Films to Remember

Tue Steen Müller and Allan Berg, the bloggers of this filmkommentaren.dk met during the holidays and agreed to make a list of films that have stayed in our minds. We have picked films that have been reviewed or noted on this site during 2010. Here follow the titles in alphabetical order, with a smart-link that will bring you to the longer text. We wish our readers a Happy New Year.

We remember

48

.. the tiny light changes in the photos of the prisoners, the refined sound design, the almost imperceptible camera movements, a characterisation of anger and dignity at the same time

All that Glitters

.. a character driven, informative and creative investigation into the conflict between man and nature, between business and environment, between profit and social security

Armadillo

.. the uncovering of the professionalised, raw and brutal internal jargon, the culture of soldiers in battle 

Chemo

.. the close-up conversations between patients, the human ability to find beauty in difficult moments

Closure

.. the slow blocking of an apartment window for building of a wall, the leaving of a happy family time, the impossible peace between Israelis and Palestinians

Erotic Man

.. the eyes of the many naked women, their gazes, which all mirror the memory of a fine lover, female erotica

Paris Return 

.. two men in an apartment in Paris, trying to get rid of furniture and clothes from a time that is no longer there, preparing for the final farewell

Puskás Hungary

.. maybe THE biggest of them all, sitting old and mentally confused on his hospital bed watching football on television, it’s over

The Naked from St. Petersburg

.. the small child on a chair in a Russian kitchen reciting Pushkin, the soul of Russia

Way of Nature (PHOTO)

.. a farmer sleeping on his couch with a dog on his belly, radio report from Israeli bombing of Lebanon, harmony and no disturbance from outside world 

Magnificent 7 Number 7

The website of the 7th European Feature Documentary Film Festival is up and running. You can now see what films have been selected by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, and me, to be screened from January 25 to 29 at the Sava Center in Belgrade. With the presence, in most cases, of the director.

Opening film is by the master Nicolas Philibert, ”Nenette” (PHOTO), followed by ”Blood in the Mobile” by Frank Piasecki Poulsen, who is the first director to be invited to M7 for the second time, ”Guerilla Girl” being the first to be shown in Belgrade. ”48” is the masterpiece by Susana de Sousa Dias, after that comes the essay by film critic and director Mark Cousins ”The First Movie”, the serious comedy ”Men Who Swim” by Dylan Williams, the beautiful music and dance film by Gasnier and Nezan ”Zanzibar Musical Club” and finally Serbian premiere of ”Cinema Komunisto” by Mila Turajlic.

I have on filmkommentaren.dk year after year praised the festival and its mini format and called it a personal highlight to sit in a cinema and watch a documentary together with 1200 other people. It is indeed, so if you have time and can afford a travel to exciting Belgrade and experience a unique hospitality and atmosphere… GO.

If you are a young filmmaker you can join the workshop that takes place every day. All invited filmmakers meet young colleagues to tell about their way of filmmaking. Two intense hours with the possibility of putting questions and getting answers.

It is all an hommage to documentary filmmaking. Below you can read my welcome words published on the website.

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/home.html

Magnificent7 Welcome Words

Welcome to this special edition number seven! Did we really have 7 editions, that means 49 films including those of this year. Wow… And we have had almost full houses in the Sava Centre during most of the years! And wherever I go and meet filmmakers who have been here, they remember with smiling eyes how it was to be at the festival in an atmosphere full of generosity and the chance to meet colleagues and have some intense moments together. For one who is a frequent flyer to events all over – to come to Belgrade every year is pure pleasure.

As it is to take part in the selection process. From going to the post office in Copenhagen with some dvd’s in an envelope, have them sent to Belgrade and wait for the reaction from the Magnificent7 Head Quarter resided at the Popovic’s. The responses are always very polite and nice, but also precise and analytical and critical, and always with a fine humanistic approach to the films.

7 is a magic number. I googled it to find inspiration for this text…. seven days in a week, seven deadly sins, seven virtues, the meaning of the number in different religions and so on. And a mention of “The Seven Samurai”, the film of Kurosawa, the director who also made “Rashomon” where the same event/thing/story is told from different angles.

Maybe this is what we have been doing at Magnificent7 festival? Basically we have told the same Story in 49 films about Life and Death, Joy and Sorrow, Love, Happiness – about the human condition of today. Told from different angles, filtered through different temperaments. That is what documentaries can do, right?

Enjoy the 7M7!

Tue Steen Müller
Copenhagen, December 2010

Photo: Me in October in Belgrade, a still taken in connection with a film shot by Andrijana Stojkovic, “The Box”, where she needed someone to play a Danish diplomat!

Nyt Videotek i Filmhuset

Hvor kan man se dem, har spørgsmålet altid været, når talen drejer sig om dokumentar- og kortfilm, som jo kun i særlige tilfælde finder vej til biografen. Og hvis de gør, så stort set altid kun i København. Min kollega Allan Berg, bosat i Randers, har gjort opmærksom på, hvordan man via det danske bibliotekssystem kan låne dvd’er og vhs-bånd, og/eller benytte sig af Det danske Filminstituts filmstriben (www.filmstriben.dk), som rummer mere end 700 titler, som kan ses på en computer i hjemmet. Adgangen til filmene bliver nemmere og nemmere – det manglede bare, vi betaler jo for det som skatteborgere i Danmark – og nu annoncerer filminstitutet at Filmhuset i Gothersgade i København har nyindrettet et videotek i bibilioteket. (Tidligere kunne man gå ned i Filmhusets kolde kælder og se film).

3000 titler er tilgængelige ”og udbuddet vokser hele tiden. Film kan søges i databasen Nationalfilmografien, hvor du kan se om en titel findes i Videotekets samling. Når du befinder dig i Videoteket kan mange af vores film ses direkte via et link i Nationalfilmografien. Film der kun forefindes på DVD eller videobånd bestiller du hos bibliotekaren.”

Faktisk har videoteket været I gang I et år, men nu lanceres det for alvor tematisk. En filmserie “Afghanistan i nyere dokumentarfilm” er sammensat, beskrivelser findes på hjemmesiden.

Det er altså bare at møde op med et sygesikringskort og blive registreret som bruger. Åbningstider: tirsdag og torsdag 12-19, onsdag og fredag 12-16.

De fire fotos: ’Smiling in a warzone’ (Simone Aaberg Kærn, Magnus Bejmar); ’Vores lykkes fjender’ (Eva Mulvad); ’Afghan muscles’ (Andreas Møl Dalsgaard) og ’Den hemmelige krig’ (Christoffer Guldbrandsen).

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Videoteket.aspx

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Videoteket/Filmserie-Afghanistan.aspx

Yuri Khashchevatsky: The Kalinovski Square

It seems to be a never ending story that comes out of Belarus every time an election is being held: The – it seems – life-time president Lukashenko pushes his gorillas to attack his  political opponents, who are being beaten up and/or sent to prison. That is what happened a couple of days ago. This is a review that was written for the DOX Magazine some years ago. The film by Khashchevatsky has not lost its actuality.

Let me just mention one scene that demonstrates the mastership of Yuri Khashchevatsky as a filmmaker who knows how to bring forward this very simple message: There is a dictatorship in Europe, a nation called Belarus, governed through a systematically consequent spread of fear among those who are opposed to a regime that suppresses all human rights. A nation where elections are manipulated and where opponents to the President Lukashensko are taken to jail or just disappear.

The scene shows a boy being asked where his father is. I don’t know, the boy says with a photo of his father held to his chest. The camera stays at his face as he starts to cry and seeks refuge behind the back of his mother who is also holding a photo on the square where their manifestation takes place. Cut to the next scene, the same square, the same mother and child, several years later. The mother is attacked by one of the soldiers. Nothing has changed, the father Dimitri Zavadski is still missing. 

There are many ways to make a political statement and there have been several films on Lukashenko and Belarus. The world is watching this place of

absurd brutality, where many – should not be forgotten – consider the president as a father like Stalin was the father in the USSR. Most of the films have been journalistic, giving us the necessary information and all the scandals. What Khashchevatsky does is something different. He is being satirical, he uses the film language to give us an almost docu-comedy, we laugh because this is just too much, this can’t be true, but it is like  that – and he comments himself declaring indirectly his hope for the new generation to make the situation change.

The title refers to the demonstrations on the Kalinovsky (the name given by the demonstrators after a Belorussian freedom fighter) Square after the election on March 19 2006 where Lukashenko ”created” his victory with up to almost 90% of the votes! You see the battle between the demonstrators and the hard beating gorilllas sent by the government. You see and hear a young girl report what she saw and experienced on the square where a tent city was build in the freezing cold weather. There are sequences from the parliament where Lukashenko observes his main opponent, Milinkevich, there is a visit to a provincial town where nothing works and desillusion reigns but where Lukashenko still is the candidate they will vote for. Newspapers with different opinions are closed, we see archive with Lukashenko declaring sympathy with Hitler – and denying having done so the next moment in the media that he controls totally. We see young people being arrested, and their parents stand in front of the prison protesting.

A decade ago the director was beaten up for making ”An Ordinary President”, it takes courage to come back with another strong and important film, an eye-opener in a powerful but also passionate and patriotic tone. The film will of course have no official screenings in Belarus, the more important it is that it goes to festivals and is being broadcast in all decent tv stations.

2007, Estonia, 58/72 mins.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12092708

http://www.deckert-distribution.com/all_films.htm

Bertel Haarder – Direct Cinema i DR

Klippet med Bertel Haarder er blevet diskuteret på kryds og tværs. Skulle det have været lagt ud, som det er, på DR’s hjemmeside? Og når det nu er tilfældet… er det blevet diskuteret, hvorvidt man ser en kolerisk, uligevægtig minister eller en minister, der bare viser en helt forståelig, menneskelig vrede overfor en irriterende journalist?

Glem det, og se på det 14 minutter lange klip som et stykke Direct Cinema med en kameramands veludviklede (måske ubevidste) sans for en indstilling. Se hvordan ministeren smiler venligt, scenevant og professionelt til kameraet i de første 7 minutter og så går det galt… han eksploderer, går udenfor billedrammen, kameramanden forandrer ikke indstilling, prøver ikke at følge sin karakter, han lader kameraet stå hvor det står, og vi ser, hvordan ministeren nærmest danser ud og ind af billedet, til højre og venstre, og ind imellem, hen imod slutningen ses journalisten komme ind i billedet, en lille mand, med forskrækket åben mund. Det er nærmest genialt ikke at bevæge kameraet, ministeren koreograferer selv scenen, ind og ud, laver ovenikøbet pirouetter, går frem og tilbage, er på vej væk, men kommer tilbage for at råbe noget mere, og true journalisten – og forlader så i baggrunden scenen med journalisten på vej ned ad rulletrappen. Først da – med skramlelyd – følger kameraet efter og viser en klassisk exit, hvor ministeren tager sit tøj og går, det vil sige, først prøver han at komme ud gennem en dør der er låst, og så rammer han svingdøren. Enestående nærværende direct cinema som en Leacock ville have elsket det. 

Link til DR-klippet

MandagsDokumentar Forår 2011

Så er det der igen, programmet med MandagsDokumentar, igen sat fremragende sammen af Ebbe Preisler, denne utrættelige kender og formidler af kort- og dokumentarfilm – og tvprogrammer – nyt og gammelt som er værd at tage op igen. Instruktørerne kommer til ph-caféen på Halmtorvet i København, de indleder forevisningerne og diskuterer med publikum, som er loyalt og talrigt. Det er fortrinsvis danske film, men også udenlandske. Som denne gang hvor sæsonen indledes den 10. Januar med en film af Adam Schmedes, den hedder ”Fåret Colette” (PHOTO), som følges ”fra stald til sæter og hjem igen”. Efterfulgt af det afsnit fra østrigske Michael Glawoggers ”Workingman’s Death”, som foregår på en markedsplads i Nigeria, hvor kvæg slagtes.

Man kan andre steder se, hvor meget Preisler har nydt at sætte film sammen over temaet ”arbejde”. ”Akkord” hedder en film fra 1976 af Freddy Tornberg og Erik Thygesen – den bliver matchet med franske Thomas Balmès dokumentar ”A Decent Factory” (fra 2004) om Nokia’s alt andet end decent måde at behandle sine kinesiske (akkord)arbejdere på!

Hvad ellers? Flere film af stortalentet Ada Bligaard Søby, Fredrik Gerttens kontroversielle ”Bananas!”, ”Ljusår” af Mikael Kristersson filmet i mere end ti år i instruktørens have, ”Football is God” af Ole Bendtsen og Poul Martinsens tv-klassiker ”Før solen går ned” fra kolonitidens Kenya.

www.mandagsdokumentar.dk

DOX – European Documentary Film Magazine

For the readers of this text: I am absolutely biased. I was one of the founders of the DOX magazine way back in the first half of the 1990’es at the time where the EU MEDIA Programme had its office called Documentary in Copenhagen. I have followed the magazine since then, contributed with articles and sees with pleasure that it is very much alive and renewed since Norwegian Truls Lie took over as editor-in-chief in 2009 after almost 12 year’s of brilliant work by Danish Ulla Jacobsen.

Today DOX is exclusively a FILM magazine. The focus is on the films, which are written about in features, critiques, festival reports, interviews and essays. The more debate orientated and informative articles connected to activities in the industry, and targeting the professionals are not a priority any longer. That is of course an editorial line to be discussed as the major part of the readers are professionals, mostly producers who are members of the publishing organisation EDN (European Documentary Network). Anyway, this is how it is now, where the magazine comes out 4 times per year, and not 6 as before. You might easily argue that to deal with actuality and debate in a quarterly magazine does not make sense – leave it for the internet.

The political and social films do get most space. In two recent issues (88 has come out) focus has been put on North Korea and Africa with a thematic treatment of relevant films. The critiques of films are in general good, the festival reports suffer from what festival reports always do: name-dropping of titles, seldom the author gives him/herself the liberty to go deeper, there is a list of note-worthy films at the back of every issue, it is extensive but lacks factual info on where or how to get hold of the films mentioned… The best, however, in the last many issues, is to read the editor-in-chief’s own essayistic articles that are excellently written, always with a interesting angle and luckily not afraid to touch on film history as with the text(s) on Pier Paolo Pasolini in 87. Or the article from the festival Cameraimage, the cinematographer’s festival, in 85.

Take a subscription If you want to be updated on the world of documentaries You get a well layout’ed (although the font could be bigger for eyes that are 50+!) documentary magazine, and you will even get a dvd sent along with each issue.

http://dox.mono.net/9295/DOX%20Magazine

www.edn.dk

DocuNotes 2010: Chile

Chilean documentary is much more than the master Patricio Guzman and his films on Allende and the suffering during the time of Pinochet. There are many talents and many authored voices to keep an eye and ear open for. I saw that when in Santiago during the autumn 2010, going back with a pile of dvd’s to watch and comment. And I met the Chilean delegation again when they arrived at idfa and made themselves visible through a well visited pisco sour reception and presentation.

The couple Perut and Osnovikoff, for instance, take a look at their website, original ”handwriting”, expressionists I would call them, I saw several of their films and they deserve much more attention than they have got so far. Notice first of all the film ”Noticias”.

Or take a look at the website of the production company Errante, whose energetic producer and director Paola Castillo pitched several strong projects at idfa.

A documentary community in development with a structure for a documentary culture, also in development: festivals, independent companies, public support, going international.

www.accionaudiovisual.uc.cl

www.adoc.cl

www.chiledoc.cl

http://perutosnovikoff.com/wp/english/

http://www.errante.cl/ingles.htm

DocuNotes 2010: Ceausescu

It is 180 minutes long, it is from 2010, the director is Andrei Ujica, if you can talk about a director, when it comes to this amazing work ”The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” that must be obligatory in all film lessons about the propaganda film genre. It is all so well filmed, gorgeous camerawork, archive after archive, official archive, put together by Ujica without any commentary, in chronological order, it talks for itself, it makes you speechless. You see a visionary man who reached for power, in the beginning with good intentions, to fight for the poor man and his life, and he broke with the East block after Prague 1968, and then, as the archive shows slowly, he gets more and more excluded from reality, and ends up as we all remember it from the terrible broadcasted scenes: as a man in a corner being shouted at denying any violence performed from the state. Later to be shot as a dog in a courtyard – which we do not see in the film, a clever move by the director, he knows that we have that scene in our heads.

Romania, 2010, seen at the videothèque of cph:dox

http://www.the-autobiography.com/