Rada (Sesic) on Rasa

Zeljko Mirkovic, Serbian documentary director-producer (his company is called Optimist Film) and occasionally a very good interviewer, has published a long conversation with Rada Sesic, a very well known documentary director and teacher and festival programmmer – and an expert in Indian cinema. The interview is to be found in its full length at the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) site, see below. Here is a small clip, where Rada talks about Rasa, a new angle on documentaries:

Mirkovic: Documentary has seriously entered the market and it’s represented best by a large number of subgenres (archive documentary, TV documentary, docudrama, etc.) One of these stands out in the market – a creative documentary. What are the defining elements of a creative documentary?

Sesic: It is difficult to say what a creative documentary is; perhaps it is better to say what it is not. It’s not television reportage, nor superficial coverage of an event, nor a historic account of a certain epoch, landscape, or a person. Every story is acceptable, but the author has to express their personal cinematic style, their personal visual approach, their thinking about a particular content they want to film. Ultimately, film is art and we expect art to touch us, shake us, make us think, ask questions, make us come back to it, change us as reflective beings. There is a text in Hindu Veda called Natya Veda which speaks about the role of art. It contains a tract on drama that can be applied to art in general. It says that every piece of art has to contain various Bhavas (feelings, moods) which will make a viewer experience Rasa (a state of mind), a complex experience of enjoyment (the experience may also be negative in the sense that you may experience fear, sorrow, anxiety). What is important is that Rasa works in such a way that a viewer mentally and spiritually absorbes the intensive experience of art.

www.optimisticfilm.com

http://web.docuinter.net/en/net_archive.php?id=831

Fritz Lang: Metropolis

The 60th Berlin International Film Festival starts today and goes on until the 21st of February. The European cultural channel arte celebrates by dedicating a whole evening to the showing of “la version longue inédite du chef-d’oeuvre de Fritz Lang, présentée en ciné-concert”. A 147 minute long version is brought to the viewers in a direct transmission from the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin. Here is the French intro to the film screening – but – just to be sure you remember –

You dont need French language skills to watch this silent movie masterpiece in the history of cinema:

Quatre-vingt-trois ans après sa première mondiale, le chef-d’oeuvre muet de Fritz Lang vient de renaître dans sa version d’origine que l’on croyait perdue à jamais. Restauré dans tout son éclat par la Fondation Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau, ce Metropolis est projeté ce soir en avant-première au Friedrichstadtpalast de Berlin, au cours d’un ciné-concert diffusé en direct par ARTE, avec une musique originale interprétée par l’Orchestre symphonique de la Radio de Berlin. Si l’intrigue du film reste la même dans cette version longue, vingt-cinq minutes de scènes inédites rendent l’histoire plus compréhensible, notamment, l’équipée en voiture de Georgy à travers la cité, la visite de Freder et du “Mince” chez Josaphat, des images hédonistes des jardins et de Yoshiwara, la scène où la jalousie de Joh Fredersen et Rotwang éclate au grand jour…

The film starts tomorrow night at 20.45 and is followed by a one hour documentary about ”Metropolis” and its many versions. Some statistics – the film had 310 shooting days, plus 60 nights, 36000 extras, 200000 costumes, 3500 pair of shoes, 500 skyscrapers with 70 floors…

http://www.arte.tv/fr/programmes/242,day=7,week=6,year=2010.html

Menstruation Film Travels

Some filmmakers are (also) born public relation stars. Diana Fabionova is one. First she presents her film as a first timer, then she starts to promote and pitch it, then she raises the funding… and makes the film ”The Moon inside You” that has menstruation as subject with the subtitle ”a secret kept too well”.

Go to the website below and see how many places this film has been shown and read here the newsletter text of today, authored by the production team about where it is going in the nearest future:

Dear Moonfriends and supporters, We are happy to share with you that “The Moon Inside You” was bought by Media Education Foundation and under the name “Red Moon: Menstruation, Culture & the Politics of Gender” will be able to reach millions of young people all around USA http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=240

After been sold out  in Brighton,  more screenings and festivals are ahead. 10th of February Melbourne, back in  Europe, it will warm up the Uteruses  in UK, London on  23.2. – 8.3. it will celebrate International Women’s day in Lindau cinema, Germany. 9-10.3 Chicago, USA for Sex positive series “Let’s talk about sex”. 12-20.3 South American premiere will be held in International  Film festival of Guadalajara, Mexico. 12-21.3 Women’s film festival in Vermont, USA. 13-20.4. Serbia, International Documentary Film Festival, Belgrade.  28.4- 2.5 Norway, Norwegian Documentary Film Festival. 28.4- 5.5 Zurich Lesbian and Gay film festival Pink Apple. 28.4-3.5  Poland and Czech Republic in Český Tešín and Polish Cieszyne. 28-29.6  Paris, France National French Doulas convention. We wish you a great premenstrual, menstrual or postmenstrual days, with love from Your M team… dvd’s are sold through  

http://www.mooninsideyou.com/

Katrin Ottarsdóttir: Sporene gror ud af ord

Filmen har Jóanes Nielsen som medvirkende og efter sigende hans nye bog Broer af sultne ord som emne og naturligvis Katrin Ottarsdóttirs afrunding af en stor trilogi om kunstnerisk arbejde som indhold. Titlerne antyder film om ufuldkommenhed, langsomhed og tilsynekomst. Vi får se. Det med at det skulle være portrætter, hopper man ikke uden videre på.

Filmene i trilogien er Ingen kan lave det perfekte, 2008, med Hans Pauli Olsen, En linje om dagen må være nok! 2008, med Tóruddur Poulsen (anmeldt her på siden, søg på “Katrin Ottarsdóttir”) og så nu Sporene gror ud af ord, 2009, med Jóanes Nielsen.  

Sporene gror ud af ord vises i København 18. februar 20:00 i Nordatlantens Brygge, Strandgade 91 og i Århus 20. februar i Øst for Paradis.

www.bluebirdfilm.dk 

Czech Them Out!

An addition to what I wrote below – in Danish – about the Czech films in Cinemateket in Copenhagen. The films also tour to other places in Denmark:

De tre fine dokumentarfilm “Citizen Havel”, “Czech Dream” og “René” (foto) bliver også vist i Odense og Århus. Læs om filmene på denne site og/eller på Café Biografens og Øst for Paradis hjemmesider.

http://www.docuinter.net/en/net_archive.php?id=830

Jussi to The Living Room of a Nation

It is not only abroad that the Finnish documentary masterpiece ”The Living Room of a Nation” by Jukka Kärkkäinen is being praised (search his name on this site and you will have reviews and report on the film), it is also appreciated in its own nation. The film received the national film prize as the best documentary a week ago. The prize is called Jussi, that have been distributed since 1944 to honour the best achievements within Finnish cinema. The Finnish film professionals association, Filmiaura, gives the awards.

Cinemateket

Special service for our Danish readers – about many fine documentaries to be watched at the Film House in Copenhagen at Cinemateket, run by the Danish Film Institute:

Der er meget at komme efter i Cinemateket i februar måned, hvis man er til dokumentar. 3 af de 8 film i en tjekkisk filmserie er dokumentarer, alle sammen fyldigt omtalt eller anmeldt med links på denne blog: det klassiske observerende mesterværk ”Citizen Havel” (foto) af Pavel Koutecky og Miroslav Janek, den banebrydende/underholdende/kritisk satiriske ”Czech Dream” af Vit Klusak og Filip Remunda, og Helena Trestikovas sociale ”René”. Høj kvalitet, som jeg så ofte har skrevet på denne plads: ”East Beats West”.

”Soy Cuba” er navnet på en anden serie i anledning af 50 året for den cubanske revolution, titlen taget efter russiske Mikhail Kalatozovs fremragende film fra 1964, gå ind og se den. Og så er der film og foredrag af og om Theodor Christensen – det er ikke mere end en måned siden jeg mødte en cubansk filminstruktør i Istanbul, som fik tårer i øjnene, da jeg nævnte den danske filmpioners navn. Hans betydning er stor for cubansk dokumentarisme og Cinemateket viser ”Ella” og inviterer til foredrag med Palle Bøgelund Petterson, som har været på ”en fascinerende research-rejse i Theodors fodspor igennnem Cuba”. Og så er der mulighed for vidunderlige (gen)syn af film af Gutiérrez Alea og legenden Santiago Alvarez og hans politiske pamfletter. Spilletider, se

www.cinemateket.dk

DOCSBarcelona

… is running until this sunday, February 7th. It includes an international film festival and a pitching forum, with a variety of masterclasses, award ceremonies and professional meetings. A meeting place for professionals and a generous offer of films to an audience. It is organised by Parallel 40 with local support as well as support from the EU MEDIA Programme and many others. I am proud to be part of the organising team. Below some impressions from a hectic week.

www.docsbarcelona.com

DOCSBarcelona Pitching Forum 1

24 projects were presented at the 13th Pitching Forum of DOCSBarcelona February 5-6. 15 broadcasters, film funders and distributors were around the table to comment  and eventually show interest in what was verbally and visually pitched. Most of the project pitchers had been trained at a workshop during two days before the Forum. The rules of the game: 7 minutes of presentation including a trailer and 7 minutes of questions and answers from the panel, that was supplemented by a so-called Row 0 of public funders and several Spanish local broadcasters and distributors. Not to forget a couple of hundreds of observers – producers and other professionals – who were there to create documentary partnerships, which in a period of cuts in budgets all over is more necessary than ever. It is not possible to raise all funding for your feature length documentary nationally any longer, you have to co-produce internationally. This situation was very much reflected in the fact that 243 projects were submitted for the Pitching Forum. A record in the history of DOCSBarcelona.

There are many international pitching sessions. With a different touch and emphasis. DOCSBarcelona is a public forum where others go for one-to-one organised sessions: producer meets broadcaster on an individual basis. For me the public pitching is the right format – is is sharing ideas, getting a sense of the market situation, networking. It is indeed hard for the pitchers, some call it a theatre, and of course it is not possible to tell everything in 7 minutes, but it is a unique chance to invite people to take part in your film project. And the pitching is followed by one-to-one meetings.

www.docsbarcelona.com