Last Wednesday I got off the train in Leipzig and walked to the Museum of Bildende Kunst, that serves as Centre for the DOK Leipzig festival, also this year, with space to meet for a coffee or a fine lunch provided by the cuisine of Hotel Michaelis. Top standard.

Repeat… I got off the train in Leipzig and walked to the Museum and the first one I meet is Kurdish Syrian Guevara Namer, one of the courageous and entreprenant persons behind the DOX BOX festival in Damascus that I visited the last time in 2011 three weeks before the revolution started. She now lives in Berlin and is part of the team that has continued the Dox Box that now supports filmmakers from the region, among many initiatives with a Residence Fund, under the leadership of Diana El Jeiroudi.

Guevara Namer was in Leipzig to do camera interviews with sales agents, festival people etc. for the Dox Box. I knew from Damascus times how talented a photographer she is and asked her to send me a photo to put on this site. She did with these words attached:

”… this photo is from Damascus City Center, ”Marjeh Square”. One of my favourites”.

Guevara Namer describes herself: Has degrees in photography and drama studies from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, Syria, and has years of experience in documentary film production and training.

… directed by Melisa Üneri, who has a Finnish mother and a Turkish father, the protagonist of this unpretentious, light in tone and yet tough and moving, well told story about the relationship between the young girl (the director) and her father, who lives in Finland and who has brought up his daughter with love and strictness. He is a charming man, he knows when the camera is on, he is apparently obsessed by cleaning his house (!), he is single, wants to find a partner, daughter wants to help build up a profile for the dating service on the internet, he has a job as an eye specialist – and drinks too much. With consequences in the relationship to the daughter.

Melisa wants to move to Turkey, she does, she is in contact with her grandmother, the mother of the father, the two of them have not been in contact for long, but although he has been living in Finland most of his life, you understand from where his wish to protect/control his daughter comes. From his mother! It does not take long, according to the film, before grandmother and father get into arguments, when the latter arrives in Istanbul to visit. ”I want you to be nice and lady-like” is one of the sentences said by the father to his daughter, and when he does not hear from Melisa for some time, he knows that something must have happened. It has, she has got a boyfriend and the father is to meet him…

And then… no, I will not tell you, watch for yourself. Producer is Finnish director Mika Ronkainen, you sense his touch in the film, that has an appeal to a big audience, Rise and Shine has the sales rights.

Finland, 2015, 52 mins.

www.riseandshine-berlin.com

Vitaly Mansky has been in North Korea. If I understand it correctly called in as a professional helper of a local film team that is to make a propaganda film for the regime. He helps, I guess, but he also makes his own film, ”Under the Sun”, that was shown at DOK Leipzig and praised there by several of my professional colleagues as well as by representatives of the local funder, MDR. It is beautifully shot, has amazing sequences of modern civilation, human beings in the streets fighting their way to work, on rolling stairs in the metro, with empty faces and hopelessness in their sad eyes. Images that could have been taken anywhere – for a Dane it brings back memories of our late graphic art master Palle Nielsen and his descriptions of modern urban life: No hope. Despair.

Mansky deserves credit for that. My doubts come when he wants to make a personalised story out of his shooting in North Korea. I could not help feel scepticism while watching, and it changed to irritation over the kliché language that he uses, to say what he wants to say. Yes, what does he want to say? That North Korea cultivates a culture of total adoration for the great leaders, that this indoctrination and brainwashing take place from early childhood, that huge parades are organised, that the people suffer? One thing is that we already knew that, we have seen it many times before, another is that Mansky builds a story through small observations that he has made: In the school class some students moves their hands nervously, a student is on the edge of falling asleep while a military veteran makes his speech, the main protagonist, the girl in the family that plays in the propaganda film, has tears in her eyes while training the dance, so on so forth. The director apparently wants us to suffer with her, when he cuts from her face in the window of the dull appartment building to the parade on the big square, and back again, and back again; to be interpreted as ”this is her future”. Not difficult to understand!

Mansky wants us to see the means of suppression of a country’s population. He assists at the shooting of a propaganda film and that is in itself interesting and illustrative. You see the North Korean director(s) go in and out of the picture to direct the family members, who have been chosen to be the perfect patriots, who in all contexts celebrate Kim Il-Sung and the son, who has followed him on the throne. These scenes are fine, so why do we need Mansky’s squeezing tiny details out from the material shot to prove what is obvious through the whole propaganda circus that is set up? Could it not have been enough – and honest – to communicate that we are invited to follow the making of a propaganda film for North Korea. Mansky insists on making the little girl a tragic character – look she is crying when she dances, look she cries when she can not remember some propaganda lines… Sorry, I do not trust the autenthicity of that. And does Mansky really care about her?

Sorry for being so long about this film. Ethical questions are not often raised around films, in this case also not in Leipzig. Schade, as they say in German!

Russia, Germany, Czech Republic, North Korea, Under the Sun, 2015, 110 mins. 

I have already saluted the jury’s choice of Wojciech Staron’s ”Brothers” as the winner of the feature length competition. I would also like to salute the festival for making a good selection of films for this section. I agree that a festival like this should go – as DOK Leipzig does – for diversity in themes and storytelling. I saw all 12 films and ended up having ”Brothers” as my favourite with Crystal Moselle’s ”The Wolfpack” and Korean Hyuck-jee Park’s ”With or Without You” as runners-up for the Goldene Taube, the Golden Dove. ”The Wolfpack” is an amazing story about six brothers being raised in an apartment on Manhattan with their mother teaching them and their father securing that they do not leave home, where they stay and as said in the catalogue ”liberate themselves through the power of cinema”: they watch and they make their own movies. Until one day, where one of them gets out… The Korean documentary, filmed over many years, is a lovely portrait of two old women, who have been living together all their lives, having had the same husband. A beautiful follow-up to ”My Love, Don’t Cross that River”.

I have written about the quality of the two timely films, ”Lampedusa in Winter” by Jakob Brossmann and ”The Longest Run” by Marianna Economou, as well as ”The Event” by Sergei Loznitsa. ”Under The Sun” by Vitaly Mansky will have a post of its own – ”Francophonia” by Sokurov, well you can discuss why it is there, is it not for feature film festivals, but Sokurov is a good name and I guess this is also the reason why Roberto Minervini’s ”The Other Side” has been included. He got the main prize last year for ”Stop the Pounding Heart”, which had qualities. ”The Other Side”, as a colleague said to me, is just a bad fiction film, which is crossing all borders of decency for me.

Decent with a high level of respect for those involved is ”Wie die Anderen” (”Like the Others”) by Constantin Wulf shot in an adolescent psychiatric centre in Vienna, classic observational documentary style, as – including interviews – is local Andreas Voigt’s ”Time Will Tell” that goes back to the end of the 80’es to show to the viewer what has happened with three characters. The film that was shown in the railway station at the opening night, is interesting for many reasons – the characters and what has happened to them and the city of Leipzig as it looked at that time and today. At least in the ”innenstadt” Leipzig is today a welcoming modern city, eine Kulturstadt, and documentary films are culture. Right? Especially interesting for me, as I was at the first DOK Leipzig ”nach der Wende”.

I just came from the award ceremony of the 58^th edition of DOK Leipzig with a smile on my face, happy that the jury chose, what I also found the best film in the main competiton, “Brothers” by Wojciech Staron. And happy for Marianna Economou, who was on stage twice to receive acknowledgement for her “The Longest Run”. If anyone deserves this it is Economou, who went to many international pitching sessions without getting any funding. Goes without saying that in Greece film funding does not really exist in times of crisis… Also bravo that Hungarian Klara Trencsényi was awarded in the “Next Masters” category. I have seen beautiful material from her winning film “Train to Adulthood” and look forward to watch the final result, and write about it. Below the press release of the festival, more reporting and reviews will follow from me in the coming days:

The Golden Dove in the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film was awarded to “Brothers” (“Bracia”) (photo) by Polish director Wojciech Staroń. The prize is endowed with 10,000 euros, donated by the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, and was presented by Dr Claudia Schreiner, Head of Programme Culture and Science at MDR Television.

In the International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film, the Russian entry “The Conversation” (“Razgovor”) was awarded the Golden

Dove for the best short documentary film. Director Anastasia Novikova receives prize money to the amount of 5,000 euros, donated by TELEPOOL GmbH. The Golden Dove for the best short animated film, endowed with 5,000 euros, was awarded to the Swiss entry “Erlking“ (“Erlkönig”) by Georges Schwizgebel. The Silver Dove for the best short documentary and animated film, endowed with 2,000 euros, went to Lei Lei from China for his film “Missing One Player“.

The Golden Dove in the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film, endowed with 10,000 euros, was awarded to “Land on Water” (“Land am Wasser”) by Tom Lemke. The Golden Dove in the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film, presented for the first time at this festival and endowed with 5,000 euros, was received by Benjamin Kahlmeyer for his film “Eisen”.

The Golden Dove of the Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig in the Next Masters Competition went to Klára Trencsényi from Hungary for “Train to Adulthood” (“Reményvasút”). The prize money of 10,000 euros is intended as startup funding for the director’s next documentary film project.

The Golden Dove for the Best Animated Documentary was awarded to the German entry “Spirit Away” (“Wegzaubern”) by Betina Kuntzsch. This prize for a hybrid of animated and documentary film, which is unique in the world, is endowed with 3,000 euros.

The Healthy Workplaces Film Award, endowed with 5,000 euros donated by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), was awarded ex aequo to the German production  “Automatic Fitness” by Alejandra Tomei and Alberto Couceiro and the German entry “Work For One Day” (“Tagelöhner Syndrom”) by Rita Bakacs.

The MDR Film Prize for an outstanding East European documentary, endowed with 3,000 euros, went to the animated documentary “The Magic Mountain” (La montagne magique”) by Romanian filmmaker Anca Damian.

The DEFA Sponsoring Prize for an outstanding long German documentary, along with a grant to the amount of 4,000 euros, was awarded to Matthias Koßmehl for his film “Café Waldluft”.

The Documentary Film Prize of the Goethe Institute, endowed with 2,000 euros, went to Lutz Dammbeck for his film “Overgames”.

The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, endowed with 2,000 Euros donated by the VCH-Hotels Deutschland GmbH – im Verband Christlicher Hoteliers e.V., including the MICHAELIS Hotel in Leipzig, went to Wojciech Staroń (Poland) for “Brothers“ (“Bracia“).

The FIPRESCI Jury awarded its prize to Crystal Moselle (USA) for “The Wolfpack”.

Greek director Marianna Economou received the Prize of the Trade Union ver.di, endowed with 2,500 euros, for “The Longest Run“ (“O pio makris dromos“).

The Young Eyes Film Award of the Youth Jury of the Filmschule Leipzig e.V., endowed with 2,000 euros, went to US American director Patrick O’Brien for his film “TransFatty Lives”.

The DOK Neuland Audience Award for the public’s favourite work in the interactive exhibiton was determined by audience vote and went to the Virtual Reality Installation “Deep (Multiplayer Version)” by Owen Harris and Niki Smit (Netherlands / Ireland).

The mephisto 97.6 Audience Award was determined by audience vote and went to German director Florian Grolig for his animated film “In the Distance”.

The “Leipziger Ring” Film Prize of Stiftung Friedliche Revolution, endowed with 5,000 euros, was awarded on Thursday night at the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) in Leipzig. It went to Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa for his film “The Event“.

From a reporter’s point of view this could have been put on the site last night but I wanted to watch the winning film of the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution Prize today and so I did and it was a good decision to give Sergei Loznitsa (photo) one more award to the many he has already. He is a master of creative treatment of archive material, his masterpiece in that genre is still “Blockade” about the siege of Leningrad, and this one, that goes back to the same city – that I visited a month ago, now called St. Petersburg – has the same approach, letting the archive “speak for itself”. And yet Loznitsa has chosen the material, put it together, selected the sound, to be brief, he has directed the film material being intelligent enough not to seduce us to simple solutions and thus conclusions. Those of us who are old enough and interested in recent world history remember the coup d´état in Moscow in August 1990 and we have again and again seen the images of the “junta” at their press conference, the shaking hands of one of them and of course Yeltsin making his victorious climb of a military tank to make a speech about – well about the fall of USSR. But Loznitsa is not in Moscow in his film, he is in Leningrad and gives me

exceptional material from what happened in the streets and the squares, that I love so much today, where people gathered to try to understand what is going on. +  he gives me the legendary mayor Sobchak and his impressive speeches, “the sea of faces” listening to him, the USSR flag being substituted by the Russian, the slogans used like “fascism will not prevail”, bring the “coup gang to justice” and the name of Yeltsin shouted again and again. Fascinating. One objection, however, I have to come up with – Loznitsa, you over-use the fact that the television plays “Swan Lake” while history is made. And of course you watch that film from a 2015 perspective of what Russia is today. That is in YOUR head, Loznitsa does not give any easy journalistic solutions.

And here comes the edited version of the DOK Leipzig press release: Yesterday, on Thursday the 29th of October, the documentary film about the coup in Russia in August 1991 entitled “The Event” (‘Sobytie’) was awarded the Leipziger Ring. This film prize from Stiftung Friedliche Revolution (Peaceful Revolution Foundation), endowed with 5,000 euros was given to Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa in Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church. In his 74-minute film he employs archive footage to describe the end of an epoch. The Leipziger Ring is the first award given within the framework of the DOK Leipzig Festival 2015.

The foundation awards its prize to acknowledge an artistic documentary film that either portrays civic involvement on behalf of democracy and human rights in an exemplary manner, or has arisen due to great personal commitment and courage on the part of the director against obstacles and restrictions dealing with freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

The jury substantiated its selection for the honour as follows: “Sergei Loznitsa’s film distinguishes itself through a coherent, clearly defined dramatic composition. All of the creative devices employed are utilised deliberately and consistently. Particular emphasis is to be given to the respectful way in which the documentary material is dealt with. The filmmaker places his faith in the power of the material itself and does not manipulate it.”

All right, you can discuss whether he manipulates or just lives up to being a – pretty skilled – film director.

The prize-winner received the Leipziger Ring statuette in addition to the prize money. It recalls the large-scale demonstrations in the fall of 1989 on Leipzig’s Altstadtring, the ring thoroughfare encircling the old town, as well as the burning candles the demonstrators held in their hands as a symbol of their non-violent stance. Nine films were nominated for the prize.

Final comment: This award and the way it is being celebrated is full of the seriousness and dignity that is DOK Leipzig.

http://www.dok-leipzig.de

Let’s leave our bikes here, Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis said when he, Ukranian directors Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko met me last night at the Museum, the Festival Centre of DOK Leipzig. They had been doing their presentation at the Kabarett Leipziger Pfeffermühle in the morning followed by meetings in the afternoon and they were happy and relaxed, of course much more so as their film ”Ukranian Sheriffs” has been selected for IDFA, main feature duration competition. Photo: Bondarchuk at the editing table.

The DOK.Incubator workshop does not only provide bikes for their participants, it has in no time developed into a very valuable tool for filmmakers with films at a rough-cut stage. Andrea Prenghyova, with whom I had the pleasure to work for years for another precious workshop, Ex Oriente, is a powerhouse, who has analysed what is needed at this critical point just before you lock the picture and go into postproduction of your film. She, Prenghyova, has gathered good people around her as tutors, producers like Sigrid Dyekjær from Denmark and editors like French Yael Bitton and Menno Boerema, not to forget the former DOK Leipzig festival director Claas Danielsen.

If you click below you will be able to watch trailers from the films developed

during the workshop 2015. I am looking forward to watch the Italian/American ”Thy Father’s Chair”, the ”Amazona” by Clare Weiskopf, who I met during the DocsBarcelona, a very promising film project.

Prenghyova and her team can be proud of what they are doing, and they are, just read this quote from the news on the website:

Not only three of the eight 2015 projects, but also three films from the previous editions of DOK.Incubator are meeting in November at IDFA. In four years’ history of DOK.Incubator, 12 out of the total 32 films have competed in Amsterdam.

The 28th edition of the Festival will open with A Family Affair, the personal struggle of the director Tom Fassaert (NL) with the femme-fatale of his family: the grandmother Marianne. The film will compete in both Dutch and feature-length competition. In the main category, the filmmakers will meet two colleagues from DOK.Incubator 2015: Ukrainian Sheriffs /LV, UA, DE/, following a pair of local heroes, Victor and Volodya, appointed to keep the Order and Law in Ukraine, where even the police is not available right now, and Thy Father’s Chair /IT/ which tells the story of two Orthodox twins who have stopped throwing away anything since the death of their parents. Now, their upstairs tenant threatens them to stop paying the rent unless they get rid of all the accumulated stuff.

http://dokincubator.net/preview-2015/

The festival opened last night and the press people sent out a Release under the heading ”Political Voicings at Opening of DOK Leipzig”. I quote from the text:

Leena Pasanen: “DOK Leipzig traditionally stands for peace and human dignity. Today this is perhaps more necessary than ever before,” said the native of Finland, who had previously lived in Budapest for 3 years and experienced the dramatic changes under the Orbán administration.

These circumstances caused Pasanen to express concern over Legida, whose demonstration took place at the same time as the opening of DOK. “I want to do more than merely ignore this demonstration, I want to take a stand: Our Leipzig is tolerant, open-minded and willing to help those who need help.” Above and beyond this, documentary films are an excellent tool in combatting ignorance and narrow-mindedness. As this was the first time that the opening film was being screened in the east concourse of Leipzig’s central railway station simultaneously to the ceremony, Pasanen was ready and waiting with a suggestion for those sympathising with Legida: “Instead of demonstrating, they would be better off going to the station to watch the great film by Andreas Voigt.”

… I doubt they did, but many welcomed this fine initiative – see photo.

And another voice – Jan Rofekamp, sales agent and Head of Documentary Campus, described what happened in the streets of Leipzig on his FB page like this: Big anti-migrants demonstration here in Leipzig right now, neo-nazis, skinheads, screaming, blowing whistles, lots of German flags, massive police presence on the streets…very disturbing and very scary…

http://www.dok-leipzig.de

If you click the link below you will find an overview of the programme for the DOK Leipzig 2015 festival that starts tonight, see post below. There is the Official Selection, the Special Programmes, Discussions and Events. There is so much you could highlight, let me put the focus on the main competition for feature docs and animated films and first – see photo – mention the film by Andreas Voigt, ”Time Will Tell” that is the sixth part of the Leipzig Cycle. The Head of the festival programme Grit Lemche writes about it, a long quote:

“When Andreas Voigt and Sebastian Richter were shooting in Leipzig in 1996, the skinhead Sven wanted to marry and settle down. The former punk Isabel tried to lead a middle-class life in Stuttgart. And the journalist Renate wanted to come to terms with her past as an IM (informal collaborator) of the Stasi and start a new life.

The Leipzig cycle reaches as far back as 1986. The sixth part is structured by images of the run-down industrial quarter of Plagwitz which casually provide a

visual context, especially for Renate’s tragic story, that makes understanding possible. The film does not only show the qualities of the DEFA documentary school, such as recording social contexts through precise framing and an emphatic closeness to its protagonists, it’s also a masterpiece of editing. Voigt masterfully combines material from the 25th year after the German reunification with images of the lethargy of the East, the departure of 89 and the arrival in the post-reunification age. Which was different from what the mainstream media narrative would have us believe…”

I will be in Leipzig from wednesday afternoon and will give you my impressions of what I see, including Voigt’s film that is very appealing. It is one of twelve in competition, I have already written about Wojciech Staron’s ”Brothers”, ”Lampedusa in Winter” by Jakob Brossmann and I have seen Greek Marianna Economou’s ”The Longest Run” that is such a timely and well made and touching documentary on two refugees from Iraq and Syria.

Of course I expect a lot from master of archive, Sergei Loznitsa’s ”The Event” and look forward to watch Sokurov’s ”Francofonia” in a version that I can understand better than the Russian one I saw in St. Petersburg recently. Or what do you think of this quote (by Matthia Heeder) from the website about ”The Wolfpack”, an American film:

“Get ready for the Angulo brothers who spent their whole young lives in a shabby council flat on the Lower East Side. Their Hare Krishna-damaged father, for whom evil began at his doorstep, forbade any contact with the outside world. No school, no friends. The six brothers were virtually never allowed to go outside. Instead they were home-schooled and had more than 5,000 feature films on DVD, their only window on the world. They retrieved it by creating their own cinema, re-enacting the films for their video camera – faithful to the script, with homemade costumes and props. This made them feel alive…”

Much much more will follow – the German competition should be good, there is (Bravo!) a Next Master’s Competition etc. etc.

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/festival/programm