DOCLisboa 09/2

Opening film at the festival: ”The Fortress” (PHOTO) by Swiss director Fernand Melgar, who was not present at the screening as his documentary was released in theatres in Japan. The story, a real European one, I would say, at least it could perfectly have been Denmark as location, is told in a Wiseman-like observational style from an institution for asylum seekers. The camera is omnipresent and catches moments of despair and hope from the side of the seekers, the people who wish for a better life in another country than their own and have to go through the endless interviews that are performed to check their stories. It is very moving, but also comic-tragic when you see and hear that the seekers change their stories to get a better chance to stay in what they can only consider as Wonderland = Switzerland. The people who represent the authorities are in general very kind and take part in scenes far away from their own reality, like the white office manager who goes to a mass for black seekers and try hard to find the rythm of the music. Hilarious!

Some people try desperately to get into modern society, other leave it. The documentary of Gianfranco Rosi, ”Below Sea Level”, has already been awarded several times, so well deserved, for this big film about a series of men and women, who for different reasons have moved to the desert to live a different life in their campers or in buses turned into homes, or in tents. Whatever, the originality is proven to be of huge format, and it is a film made over such a long period, that you sense that the characters are totally confident with the presence of the camera. There is humour but also grief as their back stories are being presented. There is love and argument between them. There are great thoughts on Life. The people come out of the films as individuals and not as weird subjects being observed.

The Fortress, 2008, 100 mins.

Below Sea Level, 2008, 110 mins.

www.doclisboa.org

Steen Møller Rasmussen: Richard Winthers hus

Endelig er Per Kirkeby kommet ind i det legendariske hus i Vindeby. Godt nok for sent til at træffe Richard Winther. Han er der ikke. Han er død. Men i tide til at møde hans værk i huset, billederne på vægge og lofter. Man er med på besøget i de kolde rum. Berørt af situationen som Kirkeby er det. Han havde sammen med John Hunov planlagt eller i hvert fald talt om at køre dertil. Men de kom aldrig af sted. Og så lagde Winther sig som Kirkeby udtrykker det. Mildt bebrejdende. Nu er huset tømt for de mange, mange ting, som før fyldte det. De er flyttet langt væk. Men billederne på pudset og betonen og brædderne er der endnu, og Kirkeby er tydeligt rørt og ærligt overbevist. Dette er stort. Det er ikke vitserne fra Gl. Holtegaard udstillingen. Dette er den gamle og alvorlige akademiker. Og det er i den historiske sammenhæng Picasso og Goya. Det er derimod ikke Matisse. Kirkeby forklarer præcist hvorfor og hvordan.

Steen Møller Rasmussen har begge sider af manden med på sit fotografi af maleren i kurvestolen med opsatshat. Både det vitsede og det akademisk/statuariske. Begge sider skildret i en tydelig alvor. Men filmen koncentrerer sig udelukkende om denne særlige storhed, som overrasker Kirkeby, fastholder den i Kirkebys tøvende uforsigtige fremstilling. Usentimentalt og klart i en reportage delt på tre fortællende og kommenterende medvirkende vidner, ud over Kirkeby keramikeren Grethe Bull Sarning og kunsthistorikeren Christian Vind. En tredelt reportage (tredelt i stil, indhold og emotionel egenart), som tager sig selv alvorlig som gennemført metode hos en fotograf, som tør tage reportagen på ordet: at fortælle det som det er – og på den måde som det der var.

Steen Møller Rasmussen: Richard Winthers hus, 2008, 78 min. Findes på dvd-udgivelsen Tjener for en bydreng – Richard Winther og mig, 2009, sammen med to ældre film, Richard Winther – en undersøgelse, 1999, 21 min. og Wie, 2005, 16 min. + bog, 160 sider med biografisk essay af fotografier og tekster. Forlaget Plagiat, 2009 www.kunsteen.dk  

DOCLisboa 09/1

Festival director Serge Trefaut launched a passionate attack on Portuguese public broadcaster RTP at the opening of the festival. The young festival (7 years of age with an audience of 40.000 last year!) and its director has managed to get the message to newspapers, radio and  television: RTP does not live up to its public service obligations and does not at all care about the creative documentary.

A panel was put together to discuss the state of the art in other European countries. Anna Glogowski, commissioning editor in France, talked about the situation in a country where the re-organisation of the public channels (FR 2,3,4,5) is in process. Jordi Ambros painted the picture of TV3 Catalunya where he is responsible for coproductions and acquisitions for his late night slot for creative documentaries. And I talked about Danish DR and its new prime time slot Dokumania on tuesday evenings – as well as the upcoming digital channel for history and culture. With the addition of a well deserved praise of the Finnish YLE and its many slots for documentaries and internationally active commissioning editors.

The input was meant to be an inspiration for the Portuguese to continue their action for a better documentary environment in a country with many fine filmmakers, I could add. A festival doing film policy. Next step probably an open letter to the government. Bravo!

Photo: From the new film of Serge Tréfaut, “City of the Dead”, selected for idfa competion 2009.

http://www.doclisboa.org/

Jan Vrijman Fund Films at idfa

It is a very good move that the Jan Vrijman Fund supported films are to be seen at idfa. It is very often among these low budget documentaries that you find films that are made out of necessity and heart. By filmmakers who do not live in countries with strong support systems, and/or in political systems where political and social criticism is not welcomed. Here is the press release inclding the list of the films: A total of 22 films realised with support from the Jan Vrijman Fund have been selected for IDFA 2009. A variety of films representing all Southern continents and made in different styles. Films dealing with a diversity of subjects ranging from a portrait of Pablo Escobar’s Son, keeping a family together in changing China to the survival of the last tightrope dancer in Armenia.

The Jan Vrijman Fund films selected for IDFA 2009 have been programmed in the following sections:
Feature Length Competition: Last Train Home by Lixin Fan, 9 Months 9 Days by Oscar Ramírez Gonzalez 
Short Length Competition: All Restrictions End by Reza Haeri 
First Appearance Competition: Addicted in Afghanistan by Jawed Taiman, Sins of my Father by Nicolas Entel 
Reflecting Images – Panaroma: The Belgrade Phantom by Jovan Todorovic, Dead Youth by Leandro Listorti, For Home Viewing by Mikhail Zheleznikov, Gipsy in the Flower by Ju Anqi, Island Belarus by Victor Asliuk, The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia (PHOTO) by Inna Sahakyan and Arman Yeritsyan, NARGIS when time stopped breathing by young Burmese filmmakers, Nero’s Guests by Deepa Bhatia, News by Bettina Perut and Ivan Osnovikoff, The Peddler by Adriana Yurcovich, Eduardo de la Serna and Lucas Marcheggiano, A Place called los Pereyra by Andrés Livov-Macklin, Shungu: The Resilience of a People by Saki Mafundikwa, Story of a Day by Rosana Matecki, The Tight Rope by Nuria Ibáñez, They Come for the Gold, They Come for it All by Cristian Harbaruk and Pablo d’Aló Abbá, Together by Nenad Puhovski, Women in Shroud by Farid Haerinejad and Mohammad Reza Kazemi.

www.idfa.nl

The Sound of Insects

The European Film Academy proudly announces that the award EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY DOCUMENTARY 2009 – Prix ARTE goes to the film THE SOUND OF INSECTS – Record of a Mummy by Peter Liechti, Switzerland.

The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man’s detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti’s film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character’s radical renunciation of life itself.

2009, 88 mins.

For the nominated films, see below.

www.docuinter.net

Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy

The Popovics (Svetlana and Zoran), the organisers of the festival Magnificent7, that takes place every year in January in Belgrade, and has done so for five years, with my privileged post as co-selector of the seven films (you can read a lot more about it on this site, go to ”search”) arranged the most beautiful four day (almost) film-free tour for me and my wife at the end of September. I want to share some visual moments with you and can only warmly recommend you to go to the Serbia south of Belgrade to experience landscapes of green mountains, fields, rivers, lakes, monasteries and churches – and food and wine and slivovitj and rakija.

Have a look at the Angel and read what Wikipedia says about it:  

White Angel is a detail of a fresco from the Mileševa monastery circa 1230 AD in Serbia, Mironosnice na Hristovom grobu (Myrrhbearers on Christ’s Grave). It is also one of the most famous frescoes in Serbian culture. It depicts an angel sitting in front of the tomb of Christ. This monastery belongs to a Latin period in Byzantine art. The first satellite broadcast in 1963 between Europe and North America sent a picture of White Angel from Mileševa in first broadcasting frames to salute American people from Europeans… a true and unique message of overall peace.

Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 2

There is a golden rule when you are on the road and get hungry – go where the truck drivers go. In combination with the knowledge of our hosts, including Misko, the driver, who take film crews around in his van, we ended up in fine local lunch restaurants, and had meat and water and good bread, and soup, and the Montenegrin wine Vranac. Lunch times are a bit more flexible than we are used to in Northern Europe – could easily be around 3pm.

Photo: Still life with Nokia.

Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 3

Yugoslavia, a country that once was. At a time that was  much easier for many people. It is absurd when you get to talk to people in Serbia and ask them where they come from… well, my mother was born in Croatia and my father is from Montenegro and my grandmother… and they all speak the same language with tiny differences.

Memories from Yugo-time are to be found everywhere. Look at the photo of our driver Misko next to the small car. This is what Zoran Popovic told me about the car: the little car is called FICA (and C hase the same additional dash as French é – and it’s pronounced like in Italian Ciao)…. But how could big strong Serbian males fit into it.

Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 4

Two images came constantly to my eyes when we travelled the amazing landscapes of Serbia – reminded us in many places again and again of Tuscany. One was all the unfinished houses, the reason for which we were told to be a combination of vanity (”we must have a two-store house as the neighbour”) and the fact that when your house is still under construction you dont have to pay tax. So many move into the basement floor and never finish the floor above.

The other image was of the sculptures in the landscape, according to the Popovics: the hay sculpture is called STOG. It is often said STOG SENA (translation: STOG of hay.

Turn your head – sorry I don’t know how to make it en face – and watch the man on the top of a stog, two of them is food for one cow during winter time.

Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 5

And what has Maradona to do with Serbia… a lot since Emir Kusturica made a film about him that I saw in the Stanly Kubrick Cinema in Kustendorf, a village on a hill top set up by the same Kusturica with typical Serbian houses, a perfect weekend holiday place with fine rooms, restaurants and small streets named after Bergman, Fellini, Ivo Andric and many others from cinema and culture.

The Maradona film is not what Kusturica was aiming for, the film about Maradona, but it is probably the best one so far. And he is a fantastic character for a film, Maradona, with his dramatic career of ups and downs, his (naive) political point of views, his family life and his football skills. Now a coach for Argentina’s national team, still not qualified for the World Cup next year as Denmark and Serbia!