Two of the Competition Films at MIFF

– i.e. Moscow International Film Festival, that has a competition section for documentaries with 8 films. I have had the pleasure to get access to some of them, here are some notes on the two I have watched so far, a disappointment and a pleasant surprise:

It is no secret for readers of this site that Czech Helena Trestikova is a director, we have followed and highlighted for years for her long term observational documentaries on people living on the edge of society – “René”, “Katka”, “Marcela”, “Private Universe” to mention those who have travelled successfully all around. It is therefore understandable that the Moscow festival has picked her new film, made together with Jakub Hejna, “Doomed Beauty”, which has the actress Lida Baarová as the portrayed character, whose life and relationship to nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made her enemy of Czekoslovakia. Trestikova filmed her at the end of her life – the film is professionally made – fine archive of course but it is, sorry for this reaction, unbearable to watch the old woman crying all the time having problems with expressing herself. I can not help think that the footage should have stayed on the shelf.

The Korean film, however, “Mrs.B – A North Korean Woman”, shot over several years, brings a fascinating, unbelievable story to the screen about a woman, who is smuggled out of North Korea to China to be forced into marrying a Chinese farmer. She turns into being a smuggler and drug dealer herself, and has the intention to get her North Korean husband and her two sons out of the country to live with her in South Korea. She succeeds, but after being interrogated by the secret services from both Korea’s if I get it right, she is thought to be a spy. But basically she wants to return to China to her Chinese husband and his farmer family.

It is a difficult film that Jero Yun has made and you sense that it has not been possible to say and show everything. But it lives strongly in the scenes where you are at home(s) in China with the husband and his parents, and with the Korean family members the director has chosen to interview. They convey the confusing claustrophobic atmosphere that these poor people are in. But first of all it lives because of Mrs.B., who wants a decent life and puts a lot of energy into achieve that. And if you take all the politics connected to the three countries away, the film is maybe first of all a love story.

www.moscowfilmfestival.ru

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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