Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri:Amor

A woman’s face with running water in nature behind her. She looks at you or she does not look. Beautiful face, eyes seldom blinking. A river with waterfall and its sound. Focus on a rock and its cracks. A city emerges and disappears again. Cut to hands holding a postcard with…

… a voice that tells us that in 1998 “my mother” left our house and “we” never saw her again. Since then the daughter speaking, Virginia, the director of the film, has collected photos from the family album, prints of Roma, archive material, postcards with monuments, architectural and historical from the city; That if you read it from the back, Amor says Roma – always characterized as the city of Love. What comes to your mind, when you meet the word Roma, the voice the director asks and shows people in slow motion crossing a street.

Images show a diver getting ready to go down, we understand that the mother drowned in the Tiber. Virginia: I felt like a tree without roots. Two younger women are underwater – there are fragments of photos and other “things” on the bottom of the river, that evoke memories and there are super8mm footage that show Teresa in situations with friends and family in the countryside. This is a long poetic sequence with color – 8mm footage of people looking up to the sky, ending underwater again, and with the viewer being given the information that mother was born in 1943.

The film HAS found a complicated multi layered way of storytelling, which created a bit of confusion in my head at the beginning but once you get the point – I think I got – you are seduced by the flow (sorry!), of love to the photos of places and architecture that I remember, when I visited Amor… and take the tour on the back seat of the car that the director, Virginia, drives looking for the place in the river where Teresa, her mother, left. Very strong and intense, especially when it becomes a dialogue between daughter and mother, accompanied by the many photos of the mother, born 1943, dead 1998.

The text that helps the flow is excellent, and even more so is the music, composed by Lithuanian Martynas Bialobżeskis, magnificent!

I understand that this is a debut film… Bravo!

Italy & Lithuania, 2023, 101 mins.

Erica Liffredo: Tango of Life

Co-directed by Krista Burāne.

Italy and Latvia unite in this documentary shot in both countries, i.e. a co-production, a true one, where Italy provides the dancing, Latvia the music. A super-skilled editor is needed to connect and Ilaria de Laurentiis has done a great job to avoid “show-stoppers” to give the film a flow, from tango performed in Piemonte to music composed in Latvia. From Claudio and Ivana, to Arturs. And back again. Merging the scenes.

Claudio suffers from the Parkinson disease and performs tango as a therapy with his skilled wife. They organize therapy lessons in Cuneo, in a hall or at their place, where citizens with mobility problems come to dance. Many times to music composed by Arturs (Maskats), a well known and awarded Latvian composer, famous for his tango compositions. He has been inspired by the Italian couple, has visited them, they stay in contact through writing and in the film he goes down to get the inspiration to make a special piece for them. By cutting from the South to the North, with brilliant cinematography, the film describes the process of making the music to the tango – close-ups of the moving feet AND close-up of the two, Claudio and Ivana, showing their love to each other, beautiful it is to watch also of course, as we know, that Claudio, diagnosed 18 years ago, is living a life on borrowed time. One day he will be in a wheel chair.

Carried by the couple’s love to each other, their commitment to the dance – OMG, Ivana has sooo many tango shoes – showing that it is good for the body, and the engagement of Arturs to put down notes for his music, and of course the music itself, as it can be heard and seen in the Buenos Aires that Ivana longs to visit – it is a warm, well made documentary that deserves a good distribution internationally.

Ivana’s red tango dress is ready for the journey to Argentina but is Claudio with his health ready?

Italy/Latvia, 2024, 75 mins.

Max Kestner Opens CPH:DOX

We’re thrilled to announce that Max Kestner’s ‘Life and Other Problems‘ will be the opening film at the 21st edition of CPH:DOX. 

The opening gala will take place on March 12 in Copenhagen at the Conservatory’s Concert Hall, where director Max Kestner and a number of the film’s protagonists will be present. ‘Life and Other Problems‘ will have its world premiere during CPH:DOX, which runs from March 13-24, 2024.

In addition to being the festival’s opening film, it is also nominated for the festival’s main prize, DOX:AWARD – an award for the best and most important new films.
10 years ago, the news that Marius the giraffe was put down by the Copenhagen Zoo went viral all the way from Hollywood to Chechnya. But it was also the first domino to fall in the wild thicket of existential questions asked by Max Kestner in his new, joyously adventurous film. 

What is life? Does consciousness exist? Where does love come from? And not least: How is everything connected – like, really? With curiosity and an open mind, Kestner embarks on a philosophical voyage around the world to look for answers to his questions. With contributions from scientists like Charles Foster and Eske Willerslev, every answer sparks three new questions.

And yet, throughout the journey, we do gain insight into the great and small workings of the universe. What could have ended up as the most (self-)important picture of all time has instead turned into a funny, creative and completely unpredictable experience.

Stay tuned for February 21, when the entire festival programme will be revealed.

Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret will receive the Honorary DocsBarcelona Award

The International Documentary Film Festival of Barcelona, DocsBarcelona, will pay tribute to the french filmmaking couple Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret during its upcoming edition, which will take place from May 2 to May 12, 2024.

The award recognizes Depardon’s cinematographic and photographic career as well as the fruitful creative partnership with the producer, director and sound engineer Claudine Nougaret, which has created some of the most relevant documentary films in the history of European cinema.

Depardon and Nougaret’s extraordinary career will be acknowledged with an award that highlights their honest and authentic approach to people and landscapes from a seemingly shy and distant perspective that, at the same time, can turn into art the tension between photography and the temporal dimension of cinema.

Both artists will receive the prize during the DocsBarcelona’s 27th edition opening ceremony, which will take place on Thursday the 2nd of May at the spectacular Sala Phenomena, a cinema with one of the region’s largest screens and a capacity of 450 seats.

This celebration will continue, in collaboration with the Filmoteca de Catalunya, with a retrospective that will include three titles from their celebrated filmography, and will conclude with a talk session where both filmmakers will discuss their collaborative process, that has resulted in significant films such as 12 Jours (2017), Journal de France (2012) La Vie Moderne (2008), 10e Chambre, instants d’audience (2004), Paris (1998) and Délits Flagrants (1994), among others.

On the other hand, this year’s days and places are among this edition’s biggest novelties. The festival advances its usual days and will that place from May the 2nd to the 12th. And, for the first time, the films will be screening at two news locations: the Cinemes Renoir Floridablanca and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). This latter, as usual, will also host professional activities and sessions for all publics related to the non-fiction sector.

Historic Grand Slam for Norwegian cinema at Sundance

Historic Grand Slam for Norwegian cinema at Sundance: Awards for “A New Kind of Wilderness,” “Ibelin,” and “Handling the Undead.”The documentary film “A New Kind of Wilderness ” won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, while “Ibelin” received The Directing Award and The Audience Award in the same section. The feature film “Handling the Undead” won Special Jury Award for Original Music in The World Cinema Dramatic Competition. This makes this year’s awards ceremony the best ever for Norwegian cinema at a major festival. The awards were presented in Park City, Utah, in a ceremony on Friday, with the Norwegian winners present in the auditorium. 

“It’s completely wild, we are so grateful and proud! That a close and personal film receives this recognition means everything,” says ” A New Kind of Wilderness ” director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen. 

 “This was absolutely fantastic! We would like to dedicate this award to Mats ‘Ibelin’ Steen. It will stand together with his picture at his parents Robert and Trude’s home. We hope the film will reach as many people as possible, and create discussions and inspiration all over the world. Such an award helps the future life of the film and increases the likelihood that it will be seen by more people. We are incredibly grateful and happy for this,” says Benjamin Ree, director of “Ibelin.” 

Golden Age for Norwegian Documentary Film 
“We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Norwegian documentary film is in a golden age. The quality is world-class, and the fact that both “A New Kind of Wilderness ” and “Ibelin” won awards at Sundance is testament to this. Not only have they been carefully selected to the festival – they also took home three awards to Norway! We are incredibly proud of the teams behind the films and the directors Benjamin Ree and Silje Evensmo Jakobsen, and to composer Peter Raeburn for his work with the music for “Handling the Undead,” says Kjersti Mo, director of the Norwegian Film Institute. 

A New Kind of Wilderness 
The documentary film “A New Kind of Wilderness” by director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen takes place on a small farm surrounded by spruce forest where a family that has made an unconventional choice lives – Maria and Nik and their four children grow their own food, practice homeschooling, and co-sleep. They want to spend their time being together, living close to nature, becoming self-sufficient, and free. Maria, the mother of the family, is a photographer and documents the life project through words and pictures on the website wildandfree. But then tragedy strikes them, and the world they know is turned upside down. Reluctantly, the family must change their lifestyle and become part of modern society again. 

” A New Kind of Wilderness ” has received 1.7 million NOK in development and production grants from the Norwegian Film Institute. 

About the Double Winner “Ibelin”
“Ibelin” is about the gamer Mats Steen who died of a muscle disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they suddenly began to receive messages from Mats’ online friends from all over the world. The film recreates the rich life of Mats’ avatar “Ibelin” in the gaming world. Everything is based on real events and dialogues, taken from role-playing in World of Warcraft.
 
The documentary is directed by Benjamin Ree, whose previous film “The Painter and the Thief” in 2020 was the first Norwegian-registered documentary film in the main competition at Sundance. There, Ree won the Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling. For the 2024 festival, Ree’s new film “Ibelin” was invited to be shown at the traditional cinema The Egyptian on the opening day and has now won two awards. 
The film is produced by Ingvil Giske for Medieoperatørene and will have its Norwegian premiere in March 2024. It has received 4.2 million NOK in development and production grants from the Norwegian Film Institute…

Excerpt from press release of Norwegian Film Institute.

Aistė Stonytė: The Mammoth Hunt

All right, let’s have the synopsis (Scanorama Festival Kaunas 2023) first: ““The Mammoth Hunt” is a story about a film reel that for many years has been thought to be lost. On the reel, under conspiracy conditions, an abolished anti-Soviet theatre performance had been documented nearly 50 years ago – a play that served as a cross-section of the period revealing the universal subjects of courage, conformation, loyalty and betrayal.” Directed by Jonas Jurašas (1936), who left Soviet Lithuania in 1974 with his wife Ausra and came back, when the country achieved its independence. Jurašas is the main protagonist in the film, his cv from his time as “senior director” of the Kaunas Drama Theatre is impressive.

I have seen the film twice. As I normally do, when I find something that is of great interest content-wise and as a Film. On top of that, a personal motivation: the film deals with the world of theatre – my father was an actor, Aistė Stonytė’s father is an actor and I sense immediately that the film has a loving atmosphere and cares about its protagonists.

I loved to be there in the theatre world with all these old charismatic people digging into a past that was both enjoyable and not so pleasant. They did something together, “The Mammoth Hunt” was a great audience success, and when banned by Moscow, the play was filmed secretly but where is the film…

There are many strong protagonists, the writer/critic, Audronė Girdzijauskaitė, who was banned for her writing, the sculptor, Marija Vildžiūnienė, who was hiding Jonas and his wife Ausra, the latter strong as well, she was described as “furia” in the KGB archive. The 96 year old actor Antanas Tarasevicius, who remembers that the filming (in 1970!) took place; he was also secretary of the party, but that was just a personal security matter for him, he says… And not to forget the cameraman Donatas Pečiūra, who passed away last year, an old man who climbs the stairs to his attic to look for the film as he shot on 16mm, on material provided for the shooting by the Amateur Film Society, whose chair at that time was Rimgaudas Eilunavicius, who as the others are interviewed by Stonyté. No one seems to know, where the film is but luckily the sound tapes are there and play an important role for the viewer to imagine, often together with photos taken, what a controversial play it must have been. Well told, good cinematography by Kristina Sereikaite, two genres that go well together – the investigation and a psychological drama. Great archive! And great music from the film!

Many layers there are. It’s also a film about remembrance. The cameraman of the play Donatas Pečiūra goes to the attic and is actually more interested in showing some photos from way back than searching for the lost film. Look and he shows a photo of a cat! Marija Vildžiūnienė, a lovely protagonist, shot a lot of b/w material, thus she is able to remember those days, where Jonas Jurašas and his wife were living at her place; there is a freshness in this material, a feeling of freedom.

Should he have stayed? Audronė Girdzijauskaitė, the critic and author, reflects on this. He could have been a legend but he left and came back as a hero… who could no longer connect to the country. Masterly conveyed by Stonyté, who follows the theatre director with the beautiful white hair walking around, visiting the theatre AND sitting at the beach, alone like the last scene with Dirk Bogarde in Visconti’s “Death in Venice”. A heron walks in the foreground, magic!

This building of the film is so intelligent. I was until a certain point sure that I would be given an answer to the missing film but the shift to have the focus solely on the aging Jonas Jurašas and his fate being away from his country, coming back as a stranger is very moving. Thank you for not refraining from pathos, for filming his embrace of THEATRE.

Lithuania, 2023, 94 mins.

Finn Larsen: Hække og Stativer

… English title Hedges and Stands… Larsen’s first topographic project, photographed in Randers in the late 1980’s, as it is said on the cover of the impressive book, one of three, two more with focus on Greenland, will come back to them, all published in 2023 with very positive reviews in Danish newspapers Weekendavisen and Politiken. I know Larsen for several years thanks to colleague at www.filmkommentaren.dk, i.e. this site, Allan Berg Nielsen, who has written several articles on Larsen – you can find them via the search logo above.

Larsen is from Randers, Allan Berg lives there, I have visited him again and again during the years of our nice “con amore” project, which is now in its 17th year, and before that, Randers was the destination due to Berg’s work at the museum, where also Larsen worked as a photographer.

It’s such a pleasure to sit with the book and browse through pages of photos of landscapes, trees in a forest, hedges and stands, nice apartment blocks, townhouses, wild bushes, well-trimmed hedges as we, my wife and I, try to have them in the allotment, blue skies, it’s all very neat and organized; Larsen has put his camera to document the ordinary, as it is said in the extra-ordinary fine text written by (in Danish and English) Sarah Giersing, where you can also find an introduction to the topographic photographic tradition that I know very little about. Do you?

Larsen puts his camera and documents. Does that mean that he has no opinion about what the motif is presented? Of course not, he knows about composition – and he knows that the photographs put together in a book create a new meaning. A meaning that not necessarily is the one that the viewer gets with the book in hand.

If you browse quickly through the book, it’s like a film that for me brings back memories. I did/do not see, what Larsen saw, when I was/am in Randers, I see people, supermarkets, small streets etc. A provincial city. At a larger scale I saw/see the same city life in Copenhagen, where I have lived most of my life, or Aarhus, and yet: Letting my mind move a bit out of the capital the photos take me back to the 70’es and 80’es, where I worked and often came to Taastrup or Hedehusene outside Copenhagen. The same as in Randers: People living behind the hedges, stands were standing waiting for laundry to be hung up, or for kids to play football using the stands as football goals, or the playgrounds to be occupied by kids full of energy and sounds of joy. This was the organized welfare society with, very often, the empty roads waiting for humans, who liked to stay behind the hedges. The proper life. Often, as Larsen documents, it is nature that takes over the empty spaces, trees and bushes kind of protest the neatness and let a viewer like me wonder, what dramas take place in the houses in the background. The book and its photographs – you see that Larsen likes what he has seen and documented – are very inviting; it’s what I remember from Taastrup and Hedehusene, but also from Aarhus’ residential small roads next to Randersvej, 30 minutes from Randers. It might not be that explicit but Larsen – with his precise aesthetic approach – interprets – and lets me interpret.

Film the ordinary but do it in an extraordinary way, take photographs of the ordinary and convey the content in an extraordinary way. This is what Finn Larsen does with his book, a photo book far from coffee table glamour, thank you! But a book that will be a book that will be leafed through, when placed on a table. Photos page by page with a Danish and English introduction in the middle of the book! Love that. Also fine poems by legendary Sven Dalsgaard… from Randers, great artist.

Finn Larsen: Hække og Stativer. 172 sider. The Architectural Publisher B

If you want to buy the book: mail@finnlarsen.se

Carl Th. Dreyer Prisen til Lea Glob

Filminstituttet inviterer alle interesserede til reception og fejring af Lea Glob, når hun modtager dette års Dreyer Prisen.

Lea Glob er uddannet dokumentarfilminstruktør fra Den Danske Filmskole i 2011. Hun blev Robert-nomineret for afgangsfilmen ‘Mødet med min far Kasper Højhat’ og lavede i 2014 sammen med Petra Costa ‘Olmo and the Seagull’, der både vandt Nordic:Dox Award på CPH:DOX og ungdomsjuryens pris for bedste film på Locarno Film Festival. Sammen med Mette Carla Albrechtsen instruerede hun i 2016 ‘Venus’ om, hvordan en ny generation af yngre kvinder opfatter sig selv som seksuelle væsener. Filmen blev udtaget til konkurrence på verdens vigtigste dokumentarfilmfestival, IDFA i Amsterdam. Netop hovedkonkurrencen på IDFA vandt Lea Glob så på imponerende vis i 2022 med kunstnerportrættet ‘Apolonia, Apolonia’, hvor hun i over 13 år har fulgt den polsk-dansk-franske kunstner Apolonias udvikling fra ungt talent til den etablerede kunstscene.

Carl Th. Dreyers Mindefond

Carl Th. Dreyer Prisen uddeles af Carl Th. Dreyers Mindefond og gives til “fortrinsvis yngre filminstruktører eller andre kunstnere inden for filmbranchen som anerkendelse af en fremragende kunstnerisk indsats”. Med prisen følger 50.000 kroner.

Mindefondens indtægter er baseret på en gave fra Dreyers datter, Gunni Dreyer, og en procentdel af indtægterne for Dreyers hovedværk ‘Jeanne d’Arcs Lidelse og Død’, som ifølge en juridisk aftale med distributionsselskabet Gaumont tilgår Mindefonden.

Fondens bestyrelse består af Johannes Riis, lektor på Institut for Medier, Erkendelse og Formidling, Københavns Universitet, Eva Novrup Redvall, lektor samme sted, samt Jakob Buhl Vestergaard, vicedirektør, Det Danske Filminstitut.

Kom og vær med til at fejre Lea Glob i restaurant SULT.

Tid: Mandag den 5. februar 2024 kl. 15.00-17.00.
Sted: Cinemateket / Restaurant SULT, Gothersgade 55, 1123 København K.

Netflix: Captains of the World

2012. Hotel Prezident in Sremski Karlovci in Serbia, style Louis XVI, cherubines in the background. It is late sunday evening and our only way to watch el classico Barcelona against Real Madrid was to go online via some unauthorized links on the computer… To the right Zoran Popovic, co-director of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade, photo taken by his wife Svetlana, with whom he directs a festival that this year can celebrate its 20th edition, I have been on board as selector from the very beginning.

Zoran Popovic was the one, who told me about the Netflix series, 6 parts around 45 mins. each, made in collaboration with FIFA. I watched it as the football idiot I am, spending hours in front of the screen, I can´t see Messi any longer as he plays in Miami but my loyalty to FC Barcelona is untouched; I appreciate the coach Xavi’s attempt to bring the young players back to the level that he and Leo delivered also in 2012. Another quote from the 2012 experience in Serbia: … take a look at analytical Popovic and his finger explaining to the Dane that Messi’s first goal was a good one, and not par hasard as Xavi cleverly blocked a Real player to get near to Messi… Yes, Xavi was a great player, indeed!

The Netflix series – watch it, as a film it is not good with its constant quick cuts between the games but you are sent back to the 2022 World Cup with a focus on the captains of the teams. They are primarily interviewed after the event in Qatar, looking back on the success and/or failure of their team, with a lot of clips from the matches, interviews with legends like Gary Lineker and Peter Schmeichel, and much material from archive and from reactions “back home”, of course especially from Buenos Aires when Argentina and Leo became the well deserved champions. The cuts from one match to the other, to compare, does not work, for me it is more disturbing than taking you into the drama. You are not given time to enjoy the art of football! Oh, if there had been a director to make longer sequences… and not all captains are interesting to watch and listen. Some are like wonderful Brazilian Thiago Silva, who knows that this is/was his last World Cup, without getting to the final. Asked if he would go home after the defeat to Croatia, no he says, and he (39 years now) still plays in the Premier League. Croatia’s captain Luka Modric is not so interesting in interviews but a cameraman has caught a conversation between him and the Croatian goalkeeper Livakovic, Modric putting a lot of “trust yourself” into the goalkeeper, who became a hero at the World Cup taking several penalties. Candid camera…

For the Danes: Great to meet Danish captain Simon Kjær in his home in Milan with his family and follow the reactions of his wife and child to the bad performance of Denmark. Losing against Australia!!! But without the captain on the pitch. The sympathetic Kjær talks in a fine way, also about the incident with Christian Eriksen, where he was a true hero, and quotes with a smile what his son said after the defeat in Qatar: There is one good thing about this: You will come home earlier, Dad! Not to forget when Kjær at the stadium goes to his father, who is always there to support. Consolation!

Viesturs Kairiss: January

It was a fine night at Danish Cinemateket. As the opening film of a min-festival “Latvia Before and Now”, the award winning film of Viesturs Kairiss, “January”, was shown to an almost full cinema hall. Jesper Andersen from Cinemateket introduced the screening, gave the floor to the Latvian ambassador Inga Skujiņa, a film lover, who is a regular visitor to screenings at the Film House in Gothersgade Copenhagen, who welcomed Dita Rietuma, who is a film critic and historian, AND, as she said, “a bureaucrat”, the Head of the National Film Centre of Latvia. Rietuma made an introduction to “January”, saying what January 1991 meant to the country, the beginning of a new period free of Soviet Union. She also mentioned that the local audience loves historical films, that “January” had quite some attendance in the cinemas. The interest for Latvian historical films outside the country, however, is quite limited, “January”, however, was awarded at the Tribeca Festival in New York and took part in many festivals after that.

The film is about a young man, film student, who is trying to find his identity in the month, where Latvians revolted against the Soviet regime. He, Jaziz, falls in love with Anna, dreams about being a new Tarkovsky, whereas Anna has made a music video. They show their films to legendary Juris Podnieks, who hires Anna as his assistant, making Jaziz jealous, breaking up with her “you make stupid music videos”, regrets his remark and goes to turbulent Vilnius to apologize, no success, goes back and is at the barricades and at the tragic events, where the Soviet special police OMON kills Podnieks cameraman Andris Slapins January 20 and injures Gvido Zvaigzne, also cameraman, who dies of his wounds beginning of February. This event is reconstructed in the film that also includes fine humorous sequences illustrating life in the family of Jaziz, where mum is against sending her son to the (Soviet) army and dad is a communist. And his love to grandma. And a fantastic dance scene where Jaziz expresses his desperate “Sturm und Drang”. It is said that there is a lot of autobiography in the film!

The film is shot on 16mm, 8mm and there are VHS and Betamax material as well, masterly put together by Polish Wojciech Staron – it’s a Polish-Lithuanian-Latvian coproduction – with magnificent poetic scenes of Latvian landscape.

If you go to the website of cinemateket.dk you can read about the whole series that also has “Is it Easy to be Young” (1986) by Juris Podnieks on the program.

At Cinemateket until the end of this month you can also see an exhibition of remarkable photos by Danish Stig Stasig, who was in Riga in January 1991.