In this text I can only speak for myself as one of three jurors at the first documentary competition at the 33st Moscow International Film festival stating that there was a clear agreement in the jury for the winner, Hell and Back Again, see below.

For the other 6 films it was obvious that ”Abendland” by Austrian Nikolaus Geyrhalter was visually a strong film essay with a very relevant critique of our civilisation with beautifully composed (but badly projected in the imax cinema) images of surveillance cameras, immigrant interviews, a refugee camp, Oktober fest in Munich… it is methaphoric, it has magnificent moments but it also suffers (maybe a matter of taste) from its distant intellectualism.

Audrius Stonys deserves much praise for his ”Ramin”, a film about an old man in Georgia, his daily life, his attachment to his late mother, his looking for a woman he knew in his youth… the story is told in stunningly beautiful images by Audrius Kemezys, the story construction is complicated, but there are magical moments (like in most of Stonys films) that you will never forget, and original ideas. In this one it is a cross-cut from a loong celebration of Ramin’s birthday to a cat crying outside the house with a nice warm hen to lean on!

Whereas ”Senna” (photo) by Asif Kapadia, running more than succesfully in English theatres at the moment, has a classical straight forward narrative, simple it is, and should be, with its focus on the career of the formula 1 driver, Brasilian Ayrton Senna, his fight with French Alain Prost, a love-hate relationship, his importance for his poor nation, his charming appearence. It is all built on archive, not a talking face, all comments come off the image, an excellent solution for a film that appeals to a broad audience.

”Marathon Boy” by Gemma Atwal was a tabloid film with a constant noisy sound track attack, a story about a small boy being exploited by the media and his mother and his coach – no director point of view, as i saw it. And it was a mistake that ”Czech Peace” by Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak was shown in a one hour version with an introduction by Michael Moore (”watch this film”!) – I have seen a fine long version of the film in beforehand. Also a wrong choice it was to show ”Happy People: A year in the Taiga” by Dmitry Vasyukov and Werner Herzog in a disrespectful version where the voices of the Russian characters were dubbed into American, and where Herzog’s voice, which I normally like a lot, in this case was far too much sounding like the world was about to go under!

http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/eng/

”I love my pistol”, says Sergeant Nathan Harris, the protagonist of the film about an American soldier, who gets seriously wounded in combat in Afghanistan, is taken back to the US and to his wife Ashley, who helps him recover; at least she helps him getting through the day, the trauma he has from his time in Afghanistan, he does not seem to be able to fight on his own as the film tells the audience.

Many films have come out and is coming out from and about the war in Afghanistan and its consequences on heart and mind, especially on those going there as soldiers to secure changes in the country. This one is one of the best so far in its superb camera work from the battlefield, in its description, with a lot of dignity, of the Afghans who are victims of the constant search for Talibans by the Americans. They are told to leave their houses, their houses are searched, they are searched and controlled. The desperation comes from the Afghans, who don’t want to be ruled by the Talibans, but you soldiers do not really make the situation easier!

The emotional side of the film, however, lies where Nathan Harris is back home, suffering enormously from his pain, constantly taking strong medicin and – this is how the film is built – thinks back on Afghanistan where he definitely wants to be again as a killer, the word used by the doctor who examines him. As a spectator you look, with empathy, thanks to the approach of the director, at a man brought up in a society of violence, a young man sitting in a sofa at the end of the film playing with his guns… ”I love my pistol”.

US/UK, 2011, 88 mins.

Winner of 1st Documentary Competition at Moscow International Film festival 2011.

http://hellandbackagain.com/

Quite a shocking film it is. Protagonist: A warlord who during the Liberia civil/tribal war ran around slaughtering anyone near him, yes naked he was, surrounding himself with child soldiers ”educated” through Rambo films, has now found God, preaching reconciliation, goes around to find his victims, or relatives to those who were his victims, asking for forgiveness. He is given amnesty at the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Committee), flees the country and his family because of death threats, but comes back to continue his mission.

Archive footage shows the horrible, almost unwatchable images of  massacres, he performed (he says himself that he thinks he and his gang was responsible for the death of 20.000 people!), mixed with interviews with him, observations of his preaching performances in and outside churches, building up stories about him and (one example) ”the Senegalese”, who had his legs amputated but forgives Joshua, the new name of General Butt.

He is not at all sympathetic, he seems to be a man, who could go back to killing any other moment, but he is now using his extraordinary energy in preaching. As a viewer you are fascinated by a story that is so well told with emotional attachment to some of the victims, and sympathy for his wife, who says nice things about her husband but at the end of the film admits that she is tired of being married to him!

”Modern” documentary: character driven, strong (an understatement!) narrative, but also balanced in tone letting the viewer think for him/herself.  

Part of the Free Thought documentary programme at the 33st Moscow International Film Festival Programme. 

Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion: “Redemption of General Butt Naked”, USA, 2011, 84 mins.

http://www.generalbuttnakedmovie.com/

Archive material, interviews and commentaries, the film has a classical build up of a story about the chess genius, American Bobby Fischer (1943-2008), whose story is one of those written out of a reality that surpasses any Hollywood fiction script. Already a grandmaster as a teenager, he grew up to play the legendary match in Iceland in 1972 against Boris Spassky, a match between sportsmen but also a match with political significance in the middle of the cold war. He became the legendary world champion, we all remember.

But something was wrong with Bobby Fischer, and this is what the film focuses on. You sense it in the brilliantly told story, where again and again you see the haunted face of the kid and the young Fischer, whose eyes do not focus and who speaks unwillingly about his childhood. His behaviour during the Iceland match was unpredictable, not to talk about his play, a man of surprises and a man who turned mad in his older years, with totally anti-american and anti-semitic comments to everything around him. He ended up in Iceland again, after having travelled the world as a nomad, being arrested in Japan, threatened to be deported to the US, granted citizenship in Iceland where he stayed until his death having verbal fights with everyone.

Who was he, Bobby Fischer, the young kid with the worried eyes and the special skills, a man who often was searching for peace and quietness, but who did not get that in his fight with inner deamons?

Shown at Free Thought documentary programme at Moscow International Film festival 2011. For our Danish readers: The film premieres at Vester VovVov, Copenhagen, August 25.

USA, 2011, 93 mins.

http://bobbyfischermovie.co.uk/

Still: filmmakers pic.

The Washington based festival ended last night and awards were announced – all together $76.500 in cash and in-kind, as the festival site announces. The three main awards were given to (for best US feature) ”Our School” by Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coco-Cozma, (for best world feature) ”Family Instinct” by young Latvian Andris Gauja and (for best short film) ”Guanape Sur” by German Janos Richter.

The two latter have previously been noticed on this site – ”Family Instinct” (photo) is with the words of the festival ” a unique chronicle of family gone awry, … an unsparing exploration of a Latvian household built on the incestuous relationship between Zanda and her imprisoned brother Valdis, whose pending homecoming creates tremendous frisson.”

“Guanape Sur” is a tremendous success story for Janos Richter and his cameraman Jakob Stark. They left the Zelig film school last year and their film has been travelling the world of festivals since then. The jury at Silverdocs said: “We were won over by the stark beauty of the images, which take us into a world of extreme hardship.  The formal restraint of the filmmaking coupled with complex sound design create a poetic yet unflinching meditation on human beings’ constraint by their environment.”

http://silverdocs.com/news-links/2011/06/25/silverdocs-announces-award-winners/