E. Niewiera & P. Rosolowski: Domino Effect

I am sure that many readers of this review do not really know anything about Abkhazia… I was in the same situation until I came to Georgia, saw terrible archive images from the war in 1992-93, where Abkhazia broke away from Georgia, declared its independence and was only recognized by Russia and a couple of South American states.

Co-director Rosolowski is also the cameraman, who brilliantly has captured the devastated Abkhazian capital Sukhumi, the empty houses, the ruins, it looks hopeless – and it is on this background that Rafael Ampar, minister of sports, a proud patriotic man, tries to build his life with Natasha, Russian opera singer and mother of a child, who comes to visit. She has – to say the least – huge problems to adapt to a culture and the Abkhazian language, she does not understand, she argues with Rafael, wants to leave, there is no job for her, whereas her daughter seems to have good time with Rafael.

The scenes between the two, their feelings for each other and their endless discussions are conveyed with great authenticity, and a lot of humour, the dialogues seem natural and un-directed, he is the cool chain-smoking reflecting man – “Abkhazia is my homeland” – she is the Russian drama queen with constant ups and downs in expressions.

She leaves and comes back… Happy ending? Well, she arrives to the station with the baby, he has carefully prepared her return, but will it work? Will Love survive for victims of history and geography?

The title refers to the fact that Rafael stands behind the organization of the world championship in domino plays in Sukhumi (!) but it has of course also a broader meaning… USSR fell, Georgia got its independence and turned to the West, Abkhazia broke away (is that the right way to put it?) and is embraced (but not very much helped it seems) by Russia. The domino effect? Anyway, a very well made, a lovely film, that achieved three awards at the recent Krakow Film festival. Well deserved!

Poland, 76 mins.

http://www.otterfilms.pl/

Fotografiet 175 år

Nicéphore Niépce: Fotografisk optagelse ’heliografi’ af bygninger uden for vinduet i arbejdsværelset i Le Gras 1825.

 

 

 

”Forlydender om, at det var lykkedes at fastholde billeder i et camera obscura, blev bekræftet 7.1.1839 af Pariserobservatoriets direktør Francois Arago. 19.8.1839 offentliggjordes Niépces og Daguerres opfindelse, som den franske stat havde købt… ” (Den Store Danske) Det må være disse begivenheder i 1939 i fotografiets langvarige og komplicerede opfindelses-historie, som har fået FILMSTRIBEN til i sit nyhedsbrev i går at fejre 175 året med et tema om fotografi og fotografer ved at sammenstille og anbefale en række film fra repertoiret. Jeg vil så så benytte anledningen til at pege på e af disse film, som jeg synes særlig godt om, ”Fotografi” af Steen Møller Rasmussen (som i parentes bemærket havde fødselsdag i går):

FOTOGRAFI (2006)

I filmen medvirker fire fotografer, Keld Helmer-Petersen, Per Bak Jensen, Krass Clement og Kirsten Klein, men filmen handler ikke om dem. Næsten heller ikke om deres fotografier, sådan specielt. Den er ikke et gruppeportræt, slet ikke en biografisk sammenstilling. Den er om det, som titlen siger, fotografi. Den er et essay, måske, eller en poetik i hvert fald.

Steen Møller Rasmussen har lavet sin film som et fotografi, naturligvis. Med alle de fotografiets elementer, de medvirkende taler om, som synlige og mærkbare tråde af konstruktion og holdning i filmen, så den hviler i sig selv, i sin viden om æstetikken, som et billede af hver af de fire (det skifter hele tiden, i stor ro, selv om skiftene ofte markeres af fast motion (eller hvad det hedder) OG som et billede af Steen Møller Rasmussen.

Tydeligst er selvfølgelig motivet vinduet, som introduceres i første scene. Ude, inde, kigge ud. Det er Helmer-Petersen, som kigger og taler om at løbe ud og ind at hente kameraet og ud. Bak Jensen analyserer udsigtens linjer og beskæringer, Clement er fascineret af tågedagens lys: “Det er fandme smukt”, og bliver selvfølgelig optaget af en handling derude i bylivet. Kirsten Klein tager tråden op og får langt, langt ude øje på en båd på fjorden. Jo, det er da en fisker, der er ude at sætte garn. Og hun runder den anden linje af, et træ er med årene blevet så stort, at det dominerer vinduets billede, det forstyrrer ved at tiltage sig for megen opmærksomhed.

Og Møller Rasmussen fordeler rollerne: serier og slægtskaber (Helmer-Petersen), stedet og jeg og dets ånd og det religiøse (Bak Jensen), magien, oplevelsen og besjælingen af den, som så bliver fotografiets sjæl (Clement) og endelig: “Se Jordens krumning her ved Livø Bredning” (Kirsten Klein). Klipperen Anders Villadsen har omhyggeligt foretaget dette fletværk (her kun antydet, analysen kan fortsætte og fortsætte), som gør “Fotografi” til ét eneste billede af denne kunsts væsen.

Fotografi

http://www.filmstriben.dk/fjernleje/film/details.aspx?id=2646376900

http://www.filmstriben.dk/fjernleje/page/article.aspx?id=1852  

Hans Robert Eisenhauer – Interview

Many years ago, at my time in EDN, I asked Hans Robert Eisenhauer to come to Italian Bardonecchia to the yearly Documentary in Europe session as a keynote speaker on the theme ”public service television”. I had known him from many years and admired him for being one of few commissioning editors, who actually edited a programme strand according to the very obvious point of view: this theme we have to offer to our audience. He worked for ZDF/arte’s theme evening and had a big influence on the documentary policy of arte. And he saw clearly that the reportage was not enough to cover a theme, there had to be a documentary interpretation, a personal touch, in other words a creative documentary as we call it today. The talk in Bardonecchia was brilliant including a criticism of the development among many broadcasters to go mainstream = tabloid in the stupid fight for higher ratings.

Eisenhauer is now retired from arte to be a very active producer, who helped producer Orwa Nyrabia and director Talal Derki realise ”Return to Homs”. About this and his time at arte, EDN brings a long interview, also accesible for non-member, link below.

Here is a quote: The public service TV landscape has changed profoundly between the time of my start at ARTE and until today. There is much more competition even between public broadcasters.

We as documentary producers and filmmakers, but also the broadcasters are confronted with two tendencies, which are challenging our professional life. On one hand we see a more and more globalized “market” of documentaries, of ideas, of communication. Thousands of new projects are flooding the documentary landscape every year. On the other hand we are observing, that the broadcasters are constantly cutting budgets, reducing slots and are asking more and more for national or even regional content. This is a real challenge for all of us, but not only for the filmmakers and producers, but also for our TV-colleagues. It is also a huge cultural and an economic/financial problem too. The funding became more and more difficult within the last decade. The support of regional, national and local film- financing funds cannot compensate for the loss. But the most important loss is the fact that innumerable interesting and promising projects will never appear on the small and the big screens…

http://www.edn.dk/

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/