Dokufest Prizren/ 2/ LoveTrue/ Weiner

… and ”I Don’t Want to Sleep with You I Just Want to Make You Hard”, long title, short film, 29 minutes, Japanese, directed by Momoko Seto, French produced, a sweet visit to a Kyabakura, a hostess club, where men pay to come to drink, laugh and play innocent games with young beautiful women with a limit to how far the rendez-vous can go. No sex in other words. Entertaining.

That was the first film I saw yesterday in the DokuKino in Prizren at noon, at a well attended screening, where the second film of the show was one I expected a lot from, the documentary winner of the festival in Karlovy Vary, ”Lovetrue” by Alma Har’et, whose ”Bombay Beach” was impressive – I was not let down. ”Lovetrue” is an amazingly fascinating essay about love told through three very different stories that are woven together in a complicated structure, where you are constantly surprised by the visual phantasy to combine the protagonist’s past and present, as well as the interpretation of their dreams. It’s quite a bombardment, a film you want to see again. On the photo you see the young and old stripper, whose lives you get close to – to say the least.

And then American ”Weiner” by Josh Kriegmann and Elyse

Steinberg, a well made observational documentary about the rise and fall of Anthony Weiner, the congressman whose campaign to become mayor of New York the filmmakers follow. It is one of these full-access films you seldom see made today, where politicians are protected by campaign staff and spindoctors. But Weiner has invited them to get close to follow his dramatic fall from the top, when his ”sexting” addiction is revealed again and again. Jewish Weiner’s Arabic wife Huma is constantly in the picture, it is quite emotional to follow her reactions to the husband’s ”mistakes”. He is trying hard to have her stand beside him, she lives up to that, at the end she stays at home when he is going to vote. You see him transporting his son in a stroller to the voting place… ”a father and his son”, this is America as is the description of the media, who do not want to hear Weiner talk politics. They even try to set up a confrontation between him and one of the women, with whom he – according to her – had phone sex with, up to five times per day… Observational, yes, but Weiner is interviewed after the fall from the sky, and he is actually sympathetic to watch and listen to.

And then the film about the terror regime in Chad, ”Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy” that I am not going to write about now as it is in the competition, where I am a juror.

Ready for a new day, it is raining down here, where the sport interested Kosovo people can be happy that the Republic’s first Olympic medal was won yesterday, one of Gold: The judo athlete Majilinda Kelmindi. Congratulations!

www.dokufest.com

Dokufest Prizren/ 1

Direct flight from Copenhagen, pretty much turbulence for my taste – don’t worry, it’s not dangerous, the SAS captain said – and arrival to Pristina, Kosova to be picked up and driven to Prizren. Three Danes, Andreas Johnsen, who is here to show his ”Bugs” and Rasmus Nielsen who has made 18 mins. long ”Kwassa Kwassa” together with Vietnamese Tuan Andrew Nguyen. And me to be in a Human Rights Jury with Turkish Mustafa Kerem Yüksel and American James Longley. Jury works starts today with ”Hissein Habré, a Chadian Tragedy” (photo) by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, who is from Chad. I have never heard about it before, here is the catalogue description:

”In 2013, former Chadian dictator Hissein Habré’s arrest in Senegal marked the end of a long combat for the survivors of his regime. Accompanied by the Chairman of the Association of the Victims of the Hissein Habré Regime, Mahamat Saleh Haroun goes to meet those who survived this tragedy and who still bear the scars of the horror in their flesh and in their souls. Through their courage and determination, the victims accomplish an unprecedented feat in the history of Africa: that of bringing a Head of State to trial.”

9 films to watch, have seen some of them before so I will have lots of chances to watch other of the 238 (!) films that are to be shown in the many cinemas that host the festival.

Back to yesterday – direct into a reception, hugging the festival directors, Veton Nurkollari and Eroll Bilibani as well as old friend Nenad Puhovski, whose ”Generation 68” was shown earlier that day, full house. Great hospitality, the moment you come there is a young law student, who says hello, ”I am your jury assistant”

http://dokufest.com/

Welcome to the 15th edition of DokuFest!

The time of year has come to bid you welcome to the fifteenth edition of the festival, to this jubilee edition that we so tirelessly and passionately worked on in order to bring you all a rich and varied program, details of which you’ll find in the pages that follow. Passion was what actually brought us from a small, three-day, one-venue event to this 10-day full-blown celebration of cinema and music, of arts and culture. All of this happens in a small corner of the world, in a country still shaken from its turbulent past, one continuing to struggle with endemic corruption that is threatening the very future of its citizens.

So no wonder Corruption is the main theme of the festival this year and will be highlighted in many different forms and across many festival sections: a specially curated film program entitled Power, Corruption and Lies; debates and panel discussions; children’s plays, and many other events will address this worldwide, cancer-like phenomenon. Once again our dear friend and Bafta-winning filmmaker Daniel Mulloy has created another striking visual campaign to match the theme of the festival.

As we were putting the finishing touches on our most ambitious program to date, news of yet another deadly shooting and terrorist attack is occupying our news feeds, making fear, seemingly, the only constant of this world. Therefore it is not surprising that several films from this year’s selection reflect upon this.

We’ll be showing films about mass shootings and the rapidly-

growing police militarisation in the US; wars and its atrocities in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world; films about people desperately trying to flee to Europe; and, films about that same Europe, confused and in disbelief as to how to cope with it all. We will also be showing a film about Al-Qaeda suicide bombers in Syria as they’re trying to blow themselves and others up, as we’ll show films about corrupt politicians and crazed dictators.

The fact that documentary filmmakers were there to film all these stories and to bring them back to us is yet another testament to one of the most difficult, dangerous, and noblest professions out there, added reason for us to continue championing and celebrating these films at our festival.

Across six competition categories, you’ll find many films that are dear to our hearts and which we are proudly sharing with you. Our collection of directors includes renowned filmmakers, as well as fresh exciting talents that we’re keen to follow and whose work we’re so eager to share.

We are continuing to bring the fruits of our training programs to you in the form of five films produced under our own Future is Here banner. There are six more made with our regional partners Pravo Ljudski and MakeDox festivals under the banner of Active Creative Documentary School. And there are another half dozen made in collaboration with our partners from France, Pistes Solidaires Méditerranée. One can feel nothing but pride about all this, as most of the films were shot in Prizren and elsewhere in Kosovo, somehow echoing my words from last year’s welcome note about putting Prizren on the map of cities where films are not only being screened, but also made.

We are happy beyond words to welcome back to DokuFest acclaimed Irish photojournalist, filmmaker, and dear friend, Seamus Murphy, whose work will be presented across the festival in the form of the main photo exhibition at DokuPhoto, which features his collaboration with British musician and artist PJ Harvey. There will also be a special event screening of his films and music videos, providing a truly great come back after the visit he and Harvey made to the festival five years ago.

We’re thrilled to welcome our partner festivals from North South Documentary Network with a selection from each of them, thus offering a window through which to glimpse films coming from Mexico, Ecuador, and the US.

The festival will pay tribute to two great masters of cinema, both of whom passed away recently. Chantal Akerman and Abbas Kiarostami as we feature special screenings of some of their films. A restored version of Jean Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels will be shown along with No Home Movie, Akerman’s final film. An interview with Chantal Akerman, filmed during her visit to Kosovo in November of 2014 by Bosnian artist and filmmaker Ibro Hasanovic, will also be shown. To remember the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who passed away less than a month ago, we will screen two of his landmark films, Taste of Cherry and Close Up.

We invite you all to experience these and many other offerings from this year’s program and hope that while doing so you’ll be rewarded as much as we were while preparing it.

Our heartfelt gratitude goes to all the extraordinary people that have made this beautiful journey and this dream of ours possible: our partners, generous sponsors, our wonderful volunteers, and the filmmakers who shared their films with us. But the biggest thanks we give to all of you, our beautiful and faithful audiences.

I wish you a great festival!

Veton Nurkollari

Artistic Director

Zhao Liang: Behemoth/ 2

The opening film tonight at the Dokufest festival in Prizren, Kosova is a several times awarded Chinese film that colleague Allan Berg, in Danish, praised at its CPH:DOX screening last year in November. I will not be in Prizren before tomorrow night, wish everyone a fine opening ceremony. Here is the DOKUFEST description of the film:

“Hailed as simultaneously intoxicating and terrifying glimpse at the ravages wrought upon Inner Mongolia by its coal and iron industries and elegantly blurring lines between video art and documentary, Behemoth is a stunning look at contemporary China by one of its most acclaimed filmmaker Zhao Liang, who draws inspiration from Dante’s The Divine Comedy to bring the vision of a journey across Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in startlingly modern way.”

And here is the link to Berg’s review:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3356/

Siebert, Wagner & Abou Bakar Sibidé: Les Sauteurs

I had been here on Mount Gurugu for fifteen months, when the two came and asked me if we could make a film, says the protagonist and filmmaker behind the camera, Abou from Mali, who like a thousand other Africans on this spot dream about coming to Europe. From where they are, in Morocco with a view from the mountain to Melilla, the Spanish city on the coast of North Africa.

But fences need to be crossed. They try and try and try again, some get over, others do not, some return to the camps on the mountain, a community that is organised, has its own rules, some return to their native country, and some die from injuries, when they get into fights with the police.

Abou is the one telling the story. His voice-off is full of reflection

and information, and communicates how he sees the world differently through the lens: ”I feel I exist when I film”. Abou will make a great film, one of the filmed ”brothers” say. And he was right, it is a great piece of work because it is able to create this atmosphere of waiting endlessly for the right moment to come for the jump.

It might sound like a very depressing documentary and indeed it’s not fun to experience what these young men go through. But they survive on the mountain, they dream about white women washing them so they get pale, they have a football match, Mali against Ivory Coast, they sing, they rap about their life situation and they discuss – in a very tough scene – what to do with a man, who has betrayed them by telling the Moroccan police about their escape plans. Embarrassing to watch that scene!

In between the shaky camerawork of Abou comes the anonymous images from the surveillance camera that shows us human beings like small insects on looong rows approaching the fences, or human beings climbing up, falling down or going down when they see the police waiting. Scary! And a scoop for the film to be able to make this contrast, yes Big Brother is watching you, go back to where you come from. You have no right to come to Europe. ”Yes, I have”, Abou has said earlier in the film, ”you Europeans have exploited us, giving us a poor life, now we want a decent life”. Words to that effect. I am glad this film has been made.

Denmark, 82 mins., 2016

English title: Those Who Jump.

http://www.finalcutforreal.dk/les-sauteurs

Film History at Doclisboa

The Lisbon documentary festival that takes place October 20-30 announces two retrospectives of important film historical interest.

One is mentioned as a full retrospective of the works of Peter Watkins… ”Peter Watkins is the subject of a full retrospective. Active between 1950’s and 1990’s, Watkins won 1966 Academy Award for Documentary Feature with “The War Game”. Being one of the pioneers of docudrama and fake documentary, Watkins (photo) is a leading figure in political and resistance film. His work questions and criticises the media role in urgent issues such as nuclear warfare or the establishment, both by dissecting and re-enacting historical episodes in an openly revisionist approach. His criticism towards audiovisual media as an instrument of power is central to Watkins’s work. The retrospective is a partnership between Doclisboa and Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema.”

The other is a thematic retrospective set up by Michael Chanan with the title “For an Impossible Cinema: documentary and avant-garde in Cuba”. The press release presentation text goes like this:…” consisting of the Cuban documentary movement around the Revolution, an Avant-garde episode in Latin America usually ignored. With the radical change brought about by the triumph of the Revolution and as political and aesthetic opposition to Hollywood, a new cinema is born, in which documentary figured centrally. Together with the impulse to show a new reality and rethink the public function of the image, documentary in Cuba merges the factual record with the aesthetics of shock, producing a unique visual manifesto. Santiago Álvarez, founder of Cuban Film Institute “Latin American Newsreel”, is one of the leading figures. His “nervous montage” technique and his using “found materials” is considered a precursor to the modern video clip. Júlio Garcia Espinosa, who recently passed away, is another leading figure in Cuban film. Espinosa also wrote “For an Imperfect Cinema”, a reflection on revolutionary film. The retrospective is a collaboration with Reina Sofia Museum, from Madrid.

http://doclisboa.org/2016/en/noticias/2063/

Ezra Edelman: “O.J.: Made in America” /4

Dette billede er cinematografisk det vigtigste, det helt centrale i 4. afsnit, hvor dobbeltmordet skildres, hvor anklagerholdet og forsvarerholdet krydsforhører vidner og argumenterer mod hinanden. Dette billede af anklagede O. J. Simpson i retten lyttende (en enkelt gang handlende da han prøver handskerne), lyttende og afmålt reagerende, men vist uden at have en eneste replik. Det er nemlig noget helt andet Edelman vil med sine utallige indklip af denne indstilling, denne ene indstilling med lige så utallige variationer i det overmåde store arkivmateriale, variationer i hovedpersonens repertoire i fuldt kontrollerede ansigtsudtryk. I klipningen afprøves med den kameraindstilling en enkelt bemærkning af statsadvokaten, nu år efter som vidne i filmen her: Simpson kan på et splitsekund (og hun knipser i luften med to fingre) skifte ansigt fra én følelsens yderposition til en anden. Uventet. Nu råder klipperen så over disse utallige kombinationsmuligheder med et ligeledes, må det være, meget stort antal udsagn fra advokater og vidner og lydbånd og dertil fremlagt bevismateriale og fotografier med et rystende indhold. I dette klippebordets variationsværk fører Ezra Edelman sideløbende med sin samfundsskildring af det vestlige USA dette årti, skildringen af sin hovedperson så underfundig kryptisk videre, at i hvert fald jeg alene for dette klippearbejde må se ikke blot serien færdig, men inden da 4. afsnit igen…

Det sidste afsnit sendes på DR2 Dokumania næste tirsdag 9. august 20:55. De sendte afsnit kan ses på

https://www.dr.dk/tv/programmer/genre/dokumentar

Ezra Edelman: “O.J.: Made in America” /3

Jeg var skeptisk ved afsnit 1 skrev kollega Tue Steen Müller, det mærkede han, da vi så den sammen. En læser af vores Facebookside indvendte, at det afsnit jo indeholdt en fremragende redegørelse for udviklingen i det spændte forhold mellem den sorte og den hvide befolkning disse år, og ja, det så jeg ved gensynet, det da er rigtigt nok, og vigtigt ja. Men jeg ledte efter noget andet, en kerne i serien og kom nu lidt på sporet af den, for med ét forstod jeg biljagten i afsnit 3. Jeg så nelig nu, at det centrale motiv i afsnit 1 er OJ’s løb med bolden, hans løb fra alle andre, hans af alle beundrede løb til baglinjen med bolden i favnen. Jeg undrede mig ved første gennemsyn over dette uendeligt gentagne motiv. Det er jo ikke en almindelig sportsreportage, heller ikke kun en biografisk redegørelse, nej arkivoptagelserne er klippet i rytmiske sekvenser til noget særegent. Denne detalje er vigtig for mig, vigtig nærmest musikalsk, og det gik så op for mig, at der er en lang bue af forståelse fra løbet med bolden til flugten med fotografierne i den hvide bil i 3. afsnit. Sådan noget kan jeg lide i en filmiske fortællelinje, lange buer mellem dens kernetemaers enkeltelementer, der er Edelmans sindrige værk naturligvis adskillige… Sådan kollega, dette er mit foreløbige svar.

USA 2016, serie på i alt 463 mins. Det 4. afsnit sender DR2 Dokumania i dag, tirsdag, 2. august 20:45.

7000 Submissions to M2M

…meaning the St. Petersburg festival Message to Man that holds its 26th edition September 25 to October 10… The competition programmes were announced today, for long and short documentaries, for short animated and short fiction films, for experimental works for the national documentary competition. There is quite a lot to choose from, last year I went for the national competition, let’s see what will appeal to me this year, where I will attend for some days after a distribution conference for Nordic and Russian documentarians with the title ”How to Reach the Audience” taking place the 23rd and 24th of September. Responsible is producer Viktor Skubey.

Some words about the long documentaries, where I (among 10 films in competition) am happy to find Ognjen Glavonic’s Serbian ”Depth Two”, Helena Trestikova’s ”Mallory”, ”Manor” (photo) by Canadian Pier-Luc Latulippe and Martin Fournier – and surprising enough ”Under the Sun” by Vitaly Mansky, who I thought was a persona non grata in Russian festival circles!

Same positive surprise when I – in the national documentary competition – found ”My friend Boris Nemtsov” by Zosia Radkevich.

Again – 7000 submissions, it’s crazy, how do you cope with that as a festival? M2M has done it, selection is made, I can only talk from the long documentary part, which has high quality.

http://message2man.com/en/participants/info/

Kirsten Johnson: Cameraperson/2

This is a film that had its premiere at the Sundance festival in January, was at numerous festivals in the USA, won first prize at the festival in Sheffield and has got fine reviews in newspapers and magazines. Here is one more enthusiastic review of a film by Kirsten Johnson with whom I have been tutoring in the Middle East, and whose generosity in sharing experience and inspiring people is both professional, humble and warm. As is her film that I am sure will get to a bigger non-Brexit European audience. It is a film that deserves all the attention it can get.

BECAUSE it puts the cinematographer and his/her work in focus through Kirsten Johnson, who says – a text in the beginning of the film – ”for the past 25 years I’ve worked as a documentary cinematographer. I originally shot the following footage for other films, but here I ask you to see it as my memoir. These are images that have marked me and leave me wondering still”.

Memoir, yes, the film comes out as not only an offer to reflect on

ethical and aesthetical choices of a cameraperson, it is also an autobiographical essay, as – luckily – Johnson connects what she is doing behind the camera with her own private life as mother of twins with a mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s and a father/grandfather playing with her Viva and Felix, the names of the twins. In other words private footage is included in a film that is very rich in its thematically structured narrative.

It makes no sense to mention the films from where the footage shot by Johnson is taken. It does not matter as she has created a new context with the clips chosen. Very elegantly she returns to some of the clips and actually puts stories into the minds of us as viewers, to make us understand/feel why that shooting has influenced the cameraperson.

It’s all about Life and Death. If we take one of the red threads of the film, location Foca in Bosnia, there is a fine clip in the beginning with Kirsten Johnson running after a shepherd on horse leading his sheep. It is full of joy, you hear the cameraperson losing her breath, you sense she likes where she is and what she is filming. Later on you are taken back to the same location with a small boy in focus; the camera and the one holding it falls in love with him, the director of this film, ”Cameraperson”, puts music on the sequence, that becomes lyrical. And yet the background is given to the viewer, Foca was hell on earth during the Bosnian war, witnesses tell about murders and rapes and Johnson includes the driver, who is also a war investigator AND the translator in the story, that becomes human far from the reportage-like programmes we have seen so many of. It all ends up in a beautiful scene towards the end of the film, where Kirsten Johnson is back in Foca five years later showing the Bosnians the material from then, saying that what she remembers is NOT the horrors they told her about but how she was received by them as a human being. Respect!

Another story followed through clips is the one from the courtroom, where the case of James Byrd was held – Byrd was the black man, who was chained to a car that dragged him through the town of Jasper, with a brutal death as the consequence. Johnson asks a man from the court to take the chain out of a box and films it in its full length. Or the very touching sequences from Kenya with a wonderful midwife, who fights for the life of a newborn baby in a cool way ignoring he presence of the camera but also responding, when the worried cameraperson asks questions.

Kirsten Johnson has been all over the world and very very often to war zones filming in places where massacres have been performed. You wonder what keeps her going from horror to horror. The mentioned example with the Bosnians is one, curiosity and compassion another, having her twins at home in a safe place a third one etc.etc. There is a lot of death in ”Cameraperson”, but when showing and talking about death you have to ”respect the golden rule”, as says a Syrian refugee at a meeting in Bronx New York, ”Dignity”. That is the approach of Kirsten Johnson for sure.     

USA, 2016,

PS. I have not read it yet but at the newest edition of the IDA published magazine Filmmaker, Kirsten Johnson is on the cover page, promotion line: Make sure to pick up the current issue to read a fascinating article where she discusses and meditates on 11 shots from the film.

PPS. The film is shown at the upcoming festivals in Prizren (DokuFest) and Sarajevo.

http://www.camerapersonfilm.com