Reflections on Festivals

The Canadian documentary film magazine POV asked me to write an article on festivals. I did so, it has been published in connection with the HotDocs festival that is running right now. You can read the article below and for further info on this excellent magazine visit the

http://www.povmagazine.com

or

http://www.docorg.ca/en/point-view-magazine

There are some festivals that I have come back to year after year, with pleasure, almost  with a feeling of being part of the furniture. I place myself on the same row in the cinema and make my own screening schedule that fits with lunch and dinner breaks and meetings with friends. Then there are festivals where I have been to only a few times–or go reluctantly.

It is not easy to write about festivals as an insider who goes there

because you are part of ”it,” which in my case is the international  documentary community. It’s my job. Am I able to evaluate from the point of view of an ”ordinary” festival goer, who studied the catalogue and chose a screening from personal interest or from words of mouth?

No, I can’t, but I will do my best to tell you about how I experience festivals by going back in my memory – to give the reader a hint on my angle, and openly tell you where I am totally biased in my comments. I will try with personal anecdotes and enthusiastic remarks, mixed with critical and bitter words on bad behaviour!

The First Time

But first some nostalgia: The First Time…

I have to tell you about a young Danish film critic named Tue and his friend, who went to their first film festival in the early 1970s to write reports for a local communist newspaper, which  was the only one who wanted festival reports! We went to the London Film Festival, got VIP accreditation, access to press screenings and to the VIP room of the National Theatre on the South Bank. That’s where the two youngsters found themselves sitting next to Jane Fonda, who was there with her husband, fellow Vietnam activist Tom Hayden and the film Tout va Bien by Godard.

It could have been the chance to get an exclusive interview but we were absolutely paralysed by our closeness to a superstar. No words came out of our mouths, except for polite answers to her question about who we were. We just wrote about what we saw on the cinema screen in long uncensored (and unpaid, if I remember correctly!) articles.

We did not limit ourselves to writing about documentaries; it was everything – and the same pattern repeated itself later at the Berlinale, where I was chasing films in the great programme of Forum des Jungen Films under the leadership of Ulrich Gregor. Jacques Rivette’s Out:One Spectre, Werner Herzog’s Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen and La Maman et la Putain by Jean Eustache were films I saw there and will never forget.

On the job in Paris

In 1975, I got a job in the National Film Board of Denmark, where I stayed for 20 years. The focus became professional, and I was sent to find films for our non-theatrical catalogue at Cinéma du Réel, which is a festival I continue to enjoy. pleasantly situated as it is in Paris, in the Centre Pompidou. The festival used to have the subtitle “ festival for ethnographic and anthropological films,” and for years the legendary documentary filmmaker Jean Rouch always sat in the first row. It is still an important festival with films from all over the world, keeping to the high standard that was developed under the leadership of Suzette Glénadel, who chose films that dealt with important subjects treated creatively by artistically strong film directors.

This year the festival programme was curated by Javier Packer-Comyn, who offered a retrospective of films by Albert Maysles and a series of films made by “tandems” like Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville. The festival has an international and a regional competition and for the first time this year, a competition for first time films. What I like about Cinema du Réel is its non-commercial, somewhat classic programming. In a pitching-free zone!

Industry Events

They’re an oasis for someone like me, who after 20 years at the Film Board took part in the building-up of the EDN (European Documentary Network), which since1996 has developed and organised workshops and pitching forums for documentary projects. These forums, where producers meet broadcasters and other funders, have found their natural place as part of, and running parallel to well-known festivals like Idfa in Amsterdam and Hot Docs in Toronto. Both festivals and the third big player, DOK Leipzig, have the ambition to attract both a big local audience and  have industry activities attached: pitching sessions (in Leipzig done by the training programme Documentary Campus), debates, case studies, “meet the director” and so on.

A visitor like me who goes to these events for professional reasons, to tutor the people who are to pitch, or to moderate sessions – does not get to watch many films. A matter of time simply. But what a pleasure it is to see the long queues in front of the cinemas in Leipzig, Amsterdam and Toronto. Documentary festivals attract a young audience that looks at the festivals as cultural events.

An Ordinary Audience

This is maybe the most important statement you can come up with: Festivals are no longer for the professionals and the cinéphiles.

Festivals like IDFA and Hot Docs and DokLeipzig attract a vast  general audience—and that’s remarkable, Yes, of course, they are all meant to be open to everyone but it was not always like that. I remember waiting to get in to Cinéma du Réel screenings together with prominent directors like Joris Ivens and Rouch, who knew everyone passing by. The élitiste image of documentary festivals has gone. I can see the change over the last five or six years as some excellent documentary festivals have come out of the blue.

The Young Ones

In the South of Europe DOCLisboa is one of the festivals that I have enjoyed visiting and not only because the selection done by Serge Tréfaut, a filmmaker himself, is very competent, mixing the classic (big retrospectives of Wiseman and Jonas Mekas) with the new (international and Portuguese competition programme). At the 2009 edition Tréfaut launched a serious attack on the Portuguese television for its lack of interest in and support to the creative documentary. The festival had grown in importance and can now challenge local film politics. The media responded and the festival succeeded in raising a debate.

What the production company Parallel 40 in Barcelona has done during the last decade is extraordinary. I am a senior advisor for DOCSBarcelona but even so I dare say that Joan Gonzalez and his team has created a documentary culture in Catalunya. The DOCSBarcelona pitching forum took off 13 years ago, and now the public festival, which began four years ago, is really taking off. It is still a small festival  but with an exclusive selection of around 40 films and a strong programming focus, it is building up a young audience interested in seeing documentaries. Their educational aspect is present in the “Documental del Mes”, the monthly documentary that is being screened in around 40 places in Spain. Parallel 40 now also organises Mémorimage in Reus (Catalunya), a festival for films that deal with memories—and the company produces short documentaries for local TV3. Quite an achievement!

A Documentary Culture

What is the role of a festival for documentaries? To promote the genre, to show the best of the best, to push local film politics, to create a public opinion about the importance of documentaries in a modern democracy?

When I started at the National Film Board in 1975, one of my jobs was to make the national press interested in writing about documentaries. It was almost impossible. The editors asked me – “where can our readers watch the films,” and I said libraries, art and culture houses, schools, on television…”

Not enough reason for a review, they said! Today it has changed completely when it comes to the press. Documentaries are reviewed as they’re screened more and more in the cinemas – and at festivals, where the cph:dox (cph for Copenhagen) in a few years has established itself as a strong promoter of the genre. It has developed a big audience and a programming profile that goes beyond the classical documentary, with a clear approach to visual art and what the French call “docufiction.” Cph:dox is a strong film political weapon for the Danish Film Institute when it comes to stressing the importance of documentary as an art form. And it’s thus part of a documentary culture.

Similar initiatives have been created in Finland (Docpoint), Poland (Planet Doc Review) and Jihlava (Czech Republic). The festivals are covered in the press and the creative documentary genre is promoted. These young festivals have an advantage over the traditional Idfa, Hot Docs and DOKLeipzig since they can build up their own profile on passion and deliver nice surprises to their audience.

The Big Festivals

The same humbleness is not always to be found around the bigger festivals like the ones in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Karlovy Vary and Edinburgh, all of which now include documentaries in their programming.

Which brings me to the bitter remarks… about all these exclusivity restrictions in connection with festivals. Is it really for the good of the documentary that a film taken for the Berlinale can not be shown in other festivals before? Will the Berlin audience be less interested in watching a good documentary if it has been shown elsewhere?

All festivals –even Idfa, Hot Docs and DOKLeipzig – have restrictions; some might be reasonable, especially about having national premieres, but still I must insist on asking the naïve question, “is it always good?” Is it really so important to write World Premiere or International Premiere next to the title? The filmmakers I know shake their heads, the sales agents feel that they are forced to play the game, and the audience at the smaller festivals have to wait until next year to see the films that they can read about on websites, watch clips from on YouTube and in the press!

The Absurdity

A festival very close to my heart, Magnificent7 in Belgrade, Serbia, which is completely non-competitive and includes only seven films, wasn’t allowed to show two documentaries one Danish (“Into Eternity” by Michael Madsen) and the other French (“Nénette” by Nicolas Philibert), because of the Berlinale! The films would have been shown once, in the presence of the director or a key member of the creative team. And yet—absurdly—the opportunity was denied.

A Good Festival

A good festival is one that celebrates the documentary cinema as an art form with respect for the authors – and the audience that should always have the best of the best, regardless of commercial reasons. A good festival has a clear profile thematically and invites the filmmaker to meet the audience, with good amount time given for Q&As. A good festival has selectors, some call it curators, who put the filmmakers in the foreground and not themselves! A good festival is one that does not play according to journalistic or TV-rating rules – we don’t want the newest and the most hip and as many spectators as possible!

It also promotes the difficult films and is not afraid of digging up gold from film history. Many festivals should remember that less is more. Volume is not necessarily what the audience expects. Focus on quality, daring programming, time for the meetings between audience, film and filmmaker. Clear profile, please.

Photo: Nicholas Philibert, was not allowed to go to Magnificent7 2010

Juris Podnieks: Hello do You Hear Us?

No film-visit to Riga without the thinking back to Juris Podnieks and his contribution to world cinema. With an introduction by Lev Gushin, who took part in the scriptwriting of the five hour breathtaking perestroika documentary made for British television, the first of the five parts of ”Hello do You Hear Us?” were shown and proved to be as fascinating fresh and emotionally strong as when I saw it 20 years ago. I had forgotten how brilliantly the presence of composer Aleksei Rybnikov and his music links the parts of a film that bears the title Red Hot and includes chapters like the Armenian earthquake, the Jaroslavl factory, the Chernobyl aftermath and the 
Soviet Spring. The film is in itself a composition, rythmical and breaking the rules of classical dramaturgy. And can only again stress the director’s position as one of the most important political filmmakers ever.

I met Antra Cilinska, the editor of the series and all films Podnieks made until his tragic death in 1992, including the beautiful piece of patriotism, “Homeland”. Cilinska is the CEO of Juris Podnieks Studio and is currently planning the premiere of “Is it?” that is a follow-up of “Is it Easy to be Young?” and “Is it Easy to be” shot 20 and 10 years ago. The premiere will be on the 4th of May, the Latvian day of independence, and Cilinska herself is the director.

15 Young by Young

Think Big! Is what young Latvian producer and director Ilona Bicevska is doing. For a couple of years she has been pitching a project that I have praised on this site with a simple Bravo! Now the potential directors have been invited to come to Latvia, to Sigulda 50 kilometers from Riga, from where I write these words. A development workshop goes on, discussions, clips are being watched, coffee is being drunk – and harder stuff as well.

The project will consist of 15 films, each of them 15 minutes long, to be made by 15 different directors from the 15 ex-Soviet republics. They can then be put together in whatever way the broadcasters want, A representative from arte is present to listen and comment on the pitches. 5×45 minutes it could be or one long version. Or a webdoc series. Many platforms are possible. To be finished 20 years after the collapse of the USSR and/or the independence of the ex-Soviet republics. Run from the country of Juris Podnieks, Ivars Sleckis and Herz Frank. Bravo!

The photo is from a small pilot that Bicevska made for the series.

Arab Documentary Funding

The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) has announced the winners of its Documentary Film Program Grants for the year 2010.  The grant of a total of 300,000 USD was given to 15 winners, along with a series of workshops and consultations with international advisors for the following year.  In partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, the Arab Documentary Film Program is dedicated to supporting contemporary nonfiction films produced by filmmakers targeting the audience in the Arab world.

The program objectives are three-fold.  First, it aims to contribute to the development and growth of the regional industry and talents in the field of documentary filmmaking.  Second, it aims to open opportunities for Arab directors and producers to participate in key international events and to promote Arab work in major international markets.  Third, is to reinforce competitiveness of Arab audiovisual works within the framework of an open and competitive Arab market.  The winners were Ahmed Fawzy Saleh, Egypt: The Tanneries Concerto/ Akram Zaatari, Lebanon: Twenty Eight Nights and a Poem/ Amer  Al  Shomali, Palestine: The Wanted 18/ Dima Abu Ghoush, Palestine: Emwas/ Elias  Moubarak, Lebanon: My Uncle, The Terrorist/ Habib Attia / Director Kaouther Ben Hania, Tunisia: Challat, the Best a Man can Get/ Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lebanon: Lebanese Rocket Society/ Karima Zoubir, Morocco: Woman with a Camera/ Laila Hotait Salas, Lebanon/Spain: The crayons of Askalan/ Louly Seif, Egypt: Take me Back to Sydney/ Malek  Bensmail, Algeria: Origins/ Nahed  Awwad, Palestine: The Mail/ Orwa Nyrabia / Director Omar Amiralay, Syria: Seduction/ Rania Stephan, Lebanon: The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni/ Regine Abadia, Algeria: Yasmina and Mohammed.

The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) is a non-profit organization registered in Zurich, Switzerland with its regional office in Amman, Jordan.

http://www.arabculturefund.org/

Poul-Erik Heilbuth: Manden der løj verden i krig 3

Heilbuths arbejde genudsendes nu i dag 14:00 på DR1. Se bort fra de åbenlyse filmiske kiks, se det som et journalistisk arbejde, “sobert” som Information skrev i sin leder dagen efter den første udsendelse. Se den for at høre brudstykkerne af de meget vigtige, tydelige og energiske interviews med David Kay, tidligere højt placeret CIA medarbejder, våbeninspektøren Rocco Casagrande, den tidligere sikkerhedsrådgiver for Bushregeringen Paul Pillar og allervigtigtst, den tyske FN-ambassadør Günther Pleuger, som direkte advarede ammerikanerne om Curve Ball, som tyskerne havde i varetægt og under psykiatrisk behandling i Schweitz netop da Colin Powell brugte hans opdigtede informationer i sin berømte tale i FN. “Vi advarede amerikanerne mod Curve Ball. hans informationer var komplet utroværdige”, siger Pleuger direkte til Heilbuth.

Filmen kan også ses på DR hjemmesiden 

Poul-Erik Heilbuth: Manden der løj verden i krig 2

Her er så Heilbuth med den rigtige mand, med Curveball, som hedder Rafid Ahmed Alwan. Det er framegrab fra scenen, hvor han endelig kommer ud af huset, Heilbuth har sporet ham til. Han går med til interview, inviterer Heilbuth indenfor, men går afsides og taler i telefon og kort efter er lejligheden fyldt med politi, som standser interviewet, smider Heilbuth ud, river kameraet fra fotografen og ødelægger dele af optagelserne.. Her slutter filmen.. men historien kan da ikke være slut?

Manden som løj verden i krig genudsendes på mandag 26. april 13:00 DR1 

… kan også ses på nettet: http://www.dr.dk/

Poul-Erik Heilbuth: Manden som løj verden i krig

Jeg må sige, at jeg er skuffet over DR-dokumentaren, som jeg havde ventet mig meget af. Men jeg vil bestemt se den igen for at finde ud af præcis, hvordan den knækker. Det kan være, at det simpelthen er sådan, at den skuffer der, hvor Heilbuth selv skuffes. Han kommer ikke til at tale med manden, som han filmen igennem har jagtet. De tyske politifolk snyder ham for byttet, netop som interviewet skal i gang… Frustrerende!

Rygsøjlen i dokumentaren er et gavnligt resumé af hele historien om begrundelserne for at invadere Irak. Specielt to danske ministre står centralt. Selv om de selvfølgelig ikke ville medvirke endnu. De har ikke nået tilbageblikkets tid. Men til da tænker vi vort. Og det er godt at holde forløbet klar i erindring.

Jeg har én indvending foreløbig. Historien med den danske soldat, som dør i krigen, er overeksponeret. Forstyrrer derved, at ægte følelse i forkerte omgivelser bliver til noget meget, meget forkert. Og jeg mærker en hensigt, som jeg ikke kan lide.

Det er – og det er så en indvending mere – som med den bærende fortællerstemme. Den vil omklamre mig med for megen følelse og insisterende overtydelighed. Det bliver ubehageligt.

Men trods disse to indvendinger i min bedømmelse en vigtig film. Især, selvfølgelig, på grund af rækken af stærke medvirkende fyldt med faktuel viden og personlig energi til at aflevere den. Men, Heilbuth, altså… selve story-line  kræver en fortsættelse… Hvad siger tyskerne? 

Foto: Nej, det var ikke ham, som løj. Han vidste vist ikke bedre. Men tyskerne snuppede løgneren for øjnene af Heilbuth og seerne..

Bogen om Curveball anmeldt her: GoogleBooks

News from Paris: Godard

This years festival Cinéma du reel had a program called Nous deux – Both of us, featuring films made by filmmakers in couples or pairs. Amongst those shown where The Old Place (1998) and Reportage amateur (maquette expo) (2006) by Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Luc Godard, who have been partners and made films together since the 1970s. Since I could not attend to the screening, I acquired the DVD of four short films by Godard and Miéville: De l’origine du XXIe siècle (2000), The Old Place (1998), Liberté et Patrie (2002) and Je vous salue Sarajevo (1993) (ECM Cinema 2006).

I highly recommend this edition, which is the first DVD released from the renowned German record label ECM Records. The DVD-cover is actually a fine little book with beautifully reproduced stills from the films, an introduction by the German film critic Michael Althen as well as the complete dialogues. All of this in French, English and German.

Link to ECM Records

EMC has also released the complete soundtrack of Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinéma, a boxed set of 5 CDs:

http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/New_Series/1700/1706.php?cat=&we_start=0&lvredir=712&we_search=%2Bcinema

Godard will be celebrating his eightieth birthday in December of this year, and it is also the fifty-year anniversary for À bout de souffle (Breathless 1960). On this occasion French film historian and critic Antoine de Baecque recently published ”la première biographie en France de l’impossible M. Godard”: Godard (Grasset 2010), a massive volume of almost a thousand pages, the fruit of years of meticulous archive work. I quote: Mais ce qui rend passionnante l’audace biographique dans le cas de Godard est sa manière d’incarner à tout instant un moment d’histoire. Cet artiste est un radar, la plaque sensible de son époque, le meilleur sismographe des mouvements de société et des ruptures qui parcourent la vie collective, en France et bien souvent dans le monde occidental (Godard, p. 10). (But what is passionate about the audacity of a biographical project in the case of Godard, is his way of embodying, constantly, a moment of history. This artist is a radar, the sensitive plate of his time, the best seismograph of movements in society and the ruptures that runs trough collective social life, in France and most often, in the Western world (Godard, p. 10, my translation)).

http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2010/03/11/godard-d-antoine-de-baecque_1317505_3260.html

(If you only read English, you will have to do with: Godard, a Portrait of the Artist at Seventy by Colin MacCabe (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Everything Is Cinema. The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody (Metropolitan Books, 2008).)

Antoine de Baecque also wrote the scenario for the documentary Deux de la Vague (Films à Trois 2009, 90 min.) by Emmanuel Laurent, shown at Cannes last year, which tells the story of the friendship between Godard and Truffaut:

http://www.filmsatrois.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76%3Ales-deux-de-la-vague&lang=en&showall=1

Godard will be presenting his latest film, Film Socialisme, (featuring Patti Smith among many others), at this years Cannes festival in the selection Un Certain Regard, whose jury this year is presided over by the French director Claire Denis.

Godard has made six trailers for the film, here are some: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS09nVRBimo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhqOFWdtDdY&feature=related

And a little bonus for the end:

Godard and Miéville’s 1992 contribution to a series of cigarette ads directed by prestigious filmmakers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icx7rB7WdDw (Those were the days!).

And while we’re at it..:

http://curtisway.blogspot.com/2008/04/parisienne-people.html

Photo (Jacques Blanc): Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville in Rencontres (2001)

Saskia Bisp: Nobody Passes Perfectly

Scenen i sengen med de elskendes tyste, intense samtale fuld af autentisk kærlig følelse er det hele værd. Den er klippet med lydhørhed for den lille angst for tiden, der forandrer, og kærligheden, som ikke er til at holde fast, trods forsikringerne. Den ængstelse vokser gennem den smukke scenes replikskifte til et helt kammerdrama i det lille format.

Det handler om at ville ændre på sin seksuelle identitet. Det er den ene af de to i sengen i færd med. Og hvad vil så ske?

Hvad vil så ske med følelserne for hinanden? Hvor forbundne er de med det ydre seksuelle udtryk, kroppens udseende, stemmelejet, den samlede udstråling? Intet vil ske, forsikrer den, som vil blive i sin nuværende krop og i sit aktuelle begær. Kæresten med hovedet på puden ved siden af er bekymret, for her er begæret under omformning. Men lige nu nu er de i lykken. Som stillbilledet viser.

Det er jo en brugsfilm. Den vil anskueliggøre denne problemstilling, den vil vække debat om provokerede seksuelle transformationer. Det sker ved samtaler mellem de medvirkende i lange instruerede og omhyggeligt opbyggede scener. Det er vedtaget smukt. Yderst stiliseret. Og bortset fra scenen i sengen lykkes det i min oplevelse slet ikke. Arrangementernes udvendighed kvæler replikkernes mulige følelse. Nej, der er nu én scene mere at fremholde, en optagelse med de to fra sengen, som skal til fest og gør sig i stand. Den fungerer nogenlunde, jeg tror, fordi de to kan improvisere. Som de eneste blandt de medvirkende.

Og i virkeligheden er det måske kun den ene af de to, som kan, som i sin hengivelse og spontane kærlighedsytring river den anden med. De øvrige forholder sig, loyalt formodentlig, til debatfilmens forlangende om så facetteret som muligt at anskueliggøre de seksuelle komplikationer. Men at tale om kærlighed ved at behandle sex er et koldt foretagende.

Og kølighed er selve præget i scenerne i en roterende restaurant, i en stillestående bar, i en tom svømmehal. Det er så arrangeret, så villet perfekt, så glat. Ja, og køligt. Det bliver i det ydre som problemstilling, vil ikke det indre som autenticitet.

Og så får jeg tid til at spekulere på, hvorfor scenerne er klippet op og de mindre dele blandet. Kan slet ikke finde nogen fortællemæssig begrundelse. Når manuskriptet nu er skrevet i afsluttede scener med hver deres location, med hver deres tid. Sådant plejer jeg ikke at tænke over i film, jeg forsvinder i. Men det var måske heller ikke meningen her, at jeg skulle opsluges? Men én scene, et kammerspil i en dobbeltseng fordelt over story-line er dog gentagne gennemsyn værd.  

Saskia Bisp: Nobody Passes Perfectly, Danmark 2009, 43 min. Manuskript: Saskia Bisp, fotografi: Minka Jakerson, klip: Åsa Mossberg, musik: Nana la Cour Jacobi, lyd: Kasper Janus Rasmussen, producere: Vibeke Vogel og Elise Lund Larsen. Produktion og salg: Bullitt Film www.bullittfilm.dk Filmen kan via det lokale biblioteks hjemmeside ses på www.filmstriben.dk

Barbara Cros, Lisbeth Lyngse: Kvinder i forandring

De er så omhyggelige med deres tøj, de tre kvinder, det handler om. De er så omhyggelige med det danske sprog, som de taler forbilledligt. De er så ordentlige og sympatiske og tydelige. Deres fortællinger er detaljerede, uden dramatik. Pletfri. De medvirker i en undervisningsfilm. Den har brug for forbilleder. Det kan jeg godt forstå. Det er ærlig snak. 

Det handler om danske uddannelsers betydning for herboende kvinder fra fremmede kulturer. Det lyder bestemt ikke spændende. Men sådan en opgave kan reddes…

… af de medvirkende. Det sker her. Der er tre og de er søde, en kvinde med pakistansk baggrund, en med tyrkisk og en fra Malawi. Tre livshistorier (så langt de unge liv er kommet) fastholdt som cases på mere end nydelige filmbilleder. Man lytter gerne til dem. Og det skal man også. Fremstillingen er båret af deres fortællinger og af omvisninger til deres steder. Og så er der illustrerende reportagescener. Det er det.  

Selvfølgelig er det ikke en film. Det er en dokumentation af tre gode kvinders frigørelse og selvstændiggørelse fastholdt på film. Der er ikke noget værk uden om de tre beretninger. Så efterhånden kniber det med dynamikken. Det går i stå efter 20 minutter, men så har konstruktionen alligevel lidt mere i posen: en kvinde agiterer sympatisk for fagforeningens nødvendighed, en demonstrerer sin daglige faglighed som kirurg og en endnu forankret i familien og familiens færdigret-butik, men hendes hensynsfulde distance til det hjemlige lader os forstå at selvstændig og sygeplejerske er og bliver hun.  

Filmen er så passende til de velskabte tre yderst korrekt arbejde, dette er hvad, der bør menes. Jeg bliver næsten skræmt af al den renhed. Der er ingen tvivl, ingen kant heller. Der er intet at indvende. Uden måske netop dette.

Barbara Cros og Lisbeth Lyngse: Kvinder i forandring, Danmark 2009, 41 min. Manuskript: Barbara Cros, fotografi: Henrik Kloch og Lisbeth Lyngse, klip: Lisbeth Lyngse. Produceret af Manden Med Cameraet www.mandenmedcameraet.dk , dvd-salg: DBC www.dbc.dk  Filmen kan ses på Filmstriben.dk via det lokale biblioteks hjemmeside.