Mogens Rukov 1943-2015

 

ALT KAN SKE I VIRKELIGHEDEN

”Det er en stor film. Den samler flere af Filmens traditioner. Det er en surrealistisk film. Man kommer til at tænke på Buñuels ‘l’Age d’Or’ fra 1930, som handler om Roms grundlæggelse, statsmagten, banditter, borgerskab og et seksuelt-sadistisk præsteskabs kristendom. Alt kan ske i denne film, fordi alt kan ske i virkeligheden. Der er så mange logikker, der insisterer på at være reelle. Der er mange logikker, der er faktiske, og som mennesket får gennemført. Det er sjældent, at en film giver plads til dem alle. L’Age d’Or gjorde. Traberg gør.”

(Om Jørgen Leths ”Traberg”, blogindlæg 02-09-2008)

 

SANDHEDEN BAGVED DET TILGÆNGELIGE

”Det kan ligne en almindelig dokumentarfilm. Men det er det ikke. Den er sær, skæv, uden at gøre opmærksom på det, uden at blive påtrængende som form, alligevel anderledes struktureret.

Det kunne have været en reportage. De 1700 meter fra fremtiden er et reportageemne. Det drejer sig om en tunnel, der måske/måske ikke bliver anlagt som forbindelse til den større by. Men det er kun en maske, noget, der foregives, der spilles med. Formen er dybere. Reportagen går i stykker, gennemhulles af den virkelighed, hvori den finder sted. Man kunne tale om en ustandselig distraktion mod det virkelige, menneskene og deres historier…

Anderledes i filmen. Her er det hele. Også det unævnte, midt i en hverdag, der er helt samtidig og dog så forskellig fra den industrialiserede hverdags samtidighed. Det er en virkning, der kun er opnået som følge af en lille magi, hvis opskrift egentlig er ganske simpel, men som er utrolig vanskelig at følge, som kun sjældent forsøges, og som søger en sandhed, der ligger bagved det tilgængelige. Den er dybt præget af kærlighed. Den vil ikke noget bestemt (hvad der er en del af kærlighedens væsen, en form for hengivelse, en anerkendelse af genstandens egen fænomenologi) og kommer derved til at handle om selve eksistensen…

Som altid når det særegne er på spil, erindres publikum om den skabende bevidstheds unikke karakter. Der er i sidste ende én bevidsthed der er styrende. Hendes respekt er stor.”

(Om Ulla Boje Rasmussens ”1700 meter fra fremtiden”, blogindlæg 25-12-2009)

 

FOTOGRAFENS ØJE

”Jeg må vel have det sådan, at jeg ikke synes, at billeder er informative. De skal ikke give informationer om fortællingens gang. Der skal ikke være obligatoriske billeder, som filmens informative forløb er afhængige af. Billedserien skal være fri. Den skal være så at sige ikke-narrativ i manuskriptets forstand. Den skal være narrativ kun i billedets forstand…”

(Fra et essay i Dirk Brüel, Andreas Fischer-Hansen og Jan Weincke, red.: ”Fotografens øje – Dansk filmfotografi gennem 100 år”, blogindlæg 20-11-2009)

Fotografi af Karsten Weirup: Rukov derhjemme.

Bettina Perut & Iván Osnovikoff: Surire

It starts with a symphony in image and sound. Close up on the earth, the soil somewhere in the universe, focus on small bubbles that become bigger, take a different shape and tune, sounds that take different notes, suddenly it feels more smooth, sometimes like it is coming closer, one bubble looks like a sea animal through the closeness of the camera – and then, cut, to a full size landscape image, some radio communication sounds not identifiable for my ear, cut to fingers which take away ice from clothes that are to be washed and hanged up to dry. It is cold where we are but the sun shines – nature is showing its greatness, diverse, here in layers with mountains at the back. You can only use one word: Beautiful. The filmmakers have taken an aesthetic choice upfront, we as spectators know what to expect, we have high hopes.

A man, the one who washed his clothes, observes and dictates

with big difficulty that he needs sugar, matches, sardines etc. to be sent to his lonely observing post. An old woman followed by her dogs walks in a landscape that is filmed in a way (cameraman Pablo Valdés) that you want to say stop, freeze, I want that image to stay, I want it to hang on my wall. Postcard-like, maybe for some, for me more like paintings especially when the image is full of pink flamingos or lamas or sheep or cattle in the front of the image with the mountains at the back, sometimes filmed with the effect that a haze gives. The sound is so much present all the time, it is so skillfully performed (Osnovikoff).

And then comes the more prosaic part, the content or should you say the conflict of the film: Trucks at the distance move and excavators dig out salt to be taken away from (text taken from IDFA catalogue) ”the high plains of the Andes, 4300 metres above sea level” at a border between Chile and Bolivia. That is where we are. Again the filmmakers do not explain, they treat the audience as intelligent human beings, we know that  exploitation is happening, good or bad, we have seen it so many times before, if we want to know more from this specific case, we can find text on other platforms.

A boy visits the old couple, family. He has been promised to get a bike from them but the tires are flat. He seems to handle that problem, we see him sheperding and learning to ride a bike. As we see the old woman getting more and more exhausted to make ends meet when she skins an animal or cuts the hair of her beloved dog, one of them. There is a respect towards the few human beings in the film – apart maybe from a close-up scene of the same old woman having her toes cut in a side room to the village house where xmas is celebrated.

Take a look at the photo – yes, there is a similarity to the one from Oppenheimer’s ”The Look of Silence”. Also with this one there is an appeal to humanity to keep alive, nature or man, what our Mother Earth offers to us.

Back to the bubbling soil, the active underground, the symphony of image and sound that plays so well artistically together.  

Chile, 2015, 80 mins.

Machaidze, Karumidze & Meskhi: When the Earth…

Some facts:

Full title: When the Earth Seems to be Light

Full names of directors: Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze & David Meskhi. A Georgian/ German coproduction. Produced by Goslab & Jörg Langkau. Co-Produced by Zaza Rusadze, Zazarfilm.

… and a review: Wow is a word I like to use, when I am surprised in a positive way. This film fascinated me totally. From start till end. You never know what comes next. It seems to be free of classical dramaturgical rules, maybe it is not, but it had so much power that I did not notice any. I went with the flow, literally, of the skating youngsters in Tbilisi (and Batumi), with the music that the skates make, with the music that accompanied their moving around, sometimes a requiem, sometimes rap music, sometimes real location sounds again and again, several of them disturbing, being from archive footage of demonstrations in the streets: Priests acting against a LGBT parade, if I got it right.

My old critic head made me think of Juris Podnieks ”Is it Easy to

be Young”, the perestroika film from 1986, when there was a USSR – and, stylistically, the cinéma vérité film par excellence, ”Cronique d’un été” (1961) by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. As in this film there is a grown-up voice off image that asks the skaters/artists/musicians (they all have some creative side, apart from the skating, which absolutely can be considered an art form, in some case in the film even a burning installation) questions like, ”what is love”, ”what is freedom”, ”is there life after death”… they are reluctant to respond. To use a banality – they express themselves when they skate.

And indeed they do so around a Tbilisi that I saw very little of when I primarily were at Rustaveli Blv. and its close surroundings: devastated, forgotten monuments and buildings, appartment blocks that signal tough living conditions but also night life for youngsters like the protagonists – are they 6 or more?

The narrative style is wild. Shaky, nervous camera movements, quick editing, sometimes in a music video style, sometimes more cinematic with magnificently composed images, where there is a movement of the skaters without you seeing the skates. In amazing sequences like these the film invites the spectator to a visual trip of great beauty. And then cuts to ultra close-ups of faces of the young rebels… Well, are they rebels? Can they change something in Georgia? Do they want to? Or is it enough for them to find places where they can be for themselves, free of daily trivalities, politics and church?

”I love Soviet because nothing functioned”, the most articulate of them says, he is also the one who characterises Tbilisi as a magical city that always looks back, never forward.

The film received the main award at IDFA in the First Appearence Category.

Georgia, 2015, 78 mins.

http://whenearthseemstobelight.tumblr.com/

https://www.facebook.com/WhenEarthSeems2BeLight

 

Klára Trencsényi: Train to Adulthood

This film was awarded as the best in the ”Next Masters” section of the DOKLeipzig festival this autumn. Very well deserved as Klára Trencsényi already before (primarily with ”Bird’s Way”) has shown how masterful cinematography looks, when she is behind the camera. With ”Train to Adulthood” she adds to the skills by getting close to two families with kids – and huge social problems. She has made an emotionally strong documentary that is telling us about a social reality in Hungary, that could have taken place in other Eastern European countries. In one family: Mum and Dad work abroad, the kids live with their grandparents. In the other family: Mum lives with her three children but is forced out of her home as she can not pay rent and electricity.

Klára Trencsényi, however, frames her story about kids journey to leave childhood with a bitter-sweet story about them being part of

the so-called “Budapest Children’s Railway”. I quote from the description of the film: “This small-gauge railway system has been in continuous use since it was created for the “Pioneers”, Hungary’s communist youth organization in 1948. Nearly seventy years on, hundreds of thousands of passengers a year travel along the winding tracks of the Buda Hills in the same old carriages. The railway’s antiquated switches, levers, and telephones are operated by children between the ages of 10 and 14, who run all the stations and accompany passengers on their journey…”

So this is where Viktor and his sister Carmen go as well as Gergo. Their stay there, have fun, learn how to work together, dress up in nice train uniforms – I understand that they go “on biweekly shifts”, away from the harsh reality at home.

Viktor and Gergo get a voice in the film. You see their worry, especially Viktor, whose mother has to move into a single mother’s place, Viktor and Carmen come home, if you can call it a home, after time at the camp of the Children’s Railway. And Gergo argues with his parents that he does want to go to Germany as they think he should, to study. He wants to stay in Hungary, gets accepted to a school and can help the grandparents.

It’s not a bright picture that Klára Trencsényi paints of Hungary today through the description of the living conditions of the two families, a description, which is, I am sure, quite representative. Yet, you leave the film in the mood that they – against all odds – will make it, these kids, when they grow up. Or is this wishful thinking…?

Loved to watch that film. Let’s get more well built stories about what happens in Hungary. We have had enough of journalistic reports from a country that has fine filmmakers. Klára Trencsényi is one of them.

Hungary, 2015, 79 mins.

Hanna Polak: Something Better To Come

Luk op for DR2 Dokumania i aften 20:45 og se Hanna Polaks cinéma vérité bedrift ”Something Better To Come”, det har min bedste anbefaling. Det er en filmroman som følger pigen Yula fra hun er 10 år og så med et årligt kapitel seks år frem. Men fortællingen følger ikke kun Yula, den følger efterhånden som de bliver tydelige også de mennesker hun lever sammen med, ser dem med hendes kloge øjne, med Hanna Polaks opmærksomme kamera og således i hendes filmisk signerende blik så vedholdende gennem de mange år (og flere til må man formode i mindst én opfølgende film). Se godt efter, lyt godt efter! Forskydningerne i de uendelige scener af ensartethed er små og kan forekomme henkastede, men det er de slet ikke, de er lagt så smukt på plads i en losseplads rod og snavs og er der blevet til en forunderlig roligt fremadskridende orden med den ene fine dokumentariske iagttagelse efter den anden som i filmens minutter følger dagenes rutiner med endeløse lastbilrækkers dumpen affald, som skubbes på plads og begraves af andre maskiner under sværme af måger gennem vintre og somre, nætter og dage.

Ja, filmen er optaget på en losseplads, på en meget stor losseplads lige uden for Moskva, hvor Yula og hendes mor bor i et sammenflikket skur sammen med en række andre klunsere og hjemløse i tilsvarende primitive boliger. Og ja, det er omhyggelig romankunst, af den polske og russiske slags, det er en kollektiv roman, en skildring af en række menneskeskæbner i et lille samfund, en lille landsby på en jordoverflade af andres affald, en række prægnante karakterer, som den lille pige opmærksomt, oftest tavst, iagttager og vokser sig stor i og udvikler en voksen forståelse af, og på det grundlag tager hun en række beslutninger for sit eget liv: jeg kender dem, jeg holder af dem, meget, men de sidder fast og de dør her. Noget bedre kan hænde mig.

Polen/Danmark. 90 min., tv-premiere på DR2 i aften 20:45

SYNOPSIS

Ten-year-old Yula has but one dream – to lead a normal life. For 14 years, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak follows Yula as she grows up in the forbidden territory of Svalka, the garbage dump located 13 miles from the Kremlin in Putin’s Russia. ”Something Better To Come” is Yula’s story – a dramatic tale of coming of age and maturing to the point of taking destiny into one’s own hands. It is a story of hope, courage, and life, all shot in gripping vérité style that stuns with its directness and immediacy. (Danish Documentary site)

http://danishdocumentary.com/upcoming-films/somethingbettertocome/

Streaming (Denmark): https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/dokumania/dokumania-boernene-pa-putins-losseplads?app_mode=true&amp%3Bplatform=ios&amp%3Bpersonalization=true&amp%3B%3F#!/00:00:00

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

1

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)

2

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)

3

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

1

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

2

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