Roman Bondarchuk: Roma Dream

It was a film, a photo exhibition and a book of postcards that I experienced when in Kiev for the DocuDays a month ago. I have the book of postcards in front of me, The Roma Album it is called and I take a small quotation from the preface written by Dar’ya Averchenko, scriptwriter and partner of Roman Bondarchuk, a very talented film couple with many projects in development, and with a strong involvement in the festival DocuDays.

Dar’ya Averchenko writes, after she and Bondarchuk have visited several roma settlements in different parts of Ukraine: Almost all the residents of the camp live day to day. They do not even have dreams. They think of themselves as lost and ill-fated, and have no knowledge of their heroes… for almost twenty years, Anna has been visiting the camp. She works in Berehovo in in the healthcare field, and she helps Roma people get their passports issued, and to get free treatment for tuberculosis. This disease is the hardest on them. We enter the cabin of one of her charges – a dark damp hut with one window. A beautiful young gypsy woman is feeding her baby. Five more children run around this only room. Her sick husband lies on the bed. He has fever… why Anna comes here – Believe me, among them, there  are better people than some of my own relatives. In order to help them, you just need to love people…

The positive humanistic (some would probably say romantic) approach to the Romas is also present in the four small stories that form Bondarchuk’s short documentary ”Roma Dream”. Well told, straight forward we meet Denys, who is a school teacher in one of the communities, for five kids (!), the rest of the kids are at home as their parents do not send them to school. Denys is a great character, with humour, whereas it is more hard for young Diana, who got her first child when 16 year old, and who is now the one who leads the dancing sessions to keep the culture alive. Myroslav and his wife run a simple tv studio where they report on Roma social problems. We follow him out on a location shoot, which gives Bondarchuk the chance to make amazing close-up photos of a a group of children of a mother who with her husband are in danger of being kicked out by the authorities. The last protagonist in the four good stories is Renata, who sets up an office in a Roma settlement to help (a Roma herself she is an educated lawyer) the people with their legal problems, as one of them says ”the whole world is based on documents”.

Well made, beautifully shot, this is professional work and wonderful it is to get positive angles on the lives of the roma people. We are not used to that.

Ukraine, 2012, 22 mins.

The film can be seen on  http://youtu.be/aj8FUpKurbk

If you write to Darya Averchenko you can get the postcard book: daverchenko@gmail.com !!!

http://www.docudays.org.ua/eng/2013/movies/specialni-podii/romska-mriya/

NFB Wants to launch ”the Netflix of Documentaries”

Realscreen newsletter of yesterday presents interesting news from NFB, National Film Board of Canada, the pioneer film institution in the world, set up in 1939 (parallel to the Danish equivalent, I want you to remember…) and now very much active in finding new ways to get ”high quality auteur documentaries to an international audience”.

From the article: The destination, available on the Web, connected TV and mobile devices in 2014, will offer interactive documentaries and content that is curated, bilingual, and eventually multilingual. The NFB says it is aiming to create “the Netflix of documentaries.”

Using the NFB’s existing investments in digital platforms, systems, infrastructure and content development, the service will launch first in North America and Europe.

Users will be able to access films from around the world, and create their own playlists, which they will be able to share with others. Documentary and subject experts will also guide viewers through the offerings.”

A subscription service of course, sounds great, let it happen and let other providers of quality docs join the initiative.

http://realscreen.com/2013/04/30/the-nfb-launches-pay-multiplatform-service-for-docs/#ixzz2S3vOdjNf

Peter Liechti and Avi Mograbi

For free until May 5 are the new films of two contemporary film artists who have always gone non-mainstream with their own voice and approach. The films of Liechti and Mograbi can be watched on DocAlliance, that has picked them from the Visions du Réel section ”Etat dEsprit”.

”Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents” (photo) is the film of Liechti (”Sound of Insects”), the description from DocAlliance: After a long absence, Peter Liechti visits his now elderly parents, ready for a close encounter. The stories of their lives and rather difficult marriage are largely presented as a puppet theatre, with the parents, from the lower middle-class, portrayed as hares wearing shirts and aprons. Via the “Punch” character, the rebellious son channels the emotions that overwhelm him in this stunning portrait.

The film of Avi Mograbi is called ”Once I entered a Garden” and has this text: Avi Mograbi and his long-time friend Ali embark on a journey to a land that existed before borders were created. A world that existed, even though most of the people and especially politicians pretend it never did. A world where communities were not divided along religious lines. With a light hand held camera, Mograbi continues to question the history of Israel. Everything is still possible.

Last feature documentary film of Mograbi was Z32, masterpiece.

Both films will be reviewed here asap.

And keep checking DocAlliance, it is a brilliant vod.

http://dafilms.com/news/2013/4/29/visions_du_reel

Eugene Jarecki: The House I Live In

We hear soft piano music, projector clicking… “My family came to America fleeing persecution. […] As children, my brothers and I were taught that we were the lucky ones who made it out. But with that luck came responsibility. “Never again” didn’t just mean that people like us should not suffer. It means, others should not suffer either.”

With these lines opens the film by New-York based documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, The House I Live In. Fragments of his personal memory deftly stitched together with collective memories primarily drawn from the public archival footage and interview material, The House I Live In captures heart-wrenching stories of those on the frontlines of the American longest war – the war on drugs. While America is concerned with overseas conflicts, a tacit war is taking place at home, effacing lives of its own people and inflicting damage on the society at large.

A recepient of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival 2012, The House I live In does not shine away from the complexity of the given issue; in fact, I believe, it embraces it. From the dealer to the grieving mother, from the inmate to the federal judge, from the addict to the physician, the film lays forward a patchwork of stories of all involved in this war. But as stories of personal struggles begin to transpire, the very problems associated with drug abuse start to seem just one part of an even larger problem facing the country. I reckon, the film brilliantly puts the American drug problem into a socio-historical and economic context, prompting us not to ignore it at our peril. In a tightly knotted sequence of interviews, the documentary portrays young yet smothered by life people from the improverished neighborhoods, barred from proper education, healthcare benefits, or employment; hence they are eventually trapped in the painful self-perpetuating cycle of illegal drug abuse.. As one advocates in the film, “when groups are denied access to the core economic engines in a society, they create their own out of prohibited economies.” Akin, the protagonists of the film work for the only company that exists in their company town – the streets.

The impressive statistics dropped mid-way into the film, stating that since 1971 the war on drugs has cost over 1 trillion dollars and resulted in more than 45 million arrests, yet during that time the illegal drug abuse has remained unchanged, are ostensibly there to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the law enforcement policies. Because it is treated in isolation as a legal issue, the war on drugs has dramatically escalated and created havoc

over the course of this crusade. The House I Live In throws a spotlight on the ugly b-side of the American present criminal justice system and interrogates its usable past by tracing back the origin of the anti-drug laws in the US. Hastily hopping through the decades of the American anti-drug policies somehow leaves the viewer unsatiated and compels to long for a more thorough examination of the issue at hand. Overall, however, the film does the job well in informing the viewer about the origin of certain anti-drug policies that serve as a precedent for control of minorities in the socio-economic and political order of things, be it racial, class, or other.

The film raises another important question, “if law enforcement is visibly a failure in eradicating the drug problem, why is it still on a go?” As the film speculates on the whole prison-industrial complex, we learn that all sorts of people have a vested interest in keeping the system going. For instance, the police have certain financial incentives in mass incarceration of non-violent, low-level drug offenders since the police base pay depends on mere statistics. Far from the frontlines of the “war”, there is a whole range of corporations, i.e. gun manufacturers, private health care providers, phone companies, and whole communities that depend on prisons as their primary employer, hence they are deeply invested in the system of mass incarceration, too. “It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You cannot stop it; you cannot afford to stop it.” The prison-industrial complex and tough-on-crime stance thus virtually guarantee the overwhelming number of non-violent, low-level drug offenders getting long sentences or life without parole.

The House I Live In addresses a broad array of private and public aspects and perspectives on the war on drugs in the US. While it certainly does overwhelm at times, the film succeeds in bringing to light the corrosive effects of misguided public policies, which are shaped by certain political or economic incentives. Apart from the sophistication of its telling, the film is brazen and thought-provoking. This social commentary delivered in the form of a docu-essay does not take a soft-shoe approach to the issue, which I appreciate. Instead, it pushes past social boundaries evoking the dimension of collective memories and centering social conditions and failure of law enforcement and misguided public policies. While I find the statement that denotes the war on drugs “a holocaust in slow motion” a bit far-fetched, I do understand that such a strong rhetoric might deem necessary in an attempt to overcome the legacy of bigotry, transcend structural impediments deeply entrenched in the society, and hopefully “transform a dungeoun of shame to a haven of dignity.”

And as one said, we have to look at the big picture because “[…] people out there in the streets, it is not a problem – it is a manifestation of a problem. It is simply a symptom. It is sort of like saying that the problem with pneumonia is cough. Let’s suppress the cough, and that’s okay. Well you can suppress the cough but lung will be still inflamed…”

USA, 2012, 105 mins. 

The Carnation Revolution Films

The DocAlliance does now include 7 festivals with the inclusion of DocLisboa in the group. A welcome gift from Portugal is given to the users of DocAlliance, the vod that calls itself: Your online documentary cinema.

The so-called Carnation Revolution, in 2014 it is 40 years ago it happened, is the theme and 4 good films are available for free today and tomorrow, April 28:

”Good Portuguese People” from 1980, ”Tarrafal: Memories of the slow Death Camp” from 2010, ”25 April – an adventure for democracy”  (2000) and ”Another Country”.

If you only have time for one film you could take the latter, directed by Serge Trefaut. Here is the description:

The red carnations revolution in Portugal also known as the last romantic revolution of the 20th century was, for many, an unimaginable communist threat. For others, it was a lab of dreams and politics, an exciting place for young people and bright photographers and filmmakers. People like Sebastião Salgado, Glauber Rocha (photo), Robert Kramer, Dominique Issermann, Santiago Alvarez, Pea Holmquist, Jean Gaumy, travelled to Portugal and lived there until the party was over. What is left of this experience?

http://dafilms.com/event/119-the-carnation-revolution/

Visions du Réel Awards 2013

Winners were announced last night at the closure of the festival in Nyon, Switzerland. The Grand Prix for the best feature documentary was given to Ramon Giger and Jan Gassmann from the hosting country for their ”Karma Shadub”. The catalogue description of the film goes like this:

Karma-Shadub is one of Ramòn Giger’s four first names, as well as the title of a piece composed at his birth by his father Paul Giger, a world-famous violinist. When Paul asked Ramòn to make a film about the adaptation of this piece, the latter noticed their mutual remoteness… With this project, Ramòn hopes to understand the meaning of love. A sensitive portrait of different perspectives.

I have not seen this film contrary to the winner of the Prize for best medium length, ”Father” (photo) by Marat Sargsyan, that I have followed from the sideline – this is what was written in February 2011 after the pitching at DocsBarcelona:

Young producer Dagne Vildziunaite from Lithuania was very convincing in her presentation of a film about ”The Father”, a seventy year old former criminal (in Soviet times), who in his late years has settled down in the countryside to lead a true and honest family life. The production company (”Just a Moment”) has shot the film and the producer was in Barcelona to seek interest and look for fresh eyes, an editor who can complete the film. In the audience several editors queued up to help to get the film to a rough cut stage – enabling several of the broadcasters to make a pre-buy.

The film is now finished and the producer wrote to me on her way to the award ceremony: The next stop for “Father” will be Krakow, also competition section. But not sales agents yet, cause “it is another dark story from Eastern Europe that TV audience is tired of”. Let’s hope Visions Du Reel result will change something.

I share that hope – come on sales agents, this is a film for an “ordinary” documentary interested audience all over!

http://www.visionsdureel.ch/index.php?id=1412&L=2

http://www.justamoment.lt/en/

Audrius Stonys Visits Copenhagen

“Audrius Stonys deserves much praise for his ”Ramin”, a film about an old man in Georgia, his daily life, his attachment to his late mother, his looking for a woman he knew in his youth… the story is told in stunningly beautiful images by Audrius Kemezys, the story construction is complicated, but there are magical moments (like in most of Stonys films) that you will never forget, and original ideas…” words taken from this site, which has posts about the Lithuanian filmmaker dating back to the beginning of filmkommentaren.dk

He, Audrius Stonys, visits Copenhagen this coming monday to screen his film, ”Ramin”, in the documentary cinema set up by Ebbe Preisler in the PH Cafeen in Copenhagen, check the website below – there might be documentary film fans in Copenhagen, who happen to be ignorant about the quality and commitment behind the initiative. Stonys will introduce the film and talk with the audience afterwards.

On the top of the film of Audrius Stonys, a film by Klaus Kjeldsen from 2006 is shown, shot in ”his” street, Nansensgade, about the fascinating artist Chriatian Lemmerz. The description of the film, in Danish, goes like this:

Christian Lemmerz er en tysk kunstner bosiddende i Danmark. Han er ikke mindst kendt for sine krasse skulpturer, men denne aften skal vi opleve ham skabe nogle såkaldte monotypier i et lille værksted i Nansensgade hos kunsttrykker Michael Schäfer. Der er ikke noget buller og brag i denne film, den er et roligt nærbillede af en arbejdende kunstner, kraftfuld javel, men koncentreret og humoristisk.

www.mandagsdokumentar.dk

Football in Sevilla

… well, not played in Sevilla but watched by a film blogger in a tapas bar the last two nights, both matches performed in Germany, both with German teams as the winners, in the first of two matches in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

The first match, in the bar in Sevilla, FC Barcelona against Bayern Munich, was not very well attended, apart from me I did not see any Barcelona fans, contrary to the second match, that of tonight, where you had to move your head pretty often to get viewing access to the whole screen, and where the bar was enthusiastic when Ronaldo scored to 1-1 for Real Madrid, but making a lot of customers leave when they saw that Dortmund was much more efficient = Polish Lewandowski, who had the night of his football career, scoring 4 goals!

Back to FC Barcelona… the Spanish sport newspapers this morning put it on the front page in different versions but with the same conclusions: Barca’s glorious years are over, something is wrong with the way of playing, something has to be changed, new players etc. They wrote the same after Barca’s first match against Milan, where Barca made a fantastic come back, but to be realistic, the 0-4 in Munich last night is impossible to change into a result that will make Barca reach the final of the Champions League.

Images from the match: Messi, making no successful moves at all, and at a certain moment I saw him in a position that made me think that the best player in the world was suffering from a stomach illness, was he ill? Or Gerard Piqué who had his head shaven (but kept his beard) in a way that illustrated the vulnerable defender being weak, as he could not keep Müller away from his attacks, and goal-making. The same Müller (nice name, but…) who made an obvious dirty obstruction on Jordi Alba, so he could not prevent the goal. The referee did not react. This event, as well as the clear off-side of Mario Gomez, when he scored for Bayern, made me think of the title of the film ”Kill the Referee” – to be fair there were also hands on the ball of Barca players on two occasions that could have given Bayern Munich penalties. Hungarian referee Kassai, the man in charge, will not be given more Champions League duties. Not competent.

Wrote a Barca fan after a Sevilla bar football watching! And let’s take it once more, what Gary Lineker, the English striker said: Football is about 22 players and one ball, and the Germans always win!

Tikhonova & Spritzendorfer: Elektro Moskva

Another film that premieres in Nyon (April 25 & 26) (see below), and another film that has been a long time on its way. And another film that gave high expectations that for me who has followed the film from the side, are (almost) satisfied.

Was it one of the Rolling Stones who said that ”my bass guitar gave me a reason for living”? Almost the same says Russian artist Richarda Norvila (= Benzo), one of the protagonist of the film, when he talks about his work:

”I arrive at the studio, turn on the equipment, I hear sounds and turns knobs, therefore I am…”, and he is also the one who intelligently makes the focus of the film clear, by saying: ”Let’s assume that phenomenon of Russian life is, as said Lenin, inexhaustible, as the electron, then the nature of the native Soviet synthesizers also have this quality. They translate some kind of profound lifeline, the beginning of which was laid by the great October Revolution…”.

Yes, Benzo and other contemporaries like Aleksey Iljinikh, who finds, buys, repairs and sells the synthesizers to artists like Benzo, are for me the most interesting to watch in action. When music is composed in a studio with Benzo, AND when Dominik Spritzendorfer dares to let go the image side of the film in amazing sequences where the music playfully interprets, or maybe better to say – where the image is adding to the sound to stress the quality of the latter.

The overall theme that the electrification of the Russian and Soviet society, in a belief in the future for the communism, should benefit all citizens, but failed completely, making all inventions serve the military more than the people are conveyed, with wonderful archive interviews with Theremin from 1993, introducing the space adventure as well – in other words the historical part of the film is well made but a bit monotounos and heavy in tone so the flow and the pleasure in watching the film pop up when we leave the past and go to the musicians of today with very free, almost psychedelic sequences. It is the classical dilemma of how much information is needed to give to the audience, and how much you need as background info. Nevertheless, the film is multi-faceted and quite an achievement and deserves a long and good life.

Austria, 2013, 89 mins.

http://www.elektromoskva.com/english

http://www.diagonale.at/filme-a-z?ftopic=finfo&topic=finfo&fid=5747

http://www.visionsdureel.ch/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17340257

 

Stoyanov and Rainova: The Last Black Sea Pirates

World Premiere in Nyon today of a film that was on its way for a long time. I have not yet seen the final result but clips on its way to completion give high expectations. The text below is taken from the website of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film), that also gives access to the trailer of a film, produced by Bulgarian company Agitprop and creatively written and directed by Vanya Rainova and Svetoslav Stoyanov:

It is like a fairy tale. A band of sun-dried, ganrly desperados live in a lagoon with their dreams about treasure hunting and careless living according to their own set of rules. They are six and each brings in a notable skill. Captain Jack the Whale is the leader, Trifon is the philosopher, Stoyan is the silent, Valyo is the digger, Krasyo is the driver and Nakata is the dynamite. The world of the 21st century, however, eventually locates every romantic piece of land, including pirate paradises, and pulls it down in the name of tourist luxury.


The Bulgarian seaside documentary farce The Last Black Sea Pirates was developed as the participating project of the year-round creative documentary workshop Ex Oriente Film in 2009. The authors later pitched the project to leading commissioning editors and funds at East European Forum, and took the opportunity to present the film’s rough cut to international buyers, sales and festival representatives within Doc Launch presentation in 2011. The film was finished with the assistance of DOK.Incubator workshop.

Soon after, the Agitprop- produced documentary stormed the programme lists of major international film festivals. The World premiere takes place April 23 at the Swiss-based festival Visions du réel, the North American premiere is held May 1 at Hot Docs, Canada.

http://www.dokweb.net/en/