Det går godt for Dokumentarfilmen

A small text on good times for the documentary in cinemas and media coverage in Denmark. More films in cinemas, much more press than before, reviews in daily newspapers of dvd’s

Jo, det ser godt ud for dokumentaren. Ihvertfald var det markant at åbne dagbladet Politiken’s filmtillæg denne torsdag. Der var anmeldelser af hele fire dokumentarfilm, to udkommet på dvd (Senna og Two in the Wave (om Truffaut and Godard)) og to med premiere i biografen, Steam of Life og Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. Når dertil kommer, at den lille, fine biograf Vester VovVov har tre dokumentarfilm på plakaten (udover filmen om O’Brien er det det Exit Through the Gift Shop og Til Havet), at centrumsbiografen Dagmar reklamerer med snarlige events omkring premiererne på Bobby Fischer Against the World (photo) og El Bulli, at Grand Teatret har haft Waste Land (se anmeldelse nedenfor) på programmet, den kører nu i Empire Bio, at der er Dokumania hver tirsdag på DR2, at der er Mandagsdokumentar i PHCaféen, at Cinemateket har en månedlig dokumentar i Filmhuset, hvor også EDN (European Documentary Network) har SønDok med udenlandske debatskabende film… ja, så det er svært at være pessimistisk på genrens vegne.

Bortset fra hvis man – som co-blogger Allan Berg – har bosat sig udenfor hovedstaden, for så er der langt til filmene, ihvertfald hvis de skal ses på det store lærred. Men det er en helt anden historie om dansk centralistisk kulturpolitik.

Nanna Frank Møller: Let’s Be Together

Under titlen ”En Feminin Dreng” viser DR2’s Dokumania en af de væsentligste, nye danske dokumentarfilm, som har vakt berettiget opsigt både inden- som udenlands under sin originaltitel, ”Let’s Be Together”. Her er anmeldelsen, som vi bragte, da filmen blev vist på cph:dox

That Nanna Frank Møller is an excellent editor has been proved many times, primarily in her collaboration with Danish director Max Kestner. That she has a talent for directing herself became obvious with the film about the circus sisters, ”Someone Like You”. Here she is with another proof: a film about 14 year old Hairon, who has Brasilian parents but lives in Denmark with his mother and her Danish husband, one more dad for Hairon.

”Let´s Be Together”, however, is the story about son and (Brasilian) dad, told in an intimate and gentle film language, full of respect for the drama that lies in a teenager, who loves to dress like girls and women do.

Hairon wants to be Cleopatra for his birthday and this forms the structural frame of the film. Mother and Hairon go to Brasil to see Brasilian father and to have the Cleopatra costume prepared. Strong conversations are unfolded, interpreted brilliantly in rythm and music and in an editing that have wonderful pauses that are full of information and emotion. ”You must know to control your life a bit”, the father says in one of the many scenes with the two together. Would be wrong of me to reveal the end scene of the film, it is so fine and impressive and well thought and performed by a big talent in new Danish documentary.

www.dr.dk/dokumania

Richard Leacock: Stravinsky

This one hour portrait of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), shot and edited by Leacock in 1966, and made in collaboration with Swiss composer and music administrator Rolf Liebermann, lives because of the close-up’s of the face of Stravinsky, a face always in movement with a smiling mouth out of which comes both interesting and funny remarks. Leacock is fascinated by the man and catches him at home and when he is conducting. It is obvious that it is more the man than the music, and the processes around rehearsals, that Leacock wants to convey and thanks for that. Leacock himself comes into the film now and then, with his voice, helping the audience with comments on who is who and where we are, very well made with no more info given than needed.

Funny to think that the year (in 1965) before two other cinema direct pioneers, the Canadians Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor also did a film on Stravinsky, made for the NFB, National Film Board of Canada. With some of the same side characters and with the same wonderful humour from Stravinsky as in Leacock’s film, but maybe a bit more rich on the music side, as I remember it.   

http://richardleacock.com/

http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/

Lucy Walker: Waste Land

It has been around for one and a half year, it has won awards all over at festivals, several audience awards, it was nominated for an Oscar this year, it has been released theatrically in many countries (for our Danish readers: it is still in cinemas here), in other words in terms of distribution a documentary success story.

And it does deserve the huge attention it has got. It is a film with a lot of respect and love for its protagonists, the poor garbage pickers in Brazil, it has a warm, lovely main character, the artist Vik Muniz, and it has a narrative that gets you involved: you see the process of Muniz going back from his New York fashionable life to his native country Brazil, to the favelas and the garbage hills, you see him and his staff, first of all Fabio, go to cast the people, they want to take pictures of, you see the transformation of the photos through the re-use of garbage, into beautiful portraits that is sold for big money, that is given back to the ACAMJG, the association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho, where most of the pickers, the catadores, are registered, and which works for better working conditions and educational inititives for the workers. Most important, however, is that the director manages to establish an emotional link to the characters, who stand out as human beings with dignity, and whose reactions to the artistic experiment is registered with a lot of care.

The website below gives a lot of information on what happened wfter the release of the film, you can give a contribution to the ACAMJG, you can buy a dvd through Amazon, you can see examples of the art works. Photo: Vik Muniz.

http://www.wastelandmovie.com/index.html

Solidarity with Syrian Protesters

Facebook gives a lot of updates on the situation in Syria. Every day new horror stories. And stories about the difficulties in performing your profession. This is what a photographer friend wrote to me yesterday: I can’t take any photos now or complete my last photography project. A person with camera has become more dangerous than an armed person!!! Currently I am a little depressed…

And what can we do but – as just one example – join the following virtual “march”. Read about it and click on the link below:

This is a VIRTUAL event. It isn’t taking place on a specific date, and you don’t have to go anywhere to join. All you need to do to show your support for the Syrian people’s cause is click “I’m Attending.”

As people of conscience worldwide, we “march” in solidarity with the courageous protesters of Syria seeking freedom and democracy. We are people of different creeds, religions, and cultures. Few of us have personal ties to Syria, but all of us are united in our support for the peaceful protesters of Damascus, Daraa, Douma, Deir Az-Zour, Hama, Homs, Idlib, Jisr ash-Shughur, Rakka, and other cities across the country.

Our goal is to reach ONE MILLION Facebook members worldwide “Attending” this virtual march with the Syrian people. Reply “Attending” to join us, and please invite friends to join as well.

We “march” here, calling for an immediate end to the killings and war crimes perpetrated by the Assad government.

We march here, calling for the indictment of Assad and his cronies for crimes against humanity.

We march here with the people of Syria, whose peaceful revolution will not be defeated.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=248954525125814

Guth Gafa

Danish filmmaker Mikkel Stolt made the comment (in Danish) that he had seen “You’ve Been Trumped” at the wonderful Irish festival Guth Gafa International Film Festival. We asked him to write a text about the festival. Here it is:

A film festival in a village with no cinemas? No problem for festival directors Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane or their dedicated staff, so this June I spent four lovely days and nights in tiny Gortahork in the utmost Northwestern part of Ireland. Bente Milton’s and my own film “My Avatar and Me” had been invited, and since Bente had to cancel her trip, I went alone. This being my first time in Ireland, I was a curious whether the locals would be as friendly as I’ve always heard and whether they really do have Guinness. I was not to be disappointed!

There was a small seminar towards the end about international financing with representatives from Sundance, Tribeca, POV and Hot Docs, but one of the good things about the festival is that there is no market and no competition, so mostly it’s all about the art of filmmaking and the films themselves. Beforehand, Neasa had arranged for me to be interviewed on the local radio show before the festival really started and that’s when I met young JoEllen Marsh, who is the main character of Jerry Rothwell’s entertaining and thought-provoking “Donor Unknown”, which was the opening film. It was shown in the ball room of Hotel Loch Altan which proved a wonderful cinema. My own showings were in a special “cinema-mobile” complete with 100 seats and full HD equipment. The audience was a mix of international colleagues and local film enthusiasts and all in all there was a wonderful ambience. At every screening I went to, there was lot of good questions and competent moderators.

One of the funny things about festivals is that you somehow team up with a group of people, and I wonder whether it’s pure chemistry or something else. Anyway, JoEllen and I found us a bunch of Swiss, New Zealandic, Canadian, Paraguayan, British, German and of course Irish new friends to hang out with between the screenings and all the after parties and concerts were just really awesome. During the day and early night I did manage to see quite a few films, including Leonard Retel Helmrich’s wonderful “Position among the stars” which I find to be the best – and most humorous – in his trilogy. Leonard also held a masterclass which I unfortunately didn’t attend. Another favorite of mine was “Battle of the Queens” by the young Swiss director Nicolas Steiner. In a beautiful and very musical style it depicts an old Swiss tradition of cow-fighting! “You’ve been Trumped” by Anthony Baxter was also shown in front of an enthusiastic audience. Personally, I got carried away by the story but was nevertheless a bit disappointed by the somewhat “old fashioned” and journalistic film language that didn’t really leave much to me to think about.

Only feature length documentaries are accepted and the official themes of the festival are “Environmental Justice, Social Action and Human Rights Films”, but I am happy to say that they can’t take themselves too seriously: there was also screenings of animated shorts from Ireland and Canada and I saw several films in the about 30 films large catalogue which was not really within the themes, including my own. But I must immediately make another feature doc, because I want to come back!

Photo: Mike Proud.

http://www.guthgafa.com/  

Steam of Life premieres in Copenhagen

It opens this coming thursday and will have 10 screenings at the Copenhagen Cinemateket as part of the excellent initiative “Documentary of the Month”. Here is a rerun of the filmkommentaren review:

Stories from Life. Stories brought to the screen by Finnish men. Stories mostly told in saunas where the men are naked. To be naked can also be a metaphor for being vulnerable. Which is exactly what the men are in this extraordinary documentary that keeps your attention from start till end. The clouds or the fog of steam that fill the screen inside or outside the saunas are like the intimate and painful words that hang in the air – or they are to be watched in stunning images from the Finnish landscape, urban or (mostly) in the countryside at the lakes, at the forests.

Sometimes it is good to talk, says one of the men, and they do talk these Finnish men, who – as another man says – normally are meant to be tough. About being a father without seeing your children. About losing job and family. About having a bear as a friend, maybe the only one, out in the wilderness! About a train driver who could not stop when someone jumped to kill himself in front of the train. And the final story about the man who heartbreakingly for 10 minutes give us the story about the death of his daughter.

There is an underlying tone of sadness throughout this film but there is also warmth and (some) humour, and there is the best film music score (Jonas Bohlin) I have heard for a long time to accompany the anxiety and bad feelings that are being sweated out in the sauna AND the tableau-like images (camera: Heikki Farm) from beautiful, melancholic Finland. Do they just sit and talk… no, the director has made them sit and talk, it is amazing what they tell us, no masks, unplugged you might say, and totally controlled in editing with a grande finale that I will not reveal for you.

Trailer(s) and background material for the film.. google the title.

www.oktober.fi

Finland, 2010, 82 mins. By Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen

You’ve Been Trumped

… is the title of a new film by Scottish director Anthony Baxter (photo), who is being interviewed on the website of the European Documentary Network (EDN) that with this new initiative again stresses its own importance not only as an up-to-date information giver on documentary matters, but also as a network that picks up important stories from its members. In this case a story about a courageous filmmaker and his fight for his film and its content and people, a story that has included being arrested and threatened by a world famous American billionaire and his entourage. Here is a clip, read the whole, extremely interesting story on the EDN site:

You’ve been Trumped (click and you can see the trailer) tells the story of how American billionaire Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland to build two golf courses, a hotel and luxury homes. He needs to buy out a few more locals to make the deal come true, but the land he has purchased occupies one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, and the handful of local residents don’t want it destroyed…

… I live about 40 miles south of where Donald Trump is building what he claims will be ‘the greatest Golf Course in the world’ on one of Scotland’s last remaining wilderness areas – a unique stretch of coastline north of Aberdeen described by scientists as ‘Scotland’s Amazon’.  The local newspapers, (the Press & Journal and Evening Express) were full of stories about how the Trump resort would mean a jobs bonanza for an area (which incidentally has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe) and never seemed to question the potential environmental impact of the plans.  I felt the media enjoyed the spat between Donald Trump and Michael Forbes (one of the local residents refusing to sell Trump his property) but failed to get deeper into the lives of the local residents. 

www.edn.dk

Yamagata Int. Documentary Film Festival/ 1

”Facing reality, what is to be done?” is the headline of the introductory text of the site of the bi-annual, reputed documentary film festival in Yamagata, Japan. In March this year the earth quake in Japan followed by the Fukushima nuclear power accident became top stories all over the world as well as its tragic consequences. Yamagata is a couple of hundred kilometers away from the epicenter of the earth quake. The festival organisers report here what they did. Respect!:

The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival will hold YIDFF 2011 as previously scheduled, from October 6th to 13th, 2011.

We have of course been concerned whether guests from overseas would join us or not, in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11th and the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant crisis. But it is exactly at times like this that our belief in the documentary film, with its power to observe objectively and express subjectively, and our trust that the invigoration of film culture will give impetus to the world, including the disaster-hit areas, pushes us to go ahead. We are proceeding with preparations to hold our festival according to schedule.

Meanwhile, since April 8th, we have been working in conjunction with other organizations to hold film screenings and children’s filmmaking workshops at evacuation centers in Yamagata Prefecture and the afflicted areas. Through bringing cinema to the people affected by the disaster, we have encountered the true situation there, seen what the news does not show us, and been crushed by a sense of powerlessness. It feels as if this unprecedented catastrophe is forcing us to contemplate what cinema can do, and the value of capturing the truth on film.

We believe that the duty of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival at this point in time is to create a venue for the following purposes: to share the chaotic emotions felt by all those who experienced the disaster; to think about what we can do next; and to search for ways to the next step forward.

At YIDFF 2011, we will host a special screening program concerning the Great East Japan Earthquake. We hope to present a program that brings viewers into contact and with the victims of the disaster, with discussions that were shared, the raw emotions that emerged when we made films with the children, and all which came out of it. We look forward to receiving your continued support.

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival

http://www.yidff.jp/home-e.html