The Syrian Revolution/10

One more text from Dox Box festival Orwa Nyrabia, who has turned war correspondent and frequently writes in English on Syria and Me – The Revolution Chronicles:

Damascus: The regime’s security forces, backed by armed operatives, raided the office of activist and journalist Mazen Darwish, the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Free Expression, in central Damascus after sealing the area. Security forces arrested Mr. Darwish and a number of other professionals in the office. The LCC is verifying the names of those arrested.

(LCC is a resistance group, described like this: Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, an umbrella organization with members from most cities and many smaller towns across Syria. Ed.)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Syria-and-Me-The-Revolution-Chronicles/318536521531396?ref=ts

Steve James on Documentaries

One of the best documentaries recently is ”The Interrupters” (photo) by Steve James, who was also the man behind masterpieces as ”Hoop Dreams” and ”Stevie”. Film journalist Jennifer Merlin has interviewed James, site address below, and out of that comes many interesting comments from a modest true documentarian.

Here is a clip from the long and good interview:

There are all kinds of different films and all kinds of hybrids. I like all kinds of films and all kinds of documentaries, but I see a lot of films and thing, gee, I could never make that — not from a judgmental standpoint, but just because I don’t think that way. I’m just not that kind of storyteller. So, you know, I’m old fashioned. I like cinéma vérité.

The films that had the biggest impact on me when I was getting interested in film were the verite classics, on the one hand, like Barbara Kopple’s work or the Maysles.

The other films that interested me, and I think my films are a kind of hybrid with these, are Michael Apted‘s UP Series and especially The Times of Harvey Milk, which I saw at a particular moment of time when I was starting to love documentaries and I was just struck by how powerful, and insightful and emotional that film was without being sappy or anything like that. And those are both films that are interview driven films. They’re not verite films. So I think my style is a kind of a hybrid.

http://documentaries.about.com/od/documentarydirectors/a/A-Conversation-With-Steve-James-Part-One.htm

Cinéma du Réel 2012

The Cinéma du Réel has chosen its competition films for the 34th edition of the festival that takes place in the Centre Pompidou in Paris March 22 to April 3.

15 films have been taken for the International Competition and the International First Films Competition. Many are world premieres, some international premeieres and some French premieres. Among the latter you find the success ”Five Broken Cameras” (photo) by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi and ”Two Years at Sea” by Ben Rivers. There is a competition of short documentaries, very much welcomed of course, a French section of course – more than 200 films are screened and there are workshops and tributes with/to John Gianvito, Dick Fontaine, Susana de Sousa Dias, Mario Ruspoli and Raúl Ruiz.

“Arrested Cinema” is a section where “From Iran to China, from Syria to Tibet, many filmmakers, documentarists, artists or ordinary demonstrators have been arrested, imprisoned, confined to their residence or killed. With its new “Arrested cinema” section the festival aims to create a space each year and give regular news updates for a cinema confined to resistance.

And to stay on the political track there is, again. A section called “Exploring Documentary: Combatants” which is “A tribute to the filmmakers who have fought and continue to fight on liberation fronts, using deadly weapons (rifles, machine guns), non-deadly weapons (cameras, tracts…) or the two together. With films by Tobias Engel, Margaret Dickinson, Jocelyne Saab, Clarisse Hahn, Deborah Shaffer, Jean-Michel Humeau, Dick Fontaine and some films of the Slon-Iskra audiovisual collection.”

www.cinemadureel.org

Haus des Dokumentarfilms

Our German language readers should know about the fine work done by the Stuttgart based Haus des Dokumentarfilms. Yesterday I received a ”Dokumentarfilm Newsletter” from the Haus with a link to a website – in German – that provides you with a lot of information, on new docs in German cinemas, support that thas been given, documentaries on television, new dvd releases and so on.

The mission of the Haus: ”Unser Haus dient der Förderung, Forschung und der Sammlung des Dokumentarfilms. Wir wollen Filmemacher, Redakteure, Produzenten und am Dokumentarfilm Interessierte zusammenbringen.”

Long and good articles about films are to be found on the website, and of course there is information about the ongoing Berlinale, as well as info on the work of the German ag-dok, the strong association for documentarians.

The photo is from Cyril Tuschi impressive documentary about Khodorkovsky. It runs in German cinemas.

http://www.dokumentarfilm.info/

Bahraa Hijazi Syrian Filmmaker

.. detained by security forces since February 2nd. The following text is taken from Facebook:

Bahraa Hijazi, was born in 1986 in Damascus, Syria. Her family is originally from Jeiroud, a city 50 kilometres from the capital. Bahraa’s father Abdul Nabi Hijazi is a well-known Syrian novelist and TV writer. Bahraa is a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, majoring in the Department of Visual Communication. She works in visual design and animation, and has been creating children training workshops in this field. Bahraa has directed a short animated film entitled “Heart Torments ” which was produced by Tawasol network in collaboration with the United Nation Development Program and the International Centre for Journalists. Most recently she was preparing her first feature documentary, depicting the life of women in Syria. The project represents one of 10 projects that was chosen by DOCMED 2011 International Program for young producer and filmmaker ————————————————————– Née en 1986, Bahraa Hijazi est étudiante en 4ème année au département de Communication à la Faculté des Beaux-Arts de Damas, et fille du grand auteur et scénariste Abdul Nabi Hijazi. Graphiste, réalisatrice de films d’animation et chargée de projets et d’ateliers de formation pour les jeunes dans les domaines de la conception et de la réalisation. Son court métrage d’animation “Tourments de coeur” a été produit par l’atelier Tawasol (communiquer) organisé en coopération avec l’atelier du Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement et le Centre international pour les journalistes. Elle prépare actuellement son premier documentaire sur les femmes en Syrie. Celui-ci a obtenu le soutien du programme “Doc Med”, et a été sélectionné récemment dans le cadre du programme de production du Festival International du Film de Rotterdam.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/الحرية-لــ-بهراء-حجازي-Freedom-for-Bahraa-Hijazi/128328827289752

Carlo Guillermo Proto: El Huaso

It is quite a challenge to choose one’s own family as the theme of one’s first feature documentary. Nevertheless this is what Carlo Guillermo Proto (1979) did with ”El Huaso”, a film that demonstrates a strong visual competence to convey the story of a father, who has decided to commit suicide if he, like his own father, gets alzheimer. He does not want to be a burden to his family.

Carlo, the son, the filmmaker, follows his father on his journey to the doctor, to the psychologist, and back to Chile, his home country, where his horse riding apparently makes him a free and happy man away from the depression that makes him suffer in Toronto… where he also is a happy grandfather when he plays and talks with his lovely grandson.

It is tense, it has a fiction feel in many staged scenes, and especially one brings memory of Ingmar Bergman: The whole family placed in a couch, including the protagonist, the father, discussing the good and bad sides, the right and wrong, about his eventual decision to take his life! There the director, also in the couch, reaches the point where you as a viewer feel uncomfortable to watch. Gives you a painful impression. Like when you watch the Swedish master.

Talent is needed to make a private story personal and universal. Here it is done beautifully.

http://www.facebook.com/elhuasothefilm?sk=info

Canada/Chile, 2011, 80 mins.

Seen at DOCSBarcelona 2012

Film History for Free

”Your online documentary cinema”. This is how the excellent vod Doc Alliance Films characterises itself. Based in Czech Republic at the address of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film), they are doing great work. The selection of films available is indeed a feast for the documentary lover. Newly added titles are ”Cave of Forgotten Dreams” by Werner Herzog, ”Avenge, but one of my Two Eyes” by Avi Mograbi and ”The Arrivals” by Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard.

However, this week, Doc Alliance goes royal to celebrate the sixty year rule of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (!) by offering classic British documentaries for free. So here you go, take a lesson in film history, start by reading this very fine introduction from the Doc Alliance site:

The two most significant periods of British documentary film to enter the world’s history of cinematography are the British Documentary Movement and the Free Cinema movement. Financed by state institutions as well as big private corporations, the filmmakers of the British Documentary Movement conceived their work as public service. They were choosing among the wide range of themes resonating inthe British society, focusing primarily on the changes the society and its various strata were undergoing at that time. The film methods they employed varied greatly. Although their works are associated with the term of documentary film, today they would rather fit the docudrama genre (a documentary genre making use of stage-managed situations, reconstructions of real events). However, their works primarily shared the immense interest in the depicted subject accompanied by an attractive and intelligent film form. That is what secured them a constant attention of their spectatorship.The DAFilms portal introduces the following famous films of the British documentary school: Night Mail with the score by Benjamin Britten and verses by W.H. Auden; Drifters by ideologist of the British school John Grierson; Industrial Britain by legend of the documentary genre Robert Flaherty; and Fires Were Started filmed in the heavily bombed London in the middle of the war by Humphrey Jennings. In the Docalliance selection, the Free Cinema movement is represented by the “swinging” Mama Don’t Allow by Tony Richardson and Czech-born “Winton’s child” Karel Reisz. Richardson as well as Reisz are significant representatives of the movement who later became famous for their fiction films, some of them further developing the Free Cinema principles. From the works by Karel Reisz, we further present We Are Lambeth Boys, a portrait of everyday life of youth from London’s working class Lambeth borough situated on the Southern bank of the Thames. Both films belong among the significant short documentaries made at the very beginning of the movement.

http://dafilms.com/

15 Young by Young Finished

”Think Big! Is what young producer and director Ilona Bicevska has done throughout a year of participation in the Ex Oriente 2008.” This was the text posted here in October 2008. Two years later another text was posted: ” Think Big! Is what Ilona Bicevska is doing. For a couple of years she has been pitching a project that I have praised on this site with a simple Bravo! Now the potential directors have been invited to come to Latvia, to Sigulda 50 kilometers from Riga, from where I write these words. A development workshop goes on, discussions, clips are being watched, coffee is being drunk – and harder stuff as well.”

Now the series is finished, has its industry screening at the Berlinale and is being screened on arte February 6-24 at 10.30pm, 15 films around 15 minutes long, from the 15 ex-Soviet republics about young people and their lives. In her long journey Bicevska succeeded – among many other funders in Latvia and abroad, including the MEDIA Programme –  to get arte on board with Serge Godrey from Alegria as co-producer.

I remember talking to many experienced producers during this process . They all said that this is not possible, this is too difficult, but the energy of Ilona Bicevska was second-to-none as were the attitude of the young directors, who now get the chance to have their works and their talent exposed on the international scene. You will see these films on festivals and tv in the coming years, as a whole series or individually – and a 90 minutes version is being made as well.

I repeat my Bravo and Congratulations to all 15 young filmmakers, who are going to have a 12 (why not 15?) hour party at the Berlinale! Enjoy!

http://www.15youngbyyoung.com/

http://www.arte.tv/fr/15-vies-a-l-Est—tous-les-films/6341372,CmC=6339420.html

Errol Morris: Tabloid

Joyce McKinney was hot stuff in the British tabloids back in the 1970’es and the case known as the “Mormon sex in chains case” started out when McKinney allegedly kidnapped her Mormon husband-to-be and forced him to have a good time with her – if you get my drift. The story has it all; a former beauty queen challenging a cult church, sex pictures, clever escapes from the authorities, a relentless press and a shocked public. No need not to make a documentary about it.

Errol Morris is a giant in the documentary field but I quite quickly got this uneasy feeling that something was wrong. In this film he has most of the characters in a studio – including McKinney – where they all take us back to the days and each telling their side of the story. I grant that Morris has a certain skill to arrange his material in a clever way, but the whole thing just gets too clever or too arrogant even. His other visual aids are old still photos, collages/animations and archive footage from fiction films and this style very often comes across as strangely old-fashioned and tiresome, even when the intent was clearly to be comical. For instance when a character says in a talking-head shot; “…and then the phone rang”. Cut to footage of an old-style telephone which rings in some obscure fiction film. Cut back to someone talking about what that phone call implied.

At that point I began to feel that Morris was pulling my leg or even mocking us. Or worse, mocking the people IN the film. Quite often you hear Morris react sarcastically as the interviewer or he takes a word from an interview and puts it in capital letters directly on the screen. He’s not too shy to use supposedly funny sound effect either and the whole thing led me to believe he’s not really interested in this story. He’s interested in the telling of a story and that is when it could have gotten really interesting in my view. Who do we believe and why do we believe them? Can we believe the storyteller – can we believe Morris?

This could – with a different and more humble approach – have been a very clever and self-ironic piece of self-mockery which would have been quite becoming for the filmmaker. Instead, it’s a film which doesn’t seem to take its story, its characters or the audience seriously. Why would I take this film seriously then? I really can’t but I would like to be proven wrong, scolded or told off. Hit me!

Watched at Cinemateket, Copenhagen.

USA, 2010, 87 mins.

Heineman & Froemke – ESCAPE FIRE

This film is about American healthcare system and its severe problems. Americans spend around 300 billion U.S. dollars a year on pharmaceutical drugs. That is almost as much as the rest of the world combined. Healthcare throughout years became a huge business in America and unfortunately almost every player in this industry is highly interested in keeping Americans ill.

The majority of patients are coming to their doctors repeatedly because they are not being cured after their first visit. Moreover, about 75% of the healthcare costs are spent for diseases that are easily preventable. In the film a number of doctors explain how American healthcare system forces them to send their patients from one specialist to another, unfortunately usually with no luck to get better.

ESCAPE FIRE offers a lot of facts and tries to focus on many issues. First of all it is focusing on rapidly growing obesity in America. The filmmakers claim that at the moment around 65% of America’s population is overweight. The issues are hidden not only behind Americans’ general inactivity but also affordability of eating right.

Another issue that is presented concerns the quality of care in the U.S. military. The film offers shocking numbers of soldier deaths as well as suicides that are caused by

overdosed drugs during their missions. One soldier is followed on his uneasy trip to withdraw the outrageous amount of prescribed medication.

Going deeper into the medication issue in the United States, the filmmakers outline the famous Avandia case, the hot-selling diabetes drug whose manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline ignored an increased risk of heart attack among trial patients. After a trial GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay 3 billion U.S. dollars to settle United States government civil and criminal investigations. However, this company has never been sentenced of being guilty for many deaths that were directly or indirectly caused by their drugs.

Lastly this film tries to introduce the viewer to the whole healthcare industry system and its mechanism. Starting from a general practitioner and ending with executives at pharmaceutical companies it gives an overall picture of a system that has missed its main task, namely to help people.

I understand why it was hard to get tickets to this movie. There are no doubts that this topic is very sensitive and painful for many Americans. However, this matter seems to be overexposed recently and therefore feels somewhat exhausted. There is focus on too many issues at once and therefore it felt unfocused overall. But most of all it seemed to be overdramatic. Some moments it reminded of a bad Hollywood movie: ‘We’re in a deep trouble today, but we’re Americans therefore we’re going to make it! Already tomorrow we will start eating salad instead of junk food and everything will be fine again…’

Matthew Heinemann & Susan Froemke: Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, USA, 99 mins,, 2011. Seen at Sundance 2012.

http://www.escapefiremovie.com/