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.

Martti Helde: In The Crosswind

1

En lille familie, far, mor og en sovende datter bliver fuldstændigt uvarslet hentet en tidlig sommermorgen. Det er i Estland, det er ude på landet, æbletræerne blomstrer og duften er overvældende dejlig. Ingen forstår det hele omfang af det som sker. Min helt store oplevelse på Baltic Frames søndag var denne film, dette vældige værk, denne rige film som i mine associationer undervejs rammer Bergman-erindringer fra både Smultronstället og Skammen og Tarkovskij-erindringer fra Spejlet og senest rammer filmen umistelige Guzmán-indtryk fra Lysets nostalgi og dertil min egen helt personlige nutidige angst for med ét ikke længere at være beskyttet af mit land og min regering, ladt alene med min angst for bankene på døren en tidlig morgen, min angst for deportation, mishandling og forsvinding.

2

På jernbanestationen skilles familien. Manden skal blive, han skal et andet sted hen, moderen og barnet skal med toget, hvorhen ved de ikke. Jeg ved det jo, ved hvor begge skal hen, jeg sidder med min gamle viden om det tyvende århundredes historie, om dette nye århundredes, min samtids begivenheder. Afskeden på perronen er som scene mytologisk i århundredets ikonografi og elegi.

3

Jeg ved at kvinderne og børnene i godsvognen er på den dagelange rejse til arbejdslejren i Sibirien. Filmens dagbogsfortælling gemt i kvindens breve har imidlertid ikke den viden, og den indeholder endnu håbet om den mærkelige misforståelse. Årene er 1940-ernes første, Letland er en del af det store velordnede Sovjetunionen. Jeg ved nu så længe efter, at den velordnethed bygger på en omfattende undertrykkelse af efterhånden den mindste afvigelse, ved det også fra de baltiske landes film de seneste årtier. Husker med ét tydeligt lettiske Andris Rozenbergs’ Punished for a Dream (1994) hvor Elza Sterste skriver sine breve fra lejren i Sibirien som digte: ”Kroppen har ikke længere vægt, sjælen har ingen grænse. Jeg skaber mig selv af lys og ånd. Og når lyset svinder i dette lands tusmørke, letter jeg som en fjer.”

4

Rationen er 200 gram brød om dagen. Til de arbejdende voksne. Til børnene ingenting. Moderen finder ud af hvor brødrationerne opbevares. Vil tage lidt mere til sit barn. Opdages. Må tage imod en invitation til at drikke vodka med lejrchefen, være sammen med ham. Brevet til hendes mand, hvor hun fortvivlet forklarer og beder om tilgivelse, et brev som han jo aldrig får, hører jeg læst med denne rolige, smukke stemme. Gribes så dybt.

5

Det som holder de sibiriske nætter og dage også og ind imellem fjerlet fri af ydmygelserne, smerterne, sulten og udmattelsen er nedskrivningerne af brevenes sansninger af hændelser, oplevelser, datterens liv, længsler, af kærlighedens forvandlingsformer og erindringen om hjemmet i det lettiske landskab, altid sommer og duften af en blomstrende gren og lykken under æbletræets hvide dække.

6

Filmen står tilbage i erindringen som et diskret, nænsomt og dog omhyggeligt altseende kameras ustandseligt bevægede skildring af en lidelseshistorie bevaret i en række tableauer fra en tid som var men ikke er, tableauer over kvindens journal, hendes aldrig sendte / aldrig modtagne breve til sin mand, sin elskede, en forunderligt sammenhængende tekst samtidig så smukt læst, jeg ønskede hele tiden jeg forstod estisk, en tekst musikalsk prægnant helt ned i den engelske litterære oversættelse.

Martti Helde: In The Crosswind, Estland 2014 87 min.

SYNOPSIS

On the night of June 14, 1941, many thousands of inhabitants of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — identified as “anti-Soviet elements” by the USSR, which had annexed the Baltic states the previous year — were forced onto trains and sent to the remotest outposts of Siberia. Thousands of families were torn apart and forced to endure brutal conditions for nearly two decades until their eventual release. Inspired by a first-hand account of these events, this unforgettable debut feature by director Martti Helde meticulously reconstructs one survivor’s story to create a delicate, powerfully moving memorial to all the victims of this massive and often-overlooked tragedy.

In the Crosswind focuses on the personal experience of philosophy student Erna (ed.: Erna Nagel)  (Laura Peterson) as she endures physical and psychological hardships alongside her little daughter, Eliide, while waiting to be reunited with her husband Heldur, a soldier. Drawing from the diary kept by the real-life Erna throughout her displacement, Helde renders her memories in striking black-and-white tableaux vivants. Carving out an uncanny space between motion and stasis, these images evoke a state in which the past seems solid and the present like a dream.

Exhaustively researched, with immersive sound design and sumptuous cinematography, In the Crosswind is a remarkable achievement: a testimony to a vital historical moment, a powerfully subjective account of a search for home, and an ode to the ethereal strangeness of memory. (Dimittri Eipides, tiff.net)

LITTERATUR / LINKS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6q1OWCxxpQ  (trailer)

tiff.net  (om filmen, credits mv.)

http://www.off-kino.dk/introduktion.html (dansk importør)

dr.dk/kultur/nyheder/ (Per Juul Carlsens grundige anmeldelse, hvor han også nøgternt beskriver filmens overraskende æstetiske og tekniske løsninger)

Tue Steen Müller, red.: Balticum Film & TV Festival 1990-99, Baltic Media Centre, 1999, ENGLISH. (Essays om blandt andre Mark Soosaar, Herz Frank, Audrius Stonys, Juris Podnieks, Andris Slapins)