Jørgen Leth: Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere /4

Det er på en måde Henning Camre, som har bestemt scenografien. Det er så beslutsomt med dette tilsyneladende absolut minimale setdesign. Det skal findes på, men én gang etableret kan det ses som en selvfølgelighed, når det der filmes er digte. Se nu her, Thomas Bobergs ord, linjer og tekster fylder det hvide tomme lærred omkring sig med mangefarvede ting, scener og landskaber. Der males helt ud i hjørnerne.

FILMKOMMENTAREN lader således Jørgen Leth igen på en hvid baggrund og intet andet præsentere denne dags digter Thomas Boberg:

http://28danskedigtere.gyldendal.dk/#show/388a5362-a170-4203-bc76-33abe4ef1785

Jørgen Leth: Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere, Danmark, 2015. 28 kortfilm, i alt cirka 280 min., Gyldendal http://28danskedigtere.gyldendal.dk/#

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/96521.aspx?id=96521

 

Jørgen Leth: Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere /3

Der er altid regler, så efter oplæsningen skal digteren besvare spørgsmål, jeg ved endnu ikke om det er to hver gang, men Pia Juul svarer Jørgen Leth på disse, hvorfor skriver du digte og hvad kan få dig til at skrive digte. Til det sidste siger hun: ”… det er det knæk der er i Kaalundsgade og det er der hvor Art Taylor banker på i Giant Steps, det er vinden og vejret.”

Men først oplæsningen, FILMKOMMENTAREN lader Jørgen Leth præsentere denne dags digter Pia Juul:

http://28danskedigtere.gyldendal.dk/#show/c7290e00-a132-4804-8ad6-751e5e5fa957

Jørgen Leth: Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere, Danmark, 2015, ca. 280 min., Gyldendal http://28danskedigtere.gyldendal.dk/#

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/96521.aspx?id=96521

Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami: Sonita /2

DR2 Dokumania viser på tirsdag den iranske film om en ung sanger og rappers kunstneriske udvikling under den danske titel Mor, jeg vil ikke sælges, men refererer i sin pressemeddelelse også denne passus fra The Guardians anmeldelse: “Probably because of the uplifting outcome, Ghaem Maghami chooses to keep the focus on Sonita’s evolution as an artist. The approach works: to witness Sonita’s rise from timid rapper to empowered activist over a three-year span is thrilling.” Filmen er ikke alene en undertrykkelseshistorie, den er i sin kerne tænkt som en kunstnerbiografi.

Tue Steen Müller skrev her på Filmkommentaren for en måned siden, da Sonita var på programmet i Cinemateket konkluderende: ”… What’s more, women aren’t allowed to sing in Iran. How can Sonita still succeed in making her dreams come true? Director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami ends up personally involved in answering that question, reigniting the discussion as to how documentary makers should relate to their subjects. This is just one of the many unexpected twists in an exciting journey replete with the setbacks and successes of a young women looking for her own path. The film’s core consists of Sonita artistically arguing against the disastrous forced marriage practices that obstruct her freedom in an impressive, dramatic rap video.” (Link til hele blogindlægget)

Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami: ”Sonita”, Germany, Switzerland, Iran, 2015, 91 mins, produceret af TAG/Raum Filmproduktion, Gerd Haag, i samarbejde med DR Dokumania, redaktør Mette Hoffmann Meyer. På DR2 DOKUMANIA 17. maj kl. 20.45. Filmen kan efterfølgende ses på DR.tv i 30 dage.

SYNOPSIS

Sonita is an 18-year-old female, an undocumented Afghan illegal immigrant living in the poor suburbs of Tehran. She is a feisty, spirited, young woman who fights to live the way she wants, as an artist, singer, and musician in spite of all her obstacles she confronts in Iran and her conservative patriarchal family. In harsh contrast to her goal is the plan of her family – strongly advanced by her mother – to make her a bride and sell her to a new family. The price right now is about US$ 9.000. (TAG/Raum)

Still: From the CNN site

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/11/world/afghanistan-rapper-sonita-alizadeh/

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/05/sonita-review-afghan-female-rapper-documentary

Jørgen Leth: Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere /2

Filmvisningerne i CINEMATEKET i København med digtoplæsningerne næsten nonstop har ENDNU NOGLE DAGE FREM TIL 17. MAJ. Digtere fra tre generationer læser deres digte, fortæller, hvorfor de digter, og hvad der sætter et digt i gang hos dem.

Det foregår i Bio Benjamin, den lille biografsal bag Restaurant Sult, hvor der også efter 17. maj vises danske film nonstop tirsdag til søndag i tidsrummet kl. 16:15-22 (fredage 17:15-22). Der er ingen pladsreservation; man kan frit komme og gå og forestillingerne er gratis. Til gengæld er visningerne ikke programlagt til bestemte klokkeslæt. Bemærk at biografen lukker kl. 22, også selvom den sidst viste film endnu ikke er slut.

Men Jørgen Leths Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere ruller i sløjfe i Walk-in-Bio fra 27. april til 17. maj.

Imidlertid er det er jo i København, så her på FILMKOMMENTAREN lader vi Jørgen Leth præsentere denne dags digter Peter Laugesen:

http://28danskedigtere.gyldendal.dk/#show/271d0aec-56f4-47e9-94a7-d726b6a01ab9 (streaming af filmen med Peter Laugesen)

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Walk-in-Bio.aspx (om visningerne i Cinemateket)

 

Film Uni Babelsberg Konrad Wolf

It’s nice to teach. I have done so for three days and have the final round today in green and rich Potsdam, at the impressive film school (now Universität) named after Konrad Wolf. Invited by Peter Badel for the second time to come and talk to his camera students, I arrived with a bag full of dvd’s and my MacBook with links to films and websites that the students should know about when they leave the protected area of a film school that has all the facilities one can dream of. Including a big cinema for the teacher to convey to the students my documentary passion and knowledge.

I have never made a film myself so my advantage is very simply that I have seen documentaries for (OMG) more than 40 years, that I have met so many great makers that I have stories to tell accompanying the clips and the words about the market, the pitching sessions, the many after-film school possibilities that are offered.

A must on occasions like this is a promotion for Ricky Leacock’s memoirs, the book that exists in a disc version with clips and full films available by a very gentle click on the title that the master is writing about. ”The Feeling of Being There” is the name of the book and is that not the feeling we viewers appreciate when watching a documentary. And the young students had never heard about the two Frank’s (see photos on top of the site): Herz Frank and Robert Frank (photo). I made a tribute to Polish Wojciech Staron yesterday, clips from ”Siberian Lesson”, ”Argentinian Lesson” and full film ”Brothers” – a cameraman who is also a director.

This morning Daniel Abma has generously agreed to visit to meet the students and talk about/show a new trailer of his ”Transit Havana”.

Vielen Dank Peter Badel, also for letting me have your bike to go to the school.   

http://www.filmuniversitaet.de/en/home.html

6 Types of Documentaries

It’s the never ending story – the discussions around the definition of what is a documentary and which words to use. We still go to literature to characterise, using phrases like ”a film poem”, ”an essay”, ”novelistic” etc. And we sometimes go back to Grierson and Flaherty to introduce the word ”creative” (treatment of actuality), which is what all pitching sessions are calling for: creative documentaries. Anyway, important or not, I met this text on FB yesterday and want to share it with you:

…What is a documentary? Webster’s dictionary defines documentary as “consisting of documents: written down.” After a better Google search, Wikipedia defines a documentary as “a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspects of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record.”

It also opens into the history of documentaries while referencing Bill Nichols classic text Introduction to Documentary, where he outlines the six modes (or “sub-genres” or “types”) of documentaries. While there’s a lot of variation within, these are the six main categories of the genre in which all documentary films can be cast…

Words written by Jourdan Aldredge, link below, with examples of trailers from the films within the mentioned categories.

Photo from the film that at the BFI poll to find the Greatest Documentaries of All Times was on the top: Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, 1929, Mihail Kaufmann fixing a camera to the train.

http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/6-types-of-documentary-film/?platform=hootsuite

Saïd Ramzi: Soldats d’Allah

Filmen med denne undercover skildring sendes i morgen tirsdag 10. maj på DR2 DOKUMANIA 20:45. Nanna Maria Bock Jeppesen skriver om filmen i sin DR2 pressemeddelse: ”Journalisten bag Islamisk Stat i Frankrig – undercover i en terrorcelle” (som Dokumania har valgt som dansk titel, red.) går under pseudonymet Saïd Ramzi og er af samme generation som mændene bag angrebet på Bataclan. Yderligere er han muslim, og han kan med egne ord ”komme ind, hvor ingen andre kan.” I sin dokumentarfilm tager han seerne med ind i hjertet af en Islamisk Stat celle og undersøger, hvad der får hans jævnaldrende til at drømme om jihad og massakrer. ”Mit mål var at forstå, hvad der sker inde i deres hoveder” forklarer Saïd Ramzi til nyhedsbureauet AFP.

Filmen fortæller historien om, hvordan en flok rodløse og frustrerede unge forsøger at tilegne sig hele verdens opmærksomhed og frygt, og den giver et rystende indblik i rekrutteringen og radikaliseringen af unge, der har opgivet et normalt liv i det samfund, de er vokset op i.”

Trailer med dansk tekst findes på politiken.dk (sammen med Michael Seidelins anmeldelse:

http://politiken.dk/udland/ECE3187360/modig-filminstruktoer-infiltrerer-allahs-soldater/

SYNOPSIS

Un document exceptionnel. Des journalistes ont réussi à infiltrer pendant six mois en caméra cachée un petit réseau français se réclamant de Daech. Pour des raisons de sécurité, les reporters préfèrent rester anonymes.

Le réseau infiltré est composé d’une dizaine de membres. Un personnage se détache parmi eux : Ossama, 20 ans. Il a tenté d’intégrer l’armée française (qui n’a pas voulu de lui), est passé par le satanisme, l’alcoolisme, avant de découvrir l’islamisme radical sur internet. Il a déjà tenté de partir en Syrie et a fait de la prison. A sa sortie, il a mis en place une petite cellule, baptisé “Soldats d’Allah”, dont il a été nommé émir. Nous avons pu filmer en longueur les échanges avec lui. On pénètre littéralement dans son cerveau, on comprend ainsi sa détermination à atteindre le martyr. Aller au “paradis” est sa volonté principale, il décrit ce qui l’attend : les femmes, les palais, etc. C’est aussi une tentative de lavage de cerveau des nouveaux membres, qu’il faut convaincre de passer à l’action et de mourir en tuant “un maximum de kouffars” (mécréants).

Les apprentis djihadistes communiquent entre eux, grâce à un réseau social sécurisé : Telegram. Un détenu français dialogue avec eux depuis sa prison. Un autre homme installé à Raqqa, en Syrie, envoie des photos et les encourage. Tout passe par Telegram : des schémas pour préparer des explosifs, piéger des voitures, tuer à coup sûr.

Le groupe change de dimension lorsqu’un un homme venu de Syrie, du territoire de l’Etat Islamique, prend les choses en main. Davantage rompu à la clandestinité, il maintient des relations cloisonnées. Il communique par messages manuscrits, évite internet. Il veut frapper une salle de concert ou un lieu de nuit. Le groupe doit se procurer des armes…

Pour SPECIAL INVESTIGATION, enquête dans la coulisse de cette cellule terroriste. (Canal+)

http://www.canalplus.fr/c-infos-documentaires/pid3357-special-investigation.html?vid=1387445

Andrés di Tella: 327 Cuadernos

Cuadernos means Notebooks or Diaries if I get it right – written by Argentinian writer Ricardo Piglia. Regret to say that I had never heard about him before, even if his long bibliography includes works translated into English, French and German. I will search for books of him in these languages after having seen Andrés di Tella’s fascinating essayistic documentary on and with him. di Tella I know as a true auteur, that’s why I asked him a link to this film. Three years ago I praised his ”Hachazos” on this site.

How to describe the unique style of di Tella? What is it that attracts me so much and draws me totally into the film? The tone first of all, maybe, with its calmness that fits to Piglia (born 1941), his charisma, his voice when he reads from the diaries, but indeed also di Tella’s constant reflection on how to ”film” diaries and his gentle (yes, gentle and not

bombastic) surprising me with archive material, some of it ”found footage” from a collector, some from another writer Amorim, who filmed his colleagues (Borges, Garcia Lorca) to build his own autobiography, and some from (amazing!) the fall of Peron in 1955 and the death of Che Guevara and the return of Peron to Argentina. But on top of that, the theme, daily events written down in this case, some – as says Piglia – ”exist in the diary but not in the memory”, and some in small film clips but not in the memory… And for me also this love to Argentina and Buenos Aires, the city where my father was born in 1921.

The historical frame is clear and linked to the story of Piglia, whose father was a Peronist, was put in jail and moved with family from the suburbs of Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata. ”1955 was a year of Sorrow, 1956 was Prison, 1957 even worse”, words from Piglia, who started to write his diaries when 16 years old in 1957 and have kept on since then. di Tella films him at the moment where he packs down his books to return to Buenos Aires from Princeton University, where he has been teaching (see link below). Piglia reads from the diaries, laughs when he finds – in one of the first notebooks – a list of boxers next to a fictious text, reflects on how much easier it is to convey personal experiences in life when you go from the first person to the third person narrative. The camera rests often on the writer’s face (PHOTO) and his hands later on in the film, when Piglia turns ill and asks the director not to focus the camera on his hands. Very impressive and touching is the story Piglia tells – my life would have been much different if I had stayed in the Buenos Aires suburb like my cousin, whose sad story he gives us listeners and viewers. At some point he does not want to read, di Tella does it for him, their collaboration on this film is obvious, they are both obsessed with memories as they come out in literature and cinema.

What else to be applauded? Yes, the masterly precise placement of music, the dark sequence with the writer in rainy weather that makes me think of ”The Third Man” and Orson Welles, there are other sequences like that, ”film noir”, and then suddenly archive images from a terrorist attack with a beautiful text by the writer and his reflections on how historic moments can influence one’s life. Not to forget the humour!

Looking forward to see this film at European festivals, please!

Argentina, 2016, 81 mins.

http://www.princeton.edu/spo/people/display_person.xml?netid=rpiglia

Michael Madsen Posts/Blogindlæg

There is still time to pick up on the free retrospective of Michael Madsen on DocAlliance, an event that made editor Allan Berg update our posts on the Danish director, quite many actually, from Celestial Night to The Visit, written by Allan Berg in Danish and Tue Steen Müller in English with citations in English from various festival catalogue texts.

Enjoy!

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2299/

Michael Madsen Retrospective For Free

– with this headline on the DocAlliance website: Visual Philosophy of the Unknown. The (unsigned) article on the website is a very fine introduction to an original auteur, who with few films have reached international fame. Here is a full copy-paste:

From mediocrity to alien civilizations, from a theatre theme to 3D technology, from conceptual art to documentary film. Explore the unexpected and original ways of the art world of Danish director Michael Madsen, one of the leading filmmakers of the Nordic cinematic superpower. Watch the director’s film retrospective for free and do not miss your first encounter of the “third kind” via the Czech online premiere of the documentary sci-fi THE VISIT in the week from May 2 to 8!

Trying to find a genre label for Danish director and conceptual artist Michael Madsen is not an easy task. His work crosses the boundaries of art disciplines as easily as its content crosses geographic boundaries while dealing with universal themes related to the lives of each of us as well as the human society as a whole. However, it is not only global themes that help Michael Madsen reach audiences around the world and bring him awards at prestigious film festivals, such as the Doc Alliance festivals CPH:DOX and Visions du Réel. With an eye for exact detail, the director also elaborates the original visual concept of each of his films, contributing to their attractive visual aspect by means of an innovative use of the camera and new technologies.

Besides his cinematic work, which is tirelessly pushing the borders of documentary film, the name of Michael Madsen is also often heard in the context of his audiovisual conceptual work. As a founder and long-term artistic director, he is linked to the Sound/Gallery project, a space underneath the Town Hall Square in Copenhagen which focused on exploring the possibilities of sound installations, and is also a guest lecturer at the Royal Danish Academy of Art, the Danish Film School and the University of California.

A glowing example of the director’s sophisticated ability to render apocalyptic visions through hypnotic and mesmerizing film images can be seen in Madsen’s highly acclaimed film INTO ETERNITY (2010). In the film, the director addresses the theme of ecologic responsibility for the sustainable existence of the planet. He sets out to the world’s largest nuclear waste repository that is accessible only to a chosen few, is under construction in Finland and is to be completed in the 22nd century. By the film’s subtitle A FILM FOR THE FUTURE, the director poses the question of the legacy of our modern society in the form of hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste, addressing both the contemporary and the future generations.

Madsen’s latest film THE VISIT (2015) (photo), too, carries a potential of a critical commentary, making a visually captivating reflection on the state of the contemporary society on the basis of a simulation of an encounter with an alien civilization. While most of the cultural production linked to the notions of a UFO visit teems with little green men and immortal alien agents, the director approaches the theme with utter seriousness, saying: “The real task for The Visit is to discover what such an encounter would really mean. In this respect, the film is not conceived as a scenario of “what if” but rather of “what and when”. The Visit is the dress rehearsal, the emergency plat that the United Nations has voiced concerns about not being in existence.” Sublime visual scenes of the world’s famous cities at the moment of an alien encounter are supplemented by interviews with leading representatives of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and NASA experts explaining how ready (or not) the official institutions of the Earth are for an alien “visit.”

During the event, THE VISIT is available for streaming only in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the form of an online distribution premiere. On Sunday, May 1, 2016, the film is offered to Czech and Slovak viewers for free; from Monday, May 2, it can be viewed for the fee of 1.99 euro.

Besides dealing with timeless themes, Michael Madsen has also introduced the phenomena of everyday life to the film screens. Inspired by the eponymous play To Damascus by Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, the director analyses mental illness in his film TO DAMASCUS – A FILM ON INTERPRETATION (2005). A question that might seem banal at first glance, asking what mediocrity is, has become the key theme of the first Danish documentary ever made by 3D technology AVERAGE OF THE AVERAGE (2011).

Madsen’s online retrospective of renowned films further includes the director’s earliest film CELESTIAL NIGHT: A FILM ON VISIBILITY (2003) and the short comic film STATISTICS OF COPENHAGEN (2008).

Treat yourselves to an online “visit” to the rich art world of Michael Madsen! Enter it for free at DAFilms.com from May 2 to 8.

http://dafilms.com/event/247-michael_madsen_retrospective/