Documentary Boom in Cannes

The trade magazine Screen Daily has a long article (May 20) on the big presence of documentaries in Cannes. The article, written by Melanie Goodfellow, mentions films to be shown and sold as well as statements from people who sell and distribute documentaries.

Rithy Panh is there with what is called a hybrid work, ”The Missing Picture” and Marcel Ophüls presents his autobiographical film in the Director’s Fortnight section. ”Ain’t Misbehaving” is the title of the film that has interviews with Jeanne Moreau and Fred Wiseman, reflects on the director’s relationship to his famous father Max, and includes clips from the director’s two masterpieces ”Le Chagrin et la Pitié” (English title, see poster photo) and ”Hotel Terminus” – that every documentary interested should have on their shelf, available on dvd they are.

At the festival in Cannes there is a Doc Corner with sales agents, documentary festival people – and a documentary Brunch for talking and mingling.

Anaïs Clanet from Wide House in Paris is quoted for this fine statement: “I definitely have a sense that more and more companies are getting into documentaries,” comments Clanet, head of Paris-based documentary specialist Wide House who is selling Ophüls’ Ain’t Misbehavin. “I see a lot of companies, traditionally specialising in fiction, now handling documentaries. They have woken up to the fact documentaries can actually be more profitable than fiction and easier to place, especially when there are fewer and fewer broadcaster slots for fiction features”.

Another important player in documentary sales: “It is a tough time because prices for TV rights have dropped but at the same time I am optimistic,” reveals Peter Jäger of Vienna-based doc specialist sales company Autlook Films. “Digital revenues are beginning to pick-up, not enough to compensate for the loss of DVD sales but enough to give me hope.Documentary, even when dealing with big subjects, is essentially a niche product and niche products lend themselves well to digital distribution although a theatrical release remains important.”

Read the whole article: http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/cannes/cannes-documentary-boom/5056470.article

Andreas Koefoed: The Ghost of Piramida

Artur Liebhart, festival director of Planete Doc Film Festival, had planned the closing ceremony of his festival in an excellent way. Well, he could not know it but Danish director Andreas Koefoed was as the first award winner called to the stage to receive “Chopin’s Nose” for his film “The Ghost of Piramida”. He was accompanied by his three protagonists from the Danish band Efterklang, that made a great concert after the ceremony. On top of that Koefoed’s film was shown after all awards had been given out at this tenth edition of a festival that not only takes place in Warsaw but also in other Polish cities.

Back to Piramida, here is the description of the film from the hand of the director:

Accompanied by their taciturn and not visibly impressed Russian polar bear guard, the group goes on a audio treasure hunt in the empty buildings of the abandoned town, while the narrator, the former Piramida-citizen Alexander Naomkin Ivanovic, takes us back to a bygone era, when Piramida flourished and the immigrant Russian miners and their families lived in a Soviet parallel society far from the brutal reality of their homeland.


And here is my brief comment on what I saw: Koefoed has in an elegant way combined past and present in his charming presentation of a town that once was full of people and life but now is a place where a music band goes to pick up sounds for their next album. Russian Alexander provided the director with wonderful archive material and the three musicians give us good music and sound, at the same time as they are urban cowboys in a nature where even an Arctic fox could be dangerous! Not to forget that the film is beautiful to watch. This film is a small pearl and I have become a fan of Efterklang…

On the site of the Danish Film Institute – in Danish – you can read of the impressive distribution initiative taken by the band and director. 800 so-called private-public screenings in 52 countries!

Denmark, 2012, 65 mins.

http://www.dfi.dk/Nyheder/FILMupdate/2013/April/Private-Public-Screenings-af-The-Ghost-of-Piramida.aspx

http://efterklang.net/home/category/the-ghost-of-piramida/

Planete+ Doc Film Festival/ 2

I was invited to the Warsaw festival to talk about film critic, which I did last saturday morning with a general introduction followed by a screening of Maciej Drygas ”Abu Haraz” and a discussion of which points should be dealt with in a review. A dozen people took part, some found that Drygas film was boring because of its slow contemplative rythm, others went straight to the content, which they found actual, one used the phrase that the film was about ”uprooting”. Two psychology students pointed out that the director maybe had fallen in love with his own aesteticism in some sequences. Might be right… Anyway, I wrote my review text (see below) after a computer screening, changing a word or two after the cinema screening. Which makes repeat the banality that films like that has to be seen on a big screen, there is no comparison. I saw many details that I simply could not see on the computer.

The Planete+ Doc Review Festival was well attended, the hospitality from the staff was great, the weather was superb summer-like, but as said, nevertheless there was an audience that left the sun to enter the darkness.

I arrived thursday evening and left sunday. I watched six films: Peter Liechti’s ”Father’s Garden” (read Sevara Pan’s enthusiastic review below), Swedish Martin Widerberg’s film ”Everyone is Older than I Am” about his father Bo, who never finished the film about Arvid, his father. The film is complicated when it comes to the storytelling structure but has a lot of fine moments with Arvid and first of all clips from Bo Widerberg’s wonderful films like ”Kvarteret Korpen”, ”Barnvagnen” and ”Elvira Madigan”.

I saw Nicholas Philibert’s ”Maison de la Radio”, review will follow and the new film of the directors, who made ”Rabbit a la Berlin”, Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosolowski’s ”The Art of Disappearing”. Again an original film with an incredible fairy tale story about Polish theatre guru Jerzy Grotowski who lands in a helicopter in Haïti to take with him vodoo priest Amon Frémon. I met with the directors after the screening as well as with Anna Wydra, the super-energetic and competent producer, who said that she would bring ”Rabbit a la

Berlin” to the Oscar – which she did even if we were many, who thought she was dreaming. The new film I have to see again to get it all but here is their own description:

”Poland was a strange place for him. Even the rain was louder, as if in a land of deaf people. People gathered in queues for hours but they never spoke to each other. A romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz led him to the underworld and helped him contact Polish spirits. He survived the martial law period when the evil white water came from the sky, water that could not satisfy thirst. Finally he decided to perform a great vodoo ceremony to free the Polish people from evil forces. The dead and alive unite in battle. The spirit of the Polish romanticism unites with the Haitian loa spirits just as 200 years ago, during the great revolution in Haiti.

An unknown story of a Haitian vodoo priest, Amon Frémon, who visited the People’s Republic of Poland in 1980. A metaphysical view on time of socialism through the eyes of a stranger form a different culture.”

Film number 5 I saw, was ”I am in Space” by Dana Raga, a compilation of NASA material from space journeys with text quote bites from interviews the director had done with astronuats. Funny moments from life on board a space station but it does not really work as a film story.

And finally Danish Andreas Koefoed’s music documentary with the band Efterklang, ”The Ghost of Piramida”, review follows.

PS. “The Last Station” by Chilean Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara won a prize for its brilliant cinematography as did “Elena” (Photo) by Petra Costa from Brazil.

http://www.andreaskoefoed.com/index.php?/film/the-ghost-of-piramida/

http://www.otterfilms.pl/projects/in_production/?project=8

http://planetedocff.pl/?lang=en

Liechti: Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents

“For heaven’s sake – what a question!” utters Hedi as her son starts the conversation that they had avoided for decades. Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents is a new documentary film by Swiss director Peter Liechti that traces a close re-encounter of Peter with his comely aged parents, Max and Hedi Liechti. The film is based on 20 interviews of his parents, taken between summer of 2010 and summer of 2011. Everything that appears in the film is verbatim from these conversations.

A couple of minutes into the film, Peter spills a story of an accidental public encounter with his father a few years back. Despite having not seen one another for ages, the two could not embrace. The happenstance perplexed Peter, compelling him to take a closer look at his parents, hence resulted in the following film. After the long absence from his parents’ lives, Peter plunges himself into their biographies allowing every moment, no matter how mundane, to reveal disjointed entrails of their subjective memories. Circumventing the comforts of silence, this author-driven documentary attempts to explore the dark corners of his parents’ bygone days and resurface things long forgotten through the scrupulous recollection of the common past.

Unsentimental yet empathetic, the film centers upon the difficult marriage of Max and Hedi, who have lived together for 62 years. “Closely knit yet poles apart” – as Berlinale put it – the two are just fundamentally different. “Mother loves to travel. […] I am just a homebody. She reads a lot. I

only read a newspaper. I like to be with people, in sports clubs and whatnot. And she prefers being alone.” The two have conflicting views and interests in almost everything to the degree that as Hedi divulges, “[…] it is almost a miracle that we are still together.”

Recipient of the Visions du Réel 2013 Special Prize of the Jury SSA/Suisssimage for the most innovative Swiss feature film, Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents masterfully utilizes a puppet theater as a confessional for Max and Hedi to let their inner struggles play out in the outer terrains. Peter does not shine away from tackling issues that are particularly sensitive to his parents – religion, love, war, or their unfulfilled dreams. The inquisitive long-absent son is like that “unwelcome archaeologist”, who stirs up cold ashes and unearths buried residues of the past family conflict that has run out of arguments. Yet, Peter embraces the confrontation. He asks: “If you had the chance, would you choose a son like me again?” which not only comes to disrupt the long silence but also creates tension in the already complex dynamics of his family. Crying for relief, the suspended tension is released as the defiant son, presented as a puppet alike his parents, reacts in the frenzy manner accompanied by the blaring electro sounds. I believe that employment of the puppet theater within the documentary format deems prolific in telling the multi-faceted story of Peter’s family.

From the vantage point of the beholder, however, I descry larger topics the film explores that go beyond the Liechti’s personal narrative. As Max and Hedi, who one would classify as to belonging to the lower middle-class, are presented as puppet hares in shirts and aprons, the film seems to sketch the perceived scape of normalcy of the old system and the people’s over-fixation on the order of things, be it Max’s utmost precision while tending the garden or Hedi’s habit to put her housekeeping money in petite paper drawers “Leisure”, “Guests”, “Gifts”, and etc.

Revolving around the concept of normality, Max also ascertains the role of a woman in a family and the society at large: “By her very nature a woman doesn’t belong in the work process. [If the wife works], then this, in my opinion, is evading the normality. Sooner or later one just has to accept it and assign her task in life accordingly. […]” Lukewarm in convictions, Hedi does not rail against the established tenet of her role. Yet her longings break out through her quietness in innumerable curious ways: “Florence, Michelangelo, the Acropolis. He never had dreams like I did. […] So I withdrew, retreated, and immersed myself increasingly in books. […]”

Peculiarly unsettling, eerie. The film comes to revisit not only the past – it also probes landing its foot on the dreamscape and not so distant future. “As the firmament gets closer and closer”, the concept of time seems captivated within the recurrent dreams of the protagonists: “I always dream the same dream,” shares Hedi. […] It is a beautiful place in the Alps. Perhaps, in Bernese Oberland. The building is old and complex… And when I want to leave, I don’t have enough time to pack before the next guests arrive. Like in the hospital. I can never finish anything. Nothing at all.”

At times provocative but always with much candor, Father’s Garden – The Love of My Parents deftly explores the metaphysics of the human spirit. Most importantly, however, I find that the film shows a due reverence to the old age, where love becomes stronger between the ones that have been poles apart.

Switzerland, 2013, 93 min.

 

Maciej Drygas: Abu Haraz

Veteran Polish director Maciej Drygas gives the audience an absolutely fascinating opening of his new film shot in North Sudan. Meditative music accompanies the camera, that circles slowly and softly around trees from the point of view of a man in a boat. He watches this as his Paradise, and his voice comes off the image, ”I often dream that I am back in Abu Haraz…”.

The film starts, the introduction is made, a flashbacked human story unfolds about the demolition of a village and the move of its inhabitants to what (at the end of the film) looks like a refugee camp with modern facilities like electricity, which was not always available in Abu Haraz. The building of a dam and the consequent flooding of the village pushes the inhabitants away from a harmonious life, that Drygas describes as full of beauty following the basic natural rythms of Life.

A child is born and the village celebrates. The men cultivate the fertile fields and take care of the animals. Cooking. A school class. Sand storm. A small conflict between boy and girl. A generator brings light into the houses so the kids can read. Drygas observes, he keeps a distance of respect but he is obviously drawn by this kind of classic life. He refrains from any evaluation of what the dam could bring in terms of progress, his aim has been to follow the villagers literally tearing down their homes, packing their goods – and their donkeys and goats – under – especially from the women – expression of great sorrow.

You could argue that a bit more information would have been welcomed from the side of the director, it is a bit enigmatic what stands behind the strong scenes with angry men shouting ”down with the administration” and ”blood must flow” and this is ”an attack on the culture of the Nile”.

However, the director has made another choice and he performs that brilliantly. There are scenes which are magnificent like the one towards the end where you see a lonely woman walking in the desert with one child on the arm, one holding her scarf, with a suitcase in the other hand. Pure poetry as is the sequence (accompanied by music) where you see a truck driving away with their belongings with a cut to ”our man” watching it all from the top of a mountain with music mingling the sound of water that gets closer and closer to finally be pouring down in a visually stunning image.

The village is under water, the man dreams again meeting someone, who tells him not to think about the past! Which is what Drygas has done so masterly. His focus is the past, the lost paradise.

Poland, 2013, 75 mins.

Premiere at Planete+ Doc Film festival, www.planetdocff.pl

Claude Lanzmann: The Last of the Unjust

The Guardian published a very interesting article Tuesday May 14. Agnès Poirier had seen the new film by legendary Claude Lanzmann about Benjamin Murmelstein, who collaborated with the Nazis as the last Jewish Council President in Theresienstadt. Poirier talks to Lanzmann about Murmelstein and the film that will be shown in Cannes tomorrow. I have taken some quotes from the long article:

… There are two men on a balcony looking out at the panorama of Rome. It is the summer of 1975. “Are you happy in Rome?” says one. “As happy as an exiled Jew can be,” says the other. The man asking the question is Claude Lanzmann. He has just started work on what will take him 10 years to finish: Shoah, the ground-breaking, nine-and-a-half-hour film about the Holocaust, composed of first-hand testimony and eschewing historical footage…

Lanzmann never included Murmelstein in ”Shoah”, now he gets ”his own film”.

… Murmelstein, who called himself “the last of the unjust”, perfectly represented (those) contradictions. His testimony raises a trail of questions, all painfully complex. Indeed, his extraordinary presence, blunt sincerity, acerbic wit and erudition would shake anyone who has inherited history’s prejudices against those Jews who worked with the Nazis. Lanzmann has endeavoured to rehabilitate them. In the preamble to his new film The Last of the Unjust, which will screen at the Cannes film festival on Saturday, he writes that Murmelstein’s revelations never ceased to haunt him, and that the time had come to share them. “Murmelstein was brilliantly intelligent and extraordinarily courageous,” Lanzmann says. “During the week I spent with him, I grew to love him. He does not lie: he is as harsh with others as with himself”…

France, 2013, 220 mins.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/14/claude-lanzmann-last-unjust

DocsBarcelona 2013/ 1

On the night where FC Barcelona stars travel their city in an open bus, to celebrate the championship with their fans, it is the 22nd league title for the one and only club, this blogger follows on Danish television, whenever they play, it is time to look ahead to the programme of another institution in the Catalan capital:

… DocsBarcelona, which is an International Documentary Film Festival and a Pitching Forum. The festival runs from May 29 till June 2. The pitching forum is scheduled for May 30 and 31. A one-day interactive documentary seminar takes place May 29.

As head of the pitching forum and as co-programmer of the festival’s official section with Joan Gonzalez, director of DocsBarcelona, I will be reporting on this blog both during and (as now) before the event. Let me give you some overall information at this point:

The festival’s official section presents 19 films, including (let point out 5 titles for now) Jay Bulger’s wonderful portrait of the mad genius drummer Ginger Baker, ”Beware of Mr. Baker” (photo) is the title, full of music and archive from the times of Cream. Alan Berliner’s ”First Cousin Once Removed”, what an uplifting and warm film about  Edwin Honig, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, Berliner is a master in montage. Multi-skilled performance artist, Palestinian Khaled Jarrar has made ”Infiltrators” from the Jerusalem wall, important and shameful documentation of humiliation of human beings as it happens right now. ”Noise” is from close-by, in Tel Aviv, where Israeli director Dan Geva experiences a drama of constant noise that in the film is developed cleverly to more than a physical problem. And ”The Act of Killing” by Joshua Oppenheimer, for documentary interested people, I think no further introduction is needed.

Two master classes are scheduled to take place in Gaudi’s masterpiece, La Pedrera: One is with Michael Glawogger, whose ”Whore’s Glory” is in the official section, the other with Fredrik Gertten on ”Bananas!” and ”Big Boys Gone Bananas!”, both films are shown at the festival.

I will come back to the pitching forum and its content on a later occasion.

Football championship is won, the next adventures will come from DocsBarcelona 2013.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/en/index.php?edicion=2013

Days of Pleasure in Stockholm

As you can see in the post below I have been to Stockholm, invited by filmmaker PeÅ Holmquist to tutor his graduating students for a week before they leave the Stockholm Dramatiska Högskola, English name: Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. PeÅ had asked the students to come up with a project-idea for the post-school life that they are about to enter… and to pitch it to their teacher/him and me. As the students graduate examination takes place May 23rd it was busy time for several of them, who had deadlines to fulfill in the post-production. Nevertheless projects were presented and I had the chance to watch the nearly finished graduation films, some of them had passed the picture lock phase, plus mid terms work, the students had done before. Plus to have good talks with them.

Let me mention a couple of works finished in the school years and some in the making that impressed me.

Martina Carlstedt’s mid time documentary ”Claes” (photo) is very strong, both as a film and content-wise: Claes is a pensioner, who lives in complete isolation in is very neat, organised flat, in which he reflects on what his life has become and tries to make himself ready to leave the home to meet the outside world. But there is always an excuse to be found not to cross this border of fear, and to stay at home. Carlstedt has put the camera in the right places, she has a warm relationship to her protagonist, a very mature film in other words.

Equal maturity you find in the films of Ida Lindgren, ”Convent Girls” is mentioned in the post below and her previous ”Clownmedicin” demonstrates as well her talent for looking into the world of children, experienced in a hospital where (translated from the Swedish subtitle) there is playfulness and seriousness at the same time when the clowns move around.

Anna Padilla worked with Ida Lindgren on ”Convent Girls” and presented to me an emotionally strong story (her graduation film) about a 16 year old girl, who fights for her Iraqi father, who is to be deported from Sweden by

authorities which do not recognise his claim that he will be in danger the moment he comes back to Iraq. A kind of story we know far too well in Denmark as well.

Irene Lopez is on her way to DocsBarcelona to pitch her personal film story, ”The Promise”, that includes her late father Roberto, her step father Carlos, her mother Myrna and herself – and revolutionary Latin America and Sweden of today. Lopez also has ”The New Rabbi” on her plate = David Lazar who came to Stockholm from Israel, wanted to change the rules of and ceremonies in his Jewish community, and got into trouble… it can end up as a very strong and intriguing film.

Sven Blume graduates with a fine film from the Northest of Sweden, ”The Men from Vidsel”, men who are married to Thai women . You might think you have heard that story before but what characterises Blume’s film is that it does not fall into the cliché of Western men importing Thai women for sex and houshold. It has respect for the characters, who live in a long forgotten part of Sweden and try to cope with that together with Thai women who have found a safe, and cold, place far away from the world of palm trees.

Ragnhild Ekner graduates with an exhibition/video installation followed by a film, probably for cinema. I saw extremely strong material she showed to me from the life and world of Finnish Jussi, who took his own young life – born 1980, dead 2010. He – and the director and a lot of friends to him and her – were, what has been called ”ottitalister”, youngsters born in the 80’es, who grew up in a creative environment of music, art, literature, and lots of drugs. The classical story of a young artist who leaves this world by own decision. There is a lot of archive material, photos, videos, sound recordings, and Ragnhild Ekner has shot some impressive interviews with friends, who were close to and influenced by Finnish Jussi. Ekner works with renowned Swedish production company Story.

Conclusion: Watch out, a talented team of committed documentarians leave the school to contribute to the development of the Swedish documentary tradition. 5 women and 2 men enter a professional world that they already know pretty much about from their education, most of them are multi-skilled – they can do direction, editing and camera. They are all in search of their own voice as filmmakers and some have found their form/style, not bad when you are in your late twenties/early thirties.

Let me continue in Danish to express my enthusiasm for this week, Stockholm in May, a week full of sunshine and nice strolls…

… hver morgen fra det ganske særlige Hotel Örnsköld i begyndelsen af Nybrogatan, få skridt fra Dramaten og vandet, et af disse hoteller som en frequent traveller elsker efter at have prøvet alverdens Novotel’s, Ibis’er eller andre kæder, som er effektive, men som regel uden sjæl. På Örnsköld er interiøret nedslidt, men rent og ordentligt, du får en gammeldags nøgle, som du afleverer i receptionen, når du går, og der er frukost på rummet. På mit lille værelse var der to trin op tll badeværelset og en hel lille garderobe, jeg kunne gå ind i! Men ogå gratis internet og alskens tv-kanaler. Morgenturen: Op ad Nybrogatan, kryds henover Nybroplan, op ad Sibyllegatan, hvor Roy Andersson’s Studio 24 ligger i stueetagen (trænger til at få pudset vinduerne), og op til Östermalms flotte esplanader, Karlavägen og Valhallavägen, i kvarteret med de imposante arkitektonisk interessante bygninger, boliger for folk med mange penge.

Dramatiske Högskolan, derimod, er ikke det mest ophidsende bygningsværk, men kommer du indenfor, ser du store studier og teaterkulisser, for her uddannes ikke blot filmfolk, men også teatrets udøvende kunstnere på og bag scenen, radiomontagister, forfattere… Et ophidsende bygningsværk er derimod Filmhuset, som rummer SFI (Svenska Filminstitutet), indviet i 1971 og omdiskuteret, som man kan læse på hjemmesiden. Personligt har jeg altid ”læst” den som en magtfuld betonblok med en stejl indgang, som de stakkels støtteansøgere skal bestige før de forpustede melder deres ankomst og ærinde. Opstigning til magtens hus, hvor Harry Schein residerede i årevis. At stemningen er anderledes, på dokumentarfeltet i det mindste, tror jeg på efter at have mødt min tidligere EDN-kollega Cecilia Lidin, som er svensk films nuværende dokumentarkonsulent og årligt råder over 30 millioner kroner. Jeg gentager: tredive millioner svenske kroner! Cecilia tager møder, når der bedes om det, det lyder professionelt, hvilket Filmrummet også er, med egne (oversatte) ord ”samtaler og møder hvor der gøres nedslag i tidens vigtigste film spørgsmål”. Jeg var der til ”Film, Klass och Makt” med forfatteren Kristian Lundberg og filminstruktøren Måns Månsson, dirigeret af Tove Torbiörnsson, kvinden bag initiativet til debat om filmpolitik, – kunst, – branche, – forskning. Der var en alvar over en aften som denne, som Torbiörnsson indledte med at oplæse en solidarisk tekst med arbejderne i Bangla Desh, krydret med Marx-citater. Kunne aldrig have fundet sted i Danmark, hvor vi synes at være bange for alvoren og det højtstemte, og hellere vil pjatte det hele væk i debatter som disse?

Men ellers fik danskeren punkteret et par myter – jo, man ryge udenfor restauranterne og caféerne akkurat som i resten af Europa. Og der bliver ikke rynket på næsen fra nærtsiddende. På Berns Salong var PeÅ Holmquist så venlig at spørge tjeneren om danskeren kunne ryge en cigar midt på eftermiddagen. No Problem! Jeg blev ovenikøbet rost for cigarduften fra nabobordet. Ellers er det det jo herligt ”at fika” i Stockholm, jeg kan anbefale Tössebageriet på Karlavägen med udendørs-siddemuligheder, og er vi ved maden så er der et væld af gode muligheder nede omkring Dramaten – Riche er et dejligt brasserie, KB står for Konstnärsbaren og havde fremragende kalvelever, og på Östermalmstorg ligger Primewinebar, hvor de hvide asparges smagte, som de skulle. Man kan få god rødvin på alle de nævnte steder, men som dansker er det hårdt at se det første gode glas rødvin på vinlisten koste 125 SEK.

Men en skøn uge i Stockholm med film, godt selskab, god mad og en uforglemmelig ”Spöksonaten” (Strindberg) på Dramatens lille scene med Stina Ekblad i hovedrollen som Hummel.

http://www.stdh.se/mobile/vara-studenter/dokumentarfilm/avgangsklassen-2013/martina-carlstedt

http://clownmedicin.se/

http://filmbasen.se/filmare/anna-padilla

http://www.stdh.se/vara-studenter/dokumentarfilm/avgangsklassen-2013/irene-lopez

http://www.hotelornskold.se/

http://www.sfi.se/en-GB/About-SFI/Filmhuset/

http://www.stdh.se/in-english

http://www.sfi.se/sv/Filmrummet/

With Swedish Eyes on Russia

7 films on one disc – four ”With Russian Eyes on Sweden” and three ”With Swedish Eyes on Russia”. I will write about the latter, the Swedish documentaries.

The dvd was given to me by PeÅ Holmquist, veteran Swedish documentarian with an impressive filmography of high quality and integrity. PeÅ is professor at Stockholm Dramatiska Högskola, Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts, and he was the one who convinced Swedish Institute to finance a film production project with film school students from his school and students from the Russian VGIK, under the supervision of Sergey Miroshnichenko.

A good week of research followed by some few weeks of shooting in Archangelsk in the North West of Russia formed the conditions of the Swedish students, all in their graduation year from their school. Very good results came out of this.

Martina Carlstedt made ”The Love Agency” circling around a young positive and active woman, the local matchmaker for men and women, who search for someone to share their life with. The tone is light, matches are made, at least for some of the applicants. The film follows conversations in the office and assist at two dating dinners, where you get the impression that one match could work and one was meant to fail from the beginning. You smile when you watch this unpretentious well made documentary that is full of respect for the ones involved. The 27 minutes film will be screened on SVT2 (Swedish Television) May 23 8pm.

Equally well made, with a clear sense of form, is the film which was made by Ida Lindgren and Anna Padilla from a monastery outside Archangelsk. The nuns welcome girls, who have to stand on their own feet, away from parents who are not able to take care of them. The girls are caught by the camera in situations on their own and with the abess in the beautiful monastery, they have an English lesson – and have giggling intimate talks with each other. Girl’s life in other words, ”The Convent Girls” (photo) is 26 minutes of thoughtful precise cinematography, also with respect and warmth, indeed.

Shorter is ”Where the Birches” by Sylvelin Måkestad and Sven Blume, a more difficult film to make, you can easily see, when you go with an ambulance to patients, mostly old people, suffering, wanting to be helped, ”take me to the hospital”, several of them say in a film that is shot on an island outside the city.

Interest in getting hold of the dvd?: Peå Holmquist Pea.Holmquist@stdh.se

http://www.stdh.se/in-english

http://eng.si.se/