A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Note for our Danish/Swedish/Belgian readers: The masterpiece ”Rabbit a la Berlin” by Polish director Bartek Konopka will be broadcast on Swedish television SVT1 monday November 2nd at 10pm and on Belgian channel Lichtpunt tonight sunday November 1.
The film was yesterday awarded the Silver Eye Award Medium Length here at the International Documentary Film Festival in Jihlava, Czech Republic.
The small town in Czech Republic is full of people, who are here to watch films. There is a big local, young audience. There are professionals who come from all parts of the world to buy films for their tv channels, pick up films for their festivals, filmmakers with films to be presented and discussed with the audience and filmmakers with film projects to be developed and pitched for eventual financing. Documentaries all over.
I had the chance to see a film that is not yet released: ”Katka” by Helena Trestikova, who had a huge success with her previous film, ”Réné”. That will also happen with ”Katka”, which is a touching and tough drama about a young girl over a period of 10 years where she gets into a drug addiction that she is not able to leave. Railway stations, squatted totally devastated houses, meetings with social workers, tears and violence. Katka gets pregnant, her Teresa is born, she wants to keep her child but can only do so if she gets clean. The film is on its way to theatres in Czech Republic and festival goers all over the world will meet it, I am sure.
Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti from the national broadcaster YLE presented the web-doc project that he has initiated in Finland. Lönrott it is called – small stories from Finnish people inspired by the David Lynch supported, American Interview webdoc compilation that has been written about before on this site. Vehkalahti travels the festivals right now (he will also go to Sheffield and Amsterdam) to spread out his Finnish concept to become a global series.
Documentary festival in Jihlava. Accompanied by the East European Forum that I am part of as a tutor and moderator. There will be project development and pitching of around 20 projects during the coming weekend. To a panel of another 20 broadcast and film fund representatives. A varied film festival programme and a huge digitalised market. The competence and professionalism behind the so-called industry programme comes from IDF, Institute of Documentary Film.
The East European Forum started yesterday with 3 inspirational case studies from former participants, who finished their films successfully. All three films have been written about or reviewed on this site: ”The Deconstruction of an Artist” (PHOTO) by Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis, ”The Moon inside You” by Slovak director and producer Diana Fabianova, and ”Rabbit a la Berlin” by Polish producer Anna Wydra. 1) Cekulis talked about the immense work it was to raise funding for a film about an artist, Gustav Klucis, that very few people had ever heard about – and how he and the director Peteris Krilovs fought to find the right style and rythm of a film, that now stands out as a brilliant historical art and love story.
2) Fabianova, who came into the Ex Oriente without any experience at all in film production and with just a small documentary course on her cv, gave the participants the unbelievable story about her film on menstruation – that has now been sold to 17 countries, has a life in educational circles, will be released in theatres in several countries, and will make a profit! Not usual for a creative documentary. 3) Anna Wydra, producer and creative collaborator on the 40 minute masterpiece of Bartek Konopka, German title ”Mauerhaase”, was more than enthusiastic about the fact that the film was on the shortlist of an Oscar together with 7 American productions. The nominations will be out by February 1st for a film that had a hard time to find the perfect narrative balance between rabbits and people, between wild life and history – but it did and watch out readers for the tv programmes on November 9, the 20th year date of the fall of the wall. It could very well be on your channel.
The final pitching session of the Documentary Campus Masterschool took place in Leipzig in the building of the local broadcaster MDR, on the 13th floor with a beautiful view to the city. Only to be watched in the breaks as the showing of film clips (also called trailers, teasers, tasters, demos, pilots) was not a good match to the strong autumn sunlight of this last weekend. The room was darkened when commissioning editor Claudia Schreiner welcomed her colleagues (around 30) around the table as well as the film producers and directors present, waiting to present (pitch) their documentary projects:
Our situation ressembles the one of many of you editors in this room. We have to spend the little money we have for so many documentaries as possible, she said. In this way she characterized the poor situation for European public broadcasters, who face general cut downs in staff and money.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere in the room was as always very ”homey” as the pitchings took off under the moderation of Canadian Rudy Buttignol, who did all he could to set a good mood. Without hiding that the channels who are normally financially strong for the creative documentaries have problems. The European cultural channel arte is going more and more mainstream, and France Télévisions (hosting FR2, FR3, FR4, FR5) has for a long time been in a reconstruction phase that will bring more centralisation.
Topics on the first day were – among others – a classical British social theme on youngsters in Manchester getting into criminal affairs ruining their lives, a television programme on poker-playing, a beautiful emotional story on a Japanese woman who grew up without a mother, married a Greek man and moved to the island of Crete and a cinematic story from a faraway place in Georgia: a house, a restaurant, a barking dog, waitresses. A place where time has stopped.
Photo from film project “Soldiers of the Lord” by Michael Krass, awarded the best pitch in Leipzig.
The reactions from the panel of broadcasters in a pitching session, when the editors are positive, are normally ”let’s talk more”. Which the editors and the project holders then do in private meetings. Which then may result in an agreement, be it a pre-buy or a coproduction, which then again normally goes through a local producer. In other words it is seldom that a broadcaster commits him- or herself on the spot. The financial process is long but the success stories are many of international coproductions that have crossed orders for the benefit of the audience.
But something happened in Leipzig. Two projects got what I would call jackpot: One was from Serbia, ”The Battery Man” – clip from the description of the film project:
… about an extraordinary man who can fry a hot dog with his own hands… able to accumulate electricity and he can consciously control its power while discharging it… MDR said YES, arte said that this is a must-see film and the Sundance Channel urged the filmmakers to make a feature length film for a live audience.
The same overwhelmingly positive reception was given to ”Polish Faith”, a film project about the catholic radio station ”Radio Maryja” that is obtaining a lot of support for its anti-abortion, and to a certain degree anti-semitic propaganda that it wants also outside the Polish borders.The Berlin based channel RBB committed itself, as did Lithuanian television, the Greek Skai – and BBC4 controller Richard Klein wanted to know more.
Photo from film project “Taste the Waste” by Valentin Thurn.
Prizes were given yesterday in Lisbon and there was 15.000€ for the Chinese film ”Petition” by Zhao Liang. Here is what the film is about: Since 1996, Zhao Liang has been filming the “petitioners”, who come from all over China to file complaints about the abuses and injustices committed by the authorities. For the most part, they live in makeshift shelters for months or even years until they can obtain justice. A unique testimony about China today.
Two films that have previously been written about on this site were among the winners: Aliona Polunina’s ”The Revolution that Wasn’t”, as best investigative documentary (5000€) and ”10 min.” (PHOTO) by Jorge Léon as best short documentary (3000€).
The Prix Europa for the Best Documentary Television Programme 2009 goes to a Film that is also available for the participants of the DOKLeipzig – the stylistically brilliant close up on people who come to the hospital to receive chemotherapy, made by Pawel Lozinski, who is known for other very fine works, among them the short film ”Sisters”. Here is a quote from the press release about the film that hopefully will travel the world. The jury said at the prize ceremony:
“This documentary once again underlines how important it is that we continue to celebrate and commiserate the human condition in our work. The sensitivities displayed both on the other and this side of the camera should make us all in this hall proud of our commitment to documentary film making.
And yet, by the end of the film the director and his team had impressed on us the strengths, wisdom and humour of those who attempt to defeat or come to terms with this hideous and deadly disease.”
http://www.prix-europa.de/en/prix_europa_2009/prizes09/tvd09/
The innovative Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival in Czech Republic announces the following that will interest not only his Danish friends and fans like this blogger:
The principal guest of Jihlava IDFF will be the distinguished Danish documentary maker, writer and poet Jørgen Leth. The festival has prepared for him “five Jihlava obstructions” (a variation on the well-known film The Five Obstructions, made by Leth with the provocative director Lars von Trier): The selection of the winner of this year’s Opus Bonum, author’s reading of controversial stories from Haiti, acerbic comments on new world documentaries, Leth as an Erotic Man and in 27 scenes from the film by Amir Labaki.
The festival takes place October 27 – November 1.
Ania, Gosia and Ilona go to the city from the countryside, where possibilities to get work are small or non-existing. They are sweet and natural and they react differently to the new world with many temptations. The film is shot over a long period and suffers a bit from the jumps in time that you hear about or understand but do not sense. Arranged scenes help to push the action so the overall impression is that this is an honest report from Poland today, and I guess it could take place in any bigger country. The first station is a boarding house, the next ones are either to return home as does Ania for her boyfriend Andrzej and Ilona for her small child.
… and just want to praise again the producer and director Krzysztof Kopczyński from Eureka Media for his work – you can find other of his films mentioned and reviewed on this site: Stone Silence and Kites.
Ukraine, in the countryside. A man who talks. A real talker. A man full of Life and energy. And a man with a mission: he wants to honour people. Which he does in his own way by constructing and placing monuments on the cemeteries without any discrimination of where the dead come from. Whether they were Poles, Jews or Russians. He restores and improves the simple graves, we see him in his outdoor workshop in his garden, we see him inside in his modest home writing a letter to his brother in London, or putting down on paper short notes on what he has been doing during the day. And away he goes again on his bike for new works and new stories that he conveys to the cameraman and director – the same person. Choirs and masses in the church, veterans in uniforms, hymns to the liberation of Ukraine. Patriotic, yes, but also a meeting with a man that you cant help have sympathy for. A good meeting because of a good observant and situational documentary film.
Contact for the film: ellash@rambler.ru
Ukraine, 2009, 70 mins.