Here is a call for help from Belarussian Lyceum Headmaster and documentary director Uladzimir Kolas (see picture). Kolaz, who recently made the fine festival touring documentary ”Ada Gallery” is setting up a film education in his lyceum that is the only one in Belarus that is not controlled by Lukasjenko and his gang. For his video library Kolaz kindly asks international documentary filmmakers and institutions to donate copies of their film.

For more on the lyceum and the plan to build an education, as well as how to donate go to

http://www.edn.dk/art.lasso?nd=200403&ns=1308

Finally the succesful Danish cinema will be celebrated. By the Danes themselves. In the park next to the Film House in Copenhagen an Arc de Triomph will be raised that should be minimum 24 meter high. And have three dimensions and fit to the structure of the beautiful park and the Rosenborg Castle that neighbours the park and the Film House. The monument, financed by local private sponsors, will for sure have the same symbolic meaning as the equivalent in Paris. It will underlign the enormous succes and influence Denmark has had on the world of cinema. The building of the Arc will begin next spring, the proud director of the Danish Film Institute, Mr. Nielsen expresses in his press release of April 1st 2009.

In Kolin where the 1st session of the Ex Oriente MEDIA supported training programme takes place, we had a fruitful visit of the German cameraman Lars Barthel. He showed us the new film of Helga Reidemeister, ”War and Love in Kabul” (photo), that he had shot. On 16mm and with pure beauty and thought in all scenes. The masterclass with Barthel following the screening was full of eye-opening comments from a cameraman, who in this way gave us a profile of himself.

Asked about his collaboration with directors, he stressed that the relationship on a human level is far the most important. Topic and professional matters come second. ”The good relation has to last after the film”, he said, ”it has to be like a family”. ”As a cameraman I always try to look for the truth, to see and film the moments. Every movement has a choreography in itself. You have to look into the eyes of the people. The room has to be told”, were some of the sentences I liked and picked from the meeting with Barthel, a FILM cameraman, who believes in composition.

And who also talked about lenses and light – ”I use fixed lenses, never zoom” – and who ended by showing us his beautiful personal film, ”My Death not Yours”.

The direct cinema or call it the observational is still alive and strong. I thought about that yesterday here in Kolin in Czech Republic, where director and editor Erez Laufer showed the film of Laura Poitras from 2006, ”My Country, My Country”, edited by the director and Laufer.

Laura Poitras was 8 months in Iraq and she was here, there and everywhere with her small camera. She had access to the American army, to the security people who were there in connection with the elections, she was up North with the Kurds and first and foremost she got close to the charismatic dr. Riyadh, a political candidate for the Iraqi Islamic Party, and the main character of the film.

The director’s presence and sense of situations is second-to-none. Let me just mention two scenes out of many that will stay in my mind: A woman sits in her appartment searching for a fly that is disturbing her. She is totally concentrated on this mission while we as viewers hear the sound of the city being hit by strong bombardments… A pure magic moment, says so much,,, as does the next example also where she catches a moment of Americana in a hall where an officer talks to Iraqi security people. ”We are gonna run this show, you will be on television all over the world…”, he says. ”Show”, one of the men silently remarks, ”ok, this is real life”, the American superior replies, ”yes, it is a bit different than a show”, the man ends up commenting silently. Voila, a small dialogue, that also says so much without anyone explaining to us anything. Think, please, and this is the quality of this film that the filmmakers invite us to do so. Observational documentary, this is ”being there” as Richard Leacock so often has put it.

(The film has previously been reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk by one of the Zelig film school students, Georg Bocher.)