Nordisk Panorama Forum 2020

First a copy paste from the press release that came to the inbox yesterday:

”We are thrilled to announce the projects selected for Nordisk Panorama Forum and wish to congratulate all who made the cut!

100 new documentary projects were submitted to the 27th edition of Nordisk Panorama Forum for Co-financing of Documentaries by some of the very best producers and directors the Nordic region has to offer.

Nordisk Panorama Forum is the main funding event for the Nordic documentary community. This year we are going online and adding more dates: the forum will be 18-23 September. At Nordisk Panorama Forum a selection of 20 brand new documentary projects will be pitched to around 70 attending decision-makers and 20 observer+ projects have been selected for special access to meetings with decision-makers. Projects will be pitched Mon-Tues 21-22 September…”

Let me mention a few of the projects to be presented at the online event: 

Talented Danish director Andreas Koefoed presents a film project with the title ”Bendtner” and then we football fans know that the protagonist is the once talented Danish football player, now celebrity, 32 year old Nicklas Bendtner, who has played 81 matches for Denmark.

In the list announced by Nordisk Panorama, taking place September 18-23, there is still no description of the films so curious to know from what non-tabloid (my guess) angle Koefoed will attack the subject Bendtner.

The same goes for ”Corona Film Club – My Life as a Film with Stig Björkman”, the excellent Swedish film critic and director of several films on Ingmar Bergman. Stine Gardell, experienced producer, is the director.

As is Finnish John Webster who is listed to make a film on legendary Jörn Donner, it has the subtitle ”Epilogue”.

The Forum has invited a delegation of Baltic filmmakers to take part – and three well known directors will pitch or observe: Latvian Una Celma, Estonian Marianna Kaat and Lithuanian Giedre Zickyté.

Photo from the Swedish ”Calendar Girls”. 

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

Finn Larsen: Dumpen

Fotografen Finn Larsen rejser, ser og tænker sit og fotograferer eller er hjemme i Malmø, ser og tænker sit og fotograferer og han laver udstillinger og bøger med materialet. Hans seneste arbejde er Dumpen en udstilling som vises på Ilulissat Kunstmuseum denne sommer. Den handler om byernes håndtering af affald. Her er der skildret i Grønland, men i eftertanken mange steder i nordiske lande. Finn Larsen har imidlertid arbejdet med grønlandske emner siden 1991 og han har besøgt landet mere end 30 gange og han skriver i sin indbydelse:

“… Jeg har mest opholdt mig i Sydgrønland, men i 2001, 2011 og 2019 har jeg besøgt ni byer på Grønlands vestkyst på månedslange rejser – fra Ilulissat i nord til Nanortalik i syd. Jeg har således besøgt og genbesøgt ni af de største dumpe mindst tre gange på knap tyve år. Et par af dem har jeg besøgt så mange gange, at jeg ikke har tal på det. ” Og Finn Larsen skriver en omhyggelig og interessant introduktion til udstillingen hvor han fortæller om sin metode i det hele taget:

”Jeg interesserer mig for, hvordan tillærte forestillinger stiller sig i vejen for, at vi kan se det, der faktisk er at se.

 Derfor er hele mit arbejde en bestræbelse på at se udenom gængse billeder af et givet sted for at kunne få øje på det, der også er at se…

Min metode er blevet at genbesøge bestemte steder gang på gang for at se, hvordan de ændrer sig over tid. Og i øvrigt forsøge at skaffe mig mest mulig viden.

 Urbanisering, boligblokke, haver og træer var nogle af de ting, jeg så, da jeg forsøgte at se uden om det gængse Grønlandsbillede.

Og så Dumpen, som er temaet for min udstilling på Ilulissat Kunstmuseum denne sommer.

 Jeg har arbejdet med Grønland siden 1991, og har besøgt landet mere end 30 gange.

Jeg har mest opholdt mig i Sydgrønland, men i 2001, 2011 og 2019 har jeg besøgt ni byer på Grønlands vestkyst på månedslange rejser – fra Ilulissat i nord til Nanortalik i syd.

Jeg har således besøgt og genbesøgt ni af de største dumpe mindst tre gange på knap tyve år. Et par af dem har jeg besøgt så mange gange, at jeg ikke har tal på det.

 Jeg har gravet mig ned i de sidste 20-30 års tilstandsrapporter og handlingsplaner for affaldet, og jeg har fulgt med i den offentlige diskussion. Jeg ved i dag mere om Grønlands affaldssituation som helhed end de fleste, og trods handlingsplanerne har jeg ikke kunnet se nogen forskel fra 2001 til 2019 – ud over at bjergene af blandet affald er vokset. Med koncentrerede bunker af flasker, batterier, træflis og baller af presset pap hist og pist mellem virvaret af madrester, olietønder, jernskrot, glasfiberbåde, asbest, fiskegarn, elektronik og så videre.

 Ifølge loven skal forureneren betale – men i praksis er det stadig gratis at dumpe hvad som helst hvor som helst på Dumpen.

 Hvorfor er det kommet til at se sådan ud og hvad betyder det?

 Den grønlandske affaldssituation er næppe principielt anderledes end affaldssituationen i de øvrige nordiske lande. Den er bare værre og især mere synlig.

Den måde, vi har indrettet vore moderne forbrugersamfund på, betyder, at vi hele tiden utilsigtet efterlader noget, som skader grundlaget for vores og andre organismers eksistens – klimagasser, som forurener atmosfæren og alle mulige kemiske og fysiske forureninger på jorden.

 Det hænger på mange niveauer sammen med udvikling af økonomi og samfund. Det er vor tids brændende aktuelle spørgsmål, som kræver vores engagement, og at vi kan holde mere end én tanke og mere ét billede i hovedet ad gangen.

 Min ambition er at give verden andre billeder og stof til at tænke andre tanker med.”

Udstillingen kan ses på Ilulissat Kunstmuseum indtil 14. auguat 2020.

VIDEO

Der indgår en ældre video i udstillingen: Dumpen – voksende bjerge af affald i Grønland, 2012, 26 minutter. Foto: Finn Larsen. Redigering: Jeanette Land Schou. Musik: Jens Hendriksen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cta1-rrX6Xs&feature=youtu.be

Filmen viser hvordan det ser ud på 18 lossepladser i Grønland. “Dump” er det danske ord som i Grønland bruges for ”losseplads”. 

FOTO

Finn Larsen: Dumpen og landskabet.

LINKS

www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3775/ (Finn Larsen: The Dump)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3605/ (Om Finn Larsens fotografier og udstillinger)

Michael Jordan: The Last Dance

I knew nothing about basketball before watching ”The Last Dance”. I had never heard the name Michael Jordan before, or NBA, or Chicago Bulls. Football – and Barca – is my passion.

Now I ask myself, why I – in three days – watched the documentary series of 10 episodes. The answer is easy: It is sooo entertaining. It caught and kept my attention the whole way through. Because of the personality of Michael Jordan, the charismatic best player in the world, according to the film and himself, the many dramas and conflicts that the film unfolds, the side-characters – and of course the constant bombardment of clips from the games, all of them played in the 1990’es. The dunks, the scoring when there were few seconds left, the atmosphere in the halls with Madison Square Garden as the place Jordan loved to play. With Mike, Michael, number 23, the black cat… he had/has many nicknames, the man in focus, the man who was, before and after the games,  always well dressed in suits and tie, very often with a long cohiba in his mouth. Lots of footage from the changing rooms, lots of material from press conferences, television presenters, interviews of today with equally charismatic teammates and the coach Phil Jackson. The latter comes out as a very sympathetic character, who understood the players, especially the wild Dennis Rodman, who sometimes dropped the training after nights with booze and women but always turned up to deliver perfectly during the games.

And Scottie Pippen, Jordan’s closest, who sits there with a smile and a dark voice remembering the 6 championships of Chicago Bulls, and all the small and bigger stories connected. Including the conflicts with the management.

As a film? Very well crafted. Games, interviews around the games, year after year, with many comparisons between the first three wins (91/92/93) and the last three wins (96/97/98), with the break where Jordan turned to baseball as he had lost the energy after the tragic death of his father, who was always with him. There’s a fine build up to his return to basketball. In a scene his press man tells the story of how he drafted several press releases on the return, all of them rejected by Jordan, who writes it himself: “I’m Back”. Nothing more.

I have read that Jordan owns a lot of the material in the film – it is obvious that the film is seen from his perspective, and that there probably are many stories that could have put another light on the “larger than life” athlete. Who cares? 

Will I watch basketball on tv after this film. Probably not but I understand, why many find football/soccer boring compared to the dramatic and per se entertaining basketball.

Netflix, 2020, 10 episodes.         

Ivars Seleckis at Baltic Sea Docs 2020

A new film project by veteran documentary director and cinematographer Ivars Seleckis will be presented at the 24th edition of Baltic Sea Docs that starts on the 29th of August. The brief description goes like this: ”The documentary “The Land” will reveal the countryside of the 21st century through the individual and personal stories of the five protagonists living in the Latvian countryside and farming their land.” Producer is Gints Grube, Mistrus Media, who also stood behind Seleckis last big success ”To be Continued”.

”Ivars Seleckis began his career the same way many film people do – from the ‘bottom’. Though he had university education, he spent months lugging ‘boxes’ and the heavy film camera around the Riga Film Studio until he was allowed to switch it on. The first scenes he shot that appeared on film were in 1960 – in the documentary, “My Riga” – a film that became the first timid step away from the official propaganda and towards a more humanly intimate poetics. (source: http://nkc.gov.lv/en/uncategorized/ivars-seleckis-2/)”.

Since then, as cinematographer and later on as director, Seleckis name has 

 

appeared on numerous (an understatement!) documentaries during the time of Soviet Latvia and when his beloved country gained its independence. More than anyone the 85 year old Seleckis has documented the landscapes and trades of Latvia – through his eye for people. Of course he is one of the masters in ”Bridges of Time” by Kristine Briede and Audrius Stonys, the wonderful film on the Baltic poetic cinema. And of course he was one of the cameramen in the film ”235.000.000” from 1967, the unique documentary by Uldis Brauns. The film was censored by the Soviet regime – the original director’s cut has been found and a digital restored version is being made. Right Uldis Cekulis and Zane Balcus?

Ivars Seleckis trilogy from Šķērsiela street in Riga has been shown all over the world. The first one is from 1988, ”Crossroad Street”, the second called “New times at Crossroad Street” came out in 1999, and the third one, ”Capitalism at Crossroad Street” is from 2013. A sociological study it is, lovely portraits of lives of those who live in the street – as did (does?) the scriptwriter Tālivaldis Margēvičs.

Way back Ivars Seleckis and his colleague Piepers took me and my wife on a tour to the countryside of Latvia. We drank champagne at a river and visited ”horseradish Peter” and his wife in one of the gardens of Šķērsiela. Seleckis brought along smoked fish and brandy. The couple was very important in the first part of the trilogy. 

2019: A key person from the Latvian Film Centre, Lelda Ozola, has helped Ivars Seleckis through his carreer, so it was only natural that she accompanied him to ZagrebDOX in 2019, where ”To Be Continued” was shown and where festival director Nenad Puhovski gave his ”My Generation” award to the Latvian master. Another piece of memory: When in Zagreb I had to watch a football match with FC Barcelona. Lelda and Ivars joined me. The documentary skills of the latter were demonstrated from start till end of the match. Ivars knew actually very little about football but during the 90 minutes he commented and discovered the rules and tactics of the game, sitting or going close to the tv screen pointing and asking. Curiosity, without that, forget about being a documentarian!

A brilliant filmmaker, a man full of humour, always with a small bottle in his pocket – looking fwd to seeing him again in Riga!

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4783/

Baltic Sea Docs 2020

Riga, Latvia. 29.08 – 4.09.2020. The 24th Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries. For “professional filmmakers from the Baltic Sea region, as well as from Eastern and Central Europe”. It started in Denmark, had some years in the Baltic capitals before it found its permanent home in Riga in 2005. I have been “part of the furniture” since the beginning. With pleasure.

There is a film program to be announced later as well as seminars and list of tutors and decision makers, who will take part in an event that this year will be hybrid with some people based in Riga and many people attached to the Zoom presentations and questions and answers.

Project manager Zane Balcus and her team have made the selection of projects, 24 as usual, you can see them all via the link below.

Let me mention names that I already know from previous gatherings:

 

Directors: Alexander Koridze, Georgia (picked up from the recent CinéDOC Georgia pitch), Allaksei Paluyan, Belarus, Una Celma Latvia, Ivars Seleckis Latvia (who pitched at the first edition 24 years ago), Nerijus Milerius Lithuania, Virginija Vareikyte and Maximilien Dejoie Lithuania, Keti Machavariani Georgia, Alina Rudnitskaya Russia, Marko Raat Estonia, Konrad Szolajski Poland.

Producers: Oscar Hedin Sweden, Rebecca Houzel, Max Tuula, Maria Gavrilova France, Estonia, Russia, Natalia Libet Ukraine, Andres Maimik Estonia, Matiss Kaza Latvia, Gints Grube, Elina Gedina Latvia, Stasys Baltakis Lithuania, Vladislav Ketkovich Russia, Pertii Vijalainan Finland, Dagné Vildziunaité Lithuania, Antra Cilinska Latvia, Stephane Siohan, Olga Beskhmelnytsina Ukraine, Ivo Felt Estonia, Malgorzata Prociak Poland.

As far as I can read from the brief annotations (again, click below) there are personal, political, social, historical, informative, creative documentary projects to be presented – and there are many new people joining the party… it will be a party and one more hommage to the art of documentary.

ONE project makes me more than curious: “Podnieks On Podnieks” to be directed Anna Viduleja with Juris Podnieks close collaborator Antra Cilinska as producer and produced by Juris Podnieks Studio. Podnieks is one of my heroes in documentary history and I am happy that I had the chance to meet him on the island of Bornholm during the early years of the Balticum Film & TV Festival. 

The description of the film goes like this: ““I am convinced that we can live through several lives. That’s the best thought that intrigues me. And with each passing life we go through some development. I would, no doubt, like to do more in this life. But if I don’t manage, then I will continue in the next one.” This was once said by the outstanding Latvian documentary film director Juris Podnieks who during his lifetime had gained the fame of the fighter for justice. This film will serve as a metaphor – a conversation before infinity and will be built as Podnieks’ story about himself, his films, society and life.”

Juris Podnieks 1950-1992

http://balticseadocs.lv/

CinéDOC Summer School 2020

They had no choice the good people behind the Georgian documentary film festival CinéDOC. They already had organised three summer schools, this was to be the fourth and it had to be online… the intensive workshop dedicated to promising filmmakers from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Intensive? Indeed it was! 12 film projects. 4 tutors. And a (great) team of organisers led by Ileana Stanculescu and Artchil Khetagouri, the two filmmakers and directors of the festival CinéDOC that has not yet taken place because of the pandemic. Postponed. But not this summer school workshop.

Read more…

 

A challenge it is to make a summer school – of course – with five full days of Zoom meetings, a short day with summing up and a small relax for the organisers and the filmmakers, who will be given pitch training and meet a panel of 12: broadcasters, festival programmers, distributors and representatives from similar documentary initiatives. On Sunday July 5th.

The summer school was much better than expected, many of the filmmakers said at the evaluation this morning. Was that because we had no real idea about how hours and hours staring into a computer would work out.

“We” – I was one of the tutors – together with international producers Bulgarian Martichka Bozhilova and Latvian Uldis Cekulis, and Serbian/Dutch editor Srdjan Fink. My worry was more if the technique would work. Would our internet connections be strong enough? Would the Zoom format be good enough? As a technical idiot I had no idea but – there were problems but they were small – all went smoothly.

What did we do? The usual business, I would say from a long life of workshops. We talked, we watched trailers/teasers, scenes, rough material. And again – from my personal point of view – we learned a lot. Again I was invited to have a look into the realities as they are seen and interpreted by emerging filmmakers and filmmakers with more experience. From the three Caucasus countries. 

Working method: the 12 had been divided according to country and experience, into groups of 3, shifting tutors to get different input from different temperaments, tutors and colleagues – and every morning there was a one hour class made by the mentioned tutors. 

It is a great privilege to be asked to be part of a summer school like this. The projects yes, but also to meet young and younger filmmakers, even if it is online (we all prefer to meet face to face) to meet each other from home or in the offices with different backgrounds, different ways of sitting, different ways of talking, smiling, concentrating. Still this is for me the way to evaluate a project: Can this person to whom I am talking and listening, whose face I am looking at, whose visual material I am looking at, can she make it? 

I am writing She, because there were 9 female directors and 3 male!

On my FB post you can see everyone taking part in the workshop. On the photo above you see

me, Natuka Gabunia (a Georgian Anna Magnani), Medea Sharikadze (the two women are part of the organising team, warm and superprofessional), Gayne Petrosyan with an amazing personal story about her son who was born a girl, entitled „The Transition“, editor Srdjan Fink, producer Anna Khazaradzetogether with, below, director Luka Beradze, with the absurd „Smiling Georgia“ from a poor region, where teeth were pulled out promising the locals to have them replaced, so far it did not happen, the couple Elene Margvelashvili and Keko Chelidze with a project in early development, „Exposed“, about a 40 year old single mother who builds up her selfconfidence through bodybuilding, Ileana Stanculescu, the always engaged, committed and warm initiator and organiser of it all, Afaq Yusifli, who showed her cinematic skills in a teaser of „Granddaughter“, which will be a short film (general remark: loved to see short films coming up!), Chinara Majidova from Azerbaijan talking from Budapest, about to make a film „My Neighborhood“, the Sovjetski in Baku with material shot over 5 years and finally Turkan Huseynova, also from Azerbaijan, also with a project that has an area in Baku as the location, „Papanin“ and again a short film to be by an obvious visual talent… Personal note: Wow, what a lot of talent from Azerbaijan this year!

If you want to know more about CinéDOC Tbilisi and what the festival is doing in terms of screening films in the capital and around the country go to

https://www.cinedoctbilisi.com

IDFA Director Nyrabia Interviewed

Nick Cunningham, brilliant interviewer and reporter for the trade magazine BusinessDocEurope, has made an interview with artistic director of IDFA Orwa Nyrabia, who as usual talks clear and precise about the situation for documentaries in these times of lockdown. I have picked only a couple of quotes so please read it all, click the link below.

“A thousand persons watching the film at home over a week are not equal to a thousand persons in a cinema watching the same film… To me, watching a good film in a good cinema with other humans is a privilege, a valuable expression of our human civilization… It is a noble experience that I still want to defend within a civilization that is, otherwise, not much to brag about.”

Nyrabia’s concerns lie more with the filmmakers whose new documentaries are being met with a mute response within the virtual ether. “Overall, the on-demand approach to an online festival offer was very difficult to experience for a filmmaker who has been working on a film for years and hoping to be there and feel, see, smell and hear the audience watching their film. During a pandemic, a festival cannot have the full answer to that. A festival can either take place, not take place, or find the statement it wants to make within the context – and the means and technology to make it.”

… ” Film does not exist on its own in the can (or the hard drive). Film exists when it is on a screen with an audience. That other thing we see alone on a smaller screen is something else. It is better than nothing for sure, but it is not a replacement.”

https://businessdoceurope.com/orwa-nyrabia-on-the-return-to-live-for-the-sake-of-filmmakers-and-audiences/?fbclid=IwAR2gZ15voEo-FGiucIvtAWgyC3cUzUvbVGOqoUiYScpdlGMxE_ssLhekkBY

Christine Albeck Børge: Livet mens vi dør

Det her er bare en rigtig god dokumentar, den holder mig fuldt koncentreret fanget denne hele time i sin udfoldelse af den lavmælt kloge flertydige titel som ikke vil være andet end en overskrift, men som i sin underfundighed åbner for skildring af en livsforståelse som på trods er forbavsende rig med de fire medvirkende: en pilot, en operasanger, en embedsmand, en pædagog, fire kloge kvinder alle syge af uhelbredelig brystkræft, dette lille spektrum af nære veninder er dokumentarens hele verden og viden. Og det er bare en rigtig vis dokumentar Christine Albeck Børge således debuterer med. Må der dog bare komme flere fra hendes hånd… 

2

(senere, 17. juni) … og jeg tænker på filmen om at leve før døden og der er talt og skrevet og malet og modelleret og filmet om den tid. Meget, men her er det konkret, kontant, præcist og kortfattet og det er en befrielse. At den sidste tid er en sygdom er så filmens helt klare optagethed – også her har den meget klogt og indlevet at sige, netop her har de fire intenst medvirkende vidner, ja det er de så, og troværdige, rigtig meget og konkluderende visdom og skønhed at fortælle. I kærlige sætninger til os som lever med denne i den sammenhæng indlevede viden at vi skal dø, måske om lidt. ”Lægen sagde tre måneder måske fem” og rigtigt hun døde under filmens afsnit om foråret i det skildrede forløb…

3

(endnu senere, 20. juni) … Jeg har ikke mødt så gribende vidnesbyrd om denne intense tid i livet mens jeg dør siden jeg første gang læste Peter Nolls båndoptager – dagbog fra sin tid mellem diagnose og død, Diktate über Sterben und Tod (Zürich 1984). Det tyske sprog har dette fine ord, Sterben om dette livsafsnit som filmens titel lover og dens indhold strengt respekterer og så Tod som punktum. På dansk hedder det “være døende” men det læser jeg som langt snævrere end Sterben som udvider begrebet til memento mori, de tavse munkes eneste hilsen når de mødte hinanden klosterets gange og sale stødte ind i denne hilsens krav om at leve mens vi dør.

I mine tanker mens jeg så dokumentaren – og især siden jeg så den for de par dage siden, udfolder den sin hemmelige vinkling, titlens bredde i nuet, fortællingens kerne, at hele livet er dette memento mori som ramte mig i mit liv som kræftpatient, med en anden kronologisk lidelse, som kristen med viden om troens indhold, som tilstedeværende ved en brors sidste dage og timer. Det er alt sammen livet som i voksende erkendelse er hele tiden at leve mens jeg dør. Al tid.

Christine Albeck Børge viser mig det så smukt og barskt: ”… jeg går ikke bort, sådan hej, hej og vink fra døren.” Den medvirkende dansklærers afgørende replik som også er placeret i titelsekvensen, ”… nej, jeg dør.” Punktum.

 Danmark, 58 min. 2020. Dokumentaren havde premiere på DR1 den 22. juni og på DRtv har man derefter kunnet streame dokumentaren og vel nogle dage endnu: https://www.dr.dk/drtv/program/livet-mens-vi-doer_190666

Biograffilm Festival Bologna Awards

The first Italian online festival to draw to a close inside a cinema

Biografilm celebrates both the reopening of cinemas in Italy and the winning films of the 2020 edition, which, for the first time, was accessible for free online nationwide in Italy. The festival welcomed a large audience: over 45,000 reservations in the Biografilm Hera Theatre virtual cinema.

“The joy of being back inside the cinema and meeting others in person is enormous, but I am also delighted about the festival’s virtual participation” says the director Leena Pasanen, “our decision to move online was rewarded by an audience who has actively followed our programme, showing their enthusiastic support on social media too. For next year we will carry on working to ensure the possibility of access to the festival for those who cannot come to Bologna. Our industry event for film professionals, Bio to B, also saw an astonishing turnout, with 150 accredited guests able to connect from home from all over the world.”

Biografilm Festival returned to the cinema in time for the Awards Ceremony,

 

on Monday 15 June. The winning films were announced at the Pop Up Cinema Medica Palace, Bologna, followed by a screening of the film Gli anni che cantano by Filippo Vendemmiati, introduced by the director, the protagonist Janna Carioli and the producer Mauro Sarti. A World Premiere in the Biografilm Art & Music section this year, produced with the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region, the film traces the history of “Il Canzoniere delle Lame”, a Bologna band that play political music with a strong social conscience. The film was chosen for the evening for its cultural poignancy, recalling a collective and uniting artistic and civil experience, born in Bologna and grown internationally.

Biografilm Festival takes place with the contribution of the Department of Culture and Landscape of the Emilia-Romagna Region and with the Main Partnership of Unipol Group.

The jury of the International Competition of Biografilm 2020, composed by Luca Ragazzi (director and film critic), Shelly Silver (artist working in still and moving image) and Martijn te Pas (festival programmer and documentary consultant), assigned the following awards:

Best Film Unipol Award | Biografilm Festival 2020, awarded by the jury to the best film of the International Competition

WALCHENSEE FOREVER by Janna Ji Wonders

Hera “Nuovi Talenti” Award | Biografilm Festival 2020, awarded by the jury to the best first feature of the International Competition

THE EARTH IS BLUE AS AN ORANGE (ZEMLIA BLAKYTNA NIBY APEL’SYN) by Iryna Tsilyk

Special Mention – Hera “Nuovi Talenti” | Biografilm Festival 2020

NOODLE KID (LA YI WAN MIAN) by Huo Ning

WAKE UP ON MARS (RÉVEIL SUR MARS) by Dea Gjinovci

The jury of the Biografilm Italia Competition, composed by Roberta Mattei (cinema and theatre actor) Cristina Rajola (documentary producer and expert in international co-productions) and Ester Sparatore (artist and documentary filmmaker), assigned the following awards:

Best Film Award | Biografilm Italia 2020, awarded by the jury to the best film of the Biografilm Italia Competition

OUR ROAD (LA NOSTRA STRADA) by Pierfrancesco Li Donni

Special Mention | Biografilm Italia 2020

IN A FUTURE APRIL (IN UN FUTURO APRILE) by Francesco Costabile e Federico Savonitto

The Audience Award | Biografilm Festival 2020, the best film as voted by the public of Biografilm Festival 2020, went to: 

SELF PORTRAIT (SELVPORTRETT) by Katja Hogset, Margreth Olin, Espen Wallin

Go to the website to check the Indsustry awards: 

https://www.biografilm.it/en/

Biograffilm Festival Bologna

16th edition, June 5-15, with Finnish Leena Pasanen as the new director for a festival that has the subtitle ”International Celebration of Lives”. There is an international competition with 12 films (with films like Danish „It Takes a Family” by Susanne Kovács, ”Sing me a Song” by Thomas Balmes, ”The Earth is Blue as an Orange” by Iryna Tsilyk from Ukraine – and two Italian films that I have seen:

”Faith” by Valentina Pedicini, the opening film, a strong card to play by the new director; the film won the main award at DocsBarcelona, I saw it at IDFA and remembered ”the former Zelig student, who actually prepared the film, when she was in the school in Bolzano. She made a short film at that time, 11 years ago. “I was young at that time, 11 years later I felt mature enough to go deeper, stay longer at the place-“. And she did together with cameraperson Bastian Esser and his assistent Lucia Alessi – both of them also Zelig students…”. And I – teaching at the school – remember the three talents very well.

The other Italian film in competition is Francesco Cannavà’s “Because of my Body”, first film, produced by experienced Raffaele Brunetti, a film made with respect and care with two amazing characters. No need to give an annotation, as the one from the festival website is precise: “Because of a serious motor disability, Claudia cannot move without being helped by her mother. At the age of 20 she is still a virgin and wonders what sexual pleasure could possibly be like. But one day Marco, a Love Giver, comes into her life. Marco has just attended the first course to help disabled people to discover their own bodies and sexuality, an unprecedented event, on the margins of legality. Supported by a team of specialists, Claudia and Marco embark on a series of meetings which become ever more intimate. However, the project is subject to protocol which includes a rule that is difficult to enforce: never fall in love.” 

Yes, the meetings become “ever more intimate”, sometimes challenging my modesty but it’s never flat, it is gentle and beautiful – show me my clitoris, one scene, painting the body, blue for what you don’t find appealing, another scene, red for sexually appealing, she drives her car in a fantastic scene that conveys her joy on her way to Marco, who more and more becomes “the one and only”. It’s not easy – the mother suffers, Claudia suffers as does Marco in a film full of life and fine moments.

There are 8 more Italian films being presented – in an Italian competition. I will be back with comments on a couple more.

https://www.biografilm.it/en/