Sofia Biting Docs Festival

It is not only in Colombia – see below – that festival organisers play with the word closeness between docs and dogs, when a new fest is to be launched. Look at the logo for a festival that starts today (and runs for a week) in the capital of Bulgaria and introduces itself like this:

”SOFIA BITING DOCS presents a selection of high quality documentary films representing human rights topics, environmental problems, integration of diversity groups into the society and other controversial topics raising discussions and arguments.

The festival crew is planning to organize different accompanying events within its frames such as discussions, workshops and lectures, giving popularity of many interesting, but inconvenient issues.

The event is organized by Pozor Company with the support of One World Film Festival in Prague, Czech Centre – Sofia and Kino Iztok Foundation.”

Yes, documentaries are being used in a festival context to create debate about important issues. Among the films are Vitaly Manski Cuba-film ”Motherland or Death” and Lauren Greenfield’s ”Queen of Versailles”… One World-films can also be humorous and some of them bite.

http://www.sofiabitingdocs.com/welcome.html

DocsBarcelona+Medellin

… which (Medellin) is a city in Colombia that October 15-20 will have its first documentary festival, built on the DocsBarcelona model with film screenings and industry activities, all thought out by Joan Gonzalez from Parallel40 in the Catalan capital, the name of a person who has appeared again and again in filmkommentaren. He has put this new festival together together with his brilliant staff, including Angels Vilars who runs the Parallel40 office in Colombia.

I have tried to ask Gonzalez, a friend and colleague since the 1990’es, why a pipe-smoking dog is on the poster of the festival, no answer, but from a former pipe smoker, dog walker and docs addicted person… no objections.

On the programme of the festival (Spanish language films primarily) are “Pura Vida” by Pablo Iraburu, the strong film about Inaki, the mountain climber and the international solidarity that grew in order to try get him down from high up – and Chico Pereira’s warm “Pablo’s Winter” – and Fredrik Gertten’s documentary blockbuster “Big Boys Gone Bananas!”. Here is the text from the press release about the festival:  

DocsBarcelona has gone a step further in its history: after a year’s work, we proudly inform you that at the end of October we will celebrate the first edition of DocsBarcelona+Medellín, the experience of the festival you already know, now in Colombia!


Stories from Zimbabwe, India, Chile, Spain, Colombia and Uruguay will turn Medellin during 6 days into the heart of documentary.

The program will present 15 films out of a selection of documentaries mostly screened at DocsBarcelona in previous editions, all of them with a large international career.

The documentary Serrat & Sabina: Two for the road (El símbolo y el cuate), directed by journalist and correspondent Francesc Relea about the acclaimed Spanish singer-songwriters Joaquín Sabina and Joan Manel Serrat, will open the festival, being the American premiere.

The festival program will be completed with an agenda of industry activities such as master classes with guest directors, rou gh cut sessions with documentary professionals and an Executive Production Workshop-Seminar by Joan Gonzàlez, director of the production company Parallel40 and of DocsBarcelona and its edition in Medellin.

DocsBarcelona+Medellin  will take place at Parque Explora, at the Cultural Center of the Arts Faculty of the Antioquia University, at the Eafit University and in the Lido Theatre.


http://docsbarcelonamedellin.com/

Mohammad Rasoulof can not leave Iran

The following text was sent to filmkommentaren.dk by the organisers of Doclisboa’13:

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is barred from leaving his country, he will not be able to attend Doclisboa’13. Mohammad Rasoulof has been invited to chair the Jury of the International Competition of the 11th Doclisboa – International Film Festival, in Portugal.

The Iranian director went back to Iran 10 days ago and had since his passport confiscated. The authorities refuse to let him leave the country and he is not authorised to travel until “new order”, or attend any festivals presenting his latest film ”Manuscripts don’t Burn”.

In these circumstances, Doclisboa organisation has decided to leave Mohammad Rasoulof’s place as President of the Jury empty, as an act of support and solidarity with the Iranian filmmaker.

Doclisboa finds it not acceptable that he is deprived to leave the country and will contribute in every possible way to make clear that Rasoulof is being held against his will and hindered to exercise his job as a director and filmmaker.

Additionally, Rasoulof was supposed to attend the German premiere of the film at Hamburg Film Festival on Tuesday evening, October 1st, and to accept a lifetime achievement award on October 8th at the Nuremburg International Human Rights Film Festival, in Germany.

The closing session of the 11th Doclisboa is going to show ”Manuscripts don’t Burn”, to be held on Saturday, November 2nd. The film tells the story of an Iranian author who manages to secretly write down his memoirs, related to his time in jail as a political prisoner…

http://www.doclisboa.org/2013/en/home/

Cinedoc Tbilisi

The 1st international documentary film festival in the Caucasus runs from 15-20 October. The organiser is the Noosfera Foundation supported by – among others – the Idfa Bertha Fund and Georgian National Film Center.

The festival has an International Competititon section as well as a Focus Caucasus, a Georgian Panorama and a CinéDoc Young.

For the International section 10 films have been picked. According to the organizers, they are ” artistic, inspiring, daring in form and storytelling”. I would add that the list of films (check the website) is wonderfully different from the usual documentary festival programmes, spreading from the original ”The Other Day” by Chilean Ignaciao Agüero to heartbreaking Russian ”Linar” by Nastia Tarasova and the impressive, by the bigger festivals, overseen no-Lukashenko-in-picture-documentary from Belarus, ”Igrushki” by Lina Luzyte from Lithuania. More known in the festival circuit are titles like Moroccan Karima Zoubir’s strong ”Camera Woman” and Polish Pawel Kloc’s masterpiece ”Pnomh Penh Lullaby”.

The Caucasus Focus offers 8 films including Georgian ”The English Teacher” by Nino Orjonikidze & Vano Arsenishvili, Armenian ”The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia” by Arman Yeritsyan & Inna Sahakyan, Russian ”Two sides of One Horse” by Tatyana Soboleva – to mention those I have seen or heard about in beforehand.

A workshop runs parallel to the festival, DocStories Georgia, a continuation of the initiative from 2012, DocStories BlackSea. 10 Georgian projects, represented by directors and producers, have been selected to meet and be tutored by experienced filmmakers and consultants like Peter Symes UK, Uldia Cekulis Latvia, Hans-Robert Eisenhauer Germany, Irena Taskovski UK, Isabel Arrate Holland, Goran Radovanovic Serbia, Paul Pauwels Belgium and the one who writes these lines – who with Pauwels and Victoria Belopolski Russia will form the jury of the festival.

Exciting initiative in beautiful Tbilisi, and those who have been there before know what I mean, when I don’t say Hurra but ChaCha!

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/

http://www.docstories-blacksea.com/

Action: Dangerous Guidelines for Documentaries

in the EU… I write ”dangerous” instead of ”stupid” and continue by saying ”here we go again” with the EU. One thing is that it has been decided to put the well established brand MEDIA into a new scheme under the nonsense name ”Creative Europe” (why change something (MEDIA) that is a huge success?), another thing is that the guidelines for documentaries are announced to be changed. For the worse and again totally away from understanding the reality of the creative documentary like it has happened before, when changes in the MEDIA programme was made. BUT, it has to be said, lobbying has previously been succesful, so action helps and is needed now!

A quote from the EDN website of this morning: During said meeting with representatives of the Media Unit and the EACEA agency with EDN Director Paul Pauwels, it has been confirmed that the following two elements are part of the proposed guidelines;

1)  The maximum support for a documentary project applying for Single Project Development Support will from 2014 onward be a lump sum of €25.000 as opposed to the current level of minimum 10.000 € and maximum €60.000.

 2)   A project receiving Single Project Development Support cannot enter into principal shooting until one year after the funding application date.

Both suggestions for changes are of course not acceptable. On that background “EDN is encouraging all members and colleagues to make themselves heard about the expected developments within Creative Europe. Please do contact your national representative before October 11, 2013.” Which is the day where the national representatives meet.

Read more about it on the EDN website and talk to the national representative!

http://www.edn.dk/news/single-view/article/last-chance-to-influence-the-shaping-of-creative-europe/?tx_ttnews[backPid]=111&cHash=6a975909df25191f8ddf248d014c9fbc

http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/programmes-2014-2020_en.php

IDFA Academy Calls European Talents

The IDFA Academy which I can highly recommend – I attended as observer last year – has asked me to help find young talents, who could qualify for their 2013 training programme. Here is the text, I am sure that many of our readers qualify, take a look if it something for you. Deadline is October 10:

IDFAcademy 2013 will be held from November 21-24. The call for accreditation is now open. This year, IDFAcademy is open to emerging filmmakers and producers from countries of the EU, according to the list of countries by the MEDIA Programme. Participants apply with a film (completed after September 2012) that they want to distribute on the world stage, or a project that they would like to produce and/or finance internationally, and eventually distribute. This ensures that participants are constantly applying the general knowledge and advice to their own film or project during the four days. Filmmakers or producers with a film selected for the festival or Docs For Sale are especially encouraged to attend. This also applies to participants in the IDFA WorldView Summer School, IDFA-Mediafonds Workshop and Kids & Docs Workshop, or former participants with their result (film) selected for IDFA.    

The accreditation entry form and guidelines for accreditation for IDFAcademy 2013 are available here. The cost of the 2013 IDFAcademy Pass is €200,- (excl. 6% VAT).  IDFAcademy 2013 is open to a maximum of 80 participants. The deadline for application is October 10. The selection is made before the end of October. Profile of the Participants Documentary filmmakers and producers from Europe who have made a maximum of two documentaries, preferably between 20 and 90 minutes in length. These documentaries provide evidence of their talent. A course of study in film is a plus, but not a requirement. Up until now, the filmmakers have operated primarily on the national level, where their films have been financed and screened. They now wish to broaden their careers by operating internationally. A few of the participants have films that are screening at IDFA. For most of them, IDFA is the first major international documentary film festival that they have attended. We are proud to announce that the MEDIA Programme has decided to support the IDFAcademy activities during the festival in 2013.

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/idfacademy.aspx

Awards and Good News from Lithuania

The Vilnius Documentary Film Festival ended Saturday night and the jury headed by Leonard Helmrich, whose films were shown in a retrospective series, gave out the awards in the Baltic documentary competition, this year with a very strong line-up of films.

Difficult to object to the main award going to Davis Simanis from Latvia for his ”Chronicles of the Last Temple” (photo), a superb interpretation of the new and much discussed National Library of Riga, a film that shows Simanis ability to capture the grandeur of a building and its details in a super aesthetic form.

Second prize to wonderful “The Documentarian” by Ivars Zviedris and Inese Klava, also from Latvia, and third prize to Lithuanian “Father” by Marat Sargsyan.

And then some great news from the hosting country, Lithuania, that has decided the following, according to the internet magazine FilmNewEurope: “The minimalist Lithuanian documentary Conversations on Serious Topics directed by Giedre Beinoriute is the latest of the announced entries for the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film.
 The film, produced by Monoklis www.monoklis.lt and shot in a spare style with children speaking on subjects ranging from disability, the existence of God, violence, love, and work, is among a number of films from Central and Eastern Europe vying for an Oscar nomination.”

http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/region/106435-cee-gets-serious-with-oscar-hopefuls/menu-id-384

http://www.vdff.lt/en

St. Petersburg Diary/ 3

But why don’t we know about it, one of the Russian directors said on the second and last day of the Conference in Hotel Vedensky in St. Petersburg, DoxPro, on financing of international creative documentaries. He referred to the ”Farewell Comrades”, a film series and an interactive website of high quality, developed and produced by German Gebrüder Beetz, and briefly presented by the company’s Tanja Schmoller. There is a link below for those who missed it. filmkommentaren did a presentation in January 2012, a quote: ”Well-done and well conveyed information, anecdotes and personal it is, sometimes fun, sometimes tough to hear and see.”

But Tanja Schmoller was at the conference to present one of the ”Cultural Files” by the company, ”The Wagner Files”, an exciting cross-media project promoted like this at the site of the company:  ”“The Wagner Files” is an innovative and dynamic fusion of music documentary, fictional film and animated cartoon.” Equally dynamic and informative was the presentation by young Schmoller, who showed how to use the graphic novel app of the work on Wagner, and explained the financing structure of the project and how content/idea/creativity lies within the company, whereas the technical solutions are made outside. Schmoller inspired many of the conference participants, including Olga Kravets who with two colleagues are working on the webdocumentary, “Grozny.Nine Cities” that was met with both support and political remarks. They have applied to the idfa forum to get necessary funding, it would surprise me if their talented project do not get accepted.

The last day also brought a speech by Icelandic theatre person and art and environment politician Kolbrun Halldorsdottir, who talked enthusiastically about green documentaries and their potential to change – a couple of Russian conference participants stood up and advocated for their “green” festivals. Maria Fuglevaag Warsinska-Varsi, who lives in Norway, film director and former film consultant at the Norwegian Film Institute, took the floor to give a brief on the Norwegian support system as well as on the Sami film situation, where she now holds a position as mentor. Warsinska-Varsi gave a lot of advice to the Russian filmmakers present, as did veteran producer and MIFF (Moscow International Film Festival) documentary selector Grigory Libergal, who said that he had missed analysis and basic information on the Russian documentary, which consequently was what he came up with. There is a loong way to go, was the impression you got from Libergal’s speech that provoked a lot of discussion and optimism and will to change in the direction of collaboration and skills development of especially a young generation of producers, who speak English and wish to travel and take part in workshops in Western Europe.

Co-organiser of the conference, EDN (European Documentary Network), represented by Mikael Opstrup and Ove Rishøj Jensen (photo) welcomed Russian filmmakers to take part in seminars and workshops – there are many possibilities. Standing applause to the two organisers of the conference, Ludmila Nazaruk and Viktor Skubey, who will put everything online in due time for others to enjoy and learn from… and then off to see wonderful St. Petersburg, Hermitage, boat trip, Erarta Museum, Marynskii…

www.doxpro.org

www.edn.dk

http://www.farewellcomrades.com/en/

http://www.gebrueder-beetz.de/en/productions/the-wagner-files-tv

St. Petersburg Diary/ 2

First day of the Conference in Vedensky Hotel in St. Petersburg running parallel to the Message to Man festival. Theme of the meeting: Financing of International Creative Documentary Projects in the Northern Dimension Area: Cutting Edge and Trends.

The opening speech, he was given 15 minutes, he took 18, was delivered by legendary YLE commissioner Iikka Vehkalahti (photo), who came up with a sentence that was repeated several times during the day: I am now commissioning into the air, referring to the fact that many documentaries nowadays start their distribution life on the internet, eventually go to the cinema, get reviews, go to television, are made as transmedia projects…

… which was the theme of a very informative and enthusiastic speech by Swedish Annika Gustafson, who reminded the audience that interactivity is nothing new – Dickens wrote a chapter of the Pickwick Papers, let people read it, got feed back and went home to write the next chapter.

Equally informative, with a mention of four succesful crowdfunded documentary projects, was the presentation by veteran EDN staff member Ove Rishøj Jensen, who like his Swedish colleague , went back in history to point at Danish artist Asger Jorn, who in the 1930’es collected funding for a travel to Paris through the selling of works for a small prize.

Both Gustafson and Jensen came up with several links where information and inspiration can be found. AND, the organisers of the conference, Ludmila Nazaruk and Viktor Skubey, DoxPro, stated that all links and presentations will be put online after the end of the two days here in St. Petersburg. Keep an eye on this, dear readers.

Back to content. Jaak Kilmi from Estonia talked about his lost transmedia chances with films he had already done, example ”The Art of Selling”, his breakthrough film – transmedia expert Gustafson brainstormed on what he could have done… A very optimistic and energetic Sofia Gudkova talked about the Documentary Film Centre in Moscow, screenings, debates, international presentations, and Evgeny Grigoriev from the Documentary Guild, the new and young President of the filmmaker organisation, rolled out a whole list of upcoming activities that will help the filmmakers nationally and internationally. These were very promising speeches from the two young Russians, whereas Vera Obolonkina’s speech about the 24Dok was influenced by technical problems, when she was speaking online from Moscow. Gints Grube from Latvia and Rolandas Kvietkauskas from Lithuania informed about the ambition to make Latvian television more open for the independent sector of producers, respectively about the organisation of the new Lithuanian Film Centre and its – primarily – eduational activities to give a place for cross media productions.

Apart from the around 50 participants as audience in the Vedenmsky Hotel, another 40 people followed the conference online – and asked questions to the speakers – with some technical problems in the afternoon.

… and then many of us went to ”Idiot” Café…

www.doxpro.org

St. Petersburg Diary/ 1

It took 90 minutes to fly from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg and another 90 minutes to reach the hotel from the airport. Moskva Prospekt is veery long but I had good company in Viktor Skubey, producer and together with Ludmila Nazaruk organiser of the DoxPro Conference in Hotel Vedensky, where these lines are written. The two of them showed me the new venue of the Message to Man festival, the Velican Centre, which is, as Skubey put it – a new building in old style. The Centre has three cinema halls and is situated in a park, where you also find a miniature exposition of the city with its landmarks like the Winter Palace, Peter and Paul Fortress, the Isaac Cathedral etc. At the side a sculpture of the (Italian) architects who built St. Petersburg.

Wednesday I held a class at the University. 200 film students were present. I wanted them to experience the state of the (documentary) art and showed a clip from Michael Glawogger’s ”Megacities” (photo), the sequence from New York called ”The Hustler”, followed by Timo Novotny’s New York remix in ”Life in Loops”. Both clips are word-filled so to make the students remember the importance of the image, next clip was from Wojtiech Staron’s ”Argentinian Lesson” where no words are said in the first 6 minutes but where images tell it all in terms of information and emotion of the boy.

Finally the first 10 minutes of ”Act of Killing”, director’s cut – (also) as a promotion for the film that runs in the competitive section of Message to Man. This morning the start of the Conference:

“The organiser is DoxPro, the International Program for Documentary Professionals based in St. Petersburg Russia. DoxPro works “to facilitate economic and cultural cooperation between Russian and European documentary professionals, to create a wholesome environment for development of documentary as a creative industry in Russia.”

www.doxpro.org

http://message2man.com/eng/news/id/599/