Astra Film Festival

… with the subtitle “Sibiu International Film Festival” has existed since 1993. This year it takes place October 17-23. The Romanian festival in Sibiu sent an email about the selection that has been done and the interesting thematic grouping of the films which have been done as well as the competitive sections listed with an award for “Outstandox”, “Romanian documentaries”, “Central and Eastern European documentaries” and “Student documentaries”. Here is the text:

“We have received over 1,200 submissions from all over the world, many of the documentaries dealing with extremely interesting subjects and using surprising approaches, making it difficult for the Selection Committee to pick the 100 films that make up this year’s official programme and various sidebars.

The 23rd Astra Film Festival welcomes the audiences to an exciting documentary cinema week. A selection of the best new international, Eastern European, and Romanian documentaries dealing with some of the burning issues in contemporary reality, are grouped in the theme programmes Inside Radical Islam, No Place Like Dis-place, Citizens of the Online World. Strong authorial voices and outstanding skills are reflected in the films in the theme sections Self-Family-Society, Doc-vlog, Circumscribed Spaces, Stories from Urbania, and OutstanDox. Surprising stories and incredible characters emerge from the films in the theme sections Encounters, Refurbished Past, and Reality Under Cover.

This year, Astra Film pays tribute to the work of Fred Wiseman (photo), and invites you to meet a legend of documentary cinema.

A special programme features recent works of the great masters of documentary cinema Patricio Guzman, Gianfranco Rosi, Werner Herzog and Thom Andersen.

Last but not least, the new formats – VR, 360, webdoc, full dome –  are present in the New media – immersive documentary programme: The Future Is Now.”

Many of the films have been reviewed or noted on this site like “Depth Two”, “Don Juan”, “Train to Adulthood”, “The Dazzling Light of Sunset”, “The Dybbuk, A Tale of Wandering Souls”, “Among the Believers” and “Sonita”.

http://www.astrafilm.ro/official-selection-2016-1.aspx

Finn Larsen og Lars Johansson: Når asfalten gynger

”… en ung mand med krøllet hår på gaden med en smøg i munden ved aftentide. Han har – viser billederne – været på grillbar, nu tager han på knallert (sammen med to andre på samme køretøj) hen på et værtshus, hvor der er piger, hvor der er gang i den… og så sidste foto der tages af fotografen Lars Johansson, taget af Finn Larsen, går jeg ud fra.

En filmisk sekvens gengivet i forstørrede kontaktark på bannere, der daterede hænger fra loft til gulv. Det her fotograferede vi den dag i 1978, se på dem, se på hvad de gør, hvordan de ser ud, se på deres ansigter. Det er for mig udstillingens scoop, denne suite af bannere, der dokumenterer (sorry!) dokumentarismens styrke, hvad der kan komme ud af, som Johansson og Larsen har gjort det, at være sammen med unge i en dansk provinsby i længere tid, interessere sig for dem, fange dem i hverdag og (mest) i fritid, lige på og hårdt og nænsomt og kærligt. De har taget den tid, det tager at få noget vigtigt og ægte frem.”

Sådan skrev Tue Steen Müller blandt andet i sin anmeldelse til seks penne af seks, da Finn Larsen og Lars Johansson tidligere i år udstillede deres fotografier Ung i Randers 1978-1979 først på museet i Randers derefter i Øksnehallen i København. Læs hele anmeldelsen her:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3597/

Nu udstilles så en del af den dengang firdelte ophængning, nemlig den del som havde overskriften Når asfalten gynger. Det sker på Hovedbiblioteket i København i forbindelse med Golden Days fesival om 70’erne. De skriver i programmet:

”Når asfalten gynger er en del af fotograferne Finn Larsen og Lars Johanssons omfattende dokumentation af ungdomskultur i Randers 1978-1979. De to fotografer fulgte gennem to år de unge til fester, på knallerter, i boligblokkene og parcelhusene og på deres teenageværelser. De mange fotos blev i sin tid udstillet på Museet i Randers og var det største samtids- og dokumentarfotografiske projekt af sin slags. Fotoserien om de unges hverdag i sluthalvfjerdsernes i Randers er ikke mindre end et stykke vigtig dansk fotohistorie, der nu kan opleves på Københavns Hovedbibliotek 9. – 24. september 2016.”

http://goldendaysfestival.dk/event/når-asfalten-gynger 

Mantas Kvedaravicius: Mariupolis

Let’s start with this information: Mariupolis is a city in Ukraine at the Azov Sea and with the river Kalmius. Half a million citizens. The war in Eastern Ukraine has reached Mariupolis. A quote from a Cineuropa interview with Mantas Kvedaravicius: ”… I came to Mariupol in March 2015 to see what was going on because it had become a front line, and the city was in an ambivalent situation: neither Ukrainian nor pro-Russian. Once I went there, it was obvious that the situation there – with a zoo and a theatre near to the front line – was unique, and something could be conveyed about the way space and politics interact with the human body…”

Kvedaravicius, whose last film (his first) ”Barzakh”, a masterpiece, took place in Chechnya, has again created a tense work of a beauty that lies in the aesthetic choices he has made with the camera, that he and two others have operated. You enjoy frame by frame, scene after scene, sequence after sequence the way he

has placed the camera and the naturalness with which the editing takes you around. Impressions: on board a fishing boat, at home with a family, soldiers playing chess, rehearsals for the celebration of Victory Day, music being played, a church ceremony, the animals in the small zoo if you can call it that, the steel factory, a wedding, a man smoking a cigarette… and the shoemaker in his workshop, the one who brings peace to the narrative. And again and again the image of the theatre buiding, inside and outside.

To the story – which makes me comment that here is a film that (as many Lithuanian documentaries do) is a total denial of the constant cry from broadcast people ”what is the story”. Here are many stories if you want to use that word. Examples: A shot from above of citizens, who one by one turn the sign of the cross on their way to the church. The camera moves up on the profile of a bearded man in action and after moments it goes to his hands which are pulling the strings of the bells that give us listening viewers the sound of beauty. And then back to the citizens on the ground. Superb! Or a Greek statue of a female body in focus with the camera following a flie moving around as if it caresses. Stories.

The editing principle of the many impressionistic scenes, many of them going back to persons we have met before (the shoemaker, the man doing illegal fishing from the bridge, the young girl who is a reporter and who we meet in the tough war scenes at the end of the film) is difficult to describe. There might be an inside/outside, conflict/peace – and there might be associations that I don’t get as I don’t understand Ukrainian and Russian.

How shall I leave this praise of a film that develops and towards the end brings images of exploded cars and destroyed buildings, and has scenes where the population is taught how to put out fire… I want to and will remember the shoemaker repairing shoes and having conversations with clients and family. A location that comes back, with peace, a statement of survival of humanism, as this great director has delivered with what is only his second film.

Lithuania, 96 mins., 2016.

Dalsgaard og Zytoon: The War Show 4/

Så har The War Show haft premiere i Venezia. Jeg var der ikke og kan ikke skrive anmeldelse, men nu vi her på Filmkommentaren et par gange har skrevet om filmen i blinde, vil jeg da også lige citere de første anmeldelser. 

ZYTOON, EN VIDENDE OG SAND GUIDE

John Bleasdale, CINEVUE, skriver til sidst i sin anmeldelse: “… This is a war without bounds and the evidence of systemic war crime is increasingly obvious. Some of the footage is suitably difficult to watch but the unhelpful sticker of ‘war porn’ need not be applied here. Zytoon is a knowledgeable and sure guide through the stunning tragedy. She notes that one of the towns they visit, Zabadani, was the site of the first crime, when Cain slew Abel. She is also fully conscious of how the camera is not a hovering entity separate from the conflict, but is now part of the conflict, changing how people behave, how they fight and what they are prepared to do. One man fires at a helicopter, putting everyone in immediate danger, and one suspects he wouldn’t have bothered if he didn’t think he’d look like Rambo for the camera.

In other cases, a man strips off to display his wounds from torture, hoping for some affirmation, some proof of how he has been treated. As the war progressed, the friends themselves lose the faux immunity of observers and the tragedy is relentless. It’s very difficult to appraise The War Show critically, the very existence of which is testament to the bravery of the directors and her collaborators. Suffice to say then that this is an urgent and necessary witness to the humanitarian tragedy of our times and which is all too often viewed only through the Eurocentric lens of the ‘problem’ of refugees.”

http://www.cine-vue.com/2016/09/venice-2016-war-show-review.html 

GENNEMFØRT INSTRUKTØR VOICEOVER

Jay Weissberg på VARIETY beskriver interessant filmens konstruktion: “… Zytoon, in voiceover throughout, introduces us to her friends, all enthusiastically embracing the revolution afoot. There’s besotted poet Hisham and his love, law student Lulu; rebel drummer Rabea; young activist Amal; dental student Argha; and Houssam, an architecture student whose beautifully infectious smile and gentle eyes will haunt the viewer for a long, long while. The two directors include just enough footage of these people to make them real, not just activists but friends. Even during the initial crackdowns by the regime they maintain their determination, with still a remnant of euphoria.

But the suppression grows in intensity, protest marches become funerals, and their understanding of how to resist becomes splintered, even in their own minds. By late 2011, the propaganda war was already trafficking in untruths, and Zytoon takes her camera to other cities, from her hometown of Zabadani, to Homs, Qassab, Saraqeb, and Kafranbel. As the conflict becomes more entrenched, she dodges snipers in streets reduced to rubble, and films little boys proudly holding semi-automatics as large as themselves.”

… og kommer med denne vurdering af Zyoons og Dalsgaards arbejde: “… Also addressed, toward the end, are the rifts between various rebel factions, humorously conveyed when a boy confusedly changes his enthusiastic chant for a civil society with one he overhears supporting a caliphate. This, like many other topics in the film, deserves a documentary of its own, but saying this doesn’t mean Zytoon and Dalsgaard treat their subjects superficially. On the contrary, “The War Show” captures the scope of the tragedy while making the participants real — unlike the largely anonymous victims seen on news reports, here Zytoon and her friends project a humanity that carries over even into the unnamed men revealing their torture scars for the camera.”

http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/the-war-show-review-1201848749/ 

DEN YNGRE GENERATIONS DRIVKRAFT

Boyd van Hoeij fra THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER beskriver filmen tilsvarende omhyggeligt og endnu mere interesseret detaljeret, men konkluderer alligevel sin anmeldelse noget køligt: ”… The overall result is somewhat messy but contains some very powerful moments and valuable insights into what the conflict is like for those on the ground and what drives the younger generation to fight against the oppression of Assad. Colin Stetson’s jangly score amps up the tension at several points but thankfully never indulges in action-movie clichés.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/war-show-venice-review-924635 

SYRISK SHOW VED SIDEN AF SYRISK SELVPORTRÆT OG SYRISK KÆRLIGHEDSHISTORIE 

Sarah Ward, SCREEN DAILY skriver: “… Accordingly, The War Show marries the on-the-street immediacy of Silvered Water Syria Self Portrait with the more domestic focus of A Syrian Love Story, once again laying bare a conflict that has been recounted before yet never proves any less shocking. Such an effective, unsettling contrast of the broad and the intimate makes the film a galvanising choice to open Venice Days, as well one that won’t quickly be forgotten. Expect audiences to be similarly jolted when the powerful documentary screens in Toronto, and for further festival play to follow.”

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-war-show-review/5108941.article  

DOKU.ARTS: Essaydox

DOKU.ARTS is one of those festivals that is different because it puts a focus on the essay film and adds a very attractive symposium to its film program. The symposium takes place October 7, the festival runs in Berlin from the 6th until the 23rd of October with interesting films like the neo-classic ”Black Sun” (photo) by Gary Tarn, ”Exile” by master Rithy Panh, ”Notes on Blindness” by Peter Middleton and James Spinney, and Gilad Baram’s work on Josef Koudelka, ”Shooting Holy Land”, a great film on a great photographer.

On the site of the festival there is a fine intro to the essay genre, here is a quote:

”The tenth edition of the International Festival for Films on Art DOKU.ARTS opens with an essay film on blindness, ”Notes on Blindness”. Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (‘sunless’) ranks as one of the most influential essay films of all time. The theme of seeing and the inability to see, the introspective approach and a philosophy of the moving image provide engaging impulses for this year’s anniversary programme.

Essay films have evolved over the course of the 21st century into an independent art form. Moreover, for the last 15 years or so, they have been experiencing a boom in museums and galleries; deserving a larger audience via cinema and television, the art form has found its niche.

The history, evolution and tradition of essayistic cinema and television can be traced back to directors such as Esther Schub, Dziga Vertov, Hans Richter and Chris Marker. Major European documentarians like Agnès Varda, Hartmut Bitomsky, Alexander Sokurov, Alexander Kluge and Wim Wenders shaped the essayistic cinematic form in the 20th century.

With its ESSAYDOX programme, the tenth edition of DOKU.ARTS introduces this vibrant cinematic form through new films and presents its relevance, ingenuity, poetry and political relevance in the 21st century. Cinematic essays have always been of central importance in DOKU.ARTS festival history.

http://doku-arts.de/en/start

Dalsgaard og Zytoon: The War Show 3/

Freja Dam har på NYHEDER FRA DFI i dag en lang og omhyggelig artikel som bygger på et interview med Andreas Dalsgaard om Obaidah Zytoons og hans film The War Show:

“For radioværten Obaidah Zytoon og hendes venner i Damaskus’ kunstnermiljø starter den syriske opstand med eufori og drømme om et demokratisk Syrien – også selv om de ved, at vejen bliver lang og hård. Men snart udvikler kampen sig til kaos, tragedie og desillusion. Flere af hendes venner bliver arresteret og slået ihjel, og efter tre år på farten med sit evigt registrerende kamera flygter Zytoon til Tyrkiet med 300 timers optagelser som sin dyrebareste last… ” Læs hele artiklen her, den kan meget anbefales: www.dfi.dk/Nyheder/FILMupdate/2016

The War Show er produceret af Miriam Nørgaard og Alaa Hassan for Fridthjof Film i samarbejde med Dharmafilm og koproduceret med finske Oktober Oy.

Filmen får premiere som åbningsfilm på Venedig Filmfestivalens auteur-drevne sideprogram Venice Days (31. august – 10. september) og er med på Toronto Filmfestivalen (8.-18. september).

SYNOPSIS

In March 2011, radio host Obaidah Zytoon and friends join the street protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Knowing the Arab Spring will forever change their country, this group of artists and activists begin filming their lives and the events around them. But as the regime’s violent response spirals the country into a bloody civil war, their hopes for a better future will be tested by violence, imprisonment and death. A deeply personal road movie, The War Show captures the fate of Syria through the intimate lens of a small circle of friends. (Venice Days programme)

http://www.venice-days.com/film.asp?id=9&id_dettaglio=712&lang=eng 

Eva Tind: En rød løber for Asta Nielsen

Det er en ganske særlig scene, denne fra en hotelpension i Fasanenstrasse, Berlin. Eva Tind er taget dertil, fordi Asta Nielsen boede der 1931-1937. Hun går omkring og regulerer lyset, trækker gardiner for, lukker vinduer til først, berører tingene. Langsomt, forsigtigt, andægtigt, tænkende.

Det er en forunderlig film, forfriskende anderledes. Der er noget ligefremt og forbavsende ærligt over hele grebet, Eva Tind så beslutsom har om sit materiale: jeg viser jer her noget, jeg har samlet sammen fordi jeg er optaget af det, en filmoptagelse af en ting, en filmoptagelse af et møde, roligt fremadskridende, én sekvens ad gangen, hvor hun selv er med hele tiden som en selvfølge, helt integreret spørgende, ja, snakkende med faktisk (måske næsten for lidt, jeg savner faktisk hendes konsekvente omvisningskommentar i materialet, det har været et fravalg) men i hvert fald: Eva Tind er til stede i sin film.

Og Anders Refn og Bodil Kjærhauge følger hende i klippet indforståede i dette helt enkle greb om stoffet, den fuldstændig ligetil måde at fremlægge det på, følger hende sikkert og erfarent gennem researchrejserne og undersøgelserne, hvor fotografen Sidsel Becker fulgte med og i lutter tydelige og omhyggelige og følsomme optagelser skildrer tingene, rummene og de medvirkende langsomt, forsigtigtigt, alvorligt og tankefuldt. Selv det som er morsomt er det på en alvorlig måde. Og det lader sig gøre.

Scenen med Torben Skjødt Jensen er interessant fordi den er ekstra tydelig. Den er antilitterær, den interesserer sig ikke for Asta Nielsens biografi, det indskrænker sig til anekdoten om Henrik Stangerups afskedigelse fra hendes film om sig selv, den interesserer sig ikke for Skjødt Jensens to film om Asta Nielsen. Nej, den scene er en besøgets berøring, den begynder med ankomsten og entredøren, den interesserer sig for denne filminstruktør som person, som krop i sine rum, blandt sine ting, i samlingen. Ja, scenen er en berøring, det bliver tydeligt, da Skjødt Jensen poserer for kameraet iført et af Asta Nielsens kostumer, en robe. Statuarisk. Herfra kan disse tableauer med rekvisit som indgår i møderne, herfra i filmen kan de alle entydigt forstås. ”Jeg ser de øjne der har set Kejseren”, som Roland Barthes skriver om et fotografi fra 1852 af Napoleons bror, Jérôme.

Nu forstås Bodil Jørgensens armbånd, Jørgen Sprogøs barndomserindring og hvide slør for ansigtet, Mariana Jankovis spændte fjeder af en energisk krop: ”… hun var en kriger”, rouge på kinderne og talkum blæst i ansigtet, det glider umærkeligt over i en af de vignetter, Becker og Tind etablerer som udfordringer til eftertanken, her opstilling med figur i ramme og figur uden for rammen, som holder rammen.

Hos de lærde filmvidenskabelige damer i Frankfurt interesserer filmen sig mere for de to medvirkende som un deux og for deres køkken hjemme og senere deres arbejdsrum på Kinothek Asta Nielsen end den er optaget af deres uden tvivl overvældende viden om filmene, men der bliver åbnet en sprække for to forhold i Asta Nielsens værk: hendes lidenskabelige gøren sig fri af producenters og instruktørers indflydelse på sine værker og så hendes physicality i sit spil. Og netop det understreger Eva Tind i sit meget kræsne valg af klip fra Asta Nielsens film, klip som i sig selv med den præcise og overbevisende filmmusik af Mark Solborg er en dækkende kavalkade, ligesom Bodil Jørgensens intense medvirken – i den løbende samtale under smikningen til hendes afsluttende monolog, og i og med den – er en film i filmen, men som filmcitatserien helt inkorporeret i Tinds samlede konstruktion.

Så i afsnittet med Poul Malmkjær drejer det sig om, at her i disse smukke rum tænkte denne mand den viden han nedskrev i den bog og i afsnittet med Marguerite Engberg tilsvarende, at her røres der ved den danske filmvidenskabs begyndelse. Plus lige her denne fine aggressivitet omkring en statuettes navn. Marguerite Engbergs rekvisit er følgelig musketerhatten og den dragne kårde og scenen bliver uforglemmelig.

Filmen er altså ikke en fortælling om Asta Nielsen. Den er en skildring af et beundrende kærtegn, som mærkes som en fryd når Eva Tind forsigtig vender siderne i et fotoalbum og i en udklipsbog og på samme måde scene for scene viser billeder fra sine rejser, viser filmbilleder af hvad hun har fundet i stilfærdigt ventende samlinger og hos levende mennesker om den store skuespillers liv og værk og bærer det op ad løberen. Forestillingen er igen i gang, og løberen ruller hun så sammen til en kunstig blomst i sin favn.

Eva Tind: En rød løber for Asta Nielsen / A Red Carpet for Asta Nielsen, Danmark 2016, 52 min. Produceret på Det Danske Filmværksted. Anmeldelse: 6/6 penne. Filmen har premiere 11. september i Cinemateket i København:

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/Film.aspx?filmID=v1024713

LITTERATUR

Eva Tind: Astas skygge, portræt, Gyldendal 2016.

http://www.evatind.dk/?portfolio=en-rod-lober-for-asta-nielsen (Eva Tinds hjemmeside. Om filmen, credits mv.)

http://www.evatind.dk/?portfolio=asta-nielsen-et-digt-en-gavl (Om Eva Tinds gavlskuptur i Valby, heri en kort film, hvor Eva Tind gør rede for en række arbejder med Asta Nielsen materialet før En rød løber for Asta Nielsen)

http://www.rothstein.dk/2016/eva-tind-astas-skygge/ (Klaus Rothsteins anmeldelse af bogen Astas skygge)

Andreas Johnsen: Bugs/ Anmeldelse

Det må være dig, der skriver om Bugs, mailede kollega Allan Berg til mig. Den ”minder mig om en dejlig gammeldags Filmcentralfilm…”, en henvisning til at jeg tilbragte 20 af mine arbejdsår i hedengangne Statens Filmcentral, SFC. Med det i baghovedet gik jeg til pressevisning forleden.

Ja, på en måde er det er en gammeldags film, på den fede måde, som vi fik dem lavet til SFC’s katalog og kolossalt store publikum. Den vil informere, den vil få sit publikum til at tænke, den vil skabe debat. Vel at mærke som en Film med stort F. Og den er lavet til et stort publikum, som den ganske givet vil nå, når den får premiere den 7.september i mere end 50 biografer landet over I samarbejde med DoxBio, som i moderne udgave fører SFC’s biblioteksturnéer videre.

Som Film, hvis vi lige bliver ved den retrospektive sammenligning

et øjeblik længere, er den fordums oplysende speaker væk. Den nødvendige baggrundsviden og de store spørgsmål, som filmen rejser, bliver formidlet af tekster på lærredet her og der, og af situationer, hvor de medvirkende taler sammen eller er ude i felten for at studere og samle insekter. Her bliver der givet informationer, som er nødvendige for at forstå tankerne bag det københavnske “Nordic Food Lab (som) er ét af de steder, hvor man igennem et treårigt forskningsprojekt (Discerning Taste: Deliciousness as an argument for Entomophagy) har forsket I at finde spiselige insekter og at udvikle delikate måder at tilberede tilberede dem på” – et arbejde som primært har været anført af filmens medvirkende: Den skotske kok Ben Reade, den canadiske researcher Josh Evans og køkkenchefen Roberto Flore.” (Entomophagy is the human consumption of insects and arachnids as food,ed.). Citat fra pressemeddelelsen.

Bugs er fuld af informationer på sin rejse jorden rundt, hvor Reade og Evans – og senere Flore – er på (igen et citat fra pressemeddelelsen) “…en atypisk gastronomisk rejse til bl.a. Australien, Mexico, Kenya og Japan, hvor de møder alt fra termitdronninger, delikate honningmyrer, giftige gedehamse og smagfulde langhornede græshopper…”.

Tilbage til den filmiske fortælling. Når den lever på trods af den store mængde informationer – den hopper specielt I starten fra sted til sted med en klipning som undertiden føles hakkende og forstyrrer flowet, hvor jeg ville have foretrukket at flere scener fik lov at leve mere, lidt mere ro – skyldes det de to hovedpersoner kokken Ben Reade og researcheren Josh Evans. De har humor og de er sjove at se på, når de står I Afrikas varme i korte bukser som to skoledrenge, der skal have gravet insekter op af jorden. Den ene, rødhårede Reade, der taler uophørligt, når han ikke propper mad i munden, tilberedt på stedet, den anden Evans med sin notesbog, der skriver ned, hvad der kommer fra de kloge indfødte. De spiser som det naturligste i denne verden insekter. Hvilket 2 milliarder af os gør, siger filmen!

Med de to udvikler filmen sig, fordi de udvikler sig. Filmen skifter perspektiv fra at rejse det banale spørgsmål, “skal vi spise insekter”, eller som filmens plakat siger “kan vi redde verden ved at spise insekter”, til at udtrykke frygt for konsekvensen af (opdrættede) insekter som en del af fødevareindustrien. Det er sigende sekvenser, som udtrykker den frygt. Som da Evans taler for en håndfuld eksperter i Genève. “Nogle spørgsmål”, siger ordstyreren ud i salen, næh det ser ud til at rage dem en høstblomst (kan man i øvrigt spise en sådan?). På det tidspunkt er Evans alene, Reade har fået nok af projektet, fundraising og at det hele nok ender med at de store selskaber som Nestlé overtager, industrialiserer og får profitten. Den historie har vi hørt før.

Der blev klukket meget ved pressevisningen i Grand forleden – og der blev klappet, da filmen var færdig, hvilket jo ikke er sædvanligt, når publikum begrænser sig til at være blaserte filmanmeldere med en kop kaffe i hånden. Filmkommentarens udsendte absolutte lægmand udi insektmad klappede med. Af den underholdende film, som giver lyst til at vide mere om de der små kryb og hvad de kan gøre af godt for øje og mave. Uhmmm, en appetitvækkende film!

En forevisning som sluttede med prøvespisning med italienske Roberto Flore i Grands café, hvor madeksperterne (også mig!) guffede i sig. Spændt på hvad de måtte mene om filmen. Det kommer der sikkert en debat ud af. Som der gør rundt om i verden, hvor instruktør Andreas Johnsen utrætteligt møder frem.

PS. Filmen, som er finansieret af filminstitutioner og –fonde, og tv-stationer i flere lande, har en aldeles fremragende engelsk/dansk hjemmeside: http://www.bugsfeed.com

http://www.doxbio.dk/

Danmark, 87 mins., 2016  

Andreas Johnsen: Bugs

The new film by Andreas Johnsen is already touring internationally – Started at Tribeca and has recently been in Prizren, Kosovo and in Skopje, Macedonia. But a Danish premiere is coming now, read this taken from the website of the film, link below:

This September we will collaborate with DOXBIO in order to make BUGS widely available to the Danish people – in cinemas all over the country. Every year, distribution initiative DOXBIO showcases six documentary films in collaboration with a nationwide network of cinemas. It’s DOXBIO’s mission to bring documentaries to big screens all over the country – not just the big cities.

This means BUGS will be playing at more than 50 cinemas on 7 September. Some of them will continue screening the film for another two weeks. On the night of the launch, a selection of cinemas will be hosting Q&As and tastings of insect-based food and drink such as ant smoothies, insect popcorn, and chili mealworms.

So far we’ve had the pleasure of showing the film a couple of times in Denmark already, but only at special preview events. First at the political festival at Bornholm, known as Folkemødet, and then this last Friday we were lucky enough to show the film to an enthusiastic audience at Copenhagen Cooking & Food Festival at their open air cinema.

This week, members of the press were invited to an intimate screening in the old Grand Teatret in the centre of Copenhagen, followed by a tasting hosted by Roberto Flore, who is both part of the film and the current Head of Culinary Research and Development at the Nordic Food Lab.

The tasting included cod skin seasoned with an interpretation of the Mexican Sal de Gusano (a salt made from worms), veal’s heart with anty gin, and a bee larva tacos.

I was there, it was nice, but first of all I watched the film and have written a review, see above, if you understand Danish otherwise check the amazing website created for the film:

http://www.bugsfeed.com

Photo: Difficult shooting in Japan, one of the best scenes in the film…

Sergey Kachkin: Perm-36. Reflexion

I am writing this text to support a filmmaker in trouble – Russian Sergey Kachkin, who, in these days, 25 years after the fall of USSR, experiences problems in getting his new film, that he has been working on for five years, screened in his own country. It has been rejected for political reasons, linked to Soviet times and Russia today. In an email to me, who has followed the film since it was pitched at the Baltic Sea Forum in 2011, Kachkin, who is born in Perm, where the film takes place, writes:

“In Perm, I was told that it can not be shown at the International Documentary Film Festival Flahertiana because the film criticises the local Ministry of Culture and because of this subject in general. It hasn’t been selected for Message to Man Film Festival in Saint Petersburg either and I suspect because of the same reasons – criticism of Stalinism, Soviet times and mostly new reality which is directly connected with the past.”

About the content of the film for you to better understand, text taken from the website, link below:

“Three former political prisoners tell the story of their imprisonment in the “Perm-36” prison camp. Years later they return to the camp (now a museum) to participate in the “Pilorama” Forum, a campsite reflecting, mirror-like, Russian society haunted by phantom pains after the fall of the Soviet Union. Red-brown activists zealously rail against the existence of the museum and the forum. They start to gain attention in society and the government. As a result, dark clouds gather over the museum… The three are the worker Viktor Pestov, convicted for anti-soviet activity; the literary scholar Mikhail Meylakh sentenced for the custody of forbidden literature in Soviet times (Nabokov, Mandelshtam, Solzhenitsyn); the human rights activist Sergei Kovalev for working on a weekly publication on Human Rights in the Soviet Union, each recall the story of their arrest and imprisonment in the “Perm-36” prison camp…”

Dark clouds over the museum – the director is replaced, the museum is re-arranged so the terrors of Stalinism is almost not talked about, it has become, as someone has put it, ”an exhibition on the architecture of the camps” – and the Pilorama has been stopped.

Of course it is a sign of weakness that the Flahertiana festival in Perm does not dare to show a film that takes place close to the location of the museum and the Pilorama. If they – the same goes for the Message to Man festival in Saint Petersburg that this year takes the risk to show the controversial Vitaly Mansky’s North Korean ”Under the Sun” – don’t like the film, they could show it out of competition. Kachkin is not Mansky, and his film is maybe not an authored piece of art, but it is a very actual document with a – as an example – wonderful 20 minutes long part with Mikhail Meylakh, that is both a meeting with a charismatic Russian intellectual and through him a tribute to Brodsky, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Solzjenitsyn. To literature.

Kachkin is now trying hard to get his film into festivals in Europe. Help him!  

http://perm36reflexion.ru/en/film

Russia, 2016, 100 mins.