Koen Suidgeest: Karla’s Arrival

“Teenage mother Sujeylin Aguilar raises her newborn on the same streets she herself grew up in. Set in Managua, Nicaragua, the film explores the universal issue of second generation of street children.”

This is the brief presentation that is given by the director Koen Suidgeest about his very succesful, well made, non-sentimental and yet touching creative documentary. The director deserves credit for not only his film but also for his extensive work getting the film around (now seen by more than 1 million people he writes on his site), and making the film be the first step to be engaged in helping.

The director communicates strongly and competent through a blog, facebook, website, newsletter etc. Below the site of the film + a site on the initiative to get the babies off the streets. Yes, films can make changes happen!

http://www.karlasarrival.com/

http://www.covenanthouse.org/landing/karlasarrival

Mikael Bertelsen på plejehjem

The following is a praise of Danish journalist Mikael Bertelsen, who has made several socially orientated, excellent tv and radio programmes for DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation). Here – in Danish language – some words about his newest radio documentary, in 6 parts, from a nursing home for old people in Copenhagen.

Radiodokumentar er ikke noget, (film)kommentaren har skrevet meget om. Men efter en time med Mikael Bertelsen på P1, på plejehjemmet Sølund i København, ryger det bare ud af munden: Hold kæft, hvor er det godt. Det var afsnit 2 af 6, de kan alle sammen høres på nettet (se nedenfor), hvert afsnit kan stå alene, ihvertfald dette nummer 2, hvor Bertelsen bevæger sig rundt i hus B (hvor de demente bor) og i hus A, hvor beboerne stadig har tankens klarhed, men er fysisk afhængig af hjælp. Bertelsen har den sjældne evne at kunne lytte og gribe fat i de formuleringer, som de gamle kommer med og bortset fra et par underholdende bemærkninger om kvaliteten af måltidet (gule ærter med medister), strømmer der fine og kloge reflektioner fra beboerne i både hus A og B. Konstant placeret i den ramme at plejehjemmet er sidste station. Det handler jo om at leve, siger en klog dame til Bertelsen, ikke blot om at eksistere!

Og Bertelsen evner pausen og taler aldrig ned, han taler med. Og han har som alle gode dokumentarister nysgerrigheden i behold, interessen for de mennesker, han opsøger.

http://www.dr.dk/P1/Serier/Plejehjem/20110718105212.htm

Still: Mikael Bertelsen, da han var på pilgrimsvandring. Fra dr.dk

Nick Broomfield Tries to Ask Sarah Palin

… a question, as you can see on the YouTube clip, where Broomfield in his best shape, as an elegantly dressed British gentleman, shouts his question from the way back seat in a hall full of Palin supporters and hand-picked journalists.

Of course, he is being asked to leave the room, to be seen in the clip and in the documentary, which will have its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 8-18.

Here is the festival’s presentation of the film:

Sarah Palin – You Betcha! Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill, United Kingdom
World Premiere
Nick Broomfield’s quest for the real Sarah Palin involves battling the icy snows of Alaska in mid-winter to speak to the school friends, family, and Republican colleagues that in previous days gave their heart, soul and belief to the charismatic, charming, intoxicating ex-hockey mom. But it’s not all plain sailing. People are frightened to talk; Wasilla makes Twin Peaks look like a walk in the park. It’s a devout evangelical community – 76 churches with a population of only 6 thousand, and the Crystal meth capital of Alaska. Broomfield brings his celebrated wit and determination to cracking her story.

PS. If you click the link below you will see that the festival has several other strong documentary names on its programme.

Photo: Sheffdocfest.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8W1TdapjK0&feature=player_embedded

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/05/nick-broomfield-sarah-palin

http://tiff.net/press/pressreleases/festival-unveils-highly-anticipated-world-premieres-of-documentaries-from-werner-herzog-morgan-spurlock-jessica-yu-nick-broomfield-and-more

MakeDox Travelling Cinema

The Macedonian documentary festival, MakeDox, is on tour (2.8-11.8) and reports warmly from their stop in Vevchani, population 2500, during summer 3500-4000. Classical way of meeting an audience, here are some quotes from their newsletter: We set up the screen in the small amphitheater. When the 1962 film story about the fortune seekers leaving this region began, almost all seats were taken. The kids who expected a cartoon seemed to be the most interested in the documentary motion pictures and stayed till the end… We had a talk with some of the visitors. Ljubica (photo), an elderly woman said: ”I was born here. For many years I have lived in Belgrade and then returned. I make traditional costumes, there are only few left in Macedonia who make them. This cinema of yours, I like it. Especially the film about the fortune seekers. Some of them are my relatives at Plachikrusha myself (a farewell tree in Vevchani)…

Pure beauty, pioneer work in virtual online times – the personal direct meeting between film and audience. 

http://www.makedox.mk/indexen.html

MakeDox makedoxphotos@gmail.com

Jan Andrews: Joseph Brodsky

With the subtitle ”in the prison of latitudes”, this detailed, autobiographical film is quite an achievement in terms of research into the complicated life of the Russian poet (born 1940), not to talk about the archive material that the director has found, and the many interesting people from St. Petersburg, who knew Brodsky, when he was in his home town before he was forced in exile in 1972. He lived in the US until his death in 1996.

The best in the film, however, is the fascinating images from St.Petersburg, this pearl of a city with so much beauty that Brodsky knew how to convey into his poetry, that is given to the spectator through recordings of his own voice, magnificent it is to listen to poems being recited by him, who in the US also read in a classical English language that Laurence Olivier would have loved!

The director has wisely chosen to let the St. Petersburg years be in the forefront with a voice-off commentary that not only gives information about the life of Brodsky but also quotes him. It is understandable as Brodsky comes alive through his words but it sometimes makes the narrative of the film far too loaded with words and blocks for the experience of the images. Which are also wonderful when the journey goes to his beloved Venice, that inspired him to write the masterpiece ”Watermark” about the city where he is buried. A quote to end this text about an important film introduction to a great poet:

”Being sent to into exile is like being put into a capsule and shot into space and the capsule is your language”  

USA, 2010, 60 mins.

The director Jan Andrews: I do have DVD’S in English and Italian (eventually Russian) which can be ordered from me via my email address. $15.00 plus shipping. shibui@sisna.com.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150274520445037&comments&ref=mf

Lichtpunt: Claudio Magris

Intelligent television. A talk with a writer, one of the best, for many years and still a candidate to receive the Nobel Prize of Literature, Italian or should one say European Claudio Magris, interviewed in his flat in Trieste by Piet de Moor, in German, a meeting with a very sympathetic man, who answers the questions put to him. In other words focus on a face, a talking face, with small incerpts of images from beautiful Trieste, from Donau (the title of his most famous book) and of course from the legendary Caffée San Marco, where he often goes to sit and write. With paper and pen. In total concentration but still with people around him.

Magris talks about his writing – how he writes, where he writes, the difference between his writing for newspapers (43 years he has written for Corriere della Sera!), his love to Trieste, his aim always to be ”genau” and consequent huge research work, and his vision for Europe.

I like this simplicity: One-two-three images and there we are in the flat of Magris ready to make the conversation. And there we stay apart from the image sequences that link the talking. The Belgian tv channel Lichtpunt has made several programmes like this.

Belgium, 2010, 35 mins.

www.lichtpunt.be

Artavadz Pelešjan

… is the name of one of the greatest auteurs in documentary history. A film has been made about him that will premiere at the Venice Film Festival (August 31 – September 10). Emanuele Vernillo (filmmaker and didactic tutor at Zelig Film School), assistant director on the film, that is directed by Pietro Marcello, has written this text about the film for filmkommentaren. Below a link to YouTube where some of Pelesjan’s work is available, the most famous being “Seasons”. Photo from “Us”:

‘Il silenzio di Pelešjan’ (Pelešjan’s silence) is a portrait about the great armenian film director Artavadz Pelešjan. The film deals with the strong, and still not recognized, artistic experience of Artavadz Pelešjan, from his arrival in Moscow from Yerevan in the early ’60s, passing through the years spent at the renowned film school in Moscow VGIK and arriving to the intense film production of Pelešjan, who has written several essays on film-making, stating that his interest in film and in montage relies not on the historical definition of montage as ‘union of closed framings’, rather on the emotional field created by the interaction of distant elements, the so-called ‘theory of the distant montage’. The film is built of extracts of Pelešjan’s films, archive material and material shot, in super 16mm, in Moscow by a small film unit directed by Pietro Marcello (‘La Bocca del Lupo’).

The film has been promoted by Enrico Ghezzi and Stefano Francia di Celle for ‘Fuori Orario’, a famous television italian program on cinema, which is broadcasted at nights from friday to sunday:

‘Il Silenzio di Pelešjan’

directed by Pietro Marcello

produced by: Zivago Media

in association with: Kinesis Film and Avventurosa Film

in collaboration with: Rai Cinema

executive producers: Rino Sciarretta and Simone Gattoni

editing: Sara Fgaier

assistant director: Emanuele Vernillo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ts-Qrvn9sQ

http://www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html

Dokumania: Løb for Livet

This is an announcement especially for our Danish readers about the screening tomorrow of Serbian Mladen Matičević award winning documentary ”Run for Life” on the tuesday evening strand ”Dokumania” on DR/TV. I will therefore switch to Danish language

Det er en varm og gribende dokumentar, som serbiske Maticevic har lavet. Den har vundet priser i Kroatien (ZagrebDox) og Serbien (Beldocs). Den havde sin verdenspremiere sidste år på idfa in Amsterdam efter en lang og besværlig produktionsproces, som faktisk er blevet en del af filmen. Sagen er nemlig den, at de tre etiopiske løbere, som filmen handler om, i en lang periode blev holdt for nar af den serbiske træner, som havde taget dem til sig. Eller var det de serbiske atletik-myndigheder? Ihvertfald løb de maratonløb efter maratonløb i håbet om at kunne få serbisk statsborgerskab, blive i landet og stille op til OL i London for deres nye land. Men intet skete og Maticevic, filmens instruktør og selv maratonløber, besluttede sig for at hjælpe dem. Han tager rundt med dem, køber mad og tøj, prøver at finde ud af, hvad der er galt – og laver en film om det. Med store vanskeligheder, kan jeg bevidne, som fulgte filmen fra sidelinien som lærer på EU-træningsprogrammet for dokumentarister, Ex Oriente. Ud af det er kommet en fin, menneskelig historie af universel karakter. Om mennesker der håber og bliver skuffede. Får nye venner i den serbiske landby de bor i, og som de må forlade. Se den!

PS. Dokumania’s beskrivelse af filmen er i øvrigt meget mangelfuld, er tydeligt skrevet af én, der ikke har set filmen.

http://www.dr.dk/DR2/Dokumania#/13957

http://www.zagrebdox.net/en/

The Syrian Revolution/ 2

How to follow what happens in Syria? Incoming shaken visual reports, amateur footage from amateur cameras or mobile phones, many people risk their lives to report to us and to have their clips put on youtube or on the sites of tv channels.

I went to al jazeera tonight – their start lines from todays killings by the regime go like this:

Syrian forces have killed nearly 142 people, including at least 100 when the army stormed the flashpoint protest city of Hama to crush dissent on the eve of Ramadan, activists have said. Rights groups said it was one of deadliest days in Syria since demonstrators first took to the streets on March 15, demanding democratic reforms and the downfall of the government…

On the site of avaaz, see below, you can sign a petition ” to investigate and press for an end to the disappearances of nearly 3000 innocent Syrians”.

And on lccsyria.org videos are uploaded as the massacre continues.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/syria/

http://www.lccsyria.org/ (photo from that site)

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/

Wiseman makes film about Crazy Horse

American documentary master Frederick Wiseman stays in France. After his “La Danse” the Parisian production company Ideale Audience and Wiseman’s own Zipporah Films Inc. has produced a film from one of the most well known entertainment attractions in the French capital, Crazy Horse. The film is to have a special presentation at the coming Venice Film Festival. Here is the promotion text from the site of the distributor, Celluloid Dreams:

Celebrated documentary director Frederick Wiseman spent ten weeks with his camera exploring one of the most mythic places dedicated to women, ‘CRAZY HORSE’. This legendary Parisian cabaret club, founded in 1951 by Alain Bernardin, has become, over the years the Parisian nightlife ‘must’ for any visitors, ranking alongside the Eiffel tower and the Louvre.

Wiseman’s impeccable eye allows us to enter into this intriguing international temple of the Parisian club world and to discover what makes the CRAZY HORSE tick: elegance, perfectionism and a grueling schedule (with 2 shows a night and 3 on Saturdays, 7 days a week). The film takes us to the final curtain up, and the unveiling of the brand new show. DESIR is created by the greatest French choreographer Philippe DECOUFFLE and is an artistic, modern, humorous and colorful outburst that is the pinnacle of ‘NUDE CHIC’.

http://www.zipporah.com/wiseman

http://www.celluloid-dreams.com/current_slate/2011/crazy_horse/synopsis

Still: “Crazy Horse”. From cargo-film.de