MOMA in New York needs no further introduction as the museum of modern art. Less known – at least in Europe – is it that this museum, often much more precise and professional than festivals all over, put together interesting film series for its huge audience. This time it is about “Lithuanian Cinema: 1990–2009” from December 4, 2009–December 13, 2009. Here is the fine intro text from the site of MOMA:

This is the first U.S. survey to explore the last twenty years of fiction and nonfiction feature and short films from Lithuania. Since the Baltic republic declared its independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Lithuanian filmmakers, unconstrained by ideology and despite limited infrastructure, have made a number of distinguished works exploring themes of identity—both personal and national—in original, passionate, and provocative ways. Some Lithuanian filmmakers have earned international reputations, including Sarunas Bartas; Arunas Matelis, who was awarded the Directors Guild of America Best Documentary Filmmaker award in 2007 for Before Flying Back to Earth; and Jonas Mekas, whose creative and organizational activity in the U.S. has been essential to American independent filmmaking. Other filmmakers like Raimundas Banionis and the team of Romas Lileikis and Stasys Motiejunas, whose films appeared early in the “liberation” of Lithuanian cinema, deserve to be better known abroad—as do Kristina Buozyte (The Collectress) and Gytis Luksas (Vortex), both of whom are enjoying their American premieres. All films are from Lithuania and in Lithuanian with English subtitles.

Readers of this site will know that Lithuanian documentaries very often have been noted or reviewed – these are the documentaries selected by MOMA:
The shorter ones are ”Ten Minutes Before the Flight of Icarus” (Arunas Matelis, 1991), ”Earth of the Blind” (Audrius Stonys, 1992), ”Spring” (Valdas Navasaitis, 1997), ”Grandpa and Grandma” (Giedre Beinoriute, 2007), and the longer ones ”Before the Flight Back to the Earth” (Arunas Matelis, 2005) and ”Man-Horse” (Audrius Mickevicius, 2008).

The small photo is from “Man-Horse”. The director wrote to me these lines: “Next wednesday I will fly to NY. I am happy for my neighbour Jonas. The longest trip in his life was about 100 km, now his images will be more far away.”

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1020

From the press release of idfa, impressive numbers, yes, the interest in documentaries is huge, bravo: Although the festival runs until Sunday, we can already cautiously say that the festival has once more received more visitors than last year… If the trend continues, the number of visitors will increase from 157,500 in 2008 to 165,000. Net income rose from € 700,000 in 2008 to € 750,000 this year. The number of (inter)national guests remained approximately on a par with 2008, at 2,295. IDFA’s online activities were better visited this year than ever. Since January 2009, the website has attracted some 600,000 visitors, from 210 different countries. The trailers, full films and festival reports on the documentary channel IDFA TV were viewed during the festival a total of almost 6,000 times a day (4,000 in 2008).

The VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (consisting of a sculpture and € 12,500) went to Lixin Fan for “Last Train Home”, about the heroic journey undertaken by countless Chinese workers each year from the new industrial areas to their families in the provinces. The jury stated that this is a striking, honest film about a topic that is of relevance to the entire world.

www.idfa.nl

There you go, a real camera stylo personal essay film with an original, personal style. I was completely taken in by the beauty of the film, “The Edge of Dreaming”, of Scottish filmmaker Amy Hardie. It touched me, made me reflect on my own life, my family life, my growing up, at the same time as the intensity of storytelling makes you stay in an atmosphere of listening and watching and reflecting. For me this is what a good documentary can be with many layers, a mature commentary, about Life and Death, and told in numerous stylistical lines. You can´t help fall in love with the family of Amy Hardie. They live in (Scottish) nature surroundings that a camera can only adore. And you can´t help admire the manner Hardie, using rough home video material, goes visually elegantly back in time and forward again. We get her story about her first husband, who died years ago, but who comes back to her in a dream to ”announce” that she will die when she is 48 years of age. There are dream sequences, and there are stunning images that make me think of classic Dutch paintings. It is all mixed brilliantly and without any predictability. I better stop my praise and give you the prose of the producers from the idfa catalogue:

This is the story of a rational, sceptical woman, a mother and wife, who does not remember her dreams. Except once, when she dreamt her horse was dying. She woke so scared she went outside in the night. She found him dead. The next dream told her she would die herself, when she was 48. The film explores life, dreams and death in the context of a warm, loving family whose happiness is increasingly threatened as the dream seems to be proving true. The final confrontation, returning inside the dream with a shaman, reveals a surprising twist to the tale.

Scotland, 2009, 73 mins. – and (bravo) with the support of ZDF/arte, More4 and VPRO plus of course Scottish Screen.

www.idfa.nl

I saw two films supported by the Jan Vrijman Fund. ”For Home Viewing” by Mikhail Zheleznikov is a half hour, wonderfully controlled, cinematically original and funny first person story by the director, who tells about his view from his home window, in the house in St. Petersburg where he grew up, in the USSR, and now under totally different conditions. Also with humour is the film ”The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia” by Inna Sahakyan that introduces two old masters of an art form that is disappearing. They tell what was once, and they say what they hope to happen – that at least one of their students will take over. A warm film that takes us to a place and a culture that we did not know anything about.

www.idfa.nl

Second day of the Forum, better atmosphere, better projects in general and a proof that the pitching sessions in a smaller room with around 10 broadcasters and film funders around the table, that this extra-to-the-big-room-format work well and can give a good dialogue. At least for an observer like me, but maybe not for the filmmakers presenting their project who hear positive remarks and ”let’s talk more” followed by a one-to-one meeting where the editors are more outspoken and often say ”I don’t have a slot for this”.

I am afraid that this was the case for Hungarian director Guyla Nemes, a Filmmaker, who has won prizes for his cinematic works, but this time had a topic that could fit for television (”recycling”/”how do we deal with our garage”) but presented visual material that is far from what most television channels go for today.

More focused on the market is another Eastern European film project, presented by Tomas Kudrna from Czech Republic. ”All that Glitters”, on a rough cut stage, filmed in Kyrgyzstan, the story about a small village and its inhabitants, whose lives will be completely changed by the presence of a gold mine company run by the Canadians.

In the big room I attended the strong presentations by two Nordic companies. Finnish John Hakalax and his film about legendary ski jumper Matti Nykänen, ”by his own Words” was a winner through a powerful humourous trailer that teased everyone  – followed by Swedish/Armenian Suzanne Khardalian’s ”Grandma´s Tattoos”, very touching: ”my gradmother was raped in front of the eyes of her sister”. Knowing what Khardalian and her producer PeÅ Holmquist have done together, including ”Her Armenian Prince” (PHOTO), I can only say that this will be a fine film.

www.idfa.nl

And there you are again at the world’s biggest documentary festival! You carry your festival bag to the hotel – film catalogue, catalogue for the project Forum, a so-called industry guide with photos of broadcasters and film funders, market catalogue, invitations to parties and receptions. And your badge, not to forget, that gives you access to the crowded cinemas. Idfa IS a fest, an hommage to the documentary and the mere fact that thousands of people want to go and watch documentaries and discuss them, and learn about the world that we live in, well it pleases one, who can remember when festivals were exclusive gatherings for the happy few.

On the other hand you can not help feel a bit tired when you again enter the Forum that performs its 17th edition this year. The meeting itself is important, it is amazing to see so many producers, directors and decision makers gathered in the same room – but there is a déjà vue fatigue in the room and far too much a ”homey” atmosphere around the table with meaningless sentences expressed by the broadcasters like ”he/she is a great filmmaker” instead of trying to characterize what  kind of filmmaker he/she is, or why precisely this film could be important for them. Some editors like Iikka Vehkalahti from YLE try to cheer the whole thing up, and its was also the Finnish director Pekka Lehto that brought the most promising project to the table, about Alpo Rusi, accused of being a spy for GDR, another cold war story, well presented and at a rough cut stage. More unclear at this moment, but presented by a real storyteller, South African director Dumisani Phakathi, was his project ”To Marry My Mother”, that will tell the story about an unsettled family business: His grandfather wants Dumisani to pay the outstanding dowry that his father never paid to the grandfather when he married the mother. “If I have a problem I make a film”, the director said.

www.idfa.nl

This prestigious festival that honours the art of cinematography introduces now – in its 18th edition – a competition for documentaries, feature and short. 12 films are nominated in the feature category, among them several that have been reviewed or mentioned on this site: ”Another Planet” (camera: Tibor Máthé), ”Blind Loves” (PHOTO) (Camera: Juraj Chplik), ”Burma vj” (Camera: Simon Plum) and ”Réné” (Camera: Helena Trestikova). In the short film category you find ”Rabbit à lá Berlin” (Camera: Piotr Rosolowski). The festival takes place in Lodz, Poland 28.11-5.12.

http://www.pluscamerimage.pl/