Baltic Docs – Flying Back in Time

It’s 9.45am June 13th 1997. The location is the old Kino Gudhjem on Bornholm, the island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The first Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries is to take off, there is a panel of commissioning editors waiting to listen to words from those pitching and to watch a trailer.

25 projects were lined-up, and a long day lay ahead of us. 15 minutes were given to each project according to the rules that had been set up years before at the Forum in Amsterdam. Those same rules that are still used at the many documentary fora all over the world.

The panel was strong. Makes me smile with nostalgia, when I think of experienced people like Björn Arvas from Swedish SVT, Flemming Grenz from Danish DR and Eila Werning from YLE in Finland. They have all, 20 editions later, retired now, but again and again this trio came back to support the filmmakers from the region. As did – in the first years of the Forum – Nick Fraser from BBC and Mette Hoffmann Meyer from TV2 Denmark. Not to forget Karolina Lidin from National Film Board of Denmark (Statens Filmcentral), who was already involved in the festival, that had been running on Bornholm since 1990, founded by TV2 Bornholm’s Bent Nørby Bonde, who then set up BMC, Baltic Media Centre.

Russian Avant-Garde

A key person in this Bornholmian film adventure – as it was for me and many others – was Sonja Vesterholt and as we moderators (John Marshall and I) knew that Sonja was a superb pitcher, she was the one selected to start the show that morning in Gudhjem. She did so together with Alexander Krivonos, director from St. Petersburg, the hometown of Sonja, with a project called Searching of the Russian Avant-garde Artists; it was also pitched in Amsterdam at IDFA. Russian Avant-Garde became a great film due to Krivonos cinematic skills with Sonja as the perfect producer. A classic on this theme.

There were two catalogues on the table. One included the projects developed at a week- long workshop preceding the pitching that took place on the last day of the festival. The other catalogue consisted of projects that most often came from filmmakers, who attended the festival with their films. This first edition featured the Lithuanian poetic school of documentaries, represented by the now well-known artists Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis and Valdas Navasaitis.

Guardian Angels

The Forum remained on Bornholm for its first four editions, produced by Latvians – Lelda Ozola, the first three, and Ilze Gailite Holmberg, number four. These two names, guardian angels of the Forum, will pop up several times in this text celebrating the 20 years of a Forum that has travelled to different locations with the aim of getting Eastern European documentaries and documentarians known and shown in the Western part of the world.

1998 and 1999 were years where the panels also included people like Iikka Vehkalahti from Finnish YLE, Diane Weyermann from Soros Documentary Fund and IDFA director and founder Ally Derks, who represented the Jan Vrijman Fund. They were all very positive to Latvian veteran Ivars Seleckis, when he presented his second film on the Riga Crossroad Street, which turned out as successful as expected – the surprise, however, was the overall (mainly from female editors around the table) support to the pitch of Latvian producer Guntis Trekteris and director Una Celma’s Egg Lady, a short documentary about a woman, who as her job breaks 20.000 eggs per day. Shot on 35mm, 26 mins., nothing really happens but the egg-breaking, a minimalistic masterpiece, a kind of film that would not stand a chance today, 20 years later.

Going South

With BMC as the locomotive and Bent Nørby Bonde and Simon Drewsen Holmberg as conductors something had to change, when the Danish state no longer wanted to support the festival = cultural activities to develop the Baltic countries. BMC (and the Danish state’s focus) had started to be on the Balkan region and it was thus natural to think that a collaboration could be established between the Baltic and the Balkan region. In 2000 filmmakers from the South came to the festival and the Forum and a co-production meeting between East and West was set up. The idea was a simple consequence of how films are financed – if you wish to access funding in another country than your own, you need to have an alliance with a co-producing company in that country. So experienced producers from the East met with their counterparts to share and see if chemistry worked.

In 2001 the festival and the Forum took place in beautiful Dubrovnik, under the name ”5th Baltic & SEE Forum for Documentaries”. As one of those who went to Dubrovnik for preparation of the festival and the Forum, it would be wrong to say that it was easy, very much – in retrospect – because of us Northerners ignoring Southern way of life. How could we make film screenings at 2pm, siesta time, in June in the South…. No one came! They were all on the beach!

Anyway, thanks to local collaborators and the logistical and technical skills of event producer Ilze Gailite Holmberg and Andreas Steinmann, a key person at the festival on Bornholm and now here, a Forum was performed that included the presentation of what became a masterpiece like Arunas Matelis Before the Flight to the Earth (when finished it won first prizes in both Leipzig and Amsterdam), Bulgarian Adela Peeva’s This is not My Song, Romanian Florin Lepan’s film on Tarzan aka Johnny Weissmuller. Furthermore the father of Croatian documentary, Nenad Puhovski pitched on this occasion as did Hungarian Diana Groó.

Back to the North

At the 6th edition it was back to the North. It was not possible to develop the festival and Forum in the South, but the link to the South was kept. Four of the 24 projects were invited from SEE, South East Europe, where the BMC kept on being active through workshops and consultancy in the audio-visual sector. But alas, NO MORE festival, when will it come back…

Back to the North, to Riga, with the involvement of the Latvian Producers Association and with Guntis Trekteris as producer of the 2001 and 2002 event at the Hotel Riga. That hosted an impressive panel of people from TV stations like arte, zdf, YLE, NDR, RTBF, ORF (wonderful Franz Grabner, RIP), DR, TV2. The Baltic broadcasters started to send representatives. Marje Jurtshenko from Estonian Television to mention the one, who has influenced the atmosphere of the discussions so often and still does.

Let me drop some titles from these two years: Romeo and Juliet by Viesturs Kairiss, Dreamland by Laila Pakalnina, Philosopher Escaped by Robert Vinovskis, My Husband Andrei Sakharov by Inara Kolmane, Seda, the Marsh Country by Kaspars Goba – all Latvian – and Countdown by Lithuanian Audrius Stonys.

It was also in Riga that we first welcomed a pitch by Ukrainian Svetlana Zinovyeva and one by the Belorussian master Yuri Khashchevatsky, a man not liked by Lukashenko! To express an understatement!

Hans Christian Andersen…

On the financial side, as of 2003, the Forum has been generously supported by the EU MEDIA programme with EDN (European Documentary Network) as the applicant partner until 2006 and the National Film Centre of Latvia as of 2007.

In 2004 the Forum landed in Tallinn to be produced by director and producer Riho Västrik, who is still a strong supporter of the Forum bringing his students from the Baltic Film and Media School to attend as observers. 2004 was the year when the Baltic countries entered the EU, became part of the family as many phrased it. Simon Drewsen Holmberg, managing director of the BMC, brought in Hans Christian Andersen in his preface of the Forum catalogue:

“As any other commercial market it is the intersection where interested sellers and buyers meet. It is hence very promising to see that today this market is not just a place where “Eastern” Producers meets “Western” buyers. It is also a place where “East” meets “East” and in the future we may also present “Western” projects for eager “Eastern” Com. eds. We may finally conclude that the Baltic Forum is becoming in even more ways a beautiful Swan. But then not too much I hope — because if you are into film-production — you have to thrive with starting off as an Ugly Duckling each time…. “.

Two Estonian directors – who now have a fine reputation internationally – pitched in the capital of their country. Jaak Kilmi was there with his “Art of Selling” and Marianna Kaat presented “The Last Phantoms“, what became her beautiful film on the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

The swan flew to Vilnius in 2005 to be caressed by producer Rasa Miskinyte and her staff, who set up a film screening programme parallel to the Forum, a tradition that has been continued since then. When in Vilnius I had to write this in the preface to the catalogue:

“…Allow me to think back to the key person in Lithuanian documentary, Henrikas Sableviciaus, who was a teacher, organiser, dramaturg and director himself. Henrikas attended all festivals on Bornholm, shared his enormous generosity with everyone. Always enthusiastic about the documentary genre. Henrikas died last year. Let us pay tribute to his memory!”.

What was visible at that year’s Forum was the increase of projects from Ukraine and Belarus – and about Belarus, remembering the fine work of Polish Miroslaw Dembinski, Belarusian Lesson.

The Forum Finds a Permanent Base

10 years old the Forum was looking for a permanent home and Riga welcomed it with a location on the top floor of Hotel Albert named after Einstein and near the streets, where Sergei Eisenstein grew up and where his architect father Michael Eisenstein built the famous houses. This is where we have been, year after year, with the warm professionalism of Zelda = Zanda Dudina and Lelda Ozola as the fundament and with a parallel excellent film programme, for years initiated by Ilze Gailite Holmberg, as director of the organizer, the National Film Centre of Latvia. These names keep on coming back: Ilze, Lelda…

And in 2006 the 10th Forum was supported by fine words by the Latvian Minister of Culture Helena Demakova: “…The greatest documentary film professionalism is hidden in the ability to indirectly reflect something of one’s own life through the life of others. Documentary film on very rare occasions asks the question: what is happening. Documentary film asks: how does it happen. And perhaps also – why does it happen that way. At the same time, it’s in the viewer’s competence to see where it’s leading. And the viewer is the third most important element in creating documentary film. Right after the doer and the observer…” Demakova, by the way, pitched in the role of a scriptwriter at the very first Forum in Svaneke 1997 as did Ilze Gailite Holmberg as a producer…

One more quote from Demakova, who was also Minister of Culture in 2007 and wrote this: “…The organisers of the Forum have added a film programme entitled Documentaries that Shook the World, among them a documentary on Alexander Litvinenko by his friend and film author Andrei Nekrasov, a documentary Kalinovsky Square (by Yuri Khashchevatsky) on fight of the political opposition in Belarus and documentaries on September 11, 2001…”

Catalogues and Decision Makers

The catalogue is now in four colour great design, two pages per pitched film project, overview of the film programme running parallel, seminars for pitching participants and local professionals, cv’s of panelists and tutors… it’s all there, professional and inviting, one of those catalogues that you keep on your shelf, not to be thrown away for 11 years created by the corporate designer of the Baltic Sea Forum – a Latvian Arnis Grinbergs.

At the 10th edition in 2006 the Georgians arrived… sure they did! One of the Georgians, Besarion Giorgobiani (Beso) with a project called “The Dancer”, shocked the decision makers by – yes, of course – dancing his pitch!

Note that I wrote “decision makers”. Because of one of the important changes in the panels this last decade: sales agents from companies like Autlook, Taskovski Films, Deckert Distribution, First Hand Films, Rise and Shine… have been invited to sit in as their role as go-betweens to the commissioning editors have grown enormously, at the same speed (no reason to hide that) as the financial importance of the commissioning editors have decreased. There is not that much money available at the public TV stations for creative documentaries as before, at the same time as new smaller markets have emerged, like the non-theatrical, like the VOD, like – not to be underestimated, the festivals. Festival money is not money that you get up-front for your production budget but with the right distributor and the right good-for-festivals film, you can easily get a good income – multiply as an example 50 festival fees with €300, some pay €500.

Films that Will Travel

Back to the impressive list of films that have passed the Baltic Sea Docs during the 10 editions at Albert Hotel, on the top floor with two days of pitching of 24 film projects, preceded by a workshop of three days, where the projects have been analysed and commented by so-called experts and colleagues via intense discussion from morning till night. It is not to be underestimated, what these meetings have created in terms of collaboration across the borders. Developing the projects in a few days often with the help of TV commissioning editors, who love to take part in a creative process.

The list – Man-Horse by Lithuanian Audrius Mickevius with the most crazy trailer ever. Antra Cilinska’s Is it Easy to be – After 20 Years, a film historical follow-up to Juris Podnieks perestroika film that Cilinska edited. Salomé Jashi’s Bakhmaro, Pakalnina’s Snow-Crazy, the amazing compilation film 15 Young by Young by tornado producer Ilona Bicevska, Russian Alina Rudnitskaya’s Blood of the stranger, Mindaugas Survila’s Field of Magic, Giedre Zickyte’s film about Luckus, the Russian Tatyana Soboleva’s film about the Siberian floating hospital, Davis Simanis film on the national library… I could go on… political ”hot” film as The Term with Estonian Max Tuula as producer and Beyond Fear by Herz Frank, his last film that he did not finish. Maria Kravchenko and producer Guntis Trekteris did so. In 2015 courageous Russian director Askold Kurov pitched ”Release Oleg Sentsov”, still not finished.

And the Next Project…

Have to close this celebration text on the Baltic Sea Forum during 20 years. Thanks for letting me be part of the furniture. Thanks for letting me into a world of documentaries that I have become totally addicted to: documentaries from the East of Europe. From Tallinn and St. Petersburg to Belgrade and Kosova.

When Mikael Opstrup from EDN and I again-again, as the old boys, moderators of this event, welcome a panel of decision makers and first of all a group of filmmakers from many countries to present their film project, we do so proudly knowing that it has meant something to have this yearly 20 year old gathering for people, who work with a film genre, that has definitely grown in importance during these 20 years. We all know that there is an audience out there on all the platforms available. An audience that deserves the best that you can offer, you creative artists…

 … and the next project comes from… you have 15 minutes for your pitch, half of the time for your words and your visuals, half of the time for reactions, questions and answers. Action!

IMPORTANT: YOU CAN HAVE THE 40 PAGES BRILLIANTLY ILLUSTRATED PUBLICATION SENT TO YOU FOR FREE BY CONTACTING balticforum@nkc.gov.lv

Photo: Ten Minutes Older, Herz Frank, Juris Podnieks (Camera), 1978.

Tue Steen Müller

Baltic Sea Docs Riga/ 3

I have mentioned so many times the old masters like Herz Frank, Ivars Seleckis, Mark Soosaar, Henrikas Sablevicius, Uldis Brauns and their younger students like Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis (who are no longer the young generation but masters who belong to the Baltic poetic tradition), but there are always directors, who sing with their own voice, in this case with many voices like Laila Pakalnina, who has made long and short documentaries, and feature films, conceptual and not conceptual, provoking in subject and style(s). Always surprising.

… and always a gift for a moderator at a pitching session, like me at the Baltic Sea Docs this year. I had no idea what Pakalnina wanted to say or how she wanted to present her project called ”Spoon”, and I was wonderfully amused as was the audience and the panel of decision makers, who were asked to get active. But first the catalogue text for the film:

”Men can drill very deep, down to where oil is. Large groups of qualified men equipped with machines can extract oil and make it travel far, to a place where other qualified men can transform oil into useful plastic. The plastic is then moved away to a factory, where more men can turn it into spoons, which will be even further transported to all sorts of eateries, and, likely, will be available free of charge. This meaningful life will last for one unceremonious meal.This film is going to be about a plastic spoon, society, and society’s progress. About the steps that must be taken so that people can end the spoon’s journey and throw it into the bin…”.

And it was at this point the panelists became actors in a documentary film pitched to them:

The last scene of the film, the throwing of plastic spoons into a bin was shot yesterday, sunday morning on the 11th floor of the Hotel Albert. Where the 20th edition of the Baltic Sea Docs 2016 took place. Take a look at the photo – From the left to the right: Arte’s Valérie Theobalt, MDR’s Heribert Schneiders, Estonian Television’s Marje Jurtshenko, IKON (The Netherlands) Margje de Koning and DR/TV’s Jan Daae.

The film is to be shot in black and white by Gints Berzins, who had been on the hotel location to decide, where the camera should be placed and whose few super aesthetic panoramic shots were shown on the screen while the discussion of the film took place.

Pakalnina was accompanied on stage by Lithuanian producer Dagne Vildiunaite, not present was the Estonian producer Kaspar Kallas. With Pakalnina being Latvian this is going to be a true Baltic coproduction supported by the film institutions, I guess, and maybe some of the spoon throwing decision makers from the photo. From my side thanks for the show and mind my words, there is no risk in supporting Laila Pakalnina. You will get quality, whether you like the style she chooses for storytelling or not. 

Photos: Photo: Agnese Zeltina… thanks!

http://balticseadocs.lv

Steve Hoover: Almost Holy

A week ago I was in Mariupol with Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, whose ”Mariupolis” made a big impression on me. And now I have returned to the city in Ukraine with American director Steve Hooper, who is here in Riga and with whom I have tutored filmmakers for the Baltic Sea Docs 2016. His film had an equally strong impact on me. And it has been a pleasure to meet the young director from Pittsburgh.

Full house in the K-Suns cinema in Riga, a long Q&A after the screening of a film, that has already had a long festival career and has been theatrically released in the USA and in the UK.

It’s an action film in the best American sense: Gennadiy Mokhnenko, a pastor in Ukraine who rehabilitates homeless children at his center, Pilgrim Republic, is a charismatic character, who is taking matters in his own hands. Who does what the authorities should do but do not do, or are not able to do because of lack of resources. He picks up kids in the streets, takes them to his place, works on getting them out of their drug addictions – or try to get them back to a normal life and/or reunited with their parents. If they are alive or if they are capable of being parents.

It is amazing how close Hoover and his crew have been able to come to the kids and youngsters. You see tragic fates, you follow some of them along the film, where Gennadiy is almost constantly in the picture. Yes, he is a hero, an amazing man, a documentary version of Bruce Willis, full of love for the victims of the social reality in this part of Ukraine that is close to the war, actually part of the war as the film demonstrates. There are touching scenes, there are scenes where you want to close your eyes, there are scenes where Gennadyi talks directly to the camera, there are images that you will not forget at the end of the film, where Gennadyi swims in the sea with the steel factory behind him, and on shore, as the director put it in the discussion after the film, makes ”a pillow” for himself in the sand.

Small objections from a critic who likes the film a lot – it is a bit too long, I felt some repetitions. It has – mostly in the beginning – a ”nervousness” in the editing and camerawork, which might have to do with the fact that Hoover jumps in time from beginning of 2000 forward and back again. Was that necessary? And the sound score, did it have to be so strong, could there have been more silent sequences? And yet, it is an action film…  

USA, 100 mins., 2015.

http://www.almostholyfilm.com/

Baltic Sea Docs Riga/ 2

The first day of pitching at the 20th edition of the Baltic Sea Forum ended with the presentation of the project ”Baltic New Wave”. The initiator and co-director of the film-to-be Kristine Briede was the presenter in front of four mature men, Arunas Matelis from Lithuania, Riho Västrik from Estonian, Uldis Cekulis from Latvia and Lithuanian co-director Audrius Stonys. The project had been developed for a long time, the financing is of course more depending on contribution from the three Baltic film institutions and the tv stations in the countries than on international financing… and yet as Sari Volanen from Finnish YLE said, it could be a theme evening with the film and some of the (short) films that will be cited from. To give you more information, here is the synopsis from the catalogue:

”A story about the Baltic School of Poetic Documentary and its creators – filmmakers who broke the propaganda documentary tradition in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The story is told by two filmmakers – contemporary director Audrius Stonys (LT), and Herz Frank (LV / ISR), his late friend and mentor, who is guiding Audrius according to the Map of Ptolemy – a cinematographic code-book suggesting new discoveries both in poetic filmmaking and its meaning. Frank’s personal archives, uncovered by Audrius in Frank’s home in Israel, are a key to the timeless questions raised by every generation.”

The filmmakers presented in the film will be Andres Sööt and Mark Soosaar from Estonia, Henrikas Sablevicius and Robertas Verbas from Lithuania,  Ivars Seleckis, Aivars Freimanis and Uldis Brauns from Latvia… and maybe more of that generation.

Allow me to be emotional: The films of the mentioned masters as well the films of Stonys and Matelis were films I got to know on the island of Bornholm during the 1990’es. I am a true lover of the Baltic documentary tradition.

Photo: Agnese Zeltina… thanks!

http://balticseadocs.lv/

Dalsgaard og Zytoon: The War Show /6

The War Show vandt Venice Days award ved dette års Venedig Film Festival, den blev i går af den officielle jury valgt som dette års vinderfilm. Juryen lagde i sin bedømmelse vægt på, at “The War Show er en film, som giver et stærkt menneskeligt indblik i den komplekse krig i Syrien. Endvidere at det er en film, som alle burde se”.

JURYENS MOTIVATION

“The War Show provoked an impassioned response from the jury. We were immediately struck by the political and social significance and urgency of the film, while also appreciating its daring and innovative approach to filmmaking. We deliberated on whether or not this harrowing documentary should be included alongside the rest of the Venice Days lineup, which was comprised of narrative fiction features. However, we came to the conclusion that the film worked on its own merits as an outstandingly crafted piece of cinema, not simply one that appealed to our moral conscience. The War Show is also an incredibly topical film that sheds light on an ongoing conflict that is too often ignored or misrepresented by the media. We believe it is a film that each and every one of us should see.”

De udenlandske anmeldere har også taget godt imod den danske filminstuktør Andreas Dalsgaards og den syriske filminstruktør og radio-dj Obaidah Zytoons dokumentarfilm. Screen Daily skriver: “…doesn’t just hit home, it does so with devastating force”, Varity skriver: “Essential… Highly personal yet universally affecting”, Hollywood Reporter skriver: “… the film manages to capture the hopes and fears of an entire generation…”, Huffington Post skriver: “A personal, insightful, entertaining, terrifying, melancholic, and brave journey inside Syria from the days of the revolution of 2011 to modern times…”

The Arab Times skriver: “Highly personal yet universally affecting… From the euphoria of protest to complete despair in the face of the unthinkable… While a number of documentaries from Syria discuss how the Assad regime specifically targets anyone holding a camera or filming with their phone… few apart from the The War Show specifically address how the camera changes the battles themselves… The War Show captures the scope of the tragedy while making the participants real.”

Filmen er nu på Toronto filmfestival, TIFF og vil senere blive vist i danske biografer, lover Line Bilenberg i sit nyhedbrev for producenten Fridthjof Film.

http://www.venice-days.com/NEWS.asp?id=1&id_dettaglio=817&lang=eng

Baltic Sea Docs Riga

I had to have a photo of the grand old man in Latvian documentary Ivars Seleckis (born September 22 1934) and me just before the pitch rehearsal at the 20th edition of the Forum for documentaries being held in Riga these days. Seleckis will together with producer Antra Gaile close the pitching sessions on Sunday with the presentation of a project called ”To be Continued” that features 7 children, who are 7 years old and thus have just begun to go to school. It is the company Mistrus Media that produces this film that will picture Latvia of today thorugh the eyes of kids, who have grown up in a free Latvia.

Seleckis showed a beautiful trailer to his film that so far is supported by the National Film Centre of Latvia.

25 projects will be pitched tomorrow saturday and sunday to a panel of 17 so-called decision makers – distributors, sales agents, broadcasters.

Some name-dropping of well-known filmmakers who will pitch – Seleckis already mentioned, Victor Asliuk from Belarus, Audrius Stonys from Lithuania, Giedre Zickyte from that same country, Laila Pakalnina from Latvia, Arkko Okk from Estonia, Martichka Bozhilova from Bulgaria, Sami Paul-Anders Simma…

Parallel to the training of those who are to pitch, there are film screenings going on in the K-Suns cinema in Riga – and the cinema is full every night. Last night it was the masterly ”Don Juan” by Jerzy Sladkowski that was shown.

More reports will follow, until then check http://balticseadocs.lv/ 

Mette Knudsen: Vejen er lang

Rammevignetten er en stort opsat drømmescene, hvor historiens oprørske kvinder kvinder løber i samlet flok gennem tiden. Filmens producent Nils Vest har under optagelsen af den scene fotograferet rødstrømpen i gruppen som et enkelt sætstykke til den scene og som sindbillede fra tiden omkring 1970, og det er her Mette Knudsen tager afsæt for sin redegørelse for kvindebevægelsernes historie, der i rødstrømpebevægelsen begyndte hun selv som aktiv, derfra dykker hun i sin film tilbage i de historiske forudsætninger. Det er meget redeligt, og det er meget omhyggeligt lavet.

Filmen er på tv delt op i fire afsnit. Det første blev sent på DR K i aftes, og der er allerede noget at glæde sig over. Først er der de medvirkende fra Mette Knudsens egen generation, som klogt og velformuleret, men desværre i den valgte tv-stil klippet i alt for korte afsnit, sætter erfaringens konklusioner ind i historieberetningen. Mest glædede jeg mig over samtalen mellem Bente Hansen og Mette Knudsen. Havde så gerne set den i sin fulde udstrækning. Men der kan jo komme flere korte klip og så kan jeg måske rekonstruere den i hovedet.

Dernæst må man lægge mærke til og vil blive glad for Erik Norskers kontrolleret klassiske fotografering, først af alle disse samtaler / interviews med de medvirkende, dernæst af en række vignetrekonstrueringer i stiliseret filmhistorisk ånd. Jeg tror i nøje lighed med rekonstruerede scener i nogle af Mette Knudsens tidligere historisk tilbageskuende film. Den slags skal vist gøres meget nænsomt, og det sker faktisk her.

Så alene Mette Knudsens møder med kvinderne fra dengang og Erik Norskers billeder ser her efter første afsnit ud til at være filmen værd. Nu får vi se, resten…

Danmark 2016, 106 min., sendes på DR K i fire halvtimes afsnit. Det første blev sendt i aftes. Det kan ses her:

https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/vejen-er-lang/vejen-er-lang-roedstroemper-og-blastroemper-1-4

De følgende sendes på DR K følgende onsdage, 14., 21. og 28. september 22:15.

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/94920.aspx?id=94920 (Filmens data) 

Finn Larsen og Lars Johansson: Når asfalten gynger

”…Men hvad var det så egentlig, de to fotografer dokumenterede? Hvad så de på? De så det sociale liv, der udspillede sig blandt Randers’ unge, når de havde fri fra familien og skolen. Det, der foregik rundt om flippermaskinen eller foran den lukkede købmand. På dansegulvet til en fest, i en kammerats værelse, eller i kliken, der mødes omkring knallerterne. De så det, der foregik mellem de unge. De signaler, de sendte til hinanden – med deres tøjstil, med deres frisurer, der fortalte andre med en slags kodesprog, om de var til disco eller måske motorcykler. Og de så de signaler, de unge sendte med deres bevægelser og øjekast. De smil og blikke som var invitationer til sjov, til intimitet, og som var del af et indforstået sammenhold. Med kameraet kunne det altså lade sig gøre at registrere det her særlige sprog uden ord. Som man ikke kunne forevige på andre måder, hverken med en båndoptager eller en skrivemaskine eller i form af fysiske genstande. De to fotografer havde blik for de unges samvær.”

Da fotografierne blev udstillet som en del af udsillingen der tidligere på året, holdt Sarah Giersing fra Det Kongelige Bibliotek en tale fyldt af indsigt. Citatet er fra den tale, hele talen, som bestemt er værd at læse, findes gengivet på

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3623/

”Når asfalten gynger” er en del af Finn Larsen og Lars Johanssons dokumentation af ungdomskultur i Randers 1978-1979. De mange fotografier blev dengang og igen i år udstillet på museet i Randers og altså umiddelbart i år gentaget i Øksnehallen. Denne del med titlen Når asfalten gynger kan nu om lidt ses på Københavns Hovedbibliotek:

http://goldendaysfestival.dk/event/n%C3%A5r-asfalten-gynger

Dalsgaard og Zytoon: The War Show /5

Cineuropa har lavet et kort, men virkelig interessant interview med Andreas Dalsgaard, som afdæmpet, præcis og beskeden i nogle ganske korte afsnit foræller om sin og klipperen Adam Nielsens arbejde med Obaidah Zytoons historie og hendes omfattende og talrige og ganske særlige filmoptagelser fra disse første år under borgerkrigen. For eksempel om, hvordan hun under klippeprocessen pegede detaljer i billederne ud for ham og Adam Nielsen, detaljer de slet ikke havde været opmærksomme på, men når de accentueredes i det herefter ændrede klip tilsammen nu er et enestående lag i filmen, som er hendes fortælling, hendes syriske virkelighed. Se den korte video her:

http://cineuropa.org/vd.aspx?t=video&l=en&did=314950 (Cineuropas video)

http://www.dfi.dk/Nyheder/FILMupdate/2016/August/ (Om filmen)

Mileva/Kazakova: The Beast is Still Alive!

No, I can not make a real review of this film…

But why not?

I know the two makers too well, and the project. I have seen them pitching the film at several workshops. And I am just so happy for them that they have finished the work. A good film, an important film, a rich film. And taken for the Sarajevo festival recently.

So, you can not be objective, you mean?

There is no such thing as objectivity in reviewing films, and I normally can take the necessary distance, when I write about films made by people I know. But this time, no, precisely because of my admiration for Mina and Vesela, and their courage and their stubbornness to finish a project that will be well received outside

their own country and raise big discussion – it already has – in Bulgaria. It actually states that 60% of the parliament members in Bulgaria were agents for the communist regime! Just that statement – we are talking about a member of the EU! And not just Bulgaria, they also mention, or say point at the connection between the Greek Syriza and the billionaire Kokkalis, who was a stasi agent during GDR. And talk about Bokova, who was appointed for a job in the UN. She was a key person in the communist times.

So, you think the two directors are courageous and stubborn… are they also good filmmakers, are they artists?

Mina is an excellent animator, her dramatic drawings of ”the Beast”, aka communism, are of high artistic quality, some are like paintings you could hang on the wall, if they were not moving, and Vesela, well I have kind of been in love with her since I met her years ago. Her energy, her talent as an actress and producer and director. She is a gift to the film playing the young woman, who goes around the world to find out whether there is anything good about communism. As an actress she knows the métier, she is present and she has passion, when she asks questions. She plays a young woman, who has a dialogue off-screen with her grandfather, who lived during the communist period and ended up being part of the Goriani resistance movement.

What was that?

I had never heard about it but I understand from the granddaughter in the film that she wants to have him and this guerilla movement ”into Bulgarian history”, which has so far not been possible and there is another strong point that the film makes: The period of communism is not dealt with in the school books in current Bulgaria. You understand why, when you in the film, person by person, is told what this and this parliament member did during the years of communism and when you see and hear about the concentration camp Belene, where thousands of opposition people ended their lives. This is the strong side of the film, the focus on Bulgaria – present and past. It’s actually quite shocking and they tell it well through the story of the grandfather, who was a true communist, but was imprisoned for his criticism of the regime, was hired – because of his intellectual skills – as an agent, who did economical analysis, before he went for the Goriani group.

I sense there is a but…?

Ah, you want the reviewer to be critical even if he says he won’t! Well, and it sounds crazy to say so, but there is too much in the film. I could have lived without the visit to Cuba, I am a bit fed up listening and watching Zizek again and again. It’s probably my fault but I think he is a showman and I don’t get what he says because I always study his crazy body language. It’s like Mina and Vesela wants to broaden out what has happened to Bulgaria. Does it work? I´m not sure. Anyway there is so much dynamic in the film created (also) from the clash they construct between the animated Beast-sequences and Vesela going around, or with her sitting at the archive staring at the files of grandfather. Those moments are maybe the key moments of the film, emotionally.

As you don’t want to give pens to the film, how do we end this non-review review…

With a quote, words to that effect: … at the camp (Belene), the prisoners, those who were condemned to death, were given a mirror, so they could look at themselves for the last time before they were executed.  

http://beast-film.com/beast-film_home/index.html

Bulgaria, 2016, 91 mins.

Photo: Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova