A lot of awards were distributed last night in Tel Aviv at the 21st edition of DocAviv. Let me mention the two main awards and give you the link – below – to the festival website.

Winner of Israeli Competition

Advocate by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Ballaiche

Jury Motivation:

The Best Israeli Documentary Film is a thought-provoking project that combines an important issue with high quality cinematic skills, particularly an innovative and clever use of animation. Just as importantly, the film profiles an unforgettable, powerful, and inspiring woman of deep conviction in all her complexity. For their ability to capture this exceptional figure, who sees hope where others find only futility, the Best Israeli Documentary Film Award goes to the film Advocate by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Ballaiche.

Best International Film Award

Honeyland by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov

Jury Motivation:

The Best Israeli Documentary Film is a thought-provoking project that combines an important issue with high quality cinematic skills, particularly an innovative and clever use of animation. Just as importantly, the film profiles an unforgettable, powerful, and inspiring woman of deep conviction in all her complexity. For their ability to capture this exceptional figure, who sees hope where others find only futility, the Best Israeli Documentary Film Award goes to the film Advocate by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Ballaiche.

www.docaviv.co.il/2019-en 

He said many clever things, Audrius Stonys, at DocsBarcelona, where his film ”Bridges of Time”, directed with Latvian Kristine Briede, at two screenings had a good audience as had the masterclass with the Lithuanian director.

Festival director Joan Gonzalez, whose knowledge about Stonys until then was very little, asked Viktor Kossakovsky if the Lithuanian is good, ”oh yes”, the Russian director had said – and Kossakovsky is not known to give away many compliments. Gonzalez picked up what Stonys, a brilliant talker and inspirator, had said after the first screening of ”Bridges of Time”. ”I saw my film again today and when I saw the woman, who had watched the film she took part in as a child, hearing her say that she was so happy to see her mother again, alive in the film… I thought this is why we make documentaries, to keep people alive. In other words: Life After Death.

Gonzalez quoted Stonys at the closing ceremony, much appreciated, as it was

for me to see the audience interest in not only the mentioned Baltic meetings but also with directors from the Eastern part of Europe – Kossakovsky, Stonys, the film of Mindaugas Survila, “The Ancient Woods”, the winner “Honeyland” from the Balkans – and several filmmakers at the industry section, from Belarus, Lithuania (last year’s participant Arunas Matelis (“Wonderful Losers”) was pitching a project with Aiste Stonyte, the sister of Audrius), the Czech project “Tap Tap” by Radovan Sibrt, that won an award at the Rough Cut session…

Being with Stonys and Matelis brings me down memory lane, remembering – see the photo above of me and Uldis Brauns – who I had the luck (thank you Kristine Briede and Uldis Cekulis, who took the photo!) to meet in 2014, when “Bridges of Time” was at the research and development stage.

I went with Briede and Cekulis to visit the most gentle and fine man – and his wife – in the countryside. I had never met him before, only knowing what Herz Frank had said to me on several occasions: Uldis Brauns is the best director of our time. Frank was Braun’s collaborator on the film “235.000.000”, the masterpiece from 1967, that was censored by the Soviet authorities – an original version has recently been found, when restored it will hopefully have comeback screenings at festivals all over.

Brauns, who passed away in January 2017, has a key role in “Bridges of Time”. He was never at the Balticum Film & TV Festival on Bornholm, where I met Matelis and Stonys for the first time – and Herz Frank, Mark Soosaar, Ivars Seleckis and Henrikas Sablevicius, the Lithuanian documentary godfather, the teacher of Stonys and Matelis. Watching “Bridges of Time” is for me a walk down memory lane, remembering moments from the 10 years on Bornholm, where I also met Juris Podnieks, Roy Andersson, Jan Troell, Sergey Dvortsevoy, Viktor Kossakovsky and where our own director Jørgen Roos, who taught me so much came to visit.

After the masterclass at DocsBarcelona, we – over a good meal – shared memories from Bornholm remembering all those, who are no longer with us but who are alive on film. Life after Death…

www.docsbarcelona.com

Fernando Botero… all art interested people know him from his paintings and sculptures. I have been reminded of him again and again when arriving to the airport in Barcelona, where his horse sculpture is a meeting point. Don Millar, the director of the film “Botero” was at DocsBarcelona last night with the daughter Lina and the son Fernando to show the film and talk to the audience at the European premiere at the Aribau cinema. A very generous film biography full of information about the life of an artist, his artistical development, his going against the mainstream, his artistic comments to what is going on in this world, his personal tragedy, when his fourth child Pedro was killed in a car accident, his getting through that trauma by making art, him being the patriarch of a family that gathers once a year in Pietrasanta in Italy, the opposition he has met from art critics (for me that takes too much time in the film), his generosity to donate his art collection, and a lot of his own works to his native Colombia, where you can find it in museums in Bogota and Medellin.

The film equals the volumen of Botero’s work with a strong music side and the archive – still photos, interviews – is very interesting with the three children, the two mentioned plus Juan Carlos, talk so passionate about their father taking care of his enormous work. And he talks with a fine portion of humour.

Photo: Botero on Abu Ghraib.

www.docsbarcelona.com

Let me remind you that when DocsBarcelona started 22 years ago all pitching sessions were public. When the EDN launched the workshops in The South of Europe, with the support of the EU Media Programme, the first one took place in Granada. Joan Gonzalez, director of DocsBarcelona, was there, he pitched (not really a success!) and took the event to Barcelona. 10 years later a festival was started after years of screenings and meetings with filmmakers, that is what today is called masterclasses.

After years of speed meetings between filmmakers and decision makers the public pitch is back – in a combination with speed meetings. This morning – professionally moderated by Catherine Olsen and in a fine set up with 25 panelists sitting at tables and an (not that big) audience attending, creating atmosphere by supporting those who present their fllm projects on stage. There were 9 of them – 6 more will perform tomorrow – and should I highlight, from my biased seat in the audience, a couple, it would be “They Call me Torero” directed by Inma de Reyes and produced by Aimara Reques, the first one a student from Edinburgh with Emma Davie as teacher, the second “the mother” of Viktor Kossakovsky’s marvellous “Aquarela”, that opened the DocsBarcelona more than a week ago. AND the Brazilian “Samuel and the Light” by Vinicius Girnys, the director’s first film about kids at a place, where electricity arrives. Poetic touch in the trailer. The Public Pitch started with a safe card, Peter Torbiörnsson’s “Ninosca” from Nicaragua produced by another veteran, Stina Gardell. Swedish Torbiörnsson has charisma, he does not pitch the usual way, he adresses the audience in a personal way. That film about the troubled life a woman growing up in a macho culture will definitely be good.

The panel… some with good comments, some just said “thank you for the pitch, we can talk later…”. That was the same 22 years ago!

www.docsbarcelona.com

DocsBarcelona is making a political statement. The festival showed “Avec un Sourire, la Revolution” by Canadian Alexandre Chartrand, on the 19th to an audience of around 700 people, who gave the film and its message a standing ovation. AND the festival chose to use a photo of one of the emprisoned politicians, actually the one who is not a politician. I take a text from wikipedia on: 

Jordi Cuixart i Navarro (Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, province of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, 1975) is a Catalan businessman and political and cultural activist. He is the president of Òmnium Cultural,^[1] a non-profit cultural organisation founded in 1961 with more than 160,000 members and 40 local branches in Catalonia.^[2] As part of his role in the pro-independence demonstrations prior to the Catalan independence referendum of 2017, he has been imprisoned since October 2017 under charges of sedition and violent rebellion brought by the Spanish prosecutor’s office. Amnesty International believes his detention constitutes a disproportionate restriction on his rights to free speech and peaceful assembly, and urges Spain to free him.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/en/doc/avec-un-sourire-la-revolution/

I have made a copy paste of the fine text from the DocsBarcelona website, presenting the presence of Lithuanian documentary master director Audrius Stonys:

7 SHOTS 7 is the annual proposal of DocsBarcelona to a personality in the audiovisual world. This year, due to the premiere in Barcelona of Audrius Stonys’ latest and acclaimed documentary Bridges of Time (thursday at 18.15, Aribau 4), winner of the Best Documentary Award at Latvian National Film Award in Latvia and Special Mention of the Jury of Batumi International Art -house FF in Georgia, the Lithuanian filmmaker will reflect on the language of cinema with 7 shots or sequences specially chosen for the occasion.

Audrius Stonys is visiting DocsBarcelona again after presenting here in 2017, his film Woman and the Glacier, ​​a poetic story about a solitary woman and an everlasting glacier, and receiving the ex-aequo What the Doc Award. The festival audience will be able to enjoy the screening of his latest work, Bridges of Time and the presence of the director, who will take part in post-screening discussions.

We have invited him to talk about his films in a master class format through a very personal selection of fragments and sequences. A unique opportunity to get to know the cinematography of one of the most internationally-renowned documentary makers. Through this selection of seven shots, we will discover what inspires him to make films, what stories and characters have captivated him throughout his life, what motivates him to create new documentaries and how he manages to take his ideas to the big screen. The master class (CCCB at 19) will be moderated by DocsBarcelona’s head of programming, ​​Tue Steen Müller.

Audrius Stonys, Lithuanian film director and producer with a long career, has won numerous international awards. He studied Film Direction at the Jonas Mekas Anthology Film Archive in New York. His documentary Earth of the Blind was recognized by the European Film Academy as the best documentary of the year and also won the Félix Award. His documentary Ramin, created in collaboration with VFS Films, received the Lithuanian nomination for the Oscars in 2012. He has given conferences and lectures around the world.

www.docsbarcelona.com

At the DocsBarcelona today, at a special session the first episode of a new Netflix original documentary series will be screened. Normally I would say, all right and so what, but as the director is León Siminiani I am interested. Siminiani was at the festival in 2013, where he pitched ”Mapa”, a film that I have praised, link below – and a film with a trailer that I have used again and again at workshops because of its crazy and personal anti-trailer presentation of a film, that held its promise and became a film by a true auteur. Curious to see how he has brought his talent into a Netflix documentary that has the following content:

El caso Alcàsser is a documentary series composed of 5 episodes that analyse and investigate one of the most controversial cases in the Spanish history. The triple assassination of three teenagers in 1992 shook the foundations of the Spanish society, trespassing limits not only due to its harshness but also because of its impacting mediatic retransmission. 25 years after, the resolution of the case and its consequences still cause controversy.

At the CCCBh at 19.00 with the presence of the director. Language: Spanish.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2250/

www.docsbarcelona.com

Joan Gonzalez, director of the festival this morning, in Catalan: Bon dia! Ahir amb mes de 2100 espectadors va ser el dia amb mes afluència de públic de totes les edicions del @DocsBarcelona No podem començar millor la segona setmana del festival. Moltes gràcies!

Did you get it: Sunday, the best day in terms of audience in the history of DocsBarcelona… a happy man, who loves statistics, and of course it is good news, when the audience responds positively to the programming we did, we meaning Pol Roig Turró, Martina Rogers, Dani Jariod, Diego Mas Trelles, Joan Gonzalez with me at the head of the table.

I was in the Aribau cinema, where there were full houses for “Aquarela” and “The Ancient Woods”… and of course for “Avec un sourire, la revolution” by Canadian Alexandre Chartrand, synopsis “What happened on October 1st? An unprecedented look at the self-determination process from the director’s subjective point of view brings us to the forefront of the fight. Grass-roots activists, street protesters, Catalan leaders and spontaneous mobilizations are the testimonies of a cinematographic portrait depicting civil disobedience in Catalonia, where repression is fought with a smile.

My personal experience, however, was to be at the screening to introduce and moderate the extended Q&A of “Tiny Souls” by Palestinian/Jordanian Dina Naser. 50-60 spectators watched a film with a warm heart and a dedicated director, who followed three siblings – Marwa, Aya and Mahmoud – and their life in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. For four years the director was in contact with the family and what we spectators got was a beautiful film with several layers: this is how it looks in a refugee camp, this is what kids from Syria talk about, when their country is at war, this is childhood, this is how children act everywhere BUT the background is sooo different from that of my grandchildren back in Copenhagen. Marwa is the central character growing up from being the little child to being the girl, who has boyfriend(s) with whom she secretly talks on the cell phone. Dina Naser gave the kids a camera, they filmed, it increased the authenticity of the film. Marwa and her family are now back in Syria, the director has lost contact with her. With a fine voice-over Dina Naser refers to what her father told her about 1948 and his staying in refugee camps in Palestine. Great film that had its premiere at CPH:Dox but was rejected by IDFA, whose Bertha Fund supported the film!

A sad film of course but full of life, wishing the best for Marwa and her family!

http://www.docsbarcelona.com

Towards the end of the film, Martìn Perino is in a school class with his friend, the dancer Solé. He talks to the students: ”Solé and I would like you to write down, what you feel or think, when you listen to the music, I am going to play. Please put your words down on a piece of paper”.

They do so. Now it is my turn to put down, what I feel and think after having watched ”Solo” – for the second time. I feel that I have been given the gift of getting very close to a man with an extraordinary musical talent. For playing and composing. A very generous move from a fragile man, who spent 3 years at el Borda, the psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires, gets out from there but is still under treatment. He lets me suffer with him, be happy and enjoy, when he is at the piano. And a very – towards him – respectful and compassionate

move from the filmmakers to convey, what they got from Martìn Perino. There is energy in every scene, you are invited to follow the ups and downs of the pianist, you often have the same tense feeling as he has, when he is fighting for the freedom, that he fears. Chain-smoking and if his hands do not carry a cigarette, they are searching for a piano to play on. Classical pieces or his own compositions.

The construction of the film is excellent. The opening tells the viewer, where we are: El Borda, where the patients are fragile and where Perino is playing the composition that he has made for the hospital, its personnel and patients. Enfermaria, he calls it. And then, step by step, you get to know Martìn Perino. Often through conversations or situations with friends at the hospital, like Luis, who says “with your music you can tell your whole story”. Perino, no let me call him by first name as I think I now know him so well, Martìn tells at a lunch scene that at a moment, he was so scared to be alone in the streets that he had to ask Luis for support. The charismatic therapist has through the film several conversations with Martìn, scenes full of atmosphere, both when they take place in the hospital or at the home, where Martìn lives after being released from Borda. A messy place, the home, it was before the place of his parents, and Martìn has obviously problems in coping with making it orderly. Or he does not care. He visits his former teacher, giving her his story about “all that happened in  my head”… and then the music “started from my chaos… I didn´t suffer in vain!”. He has a lot of humour at the same time as he is desperate to get permission to play. Or to get to a piano. It is “a psychological urge”.

He walks the streets of my wonderful Buenos Aires – my father was born there, could not help thinking about it when watching and I write these words with tears in my eyes… – as I had so many times through “Solo”. You can have tears, when you feel sadness but also when you watch and listen to the music of a great pianist like Martìn. And – thanks for holding back that aspect – there was a mother, who thought Martìn was a genius… As he says to the therapist, “I have to get rid of the genius”. Nevertheless, when he plays for the bourgeoisie of BA: “My mother was a pianist and when she was very ill, I played her favourite piece for her, Alberto Gianestra´s “Dance of the Beautiful Maiden”. And he does that in the film. Formidable!

As is the film by Artemio Benki… and the camera work of Diego Mendizabal. The pain, the suffering, the joy, the introvert side of Martìn. Through many close ups. Did not know the dop, checked his filmography, he has quite a track record. Thank you first of all to Martìn Perino for letting me into your life.

2019, Czech Republic, France, Argentina, Austria, 84 mins.

https://www.slingshotfilms.it/solo/

https://www.lacid.org/fr/films-et-cineastes/films/solo