Trestikova, Bang Carlsen, Susana de Sousa Dias
Some call their films author driven, some call them auteurs, all agree they make creative documentaries, are artists in the field of filmmaking. They are very different, have their own style, some would call it a hand-writing, which is personal. They come from the East of Europe, the North of Europe and the South of Europe:
Helena Trestikova, Jon Bang Carlsen (photo) and Susana de Sousa Dias, whose portraits are now to be found on top of the front page of filmkommentaren. Here are some quotes from the many articles written about them on this site:
About Helena Trestikova at the Magnificent7 Festival 2013: …a masterclass with a very well prepared presentation with 11 scenes from her films, through her work of long-time observation. She showed us clips from ”Marcela”, ”Katka” and ”René” (Best European Documentary in 2008) and talked about the ethical questions connected to being so close to her characters, helping them ”outside” the film as well, to get on the right track in their lives. Trestikova said that she did not really consider herself as a filmmaker, more as a chronicler, who has new films coming up this year and has plans to continue to film René and maybe also the family in ”Private Universe”. Deep respect for Trestikova for a constant non-tabloid humanistic focus on people outside the celebrity spotlight.
About Jon Bang Carlsen, who had a retrospective in Buchareat early 2013: With a reference to his films shot in Ireland, ”It’s Now or Never” and ”How to Invent Reality” the Romanian organizers presents Bang Carlsen as ”the inventor of Reality”. Here is a clip from the text: This year One World Romania organizes a retrospective dedicated to the Danish documentary filmmaker Jon Bang Carlsen… a legendary director who reinvented documentary film. In his work, Jon Bang Carlsen has always explored the land between fact and fiction. From 1977 onward, mise-en-scene with real characters plays a very important part in his productions, and this method is detailed in his meta-film, How to Invent Reality (1996). His documentaries are often visually and symbolically powerful staged portraits of marginal figures and milieus that involve compelling stories… His new film “Just the Right Amount of Violence” will be shown at DOKLeipzig and idfa 2013.
About ”48” by Susana de Sousa Dias: … with a sense for image and sound, and the putting the two together. To convey with Still Life. Faces of a Dictatorship (2005) the traumatic past of Portugal under Salazar. The film is 77 mins. long without any narration, built on archive from the 48 years between 1926 and till 1974, when the carnation revolution happened. The archive includes news, war footage from the colonies, propaganda films and photos of political prisoners. The musical score for this film, by António de Sousa Dias, is exceptional, first you wonder why but then you see what it does to the images, making a reflective distance and opens for a new both intellectual and emotional interpretation…
