CINÉDOC-TBILISI 2021 – HYBRID EDITION

From the organisers of CinéDoc-Tbilisi: This year we have fully embraced the hybrid festival format, reaching out to audiences through different platforms (Georgian Public Broadcaster, Adjara Television, DAFilms and virtual cinemas on our website) and selecting the best documentaries from our past editions within a “Best of” – CinéDOC-Tbilisi program.

While we all thought that the pandemic would be temporary and we could continue to organize cultural events as we did in the past, we had to again adapt to a new reality in 2021.

We are very glad to have again the Georgian Public Broadcaster as a partner. After the successful screenings of six documentaries in 2020, this partnership has developed into one with more impact. As a premiere
in the history of our festival, both the opening as well as the opening film “Sunny” directed by Keti Machavariani of CinéDOC-Tbilisi will be broadcast on the 15th of August, by the Georgian Public Broadcaster.

In cooperation with this broadcaster we will also screen a selection of 10 gripping, award-winning creative documentaries, such as “Honeyland”, “The Three Rooms of Melancholia” (PHOTO), “Don Juan”, “Sonita”.

A new partner this year is also the public broadcaster of the Adjara region: Adjara Television. We are so glad to be able to screen 15 creative documentaries on this channel, among them award winning internationalfilms and also many wonderful Georgian documentaries, directed by talented filmmakers like Levan Koguashvili, Nino Orjonikize and Vano Arsenishvili, Giorgi Mrevlishvili, Mariam Chachia, Vakhtang Kuntsev- Gabashvili, Shalva Shengeli, Levan Adamia, Toma Chagelishvili.

A third platform for our “Best of” edition is also the European video on demand website DAFilms. We will screen documentaries via DAFilms embedded onto our website and this platform will dedicate a special focus to our festival.

Last but not least, we will again host the “Focus Caucasus” competition, a competition for the newest documentaries from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Ten films will compete for the Focus Caucasus Award (7000 GEL) and the Special Jury Award (5000 GEL). All films will be screened online during weekends and will be followed by moderated online discussions.

Our young audience will also have the chance to watch films on our website, within the CinéDOC-Young section. We encourage parents and teachers to recommend the wonderful selection of documentaries to their children and pupils, they are easily accessible and free of charge.

We look forward to meeting you all at our online discussions and we are sure that, despite the difficult situation in the country, documentary films will entertain you, they will make you reflect on many issues around the globe and… they will also bring hope to all of us for a better future in the years to come.

Parramon & Arzallus: Altsasu

… with the subtitle Gau Hura – That Night.

The film, completed in May 2021, was shown at DocsBarcelona. In a cinema. I could not be there but was told by festival director Joan Gonzalez that the film after the screening was met with a two minute standing applause by the audience. Already when we in the selection committee – in the beginning of this year – chose the still unfinished film for the festival it made a big impression on me, a Dane, who had never heard this scandalous story from a place called Altsasu in Navarra, which is considered Basque even if it formally is not. The work by Marc Parramon and Amets Arzallus is an example of a down to the smallest detail researched piece of investigative journalism turned into an emotionally strong character born documentary about abuse of power from the Spanish authorities. The producer Alejandro García de Vicuña, from Marmoka Films, sent me a link to an English subtitled version. I have watched it a couple of times, amazed of its quality and shocked by its content. Here is a logline quote from the background dossier sent to me by the producer: „ A bar fight in a small town in the Basque Country becomes an act of terrorism. This is the story of the fight for justice of some families against a great political, legal and media construction, which draws from a past of conflict, and from which they cannot escape.“

 

 

The bar fight happened in the early hours of October 15 2016. A Guardia Civil officer out of duty is taken to hospital with a broken ankle, two are arrested and released two days later. It could have happened at the bar down my street… but in Spain with its political crises the incident grows in the media, references are made to ETA, 8 young people are arrested and taken to prison accused of having performed a terrorist act against the Guardia Civil.

Marc Parramon: This journey began in 2016 when the name of the town of Altsasu in Navarra begins to appear in the media as a result of a fight between young people from the town and two off-duty policemen. I am very shocked by the prosecutor’s request for terrorism, when the most serious injury on record is a broken ankle. I thought it was an interesting topic that deserved to be addressed and that’s when I set out to visit the village. I call my friend Amets, whom I met in Cyprus filming a documentary. He is an expert in Basque culture and I thought his profile could give an interesting poetic dimension to a documentary with social and research content. As journalists and documentary filmmakers, we decided that we had to approach Altsasu and tell what was happening. We wanted to do something reflective, to understand what was happening in Altsasu so that some young people were threatened with the shadow of 375 years of prison behind their backs. We wanted to know the story first-hand, in a process that would unknowingly drag on for three years… 

And here comes the storytelling scoop that makes the film compelling: The directors put the focus on the families fight for justice, their demonstrations that grow in attendance over the years, the court cases, the many interviews – putting two characters in the front. Characters, hate that word, persons, personalities, Iñaki, a bartender who filmed with his cell phone, was attacked by a Guardia Civil and argues that he came to the bar, when the fight was over. AND the charismatic wonderful Bel, the mother of Adur, who is one of the detained. A scene I will never forget takes place in a court room, where she is being interrogated. When that is over, she asks the judge if she can give her son sitting on the first row a kiss. Beautiful!

The directors: On 1 June 2018, the sentence was announced, finding the accused guilty of injuring and attacking an agent of the authority, aggravated with abuse of superiority, discrimination and public disorders and threats. One of the accused was sentenced to 2 years of prison, three with 9 years, two with 12 years and the remaining two with 13 years. After that first sentence, we will follow the different appeals that achieve unequal reductions for each one. Iaki Abad’s sentence was reduced to a 6-year prison term.

The film ends two years after that first sentence. Iaki is released from prison in the third degree and tries to adapt to his new life situation. Bel, 4 years later, is able to gather the whole family for a meal at his home. But the joy is short-lived. In the evening, she accompanies Adur, her son, back to prison. He has to serve the rest of his sentence…

The producer wrote this to me when he sent the link to the extraordinary shocking film and story: There is good news about the case. The defense filed an application to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for the alleged irregularities and violations of fundamental rights that occurred in this case. In July 2021 this application was accepted for processing. 

Spain, 2021, 80 mins.

Nordisk Panorama Forum 2021

A mail arrived this morning : ”We are thrilled to announce the projects selected for Nordisk Panorama Forum and wish to congratulate all who made the cut!”

Sent by the Nordisk Panorama people announcing what is going to happen in Malmö the 20th and 21st September. Selected from more than 100 new documentary projects ”a selection of 24 brand new documentary projects will be pitched to around 70 attending decision-makers and 24 observer+ projects have been selected for special access to meetings with decision-makers.”

As always an inviting and professional presentation – I have looked into the selection and will do some name dropping, first with a link to the previous post about the Baltic Sea Docs (BSD) that takes place a couple of weeks before the Nordisk Panorama. Because a film project from BSD 2020 has been invited to join:

”Podnieks on Podnieks” to be produced by (of course) the Juris Podnieks Studio, run by Antra Cilinska who was the editor of the late legend of Latvian cinema. Anna Viduleja is to be the director of this important homage to Podnieks, who died in 1992 in a drowning accident. Including archive material with the director never seen before. Had he lived he would have been 70 years old in 2020. With this presentation at Nordisk Panorama it is my hope that many more will get to know a man, who should have a well deserved place in film history for his works like the series ”Hello do you Hear Us” that was broadcast on British television.

What else… I am curious to see what Göran Hugo Olsson comes up with ”Israel and Palestine on Swedish TV 1959-1989”, description goes like this ”a feature documentary about how the ”mother of all conflicts” has been depicted on Swedish Television from 1959-1989”. And Magnus Gertten is going to make a film on Cornelis Vreeswijk entitled “Some Walk in Broken Shoes”, I started humming ”Veronica” when I saw this on the list. Otherwise new films by Mira Jargil, Mikala Krogh and Eva Mulvad, Yrsa Roca Fannberg and many others I don’t know. Yet.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/industry/forum/forum-projects/?mc_cid=8dd23e7aa1&mc_eid=d1f812251c&type=selected 

   

 

BSD 25 Years

In Riga, capital of Latvia, a cinematic celebration will take place, September 1-12: For 25 years filmmakers from the countries around the Baltic Sea have gathered at a forum, that started on the island of Bornholm, then toured the Baltic countries to end up, from 1997, in Riga. It will be a celebration of the region’s documentary cinema with screenings, masterclasses and pitchings. Film history it indeed is as I can say having been with the event since the very beginning in 1990, where the Baltic Film & TV Festival started on Bornholm to add in 1997 a so-called industry part for film projects to be pitched, discussed and developed and eventually co-financed.

For this 25th edition 18 projects have been selected to be ”discussed, developed, pitched, and eventually co-financed”. Well known producers, who have been at BSD (Baltic Sea Docs) several times before, will attend and new talents will enter the scene of documentaries. There are projects from the three Baltic countries, of course, but also from Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland – and Uzbekistan. The latter as a result of a collaboration with the CinéDoc Tbilisi Pitch, where the project manager of BSD, Zane Balcus, picked the project of Elyor Nemat, ”Dedovshina”. On top of that because of the growing number of co-productions there are also film projects with Bulgarian, French, Irish and Romanian participation.

Some name dropping: Finnish director Kira Jääskeläinen comes with a project she has been working on for years, ”The Cello”. Giedre Zickyte, who is winning awards all over for ”The Jump”, comes with ”Irena”. Ksenia Okhaphina, who made the masterpiece ”Immortal”, comes back to the BSD with a fascinating title ”Manifesto of Tenderness”, Vlad Ketkovich is producing, a true veteran of BSD. Local master director Laila Pakalnina among many titles the recent ”Spoon”, is with producer Uldis Cekulis to present ”Scarecrows” and producer Guntis Trekteris brings forward ”Stranded” (PHOTO) that has a very inviting logline, ” An attempt to look at the life of a half-million Baltic Russian community in 2020, through the stories of 3 generations of women in the director’s family.” Director is Stanislavs Tokalovs. At the Ex Oriente workshop recently I met Oksana Syhareva and Anna Kapustina from Ukraine, happy to see them at BSD with exciting ”Up in the Air”.

… and for many other strong film projects to be pitched at BSD, click.

https://dokforums.gov.lv/industry/selected-projects-2021/

The Blunder of Love & Bless You Awarded

The winners of the Doc Alliance Awards have been announced on 13 July at Cannes Docs, the documentary-focused industry programme of the Cannes Film Festival. Doc Alliance is a network consisting of seven of the most influential European documentary film festivals, each of which nominated two films for the awards.

This year’s Doc Alliance Award — Best Feature Film went for the first time to the category nomination by DOK Leipzig: “The Blunder of Love” by Rocco Di Mento, which competed for the Audience Award at the festival in 2020. In his search through family archives, Rocco Di Mento unearths old 8mm home movies, an unpublished novel, various love letters and a whole host of long-suppressed feelings – a mixture that begins to develop a dynamic of its own. The issue becomes not just about the search for the love of one’s life, but also the question of what holds people together beyond their relationship status and degree of kinship.

“‘The Blunder of Love’ is simply gripping and ingeniously constructed,” says DOK Leipzig programme coordinator Lina Dinkla about the festival’s selection. “Rocco Di Mento tells his personal family story, but it is also a universal contribution to subjects such as shaky family truths in which almost everyone can find themselves.”

The awards jury also praised the filmmaker’s “charming curiosity that evolves into a genuine deconstruction of myth and a discrete revelation of family secrets and trauma and how it is passed on from generation to generation.”

The Doc Alliance Award – Best Short Film went to Tatiana Chistova for “Bless You!”, which was nominated by Millennium Docs Against Gravity. Against the backdrop of Saint Petersburg’s back courtyards during the Corona lockdown, Chistova fuses recordings of the almost empty city with calls to a municipal hotline, highlighting that in a system that neglects its weakest members, the virus is not the only threat. DOK Leipzig con- gratulates the filmmaker, who also competed for the Short Film Audience Award at DOK Leipzig with the film in 2020.

The Doc Alliance Award was presented for the first time in 2008. Members of the Doc Alliance network include: CPH:DOX, Doclisboa, Millennium Docs Against Gravity FF, DOK Leipzig, FIDMarseille, Ji.hlava IDFF and Visions du Réel. Each of the festivals have traditionally chosen one feature-length film and, for the first time this year, one short (up to 30 minutes) by an emerging filmmaker from their most recent lineup. The Doc Alliance Award – Best Feature Film and Doc Alliance Award – Best Short Film prizes are endowed with 8,000 EUR for the directors to spend on their next project. Additionally, each of the Doc Alliance festivals has committed to screen at least 3 films among the selections at their upcoming editions.

Simultaneously with the award ceremony on 13 July, the new joint website docalliance.org was launched to highlight the network and its festival members.

“The Blunder of Love” and “Bless You!” will be available on the DAFilms. com platform until 18 July, 2021along with a selection of the other nom- inated films.

PRESS RELEASE DOK Leipzig 13 July 2021

Doker 2021 The Winners

The Doker festival in Moscow ended last night. I managed to watch and write about 8 of the films, one short and seven features shown in the main competition. I am a fan of the festival that I have visited once as a juror, and been a juror online (with deliberations via email!) at the first edition of the festival in 2015. Of the flms I saw (online, links from the organizers), 3 of them I have written about, 2 others I have seen but they did not reach the blog in a written form. First the jury’s motivation (the jury: Nikolaus Geyerhalter (Austria), Jordana Berg (Brazil), Maya Kuzina (Russia)): 

 

We had the chance to see 11 films that impressed us in many ways and showed us once again how important documentary film is, especially in the present, in order to better understand ourselves and the challenges of our society. For example, that equality, tolerance and dignified coexistence of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are unfortunately not yet a matter of course everywhere. Or how complex the path to unemployment and retraining can be. One film that impressed us with the humorous observation of its protagonists and which we understand in the broadest sense as a homage to cinema, we would like to mention here: A Special Mention goes to the film “Long Shot” by VLADIMIR GOLOVNEV. We admire Vladimir’s perseverance, enthusiasm and care for the film culture in Russia, and hope to see more of his films in the future.

And here comes the winners with quotes from what I wrote about the films :

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

HER MOTHERS by Asia Dér & Sári Haragonics (Hungary)”Oh, I Iove that film because it gets so close to the couple Virag and Nora that you can really sense their love to each other and the small and bigger crisis they experience, when they, a lesbian couple, succeed in adopting a girl, two and a half years old, Meli(ssza) and start bringing her up…” http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4937/

BEST DIRECTOR

A NEW SHIFT by Jindřich Andrš (Czech Republic)” it is good because of the miner Tomas, who becomes the IT programmer Tomas. The director has followed Tomas for four years in his struggle to get a new education – his doubts, his warm realitionship to his children, his dating to find a new partner, his café talks with friends, his passion for Banik Ostrava, the football team he supports… » http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4933/

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

DIRTY FEATHERS by Carlos Alfonso Corral (USA – Mexico) Cinematographer – Nini Blanco. Of course it should have this award because of the astonishingly beautiful b/w images that portray the outcasted characters close to Mexico in the US. 

BEST EDITING

HER MOTHERS by Asia Dér & Sári Haragonics (Hungary) Editor – Flóra Erdélyi

SPECIAL MENTION

LONG SHOT by Vladimir Golovnev (Russia) Agree with the jury’s words above – here is a talented homage to Cinema!

THE AUDIENCE AWARD

THE WAR OF RAYA SINITSINA by Efim Graboy (Israel) ”  The debutant Efim Graboy works brilliantly with several layers and in different styles and it all comes well together in the good story that Raisa, 94 years old, but strong and not afraid to say her opinion or show her emotions, delivers to Fima, the name she uses for the director… http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4939/

Information on the winners in the short film competition, see

https://www.midff.com/news

Doker 2021 Graboy The War of Raya Sinitsina

They make good documentaires in Israel. Here is one more, awarded at the DocAviv. The Best Director award as well as Best Cinematography. And I understand why: The debutant Efim Graboy works brilliantly with several layers and in different styles and it all comes well together in the good story that Raisa, 94 years old, but strong and not afraid to say her opinion or show her emotions, delivers to Fima, the name she uses for the director.

The language is Russian, the location is Israel (Tel Aviv?) and Raisa´s story goes back to the siege of Leningrad and the WW2, where she was a nurse. There are some, but not many, archive images from Leningrad, we know them from many documentaries, last one Blockade by Sergei Loznitsa. I was not scared in Leningrad, she says, I was young, but I am afraid now, she says, the charismatic war veteran with the many medals, still dedicated to celebrate Victory Day May 9 and still active at the veteran meetings, where fewer turn up. They have died but their faces stay on photos on the wall – and some are at home like the man, who turns 100 and gets a visit from Raisa and two other old Russian women. Raisa is a proud veteran, when she shows the director a greeting from Putin himself but now at the end of her life, she is more and more occupied with her dreams that she reveals to Fima. They bring her back to her youth and closer to Fima, whose camera again and again catches the emotions of Raisa. In many fine poetic situations. It feels like a fine choice, when the director places her in fields of sunflowers. Or at an empty concert hall playing cello for the first time in decades.

I was happy to have met Raisa Sinitsina. And it reminds me about the words of Lithuanian Audrius Stonys : We make documentary films to keep people alive…

Israel, 2021,

https://www.midff.com/main

Doker 2021 Higgins&Carrier Wandering

… with the subtitle ”A Rohingya Story” takes place in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangla Desh, the biggest in the world with 700.000 people from the Muslim minority in Myanmar, before named Burma. They fled from genocide, and ended up here. In a humanitarian catastrophy, where they fight to survive.

The film by Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier is excellent. Heartbreaking in content and brilliant in storytelling. The cinematography is superb, the camera is treating the refugees and their devastating environment and living conditions with beautifully composed and framed images and the film gives the viewer the necessary information through the voice off by Kalam (Kala Miya). The directors (on the Doker website) tells about how the film came about:

 

“It was following a shocking Facebook post from the Kutupalong refugee camp in February 2018 by documentary photographer Renaud Philippe, that we became aware of the sheer extent of this major humanitarian crisis that has received so little media coverage. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of this situation and the power of Renaud’s photos, we suggested that we join forces to create this film with as the main objective, alerting the public to the tragedy of the Rohingyas in exile… The role of Rohingya refugee Kala Miya (Kalam) was central in this film. It was Renaud who first met Kalam in February 2018 during his first stay in the camp. Kalam naturally became an ally and the film crew’s guide out in the field. As a fixer, translator and sound recorder, he was the one who ultimately made this film possible. Over the course of the discussions, Kalam’s personal story and the poetry he wrote was so meaningful, so universal, that we decided to make it the narrative thread of this film.”

A warm tribute to Kalam, the main protagonist, who in this English version speaks with a low, melancholic voice – he had reached India but decided to go to Kutupalong to join his family. Many touching stories, most of them through voice-off, are told: Nigthmares, dreams for the future, but also horror stories about the abuses and attacks they have been through in Myanmar by soldiers from the army. You see families cooking, you see (always uplifting) children playing football and with kites, young girls putting on make-up, young boys dancing – and men trying to tame the flood that could swipe the whole camp away. A camp where young kids sometimes disappear – human trafficking!

The film is rich, it’s about poverty and misery but it keeps insisting to depict the dignity of the people, who are in the film, living a life you can not imagine. In cinematic terms I was thinking of films of late Michael Glawogger, with observational visual poetry giving time and respect. My only small objection is the ending where the makers do slow motion of scenes we have already seen. Unnecessary.

A boy is singing: Instead of honey… you gave me poison. 

Canada, Bangla Desh, 2020, 87 mins.

https://www.midff.com/main

Doker 2021 Dér&Haragonics Her Mothers

Oh, I Iove that film because it gets so close to the couple Virag and Nora that you can really sense their love to each other and the small and bigger crisis they experience, when they, a lesbian couple, succeed in adopting a girl, two and a half years old, Meli(ssza) and start bringing her up. I love when the directors Asia Dér and Sári Haragonics stay long at a scene, where Nora argues that she does not want to give Meli chocolate when she picks her up in the kindergarten – this is what Virag does. Chocolate or not chocolate, this is a normal situation that everyone can recognise, also this grandfather. The same goes for the goodnight scene, where Meli wants Mommy (Virag) to put her to bed and not Dada (Nora). 

It’s not that easy, words to that effect, says Nora, sad, with lesbian parenting. Especially not in Orban-instan, with a prime minister of Hungary, who is visually quoted with one of his stupid male chauvinistic comments. 

I love that film because I can´t help love the couple thanks to the presence of the camera in the discussions and dialogues in the house that also includes three dogs! They are taking lessons in German, will they end up in Austria… is that a better place to be for lesbian couples? First of all, however, the film conveys the joy and happiness of the two, when they are able to add the motherhood to their love. 

The rythm of the film is calm, no running after dramatic situations except for some footage from demonstrations framing the political landscape in Hungary. Whatever sexual orientation you might have, you can identify with the small or big problems you face in a family.

Hungary, 2020, 75 mins.

https://www.midff.com/main

Doker 2021 Roman Hodel The Game

In my visit to DOKER online I left the main competition to have a look at the short film competition and my eyes stopped at “Das Spiel”, “The Game” in English, a film for a football fan like me, who right now follows what happens at the UEFA European Championship. With great enthusiasm crossing fingers for Denmark.

The film is Swiss and lets the viewer follow the referee on the pitch and his work with sound access to what he hears from his linesmen and says to them and to the people at the room of VAR, where you find the video assistant referees, who can suggest a change a decision of a refeee, sometimes by letting him run to the screen to study a replay of what could be a foul. Penalty or not penalty.

The focus is on one referee, who runs and runs, talks to the players, gives cards that are red or yellow under great stress having players and fans go against him. There was years ago a feature doc named “Kill the Referee”, this one is a short super-professional film – with the words of the director:

“By closing in on family relationships and on player-referee interactions, the film allows the audience to experience the sheer unbearable pressure of a referee while getting to know the person under the referee jersey: Fedayi San — a human being with fears and doubts.”

(I googled Fedayi San, who is a FIFA referee and has been at international Games, but he is not at the competition that runs right now.)

Will I have more understanding and sympathy for the referee after this film –maybe not all the time, but I am indeed on his side, when the players complain constantly when everyone can see that there is a foul.

“They are like kids”, he says when he picks up his father after the match. 

Switzerland, 2020, 17 mins.

https://www.midff.com/