… with the subtitle ”Toward a Concrete Utopia” is an exhibition that runs at Moma (Museum of Modern Art) until January 13. For one who has been visiting Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Novi Sad, Pristina, Skopje, Ljubljana… it was a fine chance to get acquainted with the history of the „large-scale urbanization, technology in everyday life, consumerism, monuments and memorialization, and the global reach of Yugoslav architecture. The exhibition includes more than 400 drawings, models, photographs, and film reels from an array of municipal archives, family-held collections, and museums across the region, and features work by important architects including Bogdan Bogdanović, Juraj Neidhardt, Svetlana Kana Radević, Edvard Ravnikar, Vjenceslav Richter, and Milica Šterić…”

The earthquake in Skopje in 1963 and the plans to rebuild the city with star architect Japanese Kenzo Tange. The amazingly beautiful library in Pristina. The hotels along the coast down to Dubrovnik. New Belgrade that I have visited so many times in connection with the festival „Magnificent7” that for 13 years – last time in 2017 – took place in the Sava Centre, opened in 1977 by Tito. Concrete, brutalism.

We had heard about the exhibition from Mila Turajlic – and her contribution is remarkable. Just entering the exhibition you meet her three screen video installation „We Build the Country – The Country Builds Us!”, with almost 4 minutes built around archive material, propaganda films, Tito at the opening of new buildings, optimism, and at the end the enthusiastic shouting „Yugoslavia” that is hearable, wherever you are in the exhibition. Later in the exhibition there is a charming 12 tv screen set-up with clips from feature films from the times of Yugoslavian Cinema – remember to see Turajlic’s impressive „Cinema Komunisto”. Turajlic is a master in dealing with archive. At the Sarajevo FF this year there was a masterclass with the director, read http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4321/

Just before the exit of the exhibition – to my positive surprise – in the section that deals with monuments for victims of the WW2 – there was on the big wall a four minute clip from the documentary masterpiece of Slovak Robert Kirchhoff, „A Hole in the Head“. Three men at a monument, see the photo, talking about the general neglect of the killing of Romas during the war. More about Kirchhoff on http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3888/

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3931?locale=en

… at the European Film Awards yesterday, „Bergman, A Year in a Life“ by Jane Magnusson is the title of the Swedish documentary that took home the prize. Which made many angry… Here is what Krakow Film Festival director Krzysztof Gierat wrote on FB:

“Dear members of the Academy, are you sure that you have watched all the nominated documentary films? How can you reward an academic and historical film about Bergman, when you have very important movies about our reality!”

Others join Gierat in saying that it is obvious that the members of the European Film Academy – how do you become a member this ignorant blogger ask – have not seen all five films and therefore put a vote on a film that carries the name of the world famous director: Bergman.

I am not a member of the Academy and I have not seen the film but from the general positive reviews, I understand that the film is based on interviews with a lot of anecdotes about the master.

Some commentators among the documentarians on FB point at the whole selection and award process as being hopeless, considering that it is not  realistic that the members have/take the time to watch five documentaries as they are also meant to watch a lot of fiction films nominated.

Anyway, les jeux sont faits, in the year that celebrates the 100 year of Ingmar Bergman’s birth, one more film added to the many that already exist about him, was awarded to be the Best European Documentary 2018.

And one more “anyway” – click below and see/listen to the great speech on Europe and European culture and cinema held by Ralph Fiennes at the ceremony in Sevilla.

https://www.europeanfilmawards.eu/en_EN/home

In the 1980’es I attended Cinéma du Réel in Paris almost every year. It was during the years, where wonderful, charismatic Suzette Glenadel was the director. And where big documentary names like Fred Wiseman and Pedro Costa were  introduced to the French audience. Not to forget that I several times saw the unique couple Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens in the cinema. Icons. He with his beautiful white hair, she with her red hair.

Joris Ivens died in 1989, Marceline this year in September. He was born in 1898, she in 1928.

Their life together forms an important part of the television documentary, „Marceline“ with the subtitle „A Woman. A Century“. There are clips from the Vietnam-films and from the China series, that they made together. Not to forget the „Une Histoire de vent“ (“A Tale of the Wind“), the superb poetic last film of the couple, far from the political.

The film, however, is first and foremost with Marceline at home in Paris, talking to visitors or at the hairdresser or in the famous clip from the Edgar Morin classic from 1961, „Chronique d’un ète“. Marceline Loridan-Ivens survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau that she was deported to as did Simone Veil, who died in 2017. A friend during her whole life. And there is a sequence with Marceline signing books for the many admirers, she had. She talks about the books, one written to her father, “But you did Not Come Back”, another, also with the holocaust as a theme, “L’Amour Après”.

France, 218, 58 mins.

You can find quotes from the film as well as other clips with Marceline Loridan-Ivens on facebook.