Residence Fund for Filmmakers from Arab countries

Got this email from Syrian Diana el Jeiroudi, now based in Berlin. An excellent offer that I pass on with pleasure: I (Diana) hope you can forward this to documentary filmmakers, video activists and artists who you know are working on interesting socio-political documentary films in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan and beyond: 

The RESIDENCY FUND is aimed at supporting filmmakers from the Arab countries to finalize the editing of their documentary films that relays on the use and contextualisation of archival footage (including citizen journalists videos and activists videos, personal archive, national archive .. etc).  

The RESIDENCY FUND is made to host filmmakers teams (director(s)/editor(s)) to edit their films to completion over a period of 3-12 weeks.  As the RESIDENCY FUND opens 4 cycles a year, applicants are able to choose a cycle of four that best matches their editing schedule. 

Call for application is now open. Deadline for submitting complete applications is 15th of July 2015. 

Complete information about conditions, regulations, FAQs, procedures and the application forms are available on the Association’s website DOX-BOX.org in Arabic and in English.

We wish you to extend this announcement to all interested filmmakers from around the Arab Countries and also include the news on your website, publications or newsletters.

Morgan Neville: 20 Feet from Stardom

It’s on Dokumania (Danish DR’s prime time slot for documentaries) tonight and it is definitely worth seeing, the Oscar 2013 winner – the year where many of us had hoped for ”The Act of Killing” – but the well crafted entertaining film ”with wonderful music and women, based on interviews with them and people like Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and Betty Midler. A classic tv language film” took the prize.

The synopsis: Background singers heard on many of the 20th century’s greatest songs have made a crucial contribution to the world of pop music while remaining unknown to listeners. The singers take center stage for an in-depth look at their role as supporting figures in the complex process involved in creating the finished recordings.   

Roja Pakari: Zayesh

Jeg kan slet ikke komme i kontakt med den film. Jo, jeg forstår da nok at tegneren stiller sin krop til rådighed for et barn og at der kan siges at være både en lighed og en modsætning med det at bruge sig selv og sin koncentration i frembringelsen af en tegning, mens den ikke gravide danser med den meget lettere krop nok kan udføre sin dans i en frihed, mens en graviditets tyngde ville reducere eller umuliggøre hendes kunstneriske skaben. Nu skildrer de tilsammen med kombineret kropslig tyngde og lethed én fortællende kvinde og kunstner. Der kan sikkert tænkes langt dybere i titlens betydninger, men jeg savner aldeles forudsætninger for at forstå tegningens kvalitet (international popkunst) og forudsætninger for at opleve dansens kvalitet (international street dance) begge dele vist af høj kvalitet. Og det er nok også flerkameraproduktionens mål at præsentere disse to medvirkendes arbejde i en tv-produktion, nok for et kræsent publikum af kendere.

Der er især gjort meget ud af scenografi og belysning. Jeg oplever imidlertid anstrengelserne med lyssætningen af dansescenen og med kameravinklen på malerens pensel gennem en glasplade der males på som en æsteticering der ikke udvider undersøgelsen af den kvindelige eksistentielle overvejelse, ikke tilfører skildingen af to berømte kunstneres værk væsentligt. Jeg ser det netop som æsteticering som noget der er tilført filmen udefra, ikke vokset frem indefra, fra Roja Pakaris møde med sine medvirkende i studiet. Der sniger sig en fornemmelse af arrangement, omklamring og usandhed ind på mig.

Alene malerens koncentration og bevægelser hen foran lærredet virker derimod umiddelbar. Autentisk og oprigtig og smuk faktisk. Altså sand. Og så er jeg fascineret af skålen tegneren har sin farve i, dypper sin pensel i. Det er en smuk skål og så er den sand. Der ville ikke kunne males med farve fra en hvikensomhelst skål, næppe fra nogen anden. Den betyder, at jeg ser tegnearbejdet, maleriet som et ritual. Jeg er bragt tilbage til hulen.

Danmark 2015, 55 min.

SYNOPSIS

Som kunstner og kvinde fortæller Hamraz Bayan om det at blive mor for første gang. Zayesh betyder skabelse og udspringer af ordet zayman, som betyder at føde på farsi. Denne film handler om skabelse på flere niveauer. (Filmskolens hjemmeside)

CREDITS

Instruktør af flerkameraproduktion: Roja Pakari, medvirkende: Hamraz Bayan (tegneren / maleren) og Stephanie Nguyen (danseren), fotograf: Nicolai Lok Hansen, klipper: Mik Stampe, tonemester og komponist: Mathias Dehn Middelhart, produktion og distribution: Den danske Filmskole:

http://www.filmskolen.dk/presse/afgangsfilm/dokumentar/2015/

Olivia Chamby-Rus: Åbne øjne

Jeg kan rigtig godt lide Olivia Chamby-Rus’ afgangsfilm. Jeg kan især godt hendes medvirkende Anne Sofie Marisa Jensens præstation. Og hos hende er det først sproget, som griber mig, hendes sproglige opfindsomhed og præcision, en mellemting mellem smukt borgerligt dannet sprog og let antikveret og aldeles nutidigt digterisk sprog som breder sig ud i hendes væsen og gestik som en særlig opmærksom nænsomhed, som en skønhed simpelthen. Anne Sofie Marisa Jensen er en gave til en filmscene, til alle filmscenerne. Det er let at høre og se nu, men Chamby-Rus har hørt og set det først og klogt og afdæmpet bragt dette indtryk, denne sum af iagttagelse på plads i sin film.

Fotografen Jasper J. Spanning har også set det særlige ved den medvirkende unge kvinde. Det er blevet til en opmærksom og nænsom og forelsket fotografering. Og klipperen Sofie Marie Kristensen har lyttet til Anne Sofie Marisa Jensens smukke særprægede talesprog, til hendes overraskende formuleringer og skanderinger, stilfærdigt elegante som hun selv i sin tøven, nej, tilbageholdenhed lige fra åbningens præcisering, at filmen er om ”min beskedne personlige blindhed…” Beskedne! Ordet har adskillige nuancer, det ved hun godt.

Hendes scener er også hendes bevægelser, større og mindre og minimale som for eksempel hendes hænders afsøgen Tegners erotiske skulpturs former og detaljer, ”hvordan det er kvinden hviler sit hoved, det kan jeg ikke rigtigt finde ud af…”, som hendes og venindens humørfyldte finden frem til en musikforretning, hvor de vil prøve instrumenter til salg, som til sidst hendes forunderlige måde at synge Volmer Sørensens og Otto Franckers Dansevise på, hele dansevisen, selvfølgelig. Det er en film, som er lavet af og med færdige scener.

Danmark 2015, 30 min.

SYNOPSIS

Det begynder i mørke og ender i mørke, men ind imellem er der en stemme. / Fra stuen fortæller stemmen om det gyldne lys den står i. Hun hælder te op. og brænder fingerspidserne på det kogende vand. / “The moment I opened my eyes and realized I had forgotten all about who I was”, læser stemmen højt for os. / Måske er det gyldne lys i virkeligheden gult. Hun strækker en hånd ud for at mærke hvor hun kan være.

Lyddesign: Hans Christian Arnt Torp, producer: Caroline Eybye, produktion og distribution: Den danske Filmskole:

http://www.dfi.dk/Nyheder/FILMupdate/2015/Juni/Se-Filmskolens-dokumentarafgangsfilm.aspx?utm_source=nyhedsbrev&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=filmupdate-nyhedsbrev  (Her er links til alle afgangsfilmene)

To Reach the Audience…

Normally we do not not advertise, but rules are there to be broken…

It’s last chance today if you want to take part in the EDN workshop in Turin called Outreach and Distribution – ”a three-day workshop where producers and directors shape the strategies for the release of their next documentary, including the industry launch and getting the film out to a general audience. The format combines general talks by outreach experts with hands on work with shaping a concrete plan for each of the six (maximum) selected documentary projects.”

It takes place end of September and the reason I want to promote it has three legs: 1) We need to find new ways to reach the audience, especially for films which fall outside the mainstream.

The two main tutors are 2) Ove Rishøj Jensen who stood behind the launch of the two Swedish documentaries “Harbour of Hope” and “Every Face has a Name” (photo), directed by Magnus Gertten and 3) Ben Kempas who stood behind the launch of the Scottish “I am Breathing” by Emma Davie.

Very strong films that reached/reaches the audience because of well-thought and performed serious campaigns far away from “normal” loud-shouting, classical marketing.

Go for it!

http://www.edn.dk/activities/edn-activities-2015/the-edn-outreach-and-distribution-workshop-2015-in-turin/

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