Vitaly Mansky Cinema Warrior

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/

Hanka Kastelicová Honoured at FIPA

She has been around, actually everywhere is my impression, at least in the Eastern European circles that I also visit to watch original, well told stories. Hanka Kastelicová, executive producer of documentaries at HBO Europe, has indeed done a lot of good for films from that region in the 5 years she has worked for HBO. I have met her as a panelist and as a tutor, in both capacities she has shown respect for the filmmakers as well commitment and energy to help good films to be made.

It is therefore very well deserved that FIPA (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels) has honoured her by giving her the

”EuroFipa d’Honneur”

… that according to the FIPA website is given ”to an individual from the European audiovisual sphere, in recognition of the exemplarity of their work, artistic development or creative approach.”

Notice that FIPA talks about ”audiovisual programmes”, it is an event that has always had the focus on television, so as the French say ”chapeau” for this decision to give an award to a Film person!

A link below includes an interview with Kastelicová made by EDN.

http://www.fipa.tv/en/the-festival/

http://edn.network/news/news-story/article/edn-member-of-the-month-hanka-kastelicova/?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=111

Magnificent7 Doc Festival Belgrade 2017

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.

Robert Budreau: The Deaths of Chet Baker

Det er svært at oversætte titlen til dansk, død i flertal? Det er vanskeligt at tænke død på den måde. Der må poesi til, hvis vi ikke vil nøjes med en nøgtern detektivisk udredning. For hvordan døde Chet Baker? Hans mange venner har dengang spekuleret på det, han var alene på hotelværelset i Amsterdam, eller måske var han det ikke.

Robert Budreau tager mulighederne op i en afdæmpet omhyggelig ja, smuk og sikker film på otte minutter. Det er i filmen sikkert at Chet Baker lejer sig ind på hotelværelset. Det er sikkert at han mødtes med en person på værelset. Det er sikkert at han injicerer heroin umiddelbart før døden. Det sikkert at han sidder i vindueskarmen den nat for åbent vindue.

Og det er sikkert at han ved tretiden blev fundet på gaden nedenfor død efter et voldsomt kraniebrud. Det er filmens indhold. Eller?

Eller er det ikke musikken som er indholdet og det filmiske digt, iscenesættelsen af dødens muligheder, er en variationssats altså? Hvor en af mulighederne måske var den som den nat i Amsterdam forelå for Chet Baker, som den var en kendsgerning for Kammerherr Brigge: ”… Er starb seinen schweren Tod. Und wenn ich an die andern denke, die ich gesehen oder von denen ich gehört habe: es ist immer dasselbe. Sie alle haben einen eigenen Tod gehabt.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Canada, 2009. 8 min. Vises i Cinemateket, København lørdag, 11. februar 19:00 sammen med Budreaus Chet Baker biografi (også iscenesat) Born to Be Blue, 2015, 97 min. og Bruce Webers Chet Baker biografi (dokumentarfilm) Let’s get Lost, 1988, 120 min.

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/Serie.aspx?serieID=13932 

Bruce Weber: Let’s Get Lost

”Stjernefotografen Bruce Webers knitrende sort/hvid-portræt af trompetisten, sangeren og stilikonet Chet Baker, Let’s Get Lost, betragtes af mange som jazzdokumentaren over alle. Se den sammen med den nye biopic Born to be Blue, med en velcastet Ethan Hawke i hovedrollen. Et drama, som genskaber scener og stemninger fra Bakers liv i 1960’erne – blandt andet et skrinlagt filmprojekt og et musikalsk comeback, imod alle odds…”

Sådan skriver Morten Tang fra Cinemateket i København indbydende, idet han sætter Bruce Webers 120 minutter lange film optaget umiddelbart før Bakers død i 1988 i spidsen for en lille række jazzfilmpremierer i dagene 6.-12. februar i forbindelse med arrangementet Winter Jazz som Copenhagen Jazz Film Festival er en del af.

I Cinemateket kan man komme til danmarkspremiere på tre jazzfilm: Chet Baker biografien Born to Be Blue med Ethan Hawke i hovedrollen fortæller historien om musikerens comeback i 1960’erne og den vises sammen med Let’s Get lost. Dernæst Sound of Redemption, en klassisk dokumentarfilm om saxofonisten Frank Morgan. Og endelig Telemach Wiesingers collagefilm Kaleidoscope, som præsenteres i samarbejde med Goethe-Institut Dänemark.

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/Serie.aspx?serieID=13932 

Release Oleg Sentsov

… was the working title of the film project by Askold Kurov pitched on several occasions, and the words being expressed on several occasions at film festivals and elsewhere. The Ukrainian filmmaker and writer was arrested by the Russians in March 2014 in Crimea and sentenced to 20 years in jail on suspicion of “plotting terrorist acts”.

Askold Kurov has now finished his film about his friend. It will be shown at the Berlinale. The final title is “The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov”. The film is supported by these three countries: Estonia / Poland / Czech Republic.

DocsBarcelona Reaches 100.000 Viewers

… 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.

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