Milena Holzknecht: Why Editing?

The following text was written by a student from the Zelig School for documentary as a motivation from her to go for editing studies in the next two years after the first year of general studies:

Editing is like a balancing act on a tightrope: On the one hand your walk shouldn’t be to rigid – you have to be flexible. On the other hand you shouldn’t be carried away by emotions: both would be fatal. Editing means declarative power, but at the same time responsability – to the protagonist(s), to the director and of course to the film itself. Editing denotes motion, but in certain moments stand still. It needs conscious decisions, but also letting speak the unconscious. Editing means to search the path, not to see the wood for the trees and to find – exhausted, but happy – the way out of the forest of the cutting process. It represents a creative challenge, which demands consistently new solutions and finds fascinating answers. Editing is an activity, which gives me – because of the reasons mentioned above – a lot of gratification and pleasure. June 2008

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Corina Radu: Bar de Zi and other stories

My story has no importance, there is nothing special about me, says one of the characters in this fine social story set in Sibiu, Romania. The filmmakers have got the permission to film a group of citizens, who all come to the same bar, are middle-aged and old people, who are as different as the rest of us and who have got their scars in life from too much drinking and poverty and consequently, for some of them, illness, death in the families and other tough marks to carry around.

The film is social in a classical way, but with small playful montage sequences and a well chosen music that includes great nostalgic bar tunes from England. You need to lighten up a film like that and the director succeeds to get in to their homes and bedrooms, put in great anecdotes and pocket philosophical remarks. It creates a light non-sentimental atmosphere to accompany the curious observational camera.

The film was made as part of an international workshop, Aristoteles, financed by MEDIA Programme of the EU, the tv-station Arte and (in this case) TVRomania. Well done, Corina Radu confirms that a lot of good happens with Romanian film right now.

Romania, 2007, 57 mins.

www.aworkshop.org
http://www.astrafilm.ro/Awards%202007.htm#bar
corinaradu7@yahoo.com

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 3

SYNOPSIS. Det var i aftes det 11. af de 26 afsnit. Og det var stort. Det var om krigen på østfronten 1941-1943. Det tyske angreb mod Litauen, Letland, Estland, Ukraine, Hviderusland og til sidst Rusland selv. Hele det vældige Sovjetunionen truet over den bredeste front vel i militærhistorien.

Isaacs overlader imidlertid stort set generalernes verden af armeernes betegnelser, divisionernes antal, fremrykningernes ruter, slagene (bortset fra det største af alle, slaget ved Kursk), tilbagetrækningerne og belejringerne af byerne (bortset fra Leningrads som er det forfærdende eksempel) til Arnold-Forster, som i sin bog omhyggeligt følger tv-afsnittene op, så jeg kan repetere de historiske facts. Selv koncentrerer han sig om det, som han til dette afsnit skrev i synopsens to linjer:

Focusing on the non-military aspects of the war in the soviet Union such as industri and morale, the siege of Leningrad, the Soviet partisans, the Battle of Kursk, and the war’s ultimate sacrifice in 20 million Soviet dead.

Denne enkle plan har så hele vejen igennem styret arbejdet med afsnittet og skabt et umisteligt tv-epos af rystende filmreportage, gribende beretninger fra medvirkende og først og sidst Laurence Oliviers læsning af den lyrisk-episke voice-over tekst, som her i afsnittet inkluderer store citater af russiske digte. Dette mesterlige arbejde foran mikrofonen låner afsnittet her og serien som sådan shakespeareske toner og dimensioner.

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 1-26, UK, 1973-1974. DR2 disse dage kl. 19:10 http://www.dr.dk/dr2/En+verden+i+krig + DVD, UK-version http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/worldatwar/about_the_series.html Litt.: Mark Arnold-Forster: The World at War, 1973. (Bogen som oprindelig fulgte serien). Richard Holmes: The World at War, The Landmark Oral History from the Previously Unpublished Archives, 2007.

Spain-Germany 1-0

Just one small note on the Euro 2008. Which included many fine matches, some drama, but first of all the return of elegant fast forward – let the ball do the work – football. We saw it with Holland, we saw it in glimpses with Croatia, we saw it equally in glimpses with Germany, but first of all with the Russian and the Spanish team. The latter deserved to become champions. Thank you Fernando Torres, Casillas, Puyol, Villa, Iniesta and Xavi for many fine moments of artistery. Good old BBC has 19 photographic moments on its “pictures of the Day”, from the final match. Have a look:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/euro_2008/7375956.stm   

Mikala Krogh: Everything is Relative

Surprise me, please, it is often said to filmmakers when films are to be thought of, written, pitched, filmed and put together. Nothing is worse, or more boring, than the predictability in narration where you know where it goes, from the very beginning.

Mikala Krogh surprises the viewer. She has chosen an unconventional chaptered structure with captions like ”love”, ”illness”, ”happiness”, ”time”, ”loss” and ”light” – and conveys these themes through the introduction of characters and small actions from all over the world. She puts them one after the other and cuts the geographical context. From (to take an example, under ”time”, one of the best performed chapters) a man from BanglaDesh who works in Dubai far away from family, to an old Danish woman who takes long time to button her sweater, back to Dubai skyline where cows slowly pass by on the ground, to a waiting room in a welfare society (pure Roy Andersson set-up), to a long emotionally impressive queu of Asian workers who line up to be ordered to get into a train, to American soldiers who receive orders, to a sequence of clocks and watches caught on a white background, to the Danish young woman who has cancer, and to Mogens Rukov, co-scenarist of the film, who reflect on time.

It is sometimes very cleverly constructed, yet with different tension in the individual scenes which have to be strong on their own as there is no story in a normal way. I like the abstract arrangement of people on a white background in a studio – it reminds me of early films by Danish documentarian Jørgen Leth – and I like the intentional hybrid form that Mikala Krogh uses in her reflection on the universality of love and happiness, illness and sorrow. The question is of course if this is a reasonable and relevant way of comparing or if it is a kaleidoscopic banality.

Judge for yourself, the film will come to a festival near you, for instance to Karlovy Vary beginning of July.

Denmark, 2008, 73 mins.

http://www.dfi.dk/english/Danish+films/ShortByDanishTitle/filmFact.htm?FilmID=18394

http://web.docuinter.net/en/net_archive.php?id=413

Søren Kragh-Jacobsen: Det som ingen ved

Redaktionen var i biografen. Vi regnede med, at veteranen kunne overraske os. Med en politisk thriller. Det gjorde han også. I negativ retning. Intet fungerer. Historien er kedelig og usandsynlig. Instruktionen er gumpetung og hovedkraften, Anders W. Berthelsen, forsvarer sin rolle det bedste han kan, uden at gøre karakteren interessant og uden at kunne udvikle den. Mht. det fortællemæssige, påpegede Allan Berg at filmen er fuld af flink og artig filmskoleatmosfære. Kragh-Jacobsen har taget en slapper med denne film i en genre, som han ikke mestrer. De engelske tv-serier kan det meget bedre med fart og intelligente historier. Spild af penge og talent er det, med mindre man vil se Henning Jensen og Ghita Nørby spille en gang åh så forudsigelig duarder. Kim Skotte kaldte i Politiken filmen for gedigen. Flink mand, ham Skotte.

Danmark, 2008, 99 mins.

Nicolas Barthez: Great Run

The start is wonderful. Young runners on the road in sunset light, in the middle of the car traffic. The narrative follows one of them home, Fassika, 14 years old – she wants to run for fame and to get away. In general the camerawork is good. “Anywhere would be better for me”, Fassika says, and dreams about France, England, USA, whatever would be possible. It is revealed that she and her family, as the family of Enok, a boy of 11, come from Eritrea and are deported to the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Abeba.

This conflicted political aspect is not further developed in the film. Focus is on the runners. One more is introduced, Tariku, who are from Bokoji, which is a small village, from where all the well known world champion athletes come. The scenes from Bokoji has stunning images from training in the forest and on the field (especially one where you see a runner training by chasing a horse) and the film, it is felt, is made with full commitment but without much knowledge about how to structure the story. We go from here to there, from one person to the other, without getting a sufficiently satisfying impression of the characters, except for Fassika. It is the first film of the director, the photographer Nicolas Barthez, well done but he should get a bit of storybuilding assistance for the next one.

France, 2008, 45 mins.

barthez_n@yahoo.fr

Thierry Garrel – stops at/farvel til arte

Thierry Garrel, who has been head of Arte France’s documentary department, has quit the channel after 21 years. He is taking up a job in a multi media project.

I have interviewed and discussed the state of the (documentary) art with Garrel several times and will not hesitate to call him one of the most inspirational figures in European documentary. Always burning for the quality, going for the auteur and not the main stream television. I have no idea why he has taken this decision but would very well understand if he quits because of a new arte policy that leaves far too little attention to the creative documentary. His prestigious slot Grand Format that used to be placed at prime time monday has been given far too little ressources in the last years, and is now broadcast with a lot of reruns close to midnight.

Til vore DANSKE læsere – her er et citat fra et interview med Garrel i DFI’s blad FILM:

“Dokumentaristens væsentligste opgave i dag er at genopdage og forsone os med vor egen menneskelighed. Efter det monstrøse 20. århundrede som markerede afslutningen på humanismen og faldet af utopiske tanker og idealer, er dette møde med den anden det vigtigste. Der skal skabes en forståelse og en refleksion på baggrund af en humanisme med en kritisk dimension. Det er derfor utroligt vigtigt at opfinde nye måder at beskrive den nutidige og fremtidige verden på.”

http://www.dfi.dk/tidsskriftetfilm/23/arte.htm

www.edn.dk

http://www.artefrance.fr/

Camille Ponsin: Les demoisellesDeNankin

There are loads of documentaries about the changing China made by Westerners and/or by the Chinese themselves. This one is made by French filmmaker Camille Ponsin, who unlike several Western crews got access to the University of Nankin and took his camera and time to film during a year. A clever and charming observation of young students has come out of it, yet a bit anonymous, lacks maybe a clearer storyline in his showing of youngsters, who basically are like young students all over the world. They fall in love, they find the studies sometimes boring, some are adapting to the rules of the university, others object and find their own small niche.

The year is 2005 and Qie Kun and Miao Miao are the main characters. They represent what is the new China. One is still the perfect student, who advises others and goes to pay a visit to the pioneers, the other is more keen on finding out what she can do with her body. The first is ironic about the propaganda but goes along, the other talks with her boyfriend about the variety of sex positions.

The director had also access to the teachers and he definitely demonstrates a talent for catching human moments that go different than the clichés about China today.

France, 2007, 55 mins.
http://www.javafilms.fr/HIGHLIGHTS.html
http://www.festivalcinemaafricano.org/eng/index.php?pag=vis_film&id_film=513#

Johnny White: Padraic Ó Conaire –An Fear

I was in Galway, Ireland twice this spring. And had a chance to combine with a couple of days at the sea near Clifden. Yes, sheep and stone walls, small winded roads, pure pleasure to visit.

I met Johnny White, film director based in this part of Ireland. He had just won an award at the Celtic Media Festival for a biography on the author Padraic Ó Conaire, born in Galway, dying in 1928 less than 50 years old. A classical Irish character, who died young, alone and with a life much spent at pubs in Ireland and England. As said, he always had a few.

A man with a hat and a pipe, who liked sleeping under the stars, who joined the IRA in 1913, fought for the freedom of Ireland and who never wrote a happy ending in this voluminious literary production.

The documentary is an absolute success according to the tv standard format that mixes narration and interviews with experts/witnesses, who knew him, supplemented with quotes from his work, a bit of archive and scenes from today with an actor who plays the role of Ó Conaire (Patrick O´Connor in English). It is all in Irish language made (for among others the Irish channel TG4 based in Galway) professionally with humour and without any pretention. Real good Irish storytelling. Entertaining.
 
Eire, 2007, 52 mins.

http://www.galwayfilmfleadh.com/programme.php?p=friday/ri_an_fhocail
http://www.kennys.ie/News/OldGalway/22022007-PadraicOConaire/
http://www.tg4.ie/Bearla/Corp/raitis/mart30.htm