Football Films in South Africa

“The idea was developed by Don Edkins, a renowned film producer, who’s involved with different social projects through Steps for the Future and Day Zero Films. Basically, we want to create awareness and a hype within different communities in South Africa that are not reached during the promotion of the World Cup. We’re going to go into rural communities and set up screenings of interesting documentaries from around the world with a football theme.” Said by Hisham Samie, a filmmaker from Cape Town.

The screenings will be for free and will help people  learn about stories, events and football players from other parts of the world in the build-up to the World Cup.

This blogger is proud to have been part of the research team for films together with Danish Mikael Opstrup, Dutch Marijke Rawie and Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti.

http://www.rnw.nl/africa/article/sarah-goes-soccer-travelling-cinemas

Dox Box Damascus 12

Summing up this morning in the lobby of the Fardoss Tower Hotel before colleague Mikael Opstrup and I return home from a Syrian capital, warm as an extraordinary Danish summer would be.

Summing up after a breakfast chat with Omar Amarilay, the most important Syrian documentary maker, who has made 18 films, shown all over the world – only two of them showable in Syria! A viewing commitee watches all films to be shown in the country in order to eventually grant allowance for public screening. A nice gentleman, a censor, from the Ministry of Culture told us yesterday about the procedure and the list of points to be considered for the committee. With a smile he added that he had seen 120 hours of films presented by the Dox Box organisers! Who off the record praises their censor, a man with love to cinema, who is doing his best to help films pass… Amarilay, on the other hand, was not so optimistic with the way the country is going politically and did not see a bettering of the conditions for arts and culture, at the same time as he expressed his admiration for the work done by the organisers of Dox Box, Diana El Jeiroudi and Orwa Nyrabia from ProAction Film. (Photo from “Dolls” produced by the company)

As outsiders who have followed the development of the festival from its beginning, we can only join the salute and say Bravo. What is being done with a high quality international festival programme, that appeals to an audience (they estimate 16.000 spectators this year), with a presentation of new Arab documentaries, with an ambitious Campus for Syrian and Arab wannabee-filmmakers, with the setting up of a distribution catalogue of films about women to be launched in the Arab world, with the publishing of texts, academic or popular, on documentaries… is an exemplary pioneer work, the best I have seen since the establishment of the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) in Prague a decade ago. A film political and cultural effort that deserves all the support it can get from official European sources as well as from the international documentary community. The festival closes on the 11th of March. And by the way, Proaction Film also produces films and offers subtitling services.

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

Dox Box Damascus 11

Saw two films – one about older people, one about children. One with Bari in Italy as location, one taking place in a quarter in Damascus. ”Housing” by Federica di Giacomo is a film about people, who – as said on the site of the production company – “become prisoners in their home” while waiting to be resettled in a new home. They have fear of being attacked by squatters, they complain about the neighbours – and many totally absurd situations come out of these situations. A woman adores her mayor – and hates Berlusconi – and complains about the neighbour moving her furniture around. Another has a dressed-up kind of scarecrow named Rocco sitting in an armchair in order to make outsiders (thieves, squatters) believe that someone is at home…. And several other non-mainstream characters are described with warmth and empathy, allowing you to have a laugh at the same time as you are watching social outsiders in trouble.

Nidal Debs, awarded Syrian feature film director, educated at VGIK in Moscow, presented his first documentary “Black Stone” (PHOTO), that is a shocking look at a group of children who collect scrap metals to earn a little money – and support their families. The children have a wonderful energy even if they have been subject to abuse and violence in their families. The film suffers from weak cinematographical quality and shaky editing. Too many words, simply, not time for breathing, emotions and reflection. But as a document second-to-none about a Syrian reality of today.

Italy, 90 mins, 2009

Syria, 63 mins, 2006

http://www.bbfilm.tv/eng/?p=386

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

Dox Box Damascus 10

I was surprised when I saw that ”The Moon Inside You” by Diana Fabianova, a film and a director that has been written about several times on this blog, was selected for the Dox Box Festival here in Damascus. Surprised because I did not think that a film on menstruation would pass the censorship in Syria. It did luckily and the organisers proudly announced that the film had a full house, 500 people, and a very positive reaction. In connection with the admirable project of the organisers of the festival, to build a documentary culture in the country, the ambition is also to create a distribution initiative, a catalogue of women’s films, and ”The Moon Inside You” is of course on that list.

http://www.mooninsideyou.com

Dox Box Campus 8

Nagi Esmail from Egypt made a 9 mins. long city film during a workshop in Cairo, the title is ”171”, which refers to the steps you take from the train platform in the metropole until you are in the street. Shot in one day and edited in 3 hours, the film by the 2006 graduate from the film school in Egypt shows clearly a young filmmaker with a talent for visualising. Lina Alhafez from Syria has made a film about the Syrian band ”Kilna Sawa”, which is 42 minutes long. The film includes the dialogue between 5 of the band members and some of their supporters, created in the edit as all words come from the people sitting in or driving in a car. The story about the band that is hugely popular for transforming old songs into new interpretations, is a fine graduation work, has a fast pace, mixed with archive from their performances that are amazing to watch. They – the band members – look back on their carreer, comment on many emotional moments and stress that crticism is present in all they do. Léa Bendaly from Lebanon lives in El-Mina, north of Beirut. She has made a nice wordless film hymn to the city accompanied by music of Ludwig van Beethoven. Bendaly, as Esmail and Alhafez, took part in the Dox Box Campus that ended monday with a presentation of six film projects. Bendaly has the ambition to make ”Good Bye El-Mani”, her visit to the places and people, she remembers from her childhood and youth.

Still: Sonia Bitar from Kilna Sawa

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

Pribyl: Forgotten Transports – Poland

A film that has been reviewed and noticed several times on this site, has finally got the national recognition it deserves. Here is the posting from the IDF site – se address below:

On Saturday, March 6, Forgotten Transports to Poland by Lukáš Přibyl was announced best documentary film at the 2009 Czech Lion Awards. The film is included in Přibyl’s four-part documentary series that was released on DVD in mid-January.

Breaking down our notions about “Holocaust documentaries”, the film focuses on humanidentity and its changes. It deals with choices, people, escaping Nazi ghettos, laborand death camps in the Lublin region of Poland, had to make in order to adapt and survive in utter extremity, on the run, in hiding – with a great deal of ingenuity,much humor and tremendous optimism. This documentary tribute to the human spiritis completely devoid of commentary, contemporary and make-believe footage and employs only impeccably researched time-and-place precise materials and fascinatingwords of the witnesses. From playing a deaf-mute fool, armed resistance to a touchingtale of forbidden love, the handful of witnesses share their past, for the first time. This documentary offers a surprising picture of survival “as we don’t know it”.

A clip from the film can be watched on the site below.

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

Dox Box Damascus 7

Patricio Guzman in Damascus. The great director behind the film historical classic ”The Battle of Chile” from the beginning of the 1970’es met the audience of young wannabee filmmakers and older people, who remember the dramatic period where the government of Salvador Allende and ”la pouvoir populaire”, as the French speaking director put it, tried to unite the Left and introduce democracy in Chile. We all know how that went. A quote from the site of Guzman:

In 1973 he films “The Battle of Chile”, a 5-hour documentary on the end of Allende’s government. After the military coup, Guzmán is threatened to be executed and spends two weeks arrested inside the national stadium, unable to communicate his whereabouts to anyone. He leaves the country in November 1973. He lives in Cuba, Spain and then France, where he makes “In the Name of God” (Grand Prize, Festival of Popoli, 1987), “The Southern Cross” (Grand Prize, Festival Vue Sur les Docs, Marseille, 1992), “Chile, Obstinate Memory” (Grand Prize Festival of Tel Aviv, 1999), “The Pinochet Case” (International Critic’s Week, Cannes, 2002), and “Salvador Allende” (Official Selection, Cannes, 2004). In 2005, he makes “My Jules Verne”.

About ”The Battle of Chile” Guzman said that it is a film on words. It is a film on the quality of the politics of the people from the base – the working class. The five hour long film had an editing time of three years. Cuban film people came to watch at the edting room and said that they had never seen such a high political culture. The films deals with the period from 1970 and to the military coup and is about ”le pouvoir populaire”. Guzman referred to the East german political filmmakers, who were filming in Chile at the time, Heynowski & Scheumann, and told that their cameraman filmed the bombing of the presidential palace, whereas Pedro Chaskel, the editor of Guzman, filmed the flight over the palace. The two teams exchanged footage… for buying dvd’s of the films, consult the site of Guzman.

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

http://www.patricioguzman.com/index.php?lng=en

Dox Box Damascus 6

This is one of the highlights of Dox Box 2010, Orwa Nyrabia said as a proud and enthusiastic introduction to the masterclass with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, moderated by idfa director Ally Derks. And it turned out to be a very pleasant couple of hours with the renowned filmmakers who made film history together with other big names like Albert Maysles, Richard Leacock and Robert Drew, the Direct Cinema/Cinéma Vérité directors. At the festival, among others, the Bob Dylan film ”Don’t Look Back” was shown and the young filmmakers had a lot of questions to that film and especially to the method connected to the filmmaking style.

The best way to reflect what was said during the masterclass is to quote Pennebaker and Hegedus for many wonderful sentences that may inspire our readers, Hegedus being the analytical and Pennebaker the one full of stories, loving the anecdote, both of them being very generous and warm in their approach to the audience:

Am I a master, ”No I was not the first person to put my foot on the beach”. Subject, how do you find them, ”We don’t, they find us, we are very depending on our friends to give us hints, people come to us”. Story?, ”You don’t know what is going to happen when we start”. Hegedus and Pennebaker is a couple privately: ”We get divorced four or five times during a film”. Where does the inspiration come from, ”Creative energy can’t be stored!”. ”A documentary is like the stories you heard as a child, once upon a time…”. Film crew?: ”The smaller the better”. Agreements? ”We go for a handshake agreement”. A fly on the wall? ”No, I can not take an invisible pill… I watch, I am like a cat, you can not see what I think”. ”The money always comes”. ”I don’t feel like a director”. Observation, Objectivity? ”No, how can one’s person’s observation be all people’s observation?”. ”We are following the action, and is very often led by the sound”. ”You are like a detective, because you don’t know what happens”. ”Style is driven by technology”. ”You are filming for an audience”. ”Look for accuracy”.

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

http://www.phfilms.com/

Dox Box Damascus 5

We have heard it for so many years, and we have seen films, fiction or documentary, that informs about or interprets the life in GDR (German Democratic Republic). But they – the Syrian young filmmakers-to-be – had not. That was very obvious from the reactions and questions at the campus of the Dox Box Festival. The local Goethe Institute had invited the GDR photographer Dieter Riemann to make an exhibition of his photos, which is running until March 25 here in Damascus, and the organisers of the festival took advantage and had Riemann come talk about his life as a photographer in a closed society where artists were not allowed to travel and where Stasi was strongly present.

Riemann told that he always worked with a conceptual format. He took photographs for book publishing, walls, windows, mentally ill people, old people etc. The basis was always humanistic, critical and trying to be as honest as possible. ”Socialdokumentarisch”, he called it. Inspiration: the Magnum photographers, Cartier-Bresson, Edward Steichen.

www.ddr-fotografie-riemann.de

On the way back to the hotel I talked with my co-tutor, the cameraman Peter Badel, who also worked in the GDR, very much with Thomas Heise (”Material”, see below, PHOTO), and we remembered great names like Sibylle and Hannes Schönemann, who were imprisoned for their critical documentaries.

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

Czech Site Moves

The excellent website of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) has moved to a new address with a new layout (black on white) and as usual loads of information to get on Eastern European documentary matters in particular and world documentary matters in general. And with a click you can watch the editor’s choice of an actual important film. This is of course ”Rabbit a la Berlin” (PHOTO) right now, the day before the Oscar is distributed in the category in which it is nominated.

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