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/

Nicole N. Horanyi: Motley’s Law /2

Den amerikanske advokat Kimberley Motley er under en retssag i Kabul i diskussion, i en nervepirrende situation hvor hun i en af sine mange sager forsvarer sin klient. Henrik Bohn Ipsens iagttagende kamera har sammen med Nicole Horanyis præcise nysgerrighed fulgt hende gennem mange måneder i Kabul i den første eskalerende kritisk usikre tid efter amerikanerne for to år siden begyndte at trække sig ud af Afgkanistan, ud af krigen. DR2 DOKUMANIA sender filmen I AFTEN tirsdag 3. maj 20:45.

Jeg så Horanyis film i forbindelse med biografpremieren i januar, og jeg forstod da tydeligt, at Kimberley Motley er søgt skildret som et menneske i dets sammensathed. Jeg blev imidlertid ikke rigtig interesseret i skildringen af hende som kvinde, heller ikke i billedet af hende som mor eller som hustru, men så dog, at det vist var hvad filmen meget gerne ville. Jeg oplevede derimod, at hun er almindelig uden at det almindelige er undersøgelsens emne og at det ualmindelige, som er søgt skildret ved fremhævelser, at disse understregninger (optagelser med en fotosession med Motley som model til et modemagasin og optagelser med hende hjemme i familien i USA) ikke er lykkedes.

Jeg bliver nu efter at have set filmen igen alene interesseret i at følge Motley som advokat og i at forstå den lovpraksis hun anvender som amerikansk advokat i Kabul, jeg bliver faktisk vældigt optaget af den problemstilling som også præcist ligger i filmens originaltitel (mens det udtones i dens danske titel Kimberley i Kabul) så jeg frasorterer umiddelbart alt det andet, som også forekommer, eller måske faktisk er tilføjet ikke integreret. Jeg vil imidlertid meget anbefale filmen for dens vigtige og gode filmscener som i min læsning absolut også er dens kerne, Horanyis værks kerne, filmscener som skildrer en lov- og retspraksis i grænseområdet mellem den afghanske sharia og Kimberley Motleys amerikanske / vesteuropæiske uddannelse og menneskelige holdning. Dertil kommer Herik Bohn Ipsens opmærksomt iagttagende kamera i disse scener sat i en smuk ramme af en næsten selvstændig klassisk fotografisk skildring af det omgivende landskab, samfund og dets mennesker i store berettende totaler.

Danmark 2015, 84 min.

SYNOPSIS

Kimberley Motley left her husband and three kids in the US in order to work as a defence lawyer in Kabul, Afghanistan.

She is the first and only foreign lawyer who litigates in Afghanistan’s courts. Kimberley defends Western and Afghan clients accused of criminal actions.

To begin with, Kimberley came to Afghanistan for the money. But then it became about something else; Kimberley – who had never before left the US – saw how poorly the legal system in Afghanistan was run and how this part of the Afghan society had been totally neglected by the international community.

For over five years now, human rights cases and troubled expats have motivated her to stay, but personal threats, and the general condition in the country, makes it harder and harder for Kimberly to continue her work.

Kimberley has sacrificed much to reach her goals. Her three children, aged 8,13 and 17, live in the U.S.and she sees them 3 months a year.

But Kimberley is working towards creating a better future, also for them. Being a woman who grew up in poverty herself, she strives to become a strong role model as well as being able to financially secure her kids’ future.

What was initially a financially driven personal decision has quickly developed into an obligation towards the underdeveloped Afghan legalsystem. The lack of women rights, human rights abuses, and the corruption in Afghanistan in general, has awoken in her an unexpected desire to fight for AFGHAN JUSTICE.

But time is running out. Nobody knows what will happen in Afghanistan when the international troops leave. Or when the risk will be too high for Kimberley to stay and continue her work for justice? (Made in Copenhagen site)

http://www.madeincopenhagen.dk/en/content/motleys-law

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/87921.aspx?id=87921

Daniel Abma: Transit Havana

… that has the subtitle ”New Heroes of the Cuban Revolution” is a well told character driven, emotional and informational, visually excellent documentary from a country, where the president’s daughter Mariella Castro is ”heading a new state program for transgender care”. She is in the picture once in a while, with the two foreign doctors who perform genital surgery, 5 per year, and she is seen with the first one who had an operation, Juani, who is waiting for another one ”to give life to his pancho”, the name that is used for penis. Juani is one the three characters, Malu and Odette are the two others, they wait for the operation to make their wish come through: to become women!

It is ”No to Homophobia, Yes to Socialism” and the film invites you to have warm feelings for the three, at the same time as it does not hide the strong conservative reactions from the society and the families, who are not happy, to say the least. In Odette’s family religion plays an oppressing role.

In other words: the filmmakers show their fascination of the country and their love to the characters but they also have a point of view. They are not ”only” describing. Which can be exemplified with this sequence: Mariella Castro says that the country will develop socialism and ”never go back to capitalism”, she talks propaganda language, as the next images of the Cuban flag comments, to be followed by a street image that says ”poverty”, cut to a billboard with Fidel and ”Socialismo o Muerte”, cut to military people, cut to more slogans on walls. An elegant way of pointing on the situation of the country. As are slow motion sequences of people in the streets walking or standing on the boardwalk, many of them waiting for clients. You hear the director ask Malu, ”is this where you pick up work”, ”No she says, that can happen everywhere and with that money you will have meat on the table the next day”.

The best documentation of the social condition, however, comes with Juani, who lives with his brother, has his pension and earns a bit through extra work as does his brother, to be able to go to the grocer to buy the allowed rations of rice etc. Juani is also the one, who in a speech salutes Mariela Castro and her center for sex eduation and tolerance of LGBT – and the one who is looking for a girl friend, who can touch me here, he says and points at his heart. As I do now – this is a film with a warm heart.

The film will be shown in international competition at the upcoming Munich Doc Fest.

http://transithavana-film.com/

Holland, Germany, 2016, 82 mins.

Marta Prus: Talk to Me

I have a weak spot for Polish documentaries and this fine film by young Marta Prus makes me – again – wonder why. Is it because the directors know how to create a tense atmosphere very much due to excellent, mostly close-up cinematography like here by Adam Suzin? Is it because they know how to give you a sense of klaustrophobia, to nail you to the screen, like here where most of the film is built around a young man in trouble, a young intelligent man, who is totally aware of his addiction problem and constantly talks about his wish to ”smoke up”? In the film Marta Prus succeeds in getting you into a closed ”room”, where the two main characters, the young man and the director, are. Or is my liking Polish documentaries linked to the fact that the directors very often refrain from pouring verbal information to the viewer? They trust the image – and let an eventual story come out in the narrative as this evolves.

Probably a mix of all… Anyway this film should be obligatory viewing at film schools because of its treatment of the relationship between the one who films and the one who is being filmed. An honest chamber play to say it briefly, about responsibility. Here follows a text from Polishdocs promotion of the film:

”Talk To Me is an intimate journal presenting several months of friendship between the director and 21-year-old Krzysztof, a resident of the Monar rehabilitation centre in Warsaw, who is addicted to marihuana. What happens when trust and sympathy of the protagonist towards the director turn into love? Can the director remain just an observer, without any responsibility, if she constantly accompanies him? Marta Prus becomes a close friend who tries to help Krzysztof.”

I met Marta Prus at the East European Forum in Prague, where she presented ”Over the Limit”, a drama about young Russian gymnasts who fight for qualification to the Olympic Games in Rio. Very promising project from an obvious talent. From Poland.

Poland, 2015, 43 mins.

http://polishdocs.pl/en/films/finished/1565/talk_to_me

Christian Braad Thomsen: Fassbinder /2

Danish documentary master Christian Braad Thomsen’s Fassbinder portrait opens in theatres in New York today. Richard Brody praises the film in a great article in The New Yorker (April 28 2016), in which he compares it with another portrait film about Hannah Arendt and thus describes the “differences between an artistic experience and a prefabricated time-stuffer” ! 

“Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands is the rarest of portrait-films: in addition to being a crucial addition to the critical and biographical record, it’s a cinematic experience in itself, a work of art that can stand on its own as a movie. If Fassbinder were no real person but a fictional character created by Thomsen, the film would endure as a deeply imagined, fierce, and graceful drama…”

Read the rest:

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-documentaries-they-deserve-hannah-arendt-and-rainer-werner-fassbinder

Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands (Denmark 2015) is being screened at The Metrograph in New York May 1-5:

http://metrograph.com/film/film/113/fassbinder-to-love-without-demands

http://braadthomsen.com/

Photograph courtesy Christian Braad Thomsen 

DocsBarcelona 2016

The program is announced for DocsBarcelona 2016, May 23 to May 29. I have below copy-pasted the press release that came out today. As one of the programmers for the festival part, I am looking forward to attend and participate in the triangled meetings between film, audience and filmmaker. Number 19 it is, but there was actually a prologue in Granada with the presence of DocsBarcelona’s Joan Gonzalez, who fell in love with pitching and convinced us at EDN to move it to Barcelona. It was the right solution:

Everything is ready for the nineteenth edition of DocsBarcelona. About to turn two decades of history, the festival will screen 46 films from 28 countries at the CCCB, and the Aribau Club, bringing together more than 500 professionals in its financial market, and to the activities for the industry.

The Official Section arrives with twenty movies that compete for the DocsBarcelona TV3 Award for Best Documentary, and the New Talent Award for the best movie of the debuting directors. This year we present Latitud DocsBarcelona, a new competitive section that brings together a selection of documentaries from the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, with an own award sponsored by Antaviana Films.

The DOC-U section will open a window to the new generation of university documentalists with 11 short films of the Degree of Audiovisual Communication students. The best short film will win the DOC-U Award, sponsored by Ovide.

Sonita  will open the festival on Wednesday, May 25th, and the Argentine film Our last tango, (photo) directed by German Kral and produced by Wim Wenders, will close the best documentary week on May 29th. Among the films of the festival, you will find Kandahar Journals, by the photojournalist Louie Palu, who will be in Barcelona to present his shocking diary of the four years that he was in front of combat in Afghanistan. In addition, the filmmaker Maria Teresa Larrain will be with us to present Shadow Girl, a poignant autobiographical narrative about blindness.

Moreover, the director Friedrich Moser will release A Good American, the fascinating story of the whistleblower Bill Biney, where we’ll discover the secrets of communications systems and security surveillance. Finally, and after going through San Sebastian and the Berlinale, the filmmaker Pep Gatell (artistic director of La Fura dels Baus) will present OFF-ROAD. Mugaritz, feeling a way.

And many many more, check out:

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/en/

Zelig Documentary Film School 2016-2019

My friends at the Bolzano based film school Zelig has asked me to tell our readers that the call for applications for the 2016-2019 training cycle is open. Normally we don’t do that kind of promotion on this site but when it comes to praise a school that develops talent in documentary filmmaking with a focus on the genre as an art form, it is with pleasure that I repeat what I have written on the Zelig website:

“The focus at ZeLIG is clear: You need to learn the craft to be able to develop your creativity. You need to learn team-work and to test yourself as a coming documentarian. The school is small with a big heart, a generous staff and committed teachers. The students watch loads of films and make several themselves before they enter the jungle. 3 years. A gift!”

And here is what the school it self states: ZeLIG provides professional training in documentary filmmaking. The program is aimed at preparing young people for careers in filmmaking and the audiovisual sector. Specific attention is focused on documentary cinema in all its forms. The school is located in Bolzano, Italy – a multilingual city, strategically located at the crossroads of Italian, Austrian and German cultures. This gives ZeLIG a distinctly international flavor. Our students and teachers come from around the world, united in their quest to explore, create and further their knowledge of documentary filmmaking. The program provides the basic skills required by the various professional roles in audiovisual production, along with the opportunity to major in one of three key specialized areas in documentary filmmaking:

  • Direction/Project Development
  • Photography/Lights
  • Editing/Post-Production

Applications for the 2016-2019 training cycle are open, deadline May 26.

Photo taken from the website of the school: teacher in cinematography Tarek Ben Abdallah in action with students around him.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/en/

CinéDOC Tbilisi – Good EUnews

Georgia is (still) not a member of the European Union and yet there is a cultural link that works as in this case, I copy-paste a message from the festival FB page:

”We are very proud to announce that CinéDOC-Tbilisi is the first Georgian film festival to be funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union! We are honored to be funded in the same group with such great film festivals like Dok Leipzig, Sarajevo Film Festival, Oberhausen, La Rochelle, Doc Lisboa, Jihlava Documentary Film Festival and 23 other festivals selected out of 108 eligible applicants!

The selection letter made us extremely happy: “This is a very valuable festival led by a professional team. The event has a strong representation year round and outside its home city.[…] The festival is a very good example of decentralisation of European festival life, bringing European cultural works to new audiences.””

The festival takes place October 21-25.

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/

Jørgen Leth: Lyrikporten – 28 danske digtere /1

Jeg kunne da umuligt dengang tro at Jørgen Leth kunne gentage mesterværket ”Dansk litteratur”. Det kunne han så bare. Her er nogle få scener, tilsammen en færdig film inde i et filmværk som jeg langsomt vil åbne op. Rationerer jeg med én om dagen, er der til en måned, næsten. I dag, premieredagen er mit klare valg:

Jørgen Leth præsenterer Lea Marie Løppenthin:

http://28danskedigtere.gyldendal.dk/#show/346be144-04d4-459b-abc0-f9d6aa647b45

Der er non-stop visninger i Cinemateket:

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Walk-in-Bio.aspx

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/Serie.aspx?serieID=12360

DocsBarcelona 2016 Poster

By courtesy of Louie Palu, the main character of ”Kandahar Journals”, that he also directed together with Devin Gallagher, the upcoming DocsBarcelona festival, is using one of his photos to promote the festival. Stunning. Attractive. From the website of the film a citation from the synopsis of a film that comes to the Barcelona festival with a lot of awards:

… April 2006. Photojournalist Louie Palu, finds himself in the midst of body parts and the smell of burned flesh. On his first visit to Kandahar he is covering a suicide bombing. Arriving in the country as the wars violence spirals out of control, Louie is unaware that he will spend the next five years covering the conflict. He begins writing a series of journals reflecting on his personal experience and what the war looked like and felt to him. This film explores a photojournalist’s first hand account of his psychological state while covering a war. The film follows Louie’s journey covering the war in Kandahar from 2006 to 2010 and its aftermath…

http://www.kandaharjournals.com/project-history/

www.docsbarcelona.com