There is 416 km from Prizren and the Dokufest to Sarajevo, where the film festival is going on right now and until August 22. Not long. But there is quite a difference in the set-up of the documentary & short film festival in Kosovo and the red-carpet festival in Sarajevo that primarily has a focus on feature films. Nevertheless the festival has a strong selection for the documentary competition, 23 films including (they are a bit obsessed with premieres…) six world premieres, and international premieres, and regional premieres and Bosnia and Herzegovina premieres… honestly I don’t think the audience in Sarajevo cares about this categorization, that seems to be the rules of the games for big festivals: We want to be the first!

It can not be easy for the programmer Rada Sesic, who does an impressive work to promote documentaries within the big festival. If you click the cineuropa link below you get the list of the films. If you go for the festival link you get the descriptions of the 23 in competition.

That is what I did to know more about the new film of Jasmila banić, a one hour film called “One Day in Sarajevo” (photo), it goes like this:

”Causes and consequences of the assassination that happened in Sarajevo a hundred years ago still continue to reverberate in Europe. On June 28, 1914 Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Franz Ferdinand sparking World War I that marked the start of the 20th century. As Sarajevo commemorated the centennial of the assassination, different people had different interpretations of what happened in the city a century ago and different emotions about it. ONE DAY IN SARAJEVO tells about various perspectives of the anniversary in Sarajevo combining and contrasting footage filmed by citizens of Sarajevo (with small cameras and mobile phones) with scenes from feature films about the assassination by directors from Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the United Kingdom.”

Fascinating to see what comes from the hands of Jasmila banić, who way back, around 2000, came to the island of Bornholm in Denmark for the Balticum Film & TV Festival, where she showed us her shocking “Red Rubber Boots”. Later we also saw (in 2003) “Images from the Corner” before she entered the world of fiction with several award winning realistic feature films starting with “Grbavica”. She is for me the Bosnian director.

But this is just one film in competition – there is also Alexander Nanau’s “Toto and his Sisters”, Vladimir Tomic “Flotel Europa”, “Drifter” by Gábor Hörcher, Ilinca Calugareanu’s “Chuck Norris vs Communism” and a new title from Nenad Puhovski’s Factum in Zagreb, “Chasing a Dream” by Mladen Mitrović. And many more that by reading fascinates.

http://ticketing.sff.ba/en/filmlist?section=1204

http://cineuropa.org/nw.aspx?t=newsdetail&l=en&did=295349

It’s too much to mention all the winners of the Dokufest Prizren 2015, that ended last night – you can find them all on the website, including the jury statements, that in general are very good, which is not always the case from film juries.

Of course you will smile when a Dane as the first award mentions a Danish film, “Democrats” (photo) by Camilla Nielsson, “the excuse” is that the jury motivation is precise for this great film:  In this film, the jury found a remarkably refreshing, nuanced and honest approach to a very delicate story – the struggle of individuals and societies to achieve compromise and harmony in the face of divisive and abusive power structures. Through wonderful cinematography and editing, a captivating narrative and stunning behind the scenes access, the director portrays the inner-workings of a rare process for the 21st century – a country’s attempt to set the foundations for human rights and accountable institutions and to challenge raw arbitrary power.

“Virunga” by Orlando von Einsiedel got the Green Dox Award, Vladimir Tomic won the Balkan Documentary Competition with “Flotel Europa” and there were awards for known experimenting directors like Ben Rivers, Mike Hoolboom and Travis Wilkerson.

Hope to get a chance to watch some of the locally produced prizewinners.

http://dokufest.com/2015/winners-announced/

I have followed the festival in Kosovo from long-distance, it has been easy to do as the level of FB information (text and pictures) distributed from Dokufest is high and competent, as is the website and the press release that came out yesterday. I quote in its full length and at the post above you will get information about some of the awards distributed. It’s all very professional with a welcoming atmosphere. I intend to take part next year:

PRIZREN 16.08.2015 – The 14th edition of the International Documentary and Short Film Festival – DokuFest came to a close yesterday, the 16th day of August. DokuFest 2015 was dedicated to the theme of Migration with films from all over the world and the Balkan region, masterclasses, workshops, debates and panel discussions.

New ticket sales records were set with 14,000 tickets sold over the

course of the event’s nine days. The midnight music shows – DokuNights – sold a record 13,000 tickets for its stellar line-up of international music acts and DJ sets with people dancing until sunrise.

This year’s film program consisted of 228 feature-length and short films, with 124 of those in competition. The winning selections from each competition are listed (via the link below). They were announced tonight at Prizren’s Kino Lumbardhi, site of the festival’s closing ceremony. Following the awards ceremony, the closing night film feature was Albert Maysles’ film Iris. This year, DokuFest presented a special strand of the classic cinematic work of Albert and his partner and brother, David. Mr. Maysles passed away this year and the festival honored this legendary and seminal documentarian with special screenings of remastered classics. After the screening, the festivities continued at Lumbardhi with the last act of DokuNights featuring the traditional sounds of Nezafete Shala and family playing a selection of Albanian folk music.

Photo: Majlinda Hoxha.

http://dokufest.com/2015/winners-announced/

Two Polish documentaries taking part in the prestigious Semaine de la Critique at the Locarno Film festival took the main awards. No surprise that Wojciech Staron was praised for his ”Brothers” – I had the privilege to get a sneak preview of the film, a quote from the review on this site: ”… Staron proves to me again to be one of few European documentary poets, who believes in the power of the image and sequences without verbal explanation, he dares long scenes, he is a master in composition, he is a Filmmaker who paints with his camera, a visual artist…”

”Call Me Marianna” by Karolina Bielawska received the Premio Zonta Club Locarno award for best film promoting social justice and ethics, the film also took the main prize at the Krakow Film Festival this year.

Finally – happy to announce – with the FB page of the director as source – that Jakob Brossmann and his ”Lampedusa in Winter”

won “the independent critics jury for the “Golden Boccalino Award” for the best film… chosen from all films in all competitions!…” The director hopes “it will support the film on its journey and its mission.” Of course it will after the big interest from the audience in Locarno (full house screenings and extra one arranged) for a film I saw before the premiere thanks to the editor Cornelia Märki. She sent me the film a couple of months ago to have my opinion and I answered “I have no objections, I think this is an important film to get out now, it is very well put together, an impressive piece of observational documentary filmmaking that stays away from dramatizing but IS dramatic anyway – the strike of fishermen, the refugees, the humanistic Paola, the same for the mayor… good rhythm…” yes, it is indeed a very timely film that for sure will travel on from Locarno to other festival destinations.

Voilá – strong documentaries are made, let them be seen, all three of them have a universal appeal.

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.”

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

Some additional good news about the film programme in Riga. The Danish film about the newspaper Ekstra Bladet, “The Newsroom – Off the Record” (photo), directed by Mikala Krogh, is not only screened as the opening film on September 2 in connection with the Baltic Sea Docs workshop and pitching forum, it is also the starting point for a discussion of the situation for a daily printed newspaper in a changing media landscape, in Denmark and Latvia. The producer of the film, Sigrid Dyekjær, and the chief-editor of the newspaper, Poul Madsen will visit Riga to take part in the discussion. The film comes to Riga awarded as the Best Documentary yesterday at the yearly TV-Festival in Copenhagen.

… and Sean MacAllister is in Riga present to meet the audience with his “A Syrian Love Story” on September 3. To quote the review on this site: “…there are few documentarians who like McAllister, goes from the journalistic point of view and the anynomous reportage, to be a true storyteller who captures your attention fully because of the closeness to the characters he can create, because he always involves himself – he is in this case an intruder into the lives and destinies of a refugee family that he met in 2009 and kept a close relation to until this year, 2015. His presence simply changed their lives…”

Finally Hubert Sauper’s “We Come as Friends” is screened – a film with a lot of praising words attached.

CopyPaste of press release from DocAlliance and when I have the hours (close to 6 hours is the two-part documentary) there will be a review of the film on this site:

Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) by Abbas Fahdel has won the Doc Alliance Selection Award organised by an alliance of 7 key European documentary film festivals. Director Fahdel received the award last weekend at the Locarno film festival.

Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) by Abbas Fahdel has won the Doc Alliance Selection Award. The winning film is composed of two parts – the first was shot before the US army’s invasion of Iraq while the second part captures the post-war events – providing an essential report on the turning point in the country’s development. Instead of shorthand news features on the events in Iraq, it brings an impressive portrayal of life in the country. Director Fahdel received the award at the Locarno film festival.

Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) by Abbas Fahdel shows the impact of war events on Iraqi citizens. Divided into two parts, the film takes a look at the life of Iraqi people before and after the invasion of US troops. “Homeland is a masterfully shot and composed family chronicle that gives us an idea of the difficult life under dictatorship and occupation of a family that seeks nothing else than normality,” said the jury in its statement.

“The norms and values in my country have been turned upside down,” said Abbas Fahdel, who is currently living in French exile, describing his feelings about his homeland. “What would have become of me, if I had stayed in Iraq? These were the questions I asked myself with a bit of a frantic and insatiable curiosity,” he added. His film first emerged victorious in the international competition at the Swiss Visions du Réel festival, and has now also managed to scoop the Doc Alliance Selection Award. Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) was chosen by the jury from among 7 nominees portraying, for example, life on Borneo, in Ukraine or in Serbia, as well as the tumultuous events in Egypt in 2011. “Although we watched 3,700 films over the year, this exceptional documentary immediately grabbed our attention for the 2015 edition. This is a work of reference to understand the history and current affairs in the Middle East. This is more than a beautiful film, it is an essential film. It had to be made and it must be seen,” said the director of Visions du Réel, Luciano Barisone, commenting on the winning film.

Read the full interview with director Abbas Fahdel, the author of the winning film.

http://dafilms.com/