Here is the press release of the DocAlliance in its (almost) full length – clicking the links will bring you to more information:

“Join us at our online trip towards discovering young film talents! What is contemporary documentary like according to the students of prestigious film schools around the world? What themes, genres and images are popular with the youngest generation of documentary filmmakers? You have the whole summer to search for, compare and enjoy the most interesting works by the future stars of film festivals!

Become members of the exclusive FIDCampus in the week from July 13 to 19! Watch films by students who received the support and professional training of the French Doc Alliance festival FID Marseille. Over 15 films of various genres will give you insight into the world of promising filmmakers from France as well as Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Enter two creative courses taught at the Portuguese art school Escola Superior de Artes e Design de Caldas da Rainha. See how the local film students coped with the assignment of City Places introducing the places where they live and study and what an original film essay is like in their rendition. Sit down at your online desks from July 20 to August 2!

How does the genre of short documentary do among film students? It does quite well at the Film and TV School of University of Chile! See for yourselves in the week from August 3 to 9 and extend the map of your summer student film trips with Latin America. Be inspired by the original film ideas born in the very centre of the capital Santiago de Chile!

http://dafilms.com/news/2015/7/13/Summer_Film_Programme

… because it ”opens” (as the Americans say) ”over there”, today friday, another well deserved distribution triumph for (as the Americans write) Mr. Oppenheimer and his Danish produced documentary. You should read the whole review by A.O. Scott, here is a paragraph that includes such a precise reflection on the tone of the film:

The mood of “The Look of Silence” is tranquil. Its settings — modest houses and sun-dappled gardens, far from the urban bustle of “The Act of Killing” — are peaceful, and Mr. Rukun is a quiet man, contemplating his family’s tragedy more in sorrow than in anger. But this atmosphere has the effect of making the violence at the film’s heart all the more shocking. Movies have helped make even extreme brutality seem banal (that was part of the message of “The Act of Killing”), but hearing a simple, factual account of an atrocity can be almost unbearable…

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/movies/review-the-look-of-silence-confronts-individuals-and-ideology-of-indonesian-massacre.html?emc=edit_fm_20150717&nl=movies&nlid=67120337&_r=0

In thematic terms a follow-up on the Armenian ”One, Two, Three”, this Korean documentary, shot over a period of 15 months, documents what the Armenian old people are missing and looking for: Love.

This is what the couple in the beautifully shot documentary has, Love, in its purest form, still alive after 76 years of marriage, yes seventy-six years of marriage! They live in the countryside in pretty landscape surroundings, they survive harsh winters, they take time to do snow ball throwing, they walk to the market in the village, always dressed up in traditional clothes that are as colourful as their children’s clothes are grey and boring and ”civilised” – suits etc. They eat together, she nurses him all the way through when he gets weaker. Yes, the time for them to leave this world is getting closer.

He is in his late 90’es, she is around 10 years younger, and she is the one doing the talking with his hearing slowly disappearing. It is amazing how close the director has been able to come to his protagonists. I thought first that he was a relative – an outsider can not get that close, I thought – but in an interview with the director in connection with the Canadian Hot Docs festival, he told how and why he decided to do it all by himself and that he looked upon the film as a message to all of us, ”be kind to each other”. He did so with respect for the old couple and an eye for beauty.

The film, that got the Audience Award at the recent Moscow International Film Festival, sold more than 4 million tickets in cinemas in its home country!

Korea, 2014, 86 mins.

Mikhail is 80 years old, he has never been married, he has no children and he lives in a small appartment full of clothes in bags and whatever he has collected, making it impossible for him to move around. He has to crawl to reach his bed and his kitchen table has ”been emprisoned since the 1990’es”. He is, however, part of the dancing and singing choir ”The Chosen Ones”, where he performs with full energy together with Aida (74), Hovsep (74), Mariam (58), Martik (61) and several others. They perform together on stage, on television, even in the streets. And it helps them to stay alive.

Mikhail is the one in the middle with his appartment liberation story as the red thread. The film paints a warm and generous portrait of this lovely old man, who is still very much connected to his mother, shown in some poetic moments where he, partly hidden by a mountain of bags, sings to her and visits her grave.

Aida considers the choir as a family, hairy Hovsep would so much want to have a woman by his side (at the end it is suggested that the two of them could get together…) and the atmosphere is constantly full of joy when they practice their ”One Two Three”. But of course there is the other side of the coin – getting old means getting defects and the film does not hide that as it does not hide the sadness of Anahit, who has lost 8 children (!) or the true tristesse of Mariam, afraid of the opposite sex, but at the next moment she is a smiling dancing queen to an old Elvis Presley song.  

It’s been a difficult film to make with so many characters, I have seen several cuts, but with this final version the wonderful people of Bars Media (Yulia, Inna, Vardan… and director Arman) has found a balanced narrative solution that works with ”the freedom struggle” of Mikhail in the foreground of an extraordinary warm ”message” film to all of us: Sing and Dance! Will do my best, writes this 67 year old blogger!  

Armenia, 2015, 75 mins.

… for the 19^th time under the headline Baltic Sea Docs (previously Forum), a development workshop and pitching forum for 25 projects from 13 countries, organized by the National Film Centre of Latvia with the two women on the photo, Zanda Dudina and Lelda Ozola, as perfect hosts and organizers… I can say so as one of the tutors during all the years, and I will be there again September 2-6.

And that is also the reason, why I can say that the selection done has given a fine variety of experienced filmmakers and producers and newcomers, including names which have been on this site several times.

I refer to Estonian Aljona Surikova, who is there with a project on the city of Sotchi after the Winter Olympic Games . To Russian Askold Kurov who presents an investigation into the case of the in Crimea by Russians arrested Ukranian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, to Estonian Marianna Kaat who is there with a “fresh look at the 3rd generation of migrants and the newcomers who feel obsessed with languages and fucked by the politics but desire to secure their children’s future, to Georgian Ana Tsimintia and her “The Pioneers Palace”, to Davis Simanis (photo on the top of filmkommentaren.dk), who has picked up “4 terrifying historical photos, 4 places of war crimes, and the imprint of their past on nowadays.”

I could go on but loves to end on stressing the participation of two important Russian documentarians – Alina Rudnitskaya and Marina Razbezhkina. The latter as producer for Anna Moiseenko and Pavel Loparev on a film, “Returness”, that has the following interesting description: “2014 showed the record number of Russian people who left their homeland. This film is telling the story of those who instead decided to come back. Several young people spent their childhood and youth in the West and decided to come back to Russia to start a new life.”

And Rudnitskaya with the title “Fatel and the Sea” which is about: “When a man fights his dream, he risks more than his life. He puts his family at risk, too. On Rikord Island, off the south-east coast of Russia, Fatei battles the local authorities. In his efforts to help others, he finds himself on the wrong side of the law.”

The Baltic Sea Docs also includes a mini-documentary festival, programme will be announced later.

http://www.mediadesklatvia.eu/baltic-sea-docs-2015/selected-projects-2015/

Finally an Israeli competent, reflective review of the film by Herz Frank and Maria Kravchenko, written by Nirit Anderman in  Haaretz yesterday July 12th. The introduction goes like this:

“If you hoped to find out why a married mother of four fell in love with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, the film ‘Beyond the Fear’ will not leave you any wiser. But the controversial documentary about Amir, his wife and son, has other lessons…”

The extensive review (read it all) has this paragraph that for me is spot on: “The important thing that this film does manage to do, however, and the reason the title the filmmakers chose is successful is this: It reflects and emphasizes the extent to which the public’s attitude toward Amir and Trimbobler is colored by a prism of hatred and fear, and the extent to which this prism has made the discussion shallow. Nearly 20 years after the despicable murder Amir committed, the film helps viewers see how the newspaper headlines relate to him and his wife in demonic terms and how politicians and citizens propose denying them basic rights. This is also what was done in recent weeks by Miri Regev, opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog and former president Shimon Peres, who wanted to shelve the film and thereby preserve the demonic image of Amir and Trimbobler instead of grappling with the fact that they are flesh and blood people who also have softer and gentler sides…”

http://www.haaretz.com/life/movies-television/.premium-1.665571?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook