Bogdanovich: Directed by John Ford

Ohhh, film history and personal history for me as for many others, I am sure. Let’s get the last matter settled first: When I was studying at the Library school in Copenhagen in the beginning of the 1970’es, my teacher Werner Pedersen showed us few students specialising in film and tv, ”Directed by John Ford”, made by Bogdanovich and later on my other mentor Niels Jensen, who has written the best Danish book about film history – with John Wayne on the front page – taught me why he, a true connaisseur of the director found him to be the important American film director.

And there they were in the film that Bogdanovich had revised in 2006: James Stewart, what a storyteller, giving us anecdote after anecdote from films that he had played in. John Wayne doing the same. And Harry Carey. And formidable Henry Fonda. In the new version including Spielberg, Scorcese, Eastwood and Walter Hill, all of them analysing films and scenes from works that had influenced their filmmaking.

Bogdanovich knows how to link the interviews with clips so you want to revisit films  – right away after the experience and knowledge that this well made director-film has given you. Home again dvd’s of the films will be bought and enjoyed.

John Ford is in the film, of course, sitting in a chair with the landscape we know from several westerns in the background. Answering yes and no and maybe to Bogdanovich, playing with him, but sitting there with his enormous charisma and his cigars. Great Great stuff, I said to myself sitting outside the hotel room enjoying my cigar later in the evening. Thank you American Documentary Film Festival for showing this piece of wonderful film history!

http://www.americandocumentaryfilmfestival.com

Hussin Brothers: America ReCycled

Had they pitched this project in Europe, producers and financiers would have hesitated committing themselves as the brothers are debutants. And would have continued ”don’t start before you have all the money”. In this respect there is a difference between filmmaking in Europe and over here. In the US filmmakers take risks, well they have to, as public funding does not exist.

The brothers Hussin went off to do their first film with very little funding. From a production side point of view crazy and impressive! Noah and Tim Hussin went biking, 5000 miles in two years. On bikes built by themselves. America reCycled. Many case stories on how they made this happen, must be waiting for them – out there at festivals in the US and in Europe.

And they have made an impressive film! They allow us to meet

interesting people, who interpret the American Dream pretty much different than the one we know and the one the brothers were brought up with. The characters in the film have established small communities built on trust to each other, surviving on solidarity and a richness of innovation. They live outside the big cities, they eat roadkill (a new word in my vocabulary!), which they say is much more fresher than the meat you buy in plastic in the supermarket. They build their own houses or they squat, they pick up trash = food that has been thrown away, they party… They live a different life than the rest of us. And they like to have the brothers visit.

Some of the communities the brothers visit resemble what the Danish freetown in Copenhagen, Christiania, used to be (before it went bourgeois) and many of the people, they meet, make you think about the sixties – the gatherings around the fire, singing, peace and love.

The music in the film is there the whole way through. I asked Tim Hussin, who made a brilliant camerawork (wonderful sceneries, presence in the scenes with the characters) if they were specifically looking for communities where music played an important role. No he said, it just happened.

It has to be said that luckily the film is not only ”halleluja” praising the ”community efforts”. The brothers also end up at desolated places with people isolated, people who have given up – as Noah Hussin said ”there are a lot of broken lives out there”. And broken myths… the cowboy life in Texas is not what it used to be in the times of John Wayne and Ford. There are several highlights in the film journey – New Orleans where people have moved into the ruined houses after the Katrina hurricane, making them liveable. The Ghost Town in the desert with the motherly character running the place.

I would have loved to have more scenes of the brothers together. Alone on their journey. In a couple of scenes they are arguing, but there must have been many emotional moments that could have conveyed their brotherhood or reflect on the crazy project, they undertook. A lot of reflections is to be found in the commentary, that places the film as not only a road movie but also in the difficult essayistic category.

It’s not the first time we are taken on the road in America and of course you think of Jack Kerouac and the Route 66 films. But it must be the first time that we are invited to experience a bicycle road movie!

This film deserves a good life at festivals in Europe, and why not on television in a shorter version?

Seen at the American Documentary Film Festival, World Premiere.

USA, 2015, 100 mins. 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Documentary Film Festival 2015/ 3

So there he was, Peter Bogdanovich, conceived in Serbia, born in the US – as he has put it himself – 75 years old, still a great storyteller and imitator of voices, which was proven when he gave us in the audience anecdotes from his film life as a director, a film historian and one who knew them all, the big names: Cary Grant, Jimmie Stewart, Orson Welles, John Ford about whom he has made a film, ”Directed by John Ford” to be presented here at the festival: ”a new, updated version of the original 1971 documentary which was written and directed by Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon and Mask) and profiles the life and works of the acclaimed director”, as put by the TCM on their site, including interviews with Eastwood, Scorcese and Spielberg.

Why is cinema important, Bogdanovich had asked Jimmie Stewart, who told that he once met someone on a set, who said to him, ”I remember the poem you recited in a film, you were good”. About cinema: ”You are giving people little pieces of time they will never forget”, Stewart said – the film the man remembered was 20 years old.

Bogdanovich, full of humour, he could have gone on for hours, said that for him direction was an extension of acting, himself being an actor in numerous films. To be seen in the film tribute to him, 90 minutes long, by Bill Teck, entitled ”One Day Since Yesterday: Peter Bogdanovich & The Lost American Film”, a documentary that premiered in Venice to have a revised version here in Palm Springs. The film puts a focus on the films of Bogdanovich and on the life of the director, whose love for Dorothy Stratten is in the centre of the story. Stratten who was murdered in 1980 and plays in ”They All Laughed”, a film that flopped with the audience, that Bogdanovich bought back the rights for, and a film that Tarantino praises in the interview he has given for the documentary. Lots of clips from the film with adorable Audrey Hepburn and amazing Ben Gazzara makes you want to watch the film.

http://www.americandocumentaryfilmfestival.com

American Documentary Film Festival 2015/ 2

It all started  at 10am Wednesday March 26 with the Film Fund Competition (with around 15.000$ awards to be distributed) in the Camelot Theatres, the main venue for the festival. Moderated by Teddy Gruyoa, festival director, 12 projects were presented in a way that is pretty much different from the usual European way. Where ”we” give the pitchers 7 minutes of presentation (talk and trailer of maximum 3,5 minutes) the pitch here starts with 5 minutes of trailer/teaser/visuals, whatever you will call it, followed by another 5 minutes of questions from professionals in the audience. This year there were critic Neil Young (Hollywood Reporter), university professor John Osborne who after retirement is involved in several productions and has helped with the selection of films for this year’s Amdoc program, Joel Douglas (son of Kirk and Michael’s brother of ”One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”), Adam Montgomery from the Sundance Festival – and me.

The format is interesting and raises the question, whether ”we” should change our European format. There is something challenging in the fact that the importance is put to the visuals – and to be rude as commentator you can see from the material who can make films and who not, or who is stuck in the television world. In other words, don’t talk about it, show it, could be the headline for this kind of pitch. Is there too much talking at European pitches?

Overall the projects presented were issue-born: child pornography, hunting/poaching of lions in Africa, the life of Iraqi interpreters after the soldiers have left the country, constitutional rights to unborn children, seriously handicapped war veterans lives to be helped… but also a fresh look at the phenomenon of burlesque, a ballet dancer who is injured will he be able to make a comeback?, a gay rights activist, charismatic Ray Hill and one that stood out cinematically (for my European eyes) because it had no interviews and no wall-to-wall music, the ”Pow Wow” (photo), a local production.

The winners of the Film Fund competition will be announced at the closing night ceremony this coming monday.

http://www.americandocumentaryfilmfestival.com

 

 

 

American Documentary Film Festival 2015/1

After 10 hours and 40 minutes of flight Copenhagen to Los Angeles and a good night’s hotel sleep off to Palm Springs for the fourth edition of the American Documentary Film Festival that opens tomorrow March 26 and goes on until March 30. Transportation manager Tim Alexander picked us up at the hotel, was great to see him again after many joyful moments at last year’s edition. On the freeway that Danish director Jacob Thuesen made a documentary about (Freeway, 2005), by the way. Now resting at Villa Royale Inn in Palm Springs, an oasis of green, swimming pools, gourmet restaurant and cosy rooms.

Business tomorrow – the festival that is founded by and programmed by enthusiastic and energetic filmmaker Teddy Groya has also what we in Europe call an industry event: The American Documentary Film Fund that gives financing for new film projects. 12 projects are to be pitched tomorrow with a visual as well as a verbal presentation. The winners (I think it was three last year) are announced at the end of the festival that also has awards for participating films. I was invited to take part in the selection in both categories. I got to watch American documentaries that never reach European film festivals – and European documentaries that in many cases shamefully have been overseen by European festivals.

… and Opening Gala Night features Peter Bogdanovich, who I remember for especially two films – a documentary he made on John Ford (Bogdanovich is also known as a film historian and critic) and wonderful ”Paper Moon”. Here is a promotion quote from the website of the festival:

“One Day Since Yesterday: Peter Bogdanovich & The Lost American Film” (directed by Bill Teck) is the story of maverick film director Peter Bogdanovich’s love for both the late Dorothy Stratten and his “lost” film “They All Laughed.”  Murdered by her estranged husband as Bogdanovich was editing “They All Laughed,” “One Day Since Yesterday” summons up the romance, heartbreak and devotion present as Bogdanovich bought his film back from the studio when they studio threatened to shelve it, and his efforts to distribute it himself, almost to his own ruin. A real life love story of passion and belief in the power of art. “One Day Since Yesterday” is an homage to the lost era of the 70s American Auteur, staking a claim for “They All Laughed” as the last great film of that time.

Through the story of Peter’s journey with “They All Laughed,” “One Day Since Yesterday” explores all of Bogdanovich’s career (The Last Picture Show, Saint Jack, What’s Up Doc, Paper Moon), and his challenges to see his personal vision vindicated in an era unsympathetic to the bold and unique visions he risked it all on. It’s the story of a lost film, which played The Venice Film Festival in 1981, unavailable in any medium for years and it’s triumphant re-appreciation, championed by filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, and of the sweet, makeshift family that’s sprung up around They All Laughed’s tragedies — bonds still strong even 30 years later. “One Day Since Yesterday” is a wistful valentine to art, love, loss, redemption and the power of cinema…

Bogdanovich will be there to receive an award for his contribution to American cinema.

http://www.americandocumentaryfilmfestival.com

 

One World Romania/ 4

You must have a passport or an id, the woman at the desk said. Mikael Opstrup from EDN and I were at the entrance of the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest an early morning and we wanted to enter to see the palace of Ceausescu. I showed my official yellow health card and told the lady that I had several cards with my photo on. Little did it help, no passport or id no entrance. Opstrup, who had brought along his passport, went in, I stayed out prepared to sit on a plastic chair for an hour in an ugly entrance hall. Luckily I could go into an equally ugly hall where there was a very fine photo exhibition of photos taken by students at photo schools in Romania. The one I have chosen is by Alma Ghiuela called SFF05, she must have seen paintings of Paul Delvaux or Giorgio de Chirico.

I was happy to meet Laura Capatana again. She was way back a participant of the Ex Oriente workshop, where I was tutoring and where she developed ”Here… I mean there”, 73 mins., a touching story from a Romanian town about two sisters, whose parents work in Spain. Over years the director has followed the girls and their development and struggles with themselves. In the house where they live with their sweet granny.

She is still in touch with the girls and I think she should make a sequel. We the audience have got to know the girls so well that we want to know what happens in their lives. The youngest, Sanda, still lives at home, the parents have returned, what happens with Sanda, when she flies from the nest?

Capatana, observer at the Cooking a Doc workshop, and her husband, actor Gabriel Spahiu, parents of Hugo, 3 years old, drove me to the hotel one night. I have something for you, Spahiu said, and played NHØP from his car radio. Danish jazz bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen talked in Danish-English and played the melancholic ”I Skovens Dybe Stille Ro”. Wonderful end of a nice evening!

http://oneworld.ro/2015/l/en/

Frida og Lasse Barkfors: Pervert Park

Det er hans stemme, som er den første jeg hører. Han går med ryggen til. Sådan er det mange gange i filmen, de går med ryggen til kameraet, når de fortæller om deres ulykke, gentager erindringerne om hændelsen. De går typisk med ryggen til i en billeddækning, som må opfattes som en skyhed. Der ikke så meget lykke at fortælle om. Manden på fotoet er gennemgående medvirkende, han er pedel på stedet, og han er på en måde vært for mig, mens jeg ser filmen. Så godt jeg kan, lytter til fortællingerne, så opmærksomt, jeg magter. Det han viser mig er Florida Justice Transitions, et housingprogram for sexforbrydere St. Petersburg, Florida.

Det er bestemt ikke rart, jeg må overskride mange grænser for blufærdighed, men som beboerne i lejren af beboelsesvogne, hvor bosættelsesprogrammet er indrettet, må jeg finde mig i, at der tales om den slags ting, tales til hinanden og lyttes til hinanden. Filmen skildrer møder i gruppeterapien, et samvær, som er en slgs rutine, er en rytme på stedet, og bliver en rytme i filmen. Her er der en anden gennemgående medvirkende, psykologen, som leder gruppeterapien. Han er min mulighed for at begribe disse mennesker, min redning. At låne hans konstant levede og med bløde mellemrum klart formulerede humanitet og indlevelse.

Det handler om privat organiseret kriminalforsorg, beboerne i denne lille by har udstået deres straf, men samfundet omkring dem vil ikke tage dem tilbage, vil ikke tilgive. Ingen vil bo i deres nærhed, de er udstødte. En app fortæller i alle telefoner præcist, hvor de bor, flytter de ind en almindelig bolig.

For mig er der kun ét at gøre med den film, og det er at lytte og lytte til disse fortællinger, og det er nødvendigt forinden at skyde mine egne forklaringer, rationaliseringer, bedreviden og fordomme til side, og det er svært for mig at komme dertil. 

Filmen er omhyggeligt fotograferet af Lasse Barkfors. Den er ganske traditionelt bygget op, lægger sig på gedigne konventioner. Den gør det konsekvent og meget bevidst, ja fejlfrit og først og sidst smukt. Billeddækningen i hverdagens små ting og gøremål er sirligt skildret af Lasse Barkfors’ kamera. De bliver hvile for mit blik under disse forfærdende historier, disse smertende erindringer, som lægges op i klippet efter hinanden så tæt, at jeg husker dem oven i hinanden som en samlet katastrofe, som et landsab af viden, jeg ikke vil have, men får, fordi det også mejsles ud i detaljerne i lange, detaljerede, rolige betroelser. Men altså, og det er vigtigt, disse betroelser er pakket omhyggeligt ind i en smukt konventionel billedside. Og det skriver jeg ikke negativt, jeg skriver det for at være præcis. Jeg ser, at Frida og Lasse Barkfors har villet lave filmen, så der bare ikke kan sættes en finger på noget som helst i billede, lyd, klip. De har villet give mig ro til at høre disse replikker, disse fortællinger og være med i de 120 beboeres liv i trailerparken og deres forsøg på ture udenfor. ”Vi skal gå ud og lade folk se, at vi er mennesker, selv om åbenbart ingen vil bo i vores nærhed”. En vover sig på biblioteket, han læser computerteknik. Han vil videre.  Filmen slutter med deres fælles grillfest. De har et sammenhold og gensidig accept, Frida og Lasse Barkfors’ indforståede og solidariske film udvider måske denne accept til tøvende at blive min.

SYNOPSIS

Florida Justice Transitions is home to 120 convicted sex offenders. Like in many other U.S. states, sex offenders are not allowed to live within 1000 feetof places frequented by children. Because of this, many sex offenders live under bridges or in woods – or in the trailer park Florida Justice Transitions – also known as “Pervert Park”. 

The crimes committed by the residents range from simple misdemeanors to horrendous acts unbearable to contemplate. The characters in Pervert Park are all fighting their own very different battles and demons. In this film they tell us their stories as they have never told them before. We meet Bill, Jamie, Tracy and Patrick, all residents in the park. And we meet Don, the therapist who started out working with the victims of sex offenders, but because many of the victims asked him to treat their abusers – often a parent or a familymember – he did. 

Florida Justice Transitions is a private institution, founded by a mother of a convicted sex offender who couldn’t find a place to live after his release. The name is meant to signal a hope for justice and the belief that people can change. But can we talk about justice when we’re dealing with the sexual abuse of children and minors? Or have the offenders forfeited this right forever by doing what they did?

“Pervert Park” is a film about the people no one wants as a neighbor. It follows the every day life of the sex offenders in the park as they struggle to reintegrate into society, and gives us a chance to understand who they are and how the destructive cycle of sexual abuse and the silence can be broken. (Final Cut for Real’s site)

Frida and Lasse Barkfors’s “Pervert Park” was praised at Sundance Film Festival 2015 and received the “World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Impact”. The Swedish-Danish documentary is directed by Frida and Lasse Barkfors, produced by Frida Barkfors from “De Andra” and Anne Köhncke from “Final Cut for Real”.

Sverige 2014, 75 min. Deltog i CPH: DOX 2014 og i Sundance 2015. DR2 Dokumania, som har co-produceret, bebuder at vise filmen snart.

http://www.final-cut.dk/films2.php?mit_indhold_id=3&films_id=20

Adrian Pirvu: Our Special Birth Day

We normally do not promote individual film projects on this site but exceptions were invented to be done… Yesterday in Bucharest, Adrian Pirvu, at the One World Romania’s “Cooking a Doc” went on stage to present (photo by Adi Marineci) an amazing film project about himself. He showed a touching clip with his mother, who tells how Adrian’s sight was (almost) saved just after he was born. This is one of the most intriguing stories I have heard for a long time. Adrian Pirvu needs a producer, eventually a co-director, in other words help to develop, and funding for research! Here is his own fine text written for the workshop:

 A documentary by Adrian Pirvu

90 minutes, 4K

Stage of production: Development

Budget: 72 800 EUR

Logline

What are the biological citizens of Chernobyl, born in 1986, doing for the 30th anniversary of the nuclear accident that changed their lives and the continent they live on?

Synopsis

I started on the path to becoming a filmmaker on the 26`th of April, 1986. I was not born yet but a nuclear accident in a country that my pregnant mother was visiting, set me on the journey to make this film. In late July, I was born with all fingers and all toes, a little overweight but completely blind. I have partial vision in one eye now, thanks to a very dedicated doctor, a cornea donated by a fresh corpse and 28 year old country girl with the strength of a lioness, my mother.

When one reaches 30, there is a lot of soul searching. One ponders the shift from the care-free days of youth and joining the rank of “adults”. Hitting 30 with a disability on the 30th anniversary of the nuclear disaster that caused it gives a whole new dimension to this experience. The film will start with me, Adrian, a 29 year old, who is trying to figure out how his life would have turned out had he not been exposed to radiation while still in the womb. Although I have tried to build a life ignoring my handicap, it is still hard not to think about it while attempting to achieve things or interacting with others. I wish to find other people like me and see how they cope with this situation.

Our voyage starts in Romania and goes through Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus in search of the biological citizens of Chernobyl who were just infants when their future was already predetermined. My journey will be set against the background of a post-communist Eastern Europe where people with disabilities constantly fight an uphill battle with societal stigma and dysfunctional institutions. We see how those in power have forgotten the past and are preparing to make the same mistakes that led to that dark April morning.

Together with the films protagonists, I will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the disaster in the place where it all began. Were they able to make the best of a hostile environment, like the countless animals who now flourish in the irradiated wilderness around Chernobyl?

About the Director

Film school graduate with experience both as director and producer for documentary and fiction shorts. After one year teaching English in China, I became more and more involved in disabled issues and am now working for the Romanian National Council on Disability as a TV and documentary producer.

Contact

adishor.pirvu@gmail.com

+40726302265

One World Romania/ 3

Went to watch ”Queen of Silence”, full house, a film directed by Polish Agnieszka Zwiefka, her first film, produced by Heino Deckert and shown at this festival as one of four films in a well deserved homage to Deckert as the strong producer of documentaries he is. The film has been at several festivals and has been awarded.

So it is good? No, it is not, sorry! It is a mess of good wills and ambitions. It wants to portray Denisa, a Roma girl with a hearing handicap. And she is great and you want to live with her. But it also wants to give a characterization of the environment, she lives in, an illegal ghetto in Poland next to high apartment buildings. And it wants to give her the chance to live her dream to be a dancer like the dancers she has watched on the tele through Bollywood films. The result unfortunately is not successful as the editing remains automatic with no space for (poetic) breathing and interpretation of the girl’s inner emotions – as you all the time has to go forward for another musical scene where she is dancing. And then back to social reality – the police comes and we understand that the houses must be taken down. But we also have to see that she and

a friend of hers take garbage in the city, that they argue with citizens of the city and so on so forth. Jumping around, it seems like an insisting on that it all has to be in the film, which makes the film stay on a surface and Denisa being a doll in the hands of well-meaning filmmakers. Having said so, I have no doubt about the director’s honest intentions and commitment, maybe she had too many advisers around, too many cooks… according to the end titles showing the many workshops the film project has been to.

Back to the workshop entitled “Cooking a Doc” (Group PHOTO by Adi Marineci), where 10 projects were pitched on a sunny Sunday in the Journey Pub in Bucharest. We (the participants, Bulgarian producer Ana Alexieva, Czech editor Adam Brothánek and me) had been together for two days working on the projects. The participants were asked to revise or make teasers, they did so, and all of them also came up with a one-page text on their project. It was a fine three hour session, where we profited from the presence of festivals guests: producer Mia Haavisto (”Pixadores”) from Finland, producer Catherine Dussart from France (”The Missing Picture”), director Andrei Schwartz (”Outside”), Romanian director Adina Pintilie, teacher and critic Adina Bradeanu – who all gave constructive criticism to the filmmakers, among who there were several who had never stood on a stage before. Behind it all of course the cool master of irony, festival director and director Alexandru Solomon.

The pitching ended with an award ceremony where Ana Alexieva went to the stage to invite Alex Brendea to take part in the Rough Cut Boutique at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where he can have his rough material evalutated. His ”Teach” about a charismatic, energetic excentric teacher of mathematics, who lives alone with cats and dogs, and does his teaching at this his home is very promising and the choice was very well received by colleagues at the ”Cooking a Doc”.

And then out in the sun to enjoy a cigar and a cup of coffee before back to Copenhagen to watch el classico, and they won FC Barcelona if you are in doubt about what I am writing…

http://thequeenofsilence.com/abou Det-us/

http://oneworld.ro/2015/l/en/guests/

One World Romania Festival/ 2

I arrived a couple of days ago to Bucharest for the One World Romania. Together with EDN’s Mikael Opstrup we were taken to the hotel, I was given one of those rooms, where you can not open the window so I had to change for another one, and then down to the lobby to meet an old friend André Singer, whose ”Night Will Fall” is part of the programme. I saw the film on Swedish television in January, it is impressive and unique as a historical document, made by André Singer, who after many years, as he put it ”was happy to be back to filmmaking”. Among many jobs as a producer Singer has been producing documentaries by Werner Herzog. You see him on the photo with the microphone at one of the discussion sessions after a well attended screening. A true English gentleman!

To the left Alexandru Solomon, the director of the 8 year old festival about which I can only say Bravo! A good programme, several good debates and information gatherings, among them one by Mikael Opstrup talking about the (impressive) research, he has done for the organisation about Co-Productions in Europe. Solomon was on that occasion giving his input on the good and bad sides of co-productions – to be done if necessary, otherwise stay away from it (my comment), far too complicated. Unless an artistic element is involved and not only the financing side.

The festival has a great initiative that can easily be taken up by other festivals, or rather adopted by others: ADOPT A DOCUMENTARY. Click below and you can see the details, who adopted which film… The result is of course that the adopters promote the films for their members. Here is a quote from the website: In our effort to support civil society in Romania, we invited several non-governmental organisations to symbolically adopt a documentary from this year’s selection, a documentary that addresses the cause that is closest to their mission and activity…

I watched two films the other night: ”The Serbian Lawyer” by Aleksandar Nikolic and ”Outside” by Andrei Schwartz. Whereas the first one fails to bring balance between the personal and the professional in its portrait of the very sympathetic Marko, the lawyer, who defends Karadić at the Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, the second one by Schwartz is a very well made, interesting, warm and surprising (will not give you the end) story about Gavril Hrib, who leaves prison after 21 years – sentenced for murder of two people. Schwartz made a film about him at that time, ”Jailbirds” and when Hrib contacts him asking for a continuation of that film, Schwratz returns.

Right now I have left the workshop – to write these words – where I am tutoring together with Bulgarian producer Ana Alexieva and Czech editor Adam Brothánek. We are on the second day, the participants – 10 projects are being developed – are preparing their pitch, visual/verbal/written for the public pitch tomorrow. They are all Romanians, some with experience, some new talented people. The themes – Romanian hiphop history, ”I became blind 30 years ago due to Chernobyl”, Slavery, a library in Cluj, death rehearsals (!), women and manele music, the Manakia Brothers (film history), an unconventional teacher, a young man with problems…

We are at the Czech Centre in Bucharest, the main organiser of a festival that is made ”in memory of Vaclav Havel”. Love that!

http://oneworld.ro/2015/l/en/adopt-documentary/

http://oneworld.ro/2015/l/en/