Nordisk Panorama Forum Day 2

I met Kim Christiansen  from DR TV Sales before the Forum started its second day at Amiralen in Malmö. I asked him which film was his best sell recently. To my pleasant surprise he said ”Cold Case Hammarskjöld” by Mads Brügger, a film with a non-mainstream storytelling, controversial also in subject, indeed a very good film, that Christiansen has sold to both broadcast and theatrical release. Brügger is a documentary director, who is mixing journalism and cinema and who likes to play with the medium.

Christoffer Guldbrandsen was the excellent journalist behind the first project

to be adressed to the decision makers. The project is confidential, the director was not present, he is in the US shooting, but I have to make a comment to what the DR commissioner Anders Bruus said, when he introduced Guldbrandsen as “an icon in Danish documentary”. God damn, he is not, as everyone could see from the trailer of the confidential journalistic project, and from his previous journalistic pieces about Danish politicians Naser Khader and Mogens Lykketoft. Icons in Danish documentary… Jon Bang Carlsen, Anne Wivel and Jørgen Leth. Carlsen was at the Forum pitching a new project at individual meetings together with his co-producers from Final Cut for Real, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Heidi Elise Christensen.

Sorry, had to get that comment out.

The second presentation – to continue my subjectivity – introduced a place, where I have been on holidays with good documentary friends from Lithuania: The beautiful Curonian Lagoon with dunes next to the Russian Kaliningrad. Using music of Estonian master composer Arvo Pärt the trailer to the film “Ribos” by Vytautas Puidokas, produced by Lukas Trimonis and with Belgian and Norwegian companies co-producing, was visual as almost all Lithuanian documentaries are, but not so clear when it comes to the story about ornithologists working on each side of the border, trying to find collaboration.

There was “Born to Struggle” by Swedish couple Nima Sarvestani and Maryam Ebrahimi, a film that has to be made. About “three post-genocide survivors”, who live inside the Kutupalang refugee camp in BanglaDesh. A film that wants to give “voice to the voiceless”. Strong trailer. Ayaz is looking for his little sister in a camp with 1,3 million refugees !

And there was Sami director Nils Gaup, who made the Oscar nominated « Pathfinder » in 1987 – edited by Danish Niels Pagh Andersen (the start of his career) – who came up with a crazy story from the art world, working title « Images of a Nordic Drama – Who is to Judge What True Art is ». Gaup talked about the « Munch Mafia » (see photo, thanks Robert Goodman), that did – and does – what it can to prevent paintings of the late Aksel Waldemar Johannesen to be exhibited, even if Much himself had talked positively about the paintings. The art collector Haakon Mehren is the man, who found Johannesen’s paintings and has organised exhibitions in Venice and wants to donate the collection to the city of Oslo. But the Munch Museum art people’s advice is « don’t accept the offer ». The trailer was full of humour that fits this absurd story that I am looking forward to see.

Staying in the art world I was also impressed by « The Choir ». Producer is the experienced, charismatic Swedish Stina Gardell with debut director Amanda Pesikan and Ellinor Hallin as cinematographer, whose work I admired last night in « Scheme Birds ». I asked my neighbour at the table in Amiralen, photographing filmmaker Robert Goodman what he thought of the camerawork in the trailer. Thumps up. And that is so important, when you are to film a choir and catch the emotions of the leader of the choir Cedwin. The film wants to take the audience behind the scene of a gospel choir to “raise questions about the human need for togetherness and spirituality ». The director has followed the choir for five years and now they are off to Chicago, the home of gospel, where Cedwin hopes that the members of the choir will understand the Christian background for the music. Conflict, drama, music.

« Fly so Far » takes us to El Salvador, where a group of women have been imprisoned because of miscarriage. Teodora is the character to carry the story. She is in her mid-thirties, was imprisoned and released in 2018, now she is an activist, who has presented the terrible stories at the European Parliament. The director, Celina Escher, has been filming for 2 years, the editing is being finished. If the film keeps what it promised with the trailer, it’s an obvious choice for DocsBarcelona 2020. This year the festival showed « La Cachada », also from El Salvador, also  about a group of women, who fight injustice in a patriarchal society.

Anorak Films is of course based in Nuuk and it was the right choice to have a Greenlandic project to close the Forum 2019. With a very strong character Aaju Peter, who fights for the right of the inuits in Greenland and Arctic Canada in a film that has the title « Twice Colonised ». The camera likes her to use a cliché and the filmmaker Lin Alluna does not refrain from – in the trailer – showing that Aaju Peter has/has had alcohol problems after her son took his own life in 2018. « She’s a natural born storyteller », you feel that and I would love to see that film finished and bring it to the festivals I am involved in, when it is finished in 2021.

Those – I could have mentioned more – were my choices for this report. Now for some grumpy comments/suggestions that came to my mind during these two days:

Is it really necessary to have all funders sitting with the filmmakers giving their reasons for ”being on board”? Most of them just say ”amazing”, ”unique”, ”fantastic” – words to that effect. Minutes could be saved for the filmmakers/the decision makers?

Why are there so few, actually noone this year, who break the rules and start showing the trailer right up front and then talk afterwards. Convince the audience, catch our attention, it’s (also) a show for those of us, who are not at the table. Who observe. Show us that you know how to use the film language.

It is not very good that many at the table on this second day said “we met yesterday”, “we have been in touch before” – it lowers the intensity of the discussion and you wonder, what the conversations were about at the meetings. And it limits the flexibility of the poor moderators, as so much seems to be pre-arranged on who to ask.

Thank you for the invitation, dear Anita Reher. And good luck to the filmmakers! And bravo organisers to have so many documentary interested people listening, watching and commenting for two days.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/industry/forum/forum-projects/

Ellen Fiske & Ellinor Hallin: Scheme Birds

Just came back from a screening of a wonderful film about Gemma from Motherwell in Scotland – and her friends and family who happen to live in a place, where ”there is nothing”; well once there was a steel industry but when that was closed during Thatcher nothing came instead and the young ones grow up without work in terrible skyscrapers that will be taken down. In these surroundings drug and alcohol abuse florish.

It is a sad and heartbreaking social story with Gemma as the one, who survives all the obstacles as the young mother of Liam, whose father does not see his child; well he did in the beginning but then he dropped out and Gemma kicked him out. Pat is the name of the father of Liam, JP is their friend who is one day attacked seriously, taken to hospital, lies in coma, comes out having a head operation, paralysed and now 24/7 taken care of by his mother. And there is Amy, JP’s girl friend, who does not think he will ever survive the attack, so she meets another guy and gets pregnant…

Gemma… it is first of all a film about Gemma, the girl with fear in her eyes, fragile but also strong and dedicated. She observes and analyses her own situation, cuts links to her family or rather is cut out by her family, i.e. her ”papa”, grandfather, who runs a small boxing club and whose passion is pigeons. He sets them free, he holds pigeon beauty contests, he is a warm and caring person. The one Gemma can lean on.

A social documentary made with warmth and no finger-pointing, skillfully told, totally emotional, had to take away tears from my eyes many times during the film. Ken Loach would have chosen fiction to tell this story, the Swedish female directors let reality write the dramatic and moving script.

Sweden, 2019, 90 mins.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/festival-2019/docs-in-competition-2019/

Nordisk Panorama Forum Day 1

”Karaoke is the best thing that has happened to Finland” was the point made in the humorous pitch that was the last one of this first pitching day at the Nordisk Panorama Forum in Malmö. The presentation had the show element that you are longing listening to 12 projects being pitched. You can’t avoid that some of the 15 minutes presentations become a bit boring and full of klichés, so the Finnish team from Napafilms (Marianne Mäkelä and Einari Paakkanen) gave the day a good ending with ”Mother Karaoke” about a handful of characters, who sing for different reasons. The team entered the room singing, “Stand by Me” of course, that dramaturgical take of the day was perfect.

It was the 26th edition of the Nordisk Forum in Malmö (the festival celebrates

its 30th edition). 24 projects to be pitched in two days with many more invited to one-to-one meetings “outside the plenary”. 26 decision makers at the table, half of them commented on the films, the other half just sat there. The moderating Danes Gitte Hansen and Mikael Opstrup did what they could to create a good relaxed atmosphere, they are (too?) kind and polite to the panelists, and with the 7 minutes there is for the Q&A, it leaves time for 6-7 comments. Of different quality and relevance. That’s how it is in pitching sessions. Has to be said that the very well organised Nordisk Forum organises individual meetings for all pitching teams, where also the non-speakers at the panel and several other broadcasters, sales agents and film consultants present in the room can have a dialogue with the filmmakers. Maybe some critical remarks come up here, that can help the filmmakers to re-think.

Everyone in the plenary is positive with their comments and everybody knows the rules of the game. Even if it’s called a forum for co-financing, the funding process is slow, i.e. contacts are made and eventual contracts come later. Eventual… many of the kind words never get to something concrete. The money is limited. OR contacts have already been made, broadcasters and production teams know each other so it is just a matter of time before a contractual agreement is set up. It is also a Nordic family gathering as a broadcaster said to me.

Also the start of the day was fine. Danish Simon Lereng Wilmont returns to the Eastern part of Ukraine. His presentation was great, both verbal and visual, and the comments were very positive, also because his masterpiece “Distant Barking of Dogs” was well known at the table, not to forget – as Danish Film Institute consultant Cecilia Lidin said – that Wilmont with other films shown has shown his talent for dealing with children. Because this is what “A House Made of Splinters” is about: An orphanage for children in a war zone, taken away from their homes to have a safe place in the Donbass region. Production company Final Cut for Real, producer Monica Hellström. A winning team as someone said.

You have to be careful using the word “artistic” in fora, I have been told, so let me characterise two films as Cinema: Meant for the big screen and/or constructed as a theatrical narrative and/or with a special feeling for the image and sound, film language in other words.

Local director Magnus Gertten and his producer Ove Rishøj Jensen presented “Nelly and Nadine” (photo) that I have written about earlier (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4478/ “The unique material shows liberated concentration camp survivors coming to Malmø in 1945. One of the prisoners, an Asiatic looking woman, had been in the mind of the director for years, who is she, what is her story. At a screening in France the director was approached – I think I can help you, a viewer said – and what came out of this was an amazing, fascinating story about two women, who fell in love with each other in Ravensbrück. Archive photo from the lives of the two in France was found…”. Excellent presentation, excellent teaser. Looking fwd. to an excellent film.

How do you evaluate the potential of a film from a 7 minutes presentation? I am always asking myself: Is there a cinematic quality in the visuals, does the director convince you with his/her way of talking, do you sense it is important for him or her – and of course has he/she made something valuable in beforehand. Danish Andreas Koefoed is for me a big talent, one of the best in his generation with (the words of his producer Sara Stockmann) “an extremely sensitive eye”. A Filmmaker. His “The Fall” that is in production has been shot over two years. It’s about a young girl in transition as said Cecilia Lidin from the Danish Film Institute, a girl who survived a fall from the fifth floor in her home, when she was five years old. Now she is on her way to adulthood. I loved his “At Home in the World”, “Albert’s Winter”. High expectations for this one, indeed.

“Utøya Survivors”… Norwegian of course, from Fenris Film and Motlys (directors Aslaug Holm and Sigve Endresen) is one of those projects, where you need to take a deep breath after the presentation. It is a film that has to be made and it is in good hands with the two mentioned directors. I have known Endresen since Nordisk Panorama started 30 years ago. You play safe with him. The film follows four young women, survivors, who have taken on their shoulders to fight racism and fascism. Brave strong women!

And the Icelandic “Raise the Bar” with lovely Margret Jónasdóttir, who I have known for at least 20 years – as producer for a film featuring a team of girls who has a tough coach and is about to change basketball in Iceland. Powerful presentation by Jónasdóttir and her director Gudjon Ragnarsson, who showed emotions when talking about the girls and their ambition. And there were clips from parents, who do not “always understand what is going on”… I was thinking about the Polish “Over the Limit”, there is a lot to discuss about pedagogics, when you see the coach in action but… fascinating.

Questions were asked if this film could fit an international audience. Of course good films will travel. Or am I naïve?

Tomorrow 12 more projects from the North. Words, clips, comments from NRK, YLE, DR, ZDF/Arte (Sabine Bubeck), RTS Switzerland (Gaspard Lamunière), the film institutes and Karolina Lidin as the last to comment as the Nordisk Film/TV Fond gives completion funding.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/industry/forum/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nordisk Panorama: dok.incubator

Full house at 9.30 in the morning at Panora Cinema in Malmö. As in previous years dok.incubator offered the audience of festival people, sales agents, broadcasters and fellow filmmakers « an exclusive showcase of eight outstanding documentary features just before their premiere” as it is written at the site of ”the institution”. Because this is what Czech Andrea Prenghyova and her team has made the dok.incubator. An institution… that with help of excellent editors and developers help films to be finished. She proudly told the audience about what films participating in previous editions have achieved in terms of distribution all over the world. Amazing it is and no doubt that a film that has been at dok.incubator has good chances to get into IDFA to mention an example of a festival every young and new filmmaker wants to be at.

That does not mean that all was appreciated by this blogger. Andrea Prenghyova, with whom I worked for many years within the Ex Oriente

workshop, knows that I think the presentation is much too formatted: Hello presentation from a tutor, hello from one from the film team, then a trailer, some words again, and then two scenes and some final words about what they are looking for and when the film will be ready. For one sitting in the cinema it feels much too schematic, why not, as a colleague said to me, in some cases, show the first 10 minutes of the fine or rough cut that exists as the films are close to be finalised. Or drop the trailer and show longer scenes… Break the rules.

Anyway, let me mention 3 of the 8 projects that I liked and think/hope will end up as good films with several layers:

”On Your Marks” (Slovakia/Czech Republic) by Mária Pinciková is about the Sokol movement ”that gathers thousands of people every six years in Prague to creative impressive mass performances”. It is full of humour, it has two characters – a young man who does not really know how to flirt with a girl, and who has a strong mother – and an older man, who has been part of Sokol for a long time and who is not content with the way the parade down towards Moldau river is performed. Growing-up. Post-communism. Czech humour as we know it from Forman and Menzel.

”Cuban Dancer” (Italy, Canada, Chile) by Roberto Salinas – it was at DocsBarcelona a couple of years ago and if the material shown here ”keeps its promise”, a fine film will be there about the young man, who goes from Cuba to the USA to make a career as a top dancer.

”The Earth is Blue as an Orange” (Ukraine/Lithuania) by Iryna Tsilyk – I saw it in Kiev at the DocuDays, I still can’t see the final film from what was presented here in Malmö, maybe in that case would have been better with the start of the film but still the scenes presented were full of energy and atmosphere, so hoping it will be put well together at the end. I understand that the sales agent CAT&Docs has signed up for the film.

www.dokincubator.net

Nordisk Panorama Sunday and a Look Back

Checked in at Scandic Hotel last night, 16th floor, amazing look at Malmö, which is not the case this morning, where fog is covering the view. Today I am going to the DocIncubator presentation as usual. Always interesting to see what is coming up and there might be films that fit in the Magnificent7 or DocsBarcelona, the two festivals where I am part of the programming. And later – see post below – at the hotel there will be the archive one-hour seminar “Getting Creative with Archive”, with the two Finnish filmmakers Laura Horelli (Newstime) and Arthur Franck (The Hypnotist), accompanied by Swedish editor Hanna Lejonquist (I Called Him Morgan) and me as moderator. Join the discussion!

Nordisk Panorama (NP) celebrates its 30th anniversary! I am not sure how many of them I have attended but looking at the list of winners, brings good memories. Among the many awarded in 1990, the first edition, were the animated masterpiece by (late) Lejf Marcussen “The Public Voice”, built on a painting by Belgian surrealist Paul Delvaux – it was produced by DR (Danmarks Radio), Marcussen was employed and the broadcaster gave him time and salary to make this film. Later on, in the process of cutting down in finances that still goes on in DR, he was sacked. “Too expensive to have this luxury” were the words not expressed.

If you go to https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/news/winners/ you will find the list of winners and if I continue the nostalgic look on 1990 there is also documentaries like Ulla Boje Rasmussen’s „1700 Metres from the Future” from the Faroese Islands and Sigve Endresen’s „For Your Life” about drug abuse, both of high quality. The two shared the main award.

NP gives you the chance to look back, go to festival centre and pick your VHS-cassette at the Nordisk Panorama Time Machine. Great idea, I will check it out.

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/programme-2019/

The festival started a couple of days ago, „my” festival starts today.  

Elita Klavina: Zoryana Horobraya

When in Riga for the Baltic Sea Docs, producer Antra Gaile told me about a film that she and Liga Gaisa joined as co-producers, directed by actress Elita Klavina, whose diploma work from the Latvian film school it is. I received a link as I could not attend the Message2Man Festival in Saint Petersburg, where the film had its world premiere this week:

It is a fine piece of observational documentary. Through several seasons the director has returned to the house in the countryside, where Zoryana Horobraya lives with her husband, a boy, and later one more little boy, and her mother, who is the one, who built the house and set up a small paradise for herself and her family, the right place for children to grow up, close to nature with huge acres as their playground. But it is far away from the city and to bring up a family you need money, and money you earn in the city… A classic conflict, city-countryside, becomes in the film, where you are very close to the family, precisely a conflict in the family. Granny is not happy that the family – her daughter-the husband-the two small kids – moves to Riga.

You get very close to the family. The camera catches all the details of the house and the naked kids running around among cats and dogs and goats. The grandmother talks with passion about the freedom she enjoys away from the crowded, stressed city-life, she is proud of her place, and afraid, without saying so, to be left alone, actually quite bitter when they leave.

Here is the catalogue description from the festival M2M, that ends tomorrow : “Young Zoryana lives in the countryside with her husband Edgars and her mother. She does the housework, plays the piano, raises a child and works at a computer. This idyll has to end, though: the family wants to move to Riga, where her husband works at a fast food joint and urban conditions allow raising children “like everyone else.” Zoryana’s Russian mother dissuades her from living “in cages.” Zoryana is torn between the wishes of her husband and her mother…”.

The Russian festival also notes that the film unfolds the cultural differences, where the granny represents Russia and the daughter and her family the Latvia of today. Could be, but I don’t see that, I see a universal theme popping up.

Latvia, 2019, 61 mins.

NP Talk: Two Finnish Directors and an Editor

… invite you to the fascinating world of creative archive documentaries. Clips from their films will be shown, comments will be given and questions asked. I will be the moderator, looking forward to that, as I have been very much occupied by this sub-genre that flourishes thanks to many – Sergey Loznitsa and Asif Kapadia are two directors, who have recently demonstrated their creative skills with “State Funeral” and “Diego Maradona”. Those days are gone, where archive was “only” used to illustrate the words of a (most often) historical tv documentary.  

I have seen the two Finnish documentaries, which have been selected for the Nordisk Panorama competition programme, exactly for their surprising way of using archive to have the directors say something about a time and/or a phenomenon. Are there any limits, are there ethical questions to be raised… how was the process, the research, the editing. I am happy to have Swedish editor Hanna Lejonqvist to help put a perspective on the discussion – she worked on award-winning film as “Palme”, “The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” and “I Called him Morgan”. From the latter, directed by Kasper Collin, a clip will be shown.

Here is the festival’s introduction to the talk:

 ”Using archival footage to create a story is no easy feat. Archival material reflects the perspective of the era in which it was shot, which can present storytelling challenges.

The directors Laura Horelli (Newstime) and Arthur Franck (The Hypnotist) created their films solely from archival material. Both films are in competition for the Best Nordic Documentary Award at this year’s festival. They will be in discussion with award-winning editor Hanna Lejonqvist (I Called Him Morgan, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Palme).”

”Getting Creative With Archive” takes place at Scandic Triangeln, the hotel, 3 minutes walk from the metro station.

Sunday September 22 at 15.00 – 16.00.

Everyone is welcome.

More about the films you can find on

https://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/festival-2019/docs-in-competition-2019/

Boris Benjamin Bertram: Krigsfotografen

Jan Grarup er en fabelagtig fotograf. En billedkunstner som har rejst til verdens brændpunkter og er kommet hjem med billeder, som er både informative og fortolkende. Det er billeder, der huskes fra avisen, fra hans fotobøger og fra udstillinger som den jeg så i Riga for nogle år siden. Billeder der kan tåle at blive sat op i størrelse.

Og billeder der kan tåle at blive gengivet på film som her i Boris Bertrams imponerende og imponerede dokumentarfilm, hvor han har fulgt sin helt Grarup på job i Mosul i Irak og andre steder med død og ødelæggelse. Grarup i løb væk fra eventuelle snigskytter, Grarup på hug ved et gadehjørne i skudsikker vest og hjelm med op til flere kameraer om halsen, Grarup der tager sig en lille lur i en ruin mens bomberne drøner udenfor – ”ingoing or outgoing bombs”, seeren bliver klogere på sproget hvor krigen raser – Grarup der tager billeder af lig… Når hans billeder gengives i filmen, bliver de stående så man får tid til at orientere sig i dem. Tak for det. De er i det hele taget elegant klippet ind i de krigsscener, som fotografen Henrik Bohn Ipsen har filmet. Jeg skriver Ipsen for det er ham, som Grarup henvender sig til et par gange i filmen, når de er ude i helvede på jord. Der er flere fotografer.

Og alligevel er det historien om familiefaren og de fire børn, der stjæler billedet. Grarups tre børn flytter ind hos ham, da moren får en hjernetumor og er skidesyg, som Grarup siger det. En ny rolle som er beskrevet med megen omsorg og gennem små anekdotiske forløb (Grarup vasker en hvid jakke lyserød, far beder teenagepigen om at komme hjem i ordentlig tid, far laver lagkage, spiser med knægten mens de ser fodbold, ”de har fået for lidt…”, kartoflerne eller kødet osv. osv.)

Elias hedder han, knægten, som er til fodbold i Parken med far. Han rejser sig, går væk fra sin plads, forlader fodboldkampen, klip til et foto af drengen og hans syge mor, klip til Elias der flyder i en swimmingpool… klip til Grarup, der sætter ord på, hvordan familien prøver at komme over sorgen. Og så begravelsen. Den sekvens, de øjeblikke er de smukkeste i filmen, gribende fordi de er nænsomt filmisk sat sammen.

Og hvordan kommer man så videre i filmen, hvordan løser man op for den knugende sorg-stemning? Bertram lader Grarup og den ældste datter Olivia være sammen med kameraer ude ved en grusgrav – ”det skal squ da ikke være to tosser, der står og fotograferer hinanden”, siger hun. Et godt valg.

Det er også Olivia, der skal til eksamen i fotografi og billedkunst, og far er med i den første men ikke i billedkunst… ”Er jeg ikke…”, siger han, fortørnet eller overrasket, ”det var satans”.

Det er en rig film og den holder en intens atmosfære hele vejen. Fordi den er så godt lavet, helt ned i detaljen og jeg skal ikke glemme musikken, der spiller godt med på det rette tidspunkter, komponeret af Tobias Wilner.

Grarup… en tatoveret gadedreng, en gudsbenådet fotograf, en kærlig far, en hård negl, en dokumentarkunstner… i en, for at bruge fotografens egne ord, vildt fed film!

Danmark, 2019, 78 mins.

I biografer over hele landet fra den 19. september

International premiere: Nordisk Panorama, Malmø, den 20. september

Goran Radovanovic: The Makavejev Case…

or Trial in a Movie Theatre, the subtitle.

It’s film history and it’s Yugoslav history. But it is also indirectly a reflexion on the censorship and fight for freedom of expression today, where many artists are imprisoned or exiled or…

And it’s a scoop. Brief background: Dušan Makavejev’s “WR: Mysteries of the Organism” from 1971 was celebrated at the Cannes Film Festival and was to

be screened in Yugoslavia. But the communist authorities hesitated and organised a screening in Novi Sad followed by a “public debate” – in “” as no audio or film recordings, no photos were allowed.

However sound recordist Slobodan Miletic was there, prohibited to do his job openly, had an unnoticed Nagra recorder with him, that he placed next to his seat on the first row connected to a microphone in the shirt sleeve pointing towards the loudspeaker. Voilá! Five unique sound tapes, number five was stolen, he says, but he had made a transcript of all that was said in the cinema in 1971 at the screening that was followed by a ban of the film. And Makavejev had to work abroad.

That was the challenge of Goran Radovanovic – to make an interesting film out of audio tapes from the meeting. He succeeds. He lets the Nagra be the main protagonist. It, the Nagra, goes from place to place, from one old person to the next, who listens to what their own words way back in 1971 in the cinema. Some talk cinema and about the message of the film, some bring clever philosophical statements for or against the film to be released to be seen by the Yugoslav public, many others – mostly from the party – claim the film for being totally anti-stalinist or anti-socialist, and of course many are troubled by the film’s (joyful) sex scenes. Several of these are quoted as is public archive material from the time with Tito of course, a bust of whom is placed next to the lecturn in the cinema just as it was way back – but now in a Novi Sad multiplex and not in a huge cinema hall as the sound recordist remembers it to be.

The speech by Makavejev – on the fourth tape and on the lost fifth one, read from the transcript by the actor Svetoslav Cvetkovic – is great. He talks about his fascination of Wilhelm Reich, here is a quote:

“… then in 1950, as a 20 year old student, I came across a book called “Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis” … I discovered by linking Marx and Freud’s views, he merged economic-political changes of a society with changes in the individual. Reaching the position that without personal happiness there can be no joyful society. I felt it as a very Yugoslav view…”

and goes on talking about the film’s structure. There are some archive with Makavejev, the last one from 2016 where he was met in Belgrade by an audience with a standing ovation. Moving. He died this year, 2019.

Last word to the director Goran Radovanovic – taken from the press material:

… And as time passed by, this film’s ban became the symbol of Yugoslavia’s unfinished socialist experiment. Hence, my film The Makavejev Case or Trial in a Movie Theater became not just an homage to one of the greatest Eastern European filmmakers, but also an attempt to uncover the biggest trauma of socialist Yugoslavia: an attempt to establish a democracy without true freedom, or an attempt of establishing freedom without true democracy. Or, as one of the participants in the discussion held in Novi Sad in June 1971, after the screening of the film WR: Mysteries of Organism, shouted from the speaker booth of the “Arena” theatre with ideological fervor: “In our democratic community, we have the right to ban what we don’t like in our country!”…

Serbia, 2019, 74 minutes.

Robert Frank (1924 – 2019)

 … it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this. It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as a stylistic or artistically experimental take, but because it is necessary for a purpose: a search for truth. (Sara Thelle)

 

THE PHENOMENON ROBERT FRANK

By Tue Steen Müller

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I read somewhere that NYTimes plans to cut down in their movie reviews policy that so far has been working in the way that ALL films released theatrically in NY are reviewed. What that means remains to be seen, but it will not make me give up my subscription that includes the newspaper and the thursday/friday ”Movies Update” that is a pleasure to read for a documentary addict as well.

For instance the one from today: more documentaries are reviewed – and there is a long and informative, and superbly illustrated, article on the phenomenon Robert Frank, “The Man Who Saw America” (link) (Post 02-07-2015)

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Calling all documentarians: Take a look at the NY Times site page that brings 11 of the photos that are exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until January 3 2010.

Robert Frank is celebrated on the occasion of the 50th year of the publication of his classic ”The Americans”, the exemplary evidence of what a documentary interpretation of reality can be. In the review of the exhibition today in International Herald Tribune his work is characterized as an expression of ”mournful tenderness”.

Frank has been an inspiration for filmmakers all over the world. In Denmark the films of Jørgen Leth (”66 Scenes from America” and ”New Scenes from America”), to mention a couple that comes to my mind, would not be as they are if not for Frank. (link nytimes.com) (Post 29-09-2009)

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Artistic repetitions and variations of the same theme in documentary films… Where do we find them? I had this thought when I watched Picasso. I thought of Jørgen Leth and his two America-films, “66 Scenes from America” and “New Scenes from America”. The camerawork of Dan Holmberg is in both cases much more linked to visual art than to narrative (literary) structures. I thought of Steen Møller Rasmussen, also a Danish documentarian, who has searched to catch New York, inspired heavily by Leth as a filmmaker and Robert Frank as a filmmaker and photographer. I thought of Sergey Dvortsevoy and his Russian images, full of atmospheres and different moods, as are the Danes I mention above. And as are Picasso´s variations. Could it be possible to talk more about film and (visual) art? (Post 13-10-2008)

The Americans

 

IT SOUNDS WILD AND IT IS

By Sara Thelle

Thank you to Cinemateket in Copenhagen who, in collaboration with the Copenhagen Photo Festival and Danish writer, filmmaker and beat expert Lars Movin, organised the Robert Frank program here in June. And thank you to Lars Movin for sharing his knowledge and his personal anecdotes with us when introducing the films. This was the first big Robert Frank retrospective and also the first official screening of the legendary Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues (1972) on Danish ground. 15 of Robert Frank’s films and 3 about him.

I was in for a small marathon last Saturday. First the documentary Leaving Home, Coming Home – A Portrait of Robert Frank (2005) by Gerald Fox, a rare intimate portrait, since Robert Frank has never been keen to being filmed or interviewed. Then the feature-length hybrid film Me and My Brother (1968) and last, a collection of his later short films The Present (1996), I Remember (1998), Paper Route (2002), True Story (2004/2008) and Fernando (2008).

Me and My Brother was a slap in my face. It opens up with a very disturbing scene that takes you right to the bottom of a deep and complex matter. Soon it is turned into a film within the film and becomes a sort of meta-reflection and investigation into the questions: how do you film other people, how do you use others in your art, how do you use yourself, what do you make money from, how does it feel to be filmed, what does it do to you, when are you yourself and when are you acting. It is a hybrid film, mixing real life with staged acting, colour with black & white, at times the characters are “played” by themselves and at other moments by actors.

Originally, Frank was set out to make a film adapting Allen Ginsberg’s poem Kaddish, written about his mentally ill mother. But over time, the project becomes a film about Ginsberg’s partner Peter Orlovsky’s brother Julius, who after having spent 15 years in a psychiatric hospital is let out and left in care of his brother. So the setting is Julius, a catatonic schizophrenic, living with Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsburg. The film is about how to live with and among mental illness, about how the brother Peter deals with it, and in this way – maybe – it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this.

It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as a stylistic or artistically experimental take, but because it is necessary for a purpose: a search for truth.

Suisse photographer Robert Frank (born 1924) emigrated to America in 1947. He became friends with the Beat Generation and famous with the groundbreaking photographic book The Americans (1958). He then starts to make films. The short film Pull My Daisy (1959) is the first, written and narrated by Jack Kerouac.

Robert Frank uses himself in his work, but in a way where the private and personal never becomes confessional. His family plays an important role, his two children, Andrea and Pablo, in particular. He lost them both; Andrea died 20 years old in a plane crash in South America in 1974, Pablo, who suffered from schizophrenia, died in 1994. His later work explores the themes of loss, pain and memory, the past and the present.

Lars Movin used a Dylan-quote referring to Robert Frank setting aside all rules with Me and My Brother: “To live outside the law, you must be honest” (hinting that this is not always the case, especially nowadays). And honest is maybe the most precise word to describe this immense oeuvre that has now been opened up to me.

“It has to do with life more than with art” says Robert Frank himself in an interview in connection with his exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6CVyWCVgFg

Cinemateket closed up for the summer showing Candy Mountain (1988), Robert Franks only feature-length fiction film made together with Rudy Wurlitzer. A perfect road-movie, pure joy and quite a bit of wisdom too…

If you can’t wait for the next retrospective, here are some shortcuts:

A great part of Robert Frank’s films, writings and photo books are edited by the distinguished German publisher Steidl. Among them Me and My Brother, a book with stills and dialogue and a DVD inside:

https://steidl.de/Books/Me-an-My-Brother-0409414457.html

Conversations in Vermont (1969), where Robert Frank visits his two children at their boarding school, is made available to the public online through the brilliant Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/cbpf_000051_p2#  

Candy Mountain exists in a French DVD edition released by Blaq Out in 2013. Please check out the trailer, it’s a gem!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pOu9piFAIg

http://www.blaqout.com/film/candy-mountain-2

(Post 26-06-2015)

 

DON’T BLINK: ROBERT FRANK (2015)

By Tue Steen Müller

A very nice email came in yesterday from New York from Laura Israel, who I met at IDFA in Amsterdam years ago. She told me that – as for decades editor and close collaborator of Robert Frank, and a director herself – she was wondering if a film about Robert Frank made by her would be interesting. Are you kidding, we want as much as possible on this great artist… what else could I have answered?

I am so happy to hear that the film, ”Don’t Blink: Robert Frank” is now finished and even more so, Laura Israel tells me that it has ”been selected to play in the New York Film Festival’s main slate this October”. The festival runs from September 25-October 11 and here is the description of the film from the festival site:

“The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they’re one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he’s covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early ’90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don’t Blink is Israel’s like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of theSwiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.” (Post 15-08-2015)

Don’t Blink: Robert Frank

 

THE FORM / THE COMPOSING / THE AESTETICS

By Tue Steen Müller

If you read the post ”Viktor Kossakovsky at IDFA” (link), you will discover his insisting on the form, on the composing of the image, on the aesthetics. If you want to see how this can be done, please go and see Laura Israel’s film ”Don’t Blink: Robert Frank” here at IDFA. It was screened at the Stedelijk Museum thursday night and is an excellent introduction to the now 91 year old legendary photographer and filmmaker made by his editor and collaborator in many films, a warm and generous portrait and a look into the creative process of a lovely man, a great artist, who has suffered personal tragedies in his life, that is very much present in his work, but who has also demonstrated how to catch moments in the lives of ”The Americans”, the title of his masterpiece. There was a retrospective of his work – and there is right now at IDFA, including his Rolling Stones film, ”Cocksucker Blues” – in Copenhagen, Sara Thelle wrote about it on this site and this blogpost. (Post 21-11-2015)

 http://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2015/daily/the-new-york-film-festival-sets-26-films-for-the-2015-main-slate/ 

 

DON’T BLINK IN NEW YORK

af Tue Steen Müller

I got an email from Laura Israel this morning, the director of the film on Robert Frank, with whom she has working for years as an editor. “Getting the Word Out” she wrote and told that the film is running at the wonderful New York cinema Film Forum July 13-26 = from tomorrow. Later today the producer Melinda Shopsin posted a reference to an enthusiastic review of the film by Matthew Eng, Tribecafilm.com. It deserves a quote, see below and remember that we have several texts on Frank on this site. I also want to recommend the website of the film.

“…Don’t Blink is the rare documentary — and Israel the rare documentarian-cum-cinematic curator — that understands that the best way to elicit both appreciation and understanding for an artist’s creations is to allow us to see these creations first-hand. And when the creations in-question are as electrifying and contextually-profuse as Frank’s, it’s especially hard to look away. His famously era-specific photography is so striking in the direct spontaneity of its gritty Americana, the scattered snippets of his films so arresting in their shaggy ecstasy, that as each of his works slips and seeps into one another, one can’t help but struggle to keep up…

https://tribecafilm.com/stories/don-t-blink-robert-frank-is-one-of-the-most-original-art-documentaries-in-years-laura-israel

http://www.dontblinkrobertfrank.com (Post 12-07-2016)

 

ME AND MY BROTHER

by Tue Steen Müller

The editors of this site, Tue Steen Müller and Allan Berg, met in Randers where Berg lives. It is a tradition that we watch films together, when we meet and as Berg had a fine script publication of Robert Frank’s “Me and My Brother” including a dvd with the film, this was an obvious choice. The famous publisher Steidl is behind the publication that was given to Berg by Sara Thelle, who in 2015 wrote about the film after a retrospective of Frank’s film at the Cinemateket in Copenhagen:

Me and My Brother was a slap in my face. It opens up with a very disturbing scene that takes you right to the bottom of a deep and complex matter. Soon it is turned into a film within the film and becomes a sort of meta-reflection and investigation into the questions: how do you film other people, how do you use others in your art, how do you use yourself, what do you make money from, how does it feel to be filmed, what does it do to you, when are you yourself and when are you acting. It is a hybrid film, mixing real life with staged acting, colour with black & white, at times the characters are “played” by themselves and at other moments by actors.

Originally, Frank was set out to make a film adapting Allen Ginsberg’s poem Kaddish, written about his mentally ill mother. But over time, the project becomes a film about Ginsberg’s partner Peter Orlovsky’s brother Julius, who after having spent 15 years in a psychiatric hospital is let out and left in care of his brother. So the setting is Julius, a catatonic schizophrenic, living with Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg. The film is about how to live with and among mental illness, about how the brother Peter deals with it, and in this way – maybe – it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this.

It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as a stylistic or artistically experimental take, but because it is necessary for a purpose: a search for truth…

USA, 1968, 85 mins.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3200/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3392/ (Post 28-04-2018)

 

A BRILLIANT CONVERSATION

by Tue Steen Müller

Robert Frank: Me and My Brother/ 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the blogpost below you find a text of what Allan Berg and I did the other day: Watched the film by Robert Frank from 1968, with a quote from the text of Sara Thelle, when she saw the film three years ago. We also referred to the fine Steidl publication of the script. After a closer look at that we found that the fascinating ending of the film includes a brilliant conversation between Frank, the director and Julius Olovsky, the man who after many years is released from a state institution to be taken care of by his brother Peter. In the following we present the two final pages of the script that indeed is about making films, about acting, and about the camera and what it can represent:

Photos: Steidl and Maria Briese

FOTO (ved overskriften)

Barry Kornbluh: Robert Frank indstiller (uden for billedrammen) sit kamera. Kornbluh fortæller på sin hjemmeside om optagelserne, hvoraf denne er en:

http://www.barrykornbluh.nl/Robert%20Frank/Robert%20Frank.html