2012 – Best Documentaries

Alan Berliner: First Cousin First Removed (USA)

Catalina Vergara: Last Station (Chile) (Photo)

Emma Davie & Morag McKinnon: Breathing (Scotland)

Helena Trestikova: Private Universe (Czech Republic)

Ilian Metev: Sofia’s Last Ambulance (Bulgaria, Croatia)

Joshua Oppenheimer: Act of Killing (USA, Denmark)

Jukka Kärkkäinen and J-P Passi: The Punk Syndrome (Finland)

Kimmo Koskela: Soundbreaker (Finland)

Phie Ambo: Free the Mind (Denmark)

Sarah Polley: Stories We Tell (Canada)

Shlomi Elkabetz: Edut (Israel)

2012 – Talents

Camilla Magid: White Black Boy (Denmark)

Carlo Guillermo Proto: El Huaso (Canada/Chile)

Chico Pereira: Pablo’s Winter (Scotland)

Dana Budisavljević: Family Meals (Croatia)

Khaled Jarrar: Infiltrators (Palestine)

Nahed Awwad: Gaza Calling (Palestine)

Namir Abdel Messeeh:The Virgin, the Copts and Me (France)

Petra Costa: Elena (Brazil) (Photo)

Timo Novotny: Trains of Thoughts (Austria)

Tinatin Gurchiani: The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear (Georgia)

DOCAlliance Offers Free Streaming

Again the excellent vod DOCAlliance – calls itself very rightly ”your online documentary cinema” with over 700 quality films – invites (documentary) film lovers to watch films for free, this time its 11 most watched documentaries of 2012. From December 31 to January 6.

Seen from a Danish perspective it is great to notice that Jørgen Leth’s bicycle race classic ”A Sunday in Hell” (1977) as well as his masterpiece ”Haiti. Untitled” (1996) are on a list that includes several Czech and Slovak films. ”Solar Eclipse” by Martin Marecek is a both funny and clever work on two Czech electricians in Zambia, fighting to teach the locals how to have their electricity in good shape. Personally I will take a look at the film on a writer, whose name I know but have never read. Here is a quotation from the site of the vod: 

“The key impetus for Arnošt Lustig’s (1926-2011) (photo) writing consisted in the ordeal of his painful holocaust experience. His first short story collection set in the environment of Nazi concentration camps was published in 1958; considering it his best book ever, Lustig kept on returning to the dramatic historical experience. He knew too well that the “Auschwitz experience” is beyond description and that while trying to describe it, one may get swept by the dark current of dreadful memories; many a “holocaust writer” took his own life (e.g. Primo Levi, Jean Amery, etc.). What helped Lustig escape the fate of his famous colleagues was probably his intense optimism. However impoverished, humiliated and marginalized life could be, it has always been the main axis of Lustig’s interest. His desire to live (and appreciate life) has not been suppressed even by the tragic episodes of his stays in concentration camps (Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Buchenwald). That is the fundamental victory of Arnošt Lustig over the darkness of war and primarily over the machinery of Nazi hatred, aimed, in its principle, at the very value of life.”

http://dafilms.com/event/103-most-watched-docs-of-2012/

Morimoto: Omakase

You have the feeling of being in a theatre behind the curtain. You are very close to the players with their elegant quick and professional use of their tools. In their white dresses and with their Japanese smiling politeness they cut, massage and arrange in a highly artistic manner.

Yesterday the show/play had seven chapters with a small intermezzo after the first four. The dramaturgy was clear: a strong colourful start to catch the attention of the audience, like a tableau, followed by some issue presentations leading to a first beauty contest between the elements. Close-up of oyster and foie gras. To be continued later on, earth and water, lobster and thin cut meat.

The professionals were busy in their open working place, gentle movements, the tone of the play was inviting, yet the music was not really fitting, too loud, too much pop, why not a composition from the country of origin?

Otherwise a perfect narrative, playful and clever and aesthetic. With a happy, sweet ending, colourful, sunshine, a taste of summer.

There are several versions available from the hands and mind of Morimoto, the one I chose is for most of us a once-in-a-year experience. Or less.

http://www.morimotonyc.com/

Russian Documentary Films Rating 2012

Super-active young Russian director Georgy Molodtsov has before provided information to filmkommentaren. This time he informs us about a new activity that he is involved in as one of the newly elected members of Russian Guild of Documentary Film and Television that presents rating of the most popular Russian documentary films at the specialized documentary festivals in Russia and in the world in 2012. Here is the press release of the Guild with visions and concrete work:

It is well known that non-fiction films path to the big screen is not easy: there is almost no system of commercial release, shows at festivals and cinema clubs are irregular and accessible to a limited number of people. Besides, it is not always possible to find the film’s complete description in open sources.

It is necessary to make the path to viewers easier for the truly creative, socially important professional projects. This is why the new administration of the Guild of Documentary Film and Television has chosen the creation of a unified coordinated channel, a large Internet website of the Russian documentary films, as its foremost goal.

This Internet resource is being developed now and will start its work at the Guild’s new portal http://rgdoc.ru

The Guild’s first project is monitoring existing places of non-fiction film shows and rating the most popular Russian documentary films at the specialized documentary festivals in Russia and in the world in 2012.

The Rating is fully accessible here: http://rgdoc.ru/projects/reyting-festivalnogo-prokata/top-50/

The rating’s based on the results of nine specialized Russian festivals (featuring documentary films or featuring a competition of such films): Message To Man, Flahertiana, ArtDocFest, Rossia, Okno to

Europe Film Festival, Stalker Human Rights International Film festival, Moscow International Film Festival, Saratovskie Stradaniya, INPUT Conference.

Additionally the rating considers nominees’ participation in Russian film awards (LAVR, Bely Slon, TEFI, NIKA, The Golden Eagle), documentary film programs of non-specialized Russian festivals (Kinotavr, Golden Knight, Moscow Premier Okkupai.Doc, Sol Zemli, Texture, 2morrow), and CIS festivals (Listapad, Molodist, Tbilisi Film Festival, Golden Apricot Yerevan, DOCUDAYS UA), and in all international film festivals that feature documentary film shows.
 
Scoring was based both on the victories and awards a film received and film’s participation in competition and non-competition programs. Detailed information on the system of rating scores can be found at the Guild’s website here: http://rgdoc.ru/projects/reyting-festivalnogo-prokata/.

Over 200 Russian documentary films were shown at the festivals in 2012, rating experts discovered. It means that the films of Russian documentary filmmakers are in demand at festival shows and possess the potential to draw wider audience if shown in a network of Russian cinema clubs, and partly, on the federal and regional TV channels.

Top 20 films of 2012 Rating List are:

1.    ДА ЗДРАВСТВУЮТ АНТИПОДЫ! (Vivan Las Antipodas!), directed by Victor Kosakovsky (PHOTO)
2.    ЗАВТРА (Tomorrow), directed by Andrey Gryazev
3.    КНИГА ТУНДРЫ. ПОВЕСТЬ О ВУКВУКАЕ – МАЛЕНЬКОМ КАМНЕ (The Tundra Book. A Tale of Vukvukai, the Little Rock), directed by Aleksey Vakhrushev
4.    ЗИМА, УХОДИ! (Winter, Go Away!), by Marina Razbezhkina Studio
5.    АНТОН ТУТ РЯДОМ (Anton’s Right Here), directed by Lyubov Arkus
6.    ПЛЭЙБЭК (Playback/ Dur d’être Dieu), directed by Antoine Cattin, Pavel Kostomarov
7.    ВНУТРИ КВАДРАТНОГО КРУГА (Inside a Squire Circle), directed by Valery Shevchenko
8.    OUTRO, directed by Yulia Panasenko
9.    РОЖДЕННЫЕ В СССР: 28 ЛЕТ (Born in the USSR: 28 up, part 1 and part 2), directed by Sergei Miroshnichenko
10.    ПО ДОРОГЕ ДОМОЙ (On The Way Home), directed by Sergey Kachkin (Russia/Germany)
11.    Я ТЕБЯ НЕ ЛЮБЛЮ (I Do Not Love You),  directed by Pavel Kostomarov, Alexander Rastorguev
12.    МИЛАНА (Milana), by Madina Mustafina
13.    СОБАЧИЙ КАЙФ (Space Dog), directed by Ivan I. Tverdovsky
14.    КАТЯ КРЕНАЛИНОВА (Katya Krenalinova), directed by Alexandra Likhacheva
15.    ЧУВСТВЕННАЯ МАТЕМАТИКА (Colors of Math), directed by Ekaterina Eremenko
16.    ШИРОКИЕ ОБЪЯТИЯ (Wide Embrace), directed by Yulia Kiseleva
17.    ПИАНИЗМ (Pianism),  directed by Ivan I. Tverdovsky
18.    МАРШ, МАРШ, ЛЕВОЙ! (March, March with your Left!), directed by Evgenia Montaña Ibañez
19.    ЛЕША (Lyosha), directed by Elena Demidova
20.    ДОБРОЕ УТРО, МИТРОВИЦА (Good Morning, Mitrovitsa), directed by Irina Uraslkaya

The Top 20 List includes films by both recognized masters and debut diploma works of the young filmmakers. The films content varies a lot: from the vital political and social issues to all time poetic themes, which stands as an indirect proof that festivals’ jury and film selectors are unbiased.

The Guild’s research also aimed to see how many films were produced using financial support of the Russian Ministry of Culture. Only 50 films out of 200 had governmental support. It speaks of the low effectiveness of the system of governmental money distribution: most of the films sponsored by the Ministry of Culture never reach the viewers; on the contrary, the films that did not get any governmental subsidies became popular.

This kind of documentary film analysis has been accomplished for the first time. The Rating is due to possible changes because information from the filmmakers and film studios about the fate of their films is still coming in.

Conducting this kind of film effectiveness analysis annually and cooperating with the Ministry of Culture at the stage of applications for subsidies selection, the Guild of Documentary Film and Television hopes to enhance the quality of the system of financial resources distribution and facilitate the development of the effective system documentary films release and promotion.

The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear

It is quite a daring storytelling format that Georgian Tinatin Gurchiani has chosen for her first feature length documentary. She has invited (mostly) young people, some of them kids, for a film casting, where she from behind the camera asks them questions about their lives, a rather direct and personal approach that leads to sequences, where you go with them to their homes or with them on missions in life, or you are taken on some visual tours into beautiful and fascinating Georgia.

Daring because you introduce some characters, make us viewers curious to have more, to go deeper, and then you leave them again. It is sometimes irritating with too brief encounters. The casting, however, the variety of characters in age and background, makes one happy at the end of the film – yes, we were given a mosaic picture, the director’s pov, of her country, told through some of its citizens, in a respectful, melancholic tone with an amazing cinematographic work on Georgian landscapes. The two fairy tale linked stories – the boy in the beginning of the film who loves Little Red Riding Hood, and the young woman at the end of the film who feels like a Cinderella – are those of the stories that come out best, the latter in an extremely dramatic way, whereas a story of a brother to a prisoner leaves you a bit ”who cares”. There is a lot of pain in this original film that also has references to the conflicts and wars with Abkhazia and Russia. Again, it was pleasant to watch, with a charming hybrid docu-fiction style.   

Georgia, 2012, 97 mins.

Petra Costa: Elena

There is so much to say about this first feature documentary by young Brazilian director Petra Costa. So much positive because of its visual brilliance and so much because of the way it treats its painful theme. Not to talk about the discussions that the film creates about important existential questions. Yet it would be wrong and far too prosaic to reveal too much of the journey the director invites the viewer to take. Therefore these words from the website of the film:

“Elena, a young Brazilian woman, travels to New York with the same dream as her mother, to become a movie actress. She leaves behind her childhood spent in hiding during the years of the military dictatorship. She also leaves Petra, her seven year old sister. Two decades later, Petra also becomes an actress and goes to New York in search of Elena. She only has a few clues about her: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary and letters. At any moment Petra hopes to find Elena walking in the streets in a silk blouse. Gradually, the features of the two sisters are confused; we no longer know one from the other. When Petra finally finds Elena in an unexpected place, she has to learn to let her go.”

The film journey is built around an enormous family archive with beautiful images, among them of the big sister (Elena) holding/caressing the little sister (Petra), interviews with their mother, diaries, recreated, often dreamerish scenes and a wonderfully written and performed voice-over text by Petra, or is it Elena, or both? It is a film about undergoing a mental process, a therapeutical film, a film about three women, mother and two daughters, all three of them aiming for a career in art. But…

Petra Costa, whose great film is supported by Tribeca Film Institute, has written about the inspiration sources for the film, from Pessao to Agnès Varda, a very clever and intelligent post, link below.

Link to tribecafilminstitute.org

http://www.elenafilme.com/

Jonas Mekas: My Paris Movie

Jonas Mekas loves Paris. So does this blogger and his wife. We were there in December last year. Funny to sit in New York, the home of Mekas, one year later, in his Anthology Archives cinema, in the hall named after Maya Deren.

Mekas in Paris, his latest long film, from 2011, 159 mins., a film he made, because, according to his own words: ”A few months ago Danièle Hibon, a curator at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, very casually asked me if I would consider making a new work to celebrate 20 years of cinema at the Jeu de Paume. Since it was Danièle who in 1992 curated my first exhibition in Paris, also at the Jeu de Paume, I said, without a second of thought, Of course I will do it, absolutely so!”

A tribute to Paris it is. Also literally. I have never seen so many toasts being given as in this film that most of the time takes place in bars and restaurants or in private homes at the dinner tables. White wine, sometimes red, loads of oysters – hard to watch! – looong looong takes from the streets of Paris in different seasons, rainy, a bit of snow but also sunshine, and also shootings from his hotel room(s) and from the windows of his hotel room, the roofs of Paris, but also the old man climbing stairs to get up to look at Paris from above.

I celebrate what I see, he says, and he celebrates Guillaume Apollinaire and the futuristic movement – and all the time in a charming, mild and generous way. To be honest it is nice when Mekas once in a while refrains from the shaky and abrupt camera movements, and indeed, even for Paris lovers, the film is too long, could have lived with less toasts, but then suddenly there is Jonas Mekas alone in his hotel room in January 2009 talking to us, or rather expressing true emotions having heard about the election of Obama in January 2009. Moment of beauty.

Tomorrow Jonas Mekas will be 90, a true artist, a multi-artist, an icon for the independent cinema. Congratulations.   

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/

http://jonasmekasfilms.com/diary/

Sarah Polley: Stories We Tell

Some Danish film professionals adviced me to watch Canadian Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell. They saw it at cph:dox, where it did not get the attention it deserved, it was all about ”Act of Killing” at that festival.

I watched the film with my wife, we agreed on its excellence, I took notes but did never get to the computer to write. Time has passed and I can pass on some superlatives about a film on a family but I can not go deeper, memory fails – I line up a couple of links, including one to the director’s blog text from the NFB (National Film Board), the producing body behind the film. It is one of the most personal and intelligent texts I have read from a director for years.

Diana is the mother of the director, Michael the father, actress and actor. Rumour has it that Michael is not her father. Sarah wants to and makes a film about this, finds out who is the biological father, she tells a story as her father tells the story and others tell their story… who is then the father is maybe not so important for the film, what is important and what keeps you totally engaged and fascinated is the way Sarah Polley, an actress herself, tells her story, in a flow full of life, full of humour and joy of life, and all kinds of emotions, in a flow with private archive, made-up archive with actors, clips from performances, interviews. The mother, however, the main character, can not tell her story herself as she died, when Sarah was 11.

At the end the biological father, pretty well known in Canadian entertainment life, says to Sarah: I’m the only one who can tell the story about me and Diane. To that the answer is easy: Well, a lot of stories have come up through this elegantly made film, the director’s (one sibling as I remember it says ”and why does she want to make this film?”) and the father’s, the two of them having the most impressive scenes in the film.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/29/stories-we-tell-review

http://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2012/08/29/stories-we-tell-a-post-by-sarah-polley/

Canada, 108 mins., 2012

Maysles Cinema

Oops, suddenly you stand in front of a small cinema with the name Maysles Cinema. In the window there is a poster for ”5 Broken Cameras” that runs the same night with a skype Q & A with one of the directors. Another poster promotes ”The House I Live in” by Eugene Jarecki to be screened in January.

We enter the small lobby, have a photo taken next to the poster of the Maysles Brothers masterpiece ”Grey Gardens” (1975) and have a small chat with a female staff member, who tells us that the cinema has been here in Harlem on Malcolm X Boulevard for five years with screenings and debates, and a lot fo classes for kids and grown-ups related to film and theatre.

Taken from the very informative webiste of the Maysles Institute: … The Cinema is committed to a democratic experience, one where filmmakers are asked to attend the screenings of their work, and audiences have the opportunity to actively engage the films and each other in post-screening forums. Coupled with its scheduled series, we encourage the programming participation of local social and cultural organizations and citizen-activists to deepen community involvement and provide exposure for under-represented social issues and overlooked artists and their work.

And a quote from the old master himself (he celebrated his 86th birthday December 6!) from an interview made by David Noh for Film Journal International: In Harlem you walk down the street and people talk to each other, and loud enough so that you hear their conversation. We wanted to be a part of it and we wanted to have a theatre where we could show documentaries exclusively and also teach local kids how to make their own movies. These movies have been good enough that three of twelve of our kids got their films on TV.”

Photo: Poul Rude.

http://www.mayslesinstitute.org/

http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/news-and-features/features/movies/e3i4b2ffa510200a21144528fd62cf7dd91