DocsBarcelona 2013/ 6

As programmer for a festival it is always a good idea, I would almost say it is an obligation, to go and see the films you selected on a big screen and with an audience. It is no secret that most films are selected on the basis of a computer screening… will it work on the big screen?

I did the test on three occasions, two of them with the director or producer present.

Dan Geva’s ”Noise” (photo) did indeed and it was a big inspiration to listen to the Israeli director’s speech after the screening, where he took the subject of the film and its comedy elements to a serious reflection on what it means to be a filmmaker as well as a person in constant doubt of what it means to live, simply. A festival is there to create the meeting of a film and a filmmaker with the audience, and Geva gave us a fine insight to both the art and the craft of making documentaries. He referred to Flaherty, who set everything up, and to Grierson, who was there to send a message, as Geva does at the end of the film, where the filmmaker from his noisy location in Tel Aviv gently communicates via his outdoor loudspeakers: please a bit less noise!

Palestinian Khaled Jarrar’s ”Infiltrators” – without the presence of the director here in Barcelona – a film that I have followed from the sidelines, in workshops in Greece and in Ramallah, I can only say that this film about apartheid in Israel again made me shake my head in anger and sorrow, this is the world of today, how can we allow that human beings are being treated like this having to climb a wall or going through a tunnel of dirt or caressing the hand of your mother through a hole in the so-called separation wall. It is a film which in content and intensity is painful to watch, simply!

Producer Signe Byrge represented and presented ”The Act of Killing” in a brilliant way giving basic background information about this most talked about and praised documentary in the last year. It was the director’s cut that was shown at DocsBarcelona, 159 minutes, and seeing it on a big screen with almost 200 people makes a difference, of course. Signe Byrge talked about the screenings in Indonesia and stressed that the film is not a historical film about the killing of communists in the country in the mid 1960’es, it is a film about Indonesia today with the militant paramilitary groups still very much present and active.

http://theactofkilling.com

http://www.JMTFilms.com/

http://realscreen.com/2012/12/17/infiltrators-wins-two-at-dubai-film-fest/

Michael Glawogger at DocsBarcelona

The job given to Michael Glawogger at DocsBarcelona was very simple: find 7 clips and talk about them in your master class. He found 6 and surprised this blogger, who thought he knew the work of the Austrian filmmaker, by showing ”Haiku”, a film he made in the 1980’es, wonderful in editing and – as he said – a film that includes the theme that he was to develop a couple of decades later: work. To prove that, he showed a sequence from ”Workingman’s Death”, that has a dialogue between workers about prostitutes, the theme of the director’s latest work, ”Whore’s Glory” (photo), that is in the official selection at the festival.

Glawogger is not only an important artist, he also has the gift to be able to talk precisely about what he does, and how he approaches his characters. And he does that in a provocative way that is perfect for a master class as well as a Q&A session like the one he performed yesterday in the new Filmoteca in Barcelona. The audience wanted to know how he got the prostitutes in ”Whore’s Glory” to participate, how his research was done, if he paid them to take part (yes, of course), how much the film’s budget was (2 mio.€ the answer was), practical as well as ethical question.

Masters come to Barcelona, last year it was Viktor Kossakovsky, this year he was followed by Michael Glawogger. For sure, two of the best documentary (if not the best) artists of our time.   

http://www.glawogger.com/news_en.php

http://www.glawogger.com/htm/Kurzfilme/main_kurzfilme_en.htm

DocsBarcelona 2013/ 5

The 16th edition of the DocsBarcelona Pitching Forum ended yesterday. The level of the 25 presentations was high, the organisation was – as always – and as it should be – professional in a warm and generous atmosphere. And the panel’s reception of the pitched projects was friendly and constructive with lots of questions to be answered, primarily in follow-up meetings. There is a crisis for the financing of the film projects but there is definitely not a crisis for the creativity for documentary filmmaking, if you evaluate, what was pitched here in Barcelona.

Not surprising the issue orientated projects were the most appreciated by the tv editors around the table. The panel found Swedish Fredrik Gertten’s ”Bikes vs Cars – War Time” important. His simple logline goes like this: The bicycle, an amazing tool to change the world. Activists and cities all over the world are moving towards a new system. But will the economic powers allow it?

Also at DocsBarcelona, the more visual and personal film projects had a more difficult time as they do not fit to the way tv operates nowadays. They are maybe too slow or ”too artistic” as some editors put it. Experienced Sérgio Tréfaut presented a beautiful teaser of his work-in-progress ”Alentejo, Alentejo”, a ”journey into the Alentejo hot countryside region (South of Portugal) discovering Cante music and the life of its performers”, English Mark Aitken has 73 hours of material for ”Dead When I Got Here” (photo) from Mexico, about ”a man redeemed from 30 years of self-destruction”, shot in a mental asylum, that the man now manages, and Colombian Juan Pablo Rios showed his cinematic talent with a teaser that accompanied his ambition to tell a story called ”The Return” about a family of 9 sisters, their suffering and need to leave the town, they lived in, when the father took his own life. 45 years have passed, they return…

Awards were given at the end of the two days. The director of ”No es vigilia”, Hermes Paralluelo, from Barcelona, won the ”Best Iberian Pitch” a flight ticket, accommodation and a pass to pitch in Mexico at the Docs DF in October. The WAW Marketing Award (marketing help and consultancy) was given to ”The Challenge” about and with the controversial judge Baltasar Garzón. And access to the East European Forum in Prague next year in March was given to ”Art Killers” to be directed by Alam Raja.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/

http://www.docsdf.org/en/

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deadwhenigothere/dead-when-i-got-here

Docs Barcelona 2013/ 4

It was indeed a grand opening night of DocsBarcelona. A proud director, Joan Gonzalez introduced all the elements – the festival, still young, and the industry section, a teenager, 16 years, with new or young components like the InterdocsBarcelona seminar on interactive documentaries and the rough cut sessions mentioned in the post below.

Around 1000 people attended the opening screening of the Belgian animation documentary “Approved for Adoption” by Jung & Laurent Boileau, the touching story about Jung, adopted from Korea by a family in Belgium, a family with several biological children already. Jung, who is an excellent draughtsman and has published a book with his drawings – his autobiography that – as he said in the cinema – had been transferred into a beautifully told cinematic story with archive material (official and the family’s home movies) plus a great variety of material from the hand of Jung, both simple animation sequences but also drawings that could work in any art exhibition. The modest director explained after the screening how his family had received the story that at many points are tough with the mother and father reacting to their Asian child, who is searching for his identity. Warm, funny, well told, straight forward it is, a perfect choice for making a good atmosphere for the DocsBarcelona. 

Hans Christian Andersen would have loved this fairy tale. 

Belgium, 2012, 75 mins.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/

DocsBarcelona 2013/ 3

Ventura Durall is the director of a film that will travel the world. I write ”will travel the world” as the film is not premiered yet. It was screened in a very-close-to-final-cut version yesterday at DocsBarcelona. As in previous two years three rough cut sessions took place with Durall’s ”Casa”, working title, as one of them. The feature length documentary about street kids in Ethiopia took the invited panel by the heart because of its high cinematic quality and sensitivity. The director succeeds to get close to the kids in a story that have great authenticity. You will meet this film in a festival, that is for sure.

The panel invited for the sessions included sales agent Melissa Caron from Echo Bridge Entertainment, Mexican festival director Inti Cordera from Docs DF, Osnat Eden-Fraiman from the active YES TV in Israel, Cynthia Lopez from award winning POV in USA and local Head of Documentaries and Joan Salvat from TVC. Have to say that the panel gave a lot of competent, creative feedback on the films presented.

On a rough cut stage was ”Contact Proof” by Juano Gimenez, a personal documentary about the photographer Pascal le Pipe, a French photographer and a close friend of the director. Gimenez is an ”auteur” and his personal style came through in this version that will be amended and for me will turn out to be a fine film.

In a rough-rough stage was the third film presented, by Brazilian team from Plano 3 Filmes. Directed by Paula Gomes, the film deals with a kid from a circus family, who performs in the backyard of his grandma’s house, in the summer time, slowly losing the possibility of performing his skills as he grows into the serious grown-up world. ”The last summer” the film could be called, working title now is ”Jonas and the Circus Without Tent”.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/

http://www.nanouk.tv/Projects

Alan Berliner: First Cousin Once Removed /2

I was lucky this year (December 2012) at idfa. The first film I saw, was the one that got the award for being the best film of that year’s festival. And it deserved to be, it did stand out, no other film could compete. This is the beginning of the review on this blog written just after the screening:

”Famous for his film about his father, ”Nobody’s Business”, clever and funny with an excellent, playful montage, it was simply great to watch the newest documentary by Alan Berliner, also with a family member as main protagonist, also with a playful montage and also a tribute to Life even if it deals with Edward Honig, who has Alzheimer’s disease, sits in his chair through the whole film, with family archive material flasbacks here and there and everywhere, shot over five years, a wonderful experience, because Edward Honig was wonderful to meet, a poet and a translator of poetry, among others Portuguese Pessao, a man on his way away from the Life he had been praising again and again, sitting in this room full of books and papers not knowing why and where and what and who…”

Alan Berliner comes back to Europe these weeks. He goes in persona to Istanbul to the Documentarist festival (June 1-6) invited by Emel Celebi, the festival director, semper ardent, who has organised a retrospective of Berliner’s work. In Istanbul the director holds a masterclass, which is introduced in this inspiring way:

Alan Berliner will take us on a guided tour through the sounds, images, themes, and storytelling strategies that have helped define his filmmaking career for more than three decades. Berliner will show examples from his films that help us understand both the risks and rewards of using one’s own life as a “living laboratory,” and how and why he’s devoted his life to exploring the personal, familial, and cultural dimensions of identity, memory, aging, love, family relationships, and the fragility of the human condition. Berliner’s master class will also focus on the process of editing, using clips from his films to illustrate how he creates compellingly dynamic montages from the compilation, collage, and counterpoint of a wide variety of personal, poetic, historical, archival, and musical sources — and how he creates films in which the way a story is told can be as interesting as the story he is telling.

 You can’t be in two places at the same time, but his film can, therefore the Barcelona audience can watch First Cousin…. at the upcoming DocsBarcelona, where it will be screened 3 times. Check the site and go and watch, doc people in Barcelonaa – and Istanbul.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/

http://www.documentarist.org/2013/fest/eng/home.html

Nicolas Philibert: Maison de la Radio

Voices, yes voices it will be, communicates Philibert right from the start, before the titles appear on the screen. An hommage to the human voice as it is performed in the public radio of France. Quick sound montage, titles, the building that houses the radio from outside, people walking into it, a working day starts. Voilà, simple, classical.

And then faces, yes, faces it will be, very often close-ups of faces, people who are alone in a studio with the microphone very close to their lips, or faces concentrated on listening to voices which are being recorded. Can be literature, news, talk or quiz shows with people who call the radio, or we, the audience, are invited to attend an editorial meeting, what is important, which choices do we make.

Philibert chooses his characters and situations, he goes from one to the next but he comes back and thus give us the illusion of getting to know the characters better. We do and we experience the development they make in

the music recording studio with the opera singer or with the beautiful young singer you see on the poster. Yes, Philibert falls in love with his characters, he has always done so, be it an orangutang (Nenette) or a human being. He is basically an observational documentarian but his presence and influence on the scene he is shooting, mixed with his ambition to make us viewers have ”the feeling of being there” (to quote master Leacock again again again…) makes it impossible to resist the joyful tone that he offers.

He leaves the radio building once in while. He goes with the nerd who records sounds in the nature, and he lets us see and hear the studio recording of the sound of peeling a potato(!) or be with a man, who plays a home-made sound machine, experimental music you might argue, but an artist in action, indeed.

You are in constant good company with this film and for one who enjoys listening to clever people with good language and beautiful voices in the radio (we have that in Denmark as well, in a country where television mostly is tabloid blablabla) during summer time (in the allotment garden), you appreciate the film even more. Having said so, this is not another highlight from Philibert, is does not have many layers but joyful and playful it is, masterly montaged and photographed, that’s quite a lot! You sense that he has enjoyed having been behind the walls of sound!

France, 2013, 100 mins.

http://www.filmsdulosange.fr/en/

Jay Bulger: Beware of Mr. Baker/ 3

Ever since I saw the film in New York last December, the film has been in my head. Or rather the mad Ginger Baker has been in my head. I bought a Cream cd in New York and the music of Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker is giving me fantastic pleasure – “outside my window is a tree… there only for me”.

Now I see that the Krakow Film festival that started yesterday, May 26, and runs until June 2 programmed “Beware of Mr. Baker” on its opening night – and at the upcoming DocsBarcelona that opens the coming wednesday, May 29 has two screenings of the film, don’t miss it!

http://www.krakowfilmfestival.pl/pl/

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/

Sønderby J. & Bervald Jørgensen: Blodets bånd /2

Traileren er et chok for mig, det bliver en overvindelse at gå ind i biografen til den film. Så nøgen den må være og så blufærdig på samme tid. Den udstiller ikke, mærker jeg i de effektivt klippede scener, den er bare. Nøgen og blufærdig, ville helst dække sig. Det er en særlig tone i datterens fortvivlede stemme, som siger mig det. Det er så privat, at det gør ondt, gør ondt at komme til at høre, for jeg burde jo gå, det her kommer mig bestemt ikke ved. Men filmen forlanger, at jeg bliver. Sådan vil det også være, men voldsomt manifest ved premieren, for jeg tror faktisk, at den film vil holde, hvad traileren lover.

http://vimeo.com/63647643

 

Maciej Drygas: Abu Haraz/ 2

In Warsaw, at the Planete+ Doc Film Festival, I was asked to talk about film critic, especially the one about documentaries. I did so and together with a dozen of workshoppers, the new film of Maciej Drygas was screened. I made a call for reviews to add to the one I had already done, see below. Polish Marta Tarnowska, polish sociologist and anthropologist, made one, which comes here and which perfectly illustrates how another perspective on the film can widen your understanding: 

The camera eye opens and starts to observe carefully the severe yet harmoniously poetic daily-life routine of the humans and other animal species habiting the fertile lands by the banks of the Blue Nile river. The ‘other animal species’ part of the narration is not marginal, but just as important as the human one in this story-telling. We see a world where a human is just another symbiotic element of the natural system.

Maciej Drygas and Andrzej Musiał successively visit Abu Haraz for seven years. They spend there one month each year 2005-2012, observing the natural rhythms that organize life in Abu Haraz, a small village where people make their living from agriculture and livestock herding. We enter an idyllic and maybe even slightly romanticized yet appealing world, where the notions of linear, clock-measured time, space and the basic for the westerners binary distinctions like ‘richpoor’
do not structure nor organize the social world.

We watch an absolutely magical scene where the school-children in the classroom are being taught by their teacher the meaning of the word ‘poor’. It seems that none of the school-children had previously had the chance to use this category to describe anyone, although in the eyes of many westerners all of them would probably be categorized as ‘poor’. Apparently, there are no people considered as such among them. All of them are affluent. It tells us something important about the anglo-american term ‘poor’. It shows us clearly that the notion of ‘poor’ does not describe ‘objective’ reality. ‘Poor’ is relational. It points to the relation between means and ends. Marshall Sahlins, an
american anthropologist, brilliantly explained it in one of his articles about the concept of ‘affluence’. To accept that the original societies are affluent is ‘therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times.’

Sudan is a relatively young, postcolonial country. Its frontiers were arbitrarily delineated without any respect given to the local ethnical, cultural and political context. The power was given mainly to the muslim Arab elites, ignoring other ethnic and cultural groups. Obviously, this immediately produced multiple military conflicts. Access to the natural resources like water and control over the oil fields are the main drives of the conflicts. In the period of seven years when Drygas and Musiał repeatedly visit Abu Haraz, the Second Sudanese Civil War reluctantly comes to an end resulting in

the secession of South Sudan (2005 autonomy, 2011 independence). It is estimated that around 180 000 – 450 000 people died and 1,7 millions were displaced or lost their shelter as a consequence of the ongoing war in Darfur. The western frontier with Chad is in conflict as well as the Eastern Front and Blue Nile, where ‘popular consultations’ about potential succession from Sudan are to be held.

Meanwhile, in Abu Haraz shown by Drygas signs of military conflict(s) are scarce. Drygas does hardly inform us about the regional or national politics. We can only sense the air of conflict because of some groups of men shouting some disturbing, revolutionary slogans. Lack of explanation of the political situation is a conscient and well-argumented choice. Many of the habitants of the ‘Nile culture’, Abu Haraz included, identify themselves much more with the local community, village or tribe than with the artificial postcolonial pseudonational-state Sudan.

National identities have not developed. Moreover, many of them probably do not understand the political issues either, just as an unprepared viewer. Nevertheless, the pseudonational-state Sudan has a vital (more adequately put would be ‘deadly’) influence on their lives. As a result of Khartoum’s decision, a huge dam Meroe was built on the Nile near Amre. As a consequence, a huge area was flooded and 70 000 people (including 80 from Abu Haraz) lost their homes and homeland, habits, cultures and ancestors’ rests and were forcibly displaced to villages artificially built for this
purpose in the middle of the desert. The people from Abu Haraz are taken to Wadi Mugaddam, they are provided houses with electricity and tv. Yet, they call their new place a dead place and they claim they feel dead inside as well. It is hard to admire this work of ‘modernization’ and ‘development’. We can see them daydreaming, suspended between the tv-converting them into aspirational consumers of new identities and the dreams of the ‘paradise lost’, memories of the past, dreams of Abu Haraz and the traditional life rhythm they adapted to over generations.