Nicolas Philibert in Tbilisi

After the screening of a beautiful 2018 restored copy of “Etre et Avoir”, the film by Nicolas Philibert, that he made in 2001 to be premiered in 2002, to be an amazing audience success in cinemas in France, 2 mio. spectators (!) and elsewhere – a conversation (see photo taken by Georgian film director Nino Orjonikidze) took place at the Cinédoc festival in Tbilisi between Philibert and me. One hour of talk with a master about the film just shown and about filmmaking as Philibert sees it after having been making documentaries since the mid of the 1970’es.

He is such a generous and thoughtful cinéaste which is easy to see if you know (some of) his films, let me just mention wonderful films like ”Nénette” (the orangutang who is soon celebrating her 50th birthday!), ”Every Little Thing”, ”La Maison de la Radio”, ”In the Land of the Deaf”, ”Louvre City”…

The conversation was recorded and will later be found on the site of the festival.

When my wife and I saw the film the first time, in 2003 I think is was, we were talking about the film and the method, the pedagogics of the teacher, now 15 years later we were talking mostly about the children in the film, who enter the school for the first time as do “our” grandchildren back in Copenhagen. Oh, childhood… and thanks for conveying all these magic and poetic moments of curiosity and innocence to us, monsieur Philibert!

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/ 

EDN Bylaws Violated – Action Needed

Calling all EDN members!!
It has come to our attention that dramatic changes have happened within the EDN organization – and as the members have not been notified, we hereby take it upon ourselves to point out a number of actions that are in direct violation of the EDN By Laws.

In § 6 of the EDN By Laws it is stated ‘The General Assembly annually elects the Board from candidates suggested by the sitting Board of the Association’.
The current board has not been elected by the members.

According to the EDN website the current board consists of 3 members – where 2 of them resides in Holland . 
According to the EDN By Laws, no less than 3 out of 4 members of the board must reside in DIFFERENT European countries.

The EDN office is in the process of moving from Copenhagen to Amsterdam.
In the EDN By Laws it is stated in §1 that ‘The association has its principal place of business in Copenhagen, Denmark with the right of having offices in different places elsewhere in Europe.’ To change this it needs to be brought to a vote amongst the members. Again, this has not happened.

Finally, we understand that all the EDN staff members that have worked with content at EDN, will stop during this summer.

Why have the EDN members not been informed of the abovementioned actions, and by this been stripped of our democratic rights as EDN members to vote on such essential issues? With this total lack of transparency, how can we as members trust that EDN as an organization represents the values and the needs of the members that for many years have supported the organization and its goals faithfully?

We call to action among all EDN members to make it clear to the new management of EDN, that nothing less than total transparency and democracy within a membership organization is acceptable, and violation of this should have grave consequences.

Expressing our deepest concern

Joan Gonzalez, Docs Barcelona/ Parallel 40, Claire Aguilar and Simon Kilmurry, IDA, Uldis Cekulis, VFS FILMS, Lelda Ozola, Baltic Sea Forum, Orwa Nyrabia, IDFA, Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, IDFATor Vadseth, Anita Reher, Gitte Hansen, Iikka Vehkalahti, Tue Steen Müller, Ivana Pauerova Milosevic, Filip Remunda and Tereza Horska IDF, Emma Davie, Scottish Documentary Institute, Diana El Jeiroudi, Cecilia Lidin

CinéDOC-Tbilisi Opened Last Night

… in the Capital of Georgia. It was an unpretentious presentation with two skilled presenters and – unlike many international festivals – it happened in both Georgian and English language. With clips from all competitive sections (for the young, the Caucasus and the international competition) and from the Red Soul section that includes films by Vitaly Mansky, Dziga Vertov, Werner Herzog and others. A small section consequently includes a Red Soul Party with vodka, beer and Soviet food! Tonight. I am happy, see the photo, to be in the Caucasus jury, with Kenan Aliyev and Csilla Kato. Aliyev works with Current Time TV, that is sponsoring 3 awards at the festival (Intl. competition, Civil Doc and New Talent presentation), the channel is truly supporting new film people here and in other parts of Eastern Europe, bravo for that. Csilla Kato is from the reputed Astra Film festival in Sibiu in Romania. Which has been written about several times on this site – here is one of the links: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4372/

The opening film was “Honeyland”, full house in the cinema for this masterpiece from North Macedonia. If you want to know more about that film, use the “search” and you will get there. Has been praised numerous times on this site.

http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com

Andreas Dalsgaard: Fædre & Sønner /3

Andreas Dalsgaards kloge og smukke film har tv-premiere i morgen aften  22:15 på TV2. Jeg kan bedst anbefale at se filmen nu det er muligt ved at finde min anmeldelse fra biografpremieren frem. Den kommer her:

Jeg reagerede ved visningen under CPH:DOX 2017 spontant efter filmoplevelsen ved at skrive en mail til kollegerne: ”Så, Tue og Sara, har netop set filmen om Henning Haslund-Christensen og hans to sønner og om Torgut folket og om ekspeditioner og indsamlinger og kulturdrab og tabet af hukommelse. Den er vidunderlig og Michael i den er så ægte charmerende som ude i virkeligheden. Nu vil jeg gøre hvad jeg kan for at skrive om Dalsgaards store filmiske fortælling.”

Sådan, nu havde jeg lovet det, røbet min samlede vurdering, som kun kan blive alle vore 6 penne, røbet en disposition for min tøvende, langsomme kommentar, som skal begrunde vurderingen, og jeg har det igen som Peter Plys når Grislingen siger ”Det var ikke særlig klogt sagt” og Peter Plys forklarer: ”Det var klogt, da det var inde i mit hoved, men så skete der noget på vejen ud”.

1

Den ældste af titlens fædre er berømt, jeg ved det jo godt. Det er Henning Haslund-Christensen, og Werner Jacobsen fortalte mig for mange år siden meget om ham. Det var dengang, jeg færdedes i museumsverdenen.

Jeg finder hans bog Asiatiske akkorder frem. Den er oprindelig fra 1965, min udgave er fra 1991. Werner Jacobsen har et afsnit om sine rejser i Mongoliet. Haslund, som han kalder ham, var der i forvejen, Jacobsen præsenterer ham sådan… Læs hele anmeldelsen: LINK

Time Trial as Doc of the Month

DocsBarcelona starts in 10 days. I have written about the upcoming festival, link below.

But DocsBarcelona has many other rooms. One of them is the Documentary of the Month that includes one film being shown at 75 venues in Spain and later on in countries in Latin America. In cinemas, in culture houses, in libraries… check the link below.

It is an amazing film cultural initiative.

In the month of May, it is the Scottish director Finlay Pretsell’s “Time Trial” that is offered to the audience. Here is what the site says about the film:

“The end of an athlete’s career is a race against time and a fight against an inevitable demise. The addictive need to participate defies logic and creates a mesmerising and painful spectacle. TIME TRIAL takes us into the final races of cyclist David Millar’s career, leading up to his last encounter with the Tour de France. We go inside the peloton, we’re pushed up impossible climbs and forced down rapid descents, we lie alongside him in his hotel room in post-race agony. We ride in the support car, the source of comfort, supplies and fleeting relief from the cold. And we know that every mile travelled is a mile closer to the end. TIME TRIAL gets us close to David Millar, revealing how the human spirit is driven by a force deeper than success and glory. Filmed using pioneering techniques, bespoke vehicles and on-bike cameras, and with a new score by US composer Dan Deacon…”

And my words from November 2017: …I watched the film yesterday in a smaller cinema, Munt 13 (at IDFA), and I was suffering with the protagonist David Millar on screen. My suffering was in solidarity with poor Millar, who fights to get his last Tour de France but loses – suffering very much due to the music composed by American Dan Deacon, music which is constantly surprising and sometimes a torture to take into the ears.

It has changed my view on music in documentaries, which normally is just filling in holes in weak scenes. Here it goes with the race and the situations, the sequences, the scenes. A great example of music in documentaries – here used for a film, which is so well constructed, full of funny moments, it’s not “only” the tragic fall of a hero…”

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4521/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4089/

http://eldocumentaldelmes.com/en/

Laila Pakalnina in Paris

So well deserved an honour – Latvian Laila Pakalnina has a big retrospective of her mostly short documentaries at Centre Pompidou in Paris, to be more precise, organised by La Cinématheque du Documentaire at the Bibliothéque Publique d’Information. 20 films will be shown. 2 weeks starting tonight.

Entitled ”Laila Pakalnina, Drôle de Réel”, ” La première rétrospective consacrée à cette cinéaste lettone en France, en sa présence…”

“Si le cinéma n’existait pas, je serais devenue marchande de glace (le premier métier dont j’ai rêvé). Mais le cinéma, c’est mieux que les glaces !” On peut d’abord se féliciter du choix de carrière de Laila Pakalnina, mais aussi tenter de définir son art à partir de son propos farceur… »

I know the films of Pakalnina since the 1990’es, where her b/w – with no words – short films like The Ferry, The Postman came out. Pakalnina’s films later on are very different, one from the other but always with her own special signature and always surprising and many times full of humour. She has indeed this « drôle » look at life.

For our French reading filmkommentaren visitors there is a long fine article on the site of the Cinématheque, link below. Here is a small quote from an article on this site, caption « Fishing in the River of Time » :

– Every film for me means risk. I am not craftsman; I am not delivering certain product. I am making film and that means breathtaking balancing between shit and art. I hope for art of course. And I admire this risk. As for me this is the only way how to make film… – I call my method of work “Fishing in the river of time”. As life is extremely talented, we just put camera, set composition and wait. And life happens. So film happens. Sometimes immediately, sometimes in hours and even days…

https://www.facebook.com/events/452694762202174/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4318/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2435/

IDFA Forum Changes

… ”goes tailor-made, expands cross-media Market for 2019”, the festival announced yesterday, April 30, talking about pitch setups needed in a ”rapidly changing documentary industry”.

In the text, click below and read it all in details, it is stressed that the focus will be „more centered towards the specific needs of the pitching teams, paying attention to the uniqueness of each project and team, and inviting the teams to present their projects in the way that best suits their work and stage of development”. With feedback of course from financiers and THIS I LIKE VERY MUCH: ”to allow room for in-depth conversations about the artistic intentions and goals of the team.”

If I get it right there are three steps in the new pattern: Public pitch followed by feedback from a hand-picked panel and then individual meetings.

And, THIS I LIKE VERYMUCH AS WELL: ”… the Forum is adjusting to changing financing structures, while opening up to also include films with less clear-cut narratives and new ways of storytelling.” Meaning less boring formatted projects, more surprises, more experiments… hope I am right.

https://www.idfa.nl/en/

Baltic Frames 2019

Der er baltisk film på programmet i Cinemateket i København fra den 7. til den 19. maj. Under overskriften ”Baltic Frames” vises fem spillefilm og fire dokumentarer fra de baltiske lande. Arrangør er Det Danske Kulturinstitut i Estland, Letland og Litauen med Simon Holmberg Drewsen og hans team i Riga med økonomisk hjælp fra ambassaderne i Danmark – og undertegnede har haft en finger med ved udvælgelsen af dokumentarfilmene.

Det er en dokumentarist, lettiske Davis Simanis, som åbner den fine lille festival. Simanis, (links below to take you to texts about his documentaries), er til stede i København, hvor hans spillefilm ”The Mover” (foto) bliver vist – efter netop at have været vist ved Moskva Film Festival. Filmen introduceres på Cinematekets hjemmeside således: ”Ingen kunne have forudset, at Zanis Lipke ville redde lettiske jøder og blive en helt under 2. verdenskrig. For at kunne brødføde sin familie arbejdede han på de tyske militærbaser og supplerede sin løn ved at smugle flygtninge om natten. Filmen undersøger, hvorvidt Zanis’ mod stammer fra hans eventyrlyst, stædighed eller en følelse af ansvar over for mennesker i nød.”

Traditionen tro åbner ”Baltic Frames” med Herz Franks mesterstykke ”Ten Minutes Older” fra 1978 og Frank er også en af hovedpersonerne i hyldesten til den poetiske dokumentar, som den udfoldede sig i Sovjettiden i de baltiske lande. ”Bridges of Time” er lavet i et samarbejde mellem lettiske Kristine Briede og litauiske Audrius Stonys. Mindaugas Survila viser sin bemærkelsesværdige naturfilm ”The Ancient Woods”, som har solgt over 50.000 billetter i hjemlandet, estiske ”Rodeo – Taming a Wild Country” er et muntert og informativt tilbageblik på de første frie valg i Estland.

Instruktørerne er Kiur Aarma og Raimo Jöerand, som er i Cinemateket den 11. maj. Og så er der den lettiske ”Inga can Hear”, som lige nu er udvalgt til HotDocs festivalen i Toronto. Instruktør Kaspars Goba.

Læs mere om filmene på

https://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/biograf/filmserier/serie/baltic-frames-0

Simanis, Escaping Riga, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2937/

Simanis, Chronicles of the Last Temple, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2851/

Simanis, Sounds of the Sun, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/1305/

Simanis, D is for Division, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4207/

How Big is the Galaxy?

… is the title of the wonderful film by Ksenia Elyan, who won  the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Doker Festival in Moscow. I have seen it pitched on several occasions and the promises planted on these occasions were held. Charming boys, scenes full of energy and humour. Here is the synopsis:

“Zakhar lives among the vast Arctic spaces of Siberia, 100 miles away from human dwellings. He is 7, but he has his own reindeer and tundra for pasture. One day his nomad family is joined by a teacher, sent by the authorities to explain to the kids why why they need math and Putin. It’s the 1st grade for Zakhar and the 3rd for his brother Prokopy. The teacher is supposed to give them a standard set of knowledge, but Zakhar craves answers to millions questions about the world.” 

At the award ceremony in Moscow the director, asked the audience to stand up to honour Alexander Rastorguev, who was co-producer of the film – together with cameraman Kirill Radchenko and reporter Orhan Dzhemal he was killed while making a film in the Central African Republic on Russian mercenaries. It was a moving moment full of dignity. “Without him the film would never have been made”, she and Estonian producer Max Tuula said.

I saw the film at IDFA – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4411/

www.midff.com

Krakow Film Festival

Let me leave the floor to this very inviting and good festival itself with this quote from the website: KFF is one of the oldest events in Europe dedicated to documentary, animated and short feature films. Its core consists of four competitions of equal rank: documentary film competition, short film competition, national competition and music documentary film competition DocFilmMusic. During the eight festival days, the viewers have a chance to watch about 250 films from Poland and from around the world. They are shown in competition sections and in special screenings. The festival is accompanied by exhibitions, concerts, open-air shows and meetings with artists. Every year, the festival is visited by approximately 700 Polish and international guests: directors, producers, festival programmers and numerous Krakow audience…

… and it takes place in a historical city full of culture and atmosphere, and tourists, including the Jewish quarter Kazimierz with its memorials and restaurants, where I the last couple of years have dined with good friend, film director and producer and academic Krzysztof Kopczyński. Who made „The Dybbuk. A Tale of Wandering Souls“ in 2015.

To be on the mailing list of KFF that runs from May 26 till June 2 means that you can be very well informed: Finland is the guest country and of course “Gods of Molenbeek” by Reetta Huhtanen will be screened here as well as veteran icon Jörn Donner’s “Fuck Off 2. Images from Finland”, a sequel to the film Donner made about his country in 1971. Plus three more from the country that was nominated as the luckiest nation in the world. Check the website for more about the Finnish series.

On this site I have often characterised Polish documentaries as special in terms of storytelling aesthetics, so I am curious what comes up this year. The caption is “A Window to the World” and two new films taking part in the international competition are highlighted:

The website says “59. Krakow Film Festival will be opened on 26h May with a screening of “The Wind. A Documentary Thriller” directed by Michał Bielawski. The documentary showcasing the destructive force of the halny wind and the way it disrupts the lives of local inhabitants is one of the two Polish films, that will compete in the international full length documentary competition. The second one is “Of Animals and Men” directed by Łukasz Czajka, a dramatic story, filled with fascinating archive materials, of a married couple, the Żabinscy, who gave shelter to almost 300 refugees from the ghetto during the occupation until the break of the Warsaw Uprising.”

Otherwise there are films by directors I know from their previous films, like Marcin Sauter, Marcin Polar, Wiktoria Szymańska and Belorussian Andrei Kutsila’s Polish film “Summa” (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4410/),

and to my pleasant surprise I see that Russian Alina Rudnitskaya together with Sergei Vinokurov has finished “Fatei and the Sea” as a Polish, Russian, Finnish coproduction.

Festival director Krzysztof Gierat is a proud man, when he presents the Panorama section: In the Panorama of the Polish document section, we are bragging with what is the bestand, the most original in Polish production. It is, next to the competition, the most powerful presentation of our documentary thought, which is admired and even envied at international festival. It is here, in Krakow, that international careers often start… no doubt he is right.

And some words about the international competition, where I am very happy to see American Jesse Alk’s “Pariah Dog” (PHOTO) that was at the rough cut of DocsBarcelona last year but did not make it to the Panorama section of that festival. It is visually a very strong film and touching it is in its portraits of brave people in Calcutta taking care of the street dogs. As – many times mentioned on this site – does “Wongar” of his dingos in the film of Serbian Andrijana Stojkovic, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4137/

And Geyerhalter’s “The Border Fence”, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4437/, „Kabul, City in the Wind“ by Aboozar Amini, http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4398/, and “Heat Singers” by Nadia Parfan from Ukraine that I met at Baltic Sea Docs as a project and later at a rough cut stage –

and again a quote from the website “The Israeli films have a strong representation at this year’s Festival.  “Advocate” (dir. Rachel Lech Jones, Philippe Bellaiche) is a film portrait of an exceptional lawyer, who devoted her whole professional life to the fight for human rights. Lea Tsemel, an Israeli woman, have been endangering her own life as well as the lives of her family for the past 50 years with her tireless court defense of Palestinians accused of being terrorists.  Unes, the protagonist of the “Around The Bed of A Dying Collaborator” (dir. David Ofek, Tal Michael) is considered to be a traitor by his kinsmen, just like Lea. Years ago he brought shame to his Arab family when he agreed to co-operate with the Israeli secret service. In the face of death he struggles with fear, shame and guilt… Two films I am looking forward to see.

https://www.krakowfilmfestival.pl/en/