Cinedoc-Tbilisi Second Edition

The Georgian international documentary film festival has launched its programme for its second edition (October 14-19), well thought and competent, with competitive sections and side bars like ”Ukranian Voices”.

Here you find ”Euromaidan” put together by Darya Averchenko and Roman Bondarchuk, “Cornered” (photo) by Dmitro Tyazhlov, “Sickfuckpeople” by Juri Rechinsky – all praised on filmkommentaren – and “Ukraine Voices” from 2014 that I don’t know. Bravo, I wonder how many other festivals have a section like this, a tribute to the brave filmmakers in the haunted country.

In the main competition with 9 films you find good works as “Life Almost Wonderful” by Svetoslav Draganov from Bulgaria – Draganov has developed a special style, also used in his previous film “City of Dreams” – the warm human portraits in “Ne me Quitte Pas” by Sabine Lubbe Bakker & Niels van Koevorden and the impressive “Judgement in Hungary” by Eszter Hajdu.

In the “Focus Caucasus” only three out of ten films are known to me, all fine films: Emel Celebi’s cinematic homage to cleaning ladies in Turkey, “Ain’t No Cinderellas”, Georgian Ana Tsimintia’s brilliant “Biblioteka” and Alina Rudnitskaya’s “Blood” that was awarded some days ago at the Message2Man festival in St. Petersburg. Rudnitskaya is for me the chronicler of social Russia today. Again – to have a focus on films from Caucasus (including Russia and Turkey) is the right move for the festival in Tbilisi that hopefully will have as good an audience as I experienced last year at the first edition.

Read all about it on the website:

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/

Nordisk Panorama 25!

Nordisk Panorama 25! – a documentary tour down memory lane. Yes, the first one was in Grimstad, this idyllic and romantic spot on the South coast of Norway. I was there and so was she, with whom I have shared my life since then. Grimstad 1990, unforgettable, a place in my heart… I was there on behalf of Statens Filmcentral (National Film Board of Denmark) and as part of the group that was to set up Filmkontakt Nord the year after. Therefore, a thank you for asking me to write about what has happened to Nordic documentaries in the quarter of a century that has passed. I have chosen to primarily go back to focus on directors and films, which I remember and which have made an impact on the Nordic and/or the international scene. You will probably miss some, especially ”newer” ones, I can’t cover it all. You will agree that nothing is so boring as extensive name- and title-dropping. I will try to control myself. And of course it is a personal choice that I have made.

SOCIAL AND OBSERVATIONAL

There was a pretty strong line-up of documentaries in 1990. When I look at the list of films and directors in competition (there were no films from Iceland and only one from Finland!), in my view, three stand out and have indeed put their mark on Nordic documentaries.

Sigve Endresen was there with ”For your Life” (”For harde livet”), 98 minutes of strong social documentary on drug addicts, a film that reached a huge audience in the cinemas of Norway and opened the door for the director to make another critical statement on how the society treats its outsiders – ”Big Boys Don’t Cry” (”Store gutter gråter ikke”) on young prisoners taking part in a rehabilitation project. It was at Nordisk Panorama (NP) 1995, followed by ”Living Among Lions”(”Leve blandt løver”) at NP 1998, on three young people who suffer from cancer. In 2002 he took part in NP with the portrait of singerKari Iveland, named ”Weightless” (”Vektløs”). The style of his films is direct, mostly with no sentimentality.

I remember that we Danes were jealous on the Norwegians, who could get documentary films reach the cinema. And also have them used in educational contexts – here we touch upon a typical Nordic issue that I have always highlighted at workshops abroad: the non-theatrical use of films for public education and debate. 

As Jørgen Roos (also in my school time) took me to Greenland with his many films, giving me an insight to their culture and people, Ulla Boje Rasmussen is the documentarian, who has taken me and audiences around the world to her beloved Faroe Islands (Færøerne). ”1700 Metres from the Future” (”1700 meter fra fremtiden”) includes gorgeous nature sequences and fine portraits of the 16 (!) inhabitants, who get a tunnel connecting them to the rest of the world. The film is a classic in Danish documentary history with superb cinematography by Andreas Fischer-Hansen, also the producer. The two stood behind Nordfilm (right name!) that also made the follow-up ”The Light on Mykines Island” (”Tre blink mod vest”) (NP 1992), equally from the islands towards the North… I will send you to another island, said a filmconsultant years later, he happened to be me, to the director, let’s find an island in the South for a new film. Ulla chose Sardinia and out came ”Coro di Bosa” (NP 1998), which as the Faroe films had a fine international career. Boje Rasmussen has later on returned to the North making films in Greenland and Iceland, and one about the independence movement in Faroe Islands. The latter was at NP 2003, entitled ”Rugged Road to Independence” (”Færøerne.dk”).

1700 Metres from the Future

FILM AND VIDEO

Most of the films from 1990 were shot on 16 or 35mm film. One can reflect a lot on what has happened with the documentary going from film to video. Quality in cinematography has gone radically down, many say. There is a lack of focus, many think they will ”just” organize it all in the editing room and as most of the films end up on a tv screen anyway, why care so much about the image quality, others say. This discussion is of course aimless today, in 2014, where all is shot with cameras that can produce images with sense of Cinema, in times wheremore and more documentary films end up on the big screens throughfestivals like NP and/or state supported distribution initiatives.

Why are documentaries today more popular than ever? Is it (also) because they are able to get very close to theme and characters? Where before the presence of a whole film crew would create a distance? Look at all the family-films that come forward shot and recorded by one person. In the doc history every new technical development has created a new aesthetic = a new documentary style. As now the hybrid of 2014. What the documentary has lost in aesthetics and image quality, it has gained in closeness to theme and characters. Camera comme stylo.

A CHAMPION

Back to 1990 and to one of the most aesthetically dedicated documentarians of the Nordic countries, Swedish Jan Röed, who I have met so many times at the NP festivals. ”Tong Tana” 1 (NP 1990) & 2 (2001) , ”Betrayal” (NP 1994), ”The Atlantic” (”Atlanten”) (NP 1995), ”Bongo Beat” (NP 1997), ”The Lighthouse” (”Fyren”) (NP 1999), ”Tokyo Noise” (2002), ”The Planet” (2006) … Jan Röed has an amazing filmography as director of several of the films as well as producer through the company Charon. The films from the company has often had a team spirit character with Röed, Björn Cederholm, Fredrik von Krustenstjerna, Kristian Petri and Johan Söderberg in close creative collaboration. I asked editor Niels Pagh, who has worked with Röed on several films to give me some characterising words: ”Janne is the champion of the mastershot. I’ve never worked with a photographer, who as him can capture the grandeur, beauty and horror of nature. Nature images have a tendency to be romantizising and sentimental, postcards for the urban human’s desires. Janne has a strict composition and he waits patiently for the right light for his totals of nature”.

THE SHORT FILMS

Very much significant already in 1991 is the tradition for short films in the Nordic countries. It was a sensation back then, nothing less, to watch ”A Year along the Abandoned Road” (”Året gjennom Børfjord”), ”one year in 12 minutes and 70mm”! Morten Skallerud, the director, has written a great text (http://www.cameramagica.no/About_Year.htm) from where here is a quote:

”Making this film had been a dream for many years, ever since January 1980 when I first came to this deserted, isolated, weather-beaten small village in Finnmark, located in northernmost Norway. Then the dream slowly turned into reality after we found a reliable method of doing extended tracking shots over rugged terrain, frame by frame. Thestory of the making of “A Year along the Abandoned Road” contains a lot of technical innovation. It also contains a different film language, and five Norwegians who fought sub-Arctic nature in order to turn a “crazy” idea into a 12-minute, 70mm film…”

A Year along the Abandoned Road

The same year a fascinating Finnish short documentary was presented, 4 minutes, 35mm, ”Darkness” (”Pimeys”) by Marja Pensala – blind female masseuse with black client – sounds banal but has so many layers in all its shortness. One of those films that you remember clearly, when you go online to watch a still. More than 20 years later.

PIRJO

Let’s stay in Finland. On the list from 1992 is ”Mysterion” by Pirjo Honkasalo, a world class documentarian, director and camerawoman and aunique inspirator for young filmmakers. A master of the personal, authored film. In 1993 she made ”Tanjuska and the seven Devils” and in 1997 ”Atman”, the three of them forming a trilogy called “The Trilogy of the Sacred and the Satanic”. Her true international breakthrough,however, came with ”The 3 Rooms of Melancholia” (”Melancholian 3 huonetta”) (NP 2004) that is praised wherever I go. Was the absence of ”Tanjuska…” and ”Atman” at NP because idfa (the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam) requires world premieres? I have never understood this stupid thought of exclusivity. Anyway, ”Atman” won the Joris Ivens Award at idfa.

A small Nordic anecdote about Pirjo Honkasalo, who is absolutely against pitching, which she finds barbaric (my word). However,producer Kristina Pervilä and some of us fans of the director convinced her to pitch at a Nordisk Forum in Aarhus. She did so showing still photos of her characters for the ”Melancholia” film, talking passionately about them and the theme of the film. In the middle of her pitch the light went out in the room and Honkasalo said ”there you see, it does not work with me and pitching”! The light came back, she continued and the producer left Aarhus with around 1.5 mio. DKK!

3 Rooms of Melancholia

FAMILIES

A decade later, in 2002, I experienced a year of significance in terms of storytelling and themes. The selection had three strong films, all with focus on the family. Swedish Erik Bäfving’s ”Boogie Woogie Daddy” (”Boogie Woogie Pappa”) is built on photos taken by the father of the director. It is very seldom you meet such an emotionally balanced poetic short documentary that appeals to all of us, who have lived with alcoholic fathers.

Boogie Woogie Daddy

Norwegian Even Bennestad presented ”All About My Father” (”Alt om min far”), an equally painful but also warm interpretation by the director. What does it mean to have a father, who is a man but sees himself as a woman. The third to mention is the Danish ”Family” by Sami Saif and Phie Ambo, a milestone for a new Danish generation of documentarians, followed five years later by another masterpiece, ”The Monastery” by Pernille Rose Grønkjær (NP 2007).

 

The Monastery

EARLY HYBRID DOCUMENTARY

As a football freak I enjoyed ”Africa United” at NP 2005 and the year after I admired the energy and playfulness of the Icelandic director Olafur Johanneson (later on Olaf de Fleur) with his ”Act Normal”, about the Buddhist monk and his dramatic life. Quite an achievement, shot over many years, quick, fresh editing that was also demonstrated in those years by Erik Gandini and his ”Videocracy” (NP 2009) starring Silvio Berlusconi, and Anders Østergaard with ”Burma vj” (NP 2009) that went the whole way to an Oscar nomination. Yes, we have something special in the Nordic countries… a

DOCUMENTARY CULTURE

which is quite exceptional in terms of structure and has been able to initiate and nurture a tradition that includes strong film schools, film festivals, rich national film institutions, financing collaboration through Nordisk Film/TV Fond, national distribution systems with theatrical and non-theatrical schemes. A system like that has been bringing forward auteurs like Norwegian Margreth Olin and Erlend E. Mo, Swedish Stefan Jarl, Mia Engberg, Fredrik and Magnus Gertten and PeÅ Holmquist, Danish Jon Bang Carlsen, Jørgen Leth and Anne Wivel and Finnish John Webster and Jukka Kärkkäinen. Who, as the ones I gave space in the article, have been given space to develop their own style and cinematic approach to subjects from all over the world.

There is a long way from Ulla Boje Rasmussen and her true Nordic voice to Mia Engberg and her wonderful ”selfie-documentary” ”Belleville Baby”. What a richness in expression and artistic quality that lies in those 25 years. Did I forget anyone… Absolutely!

Nick Read: The Condemned

Filmen vises i morgen tirsdag den 30. september på DR2’s Dokumania kl. 20.45. Den kan stærkt anbefales. Den danske titel er forklarende, ”Ruslands værste fængsel”, en direkte oversættelse af originaltitlen ville være ”De fordømte”. Her følger en kort anmeldelse på engelsk, da filmen har haft og vil have et bredt internationalt liv.

You can choose to make a film about life in a Russian prison by picking one character as did Alexander Gutman years ago with his ”17 August”, a masterpiece, or you can do like Nick Read, director and cameraman – put the focus on a gallery of inmates (and one guard) and have them talk about what it means to be locked up, for most of them, for lifetime for the murders they have committed. (In 1996 death penalty was  not practised any longer).

The cinematography and editing of the film creates a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere with a strong sound score of doors being locked, keys put into the keyhole, with voice-off’s of Maxim, Vladimir, Temirov, Albert, Sergei – whatever their names are. They talk well, they regret, not all of them, they put words on what it means to be in a 5m2 cell and very rarely see the light of the day. They are given the opportunity to express themselves.

The film is informative. It tells about the difference in the prison – in sitting alone and being with others. It lets the man who has been locked up for 40 years of his 62 year life describe the rules that the older inmates set up to avoid trouble and fighting. The hierarchy is outlined, those lowest are the rapist and pedophiles.

Two times the film leaves the prison (260 men, 800 murders, situated far away from everything in a forest big as Germany…) to accompany the wife and son of one of the inmates, as well as a mother for the short visits (3-4 hours) they are allowed to have. They meet their husband/father/son and the camera catches some small emotional moments before it retracts to let them have privacy.

An honest work, away from the many tabloid prison films that are just looking for trouble. A quote: It’s not hard to kill a man, it’s hard to live with it.

UK/Russia, 80 mins., 2013

http://www.nickread.org

http://www.thecondemneddoc.com/

Message2Man St. Petersburg/ 4

Politics. Freedom to say what you want. In films as well. The Message2Man – that had its 24th edition this year – and its organisers are of course backing this basis for any film festival. Nevertheless the festival cancelled a screening of ”Pussy against Putin”, made by the anonymous group called Gogol’s Wives. Without any explanation I was told. The festival jury – read by the member Philip Gröning (”Into Great Silence”) – presented a statement raising this question but it was unfortunately wrapped into enigmatic and metaphoric language so the protest message did not come through. Why not say it directly that this is wrong… Even if the minister of culture and his entourage was present? Was it wrapped to protect the festival?

I talked to a jury member of the national competition and asked if he had found any critical or controversial films in the selection. Not really, he said, even if (my words) you can indeed say that the winner of the national competition deals with politics. The title says it all, ”Cardiopolitika” (photo) by Svetlana Strelnikova, who has a skilled surgeon as main character, who enters politics hoping it will help his profession to have better facilities. (See below).

We talked politics in St. Petersburg. Of course. At a moment where there is a war going on

in Ukraine. And at a moment where sanctions are made from Russian and American/European side against each other.

We were at a dacha yesterday with a family of mum and dad, son and his wife, daughter and her husband – and the son’s two lovely children of 3 and 5, who did not mention anything about Putin… But the grown up part of the family did, indeed. When I referred to Baltic film friends being scared that the past could become the present (= Russian invasion), the whole family said that they could understand that. And when I referred that they (the Baltics) mentioned that the Russian propaganda was like the one of Goebbels, they said – ”even worse”. When can this change, I asked. When economics get worse. It’s about living standard and oil prices, nothing else, and of course about ”him” wanting to have a Greater Russia built up. He is clever, the son said, and the people from the opposition are not at the same level. There are none who can compete, but there will be when the time for change comes. All family members are indeed anti-Putin but have different opinions about when and how change can/should happen.

I was at M2M for the fourth time in a row. The new Velican Centre where most of the screenings take place is a shopping mall with cinemas, as we have them in Western Europe. It is a pretty noisy venue in the middle of a park but with halls that have superb projection quality. Out of five cinema halls the festival goes on in four and that provokes a cannibalism = some screenings suffer because others ”eat” the audience. The Danish documentaries suffered, I regret to say, should have had a bigger audience, but the Danish directors present Andreas Johnsen, Anders Østergaard and Andreas Koefoed did a great job in Q&A’s and at well attended masterclasses for film students at film schools/universities. In two hour sessions the three of them showed clips from their films and gave the hungry-for-knowledge youngsters inspiration and answers to questions. Østergaard and Koefoed were also at the fine Danish Cultural Institute on the Mojka Embankment, which has previously supported Danish/Russian documentary meetings. The director Finn Andersen welcomed us generously.

About the cannibalism – I wonder if the festival should decrease its number of films? Actually the programme is huge and very competent when it comes to the retrospectives, the experimental section, the international competitions, whereas I can not judge the national programme – many told me that most of the films in that section had been supported by the Ministry of Culture… in other words, had been given an official stamp.

St. Petersburg. Noisy – the amount of cars seems to be increasing from year to year. Lots of traffic jam and taxis that gave up to go to Petrogradskaya island. St. Petersburg. Beautiful. You can’t stop admiring the architecture, the canals, the museums, to be reminded about the history, to eat the borsch and the pelmeni. And the vodka, not to forget, to be enjoyed with the many friends in the city. Spasibo bolshoi!

Message2Man St. Petersburg/ 3

It was a Swedish documentary that got the Grand Prix at the Message2Man 2014 festival: Forest of the Dancing Spirits (photo), directed by Linda Västrik (104 min. | 2013 | Sweden, Canada).

I copy-pasted a description of the film from a festival catalogue: In the deep jungle of the Congo, untouched by civilisation, live the Aka, a tribe of pygmies. Linda Västrik lived among the Aka from 2005 to 2012, and captured the fascinating life of this hunter-gatherer tribe. It is a life governed by magical rituals, myths and traditions just as it was centuries ago. Against the background of the personal story of couple Akaya and Kengole, whose greatest desire is to have children of their own, is a depiction of the harmony of human coexistence with the jungle, the source of all life and death. But thanks to the plans of the state forestry company, this coexistence will probably be short-lived.

In the short film category two films shared the award: the documentary Beach Boy by Danish Emil Langballe (28 min. | 2013 | UK, Denmark) and the short fiction Sunny by Barbara Ott (30 min. | 2013 | Germany)

In the national competition the winner was Cardiopolitika by Svetlana Strelnikova (64 mins., 2014). At a press conference in connection with the

MIFF (Moscow International Film Festival) the director said, and I am sure she speaks for many Russian documentarians in her words about the situation for the filmmakers (edited version):

… the film was being shot almost without any financial support. The government of Perm partly provided the project with some money and the Ministry of Culture’s attention was drawn to the film when it was already being finally edited. The film was first released in Europe where, in Svetlana Strelnikova’s opinion, they pay much more attention to such films than in Russia. 

The main character of the film is a Perm cardiac surgeon Sergey Sukhanov , an unchallenged authority for many people in his region but Strelnikova had no intention of showing him only from a positive side. “He is not a super hero for me”, – she said. The film shows his work during the election campaign in 2012. This episode of his life had become a part of the film occasionally, the film makers assured. As Svetlana Strelnikova said, one could notice that Sukhanov was changing during the shooting getting involved in political games and becoming more and more irritable.

It was not easy to follow the artistic idea of the film-maker because Sergey Sukhanov is an authoritative independent person who doesn’t have time for special shooting. “There is one staged scene in the film: I asked him to come out to the balcony and start smoking”, explained the film maker. As for the rest, the famous surgeon trusted the process that allowed the film crew to use a camera almost everywhere including the cardiac surgery department and the campaign office. “He said we can film and that means that nobody can disobey, that’s why I felt free to do everything I need”, noted Strelnikova.

For annotations of the films, please go to

http://message2man.com/

Laura Poitras Opens DOKLeipzig

A scoop for DOKLeipzig. Read the festival’s press release: The 57th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film will open on 27 October 2014 with the long-awaited film “CITIZENFOUR” by Laura Poitras. In the last instalment of her 9/11 trilogy, the multiple award-winning director shows how the United States’ so called “War on Terror” is directed against their own citizens.

In January 2013, Poitras received a number of encrypted e-mails from an anonymous sender who identified himself as “citizen four” and claimed to have evidence of massive covert surveillance operations of the NSA and other intelligence services. In June 2013, she flew to Hong Kong with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Edward Snowden. She brought her camera. The resulting film is a documentary thriller in which events unfold minute by minute before our eyes.

“CITIZENFOUR is a film that leaves a lasting impression”, says festival director Claas Danielsen. “Laura Poitras succeeds in making us feel the totality of modern surveillance almost physically. At the same time, she gives

us the psychological profile of a man who lives civic courage without compromise. CITIZENFOUR is one of those rare documentaries that are not only politically explosive but also deeply impressive works of art.”

CITIZENFOUR will see its world premiere on 10 October at the New York Film Festival. After a stop at the BFI London Film Festival, the film will open the 57th DOK Leipzig Festival, where it will compete in the International Competition Documentary Film section. CITIZENFOUR will compete for the Golden Dove as well as the “Leipziger Ring”, an award donated by the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution (Peaceful Revolution Foundation) to honour civic commitment to democracy and human rights in documentary film. On 6 November, Piffl Medien will release the film in Germany. The film was produced by Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky (Praxis Films, Berlin).

Laura Poitras’ previous films were screened to great acclaim at festivals across the world. “My Country, My Country” (2007) was nominated for numerous awards, including an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. “The Oath” (2010) won the Sundance Cinematography Award and the Edinburgh Film Festival Documentary Jury Award. She was distinguished, amongst others, with a Peabody Award and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012 for her work. Her first solo exhibition will be presented at the New York Whitney Museum in 2016.

Helena Trestikova Free Online Retrospective

Yes, she is a documentary superstar, Helena Trestikova. Filmkommentaren has had many posts about her films, which are shot over decades, always with a warm heart for its protagonists, and a social perspective. Now the DocAlliance gives you an offer you can not refuse:

From September 22 to October 5, 2014, the DAFilms.com documentary portal presents (FOR FREE) the first world online retrospective of unique Czech director Helena Třeštíková under the telling title “A Long Journey”. The works by the popular documentarist who has won a whole range of international awards, including Europe’s highest film award Prix Arte, are introduced on the portal in the form of more than 25 films made since the mid-1970s. Moreover, Czech viewers can vote for their favourite film by the filmmaker at www.dafilms.com and win an invitation to an exclusive film meeting with Helena Třeštíková… A quote from what we have written about Trestikova:

About Helena Trestikova at the Magnificent7 Festival 2013: …a masterclass with a very well prepared presentation with 11 scenes from her films, through her work of long-time observation. She showed us clips from ”Marcela”, ”Katka” and ”René” (Best European Documentary in 2008) and talked about the ethical questions connected to being so close to her characters, helping them ”outside” the film as well, to get on the right track in their lives. Trestikova said that she did not really consider herself as a filmmaker, more as a chronicler, who has new films coming up this year and has plans to continue to film René and maybe also the family in ”Private Universe”. Deep respect for Trestikova for a constant non-tabloid humanistic focus on people outside the celebrity spotlight.

http://dafilms.com/event/182-retrospective_helena_trestikova/

Russian Censorship Debate

Well, I was definitely away from my comfort zone… Around the table were Russian critics, journalists, a writer of a book on the banning of films in Soviet Union – and some younger filmmakers, who were there to say something about censorship today. They did not deliver many words, the old boys took the floor and kept the word for long, arguing with each other, quite dramatic sometimes. I was the last one to speak, told the story that I had heard a couple of weeks ago from Uldis Brauns, whose ”235.000.000” was censored and re-cut after a meeting between him and Goskino in Moscow in 1967. Otherwise I could talk about self-censorship and advertise films in the Danish series at Message2Man, a couple of the films deals with suppression of the free expression like ”Ai Wei Wei” and ”Burma vj”.

I have the feeling that the rest of the table did not understand what I said – the interpreter was not a professional – or were not really interested or were exhausted after the long arguments.

Andrei Smirnov (photo), film director and actor, was the first to speak. He did so passionately, arguing that hundreds of films, in Soviet time, were taken away from public screenings in most cases without any explanation. And if there was any, it was mostly pretty absurd why they were censored. Some photocopies of historical official letters banning films and film directors were distributed – they dealt with the fate of Klimov and Parajanov and were sent by the ”Committee for the State Security of the Council of Ministers of the USSR”. Critic Victor Matizev linked to the current situation saying that we ”are close to the formal installment of censorship”. Another critic, Andrei Shemayakin, pointed out that the censorship today was mostly of an economic nature, there is little money for documentaries which was confirmed by the couple of young filmmakers at the table, one of them made a film about gay and lesbians through crowdfunding.

Towards the end of the two-hour session a journalist started to talk politics, Smirnov got angry and left. Have to confess that I did not really get what the journalist said – but he was pointing at Russia being more advanced than France and Germany, where censorship is more in practice…

The Future of DOX Magazine?

My wise advisor asks me to de-personalise the important debate about whether DOX has a future or not. I will do my best to suppress my frustration. Starting with a concrete, constructive proposal: Don’t stop DOX and – inspired by what they do at the Danish Film Institute – make a print issue to come out when the festival idfa is on and one when there the festivals/markets Sheffield/Sunny Side take place. That can attract advertising and you can have ad hoc editors/writers (and not a full-time employed editor) to contribute. Publication costs are not high in several countries. The paper editions are for longer, deeper texts, the online activity can include shorter contributions.

But does EDN want to continue DOX? Director Paul Pauwels is not clear in his communication. In the last printed issue of the magazine, that just came out, he writes:

“EDN will spend a lot of energy on defending the documentary genre in the ultra competitive (but often under-financed) media landscape and on becoming an advocate of its members and their interests. This added objective – approved by the EDN Executive Committee – calls for a new strategy and adapted tools, and in all honesty I had to conclude that DOX Magazine doesn’t fit with this new objective..”

… and in EDN Weekly 37, he says that the future of DOX will be discussed internally. One of his staff members has expressed that there will be an online DOX, an EC (Executive member) of EDN told me some days ago that this is doubtful.

Anyway, above is a proposal, there are probably many others. I will ask EDN to put this text on their Facebook page. This is where a letter to the members from Paul has been published stating that he does not want to respond to “a facebook campaign”. He refers to the debate on filmkommentaren.dk and the connected comments on FB that I use to bring readers to the blog. All debate on DOX should take place on EDN territory according to Paul. Which should not prevent you readers to contribute on this blog, all are welcome – EDN members and lovers of DOX – and come up with other proposals to continue the magazine.

Message2Man St. Petersburg /2

Second day in St. Petersburg started with a lovely tour to Russian Museum downtown at the square where a statue of Pushkin stands, always with birds resting on his stretched-out arm. The newly renovated rooms with the Russian avant-garde I had not seen before – what a pleasure to revisit masterpieces of Malevich, Filonov, Kandinsky and Tatlin.

After that off to Velican theatre where we watched young Danish Emil Langballe’s graduation film from the National Film School in England, ”Beach Boy”, a well balanced, cinematic non-moralistic portrait of a young black man and his relationship to a middle-aged British woman in Kenya. The young man makes a phone call to his girl friend, who is pregnant but is aware of his profession. The film is light and pretty much less demonstrative than the feature of Ulrich Seidl.

And then to Gare du Nord in Paris guided by veteran director Claire Simon, whose ”Human Geography” (104 minutes) appealed strongly to me, both because it is a very well made film but also because Gare du Nord is very familar to me. I have arrived there several times at 8am in the morning after 12 hours in train from Copenhagen, I have welcomed my mother when she visited us on vacation in ”la ville des villes”, and – alas – in November last year this was the place where co-editor of filmkommentaren.dk, Allan Berg, had his computer stolen, when we got out of a taxi…

Claire Simon is behind the camera, her friend Simon, of Algerian origin, is there with her to help her ask questions to people passing by. Small stories with people before they enter a train, observations, and talks with people working on the station. It becomes a film on Life and Love, superficial, what else could it be, but small stories placed in the heads of the audience for us to work more on. The focus is on people who ended up in France coming from all over the world, happy or not happy, with fine educations from back home, but apparently useless in the European country they have arrived to. IN that way the film is also a portrait of Europe of today.