Flaherty Seminar 2016

The 62nd Robert Flaherty Film Seminar… an institution, have only heard good about it, and not only from my former EDN colleague Anita Reher, who is head of the Flaherty, has something in common with the Danish folk high school tradition, films are watched and discussed from morning till night. You all stay the same place, eat and drink together. If you sign up, you do so without knowing which films are to be screened, but looking at the cv of the programmer, I don’t think you take a risk. His name is David Pendleton and

“he curates many of (and oversees all of) the screenings that make up the Harvard Archive’s ongoing cinematheque programming for the public. He has organized wide-ranging retrospectives of such varied filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock, John Akomfrah and Warren Sonbert and has taught courses on 20th century film history and on the representation of masculinity in contemporary cinema…” His inviting well written promotion text for the seminar, love it, here it is:

A cinema at play is a cinema that breathes — a cinema open to the shifting rhythms of the world. Play implies looseness, experimentation, chance, a suspension of judgment in favor of a child’s open-ended curiosity. Play allows cinema to be a vital, living thing, one that faces the world with innocence, hoping to experience rather than persuade.

If spectacle demands a taut cinema, with no time for digression, the 2016 Flaherty Seminar is dedicated to a cinema of wandering, of curiosity and wonder. The filmmakers featured use the camera to encounter the world in all of its unpredictable glory and horror. The forms taken by these encounters are equally unexpected in their poetic depth and political range: visual sonnets, alternative histories, and diary films. As these films show, cinema at play is not aimless or fanciful but open-the kind of open — endedness that exists in any system with room for variation, like an image whose meaning is not fixed, a country caught between colonial past and capitalist present, or simply an individual who feels the tug of history.”

All details can be found on:

http://flahertyseminar.org

Tabitha Jackson – Interview

A couple of days ago the trade magazine Indiewire brought an interview (by Chris O’Falt) with Tabitha Jackson, the director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program. Jackson who, when she was working for Channel4 in England, was a very much wanted panelist when I was working for EDN, because of her always interesting, constructive and analytical comments to the filmmakers and their projects, here she talks like this:

“When we look at how documentaries are discussed, too often it’s a focus on what they are about and whether the main character is sympathetic,” Jackson told Indiewire in a recent interview. “I’d just like the conversation around nonfiction film to be as exciting as the form itself. When we think about literature, poetry, fiction, or music, it’s not about what is being said, it’s about how it is being said and who is saying it, that’s what makes things last and that’s what makes things have cultural value.”

Yes, Yes, Yes… agree, the eternal ”what is it about” and ”who and how are the main characters” should be dedicated less attention in the tons of pitching sessions that we organise.

Read the whole interview that gives an idea about what the Sundance Program is supporting. Jackson also mentions the new Polish film that premieres at the Sundance Festival, ”All these Sleepless Nights” by Michal Marczak: “The texture of the film reads like Godard as the filmmaker’s capturing the lives of 20-year-olds in Warsaw who are asleep all day and awake all night with such an intensity — that 20-year-old intensity — it’s really interesting. It’s not about something, but then again it’s about everything: Life, death and love.”

Photo: Sundance Institute.

https://www.sundance.org/

http://www.indiewire.com/article/why-sundances-tabitha-jackson-wants-audiences-to-look-at-documentary-films-in-a-very-new-way-20160118

Avi Mograbi in Berlin Forum

Israeli Avi Mograbi is one of the most remarkable “auteurs” of our time. If you want to know more you are welcome to check posts made on this site on his work – since 2008, more than 30 that includes his name. Now he is there with a new film, this text is taken from his FB page:

… My new film “Between Fences” was selected to the Berlinale’s Forum!
produced by LesFilms Dici, theater facilitator and director Chen Alon photography by Philippe Bella Bellaiche, music by Noam Enbar:

Avi Mograbi and theater director Chen Alon meet African asylum-seekers in a detention facility in the middle of the Negev desert where they are confined by the state of Israel. Together, they question the status of the refugees in Israel using ‘Theater of the Opressed’ techniques. What leads men and women to leave everything behind and go towards the unknown? Why does Israel, land of the refugees, refuse to take into consideration the situation of the exiled, thrown onto the roads by war, genocide and persecution? Can the Israelis working with the asylum seekers put themselves in the refugee’s shoes? Can their collective unconscious be conjured up?

Nicole N. Horanyi: Motley’s Law

Den rygvendte kvinde på Henrik Bohn Ipsens stramme still er den amerikanske forsvarsadvokat Kimberley Motley energisk velforberedt velordnet på vej til en juridisk opgave i et afghansk fængsel hvor hun skal møde en sydafrikansk mand, som foreløbigt har været fængslet i seks år. Hun arbejder på hans løsladelse, det er dagligt arbejde for hende og det er en af historierne i Nicole Horanyis film, som har premiere den 27. januar i de danske biografer efter den jo har været vist på en række festivals, også på CPH:DOX i november.

Kimberley Motley er den eneste udenlandske advokat, som har licens til at procedere i de afghanske retssale, hvor i hvert fald hun professionelt forsøger at få retssystemet til at fungere i overensstemmelse med den nye forfatning og de nye anderledes love. Både de gode honorarer og adskillige prestigefyldte menneskerettighedssager har fået hende til i de fem år arbejde langt væk fra fra familien, en indforstået mand og tre børn for hvem det bare må være sådan det er og moderen er dog hjemme i perioder. Men nu har trusler og landets usikre tilstand gjort det sværere og sværere for Kimberley Motley at fortsætte sit arbejde.

Nicole Horanyi har sammen med fotografen Henrik Bohn Ipsen fulgt Kimberley Motley gennem knapt to år og skildret et delvist nyt afghansk retssystem under udvikling, fraværet af en stor del af kvinders rettigheder og en massiv korruption, som har vakt en utilsigtet lyst i Motley til at arbejde med de usædvanligt komplicerede retssager i Afghanistan.

Der er forpremiere 26. januar 19:00 i Grand Teatret i København og der vil efter filmen være Q and A med Kimberley Motley og Nicole Horanyi, og endnu en premiere i samme biograf 27. januar 21:30 med paneldebat, hvor der sættes fokus på Afghanistan her 15 år efter at de vestlige styrker gik ind i landet. I panelet sidder Kimberley Motley, Nagieb Khaja og Martin Lidegaard.

Motley’s Law, Danmark 2015, 85 min.

SYNOPSIS

38-year-old Kimberley Motley left her husband and three kids in the US to work as a defence lawyer in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the only foreign lawyer, and the only woman, who has a license to work in Afghan courts. With her Afghan assistant, Kimberley defends Western and Afghan clients accused of criminal acts. To begin with, Kimberley came for the money. But then it became 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 neglected by the international community. For five years now, human rights cases and troubled expats have motivated her to stay, but personal threats and the general condition in the country make it hard for Kimberley to continue her work. (DFI fakta)

LINKS

http://www.dfi-film.dk/motleys-law-3  (DFI-FILM, english)

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/en/87921.aspx?id=87921#awards (DFI fakta, english)

https://vimeo.com/150903449  (Trailer)

Sylvain Biegeleisen – Interview

A true artist, presented in the interview as ”film director and producer, writer, painter and video artist, photographer and musician, group moderator and singer…”. Sylvain Biegeleisen is interviewed by EDN, that does monthly conversations with members, this one being very informative about the director of the wonderful ”Twilight of a Life” that is one of the Magnificent Seven festival in Belgrade choices.

Here are some quotes from the interview on the site of EDN, read it all, it is uplifting reading, optimistic words from a man who shares his time and work between Belgium, Israel and Switzerland:

“Cinema, for me, can be an important tool to help populations at risk to re-integrate into society and become constructive members, instead of using violence to express their disappointments of life and their personal frustrations. Every group is creating their own film based on issues that are important for the participants. With the help of professionals, they learn to cooperate, become creative, disciplined and at the end, the result is a “broadcast quality film” they can be proud of. That’s the power of these Social Cinema Projects and that’s the reason why I created the Lahav NGO.

Today, with Twilight of a Life, I meet audiences after the screenings in the cinema theatres and engage in a dialogue with them around the theme of “ageing”. People are so happy they can talk about this important issue. Old age is a big challenge for the future of our society…

… I never thought a documentary could have such a positive impact on people! To the ones who think old age is not a “sexy” item, my answer is: “Look at this 95 years lady, isn’t she “sexy”? In Israel, in less than one month, thousands of people saw the film. It climbed to the first place in the Box Office of the Film Critics, the only documentary among the 10 best films shown in Theatres in 2015, even before Star Wars!!! Again a proof that documentary films have the power to challenge big features with their millions of dollars.

So Twilight of a Life is like a good wine. With time passing, it conquers the heart of more and more audiences. We shall overcome!”

More about and from Sylvain Biegeleisen – when the Magnificent 7 festival takes off later this month.

http://www.edn.dk/

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/home.html

Miroslav Janek – Interview

As a follow-up on our ”collected posts” on Czech documentary maker Miroslav Janek here are some quotes from an interview made a month ago by Doc Alliance, below is a link to the whole interview, absolutely to be recommended.

Janek on editing: As an editor, I have been successfully driving directors away from the editing room. Now I drive myself away without much effort. After endless talks with editor Tonička (the wife of Janek, ed.), I delegate all of the material to her and I let her look for new connections and ties yet unrevealed by me, hoping that she will find them. I only enter the editing room when the film shape has been roughly sculpted. However, this active involvement in the editorial process is impossible without a thorough knowledge of the shot material. Before I entrust the material to Tonička’s hands, or rather her mind and soul, I map it carefully, I choose the things I consider substantial and later I gradually “taste” the material, drawing various meaningless and sometimes even meaningful partial ideas on paper…

Janek: I still see film as a visual medium, not a radio one. Although I do not underestimate the sound dramaturgy of the film in any way; quite on the contrary. However, if there is to be at least some space for sound dramaturgy, one has to cut the cackle. I really admire those documentaries (and I envy them terribly) in which nothing is said for like ten minutes and yet the viewers are breathless, the poetic suspense and mystery are growing and the screen… I’m speaking too much again…

http://dafilms.com/news/2015/12/14/miroslav_janek_interview

12th Magnificent Seven in Belgrade

… with the long subtitle ”European Feature Documentary Film Festival” starts on January 29 and goes on until February 4… Time for a small warm-up to this yearly celebration of the documentary film on the screen in the Sava Center in Belgrade. For one who during the year watches most documentaries on his computer it is an extraordinary experience for seven nights to sit down with around 1000 viewers to enjoy a documentary film on a big screen followed by meetings with the makers – and to be totally spoilt by the warm hospitality of Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, the festival directors, and their loyal team of young and younger film people, many of them former students of the Popovic couple, who run the Kvadrat film school in Belgrade.

I will post daily from the festival with promotional texts about the 7 films selected by the festival directors and me, plus reports from the Q&A and seminar sessions that the invited filmmakers do with the participation of local filmmakers.

The seven films of this year are, in the order of screenings: ”Our Last Tango” (German Kral), ”Twilight of a Life” (Sylvain Biegeleisen), ”Mallory” (Helena Trestikova), ”Lampedusa in Winter” (Jakob Brossmann), ”Don Juan” (Jerzy Sladkowski) , ”Brothers” (Wojciech Staron), Palio (Cosima Spender).

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/home.html

Oscar, Robert and Bodil

The nominations are announced for the Academy Awards (Oscar), the Danish Film Academy Awards (Robert) and the Danish Film Critics Award (Bodil). In the feature documentary categories it goes like this:

Oscar

”Amy” (Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees), ”Cartel Land” (Matthew Heinemann and Tom Yellin), ”The Look of Silence” (Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge-Sørensen), ”What Happened, Miss Simone?” (Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes), ”Winter on Fire” (Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmar)

Robert

”At Home in the World” (Andreas Koefoed), ”15 Minutes – the Dvor Massacre” (Georg Larsen & Kasper Vedsmand), ”Natural Disorder” (Christian Sønderby Jepsen), ”Something Better to Come” (Hanna Polak), ”The Man Who Saved the World” (Peter Anthony)

Bodil

”At Home in the World” (Andreas Koefoed), ”Misfits” (Jannik Splidsboel), ”Fassbinder – to Love Without Demands” (Christian Braad Thomsen), ”The Man Who Saved the World” (Peter Anthony), ”Natural Disorder” (Christian Sønderby Jepsen).

Photo: ”At Home in the World”, my favourite at the two Danish award ceremonies.

http://oscar.go.com/nominees

http://filmakademiet.dk/robert-prisen/arets-nominerede/

http://www.bodilprisen.dk/

A New Dynasty – Created in China

If in Aarhus, second largest city in Denmark with a very active cultural life, don’t miss the art museum Aros that has always interesting exhibitions and a fine collection of new Danish artists like Per Kirkeby, recently portrayed in a new documentary by Anne Wivel.

In between the Baltic Frames documentary festival there was time to visit the museum that has the rainbow panorama circle roof as the guiding star into the many floors, where ”our” exhibition were placed on two of them with works of 24 ”of the most significant Chinese contemporary artists”, several of them with critical comments in their works to the society and its politics, to Mao’s cultural revolution of course – but several were looking into history and myths with so-called poetic reflection and ”respect for the craft and the rich cultural past”.

There were paintings, installations, sculptures, video art of high quality – and the one on the photo I took:

”Holidays” from 2012 by Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing, a visit to the nature, the whole family is there, dressed nicely, ready to be photographed, staged documentary photo, an interpretation of a Chinese reality where nature is something you create!

The excellent exhibition, that also includes a work by super star Ai Wei Wei, runs until May 22 2016

http://en.aros.dk/

Nadav Shirman: The Green Prince

Det er en film om en ung palæstinensisk mands totale forræderi mod sit folk, sit land, sin far, sin familie, sine venner. Faderen er politisk ledende medlem af Hamas. Hamas og Israel er i krig. Han spionerer mod faderen ved at videregive alle oplysninger om faderens opholdssted og planer til den israelske efterretningstjeneste Shin Bet. Det er på faderens regnebræt det er forræderi, på sønnens er det beskyttelse af faderen, forhindring af manges død ved attentaterne, han har afsløret / afværget under planlægningen.

Den unge mand, Mosab Hassan Yousef, som nu år senere lever i USA, har skrevet en bog Son of Hamas, om disse begivenheder år tilbage i Ramallah, hvor han blev hvervet af den israelske efterretningstjeneste Shin Bet knyttede sig tæt til kontaktpersonen og samtidig sørgede for at komme faderen så nær som muligt, efterhånden fulgte ham i alt, selv i fængsel en periode, blev hans nærmeste politiske medarbejder. Filmen bygger på den bog.

Så filmen er ikke neutral, den underbygger Mosab Hassan Yousefs standpunkt over for faderen og resten af familien, som har brudt med denne ældste søn. I en elegant og ren fotografering og i et glat og effektivt klip gentager han sin historie i en lang monolog, som fører igennem en dramatisk historisk periode, hvor Israel og Hamas er i krig, den anden intifada 2000-2005. Dette gennemgående interview suppleres i samme rensede, faktisk smukke stil med et enkelt gennemgående interview med kontaktmanden fra Shin Bet, og det slet ikke på en måde, så de to historier kommer i konflikt, tværtimod. Kontaktmanden er i dag selvstændig advokat i Israel.

Filmens styrke er dens meget høje produktionsværdi, den er næsten behagelig at se, og så især dens detaljerede indblik i hvordan denne berømte spiontjeneste arbejdede / arbejder. Som sådan er den et meget værdifuldt supplement til Dror Morehs The Gatekeepers, hvor det er rækken af tidligre Shin Bet chefer som fortæller. Filmens store svaghed er at Shirman som det ser ud ikke har givet de to medvirkende modstand nok, måske er de som personer egentlig ikke interessante nok, så de menneskelige sprækker i facaden, som Moreh får så kunstnerisk værdifuldt frem hos de benhårde chefer, er der intet af i Shirmans arbejde, han vil ikke noget filmisk essay om krigens etik, han vil vist blot en effektiv ”psykologisk spionthriller”, som Dokumania skriver, altså god underholdning. Og det lykkes.

Nadav Shirman: The Green Prince (Spion for Israel), Israel 2015, 90 min. DR2 Dokumania i aftes 12. januar 2016. Kan streames her: https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/dokumania/dokumania-spion-for-israel

SYNOPSIS

With just two talking-head interviews, Nadav Schirman’s gripping and intimate documentary recounts Mosab Hassan Yousef’s extraordinary double-life as the son of a Hamas radical who turned informer for Israel’s shadowy Shin Bet. Accepting from the outset that his actions would be interpreted as an unforgivable betrayal (someone who “raped their own mother” would seem less shameful, says Yousef), our edgily eloquent subject explains how he supplied information both to prevent terrorist attacks and also to protect his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Meanwhile, former Shin Bet agent Gonen Ben Yitzhak describes the bond of trust that grew between him and Yousef – a bond that saw the informant’s “handler” turned upon by his own organisation, leaving both men out in the cold. It’s a remarkable story, told with slick thriller flair, focusing increasingly on the interdependence of its subjects, who chose personal morality over political rhetoric, with isolating results. In the process, the film deliberately sidesteps the wider issues unearthed so alarmingly in Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers, a film that offers intriguing context to this very personal tale of trial and salvation. (The Guardian)

LINKS / LITTERATUR

Mosab Hassan Yousef: Son of Hamas, 2010.