The Siege of Leningrad

On 27th January 2014 it was 70 years ago that the catastrophic and tragic siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) was lifted. I wanted to watch again the much acclaimed ”Blockade” by Sergei Loznitsa. Deckert Distribution was so kind to send me a dvd + a copy of ”900 Days” by Dutch Jessica Gorter. Two fine works that goes perfectly together. I have written about both films below.

But first some words about me and St. Petersburg, a city that I adore and have been so lucky to visit many times. First times in the beginning of the 90’es where I was part of a selection team for the Balticum Film & TV Festival on Bornholm (1990-2000). Head of the team was Russian born Sonja Vesterholt, the best guide to the city you can dream of. (On the 27th Sonja wrote the following on Facebook: ”I dag er der 70 år siden Leningrads 900-dages lange belejring blev ophævet.. 1 500 500 mennesker døde af sult. Min mor overlevede…” = Today, 70 years ago the 900 days long siege of Leningrad was lifted. 1.500.500 died of starvation. My mother survived…).

Later on I visited the city as consultant for the Baltic Media Centre together with Latvian colleagues Lelda Ozola and Ilze Gailite Holmberga. On one of these trips I met Ludmila Nazaruk, who stands behind the great website miradox.ru and together with Viktor Skubey have organised several meetings in the name of DoxPro in order to better the conditions for documentarians in Russia. The last effort of the two was the conference ”Financing of International Creative Documentary Projects in the Northern Dimension Area: Cutting Edge and Trends.” Russian speaking can follow (via miradox.ru) what was said at the Conference, where Mikael Opstrup from EDN and I were invited to be moderators. Link below. On top of that I have for two years been consulting the ”Message to Man” festival thanks to filmmaker Mikhail Zheleznikov and the new President Alexey Uchitel, who took part in the first edition of the festival on Bornholm. So all goes together in this nostalgic tour over two decades… It’s all about friendships, isn’t it?

Back to history and to the two films I saw. Sergei Loznitsa’s ”Blockade” is 100% based on archive material, b/w, 52 mins, no words, no explanation, ”this is how cameramen filmed the siege”, he seems to say in this unique work, that shocks you and from a filmic point of view impresses you with its precise interpretation of sound: footsteps, small not hearable conversations, a sled being taken through icy snow carrying a corpse… He presents the

archive material in a chronological way from trams in the streets, prisoners of war being taken up Nevski Prospect surrounded by crowds of people, people running away from the streets when the sirens announced another bombing, empty houses, a woman picking up a pair of shoes from the ruins, people sitting in the streets with all their belongings, dead corpses in the streets, frozen to death, starved to death, hard to watch it is, buckets of water being taken up from the streets, melted ice, a sports tribune being chopped up for heating… the material is impressive, many close-ups are used but Loznitsa refrains from going sentimental, most often you see expressions of hopeless in the eyes, only once he has chosen that line, when we watch a mother with dead child in her arms. And then fireworks and happy faces when the siege is lifted. You think the film ends here, it does not, a brutal hanging ”ceremony” follows. The crowds cheers.

An unbearable reality it was, brutal and not a heroic resistance time at all, as the Soviet empire, and the Russian government of today wants it to be. This is the starting point of Jessica Gorter’s ”900 Days” that has the subtitle ”myth and reality of the siege of Leningrad”. It starts with Medvedev’s glorifying speech to the veterans and the parades – and is followed by conversations with survivors, who paint quite a different picture of the terrible years. And some archive, that you recognise from Loznitsa’s film. Two women stand out with their stories, one of them – and her husband – have put away the medals they got from Stalin and his regime, there is nothing to be proud of, and the government banned all talk about the time after the lift was made. (We were) ”Live skeletons wrapped in skin”, one of them says, and one story after the other follows about cats being slaughtered and cooked, meatballs made out of human flesh, KGB that was active and locked up people, who critizised how the authorities handled the situation… Yes, there are also women gathered around a table talking positively about ”the good old days under Stalin” until one of them says that her father was deported because he was against. She can not bear to tell it all, the film has many moving moments.

It’s only 70 years ago!

Blockade, Russia, 2006, 52 mins.

900 Days, Jessica Gorter, 2011, 77 mins.

both films available from

http://deckert-distribution.com/

and in America from

http://icarusfilms.com/new2006/bloc.html

 

Charles Ferguson: Inside Job /3

Den var på Dokumania i aftes igen, man må sige velanbragt. Jeg er stadigvæk imponeret af filmen, en fortsat tankeprovokerende og elegant oversigt uden nåde over krisens begivenheder og spillere, for eksempel en aktuelt meget omtalt investeringsbank, som nu skal putte penge i DONG. Da jeg så den første gang skrev jeg: Jeg melder lige ud med det samme: den film kan jeg godt lide. Den er betydeligt mere overbevisende, end de danske anmeldelser efter premieren sidste år lod mig tro, den er et fuldt forståeligt vredt angreb på Wall Street spillerne, økonomerne og direktørerne. Den berømte gades verden set som et banalt casino, klædt af til skindet, medvirkende efter medvirkende, i en imponerende klippet række krydsforhør, som Ferguson gennemfører uden at lade sig forstyrre det mindste af alle mulige forsøg på intimidering… læs mere: Link  Og Mikkel Stolts kommentar efter min anmeldelse blev til en af de små diskussioner her på Filmkommentaren, som er alt for sjældne, men som vi holder meget af: Link 

Foto: Ferguson under en optagelse til filmen.

Talal Derki: Return to Homs/ 2

… while diplomats and politicians talk about Syria these days in Geneva, mentioning Homs in every sentence, news came today about the excellent film “Return to Homs”: It was Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Festival. Bravo! That must increase the distribution of the film worldwide. Deserves to be seen all over.

The award was received by producer Orwa Nyrabia, who said:

“It was a very long journey until we were here,” he says. “This really gives us hope, us and everyone under siege in Homs and other places. It gives us hope that some day the siege will end. That some president can be ousted. And some other president in another place can do something finally.”

On YouTube you can see Orwa Nyrabia and director Talal Derki’s thank you talks.

Here I repeat the review of the film, which was on the list of “Best of 2013”:

I met Talal Derki at a workshop in Athens a couple of years ago. He showed me some footage with Basset, the young revolutionary leader – and talented football goalkeeper – from Homs, fighting Bashar and his gang. What I saw was impressive and strong. I told him to make the film quickly: It is important to see what happens. NOW. He did not follow my advice. He did right. Instead of a report

we now have a Film, a big emotional drama, a great documentary, that I saw yesterday in a crowded Tuschinski Theatre at idfa in Amsterdam.

It feels so banal to state that the film is shocking, that it makes me shake several times, when you are taken so close to watching dead people and people dying, that you want to close your eyes but do not. You sigh and move in your chair. But you watch because you are drawn into a story that you can not leave. About something that happens not very far from where I/we live.

A 9 year old boy lies dead on a floor. Blood is around him. His father cries. I am thinking – take it away from my eyes, but the filmmaker does not, the viewer is invited to stay for more moments with the dead boy and his father, who places himself up against the wall in his deep grief. He prays and mourns. Next to him a cameraman who cries as well. Was it the right decision to show this scene in this way? I think so – paradoxically for me, it is a sign of respect not to cut in a tv reportage style, at the same time as the film communicates that this is what happened in Homs between August 2011 and August 2013. Invitation to reflect, the film is made in the head of the viewer.

Basset and Ossama. The revolutionary fighter, the leader of demonstrations, singing slogans to have the crowd follow him and his friend, the cameraman, who shot a good deal of the film until he was captured (he is still detained). These charismatic characters – Basset the agitator, Ossama the soft observer – are the protagonists we as viewers live with and feel with in a film, that has the director Talal as the one telling the story. He is seen in the film and he is the one, who connects sequences with a beautiful personal commentary.

The film covers two years. From the early days where Basset sings his songs and makes the crowd join him, to Basset in fight (”we will never win if we stay peaceful”), to Basset sitting with no hope in his eyes on his way to give up, to Basset seriously hurt, ready to die, to Basset back in action. From an open (part of) Homs to a sieged city, to Basset deciding his ”Return to Homs”. It is this personal drama experienced by Basset and Ossama, commented and equally experienced by Talal, conveyed in panoramic scenes that look like Berlin 1945, as well as intimate scenes with the fighters, as well as tough reportage scenes of human beings being shot, brought to the kind of medical treatment that is possible on the front line, in a war zone, as well as a memorable tour through holes in the walls, Ossama (or is it the cameraman that took over after him?) following Basset.

Never has the word ”authenticity” fit so well as a description of a film!

Syria/Germany, 2013, 87 mins.

Magnificent7 Festival Belgrade

The Magnificent7 festival starts thursday the 30th of January in Belgrade. Opening film is “Leviathan” (photo). From thursday and the following seven days a report will be posted from the festival as well as a presentation review by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. For the website (link below) I wrote the following text:

Ten Years Older…
Well, I am told that the festival celebrates its 10th edition! Really? Is it true? I feel the festival more to be Ten Minutes Older, to bring in the title of the legendary short documentary by Herz Frank.

For me it is just a moment ago that we (festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, the whole festival team including me) waited down at the stage in the Sava Centre in 2005. Anxiously to see an audience enter the hall to watch ”Touch the Sound” by Thomas Riedelsheimer. The opening film of this European Feature Documentary Festival. People came, in huge numbers, and it has been like that since then. The Belgrade audience has been more than loyal to Magnificent7, simply the best that this travelling documentary observer knows. Thank you! Veliko, neizmerno hvala!

Herz Frank again: “In front of me on my work table is the central fragment from Raphael’s fresco “The School of Athens”. Plato and Aristotle discuss the philosophical meaning of life. Plato is pointing upwards – the essence is the Idea! Aristotle, on the other hand, has his palm pointing down to the ground – the basis is the material! Even earlier in the Old Testament (Genesis) both views are united. In the first book of Moses the first lines states: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Read – the spiritual and the material.”

The spiritual and the material, facts and reflections, many narrative layers, personal interpretations that are filtered through a creative temperament, poetry and prose. The documentary is an art form. Important art stays in our minds and hearts.

I am sure that the 2014 selection will be remembered as well. Indeed it deals with the spiritual in films like ”Leviathan”, a more than magic visual tour-de-force on sea and ”Faith Connections” from India… Fasten your seat belts! Three autobiographical films are told in first person – Palestinian ”A World not Ours” from a refugee camp in Lebanon, ”Meine keine Familie” with fantastic archive material from the commune Friedrichshof, and a young Finn who decides to get rid of his daily ”My Stuff”.

The world is not at its best right now, and the documentary genre has always proved to be the best place for films that deal with protests: ”Everyday Rebellion” does so. Contrary to the tumult is the quiet and safe creative world in ”La Maison de la radio”, the French film about the beauty of words brought to the screen by the great master Nicolas Philibert.

Join the celebration of the 10th homage to the creative documentary!

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/home.html

Use Firefox or another browser, my Safari did not work properly to get to the website.

New Danish Screen – 10 Years Celebration

The Danish Film Institute publishes regularly – in English – its magazine Film. A printed issue is always available in connection with the big festivals in Berlin, Cannes and Amsterdam (idfa), and on top of that you can find digital issues, the last one being the Fall 2013 issue that covers films in connection with other festivals like Toronto as well as articles on coproductions with Danish companies.

This blog post, however, deals with a very generous offer, in a special digital issue on ”10 Years with New Danish Screen”. For those who don’t know what that is: ” Established in 2003, New Danish Screen is a talent development subsidy scheme providing support for fiction and documentary films.

Through this support scheme new generations of filmmakers are given the opportunity to push their limits and create new experiences for cinema and television audiences. New Danish Screen aims at making use of the energies and skills of talented creators, rather than guiding them in well-defined directions.

New Danish Screen is aimed at new talents working on the professional level as well as less experienced filmmakers. What counts is enabling manifested talents to develop, test out new ideas or change course since their past productions.

New Danish Screen (NDS) is founded on a partnership between the Danish Broadcasting Corporation DR, TV 2 and the Danish Film Institute.”

And now about the celebration gift that also reaches out to a foreign audience (English subtitles): Choose between 53 films, supported by the NDS, and watch them online. Here are some titles to be recommended: “My Avatar and Me” by Bente Milton and Mikkel Stolt (photo), “My Father from Haifa” by Omar Shargawi, “The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” by Kaspar Astrup Schröder, Mira Jargil’s new “Dreaming of a family“, “White Black Boy” by Camilla Magid (this one with a small fee, otherwise the mentioned are for free). Those mentioned are all documentaries that I have seen, there are several fiction films, more experimental works and NDS deserves (also) much credit for bringing back the short film to a Danish, and now also an international audience. So – read all about it, NDS, and have fun with some films!

http://www.dfi-film.dk/nds-frontpage

The Swedish Guldbaggen 2014

Guldbaggen (The Golden Beetle), the yearly Swedish cinema award ceremony, took place yesterday and again documentaries played an important role – as last year where two films stood out: Palme by Kristina Lindström and Maud Nycander and Searching for Sugarman by Malik Bendjelloul.

Awarded as the best film this year was ¨The Reunion” (Återträffen) by Anna Odell, a hybrid film to use a modern terminology, or a docufiction, that Mikkel Stolt reviewed for filmkommentaren.dk

Danish director Per Fly got the beetle as best director for ”Monica Z” about legendary singer Monica Zetterlund.

Best documentary went to Mia Engberg for her ”Belleville Baby”, a very fine choice. I saw it in connection with the Nordisk Panorama festival in Malmø and wrote:

…it has a feeling, an atmosphere, a personal tone (the director’s own voice and her text is excellent) and a well told story from the past, where the director fell in love in Paris, lived with him for some time, experienced him becoming a criminal, because of his immigrant background, an honest film that also includes reflections on the fimmaker wanting to convey the good story, whatever the subject of the story thinks… it is so well made with a mix af material – super 8 blurred images, photos, newsreels and tv-reports from riots in France, home video from the director with her small son, all framed by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydike. An essay film on remembering, and remembering different moments and events, maybe they never took place. Impressive work…

http://guldbaggen.se/nominerade/

The Documentary Oscar Goes Political/ 3

The nominations have been done. At least three of the films deal with current political conflicts (these ones):

“The Act of Killing”, Cutie and the Boxer, The Square, Dirty Wars and 20 Feet from Stardom compete for the Best Documentary Feature prize at the 86th Academy Awards on March 2…”

I have seen them all (see below) except for “20 Feet from Stardom” (Photo). “The film has this synopsis description on the Oscar site (link below): Background singers heard on many of the 20th century’s greatest songs have made a crucial contribution to the world of pop music while remaining unknown to listeners. The singers take center stage for an in-depth look at their role as supporting figures in the complex process involved in creating the finished recordings.” From watching Youtube clips and the trailer it is obvious that this is a film with wonderful music and women, based on interviews with them and people like Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and Betty Midler. A classic tv language film.

So… who are my favourites having seen all five, one in excerpts? “The Act of Killing” and “The Square” stand out. No doubt about that. In film language, actuality and storytelling. Important films they are. If it comes to approach to theme, innovation and originality “The Act of Killing” is unique. It would get my vote if I was a member of the Academy. I am not.

If you want to read more about what is considered to be the two favourites, not only by me, go to the websites of the films, links below. Or get hold of the magazine DOX 100, where Joshua Oppenheimer and Werner Herzog talk “The Act of Killing” and Jehane Noujaim is interviewed by BBC-editor Nick Fraser about “The Square”. Fraser, who has called “The Act of Killing” “porn for liberals” thinks that “The Square” is “the best film I have seen this year”.    

http://oscar.go.com/nominees

http://theactofkilling.com/

http://thesquarefilm.com/

http://www.edn.dk/news/news-story/article/dox-100-anniversary-issue-dox-in-dialogue-1/?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=111

Jehane Noujaim: The Square

I watched this film online (on the fine festivalscope, link below, subscription-based) after it had been announced as one of the five nominees for the Oscar award in the feature documentary category.

The film has this synopsis description on the Oscar site (link below): “The events that have shaken Egypt since 2011 have taken the country from a revolution aimed at ending political oppression to the overthrow of the new president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. At the center of the story is Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the gathering place for protesters and the site of many of the period’s most dramatic moments.”

… and drama there is, indeed, in this film that stays close to young revolutionaries for more than 2 years, catching the atmosphere of optimism after the fall of Mubarak, slogans, speeches in Tahrir Square, concerts, something’s gonna change – to the disillusion when the army has taken over and attacks the protesters, to more disillusion, when the Muslim Brotherhood negociates with the army, wins the election and appoints Morsi, who from the eyes of the young revolutionaries turns out to be worse than Mubarak. It’s observational reportage style footage that is the fundament of the film: People gathering. People in their tents. People being beaten up. People killed in the demonstrations, the mourning of their relatives, it’s terrible to follow. Some optimism returns to the face of Ahmed, when Morsi is taken away from power and the military is back. Yes, Ahmed (photo) is the character cleverly chosen by the director to bring in the emotional part – the young revolutionary, who is at the square discussing with people, who comments on what happens and how it influences him as time and events pass by. He is filmed in the streets, or through interviews. We read his face. The first, the direct works best, the latter feels a bit too staged. A scoop for the film, however, is that another central character is Magdy, who in an interview with the director is described as “a foot soldier” for the Muslim Brotherhood. His discussions with Ahmed, their friendship, stress that the director – although she follows the revolutionaries, who have also provided her with footage – does not want to condemn the Brotherhood as terrorists (as the military government does right now). Discussions like that as well as the actor Khalid’s skype conversations with his exiled wise father take the film take a step away from the constant bombardment of reportage material, whereas short interviews with military people made me confused – they can’t be as stupid as these ones all of them! 

USA, 2013, 1 hour 44 mins.

http://oscar.go.com/nominees

https://www.festivalscope.com/

Richard Rowley: Dirty Wars

I watched this film online (on the excellent idfa “docs for sale”) today after it had been announced as one of the nominees for the Oscar award in the feature documentary category.

The film has this synopsis description on the Oscar site (link below): “One of the least-known components in the war on terror, the Joint Special Operations Command conducts its work in secret and seemingly without limitations. With no existing record of their actions or personnel, the JSOC carries out strikes against those deemed a threat to U.S. security while remaining entirely outside the scope of public knowledge.”

… which is actually not really how the film appears. Its is much more a film that has taken all its storytelling tools from fiction, a thriller, a detective story with journalist Jeremy Scahill in the leading role as himself, the reporter who with his notebook never gives up in his year-long search to reveal American war crimes in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia with some looking back at Iraq. He finds out the existence of the JSOC before it goes public, having success in finding and killing Osama bin Laden. It is a well-made film and no doubt that Scahill is a good journalist, but also a writing journalist, a man who works with words and has published praised books on his journeys into the secret world of the US fight against terrorism, a fight that with JSOC, as the film shows, has cost many lives of civilians. It is a formatted film with the journalist always at work, always on a case, seriously interviewing Afghans (the Gardez case where innocent, pregnant women were killed) and Yemenits about what really happened, when their dear ones were killed by the counterterrorist JSOC, accompanied by strong images of corpses, and clips from American television shows where his investigations were made into stupid entertainment. Scahill is serious but also a man, who constantly talks in first person (I decided to go but could not etc.) and only at the end when he meets the father of Anwar al-Awlaki, American citizen, who was killed because of his role in al-Qaeda, with the consequent killing of his 16 year old son, what did he do other than being the son of… you sense that the journalist – portrayed as a hero – has some feelings for what he is doing.

USA, 2012, 87 mins.

http://dirtywars.org/

http://oscar.go.com/nominees