DOX editor and documentarian Truls Lie has written an article for the Norwegian Le Monde Diplomatique, in Norwegian and now also printed in the film magazine Rushprint. Lie attended a documentary meeting for the Norwegian documentary film community in December, where the main discussion point was the demand from the Norwegian Film Institute that ”Norwegian films should promote Norwegian culture, history and nature”. Which, according to Lie, means that Norwegian documentaries are almost not present on international festivals.

The article is written in Norwegian, readable for us Danes and the Swedes. The following quotes from the well writen, reflective article, are in Norwegian:

” I dag gir NFI drøye 30 millioner kroner til norsk dokumentarproduksjon og har dermed en enorm mulighet til å fremme uavhengig kvalitetsfilm. Men den særnorske «kulturtesten» hos NFI virker hemmende for internasjonal dokumentarfilm: Forskriftene krever at norsk dokumentar skal ha et manus skrevet på norsk/samisk, hovedtema være knyttet til norsk historie, kultur eller samfunnsforhold, samt at handling og opphavsmenn/kunstnere hovedsakelig skal være fra Norge, et annet EØS-land eller Sveits…”

“…Norge henger dessverre etter internasjonalt. Mikael Opstrup fra European Documentary Network (EDN) i København nevner at ingen av de danske, svenske eller finske filminstituttene har nasjonen med i deres formålsparagrafer. I Sverige skal støtten «fremme høy kvalitet, skape kontinuitet og fornyelse». Dansk støtte gis for at det samlede utbud av dokumentar «skal ha kunstnerisk kvalitet». Mens her i Norge dreier paragrafen seg om å sikre kontinuerlig og kostnadseffektiv produksjon, samt ha med norsk og samisk kultur og samfunnsforhold å gjøre. Hva er bakgrunnen for denne særnorske vektleggingen av nasjonen?..”

Something is rotten in …. and discussions will lead to a change?

BUT there are exceptions, photo from Margaret Olin’s documentary about the official asylum politics in Norway, “De andre” (Nowhere Home). a film that was shown at idfa 2012.

http://rushprint.no/2013/1/kvaliteten-som-uteble/

They are proud, and they, the filmmakers, have all reason to be. Both because the Swedish film around the banana company Dole trying to block the US showing of Bananas (reviewed and praised here in Danish by Allan Berg), a film about the right to express your opinion, it has the subtitle ”about free speech in documentary film”, has gained an enormous international attention and won awards, has gone all over the world, check the webwite of the production company, BUT also because the film has been selected to be part of the ”documental del mes” initiative, grown out of and run by the Barcelona company Parallel 40.

In the coming week the film by Fredrik Gertten will be shown in around 30 venues not only in Catalunia and Spain but also in Chile and Argentina.

Film policy, ladies and gentlemen, get the films out to the audience!

PS. In the next month ”Planet of Snails” by Korean Seun-Jun Yi will have the same film great treatment.

http://www.wgfilm.com/english/home/

http://www.eldocumentaldelmes.com/en/documentals/salas.html

I had seen ”Mapa” pitched in DocsBarcelona and at idfa. With verbal passion and with a teaser that was totally out-of-the-box for how trailers should be according to us ”pitch doctors”.

A Film-Film teaser, a brilliant piece of montage with a very low level of information about What and How. BUT it was a teaser that seduced selectors (including me) to invite the director to come and present his film project that was to be a totally personal documentary about a man, whose girlfriend had left him and who needed to find himself, and wanted try to do so by leaving his normal safe life in Madrid to go to India. Pretty banal, and the first thought is of course – will he be able to make it into the planned feature length creative documentary?

He made it! The result is a Film full of surprises, a ”romantic documentary” he calls it, fresh in tone and cut, with a big love to film language and history, to montage, to the play with sound and image, and with his voice all the way through, wall to wall, excellent in tone, catching your attention and interest in how it will go for director Elias in big India.

He introduces another level, a ”the other”, a part of himself, who always objects. When he is emotional, the rational side complains and makes him film architecture in India, when he films too much rational stuff, the emotional side urges him to connect to people, death and poverty. He makes a parallel to the voyage to India made by the emotional Pasolini and the rational Moravia in 1960. But a woman travelled with them, Elsa Morante, and here he is, Elias, without any companion, most of the time with no woman on his side.. He longs for love, he is actually longing for the one who dropped him, Luna, and he sees images of a child in India, who looks like her. Later on he has to erase those memories, but how? El Rito del Olvido?

Content is King, we are often taught, the issue/theme is the most important, the form is only the carrier, but what a pleasure with ”Mapa” to watch a playful and joyful film that has a cinéphile approach that brings memories of Godard and Truffaut, an essayistic reflection on love, lost love, longing, that goes elegantly from past to present and uses a wonderful Matthew Sweet song to glue some of the sequences. Not to forget fine observations from India accompanied by ethical questions.

Spain, 2012, 85 mins.

More Sugar Man (this is what they call the film in France), where  a twitter on Le Blog Documentaire calls it a ”véritable scandale du cinema” that the film is released in only 3 ”salles”!

On the same Blog there is a fine, long analysis of the narrative structure chosen by its director Malik Bendjelloul, written by Benjamin Genissel. You should read it all, but here are two quotes for our French readers:

…Pendant 45 minutes donc, on entend parler de cet homme et on finit par se demander : Mais existe t-il vraiment ? Quand vais-je moi aussi le rencontrer ? Faire sa connaissance ? La curiosité monte, monte, ne cesse de monter. Comme le suspense selon Hitchcock. Le spectateur salive d’envie, de désir : Mais qui est donc cet homme?…

… Et ce qui est vraiment réussi dans Sugar man, c’est que notre attente de spectateur ne s’avère nullement déçue. 45 minutes environ à faire grimper en nous le thermomètre de la curiosité et du désir, toute une construction qui offre une stature incroyable à cet excellent chanteur injustement méconnu, à nous faire sentir à quel point son parcours est hors du commun pour un artiste d’un aussi grand talent, avec le risque que ça finisse en dégringolade… Et non…

Le Blog Documentaire is an excellent web-magazine on documentaries, check it out, if you can read French.

http://cinemadocumentaire.wordpress.com/

The last couple of days the nominations for the Danish Bodil (named after the legendary actresses Ipsen and Kjer) and the Swedish Guldbaggen (the Golden Beetle) have been announced. Documentaries are very much present.

The international best known of the Danish documentaries on the list is ”Putins Kys” (Putin’s Kiss) but also Kaspar Astrup Schrøder’s ”Lej en familie” (Rent a Family) and Camilla Magid ”White Black Boy” have been on festivals abroad. The latter is on the 2012 Talent list of this site.

The two remaining films on the list are Andreas Johnsen’s Kidd Life and Ballerina by Maja Friis.

For Guldbaggen two documentaries stand out: Palme by Kristina Lindström and Maud Nycander and Searching for Sugarman by Malik Bendjelloul. Palme is nominated in 3 categories, Best Documentary/ Best Editing/ Best Music (composed by ABBA’s Benny Andersson), whereas the film about Rodriguez has 6 nominations, including Best Film and – of course – Best Music. ”Hej, vad vi dokudominerar” was one of the Swedish comments to the 2013 Guldbaggen – meaning that this is a Documentary Year in Swedish film.

PS. Breaking News – the two Swedish films are both selected for the Belgrade based Magnificent7 (only 7 films but ”magnificent” they have to be) festival that starts January 30 with ”Searching for Sugarman” (photo) as the opening film to be screened for an estimated audience of around 1500!

PPS. Some of the links refer to Danish or Swedish language texts.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/1866/

http://guldbaggen.se/nominerade/

Yes, it was again a good year for the documentaries. New forms, hybrid, personal, came up with the classical engaged and committed Film still going strong in times of crisis. Yes, Film with a capital F. Yes, most of the festivals reported about an increase of audience, who went to watch the films on the big screen. Yes, there were more documentaries released in the cinemas than before, at least in many countries that I know about. Yes, it is generally easier to get to watch good documentaries online via vod’s like the DOCAlliance. The eternal question ”but where can I see these documentaries” is easier to answer, again at least in many countries I know about. Where good people do a great job to promote and arrange screenings and debates. Of course the festivals do so but ”outside” festival time there are (often weekly or monthly) initiatives to be noticed, like in Catalunuya, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark… 

No, the public broadcasters did not increase their budgets for the creative documentaries. It is much more difficult to obtain finances from them than before but television is still the most important ”window” for documentaries, in many countries. No, there is not yet a European or World Fund for the Creative Documentary – but there are many smaller funds, bravo for that, and for the consistent support from the EUMedia Programme, and on a smaller scale wonderful that Jan Vrijman Fund continues with a new name, IDFA Bertha Fund, not the most poetic one by the way! No, as far as I know, it is still not possible to make a living as a documentary director unless you are one of the few, but important names, who make contracts with the anglo-saxon broadcasters. I have earned my money on teaching, not on making films, said legendary Richard Leacock, whose memoirs ”The Feeling of Being There” is the best film book that has come out for years.

Below, you find what I found to be the best documentaries of 2012, in alphabetical order, followed by a list of talented, upcoming directors works, which have impressed me greatly, and from whom you hope for more to come. For both categories,these are films that I have seen at festivals or online – thank you to IDFA Docs for Sale, Filmkontakt Nord, DOCAlliance and East Silver. Several of the films I have known since they existed as projects.

Happy New Year!

Photo: El Huaso, by Carlo Guillermo Proto

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)

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)