Awards at Ji.hlava Documentary FF

Below a link to the awards that were given at the 23rd edition of the festival in Ji.hlava. There were many. I take the liberty to mention only a handful of them, films that I know about:

● Best Czech Documentary Film 2019:

Solo (Artemio Benki, Czech Republic, France, Argentina, Austria, 2019)PHOTO

Jury statement:

We appreciate the lightness, nonviolence and concentration used by the author to portray a strong human story of a suffering person and to get as close as possible without disturbing formal effects and pathos.

The winner will receive an award of 10,000 EUR

A brilliant film, read http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4542/

● Best Central and East European Documentary Film 2019:

TEACH (Alex Brendea, Romania, 2019)

Jury statement:

This is an essential film that needs to be seen around the world. A math teacher working on the fringes of a failing educational system becomes a transformative mentor for a group of young students. Through his dedicated tuition, these young people discover the most important lesson in life: you must fall “tragically in love with what you do”. For its celebration of the unconventional, for its embrace of messiness, imagination and passion in teaching Between the Seas award goes to TEACH.

The winner will receive an award of 10,000 EUR

I met the film-to-be in Romania 4 years ago, when it was a project, at the One World Romania workshop. Here is what I wrote: „…The pitching ended with an award ceremony, where Ana Alexieva (co-tutor) went to the stage to invite Alex Brendea to take part in the Rough Cut Boutique at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where he can have his rough material evalutated. His ”Teach” about a charismatic, energetic excentric teacher of mathematics, who lives alone with cats and dogs, and does his teaching at this his home is very promising and the choice was very well received by colleagues at the ”Cooking a Doc”.“ Love that film that was also awarded at the Astra Film Festival recently.

CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD CINEMA AWARD

● Sergey Dvortsevoy

● Silver Eye Award feature length category:

Transnistra (Anna Eborn, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, 2019)

Jury statement:

Beautifully shot on 16mm, this is a powerful film that captures an in-between moment, at the end of adolescence, a play of youth and light located in a rural place, in an unrecognized country. A very loving view on a dynamic group focused around an unusual and unforgettable female character.

I agree, read http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4475/

● Special mention:

The Wind. A Documentary Thriller (Michal Bielawski, Poland, Slovakia, 2019)

Jury statement:

Through mystical images and enigmatic protagonists the filmmaker suggests an extreme connection between human faith and fortune, nature and the weather. Often Lynchian, the director’s filmmaking achieves a true thriller as the title suggests.

Again I agree, read

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4555/

https://www.ji-hlava.com/novinky/23-ji-hlava-udelena-oceneni

ArtDoc Fest Winners + One More

Awards were given in Riga last night for the International FF and for the ArtDoc Fest. I mention the awards in the latter, which, as the name says, include documentaries plus a special mention to a documentary in the Feature Film Competition of the intl. festival, see below. Several have been reviewed/reported upon on this site, links are given:

Grand Prix
Immortal, dir. Ksenia Okhapkina (Photo)
http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4572/

Best Director
Maxim Shved, Pure Art

Jury award
School of Seduction, dir. Alina Rudnitskaya

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4485/

Special mention
Daymohk, dir. Masha Novikova

Special mention
State Funeral, dir. Sergei Loznitsa

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4642/

Special Mention in Feature Film Competition of the festival:

Animus Animalis (A story about people, animals and things), dir. Aistė egulytė

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4476/

https://rigaiff.lv/2019/lv/

Enrico Cerasuolo: The Passion of Anna Magnani

It was shot in 1945, “Rome – Open City”, director Roberto Rossellini, with Anna Magnani in the role as Pina. I am sure you know the scene, where she is running after her husband Francesco, who has been arrested by the Nazis to be taken away in a van. Pina runs after him and is shot down in the middle of the street. A priest takes her in his arms. Visually a piéta. A film-historical scene from one of the true masterpieces in world cinema, one of many from the neorealistic wave in Italian cinema.

The film on Anna Magnani is such a pleasure to watch. Normally I hesitate,

when films include interview quotes with people, who tell the viewer how fantastic the portrayed person is! In this case it is more than relevant as the ones talking are film historical icons like Luchino Visconti, Jean Renoir, Rossellini, Marcello Mastroianni, Anthony Quinn. They supplement what is obvious from the many clips from her films. Her filmography is enormous, I was happy to be reminded of – in words and/or in clips – “Bellissima” (Visconti, 1951), “The Golden Coach” (Renoir, 1953), “Mamma Roma” (Pasolini, 1962) and “Fellini’s Roma” (1972, the year before she died 65 years old)

And her son Luca Magnani talks so good in a chair in the beautiful room in the Palazzo in Rome, where she lived. But most important are the fine interviews with her, one in French and one audio made by the famous journalist Oriana Fallaci that is superbly connected to visuals – photos, archive clips.

As an actress she was able to express the passion that the film carries as a title. Powerful, able to shift from fear to laughter or crying, her face, look at the photos, always able to find the right expression. It did not come easy. Jean Renoir talks about four or five rehearsals on the set before she found what he and she were looking for. Visconti, who wanted her for « Ossessioni » (1943), but she was pregnant, tells about her ability to invent, to develop a character, Marcello Mastroianni who only worked with her once, in « 1870 » (1971), says that he got goosebumps acting with her, « the greatest actress we ever had ». « A force de la nature », says Renoir, and the portrait film gives the evidence.

The director, Enrico Cerasuolo, has chosen to tell the story about la Magnani, in a personal way, where he adresses her, “you…”. It works fine, gives the film the flow needed and does not shadow for her presence. The film manages to find a tone, where pain and joy of the actress comes forward. She was 20 years away from the theatre stage, that she loved so much more than cinema. In theatre you can be creative and you are part of a team, in cinema you always quarrel!

Of course the dramatic separation from Rossellini has its part in the film. „Stromboli“ was made with Ingrid Bergman and not with Magnani, as the director had promised her. As a response she made parallel to that film „Volcano“. In the Fallaci interview, she nevertheless says that Rossellini was the director she had the best working relationship with.

Hope for you cinephiles that the film comes to a festival near you or at a cinematheque or… on television.

Italy, France, 2019, 1 hour.

http://www.zenit.to.it/en/productions-zenit/documentaries-zenit-arti-audiovisive/69/the-passion-of-anna-magnani

DOK Leipzig Starts Monday

… and will continue untill the 3rd of November. With films, many excellent industry activities, film talks here there and everywhere. The ticket counters are open, I am sure there will be full houses for many films and there will be a great atmosphere at the festival centre in the Museum of Fine Arts – the impressive Museum der bildenden Künste that hosts the film market and discussions and receptions BUT also has interesting exhibitions, right now „Point of No Return… Transformation and Revolution in East German Art“. I will for sure watch that – and films from thursday the 31st, where I will be at the festival. Press releases are coming from Leipzig these days. I have edited/shortened and copy-pasted some of them:

Look at the photo… no surprise for me, who grew up with 16 and 35 mm reels at my time at the Danish Film Board. I know how to feed a 16mm Bauer or Bell&Howell projector! Anyway, the-times-they-are-a-changing and the festival announces the following :

« An impressive 18,000 metres of film will roll across spools during the festival week! While the majority of the film programme is stored digitally on hard disks, in every DOK Leipzig edition there are still a few films made with analogue film reel. This year there are 24 films in 16mm and 35mm format. Most of them will be shown as part of the Retrospective, the Brothers Quay oeuvre, or the DEFA Matinee on Eduard Schreiber. The analogue technology required to screen these films is still available in the CineStar Kino 5, along with the Astoria and Wintergarten cinemas in the Passage Kino…“

Nostalgia, yes, and the press reléase informs the reader how scratches are removed from the films… All right, but keep some of them! I remember the godfather of Danish documentary, Jørgen Roos, who once, with tristesse, said to me at the time, where video was taking over as shooting medium: One day we are going to miss the Film Experience, the grains, the scratches…

Back to the copy-paste and money:

„A record-setting 82,000 euros in prize money will be awarded during this year’s edition of DOK Leipzig. In addition, the festival features non-cash prizes valued at an additional 11,000 euros, which filmmakers can for instance use for the development of their film projects. This year marks another positive development in regards to prize sponsorship: for the first time, all of the Golden Doves in the long film competitions are endowed by prize sponsors. DOK Leipzig is also delighted to welcome a new sponsor this year in the Weltkino film distribution company, which has chosen to endow the Golden Dove in the German Competition in 2019. Furthermore, public broadcaster MDR is once again sponsoring the Golden Dove in the International Competition, and the Medienstiftung der Sparkasse Leipzig is contributing the prize money for the Next Masters Competition, as in previous years.

“I would like to particularly thank all of the festival’s prize sponsors, partners and supporters. Without their wonderful support, it would not be possible to bring over 300 films and nearly 2000 international industry professionals to Leipzig or to give our Leipzig audience such an unforgettable cinema experience every year,” acknowledged festival director Leena Pasanen. “I hope that this terrific commitment to the festival will remain strong for many years to come.”

A total of 24 awards will be presented at DOK Leipzig this year.

From 28 October to 3 November this year, DOK Leipzig is showing 310 films and interactive works from all around the world. The festival will open on 28 October with the world premiere of THE FORUM, a film by Marcus Vetter.

https://www.dok-leipzig.de/

Loznitsa opened the Astra Film Festival

The fine Astra Film Festival in Sibiu in Romania placed Sergey Loznitsa’s “State Funeral” as the opening film. The Head of Programming Csilla Kató explains why in an interview with Cineuropa, below a link to the whole interview, made by  Stefan Dobroiu.

Cineuropa: The 26th edition of the Astra Film Festival has ended. What would you consider to be the strong points of this edition?
Csilla Kató: For example, the fact that we selected as our opening film Sergey Loznitsa’s State Funeral [+]. In my opinion, it is a sign of maturity, as at every festival, the opening film is chosen with great care – it is, after all, a statement about the festival’s spirit and agenda. A movie with a running time of 135 minutes, made entirely from archive footage, in which the soundtrack is the only intervention by the director, proved to be the right choice for us. In State Funeral, Loznitsa plays with both the conventions of cinema and the expectations of the audience: the audience is allowed to get lost among archive-footage sequences and is also left to interpret what they see according to their own background and personal perspective. This example of documentary cinema could not have been imagined by any screenwriter and would have been impossible to make within the conventions of fiction cinema. And the film worked well for the audience gathered to attend the opening of this edition.

https://cineuropa.org/en/index/

IDFA Announces Competition Selection

I missed the live streaming of the IDFA press conference yesterday afternoon, where artistic director Orwa Nyrabia was on stage to tell the documentary community, which films he and his programmers had chosen. But the website says it all – also that ”64% of the competition titles are by female filmmakers, with 47% in the total program”.

Having mentioned this important point for festivals around the world, let’s go to the films. I will surf a bit on the lists of selection, where it is obvious that Nyrabia’s ambition of also showing films that are not from the US or from the UK, is fulfilled:

Happy to see that Iranian Mehrdad Oskouei opens the festival. I saw his ”Starless Dreams» at the Dokufest in Prizren 3 years ago, ”an interview based observational documentary about, no with young girls in a prison, it is also called a rehabilitation centre. They are there because of drugs, robberies, even murders, and they are talked to by the director, whose soft and mild voice communicates understanding and compassion…” (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3647/)

The opening film seems to pick up on a similar subject, a quote from the press release, ”Sunless Shadows steps into the enclosed world of five young Iranian women, all accomplices in the murder of their abusive husbands, fathers, or brothers-in-law…”. I have reserved a ticket!

In the Feature-Length Documentary section, I am even more happy to see Italian Valentina Pedicini with “Faith”: ““Warrior Monks” and “Guardian Mothers” they call themselves, the martial arts champions who are members of an Italian sect living together in a monastery. Led by a Kung Fu master, they are like Shaolin monks but with a Catholic twist. Utterly devoted to their faith, they train constantly so they are able to combat evil in the name of the Father. Director Valentina Pedicini was granted access to a way of life defined by discipline, and the resulting black-and-white film is surprisingly intimate…” Pedicini and her cameraperson Bastian Esser graduated from the Zelig Film School in Bolzano, super-talented theyt were and are; as teacher at the school I kept on telling Valentina, “make documentaries”; after a couple of feature films, here she is. Wow!

And it is difficult not to be emotional mentioning that my hero since I started dealing with documentary, Danish Jørgen Leth is there, in competition, with “I Walk” – have mentioned before that he will receive an award at the festival for his oeuvre.

And there are films by Sung-Jun Yi, Marlene Edoyan, Maasja Ooms, Pushpendra Singh, Hilal Baydarov, Laura Herrero Garvín, Marianne Khoury, Heidi Hassan & Patricia Pérez Fernández and Kivu Ruhorahoza…

Look at the names, this is definitely a change in IDFA selection policy. Chapeau!!!

Blogposting should not be too long, so I kindly ask you to check the website of IDFA to see the mid-length section as well as the digital DocLab as well as the “immersive non-fiction” as well as the DocLab Spotlight, not to forget the documentaries for children competition, always exciting.

Click here and you get all 321 films:

https://www.idfa.nl/en/collection/documentaries?page=1&filters[edition.year]=2019

Back to the competition “For First Appearance” – debut feature films, where the Georgian “A Tunnel” is listed. I know Nino Orjonikidze and Vano Arsenishvili very well from visits to Tbilisi, have seen their short films including the middle length “The English Teacher”. So curious to see the final result and glad to observe that good old Hans Robert Eisenhauer is helping and that arte/zdf is on board as broadcaster. The story, taken from the website, a quote:

“People are hard at work extending the railroad in a remote Georgian mountain village. When they’re done, the new Silk Road Express will run through here. But before this high-speed connection between China and Europe can go anywhere, a tunnel has to be dug—a tunnel that goes right through a mountain where villagers have their fields and pastures. In his office at the station, an old-time stationmaster prepares for his role in the future, when a lot more trains will be coming through the station…” I have high expectations, dear friends!

Again the names of the directors communicate that these are films far away from the Anglo-Saxon mainroad: Alux Ayn Arumpac, Alejandro Salgado, Ilya Povolotsky, Carol Benjamin, Malgorzata Goliszewska & Katarzyna Mateja, Tali Yankelevich, Meng Han, Lucy Parker, Marija Stojnic, Simón Uribe Martinez and then a Danish name Eva Marie Rødbro, first appearence, new also for me.

Looks indeed very promising!

www.idfa.nl

DOC NYC

I was happy with the many positive reactions on Russian director Alina Rudnitskay, who was the one I praised in the post yesterday. Danish producer Sigrid Dyekjær told me that Rudnitskaya’s fine ”School of Seduction” was to be screened at DOC NYC, the festival in New York that runs November 6-15 (and at DocPoint in Helsinki January 2020). My knowledge of the New York festival is almost zero so I asked Dyekjær, who recommended it, and made me check the website:

Dedicated to D.A. Pennebaker, the festival ”is curated” in 21 (!) strands, it’s the 10th edition, and it has new strands Masters,

• Investigations, Green Screens,

• Food for Thought, plus

• returning sections include high-profile Special Events; competitions Viewfinders and Metropolis; national and global takes in American Perspectives and International Perspectives; and thematic sections Portraits (profiling singular individuals), Modern Family(on unconventional families), New World Order (on today’s most urgent issues), In the System (inside looks at institutions), Fight the Power (on activism), Art & Design (on art, photography and design), Behind the Scenes (on filmmaking), and Sonic Cinema (on music). Short-form content (114 films in total) is represented by the festival’s Shorts Competition and DOC NYC U (showcasing student work), selected by Programmer Opal H. Bennett.

I digged into the long list of films to be shown and found important films like ”Advocate”, ”Mother”, ”Honeyland”, all reviewed on this site, ”The Cave” that I am to see very soon, ”Diego Maradona” that I missed when it was in cinema in Copenhagen, embarassing, ”The Edge of Democracy”, ”For Sama”, both reviewed, as are ”The Wind. A Documentary Thriller” and ”Cold Case Hammarskjöld”… and many many others that I would love to see.

Number one on my list, however, is Michael Apted’s ”63 UP”, a milestone in the history of documentary. The participants in this documentary series were 7 years old, when Apted started filming them which he has done every 7 year. It’s amazingly wonderful, I have seen them all, I have talked to Apted about them, when my wife and I met him and his wife in Moscow and in Venice Beach, I would love to see the whole series again…

Apted is given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the festival. Of course!

63 UP

63 UP

Alina Rudnitskaya on School of Seduction

I have followed the career of Alina Rudnitskay and will continue to do so. Below you find links to films she has made and about which I have written. This post deals with her latest production, “School of Seduction”, that was given highest marks on this site, click below – the reason to come back tot he film is an interview with the Russian director, where she talks about the film and her disappointment, when many did not understand the context of the film, she says – read the whole interview:

“I started this project ten years ago – I wanted to make a film about women. It was a time when everybody was trying to learn how to be a “bitch”: this successful, powerful female. That’s how I came across a place called the Bitch Academy. I started to go there and talk to the teachers, and in 2007, I made a short film about it. It was successful at film festivals, and everywhere, people would ask me about these women: “How is their life right now?” I suggested that maybe we should continue. We agreed that if something important were to happen in their lives, they would call me…

I ended up finishing the film in Denmark, and people struggled to understand the context of this story. “Why do they go to these classes? Why do they behave like this?” They didn’t understand the reason, and the reason is that Russia is still a patriarchal country, where men come first. To be successful, for a woman, means having a rich husband. It’s really important. Your status depends on the status of your husband. My idea was that Putin would represent this view. We started to look for anything he might have said about women, and yes, we found out that he talks about them a lot [laughs]. We were really surprised! His approach is very traditional, like all of his ideas, I think…”

Festival people, check out the filmography of Alina Rudnitskaya.

https://www.cineuropa.org/it/interview/379081/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4485/

Blood (2014), Victory Day (2015), I will forget this day (25 mins.) (2011) , Bitch Academy (29 mins.) (2008), Besame mucho (26 mins.) (2006), Civil Status (29 mins.) (2005), Communal Residence (13 mins) (2002)

Petra Costa: The Edge of Democracy

”There is so much to say about this first feature documentary by young Brazilian director Petra Costa. So much positive because of its visual brilliance and so much because of the way it treats its painful theme…”.

This was written almost 7 years ago after I had seen ”Elena”, a film that toured the festival circuit and created expectations for Costa’s next film. Which was excellent as well. ”Olmo and the Seagull” came out in 2014, a film she wrote and directed together with Danish Lea Glob – a work that Allan Berg praised on this site in his analysis, link below, for its portrait of a creative process, with references to theatre, to Chekhov, and to Virginia Wolf. Berg expressed his content that here was a Film and that he did not have to write about documentary or fiction. Words to that effect.

If you substitute ”first” with third in the quote above, Petra Costa’s third film

”The Edge of Democracy » is indeed dealing with a painful theme. It is a film that is based on documentary material but in many ways constructed as a drama: The recent development of Brazilian politics told from the director’s personal point of view, the loss of the dream of democracy –with a tone that you could call sad, a melancholy that associates to Chekhov. There is no Brazilian clichés, no bossa nova (before the end credits), no Copacabana, no Gilberto Gil. At the same time as the drama between the political protagonists is – to say the least – Shakespearean:

Look at the photo – you see the popular, charismatic, the man from the working class, Lula pass on the presidency to Dilma Rousseff, who is from the same party as him, the Worker’s Party, PT, but note the man to the left, Michel Temer, the vice-president from the PMDB party, who – as Costa says in her personal voice-off – was waiting to take over, contributing to the impeachment of Dilma… Temer was President for a couple of years until he, as many others, was arrested for involvement in financial operations to be cathegorized as corruption. He was followed by another criminal, Bolsonaro, whose references go back to the military dictatorship that ended in 1984, the year Costa was born.

The film is full of details about the financial scandals, about how power corrupts; for someone whose knowledge of Brazilian politics is little, it is complicated to follow, but you get it all due to Costa’s commentary and due to her open position and cinematic skills:

Her parents were in opposition to the military dictators. As Dilma Rousseff her mother was imprisoned and tortured, but her family was also part of the elite and often during the film, like when Bolsonaro was elected president, she says “many in my family voted for him”. Costa’s sympathy lies with Lula and Dilma, she has access to them and there are fantastic scenes with the two, mostly shot in cars, where you get close to them. Dilma during the impeachment process: “I am K, a Kafka’sque character, but a K with a lawyer…”, she says ironically, and with Lula it is amazing to follow him, when he is sentenced to prison and the crowd shouts at him “don’t turn yourself in”. Which he did. 12 years.

Petra Costa takes me as the schocked viewer, who lives far away from the big wonderful country – as in her first film – but here using archive material to guide me through one corruption after the other, sometimes you feel that you are watching a thriller (¡) – with visual brilliance to the presidential palaces, to the utopian capital Brasilia that separates the elite from the people, to family archive, to close-ups of Dilma and Lula, to a scene where a cleaning lady in the President’s Palace says that “there is no democracy in this country”, to her own statement that the divided country is run by some few families… To Dilma, in a conversation with Costa’s mother, saying that being a President you have lost your freedom.

Quite brave by a young director to combine complicated reportage material with a personal angle and narration. A film full of painAn inspiration it must be for other documentarians!

Brazil, 2019, 1 hour 53 mins.

Available on Netflix.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3279/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2239/

Sommer og Svendsen: Mandskoret

Instruktørerne har disse fornavne: Petter og Jo Vermund…

Jeg havde min kone med til pressevisningen i Grand Teatret, som skal have megen ros for at vise dokumentarfilm på det store lærred. Og det var netop, hvad Ellen sagde, da vi rejste os efter 74 minutter. 

Virkelig en film, der skal ses i biografen. Og hun fortsatte sine begejstrede udtalelser, da vi drog nedad Strøget i dejligt efterårsvejr. Fremragende, jeg har overhovedet ingen indvendinger. Velorkestreret (!), man kan godt høre at de ikke professionelle sangere, men det er en film fuld af midaldrende, charmerende mænd, der har det godt i hinandens ugentlige selskab, og når de optræder og kommer med frække tilbud til damerne (der ligger en puleliste I kan skrive jer på!)

Som filmen skrider frem, ser vi den ene rørende scene efter den anden, hvor korets karismatiske leder og dirigent Ivar kæmper med sin kræft – vil han nå at optræde med koret som opvarmning til Black Sabbath på Tons of Rock festivalen?

Som korets medlemmer bliver berørt af, hvad vej det går med Ivars sygdom, blev vi berørt af de gribende scener mændene imellem. Kom ikke og sig at mænd ikke kan udtrykke følelser. Disse scener er filmisk skildret med stor nænsomhed. De to mænd bag kameraet fylder biografoplevelsen med kærlighed og respekt – og humor.

Norge, 2018, 74 Minutter.