Mihajlo Jevtic: Four Passports

For someone who for 15 years regularly have been visiting Belgrade, and who have been traveling Serbia South and North with local friends, it is upfront very interesting to see a film made by and about a man, film director Mihajlo Jevtic, who in first person and in a unpretentious, both humourous and sad, typically Serbian, I would say, of course a total simplification, tells the story of his young life in several countries as the title says, and yet at the same place, a place he is to leave to live in another country, where the working and thus material living conditions are better. I have met these considerations among younger Serbians again and again, so nothing new thematically for me.

So – contrary to the text of the serious and depressive synopsis on the website and on facebook, link below – I was happy to watch a film, on the background of the history of a country Yugoslavia that fell apart, full of warm feelings, a family film, whose members (love the father of the director) remember and reflect and get happy when grandchildren (from the side of the sister) arrive.

The film lives best, when father and son are together, playing with the camera, looking at s-8 material from their holidays in Rovinj, Croatia, a place the director Mihajlo goes back to – to bring back moving images to his family. In between the film brings some animation, which does not really bring extra value to a personal documentary that was nice and sweet to watch.

Serbia, Croatia, Germany, 2016, 83 mins.

www.fourpassports.com

Docs All Over – Is that Good?

Are there too many documentary film festivals? NO – those who complain are professionals, who say they can not be in two places at the same time. Understandable argument if you want to attend all so-called industry events with pitching and development workshops, that run parallel to the screenings of films. On the other hand most broadcasters or sales companies include more than one person… AND the documentary film festivals are first of all there for the audience. For films to be screened to regular citizens, doc lovers, cinema goers. Right? AND there is an audience. In most of the below mentioned festivals that I have attended the halls are full – hmm, and the ones who come are mostly pretty much younger than me. Bravo, there is an interest for documentaries among the 20-35 years old.

But are there too many documentary film festivals at this time of the year? Do they cannibalise each other, when it comes to getting the films. In terms of

getting the best of the best it is no secret that festivals for publicity reasons want premieres and that might mean that one festival blocks films for another festival. There is a competition and filmmakers have to make choices.

Let me make a line-up of the important festivals coming up in this month and into November – I have probably forgotten some:

Cinédoc in Tbilisi presents its fourth edition October 21-25, Jihlava International Documentary Film festival takes place October 25-30, 20th edition (!), DocLisboa dates are October 20-30, 14th edition. In principle the dates could make it possible for a doc addict to go from one to the other, and then proceed to DOK Leipzig (October 31 – November 6) and take a break before IDFA (November 16-27). Kamikaze!

Back to the competition question, let’s turn it around: Do the festivals collaborate? Honestly, I don’t know. And if not, you can argue that with the huge amount of quality documentaries which are made world-wide, combined with the many festivals, there should always be a place for the good documentary, so no collaboration needed… and there are more than those selected: During the years I have said to many filmmakers, whose film(s) have been rejected: don’t worry: There is nothing wrong with your film, it will find a festival. Normally I have been right.

Back to the two big festivals. DOK Leipzig presents 309 films, IDFA 297. DOK Leipzig has 100 world and international premieres, IDFA 102 world premieres. Overlapping, yes for some titles and that is good news for the audience: Sergey Loznitsa with ”Austerlitz” is in competition in Leipzig, the film is also shown in Amsterdam where the director is responsible for ”The 10 Best According to…”, and there is a retrospective of his work. Danish ”The War Show” is shown in both cities, as is the new film of Vitaly Manski – and several others I am sure. Both festivals have panorama sections where films that did not make it to competitions are shown. It is actually impressive and amazing so many quality documentaries that are made – and now I am only looking at film lists from this autumn. 2017 and the spring festivals are coming. Soooo…

keep smiling – it’s good times for the creative documentary.

Photo from Loznitsa’s ”Austerlitz”, in competition at DOK Leipzig and part of his retrospective at IDFA.

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/

http://www.dokument-festival.com/

http://www.doclisboa.org/2016/

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/

https://www.idfa.nl/industry.aspx

Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /9

“…A documentary work is not intended for the esthetic connoisseur or the preoccupied consumer, but rather for people in vital need of increasing their knowledge: of transforming communicated environments, epochs, nature scenes into personal experiential substance – something with which to enrich their own inner landscapes.”

NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th

By Sune Jonsson (1978)

9

Quantity should be a part of the documentary method, a part of the documentary language of form. The 1/125th is a fraction of the historic flow. A great many 1/125ths are needed merely to illuminate one isolated situation. In the 8 years during which the FSA documentation took place, ending in 1943, over 270,000 pictures were taken. Perhaps, all together, those pictures provided a overview of the extent of the disaster and could form a basis for the nation’s self-scrutiny. August Sander privately collected his panorama of the Weimar Republic’s physiognomies, roles, and uniforms in 20 bulging folders. The definitive publication of this collection in book form, Menschen ohne Maske (1971) is consequently characterized by an extraordinary abundance of pictures, which we perceive as concordant with the documentary conception.

Merely casting light on so simple a thing as the seasonal metamorphoses of the farmlands of West Bothnia showing in pictures the effects of various implements, methods, or political decisions – requires a large number of pictures. Even though quanta cannot be contained by rational rules, there does exist for any documentary project a picture minimum that one cannot fall short of and still satisfy a documentary intent, reflect an environment or a social context fairly exhaustively. Oftentimes, one culls from documentary material for financial reasons, or to strengthen an esthetic effect, or to avoid repetition. This clashes with the nature of the documentary report. A documentary work is not intended for the esthetic connoisseur or the preoccupied consumer, but rather for people in vital need of increasing their knowledge: of transforming communicated environments, epochs, nature scenes into personal experiential substance – something with which to enrich their own inner landscapes.

FOTOS

Sune Jonsson: Småbrukaren Helmer Jonsson med familj, Baggård, Nordmaling. Dokumentarisk arbejde, 1960, et meget lille udvalg af fotografierne i bøgerne Timotejvägen, 1961 og Tiden viskar, 1991.

https://randersbiografien.wordpress.com/museum-samling/ (Allan Berg Nielsen: Feltetnolog, 2016, lidt om Sune Jonssons fotografi og film)

IDFA 2016 Program

From IDFA Industry & Press on FB two days ago: ”The complete line-up for IDFA 2016 has been announced! The program contains 297 titles (from 3,495 submissions), of which 102 documentaries will have their world premieres during the festival… with the text addition that “full details on all films and programme information will be announced November 3””.

And then you click your way into “the full line-up” and are happy, when you see films and names that you know about, filmmakers who have worked for years to finish their documentary, like – I know it is an extreme case – Norwegian Torstein Grude’s “Mogadishu Soldier” (photo), that has been in the making for many years, 10 has been mentioned, now completed with the help of Danish editor Niels Pagh Andersen. It is in the main competition as is the masterpiece of Pawel Lozinski “You have No Idea How Much I Love You”, that I saw in connection with the Krakow festival.

And the two promising documentaries that I saw clips from in Malmö, where DokInkubator presented their workshop results: Jérôme le Maire’s observational work from a hospital where the staff is “Burning Out” and Tonislav Hristov’s timely refugee doc “The Good Postman”. And, in the mid length competition, Lithuanian master Audrius Stonys premieres with “Woman and the Glacier”.

IDFA, the biggest documentary film festival in Europe – still also in the world in terms of audience? – has 7 competition programs, 5 non-competitive like “Masters”, “Best of Fests”, “Panorama”, “Paradocs” and “Music Documentary”. In the latter section I am very curious to see how “Liberation Day” by Morten Traavik and Ugis Olte will be received, a film that has been produced by Latvian Uldis Cekulis, shot in North Korea with the Slovenian avant-garde music band Laibach on a visit… A great and clever film say I, who have seen it.

And then the special programs, one called “Assembling Reality” on editing with Kirsten Johnson and her editor Nels Bangerten, Frederick Wiseman, Niels Pagh Andersen and other editors, another “The Quiet Eye”, a section that is IDFA’s first themed program dedicated to ‘slow documentary’, also known as ‘Contemporary Contemplative Cinema’. The Quiet Eye program consists of nine documentary films that exude a remarkable calm and reflective quality, as programmer Martijn te Pas puts it. The films in the program show the beauty – or the bitterness – of the small or the everyday… happy to see a film that I supported as film consultant way back, Swedish Mikael Kristersson’s “Light Year”, shot in his garden for years.

It is often through the editing of special programmes that you can see the creativity of the programmers of a festival… Welcomed here is also “Shifting Perspectives” that as theme has the “the centuries-old historical relationships between Africa, Europe and the United States and how these still influence relations in our world today – both between countries and continents and between people within societies. Central to the program is the role of opinion-shaping in the way we look at and think about race and identity and the perspectives from which we do so. The program consists of new and classic documentaries which show how the history of colonialism, the slave trade and slavery, as well as racial segregation, continue to influence our social, cultural, economic and political relations today.” Yes, among them of course “O.J.: Made in America”.

https://www.idfa.nl/industry.aspx 

 

 

DOK Leipzig 2016 Program

… was announced yesterday with an extensive press release for the 59th (!) edition of the documentary and animation film festival that runs October 31 till November 6. Let me, who will be there, as usual, for some days, enjoying the professionalism and hospitality of the festival, and the city of Leipzig, give you what the festival wants us press people to put a focus on, through a quote from the headlines:

“DOK Leipzig sets record for premieres. Official Selection 2016: Big names, promising talent, and a greater number of female directors. This year 100 films are celebrating their world and international premieres at DOK Leipzig. With 34 more than last year, the number has risen to set a new record. A total of 179 films and 6 interactive projects have made it into the Official Selection…”

OK, let’s take it step by step. “Big Names”, yes and at least two remarkable films that I have already seen: Mira Janek’s beautiful homage to creativity in

“Normal Autistic Film” (photo) and Vitaly Mansky’s timely, personal family essay “Rodnye: Close Relations”. And productive Sergei Loznitsa is back (last year he was there with magnificent “The Event”) with “Austerlitz”, “in which he observes visitors to a concentration camp with their selfie sticks: an eery scenery set in black & white tableaux.” Ukranian Sergey Buhovsky is there with “The Leading Role” and from good friend, producer Nenad Puhovski I heard that “Dum Spiro Spero” by Pero Kvesic should be something very special. Program director Grit Lemke writes, a quote: “…Dum spiro spero, to quote Cicero: while I breathe, I hope. But breathing can be a bit tricky when you have only twenty percent lung volume left, like Pero Kvesić. With a declining trend. The basic sound of this film (besides Kvesić’s Jew’s harp) is his wheezing as he moves through his shrinking universe, camera at the ready…”

Yes, for someone who thinks that “East Beats West” when it comes to original, artistic documentaries, DOK Leipzig has a lot to offer.

Next step. “a greater number of female directors”. Leena Pasanen, festival director: “We are very glad about the increased number of female directors in the competitions for feature-length films,” “Our team is making efforts to strengthen women in the film industry and we wish that more women are in a position to realise their film projects successfully. As one example, that’s why we have introduced a new prize this year for the best female-driven film project.” And make a retrospective with Russian director, producer and educator Marina Razbezhkina, who is also to be the one and only juror of the Next Master section of the festival.

And the special programmes… an exciting country focus on Turkey put together by Õzge Calafato and a wonderful  retrospective of Polish documentaries with director names like Lozinski (Marcel and Pawel), Maciej Drygas, Kieślowski, Dziworski, Jerzy Bossak, Karabasz, Koszalska, Pacek, Palka… And “Disobedient Images”, a collection of animation films, remember that the slogan of this year’s festival is Disobedience. And much, much more.

A total of 309 films and interactive works will be shown during the festival week… OMG!

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/en 

Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /8

… they had plenty of time – the ultimate documentary resource – they themselves became something of experts in geography and agriculture. They were also sensitive and capable of the profound empathy with the subject matter that transforms certain photographers into depictors of reality in a truly documentary sense. Knowledge also affords artistic freedom. Experienced and versed, the author can move within his subject matter. His depiction of reality then becomes “macro realistic” – that is, a concrete expression of an inner reality.

NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th

By Sune Jonsson (1978)

8

The reportage confrontation is a fragile method of documentary work. But even so unfavorable an assignment situation can be transformed: if the photographer is given sufficient time, if he is given time to gain a knowledge of the environment that will enable his pictures to function as documentary statements, if he has the personal qualifications to deepen his empathy, his social commitment, and his responsibility as a fellow human being. This obviously turned out to be the case with Gunnar Lundh and Sven Järlås. And young photographers like Yngve Baum and Jean Hermanson have also come far along the same road of personal deepening.

How the subject matter can eventually assume the role of client can be sensed when one reads in the writing of Kurt Bergengren that C. G. Rosenberg became so intensely captivated by the image world of the stone sculptures of the churches of the Baltic Swedish island of Gotland that he felt the need to convert to Catholicism, that Lennart af Petersens suddenly experienced Christ as a personal presence while he was working on documenting the triptych in Strängnäs Cathedral.

As Gunnar Lundh and Sven Järlås worked with a specialist, so too did the renowned FSA photographers work with specialists from the US Department of Agriculture and under the whip of the tough Roy Stryker. Because they had plenty of time – the ultimate documentary resource – they themselves became something of experts in geography and agriculture. They were also sensitive and capable of the profound empathy with the subject matter that transforms certain photographers into depictors of reality in a truly documentary sense. (To be continued on Filmkommentaren with one more reflection…)

FOTO

Sune Jonsson: Helmer Jonsson med hästen Frank och flakvagn på väg för at lada hö under slättern, 1960. Det hedder videre i billedteksten i bogen Sune Jonsson: Album – fotografier fem decennier, 2000, hvor fotografiet er hentet: ”En af skrindbalkarna på flaket har lagts ner för att ge plats åt Edvin, Helen och Berta. På de slagna vallarna står stolparna tätt från de redan tømda trådhässjorna, i bakgrunden skymtar tre fyllda, ännu torkande, höhässjor.”

https://randersbiografien.wordpress.com/museum-samling/ (ABN om Sune Jonsson)

Magnificent7 Doc Xtra

I have to confess that I was a bit worried, when I saw that Belgrade friends Svetlana and Zoran Popovic and their team launched a documentary retrospective of films that we had selected and screened during the years of the festival – next year late January it is the 13th time that 7 European feature length documentaries will be shown at the Sava Centre in the Serbian capital. For these screenings there are normally between 1000 and 1500 spectators. Would new people come, would many come to see the films for the second time?  

No need to worry, not at all. I want to repeat that the audience for documentaries in Belgrade is loyal to the M7, as we call it. Some quotes from the Popovic couple:

“The audience was very nice for “Un Tango Más” (by German Kral, who was present), 700-800 people, plus the man from Argentinian Embassy and the Israeli ambassador (who wanted to enjoy Tango)! For “The Monastery” (by Pernille Rose Grønkjær) we had about 500-600 people, plus the chief of the

Danish diplomatic mission in Belgrade and an eminent professor of theology!”

These numbers are amazing for a retrospective… nevertheless the Popovic couple was not that happy with the attendance to Gianfranco Rosi’s “Below Sea Level” – there was 300-400 people. “Mostly because the screening was from 5pm.”  My comment: Come on… that many people for a film that is not new. We could not get that in Copenhagen, I think!

For “Twilight of a Light” by Sylvain Biegeleisen there were  600-700 people: “When they sat, the light went up on the stage, where Sylvain sat with the guitar and Zoran was standing next to him. Sylvain started playing and singing, then a short announcement and another chanson de Jacques Brel. After the screening the audience was so overwhelmed with feelings that they stood and applaude very long to Sylvain who was in front of the stage.”

“Before the film of Michael Glawogger, “Whores’ Glory”, we screened the brilliant piece he made here during the festival workshop – where he recites two verses from Goethe’s Faustus in German. “Nothing is inside, nothing is outside…” The audience for the homage to the deceased master was 500-600.

Very encouraging numbers for repeat screenings of great European documentaries!

http://magnificent7festival.org/bioskop_program.php

Monika Pawluczuk: End of the World

They keep on coming these strong philosophical cinematic essays from Poland. This time one from 2015 that I had not seen, a film that after touring at several American festivals with success has the chance to end up on the Oscar Nomination List for short documentaries. It deserves to be on that list!

On the photo you see one of the faces of the film. One of the faces that react to phone calls from men and women, who want to talk, who seek comfort and understanding of their problems, which normally simply come from loneliness. They call the gentle radio man Kuba. The other face is one of another young man, who takes calls from people in need of immediate medical help. He tries to find out what is wrong, gives advice to those calling on what to do until the ambulance arrives. It is sometimes a more than urgent situation or maybe it is already too late, and sometimes also he gets calls from lonely people. Help needed for the mind and the body.

It sounds very banal and it is on print, but interpreted into a film, within the frame that ”the end of the world” arrives very soon according to the Maya calendar, shot during night time, with dark images with the light coming from inside flats in appartment buildings, mixed in a brilliant montage with images taken from surveillance cameras, images of mostly empty streets, of ”lonely” cars or shot from the ambulance with the radio sound – yes, interpreted into a film that has a tone, and an atmosphere, it becomes an extraordinary documentary about the ordinary. A reflection on ”la condition humaine”.

It sounds very dark but there is also humour and light like when a woman wants to cancel the end of the world as she has experienced love – or the man who wants it to come, to have a new world arrive, where his dogs do not suffer from the noise of the world.

Poland, 2015, 38 mins.

Lisbon Docs and Words from Paul Pauwels

It’s number 17, the workshop and pitching session in Lisbon, the Lisbon Docs 2016, organised by EDN (European Documentary Network) and Apordoc. Running parallel to the DocLisboa festival. Happy to see that the event is still alive and kicking after all these years. Remember how producer Pedro Martins and directors like Sergio Trefaut and Catarina Mouráo and many more set up the Apordoc in 1998 to be an active documentary organisation that among others had the MEDIA Programme supported Lisbon Docs as one of the activities as well as Docs Kingdom. As the EDN representative at meetings in Bruxelles in those years with the MEDIA executives there was always scepticism raised if the Portuguese event was worth keeping (as one of four EDN activities in Southern Europe) – it was obviously, and EDN director Paul Pauwels (photo), in a interview with Cineuropa, explains clearly why and puts words on the profile of the workshop of 2016 (October 16-22):

”It is always important to continue to learn and adapt to new realities. We have realised that even the most experienced of professionals can still find new elements that don’t only help them to present their project in a better way, but also make them think more deeply about it. When you have a lot of experience, it is easy to get caught up in a kind of routine. That makes things tricky, because you might not be thinking enough about storytelling or the market. So we try to provide a service that not only gives documentary professionals tools to develop their stories in the best possible way, but also to think about what the decision makers need and are expecting… Today, the event is much more of a “meeting point”. I believe that the whole process has become much more personal and much more professional. That’s why I think people still make the effort to come to these events – to see what’s going on. And, in the case of Lisbon Docs, I think they also get a very good idea of what is happening in Europe – a Europe that we would like to see united, even though we know that isn’t happening!…”

Link below to more about Lisbon Docs and the whole interview with Pauwels. It is fine to see a list of tutors, who know what a creative documentary is – director Lithuanian Audrius Stonys, local Graca Castanheira (one of the pioneers 17 years ago), Spanish Marta Andreu, Edda Baumann-von Broen, all round doc expert Peter Jäger and producer Christian Popp, previously commissioner at arte.

… and projects, more than 20, happy to see that Lithuanian producer Dagne Vildziunaite is there, as well as Shorena Tevzadze from Georgia, local Jorge Pelicano (director) and Romanian Alex Brendea and Irina Malcea, to whose project ”Teacher” I have high expectations.

List of panelists, read

http://www.lisbondocs.org/lisbondocs2016/en/

Message2Man Winners

The festival that ended last week has finally published the list of awards of the 26th Message to Man festival – in English, the Russian version was on the site right after the festival had ended.

Having delivered this a bit grumpy remark to a festival that otherwise is very professionally organised and is growing in audience – an estimate says that 25.000 tickets were sold and 20.000 attended the grand opening at the Palace Square – I can only greet the decisions taken by the international jury, for the main awards.

Which went to Serbian Ognjen Glavonic and his courageous ”Depth Two”. He got the ”Golden Centaur” and 3000$ for the best film of the festival – and to Iranian Mehrdad Oskouei for ”Starless Dreams”, 1000$, for the best full-length documentary, an observational documentary with a strong emotional impact – and to Lithuanian Giedre Zickyte and Chilean Maite Alberdi for ”I´m not from Here”, best short documentary, wonderful warm film that seems to take prizes everywhere…

There were many other awards given by the international jury… at the national competition, the main award was divided between ”My Friend Boris Nemtsov” by Zosia Radkevich and ”Fire” by Nadya Zakharova (30000 Rubles) and there were awards given in the experimental section In Silico as well as a Diploma for Vitaly Mansky for his ”Under the Sun” given by the Press jury AND another diploma from the Fipresci Jury (I thought that was also a press jury…). The young ones in the Student Jury found ”Mallory” by Helena Trestikova the best film and the grand old man of the festival, now the Honorary President, Mikhail Litviakov, awarded the film on Joseph Brodsky, ”Josefs Land”, by Pavel Medvedev. I have a link for that film and will review asap.

Read the whole list on

http://www.message2man.com/en/news/10093-the-xxvi-message-to-man-announces-the-winners/