Herz Frank & Maria Kravchenko: Beyond the Fear

This article is brought now because the film has its international premiere at HotDocs in Toronto , tomorrow, April 25.

A long prologue: On this site Herz Frank (1926 – 2013) has an iconic status. Co-editor Allan Berg and I met the director at the Balticum Film & TV Festival on Bornholm in the 1990’es, later on in Riga, where we contributed verbally and (a bit) financially (Allan as consultant for The Danish Film Institute) to “Flashback”. Personally I have had the pleasure to have met Herz (Frank) in Tel Aviv on a couple of occasions. He has been a huge inspiration for me in my understanding of what documentaries are and can be.

Allow me to quote Herz: In front of me on my work table is the central fragment from Raphael’s fresco “The School of Athens”. Plato and Aristotle discuss the philosophical meaning of life. Plato is pointing upwards – the essence is the Idea! Aristotle, on the other hand, has his palm pointing down to the ground – the basis is the material! Even earlier in the Old Testament (Genesis) both views are united. In the first book of Moses the first lines states: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Read – the spiritual and the material.

As a documentarian, I follow these principles directly. Facts have to be the basis for documentary films. And if we want to uncover the truth in them, facts have to be portrayed not only on the surface and as purely informative, but also through sensitive, spiritual eyes. Even better if one eye is dry, and the other – damp… Life has to be filmed imaginatively, and only then will we understand its deeper meaning. There is an image hiding in every detail of each fact, in each living and inanimate thing. You only have to know how to see and record them. A documentary camera is not a video-recorder in the street…

The deeper meaning… is what Herz Frank was seeking in his entire oeuvre. With a constant doubt in his search. Like for this film project that became his last film, made together with Maria Kravchenko, who finished their work in a brilliant way as co-director and editor. Half way through the film Herz Frank formulates the following linked to the film, the two are making and to the work of a documentarian:

Was it necessary to intrude with the camera into the complexity of life? Will our inclinations result in something heartbreaking, moving and artistic? But it is beyond me to give it up! Do you get me? To give it up mean to say that I am not alive anymore…

A short prologue IN the film: You hear the voice of Maria Kravchenko to an image of Herz Frank telling us the audience that Herz started shooting this film about ten years ago; and that she joined him later to finish the film after his death. Cut to three persons on their way to a prison, a grown up Larisa and two children. Cut to archive material of November 1995, Rabin was shot. Cut to the murderer, Yigal Amir. Cut to a phone conversation between a small boy Yinon and his father Yigal. This opening of a film should be obligatory to watch for all documentary professionals.

These five minutes before the title “Beyond the Fear” appears on the screen, presents the story lines that are followed. Here is the synopsis, cited from a press release I received from the producer Guntis Trekteris, EgoMedia Riga :

Decisions made by the protagonists of the film change their life irreversibly. Yigal Amir at the age of 26 assassins the Israeli Prime Minister. He is sentenced to life imprisonment and becomes the most hated criminal of the state. Larisa, an émigré from Russia, a mother of four, divorces her husband to marry the assassin and give birth to his son. In the course of many years the authors of the film are trying to understand this complicated story until one of them – Herz Frank – does not live to see his film finished, remaining on the threshold of the eternal secret of life, death and love…

It’s a precise text that avoids any tabloid approach or sensational sales talk but conveys that the ambition of this dramatic, psychological film essay is to get closer “to understand”. Contrary to how the media in Israel covered the story (a crazy woman, a fanatic murderer, the fall of a nation, a marriage, a child is born…) this is presented as the eternal fight between Good and Evil, the subtitle of Herz Frank’s film from 1978, “Ten Minutes Older”.

Which is about children watching a puppet show with all their innocence readable in their faces. “Beyond the Fear” cleverly also takes us down that alley. Slowly the focus is put on the small child of Larisa and Yagil. What will his future be, the son of a murderer, who sits for life. The mother Larisa expresses her worry about having drawn her children into moments, where they are cursed in daily situations and knows that Yinon one day will experience that his father is in prison because… where she in the beginning told him that his father was away for work. Yinon learns why. The dramaturgical stroke of genius, actually what binds the film, the red thread in a way, that gives the emotional impact that Herz Frank wanted, is the phone calls between Yinon and his father- They have to be short, according to prison rules, but Yagil tells Yinon stories from the Bible – about Good and Evil and what God can do and has done. And Yinon asks questions as children do it. As the film grows he is taking more and more space. “Heartbreaking and moving” to think about his future.

That was two of the Herz words, the third is “artistic”. Yes, this film has a high artistic quality, even if (as Allan Berg noted the first time we saw it together) you lack the voice off commentary of Herz Frank, this quiet voice of reflection on “la condition humaine”. I could also have done without the predictable vox-pop reporting from the streets, where most people condemn Yagil and Larisa in short rude bites of aggression. On the other side Kravchenko has fully succeeded to give the film space for beautiful wordless sequences and a montage that is superb. I want to re-use the phrase “stroke of genius” to describe how the visual information of the death of Herz is connected to Yinon’s trying to understand what death is.

Do we get to a deeper understanding of the relationship between Larisa and Yagil? No, we get to know them, to have sympathy for them and their constant being in the media, but first of all we get to know that Life is a mystery, never to be solved but to be lived and experienced and interpreted by great artists.

A short epilogue: The film had its national premieres in Riga in December 2014 at the new Riga International Film Festival and in Moscow at the prestigious Russian documentary film festival, “Artdocfest”, famous for its free spirit and open turning against the official state policy.

According to the producer Guntis Trekteris “it is a huge success in Russia, where we got two main professional awards – Laureal Breach (the National Prize for documentary and TV films, ed.) and Russian Film Critics guild prize for the best documentary.”

And now Canada and consequently many other festivals, I guess.

Latvia, Russia, Israel, 2014, 80 mins.

Play.Doc Festival in Galician City Tui

Thanks to a Cineuropa website (very actual, well written and edited, covering also a lot of documentary events and films) and a link from the article, I got to know about the Play-Doc 2015 festival (Festival Internacional de Documentals) that runs now and until April 26, the 11th edition, with welcoming words from Mexican director Nicolás Pereda, I have taken a clip:

“In a world in which people communicate with each other by phone and computer, in which artistic collectives are becoming ever thinner on the ground and cultural events are becoming more and more impersonal, Playdoc is a breath of fresh air, a model for other festivals across the world to follow.

Playdoc is a festival made in the same way as the films which it screens. For those filmmakers working outside the industry, events of this type are essential. The festival gives attendees time and space to reflect on the films…”

The program proves he is right. There is a competition where I recognise films like Göran Olsson’s “Concerning Violence” (photo), Fernand Melgar’s “The Shelter” but most interesting is that the festivals hosts a seminar on criticism, a series of workshops led by super-competent Marta Andreu from Barcelona, who has written fine articles for the website and is talking about the project “Docs in Progress” on a video that introduces what the festival does, again a clip from a text by Andreu:

… In December 2010, Play-Doc initiated the first edition of Docs in Progress. For two weeks eight film-makers lived in a rural guest-house, in the vicinity of Tui, in order to share the process of working on their documentaries at the editing stage. Throughout the encounter, the exchange of viewings, trials, experiences and creative concerns generated a space for reflection, and for creative questioning, in order to come closer to the very best version of each of the works selected. Film-makers coming from distinct parts of the world (Uruguay, Spain, Germany, Iceland, Argentina, Brazil and Galicia) have, in this way, made available to others their own creation; putting it at the service of dialogue; asking the images themselves what film lies buried within them; whilst exposing the images to the gaze of others, so as to realise its birth…

And of course there is a retrospective – with Claire Simon.

Unpretentious and serious, like it!

http://cineuropa.org/nw.aspx?t=newsdetail&l=en&did=290091

http://www.play-doc.com/web2015/en/index.html

Luciano Barisone Interview

The 46th (!) edition of Visions du Réel is going on with still a couple of days left. Before the festival Doc Alliance brought an interview with the festival director for some years, Luciano Barisone, a man who is not afraid of bringing non-tabloid, non-journalistic artistic documentaries to his festival. I have copy-pasted from the interview a couple of interesting sequences:

Barisone: The “vision” is in the name of the festival together with the word “réel”. It’s a gaze upon human evolution, a tight connection between reality and imagination, a meeting between a state of mind and a state of the world. We deal with creative documentaries and we think of creativity as Robert Bresson did: “To create is not to distort or invent people and things. It is to weave people and things who exist and as they exist into a new relationship.”

This year’s edition of the festival has been strongly linked with the personality and the work of Barbet Schroeder, a Swiss-born director playing an important role in the French Nouvelle Vague movement as well as working with famous Hollywood stars. Why have you decided to focus on Schroeder’s work? Your decision has also affected the visual style of the 46th edition…

Barisone: Last year we decided to create an award named Maître du Réel, in order to honour a major filmmaker who has been working in documentary and narrative features, following the path of a realistic representation of world history and human events. Barbet Schroeder completely embodies this for his career as a whole and for his way of approaching reality.

http://dafilms.dk/news/2015/4/6/Interview_LucianoBarisone

http://www.visionsdureel.ch

Alex Gibney: Going Clear /2

Going Clear (”Scientologys religiøse fængsel”) vises i DR2 Dokumania i dag 21. april klokken 20.35. Senere på aftenen, klokken 23.00 bringes et interview, som Clement Kjersgaard lavede med Alex Gibney i forbindelse med at filmen blev vist på Sundance Film Festival.

Jeg kan bestemt godt se Alex Gibneys film som en storstilet ambition om underholdende formidling af en journalistisk undersøgelse af en række biografiske, organisationshistoriske, juridiske og især moralske forhold inden for Scientology, en undersøgelse, som resulterer i en række afsløringer af skjulte metoder og sammenhænge. Men det lykkedes ikke for mig at være underholdt af Gibneys arbejde, og det lykkedes heller ikke for mig ved et enkelt gennemsyn egentlig at fatte historien, så han han havde heller ikke i formidlingen held i forhold til mig.

Det er formen, han anvender, som er i vejen, som kommer imellem værket og mig, kommer mellem dets vigtige optagelser af samtaler med tidligere medlemmer af Scientology, mellem dets omfattende arkivmateriale og min oplevelse. Det er et imponerende materiale, og jeg tror heller ikke det i og for sig er udygtigt anvendt i filmen; det er brugt nøjagtigt som man gør i den slags film, ikke bedre, ikke ringere. Men jeg er træt af formen og har egentlig aldrig accepteret den. Der er en filmisk kulturkløft mellem den slags tv-dokumentar og mig.

Det drejer sig især om anvendelsen af scenerne med de medvirkende (som på fotografiet). De er alle smukt fotograferet, de er de eneste scener i filmen, jeg ville kunne falde til ro ved, resten af billederne er så frygteligt grimme. De medvirkende er alle stærke personer, som gør stort indtryk på mig. Men scenernes samvær brydes op, for Gibney er alene interesseret i enkeltsætninger og disse enkeltsætningers faktuelle indhold, for af det bygger han sin historie. Så disse scener oplever jeg i stumper og stykker og resten af billedsiden filmen igennem er reduceret til konventionel billeddækning og illustration, fyld altså.

Og så drejer min frustration sig netop om behandlingen af den del af dette materiale, som er arkivstof. Det interessanteste er filmoptagelser, som knytter sig til Scientology-stifterens biografi. Meget af det er faktisk fine gamle optagelser. Der værnes blot ikke i behandlingen af dem om billedernes egne tavse udsagn, der er simpelthen ikke blik for den kvalitet. De lægges for mig at se blot ind som illustrationer, fyld, mens lydsiden stykket sammen af de medvirkendes fortællinger er alene om at udgøre Gibneys historie uden at komme i nærheden af en sammenfatning ensige en essayistik, jeg kan tage ind som interesseret og opmærksomt publikum. Resten af arkivstoffet er klip fra især tv-shows. Det er bare så larmende og grimt og regulært kedeligt. Ind imellem lyser nogle smukt filmede rekonstruktioner op, rekonstuktioner af organisationens helt særlige psykoanalysepraksis. Det er imidlertid blot vignetter i fremstillingen, men det er interessant, det er et mix af Freuds erindringsmetode og politiets løgnedetektor metode. Men jo slet ikke nok til at redde Gibneys film. Til mig, som forbliver skuffet.

USA 2015, 114 min.

SYNOPSIS

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is a 2015 documentary film about Scientology directed by Alex Gibney, based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prnisoof Belief. Peroduced by HBO, the film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It received widespread praise from critics for its deconstruction of the church’s claims through a combination of presenting a condensed history of Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, how celebrities interact with the church, the stories of a number of ex-members and the abuse and exploitation that they described seeing and experiencing. (Wikipedia)

FILMOGRAFI

Taxi to the dark side, 2007

Gonzo:Life and Work of Hunter Thompson, 2008

LINK

www.dr.dk/tv/se/dokumania/dokumania-scientologys-religioese-faengsel (Filmen i DOKUMANIAS udgave med danske undertekster)

https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/bag-om-scientology/bag-om-scientology#!/ (Clement Kjersgaards begavede interview (IN ENGLISH) med en imødekommende Alex Gibney, som sætter sin film i sammenhæng med sit samlede filmværk og røber sit filmiske forbillede, filmen, som satte ham i gang som instruktør. Det er tankevækkende!) 

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