Peter Mettler: While the Green Grass Grows. A Cinematic Diary

No doubt, Swiss/Canadian Peter Mettler is a great filmmaker. With a long and interesting filmography (8 of his films are to be found here: https://dafilms.com/director/8209-peter-mettler). Always searching for new ways of approaching important themes from the life we live, asking questions, giving no answers but offering visual and verbal reflections that you as a viewer can take in and fit to your own life. He is a brilliant cinematographer and he does not refrain from using animation and have sound and image play with each other. Nothing is predictable and yet there is a strong red thread in this 166 minutes long film, which he started filming in 2019 and which is only two chapters our of 7, a series he calls it on his (excellent) website https://www.petermettler.com/green-grass-grows. It will be 12 hours!

The red thread, as he says in the interview on the website: “It all happened between 2019 and 2021, and my dad died in the middle of that, and my mom died just before that.”

Julie and Freddy, his parents, were immigrants ending up in Canada but with a strong connection to Switzerland, Appenzellerland, total beauty, mountains and rivers that Mettler films again and again, with snow and without, with forests, nature that he – and many of us – were attracted to during the Covid period.

The amazing beginning of the film has his mother (PHOTO) in focus, obviously at the end of her life yet alive answering the son’s question, “how would you summarize your life in a couple of sentences” – she lived 4 more years – “up and down” and the she thanks the son for being the one he is. Surprisingly for the son and the filmmaker, who put that pretty personal question. And she says that she hopes to be able to dance again… somewhere. Mettler lets her dance later in the film, yes what a medium Film, where you can go back and forward, come back to a scene you has before, enlarge it.

Go forward – parents and son in a sofa with binoculars, Mettler passing it on – take a look into the future. Afterlife is a theme, reincarnation and I was totally charmed by a comment from the director – or was it from one of the many other interesting people in the film he meets and talks to: Look at the flowers, they come back again and again, so why not us human beings? (Words to that effect).

Freddy comes over from Canada to Appenzellerland and Mettler has a long sequence, a short film in itself, with water flowing in the river, in different angles, in different directions, like life itself. As a prologue to father and son spreading the ashes of Julie into the river, let it flow to the sea. Afterlife: “As long as people remember you, that´s the life after death, it has to be enough”, Gass, a friend of Mettler says; filming people make them stay alive after death, that’s why we make films, I would add with a quote from Lithuanian film poet Audrius Stonys.

The second part of the film includes archive of the parents, when “they were younger than I am today”, it’s Covid time and Mettler stays at home looking at films he has made before, sorting out celluloid in the cellar – and visiting the father Freddy, who is alone in the apartment that is full of photos of Julie, with some fine footage of the two. Julie says that it is important to have feelings, Freddy tries to answer the filmmaker’s question on how to interpret “The Grass is always greener etc.”, and one day he phones asking Peter to come over, he is in bed, he needs company, his health gets worse. Mettler takes the viewer in and out of the hospital until the end, he stays 9 days at the bed, letting the two dance to the tunes of “We’ll Meet Again”. The coffin is in the picture – Peter spreading the ashes in the garden of their home.

There is so much more than I have been putting a focus on, I can only say that I am looking forward to watch the coming 5 parts of a unique Cinematic Diary of a great filmmaker, who says he has a love/hate relationship to filmmaking, at the same time as he feels that with a camera in hand his observational skills are at his best!

Canada/Switzerland, 2023, 166 mins.

Jessica Gorter: The Dmitriev Affair

Dutch documentarian Jessica Gorter continues to make films from Russia (“Red Soul” last one I saw, before that one from the Leningrad Blockade) with strong content – and actuality. This one is about Yury Dmitriev, awarded human rights activist, working with the Karelian part of the NGO Memorial (now forbidden), that looked into the crimes of the past, including of course the terror during Stalin. Dmitriev puts the focus on the forest of Sandarmorkh in Karelia, where thousands were executed and dropped in mass graves in 1937/38. His aim was to have the remains of the corpses up to be identified by their failies and to publish, with his friend, The Book of Remembrance.

The film starts with him, his daughter Natasha and their dog walking in the forest searching for pits, cut to an interview with him in his flat in Petrozavodsk, with a fast forward to him being imprisoned the first time but not the last. In the interview he talks about, how he adopted Natasha as the wife did not like to be with him and simply disliked Natasha. Archive from the Stalin trials is included when he talks about his mission.The Secret Service made good quality footage as we also know from the film of Loznitsa.

And then the film takes a completely different turn. On the computer of Dmitriev nude photos of Natasha appear and he is accused of child pornography, abusing the adopted child. He says he took the photos for medical reason upon requests of doctors as the girl had physical growing problems and should be observed by doctors. He is acquitted as there is no evidence. During his imprisonment Natasha was placed at her grandmother writing/drawing letters to her father.

Gorter follows what happens, it seems like she has joined the family, that also includes Yury’s oldest daughter Katya and her children. Katya blames her father to speak too openly to the media that follows him closely – there are in the film several tv clips that serve to illustrate how the regime wants to change, what happened in Sandarmorkh: No, it had (almost) nothing to do with Stalin and his horror, actually the forest was a Finnish concentration camp, it was said, where Russian victims were buried. Unbelievable! Re-writing of history Putin-wise!

… and alas rewriting of Yury’s story: The court case is re-opened with charges from the prosecutor via the grandmother. On Yury having sexually misused Natasha and being violent against her. He is now in a Gulag-like camp like the ones he and Memorial had been investigating!

It’s an impressive work Jessica Gorter has done. As written she has been close to the family, she is there, when something “happens” but not only, she is also there when nothing happens in daily matters, and when phone calls between Katya and her father take place, towards the end, when she has to make the beloved dog’s long life end. The position of the filmmaker is clear – the end photo is one of Yury, Natasha and the dog in the forest filmed from the back. Gorter demonstrates a safe dramaturgical take on how the story is built.

The Netherlands, 2023, 93 mins.

Jeanne Nouchi et George Varsimashvili: Hotel Metalurg

The old woman in the corner of the room, in her bed, keeps shouting out to her relative – and us viewers – that she wants to go back to her house in Abkhazia that she and 250.000 ethnic Georgians left, when the region became occupied by Russia 30 years ago. She is one of the internally displaced people, who ended in the once luxurious Hotel Metalurg that is the location for this fine portrait of a group of women – and their children – who after all these years have to move again as the hotel has been bought to be made into what it probably was decades ago – a luxurious hotel. With plastic bags full of clothes and all their other belongings they leave on lousy trucks to flats provided by the government.

The women tell their stories brilliantly, in a melancholic tone, what they remember from Abkhazia and from this place, where film stars have been and where the decadent surroundings today fit well as places for photo shooting of weddings. The editing goes from one to the other with the old woman and a young football boy forming the past and the future. I want proper conditions, says the mother of the football boy, who wants to leave because it is quite boring to be there. At the end of the film in front of a new building, where they are to live in a new flat, he plays with boys and girls who are the same age as him.

It’s a film, where not much is happening in a traditional film action sense, therefore it is crucial quality that the directors have been able to create the atmosphere of what it means to be displaced, be outside, be set aside, what that means and right it feels that references are made to what happens to Ukrainians these years. And that the protagonists are so well chosen full of charisma.

France, Georgia, 2023, 73 mins.

Doc.Incubator 2023

Always a fine experience to attend the yearly presentation of upcoming documentaries developed at the dok.incubator workshop that has its address in Prague due to its Czech founder and manager Andrea Prenghyova. There was a presentation at IDFA this year, I was not there, but the presentation was repeated in an online form: a welcome by Head of Studies, French producer Christine le Goff and Prenghyova with le Goff giving a brief welcome intro to the film and filmmakers, nine there were, seven of them women as le Goff pointed out in the beginning. All very precise and professional. To remind you, dok.incubator is a rough cut workshop, this was the 13th edition… During the years the workshop has existed I have only heard positive feedback from participants praising the selection of tutors, many of them of course editors…

Looking back at previous posts on this site I see only praising words, Doc.Incubator has found its presentation format, you get a good impression of the upcoming films, and the timing is perfect as many of the 9 projects will be ready for premiere in the beginning of 2024, so I am pretty sure that festival representatives have been attending the show to pick up what they find good for their profile. Let me pick out 3 of the seven that I would like to watch and review when they are completed:

“Agent of Happiness”, “Amber is one of the many happiness agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way?” is the short description of a film that will travel I am sure because of its subject, Happiness, and the charming Amber, who we follow in the clips provided. Directors are Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbo, it’s a Bhutan/Hungarian production, it’s in the good hands of the distribution company Cinephil. In itself it is wonderful to see how Amber and his colleagues go around asking people if they are happy… one answers “yes, as every grain of rice in my storage”!

“If Freedom Were a Song”, Iranian films and subjects have always drawn my attention and I am reading the weekly Iranwire published from London by Maziar Bahari. This week with interviews with people who go around in the streets of Tehran taking photos of women, who do not wear hijab! The film coming up, by Leila Amini, Iranian/French/Swiss, has this beautiful description and the visuals presented were absolutely promising a fine film: “Growing up in a loving middle-class family in Tehran, my older sister Nasreen used to fill our apartment with her beautiful voice. She loved music and gave me the courage to become a filmmaker. Today, Nasreen is trapped in an arranged marriage to Mohamad, who disapproved of her singing. She’s a housewife with two kids, suffering from depression and loneliness. As she struggles with her identity, her lost passion for singing ignites–a passion forbidden to women in Iran. Filming my sister for the past seven years, this was my turn supporting her. Nasreen takes steps towards her dream as she breaks free from her marriage. Her emancipation inspires change, not only in her children  but also in me, our other sister, our mother, and hopefully our country.” No singing…!!! A brave film.

“Just Hear me Out”, Polish by Małgorzata Imielska, and produced by renowned company Kaleidoskope that I remember from way back (Marcel Lozinski’s “89 mm from Europe”), always high quality, and the presentation had a fine doubleness, first a trailer and then scenes, where you get close to Gosia, the protagonist, who suffers from a mental illness. Precise description of a film full of warmth and respect: “Gosia’s schizophrenia has kept her away from home for most of her adolescence. After 7 years in and out of mental hospitals she is returning to her family and friends. All she wants is a chance at ordinary life just like any other young woman. But how do you get by when inner voices are a threat to you and your loved ones? And how do parents cope with the constant fear of losing their child? Between the difficult rehabilitation of her beloved convicts, and bureaucratic roadblocks, Mina realizes that the task may prove impossible. But her determination makes her go on at the cost of her personal life.”

The logo – photo – says “a fine cut” for the films presented, excellent – and fun – choice for a professional and inviting presentation.

www.docincubator.net

Watch Docs Festival 2023

Tomorrow, December 1st, the Watch Docs festival, 23rd edition, opens in Warsaw with an impressive program including competitive sections, Main Competition and Green Doc Competition, plus “I want to see” (human rights focus), New Polish Films with among others “In the Rearview” by Maciek Hamela, the director of the film and the driver of the van that takes Ukrainians from an unsafe place to a less unsafe in a country of war, “Big Docs” including films by Agnès Varda and Claude Lanzmann, an online section with films by Marc Isaacs (“The Filmmaker´s House”) and Danish Phie Ambro (“70/30”), short films and many more, with intros and Q&A’s. The festival continues until the 10th of December.

And there is an award to be given to “master of cinematic aesthetics” Austrian Nikolaus Geyerhalter with this motivation:

Nikolaus Gerhalter is one of the most recognisable contemporary documentary filmmakers. His films are characterised by extraordinary formal sensitivity.The Austrian master composes images with unprecedented care, whose hallmarks are perfectly chosen frames and long, hypnotic takes. These films must be seen on the big screen. But contrary to appearances, Geyrhalter does not escape reality in them. This year’s winner of the Marek Nowicki Award for special achievements in portraying human rights in film has always been interested in topics that cannot be considered secondary. And he has consistently tried to show them from a non-obvious side. The retrospective of his work, which will be presented during the upcoming edition of WATCH DOCS, will consist of four titles selected from the filmmaker’s extensive oeuvre: Pripyat, Our Daily Bread, Matter Out of Place (PHOTO), and his newest The Standstill.

The name of the award comes from: Since 2003, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has been awarding filmmakers with the festival prize for excellent achievement in showing human rights in film.
In 2006 the Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights decided to name this prize with the name of Marek Nowicki (1947 – 2003), cofounder and for many years the President of the Foundation, cofunder of the Helsinki Committee in Poland.

More on https://watchdocs.pl/en

Uljana Kim Receives Big Award

Eurimages and the European Film Academy have the pleasure to award producer Uljana Kim with this years’ Eurimages International Co-Production Award. The award goes to her “to mark her outstanding commitment to co-production and the strong co-producing partnerships she has built up over the years. It is also an acknowledgement of the excellent track record of her company in the competitive arena of the Eurimages co-production support programme.” Uljana Kim will be an honorary guest of the gala for the 36th European Film Awards on 9 December in Berlin to receive her award in person.

Uljana Kim, born in 1969 in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, graduated from the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (VGIK) in 1993 and is a film critic by education. She emigrated to Lithuania, where she founded Studio Uljana Kim in 1997. At that time, she was the first female producer in Lithuania. Since then, the Vilnius-based production and distribution company has produced 34 feature and documentary films, being one of Lithuania’s leading companies. Most of them premiered at the most important international film festivals and others were successful at the domestic box office.

The company’s films include Valdas Navasaitis‘ Courtyard, premiered at Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight in 1999, Kristijonas Vildžiūnas‘ The Lease [+], premiered at Venice in 2002, Kristijonas Vildžiūnas’ You am I premiering at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2006, Ignas Jonynas’ The Gambler [+], premiered at San Sebastian in 2013, Mantas Kvedaravičius‘ Mariupolis [+], premiered at Berlinale’s Panorama in 2016, Sergei Loznitsa’s Mr. Landsbergis [+], premiered at IDFA in 2021, Mantas Kvedaravičius’ Mariupolis 2 [+] premiered at Cannes in 2022 and Tomas Vengris‘ recent Five and a Half Love Stories in an Apartment in Vilnius, Lithuania [+], premiered this month in Black Nights. As minor co-producer Studio Uljana Kim produced feature films such as Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature [+] and The Natural History of Destruction [+]. Uljana Kim has co-produced ten films with Eurimages’ support, six of which as a majority producer.

Text and photo taken from Cineuropa of today.

Verzio Budapest

“This year marks the 20th edition of the Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. From 22 to 29 November, the prominent film festival, a cinematic reflection of our current world, will present a renewed logo, a fresh image to match this year’s focus theme and an exceptionally rich program of 82 films. The key question this year is: Where are we headed?“

The film program is impressive with “We will not Fade Away” by Ukrainian Alisa Kovalenko opening the festival in a couple of days and closing with “Nothing Compares” as a fine homage to Sinéad O’Connor made by Kathryn Ferguson. There is a section called Anthropocene where you find strong film as “Against the Tide” by Sarvnik Kaur and “Matter out of Place” by Nikolaus Geyerhalter. In a section named “Viewfinder” the festival has been looking for films that are “Exploring and expanding the dynamic concept of documentary, (where) the filmmakers are continuously experimenting with expressive ways of grasping reality with and through images. The films in this program look for novel approaches to storytelling, using both archival and contemporary images…”. Of course Lea Glob is there with “Apolonia,Apolonia” and Mark Cousins with “The March on Rome” and Alecu Solomon with “Arsenie. An Amazin Afterlife”.

And there are concerts, educational activities, a “young critic workshop” run by Pamela Cohn, one of the best critics and moderators, who are helping film festivals around the world and a DocLab that I will write about separately as I am part of it. I saw the guest list, many directors of the films to be shown will be there celebrating 20 years of a festival taking place in a European country full of political controversies towards the rest of the EU – but in a city with history and beauty. Congratulations with the two decades!

The website: https://verzio.org/en/2023/catalog

Adnan Patwardhan: The World is Family

A quote from an interview made by Aseem Chhabr for rediff.com (you can google it) October 12 2023: “In his latest documentary, The World is Family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam), Patwardhan takes us through the lives of his late parents and other family members, all of whom were part of India’s freedom movement. He also shares photographs of family members with leaders of India’s freedom movement. The result is a heartwarming essay where the filmmaker reveals the basis of his political understanding…For nearly a decade, I was filming my parents because they were getting old and I wanted to preserve their memory. Only later on, because of the oral history that was coming out from talking to them, that I thought this might be interesting to other people.”

And the IDFA synopsis:

Anand Patwardhan has been making documentaries about socially and politically charged subjects for more than 50 years. In 2018 he won the IDFA Award for the best feature length documentary for Reason, which examines the rise of the extreme right in his home country of India. While he stays closer to home in The World Is Family, world history is never far away. Patwardhan filmed his parents when they were elderly, and when he watches these old home movies again ten years after their death, he realizes that the story of his family extends far beyond purely personal nostalgia.

Patwardhan grew up in an artistic and political family. His mother was a respected ceramist who as a young woman had to leave her birthplace of Hyderabad, in present-day Pakistan. His father’s brothers fought for the independence of India. Both sides of the family were at the forefront of the struggle for independence and the subsequent Partition. From the moving domestic scenes of the bickering elderly couple emerges a far broader narrative—about courage, independence, and justice.

India, 2023, 96 mins.

IDFA Winners 2023

Share

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced the winners of this year’s festival.

  • IDFA Award for Best Film – International Competition: 1489, dir. Shoghakat Vardanyan
  • IDFA Award for Best Directing – International Competition: Life Is Beautiful, dir. Mohamed Jabaly
  • IDFA Award for Best Editing – International Competition: The World Is Family, editor Anand Patwardhan
  • IDFA Award for Best Cinematography – International Competition: Flickering Lights, cinematographers Anupama Srinivasan, Vandita Jain and Mrinmoy Mondal
  • IDFA Award for Best Film – Envision Competition: Canuto’s Transformation, dir. Ariel Kuaray Ortega and Ernesto de Carvalho
  • IDFA Award for Best Directing – Envision Competition: Silence of Reason, dir. Kumjana Novakova
  • IDFA Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution – Envision Competition: Canuto’s Transformation, dir. Ariel Kuaray Ortega and Ernesto de Carvalho
  • IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction: Turbulence: Jamais Vu, dir. Ben Joseph Andrews and Emma Roberts
  • Special Jury Award for Creative Technology for Immersive Non-Fiction: Natalie’s Trifecta, dir. Natalie Paneng
  • IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling: Anouschka, dir. Tamara Shogaolu
  • Special Jury Award for Creative Technology for Digital Storytelling: Borderline Visible, dir. Ant Hampton
  • Special Mention – IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling: Despelote, dir. Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena
  • IDFA Award for Best Short Documentary: At That Very Moment, dir. Rita Pauls and Federico Luis Tachella
  • Special Mention – Short Documentary: My Father, dir. Pegah Ahangarani
  • IDFA Award for Best Youth Documentary (13+): Sister of Mine, dir. Mariusz Rusiński
  • IDFA Award for Best Youth Documentary (9-12): And a Happy New Year, dir. Sebastian Mulder
  • Special Mention – Youth Documentary Competition: Boyz, dir. Sylvain Cruiziat
  • IDFA Award for Best First Feature: Chasing the Dazzling Light, dir. Yaser Kassab
  • IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film: Gerlach, dir. Aliona van der Horst and Luuk Bouwman
  • Special Mention – Best Dutch Film: Mother Suriname – Mama Sranan, dir. Tessa Leuwsha
  • Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award: Selling a Colonial War, dir. In-Soo Radstake
  • Special Mention – Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award: Milisuthando, dir. Milisuthando Bongela
  • FIPRESCI Award: 1489, dir. Shoghakat Vardanyan
  • IDFA Forum Award for Best Pitch: Son of the Streets, dir. Mohammed Almughanni
  • IDFA Forum Award for Best Rough Cut: Coexistence, My Ass!, dir. Amber Fares
  • IDFA DocLab Forum Award: Turbulence, dir. Ben Joseph Andrews and Emma Roberts

Maj Wechselmann: Min Mor

The film was presented at the Baltic Sea Docs 2013 in Riga and Maj Wechselmann was there, not only to present her film project about her mother but also – with her long experience as documentary director – she helped and encouraged the younger filmmakers present. I had the chance to watch a 55 mins. version of the film (original 76 mins.) due to the excellent initiative of Swedish Television, SVT Play, that once a week presents a documentary classic that (some of them) can also be seen outside Sweden – so if you understand/read Swedish, you have access, for free.

This fine offer from SVT has an editor, Lars Säfström, who also used to visit Riga for the pitch. Redaktør Säfström…

som han omtales, har skrevet denne fine omtale af Maj Wechselmann og hendes film:

En dokumentärfilm kan ha ambitionen att få publiken att se världen på ett nytt eller åtminstone annorlunda sätt. Ibland kan den till och med sträva efter att förändra världen genom att övertyga eller upplysa oss om samhällets brister eller missförhållanden. Filmaren blir då aktivist i sin strävan att få oss på andra tankar och filmen blir ett medel som manar till aktion och politiskt ställningstagande. Problemet med aktivistfilmer är att de så lätt blir propagandistiska och som sådana har en tendens att bara nå de som redan är övertygade om det filmen vill övertyga om.

Maj Wechselmann är en av Sveriges mest engagerade och stridbara filmare. Hon har gjort en rad filmer som tar en klar politisk och ibland medvetet provokativ ståndpunkt. Det har handlat om allt från unga flickor på en chokladfabrik till kamp mot kärnkraft, EU, och militärindustrin. Mest känd är hon kanske för sin film om stridsflygplanet Viggen från 1973.
Men hon har också gjort en rad filmer som lyfter fram starka kvinnor; journalisten Bang, författaren Moa Martinsson. Till den senare kategorin hör filmen om hennes egen mor.

Hundra år efter mammans födelse reser hon tillbaka i hennes fotspår och träffar överlevare och vittnen. Med hjälp av stillbilder, dokument, arkivfilmer och rekonstruktioner berättar hon hennes historia, från de fasansfulla pogromerna i Ukraina i förra seklets början fram till efterkrigstidens Köpenhamn. Hon skildrar hur hennes mamma radikaliseras i mötet med de usla arbetsförhållandena för textilarbetare i Montreal men samtidigt hur det förflutna ständigt jagar henne. I filmen säger Maj Wechselmann: ”Mamma, du var så rädd för att vi båda skulle dö, så jag blev rädd för att leva.”

Filmen Min mor är kanske Maj Wechselmanns mest personliga film men också, som alla hennes filmer, ett klart politiskt ställningstagande mot övergrepp och förföljelse och som alltid på de svagas och utsattas sida.