NYTimes.com: Movies Update

I read somewhere that NYTimes plans to cut down in their movie reviews policy that so far has been working in the way that ALL films released theatrically in NY are reviewed. What that means remains to be seen, but it will not make me give up my subscription that includes the newspaper and the thursday/friday ”Movies Update” that is a pleasure to read for a documentary addict as well.

For instance the one from today, where you find a review of Asif Kapadia’s documentary (the man who made “Senna“) on ”Amy” (photo) Winehouse (for the Danes, soon to be released (July 30) in Copenhagen), a very inviting review – …an intensely intimate experience, which is delightful as you’re getting to know her early on, when she’s all shy, charming smiles and having her first successes. In its rise-and-fall arc, her star-is-born/star-is-dead story is painfully familiar; she is, bluntly, just one more name now etched on our pop-cultural mausoleum. Yet, as this movie reminds you again and again, the commercial entity… was also a human being, and it’s this person, this Amy, whom you get to know through all the lovely little details, knowing winks, funny asides and barbed observations that help make the movie memorable… Read it all, please!

And a theatrical release of a Les Blank film from the early 1970’es is written about, “A Poem is a Naked Person”, about musician Leon Russell. Blank, who died in 2013, is a name to be remembered in the history of documentary for his films on music and culture, with his own non-pretentious style, made this film “over three years, his first feature, “a vital part of a unique and durable body of work”.

And more documentaries are reviewed – and there is a long and informative, and superbly illustrated, article on the phenomenon Robert Frank, “The Man Who Saw America”.

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2015/07/02/movies/moviesupdate/index.html?nlid=67120337

“Beyond the Fear” in Jerusalem/ 3

Still waiting for Israeli film critics having watched and evaluated the film by Herz Frank and Maria Kravchenko – that is to be screened in Jerusalem July 8, the day before the Jerusalem Film Festival officially starts but still as part of the documentary competition – here is a clip from a competent review from Hollywood Reporter, read the whole, link below:

“…the filmmakers are less concerned with political context than with Tremblover, an Orthodox Jew and Russian émigré to Israel who fell in love with Amir, fought for years to marry him in prison, and is now mother to his young son. Though muddled and elusive at times, Beyond the Fear is an absorbing meditation on the emotional and psychological aftershocks of violent political events. With Mideast tensions constantly in the news, further festival play seems guaranteed, possibly leading to niche distribution and small-screen interest…”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/beyond-fear-jerusalem-review-805964

AfriDocs July Programme

A newsletter arrived presenting an impressive selection of films to be broadcast in Africa…

A year ago we wrote about the Afridocs initiative taken by the Steps foundation in Cape Town, which is run by Don Edkins, who initiated Steps for the Future and was involved in the global series ”Why Democracy” and ”Why Poverty”. Afridocs is supported by the Bertha Foundation and ED, which is (quote from the website, link below) ”Africa’s newest information and knowledge portal. Immediate and interactive, it seeks to engage and inspire…

To refresh your memory: ”AfriDocs is the name of a broadcast initiative that has a focus on “The best documentaries made in Africa and the first documentary strand across Sub-Saharan Africa… real stories weekly. Primetime.” Through the channels

DStv ED (channel190)
 and GOtv (channel 65). In this way AfriDocs covers 49 African countries by satellite and 100 cities terrestrially across 8 countries across Africa.”

The selection of films for July includes titles like Kief Davidson’s ”Open Heart” (photo), ”An Oscar-nominated documentary of eight Rwandan children who leave their families behind and embark on a life-or-death journey to receive high-risk open-heart surgery in Africa’s only free-of-charge, state-of-the-art cardiac hospital, the Salam Centre.” And Syrian “Return to Homs” by Talal Derk, and “Iron Ladies of Liberia” by Daniel Junge and Siatta Scott Johnson about “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first ever freely elected female Head of State in Africa.” It is interesting to see the countries of origin of the films in the repertory – Maldives, Liberia, Congo Brazzaville, Guatemala, South Sudan… high quality films, often awarded at international festivals.

http://www.afridocs.net

http://www.edtv.co.za

 

MIFF 2015 The Winners

The 37th edition of the Moscow International Film Festival ended two days ago and the winner in the documentary competition was American “Cartel Land” by Matthew Heinemann.

According to the festival’s main communicator, filmmaker and festival programmer, Georgy Molodtsov: “Overall, with 19 films (7 in competition and 12 out of competition in the Free Thought section) we collected 4338 votes. Together with press screenings we’ve counted around 5500-5750 viewers for documentaries only. 
It was a great festival, great films and, of course, great audience…”.

Talking about the votes, enthusiastic Molodtsov refers to the decision on who should have the audience award. I am sure he won’t protest that I quote from his FB page:

When I saw tears on the faces of the most cynical documentary filmmakers after the screening of this film, I hoped that it would win. Yesterday I’ve been told, that in the third screening of the film in a 90 seats screening hall of Documentary Film Center 119 votes were collected and some people just weren’t able to get to the screening even on stairs…

The film in question, winner of the audience award, is “My Love, Don’t Cross That River” (photo) from Korean Mo-Young Jin that got 4.81 out of 5 points from the audience, whereas “Racing Extinction” by American Louie Psihoyos was next with 4.77 out of 5, Joshua Oppenheimer got 4,69 for “The Look of Silence” and Laura Poitras 4,61 for “Citizenfour”.

http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff37/eng/ 

”Beyond the Fear” in Jerusalem/ 2

Years ago, when in Israel as a tutor for the documentary CoPro event organised by Orna Yarmut, I visited the Jerusalem Cinematheque. I was there with Herz Frank, whose favourite cinema of his home town it was. Herz was proud that 35mm prints of his films were in the prestigious collection. We met the charismatic founder and leader of the Cinematheque Lia van Leer, who died 90 years old this year, always praised as a true supporter of the art of film. She talked warmly about Herz Frank and his films.

Her name has come up in connection with the controversy around the film of Herz Frank and Maria Kravchenko, ”Beyond the Fear”, that has been selected for the upcoming Jerusalem Film Festival, July 9-19. According to i24News (link below) the Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev has threatened to withdraw funding for the festival if the film is screened at the festival, making film critic Gidi Orsher write on his FB page: “Had Lia van Leer still been with us, she’d tell Regev where to go…” and many have suggested that filmmakers with films at the festival withdraw their films.

The festival has taken the film out of the festival programme to make it be screened the day before, July 8, according to the website of the festival it is still in the documentary competition! So it seems that it will be screened even if the Minister “calls on the public to stay away from watching the film even when it’s screened outside of the festival…” And, yes, Shimon Peres, has called upon a stop of the screening! Both Peres and Minister Regev have not seen the film, you understand by their comments that the film should be glorifying Yigal Amir, the man who killed Rabin. In all existing reviews of the film seen at international festival and on this site it is stressed that the film is a complex interpretation of a love relationship between mother (Larisa, photo), father and son.

The controversy about the film has been covered internationally by several media, see links below, like Variety: “…In response to her remarks, several hundred artists and filmmakers held an emergency meeting to discuss the threat of censorship and signed a petition that declared, “We hope with all our hearts that Israel will not deteriorate into a country where artists who express their views are blacklisted.”

Much more explicit in tone are opinions by columnists in the newspaper Haaretz like Carolina Landsmann, who has this headline for her article: “Censoring of documentary on Rabin’s murderer shows entire nation lost its marbles”, not to mention an article by Gideon Levy (Headline: Fascism is Bubbling in Israel, and that’s good News… The right-wing is attacking because it is afraid. And it is afraid because it is unsure if it’s right…).

Here is a small quote from his interesting analysis: “How is it that an obscure play put on by an obscure theater in an obscure language, which few people have seen or will see, has raised a storm that refuses to abate? Or that one word in the speech of an aging theater director became a national scandal? Or a documentary that nobody has seen, set to be screened at a film festival, also became a scandal? How is it that artists – most of whom have no impact whatsoever – were the target of such frenzied attacks? Behind all this is the feeling of inferiority complexes and, mainly, insecurities about the rightness of their path. The purpose of turning each and every incident into a scandal is to divert attention from the real problems and incite the masses. Under the surface, however, are explanations from the realm of psychology.”

Also writer Amos Oz has contributed – headline “Why are Israelis so afraid of a culture War – stating that the film that many have opinions about without having seen it could be one that is trying to go deep behind the sensations, maybe with “an Shakespearean approach”? Herz Frank would have loved that!

Sooo… in a country where a government seems to favour cultural censorship, it still stands as a fact that “Beyond the Fear” will be shown July 8 in a cinema in Jerusalem and still in the competition of the Jerusalem Film Festival. And according to the Latvian producer Guntis Trekteris, who has fed me with links, thank you,  with the face of the boy blurred. A right decision.

http://jff.org.il/?pg=screenings&CategoryID=226

http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/culture/75181-150617-film-on-rabin-s-assassin-partly-pulled-from-festival

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4669125,00.html

http://m.screendaily.com/5089554.article

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-33148290

http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/israel-culture-minister-threatens-cutting-funding-1201520573/

 

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.661980

 

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.662998

 

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.662210

 

 

 

 

Robert Frank

Thank you to Cinemateket in Copenhagen who, in collaboration with the Copenhagen Photo Festival and Danish writer, filmmaker and beat expert Lars Movin, organised the Robert Frank program here in June. And thank you to Lars Movin for sharing his knowledge and his personal anecdotes with us when introducing the films. This was the first big Robert Frank retrospective and also the first official screening of the legendary Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues (1972) on Danish ground. 15 of Robert Frank’s films and 3 about him.

I was in for a small marathon last Saturday. First the documentary Leaving Home, Coming Home – A Portrait of Robert Frank (2005) by Gerald Fox, a rare intimate portrait, since Robert Frank has never been keen to being filmed or interviewed. Then the feature-length hybrid film Me and My Brother (1968) and last, a collection of his later short films The Present (1996), I Remember (1998), Paper Route (2002), True Story (2004/2008) and Fernando (2008).

Me and My Brother was a slap in my face. It opens up with a very disturbing scene that takes you right to the bottom of a deep and complex matter. Soon it is turned into a film within the film and becomes a sort of meta-reflection and investigation into the questions: how do you film other people, how do you use others in your art, how do you use yourself, what do you make money from, how does it feel to be filmed, what does it do to you, when are you yourself and when are you acting. It is a hybrid film, mixing real life with staged acting, colour with black & white, at times the characters are “played” by themselves and at other moments by actors.

Originally, Frank was set out to make a film adapting Allen Ginsberg’s poem Kaddish, written about his mentally ill mother. But over time, the project becomes a film about Ginsberg’s partner Peter Orlovsky’s brother Julius, who after having spent 15 years in a psychiatric hospital is let out and left in care of his brother. So the setting is Julius, a catatonic schizophrenic, living with Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsburg. The film is about how to live with and among mental illness, about how the brother Peter deals with it, and in this way – maybe – it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this.

It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as a stylistic or artistically experimental take, but because it is necessary for a purpose: a search for truth.

Suisse photographer Robert Frank (born 1924) emigrated to America in 1947. He became friends with the Beat Generation and famous with the groundbreaking photographic book The Americans (1958). He then starts to make films. The short film Pull My Daisy (1959) is the first, written and narrated by Jack Kerouac.

Robert Frank uses himself in his work, but in a way where the private and personal never becomes confessional. His family plays an important role, his two children, Andrea and Pablo, in particular. He lost them both; Andrea died 20 years old in a plane crash in South America in 1974, Pablo, who suffered from schizophrenia, died in 1994. His later work explores the themes of loss, pain and memory, the past and the present.

Lars Movin used a Dylan-quote referring to Robert Frank setting aside all rules with Me and My Brother: “To live outside the law, you must be honest” (hinting that this is not always the case, especially nowadays). And honest is maybe the most precise word to describe this immense oeuvre that has now been opened up to me.

“It has to do with life more than with art” says Robert Frank himself in an interview in connection with his exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6CVyWCVgFg  .

Cinemateket closed up for the summer showing Candy Mountain (1988), Robert Franks only feature-length fiction film made together with Rudy Wurlitzer. A perfect road-movie, pure joy and quite a bit of wisdom too…

If you can’t wait for the next retrospective, here are some shortcuts:

A great part of Robert Frank’s films, writings and photo books are edited by the distinguished German publisher Steidl. Among them Me and My Brother, a book with stills and dialogue and a DVD inside:

https://steidl.de/Books/Me-an-My-Brother-0409414457.html

Conversations in Vermont (1969), where Robert Frank visits his two children at their boarding school, is made available to the public online through the brilliant Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/cbpf_000051_p2#

Candy Mountain exists in a French DVD edition released by Blaq Out in 2013. Please check out the trailer, it’s a gem!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pOu9piFAIg

http://www.blaqout.com/film/candy-mountain-2

Klucis DVD – a Gift to Film and Art Lovers

It was a privilege to follow the development and production of Peteris Krilovs ”Gustavs Klucis: The Deconstruction of an Artist”. And it was a privilege to see how the producer of the film Uldis Cekulis fought for the film to have the necessary financing to be completed. And to be able to see the end result live up to the high ambitions. The film had its premiere in Riga in May 2008 and now – 7 years later – it has a new premiere as a very inviting 2 dvd set, a collector’s edition it is called, including a booklet, well it is all there for you to enjoy, experience and learn from!

The visual part first: The 90 minutes version is there in English vo and subtitles, as are the Latvian vo with subtitles and the Russian vo with subtitles. Plus a 90 minutes version with Peteris Krilovs and editor Julie Vinten in conversation with me, in the best English we know! It was the first time we did that, commenting on what you see in this and that sequence, hope it works! And then on the second dvd

8 (yes Eight!) tv language versions (56 minutes) of the film, plus intriguing bonus material. Art historians place Klucis in the Russian avant-garde, in the world art history, as the phenomenal photomontage pioneer he was with John Heartfield at his side, and there are deleted scenes that introduce the surviving family, his son Edvard Kulagin and his children Aleksandr and Maria, and beautiful texts from Valentina Kulagina’s diaries.

The text side… (more than 100 pages, well illustrated) I read it all and it is rich in information: The story of the film coming to life. Two scripts. Interview with Krilovs. Who was Klucis. What is the inspiration he can give us today? Review of the film. Etc. etc.

I am too biased to give it the highest points at filmkommentaren.dk, which it deserved so let me end this tribute to this extraordinary publication by quoting the synopsis on the back of ”Klucis. The Deconstruction of an Artist”:

”A deeply personal view on the life of artist Gustavs Klucis, one of the foremost representatives of early 20th century Russian avant-garde art, whose life drama reflects the tragedy of a whole nation during the years of Stalin’s repressions. It is a story about boundless ambitions, hope, love and artist’s responsibility that continues haunting him after his death. The film is imbued with particular intimacy by the director’s commentary, gradually revealing the fate of Peteris Krilovs himself.”

www.vfs.lv

 

   

 

CPH:DOX Rykker Igen: Everyday

Den danske dokumentarfilmfestival har for længst etableret sig som en vigtig udvikler af den dokumentariske filmgenres vilkår i forhold til et kvalitetsudvalg, visninger og tilknyttede events, mange af dem sociale og politiske, distribution på alle ledder og kanter, produktion. I hjem- og udland. Det er ganske enkelt en enestående filmkulturel præstation! Og festivalen skal have ros for hele tiden at sætte focus på det kreative.

Som jeg nu ser det her til morgen, hvor en pressemeddelelse fra CPH:DOX fortæller om ““Everyday” (som) er et projekt, der er sat i verden for at kvalificere vores digitale videofortællinger men i lige så høj grad for at skabe et nyt offentligt rum, hvor alternative, personlige og brugerskabte fortællinger kan indgå og ikke mindst deles og kommenteres. Et projekt der forener det personlige, poetiske og politiske i et nyt format med fokus på nye stemmer og alternativ mediedækning.”

Projektet lanceres i dag og jeg har brugt et par fornøjelige timer på at surfe rundt på hjemmesiden og se et par håndfulde korte videoer, som allerede ligger der. Af mere eller mindre professional oprindelse. Projektets navn er engelsk, den fine logline er en klassiker for dokumentarister “Ordinary People. Extraordinary Stories”, “Learn, Create, Share” står der også og temaerne er også på engelsk såsom “Obsessions”, “Escape”, “Online”… Det netop afholdte danske valg er til stede i form af små klip med politikere, fra før valget, og der er klip fra en film, som bliver sendt i September, “Uffes Alternativ” af Christian Bonke og Jeppe Søgaard om Elbæks vej til folketinget med sit nye parti, ligesom jeg stadig glæder mig til at se Simon Bangs film om sin morfar “Kaptajnens hjerte”. Der er et flot klip fra den. Flere af filmene er på engelsk, f.eks. den inciterende teaser “With No Memory” og Kaspar Astrup Schrøders kortfilm med arkitekten Bjarke Ingels. Men altså også videoer af folk, som ikke har film som deres profession… måske skulle jeg bruge min i-phone til andet end videoer med børnebørnene!

CPH:DOX-chefen Tine Fischer: “Everyday er altså en mulighed for dokumentarister i hele landet, der ellers kan have svært ved at trænge gennem nåleøjet og blive set, når ikke de er en del af det etablerede filmmiljø. Bag den digitale platform sidder en redaktion klar til at give feedback og videredistribuere, så videoerne på Everyday ikke bare drukner blandt mange andre, men bliver set og sendt videre.”

Det er såmænd en banks fond, som har støttet “Everyday”, og ikke DFI, men filmpolitik er det dælme, bliver spændende at følge!

http://www.everydayproject.dk

Karlovy Vary Int. FF has a Strong Doc Section

Although first and foremost a festival for fiction films with red carpets and presence of stars (this year includes Harvey Keitel and Richard Gere), the festival in spa city Karlovy Vary (in German times Karlsbad) that celebrates its 50th edition (Happy AnniVARYsary) comes up with new films by names like Helena Třeštíková (photo), another long-term social documentary by the Czech master.

Also you will find a new film by super-productive Mark Cousins, it is called ”I am Belfast” and has this description from the festival website: “I met a woman. She said that she is Belfast, the city in Northern Ireland where I grew up. The woman said that she’s as old as the city,” states Mark Cousins at the beginning of his meditative dialogue with the personification of Belfast. This cinematic essay abandons the parameters of classic documentary language, asking us to perceive the film as a magical-realist mix of reality, dreams, myths, and local storytelling.”

The Catalan ”Game Over”, directed by Alba Sotorra, a film that got the New Talent Award at the the recent DocsBarcelona is also in the programme, as is the Cinema du Réel winner of this year, Ukranian ”The Living Fire” by Ostap Kostyuk.

And to finish with national glasses – Danish Jon Bang Carlsen presents his playful ”Cats in Riga” (part of the series of Riga-films produced recently)… and out of competition is Asif Kapadia’s ”Amy” (Winehouse) that has received amazing reviews.

http://www.kviff.com/en/news

Warm Festival 2015 Sarajevo

The second edition of the Warm Festival, (28th June-4th July), a festival on contemporary conflicts with a strong focus on film and photography, will take place in Sarajevo next week. Seven days of screenings, exhibitions, conferences and talks, gathering journalists, filmmakers, photographers, writers, historians, ngo’s, artists and researchers.

Amongst the subjects treated this year are “Memory and War Commemoration into question”, “How do we visit Museums?”, New Tools for new Perspectives of Research and Understanding”, “Fact-checking”, “New Initiatives in Photojournalism”, “Human Rights Watch” and “The Forensic Turn”, discussing the complex issues of the ethics of representation in war photography. There will be photo exhibitions about Maydan, Mass media and Vietnam, the Arab spring, the Central African Republic, migration, and stories and portraits of women survivors of rape.

As for the films, the festival opens with This is Exile – Diaries of Child Refugees (2015) by Mani, an intimate portrait of Syrian child refugees in Lebanon. There will be a world premiere of Srebrenica’s Voices (2015) by Nedim Loncarevic, giving voice to survivors of the massacre 20 years ago. Tell Spring Not To Come This Year (2015) by Saeed Taji Farouky & Michael McEvoy follows a unit of the Afghan National Army deployed in Helmand without NATO support. Sebastian Junger will be presenting his four films Restrepo (2010, made with Tim Hetherington), Korengal (2014), Which Way is The Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington (2013) and The Last Patrol (2014). A special program A day with Human Rights Watch screens The Dictator Hunter (2007) by Klaartje Quirijns, Talking about Rose (2015) by Isabel Coixet and E-Team (2014) by Ross Kauffman and Katy Chevigny. Oden Roberts will be presenting his feature film A Fighting Season (2015), portraying two US Army recruiters under the Iraq War troop surge of 2007. And then there is the book reading / video screening Guantanamo by Frank Smith, a poetic treatment of the verbal trials from Guantanamo released by the US Department of Defence in 2006. The festival ends with Florent Marcie showing his work Commander Khawani (2015), that bring us back amongst the mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan of October 2001.

All events are open and free to the public.

Read more and check out the full program:

http://www.warmfoundation.org/event/2015-06-28-warm-festival-2015

https://www.facebook.com/events/1618316398414393/