News from Paris: Cannes

Every year in Cannes, at the opening of The Director’s Fortnight, la Quinzaine des réalisateurs, the international society of filmmakers, la Société des Réalisateurs de Films (SRF), hands out the award The Carosse d’Or to honour “the innovative qualities, courage and independent-mindedness of his or her work”.

This year the honour goes to Agnès Varda, 81, the queen of truly independent French cinema.

As an introduction to this occasion on May 13th, Varda’s film Lions Love… (and Lies) from 1969 was shown.

Lions Love… (and Lies) is a crazy, charming docu-fiction, or rather fiction-docu, Varda filmed when she stayed in Los Angeles with her husband Jaques Démy in 1968.  Peace and love, sex and politics, freedom and soft drugs! The main caracters is the trio Viva, Andy Warhol’s muse, Jim and Jerry, the authors of Hair, and Shirley Clarke in the role of herself…

”I’m always cheating with reality and fiction” states Varda (Le Monde, 15.5.2010, reporting from the debate she had with Frederick Wiseman after the screening of her film: Le Monde )

Agnès Varda’s production company Ciné-Tamaris, have been so kind to inform me, that not only can you watch all of Agnès Varda’s films on international VOD from May 18th, 35 films, short and long, many of them previously unreleased, on:

http://www.theauteurs.com

But also, a DVD set with the complete works of Agnès Varda, including Lions Love… (and Lies) which has never been released on DVD, is in it’s making and is expected to come next year.

http://www.cine-tamaris.com

Jean-Luc Godard cancelled his expected visit to the Cannes Festival for enigmatic reasons and to the great regret of the Festival. His latest film Film Socialisme was shown Monday May 17th in the competition Un certain Regard. The film will come out in theatres in France May 19th.

And at last, Filmkommentaren is of course following Armadillo’s success in Cannes.

For those who are lucky to be in Paris, Janus Metz’ Armadillo can be seen already the 5th of June (17.30 p.m.) in the special program 49ème Semaine internationale de la critique at the Cinémathèque in Paris, shown together with the short film Berik by Daniel Joseph Borgmann, also in the competition: Cinémathèque

Cineuropa wrote: “Janus Metz’s extraordinarily forceful documentary Armadillo stunned the audience in Critics’ Week at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival”. Read the rest here: Cineuropa

The Hollywood Reporter: A “Vivid and frightening documentary”, “When the bombs go off and the bullets start flying, Metz and his cameraman provide a real-life vision of what a hurt locker is really all about”: Hollywoodreporter

The trailer for Armadillo can be seen here:

http://armadillothemovie.com/armadillo/TRAILER.html

And a little bonus, greetings from Paris and Agnès: Le lion volatile (2003):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7PzW9s7b9I 

Photo: Agnès Varda in Cannes 2009 (Reuter)

Janus Metz: Armadillo 2

Take a look at the boy. Look at his eyes. See the fear of a soldier. A very young Danish soldier who has just been hit. He serves in Afghanistan, he fights Taliban. He is caught at that very moment of injury in the film of Janus Metz. The cameraman Lars Skree filmed the sequence of the wounded soldier who has his eyes wide open. A sequence where the boy seems about to faint and where you as spectator (at least I did) gets the impression that he is dying. His head falling down as if he is losing consciousness.

He did not die. In the film he returns to the image a couple of times. In a hospital scene where he is happy to meet his pals from the camp, and at the end of the film where he with a big, proud smile shows his family the scar. A memory from Afghanistan.

It is amazing how close the director and his cameraman have come to the characters in the camp in the Helmand province. They have filmed in the camp, in the tanks, on mission, in combat, at debriefing sessions. They have filmed and recorded phone calls to home in Denmark, they have filmed the free time activities from swimming to watching hard core porno films. It is such a rich material they have collected to make

this classically built, creative documentary that has all you could ask for in terms of epic quality.

It begins up-front with the boys saying godbye to mum and dad and girl friend. It goes through training sessions before departure, to the meeting with the platoon commander, Rasmus, one of the main characters in the film, who welcomes the new ones by promising them that ”it is going to be interesting”.

And right he is, very much so, and not only for the newcomers but also for the audience. Step by step the filmic narrative brings the informational background to the dramatic situations. The camp as a location is described as well as the technological equipment that is used – surveillance drones that bring back message about where HE is; through the whole film Taliban, the enemy, is called ”him”.

And step by step the action escalates from small, mostly scouting operations to confrontations. With the crucial one placed naturally towards the end of the film: five talibans are being killed, firstly through a hand grenade, secondly by the ”finishing off” of the wounded.

But what is the most astonishing achievement of this film is the way that the films gives space for characters and character development. They are boys, they have chosen to go to Afghanistan, but why? To fight for democracy and for the future of a country, well maybe also that, but first motivation is the longing for company, the seek for a team spirit, and for something to happen in their lives. Excitement, action, fight. Without really knowing what it is to be there. ”You have to be here to understand”, as one of the soldiers say.

I don’t understand the boys, I don’t understand what they are doing there, and the film ”agrees” to a certain degree that the mission is hopeless, for instance through small conversation scenes that take place between the soldiers and the local peasants, who all doubt the success of the foreign soldiers.”Salaam aleikum”, it is said, followed by some general remarks and then nothing else. The contact to the local population is almost not existing. We can’t distinguish between them and the talibans.

I don’t understand them, but I have full sympathy for them, I like them as they are unfolded as characters in the film. Mads is for me the main character, this silent boy, who always sits in the corner listening to the more bragging fellow soldiers. He obeys. I see, and can identify (again a fine edited moment by Per K., the editor, who has done a marvellous job) with his parents standing in the airport looking at their boy leaving… will he come back? The end credits gives the information that he – and several of the others – wants to go back to Afghanistan!

The director does not directly communicate his standpoint, and good for that, we have seen enough films where directors, mostly from a journalistic point, are more than eager to judge and express their opinions. Janus Metz and Lars Skree seek and succeed perfectly, from a humanistic point of view, to bring us into a world that we could not imagine existed in the way it is documented and interpreted here. Even the most horrendous words coming out of the mouth of Rasmus, the platoon commander, or from Ølby, the tattooed constantly joking warrior, are put forward with a no-finger-pointing, non-moralising gentleness, many times in small, well-placed conversation pieces between two soldiers. Example: as Rasmus says on one occasion – ”the worst would be to be all dressed up with no one to blow”. They are literally dressed up in a battle dress or in bathing equipment as were they in a holiday camp for teenagers!

Absurd scenes are often elegantly put in as an invitation to reflection and interpretation. Like the superb one with a couple of the soldiers motorbiking in the courtyard of the base – Werner Herzog could not have done it better. Loneliness it says, or I am bored, give me something to do. Is it far from the scene with the attempts to pick up the corpses from the ditch (”we hit the jackpot in the ditch”!)… or is it not?

Something is rotten… in Denmark and with Denmark, a belligerent nation, a nation at war.

Denmark, 2010, 100 mins. Director: Janus Metz. Camera Lars Skree. Producer: Ronnie Fridthjof, Sara Stockmann. Edit: Per K. Music: Uno Helmerson. Production:  Fridthjof Film Doc. Cinema Release in Denmark July 7, runs at the Cannes Film Festival and is prebought by numerous tv-stations in the world.

http://armadillothemovie.com/armadillo/TRAILER.html

 

Danish Access to Docs and Shorts

1000 Danish documentaries and shorts will be made available for the Danish audience. The films, all from 1975-1990, will be digitalised and made accessible through the free streaming service, ”Filmstriben”, that includes all new docs and shorts supported by the Danish Film Institute (DFI). This good news stems from the fact that the Ministry of Cultural Affairs has granted the DFI an extra grant of 6mio. Dkr. (around €800.000) to bring the 16mm, 35mm  and videos to the digital format, and from there to ”Filmstriben” that today through the public libraries is available for 80% of the population. Via their library card it is possible – for free – to get to the films. At home at the computer.

This initiative is no less than an excellent piece of film politics that must be ”exportable”. I worked at the National Film Board of Denmark in the period 1975-1990 (from whose collection all the films come) and are more than happy that films of high artistic quality are brought back from the dark and forgotten, as well as precious documents of Danish history and culture.

The classical combination of film and public libraries to convey moving images to the broad audience will again prove its importance. And again thanks to the technique that has been the most important element in the history of documentaries. Both when it comes to production but even more when the films have to reach the audience. Robert Flaherty said – almost a century ago – that we, the film people, have not won before it is quite as easy to get hold of a film as it is to get a book. We are getting there… 

Photo: Jørgen Roos (1922-1998), THE Danish documentarian

Berlusconi Again Again…

The headline is taken from a small report by Camillo de Marco, who from Cannes Film Festival writes for the CinEuropa website. About one more documentary that puts its focus on Berlusconi… Italian documentarians do not have so go far to find good stories as Michael Moore did not when George W. was in the White House. Here is the note:

A throng of journalists, applause and some laughter greeted the morning’s press screening of Draquila: Italy Trembles [trailer] by Sabina Guzzanti, on how the aftermath of last year’s earthquake in Abruzzo was handled by the national Civil Protection Agency (see article). The nearly 400-seat theatre was full well before the film began.

The actress-director also met with the Italian press this morning, and expressed her “deep shame” over Italian Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi’s decision not to attend Cannes because the film is a”a propaganda product that offends the country”. Yesterday evening, Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, denied accusations of Italy’s “subjugation” of the film’s content. “It’s a problem of cultural decline”, added Guzzanti. Meanwhile, the 100Autori Association is asking for Minister Bondi to resign. Distributor BIM has published the film’s initial box office. Since its domestic release last Friday, Draquila has grossed €413,000 (and yesterday, €56.500), to earn it third place on the charts after Robin Hood and Iron Man.

PS. Below the official site of the film (with clips) and a link to Cineeuropa that in its editorial choice also includes a huge amount of trailers, mostly for fiction films.

http://cineuropa.org/index.aspx?lang=en

http://www.draquila-ilfilm.it/

San Sebastian Celebrates the Documentary

The prestigious film festival in San Sebastian (September 17-25), one of the so-called A-festivals, has announced a special celebration of what on this site often has been called the new Golden Age of the documentary film genre, in the text below characterised as “a new heterodoxy of the genre, rich in multifarious expressions, alternative paths and unexpected solutions”. A good text from the site of the festival:

With the title of .doc – New paths of non-fiction, San Sebastian Festival will, at its 58th edition, dedicate a wide-reaching retrospective to contemporary non-fiction cinema. This cycle will include some of the most representative examples of international non-fiction cinema.

If any single phenomenon has captured attention on the world movie scene in recent years, it has to be today’s interest in documentary cinema, a practice which, save extremely rare exceptions, had followed a path largely falling by the way of the histories of cinema, international festivals and the memory of film buffs. But contemporary documentary cinema is so incredibly varied and versatile that even the classic notion of the term has to be questioned. Requirements traditionally associated to the documentary (like objectivity, a serious tone and lack of expressiveness) are no longer considered essential and can even be deliberately avoided.

Rather than documentaries, it seems more fitting talk of non-fiction cinema, a term with the virtue of encompassing this new heterodoxy of the genre, rich in multifarious expressions, alternative paths and unexpected solutions. The new cinema based on real materials shuns the reporting format and seeks other forms of recording the world around us and our relationship with it. The .doc – New paths of non-fiction cycle aims to show some of the most suggestive proposals to have appeared the world over in the last decade.  

The paths followed by non-fiction cinema take us in very different and even sometimes directly opposing directions: the auto-documentary, or subjective cinema on individual, private subjects: En construcción (José Luis Guerin; 2001; Special Jury Prize at San Sebastian Festival); Más allá del espejo (Joaquim Jordá; 2006) and My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007); the self-reflective documentary, questioning itself about the documentary-maker’s position with regard to the material he or she is filming: The Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth; 2003), essay cinema and certain forms of experimental writing: Le souvenir d’un avenir (Chris Marker and Yannick Bellon; 2001), Auge/Maschine- Parts 1, 2, 3 (Harun Farocki; 2002-2003), Los rubios (Albertina Carri; 2003), Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (John Gianvito; 2007) and Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong Weerasethakul; 2000); the fake documentary, employing the rhetoric of non-fiction to tell fictional tales: The Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog; 2005); the social and historic testimonies seen from new angles, like the repercussion of individual history on collective history: S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge (S-21: La máquina roja de matar) (Rithy Panh; 2003); Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks – Parts 1,2,3 (Bing Wang; 2003) and Lucio (José María Goenaga and Aitor Arregi; 2007), the new documentary trends proposed by video-artists and moviemakers or those arising from access to digital technology; the current variations on classic documentary practices like cinéma vérité or music documentaries: The Filth and the Fury (Julien Temple; 2000) and The Devil and Daniel Johnston (Jeff Feuerzeig; 2005)…

The retrospective offers an overview of these new non-fiction trends set around a selection of the most representative titles produced the world over. Its intention is no other than to draw attention to this field as yet unexplored and unmapped, a field where commitment to reality is no impediment to formal reflection on the audiovisual medium. At the end of the day, .doc – New paths of non-fiction ultimately prompts spectators not only to question themselves on the reality around us, but also on the possibilities offered by the camera for talking about the subject.

Still: Rithy Panh: La machine de mort Khmère Rouge.

http://www.sansebastianfestival.com/in/noticia.php?ap=1&id=148

Hanne Ried Larsen: Kæft, trit og …. knus

Det er ikke nogen god titel. For dokumentaren handler mest om det ord, der mangler. Den handler mest om retning, pædagogisk retning, opdragelsens retning. Og det er godt, den gør det. At den usentimentalt fremlægger et usentimentalt program for børns plads i livet med voksne. Et syn på tingene aldeles på tværs af den generelle stemning i samfundet. Et syn kombineret med helt konkrete handlingsanvisninger i alle detaljer. Det er ret godt at lytte til i rækken af statements fra medarbejderne på Schuberts Minde i Ringkøbing. Det er faktisk en god dokumentar om dette standpunkt, ikke kun god som diskussionsoplæg, nej, også god næsten som konkret brugsanvisning.   

I aftes så vi så det første af de fem afsnit, dokumentaren er delt op i. Vi så en dreng på 13, som ankom til behandlingshjemmet, vi så den venlige modtagelse, og vi så hans første konfrontation med denne pædagogiske retning, som var modsat alt, han havde vænnet sig til. Den første kamp mellem barnet og de nye voksne varede halvanden time, fik vi at vide. Vi så glimt af forløbet: sådan gøres det. Og vi hørte den rolige og argumenterede forklaring: derfor gør vi det sådan. God film, god dokumentarserie, ser det ud til. Vi får se med de fire resterende afsnit.

Hanne Ried Larsen: Kæft, trit og …. knus, Danmark 2010, 5 afsnit af 40 min. Produktion: DR-Dokumentar. 1. del genudsendes mandag 17.maj 14:30 på DR 1.  

Nina Hedenius

It is all about making extraordinary films about ordinary people… I don’t remember who said so, but it could be a characterisation of the work of Nina Hedenius, the unique Swedish filmmaker who makes all her films for SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster, that provides her with the funding for her films. She does everything on her own (camera, sound, direction), over a long period and without any interference of film consultants or commissioning editors from television. In Belgrade where she took part in the Magnificent7 festival, with the masterpiece ”Way of Nature” (”Naturens Gång”) from 2008, she told the audience that she had to do her films in that way, and that she could not have anyone look over her shoulder. That would make her nervous and confused.

I pick up the name of Nina Hedenius tonite after having seen her fine work, ”The Art of Cleaning” (”Konsten at Städa”), which is from 2003 and runs for an hour. Again Hedenius takes the viewer to Dalarne, the beautiful region of Sweden, and lets him/her experience the daily life of a cleaning lady, Wally Petterson. You might expect a social indignation over hard work, but Hedenius never turns to that side. What interests her in this case (like with the characters in ”The Old Man in the Cottage” and ”Way of Nature”) is the calmness and harmony that is inside and outside a woman, who cleans, cooks, takes care of grandchildren and relaxes at the lake with her fishing rod. ”We are ere to help other people, are we not”, Petterson says in a film that refrains from the many words. The camerawoman, who is also the director, dares. To go close and stay close, to fade out in grey, to let clouds drift by, to let a face stay so long that you start to make your own interpretation or drift away from the film or maybe into the film’s universe. I saw the film in a garden house and could turn my head to the right and be with nature images and a sky similar to the one in Dalarna. Pure beauty and independent filmmaking. A filmmaker with her own signature.

Some of the films of Nina Hedenius are available on dvd – check the website below and contact svt, and for people who are able to get to SVT, Kunskapskanalen (Knowledge Channel) the film has a rerun on sunday May 16 6.05pm. And to know more about Hedenius you can see an interview with her (in Swedish) on

www.svt.se

Janus Metz: Armadillo – in Cannes

It is always to be noted that the Cannes Film Festival picks a documentary for a competition screening. This time a Danish one, Armadillo by Janus Metz, has been taken for the Semaine de la Critique. The first screening in Cannes takes place May 16, and the film has a Danish cinema premiere July 8. For that reason we wait with a review till early July but want to tell you what the film is about. Here is the text from the site of the Danish Film Institute:

Armadillo is an upfront account of growing cynicism and adrenaline addiction in young soldiers at war. Mads and Daniel are serving their first mission in Helmand, Afghanistan. Their platoon is stationed in Camp Armadillo, right on the Helmand frontline, fighting tough battles against the Talebans. The soldiers are there to help the Afghans, but as fighting gets tougher and operations increasingly hairy, Mads, Daniel and their friends becomes cynical, widening the gap between themselves and the Afghan civilisation. Mistrust and paranoia set in causing alienation and disillusion.

And about the director Janus Metz: Born 1974, Denmark. MA in Communication and International Development Studies from Roskilde University. Has worked as a researcher on documentary film projects. Metz lived in Johannesburg for one year (2002-03), working on a South African drama series, »Soul City«. The stay inspired him to make his debut film, the documentary »Township Boys« (2006). Also in 2006, he produced the programme »Eventyrerne«/»Clandestine« for the national broadcaster DR, which follows a group of illegal African migrants through Sahara on their way to Europe. »Fra Thailand til Thy«/»Love on Delivery« (2008), recipient of two GuldDok awards at CPH:DOX and selected for IDFA’s Silver Wolf programme, is Metz’ first film about Thai women and their pursuit of a Danish husband. Succeeding this is »Fra Thy til Thailand«/»Ticket to Paradise« (2008), selected for IDFA’s Reflecting Images: Panorama, and honoured with a Special Mention at CPH:DOX.

My co-blogger Allan Berg has several times written about the two thai-films on this site. Search ”Janus Metz”. Photo: Lars Skree, cameraman of the film.

www.dfi.dk

Seks millioner kroner til digitalisering

Filminstituttet melder ud: Seks millioner kroner til digitalisering af danske kort- og dokumentarfilm. Det Danske Filminstitut får nu mulighed for at formidle en vigtig del af kulturarven, nemlig kort- og dokumentarfilm fra perioden 1975 til 1990. Fra hylderne i arkivet skal filmene nu digitaliseres og gøres tilgængelige for alle på nettet.

Kulturminister Per Stig Møller og videnskabsminister Charlotte Sahl-Madsen har udmøntet i alt 21 mio. kr. til digitalisering af kulturarven i 2010-12. Pengene fordeles til fire projekter, heraf 6 mio. kr. til Det Danske Filminstituts projekt ‘Dansk Kort- og Dokumentarfilm 1975-90’.

Kulturminister Per Stig Møller udtaler i Kulturministeriets pressemeddelelse: “Kulturarven skal være levende – derfor skal kulturarven være digital, og derfor satser vi nu på at gøre den danske kultur- og naturhistorie tilgængelig over nettet. En levende kulturarv skaber en fælles referenceramme i vores samfund og vaccinerer opvoksende generationer mod historieløshed. Uden fornemmelse for historien smuldrer den fælles ansvarsbevidsthed, og forudsætningerne for at tage nuanceret stilling til samfundets udvikling forsvinder.”

Områdedirektør på Filminstituttet Dan Nissen glæder sig over, at det nu bliver muligt at formidle og levendegøre dele af den dokumentariske filmarv, nemlig 1000 film fra perioden:

“Vi kan nu sætte gang i vores længe nærede ønske om at gøre dokumentarfilmskatten tilgængelig for danskerne. Det er et righoldigt materiale, der fortæller spændende historier om danskerne og deres hverdag; billedbårne historier med stærk fascinationskraft. Der er film, der oprindelig er produceret som folkeoplysning til bl.a. uddannelsessystemet. Nu kan vi gøre en del af denne kulturskat tilgængelig for den befolkning, der i høj grad har været med til at finansiere dem. Og tilgængelighed betyder i dag, at filmene kan findes på nettet…”

Planen er, at filmene skal kunne opleves via streamingtjenesten ‘Filmstriben’, der også nu fungerer som platform for distribution af omkring 750 kort- og dokumentarfilm. Mere end 80 % af landets borgere har allerede nu adgang til ‘Filmstriben’ derhjemme via deres bibliotek.

“Visionen om at gøre dansk dokumentarfilm tilgængelig for alle, der blandt andet er formuleret i Filminstituttets oplæg til det kommende filmforlig, er med denne bevilling rykket et stort skridt nærmere,” siger Dan Nissen.

Jeg, blogskriveren, glæder mig meget til Jenny af Jon Bang Carlsen (fotografiet af vejen mod Ferring, som jeg har funndet frem, er fra optagelserne i 1976). Så den kan netop komme med. Per Kirkebys og Arkaluk Lynges Da myndighederne sagde stop er fra 1972. Den kommer så ikke med. Det er jeg ked af.

Men, der er meget at glæde sig til. Jeg tager SFC-kataloget Film & Video 1989 frem. 50 års kataloget fra filmcentralen. Og blader fornøjet den glæder jeg mig til.. og den.. og de..

Michael Madsen: To Damascus

… (Damen kommer tilbage; hun bærer en blomst ved sit bryst.) DEN UKENDTE: Se, det er ejendommeligt, at jeg ikke kan åbne min mund og sige noget, uden at det straks bliver desavoueret! DAMEN: Sidder De her endnu? DEN UKENDTE: Om jeg sidder her eller et andet sted og skriver i sandet, det kan jo være ligegyldigt – når blot jeg skriver i sandet. DAMEN: Hvad skriver De da? Lad mig se det. DEN UKENDTE: Der står vist Eva, 1864… nej, træd ikke på det… DAMEN: Hvad sker der så? DEN UKENDTE: En ulykke for Dem, – og for mig. DAMEN: Det ved De? DEN UKENDTE: Ja! Og desuden ved jeg, at den julerose, De bærer der på Deres bryst, er en Mandragora. Ifølge symbolikken betyder den ondskab og bagvaskelse, men som medicin har den helbredt galskab. Vil De give mig den? DAMEN (tøver): Som medicin? (Fra Strindbergs Til Damaskus, første akt.)

Damen er naturligvis på en eller anden måde med i Michael Madsens film. Den korte scene, hvor hun bærer en Mandragora naturligvis også. På en eller anden måde. Men slet ikke så direkte overført, som jeg her gør det. Hvorfor så Strindbergs tekst nu? Jo, det kommer sig af, at jeg ikke kunne finde et still fra filmen. Undervejs med det fandt jeg dette fotografi fra førsteopførelsen af Strindbergs arbejde med samme titel, det var i 1900 med Harriet Bosse i rollen som Damen. Fra det billede måtte jeg naturligvis til Strindbergs værk, som er skrevet få måneder før mødet med lige den kvinde.

I en søgen efter en nøgle til Michael Madsens ikke umiddelbart tilgængelige film er det jo oplagt med Strindbergs drømmespil, det første af slagsen. Og staks her lidt inde i første akt er der det afgørende andet møde mellem de to og begyndelsen til forførelsens gensidige afprøvning. Er det så med i filmen? Egentlig ikke og jo, måske. Hvad mere er med? Jo, som noget meget vigtigt er det svenske sprog med, fordi den svenske skuespiller, Sten Johan Hedman, som har haft rollen som Den Ukendte på teatret, læser en gennemløbende fortællerstemme. Dertil kommer, at filmen fra begyndelsen benævnes som en fortolkning af Strindbergs stykke. Kan man så gøre det omvendte, lade teaterstykket fortolke filmen?