Zeljko Mirkovic: The Second Meeting

This is what I wrote less than four months ago about Zeljko Mirkovic: “Two of his films have been reviewed on this site (”I will Marry the Whole Village” and ”The Long Road Through Balkan History”). I have known him for a decade, admired his commitment and seen his strong development as a filmmaker. He is a good friend, who (with his family) I appreciate very much to see at least once per year, when I am in Belgrade. Of course his company is called Optimistic Film, of course he uses facebook (2824 friends!), twitter, youtube etc. to draw people’s attention to what he is doing… ” Some days ago Zeljko sent me news about the film he has now finished, ”The Second Meeting”. He asked me to communicate that there is a pre-premiere screening of his new film in New York. Here it comes:

The advanced screening of a new documentary by Optimistic Film, The Second Meeting, will debut in New York City on Saturday, October 13, 2012, at 7pm at West Park Presbyterian Church. Immediately following, there will be a panel discussion featuring the subjects of the film, U.S. Air Force pilot Lt. Colonel Dale Zelko and Yugoslav missile officer Colonel Zoltan Dani.

The Second Meeting follows Lt. Col Zelko’s journey back to Serbia to meet Col. Dani, 12 years after the first meeting of the pilot and missile officer who commanded the Yugoslav missile battery that shot down Zelko’s F117A Stealth fighter in 1999. “I had the remarkable opportunity to have a second chance at experiencing Serbia and her people and I will forever be deeply grateful, enriched, and blessed by it,” said Lt. Col Zelko of the experience.

http://www.optimisticfilm.com/second-meeting.html

Documentary Pearls at Copenhagen Cinematheque

From the site: “The Cinematheque in the heart of Copenhagen offers a rich programme of more than 60 films every month, many of which are in English or with English subtitles. In October, we present roadmovies, East by Southeast, women’s lives in the Middle East, MIX Copenhagen Film Festival, Hollywood shorts, and much more.”

… and documentaries of high quality, indeed, which is the reason for this promotional text that also offers our readers to see what we previously have written about a couple of the films:

In the series “East by Southeast” you find Andrey Paounov’s “The Boy Who Was a King” about King Simeon, who in 2001 came back to Bulgaria to be elected prime minister. Paounov is an original film talent, which he has shown several times, among others with the wonderful “Mosquito Problems and other Stories”. Equally to be seen is Lithuanian “Barzakh” (photo) by Mantas Kvedaravicius about whom a colleague said to me: ”He is not a film director, he is a thinker”, who made the film over a period of years, now completing his PhD (and a book) on the affects of pain. And the film is about pain, about people in Chechnya, families whose members disappear or have undergone torture.

As the monthly documentary, the Cinematheque presents a gift to its audience. Seven screenings are set up of Viktor Kossakovsky’s “Vivan las Antipodas”, for this blogger maybe the most important and visionary documentary being published for years.

Finally, the “SønDok” (documentary on a Sunday including a debate with the

director, organised by EDN/European Documentary Network), the Dutch documentary “Gozaran – Time Passing”, which was described in the following way at idfa festival last year:

“In 2005, Iranian composer Nader Mashayekhi was asked to lead the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. He knew the weak position of Western classical and contemporary music in Iran would make this a difficult task. But he took on the challenge, and after having spent several years in Vienna studying, living and working, he returned to his country. As he puts it, “with only one suitcase containing only one thing: my dream to make music in my hometown.” Less than two years later he returned to Austria, his suitcase filled with the pieces of his broken dream. Filmmaker Frank Scheffer captures the passionate composer during rehearsals with young musicians in Tehran, wandering through a desolate desert landscape and a deserted village, looking for inspiration for new compositions and challenging performances, and then back in Vienna as he reflects upon his time in Iran. Political entanglements are only implicit in the film. The director chose for beautiful shots in a contemplative setting, in which Mashayekhi’s voice sounds like an internal monologue. He reflects on his life and debates the meaning of music and poetry, and his impossible yet unscathed love for his country.”

http://www.dfi.dk/Service/English/Filmhouse-activities/October-in-the-Cinemateque.aspx

Message to Man 2012 Winners

The St. Petersburg festival ended with several awards as the tradition goes at the festival that covers documentaries, long and short, animation, short fiction and experimental films. Headed by Austrian director Michael Glawogger the international jury gave the main prize, the Golden Centaur, to the 15 minutes long Slovakian film ”The Last Bus” by Martin Snopek, a mix in style between animation and live action. Best long documentary award was given to the beautiful Italian ”Summer of Giacomo” by Alessandro Comodin and best short to Spanish David Munoz for ”Another Night on Earth”.

In the national competition “Centaur” for the best full length documentary film goes to ”Born in the USSR: 28Up” (Part 1) by director Sergey Miroshnichenko, for the best short documentary Valery Shevchenko was awarded for ”Inside a Square Circle”.

The Russian film critics prize as well as the Pavel Kogan Prize was given to Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov for ”Playback”

http://message2man.com/eng/

St. Petersburg Syndrome

The famous Stendhal syndrome is normally (due to the French author, of course) connected to Florence. For me it happened (again) in St. Petersburg. Several days of intensive driving around in the city with the consequent beauty bombardement of the eyes (the architecture, the open space, the canals etc.) on the islands, along the embarkments, on Kronstadt, in the museums, made me ask the one and only to help me sit down in the airport just before departure. The symptom: dizziness.

Oh, to visit the Russian Museum and discover Ilya Mashkov and Valentin Serov (painting: Children, 1899) in addition to the well known Malevich and Repin – and do go to the two year old museum Erarta on Vasilyevsky Island, the biggest non-governmental museum with contemporary Russian art. A very pleasant museum it is, wonderful work it has, take a look at the work of Elena Figurina’s children motives, just one artist to study, link below.

Poetic images as the ones Tarkovski talks about or as Kossakovsky gives us in his Vivan las Antipodas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Mashkov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Serov

http://www.erarta.com/eng/about/

http://artist84.erarta.com/eng/

Collective Work: Winter, Go Away

This is how the film was described at its international premiere in Locarno a couple of months ago: “Ten director graduates from Marina Razbezhkina’s School of Documentary Film and Documentary Theatre lived with a camera for two months in order to chronicle the last “Russian winter” and its popular uprising against Vladimir Putin’s presidential run. People, faces, conversations, protests, failures and triumphs come together to chronicle the campaign.”

And as such one can only state that the students have graduated with bravour. What they give the viewer is a tense insight to all the activities run by the opposition against the fraud comedy around the re-election of Putin in March this year. Most of it happens in the streets, the demonstrations, the slogans, the confrontations with the police, the brutality – but when inside you also, as an example, experience a mother asking her son, who is about to make stilts for a street happening: Would you like to have a cup of tea before saving Russia?! Yes, there is a lot of fun in the film, there has to be as everyone knows that the result of the election was decided in beforehand, there is a lot of freshness, you get the Leacock “feeling of being there”, you get an interview with members of Pussy Riot and footage from the performance in the cathedral, and on the election day you witness what is quite evident a manipulation of votes. Only a few times I felt that I should know more to understand what I see, mostly with who-is-who matters, otherwise I left the film breathless because of tension that had been documented and informed from an anti-Putin point of view – with some fine scenes where Putin supporters discuss with the opposition activists.

Russia, 2012, 90 mins. / Directors: Aleksey Zhiryakov, Denis Klebleev, Dmitriy Kubasov, Askold Kurov, Nadezhda Leontieva, Anna Moiseenko, Madina Mustafina, Zosya Rodkevich, Anton Seregin, Elena Khoreva

Seen at Message to Man Festival, St. Petersburg 2012

http://www.pardolive.ch/catalogue/film.html?fid=629902

Sergey Miroshnichenko: Born in the USSR: 28 Up 1-2

Based on the original idea of Michael Apted – the 7UP series – Sergey Miroshnichenko has filmed a group of Russian kids when they were 7, 14, 21 and now 28 years old. The two-part series (each of them around 100 mins. long) presented at the Message to Man festival in St. Petersburg is an impressive piece of work that you just take in piece by piece = person by person, amazed to experience how much history has played a role in their lives, that started when USSR existed and took a completely different direction when the empire fell apart.

As in the work of Michael Apted (who now films kids who are in the 50’es!) Miroshnichenko cuts back and forward in time to let us see the 7 year old innocent having hopes for the future, the 14 year old having discovered more of the world including the opposite sex, the 21 year old who has already had the first child, and changed work several times and the 28 year old who divorced or has moved to another country – and did, in most cases, not have their child hopes fulfilled. There is drama, there is sadness but also happiness, and there are critical comments to Russian politics or religious commitments or… yes, they are like you and me, but their lives have definitely been destined by the outer circumstances. Like the Georgians, like the Lithuanians who lived in the same country when they were born but in independent republics when they were 7.

However, what comes out strongest in the films – where the director goes from person to person, with in-between-montage sequences that have a group of them comment on the same theme – is the emotions conveyed to us like (first part) the small boy Andrey, who when 7 do not have his parents, who get adopted to one family abroad and then to another one in the US, a boy marked by his past, and a young man who sits down as a 28 year old saying that he does not want to be filmed any longer. For personal reasons that he does not talk about. Heartbreaking as many of the stories are at the same time as you are impressed by the reflections that they make as kids or as grown-ups. Or (second part) the twins from St. Petersburg with their gamin faces constantly in trouble in opposition to each other, desparate to have a good life but not achieving a lot of what they hoped for. Fun and sad at the same time.

It is difficult to make a film with so many characters but Miroshnichenko succeeds to have the narrative go in a smooth rythm, and in a warm tone, with fine associative ”bridges” and with a voice-over that glues it together when necessary. You learn so much about Russia, well about life watching this work.  

http://message2man.com/eng/program_english/id/2/block/17

Mika Ronkainen: Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart

This morning, my daily newspaper reminded me of a John Cage-quote: “I like to be moved, but I don’t like to be pushed”. Two days ago in Oulu, Finland, I found myself in a situation which I liked. It might have been some of the vodka from the night before, but during the end credits of this film my eyes couldn’t resist the welling of moist any more. Am I that big a cry-baby? Well, I know I wasn’t the only one in the theatre feeling this way and the film just slowly took a gentle grip of my throat and never let go.

Kai is a Finnish musician who – after he got a son – realizes that he in a strange way misses a sense of belonging, probably because he spent most of his childhood in Sweden. The film consists for a large part of him and his father going on a road trip to Gothenburg trying to understand that period. Kai and his father have never spoken much of the moving back and forth between countries, thus giving Kai a sense of rootlessness. Now they gradually start to talk – and on the way they are also meeting other Finnish Swedes under various circumstances which weaves into the story and theme.

The other main part of the film is even more congenially intertwined. It consists of live recordings of songs written by Finnish Swedes in the past and now performed by a new generation on the very locations Kai and his father reaches on their trip. It sounds corny, and it probably is, but it works so well and the music and the lyrics are poetically commenting on the theme of not quite belonging or even being looked down on as a foreigner in a foreign country.

Three cameras followed the pair on the trip and the cinematic skills – the filming, the editing and the sound mix – are just as they should be. Okay, maybe there is a few times where you suspect the director has asked those taking part in the film to say specific things or that they themselves were self-conscious about bringing information to the audience. And maybe you see one or two birds too many (the trick the film uses to tell us that Kai is thinking of his own ornithology interested son), but I can forgive that because Kai’s and his father’s relationship is depicted so empathically with lots of sweet moments, music, dialogue and pauses.

It didn’t win anything at Nordisk Panorama and has been rejected at both CPH:DOX and IDFA which either proofs that festival juries and selecting committees are insensitive bastards or that I really am a wuss. Okay, it may not be cutting edge or a glimpse into the future of documentary film making, but it really should be a globally appealing film. I feel very rooted in my Danish soil and I don’t have kids, but still I will have to give it at full six pens – simply because it made such a profound impression by moving me and not pushing me.

Mika Ronkainen: Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart, Finland 2012, 90 min. Seen at Nordisk Panorama in Oulu, Finland.

PS:

I made a quite grave mistake above in the review: Sweden finns and Finnish swedes are two completely different things

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_population_of_Finland/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Finns/  

Kai and father don’t meet Finnish swedes in Sweden cos Finnish swedes live in Finland. They meet Sweden finns.

Poesi, eneste gyldige metode

Han er jo fordingsfuld og uforsonlig den Tarkovskij. Til FILMKLUB FOF’s møde i aftes, hvor vi diskuterede Ada Bligaard Søbys film, havde jeg taget et lille stykke med, som jeg havde oversat (lidt frit) fra Andrej Tarkovskijs bog Die versiegelte Zeit, hvor han stiller den poetiske film op over for den kommercielle filmproduktion: “… Når der tales om filmiske retninger, om forskellige slags film, så handler det som regel om den kommercielle filmproduktion, det handler om komedier, westerns, psykologiske dramaer, krimier, musicals, horror, katastrofefilm osv. Det drejer sig om massemedier, forbrugsvarer, konsum om man vil. Filmkunsten bliver imidlertid desværre påtvunget disse allestedsnærværende former udefra, af kommercielle interesser. ” Men filmen, cinematografien, som det hed tidligere, konkluderer han, “… kender i sit egentlige væsen kun en eneste form for tænken – det er den poetiske, som forener det ’uforenbare’ (jeg har ikke lyst til at oversætte ved ’modsætningerne’…) og paradokserne, den poetiske tænken, som gør filmkunst til en adækvat udtryksform for sin autors tanke og følelse…”

Måske kan det også fungere som en kommentar til Tue Steen Müllers dybt foruroligende overvejelser nedenfor?

James Marsh: Project Nim

I guess that most readers know that James Marsh ”Project Nim” is about the dramatic life of a chimpanse… nevertheless read how Peter Bradshaw precisely introduced the film in Guardian August 11 2011:

“Project Nim was a sensational Pygmalion-type experiment devised by Professor Herb Terrace, a specialist in primate cognitive abilities at New York’s Columbia University. In 1973, he wanted to see if a chimp (called Nim) could be taken into a human family and taught to communicate with sign language. Yet Marsh elegantly shows his audience that this is not entirely what Project Nim was about. Without any of the human participants acknowledging or even realising it, Project Nim was effectively a manipulative experiment in human sexual behaviour and family life.

Terrace was evidently a charismatic and powerful alpha-gorilla academic who simply declared that a former student of his (with whom he once had a sexual relationship) would have the honour of mothering his chimp-pupil…”

I can only support this analysis of this good film and add that it clearly demonstrates Marsh skills in building, one could say designing a story so it functions dramaturgically. He separates stylistically the interviews from the fantastic archive material with Nim, he has a strong music side the whole way through, as well as a sound design, and there are graphics (mostly words of or drawings from Nim’s sign language) filling the screen once in a while. It is all very effectively conveyed, we are asked to laugh and to cry at the right moments, it is a superb construction like “Man on Wire” was it, like “Searching for Sugarman” (same producer) is it. The use of effects to reach the goal is not hidden for the spectator, on the contrary. What I am trying to say, is that I felt like looking at a form that prevented me from entering the film totally, even if I wanted to. There are other new documentaries which are copying the style of Marsh or are a bit alike (Erroll Morris is a master of designed documentaries), am I the only one who is afraid that this trend will end up in predictable, designed superficiality?  

Seen at Message to Man, St. Petersburg 2012

http://www.project-nim.com/

UK/USA, 2011, 93 mins.

Nordisk Panorama 2012

Awards were distributed at the Nordisk Panorama festival in Oulu. The best documentary prize went to the succesful Danish documentary “Ballroom Dancer” by Andreas Kofoed & Christian Bonke. The jury motivation:

“The Nordic Documentary Award goes to a perfect example of the power of documentary to capture the fragility and intensity of human emotion in a world that demands perfection and excellence at any cost. With cinematic grace and passion, the film presents dance as a beautifully realized microcosm of the complexities of human intimacy. Ultimately this is a film about love.”

http://filmkontakt.com/