Christopher Morris: A Year in the Field

This text is written by the festival directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade:

BAFTA awarded English author Christopher Morris makes one of the most unusual, artistically superior works of creative documentaries in this year. A film that invites you to forget the usual narrative constructions, to forget the almost obligatory anthropocentric events and surrender to the deep primordial rhythm that pulsates the planet.

Everywhere countless people experience the profound tragic destruction of the world and nature, and at the same time despair because of their powerlessness to oppose it. This is a magnificent film of true hope, which introduces us to time courses wider and more comprehensive than human time, which the author’s voice only occasionally reminds us of. The film is a bold and uncompromising intention for one lone voice and one brilliant documentary to bravely confront the dark forces of destruction. The author takes us to a unique place in western Cornwall, in the very south of England, where a solitary monolith about 4000 years old stands in a picturesque landscape as a witness of time in its cyclical movement through the seasons. Like in Kubrick’s cult film “2001 A Space Odyssey” we perceive this monolith as the presence of some, unknown to our world, intelligence capable of transmitting the impulses of change. Through shots of magnificent beauty, the film follows a life cycle of the field between two winter solstices. We immerse ourselves in the divine beauty of nature shaped by transcendent forces. In a sophisticated way the passionate observer films changes of the ubiquitous life and light during one annual cycle delicately introducing a pace that we have forgotten by separating ourselves from nature. In the magical moments of immersion in the enchanting and opaque world to which we belong, the author amazingly creates an experience of the rhythm of time in which the long and slow beats of the universe and the primeval pulsate.

This is a healing time capsule where we can pause and reflect in order to find our way out of the general rush of the world.

Great Britain 2023 86 minutes

Carl Olsson: Vintersaga

This text is written by Magnificent7 Festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic:

A magnificent visual poem by the young Scandinavian director Karl Olsson, the author of a unique style, that enchanted the audience at “The Magnificent Seven” in his exceptional “Patrimonium”. In “Vintersaga”, he develops and perfects his directing even more by creating impressive sights captured by long, firmly fixed, visually complex one shot scenes with participants trapped in time and space.

“Vintersaga” is a Swedish song from the eighties known throughout Scandinavia, a kind of Sweden’s melancholic winter anthem. Carl Olsson transposes the lyrics of the song into 24 scenes shot all over Sweden during a long, dark winter. This remarkable fresco of the country and people, trapped by cold and melancholy, develops into a masterfully created collective portrait of a nation in the widest range of generations, social classes, events and sceneries. As the film unfolds in front of us, it discreetly but increasingly becomes a modern visual Scandinavian fairy tale about a snow-covered kingdom where time stands still. Observed always from a precisely chosen distance, with an intense, deeply pulsating rhythm, these enchanting scenes draw us into that melancholic world and the gloomy states of the Nordic soul in the darkness of endlessly long nights. But this observation does not escape a refined feeling for social analysis and the weight of existential questions about the meaning of everything. The author’s elegance and flawless visual process integrate a deep understanding of people who are in front of the camera, filled with the feeling of being free to be who they are.

The verses of the chorus of the cult “Vintersaga” are silently present in the strange, enchanting, disturbing scenes: “It is then the big melancholy rolls in, and from the ocean blows an icy, bleak wind.”

Sweden, Denmark 2023
81 minutes

Michael Graversen: Mr. Graversen

This text is written by Magnificent7 festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic:

A stunning intrusion of the camera into “life not ready for filming”, brilliant cinéma vérité, a superb documentary that is created before the eyes of the viewers through the constant interaction of the author and the participants.

Michael Graversen takes us on a long journey to the places of his childhood and with a camera, breaks into his parents’ house unannounced. And while we as viewers are still surprised by the author’s intrusion and the confusion of the father, Mr. Graversen, and the bewilderment of the delighted mother who is trying to clean up the mess in front of the camera, the author decides to, ignoring the unprepared parents, reach his true hidden goal. Father and mother are together, but they live separate lives and everything seems a bit bleak and irreparable. Long ago, when their son was a boy, life changed suddenly and dramatically for them. For several years, the boy hovered between life and death, and that unbearable threat of a tragic outcome completely separated the parents and almost extinguished their relationship. This film is a story of attempts at understanding and reconciliation, but it is also an exciting testimony to the magnificent power of documentary film. Thanks to the rarely seen healing presence of the camera, a new inner space for change opens before the father and mother. Mr. Graversen allows himself to show his love for his wife again and for the two of them to walk the path of healing their suffering and bitterness together. This film is a double victory for the author – the realization of the dream of every child in the world – that the love of a father and mother creates a home, and the fulfillment of the dream of a dedicated documentarian – to honestly touch real life with a camera and film.

A witty, emotional and unique testimony about deep family ties, but also about the process in which film and reality are mutually shaped. A great documentary manifesto!

Denmark, 81 mins., 2022

Oeke Hoogendijk: Housewitz

One of the best European authors, Oeke Hoogendijk, whose three masterful films on art seen from unexpected and exciting angles we saw at “The Magnificent Seven”, this time turns to a very personal subject in a Kammerspiel style to create one of her most interesting works.

This is a film about the author’s mother, but also about long journeys on virtual trains that look like a dream and a nightmare, which combine calmness and unending suffering. During the filming, the mother suddenly said that the camera was too intrusive for her and that the film could only be shot with a web camera, with a great comment of a documentary filmmaker – “It will give you a true picture!” Thus, in a combination of different views, this portrait of a charismatic woman is created, most often alone with a cat in her apartment, trapped for years by agoraphobia. Ranging from black comedy and unusual film of independent production, to studious close-ups and shots of the television screen set as a specific leitmotif of the film, we discover a lively and dynamic personality, sensitive, intelligent, witty and self-contained. Her dialogue with the world is always intense and often ironic or self-ironic, whether she is talking to her daughter or commenting on a television program or on herself, sometimes with wittily worded curses. With a lot of emotions, we also discover her past, when as a young Jewish woman she went through the horrors of the Holocaust. In an exciting way, the present and the past which never passes, come together in front of us. This woman with an inquisitive spirit, although closed, constantly travels the world thanks to television, staring at dreamlike images of trains and rails, dynamic visual symbols of movement, but also sinister associative images of the Holocaust.

An exceptional achievement in which the universal and the personal intertwine in a unique way, building a metaphor about suffering within the invisible wires of “Auschwitz” in one’s own house.

Netherlands, 2021, 71 mins.

Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel: She Chef

This text is written by festival directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. Svetlana and Zoran Popovic:

Germany, Austria 2022 
105 minutes 
directed by: Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel

Screened at the most important festivals, this enchanting documentary is a fantastic journey through Europe and the elite spaces of contemporary cuisine. For Gereon Wetzel, co-author of the film, this journey begins ten years ago with his entry into a cult restaurant in Spain and his great film “El Bulli – Cooking in Process”.

The main character, an unusual girl named Agnes, is remarkable as she is the winner of a world cooking competition, but even more so because she wants to improve her knowledge and skills to the highest level. She sets herself the task of a search that takes her to the kitchens of some of the most prestigious restaurants in Europe. Both when she observes from the sidelines as an apprentice and when she passionately participates in the process in these exclusive kitchens, she equally concentrates and intensively re-examines her own professional choices. At the same time, in an exciting way, it becomes an increasingly present search for knowing oneself and discovering the meaning of one’s life. So, not by chance, guided by deep inner currents, this search finally brings us to one of the most unusual restaurants in the world, which is located in surreally beautiful, dream-like landscapes in the north of Europe. Brilliant discreet observers, Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel, gradually introduce us to the process of fantastic transformation, creating an extremely exciting film finale that enchants us with beauty and hope.

A visually fascinating entry into the exciting processes of different cuisines shaped by the skills of Europe’s best chefs, but above all, a film about maturing and discovering yourself.

Magnificent7 Welcome to Belgrade

Riga, very early morning. Because of crutch – pain, waiting for a hip replacement – chair-assistance in the airport and help from co-tutor at the Baltic Sea Docs, editor Phil Jandaly, who was on his way to another workshop.

One day in Copenhagen in the allotment garden (Danish kolonihave, German Schrebergarten) and then my wife and I went for Belgrade, for the 19th edition of Magnificent7, a unique festival in its format: 7 films, 7 days and a formidable hospitality from the side of the festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. That started already when we were met by – as always – Ema, who this year is helped by Katarina. They took us to the hotel and provided us with “survival kits”… biscuits in many different versions, juice, water, tissues – absolutely needed as it is hot in Belgrade.

Just had breakfast in the fine hotel that is 5 minutes from the cinema MTS Dvorana, where the opening film “All Men Become Brothers” by Robert Kirchhoff will be screened at 8pm. One of my heroes, Alexander Dubcek, is the one Kirchhoff describes – here is my intro to a review I wrote on filmkommentaren.dk, a scene that is not in the film: …I am sure many of you remember the iconic moment from  November 1989, when Vaclav Havel and Alexander Dubcek stand on a balcony in the Wenceslas Square in Prague being welcomed enthusiastically by hundreds of thousands. It was the days of the Velvet revolution and the hero of 1968 and the hero of 1989 were there together. I get tears in my eyes whenever I see that clip with Dubcek with embracing the crowd with his arms…

Anyway, the film is here and it is a great film, another quote: …  Thanks to Slovak Robert Kirchhoff there is now a detailed, well composed cinematic essay, a huge work that has taken him years of research and contemplation on how to tell the story about the man, who wanted “socialism with a human face”.

The festival has a focus on directors, several of them arrive today and stay to watch the films of their colleagues. They will not regret to be at this totally non-commercial festival with no industry event attached. For me coming from an excellent Baltic Sea Docs that dealt with film projects in progress and development a perfect change to film watching together with an audience.

https://magnificent7festival.org/en/

Magnificent7 Festival Belgrade

All Men Become Brothers

It´s not easy. The selection of 7 films. For a good and a bad reason. The good is that today so many good documentaries are available in Belgrade. It was not like that 19 years ago, when the first edition of Magnificent7 took off. Today there are several festivals that show documentaries in the city and television also programs creative documentaries. My colleagues, the festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic have mentioned that several documentaries from M7 have now been broadcasted. So there are many options for the Belgraders, also the platforms for home screenings. The bad reason, no, continue reading:

For we have made a fine selection also for this year. For what are M7 looking for… the same as always – films with a subject that is relevant for an audience that demands to to be treated with special care and attention, and with a focus on artistic quality. With a special look on us human beings and the way we behave and treat each other.

I am happy and proud on behalf of the festival that the opening film is “All Men Become Brothers” about Alexander Dubcek, the legendary Slovak politician, who presented his politically democratic ambition for “socialism with a human face”. In 1968, the Prague Spring it was named, that was crushed by military invention from the Warsaw countries led by USSR. It is a great film and I dare say an important message to send also today, the humanistic approach.

The same goes for the two Nordic documentaries in the program. “Vintersaga” by Carl Olsson, who was here before with “Patrimonium”, portraying Swedish people in situations that sometimes are conveyed full of irony, sometimes “just” a pure homage to how we are, good and bad. In “Mr. Graversen” the son Michael returns to his childhood home and reaches to – with warmth, love and understanding – help his parents to come back to the life they once had. 

The same theme comes up in “Housewitz”, where Dutch Oeke Hoogendijk does what she can to make her old mother, a holocaust survivor, live a decent life, in a film full of light and dark tones. And Love.

You can also love food, as the one who writes these lines does, and if you are financially unable to visit a Michelin restaurant you can watch “She Chef” by Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel, who were here before with the film on El Buli, a culinaric uhmm pleasure on screen with Agnes as the chef, who grows in the hierarchy, could have stayed in the big établissements but preferred “the human face” in a small restaurant in the Faroese Islands.

Climate and the way we treat the nature with an “inhuman face” is indirectly, what is the theme of the most surprising film of the 2023 edition – “A Year in the Field” by British Christopher Morris, who in an interview in Guardian said “I’ve never strapped myself to a tree, never even been on a protest march. That’s not in my nature, that’s not me. But standing quietly in a field, a sort of one-man direct action seemed kind of appealing to me.” And to the audience, it’s actually a very political film!

And finally ”Meine Schweizer Armee” by Luka Popadić, a film that we have discussed with Luka in several meetings at M7, me first time saying “… oh you have an army in Switzerland!”, they have and Luka is there and have made with respect a film, where he also talks to his fellow soldiers about “what is your homeland”, not being born in Switzerland, looking for your identity in other words, with respect. Podapic arrives in (?) his homeland with three officers “with a human face”.

Can’t wait to be back in Belgrade!

Tue Steen Müller

Skopje

August 22 2023

European Film Academy Shortlists 14 Documentaries

Press release of today:

”With 14 powerful feature-length documentary films the European Film Academy is presenting a strong Documentary Film Selection for the European Film Awards 2023. The Academy has revealed the titles today. A committee consisting of a diverse range of invited European experts has chosen these 14 productions that have been recommended for nomination for the European Film Awards 2023. The European Film Awards, honouring the greatest achievements in European cinema, will be presented on 9 December in Berlin.

With 16 European countries represented – both EU and non-EU – the selection demonstrates the great diversity in European cinema.

Please find the list of all selected documentaries here as well as further information on all films including synopsis, cast, credits, and statements of directors (if available).

Eligible for the European Film Awards are European documentaries which, among other criteria, had their first official screening between 1 June 2022 and 31 May 2023 and have a European director*. Additional titles of documentary films premiering at summer festivals might be added and announced in September…”

In the coming weeks, the 4,600 members of the European Film Academy will start to watch the selected films and after the final announcement of all films vote on the nominations in the category ‘European Documentary’. Based on the votes of all members, the nominations will be made public on 7 November 2023. The members of the European Film Academy will then vote for the winner who will be announced at the European Film Awards ceremony in Berlin on 9 December 2023.

Favourites? My guess is ”Apolonia,Apolonia” by Lea Glob, “On the Adamant” by Nicolas Philibert, “We Will not Fade Away” by Alisa Kovalenko, “Our Body” by Claire Simon but there are also cph:dox winner “Motherland” by Hanna Badziaka, Alexander Mihalkovich and MakeDOX winner “Between Revolutions” by Vlad Petri or DocsBarcelona winner “Who I am not” by Tunde Skovran. Click above and get them all.

MakeDox Goodbye

I am sitting in the lobby of the Bushi Hotel, which, with all its corridors and many rooms, has been a nice escape spot from the heat outside after long workshop days, a few outdoor screenings, meals in the bazaar and on the big square with Alexander the Great statue in the middle.

”Kurshumli an” is the name of the outdoor cinema, where the audience gathers at 9pm in the evening in front of a big screen with a superb projection. And there is a huge audience, many of them stays for the second screening as well, at 11pm. It’s scheduled for 300 but there are more and there is space enough. As two nights before where the festival director Petra Seliskar’s new fim “Body” was to be screened. I came to greet Petra and her protagonist, did not want to see the film again as I had already watched it in Sarajevo the week before. A very good film full of passion and warmth circling around Urška Ristić, the woman – an understatement – who has gone through so much trouble with illness in her body but survived due to her will and strength. And Lust for Life.

The screening started after some crazy moments during a short film before “Body”. Dogs are also in the audience and Petra and her family has a wonderful collie, who is running around being welcomed by everyone. Except for a unwanted stray dog, was it a cane Corso or ?, who suddenly entered and ran directly towards the collie to attack. Lots of fight of barking sounds, Petra’s family in action getting the aggressor out and consoling their own dog. Not nice, I needed another raki. And the dog water and carressing.

I could have needed one (a raki) as well the next day, where a pitching forum took place at MKC, a youth center. 11 projects were pitched, I had some moments where I fell asleep because of the heat, no ac in the room, but maybe also because of the quality of the projects, where most of them were at a “very very early” stage, so would it not have been better to wait with the pitch? Except for Hanis Bagashov’s “I Don’t Want” that I knew from a workshop last year – he has a feeling for cinema – and the Kosovo project “Adelina” by Aurela Berila with Eroll Bilibani I did not find any obvious talent in the trailers. You can find more on the projects on the website of the festival: http://makedox.mk

And then last night at the cinema I was sitting with dear friends from Georgia, Mariam Chacia and Nik Voigt, whose film “Magic Mountain” will be screened tonight, to watch and enjoy Nicolas Philibert’s masterpiece “On the Adamant”. The place where people – patients and doctors and therapists et al. meet – to talk, engage themselves in creative matters, writing, painting, composing, playing music, singing, talking about football – being there to be with other people, to escape loneliness. To be alive, “to live, to give” as Neil Young has been singing. It was an extraordinary film to watch and to talk about over a nice dinner in the bazaar. And the conversation continued today at lunch with Serge Tréfaut, the French/Portuguese director, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, where his last documentary “Paraiso” is filmed. An extraordinary homage to human life at an old age.

THANKS MakeDox to give so much.

MakeDox: Main Program

It is a very competent and exciting selection the North (!) Macedonian festival in Skopje, edition number 14, offers its audience in 3 outdoor screening venues. Screenings start after the 9.15 calls from the minarets in the city. And the audience is big. The weather is of course a dangerous player under these circumstances but this year it treats the festival well. Last year I remember that the masterpiece “Nelly and Nadine” by Swedish Magnus Gertten, edited by Danish Jesper Osmund – who performs here at an editing workshop with me on the sideline – was screened long after midnight because of heavy rain…

Back to the main program that includes the emotionally beautiful “Eternal Memory” by Chilean Maite Alberdi (photo of her on top of this page), the two films by Serbian Mila Turajlic with and about the late cinematographer Labutovic, who was the cameraman of Tito, followed him around and was sent by him to Algeria to follow and support the Algerian Liberation Front in their fight against the French to obtain independence – they got it in 1962. Both of these films are shown today, the 20th, whereas the festival director Petra Seliskar’s wonderful “Body”, that was also at the Sarajevo FF last week is on tomorrow. And then on the 22nd I will be in the plastic chair in Kurshumli An to enjoy master Nicolas Philibert’s new film “On the Adamant”.

I mentioned a handful, I could have gone on with other sections, check the www.makedox.mk