It was the idea of festival director Leena Pasanen: What about bringing together Danish filmmaking icon Jørgen Leth and his two filmmaking children Karoline Leth and Asger Leth? Such an obvious idea, why had noone done that before? Two generations, what have the children taken from their famous father? Let them sit on the stage together, each of them showing clips to have them discuss with or oppose each other. Pasanen, as moderator, was the one to set up the rules. Some had already been agreed upon: 3 clips per person, maximum 3 minutes. I think was the agreement.

First headline given by the moderator was ”method” and first clip

was actually not a clip but one part of Leth and von Trier’s ”Five Obstructions”, the one where Trier sends Leth to Cuba to make a version of ”The Perfect Human”. 16 frames was the rule – for a man, who loves long shots. As said the father Jørgen Leth, ”well, now I have already broken the rules” of short clips, leaving the children to say nothing but that they loved it. It was said that Asger was in Cuba to work with his father on that film.

Impossible to report in a classical manner, I will give you some quotes that can tell a bit about the individualities/personalities on stage.

Karoline, who is a producer at DR, Danish public broadcaster, standing behind the enormously popular drama series ”The Legacy”, ”I love to be the boss and have a big team”, Asger, who has made the amazing documentary ”Ghosts of Cité Soleil” from Haiti (must mention that this was the second post we brought at filmkommentaren, a review by Allan Berg), ”I’m on the same side as my father – where Karoline is the producer… I like so much what he has said: A small budget is not a problem but an inspiration”.

Talking about rules, ”the first one is the creative one”, said Asger, ”you have to find rules that are your own”.

Karoline: ”I am often breaking the rules by using documentary editors for the drama series that I am doing, I think they can see where the drama is very quickly”.

Asger: ”With my Haiti-film I wanted to break down stereotypes and reach out for a broader audience, so with the Haiti-film I brought some feature elements into the documentary film.” Which he also showed brilliantly in a promo he had done for Doctors Without Borders.

Karoline brought an almost Bergmanian scene from ”The Legacy”, where a brother is close to strangulate his sister when they are in Thailand trying to get the little brother out of the prison. OMG how strong it is as is the scene from ”66 Scenes from America”, where Andy Warhol eats a hamburger. ”It’s all about characters”, said Karoline after that clip.

At the second hour of the ”The Leth Legacy”, moderator Pasanen asked the children if they had ever been disappointed with their father’s film. Asger: ”I think ”The Erotic Human” is a lazy film”, I hated it”, ”I agree”, said Karoline and it was visible when Jørgen  said ”I hate criticism, especially from my children”.

Asger: ”My father is an icon and there are so many yes-people around all the time. Therefore it is the family’s duty to be the in-house jury!”

We loved that new term, inhouse-jury, and enjoyed to be in company with the Leth family.

I liked the award ceremony of DOK Leipzig last night at the CinéStar 4. Instead of hiring some entertainer, or having two people talking to each other trying to be funny, the festival had a host, Jörg Taszmann, film journalist from Berlin, on stage who conducted the prizegiving in a very calm and professional way, speaking perfectly German and English and French. What I also appreciated was to have the juries on stage giving their motivation in English and German, often helped by the host. As before the best jury in terms of performance was the Youth Jury, who had made special prize to “their” winner, Polish “Communion”.

A total of 21 prizes were awarded, including 7 Golden Doves and 2 Silver Doves. With 77,000 euros in prize money, DOK Leipzig is the best-endowed documentary film festival in Germany. The ceremony took a bit more than two hours with announcements, thank you speeches and for some of the films clips. Festival director Leena Pasanen was pleased about that reduction in time and can be happy with the many compliments she and programming director Grit Lemche got through the evening. Well deserved.

And the winner of the Golden Dove was – no surprise for me, see previous post – Sergey Loznitsa with his ”Austerlitz”. Danish documentary icon Jørgen Leth handed the award to Loznitsa with these words:

””Austerlitz” is a magnificent filmic essay about a walk in the wellkept sets of the most horrible acts of the concentration camp genocide. Loznitsa is working with light and shadow, as he is relentlessly observing large groups of visitors. The calm and beauty of his images and the remarkable soundediting leaves lots of space for thinking one more time about what happened not so long ago in the middle of Europe. The film is sophisticated, almost playful in the way it deals with inside and outside and its very consequential framing of people and objects.”

Silver Dove went to Heidi Specogna for her ”Cahier Africain” and there was a honorary mention to Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon for ”The War Show”.

Another film from ”my list”, ”A Young Girl in her Nineties”, by French Yann Coridian and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, was the one the film critics from the Fipresci found the best, and happy I was when Russian Marina Razbezhkina chose Georgian ”Listen to the Silence” by Mariam Chachia as the best film in the Next Master’s section. Georgian documentary is at its best these years.

Equally happy I was to see the MDR Prize go to Russian Tatayna Chistova for her ”Convictions” that was pitched at Baltic Sea Forum 2015. Will watch the film asap.

For the German competition I can not say anything yet, will see some of the films later on, definitely ”To be a Teacher” by Jakob Schmidt, who was on stage 4 times to receive an award. Overwhelming for the young man and entertaining for us in the audience.

You can find all awards mentioned on

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/festival/wettbewerbe/preistraeger 

This is written four hours before the official award ceremony of the 59th (!) International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, DOKLeipzig. I have no idea of what the jury for the international competition will choose as their favourite(s) – i.e. who will receive the prestigious Golden Dove that Wojciech Staron gor last year for his ”Brothers”.

But I have seen all twelve films in that competition category and will bring my impressions and favourites from a selection I have found a good mix of auteur and issue documentaries.

If I was to give an award for the film that made me think, made me irritated because of its constant insisting on the aesthetics – beautiful framing of black & white camera work, loong shots – and a superb sound score, that as the film passer before my eyes and ears became almost physical, the winner would be Sergey Loznitsa with his ”Austerlitz” (photo), that has me watch summer dressed tourists visit concentration camp turned into museums.

If I was to give an award for the film that made the biggest

emotional impact on me with its amazingly done montage and camera work, conveying a deep respect for children who are, as says the catalogue, labelled as ”autistic”, it would go to Miroslav Janek, who describes the creative skills of five children.

If I was to give an award to the most interesting personal film in a political current context, it should go to Vitaly Mansky, who with ”Rodnye” (Close Relations”) visits his family in Lviv, Odessa, Sevastopol – he himself lives now in Riga as he is a persona non grata film-wise in Russia. An interesting insight to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It’s a very down-to-earth interesting road movie, that Mansky has made, his best film in many years.

These are my three favourites but let me mention four more of high or good quality: The surprise being the Croatian ”Dum Spiro Spero” 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 Puhovsky.

Also Ukrainian Serhiy Buhovsky has made a personal film with himself behind the camera and his mother in front. ”Imagine this is a feature film, not a documentary, you play an actress”, son says to mother. She was an actress when younger, there are beautiful clips from films with her and quotes from calendars, where she is giving the son advice on what to eat when he comes home – she was always working. Behind it all, however, stands the deceased father, also a filmmaker. The film, ”The Leading Role”, has its charm and is unpretentious as the mentioned Croatian autobiography is. In this one son and mother also try to realise one of the father’s scripts, if I got it right.

”The War Show”, praised by colleague Allan Berg, in Danish, on filmkommentaren, is also in the international competition. The film by Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon, is going to festivals all over, fair enough, definitely international quality, even if I do not fully share the enthusiasm that meets it.

The same can be said about the French ”A Young Girl in her Nineties” by Yann Coridian and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi that is shot in a geriatric centre where Alzheimer patients live. A charming and clever choreographer does dance workshops there and you see how his presence and dancing does well to Blanche Moreau, 92 years old woman. But his intervention with other patients is also caught by the camera. The film has great moments.

I have mentioned 7 out of 12 films, nothing wrong with the remaining 5, they are just not award candidates, I think.

Tomorrow you will get the official juries verdict from this very nice festival.

Just left – with a smile on my face – the screening of the Georgian documentary in a full house cinema at DOKLeipzig. The film that is a debut for the director and takes part in the ”Next Masters Competition” is an impressive work by the director and her producer Nik Voigt. It has a wonderful 9 year old boy as the main character. He is deaf, lives in a public school with other deaf kids, that is his world, and this is where his parents come to see him for a very short time before they want to go home again.

Luka is his name and he is a wild boy, who fights with other boys and has big problems in sitting still. His luck is that he has a talent for dancing, that he likes that discipline, that the teacher likes him – at least for a period before Lukas gives up on that.

The director, we were told at the Q&A after the screening, stayed at the school for a year – it is a banality to say that time is crucial for an observational documentary like this, where you see the boy caught in many situations and where the film ”allows” itself to put it all into a chaptered fairy tale frame, because the tone of the film is warm and full of love towards the characters. The long shooting period has also given these documentary film magical moments that you can not foresee will come – and the chance for the film to establish a small love story, a b/w sequence where Luka is dreaming about the sweet girl that he has danced with. The sound work of the film is fascinating playing respectively with no sound and a lot of sound for us spectators to hear and sense the place.

Mariam Chachia and Nik Voigt expressed the hope that the film can be seen around Georgia to create awareness in the society about the conditions deaf kids grow up being hidden away… I met the two earlier this year in Riga where they pitched a new project from a hospital for patients with tuberculosis. I have no doubt after ”Listen to the Silence” that another fine film will appear from their hands.

… were revealed yesterday and again Salomé Jashi from Georgia was praised for her ”The Dazzling Light of Sunset”, that got the award in the ”Between the Seas” section that covers ”countries and nations of Central and Eastern Europe”. She also got the prize for best debut (as a feature length director, Jashi has made several short films and the one hour ”Bahkmaro”).

Miroslav Janek’s new work was also awarded – as most of this great filmmaker’s works are, we like him a lot on filmkommentaren, look at the head photos of the site, he is the one in the middle. ”Normal Autistic Film” (photo) shared first prize in the Czech section with ”FC Roma” by Rozálie Kohoutová and Tomáš Bojar and the student jury also found Janek’s sensitive portrait of children with a handicap and fine creative skills.

Creative skills are what the Jihlava organisers, headed by Marek Hovorka, have demonstrated to have for 20 years. Also when it comes to building an interesting website, check it out:

http://www.dokument-festival.com