Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade presents the Oscar-nominated ”Virunga” that will be screened January 31 at the festival. The text also includes words from the director:

Depicting the best and the worst in human nature, Orlando von Einsiedel’s devastating documentary “Virunga” wrenches a startlingly lucid narrative from a sickening web of bribery, corruption and violence.

The setting is the magnificent — and protected — Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to many of the world’s last mountain gorillas and the region’s best hope for economic stability. In a country already weakened by a tumultuously bloody history, that hope became even more fragile with the 2010 discovery of oil beneath Lake Edward and the arrival of a British petroleum company, SOCO International. As multiple forces collided for control of the park — including a powerful rebel group seeking a percentage of oil profits — Orlando von Einsiedel and his crew members found themselves caught in a literal war between conservation and exploitation.

Using hidden cameras and the invaluable assistance of the fearless French journalist Mélanie Gouby, the director and the experienced editor, Masahiro Hirakubo, combine extraordinary footage of rebel tanks and clandestine palm-greasing with lush panoramas of serene wildlife. This is the film about true heroes: the gentle ranger who would die to protect the orphaned gorillas in his care; the park’s soft-spoken Belgian warden, whose astonishing courage calms everyone around him; a section chief trying to gather evidence of illegal oil company activities.

Director’s Word: “Virunga” became a film about the cycle of violence and foreign interference that’s beleaguered Congo for the past 150 years and a film about arguably the most important conservation battle happening in the world at the moment. That said, I do believe that “Virunga” is still the ultimately uplifting and inspiring story I originally set out to make, charting how the dedication and integrity of a few African heroes can challenge powerful business interests and seemingly bottomless human greed. If Virunga National Park – Africa’s oldest national park and home to the world’s last mountain gorillas – falls in the face of shadowy business interests, we are effectively saying that nowhere on our planet is off limits to human greed. It’s for this simple reason that all of us have to make sure Virunga is protected.

Great Britain, 2014, 92 mins.

virungamovie.com

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade presents ”The New Rijksmuseum” that will be screened January 30 as the opening film of the festival. The text also includes words from the director:

In 2003, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the most important museum in all of the Netherlands, closed for a major renovation. The plan was to reopen in 2008, but what was to take five years took 10, with a budget that just kept on growing. Filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk was able to follow this exciting, difficult and sometimes painfully funny process with the camera from behind closed museum doors. In beautiful images supported by powerful music, she captured the building as it was stripped to a bleak carcass, and as it gradually retrieved the old grandeur of yesteryear.

We watch from up close as various curators prepare the layout of their new rooms with tremendous passion and dedication. We follow the caretaker, who looks at the building as if it were his child and protects it against intruders, and the architects who constantly have to adjust their designs. And we follow the museum directors who must deal with financial setbacks, bureaucracy and squabbles – not to mention the activist cyclists. In the end, 400 hours of material was edited down to a single film that takes the viewer to the apotheosis: the reopening in 2013.

This exiting epic documentary took the award for Best Dutch Documentary in 2014 at the IDFA in Amsterdam, after the premiere at festivals and cinemas in USA. In the beginning of December it went in theatres across the Netherlands.

Director’s Word: What should have been a movie about the pride of Holland turned into nothing short of a Shakespearian drama, with failing project managers, cornered ministers and officials, quibbling contractors and foreign contract parties who were appalled to see how the slow decision-making process frustrated the renovations and eventually brought them to a complete halt. It was as if a great weight was pulling the project down and no progress could be made. In 2008, when the management announced that the museum would be closed for another five years, I too realized that I was to spend another five years behind the walls of the Rijksmuseum and witness five more fascinating years of struggle.

The Netherlands 2014, 130 mins.

facebook.com/thenewrijksmuseum

The 11^th edition of the Magnificent7 Festival for European feature length documentaries takes off January 30 and continues until February 5. As in previous years filmkommentaren publishes the introduction to the 7 films written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. That will start tomorrow. Here follows my introduction to the programme – as member of the selection group together with the Popovic couple:

Can we live without art? Of course not, we do hope that Magnificent7 2015 proves the value of watching film art that gives us something to think about, experiences, joy, maybe sorrow or anger, maybe make us act for change, feel love… the same as wanted Rembrandt and Vermeer and Hals in their time. The three and all the other great artists have for more than a decade been waiting to get a new home as we can see in “The New Rijksmuseum” by Oeke Hoogendijk, a brilliant interpretation of the meeting between art professionals and citizens of Amsterdam, including politicians.

“Messi”… is it good, can we get it? A film about the Argentinian, whose artistic football performances the world has enjoyed. The answer to both questions were affirmative and after a check of an eventual audience interest, the film by Álex de la Iglesia was included in the programme. We hope to see parents take their teenage kids to see their idol on the big screen. A new festival audience!

Another innovation in this year programme is “Virunga” by English Orlando von Einsiedel (executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio!), an activist film that in a powerful language and with brave people on screen makes the appeal to protect the Congolese Virunga National Park.

“You’ve got to have Love for your characters and do everything you can to give them confidence in the job you’ve been assigned…”,says Camilla Nielsson, the director of “Democrats”, a beautifully told observational story from Zimbabwe, where the director sensationally got access to follow two charismatic men, who got the job to put together a new constitution.

The word Love is literally in the title of Finnish Virpi Suutari’s “Garden Lovers”, a film that constantly surprises you with wonderful characters, you laugh, you smile and you are reminded that Love needs to be nursed as the plants in our gardens.

Indeed it does, as does our understanding of human beings, who think and act different than most of us. Portuguese Jorge Pelicano invites us to a hospital with his “Suddenly My Thoughts Halt”, that with humour and original storytelling introduces an actor, who tries to understand and to interpret insanity, helped by the intelligent patients.

French Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard are back at Magnificent7 with “Rules of the Game”, a new social, yes, why not call it “documentary love story”, because that is the feeling that lies deeply in their story about youngsters, who are put in a pretty hopeless training scheme but manage to keep their integrity and own personality.

To the wonderful Belgrade audience: Welcome! 

NB! The facebook page of the festival has for a long time brought not only news for the upcoming festival but has also given a fine flashback to films shown at previous editions of the festivals, including trailers from the films.

https://www.facebook.com/magnificent7festival?fref=nf

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/home.html