Doc People at DocPoint

Lovely to meet documentary colleagues in Helsinki at the DocPoint. You get to talk private matters, food and drinks – and documentaries. Have you seen… ah, you should see… what is your next destination… Already when arriving in the airport I could hug Artchil Khetagouri and Ileana Stanculescu, who are in charge of the CinéDoc-Tbilisi (http://www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com/) in May. I can warmly recommend the festival in the wonderful city with the wonderful cuisine and wine and chacha.

At my age, being around for decades you are happy, when you remember the good old times, where television editors could take , and took risks. And there she was, outside the Savoy Theatre, Eila Werning, who worked for YLE, the Finnish broadcasting company, and who very often at pitching sessions said ”I don’t know where to put it (slot-wise) but I love your project, so I will take it and find a way”. A decision maker, where most of those editors who go to IDFA and other sessions can not make a decision but have to pitch to several other people placed further up in the system. Eila Werning told me that she during xmas time had used a recipe, that she had been given by my wife many many years ago at a documentary event in Skopje. Werning does not live in Helsinki but had come for the festival and had just seen ”Putin’s Witnesses” by Vitalyi Mansky, who came to say hello. I asked him if he was about to break the record of festivals for his film… So far 60 festivals, he said, crazy, but just think what that means in terms of audience! Bravo!

I walked to some screenings with Latvian Zane Balcus, who is film museum director and took part in the Baltic Sea Forum 2018. She is a true film lover and film critic and she promised me to make a follow up on the great story (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4443/) on the finding of the director’s cut version of Uldis Brauns masterpiece ”235.000.000” from 1967. A film that, when a copy is ready, deserves to be at festivals all over.

Yes, film history, and again it was a pleasure to attend Helena Trestikova’s masterclass. As at IDFA 2018 she is the honorary guest of the DocPoint festival. And as usual she was 100% prepared, showing clips from her long-term observation films “René”, “Katka”, “Mallory” and “A Marriage Story”. From the latter clips were shown from first day of shooting, 20 years later and 35 years later. Marvellous. She talked about ethics, the relationship between director and protagonist – the latter with a fantastic dialogue clip from “Rene”. It was a fine masterclass with a small: But the moderator should be told to speak louder and more clear, and address the audience…

That’s all for now. Three more Finnish screenings and I will tell you which Finnish documentary I think is the best one this year.

Photo: Helena Trestikova.

https://docpointfestival.fi/en/

DocPoint 2019

The 18th  edition of the Finnish documentary film festival is going on right now and until Sunday in a Finnish capital full of snow – I have been moving very slow from cinema to cinema, luckily they are very close to each other in the centre, to avoid falling. We are not used to that much snow in Denmark any longer.

I was here for the first edition of a festival founded by and still run by filmmakers. Tapio Riihimäki, executive director of Docpoint, tells me that the festival is expected to have around 30.000 spectators – and he says so having already arranged several extra screenings because of sold out films of the over 260 screenings!

107 films, the best of the best from all over the world, masterclasses and two awards, the Audience award for the best Finnish documentary and a critic’s choice. That’s why I am here, as a critic for filmkommentaren.dk to pick the best from my point of view, and write a review to be published this coming Sunday or Monday. 7 screenings, some of them with several films. A nice job to have, a good atmosphere, a couple of full houses I have attended since I came here Wednesday, welcomed by Tapio and an old friend John Webster, who is chairman of the board with a strong filmography. Having three films in the pipeline!

I have met many doc colleagues in the couple of days, I have been here, more about that in another blogpost.

https://docpointfestival.fi/en/

T. Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov: Honeyland

… T for Tamara, L for Ljubomir, producer and editor Atanas Georgiev, camerapersons Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma.

Composition of the image. Finding the rythm of the film. The tone. It’s all about form that you have to think about before you start filming. Does form come before content. Or said in modern documentary language, does form come before story. But what is story? Is it two bees crawling on a leaf? Or two bees fighting outside the beehive?

It’s all there in this beautiful documentary. Composition knowledge. Superb editing. Excellent camerawork. When you are outside in the vast rocky valley, where Atidze grow bees, and inside when she – born in 1964 – is in the hut with her 85 year old mother, who is lying in her bed and has been doing so for four years. There is no electricity which has given the camerapersons the opportunity to create the most amazing images with light from candles. The faces of daugther and mother, like paintings from Dutch masters.

Atidze knows the presence of the camera. Sometimes a little smile comes to her face as if she is proud to be the protagonist in a film. She is present, when she is caring about her mother and when she is with the neighbours, who come with all their cows – and noise – and children, with whom, at least with one of them, Atidze gets along, when he, the boy, runs away from mum and dad and the other children. He does not run a lot, they are just next door in their camper, trying to survive by growing bees as well. The family does not have the knowledge and understanding as has Atidze, and at the end of the day they are about to destroy her way of surviving. However Atidze cares about the neighbours, especially the kids, there are many magic moments in this film, like when the little girl stands on the doorsteps to the hut with a kitten in her arms. Do you want one, Atidze asks, what colour…

She walks up the mountain, she takes away a piece of stone to see how the bees are, she sings for them, removes the honey to take down and to go to sell in Skopje – far away – or at the marketplace. It’s a unique film!

Macedonia, 2019, 85 mins.

Elizabeth C. Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin: Free Solo

Some words in English and then some in Danish, as the film premieres in the best Copenhagen art house cinema, Grand Teatret, that takes in many documentaries, which means publicity for the genre, press reviews in daily newspapers and an audence that is willing to buy a ticket for a documentary. Bravo for that.

If it is the right place for this film, that is, as it is launched, “a National Geographic Movie », is another question but it is good for someone like me used to creative/artistic documentaries to be challenged with a well manufactured genre film.

Here is the short description of the film taken from IMDB: “Follow Alex

Honnold as he becomes the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite’s 3,000ft high El Capitan Wall. With no ropes or safety gear, he completed arguably the greatest feat in rock climbing history.” And my comments:

Is he, Alex Honnold, charismatic? No. Does he say something interesting? No. He talks in predictable clichés like “I will always prefer climbing to a Lady”, and yet he gets a Lady, a sweet girlfriend, who does what she can to bring forward an emotional side of the climber, not easy, follows his journey and is happy that he makes it, without rope… Is the film watchable, oh Yes, the cinematography is amazing, we get his journey up the rock from all kind of angles, and that is very interesting, the story includes the camera people, their discussion in how to succeed, and especially one who – as I did towards the end – turns his head away from the camera – it’s too scary to see the young man going up.

The informational side, that is always a must-be in a National Geographic movie, is well covered through interviews with Friends/ former climbers like Tommy (Caldwell) and Jimmy Chin, responsbile for the cinematographical side and an expert in climbing films. They give background for the viewer to understand this special sport, if you consider it as a sport.

AND IN DANISH TAKEN FROM THE PRESS RELEASE OF THE CINEMA:

”Snak om nervepirrende! ‘Free Solo’ følger verdens førende soloklatrer Alex Honnold, da han forbereder og gennemfører sit livs farligste projekt: Bestigning af verdens måske mest berømte klippevæg, El Capitan i Yosemite-naturparken i Californien. Turen går 1.000 meter lodret op ad klippevæggen – med de bare næver og uden hverken reb eller andre sikkerhedsforanstaltninger. Det er med andre ord et frygtindgydende projekt, den sympatiske Alex Honnold kaster sig ud – og sidder biografgængerne på det yderste af sæderne, så er det intet at regne imod den frygt og bæven, som løber gennem det medklatrende filmholds vener – for slet ikke at tale om kæresten, som følger med på afstand. ’Free Solo’ er allerede lovprist i øst og vest – og ikke kun i adventure-kredse, for dette er i al enkelthed en af årets stærkeste dokumentarfilm overhovedet – og en af de mest sete ditto.

NB: Originalversion uden undertekster.

Premiere torsdag d. 31. januar 2018. 

USA, 100 mins., 2018

Simon Lereng Wilmont: The Distant Barking of Dogs

DOCS & TALKS 2019 / CINEMATEKET / SØN 03/02 14:00

The location is Hnutove, Eastern Ukraine, war zone for years. A village from where – for the very same reason – many Ukrainian families have moved away. But not grandmother Alexandra and 10 year old Oleg, the main characters of this remarkable, multi-layered film. Grandmother insists on staying. In the best Danish documentary I have seen this year. A film about Childhood, about Fear, about survival, about Love. Made with love. And cinematic skills on how to build a story, compose the images and put them together with a soundtrack that stresses the atmosphere of the scenes, without killing them.

Oleg and his cousin Yarik are like kids everywhere. They do pillow fights, they fight as kids do, they are crawling around wherever

there is space to crawl, they go swimming in the river, suntanned, they jump in the beds, they wear football shirts… but their outdoor playground is different. Ruins with cartridges, mortars, unexploded mines… in sometimes a constant sound carpet of bombs and the sight of war as flashes of light on the sky. It’s an understatement to say that this constitutes a fragile childhood for the kids.

The grandmother IS love and the director, who is also the cameraman, knows how to convey that to the viewers: Oleg and grandmother walking in the snow in the beginning of the film, to visit the graveyard of Oleg’s mother. The two boys caressing granny in her bed, when she falls ill, Granny ”educating” Oleg when he comes home having shot a frog with the gun of the elder Kostya.

But granny has her worries about what will come out of this living in a war zone. There is an exceptional shot showing this, made from the room next door. She sits alone at her kitchen table looking into the air. No words, the house cat walks in. As viewer we know that the boys have been put to bed by her.

The film is full of scenes like that – so well composed, and hurra for letting the scenes stand long to be developed, editor’s name is Michael Aaglund – that are full of childhood and scenes full of ”this is warzone”. The latter of course heartbreaking. The granny is being treated for panic attacks, Oleg expresses his fear of the war verbally, whereas the smaller Yarik reacts physically. The war is close by, but the war is also on television, they sit and watch.

The film is shot during a year with the grandmother as the narrator – few voice-off’s compared to dialogue caught in scenes – with some ”highlights” in the story: Yarik leaves with his mother, who has fallen in love with a soldier, but comes back to grandmother… Grandmother gets ill, the kids eat sandwiches with chocolate… Oleg gets a hole in his foot…

With the help of Kostya they decide to put up new wallpaper in the corridor – the motif is a very green forest! Nice to look at, like the river near their house, the sky where you could hope the rain would come from… Real rain and not rain of bombs.

Denmark, 2017, 90 mins. Tue Steen Müllers anmeldelse har været bragt tidligere her på FILMKOMMENTAREN og dertil yderligere en række blogindlæg om filmen. (ABN)

SYNOPSIS

Den prisbelønnede danske dokumentarfilm ‘The Distant Barking of Dogs’ tager os med til Ukraines frontlinje, hvor vi gennem 10-årige Olegs øjne bliver vidne til det uskyldstab, krigen gradvist påtvinger barnesindet. Instruktør Simon Lereng Wilmonts mesterligt fotograferede film portrætterer indlevende, hvor centrale de nære relationer er, når verden, som man kender den, udvikler sig til en krigszone, når naboerne flygter og alt, hvad der er velkendt og trygt, opløses omkring en.

EVENT

BØRN I KRIG / OLEGS KRIG / The Distant Barking of Dogs, Simon Lereng Wilmont, 2017 / eng. tekst ?/ 90 min. / 145 min. inkl. debat

Efter filmen perspektiverer seniorforsker på DIIS Johannes Lang i samtale med Mozhdeh Ghasemiyani, psykolog hos Læger uden Grænser, konsekvenserne af at vokse op og leve i en krigszone, og ikke mindst betydningen af de nære relationer, når krig bliver hverdag.

Mari Gulbiani: Before Father Gets Back

DOCS & TALKS 2019 / CINEMATEKET

 

RADIKALISERING

Jeg forstår på foromtalerne at Mari Gulbianis film handler om radikalisering og dette for tiden sært indforstået præcise begreb vender og drejer jeg nu jeg har set Gulbianis værk og slet ikke oplever det som filmens egentlige indhold. Jeg mærker måske en radikaliserings virkninger i en lille landsby uden unge og voksne mænd – forstår at alle disse mænd er ved fronten. De gamle mænd og kvinderne og børnene er tilbage i husene og på vejene og på stederne hvor man altid i små grupper fortsat i al landsbyens tid samles og snakker med hinanden. Vi har alle set og frydet os over disse utallige film som tilsammen er en dokumentarfilmens globale landsby. Her i denne, i en georgisk bjergegn er situationen at de våbenføre mænd har meldt sig til en krig langt borte for en idé, for en samfundsforståelse de tror på, og jeg forstår at det i denne dal er det IS de tjener, men kommer i tvivl, for det kan da ikke gælde alle? Formodentlig hovedpersonen Imans far, men vel ikke den anden hovedperson Evas far? De ses på fotografiet prøve et tørklædes virkning for udseendet, Iman til venstre i vestligt mærkevaretøj naturligt i hendes familie, Eva til højre i sin egns traditionelle klædning med tørklæde, en selvfølge i hendes familie. Kyndig lærer hun Iman hvordan tørklædet skal bindes korrekt.

Som jeg ser og hører det er det krigen som sådan, ikke radikaliseringen af krigerne, ikke terroren og krigsforbrydelserne, som de tilbageblevne voksne og børnene ser tv om, taler om, det er ikke ideologiernes sammenstød. Det her må Mari Gulbiani og Maja Greenwood under samtalen efter filmen finde ud af og forklare for en som mig, der helt ærligt ikke ved hvad radikalisering egentlig er, som en religiøs omvendelse, som et politisk valg, som en pludselig eller blot voksende indsigt i og overtagelse en tilværelsesforståelse, en omverdenstolning, en livsanskuelse hed det i min ungdoms indre missionske Nørre Nissum, hvor der i øvrigt også levede grundtvigianere og sekulære socialister.

STED

Hos Flaherty blev det et ubetinget princip, at historien skulle hentes på stedet selv, og at det skulle være (hvad han anser for) stedets egentlige historie. Hans drama er derfor et drama af dage og nætter, af årstidernes gang, med de kampe, der er nødvendige for at opretholde eller for at leve i et samfund eller for at bygge stammens værdighed op. (John Grierson)

Filmen skildrer som jeg ser den netop sådan helt klassisk en landsby i dens evighed og dens nuværende mennesker i en ganske særlig situation. Alle unge og yngre mænd er fraværende, kun kvinderne og børnene og de gamle herrer er hjemme og medvirker i stedets drama, kampe og diskussion af den rette æstetik og moral, dannelsens kultur. Den ældste dokumentarfilm jeg erindrer at have set, Robert Flahertys Nanook the North, 1922 og den yngste jeg til nu har set, denne Before Father Gets Back, 2018, som Mai Gulbiani præsenterer her på Docs &Talks, minder for mig at se ganske enkelt om hinanden med hensyn til stedets historie, drama og kampe. Det er styrken, roen og skønheden hen over en sund traditionens bue på ti årtier.

PERSONER

Det er en vidunderlig film, det er vidunderlige medvirkende, pigerne Eva og Iman, en med tørklæde og en uden. Det er en central scene, et nervøst moment, hvor Eva binder tørklæde på Iman, legende viser hende hvordan man gør. Legende, bare det… Eva fra en konservativ familie, Iman fra en emanciperet, liberal, frigjort familie. Pigerne leger muntert alvorlige, og handlingen her falder ind som noget naturligt. Sådan er der her ikke noget forkert eller opsigtsvækkende ved det.

Det er to dejlige piger. Eva er ikke radikaliseret, hun er bare velopdragen med en gammel kultur i sig. Iman er ikke emanciperet, hun er bare velopdragen med har en nyere kultur i sig. De klæder sig i tøj i kaukasisk stil og i amerikansk stil. De lever med hinanden om halsen og modsætningerne mellem dem jeg udenfor stående ser skyldes tænker måske også generationsforskelle, måske har Eva gamle forældre, Iman unge.

ANTROPOLOGI

Jeg ser Docs & Talks programmet som en smuk kvalitetsbåret, håndplukket buket af dokumentarer, af visuel antropologi, jeg kan godt lide udtrykket, det er fag, det er præcision, men også afgrænsende. Så jeg begynder forsigtigt at flytte det til dokumentarfilm af flere slags og jeg finder tre eksempler på denne festival: der er videnskabelig visuel antropologi som en meget vigtig del af thyfilmene, der er journalistisk visuel antropologi som hele metoden i Antones ark og der er cinematografisk visuel antropologi som en samlet digterisk undersøgelse øen i krabberne. Det er det sidste filmlæreren underviser Iman og Eva og de andre børn i, cinematografi.

CINEMATOGRAFI

For der er en filmlærer i Before Father Gets Back. Det er Mari Gulbiani både foran kameraet og bag. Det er måske hvad vignetten med den cirkelrunde beskæring betyder se still billedet Eva med kamera. Og der er atter en central scene med en diskussion om genrer og æstetik. Kan du lide dette billede, denne optagelse spørger læreren eleven, hun viser hende en lydefri total af et parti i landsbyen klassisk i dokumentarfilmens historie med forbillede i malerkunstens naturalisme, nej faktisk ikke, svarer eleven, hun foretrækker Chaplin, som de også arbejder med, foretrækker spillefilm for dokumentar. Deres Chaplin parafrase viser deres egen nye fascination af filmkunsten – cinematografisk (mimisk) drama, og så laver filmlæreren børnenes dokumentarfilm selv i et fornemt samarbejde med dem. Det er den film jeg ser, en voksen fabulerende og aldeles nutidig essayistik over en fascination af landsbymotivet, som jeg oplever i klippets parallelle skildringer af de to karakterers udvikling og landsbyens statiske liv gennem dage, uger, måneder. Så jeg ser dens mennesker, læser hvordan de to piger er bundet i dette steds egentlige historie, det er – cinematografisk (poetisk) antropologi. Og jeg får på den måde et ungdommeligt kunstværk inden i et voksent kunstværk – de to æstetiske holdninger respekterende hinanden – en spillefilm og en dokumentarfilm.

Hvad får mon forskeren og filminstruktøren i samtalen, i arrangementets eventdel ud af det de, nøjagtigt som børnene på skolens kalkede væg nu har set på Cinematekets lærred? Det er jeg virkelig spændt på…

Sanam mama dabrundeba / Before Father Gets Back / Mari Gulbiani, Georgien/Frankrig/Tyskland , 2018 / Eng. subtitles / 80 min. / 140 min. incl. debate /

SYNOPSIS

In a darkened classroom, the white cracked walls serve as a movie screen. We are in a remote mountain village of Georgia. The light from the projector breaks the darkness: the kids’ first cinematic experience is about to begin. Among them are Iman and Eva, two Muslim girls for whom the experience becomes a turning point and inspires them to take the camera and start filming their daily lives. The girls are growing up in a valley infested by radicalism, where most people are living in a constant fear of their relatives sacrificing their lives in the name of God.

The Pankisi Valley in Georgia is notorious for being the breeding ground of a large number of radicalized Islamic State foreign fighters. In ‘Before Father Gets Back’, the camera is turned towards the society they departed from, giving us a rare insight into the life of the families left behind. The film is a touching coming-of-age story about the two young friends Iman and Eve whose lives are filled with so much more than the absence of their fathers. WP Sheffield 2018, Sarajevo FF. DK premiere! (Docs & Talks, ed.)

EVENT

Meet the director of the film, Mari Gulbiani, who has worked with adolescents of the region through various projects, and Maja Greenwood, who recently finished her PhD on foreign fighters. Together they will shed light on why men and women choose to go to war on behalf of Islamic groups in the Middle East and the consequences for the families they leave behind. The debate is in English.

https://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/biograf/filmserier/serie/docs-talks-2019 (program og billetter)

LITTERATUR

John Grierson: First Principles of documentary, 1946, da.: Dokumentarismens grundprincipper, i Ib Monty og Morten Piil, red.: Se – det er Film 1, 1964.

Dušan Makavejev 13.10.1932 – 25.01.2019

Andrijana Stojkovic: I remember when in July 2007 two great film artist – Bergman and Antonioni – “left” during one night… It seemed that the (film) world will never be the same again. And it isn’t. But these last days it gotten even sadder – while the (film) world is reminding of the significance and wonderfully honest art of Jonas Mekas, on Friday we have lost maybe the most free and imaginative film director that ever lived – Dušan Makavejev.

It’s not easy to explain who Makavejev was. His exploration of film art moves through many forms and genres. He’s best known for his fiction films, which included documentary footage, doku-drama, some very unusual work with actors… He played and played and played. Never taking himself too seriously but always provoking us – the audience – and showing us the unexpected.

I travel a lot to film festivals and film markets and listen to film projects in development. Also read many synopses and director’s intentions. In today’s (film) world there is this need to use words like “unusual”, “new”, “original”. We, directors, use it a lot. What I do when I hear this adjectives in someone’s presentation I roll out all Makavejev’s films in my head and it turns out that Makavejev has already used these “unusual”, “new”, “original” approaches in his film(s) maybe 40, 50 or even 60 years ago.

In 2011 I was finishing my debut fiction film and since its script was transformed into a novel, I was invited to a book fair in Pula (Croatia) where I was to show 15 minutes of my still unfinished film. Dušan Makavejev with his wife and long-time collaborator Bojana, were the star guests of the fair. I have invited them to the screening of my film-to-become and they cordially excepted and came. I was so honored and somehow proud to have them in the audience. Especially since my film plays with fiction and documentary forms and uses them in “original” way. And then, during the screening, scenes from Makavejev’s “W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism” and “Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator” came to my mind. He’s already done it! – I thought.

Although, inactive in making films in the recent years, he was tutoring and advising other filmmakers. Joshua Oppenheimer never misses a chance to mention Makavejev’s influence on his films. For us, here in Serbia, Makavejev is the beacon, which reminds us of the way to freedom of expression and importance of artistic freedom.

Dušan Makavejev will be greatly missed.

Andrijana Stojkovic

Jonas Mekas 1922-2019

Audrius Stonys: Jonas left us. With the same lightness as he used to live. Silently and gently as if he didn’t want to disturb the image of life. We first met in 1990, when he invited us, 10 young filmmakers from Lithuania to his Film Anthology Archive in New York.

The first day he told us a fairy tale about a clear and beautiful image of Paradise. One day this image was destroyed by the devil. It broke in to zillion peaces that scattered all around the world. The filmmakers, he said, are the ones who are looking for those tiny pieces of Paradise trying to put the image back together. The Paradise is not lost, he said. And we believed him. And since then we are collecting those pieces of Paradise.

I always wondered how images of his films could be filled with incredible joy and at the same time deepest existential sadness, indescribable lightness and philosophical depth.

When I asked him that question, he said: I lost too much in my life. And added: Don’t take everything too seriously. He lost his homeland, his landscapes, faces of his loved ones, sound of Lithuanian songs, images of the first snow, that falls on his village. He didn’t want to lose nothing more in his life, not a single second, so he started to film every second of his life.

He never was making films. He was standing in the Desert counting the Seconds of his Life. When Jonas Mekas friend George Maciunas, founder and soul of Fluxus, was dying from cancer in 1978, he said: I am not afraid to die. When I die, I will have a possibility to listen to all seven lost operas of Monteverdi. I am sure, that now, when the count of seconds of life is over, Jonas is standing in front of the complete image of Paradise.

Film Masterpiece found under Daughter´s Bed!

This afternoon an important mail reached me – attached with the photo you see above. It came from Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis and film director Kristine Briede, who took the photo. It went like this :

« Dear Tue and Audrius (Stonys), Great news from Riga!

The missing director’s cut of « 235.000.000 » is found in very good condition under the bed at one of Uldis Brauns daughters flat!

Kristine took this legendary picture of Uldis Brauns widow Dainuvite, Latvian Film archive director Dace in the middle and archive techno man. (Unnamed, sorry, as the dog is, ed.).

We have been searching it for years, even last year in Riga at Uldis flat, but last week finally the mystery was resolved.

Will let you know about restoration and digitalisation – it will be done soon, as everyone is bloody enthusiastic, it will be done, we all will get that file! »

Yes, it had been looked for, the cut of Uldis Brauns film, his cut of the film which was

commissioned by Kreml to celebrate the 50 years of the revolution in 1967.

Thanks to Kristine Briede and Uldis Cekulis I had the luck to visit Uldis Brauns in 2014. We watched the film on his television set, in his bedroom, he was not happy with what he saw, it is censored, he said. Later we got the story as he (and others) remembered it :  

… we communicated with translation help of Kristine Briede, who has been visiting Brauns many times and has his confidence. We talked about ”235.000.000”, and I got the story about the film (working title USSR 1966) that was first rejected on a project basis, when Brauns and his colleagues turned up in Moscow with a very precise budget, but on the way out from the meeting, they were called back and had an ”ok, go ahead”. Which they did to make the film that was shown in Leipzig. With consequences. Brauns was called to Moscow and was told that he should cut from the moment, where the GDR high representatives left the cinema (!), no further explanation, plus some other moments including a scene from the official welcoming of de Gaulle to Moscow. Brauns was not in Leipzig, he did not know that the film would be shown there! The film exists in three versions, 70 minutes, 110 minutes and 140 minutes…

And it was on the floor… of a daughter’s flat!

For me ”235.000.000” is one of the masterpieces in world documentary history, a feature duration documentary with no words, an homage to Life and to the joyful co-existence of people from the many republics of USSR. But the Kremlin people could not see that, they only saw that their leaders were not praised enough…The reason for putting aside the film can only be found in the advanced poetic storytelling and the focus on ordinary people and their lives in grief and happiness…

(this is from a blog text I wrote after the meeting with Uldis Brauns).

Now we – and Uldis Brauns from his heaven – can look forward to enjoy the director’s cut. As can dcumentary lovers all over. It comes at the right time, where Kristine Briede and Audrius Stonys together with producers Uldis Cekulis, Arunas Matelis and Riho Västrik have made „Bridges of Time“ that travels the world with a focus on the poetic tradition in Baltic documentary cinema. In this film there are amazing clips from „235.000.000“. Now the whole film, in its right version, will be available.