DOKLeipzig 2014/ 1/ Edward Snowden

Time runs. From Jihlava to Leipzig monday, from one documentary film festival to the next one with a special bus, a symbol of festival friendship, this initiative has been called. And we were many, who accepted the generous offer of transport. 6 hours, internet, free coffee, beer and water to be paid for. Many slept for hours, some small-talked, some read or watched films online.  

Arrival in Leipzig, accreditation at the festival centre at the Art Museum and off to the opening ceremony at Cine Star 8. Totally full with an extra cinema occupied. Speeches and jury presentation and then “Citizenfour” by Laura Poitras. An impressive documentation, I need to watch it again, it was late after the bus ride and I took what I think is called a “nickerchen” in German!

But before the film a video message from Edward Snowden was shown: I’ve never agreed to do an introduction to this film. Not in the UK, not in the US – not in New York or San Francisco or anything like that. But when somebody asked me if I would do it for Leipzig, I said yes and that`s because your history is an inspiration to me. It`s critical that we remember the lessons from history. And Leipzig reminded us that the wall and the GDR didn`t go down because of bombs or guns or violent resistance. It was brought down by ordinary people on the streets in the square on Mondays. Ordinary people against extraordinary powers reminded us that the legitimacy of governments is derived from this consent of the people that they are governing. And today when that  principle is so often forgotten,  we have so many governments, even in liberal democracies, western democracies, not just authoritarian regimes, that so frequently favor tactics of deception and secrecy we do remember that the consent of the government is only meaningful if it`s informed. Thank you and I hope you enjoy the film.

I am writing this in a new Motel One super-designed hotel next to Nikolaikirche, where the peaceful Monday-demonstrations took place 25 years ago.

Snowden’s speech to be found on

http://www.dok-leipzig.de

Kyoko Miyake: Brakeless

DR2 har temauge om Japan. Det fører en stribe dokumentarer med sig: Mandag: ”Tsunamiens Børn”, tirsdag: ”Sex? Nej tak, vi er fra Japan”, onsdag: ”Japans forbudte sexhotel”, torsdag: ”Lej en familie A/S”. Efter Dokumania i aften tirsdag hvor ”Brakeless” sendes 20.45 vises desuden ”Selvmordsskoven i Japan” kl. 22. Med de danske titler og uden instruktør- eller andre navne, kan det være svært at gennemskue, hvad det drejer sig om. “Japans forbudte sexhotel”, hvis engelske titel er den mere loyale “Love Hotel“, og ”Lej en familie” har Tue Steen Müller skrevet om her på Filmkommentaren.

Det er altså Dokumania-dag i dag og redaktionen har i Nick Frasers Storyvilleprogram fundet den Londonbaserede japanske instruktør Kyoko Miyakes: ”Brakeless” fra BBC Four i marts i år, hvor den havde premiere i en 60 min. version, og viser den i aften i feature-version med den forklarende danske titel ”Når tid slår ihjel – den japanske togkatastrofe”. De uddyber i denne synopsis: ” Mandag den 25. april 2005 sker en af Japans største togulykker i moderne historie. En lokofører på et lokaltog forsøger at indhente en forsinkelse på bare 80 sekunder, men toget afsporer som følge af den høje hastighed. Det styrter ned i et højhus og dræber 107 mennesker. Hvilket pres lå lokoføreren under for, da han risikerede så meget for en minimal forsinkelse? Og er ulykker som denne et resultat af et moderne japansk samfund, hvor hastighed sidestilles med fremskridt og punktlighed og omkostningseffektivitet sættes over alt andet? Det er spørgsmål som disse, filmens japanske instruktør Kyoko Miyake prøver at finde svar på.”

På BBC’s hjemmeside (se nedenfor) er der en interessant Q&A, som Storyville har med hende. Her fortæller hun blandt andet om denne vigtige erfaring med sin metode:…

På spørgsmålet: ”Best piece of filmmaking advice you’ve ever been given?” svarer hun: ”Don’t be afraid of asking daft questions. I became quite close to some of the characters in Brakeless. One of them – the artist with the can – said to me about half a year after we met, ‘Kyoko, you have become quite boring these days. You started to sound like just another Japanese journalist. I don’t know why I am talking to you anymore. When you first came to meet me, you were completely ignorant about the accident but at least you had a lot of quite crazy ideas and strange questions that intrigued me. Now you might know more about the accident, but so do the local journalists. What’s the point of you coming all the way from London and doing this film?’ This was a wake up call for me and I realised that I was too desperate to internalise myself and to show off my newly acquired knowledge, and I had stopped asking questions that came naturally.” Jeg vil bestemt se den film, høre hendes interviews og se, hvordan det lykkes for hende at gøre historien, denne frygtelige historie karakterdrevet, hvad hun fremhæver som vigtigst.

UK 2014, 77 min. Sendes på DR2 Dokumania i aften 28. oktober 20.45 og kan derefter formodentlig nogle få dag ses på Dokumanias hjemmeside:

http://www.dr.dk/tv/se/dokumania/dokumania-nar-tid-slar-ihjel-den-japanske-togkatastrofe

Storyville Q&A med Kyoko Miyake:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yfwk3  

KYOKO MIYAKE har lavet en række kortfilm og disse to lange film: “Beyond the wave” (2013) og Brakeless (2014)

Jihlava 2014 /Winners

The website of the Jihlava IDFF announced last night:

OPUS BONUM – Best World Documentary Film Award

Best Film: Je suis le peuple (I Am the People), dir. Anna Rousillion

Special Mention: 20 Centavos (20 Cents), dir. Tiag Tambelli and Persiguiendo al Dragón (Chasing after the Wind), dir. Juan Camilo Olmos Ferise

Member of the jury: elimir ilnik

CZECH JOY – Best Czech Documentary Film Award

Best Film: K oblakům vzhlííme (Into the Clouds We Gaze), dir. Martin Dušek

Special Mention: Několik Let (Lets Block), dir. Martina Malinová

Members of the jury: Bohdan Bláhovec, Ivo Mathé, Tereza Czesany Dvořáková, Martin Kolář, Petr Hruška

FASCINATIONS – Best Experimental Documentary Film Award

Best Film: Hacked Circuit, dir. Deborah Stratmen

Special Mention: Sexuální boj zboí (The Sexual Struggle of Commodities), dir. r. Pavel Sterec, Vilém Novák

Members of the jury: Eve Heller, Peter Tscherkassky

BETWEEN THE SEAS – Best Central and Eastern European Documentary Film

Best Film: We come as friends, dir. Hubert Sauper

Members of the jury: Raymond Bellour, Deborah Stratman, Kateřina Šedá, Albert Serra, Nick Bradshaw

FIRST LIGHTS – Best documentary debut or second film in section Opus Bonum, Between the Seas or Czech Joy

Best Film: Je suis le peuple (I Am the People), dir. Anna Rousillion

Members of the jury: Ceciliea Barrionuevo, Haruka Hama, Ludmila Cviková, Veton Nurkollari, Mathieu Darras

SHORT JOY – Best european documentary short

Best Film: Babash, dir. Lisa Truttmann, Behrouz Rae

Members of the jury: Rafani

CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD

Godfrey Reggio (photo)

AUDIENCE AWARD

Audience Award: Danielův svět (Daniel´s World), dir. Veronika Lišková

BEST FESTIVAL POSTERS

Festival Identity: DOKUFEST

Silver Eye Winners Announced in Jihlava

News taken from the website of the IDF (Institute of Documentary Films): For the sixth time at Jihlava International Film Festival, Institute of Documentary Film announced Silver Eye winners at the Closing Ceremony. The holders of the awards are three extraordinary documentaries from East Silver Market, selected in three categories, as well as three Special Mentions.

The aim of the Silver Eye award is to introduce the new talents to the international audience and to bring the attention of industry professionals to the new interesting films from Central and Eastern Europe, and to help the nominated films to find sales agents, broadcasters and festival releases. All Silver Eye winners receive the trophy designed by Czech artist Tereza Durdilova, as well as 1 500 EUR prize money. On top of that, the awarded films are about to enjoy the year-long distribution support within East Silver Caravan festival service, shipping them to more than 108 international film festivals.The awards are supported by MEDIA programme.

Silver Eye winners 2014:

Category: Short

Silver Eye Award:  The Visit (Matej Bobrik, Poland, 2013)

Special Mention: 1973 (r. Stefan Ivancic, Serbia, 2014)

Category: Mid-length

Silver Eye Award:  Blood (Alina Rudnitskaya, Russia, 2013)

Special Mention: Euromaidan. Rough Cut (Various Artists, Ukraine, 2014) (photo)

Category: Feature

Silver Eye: Toto and His Sisters (Alexander Nanau, Romania, 2014)

Special Mention: Gottland (Viera Čákanyová, Petr Hátle, Lukáš Kokeš, Klára Tasovská, Rozálie Kohoutová, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, 2014)

Jury statements:

Category: Short

A Special Mention is first given to a film whose beautiful cinematography poetically captures the essence of a community stuck in time, longing for an era that is long gone: 1973 by Stefan Ivancic.

The best documentary category is awarded to a film that succeeds in its form to parallel the emotions of its protagonists, and a film whose choreography touches delicately on a universal theme that relates to modern society: The Visit by Matej Bobrik.

Category: Mid-length

As jury members we think that this is important material to see. It’s a material that’s making the history of new countries. The special mention goes to Euromaidan: Rough Cut

This film ticked all the boxes. For us, it was topically, cinematically and from arts point of view the best film from all of the 11 nominated films. The Silver Eye Award goes to Blood by Alina Rudnitskaya.

Category: Feature

The jury unanimously decided to give a special mention to a film that impressed us for its daring approach to collective filmmaking where each director give to the film a singular vision that blends into one unique universe. The special mention goes to Gottland by Lukáš Kokeš, Petr Hátle, Rozálie Kohoutová and Viera Čákanyová.

The Silver Eye Award goes to a film that give a just portrait of the struggle of three children finding a secure place in a hostile environment. An unintrusive yet intimate eye on the daily life of the characters that builds a very compelling coming of age story. The Silver Eye Award goes to Toto and His Sisters by Alexander Nanau.

http://www.dokweb.net/en/

CPH:DOX 2014 /John Skoog

RÉDUIT af John Skoog

En eneste lang kamerabevægelse afsøger en bygning, langsomt. Ustandselig, men langsom. Jeg får tid til at tænke, det er det værste. Bygningen er brutalt og primitivt og massivt opført og nok aldrig blevet færdig og har længe været i forfald. Jeg har forstået, at den er det menige forsvar mod det generalstabsudformede angreb, men ser og tænker så, at den er i mærkelig slægt med det generalstabsudformede forsvar, som på andre steder, på andre marker og på kyster andre steder ligger i ruiner.

Den korte film er en andagt, en meditation, og altså en tankemaskine… Jeg kan ikke få den ud af hovedet, det er heller ikke meningen… jeg kan heller ikke blive fri af tankerne. Jeg tænker på Torkil Funders bonde, Johannes Betel, kartoffeltyskeren, som efterhånden som slægtsgården faldt sammen om ham rykkede ind i et sidste afstivet rum og værgede for sig med erindringer og fortællinger. Johannes Bertel var også en af disse særlinge, disse angste enspændere, som selv sørger for at forsvare sig mentalt eller, som jeg ser Karl-Göran i filmen her i årevis dengang i 1960-erne gjorde, fysisk. Han forstærkede sit hus med jern og beton. I det uendelige.

Der kommer stemmer til den langsomt betragtende kamerabevægelse. Kvindestemmer, senere mandsstemmer, alle off, og der er lyd af trin. Nogen går omkring, undersøgende (jeg går iblandt dem og ser på bygningen sammen med dem), de fortæller hinanden erindringer om bygningen. Fortet hedder det, Karl-Göran hed bygmesteren. Jeg får ikke fat i så meget mere, men deres svenske sprog gør, at jeg fra en anden film, Bergmans ”Nadvergæsterne” kommer til at tænke på (der er tid til at tænke) tænke på stakkels Fru Persson, som i Mittsundas 1100-tals kirke tilsvarende solidt bygget, ”ikke stor, men velproportioneret” læser jeg i Bergmans manuskript, solidt bygget formodentlig til forsvar og velproportioneret til messer tænker jeg, og læser om fru Persson, som er ude af sig sig selv af bekymring for sin solide mand, fiskeren Jonas Persson, som er kommet på selvmordstanker (hans forsvar tænker jeg) af frygt for krigen og nu søger præstens råd, taler på mandens vegne og siger, skriver Bergman: ”…Der stod i den der artikel… Det er et spørgsmål om tid, hvornår kineserne har atombomben. De har ingenting at tabe. Sådan stod der. (Pause) Jeg er ikke så bange. Det er vel bare, fordi jeg ikke har så meget fantasi. Men Jonas tænker altid og vi vender og drejer det. Selv om jeg ikke kan være til så megen hjælp. Vi har tre børn – og så den der kommer. Hun tier og afventer et svar fra præsten, som er støtten og hjælpen. Hun lægger mandens liv i hans hænder og håber på det ord, der skal bringe rede i denne kinesiske trussel.”

35 mm kameraet, jeg ved det i forvejen og jeg kan godt se det, det ER noget andet, det her er egentlig film, her faktisk film pure, dette 35 mm kamera fortsætter sin insisterende bevægelse, undersøger detaljer og mere og mere helheder, mere og mere af topografien, af landskabet og efterhånden hele bygningen i landskabet. Denne film er statue, ikke fortælling, og den er et rent cinematografisk tænkt eksistentielt essay over en tragedie på dette sted. Erindringer i observerende filmstil, en insisterende cinéma vérité, et filmkunstnerisk forehavende. Det er direct cinema over en følsom besigtigelse af et monument over angsten. Måske…

Sverige 2014, 14 min. Vises på CPH:DOX 2014 8., og 13. november. Link til steder og billetbestilling her:

http://cphdox.dk/screening/reduit-episode-sea/?title=7442

John Skoogs offentlighed er vist især kunstmuseer og kunsthaller. Her eksempel på en præsentaton:

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/blog/john-skoog-redoubt-towner-museum-art-gallery-eastbourne/

JOHN SKOG

Sent på Jorden (2004), Video-Dumbo (2013), Echo (2013),Taming the Narrative (2013), A Time for Dreams (2014), Redoubt (2014)

Litt.: Torkil Funder: ”På tidens bro” i Per Kirkeby og William Gelius (red.): Per Kirkeby. Ribe Kunstmuseum, 1996. Ingmar Bergman: En Filmtrilogi, 1963. (da. 1966)

Jihlava 2014 /Wojciech Staron

Take a look at the photo. It’s about Love, isn’t it? It comes from the film of Polish Wojciech Staron, ”Siberian Lesson”, that he made in 1998. On film stock. Here is the Jihlava catalogue description of the film: In an attempt at renewing the national identity of emigrants, after the fall of communism, Poland began to send teachers to areas, where Poles had settled. The director’s wife was one such “missionary”, and her commentary recounts her experiences of living on the remote Siberian plains.

Indeed it does recount and you get a fine impression of people and life in tough living conditions, but the film is also a declaration of Love from film director and cameraman Wojciech Staron to his girlfriend Malgosia. Caught by a caressing camera of the young Wojciech, who more than a decade later has established himself as one of the most prominent European documentarians with a unique ability to ”follow through emotions”. One of many quotable

sentences from Staron yesterday in Jihlava in a totally packed Dukla Edison cinema, where his two lesson films were screened followed by a question and answer session.

I asked him what he had learnt professionally in the time between 1998 and 2011. To trust the image, he said, to understand that the image carries information. And making feature fiction films has taught me a lot. You can see that, was my reply, there is ”a story” in ”Argentinian Lesson”, a ”love story” that develops between his son Janek and Marcia, the Argentinian girl with Polish origins, whose family background (ill mother, father working elsewhere) is tragic.

Staron talked a lot about film and video. The two lesson films are shot on film stock with a pretty small ratio: He brought home 4 hours from Siberia and 9 hours from Argentina. The huge different is the way of working, he said. With film you don’t see what you have filmed before the material is developed (he had material developed every third month when in Argentina), with video you have it and can watch it immediately. Staron stressed that he wants to be involved in the situations with his camera and told the filmmakers present that you have to be aware of the important tools you have: 1) What distance do you want to have from the characters, 2) Consequently, what lens do you choose, 3) What camera movements do you choose. Interesting it was to hear about his relationship to Janek in Argentina, that he characterised as ”we were playing together”, me with the camera and all the technical problems you  always have, he in front of the camera. We came very close to each other, in a different way than as a father and son.

I saw ”Siberian Lesson” at Cinema du Réel way back at the end of the 1990’es. To watch it again was a wonderful experience. You can’t help falling in love with Malgosia, as Wojciech did, and you have tears of joy in your eyes when they get married in Siberia. Romantic, yes, Staron is a filmmaker who follows the emotional line, wherever he goes. New lessons, he was asked, I would love to but my son does not want to leave Poland. Polish Lesson, one suggested…

Siberian Lesson, 1998, 58 mins.

Argentinian Lesson, 2011, 59 mins.

http://www.dokument-festival.com  

Jihlava 2014 /Kerekes and Janek

Gustav Mahler was in Jihlava. His face is looking at me from the wall in the breakfast room of Grand Hotel, which was grand once, an art nouveau building from the outside but how could they put that terrible furniture into the lobby! Tasteless. Anyway, service is fine and kind. Back to business, well actually pleasure:

After having three one hour meetings with filmmakers participating at the training programme Ex Oriente, a masterclass was held by Peter Kerekes and it lived up, to what I had expected. Kerekes showed clips from the three films that have given him the well deserved reputation as a documentary auteur with his own style, ”66 Seasons”, ”Cooking History” and ”Velvet Terrorists”.

The Slovak told the audience why he is not able to make observational documentaries, he feels uncomfortable by being there and telling his characters that ”just don’t notice that I am here”! Reality is not in front of the camera, it’s in my head. For the ”66 Seasons” I did a deep research to make sure that they would talk about the past, what happened way back around the swimming pool in Kosice. I wrote everything down when having filmed, a good

exercise and then I could go back and make my characters do something unexpected to get away from the tone of being official, when a camera is there. If they trust you there are no borders.

The scenes Kerekes showed from ”66 Seasons” (photo) were hilarious – the man coming up from the water looking like Adolf, because one of the old women had a boyfriend, who had that little moustache. People love to play their own life and I was positively surprised that a film so local could sell to almost all tv stations in Europe. I think I succeeded in bringing energy into the scenes of the film. As for ”Cooking History” the situation was different as I had to make a very precise script for this film which was more a ”documentary theatre” than a ”documentary film”. He showed the ”epilogue” of the film in which the former u-boat cook is preparing the meal standing in the sea… the idea of the cook himself! Finally some words about ”Velvet Terrorists”… where it was difficult to make one of the terrorists perform. One of the co-directors, Ivan Ostrochovsky, whispered to Kerekes, ”give him a girl”, which turned out to be a great idea – in the film you see how ”the terrorist” teaches a young girl how to use weapons, how to lie to a lie detector (!) and many other tricks. Where the two first films were shot on film, ”Velvet Terrorists” was made on video and the team ended up with a lot of material. A brilliant 90 minutes masterclass, Kerekes is an original documentary humorist.

At night world premiere of Miroslav Janek’s ”The World According to Brabenec”, full house in the big cinema, wonderful atmosphere because of the charismatic old man. One more remarkable film from the hands of Janek, here is the catalogue description:

“Journalist Renata Kalenská’s book of interviews with member of the Plastic People Vratislav Brabenec recorded not only his memories of the underground years, but also the author’s experiences with this highly distinctive individual. This cinematic sequel builds on those experiences as it captures her additional interviews with Brabenec – improvised talks at places that hold some meaning for Brabenec or Kalenská. The result is several scenes of irrelevant philosophising, self-deprecating humor, and commentary on the life of birds and on nature in general. The conversations, recorded mostly by hand-held camera, are interspersed with poetic citations. “Do you ever feel happy?” “I don’t like the word happy at all. I equate happy with stupid.” “I’m unhappy with you. So I guess I’m un-stupid.””

Several films of Kerekes and Janek can be found on DocAlliance, Kerekes films can be bought via his website.

http://www.dokument-festival.com

http://kerekesfilm.com/?lang=en

http://dafilms.com/

CPH:DOX 2014 /Widmann og Krause

SCENARIO af Philip Widmann og Karsten Krause

De to på dette still har en affære. Det er en kort scene, der er nogle få flere i filmen, de er alle iscenesat, de er vignetter i den vældigt omfattende dokumentation af den mindste og almindeligste kærlighedshistorie i verden. Det er dokumentationen som gør den usædvanlig, bemærkelsesværdig og til posthum kandidat til århundredets største.

Jeg læser ikke filmen som en lummer romance, som festivalkataloget formulerer det, jeg læser såvel emne som værk, som jeg læser Orhan Pamuks roman ”Uskyldens Museum”. Jeg ser filmens autentiske, fotografiske, lydbåndbundne og fysiske artefakter, som jeg tror, jeg ville se hans museum i Istanbul, grebet og berørt af materialets aura af ømhed. Jeg tror også, jeg ville se Susanne Zanders udstilling i Berlin af dokumentmappen og dens indhold, ”Günter K.: Margret-Chronik einer Affäre ” på samme måde. Filmen bygger på den udstilling. Det er en rørende og uskyldig affære. Hvis nogen er skyldige, er det galleriejeren og filminstruktørerne. Men de er også modige, de har vist mig almindelighedens poesi.

Susanne Zander beskriver på sin hjemmeside historien ganske kort: ”Margret (udstillingens titel) chronicles a secret love story, which took place from May 1969 to December 1970 between the Cologne businessman Günter K., 39, and his secretary Margret S., 24 – a meticulous documentation consisting of various photographs and documents, which were found in a briefcase at the dissolution of an apartment.The convolute comprises of hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs showing the same woman in various places and poses: sitting at a typewriter at the office, traveling, and in a hotel room…” (En fotoserie på hjemmesiden viser et ganske lille, vemodigt gribende udvalg, dybt intime souvenirs forvandlet til genstande i en offentlig kunstsamling.)

Det kan være, at filmens Hans, som altså hænger sammen med 1970-virkelighedens Günter K., samlede dette materiale i dokumentmappen for på det grundlag at skrive en bog om sin kærlighed, sin forelskelse, som Pamuks hovedperson Kemal Bey samlede tingene til sit museums og Pamuks romans virkelighed og bad Pamuk skrive romanen, som skulle være udstillingens katalog. Filmens tilsvarende museumssamler, Hans finder bare ikke ordene, som skal forvandle notater og artefakter til hans kærligheds historie, han dør fra opgaven, og den sorte mappe ligger tilbage i lejligheden. I filmens virkelighed, i udstillingens, i virkelighedens.

”Scenario” er en cinematografisk tænkt og uhyre skarpt gennemført dokumentarfilm. En tragedie og et melankolsk essay over erindringens og kærlighedens fysiske fremtræden og over biografiens væsen samlet i arkivets, dagbogens og collagens filmkunstneriske form.

Tyskland 2014, 89 min. Vises på CPH:DOX 2014 9., 10. og 14. november. Links til steder og billetbestilling her:

http://cphdox.dk/screening/scenario

Beskrivelse af “Scenario” fra filmfestivalen i Berlin, kataloget:

http://www.richfilm.de/filmUpload/1-framesSzenario.html

Susanne Zanders udstillingsbeskrivelse:

http://www.galerie-zander.de/artist.php?lang=en&a=guenther_k

Sebastian Frenzel, anmeldelse af udstillingen i Innsbruck og Berlin:

http://www.monopol-magazin.de/artikel/20105782/Guenther-Margret-Secret-Diary-Kunstraum-Innsbruck-Kunst-Werke-KW-Institute-Berlin.html

Jihlava 2014 /Kerekes, Mansky, Nellis

SECOND CHANCE / THE ETERNAL LIGHT / AUDITIONING FOR PARENTHOOD

I am back in Jihlava after 5 years. I stopped working for the training programme Ex Oriente in 2009, where the final session with pitching took place in this cosy provincial town, where time seems to stand still. But where a documentary film festival is taking place for the 18th time. From the start under the leadership of energetic Marek Hovorka, who is always going for the different films and have established interesting sections for his programme. The festival has a huge industry programme, the excellent DocAlliance is here, the Silver Market, loads of masterclasses with directors like Godfrey Reggio, Peter Kerekes and Nicolas Philibert.

I went to the Silver Market and watched some short documentaries. Peter Kerekes came up – again – with a surprise, entertaining and thought-provoking. Title ”Second Chance” (photo, 12 minutes, he visits an old lady, whose birthday is October 28, the independence day of Slovakia (1918). To ask for her advice. His plan is to fight the corrupted policy of current Slovakia and his idea is to ask a country to invade Slovakia to establish better conditions – as communist leader in Czekoslovakia Bilak did in 1968, when he and others in the top of the communist party asked Brezhnev to help! Kerekes goes to Finland for help! It’s excellent!

More observational is Vitaly Mansky’s ”The Eternal Light”, shot in Ukraine on Victory Day, May 9, where the war veterans join around the memorial statue and the eternal flame that unfortunately has gone out. He meets a veteran in his home, stories from the war are told. 15 minutes, whereas Laila Pakalnina has made a two minutes piece, that in her classical search for weird situations has one shot on football players lined up side by side waiting for the result of a penalty shoot… for football freaks like me funny, will others understand.

At night a walk through the quiet and softly lighted town, following the white lines that take you from cinema to cinema, a fantastic idea that the festival has performed year after year. To a three hour opening of the festival, a show for more than one hour and a film about families adopting children, ”Auditioning for Parenthood” by Alica Nellis. For me a mainstream tv documentary full of talking generalities, have to talk to Marek Hovorka why a festival that advocates for film Art starts like that.

http://www.dokument-festival.com/

http://www.wff.pl/en/filmy/second-chance-slovakia-2-0/