Punk Syndrome and Other Master-Docs to Riga

The Baltic Sea Forum in Riga – September 5-9 – includes several interesting film projects from the Baltic countries, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine plus some Western producers with themes relating to the East. The 16th edition of this classic forum that took off on the Danish island of Bornholm, organised by the Baltic Media Centre, a parallel event to the Baltic Film & Tv Festival, is now handled by the National Film Centre of Latvia with local support and with money as well from the EU MEDIA Programme.The meeting for the professionals is added by a parallel audience orientated mini-festival of high quality documentaries with a great opening film, the one that goes all over the world, Finnish ”The Punk Syndrome” (photo) directed by Jukka Kärkkäinen and J-P Passi, the team that also stood behind ”Living Room of a Nation”. The directors will be there for the screening. For those who have forgotten about the band, here some lines from the website:

Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day) is a punk band that was formed in 2009 in a culture workshop arranged by Lyhty, a nonprofit organization. Lyhty provides housing and education services as well as workshops for adults with intellectual disabilities. Pertti Kurikka, the band’s guitarist and front man, writes the lyrics with vocalist Kari Aalto and composes the music. The other two members of the band are bassist Sami Helle and drummer Toni Välitalo.

Among the other films to be screened are ”5 Broken Cameras” By Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, Patricio Guzman’s ”Nostalgia for the Light”, a brand new, exciting Latvian film ”The Documentarian” by Ivars Zviedris and Inese Kļava, Danish ”The Ambassador” by Mads Brügger and ”Argentinian Lesson” by Wojciech Stáron.

Superb programme! Read more on links below and join the Baltic Sea Forum facebook group.

http://www.mediadesklatvia.eu/baltic-sea-forum-for-documentaries-2012/

http://kovasikajuttu.fi/en/

Kaspar Astrup Schröder: I Want to Cheer Up Ltd.

The Danish director behind ”The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” and ”My Playground” was praised by filmkommentaren last year through the words:”A multi-artist, an original talent, who also makes films… definitely a refreshing new talent in Danish documentary”.

In his new documentary, the second one he has shot in Japan, he shows – with the help of a Japanese woman behind the camera – we hear her questions to the main character Ryuichi Ichinokawa but we do not see her – huge talent for getting close to the man, whose normal job is to bring out post and parcels, with the addition that he runs a company that offers special service to families, or rather to people who do not have “enough” family members for weddings, receptions etc. So Mr. Ichinokawa steps in as organiser, as a kind of metteur-en-scène, including himself to play a father for a young girl, who wants her boyfriend to meet the father in order to get his permission to live together before eventual marriage.

This is a fine, entertaining and attractive invitation to watch the film that, however, turns out to be much more about Mr. Ichinokawa’s problems with his private life in a family, where love between Mr. Ichinokawa and his wife seems gone long ago, with him working to make the family with two children survive. Mr. Ichinokawa talks about his hell of a life, very few things seem to be good for him, yes he adores the dog of the house! And he says openly to camera that he has often thought of taking his own life.

His family knows nothing about his job as a helper for other people to repair their relationship. Mr. Ichinokawa builds up to tell his wife, which he does at the (far too abrupt) end of the film.

The family situation and the main character’s strong melancholy and small appetite on life fills up – it feels so – a big part of a film that through lack of more layers and a development of the identity theme becomes repetitive and flat in structure accompanied by a strong music score that serves to bring energy to scenes that lack strength. I hate to use this cliché of television commissioners but maybe the film is too long and Mr. Ichinokawa no strong and interesting enough to carry the story.

The film premieres in 50 cinemas in Denmark this Wednesday August 22 through the excellent DoxBio initiative that brings documentaries to cinemas.

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/danishfilms/dffilm.aspx?id=24894

http://www.doxbio.dk/dbio/b.lasso?ll=2s

Kaspar Astrup Schröder: Lej en Familie A/S

Det er det med de skuffede forventninger… Jeg gik til pressevisning af ”Lej en familie A/S” af Kaspar Schröder i højt og positivt humør med erindringen om, hvordan han i april 2011 på en Dok-dag i Cinemateket havde bjergtaget mig med sin præsentation af den metode, som han havde anvendt i sin første originale Japan-film om Dr. Nakamats, som han viste klip fra, suppleret af arkitekturfilmen med parkour for fuld udblæsning. ”A multi-artist, an original talent, who also makes films… definitely a refreshing new talent in Danish documentary”, var de ord som filmkommentaren viderebragte.

Og det er ingen dårlig film, som Schröder nu sender på gaden. Historien om familiefaren Ryuichi Ichinokawa, som uden sin families viden driver et firma, som udlejer personer, som kan agere familie for mennesker, som ingen har, er interessant og attraktivt underholdende I sig selv. Til bryllupper skaffer han stand-ins – eller optræder selv som en far, som kan sige god for, at datteren flytter sammen med sin kæreste før de beslutter sig for at gifte sig – eller  udlejer en kritisk læser til en forfatter før bogen kommer på gaden. Hr. Ichinokawa er forbavsende åben om, hvad han foretager sig, bortset fra at et tv-klip med ham skjuler hans identitet, ligesom de involverede i brylupperne etc. har slørede ansigter. Det er sjældent, at man er kommet så tæt på japanerne som I denne film (bortset fra Sean McAllisters fine film fra 2008), om en hovedperson, der ikke kan forsørge sin familie gennem udlejningsfirmaet, hvorfor han må have et andet job som pakkeudbringer, som han så I øvrigt bliver fyret fra. Det er bemærkelsesværdigt, at det lykkes

Schröder, godt hjulpet af en japansk kvinde(stemme) bag kameraet at vinde sin hovedpersons totale fortrolighed. Eller er det bare denne anmelders klichéfyldte opfattelse af japanerne, at de har svært ved at være åbne og udtrykke følelser?

Økonomisk hårdt, men først og fremmest er det en trist tilværelse, som Hr. Ichinokawa opruller. Han taler ikke meget til sin kone eller børn, han sover for det meste, når han er hjemme, siger konen, der også med et smil fortæller, hvor kedelig deres liv er i det lille hus, hvor hunden er den, der får størst opmærksomhed og de fleste knus af familiefaderen, som drømmer om ferie på Hawaii. “Jeg føler mig som en håndværker, der reparerer andres forhold”, siger Hr. Ichinokawa, der henimod filmens afslutning tager sig sammen og fortæller sin kone, hvad hans “I Will Cheer You Up” – firma går ud på.

Skuffede forventninger… fordi filmen er flad i sin opbygning. Måske er den for lang, ihvertfald virker den monoton i sin gentagelse af den kedsommelige hverdag, som Hr. Ichinokawa skal kæmpe sig igennem for at komme hjem til konen, der sover med den yngste søn I et separat værelse, mens Hr. Ichinokawa er placeret I børneværelset. Jeg sad undervejs og tænkte, ok vi har forstået det, videre, bring et nyt aspekt ind, byg videre på det indbyggede identitets-tema, “at leve andres liv”, giv os et nyt fortællelag – og jeg kunne snildt have undværet den overdoserede musikanvendelse, der tilsyneladende skal tjene til at bringe energi ind I de mange stillestående sekvenser. Men bare virker påklistret. Og slutningen af filmen, efter at Hr. Ichinokawa har talt med sin kone, virker meget abrupt og “hvordan kommer vi nu hurtigt ud af denne fortælling”. Ærgerligt!

Filmen vises I DoxBio og har premiere i 50 biografer onsdag 22/8.

Danmark, 2012, 80 mins.

http://www.doxbio.dk/dbio/b.lasso?ll=2s

Péter Forgács: El perro negro

“… El perro negro telling personal dramas, faults, faiths, illusions and desperation, the unseen side of an insane war. The workers self-government experiments, the multitude sufferings of civilians, the schism of the divided country, the revolutionary illusions, murders and the systematic massacres orgies of Franco’s brutality changed once and for ever the universe of Unamuno, Lorca, Bunuel, Hernandez, Durruti, the royalists, and the Falangists. The rise, and fall of ideas, the final personal losses come near to our eyes. The unseen private films reveal the cruel and beautiful sides of the Spanish times – as a prelude to the World War II.” (fra Péter Forgács’ synopsis)

Det nervøst skæve still fra filmen forbinder sig i en association til Robert Capas fotografi af en faldende soldat på en bjergside, et fotografi, som for mig altid har rummet erindringen om nederlaget, den tabte krig. Scenen i filmen udvider sig på samme måde, jeg ser den uden eksterne realkommentarer, men med Forgács’ lyddesign og med den kontrapunktiske voice over, som fortæller en biografi, en af de private livshistorier, filmede og skrevne, som filmens konstruktion hviler på. Ethvert billede indeholder en biografi, siger Forgács. Hans film er en ubrudt dokumentation af den indsigt. Og ethvert følsomt valgt billede indeholder som bekendt et system af associationer, personlige og fælles kulturelle. Filmens klip opererer tillige i lange sekvenser modigt tavst med denne erfaring.

Jeg så den forunderlige og aldeles oprørende film på DR K i aftes. Vær opmærksom! DR K gentager ofte udsendelse af film, man har indkøbt. Når det sker det, se den! For eksempel blot for at se filmscener sat fri af enhver illustrativ lænke. Hvorefter du er alene med borgerkrigens lovløse regel: brutalitet uden grænse.

Péter Forgács: El perro negro, Ungarn 2005, 84 min. Set på DR K. Genudsendes 31. august 14:55.

Learning Through Film: Human Rights in Scotland

The text about Docs for Education (see below) made Scottish filmmaker Nick Higgins draw attention to a Scottish initiative that could inspire filmmakers in other countries to do the same. Here are some text clips from the website:

… This combined book and DVD package is a first of its kind in Scotland, making it possible for schools, community groups and social organisations to deliver a series of 10 workshops, each based on 10 short documentary films dealing with human rights in Scotland. The aim of the multi-media pack is to expand the education and understanding of human rights in a Scottish context.

… Each workshop is based around one of the 10 short documentaries that made up the award winning and BBC screened feature project, The New Ten Commandments, originally co-produced with the Scottish Documentary Institute.

Apart from Higgins himself other internationally known names appear as directors: Doug Aubrey, Douglas Gordon and Mark Cousins, who made his film together with wonderful Tilda Swinton. Read more on:

http://www.learningthroughfilm.co.uk/Learning_Through_Film/Home.html

Jean Rouch Tribute

Icarus Films in New York has a strong, high quality catalogue, including several works by Chris Marker, who died end of July this year. This week the company pulished the good news that it has acquired North American distribution rights to six films by “legendary French filmmaker and ethnographer Jean Rouch”.

The press release, that gives a gives a first intro to the filmmaker goes like this:

A founder of cinéma vérité, Rouch is widely recognized as one of the world’s most significant documentary filmmakers, but much of his filmography has long been unavailable in the United States. The six titles Icarus Films has acquired number among his most highly regarded productions: two shorts, LES MAÎTRES FOUS (1955) and MAMMY WATER (1956), and four features: MOI, UN NOIR (1957), THE LION HUNTERS (LE CHASSE AU LION A L’ARC) (1965), JAGUAR (1967), and LITTLE BY LITTLE (PETIT À PETIT) (1969).

Between 1946, when he made his first film in Niger, and his death in 2004, Rouch produced more than 100 films, most of them on African subjects. From his position as a researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), he became “one of the most creative forces in ethnographic film and one of its most vigorous challengers.” (Pat Aufderheide, Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction) “No one”, Gilles Deleuze said of Rouch, “has done so much…to break with a cinema of ethnology.”

The period in which Rouch produced the six films Icarus has acquired represents the most sustained flourishing of his practice of “shared anthropology,” a process of collaboration with his subjects that he described as a “type of participatory research,” which he said, “appears to me to be the only morally and scientifically feasible anthropological attitude today.”

Among this group are Rouch’s two best-known films: LES MAÎTRES FOUS,

“an anthropological classic…widely considered to be one of the most profound explorations of an African view of the colonial world” (Senses of Cinema), and MOI, UN NOIR (photo), winner of the 1958 Prix Louis Delluc, and regarded by Jean-Luc Godard as “the best French film since the liberation.” All of Rouch’s work of this era exerted a profound influence on the young filmmakers of the French New Wave; in 1968, Jacques Rivette observed that “Rouch is the force behind all French cinema of the past ten years.”

Icarus Films is producing new subtitles for three of the films, and they will be released to theatrical and non-theatrical audiences this fall. The films will appear in New York this fall as part of a two-part, 40-film Rouch retrospective held at French Institute Alliance Française and Anthology Film Archives between November 7-27, which will be accompanied by a one-day symposium at New York University. The retrospective will be followed by a North American tour, stopping at venues including The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver.

The films are:

LES MAÎTRES FOUS

1955/ color/ 26 minutes

Rouch’s classic and controversial depiction of a spectacular trance ritual of Accra’s Hauka religious sect, made up mostly of migrant workers from rural Niger, that also constitutes a theatrical protest against West Africa’s colonial masters.

MAMMY WATER

1956/ color/ 19 minutes

Along the coast of Ghana, near the old Portuguese slave forts, children play in the ocean and fisherman perform ceremonies to placate the sea gods whose favor determines their catch.

MOI, UN NOIR

1957/ color/ 72 minutes

In Rouch’s landmark ethnofiction, three Nigerien migrant workers in Treichville, outside Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, describe their lives in the city, the difficulties of urbanization, and their dreams, playfully re-enacting their daily routines for the camera, and taking on the names of American movie stars.

THE LION HUNTERS (LE CHASSE AU LION À L’ARC)

1965/ color/ 80 minutes

Recorded over the course of seven years on the border between Niger and Mali, THE LION HUNTERS documents the traditional lion hunt of the Songhay people, taking it as a key to understanding the region’s social organization.

JAGUAR

1967/ color/ 89 minutes

Three young men from Niger travel to Accra to work. Rouch once again collaborates with his subjects, who narrate the film together, recreating dialogue, explaining their motivations, and infusing the documentary footage with fantasy.

LITTLE BY LITTLE (PETIT À PETIT)

1969/ color/ 92 minutes

In LITTLE BY LITTLE, viewers rejoin the three men from JAGUAR, now running an import-export company in Niamey. Business brings them to Paris, where they perform a reverse anthropology of Rouch’s own culture.

http://icarusfilms.com/ 

Lussas 2012

Every year late August the French documentarians go to Ardèche to discuss and to watch, and have a good time. This year (August 19-25) the seminars include themes like ”The Necessity of Criticism?” and how to ”build a Political point of View”. The so-called Professional Encounters offer sessions on ”animated documentary”, ”commissioning policy”, ”RED” (camera), regional funding possibilities etc.

And for the many screenings, of course with many French docs, there is also a focus on recent Portuguese documentaries, and (bravo from this blogger) a broad, qualified historical selection of Baltic country documentaries. There are films by Aivars Freimanis from Latvia, Robertas Verba from Lithuania, Andres Sööt from Estonia, and closer to today several films by Juris Podnieks, Ivars Seleckis, Uldis Brauns and Herz Frank from Latvia, as well as Mark Soosaar (photo) from Estonia, not to forget Audrius Stonys and Arunas Matelis from Lithuania, from where (one critical remark) films by Henrikas Sablevicius are missing.

http://www.lussasdoc.org/etats-generaux,2012.html

Docs for Education

Israeli director and editor Erez Laufer gave me a link to his father’s film website, Docs for Education, an amazing initiative, in Nahum Laufer’s own words ”devoted to distributing high quality creative documentaries suitable for educational purposes”. For those of you who doubt that there is a market for documentaries outside television and cinema and home video, take a look at the site that mentions where the (9) films are available – and to which prizes. Quite impressive! Here is the motivation of Nahum Laufer, taken from the site:

“I was born in 1935 in Poland. During WWII, my mother and I escaped from the Nazis in a journey that ended in Bombay, India. It was during research for a documentary film about my personal life that I became familiar with another fascinating and un-familiar story, that of The Darien, which became the subject of my first script.

The film “The Darien Dilemma” was directed by my son, Erez Laufer, and edited by my daughter, Miri Laufer. The three of us continued our collaboration in “Rafting to Bombay“, the film which tells my own personal story.

It was during the creation of these two deeply personal documentary films with my son that I acknowledged the instructive value of this media. Receiving enthusiastic responses from universities, schools, public libraries and other institutions encouraged us to create a small selection of unique, insightful documentary films with educational value.”

Photo from “To See If I’m Smiling”, the strong film by Tamar Yarom about women soldiers in the Israeli army.

http://docsforeducation.com/

Pierre Thoretton: L’Amour Fou

Pierre Bergé, the life long partner of Yves Saint-Laurent (1936-2008), is the one that tells the story about the artist and his troubled life as the fragile and modest designer, who – helped very much by Bergé’s organisational and financial talent – established the world famous fashion house, built up an art collection, and as the years went along, developed deep depressions (Bergé calls it une dépression nerveuse) and took to immense alchohol and drug abuse.

Bergé, often facing the camera, takes the viewer to the different flats and houses of the two, in Paris, in Normandy and in Marrakech with the packing down of the art collection as the backbone of the story. Bergé decided to sell it all after the death of YSL and the film follows that process ending in Grand Palais in Paris at the auction – ”L’amour Fou”, I guess, must refer to both the relationship between the two men, and to their love to the art collection that was of an amazing quality. 

Archive (lots of interviews with YSL, clips from the shows, the amazing ”la collection russe”, and one where Catherine Deneuve sings for the old, shaken designer), photos, his love to the world of Proust (he signed in as Swann when at hotels abroad!), his Mondrian inspiration, the two women who followed him, one his black seducer into narchotics, the other the light and joyful companion. Bergé himself, and his work for rights for homosexuals, is characterised towards the end of the film as a man who lives on memories, a lonely man. (Could, however, have done without the kliché of him standing at a window looking to the sea.) He has been there through the whole film telling his story about YSL. A fascinating insight to a man whose ”fame only brought suffering”.    

Watched the film on DR K, Danish public television (K stands for Kultur), that broadcast several fashion films in connection with a fashion week in Copenhagen. The film is out on dvd.

http://www.ifcfilms.com/

France, 2010, 103 mins.

Theodor Christensen: Det gælder din frihed

Theodor. Han blev aldrig kaldt andet, manden der optræder i enhver dansk filmhistorisk fremstilling som den danske filmiske dokumentarismes store teoretiker, manden bag besættelsestidens mesterlige modstandsfilm ”Det gælder din frihed”. Theodor, som Cinemateket har kredset om ved et par lejligheder og nu gør det igen i denne måned på mærkedagen 29. August. Dette står at læse som introduktion på hjemmesiden:

”’Det gælder din frihed’ er en både poetisk og polemisk beretning om Danmark under krigen – og ikke mindst en hudfletning af samarbejdspolitikken, som magthavere både dengang og siden har prøvet at nedtone.

Filmen brød med skolemester-traditionen. Karl Roos’ titeldigt reciteres med lavmælt intensitet, billeder af tomme statsgemakker bliver brugt metaforisk, og alt i alt er det en af de mest filmiske og langtidsholdbare dokumentarer, der er skabt herhjemme. Den blev søgt omformet af Staten, boykottet af biografer og kaldt propagandistisk af Ekstra Bladet. Men Theodor Christensen kæmpede som besat og stod fast på sit projekt. Det gjaldt hans kunstneriske frihed, som det gjaldt danskernes politiske.

Den 29. august, på årsdagen for “det mest forsinkede nej i danmarkshistorien”, nemlig samarbejdspolitikkens officielle ophør, vil filmforsker Lars-Martin Sørensen introducere filmen.”

Og så lige et citat fra Theodor selv, fra 1948, stadig aktuelt, ikke sandt: Ved at nævne navnet dokumentarisk i flæng på 117 forskellige filmformer har man skabt kaotisk forvirring. Ikke mindst for de mange nye i den hastigt voksende dokumentariske filmstab er det desorienterende.

Danmark, 1946, 107 mins.

www.dfi.dk