Lars von Trier in St. Petersburg

Yes, it is him on the small poster, that advertises a fine programme to be performed by The Danish Institute in St. Petersburg.

For four days a Film Festival Denmark will take place showing an excellent programme of films from the Danish National Film School. Including ”Nocturne” by von Trier from 1980. Other highlights are ”Little Man” by Peter Schønau Fog, ”The Last Round” of Thomas Vinterberg and ”Last Symphony of Woyzeck” by Nicolai Arcel. The festival opens January 21 and runs until January 24 incl. in the cinema centre Rodina. A meeting with Elizabeth Rosen from the film school will take place on the 20th at 5pm at the great venue of the Institute.

What lies at the feet of von Trier? Dead raven, sleeping cats…

www.miradox.ru

Shalva Shengeli: Unknown Soldiers

Recruit training in Georgia. From Recruit Gurchiani to Private Gurchiani. A symphathetic  young man from Upper Abkhazia is the main character in this documentary from Georgia. He is followed through some months in 2008 that leads up to the Russian-Georgian war in August the same year, in the Tskhinvali region. 186 Georgian soldiers died and 58 were injured according to the film. (The much higher civilian casualties on both sides are still not officially recognized, this is not in the film). And although the film ends with images from the graves of the fallen soldiers, thus the title, it has a different aim:

To show the tough recruit training, to let the soldier Gurchiani and a couple of sergeants talk about what they do, how it feels, and why they do it. There is an understandable patriotic atmosphere but although the soldiers-to-be have T-shirts with ”army” written on the front, the training can not compete with the one, we have seen in numerous documentaries of American origin, Frederick Wiseman’s ”Basic Training” to mention one.

It is clear that the director wants us to have good feelings about what we see, and for Gurchiani, and we do have, also softened by funny sequences about the young boys going on a leave for the first time after two months, sending hopeful gazes in the direction of young females. Brilliant observational camera work. Propaganda, yes, but ok for me.

Georgia, 61 mins., 2009

gemini@gemini.ge

Georgy Parajanov: I died in my Childhood

This is the second impressive documentary that I have seen ABOUT Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) (the first one by Vartanov is previously written about on this site), this time made by his nephew, who gave the film to me when we met in Istanbul. It is a generous introduction to the world of the director about whom, Andrei Tarkovsky said: Always with huge gratitude and pleasure I remember the films of S.P., which I love very much. His way of thinking, his paradoxical poetical ability to love the beauty and ability to be free within his own vision…

The film includes words from his letters, fragments from his last work ”Confession” and from the films ”Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, ”The Color of Pomegranates”, ”Surami Fortress Legend”, ”Ashik Kerib” and ”Arabesques about Pirosmani”. They are put together as a story told by the director himself about his life and work, including amazing footage of his collages and assemblages and small sculptures made in prison and while he was forbidden to work as a film director by the Soviet authorities.

Dvd’s of the Parajanov films are on sale from numerous internet sources, if you come to Yerevan, visit his museum, and on the site below much more is to be found on the master.

Russia, 2004, 52 mins.

www.parajanov.com

Dhondup Wangchen

Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen has been sentenced to six yearsʼ imprisonment. This is a press release from the site “Leaving Fear Behind” where clips from the film of the same title is to be found.

Zurich, 6. January 2010. Dhondup Wangchen, the Tibetan filmmaker who is currently in Chinese detention, has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment by the provincial court in Xining (capital of Qinghai province). His arrest in March 2008 came shortly after completion of filming for his documentary film «Leaving Fear Behind» in which Tibetans spoke out about their lives in Tibet.

The sentencing took place on 28 December 2009 but his relatives in Xining were neither informed about the trial nor the verdict. According to reliable information, Dhondup Wangchen will appeal the sentence but the appeal period will expire on Thursday, 7 January 2010. Furthermore, Dhondup Wangchen has no access to independent legal assistance. The lawyer originally hired by his family was barred from representing him by the Chinese government. His wife Lhamo Tso, who is together with her children on pilgrimage in Bodh Gaya/India, said today: «I appeal to the court in Xining to allow my husband to have a legal representative of his own choosing. My children and I feel desperate about the prospect of not being able to see him for so many years. We call on the Chinese authorities to show humanity by releasing him. My husband is not a criminal, he just tried to

show the truth.»

«The fact that my cousin Dhondup Wangchen has to enter the appeal process without legal assistance shows how human rights are trampled upon by the Chinese government in Tibet» said Gyaljong Tsetrin, co-producer of «Leaving Fear Behind», «I am also greatly concerned about Dhondup Wangchenʼs health as he has contracted Hepatitis B through the poor conditions and torture he has endured in prison and is not receiving medical treatment. I ask myself how he will survive in prison for six years.»

Dhondup Wangchen was born on 17 October 1974 in Bayen, Tsoshar area of Amdo in northeastern Tibet (Chin: Hualong, Haidong, Qinghai). He comes from a poor farming family without formal education. As a young man, he travelled to Lhasa and also to India. After his return to Tibet he was determined to document the true situation in his country and tell the outside world. Out of concern for his family, he escorted his wife and four children to India in 2006 before commencing filming the documentary. «Leaving Fear Behind» has been screened in over 30 countries around the world.

For further information

Gyaljong Tsetrin, +41 764 626 768 (Tibetan/Chinese)

Lhamo Tso +919817150217 (Tibetan)

Wangpo Tethong +41 78 744 30 10 (English/Tibetan)

http://www.rsf.org/Free-Dhondup-Wangchen.html

http://www.leavingfearbehind.com/

www.miradox.ru

Monique Mbeka Phoba: Between Cup and Elections

In two days the big football event Africa Cup of Nations 2010 will kick off. DR Congo did not qualify even if they were close to get there and do what they did in 1968, when they won the tournament, passing on to the World Cup 1974 in Germany as the first African team. Some of us, who are old enough, vaguely remember ”The Leopards”, the nick-name of the squad, who played 3 matches and lost them all, but displayed great technical skills and made a lot of headlines in the newspapers. Many of the players ended up playing in Europe, as today.

What happened to the players after their return to Zaire and their football enthusiastic president Mobuto? This is the quest of the two young student filmmakers in this film that is not at all a football nostalgic story, but rather a social one about players, who were treated like kings and then almost forgotten. A Rise and Fall narration.The two young filmmakers, male and female, were not born, when the Leopards performed and their lack of knowledge combined with a curiosity (and for the beautiful young girl a constant change of dresses) gives the film a fine, light tone of naïvity. They ask the surviving players, what happened to them, what they remember, if they felt badly treated by the leaders of the country. How the matches were ”organised”. Clips (not many, however) from the matches are shown and the title reference to elections come from that fact that one of the players is a candidate and wants to enter the parliament to do something for the foootball players.

In other words, this is a fine piece of social African football history and I could easily see this film on European public tv channels as a prologue to the World Cup this summer in South Africa.

2009, Congo, Belgium, Benin, 56 mins. (Original title: ”Entre le Coup et l’èlection”).

Shown at DOKLeipzig 2009.

http://www.cinergie.be/film.php?action=display&id=1518

http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/

(interviews with the director)

Alina Rudnitskaya

At the DoxPro workshop in November 09 in St. Petersburg I met many talented Russian documentary directors, who deserve more attention from Western European broadcasters and festivals. I took several dvd’s back home to watch and comment, and I still have a pile on my desk. I can not write about them all on this site but I would like to share my enthusiasm with you for the films of Alina Rudnitskaya, whose ”Civil Status” was reviewed last year in September in connection with the Baltic Sea Forum in Riga.

Today I saw three other short films directed by the director from St. Petersburg, all three proving her extraordinary sense for situations and for the so called magic moments that no director can mise-en-scène. You can see that Rudnitskaya has the confidence of her characters, who are offering her film emotionally vulnerable moments and she is able to deal with sadness in a way that you don’t feel embarrassed being that close. Humour is very much present in all three short documentaries.

In ”Communal Residence” about the kommunalka (shared appartment) a poor real estate agent meets people, who do not want to move out. In ”Besame Mucho” (Photo) women in a choir dream themselves away from their tough life in a poor, flooded village. By singing and having warmth and solidarity towards each other. Finally it is tragicomical to be with the young women at the ”Bitch Academy” where they learn how to find a man! The camera reports what happens in the room between the male teacher and the women, and between the women themselves. But suddenly the reporting stops and to the film is added layers of existentiial insecurity and despair. The three short films  also demonstrate the emotional density in film language you can achieve with several characters in ONE place without playing according to the mantras of ”development of (few) strong characters” and ”strong story” that glues to the one-hour tv format.

Communal Residence, 2002, 13 mins – Besame Mucho, 2006, 26 mins. – Bitch Academy, 2008, 29 mins.

alinaru@list.ru

http://cinedoc.ru/?division=part&id=38⟨=3

Salome Jashi: The Leader is Always Right

The title of the film indicates where the director stands. As does the building of this observational documentary from one of the patriotic youth camps in Georgia. With a fine eye for details young director Salome Jashi (previously written about on this blog) follows the 10 days of leadership education for Georgian teenagers, who do in the beginning of the film act like all summer camping teenagers do. They are having problems with all the rules and the discipline, they would rather just have fun, it seems. But slowly what at first sight seemed to be a harmless Western-like scout camp turns into a pure propaganda machine where patriotic slogans are taught to make the youngsters proud of their country, their language, their culture, and dislike others: ”Glory to our Country”, ”Kick the Russians Out”, ”the Future is Ours”…

The director has chosen to follow the development of some fine characters. The leader of a squad, pretty relaxed, baggy trousers and a potbelly but constantly trying to make the young ones understand that lack of discipline will be punished. The very young boy, who is not at all happy being at the camp, and wants to go home, but is persuaded by the woman leader of the camp (quite a scary manipulator) to ”sacrifice one more day for me”. And the leader-to-be who takes everything according to what he is told. With a big smile. A scene at the end of the film gives you the creeps. A theatre play is performed that relates to (the province) Abkhazia as a person, who has suffered all atrocities but will overcome. It reminds you of propaganda scenes from the USSR that Georgia broke away from!

A text before the end credits roll informs you that 100.000 youngsters have visited the camps that were initiated by the president Sakhasvili in 2005. The film is to be shown on Georgian tv this coming friday. Hopefully it will create a big necessary debate about a country that does not need to repeat what totalitarian states have done and do. The high quality film of Salome Jashi deserves to be treated like that in and outside Georgia.

Georgia, 2009, 45 mins. Produced with the support of Goethe Institute Tbilisi.

http://www.president.gov.ge/?l=E&m=0&sm=1&st=740&id=89

Lida/Miso Suchy:Pictograph.Portrait of a Village

I got this dvd by Slovak Marek Sulik, the editor of the two original documentaries by Peter Kerekes, ”66 Seasons” and ”Cooking History”. Sulik has obviously enjoyed this new job of making the impressive b/w photos of Lida Suchy into a film under the direction of Misho Suchy. Accompanied by some well chosen sound bites, including a song and an old man’s reflection on getting nearer to death, the film communicates the calmness of Kryvorivuya in the Carphatian Mountains of Ukraine from where the family of Lida Suchy comes, and where she stayed for a year to study and catch Life and People with her camera. She gives this information in the additional series of photographs on the dvd in which she also tells about the old woman, who insisted on having her photos taken wearing a replica of the clothes she wore, when she was imprisoned in a Stalinist camp. A wedding, a funeral, kids swimming, living rooms, sheep-shearing, landscapes – and fine colour drawings by one of the villagers. A pleasure to watch.

Slovakia, 21 mins., 2008

+ photography series with written text by Lida Suchy

Distribution: msuchy@syr.edu

Vod: http://docalliancefilms.com/film/2169/?query=pictograph

Cayan Demirel: Prison Nr. 5 1980-84

The director of the banned film ”38” (see below) touches upon another black spot in newer Turkish history with this enormously touching documentation of the horrible atrocities that took place in the Diyarbakir prison in the military coup period 1980-84. In this case he constructs his story by letting witnesses tell what they experienced as inmates who were subject to torture and all kind of humiliations. Men and women. Kurdish people but also socialists oppposed to the regime. It is actually talking faces from beginning till end, with time-for-reflection nature images and elegic music, or tableaux of shadows of prisoners on a wall or drawings made by one of the survivors. Some lawyers comment as well on the absurd prosecutions, and again pathos is the word to characterize the director’s ambition to document and interpret the emotions of the witnesses, and honour the many who were killed due to the torture, or by own hands through death fasts or burning. Let me end this strong recommendation of a film document by quoting one of the survivors (via the English subtitles):

”I was asked… did you like our guest house? At that moment you might think to say, ”yes it was great, Sir! Thank you!” And then just go away. However your honour doesn’t let you do that. I said: We were brought up in this country, we studied in this country. Before I came to this prison I was saying my country, but I could not ever think that I would live such horror in my own country. You are calling this ”a guest house”, you put us through such horrible situations that even animals should not be put in! Forget you identity, you destroyed our personalities… I have become an enemy to this state as I am leaving this place now.”

Many (this is not in the film) think that what happened in the Diyarbakır prison in 1980-84 gave the fundament to PKK. The government plans to close the prison, many think it should be kept as a museum. The torturers and their superiors have not been prosecuted. 

Turkey, 2009, 97 mins.

Cayan Demirel: 38

The old man asks for the camera to be turned off. He has a lot to say but he is worried. No broadcasting, he almost shouts loudly… no broadcasting, the voice behind the camera assures him, but turn it off, the old man repeats. Faces of old women, who say nothing, pass by, also in the beginning of this film which is banned in Turkey, will never be shown on the state controlled television but circulates through other channels. The topic of the film, says one of the interviewed historians, ”can be characterized as a genocide. But neither the Kurds living in Dersim, the Alevi Kurds, nor the written press, nor even the universities in Turkey, are conscious of the issue”. In 2008 this tabooed topic was raised at a conference in the European Parliament together with the Armenian genocide performed by Turkey.

The Turkification, by Atatürk and his government called the civilisation programme, of the Dersim (today renamed Turceli) province took place through force, deportations and massacres of rebels under the leadership of Seyit Riza. His story (and heroic death) is part of what is being told in this elegy that is built up around interviews with historians and sociologists combined with a few survivors, who are able to tell what they experienced themselves or convey what was told them by relatives. The film is extremely wordy with documents being shown on the screen, at the same time as the director through music and editing appeal to the audience’s emotions. As pretty ignorant in Turkish modern history, and as you have to read subtitles all the time, you do sense the information bombardment as too much, at the same time as you can only admire the courage of the film team and hope they reach a substantial national audience.

Turkey, 2006, 67 mins.