Hugues Le Paige & Jacques Bidou

A tour down memory lane together with important names in modern documentary history. 10 years ago – on this site – I wrote about Belgian writer, director and journalist Hugues Le Paige :

”The director of this film (Le Prince et son Image – aka Francois Mitterrand) used to be a strong and passionate commissioning editor at RTBF, the French language Belgian public broadcaster. He left when the channel decided to be less active in the commitment to the creative documentary. Le Paige then wrote articles and a book about the overall decline of the public broadcasters involvement – as a colleague said to me some days ago: he predicted the crisis as it unfolds right now. For this blogger, in the early days of the EDN (European Documentary Network), it was always a pleasure to have le Paige in a pitching panel with his commitment and critical constructive encouragement to the filmmakers to fight on for quality against mainstream sensationalistic tabloid.”

I now follow Hugues Le Paige’s blog-notes (IN FRENCH), always very interesting, his knowledge about for instance Italian politics is massive.But he also writes about his old profession, this time about a book :

A propos de l’ ouvrage «  Il était une fois la production » (Editions Hémisphère) de Jacques Bidou avec la  complicité de Marianne Dumoulin :

This is a quote from his review/presentation about Jacques Bidou, a key person in French documentary as a producer fighting especially for what is called the «militant cinema » and/or the auteur cinema. 

«Bidou, c’est d’abord la génération emblématique du cinéma qui émerge en 1968, date à laquelle il intègre la première promotion de l’INSAS à Bruxelles qui aligne alors, comme enseignants, les plus grands noms du cinéma contemporain. 68 : engagement, militance et cinéma, rencontre avec Chris Marker,  10 ans de production dans la sphère du Parti Communiste ( notamment avec Unicité). Enfin, et pour toute une vie, la création de JBA production en 1987. Jacques Bidou va d’abord être un des principaux acteurs de la renaissance du documentaire ( on regrettera qu’il ne s’y appesantisse pas  davantage dans ce livre) avec la complicité des responsables de création dans des chaînes comme Arte, ZDF, Channel 4  et quelques autres partenaires publics européens. C’est l’époque du légendaire triumvirat des Thierry Garrel, Eckart Stein et  Alan Fountain, qui, hors des « grilles » et des contraintes, fondent une télévision de sens et de création pour les réalisateurs ET les spectateurs, une télévision qui ne se conçoit pas sans l’apport déterminant de la production indépendante qui, en Europe, est largement issue de 68. Bidou en est l’un des exemples les plus accomplis. A partir des années 80, le cinéma militant a fait son temps et montré ses limites,  les nouveaux producteurs concilient engagement et écriture forte : le point de vue  s’exprime par le regard  et le langage d’un auteur. Le documentaire est à nouveau cinéma. Cette télévision basculera dans la fin des années 90 sous le rouleau compresseur de l’ultra libéralisme dominant. Mais ceci est une autre histoire.”

Longing to read the book by Bidou – for Le Paige click below if you want to follow his blog-notes.

https://leblognotesdehugueslepaige.be/bidou-defricheur-de-films/

Andreas Koefoed: The Lost Leonardo

Hun kigger dig lige ind i øjnene. Hun har lige forklaret, hvorfor hun mener at maleriet som hun restaurerer er malet af Leonardo da Vinci. Hun har peget på det sted, hvor Leonardos teknik er tydelig, på samme sted som i Mona Lisa. Hun lægger et klæde henover staffeliet i sit studio i New York, tager elevatoren ned og går ud på gaden. Dianne Modestini ringer til Robert Simon, en af de to ejere af maleriet for at videregive resultatet af undersøgelsen. 

Det er en smuk sekvens, en filmisk sekvens som gør Modestini til min hovedperson og filmens, tydeligvis, for der vendes tilbage til hende og til hendes ”lost love”, Mario Modestini, som så maleriet før sin død i 2006 og sagde at det var malet af en vigtig kunstner ”på Leonardos tid”, det vil sige omkring 1500, højrenaissancen.

Jeg tror på hende, men filmskaberne lader mig ikke blive i troen. En tysk 

museumsmand sidder i billedet og mener ikke at maleriet kan tillægges Leonardo, det er alt for tidligt at fastslå det, der er ingen proveniens og han tilføjer at værkets kvalitet skyldes Dianne Modestinis pensel og kunstneriske formåen at få det til at ligne en Leonardo. Denne uforskammethed, synes jeg, som er på den fine ældre dames side, tilbagevises helt af hendes selv. Men der kommer senere mange flere tvivlere OG der kommer udsagn, som mener som Modestini at det er mesteren og ikke en af hans elever, som har ført penslen.

Filmen bølger elegant mellem de mange meninger og vurderinger fra et hold af mere eller mindre store EGO’er fra den kommercielle kunstverden, som Modestini kalder ”tricky”; det er vist en underdrivelse! Det er meget underholdende og helt absurd at følge historien om et maleri, overmalet og med mange skader, blive købt for 1175$ for at ende med et salg på noget af et show på auktionshuset Christie for 450millioner $.

Men ind imellem kommer der så nogle smukke sekvenser med Modestini i hendes lejlighed og i det hus i Toscana, hvor hun tilbragte tid med sin nu afdøde mand, som hun fører dialog med under arbejdet med restaureringen – og med Leonardo, som hun siger det. Og Jesus, Salvator Mundi. Da hun vandrer i haven ved huset i Toscana, dukker Mario pludselig op for enden mellem nogle træer. Et øjeblik og så er han væk igen. En flot detalje! Det er en kærlighedshistorie, som bevæger og som instruktør Andreas Koefoed, fotograf Adam Tandrup og klipper Nicolas Staffolani Nørregaard har vævet flot ind i hovedhistorien. Og lad mig lige igen kippe med flaget for instruktør Koefoed, hvis efterhånden mange film, i forskellige stilarter, placerer ham stærkt i nutidig dansk dokumentarisme: ”At Home in the World”, ”The Ghost of Piramida”, ”Våbensmuglingen”, ”Albert’s Winter”… og lige nu arbejder han med Jørgen Leth på en jazz-film.

Tilbage til fortællingen om kunstverdenen, filmens hovedfokus, som skrevet en helt absurd verden, her befolket af mere eller mindre selvoptagne personligheder, som – næsten alle – nyder at tale med Koefoed og blive placeret i en visuel komposition af Adam Tandrup. Kritikeren Jerry Saltz der morsomt imiterer auktionernes showprægede forløb. Franskmanden Jacques Franck som skrev til sin præsident og frarådede at maleriet blev udstillet på Louvre. Og argumenterer for hvorfor han ikke mener det kan være en Leonardo. Sleeper Hunter (pragfuldt udtryk) Alexander Parish som fandt maleriet på en auktion i New Orleans, elsker at fortælle ”sin” historie. Og Luke Syson fra National Gallery i London hvor maleriet blev udstillet i 2011 som en Leonardo – og besøgstallet på det fine museum slog alle rekorder – Koefoed går til Syson, som med flakkende øjne undviger at svare på spørgsmålet om, hvad det betød for ham…

Og amerikanske Kenny Schachter som siger hvad vi som tilskuere oplever i filmen: Alt det her handler kun om én ting: MONEY.

Det bliver sagt endnu mere klart af Yves Bouvier som introduceres (!) af en sekvens hvor han balancerer som en cirkusartist på ét hjul. Bouvier er manden, som på en dag tjener mere end 40 millioner $ ved at købe ”Salvator Mundi” og sælge den videre til en russisk oligark, Dmitri Rybolovlev, som ikke optræder i filmen, men vi får at vide, at der nu kører retssager mod Bouvier fra den russiske billionær, som føler sig snydt. Den meget underholdende showman Bouvier siger i filmen at han opfatter sig selv som en købmand, der bare arbejder efter de almindelige markedsregler. Og et for mig ukendt fænomen introduceres, såkaldte freeports, hvor kunsthandlere og -samlere kan deponere kunstværker.

Der er også en CIA-mand, en FBI-mand, en bankmand… og journalister og andre eksperter ud i kunstens vidunderlige og vanvittigt kommercielle verden.

Dianne Modestini siger det: Nu er en Leonardo gemt væk for offentligheden indtil Mohammad bin Salman, den saudiarabiske prins og forbryder har fået lavet sit museum, hvor maleriet kan hænge. Pt. menes det at befinde sig på hans yacht! 450Millioner $ kostede det for MBS i 2013. Parish og Robert Simon købte det for 1175$ i 2005.

MBS ville dog gerne have maleriet udstillet på Louvre, fortalte han vist Macron og museet, der selvfølgelig gerne ville udstille det, fik lavet en teknisk undersøgelse af ”Salvator Mundi”, producerede en bog derom, som konkluderede som Modestini at den er god nok, det er en Leonardo… bogen blev trykt men kom ikke til offentligheden for MBS ønskede maleriet på samme væg som ”Mona Lisa” men det kunne museet ikke gå med til.

Filmen er fremragende. De mange talking faces er sat sammen så der er et flow i fortællingen, et drive der holder opmærksomheden fangen, samtidig med at der gives plads til fine visuelle detaljer og kærlighedshistorien med Modestini.

At det er et dansk produktionsselskab Elk Film med instruktør og producer Andreas Dalsgaard i spidsen, der sammen med det franske selskab Pumpernickel Films, har sat dette kolossale skib i søen, kan kun aftvinge et kæmpe BRAVO.

Danmark, Frankrig, Sverige, 2021, 96 mins.

Saeed Taji Farouky: A Thousand Fires

Let me start with a quote from a mail sent to me by good friend, excellent French producer Estelle Robin You, who has been working with the director for years to make this film meet the audience:

”A Thousand Fires” tells the story of two loving parents, working hard in the hand-drilled oil fields of central Myanmar, to give their son a better future. It is a story of the human scale of the oil industry and the marks it leaves on the body and soul. It is a story of transformation, reincarnation and generational clashes.»

Written in November 2020. In late August the film wins an important award at the festival in Locarno and the jury motivates:

“We are honoured to bestow the first award in the memory of the late Marco Zucchi. A Thousand Fires presents, through compelling audio-visual language, a poor and dignified life that is tied to the soil. Saeed Taji Farouky combines ethnographic observation with cinematographic language of pure physicality: close-ups of the hard working bodies and nearly abstract images of the natural elements: fire, smoke, oil, dirt. We enter the spiritual life of the protagonists through the associative editing, evocative sounds and expressive landscapes. A touching portrait of a family struggling and hoping for a better life so far away from the Western audience brings us closer to humanity. “

The film is right now in competition at the FIPADOC 2022 in Biarritz that starts tomorrow and runs until January 26. The international competition that includes ”A Thousand Fires” is very strong with the new films by Pawel Lozinski (Balcony Movie), Helena Trestikova’s sequel to the films about René, Danish Camilla Nielsson’s ”President”, Sergei Loznitza’s ”Babi Yar”, Andreas Koefoed´s ”The Lost Leonardo” that premieres in Denmark next week and another gem that has Estelle Robin You as producer, ”The Last Shelter” by Ousmane Zoromé Samassékou. Mentioning the 6 films of the 11 selected that I have seen.

If you are in Biarritz, go and watch “A Thousand Fires” that takes place far away from the West, as the jury states above – yet, the family is like any other family: Mum says to Dad that he again has forgotten to put his sandals on when he is going out; could have been my wife and I in our small garden house. And their care for the son, who moves to the city to become a football player, see how difficult it is for mum and dad to cut the strings to him – the grandparent’s love to their baby grandchild. Does it ring a bell. We all live on the same planet, but gosh how different the living conditions are. To be remembered as is the director’s amazingly beautiful images that correspond to his love to the family.

Vareikyte & Dejoie: I’ll Stand by You

Their full names being Virginija Vareikyte and Maximilien Dejoie, a Lithuanian and an Italian, who is also the cinematographer, which makes me start by praising the camerawork for a film that is so much subject-related:

It tells the story of two women, a psychologist and a police officer, who tried to tackle the extended problem of suicides in their hometown in Lithuania and succeeded, by creating the most successful suicide prevention program that their country has ever seen… to quote the directors.

It could have been an informative prosaic film giving the facts about the mentioned program through a voice-over and interviews; instead the directors chose to make a creative documentary that also gives the necessary background to understand that the film’s main location is Kupiškis, a small village or town in the North East of Lithuania, where the suicide rate is high.

I started praising the camerawork, as you all the time sense that there is thought about the composition of the image and about how to film the meetings of Gintaré and Valija with the clients. In full discretion. Which of course could not work if the directors were not able to bring the best out of the two wonderful wonderful lively and caring women. There is charisma on the screen! And ability to convey their calling to the many volunteers, who are connected to the program. One of them is Biruté, who herself lost a son, who took his own life. She is in the film as the one who towards the end comes to see Jonas, an old man who is followed by the directors. Always positive Gintaré talks to him in uniform and without uniform, we hear phone calls to him, he has clear plans for how he will hang himself… but there is a happy ending for him when the three women come to visit and we the audience see him.

Also bravo to the editing done by Virginija Vareikyte and Italian Francesca Scalisi. There is a fantastic key scene in the film, where you see the two ladies hugging each other in a pavillion with rain pouring down outside. I think it is after they have been noticed of a client who took his/her life. ”Are we normal”, one of them says, to what you can only answer, No, you are so extraordinary… cut to the two on their way to Jonas with images from the countryside of Lithuania, beautiful nature with the more or less dilapidated wooden houses, with serious reflections from Gintaré, shifting to a bursting into laughter the next moment. The focus on the two ladies is the right choice for the film, you get close to them and not ”only” their mission. Lovely!

Lithuania, Italy. Switzerland, 73 min. 2021

 

Laila Pakalnina: Homes

”I call my method of work “Fishing in the river of time”. As life is extremely talented, we just put camera, set composition and wait. And life happens. So film happens…”

From an interview with Laila Pakalnina in connection with the big retrospective of her films in Centre Pompidou in 2019. I have followed her film life for years, am a big admirer and the admiration grew after the masterclass at Baltic Sea Docs 2021, where she announced a new film to come up, “Homes” – MY film she said, 2 hours, black & white, no music, and the cameraman talks!

She gave me a link to the flm and I wrote this to her in mid October: “Laila, you made my morning wonderful. With a cup of coffee I watched “Homes” first thing at the computer. I now walk out in the so-called reality full of the warmth and joy that you and Gints and the Latvian families gave me.”

I wanted to see the film again at IDFA on a big screen but I got caught by another show, so here I am with a small review based on another computer watch. Sorry! But the second screening made me even more enthusiastic:

Walkie talkie communication. Go a bit to the right, too much, stand closer to each other, yes, that´s fine, now freeze for one minute as if we are taking a photo. Put the walkie talkie down out of the frame. The cameraman gives instructions.

Some times the people are closer, some times more far away, most of the time it is a family, many times it is grandparents and their grandchildren.

My favourite shot is the one with granny in the garden surrounded by two girls (twins?) being asked to stand next to the sitting old lady, it´s pure poetry. Actually there are many shots like that, so well composed, the whole film can be seen as a lecture in photography – and in how to gently make people take part in a film. Narrated by Gints Berzins.

There are comments from the people outside the windows, their windows, where we the audience has been given one minute as well to study what is in the room, where the cameraman and his camera are. In the kitchen or in the sitting room or in the sleeping room or in the kid’s room. An ash tray on the table, a pair of glasses, a painting to the left or right, a chair, some plants, a mirror, a nice chair or two, wealthy gardens, not so wealthy gardens, and a few streets. And dogs – there are so many dogs in that film, some definitely do not like the situation and run a round barking, some disappear, too boring when the adult(s) just stand still! 

No more superlatives. Laila Pakalnina is an auteur, she always surprises, also this time with an original approach, again, as with “Spoon” (review http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4695/)

choosing her composition together with Gints Berzins, the talking cameraman in this audiovisual gift to all of us, who love Cinema.

And what a big hug to Latvia and people in this country.

And here is the link to the masterclass with Pakalnina at Baltic Sea Docs 2021:

https://vimeo.com/665172130

Latvia, 2021, 120 mins.

Mikael Opstrup & Salomé Jashi and Football

The other day there was a El Classico football match: Real Madrid against FC Barcelona. Mikael Opstrup sent me a text message expressing that he did not feel fantastic before the match. He felt UNCERTAIN about the result to come, me too, a Barca fan like Mikael.

In his fine book “The Uncertainty” that was launched at IDFA November 2021 Mikael has a chapter “What’s football got to do with it” where he argues in an excellent way for the similarities between the not-to-be-foreseen real life dramas in documentaries and football.

Let me take it further using Mikael’s definition of ”character”: For me (Mikael) a character is a person with a past, a present and a future.

Back to El Classico: For me (Tue) the main character of the match could only be Karim Benzema, a super-star as centre-forward for the Madrid-club. With a past. When you watch him you know of his Algerian background, his friendship with also Algerian Zinedine Zidane and his involvement in a sex-video court case that held him out from the French national team for a long time, whose manager he called “a racist”, when he was left out… he is back again now.

The present? He showed his skills by scoring twice and making teammates better than they are. He won the match for his team. And future, i.e. what has not happened yet… the naughty son of immigrants, captain of Real Madrid will lift trophies very much due to his fantastic football skills. Or will it affect him that he has been sentenced for the sex tape case, a fine and a suspended jail verdict, that he has appealed. What will happen?

Thanks Mikael for giving me the opportunity to write this small piece about our common passion football.

And thanks to you and Salomé Jashi for the IDFA conversation round the book and its themes. It was obvious that you know and like each other, the atmosphere was joyful and engaged, Salomé demonstrated that she is not “only” a great director, who has been given so much admiration for “Taming the Garden”, she is also a great tutor and her questions to Mikael were put in a gentle way so he had time and possibility to develop, what he has written in the book.

Also, we learned that Mikael is not a big fan of the kind of “staged documentary” that Danish Jon Bang Carlsen makes if he does not know the rules of the game in beforehand, that a character is a person and can not be a house or a tree, that it is difficult to include “multiple characters” in the definition, that people who have no doubt in life are boring (agree!), that the term “story” always creates confusion when we talk about it. Mikael reflects on this in his essayistic book that I can only recommend you to purchase:

Order here: mikaelopstrup@outlook.dk

The price is 10 Euro + shipping (approx. 10 more Euro in Europe).

And have a good time watching the IDFA presentation:

https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/idfa-2021-in-videos 

FIPADOC 2022

It’s all there: Competitions, Industry events, a focus on Benelux – and it’s all superprofessionally conveyed at the website – www.fipadoc.com

Is it like any other international documentary film festival? Yes, with national and international, short and long films and the industry including presentations and possibilities to meet colleagues. 

No, where the festival differs – there is a category named “Impact Documentary”, one called “Smart” (VR, web…), ”European Stories” (France is leading the EU this first half year, happy to see ”Altsasu” and ”Dida” here) and there is an homage to Heddy Honigmann, one more I think of the many dedicated to this great ”auteur”.

A quick look at the international competition that brings high quality to the screen, with no rules about world premiere etc., except for ”unreleased in France”, in other words the films have their French premiere in Biarritz.

Among the titles, that I have seen, are ”A Thousand Fires” by Saeed Taji Farouky, Sergei Loznitsa’s ”Babi Yar. Context”, the CPH:DOX winner beautiful ”The Last Shelter” by Ousmane Zoromé Samassékou, master Pawel Lozinzki’s charming and thoughtful ”The Balcony Movie” and my favourite Danish documentary of 2021 ”President” (PHOTO) by Camilla Nielsson. Another Danish documentary that will have its premiere in Danish cinemas end of this month (if the cinemas re-open…) is talented Andreas Koefoed’s ”The Lost Leonardo”.

https://fipadoc.com/en/selections/4/1

Sergei Loznitsa: Mr.Landsbergis

Jury words IDFA 2021 on the film:

“It is not easy to bring history to life. It is even more difficult to make it thrilling, urgent, and totally enriching, to make it feel like we are living through it as it happens. On every level of craft, the winning film represents a monumental achievement that fully explores the role one man, one nation, and one historical moment can play in the still-unfolding story of the global struggle for freedom and self-determination. The 2021 IDFA Award for Best Film in the International Competition goes to Sergei Loznitsa’s stunningly complete and gripping Mr. Landsbergis…”

And Marta Balaga in Cineuropa (29.11.2021): It’s an unusual film for Loznitsa, who actually decided to have a proper, traditional talking head in the story, but only one, as he sets out to interview Vytautas Landsbergis, the first Head of Parliament of Lithuania after its declaration of independence. Loznitsa’s voice can also be heard in the film a few times – apparently for the first time ever – and it feels like a sign of respect towards his protagonist, now almost 90 years old. He likes him, he appreciates him, he wants to spotlight his part in the events that ultimately brought the country its freedom. And while the film’s more conventional structure (with some added intertitles) makes it feel like a history lesson at times, it does come alive when the archive footage kicks in…

Peter Kerekes: 107 Mothers

2017, on this site: High expectations. What else can you have with a project from Slovak film director Peter Kerekes, who won a big award at the Karlovy Vary festival the other day. Let me remind you of the many innovative, entertaining and thought-provoking films by the Slovak director, who refrains from making observational documentaries, has developed his own style, as you can see in the short film “Second Chance” from 2014, “Cooking History” (2009), “66 Scenes” (2003) and “Velvet Terrorists” (2013) that he made with colleagues, among them Ivan Ostrochovsky, who is the script writer of the awarded project “Censor” with these words from the jury:

 

”The film centers on Irina, who works as a censor in a prison in Odessa, Ukraine. She spends eight hours a day in her office reading love letters. Through her, we follow various love affairs that only she can observe. Although she sees how women are being used, and how the relationships end in disaster for them, she cannot take any action. She is a single woman and after 12 years of reading love letters full of the lies men tell, she is not capable of any relationship. If a guy on a date says, ‘You are special,’ she feels sick. But, of course, even she dreams of love.”

2021: 4 years later the finished film premiered and the primary focus is different as you can read from Kerekes statement on the site of ”La Biennale di Venezia”, where the film had its opening in September 2021: 

”From among the many stories of the women in Colony 74, I was most inspired by that of a woman who murdered her husband out of jealousy and arrived in the prison pregnant with her child. We spent several years in an actual prison with actual convicts, trying to get close to them and film them not as passive objects, but rather as participating subjects. Seeing that most of the prisoners were awaiting conditional release, or they could at any time be transferred to a different facility, I decided to cast a professional actress to portray Lesya, knowing I could not risk losing my protagonist. Maryna was present during all the preparatory interviews and spent much time with the convicts. I didn’t want her to mimic their behaviour—I wanted her to listen to them and try to understand them. I also wanted the film to deliver an authentic collective testimony of the convicted mothers, not only through their conversations with Irina but also through the silent scenes—the loneliness they feel when their children are taken away and they despairingly finish their birthday cake; the flashes of happiness when the women briefly forget they’re in prison. Visually, these scenes are treated almost like a photograph—a memory of a moment independent of space and time. »

High expectations… did Kerekes and his team succeed again? With another tone less humouristic yes, but still it is a film where you recognise the signature of a director, who constantly investigates the possibilities of the cinematic language, in this case however on the background of a story located in a prison, where women have been placed to be for years. Not so much to laugh about!

Don’t like it but IF I am to make the classic distinction between fiction and documentary, the film draws from both in terms of storytelling. There is the drama about – to simplify – Lesya (acted by Maryna) and her child Kolya, who we follow from his birth until he is 3 years old, where the regulations say that he has to leave the prison. And there is – as Kerekes himself formulates it – the ambition “to deliver an authentic collective testimony of the convicted mothers”. Not an easy combination for the director and his team (camera by Martin Kollar excellent), and apart from some moments not quite successful I have to confess. I think I reacted to a lack or stop of narrative flow, when drama is ¨going on” and then abruptly stopped by documentary scenes. 

Irina and Lesya are the protagonists with strong participation of other inmates – and their children – with Kolya, Lesya’s boy as the one we follow from his birth. In heartbreaking situations, in the playroom of the prison, outside on the playground and with Irina, when she censors the letters sent to the women by their men. Irina builds a fine relation to Kolya. Lesya wants to avoid him being sent to an orphanage after she has served 3 of her 7 years, but her mother and her sister say no to take him, whereas the mother of the husband she killed says yes « on one condition… that you will not see him again ». Lesya says no, a mother has the right to see her child. Is there another solution, the film says yes at the end. No spoiling from my side !

Maryna Klimova is excellent as Lesya, she has not a lot of hope in her face and her only real reason to go on, is Kolya; evident in the acting of Maryna. You see that in her eyes, in the way she moves, the hidden anger in her voice and you see magnificent scenes celebrating Kolya’s 3 year’s birthday with cake and candles.

Anyway, expectations met? Overall a BIG YES, the balance between the fictional part based on the long research mentioned by Kerekes above and the documentary part giving the spectator an impression of the life in a prison for women in Ukraine? But judge for yourself! This film travels and will travel winning more awards. It will come to a festival near you.    

Slovakia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, 2021, 93 mins.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4300/  (Occupation 1968

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2907/  (Second Chance)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/724/  (Cooking History)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2910/  (66 Seasons)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2418/  (Velvet Terrorists)

DAFilms launches ”Best Of” 2021

An article by the always competent Vladan Petkovic in Cineuropa – link for the whole text below – gives me the opportunity to praise the DocAlliance platform as so many times before. Due to the pandemic, I guess, DAFilms has had ”a busy year in film for the platform, which has acquired a record number of films and mounted a wealth of retrospectives”. In other words, if I am right, the film lovers have turned to the home screen, small or bigger, as the pandemic have made them stay at home instead of going to the cinema or to the local festival. And/Or the platform has again offered great retrospectives of films by Minervini, Chytilova and Marc Isaacs. Anyway the platform offers superb access to high quality artistic documentaries for very little money.

And these were the best of DAFilms 2021:

Homelands [+] – Jelena Maksimović (Serbia) (2020) 

Point and Line to Plane – Sofia Bohdanowicz(Canada) (2020)
I Was at Home, but… [+] – Angela Schanelec(Germany/Serbia) (2019) 
Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another [+] – Jessica Sarah Rinland(UK/Argentina) (2019) 
Exemplary Behaviour [+] – Audrius Mickevičius,Nerijus Milerius(Lithuania/Slovenia/Bulgaria/Italy) (2019) 
I Never Climbed the Provincia – Ignacio Agüero (Chile) (2019)
The Filmmaker’s House [+] – Marc Isaacs (UK) (2020) 
The Viewing Booth – Ra’anan Alexandrowicz(Israel) (2020) 
Days in Sintra – Paula Gaitán (Brazil) (2007)
The Other Side [+] – Roberto Minervini(Italy/France) (2015) 
The Vodka Factory – Jerzy Sladkowski (Sweden) (2010) 
The Portuguese Woman [+] – Rita Azevedo Gomes(Portugal) (2019) 
Hashti Tehran – Daniel Kötter (Iran) (2016) 
Casa Roshell – Camila José Donoso(Mexico/Chile) (2017)
White on White [+] – Viera Čákanyová(Slovakia/Czech Republic) (2020)
The Kiosk [+] – Alexandra Pianelli (France) (2020) 
Comrades in Arms – Catarina Henriques(Portugal) (2021) 
The Blunder of Love – Rocco di Mento(Germany) (2021) 
Daisies – Věra Chytilová(Czechoslovakia) (1966) 
Extinction [+] – Salomé Lamas (Portugal/Germany) (2018)

https://dafilms.com

https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/419724/