Three more brief reviews of ”Gogita’s New Life” (Levan Koguashvili), ”Prison Sisters” (Nima Sarvestani) and ”Stranger in Paradise” (Guido Hendrikx). With some genre simplification: A docu-comedy, a journalistic/humanistic documentary and a hybrid documentary.

Georgian Koguashvili, whose film, with all respect, a bit surprising was selected for the feature length competition, follows Gogita, who leaves prison after 13 years, comes back to mother and brother, and a computer on which he surfs on the internet to find a wife. He finds a candidate, but mum thinks she is too fat, he has the same opinion, he meets her for a date, she leaves immediately, we don’t hear their conversation, but it must have had something to do with her size. Afterwards, he apologizes, they meet again, things get better, she is a fantastic cake maker, they get married. Voilà! It is funny, there are lovely drinking situations of the nature we know from other Georgian films, but in general I found many scenes far too long and without energy. Too small a story for a feature length documentary.

”Prison Sisters” (PHOTO) by Nima Sarvestani operates on many levels. And is a remarkable documentary. It is a sequel to ”No Burqas Behind Bars” and intends to follow the protagonists from that film, Sara and Najibeh, after their release from the prison. Sara escapes to Sweden to live with the director and his wife, the producer of the film, Maryam Ebrahimi, while noone seems to know what happened to Najibeh. Rumours say that she has been killed. In Sweden the film follows Sara and her experiencing to live in a complete different culture. She receives her residence permit to stay in Sweden and can get her Afghan husband come and live with her. In Afghanistan, however, Nima Sarvestani starts a classic journalistic investigation to find Najibeh. If he succeeds and if Sara gets her husband come to Sweden, I will not reveal, as the film is built like a thriller, one thing leading to another, and with journalist-director Sarvestani as a (no irony) true hero. His – and his wife’s – involvement in the lives of the girls deserves all the praise, it can get. But But I have to ride my hobby-horse: Why all that bombastic music, put on sequences to tell the audience what to feel, unnecessary with that amount… let the audience be part of the film.

Whether Guido Hendrikx ”Stranger in Paradise” is a documentary or not could be discussion in more hard core documentary circles. But it does not take long before you find out that the teacher in the class room is an actor – a very good one – who has a group of migrants in the room to check with them, who qualifies and who not to have an asylum granted. A chamber play, original and intelligent, unfolds according to (that’s where the documentary part comes in) Dutch and European rules for getting an asylum. The film is shot in Italy, an epilogue includes refugees who talk to the actor and asks him where the film can be seen. And what it costs to make a film like that. 180.000€ he says to the refugees who have empty pockets. Of course one can hope that this documentary hybrid full of facts and statistics on the European migration situation can create a debate based on facts and not on feelings.

www.idfa.nl 

It must be wonderful to get an Audience Award, and especially at IDFA in Amsterdam, where the amount of people who watch your film is huge. Yhe 2016 Audience Award has been decided upon and it went to the film reviewed below on this site. Here is a copy paste of the text from IDFA:

The Audience Award has been handed out annually since IDFA’s inception in 1988. The audience rates the films they have seen by means of a ballot with seven options, ranging from ‘Hopeless’ to ‘Superb’. The award consists of a sculpture and a cash prize of €5,000.
 
The VPRO IDFA Audience Award 2016 has gone to La Chana by Lucija Stojevic, a blistering and intimate portrait of former flamenco dancer Antonia Santiago Amador. The star and director could not attend the final screening at IDFA, but sent a video message to accept the award.

www.idfa.nl

Antonia Santiago Amador, known as La Chana, is the unique personality of the film with the same title. It is on the top of the top ten Audience favourites at the IDFA festival that runs until tomorrow sunday included. It is a warm portrait of an exceptional woman, a flamenco dancer, the best ever, many think and express in the film, that has lots of great archive material that proves, even for a layman, who loves the music and the dance, that she was a star. And still is: the film follows her preparation for a performance, with her dancing seated. She makes it and made me cry touched by her willpower and commitment, and ability to concentrate to show to herself and her many fans that even at an age around 70, she can move her feet.

In the film, that at the beginning is a bit messy in structure, because it becomes anecdotal and jumps to and from archive, where more calm in the storytelling would have helped, La Chana tells her story from childhood till now, through a marriage that was violent from the side of her husband, a situation that made her stop the career. But she comes back – as the film comes back in rythm and flow once all the information about the past is delivered, when the story takes place in present time, where she teaches youngsters, cooks with her daughter, lives a quiet life with her Felix and a dog or goes to the square (in Barcelona I guess) to enjoy with her gypsy friends. And prepares for the performance.

A joyful and entertaining and touching work to give the many films about the problems of the world a break.

www.idfa.nl

Spain, Iceland, USA, 83 mins.

I have forgotten why IDFA has decided to announce winners on a wednesday for a festival that goes on until sunday included? But good for those of us, in Amsterdam or online from home, who are still trying to catch up with the many films in competition to get a picture of what the festival selectors found important – yes, yes, I know there are numerous important films outside competition, which could have been there as well but do not qualify for eligibility reasons, previously awarded elsewhere for instance. And it gives of course time to check whether the jury(ies) have made mistakes… Have to admit that I like that game knowing that is not always that easy to be a juror. The two awards in the full-length category went to (Best film) ”Nowhere to Hide” by Zaradasht Ahmed, and (Special Prize) ”Still Tomorrow” by Fan Jian.

The jury, consisting of Yuri Ancarani (Italy), Jordana Berg (Brazil), Tom Paul (U.S.), Ingrid van Tol (The Netherlands), Debra Zimmerman (U.S.) did well, no objections to their choices. Here is their introduction: 

”As a jury we were honored to have the opportunity to watch films from many countries but the ones which stood out and moved us the most were the films from the parts of the world we hear from the least. We want to encourage the inclusion of more films like these in future competitions. We are so pleased that filmmakers in those countries are being given resources and support to create films that reflect their own countries’ concerns. But we are concerned about the increased globalization of documentary filmmaking. We would hope that the next step is to be open to other styles of documentary filmmaking that are different from the Western, European format. We also feel that this year’s selection is not just a set of 15 individual films but as a whole reflects the times we are living in. We fear the political trends which threaten to silence dissent and difference. We need more illumination, not less. If there is a common thread in the films, it is the need for and and the power of empathy is that needed in these disturbing times.”

Disturbing times indeed and it is no surprise that the jury writes a statement that is political as is ”Nowhere to Hide”, that left me in a feeling of sadness at the same time as this film (as Abbas Fahrel’s masterpiece ”Homeland” that I saw in Kosovo earlier this year) documents in details, how hopeless a situation the Iraqis experience right now. And filmed over several years by one of those, who are there with wife and family every day. I am happy I got to know Nori, a true hero. With a documentary eye, there are so many magical moments in the film, that gives hope, in contrast to the many corpses in bags and the many injured people, whose lives have been spoilt.

And the jury motivation for ”Nowhere to Hide”: There are those films which are wonderful to see and there are films that the world needs to see. The film we choose is both of these things. The experience was immersive and left us deeply touched. The Director respected the unique perspective that the only the subject could have and in doing so gave us an unprecedented window into the real life lasting consequences of war.

”Stiil Tomorrow” by Chinese Fan Jian is a family drama, a very direct and frank invitation to meet the poet, disabled Xiuhua Yu, whose life changes drastically when she becomes famous for her poetry.

And the jury motivation for ”Still Tomorrow”: From the start, this film explores the complexity of the human experience in a poetic, intimate and powerful way. The strength of the protagonist is matched by the craft of the filmmaking. It is not easy to make a film about poetry without resorting to cliches. But this film does in a sensitive and revealing portrait of an extraordinary woman.

www.idfa.nl 

Maite Alberdi, Chilean documentary director, who made the wonderful ”Tea Time” in 2014 and the equally wonderful ”I’m not from Here” this year together with Lithuanian Giedre Zickyte, a film that is nominated for the European Film Awards – has already now obtained for her new work ”The Grown-Ups”, sorry that is long, the IDFA Alliance Women Film Journalists’ EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary. The jury’s motivation:

”Beautifully rendered and brilliantly edited, The Grown Ups is an

impressively informative and utterly compassionate glimpse into the lives of Down syndrome adults who are, at age 40-something, stuck in a school environment that ‘normal’ society deems safe, but they know to be quite limiting. Filmmaker Maite Alberdi’s rapport with her subjects allows them to voice their innermost longings and admirable aspirations. Their engaging story is a mixture of heartache and humor, and hope for greater understanding of people with Down syndrome – or, for that matter, anyone whose perceptions and abilities are different from ‘the norm’…”.

The film is in the international competition for feature-length documentaries, as are two other films, that I have watched today:

In loco parentis, Irish, by Neasa Ní Chianáin, that takes the viewer to an Irish – international – boarding school, that is full of life and two charismatic teacher, who have been there for decades, it’s their life, they are a couple, and it is more than a pleasure to see how they with passion and warmth cope with the children, who are from 7 to 12… and how they pretty often, pretty exhausted, evaluate the day gone and especially children, who need a gentle push. Boys and girls are observed when they are taught, by these two teachers, primarily creative skills. For those of you at IDFA, the film is still screened 3 times. Photo from the film.

The Good Postman, Finnish/Bulgarian, by Tonislav Hristov, produced by Kaarle Aho, was a disappointment. I had high expectations after seeing clips at the DocIncubator presentation in Malmø earlier this autumn, but it did not get my attention and I wonder why. Is it because the sympathetic postman in the Bulgarian village close to the Turkish border, who wants to be mayor to revive the dead place by letting refugees come and live there, that he totally lacks charisma, having the same sad expression the whole film through, is it because the long-haired, chainsmoking communist candidate for the post irritated me, is it because the film is over-dosed with music that stresses the sadness, the elegic tone that the filmmakers want to create. It’s overkill. The film is still running a couple of times at IDFA, go and check if I am wrong.

www.idfa.nl

In the ”Guardian Film Today” that I subscribe to (it is for free and for everyone) there was tuesday 22nd of Nov. a review by Peter Bradshaw worth reading as most of his articles/reviews. Here is a text clip:

Most documentaries or studies of North Korea conclude that it is forever sealed in its own tyranny. For all the absurdity, for all the questionable semi-satire, Laibach actually made contact with North Korea and caused a crack in the wall. In its ridiculous way, Laibach’s 80s art-rocker doom version of The Sound of Music was a kind of peace process, and, like any peace process, it involved the fudging of principles. The “liberation” of the title might yet prove to be illusory for North Korea and Traavik’s wacky cultural diplomacy might lead nowhere. But it could prove to be more than a footnote.

Another fine push for the documentary to get around, read the whole review, link below:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/22/liberation-day-review-north-korea-laibach-documentary?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Film+Today+-+automated+vB+curation&utm_term=200942&subid=19412929&CMP=ema_861a

www.idfa.nl

It’s absurd theatre! Well, I have tried it myself in 1967. To be called for military service in the Danish army. I chose the easy solution to take one (completely useless) year of service at the air force instead of the two year’s civil service it was back then, where you sent to the forest to sweep leaves up against the wind.

The young ones in this film had all applied for civil service because of their convictions. They had to appear (see the photo) in front of a committee to present their case, one could almost say pitch their point of view. As in pitching sessions the panelists sat with papers and only a few of them were to say something. The rest sat with stone faces that communicated that they did not like, what they saw and heard.

Take Roman Fedorov and his excellent speech for pacifism with references to Sakharov, Bertrand Russell, classic Russian literature – he gives his statement while the camera shows the non-reaction of the judge, who probably finds Dostojevski and other writers totally irrelevant for the case of Fedorov, the clever and brave young man, whose father is also interrogated about his (and the son’s) convictions.

There’s a nurse, uniformed military men, a woman who puts all the questions – in the room where Viktor enters asking for ”alternative military service”, because of his, as he puts it, ”non-traditional sexuality”. His case is discussed, a nurse comes in and says that she does not think homosexuality is a decease… But the camera and the sound catches the leading lady at the table saying to the military man next to her: ”… maybe he is insane”!

And the there is the well-formulated young man, who is there with his mother and who does not want to be drafted, ”to go and fight our brothers in Ukraine”. His appeal for ”civil service” is rejected… cut to a soldier’s choir and close-ups of young men, who have joined to ”do their duty”.

This is where the director comments directly on the consequence of the absurd theatre, which is a reality in Russia today, some call it mobilisation. The film shows a generation gap between the young ones who claim for pacifism and the stone-age panel, who has to act according to some paragraphs, they don’t understand. Is it a sad film, of course it is, on the other hand you feel happy to see the bravery of the young ones, who dare stand up for their convictions.

Objections – yes, the quotation of Vonnegut in the beginning is difficult to read and un-needed… would have preferred a small text at the end with info on the duration of military service in Russia today as well as info on how many who actually get ”civil service”.

On the other hand I salute that the director has refrained from easy critical comments in editing, the panels and the youngsters speak for themselves. See the film, it has some kind of a happy ending for the involved.

Russia, 63 mins., 2016

https://films2016.dok-leipzig.de/en/film/?ID=15304&title=Convictions

I had to choose that still from the IDFA introduction to the film that I have just finished watching. It’s a girl in pain, a victim from the brutal civil war in Somalia, that – says the end credits – has caused the death of 500.000. So far. She gets up and leaves the scene with her mother. She survives. I was afraid she would not make it like many others in the film. I could also have chosen a still of one of the two anynomous cameramen from Burundi. Sometimes they are not named, on the mentioned film credits they are. If OK their names should come out. They deserve credits for what they have given us, an insight to one of the many wars that seldom reaches the front page. Maybe they will come to IDFA? But before I go on, let me give you the catalogue background description of this documentary that is in the IDFA competition and deserves an award that can bring it to be screened all over: 

Since 2006, the radical Islamists of Al-Shabaab have been fighting

to overthrow the Somali government. Under the UN flag, the African Union is now engaged in a peacekeeping mission (AMISOM), with soldiers from Burundi and Uganda. These troops are fighting Al-Shabaab in the center of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital city, with a population of two million. Documentary filmmaker Torstein Grude gave two African Union soldiers a camera with instructions to film whatever they felt was important. For an entire year, they documented diverse aspects of warfare, from firefights in trenches and life on the base to the dead and wounded lying in the streets. They also filmed conversations with local people hoping for food and water, soldiers fantasizing about women, and the arrival of an embedded journalist. War is shown to be banal and chaotic, with periods of boredom and instances of both compassion and gross inhumanity. Taken from no fewer than 523 tapes, this compilation gives an honest and sometimes revealing glimpse behind the scenes of war…

523 tapes in the hands of Torstein Grude and Niels Pagh Andersen, the again-and-again praised Danish editor, who has put the filmed impressions and interviews and battle scenes together in a way so it is watchable… even if a documentary addict like me had to look away from the corpses and the injured soldiers, and the scenes as well, where captured enemies, children fighting for Al-Sharaab sit there with grown-up soldies surrounding them. It hurts. They get close, the Burundian cameramen, because they film their friends and countrymen, who respond with fun or through serious comments on what it means to be a soldier and how difficult it is to distinct to be a peacekeeper from being a peacemaker (there is a fantastic scene with a UN officer telling a soldier, what he can say to the press, in this case CNN), light scenes, problems with payments, songs, civilians fighting to get clothes from the UN or someone else, death, burials – and going home after 15 months duty.

The film is chaptered in a clever way with a focus on a tape that has a description of the content. You know what the next scenes will include. What to expect, it’s well structured from soft to hard, light to dark, it’s hard but bearable, but rough. A film but also a valuable piece of simple documentation: This is what we saw, we were there. Thanks for teaching me, letting me into horror and letting me get out again with thoughts in my head, not ”only” shocked.

www.idfa.nl

Norway, 2016, 84 mins.