Look at the photo… A douce painting by Edgar Degas, for me the first true documentarian? No, an edited still from a Danish documentary – coproduced with a Spanish company – directed by Robin Petré and with Ecuadorian cameraperson María Goya Barquet behind the camera. I became curious to know more about the latter, went to her website that with photos immediately proved a special talent for giving images an extraordinary poetic stamp that appeals to someone like me, who again and again stresses that documentaries are Films.

Uhh, the film crew has gone very very close into the wild forest fires in Southern Galicia but there are also – understandable! – well composed distant images from the fires, where – it is being said by one of the few but important humans in the film – animals run back into the fire, when they discover human beings. Only on earth, what are we doing to it, the earth?

Impressive camerawork… that we viewers are invited to experience, and get the chance to, through the editing of Charlotte Munch Bengsten, who brings pauses, time to refelect, where they should be and is not afraid to give us some contrasting shocks. Like in a sequence with an experienced fire fighter, who answers the question whether the fires have become different during the years: The sound of the fires have changed, they roar today like beasts – cut to the veterinarian for horses in a swimming pool, then her on a horse, then her at home with a glass of wine, and we stay with humans to meet (again) the boy from the farm, who knows how to groom horses and who gives the film Life, and Hope; he must be one of those in new generations, who with his love to the horses can do better than we can today? Or am I dreaming?

Huge respect to Robin Petré for not wanting to give answers… she raises questions, lets us think and invites us to an area we know very little about. To discover. But also give us information – for instance that the windmills in the landscape have changed the life of the wild horses, it is now more difficult for them to graze. The windmills also bring in my praise of the sound score, performed by Thomas Perez-Pape, it keeps you hooked the whole way through, at a place on earth, where survival of man and nature is at stake. Where there is a lack of balance. I will not forget the image and the sound of the white horse roaring in desperation in the barn. A cry for help. A warning. Indeed!

Denmark, Spain, 2025, premiered in Berlin, awarded at festivals, 93 mins.

… and the winner is, no objections from my side, from this year’s strong selection… Over to the jury:

Motivation
“We are living in a world on fire that keeps burning in front of our eyes.

We use cinema for reflection of our reality and we would like to highlight the film that captures not only the ongoing environmental grief and also finds the resistant and compelling characters that keep fighting in this deeply immersive, cinematic journey. A film that took us beyond the fire. 

The Award goes to Only on Earth by Robin Petré”

Synopsis
An immersive, visually striking journey deep into southern Galicia, one of Europe’s most vulnerable forest fire zones, where wild horses have curbed flammable undergrowth for centuries under the watch of local cowboys. During the hottest summer ever measured, humans and animals alike struggle to cope as inextinguishable fires draw closer.

About the Director
Robin Petré (1985, Denmark) is a Danish film director and artist. In her work she explores human-animal relations and our co-existence with nature. Her feature-length debut From the Wild Sea (2021) premiered at the Berlinale and received the Grand Prix at Global Science Film Festival among other awards. The film was nominated for the Danish Film Critics Award and has screened at festivals such as Zürich Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, CPH:DOX, and True/False. Her short film Pulse (2016) was awarded the Silver Dove for An Outstanding Artistic Contribution at DOK Leipzig. She holds an MA in Documentary Film Directing from Doc Nomads. She’s an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Sundance Institute, Nordic Film Lab, and IDFAcademy. Only on Earth (2025) celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale. The film previously received the Cannes Marché du Film Docs-in-Progress Award 2024.

About the Award
The Best Nordic Documentary Award is presented to one of the 12 films selected for the competition. The award goes to the director(-s) of the winning film.

Prize
The cash award of 11.000€  is sponsored by the Nordic public broadcasters DR, NRK, RUV, SVT and YLE. 

Sorry, dear reader, I have to go to the box with superlatives. Again. You might argue that I always do so, and indeed this was what Allan Berg and I agreed upon, when we started this film blog: We don’t take time to write about bad films, well sometimes we have been a bit critical, but as a general rule – we have been writing about films we like. And I intend to keep this line after Allan is no longer here…

In this case I am happy to express my full enthusiasm. The film by Swedish Ragnhild Ekner is unique. Not only does it give a completely different picture of the ultras – around the world, what an achievement! – but the way it does it as a Film is so convincing!

Let me start with Ekner’s commentary through the whole film. It is not a wall-to-wall speak, it comes when needed, it is so well written, sometimes almost as a poem, sometimes informative, sometimes very personal, she is a supporter herself and she has been there, on the stadium with friends, yes friendship is a word that comes back again and again, in the images where the ultras meet, where they make their banners, where they sing, where they are involved in confrontations with the police. Ekner speaks and lets ultras from the countries, she has filmed in, express diverse opinions and impressions around the phenomenon.

The Polish talks about the reaction from the PiS government and the police. An Indonesian young woman (you don’t see any of those speaking, they are anonymous) talks about the women going together having established their own group, maybe the part from Indonesia is the one that stands out, but also the Egyptian is strong, a man talks about how the ultras joined the revolution confronting the military… And the Italian, and the English where the director has visited a non-league club, not the Premier League, and Sweden of course.

I could go on praising the film that has a, yes, let me say fantastic composed music score that fits the sequences perfectly. No complaints about camera work and editing.

To conclude, thanks for giving me and a huge audience I guess and hope, a superb cinematic experience!

Sweden, Finland and Denmark, 2025, 89 mins.

“I love hands, and I can’t wait for my hands to get old and have the veins out. I keep saying that hands are fascinating. It is something so tactile, so easy to hold someone’s hand to stroke their hand. It’s something you constantly do. In residence, people often need less medicine and more human contact. There is also something about the skin, which has lived a lot. It’s very photographical as it’s like a landscape. It’s like a creek coming down the mountain. The whole skin becomes like a mountain that has been there forever. The skin is like a landscape…”

Beautiful sentences from the director of the masterpiece I saw yesterday in the cinema Spegeln in Malmø, part of the competition programme of Nordisk Panorama. Yrsa Roca Fannberg hired Wojciech Staron to do the camera, the Polish director and cameraperson behind many many documentaries; to mention just one, “Brothers”, which is also a close up of old age as the film of Fannberg is. Staron interprets perfectly the intentions of the director making a warm-hearted visual poem from the homes of the old people in what Fannberg shows are within an institution. The film is a poem AND the protagonists recite poems in the film all related to the beauty of life. And love. There are some unique sequences with couples, one of them more fragile than the other, caressing, caring. It is a very intense film thanks to great editing that give you space to breathe after, yes, breathtaking sequences.

I met the director after the screening and she told me that she is working at Grund, the name of the place, as a nurse. It explains – based on the cinematic skills of the director – why everything in the film looks so natural and that you sense the presence of the filmmaker and her cameraperson. Why there is a flow from one protagonist to the next. Why there are so many fine storytelling solutions like the one towards the end where – shown as “archive” – protagonists are there a bit earlier in their life.

I wonder what young people think of the film. For someone close to 80 the film of course content-wise thoughts: A BIG THANK YOU!

Iceland, Poland, 2025, 82 mins.

They filmed at Malmberget before, more than 10 years ago, “The Home and the Cavity” was the title, and I know them from the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade from 2018, where they showed “Giants and The Morning After”, with Malla Grapengiesser as co-director. I loved that film, where they “turned this seductive portrait of the seemingly Swedish countryside into a funny, lively and playful picture…” as was written in the festival catalogue.

Funny and lively are words you can use again about this film that takes the title from Pär Lagerkvist. But it is a film that takes place at one of the largest iron mines in the world way up North in Sweden, a mine to be evacuated of course with tough consequences for those in the film. Primarily old people have been casted and they are simply great protagonists.

They express emotionally what it means for them to have their homes torn down, but they also accept the situation, as the directors gently, in a slow rhythm, ask us viewers to live with these wonderful people, who have little time left on this earth… there are conversations about death, and afterlife, there is one of course, are both serious and full of fun. Two, younger in this context, talk about whether they want to be buried in a coffin or cremated. The one for cremation, however, fears the oven as it is sooo warm!

Håkan plays the accordeon in the beginning of the film with miners as listeners, a scene full of sorrow and dignity and chapeau for a disappearing profession. Håkan – the film is shot over a period of 3 years – passes away, his friend plays a Finnish song for him at the cemetery, where a son sits next to his mother’s grave, cut to his home or rather the home of his mother, where he still lives. Beautiful – as many small stories are.

The couple we follow from start till end contributes to a hilarious scene towards the end: The municipality, my guess, has had monumental pillars set up on a square, many of them, a monument for what, a piece of art? The couple shake their heads and says to each other – Maybe inspired from Roman times? The couple also – in a scene earlier in the film – visits their apartment empty and waiting to be demolished. The man wants to take a nail from the wall and something to hang towels on for the kitchen, his wife stops him. No nostalgia please.

Nostalgia, however, and Melancholy are feelings that carry the film – and beautiful it is to watch. Happy ending, of course not but as one of the old people say it: Look, we have got nature back, look at the colourful poppies.

Sweden, 93 mins., 2025

… started yesterday with – as usual – a rich programme, the 36th edition, wow, some of the festival participants who walk into the lobby of the Scandic Hotel, where the reception is, were not born when the festival started… I was and I think I was at the first edition and for sure I have been to more than 20 of the 36 editions, maybe more!

Anyway, the decision to have the festival every year in Malmø has proved to the right one. It takes time to build a local audience but according to programmer Cecilia Lidin and Executive director Heidi Elise Christensen there is an audience that is local and not coming to the festival for professional reasons. They come for the films. Well done.

I arrived this morning, will view and write about a couple of films, attend some events and watch and listen to the Forum that is on monday and tuesday.

Recommendations from the “Best Nordic Documentary” competition programme, of films that have been reviewed on this site:

Robin Petré’s “Only on Earth: “Look at the photo… A douce painting by Edgar Degas, for me the first true documentarian? No, an edited still from a Danish documentary – coproduced with a Spanish company – directed by Robin Petré and with Ecuadorian cameraperson María Goya Barquet behind the camera. I became curious to know more about the latter, went to her website that with photos immediately proved a special talent for giving images an extraordinary poetic stamp that appeals to someone like me, who again and again stresses that documentaries are Films…” Quote from the review.

Christian Sønderby Jepsen’s “The Father, the Sons and the Holy Spirit”…”Der er Andreas, Christian og mig, Henrik og min far og min mor og min hustru. Alle drikker.” Det siger fortælleren. Det er altså personerne, og han er en af dem, hovedpersonen, første person, ental, og jeg er inde i et familiedrama, i gang med at lytte til og iagttage en sørgelig historie, og det er disse mennesker, jeg skal være sammen med en film lang. Jeg har problemer med at holde mig fast, for jeg kan ikke holde med, ikke identificere mig, ikke forelske mig, jeg kan ikke holde det ud. Jeg stødes fra, hvor jeg skulle trækkes ind og opsluges. Og jeg kan ikke bare afvise filmen, jeg får mistanke til mig selv, til mine evner til at udfylde min rolle, min opgave. Den at være publikum, som her viser sig som et ansvar. Først og fremmest gæstens ansvar, jeg skal være høflig og forstående og accepterende, jeg er i et fremmed land, hos et besynderligt folk, som opfører sig særegent, som taler et anderledes sprog. Men jeg er anfægtet og jeg kommer i tvivl. Jeg holder filmen ude fra mig, undrende… Citat fra min afdøde kollega Allan Bergs tekst om “Testamentet”, som han skrev I 2013. Jeg afslutter anmeldelsen med at bruge Allans ord om den nye film, fortsættelsen af “Testamentet”: FREMRAGENDE.

Areeb Zuaiter’s “Yalla Parkour”…”…Ahmed is sooo good for the film. Charming, natural in front of the Camera, (trying to) turning pain into happiness. And as a parkourist quite close to losing his mobility as he shows Areeb some videos, where his jumping made him end on his head…Of course you can´t help – when watching the film – think about Gaza today BUT as a well composed sometimes painful, sometimes joyful I enjoyed the film that also catches the Palestinian soul and I hope for the best for Ahmed and his parkourist teammates and his family, where ever they are.”

3 out of 12 competing films, I will be back with reviews on some of the remaining films in that category. And the best recommendation I can give: Go to the cinema, watch films on the big screen together with people from Malmø and abroad.

“Three cows – Joy, Crumb and Sweetie – live in the forest. Joy is grandma and Crumb is its child. They were both rescued to the forest pasture from the door of the slaughterhouse truck. Sweetie is Joy’s granddaughter, who was born as a surprise on the pasture.”

This is how the synopsis goes for this wonderful short documentary that left me smiling for half an hour.

The title refers both to the three mentioned cows AND to the lovely three ladies, who rescued the cows from the slaughterhouse. To have a free life in the forest, to be caressed and talked to, to answer with moo’s or roaring of pure pleasure. You see how they jump happily and you see the ladies and their happiness. And sorrow when one of the three passed away followed by a beautiful speech – and the arrival of a new one to be spoiled by the fabulous cow ladies. Great cinematography and sound work.

Finland, 2024, 29 mins

This text is written by Emanuele Vernillo, who is Head of the Three – Years Training in Documentary Filmmaking at ZeLIG The words we most often use in times of change speak of necessity: the need to renew, to make space for what is new, to set ourselves in motion and move forward. At ZeLIG we have chosen to embrace this change by taking up the legacy of a thirty-year journey that remains unique in the landscape of European film education. We recognize and hold fast to the original intuition: to dedicate ourselves to documentary in its most varied and unexpected forms, where it becomes cinema, art. That intuition still lights our path today. Documentary, in its freest forms—even when it merges with other genres or ventures into non-linear storytelling—offers a rare possibility: to imagine a cinema that is open, flexible, ever-regenerating. A cinema that constantly reinvents its languages, as every true art form and every living industry must. It is no coincidence that series, fiction films, animation, virtual reality, even gaming, draw on the creative force of documentary in order to evolve and move forward. The change we are experiencing is not a rupture but a continuation, a red thread running through our history. It is the same thread that has always tied us to the world of cinema and its industry: observing, engaging, and at the same time staying rooted in the real—rooted in people, in communities, in the stories around us. We want to keep this spirit alive and project it into the future with renewed energy. Today, documentary is above all a hybrid form. It is the crossing of boundaries. It is the possibility of new combinations. To walk this path is to embrace an artistic vision that is also political and social. As members of a human community made of different languages, colors, smells, and embraces, we believe that becoming hybrid is a necessary response to the identitarian drifts of these dark times. For us, documentary, auteur cinema, and hybrid forms—linear or non-linear—are resistance, sometimes even of civil resistance, in a world where those in power would rather see us reduced to a single face, a single voice, a flattened identity. We, on the other hand, affirm that we can only save ourselves by mixing. This is the most valuable lesson we have learned in recent years, at ZeLIG and in the world.

From press release of yesterday: IDFA is proud to present Portuguese filmmaker, curator, and academic Susana de Sousa Dias as the festival’s Guest of Honor, with a Retrospective and Top 10 selection. Known for her singular approach to archival images and cinematic form, de Sousa Dias has built an internationally acclaimed body of work that interrogates dictatorship, colonial legacies, and the fragile terrain of memory.

The director has had the attention of this site for decades. Colleague Allan Berg set up “a collection of posts about the early films of Susana de Sousa Dias. Here follows some quotes:

“Still Life. Faces of a Dictatorship (2005) the traumatic past of Portugal under Salazar. The film is 77 mins. long without any narration, built on archive from the 48 years between 1926 and till 1974, when the carnation revolution happened. The archive includes news, war footage from the colonies, propaganda films and photos of political prisoners. The musical score for this film, by António de Sousa Dias, is exceptional, first you wonder why but then you see what it does to the images, making a reflective distance and opens for a new both intellectual and emotional interpretation.”

And words of Allan Berg, translated and edited from Danish: “The portraits of the Secret Police appear calm and clarified for a long time on the screen. The ugly operation has lent the beauty, dignity and authenticity of the models… the images are carefully worked on so their aura become visible. The naked sound of the voices from the conversations are treated like was it delicate music. So it becomes delicate music. It is about the political crime of the Portuguese dictatorship… it is so horrifying and wild, and it is conveyed with such a beautiful and calm clarification”. (Posting from Cinéma du réel, March 26 2010).

Bravo IDFA!