Moscow Film Diary/4

”My Perestroika” is a fine documentary by Robin Hessman. It was screened the other day for an American audience on the pov – documentaries with a point of view. A trailer from the film + loads of information on the fall of the USSR can be found on the excellent website of pov. There is even a small ”Glossary of the Cold War”, interview with the director, who lived in Russia most of the 1990’s.

Here is the site’s description of the film: … is an intimate look at the last generation of Soviet children. Five classmates go from living sheltered childhoods to experiencing the hopes of Gorbachev’s reforms and the confusion of the USSR’s dissolution, to searching for their places in today’s Moscow. With candor and humor, the punk rocker, single mother, entrepreneur and married teachers paint a picture of the challenges, dreams and disappointments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain. Through first-person testimony, verité footage and vintage home movies, this beautifully crafted documentary reveals a Russia rarely seen on film.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/

http://myperestroika.com/screenings/

Moscow Film Diary/3

The question has often been asked – about the position of the Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) in the world of festivals. In the (excellent) filmneweurope site an interview with the programme director Kirill Razalogov clarifies the situation and the ambition. The programme director presides this year over a programme “that can only be described as vast in both the number of films and its diversity. Over 400 films are being screened at this year’s festival from every category of the audiovisual spectrum. Razlogov is one of Russia’s leading film critics and cultural figures”, and he puts it like this:

The world’s top festivals are Cannes, Venice and Berlin.  In the next tier are Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, San Sebastian and Montreal.  After that after that come all the other big A category festivals in a third tier. So Moscow competes for films with the festivals in the second tier. If a film has a chance to go to a tier one festival we lose if Moscow is competing for a film against a third tier festival we win. 
Russia had over one billion USD at the box office last year. It has made a difference for us in attracting Hollywood blockbusters but not for art house films. There is almost no market for art house films in Russia. There is a market for European films in Russia, it’s not very large but there is a market. There are two French films in the competition and a remake of a Russian film. We are on the right way now with Moscow Festival. What we have to look at very carefully now is how to continue to establish a better reputation. I think we can take on Berlin Festival in future and maybe move into the third slot. Maybe not in my lifetime – but we should shoot for this goal.
 

Photo from “Hell and Back Again” by Danfung Dennis, shown in documentary competition 2011.

http://www.filmneweurope.com

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

http://hellandbackagain.com

Wim Wenders: Pina

Saw the 3D film about legendary coreographer Pina Bausch in a totally full cinema hall during Moscow International Film Festival. It was one of those unique cinema experiences you will never forget. One after one the members of her Tanztheater, dancers from all over the world, speaking in different languages, and speaking in a way that the words do not only say something about the late (she died in 2009) Pina Bausch but also add in tone to the music of the film, the music that carries the dance scenes inspired from her work, especially from ”Café Müller”.

The dancers are of course brilliant on the stage that Wenders has established, and the imagery makes you think of great surrealist painters like Magritte, or of great filmmakers as Alain Resnais (”L’année dernière á Marienbad”) or the work of Swedish master Roy Andersson and his use of space. You do not at any moment get bored and you regret, when it is over, the 106 minutes of pleasure. And long to see it again.

Pleasure, yes, but what the dancers express, are feelings of pain and joy, sorrow and happiness, it is literally moving, they are moving, the images are moving, words are few but the movements of the dancer and their faces expressing gratitude to what Pina Bausch gave to them. It’s all about Love.

Germany, 2011, 3D, 106 mins.

http://www.pina-film.de/en/

http://www.wim-wenders.com/

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

Still: Donata Wenders, from die-mark-online.de

Silverdocs Documentary Festival/2

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/

Moscow Film Diary/2

Second day. Press conference in a cinema. There seems to be a huge interest in the fact that a documentary competition has been included in the MIFF (Moscow International Film Festival). I do not recall having seen so many  people attending a festival press meeting on documentary films. A good moment for stating that the documentary film genre experiences an international popularity, but also the moment to say, as did Alexander Gutman (photo) (juror together with Michael Apted and me), that the conditions for documentarians in Russia are far from being perfect. There are seldom documentaries in the cinemas, the film support system does not encourage coproductions with other countries, and apart from the tv channel Kultura Russian television has no interest in showing artistic documentaries.

The first screening of the seven films in competition took place in the evening in the multiplex cinema ”October”. Quite a big number of spectators came to watch ”Czech Peace”, the one hour version, directed by Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak.

The day ended with the celebration of Sergey Miroshnichenko’s 56 year’s birthday. As it was said, he could get no better present than seeing his dream come through on that very same day – having a documentary competition at the MIFF this year. Miroshnichenko is currently working on the completion of ”Born in the USSR – 28”, a series he started following the model of the British 7Up, directed by Michael Apted. Miroshnichenko filmed the kids, born in a country that no longer exists, when they were 7 and 14 and 21. The 28-version is planned to come out at the end of this year.

Photo: cinedoc.ru

http://www.taskovskifilms.com/film/czech-peace/

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

Bente Milton og Mikkel Stolt: Min avatar.. på web

DFI´s Jan Fredslund skriver i dag: ”ONLINE. Søndag den 26. juni kl. 20.00 vises dokumentarfilmen Min avatar og mig i verdens første virtuelle biograf på nettet. Filmens hovedperson og medinstruktør Mikkel Stolt introducerer og besvarer efterfølgende spørgsmål fra “salen”. Constellation er efter eget udsagn verdens første online-biograf. Konceptet går ud på at broadcaste film for et globalt live-publikum, men med et begrænset antal “sæder” så gæsterne i et eksklusivt forum kan diskutere filmene med hinanden og en relevant VIP-vært.

Søndag den 26. juni kl. 20.00 er den danske dokumentarfilm Min avatar og mig sat på plakaten, og filmens hovedkarakter og medinstruktør Mikkel Stolt er VIP-vært med ansvar for introduktion og efterfølgende Q&A.

At Min avatar og mig dermed bliver første danske film i verdens første online-biograf, er ikke helt tilfældigt. Filmen, der tidligere på året havde premiere på DOX:BIO og online i Second Life, handler netop om valget mellem den digitale verden og “virkeligheden”, og den følger Mikkel Stolts egen rejse ind i den virtuelle verden, Second Life. Udflugten skildres i grænselandet mellem fiktion og dokumentar, og filmen viser med en del selvironi, hvordan hovedpersonens virtuelle succes langsomt opsluger og underminerer hans virkelige liv.

I skrivende stund er der 83 ledige pladser til visningen af Min avatar og mig, og billetterne koster ca. 26 kr. Efter den 26. juni har brugerne mulighed for selv at arrangere nye screeninger af filmen med nye gæster og værter.”

Bente Milton og Mikkel Stolt: Min Avatar og mig, søndag 26. juni 20:00 på https://www.constellation.tv/film/21 Pris: $4.99 / 26 kr.

Moscow Film Diary/1

Very close to Copenhagen is Moscow and after a long drive from the airport through heavy Moscow traffic – always like that, the driver said – we landed at one of the ”seven sisters” hotels, Stalinistic architecture, impressive, totally renovated, the Hotel Ukraina. From there to the opening ceremony of the Moscow International Film Festival, where I am honoured to be in the documentary section jury, to stay here for ten days. The ceremony was focused on Russian film stars, youngsters asking for autographs and the celebration of international names like Geraldine Chaplin, a fresh and lively president of the jury, and John Malkovich, who received a life time award for his acting career.

The ceremony was conducted by Nikita Mihalkhov (Dark Eyes (with Marcello Mastroianni), Burnt by the Sun, Urga…), who with his stature outside in the sunshine welcomed us like a character in an American mafia film, and inside on the stage was a jovial and warm master of ceremony.

Greeted and had a drink with jury colleagues, directors Michael Apted and Alexander Gutman as well as the two men behind Free Thought, the documentary section within the festival, for the first time with a competition: Sergey Miroshnichenko and Grigory Libergal.

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

Chinese Films on Docalliance

It is a pleasure – again – to be able to promote the quality vod Docalliance. Not only is the selection of films for the catalogue excellent, the prices are very low and the texts are free from normal site publicity language, it conveys information and treats the reader with respect. Read this:

Some are enthusiastic about China, some are rather fearful; only a few ignore China; yet only a few know the real China of today. China is more than nationalism, economy and human rights though; China is primarily its people. These, however, are left in the background, under the cover of the official media image created by state propaganda and western media. It is the concrete people’s stories rather than the collective mass of a nation that are in the focus of the three Chinese directors and their films. Out of the three, London-based Chinese writer and director Xiaolu Guo is the closest to the West. Her books are translated into English; her fiction film She, a Chinese (both written and directed by her) won the Grand Prize at the 2009 Locarno festival. It was in the pauses during shooting of this film that her documentary film Once upon a Proletarian was made. According to the director’s words, the documentary mosaic of present-day post-Marxist China was inspired by the encounter with onlookers following the filmmakers‘ work. In twelve chapters, the life stories of the protagonists carefully selected across social classes unwind in a compressed yet expressive way. Not lacking poetry and humour either, the film ends by the symbolical wish of a young student of painting: “Life in freedom is a happy life!” As for other films by Xialu Guo available at

Docalliancefilms, you can also watch a mini collection of short films called 3 Short Films about Home.
100 Patients of Doctor Jia by filmmaker and theatre artist Wang Hongjun is conveyed in a similar spirit. The film is interesting for its form; consisting in a single shot, it gradually presents the 100 patients mentioned in its title. They are coming to a country doctor’s office with their worries, anxieties, ailments but also joys and humour. Though the simple concept might look boring, it works perfectly well, surprisingly as the film takes over an hour. Telling about the tough past of the Chinese countryside as well as about the current problems of its diverse society, between the lines the documentary challenges the official myth of China as a single compact nation.
Director Zhao Liang and his film Petition, screened at the Cannes festival, are in greatest discrepancy with the Chinese propaganda. As perhaps the most impressive of the mentioned films, the documentary examines nothing lesser than the very foundations of the contemporary political system of the country. Its protagonists are primarily poor inhabitants of the regions coming to Beijing to complain about the injustice they suffered from local authorities. However, the central government doesn’t treat them any better, with most of them getting stuck in a troublesome and literally Kafka-like situation in front of the gates of “the law”. Although they have been persecuted, bullied, forced to sleep under bridges and to live on junk during the twelve years of observational shooting, most of the protagonists refuse to give up their hopes for justice.

Still: Zhao Liang’s Petition. From Gdenerate Films.

http://docalliancefilms.com/

Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields

British tv Channel4 broadcast a week ago a tv-documentary on what happened during the final weeks of the 25 year long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers. The programme was presented by the journalist Jon Snow. It is a primarily mobile phone shot documentation of horrible war crimes performed by the troops of the government. The UN has until now refused to make a further investigation into the allegations that are being brought forward. The British parliament members are to watch the documentary this week. Leading international newspapers have followed the story of the documentary. For ONE MORE DAY the film can be watched online, provided by Channel4, later on through other channels. Filmkommentaren will NOT show any photos in connection to this posting. Here follows the text behind the film from the site of Channel4, plus a link to the documentary:     

With disturbing and distressing descriptions and film of executions, atrocities and the shelling of civilians the programme features devastating new video evidence of war crimes – some of the most horrific footage Channel 4 has ever broadcast.

Captured on mobile phones, both by Tamils under attack and government soldiers as war trophies, the disturbing footage shows: the extra-judicial executions of prisoners; the aftermath of targeted shelling of civilian camps; and dead female Tamil fighters who appear to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.

The film is made and broadcast as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon faces growing criticism for refusing to launch an investigation into ‘credible

allegations’ that Sri Lankan forces committed war crimes during the closing weeks of the bloody conflict with the Tamil Tigers.

In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces.

It called for the creation of an international mechanism to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed by government forces and the Tamil Tigers during that time.

This film provides powerful evidence that will lend new urgency to the panel’s call for an international inquiry to be mounted, including harrowing interviews with eye-witnesses, new photographic stills, official Sri Lankan army video footage, and satellite imagery.

Also examined in the film are some of the horrific atrocities carried out by the Tamil Tigers, who used civilians as human shields.

Channel 4 News has consistently reported on the bloody denouement of Sri Lanka’s civil war. Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields presents a further damning account of the actions of Sri Lankan forces, in a war that the government still insists was conducted with a policy of Zero Civilian Casualties.

The film raises serious questions about the consequences if the UN fails to act, not only with respect to Sri Lanka but also to future violations of international law.

You can follow the programme on Twitter using #KillingFields

Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields will be shown to MPs and parliamentary officials at a special showing in the House of Commons next week.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sri-lankas-killing-fields/4od#3200170

Docs at Moscow International Film Festival

It starts next week on June 23rd and lasts for 10 days. The MIFF is one of the classic film festivals with big names, tributes to film history, stars, red carpet and competitions. Edition number 33 it is, led by Russian renowned film director Nikita Mikhalhov. For years the festival has given space for screening of documentaries, ”Free Thought”, a non-competitive panorama programme one could call it, this year – for the first time – a competitive documentary programme is introduced. 7 films are included, another 18 films are shown in the Free Thought documentary programme.

Below you will find more on the documentary films being shown, during the festival reports will be brought on this place as I am privileged to be juror in the documentary section together with British director Michael Apted (photo) (the man behind the legendary series SevenUp) and Russian Aleksander Gutman (August 17).

For the main programme of the festival there are retrospectives with American directors Sam Peckinpah and Rob Nilsson, a retro on Italian cinema, director icon Sokurov and on Werner Herzog, who will be in Moscow to present his films and hold a masterclass.

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

Photo: Michael Apted, from amdoc.com. By courtesy of First Run Features.