Torben Skjødt Jensen: Teaterdokumentarer /3

Hun er lukket ude. Hun står uden for villaens panoramavindue. Han har lukket hende ude, bare fordi, hun lige ville prøve friheden og var løbet en tur. Og han lukker hende ikke ind igen, lige meget, hvor fortvivlet hun trygler og græder. Ydmygelsen er total, hun er fortabt. Hun går til bunds.

Det er Sara Hjorth Ditlevsen i det gribende øjeblik og vendepunkt i HEIDI – EN REJSE TIL HELVEDE MED SIMON SPIES. Den 19. juni skrev Torben Skjødt Jensen sin på Facebookside: ”… tillod mig lige en fridag fra de skrå brædder igår, men bare rolig – hesten er i galop igen idag …. I aften forsætter DR-K’s teaterfestival med en ægte premiere på en brandvarm og aktuel forestilling, CoreActs “Heidi – en rejse til helvede med Simon Spies” som lige har kunnet ses på Grob i København og Katapult i Århus – Det er da public service med teater i tiden. Heidi er en forunderlig dok-drama rejse ind i skuespiller Anika Barkans personlige fortælling om sin søster Heidi der tilbage i 80erne, som kun 15årig, blev morgenbollepige hos den berygtede Simon Spies, og der nok fik så store ar på livet at hun ca. 10 år efter blev en af de første danske kvinder som døde af AIDS. En barsk personlig fortælling men som også har de nødvenlige elementer af kærlighed og humor der gør at man har lyst til at blive i rummet med denne så oplagte tragedie. Sara Hjorth Ditlevsen, ung supertalent der stadig er på skuespillerskolen i Århus, er Heidi, Olaf Højgaard kaster sig efter Breivik over Simon der jo selv en gang udtalte at han drømte han var Danmarks ondeste mand, og så er også Helene Kvint på scenen med Anika Barkan. Kl.21.00 i aften på DR-K” Det forførte mig.

Jeg var ikke hjemme den aften, men lod tv-boksen optage programmet. Og ja, har så først set det nu. Og blev atter låst fast i en Skjødt Jensen teaterdokumentar på to timer. Filmen er en rystende skildring af fire skuespilleres imponerende arbejde med på en intimscene at skrive en ung kvindes biografi ind i et mentalhistorisk essay om et velkendt og velbeskrevet hjørne af dansk populærkultur. Velkendt og velbeskrevet, ja, det troede jeg til nu. Det er der herefter vendt op og ned på.

Torben Skjødt Jensens film er af en sjælden, en usædvanlig slags, de er teaterdokumentarer, som jeg har dem til nu et chok på tv og lige til at lægge fast på en streamingtjeneste, de hører alle hjemme på Filmcentralen/alle eller på Filmstriben/sofaen. Så kan jeg se ”Heidi” igen, og nøjere undersøge Annika Barkans dobbeltrolle – hun gennemfører den i hjertegribende, smertende og vedkommende amatørstil som i en skoleforestilling – og finde ud af, hvad meningen er med replikken, som jeg noterede: ”… jeg kan ikke spille den rolle.”

Torben Skjødt Jensen og Annika Barkan: “Heidi – en rejse til helvede med Simon Spies”, Danmark 2014, 120 min. En af seks udsendelser på DR-K, 16.-20. juni, 2014. Af de seks har Torben Skjødt Jensen produceret og klippet de fem.

Torben Skjødt Jensen: Teaterdokumentarer /2

Morten Burian drømmer om at være Aladdin og er her på dette still endelig sammen med sin Jasmin. Og Marie Louise Wille drømmer om at være Snehvide, og nu har prinsen vækket hende for ved hånden at føre hende til sit slot i det fjerne. To skuespillere, to drømmeverdener, én scene.

Teaterforestillingen, som Skjødt Jensens film bygger på er Christian Lollikes ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE og lige før, den blev sendt på DR-K, skrev Torben Skjødt Jensen på sin Facebook profil: ”I DR-K’s teaterfestival kan jeg så i aften invitere jer alle til Århus Teaters Scalascene hvor jeg tilbage i september 13 forsatte mit samarbejde med instruktøren Christian Lollike. Hans “All my dreams come true” er et Disneydrama om depression og eventyr – og det er ihvertfald et faktum at Marie Louise Wille og Morten Burian efter ca. 45 minutters hard-core psykoanalyse ude og inde af det til lejligheden opstillede bekendelsesskab giver den gas som henholdsvis Disneyprinsesse og Joakim Von And – i rablende samspil med 2 dværge, den tykke pige, den meget høje mand, en rigtig spasser og såmænd også en Moliere-karakter der forvilder sig ind fra Store Scene – aldeles pragtfuldt tankevækkende vanvid.”

Så meget om synopsis og hensigt. Jeg så yderst fornøjet programmet, men ikke som en tv-transmission af teaterforestillingen, for mig vinklede det sig som en fantastisk dokumentarfilm med et utroligt indhold.

Første billede er en sparsomt udstyret teaterscene. Et skab, en bærbar computer, en stor tv-skærm. To personer maskeret i barnlig stil. Marie Louise Wille erobrer min opmærksomhed med det samme, hun efter en tøven trukket lige netop til stregen, tager masken af, og erklærer, at hun er deprimeret. Det er hvad, hun fremstiller, og hvor er det meget nemmere, når skuespilleren ikke forestiller noget, ikke er en anden, en karakter, en historisk person, men blot er sider med replikker og regi plus følsom og opmærksom instruktion plus egen indsats, en tekst jeg ikke kender, som jeg møder uden forventninger. J

eg har haft masser at diskutere med teksten undervejs, og gjorde det da også mumlende hen for mig, mens jeg fulgte intenst med, men jeg havde intet overhovedet at diskutere med skuespillerne, jeg var deres bytte fra første til sidste minut, især optaget af Marie Louise Wille, hvis fine, fine håndværk, dokumentarfilmen giver mig mulighed for at følge så tæt, at der ved de første gennemsyn ikke levnedes mig plads til andet.

For mig sker der det, at min optagethed flyttes fra teaterværkets handling til skuespillernes situation i selve det mimiske øjeblik, og dermed ændres genren i min oplevelse fra fiktion til dokumentar. Men en ganske særlig intens dokumentar: det er ikke ret tit jeg bliver låst foran tv to timer i træk, to timer, som bare forsvinder i optagethed. (Hvor ofte støder jeg ikke på en mur af fravær ved 35 minutter?) Det må være teaterrummets og teateroplevelsens intensitet, som skuespillerne flytter med over. Nærbilledmuligheden er vel den vigtige forudsætning. Så skuespilleren bliver det, jeg følger, og jeg er som begynder i dette teaterpublikumsfag kun i stand til at følge en enkelt. Og her bliver Marie Louise Wille min heltinde.

Filmen er ikke længere tilgængelig, det er et faktum. En festival har sin tid, og de enkelte værker forsvinder, fordi de mister deres aktualitet. (Og desværre forsvandt programmerne i løbet af et par dage fra DR-K’s hjemmeside-streaming) Men jeg er selvfølgelig i det her ligeglad med aktualitet, og da jeg ikke sad parat til to timer teaterdokumentar seks aftener i træk den uge, det stod på, ser jeg de seks værker nu i bedre ro, da jeg har optaget dem på mit tv. Og lidt efter lidt opdager jeg, at de er værd at gemme.

De har for mig fuldt ud værkhøjde, først og fremmest som dokumentarfilm. Jeg tror det er fordi, Torben Skjødt Jensen har konverteret tv-transmiteret teater til noget, jeg vil kalde teaterdokumentar. Jeg tænker som tidligere nævnt på Louis Malles ”Vanya on 42nd Street”, og jeg tænker på et par film mere, Jesper Jargils ”De ydmygede” (1998) og ”De udstillede” (2000) over von Triers film ”Idioterne” og hans udstilling ”Psykomobile # 1: Verdensuret”.  Torben Skjøth Jensen fortsætter for mig at se i dette spor, som fører mod endnu en tolkning af kunstens væsen. Bid for bid.

Danmark 2014, 120 min. En af seks udsendelser på DR-K, 16.-20. juni, 2014, 6 x 120 min. Af de seks har Torben Skjødt Jensen produceret og klippet de fem.  

Docu Talents from the East

Not a lot of energy, so It’s copy-paste time right now here in Copenhagen’s tropical heat… and it is easy when good news arrive online like the one about the upcoming ”remarkable creative documentary projects from Central and Eastern Europe”, which were presented in Karlovy Vary two days ago. Organized by the festival and the super-active Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (to take place October 23-28).

The film projects presented by the makers are all to premiere this year or in 2015 and I happen to have met several of them on other occasions, and yes they are remarkable.

Like ”Anthill” from Estonia by Vladimir Loginov and Elina Litvinova, ” a portrait of a giant garage complex located in the largest housing estate in Tallinn. 700 garage box owners form an extraordinary men’s club, and vary from those who use the garages to maintain their cars and those who adapt their boxes for living. The complex is even more unique owing to the existence of private saunas, a restaurant, an animal clinic and other artefacts of life stuck in time  20 years ago.” It has some wonderful scenes, great characters, humour and a poetic camera style.

I also have great expectations to Magdalena Szymkow and her “found-footage portrait of a writer and reporter” = Polish master Ryszard Kapuściński. Szymkow, who made the fine film “My House Without Me”, was a collaborator of the journalist/essayist and a co-author and translator of his books.

One more, but read about all of them, link below, I met in Jerevan last summer: “Our Atlantis” by Georgian Arthur Sukiasyan. From the synopsis: “a documentary about an Armenian camp in Istanbul (Turkey), which was built by orphans in 1960s and later on taken away by Turkish authorities. This is a journey between the past and present of the camp showing how 30 years later children of this camp try not to lose their camp memories. And through this reconstruction, Our Atlantis tells the dramatic story of Karo and Flor who were together in this camp, not knowing that they were siblings, which they discovered by chance only 15 years later.” I saw astonishing footage one year ago.

http://www.dokument-festival.com/industry/docu-talents-from-the-east/2014

Wise Words from an Editor

Another press release from idfa (see below) refers to the now finished Summer School, where projects at different levels are being tutored. Some are still on paper, some are bringing rough cuts to experienced editors. One of them was ”Ollie Huddleston, editor for such documentary luminaries as Kim Longinotto and Sean McAllister, tutoring two of the editing projects, starting out with a rough cut and refining things along the six-day workshop.

“Maybe it’s comparable to what a grandfather feels”, he laughs. “Rather than getting my hands dirty and raising the child, I can give it back to them and say: ‘Fix it!’ It’s a kind of balancing act: you give them some ideas and then they run with it. Sometimes they’ve already spent two or three years working on the film, so I can’t just jump in with hobnail boots and say: ‘Do this, do that’. I say what I think, but of course it’s up to them, it’s their film.”, and he adds “If you think too much about what other people think, you can get really lost”.

Wise words and I have no problems in identifying with the grandfather comparison and the privilege it is to be invited to look at rough cuts. Sometimes you are able to help, sometimes the chemistry between you and the filmmaker is not good enough or you don’t speak the same language, communication is not easy.

Photo: Group photo of IDFA Summer School 2014 participants.

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/latest-news/summer-schools-out.aspx

IDFA Bertha Fund selects 19 Projects

Copy-Paste quotes of a press release of today from idfa and its IDFA Bertha Fund, whose action one can only applaud:

The IDFA Bertha Fund has concluded the May selection round of 2014. Nineteen documentary projects from countries like Nicaragua, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and South-Sudan will be supported by the fund.

For the May selection round of 2014, the fund considered around 267 projects from more than 65 different countries. In total, an amount of €262,850 was granted to 19 projects. The committee selected 5 projects for project development and 14 projects for production and post-production…

The selection includes stories from unseen parts of the world, such as Dust (photo), which visually foregrounds the dust created by mining equipment exploiting the once-verdant grasslands of Inner Mongolia, and The Boxing Women of Kivu, a profound portrait of a female police officer in the DRC giving self defense lessons to rape victims…

Read more on:

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/latest-news/idfa-bertha-fund-selects-19-new-projects.aspx

AfriDocs

So many documentary films have been shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences. This heralds a new era of distribution for the continent… words by Don Edkins, who is the Executive producer of AfriDocs and the man behind Steps for the Future, Why Democracy, Why Poverty, and now also AfriDocs, helped as before by Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti from YLE.

AfriDocs is the name of a broadcast initiative that has a focus on “The best documentaries made in Africa and the first documentary strand across Sub-Saharan Africa… real stories weekly. Primetime.” Through the channels DStv ED (channel190)
 and GOtv (channel 65). In this way AfriDocs covers 49 African countries by satellite and 100 cities terrestrially across 8 countries across Africa.

This month includes a full week of African documentary films to be broadcast across Sub-Sahara to coincide with the Durban International Film Festival, the largest film festival in South Africa that takes place from July 17th – 27th.

There will be documentary films from thirteen countries in Africa – D.R.C., Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. Films by African filmmakers Idrissa Guiro, Sani Elhadj, Licinio Azevedo, Rehad Desai, Judy Kibinge, Andrey Samoute Diarra, Osvalde Lewat, together with filmmakers Mika Karismäki, Thierry Michel, Roger Ross Williams, Abby Ginsberg and Göran Olsson amongst others, will be seen for the first time by a wide audience through this collaboration…

AfriDocs is an initiative of the multi-awarded South African documentary production and distribution company, Steps, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation. Impressive it is!

http://www.steps.co.za/afridocs/tv-schedule/

https://www.facebook.com/AfriDocs

http://www.steps.co.za/afridocs/film-week/

Brave New Culture

In the post about the Moving Docs project that will take off next year, supported by Creative Europe, I wrote “”Brave New Culture” from Cyprus is also on board. Regret to say that I have never heard about it before…”

Rea Apostolides, who is the person behind ”Moving Docs”, wrote to me today to help me out of my ignorance:

“Brave New Culture is the company run by Yiangos Hadjiyiannis,who is the director of the http://www.filmfestival.com.cy/  lemessos international Documentary Festival. He is really lovely and his festival is fabulous (and takes place by the sea)”

Aha, I thought, the festival in Cyprus that I have heard so much good about both in terms of selection and atmosphere and quality. Last year it had producer Signe Byrge talk about “The Act of Killing”, Ove Rishøj from EDN had a focus on opening sequences and Tinatin Gurchiani talked about succesful Georgian documentary “The Machine Which makes Everything Disappear”. More about the festival from the website:

The ‘Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival’ is organized every August by the non-profit organization Brave New Culture & the Cyprus Bradcasting Corporation and it is a festival dedicated in presenting contemporary creative documentaries in Cyprus. In addition, through the organization of workshops and lectures, it offers the possibility to local professional directors and producers to get acquainted with the latest trends and tendencies in the documentary genre and to get informed about the prospects of fund raising and promoting their own projects in the broader European spectrum. Our intention is to search and invite films that are interesting in cinematographic terms but are also innovative and eye-opening in their sociopolitical approach. The main objective of our organization is to establish “Lemesos International Documentary Festival’ as a quality documentary festival which encourages the public to experience during eight summer nights a creative, timely and rich experience, full of stories and images characteristic of our times and which derive from our surrounding civilizations and cultures.

This year the festival runs from August 1-8.

Audience Development

… is the name of a new support scheme from EU’s Creative Europe – Media Programme. Its task is

”To stimulate interest in, and improve access to European audio-visual works, in particular through promotion, events, film literacy and festivals.

Film literacy projects: to provide mechanisms for better cooperation between film literacy initiatives in Europe to improve the efficiency and European dimension of these initiatives.

Audience development projects: events focusing on the programming of important and successful non-national European films on various distribution platforms and promotional activities building on the marketing on promotion results of important festivals and awards.”

The first results – money-wise a bit more than 6 mio. € – of a call that was announced at the end of March – have been published and great to see a wide spread of countries being succesful with their applications, and not a centralising tendency one could fear after the launch of Creative Europe. OK, France and UK are there as benificiaries but Germany not, Italy is there, Romania, Estonia and Czech Republic as well, the latter with support to Doc Alliance Academy and to Institute of Documentary Film with a programme called KineDok.

I am – at the moment – not able to go closer to all 16 to see how many are documentary projects, but I have been given access to EDN’s ”Moving Docs”, see below post.

Photo of a film mentioned in the ”Moving Docs” application, see below: ”Velvet Terrorists”.

https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/actions/media/audience-development_en

Audience Development: Moving Docs

With EDN (European Documentary Network) as the natural umbrella organisation for a project concepted and developed by Rea Apostolides, strong and visionary Greek producer and member of EDN’s Executive Committee, the ”Moving Docs” project was, by Creative Europe, granted 150.000€, 81% of the budget applied for – for a true international initiative with a vision to reach an audience outside the traditional festival circles, if I get it right.

I have been granted access to look a bit more into the application that was succesful.

What was impressive from a first glance is the group of players in ”Moving Docs”, they are called partner organisations: Planeta in Spain, that stands behind the unique ”Documentary of the Month”, Apordoc in Portugal, Doc/IT from Italy, SDI (Scottish Documentary Institute), Against Gravity Warsaw Poland, Doc Lounge Sweden, all known as strong and experienced promoters of European documentary life, whereas Rea Apostolides as manager of the project contributes with her company Anemon as does EDN headed by Paul Pauwels. ”Brave New Culture” from Cyprus is also on board. Regret to say thatI have never heard about it before.

The action starts February 2015, runs the rest of the year and includes cinema screenings, community screenings, festival screenings, vod screenings and educational activities…. you name it, they got it!

Creative Europe asks in the application for titles of films and a long list of potential highlights is mentioned. Among them ”Master of the Universe” (photo).

Some quotes from the 72 page big application: The objective of Moving Docs is to engage urban and rural audiences across Europe through regular and simultaneous screenings of the best European and international documentary films…structured around ”European Screening Days”, five unique media moments that connect European audiences… target groups are 20-40 years… (focus on) issue-based films… the action will use different strategies to target four different audience catagories: rural, urban, frequent and first-time doc viewers…

Much more will come about ”Moving Docs” from the organisers – here is only to be said: Well done, good luck – filmkommentaren.dk will follow your work.

Daniel Dencik: Tal R: The Virgin /2

Tal R får med det samme ordet, og han taler lavmælt og intenst filmen igennem. Denne gennemløbende fortælling rammer mig, overbeviser mig, besejrer mig med sin alvor. Tal R hedder han, og jeg får efterhånden forklaringen på fornavnet. Det er egentlig et pigenavn, fortæller hans forældre, da det bliver deres tur til at fortælle noget. Bogstavet R står for efternavnet, og i listen over filmens medvirkende, ser jeg, at efternavnet må være Rosenzweig. Flere af de medvirkende vidner hedder Rosenzweig. Det er familien, hustruen, forældrene, børnene. Så er der derudover venner og kolleger til at tegne det portræt af en maler, som stemmen har åbnet for.

Skønhed er det vigtigste. Det er det første Tal R fortæller. Ordet diskuteres ikke, det skal ikke forstås dybsindigt, det skal ikke fortolkes, det står for sit almindelige pålydende. Og det har Martin Munch, fotografen taget til sig i sit arbejde med optagelserne af den række stiliserede scener, som filmen består af. Tableauer hedder de i Denciks synopsis. Stiliseringen er ikke en manér, en påtagethed. Den er en naturlighed, et alvorligt og konsekvent valg. Sådan skal filmen være, og sådan er de medvirkende instrueret i en iscenesættelse, som omfatter fotografering, klip, set design, alt, så det er gennemført cinematografi, som lever opmærksom i sin neddæmpethed.

Skønheden er oppe mod selve ødelæggelsen, truslen om holocaust hviler som en tyngde over malerens tænkning, over hans arbejde. Krigens og mishandlingens rædsel har fulgt ham i drøm og forestilling siden barndommen. Det bekræfter forældrene. Og det skildres i filmen som et livsvilkår, det gives ikke hen til en psykologisk eller historisk eller biografisk forklaring. Således er Denciks film også et usædvanligt værk.

Danmark, 2014, 30 min. Filmen sælges på dvd (with English subtitles) i Tiger butikkerne overalt og kan streames VOD: http://danishdox.com/tal-r-the-virgin

Anmeldelser: Politiken (Dorte Hygum Sørensen) Ekko (Henrik Østergaard) FilmGuide (Nanna Frank Rasmussen)