Baltic Sea Docs Pitch Day 2

Latvian Masters

One is no longer here, another is alive and kicking: Juris Podnieks and Ivars Seleckis. Names in Latvian and world documentary history. Directors and cameramen who have formed my understanding of what a good documentary is.

“Podnieks on Podnieks” was the first film project to be presented on the second day of the Baltic Sea Docs in Riga. September 4. To be produced by Juris Podnieks Studio, of course, with Juris long time creative collaborator and editor Antra Cilinska as the producer, who has asked feature film director Anna Viduleja to be the director. The couple showed a trailer with photos and footage of the director, with the focus on what most film lovers remember him from, his films depicting the fall of the Empire – and with the shocking scene, where his cameraman Andris Slapins was killed in Riga during a Soviet sniper coup in 1991.

Later that day Ivars Seleckis pitched – together with the Mistrus Media that 

also produced his wonderful “To Be Continued” about Latvian children – “The Land”. Seleckis has already made three films from the countryside, he himself lived his first 10 years in the countryside, and his trailer starts with footage from the previous films followed by material from the new film about farmers in nowadays Latvia. The film is shot, editing is going on. “Is it going to be critical”, one of the panelists asked the director. “No, my film is about Life”!

Ukrainian Talents

Awards were given at the end of the Baltic Sea Docs. Two out of four went to Ukranian young female directors. “Diary of a Bride of Christ” is directed by Marta Smerechynska, who started filming “when her sister, at 13, decided to become a nun…”. She, the director, tried to stop her. In vain. Now she is filming her in the monestary, and other smiling and engaged nuns. The trailer shown was full of joy and emotions, and it helped the young director to have experienced Natalia Libet at her side as the producer and promoter of the film.

The second Ukrainian talent awarded was Taisilia Kutuzova, whose “Shut the Fuck Up!” I met years ago in Kiev. A short film was made but the director cleverly continued to follow the teenager Serheyi, who lives in Hatne near Kiev, where he is fighting against corruption in the local community. He is asked to, the title, to shut up, is physically attacked by a politician – and has now, 20 year old, decided to run for office, i.e. a seat in the local council. To happen, the local elections, in October. French producer and journalist Stephane Siohan, likving in Ukraine, helps the director and made a clever introduction at the verbal pitch by letting us understand that the new president of the country, Zelinski, is totally running away from his promises when elected, to fight corruption. 

There is a lot of good things happening in Ukrainian documentary…

…and in Georgia

… where the project „Sunny“ comes from, a warm and interesting insight to (a part of) Georgian society through Sunny, „a 59 year old sociologist“ who knocks on doors to come into people’s homes to ask questions. About materialistic things (do you have a washing machine, internet etc.) but also politics, faith, homosexuality… The film to be has a joyful atmosphere – written by Tsiana Khundadze and directed by Keti Machavariani. Together with Nato Sikharulidze they formed an equally joyful trio on the zoom screen. It helps when a film project is presented with a smile!

“Atonal Glow” was presented by Alexander Koridze, who I as the moderator took the liberty to say looks like the American actor who played the main role in Mad Men. The film he pitched is the amazing story about a 10 year old boy Tsotne, who composes music and plays on the stage – a new Mozart? His grandmother is his musical mentor, herself a well-known piano teacher, he lives with her and his sister, their mother died young, but now the father wants the children to live with him – a court case is coming up that “radically might change Tsotne’s future if the court rules in favour of the father”. Koridze is the director and producer of the film.

Belarus…

“Courage”, “For 15 years an underground theatre in Minsk has been proving that artistic freedom in authoritarian regime is possible. But at what cost?” is how the catalogue description is on the site of Baltic Sea Docs. Since then the situation in Minsk has turned into one big demonstration against Lukashenko, a cry for freedom also from the side of the actors of the theatre group. The director of the film. Aliaksei Paluyan was during the week in Minsk for two of the demonstrations to film, bringing back material to Germany to his German producer Jörn Möllenkamp. I am sure that talented Paluyan will make a good and timely documentary.

 Precisely the reason for Current Time TV – with the always supporting Kenan Aliyev and Natalia Arshavskaya gave their 2000$ award to “Courage”.

Russian Militarism

Finally to mention is “The Trans Syrian Express » by Alina Rudnitskaya, who has been to the Forum several times with her documentaries. The militarism in the Russian society caught through the bizarre exhibition of the Russian “success” in Syria: “Organised by the Ministry of Defence and by the personal order of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, the train exhibition “Syrian Breakthrough” transports the spoils of war from Syria around the country. The train stopped at all the major cities in Russia from Moscow to Vladivostok, from Vladivostok to Murmansk and then back again to Moscow. 62 cities in all.” Finnish producer Pertti Veijalainen and Polish Dorota Roszkowska will find the funding for the film, that was presented with an excellent trailer. The film was awarded with post-production facilities from Latvian BB Post House.

I asked Current Time TV’s Kenan how much they would give to the film… Nothing he said, Alina Rudnitskaya starts as a commissioner in our team in Prague. No conflict of interest wanted! Of course not and good luck to Alina – but finish your film, please!

http://balticseadocs.lv/industry/selected-projects-2020/ 

Baltic Sea Docs Pitch Day 1

First day of pitching. 12 projects were presented. From Belarus, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine, Latvia, Sweden, Russia, Finland, Lithuania. All countries around the Baltic Sea – apart from Belarus and Ukraine.

16-20 panelists on the screen, most of the filmmakers equally on the screen, pitching their documentary projects from their homes – could be a sitting room or a kitchen or an office. 

And Latvians and Estonians pitching from the stage of the studio set up by the organisers. All very well planned and organised by the team of BSD headed by Zane Balcus.

On stage to moderate Danish Mikael Opstrup and me. 8 projects for Opstrup, 4 for me, will be the other way around today friday.

Of course we all hope for a change to happen so we can skip the zoom and meet face to face at the 25th Baltic Sea Docs (!) next year. On the other hand it works, the zoom meetings that has become the normal at all industry events connected to festivals.

You can read about the projects on the site of the Baltic Sea Docs, link below, but I want to mention one project connected to the two gentlemen you see on the photo – taken by Agnese Zeltina:

Marko Raat, director, and Ivo Felt, producer from All Films in Estonia, were on stage to present ”Underling in Bird Kingdom”, a film from a remote island close to the Swedish coast, a paradise for birds and horses, as you could see from the magic scenes in the trailer, a place where the writer Tõnu Õnnepalu, also biologist, has moved, a place full of stories/legends. Marko Raat, a true auteur, plans to film there for years – to find his story so to say. What is it going to be panelists asked him. Summing up the presentation, I did the same: Is it going to be a film about nature, a philosophical film, a film about tourist hunting… I don’t know, the director answered. Loved that answer… if you know what kind of documentary you should make, why make it?

http://balticseadocs.lv

Erlend E. Mo: Rejsen til Utopia

Rejsen til Utopia / Journey to Utopia, blev tidligere i år sendt på CPH:DOX’s streamingprogram og får nu dansk biografpremiere. CPH:DOX skrev i kataloget om filmens indhold:

“… a Danish-Norwegian family gambles everything and decides to join the fight for the climate, but the choice of a new life in a sustainable agricultural collective is not without its challenges. Everyone is talking about the climate, fewer people are acting on it. But Erlend Mo’s family does. In the shadow of climate change, they move from their idyllic country house in Norway to the new, sustainable agricultural community Permatopia in Denmark. But when they arrive en Permatopia is still under construction and the completion is dragging out. From the outset, the family’s idealism is put to the test several times, and things do not get easier when they can finally move in. Dreams and visions are one thing, another is the reality of the new ecological everyday life. Is an agricultural community also a sustainable solution for a family of five stubborn individualists? One crisis follows another, but the willingness to face them turns out to come from an unexpected place. ‘Journey to Utopia’ is a warm and humane film for a time that puts our own choices in a new light, and gives us plenty to think about and act upon.” 

Erlend Mo fortæller selv historien fra begyndelsen og hele vejen, hans fortællestemme har smertende og lindrende litterære kvaliteter, jeg får lyst til at pille den ud som tekst og læse den omhyggeligt. Han og hans families (hustruen Ingeborg og tre børn, alle medvirkende, alle fremragende spillere, både i de dokumentariske og i de iscenesatte afsnit, som ikke uden videre er til at skelne fra hinanden, deres replikker er dramatisk litteratur, ægte nutidige; og de fem i familien er alle præcise og ægte spillere, som gør dialogen til musik. Klipperen Åsa Mossberg har fundet replikkerne i optagelserne og anbragt dem som de skal være i dramaet og jeg rystes og vil læse dem, altså se filmen igen, alene for sprogets og spillets og de utallige nuancers skyld.

Det vigtige er at jeg holder med min helt, nostalgikeren Erlend, deler hans tilbagelængsel og filmen igennem først håber på at familien bliver boende i de fine træhuse der på den stejle fjeldside. Senere beder jeg til at de fem flytter tilbage til denne smukke gamle gård i det dejlige landskab og netop der lever så miljøorienteret som det er muligt for dem. Kernen i filmen er Erlends tvivl i afgørelsens, i valgets time. Han sidder som Grubleren med hånden under en kind i forgrunden i en guldalderoptagelse med sin dal i mellemgrunden og sine fjelde disede i baggrunden. Han slører og understreger landskabet med sit mismod, sin angst, sin dårlige samvittighed.

Mo’s og i høj grad også klipperen Åsa Mossbergs film er en thriller. Jeg sad i uafbrudt stadig spænding halvanden time i går. Rejsen til Utopia er et rystende, hjertesskærende Ibsendrama: Et Drømmehjem eller Erlend flytter ind…

Danmark / Norge, 2020, 90 min. Filmen har forpremiere i Grand Teatret i København den 1. september kl. 18.00 med efterfølgende paneldebat, og der er almindelig biografpremiere den 3. september.

MakeDox 2020 The Winners

Onion Award for Best Film in the Main Competition:

Epicentro (Austria, France)
Directed by Hubert Sauper

Young Onion Award for Best Film by First or Second Time Director:

A Tunnel (Georgia, Germany)
Directed by Nino Orjjnikide, Vano Arsenishvili

Onion Seed Award for Best Student Film:

The Rex Will Sail In (Croatia)
Directed by Josip Lukić

Sliced Onion Award for Best Short Film:

The Fantastic (Finland)
Directed by Maija Blåfield 

Moral Approach Award for Best Moral Approach in Film:

Acasă, My Home (Romania, Finland, Germany)
Directed by Radu Ciorniciuc

Special Mention:

Speak so I Can See You (Serbia, Croatia, Qatar)
Directed by Marija Stojnić

Welcome to CinéDOC-Tbilisi 2020

Hybrid Edition… 

How can film festivals survive? How can we adapt to the new reality of 2020? How can we re-define film festivals without crowded cinemas, without vibrant Q&A sessions with international guests, without the dialogue between filmmakers and the audience or without masterclasses and networking events where large groups of creative people enjoyed each other’s presence? 

This year is different for all of us. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely high on cultural public events, such as festivals, most of them getting cancelled or postponed. 

Since January until mid-March 2020, we had worked intensively for the preparation of the eight edition of CinéDOC-Tbilisi (initially scheduled for 23 – 27 April 2020). By mid-March all films were selected, all jury members and international guests invited; almost all venues and cinemas reserved, and all festival events planned. Everything was almost ready… 

However, our plans where changed suddenly, disrupting our final preparation 

 

activities. We had to react very quickly. for public health and safety reasons, we postponed the festival. It was not easy… not easy for our team, not easy for the filmmakers who were eager to travel to Georgia or for the Georgian filmmakers who had worked many years on their documentaries and were looking forward to their national premiere… but safety came first. 

Nevertheless, we have soon started thinking of online solutions and alternative ways of continuing our work. We have adapted to an unprecedented situation and we have found a solution: our festival will take place in a hybrid format this year. Some of the selected films will be screened in open-air settings: for example, in the CAVEA drive-in cinema close to the Lisi Lake or in the inner yard of the Caucasian House, in Tbilisi. These screenings allow for social distancing and safety. If you miss any of these screenings, you still have the chance to watch wonderful documentaries online (directly on our website via the platform DAFilms) or on the Georgian Public Broadcaster (in August 2020). 

Our regional coordinators had to adapt to the new situation too: some of them organized online film screenings, others outdoor screenings. Luckily many of our regional coordinators were so innovative that they have screened on walls of buildings or in open-air wrestling arenas. Mini festivals in the regions of Georgia will also take place this year, in spite of the pandemic: in Dusheti, Gori, Sagarejo Chkhorotsku and Marneuli. 

“We do emotions” is the slogan of our festival! And we really hope that all the wonderful documentaries of this year’s festival selection will be the source of strong emotions in each one of you! We want to reach you with all films… be it in a beautiful open-air setting during a warm September evening or, at home, with family and friends. 

Creative documentaries should be more and more accessible, despite everything and this is what we try to do in this different year. 

Enjoy CinéDOC-Tbilisi 2020!

Ileana Stanculescu & Artchil Khetagouri 

Dokufest Prizren 2020

It is a post-festum post this one. I was in the jury at the Sarajevo FF, I was writing a bit about the lovely MakeDox in Skopje so I had no time to follow DokuFest in Prizren, a festival I visited in 2016 and has followed and written about from distance since 2010 : The festival ended August 25.

„I was at the DokuFest(ival) in Prizren in 2016. Great experience with good films and an atmosphere of generosity in a beautiful place. », I wrote on this site in 2016.

I met the generosity again this year as Eroll Bilibani gave me online access to watch films. I did so for a couple of days and was very much impressed by the winner of the competitive section „Balkan Docs“:

 

„Once Upon  A Youth“ by Croatian Ivan Ramljak. It is very seldom you see a feature length documentary debut told in first person so excellently balanced between archive footage and the brilliant b/w photos taken by the protagonist, Marko Caklovic, an artistically multi-talented young man, who was hanging out with the director and other close friends, having affairs, better said: falling in love with beautiful women, drifting from place to place, falling into a depression, taking drugs, dying from an overdosis. What happened, why did it have to go that way, you never get the answer; the friends who tell the story were sort of seduced by the charismatic Marko, apparently impossible not to be attracted to, but also a loner who never really opened up. It’s a film that depicts an outsider generation in the 90’es, who stayed in Marko’s mother’s appartment as she was travelling a lot or in other places of the friends, partying, getting drunk and/or high, watching films, listening to music – and Marko took pictures most of the time. The tone of the film – there is a melancholy driving the story but it is never sentimental and you never see the friends telling the story of Marko, you hear their voices. „Ah, you read Baudelaire“, Marko says to one of the girls, when he sees that she has „Fleurs du Mal“ in her bag, they find each other – for a period of time.

I tried to watch Rithy Panh’s „Irradiated”. The Cambodian filmmaker is a master, no doubt, and he has brought us so many personal films from his country that are of high artistic quality as well as they have informed us about the horrors of Pol Pot and his regime. His new film was for me impossible to watch. He is using archive from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Nazi concentration camps, the atrocities in Cambodia etc. through the whole film. Why? – in an interview made by Variety – link below, and in the adjoint text he “…reflected on the work of Claude Lanzmann, who chose not to use gruesome archival footage in his iconic documentary “Shoah,” and Alain Resnais, who did in “Night and Fog,” excerpts of which appear in “Irradiated.” In the end, he decided to make use of such imagery because it helped him delve deeper into his understanding of his own dark past, and the broader question of human evil. “I watched a lot of images and decided to use only those that had an echo on me, that I came to [having had] the same experience,” he said.” Aesthetically the film is superbly built using a three screen format. He was asked why, the answer was “… I wanted the audience to pay attention to what they watched“!

In a way I felt like Alex in «A Clockwork’s Orange”, who is forced to watch material like the mentioned. The film “Kubrick on Kubrick” that was also shown in Prizren, is interesting because of the interview it is based upon – a taped interview by French film critic Michel Ciment and of course it is fascinating to hear Jack Nicholson talk about Kubrick as the totally crazy director he was, who often asked for tens of takes to be taken for a scene. The film is full of clips from his work, and you want to see his films again!

What else to say other than DokuFest – documentary-wise – had all the good ones like the Romanian hits „Acasa.My Home“ and „Collective“, the Ukrainian „The Earth is Blue as an Orange“, the Iranian „Sunless Shadows“, „State Funeral“ and so on. Take a look, link below.

https://dokufest.com

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/rithy-panh-irradiated-sarajevo-film-festival-2-1234747539/

Statement of BSD on the events in Belarus

BSD – Baltic Sea Docs

“We express the support for the people of Belarus, who are witnessing the brutality of the failing regime. We stand for the freedom of expression, human rights, and democratic governing of the state – all of which are being violated in Belarus in the aftermath of the 9 August presidential ‘elections’. 

We stand by the filmmakers of Belarus, who are among those being targeted now, and who have seen the oppression of free speech long before it already.

On the behalf of participants and organizers of the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries:

Virginija Vareikyte, director, Lithuania

Dagne Vildziunaite, producer, Lithuania

Maria Gavrilova, producer, Russia

Yevgeny Gindilis, producer, Russian Federation

Emma Davie, filmmaker, Scotland

Phil Jandaly, filmmaker, Sweden

Vlad Ketkovich, producer, Russian Federation

Audrius Stonys, film maker, Lithuania 

Taisiia Kutuzova, Ukrainian filmmaker

Sona Margaryan, Armenian filmmaker 

Lilit Movsisyan, Armenian Filmmaker 

Inesa Mkrtchyan, Film producer from Armenia 

Nino Orjonikidze, filmmaker, Georgia

Agnieszka Rostropowicz-Rutkowska, film producer Poland

Marta Dużbabel, Film Producer Poland

More Raça, Writer and director, Kosovo

Zane Balčus, project manager, Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries

Margarita Rimkus, project assistant, Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries

Matīss Kaa, director & producer, Latvia

Una Celma, director & producer, Latvia

Alexander Koridze, filmmaker, Georgia

Max Tuula, producer, Estonia 

Antra Cilinska, producer, Latvia                                                     

Aliaksei Paluyan, film director, Belarus

Natalia Libet, film producer, Ukraine

Mikael Opstrup, Doc Developer, Denmark

Tue Steen Müller, film consultant and critic, Denmark

Ivo Felt, film producer, Estonia

Stasys Baltakis, producer, Lithuania

Malgorzata Prociak, film producer, Poland

Gitte Hansen, distributor, Switzerland

Peter Kerekes, film director, Slovakia

Juha Löppönen, producer, Finland

Elli Toivoniemi, producer, director, Finland

Elīna Gediņa – Ducena, producer

Marina-Evelina Cracana, producer, Sweden

Oscar Hedin, producer & director, Sweden

Vesa Kuosmanen, film director, Finland

Saila Kivelä, film director, Finland

Ieva Ūbele, producer, Latvia

Renato Borrayo Serrano, filmmaker, Guatemala

Diana El Jeiroudi, filmmaker, Syria / Germany

Pertti Veijalainen, producer, Finland

Lelda Ozola, Creative Europe Desk Latvia, Media Office, Latvia

Pāvels Terentjevs, film programme coordinator, Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, Latvia

Antra Gaile, project coordinator, Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, Latvia

Ieva Lange, information officer, Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, Latvia

PHOTO above is taken from a FB post of Belarussian documentary colleague, Anastasiya Miroshnichenko (“Debut”) from yesterday. She writes “Overflowing with delight, pride and love! Thanks to each of us! Together we will win!


 

 

Nordisk Panorama 2020

 

 

Nordisk Panorama Film Festival celebrates the very best of Nordic docs and short films. With a focus on Nordic films produced over the last production year, the competition programme is the very core of the festival. Out of 541 submitted films 67 were selected to compete for the Nordisk Panorama Film Festival Awards in four competition programmes.

The 31th edition of Nordisk Panorama Film Festival will be a hybrid festival mixing online screenings with selected in-person events in Malmö, Sweden. Audiences in all five Nordic countries will have access to free streaming of the films as well as talks and masterclasses during the festival 17 – 27 September. 

“We are thrilled that the digital festival will expand the filmmakers’ reach and 

let people – from Akureyri, Iceland to Turku, Finland and everywhere in-between – experience the special feeling that attending the festival offers. It’s our hope that by enabling a wider audience to engage with these films more will be inspired by these Nordic storytellers!” says Anita Reher, executive director.

“Selecting films for Nordisk Panorama Film Festival was both pure joy and incredibly harsh. How do you select such a limited number of films from a region so rich in its documentary culture? We approached it with the ambition to show the diversity in voices, film language and themes in each country, and this method has resulted in a selection that we feel shows the depth and talent throughout the Nordic region”, says Cecilia Lidin and Martijn te Pas, documentary programmers for the festival.

”It’s been another stellar year for Nordic short filmmaking. This year’s competition programme is full of invention and intelligence. And, as something of a counterpoint to what has been and continues to be a challenging time for everyone around the world, there is a brilliant sense of humour that shines through many of these films that is both joyful and playful”, says Sam Groves and Lucile Bourliaudprogrammers for the short film programmes.

Photo: The Cave – in competition.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/

 

 

Nordisk Panorama – Documentaries

14 films are to be found in the competitive category “Best Nordic Documentary”, 18 in the “New Nordic Voices”, that also includes fiction and animation films.

This is the focus of this post, won’t bother you with my very little knowledge about today’s short and children films.

In competition: If I were you I would watch Jerzy Sladkowski’s new film ”Bitter Love” (PHOTO) that takes you on a cruise on Volga, where people meet to talk, kiss, pass the time, talk philosophy and literature as the Russians do. I am a fan of Sladkowski and share his obsession with Russia,his films are always full of humour and a fascination that is brilliantly conveyed by his magnificent cameraman Polish Wojciech Staron.

You could also go with Estephan Wagner and Marianne Hougen-Moraga to Chile, were their ”Songs of Repression” takes place at a village in the Andes, where a German colony has been for decades… the film reveals in a fine way, through the characters chosen, abuse and religious fanatism. Great film that was praised when it was shown at the DocsBarcelona.

And ”The Cave” by Feras Fayyad is there… no further introduction needed.

And then some that I look fwd to see: John Webster’s “Eye to Eye”, ”Colombia in My Arms” by Finnish Jenni Kivistö and Jussi Rastas… and many more.

Go to the website and check the trailers. And I heard that you better be quick if you want to get tickets as the number of people who can watch each film is limited.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/  

Baltic Documentarians at Nordisk Panorama

… and what a pleasure for a huge fan of Baltic documentaries that – on the initiative of Nordisk Panorama and with the collaboration of the Baltic film institutes/centres and Baltic Sea Docs – a delegation of fine filmmakers from the three countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will attend the Forum of Nordisk Panorama. Online.

There is an excellent page on the site of Nordisk Panorama presenting who-is-who from the Baltics. There are producers and directors – and teasers for two films, exciting they are, presented by Estonian Marianna Kaat and Latvian Uldis Cekulis. Very promising projects that will turn out to be good films, I am sure.

The delegation will have its presentation on the 18th of September within „Producers Meet Producers” – I hope to see good matchmaking with the Nordic coming up. Heading the delegation is Zane Balcus, Head  of Baltic Sea Docs, and the one who is getting me and Mikael Opstrup through covid test in Riga in a week, where the Baltic Sea Docs starts!

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/industry/forum/members-of-the-delegation/