Just watched the online award ceremony of CPH:DOX, very well performed with the festival director Tine Fischer and the two programmers Mads Mikkelsen and Niklas Engstrøm guiding the viewer from one competition category to another, with juries giving their motivations and filmmakers thanking – and with clips of films that will be seen in the coming days. Bravo!

The award winners – read https://en.cphdox.dk/nyhed/cph-dox-announces-its-2020-award-winners, the still is from the film that received, very well deserved, two awards: “Songs of Repression”. 

Copy-Paste of a press release from a couple of days ago, written so well by Petra Blaskovic, who also worked for IDFA 2019. Here we go:

Hungarian project Queen of Chess by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter won the HBO Europe Award, the Al Jazeera Balkans Award went to The Other Side of the Pipe by Marko Kumer Murč from Slovenia, Ever Since I Know Myself by Maka Gogaladze from Georgia received the ZagrebDox Pro Online Mentor Award, and Forbidden by Anelise Salan from Romania picked up the DAE Mentoring Pitch Award. 

This also concludes the first online edition of Zagreb Pro that took place from 15-23 March. 

Following a four-day online workshop and the Pitching Forum at which the 

projects in the new format of pitching videos were presented online to the members of the international panel, the winners of the 16th Zagreb Dox Pro have been announced. 

The HBO Europe Award, a diploma and €2,000 for project development went to the Hungarian project Queen of Chess, by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter. Queen of Chess tells the story of the relationship and the tournaments of two minds: Judit Polgar, the greatest female chess player of all time and Garry Kasparov, the legend who believed that a woman and a man cannot fight one another. 

The project was presented by Tuza-Ritter, the producer and screenwriter Gabor Harmi and producer Peter Stern. 

For the first time, the Al Jazeera Balkans Award was presented at Zagreb Dox Pro and awarded to Marko Kumer Murč, director of The Other Side of the Pipe. Presented by Kumer Murč, screenwriter Eric Moses and producer Katja Lihtenvalner, the Slovenian project depicts what happens when abuse of power turns out to be a pipeline’s biggest export and when ordinary people fight tooth and nail to hold Europe to its values. The project was awarded €1,000 for further development. 

The Documentary Association of Europe (DEA) Mentoring Pitch Award, also given out for the first time at ZagrebDox Pro and consisting of a free one-year DAE membership and mentoring sessions for the director and producer, went to the Romanian project Forbidden. It follows the story of four same-sex couples, including the director, who decide to go to Romania’s Marital Status Department to register requests for marriage although the law doesn’t allow marriage outside the traditional man-woman relationship. Forbidden was presented by director Anelise Salan and producer Cristina Iordache. 

The ZagrebDox Pro Online Mentor Award, consisting of a diploma and a one-year online mentoring with Cecilia Lidin went to Maka Gogaladze, director and producer of the Georgian project Ever Since I Know Myself. The project shows how Georgians with a long Soviet past and strong traditional mindset are trying to adopt a new, European identity. 

The international panel consisted of Cecilia Lidin (Danish Film Institute), Hanka Kastelicova (HBO Europe), Lejla Dedić (Al Jazeera Balkans), Rada Šešić (Sarajevo Film Festival/IDFA) and Marion Schmidt (DAE/DOX BOX). 

The 16th edition of ZagrebDox Pro has successfully moved online, and held a four-day intensive training program as well as a the final Pitching Forum session. The programme included 12 documentary projects in different stages of development and production from 11 countries and the workshop mentors were Leena Pasanen, director of the Biografilm Festival in Bologna and former managing and artistic director of DOK Leipzig, and director and producer Stefano Tealdi. 

“After 10 editions of conducting our pitching lab in Zagreb, we were afraid the human interaction, so important in our work, would have been missing,” say Pasanen and Tealdi. “To our surprise, we did not loose the peer-to- peer and group feedback needed to give strength to the pitch of a project and therefore foster its development. This was done through various on-line discussions between us and the project teams. The fact that the participants were stuck in their homes or offices actually turned into an advantage and maximised their creative potential. They worked intensively with images and graphics in constructing an appealing and attractive pitch. 

“These pitching videos were recorded and presented to a panel of decision makers and project scouts: HBO, Al Jazeera, Danish Film Institute, Sarajevo Film Festival/IDFA and DAE. Overwhelmed by the results, we wanted to invite specific partners and potential investors for each single project. Unfortunately, the earthquake in Zagreb did not allow us to do so. This could have given immediate results to the teams, but still the project teams will connect with decision makers who will see the recording of the pitch.” Tealdi and Pasanen conclude. 

ZagrebDox Pro training programme is organized with the support of Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, City of Zagreb and Croatian Film Directors’ Guild (DHFR). 

I remember when it was pitched at the Baltic Sea Forum in Riga. My positive reaction was with a smile of surprise. And expectation to what the director would get out of it in the final film. Now the film is there and it keeps what it promised:

This is how Russian men in the snowy North of the country escape from the daily boredom to nurse a passion, to do something they like, to dream, to have a parallel life in a harsh mining area. The doors are opened to the garages and there you have the man, who suffers from the Parkinson disease but goes to work in his workshop. And there you have the group of friends, who have formed a band to play loud heavy-metal kind of music. And the grandson and grandfather at the garage, where the latter for decades – as his father – has dig out below to reach… yes, to reach what in the underground? And the ones who have turned the garage into a fitness centre! And the man (photo), who lost two wives but – we see that in the film – has a date that seems to turn out successful. 

Not to forget the man, who makes wooden icons and gets a visit from the priest, who wants an art piece for his church. As the only one we follow him (the artist!) to his home, where his wife scolds him for drinking too much. And yes, there is always a bottle in the garage.

There is a lot of vodka in the film; understandable under these weather and the poor living conditions you can imagine!?

This is a film, where no fingers are pointed. The director observes, she shows, but the way she shows, the building of the film, the cinematic choices she has made reveals clearly that she loves the protagonists, the characters, the participants.

Not long ago a filmmaker asked me why I am so fond of documentaries. My very banal short answer was: People, Life… This is one of those fims that gives me People and Life. Awarded at the Berlinale.     

Germany, 2020, 95 mins.

Dilya. That’s her name, the protagonist who has given the title to the film. She does not give up in her fight to get Iskandar, her brother, out of prison in Uzbekistan. The prison is Jaslyk. He was sent to this infamous prison in 1999 accused of being a terrorist involved in a bombing in Tashkent. She says a couple time that only the devil… She does not want to give up.

Dilya. Nickname for Dilobar. Close-up after close-up invites the audience to read her emotions. There are smiles and tears and expressions of wondering. She lives in Sweden with her parents, she had to leave her country; with her family, it is sometimes unbearable to watch the father and his constant pain waiting for news from the Uzbekistan that most of us know very little about except for the name of the brutal president Karimov, who ran the country with an iron fist for decades. He died in 2016…

 

Dilya. On Skype with a former Jaslyk prisoner, who tells her about the terrible conditions. Iskandar was first given a death sentence, but the country changed this to life sentence and he was transferred to Jaslyk. 

Dilya. Putting a video with herself on social media asking for help. With Galima, Uzbek journalist exiled in Kazakhstan; she talks about Dilya as human rights activist… and the film takes a trip to a woman working for Amnesty International, who had contact with Iskandar, and to Istanbul where Muhammed Salih, Uzbek opposition leader lives in exile since 1993. One of his colleagues was shot, it was recorded by surveillance camera(s), we see it!

Dilya… half an hour into the film we get to know that she gets married to Anvar. Images full of happiness from the wedding in Tashkent… but he starts to be violent, he says that Iskandar is guilty, he apparently moves to the side of the regime as an informer on Uzbeks living in Sweden, and in Norway where he lived with an Uzbek to whom he told that he was working for the country’s Secret Service. One day he leaves the house to do something in Ukraine, an imam in Sweden is killed…

Dilya…”I took the children and left”.

Dilya… and Iskandar’s lawyer. And Bekzod, Iskandar’s closest friend, released in conversation with Dilya…

Dilya… celebrating her mother’s 70th year birthday, dancing gracefully in front of Swedish friends.

Let me stop here not to be a spoiler. Won’t tell you where the film goes towards the end.

The production company, on their website, characterises the film as a «real-life thriller about love, betrayal, assassins and the unbreakable hope for a brother”. Sales talk – I would prefer say that it is a beautiful tribute to a young woman and her never giving up and search for justice. That´s the documentary side of the film, the other side – and that is quite impressive – is the journalistic investigation that brings forward information/facts about a country with a ruthlessness that must call for strong actions from human rights organisations. There probably already are.

The film has some narrative problems in the beginning in combining the two sides, the creative and the investigative, jumping around to be sure that we get the information needed. It becomes a bit abrupt and unnecessary. But when the camera rests on the face of Dilya, a true hero… poetry comes in.

Sweden, 2020, 98 mins.

”I will not let Kais feel my sadness”. Words from the father in this small gem of a film. Father and son. From Syria. Coming to Norway for a new beginning.

But we, the audience, feel the sadness of Rabeea. Thanks to the gentle way the director sets the tone, letting us read the face of the father, who has one reason to live: Creating a future for Kais, his son, who towards the end of the film, where he is 7 years old and has started in first class in school, is told (some of) the story of the journey they have taken from Syria to Lebanon to Turkey and through Europe to a welcoming Norway.

Bravo Dad, Kais says, in a wonderful sequence where the two are out skiing in snowy Norway. Kais learns Norwegian quite quickly contrary to the father, who also fights with his health. In the beginning we see him in a wheelchair in Copenhagen Central Station, in Norway he gets an operation of his damaged leg, he ought to have one more on his back but says no: Kais gets scared if I say the word “operation”. He kills the pain with pills.

It is never sentimental, but touching it is to see father and son. There is so much love in their relationship – that the film conveys with respect without pushing for emotions. Absurd it is to see Syrian boy Kais celebrate the Norwegian national day on the 7th of May singing with a flag in hand. He will adapt to the new country with the energy and openness his loving father passes on to him. The father… What a world we live in. 

Denmark, 2020, 78 mins.

This fine – in aesthetics as well as in content – documentary won The Dragon Award for Best Nordic Documentary at the Göteborg Film Festival beginning of February this year. The jury‘s motivation is so precise and well written that I will use some of the words as starting points for this review’s recommendation to show the film on big screens, when festivals ”open” again.  

This award is given for the curiosity of the directors in observing vastly different opposing groups, resulting in a polyphonic portrait of a country in which peace doesn’t seem welcome. The precise use of photography and editing submerges us in the differing realities presented and creates a stark contrast between the political sensibilities at play in the natural and urban environments, and the associated poverty and luxury. This film goes beyond being an intimate portrait of a country, and makes us reflect upon colonialism and post-colonialism, capitalism and anti-capitalism, and what keeps us going as humanity.

…Observing vastly different opposing groups. The film takes its beginning in the 2016 peace agreement between the government (when the President was Santos) and FARC. There is a focus on the strong young and sympathetic soldier from FARC, Ernesto, who is to be a leading character through the film. He believes in the peace, believes in putting down the weapons after more than 50 years of war, believes in the right movement for FARC from guerilla to political party. He ends up being disappointed, when all hope for peace is crashed; the government sends soldiers to stop the farmers from picking coca leaves to end their sole possibility for having an income; brutality reigns, paramilitary groups operate, the war continues. Another character is a man from the decadent upper class, who says that he would never allow a FARC person to enter his palazzo, and who has no sympathy for the political class – that also includes a right-wing female politician, who express her philosophy more or less like this: the poor are happy with their lives and so are the rich. No problem!

… The precise use of photography. I would go further in my characterisation: The camera work is excellent, lots of close-ups, energy in the scenes with an editing that lets some of them (the scenes) be loose and develop like those with Ernesto and his friend in the tent in the jungle. Funny they are.

… beyond being an intimate portrait of a country. Yes, definitely there is this clear sense of classes, in that way the filmmakers have succeeded in creating a drama as good as any fiction.

2020, Finland, 90 mins.

I was at the DokuFest(ival) in Prizren in 2016. Great experience with good films and an atmosphere of generosity in a beautiful place. Since then I have followed the program set up through the fine communication from the organisers. In that respect Eroll Bilibani is a key person. The other day he announced on FB: I will be sharing 1 film from Dokufest production, each day during the #COVIDー19 #QuarantineAndChill #OneFilmADayKeepsDoctorAwayFilm #5 WHOSE FLAG IS IT? by Barış Karamuço. All films will be available on Dokufest.com‘s Sweet & Short Quarantine.

I asked Eroll to pick one film for me to watch and he took the mentioned ”Whose Flag is it?” because “although produced 4 years after Kosovo’s independence the film is still very actual as there are mixed feelings about state flag vs. national flag, which ads to dilemmas of national identity and ethnicity”.

I watched the lively 14 minutes long film that is far from taking the issue (too) serious as it invites you – in 2012 on the 17th of February, the day where Kosovo celebrates its independence – to be with kindergarten children and their teacher, who talks about the flag and asks the kids to draw it on their own. As you can see on the photo. The stay with the children is cut with statements from people with quite different opinions, some saying that the result of the competition was influenced by the EU to others, who like the flag and its stressing that the 6 stars represent 6 ethnic groups.

DokuFest is the producer of many short films, does film teaching during the year, is a strong cultural factor in the young country. Respect!   

https://vimeo.com/57599879?fbclid=IwAR0MWZR57MerLbiTButsng4FT7AsexO-isIGCVg5_vct6Batj4jNzCvUgTE (the film)

https://dokufest.com/2019/ (other films)

https://vimeo.com/user10268202/videos (Dokufest productions)