Americans in Paris

To be honest we lost our way at the big Cimetière Montparnasse. We had been talking about paying a visit to Sartre & Beauvoir or why not Gainsbourg, but suddenly my wife points and says, look, here is Joris Ivens. And many warm thoughts fill my head. His classic from Borinage (1936), his series from China that we bought for distribution at Statens Filmcentral (National Film Board of Denmark) and his last, the non-political film ”Une Histoire de vent” that I saw in Centre Pompidou with the presence of the director. I remember him sitting in his wheelchair with his beautiful white hair – as you see him in the film in the desert trying to tame the wind with his camera, as he hat put it. He lived from 1898 to 1989, google his filmography, an amazing oeuvre, a man of the world.

But this small personal report from a sunny Paris has its focus elsewhere. On the Americans in Paris. Not Gershwin or Minelli or Hemingway, not the burgers that are now available in almost every café but (first) on the Beat Generation and the exhibition about Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Ferlinghetti, Cassidy and so on at Centre Pompidou. We got there on the last day it was open and I had high expectations after all the clever observations our Danish Beat Generation expert par excellence Lars Movin had formulated. No disappointment – photographs, films, drawings, collages, paintings, politics, provocations, poetry, long interview with Ginsberg, who mentions Ezra Pound and Céline as inspirators among many others for the Generation, that I first learned about through Danish author and journalist Erik Thygesen, who back in the 60’es published translations of Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and others in the book ”San Francisco Renaissancen”. Have it at home. Must read Ginsberg’s ”Howl” again in Danish language…

… and then a meeting – again – with still alive photographer Robert Frank, some of his photos from the monumental ”The Americans” and his film ”Me and my Brother” (1968) that I need to get and can get – through the publication of the publisher Steidl, here is a quote from the Steidl site:

”…It celebrates the return of the poetic essay as assemblage, the affirmation of the underground as a wild cinematic analysis in the form of a collage, and skillfully weaves together opposites, plays counterfeits against the authentic, pornography against poetry,acting against being, Beat cynicism against hippie romanticism, monochrome against colored…”

Sara Thelle called – in her text about Robert Frank on Filmkommentaren – ”Me and my Brother” ”a slap in my face”.

Look at the photo of Robert Frank, a reframed snapshot taken by me and my i-phone, Frank in New York around 1947, a photo taken by Louis Faurer, whose exhibition we visited at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson. Some words about HCB’s house first: A three floor building in a nice area near rue Daguerre, adresse 2, impasse Lebouis, a private fondation with great exhibitions and ”conversations autour de la photographie”. Strongly recommended.. No photos of HCB but a wonderful book to enjoy, when you have done the three floors.

Louis Faurer, name looks French, no, he is an American in Paris, for the moment his photos are exhibited at the HCB fondation. Born in Philadelphia in 1916, he took pictures there and in New York, where Robert Frank invited him to stay at his place so he did not have to return to Philadelphia after work. People and situations in NY, very often around Times Square, a lot of love towards the ones he photographed, a fine sense of framing, praised by Frank vice versa, ”we never criticised each other”, Faurer has said. Faurer could afford his art, as he like many other creative photographers earned his money through fashion photography. Steidl, the publisher, again, a book about Faurer and the exhibition has been published.

… you don’t believe it, while writing this piece of text, a band is playing dixieland jazz in the street. America in Paris!

https://steidl.de/flycms/Books/Me-and-My-Brother-0409414457.html

www.henricartierbresson.org

Salomé Jashi on Information and Form

The fine website of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) also – besides concrete info on workshops and festivals – includes small interviews. Today one is published with Salomé Jashi, whose “Bakhmaro” and “The Dazzling Light of Sunset” have been written about on filmkommentaren. Jashi is to give a masterclass at the festival in Jihlava and will be a tutor for the Ex Oriente workshop. Here is a quote dealing with one of the eternal questions for documentarians, read the rest via the link below. She says:

Some years ago, when I visited IDFA for the first time, I observed that most of the films had very strong stories and characters but artistically I found them weak. But these films conveyed information, rose awareness, made me think and worry. I was asking myself whether it made sense to focus on style and form in documentaries, in the way I did, when information was so much more important in the world. This question has two sides and it’s a decision we make as filmmakers– is the issue more important or is it the artistic and aesthetic way we deal with our surroundings and create content. Even though I struggle in coming up with the answer, in fact I am still for the latter.

https://www.dokweb.net/en/

Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /7

… 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)

7

Ivar Lo-Johansson has asserted the authenticity of the self-experienced as a literary life-form and method. It is not enough for the author to have subjects: the subjects must also be part of his own self. Perhaps in this distinction we can also discern the essential difference between the author and the poet.

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. The opposite method is observation from without – a “microrealism” without a deeper personal sounding board.

In the “social photo-picture books”, Ivar Lo-Johansson was the photographers’ client. This proved to entail a methodological conflict. “They constantly had to pass up the artistically attractive subjects they would have preferred taking and instead stick to subjects that, to them, seemed unartistic.” The client’s total experience of the subject matter arrayed against the outsider-photographer’s comparatively superficial experience. Ivar Lo Johansson tells of something that happened during his collaboration with Gunnar Lundh that well illustrates the importance of the assignment situation. On page 68 of Statarna i bild (Tenant farmers in Pictures) , there is a photograph of a chest of drawers and a simple bookshelf of meagre content. The photographer walked past the bookshelf three times without “noticing” it – that is, without perceiving it as testifying to a salient reality in the tenant-farmer environment. To Ivar Lo-Johansson, however, it represented – in a tangible and painful manner – the cultural lag of the farmworker class, something that in his program essays, polemical pamphlets, indeed in all his writings, he had described as the dilemma of the entire class: poverty and physical exhaustion as the gravediggers of the soul and of any longing for beauty. Do we understand Ivar Lo-Johansson correctly when we presume that Lundh and Jarlas – at least in the initial phase of the project were prisoners of the 1/125th convention: that they “as modern photographers wanted ‘action’ in their pictures, even where the people they were photographing sat paralyzed and where the paralysis itself should have been allowed to speak”? One is spontaneously reminded of Lo-Johansson ‘s words that true form “should be the subject matter’s form”. (To be continued on Filmkommentaren with three two more reflections…)

FOTO

Sune Jonsson: Sune Jonsson: Set Ramstedt, født 1885. Golisen, Västra Nästansjö, Vilhemina. August 1961. Efter et kringflackade, olycksdrabbat liv, var Set Ramstedt sedan 1930 innehavare av ett skogshemman. Han Bodde ensam i en enkel stuga. Sune Jonsson skriver i billedteksten i sin bog Album – fotografier fem decennier, 2000, hvorfra billedet er hentet: ”Han satt vid sin spis lila luttrad som en gång Oidipus vid källan, men ännu med liv i blicken. Han stekte kallpotatis i fläskflott. Sedan spelade han munspel.”

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

Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /6

… The ideal situation, of course, is that in which the photographer is his own client. Then the assignment is a vital function of the photographer himself; then his depiction of reality will occur at that point where he himself stands as a human being.

NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th

By Sune Jonsson (1978)

6

The assignment situation, upon which the photographer’s personal relationship to the subject matter is ultimately dependent, is a vital part of the documentary methodology. If it is alleged that knowledge and insight should be the bases of all depiction of reality, then the assignment situation must be crucial to the genuineness of the documentation. By the way in which the assignment situation is regarded, one can also tell what status – in artistic-professional terms – the client is prepared to accord the photographer.

The ideal situation, of course, is that in which the photographer is his own client. Then the assignment is a vital function of the photographer himself; then his depiction of reality will occur at that point where he himself stands as a human being. From every viewpoint, it must be an optimal advantage to be able to seek out the subject matter that is made up of one’s own internal and external landscapes. Assignment and need for expression then become synonymous. The subject matter itself then becomes the client.

Paris at the beginning of the century: broad stairways, grotesquely bulging bourgeois homes, rear courtyards, the poor people of the streets, show windows, the aura of light over the parks and the Seine. A strange photo-tapestry, Atget‘s own unreal world, something very near and living, an objectivized vision of an existential experience. Jacques Henri Lartigue‘s diary pictures from the 20th century: a life affirming and humorous penetration of the games of the upper class, a situation report on the photographer’s own place in life, life-feeling portrayed. Sweden’s Larka-Karl filling his pictures of the lives and manners of the common people with the ego’s serious local patriotism and eminent knowledge of environment and tradition. A slightly misanthropic Patrik Johnson photographically registring with gentle satire and distinct documentary intuition the petit bourgeoisie of Falkenberg, a stranger seeking via his pictures to establish concrete social relations with his surroundings, to assuage the solitude of his heart. All this self-assumed yet at the same time compelled by the subject matter itself.

And the working hypothesis concerning 20thcentury man pursues August Sander through the decades. In picture after picture, he seriously isolates the human myths of German class society, photographically depicting the professional categories and all social attitudes of the Weimar Republic. Generalization is his artistic method. In his case, it is based on a sort of inherited and definitive knowledge of appraisals, traditions, manipulations, and roles – those things that constitute the concretion of society’s inner life. His Deutschenspiegel is a self-assignment, and through it he gives us a universal atlas of man’s eternal role-playing. (To be continued on Filmkommentaren with three more reflections…)

FOTO

Sune Jonsson: Småbrukarparet Tea och Albert Johansson, Väst om sjön, Nyåker, Nordmaling,1956. Sune Jonsson skriver i billedteksten i sin bog Album – fotografier fem decennier, 2000, hvorfra billedet er hentet: ”Albert Johansson hade arbetat med pottaskebränning och salpetersjudning, han var jägare och fiskare, hade deltagit i bäckflottningen i Leduån. Varannan dag rodde han med en mjölkkruka över sjön för transport till mejeriet i Nordmaling.”

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

Finn Larsen: Eugène Atget vignet, 2016

Brian McGinn & Rod Blackhurst: Amanda Knox

I refrain from a classic review of this shocking documentary that was launched yesterday on Netflix after having been premiered at the recent Toronto Film Festival. There has already been several praising texts in New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Telegraph etc., and – in Danish – in the newspaper Politiken. If you want to read them go via the facebook page of Plus Pictures, the Danish production company of ”Amanda Knox”. The producer’s name is Mette Heide, who again has taken care of a big international documentary. With success. If you are one of those, who have never heard about this film before, scroll down and get the synopsis – and come back to…

… a fine interview (link below) with the two directors on the site of

the Danish Film Institute that also has supported ”Amanda Knox”. The first question you put to yourself is how they did get that deep access to a crime story that for years filled the electronic and printed media. The answer comes here:

“We got access to a lot of new material,” Brian McGinn says. “Material like phone and prison recordings, home video footage that Knox shot of the victim Meredith Kercher and photos of Sollecito and Knox, taken during their week-long romance, that had never been seen before and that offer an illuminating perspective on what happened behind the scenes. In that sense, I hope people come away from the film having a better understanding of the case itself…”

Rod Blackhurst says: “We were fortunate enough to get them all on camera – the defendants Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the main prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and finally Nick Pisa, a journalist for the Daily Mail, who was one of the first reporters on the scene. There have been several other television documentaries made about these people, but they all took outside perspectives. We wanted to make a film that looked at the story from the inside out. We wanted to make a story about what it felt like for all of these individuals to be caught up in headlines that came to define their lives and hear from them directly, in their own words”.

And that is what we get in this well told and well built story about the tragic fate of the two young people, told by themselves, from their perspective, it’s touching. It is ”in their own words” and especially Amanda Knox has the gift of being precise and analytical – and emotional – when she adresses the camera. See photo (taken by Rod Blackhurst). A media world of total hysteria. With Daily Mail journalist Nick Pisa as an example of how disgusting journalism, if you can call it that, can be. He has no regrets looking back on the way he covered the trials, he remembers how happy he was to have ”front page after front page” and how he always wanted to be the first. No matter the facts of the case. The other character who stands out in his own pathetic way is the public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who wanted to please the press by almost immeditately pointing at Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as the guilty ones because of the way they reacted to the death of Meredith Kercher. They were kissing each other while the investigations took place! Therefore guilty! Mignini built up his own story with himself as a kind of pipe-smoking inspector Maigret, he loved the attention of the media, he became a hero in Perugia – and probably still is as many believe the two youngsters committed the murder. He did not care about facts and his incompetence is precisely revealed, when the deeper DNA examinations are performed. Apart from having built the film in an amazingly effective manner that suits the subject of a crime story, the filmmakers have succeeded in characterising the tabloid media at its worth and the lack of credibility of a law system, where personal vanity drives the main prosecutor.

Synopsis (from the DFI website): Twice convicted and twice acquitted by Italian courts of the brutal killing of her British roommate Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox became the subject of global speculation as non-stop media attention fed the public’s fascination through every twist and turn of the nearly decade-long case. In a world that remains strongly divided on the legal findings, the film goes beyond guilt or innocence to shed new light on the events and circumstances of the past nine years. Featuring unprecedented access to key people involved and never-before-seen archival material, the film shifts between past to present, exploring the case from the inside out in exclusive interviews with Amanda Knox, her former co-defendant and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and Daily Mail reporter Nick Pisa.

Denmark, 2016, 91 mins.

http://www.dfi.dk/Service/English/News-and-publications/News/September-2016/Amanda-Knox-interview.aspx

 

Niels-Ole Rasmussen: Jacob Holdt

Fotografen Jacob Holdt er tilbage i et fotografi han optog for fire årtier siden. Eller rettere han er tilbage det sted hvor han optog fotografiet. Det var et hus, hvor der boede en kvinde med sin lille søn. Nu er kvinden borte og alle spor efter hendes nænsomhed og omhu i hverdagene dengang. Sønnen er også væk, sporene som Holdt møder i huset er efter sønnens opløsning som menneske i en vanrøgt af barndomshjemmet som er en ruin omkring et mere end trist rod.

Jacob Holdt opsøger på den måde en suite scener fra sine optagelser dengang. De er bestemt ikke alle nedslående som denne, de fleste er opløftende fortsættelser af mødet for så længe siden, som var årene siden sidst ikke disse mange. Fotografiernes personer er der stadig i deres omgivelser og optagelserne kan fortsætte. På nogle måder som var intet hændt. Denne række møder er filmens vigtige story line. Det er den enkle arkitektur, jeg glæder mig til, når filmens instruktør Niels-Ole Rasmussen som det jeg hæfter mig ved i pressemeddelelsen fortæller denne hændelse fra den langvarige forberedelse: ”Jeg glemmer nemlig aldrig den dag, Jacob kom forbi med en uskyldigt udseende disc. Hvad er det, spurgte jeg? Det er billederne, svarede Jacob. Disc’en gemte 15.000 billeder, som vagabonden Jacob fotograferede i USA fra 1971-75. Kun et fåtal er siden blevet verdensberømte i Amerikanske Billeder.”

Niels-Ole Rasmussen er forfatter, erfaren journalist og flittig tv-tilrettelægger, og her denne dag havde han altså i hånden et arkiv med tusinder optagelser af en fotograf, som i sin tid blev banebrydende for en ny dokumentarisk linje i den fotografiske kunst. Det var en gave til hans nye værk, og det var en forpligtende opgave.

Titlen Jacob Holdt: Mit liv i billeder rejser spørgsmålet om det her er en nøgtern tv-biografi eller et lyrisk reflekterende filmessay? Og titlen rejser dernæst med sit kolon autorspørgsmålet, hvem har egentlig skrevet, instrueret, tilrettelagt? Hvad er det for et greb Niels-Ole Rasmussen har lagt ned over værket ved med et kolon at forvirre mig, så jeg bliver usikker på hvorfra historien fortælles? Og hvorfor skal jeg i netop dette allerførste øjeblik være usikker på, om filmen sådan rigtig er instruktørens værk. Er Jacob Holdt iagttaget, beskrevet, skildret af Niels-Ole Rasmussen eller er han ikke?

Jeg må nu jeg har set filmen svare både nej og ja. For store deles vedkommende er det den dokumentariske fotograf og opdagelsesrejsende Holdt som fortæller, men han har haft journalisten Rasmussen til at hjælpe sig, altså en specialist i tv-dokumentar, så forbillederne for deres filmværk hentes her, æstetikken hentes herfra. Og underholdningskravet herfra griber formende ind på grundmaterialet, på anvendelsen af de 15.000 dokumentariske fotografier fra 1971-75 på disc’en, som udveksledes den dag Niels-Ole Rasmussen aldrig glemmer.

Til dette materiale af international kunsthistorisk interesse lægges fra den tv-dokumentariske tradition rekonstruktionen, for eksempel en scene hvor Jacob Holdt skal demonstrere hvordan han arbejdede som prositueret i rige villaer i sydstaternes herregårdsstil som for mig at se ender i forlorne smil og dementerende fnis, og tv-reportagen, for eksempel et afsnit om den troværdighedshistorie som i forbindelse med en udstillling på Charlottenborg rejstes i Weekendavisagen som jeg oplever tabes på gulvet i ubeslutsomme billeder og i en dialog som forudsætter underforstået viden. Men, men, Niels-Ole Rasmussen og Jacob Holdt laver også tre store afsnit bygget af ægte filmscener som er hele filmen værd:

Jacob Holdt opsøger en kvinde fra fotografierne, en kvinde fra dengang, Marly Sockol, kæresten fra begyndelsen af 70’erne. De var sammen som forelskede aktive kommunister, og det var svært og farligt for følelserne. Men i mødet viser hun i en lang ofte munter samtale, med et blik som ikke sådan kan glemmes på 45 år afstand den unge kvinde som Jacob Holdt i den grad forståeligt måtte elske. Endnu til filmlitteraturen en skildring af forelskelsens væsen.

Og han opsøger en anden kæreste fra dengang, Merrilyn Jones hedder hun, og på fotografiet fra dengang sidder hum i badekarret; hun er ung og frigjort og modig. Det er et berømt fotografi tror jeg. Nu mere end fire årtier mødes de, han har kameraet fra dengang med, vil gentage opstillingen, overtaler hende flirtende og hun går med til det flirtende, mens de glade og oprømte diskuterer: var vi kærester, eller var vi ikke? Atter til filmlitteraturen en skildring af erotikkens væsen.

Og han opsøger klanlederen Robert Moore, sin gamle ven som var leder i Ku Klux Klan. Nu skal Robert Moore giftes og Jacob Holdt som er opdraget i en jysk præstegård står for den hellige handling. Bryllupstalen er helt sædvanlig, den slutter som den skal med Paulus’ ord om kærligheden, som aldrig ophører, og den er et ganske usædvanligt personligt vidnesbyrd om forståelse og accept af det frastødende hos andre og hos sig selv. Atter til filmlitteraturen en skildring af venskabets væsen.

Her i dette afsnit er Jacob Holdts tale så vigtig. Den er en af de tre taler som klipperen Mikkel Sangstad har anbragt som kloge markører i forløbet. Jacob Holdt samler således sine livsanskuelsesmæssige erfaringer og konklusioner i form af taler, et andet sted hos gamle venner i Skotland, venner af en helt anden slags, holder han en bordtale og endelig under et besøg helt alene ved faderens grav en tale til ham. Altså bryllupstale, tale ved bordet, tale ved graven.

Således fastlægger Sangstad i klippet fra begyndelsen af filmen en fasthed i afsnitinddeling og rytme, men det opgives desværre, han går efterhånden i fortællingen tilbage og samler op uden det forudsættes i rammen, som jeg først tror er den nutidige samtale med hustruen ved spisebordet, men det forbliver udefineret og udviskes så jeg efterhånden ikke ved hvor jeg er henne i et oplever jeg næsten tilfældigt reportagestof, men tænkt som informerende og underholdende nødvendighed.

Tv-dokumentaræstetik, ugebladsæstetik, folkelig æstetik. Problemet med den folkelige fortællemåde er at når den havner i en ikke folkelig fortællers virksomhed, så bliver den uvægerlig påtaget, beregnende og kommer til at tale nedad, og det skinner ubehageligt igennem visse af hvad jeg på den måde tror er Niels-Ole Rasmussens dispositioner, valg og fravalg, men det sker derimod aldrig for Jacob Holdt selv; han er i sin kunst den egentlige folkelige fortællings håndværker.

For mig samler deres film Jacob Holdt: Mit liv i billeder sig således i en kerne af autentisk dokumentarisk filmarbejde i blot tre gribende afsnit klippet af filmscener, tre samvær med kvinder, som blev forladt, men aldrig glemt og tre kloge moralske taler, en bryllupstale, en bordtale og en gravtale.

Niels-Ole Rasmussen: Jacob Holdt: Mit liv i billeder, Danmark 2016. Anmeldelse: 4/6 penne. Premiere med DOXBIO 5. oktober i mange biografer: http://www.doxbio.dk/movie-archive/jacob-holdt-mit-liv-i-billeder/

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/96882.aspx?id=96882

SYNOPSIS

Vagabond og fotograf Jacob Holdt tvinges til at opsøge sandheden om sin eventyrlige skæbne. Jacobs ekstreme ja-filosofi kastede ham i armene på sit livs store kærlighed, USA. Her vandrede den unge præstesøn – fra Ku Klux Klan og mordere til de sorte på bunden af den amerikanske drøm. Jacobs frygtløse tilgang til livet førte ham ud i kampen for at forvandle racismens had til kærlighed mellem mennesker. Men hvilke indre dæmoner drev vagabonden fra sted til sted?

Publikum er med, når Jacob konfronterer fortidens synder og rydder op. Det er pinligt, når længst glemte hemmeligheder afsløres; det er berusende, når gamle flammer pludselig selvantænder i glødende lidenskab; det er brutalt, når Døden høster i kærlighedens have; det er generøst, gavmildt og lattermildt. Kan livets lange tråde flettes som vagabondens eget skæg?

Denne roadmovie er en sanselig hyldest til Amerikanske Billeder, til rejsen, til eventyret, til visdommen og ikke mindst til kærligheden. Unge Jacob Holdt skulle være præst, men gjorde oprør. I begyndelsen af 70’erne flygtede han til USA. Som vagabond levede Jacob efter én regel: sig ja til alle mennesker. Oplevelserne blev til Amerikanske Billeder. Nu vender Jacob tilbage for at søge sandheden bag sin eventyrlige skæbne. (Line Bilenberg)

Nick Fraser to Documentary Streaming Platform

“How Docs Reach the Audience” was the headline of the conference I was involved in here in Saint Petersburg with presentations of several interesting streaming services for documentaries in the Nordic and Russian environment and with only one broadcaster involved, the 24DOC that also includes a vod offer to its viewers.

A clear statement of the fact that classical broadcasting is far from being the only way for documentaries to the audience.

And in comes today the news from realscreen (written by Kevin Ritchie) that legendary commissioning editor Nick Fraser from BBC’s Storyville leaves his job to “commission documentaries for subscription-based streaming service Yaddo, which he has co-founded with producer Lawrence Elman, who serves as CEO…”

“Yaddo is rolling out in Europe at the end of this month and will enter 160 territories, including the United States, in November.

It will initially be available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Subscriptions cost US$4.99 per month or €3.99 per month…”

“Being involved in Yaddo is an exciting opportunity to be at the heart of the future of documentaries and how they are created,” says Fraser.

Read the whole article, link below, exciting news, indeed, Fraser can count on a subscriber in Denmark.

http://realscreen.com

Erarta, Yuri Abramochkin, Salgado

My introduction to Russian documentary and to wonderful Saint Petersburg is very much due to Viktor Skubey and Ludmila Nazaruk. The latter (and her artist husband Ilya) has taken me year after year to Erarta, museum for contemporary art, brilliant collection, excellent exhibitions, super well conveyed, English and Russian texts all over.

This time three exhibitions caught our eyes: 1) Belarussian contemporary artists, strong in expression, about freedom and its absence, personal styles, extraordinary and sometimes scary interpretations of our lives. 2) Salgado’s Genesis was there, had seen it before, this photographer is a genius in framing and in his pointing to us, that we should take care of our world. His pinguins, his tortoise, his portrait of a Nenet, unique! 3) And the Yuri Abramochkin, born 1936, press photographer with access to Kreml and surroundings, portraits of Gagarin, of the central committee members waiting for Brezhnev, all with hats, of Kruschev with the shadow of Brezhnev catching up on him. But also documentary photos of people, regular citizens of the USSR… and a text from him, in many ways a true, respectful documentarian, read this:

”Press photographers differ from those working in the field of experimental photography, applied photography etc. in that the former shoot real people, their life… They walk through their lives with a camera. My credo is to gaze into the environment, to look around instead of peeking (there is something tactless about it) and catch unique moments in life, you sometimes see things that would never devise or invent yourself”.

Photo: Ludmila Nazaruk

http://www.erarta.com/en/museum/about/

M2M How to reach the Audience/ 4

And some words about the male interventions at the conference in Saint Petersburg on the second day, and some small conclusions or call it reflections.

Festival director (and film director and producer) Pavel Pechenkin from Flahertiana in Perm had just completed the 2016 edition of the old festival that carries the name of the man, who for many was the one who invented the name ”documentary” and who was also the one, who said that ”we have not achieved our goal before it is quite as easy to get access to a film as it is to a book”. Is that where we are today?

13000 visited the festival this year, Pechenkin said. His speech,

however, was more focused on the importance of involving teachers in documentaries. He mentioned that students are writing essays about documentaries they have seen, that school screenings are arranged in the cinema complex that he is responsible for, he has 6 halls. To the question if there is film education, meaning lessons on dramaturgy, how to analyse a film etc., on the curriculum of elementary schools or high schools, Pechenkin answered ”njet”. Pechenkin stressed the importance of showing film historically interesting documentaries in his cinema, where there are Film projectors in some halls, it is not all digitalized. Did you hear that Western cinema owners…

Alexey Nedviga from the Rodina cinema in the city represented the classical approach to Film, a film lover who would never think of watching a film on a computer or on a smart phone. He is programming documentaries in his cinema – come with your films to me, he said to the filmmakers present – and ”I don’t care if there are only 2 viewers in the cinema, maybe there will be 5 the next day…”

Contrary to him, very much contrary I would say, was Alexey Laifurov from the tv station 24Doc, a true film buff working for a commercial channel that shows documentaries in loops, normally with Russian dubbing – the exception, however, being the film of Laurie Anderson, because ”her voice is so important”… in the evening I saw Snowden in Laura Poitras film speaking Russian. Strange, but that’s how it is in many countries. Anyway, the channel, Laifurov said, has three legs: it’s a tv channel, it has a vod platform, it does theatrical distribution – works a lot with film festivals. Laifurov focused in his speech on what the channel does on art, planning a series/programmes on/with Louise Bourgeois and, if I got it right, Gerhard Richter. 9 million people can watch 24Doc, 55.000 followers on FB. The channel has recently done a relaunch omitting what Lairufov called ”politisized” documentaries, I think he meant films with a social and/or political angle. On the other hand he mentioned that ”Wolfpack” was shown. A social/psychological documentary? Website below.

The attendance to the conference was not big, so good that Viktor Skubey had organised that everything was filmed and put online in both an English and Russian version – the many interesting speeches deserve to be heard and seen by documentary people all over.

Reflections… the situation for documentaries in the Nordic countries and in Russia is totally different when it comes to reaching the audience. Having said so, Russia has a lot of festivals, there are film clubs and there are festivals that work all year round and have the ambition to make the triangle Film/Director/Spectator come into reality. Doker is the example, an independent grassroot festival set up and run by filmmakers, with a considerable audience. M2M here in Saint Petersburg has an audience, an international profile and there are many other. The basic question is of course how to get more of the 250 yearly supported to reach an audience, if the makers and producers want that. But, maybe very naïve, who should they not want their films to be watched?

And how can the many Nordic and European documentary initiatives give access to the Russian documentarians and documentaries. The latter is maybe not a problem, there are many excellent documentaries coming out of Russia, not only those which are in opposition to the system, ”the Putin films”… Russia is so full of stories, we want to know and understand, don’t we. At the recent Baltic Sea Forum one story after the other dealt with Russia of today and its past. But the training initiatives, the vod’s, the lounges etc. – are they also part of the sanctions ”we” Europeans perform right now? Cultural sanctions, does it make sense? Of course not!

www.24doc.ru

M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 3

No discussion, the female presenters at the Saint Petersburg conference on how to reach an audience saturday/sunday September 24/25 were the best prepared, spoke good English, were used to communicate and had clear power point figures and texts, mixed with film clips. And kept the time so the polite moderators, Cecilie Bolvinkel and me, did not have to interrupt or make signs that ”time is up” as we tried, totally in vain, to do with a couple of male speakers…

Bolvinkel talked on the first day about the EDN project ”Moving Docs”, a pan-European documentary screening network that includes 9 partners. It was launched in 2015 and includes screenings and now also – text taken from the website of EDN, link below – ”… In addition to raising awareness for the ongoing refugee crisis through documentaries such as ”The Longest Run” (director Marianna Economou) and ”At Home in the World” (director Andreas Kofoed), the EDN-led Moving Docs programme recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the most helpless victims of today’s crises: refugee children… Bravo, and bravo also for the openness that Bolvinkel showed towards the Russian in the audience – you (film clubs?, Documentary Guild?, Doker festival) can join if you want to show European films. Unfortunately it can not go the the other way, as Moving Docs is paid by the EU.

Over the bridge to Malmø from Copenhagen based EDN. Maja Lindquist took the floor as the first one sunday morning talking about ”The Doc Lounge Experience” with the subtitle ”how to attract new and young audiences to documentaries”. Lindquist who is also programmer for the Nordisk Panorama festival has built up the Doclounge, that (wow!) during the 10 years has had 100000 visitors, has lounges in 19 cities in the Nordic countries (why only two in Denmark!), where people come to hang out, have a drink, watch a documentary, discuss it, or have a music experience afterwards. It has to be ”cool and hip” as Lindquist put it. There are great plans to expand the events with live streaming of discussions. It’s great, simply and you should read more about it, link below. And why not include a lounge or two in Saint Petersburg, there can be no technical problems, or?

The third of the four women I want to praise is Irina Shatalova, brilliant camerawoman, producer (”Linar”) and one of the filmmakers behind Doker that I have written about several times on filmkommentaren. Doker is much more than a festival, it is a film political initiative to create an audience for creative documentaries in Moscow and around in the huge country. Important screenings about important subjects, respect for the makers, long Q&A’s – no support from the Ministry of Culture, but there should be International money for this superb action for international documentaries – in 2015 40 films were shown from 32 countries. And good ones, I was in the jury, so I know. Check their website, below, and click above for previous texts on Doker.

Diana Tabakov from Czech Republic, what is she doing at a Russian-Nordic meeting? Well, organizer Viktor Skubey said to me, when we put together the program that we break the rules and include magnificent project DocAlliance in the program. We did. I will be brief as filmkommentaren has written about the high quality of DocAlliance again and again, and remember it costs €3.99 per month to subscribe and get access to film historical masterpieces as well as new films from all over, actually. And filmed masterclasses with Viktor Kossakovsky and Geoffrey Reggio and so on so forth. Tabakov did a fine show with funny pictures of a happy cat that hopes to be rich through vod and a sad grey cat after the discovery that you do not get rich from vod… But if you try all the platforms available, she said and showed an image of the possibilities. OMG, I thought, then better be poor and happy. Check the website below for that as well.

Photo: Irina Sahatalova on the Square of the Winter Palace at the M2M opening last friday.

One more final report tomorrow.

www.edn.dk

www.doclounge.se

https://filmfreeway.com/festival/MIDFF

www.dafilms.com