Mladen Kovačević: Merry Christmas Yiwu

This text is written by the festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic

This is not a film about China. This is a film about people’s dreams. This is a film about everything that makes a dream about China.

Wonderful and enchanting, this film immediately breaks through all barriers and introduces us to the very center of the intimate circle of dedicated manufacturers of New Year’s decorations. The city of Yiwu, hidden by the shadow of huge Shanghai, every year in December, before Christmas in the western world, becomes one of the most important points on the map of the world for the success of Christian holiday. In that place, series and series of magical, shiny, colourful balls and decorations for Christmas trees around the world are created. This film reveals to us human touches that create colourful Christmas glow. With masterly created long one shot-scenes, Mladen Kovačević brings us closer to faces and secrets, personal stories, hidden desires, hopes. He introduces us to people who become close, dear, interesting to us. At the same time, this is a testimony about leaps in time, about the people who face the world that came out of their vague ideas about the future in which they turned up miraculously. All individual stories exceptionally fit into a vivid, dynamic composition of constant change and never-ending discoveries. Life captured by discreet observation is revealed to us in its exciting fullness and beauty.

A superb modern documentary that amazes with scenes shot for a real cinematic experience.

Serbia, Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium, Qatar 2020, 94 minutes

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/en/index.php 

Magnificent7 – Salomé Jashi: Taming the Garden

In this text the directors of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade (October 2 – 6) gives their reasons for showing the film at a special screening followed by their intro-review for the film that is shown on the last day, October 6 at 6pm.

Nature, the planet and all of us have been hit by numerous tragedies again this year. They continue to threaten to destroy not only our civilization, man as a species, but all life on Earth. Fires of unimaginable proportions and consequences ravaged Greece, destroying in front of them all living beings. Thousands of acres of virgin forests have been destroyed in the north of the island of Evia. Also, an ancient olive grove was burned near the village Rovies, and in it a 2500-year-old olive tree called Nymph, still fruitful. It was described in ancient times by the geographer and philosopher Strabo. It was among the oldest trees in the world. “This 2500 year old three in the Greek island of Evia saw civilizations rise, crumble and fall. It couldn’t survive this one. But perhaps it glimpsed the crumbling.”

We dedicate this special projection to the olive Nymph with the deepest sorrow.

Below the intro/review of the film written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic:

Georgia, Switzerland, Germany 2021 
79 minutes 
directed by: Salomé Jashi 

A film that marked Sundance Film Festival and the Berlinale with its poetic cry for the salvation of nature and the planet. 

Shot in the rural areas of Georgia, this film is a turbulent amalgam of harsh reality and surreal scenes, dreamlike images that carry the deepest representations of the symbolism of the collective unconscious. The film is an incredible saga about the life of trees that many neither respect nor see as living creatures. This is the saga about taming the very essence of nature, about an astonishing endeavor arising from the bizarre need of people of power and money, about an endeavor that inflicts intense suffering and sorrow. This is the document of eradication in the basic meaning of the word in order to satisfy the perverted idea of moving hundred-year-old trees from their natural environment of forests and villages to a newly created park, grove, in a domesticated garden of trees, as in a collection of butterflies pierced by pins. Before our very eyes, reality turns into a legend about a cursed land, into a fairy tale about an enchanted forest, into stories about a hidden powerful giant that moves the world. Stunning scenes never seen in reality on such a scale but only in intense dreams, strike us with their presence in the world that we have allowed to be handed over to those who understand nothing about nature its living beings. The exceptional subtlety of perception and the great artistic talent of the author poetize this story, which remains in us as a painful ode to our fellow relatives in life and our silent protectors. 

Salomé Jashi turns her film into the voice of trees of the entire planet. 

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/en/index.php 

Mogens Brejnholm Nielsen: Faktatjek

Alle var dette mærkelige år, et århundredes sidste, efterhånden enige om, at Randers ikke mere var, hvad byen havde været. Sådan skrev jeg 2004 til Mette Lundens og min bog Randersbiografi. Og jeg selv begyndte dengang tilmed at spekulere på, om byen var en by stadigvæk. Med Calvino i hånden kunne jeg – i det mindste over for mig selv – rejse berettiget tvivl om den by, som i dag hedder Randers, nu også er den samme, som eksisterede tidligere under det navn. Som Calvinos Maurilio kunne den have afløst en anden med det samme navn på dette samme sted, uden der var forbindelse mellem dem. Uden der nogensinde havde været forbindelse.

 MORGENMØDER

Og når Jyllands Posten en søndag tidligt i dette år 1999 kunne skrive ”God¬morgen Randers”, og så bare lade teksten handle om nogle møder, man havde tidligt på dagen mellem de øverste chefer i den kommunale administration, så vidste jeg, men accepterede ikke, at den ironiske hilsen også gjaldt mig. Jeg boede i Randers, holdt af at bo der, ville blive ved med det, men var altså i tvivl om, hvad det var for en realitet, ordet dækkede. Var jeg i en eller anden forstand omsluttet af begrebet Randers og således ansvarlig for, hvad disse mænd talte om og besluttede? Naturligvis ikke, skrev jeg til mig selv den morgen. ”Randers” var her en journalistisk forkortelse…

 BYENS ANSIGT

Som ordet også var det hos Randers Amtsavis’ journalist Jørgen Bollerup Hansen, når han den 14. februar 1999 skrev om Randers’ image, interviewede borgmesteren om hans by, som var det stadigvæk denne overskuelige, middelalderlige købstad, de talte om, og i en spalte efter artiklen listede en række punkter op: Cerberus’ handlinger, det kommunale personalekontors handlinger, Lillebjørnbestyrelsens handlinger, Brusgårdbestyrelsens handlinger, Rytterskoleledelsens handlinger, Randers Jazzfonds handlinger, Jyllands Postens hanlinger med sine artikler om Randers Kommunes ledelse og endelig en bestemt handling på Randers Kunstmuseum. Ja, der var meget de dage at føle sig ansvarlig for. Alt dette skadede Randers’ image stod der. Strukturen Randers klart opfattet som et stort kommercielt firma bærende dette navn, hvor formanden for bestyrelsen netop var blevet interviewet.

 FOTOBOG

Jeg havde næsten glemt disse møder om morgenen mellem de øverste chefer på Laksetorvet og fuldstædig fortrængt de meget voldsomme begivenheder under et ekstraordinært byrådsmøde den 10. marts 1999.

 Men så kom forleden dag Mogens Brejnholm Nielsens smukke fotobog, Faktatjek, 48 fornemt tykke sider, liggende A3 format, en lille suite sort/hvide helsides fotografier i en uklippet montage direkte fra negativstriben og en større suite fotografier i farve og som alle er omhyggeligt kontrollerede snapshots.

Mogens Brejnholm Nielsen skriver i sit forord om sin holdning til sine fotografiers objekt Randers: “Jeg holder af min by, og har hjemve så snart jeg forlader den. Har i det meste af mit voksenliv fulgt med i samfunddsdebatten og via fotografiet kommet i kontakt med mange forskellige miljøer og mennesker. min yngste datter, der bor i Århus, har er indkøbsnet, hvorpå der der står: “Alt, hvad de siger om Randers, passer”…”  

Alle optagelser i fotobogen er fra en begivenhedsrig aften på Randers Rådhus den 10. april 1999, og fotografierne skildrer et reelt drama med et ekstraordinært byrådsmøde, med formøder og mindre møder og korridorsamtaler undervejs. Dramaet var afslutning på en svært overskuelig og langsomt afdækket periode af dybe modsætninger i personalegrupper, embedsmandskreds og byråd.

 FOTOGRAFIER

Mogens Brejnholm har optaget de sorthvide fotografier i nøgtern ærlig reportagestil, klassisk indiskutabel som billedjournalistik, hvad det ikke er. Det er pointefri redegørelser for det sete under en konstant tilstedeværelse.

Finn Larsen har fotograferet i farver. Hans billedtæppe er i nervøs bevægelse som af en forårsvind fra et par åbne vinduer. Og det gør selvfølgelig min tillærte tydning af detaljer og enkeltfortællinger vanskelig, men flytter jeg min forventning fra det repeterende, fra det mimiske greb med kameraet ser jeg Finn Larsens poetiske vilje: se dette som flimrende teater, som en shakespearisk erfaring, ikke til at glemme.

Det er således prosaisk fotografi og lyrisk fotografi i samme fotobog.

 ESSAY

Billedsuiterne er omgivet af et stort essay hentet fra en journalistisk videnskabelig overvejelse af den løbende magtudredning disse år omkring århundredskiftet, Magtens Bog, 2002) hvor ”Randersskandalen” fik sit eget kapitel. Og om dette essay hed det i en anmeldelse:

”Var Farum-sagen kommet frem tidligere, ville den have en selvskrevet plads i fremstillingen. Nu må vi nøjes med Randers-sagen, som er beskrevet af Henrik Særmark-Thomsen. Bortset fra, at pengene er færre i personalesagerne i Randers, lader skandalerne om forvaltningen af personalesager ikke meget tilbage at ønske. De var ikke blot kendetegnet ved juridiske mangler og magtfuldkommenhed. Konsekvenserne af et uantastet socialdemokratisk styre gennem næsten 100 år var tillige, at oppositionen – med en enkelt undtagelse – ikke var mange kopper te værd, at Randers-afdelingen af Forbundet af Offentligt Ansatte var halvvejs i lommen på den arbejdsgiver, kommunen, som var dens modpart, og at en psykiater brød sin tavshedspligt, når kommunaldirektøren skulle have slibrigheder om en uønsket ansat. Artigt.” (Fra Informations anmeldelse omtale af “Magtens Bog”)

 LITT.:

Erik Valeur: Magtens Bog, 2002

 https://www.information.dk/2002/04/bogens-magt 

Mette Lunden og Allan Berg Nielsen: Randersbiografi, 2005

 https://randersbiografien.wordpress.com/randersbiografi-1-2/ (Scroll til 1999 / Billedet af byen)

 FAKTATJEK

af Mogens Brejnholm Nielsen, 2021

Fotografier: Mogens Brejnholm Nielsen, 1999 og Finn Larsen, 1999

Essay: Henrik Særmark-Thomsen, 2002

Layout: Hans Grundsøe

Forlag: Mogens Brejnholt Nielsen

Salg: hosmbn5@gmail.com 

ISBN nr. 978-87-982279-5-3 

Magnificent7 2021 Belgrade

”My headline is ordinary people”. Director Marc Isaacs is behind the camera skype-talking with his producer, who gives him the information that the broadcasters of today only want to give money for more commercial/sensational stories. Not ordinary people stories.

For me being involved in the extraordinary festival Magnificent7 I have always been drawn by extraordinary films about ordinarypeople. ”Filmmaker’s House” by Isaacs is a film like that, including warmth and love and respect for its characters. Ahh, I don’t like the word ”characters”… better is human beings caught by the camera in a film that is intelligent, playful, fun to watch, lovely human beings, who are who they are – on the stage of the Real and Extraordinary Life.

Absolutely the same you can say about “Merry Christmas, Yiwu” by Mladen Kovačević: Intelligent, playful, respectful… I don’t recall to get so close to  

Chinese people in a film made by a film team that is not Chinese. Festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic approached me cautiously asking if this Serbian documentary was good enough for the festival. It’s a masterpiece, was my answer, we must have it. Later on I had the pleasure to be on the jury of the Sarajevo Film Festival, where there was no doubt, when the main award was to be given. The film is available on different platforms but the magnificent cinematography and narrative rythm demands the great screen and a full cinema in Belgrade!

The Popovic couple did not push for the Serbian film from China and I – as a Dane – did not for „President” by Danish Camilla Nielsson but I hoped they would like the sequel to „Democrats” that already was at Magnificent7. Oh my God, they did and I was happy as I consider Nielsson as one of the (if not the) best documentary directors in Denmark right now. Even if the film has the focus on a country and its politics, again Nielsson lives up to what she said to me in an interview long time ago: ”You’ve got to have love for your characters and do everything you can to give them confidence in the job you’ve been assigned”.

Also „Holy Father” by Andrei Dăscălescu was awarded at the Sarajevo Film Festival for its intimacy, for crossing the border between what is private to personal in the narrative approach making it an extraordinary film about an ordinary theme, father and son. Dăscălescu risks, his father risks, the monk from Mount Athos; it becomes philosophical and existential and there are many points of identification in this so well constructed, emotionally balanced film. Lovely that it can be shown on a big screen even if the main sponsor is HBO, the broadcaster. No blocking.

Family is indeed also the theme of the French “The Man Who Paints Water Drops”. Kim Tschang-Yeul is the name of the artist, Korean, director is Oan Kim, his son, who wants to know (more about) his father, who does not talk a lot; no need for that as the audience is given superb access to a fascinating world artist and the word charisma seems to be an understatement to be in company with Kim!

Children and old people. Very very often they constitute the best gallery for extraordinary films about ordinary human beings. In the selection this year for the festival we chose two films, one from the beginning of life and one from, when the end is near. Finnish film ”School of Hope” by Mohamed El Aboudi takes the viewer to the desert of Morocco, where children go to school to learn, simply. The teacher is fantastic, the children are individuals who have to support their parents and find ways to avoid classical gender roles imposed by the older generation. Full of magical moments. 

Heddy Honigmann, a true master of documentary concludes this intro. Her film “100UP” is also full of unforgettable moments that advocate for – as one of the centenarians put it – life as a miracle, said by ordinary people who have lived long enough to know!

Hope that you also will enjoy to GO TO THE CINEMA to see fascinating lives unfold on the screen – visual beauty. 

Very Best

Tue Steen Müller

PS. A special screening of the festival, film number 8, is “Taming the Garden” by Salomé Jashi from Georgia. It started its screening career at the Sundance Festival in the beginning of 2021 and has since then been praised in festival after festival. I was lucky to watch rough cuts of the film in 2020 as a true admirer of Salomé’s previous work and I was looking forward to recommend it to Svetlana and Zoran Popovic as the film is a true Magnificent7 film from all angles. They agreed with huge enthusiasm. I told this to the director. First and foremost it is a magnificent authored documentary with many layers giving me associations to Hans Christian Andersen and his “The Nightingale” watching trees in the park being watered and held with wires. Fake. It should have been one of seven selected, it became number 8 as another Serbian festival took it placing it among more than 100 films… To the dissatisfaction of the director. Read elsewhere in this catalogue why the festival directors chose to have a number 8 with a special focus.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mads Hedegaard: Cannon Arm and The Arcade Quest

To sit in a cinema watching documentaries! In Malmø where the 32nd Nordisk Panorama takes place. Anita Reher, my colleague from the time where EDN (European Documentary Network) was alive and kicking, invited me to be a juror in the competition for new talents called New Nordic Voice. Thanks. To sit in a cinema… have not done so for a loong time. 

The festival opened Thursday night as always at this Nordic gathering in a good atmosphere.

To be honest I considered not to go to watch a film having read that it dealt with a man, who would beat a record of playing arcade games… what is that?

I went and liked the film a lot. I did not learn anything about arcade games but I met some great personalities, “heroic outsiders”, they are called in the describtion below that I have taken from the website of the Danish Film Institute. I would add artists to characterise them. The protagonist Kim “Kanonarm” Købke who is not, to say the least, a big talker. During the film he mumbles, hmmm, strange sounds come from him while he is playing – and still the line I remember so well is “oh, some wonderful plants” said by the player, while he is out in the dark peeing in a small break from the ambition to beat the record! One of his friends (Michael) Dyst is a writer, who reads some of his fine poems in between the arcade games. Reminds me of Yahya Hassan. And Carsten (Tommy Lauridsen) who has dedicated his life to analyse the music of Johan Sebastian Bach! There are other personalities in the Bip Bip Bar on Fælledvej in Copenhagen and there is a lot beer and music. And fun. The film has a flow with energetic scenes put together in a way so there are also pauses from the sound of the arcade machines. Here is the synopsis: 

 «A film about friendship and arcade games that will put a smile on your face and tug at your heartstrings. With the help from his friends at Bip Bip Bar, Kim Cannon Arm attempts to be the first in the world to play an arcade machine from the early ’80s for 100 consecutive hours. With its collection of heroic outsiders, dreams about legendary world records, quirky hairdos and brilliant players, the documentary praises solidarity and the attempt to achieve the sublime.”

Quite a refreshing documentary!

Will come back with more small reports but not about the films from the competition – the jury still have 6 long documentaries to watch before deciding the winner.

Denmark, 2021, 97 mins.

Baltic Sea Docs 2021: Courage

I wrote this in connection with CPH:DOX festival in April/May this year. The other day it was screened in K-Suns cinema in Riga. First time for me to see it on a big screen. And Aliaksey Paluyan was there on the screen to talk to the audience that gave him a well deserved long applause. Again, what a difference there is to see a film on the big screen:

One of those is the Belarussian film “Courage” that premiered at the Berlinale, will be at Visions du Réel in Nyon in competition and here it is in the category ”Change Makers”. At the Baltic Sea Docs 2020 Aliaksey Paluyan pitched the film and apologised that ”if I am not present tomorrow, it is because I have been arrested while filming the demonstrations”. The film has been praised for its, yes, courage; I can only add that is an original approach to the theme that makes it go far beyond reportage. Content:  

”Art, civil disobedience and political protest are three different sides of the same revolution for the Belarusian democracy activists Maryna, Pavel and Denis. In the eastern nation, which is often called Europe’s last dictatorship, president Alexander Lukashenko has been solidly in power since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now the people have had enough. Since last year’s elections, the protesters have defied the risk of imprisonment and abduction and have gathered to protest. For several years, Maryna, Pavel and Denis have run the Free Theatre for political performing arts. But when peaceful protests take hold on the streets outside, the stage suddenly becomes much larger.”

Baltic Sea Docs announces the programme

The 25th Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries will run on 1-12 September in Riga and online, with a total of 18 film projects to be presented at the training and pitching forum, as well as a programme of masterclasses and film screenings.

Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, established in 1997 in Denmark, will be hosted in Riga for the 17th year where the forum for documentary industry professionals has been complemented with a public film programme.

“We are very happy to see that over the 25 years Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries has retained its position as an important and necessary event 

for film professionals from the Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe and beyond. It has been a springboard for many filmmakers in the past, and it continues to be such a platform. Films from recent editions have enjoyed great festival runs – like “The Earth is Blue as an Orange” by Iryna Tsilyk, “Courage” by Aliaksei Paluyan, or Antonia Kilian’s “The Other Side of the River” and many others. Even though this anniversary edition will be held in a hybrid form with just a few onsite participants, we will make every effort to have as productive an event as possible, and we do hope that next year we will be able to welcome everyone in Riga again,” comments project manager of the forum Zane Balčus.

18 film project representatives from 17 countries will first participate at a three day workshop aimed at enhancing the participants’ presentations prior to the upcoming pitching sessions. The training will be led by seven tutors: the documentary film consultants Tue Steen Müller and Mikael Opstrup (Denmark), Salomé Jashi (Georgia), director of “Taming the Garden” (2021) and “The Dazzling Light of Sunset” (2016), documentary expert Gitte Hansen (Switzerland), film editor Phil Jandaly (Sweden), producer, director and head of programmes at Estonian Television Marje Tõemäe (Estonia), and film director and scriptwriter Dāvis Sīmanis (Latvia).

The pitching sessions on 8-9 September will take place online, with representatives from the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) present at the Baltic Sea Docs studio in Riga. The projects will be presented to a number of decision makers from TV channels, sales and distribution companies, film funds and industry events such as Cat & Docs (France), Syndicado (Canada), Taskovski (UK), BBC (UK), NHK (Japan), EER (Estonia), LTV (Latvia), YLE (Finland), ZDF / Arte (Germany), Current Time TV (USA), Al Jazeera (Qatar), SVT (Sweden) and others. Selected projects will be awarded with prizes from partners Documentary Association of Europe and post-production company BB Post House.

Additionally, on 6 September Baltic Sea Docs will host two masterclasses (available online to forum participants and general audience upon prior registration)—by the Lithuanian producer Dagne Vildūnaite and Latvian film director Laila Pakalniņa (both moderated by Tue Steen Müller).

The industry event programme will also feature a seminar on film distribution while the traditional methods are blocked, focusing on how and why this hurts documentaries. The seminar, organised by the Creative Media Office of Latvia, will be led by Gitte Hansen on 7 September.

For the fifth year, Baltic Sea Docs will partner with Artdocfest, a festival and industry platform for independent filmmakers from the former Soviet Union. A selection of 10 film projects will be presented at the Artdocfest pitching session on 8 September.

In parallel to industry events, Baltic Sea Docs will present a film programme of international documentaries to the wider public, with Aliaksey Paluyan’s “Courage” (2021) as the opening film. “Courage” follows three actors of an underground theatre in Minsk during the democratic protests against the president Lukashenka’s regime. The film was presented at Baltic Sea Docs pitching forum in 2020 and received the Current Time TV award.

In addition to the cinema programme, Baltic Sea Docs will mark its 25th edition with a special anniversary film selection showcasing nine films that have been, throughout the years, presented at the forum at a project stage. The anniversary programme will be screened on the platform www.filmas.lv administered by the National Film Centre of Latvia (organiser of Baltic Sea Docs), and three of the titles will be available for viewers worldwide on 12 September: the long-time forum participant Ivars Seleckis’ “New Times at Crossroad Street” (1999)—the second film in the trilogy about the inhabitants of the small street in Riga; one of the most internationally acclaimed Lithuanian documentaries, Arūnas Matelis’ “Before Flying Back to the Earth” (2005); and Maj Wechselmann’s film following the life story of her mother Regina Korinman, “My Mother” (2017).

Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries is organised by the National Film Centre of Latvia and supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, State Culture Capital Foundation (special programme “KultūrElpa”) and Riga City Council. More information about the selected film projects and the event is available on the forum homepage: http://balticseadocs.lv

Information prepared by

Ieva Lange

representative of Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries

National Film Centre of Latvia

+371 22189061

ieva.lange@nkc.gov.lv

Stefan Pavlović: Looking for Horses

The film received the Special Jury Award at the Sarajevo FF’s documentary competition. And before that also an award at Visions du Réel in Nyon. The first feature documentary of the director, a gem, a very original work by a young director, who surprised me through the whole film, putting texts on the screen, having a sequence that takes the viewer from the lake that is the main location of the film, to Canada, where the director lived with his family after they moved from Bosnia. The texts on the screen are informative or they express that Stefan does not understand all Zdravko says. As communication is a theme of the film – Zdravko lost one eye and most of his hearing during the war in the beginning of the 90’es, Stefan fights to express himself in Bosnian but fails most of the time suffering from being a stutter due to the many languages he knows – if I get it right.

But it does not matter, they build a beautiful friendship with the camera as the tool and they have wonderful conversations, where Stefan often asks Zdravko „what does … mean“. What do you think about this film, Stefan asks Zdravko, it will be good, is the answer. Zdravko has been living at and on the lake for 18 years in different places like at the church on the island. He is quite a character knowing how to come up with sounds that make fish come closer, he is followed by a dog, and he knows where the wild horses are. As the director puts it on his website: „Where for the fisherman the lake stands for a withdrawal from a fractured country, a land of war; for the filmmaker it precisely means the return to that broken place, the land of his parents“.

Stefan Pavlović did it all on his own. In one scene he helps Zdravko get his hearing aid correctly set in another with the camera on a tripod he films himself and Zdravko at the table, close together; Stefan puts his head on the shoulder of Zdravko in a scene of joy and sadness, a beautiful and warm moment among many in a film full of poetry, a chamber play set on a lake, a film that caress its viewer – like the horses are caressed. Documentary at its best! 

https://www.stefanpavlovic.com/lookingforhorses.html#img3

The Netherlands, Bosnia & Herzegovina, France, 88 mins., 2021

Documentary Awards at Sarajevo FF 2021

Jury:

Cecilia Lidin (Film Consultant, Denmark)

Jean-Pierre Rehm (General Delegate of FIDMarseille – International Cinema Film Festival, France)

Mila Turajlić (Director, Serbia)

HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM

LANDSCAPES OF RESISTANCE

Serbia, Germany, France

Director: Marta Popivoda

Award in the amount of 3,000 €, sponsored by the Government of Switzerland

The cinematic solution to tell the story about 97 year old Yugoslav partisan Sonja Vujanovic is admirable. And her story is amazing and she talks so well, to the beautiful flow of images created by Ivan Markovic, edited superbly by Jelena Maksimovic. I watched and listened to the powerful old lady’s anti-fascist journey from Belgrade to Auschwitz. What a woman. Courage. The director and co-writer, the grandchild Ana Vujanovic, however, want to link the partisan’s story to their own activism of today. For me it becomes a bit “gemacht”, does not catch my interest… get me back to the old lady, I was thinking. 

SPECIAL JURY AWARD

LOOKING FOR HORSES

Netherlands, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Director: Stefan Pavlović

Award in the amount of 2,500 €

SPECIAL JURY MENTION

THE SAME DREAM

Romania

Director: Vlad Petri

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD

LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES

Turkey, Germany, France

Director: Ahmet Necdet Çupur

Best film of the Competition Programme – Documentary Film dealing with the subject of human rights. Award in the amount of 3,000 €, sponsored by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Very good choice – a family film made by the director/cameraman who returns to the village in Turkey, where his siblings want to break away from the strict conservatism performed by the father. Made with love and painful understanding. You often feel embarrassed being with the family – that’s strong.

Stefani: Days and Nights with Dimitra K

If you want an excellent written and precise analysis of the latest work of Greek filmmaker Eva Stefani, click below and read Neil Young’s text written after the Thessaloniki Doc Festival, where Stefani won an award. As “Uncle Tue” to Eva I can’t lean back and pretend that I don’t know her.and love her work as the fine film documentarian she is, no a film auteur she is, always independent, always taking her time to film, always searching for a film language that fits the subject of her film. So I am biased. Therefore let me write some words on Eva, who deserves much more attention at festivals around that she gets at the moment. 

I have known Eva for more than 20 years. When the Storydoc workshops in Greece, initiated by Kostas Spiropoulos, existed, she was a tutor together with – among others – Czech-French Stan Neumann and Scottish Emma Davie. These three academic filmmakers with quite their own non-academic (maybe except Neumann) way of storytelling bonded so well together. Sometimes irritating the moderator of the sessions – me – who had to say “silence please”, when they small-talked, being bored. It could be the reason for me being called “the uncle”, the one who lifts the finger to create order. Eva has a long filmography but also a career as a visual artist exhibiting at several biennales and places like Documenta. And she has written poetry and books on the documentary genre.

Below you have a link to the website of Eva and you will notice, how she shifts in film durations – there are none of the films that fit the television slots we know – 26 or 52 minutes. Her films have had a good life on festivals like “The Box” from 2004 that got an award at Cinéma du Réel. That film is just of many that communicates Eva’s interest in and sense for people, which is so obvious in the new film about Dimitra, the prostitute she has followed for a decade – as a friend and close observer of the big woman, who likes her job and set up standards for the profession far from today’s tragic trafficking. Eva is there with the camera, asks questions to Dimitra, laughs with the charismatic woman, go with her to conferences about prostitution and prostitutes, to political meetings, sees her with her dozen of cats, hears her family story – in a film that falls in two parts, first one in Dimitra’s brothel, second one in her flat in the middle of the city. The film is a true evidence of how important it is to be close to and like the one you are filming and have curiosity to human life as it unfolds outside normal circles. Eva Stefani wants to learn about life when she films and in this case she gives the audience the wonderful opportunity to meet Dimitra, a strong and yet vulnerable woman taking us around in the streets of Athens. Could you move a bit Dimitra so Acropolis can be seen in the picture… Dimitra, can you turn on some light… they collaborate Dimitra and Eva Stefani, the unique Greek filmmaker.

https://evastefani.gr/bio

https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/days-and-nights-of-demetra-k-thessaloniki-review/5160876.article

Greece, 2021, 72 mins.