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 Ten documentaries by Sergei Loznitsa, including his yet unpublished film master class, are available from December 1 to 14 at the DAFilms.com portal for free.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

Mark Soosaar: Vabatahtlikud (Volunteers)

I Danmarks Radios arkiv ligger en kopi af en dokumentarfilm fra 1919 med titlen ”Danish Volunteers” (betegnet ”Korps Westenholtz”), som Anton Kjædegård i 1972 opsporede hos et filmselskab i Ontario. Filmen er optaget af den danske fotograf Asbjørn Beck, der fulgte Kompagni Borgelin, et dansk frikorps, privat hær eller milits (knyttet til Korps Westenholtz, men nyere og under eget navn, Dansk-Baltisk Auxiliær Corps) på omkring 200 unge mænd, som under Richard Gustav Borgelins ledelse deltog på estisk side i kampene mod indtrængende russiske styrker under den estiske uafhængighedskrig 1918-20. Betydelige dele af denne film, altså Becks reportage fra fronten og fra bag fronten indgår i Mark Soosaars omhyggelige, speakbårne, roligt ordnede skildring af danske, svenske og finske frivilliges deltagelse i kampene og medvirken – måske lille af militært omfang, men betydelig som moralsk og politisk støtte – til den estiske uafhængighed og til oprettelsen af den estiske republik 2. februar 1920.

Filmen består af en række nye interviews med erindringer og kommentarer og af et sjældent arkivmateriale af film, stills, dagbøger og breve, et historisk tilbageblik, som nu i 2014 med ét kan siges at være alvorligt aktuelt: frivilliges deltagelse i militære konflikter i andre lande på politiske, religiøse og etiske grænsekrydsende grundlag.

Den koncentrerer sig i tre klare afsnit om tre nationaliteters frivillige, danske, svenske og finske unge nationaltsindede antikommunister og bygges der op om tre hovedpersoner, den danske kompagnichef Richard Borgelin, den svenske luftkaptajn Einar Lundborg og den finske kvinde Aino Mälkonen, som under mandsnavnet Aimo og i en mands uniform deltog i kampene. Afsnittene føjes i en afdæmpet, vemodig stemning sammen af et digt, som blev fundet i lommen på den danske frivillige Søren Richard Opffer, der faldt i kampene ved Ostrow 27. juli 1919 (FOTO). Digtet indgår i forskellig national musikalsk form i de tre afsnit, men på den samme visemelodi, man synes, man kender.

En enkelt overlevende nåede under filmens tilblivelse at give sit vidnesbyrd i filmen. Centralt placeret er der en samtale med Johannes Tark (1900-2004). I det han fortæller om krigen, knytter han uden at tænke over det, en kommentar til opfattelsen af fjenden. Alle andre steder i filmen omtales fjenden som bolsjevikkerne eller kommunisterne. Tark siger konsekvent russerne. Det er en tankevækkende detalje.

Estland 2006, 35 min. Weiko Saawa Film, Pärnu og Vesterholt Film og TV, København.

SYNOPSIS

Estonia became a sovereign nation after its War of Independence (1918- 1920), a war fought against Communist Russia to the east and forces loyal to Germany to the south. Military reinforcements for Estonia came from White Russians, Latvia and the UK. But lesser known is the aid of volunteer soldiers from Finland, Sweden and Denmark who joined Estonians in their fight and “Vabatahtlikud” focuses on this latter group. Among the heroes is Aino Mälkonen, a Finn who changes her name, cuts off her hair and joins the Estonian frontlines in battle in a man’s uniform.

Eesti Vabadussõja veteranid on nüüdseks kõik hinge heitnud kuid kajama jääb sõjaaegne keerukus ja segadus kus naaberriigid hästi tajusid kui habras on nende ende suveräänsus: kui Eesti langeb, võivad ka nemad kommunismi küüsi langeda. Film “Vabatahtlikud” käsitleb just neid Soomlasi, Rootslasi ja Taanlasi kes tulid Eestile appi. Kangelaste hulka kuulub ka Aino Mälkonen kes oma soo tõttu tõrjutakse Soome sõja rindelt, kuid kes võltsib oma eesnime passis meheks “Aimo”, ajab juuksed maha ja tõttab rindele, Eestimaale appi. (Languages: Estonian, no subtitles / English, voice over and subtitles)

http://www.mona.ee/eesti/ev96.htm (fra en Mark Soosaar retrospektiv serie på museet i Pärnu. Mark Soosaar står også bag Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival)

Cinema Vérité Festival Tehran

From November 30th till December 7th the DEFC (Documentary & Experimental Film Center) organizes the 8th edition of Cinema Vérité Iran International Documentary Film Festival.

There have previously been appeals for boycott of this festival, that of course is supported by the government, several have asked me whether they should let their film go there or not, my answer is yes, ”take a look at the programme of the festival” and I have listened to what EDN’s film consultant Ove Rishøj Jensen has said, he has been there and knows the people behind the festival.

And this year he and EDN (taken from EDN website) ”… are in collaboration organising the first edition of Cinema Verite DocPro. It is a three-day seminar focusing on the international documentary market. Taking place in the framework of the 8th Cinema Verite documentary film festival, Cinema Verite DocPro will offer Iranian filmmakers three days of seminar sessions, focusing on a variety of aspects connected to working with international documentary projects. Among the topics covered during the seminar are pitching of documentary projects, international financing possibilities, how to construct documentary narratives and project consultations…” The workshop runs December 4-6.

The festival has a fine programme – let me mention Oppenheimer’s ”The Look of Silence”, ”Deep Love” by Jan Matuszynski, ”The Man who Made Angels Fly” by Wiktoria Szymanska   , ”Two Ragin Grannies” by Hpåvard Bustness, ”A Diary of a Journey” by Piotr Stasik, ”National Gallery” by Frederick Wiseman, ”Five Broken Cameras” by Guy Davidi and Ema Burnat, ”Concerning Violence” (photo) by Göran Olsson, ”Happiness” by Thomas Balmes as well as there are retrospectives from Visions du Réel and a panorama of Japanese documentaries. Read more on the website, which is still a bit incomplete.

www.edn.dk

http://www.defc.ir/en/festival/index.php?fid=50&yearId=28

Camerimage Poland

The 22nd edition of Camerimage in Poland, a festival that has its focus on cinemetography ended on the 22nd of November. The festival includes documentaries in its award-giving and distributes life-achievement awards as well. One was given to a well-known, world famous documentarian:

“It gives us great pleasure to announce that the recipient of this year’s Camerimage Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking will be Kim Longinotto (photo), one of the most acclaimed cinéma vérité filmmakers in the world, a true activist whose life’s mission is to shed light on the problems of women in different parts of the globe, and to inspire people to seek the change within themselves first.”

In the documentary category of this year’s competition two films were awarded, to the cameraman/men, two from Russia and one from Colombia:

Golden Frog — Grand Prix: Blood

cin. Yura Gautsel, Sergei Maksimov

dir. Alina Rudnitskaya

Special Mention: Monte Adentro

cin. Mauricio Vidal

dir. Nicolás Macario Alonso

http://www.camerimage.pl/en/Camerimage-2014-Winners.html

Eszter Hajdu: Judgement in Hungary

It’s never too late to review an important documentary. I had for years known about “Judgement in Hungary”, seen clips, some very rough cuts, always in doubt whether it would be possible to make a feature length documentary (primarily) located in a court room. I hesitated but a day during the Jihlava festival, at the videotheque, I watched it, I saw no more films on that day deeply impressedby what I saw. Hajdu and her team has succeeded to make a film, shot over several years, into a drama that will stay as an artistically formulated document over xenophobia in our times in a European country. A story about horrific attacks on an ethnic minority.

Content – taken from the One World Festival catalogue:

For three years, a film crew followed the trial of four members of a Hungarian criminal gang accused of a series of racially motivated murders of six Roma, including children. It took more than a year just to apprehend the culprits, and the case dragged on, mainly because of a lack of evidence and gross police misconduct. Thanks to the constant presence of cameras in the courtroom, director Eszter Hajdú succeeded in capturing the dramatic progress of the closely watched trial, which created a media frenzy. Will the trial conclude with a verdict that brings the survivors of three Roma families some measure of closure? Can they trust in the fairness of the Hungarian state?”

The verdict is given on Day 167 of the trial! For those who have not seen the film, I will not reveal what the judge states in this final scene. Watching the film you wonder, what will be the final result. What I can say is that the building of the film is unique. You get to know the 4 accused of killing six people, including one child, you see the relatives being questioned in the court room, and first of all you have a main character, the judge, who presides over it all like a conductor of an orchestra or like the director of a play on good and evil. He shouts at both parties, the accused and the witnesses, making them understand that they should behave according to his codex. The judge is ”a mental sadist”, one of the accused says! Sometimes it is like a performance of an absurd theatre piece followed by a constant sound of a typewriter/computer, where every word being said is put down. In and out the court room the accused are being led by guards with covered faces. In and out the stage. Step by step the drama is built. Accompanied by music here and there. Sentimental, no, but bringing the tough images of the crimes to the eyes of the viewer.

No wonder that this film has got so many awards and after its international premiere at idfa 2013 still travels.

Hungary, 2013, 108 mins.

http://www.hajdueszter.com/en/Bio.html

Amir Labaki on It’s All True

Festival director and film critic Amir Labaki is in Amsterdam for IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) and is interviewed for the fine Daily News of the festival – an online press service of the festival, in general to be recommended, in this  case specifically to know why the high quality documentary festival has the name it has. Here is a small quote from the interview by Nick Cummingham:

”… And then there’s the festival name, inspired by Orson Welles’ unfinished ‘masterpiece’ about Rio. “Welles came to Brazil and tried to make his film, but he couldn’t finish it. The Americans called him back, cut his budget, took away the prints and he could never work on it again. When I was starting the festival two things happened.

In Berlin, I saw the documentary (also called It’s All True) about the Welles film and it was obvious that it was as important to Welles as Que Viva Mexico was to Eisenstein. And then Beatrice Welles, Orson’s daughter, came to Brazil in 1995 and I immediately thought of the festival title, to say thank you to Mr Welles because he came to Brazil to make a great film about my country – but also because it’s a great title for a festival…”

Indeed it is – the 20th edition takes place April 9-19 in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo – I was a jury member in 2002, pure pleasure, and the winner was ”August” by Avi Mograbi, a film that by no means has lost its actuality.

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/daily/newsfeed/more-than-amir-festival.aspx

http://www.itsalltrue.com.br/en/home/