The Guardian: Destination Docs

The British newspaper, always strong on cinema, has launched a series of (sponsored) articles named “Destination Docs”, published in connection with the Sheffield DocFest. The headline goes like this, “Despite new documentary formats, traditional fact-based films still attract impressive audiences – and offer value for money”. The series reminds you of the constant documentary dominance in the UK of the broadcasting companies, contrary to the rest of Europe, it is good reading, even more so when the floor is given to one of the best documentarians of today, Molly Dineen:

“Bafta-winning documentary maker Molly Dineen believes Channel 4 has shown bravery in the past with its factual shows, but has a word of caution to all the broadcasters. “Channel 4 is still very cool for factual, but it needs to be stretched by the subject matter. There’s a risk that all channels are suffering an unhealthy pressure for docs to become more light, sexy, cheap and overly dramatic.

“The adventure has got to be in tackling issues that need to be tackled, that could be expensive and unpopular. Filming real-life is expensive; structured reality is not,” warns Dineen.

Channel 4 also risks losing out to competition from the web, she says. “There needs to be collusion between the mainstream and what young filmmakers are shooting [for the web] and their motivation.” Dineen adds: “If C4 let too much of the genuine political underbelly of documentary move to the web, then they could be sunk because telly will then just be advertising and titillation, and the serious look at life will end up on the web.”

Molly Dineen’s documentaries will be out on dvd thanks to the British Film Institute: a three-volume collection. The first volume, out on 25 April, contains Home from the Hill, My African Farm, Heart of the Angel and In the Company of Men, her three-part examination of Welsh Guardsmen on a final tour of duty in pre-ceasefire Belfast.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/11/factuals-big-fat-viewing-figures

Moscow Exhibition of Film and Art

As part of the upcoming MIFF (Moscow International Film Festival) that runs from June 21 – 30 and again this year includes a competiton programme of documentaries as well as Panorama documentary section, you can go to Moscow to attend a Media Forum that looks quite interesting and intriguing.

The curator and founder of the programme, Olga Shishko, explains: “The Media Forum is a programme at the Moscow Film Festival which has been created especially to expand the familiar borders of cinema and to show that it can vary not only both in content and artistic construction of the text, but also from the formal point of view, the technology of its making and the viewing situation. The language that Media Forum uses to talk to its audience belongs to both cinematic and artistic principles, enriching them both equally…”

At the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation (June 22 – August 19) this is what is going on, a text taken from the site of the Forum:

Exhibition “The Immersions. Towards the Tactile Cinema” consists of several sections each belonging to a certain type of director’s approach to working with screen and viewer. The first section, Pure Cinema, is a reaction to art for art’ sake. Here screen is used as a canvas, actually presenting cinema as an apotheosis of painting. Works by Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Matyushin, Nam June Paik, Ken Jacobs, Paul Clipson, Hans Richter, Konstantin Adzher, Oleg and Olda Ponomarev are presented.

Attractions’ Montage, the second section, is based on the “4D cinema” concept invented initially by Sergei Eisenstein and presents his followers: Pia Tikka, Herz Frank (photo from “10 Minutes Older, 1968, camera Juris Podnieks), Alexei Isaev and Elena Gorbacheva.

The third section, Tactile Cinema, is about films that can be “watched with hands”, starting with Salvador Dali’s ideas. While working with Luis Bunuel, Dali had quite another vision of the Chien Andalou realization. This is followed by Peter Weibel’s and VALIE EXPORT’s “gripping watching” (beside which works by the TOT-ART group, Valery Ayzenberg, Ekaterina Pavlova and Constantin Semin are presented).

The forth section explores the Machine vision idea by Woody and Steina Vasulkas — a device that can replace both the film director and the viewer, supplanting individual and inaccurate human vision by an objective gaze of the camera itself. Here Ken Jacobs, Dina Karaman and Alexandra Kuznetsova are also presented.

The Interactive Cinema that unfolds with viewers’ participation is the fifth section comprised of works by Zbigniew Rybczyński, Chris Hales, Boris Debackere, Perry Bard, Mark Amerika and Olga Kisseleva.

http://mediaforum.mediaartlab.ru/en/about/

http://moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng

Photography and Photographers

Copenhagen Photo Festival runs until June 17 with exhibitions all around the city. The Danish Film Institute joins the event with an offer to access 6 fine films online – if you are living in Denmark. Therefore this change to Danish language:

Og det er en flot lille samling som DFI tilbyder københavnerne at se gratis i Filmhusets videotek (åbent tirsdag og torsdag 12-19, onsdag og fredag 12-16) eller via filmstriben (spørg om dette på dit lokale bibliotek, hvis du ikke kender ordningen):

DFI kalder serien for ”Nærvær/ om fotografer og fotografi” med brug af titlen, ”Nærvær”, på svenske Jan Troells smukke film om sin ven og kollega Georg Oddner, en film som allle dokumentarister bør se, dels på grund af dens kvalitet, dels fordi Oddner siger så mange vigtige og inspirerende ting om sin métier.

Steen Møller Rasmussen, selv en fremragende fotograf, serverer 33 intense minutter med sin ”Fotografi” (2006), hvor han lader publikum møde Keld Helmer Petersen, Per Bak Jensen, Krass Clement og Kirsten Klein. Det er så stramt og præcist, som kun Møller Rasmussen kan gøre det. Uden ligegyldige omsvøb.

Omsvøb, i form af veloplagte og velfortalte anekdoter, er der til gengæld i Jørgen Roos 13 minutter lange kortfilmklassiker om hans elskede H.C. Andersen, en film der baserer sig på ca. 160 forskellige billeder taget af digteren fra han var 45 år.  

Robert Fox ”Flash of a Dream” (2002) giver os historien om Jacob A. Riis, Kai Michelsen lavede sammen med Ole Brage fra DR ”Et andet København 1870-1910” (1980), en uvurderlig ikonografisk dokumentar bygget på fotografier fra Københavns bymuseum, og som endnu en gave til et fotointeresseret publikum kan man se Troells spillefilm ”Maria Larssons evige øjeblik”, hvor Jesper Christensen spiller fotograf Pedersen. Herligt!

Foto af Georg Oddner fra Jan Troells film “Nærvær”.

http://www.dfi.dk/FaktaOmFilm/Film-til-biblioteker/Filmtemaer/Naervaer.aspx

Euro 2012

Football starts tonight, will try NOT to write too much about it unless there are real great creative moments documented, but I could not resist this wonderful piece of Irish humour taken from facebook. Enjoy that and some fine matches, hopefully.

 

Karlovy Vary Announces its Programme

It has always been important for a documentary to be screened at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary that this year runs from June 29 to July 7 with a strong programme that was announced two days ago. There is fine variety in countries represented, Brazil and Uruguay as well as Denmark and Poland are on the list with the 16 titles that have been picked.

Helena Trestikova’s excellent ”Private Universe” is there, the Cannes premiered and awarded ”Sofia’s Last Ambulance” by Ilian Metev will be screened, and for this film blogger it is exciting to see that Austrian Timo Novotny ”Trains of Thoughts” (photo) will have its premiere in Karlovy Vary. Novotny made years ago the fascinating ”Life in Loops”, a remix of Glawogger’s ”Megacities”. With his new film, the director also works with his friends from the band ”Sofa Surfers”. This is the short description of the film from the Karlovy Vary site:

The Sofa Surfers’ original soundtrack accompanies the special rhythm of Timo Novotny’s audiovisual essay as it takes us on a journey through the subways of several world cities, discovering what makes them unique. This whimsical movie stands out for its effective interplay of music and image.

http://www.kviff.com/en/films/films-found/

25 Best Documentaries – American View

It is old news, but still interesting to look at, as it lists the 25 films that the 3000 members of the IDA (International Documentary Association) announced as the best documentaries ever in connection with the celebration of the association’s 25 years in 2007. Here it goes, they are all good films, you should definitely watch them if you have not done so already, but where are the European films – apart from a few – where is “Shoah”, where is a film by Sokurov, Herz Frank, Dvortsevoy, Kossakovsky, Patricio Guzman, Pierre Perrault, Jean Rouch and so on, so forth. The members of IDA chose the 25 from a list of 700.

1. “Hoop Dreams,” (photo) directed by Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx 
2. “The Thin Blue Line,” directed by Errol Morris
 3. “Bowling for Columbine,” directed by Michael Moore
 4. “Spellbound,” directed by Jeffery Blitz
 5. “Harlan County USA,” directed by Barbara Kopple
 6. “An Inconvenient Truth,” directed by Davis Guggenheim
 7. “Crumb,” directed by Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb 
8. “Gimme Shelter,” directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin
 9. “The Fog of War,” directed by Errol Morris
 10. “Roger and Me,” directed by Michael Moore
11. “Super Size Me,” directed by Morgan Spurlock 
12. “Don’t Look Back,” directed by DA Pennebaker
 13. “Salesman,” directed by Albert and David Maysles 
14. “Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance,” directed by Godfrey Reggio 
15. “Sherman’s March,” directed by Ross McElwee 
16. “Grey Gardens,” directed by Albert and David Maysles, Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer 
17. “Capturing the Friedmans,” directed by Andrew Jarecki
 18. “Born into Brothels,” directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
19. “Titticut Follies,” directed by Frederick Wiseman 
20. “Buena Vista Social Club,” directed by Wim Wenders 
21. “Fahrenheit 9/11,” directed by Michael Moore 
22. “Winged Migration,” directed by Jacques Perrin 
23. “Grizzly Man,” directed by Werner Herzog
 24. “Night and Fog,” directed by Alain Resnais
 25. “Woodstock,” directed by Michael Wadleigh.

http://www.documentary.org/

link to www.indiewire.com

Namir Abdel Messeeh: The Virgin, the Copts and Me

If all goes wrong, you can always turn to Mother, which is what the director of the film does in the film, when his producer no longer wants to support him. This storytelling tool, including the making of the film in the narrative, a meta plan, works in this case as the film is about a young French filmmaker who, after 15 years, goes back to his Egyptian coptic roots in a village, against the will of the mother, who in the beginning says that ”no members of the family (should be) in the film”. But the help of mum gets the film to be finished, the family members all end up in the film, which adds to the film’s light-hearted entertaining qualities at the same time as it gives a beautiful hommage to people far away from Tahrir Square, in a small village where someone once saw the apparation of Virgin Mary.

For that it is the core of the story, did these apparitions really happen, is there any proof, any documentation? This was what made the director interested, what motivated him to go on a quest among coptic religious people. Especially in 1968 where some film footage could indicate the apparation. He puts an ad in the newspaper, he has people to help him find witnesses, but is does not really give results, when he is in Cairo. So off he goes to mother’s village, ”the french guy”, as they call him, and fine situations are caught between him and his grandmother. Mum leaves France to help the son, mum is not happy, ”c’est un film de merde”, she says, how can you film a miracle. Stubborn Namir decides to create the apparation and deceides to do casting of young women for the role of Virgin Mary. He sets up a very fine, warm and humane atmosphere, and he describes himself in a very funny way with the director (Me) filmed as was he God. Which in a way he is,the director, on the set, and film is magic, isn’t it?

A post scriptum comes up – the producer calls the director to tell him that he can raise funding for the film, if he includes something about the revolution at Tahrir Square… on a personal note, oh yes, this is what ”they”, the broadcasters, want, thanks to the director for giving us something else, non-journalistic. Photo: Son and mother, director and producer.

France, 2011, 85 mins.

The film is to be released in France by

http://www.sddistribution.fr/prochainement.php?limite=2

international sales and festivals:

http://www.docandfilm.com/index_en.cfm?&CFID=79884&CFTOKEN=88224574

contact: d.elstner@docandfilm.com

Award to Catalan Film Company

You should know that I am totally biased, as I work for the company, Parallel 40, that among other initiatives stand behind DocsBarcelona, nevertheless I find it important to post a congratulation greeting to visionary Joan Gonzalez (photo) and his staff in Barcelona, for an award, not a film award, there are hundreds of them, but an award for the important work in society that the company has done and does through the production and distribution of documentaries with a social perspective.

Training, production, distribution, film commission administration, festivals, tv management – it is all happening or has happened under the umbrella of Parallel 40, and with a clear goal statement, here taken from the site of the company: ”Parallel 40’s mission is to contribute to society’s cultural enrichment through the audiovisual medium.” 

The award is part of a Momentum Project, an initiative from ESADE (ESADE is an independent nonprofit university institution) and BBVA (a multinational Spanish banking group) aimed at promoting social entrepreneurship in Spain.

10 companies (one for film) were awarded – nice to be reminded that people outside the film propfessional circles recognise the value of documentaries!

http://www.esade.edu/web/eng/about-esade/today/news/viewelement/239181/1/momentum-project-chooses-10-social-enterprises-to-participate-in-its-2012-edition

Lee Miller

The Danish Øregård Museum in the North of Copenhagen hosts currently an exhibition of works of legendary model, surrealist and war photographer Lee Miller (1907-77).

Her role is known as part of the surrealist movement in the Parisian Montparnasse period, she was the muse of Man Ray and a photo documentarian of all the gurus of the art revolution of the 19020’es, like Dali, Max Ernst and Picasso. But she was also a war photographer, who documented, what she saw when the concentration camps were freed by the allied forces. Horrible pictures of piled up corpses, of SS-men beaten up or killed, very strong pictures which stand in contrast to the picture of Lee Miller in the bathtub of Hitler in Munich, a picture taken by American photographer David Scherman, who takes part in the documentary, see below, made in 1995. ”She was always for the extraordinary”, says Scherman, who thinks she was best in pictures that included arrangements, more than she was a classic war correspondent. Take a look!

OBS: For the Danish and/or visitors to Copenhagen – the exhibition is open until June 20. The DR K has shown a tv documentary made by Helle Retbøll Carl, based on an interview with the son of Lee Miller and Ronald Penrose, the surrealist painter who died in 1984. On the same channel, that often schedules re-runs, the very good documentary by Sylvain Roumette has been shown, see below.

Photo: Lee Miller: David Scherman Dressed for War. ©Lee Miller Archives, England. All Rights Reserved.

Sylvain Roumette: The Mirror Crossing, France, 1995,55 mins.

Released on DVD by ARTE VIDEO.

http://www.leemiller.co.uk/

http://arttattler.com/designleemiller.html

http://oremus.dk/frontpage/exhibitions/current

Sokurov Retrospective in Copenhagen

Danish Cinemateket presents 8 films in a retrospective of the Russian master Aleksandr Sokurov. Even if 8 is not a lot when you take a look at the impressive, huge filmography of the director, whose latest work ”Faust” received the first prize at the Venice Film Festival 2011, this retrospective consists of several of his ”elegy” documentaries, among them ”Moscow Elegy” (1988) about Andrei Tarkovsky.

På dansk: Cinematekets program for juni omfatter bl.a. en serie med 8 af russiske Aleksandr Sokurovs dokumentarfilm, bl.a. ”Moscow Elegy” om Andrei Tarkovsky, og flere andre af hans elegier, men også hans bravournummer fra Vinterpaladset, ”Russian Ark”. Rasmus Brendstrup fra Cinemateket skriver flot om instruktøren:

Aleksandr Sokurov (f. 1951) begyndte – som så mange af Ruslands store filmnavne – sin karriere med at klippe dokumentariske arkivbidder sammen på nye måder. I dag har han favnet både logistiske mammut-produktioner (som i one-take-filmen ’Russian Ark’) og ny special effect-teknologi, sådan som det sås i Venedig-vinderen ’Faust’, der var Månedens Film i maj. 

Sokurov har over årene udviklet sig fra at være kendt som Tarkovskys åndelige arvtager til at være Ruslands største nulevende arthouse-instruktør i egen ret. 

Men han er også en sjælden race inden for kunstfilmen. Han kan dårligt længere kaldes auteur, for han kan være lige så storladen og fyldt med overraskelser, som han andre gange fremstår kompromisløs og kryptisk. Og så er det tydeligt på filmenes vidt forskellige form, at hans karrierebane spænder fra censur-hylderne under Sovjetunionens statsstyrede filmepoke til nutidens ubegrænsede muligheder.

Centralt i Aleksandr Sokurovs film finder vi imidlertid altid det sårbare menneske, der tvivler, føler eller forhandler sig frem, ofte uden klart mål eller reelt håb for succes. 

Sokurov har det seneste årti med sine spillefilm om magt-dinosaurerne Hitler, Hirohito og Lenin (tre værker, som vi viser senere på året) vist, at han er lagt mere interesseret i det sårbare individ end det opblæste ego. 

Hans film – som det bl.a. ses i Tarkovsky-portrættet ’Moscow Elegy’ – bærer præg af det samme: Her råder sanselighed, subjektivitet og søgen. Foto: Source: ITAR-TASS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Sokurov#Filmography

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/Serie.aspx?serieID=7394