Ex Oriente Film

Another season of Ex Oriente Film is over. For a year – in 3 sessions – I have had the privilege to follow and tutor a group of documentary makers, a few already experienced, most of them upcoming talent from Eastern Europe. I was rushing out of the door to get to the next station, where I am now, Discovery Campus Masterschool, so for those of you Ex Oriente people who read this: Thank you so much for a great year full of fun and creativity – and please make some good films!

… that will take time, of course, and the projects, all pitched at the East European Forum, will be at other presentation venues like here in Leipzig or at the idfa Forum. Like the one on the picture:

Thierry Paladino´s ”Puppets” to be produced by Centrala Film Warsaw.

The projects are listed on:

http://web.docuinter.net/en/activities.php?kategorie=2&id=91&sid=198&rok=2008

ITVS in Jihlava

Two representatives from the San Francisco based ITVS (Independent Television Service), Cynthia Kane and Lois Vossen, attended the East European Forum. They made a very good impression expressing enthusiasm in their going for the creative and artistic documentary. They were at the right place!

In a morning session clips were shown from two films that they had supported, both of them on their way to international success:

“Cash and Marry” by Atanas Georgiev, produced by Nukleus, Sinisha Juricic, Croatia. And “The Caviar Connection”, produced and directed by Jovana and Dragan Nikolic, Serbia. The latter will be premiered at IDFA this year.

Here are some words from the site of ITVS:

Welcome to television’s independent voice. Innovative. Provocative. Real. ITVS funds, presents and promotes award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television and cable, innovative new media projects on the Web and the Emmy Award-winning weekly series Independent Lens Tuesday nights at 10:00 PM on PBS… ITVS programs take creative risks, explore complex issues, and express points of view seldom seen on commercial or public television. ITVS programming reflects voices and visions of underrepresented communities and addresses the needs of underserved audiences, particularly minorities and children.

Still: The Caviar Connection.

http://www.itvs.org/index.htm

Jon Bang Carlsen: Addicted To Solitude

Det er et privilegium at åbne en DVD boks som denne.. Så smuk den er, personlige grafiske løsninger.. indeni den nye film, som vi har skrevet om og så de tre ældre., alle mere personlige film end ellers.. også mere personlige end jeg husker dem.

Hvad vil nu det sige? Jo, instruktøren er til stede i det hele, fra yderst tilmeget langt ind, til lige netop der, hvor de medvirkende tager over. Hans malererfaring og hans håndskrift møder jeg på boksen og indeni på kassetterne på DVD omslagene, og med det samme i teksterne, som ikke er tekstforfatterens, men hans.

Jon Bang Carlsen omgiver sine film med ord, også denne, så værket består af en film og en mængde forklaringer, kommentarer og refleksioner, som ude i virkeligheden fortsætter i interviews, artikler og bøger. Så jeg må se alt og læse alt, hvis jeg vil gøre mit publikumarbejde færdigt. Men hurtigt flytter ordene ind i billederne, teksten ind i scenerne, butikken og kirkegården, farmen og landskabet. Og bliver de medvirkendes tillige. Og filmen vokser ud af skitsen, den begyndte med til mesterværket, den er.

Jon Bang Carlsen: My African trilogy plus one, 2008, containing Addicted To Solitude, Portrait of God, Blinded Angels and Purity Beats Everything,  C&C Production, distribution: Danish Filminstitute bookshop@dfi.dk  

Super 16 no. 04 premiere

Syv producere og syv instruktører er færdige med deres uddannelse på Super 16 og de afleverede  i dag efter planen deres afgangsfilm  i Dagmar biografen. Samtidig med premieren er de syv film tilgængelige på en DVD med titlen SUPER16 NO.04 Det er så flot. Den har jeg kigget nærmere på. 

Filmene, seks fiktioner og én dokumentar, er:

Black Man, Kræsten Kusk / Julie Sophie Vang, 40 min. (Trekanthandel, dansk slavehandel og brutalitet, musealisering, udenrigspolitiske undskyldninger og andre velkendte emner overraskende pædagogiseret som stand-up tragedie. Det er nyt for mig – afgørende er, om skuespilleren, alene og energisk, holder til hele sin tour de force..) 

Cathrine, Mads Matthessen / Jonas Bagger, 25 min. (Cathrines karakter udvikles fascinerende, jeg slipper hende ikke undervejs, hun bliver heller ikke let at glemme – vigtigt er om familien holder så tæt på det karikeredes distance..)

Kaktus, Anna Treiman / Mads Damsbo (ekstern), 30 min. (Imponeret over instruktørens mod og udholdenhed til igen i udsøgt scenografi og på smukke, smukke locations at skildre dette forbrugte og derfor dobbelt vanskelige emne – tænker også: er det en gang på stedet?)

The Matjulskis, Mikkel Blaabjerg Poulsen, 27 min. (Jamen, jeg falder da for denne omhyggelige parafrase på en række scener, jeg mener at have set andre steder, røres over den sentimentale historie om poesien og musikken og over den tavse hovedpersons udtryksfulde spil – så det er sært, det ikke er min yndlingsfilm i buketten)

Nowhere Man, Sune Lykke Albinus / Line Hvidtfeldt, 22 min. (Livlig skildring af en ung mand i problemer i nattelivet og i legene med vennen og i deres  fællesskab med en pige på bagagebæreren. “Er du faret vild, Andreas?”, spørger vennen, og det er mere end konstatering end et spørgsmål – og for mig kunne det gælde filmen, som trods mange meget smukke scener ikke når frem..)

Panser, Roni Ezra / Lars Valentin, 27 min. (To patruljebetjente, en erfaren og en begynder. Den erfarne oplærer begynderen i håndværket, og han skal nok lære det –  filmen er lærlingens svendestykke, den vil håndværket, og det klarer den..)  

Black Heart, Ada Bligaard Søby / Morten Kjems Juhl, 23 min. (Tre unge skæbner i New York og med New York som medspiller, de holdes skarpt adskilte i filmstil, ja, på alle måder, i en sjælden balance – og i mit hoved griber historierne hen over de markerede grænser i ét væk ind i hinanden i det musikalske væv af betydninger, så de tre personer bliver hinandens historie. De er jo i samme film..)

http://www.super16.dk/

The 3 Rooms of Melancholia

I got this mail from Kriistina Pervilä: Yesterday evening Pirjo Honkasalo and I got the news about the arrest of Khadizhat and Malik Gaetaev, our main protagonists in The 3 Rooms of Melancholia. The news was published at FINROSFORUM.FI

We called the family’s home in Kaunas, Lithuania and the children confirmed that both Khadizhat and Malik are arrested. Last week the secret police of Lithuania took the parents away in handcufts and they have not heard from them. We got no contact to their mobile numbers. The children were naturally in total panic and could not understand what has happened. This is unbelievable and we know the parents have not done anything wrong.
Something has to be done.

http://www.lrytas.lt/videonews/?id=12241623201223738812&sk=4

Photo: Khadizhat Gaetaev

Terence Davies: Of Time and the City

Sometimes you have high expectations and get disappointed. Sometimes your expectations are fulfilled. Sometimes you get much much more than you expected even if you had high expectations.

Terence Davies. Are you old enough to remember his “Distant Voices, Still Lives” from 1988? If not, you will search for it when you have seen this new masterpiece of his, made for the celebration of his native Liverpool: If Liverpool did not exist, it had to be invented.

That is what he says, in the most brilliant film text that I have heard for years. Quoting poetry, bringing in himself, in first person, remembering, calling for, bringing forward his childhood, the times that were, accompanied by visual archive material, by gorgeous shootings from today, from above, from the streets, from inside the church and with music, not the Beatles, not at all, sarchastic he is about “the yeah yeah yeah”, no he turns to – among others – Mahler, Brahms and Händel. But there are also long wordless sequences of houses, people and weather. He lets the images talk for themselves, no working class sentimentality, but an interpretation of the life we live, the search for a good life, the longings, the sorrow, life and death. Stream of consciousness. James Joyce on film. A sequence of children from today. They have just learned to walk. There must be a future.

I was breathless after the screening. I want to see it again as quick as possible! Check the site and get a taste of this masterpiece.

http://www.hanwayfilms.com/

http://www.oftimeandthecity.com/

Hotels

During the doc festival and market season – which is now and lasts until December – your bed waits for you in a hotel, normally booked and paid for by the organisers of the event. Some people hate hotels, can not sleep properly, noise or temperature bother them or the bed is too soft or too hard. I normally don´t mind, I even like it most of the times. For my extensive travelling, I like to be surprised, I like hotels that are different from the big boxes, where you know the whole organisation before you enter the room.

I have just left a wonderful place in Lisbon. Downtown, around 30 rooms, all of them different from the other, classic dark furniture, quiet, bad breakfast (Southern Europe!), free internet access, charming ambiance, fine servic. Site below.

And in Jihlava, my next destination for 4 nights, I know what to expect. Pension Jakuba. Simple, clean, relatively quiet as well (read below), several German channels on the tv (if that is something!), all accompanied by a sound design from two sources. The church bells 50 meters from your bed, and the zoo. The first year I was there, I thought the animal sounds came from inter-human joyful moments in one of the other rooms!

After Jihlava, I am off to Leipzig to the one and only Hotel Michaelis, sooo clean and accurate in all details. Each night you can find a couple of biscuits in cellophane on your pillow, and you have the bible within reach. But no… dont think you can´t sin there. The hotel has a superb restaurant with seasonal dishes and a great variety of French and Italian wines. And a selection of Cuban cigars. Difficult temptation for a person who stopped smoking two months ago!

www.casadesaomamede.com
http://www.penzionjakub.ji.cz/
http://www.hotel-michaelis.de/michaelis/cms/index.php

DocLisboa Diary 5

”A sermon has to be like a woman´s dress. It should long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting”. These wise words (by the way try to change ”sermon” with film) come from the mouth of Father LeDoux, the 76 year old charismatic main character of ”Shake the Devil Off” by Peter Entell, a wonderful warm film about a small New Orleans community fighting to keep their parish and their Father – half a year after the hurricane Katrina put everything into chaos. The Father is their hope but the catholic administration wants to get rid of him.

In tone and approach this is a film that grows out of a European tradition for documentaries, leaving space for the audience to think and feel, whereas the latest film by Errol Morris, ”Standard Operationg Procedure”, is a constant bombardment of noise for every cut, music (that functions like muzak) all over, making every attempt to simplify with a strong graphic design from start till end. One-dimensional. A film playing according to main stream American dramaturgy… what is it about, well it tells about some American soldiers, or rather it lets American soldiers tell what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Accompanied by the photos we have seen so often. But why Morris made the film, what his point is… is totally hidden by style and graphics and sound design.

I am off to Jihlava in Czech Republic. A long journey. It has been a pleasure to be here in Lisbon for a festival with a big audience, a well chosen film programme and a warm hospitality.  

www.doclisboa.org

Ada Bligaard Søby: Black Heart

Vedholdende og inspirerende og fascinerende fortsætter Ada Bligaard Søby sit filmarbejde, hvor hun dels lag for lag undersøger den moderne kærlighed mellem ham og hende og dels i fremstillingen disciplinerer balancen mellem disse to karakterer med en milligram-vægt uden den flimrende lethed i fortællingerne ét sekund slippes. Dertil fornyr hun vores samtids filmbillede med smukke tilføjelser, ganske nye kvaliteter af sikre, personlige valg i både andres arkiv, i instruerede nyoptagelser og sit eget fotografiske materiale. I hendes film bliver alt musik ved siden af den egentlige musik som igen omhyggeligt afmålt slutter sig til billedernes og sætningernes og sindsstemningernes kadencer. Genren er lyrisk film, indholdet poetisk indsigt, stemningen humørfyldt vemod.

De tidligere film var American Losers, 2006 og Meet Me in Berlin, 2007 (anmeldt her på siden) og nu kommer så en satsning, Black Heart, hvor de to, manden og kvinden, som aldrig så hinanden i den første film, mens de i film to i det mindste nåede til at tale i telefon med hinanden, nu (i et flash-back ganske vist) når at blive gift, men hvad sker der så med deres karakterer? En joker, kunstneren bag det sorte hjerte, indføres..

Ada Bligaard Søby: Black Heart, 2008. 23 min. 35 mm. Premiere i Dagmar, København 23. oktober sammen med de øvrige film fra Super16. Vises også på CPH:DOX.

DocLisboa Diary 4

Sunday morning in Lisbon. Sunshine and empty streets. Perfect for a walk before going to sit in front of the video monitor and all the fine films of this festival. Strolled down (literally down) the streets to several great viewpoints and to the capturing of sounds and the observation of a city awakening. The smell of garlic to be used for the bacalau was already in the air as the +60 people, we had it all for ourselves. The cafés, the newspaper stands and the view and sound of the Lisbon trams, going slow through the city as if nothing had changed for the last decades. Could one live here, could one breathe here in the post-Salazar atmosphere of pleasant inactivity surrounded by beauty and melancholy?

Back to documentary festival reality. I ran into Nina Ramos, the producer of the festival, enjoying a cigarette outside the festival venue Culturgest, a rather ugly building but efficient  as location for the festival. We enjoyed the enormous development of a festival during 6 years: From 13.000 spectators at the first edition to 33.000 last year, and for this year, edition number 6, it will be even more. From 60 to 170 films. The typical festival viewer, Nina could not say, but agreed to my observation: students, yes many students. 3.50€ for a ticket, reduction for groups of students. Directors are invited with the full treatment: flight and accomodation. Budget: 900.000€ including a lot of in-kind contribution.

www.doclisboa.org