The 20th edition of the St. Petersburg International Film Festival ended with an award ceremony yesterday night in the Dom Kino. There were a large number of prizes to be given, I will limit this posting to include those in the documentary categories.

The prize for the best long documentary (US$ 2000) was given to the director Yossi Aviran from Israel for the multilayered description of the reflections and lives of an Israeli and an Italian man living together for three decades in Paris. The Israeli man doubts whether to go back to Israel for the rest of his life, the Italian, a bit younger, is the constant optimist, and enjoyer of life. A beautiful film about life and death coming nearer, title ”Paris Return”. The short documentary prize (US$ 2000) was given to the Slovak documentary, ”Arsy versy” (photo), by Miro Remo, original and fresh in its approach to the theme of mother and son, the latter being obsessed with bats. It has rythm and passion.

The Grand Prix (US$ 5000), the jury (that I was chairing) had chosen was ”Draft” by Timofey Zhalnin, young Russian director, who had managed to make a light and yet deep film about the drama of a woman who is recording herself on camera in order to compete for a role in a theatre play. She is, however, constantly being disturbed by the ”intrusion” of reality – family, friends in the small appartment. Documentary and fiction.

The national competition for short documentaries decided not to give a first prize for quality reasons, and the critics chose ”David Wants to Fly” by David Sieveking.

www.m2m.iffc.ru

The Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan in Armenia (July 11-18) ended as a triumph for Russian director Pavel Kostomarov, whose  fine film ”Together” (reviewed on this site) got the first prize, the Golden Apricot, for the Best Documentary Film in the international section

In the Armenian Panorama Competition the Golden Apricot was given to, as the best Armenian film, was given to ”The Last Tightrope Dancer” by Arman Yeritsyan and Inna Sahakyan, also reviewed and commented upon on this site.

Special prize in the feature film competition was given to the first feature film by well known documentarian Sergey Loznitsa, ”My Joy”.

http://www.gaiff.am/en/

The international competition included yesterday the film ”17th of August” by Alexander Gutman, reviewed and commented several times in this site. Here is a reprint of the review:

This fine Russian director has, apart from the masterpiece ”Frescoes” from Armenia, made a couple of very strong documentaries shot in prisons, ”Three Days and Never Again” and ”Blatnoi Mir” (directed by Finnish Jouni Hiltunen, Gutman was production manager), and here comes another that I do not hesitate to call masterly done as well.

One day in the life of a prisoner, sentenced to lifetime for murders, a man in a small cell, watched through the small window in the dark cell door, walking from one end to the other, exercising, making a cup of tea, praying with his head towards an icon of the bleading Jesus hanging on the wall, getting some food… and a small walk to a strongly fenced and guarded courtyard, filmed from above to achieve the impression of a man in a cage, A close-up study that works because of the brilliant combination of pictures with the monologue of the prisoner. On Life, on the conditions in the isolated prison, on being alone and away from it all, on being close to guards who are there all the time and in a way sharing his destiny.

Sometimes with some shots from the courtyard outside. A horse stands there, an old man comes and makes it ready for transport, they leave the prison, and the camera stays – later on they come back with a coffin to pick up the corpse that we have seen in a previous scene. Or a window with a cat. Did I say that it was black and white. And slow. And extremely well edited. Not a moment too much. Sympathy for the murderer? No, not really, but respect for a human being, curiosity.

Russia, Poland, 2009, 62 mins.

Young Palestinian filmmaker Nagham Mohanna, who took part in the mediterranean/middle east documentary training program Storydoc (see below) sends this report on her journey back to her home via Egypt. I have made some small edits and language corrections:

Hello everybody, I hope everything is ok and not so horrible as I am feeling now. Let me tell you about my travelling because it is really amazing. I left Corfu at 7:25 am and arrived in Athens at 8: 20 am on Saturday. Stayed in Athens airport around 5 hours.

Left Athens at 2:30 pm and arrived in Cairo at 4:30 pm.

And here we begin. The opening of a torture journey. When an Egyptian officer saw that I am Palestinian the procedures were started, to know if they can let me enter Egypt or not.

While waiting in the airport and seeing how other people with other nationalities entered Cairo without any problems, they called me to investigate about my job and the workshop that I attended in Corfu. They told

me that maybe they will take me immediately to the border and not let me enter Cairo again.

I asked them how could that happen as I am a journalist and a girl and you have to show for me some respect! At 10pm they called me back and told me that I can enter Egypt, but that another Gaza filmmaker who attended the workshop will be expelled. I thought that I did not want to miss a big opportunity to discover the way and procedures of expelling, so I asked them to expel me with other people.

The procedures are: They called me into a special room where they put the Palestinians inside. It is not allowed for anybody to get out, actually it is not a room it is more like a prison. I sat with people and started to chat with them. It was really horrible what I heard and saw, from women, children and men in the same room, sharing the same toilet. There were people who had spent 4 days with their children – one of the children got sick and he spent time suffering the fever without seeing a doctor. Another spent a month inside this room without getting out. People are waiting for their flight and for visa to go to other countries like Saudi Arabia. Some young people prefer to spend many days in this room instead of going back to Gaza. I met lovely people there. I spoke with them a lot – the child Mahmoud who suffers from Autism, he was with his father and brother without his mother, who couldn’t travel with them because she does not have Palestinian ID so she couldn’t be with her children. I loved these kids, who kept coming to hug me.

At 1 in the morning they took us to another area at the old Cairo airport and put us in a room underground. This is really like a cell (3m x 5m)  and does not allow us to get out. The difficult thing was that I was so sleepy because I did not sleep well the last night, so I needed to sleep but the uncomfortable chair did not give me the chance to sleep. I am writing this section sitting in the room that I am talking about.

At 7pm in the morning they told us that they will take us to the bus, and now I am sitting in the bus going to the border. We are moving with the traffic of Cairo. I spent like 6 hours in the bus, slept around 2 and reached the border at 1:45pm. The good thing that I left the border at 3pm to Gaza I did not spend lots of time in the border, now I am going home, I miss my home, my bedroom and my bed for sure, home sweet home.

What I am really furious about is that the massage I made in the hotel in Corfu was gone, and really, I need extremely now 2 hour of massage to recover my bones again!        

So I am in Gaza  after travelling for two days, I am sure that each one of you took like hours to reach your home and sweet bed, but every thing has a different way when it reaches Gaza.