Tuesday evening May 6, Riga, the old fine cinema in the middle of the city.

I am invited to the premiere of a film, that I have had the privilege to follow for a couple of years. The director Peteris Krilovs and his producer Uldis Cekulis attended two MEDIA Training Programmes that I was involved in: Ex Oriente and Archidoc, and NOW was the moment to present the great, well crafted and well told story about the artist Gustavs Klucis, who was part of the Russian avant garde movement, served the Stalin propaganda machine and ended as a victim of the same regime. One day they came to get him…

The film has everything: wonderful archive footage, brilliant and playful sequences where the film team (including young Danish editor talent Julia Vinten) deconstructs the work of Klucis, makes small films ”within” the film and puts it together again, thus demonstrating his actuality for modern design. There is a very moving sound track with letters from his wife, with the director’s own fine text and some gently performed reconstruction scenes, an effectful accompagnement to the deconstructed photomontages and powerful music.

The version I saw in the full cinema was the local one – Russian and Latvian language – feature duration, the English version is to be made now, as are the tv versions. History, art, an interpretation of a period and a flamboyant artist. A search for a cinematic language and a dynamic that could  have been the one that Klucis would have chosen had he been a filmmaker.

I had decided not to review the film, I am biased, but anyway my entusiasm is evident: all you festival and tv people out there, watch out for this film, it has a big audience potential, far beyond the happy few who are in the art circle.

Thanks for the invitation to my dear friend, the MEDIA Desk Latvia, wonderful Lelda Ozola, who not only gave me the chance to be at a premiere but also through meetings to be updated on the Latvian documentary scene that I have followed since 1990, thanks to the Baltic Film/TV Festival and Baltic Media Centre on Bornholm.

www.vfs.lv

and if you are near den Haag in Holland, there is an exhibition of Klucis works:
http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/index.php?id=035437&langId=en  

This music documentary film is about Swiss music – the famous and for many, including me, unbearable yodel – and Swiss artists who have developed their music from the yodel into a great innovative and fascinating rythmic play with the voice. It has been released in Swiss cinemas and very right so, as it has a uniquely built visual structure that makes the three artists stand out on their own and at the same time comment each other’s achievements.

Erika Stucky is the funniest of the three, a woman who went to the US and became a performer of extraordinary power and charisma. Her family has a big film archive of super 8 film which is convincingly used in the narrative, including scenes with her, who as a child always wanted to be a hullahulla dancer. This wish was not well received in the Swiss schools!

The film has a light tone and the director is not afraid to play with the landscape and bring out the artists to express themselves in a mountain scenography. One – Christian Z. – even goes to Mongolia to meet with colleagues who also do overtone voive mastering.

How does Switzerland sound? This is what the film is about, entertainingly it is done, with a lot of information given in a spirit of joy and playfulness.

Switzerland, 2007, 81 mins.

www.heimatklaenge.ch

http://www.trentofestival.it/

Catherine Destivelle is the name and after numerous films (at the Trento Film Festival) about people dying in the mountains, and about heroes who save people, or fight the mountains – it was such a relief to meet a female alpinist, a charming person, smilingly taking her sister and a friend up and up and up, in sunshine, for a picnic, while you hear their conversation on the way, and while you watch the most beautiful shot images of her routes, plus some archives, plus some interviews.

Alpinism can be a Pleasure!  And alpinist films can convey presence in the good old observational style. An informational film it is as well, with narration, not too much (a French actor narrates, not a good choice) 

She is a winner but behaves with modesty always with a lowered voice and a non-competitive esprit .

The sweet ending – also without any drama – is a trip up with two older male friends, on the same route where she years ago fell 35 meters down.

France, 2008, 75 mins.

http://www.destivelle.com/en/profile.aspx

http://www.trentofestival.it/

Normally you say that something must be wrong if you leave the cinema to say that the cinematography was excellent, but the rest of the film… You do say so with this ambitious film but it is justified because it also has an idea and does not only tell about air, water, earth and fire, but link the elements to people, who work in hard and harsh conditions. Reminds you of Glawogger’s film ”Working Man’s Death” but has its own distant approach to the characters and is a visual formidable interpretation of a forest being cleaned, a fishing boat in high sea, a mine deeep down and an astronaut training venue.

The montage keeps you watching this our world, fascinating and scary at the same time, no eco-preaching, see for yourself, reflect, an essay maybe, some overall (biblical?) texts linking the chapters one after the other, and the sound design second to none.

What a pleasure to watch a film that insists on the image.

Holland, 2006, 85 mins.

http://www.fuworks.com/4elements/

http://www.idfa.nl/en/programme/festival-2007/film.aspx?id=34046

http://www.trentofestival.it/

Here are the results of the jury work. 4 of the films will be reviewed in the coming 3 days. Plus one that did not get a prize: Stranded.

Gran Premio “Città di Trento” – Gold Gentian and 5000 Euro for the best film of all, possessing high artistic qualities, that corresponds to the cultural aims pursued by the Festival.
4 ELEMENTS by Jiska Rickels (Holland, 2006 / 85′)

Italian Alpine Club Prize Gold Gentian and 3000 Euro for the best film on mountains and mountaineering.
AU DELÀ DES CIMES by Rémy Tezier (France, 2008 / 75′ )

City of Bolzano Prize – Gold Gentian and 3000 Euro for the best film on Alpine culture.
HEIMATKLÄNGE by Stefan Schwietert (Switzerland, 2007 / 81′)

Silver Gentian and 1500 Euro for the best short film.
IL NEIGE À MARRAKECH by Hicham Alhayat (Switzerland, 2006 / 15′)

Silver Gentian and 1500 Euro for the best television production.
JOURNEY OF A RED FRIDGE by Lucian Muntean e Nataša Stankovi? (Serbia, 2007 / 52′)

Silver Gentian and 1500 Euro for the best artistic technical contribution.
SCHAFSKÄLTE by August Pflugfelder (Germany, 2007 / 44′)

Jury Prize
DAUGHTERS OF WISDOM by Bari Pearlman (USA, 2007 / 68′)

The Jury was comprised of film director Maurizio Zaccaro (President), Danish documentary consultant Tue Steen Müller, Swiss film director Sylviane Neuenschwander, Italian mountaineer Elio Orlandi and by the Iranian film director and writer Siba Shakib.

http://www.trentofestival.it/  

Time for banalities. My own ones and examples from the films I have seen. Word banalities.

My own first: Wow, how much the viewing situation means for your evaluation of a film. Being in a jury you will always watch a lot of s… and therefore some good films may become better than they are, when they get to you. An oasis in a desert.

That is one thing, another is that some films you watch differently the second time, when your head is fresh and you concentrate as you are supposed to do as a member of a jury. Second time I watched the idfa winner ”Stranded”, I could see its qualities of filmmaking, especially of the reconstructions. The same goes for the Dutch ”4 Elements”, that I had watched on my computer. Now it was on the big screen and that demonstrated fully its cinematic brilliance.

And banalities from mountain films: The more commercial of them pour out one-liners expressed by their protagonists. Read for yourself:

”Extreme sport is a way of life. It was my way to become a man”. ”You are discovering yourself”. ”There is a thin line between success and disaster, between life and death”. ”On vit comme un mouton ou on vit comme un lion”. ”This is the biggest thing I have done in my life”. ”You have to know what the mountains are saying to you. You have to read them”.

Awards have been decided. Will inform you in some days accompanied by some short reviews.

http://www.trentofestival.it/en/ Still: 4 Elements.