Take a look at the photo. It is taken at the oldest Belgrade kafana that has the name ? It is situated next to Saboma Church (The Cathedral) where the four of us always go. From left Zoran Popovic, then Tue Steen Müller and Svetlana Popovic, camera held by Ellen Fonnesbech-Sandberg. Wednesday morning there was time for a classical small tour that we have done during many years of Magnificent7: cakes at Hotel Moscow, candles at the church and this year also a small rakija kruska (pear brandy) at ?

Later that day we had lunch at the residence of the Finnish ambassador, who had invited due to the presence of the Finnish director Petri Luukkainen and his cameraman Jesse Jokinen, who back at headquarter, the Sava Center, gave a fine masterclass on their film. Luukkainen talked about the filming and the editing (they had 200 hours!) for this (the director’s word) self-reflecting film, where Luukkainen more and more felt that his presence was a kind of performative play.

EDN (European Documentary Network) director Paul Pauwels gave a motivating speech to the 30 young filmmakers present on this last day of the workshop: the media situation is changing, we need to share to survive, to make a good documentary you need a sustainable compay behind… PP responded to brief pitches give by a handful of the participants, and then we were all off to the closing ceremony in the big hall of Sava Center where the loyal audience knew how to praise Zoran and Svetlana Popovic and their team. The closing film ”Faith Connection” is magnificent – a fantastic documentation of Kumbh Mela, ”a fresco” as the Popovic’s write below, and a film where you fall in love with the kids that the director Pan Nalin so cleverly portrays – the small Babu, touching to follow the love he gets from his Baba, the Yogi who gets stoned several times per day. Not to forget Kishan Tiwari, the runaway kid who wants to be a sadhu.

Magnificent7 2014 is over. Time to go back to Copenhagen later today.

faithconnections.in

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html 

Director and main character Petri Luukkainen accompanied by cinematographer Jesse Jokinen came to the stage after the screening of their film ”My Stuff” to receive a diploma and 1000€ from local BelMedic Clinic as a recognition of a ”healthy” film, healthy for your soul, an experiment into seeing what we really need.

The discussion in the VIP room, again full house as there was a full house in the big hall in the Sava Centre – it’s been like that all six first nights – took off in a very good atmosphere with two very nicely dressed Finnish filmmakers, who took us with charm with stories from the shooting over a year. Petri said that he was sick in the beginning of the film, minus 30 degrees it was in Finland at that time where he lies on the floor in an empty flat using his overcoat as duvet! And he had a crisis in the middle of the shooting and ”thanks God that I met Maia”, who comes in as a character and is there after the 365 days, when the storage room is opened.

To be the director and the main character… he felt a bit skizofrenic sometimes… but the one and only lovely grandmother was on many occasions the one to visit and get advice from. She stands out with her mildness and wisdom and it was easy to film the scenes with her, Jesse Jokinen added.

Conclusions? What did you get out of it? Were questions asked to Petri Luukkainen. I learned that ”All you Need is Love”, he said and added that without grandmother and Maia, it would have been a real boring movie. It is not, its is sweet and charming.

The film has had a fine run in cinemas in Finland and theatrical releases are planned in the UK, Germany, Sweden and Japan!

The last film of the 2014 Magnificent7 festival runs tonight, ”Faith Connections” by French/Indian director Pan Nalin, see below.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html 

http://mystuffmovie.com/

The Magnificent 7 directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film: A grand cinematic spectacle! A documentary that takes us into the world of religious cults of India – the place where the rivers Ganges and Yamuna join with the invisible river Saraswati. Here every twelve years the world’s largest faith gathering – Kumbh Mela, takes place.

Tens of millions of people from all part of India come together over fifty-five days to bathe in the holy river and wash off their sins, thus ending the karmic wheel of reincarnation. Director Pan Nalin captures this massive human anthill in fascinating scenes conveying the eruption of colors and events, representing the vast space and the heaving human mass. Building on the frenetic activity, the filmmaker’s precise direction delineates the various groups of different sects, and among them the Sadhu – holy men. In contrast to their deep inner peace are the swarming thousands of ordinary people, confused and anxious, whom the power of faith has brought to this place where the earthly and heavenly meet.

During Kumbh Mela several thousand people get lost, and the filmmaker chooses to frame the film around lost children, three boys thrown into the crowd of people and abandoned to the twists of fate. Led by the notion that “faith is not faith until it is all that you have left to hold on to” Pan Nalin develops a majestic composition in search for the deep and powerful connections being woven around the boys and all they come in contact with.

“Faith Connections” are another triumph of the heights of documentary cinema. Pan Nalin, an international star of the cinematic skies, both in fiction and documentary, chooses one of the most important of subjects in India – man facing destiny, and gives it a European documentary treatment, to create an exciting, lavish fresco pulsing with frenetic inner rhythms.

faithconnections.in

France/India, 2013, 115 mins.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html 

The Riahi Brothers had visited the festival before. Arash presented his ”Exile Family Movie” in 2007 in which his younger brother Arman is an important character as the film (the title says it all) deals with a family that meets in Saudi Arabia after 20 years of separation and without the possibility to get to the Iran most of the family left. Now the two works out of Vienna, Austria.

The inspiration to ”Everyday Rebellion”, that was last night’s screening in Belgrade at the Magnificent7 festival, came naturally from the Iranian Green Movement in 2009 that demonstrated against Ahmadinejad. The actions of the movement, as Arash said it, was violently cracked down but the brothers saw other movements coming up that had no leaders, were non-violent – they saw a pattern and decided to make a film. ”We wanted to make our contribution” and ”help the movements spread through a film that will go in cinemas, on dvd’s, with a website (link below) and an upcoming mobile application”. They saw several movements being connected, when they started filming the Occupy movement in the US, they met with Srdja Popovic, who was part of the Otpor that went against Milosevic, and who is a central character in the film describing the tactics of non-violent movements all over the world.

In the Q&A that I report from in this report – full house, around 70 of the almost 2000 spectators took part – Popovic formulated that ”those movements are the only way to change the world… it’s not facebook. It’s step-by-step actions with a will to change”, he said, and complimented the Riahi Brothers for ”a beautiful and inspirational film”.

Who are financing these actions, was the question that came up in the VIP room of the Sava Centre. And why is this not in the film? ”Our film is about the tactics, we did not look for answers”, and added his frustration that there are always someone that looks for ”the ones behind”.

… and then it became all Serbian in the room with no discussion about the film itself and pretty difficult for me to follow as the moderator Zoran Popovic stopped moderating to have looong interventions related to the subject of the film…as I see it missing the point that this is an informative film with a message and deep respect for young people all over world, who take action in different ways that are outlined in the film…well you can’t have it all.

The film of tonight is ”My Stuff” by Petri Luukkainen. See below.

http://www.everydayrebellion.net/the-project/

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html 

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/2007_eng.php?film=1

 

The Magnificent 7 directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film:

What do we really need in life?

How much do the things we are surrounded by fulfill us, and how much do they enslave us?

In a moment of emotional crisis, a young Finn decides to draw on the wisdom of philosophers of antiquity, making a radical move in his life. Discarding everything around and even on him, in a brave and uncompromising step he put himself in an entirely new existential situation, one that sets him at a considerable, and sobering, distance from the modern world.

Petri Luukkainen signs and stars in this daring and unusual manifesto. Following a set of simple and strict rules the filmmaker documents his own experiment, examining modern culture and the perpetual dynamic of need-creation in a world swamped with consumerism. Are we still capable of understanding ourselves and recognising the true needs of our own beings, emotions and thoughts? This is a provocative adventure of the soul and body from the moment of stripping down to one’s freedom, in a metaphoric re-birth, to a world shaped and transformed by our own actions.

In equal measure intelligent, entertaining and moving, this film is a surprising study of universal and immutable values. Virtuoso photography, a masterfully playful and dynamic montage, and a strikingly effective narration rank “My Stuff” at the very top of contemporary documentary cinema.

Finland, 2013, 80 minutes.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html 

http://mystuffmovie.com/

The Magnificent 7 directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film:

The world is in a state of rebeliion against political regimes, against as yet unbridled madness, against itself! In this contemporary, all-encompassing and ever-present ”Everyday Rebellion”, the rebels have uncovered new weapons that make them more active, more efficient, and more – entertaining! From subversive illegal cultural actions in Iran to silent demonstrations in Egypt, through bare-breasted provocations by activists in the Ukraine to the Occupy movement in the US, this film follows pioneers of new forms of protests, from the stages of preparation to their dramatic public staging.

The Riahi brothers manage to skillfully and thoughtfully encompass the entire world in a single gaze and single breath. In a series of dynamic episodes framed by a pointed and witty commentry, this lavish study of a planetary phenomenon pulses in a rhythmic succession of drama, carneval and floating conflicts. This is a story of the power of ideas and the spirit, of a modern-day David who unfailingly takes aim at an unfathomably giant Goliath, hitting his mark with a stone no larger than a grain of wisdom. And here is another reason for us to be particularly interested in seeing this film – one of the protagonists is a Belgrade activist who speaks to events that took place here, setting a precedent for events shaking up the world today.

This film is a festival favorite around the world, particularly of audiences that see in it a magic mirror in which everyone’s face and position is reflected with clarity. One of the largest productions in recent years, a film of undisputable aesthetic value, “Everyday Rebeliion” transcends it’s cinematic form, having become an active internet platform in which all anonymous and “little” people are invited to join in.

Austria, Switzerland, 2013, 110 mins.

http://www.everydayrebellion.net/the-project/

The workshop connected to the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade attracts more participants than ever. 70 young film students and first time filmmakers have registered to hear about the documentary filmmaking in the presence of the filmmakers, whose work have been shown the night before.

Saturday morning Mahdi Fleifel was the one. His film ”A World not Ours” had been overwhelmingly well received in the cinema and the director, with his own words, ”gave his cv” to the workshop participants. ”A World not Ours” is the first professional work of the director, who right now lives in a suitcase, travelling to festivals with his film – next venue is the Berlinale, where he will present a sequel to ”A World not Ours”. For the Dane, who writes these lines, it was great to hear about Fleifel’s fascination of the documentaries of Jon Bang Carlsen – ”Hotel of the Stars” and the two Irish works ”It’s Now or Never” and ”How to invent Reality”, commissioned by me when I was film consultant at the National Film Board of Denmark (Statens Filmcentral).

Woody Allen is a source of inspiration for the director, who at his office in London has a banner saying ”what would Stanley do” referring to Stanley Kubrick. Fleifel went to NFTS, the National film school in England, and what really pushed him to make the film from the refugee camp was watching Ross McElwee’s ”Shermans March”.

He talked about the technical side of the making of the film, where Danish filmmaker and cameraman Jesper Jargil had given him the necessary advice on what camera to buy for the job.

Sunday night’s film is ”La Maison de la Radio” by French Nicolas Philibert.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html 

The Magnificent 7 directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film: The great French documentary master Nicolas Philibert takes us into the mysterious world behind the voices and music coming to us through the subtle sphere of sound waves. This is a journey into the heart of the most famous French radio house to discover the secret of a media whose essence is invisible. In the vein of some of his greatest works, this film has a simple narrative frame – this is a saga about a day in the life of radio. A day constructed as an exciting mosaic of scenes from studios, editors’ offices, technical checks, recording sessions, dynamic and passionate speeches, discussions, singing and performance, laughter. Philibert’s assured camera becomes a careful and patient observer documenting the world of radio secrets in mesmerising frames colored by beauty, warmth and an ever-present curiousity.

The titular “La Maison de la radio” is the name by which the French refer to the rotund building in Paris housing the national radio station – Radio France. With the skill of a great filmmaker, Philibert leads us into one of the powerful media fortresses of present-day Europe to reveal to us the ideas, skills, talents, beauty, humor and irony hidden in the labyrinth of hallways, studios and offices.

An extraordinary achievement of contemporary documentary about a medium pushed aside in today’s inflation of images and the visual, but which is staging a comeback everywhere. Like a water-lilly, blossoming under the magic touch of Philibert, the ever-present yet invisible sphere reveals to us it’s face in a spell-binding and unforgettable moment, captivating the viewer.

France, Japan, 2012, 103 mins.

The organisers estimated that 1500 attended the screening of Mahdi Fleifel’s ”A World not Ours” in the big hall of the Sava Centre. The director entered the stage with festival director Zoran Popovic and took a photo that he wants to send to his mother in Denmark, the country in the cold North that his family moved to after leaving the refugee camp Ain el-Helweh in the south of Lebanon. The camp that is the location of his film where he goes back on holidays to meet friends and the part of the family that has remained there, first of all his charismatic 80 year old grandfather. The main character of the film is Abu Eyad, a friend of the director, whose doubt about the way Palestinian politics is being performed becomes the red thread of the warm and humorous story as it unfolds with shootings of today and archive material shot first of all by the father of the director.

The audience included a big group of ambassadors and diplomats from the Arabic countries, headed by the Palestinian Ambassador Mr Mohammed K. M. Nabhan, whose first reaction to the film was ”this is my story”. On the photo that I took on behalf of Mahdi Fleifel the ambassador is the third from the right, Fleifel second from left.

At the dinner I sat next to the brother of the Ambassador, who expressed the wish that the film could be shown in Ramallah as Palestinians living there actually know very little about the many refugee camps. He and his brother, who lives in Sweden for 25 years, told me that they are 7 brothers and 2 sisters, spread all over the world, speaking, if you add it up, 11 languages!

Mahdi Fleifel and his team has started an Academy Award Campaign: Please help us qualify our critically acclaimed documentary for Oscars 2015 consideration. Here is the link to know more:

http://www.aflamnah.com/en/a-world-not-ours-academy-award-campaign/

Tonight the film at the Magnificent7 festival is ”My Fathers, My Mother and Me” – German title ”Meine Keine Familie”, read below.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/pages/Program_eng.html