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/

Hans-Erik Therus: Sven Lindqvist – ökendykeren

Jeg kom tilfældigt og først sent ind i filmen med Sven Lindqvist (1932), som SV2 sendte i aftes, men jeg blev dybt fascineret af den berømte forfatter, som jeg læste for årtier siden og nu så påfaldende svigtede. Det blev jeg mærkeligt flov over. Hvorfor holdt jeg op med at læse ham? Var han for streng ligesom Jan Myrdal? Jeg begyndte i aftes at finde hans bøger frem igen, og Therus film bliver heldigvis genudsendt lige om lidt, i dag

11. maj 14:55 og 15. maj 23:30 på SV2

Jeg vil se det hele, og allerede nu vil jeg anbefale vores læsere at se med. SVT K-Special skriver på sin hjemmeside: ” Först i medelåldern började författaren Sven Lindqvist drömma. Bortträngda minnen dök upp och inspirerade till böckerna Bänkpress, Ökendykarna och Utrota varenda jävel. Filmaren Hans-Erik Therus har porträtterat Sven Lindqvist och undersöker varifrån drivkraften, inspirationen och den ständiga nyfikenheten kommer… Filmen följer bland annat med på lanseringen av den första engelska utgåvan av hans bok ‘Myten om Wu Tao-tzu’ från 1967.

Sven Lindqvist föddes 1932 i Stockholm. Han debuterade 1955 med essän Ett förslag, och har sedan dess på olika sätt odlat en personlig blandform av essä, aforism, reportage, dagbok, reseskildring och lärobok – med ett tydligt politiskt anslag. Sven Lindqvist har nått betydande internationella framgångar och hans böcker är översatta till ett flertal språk.”

svt.se/k-special

Paul Pauwels Director of EDN

”The EDN Executive Committee has appointed Paul Pauwels as the new Director of the organization. The appointment will be effective from May 15th, when Pauwels take over the strategic planning and future development of the international documentary network with over 1000 members and more than 50 yearly activities…”

Breaking news from EDN (European Documentary Network), more facts to be read about Paul Pauwels on the site of the organisation.

For me, who with colleague Anita Reher, and with PeÅ Holmquist as the first President, were there from the beginning of the adventure in 1996 a big BRAVO for this decision. PP has always been part of the activities of EDN, he was the third President (the second was Stefano Tealdi), and with his energy, production knowledge, pedagogical skills warm heart for the creative documentary and humour he has encouraged, inspired, helped documentarians here, there and everywhere. I remember lots of occasions, where we in the office asked Paul to go to do pioneer work, which he accepted without hesitation. He was the one who went to East European Forum in Jihlava to help build up, he was the one “we” sent to Calcutta for the first DocEdge… I could go on.

Congratulations EDN!

http://www.edn.dk/

Ex Oriente Film: A Decade of Excellence

Normally we do not do promotion for training programmes but there are exceptions. As this one, the Ex Oriente Film workshop based in Prague, that enters a new decade, after – this is how the organisers, led by Veronika Liskova – phrase it themselves: A Decade of Excellence, name of a new facebook page of the workshop.

Indeed it can be characterised like that, says this blogger, who was part of the tutor team the first 7 years having seen great films being born, which took inspiration from Ex Oriente.

Let me pick some from the impressive list:

”15 Young by Young” with Latvian Ilona Bicevska as the tireless producer and organiser of the multimedia project that ended up on arte. ”The Art of Selling”, Estonian/Finnish coproduction by Jaak Kilmi, the name in new Estonian documentary as director and producer. ”Bakhmaro” (photo), unique work by Georgian Salome Jashi produced by German Heino Deckert. ”Blind Loves” by Juraj Lehotsky from Slovakia, produced by director Marko Skop the film went the whole way to Cannes and to theatrical release in several countries. ”Cash and Marry” by Macedonian Atanas Georgiev, produced by Sinisha Juricic from Croatia, and ”Elektro Moskva” by Dominik Spritzendorfer and Elena Tikhonova, the latter had its premiere in Nyon this year and has its next stop at Sheffield Doc Fest – and many more will follow.

I stop here, could have mentioned many more, check out for yourselves, there are website links to most of the films and info on distributors. I took the alphabetical order… Deadline the for 11th season of Ex Oriente: June 1st.

http://bit.ly/hR0QbM

http://www.dokweb.net/en/ex-oriente-film/completed-films/

10th Planete Doc Film Festival Warsaw

… starts its programme tomorrow May 10 and runs until May 19. The selection is rich – take a look at the website’s ”Film Sections”, link below, and you will notice that the director Artur Liebhart and his team do an interesting editorial promotion work, inviting the audience to have a look at what hides behind the caption ”Political Sciences” or ”Fetish and Culture” or ”Intimate Stories” or ”Heroes Are Among Us” and many more. Click, as an example, the intimate stories and you will find films like Latvian ”Documentarian” by Ivars Zviedris and Ines Klava, Mika Ronkainen’s ”Finnish Blood Swedish Heart”, Alan Berliner’s idfa festival winner ”First Cousin Once Removed”, ”Elena” by Brazilian Petra Costa and ”Private Universe” by Helena Trestikova.

There are retrospective series with Sergei Loznitsa and Peter Mettler, and tonight while this is being written – far away from Warsaw – the opening show goes like this with talented Austrian director Timo Novotny who:

… will create a film remix in front of the audience. He will be accompanied by live music played by Markus Kienzl and Wolfgang Frisch from Sofa Surfers. They use the opportunities that digital technologies offer, but at the same time they take from the tradition of silent films and tapers. The show will take the audience to New York, Los Angeles, Moscow and Tokyo. It will be based on images and musicthemes from Timo Novotny’s “Trains of Thoughts” (photo). Sofa Surfers wrote the score for the movie.

http://planetedocff.pl/index.php?page=sekcje