Mikael Opstrup: The Uncertainty

Subitled: «A book about Developing Character driven Documentary»

”I am painfully aware that this book is risky business. I am trying to rationalize the irrational, to break down the bumpy documentary film process into conscious decisions and structures, yes even into budgets and financing plans. I plead guilty and ask for forgiveness.”

Words from Mikael Opstrup in the beginning of his book. A yes to forgiving Mikael. I have known him for at least 20 years and been working with him as a tutor and moderator in numerous documentary events – in Buenos Aires, in Damascus, in Ramallah and every year in Riga at the Baltic Sea Docs. I have a lot of respect for his skills and now that respect also includes that he has taken time and energy to write a book. You are more than forgiven Mikael having done this fine work that hopefully will find many readers, who like you and I love documentaries. Total recommendation from my side.

No pictures, no references to films, with texts divided into chapters and to be honest it is a demanding read with points I don’t agree with and/or don’t understand, but it does not matter, as it is well written and inspiring. You get your brain in action! 

As you I am addicted to a genre that has many doors to enter, one of them being the Character driven Documentary, a sub-genre, an ”art beyond control” as you put it contrary to ”the documentaries where you use interviews, archive, voice over, animation etc. (which) are to a certain extent under your artistic control.” That sub-genre is the focus.

The book is full of definitions based on reflections. Mikael raises questions and tells the reader what he means with „character”, with “driven”, with “script” followed by a super-interesting chapter in the book called “the documentary potential”. Mikael asks himself and the reader if a text written for the director him- or herself, or the film team could be called so, “the documentary potential” and reflects on that. I buy that, much better than script. 

That is for me the main quality of the book, the reflections conveyed in the essayistic style that Mikael has chosen, i.e. based on the many personal experiences that he has had during the decades, he has been in the documentary world.

And conveyed with the humour that I know you have Mikael, hope the English language catches the many fine, sometimes non-pretentious subtle sentences that call for a smile in a serious context. I knew that side of you but not the more – in a good sense – sentimental, where you write about Life and the search for Happiness, your closeness to your family that now also includes you as a grandfather! Like in the best documentaries you include yourself in the existential matters that we deal with every day. Great!

Questions raised and discussed come back in chapters called “the story”, “directing », « subtext”, “filming”, “editing”, “looking for moments”… At the end of the book Mikael turns to a more informative style writing about pitching and trailers and what you can expect at a Forum like the one here at IDFA… to end with a chapter “What’s football got to do with it?” 

“I am fascinated by football and Character driven Documentary for the same reason: it oozes of real-life drama. We do our best to control it, but we cannot. For the same reasons that we cannot control our own lives.”

We have watched many football games together and right your are, the Uncertainty is always there.

Mikael, good luck with the book and thanks for the huge effort. A gift to the Forum delegates and the rest of us, film lovers.

Denmark, Published by Mikael Opstrup, 1st edition 1000 copies, 48 pages.

Mikael says:

BUY THE BOOK
Write me for a copy: mikaelopstrup@outlook dk

IDFA: Amsterdam Global Village

Full house at beautiful Tuschinski last night – for a 25 year old film, a classic in world documentary history, Johan van der Keuken’s Amsterdam Global Village. 4 hours (!) plus one hour with the film’s producer Pieter van Huystee, Nosh van der Lely, the partner of van der Keuken, who took the sound and did a lot more, in a conversation with Carlo Chatrian from the Berlinale, accompanied on the stage by Bolivian Roberto, one of the key persons in the film who came with his son, who is ”being born” in the film, now he is a good looking 25 year old man.

With Roberto who left Bolivia to come to Holland, fell in love with a Dutch woman – the film crew went back to his village in the mountains to meet his mother in one of the many beautiful sequences in the film. The mother, who is still alive, Roberto said last night, cries and cries as she misses her son, it’s very emotional as it is in the sequence from Chechnya, where – sorry forgot his name – the charismatic Chechnyan living in Holland goes back to meet his family and do some humanitarian aid helped by Dutch organisations. The mother & son theme is there again – and there are awful images of corpses from what was the first Chechnyan war.

Amsterdam – the movements of the camera catching the city, its buildings and its people. The pizza courier, Khalid, on his moped plays a major role, he goes around, he buys hash in a coffee shop, he sees beautiful naked women at the photographer, for whom he delivers photos when developed… the red-haired woman and her son going back to the house, where she lived before she – Jewish – went into hiding for years during the war, and to the house, where her son was hiding. She tells her story sooo captivating… and the female dj at work, van der Keuken goes constantly close caressing the protagonists with an editing, done by late Barbara Hin, that gives a constant surprise of innovative solutions that goes with the flow through the canals and out to the outskirts, the industrial areas of the big city – not to forget as Pieter van Huystee said after the five hours that I (and my back and my bum!) survived.

Documentaries – all about people, yes, but it depends on how close you can get to them and on your cinematic skills. I was not bored for 4 hours. Shot on film, you see it. 

Thank you IDFA for this choice – to revisit a grand film.  

IDFA Starts Tomorrow

… the 34th edition and this is what the IDFA staff luckily communicated the other day:

”IDFA is delighted to share that the festival continues in person next week, and cinemas remain open. Following the measures laid out by the Dutch government in tonight’s national press conference, which largely support the cultural sector, the festival can confidently announce that from November 17 to 28, all films, talks, and performances will go on in full, with the utmost health and safety measures in effect.

“We highly appreciate the acknowledgement of culture’s importance in the new regulations, and it makes us believe in our responsibility even more: to organize a safe festival, as we keep on serving the resilience of the international film community, and the cultural life of Dutch society through such trying times,” said Orwa Nyrabia, Artistic Director.”

Surfing the IDFA website I took time to read the paper ”Policy Plan 2021-2024, a good read, not that long. I picked a paragraph from the ”Manifesto” that actually reflects my choice for the 3 full days I will be at IDFA, from Thursday till Monday, with mask and corona pass:

”IDFA is also proof that an ever-growing number of people are looking for high-quality, artistic sourc- es of information and reflection. This is why, now more than ever, IDFA stands for documentary film as an art form, for aesthetics, beauty, imagination and inspiration. It also stands for documentaries with a different visual language and structures, for films that depict unknown cultures or are filmed from a non-Western perspective, and for interactive documentaries that are innovative and pioneering…”

The link to the Policy Plan: 

https://d25cyov38w4k50.cloudfront.net/downloads/Policy-Plan-def.pdf

 

 

Sérgio Tréfaut: Paraiso

White plastic chairs are being arranged in a circle in front of a palace. A show is to begin. A show with lovely people – with a twist from the Beatles text: “All the lovely people where did they all belong, all the lovely people…”. Came to my mind watching Sérgio Tréfaut’s film shot in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where the director is born, the country he left when a teenager, the country that he has returned to live in. 40 years later. And even if the film is not a political film, as Tréfaut wrote to me, many of the lovely old people singing and dancing have passed away during the pandemic, the film being shot just before covid took over. Read how the director introduces his documentary:

”Elderly people gather every day in the romantic gardens of Catete Palace, the former official residence of the presidents of Brazil from 1867 to 1960, and presently the site of the Museu da República. After sunset, they would tell each other the meaning of life, singing love songs. This film was suddenly interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and became a tribute to a decimated generation.”’

This is of course the aftermath, the tragedy but also the strength of a film, when you see it now, a documentation of a before-Bolsonaro-wonderful-life through songs, performed by people with heart, passion and moving hips, being together on the plastic chairs with the director following some of them to their homes, up the stairs, through many doors and gates to unlock. I read that the singer are called “serestas”, coming from serenades. 

I wrote «documentation», wrong, it is a documentary film, “a little film” Tréfaut wrote to me, maybe for him but for me primarily a warm film, a big tribute to Life and Love that all the songs circle around, made with a big heart. CORAZON is the word; in all the songs you hear that word. 

Portugal, Brazil, France, 74 mins., 2021

Srdan Keca: Museum of the Revolution

To safeguard the truth about us, were the words architect Richter used, when he presented his plan for a Museum of the Revolution to be built in Belgrade in 1961… Director Srdan Keca takes this – with great propaganda archive material – as the starting point for his version of the truth as he sees it in a film that is quite as unconventional as Richter wanted the museum to be. Keca works with several layers surrounding three people, who live in and around the basement of the museum, that is what was left of a vision, conveyed in magic luminous sequences of light coming in to the place, light spots of hope, where Milica and her mother Vera stays together with the old woman Mara, who has no contact to her daughter, who she “gave away” to the social system. In the darkness of poverty they are. Kecha stresses this with compassion, when his camera caresses them, often by taking away the sound staying long on their faces. 

The love relationship between Milica and her mother is beautiful, their life is a constant struggle to survive as polishers of car windows to earn some money to send to the father, who is in prison. The architectural point of view stays in the picture: Modern conventional ugly buildings are constructed now in Belgrade along the river of Sava. Keca paints with his camera in a film that asks the question: Is this what we want to safeguard?

Serbia, Croatia, Czech Republic, 2021, 91 mins.

The film competes in the Luminous section of IDFA with five screenings.

Below a link to a „Creative Dialogue” about the film organised by the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film). Takes place this coming Wednesday 10/11 at 5 pm.

https://dokweb.net/activities/online/2021/upcoming

DOKLeipzig Awards 2021

“Father” earns Golden Dove in International Competition at DOK Leipzig

 

Golden Dove in the German Competition for “A Sound of My Own” | Audience jury awards “Dida” a Golden Dove

The award-winning films of the 64th edition of DOK Leipzig have been chosen. The gala award ceremony for the Golden and Silver Doves was held on Saturday evening before a live audience at Leipzig’s CineStar. 

The Chinese documentary “Father” by Wei Deng has won the Golden Dove in the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film. The director’s first feature film is a portrait of generations about his father and grandfather that depicts tradition and change, violence and alienation in Chinese society. “Sincere, poignant and haunting – the narrative goes beyond what is visible to the eye. It shows the complexity of life and becomes a pure homage to humanity,” the jury’s statement reads. The Golden Dove, which includes 10,000 euros, has been sponsored by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk since 2013. The award was presented by Dr Ulrich Brochhagen, head of MDR’s department of history, documentaries and eastern Europe. The film that earns the Golden Dove in the International Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film qualifies for nomination for the annual ACADEMY AWARDS®, provided it meets the Academy’s standards.

The Silver Dove for the best long documentary or animated film by an emerging director in the International Competition went to Karol Pałka for his first feature-length film, “Bucolic”. This Polish documentary observes a mother and her daughter in their secluded life in the countryside. The jury was impressed by the director’s “fresh and innovative cinematic approach” and highlighted the “sensitive depiction of characters” in the film. “It moves effortlessly around a magical universe with the utmost delicacy and modesty,” said the jury. The 6,000-euro award was sponsored by 3sat. 

The winning long documentaries in the International Competition were selected by Grit Lemke, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Alex Szalat, Katarína Tomková and Raed Yassin. Honourable mentions by the jury went to the documentary “Republic of Silence” by Diana El Jeiroudi as well as to Sarah Noa Bozenhardt and Daniel Abate Tilahun for “among us women”. 

In the German Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film, “A Sound of My Own” by Rebecca Zehr was awarded the Golden Dove. This 

documentary accompanies musician Marja Burchard, who followed in her father’s footsteps and became the bandleader of the legendary Krautrock collective Embryo. She carries on her father’s tradition while seeking her own musical path in a male-dominated industry. “Different materialities and fragments lightly and playfully come together in a composition in which the montage is aware of the specific temporality of cinema,” say jury members Carsten Möller, Gudrun Sommer and Maria Speth. “On the visual as well as the sound level, this extraordinary portrait of an artist is convincing in the way the art of music and the art of documentary film meet.” The 10,000-euro award was sponsored in part by Weltkino Filmverleih GmbH. David Forcht form Weltkino Filmverleih presented the Golden Dove to the filmmaker at the award ceremony.

The Golden Dove in the Competition for the Audience Award Long Documentary and Animated Film, which includes 3,000 euros, was awarded by the audience jury to Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić for “Dida”. At the centre of the film is the filmmaker’s mother, Dida, who, due to a learning disability, has always been dependent on her mother, but longs for independence. A look at a family in transition. “The film raises various questions: Who is the child, who the adult? How can one live autonomously, how can one take responsibility for a person in need of help? But above all, the film radiates warmth, humour and great joy,” the jury’s statement reads.

In the International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film, Gugi Gumilang, Marina Koul and Izabela Plucińska chose the recipients of the Golden Doves, each endowed with 3,000 euros. The award for best documentary film went to “Abyssal” by Alejandro Alonso, the documentary observation of a ship scrapyard in western Cuba. The award for best animated film went to Marta Pajek for “Impossible Figures and Other Stories I”, a complex exploration of transience, life and death. These winning films also qualify for nomination for the annual ACADEMY AWARDS®, provided they meet the Academy’s standards. The Indonesian production “Tellurian Drama” by Riar Rizaldi received an honourable mention.

The Silver Dove in the German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film, which includes 1,500 euros in prize money, went to Tang Han for her documentary “Pink Mao”, an analysis of the 100-yuan note, the largest denomination of Renminbi banknotes in the People’s Republic of China. Honourable mention went to “Happytrail” by Jakob Werner, Thea Sparmeier and Pauline Cremer, an animated short film about female body hair.

The Silver Dove in the Competition for the Audience Award Short Documentary and Animated Film was awarded to Diana Cam Van Nguyen for her animated film “Love, Dad”, in which a young woman comes across a letter her father had written from prison 15 years prior. The award, which includes 1,500 euros, was sponsored by the Leipziger Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Filmkunst e.V. Deputy Chairman Jens Kesseler presented the Silver Dove to the filmmaker. 

Partnership Awards for documentary and animated films in competition

On Saturday afternoon, numerous partner awards were already being presented at the Regina Palast. 

The DEFA Sponsoring Prize, which includes 4,000 euros granted by the DEFA Foundation, went to “Nasim” by Ole Jacobs and Arne Büttner, a portrait of an Afghan woman and her family in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Jakob Krese and Danilo do Carmo received an honourable mention for “What Remains on the Way”.

The ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, which includes 2,500 euros, was also awarded to “Nasim”.

The 3,000-euro MDR Film Prize for an outstanding eastern European documentary film was awarded to the Polish production “The Balcony Movie” by Paweł Łoziński, who, for two years, set up a camera on his balcony and struck up conversations with the passers-by. 

The Film Prize Leipziger Ring honours a documentary film about human rights, democracy or civil engagement, is granted by Stiftung Friedliche Revolution (Foundation of the Peaceful Revolution) and comes with 2,500 euros in prize money. This year’s award went to Rami Farah and Signe Byrge Sørensen for “Our Memory Belongs to Us”, in which Syrian activists now in Paris use video clips to recapitulate their experiences fighting in the Syrian civil war.

The Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize was awarded to the documentary film “Republic of Silence” by Diana El Jeiroudi, whose complex montage encompasses the disintegration of Syria and life in exile in Germany. The award comes with 2,000 euros in prize money, licensing, and subtitling in eight languages.

The 2,000-euro Young Eyes Film Award, granted by Leipziger Stadtbau AG, went to Johanna Seggelke for her coming-of-age story “Reality Must Be Addressed”. The prize was awarded by the Youth Jury in cooperation with Filmschule Leipzig e.V.

The 1,750-euro Prize of the Interreligious Jury was awarded to Cléo Cohen for her film “May God Be with You”, an attempt to reconcile her Arab and Jewish selves by posing questions to her grandparents. The award is granted by the Interreligiöser Runder Tisch Leipzig, the Oratorium zu Leipzig and VCH-Hotels Deutschland GmbH – im Verband Christlicher Hoteliers e.V., including Hotel MICHAELIS Leipzig.

The Prize of the International Film Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) has gone to “Words of Negroes”. In this film, Sylvaine Dampierre has the workers of an old sugar refinery read passages from the transcripts of an 1842 court case, in which slaves testified against their violent master.

The mephisto 97.6 Award went to Mahboobeh Kalaee for the animated Iranian film “The Fourth Wall”, in which a stuttering boy transforms an Iranian kitchen into a fantastic cosmos. 

The Gedanken-Aufschluss Prize went to “The Crossing” by Florence Miailhe. The prize was awarded by a jury of prisoners of the Juvenile Detention Centre Regis-Breitingen.

Awards presented as part of DOK Industry

As part of the industry platform DOK Industry, five awards were presented during the festival week.

Awarded in the DOK Co-Pro Market:

Culture and Tourism Division of the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism (along with 5,000 euros): “Broken Flower” by Sarvnaz Alambeigi (Iran)
The prize is donated by: State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts

Current Time TV Award (along with 1,500 euros): “Cadillac Dreams” by Elene Mikaberidze (Georgia, France)
The prize is donated by: Current Time TV

The EWA Diverse Voices Award (along with 1,000 euros and a year-long mentorship by DOK Leipzig): “The Woman Who Poked the Leopard” by Patience Nitumwesiga (Uganda)
The prize is donated by: EWA – European Women’s Audiovisual Network

Presented at DOK Preview Germany:

D-Facto Motion Works-in-Progress Prize (post-production grant of 10,000 euros): “President’s Tailor – From Auschwitz to the White House” by Rick Minnich (Germany, USA)
The prize is donated by: D-Facto Motion GmbH

Presented for the first time at DOK Short n’ Sweet:

Square Eyes Festival Consultation Award (along with a festival strategy consultation by Square Eyes): “Me & Her” by Eldar Basmanov & Ahmed Fouad Ragab (Estonia, Russia, Egypt)
The prize is donated by: Square Eyes

A total of around 170 films and extended reality works were shown in the Leipzig venues during the week of the festival. 

After the festival, a selection of the films can also be viewed online throughout Germany in the DOK Stream from 1 to 14 November 2021, including all of the films that have received a Golden or Silver Dove.

https://www.dok-leipzig.de/

Maradia Tsaava: Water Has No Borders

First some background:

Since the end of the civil war in the early 1990s, the region of Abkhazia has been acting independently of Georgia. This has turned a massive dam into a border. But the hydroelectric power station also connects the two political entities: Because over a distance of fifteen kilometres the water flows freely, underground, from one side to the other. When a young journalist gets stranded here, stories of division emerge.

On the way back from a reportage trip to the dam, director Maradia and her cameraman’s car breaks down. Ika takes care of them. For decades, the joyous engineer has worked – in cooperation with his colleagues on the Abkhazian territory – on the maintenance of the plant. Maradia, representative of a whole generation of Georgians who know this place of longing on the Black Sea only from stories, becomes curious. But while the workers take the bus across the border every morning, the film crew is thwarted by bureaucracy. Time and again they are denied passage. This turns out to be fortunate for the film, because waiting for the permission, in the cafeteria of the dam, in driving around the river, the stories of people emerge whose lives are shaped by the secession. They talk of legal and clandestine border crossings, weddings and funerals and of life in the here and there. (Written by Marie Kloos, taken from the website of DOKLeipzig).

And then my evaluation:

… of a film that is shown at DOKLeipzig (world premiere) and is in the international competition section. A film that took me by heart and mind. The latter because again you are faced with the stupidity of humanity, another border, in this case a border at a dam with a tunnel that reaches both sides – Georgia and Abkhazia. A separation of people, of human beings who can not visit their relatives. Every morning Georgian workers cross the border to meet checkpoints with permits in their hands and then in the evening they go back again. Yet water has no borders and the two sides profit from the power of nature: electricity is provided.

… of a film that impressed me visually. It must have been the best job ever of cameraman Nik Voigt, who is giving the viewer stunning images of the colossal dam architecture and its mountain surroundings, the blue sky and more often the clouds, the fog, different angles and then down to the tunnel or filming the power of the water of the Enguri river. Up and down. With the accompanying noise, thanks for having some longer silent sequences that invite the viewer to “just” reflect and enjoy.

… of a film with wonderful persons introduced by and/or talked to by the director Maradia (also called Maro) Tsavaa. I hate the word “character”, therefore “persons” or protagonists, real people from the real world. I want to mention the three that appear first in the credits: Irakli Pipia, Roza Tsotsonava, Luda Akobia Holodova. All three with stories about relatives, about childhood and upbringing, about hard lives, about (Roza) being allowed to cross the border one time, three years ago to go to a funeral! About finally getting a fridge for the food she serves with Luda in the cafeteria. Politics – some officials can get the permit, “we can not ». But it is not only bitterness, it’s also memories from before the separation, when the river was surrounded by villages.

Number one, however, is Ika, who is close to the director all the time and who drives and walks her close to the border, who likes a beer or two, who is full of joy and yet says, sarcastically and with sadness in one of the excellent sequences with him and the director in his car : « Hurray we are alive ». Cut immediately to the two, Ika and Maro, dancing wildly to « Long Tall Sally » ! The film’s comment to Ika and his enjoying Life. Great. And after that a dancing girl, georgian music. A film that took me by heart and mind.

Georgia, France, 2021, 85 mins.

Nikola and Corina Ilić: Dida

Full names: Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić – I had seen (some of) their previous short works, the lovely ”Rakijada” and the aesthetical perfect ”All Inclusive”, both films that have travelled to short film festivals all over – and I have been in love with Belgrade and rakija for many many years. And I have met the fine directors.

So now you know why I was positive before the screening, and that impression stayed after having been with the son Nikola, his mother Dida and his granny, not to forget Corina, married to Nikola and with him in the hard and sweet life with mother and granny. The latter, who in the beginning of the film is very much present, a strong person who takes care of her grown up daughter in their small flat. Not an easy task for the old woman, who tells Nikola to step into her role, when she is no longer there. The problem is that Nikola and Corina live and work in Switzerland and Dida has problems dealing with life’s many challenges. And she feels lonely now that granny has passed away in a film that is shot over – at least – 4 years. Nikola and Corina move into her place, get their own appartment in Belgrade, help Dida in all thinkable ways, it’s not easy when she has spent her full pension after two days buying «things» at the Chinese market. The fridge is empty.

Dida visits the two in Switzerland but returns to Belgrade and the stray dogs, she feeds. Nikola and Corina give her a dog, she is happy but does not really know what it means to take care of a dog… «She’s getting on my nerves», Nikola says, a lady moves into Dida to help, good, but still «don’t go, stay with me» says Dida to her son and Corina.

Family Life, social reality, generations it’s all there and I enjoyed to be there because of the tone of the film, which is far from being crying but full of warmth and the humour that comes from Dida, primarily, from her original take on life. I am sure spectators will identify with family situations like these. And love the film like I did. Hvala!

Switzerland/Serbia, 2021, 78 mins.

DOKLeipzig 2021, in Competition for Audience Award. 

DOK Leipzig 2021

“At this year’s edition of DOK Leipzig, a total of 63,250 euros in prize money will be awarded. In addition, there are non-cash benefits worth 10,000 euros that filmmakers will be able to use in developing their films…”

A quote from today’s press release from the classic documentary and animation film festival in Leipzig. The 64th edition! A festival that I have loved to attend many many times, a couple of times as a juror and/or sitting in the marketplace’s always well organized video library or going to the cinema. And having a good glass of wine or a beer with the currywurst. This year the festival shows 170 films in the cinemas (October 25 – 31) followed by DOK Stream, 70 films as video on demand (November 1-14). And I will be online, alas.

A quick look into some of the sections with some name-dropping. There is a retrospective that is – as usual at this festival – serious and well curated historical. Here is the intro: “With the division of Germany, Hitler’s empire finally disappeared from the map. But in the new states, the old Germans lived on: perpetrators and onlookers of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. For both the GDR and FRG, dealing with the Holocaust became a moral touchstone – a standard by which they measured themselves and their neighbour. We look at German-German alternating and counter views, at films about guilt, at images of “Jewishness” that show “Germanness”.” There are films by Heynowski, Farocki, Alain Resnais, Jean-Marie Straub..

In the international competition I will definitely look fwd. to watch the long awaited film by long time friend Diana El Jeiroudi, entitled “Republic of Silence”, 183 minutes,… “Diana, who lives in exile in Germany with her husband, sorts out: the recent history of Syria and its people, whom it has scattered to the four winds.”

And some films I will recommend from the 170: Stefan Pavlovic “Looking for Horses” (reviewed: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4948/), “The Balcony Movie” by Polish Pawel Lozinski, “Flee” by Danish Jonas Poher Rasmussen (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4890/)

, and from the same Danish production company Final Cut for Real “Our Memory Belongs to Us” by Rami Farah and Signe Byrge Sørensen. Pavlovic film is in the DocAlliance competition, the other three compete in Audience Competition for long films where the festival has decided (wisely I think) to have a jury from the audience, I guess to avoid the voting after each screening on paper to be collected and counted.

And then an homage to Avi Mograbi with the title “Secret Agent Avi”, haha, not funny honey and why only three of this master in modern documentary?

And if I may continue my light-grumpy mood… why are there no films from any of the Baltic countries or Russia? DOK Leipzig has always been looking to the East including films from USSR & now Russia. No correspondents any longer? 

… not to forget, DOK Leipzig has a fine industry section, makes a priority out of having good talks and Q&A’s and a special DOK Neuland exhibition that you who go should visit.

https://www.dok-leipzig.de

Ji.hlava IDFF 25 Years!

25 years, still alive and kicking, young and fresh – is the impression I get from going through the website of the film festival in the Czech provincial town that is full of films, of Cinema from October 10 till October 31. 

The festival’s visual logo is lovely, copy paste from the site: – The official spot of the 25th Ji.hlava IDFF has been designed by the poet and filmmaker Khavn, who thanks to his desire to trespass the borders of film expression, belongs among the most prominent personalities of Philippine cinema. His work was presented in the section Translucent Being at Ji.hlava 2006.“Khavn is a prominent figure on the contemporary independent scene in the Philippines, and the Ji.hlava IDFF has been following his predominantly provocative and surprising work for fifteen years. Khavn himself has also been collaborating with Ji.hlava: he is currently leading the Ji.hlava Academy workshop for emerging filmmakers, and has been among the jurors and authors of the festival diary,” says Marek Hovorka, the director of the festival. And be aware that on the website you will also find a thought provoking poem by Khavn.

They make excellent press releases at this festival, so my job is to pick and copy paste so it fits the format of a film blog like this. Here are some more words from Hovorka: ” “We want to draw on the experience of the last two years. In 2019, Ji.hlava had a very festive and summer-like atmosphere, while last year we took the online opportunity to attract thousands of new viewers and bring documentary cinema to their attention. This year we would like to combine these two aspects,” explains Marek Hovorka, commenting on the hybrid concept of the festival, which will for the first time take place both live and online.”

… with  three hundred films including the latest Czech and international documentary cinema, a unique retrospective of Romanian experimental film, and a section dedicated to the American thinker and essayist Susan Sontag.

”The main Opus Bonum international competition features fifteen titles. Eleven films will be screened in their world premiere, and four will have their international premiere at Ji.hlava… I only know one of the film, reviewed two days ago on this site: Andrei Kutsila’s «When Flowers are not Silent ».

The 25 short docs in Ji.hlava’s Short Joy competition section – all in world or international premiere – are now available online for free at dafilms.com and the jury is audiences across the world. The voting starts today and ends on October 24…Chapeau for having a short film section ».

There are so many other sections, let me just point at the non-competitive « Constellations » that include films by Sergei Loznitsa, Pawel Lozinski, Marc Isaacs and Jay Rosenblatt.

Do your research, lucky you who are able to be in cinemas in Ji.hlava, lucky you who can watch online without being geo-blocked – take a look at

https://www.ji-hlava.com/

Congratulations!