionelle regeringer er Italien på randen af kollaps. Komiker Beppe Grillo og hans politiske bevægelse Movimento 5 Stelle trænger ved hjælp af sociale medier igennem Berlusconis mediemaskine og vinder ved valget i 2013 25 % af stemmerne ved parlamentsvalget. ‘Tutti a Casa’ belyser den nuværende udvikling indenfor de vestlige demokratier, hvor populistiske partier, som Movimento 5 Stelle, stormer frem. Filmen dokumenterer en bevægelse igennem dens begyndelse og ved mødet med den politiske dagligdag og realitet. (Magic Hour Films)

LINKS / LITTERATUR

http://www.magichourfilms.dk/tutti-a-casa-1 (Producentens side)

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/96102.aspx?id=96102 (DFI faktaark)

Uldis Brauns 1932-2017

Sad news, Audrius Stonys said, when we met at the cinema Øst for Paradis in Aarhus, where the mini-festival Baltic Frames takes place: Uldis Brauns passed away, 84 years old. Brauns was with Herz Frank the leading man in what has been called the Riga Poetic School of Cinema. I asked Stonys how he would characterise Brauns – and Frank – he answered in a beautiful way: Frank was the brain, Brauns was the soul.

The Baltic Frames in Aarhus has the subtitle ”capturing the Poetic Everyday”, Stonys is par excellence the representative of the poetic cinema in the Baltic countries today and he will be directing the film – together with Kristine Briede – on ”The Baltic New Wave”, where Brauns will be a central director. The main producer of this upcoming film, to have its premiere in 2018, is Latvian Uldis Cekulis, who I again will thank a lot for taking me to meet Uldis Brauns in September 2014. This is what I wrote at that time:

… 90 minutes from Riga you turn down a dirt road and drive twenty minutes to reach a house standing alone (2,5 kilometer to nearest neighbour) in what you can only describe as a paradisiacal garden with tall trees, chickens and geese walking and running around, a greenhouse for tomatoes, rows of vegetables and a river down at the bottom of all the green. Silence! Not to forget an old chevrolet

and a tractor, and a cottage where Uldis Brauns took us for a traditional Latvian welcome – homemade beer…

A mild and as Cekulis said when asked yesterday, ”a gentleman” with a high sense of visuals. And a storyteller as I experienced at the visit:

… we communicated with translation help of Kristine Briede, who has been visiting Brauns many times and has his confidence. We talked about ”235.000.000”, and I got the story about the film (working title USSR 1966) that was first rejected on a project basis, when Brauns and his colleagues turned up in Moscow with a very precise budget, but on the way out from the meeting, they were called back and had an ”ok, go ahead”. Which they did to make the film that was shown in Leipzig. With consequences. Brauns was called to Moscow and was told that he should cut from the moment where the GDR high representatives left the cinema (!), no further explanation, plus some other moments including a scene from the official welcoming of de Gaulle to Moscow. Brauns was not in Leipzig, he did not know that the film would be shown there! The film exists in three versions, 70 minutes, 110 minutes and 140 minutes. The latter, the director’s cut, lies on the floor in the Riga flat of the director and needs to be restored – on the way back our small group decided to address the National Film Centre of Latvia to ask for help to have this happen.

In other words, the film was censored, from my point of view ”235.000.000” is one of the masterpieces in world documentary history, a feature duration documentary with no words, an homage to Life and to the joyful co-existence of people from the many republics of USSR. But the Kremlin people could not see that, they only saw that their leaders were not praised enough…The reason for putting aside the film can only be found in the advanced poetic storytelling and the focus on ordinary people and their lives in grief and happiness…

Uldis Brauns made numerous documentaries, one other gem is ”The White Bells” (1961). A documentary film poet has passed away.

Photo: Uldis Cekulis.

 

Roy Andersson

We have to wait until 2019 but Roy Andersson is always worth waiting for. I was happy to read this today and hurry to do a copy-paste from the (free) newsletter of Nordisk Film & TV Fond:

(Roy) Andersson’s About Endlessless and three documentaries have received funding from Nordisk Film & TV Fond last December. About Endlessness produced by Pernilla Sandström (Roy Andersson Filmproduktion AB) was granted NOK 2.5 million. Like the horn of plenty of life itself, the film shows the preciousness and beauty of our existence, awakening in us the wish to maintain this eternal treasure and pass it on.

In Andersson’s typical and unique style, About Endlessless is a juxtaposition of tableaux capturing moments in life. The new element is the voice-over with a woman as main narrator. Among the characters featured are…Adolf Hitler (played by Magnus Wallgren), a marketing director (Kristina Ekmark), a woman who loves champagne (Lisa Blohm) and a priest (Martin Serner).

The SEK 40 million Swedish film is co-produced with 4 ½ (Norway), Essential Filmproduktion (Germany) and Société Parisienne de production (France) as well as SVT, ARTE, with support from Eurimages, the SFI, NFI, Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. The Co-production Office handles world sales and TriArt domestic distribution.The film starts filming on February and delivery is set for 2019. 

Still from a previous Andersson film, “Du Levenda”.

http://www.nordiskfilmogtvfond.com

My Name is Popovic

Yes, look at the lovely photo taken by Maja Medic yesterday in Belgrade at the award ceremony at Dvorona Kulturnog Centra, where the new award “Nebojša Popović” was given to SVETLANA and ZORAN POPOVIĆ for ”their devoted work on promoting and critically observing film and culture – for their dedication, pertinacity and uncompromisingness in all projects they have started and still are engaged in.”

Nebojša Popović, prominent and respected film critic and programmer, who died in 2015, has given name to the award.

Back to the photo and the name Popovic: Zoran and Svetlana Popovic in the foreground, daughter, son and wife of Nebojša in the background: Lara, Mihajlo and Vesna.

Love that picture and I warn you – you are going to read much more about and from Belgrade, where the 13th edition of the Magnificent7 festival will take off February 1st. Headed by Popovic.

DocPoint Program Announced

The documentary festival in Helsinki, DocPoint, that this year takes place January 23-29, has a reputation for high quality, a broad international overview of the best of the best – and of course this is where you can see new Finnish documentaries. They are usually good, because they have a documentary culture in that country = good support system including committed editors at television and experienced and talented filmmakers. And an interested audience.

The 2017 program is announced and let me from that do some title-dropping of films that we have written about enthusiastically on this site:

Piotr Stasik’s impressive dynamic essay from NY, ”21 x New York”, Kirsten Johnson’s personal reflection on her métier, ”Cameraperson”, Wojciech Kasperski’s beautifully humanistic ”Icon” from Russia, Rahul Jain’s visually stunning ”Machines” from India, Hungarian Klara Trencsenyi’s record on growing-up ”Train to Adulthood”, Audrius Stonys masterpiece ”Woman and The Glacier” (PHOTO) and Pawel Lozinski’s chamberplay ”You have No Idea How Much I Love You”.

”Meet the Master” who is this year Heddy Honigmann, no objection to that choice at all, and among the Finnish premieres Anu Kuivalainen’s ”Into the Forest I go” and ”Little Yellow Boots” by John Webster. ”Shoah” by Lanzmann, an homage to Kiarostami, Pirjo Honkasalo…

Yes, they love to present Films at DocPoint – and their website presentation is well made. It makes an old librarian happy to see an index of around 30 words that refer to ”style or subject”. Hopefully useful for the audience.

http://docpoint.info/en/programme/films/

Michael Glawogger: Untitled

Good news on a sad background – coming from the Berlinale. I am so much looking forward to see the film by Master Glawogger and Monika Willi – it will have its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama 2017:

“This film is intended to show an image of the world that can only be created when one does not pursue any subject, or make any value judgement or follow any objective. When one lets one’s self be carried along by nothing more than one’s own curiosity and intuition.”

Michael Glawogger passed away in 2014 during shooting for a movie. The editor Monika Willi has realised a fascinating film with material that was shot during a journey of four months and 19 days through the Balkan states, Italy, and Northwest and Western Africa – a journey undertaken in order to observe, to listen and to experience, with attentive eyes, bold and raw.

105 mins.

http://www.austrianfilms.com/film/untitled

Baltic Films in Aarhus Denmark

Below you find a post in Danish calling for people who are interested in Film, Baltikum, Ukraine, Post-Soviet History and current politics in the region – to come and watch films at the second edition of Baltic Frames mini-festival in Aarhus at the local art house cinema Øst for Paradis (in English East of Eden).

Here a brief orientation in English about this cultural event in the city of Aarhus which is one of the cultural cities of Europe 2017, the second largest in Denmark, lovely it is I can say, totally biased, as I was born there some time ago…

6 great films are to be shown: Ukrainian Sheriffs by Roman Bondarchuk and Dar´ya Averchenko (Bondarchuk will be there together with Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis), Audrius Stonys, Lithuanian master of poetic documentaries, will be there as well with his ”Gates of the Lamb” (PHOTO) and there will be two films by Latvian Viesturs Kairiss, who is also an opera director, internationally renowned. You sense that when you see his films where a superb visualisation is matched with music – titles ”Pelican in the Desert” and ”Chronicles of Melanie”, the latter a fiction film.

The Soviet past is the theme of When We Talk about KGB af Maximilien Dejoie og Virginija Vareikyte from Lithuania, and the past is also present in the fresh Fast Eddy’s Old News by Marko Raat from Estonia.

So now you know, could be an inspiration to do the same elsewhere? The whole thing is set up by the Danish Cultural Institute in the Baltic countries supported by film institutions in the countries involved.

More on

https://www.facebook.com/BalticFrames17

and

http://paradisbio.dk/CustomPageViewer.aspx?urlId=410