Adam Schmedes: Kampen for naturen er forudsætning

Adam Schmedes har efter anmeldelsen af “Ishavets kæmpe” sendt Filmkommentaren dette brev: “Kære Allan Berg. Efter i 6 år at have kæmpet med en meget vanskelig filmopgave, Danmarks hidtil største satsning på naturfilmområdet. En pioneropgave, idet Grønlandshvalen var nærmest umulig at filme (BBC opgav) og samtidig et koncept med historiske rekonstruktioner til søs i det arktiske.

Efter den præstation, som fik rekordstor seermodtagelse på omkring 900.000 på DR1, en god lancering og nogen presseomtale forblev filmintelligentsiaen tavs. Ingen omtale i EKKO eller andetsteds og ingen finaleplads i Robert sammenhæng for nylig.

Genren naturfilm, og det skønt jeg har skubbet kraftigt til genreopfattelsen, er åbenbart ikke noget den intellektuelle del af filmkritikken, eller filmkritikken i det hele taget, vil beskæftige sig med.

I mine fordomsfulde øjeblikke havde jeg lyst til at karakterisere disse filmkritikere enten som begrænsede af faglige vanemæssige barrierer og interesser; det er ikke film, det er fakta og vi kender intet til natur, altså en manifesteret dovenskab overfor at beskæftige sig med det universelt naturvidenskabelige indhold og dertil knyttede filmiske debat.

Men det kunne også skyldes en manglende evne, eller lyst til at skulle spejle sig i problemstillinger som ikke handlede direkte om dem selv. Det at kunne genfinde sin egen navlebeskuende opmærksomhed i andres gengivelser, med nye fascinerende detaljer.

Altså en almen humanitær følsomhed over og omkring menneskets kår og emotionelle tilstande, som karakteriserer hovedparten af både kort og langfilm, vægtet som højeste værdi.

Standpunktet bag Ishavets Kæmpe er kun humanitært i anden potens, fordi idégrundlaget bag filmen placerer kampen for naturen, som forudsætning for og dermed højere prioriteret end humanismen. Vi ser nødvendigheden af en mere arts-altruistisk universel holdning, og dermed peger vi på nødvendigheden af at ændre vores kultur, vores civilisationsmodel, så den fokuserer på helheden, snarere end navlen og inddrager en længere tidshorisont i sin perspektivering (et centralt tema i hvalfortællingen)

Efter den kraftanstrengelse og de nationale rekorder vi har opnået, stod vi, på Loke Film, midt i et tomrum, medens et hav af lette navlefilm (en betegnelse vi bruger internt og bredt om film, der psykologisk, ofte med metafysiske eller filosofiske udflugter kredser om individets eksistentielle selviscenesættelse), der kan laves inden for 1 år eller få måneder, fik al den faglige opmærksomhed, netop fra dem, vi trods alt føler os som del af, i det danske filmlandskab, hvor vi bærer vores del af ansvaret for fornyelsen af dansk film.

Jeg vil derfor takke dig fordi du har ført debatten videre og endda med stor grundighed har undersøgt vore dogme regler (Eddys dogmer) som du dermed er den første til at kaste lys over, skønt vi har arbejdet med dem i flere film, som i ”Kongen af Provence” eller ”Kamæleonernes Strand”, du tidligere har anmeldt.

Du har helt ret (afsnit 7) i at vi kunne have gjort mere ud af at stilisere rekonstruktionerne, selvom, som du påpeger, de kun har demonstrativ karikaturfunktion i dokumentartilgangen. Da vi skulle til at lave dem sidst i forløbet, havde hvaloptagelserne, samt bankerne og den finansielle krise bragt os nær bankerot, så al min personlige ejendom var sat på højkant, medens afleveringsfristen nærmede sig. Du ved hvad historiske rekonstruktioner med mand, sejlskibe, joller, kostumer, rekvisitter, dykkere etc. koster. Her havde vi ikke midler til fuldt at gribe om det du kalder spillefilmgrebet. Det beklager jeg. En stor tak fra holdet bag ”Ishavets Kæmpe”, Adam.”

Footballkommentaren: Barca

Loyal readers will know that football is of great interest to one of the editors of this filmkommentaren.dk – the one to the left on the photo together with another enthusiast, Zoran Popovic from Belgrade, who with his wife Svetlana are directors of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade, that celebrates its 10th edition at the end of this month. Mr. Popovic points at the screen where we watch one of the legendary Messi’s many brilliant matches…

… as I did the other day, where the Argentinian star returned to Camp Nou after 59 days of injury absence. He was on the pitch the last 30 minutes of a Copa del Rey match against Getafe and made 2 goals! Messi is back, as is Barcelona FC, Barca, I think, contrary to the many, who again and again have declared their tiki-taki football style as dead and do not think that the team will achieve any success this year. Well, Barca is in the lead in the national league, they are still in Copa del Rey, they are in Champions League (even if the next opponent, Manchester City, is playing fantastic soccer right now). So, what’s the problem?

I am writing this the day before Barca plays Atletico Madrid, a top match where Barca has not only Messi but also Fabregas, Alexis, Pedro, Alba, Iniesta, Neymar in great shape. And with some adjustments the tiki-taki style will still be the most joyful to watch. Barca has for sure problems in the defense but as long as the team makes more goals than the opponent… As one of the founders of this way of playing football, Johan Cruyff, has said: Remember that the ball never gets tired, in other words, first time passes, always move around, make yourself playable, change tempo when needed. It’s an art form, Barca performs, sometimes with great beauty.

Photo taken by Svetlana Popovic at Hotel Prezident, Sremski Karlovci in Serbia.

Cinema Eye Awards 2014/ The Oscars

No objections at all to the fact that the most important Cinema Eye Awards 2014 went to “The Act of Killing” by Joshua Oppenheimer and “Stories We Tell “ by Sarah Polley. The latter for “Outstanding Achievement in Direction”, “The Act of Killing” for “Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking” and “Outstanding Achievement in Production” given to Danish producer Signe Byrge Sørensen. So well deserved!

All awards are listed in the report from Hollywood Reporter, link below. I would like to highlight the “Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography” that of course went to “Leviathan” by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel and the so-called Spotlight Award for Chilean “The Last Station” (photo) by Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara.

The Oscar nomination – the 5 titles for the grande finale – will be announced next week and Hollywood Reporter makes the following interesting reflection:

“The results (of the Cinema Eye awards) do not necessarily reflect the same tastes as the documentary branch of the Academy that determines the best documentary feature Oscar nominees — the Cinema Eye Honors’ nominees are determined by journalists and film festival organizers, not filmmakers, but the winners are chosen by several hundred filmmakers, amongst whom are many members of the Academy’s doc branch. In any case, the outcome of the Cinema Eye Honors will not sway the doc branch’s selection of nominees, since Oscar nomination voting ended on Wednesday night at 5 p.m. PST. But if these same films can make it past the announcement of the Oscar nominees on Jan. 16 — over other top contenders such as Jehane Noujaim’s The Square, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish, Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From Stardom and Teller’s Tim’s Vermeer — then a raised profile certainly won’t hurt them in the final round of Oscar voting.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/four-oscar-shortlisted-docs-dominate-669594

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/act-killing-wins-outstanding-feature-669585

Adam Schmedes: Ishavets kæmpe

Det her er billeder fra en hvals biografi. Det første viser vores hval, som dier, det andet er vores hval i parringsdans årtier senere, det tredje still er vist nok fra filmens slutning. Vores hval er nu mere end 200 år gammel. En Grønlandshval kan nemlig blive så gammel, hvis den er heldig og undgår sin værste fjende, mennesket. Det er mærkeligt. Jeg accepterer det. Jeg er mange gange i filmens forløb og i lang tid med på dens forudsætning, at jeg følger en bestemt hval, vores hval, som bliver meget gammel, den er født i 1700-tallet og den lever endnu. Til forskel fra de fleste af dens slags, som blev fanget og kogt til hvalolie under den europæiske industrialisering gennem 1800-tallet. Det er kort fortalt filmens handling.

Jeg gik skeptisk til Adam Schmedes‘ film, for jeg vidste jo, at der ville være så meget, jeg ikke kunne lide, fordi jeg forstyrres af dyr med individualitet, med navne, som tillægges personlige stedord i speaken, og jeg forstyrres af rekonstruktion og pludselige spillefilmgreb, forstyrres, ja, generes direkte af omklamring, moralisering og mangel på tvivl. Og så gik det altså alligevel sådan, at filmen voksede og voksede for mine øjne, og jeg gik imponeret fra filmen, tænkte hvilken indsats og var fyldt af sorg. Denne overmåde hensynsløshed mod dette dyr havde jeg i virkeligheden ikke kendt til. Og det var jo meningen, at jeg skulle have det at vide, forstå det og sørge. Det er Adam Schmedes hensigt med sin film. Det er også på den måde et selvfølgeligt mesterværk og derfor også netop så æstetisk provokerende, for det er et værk af en stærk og egensindig mester, som kun vil det han vil.

Adam Schmedes havde 3. januar dette på sin Facebook side: ”The Eddy dogme. These 10 rules were set up in 95 as a concept to let reality and cinematography into the wildlife filming.

1 The animal is the main character.

2. Animals are filmed at eye level.

3. Identification should be with the animal and it’s conditions.

4. The environment should be seen from the pov. of the animal and reflect a world in transition, filled with human activities.

5. No talking heads. Science and factual content should be transformed into action and emotion.

6. Naration to strengten the drama or anticipate the action, clarify or problematise the content.

7. Human only in secondary roles and short appearances.

8. The film should tend to reflect the ecological truth and avoid romanticize nature.

9. All suited dramatic tools and genres can be used to achieve this goal.

10. Pure nature is pure lie.”

Lad mig se på, hvordan hans film overholder de ti regler, denne alternative æstetik, som altså Eddy, hovedpersonen i ”Kamæleonernes strand” (2008) tror jeg nok, opstillede samme år, filmkunstens år 100, det år også von Trier, Vinterberg, Kragh-Jacobsen og Levring skrev og uddelte et andet Dogme 95. Det interessante er altså ikke om Schmedes overholder Eddys ti dogmer, det ville være uinteressant at konstatere, men hvordan han gør det afgørende, fornyer det filmkunsten:

1) Dyret er hovedperson. Filmen har ved klippet af utallige dybt forbavsende optagelser af mange, mange hvaler etableret én eneste medvirkende, som den kalder vores hval.

2) Filme i øjenhøjde: Jeg er filmen igennem som ledemotiv lige ud for et hvaløje. Fotograferne har måttet arbejde neddykket ofte og længe i det iskolde vand.

3) At identificere sig, at ”holde med”: Jeg følger angst hvalen ind under isen. Kan den finde en våge? Jeg kender ikke dens kræfter, ved ikke, at den kan sprænge sig vej op gennem isen (ja, der er optagelser af det!), og jeg sænker genert blikket ved synet af penis under parringen (ja, det er filmet!).

4) Omgivelserne ses fra dyrets niveau, fra dets point of view: Grebet er så gennemført, at jeg ikke nu bagefter kan huske enkeltoptagelser, som tydeligt demonstrerer det. Jeg husker hele filmen, to hundrede års overlevelseskamp, set som vores hval husker den og fortsat lever den.

5) Talking heads: Der er ikke ekspertinterviews og vidneudsagn inde i filmen. Der er utallige bag og omkring filmen. De er omformet til et drama, filmens fortælling og følelsesindhold. Jeg kommer ikke op af vandet, bliver under isen alle filmens 58 minutter.

6) Iscenesættelse: Dramatiseringerne forbliver ved en gennemført stilisering, såvel i computerarbejdet som med de mange ens skonnerter i det samme farvand og som i de talrige monotone gentagelser af de samme få rekonstruerede harpuneringsscener kortvarige kunstigheder som mareridt, jeg midt i drømmen ved, jeg kan vågne fra.

7) Menneskene er i biroller: Og de er grimme! Snavsede, rå og brutale hvalfangere og fjollede, fnisende og parfumerede fotomodeller. Karikaturer i karikerede optagelser. (Efter min opfattelse filmens eneste, men til gengæld store svaghed. De optagelser burde være yderligere bearbejdet, så de helt forsvandt ind i det store, smukke billeddrama.)

8) Den økologiske sandhed reflekteres: Jeg er ikke et øjeblik i tvivl, det fremgår tydeligt af alt og hele tiden og sært nok uden at blive for meget, uden at blive kvalmende frelst. Det serveres nemlig barskt!

9) Hensigten helliger midlet. Jeg må sige, at hvad jesuitterne jo ikke gjorde, det gør Adam Schmedes. Intet filmisk værktøj skyr han. Og han kommer igennem med det.

10) Den rene natur findes ikke: På en mærkelig omvendt måde er Schmedes’ natursyn i slægt med Herzogs. De er begge uden illusioner. Den ene mener, at naturen brutal, den anden mener naturen er inficeret. Mennesket er problemet, jeg kunne næsten opstille en fælles antropologi.

Danmark, 2013, 58 min.

Mira Jargil: Drømmen om en familie

Billedet forestiller en familievejleder, som har måttet give op. Men nej, han skulle ikke have ladet være at forsøge at lægge sig imellem de to, ladet være at blande sig. Tvivlen, man kunne have, er for længst fjernet omkring den tvivlende. For ja, vi skal ikke kun interessere os for, men også som samfund, som socialinstitution og som kunstinstitution, som familievejleder og som filminstruktør skildre, fortolke, gribe ind i og omforme hinandens liv. Vore tankeliv, private liv, familieliv, sociale liv er ikke vore egne. Vore liv udsættes som en del af den sociale kontrol og accept for institutionernes manipulation. Når det er kommet hertil, hvad det ser ud til, det er, er det temmelig godt, at der findes psykologer som den kompetente kommunale familievejleder, den mest interessante medvirkende i Mira Jargils film og filmfolk som Mira Jargil selv, som sikrere end nogen har skildret samlivets fineste nuancer.

Lad mig tage ham først. Hans projekt er kolossalt, det er afgørende vigtigt, det udvikler sig kompliceret dramatisk, og han er jo i dramaet katalysatoren, den omvendte Jago, den gode, omsorgsfulde rådgiver. Imidlertid får han ikke den fortolkende plads i Jargils projekt, som filmen fortjener. Derfor mister den tilsyneladende i første omgang den intellektuelle højde, som kunne kompensere det fortvivlende følelsesbillede og den stereotype omverdensforståelse, som de andre medvirkendes replikker af talemåders begrænsede variation producerer.

Lad mig så prøve at skrive lidt om Mira Jargil. Hun er den, som insine film hele tiden er til stede, stiller sig med kameraet det rigtige sted. Filmer de sarteste, de mest sjældne øjeblikke. Når hun kalder sin nye film ”Drømmen om en familie”, forlanger hun vist, at jeg deler den drøm, for filmen er jo ikke sådan, at den køligt konstaterer, at det er en drøm, en indbildning at kunne etablere familie uden fundament af egentlig indsigt og forståelse for hinanden. I stedet ser det ud til, at disse pseudoforståelser imellem forældrene i historien aldrig bevæger sig fra overfladens konventionelle, kliche-funderede beskrivelse af følelser. Og barnets latente originalitet i læsningen af forældrenes følelser og beskrivelser af sine egne får ikke den plads i dramaet, som ville sprænge rammerne for en tro på, at familien kan behandles, for dette ibsenske motiv er vist ikke en mulighed, ikke en fristelse for Mira Jargil. Hendes ambition er for mig foreløbig at se alene at flytte den sociale tv-dokumentar på de filmhåndværksmæssigt æstetiske områder, det observerende kamera elegant kombineret med terapeutisk hjemmevideo, karakterudvikling ved klipningen i det omfang det var muligt, smukt indforstået lyddesign og meget mere, som ingen vist kan sætte en finger på. Så det produktionsprojekt er for så vidt lykkedes. Men Jargils nye værk oplever jeg som et tilbageskridt fra den eksistensanalyse af vores fælles liv og død, som hendes tidligere film så usædvanligt rigt og klogt etablerede. Jargils nye film er således en udvidelse af hendes repertoire teknisk og administrativt og i filmlængde, en udvidelse som lykkes, men den sker vist nok på bekostning af udviklingen i den kunstneriske undersøgelse af det elskende menneske, som er at læse i det samlede værk til nu.

Ja, sådan tænkte jeg i aftes vel to tredjedele inde i den lange fortælling. Men så overraskede filmen mig. De barske begivenheder vender op og ned på forløbet. Faderen indlægges med blodprop og genoptrænes heldigt, men moderen vælger at forlade ham, for at flytte tilbage til den anden mand. Her griber psykologen og faderen til at gennemføre en smuk plan. De færdiggør den bog til barnet om det hele, som de længe har forberedt. Barnets møde med sin egen historie i den bog er filmens store sted. Den lille pige er forløst lykkelig og holder den tæt til kroppen. Læser i den, jeg hører enkelte sætninger og forstår, at denne litterære bearbejdning af det vanskeligt forståelige familieliv har helende virkning. Ikke ved sentimental bliven i en umulig drøm, men ved ærlig og præcis beskrivelse af, hvad der faktisk er sket i barnets fortid, hvad der sker nu og hvad der vil ske i fremtiden, denne klassiske kliniske model omsat til et lille stykke litteratur om drømmen, der måtte briste.

Danmark 2013, 85 min.

Peter Zach: Böhmische Dörfer

Here is one more proof that old people (like children) are good for documentaries. This is what I experienced watching this sympathetic, informative documentary that plays with the expression ”böhmische dörfer” – English title is ”Bohemian is all Greek to me”, for our Danish readers is would something like ”en by i Rusland” meaning that this is past and present history that we do not know about or do not understand.

The film makes the story of Sudetenland, its dramatic stories, victims of war and change of borders much clearer, and the old people adds an emotional element that I would have loved to have much more of. Jana Cisar – who is also the producer of the film – takes us to her grandmother, who was born in Thein (now Tynec) and like 3 million other Germans, who lived in Czechoslovakia before WW2, had to leave her hometown. She now lives in Mariánské Lázně, beautiful Marienbad and has never been back to the place where she was born and raised. The grandchild – Jana Cisar – makes her go back to

back to abandoned Tynec but she is too moved to step out of the car to see the house of her childhood.

Herr Altmann, 90 years old, on the contrary, managed to stay after the war. He is a brilliant storyteller, when he brings to us the story about how he survived – being a German soldier – the end of the war, when the Germans had to surrender and the Americans arrived to the small village in Bohemia. ”The villages are falling apart”, he says about today and the camera catches the decay.

As a narrative ”Fremdelement”, but a very interesting and important one, sequences with and about American director Samuel Fuller are introduced. In unique b/w archive material you see the hard core cigar-smoking director talk about what he filmed, when he arrived with the American forces to what he calls ”the last battle in Europe” in Falkenau, where the concentration camp was liberated. Shocking clips of 16mm footage he shot back then are mixed with scenes that show the late director’s family attending a memorial for what happened then. Pure reportage.

It’s all very relevant content-wise, but the film unfortunately suffers from going from one place to another, from one subject in the complicated history to another. New persons are brought in, who are not so charismatic, the style is different, the rythm is broken. Maybe it would have been good to have Cisar’s personal touch as the red thread that is missing? A long sequence with writer Leina Reinerova (who died in 2008), who says about herself that she speaks PragerDeutsch and talks well about her life and imprisonment during communist times, is full of clumsy cut-aways from the interior of the Slavia Café in Prague, where the interview is recorded. Why not stay on a very strong woman and her face? Anyhow, I learned a lot from watching – it’s not that Greek to me any longer!

Germany/Czech Republic, 78 mins., 2013

Rithy Panh: The Missing Picture

Co-editor of filmkommentaren.dk Allan Berg did not like the still picture that I had picked for the article on the Oscar race for documentaries. I am sure it is because he has not seen this amazingly strong hybrid documentary that competes in the foreign-language feature film catagory. A first person film, and now I quote from Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, a reviewer I always respect:

… ”a sombre, stylised memoir of the director’s childhood when his country had been taken over by the Khmer Rouge… Panh tells his story through a mixture of Khmer Rouge propaganda newsreels and little clay figurines (photo). It was perhaps the only way of managing the devastating memories. Rather as infant victims of abuse will sometimes be asked by social workers to tell their story through soft toys, Panh tells part of his own history through these figurines. As well as this stratum of tragedy and pain, The Missing Picture has an element of Godardian reflection: the “missing picture” is the definitive image of truth for which he is searching…”

Yes, Godard is here, there and everywhere… and Panh’s film has the most touching and eloquent personal commentary I have heard for a long time.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/02/missing-picture-review

Louisiana: DOX

Louisiana, the Museum of Modern Art, a wonderful place at the Øresund, the strait between the Northern part of Zealand and Southern Sweden, one hour by train from Copenhagen, there are always interesting exhibitions, it is a place for relaxing and reflecting – has established a collaboration with the cph:dox festival. For four weeks (19 films, spread out on 11 days) screenings take place on some weekdays and in the weekends with free entrance if you have bought a ticket for the Museum, that right now – among others – have an exhibition of Asger Jorn and Jackson-Pollock. To be precise, I continue in Danish by quoting from the site of the museum – what a great initiative this collaboration is, I just want to add:

Louisiana: DOX (er et) intenst dokumentar-filmprogram i museets koncertsal i 11 dage mellem 7. – 26. Januar.

Store filmoplevelser venter, når Louisiana i januar viser nogle af de bedste og mest nyskabende dokumentar-film fra CPH:DOX-festivalen, som fandt sted i København i november 2013. I samarbejde med CPH:DOX har Louisiana udvalgt 19 dokumentarfilm, som museet viser 11 dage i januar, både hverdage og weekends.

LOUISIANA:DOX starter tirsdag den 7. januar med visningen af to dokumentarfilm, der begge har fokus på den kinesiske kunstner Ai Weiwei og hans situation. Den ene er Andreas Johnsens meget roste film Ai Weiwei – The Fake Case, den anden er filmen Stay Home! – en ny stærkt systemkritisk dokumentarfilm instrueret af Ai Weiwei selv.

Blandt de mange andre prisvindende dokumentarfilm, som vises i forbindelse med LOUISIANA:DOX, kan nævnes den enestående Manakamana, som er filmet i en svævebane i Nepal, Bloody Beans, en vild film om Algiers historiske kamp for uafhængighed, Michael H: Profession Director (PHOTO), et portræt af den østrigske filminstruktør Michael Haneke, samt Everyday Rebellion, som vandt Publikumsprisen.


Link to LOUISIANA+DOX

The Documentary Oscar Goes Political

15 films have been shortlisted for the feature length documentary Academy Award. 5 of them will be nominated for the final round by January 16th. In other words – in a couple of weeks it will be decided which 5 films will compete at the Oscar ceremony the 2nd of March to be chosen as the best long documentary. Normally with the Oscars I shake my head and say ”who cares”, but contrary to this previous indifference felt about the documentary Oscar as being an internal American affair, it is this year more interesting because there actually are award-worthy films. Even if, I hurry to state, most of the 15 films listed are American. There are no East European films, no Asian, no African etc. So if this is absolutely not the world championship of documentary films, the list is interesting because it also confirms that documentaries deal with the health situation of the patient. There is a strong a focus on contemporary conflicts. And some of the films have a high artistic value.

Important newspapers like Guardian/The Observer and New York Times write long articles these days about the political documentaries on the short list with 15 titles. The recent interest is evoked by the fact that a screening in Moscow of ”Pussy Riot. A Punk Prayer” has been cancelled, that ”The Square” (= Tahrir) by Jehane Noujaim has not got its official permission to be screened theatrically in Egypt, and that the Indonesian people have difficulties to get to watch “The Act of Killing”. On the list is also “God Loves Uganda” about the rise of homophobia in the African country, very much “helped” by the work of American missionaries.

It is good that the documentary genre is boosted like this, and it is good that the alteration in the voting system will make more than special committees watch and judge the documentaries. Michael Moore, one of the people behind the new system: “It’s clear to me, and lot of people in the academy, that going to a full democracy system where everyone votes has been the key to the vast improvements, we’ve seen,” Moore said recently.

The newspapers mentioned above circles around “The Square”, “The Act of

Killing” and “Blackfish” as favourites to win – I have seen “The Act of Killing” and not the two others. My hope is that three films will make it to the nomination for their originality in storytelling and unique interpretation of human existence: “First Cousin Once Removed,” by Alan Berliner, “The Act of Killing,” by Joshua Oppenheimer and “Stories We Tell,” by Sarah Polley. They have all more than a current political or mainstream family focus. They are extra-ordinary.

I watched “Pussy Riot. Punk Prayer” the other day, it is a well made but also very predictable – yes, ordinary – tv documentary, whereas the Russian “Pussy Riot versus Putin”, made by the anonymous Russian group Gogol’s Wives, obviously part of the opposition movement in the country, brings forward a much closer and powerful look at what Pussy Riot had made and stands for with energetic sequences from the very start. The film won first prize at idfa festival in Amsterdam in medium length category. It is not on the short list, of course not, it could not live up to the rules of the Academy – and the economy connected to promotion in the US.

One more candidate, but not in the documentary category, is Rithy Panh’s Missing Picture” (PHOTO) that is on the fiction list of foreign-language films. The Cambodian/French director has made an outstanding hybrid documentary that he described like this when it premiered at the festival in Cannes:

“For many years, I have been looking for the missing picture: a photograph taken between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge when they ruled over Cambodia…On its own, of course, an image cannot prove mass murder, but it gives us cause for thought, prompts us to meditate, to record History. I searched for it vainly in the archives, in old papers, in the country villages of Cambodia. Today I know: this image must be missing. I was not really looking for it; would it not be obscene and insignificant? So I created it. What I give you today is neither the picture nor the search for a unique image, but the picture of a quest: the quest that cinema allows.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/movies/awardsseason/pussy-riot-a-punk-prayer-and-the-square-shortlisted.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/04/documentary-oscars-get-political 

Copenhagen Jewish Film Festival

There is a good climate for documentaries in Israel. Broadcasters invest more in the genre than you experience in Western Europe, there is public funding and private funds, there are film schools, the festival DocAviv and the unique CoPro, headed by Orna Yarmut, a marketing tool for Israeli documentaries abroad. I was for years involved in the selection of projects to the yearly CoPro pitching forum in Tel Aviv, where films on the development stage are presented to potential buyers from television stations and funds from all over the world.

Several film projects that took part in CoPro sessions are now finished films and can be watched at the Jewish Film Festival in Copenhagen at the Cinemateket January 9-12. Feature films and documentaries are presented with an absolute majority of the latter. Let me recommend some of them:

”Life in Stills” by Tamar Tal is a wonderful, very funny and warm film with a 96 year old grandmother and her grandson, who keeps a photo shop alive in Tel Aviv (closed now, I am afraid). The scoop photos are from the declaration of independence of the state of Israel but the film is first and foremost about the relationship between the two.

”One Day in Peace” by Erez and Mira Laufer, a film that has been touring festivals all over the world, and been subject to endless important discussions. Here is the text about the film taken from its official website: Can the means used to resolve the conflict in South Africa be applied to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? As someone who experienced both conflicts firsthand, Robi Damelin wonders about this. Born in South Africa during the apartheid era, she later lost her son, who was serving with the Israeli Army reserve in the Occupied Territories. At first she attempted to initiate a dialogue with the Palestinian who killed her child. When her overtures were rejected, she embarked on a journey back to South Africa to learn more about the

country’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s efforts in overcoming years of enmity. Robi’s thought-provoking journey leads from a place of deep personal pain to a belief that a better future is possible. Robi Damelin will be present at the screening in Copenhagen.

The charismatic producer Arik Bernstein told me about his for years ongoing project collecting home movie footage from private citizens. The film is screened in Copenhagen and I am curious to see the final result – ”Israel: A Home Movie”, director Eliav Lilti – for sure far from the usual propaganda from the official political Israel.

The – for many – father of Israeli documentary David Perlov (from the site about him: The documentary cinema interests me only if I can turn it into something more poetic. Only then does cinema interest me) is represented with the 1979 ”Memories of the Eichmann Trial”. The description of the film from the Israelfilmcenter’s site: Layers upon layers of memory are laid down in Perlov’s fillm, a unique historical and cinematic document. In interviews that Perlov conducted in his apartment seventeen years after the trial of the notorious Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann, survivors, their children and young Israelis all give their perspectives on the impact the trial had on Israeli society’s approach to the Holocaust and its survivors, as well as the manner in which it influences their personal and familial lives.

And of course there is Dror Moreh’s Oscar nominated ”Gatekeepers” (PHOTO), the choice of Cinemateket as ”documentary of the month”. One of the gatekeepers, former ambassador to Denmark Carmi Gillon, will be present at one of the screenings. The film has been reviewed on this website.

PS. A request to the programmers of Cinemateket: Please show on some occasion the latest film by Avi Mograbi, ”Once I Entered a Garden”, a great film by the most important Israeli documentarian, probably too controversial for a Jewish Film Festival. Here is the precise description the film had when showed at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year: A wry, playful reflection on the emotional consequences of a political situation, centred around a revealing series of intimate conversations between the Israeli filmmaker and his Palestinian ex-Arabic teacher and longtime friend. An exchange of shared and separate histories, perfectly underscored by and intercut with achingly beautiful letters to a love lost across the divide, read by a woman over evocative super 8 footage of modern-day Beirut.  

http://www.cjff.dk/

http://www.copro.co.il/

http://www.dfi.dk/filmhuset/cinemateket.aspx

http://onedayafterpeace.com/