Covi/Frimmel:Photographer In Front of the Camera

Erich Lessing, born 1923, Austrian reportage and art photographer, associated to Magnum, famous for photos from Hungary 1956 and for photos of art in museums. And probably for much more – which is not the theme of this film that primarily wants to make a portrait of an old man, a fine artist, who is still going strong, when it comes to select his photos for a book, photos for an exhibition and who has clear opinions about, what he has wanted to catch with his camera.

Those scenes where he discusses and selects and formulates are the best. ”I’’m a storyteller. In my photos there has to be a story… All pictures have a political message” – some of the sentences expressed by Lessing, who is followed by his wife and helper in his métier, a warm side motif, one can say.

It is always inspiring for documentarians to see the work of a photographic artist, who has an eye for people and situations and can talk about his work. And to meet one more fine photojournalist next to Capa and Cartier-Bresson.

Austria, 2014, 75 mins.

http://www.mischief-films.com/filme/der-fotograf-vor-der-kamera/e

http://www.lessingimages.com/

Frederick Wiseman: National Gallery

The other day I visited the National Gallery in London. I was there for three hours, generously being introduced to the fabulous collection by skilled art historians, who took me and others to watch and learn. We stood in front of one masterpiece after the other. I watched the reactions of my fellow visitors, the concentration they had, and some of them sat down to copy the works. I also had the chance to get behind the scene and discover how fascinating it must be to work with the restoration of paintings, the x-ray technique being used, and I met staff members who discussed budget matters for the museum, I saw how new exhibitions are being set up, I saw model painting classes by amateurs, blind people seeing pictures… all of it was arranged for me by Frederick Wiseman and his team, who again has made an inviting institution film with the right rythm, indicating the conflicts there are at a place like that – policy towards the audience, how populistic do you have to be etc. – but first of all this time with a focus on the art. It is simply wonderful to be there…

And then you can, as I did here in Paris, where ”National Gallery” is running in several cinemas, inspired go and watch Mike Leigh’s new film ”Mr. Turner”. Brilliant as well.

USA, France, 2014, 180 mins.

http://www.zipporah.com/

DocsBarcelona Starts Documentary Film School

Normally, there is no reason to bring a photo of two men signing a contract but in this case I want to honour my dear friend and colleague Joan Gonzalez (right) for making one more of his many dreams come through – here is the press release that came out:

DocsBarcelona creates DocsBarcelona Documentary School to strengthen international documentary training. To accomplish this project DocsBarcelona has associated with the School of Communication and International Relations of Blanquerna University.

The agreement has been signed between Dr. Josep M. Carbonell, chairman of School of Communication and International Relations of Blanquerna University and Joan González, DocsBarcelona director.

DocsBarcelona Documentary School will offer a wide training program in the documentary field. The program, that will start its activity in 2014-2015, will include an International Master of Direction and Executive Production of Documentaries, Postgraduate studies of Interactive Documentary and a Summer School of Documentary, among other training activities.

DocsBarcelona Documentary School has the aim to become a referent in the field of international documentary training during next years.

DocsBarcelona has more than 18 years of experience in the training field in Spain, Europe and Latin America. Designing, coordinating and giving courses in universities, film schools, markets, festivals and televisions.

More information:

info@docsbarcelona.com

www.docsbarcelona.com

Festival dei Popoli Firenze

The 55th edition of the Firenze based documentary Festival dei Popoli is running now – until December 5. A rich programme and it’s all very professionally presented on the website. And I liked the welcoming words of the festival director, so I made a copy-paste – his name is Alberto Lastrucci, who brings a modest, unpretentious text:

Humankind needs stories. It needs them to learn as well as recognize itself. To acquire information, nourish its inexhaustible curiosity, and respond to its innate instinct to share, to participate, and to hand down experiences, opinions, and fantasies to others. And, is there a better generator of stories than Reality?

Reality produces situations, incidents, and events with an incredible fecundity: it is a tight web of lives, thoughts, actions, and passions. ‘Film-makers of the real’ are deeply aware of this because they are its keenest observers. They explore it, they scan it, they investigate it, and then pick those thin threads that will wind into a story. The vicissitudes of certain individuals at a given time and in a faraway place take shape and become a narrative: a new story to tell. Thus, that event takes off and starts a journey to go and strike the imagination, fantasy, and heart of thousands of people. It becomes universal.

I have met people, in different contexts, who, when I tell them my job, say they watched a film presented at the festival “a few years ago”. They often recall neither its title nor the name of the author. But they can recall the story and its protagonists precisely. The story must have stayed with them, rooted in their minds. It nourished their imagination. They bring the story along, possibly for many years. That story is ready to resurface when some aspect of existence stirs memory for some mysterious assonance. When people tell me this, I am always moved, especially when I recognize the story (and yes, I do recall the film’s title and the author’s name too). I remember the stage of selection, and how that film had impressed me. When I told this to colleagues, the enthusiasm pervading all of us when we agreed that it was a beautiful story and really deserved to be shown was matched by our hope that the audience would appreciate and love it as much as we did.

Our job also offers this kind of ‘long-term’ satisfaction: we find that, after years, a story is fixated in the memory of our viewers. This is one of the reasons why organizing this festival is worthwhile. Never mind that the funds are never enough, that you always work in a state of uncertainty, that not all projects succeed, that we would always need a few more days, whereas there’s no time left because the Festival dei Popoli begins… tomorrow.

Well, we are now presenting the 55th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival. It certainly is an important goal, considering that very few film festivals can boast such longevity. By virtue of this experience, Festival dei Popoli invites you once again to know new films, meet new film directors, and take part in meetings, exchanges, and reflections.

I wish for you all, that the films you see this year will keep you company for a long time.

http://www.festivaldeipopoli.org/en 

 

 

Ben Cotner og Ryan White: The Case against 8

Det her er advokaten Theodore Olson. Han kan mødes i Dokumanias film i aften 20:45 (DR2) som en aldeles vigtig medvirkende. Han alene er filmen ”The Case against 8”værd. Filmen skildrer den historiske retssag mod en navnkundig lov 8, der forbød homoseksuelle ægteskaber i Californien i 2008 kun få måneder efter en lov, hvorefter de for første gang var blevet vedtaget, blev vedtaget. En konservativ tilbagerulning. Aftenens film åbner med en scene, som hører hjemme i en stor film om en stor retssag, Theodore Olsen i skranken, i stor form. Læg mærke til den titelsekvens! The Hollywood Reporter hæfter sig ved ham i sin anmeldelse:

“The leading conservative lawyer Ted Olson shocked right-wing pundits by agreeing to represent the California plaintiffs. Even more startling was Olson’s decision to reach across the aisle and bring on board his liberal counterpart, David Boies, as co-counsel. That the two men who had been on opposite sides of the Bush v. Gore case in 2000 would team up to champion the rights of gay men and lesbians still seems almost surreal… Olson emerges here not only as an unlikely hero, but a man of enormous integrity and open-mindedness. People eager to label all conservatives as bigots need to take a look at this guy. The mutual respect and friendship between the chief lawyers is inspiring, and their profound idealistic investment in the case is apparent at every turn…”

Ja, Olson og med ham den kongeniniale Boies, de to alene er filmen værd. Og så én ting mere: Da retten i sidste øjeblik forbyder al filmoptagelse under retssagen. Filmens måde at løse den situation på er meget, meget smuk!

Den er smuk, netop som The Hollywood Reporter beskriver det afsnit: ”The court’s decision to block the broadcast of the trial might have been a blow in documenting the events. But Cotner and White get around that deftly, having lawyers and witnesses read from transcripts, the text of which is often spread across the screen for dramatic impact. Some of the twists in the trial are so vividly discussed that we have the illusion of being there, yielding fascinating insights into the justice system and the constitutional rights of all Americans.” Jeg vil huske Olsons store sammenfatning, først beskrevet af kollegaen, så læst op af ham selv. Netop her er filmens kerne.

Her er historien, der –  som Alberto Lastrucci forleden i sin tale i Firenze sagde om gode historier i det hele taget – vil ”… become a narrative: a new story to tell. Thus, that event takes off and starts a journey to go and strike the imagination, fantasy, and heart of thousands of people. It becomes universal. I have met people, in different contexts, who, when I tell them my job, say they watched a film presented at the festival “a few years ago”. They often recall neither its title nor the name of the author. But they can recall the story and its protagonists precisely.”

Men desværre bliver filmen ikke ved og omkring de to advokater. Den fortaber sig i de fire borgere, som med ligestillingsforeningen i ryggen har anlagt sagen. Breder sig ud med de fires familiehistorier og kærlighedshistorier. Og de er ganske almindelige, ja typiske. Af den gode grund, at netop derfor er de valgt ud som dem, sagen skal handle om sådan set på alle amerikanees vegne. Derved bliver filmen en tidsbestemt film om en tidsbunden, amerikansk retsssag. Det er journalistikken i den, som vil det. Den kunne være blevet en uforgængelig, eksistentiel og universiel film om retsbevidsthed og retsgrundlag. Om folkestemning og konstitution. Bundet i kammerspillet mellem de to jurister. Det er filmkunsten i den, der vil det. Og det er især Olsons præstation og med den Boies’ indsats, der kunne gøre det, havde de fået pladsen til det. Der ligger således en evigt værdifuld film inde i den aktuelt og politisk vigtige tv-dokumentar. Denne historie er filmens. Den virkeligt gribende medvirkende er Theodore Olson, og den umistelige historie er hans fokus i sit fag, en fundamental faglig optagethed, som fører til venskabet med modstanderen David Boies. Det er den fortælling og dens to medvirkende, jeg vil huske. Også om nogle år.

USA 2013, 99 min. Sendes i aften 20:45 på DR2 Dokumania med den danske titel ”Kampen om kærligheden”.

Filmen kan nu og vel et par dage endnu ses på 

http://www.dr.dk/tv/se/dokumania/dokumania-sagen-mod-lovforslag-8

Filmens hjemmeside:

www.thecaseagainst8.com  http://www.thecaseagainst8.com

The Hollywood Reporters anmeldelse:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/case-8-sundance-review-674049

Kosmorama: Body Language in the Moving Image

Denmark’s oldest film journal Kosmorama (first issue in 1954) presents a slate of articles (online and in English as well) that could interest the true film buffs among our readers. The articles are written by film historians and academics. The titles are ”Body Language and Media Context” (Lennard Højbjerg), ”Figures in Landscapes” (Casper Tybjerg), ”Expression Suppression” (Henry Bacon), ”Making Love Detumescently” (Mariah Larsson) and ”Movie Stars in the Flesh” (Helle Kannik Haastrup). The information about this December issue of Kosmorama I received this morning, so no time yet to read, only to browse. It is all very appealing, with good illustrations and clips from films.

The link below also refers to other articles at Kosmorama, in Danish or English.

And the photo, well you know the man in the middle: ”Occupations” by von Trier – to be found on the internet.

http://www.kosmorama.org/ServiceMenu/05-English/Articles.aspx

Sergey Loznitsa Retrospective Online

Got this press release from Andrea Pruchová from DocAlliance this morning – concerning an early super-generous xmas gift to all of us documentary fans:

His films tend to attract general attention. While festival juries churn out awards, as seen in Cannes, Karlovy Vary and at Jihlava IDFF, viewers are charmed by the quiet pace of his poetic images he has recently employed to capture the revolutionary events at the MAIDAN square in Kiev. Sergei Loznitsa, director of the remarkable feature films My Joy and In the Fog, now receives another honour for the first time; the launch of his online world film retrospective. Ten documentaries by Sergei Loznitsa, including his yet unpublished film master class, are available from December 1 to 14 at the DAFilms.com portal for free.

A native of Ukraine, director Sergei Loznitsa is an exceptional personality in the field of film. His documentary as well as feature films are well received both by critics and by viewers, winning a whole range of awards at leading world festivals in Cannes, Toronto, Paris and Karlovy Vary among others. His studies at a technical university and his experience in the field of development of artificial intelligence contrast with the poetical language employed by the director to follow film narratives that are often set in Eastern Europe and traditional Russia with patience and in visually impressive detail.

“When you start working on a new film, it’s like working on a scientific theory from scratch. It’s only up to you how far into the corner you will push yourself in the process of creation. (…) But everything always starts from the very beginning. If you succeed, you will never find yourself in a dead end. Film is a theorem that has to arrive at a final point,” says the director about his creative process.

The first online film retrospective of Loznitsa’s works offers nine documentary films made since 2000 to viewers around the world. Moreover, it presents a world premiere of Loznitsa‘s yet unpublished master class delivered by the director to the viewers of the Polish Planete Doc Film Festival in the spring of 2014. Entitled “Authenticity and the Phenomenon of Cinema“, it provides a unique chance to learn about the director’s original notion of the film medium.

The viewers should definitely not miss those films presented in the retrospective that have won several prestigious film awards. The black-and-white ARTEL (2006), awarded at Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival in 2007, employs a hypnotizing aesthetic to capture the everyday life of a Russian village which might seem banal at first sight, rendering ordinary activities such as fishing as a surprising and internal struggle.

An unconventional look into age-old traditions maintained even in modern society is introduced in the popular film THE MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY (2012) following the ritual of consecrating animals in the north of Portugal. On the other hand, humour and irony employed by Loznitsa to comment on Soviet political propaganda are brought to the retrospective by the film collage REVUE (2008), revealing the mythology of the communist past based on the visual materials of Soviet propaganda of the 1950s and 1960s.

The online film retrospective of Sergei Loznitsa includes the following films:

The Train Stop (2000, 25´)

Settlement (2001, 80´)

Portrait (2002, 28´)

Landscape (2003, 60´)

The Factory (2004, 30´)

Artel (2006, 30´)

Revue (2008, 83´)

The Miracle of Saint Anthony (2012, 40´)

Letter (2013, 20´)

Special release of Sergei Loznitsa’s master class: “Authenticity and the Phenomenon of Cinema” (2014, 90’)

Go to the website below where you will also find a personal greeting text from the director. ENJOY!

DAFilms.com

Idfa – Innovative Jury Method?

How should a jury work? Is there a recipe? No, of course not. Should a jury talk after each screening or… how to remember the films you have seen?

The idfa jury 2014 for First-Appearance competititon did like this, an idea to copy? Read about it:

On the first day we were clear about one matter: not to talk about the films right after we had seen them. We all needed to digest the films properly and not too quickly.
So, after the last film on our schedule, we came together to finally discuss the films. One of our jury members, came up with the great idea to take a pair of scissors and cut the 15 films out of the catalogue… only the image, the title of the film and the director. When we placed the colorful cutouts on the table, it looked like a game of Memory… you know the cards you have to turn around and remember the images…Well that’s what we finally did… trying hard to remember all these 15 wonderful films… after 3 hours of playing, certainly not cheating… we sincerely hope that we we have turned the right ones around:

The Peter Wintonick Award
The jury is proud to give the Peter Wintonick award to a film that embodies Peter’s passionate commitment to films that take risks, push boundaries, and illuminate the unending complexity of the human condition. The winning film takes us inside a small rural village, where a woman struggles with the expectations and traditions of her family, her culture, and her community. The film is compassionate, poetic and strikingly candid and we think Peter would approve.
The winner of the Peter Wintonick Award goes to MOTHER OF THE UNBORN by director Nadine Salib.

Best documentary in the First appearance section:
A beautifully executed, riveting portrait of a young teenager who cannot seem to reconcile his passionate ambition with his inability to get his personal life in first gear. The film is compassionately observed, beautifully photographed, delicately edited with a flawless sound design and never seems to take a wrong turn. Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the First appearance section is: DRIFTER (photo) by Gábor Hörcher.

The members of the jury:

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/festival/award-winners-juries/juries-2014/first-appearance-competition.aspx

 

idfa Winners 2014

Here is the full press release from idfa – it came in late last night:

The winners have just been announced in IDFA’s various competition programs in the Compagnietheater in Amsterdam at the awards ceremony of the 27th IDFA. Of Men and War by Laurent Bécue-Renard won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary. Naziha’s Spring by Gülsah Dogan won the BankGiro Loterij IDFA Audience Award.

The film Giovanni and the Water Ballet by Astrid Bussink was chosen by a jury of children as the best Dutch youth documentary of the past year.

Laurent Bécue-Renard won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (€ 12,500) for Of Men and War (France / Switzerland). The film is about a group of American Iraq veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Director Bécue-Renard follows the group for many years during therapy sessions in a clinic for veterans.

From the jury report: The Jury recognizes a film that confronts us with our fragility as human beings, revealing that we must treat each other with gentleness and love. In a way that is never intrusive, the camera participates in therapy sessions for traumatized veterans. (…) A more powerful anti-war film is hard to imagine.

In addition, the jury presented the Special Jury Award to Something Better to Come (Denmark / Poland) by Hanna Polak, who for fourteen years followed

young girl Yula and those who share her fate, living in the biggest waste tip in Europe, just outside Moscow.

Both Of Men and War and Something Better to Come were pitched as projects at previous editions of the IDFA Forum.

Jury report for VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary

Julia Mironova won the NTR IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary (€ 10,000) for Kamchatka – The Cure for Hatred (Russia), a (self-)portrait of the former television reporter Vijatsjeslav Nemishev who in 2001 covered the war in Chechnya and now lives a withdrawn life on an island.

Jury report NTR IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary

The IDFA Award for First Appearance (€ 5,000) was presented to Gábor Hörcher for Drifter (Hungary / Germany), an up-close-and-personal portrait of a rebellious Hungarian racing talent who dramatically often veers of the socially accepted course.

In addition, the jury presented the Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance worth € 4,000, an incentive award in memory of Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick who passed away last year. The award went to Nadine Salib for Mother of the Unborn (Egypt / United Arab Emirates), about an Egyptian woman’s desire to become pregnant and thereby gain acceptance as a woman.

Mother of the Unborn received financial support from the IDFA Bertha Fund and was also one of the projects at the IDFAcademy Summerschool 2014.

Jury report IDFA Award for First Appearance 

The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary, worth € 5,000, went to The New Rijksmuseum – The Film by Oeke Hoogendijk. The film is a fascinating behind-the-scenes report on the large-scale renovation of the Netherlands’ most well-known museum, which took a total of ten years.

Jury report Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary

The BankGiro Loterij IDFA Audience Award (€ 5,000) went to Naziha’s Spring (the Netherlands) by Gülsah Dogan, a candid portrait of single mother Naziha, a number of whose children were the focus of negative media attention in 2007.

The IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling (€ 2,500) went to Serial (USA) by Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder. Serial is an audio-visual whodunit who keeps the followers of the podcast on permanent tenterhooks: who killed American schoolgirl Hae Min Lee?

Jury report IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling

The IDFA Award for Student Competition (€ 2,500) went to No Lullaby (Germany) by Helen Simon. The film is a reconstruction of a horrific family history across three generations.

Jury report IDFA Award for Student Competition

Alan Hicks received the IDFA Melkweg Music Documentary Audience Award (€ 2,500) for Keep on Keepin’ on (USA), about jazz legend Clark Terry (1920) and his young protégé Justin Kauflin, a blind jazz pianist.

The IDFA DOC U Award (€ 2,500), presented by a youth jury, went to Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland  for My Beautiful Broken Brain (UK). Following a serious stroke, resilient, intelligent Lotje Sodderland tries to recapture her previously glorious life.

Jury report IDFA DOC U Award

Finally, the Mediafondsprijs Kids & Docs 2014 was presented to Giovanni and the Water Ballet by Astrid Bussink. A special children’s jury chose Giovanni and the Water Ballet as the best Dutch youth documentary of the past year. Astrid Bussink received € 15,000 with which to make a new youth documentary.

Facts and figures

Although the festival runs until the end of Sunday, we can already say that the festival has once again attracted more visitors than last year.

If the trend continues over the next three days, the number of visits will have risen from 234.503 in 2013 to 250,000 this year. Net box-office takings increased from € 1.277.283  in 2013 to € 1.335.000 this year.

The number of festival guests from the Netherlands and abroad increased in relation to 2013 (2.691): 2.986 documentary professionals from the Netherlands and the rest of the world visited the festival during the past week.

The festival website was visited some 1,300,000 times since January 2014 from 226 different countries. The IDFA app was downloaded 12,000 times (7,000 in 2013).

In 2014, films were viewed on IDFA TV, IDFA’s online documentary channel, more than 65,000 times.

Approx. 12,500 school pupils from primary and secondary schools visited the schools’ screenings last week.

The next IDFA will take place from 18 through 29 November 2015.  

– See more at: http://www.idfa.nl/industry/press/28-november-of-men-and-war-wins-vpro-idfa-award-for-best-feature-length-documentary.aspx#sthash.oBefBdIZ.dpuf

Nadine Sahib: Mother of the Unborn

I met her in Damascus during the DoxBox festival and later again in Cairo for a workshop, so I know how hard Nadine Sahib has been working to complete her film, that now (bravo!) is at idfa, in the First Appearance Competition. I am not there but will watch the film on the brilliant Docs for Sale Online.

Melanie Goodfellow made an interview for the idfa daily – I have picked some quotes, please go and read it all, link below:

… the film explores prejudices towards infertile women in Upper Egypt through the plight of Hanan, a childless woman living in an impoverished village in the region. “I was intrigued by the Egyptian ancient tradition of naming infertile women ‘Mother of the Unborn’, or ‘Um Ghayeb’ in Arabic,” explains director Nadine Salib on the origin of the documentary. 

“I’d heard this term used a lot in Upper Egypt and decided to investigate the issue. These women are often stigmatised, even sometimes accused of bringing bad luck.” “I wanted to make a film about the Mother of the Unborn, but I didn’t exactly know what it would be about. Deep in me, I wanted to meditate on why it was so important for the women in the region to have a baby and why the women in the region were so keen to carry on living in such a harsh environment.”

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/daily/interviews/mother-of-the-unborn.aspx