The Golden Dove as well as the Silver have been given out at the DOK Leipzig festival.

”Downstream to Kinshasa” by Dieudo Hamadi won the Golden, a coproduction ” from the Democratic Republic of Congo, France and Belgium that focuses on war-disabled people from Kisangani in the DR Congo. ”The jury motivation goes like this: ”… praised the filmmaker “for bringing intimacy and dignity to a Sisyphean struggle that is invisible in the broader world, here delivered to the screen with the clear trust of its protagonists and the commitment of the filmmaker”. Who is from Kisangani and whose ”Maman Colonelle” I remember clearly for its quality. This one is also a strong and important documentary to remind us of a horrible war of six days in Kisangani twenty years ago. It’s emotional to follow the crippled people on their way to the parliament in Kinshasa to make their case; they want compensation from the government and parliament who do not care. The film has previously been to Cannes and Toronto and will be in the Masters section at IDFA, whose Bertha Foundation has supported it.

And for the Silver Dove the jury chose “The Poets Visit Juana Bignozzi” by Argentinian Mercedes Halfon and Laura Citarella. I saw the film online a couple of days ago, liked it but I had big problems to access it, understanding it all as Juana Bignozzi’s poems were read in Spanish, a language I don’t master. Impossible to really appreciate her poetry with English subtitles. Anyway I agree with the jury pointing at the film with ”a freshness and energy that recall the French Nouvelle vague”. And yet, maybe a bit too constructed for my taste.

AND one more award for Czech ”A New Shift” (winning at Ji.hlava FF as well) by debutant Jindřich Andr, a good film, read http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4843/ The award was given in The Golden Dove in the “Golden Section”, the newly introduced Competition for the Audience Award Long Documentary or Animated Film 

No, actually there were 2 awards for the film about Tomas, the miner who became an IT programmer – the MDR award went to ”A New Shift”. Jindřich Andr must be a happy director with this recognition at two important festivals.

For many other awards go to www.dok-leipzig.de

This is a world premiere of an excellent film, that will travel all over. Shot in the Eastern part of Jerusalem in Palestinian families with the focus on the children. How they cope with living close to settlers and therefore also to the constant presence of Israeli soldiers, who are there to protect the very same settlers. And is often met with rocks being thrown at them. And – the film documents – quite as often provokes kids, laying hands on them. Upon this historical context, quote from one of the texts on the screen up front, in an observational documentary filmed over years:

”In 2019 56 children were killed, 1000 children were jailed, released, then jailed again through ”a rotating door” policy…”

I am writing this just after having watched the film. I am shocked of what I have seen. Even if have seen numerous documentaries about the oppression of the Palestinians in the state of Israel. I am moved after meeting kids, whose lives are ruined by the atrocities they meet in an occupied country, where police brutality is performed. Kids for whom their childhood is full of nightmares and fear and anger. And desire for revenge, when their friends are killed or imprisoned. And I am sad when I listen to a conversation between a father and his son. The father – who has been jailed – believes in a two state construction, the son thinks the Jews should leave the country that they occupied.

Keep your head high, says the mother of Dima, the main character of the film. The mother wants so much that Dima – as a hero coming back from Israeli prison, 12 (!) years old, being jailed for a couple of months – talks to the journalists about, what happened in the prison, and how the other Palestinian female prisoners were treated – were they tortured tc. Dima does not want to talk about it – until at the end of the film, when she is some years older. Dima is followed by the camera, we see her growing, we see her in wonderful sequences (like the one on the photo) with Janna, same age, ”girls talk” full of joy also about boys of course, at the same time as the mother thinks that she has changed since she was in prison. Maybe, for sure she opposes the mother, who wants her to speak up for, what she thinks and has experienced. She takes off her scalf in the class room, your mother won’t like it, a class mate says. She visits another girl, who has been jailed. There is a lot of hugging in the film.

Main character, and yet, my heart bleeds for the little Dareen, who goes to school (6 years old at the beginning of the film) and learns by the teacher what “homeland” means, that she should be proud of being a Palestinian etc. The teacher puts a lot of right words into the classroom. What did you fear most, she asks, the police coming to your home or the snakes your father takes home to his aquarium. The snakes, she says! A bit later she is the witness to the fate of her older brother and cousin having been maltreated by the police with explosions in the street. The camera, the briliant editing should be mentioned, follows her emotions, she is scared – “go to my room Dareen, stop crying or I will beat you!”, says the father. Reading a face! And seeing how the teacher talks to her about her fear. Lovely.

I could go on mentioning strong scenes, full of emotions and food for your thought if you care about, what happens to the Palestinians and the young ones near Jerusalem after Trump’s (who is on the television screens in the Palestinian homes) talk about Jerusalem being the holy place for the Jews and noone else. Intifada. Amazing what and how the director has managed – from 200 hours of material – to put the children in the foreground. 

In an interview the director says: «The word ‘terrorist’ had become a code word for avoiding any real discussion of what was happening to these children. No-one on either side wanted to look for “any nuances and subtleties that may convey the complexity of the issue and the bigger picture.”

This film does!

www.dok-leipzig.de 

You don’t know if she is crying or laughing. The grandmother of the director, who came to France from Algeria with her husband in the fifties. She is born in 1937, the two were married for 62 years, then decided to divorce but they are still living quite close to each other. She is still cooking for him, bringing the food, taking care of him, she is active, but she has decided to have her own life for the time she has left.

He is rarely speaking, moves slowly, watches tv and goes to the local cafeteria to just sit there the whole day – according to his wife, who is no longer his wife, but they are still husband and wife as says the director’s father, an actor in numerous films and before that a mime artist. The daughter uses her father to help reveal the past of the grandparents. She wants to know her roots, wants them to tell. It works very well. The film creates a fine atmosphere.

The film is built around the conversations mixed with footage that the father has shot in 1992. Lovely footage that includes Algerian parties with song and dance. Slowly we get closer to the grandfather and the scoop is when the director, the granddaughter, shows material that she shot in their village in Algeria. Grandfather’s face changes expression and he is proud of her filming there. The former cutler in Thiers. Who with his wife left Algeria. They wanted to come back but the war came with all its atrocities.

They remember, grandmother first of all remembers. You ask too many questions, Lina…she covers her face with her hands and we don’t know if the lively old woman is crying or laughing. 

It’s of course a film about the destiny of Algerian immigrants coming to France, about colonialism but it has a universality: Did we have/do we have the talks with our grandparents before it is too late. I envy the director, I never met my grandparents and there are so many questions I will never get answers to as my parents are no longer alive. This film made me think.

France, 2020, 70 mins.

https://www.dok-leipzig.de

I saw (most of) the IDFA press conference, 2 hours!, with artistic director Orwa Nyrabia on stage in de Balie on Leidseplein, which used to be the main meeting place for IDFA. Nostalgia! Nyrabia presented the sections, also those that are not competitive with – for some films – clips. And he presented the juries and he is good in talking briefly and warmly about the chosen films. There are all together 258 titles for the festival that starts November 18 and goes on until December 6. And here is a quote from Nyrabia:

”The IDFA 2020 program tells us, without doubt or hesitation, that documentary art is just essential, relevant, and meaningful. Here’s a more inclusive program than ever, a program that takes us a step further from the overwhelming immediate moment and shows us a larger worldview. It protects our sanity and helps us find balance in the middle of all the chaos”. Words from a festival director, who is not afraid of expressing passion. Thank you!

And the films… Let me mention some from the competition programs, films I know from when they were on a project stage and filmmakers I know and expect a lot from. 

Feature length: Of course Vitaly Mansky’s “Gorbachev. Heaven”, 100 minutes (photo from the shooting) – “Mikhail Gorbachev, the 89-year-old former leader of the Soviet Union, receives Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky at his house just outside Moscow. In a light and pleasant atmosphere, weighty topics come up for discussion, as Gorbachev looks back over his life.”

And Milo Rau’s “The New Gospel” from Matera in Italy, setting up a play with immigrants. Rau, theatre director, was the one behind “Congo Tribunal”. And I can’t wait to see “Le Temps Perdu” by Argentinian Maria Alvarez, “A group of now-aging Marcel Proust fans have been meeting at a cafe in Buenos Aires since 2001, to read his seven-volume classic In Search of Lost Time. This black-and-white film documenting the reading sessions is an oasis of calm, intimacy, and depth in a modern world dominated by speedy online communications and innovation.” Since 2001! Wow!

First Appearance: Many, many years ago, in a workshop in Bucharest a young man Adrian Pirvu presented a film proposal: “A remarkably frank account of an attempt to get a grip on life. The first question is “When did it all start?” With the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, perhaps? When it happened, Adrian Pirvu’s mother was nearby and pregnant with him. She believes that’s why he is almost blind in one eye. Adrian is lonely and angry, and he hopes to find purpose in his life before he turns 30. So he decides to make a film in Ukraine about other people affected by Chernobyl. That’s how he meets Helena, which turns his world upside down. A new beginning?”. Actually Helena was not in his world by that time but his presentation and passion was convincing all of us in the workshop that here is a film. Alexandru Solomon, Hi Film, stepped in with his production company and now Deckert Distribution is taking care of distribution. Oh, I am so curious to see how the film ended up. “Everything Will Not be Fine”.

The same goes for “This Rain Will Never Stop” by Ukranians Alina Gorlova and producer Maksym Nakonechnyi, super talented young filmmakers, who have presented several versions of the film at different workshops. I remember Gorlova’s “No Obvious Signs” that we gave 5 pens on this site. Here she comes with a family story including locations in Ukraine, Syria, Germany, Iraq.

Mid-Length: I thought I knew the filmography of master Helena Třeštíková with whom I have spent many good festival hours, in Belgrade and last time in Helsinki. But there she is again with a world premiere, “Anny”, who “ didn’t become a sex worker till she was 46, but since then, she’s kept returning to the streets of Prague, rain or shine, as cars pass by at a snail’s pace. Helena Třeštíková’s film crew also kept returning to Anny in the years from 1996 to 2012.” Amazing how many films Třeštíková has made at the same time…

Archive: Bravo for having, for the second time, a section for films that use archive material in a creative way. 10 films compete, including Rithy Panh with his “Irradiated”, where he invites the audience “to become witnesses to human evil in an overwhelming, three-screen meditation on the mechanisms of violence” I had big problems watching it, should I give it another chance? And of course I am – as a lover of Paris and everything related to French culture and art – interested in watching Ulrike Ottinger’s “Paris Calligrammes”.

At the press conference I saw a clip from the opening film, “Nothing but the Sun” by (copy-paste from the press release) “Paraguayan-Swiss director Arami Ullón. A quietly earth-shattering film, Nothing but the Sun lucidly contrasts the hot, arid atmosphere of Paraguay’s Chaco region with the devastating stories of the Ayoreo people, an indigenous community violently uprooted from their ancestral territory by white missionaries. Between past and present, forest and desert, folk songs and church hymns, Ullón’s poetic feature lays bare the raw emotions of the human condition, seen through a culture on the brink of disappearing, but not without a voice.”

The clip took me by the heart. I will watch it, alas not in Amsterdam but at home on my computer. 

On your computers you can already now see trailers from several of the films in competition. Like the one for Iranian Firouzeh Khosrovani’s ”Radiograph of a Family” that competes in feature length section and in the archive category. Fantastic trailer, an invitation to see the whole film, indeed! That’s what a trailer should do.

www.idfa.nl 

It’s a good film. Not because of the theme (a mine is closed, miners are without job, what to do?) that is pretty much known. This time it takes place in Silesia, a region that has also been described before, mostly by Polish filmmakers – No, it is good because of the miner Tomas, who becomes the IT programmer Tomas. The director has followed Tomas for four years in his struggle to get a new education – his doubts, his warm realitionship to his children, his dating to find a new partner, his café talks with friends, his passion for Banik Ostrava, the football team he supports.

I write Tomas as I get close to him and his positive attitude to life. He is himself, when he is at interviews for IT Jobs, grounded and charming and funny, also when he talks to a full theater in Prague at a TED arrangement about him succeeding. It made me for a moment think “is this a corporate film” as it of course puts a positive light on the retraining program Tomas is part of. But why bother as this for once is a positive and authentic film. It is the director’s first film, well told (dramaturg is as always in Czech documentaries Jan Gogola) and being in both DOK Leipzig and Ji.hlava festivals is quite a good start!  

Czech Republic, 2020, 91 mins.

… Gevar, Natasha, Shevan. A family. From Syria, now living in France. English title: Gevar’s Land.

The joy of seeing something grow. Plants, vegetables – at home on the balcony and in the garden. In a scene Natasha looks at her phone and tells Gevar that a town in Syria is being bombed. They are in the garden, Gevar puts down his phone and talks about, when to plant garlic onions. Syria is far away and the two try to establish a new life in France. The gardening plays a key role in that respect. It is lovely to see Gevar drawing on a piece of paper, where to plant potatoes, radis, pumpkins, onions, parsley, coriander, okra…He is happy to be in France and expresses this, when the discussion unfolds among the Syrians at parties and gatherings. Where a friend says that he loves French literature but not to be in France! 

Qutaiba Barhamji follows the family over a year. He is behind the camera, he is close to the family but he does not interfer or asks questions. A clever solution, there are so many films that have been dealing with the tormented country. He is present, at their home and in the garden. He helps with some translation from French to Arabic and catches small but important situations. Which are actually identical to (I was thinking when watching), what my wife and I have experienced in our allotment garden : A neighbour who tells us « ignorants » how to do gardening OR the same neighbour informing us that there is a ban on watering the garden – in the film they water anyway, in our community we do the same. Come on, otherwise the garden will die!

Gevar and his family meet the (French) bureaucracy – nothing special, we have do so as well – the difference is, as he says so precisely, Gevar, that “I can’t control my dreams”, the thoughts he has brought along from Syria. Again the film is not going into this issue, not needed, a film comes from the screen to be formed in the head of a spectator.

We see the pumpkins and are happy on behalf of the family. Alas, they are robbed; the director stays respectfully at a distance, when Natasha breaks into tears, she cries, says the little boy. Gevar gets a job far away from the home and the garden, they talk about moving and giving up the garden. Gevar is taking down the barbecue installment he has built, he stands thoughtfully in the picture in the garden, he has to give up. Sounds like a sad ending, maybe, but there is also a wonderful scene towards the end, where Gevar comes home to Natasha and Shevan after being away for work. A scene full of love and happiness. They will manage their new life in their new country. I hope!

France, 78 mins., 2020