Avi Mograbi Retrospective in Munich

The 30th edition of the DOK.fest in Munich invites the audience to watch five of the Israeili documentary master Avi Mograbi’s films. Mograbi travels apparently from one (well deserved) homage to the other, last one was in Paris at the Jeu de Paume museum in March. The films – “August: A Moment before Eruption” (2002), “Happy Birthday, Mr. Mograbi” (1999), “How I Learned to Overcome my Fear and Love Arik Sharon” (1997), “Once I entered a Garden” (2012) and “Z32” (2008) – show the director’s personal style and his unique skill to convey his critical analysis of Israel in a humourous language.

Mograbi has been a frequent guest on this site, I am true admirer of him and his film essays, here are just two quotes:

…he innovates the documentary language by using talking masks, as his main character, the killing Israeli soldier, does not want to face the camera. Very intelligent trick that combined with his Brechtian musical element, himself singing comments to the soldier’s crime, makes the film into a universal essayistic wish for reflection… (about Z32)

…A masterclass, a master’s class, Mograbi is exactly as his films are: tense, sometimes comic, but always dealing with the embarrassing reality of the country he lives in. A frustrated artist, as he says himself, who wants to move something, raise a debate in Israel, but does not succeed, he is met with total silence, no reactions, whereas he now is an estimated artist in Western Europe! In the next issue of Cahiers du Cinema, the headline is characterising him as ”Le Grand sculpteur de notre temps”. (DocsBarcelona 2009, masterclass with Avi Mograbi).

The festival takes place May 7-17 and has a good and interesting international programme, check it. Link below.

https://www.dokfest-muenchen.de/filme.php?films_festival=13&films_section=27

https://www.dokfest-muenchen.de/filme.php?films_festival=13&films_section=20

FILMCENTRALEN 1 /Ole John

Jeg har lyst til at dykke lidt ned i FILMCENTRALEN FOR ALLE, ned i repertoiret, finde ikke de film jeg har pligt til at se, men lige netop de film, jeg har lyst til at se streamet på min computer. Og lige netop med Filmcentralen lykkes det hver gang, uden problemer, uden forstyrrelser. Ligetil og enkelt. Det er smukt. Som den første vælger jeg Ole Johns Niels Bohr fra 1985. Det er fordi, Per Kirkeby engang skrev, at det bedste man kan gøre det er at læse videnskabshistorie. Jeg tror det var engang han skrev om Wegener og kontinenternes bevægelse. Det råd har jeg så fulgt siden, i hvert fald så længe, videnskabshistorie blev skrevet og filmet af poetiske forfattere og filminstruktører, af digtere og videnskabsmænd og -kvinder. Efterhånden som formidlere og journalister tog videnskabshistorien op blev jeg tøvende, det fangede mig mindre. Ole Johns film om Bohr har således holdt sig fast i min erindring i tredive år og den berører mig mærkeligt mere end forståeligt. Dengang den kom og så nu igen. Den holder, som vi siger.

Filmen har fortællerstemme, og som Iikka Vehkalahti så rigtigt gør opmærksom på: ”… I, for example, do not understand a person who, by principle, says: ’And I don’t use voice over’. It is like leaving out the music! What would such films as Citizen Kane, Sans Soleil or Sound Of Insects be without voice over?” Og som Vehkalahti er jeg derfor ikke modstander af voice-over, jeg er faktisk tilhænger af dette intime, fundamentale element, som betror mig, betror netop udvalgte mig historien. Og jeg kan godt lide fortællerstemmen i Niels Bohr, hører den som forfatterens, som Johns. Den rummer sin tids litterære tone. Det er det, jeg mærker, det er en fortrolighed, som at blive set som publikum.

Det næste jeg lægger mærke til, er en detalje, men ligeså vigtig for mig. De medvirkende får ikke navneskilt på, de er medvirkende, altså skuespillere i en film, og de er ikke vidner i en journalistik. Princippet svigtes dog sært nok ved scenerne med Erik Bohr og med Margareth Growing. Men det gør ikke noget, nu er jeg glad.

Det er især fordi, Ole John omgås arkivbillederne, både filmoptagelserne og fotografierne med interesse for deres egenværdi, deres skønheder som skabte billeder og deres stemninger af vemod, som gamle optagelser al tid rummer, og han bevarer denne aura selvfølgeligt og uden at understrege den og uden at distancere sig. Han overlader fotografierne til trickbordet og Hasse Christensens og Chris Kings nænsomme behandling, som nærmer dem til arkivfilmenes egetliv tilsvarende nænsomt tempokorrigeret, vil jeg tro. Arkivstoffet konverteres fra illustrationer til filmscener, som nænsomt klippes på plads. Og det er fordi, det er en filmisk dannelse bag, en dannelse, som hviler på på malerkunsten og på litteraturen, mere end på tv-fotografiet og avisteksterne.

Sådan er grundene til at jeg holder af den film, grundene til at den for mig holder, at jeg huske dens scener gennem tredive år, scenerne fra auditoriet i instituttet, et rum som hviler sig til næste dags forelæsere og tilhørere, scenen fra hotelværelset hvor Bohr nat efter nat forbereder følgende dags replik til Einstein, han er ude et øjeblik, servicet fra natmåltidet står der, udsigten til den sovende by er fyldt af øjeblikkets og stedets og erindringens intensitet og tøvende melankoli. Det var så stort, men det var.

Jeg bliver tiltalt i øjenhøjde, ikke belært, ikke omklamret, ikke forsøgt overtalt. Jeg får fortalt verdenshistorie og videnskabshistorie og en biografi i et klogt og tankevækkende filmessay så behersket og præcist klippet af Ghita Beckendorff og Niels Pagh Andersen, som velvidende, hvordan jeg er indrettet, hensynsfuldt bringer mig i godt selskab, og jeg mærker slet ikke, der er gået tre årtier siden sidst. Det er så rigtigt som noget, at Ole Johns Niels Bohr er blevet digitaliseret og gjort tilgængelig for publikum.

Danmark 1985. 60 min.

SYNOPSIS

Den danske videnskabsmand Niels Bohr var en af atomfysikkens største pionerer, og hans institut i København var i en årrække midtpunktet for udforskningen af atomets gåder. Filmen er historien om Borhs liv. Den er udarbejdet på grundlag af materiale dels fra Niels Bohr Institutets arkiv, dels fra arkiver verden over. I filmen indgår en række interviews med verdenskendte atomfysikere, som alle var nære venner med Bohr og medarbejdere i den periode, hvor København var centrum på dette område. Der fortælles om Bohrs ungdom, om den kritiske tid under krigen, om Bohr og atombomben og om hans berømte åbne brev til FN. En appel om samarbejde på tværs af alle grænser for at undgå flere katastrofer. (DFI filmdatabase)

CREDITS

Medvirkende: Victor Weisskoph, Carl F. von Weizsäcker, Friedrich Hund, Erik Bohr, Margaret Growing, John A. Wheeler, Rudolf Peleris. Manuskript og instruktion: Ole John. Instruktørassistent: Claus Bohm. Foto: Tom Elling, Dan Holmberg og Jenö Farkas. Musik: Ilja Bergh. Klip: Ghita Beckendorff og Niels Pagh Andersen. Produktion: Ole John Film.

FILMOGRAFI

Rejse i det indre univers, 1991. Den guddommelige vind, 1990. Snehvide, 1984. Gadeartister i New York, 1982. Ole John har sammen Jørgen Leth instrueret flere film, blandt andre Motion Picture, 1970 og mellem 1968 og 1971 lavet en række film i filmgruppen ABCinema (link til hans meget omfattende og vidtspændende filmografi)

Filmcentralen, streaming: http://filmcentralen.dk/alle/film/niels-bohr-0

Om Niels Bohr: http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/4660.aspx?id=4660

Om Ole John: http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/person/da/2843.aspx?id=2843

Litt.: Ole John, red.: Øjeblikkets foranderlige skønhed, ABCinema og filmoprøret i Danmark 1968-71, 2013. Lars Movin: Alt er i billedet, 2013, 169 ff.

Flying Film Festival/ 2

At the beginning of March I posted a text about a great initiative taken by young filmmakers – Francesca Scalisi and Mark Olexa – both graduated years ago from the Zelig Film School in Bolzano:

”The festival will start beginning of March and run until end of April. The 30 longhaul aircraft  (A330-A340) of the SWISS are loaded (with films) within the first week of March, it serves all SWISS destinations around the world non-stop…

These are words from the website, link below: Welcome to the “Flying Film Festival, the first festival taking place entirely in the air. It will be “flying” in the months of March and April 2015 with the aim of promoting to a wider audience short documentaries with a strong cultural connotation and emerging directors.”

I have had the pleasure to watch the 9 competing short films as a member of a jury (grounded), I have given my points, not to be revealed here, and look forward to see the final result of jury AND airborn passengers votes. Nevertheless I dare – in short – to write

about some of the 9 films that overall absolutely live up to having a cultural connotation and are primarily made by young upcoming directors. There is originality and courage in the selection, some are daring in their storytelling, it’s not an easy collection of films, luckily, because if you sit 12 hours in an airplane it’s fine to have a bit of food for thought in between the bad food and the often brainless American action movies.

”Nos jours absolument doivent etre illuminés” (photo) by Jean Gabriel Périot is an intelligent and touching film where you hear inmates from behind the prison wall give a concert, while you see faces outside experience the music emotionally, close-ups of family to the onew in prison. Equally exciting is ”Modulations” by Delphine Abomigliano who invites you, for half an hour, to be close to a creative process in a record studio with an important social text  conveyed by a rapper. A classic has been taken into the programme, wonderful ”Ten Minutes before the Flight of Icarus” by Lithuanian master Arunas Matelis, from 1990, an allegory of the country’s independence from USSR. A personal reflection is made by Annie Gisler with ”Le Dimanche en Famille”, charming it is, and serious and funny, on the best and worst institution ever: the Family!

We want good documentaries in airplanes, when we fly long distance. This con amore project developed and launched by young filmmakers in Switzerland is a first start that deserves a big applause! Next year again, please!

http://www.flying-filmfestival.com

Leena Pasanen Makes Radical Changes

… at DOK Leipzig, a press release announces from the festival. Like American presidents the new director of the important festival has chosen to reveal her changes after her first 100 days in office! Here comes most of the press release from yesterday:

… Most substantially, the division between documentary and animated films in the competitions will be abolished.  “It is a bold move, but this is how I see DOK Leipzig – fresh and bold,” says Pasanen. “The international competition among festivals is fierce.  We want to stand out with our cutting-edge approach to storytelling and our unpredictable programming. We will have a festival that is surprising its audience every year.”

This year’s Retrospective looks at the 25th anniversary of German reunification and provides the occasion to look at disintegrating (national) borders and emerging new identities – from a global perspective, too.

The Country Focus this year will be on South Korea, a country with a vibrant – and commercially successful – documentary film industry that is more or less unknown in Germany. The English filmmaker and video artist John Smith will be honoured with a Homage. He will also choose the winner of the “Next Masters” Competition (formerly known as Young Cinema Competition) and personally award the Golden Dove of the Sparkasse Media Foundation.

But it’s not just in this competition section that DOK Leipzig proves itself as a Festival that’s young in spirit. There will be a special programme for young people: “Bodycheck”, dedicated to exploring the difficult relationship with one’s own body. Current politics will be addressed in the special programme about Animadoc from Hungary. A programme devoted exclusively to animations will present animated films from the heart of Africa.

There have also been some personnel changes: Grit Lemke was promoted to head of all film programming and will be assisted by Lars Meyer and Annegret Richter. Brigid O’Shea is the new head of the Industry section…

The 1st call for Entries for the 58th edition of DOK Leipzig was announced today.

http://www.dok-leipzig.de

Kinedok

Of course IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) stands behind this wonderful initiative, it calls itself “Project Father and Mother”, but there are other well-known partners – One World Romania Association (Bucharest, Romania), Restart (Zagreb, Croatia), Mozinet (Budapest, Hungary) and Filmtopia (Bratislava, Slovakia), (who) “will create an extensive and continuous distribution network for the documentaries on the territory of all the participating countries, and will thus help to significantly extend the audience base and increase the general interest in creative documentary.”

Take a look at the website to know more about the high-quality films that will be shown non-theatrically in the countries mentioned. The IDF website includes a fine text from where I have kidnapped the following appetizer:

“Wednesday April 15, the official launch of project KineDok in Slovakia will take place in Bratislava in A4 -Association for Contemporary Culture. The introductory film will be the Danish-Hungarian documentary “1989”. During the following year, screenings at 20 more non-traditional venues will take place in Slovakia…

“It will be officially launched with the public screening of a Danish-Hungarian film, “1989” and a discussion with its directors Anders Østergaard and Erzsébet Rácz. A docu-party will follow. The authors of 1989, which I personally consider a great political drama about the fall of the Iron Curtain, will accompany the film tour throughout Slovakia in the next three days. After the screening in Bratislava they will introduce their film in the film club of The University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava and then in Topolčany,” says the main coordinator of KineDok in Slovakia Eva Kriková from Filmtopia…

In the course of the year, up to 12 documentaries will be screened at each of the twenty alternative spaces and film clubs...”

Photo from “Joanna”, Oscar nominated Polish documentary by Aneta Kopacz.

http://kinedok.net/films

http://www.dokweb.net/en/?

Cinema Komunisto

Apropos the sad news about the Avala Studio in Belgrade, here is a written flashback to a night at the Sava Center at the closing night of the Magnificent7 2011:

It was one of those evenings that you will never forget – and that Mila Turajlic will never forget. A totally packed Sava Centre in Belgrade gave her a minute long applause for her great work on making the 100 minutes long documentary on Yugoslav film history, ”Cinema Komunisto”, a film that in this and shorter versions will travel the world, to festivals and television companies. It is an enjoyable and informative voyage the young director takes, in film history and in history – back to a country that no longer exists. And with Tito as the main character, a man who loved films, watched film every night, and also wanted to have films made about himself and his greatness in fights against the Germans during WW2. The greatest man, as Orson Welles says in an archive clip from his visit to the country. Hundreds of partisan films were made, we see clips from them and from loads of other Yugoslav films, matched with documentary archive material and interviews and situations from today. All done in a way that is so excellent that it is hard to believe that this was done by a young filmmaker and a young editor (Aleksandra Milovanovic) with many others who were not alive or were kids. But they had the courage, the patience and the skills to research and produce, and the maturity to make a film of that size. Bravo!… and go to their website where a lot is to be learned as I did last night in Belgrade at a magnificent screening for a couple of thousand people:

http://www.cinemakomunisto.com

Avala Film Yugoslavia to be sold!

Dear friends, guests and colleagues of MAGNIFICENT 7 Festival, we’ve got a terribly important issue to share with you, hoping you will react, sign the petition and spread the word about the unthinkable events that are about to take place in Serbia and the tragic effect they will have on the Yugoslav film heritage:

It’s been looming as a threat for years: AVALA FILM, Yugoslavia’s biggest film studio and its entire film catalogue, will be sold at auction on April 22nd.

The Avala Film catalogue, consisting of over 200 fiction feature films, and 400 documentaries, including winners of the Cannes, Berlin and Venice film festivals, produced between 1947-1992, is included in the sale. Seeing as Avala Film almost half of all Yugoslav films, this means that the rights to half of our film heritage will fall into private hands.

The Serbian filmmaking community, despite valiant efforts, has not managed to achieve its goals in lobbying the Serbian government to attach conditions to the sale.
We have put up a petition to protest this act of inexplicable negligence towards Yugoslav film heritage, demanding that the rights to the Avala Film catalogue be nationalized and transferred to the Yugoslav Cinemateque, which was the legally-nominated depot for films in Yugoslavia.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/361/261/305/grad-izgubljenih-filmova-city-of-lost-films/

The “City of Lost Films” campaign will mark the final 10 days before the auction, in a countdown of clips from cult films produced by Avala film that we will post daily, as well as videos taking you on a last tour through the Yugoslav Cinecittà.
If you would like to get involved in this campaign, please sign&share the petition and follow & share the content on facebook page and website of the campaign.

PETITION:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/361/261/305/grad-izgubljenih-filmova-city-of-lost-films/

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/900/611/889/grad-izgubljenih-filmova-avala-film/

CAMPAIGN WEBSITE (in English):

http://www.cinemakomunisto.com/avala-film/

CAMPAIGN FACEBOOK PAGE (in Serbian):

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cinema-Komunisto/118780191518017?fref=ts

PHOTO from Cinema Komunisto.

Iikka Vehkalahti Interview

It’s not because he says something new, Iikka Vehkalahti, who is now out of YLE, Finnish public television, active as always with different international activities, one of them being the rough cut service that he has set up together with respected editors like Niels Pagh Andersen, Erez Laufer and Menno Borema – link below. For that reason and because he will be one of the tutors at the first session of the upcoming Ex Oriente workshop series, the organiser of these, IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) has made an interview with Vehkalahti, from which we take a quote, but read the whole, not because he says something new but because he says something important:

What mistakes do the young documentary filmmakers frequently make? It is possible to give some examples in general? 

Mistakes are not made only by the young ones, we all make them. There are so many. For example: not to adjust the film to the audience; not to leave any space for the audience to create the final version of the film in their own heads; to play too much; not to stay simple and preserve the complexity of the issue at the same time. Not to be truthful, or not to be open to all kinds of filmmaking tools and methods. I, for example, do not understand a person who, by principle, says: “And I don’t use voice over“. It is like leaving out the music! What would such films as Citizen Kane, Sans Soleil or Sound Of Insects be without voice over? As I said: we all make mistakes all the time and often we make the most fundamental ones in the old age – such as those on the informative level (where are we, who is who, what is the question/dilemma/conflict/quest of the film, what is the role of the back story, etc.), which make the film unclear and messy and at the same time full of too much detailed information. Very often the need just to finish the film already, to get rid of it or too get the film to a certain festival makes the team think: „we have to finish the film now“ and rush it… But in fact, very rarely the film has to be ready immediately.

http://roughcutservice.com

http://www.dokweb.net/en/?

Filmcentralen / For Alle:1 års fødselsdag!

Det Danske Filminstituts streamingtjenste Filmcentralen fylder ét år i dag. Vi siger glade til lykke og bliver overrasket, selv om det selvfølgelig er i fødselarens ånd og i overensstemmelse med Filmcentralens inderste vilje, at det er os, som får gave: fra i dag kan vi se en dansk version af Michael Glawoggers markante mesterværk Arbejderens død (Workingman’s Death), 2004.

Lars Movin har på Filmcentralen skrevet en fin og nyttig præsentation af Glawogger og af perspektiverne i hans film: “Arbejderens død er et hovedværk i Glawoggers produktion. Filmen er en storslået hyldest til noget så uglamourøst som det fysiske arbejdes historie. Fortællingen er opdelt i fem kapitler, som hver skildrer et sted på kloden, hvor globaliseringen og industrialiseringen ganske vist har sat tydelige spor, men hvor det fysiske arbejde ikke desto mindre fortsat dominerer menneskenes tilværelse… Glawoggers film er drevet frem af essensen i den dokumentariske impuls, altså selve dette at se og undersøge verden for derpå at videreformidle de indsamlede indtryk i en kunstnerisk form. Originale værker, der udtrykker sig gennem ét menneskes sensibilitet og temperament. Og mere eller mindre politiske udsagn, der uden at anvende hverken paroler eller løftede pegefingre taler direkte ind i hjerterne på alle, som ønsker at åbne sig for dem,” skriver Lars Movin.

Filmkommentaren siger hjerteligt tillykke til FILMCENTRALEN og tak for de til i dag 509 film på jeres site og nu specielt tak for Glawoggers Workingman’s Death, som vi også holder meget af.

Filmcentralens streaming: http://filmcentralen.dk/alle/film/arbejderens-doed/

Lars Movins præsentation: http://filmcentralen.dk/alle/nyheder/naerkontakt-med-livet

Duane Hanson: Old Couple on a Bench

In my sculpture, I attempt to detach myself from the subject. Although my earlier works were rather expressionistic with oubursts against war, crime and violence in general, I now find my most successful pieces are less topical and idiographic. They are naturalistic or illusionistic which results in an element of shock, surprise and psychological impact for the viewer. The subject matter that I like best deals with the familiar lower and middle class American types of today. To me, the resignation, emptiness and loneliness of their existence captures the true reality of life for these people.

Consequently, as a realist, I am interested in the human form and especially the faces and bodies which have suffered like some weather worn landscape erosion of time. In portraying this aspect of life I want to achieve a certain rough realism which speaks of the fascinating idiosyncrasies of our time. I want my sculptures to convey a certain sense of stylelessness which will capture the contemporary feeling of reality.

(Contemporary Artists, St. James Press, 1998, p. 480)