Joris Ivens dvd-box

Det nye flotte nummer af Ekko er lige kommet ind ad døren. Jeg bladrer i første omgang forbi Paprika Steen, Quentin Tarantino, Headhunter, Grodals von Trier analyse, Nimbus storhed og fald, Johnnny Depp,Pedro Almodóvar og alle psykopaterne frem til anmeldelserne og finder omhyggelige og pålidelige Lars Movin, som i sin anmeldelse giver Joris Ivens samlede værk seks stjerner.

Det vigtigste er, at det kan lade sig gøre! At se alle de mange Ivens film nu. Samlet. Og den vigtigste sætning i Movis tekst er: “En boks , som enhver, der interesserer sig blot en smule for filmmediets og især dokumentarismens historie, roligt kan begynde at spare sammen til…” Jeg er begyndt. Prisen for tyve Ivens film, alle til seks stjerner, er 53 euro. I denne webshop: 

http://www.ivens.nl/nieuws/leesverderUK.asp?n=20249,0715393519&k=1&t=2&m=1 

Filmene er i hollandsk, fransk og engelsk version. De er alle søgt restaureret til instruktørens oprindelige version.

Still: Joris Ivens blandt terrakottakrigerne i A Tale of The Wind, 1988.

Odense Film Festival 2009

The national Danish film festival in Odense is over. Under the competent leadership of Cecilia Lidin a big competitive international programme of short fiction films supplemented the competition of new Danish short films and documentaries. The Grand Prix for the best Danish film 2008-2009 went to Christian Sønderby Jepsen for his charming and surprising “Side om Side”. Here is a repeat of the review that was brought on this site:

Around 20 minutes into this staged documentary I started to get impatient. Come on, make the story move, we got the message, the neighbours dont like each others, they dont talk, it is a silent war, where they will not fight or terrorise each other as in subjectwise similar films like the classic of Norman Maclaren. But then it takes a turn. The filmmaker asks his father, one of the neighbours, what was the biggest moment in his life. Difficult question to answer for a man, who has difficulties to express emotions, but he gives the answer. And the filmmaker goes to the neighbour to give us a positive impression of him.

We will never sit down and have coffee and pastries, says the father of the filmmaker about the conflict. More than a decade ago something happened that created a total split up between the two families. The result was that a fence grew up, a kind of no-mans land, a Berlin wall, in otherwise peaceful Western Jutland of Denmark in a town called Tarm. Where they speak a strong dialect and express a certain kind of stubbornness. Because nobody really recalls what happened, nobody knows who owes an apology.

The film is brilliant to look at, the mise-en-scène  style is carried through, a promising debut, that reminds me of the early films of Jon Bang Carlsen.

Denmark, 2008, 47 mins.

Docu Awards in Sarajevo

What a pleasant surprise and a well deserved prize from the Sarajevo Film Festival audience – to nominate ”Sevdah” by Marina Andree as the best film of the festival. I have previously introduced the film, that had its premiere in Sarajevo and that now will hopefully travel the world. Here is what the film is about:

”An intimate journey through Bosnian “blues” dedicated to the prematurely deceased Farah, a passionate fan of sevdah. Trying to confront their own loss and grief, the autors create a film about sevdah as an emotional, musical, lyrical and visual journey through the soul of Bosnia.”

The winner – another prize for this great film – of the documentary section was ”Caviar Connection” by Dragan and Jovana Nikolic, a film that has travelled the world as is ”Cash and Marry” by Atanas Georgiev, who went third in the Audience competition. Both manyfold mentioned on this site.

These three films document again the quality of documentaries from the Balkan: Originality, vision, relevance in subject, feeling and humour. I am so happy for the filmmakers and a bit proud to have been able to follow them from ZagrebDox pitching through Ex Oriente training workshop, and now they meet an audience who appreciates the work!

www.sevdahfilm.com

www.sff.ba

www.docuinter.net

Sheffield Doc/Fest new Initiative

Here is a follow-up to the text about joiningthedocs, quite interesting and if I get it right, you don’t have to travel to Sheffield (which by the way could be quite nice!) to watch a selection of the films in the coming festival. Read what is coming up:

“Sheffield Doc/Fest brings the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making for five intense days in November. As part of the 2009 festival, Doc/Fest is partnering with online documentary specialists joiningthedocs.tv to offer a selection of the festival’s films online, in an effort to broaden the impact of the festival’s films by bringing them to a larger audience.

joiningthedocs.tv is building a dedicated microsite for Doc/Fest’s online festival coverage, using a powerful new video platform. Each film will have a page dedicated to it, similar to the style of Doc/Fest’s current Videotheque. Visitors will be able to watch a trailer, purchase the film for a high-quality streaming experience, leave comments, and if they are a professional industry member, contact the film’s producer directly.”

www.sheffdocfest.com (photo: Nick Broomfield, retro-serie at the festival in 2008)

www.joiningthedocs.tv

Iranian Filmmakers: Boycott

142 Iranian filmmakers have issued a boycott of the 2009 edition of the (Iranian) Cinema Vérité International Documentary Film Festival, that is scheduled for October 2009. The Iranian filmmakers express that in the current situation of the country, there are so many films that could have been made, but “we are not allowed to make them”. Read the unedited version of the statement of the Iranian filmmakers on

www.edn.dk

D-Word 10 Years!

A worldwide community of documentary professionals it is, the D-word that announces that by September 3 it has existed for 10 years. As a place for documentary people from all over the world to talk to each other, as colleagues sharing experience and knowledge. Warm congratulations from a member who visits The D-Word and profits… and would love to have participated much more than has been the case. Let me give the floor to the founder Doug Block who together with Ben Kempas are the ones with whom I have only fine memories from the time when I was in the EDN. And to readers – sign up, you wont regret it:

It’s hard to believe that on September 3rd we’ll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the very first posting on The D-Word.  And that this total lark of an idea I had back in 1999 would grow to become the foremost virtual community for documentary filmmakers, with thousands of members from 80 countries.

For a while now we’ve been thinking about having some kind of ambitious global event for The D-Word’s 10th birthday (I know I just said anniversary but it feels much more like a birthday).  However, that’s not really our style.  What we’d like to encourage, instead, is for members everywhere to organize gatherings in their local cities on September 3rd.  It need not be anything big.  The point is to use the date as an excuse to meet fellow doc makers in your area in person.  And, like we do everyday online, together celebrate the art and craft and joy and angst of documentary filmmaking.

http://www.d-word.com

The Beetz Brothers

The Beetz Brothers … sounds like a film title but is the name of a very active independent production company in Germany, which I would like to draw your attention to as an example of a production company that not only makes a lot of interesting films for tv and cinema, but also puts a lot of energy into the promotion of the films. I am the interested receiver of their regular newsletter and reader of a very well constructed website. Check it:

http://www.beetz-brothers.de/

Later I will review a couple of films from the company, one of them being Marc Eberle’s film from Laos, a quote from the annotation of the film:

The Vietnam War was the most intensely televised war ever. However, next door in neighboring Laos, the longest and largest air war in human history was underway, which eventually made Laos the most bombed country on earth. The Secret War was the largest operation ever conducted by the CIA, yet to this day, hardly anyone knows anything about it. Critics call it the biggest war crime of the Vietnam War era and point to striking similarities to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; similarities that were tested and set in motion back in Laos in the 1960s.

Glawogger Masterpiece Available

Time for a commercial – to illustrate through just one example that many of the creative documentary films reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk are available to be watched whenever you want and for little money:

“joiningthedocs.tv is a new documentary channel offering the very best director-led films on demand, via streaming.The films are made by a passionate, international group of socially committed people who have a mission to try and make sense of the world. They illuminate our times and help to support a fully-functioning society. But they are hard to see. Although some are shown by public service and public-minded tv broadcasters, they tend to be on specialist channels, in the corners of schedules and rarely repeated.

Many films play at international festivals, and on occasion are theatrically released. But how often have you read a great review of a film and then not had the chance to watch it? We know that audiences expect to find what they want, when they want, at a time and price that suits them. That’s where joiningthedocs.tv comes in.a new documentary channel offering the very best director-led films on demand, via streaming.”

End of commercial: The reason choosing specifically this one is the advertising they do for a new title, the masterpiece of Austrian director Michael Glawogger (photo), “Workingman’s Death”. As convincing as his “Megacities” by one of the real auteurs in modern documentary. Take a look at the trailer.

http://www.joiningthedocs.tv/

http://www.workingmansdeath.com

Paul Pauwels Interview

He is now the head of The European Television & Media Management Academy in Strasbourg. Before he was a documentary film producer, one of the best in Europe, and for a short while a commissioning editor at the VRT in Belgium, the country he comes from. I know him from his pioneer work for years for EDN (European Documentary Network), as a chairman of the Executive Committee and I won’t hesitate to say as the best tutor and promoter of international cooperation, I met when a director of EDN. One of the filmmakers Paul Pauwels met on his many travels for EDN was Serbian Zelkjo Mirkovic, who made this interview that can be read in full length on www.docuinter.net Here is a brief clip:

eljko Mirkovic: How do you see the future of documentary film? Paul Pauwels: Reality is always stronger than fiction, certainly when filmed and edited by professionals. Documentary will never disappear. There will come good times, there will come bad times, but it will always survive. I suppose that you’re question really means: how do you see the future of creative documentaries? Well, there I’m also optimistic about the fact that they will always be there and will warm many hearts, but I’m less optimistic about their production circumstances. I fear that the percentage of creative documentaries on traditional tv-screens will quickly diminish and certainly they will be banned from prime-time. But… another big but… thanks to the new platforms (VOD, IP-TV …) there will be other forms of financing, production and distribution available. There is a niche audience for them that can be served through alternative channels and believe me, the commercial world (who often has to come up with the money to produce them) will be very interested in this audience. Apologies if this sounds too much business-like, but that’s the reality that will keep people like you in the business. On the other hand it is the responsibility of commissioning editors to keep fighting to keep documentaries on the traditional main channels too. So I see a lot of fighting and hardship, but I’m certainly not pessimistic: there are so many creative and talented people around that they will always find ways to surprise and seduce audiences, and they are the blood and the force of documentaries. Photo: Mirkovic left, Pauwels right.

www.docuinter.net

http://www.etma-academy.eu/

http://www.optimisticfilm.com/

Football Referees get their own Film

According to the newspaper The Guardian (August 13) a new documentary about football referees has been premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Director is Yves Hinant and the film runs time-wise a bit less than a football match: 77 mins. This is how the intro to the article by Simon Hart runs:

“Nobody knows them, nobody likes them. So it is very interesting to make a movie against the common perception.” Belgian film-maker Yves Hinant is not talking about paedophiles or serial killers, but football referees. The ref may be a popular figure of contempt for frustrated managers, players and fans but Hinant’s film could cause you to think twice before badmouthing the next hapless official. Les Arbitres (The Referees), which had its premiere at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland on Monday, is a revealing fly-on-the-wall documentary about the men in the middle at the Euro 08 finals last year – among them the leading English match official, Howard Webb (photo). Remarkably for the image-obsessed world of modern sport, Hinant gained unfettered access to a handful of these referees, whom we see not just on the pitch but off it, too: in dressing rooms, at debriefs, even at home with their families…”

Can’t wait to watch it!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/13/the-referees-documentary