The Whanganui River in New Zealand is the first river in the world to be given the legal status of a person, a living and indivisible being. This happened in 2017 and confirmed the belief and philosophy of the Maoris who perceive nature as their ancestor, believing that it is our duty to take care of it while we are on Earth, and that further care is taken over by our descendants. It is inadmissible to treat nature as private property, nor to exploit it for gaining profit.

This film, which celebrates the Whanganui River and affirms its status, is shaped as a travelogue in which, a group of river guests sail canoes on a five-day indulgence in the pleasure of being carried by its currents and residing on its banks led by the river’s keeper, a Maori community leader. The film introduces us to the almost hypnotic water flows on which the canoes slide and the passengers, amazed by this adventure, sail in them. The camera reveals the beauty of wooded shores, of creatures from land and water, who move together with film heroes through the paradise preserved here. We enjoy the symphony of nature’s sounds, as well as the gathering of devotees who will be able to express their thoughts and wishes under the auspices of the great and powerful Wanganui, to talk about their dreams of preserving nature as an invaluable treasure of our planet.

We also get to know the spiritual being of the Maori people through the music of composer Puoro Jerome, a two-time winner of the Grammy Award, an artist who has given concerts all over the world from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House, known for performing his compositions on traditional Maori instruments. On the banks of the Whanganui River, we also see him, surrendering to the nature that surrounds him, playing while composing the music for this film.

Fifteen years dedicated to the topics of human rights, and now to the rights of nature, producer Corinne van Egeraat and director Petr Lom, lead us to the end of the world with a film that they believe has the power to change us, “to expand our hearts and inspire us to embody our better selves.”

Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand 2023. 
89 minutes 

Claudia Tosi shared her brilliant, engaging film “I Had a Dream” with the viewers of Magnificent Seven 2019, but at the same time she herself was inspired by the great Hedy Honigman’s film “Buddy”. So, from this festival she brought a new dream to Italy, a dream about an unusual journey, about discovering the ways to reach someone you love and who loves you unconditionally.

This is an unusual and unexpected story about the friendship between a golden retriever named Beau and his human friend Claudia. Claudia wonders if the tacitly acknowledged fact that a dog has to adapt to a human it lives with is actually an unfair misconception. She decides to ask herself questions – who is my dog, what does he want, what is his nature? In a moment of concern for Beau’s life, Claudia decides to do everything in her power to learn how to communicate better with him and how to understand his character, his personality and his needs. Together, they embark on a journey to achieve this goal through a series of different adventures – scientific experiments, various experiences in nature, meeting with dog trainers and practicing exciting “dog sports”. The extremely intertwined flows of the film gradually build an intense feeling of empathy with the main character. Through this unusual, uncertain, revealing process, with the camera as an accomplice to the events, Claudia gets to know Beau more and more, leading both herself and us viewers to more complex questions about the place of man in the animal world and the importance of replacing the desire to dominate with the need for understanding. Claudia Tosi, the author of the film, testifies about her experience as the protagonist – she reveals that our pets give us the ability to rediscover the child in us, perhaps the best and most harmless part of our nature.

A magnificently playful modern documentary introduces us to a game in which, the more we enjoy and have fun, the more we discover surprisingly deep and ennobling knowledge about the world and ourselves. 

Italy, Germany 2024 
83 minutes 

A great work that was premiered at just ended festival in Sarajevo, where it had the honor to open the main competition programme for documentary films and where it was awarded with a special award for its exceptional values that highlight its most important dimension – fight for more humane world!

Intelligent, educated and empathetic people realized a long time ago that the wealth of the world is also in the existence of all beings that surround us. Many care about endangered pandas, Siberian tigers, and griffon vultures in our country. Foundations, states and governments readily participate in this care for all our small and large companions who cannot cope with the world that is becoming more and more cruel. But when it comes to people who cannot do the same as the majority, who are denied the ability to move and speak normally, and above all to live independently, they remain invisible to many. Unfortunately, also for some states and governments whose basic obligation is to take care of every citizen, especially the vulnerable. There is some concern when it comes to children, but when the children grow up, and those who take care of them are getting older and weaker, when help is needed the most, those who make decisions seems that they do not see that there are problems. This incredibly dramatic and exciting film tells about those often invisible wonderful people, who, surprisingly, still bring joy and warmth, about their most selfless protectors and representatives and the collision with the Kafkaesque state system of recklessness and absurdity. With the greatest respect and sincerity, we follow the touching and difficult everyday life, with immense admiration for the noble and dedicated advocates, mothers with stoic character and great human capacity for love and sacrifice, following the example of charismatic ancient heroines.

A film that takes us through numerous trials, enriches us and fills us with the power of love and spirit!

Hungary, Sweden 2024
72 minutes

This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, the Magnificent7 festival directors. The film will be screened tonight at MTS in Belgrade. If you also want to read my review of the film, click here https://filmkommentaren.dk/sissel-morell-dargis-balomania-anmeldelse/.

Brazil, favela labyrinths filled with secrets, huge paintings floating in the night sky! An intimate story and a personal fascination grow into a search and at the same time into a stunning defense and praise of an unrecognized art. This exciting, brilliant film became a global hit in a flash and amazed countless world festivals after its world premiere in Copenhagen.

A Danish girl enters favelas of São Paulo to discover real people behind the well-known legend of secret brotherhoods of persecuted and elusive urban heroes – the baloeiros! The film was shot for more than a decade, and the young Danish director undertook an uncertain and lengthy search to reach her protagonists and to gain their trust in the conditions of constant police threats and persecution. From the poor districts of the big Brazilian cities secretly, in specially organized expeditions, large, mysterious packages are taken to the nearby forests, to the hills and before our eyes they turn into huge floating objects lit by the flickering light of the fire, then in an instant they rise into the sky, leaving us breathless. Huge dream-like balloons sail across the vast expanse of the sky, testifying to everyone that baloeiros exist, that once again they defeated repression and the system! Completely mesmerized, without taking their eyes off the sky, another group of devotees chases balloons for kilometers – they are enthusiastic admirers, balloon hunters, who accept their prey as the greatest treasure far from the place where they took off. Many of them are dreaming of becoming baloeiros themselves. The Danish author, thanks to her dedication and openness to understand this phenomenon, allows us to witness an unusual rebellion. Ballons painted in the manner of a naive artistic expression carry icons of popular culture imbued with ancient tradition. They convey messages of the spirit of freedom and beauty of the oppressed souls, trapped by misery, bringing them joy and filling them with pride!

A magnificent cinematic adventure!

Denmark, Spain 2024. 
93 minutes 

This text is written by Magnificent7 Festival founders and organizers Svetlana and Zoran Popovic introducing the opening film of the 20th edition of the festival:

A masterfully created documentary that in one fell swoop won over audiences at festivals in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. From Sundance to Copenhagen and Munich, from Tel Aviv to Bali, this stunning film has captivated so many different audiences alike with its superb music and glorious behind-the-scenes reveal of the world’s biggest music competition.

The legendary “Frederic Chopin” International Piano Competition has been held in Vršava every fifth year for almost a century. Rightly called the pianist’s Olympics, this three-week competition brings together the world’s best young pianists who, through incredibly demanding and exhausting tasks, compete to win the title of the best. That prestigious title brings a reputation that introduces them to the world of brilliant virtuosos, and for some of prominent pianists from Vladimir Ashkenazy and Martha Argerich to Ivo Pogorelich that was the way to have come into the spotlight of the world public. In this unique framework, Jakub Piątek creates an exceptional film composition ranging from a brilliantly playful musical film to a superb drama in which fantastic dreams collide with reality burdened by countless external and internal demands and pressures. While in front of us, two basic streams excitingly intertwine – the skill and beauty of playing and the dramatic anxiety regarding the outcome of the rounds of the competition through which a smaller and smaller number of participants pass, the director almost imperceptibly develops and builds a new surprising essayistic layer that introduces us more and more intensively into a wider dimension of questions about the meaning of competition that tests and exhausts all our strength, and the meaning of victory itself opposes the meaning of art.

A masterful film achievement that enchants us with virtuoso interpretations of music combined with fears, dilemmas, ups and downs of the best young pianists!

Poland, 2023, 89 mins.

Projects explore family stories and various forms of resistance

The 20th edition of the DOK Co-Pro Market welcomes 35 documentary projects from 30 countries that will have the opportunity to find international financing and co-production partners. This year sees a further increase in the number of entries, totalling 366 projects. 

This year’s selection features a number of projects that lens intimate family stories to examine broader themes marking nations, from societal shifts to events of profound socio-political consequence, such as civil wars and military conflicts. Joël Jent’s “Rebellion of Memory” zeroes in on a family of three from different camps of Peru’s last armed conflict. In “Kafka in Belgrade” (WT), Maša Nešković trains her lens on her stepfather and notable filmmaker, Goran Marković, navigating the familial ties against the backdrop of Serbia’s turbulent history. Three projects from Algeria offer layered personal narratives, embedded in the country’s troubled history. In “My Dad’s a Farmer”, filmmaker El Kheyer Zidani returns to Algeria, revisiting his family’s struggles during the country’s 90s civil war. The theme of return to Algeria is also dominant in the two French-Algerian co-productions, Camélia Gadhgadhi’s “Bitter Seed” (Amok Films, “Wake Up On Mars”) and Assia Tamerdjent’s “Hana, Algeria and Me”.

Some projects depict liberation struggles and assorted forms of resistance against oppressive forces. In the vein of exploring new ways to tell a larger story, Esther Vital uses animation as a documentary language in her visually striking animation documentary “If I Die” to reveal the horrors of a clandestine torture centre of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Following former pacifists in Myanmar, including a celebrated poet and human rights activist, Aung Naing Soe’s “When a Poet Goes to War” sheds light on the tragic realities of war as they take up arms to fight the military junta. Delving into the theme of activism, “The Wind’s Thirst” by Alejandro Valbuena chronicles the struggle of Wayuu leaders facing the threat of wind turbine installations on their lands. A tonally different but no less critical story is explored in Manuel Inacker’s “The Land We Breathe” (Restart, which was at the Co-Pro Market 2018 with “Museum of the Revolution”) traces the endeavour of a devoted trio trying to protect Dalmatia on the Croatian coast amid the onslaught of tourists and looming climate collapse.

Several titles in this year’s lineup approach the theme of sports as an element of healing, empowerment, and community-building. In Jacopo De Bertoldi and Petna Ndaliko Katondolo’s “Fists of Peace”, former child soldier Kibomango morphs an abandoned stadium into a boxing gym in the DRC’s Goma for war-scarred youths. Kan Muftic’s “Blackbelts” contemplates the human condition and disability, inserting the viewer into the lives of persons, often sidelined by society, as they turn to taekwondo. Another poignant story featuring sports comes from Nupur Agrawal and Shivajee Biswanath. In their project“Downhill Kargil”, unfolding in a remote Himalayan town in India, two Muslim teenage girls are set on playing ice hockey in the face of the changing environmental and socio-political milieu.

Presenting topically different narratives, a number of projects in the selection embrace the theme of music and singing. Walter Fasano’s “Popol Vuh: A Cosmic Journey” takes us on a sonic voyage with the iconic German band of Popol Vuh, using expansive archival material, while Nona Giunashvili’s “Sacred Songs” crafts a choral portrait of four female singers straddling tradition, religion, and artistic expression in a Georgian village. Emotive testimony is at the heart of another project relating to music, Amine Boukhris’ “Solo”, which tells an incomprehensibly personal story of Solo Akmal, a young rapper in Tunisia who was abandoned by his mother to live among Daesh (IS).

This year’s lineup also showcases three compelling documentary series projects: Daphné Leblond and Lisa Billuart-Monet’s “The Free Speech Rises” (Les Films d’Ici, co-produced by Iota Production), ​​Rafael Valdeavellano and Nicolas Acuña’s true crime series “Letelier File” (La Ventana Cine), and Philipp Diettrich and Sara Woldeslassie’s “From Here”.

The selection includes five promising projects that the DOK Industry team scouted at trusted partner training initiatives and film markets: Andrei Kutsila’s “Letters”, Amílcar Patel’s “Africa AI”, Emmanuelle Mayer’s “Woman in White”, Kan Muftic’s “Blackbelts”, and Yuriy Shylov’s “Entr’actes”.

Some of the directors and producers invited to this year’s Co-Pro Market have previously had their projects presented and/or their films screened at DOK Leipzig. Stefilm (Co-Pro Market 2017 with “Exemplary Behaviour”, a Golden Dove winner at DOK Leipzig 2019) is returning to the festival with their new project “Queerinale, Who Will Take Care of Me? by Matteo Castellino, which follows a group of gay seniors in Rome creating a safe space for LGBTQ+ people in difficulty. Filmmaker from the US Milton Guillén (Co-Pro Market 2019 with “On the Move”) will introduce his new project “My Skin and I”, co-directed with Fiona Guy Hall. German filmmaker Marita Stocker (DOK Leipzig 2019 with “What to Do With All This Love”) will return to the festival with her new project “Sitting the Month” (Eikon Media).

The 20th edition continues to see immense international interest from beyond the European borders, welcoming this October directors and producers from the US, five countries from Central and South America, five Asian countries, and five African countries. 

The DOK Co-Pro Market 2024 is set to take place from 28 October to 29 October in Leipzig, with complementary online meetings on 5 November.

This year’s selection process was carried out by Jia Zhao (Chinese-Dutch film producer, founder of Muyi Film and Silk Road Film Salon), Marcella Jelić (founder of Split Screen), and Ümit Uludağ (producer and CEO of CORSO), with Brigid O’Shea (director of DAE), Guevara Namer (coordinator of the DOK Co-Pro Market), and Nadja Tennstedt (director of DOK Industry).

Overview of Selected 35 Projects:

Africa AI | Director: Amílcar Patel | South Africa | KAMVA Collective
Bitter Seed | Director: Camélia Gadhgadhi | France, Algeria | Amok Films, Libre Image
Blackbelts | Director: Kan Muftic | Switzerland | PANIMAGE
BOOM! | Director: Laura Plancarte | UK | The Republic of Park Royal, LP Films
Chunyu: A Death Foretold | Director: Fan Yang | China, Canada | Walking in the Mountains, Electric Shadow
Downhill Kargil | Directors: Nupur Agrawal, Shivajee Biswanath | India | AutumnWolves Media
Entr’actes | Director: Yuriy Shylov | Ukraine | Alarm Productions
Fists of Peace | Directors: Jacopo De Bertoldi, Petna Ndaliko Katondolo | Italy, DR Congo | AntropicA, Alkebu
The Free Speech Rises | Directors: Daphné Leblond, Lisa Billuart-Monet | France, Belgium | Les Films d’Ici , Iota Production
From Here | Directors: Philipp Diettrich, Sara Woldeslassie | Germany | PINKY SWEAR FILM
From Radvanka | Director: Tomi Hazhlinsky | Ukraine | Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema
The Gary Project | Director: Luchina Fisher | USA | Little Light Productions
The Goldfather | Director: Decio Matos Jr. | Brazil | CAPURI
Hana, Algeria and Me | Director: Assia Tamerdjent | France, Algeria | Making of Films, Urubu Films
Hope is a Word | Director: Maria Galliani Dyrvik | Norway, Nigeria | Smau media 
If I Die | Director: Esther Vital | Brazil, France, Spain | O Par Produções, Marmitafilms, Midralgar 
Kafka in Belgrade (WT) | Director: Maša Nešković | Serbia | Marienbad film
The Land We Breathe | Director: Manuel Inacker | Croatia, Germany | Restart
Left Behind | Director: Nasib Mahamud Farah | Denmark | Emjay Productions
Letelier File | Directors: Rafael Valdeavellano, Nicolas Acuña | Chile | La Ventana Cine
Letters | Director: Andrei Kutsila | Poland, Germany | DocEdu Foundation, DOCDAYS Productions
My Dad’s a Farmer | Director: El Kheyer Zidani | Algeria, Germany | Z§K Production, jip Film & Verleih 
My Skin and I | Directors: Milton Guillén, Fiona Guy Hall | Nicaragua, Germany, USA | Mayana Films, Solaris Film
not-yet-here | Director: Giorgio Bosisio | Italy | Studio x01
Oh, Heart Don’t Be Afraid | Director: Ana Kvichidze | Georgia, Germany | Moonbow Production, parabellum film
Popol Vuh: A Cosmic Journey| Director: Walter Fasano  | USA | Good ‘n Proper
Queerinale, Who Will Take Care of Me? | Director: Matteo Castellino | Italy | Stefilm International 
Rebellion of Memory | Director: Joël Jent | Switzerland, France, Peru | Aaron Film, Les Films d’Ici, Amazona Producciones
Sacred Songs | Director: Nona Giunashvili | Georgia | 17|07 Productions
Sitting the Month | Director: Marita Stocker | Germany | eikon media
Solo | Director: Amine Boukhris | Tunisia, France, Qatar | Donia Films, Dynamo Production
Umbrellas of the Acrobats | Director: Mukesh Subramaniam | India | Elsewhat
When a Poet Goes to War | Director: Aung Naing Soe | Thailand, Hong Kong | Singing Cicadas, 101fps
The Wind’s Thirst | Director: Alejandro Valbuena | Colombia | Curare Films
Woman in White | Director: Emmanuelle Mayer | Israel | Emmanuelle Mayer Films
 

The complete schedule for DOK Industry, including all dates, will be published on 26 September.