Olha Zhurba: Songs of Slow Burning Earth

I had big expectations after Olha Zhurba’s first long documentary “Outside” – https://filmkommentaren.dk/olha-zhurba-outside/ – and I was not disappointed. “Songs of Slow Burning Earth” is a film that will stay in Ukrainian documentary history. And internationally as a film that should be watched by everyone, who wants to experience the Ukrainian human consequences of a war in a neighboring country. It has the potential to reach a wide audience ALSO outside the festivals, where it tours now, will tour in the coming year(s) and will win awards because of its extraordinary sure cinematic style. Every little thing is thought of in a film that takes its viewers from the Russian full scale invasion till today. It is informative and emotional. And of course also containing footage that can go into the Ukrainian war archive to be used, when the war is over or before for the trials will come.

This first paragraph looks like a conclusion and it is in a way; knowing that many refrain from reading a whole review before watching, I hope it will make readers go to their festival to have the same experience I had – or disagree… The film will in November be shown at Verzio in Budapest and at IDFA in Amsterdam and probably at many other festivals.

The start: Landscape images and brief audio bits of people, who call “emergency services” with worried questions about explosions near their homes… ending with “is it war?”, answer “it looks like”. Cut to a railway station with people almost fighting to enter a train to get away; some go, some trains are cancelled; the loudspeaker voice calls for “show respect”, “do not spread panic” but anger is present and “let the children get in first”. Cut to a driver with tears in eyes, he comes from and/or goes to Mariupol. A desperate old woman: “I only have my bathrobe”, “my city is gone!” Displaced people around her try to comfort her, “but you have your family”… Emergency calls come in again. Olha Zhurba collects documentary moments with an enormous sensitivity, she is present with her eye and this viewer – a grandfather – suffers, whenever her camera has caught a child, like the one who sits on luggage at a station.

And yet comes a sequence from Mykolaiv from a bakery 18 km from the front line (through the film the distance to the front line). It reminds me of Humphrey Jenning’s film “Listen to Britain” from 1942, two years into that war, “never give up”. Followed by a scene with people queuing to get the bread and a close up of burned corn in a field. A clip from a school, “close your eyes what is your dream”, kids are asked before they run to the shelter.

The most touching 9 minutes long sequence is filmed from a car on the road. In the beginning you have no clue, what happens but then you understand, why people along the road kneel down, and it goes right to the heart. A coffin with a hero is brought home and more will come it is being said. And close to the front line a boy is “playing war” and he tells about the place that was Russian and now is liberated, “we lived 9 months with Russians here”.

Olha Zhurba has visited a medical centre where soldiers are treated, prosthesis are fixed, two new ones from knee down, training, they are being taken care of… What do you think is the future, what do you hope will be the future of Ukraine, (high?)school children are asked, and Zhurba cuts to a state school in Central Russia, where feet, you don’t see faces, are marching, one-two, one-two… And I look at the face of a boy, it could be any boy from anywhere, but he is a boy living in a country at war in a neighboring country, only 2000 km from where I live.

Watch this film: To use the title of a series by Latvian Juris Podnieks: Hello Do You Hear Us?

Ukraine, Denmark, Sweden, France, 2024, 95 min

Allan Berg om Jon Bang Carlsen

IT’S NOW OR NEVER OG HOW TO INVENT REALITY (1996)

Når Jon Bang Carlsen i It’s Now or Never lader de medvirkende i Vestirland spille løs, ikke deres egne liv, men digtede liv, ikke i deres egne huse, men i huse, han har fundet velegnede til den særlige stemning, han ønsker i sin film, kunne man hævde, det ikke længere er dokumentarfilm, han laver, men fiktion. Men egentlig er det lige meget, blot det er en enestående oplevelse. For så er alle midler tilladte, skrev juryen i sin begrundelse for at give ham grand prix på Dansk Film Festival i Odense (1996). ”Vi behøver ikke at klassificere et sådant værk som det ene eller det andet. Det er bare en glæde at tage imod med åbent sind”. Som Christian Braad Thomsen fortæller om Karen Blixen i sin film om hende: ”Hun digtede frejdigt om på sandheden for skabe sand digtning.”

Og Bang Carlsen har villet lave et sandt filmdigt om en fattig tilværelse omgivet af stor skønhed på den barske Atlanterhavskyst. Hovedpersonen Jimmy køber en ny ko. Den kan tydeligt ikke lide ham (eller filmholdet?) og vil kun nødtvunget ind i hans gård. Og sådan går det formodentlig også, da han omsider gennem en ægteskabsmægler får kontakt med en kvinde at gifte sig med. Filmen slutter netop som kontakten er etableret. Jimmy har stillet samme nøgterne krav til konen som til koen. Hun skal kunne malke, den give mælk.

Det er godt, at Bang Carlsen lavede How to Invent reality også, mens han var i Irland. Den samme historie for så vidt, men set fra kulissen med alle snorene, billedernes bagsider og skkuespillernes ventetider, så deres persona demaskeres. Og vi ser hvor tynd masken er, hvor vellignende.

Formen er jo set før, et dokumentarhold følger filmoptagelserne og portrætterer instruktøren. Her bliver det noget mere, meget mere. Bang Carlsen udvider værket med et selvportræt, fortæller løs om, hvad det var, han ville, hvordan han gjorde, og hvordan han syntes, det gik. Praktisk og i rask tempo. Det bliver til en hverdagstekst fuld af arbejdsdagens rigdom og filmisk teori. Og humor. En vældig tekst er den film, om det at lave et billede, et kunstværk.

Mange siger, at How to Invent Reality er en bedre film end It’s Now or Never. Jeg slutter mig til. Jeg ser også problemerne i It’s Now or Never. Synes, at filmen har opbrugt sin energi langt før slutningen, mener at hovedpersonen slet ikke er stærk og interessant nok til at bære så mange gentagne ture. Han synger titelmelodien mindst én gang for meget. Og jeg synes også, at den meget mindre villende journalfilm, som registrerer og diskuterer kunstværkets tilblivelse, har den charme, hvormed skitsen i gamle dage overgik udstillingsbilledet i intensitet. Men det er også sådan, at dette filmessay var meningsløst uden dokumentarfilmen, det diskuterer. Tilsammen er de film et forunderligt værk om nogle kantede mænd, som forsøger at nærme sig det eksistentielle og det poetiske. De er så forsigtige med deres grove hænder og ekstremt gearede motorik, at de nok ikke når at røre ved den kærlighedsfølelse, projektet gælder. Vi får næppe øje på følelsens fossil i deres bjerge af kroppe. Til gengæld bliver følelsen heller ikke kvalt i udpensling. Den er stadig den lyslevende længsel.

Danmark 1996, 45 min og 31 min.

Zeljko Mirkovic: Two Sport Documentaries

Serbian Zeljko Mirkovic introduces himself like this: “Dr. Zeljko Mirkovic is an award-winning film and TV director, educator, and lecturer with more than 20-years’ experience writing, producing, and directing diverse documentaries.  He is a creative and innovative developer of feature films, television series, documentaries, promotional films, media campaigns, and commercials. With a Ph.D. in Communications and Media Studies, Dr. Mirkovic has received over 110 international awards and produced two Oscars qualified documentaries. Dr. Zeljko Mirkovic is Associate Research Professor at the University of Connecticut.” 

It sounds very formal – Zeljko is not like that, when you know him, which I do and have done for more than 20 years, and I dare say that he has been diligent. His filmography is veeery long and impressive with a focus on stories from and portraits of Serbians, historically and now. If you search “Mirkovic” on this site you will see that I have posted several texts about films made by Zeljko and about the pleasure meeting him and his family, when in Belgrade. When he was young and a beginner he took part in workshops, that Paul Pauwels and I tutored in Belgrade, maybe he was the most committed mentee that we ever had, who took courses in English (and sent us a copy of his diploma!) to go international; now he is teaching at an American university!

As a sport interested person I wanted to see two of his new film portraits – Zeljko sent links to me: “Niki Pilić- The Legend” from 2024 and “Svetislav Pešic – More Than a Coach.” from 2015, both very interesting about coaches with an impressive international career. Charisma is an understatement to characterize them.

As a fan of everything connected to FCBarcelona, let me start with Svetislav Pešic, who was Barca’s basketball coach 2002-2004 and again 2018-2020, giving the club huge success especially in the first period. The film combines archive (a lot of important matches from his career), interviews with players who praise the coach for his professional and human skills, living for basketball, always on the road. That Zeljko cinematically uses in a perfect way, letting us see Pešic in and out of arenas with his rolling suitcase, and of course him on the sideline giving advices to his players. His son was a player and is now a manager in Bayern Munich, and what will the grandchild decide with whom there are fine scenes on the football pitch: football or basketball? Pešic is 75 years old and still active, he must have a record in coaching national and club teams!

Nikola Pilić is younger, 85 years old, and his sport is tennis. The film about him starts with a clip with Serbian superstar Novak Djokovic calling for “my tennis father” after a match. Pilić enters the arena and is hugged by Djokovic, who later on in the film reveals, how important it was for him to attend Sir Niko’s tennis academy, when he was a young lad.

Pilić became an important person in international tennis for different reasons. He made strong complaints about the conditions that were offered the players in Wimbledon, was banned by the Tennis Association from participation, colleagues supported him and the famous boycott of Wimbledon happened in 1973.

AND he became – as some of the interviewed players say – the best Davis Cup captain ever. “The only one who won the Davis Cup with three different countries” – Yugoslavia, Croatia and Germany. He is characterised as a master in tactics and was a master in diplomacy, when he had two stars, who did not like each other on his German team: Boris Becker and Michael Stich. He matched them and stood behind the gold medal to the two rivals playing together in double at the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992. In other words a player, a trainer and a coach of great importance as the film shows through match archives, interviews with Pilić and Stich and many many others.

Photo of Svetislav Pešic taken from Wikipedia.

Verzio Budapest Announces its Program

It´s the 21st Verzio Film Festival and it takes place in Budapest November 6-13. A festival with a selection of documentaries that are sectioned into competitions for national and international films as well as “Doc Future Competition”, where new talents (what about “old talents” by the way…) are to be found like “Balomania” by Sissel Morell Dargis and Ukrainian Olha Zhurba’s “Songs of Slow Burning Earth“. Impressive works!

A quote from festival director Enikő Gyureskó “Our goal with Verzió is twofold, to celebrate films and their creators made creatively, intelligently and empathetically, and to come together as a community with their help and to let people know that we are not alone in our curiosity, sensitivity and desire to do something.“We want to provide a space for dialogue, an opportunity for a deeper understanding of important issues...”

I counted 66 films in the program divided into sections like “We are Here” and “We will not be Silent” that word-wise goes perfect with the lines of the festival director’s quote. A humanistic approach to the themes. At the same time as “documentary is an artistic film genre” is not forgotten. I see many films listed that have been written about/reviewed on this site: “1489” by Shoghakat Vardanyan, winner at IDFA, Slovenian Petra Seliškar’s “Body” is there of course, thoughtful “Dahomey” by Mati Diop, one of the most festival-wanted docs of his year, Danish Kristoffer Juel Poulsen and Christian Als will have their “Daughter of Genghis” in the international competition, The masterpiece “Intercepted” by Oksana Karpovych is one of several films from Ukraine, the multi-awarded “My Stolen Planet” by Iranian Farahnaz Sharifi is in the international competition as is Palestinian “No Other Land” by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, probably one of the favourites as I guess it is for the European Film Awards, and the extraordinarily beautiful and touching “Queendom” (PHOTO) by Agniia Galdanova that is part of the “We are Here” section, that also includes the fascinating film on the Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková by Klára Tasovská, “I’m not everything I want to be“.

Sorry for this title and name dropping but I wanted to illustrate the diversity in countries represented by pointing at films I have seen and written about and there are many more I am looking forward to see. I have been invited to be a juror for the Hungarian documentaries, will not mention the titles from that competition but leave the word to the festival intro:

“The Hungarian Competition was curated by Fanni Somlyai, Zsuzsa Debre, Asia Dér, Enikő Gyureskó, Péter Horányi and Szabolcs Szirony. The underfunding of Hungarian documentary production is one of the reasons why only six films were selected for this year’s Hungarian competition, but the selection of films that have not yet been screened in Hungary was also a consideration…

Hungarian films will again feature prominently in the program of the Verzió Documentary Film Festival. This year’s Hungarian Competition program will feature six new films that have won accolades internationally and will be making their debut at Verzió in Hungary. Stories will include rock climbers battling addiction, unusual childbearing and a road trip for people with special needs. You can meet the filmmakers after the screenings…”

See you there in Budapest.

IDFA 2024 International Competition: The Guest

Sometimes with the announcement of films for main documentary competitions you do not know the films or those who have made them as the festivals in some categories go for premieres, world or international. This is the case for IDFA that announced what is coming up, including the opening film where Danish produced “About a Hero” by Piotr Winiewicz is the opening film. Know nothing about this film, yet…

But I am happy to see that the Polish “The Guest” by Zvika Gregory Portnoy and Zuzanna Solakiewicz with Maria Krauss as the producer is in the competition program. The film was pitched at Baltic Sea Forum and I had the privilege to watch a RC long time ago. Saw a good film coming up… And there it is taken by Orwa Nyrabia and his selection committee. I congratulate the team, good friends – and filmmakers – from several fora in Riga. The IDFA synopsis of the film goes like this:

“In 2021, the border area between Poland and Belarus became a forbidden zone, three kilometers wide, where refugees found themselves brutally trapped. They had become the stakes in a political game: Belarus supposedly guaranteed free passage to the EU, but in Poland the refugees met with pushbacks, forcing them back across the border. Once in Belarus again, they were driven back towards Poland—a horrific stalemate in an inhospitable landscape of treacherous marshes.

Maciek lives with his family on the Polish side of the border. He has taken in an exhausted Syrian refugee, the 27-year-old Alhyder. After he has regained his strength, Alhyder faces the big question: what now? Where can he go without putting either himself or Maciek in danger?

The tension is palpable in this sensitive, sharply observant documentary. Without a hint of sensationalism, the camera reads the emotions on the faces of the silent Polish family members and their grateful guest. The situation is dire, and a solution remains out of reach. Yet, at the same time, the film is permeated by the warmth of human help and contact.”

Ji.hlava IDFF

IDFF stands for International Documentary Film Festival, number 28 it is, high quality always. A quote from the email I received yesterday from the festival:

“We are thrilled to announce titles, which have been selected to the Opus Bonum and First Lights International Competitions at the 28th Ji.hlava IDFF. Fourteen films will be screened in their world premiere, six in international premiere and three will have their European premiere at Ji.hlava. Both sections present the trends and tendencies of world documentary film, with the First Lights section specifically highlighting directors’ debut and second feature films.”

And a quick look at the selection with comments from me on the titles and directors I know in beforehand.

Polish Tomasz Wolski is a master in creative treatment of archive material. I have written about his work before, in 2022 about “1970” – https://filmkommentaren.dk/tomasz-wolski-1970/ – this time, ah really looking forward to see it, here is a clip from the catalogue text “…On the 13th of December 1981, telephone connections were cut off throughout Poland. Tanks appeared in the streets of the cities. A night curfew came into force. In response to the growing influence of the Solidarity trade union movement, General Jaruzelski’s government declared a state of emergency…” The man with the dark glasses Jaruzelski…

Also I am curious to see the final result of Tudor Platon’s Romanian “An Almost Perfect Family”. I met the director and his partner and producer Carla Fotea at a workshop in Bucharest and was impressed of what I saw at a rough cut stage.

Filip Remunda, an old friend, is also on the program with a film, “Happiness to All”, he has been shooting between 2016 and 2024, the intro lines go like this: “Vitaly, a nuclear physicist and record holder in extreme cold-exposure training, makes his living as a bricklayer and lives below the poverty line…”

And – fantastic – there is a new film by the super-productive Latvian Laila Pakalnina, “Termini” (PHOTO) is the title and I copy the whole catalogue text as it is so good and because I am big fan of Pakalnina: “The final stops of buses, trams and trolleybuses in the suburbs of Riga. “Non-places” with no specific character, where nothing special happens and yet there is no stopping movement. Some people go from here to work or school, others return home. Or they work in their flower and vegetable stalls near the bus stops. Morning, evening, in snow and rain. Weekdays and holidays. Laila Pakalniņa captures their work, waiting and passing, calm and impatient, in tight moving shots. Gints Bērziņš’s black and white camera stays at one point, describing a circle that begins and ends nowhere. Ordinary stopping points, which we use without thinking about their function, become important crossroads in a wordless urban symphony, to whose unchanging rhythm the entire metropolis must submit. Exploring the poetry in everyday routine and repetition, the film completes the director’s ornamental trilogy on public transport, complemented by The Bus (2004) and Homes (2021).”

The collaboration of Pakalnina and her cameraman Gints Bērziņš is superb as you could see in “Homes” – https://filmkommentaren.dk/laila-pakalnina-homes/ – and in Spoon – https://filmkommentaren.dk/laila-pakalnina-spoon-2/

In terms of sections Jihlava FF is very rich. There is for example also a section “Testimonies” where you can find “The Sky Above Zenica” by Nanna Frank Møller and Zlatko Pranjic, a film I saw in Sarajevo in August and praised on this site – https://filmkommentaren.dk/zlatko-pranjic-nanna-frank-moeller-the-sky-above-zenica/ and contrary to most other documentary festivals you can watch experimental docs in Jihlava, from all over the world.

And a fascinating retrospective with films by Anne-Marie Miéville: They met in Paris in 1970. Godard as a successful director, she as a budding photographer. From that moment on, they lived and worked together. She is a filmmaker, editor, writer and photographer. Her multimedia work goes beyond documentary and expands the perception of fictional film.

The festival runs from October 25 until November 3.

DOK Leipzig Announces Full Program

Today the full program of the classic documentary film festival in Leipzig was announced. The 67th edition of the festival. 209 films and XR works from 55 countries. An international festival that is also famous for having both documentaries and animation, short and feature duration.

Let me drop some words and names on the documentary competitions. “International Competition
Documentary Film, Feature…” includes only 8 films – for one who has been in juries and easy job as the amount has often been from 15-20. I know one name in the competition from way back being a teacher at the Zelig School in Bolzano, where Francesca Scalisi studied years ago. Her new film has this annotation: “A US Navy satellite communication system on Sicily. Valentina lives here with her parents but wants to become more independent. A tender story of emancipation at a site of global politics”. The title is “Valentina and the MUOSters”.

The same curiosity goes for Daniel Abma, a good friend and a good filmmaker, who now is ready with “Im Prinzip Familie”, where the annotation goes like this: “Touching insights into the daily workings of the youth welfare system. Five boys in a rural residential group who long for a home. And the people who try to give it to them.” Abma is for me a true documentarian with an eye for people and situations. He competes in the German section with Thomas Riedelsheimer – and many others of course – who has his “Tracing Light” as the opening film of the festival that runs from October 28 until November 3.

Lovely to have an Audience Competition and lovely for me to see again the lovely Georgian documentary “Blueberry Dreams” by Elene Mikaberidze, reviewed on this site – https://filmkommentaren.dk/elena-mikaberidze-blueberry-dreams/ – and I am looking forward to see master Claire Simon’s school film “Elementary”. And two more to be enjoyed by the Leipzig audience jury: “Once upon a Time in the Forest” by Finnish Virpi Suutari, a film that was shown at the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade recently – the festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic wrote about it here – https://filmkommentaren.dk/virpi-suutari-once-upon-a-time-in-the-forest/ – and of course I am always looking forward to a film by Slovak Peter Kerekes, the new one shown at the Venice Film Festival is called “”Wishing on a Star”.

And the festival has an homage to a great filmmaker, who passed away this year:

“In the section“Thomas Heise (1955–2024): Odds and Ends”, we will pay tribute to the work of the late film director and author Thomas Heise. The programme will include three feature-length documentaries, an evening event in his honour, and this year’s DEFA Matinee.” He has been notified on this site several times – https://filmkommentaren.dk/?s=thomas+heise&ct_post_type=post%3Apage – and the festival includes also, before we started this blog, “Barluschke” from 1997, it was shown on Bornholm at the Balticum Film & TV Festival; my first meeting with Heise, a true Auteur, he was. Photo: Inge Zimmermann.

And much much more is to be discovered, check the site of the festival. And I will be watching and writing from an armchair in Denmark.

DOK Leipzig Opens with new Film by Thomas Riedelsheimer

“We all think we know what light is. But if we take a closer look, we realise that we don’t,” the film “Tracing Light” tells us. DOK Leipzig will open at the CineStar in Leipzig on 28 October with the world premiere of this latest film by Thomas Riedelsheimer (“Rivers and Tides”). This renowned German filmmaker previously opened the Leipzig festival in 2004 with his film “Touch the Sound”.

In “Tracing Light”, co-produced by ZDF/3sat, Riedelsheimer now explores the phenomenon of light, creating a dialogue between two disciplines – art and physics – that approach it in different ways.

From the Outer Hebrides in Scotland to the Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow to the Max Planck Institute in Erlangen, the film accompanies leading scientists and such internationally prominent artists as Ruth Jarman, Joe Gerhardt, Julie Brook, Johannes Brunner and Raimund Ritz. Between super slow motion, laser table football, “firestacks” and quantum theory, they aim to find out: What kind of a material is light? How do photons behave? How do we perceive the world around us – and through what means?

“Thomas Riedelsheimer’s documentaries are a delightful celebration of light and sound,” says festival director Christoph Terhechte. “They sharpen our senses. Twenty years after opening our festival with ‘Touch the Sound’, we’re proud to be doing it again with ‘Tracing Light’.”

Thomas Riedelsheimer has received multiple awards, including the German Film Award and the Adolf-Grimme-Preis, for his work as a director and cinematographer. In 2008, he co-founded the production company Filmpunkt GmbH with Stefan Tolz, after having been a partner in the production platform Filmquadrat for several years. He is a member of the German and European Film Academies and has been a lecturer at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg since October 2006. Since 2018, Riedelsheimer has overseen “dok.art”, a programme he devised to develop content for documentaries by first-time directors. He will discuss the programme in a public DOK Talk.

Riedelsheimer will also hold a master class at the Ex Oriente Workshop at DOK Leipzig.

“Tracing Light” website: sonjahenrici.com/films/tracinglight/

Verzio 2024: Reality Uncovered

The 21st Verzió program has been curated by a new programming team. Running from November 6-13, it offers both award-winning films and hidden gems. This year, Verzió will dedicate special sections to the themes of decolonization and disinformation, and will also showcase Armenian, Ukrainian, and British selections. The festival’s opening film will be the Hungarian-French-Croatian co-production KIX, a film about skateboarder kids, making its Hungarian debut.

Verzió helps us uncover the problems that are often hidden behind false surfaces, bringing us closer to reality. All the films are concerned with breaking down the mainstream narratives and unpacking critical issues, which is why this year’s key visual is built around the slogan “Reality Uncovered.”

This year’s program was curated by a renewed programming team. The 21st Verzió Film Festival will feature 60 films across four competition categories and eight thematic sections. The curation team aimed to include films that have toured major festivals and won numerous awards, as well as lesser-known works—films that audiences are unlikely to encounter elsewhere. “In selecting the films, the goal was to showcase diverse perspectives on current social, political, human rights, and environmental issues, while also ensuring that we find outstanding films that offer a true cinematic experience,” says Program Director Fanni Somlyai.

Additionally, the festival aims to represent a wide variety of themes, ranging from Japanese #MeToo stories to the war in Ukraine. “The films range from global issues to the most personal stories, with a variety of tones and styles,” adds Festival Director Enikő Gyureskó. The curatorial team selected the program from over 750 submissions.

The festival’s opening film is KIX, directed by Bálint Révész and Dávid Mikulán. It follows 12 years in the life of a young boy from Budapest, Sanyi, as he grows from a rambunctious child into an adult labelled a public enemy. The documentary offers a snapshot of urban poverty and social marginalisation. Its world premiere took place at CPH:DOX, Europe’s most prestigious documentary festival, and it has since been featured at international festivals from the U.S. to Taiwan. The film’s Hungarian premiere will be at the Verzió opening ceremony at Trafó, with tickets already available.

Restoring identity and cultural heritage and addressing historical injustices are pressing issues worldwide. Discussions surrounding these topics shed new light on the past and help shape a more just future. This year, Verzió dedicates a special section to the complex issue of decolonization. This thematic block includes the Golden Bear-winning Dahomey by Mati Diop, which follows the heated debates surrounding the return of artefacts from Paris to present-day Benin.

Verzió also highlights Ukrainian films this year. The decade-long war and Russian aggression in Ukraine have caused unimaginable destruction, yet the Ukrainian documentary community has shown remarkable resilience and creativity. One standout in this focus is Intercepted, a film that juxtaposes intercepted phone calls between Russian soldiers and their families with the grim realities of war.

A prominent entry in the Hungarian competition is Your Life Without Me by Anna Rubi, which premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival and won the Human Rights Award for documentaries. The film touches on the necessity of care, the situation of people with disabilities, and the omnipotence of maternal love. Rubi’s first feature-length documentary follows mothers involved in the home-care case led by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) and their severely disabled children. The film’s Hungarian streaming debut will be on RTL+.

A compelling entry in the international competition is Favoriten, a film by Austrian director Ruth Beckermann. A frequent participant at Verzió, Beckermann’s latest film follows a primary school class in Vienna over three years, where more than 60% of the students are non-native German speakers. The result is an unexpectedly cheerful portrait of an unusual community. 

This year’s Verzió also features a British documentary focus, with films like Black Box Diaries by Shiori Ito, which covers the famous Japanese #MeToo case, and Celluloid Underground by Iranian-born director Ehsan Khoshbakht.

For the first time, Verzió will dedicate a section to Armenian films, offering perspectives on the tragedy of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. In 1489, one of the highlights, a young woman documents a the search for his missing brother. The film won Best Film and the FIPRESCI Prize at the most recent IDFA festival.

Disinformation in the digital age is a particularly important issue, as false news can spread quickly through social media, eroding public trust and causing deep societal divides. Verzió dedicates a special block to this theme, including the film Black Snow, in which a civil investigation into a Soviet-era mine fire becomes the target of a massive government disinformation campaign.

The full program of the documentary film festival will be available in early October, and tickets for the opening film are already on sale: https://trafo.jegy.hu/search?q=Verzio 

The curators for the competition and thematic sections are Zsuzsa Debre, Asia Dér, Péter Horányi, Szabolcs Szirony, Enikő Gyureskó, and Fanni Somlyai. The Viewfinder section was curated by Oksana Sarkisova, while the queer competition was curated by Czech expert Kristýna Genttnerová.

Festival screenings and events will take place at Toldi and Művész Cinemas, Trafó, CEU Budapest, and Adaptér. After the cinema screenings, films will also be available online from November 14-24 on Verzió’s streaming platform Verziótéka: https://festival.verzio.org/.

Key supporters of the festival include the Háttér Society, the U.S. Embassy, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, the British Council, the Dutch Human Rights Fund, and UNHCR Central Europe. The Verzió Film Festival is organized by the nonprofit Verzió Film Foundation and the Blinken OSA  Archivum, with primary support from the Creative Europe MEDIA program.

Nordisk Panorama 2024: City of Malmö’s Audience Award to Balomania

by Sissel Morell Dargis, 94 min, Denmark, Spain, 2024.
Synopsis:
In the heart of Brazil’s favelas a secret society of hot air balloon-makers risk arrest to create and fly their illegal masterpieces, painting the sky with colour. Condemned by the authorities as dangerous delinquents, the ’baloeiros’ are outlaw street artists operating in secrecy, evading government reprisal and bounty hunters, and bringing joy to communities.

About the director:
Sissel Morell Dargis (b. 1992, Denmark) has a background in painting graffiti, which led her to photography, and eventually documentary. As a teenager she lived in Brazil where she through graffiti became part of the secret balloon world. This would become the setting of her first feature film Balomanía. She is a graduate of the Cuban film school EICTV, where she directed several shorts that screened across the world. Later on she went into games studying at The National Film School of Denmark. Here she developed the indie game Cai Cai Balão, which was nominated at the Independent Games Festival, Indiecade and exhibited at the Smithsonian Arts Museum, Museum da Favela and won Games for Change Latin America for Best Game, and Game of Impact. Cai Cai Balão is set in the same world as Balomania and is a crossover of characters and situations between the film and game. 

About the award:
To receive the City of Malmö’s Audience Award at Nordisk Panorama Film Festival is among the finest appreciations a filmmaker can get. The audience can vote for any of the Nordic short films and documentaries competing in the main competition programmes. The award goes to the director(s) of the winning film.

Prize:
The cash award of 2.500€ is sponsored by the City of Malmö.