Howard Webb and Kill the Referee

The World Cup final on Sunday with Holland and Spain has English Howard Webb as the referee. For doc-foot addicts he is a very well known person as the main character in the brilliant insight to the world of referees in the following film that I saw in Lisbon last year. This is the text that I wrote, and good luck Mr. Webb!:

”Kill the Referee” is a film of Belgian and Swiss nationality, directed by Yves Hiant, a film for football fans like this blog writer – as loyal readers and friends have noticed. And it is amazing because of its unique access to a handful of referees and to the back stage of the Euro08. The film crew follows the referees into the dressing room, at the internal meetings where the selection of the teams take place and through the video evaluation of the matches, and into the hotel rooms, and at the homes where parents and wives follow their heroes in action. And heroes, well this is not what the players consider the referees to be, it is a hell of a job that takes lot of courage. Howard Webb, English referee, was haunted by the whole Polish nation (including death threats againgst him and his family) after his performance in the match Austria against Poland. He gave a penalty to Austria in the last minute of the match – which was absolutely correct and a very brave decision – but had allowed an off side goal to Poland earlier in the match, for which decision he did not go to the knock-out stage of the tournament. Webb is the hero of the film but there are also fine sequences and follow-ups on a Spanish and an Italian referee. What is the most astonishing in the film is actually that you hear the communication that is done between the referee and his linesmen during the match. Wow, for this technology, and bravo UEFA for letting a film like that be made. Good publicity for the job of being a referee – which does not mean that I will not shout the next time I see an unfair decision from one of those in black!

Kill the Referee, 2009, 75 mins., director: Yves Hinant

News from Paris: Godard – Film Socialisme

While Cannes is still waiting for Godard, we had the great pleasure in Paris to spend the evening of June 18th in his company after a special screening of Film Socialisme in le Cinéma des Cinéastes near Place Clichy. The evening was organized by Mediapart, an important Internet news site founded in 2008 by Edwy Plenel (journalist and former managing editor of Le Monde), who hosted the event.

Film Socialisme (Vega Film, 102 min.), with the subtitle La liberté coûte cher (Freedom comes at a high price), continues in the line of collages of video, documentary archive, text, graphics, music and dialogue that Godard has been making since the late eighties, this time at the lengths of a feature film. It’s political, it’s poetic and radically experimental.

The film is “a symphony in three movements”, a triptych composed of the following three ‘tableaux’:

Des choses comme ça… (Things like that): Set on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, different personages, including Patti Smith, the philosopher Alain Badiou and an undefined war criminal, strolls in and out of the kitsch decadence onboard the boat. Underneath lies a story of some ‘lost’ gold from the Spanish civil war and the destiny of Europe.

Notre Europe (Our Europe): A garage somewhere in rural France run by a family with two kids and a white lama. The children revolt and hold their parents to an explanation of the concepts of freedom, equality and fraternity, all filmed by a frantic television-crew.

Nos humanités (Our humanities): A visit to six legendary sites: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas (“Hell as”), Naples and Barcelona. The film ends with a beautiful sequence borrowed from a film by Agnès Varda (herself present amongst the audience that evening), showing two trapeze artists on a beach. The final words are: No comment…

Godard uses several techniques that result in a multilayered and multidimensional “experience”, more like a painting. Godard mixes shots of different definitions from HD to low definition video (filmed by mobile phones), saturated colours blown up. There are beautiful images. The sound equally varies in space (coming from left, right, middle) and in intensity and quality. Godard compares it to painting with different tools: brushes, spatulas, knifes… And then there are the constant quotations, symbols, clichés, all adding to the density.

“We have freedom of expression, but we don’t have freedom of impression” Godard pointed out during the nearly two hours he spent with the audience after the film. He did not always answer the questions put to him by the audience, he was mocking, funny, but most of all generous. On the speculations whether Film Socialisme is his last film, Godard retorts that all his film have been ‘his last film’, at the time À bout de souffle was his last film too…

The video of the entire rendezvous with Godard can be viewed on the site of Mediapart in partnership with Arte.tv :

http://www.mediapart.fr/content/rencontre-publique-avec-jean-luc-godard

In May Mediapart did another interview with Godard filmed in ten episodes:

http://cinemasparagus.blogspot.com/2010/05/two-hour-interview-with-jean-luc-godard.html

The trailer (the entire film at high speed) can be seen on the official website of Film Socialisme: http://www.filmsocialisme.com/

Godard – impostor or genius? The critics are, as always, divided in two. For my part, I tend not to try to understand, but to just sit down and be “impressed”. It is a film that you have to see several times.

French press (quotes translated by me):

Les Inrocks, May 14th, 2010:

“A probing investigation of a fragile Europe on the brink of the abyss. The view is sinister, but the cinematographic gesture is brilliant and brisk”.

http://www.lesinrocks.com/cine/cinema-article/t/44989/date/2010-05-14/article/film-socialisme/

Le Monde, May 18th, 2010:

“Godard operates by constantly moving on to the next scene. The links are not obvious, but they allow you to bounce from one notion to another, until a logic is reached”.

http://www.lemonde.fr/festival-de-cannes/article/2010/05/18/film-socialisme-jean-luc-godard-decu-d-une-europe-qu-il-voudrait-revoir-heureuse_1353205_766360.html

Evene.fr, May 2010:

“… if Godard’s films have seemed unstructured or confused, it is simply that the Franco-Swiss film-maker has always refused to indulge in the hypnotic powers of the cinematographic language…

each of his films warns, in its own way, against the risk of manipulation that exists within any symbolic language. Therefore, his apparent hermetic style pertains to a scrupulous honesty… that has nothing to do with a banal mystification for idle intellectuals…

what is at stake is not so much to destabilize the audience as to grant them the mental space necessary to liberate their associations of ideas and feelings, in the experience of a cinema freed from common expectations and norms”.

http://www.evene.fr/cinema/actualite/jean-luc-godard-cannes-film-socialisme-nouvelle-vague-2711.php

Some reviews in English:

Jordan Mintzer in Variety May 17th, 2010:

“Grandpère terrible Jean-Luc Godard continues to flip the bird at cinematic convention in “Film Socialisme,” one of the 79-year-old auteur’s more challenging works, and one that carries his experiments in sound, image, narrative and montage all the way to the subtitles themselves.”

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942789.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&query=godard+film+socialisme

Robert Koehler on Filmjourney, May 22nd, 2010:

“…Film Socialisme is a work that can’t be properly assessed without identifying it, first, as militantly experimental… This all creates a fascinating reading-watching-listening experience that expands cinematic spectatorship far more than any 3D innovations, even if, like adjusting to iambic pentameter in the first minutes of a Shakespeare performance, your motor functions aren’t ready for it.”

http://www.filmjourney.org/2010/05/22/cannes-2010-day-godard/

Matt Noller, Slant magazine, May 18th 2010:

“I’m not going to actually review Film Socialism, as any type of critique I could make would be fundamentally worthless. To praise it would be to pretend to understand something I did not; to attack it would amount to no more than a superficial dismissal…

If you haven’t liked Godard’s contemporary films up to this point, Film Socialism seems unlikely to sway you. If you’re a fan, you will at least be familiar with his techniques here.”

(http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/05/cannes-film-festival-2010-day-six/)

Should you be in the south of France this summer, a Godard retrospective runs at the Cinéma Utopia in connection with the Festival d’Avignon. Film Socialisme is screened from July 13-21:

http://www.cinemas-utopia.org/avignon/index.php?id=1022&mode=film

The dialogues of the film are published in book form: Film socialisme : Dialogues avec visages auteurs (97 pages, ed. P.O.L, May 2010)

Film Socialisme can still be viewed on the big screen in Paris.

Storydoc/1

Storydoc is an EU supported training programme ”for filmmakers with Mediterranean projects”. The first 2010 session took place July 5-7 in Corfu, where these words are being written the day after a workshop that was full of heat outside and inside AND of passionate filmmakers with film projects at different stages of development. From the following countries: Greece, Germany, Romania, Scotland, Italy, France, Croatia, England, Latvia, Bulgaria, Palestine and Israel. 24 projects were worked upon with tutors (generalists, commissioning editors, directors, editors, distributors and producers) from Denmark, Greece, Israel, Palestine, France, Germany, Scotland, England, Finland and USA.

A workshop de luxe as said Cecilia Lidin from EDN referring to the amount of and quality of the tutors present, as well as the variety of projects.

Three long and intense days full of discussion and watching, everybody at the same hotel (swimming pool and beach to be reached by lift), eating together and the semifinals of the World Cup of football. Storydoc is run by Chara Lampidou and Kostas Spiropoulos helped by producer Rea Apostolides and me as responsible for content. The second session will take place in Athens, December 5-7.

French director Stan Neumann (photo) was one of the invited tutors.

www.storydoc.gr

Storydoc/2

UK based Saeed Taji Farouky came to the workshop with his story about ”The Runner” (photo), the activist athletic who wants, through the running, to raise awareness about the non-recognition of his country Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco. Salah Ameidan is his name and he wins all sympathy as he is presented in the intimate trailer. The director was given an award that includes transport and stay at the Documentary Campus workshop in Leipzig in October where he will be able to pitch his project to around 45 commissioning editors. (See website below)

Also awarded with scholarships and 1000€ were 1) Croatian Dana Budisavljevic, who is developing a film project called ”Diana’s List” about Diana Budisavljevic, who saved thousands of Jewish children during ww2. 2) Greek Marianna Economou who has a wonderful proposal to make a film that deals with Greek mothers who make and get sent food for their sons abroad! ”Flying Food” is the name. Gorgeous idea. In a less humourous style 3) Palestinian filmmaker Mahammed Abu Sido presented his ”Waiting for You”, an unlucky family story told by the director who wants to unite his family in a film, as it is not possible in real life!

www.touristwithatypewriter.com

www.storydoc.gr

Storydoc/3

There were three inspirational lectures at the workshop in Corfu.

Louise Rosen, American (from her cv) ”media executive in the international television and film business, project development, production and distribution”, talked precisely and inviting about meeting the audience and urged the filmmakers to use promotion tools like YouTube, vimeo, facebook, twitter etc.

Commissioning editor Iikka Vehkalahti, YLE Finland, was asked to give the audience ”five reasons to be optimistic about the future of the documentary”. He started his speech by doing the opposite naming five obstructions: the decline of the relationship between tv and documentaries, the lack of financing (”the golden age of copro is over”), the cinematic quality is worse than ever, the monocultural perspective reigns, as does the predictability of most films. This total deconstruction was then followed by the positive mention of the many current platforms where you can launch your film, from festivals (which he compared to art exhibitions) to webdoc and vod. Vehkalahti, who always has a very special, unconventional take on his listeners, and has many times been credited on this site for his pioneer work with ”Steps for the Future”, ended by showing two exceptional clips, one from a rough cut of a film from Chechnya, and one from the new Finnish documentary hit, ”Steam of Life” (review will follow).

”Who can bear to feel himself forgotten” is a legendary line from ”Night Mail” the documentary classic from 1936, a film that is famous for using poetry – written by W.H. Auden. Peter Symes, filmmaker and editor and teacher, had his lecture focus on this subject, ”Poetry in Documentaries”, himself being the one, who used it in several films, where he worked with the poet Tony Harrison. Symes stated that you can ”say the unsayable” through poetry, which was exactly what he had been doing with Harrison in the films ”Mimmo Perella” (funeral rituals in southern Italy) and ”Hiroshima”. When he was at BBC, Symes set up ”Poets’ News”, which was great to watch clips from, as was (great) the session with Symes on films where ”the poet will come to work as a commentator”.

Photo: “The Box”, great Greek documentary, by Eva Stefani, one of the tutors at Storydoc in Corfu.

www.storydoc.gr

Dialëktus Film Festival Awards

The festival in Budapest ended with the main award being given to Peter Kerekes for his excellent ”Cooking History”, reviewed and mentioned on this site several times. The jury consisted of Bojána Papp director (Hungary),  Adina Bradeanu director and film critic (Romania) and András Müllner aesthete (Hungary). They gave the following motivation and some general remarks on the state of the art of documentary:

„We will start by noting that the international documentary competition at Dialektus has confronted us with a wide range of documentary films which were not only displaying different levels of artistic accomplishment but have also, stylistically, made us reflect on the wide range of possibilities opened to documentary film-makers today –  meaning by that what exactly we, as audiences, are ready to accept as ‘documentary film’ today, as opposed to, say, 50 years ago.

Some of the films screened have already been extensively awarded in the past year, subsequently reaching a status of almost ‘canonical’ works within the field of documentary film-making – we refer here to films such as Helena Trestikova’s RENE and Kim Longinotto’s ROUGH AUNTIES. Some others presented themselves as straightforward, at the same time entertaining and

chilly stories of access to yet uncharted political contexts – the case of |Linda Jablonska’s WELCOME TO NORTH KOREA. Finally, some of these films introduced some wonderful,  inspiring and powerful characters portrayed with compassion; characters which, although confronted with adverse conditions, did not allow themselves the luxury of self-victimisation and engaged on paths able to empower them and inspire others.”

„And it was by thinking about that sense of widened possibilities within the field of documentary film-making today that we decided to give the main award of our section to a film that stood out by being dramatically different from all the others  – a piece of elaborate film-making, which incorporates extensive staging and reconstruction to come up with a fresh perspective on the various bloodsheds witnessed by Europe from World War II onwards, by bringing imagination, perspective and a pinch of salt to our often didactic and linear understanding of history. The main award in the International Documentary section goes to a film that  appeared to us as the most accomplished embodiment of the term ‘creative documentary’: COOKING HISTORY, by Peter Kerekes.”

„Documentary has been for decades a genre able to inspire crowds and spread hope among the disenfranchised – and in this perspective, our commendation this year goes to GROWN IN DETROIT, a documentary about a group of underage mothers or mothers-to-be at the Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit, who remain serene and start a small agro-business by which they redeem both themselves and their battered city.”

Documentary in Europe

The yearly documentary gathering in Bardonecchia in Northern Italy starts this coming wednesday. Bardonecchia is a small winter sport resort that has a fine cultural centre that is used for documentary film screenings, case studies, a so-called matchmaking where directors pitch to producers and other colleagues, and the public pitching session. It is a conference but the organisers also show films for the local audience. This year the event, held for its 14th time, and arranged by the association Documentary in Europe (hosted by the production company Stefilm) and EDN (European Documentary Network), deserves a big applause for its screening focus on Eastern Europe. Among the great films are Gyula Nemes Lost World (PHOTO) and Atanas Georgiev Cash and Marry, not to forget the masterpiece Blind Loves by Juraj Lehotsky. All films mentioned on this site.

Also Boris Mitic, wonderful crazy Serbian director, who made Good bye, How are You (see review on this site) will do a masterclass called ”homemade storytelling”. It will not be boring!

 http://www.docineurope.org/home.php?l=eng

Merete Borker: Fire Muslimske Stemmer

Merete Borkers nye film er professionelt lavet, den har en hensigt, er lavet for at blive brugt, må være glimrende i undervisnings-sammenhænge, pigerne er søde og naturlige og repræsenterer forskellige synspunkter og levemåder. Der er et godt flow i filmen, som instruktøren introducerer således:

Med filmen giver jeg ordet til fire unge, muslimske kvinder. Som på smukkeste vis er integreret I Danmark. Og lader dem fortælle en håbefuld historie om kvinder, der har mål I livet. Og viljen til at nå dem. På eres egen måde. Fire forskellige stemmer, fælles om en mangfoldighed.

Filmen har kørt i nogle uger i Vester Vov Vov i København og vil i september være at se i et Politiken Plus arrangement. Hold øje med det eller køb en dvd hos instruktøren.

Danmark, 28 min.

Distribution og salg: mereteborker@hotmail.com

Niels Christian Jung: Den største sejr

Et ”tæt og ærligt dokumentarisk portræt” stod der i pressemeddelelsen fra DR Sporten om Jungs film. Og jeg glædede mig. Den sympatiske og kloge Brian Holm og den grundige og sagkyndige Niels Christian jung på opgave sammen, i patløb så at sige, om cykelløb og sygdom. Det spændte forventningerne. DR 2 sendte filmen i aftes, og jeg blev skuffet.

Filmen er bestemt seværdig, men den gør ikke arbejdet færdigt, følger ikke sporene, den lægger ud. Følger dem et stykke af vejen, men opgiver så. Ikke bare et af dem, men alle de fire, jeg fik øje på: Kirurgen, Team HTC-Columbia, Familien og især Brian Holm alene. Så altså, tæt… ok, men slet ikke tæt nok. Ærlig… ja, ja, men slet ikke den ærlighed, det dokumentariske oplæg kræver. Som jeg følgelig havde ventet.

Det med forventningerne er bogens skyld. I en scene i filmen sidder Brian Holm i en hotelseng og skriver. Det er under Tour de France sidste år. Han skriver ikke om løbet, ikke om HTC-Columbias etapesejre. Han skriver på sin bog om kræftsygdommen, om sit liv den række år med den altdominerende realitet at være diagnostiseret, opereret og efterbehandlet for tarmkræft. Den bog kender jeg på den måde, at præsten i min kirke en søndag for nogen tid siden tog den som udgangspunkt i sin prædiken og stillede den op mod dagens tekst. Han sagde, det var en god bog. En ærlig bog, en tæt bog – tror jeg, han mente. 

Det med forventningerne er også prisbelønningernes skyld. Niels Christian Jung blev i 2008 af de danske sportsjournalisters forening valgt til årets mand, ”en kompromisløs graver” kaldte formanden Steen Ankerdal ham i sin motivering af valget. Og november sidste år fik han Torsten Tégners mindelegat, som gives til fremragende nordiske sportsjournalister. Nu kunne jeg sådan forberedt møde hans nyeste arbejde, hvor han godt nok ikke skulle afsløre, men gerne selvfølgelig, grave. Skaffe stof frem til en ny og vigtig film, og måske gravede han for meget, fandt for meget og kunne ikke vælge fra. Stof om sygdomsbehandlingen, om arbejdet med HTC-Columbia, om familielivet og om Brian Holm nu og tilbageskuende, biografisk.

De fire historier kommer i de ubegribelige klippevalg til at stå fuldstændig i vejen for hinanden. Først historien om kræftsygdommen. Det er den vigtigste, det ligger i titlen. Og det er en virkelig god idé at komme tilbage til Bispebjerg Hospital og møde lægen. Men denne vigtige medvirkende, som er god at lytte til, får slet ikke lov til at folde sig ud med sin store erfaring. Og han er god sammen med Holm. Hvor havde jeg gerne set en film med de to alene. Så er der skildringen af det professionelle arbejde under touren sidste år. Den genre stiller store krav i den danske dokumentarisme kontekst, og det faktum gøres der end ikke forsøg på at leve op til, så den del af filmen er nærmest overfødig. Familielivsdelen er tv håndværk, når det er mest omklamrende sentimentalt og bornert-nysgerrigt. Sønnen kommer til at fylde det hele, og en far/søn film kunne have været en mulighed, vil jeg tro, men træls at se. Endelig Brian Holm selv. Interviewet med ham er godt, hvor der mærkeligt ind imellem er plads til det, for han er god. Får som lægen bare ikke mulighed for at folde sig ud. Så hvor er ærligheden? Tætheden? Hvordan gik det med stomi-muligheden og potenssvigtet? Det sad vi da og ventede på den fine og kloge mands beretning om.

Det er jo tacklingen af ting som disse, som er den største sejr. Som jeg forstår Brian Holm, når han skriver: ”Jeg har altid godt kunnet lide udtrykket ’La flamme rouge’ – den sidste kilometer. Når man kommer til den sidste kilometer som rytter og ser den røde vimpel, der markerer indgangen til strækningen, gør det altid ondt. Kroppen er tom, og man skal virkelig bide tænderne sammen og grave dybt i kraftreserverne. Man skal kigge frem og ikke tilbage og træde det bedste, man har lært, for det afgør, om man vinder eller taber. Det er det samme i kræftforløb. Altså bortset fra at den sidste kilometer for kræftpatienter er ekstremt lang. Nærmest uendelig.”

Jeg tror bogen er bedre end filmen..

Niels Christian Jung: Den største sejr, 2010. Sendt på DR2 i aftes, produceret for DR Sporten www.dr.dk/brianholm siden indeholder scener, som ikke er med i filmen. Litt.: Brian Holm: Den sidste kilometer, People´s Press, 2009.

The Life of Inaki

This film is in production. The filmmakers are from the Basque country and were the ones behind the beautiful music documentary Nomadak reviewed on this site. I know Igor Otxoa who fights for his projects and does it with charm and commitment. He wrote me a letter with a link to the trailer of the film, that I want to share with our readers. But first the story about a film that deals with compassion and solidarity in such a way that the coach of FC Barcelona, Guardiola, used material from the shooting to build up courage and team feeling among his players:

”On the South of Annapurna, at 7.400 metres, a man is dying. His rope companion sounds the alarm. And one of the biggest rescue attempts in the history of the Himalayas gets underway. For four days a dozen men including some of the best mountaineers in the world, from Canada, USA, UK, Switzerland, Russia, Poland, Romanis, Kazakhstan, set out to rescue Inaki Ochoa de Olza. Even beyond his peaks Inaki is an exceptional man. As exceptional as the rescue attempt itself and the men who risked their lives to save him. Exceptional because their one driving rule is to live. To live in the only way possible: with pure intensity and honesty.”

And here is the link to the trailer:

http://www.vimeo.com/12391387