Sunny Side of the Doc 25 Years

Below, Yves Jeanneau, CEO of the Sunny Side of the Doc welcomes the delegates to the 25th edition of an event this blogger has visited numerous times, when it was in Marseilles. Now the location is in la Rochelle and still going strong is the Sunny Side of the Doc. Dates June 23-26. Congratulations!:

In a few days, most of you will be in La Rochelle for the 25th Sunny Side of the Doc. Since 1989 the event has grown a lot – thanks to your creativity and your ideas over those years. I wanted to let you know the thinking that lies behind our events and which goes into all the work that the team does for you.

The different Sunny Side events in Europe, Asia and Latin America have been for the past 25 years a way of looking forwards and outwards. Our way is not to be defeatist, inward looking or nationalist.

Documentary is all about bringing something back of the outside world to the audience, making it richer along the way by giving it a voice. This mutual respect between the maker and the subject needs to continue (if that’s not being too idealistic). But for films like docs, which are made neither for art galleries nor supermarkets, I think that’s possible. Docs are for people who are curious, interested in the world, who like to share experiences and be surprised – avoiding the predictable at all costs.

Tom Perlmutter, who’s been at the heart of the Canadian documentary industry for so long, once wrote that documentary was like the canary in the mine warning about gas leaks – either it survived, or it didn’t and sent out a warning… 

For me documentary is like a wind propelling us towards new places. Or a starry sky which illuminates while asking plenty of questions. In times of darkness, it can be like a beacon, and put its public and private usefulness on show. It investigates and has a point of view, both of which give it a voice and something to communicate.

Reality can be stubborn,  complex and perplexing. Quite a hard thing to sell to the public, and yet we’re part of it, this reality which can raise our spirits and our concerns, our hopes and dreams…

http://www.sunnysideofthedoc.com/sunnyside/celebrating-25th-anniversary/

Anne Regitze Wivel: Menneskenes land

Den smukke, velordnede, velfungerende og gratis streamingtjeneste FILMCENTRALEN / FOR ALLE foreslår i sit nyhedsbrev i går, at man ved siden af fodboldfilm skal se film om grønlandske emner: ”Grønland-før og nu. Storslået natur og barske levevilkår – det er to gennemgående elementer i denne samling af film om Grønland. Filmene er lavet i perioen 1955-2013 og handler både om hverdagsliv, ekspeditioner og særlige begivenheder”, hedder det, og jeg kigger listen med de udvalgte titler igennem, og vil anbefale Anne Regitze Wivels ”Menneskenes land” (2006), som jeg holder så meget af. Den handler om et punkts position. Ja, den gør…

Jeg husker endnu fra min tid på filminstituttet den allerførste formulering af filmens synopsis: ”Jeg tror, der mangler en film om Grønland, dette store hvide sted som er skæbneforbundet med Danmark. Alle danskere, der har været i Grønland, har siden et punkt i hjertet, der er helt blødt. Sådan også med mig, der har rejst deroppe to somre for længe siden. Grundstemningen i den film, jeg ser for mig, er det bløde punkts position. Hvor øvelsen går ud på at lade sig rive med, snarere end rationelt at holde igen.”

Instruktøren meddelte altså, at hun gerne ville lave en film om Grønland. Så uoverskuelig som landet og så enkel som sætningen. På én gang. Og det stod med det samme klart for mig: ja, naturligvis. Som en selvfølge næsten. Før jeg hørte begrundelserne, før jeg læste oplægget.

Det var fordi Jette Bang ikke er mere, fordi også Jørgen Roos er død. Og tiden en anden, ikke bedre, men heller ikke ringere. Der var altså stadigvæk filmfolk med kærlighed til virkeligheden bag det smukke navn for landet. Folk med nervøsitet og indsigt og poetisk holdning. Som kunne fortsætte arbejdet med at lave film i den tradition. Som er blevet vores forpligtelse, fordi det land har en vigtig del af vores skæbne knyttet til sig. Der er altså for eksempel Anne Wivel. Jeg bildte mig ind at vide, hvor det her ville bevæge sig hen.

Jeg oplever, Anne Wivels store film hver for sig i deres kerne handler om et omfattende væsen , som hun tager til filosofisk og poetisk behandling: troens væsen, kunstens væsen, tankens væsen. De har hver deres afsides sted: præsteseminarets samtale (Ansigt til ansigt, 1987), balletmesterens indre monolog om kærlighedens forvandlingsformer (Giselle, 1990) og endelig den store digters tekster (Søren Kierkegaard, 1994).

Her kunne det så ske, hun føjede politikkens væsen til. Stedet ville blive den politiske vilje, som den udfolder sig i Nuuk. Men filmen ville også komme til at handle om det grønlandske landskab. Landets mørke og lys. Om et bestemt punkt, som kun Anne Wivel kan skildre på den måde: “alle danskere, der har været i Grønland, har siden et punkt i hjertet, der er helt blødt…” Anne Wivel ville med det her være på vej til en ny stor film. Som ved siden af sin poetiske erkendelse tillige ville blive en omfattende dokumentarisk skildring af det nye Grønland og dets magtelite. På godt og ondt, men mest på godt, forestillede jeg mig.

Filmen var længe undervejs, mange ideer måtte sikkert forlades, nye muligheder kom bestemt til. Den havde premiere februar 2006. Den var helt anderledes, end jeg havde forestillet mig, men det bløde punkt var bestemt positioneret og skildret. Jeg holder meget af den film.

Danmark, 2006, 81 min.

http://filmcentralen.dk/alle/film/menneskenes-land-min-film-om-groenland

http://filmcentralen.dk/alle/tema/groenland-foer-og-nu?utm_campaign=&utm_medium=Alle&utm_source=Newsletter

Sebastian Junger: Which Way is The Frontline…?

Jeg vil gerne anbefale den film DR2 Dokumania sender i morgen 17. juni 21:00. ”Which Way is The Frontline From Here?” Sådan lyder originaltitlen, og der er desuden en vigtig og nøgtrent afgrænsende undertitel: ”The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington.” På dansk er det blevet til ”En fotograf i skudlinien”, det er en skam, det er en urimelig afkortning af filmens indhold, det er en afledning af dens dybe, seriøse tone. Og den gør mig usikker.

Men jeg er straks på sikker grund, da filmen begynder. Dette er jo min tids fotografi i en gedigen fotografisk tradition, som jeg vover at kalde MAGNUM PHOTOS STILEN som den berømte sammenslutning af fotografer. Det er en fotografisk tradition, som bygger på enkeltbilledets fortælling, bygger på enkeltbilledets anekdote, dets pointe. Af og til rammer et sådant fotografi Barthes’ punctum, naturligvis uafvidende. Punctum produceres af betragterens blik, ikke fotografens hensigt. Sådan tænker jeg i begyndelsen af filmen og er lettet. Jeg skal ikke tænke i endsige lede efter en cinematografisk tradition, men måske kunne det blive begyndelsen for sådan en snakkende en som mig, begyndelsen til at afgrænse en en sideløbende dokumentarfilmtradition præget af billedjournalistik.

På fotografiet her sidder Sebastian Junger (tv) ved siden af Tim Hetherington. De lavede sammen den opsigtsvækkende ”Restrepo” (2010) om en amerikansk militær afdeling i krig i Afghanistan. Og Hetherington lavede for sig selv den personlige ”Diary” (også 2010), som er et filmessay over hans fotografiske arbejde i ti år. Så nåede han ikke mere. Han blev dræbt i Mistrata, Libyen under en træfning, han dækkede, dræbt sammen med andre. Blev martyr som disse. En gade i byen bærer i dag hans navn.

Junger har i forlængelse heraf lavet et på alle måder sympatisk værk om sin ven og kollega, om hans arbejde med den fotografiske journalistik, hans reportagerejser og hans tidlige død. Den enkle synopsis ligger i undertitlen, et fyrreårigt livsforløb i signalement, forældrene og vennerne og kollegerne fortæller minderne kort og smukt. Nøgternt fotograferet på mørk baggrund som var det stills, filmen tænker simpelthen i sine stills kvalitet, stoler på den. Og det er der god grund til, hvert fotografi er sin egen historie, sin egen scene.

Til gengæld er der meget få scener i filmisk forstand, men de er prægnante. Den første jeg husker som scene, er et sted i Liberia, tror jeg, Hetherington fotograferer med sin Hasselblad på stativ et portræt af et barn, som sidder ret op og ned på en stol. Med ham ser jeg barnets personlighed og charme, det kommer hans portræt til at handle om. Jungers filmscene handler om Hetherington, som er en sød mand, ja, et godt menneske. En person der filmen igennem roses fra alle sider.

Den anden filmscene, jeg længe vil huske, er på et primitivt hospital, hvor rebellerne har opdaget at hospitalets læge måske, måske ikke er meddeler. De er på vej til at likvidere ham på stedet, men Hetherington lægger sig imellem argumenterer med, at manden er den eneste læge der, at de mange sårede vil være prisgivet. Et par minutter senere er lægen igen i gang med at behandle patienter. Hetherington er ikke kun et godt menneske, han er en modig mand.

Og Tim Hetherington tegnes således som helt, næsten som martyrerne i de middelalderlige helgenlegender, som var en litterær genre med egen æstetisk konvention. Jeg mener faktisk, at her har vi måske Sebastian Jungers films genre: ”Which Way is The Frontline From Here?” er en filmisk helgenlegende, en forbilledlig skildring af et forbilledligt menneske. Uden tvivl, uden skyggesider.

USA 2013, 90 min.

FID Marseille 2014

15 films from 12 countries, 15 world and international premieres… that is what the FID (Festival International de Cinema) in Marseilles presents in the international competition programme, when it takes off July 1 and runs until July 7. The festival also has a section for French films and one for First Films as well as a FidLab – ” FIDlab offers a meeting place for discussing film projects selected from all over the world, in order to offer film-makers an opportunity to make useful contacts and network with producers, distributors, international sales agents, sponsors, and broadcasters.

”

And films by Marguerite Duras will be screened – it’s all very well put together as the website link proves.

Back to the international competition – what a joy to see that Croatian “Mitch – the Diary of the Schizophrenic Patient” has been chosen. This is the beginning of my review of the film:

… It is rough. It is provoking. It is touching, poetic and shocking because you experience the difficulties of a man’s aim to come to terms with himself and life as it goes on in his head and around him in the psychiatric hospital, where he is, has been for 12 years and where he in a film, he is making himself, expresses his despair. Outstanding it is, nothing less!…

http://www.fidmarseille.org/index.php/en/

MIFF 2014 Documentary Programme announced

Big words from the two curators of the documentary programme at MIFF, Moscow International Film Festival, whose 26th edition includes a competition of 8 films and a panorama of 15 films under the label ”Free Thought”. Sergey Miroshnichenko and Grigory Libergal writes:

“Our competition brings together strong and prominent directors like Alex Gibney with “The Armstrong’s Lie”, Jean-Stéphane Bron with “The Blocher’s Experience”, Thomas Balmès, with “Happiness” and other famed directors whose films are be shown out-of-competition – Errol Morris, Michael Glawogger, Godfrey Reggio. All of them are analyzing lies, the shaky swamp of falsehood. And we believe that after seeing this program our audience will think again about what kind of society we should build together on this planet. It is important to defend truth and freedom and truth and to fight lies and the lack of freedom”.

The other films in competition are Lebanese Zeina Daccache’s “Sheherazade’s Diary”, “Deep Love” by Polish Jan P. Matuszynski, “Web Junkie” by Israeli Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia, “The Green Prince” by Nadav Schirman and “Cardiopolitika” by Svetlana Streinikova.

The “Free Thought” out-of-competition programme “includes winners of the most prominent film festivals and contests, as well as the box-office leaders” – “Joanna” (PHOTO) by Aneta Kopacz is there, “Cathedrals of Culture” directed by – among others – late Michael Glawogger, whose “Workingman’s Death” will also be screened as will Michael Obert’s “Songs from the Forest” and Errol Morris “The Unknown Known” about Donald Rumsfeld.

The festival runs from June 19 until June 28.

www.moscowfilmfestival.ru

The Flaherty: Turning the Inside Out

It starts today, the yearly Flaherty seminar at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York and runs until June 20. Programmers are Gabriela Monroy & Caspar Stracke – you can read more about them on the website of Flaherty, link below. Here is the interesting introduction to the seminar:

”The Flaherty’s 60th Anniversary Seminar probes the essence and frontiers of the form that inspired its beginnings: the documentary. Turning the Inside Out examines the state of documentary as it travels between the art gallery, the cinema, and the interactive screen. In an era of colliding genres and mediums, what holds documentary together from the inside out? What can a radical, Godardian, focus on the form of documentary reveal about the politics, poetics, and ethics of making media today?

To answer these questions, we turn to a unique group of documentary artists—some of whom produce new aesthetic idioms for documentary beyond the black box, and others who move seamlessly between media without changing their vocabulary. Together they ask: which genre (essay film, autobiography, docufiction) and exhibition form (gallery installation, web-based platform) best supports the expression of an idea? That is, how can form optimize documentary’s potential to connect us to unfamiliar places, objects, or situations? In confronting the effectiveness of form, these works amplify new and unexpected tensions: between the need to participate and the desire to withdraw, between aesthetic expression and direct action, between staying inside or going out…”

Also The Flaherty announces a celebration programme organised together with Moma to take place end of June. The opening screening includes two films by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, ”Daybreak Express” (1953) and ”Town Bloody Hall” (1971).

What an active organisation. Congratulations!

http://flahertyseminar.org/

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1478

Phil Cox & Hikaru Toda: Love Hotel

”You’re nobody till somebody loves you” is the well known song that, among others, accompanies the visit to one of Japan’s 37.000 love hotels, the one in Osaka, Angelo Hotel. This song underlines the tone of a film that works with many characters, chosen from a representative point of view. There is the couple, Mr. And Mrs. Sakamoto, who – in their 40’es – come to give their sex life a revival. There is the pensioner couple, who come to dance in one of the many play rooms offered by the hotel. The single young woman who meets the married man for his secret affair. The gay couple. The old man who does not have sex any longer but comes to have a calm moment, some pornography and to write a letter to his smiling neighbour. And the fashion designer to be, who brings her suitcase for the s & m sessions she performs…

It’s all very respectfully conveyed, no tabloid, it is nice to look at, it’s a light film that has been given a dreamerish touch in colours and editing, in and out of the corridors to the rooms. Of course you go to the bed of some of the customers but you never feel like a naughty peeper. The casted characters are natural in front of the

camera – except for the sequence with the gay couple that has strong sense of set-up and arrangement in dialogue and action – and the whole business around the love hotel is described well: the surveillance room, the way food and equipment is brought to the rooms, the ones working there, especially the manager from whom I would have loved more.

Love hotels are a threatened business. Way into the film this theme is introduced and Angelo Hotel is to be closed, at least for some time if I get it right. The conservative government is apparently cleaning up ”dirty business” but the way the film introduces the hotel, it is difficult to see what should be ”dirty” at that place. 2.8 mio. people are said to visit love hotels every day, and I can only love (sorry!) Mr. and Mrs. Sakamoto and their way of being together, playing games as if they were part of a Bunuel-film, the train conductor game, the doctor game, their fine talk about their relationship now and then, and it feels natural that we are invited to their home, as we are to the garden of Mr. Yamada, 71 years old, close to the neighbour, his secret love with the wonderful smile.

The film had its Northern American premiere at HotDocs, it runs now at Biografilm in Bologna.

UK, France, Japan, 2013, 75 mins.

https://www.facebook.com/lovehotelmovie

http://www.biografilm.it/2014/en/

Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service

… is the title of a film made by Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova. It was on its way for several years and is now out and has raised strong controversy in the country of origin, Bulgaria. But I have seen nobody write about the film! I saw a rough close to final cut last year and wrote to Mina and Vesela, whom I have known for many years:

“Thanks for inviting me to watch. And, ahhh, got tears in my eyes, when I saw your text – that Uncle Toni died this year. What a wonderful man and fine artist, you have made him to be in a film that is very creative, I liked it a lot.

The scene where he is drawing on the blackboard and making movements manipulated in pace by you, the clips from his films of course, you and him when he is taking  down the boxes, (some of) the conversations with colleagues, your dispute with the school principal is hilarious, and veeery good that you kept the two children for the ending and make them perform in each their way…”

Back to the trouble, this is a quote from Film New Europe yesterday:

Producers/directors Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova from Activist 38 have accused the Union of the Bulgarian Film Makers – Film Academy (consisting

of over 900 members) and the Bulgarian Society for collective management of authors` and producers` rights in audiovisual works Filmautor of organizing deliberate actions against their controversial documentary “Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service”.

Dedicated to the talented animator Antony Trayanov (the Uncle Tony of the title), the famous animated films director Donio Donev’s “right hand”, the film premiered at the Sofia autumn world film panorama Cinemania on 26 November, 2013. The screening brought strongly negative reaction from Donev’s heirs who said “the film does not respect the legitimate interests and dignity of one of the most talented Bulgarian film directors.”

“Donio Donev is perhaps the best known name of Bulgarian cinema, but he was also an informer for the Secret Service,” Mileva and Kazakova said.

On behalf of EDN (European Documentary Network) Paul Pauwels supports the filmmakers and “…EDN urges all Bulgarian authorities to stop the threatening and harassing campaign against Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova and their film. EDN is also encouraging all members, collaborators and colleagues to show support for Uncle Tony, Three Fools, and the Secret Service and the team behind the film.”

http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/bulgaria/108404-bulgarians-respond-to-activist-38-claims/menu-id-147

www.edn.dk

 

Documentarist Istanbul

For the seventh time the Documentarist festival is running in Istanbul – until June 12 – under the leadership of, among others, director Emel Çelebi. There is a Turkish Panorama, a focus on Syria, a tribute to Johan van der Keuken, an international Panorama, a section called Memoriam, where Alain Resnais classic ”Nuit et Brouillard”, Malik Bendjelloul’s “Searching for Sugar Man”, Peter Liechti’s “The Sound of Insects” and Michael Glawogger’s “Working Man’s Death” will be on screen.

Tomorrow, if you happen to be in Istanbul, Pawel Lozinski will be visiting the festival to show and discuss the idea behind “Father and Son”. The festival presents the case study like this:

The documentary filmmakers Marcel and Pawel Lozinski are father and son. They went on a trip together in order to make a film and they ended up making two differently edited documentaries of the same journey. What has happened on roads and in the editing room? Why have they decided to make their own versions but not one common film? In the ‘case study’ about this unique experience, we’ll hear the son’s side of the story.

http://www.documentarist.org/2014/fest/eng/home.html

Ukraine: A Country at Rough Cut Stage

I have posted several texts on Ukraine and the brave filmmakers there. Here is one more after contact with Dar’ya Averchenko and Roman Bondarchuk. The two of them have taken part in the admirable work “Euromaidan. Rough Cut”, which is a final film and NOT a rough cut.

This is what Roman Bondarchuk wrote to me: The name  of the project is Euromaidan. Rough Cut.  But actually it is not a rough cut but a completed project. In this case ‘rough cut’ is a concept, a metaphor. At the moment the Maidan and all movements it has launched still are not over and you can say the whole country is on the stage of rough cut now…

A clever thought and a clever film, that has the presence and the passion of the moment. Ready to be shown at festivals all over…

However, renowned Sergei Loznitsa premiered his “Maidan” in Cannes, 134 minutes, great reviews in Variety and Hollywood Reporter, and that will unfortunately influence the distribution of the omnibus film made by the young Ukranian filmmakers, who lived at Euromaidan. Festivals tend to go for names, don’t they?

Or will you? Why not both films, dear festival programmers. I have not seen Loznitsa’s

work but from the descriptions I can see that it is quite different in approach… also knowing Loznitsa’s always clinical method where “Euromaidan. Rough Cut” is the totally opposite of being clinical.

An edited short description from Dar’ya Averchenko:  Three months of revolution. From indignant protest to national unity. From pots on their heads to batons and body armour. From the euphoria of victory to the mourning of the fallen Heavenly Hundred. Revolution as an explosion of revived dignity, as the euphoria of freedom, as the pain of awareness at the cost, as the birth of the modern history of Ukraine… we asked the directors who were filming the Ukrainian protest to share their best shots with us – in a rough cut, just as they were… We took one or two episodes from each director and put them in chronological order, adding short intertitles between the episodes to show the context…

As you see from the footage, some of the directors truly risked their lives while shooting. Most of them are young Ukrainian filmmakers, just beginners, for whom shooting those events was far beyond professional interest, but rather their way of dealing with the situation – the possibility of getting involved in the most suitable way. This fact adds another dimension to the whole collection: their burning passion brought the authors as close as possible, then drew on their natural documentary ability to observe without judgement, finally resulting in a unique and stunning chronicle of the Ukrainian protests. Experience the three months of struggle with us, feel and see the revolution through our eyes!

Get your festival show this film, the opening title of DocyDays Kiev 2014.

Ukraine, 60 mins. several directors