Edvins Snore: The Soviet Story

The crimes committed in the name of Marx and Engels are of the same infamous character as those performed by the nazis. The two regimes, nazi Germany and communist Stalinistic Soviet Union worked together, and learned from each other when it came to extermination matters. 20 million people were killed during the Soviet Union. And yet Europe has never really approached the Soviet leaders or their Russian successors to demand a public recognition of the massmurdering that was done in their own country. On the contrary the Russia of Putin on many occasions looks back at the glorious times of the big empire. Many of the butchers have never been taken to trial for their crimes.

This is the approach of a documentary made by a filmmaker and historian from Latvia, one of the former Soviet republics. The film includes (horrifying) archive material and is built in the classical way for historical documentaries: archive, commentary (for my taste far too bombastic and conclusive), witnesses who experienced the kiling of their family and historical experts from different places in Europe. Powerful music, effects, corpses, mass graves, corpses, mass graves.

Yes, the director makes his point, and he has done a huge and impressive research in archives. It’s a film you can not escape from and it would be wrong to evaluate according to artistic criteria. It’s a film that is for public and global tv channels and I suppose a shorter version will be available.

Latvia, 85 mins.

www.thesovietstory.com + Otto’s link: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11401983   

Gensyn: Jeg ville først finde sandheden

For mig gik det først galt i den allersidste rekonstruktion. Vel i det 27. minut i dette halvtimes mesterværk om at være klog og 92 og alle de andre er døde og det er altså lidt kedeligt. Men så er der pindsvinet og sommeren og Mozart og kærligheden og bygningerne, som man har konstrueret og kan fare vild i som han gør i sit Lloyds i London.

Til det gik galt, var det nok min yndlingsfilm. Og pyt, det var blot en rekonstruktion, som kiksede. Men til da en fuldendt smukt indfattet perle. Jeg må engang for mig selv prøve at forklare hvordan… Det har at gøre med den vidunderlige medvirkende Erik Arup, som nu længe har været væk. Denne over, over ingeniør. Selvfølelsen selv og beskedenheden selv i én person.

Jon Bang Carlsen: Jeg ville først finde sandheden, 1987. 29 min. Fotografi: Dan Laustsen. Set på VHS, Randers Bibliotek, fjernlån fra Herning Centralbibliotek. Hvor er det godt, de har gemt den!!

Lazhari Abdeddaïm: hip-hop(e) in the favela

Lamartine Silva is the main character in this committed road movie that takes us around Brazil to discover what MHHOB is doing. Lamartine is one of the hip-hop musical artists, who dedicates energy and time to this activist movement that has change (some of its members say revolt) for the poor as its goal. The movement has its place all over and its representatives go to see and negotiate with people like Gilberto Gil, the minister of culture, singer and composer. Who is part of the establishment that other MHHOB people consider as non-allies in the fight for better living conditions in the favelas, that are very often romantizised.  

The well-meaning sociologists and historians study us as rats in a lab, it is  said in the film that seeks the opposite: to let Lamartine and his friends report on what they are doing in their anti-racist work.

The road movie structure of the film has its pros and cons. It brings us around but it does not bring us closer to the sympathetic but also somewhat dreamerish and introvert Lamartine. For that reason the director Lazhari Abdeddaïm goes to his family and children to get to know that side of his life. The ex-wife does not hesitate to critizise Lamartine for leaving the family on its own.

We have seen the favela social poverty before, but credit to a film that reminds us that some people do something for change. And thanks for a touching interview scene with 3 small girls. It is the birthday of one of them but there is no money to celebrate with a cake. Asked about what she wants to do when she grows up, the answer is awfully realistic: cleaning, doing domestic work = in a white person’s house.

Forgot to say that there is great music (and lyrics) in this film.

Belgium, 2008, 52 mins.    

http://www.cinergie.be/critique.php?action=display&id=1002

Gensyn: En fisker i Hanstholm

Det lykkedes! Der kom en VHS til mit bibliotek, fra et bibliotek i Århus, hvor de har gemt den siden SFC udstationerede en kopi af hele sin samling der, tror jeg. Men båndet har ikke været afspillet længe. Ved første kørsel var der ikke antydning af billedsignal, kun hist og her spor af en lydside. Men, men efterhånden dukkede filmen op. Et par frem- og tilbagespolinger, og den lod sig se. Og den var netop så smuk, som jeg huskede den.. nej, smukkere, faktisk. Det sorthvide fotografi og den nordjyske dialog er i den grad selvskrevet til en DVD reprise. Jeg glæder mig.

En fisker i Hanstholm er lige så vigtig for dansk historie og dansk sprog som Hans Kirks bog, som Andersen Nexøs bøger, som Jensens og Hansens. Den lægger sig internationalt i konsekvent forlængelse af den store neo-realistiske indsats, og så hører den monumentalt til i rækken af Bang Carlsens store danske film, rækken med Jenny, Ofelia kommer til byen, Før gæsterne kommer og Livet vil leves, der som det fineste hængsel knytter denne samlede skildring af dansk sind til instruktørens udlængsel og til skildringen af det fremmede sind i rækken af amerikanske, irske og afrikanske film. Jeg vil tro, at Purity Beats Everything vil vise sig som et tilsvarende kunstnerisk omdrejningspunkt i dette filmværk, hvoraf DVD box 1 vistnok skulle være kommet. Dette grundlæggende filmværk hører som det selvfølgeligste til på ethvert stort dansk bibliotek i VHS kopier, efterhånden på DVD.

Jon Bang Carlsen: En fisker i Hanstholm, 1977. Fotografi: Dirk Brüel, klip: Anders Refn. Lene Vasegaard spiller fiskerens hustru, ellers er de medvirkende fra Hanstholm. DFI distribuerer filmen på 35 mm. Set som VHS kopi, Randers Bibliotek, fjernlån.

Rafal Skalski: 52 Percent

Short documentaries of international quality are hard to find. The television stations have long ago given up slots for shorts, with a few exceptions like Arte, and the film institutes and the public funding systems do the same – because where can the films be shown?

But they are produced, in film schools first of all, and by young filmmakers who finance their films by themselves and put them online.

This Polish beauty, however, has made the festival circuit and wone the prizes it deserves. I have no objections at all to a film that has a title that refers to the ideal proportion of one’s leg length to height. One of the most important admission criteria set by the State Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, and the one that 11 year old Alla has to conquer. Look at the face of this girl, a perfect cast, conveyed with brilliant cinematography by Jakub Giza in a film that has the right rythm and duration and a universal appeal… we have all met these ”52 percent” in our lives.

The film was made under „Russia and Poland. New Gaze” project, 2nd edition. The project was realized by Eureka Media and Adam Mickiewicz Institute with financial support of Polish Film Institute.

Poland, 2007, 19 mins.

http://www.eurekamedia.info/index.php?id=37

http://www.iam.pl/en/site/aktualnosci/krakowski_festiwal2  

Arto Halonen: Shadow of the Holy Book

Classical documentary approach: Something is wrong, we have to tell about it, let’s go and get the facts and convey them to the world. That’s what Arto Halonen, Finnish documentary director, and journalist Kevin Frazier decides to do. With a quote from the web site of the film, this is what it is about:

”Why are some of the world’s biggest international companies translating the Ruhnama, an absurd government propaganda book from Turkmenistan, into their own languages?

The film exposes the immorality of international companies doing business with the dictatorship of oil-and-gas-rich Turkmenistan, thus helping to hide its human rights and free speech abuses – all in the name of profit and corporate greed.”

The list of greedy companies you can find on http://www.shadowoftheholybook.com/

So far, so good, the problem is that these companies (of course) in general resist to take part in the film, so a huge part of the visual narrative consists of Frazier and Halonen in and out of hotel rooms, on the phone, trying to get someone to expose their bad ethics of making profits.

It happens, not completely but the filmmakers succeed to get some people regret. As the director has asked me: how many documentaries do actually change something? Bravo for that persistence and courage.

Otherwise, in the film you see some exiled politicians tell their stories, rather predictable, and the film team has set up some interesting reconstructions and shot some footage from the country. It is indeed sometimes absurd entertainment but I dont feel it is enough to keep attention in a 90 minutes long film. Arto Halonen has made better films than this recording of a relatively unsuccesful investigative journalism.

Finland, 2007, 90 mins.

http://www.artfilmsproduction.com/englishpages.html

World Sales: http://www.filmstransit.com/

Saartje Geerts: Nollywood Abroad

It starts as a film about a third ”…wood” after Holly- and Bollywood: Nollywood from Nigeria. But it takes place in Antwerp, where a young man, John, wants to be a superstar in this kind of right-to-the-heart, often moralistic, home-movie like films. He is introduced and is arrested for maybe having perfomed in human trafficking and prostitution matters. He ”disappears” from the film, and the filmmakers go to Nigeria to tell something about why and how Nigerians go to Europe. Fine.

It is actually quite an interesting story for a documentary that has now been turned into a film. I met the producer Mark Daems some years ago at an EDN workshop, where the project was pitched and the final result deserves respect for its relevance and honest approach. However, what happens after John is out of prison and begins filming this his own story, is not so interesting to watch, I would have loved much more clips from the Nollywood films in general to get the chance to further study this phenomenon. Or to get to know the Nigerian community in Europe better. The structure is a bit loose and unfocused.

Belgium, 47 mins.

More about the film and dvd sales: ww.adirector.eu                                                 

Gensyn: Livet vil leves

Denne maj måned bringer Dox On Wheels Jon Bang Carlsens nye film Purety Beats Everything til en række byer til biografvisninger, hvor han selv er der, nogle gange i samtale med en åndsbeslægtet. Det erindringsbaserede filmværk bringes håndfast i forbindelse med den konkrete auteur, biografisk og moralsk. Og en del nyfigent som det er så VIGTIGT nu.

Mens jeg venter, gennemser jeg, hvad jeg kan få fat i på mit bibliotek, og det viser sig at det som fjernlån fra Herning Centralbibliotek er muligt at låne en VHS af Livet vil leves fra 1993.

En mor skriver breve til sin voksne søn, som er på rejse i USA. Sønnen skriver sine refleksioner, i dagbogen vel. De to tekster læses på lydsiden af to skuespillere. Billedsiden er dels landskabsoptagelser fra rejsen på prærien og i ørkenen, dels landskabsoptagelser fra Bovbjergegnen, hjemegnen siges det. Axel Schiøtz synger en arie fra Messias. Det er det.

Og det bliver til en åndeløst dybt åndende film på næsten 50 minutter. Som jeg – indser jeg nu – i detaljer husker fra premieren for 15 år siden. En film, som ikke har rokket sig det mindste siden. Den er så ny og inderligt vedkommende som dengang.

Jeg tror den er god at se, mens vi (herude) venter på filmbussen. 

Jon Bang Carlsen: Livet vil leves, 1993. Mesterligt fotograferet af Alexander Gruszynski, Mikael Salomon og Henrik Jungdahl. Vidunderligt kongenialt klippet af Grethe Møldrup. DFI har kun en 35 mm kopi, men bibliotekerne (i hvert fald Herning Centralbibliotek) har heldigvis gemt VHS kopier.

Peteris Krilovs: Deconstruction of an Artist

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  

Gonzalo Arijon: Stranded

I don’t need to write a lot about this film, do I? The winner of IDFA 2007, screened and awarded at an enormous amount of festivals, broadcast all over, including in Denmark. A well constructed dramatic story with a wonderful panel of survivors from the air crash in the Andes in 1972. Good tellers they are and…

… what I wanted to draw your attention to, first of all, is the way the film reconstructs. In a non-bombastic sketchy manner, where the right balance is found and the facial similarities to the found archive photos of survivors are quite obvious.

The second potential inspiration for filmmaking colleagues could be the talking faces that certainly have been and still is subject to general discussions about to use or not to use. Look at the middle aged men and hear them talk naturally and not only in one sentence lines. There are many characters but we get to know them because we are invited to watch their interesting facial expressions.

I still think the film is too long and gründlich but the story is fantastic and the craft skills of the Uruguayan and Argentinian film makers are admirable.

France, 2007, 127 mins.

www.idfa.nl (about the film at IDFA 2007)

http://www.arteboutique.com/detailProduct.action?attributeId=1&vlhId=437946&moveValue=6&product.id=274469 (dvd version with English subtitles can be bought via this site, around 20€)

http://www.trentofestival.it/