Dok.Incubator: Play the Trailers

I could not be there – Sunday in Malmø at the Nordisk Panorama, where 8 projects developed at the Dok.Incubator were presented. For that reason I was happy to receive an email from the organisers saying “play the trailers” – the 8 films made by international talents right before release. I played the trailers.

I suppose the presentation in Malmø was as in the previous years, professional in an enthusiastic atmosphere: A verbal presentation, a trailer plus one or two scenes from the upcoming film. Especially the latter was for me important for getting an idea of the quality. Where a trailer is a trailer, in most cases a piece of information about the content.

Nevertheless, let me – from the trailer watching – mention three of the films that I definitely MUST see – to review on this site and/or consider to suggest for the festivals, where I am part of the programming team. Take a look and see if you agree:

“Of Friends and Gods” by Reetta Huhtanen. “Searching Eva” by Pia Hellenthal. “The Men’s Room” (PHOTO) by Petter Sommer

http://dokincubator.net/preview-2018/

M2M – Message to Man Fest Awards

The festival in St. Petersburg is over and awards were announced yesterday after a grandiose (experienced through photos on Facebook) closing evening that had Viktor Kossakovsky’s “Aquarela” on the program, of course, this is his home town!

Grand Prix and the Student Jury prize went to Hungarian “A Woman Captured” by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter, it must be one of (if not THE) most winning documentaries of the last year. If you want to read what I wrote on this site about the film:

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

There were 3 awards for the Russian documentary “White Mama” by Evgenia Ostanina and Zosya Rodkevich – Best full length documentary, TV Kultura and Fipresci. Here is the synopsis of the film: “Alina and her family have been put under severe strain. The woman, who has six black-skinned children born out of her relationship with an Ethiopian man, decides to adopt a white boy with mental health problems. Will the characters have enough good will and sufficient child-raising skills to tame – and love – the little tyrant? A film for those who have nerves of steel as it takes viewers to the very centre of the family hell.”

The festival has not yet published the whole list of winners, check it on the website or on FB.

https://message2man.com

Janus Metz og Sine Plambech: Hjertelandet

Stedet introduceres i smukt fotografi, Lars Skree og Henrik Bohn Ipsen er fotograferne. Der er myndighed over disse billeder. Et jysk landskab, som er meget, meget mere end et vindblæst hjørne af Danmark. Det er en egn og en befolkning med en særegen livsstil og en stor værdighed og en bevaret integritet, bekræfter fotografiet for mit blik, som er dannet tilbage i romantikken. Og kvinden, det til en begyndelse handler om, introduceres tilsvarende smukt og sikkert. Hun er egentlig fremmed her, men er så integreret, som det har været mulig at blive her, når man ser anderledes ud og er fra den anden side af Jorden…

Sådan skrev jeg i 2008, da jeg havde set de første afsnit af dette store filmværk. Og sådan ser jeg også det afsnit som nu har premiere på onsdag den 19. september, ti år senere, Hjertelandet. For netop sådan begynder denne nye dokumentarfilm, den anvender så smukt og berettiget de første to dele til i en ny sikker klipning at fortælle dette vigtige tilbageblik, præcis som jeg selv forinden havde været nødt til at se filmene fra dengang og finde frem, hvad jeg skrev om dem. Og det fortsætter jeg så med her.

For her, fra dokumentarværkets begyndelse i del 1, Fra Thailand til Thy begynder fortællingen, og det er som det skal være, jeg er tryg. Og jeg skal bestemt nok blive ved den fortælling fra første begyndelse, det mærkede jeg dengang og det mærker jeg nu. For der er jo i den fortælling en ægte historie, en kærlighedshistorie, som fortsætter i del 2, Fra Thy til Thailand og den historie finder nu sin foreløbige afslutning i en del 3, som er den aktuelle film Hjertelandet.

FØLELSERNES FORVANDLING

Kvinden skal formidle et ægteskab. Det har hun gjort før, fundet kvinder hjemme i sin landsby og placeret dem hos mænd her. De holder sammen, og vi lærer to af dem at kende. Hun har nu igen disse tre måneder til det, et turistvisums afmålte tid. Og personen, en søsterdatter, som det nu gælder, ankommer og kastes befippet ud i det. Kontaktannonce, svar, udvælgelse, mødet med manden. Han hedder Kjeld. Han er rar og genert. Hjælperne tager af sted, hun står fortabt i entrédøren til Kjelds hus, den første virkelig gribende scene. Hvordan skal det gå? Med denne unge kvinde, Kae hedder hun.

Det er godt nok tv-dokumentar, men det ser ikke ud som journalistik. Det er en elementær fortælling, som jeg vil kende fortsættelsen af og den foreløbige slutning på, bliver den lykkelig? Dog der er en slags pligtstof, noget jeg skal forstå, og fortællingen foregår ligesom inde i en socialantropologisk undersøgelse. Men det er et studium af et særligt og varmt miljø og i et storslået landskab. En anden mand valgte sin kæreste på samme måde, og nøgternt fortæller han, det var “ikke kærlighed, men jeg syntes, hun var pæn…” ”Pæn” siger han! Så præcist kan det siges på vores sprog. Det folkelige dansk, som dokumentaren i et særligt sprogplot også skildrer. Egnens dialekt er intakt, og de fremmede kvinder taler den på deres egen tydelige måde, som en understregning af dens egenart.

Hen mod første films slutning forstod jeg, at det på det formelle plan er et etnografisk projekt, et case study om dette udsøgt særligt arrangerede ægteskab. Men fortællingen inden i dette stykke videnskabelige feltarbejde hentes omhyggeligt frem af klipperen Marion Tour, og den vokser i intensitet i overensstemt takt med følelsernes forvandling hos de to. Det bliver bare smukkere og smukkere. Og selvfølgelig rives jeg med… Titlen på dokumentarfilmen er da også inde i mit hoved Historien om da Kae fik Kjeld…

MAN KAN IKKE VIDE ALT

Den histories foreløbige højdepunkt indtræffer i åbningen af film 2 Fra Thy til Thailand. Det sker så filmisk beslutsomt, at afsnittet må finde plads blandt filmhistoriens mange berømte bryllupper, en plads blandt de mærkværdigste. Men smukt er det i sin stiliserede distance og præcise forkortning. Her forener dette afsnits klipper, Marion Tour umærkeligt de to films parallelle ambitioner, socialantropologens og filminstruktørens, den rationelle forklaring og den sentimentale bevægelse. Filminstruktøren Janus Metz har som jeg ved nu hele vejen igennem det tredelte projekt arbejdet sammen med etnografen Sine Plambech, og det er interessant at mærke graden af sammensmeltning af videnskabelig og filmisk metode og evne til forståelse.

Brylluppet afløstes af adskillelse, visumperioden var løbet ud, Kae måtte rejse. Og jeg fornemmede, at dette ikke ville gå godt. Det fortælles af Kjeld, som i en verbumbøjning i et elegant indklip røbede et flash-forward, hvor han vurderede de få dage efter brylluppet som de rigeste i sit liv. Det vil altså snart gå galt, tænkte jeg. Dengang. Scenerne står der stadig, længe, det er mest scenerne, der fortæller, også det, ofte er de uden dialog, tonen er overalt stilfærdig, de indre monologer ligeså.

Men da de alle sammen så med hver deres alvorlige opgave tager ud til Kae i kvindernes fjerne landsby, tager det videnskabelige projekt over. Vi ankommer til landet og til den lille by. Vi er nu på feltarbejde og deltager i en række arrangerede og instruerede samvær, som emne for emne afdækker dette samfunds økonomiske og moralske situation. Og nu kan jeg godt glemme det romantisk dannede blik og det der med kærligheden. Her er det faktualiteterne, det gælder. Lars Skrees fotografiske linje fortsætter imidlertid ubrudt, Marion Tour beretter fortsat i hele scener, og da den nødvendige journalistik må underordnes disse greb (med korte reportage-ekskurser, en til storbyen og barerne og kulturen der og en med en pinagtig forhandling med en barnefader og eksmand, et dramahøjdepunkt..) bliver jeg med voksende uro (hvad med Kae og Kjeld i alle disse sidehistorier?) underlagt klipperytmens ubønhørlige skrue af ro, dens hvilen i scenen til sekundet før den dør, vemodet bag de sjældne smil. (Hvad tænkte mon Kjeld på under denne bryllupsrejse?)

Filmen forklarer en mængde forhold, de omhyggeligt skildrede scener viser endnu mere, og neddæmpetheden og rytmens tøven fortæller mig, at filmene godt ved, at vi ikke får alt at vide. Man kan nemlig ikke vide alt. Hvad siges der også i disse kvinders korte sætninger med lange tavsheder, hvad foregik der egentlig bag Kaes bedrøvede blik? Kjeld var ved at finde ud af det.

FOTOSESSION OG FILMOPTAGELSE

Lad mig fra nu del 3, Hjertelandet som umærkeligt tager fortællingen op (dog, der er gået ti år, det ses og mærkes på de medvirkende så smukt) nævne blot én scene ud af de mange, måske dem alle, som er lykkedes, i den grad lykkedes. For mig blot pludselig som ung mand at være til stede blandt unge mennesker i en hændelse med den unge kvinde (en slægtning til Kae) som vil fotograferes, fordi hun vil bruge det til en kontaktannonce som den erfarne slægtning fra Thy på besøg hos familien i landsbyen i Thailand skal lave der i lokalavisen i den danske by selv om hun har fået at vide, at hun er for ung, mindst et år for ung til at få opholdstilladelse der. Hun kan ikke vente, hun stiger bagpå en af vennernes scooter og de kører til nogle andre venner som har kamera og atelier og setup udstyr og hun forstår at posere på denne helt særlige internatonalt unge måde selvfølgelig fuldstændig bevidst om at hun både er model i en fotosession og skuespiller i en film og alt er iscenesat og autentisk dokumentar og Marion Tour klipper scenen præcist så veloplagt som den unge kvinde og så langsomt hurtigt, at det tager længere tid end scenen at læse, hvad jeg her har prøver at skrive om min erindring af den.

Reportagen og iscenesættelsen og interviewene er således så diskret og præcist og elegant fotograferet og optagelserne så indforstået og følsomt klippet, at min opmærksomhed helt fjernes fra det tekniske. Der sker nemlig det vidunderlige at jeg umærkeligt kommer til stede i samværet som skildres, faktisk, ved kameraet vel, er på besøg hos disse familier, til stede i filmens verden, ikke observerende, men seende og forstående alt. Ikke som antropolog, distanceret, men som gæst mere og mere, uden at rationalisere, men glad og fortvivlet. Aldrig vred, men ofte bekymret.

MENNESKER I GANG MED AT LAVE FILM

Det store, mere og mere insisterende og dermed gribende filmværk er ikke med dagens premierefilm Hjertelandet afsluttet. Det vil hvad enten det filmes og produceres som film eller ej fortsætte. For godt nok er det som jeg oplever iscenesatte og konstruerede dokumentarfilm, men de er så indgroede i den virkelige virkelighed foran kameraerne, disse menneskers, familiers, samfunds liv, at det er umuligt at skille ad. Det viser de allerede mange foromtaler og kommentarer også så tydeligt. Meget tydeligt. Det er altså autentisk dokumentarfilm jeg ser og hører og fornemmer. En skildring af en gruppe mennesker i gang med at lave film, i intenst arbejde med at skildre deres liv, tilværelse, handlinger og tanker om dette i en konsekvent usynlig iscenesættelse. Det er det bedste jeg kan sige om Janus Metz og Sine Plambechs ustandseligt farverigt tankevækkende dokumentarfilmpræstation. Og jeg kan ikke opleve de tre film som andet end ét værk, og det må det fortsætte med at være, fortsættelse efter fortsættelse på den ene eller anden eller anden eller begge måder, sammen eller hver for sig. Metz og Plambech kunne måske, men kan nok ikke, lægge det fra sig nu. Men da de har sørget for, at fortællingen Hjertelandet / Heartbound egentlig ikke er deres alene – ja, så vil den under alle omstændigheder fortsætte… 

IKONISK STILL

Christian Vium: The cast together, plakatfoto til Metz’ og Plambechs Hjertelandet, 2018. Filmens familie går med livet foran tur i klitten.

Gunnar Fischer, foto: Slutscenen i Bergmans Det syvende segl, 1956. Ridderen , hans væbner og hele hans husstand, altså filmfamilien danser med døden i bakkerne. 

LINKS

http://www.magichourfilms.dk/heartbound (Production company, English synopsis Heartbound / Hjertelandet, 2018)

https://filmcentralen.dk/grundskolen/film/fra-thy-til-thailand (Streaming af Fra Thy til Thailand, 2008)

http://biblioteket.filmstriben.dk/film/9000000070/fra-thailand-til-thy (Streaming af Fra Thailand til Thy, 2007)

DOK Leipzig Enthusiasm

To meet the audience with a positive attitude is of course the best festival invitation you can make. I thought about it this morning, when receiving a newsletter from Leipzig: They have a good press office in DOK Leipzig that in tone is able to convey what the programmers want to achieve:

We finally have the first film titles for our DOK Leipzig edition 2018. Our Special

Programmes are complete! From Werner Herzog to Ruth Beckermann, from animated films to personal essays. The around 150 films in our nine Special Programmes, shown alongside the Official Selection, look to the past and to the future in equal measure. In keeping with this year’s festival motto Demand the Impossible!, they each revolve around films which seek to bring about change or depict processes of transformation. We are very happy to welcome numerous filmmakers from the Special Programmes in Leipzig in person. Check out below what they have to offer!

And below is what you can find on

https://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/festival/festival-news

With all respect – already mentioned on this site – towards the tributes to Herzog and Beckermann, and with upcoming enthusiastic words on the impressive Lithuanian retrtospective, I want to draw your attention to the “Retrospective: 68. An Open Score” that is absolutely superbly curated (hate that word) by the head of the Leipzig Selection Committee Ralph Eue who says: “ 

“With our programme, we would like to show that ‘around 1968’ a great number of documentary and animated films were made which serve as seismographs. They pointed to radical changes in our social, cultural and intellectual histories, and, last but not least, our media history too, they traced these changes and even provoked them as well at times.” Instead of focusing on the hotbeds of revolt – Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris – DOK Leipzig would like to explore the outlying areas of “’68” with this Retrospective: What was happening out in the sticks? How did the echoes of unrest resonate out on the periphery?”

The retrospective – 7 programs – includes films by, just to mention the well known names: Jan Némec, Reijo Nikkilä, Zelimir Zilnik, Chantal Akerman, Gitta Nickel, Pasolini, Klaus Wildenhahn, Chris Marker, Santiago Alvaréz (Photo:LBJ) … history and FILM history, bravo!

https://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/festival/sonderreihen/retrospektive/retrospektive-filme

 

 

Kusturica & Kossakovsky

”El Pepe, a Supreme Life” is a new documentary by Emir Kusturica about the former Uruguayen president José “Pepe” Mujica, loved by his nation, being President 2010-2015 after having spent 13 years in captivity. (Photo of the two in Venice).

In an interview with Cineuropa, in connection with the Venice festival, Kusturica says “Many years ago, I was in France, and someone told me there was a president who drove a tractor. I saw the pictures and said: “This is my next movie.” He is probably the only one in the whole world who is not corrupt. He gives his salary away to lower the poverty line. In the film, he says that when you are chosen by the majority, you have to live like the majority – not the elite. He accepts all that’s needed to improve society…

Throughout his life, “Pepe” was a former guerrilla: he was kidnapping people, robbing banks, fighting fascists, and then he studied in prison, ultimately becoming the Minister of Agriculture…

Also Victor Kossakovsky was at the festival with his new film “Aquarela” and talked to Cineuropa, a quote, the question was why water:

… If you are a fiction film director, you search for an actor and hope to find one with a great range of faces who can portray many emotions – who can be evil one moment and good in the next. For example, Meryl Streep – she can be everything. I thought: “If I’m a documentary filmmaker, what would be a good subject, showing this same variety of emotions?” And I realised that water is perfect – the sea can be peaceful one moment and kill you in the next.  

http://cineuropa.org/en/index/

Wonderful Losers Win in South Korea

At the third edition of a mountain film festival in South Korea, Lithuanian Arunas Matelis received the award for the best adventure and exploration film. Here are some words about the festival, followed by the clever jury motivation for the award: 

The festival: As the only mountain film festival in Korea, the Ulju Mountain Film Festival aims to collect and introduce today’s important mountain films from around the world, as a platform to investigate the trends and flow of current mountain culture. 

Another goal is to portray people as we live along with nature. There will be trials and conquests, cravings and adventures, challenges and failures – and also successes, conflict and coexistence. Amid it all, we will think about the never ending, nay (?), soaring life.

Jury statement: We are so used to focusing only on the winners. But there are also those who stand behind winners like shadows and help them shine. And there are many more losers than there are winners. So the way we see them becomes more important. The depth and level of skill demonstrated in this film that deals with the aspirations and reality of human beings is truly surprising and outstanding. Taking a dry, composed, observation point of view strikes a stark contrast against a setting bursting with various incidents and noises to complete a fantastic story. Whether it is an athlete in the spotlight or a gregario who stands in their shadow supporting them, they all have aspirations and live in time where despair and success coexist. We do not know if their life is a blessing or a curse but this film is truly a blessing for us. Because we are able to live and breathe with them. We wish to share this blessing with those who do their role in supporting winners and the ‘Wonderful Losers’ who receive this award. Written by jury member Lee Jae-Kyoo.

http://umff.kr/eng/addon/10000001/page.asp?page_num=4113

Janus Metz og Sine Plambech: Heartbound

International release: 10th of September 2018 – TO-DAY – at the Toronto International Film Festival / Domestic release: 20th of September 2018.

Janus Metz og Sine Plambech’s films about this tale are Love on Delivery, 2007, Ticket to Paradise, 2008 and Heartbound, 2018.

ARRANGED MARRIAGES THAIS & DANES

The films take us to a windblown corner of North Jutland, where 575 Thai women live with their Danish husbands. Fifteen years ago there was only Sommai, a former sex worker from Pattaya. Opening with Sommai, the two films describe a network of strong, resolute Thai women who, through their marriages in Denmark, provide for themselves and an entire village in Thailand. Underlying Janus Metz’ documentaries, “Love on Delivery” and “Ticket to Paradise” is a focus on globalisation, poverty, prostitution and the universal need for security and love. Allan Berg Nielsen’s reflects on these two works, selected for IDFA 2008.

The location is introduced in beautiful photography by cinematographers Lars Skree and Henrik Bohn Ipsen. There is authority to these shots. A Jutlandic landscape that’s much, much more than a windswept corner of the country. A region and a people with a singular way of life, great dignity and their integrity intact. The photography conforms to my vision of the place that was shaped sometime back in the Romantic Age. Sommai is introduced with similar beauty and sureness. At first, it’s all about her. Once a stranger to these parts, she is now so integrated as anyone can be who looks different and comes from the other side of the globe. Then the story begins. All is well and good. I feel in good hands, from the beginning of the first documentary, Love on Delivery. I know I’ll stick with it. I sense that right away, because there’s a real story here, a love story that continues and concludes in part two, “Ticket to Paradise.”

LOVE ON DELIVERY (2007)

Sommai has been asked to arrange a marriage. She has done so before, found women in her home village and partnered them with men in Denmark. These women stick together, and we get to know two of them. As usual, Sommai has three months to get the job done, the duration of a tourist visa. The person we now turn our attention to, her sister’s daughter, arrives and is uneasily plunged right into things: classified ad, replies, choosing, meeting the man. Kjeld is his name, a nice, shy guy. Her helpers leave. Despondent, she stands in the doorway of the man’s house, the first truly gripping scene. What will become of her, this young woman, Kae?

This is a TV documentary, sure, but it looks nothing like reporting. It’s an elementary tale, and I want to know how it continues and ends, for now. Happily? (Meanwhile, there is a certain amount of required material to go through. The story appears to be set inside a social anthropological study.)

The film is a study of a unique, friendly community in a sweeping landscape. Another man found his girlfriend in the same way. As he soberly recounts, it “wasn’t love, but I thought she was … nice!” That’s one way to put it in our language, a colloquial Danish

that the documentary also describes in a special linguistic sub-plot. The region’s dialect is intact and the Thai women speak it in their own distinct way, underscoring their peculiarity.

Toward the end of the first film, I realise that, formally, this is an ethnographic project, a case study of carefully arranged marriages. But inside this piece of scientific fieldwork, Marion Tuor, the editor, delicately teases out a story that grows in intensity as the couple’s feelings change. It simply keeps getting more beautiful. And of course, I’m riveted, the documentary’s title nudging my mind, ‘The Story of How Kae Met Kjeld’

TICKET TO PARADISE (2008)

A temporary climax to the story occurs at the opening of the second film, “Ticket to Paradise”. The segment is handled with such filmic resolve that it surely has to rank among the many splendid weddings in film history, and among the oddest. It’s certainly lovely, in its stylised detachment and precise truncation. Here, editor Marion Tuor, seamlessly fuses the two films’ parallel ambitions, the social anthropologist’s and the filmmaker’s, rational explanation and sentimental movement. Throughout this dual film project, director Janus Metz collaborated with an ethnographer, Sine Plambech, and it’s interesting to note the degree to which scientific and cinematic methods and understanding merge.

The wedding is followed by separation. Kae’s visa has expired and she has to leave the country. I sense that things will not turn out well. Kjeld reveals as much, by a verbal conjugation, in an elegant flash-forward, describing the first few days after the wedding as the richest of his life. So, I think, things are bound to go wrong soon. The scenes linger, carrying the narrative bulk, often without dialogue. The overall tone is subdued, as are the internal monologues.

Then everyone, with his or her own serious task, seeks out Kae in the women’s remote village, and the scientific project takes over. We arrive in Thailand, and in the village. Now doing fieldwork, we sit in on a series of arranged and directed interactions that, subject by subject, uncover the village’s economic and moral situation. Now, I’ll do well to forget my romantically shaped outlook and, with it, love. This is all about the facts.

All the while, Skree’s cinematographic line continues unbroken, Tour’s editing still tells the story in whole scenes and – because the necessary journalism is subordinated to these moves (with brief reporting excursions: one to the city, to the bars and the culture there, and one of painful negotiations with a child father and ex-husband, a dramatic highlight) – I grow increasingly concerned (what happens to Kae and Kjeld during all these side stores?), subjected as I am to the editing’s unrelentingly calm turning, its resting in a scene until a moment before the scene dies, the wistfulness behind rare smiles (what’s Kjeld thinking during all this, his honeymoon?).

The two films explain a slew of issues. The carefully rendered scenes are even more revealing and the understatement and hesitant rhythm tell me that the films understand that we won’t get to know everything. We can’t. What do these women’s short sentences and long silences also say? What really goes on behind Kae’s wistful gaze? Kjeld is finding out. (Former printed in FILM # 64, DFI, 2008)

HEARTBOUND (2018)

Synopsis. ” ‘Heartbound’ is a unique longitudinal study of a network of Thai/Danish marriages shot over ten years. It is an exploration of globalization over time set on the intimate stage of marriage and family.

The film follows four couples and their children and documents how their lives develop as a consequence of the economic and emotional bonds that tie them together. It is an ensemble piece and an epic family drama set in two outskirt communities at either side of the global divide – yet intimately connected through marriage migration.

Through its dynamic time span the film traces how the women’s migration and their efforts to help their families affect their children many years down the line. Simultaneously it looks at the ways in which men from a remote region in Northern Denmark try to adopt the great big world to their safe and well-known quarters.

‘Heartbound’ is a film about our shared human needs for love, dignity and money – even if our cultural interpretation of these needs may differ. It’s a film about people who try to change their lives when choices are few, and a film that explores the consequences of these life choices not only for the men and the women who make them, but also for the children who have to live on with them.

In this way, ‘Heartbound’ ties together migration and integration over a unique time perspective and discusses one of the greatest movements and challenges of our time: The increasing flow across borders of people, money and ideas in our global sharing of the present.” (Synopsis, Magic Hour Films’ site)

International release: September 2018 at the Toronto International Film Festival / Domestic release: 20th of September / Genre: Documentary feature / Directed by Janus Metz and Sine Plambech / Production Company: Magic Hour Films and Metz Film / Coproducers: Upfront Films, BALDR Film, Vilda Bomben Film and Film i Väst / Production Countries: Denmark, Thailand, The Netherlands and Sweden. 

Baltic Sea Forum – Public Pitching

24 projects were presented in Riga at the big hall of the Ministry of Agriculture (!) Saturday and Sunday. To a panel of 9 women and 5 men representing television or sales companies. Mikael Opstrup and I moderated the sessions that were planned efficiently and with warmth by Zanda Dudina-Spoge and her team from the National Film Centre of Latvia.

Time will show what will come out of it, but good advice, constructive criticism, contacts, “I am interested, let’s talk more” were expressed to the pitching teams that had been trained

some days in advance by editor Phil Jandaly, Aleksandar Govedarica from Syndicado, Head of Estonian Television channel 1 Marje Töemäe, Polish producer Anna Wydra and Romanian Alexander Nanau.

It is impossible to mention all 24 projects – you can read all about them on the website, link below. But let me highlight some of them.

… like 18C from Ukraine, presented by the producer Illia Gladshtein about a group of “devoted pipefitters (who) rush from home to home to tame hot fountains and… to sing”. Gladsthein (the director, not present, is Nadia Parfan) had a great trailer that cleverly charmed the panel in its pointing out that “outdated social structures do not fit into the modern economy but continue to exist”. The title refers to the temperature agreed to be the right one in houses in Ukraine.

… like “New Imperium” presented by well known Russian producer Vlad Ketkovich and director Anna Shishova-Bogolubova, who want to tell a story about a group of youngsters, who by a secret agent were trapped into being called extremists, were imprisoned and tortured “to confess to crimes they did not commit”. The trailer showed them sitting in one of these cages that we know from Russian court, but the main focus is on the parents of two of the imprisoned, who have totally lost their trust in a state that they believed in totally. Ketkovich started his pitch saying “Russia is famous” and indeed it is, also in terms of projects being presented in Riga this year.

… as said Estonian producer Riho Västrik to me: It is a place for Russian stories, well not totally, I answered, but a majority deals with the huge country. He was there with Russian Ksenia Okhapkina, who showed the most beautifully composed images in a trailer that took us to the industrial town of Apatity for a filmic essay, “The Immortal”, a dark story from a mining city “on the brink of an ecological disaster”. The most cinematic project in Riga this year, a scary concrete and philosophical reflection on patriotism.

…the winner, however, in terms of positive feedback from the panel was “The Other Side of the River” by the two brave young women, German Antonia Kilian, director – and camera student at the Konrad Wolf film school in Potsdam – and the creative producer Guevara Namer, who Mikael Opstrup and I met in Damascus as part of the team that built up the DOX BOX festival together with Orwa Nyrabia and Diana el Jeiroudi. They are now all in Berlin. Kilian and Namer presented with passion the story about young Hala, who is brought up in a family that supports ISIS but wants to have freedom, goes to join the Kurdish Women’s Police Force, receives military and ideological training, goes back to the hometown on the other side of the river, wants to “liberate” her smaller sisters from her father’s wish to arrange marriage, is taken away from the Police force and – as the filmmakers say – wants to find a way to handle her life. The last news, however, is that she is going to marry a man, who supports Assad! What a story…

I wrote that some were winners, however I hope that all projects took something from the workshop and the pitching, several were at an early stage and will come back to other pitching events, when the film ideas are more developed.

The panel… the women were strong. Natalia Arshavskaya from Current Time TV – she was there with Kenan Aliuyev – proved to be an excellent commentator, precise in her warm analysis of the projects; the same goes for the two sales agents, Gitte Hansen from First Hand Films in Switzerland and Aleksandra Derewienko from Cat&Docs in France, both of them have been at the BalticSeaDocs before and love it; for Mandy Chang from BBC’s Storyville it was the first time and she was a pleasure to have with her professionalism, always constructive in her comments as were another experienced commissioning editor Jutta Krug from WRD. No bad words about the men – it was a scoop for the event to have NHK’s Yoshihiko Ichiya, a professional, who also brings humour to the table!

Photo of Guevara Namer and Antonia Kilian by Agnese Zeltiņa

http://balticseadocs.lv/industry/

Ingmar Bergman 100 år /10

TINA RØMER: BERGMAN OG MUSIKKEN

Radioprogram i tre dele som genudsendtes 1. september på DR P2. Kan fortsat høres som podcast på

https://www.dr.dk/radio/p2/bergman-og-musikken/bergman-og-musikken-1

Her kommer derfor og stadigvæk med anbefaling af dette fornemme radioværk flere af mine notater fra min lytten til udsendelserne:

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Det er radioseriens anden del. Peter Schepelern mener at solocellostykkerne af Johan Sebastian Bach er menneskehedens stemme. Tina Rømer er på færgen. Hun tænker på Bergmans røde jeep som har været der et utal af gange. Jeg burde citere hendes små synopser i afsnittenes begyndelse, så enkle og naturlige. Skrive dem ned. Det når jeg ikke, men husker dem som en glad forventning. Bløndal Bengtsson spiller Bach. Hun fortæller at Som i et spejl fra 1960 er indspillet på Fårö, det var sådan han kom til det sted. Indspillede et kammerspil som var det kammermusik, i et sommerhus bygget til filmen, i det indre af et skibsvrag på stranden og så med celloens søgende, tragiske stemme, menneskelig.

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Persona fra 1965 er også indspillet på øen. Musikken helt forrygende udbryder Tina Rømer glad. Den asketiske Schepelern giver hende ret. Det er en violinkoncert af Bach. Liv Ullmann siger blot ét eneste ord i hele filmen: ”ingenting”. Bibi Andersson siger det hele. De to i radioprammet snakker uanspændt og klogt om det, det er god radio en søndag formiddag med kølig sommerregn som i dag jeg hører serien alle tre timer som podcast. Tina Rømer er nu helt tæt på Fårö, fortæller hun. Jeg kan altså godt lide denne ramme af luft og hav og himmel og disse dufte… ”musikken var for Bergman adgang til en anden virkelighed”. Hun nærmer sig Bergman.

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I 1961 lavede Bergman en meget rost opsætning af Igor Stravinskijs opera Lastens vej på Operan i Stockholm. De snakker vidende og klogt om dette arbejde, jeg lytter ekstra, for oplysningerne er nye for mig. Jeg hører musikken, har vanskeligt ved at forbinde Stravinskij med Bergman, har så godt af at høre Schepelern og Rømer tale indforstået med hinanden om sammenhængen mellem Salmesymfonien af Stravinskij og slutningen på Bachs H-moll messe som Bergman forklarer et vigtigt sted, så godt at blive erindret om stedet i Laterna Magica. Det havde jeg helt glemt. Det er tid at læse bogen igen. Tina Rømer er nu omsider i land på Fårö, står ved sin lejede cykel, og taler til mig, hun prøver naturligvis med det samme cykelklokken, så jeg kan høre den i min radio.

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Hvisken og råb er fra 1971. Bergman bruger farverne endnu en gang, ikke automatisk, men bevidst. Den særligt røde og den helt hvide og så musikken, igen sarabanden fra 5. cellosuite. Jeg får at vide at Pablo Cassals som 90 år gammel øvede sig på cellosuiterne hver dag, ”fordi jeg gør fremskridt”.

Jeg forstår som Tina Rømer skildrer det i voksende omfang denne sarabandesats’ betydning i Bergmans samlede værk, tænker på det mens Schepelern genfortæller filmens afgørende afsnit om dødens vanskelighed så smukt og jeg ser scenerne for mig. En bestemt scene minder ham om Michelangelos Pieta i Peterskirken, mor og barn og hos Bergman dødens fortroliggørelse i Kari Sylwans og Harriet Andersons uforglemmelige fremstilling. Jeg lytter til billeddannende radiokunst…

FOTOS

Som i et spejl, Harriet Andersson og Max von Sydow (foto: Sven Nykvist)  

Hvisken og råb, Harriet Andersson og Kari Sylwan (foto: Sven Nykvist) 

Nordic Documentary Films

Diversity is the word to characterize this selection of Nordic documentaries. Veterans and young talents, classical documentary language as well as so-called hybrid storytelling including fiction and animation in the documentary narrative.

The selection shows that the documentary environment in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark is based on tradition; there is an audience, there is good funding through film institutions. To put it a bit solemn and maybe elitist: In the Nordic countries documentaries are considered as a tool for debate, information and an artistic expression in democratic societies.

Ah, fuck off, legendary Jörn Donner would say to these lines, a true provocateur, who 85 year old makes a follow-up to his Finland-film from 1971, “Fuck Off 2” is the title, where he sends a sometimes sarcastic love declaration to his country, a journey he calls this personal essay, with songs written by another legendary Finn, the composer M.A. Numminen.

Where the visual side of Donner’s film is straight forward documentary mixed with reportage, the Icelandic “Innsaei” (“The Power of Intuition”) is a personal essay including animation, a film full of original visual solutions, that demonstrates how rich the documentary language is today. No limits from the side of Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir and Kristin Ólafsdóttir.

The Norwegian “69 Minutes of 86 Days” by Egil Håskjold Larsen combines emotion and information in its journey with a 3 year old child’s from Greece to Uppsala in Sweden. The girl is wonderful in her way of dealing with her refugee situation and the classical approach to documentary filmmaking works here: Don’t ask your characters to do anything, don’t put any questions, be there, be with them, observe…

As it is beautiful to follow the mayor in the small Swedish Ydre, when he goes with a small gift to couples, who have added a new citizen to the depopulated community. With a baby. The documentary, full of humour, gives the information and interpretation of the universal problems of Ydre, but has also a side where myths about the existence of Giants and trolls are visually brought to life in the beautiful nature of the small gem in Sweden. Malla Grapengiesser, Alexander Rynéus and Per Bifrost have made the film together, Grapengiesser also being the producer and the two males doing the camera work. Title: Giants and the Morning After.

Finally the Danish contribution, “Bad Circumstances” by Max Kestner, experienced director, like all film directors in this series a true auteur with his own “handwriting”, takes to the detective genre to carry the story together with an essayistic touch, still with an observational camera style and a fascinating main character, the amateur historian, who wants to find out, what happened to the Danish adventurers and scientists, who died in Greenland in the beginning of the 20th century.

https://message2man.com/en/