Petr Lom: Letters to the President

Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, receives 10 million letters per year and 76% of them are answered! This is stated by an employee from the administration that takes care of this personal contact between the president and the population.

Ahmadinejad, a president, who does not like the red carpet, as it is said in the beginning of the film, by one of the people interviewed,. A man of the people. A man who constantly shouts for hate towards Israel and the US, as seen in the film. As in previous films by the film director and cameraman, same person: Petr Lom, meets the people with an open mind and the camera ready to catch what he can in a tongue-in-cheek journalistic documentary that gets much closer than the usual, normal tv-reportages shot in Iran. Due to the original letter-angle we as viewer are taken from place to place, including the birthplace of the president, to meet not only supporters and propagandists of Iranian politics, but also citizens who are critical and dare express themselves. ”He is like a gardener who plants seedlings but do not water them”, one says. Others ask repeatedly for help, and the president is filmed caressing some of his fellow-citizens and helping a woman who faints from emotion when she meets the president. ”I am your servant”, he says in this wonderfully open, non-conclusive and nuanced insight to an Iran that has its election in June 2009.

Canada/France, 2009, 74 mins. and 52 mins.

http://www.filmstransit.com/

www.letterstothepresidentmovie.com

Peter Kerekes: Cooking History

For a documentary veteran viewer it is pure pleasure, when you watch a film that gives you surprises you in structure, narration and content. I knew that Slovak/Hungarian Peter Kerekes after his wonderful ”66 Seasons” was working on a big budget film on a somewhat crazy subject: How did they cook for the soldiers on the front, what did they eat, under which circumstances, war and food… but I had no real idea on how he would materialise his idea and construct his film. I must say that I am amazed how innovative and playful and funny and moving and clever and original this great film is.

Chaptered it is – the prologue refers to Chechnya, then follows WW2 battles between Germany and Russia, post-WW2, Hungary 1956, Prague 1968, Balkan wars and much more –  told through interviews, b/w archive material, and reconstructions of soldiers on the fields and the best of all: the staging of the cooks with their transportable kitchen making food for the viewers. Placed – as the example in the epilogue – in the water, or in front of a ruin, or in other situations referring to where the battles took place.

But first of all Kerekes demonstrates again his enormous talent for (old) people. He has a brilliant gallery of characters who bring out their memories in a fresh and often humorous manner. Sometimes it is comedy, sometimes it is subtle and sometimes provocative. Storytellers they are, like the woman, who made blini pancakes for the Russian soldiers, and if they did not come home the pancakes were brought to be placed on the tombstone at the cemetery. And of course Kerekes takes the old lady to this venue and asks her several times – out of camera – why? The same old lady tells us in the kitchen that during the siege of Leningrad, there was 100g bread, two thin slices per person per day. In this moment she can’t stand talking about it any longer. Cut to the German baker who is likewise moved by thinking back… The excellent editing, according to the ”open structure” that the dramaturg of the film Jan Gogola always cleverly promotes, this editing is made so the characters, often on both sides of the wars, have a kind of dialogue with each other. That’s all, watch that film, get it to the audience, it is for everybody, for heart and brain.

Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, 2009, 88 mins.

http://www.eastsilver.net/home

http://www.jaksevaridejiny.cz/english.php#menu1

Jönsson & Gertten: Long Distance Love

Osh in Kyrgyzstan. Not a place that we have heard much about. The same goes for the people who live there. Who fall in love as everyone (hopefully) does all over the world. However, the problem for the two protagonists, Alisher and Dildora, is that they need money to survive and as there is no work for Alisher in Kyrgyzstan, he leaves for Russia with the help of an agency, that turns out to cheat on him and many others. Low-paid he is and there is not a lot of money going back to Dildora and his parents. While away from home, Dildora gives birth to their child, which does not make the living conditions easier. There is but one solution for Alisher – he must go back home for the sake of mother and child, but also for the ill mother and the silent father, who drinks too much.

Banal theme, yes, but actual and presented in a very sweet way with a straight forward story (sometimes with some huge jumps in time) and told in a sympathetic non-sensational and informative tone, although one could have wished for a more creative camera approach that could have made a good film be a great film.

2008, Sweden, 88 mins.

Will be shown at Cinemateket this coming sunday 17.5 at 14.30, with q&a with Magnus Gertten.

www.edn.dk

http://www.autoimages.se/english/auto_images/

Guyla Nemes: Lost World

“The life, demolition and reconstruction of the Kopaszi dam between 1998 and 2007. A mostly black & white 35mm documentary shot over ten years in a forgotten landscape in the center of Budapest. People living in houseboats and wooden houses, struggling against flood, snow and investors who want them to evict. The second part of The Dike of Transience.”

In this way the East Silver annotates the film of a young Hungarian director, who in a wonderful old fashioned way masterly plays with the picture and sound for the duration of 20 minutes. This is organic material, it is film, you can see it, it has scratches and broken sound, and intuitive editing and it witnesses the director’s imaginative skills that he lets the sound of an rehearsing orchestra accompany the images from a Christiania (yes, I am Danish) like free town, a free spirit community that is being harmonized in the name of the EU. It is seasons, its cats running around, it is glimpses of Life, it is grass being rolled out in straight lines, it is a new posh community entering what was a treasure. What a playful and thoughtful and sensitive documentary!

20mins, 2008 financed by local sources and Finnish YLE.

http://www.eastsilver.net/home

www.absolutfilm.hu

Viktor Asliuk: Waltz

I have known the works of Viktor Asliuk for many years, small universal stories about people and what they do in their lives, conveyed with a lot of warmth, with ”We are Living on the edge” as a masterpiece that has gone all over.

For that reason I can not help to be a bit disappointed with his new film about a doctor who goes around to help lonely and forgotten people in the countryside of Belarus. It is far too short, the character should have been more developed, it starts, it has some sweet moments but does not really get close and does not capture emotions, and then it is over.

Belarus, 20 mins., 2008

http://www.eastsilver.net/home

Salome Jashi: Speechless

Georgian director. Saw one of her previous works last year, ”Their Helicopter”, written about on this site. And praised at the same time her on-going film project, ”Restaurant Bakhmaro and Those Who Work There”, that is now with the director at the Ex Oriente film project.

This 12 minutes long wordless documentary includes faces that you are invited to look at, not talking faces, because words – as the director has said – can not express the feelings that these Georgians have, having experienced the Georgian-Russian war in August 2008. It is impossible not to feel as a voyeur watching these people (an older woman, a girl, a younger woman, an old man, a mother with child, a man in battledress and more… all in front of a ”neutral” wall), you wonder why you watch the faces and feel a bit embarassed but you stay and get the written info on the people at the end of the film. Conceptual, yes, impressive, yes – a film that is part of a series called ”10 Minutes of Democracy”, more here and below.

www.docuinter.net

http://www.artefact.ge/currentproject.html

Brügger og Bertelsen: Quatraro Mysteriet 2

Ud fra et dokumentar-synspunkt er serien om Quatraro (for sagen som sådan se tidligere indlæg) et tv-program, som viser to journalisters research. Man kunne så være fræk og spørge, hvorfor pokker vi skal se researchen og ikke en velturneret undersøgende krimidokumentar, hvor journalisterne holder sig i baggrunden og ikke i forgrunden. Hensigten med denne genres fortællemåde er imidlertid at Brügger og Bertelsen skal være i forgrunden som to karakterer, vi skal interessere os for, en slags to uheldige helte som gør, hvad de kan for at bryde den tavse mur og gåderne omkring sagen. Arbejdsmåden og det store uoverskuelige EU er det, det drejer sig om. Også.

Spørgsmålet er så, om de er gode nok til at fylde disse roller ud? Om den underfundige skæve humor, som de to praktiserer så godt i studiet derhjemme, også fungerer i diverse hotelværelser og fly. Jeg synes det ikke, jeg keder mig stadig, selvom dette andet afsnit havde en række gode ansigter og typer i de mange kontorer i Bruxelles og i Quatraros fødeby. Men når jeg nu synes at det måske ikke er så interessant at finde ud af hvordan manden døde for 16 år siden, og ikke fanges af de evindelige nærbilleder af de to journalister…  det kan blive bedre i de kommende afsnit, men faren for manér, selvsving og krukkeri er nærliggende.

Set på www.dr.dk

Svt Tonight : The Caviar Connection

OBS! Especially for Danish and Swedish readers

: On this site the great film of Dragan Nikolic has often been mentioned and praised (go to “search” and write the title). Here is another piece of promotion on the occasion of the screening on Swedish public channel svt 1 tonight at 22.00.

The Caviar Connection is a documentary about the Rats brothers – two sturgeon fishermen and their dream to catch the BIG fish which will bring them the money to leave their small village in Serbia. The brothers and those who live around them are like characters from slapstick comedies, they always argue, cheat and calculate, they disagree but yet, always work together. While they gamble with written and unwritten rules of nature and economics, their characters become deeper without them even noticing it. (Transit Film, the distributor)

… A wonderful mixture of observational documentary and creative authorship. It shows the inevitable disappearing world of traditional fishing through the colorful, character driven story of one family. The film pulls us so fully into this world, that we can’t help but have warmth for these flawed characters, find humor in their ordinary situations, and feel compassion for their struggles. (Jury motivation at ZagrebDox where it won first prize).

http://www.filmstransit.com/

Simon El Habre: The One Man Village

Best international feature Documentary at the Hot Docs was announced yesterday night and the winner was the Lebanese filmmaker Simon El Habre with this ”The One Man Village”, well deserved for a charming and well constructed film. Here is the review I wrote when I saw the film at DoxBox in Damascus in March:

It is one of those minimalistic films that subject-wise has been seen so many times: Man lives alone outside the cities, big house, animals – cows, chicken, horses, cats and dogs – he has retired from the noisy world full of pollution and he has a fine life. A bit excentric, yes, but clever and sweet to the filmmaker, his nephew, the Lebanese film director Simon El Habre, who masters a narrative full of warmth and surprises with the behind the camera nephew getting closer and closer to his uncle and his story. And why are you not married, have you ever been in love, what happened to your parents… questions are asked, the uncle demonstrates his passion for the animals, gets into his old, rusty car to go downhill with the milk, and slowly we understand that the village is emptied because of what happened in the civil war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. The film has an extraordinary sound design and you are not bored for a moment. It was in Berlin, it goes to Nyon and Hotdocs, well-deserved. Tell your local festival to screen it.

… in Damascus the audience enjoyed the film with big applause. What an uncle to have! Charismatic, energetic, with a smile in his eyes all the time, a happy man.

www.hotdocs.ca

Boris Mitic: Goodbye, How are You? 1

It is one of those films where you are attracted by the visual and the tone of the film and the words, in other words by the film, and still feel like you want to watch and listen again. Because you did not get it all. Being a chaptered film essay of highest originality, with funny playful captions, you can actually do your re-view by clicking your remote control. To pick the chapters. And you can visit the (also) rich website to get on your screen the aphorisms. Simply to read what you heard.

I say so because it is a difficult film for someone from outside of Serbia and ex-Yugoslavia to fully recognise and sense the constant dialogue between image and words. Much is archive from places and demonstrations, and conflict and war situations. Also from today, also from Kosovo, but also here you have to give up sometimes as you dont have the references in your visual memory. At the same time as the images and the tone and the words keep your attention the whole way through.

Nevertheless, let me skip the eternal (Nordic?) rational wish to understand everything… there is so much to discover in this ambitious journey in absurdity and subtlety where you are taken by the hand by a ”me”, the voice of an old man, who is summarising his life and talks about his friend and about the duels he would love to have. With other people and with himself. My Serbian language knowledge does not exist but the voice of the old man sets me in the mood of laughing of what is being said and what I watch. But not only laughing. There is also a sadness, a sad wisdom I would call it, from the writers and philosophers, who have inspired director Boris Mitic for making this clever satirical catalogue of image & words. It took him ”4 years of travelling 50.000 km along Balkan side roadsto make 400 shots” for a story and a visualisation to which there is but one thing to say: Good Day, I am fine. I saw your film. I feel it like I do when I have seen a play of Samuel Beckett. Provoked and entertained in a creative way. Want to see it again. Bravo!

The film is supported by arte, MDR and YLE and Serbian public sources. And you will meet it at international festivals.

Serbia, 2009, 60 mins.  

http://www.dribblingpictures.com

http://www.dokfest-muenchen.de/filme_view_web.php?fid=2844