Herz Frank – Collected Posts on his Works

 

Always with a camera at hand, be it to catch a moment in life…

 

THE JEWISH STREET (1992)

by Allan Berg Nielsen

The camera from high above shows me Riga. The city set in its landscape. I’m drawn closer, zooming in on roofs and individual buildings. Ending with the synagogue, the one from back then. The camera dwells on the inscription on a stone tablet: ‘Forever remember our Parents, brothers, sisters and children murdered and burned by fascists in the year of 5701. Let their Souls be bound securely in the Bundle of the Living. For Jews of Riga Ghetto, the Martyrs of Faith’.

Herz Frank outlines the story. The Russian occupation, then the German. The latter called a liberation by some, but disavowed by the film. It describes new suppression. The Latvian flag was removed everywhere, the picture shows the arrests being made, and the director comments in his voice-over “Like in all Times they started with Temples”. The synagogues burn…

Read more / Læs mere

Robert Frank – Collected Posts on his Works

 

… it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this. It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as a stylistic or artistically experimental take, but because it is necessary for a purpose: a search for truth. (Sara Thelle)

 

THE PHENOMENON ROBERT FRANK

By Tue Steen Müller

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I read somewhere that NYTimes plans to cut down in their movie reviews policy that so far has been working in the way that ALL films released theatrically in NY are reviewed. What that means remains to be seen, but it will not make me give up my subscription that includes the newspaper and the thursday/friday ”Movies Update” that is a pleasure to read for a documentary addict as well.

For instance the one from today: more documentaries are reviewed – and there is a long and informative, and superbly illustrated, article on the phenomenon Robert Frank, “The Man Who Saw America” (link) (Post 02-07-2015)

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Calling all documentarians: Take a look at the NY Times site page that brings 11 of the photos that are exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until January 3 2010.

Robert Frank is celebrated on the occasion of the 50th year of the publication of his classic ”The Americans”, the exemplary evidence of what a documentary interpretation of reality can be. In the review of the exhibition today in International Herald Tribune his work is characterized as an expression of ”mournful tenderness”.

Frank has been an inspiration for filmmakers all over the world. In Denmark the films of Jørgen Leth (”66 Scenes from America” and ”New Scenes from America”), to mention a couple that comes to my mind, would not be as they are if not for Frank. (link nytimes.com) (Post 29-09-2009)

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Artistic repetitions and variations of the same theme in documentary films… Where do we find them? I had this thought when I watched Picasso. I thought of Jørgen Leth and his two America-films, “66 Scenes from America” and “New Scenes from America”. The camerawork of Dan Holmberg is in both cases much more linked to visual art than to narrative (literary) structures. I thought of Steen Møller Rasmussen, also a Danish documentarian, who has searched to catch New York, inspired heavily by Leth as a filmmaker and Robert Frank as a filmmaker and photographer. I thought of Sergey Dvortsevoy and his Russian images, full of atmospheres and different moods, as are the Danes I mention above. And as are Picasso´s variations. Could it be possible to talk more about film and (visual) art? (Post 13-10-2008)

The Americans

 

IT SOUNDS WILD AND IT IS

By Sara Thelle

Thank you to Cinemateket in Copenhagen who, in collaboration with the Copenhagen Photo Festival and Danish writer, filmmaker and beat expert Lars Movin, organised the Robert Frank program here in June. And thank you to Lars Movin for sharing his knowledge and his personal anecdotes with us when introducing the films. This was the first big Robert Frank retrospective and also the first official screening of the legendary Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues (1972) on Danish ground. 15 of Robert Frank’s films and 3 about him.

I was in for a small marathon last Saturday. First the documentary Leaving Home, Coming Home – A Portrait of Robert Frank (2005) by Gerald Fox, a rare intimate portrait, since Robert Frank has never been keen to being filmed or interviewed. Then the feature-length hybrid film Me and My Brother (1968) and last, a collection of his later short films The Present (1996), I Remember (1998), Paper Route (2002), True Story (2004/2008) and Fernando (2008).

Me and My Brother was a slap in my face. It opens up with a very disturbing scene that takes you right to the bottom of a deep and complex matter. Soon it is turned into a film within the film and becomes a sort of meta-reflection and investigation into the questions: how do you film other people, how do you use others in your art, how do you use yourself, what do you make money from, how does it feel to be filmed, what does it do to you, when are you yourself and when are you acting. It is a hybrid film, mixing real life with staged acting, colour with black & white, at times the characters are “played” by themselves and at other moments by actors.

Originally, Frank was set out to make a film adapting Allen Ginsberg’s poem Kaddish, written about his mentally ill mother. But over time, the project becomes a film about Ginsberg’s partner Peter Orlovsky’s brother Julius, who after having spent 15 years in a psychiatric hospital is let out and left in care of his brother. So the setting is Julius, a catatonic schizophrenic, living with Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsburg. The film is about how to live with and among mental illness, about how the brother Peter deals with it, and in this way – maybe – it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this.

It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as a stylistic or artistically experimental take, but because it is necessary for a purpose: a search for truth.

Suisse photographer Robert Frank (born 1924) emigrated to America in 1947. He became friends with the Beat Generation and famous with the groundbreaking photographic book The Americans (1958). He then starts to make films. The short film Pull My Daisy (1959) is the first, written and narrated by Jack Kerouac.

Robert Frank uses himself in his work, but in a way where the private and personal never becomes confessional. His family plays an important role, his two children, Andrea and Pablo, in particular. He lost them both; Andrea died 20 years old in a plane crash in South America in 1974, Pablo, who suffered from schizophrenia, died in 1994. His later work explores the themes of loss, pain and memory, the past and the present.

Lars Movin used a Dylan-quote referring to Robert Frank setting aside all rules with Me and My Brother: “To live outside the law, you must be honest” (hinting that this is not always the case, especially nowadays). And honest is maybe the most precise word to describe this immense oeuvre that has now been opened up to me.

“It has to do with life more than with art” says Robert Frank himself in an interview in connection with his exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6CVyWCVgFg

Cinemateket closed up for the summer showing Candy Mountain (1988), Robert Franks only feature-length fiction film made together with Rudy Wurlitzer. A perfect road-movie, pure joy and quite a bit of wisdom too…

If you can’t wait for the next retrospective, here are some shortcuts:

A great part of Robert Frank’s films, writings and photo books are edited by the distinguished German publisher Steidl. Among them Me and My Brother, a book with stills and dialogue and a DVD inside:

https://steidl.de/Books/Me-an-My-Brother-0409414457.html

Conversations in Vermont (1969), where Robert Frank visits his two children at their boarding school, is made available to the public online through the brilliant Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/cbpf_000051_p2#  

Candy Mountain exists in a French DVD edition released by Blaq Out in 2013. Please check out the trailer, it’s a gem!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pOu9piFAIg

http://www.blaqout.com/film/candy-mountain-2

(Post 26-06-2015)

 

DON’T BLINK: ROBERT FRANK (2015)

By Tue Steen Müller

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A very nice email came in yesterday from New York from Laura Israel, who I met at IDFA in Amsterdam years ago. She told me that – as for decades editor and close collaborator of Robert Frank, and a director herself – she was wondering if a film about Robert Frank made by her would be interesting. Are you kidding, we want as much as possible on this great artist… what else could I have answered?

I am so happy to hear that the film, ”Don’t Blink: Robert Frank” is now finished and even more so, Laura Israel tells me that it has ”been selected to play in the New York Film Festival’s main slate this October”. The festival runs from September 25-October 11 and here is the description of the film from the festival site:

“The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they’re one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he’s covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early ’90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don’t Blink is Israel’s like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.” (Post 15-08-2015)

Don’t Blink: Robert Frank

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If you read the post ”Viktor Kossakovsky at IDFA” (link), you will discover his insisting on the form, on the composing of the image, on the aesthetics. If you want to see how this can be done, please go and see Laura Israel’s film ”Don’t Blink: Robert Frank” here at IDFA. It was screened at the Stedelijk Museum thursday night and is an excellent introduction to the now 91 year old legendary photographer and filmmaker made by his editor and collaborator in many films, a warm and generous portrait and a look into the creative process of a lovely man, a great artist, who has suffered personal tragedies in his life, that is very much present in his work, but who has also demonstrated how to catch moments in the lives of ”The Americans”, the title of his masterpiece. There was a retrospective of his work – and there is right now at IDFA, including his Rolling Stones film, ”Cocksucker Blues” – in Copenhagen, Sara Thelle wrote about it on this site. (Post 21-11-2015)

http://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2015/daily/the-new-york-film-festival-sets-26-films-for-the-2015-main-slate/

FOTO

Barry Kornbluh: Robert Frank indstiller (uden for billedrammen) sit kamera (øverst i blogindlægget). Kornbluh fortæller på sin hjemmeside om optagelserne, hvoraf denne er en:

http://www.barrykornbluh.nl/Robert%20Frank/Robert%20Frank.html

Miroslav Janek – Collected Posts on his Works

 

Three persons in one room. Plus a film crew. Not a lot of space but the great Czech director and cameraman Mira Janek manages to move around to observe and catch the intense atmosphere of quite a unique family: blind mother, blind daughter and seeing man. The mother is the central character and the one that communicates with the camera, the one that performs wonderfully for the viewers and the one whose story we get told without any sentimentality but with energy and humour… (Tue Steen Müller)

 

DOCUMENTARIES AT THE BERLINALE

The prestigious Berlin film festival, the Berlinale, offers a good selection of documentaries this year. 30 it is according to the excellent website of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film), that is based in Prague. The Berlinale takes place February 7-17 and among the films screened are two that have been writen about on this blog: “Citizen Havel” by Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek (01-02-2008)

 

CITIZEN HAVEL CINEMA SUCCES

The documentary film about Vaclav Havel (directed by Pavel Koutecký and Miroslav Janek) has now been seen by 100.000 viewers in the Czech Republic. The film was released in January 2008, runs 119 minutes but can now also be seen in a director’s cut version that runs twenty minutes longer.

I had the chance to watch a rough cut version back in September last year, which I wrote about for this blog – title ”Documentary on Vaclav Havel”. Here follows a brief excerpt:

The film is wonderful being the result of 12 years of shooting by Pavel Koutecky who died last year in a tragic accident. The film has been completed by Mira Janek, and covers sequences from the life of Havel when president until the moment he steps down and leaves the castle in Prague. Private life and official life… A film full of humour about a gentle man, who – as he says himself – is unwilling to conform to the stereotypes…

Apart from the joyful meeting with a man of great modest charisma, the film gives you an inside to important moments in Czech politics when EU is to be the reality for the former communist country. (21-03-2008)

 

CPH:DOX 2008

DOC ALLIANCE AWARD 2008: This year’s special Doc Alliance Award goes to Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek for “Citizen Havel” (16-11-2008)

 

CZECH DOC 2009

Better late than never they seem to think in Czech Republic, a country with a fine documentary tradition. This is what is reported from the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) Headquarter in Prague, from one of the best written and edited doc sites, address below:

At the Czech Lion Awards nomination ceremony Friday, January 30, the Czech Film and Television Academy presented special awards to three Czech documentary films. Since a separate category for Best Documentary Film has only been created this year, members of the Academy selected the following from a shortlist of twelve titles made from 1993 to 2007: Czech Dream by Filip Remunda and Vít Klusák; Marcela by Helena Třeštíková, and Nicholas Winton – The Power of Good by Matej Mináč.

All great films, I can add. Award as Best Documentary Film 2008 went to Citizen Havel, by Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek. My comment: Of course. (02-02-2009)

 

THE BALUITY GHETTO (2009)

I owe Pavel Stingl an apology. I never believed that it would be possible to combine his moving story about the Czech Jews who were deported to the Lodz ghetto with the story about the people who live there today in, yes, you could also call it a ghetto with another, of course completely different, meaning of the word.

But he has succeeded to do so with the help of cameraman/director Miroslav Janek and the careful and never-going-for-the-easy-solution editing work of Tonicka Jankova. Out comes a big and important film, a historical as well as an actual interpretation of lives lived, and lives lost.

The part about the Czech Jews Stingl is narrated through close-up interviews with the survivors, who convey their horror stories about how their dear ones were sent off to Auschwitz or died right in front of them, of starvation or illness. These stories are carried by the photos from the Baluity Ghetto taken by Henryk Ross, who could move freely around and documented the ghetto life with more than thousand photos. In the part about the Poles today – who live where the Jews used to live – the camera catches interiors of incredible poverty and situations with people, who for some are old enough to remember that the Jews lived there, and situations with young people who perform antisemitic graffitti on the walls. Misery and aggression. Lack of education and knowledge about the past. Czech Republic/Poland, 2008, 83 mins. (21-07-2009)

The Baluity Ghetto


THE CONFESSIONS OF KATARYNA K (2009)

Three persons in one room. Plus a film crew. Not a lot of space but the great Czech director and cameraman Mira Janek manages to move around to observe and catch the intense atmosphere of quite a unique family: blind mother, blind daughter and seeing man. The mother is the central character and the one that communicates with the camera, the one that performs wonderfully for the viewers and the one whose story we get told without any sentimentality but with energy and humour. Very much present is also the hyperactive daughter, who dances in circles when the mother sings – and the husband, always in the background doing something in the kitchen, or taking a nap on his chair or smoking a cigarette on the balcony. Only once Kataryna forces him to the forefront to tell the story about how the two of them met. Wonderful!

Kataryna K. comes from Ukraine. She went to Prague, met her Honza, got pregnant and gave birth to a girl, who inherited her sight handicap. Kataryna talks through the whole duration of the film and stays passionately around the Jewish rituals and songs she knows about. Archive from their wedding highlights this very important event in their life.

A room with music, Kataryna rehearses the performances she is doing outside the room – and sometimes she sits at a desk and talks to the camera. Or at the piano. The room is full of cakes and the film is in the good sense of the word simply sweet! What a Life and what a Woman. Czech Republic, 2009, 53 mins., for Czech Television (01-08-2009)

The Confessions of Kataryna K.

 

CINEMATEKET IN COPENHAGEN

Special service for our Danish readers – about many fine documentaries to be watched at the Film House in Copenhagen at Cinemateket, run by the Danish Film Institute:

Der er meget at komme efter i Cinemateket i februar måned, hvis man er til dokumentar. 3 af de 8 film i en tjekkisk filmserie er dokumentarer, alle sammen fyldigt omtalt eller anmeldt med links på denne blog: det klassiske observerende mesterværk ”Citizen Havel” af Pavel Koutecky og Miroslav Janek, den banebrydende/underholdende/kritisk satiriske ”Czech Dream” af Vit Klusak og Filip Remunda, og Helena Trestikovas sociale ”René”. Høj kvalitet, som jeg så ofte har skrevet på denne plads: ”East Beats West”.

 

RIPPING REALITY

The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (April 29 – May 9) has introduced an interesting category in this year’s festival programme: Ripping Reality. Ten films have been chosen that in each their own way have added something new to the documentary genre in the last decade. I was asked to give my point of view on this and listed 10 Eastern and Central European works that are close to my heart and demonstrates originality and innovative strength. The Hot Doc people, led by festival director Sean Farrell, has put up a website that has a lot of interesting texts on the state of the art of the documentary. Here is my text contribution for the initiative: The last decade of documentaries, a new wave or new waves… well, you can have a look at it from different angles. As a documentary workshop organizer, both in my time as director of EDN (European Documentary Network) and now as a free lancer, I see more and more upcoming talents who try to fight their ways through endless sessions of

pitching projects to public broadcasters, whose editors have been forced to go more and more mainstream. The battle is lost as it was said by ex-leader of Arte France documentary section, Thierry Garrel, and what he meant was that in the most important place for creative documentaries, Arte, the formatting has arrived and will stay. The same can be said for ”Storyville”, where Nick Fraser a decade ago could take risks, where he today is threatened by the BBC wish for higher ratings. Play safe, this is what we have to do nowadays, another Arte editor said to me the other day.

So even if we see more emerging talent, documentary festivals all over, a growing audience, to watch documentaries have become a natural thing, often in the cinemas or on the net or on dvd – at the same time as public television, and many of the bigger festivals by the way, goes for the formatting of the creative documentary. Quantity before Quality. The result is that the average television viewer gets the impression that a documentary is a film, where there is voice-off talking from start till end, a lot of interviews and quick editing.

The exceptions that I found, the originality, the personal films with a personal style or handwriting – I saw them primarily in the Eastern part of Europe, where I have been working and where the message to the young filmmakers have been quite clear: You should know about the Western European documentary market and its demands, but please please keep your own voice. The coming list includes films that I have found important from the last decade from the East of Europe:

1. CITIZEN HAVEL (Pavel Koutecky, Miroslav Janek, Czech Republic, 2008)
Yes, it is quite classical in its observational style and therefore also untypical for documentaries of today, where for instance Arte has dropped the observational documentary from its programming policy. 12 years of filming and what a character!

2. BLIND LOVES (Juraj Lehotsky, Slovakia, 2008 )
Five years of research getting to know his blind characters and then writing a script using situations and dialogues that he had heard to put together a four episode hymn to Love. A first feature length from Lehotsky!

3. THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM (Andrey Paounov, Bulgaria, 2004)
Intelligent, non-linear dramaturgy, humour, many layers, shot on Film.

4. 66 SEASONS (Peter Kerekes, Hungary/Slovakia, 2003)
Inspired by Jan Gogola, dramaturgical icon of Czech Republic, this is a way to deal with history in a constant surprising humorous way.

4. THE BELL (Audrius Stonys, Lithuania, 2007)
It starts as a piece of journalism and shifts slowly into a piece of cinematographical beauty taking the viewer by surprise. A true poet.

5. BEFORE FLYING BACK TO EARTH (Arunas Matelis, Lithuania, 2005)
A masterpiece daring to deal with hospitalised children with cancer in a lively, non-sentimental way.

6. RABBIT A LA BERLIN (Bartek Konopka, Poland, 2009 )
Well, it was nominated to an Oscar, quite unusual for a film that is playful, multi-layered, original in approach to its theme, super!

7. CZECH DREAM (Filip Remunda, Vit Klusak, Czech Republic, 2004)
Long before the Yes-men and much more cinematic, satirical on a high level, a breakthrough for new Czech documentary.

8. ANOTHER PLANET (Ferenc Moldovanyi, Hungary, 2008)
A cinematically beautiful hymn to the children of this world, Moldovanyi has his own style of passion.

9. CASH AND MARRY (Atanas Georgiev, Macedonia/Croatia, 2009)
Original in its form, very actual in its theme, European problem number One today, getting into the EU paradise!

10. CHEMO (Pawel Lozinksi, Poland, 2009)
The title says what it is about, the form is pure observation through close-ups, it is made with love and knowledge about Cinema – putting together sound and image in a personal, organic flow. (PHOTO).

I could mention many others. And these new films don’t just come out of the blue, they build on a tradition of great filmmaking, a tradition that they oppose or continue: Russian Kossakovski and Dvortsevoy, Latvian Herz Frank, Ivars Seleckis and Juris Podnieks, Polish Marcel Lozinski and Kieslowski, Czechoslovak Dusan Hanak, Estonian Mark Soosaar and many others further back in time. (10-04-2010)

 

PAVEL KOUTECKY AWARD

Koutecky died tragically in 2006, 50 years old, after having completed twelve years of filming Vaclac Havel. The material was edited by his colleague Miroslav Janek and the masterpiece Citizen Havel was born.

An award has been set up in the name of Pavel Koutecky. For the fifth time it is to be handed out (followed by 100.000 CZK). In Prague on June 6. The nominees are the following Czech documentaries: All for the Good of the World and Novosice (Vit Klusak), Bear Islands (Martin Rysavy), Czech Granada (Jan Papousek), Earthlings, who are You voting for (Linda Jablonska), Filmmaker, Fan, freak (Katerina Mikulcova), For Semafor (Miroslav Janek), and Matchmaking Mayor (Erika Hnikova). (02-06-2011)

 

DOC ALLIANCE STRIKES AGAIN

On this site the vod (video on demand) initiative Doc Alliance, run by five European film festivals, has been praised several times for its quality in film selection and presentation, and for its cheap prices not to forget.

Doc Alliance has again a generous marketing offer to have people know about the vod. A handful of films about children can be streamed for free (until June 5), among them the masterpiece by Miroslav Janek, Unseen, which has the following catalogue annotation:

„People imagine, that the blind live in darkness and know nothing about the things around them. But they have a concrete image of everything.“ says photographer Daniela Horníčková, who led blind children from the Prague Jaroslav Jeek School to capture their surroundings on still camera. The children took pictures at school, on field trips, at home or the dormitory mostly focusing on things they knew by touch. In 1995, director Miroslav Janek entered the project and shot a documentary stimulating comprehension of the issues and uniqueness of the creative process. (03-06-2011)

 

TOP STILLS

af Tue Steen Müller og Allan Berg Nielsen

Vi forbinder bestemte historiske begivenheder med bestemte personer, de er vores hovedpersoner før, filmene gør dem til det. Dobbelt betydningsbærende. De tre stills i Filmkommentarens hoved kunne være de to bloggeres personlige bud på tre sådanne scener med tre særlige medvirkende i tre uomgængelige film. / The three stills above are from films strongly appreciated by the two bloggers, in important scenes and with main characters in the films as well as in specific periods of our history.

1) Vietnamkrigen erindret af Robert McNamara under sindrigt pres i Errol Morris: The Fog of War (2003). ”Det er måske Morris’ berømte spejlarrangement ved interviews, som gør det. McNamaras blik, fortælling og tolkning plus hans intensitet former uafrysteligt min opfattelse af verdenshistorien den sidste halvdel af 1900-tallet.” (Allan Berg Nielsen i filmkommentaren.dk) / The Vietnam War as it was recalled by Robert McNamara, pushed by Errol Morris in “The Fog of War” (2003). “Maybe it is the famous mirror arrangement at the interviews that does it. The glance of McNamara, his storytelling, his interpretation plus his intensity shakes completely my look at world history during the last half of the 20th century.”

The Fog of War

2) Militærkuppets fly mod præsidentpaladset iagttaget af Salvador Allende omgivet af livvagter i Patricio Guzman: “The Battle of Chile” (1975-1979). / The attack on La Moneda watched by Salvador Allende surrounded by his guards in Patricio Guzman’s “The Battle of Chile” (1975-79). “How could a team of five – some with no previous film experience – working with one Éclair camera, one Nagra sound recorder, two vehicles and a package of black-and-white film stock sent to them by the French documentarian Chris Marker produce a work of this magnitude?” (Pauline Kael in The New Yorker).

The Battle of Chile

3) Den nye tjekkiske politiske kultur levet af Vaclav Havel i blot en af utallige værtshusdiskussioner i Pavel Koutecký og Miroslav Janek: Citizen Havel (2008). ”I 12 år fulgte Pavel Koutecký og hans hold Havel, i det offentlige og i det private rum og ud af det er kommet en helt vidunderlig, morsom og gribende fortælling om en helt vidunderlig mand, der hele vejen igennem beholder sin integritet og viser at den ærlige og kærlige mand naturligvis ikke kan undgå at løbe ind i problemer, når han skal have med politik at gøre.” (Tue Steen Müller i Filmkommentaren.dk) / The new Czech political culture as it was lived by Vaclav Havel in one of many café discussions in Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek’s Citizen Havel (2008). “For 12 years Pavel Koutecky and his crew followed Havel, in public and privately, and from that material a wonderful film has been made, funny and touching it is about a fine man, who keeps his integrity and shows that an honest and loveable man of course must run into problems when he enters politics.” (12-01-2012)

Citizen Havel 

 

OLGA (2014)

This is a film, that I can’t wait to see. The main character is Olga Havlová, the director is Miroslav Janek. It guarantees the quality. Janek made “Citizen Havel” into an unforgettable film, when he took over the material that Pavel Koutecky had filmed during more than a decade. In the film you see Olga next to Havel, what a charisma, what a personality full of dignity, I thought. And now there is a film on its way with her as the main focus. Here is what I have taken from the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) website:

May 15, 2014 is the date of the distributional premiere of Olga – the newest documentary by the renowned director Miroslav Janek. Olga is a portrait of the late Czech president Václav Havel’s wife, assembled in an interesting way. It enables the audience to look into the previously unpublished archives and shows primarily the civil side of the main character.

Olga Havlová is remembered by her friends as the closest partner of Václav Havel, as a friend who never spoils a good laugh, a generous host, passionate player and nature lover. In their eyes, she was s a brusque commentator, a brave and dilligent dissident, and a wise and practical woman. Those who never met her in person remember her as a respectable first lady and the founder of the very first charitable organization in our country. On July 11th, 2013 Olga would have lived to celebrate her 80th birthday. This film is not to be made to celebrate the anniversary, but to reflect upon the way we remember her.

The police couldn’t break her, the Castle didn’t change her: The remarkable story of Václav Havel’s reluctant first lady. 
Olga Havlová was the closest and most trustworthy companion of Václav Havel, a friend who was never a spoilsport – on the contrary, she initiated the fun herself – a generous host, passionate games-player and mushroom-gatherer, a nature-lover, sharp commentator, courageous and diligent dissident; a wise and practical woman, always with her feet on the ground and true to herself. In 1990 she founded the Výbor dobré vůle (Committee of Good Will), still doing its good work today. (11-05-2014) 


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Have to confess that I did not know about the online documentary film magazine DOK Revue. Now I do, and it is no surprise that this fine initiative comes out of the Czech Republic, this time from the Jihlava International Documentary Film festival, whose energetic director Marek Hovorka together with Petr Kubica has made an interview with Miroslav Janek (photo) on the occasion of the release of his film “Olga”. I take a couple of quotes from the interview, link below to he magazine and the whole text:

Was the latest film Olga meant to be an amendment to Citizen Havel? To what extent were you affected by the work on Citizen Havel?

Apart from the fact that Olga Havlová was Václav Havel’s wife, those two films have nothing in common. They are formally completely different. Citizen Havel was made by Pavel Koutecký, the material had been ready and I was only an editor who had to work with what was available, although Tonička was my co-editor, too (Janková, editor’s note). Whereas in the case of Olga, I started from the scratch. It is also composed of archival materials, but they come from all sorts of sources. And yet, thanks to Citizen Havel I got to know Olga a bit better. I could feel her persona and found out what impression she makes on the screen.

The film is, to a large extent, concerned with the period of Czech history which you did not personally experience. (Janek was out of the country 1979-1996, ed.). Is this fact one of the reasons why you find this period so attractive?

I did not experience the period of dissent, and perhaps I like to experience it through my films. In the case of Olga, I knew that this period was of utmost interest to me, but not because of dissent. I was interested in the spirit of this movement, their world, their humour. It provided a sort of a counterbalance to the surrounding idiocy, the stupidity of the police. And this may be why so much space in the film is dedicated to this issue, although some might find it inappropriate. (14-05-2014)

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The Czech production company Film&Sociology was so kind to send me a vimeo link so I could watch Janek’s film on Olga Havlova, which I had read about passionately because of ”Citizen Havel”, where she is very much present with her husband Vaclav, a film shot by Pavel Koutecky and put together by Miroslav Janek. 160.000 saw the film in Czech cinemas.

The film about Olga lives totally up to what I had expected. It is lively, entertaining, has wonderful archive material (Olga died in 1996) and gives the atmosphere of a period, where she like her husband, who was in prison several times, was under constant surveillance by the secret police. And later on was ”equipped” with bodyguards to accompany her as ”the first Lady” of the country. The bodyguards talk in the film as do several members of the group of dissidents – about the jolly underground meetings and parties they had, often initiated by Olga, who is praised – just one out of many words and sentences – for her subtle humour. And about Charter 77, the samizdat activity, the Movement for Civic Freedom. The way the surveillance reports are conveyed gives the film this typical absurdity you often find in Czech cinema.

It’s history and it’s a film about a woman with an extraordinary charisma. She did not like (her husband says so) the pomposity of being ”the first lady”, she loved the theatre, she was an usher, she was Havel’s first dramaturg and the one, who often had to ”bring him down to earth”.

Many words are taken from her memoirs and Janek found a woman, who knew Olga, and had the kind of voice she had to read pages about her upbringing in communist Czechoslovakia. Editor Tonicka Jankova and director Miroslav Janek have done a great work to make this archive film fresh to watch. The montage is brilliant. Janek has said that he – in ”Citizen Havel” – could feel ”her persona”. Director and editor has succeeded to offer the audience the same. You never get really close to Olga, she wanted to keep her integrity and dignity, the filmmakers respect that dignity, her unsentimentality and humour – it is a film full of admiration for the protagonist, playful, informative, what more could you ask for? (22-05-2014)

Olga, Czech Republic, 2014, 87 mins.

 

JIHLAVA 2014

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The day after DOKLeipzig (below), the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (IDFF) announces its programme schedule, October 23-28. The newsletter from the Czech festival does also, as DOKLeipzig, focus on statistics in its first paragraph. After headline ”57 world, international or European premieres at this year’s Jihlava IDFF”, it goes like this ” This year, the traditional competition sections will offer a unique blend of auteur documentaries, most of which as world, international or European premieres. In the competition of world documentaries Opus Bonum the IDFF Jihlava will present 5 world premieres, 5 international premieres and 1 European premiere. In Between the Seas, the competition of Central and East European documentary film, there will be 4 world premieres, 2 international and 2 European premieres. The Czech Joy competition will present 10 world premieres.”

All right, let’s go to content, the films, where I can only salute that there are films from Guinea-Bissau, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Philippines, Japan and – I know I am repeating myself – “Euromaidan. Rough Cut” from Ukraine.

I will be in Jihlava 3 full days and apart from taking part in a couple of industry activities, I am looking forward to watch films and why not dig into the section “Czech Joy”, where there are films by Veronika Liskova, Miroslav Janek and Jan Gogola. I am a big admirer of Janek, whose films on Vaclav Havel and on Olga Havlova have been praised on Filmkommentaren.

I have been to Jihlava several times, mostly for the workshop of Ex Oriente, but also for the festival, once in the jury, and a compliment to the film selection: it is always surprising and out-of-mainstream festival profiles. (08-10-2014)

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At night world premiere of Miroslav Janek’s ”The World According to Brabenec”, full house in the big cinema, wonderful atmosphere because of the charismatic old man. One more remarkable film from the hands of Janek, here is the catalogue description:

“Journalist Renata Kalenská’s book of interviews with member of the Plastic People Vratislav Brabenec recorded not only his memories of the underground years, but also the author’s experiences with this highly distinctive individual. This cinematic sequel builds on those experiences as it captures her additional interviews with Brabenec – improvised talks at places that hold some meaning for Brabenec or Kalenská. The result is several scenes of irrelevant philosophising, self-deprecating humor, and commentary on the life of birds and on nature in general. The conversations, recorded mostly by hand-held camera, are interspersed with poetic citations. ’Do you ever feel happy?’ ’I don’t like the word happy at all. I equate happy with stupid.’ ’I’m unhappy with you. So I guess I’m un-stupid.’ ” (25-10-2014)

 

OLGA ON DOC ALLIANCE

DocAlliance starts its new year with a present to its (hopefully) many viewers: ”Olga” by Miroslav Janek is available for free viewing until January 11. It is a film that was on my Best of 2014 – here is a quote from the review:

Many words are taken from her memoirs and Janek found a woman, who knew Olga, and had the kind of voice she had to read pages about her upbringing in communist Czechoslovakia. Editor Tonicka Jankova and director Miroslav Janek have done a great work to make this archive film fresh to watch. The montage is brilliant. Janek has said that he – in ”Citizen Havel” – could feel ”her persona”. Director and editor has succeeded to offer the audience the same. You never get really close to Olga, she wanted to keep her integrity and dignity, the filmmakers respect that dignity, her unsentimentality and humour – it is a film full of admiration for the protagonist, playful, informative, what more could you ask for…? (06-01-2015)

 

MIROSLAV JANEK

I have run into a slate of giving verbal flowers to documentarians, whose work I appreciate a lot and who are to be highlighted right now for one reason or the other. Earlier today it was Sérgio Tréfaut who visits Copenhagen and a couple of days ago it was Filip Remunda with two new films. Tonight it is due to the exceptional fine offer given to us by the equally exceptional DocAlliance: An online retrospective with director, cinematographer and editor Czech Miroslav Janek FOR FREE, so go ahead folks out there, it is world class.

7 films to be watched available until December 20. ”Citizen Havel” (2007), ”Olga” (2014), ”The Gospel According to Brabenac” (2014) and the beautiful ”The Unseen” (1997) about blind children taking photographs plus 3 more I have not seen: ”For Semafor” (2010), ”Purple Snails” (2001) and ”Little City in Space” (1984).

You can read much more about Janek on the site of DocAlliance, they have good writers and I can fully second the characterisation of Janek having ”empathy without pathos” towards his characters. I have met and worked with him, when we both were tutors at the Ex Oriente, we are the same generation, it helps a conversation with a man, who has an unpretentious and professional approach to filmmaking.

Personally I am looking forward to having this small MacBook Cinema festival – join me, you won’t regret it! (07-12-2015)

Khaled Jarrar: Good Morning Occupation

This text is taken from the FB page of film director and visual artist, Palestinian Khaled Jarrar, whose documentary “Infiltrators” has been reviewed on this site, as well as his visual happenings. This scary, visually strong written report comes from his private life. It is his photo, more on his FB page:

I woke up around 2 this morning to the deafening sound of soldiers in my neighborhood. I went to the window and the (not so) shocking scene of 40 Israeli soldiers were outside, haphazardly breaking into houses. They shifted course and I found them walking toward my street – 20 meters away. What do I do? I thought. As they got closer to my building, I could feel the growing fear build up inside of me, which conflicted with my sense of relief that at least my children weren’t home that night – a small consolation. 
Before I knew it their heavy boots were trying to kick down the door downstairs. The sound of shattered glass shattered the silence of the calm night – which up until minutes before, families and students laid in the safety of their beds, quietly dreaming of something better than the scene before me. I called the Palestinian police hoping they could intervene or help, but I seemed to have wasted my call credit. “You live in Area B,” the dispatcher said over the phone. “We can’t do anything about it.” I played with that idea a moment in my mind – Area B. As opposed to what alternative? Area D? I’ll take that, it’s probably better than whatever this fake designation was.The sound became louder and my anxiety grew more intense when I heard the sound of something small and metallic bounce around the stairwell. Moments later I smelled teargas and ran to the bathroom, the farthest point in my apartment from the stairwell, and tried to wait it out. I put towels everywhere trying to prevent the gas from infiltrating the cracks, but it was pointless. My throat began to dry and burn and I couldn’t see from the amount of tears overflowing in my eyes and down my cheeks. Maybe they thought they could smoke me out, but what sane person would come out voluntarily to a military mob hungry for brutality? It seemed after awhile they had given up trying to break in and moved onto the next innocent target.
 Although they seemed to leave the building, I could still hear them in the neighborhood – so I sat in the bathroom waiting it out. After an hour or so in that state, I finally heard them leave – or at least leave my neighborhood. I opened the door slowly and the tear gas assaulted me. With a towel around my face, I ran toward the windows and opened them, hoping to air out the suffocating gas. 
I made my way downstairs to check on the neighbor, who was in a similar state. I walked outside to check on the other neighbors and it seemed the soldiers were looking for Birzeit University students. Those they found, they arrested in the freezing cold night. Those they didn’t were given orders: surrender to military intelligence tomorrow morning at 9. Good morning occupation. Thanks for Tamara for helping me with the English.

 

Miroslav Janek

I have run into a slate of giving verbal flowers to documentarians, whose work I appreciate a lot and who are to be highlighted right now for one reason or the other. Earlier today it was Sérgio Tréfaut who visits Copenhagen and a couple of days ago it was Filip Remunda with two new films. Tonight it is due to the exceptional fine offer given to us by the equally exceptional DocAlliance: An online retrospective with director, cinematographer and editor Czech Miroslav Janek FOR FREE, so go ahead folks out there, it is world class.

7 films to be watched available until December 20. ”Citizen Havel” (2007), ”Olga” (2014), ”The Gospel According to Brabenac” (2014) and the beautiful ”The Unseen” (1997) about blind children taking photographs plus 3 more I have not seen: ”For Semafor” (2010), ”Purple Snails” (2001) and ”Little City in Space” (1984).

You can read much more about Janek on the site of DocAlliance, they have good writers and I can fully second the characterisation of Janek having ”empathy without pathos” towards his characters. I have met and worked with him, when we both were tutors at the Ex Oriente, we are the same generation, it helps a conversation with a man, who has an unpretentious and professional approach to filmmaking.

Personally I am looking forward to having this small MacBook Cinema festival – join me, you won’t regret it!

http://dafilms.com/event/232-retrospective_miroslav_janek/?utm_source=mailing&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=prosinec

Sérgio Tréfaut

The reason for this small homage to the Portuguese director, producer and promoter for the documentary film genre is that the Danish Cinematheque in Copenhagen shows a mini-series of the director’s work, starting this coming thursday with the masterpiece ”Alentejo, Alentejo” from 2014, that has Joao Ribeiro as cameraman, from my point of view one of the best in Europe. A quote from the review I wrote about the film on this site:

”… In this –to warn you: I will not be short of praising adjectives in this review – wonderful emotional journey into the history of ”cante”, its roots, its connection to the farming and cooking culture (you see how a bread soup is made, and how bread is baked and red wine is enjoyed) you are invited to enjoy the ”cante” singing by primarily male choirs constituted by Men with furrowed faces and well-fed stomachs, who make the most beautiful performances. You may close your eyes and enjoy, but it would be wrong as the camera catches superbly the faces and the English subtitles, as good as subtitles can be, give you the content of the songs…”

Two other films by Tréfaut is on the programme in Copenhagen, ”Another Country” from 2000, produced by Pedro Martins, about the carnation revolution and ”Fleurette” from 2002 about his mother and her son, the director. Informative and personal and always with an artistic ambition. Here is the cv of Sérgio Tréfaut from his own website:

”Sérgio Tréfaut was born in Brazil in 1965. After a Master in Philosophy at the Sorbonne (Paris), he started his career in Lisbon as a journalist and assistant director. Eventually he became a producer and director. His documentaries were presented at IDFA and in more than 30 countries, receiving several international awards. His main titles are Outro País (1999), Fleurette (2002), Lisboetas (2005), The City of the Dead (2009). Lisboetas was the first documentary running in Portuguese cinemas for more than three months. His first feature fiction Journey to Portugal (2011), based on a true story and starring Maria de Medeiros is a provocative statement about European airport borders nowadays. It also received several international prizes and was nominated for a Portuguese Golden Globes award (best film, best actress). Sérgio Tréfaut directed Doclisboa International Film Festival from 2004 to 2010. He was also President of Apordoc, the Portuguese Documentary Association and member of the Executive board of EDN – European Documentary Network.”

http://www.sergiotrefaut.com/alentejo/

Scenes…

… or you could also say moments from films that don’t leave you even if you have been watching many, really many as I have during the last month or so, in Leipzig, in Copenhagen, in Minsk, in Amsterdam or Paris. Mostly on my MacBook Cinema, through links, not perfect I know that, but practical.

I have picked three, a Danish/Basque, a Dutch and a German/Argentinian.

In ”Pelota II”, a film by Jørgen Leth and Olasz Gonzalez Abrisketa, the cameraman Dan Holmberg knows what he is doing, when he travels the Basque towns and villagers to film the frontons that are used to play the national sport, pelota, that he, Jørgen Leth and Ole John made a film about in 1983. Now the Basque has asked them to come back to remake an informative and artistic interpretation of the culture, in the style of Jørgen Leth, conveying his fascination with his so well known voice taking the viewer along. The sequence with the frontons, one after the other, is so beautifully photographed and put together.

A totally different camera style is used by Dutch Morgan Knibbe in his ”Those Who Feel the Fire Burning”. For a long time the camera

is up in the air, moving along walls, at the beaches where the refugees come into Europe, in the streets where they try to find a worthy life – and then suddenly the flow stops and there is a long focused moment with a Senegalese immigrant, who talks to his wife and promises her to bring back shoes and clothes, a declaration of love, ”I still remember how we spent the last night together just before I left” – more than two years ago! This scene comes at the right moment, brilliantly thought.

As is German Kral’s wonderful ”Our Last Tango” with María Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes, legendary tango dancers, now 80 and 83 years, a love story from Buenos Aires (a city close to my heart, my father was born there), an elegantly constructed film where the dance is in focus. However it is the faces caught by the camera that stays in my head. The face of María, full of passion for the tango, for life, for the young dancers who are to take over. The camera catches the light in her eyes as well as in the eyes of the young dancer, who is to dance tango on a small table as María did with Juan Carlos. Great scenes of today and from archive material.

Photo from “Pelota II”, the bags are full of the balls picked for the pelota matches. How the balls come into life is the red thread of the film. An amazing craft!

 

 

Letter from Paris

Two days left of a two week holiday stay in Paris. For the third time in the same rented apartment in rue Saint Denis near rue Réaumur and Blvd. Sebastopol. And it was a different stay this time after November 13, where 130 innocent people were killed and more than 300 injured. On the photo me with ”le Monde” carrying the headline, a quote from the President, ”Ils étaient la Jeunesse de France”. I bought it on the day where Francois Hollande presided the National Hommage for the victims in la cour de l’Hôtel national des Invalides. We watched it on television – it was from a visual point of view a perfect mise en scène of dignity with the President in focus, arriving alone to sit on a modest chair in front of the rows of invited relatives of the victims and politicians and soldiers and police and whoever is in the top of the civil and military adminstration. Hollande made a good speech as far as I understood it in a moment of grief. It was not only la marseillaise that was played, there was Bach, a chanson by Barbara and moving it was to hear ”Quand on n’a que l’amour” by Jacques Brel, performed by three women. They did well, but if you want to hear it performed by the master himself, go to youtube.

France is in a state of emergency, the COP21 Climate meeting started last weekend, you see and feel it in the centre of the city of Paris, where we have had our walks. Lots of

uniforms, policemen and -women, soldiers with machine guns around attractions like Louvre and Centre Pompidou, several police sirens up the boulevards during the days we have been here – we decided not to visit the big museums, but had pleasure at l’Orangerie (see Allan Berg’s Danish report on the photographer Cameron), the re-opened Rodin museum, Jacquemart-André, Institut du Monde Arabe. There is so much to enjoy in Paris and we have done our usual promenades around le Marais (sitting in the sunshine on a bench at Place des Vosges), Jardin de Luxembourg is a must for us looking at life as it is performed by all ages, rue Montorgeuil close to home, the slow-slow re-building of les Halles, Place de la Republique with all the beautiful candles and written greetings after November 13.

The state of emergency is indeed questionable. A visiting friend told us how unconfortable he felt that ”they” now could enter your home anytime to check whatever – the same friend told us that he looks around when he travels the metro and always enters the last wagon. Why, I asked, I have heard that ”they” always enter in the middle, he answered!

Fear… but we have made our decisions and we have noticed that there have been fewer people in ”our” restaurants, no significant queues at the exhibitions we have visited, but we have also stayed inside during the evenings. Never mind, lunches at the brasseries are enjoyable, and a cigar on a café terrasse in sunshine has been enjoyed as always.

Fear… well Le Monde from today reports on a poll for the upcoming regional elections: 30% for Front National (le Pen)!!!

The newspaper’s obvious analysis is that the FN profits from the fear related to November 13 – more police, longer state of emergency, harder politics towards immigration, more bombing in Syria…

Have to stop now, the sun is shining in wonderful Paris!

… and back in the appartment after seeing Hotel de Ville totally surrounded by police cars and soldiers, only people with badges and passports could pass rue de Rivoli, but we found our way to a place in the sun at the bridge that leads from one island to the other.

Photo by Allan Berg.

IDFA Service Continued

The IDFA festival sent out a newsletter with these words included: “Are you in the mood to reminisce about your last two weeks in Amsterdam, or have a look at what you missed? The IDFA website’s got it covered in text, audio and video…”

And right it is, whether you were in Amsterdam or not, take a look, and enjoy interviews with directors, texts, podcasts – the most interesting for me, however, was the section “Kill Your Darlings” that includes deleted scenes from 12 of the films from the festival program.

I picked 3, the first one “Olmo and the Seagull” (photo) that was seen and reviewed by Allan Berg on this site. One of the directors, Petra Costa, explains why the scene was taken out. For me the scene illustrates what intensity in a dialogue scene can be. The review and this clip makes me want to see the film asap.

The second one is from “Ukrainian Sheriffs” by Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko, a film that I have been close to but I had forgotten the scene

mentioned. Bondarchuk explains: “At the beginning we thought we needed many different sheriff’s ‘cases’, to show the range of their duties, to dive deep into their daily lives. We had almost 200 hours of raw material and we edited everything into small episodes. The first cut was approximately five hours and we realised that it was time to kill several darlings. This episode was part of the film until the sixth version of the cut (two hours), but finally it was omitted. First, it was quite similar to Kolya’s case (family arguments). And second, it has a slightly sad feeling, and we wanted to keep the first summer’s part of the film sunny and cheerful.”

The third one is from “Sonita”, a film that I watched yesterday on the excellent IDFA Docs for Sale. It is the film that won the audience award at the festival. Understandable – it is a touching, well told story about the Afghan girl Sonita, immigrant in Teheran, who is a very talented rapper musician and who wants to avoid being taken back to Afghanistan to be married, the wish of her mother. It ends well thanks to several people, mostly the director Iranian Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami, who introduces the deleted scene like this: “I was thinking it would be very essential to introduce the organization (that helps the immigrant children who have come to Teheran), the situation of children whom they help and Sonita’s history in that organization. I wanted to shed some light on the social situation of immigrant children like Sonita in Iran and the fact that they cannot go to school. But while discussing things with the editor and producer, we came to the conclusion that we needed to start the main story earlier and this informative sequence is not directly connected to the main story, so we should take it out. It is still painful for me to think about it.”

Having seen the film, I second that it is a pity that this scene did not fit in to give Sonita’s story a broader, social perspective. Anyway, you have to make hard decisions…

Yesterday I learnt that “Sonita” goes to the Sundance festival as well. Of course!

https://www.idfa.nl/industry/daily/2015/kill-your-darlings.aspx

www.idfa.nl

Filip Remunda

I have known Filip Remunda since he and colleague Andrea Prenghyova around the turn of the century came to an EDN workshop in Bardonecchia Italy to get advice on how to set up what became brilliant IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) and the Ex Oriente that I had the privilege to work for – for many years. Filip is still with Ex Oriente, he is a teacher, organisor, producer and director. Some years later he and Vit Klusák made the huge success ”Czech Dream” that went all over the world. This docu-comedy was followed by ”Czech Peace” in 2010, again by the two, who fully demonstrated their satirical talent for clever comments on the Czech society. It was praised by their soul-mate in humourous filmmaking, Michael Moore. The present Czech society and its xenophobia is also going to be the subject of the next film to be directed by Klusák, pitched at CPH:DOX recently by its producer Filip. I wrote the following:

”The White World According to Daliborek” to be directed by Vit Klusak is described as ”… a horror movie about the Czech desire for a white Europe…” Remunda was powerful and engaged on stage and the trailer was indeed a scary meeting with Dalibor, who says that he was ”looking for warmth and found it in a nazi group”.

On that occasion I asked Filip for a link to the film that he and Slovak director Robert Kirchhoff had made and that is still waiting for an international premiere. ”Steam on the River” (photo) is the name of 

the sketchy jazz film that – again – has the characteristic unpretentious, original, why not call it crazy, narrative structure in its depiction of old Czech musicians, shot in the US, France and Czech Republic. You feel that it must have been fun to make that film about ”trumpeter Laco Deczi, saxophonist Ľubomír Tamaškovič, and contrabass player Ján Jankeje, who fled from the Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia to the West, where their stars shone alongside those of the world’s famous musicians.” (Clip from the Jihlava Festival website).

Filip sent me another link: ””Czech Journal: Near Far East” filmed over last year at Ukraine. It is my personal road movie where I follow the story of my UKR friends in a search for the behind the scenes of the conflict.” He goes with Tanya, who works as a cleaning lady in Prague, to visit her family in the West and in the East of Ukraine, he goes with wonderful journalist Viktoria, who has moved from Donetsk area to Kiev for safety reasons, he goes with journalist Dasha, who works in the East – to get to hear from the local people, to ask questions as an outsider, to try to understand the complex situation, to catch daily situations. He has made his own reflective commentary, it is excellent, the film is excellent, the look from outside increases my understanding of Ukraine today. It is made in a series “Czech Journal” for Czech television.

http://www.dokument-festival.com/