I left Prague yesterday after 7 fine days with the East Doc Platform and its professional and personal touch. I was happy that my hand luggage was not being weighed at the airport, my IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) catalogue (close to 200 pages with postcard-like colour photos of projects) would have been sent to check-in of luggage. I wanted it for the cabin. The heaviness has given me a small pain in the shoulder! – but you have to suffer for the art…

And chapeau for the art of organising a huge event like this with so many elements. I was not part of it all but I have heard no objections from any visitors to the hospitality and already mentioned professionalism.

Below I will post comments on projects which were part of the East European Forum. 21 were pitched, I can not get the whole way around and my categorisation is of course a simplification. I will also mention the film projects, which were awarded and those awarded at the One World Festival, the parallel event. Have to mention as well that the event included meetings for projects for individual meetings (the so-called ”Project Market”) and a presentation of new Czech Docs. For the latter master Miroslav Janek presented clips from his upcoming ”Normal Autistic Film” saying that it will hopefully show ”the Beauty of Mental Diversity” – for me the clip already pointed in that direction. Robert Kirchhoff, another name that advocates quality, is working to finish his ”Through the Forest”, which could end up being the film on the Roma Holocaust. The material shown was promising.

www.dokweb.net

East Doc Platform Development Award:

WHEN THE WAR COMES

(dir. Jan Gebert, prod. R. Síbrt, V. Hozzová; Czech Republic)

Photo Viktoriá Hozzová receiving the award from Luke Moody, Britdoc.

Czech TV Postproduction Award:

RUSSIAN VIEWFINDERS

(dir. Alexander Abarutov, prod. O. Mille; France)

HBO Europe Co-Production Award:

PRISONERS WITHOUT PRISON

(dir. Verjana Abazaj, prod. Artan Malaj; Albania)

The Golden Funnel Award:

FOR MOTHER’S SAKE?

(dir. Nikola Ilić, C. Schwingruber Ilić; prod. F. Sonder; Switzerland)

IDFA Forum Award:

PLANETA PETRILA

(dir. Andrei Dăscălescu, prod. A. Antoci; Romania)

DocsBarcelona Award:

OCCUPIED CINEMA

(dir. Senka Domanovic, prod. Snezana Penev; Serbia, Croatia)

DOK Leipzig Co-Production Market+ DOK Preview Awards:

AVTOVAZ

(dir. Petr Horký, prod. Martin Jůza; Czech Rep.)

and

OVER THE LIMIT

(dir. Marta Prus, prod. Maciej Kubicki; Poland, Germany)

id w | interactive documentary workshop Award:

THE FUTURE OF FOREVER

(dir. Ana Brzezinska, prod. Lukasz Borzecki, Poland)

www.webdok.net

The One World festival in Prague, number 18, will have its award ceremony on Wednesday; the winners, however, have already been announced. I mention, via the press release of today, the winners of the main competition, for the whole list, please go to the website:

The Grand Jury conferred awards for Best Film and Best Director, selecting from among 12 documentaries in the Main Competition category.

The award for Best Film went to “A Syrian Love Story” by British director Sean McAllister (UK / 2015 / 75 min.), who attended One World together with Raghda Hassan, a protagonist in the film. Three years ago the festival presented McAllister’s documentary The Reluctant Revolutionary.

“ The jury was impressed by the radical approach the director has chosen in the storytelling and by the braveness of the protagonists who allow the audience to experience an intimate story bringing out the human factor and an honest picture of a family in crisis amidst the political larger one,” the jury said in a statement.

The award for Best Director went to Zhao Liang, the Chinese director of “Behemoth” (France, China / 2015 / 90 min.), which is one of the most visually interesting films in this year’s festival.

“Liang Zhao is able to creatively craft a complex beautiful yet devastating image, mirroring the dialectic of the concrete to the basic values where he advocates for the fragile human and environmental state of our world. A director who manages with artistic precession and outstanding imagery to paint a loud and clear statement against violations caused by greed and illusions,” the jury said in its decision.

The Grand Jury consisted of: Polish documentary filmmaker Hanna Polak, Swiss director Eric Bergkraut, Syrian independent documentary filmmaker and co-founder of the Berlin-based non-profit association DOX BOX Diana El Jeiroudi, director of the ZeLIG School for Documentary, Television and New Media in Bolzano Heidi Gronauer, and Czech documentary filmmaker Bohdan Bláhovec.

http://www.oneworld.cz/2016/

”It is too artistic for our audience”… he said so, Erkko Lyttinen from YLE, the Finnish broadcaster that has always defended the artistic documentaries… has the last bastion fallen? I had heard that remark before, but from less important broadcasters in the documentary world. The project that was referred to was ”Aleph” by Iva Radivojevic, Croatian director living in New York, at the pitch accompanied by a Canadian and Croatian producer. Yes, it is cinema, inspired by a short story of Borges, ”a cinematic experience that contemplates the question of what we center our lives around”… a travelogue with a title that refers to Jewish mysticism. A hybrid, very inviting, to be finished in 2018. Another film in the auteur tradition is ”D is for Division” by Latvian Davis Simanis, to be produced by Guntis Trekteris, a personal essay by the biggest talent in Latvian cinema, but what does that matter if almost noone around the table knows him… Simanis and Trekteris had problems in conveying what they want with this film about inner borders with photographs as the starting point. No surprise that tutor, Czech/French director Stan Neumann, was a good sparring partner, Neumann being a master in the essayistic genre.

It is a silent film, the Bosnian director Marko Sipka said about ”The Land”, that reminded me a lot of the Baltic documentary tradition: old woman in the countryside living alone in a remote mountain village, ”a meditative visual contemplation about loneliness and an old-fashioned life style that is about to disappear”. I talked about it with Danish director Jens Loftager and we both remembered names like Sergey Dvortsevoy and Swedish Nina Hedenius, who made a film, where there was almost no dialogue. It became a hit on television. Those days are probably over, this film will be for festivals and it will be strong I would think judging from the charismatic director’s presentation.

The same goes for the Romanian director Andrei Dascalescu, who charmed us with ”Constantin and Elena” in 2008 and who is now back with ”Planeta Petrila” (Photo: producer Anamaria Antoci with director), presented with passion and humour, the director said it to be a rockn’roll film, about a mine to be closed and an artist fighting to keep the old buildings and make them into art. A Don Quijote, the director asks? The trailer was unconventional, hopefully the film will be the same. HBO Europe supports – as they do with many films, among the present commissioning editors – she calls herself executive producer – Hanka Kastelicová was the absolute star, and so much welcomed as the public broadcasters in general fail to support the creative documentary.

www.webdok.net

… having said so, I hurry to say that the films that I mention in this post are also creative, but they have in their presentation thought of television as the channel to an audience, at the same time as many presented their projects  to be made in two versions, one for cinema and festivals and one for television.

Let me begin with a story that includes retro dancing in Moscow, a warm film in a cold city, with old women who go to dance, who want to live even if the conditions age-wise and socially are difficult. Director is Tatyana Soboleva (photo from the pitch together with her French producer), I have had the pleasure to know her and her films for some years, is the right one to do this film called ”Open Air”, she has an eye and a heart for people, 52 mins. long it will be. Equally ”For Mother’s Sake” by Serbian Nikola Ilic will be an audience hit judged from the trailer. Three generations: the director, his mother and his grandmother. HE is married to a Swiss woman, they live in Switzerland and what to do, when grandmother dies and there is noone to take care of the mother, who had a stroke when a child? She dies and the son must take care of her but how – when he lives in another country but comes from a country with a strong family feeling, where you don’t send mothers to homes? I put this in the television category even if tv people in the round table session hesitated! Come on, this is universal.

More obvious chances for these two: ”Avtovaz” with Czech journalist Petr Horky, who went to Russian Togliatti, that used to be a super Soviet city with a famous car factory that produced Lada but now suffers from the crisis. A Swedish manager was called in to modernise, he sacked thousands of people, wanted to change the working culture – and was himself sacked some days ago. A fascinating trailer with Bo Andersson, as his name is, was shown plus some other material with workers and sacked workers, but how do the filmmakers cope with the new situation? And – we stay in Russia – ”Over the Limit” by Polish Marta Prus, who in terms of quality of cinematography came up with the best trailer and a story that must be something for television: the competition of three Russian gymnasts to go to the Olympics in Rio this summer. They are friends but only two will be picked, who? They are beautiful and innocent these girls, whereas the coach, a woman with a hat, seems to be a good bitchy character.

Let me finish with the award winning ”When the War Comes” (again supported by HBO Europe) directed by Jan Gebert, the most actual film in its description of nationalism and refugees in Europe today, read this short text: Hundreds of teenagers join the paramilitary grup in Slovakia to get ready for the final clash of civilizations and to fight whoever intrudes their country… It will go to festivals and television in long and short versions.

www.dokweb.net