Shatz & Barash: The Collaborator and his Family

It is quite an achievement by the filmmakers to establish and keep a tension the whole way through a feature length film, where actually nothing happens in a classical action sense. And yet a lot happens, small banal events and problems with the law in a family cursed by the fact that the father was an informer for the Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory, and had to flee to Israel, to the country he had helped, a country that couldn’t care less now that he is in Tel Aviv with his wife, his children, with a strong focus on the 3 sons, Mahmoud (12), Suffian (16) and Muhammad (17).

The reason that this film is so strong, is that the filmmakers – by staying with the family for a very long time – have obtained the confidence of the characters and are able to make them come out as human beings like you and me, but trapped in the hopeless, apparently unsolvable Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

They live without permit in a shabby area of Tel Aviv. Ibrahim, the father, gets arrested for violence against his wife, who has been home to Hebron endangering herself and her daughter, as they are part of a traitor’s family. He gets 8 months of house arrest, lives in a kind of tent on a roof top, sees his family occasionally, at the same time as he is a kind of caretaker, who sends his sons to collect money from the renters. The sons are in conflict with the law, they are sent to reformatory schools, they suffer from the situation of their father, their attitude towards the Israelis is clear – one talks about getting a swastika tattooed on his arm! At the same time as the Israelis try to hire them as collaborators.

It sounds very dark, and indeed it is, but the film has also a lot of fine human situations from a family life full of compassion and love. The music score, the montage and the care for details of the everyday life… this reviewer has no objections to a small drama of obvious universality.

Israel, France, USA, 84 mins., 2011

http://www.yularifilms.com/

Magnus Gertten: Harbour of Hope

One thing is that the launch of this Swedish film has been more than noticeable with constant updates on screenings and screening events, links to history, funding campaigns and much more – look at the Facebook link below –  but the film as a film how is it?

It is brilliant. With a classical approach and with a fine balance between conveying information and creating emotions, the film lets three holocaust survivors tell their story, starting from the time point where they arrive with the Red Cross buses from the camps to Malmö – going, in a fine montage, back in time to what happened before and afterwards. The three are the ones followed in the story, but overall info is given that some stayed in Sweden, got married, had children, and others left for far away countries or went back to their country of origin. 

Ewa, Irene and Joe – vivid and strong storytellers, or made-to-be excellent storytellers by the filmmakers, who have had amazing archive material as the basis for their building the drama. Beautiful black and white images from the arrival in 1945 (sometimes I thought that some of the material were Spielbergian ”made archive”!) mixed with private (colour) footage from the life after the arrival to Malmö, and (gently put, thanks for that) images from the concentration camps. And of course conversations and images of the three of today. And radio archive comes in to add to the ”flavour” of time. All stories are intriguing to listen to, and the film is simply nice to watch. (Photo: Ewa was born in the camp, here she arrives to Malmö)

We often call for something new, when writing and talking about documentaries. There is basically, on a universal level, nothing new here, but the film is so well mastered and captures your interest from start till end, a story, that must have an appeal to all grown-up history interested people. A small critical PS, yet, why a pop tune to accompany the end titles. Wrong sentimental decision, absolutely not needed!

http://www.facebook.com/HarbourOfHope?sk=events

RIDM Edition 14

RIDM… stands for Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal… its 14th edition takes off November 9 and runs until November 20. A small festival compared to the ones in Europe right now (Leipzig, idfa, cph:dox) and to HotDocs in Toronto, ”only” around 100 films, sectioned into a competition (long, short, Canadian), a Panorama, ”green” films, and special presentations, as they call films that have been around to loads of festivals like ”El Sicario” by Gianfranco Rosi, Helmrich’s masterpiece ”Position among the Stars”, the Portuguese wonderful ”José and Pilar” by Goncalves Mendes (José with the surname Saramago, the writer) and films by acknowledged names like Ruth Beckermann and Thomas Heise.

The overall impression is that of a festival with a classical repertory with a high quality artistic documentary programme with retrospectives of Frederick Wiseman (whose new ”Crazy Horse” (photo) opens the festival), Helena Trestikova and Jørgen Leth. And with a tribute to Richard Leacock – an interview made by Peter Wintonick in 1999.

In competiton you find films like Polish Michal Marczak’s ”At the Edge of Russia”, ”Special Flight” by Fernand Melgar, the DOK Leipzig winner from Mexico, ”The Tiniest Place” by Tatiana Huezo and ”Ramin” by Lithuanian Audrius Stonys.

Another professional festival for the audience in Canada, a country with a strong tradition for producing and showing this film genre to its citizens… National Film Board of Canada was founded in 1939!

http://www.ridm.qc.ca/en/programmation/selection-officielle

ITVS

stands for The Independent Television Service’s (ITVS). It supports documentary projects for broadcast in the US – subject-wise from all over the world. 8 films have been supported out of ITVS  International Call for 2011, where 476 submissions were received from 118 countries representing 72 languages. All of the eight projects are slated for eventual broadcast, including slots on PBS series such as Independent Lens and P.O.V., and the international series Global Voices.

“We are elated to have this new crop of projects join our growing catalog of ground-breaking documentaries, each connecting Americans to the world, and the world to Americans,” said Claire Aguilar, vice president of programming for ITVS.

8 out of 476 – tough competition, so much more there is reason to salute several very good projects that I have met in workshops and pitching fora.

Like “Avant” (photo) from Uruguay by Juan Andres Alvarez and about Julio Bocca, world dancer who takes on the job to build up a national ballet in an unfinished theatre in Montevideo… Like the Israeli “Before the Revolution” by Dan Shadur, whose family was in Tehran during the Shah period… Like films by Lixin Fan (Last Train Home) and Brian Hill (The Not Dead)…Not to forget two Danish producers, Mette Heide and Henrik Veileborg, who have received funding for their stories from Japan and Zimbabwe. The one from Japan is to be directed by talented Kaspar Astrup Schröder. “I Want to Cheer Up” is the working title of a totally crazy story that goes like this: The complexity of happiness is at the center of this story about Ryuichi, the owner of a professional stand-in company that rents out fake family members and friends. At work he can finally be the perfect husband and father that he doesn’t know how to be at home…

Read more: http://realscreen.com/2011/10/25/itvs-selects-eight-docs-for-international-call/#ixzz1bvOxu6Nm

http://itvs.org/funding/international

Phil Cox: The Bengali Detective

This documentary of Phil Cox, that has done and is still doing the international festival circuit, is the Documentary of the Month at Cinemateket, The Danish Film House in the centre of Copenhagen. The film will have six screenings, the two first with the presence of the director (November 10 at 7.15pm and November 11 at 4.45pm). Change to Danish languag

På dansk har Cinemateket givet filmen titlen ”Dansende Detektiv” og det er da også én af de mange fortælle-tråde, som Phil Cox trækker i sin underholdende film fra Calcutta: Hovedpersonen Rajesh og hans detektiver træner til en audition til en konkurrence, det er Bollywood-dans, som vi kender det, og det giver et kosteligt syn i en film, der er bedst, når vi kommer tæt på hovedpersonen i hans private tilværelse, som er præget af at hans kone er meget syg. Rajesh er en stærk karakter, han fylder godt i historien (også i bogstavelig forstand!) og selvom mange scener er sat i scene, er der en sandfærdighed i historien, som man aldrig betvivler.

Phil Cox har lavet en film til et stort publikum, der er masser af stemning fra metropolen Calcutta, de tre sager som detektivbureauet skal opklare, er appelerende lige fra Operation Tiger om falsk shampoo i omløb, til en kvinde hvis mand er hende utro, og til forsøget på at opklare et brutalt mord på tre unge på et jernbaneområde. Detektiverne arbejder, hvor politiet skulle have været men ikke er. ”We clean up the mess in society”, siger Rajesh. Musikken skubber handlingen frem, filmen er bygget op som en krimi og den sociale baggrundsbeskrivelse giver den autenticitet.

UK, 91 mins.

http://thebengalidetective.com/

www.cinemateket.dk

Prix arte – European Film Awards

The European Film Academy has announced the nominations in the category European Film Awards Documentary 2011 – Prix arte. A committee consisting of Nik Powell, director of the NFTS and deputy chairman of the EFA Board, EFA Board Member Despina Mouzaki (Greece), EFA Member Francine Brücher (Switzerland), the documentary experts Claas Danielsen (International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, Germany), Ally Derks (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Netherlands), and Jacques Laurent (producer, Belgium), and ARTE-observer Martin Pieper has chosen the following three films for a nomination:

Pina, Wim Wenders, Germany

Position Among the Stars, Leonard Retel Helmrich, the Netherlands

¡Vivan Las Antipodas!, Victor Kossakovsky, Germany / the Netherlands / Argentina / Chile (photo)

The nominated documentary films will now be made available to all 2,500 members of the European Film Academy who will vote for the winner. In association with the European culture channel ARTE, the winner will be presented at the 24th European Film Awards on 3 December in Berlin.

www.europeanfilmawards.eu

www.idfa.nl

British Film Director in Syria

Journalist witnesses Syrian authorities torturing activists – this is headline of an article of today brought by Channel 4 News, accompanied by an interview with the internationally renowned film-maker Sean McAllister, who describes what he saw and heard while detained in a Syrian cell by the authorities… His account reveals an insight into how dissent is handled amid the ongoing rebellion, and he speaks of his fears for those Syrians who had assisted him – they are now targets for the regime. Sean McAllister was arrested while working undercover for the tv channel.

http://www.channel4.com/news/journalist-witnesses-syrian-authorities-torturing-activists

http://www.seanmcallister.com/

The Syrian Revolution/ 8

Unfortunately and tragically, we have to return to Syria again. Orwa Nyrabia, filmmaker and co-director of the Damascus-based Dox Box Festival, that filmkommentaren.dk has reported from the very beginning of its existence, reports daily on facebook, several times, from his country, in Arabic and English. This was posted by him 18 hours ago:

Homs is under military attack… in Baba Amro, Homs, the army is NOW threatening the people by tanks to ‘hand over’ army deserters, the people deny deserters exist in the neghborhood, but, in a historical development: children were kidnapped and tied to the tanks to make sure the people do not attack them. CHILDREN KIDNAPPED AND TIED TO THE TANKS.

At the same time as BBC has this story, quote from the beginning of the article: Patients in government-run hospitals in Syria are being tortured in an attempt to suppress dissent, an Amnesty International report alleges. The 39-page report claims patients in at least four state hospitals have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including by medical staff. Many injured civilians consider it safer not going to hospital, it says…

Horrifying documentation clips and update can be followed on the site below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15433916

http://www.lccsyria.org/1639

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

I don’t want talking faces, you often hear documentary filmmakers say. To be understood: it is boring television stuff. In this case, and in many other, of course, the talking faces, at least most of them, are interesting to look at and are the ones that drive the story, here about George Harrison, told in an efficient way by Martin Scorcese and based on anecdotes and personal memories about an extraordinary character, who for many, but not for this Beatles-fan, stood in the shadow of John and Paul. The film, in two parts and made for television, by HBO in the US, is informative and entertaining and emotional – and for one who has grown up with the music, a great visual and musical walk down memory lane. They are all there, lots of archive with Harrison himself, and archive shot by Harrison himself, Ringo Starr, McCartney, Clapton, Ravi Shankar, Phil Spector, George Martin – and his wife Olivia Harrison, who gets the last word in a film that for Scorcese is  about a man, who was constantly searching for meaning on his spiritual journey through life. A man with humour, charming, generous and with a lot of songs that will stay like the still weeping guitar…

Saw the film on the big screen in the Copenhagen Cinema Imperial, more than 1000 seats. Excellent atmosphere.  

Martin Scorcese, USA, 3 hours and 20 mins., 2011

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/george-harrison-living-in-the-material-world/index.html

http://www.georgeharrison.com/

Young Filmmakers Festival in Palestine

At a moment where European documentary film festivals are gathering documentarians and a local audience in big crowds to present huge numbers of film (DOK Leipzig, cph:dox, Jihlava, DocLisboa, idfa etc.) it is wonderful to see that other smaller, but not less important initiatives are taken from other perspectives. The organisation Young Palestinian Filmmakers starts its first festival the 26th of October to be held in Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron and in universities like Birzeit and Al Najah. Led by filmmaker Anis Barghouti the festival shows (mostly short fiction and documentary) films from many countries like France, Turkey, Netherlands, Lebanon, Egypt, UK and of course Palestine. The website indicates that the filmmakers are from 13 (!) to 30 years of age.

The goal is like this: ”We aspire to invest collective efforts to provide youth with video tools and facilities to enable them to develop their skills to better participate in fostering a democratic healthy society”. And about the festival:

”The international Young Filmmakers Festival is the first of its kind in Palestine and it aspires to be one of the country’s premiere cultural events. It will be dedicated to supporting young filmmakers in their attempts to express themselves through the medium of film, providing them with their independent forum to present their work, discuss it, and see the works of other young people from around the world. This festival will be of special importance to Palestinian youth who are cut off from the outside world”.

Photo: Isra’ Odeh, ChewingGum Gang, Palestine – one of the films to be shown.

http://www.youngfilmmakers.ps/yfm/