Til lykke med fødselsdagen JØRGEN LETH

… ønsker vi her fra Filmkommentaren. Vi gør det med et af vores yndlingsportrætter af dig, det er godt nok dit, fra  din blog, men vi tilegner os det lige, for det er et af de mest inspirerende, et af dem hvor du er på arbejde. Og så vil vi bare endnu engang henvise til det, vi gennem nogle år har skrevet om dig og dine film, mest om filmene i vores rå opsummering ”Jørgen Leth – Collected Texts on his Works”, som begynder med en lille kursiv …the Danish director, who has been an inspiration for generations of Danish filmmakers. With Lars von Trier as number one as readers will know from the film”The Five Obstructions” og så fortsætter med første post, som er et af mine mange dagbogsnotater på bloggen: “Mid wednes(day) off from Copenhagen with troubled SAS to Amsterdam to attend the 25th idfa (International Documentary Film Festival). On board is also Jørgen Leth on his way to idfa as several times before. This year to be in the main jury with (among others) Michael Glawogger, and to attend his own ”My Name is Jørgen Leth” exhibition that is part of the idfa ”Expanding Documentary” that opens at 7pm tomorrow November 15th at De Brakke Grond here in Amsterdam…” Læs eventuelt videre og så igen tillykke og hav en dejlig aften! Allan og Tue

Michael Ware: Only the Dead

Only the Dead see the End of War (dansk titel: Islamisk Stat-år 0) er en krigsfotografs udviklingshistorie, hans tidlige dannelsesrejse, ikke som roman, ikke som essay, men som næsten privat bekendelse i en række breves form, en række mails’ form måske, I en fortællerstemme jeg ikke tvivler på, heller ikke tvivler på helt konkret er hans egen stemmes lyd.

Netop denne kendsgerning af personlig autenticitet er filmens store kvalitet mere end de sjældne og rystende optagelser som må være unikke i deres art og som ikke bare forsvinder i min erindring blandt meget reportage som overfladisk ligner men etablerer en reel angst i mig: dette er virkeligt.

Og dette er i hvert fald filmens værdi mere end dens forstyrrende klip fra tv-programmer og citater fra IS-videoer, som alle burde være udeladt, bortset fra den ene video Ware fik fra højeste sted via sin IS-kontakt. Havde Michael Ware haft en filmkunstnerisk ambition frem for en journalistisk havde hans værk stået rent med sine to personlige reportageblokke, én fra hans ophold hos IS-grupperne og én fra hans ophold i den amerikanske hærafdeling. Og forskellene og lighederne ville unantastede have angrebet mine fordomme og skabe den tvivl i mig som er filmværkets styrke og mening.

Australien 2016, 77 min. Sendes i aften på DR2 Dokumania 20:45

SYNOPSIS

“You deserve better than tyranny and corruption and torture chambers. You deserve to live as free people. And I assure every citizen of Iraq: your nation will soon be free.” These were the words with which President George W. Bush announced the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. invasion of Iraq intended to rid the country of its dictator Saddam Hussein. The Australian journalist Michael Ware reported on these events for Time magazine…

The initial sense of adventure and excitement gradually gave way to fear and obsession when rebels started resorting to suicide bombings – the freedom that Bush promised never arrived. Instead, the country became embroiled in hopeless conflicts involving ever-greater numbers of rebel groups. The horrors are palpable in this compelling and deeply shocking documentary drawn primarily from Ware’s own footage. In voice-over, he explains how he made contact with insurgents, got permission to attend secret meetings and ultimately appeared on the radar of the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al Zarqawi, who would later become the second most wanted man on the planet, sent Ware videos of kidnappings and beheadings. Ware had thus become the messenger for Al Zarqawi’s holy war, and this fact threw him into a deep personal crisis. (IDFA, Industry)

Folkebio 2016

Det danske Filminstitut præsenterer under FOLKEMØDET på Bornholm, stolt som det hedder og her er der virkelig grund til det, sammen med Politiken et meget fornemt program i FOLKEBIO i Allinge. Torsdag, fredag og lørdag 16. – 18. juni. I alt 10 film vises og diskuteres, tales sammen om eller forsynes med Q&A. 5 af dem har vi skrevet om her på Filmkommentaren, dem vil vi som en hilsen og ønske om gode visninger til Folkebio så lige fremhæve her:

TORSDAG

15:00 Fredrik Gertten og Magnus Gertten: Den unge Zlatan, SE 2015, 100 min.

 

… For a football fanatic the film is gold. You see where he comes from, you have interviews with him, you get a sense of (with Ajax manager Leo Beenhakker’s words) his conflicted nature, you see him being aggressive and violent in matches, you see him score goals and get booed by the audience when he does not, it’s all so very well composed going back and forth in time, there is a kind of melancholic tone in the film that is also about a young player on the top, who is a very private person at the same time as he through growing up learns how to behave, or does he? Læs mere 

17:30 Sine Skibsholt: Dem vi var, DK 2016, 90 min.

… Dem vi var er som socialrealistisk skildring i min læsning mere end en særlig fortælling om en hjerneskades indvirkning på et kærlighedsforhold. 

Den er som en første begyndelse til en meget nutidig filmisk undersøgelse af ægteskabets, samlivets, , samlivets, forelskelsens, erotikkens, altså kærlighedens almindelige forvandlingsformer i moderne tid. Sådan tager jeg den i hvert fald til mig, og det gør ondt at se den film… Læs hele anmeldelsen 

20:00 Tom Hooper: Den danske pige, US, UK, BE 2015, 119 min.

FREDAG

11:30 Christian Sønderby Jepsen: Naturens uorden, DK 2015, 97 min.

… Åbningsbilledet er præcist og smukt. Jacob Nossell står rygvendt til kameraet på den tomme scene i Det Kongelige Teater og kigger ud i den oplyste, tomme teatersal hvor han og jeg hører det publikum som han filmen igennem vil arbejde på at blive i stand til at møde. Han og jeg hører publikum klappe. Hans første replik lyder: ”Hej! Mit navn er Jacob. Når folk møder mig for første gang, så får de en instinktiv impuls til enten at flygte fra mig eller også slå mig ihjel. Så vi skal nok få en rigtig hyggelig aften i aften.” Musikken sætter ind, det er filmmusik til en stor film. Ingen tvivl om det, jeg er tryg… Læs mere

14:30 Mads Ellesøe: Børnesoldatens nye job, DK 2016, 68 min.

… Ellesøe og klipperne Bodil Kjærhauge og Steen Johannesen bygger i en neddæmpet, nøgtern, alvorlig stil deres konstruktion på fire elementer: interviews, erindringsstof i korte fortællinger, nye reportageoptagelser, og et omfattende arkivstof, især fra tv. Altså som man ofte eller oftest gør i sådanne journalistiske fremlæggelser beregnet for tv, men vel at mærke her med en story-line, som ikke bygger på en opklaringens spænding, men mere på en journalistisk undersøgelses vidnesbyrd på vidnesbyrd: interviews med en række nøglepersoner, tidligere medarbejdere i de undersøgte private defence services (de private hære), efterretningsfolk og undersøgende journalister, interviews med både aktive og tidligere soldater, som begyndte som helt små drenge. Læs mere 

16:30 Christian Holten Bonke: Ejersbo, DK 2015, 75 min.

… En særlig vægt og aura har interviewet med forlagsredaktøren Johannes Riis, optagelser som bliver en beretning helt for sig selv, en indlevet rapport om selve det litterære arbejde og kun det. Et element som distanceret faglig og indlevet digterisk findes centralt i filmens konstruktion, og det peger da også direkte mod filmens kerne: det store berømte romanværk og der særligt Afrika trilogien. Riis’ redegørelse er i sammenhængen et umisteligt element, det forekommer i og for sig alene en film, en tv-dokumentar værd. Læs hele anmeldelsen

19:00 Tobias Lindholm: Krigen, DK 2015, 115 min.

LØRDAG

11:30 Phie Ambo: Songs from the Soil, DK 2015, 38 min.

13:30 Jacob Gottschau: Facebookistan, DK 2015, 59 min.

15:30 Andreas Johnsen: Bugs, DK 2016, 73 min.

UDFØRLIGT PROGRAM:

http://www.dfi.dk/Nyheder/FILMupdate/2016/Juni/FolkeBio-2016.aspx

Nenad Puhovski: Generation 68

I have known Nenad Puhovski for almost 20 years. His contribution to the development of Croatian documentary is enormous as a teacher, producer, director and ZagrebDox festival initiator and director. He was on the board of EDN (European Documentary Network), when I was director the same place and I have had the pleasure of helping him as a juror at his festival, have made a retrospective the same place and pushed forward the industry part of the festival. So now you know the connection between film director and reviewer.

That he – who has (almost) the same age as me, who has semi-retired if that is an English word – also has had the energy to make this film about ”our” generation: Bravo! And as he wrote to me, when he sent the link for ”Generation 68”, the film is touring the ex-Yugoslav region to festivals and receives a lot of positive feedback. Of course, it is a documentation of high quality.

… as it is a well researched – as he presents it himself – ”homage to the generation with which the author share the idea of a revolution that will change the world…”. And a clever one in the way questions are raised concerning the magic year 1968; what was it, what happened, what is important today, is it at all important what the students at that time believed in, are there values that have survived – or, as it is being formulated, ”are we not just fighting for a better past”.

Nenad seeks answer through visiting a lot of friends, important personalities in the student movement; they remember, they give answers to his questions, archive material is being used, he went to Paris at that time, protested against the Vietnam war, as well as against the Soviet invasion of Czekoslovakia, there were summer camps with Marcuse present and so on so forth.

The danger with a method like this is of course that interview follows interview, that the film gets extremely wordy and Nenad does not avoid to put me as a viewer into being bored at many points because those being interviewed, who I don’t know in beforehand, are not all interesting to look at and to listen to. But they were part of it, so they have to be in, the argument seems to have been. Slobodan ”Bobo” Drakulic, sociologist, is one of the clear exceptions, I could have listened much more to him and his personal story, I sense that Nenad was close to him, when he goes to the place in Toronto, where he lived and makes him become alive in a beautiful archive sequence, where he takes off his glasses.

Yes, I would have loved more cinematic pearls like this, to have become more emotionally involved, to have more Nenad and less others being interviewed but I understand that this was not the intention, Nenad has wanted to do an homage to a generation that did something valuable that for most of the people in the film have had no impact at all. And for the children of Nenad, two grown-up women, the so-called values of 68, space to talk, tolerance etc. have not been practised by their father and mother in their upbringing. It’s a great scene, Nenad being spanked – with love and humour.

And yet, the Occupy Movement… the images of police knocking down demonstrators in streets all over, is it not the same revolutionary actions taking place as almost 50 years ago, the director asks, in a film that in between finds its tone of reflection, of melancholy… Back to Bobo who expresses his sadness to have seen the Eastern European countries get their freedom… to be able to work 16 hours a day to reach what…

Croatia, 2016, 86 mins.

Torben Skjødt Jensen: La Merda

I aftes begyndte DR-K sin teaterfestival op til Reumertfesten på søndag og Torben Skjødt Jensen har over de kommende fire aftener fire teaterforestillings-produktioner at byde fra sit værksted. ”Det begyndte i aftes med en ægte TV-premiere, Danica Curcic for fuld udblæsning i Cristian Ceresolis fremragende monolog La Merda som i Simon K. Bobergs danske iscenesættelse og oversættelse er blevet til Lort. Danicas kvindekarakter er ung, vred, nøgen og ordene vælter som en syndflod ud af munden på hende. Vekslende mellem det følsomme og det rasende afslører hun sine inderste hemmeligheder fra et liv med fornedrelse og desperation…” skrev Skjødt Jensen i går på sin FaceBookside og lovede mig ”med fuld garanti en stærk oplevelse.” Og Curcic og han og fotograferne holdt sandelig løftet. Det er et vidunderligt tv-værk! Som det var en vidunderlig teaterforestilling som overføres til tv fra Husets Teater, en mindefyldt opførelsse jeg for nogen tid siden så på Nordkraft i Aalborg.

Så herligt dobbelt er La Merda i Torben Skjødt Jensens hænder en dokumentarfilm om en skuespiller på arbejde, hvor hun fremstiller et menneske som gerne vil være skuespiller, den er en skildring af skuespillets drivkraft, baggrund, og talent. Altså endnu en film om scenekunstens væsen, men den er alligevel uundværlig som den nu eksisterer som et værk med overvældende mange nye nuancer, hele serier af pludselige og uvante forståelser.

Filminstruktøren / klipperen Skjødt Jensen og fotograferne skildrer skuespilleren Danica Curcics og i det også teaterinstruktøren Simon K. Bobergs professionelle arbejde med at fortolke og opføre Cristian Ceresolis monolog og forstå og fremstille dens eneste ene person / karakter. Og både hver for sig og tilsammen er det netop sådan en vidunderlige præstation som vi her på Filmkommentaren sammenfatter ved højtideligt at tildele seks af seks spidse penne.

Det lyder skematisk det her, jeg kan godt høre og se det, men det har kun med min firkantethed at gøre, filmen / tvkunstværket her er langt fra skemaet, eller rettere, værket skjuler sin orden i en blomstrende rigdom af sindrige lag og gribende enkeltøjeblikke, ja af hele suiter af forunderlige oplevelser og store epifanier.

SYNOPSIS

The stage is empty, except for the oversized stool and the naked woman (Silvia Gallerano) who sits under harsh spotlights. There is nowhere to look but her, nothing to hear but her. And this woman demands to be watched. She demands to be listened to. She demands you pay attention: because she is going to be a star.

Written by Cristian Ceresoli, La Merda is a true steam of consciousness and Gallerano tears right through it. She shouts out in self-important rage, then softly whispers asides. She barrels through words and phrases, relentlessly driving forward in unstoppable energy, each of the three acts of this one-hour show. It builds in intensity until Gallerano is screaming into the microphone, our ear drums about to burst and then, suddenly: blackout and silence.

This woman is at once repulsive and sympathetic. She creates crass impersonations, she tells us how she manipulates people to get what she wants, how she is obsessed with fame above all else. She also details how, as a teenager, she was sexually assaulted and as an adult she was raped.

She is irreparably obsessed with her body, so disgusted by her thighs that she used to visited a woman who slathered them with yellow cream and electrodes for 40 minutes a week. Her beloved father committed suicide when she was 13, and she still obsesses over the incident.

As self-loathing as she is self-loving, constantly conflicted, trying to laugh away her pain. Unapologetically, she takes up space, angry at her life and at the politics of Italy, knowing she is destined for something bigger.

Gallerano sits naked, shamelessly demanding to be seen. But the focus is always on her face: often ferocious, frequently violent, sometimes contorting in laughter, but always utterly compelling. (Jane Howard, The Guardian) (NB Galleranos part is in the Danish theatre played by Danica Curcic, the still)

Still: Frame-grab fra klippebordet

https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/teaterfestival/teaterfestival-lort (DR streaming nogle dage)

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=717078205&fref=ts (Torben Skjødt Jensens side)

 

 

 

DocAlliance…

We have on this site for years announced the free offers from ”your online documentary cinema”, DocAlliance, the best vod you can find in Europe with a focus on Central and Eastern European documentaries but not only, there is also Jørgen Leth and Nicolas Philibert and many, many others for those of us who want to follow trends in modern documentary.

But… why wait for the free offers when you can have a subscription for a ridiculous low price, read this from the last newsletter from DocAlliance:

“Did you know that our catalogue includes more than 1,400 films, 20 retrospectives of famous directors, and 10 masterclasses by the world’s most noted documentary filmmakers? Enjoy your online documentary cinema at any time. Get an unlimited monthly subscription for 3.99 Euro, or subscribe for only 35 Euro for the entire year!”

Photo: Miroslav Janek, many of his films are to be found on DocAlliance.

www.dafilms.com

Why I Love Polish Documentaries

It all started on the island of Bornholm. From 1990 and for ten years we Danes arranged a film festival on this wonderful place in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The name was Balticum Film & TV Festival and the films came from the countries around this Sea, including Poland. During a decade this post-USSR festival became a meeting place for creative documentarians to show films and discuss.

Here I saw ”Hear My Cry” (1991) and ”State of Weightlessness” (1994) by Maciej Drygas and ”89mm from Europe” (1993) ”Anything Can Happen” (1995) by Marcel Lozinski. Just to mention some of the Polish masterpieces which were screened at the old cinema in Gudhjem. It was also here I met the producer Wojtek Szczudlo from Kalejdoskop Film Studio, who became a dear friend, who later joined several workshops that I was in charge of. RIP, dear Wojtek.

After Bornholm I was for years part of the Ex Oriente workshop arranged by the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) in Prague and met talents like Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosolowski with their “Rabbit à la Berlin”, a fantastic work that their powerhouse of a producer Anna Wydra managed to bring for an Oscar nomination!

In 2005 I was in the jury of Krakow Film Festival. I was chairing the international jury: 3 out five awards was given to Polish filmmakers – Wojciech Staron’s “The Argentinian Lesson”, Pawel Kloc’s “Phnom Penh Lullaby” with a mention to “Doctors” by Tomasz Wolski.

Why are Polish documentaries so good? Could it be because Polish filmmakers always have an aesthetic choice before shooting starts. They think about form before content, they think about the style of storytelling that could fit this or that theme. They think in images that can carry emotion and information without words. Many directors have developed their film language in short films, like Piotr Stasik with his “7 x Moscow” (2005, 18 mins.), Thierry Paladino with “At the Datcha” (2006, 26mins.) and “Suburban Train” by Maciej Cuske (2005, 18 mins.). Not to forget short doc master Pawel Lozinski. There is a tradition for shorts in Poland contrary to where I come from. We used to have one…

I am sure that the existence of the Wajda School plays and has played an important role for the development of the Polish documentary. It is indeed impressive what has come out of this school that I have had the chance to visit a couple of times. What else to mention than ”Joanna” (2013) by Aneta Kopacz, beautiful as a film and as a hymn to Life and Love!

Three more female directors who has impressed me deeply: Wiktoria Szymanska whose ”The Man Who Made Angels Fly” (2013) with the puppeteer Michael Meschke is magic, Marta Prus meeting with her protagonist in ”Talk To Me” (2015) and Karolina Bielawska’s ”Call me Marianna” (PHOTO). For that no presentation needed, awarded all over the world, last ti me at DocsBarcelona the director got the New Talent Award.

www.krakowfilmfestival.com

Lozinski

If any name is connected to Polish documentary this is the one: Lozinski. Marcel and Pawel. Father and son.

Let me start with the father, who is a bit older than me but we are from the same generation. We have met here, there and everywhere in the last decades, on Bornholm at the Balticum Film & TV Festival, at festivals, at the Wajda School. Our conversations have been in French, easier for him than for me.

When I was asked by the film magazine Sight & Sound to nominate ”My Greatest Docs Ever”, 10 titles should be there, ”Anything Can Happen” was an obvious choice. I wrote this short motivation:

““Anything Can Happen”… is a… playful and clever interpretation of what Life and Death, Joy and Sorrow is – the director’s charming son runs around in a park, where he meets old people and asks them all kind of questions in the direct way that we grown-ups would never dare. The result is touching and great fun at the same time.”

The filmography of Marcel Lozinski is impressive, but let me stop at one that proves him a master in finding the adequate style for a difficult, this time personal subject.

I refer to ”Tonia and Her Children” (Vera and Marcel), that is all held in a very controlled style with close-ups of the three, with faces expressing emotions to what is being read and talked about. … a painful journey in memories for the two, who also have had a complicated relationship as grown-ups…

Pawel Lozinski, a master as well, I met him on Bornholm, where his “Birthday” (“Miejsce urodzenia”) (1992) deservedly took the first prize in that year’s competition. Many say that the film about the holocaust survivor Grynberg is quite as important as Lanzmann’s “Shoah”. I agree.

Pawel is extremely precise in his storytelling. His “Chemo” from 2009 is a unique example of how to deal with a sensitive theme with no sentimentality. Through close-up observations and dialogues between patients, and between patient and relatives, he conveys a beautiful hymn to life. Framed as Life as a Theatre with superb cinematography.

His filmography is impressive and also includes shorts like the lovely “Sisters”, which lasts 12 intense minutes with two, who love each other to the extent, that one of them thinks she is responsible for the other demanding her walking around in their courtyard. Hilarious!

A couple of years ago Pawel as producer suggested to his father Marcel that they should make a film together. Pawel wrote a fine synopsis, here is a small quote: “My father and I get into an old camper and head for Paris where, 23 years ago, he dispersed his mother’s ashes in the Luxembourg Garden. Our trip will take two weeks…”. They went on the trip, they came home and as you know, surprisingly, two films came out of it. Both ”Father and Son” films have been awarded, in Krakow with the Silver Horn in 2013. Great filmmakers, a privilege to know them and their works.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/1599/ (Tonia and her Children, review)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2022/ (Marcel Lozinskis works, an introduction)

Krakow FF: New York, New York

Oh New York, this urban jungle full of tales and stories. Of people who long for a good life. Or just for a life. Rich and poor, all ages, all colours. All languages. Michael Glawogger (RIP) was there to make his masterpiece ”Megacities”. He allowed Timon Novotny to remake the film with his band, Sofasurfers. There are in these films unforgettable images from New York, filmed by the superb cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler. Unforgettable portraits of outsiders, who fight to survive. Danish director Jakob Thuesen made his best documentary ”Under New York” in the subway 20 years ago with homeless people. Stories which move you. Another Danish director Pernille Grønkjær, famous for her ”The Monastery” was there a few years ago to catch people with a ”Love Addiction”. And British Gary Tarn, who looked at the Big Apple with the eyes of a blinded man in almost psychedelic ”Black Sun”. And many, many others to remember in documentaries and in fiction… Martin Scorcese, just to mention the most prominent.

And now Piotr Stasik comes with his 71 minutes long 21 x New York, the opening film of the Krakow Film Festival. For me an international breakthrough for him with a feature documentary, that places him in the first division of European documentary directors.

I was sceptic, I had to admit. There are, as mentioned, loads of films on New York, this city that we urban cowboys love to go to – to feel the pulse of Life when it is high, to see, to go by underground, to look at people first of all. Yes, at ”all the lonely people where do they all belong” as the Four Fab sang. In New York you can find them, for sure.

What is it that makes Stasik’s film so attractive… Everything actually. It is a musical composition with a superb score, with use of music of very different nature, with a sound design that includes all that comes from the subway trains with an editing and a rythm, that is carried by the director’s fascination and ability to bring the film to a level of reflection on human existence. ”Time is Up”, one cries, Big Bang Two will arrive at a place on this earth of ours, where there is a constant longing for Love. In the film we meet characters, who have failed in creating relationships, who have dates, that work and do not work, who think they have found Love and then is was ”only” sex. With shots from inside the tube as the backbone of the way the film is built, but also with scenes that make you smile like the wonderful scene (he is wonderful) with the 13 year old boy in conversation with a grown-up man, who tells him that ”Men Follow the Penis”. A conversation on a bench in a park – a reference to Lozinski’s ”Anything Can Happen”? More subtle is the Japanese (or is he Chinese?) young man, who walk around and observe, with his thoughts on our existence as a voice-off. It is mesmerising!

Stasik, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!

David Sington: The Fear of 13

Filmen har den danske titel Manden der ville henrettes, den var med på CPH:DOX, det er godt, at DR2 Dokumania tager den op igen. Det sker i morgen aften tirsdag 7. juni 20:45. Det er en god disposition, fordi David Sington er en vigtig instruktør, han har lavet mere end 30 dokumentarer for BBC, og det er en god disposition, fordi det er en vigtig film, en konsekvent egensindig konstruktion, som fik et stort publikum på den københavnske festival til at give den prisen, men som fik The Guardian’s meget erfarne Peter Bradshaw til at afvise dens radikale fortællegreb:

“… Director David Sington effectively turns the film over to Yarris (hovedpersonen), who is allowed to narrate the documentary on-camera and control its pace, tone and content. For me, he feels like a ham actor auditioning for the role of himself in a movie version: he delivers what sounds like an overwritten, over-rehearsed monologue in a breathy-mellifluous voice. His story is important, yet the style is mannered. I wondered if it might have been better as an interview, with Sington interrupting him, questioning him, getting more perspective on his (important) story.”

Independent’s Geoffrey Macnab blev lige modsat begejstret over grebet: “…What is fascinating about Sington’s invigorating documentary is that the inmate Nick Yarris recounts his story in his own words. He is formidably articulate, an autodidact who knows how to emphasise all the urgency, suspense, drama and macabre humour in the events that led him to be condemned to die. His account is complemented by reconstructions similar to those found in Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line. This is virtuoso film-making only partially let down by its artifice.”

Jeg må bestemt se det filmværk i morgen aften, se modet til at konstruere uden om enhver konvention om filmfortælling. Se filmen som er gestand for en diskussion på højt niveau af en kunstnerisk problemstilling.

SYNOPSIS

After more than 20 years on death row, a convicted murderer petitions the court asking to be executed. But as he tells his story, it gradually becomes clear that nothing is quite what it seems. This film is a stylistically daring experiment in storytelling, in effect a one-man play constructed from a four-day interview. In a monologue that is part confessional and part performance, Nick, the sole protagonist, tells a tale with all the twists and turns of classic crime drama. But as the story unfolds it reveals itself as something much deeper, an emotionally powerful meditation on the redemptive power of love and literature. A final shocking twist casts everything in a new light. (BBC Storyville)

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/12/the-fear-of-13-review-nick-yarris-death-row-inmate

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-fear-of-13-film-review-suspense-drama-and-macabre-humour-from-death-row-inmate-nick-yarris-a6732641.html