Docs Online: China, Soccer, Giro d’Italia

For viewers worldwide and for free – IDFA, the biggest documentary film festival in the world, based in Amsterdam, invites you to go online with IDFA TV, where there is an excellent selection of excellent documentaries.

IDFA staff is at the World Expo in China and for that reason you can watch films from and about China. World Cup in South Africa starts this coming friday and for that reason IDFA offers films about football, like Maziar Bahari’s ”Football, Iranian Style” from 2001. Giro d’Italia is over but you can still watch the classic of Jørgen Leth, ”Stars and Water Carriers” abour the bicycling race year 1973, premiered in 1974. As written on the site: ” These were the glory days of Eddie ‘The Cannibal’ Merckx (photo) who showed the entire field a clean pair of heels whether it was on the flats or up in the highest of mountain passes.”

The online service has several other neo-classics available like Florin Iepan’s Romanian masterpiece, ”Children of the Decree”. Starting point for the film: “Procreation is the social duty of all fertile women,” was the political thinking during the 1960s and 1970s in Romania. In 1966, Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, in which he forbade abortion for all women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children…”

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/idfa-tv.aspx

MakeDox 1/Words of Documentary Enthusiasm

MakeDox is inspired and financed by people who love documentary film. People with a great desire to make their own festival, the kind of festival that I would like to visit myself. Petra Seliškar, Programme Selector..

I graduated in social work… I work in the film industry… I feel the need to exchange creative energy… I feel inspired to influence my everyday surroundings… I have a goal to share documentary creations with you… films that engage, inspire, enrich… Films that speak through their relevance, idea, message, thought, inner cry… that stratify, but do not insist on change, that dig up the roots and penetrate daringly without worrying about the soil and the dirt… that do not tend to wash it out or sort things through so that they would look better… And they do it in their own, powerful, unique way… they intrigue you, make you think, give you the shudders… they’ll maybe even change you against your will. That’s the kind of documentary films we focus on. Kirijana A. Nikoloska, Festival Director.

http://www.makedox.mk/indexen.html

MakeDox 2/ Words of Documentary Enthusiasm

More than 35 years ago, I broke my cousin’s Contaflex. Why? I wanted to see how that fascinating “eye” worked. I fixed it and ever since then I have been seeing with only one eye.

I lived to be fascinated again 30 years ago in the house of my favourite childhood dog Calvick. In the room where it slept, Victor kept different kinds of 8mm and 16mm cameras. I didn’t stop looking with one eye, but the photographs started to move. Shots of passers-by, insects, trees, animals, passengers… Unrelated images of the reality documented a moment, a particular space. After that I spent some time with the cinema amateurs, a period of exploration, and my love turned into a passion for documenting reality.

The next 15 years of professional engagement provoked my “eye” to return to its first love – creative documentary. For the last 10 years or so, I have dreamt about documentary films, I work on documentary films, and I find pleasure in every new film product. I am truly happy about the first edition of “MakeDox”, I am happy about the travelling cinema, I am happy that documentary film will reach every home in Macedonia, I am happy to see that the documentary dream has become a reality. (From the site of the new festival).

Brand Ferro, Producer

http://www.makedox.mk/indexen.html

MakeDox in Macedonia/3

Wonderful. Well done and good luck are the best words to congratulate the organisers of a new documentary festival in Macedonia. It starts tomorrow. My text –The following is taken from the IDF site: As nutritious and beneficial as the freshly pulled onion on its poster, the first edition of MakeDox – Creative Documentary Film Festival takes place June 5 – 11, 2010 in Skopje, Macedonia. The programme includes 62 films (official selection, Macedonian short documentaries, films by newcomers, etc.), as well as several lectures.

In its Official Selection, the festival will present The English Surgeon (dir. Geoffrey Smith, UK 2007); Burma VJ (dir. Anders Østergaard, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom 2008); Border (dir. Harutyun Khachatryan, Armenia 2009); Goodbye, How Are You? (dir. Boris Mitić, Serbia 2009); Cooking History (dir. Peter Kerekes, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic 2008); The Player (dir. John Appel, Netherlands 2009); Mostar United (dir. Claudia Tosi, Italy, Slovenia 2009); The Edge of Dreaming (dir. Amy Hardie, Scotland 2009); The One Man Village (dir. Simon El Habre, Lebanon 2008).

All of them (except “Border” and “Mostar United” have been reviewed and/or noted on filmkommentaren.dk)

http://www.dokweb.net/cs/

http://www.makedox.mk/indexen.html

News from Paris: Tarkovsky for children

In France kids have Wednesdays off from school. For those who have the possibility, it is a day to discover the multiple activities Paris has to offer children. Le centre Pompidou, Beaubourg to Parisians, holds every Wednesday of the school year the program L’Écran des enfants, an initiation to cinema for children under 13.

I went with my daughter Asta, 8 ½, to see Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Steamroller and the Violin (1960, 43 min.). This is Tarkovsky’s first longer short film and it was his graduating film from the film school in Moscow. The film tells the story of a friendship between a little boy, Sasha, who plays the violin and the worker Sergei and his (incredibly beautiful) red steamroller. The influence of Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (Le ballon rouge 1956) is very clear. The images of the film are sheer beauty, the mirrors, the reflections; the dreams are already there. Asta could not follow the story, I think because she was just taken by the visual impression. Here’s a more detailed description:

 http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2009/cteq/the-steamroller-and-the-violin/#2

A DVD is available from Facets Video (region 1) and bits can of course be seen on Youtube, but get it for your children’s film program if you have one, it has to be viewed on the big screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRaqcxk1YtM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SNPhp6mT6I

What we particularly appreciate about Beaubourg’s program is that the curators are there themselves to present the days film. They make a small introduction and offer to read aloud the subtitles on non-French films, should the children wish so. And they also leave time for comments and questions afterwards. Asta’s comment was “the film was very good”!

Link to Centre Pompidou

Paris has many other cinematographic offers for children, I can get back to that another time, and nothing beats the event of taking an actual trip to a movie theatre and sit down in the dark. It is important and a pleasure to be able to let your child grow up with a larger view of cinematography, than what is offered by mainstream cinema today.

I quote Chris Marker, from an interview Tue Steen Müller has linked to in an earlier comment, but can easily be repeated and counts for kids as well: “Godard nailed it once and for all: at the cinema, you raise your eyes to the screen; in front of the television, you lower them. Then there is the role of the shutter. Out of the two hours you spend in a movie theater, you spend one of them in the dark. It’s this nocturnal portion that stays with us, that fixes our memory of a film in a different way than the same film seen on television or on a monitor” (Chris Marker, interview Libération March 5. 2003 translated in Film Comment:

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/5-6-2003/markerint.htm).

The film made me plunge in to Tarkovsky’s own writing, though he hardly mentions The Steamroller and the Violin. I highly recommend his reflections on the art of cinema:

Andrei Tarkovski: Le temps scellé (Petite bibliothèque des Cahiers du Cinéma 2004). English edition: Sculpting in Time (University of Texas Press 1989).

Janus Metz: Armadillo/6

The Danish documentary “Armadillo” which premiered in cinemas last friday is a huge audience success. 22.282 tickets have been sold in three days, which is absolutely unusual for a documentary in Danish theatres. Earlier this month “Armadillo” by Janus Metz was awarded the Semaine de la Critique Prize in Cannes. 

I weekenden strømmede publikum i stort tal ind i biografens mørke for at se Janus Metzs meget anmelderroste og omtalte film. Alene torsdag, fredag, lørdag og søndag solgte filmen 22.882 billetter og gik direkte ind på førstepladsen på filmhitlisten, hvor den slog Prince of Persia af pinden.

“Jeg tror, Janus Metz har ramt den gyldne mellemvej mellem debatskabende og stærkt rørende film med en masse action og følelser. Det er derfor, den får så stor succes. Men vigtigst af alt skaber filmen en debat hos alle unge som gamle uanset baggrund. Den debat har fra starten været vores drøm, så jeg er rigtigt glad for, at så mange går i biografen og ser den”, udtaler producenten Ronnie Fridthjof.

Jacob Jørgensen og Henrik Lundø: Olafur Eliasson

Jacob Jørgensen og Henrik Lundø laver beundrende, imponerede og loyale film om ophøjede personligheder som Erik Reitzel, Dronning Margrethe, H. C. Andersen, Henning Larsen og mange, mange flere. Og nu altså Olafur Eliasson. Og det skal de gøre, og det skal de blive ved med. Deres film glæder mange. Rigtig mange.

Jeg blev imidlertid skuffet over Eliasson filmen. Og kom til at tænke, at også inden for Jørgensens og Lundøs koncept, eller plan, eller smag, inden for deres ambition må der være nogle overordnede krav til emnets fokus, til indsigtens dybde, til karakterens udvikling, til klippets musikalitet og egenfortælling.

Jeg blev så skuffet, fordi filmens fokus, som for eksempel kunne være blevet ved Hudsonflodens vandfald og deres fortælling, flakker til andre af Eliassons mange projekter, til lidt antydet biografi og til noget sentimentalt privatlivs indblik. Skuffet, fordi dybden i hans gennemgående monolog og samtaler konstant svigtes til fordel for en omklamrende forklaren og forklaren tilsat lidt moraliserende didaktik. Skuffet, fordi den berømte hovedperson, skønt hele tiden aktivt tænkende kunstner, i filmens story line står fuldstændig stille i et låst ikke-karisma. Lidt træt, faktisk. Jeg blev skuffet, fordi klipningen uden retning flakker fra dit til dat og fortaber sig i gentagelse og limen sig pinagtig fast til scener, som forlængst har tabt indhold og gnist, en klipning, som i filmens sidste tredjedel bare tynder ud og tynder ud, uden jeg mærker det som konstruktionsbestemt diminuendo.

Men er man i forvejen optaget af Ofafur Eliassons person, arbejde og shows, skal man bestemt se Jørgensens og Lundøs film. Den er sympatisk, venlig, høflig og loyal. Og den er formodenlig blevet fuldstændig, som de ville have den. De er dygtige og meget, meget erfarne, de to. 

http://www.jjfilm.dk/index.php?lang_id=1

EDN Online Interviews for Professionals

This is first of all information for those of our readers who are active filmmakers and producers. Given to you by someone who worked in EDN (European Documentary Network) from the beginning in 1996 until 2005, so I am totally biased when I give you this promotional text:

You should become a member of EDN and thus be able to access information that could be important in your daily work. For instance about where to go if you look for funding for your film. Eventually you could consult the EDN Financing Guide or you could take part in the excellent online interviews that are conducted by staff member Ove Rishøj Jensen and which are solely available for members. There have been sessions with Osnat Eden-Fraiman from YesDocu in Israel, Martin Pieper from ZDF/arte, Andrew Golding from SBS Australia (yesterday) – and in the beginning of June you can meet Ahmed Mahfouz Nouh from Aljazeera Documentary Channel and Simon Kilmurry from the renowned American PBS slot called POV.

Non-members can – for free – read the news brought by EDN on the site:

www.edn.dk

A Nordic ARTE?

Under the headline “Nordic ‘arte’ Channel Closer to a “Go””, the excellent newsletter FkN Newsletter, published by Filmkonakt Nord (in English, free subscription) gives hope for quality television:

The talks of establishing of a joint Nordic TV channel based on the model of the bilingual French-German channel ARTE, are getting more concrete. The plan has attracted serious attention in the Nordic countries, and a working group has been set up by the Nordic Council’s Culture and Education Committee to work on a solution. The parliamentarians are inviting the Nordic film- and TV-industry and the Nordic public service TV-stations to take part in talks about a possible collaboration in the establishment of a cultural channel. Ultimately, the decision on whether to establish a Nordic Culture channel will be taken by the governments of the Nordic countries.

http://fknsite.adnuvo.com/fkn-140/#c7

All Norwegian Screens Digitised in 2011

Filmkommentaren.dk has recently written about the digital plans for documentaries in Lithuania and Denmark. Now a piece of text taken from the newsletter of Filmkontakt (see above) demonstrates that some countries also have throughts for the screening of films, at least Norway does:

In just one year, all cinemas in Norway will be ready for digital screenings and equipped with 2K or 4K projectors. As one of few countries in the world, Norway has closed deals with six major Hollywood studios for digital screenings. According to the industry organisation for Norwegian cinemas, Film & Kino, the conversion of all of Norway’s cinemas to digital will be the world’s first national non-commercial digital cinema rollout.

Since 2006, Film & Kino has supported two digital pilot projects concerning 33 cinemas all over Norway. Som cinemas and institutions have made individual investments in digital equipment, and the experience from the pilot projects has been decisive for the successful digital rollout. 30 cinemas will have a 4K Sony projector, which is the standard required by the big Hollywood studios to show their films digitally. The digitisation process will begin this June in 37 theatres in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim and will run until April next year.

For more information, see Film & Kino’s website.

http://fknsite.adnuvo.com/fkn-140/#c7