For years we have been following the festival in Prizren Kosova long-distance. This year – the festival dates are August 5-13 – it will be different. I will be there. Nevertheless – apart from enjoying the atmosphere and the open air screenings and all the side events – it will be a challenge to put together a film programme as there is so much interesting to choose from.

I say so after studying the press release that came out today announcing ”full slate of films for its 15th. jubilee edition, running from August 5 – 13 in the city of Prizren, Kosovo. Culled from yet another year of record number of submissions, the festival will showcase a selection of 238 films from 57 countries across 6 competitive sections and more than a dozen specially curated programs…”

It is impossible to mention all the elements – check the website, link below – but it is indeed impressive what is on the menu with the mix of

more classical competitive programs and special focus sections. Should be an inspiration for new festivals that are looking for a way to go, a profile, a (film) political statement to make.

In that respect one more quote from the press release: ”Corruption is central theme of the festival this year and its local, as well as global social context and consequences, will be highlighted and explored through a number of events, including panels, discussions with filmmakers and invited international and local experts, workshops and tech conference. A hand picked film program focusing on the issue of Corruption as well as two other phenomena that go hand in hand with it, Power and Lies, has been specially curated to coincide with the theme…”

9 films are in that section, we have written about ”A Good American” by Friedrich Moser, ”Behemoth” by Zhao Liang and Vitaly Mansky’s ”Under the Sun” – and I have read so much about ”The Lovers and the Despot”, ”Houston, We Have a Problem” and ”Weiner” – just some titles that will be on my viewing list in Prizren.

Much more will be written about this festival.

http://dokufest.com/dokufest-xv-announces-full-slate-festival-theme/

I could not find the information on the website of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival – luckily Danish jury member Sigrid Dyekjær posted on FB the decisions made by her and colleagues Laurent Bécue-Renard and Hana  Kulhánková:

The Grand Prix for Best Documentary Film is given to LOVETRUE by Alma Har’el (photo). The jury motivation:

Often, filmmakers play the role of therapists for their characters. With great audacity and imagination Alma Har’el goes a step further in LoveTrue. Through intimacy and respect, the director is allowing her protagonists to elaborate and represent images of trauma from early in their lives. These psychodramas become parts of many layers in this innovative film, cinematographically pushing the boundaries of storytelling while addressing the inherent difficulties of the universal journey of love.

The catalogue description of the film goes like this: The highly anticipated sophomore effort from an Israeli director who has returned five years after her successful debut Bombay Beach, this time to uncover the essence of something as universal as the emotion of love. A documentary essay interweaving three true life stories and exposing naïve notions of the existence of “true” love that is free of pain. (USA, 82 mins., 2016)

The jury gave an honorary mention to “Ama-San” by Cládia Varejão, here is the catalogue description:

This lightly lyrical documentary takes us to a remote corner of Japan, where a community of traditional pearl hunters sets out to sea each day to dive down several metres below the surface in search of shellfish, octopuses, sea urchins and lobsters. If we adjust our breathing rhythm to the tranquil tempo of the passing scenes we will be rewarded with a fascinating world where, in equal measure, time-honoured rituals and companionable warmth introduce a sense of requisite harmony.

http://www.kviff.com/en/homepage

Until saturday July 9th the festival in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic is on and the red-carpet mainly feature film festival has a fine eye for documentaries as well. As part of the schedule the Jihlava Festival (20th edition this year late October!) presents what they call ”docu talents” from Eastern Europe, and the 51st Karlovy Vary event has a competition for documentary films.

12 films are listed with a good variety of new and old talents… many of them directors known for works praised previously on this site. Like Polish Michal Marczak who presents his ”All These Sleepless Nights” with which, quote from the catalogue, the director ”reconfirms his reputation as a nonconformist who is ever veering from the parameters of the traditional documentary toward hybrid forms.” Like he did way back with ”At the Edge of Russia” that I met when I was working for the training programme Ex Oriente. Equally talented is Daniel Abma, whose ”Transit Havana” I saw a couple of months ago and characterised as ” a well told character driven, emotional and informational, visually excellent documentary”. Shot in Cuba, great characters and a slogan for Cuban politics, ”Homophobia no, socialismo si”.

A third younger director, Mohamed Siam from Egypt, has for years been working on – quote from the catalogue of the festival – ” a

scathing report on the dissolution of his homeland, whose people had barely tasted their suddenly-acquired freedom when they found themselves choking on the turbulent events of the months that followed”. Siam was at the DoxBox festival in Damascus in 2011 with the idea to this film that now completed is ”Whose Country”. I have high expectations. As I have for new films by the veterans, very much acclaimed Vitaly Mansky and Miroslav Janek.

After his festival success ”Under the Sun” Mansky turns the camera towards his own background with ”Close Relations” that has this catalogue annotation:

“I became a Russian citizen simply because I happened to live in Moscow when the Soviet Union broke apart,” says the celebrated Ukrainian documentarist. A few decades later his family in Ukraine face the dramatic consequences of further turbulent change, and their fresh experience of the revolution shows us that the media presentation of the country’s East-West dichotomy is deeply flawed.”

On the top of my list of ”Must See”, however, is Czech master Miroslav Janek’s ”Normal Autistic Film” (PHOTO) that goes like this:

”A foremost Czech documentarist with a unique authorial vision challenges us once and for all to stop perceiving autism as a medical diagnosis. Let’s take hold of the surrounding chaos and overload our senses! In such a state one may understand autism as a fascinating way of thinking that’s often maddeningly difficult to decipher.”

Read about all the films on

http://www.kviff.com/en/programme/catalog-of-films/sekce/591-documentary-films-competition