Doker 2021 Higgins&Carrier Wandering

… with the subtitle ”A Rohingya Story” takes place in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangla Desh, the biggest in the world with 700.000 people from the Muslim minority in Myanmar, before named Burma. They fled from genocide, and ended up here. In a humanitarian catastrophy, where they fight to survive.

The film by Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier is excellent. Heartbreaking in content and brilliant in storytelling. The cinematography is superb, the camera is treating the refugees and their devastating environment and living conditions with beautifully composed and framed images and the film gives the viewer the necessary information through the voice off by Kalam (Kala Miya). The directors (on the Doker website) tells about how the film came about:

 

“It was following a shocking Facebook post from the Kutupalong refugee camp in February 2018 by documentary photographer Renaud Philippe, that we became aware of the sheer extent of this major humanitarian crisis that has received so little media coverage. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of this situation and the power of Renaud’s photos, we suggested that we join forces to create this film with as the main objective, alerting the public to the tragedy of the Rohingyas in exile… The role of Rohingya refugee Kala Miya (Kalam) was central in this film. It was Renaud who first met Kalam in February 2018 during his first stay in the camp. Kalam naturally became an ally and the film crew’s guide out in the field. As a fixer, translator and sound recorder, he was the one who ultimately made this film possible. Over the course of the discussions, Kalam’s personal story and the poetry he wrote was so meaningful, so universal, that we decided to make it the narrative thread of this film.”

A warm tribute to Kalam, the main protagonist, who in this English version speaks with a low, melancholic voice – he had reached India but decided to go to Kutupalong to join his family. Many touching stories, most of them through voice-off, are told: Nigthmares, dreams for the future, but also horror stories about the abuses and attacks they have been through in Myanmar by soldiers from the army. You see families cooking, you see (always uplifting) children playing football and with kites, young girls putting on make-up, young boys dancing – and men trying to tame the flood that could swipe the whole camp away. A camp where young kids sometimes disappear – human trafficking!

The film is rich, it’s about poverty and misery but it keeps insisting to depict the dignity of the people, who are in the film, living a life you can not imagine. In cinematic terms I was thinking of films of late Michael Glawogger, with observational visual poetry giving time and respect. My only small objection is the ending where the makers do slow motion of scenes we have already seen. Unnecessary.

A boy is singing: Instead of honey… you gave me poison. 

Canada, Bangla Desh, 2020, 87 mins.

https://www.midff.com/main

Doker 2021 Dér&Haragonics Her Mothers

Oh, I Iove that film because it gets so close to the couple Virag and Nora that you can really sense their love to each other and the small and bigger crisis they experience, when they, a lesbian couple, succeed in adopting a girl, two and a half years old, Meli(ssza) and start bringing her up. I love when the directors Asia Dér and Sári Haragonics stay long at a scene, where Nora argues that she does not want to give Meli chocolate when she picks her up in the kindergarten – this is what Virag does. Chocolate or not chocolate, this is a normal situation that everyone can recognise, also this grandfather. The same goes for the goodnight scene, where Meli wants Mommy (Virag) to put her to bed and not Dada (Nora). 

It’s not that easy, words to that effect, says Nora, sad, with lesbian parenting. Especially not in Orban-instan, with a prime minister of Hungary, who is visually quoted with one of his stupid male chauvinistic comments. 

I love that film because I can´t help love the couple thanks to the presence of the camera in the discussions and dialogues in the house that also includes three dogs! They are taking lessons in German, will they end up in Austria… is that a better place to be for lesbian couples? First of all, however, the film conveys the joy and happiness of the two, when they are able to add the motherhood to their love. 

The rythm of the film is calm, no running after dramatic situations except for some footage from demonstrations framing the political landscape in Hungary. Whatever sexual orientation you might have, you can identify with the small or big problems you face in a family.

Hungary, 2020, 75 mins.

https://www.midff.com/main

Doker 2021 Roman Hodel The Game

In my visit to DOKER online I left the main competition to have a look at the short film competition and my eyes stopped at “Das Spiel”, “The Game” in English, a film for a football fan like me, who right now follows what happens at the UEFA European Championship. With great enthusiasm crossing fingers for Denmark.

The film is Swiss and lets the viewer follow the referee on the pitch and his work with sound access to what he hears from his linesmen and says to them and to the people at the room of VAR, where you find the video assistant referees, who can suggest a change a decision of a refeee, sometimes by letting him run to the screen to study a replay of what could be a foul. Penalty or not penalty.

The focus is on one referee, who runs and runs, talks to the players, gives cards that are red or yellow under great stress having players and fans go against him. There was years ago a feature doc named “Kill the Referee”, this one is a short super-professional film – with the words of the director:

“By closing in on family relationships and on player-referee interactions, the film allows the audience to experience the sheer unbearable pressure of a referee while getting to know the person under the referee jersey: Fedayi San — a human being with fears and doubts.”

(I googled Fedayi San, who is a FIFA referee and has been at international Games, but he is not at the competition that runs right now.)

Will I have more understanding and sympathy for the referee after this film –maybe not all the time, but I am indeed on his side, when the players complain constantly when everyone can see that there is a foul.

“They are like kids”, he says when he picks up his father after the match. 

Switzerland, 2020, 17 mins.

https://www.midff.com/

Doker Jessica Nettelbladt: Prince of Dreams

Let me give you a brief content quote from the Doker website:

”Erik was born as a girl but always felt like a boy. As an 18-year-old, he began the process of gender reassignment. This is where ‘Prince of Dreams’ starts too. Shot over a full 10 years and with no filter. Isolation, bullying and anxiety have followed Erik throughout his life, while he has struggled with recognition from his surroundings and himself…”

”With no filter” – the film is very close to Erik and his family, especially the mother who on one hand suffers because of the son’s decision, on the other supports, also when Erik finds his Martyna even if the two, the mother and Martyna, have some tough arguments. The Polish grandma is in the background always ready to give a hug and an advice of common sense. The camera is there catching the many embarrasing moments the film is full of.

 

The film’s frame is Erik on his pilgrimage, the camino – oh these Galician landscapes full of beauty that calms him down, giving him the needed spirituality at the moment in his life he has reached, where ”my trans identity brings me down”. At that point in the narrative Erik has revealed that he was sexually abused when he was 13.

 

Which leads me to some storytelling comments: How clever of the film team to hold back this information to the second part of the film, letting the focus be on Erik, who ”always felt like a boy”. It takes the film away from any kind of dramatic sensationalism letting Erik himself express his feelings verbally and through his strong expressionistic ceramic pottery.

 

And it can not be stressed enough how strong a film like this becomes, when you have been able to follow the protagonist through archive for many years. Time is precious and important, in this case for a film on a young man searching for a meaning with life. ”God will come to me”, it feels so natural that he has a job as a cleaner in the church…

 

https://www.midff.com/main

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doker 2021 Andrš Jindrich: A New Shift

It’s a good film. Not because of the theme (a mine is closed, miners are without job, what to do?) that is pretty much known. This time it takes place in Silesia, a region that has also been described before, mostly by Polish filmmakers – No, it is good because of the miner Tomas, who becomes the IT programmer Tomas. The director has followed Tomas for four years in his struggle to get a new education – his doubts, his warm realitionship to his children, his dating to find a new partner, his café talks with friends, his passion for Banik Ostrava, the football team he supports.

I write Tomas as I get close to him and his positive attitude to life. He is himself, when he is at interviews for IT Jobs, grounded and charming and funny, also when he talks to a full theater in Prague at a TED arrangement about him succeeding. It made me for a moment think “is this a corporate film” as it of course puts a positive light on the retraining program Tomas is part of. But why bother as this for once is a positive and authentic film. It is the director’s first film, well told (dramaturg is as always in Czech  documentaries Jan Gogola) and being in both DOK Leipzig and Ji.hlava festivals is quite a good start! And now a Russian premiere, congratulations, waiting for the next film from the director.  

Czech Republic, 2020, 91 mins.

This is an edited repeat of a review from this site.

https://www.midff.com/main

Doker 2021 Billie Mintz: Portrayal

The Russian documentary film festival has chosen quite a story to open its 2021 festival. Well crafted and told, full of layers and conflicts with several strong characters. With the young Roman Lapshin as the one in focus. He wants to confront the artist Oz Almog, who had a world-wide success with portraits of well known Jews through exhibitions named “Index Judaeorum”.

 

The exhibitions included hundreds of portraits painted by the Israeli artist Vladimir Dvorkin, the grandfather of Roman Lapshin. And he was never credited for the portraits, which carried Almog’s signature. Roman wants the truth to come out.

The family is divided. Should the secret be revealed? They discuss in the family – the best conversations being between Roman and his uncle (photo); the latter finds it wrong to chase and confront Oz Almog for what could look like catching a thief as it is said in the film, where Roman travels from Toronto to Vienna to Tel Aviv and to Serbia.

Grandmother is alive and is worried about Roman’s intentions… The scenes between her and Roman are touching.

The whole film is full of emotional ups-and-downs of Roman; it has become an obsession for him to meet Almog.

Does he? Yes, but no spoiler from me – would be wrong to tell what actually happens when the director effectively builds up to the meeting by giving the audience a parallel montage of a portrait of Oz Almog, who has quite provokative opinions on what art should be and the story of Roman’s search for the truth – whatever that is, this psychological thriller also brings to the table.

Canada, 2020, 90 mins.

https://www.midff.com/program

Jonas Poher Rasmussen: Flugt

Medierne er fyldt med historier om mennesker på flugt. Mennesker som har betalt med deres liv. Druknet. Mennesker som bliver udnyttet af andre mennesker, der lever af at smugle, udstede falske papirer, aflevere til brutale regimer og myndigheders håndlangere. Vi kender til det, vi læser derom dagligt, vi ser statistikker, vi ryster på hovedet og blader videre i avisen. Vi registrerer men bliver sjældent dybt berørt. Som hvis vi ser en stærk film…

Jonas Poher Rasmussen kommer så med nok en flygtninge-historie om Amin fra Afghanistan og hans familie… og hvorfor er det så at den fanger og bevæger, rører ved dit hjerte. Er det historien som sådan?

Jo, den er gribende og velfortalt, men det er først og fremmest fordi instruktøren og hans producenter fra Final Cut for Real har været ambitiøse og er gået efter det stort anlagte, har villet lave en anderledes film – og fordi instruktøren er hovedpersonens nære ven, de har gået i gymnasiet sammen, Amin har holdt sin historie tilbage, Poher Rasmussen har interviewet ham og har valgt at fortælle med en

…fremragende udført ofte ekspressionistisk animation, en smuk og indlevende musik, en lavmælt autentisk dialog mellem de to skolekammerater, et fint balanceret homoseksuelt kærlighedstema, og humor i alt det forfærdelige som Amin har holdt skjult, med præcist valgte arkivoptagelser fra Afghanistan og USSR/Rusland i de turbulente år omkring 1989/90.

Jamen, det er ganske enkelt en stor filmfortælling, en animationsdokumentar, til det store lærred, til biografen. Se den!

Danmark med flere lande, 2021, 89 min.

Doker 2021

 

The festival starts on Friday June 18 and goes on until June 27, the Moscow International Documentary Film Festival, that is close to my heart, because of the dedication, thoughtfulness, independence and competence of those, who are running it, the team, that is described like this on the website:

The DOKer team is a community of like-minded people: directors, cinematographers, sound directors, producers and specialists in other fields, but all passionate enthusiasts for nonfiction cinema…

I was at the festival in 2019 in the short film jury, where awards were given not only to Best film but also to Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound. Respect!

 

More about the leading team members: Irina Shatalova is the founder of the Doker screening project (10 years ago), a brilliant cinematographer – and the director and producer of the festival. She co-directed ”Linar” (praised here http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2447/

with Nastia Tarasova, who is the program director of the festival, where Tatayana Soboleva takes care of the industry part of the festival and is in the selection committee as is Sergei Kachkin, who takes care of “international relations” and with the help of the Danish Embassy in Moscow has “hired” me to write about films in the festival.

The other day I wrote about Soboleva’s “The Russian Way” and before that also her “Siberian Floating Hospital” http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3309/

Sergei Kachkin made, among others, “On the Way Home” – also written about http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/1717/

Not to forget Mash Ka – Maria Kozlova – documentarian, photo artist and the festival’s excellent photographer, always creating a good atmosphere!

The festival program includes the feature length and short film competition, a category called ”Let it Dok!” (”information technology and documentaries”), a program for kids and « DOK Therapy » including the fine Romanian film ”Us Against Us”, where ”The director and her father take a camera in hand and film each other during interviews in which they discuss schizophrenia, their own pasts, and their personal conceptions of happiness.” To be recommended.

As four of the films in the international competition, films I have seen and recommend : The Czech « A New Shift” (PHOTO), the Colombian ”Between Fire and Water”, the American/Mexican ”Dirty Feathers” and the Hungarian ”Her Mothers”. More about these documentaries when the festival starts.

https://www.midff.com 

Biograffilm Festival Bologna

With the subtitle “International Celebration of Lives” the festival started June 4 and runs until June 14. It has a section called ”Meet the Masters” and Leena Pasanen and her festival staff earns respect for bringing cinematic ”celebration of lives”, as it is being done by Helena Třeštíková and Heddy Honigmann, the Czech and the Dutch director, who have beautiful films on the their long filmography. In Bologna their films are presented.

Otherwise there is a section for Italian films, one for “art and music” (including Barak Heymann’s film on Dani Karavan, who died last week), ”Larger than Fiction” and of course an international competition. With important films like ”Courage” by young Paluyan from Belarus, Antonia Kilian’s strong ”The Other Side of the River”, IDFA-winner ”Radiograph of a Family” by Iranian Firouzeh Khosrovani, Danish ”Flee” by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Swedish ”Arica” by Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén – and ”President” by Danish Camilla Nielsson, her second amazing film on politics in Zimbabwe. Not to forget ”The Last Shelter” by Ousmane Samassékou, winner at the CPH:DOX.

The audience in Bologna can not complain – they get the best of the best. 

https://www.biografilm.it/

Tatyana Soboleva: The Russian Way

”After twenty years abroad, Natalya comes back to Russia and tries to change the life in her native village by using Western experience, but the authorities don’t want that and the villagers fear them.”

This brief description is connected to the vimeo link sent to me by Tatyana Soboleva, whose film was premiered a couple of days ago in Moscow. A film that Soboleva has worked on for years with dedication and stubbornness

like her protagonist, who wants change as a true activist on a pretty difficult mission to say the least, in the village Norino. Going from door to door Natalya collects signatures in order to approach the authorities, personified in Detkin, who is briefly seen in the film at a gathering, where the wonderful fatherland Russia is song about and where Natalya is praised for her activities, leaving the meeting sad as she got no chance to address the audience. Together with her companion Mikhail, who later that day – a text is saying on the screen – on the order of Detkin – is arrested for not being long enough in Russia. Would have love that theme to be a bit more developed. 

But the activities… Natalya protests to the cutting down of the forest. She organises cleaning up of trash and garbage that visiting people have thrown in nature. With a few villagers helping. She wants the road going through the village to be paved. And she donates out of her own pocket a medical station.

She is not alone and the scenes from the meetings held in her beautiful wooden house are caught by the camera of Soboleva. Marina and Nikolay are with her as is Oksana, who is to take care of the medical station if I got it right. Marina is a powerful, charismatic character who comments on Natalya’s letter to Detkin and the authorities – “be short and concise”. She is also the one, who has taken care of the collect of money for getting a container to fill up with the garbage. Until a meeting where her husband says that his wife whould not collect and have the money with her. “She’s freaking out”. In the house at the meetings is also Mikhail, who has such a wonderful face sitting there saying nothing being the one driving Natalya around. Their relationship is close and warm – and as the film full of respect and an eye for situations that can illustrate how life is in a remote village, where the car with bread stops at nighttime to sell to the inhabitants.

It’s Natalya’s native village, she wants “to give back” but as an academic living abroad for decades, she does not really fit in any longer as Marina is saying in a scene – and her outsider position is strongly underlined by Tatayna Soboleva, who with her camera films Natalya, who is taking photos with her cellphone. Documenting life. Two observers, the director and the protagonist, depict, in a non-aggressive melancholic tone a piece of life in a place called Norino in Russia.

PS. It’s not easy to make films in Russia if you are a director like Tatyana Soboleva with a “documentary heart”. I was told by her: The film is supported by Current Time TV and if it is to be shown in Russia it has to be marked as “an organization performing the functions of a foreign agent”.!!!!!!