You have to catch the attention of the audience right from the beginning. The opening of a film is so important. Here you have to  make an invitation to the viewer, give some basic information that indicates, what he/she can expect but first of all demonstrate that you are a filmmaker, who can create an atmosphere, a tone that makes you curious, that surprises you, that gives you something special, that in this case convinces you that this is personal and not private.

Swedish Sara Broos does so with the first four minutes of her ”Reflections” (”Speglingar” in Swedish). You get a close-up of a young beautiful face in profile and thereafter of an older beautiful face in profile. A fine voice (how attractive the Swedish language is spoken like this) tells us what this is about – mother and daughter together, filmed in Latvia in a house and on a beach. The daughter, Sara, the filmmaker, invited mother Karin, painter, on a trip as a present when she became 60. Sara wanted to ask questions – a classic: I want to know more about you, mother, there is so much I don’t know.

The combination of the text of Sara, the super-stylized arranged images that makes me think of surrealist art, the music, makes you totally drawn into the story. You even get an explanation to the aesthetic chosen; Karin takes photos of Sara and her two sisters as sketches for her paintings.

4 minutes, then on the screen ”Reflections – a film by Sara Broos” and then quite a cut to mother Karin and father Marc in their cosy

living room reading the morning’s newspapers and discussing, who is to descale the coffee machine and who is to feed the birds in the garden… It feels like Sara Broos wants to bring the film down to earth: hey we are humans like you are, a surprising and funny scene.

And then Sara and we get to know the mother’s story from when she grew up in the 70’es, tried alcohol and drugs and men, travelled… and had for years a severe crisis of bulimia. As had Sara who always wanted to be like her mother. There is a shift from mother’s to daughter’s story, there is pain but also joyful conversations between the two of them. And there is a terrible memory about a stillbirth, where Sara who waited excitingly to become a big sister never got to see the dead child. Why not, she asks.

The title’s double meaning comes out not only explicitly in the visual side of the film but also in the voice-off text of Sara, who thinks back on a chaotic childhood in an artist family, ”but there was always order in my room”. Slowly in the process of conveying her mother’s story reveal her own growing-up with crisis and getting finally to accept her own body.

It is told through use of archive photos and home video/film footage, sometimes the images are double-exposed and in a tone that changes with a change of the character of music, a couple of times with almost abstract-image sequences of experimental character. And then back to the stylized, to mother and her paintings and her face in front of the mirror putting on make-up, once accompanied by a wonderful anecdote about a woman they met in Jurmala who wanted to sell wrinkle cream. Yes, there is also a lot for us 60+, about aging.

Any objections? Well, more in the direction of taste. I have always thought that Swedish masters like Bergman and Stefan Jarl (in his nature films) sometimes became too solemn and used too many obvious symbols – Swedish Sara Broos does the same a couple of times. A matter of taste, the cinematic talent is indispensable.

http://www.broosfilm.com/#!speglingar/nludd

Sweden, 2016, 76 mins.

It’s a very fine film, I placed it on the 2015 Talent List and am pleased to see that the Copenhagen audience will get the chance to enjoy it. Cinemateket has chosen Antonio Tibaldi and Alex Lora´s ”Thy Father’s Chair” as the Documentary of the Month = five screenings starting from 25th of February.

Here is a precise synopsis in English, I will write the review in Danish: Abraham and Shraga are two Orthodox aging twins, who live a secluded existence in their inherited Brooklyn home. Since the death of their parents, they have stopped throwing away anything, hosting stray cats and accumulating all sorts of stuff. Now, their upstairs tenant threatens to stop paying them rent unless they proceed to a radical cleaning. Abraham and Shraga have no choice but to open their doors to a professional company. A traumatic invasion of privacy ensues, forcing them to confront their memories in order to try to find a new beginning…

Og ind i en smal gyde kører en bil med logoet HCH (Home Clean Home) på siden. Ud træder rengøringskorpset, som skal rydde op i det ustyrlige svineri, gøre rent og få gjort has på væggelus, kakerlakker og andre smådyr, som har hygget sig blandt madrester, i madrasser, i gulvtæpperne. Overalt. Fy for pokker!

Filmholdet er med og bliver til slut, hvor bilen kører væk efter endt oprydningsaktion… og filmen er slut, efterfulgt af en smuk epilog, der refererer til titlens stol, som Abraham sætter sig i henne i hjørnet med lys fra vinduerne. Med en kat indenfor rækkevidde og bogen i hånden.

Filmens opbygning er således enkel mth. start og slut, med den fremadskridende arbejdsindsats og brødrenes reaktioner brudt op i tætte afsnit, I, II, III osv., der markerer at noget tid er gået. Det er alt sammen nænsomt fortalt akkurat som oprydderne, med masker og beskyttelsesdragter, er søde og nænsomme i deres måde at henvende sig til Abraham på. For det er ham, der hele tiden er i centrum, broren Shraga kommer og går og den tredje bror Nehemiah dukker aldrig op, ej heller da der skal sorteres ud i hans ejendele. Abraham er klar over at aktionen er nødvendig, men det gør ondt på ham at måtte se mange ting blive smidt ud og han bliver endnu mere nervøs, når han ikke kan få fat i sine brødre. Han tumler rundt og skal svare på om dette skal smides ud eller ej.

Langsomt og fint får vi tilskuere tilført oplysninger om forældrene og kan danne os et billede af, hvordan livet blev levet da de var i live – ifølge jødiske ritualer og tænkemåder.

”I feel so sad when I see you sad”, siger den (jødiske leder) af oprydningsholdet. Og det er netop den følelse filmen giver videre, når man ser de hjælpeløse brødre ryste på hænderne (I’m addicted to alcohol, siger Shraga) og Abraham som vist har samme problem, gemmer flasker væk.

Langsomt bliver der ryddet op og gjort rent, og naturligvis ikke uden problemer. Abraham synes han taber kontrollen med sit hjem og føler sig ind imellem ydmyget af situationen med alle disse mennesker omkring sig. Hvordan pokker har han også kunnet holde ud at have et par filmfolk rendende rundt?

Alligevel, og det er filmens fortjeneste, forlader vi Abraham fyldt med respekt for et klogt, empatisk menneske. Som ikke kunne overskue sit voksende hjem. Og ikke nænnede at smide ud. En sjældent velfortalt, helstøbt film.

Italien, USA, 2015, 74 mins.

www.cinemateket.dk

Thank you for letting me be in the company of Aisha for 70 minutes. You invited me to get to learn a young girl and woman full of Life living in a country I know very little about, Jordan. And yet, could it not have been everywhere that an abandoned child, who has spent 18 years of her young life in orphanages and foster homes, have to fight to find herself, love and a place to be in society?

It starts with a conversation between Aisha and Asma, the one behind the camera, the director. In a desert, at a place where there is nothing to disturb, where Aisha has the time to reflect on her life and on how she changes personality according to situations and people, she meets. And where she out of own experience claims that few people are able to ”think outside the box”. That is what she says and says in English language. This location for intimate conversation comes back later in the film and closes an amazing and fascinating story about Aisha, filmed over many years. (The still photo is taken there). It is very impressive how the film goes to the level where the social problems – harsh – stay in the background to let the personal stand out and become universal.

It is sometimes a bit confusing that Asma Bseiso cuts from one year to the next and back again, but getting used to this ”rule of the

game”, you simply enjoy to watch the changing hairstyle of the star of the film! Yes, Aisha is a film star, the camera loves her face and her smiles, and the older she gets, the more she knows how to act in front of the camera. Like when she is suggesting Asma behind the camera to get her notebook, after having shown pictures of herself, in which she writes ”you have to watch out for yourself and dream about your future”. And – as said on another occasion – turn the negative into something positive.

In 1997 King Hussein and the Queen visited an orphanage that was far beyond any decency. The King decided to move the kids to a wing of his Palace, where Aisha had a good life until she was taken to an orphanage in horrible condition – Asma Bseiso filmed there without permission. When she was 17 she got married, but that did not last long as the (English)man was already married! At a certain point Aisha is asked how many places she has been living. 12 she says, without counting the places where ”I was for some days”. The camera visits her when she lives with Noura and another girl, whose face is blurred, and in another appartment where her birthday is celebrated. There are several uplifting girlish scenes, as there are scenes where she can not hold back the tears, a girl who knows her parents, who are well of but abandoned her.

Aisha goes to university, studies psychology, gets a job at Save the Children Jordan, changes her looks into having tattoos and being pierced, constantly searching for ”who am I”, ”rebel for freedom” is the text of one of the tattoos and indeed she could be a role model for young Arab women with a tough background.

I asked Asma Beseiso about the title, the name – she answered that ”Aisha means “alive”, the title in Arabic “lissa aisha” means literally Still Alive..” As is the film “very much alive”, quite an achievement from the side of the director, who I met on Corfu in 2011 in one of the Storydoc workshops. The film will have its premiere in March in Jordan and from there go to festivals.

Look at the photo, taken by Giedre Beinoriute just after the award ceremony. It is the Independence Day of Lithuania and the ceremony is about to start. On the red carpet former President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus welcomes Vytautas Landsbergis and his wife. If anyone Landsbergis symbolises the independence of Lithuania. He was the one, who as Head of the Seimas, the Lithuanian Parliament, on March 11 1990 declared Lithuania independent of the Soviet Union, the first Soviet republic to do so. The Soviet reaction to this is well known, economic blockade and later on attacks on the tv tower – 14 Lithuanians were killed on the night of January 13th… In February 1991 Iceland became the first country to recognise the independence of Lithuania.

Back to the photo taken two days ago. We managed to join the crowd on the square and to feel the solemn atmosphere when the National Hymn of Lithuania was song. One hour earlier, as her introduction to the award ceremony, the President Dalia Grybauskaite said that she would not make a speech but stressed the importance of protecting the country and its values in times ”where we are threatened”. The reference to Russia was obvious. Grybauskaite is known for being direct and outspoken like some days before in Munich, where she commented on the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

There were flags all over in the streets of Vilnius on this Day of

Independence, smiling parents with kids on their shoulders. We had coffee with Alge and Arunas Matelis, returned to the hotel to change from tie and jacket to warm sweater and went with Audrius Stonys to observe the most important – according to Stonys – ceremony at the House of Signatories in Pilies Street, where the Act of Lithuania’s Independence was signed on the16th of February 1918. Again Vytautas Landsbergis was at the centre to speak to the people in the street from the balcony of the house and again – after cannons were fired from the balcony above Landsbergis – people started so sing and quite an emotional moment was created. I was saying to my wife that this could never happen in our country… Landsbergis, a true hero, an intellectual, expert in Ciurlionis, the national painter and composer, a respected piano player, a writer, a man who had deserved the Nobel Peace Prize that was given to Gorbachev in 1990.

With Stonys we walked the streets of Vilnius. We had a warm soup and talked about local filmmakers. He mentioned that Oksana Buraja, who was a student of his and who has made interesting films like ”Confession”, ”Diary”, ”Lisa, Go Home”, was now a nun at the Orthodox Church. ”Do you want to see her”, of course we did and with Stonys as translator and questioner as well, we had two unforgettable hours of conversation with Sister Joanna (aka Oksana Buraja) in the monastery, where she had her own small editing room doing information programmes for the church. She was reflective on what she had done as a filmmaker, she felt that the relationship of her to the main character Lisa in that film was false with her – the director – always thinking about the film, where she maybe should have helped the girl away from her poor family situation. Charismatic Sister Joanna showed us the church and the concert hall, where she makes children programmes. She laughingly said that she still has an idea to make a feature film and had problems to get it out of her head. We asked her if the day of a nun was boring… she said yes, but her duty was to communicate with the external world and she found that rewarding.

The day started at the Presidential Palace and ended at Restaurant René (named after Magritte). It is a day that will stay in my mind forever. One thing is the recognition from Lithuanian filmmakers, another is to be in Vilnius on this special day, to feel the warm atmosphere – and to be with you Audrius and Aida Stonys, Arunas and Alge Matelis, Giedre Beinoriute and Mindaugas Survila from the morning with the president and in the evening for ”moules et frites”. And for your humour – as Arunas Matelis said: ”There were only two foreigners at the palace to receive orders… one from NATO and from Cinema”.    

I am biased. I have known about this film to be done for years. I was a teacher at the Zelig film school in Bolzano, when Georg worked there, he showed me material that was very interesting, and I met his boy, the protagonist of the film. Now Georg sent me a vimeo link, he wants my opinion and advice on festivals. I decided, that I would only write a review if I really liked this short film on Misha, with his father behind the camera, edited by Marzia Mete, who has helped what could have ended as a private film to be a personal and universal situational documentary of great sensitivity. First about content, Georg has made a fine film synopsis so let him explain with own words:

”Misha is nine years old when the cirrhosis of his liver and his strong malnutrition make a transplant become the only option. The boy has already come face to face with death several times during his young life. He is used to his family’s constant enormous worries, to the long sojourns at hospitals throughout Europe and to a strongly limited life. But his approach to the big questions of life and death, his self–acquired belief in God and his candid and life-affirming interest to the world, broadly contradict the image of a suffering kid and unveil a conscious and experienced soul in the young body. Misha’s father follows him and his family during the months before and after the threatening but life-saving surgical intervention from immediate proximity creating a poetic and optimistic manifesto for organ donation”.

The last words might make you to think that it is a campaign film, it

can of course be seen as such and Georg does right, when he thanks organ donors at the end credits – but the film is first and foremost a fine piece of caressing film art, caressing the pretty, charming and clever boy, who is far too often behind the windows of a hospital looking at the world outside – if he is not playing with kites at the beach, or playing with his sister, conversing with his father or dictating words to his mother for the diary he made after the liver transplantation had been performed.

Georg Zeller is a good cameraman, he composes images so we get far beyond reporting, and he and editor Marzia Mete have found a tone and rhythm that alternates from inside to outside and back again.

Of course it is very emotional to watch the film because the boy is so wonderful alive and you know what he suffers from and you see him lying there after the operation being helped to breathe surrounded by machines and whatever into his nose and skin. It is tough to be there. And then, contrasting, it is a scoop when Misha and his sister Lola towards the end of the film tell the father to stop filming, when they are about to play doctors and operate on a puppet… Georg stopped on this occasion, fortunately he did not when he was the troubled father behind the camera, wherefore he and his family have brought a film to us viewers, which deserves to be shown all over. It makes you smile and laugh – and cry a bit.

Italy, 2016, 33 mins.

PS. I asked Georg for a more detailed explanation of the illness. He answered: The illness is Cystic Fibrosis (earlier called also Mucoviscidosis), a genetic disease which creates a dense mucus in all organs. This makes problems mainly in the lungs (because of tough unbeatable infections), in digestion (Pankreas), and in some other organs. The liver is a problem only in 10% of the patients, but Misha seems to have a quite tough version of CF (there are several thousand different mutations causing this illness). At the moment only symptomatic treatments are available (mainly strong Antibiotics, heavy physiotherapy and Enzyme, Vitamin etc. substitution), but genetic treatments are starting to be commercialized for some mutation types. The life expectancy has risen from less then 10 years in the ’80s, to 35.