On the last day of DocsBarcelona – in the afternoon – I attended the screening of ”Chechen Family” (”La Familia Chechena”) by Argentinian director Martin Solá, who brought to me not only a strong film but also the best Q&A discussion after the film, led by my colleague programmer Daniel Jariod, who provoked by me translated the words of the director into English – at a festival that still hesitates when it comes to use the English language at opening and closing ceremonies and at Question and Answer sessions.

Anyway, Solá told the audience how he worked with camera and sound to get into the sufist spiritual sessions, which are the core of this both beautiful and at the same time frightening tough interpretation of a phenomenon in an oppressing country. Solá sees the religion as a resistance to the official Chechnya that he visually catches in a long travelling scene from Grozny, the shining city or could one say the shined-up city. The film lives up to a sentence so often used on this site, a quote from Richard Leacock, it conveys ”the feeling of being there”.

No surprise that Solá got the first prize later that night at the closing ceremony of the festival. The English version of the jury motivation is not available yet – here comes the local:  

“una manera poètica de fer sentir l’interior d’una comunitat i de mostrar la identitat d’un poble en un context de violència històrica, a través d’un fort compromís amb la forma.”

and why not bring the English one used at the Visions du Réel in Nyon, where ”Chechen Family” won as well:

“The Chechen Family is an intense, unique, uncompromising film. This award is for the radical cinematographic gesture of making a film with and not about a community: a trance-like movie that disrupts the conventional flux of time and that offers both an individual and collective, ethic and aesthetic experience.”

I will get back with a mention of the other awards. Photo: the team behind the film and the main character. Taken from FB page og Solá.

www.docsbarcelona.com

Wonderful. The smell of books that meet you, when you enter the Altaïr Bookshop on Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes. You go downstairs to smell and have the best coffee in Barcelona together with film directors, whose films are in the programme of DocsBarcelona 2016. They are here for this noon intimate arrangement made by the charismatic owner of the place.

The filmmakers were Léa Rinaldi (”Esto es lo que hay” from Cuba), Marcela Zamora (”El cuarto de los huesos” from El Salvador), Pieter van Eecker (”Samuel in the Clouds” from Bolivia) and German Kral (”The Last Tango” from Argentina). I attended the introduction by the directors with clips from their films and enjoy to know that – apart from the tough documentary from El Salvador – they all have and have had theatrical release with quite a success. German Kral told me that 44.000 tickets had been sold in Germany for his film. Wow!

And then to the cinema to sit next to Maria Teresa Larrain in a cinema, where her ”Shadow Girl” had its second screening at the festival, where she pitched the film a couple of years ago. The film is strong and emotional in its description of how Maria Teresa grows blind, a film that is without sentimentality but full of reflections on what it means to become blind. She meets blind street vendors, she shows the film to them and it is said that the worst thing about getting blind is to lose your dignity. Maria Teresa does not, she is a role model of great courage in a film that has a clever personal text from her and a visual flow of colours. It must have a long festival life and come on broadcasters, this is also for you, or for us television viewers!

www.docsbarcelona.com 

Look at the photo. Gaudi. La Pedrera, built between 1906 and 1910, 92 Paseo de Gracia. A must-see for visitors to Barcelona. But also the yearly venue for master classes at DocsBarcelona like yesterday, where (from left to right with badge in hand) after the session Brian Hill (City of Dreams – a Musical), Sean McAllister (A Syrian Love Story), me as moderator, Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (Sonita), with Greek director Apostolos Karakasis as participant, were talking about intervention in documentaries with their films as examples:

Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami changed the life of Sonita by helping her to make the music video that became a hit on the internet, went with her from Iran to Afghanistan to settle visa and passport so she could go to the US, where she is now. McAllister was arrested in Syria, his material was confiscated, the couple in the film, Amer and Raghda, had to flee the country for that reason, with their children as they were on the director’s tape. McAllister followed the couple when they ended up in exile in France and participated actively in the problems they had in their marriage. Brian Hill went to the Bombay school and made the kids and their teachers sing their social stories in the genre that he has created, the musical documentary.

From Gaudi’s architectural pearl after a good 90 minutes session to Aribau Club cinema where 120 people watched ”A Syrian Love Story” with a very, very pleasant surprise: Amer and Raghda, the son of Amer, and the 9 year old Bob, the child of Amer and Raghda came on stage to receive a more than a warm applause and to answer questions from the audience.

They will be there again tonight at the screening at Aribau Club 1 at 18.15.

Photo by Maria Cilleros

www.docsbarcelona.com

… and directors inform and answer questions after the screenings. The heart of a festival, is it not, when the filmmakers get the chance to have feedback from the viewers, who have enjoyed their work on a big screen, vice versa. The triangle: film, audience, filmmaker.

I attended three of these meetings yesterday. Louie Palu (and Devin Gallagher) showed and commented on his ”hell on earth” (my remark) documentary ”Kandahar Journals”, that have several layers: the diary reflections of the photographer Louie Palu, who has photographed and filmed everything himself, the information given about the geography of Kandahar, the almost unbearable photos and images of dead people, including the body parts of a suicide bomber… It stays in your mind this film as does the one by Friedrich Moser, ”A Good American”, that features the most sympathetic man you can think of, Bill Binney, and his lost fight with the NSA, that did not want to adapt his surveillance program that could have prevented the 9/11 to happen. Everything has a structure, says Binney, and the film has indeed one, a form has been chosen, one could almost say designed to convey this scandalous story. I had time to go to the Q&A of ”Daniel’s World” by Veronika Lišková, who gave the audience in a full cinema the background for her sensitive film about a paedophile, who has come out of the closet, so to say. The reaction from the Barcelona audience was very positive, a Brazilian filmmaker wanted to take the film to her country, that’s how a festival should work.

A couple of people I meet: Serge Tréfaut, Portuguese director, who just got an award in his home country for his ”Treblinka”, a hybrid film of great beauty, longing to see it on a big screen. And Arunas Matelis and his wife Alge, who were at the speed meetings with their ”Gladiators. A Different World”, a true international coproduction as it is about the bicycle riders of Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. With a Spanish coproducer, Matelis is now planning to get hold of the star Alberto Contador.

Today films and a masterclass with three truly international, award-winning directors: Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (”Sonita”), Brian Hill (”City of Dreams”) and Sean McAllister (”A Syrian Love Story”). ”Intervention or Observation”, the catalogue outlines as the theme. The answer is already given, the three of them intervene, so that is what is to be discussed at La Pedrera today at 5.30pm. How, why, with which consequences? Please come to Gaudi’s beautiful place! And then films and more films, hopefully with as many spectators as yesterday.

www.docsbarcelona.com

… with full house at the Aribau Multicines, the 1100 seats were occupied for the opening ceremony with a couple of rappers, opening speech by festival director Joan González and the screening of ”Sonita” (also a rapper) by Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami, the Iranian director, who was present and could enjoy the many minutes long applause that followed after the screening of the film. Yes, that was the right choice for opening the festival.

During today and tomorrow the industry section of DocsBarcelona takes place with so-called speed-meetings, where projects are presented. 40 projects have been selected to be pitched to around 30 financiers and distributors and sales agents.

This part of DocsBarcelona is taking place for the 19th time, but there was a prologue in 1996, in Granada arranged by EDN (European Documentary Network) and local producer, director, cultural event organiser José Sánchez-Montes. In his opening speech Joan González praised Sánchez-Montes, who has been invited to sit in the jury together with Anita Reher, who with this blogger worked for EDN at this pioneering times and were in Granada, where González pitched for the first time. Sorry for being a bit nostalgic…

Back to DocsBarcelona 2016. I had the privilege to moderate three RoughCut sessions with three female directors: Brazilian Isabella Lima with Mercedes, Italian Laura Cini with Punishment Island and ”Etre et Durer” by Italian Serena Mignani. They came with their material – around one hour for all three – and had creative response – also for one hour – from Joan Salvat Catalan tv, José Rodriguez from Tribeca Film Institute, Gitte Hansen from First Hand Films, local producer Bettina Walter and filmmakers Martin Solá and Daniel Jariod, the latter also one of the festival programmers.

The poster photo is taken from the film by Louie Palu ”Kandahar Journals” that is on the programme of today. As are – among several – ”Shadow Girl” by Maria Teresa Larrain, a world premiere, Veronika Liskova’s ”Daniel’s World” and ”City of Dreams” by Brian Hill. More reporting in the coming days.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/en/     

In June 2^nd to 8^th the Danish Cinematheque at the Film House in Copenhagen shows, as Documentary of the Month, “Lampedusa in Winter” by Jakob Brossmann, a film that has and will travel the world winning several awards. Below you will find a Danish language synopsis and a quote from the presentation by Magnificent7 festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic.

‘Lampedusa in Winter’ er et højaktuelt billede på flygtningesituationen, som den tager sig ud i udkants-Europa. Nærmere bestemt på den lille italienske middelhavsø Lampedusa. Øen ligger omtrent 200 km syd for Sicilien og 110 km nord for Tunesien, og dens beliggenhed gør den til et logisk knudepunkt for illegale flygtninge. ‘Lampedusa in Winter’ udgør et upartisk billede af den situation, der direkte eller indirekte påvirker hele Europa. Og filmen er samtidig en hjertelig påmindelse om, at der findes ildsjæle derude med overskud til at give lidt ekstra af sig selv. Lampedusas kvindelige borgmester er en af dem, og hun er både flygtningenes håb og klippe i den helt igennem usikre venteposition, de befinder sig i. Instruktør Jakob Brossmann perspektiverer situationen med middelhavsvinde og en opløftende menneskelig varme.

A fantastic documentary of a developed spirited Mediterranean story which involves us deeper as we watch – we fear, we are entertained, we get angry, we scold and shout, we suffer and finally, all together we discover that behind it all stands a cold and distant, untouchable figure of power!

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3441/

With the long name Moscow International Documentary Film Festival Doker has launched its second festival edition that runs until May 24. I am very amazed of what the young team behind the festival is doing full of enthusiasm and vision – see post below taken from the website’s ”about”. And go to the site and discover what is offered the audience this year: Feature Documentary competition, a Special Competition ”Let IT Dok” and one for short films. In the feature section you will find films from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, China, Pakistan, Kenya, Iran – and Latvia and Finland with two fine films reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk: beautiful and sweet ”Ruch and Norie” by Inara Kolmane and equally beautiful and thought provoking ”Leaving Africa” by Iris Härma.

I was in the jury last year together with Viktor Kossakovsky, I see that Doker this year has convinced master Pirjo Honkasalo to chair the jury.

Doker is a non-mainstream festival, you see that easily in the selection, new names, a cultural

purpose, long discussions, I understand about each and every film – and it takes place in two stages, this one in May and an award ceremony in autumn, where the winners are present. Winners… there are awards for cinematography, for sound, for editing, for music composed etc. Respect for that decision in a time where directors are normally the only ones in focus. And in Russia where it is not easy to do film politics!

My knowledge about this festival stems back from contacts to Irina Shatalova, brilliant camerawoman and fighter, who wants to better the conditions for documentaries in Russia. Nastia Tarasova and Shatalova made ”Linar” together, praised on this site. The two of them stand behind the festival together with many others, including Tatiana Soboleva and Sergei Kachin, to mention other young filmmakers talked about previously on filmkommentaren.

I saw a picture of a full cinema on FB today, from the opening, I wish Doker success in the following days – we need fresh blood in the festival world, too much automation meaning that if you are at IDFA you can be sure to have invitations from another 20 or more festivals… Doker tries something different.

http://www.midff.com/#!programm2016/c16f8