Don Edkins: Creating an African Voice

Variety (July 20) brought an article (written by Christopher Vourlias) from Durban Intl. Film Festival, where Don Edkins was talking. Characterised in the article as « veteran filmmaker and executive director of non-profit group Steps », I can only add from many – but still too few – meetings with Edkins that he stands out as a pioneer, when it comes to production and distribution of documentaries in Africa, but also internationally, a true gentleman, who has been a wonderful visitor, when he came to Copenhagen, mostly together with his Finnish friend and collaborator Iikka Vehkalahti.

I pick a couple of quotes from the article that you should definitely read in its total length, link below :

“For me, in my work as a filmmaker and producer, the documentary genre has a particular role,” he said. “It’s about real people, about real situations, about looking at the state of our societies, about challenging the status quo, and making it possible to talk about difficult issues, and also about inspiring people…”

« …Several years later, Edkins would bring that lesson to bear on a monumental project focused on the HIV and AIDS crisis affecting southern and eastern Africa in the 1990s. “The documentary films being made about it were being made by European and American filmmakers, and were about death, tragedy, and hopelessness,” he said. Through the non-profit media company Steps, he helped build a community of African filmmakers and European supporters that in the span of a year produced 38 documentary films centered on people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS. The films would go on to screen at over 300 festivals and be broadcast on TV stations around the world…”

… » The organization is now focused on growing its community of filmmakers closer to home with Generation Africa, an initiative that involves filmmakers, journalists, artists, migration experts, and documentary film mentors. “The aim of Generation Africa is to provide an African narrative to the global discourse on migration, to hear the voices of the majority youth on the continent, about their aspirations and challenges, and to help shift and disrupt the world around us,” said Edkins. The group currently has 30 films from 17 African nations in production or development…”

https://variety.com/2019/film/global/documentary-filmmaker-don-edkins-creating-an-african-voice-durban-film-festival-2019-1203274307/?fbclid=IwAR1MBsoPF5QNeRzeAm-c6Gl-T4MfUR6wwxKuWm9zmdF9IUd7FXFrHhA7jpM

Leaving CinéDOC Summer Film School in Gori

Istanbul airport, gosh it is big. Lot of walking from gate to gate. And the two times I have been going to/from Tbilisi via Istanbul, gates have been changed – and flights delayed. But this has given me the time to think about the week in Gori at the Summer Film School and the film projects and rough cuts, which were presented there – from Georgia, Armenia, Aserbadjan, and Germany, the five students from the Konrad Wolf Film School in Babelsberg. I have in a previous post on FB praised their contribution, a 15 mins. docu short on Gori. Well done, entertaining, with atmosphere and you could see that they enjoyed making this one-day excercise.

Monday was the day where the rough cut participants presented the results

after consultations first of all with editing consultants Albert Elings and Dana Bunescu, and with colleagues and Merle Jothe, the German camerawoman, who came with the students mentioned above and was a tutor like me.

Very promising. Good films are coming and good film projects could end up as good films. Let’s see. The summer school gave several of the filmmakers more confidence and ideas on how to proceed. Like Nikoloz Bezhanishvili ‘s film on Stalinists in Gori, the dictator’s birthplace. He came with hundred of hours of material, he left with an edited scene that for me had the right focus and rythm and could constitute the opening of a film that i think will have a big potential. The same goes for Giorgi Parkosadze, who for years has followed a mother and her son, who live far away in the mountains, strongly connected to each other as a magical moment scene from the beginning of the film demonstrates beautifully. Reminded me a bit of this year’s documentary super hit « Honeyland ». Another mother and son scene is in the upcoming work by Armenian Nairi Hakhverdi, «Sweeping Yerevan », where she wants to portray a mother who with a blind man and some children need to have more than a one job to make ends meet. Is it going to be a social documentary, I asked her. No, of course with a social angle but a positive film with life and humour and showed, having gone back to her rushes, a magnificent scene, where the mother is sewing with her son helping her – close up of both, lovely, a whole story is silently being presented here. Poetry ! And f… all the talk about dramaturgical archs.

Have these coming films in mind, dear festival people.

Totally different is « About Revolution » by Vahan Khachatryan, also from Armenia, apparently « just » a recording af what happened, when Armenia got its revolution, recordings, much better word is observations from the streets of Yerevan, from policemen being lined up, from the Parliament and scenes with the director and his pals before the revolution. Thematically it reminded me of Juris Podnieks films from the Latvian fight for independence in the beginning of the 1990’es but without the passion and enthusiasm in Podnieks films. Still impressive, hope it will travel, the film of a film buff and festival organiser Khachatryan, who was one of many interesting personalities at the Summer School. And I will forgive him that he did not bring a bottle of Ararat brandy to Gori !

I mention that, as a Summer School of course also includes gatherings, where toasts are being delivered – and toasting is a disciplin where Georgians are masters. Tributes to each other, to Life, to Love, to the future of the film projects and rough cuts, to Peace in the world, to Peace between Armenia and Aserbadjan… – it was all done with heart and passion.

Pennebaker 1925-2019

You can find many obituaries on D.A. Pennebaker, who passed away August 1. I have chosen to copy-paste from this site a text I wrote when in Syria for the DoxBox Festival:
Dox Box Damascus 6

This is one of the highlights of Dox Box 2010, Orwa Nyrabia said as a proud and enthusiastic introduction to the masterclass with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, moderated by idfa director Ally Derks. And it turned out to be a very pleasant couple of hours with the renowned filmmakers who made film history together with other big names like Albert Maysles, Richard Leacock and Robert Drew, the Direct Cinema/Cinéma Vérité directors. At the festival, among others, the Bob Dylan film ”Don’t Look Back” was shown and the young filmmakers had a lot of questions to that film and especially to the method connected to the filmmaking style.

The best way to reflect what was said during the masterclass is to quote Pennebaker and Hegedus for many wonderful sentences that may inspire our readers, Hegedus being the analytical and Pennebaker the one full of stories, loving the anecdote, both of them being very generous and warm in their approach to the audience:

Am I a master, ”No I was not the first person to put my foot on the beach”. Subject, how do you find them, ”We don’t, they find us, we are very depending on our friends to give us hints, people come to us”. Story?, ”You don’t know what is going to happen when we start”. Hegedus and Pennebaker is a couple privately: ”We get divorced four or five times during a film”. Where does the inspiration come from, ”Creative energy can’t be stored!”. ”A documentary is like the stories you heard as a child, once upon a time…”. Film crew?: ”The smaller the better”. Agreements? ”We go for a handshake agreement”. A fly on the wall? ”No, I can not take an invisible pill… I watch, I am like a cat, you can not see what I think”. ”The money always comes”. ”I don’t feel like a director”. Observation, Objectivity? ”No, how can one’s person’s observation be all people’s observation?”. ”We are following the action, and is very often led by the sound”. ”You are like a detective, because you don’t know what happens”. ”Style is driven by technology”. ”You are filming for an audience”. ”Look for accuracy”.

CinéDOC Summer School Gori – Bunescu and Ceaucescu

Did you see it : ”The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaucescu” (director : Andrei Ujica, editor and sound designer Dana Bunescu) from 2010, 3 hours long, a true masterpiece. You have to ! Archive the whole way through, no commentary, no explanations of where we are and when and why. Chronological. Probably difficult to follow for a younger audience, easy for me because of my age, having followed what happens in the world – and in Romania. I remember that Ceaucescu was welcomed in Denmark as well, he got a medal from the Danish queen, and we Danes were not the only ones welcoming or visiting him as you see in the film, where plane after plane lands in Bucharest with leaders of the world ; de Gaulle, Nixon, and of course the friends from GDR, Honecker and USSR, Brezhnev, and later the one he broke with, Gorbachov.

And for me personally touching to see my hero Dubcek, smiling he was, this

mild and modest man, receiving flowers, when he is welcomed by Ceaucescu, who condemned the invasion of Prague. Bravo ! He did good things but it all went wrong as you know and as you see in the film.

All this because of Dana Bunescu, who is here as an editing tutor, a scoop to have her, open-minded and direct in her approach to the young filmmakers. Bunescu was working on the film for three years and what a material she had and put into a film, that is never boring but takes you in, because of its sense of rythm and use of sound, of music – Bunescu is a master in sound and it’s been an eye-opener to see her here in Gori talking about sound but also putting a recorder on the table to catch sounds that she might be able to use on another film occasion !

Oh, the scenes from China with Mao, who lifts his hand, automatically, it was in 1971, where he was 78 years old… and Ceaucescu actually not knowing how to react in this situation. But being totally ready to enjoy the parades China had prepared for him. Dunescu lets the scenes stay long, the effect is emotional for us viewers.

Would like to end this piece by quoting from NY Times, a fine and so well written review :

”Did the Ceausescus see what we see, what Mr. Ujica, working with his terrific editor and sound designer, Dana Bunescu, makes us see and understand? It’s unlikely, though it’s hard not to notice the difference in Ceausescu’s posture during an early visit, filmed in black and white, to a food market, its stocked shelves groaning with proletariat bread and Party promises, and a later, grimmer visit to a market shot in color. He’s older, of course, and grayer, though the hair still towers longingly upward. But by then even the Romanian propaganda machine couldn’t obscure the despair hanging over the increasingly desolate cities and a people, whose early smiles had long disappeared, along with the promises…” (Manohla Dargis, NY Times 2011).

The film can be bought as a dvd, check the internet.

Marguerite Duras serie i Cinemateket

Da var det jeg sagde til mig selv hvorfor ikke. Hvorfor ikke lave en film. At skrive ville have været for meget nu. Hvorfor ikke en film. (Marguerite Duras’ Den atlantiske mand, 1982)

Det er en bog. / Det er en film. / Det er nat. (Duras’ Elskeren fra Nordkina, 1991)

SPROG OG FILM

Først er vi i en gade i den lille by Sadec. Det er film. Det er nat. Der er villaer med haver og der er træer på gaden, store gamle træer. Og gult gadelys. Det er sen aften. Og vi ser en enkelt person. En lille, spinkel pige med bare fødder. Hun kigger ind i en af haverne, den største, en park faktisk. Det er scenen uden for parken, det er den franske administrators bolig, landet er en fransk koloni. Der er musik i huset. Der er fest, eller rettere, der har været fest, gæsterne er gået. Kun en enkelt person ses, en kvinde i rød kjole. Hun lukker for musikken og går ind. Og vi hører hun spiller på klaveret, en bedrøvet vals. Vi kender den melodi, og vi kender den kvinde. Fra filmen, som hedder India Song. Melodien hedder La Valse Désespérée og kvinden hedder Anne Marie Stretter. Det er det første af de få navne, som findes i bogen. Det får jeg ikke at vide her, men det får jeg snart at vide. Og faktisk kender jeg Anne Marie Stretter fra tidligere endnu, fra ballet i T. Beach’s Casino, hvor hun for øjnene af en anden kvinde, Lol V. Stein forførte denne kvindes forlovede Michael Richardson. Det er beskrevet på de første sider i romanen Lol V. Steins henførelse, en bog som kunne være en film.

DURAS SERIEN I CINEMATEKET

Der er ingen vej udenom. Du skal trykke på begge links, det ene efter det andet og straks bestille billetter og så læse hele Sofie Havskovs fine tekst:

“Det ene litterære værk over for det andet, sprog og film, lyd og billede, det ene dukker altid op i det andet hos forfatter og filminstruktør Marguerite Duras. I august og september præsenterer vi seks af hendes film…” Det her bliver en meget stor oplevelse i Cinemateket som videre  skriver:

“Vær med på onsdag den 7. august, når vi kickstarter vores Duras-serie med ‘The Lorry’ – en metafilm ulig de fleste, hvor Duras selv omringer kameraet som både instruktør og fortæller. 

Find billetter: https://llk.dk/gyf1xs

Læs meget mere om vores Marguerite Duras serie lige her: https://llk.dk/sk1w0u “

FOTO

Marguerite Duras i samtale med Delphine Seyrig under indspilningen af India Song, 1975.

LINK

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/the-films-of-marguerite-duras/ 

Et smukt og omfattende blogindlæg Intense Vocalization: Marguerite Duras af David Ehrenstein, om Duras’ fiilm og bøger.

CinéDOC Summer School – Talent Development

They have just left the room, the nine students and filmmakers, who have been sharing their projects, their ideas, their visuals, five of them are from Konrad Wolf Filmuniversität, taken here by teacher and cameraperson Merle Jothe, who talked to us yesterday about two films that she has been working on, the second one the award-winning ”Berg Fidel – A School for All”, directed by Hella Wenders, wonderful kids, fine situations, would love to watch the whole film.

It’s been (so far) 4 full days, 3 more to go, and now the participants want to

make small films in Gori. Get out from the hotel to observe and film. Shooting today, editing tomorrow. Fresh air after inside days full of words and feedback. The more you hear, the closer you get to the participants – students and emerging makers – the more you will be able to help them. It’s a process and there is a lot of psychology involved… after decades of doing this, I still ask myself ”who am I to tell others what to do”. I am thinking of late great editor Menno Boerema, who died not long ago – after giving comments to projects he always said, ”forget everything I said”

Apart from the nine there are six filmmakers, who are in post-production. They have been given advice by Dana Bunescu and Albert Elings, experienced editors with quite different approach to their métier. These two have been watching hours of material, some rough cuts, shorter or longer. I have seen some of the material – Georgian Giorgi Parkosadze is working on a beautiful documentary about a mother and her son, who live in the mountains in summer time and (him) sometimes during winter, where the son is seen reflecting on his future. He wants to work with software and he wants to be married. Which is actually going to happen, to be filmed of course.

Another Georgian, Nikoloz Bezhanishvili has for years been filming in the city where we are, Gori. Stalin is the subject and the director has great footage with an old woman, who has dedicated her whole life to Gori-born Stalin, being a member of the communist party, who wants to have the statue of the great leader back in the place, where it stood. Well, actually they want it to be placed at another place, contrary to the other Communist party – here is a strong conflict between the two fractions, whose leaders do not like each other, to say the least. Absurd!

Quite charming is the project of Tatia (Tamar) Skhirtladze, whose ”Encounter” brings four previous world champions in chess playing together through archive and material shot today with the lovely women, Nona Gaprindashvili, Nana Alexandria, Maia Chiburdanidze and Nana Ioseliani, who were worshipped in Soviet Georgia and have many many childrren named after them. At this stage the film is a bit messy but with the help of a good editor, it can be a film for a big audience, not only in Georgia.

And innovative in style is ”Revolution in Armenia” by Vahan Khachatryan, who runs a documentary festival in his own country, a film buff, who for sure will see his film being screened in other countries, at other festivals. With small adjustments the film is ready.

Yes, there is so much talent – I have to mention with pleasure that film student Nina Cavalcanti from Brasil, in our group session, showed a film she made years ago with the master Gilberto Gil, a film from a record studio, full of energy, a true documentary in the style of Richard Leacock.

Finally I have to tell you about the excursion I took last night, invited by good friends, the organisers of the CinéDOC festival and the Summer School, Ileana Stanculescu and Artchil Khetagouri, who have a house in a village close to Gori, a beautiful place where organic tomatoes are grown, and a place where true neighbourhood exists. On the picture you see Zura and his wife Nana, and the two hosts. Lovely food, homemade chacha and toast after toast, as the Georgians do it and do it so well. The tomatoes were excellent!

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/

In the Cinema in Gori Georgia

… Well, actually there is no cinema in Gori so the Cinédoc-Gori Mini Festival takes place in the big theatre that was built in 1937-38 to honour Josip Stalin, who was born in Gori… he never visited the theatre, it is being said.

BUT I did this afternoon to attend the screening of one of my darlings from the last years, Ukrainian Roman Bondarchuk’s “Dixieland”, written by Dar’ya Averchenko and produced by Latvian Ilona Bicevska. The film was screened as part of the CinéDOC MiniFestival for documentaries, this one in the section for young people. A clip from a previous post about the film written at its premiere in Kiev at the DocuDays:

“The film about jazz music performed by kids in a band in Kherson Ukraine, led by their old teacher, who founded the band just after WW2, picking up homeless children to give them the chance to develop their skills, gave them a life, simply – is a warm, so well made – Bondarchuk has indeed a documentary-eye – interpretation of a happy childhood, where kids have a good time developing their creative skills. As it is written in the catalogue: We all live once in Dixie Land – the country where politics, money and death do not exist at all. But over time this country is disappearing… yes, we are in Ukraine of today.”

I introduced the film and asked the young audience to give me comments after the film that I can forward to the Ukrainian/Latvian team.

Indeed the seven-eight commentators liked the film. They found it wonderful to see a film about real people, happy people one said, much more happy than we are here in Georgia! Others also praised the film saying that it was realistic and emotional. And one wanted to know what the director had done, I mentioned „Ukrainian Sheriffs“ and „Volcano“. It was great to feel that the audience appreciated the initiative to screen documentaries that they normally don’t have a chance to access.

I asked Anuka from the organising CinéDOC team to address a sweet looking girl to ask her if she plays an instrument. No, she said. Would you like to? Yes. Which instruments? Piano… and violin. Oh, yes, films can inspire, also when you are seven year old.

CinéDOC Summer School in Gori

It’s too hot to be outside during the day, and the organisers of the CinéDOC Summer School know that. The brilliant team from CinéDOC has made the 15 participants (10 from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbadjan plus 5 students from Konrad Wolf Filmuniversität in Babelsberg Germany) meet 4 tutors (editors Albert Elings (Holland) and Dana Bunescu (Romania), cameraperson Merle Jothe (Germany) and myself from morning till evening, where we all go to the cinema, where the Cinédoc-Gori Mini Festival takes place. It opened last night with the sweet and charming “Transparent World” by Vakhtang Kuntsev-Gabashvili was shown. It won the Caucasus award at CinéDOC two years ago. I wrote an enthusiastic note on the film on that occasion – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4226/ and I enjoyed to watch the film again, Beka and his father making a film. Lovely!

The film programme also includes films for children – like “Dixieland” from Ukraine – and this year’s winner at CinéDOC in Tbilisi, “The Disappearance of My Mother”. Read more about it on

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/?lang=ge

And again a salute to the CinéDOC people, who organise regional screenings all over Georgia, very well organised with regional coordinators, it’s film cultural policy!

Eva Mulvad: Kirsebæreventyret

Denne vidunderlige film er nu blevet til en lille tv-serie i to afsnit. 1. afsnit har været sendt på TV2, det kan nu ses på TV2 Play og 2. afsnit sendes på onsdag den 31. juli om aftenen. TV versionen er naturligvis noget anderledes end filmen, som jeg ved premieren skrev begejstret om:  

Eva Mulvad har atter en gang lavet en smuk og tydelig film om et moderne menneske. Han er godsejer, han hedder Harald Krabbe, han har et projekt ved siden af gårdens grundlæggende landbrugsproduktion, han vil optimere de mange kirsebærtræers udbytte, lave fornem vin i stedet for almindelig marmelade. Eva Mulvad vil skildre udvidelsen og fornyelsen, forsøget. De er energiske mennesker de to, de klæder hinanden de to.

Hvor kommer det overskud fra? Jeg tror det kommer fra elegancen – det elegante menneskes sikkerhed, det sikre professionelle greb, som igen kommer af en ubøjelig tro på det sikre valg.

Om kirsebæreventyret lykkes fortæller filmen i den tilbageholdte videns form, det udvikler sig til en thriller, jeg sidder og frygter tilbagegang, uheld, nemesis… læs mere:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4496/

Sergei Loznitsa: State Funeral

There he goes again, the master of dealing creatively with archive, Sergei Loznitsa. His new film, to be premiered at the Venice International Film Festival (August 28 – September 7), entitled ”State Funeral” is – I have copy-pasted from Screen Daily, link below for the whole article –

… about the “grandiose, terrifying and grotesque” spectacle of the funeral of Joseph Stalin.

It will be the latest of Loznitsa’s montage films based on archive footage following Blockade, Revue, The Event and The Trial…

“I have been working with footage which was shot between March 5-8, 1953 for a film called The Great Farewell by directors including Sergei Gerasimov and Ilya Kopalin,” Loznitsa explains. “But the film was banned after people in the Soviet government saw it and so it was never released. The film only appeared during the period of perestroika in the 1990s.”

Berlin-based Loznitsa worked with 100 reels of material he found in the Russian state archive, which includes footage of the four-day event in Berlin, Warsaw and Prague as well as the major Soviet cities.

“The film will follow the chronology of the four days – from the announcement of Stalin’s death to the funeral in the Red Square,“ Loznitsa explained. “I want to present audiences with the opportunity to be inside that time and feel it.

“My generation can now start to talk about this time because for previous generations like that of my parents, there are still the painful memories,“

https://www.screendaily.com/searchresults?qkeyword=loznitsa

Review of «The Trial»: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4393/

Review of “The Event”: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4148/