Piter – My love

I am leaving Saint Petersburg after a few days with a conference and a re-visit of the places, where I have been during the last 20 years… That explains the headline of this post.

Tomorrow – I am writing this in the Arlanda airport in Stockholm waiting for the plane to Copenhagen – the Forum in Amsterdam starts. I will not attend but I will be at IDFA to watch films and write about (some of) them and hug the new director Orwa Nyrabia, hoping that all goes well for him.

Back to the Forum, where I am sure that many of the broadcasters or

decision makers, as some of them would like to be called, will ask the filmmakers for strong characters and a strong story. That’s what I found yesterday at the Russian Museum, that hosts an exceptional exhibition of “Russian expressionism”. Look at the picture and you might be able to “read” a strong story and see strong characters. The author/painter/artist is Pavel Filonov, who made this masterpiece in 1912-1913, entitled “Feast of Kings”. There is much more – as there should be in documentaries as well – than one layer in this painting, move your fingers on the photo and get the details, it is multi-layered and it has a point of view. Amazing it is, in other ways. I learnt about Filonov many years ago through Russian filmmaker Sasha Krivonos, who made films about the Russian Avantgarde and Malevich and wanted to go for Filonov, but it did not happen.

Back to yesterday and the cultural day I had in Piter. As written it started in the Russian Museum from where my unique guide and dear friend for many years, Ludmila Nazaruk, took me to Marinsky Concert Hall for the Russian premiere of the Oratorio “Über Liebe und Hass” by Gubaidulina with the one and only Valery Gergiev as conductor (do you remember the film by Sonia Herman Dolz “The Master and his Pupils”?). The Concert Hall in itself is wonderful architecture and to sit twenty meters from Gergiev watching the hands and fingers of the master moving and making the orchestra, and the choir, and the four soloists work together was simply a feast. And afterwards the world famous conductor – and fervent Putin supporter – decaimed by himself on several occasions – stood there on stage welcoming the enormous applause letting the soloists getting their very well deserved part of it.

Putin… yes, he was on the agenda, of course he was, welcoming the participants to the Cultural Forum of the city, he was born and raised in, sending greetings to the film school because of its centenary celebration… and we talked about him. I saw him looking very tired at the top meeting in Paris. I think he is, maybe he wants to quit – as he said he would in Vitaly Manski’s “Putin’s Witnesses” in 2000, where he was happy to be in a democracy so he could be a citizen after the 4 years he was elected to serve. 18 years later… Compare Manski’s early Putin footage with Oliver Stone’s tv-programmes! Now he knows how to deal with the media!

At the last part of the cultural day, we stopped at the great Erarta Museum that was introduced to me by Ludmila Nazaruk and her husband Ilya, great guides for a museum that on this Saturday night was open until 10 pm and had long queues waiting to get in. Have to admit that at this point I was close to the suffering of the famous Stendhal syndrome: too much art, too many impressions, too much to digest. Fresh air please.

Which we got at the impressive New Holland, a place for Piter’s inhabitants to go to relax, to skate at this part of the year, walk around, sit on the benches and/or go to the many diverse restaurants that are to be found in the former naval prison that is now called “the bottle” We went to a Georgian restaurant and got what I have learned to appreciate during the visits to Tbilisi: the egg-plant rolls with walnut crème inside, khatchapuri and khinkali… and wine and chacha! The New Holland restoration is financed by Roman Abramovich – yes, the owner of the football club Chelsea.

And back to the hotel, Sokos, Finnish, with a wonderful framing of the windows, with a look at the Trinity church. Hope you will have all this at the Forum: Strong stories, strong characters, many layers, good framing, BEAUTY – as in Piter, Saint Petersburg, My Love.

Saint Petersburg Film School Conference

I was at the opening of The PiterKiT International Student Film Festival in Piter – Saint Petersburg. On Wednesday. Huge celebration, three hours with music, clips from films and speeches, maaany speeches due to the celebration of 100 years of the film school, St. Petersburg Institute of Film and Television. Even if the festival carries the name “international” all words were in Russian! I was lucky to have Polish Krzysztof Kopczyński next to me, who whispered translation of some important words. Some names were understandable and I was happy to see Sokurov on stage being honoured.

Several “old boys” were on stage and Kopczyński whispered that they were addressing the audience of students saying that they should make films about “good people”!

As moderator of the conference “How to Educate Students to Meet the Cinema and TV Audience – art and/or craft” at the film school I picked up on this point of view, when the Dean of the faculty of screen arts and Head of the Producer’s Department, the sympathetic, open-minded Pavel Danilov was on stage explaining to us how the school functions as a state institution according to a film law with standards to follow, as the equivalent VGIK in Moscow. Is this what you tell your students, that they should make films about good people, I asked the Dean. Well, he said, there are too much negativity in films right now, we have to remember that cinema is an educational tool – words to that effect from the Dean, who also said that the school suffers from far too much bureaucracy. And there are too many F… words in films, he said, which made the representative from Perm, Pavel Pechenkin – who earlier spoke passionately about the media education projects they run in his city – remind us all that we are in the city of Dostojevski! “Crime and Punishment”! No polished words.

The conference took place in a small room, the interpreters were excellent, the technique functioned and the invited speakers were prepared and inspiring: Kopczynski, Pechenkin, Danilov, Ruth Olshan, Riho Västrik, Ivan Zolotukhin, Andrijana Stojkovic, Elena Khoroshkina. You can find more on the conference here:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4397/

and in a couple of months a Russian and an English version will be available on Youtube.

The speakers and the audience, primarily teachers from the school, there were from 25 to 7 listeners – the teachers had to go back to their classes – agreed that a continuation of the conference would be of great value. It lies in the hands of the organizer Viktor Skubey.

IDFA Opening Words from Kaag and Nyrabia

This text is taken from the website of the IDFA festival:

The 31st IDFA has just officially been opened by Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag in Koninklijk Theater Carré with Aboozar Amini’s film Kabul, City in the Wind.

This is the first festival under new artistic director Orwa Nyrabia, who in his opening speech referred to the inestimable importance of artistic authenticity, pluralism, and dialogue. The festival, which takes place at several venues around Amsterdam, runs until November 25. The winners of the various competitions will be announced on Wednesday, November 21.

Before the screening of the opening film, Minister Kaag gave a speech in which she spoke about the importance of filmmakers and film programmers who are able to transmit and depict the ideas, images, and emotions of others. Creative documentaries can make us reflect, see, and experience in such a way that we, as audiences, are prepared to stand up for others and build better societies with more democracy, more openness, and more humanity.

Nyrabia, who has taken over as artistic director for IDFA 2018, then talked in his opening speech about the focus devoted to inclusivity within the festival. According to Nyrabia, this is something that lies at the heart of IDFA: a deeply rooted belief in the value of artistic freedom, in pluralism, and the importance of pluralism in our everyday lives, both locally and in the wider world. A film festival is a place for dialogue, for questions, for curiosity, and for discoveries. Nyrabia expressed the view that artistic authenticity is the antidote to lies and manipulation. Nyrabia also announced a new cooperation between the Netherlands Film Fund with the IDFA Bertha Fund to stimulate international co-production between Dutch producers and filmmakers from non-Western countries…

www.idfa.nl

Aboozar Amini: Kabul, City in the Wind

It’s about creating the feeling of being there. To quote Richard Leacock. First time feature length director Afghan Aboozar Amini, who emigrated from the country when a teenager, was educated in Holland and in the UK, does that. Takes us there, to the dusty and windy and dirty Afghan capital Kabul, where he lets us meet three protagonists: a bus driver Abas and two kids, brothers, the small Benjamin and the bigger Afshin.

The brothers live up the hill of the city – with another brother Hussein, too

small for the film and a mother, who we do not see. But we hear her worried voice, when the brothers are late from a tour down to the city below. The crowded and noisy Kabul. The father, however, is present in the beginning of the film, where he takes his boys to a memorial for victims of a bomb. “My best mate was killed” on this occasion, I was injured, he says and explains that he has to leave the home – someone is after me. Later on in the film Afshin tells us that the father was in Kandahar – Taliban area – resigned from the military, came home and now he is leaving, giving Afshin, as the oldest male in the family, the task to be responsible for the family. Don´t forget to water the trees, that stand outside the house without leaves as something that could bring some hope in a war-torn country. The father leaving serves as a frame for the touching story about the brothers, who at the end of the film in a telephone conversation tell the father, what they have done so well, they held their promises but the last sentence from the tiny Benjamin goes like this: Come Home Dad!

Amini follows the brothers in wonderful scenes, where they are going down the hill to do shopping. Big brother scolds little brother for not moving quick enough – next time I am taking Hussein instead of you! – it is quite recognizable, they have a childhood like kids everywhere, they play, they talk about what they want to be when they grow up – Benjamin a policeman, of course – but their games are games that boys play in a country, where bad things can happen any time: “Yellow Kitty, stay at home, don’t go to war, you’ll die”, sings Benjamin. Both kids add to the film the sense of fear through close ups, where they face to the camera tell their dreams and thus express their feelings, as does the driver right upfront in the film.

Abas has bought a bus, rather outdated and in poor shape. He is pretty much visiting the mechanics, joking with them, smoking all kind of stuff with them promising to pay for the repair of the car but he has no money, and he leaves the bus business (did I write business!) to earn in other ways – “honesty does not work in Afghanistan”. He sees friends – it´s a location that comes back regularly – in the café, where they talk about where the last bomb fell and with how many casualties. At home you see him playing with the daughters while his wife (would have loved to have some more with her) is sewing nice things that give them an income. He feels bad, he says, that he can´t contribute. “I have wasted 30 years of my life on problems and survival”, he says, and also he, like the kids, tell his dreams… about loss and death.

Amini elegantly cuts from the kids to the adult, the rhythm is right, the mood as well, and there is space for great almost wordless scenes like the one, where Afshin plays football with a can on the way down, a sequence that the debutant feature length director with his documentary eye dares to hold for a long time. And the songs they sing, I have mentioned the kid singing, Abas sings when he is sad with lyrics like “Afghanistan my homeland, my homeland of bandits”.

We have seen films from New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen… here is one, a very good one from Kabul. About three human beings you get to know and love. Thank you!

The film was yesterday the opening film of IDFA, there are many screenings coming up. Watch out for them.

2018, Netherlands, Afghanistan, Japan, Germany, 88 mins.

Conference on Film Schools in Saint Petersburg

I have for years been visiting Saint Petersburg – for the Message2Man festival or for seminars/workshops organized by dear friends Ludmila Nazaruk and Viktor Skubey. In 2016 Skubey organized the conference “How to Reach the Audience”, which was filmed and is to be found on

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXGMu-9ScJZDOvizeYvODkUzJsAql15e7

This year a one-day conference will take place with the headline “How to Educate Students to Meet the Cinema and TV Audience. Art and/or Craft”. With 4 speakers from outside Russia and 4 from Russia. Viktor Skubey (producer, president of the filmmakers non-fiction/tv guild and teacher at the St. Petersburg Institute of film and television, were the conference takes place) asked me to moderate the conference and pick the non-Russian speakers for a set-up that is classical: 30 minutes presentation, 15 minutes of discussion.

Polish Krzysztof Kopczynski will be the first foreign speaker. I have asked him

– apart from giving information on the many Polish film schools – to bring up basic questions like “can you learn to make films?”, “can you learn to make artistic films for a bigger audience…”. Do we need film schools?

Teaching at the International Film School in Cologne, Russian born Ruth Olshan, awarded director of fiction and documentary films, will give examples from the methodology, she uses, when she prepares students for a professional life outside the school.

The same goes for producer and director Riho Västrik from the Baltic film school in Tallinn, where he from 2009 has built up the documentary department and shared his experience from the many years as an active producer and co-producer in the international documentary world.

Finally Serbian filmmaker Andrijana Stojkovic, who has made documentary and fiction films, and teaches both “documentary filmmaking” and “contemporary expression of directing” will evaluate on the big step from being at a film school to the “jungle life” outside.

From Russia Pavel Pechenkin from the renowned Flahertiana in Perm will be present to talk about his building up a media education in Perm. As well as Elena Khoroshkina, who will talk on “creative thinking and innovative business development in education in culture”. From the hosting institution, Pavel Danilov (Dean of the faculty of screen arts and Head of the producers Department of the St. Petersburg Institute of film and television) will talk about a Complex (project) approach in film education. The basis of this approach is the formation of full-fledged creative and production groups of students for diploma (diploma) film (project).

Two more names have not been announced yet, coming from Moscow film schools.

The conference is held within the framework of the international student film festival Piterkit, that is part of a huge Cultural Forum in wonderful St.Petersburg-

The photo is from the 2016 conference… The two presenters from the Danish Film Institute Liselotte Michelsen and Lisbeth Juhl Sibbesen and a technician working on getting the computer working, with the moderator telling the audience that everything will be ok in a minute, which it was, just check the youtube link above. 

The Five EFA Documentary Nominations

Don’t want to start arguing that this or that documentary film could also have been nominated – the five that made it are all very good films, congratulations. The winner will be announced December 15 at the ceremony in Sevilla. Among these – four of them have been reviewed on this site:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4093/

Bernadett Tuza-Ritter: A Woman Captured

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4094/

Talal Derki: Of Fathers and Sons

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4268/

Simon Lereng Wilmont: The Distant Barking of Dogs

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4296/

Jane Magnusson: Bergman – A Year in a Life

Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar: The Silence of Others

As festival programmer happy to say that the films of Talal Derki and Simon Lereng Wilmont were screened at DocsBarcelona . “A Woman Captured” was wanted but got a no from the distributor and the Spanish was at other festivals. Wilmont won the first prize.

At Magnificent7 in Belgrade (seven films, seven days, a huge audience) Wilmont showed his film for the always interested Serbian audience.

https://www.europeanfilmawards.eu/en_EN/nomination-current

Israel: The “Loyalty in Culture” bill

… a major threat for freedom, a major threat for cinema

Is the headline for at text I received from filmmaker Avi Mograbi, who wants readers/filmmakers outside Israel to know about a proposal put forward by the Minister of Culture in Israel. If you want to sign – like the filmakers above do – a protest, please contact Avi Mograbi  (mograbi@netvision.net.il) or French Jean-Michel Frodon (jmfrodon@gmail.com). Photo from Mograbi’s film “Between Fences”. Here is the text:

In the last twenty years, Israeli cinema has been thriving. This boom did not happen by chance. The Film Law (1999), which infused the film funds with unprecedented public funding, was instrumental to this flourishing. Similarly, numerous co-production agreements signed with various European and North American countries injected quite a lot of money into Israeli productions and helped raise the production values of Israeli films. Another important factor in this blossoming is openness. Many Israeli films have dealt openly with sensitive social and political issues from a critical perspective. The openness testifies for a healthy and strong growing cinematic culture.

But now, the government of Israel is in the process of amending the Culture and Arts Law (2002) with a “Loyalty in Culture” bill. The Minister of Culture will have the right to cut the budgets of bodies supported by the Ministry of Culture should they in turn support works that:

1) Deny the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;

2) Incite to racism, violence and terrorism;

3) Support armed struggle or a terrorist act by an enemy state or by a terrorist organization against the State of Israel;

4) Mark the Day of Independence or the day of the state’s establishment as a day of mourning;

5) Engage in an act of deprivation or physical degradation that desecrates the national flag or the national emblem.

Last year, one of the largest film funds in Israel already introduced a “loyalty clause” to its contract with producers, in which the producer must undertake that his/her film will not violate one of the five clauses specified in the amendment and assign him/her exclusive responsibility should s/he fail to comply with the agreement. This is likely how all the contracts of all of the publicly supported film funds in Israel will look once the bill is passed.

Cinema should not incite to violence, racism or terrorism. But there are already as many laws as necessary to deal with this. Why should it not be possible to openly debate substantive issues such as Israel’s definition as a “Jewish and democratic state”? This is certainly a legitimate topic for public discussion, and the prohibition of such debate is a serious violation of the freedom of expression. Twenty percent of Israel’s citizens are Palestinians for whom the day of the establishment of the state of Israel is perceived as a “Nakba” (catastrophe): this reality is part and parcel of their national identity and personal history. How can a state ban a fifth of its citizenry from dealing with their collective wounds? This is an egregious violation of the freedom of expression of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, but also of the non-Palestinian citizens of Israel, i.e. the state’s Jewish population, since this is their history also.

Back to co-productions: if an Israeli producer signs a contract that includes the loyalty clause, or is governed by the “Loyalty in Culture” bill once passed, these would be binding on the foreign producer too.

A European or North American broadcaster who participates in the production of an Israeli film that receives support from a publicly funded Israeli film fund will necessarily be conceding to the restricted freedom of expression undertaken by the Israeli producer.

Israeli cinema is at a crossroads and its future is uncertain at best and bleak at worst. We call upon the government of Israel to re-consider the said amendment. The freedom of expression exercised by Israeli filmmakers has earned them much appreciation and respect, and culminated in an impressive body of cinematic work. This ought to be a source of pride for the State of Israel.

We, filmmakers, artists, democrats, citizens, firmly assess that the Israeli government must not infringe upon this basic freedom, nor violate this basic right, which is necessary for any cultural production — as well as a basic condition for democracy.

Undersigned

Samuel Maoz,

Ari Folman,

Nadav Lapid,

Keren Yedaya,

Michal Aviad,

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz,

Osnat Trabelsi,

Guy Davidi,

Eitan Fox,

Tomer Hyman,

Barak Hyman,

Hilla Medalia,

Tom Shoval,

Naomi Lev-Ari,

Hagar Ben Asher,

David Ofek,

Joseph Cedar,

Liran Atzmor,

gal Uchovsky,

Venessa Lapa,

Sa’ar Yogev,

Limor Pinhasov,

Marek Rosenbaum,

Avi Mograbi

**

Read what le monde has written about the proposed bill: 

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/11/12/nous-appelons-le-gouvernement-israelien-a-repenser-la-proposition-de-loi-sur-la-loyaute-dans-la-culture_5382212_3232.html

DOK Leipzig

… 2018 ended. Was it good or bad? I normally watch all the films in the main international competition, the long documentaries to make my own hit list. This year it was not possible. I watched three, the winner of three awards Claudia Tosi’s “I Had a Dream”, Alina Gorvola’s “No Obvious Signs” that received the regional broadcaster MDR’s award and Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Trial” that got no prize, which was completely wrong. Excellent films, I would say.

Being at the festival was good, as it has been all the years I have been there, invited by Claas Danielsen and now Leena Pasanen. I liked the putting together of the program done by the selection committee, and I can easily see – without taking part – that the industry section is being taken care of with enthusiasm and professionalism by Brigid O’Shea.

Atmosphere… is crucial for a festival, and DOKLeipzig manages to create it.

Being a festival guest in Leipzig is being treated with warmth and generosity. At the Museum and in the cinemas by those employed and those who are in the volunteer group.

It can be exhausting for an old cat like me, but a festival is a place where you constantly run into people you have met before and who want you to see their latest work… you remember the face but not the name. Sorry for that! But my meetings and screenings with the Lithuanians Audrius Stonys, Giedre Zickyte, Mindaugas Survila, the representatives from the Lithuanian Film Centre director Rolandas Kvietkauskas and the head of promotion, information and heritage Dovilé Butnoriūté, producer Dagne Vildziunaite and director Aistė egulytė – took most of my time, pure pleasure! 999!

The festival takes place in a city that is simply nice to be in: there is a lot for the eye, Leipzig is eine Kulturstadt, the architecture, the market square, the cafés and restaurants, Thomaskirche with Bach, and even if there are many grand magasins the city keeps small specialist shops, for instance selling wine and tobacco. The latter is history for me, alas.

Some statistics from the festival’s press release of this Monday: “The 61st edition of DOK Leipzig has come to a close. The festival was a great success, with 47,155 visitors attending film screenings and events over the week. Six evenings of screenings in the Osthalle of Leipzig’s main train station, which were coordinated in conjunction with Promenaden Hauptbahnhof and the Deutsche Bahn, drew about 3,600 visitors. 

DOK Neuland, DOK Leipzig’s interactive exhibition, attracted roughly 3,000 visitors. “Once again, DOK Neuland grew a little bigger. With a space of 400 squaremeters, located in Nikolaistraße 23, the visitors were able to immerge into the 360° films and VR projects. For the very first time, the exhibition was created by a designer. I am very proud, within only four years, DOK Neuland has become an integral and important part of DOK Leipzig”, says festival director Leena Pasanen…

The photo: a mural just on the other side of the hotel we stayed in, Adina. I have no idea when it was made but the reference to the days of GDR is evident!

https://www.dok-leipzig.de/

Sergey Loznitsa: The Trial

No doubt, Sergey Loznitsa is the master of making creative archive documentaries – a part of his impressive oeuvre that also includes fiction films and documentaries like “Austerlitz” – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3841/

in the archive films he stands out with films like “Blockade” (2005), “The Event” (2015) and “Maidan” (2014).

“The Trial” is more than two hours long, you have to be fresh in head and interested in history, I was the first one afternoon at DokLeipzig and I am more and more being drawn to films that deal with history, especially Soviet & Russian.

“The Trial” is astonishing. Let me give you the annotation from the Venice festival website, where it had its premiere:

“Moscow, USSR. 1930. The Pillar Hall of the State House of the Unions. A group of top rank economists and engineers is put on trial accused of plotting a coup d’état against the Soviet government. It’s alleged that they made a secret pact with the French Prime Minister, Raymond Poincaré, aiming to destroy the Soviet power and restore capitalism. All charges are fabricated and the accused are forced to confess to the crimes they never committed. The court delivers death verdicts. Unique archive footage reconstructs one of the first show trials, masterminded by Stalin. The drama is real, but the story is fake. The film gives an unprecedented insight into the origins of a deadly regime, which made the slogan “Lie is Truth” its everyday reality…”

To give you an impression of how the film looks like, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wlNu32e01k

that is a three minutes long trailer of the film, made for IDFA where the film will have three screenings as part of the Masters section. The man speaking is Sitinin, working at a textile factory. He confesses to have been drawn into a group called “Industrial Party” – it never existed – that worked in sabotage against the Soviet government. Loznitsa lets the confessions go the whole way, confessions made through the 11-day process under excellent filming, where you see that the packed hall and its spectators again and again had to protect their eyes – from the sunshine or from the light put up for filming?

And again and again the prosecutor Andrey Vyshinsky (1883-1954) (who was also at the Nürnberg trials, Stalin’s man, who later became minister of foreign affairs and the Soviet representative at the United Nations) – again and again he brought up the question of the foreign involvement in planning an overthrow of the Soviet government.

How did this happen, said Vitaly Mansky in his talk at the festival in Leipzig. How could these intelligent men become shadows of themselves and confess something they never did? In the film you see that they all promise – if they are not shot – to remorse and serve the country loyally.

Vyshinsky is leading the Court of the Proletariat, the hall is full and applauds when death penalty is given to several of the accused – and Loznitsa brings in images from the streets where banners proclaim “death to the saboteurs”.

It’s an amazingly (film) historical documentation that Loznitsa presents in this 129 minutes long film shot in the 1930’es in the Soviet Union.

Actuality, Russia today…? Oh yes, in many ways.

Read the post below the background for the film written by the director.   

Sergey Loznitsa: The Trial/ 2

I started working on a film about Stalin’s show trials, which were held in the USSR in 1930s, a couple of years ago. My initial idea was to edit the footage from different trials in order to show how the machine of Soviet terror was established, and how the system gradually took over the minds of innocent citizens. However, soon after I began studying archive materials, I discovered the footage, which I found to be absolutely unique. I decided to make the film in such a way, as to give the spectators a chance to spend two hours in the USSR in 1930: to see and to experience the moment, when the machine of state terror, created by Stalin, was launched into action. My intention was to reconstruct the trial stage by stage. We restored and kept all the sound that was recorded in 1930. The only commentary I allowed myself to make in the entire film is right at the very end. I need this commentary in order to tell the truth, since it is impossible to learn the truth from any other episode of this documentary film. In fact, Process is a unique example of a documentary, in which one sees “24 frames of lies” per second.