MandagsDokumentar Efterår 2010

We have written about it since the start of filmkommentaren.dk and we will continue to do so as this excellent  initiative is exportable: You find a documentary and short film addict - and connaisseur -  with a wide network and a talent for programming, and you let him or her invite films AND filmmakers to meet the audienceonce a week in a nice and cosy meeting place. Films are shown and films and subjects are being discussed. This is what Danish Ebbe Preisler has done for years. He has now opened his autumn season for Copenhageners to som and enjoy every monday. I switch to Danish to introduce a bit of the huge film offer:

Der kan bruges mange rosende gloser om det arbejde Ebbe Preisler har gjort for formidlingen af kort- og dokumentarfilm med sin MandagsDokumentar. Han er opdateret og viser ”Armadillo” med instruktøren Janus Metz og fotografen Lars Skree til stede, han har ”Bifrost” af Freddy Tornberg på programmet (begge film anmeldt her) og han har bedt Miki Mistrati komme for at vise sin tv-gyser om børnearbejde, ”Chokoladens mørke bagside”. Men for denne blogger er det ligeså herligt at se at Preisler vil gøre sit publikum opmærksom på den guldgrube af film, der ligger i Det danske Filminstituts arkiv. En meget fortjent hyldest gives således til produktionsselskabet Filmforsyningen, hvis leder Svend Johansen (foto) viser sin børneklassiker ”Aborresøen” (1978) ligesom der vil være lejlighed til at se mesterværket ”Eventyret om den vidunderlige musik” (1991) af Anders Sørensen og Liller Møllers vidunderlige tegnefilm ”Mellem to stole” (1993). Nogle uger senere har Preisler sammensat et program, han kalder ”Fattig og Rig”, hvor to af vore største dokumentarister er til stede. Lars Engels viser ”Orkanens Øje” (1991) og Jon Bang Carlsen ”En Rig Mand” (1979). Det hele foregår i PH cafeen på Halmtorvet i København.

www.mandagsdokumentar.dk 

On Being There with Richard Leacock

Richard Leacock, 90 years old in 2011, a master of cinema vérité, always energetic and inspirational... finally gets a filmic homage. It happens now at the Telluride Film Festival and it takes place in association with the first public screening of Monica Flaherty’s 1980 sound version of the 1925 film, Moana by Robert Flaherty (Leacock worked with Flaherty in 1946 on Louisiana Story). Wow, film history!

Jane Weiner is the director of the film ”On Being There” on Leacock. Here is an edited clip from the press release that came in this morning:

In the summer of 1972, Jane Weiner started filming with a prototype camera of the experimental Super 8 Sync-Sound-System that Leacock was then developing with Jon Rosenfeld and Al Mecklenberg at M.I.T. Shooting over 4 decades on a variety of ever-changing film and video technologies, Weiner doesn’t hide the image artifacts, film flutter and glitches, which were part and parcel of experimenting in small-format. She follows Leacock to his boyhood home in the Canary Islands – the location of his first oeuvre, Canary Island Bananas; she recounts his relationship with his mentor, Flaherty, and details his involvement and passion for a particular documentary aesthetic developed by Leacock, Pennebaker, and Robert Drew in the early 60’es. The title refers to the ”feel of the place” that Leacock tries to capture in the non-interventional, observational shooting style of cinema vérité... However, in On Being There with Richard Leacock, Weiner often breaks her mentor’s own rule of ”never asking questions”. Constructed as conversation that covers 70 years of his involvement in filmmaking history, the documentary lets Leacock tell his own story in his own words with few comments and/or commentary from his former protégée.

The feature-length film that is being screened in Telluride to honor Leacock, a work-in-progress it is, will be out in 2011 for theatrical and dvd release – and there will be retrospectives and other festival tributes to the master. Can’t wait to see the film! Photo: Leacock, 2009.

http://www.richardleacock.com/32943/About-RichardLeacock-com

Jacob Thuesen om filmmusik

Jeg er stadigvæk høj efter to timer søndag formiddag med Jacob Thuesen, der i en tøvende beslutsom og præcis samtale med Michael Bertelsen simpelthen lukkede op for posen af viden, erfaring og researchresultater fra sit arbejde med filmmusik, siden han som 12 årig sad foran Carltons tæppe sammen med sin onkel og lyttede til ouverturen til Rumrejsen år 2001.

De begyndte med at tale om Pasolinis Mattæusevangeliet. Og hvad vidste jeg om musikken i den film? Intet, viste det sig. Jeg havde troet, at det naturligvis var Bachs Mattæusevangeliet. Men nej, det er H-moll messen. Musikken bruges, hver gang Jesus underviser disciplene. De spillede musikken (det er jo meningen med det program), og rigtigt, jeg huskede med det Pasolinis billeder, de dukkede op. De tre hellige kongers møde med det nyfødte barn underlægges med Odetta som synger Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child. Det samme skete med mig. Og Thuesen fortalte, at denne Odetta sang, bruger han selv i Under New York i en scene med tætte optagelser af trætte ansigter i en kupe i Subway. Forklarede stilfærdigt, hvad han ville med det, og netop sådan huskede jeg med det samme scenen. Jeg erindrede ikke den røde hærs kor i Pasolinis film, men jo, de er med. Og da stykket blev spillet, måtte jeg nikke for mig selv. Det store ved musikken på dette niveau, forklarede Thuesen, er at sangerne ligesom ikke ved, hvad de synger, de bærer blot den store følelse. Er de bevidste om musikkens storhed, dur det ikke. Og han fortsatte med dette religiøse aspekt: Jesus helbreder en spedalsk, mens Kenyas Nationalteaters kor synger kyrie fra en afrikansk messe, Missa Lucca.

Pasolini har bare valgt i alverdens musik. Suverænt. Og Jacob Thuesen har lært af det. Han fortalte videre om sit arbejde med en scene i Jørgen Leths Haiti uden titel.. nej, hør det radioprogram selv:

http://www.dr.dk/drnetradio/index.dr?evt=p&tab=pr&k=p2

Klik på Michael Bertelsen: Helt Klassisk og derefter på udsendelsen 29.08.2010 (Fejlen der har været med linket er nu rettet..)

Hør selv: det var værd at vente på..

OFF Odense Film Festival/1

The 25th edition of the festival in Odense, Denmark takes place 23-28. August. There are many reasons to congratulate the municipality of Odense for keeping alive this film festival for all these years in spite of constant battles to raise the necessary funding. The 2010  festival, as it is being presented on its site, see address below (programme both in Danish and English), is communicated with a lot of fresh energy and proudness, now with a focus on the short film as it looks today, the one for the big screen and the one for the internet via YouTube etc. I switch to Danish language in this posting as well as in the one below, which is a tour down memory lane for this blogger.

Programmet er omfattende med den internationale konkurrence i centrum. Det er animation og fiktion og dokumentar, og det er film fra filmskoler verden over og fra lande som Finland, Canada og Frankrig, som stadig dyrker den trængte filmgenre professionelt. Programmerne er delt ind i temaer, desværre med besynderlige overskrifter som ”inderlig eksistens”, ”ejendommelig eksistens” og ”intet er som det syner” m.fl. Sælger det billetter til et ungt publikum?

Måske er det lige meget for der plejer at være fuldt hus i Odense til festivalen, der nu overalt i sin branding slår på at være OFF mainstream, et valg som også slår igennem i valget af nogle fremragende internationale dokumentarer. Publikum kan se ”RIP – A Remix Manifesto”, Ulrich Seidl’s controversial ”Tierische Liebe”  og ”Crumb” af Terry Zwigoff. Og så er der et pitching arrangement for kortfilm, YouTube konkurrence, masse af aktiviteter for børn og unge osv osv. Bravo!... Photo from the short film thriller "Kitchen Sink" by Alison MacLean, Australia, one of the many eternal hits (from 1989) from the retrospective festival section.

OFF Odense Film Festival/2

En lille tur ned ad Memory Lane: Klokken er fem, sagde festivaldirektøren, så er det tid til en kold øl. Der havde vi 4-5 udvælgere siddet fra morgenstunden i et af kommunens mødelokaler og set bunker af kortfilm tilsendt fra hele verden. Direktøren hed Jørgen Roos, dansk kort- og dokumentarfilms største navn (1922-98). Fra 1985 og 12 år frem var han leder af festivalen, og havde folk som journalist Mogens Damgaard, filmkonsulent Ulrich Breuning og undertegnede til at hjælpe sig med at sammensætte et program, der havde et højt kunstnerisk niveau og samtidig var overraskende, fantasifuldt og eventyrligt. For det skulle det være for en festival, der foregik – og foregår – i H.C. Andersens by, den forfatter som samme Jørgen Roos nåede at lave flere film om. (”Mit livs eventyr” og ”Andersen hos fotografen” er med i en antologi, som er tilgængelig via filmstriben.dk). Vi så film i en uge og hvert år udspilledes det samme lille drama efter et par dage. Jørgen Roos sukkede og erklærede, at der nok ikke blev en festival i år for der var ikke film nok af høj kvalitet! Det var hans ene holdning, der ofte var præget af at vi i timevis kunne rende ind i en stime af amerikanske universitetsfilm, som var mere eller mindre håbløst umodne jokes. Den anden holdning var filminstruktørens generøse indstilling til sin métier – jamen, tænk at han/hun har arbejdet i et år eller mere på sin film, og den er måske ikke helt vellykket men der er vilje og ambition og talent... der kom et par film fra Uruguay og Ecuador med på den konto! Den frie film kæmpede Jørgen Roos for, den film der ikke skulle igennem rækker af tv-redaktører eller filmkonsulenter, den film der var personlig og modig. Og helst på film, 35 eller 16mm, tænk, sagde han engang med henvisning til videoens fremmarch, tænk på den dag, hvor vi ikke længere kan se ridser på lærredet, hvor det hele er sterilt! Jeg tror, han ville have hadet YouTube for det lille billede og (ofte) manglen på æstetisk overvejelse, men han ville have glædet sig over at her lever den frie film i bedste velgående.

Werner Herzog films for Purchase

Herzog is – mostly due to this blog’s Allan Berg – a true admirer of the work of the German director – one of the most noticed and praised names of this site. If you write his name in the ”search”, you get 33 hits. From being an arthouse feature film director known for extravagance and his work with legendary Klaus Kinski, he is now (also) a hit among documentary lovers, even if he would not accept to be a documentarian as his many joyful ”attacks” on the direct cinema people have shown.

Anyhow, it is now not difficult to get hold of his films, dvd boxes have been published, download is possible and festivals are making retrospectives of his work. AND the director is still enormously productive. Recently the upcoming Toronto IFF announced the world premiere of a new Herzogian piece – ”Cave of forgotten Dreams”, the title of a film that offers an ”exclusive access to the Chauvet caves of southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting. He (Herzog, ed.) puts 3-D technology to a profound use, taking us back in time over 30,000 years.”

Indiepixfilms is the one that now offers a Werner Herzog Collection for purchase. Mostly of his feature films but also including a neo-classic documentary as ”Little Dieter Needs to Fly”. (dvd - Region 1).

www.indiepixfilms.com

PeÅ Holmquist: Mitt Gaza

This is a special announcement for our Danish and Swedish readers concerning the broadcast of the film by PeÅ Holmquist, ”My Gaza” August 8 at SVT2 22.05. In other words, this coming sunday, with Danish subtitles for Danish viewers. For our English speaking readers who attend international festivals the name of Holmquist will be familiar for a range of politically engaged humanistic documentaries from all over the world, several made together with Suzanne Khardalian, see their website, address below.

Text from the site of Swedish television, SVT: Mitt Gaza är en personlig, politisk och poetisk dokumentärfilm av PeÅ Holmquist. Under 31 år har PeÅ Holmquist filmat i Gaza och skildrat människors öden i denna ofta grymma värld. Nu gör han en egen personlig film av det Gaza han mött, men låter oss också i nyinspelningar efter detta senaste krig i september 2008 träffa några av de palestinier vi mött i de tidigare filmerna. Här finns 62-årige Mustafa, som vid den nya filminspelningen i mars 2009 allvarligt sjuk i prostatacancer. Här finns hans dotter, 39-åriga Raida, med sin lille son som just överlevt ett tre veckors intensivt krig. Första gången PeÅ Holmquist filmade henne var hon tolv år och såg positivt på framtiden, i dag är hon bekymrad om sin fars sjukdom och om framtiden för sin son i ett osäkert och otryggt Gaza.

PeÅ Holmquist har tidigare jort ett 50-tal filmer tillsammans med sin fru Suzanne Khardalian, många av dem prisbelönade och visade över hela världen. Filmer som kan nämnas är Gaza Ghetto, Tillbaka till Ararat, Hennes Armeniske Prins, Unge Freud i Gaza och Bullshit. Foto: PeÅ Holmquist: Gaza efter kriget.

http://svt.se/2.118884/1.1802539/gaza_ar_en_vanlig_och_strapatsrik_plats

http://www.peaholmquist.com/intro.php

Message2Man/3

... but there has been time to visit the Hermitage museum and fight one’s way to study the great collection of Rembrandt works (oh, documentarians, go and study how he caught the magical moments when he did his portraits)  and the two ”Madonna with Child” by Leonardo da Vinci – as well as an exhibition of Picasso set up due to the French-Russian cultural year.

I write ”fight one’s way” as the Hermitage – apart from being one of the most wonderful art museums in the world – also is a battlefield where tourist groups from all over, led by sometimes very loud-speaking militant guides, who want their group to have the best views. And the best place to take photographs. Why is it not possible to see, just see, without gazing through a camera?

Film-wise the visit made me want to re-view Alexander Sokurov`s ”Russian Ark” (photo), a one-shot feature length film interpreting the museum magnificently, made to celebrate the 300 years of St. Petersburg. I remember the head-shaking commissioning editors when the film was pitched at the idfa forum. Not possible, and why a one shot, they said, led by BBC's Nick Fraser - they were very much wrong the rating hunting tv executives. The film is available through many dvd outlets.

www.m2m.iffc.ru

Message2Man/1

Mikhail Litvyakov is the director of the festival in beautiful St. Petersburg. He has passed the seven decades of age but there was no sign of lack of energy when he was on stage to welcome guests and audience in the Dom Kino, to the 20th edition of a festival that includes an international competition, a national competition plus several side programmes. He and the president of the festival, film director Alexey Uchitel, and the rest of us, were pleasantly suffering the heat of St Petersburg when the opening ceremony took place ending with an honorary prize of the festival given to Agnès Varda, who was there to introduce her fine last film, ”Les Plages d’Agnès”, a film with many layers, young in spirit, and also a fine piece of film history presenting clips from her own films such as ”Cléo from 5 to 7” and ”Le bonheur” with constant references to the love of her life, late Jacques Demy.

I am here to chair the international jury for a programme that includes documentaries, animation and short fiction – and to hold a small project development seminar with Ludmila Nazaruk from DoxPro, a continuation of the November 2009 meeting that has been reported on this site.

www.miradox.ru

www.m2m.iffc.ru

Karlovy Vary Awards

What a wonderful and well deserved piece of news. The Best Documentary film (category: under 30 mins.) at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was yesterday given to the Lithuanian documentary ”The River” by Lithuanian filmmaking duo Julija Gruodienė and Rimantas Gruodis. Described at the IDF (International Dcoumentary Institute) site in the following way: An introduction  to life in a remote village. Via eloquent, visually striking footage and the villagers’ humorous commentary, the directors acquaint us with a local way of life whose rhythm is set by a river. Prize 5000$.

I have just been to Lithuania to view the annual production 2009-2010. Still quality but a very remarkable effect from the financial crisis of the country. So much more great the Gruodiene and Gruodis win, a veteran couple in Lithuanian documentary, I can say, having met Gruodis several times during the Baltic Film & TV Festival on Bornholm 1990-2000. I remember strong works like the perestroika masterpiece ”Ona and Mykolas”, ”The Pain”, ”The Bathhouse” and ”The Territory”.

The Best long documentary was won by Mikael Wiström, Alberto Herskovits for ”Familia”.

http://www.documentary.lt/Default.aspx?Element=I_Manager2&TopicID=70&Lang=EN&IMAction=ViewArticles

http://www.dokweb.net/cs/

www.kviff.com

Storydoc/3

There were three inspirational lectures at the workshop in Corfu.

Louise Rosen, American (from her cv) ”media executive in the international television and film business, project development, production and distribution”, talked precisely and inviting about meeting the audience and urged the filmmakers to use promotion tools like YouTube, vimeo, facebook, twitter etc.

Commissioning editor Iikka Vehkalahti, YLE Finland, was asked to give the audience ”five reasons to be optimistic about the future of the documentary”. He started his speech by doing the opposite naming five obstructions: the decline of the relationship between tv and documentaries, the lack of financing (”the golden age of copro is over”), the cinematic quality is worse than ever, the monocultural perspective reigns, as does the predictability of most films. This total deconstruction was then followed by the positive mention of the many current platforms where you can launch your film, from festivals (which he compared to art exhibitions) to webdoc and vod. Vehkalahti, who always has a very special, unconventional take on his listeners, and has many times been credited on this site for his pioneer work with ”Steps for the Future”, ended by showing two exceptional clips, one from a rough cut of a film from Chechnya, and one from the new Finnish documentary hit, ”Steam of Life” (review will follow).

”Who can bear to feel himself forgotten” is a legendary line from ”Night Mail” the documentary classic from 1936, a film that is famous for using poetry – written by W.H. Auden. Peter Symes, filmmaker and editor and teacher, had his lecture focus on this subject, ”Poetry in Documentaries”, himself being the one, who used it in several films, where he worked with the poet Tony Harrison. Symes stated that you can ”say the unsayable” through poetry, which was exactly what he had been doing with Harrison in the films ”Mimmo Perella” (funeral rituals in southern Italy) and ”Hiroshima”. When he was at BBC, Symes set up ”Poets’ News”, which was great to watch clips from, as was (great) the session with Symes on films where ”the poet will come to work as a commentator”.

Photo: "The Box", great Greek documentary, by Eva Stefani, one of the tutors at Storydoc in Corfu.

www.storydoc.gr

Maziar Bahari on idfa tv

On this site we have written about Mazia Bahari several times. For readers who have not seen his films here is a unique chance to get to know his work. Idfa, the world's biggest documentary festival has published this press release: The filmmaker and journalist Maziar Bahari was arrested on 21 June 2009, nine days after the presidential election in Iran. IDFA TV has compiled a special programme celebrating Maziar Bahari’s work and his vision of Iranian society. Life in Iran through the eyes of Maziar Bahari includes five documentaries by Bahari about Iran, the master class he presented at IDFA 2007, and the interview he gave following his release from prison.
 
Bahari (1967, Teheran) has made more than ten documentaries, both inside and outside Iran. Life in Iran through the eyes of Maziar Bahari includes five of his documentaries that focus on various facets of Iranian society.  Art of Demolition (1998) focuses on a group of artists in Teheran who transform a building scheduled for demolition into an art gallery. One member of that group, Iranian painter Khosrow Hassanzadeh, is also the main character in Paint! No Matter What (1999). This is a self-portrait by the artist, in which he discusses his art with customers in his greengrocery shop and with members of his family.

Football, Iranian Style (2001), currently being screened as part of the IDFA TV Soccer Docs programme, reveals a cross-section of Iranian society through the stories of football fans. In And Along Came a Spider (2002, realised partly with support from the Jan Vrijman Fund) Bahari interviews an

Edinburgh DocWeek

It takes place at the same time as the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute that ”run annual programmes which develop filmmakers and producers such as Bridging the Gap (previously written about on this site) and Interdoc (feature documentary)”. (The many activities of the Institute can be read about on the site below.) And it does indeed have all the elements of a well developed international documentary event: pitching training, pitching to a panel of financiers, rough cut screenings, masterclasses, debates with the filmmakers whose films have been taken for screening at the festival etc.

Among those are films that have been praised on this site, first of all the beautiful personal essay of local Amy Hardie, ”The Edge of Dreaming” (photo). It was already screened at idfa Amsterdam 2009 and at DOCSBarcelona, where also Mika Ronkainen’s ”Freetime Machos” about a rugby team in Oulu, Finland met its audiences. Bravo also for programming Nicolas Philibert film about 40 year old ”Nénette”, the orangutang in the Zoo in Paris. All three have been noticed on this site whereas I hope to get to watch ”Two in the Wave”, a film for film lovers of la Nouvelle Vague, about the difficult love-hate relationship between Truffaut and Godard. And ”Out of the Ashes” about a cricket team from Afghanistan and its making it to a World Cup tournament. Again it is nice to observe documentaries to be part of a bigger film festival although the programme  selection seen as a whole does not communicate a clear artistic profile but more a wish to reach a wide audience. Respect for that, of course.

www.docscene.org

www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Museo Nazionale del Cinema Torino

More than a museum. Indeed it is. It can only be described as magnificent the National Film Museum of Torino. I was there for hours and want to go back as soon as possible. To visit the fine collection of Lanterna Magica, take a look at Edison and Lumiere or the light and shadow shows in the ”Archaeology of Cinema” section, or stroll around and look at the posters of all the wonderful films one remembers from a long life in the dark. Or lie down in comfortable fauteuils and watch the Gianni Amelio (”l’America”) compilations of clips from Italian films: Olmi, Fellini, Bertolucci, Visconti, Amelio himself etc. New exhibitions all the time, the cinema theatre Massimo next door. What a feast! Here is a text clip from the website of the museum that was placed at the mole in 2000 and is run by the foundation that carries the name of the woman, who initiated the museum, Maria Adriana Prolo:

”The museum is located inside the Mole Antonelliana, a bizarre and fascinating monument which is the symbol of the City of Torino. And the various areas inside the Mole Antonelliana were the starting point for the Swiss set designer François Confino who, with talent and imagination, multiplied the museum’s itineraries. He created a spectacular presentation that offers visitors continuous and unexpected visual and acoustic stimuli, just like when we watch a film that involves and moves us.” (Poster - an exhibition of photos of the two mega-stars open this month).

http://www.museonazionaledelcinema.org/museo.php

Vurdering:

News from Paris: Tarkovsky for children

In France kids have Wednesdays off from school. For those who have the possibility, it is a day to discover the multiple activities Paris has to offer children. Le centre Pompidou, Beaubourg to Parisians, holds every Wednesday of the school year the program L’Écran des enfants, an initiation to cinema for children under 13.

I went with my daughter Asta, 8 ½, to see Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Steamroller and the Violin (1960, 43 min.). This is Tarkovsky’s first longer short film and it was his graduating film from the film school in Moscow. The film tells the story of a friendship between a little boy, Sasha, who plays the violin and the worker Sergei and his (incredibly beautiful) red steamroller. The influence of Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (Le ballon rouge 1956) is very clear. The images of the film are sheer beauty, the mirrors, the reflections; the dreams are already there. Asta could not follow the story, I think because she was just taken by the visual impression. Here’s a more detailed description:

 http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2009/cteq/the-steamroller-and-the-violin/#2

A DVD is available from Facets Video (region 1) and bits can of course be seen on Youtube, but get it for your children’s film program if you have one, it has to be viewed on the big screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRaqcxk1YtM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SNPhp6mT6I

What we particularly appreciate about Beaubourg’s program is that the curators are there themselves to present the days film. They make a small introduction and offer to read aloud the subtitles on non-French films, should the children wish so. And they also leave time for comments and questions afterwards. Asta’s comment was “the film was very good”!

Link to Centre Pompidou

Paris has many other cinematographic offers for children, I can get back to that another time, and nothing beats the event of taking an actual trip to a movie theatre and sit down in the dark. It is important and a pleasure to be able to let your child grow up with a larger view of cinematography, than what is offered by mainstream cinema today.

I quote Chris Marker, from an interview Tue Steen Müller has linked to in an earlier comment, but can easily be repeated and counts for kids as well: “Godard nailed it once and for all: at the cinema, you raise your eyes to the screen; in front of the television, you lower them. Then there is the role of the shutter. Out of the two hours you spend in a movie theater, you spend one of them in the dark. It's this nocturnal portion that stays with us, that fixes our memory of a film in a different way than the same film seen on television or on a monitor” (Chris Marker, interview Libération March 5. 2003 translated in Film Comment:

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/5-6-2003/markerint.htm).

The film made me plunge in to Tarkovsky’s own writing, though he hardly mentions The Steamroller and the Violin. I highly recommend his reflections on the art of cinema:

Andrei Tarkovski: Le temps scellé (Petite bibliothèque des Cahiers du Cinéma 2004). English edition: Sculpting in Time (University of Texas Press 1989).

carlthdreyer.dk

Sorry, your English language blogger goes national again… but he has to tell you that from today a website on the most esteemed Danish film director ever, Carl Th. Dreyer (1889-1968), is available. Go to the site address and check it out, and you will find an enormous amount of material to study further, collected and edited by clever people at the Danish Film Museum, one of the sections of DFI, the Danish Film Institute: articles, portraits, scripts, working method, workplaces – and clips and shorts and films about the director who made 14 features and 8 shorts. The English version of the site is not yet totally completed – as it is written: “we hope to see you again in a few days for the entire experience”.

Nevertheless, visit the site as it is now. I am sure that you will agree with me – educated a librarian in the last century – that this is an amazing piece of film historical work for film buffs all over. Words, documentation, articles, clips and full films. Use it!

Waiting for Godard

Our Paris correspondent has previously (search Godard) dedicated a posting to the one and only JLG, Jean-Luc Godard, whose ”Film Socialisme” was screened in Cannes. I found this clip from an overall festival article by Jason Solomons, The Observer, May 23:

The real gem wasn't in competition but in the more experimental (and this year, dull) Un Certain Regard selection and it came from the grand master of the filmic game, Jean-Luc Godard, or JLG as he's now known, like some kind of perfume (a whiff of bitterness, with top notes of genius).

Helped with production by fashionista Agnes B and using words ("textos") credited to J Derrida, W Benjamin, S Beckett and W Shakespeare, among others, 79-year-old JLG's avowed final work Film Socialisme was the freshest, coolest thing I saw, bursting with a new wave of anger and vitality, retooling once again the visual language of cinema.

Shot in astounding, crisp HD, it's a fragmented collage of ideas and thoughts, beautifully pure graphics, scratched Dolby sounds and twisted images. He even plays with the convention of subtitles, merely placing English words along the bottom of the frame: "smile dismiss universe" or "destructive constructive". At one point, a girl at a petrol station refuses "to talk to anyone who uses the verb to be". Then a llama appears behind her. You want story? Forget it, but there's plenty of meaning here as Godard swipes at European history, Palestine, Jews, bankers and the futility of language and the strictures of time. As the final credits simply say: NO COMMENT – and the old man didn't show up for his Cannes press conference.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/may/23/cannes-godard-frears-loach

Lithuania: Classical Documentaries to be Digitized

Good news from one the most interesting countries for documentary cinema, Lithuania, whose post-independence documentaries have been and are awarded everywhere. Names like Sharunas Bartas, Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis, Rimantas Gruodis, Janina Lapinskaite and Giedre Beinoriute (photo from her 2005 film, Vulkanovka) do all owe their cinemaric skills to a grand tradition that now also soon may be shared by their fellow countrymen and film buffs elsewhere. Read the following:  

At the beginning of May, the Lithuanian Central State Archive started implementing a 30-month project called Lithuanian Documentaries on the Internet. The Archive has received support of approx. EUR 2.8 million from the EU. Digitization and online accessibility will help to preserve some 1000 titles that are part of Lithuanian documentary heritage.

The Lithuanian documentary heritage is not equally accessible to all Lithuanian people nor to the wider EU and world communities because few people can physically visit the Archive and use its documents. The project is oriented toward the creation, expansion and promotion of Lithuanian digital Internet content to users. During the project the Archive expects to digitize and transfer to the Internet 1000 titles of Lithuanian documentaries, created in the period 1919-1960. After the implementation of this project Lithuanian documentaries and information about them will be easily accessible. Every user would have the possibility to search digitized films and their metadata, to watch these films or to order digital film copies. Digitised Lithuanian national film heritage will be protected and preserved for current and future generations and knowledge of it will be available via the Internet for all possible users worldwide.

http://www.lfc.lt/en/

http://www.dokweb.net/cs/

http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/news.php?area=News&pag=121

Danish Access to Docs and Shorts

1000 Danish documentaries and shorts will be made available for the Danish audience. The films, all from 1975-1990, will be digitalised and made accessible through the free streaming service, ”Filmstriben”, that includes all new docs and shorts supported by the Danish Film Institute (DFI). This good news stems from the fact that the Ministry of Cultural Affairs has granted the DFI an extra grant of 6mio. Dkr. (around €800.000) to bring the 16mm, 35mm  and videos to the digital format, and from there to ”Filmstriben” that today through the public libraries is available for 80% of the population. Via their library card it is possible – for free – to get to the films. At home at the computer.

This initiative is no less than an excellent piece of film politics that must be ”exportable”. I worked at the National Film Board of Denmark in the period 1975-1990 (from whose collection all the films come) and are more than happy that films of high artistic quality are brought back from the dark and forgotten, as well as precious documents of Danish history and culture.

The classical combination of film and public libraries to convey moving images to the broad audience will again prove its importance. And again thanks to the technique that has been the most important element in the history of documentaries. Both when it comes to production but even more when the films have to reach the audience. Robert Flaherty said – almost a century ago – that we, the film people, have not won before it is quite as easy to get hold of a film as it is to get a book. We are getting there... 

Photo: Jørgen Roos (1922-1998), THE Danish documentarian

San Sebastian Celebrates the Documentary

The prestigious film festival in San Sebastian (September 17-25), one of the so-called A-festivals, has announced a special celebration of what on this site often has been called the new Golden Age of the documentary film genre, in the text below characterised as “a new heterodoxy of the genre, rich in multifarious expressions, alternative paths and unexpected solutions”. A good text from the site of the festival:

With the title of .doc – New paths of non-fiction, San Sebastian Festival will, at its 58th edition, dedicate a wide-reaching retrospective to contemporary non-fiction cinema. This cycle will include some of the most representative examples of international non-fiction cinema.

If any single phenomenon has captured attention on the world movie scene in recent years, it has to be today’s interest in documentary cinema, a practice which, save extremely rare exceptions, had followed a path largely falling by the way of the histories of cinema, international festivals and the memory of film buffs. But contemporary documentary cinema is so incredibly varied and versatile that even the classic notion of the term has to be questioned. Requirements traditionally associated to the documentary (like objectivity, a serious tone and lack of expressiveness) are no longer considered essential and can even be deliberately avoided.

MART

... stands for ”museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di trento e rovereto”. I went there to see the museum in the small and nice provincial town of Rovereto which is on the road between Bolzano and Verona. The museum offered the viewer a wondertful exhibition titled ”From Stage to Painting” depicting ”the magic of the theatre in 19th-century painting” with great works of David, Delacroix, Füseli, Aubrey Beardsley, Gustave Moreau and the painter I always consider as a real  documentarian long before that word was invented: Edgar Degas. There were some of his ballerinas and other paintings that demonstrated his eye for situations and moments, and his ability to make a personal interpretation of what he saw.

The magic world of theatre as seen by painters: Shakespeare and his works as the most wanted subject – Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear.

The magic world of theatre as seen by filmmakers? Many could be mentioned but one stands out: ”Les Enfants du Paradis” by Marcel Carné. Therefore the choice of poster photo for this posting. Starring Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur and Pierre Renoir.

www.mart.trento.it

Henri Cartier-Bresson

The legendary French photographer is always considered as the documentarian within the art of photography. Now, according to an article written by Richard Lacayo in Time (May 3) a focus is put on his short but remarkable surrealist period. Here is a quote from the article that can be read in its full length on the site of Time. From this article there is a link that will lead you to being able to watch a slate of his works:

With 300 or so photographs, "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century," a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, is, as Ed Sullivan used to say, a really big show. No doubt, nothing less would do to represent the vast scope of an artist Richard Avedon called, with just the slightest exaggeration, "the Tolstoy of photography."

But six years after his death at the magnificent age of 95, Cartier-Bresson proves that you can be one of the most famous names in photography and still be one of its greatest enigmas. For a few years in the 1930s, he was a fiercely dedicated avant-gardist, making pictures that were powerfully strange…  In 1931 Cartier-Bresson made a crucial realization: through photography, he could achieve the goals of the Surrealists he so much admired. The MoMA show, which runs through June 28 and then travels to Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta, is a career-spanning retrospective. But while Cartier-Bresson's Surrealist phase would be just a brief moment in that career, it was a crucial one.

Photo: The master himself by an anonymous photographer.

For reasons of copyright (we can not afford to pay Magnum Photo) no Cartier-Bresson-photo will be posted, please go to the site of Time:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1983814,00.html

Juris Podnieks: Hello do You Hear Us?

No film-visit to Riga without the thinking back to Juris Podnieks and his contribution to world cinema. With an introduction by Lev Gushin, who took part in the scriptwriting of the five hour breathtaking perestroika documentary made for British television, the first of the five parts of ”Hello do You Hear Us?” were shown and proved to be as fascinating fresh and emotionally strong as when I saw it 20 years ago. I had forgotten how brilliantly the presence of composer Aleksei Rybnikov and his music links the parts of a film that bears the title Red Hot and includes chapters like the Armenian earthquake, the Jaroslavl factory, the Chernobyl aftermath and the 
Soviet Spring. The film is in itself a composition, rythmical and breaking the rules of classical dramaturgy. And can only again stress the director's position as one of the most important political filmmakers ever.

I met Antra Cilinska, the editor of the series and all films Podnieks made until his tragic death in 1992, including the beautiful piece of patriotism, “Homeland”. Cilinska is the CEO of Juris Podnieks Studio and is currently planning the premiere of “Is it?” that is a follow-up of “Is it Easy to be Young?” and “Is it Easy to be” shot 20 and 10 years ago. The premiere will be on the 4^th of May, the Latvian day of independence, and Cilinska herself is the director.

News from Paris: Godard

This years festival Cinéma du reel had a program called Nous deux – Both of us, featuring films made by filmmakers in couples or pairs. Amongst those shown where The Old Place (1998) and Reportage amateur (maquette expo) (2006) by Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Luc Godard, who have been partners and made films together since the 1970s. Since I could not attend to the screening, I acquired the DVD of four short films by Godard and Miéville: De l’origine du XXIe siècle (2000), The Old Place (1998), Liberté et Patrie (2002) and Je vous salue Sarajevo (1993) (ECM Cinema 2006).

I highly recommend this edition, which is the first DVD released from the renowned German record label ECM Records. The DVD-cover is actually a fine little book with beautifully reproduced stills from the films, an introduction by the German film critic Michael Althen as well as the complete dialogues. All of this in French, English and German.

Link to ECM Records

Underground Films

Indiepix, American distributor of independent films, including documentaries and experimental titles, offer their films to be bought as a dvd, to be downloaded to your own computer (pc and mac) or to be viewed as a vod (video on demand). For reasonable prices. You can subscribe – for free – to their newsletter from where I have taken the following text:

In the wake of WWII, with the advent of portable cameras, the world of filmmaking exploded beyond the bounds of the moneyed Hollywood studio system. Filmmakers no longer had to seek approval – or funding – to make their visions a reality. Hell, you didn't even need training, just a camera and a dream (dream occasionally optional). Filmmakers such as Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage created countless films in the 1940s and 50s that tested the limits of the medium in subject matter, style and narrative continuity. In addition to garnering praise abroad from the new Wave filmmakers in France such as François Truffaut, Morris Engel's low-fi Little Fugitive also became the first independent film to be nominated for an Oscar in 1953. In the 1960s and 70s, brothers George and Mike Kuchar added an absurdist, kitschy sense of humor to their short films showing that just becuase it's arty, doesn't mean it has to take itself seriously. Freed from the profit-and-loss constraints of procuring Hollywood backers, these new low-fi, no-budget filmmakers were able to take film out of the realm of entertainment and turn it into an art form. PHOTO: Jonas Mekas.

And if you're in the New York area, the new documentary, It Came From Kuchar, is screening this week at Anthology Film Archives! Tickets are available through the IndiePix Box Office. We hope to see you there!

http://www.indiepixfilms.com/collection/underground-films?ref=NEWSLETTER

News from Paris: Maysles

It’s the Maysles!

At this years edition of Cinéma du réel, the festival paid tribute to Albert Maysles. The Maysles Brothers: the late David on sound and Albert behind the camera, classic direct cinema.

As was the case two years ago, with the retrospective Americana showing the works of Shirley Clarke and Jim McBride (not to forget Agnès Varda’s rare and wonderful Lions Love (1969)), it is a pleasure to be able to discover or rediscover these films on the big screen.

Everything in Albert Maysles films is beautiful; from the American ballerina at the Bolshoi ballet in Anastasia (1962), Yoko Ono performing her Cut Piece (1965), a hilarious and very attractive Brando in Meet Marlon Brando (1966), the self-revealing Truman Capote in From Truman with love (1966), a bible-salesman driving his car in Salesman (1968) to the eccentric mother and daughter in Grey Gardens (1975).

Godard has called Albert Maysles the best American cameraman. The two of them worked together in the Barbet Schroeder production Paris vue par… (1965), a curious piece of film history, described by Albert here:

http://www.arte.tv/fr/Comprendre-le-monde/arte-journal/103288,CmC=3115724,CmPart=com.arte-tv.www.html

Albert Maysles sums up his approach to documentary with a quote from Grey Gardens: “ Come on in, we’re not ready!” (Little Edie in Grey Gardens).

If you can live with the English version with French subtitles, a DVD including both Salesman and Grey Gardens (ArteVidéo) is available on French Amazon http://www.amazon.fr/. Or separately in an English version as well as Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason (1967), Jim McBride’s David Holzman’s Diary (1968) on amazon.uk. You can watch Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece at:

 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dsvy_yoko-ono-cut-piece_shortfilms.

For the French resident readers, some of the Maysles Brothers films can be seen on TV on CinéCinéma Club, on April 30 and May 7.

As for the rest, we are lucky to have retrospectives at the festivals!

I would also like to mention that, unfortunately again only for French residents, the films from the international competition and the French panorama at Cinéma du réel are available on VoD at http://www.universcine.com/promotion/cinemadureel2010 the whole month of April.

Photo: The Maysles on location, Grey Gardens (1975)

Ramallah – Documentaries from Palestine

Palestine, 4 days, end of March 2010. It’s blue sky but still a bit chilly in Ramallah, where I have been for a couple of days. Lively activity outside in the streets of a nice and calm city, 40.000 are here during night, 80.000 during day. The capital of the Palestinian Authority expresses a friendly atmosphere, and energy – waiting for a Palestinian state to be established. Yellow buses, yellow taxis, building work going on everywhere, white buildings, a hilly city with beautiful viewing spots. A city whose economy is very much depending on investments done by rich Palestinians, who have made their money in the Gulf states and return home one month per year.

I am here with some fellow tutors for a workshop including 10 documentary projects. The intentions behind the initiative are triple: 1) The filmmakers are trained for a pitching of their projects to 12-15 tv editors - that takes place late May. 2) The filmmakers are competing for a participation in the Storydoc documentary programme that has its first session in Corfu, Greece in the beginning of July. 4 of the 10 projects will be picked for that purpose. 3) The filmmakers have their projects discussed and their pitching skills improved – the writing, the verbal and the visual. They are being provided with a huge amount of information and

Reality Break at Cinema du Réel

You plan and plan for weeks and months, you make the schedule, you ask the directors to be there for the screening, you sell the tickets... and then it all have to be changed, at least for a handful of screenings. The Cinema du Reel and its har working team experienced this last sunday when a bomb alarm made the police empty Centre Pompidou. Take a look (link below) at the small report made by film students. False alarm it was, luckily. PS! The opening shot reveals the favourite café of Allan Berg on the corner of rue Rambuteau. Monsieur Berg took his breakfast and wrote his texts for filmkommentaren at this cosy location.

http://blog.cinemadureel.org/2010/03/21/alerte-a-la-bombe-dimanche-21-mars-au-centre-pompidou/

Dox Box Damascus 6

This is one of the highlights of Dox Box 2010, Orwa Nyrabia said as a proud and enthusiastic introduction to the masterclass with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, moderated by idfa director Ally Derks. And it turned out to be a very pleasant couple of hours with the renowned filmmakers who made film history together with other big names like Albert Maysles, Richard Leacock and Robert Drew, the Direct Cinema/Cinéma Vérité directors. At the festival, among others, the Bob Dylan film ”Don’t Look Back” was shown and the young filmmakers had a lot of questions to that film and especially to the method connected to the filmmaking style.

The best way to reflect what was said during the masterclass is to quote Pennebaker and Hegedus for many wonderful sentences that may inspire our readers, Hegedus being the analytical and Pennebaker the one full of stories, loving the anecdote, both of them being very generous and warm in their approach to the audience:

Am I a master, ”No I was not the first person to put my foot on the beach”. Subject, how do you find them, ”We don’t, they find us, we are very depending on our friends to give us hints, people come to us”. Story?, ”You don’t know what is going to happen when we start”. Hegedus and Pennebaker is a couple privately: ”We get divorced four or five times during a film”. Where does the inspiration come from, ”Creative energy can’t be stored!”. ”A documentary is like the stories you heard as a child, once upon a time...”. Film crew?: ”The smaller the better”. Agreements? ”We go for a handshake agreement”. A fly on the wall? ”No, I can not take an invisible pill... I watch, I am like a cat, you can not see what I think”. ”The money always comes”. ”I don’t feel like a director”. Observation, Objectivity? ”No, how can one’s person’s observation be all people’s observation?”. ”We are following the action, and is very often led by the sound”. ”You are like a detective, because you don’t know what happens”. ”Style is driven by technology”. ”You are filming for an audience”. ”Look for accuracy”.

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

http://www.phfilms.com/

Dox Box Damascus 5

We have heard it for so many years, and we have seen films, fiction or documentary, that informs about or interprets the life in GDR (German Democratic Republic). But they – the Syrian young filmmakers-to-be - had not. That was very obvious from the reactions and questions at the campus of the Dox Box Festival. The local Goethe Institute had invited the GDR photographer Dieter Riemann to make an exhibition of his photos, which is running until March 25 here in Damascus, and the organisers of the festival took advantage and had Riemann come talk about his life as a photographer in a closed society where artists were not allowed to travel and where Stasi was strongly present.

Riemann told that he always worked with a conceptual format. He took photographs for book publishing, walls, windows, mentally ill people, old people etc. The basis was always humanistic, critical and trying to be as honest as possible. ”Socialdokumentarisch”, he called it. Inspiration: the Magnum photographers, Cartier-Bresson, Edward Steichen.

www.ddr-fotografie-riemann.de

On the way back to the hotel I talked with my co-tutor, the cameraman Peter Badel, who also worked in the GDR, very much with Thomas Heise (”Material”, see below, PHOTO), and we remembered great names like Sibylle and Hannes Schönemann, who were imprisoned for their critical documentaries.

http://www.dox-box.org/new/

Ehrlich/Goldsmith: The Most Dangerous Man..

It is difficult to dislike Daniel Ellsberg, and why should you? An important name in new American history, a whistleblower, a man who was among those whose job it was to provide Robert McNamara with plans for an efficient war in Vietnam, and a man who saw how his superior lie to the American public, as did Lyndon Johnson. He changed his mind, and his life completely, by publishing the so-called Pentagon Papers – and became an example, some would say the example of non-violent civil disobedience. And he still is around when it comes to demonstrations against US in Iraq and Afghanistan – take a look at his website.

The film tells the story about a conscientiuos objector in a classical way, as the filmmakers have said it themselves: a three act character-driven drama, that uses interviews, archive material and the voice of Ellsberg to take us through his own story. He makes references back to his childhood and the tragic death of his mother and sister because the father fell asleep while they were out driving. And there is a constant love story running in the foreground through interviews with his wife Patricia, who is at his side in the numerous archive interviews with him back in 70’es. It is all very efficiently told with music and small reconstructions that help give the film a drive.

The film goes out theatrically in the US, is nominated for an Oscar 2010 (got a Special Jury Award at idfa 2009), let’s see if it will win as did Errol Morris in 2004 with his film on McNamara, ”Fog Of War”, a much more authored film than the one on Ellsberg...  interesting now to have a film on the war criminal and one on the activist and whistleblower, a very charming and charismatic character in a well crafted documentary. 

USA, 2009, 96 mins.

http://www.ellsberg.net/

http://www.mostdangerousman.org/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/feb/16/most-dangerous-man-in-america

Vurdering:

Fritz Lang: Metropolis

The 60th Berlin International Film Festival starts today and goes on until the 21^st of February. The European cultural channel arte celebrates by dedicating a whole evening to the showing of “la version longue inédite du chef-d'oeuvre de Fritz Lang, présentée en ciné-concert”. A 147 minute long version is brought to the viewers in a direct transmission from the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin. Here is the French intro to the film screening – but - just to be sure you remember -

You dont need French language skills to watch this silent movie masterpiece in the history of cinema:

Quatre-vingt-trois ans après sa première mondiale, le chef-d'oeuvre muet de Fritz Lang vient de renaître dans sa version d'origine que l'on croyait perdue à jamais. Restauré dans tout son éclat par la Fondation Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau, ce Metropolis est projeté ce soir en avant-première au Friedrichstadtpalast de Berlin, au cours d'un ciné-concert diffusé en direct par ARTE, avec une musique originale interprétée par l'Orchestre symphonique de la Radio de Berlin. Si l'intrigue du film reste la même dans cette version longue, vingt-cinq minutes de scènes inédites rendent l'histoire plus compréhensible, notamment, l'équipée en voiture de Georgy à travers la cité, la visite de Freder et du "Mince" chez Josaphat, des images hédonistes des jardins et de Yoshiwara, la scène où la jalousie de Joh Fredersen et Rotwang éclate au grand jour...

The film starts tomorrow night at 20.45 and is followed by a one hour documentary about ”Metropolis” and its many versions. Some statistics – the film had 310 shooting days, plus 60 nights, 36000 extras, 200000 costumes, 3500 pair of shoes, 500 skyscrapers with 70 floors...

http://www.arte.tv/fr/programmes/242,day=7,week=6,year=2010.html

Jussi to The Living Room of a Nation

It is not only abroad that the Finnish documentary masterpiece ”The Living Room of a Nation” by Jukka Kärkkäinen is being praised (search his name on this site and you will have reviews and report on the film), it is also appreciated in its own nation. The film received the national film prize as the best documentary a week ago. The prize is called Jussi, that have been distributed since 1944 to honour the best achievements within Finnish cinema. The Finnish film professionals association, Filmiaura, gives the awards.

Cinemateket

Special service for our Danish readers – about many fine documentaries to be watched at the Film House in Copenhagen at Cinemateket, run by the Danish Film Institute:

Der er meget at komme efter i Cinemateket i februar måned, hvis man er til dokumentar. 3 af de 8 film i en tjekkisk filmserie er dokumentarer, alle sammen fyldigt omtalt eller anmeldt med links på denne blog: det klassiske observerende mesterværk ”Citizen Havel” (foto) af Pavel Koutecky og Miroslav Janek, den banebrydende/underholdende/kritisk satiriske ”Czech Dream” af Vit Klusak og Filip Remunda, og Helena Trestikovas sociale ”René”. Høj kvalitet, som jeg så ofte har skrevet på denne plads: ”East Beats West”.

”Soy Cuba” er navnet på en anden serie i anledning af 50 året for den cubanske revolution, titlen taget efter russiske Mikhail Kalatozovs fremragende film fra 1964, gå ind og se den. Og så er der film og foredrag af og om Theodor Christensen – det er ikke mere end en måned siden jeg mødte en cubansk filminstruktør i Istanbul, som fik tårer i øjnene, da jeg nævnte den danske filmpioners navn. Hans betydning er stor for cubansk dokumentarisme og Cinemateket viser ”Ella” og inviterer til foredrag med Palle Bøgelund Petterson, som har været på ”en fascinerende research-rejse i Theodors fodspor igennnem Cuba”. Og så er der mulighed for vidunderlige (gen)syn af film af Gutiérrez Alea og legenden Santiago Alvarez og hans politiske pamfletter. Spilletider, se

www.cinemateket.dk

Komeda – the Soundtrack for a Life

Krzysztof Komeda... was the one who made the music for several of the films of Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimovski, Andrzej Warda, Danish Henning Carlsen and Jørgen Leth. He died in 1969, 38 years old.

I am sure you remember the lullaby in ”Rosemary´s Baby” and maybe also the extraordinary score from”Sult” (”Hunger”) by Henning Carlsen. Both directors are interviewed in this tv documentary, that is well done and is wonderful to watch simply because it includes so many film clips from the great film that Komeda made music for. We hear about his way of working and living back in the times of the European iron curtain. Polanski’s short films arte quoted as well as his early polish works like ”Knife in Water”. Both Polanski and Carlsen stress that ”we were working for Krzysztof, not him for us”. Social and political background is added to this competent work on the often neglected art of film music that Komeda mastered. 

2008, Germany, 52 mins. Director : Claudia Buthenhoff-Duffy

http://www.krzysztofkomeda.com

http://www.komeda.vernet.pl

Cinéma du Réel

The 32th (!) edition of the festival in Paris takes place March 18-30. Both bloggers of this site will be there to report in Danish and English. Here is an overview of what the programme includes, taken from the site of the festival, and signed by its director Javier Packer-Comyn.

The 2010 Cinéma du Réel programme: International Competition / First Films / French Panorama. Some forty international and French films that have mostly never been screened, with particular focus on the films’ documentary writing and ethics. Encounters and debates with the invited filmmakers. And this year, for the first time, the First Films section focusing exclusively on first works.The Dedication: Albert Maysles. Revisiting the works of Albert Maysles (PHOTO), a landmark figure of the 1960s’ American direct cinema and the musical documentary (with his late brother, David). This tremendously vivacious 82-year-old will propose a retrospective based on the first part of his work, as well as a master class. Both of us. Both of us plunges us into the creative process of filmmakers working in tandem, in pairs, in partnership, in couples. We take a look at how various individual films are made and try to understand how this singular, yet double, entity comes to light in their filmmaking. With films by Yervant Gianikian/Angela Ricci-Lucchi, Jean-Luc Godard/Anne-Marie Miéville, Yann Le Masson/Bénédicte Deswarte, Raymonde Carasco/Régis Hébraud.

Lars von Trier in St. Petersburg

Yes, it is him on the small poster, that advertises a fine programme to be performed by The Danish Institute in St. Petersburg.

For four days a Film Festival Denmark will take place showing an excellent programme of films from the Danish National Film School. Including ”Nocturne” by von Trier from 1980. Other highlights are ”Little Man” by Peter Schønau Fog, ”The Last Round” of Thomas Vinterberg and ”Last Symphony of Woyzeck” by Nicolai Arcel. The festival opens January 21 and runs until January 24 incl. in the cinema centre Rodina. A meeting with Elizabeth Rosen from the film school will take place on the 20th at 5pm at the great venue of the Institute.

What lies at the feet of von Trier? Dead raven, sleeping cats...

www.miradox.ru

Georgy Parajanov: I died in my Childhood

This is the second impressive documentary that I have seen ABOUT Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) (the first one by Vartanov is previously written about on this site), this time made by his nephew, who gave the film to me when we met in Istanbul. It is a generous introduction to the world of the director about whom, Andrei Tarkovsky said: Always with huge gratitude and pleasure I remember the films of S.P., which I love very much. His way of thinking, his paradoxical poetical ability to love the beauty and ability to be free within his own vision...

The film includes words from his letters, fragments from his last work ”Confession” and from the films ”Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, ”The Color of Pomegranates”, ”Surami Fortress Legend”, ”Ashik Kerib” and ”Arabesques about Pirosmani”. They are put together as a story told by the director himself about his life and work, including amazing footage of his collages and assemblages and small sculptures made in prison and while he was forbidden to work as a film director by the Soviet authorities.

Dvd’s of the Parajanov films are on sale from numerous internet sources, if you come to Yerevan, visit his museum, and on the site below much more is to be found on the master.

Russia, 2004, 52 mins.

www.parajanov.com

The 10 Best Documentaries 2009

Here follows what were the best 10 documentaries in the world according to what I saw and reviewed in 2009. In alphabetical order. All reviews can be found by writing the titles in ”search”. Happy New Year!

Cash and Marry, Atanas Georgiev, Macedonia/Croatia/Austria

Chemo, Pavel Lozinski, Poland

Cooking History, Peter Kerekes, Slovakia/Hungary/Austria

Forgotten Transports, Lukas Pribyl, Czech Republic

Material, Thomas Heise, Germany

National Garden, Apostolos Karakasis, Greece

Rabbit à lá Berlin, Bartek Konopka, Poland

Sleep Furiously, Gideon Koppel, UK/France (PHOTO)

The Living Room of a Nation, Jukka Kärkkäinen, Finland

Together, Pavel Kostomarov, Russia

Original point of view, excellent cinematography, unpredictable storytelling, comments to our times and lives, important topic... some of them have it all, others have some of the elements mentioned.

Marguerite Duras about New Narrative Regions

Niels Pagh Andersen vil have ballade. Den er jeg med på. Så jeg fortsætter med mit højtravende intellektuelle snak, som det er blevet kaldt. Jeg finder lige et citat igen, jeg faktisk fandt for nogle uger siden. Og nu nægter jeg at aflevere bogen på biblioteket. Det er fra indledningens ”General Remarks”:

”The names of Indian towns, rivers, states, and seas are used here primarily in a musical sense. All references to physical, human, or political geography are incorrect: You can’t drive from Calcutta to the estuary of the Ganges in an afternoon. Nor to Nepal. The ‘Prince of Wales’ hotel is not on an island in the Delta, but in Colombo. And New Delhi, not Calcutta, is the administrative capital of India. And so on.

The characters in the story have been taken out of a book called The vice-consul and projected into new narrative regions. So it is not possible to relate them back to the book and se India Song as a film or theatre adaption of The Vice-consul. Even where a whole episode is taken over from the book, its insertion into the new narrative means that it has to be read, seen, differently.

In fact, India Song follows on from The Woman of the Ganges. If  The Woman of the Ganges hadn’t been written, neither would India Song. The fact that it goes into and reveals an unexplored area of The vice-consul wouldn’t have been a sufficient reason.

What was a sufficient reason was the discovery, in The Woman of the Ganges of the means of exploration, revelation: the voices external to the narrative. This discovery made it possible to let the narrative be forgotten and put at the disposal of memories other than that of the author: memories which might remember, in the same way, any other love story. Memories that distort. That create. Some voices from The Woman of the Ganges have been used here. And even some of their words. That is about all that can be said.” (Marguerite Duras: India Song, 1973, English translation 1976)

Jeg skriver selvfølgelig det her lange citat af, fordi jeg lige nu tror, at hvis vi skal begynde eller gå videre med en diskussion om dokumentarfilm og dens religion, dokumentarismen, kunne det være skægt at veksle sætninger om virkelighederne, filmens virkelighed og den såkaldte virkeligheds virkelighed. Altså den uden for filmen, som man hævder findes. Glædelig jul til Niels P A og alle I andre…

Jørgen Roos – et liv som dokumentarist

Bogen om en af dansk dokumentarismes fornemste repræsentanter, Jørgen Roos, kan erhverves for en absolut rimelig pris.

I næsten 60 år virkede Jørgen Roos i dansk film. Det blev til godt 160 kort- og dokumentarfilm. Jørgen Roos var selv med i det indledende arbejde med bogen, der giver et indblik i en væsentlig, spændende og skabende persons liv og arbejde. Jørgen Roos – et liv som dokumentarist indeholder:

Jørgen Roos - biografiske notitser af Hauke Lange-Fuchs, der i 1992 udgav en bog på tysk om Jørgen Roos i forbindelse med Nordische Filmtage i Lübeck.

Ib Monty: Jørgen Roos - kortfilmens danske mester, en hyldest til den danske kortfilmmager og hans film.

Niels Jensen skriver om det historiske i Roos arbejde, Den dobbelte natur og betydningen af mangfoldighed i den dobbelte natur.

Lars Bo Kimergaard: Jørgen og Hr. Dreyer, et indblik i et gensidigt og interessant samarbejde mellem to af dansk films største instruktører. Carl Th. Dreyer spillede en stor rolle for Roos.

Tue Steen Müller: Erindringer om Jørgen, en række anekdotiske erindringer, som viser en bramfri og ligetil Roos.

Jørgen Roos: Om mig selv.  I notatform skriver Roos om sin barndom og opvækst.

Jørgen Roos: Mertz. Fra Roos’ ufuldendte erindringer, Et liv med levende billeder, hvor Jørgen Roos i 1996 skriver om det tidlige og spændende samarbejde med billedkunstneren Albert Mertz.

Jørgen Roos fortæller. Karl Jensen har samlet en række uddrag af samtaler mellem forfatteren Vagn Steen og Jørgen Roos sendt i Danmarks Radio i 1992.  Roos fortæller bl.a. om tiden på Minerva Film, samarbejdet med Theodor Christensen samt om filmen Iran - det ny Persien.

Filmene 1939-1998, en udførlig omtale af Jørgen Roos’ filmarbejde fra 1939 til1998.

Filmografi med en komplet og overskuelig titeloversigt.

Bogens over 140 billeder er samlet, udvalgt og redigeret af Hans V. Bang med hjælp af Karl Jensen og Inge Røen og stammer for en stor del fra billedsamlingen på DFI/Filmmuseet. En del er ikke tidligere publiceret og stammer fra Jørgen Roos’ private samlinger. Bogen blev udgivet af det daværende DFI/Videoværkstedet Haderslev i samarbejde med Dok Film Akademiet Haderslev. Bogen koster 200 kr. + forsendelse.

Kontakt: Karl Jensen på telefon: 60 91 58 95 eller mail: menageri@mail.dk

New Photos

My co-blogger Allan Berg has put on three new photos, as our loyal readers might have discovered. The actuality comes from the publishing of a beautiful new book, amazingly well illustrated, as the book is about 100 years of Danish cinematography, (The text in the book is in Danish). Title – directly translated – ”The Eye of the Photographer”

Allan Berg writes about the three cinematographers (DOP’s) behind the photos, and many Danish documentaries: From the left a still photo from the film of Annette Mari Olsen and Katia Forbert Petersen, ”My Iranian Paradise”, camera by the latter. In the middle a still photo from the film of Jens Loftager, ”War”, camera Anthony Dodd Mantle, famous for his work with Lars von Trier and Oscar-winner for ”Slumdog Millionaire”. To the right a still photo from the new film by Max Kestner, which will be premiered next week in Copenhagen, the city that is the subject of the film. Camera by Henrik Bohn Ipsen.

Anthony Dod Mantle

Det andet topbillede er et still fra Anthony Dod Mantles Krig (Jens Loftager 2003). Til dette komplicerede filmessay konstruerede Dod Mantle en række prægnante billedløsninger over klassisk maleriske spejleffekter og han rekonstruerede som gennemgående vignet en scene fra Remarques Intet nyt fra vestfronten. Billedet her er fra den vignet. Tue Steen Müller skriver i sin artikel i Fotografens øje om denne filmfotograf:

”I første halvdel af 1990’erne fik Anthony Dod Mantle afgørende kreativ betydning for dansk dokumentarfilm. Eksplicit var hans rolle tæt på at være lig instruktørens, i hvert fald er det uomtvisteligt også hans signatur, der ses på de tre film, som han fotograferede med en stil, som er så langt væk fra den omtalte flue, som man kan forestille sig. Med Poul Rudes Natskygger (1994), Thomas Stenderups Fredens port (1996) og Jens Loftagers Ord (1994)bragte de tre instruktører og Mantle essayet tilbage til dansk dokumentarfilm. Ingen af filmene har en straight forward historie, ingen af dem har et mere eller mindre prosaisk budskab, de skal af med. De er alle refleksioner over eksistentielle spørgsmål…”

”… Mantles fotografering er i disse tilfælde – akkurat som hans senere dogmefotografering ’sans comparaison’ – mildest talt synlig. I Poul Rudes film om aids er der landskabspanoramisk komponerede opstillinger, som er de rene hollandske malerier, samtidig med at flere af monologerne fra de to medvirkende fremsiges til billeder af skygger i en vandpyt. I Thomas Stenderups film er der ligeledes imponerende reportageagtige, men slowede billeder til den voldsomme requiemmusik. Og i Jens Loftagers Ord er flere af de mange interviewede forfattere og filosoffer fotograferet, så man nærmest ikke kan se , hvem der taler!

Mantle har fået carte blanche til at give den hele armen i disse tre film, og selvom der klart er tale om ’overkill’ i flere tilfælde var hans bidrag forfriskende efter mange års direct cinema-dominans…”

Litt.: Dirk Brüel, Andreas Fischer-Hansen og Jan Weincke, red.: Fotografens øje, Dansk filmfotografi gennem 100 år, 2009.

Fotografens øje 2

Bogen er jo interessant derved, at den handler om filmfotografiet isoleret. Det er klart, men også mærkbart, at det volder forfatterne problemer. Stoffet fra manuskript, instruktion og spil vil hele tiden gribe ind. Men jeg tror, det er lykkedes. Det er en bog om fotografi.

Den er bygget op omkring 38 interviews med filmfotografer, interviews foretaget af en næsten anonym gruppe, så det er ikke samtaler mellem lige parter. Det bliver til fotografernes rene statements. Dette er bogens absolutte tyngdefelt. Omkring den tekstblok er der en gruppe essays, 7 i alt, om hovedemner i filmfotografiets historie til i dag og en gruppe essays om at nærme sig fotografpersonligheden fra forfatterens, producentens, instruktørens og skuespillerens verdenshjørner. Efter den centrale interviewdel er der en blok med 20 tekster, hvor en tilsvarende række meget forskellige forfattere skriver om 20 film, om fotografiet i 20 film.Jeg læser lige tre af dem.

Charlotte Christensen nedgør i en elegant distanceret omhyggelighed med sin kunsthistoriske indsigt Johan Ankerstjernes billeder til Benjamin Christensens Häxan. Det er en overraskende fornøjelse.

Niels Jensen behandler på sin umistelige lyriske malerbaggrund indforstået Palle Kjærulff-Schmidts Der var engang en krig og når efter et langt tilløb om den tids stemning frem til Claus Loofs fotografi. Som, ja altså, så forunderligt præcist rammer den stemning. ”Så smukt som grålys kun kunne være det i – nej ikke i fyrrerne. Men i tresserne.” Det var jo Coutards lys.

Bo Green Jensen slutter bogen med en alvorlig analyse af Anthony Dod Mantles arbejde til Antichrist. De billeder er set, mærker man, af en litterært dannet skribent, og skriver Green Jensen, de skal ses igen og igen. Ellers kan man ikke tumle dem. Rigtigere kan det vist ikke være.

Dirk Brüel, Andreas Fischer-Hansen og Jan Weincke, red.: Fotografens øje - Dansk filmfotografi gennem 100 år, Lindhardt og Ringhof, 2009, 360 sider. 500 kr. Udkom 20. november.

Fotografens øje

Så kom fotografernes store bog om deres fag og om dem selv. Naturligvis er det et billedværk. Et stort og smukt billedværk med de mange, mange filmscener frosset i stills eller framegrabs. Jeg blader fuld af fryd, og de stille og grebne billeder begynder at bevæge sig. Jeg ser, at dette vitterligt er en sitrende, nervøst afklaret verden, hvor alle medvirkende er fortrolige med alt indenfor. Reference kalder på reference.

Som jeg er indrettet, skal jeg ned i teksterne, ned i de tekster først, som jeg fornemmer har noget uforudsigeligt i sig. Og jeg vælger blandt forfatternavnene, blader efter dem…

Finder først alvorlige og omhyggelige Andreas Fischer-Hansen beskedent langt inde i bogen. Her begynder jeg så. Fischer-Hansen gennemgår minutiøst, hvad håndværket indebærer af enkeltfærdigheder og nødvendige vidender. Der er mange, der er meget. Jeg vidste det godt og alligevel ikke. Respekt. Og ganske effektfuldt bekymret beskriver han til sidst i sin tekst filmfotografen som co-autor berøvet sin ophavsret, ja selv sin og værkets droit-moral beskyttelse. Trods alle disse mange opregnede gøremål og ansvarligheder i filmproduktionen er filmfotografen en truet kunstner: ”Instruktør og fotograf (billedets autorer)bliver ofte ikke konsulteret ved den videre sekundære distribution (dvd, Blue Ray, web etc.). Filmens oprindelige visuelle koncept, fastlagt ved præ-visualiseringen, under optagefasen og postproduktionen overholdes ikke altid ved den videre distribution. Filmene kan distribueres i forkert format og ringe farve- eller sort-hvid gengivelse. Der kan også være tale om direkte manipulation.” Det er virkelig velargumenteret vred beskedenhed. Men nu har Fischer-Hansen så været med til at redigere en stor bog om det alt sammen. Alt det rigtige og dermed smukke. Må det gavne.

Så kommer jeg til den lærde og i lange sprogranker tænkende Arne Bro. Han leverer en stor materialistisk filmhistorisk analyse af high-budget film og low-budgetfilm og de tilhørende billedsprog. Om virkelighed og dokumentar. Om kampen mellem det klassiske billede og det romantiske billede. Og det havde jeg ikke gættet, men ved det nu, at ved dristig brug af det romantiske greb vil low-budget både redde filmbranchen og den stadige nye kunstneriske indsigt i foruroligende afdækninger af ”…dybe menneskelige intimiteter, eksistentielle traumer og følelsesmæssige oplevelser, forstærket af de særlige æstetiske nydelser og foruroligelser, som et originalt kunstnerisk sind hos instruktør, fotograf, manuskriptforfatter, klipper og skuespiller kan tilbyde tilskueren i den fattigere, men kunstnerisk rigere low-budget-film.” Dogmemanifestet udmøntede det først, spillefilm og dokumentarfilm er forældede begreber, en ny generation af filmværker er fremme og kommer fortsat. Vendende op og ned på det normale.

Derefter blader jeg til den altid lige nu og ligefremt skrivende Mogens Rukov. Han vælger selvfølgelig med det samme ikke at skrive, hvad man vel forventer en manuskriptforfatter i almindelighed tænker om billedet. Så det bliver til et essay om rummet, trappen og vertikaliteten. Og om billedet: ”Jeg må vel have det sådan, at jeg ikke synes, at billeder er informative. De skal ikke give informationer om fortællingens gang. Der skal ikke være obligatoriske billeder, som filmens informative forløb er afhængige af. Billedserien skal være fri. Den skal være så at sige ikke-narrativ i manuskriptets forstand. Den skal være narrativ kun i billedets forstand.” Det er tankevækkende forfriskende at få berømte læresætninger nyformuleret, sådan født på ny.     

Og så min herværende blog-kollega, den omfattende vidende og energiske Tue Steen Müller. Han skriver naturligvis om dokumentarfilm, gennemgår farverigt hovedstationer i dansk dokumentarisk filmfotografi i 1960-erne, 1970-erne og 1980-erne, skriver om klassik, dansk direct cinema, om filmessayets tilbagekomst, om den iscenesatte dokumentarisme og den utrættelige stilsøgen. Jeg mærker og kender Müller i hver eneste sætning, i alle vurderinger. Som når han så tydeligt et sted slår fast, ”… at dokumentarisme rimer på humanisme.”   

Det var bare lidt om kun fire forfattere, om fire essays. Der er 27 mere. Og 38 interviews med filmfotografer. Den bog vender jeg tilbage til.

Dirk Brüel, Andreas Fischer-Hansen og Jan Weincke, red.: Fotografens øje - Dansk filmfotografi gennem 100 år, Lindhardt og Ringhof, 2009, 360 sider. 500 kr. Udkommer i dag.

Dola Bonfils: K-notatet 2

FC (vi ved det er forsvarschefen) er i Polen. DC (vi ved det er departementschefen) er på pinden, ventende. Politikerne er på spring med følelsesparaderne oppe. Den inderste kreds i forsvarskommandoen er samlet, en situation er ved at komme ud af kontrol, spin-manøvren er i gang, de har FC i røret, læser forslaget til pressemeddelelse for ham. ”Uheldig..”, han retter et ord. ”Nej, ’upassende’ er det rigtige ord, fastholder Tim Sloth Jørgensen og de andre omkring bordet nikker og siger ja og bekræfter. Og Tim (som han jovialt kaldes) skærer igennem: ”Alle her synes det også. Vi skriver ’upassende’…”. Og FC bøjer sig.

FC, altså forsvarschefen Jesper Helsø er en ganske anden type leder end de tidligere og nok også end de senere. Rummelig, gammeldags moderne, ubureaukratisk, uteknokratisk, humanistisk indstillet. Filmen følger hans og medarbejdernes arbejde med at præge det kommende forsvarsforlig med værnenes egne forslag samlet i K-notatet. Dybt fortroligt. Undervejs skildrer filmen også et par episoder med ubehagelig presseopmærksomhed, som forsvarsledelsen må spinne sig ud af. Det er i 2003. Upassende, som de undskyldende på FC´s vegne skriver, har Helsø under et foredrag for de værnepligtige sagt, at han ville provokere ved at foreslå tre måneders værnepligt. Ved at køre ud i rabatten, kunne han tvinge dem, politikerne, til at forhandlingerne kom ind på midten af vejen igen. Men nu spurgte de og journalisterne, om der var flere af forsvarschefens forslag, som var provokationer.

Bonfils filmhold fik af Helsø adgang til selve situationsrummet. Jeg fandt aldrig ud af, om han mente et særligt war-room, hvor cheferne blev samlet i krisesituationer, eller om det blot var adgang til møder af den slags, som den refererede scene, som et møde med planlægning af en mulig operation i Dafur, som overværelse af træning i at blive udsat for tortur og en række flere rum, ja, nemlig situationsrum, instruktøren lister os ind i. Det observerende kamera registrerer, at sådan er der her, dette sker der. Vi forstår det umiddelbart. For vi er styret af Dola Bonfils egen personlige nysgerrighed. Hun vil præge sit værk med det signerende blik, som hun engang kaldte de gode films tydelige vinkling. Fra disse autentiske steder samler hun materialet til en samfundsbeskrivelse, som konstant har nålen inde og mærker, hvordan det er. Hendes samfundslære er ikke en oversigtlig tekst at lære til eksamen om, hvordan det bør være.

Hun har i en række film gjort det med institution efter institution, gymnasiet, politiet, sundhedsvæsnet. Dybt loyalt, vidende og gennemført skeptisk, kritisk. Nogle burde finde på at udgive dette værk samlet på dvd. Og K-notatet er så den seneste af disse samfundsskildringer inden Dola Bonfils en årrække blev optaget af at være til fingerspidserne engageret filmkonsulent på DFI. Det er hun ikke mere, nu venter jeg spændt, spændt på den næste film. Imens finder jeg alle de gamle frem og ser dem en efter en. På mandag er K-Notatet og Bonfils filmkunst emnet på min mandagshøjskole i FOF-Randers.

Dola Bonfils: K-notatet, Danmark 2004, 59 min. Manuskript: Dola Bonfils, fotografi: Henrik Bohn Ipsen, klip: David Rosenquist, lyd: Roar Skau Olsen, produktion: Claus Ladegaard. Produceret af Easy Film. Del af Magtens Billeder, 12 film på DR1, findes i samlet dvd-udgivelse, Det Dansk Filminstitut. Kan lånes på biblioteket og findes på www.filmstriben.dk 

Frederick Wiseman

Respect - the idfa has sent out this press release:

In honour of his 80th birthday, this year’s IDFA will be devoting special attention to the work of Frederick Wiseman. Wiseman has directed and produced dozens of documentaries, which often focussed on social relations within American institutions. He is regarded as one of the major exponents of Direct Cinema. Alongside a retrospective programme compiled by himself, screening of his latest film and a masterclass, the festival will also be looking at Wiseman’s work as a theatre director.
 
Wiseman (USA, 1930) made his debut as a documentary maker in 1967 with Titicut Follies, about a psychiatric clinic for convicted criminals. The film paints a shocking picture of the humiliating way the detainees were treated, which led to Wiseman being sued many times by the authorities. Many of his later films, including High School, Hospital and Near Death, are also studies of social relations in a variety of – usually American – institutions.
Although he himself would disagree, Wiseman’s work is often included in the category Direct Cinema, the documentary movement, which

Robert Frank

Calling all documentarians: Take a look at the NY Times site page that brings 11 of the photos that are exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until January 3 2010.

Robert Frank is celebrated on the occasion of the 50th year of the publication of his classic ”The Americans”, the exemplary evidence of what a documentary interpretation of reality can be. In the review of the exhibition today in International Herald Tribune his work is characterized as an expression of ”mournful tenderness”.

Frank has been an inspiration for filmmakers all over the world. In Denmark the films of Jørgen Leth (”66 Scenes from America” and ”New Scenes from America”), to mention a couple that comes to my mind, would not be as they are if not for Frank.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/25/arts/20090925-frank_index.html

The Quay Brothers

The reason for this long presentation is the fact that the Danish Film House, in its Cinematheque in Copenhagen, shows an excellent retrospective of two of the greatest film artists of our time. New Danish viewers should go and discover the twin brothers surrealistic world, and others can acquire dvd’s of their work through Zeitgeistfilms. The following text is taken from the company’s site:

The extraordinary Quay Brothers are two of the world’s most original filmmakers. Identical twins who were born in Pennsylvania in 1947, Stephen and Timothy Quay studied illustration in Philadelphia before going on to the Royal College of Art in London, where they started to make animated shorts in the 1970s. They have lived in London ever since, making their unique and innovative films under the aegis of Koninck Studios.

Influenced by a tradition of Eastern European animation, the Quays display a passion for detail, a breathtaking command of color and texture, and an uncanny use of focus and camera movement that make their films unique and instantly recognizable. Best known for their classic 1986 film STREET OF CROCODILES, which filmmaker Terry Gilliam recently selected as one of the ten best animated films of all time, they are masters of miniaturization and on their tiny sets have created an unforgettable world, suggestive of a landscape of long-repressed childhood dreams. In 1994, with INSTITUTE BENJAMENTA, they made their first foray into live-action feature-length

Jørgen Leth Box Collection Completed

1st of October is the day where the 6th and final box of films by Danish film icon Jørgen Leth is published. The collection, administered and published by the Danish Film Institute, though financed primarily by a private investor, is an exemplarily well composed piece of publishing, in this case – box 6 – with his experimental film from the 1960’es amd 70’es plus 5 hours of bonus material and a teaser from his coming ”The Erotic Human”.

English subtitles and a booklet accompanies the box. The book- and filmshop at the Danish Film House sells the complete collection.

http://www.dfi.dk/shop

IDFA Top Ten

An interesting compilation of films has been advertised for the coming idfa:

Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan (Haifa, 1964) will compile this year's Top 10 for the 22nd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Major themes in his Top 10 include how our collective memory works, ethical issues and the representation of history. Themes that are also central to his own work. Here is the list of films:

Blind kind, Johan van der Keuken (1964), Ici et ailleurs, Jean Luc-Godard (photo) (1976), Hitler connais pas?, Bertrand Blier (1963), Ma'loul, Michel Khleifi (1985), The Memory of Justice, by Marcel Ophüls (1976), Moeder Dao, de schildpadgelijkende, Vincent Monnikendam (1995), Testimonies, Ido Sela (1993), Punishment Park, Peter Watkins (1971), Philips Radio, Joris Ivens (1931), S21, La machine de mort khmère rouge, Rithy Panh (2003).

Herz Frank Tribute

I read on miradox.ru that Herz Frank is going to head the jury of the upcoming Russian festival Flahertiana (October 15-22), previously texted about on this site. Sitting in an airport thoughts go back to the many times I have met this master of documentary, and eaten his words of wisdom - in Bornholm, in Riga, in Tel Aviv, in Leipzig, in Paris, in Amsterdam, in Stockholm. Always he was prepared to share his knowledge with colleagues and audience, many times after an illness that almost killed him. I think of the endless times that I have shown his ”Ten Minutes Older” from 1978, the film shot by Juris Podnieks, the one-shot-film of a boy watching a puppet theatre with a camera that reads the many expressions of this boy, who in his grown up life became a renowned poker player, one of those who are not supposed to express anything. Poker Face! With his intelligence Herz Frank has meant a lot for filmmakers all over, always claiming that documentaries should have a philosophical message – I have quoted him on this site several times. One of his admirers, Lithuanian Audrius Stonys joins him in the jury, among others. Bravo and thank you Herz, and please take good care of your... Heart!

http://www.tenminutesolder.com/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/737/

http://flahertiana.perm.ru/eng/2009/

The Danish Roos Award

The award, named after the documentary film pioneer Jørgen Roos, was established in 1995 for the purpose of rewarding outstanding efforts in Danish documentary filmmaking – went this year to director Anders Østergaard and producer Lise Lense-Møller, the duo behind 'Burma VJ — Reporting from a Closed Country'”. The award ceremony took place yesterday at the European Film College in Ebeltoft, Denmark.

The motivation went as follows: They have created a moving film that evokes sympathetic insight, even though the audience does not see the leading person who remains anonymous for security reasons. They have created a film with visual strength, an authentic historical document from thousands of small clips — out of focus, incoherent, and shot by different individuals under chaotic conditions. They have persisted in sticking to their ambition of making 'a documentary film that mattered', even though it would have been easier and less expensive to produce an efficient news version of the film, which there was a demand for. They have taken chances; the film had to be made, even before an unsigned contract and even though necessary finances were yet to be met. And they have persisted long after the completion of the film — followed it around the world —with their engagement in those who took part in the film and with their interest in the themes dwelt on in the film.

May I add a big bravo that Lise Lense-Møller in this way is being praised for her fine work in Danish documentary for decades. For those who don’t know her: She is a fim producer and CEO and founder of Magic Hour Films. She has produced films, co-written scripts and been a consultant on the development and production of feature films, short fiction, documentaries, and TV-series. She is also one of the experts at EU's EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs).

www.dfi.dk

Sergey Dvortsevoy – Letter to the Director

Dear Sergey. Around 10 years ago you were in Copenhagen to present your film school diploma work, ”Paradise”. You declared yourself as a dedicated documentarian, and you proved to be one of the best with the films that followed: ”Bread Day”, ”Highway” and ”In the Dark”. You have been awarded for your work, you have deserved it as the brilliant filmmaker you are, who can catch the magic moments, the ones you have been waiting for to appear after long research, as you did with ”Paradise” from the steppes of the Kazakhstan with the people you love so much. Now you have returned to the same theme with your ”Tulpan”, a film that is touring the world with success. When we met last December in Copenhagen, you told me that you were happy to have switched to fiction – you have reached a bigger audience and you don’t have the ethical problem that you were told to have created for the people in ”Paradise”, who had been critizised heavily for taking part in a film that represents kazakh reality as poor and miserable. I saw ”Tulpan” yesterday and I love it – for being a continuation of your documentary work with scenes that I will never forget. The birth of a lamb, you keep the scene for a wonderful long time. The little boy running on the steppes as in ”Paradise”. The nature images. The sheep being kept as a flock... and so on. You got some of the magical documentary moments that you can not put into a script. But you also have a story and it is full of humour and warmth. It is close to the reality you know, but they act, you can see that they perform, some of them over-act. I like it but you lose something in terms of the truthfulness you have in your previous work. I can not help compare the mother in ”Paradise” with the mother in ”Tulpan”. There is a world of difference. The first is the mother, the other acts a mother, and she does that well. In the first film you wait for things to happen, in ”Tulpan” you say ”action”. Hope you understand this small reflection on documentary and fiction - there is a small fine drama in ”Tulpan” surrounded by magic images and situations that has that documentary presence that is your quality stamp! Best wishes from your true admirer Tue. Photo from "Paradise".

Cinemateket i September

2nd message to the lucky Copenhageners about a film offer – presented in Danish:

Så kom der endelig en lejlighed til at glæde læserne med et foto af Juliette Binoche, den fremragende franske skuespiller, hvis evner kan nydes i 11 film, som Cinemateket præsenterer i september måned. ”Skjult” (Haneke), ”Blå” (Kieslowski) og ”De elskende fra Pont-Neuf” (Carax) for blot at nævne tre mesterlige film og præstationer af Binoche. Og så er der ellers Cassavetes, Capra and masser af andre godter på programmet.

www.cinemateket.dk

Latvian Film 3

... and as a follow-up this mail from Ilze Gailite Holmberg, managing director of the National Film Centre of Latvia, to the big amount of European colleagues and film funds/centres/associations/institutes:

Dear Colleagues, This is to thank you for all your support to the independence of the National Film Centre of Latvia. Currently we have had the first victory – Mr. Ints Dalderis, the Minister of Culture has announced his decision to support NFC’ s independent status at the Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia. Thus, the final decision will be taken by the government. I am very convinced that the positive move of the Minister towards us has happened thanks to the great support we have received from you, widely from the local media, from Latvian filmmakers and a number of international institutions.

During the decisive meeting between Film Council and Minister of Culture Latvian filmmakers were united in a demonstration – filmmaking of a short film The Dream of Eisenstein, based on the boyhood dream of Latvia- born Eisenstein to make a film in Riga, in order to remind the Ministry on the significance of continuation of film culture. You can see some pictures from the set at this link: http://www.pozitivaszinas.lv/posts/view/par-kino

I truly hope the government will follow the decision of the Minister of Culture.

Latvian Film 2

I received this mail from Latvian Lelda Ozola last night, and got her permission to publish it like this:

Dearest Tue, this is a deja vu situation of some 5 years ago ... I start thinking why me, why again, why now. What is happening here is close to a nightmare. Every day the feeling strenghtens that this country is meant for destruction. The earth will very soon be unable to bear what is happening.

And in the middle of that we have to get ready for Baltic Sea Forum... (24 Eastern European projects to be pitched to more than 15 international commissioning editors, ed.) You will not recognise us when you come! However, yesterday we got 200% positive emotions, seeing the support from the industry. It was so touching that everybody could hardly suppress tears. Can you imagine 200 people - almost all the industry + actors, being there around the ministry, having brought rails, cameras, sound equipment and even lighting bus from Lithuania has arrived. We felt the solidarity. It was unbelievable. and the main thing - it is not vain, there will be another Laila Pakalnina short film (shot on 35 mm invested by the cinematographer !!!) as a result of all this (hopefully, award winning with fantastic PR from the very start).It is already agreed that we will try to get the film ready to open the National Film Festival at the end of September. All this and the papers and (film centre director, ed.) Ilze Gailite Holmberg's efforts together with the NGOs have resulted that they allow us to try to preserve independence but cutting staff and functions... This still has to be defended in the cabinet of ministers and the ministry is not very enthusiastic about defending it! But Baltic Sea Forum in two weeks will definitely take place. The catalogue goes to print tomorrow!

Lelda Ozola. National Film Centre of Latvia & Media Desk Latvia

Shocking Film News from Latvia

”National Film Centre of Latvia is under the threat of reorganization” was the headline of this morning’s daily news from ”Film New Europe”, continued by these lines: ” The financial crisis in Latvia has triggered a chain of reorganization of cultural institutions that threatens the existence of the National Film Centre of Latvia (NFC) as an independent establishment.” So not only has the budget for support for films in 2009 been cut 44% compared to 2008, but an eventual cut-away of the Film Centre to be reduced to an office in the Ministry of Culture is of course a severe perspective of catastrophy.

As one who has followed the Latvian film since the independence, I can only admire the work done by committed and clever people in and around the Film Centre. A well functioning, independent film institutional structure has been established, that serves the many fine film directors and producers from a country that especially in the documentary sector has long and proud traditions.

Anyone can understand that cuts are needed in times of financial crisis, but to destroy an independent structure that represents a country with such competence is political narrow-minded thinking. And if this reorganisation becomes a reality, the consequence will be that the EU-supported Baltic Sea Forum, that takes place in Riga for the 13th time in 3 weeks will cease to exist. At this forum Latvian producers, among others, come to find funding for their film projects. Protests have arrived from neighbouring countries, from Austria, from Slovenia, and more will come, I am sure. The Latvian filmmakers protest outside the Ministry of Culture. Allow me to send many warm thoughts to Latvian film friends. A fight for independence is going on.

http://www.filmneweurope.com

Luis Bunuel: Un Chien Andalou

Just this short note to accompany the posted still photo that everybody knows... it is 80 years ago that Bunuel made this 16 minutes long masterpiece with help from Salvador Dali. Lucky you who has not seen the film yet, and lucky us who can watch it again. Available it is in all dvd shops, and online, and maybe you have a cinematheque near you, that celebrates film history like this.

Masterpiece Docs for Free

Sundance Documentary Film Program

OSI stands for Open Society Institute, that was founded by George Soros and has – among many other things – been very important for the documentary sector all over the world. In the mid 90’es and up till 2002 a lot of documentaries from the Eastern part of Europe received a support that enabled the producers to make their films in the hard transition period after the fall of the empire USSR. In 2002 American Diane Weyermann who was the clever administrator of the funding for the documentaries succeeded in getting the fund (accompanied by 4.6mio.$ from Soros) transferred to the Sundance Institute, and now the good news is that OSI has granted $5 million grant for its Documentary Film Program to continue its mission and to help raise awareness on human rights through support for documentaries.

”As a dollar-for-dollar matching grant, Sundance Institute aims to raise $10 million over the next five years to support documentaries on significant, contemporary issues. This critical funding at a very fragile time is a significant commitment to supporting the belief that documentary storytelling has a meaningful role in the international work toward justice and equity across a range of issues," says Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program.

Since its inception in 1996, the OSI and the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund has awarded grants to more than 450 films in 54 countries, from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, China, India, Africa, North America and elsewhere. Photo: Turkish documentary On the Way to School, supported by Sundance.

http://sundance.org/

www.edn.dk

Vilnius Diary 5

Hubert Sauper: Darwin’s Nightmare

This brief intro comes because a documentary neo-classic is broadcast on Danish television tonight, on DR2 in prime time (8.40pm). It has been in Danish cinemas, it is available from the DFI, and if you have already seen it, take another look. The film is avaiIable on dvd from several sources. I shift to Danish and quote the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen:

"DET var for film som Darwin’s Nightmare, at Vorherre skabt dokumentargenren. Hubert Saupers billedessay er en forfærdende, intenst ubehagelig og på godt og ondt uforglemmelig rapport fra et sted, Lake Victoria i Tanzania, hvor evolutionen har frembragt et regulært mareridt. Overordnet er området hærget af krige og etniske konflikter, som har varet så længe og er blevet så uoverskuelige, at man fra mediernes side har opgivet at følge ordentligt med. Som Sauper påpeger: »Alene i det østlige Congo er antallet af krigsofre på en enkelt dag lige så stort som den 11. september i New York.«"
"Det er en skelsættende og uafrystelig film, som demonstrerer at dokumentargenren for længst har givet fiktionen baghjul, når det gælder om at flytte holdninger og skabe opinion om en sag."

www.dfi.dk

www.dr.dk/dokumania

Ex Oriente 4 Directing

Ex Oriente 3 Directing

Italian director Alessandro Rossetto came to Hotel Biograf to show his 1999 documentary Bibione Bye Bye One, which is a wonderful b/w 75 minutes long journey into an area and a culture that the director knows from his childhood, 100 kilometres north of Venice.

In a very inspiring talk after the film, Rossetto told how he had been filming over three summers with 2 hours of 16mm material in the first summer, 6 in the next and 3 in the last. He had already edited a one hour version after the two summers of shooting but was not happy with the result returning to the summer resort to catch scenes that he knew he wanted. 5 years before the shooting of the film, Rossetto had done his research by doing 2 years of photographing people and situations. The film is indeed about people, showing faces, built through small stories with characters that are caught with the tenderness that the director kept on saying that he went for. To lose time can be a richness for a project, he said, urging the workshop participants to ”protect” their first idea of a film, it could have a deepness that you can not explain. And waiting please, waiting is important, just stay there and you become a character as the others, the man with the camera. And thus you get what you want.

The film is for me a neo-classic, reminding me about Lindsay Anderson’s O Dreamland with an absolutely great camerawork where you feel that you are drawn into a world that you don’t know and at the same time feel good to be in, accompanied by music that stress atmosphere and timelessness. Robert Frank has been mentioned as a photographic inspiration for the film from Bibione.

www.docuinter.net

www.docvideo.it/catalogo/

Capturing Reality 2

The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) production on the art of documentary, featuring 33 directors from 13 countries, are being used for debates among filmmakers and with the audience. Here is a quote from a Realscreen article illustrating the never-ending-discussion:

…One of the most conflicting sequences in the film concerned the ethics of documentary filmmaking and how much of a film can be scripted or pre-planned. For instance, in a segment about interviewing subjects, Nick Broomfield (photo) says that he sees a habit has formed with directors who come into subjects' homes or workspaces and move around their furniture and light the space a certain way to get the optimum effect. While he thinks this is destroying their environment and essentially losing the truth in the situation, Errol Morris admits he's done it and he stands behind it.

Likewise, director Barry Stevens uses Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs to Fly as an example of fudging the truth. He says that Herzog asked his subject, a man who had been in the Navy, to open and close his front door a number of times to illustrate his need to feel like he's not locked in. While Stevens says it made a strong image in the film, he also feels it wasn't true. While some people might say 'don't let the facts get in the way of a good story,' Stevens believes that when it comes to documentaries, you absolutely should let them get in the way…

http://www.realscreen.com/articles/news/20090611/capturingreality.html

http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/capturing-reality/

Capturing Reality

33 filmmakers, 13 countries, 1 passion: The art of documentary. This is the way that NFB, National Film Board of Canada, launches its interview-film that includes great filmmakers like Maysles, Kim Longinotto, Werner Herzog (photo), Molly Dineen, Heddy Honigmann and Stan Neumann. I did not have the chance to watch it at the idfa 2008 but the clip on youtube, see below, looks promising.

One little thing, however, where are the filmmakers from the Nordic countries? Jørgen Leth and Jon Bang Carlsen from Denmark, Stefan Jarl and PeÅ Holmquist from Sweden, Pirjo Honkasalo from Finland, Margaret Ohlin from Norway – not to talk about some names from the Eastern part of Europe: Herz Frank, Viktor Kossakovski, Sergey Dvortsevoy, Mira Janek, Marcel Lozinski...

There is room for a follow-up of this fine initiative.

http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/capturing-reality/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPavxiKKT2w&feature=PlayList&p=8295162E814D62B8&index=0

Sunny Side of the Doc... 20 Years!

Doclisboa 2009

Herz Frank on Documentaries

Latvian Herz Frank, a master in the history of documentary, with works like "Ten Minutes Older", "There were Seven Simeons", "The Song of Songs" and "Flashback":

In front of me on my work table is the central fragment from Raphael's fresco "The School of Athens". Plato and Aristotle discuss the philosophical meaning of life. Plato is pointing upwards - the essence is the Idea! Aristotle, on the other hand, has his palm pointing down to the ground - the basis is the material! Even earlier in the Old Testament (Genesis) both views are united. In the first book of Moses the first lines states: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Read - the spiritual and the material.

As a documentarian, I follow these principles directly. Facts have to be the basis for documentary films. And if we want to uncover the truth in them, facts have to be portrayed not only on the surface and as purely informative, but also ith sensitive, spiritual eyes. Even better if one eye is dry, and the other - damp... Life has to be filmed imaginatively, and only then will we understand its deeper meaning. There is an image hiding in every detail of each fact, in each living and inanimate thing. You only have to know how to see and record them. A documentary camera is not a video-recorder in the street...

Det Danske Institut i Damaskus opretter filmotek

Rundt omkring i den store verden sidder der nogle kulturelle ildsjæle og bygger små læhegn omkring det hul, hjemlige politiske ildsjæle gør deres bedste for at begrave kulturen i.
En af disse sidder på Det Danske Institut i Damaskus (foto), han hedder Hans Christian Korsholm Nielsen, i daglig tale HC. Han gør meget for både den danske filmkultur og for at hjælpe den spirende syriske. Det konstaterede Tue Steen Müller og jeg ved selvsyn under den nye syriske dokumentarfilmfestival Dox Box, som HC i flere omgange gav uvurderlig hjælp. Og der er rigeligt at hjælpe med, når en håndfuld ihærdige syriske filmfolk sætter sig for at introducere kreativ dokumentarfilm i et land som Syrien. Derfor er mennesker som HC en repræsentant for Danmark, vi kan være glade for.
 
HC ville meget gerne have kopier af danske film stående på det lille bibliotek på Det Danske Institut, så besøgende kan se filmene under deres ophold. Det lovede vi at være behjælpelige med og henvendte os optimistiske til DFI. Men det kunne de ikke hjælpe med – jeg skal undlade at gå i detaljer med vores frustration.

Så skrev vi ud til gode kolleger i filmbranchen og på nogle få uger havde en række producenter stillet 60 DVD’ere til rådighed, som nu står i en af de smukkeste bygninger i Damaskus til inspiration for gæster og beboere.

Se det var et rigtigt eventyr – men han hedder jo også HC.

Og vil du også gerne bidrage med din film til en happy end, så kan du kontakte undertegnede

mikael@opstrup-husum.dk

www.damaskus.dk

PS. En udstilling om det smukke hus i Damaskus er åbnet i dag på Davids Samling i København.

Cinephilia!

The Factual and the Fictive

International Film Guide 2009

472 pages. Full of illustrations – still from films, photos from award ceremonies at festivals all over the world, the 45th edition of the International Film Guide is available. With ”Directors of the Year”, a ”World Survey”, info/reports/highlights country by country from Afghanistan to Vietnam, a festival focus (this year on Sundance), statistics, the best dvd-publishers and the best new boxes, a festival calendar – and advertisements all over that are full of info on how to get more information. And of course the Guide is now also online, see below.

I have followed this publication from way back, when the founding editor Peter Cowie travelled around and was a regular visitor to Denmark, where he was so kind to ask me to write a small text about Danish shorts and documentaries. I did and Statens Filmcentral (National Film Board of Denmark), where I worked for 20 years, bought an advertisement in the book! Fair enough and this is still how this yearbook is financed, I guess. It makes the texts very different depending on who is writing. Some texts are pure promotion, others are fine reporting and some analytical. For me the mix is actually quite charming and wonderfully entertaining to sit with as a book.

Talking about documentaries, which we primarily do on filmkommentaren.dk, it is significant to see how much space this genre gets in the book. Another indirect evidence that it is the Golden Age of the creative documentary. Therefore, let me end by referring to a fine article by British Chris Darke on a FILMmaker of all genres: Agnès Varda.

www.internationalfilmguide.com

www.wallflowerpress.co.uk

Best of Britain

The Danish Film House in Copenhagen and its excellent Cinemateket puts a focus on British documentary through 8 programmes in the month of May. There is a selection of the classics from the 30'es (Night Mail, Listen to Britain, O Dreamland etc.) and there are films by Molly Dineen (Home from the Hill) and Kim Longinotto  (her latest Rough Aunties). The Must-See, however, if you have time for only one of the screenings, is Terence Davies new masterpiece from Liverpool, Of Time and the City. The site of Cinemateket gives little info on the films, so if you want more on Of Time and the City (photo) you just search the title on this page.

PS. And please programmers of Cinemateket, get hold of the newest film of Molly Dineen, The Lie of the Land, the most important film about the decline of civilisation I have seen for years.

www.dfi.dk

30 Years Older

Lars  Gehrmann, film student at Zelig in Bolzano, has, on his blog, made the following reference from a new short film “Immersion”, produced by the New York Times, to a documentary classic:

1978 Latvian film maker Herz Frank did a short documentary about children in a cinema. “Ten minutes older” is simple, beautiful and for sure one of the must-sees in (documentary) film history. If you don’t know it; YouTube is your friend: 10 minutes older

30 years later NYT Photographer Robbie Cooper did his remake of the Herz Frank film. Time has passed and for todays kids gaming is more important than going to the movies or watching TV. This may be the reason why his four minute film shows kids playing video games.
But this is the only thing that changed in 30 years. Like the “original” he limits his camerawork to showing only the mimic and expressions on the kids faces. And like 30 years ago it’s simply fun to watch:

http://interfilm.de/blog/

www.LarsGehrmann.eu

Jacques Tati does not smoke any longer

Look at that photo. Something is wrong. Yes, it is our beloved Jacques Tati on his Solex, as we remember him as M. Hulot. But he has something strange in his mouth. Not the usual pipe but one of those plastic windmills that are meant for kids to play with. Tati gone ecological after his death? Why?

Well, here we go again: No Smoking. In this case the French company Métrobus that takes care of the public advertisements on busses and trains, has decided that Tati with a pipe is publicity for smoking. So what to do for the organisers of the Tati exhibition (at la Cinématheque Francaise until August 2) as all posters were already printed. They did what you see, added a windmill, which of course is a fine move that will make many more interested in... pipe-smoking, no, Tati, yes.

”le monde” is where I read about this yesterday, and French reading site visitors can read (links below) how this absurdity has provoked a lot of humour, and anger. ”It is a crime against the spirit of Tati, who always had this pipe as part of his character ... and could you imagine Humphrey Bogart without a cigarette in mouth or Georges Simenon without pipe?”

http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2009/04/22/jacques-tati-et-coco-chanel-interdits-de-fumer-dans-le-metro-et-sur-les-bus_1183937_3246.html#xtor=RSS-3208

http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/04/13/tati-nom-dune-pipe/

Nicolas Philibert: La ville Louvre

Produced 20 years ago, this masterpiece of Nicolas Philibert is as fresh as on the day of release. It is a fascinating look at what happens behind the scene at the magnificent museum in Paris. At the end of the film Philibert summarises what was his intention, by showing a long sequence of faces of some of the people, the viewer meets in the film. Yes, he is after people and what people do in an adventurous and sometimes mysterious place like Louvre where he (also) takes us underground to all the art works that wait to be exhibited or never reaches the exhibition area. It is transport, cleaning, restoring and conserving, and guarding, and playing boule on Rue de Rivoli next to the museum, measuring, planning the placement of the paintings in a room before the opening. And so on and so forth, several magical moments, lots of humour, all born by a fascination from the side of the film team. And you sense the director’s écriture right away, as you know it from La Moindre des Choses, Le pays des sourds, Etre et Avoir...

Philibert wast originally only hired to film one of the complicated transports, but stayed in the museum for another 3 weeks filming without any permission before getting this, and a producer and financing... I wanted to avoid bureaucracy, Philibert says in the bonus interview on the dvd (Éditions Montparnasse). Nobody actually had problems with us hanging around, as they already knew us. The film is a beauty because of the constant thinking in images, and the total concentration, as he also says is needed, to be ready to catch important moments, and film small stories that in the final film is cut in the way that you leave a theme and some people to come back to them later.

The film will be shown saturday April 25 on ARTE in connection with the Theme Day dedicated to the 20 years of the Louvre pyramid.

France, 1989, 82 mins.

www.arte.tv

http://recherche.fnac.com/ia69720/Nicolas-Philibert

Vurdering:

Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin 5

Bruno Ganz og Otto Sander kommer som disse frakkeklædte engle usynlige ind til de mange læsende (Rilkes scene fra "Malte Laurids Brigges Optegnelser") på Staatsbibliothek. De kan, da de er engle, ikke kun høre tanker, men også, hvad der læses, og blandt de mange mumlende stemmer med sætninger om livet i regnskoven, om sommeren, som lakker mod enden, om merværdiafgift, om sammenfatning af ligninger, om kærligheden, om vemod ved soldaterne ved fronten og et bygkorn i øjet (i et Alban Berg brev), om DNA molekylet... skelner jeg:

"Walther Benjamin købte 1921 Paul Klees akvarel ANGELUS NOVUS. Indtil sin flugt fra Paris i juni 1940 hang det i hans vekslende arbejdsværelser. I sit sidste skrift "Über den Begriff der Geschichte", 1940, fortolkede han billedet som allegori over tilbageblikket på historien..." Så tager andre stemmer over, men jeg erindrer Benjamins tekst:

"... Det viser en engel, som ser ud til at bevæge sig væk fra noget, han stirrer på. Hans øjne er vidtåbne, hans mund er åben, hans vinger er foldet ud. Det er sådan historiens engel må se ud. Hans ansigt er vendt mod fortiden. Mens en kæde af begivenheder er hvad vi oplever, ser han én enkelt katastrofe, som stabler tilintetgørelse på tilintetgørelse og slynger dem for hans fødder. Englen ville gerne blive, levende eller død, og gøre helt igen, hvad der er blevet knust. Men en storm blæser fra Paradis, og den har fået fat i hans vinger. Den er så stærk, at englen ikke kan folde dem sammen. Den storm driver ham uimodståelig ind i fremtiden, som han vender ryggen til, mens stablen af murbrokker foran ham vokser mod himlen. Denne storm er hvad vi kalder fremskridt..."

Som Fassbinder og Pasolini i deres film, skildrer Wenders i sin film det, Klees og Benjamins engel ser..

Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987. 122 min. Manuskript (monolog og digt): Peter Handke, kamera: Henri Alekan, klip: Peter Przygodda, medvirkende: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois og Peter Falk. DVD, Arthaus 2005, 500941, Wim Wnders Edition. Litt.: Wim Wenders und Peter Handke: Der Himmel über Berlin, ein Filmbuch, 1987. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Walther Benjamin: Über den Begriff der Geschichte, 1940, i Gesammelte Schriften I, side 691-704. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Foto: Paul Klee: Angelus Novus.

Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin 4

Vi havde Berlinaften på Nordisk Designhøjskole i aftes. Eleverne rejser i dag på studierejse til byen, og hele dagen i går gik med forberedelser. Der var foredrag om Berlins historie og topografi og om aftenen kørte de "Der Himmel über Berlin", som jeg var derude for at introducere.

Vi talte om Walter Benjamins optagethed af Paul Klees ANGELUS NOVUS, som Tue Steen Müller så sjovt samtidig sidder og skriver om. Jeg fortalte eleverne, at Tue og jeg i julen var i Berlin og en lang aften gik omkring i den store Paul Klee udstilling i det moderne kunstmuseum. Et særligt afsnit der var indrettet omkring det lille maleri med en engelfremstilling, som ellers er på museet i Jerusalem, og på dette maleris særlige proveniens. Det har tilhørt først Rainer Maria Rilke, senere Walter Benjamin, som skrev et essay om det, teksten, Tue citerer fra.

Read All About It!

A piece of promotion for a serious and competent publishing house with an excellent newsletter with links to events (conferences like the one below about Pasolini and Fassbinder, and festivals) and first of all info on new books on the seventh art. The publisher presents itself like this:

“Wallflower Press is an independent publishing house specialising in cinema and the moving image. We are devoted to the publication of the highest-quality academic and popular literature in film, television and media studies as well as related areas of the visual arts, and publish over thirty new titles each year. Through focusing on this niche area, albeit a large and growing one, we are committed to providing the widest possible range of insightful and significant texts covering the full spectrum of contemporary moving image theory and practice.”

The photo (from Agnes Varda's Le Bonheur) is from the cover of the book: Feminist Auteurs. Reading Women's films. By Geetha Ramanathan.

http://www.wallflowerpress.co.uk/

Fassbinder and Pasolini

Hommage to Lithuanian Documentaries

Sergey Dvortsevoy in Nyon

Andrej Tarkovskij: Spejlet

Vurdering:

National Film Board 1939-2009

Cinéma du Réel 10

Pier Paolo Pasolini og Chris Marker, ja, de gamle meget forskellige mestre var med. Havde hver en sag med. Pasolini en lille og en mindre og Marker en lille bitte. Vægtige på hver sin måde alle tre... 

Pasolinis rejsefilm fra 1963 (billedet), hvor han tænksomt, omhyggeligt og kritisk gennemrejser de hellige steder i Palæstina sammen med sin kirkehistoriske rådgiver pater Carraro for at finde locations til "Matthæusevangeliet", er fascinernede og forbavsende i sin sære naivitet som dokument, men tydeligt.

En lille film, hvor han laver prøveoptagelser med unge zigøjnere uden for Rom til en film, som ikke blev til noget, er simpelthen rørende.

Chris Marker i sin "Détour Ceausescu" fra 1990 har på en chokerende ærlig måde klippet standrettens overfladiske brutalitet sammen med tv's overfladiske forbrug af den absurde begivenhed ind i dens egen verden af æstetisk og moralsk uforståelighed.

Joris Ivens Retrospective

The very active news service provided by Cinéma du Réel informs about an upcoming retrospective series of Joris Ivens at the Cinémathèque française (51 rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris) from March 5th to April 5th. The text goes like this:

Joris Ivens was a politically committed filmmaker and an inspired poet. The retrospective states again the importance of Joris Ivens’ look on the twentieth century, its injustices, its struggles, its failures, but also its hopes, achievements and moments of happiness. Please note that a forum « Joris Ivens, a history of wind » will take place on Sunday March 15th at 4.00pm :
Participants : Marceline Loridan Ivens, Edgar Morin, Jean-Pierre Sergent, Adrienne Fréjacques, André Stufkens et Claude Brunel. Hosted by Serge Toubiana.
info@cinereel.org
www.cinematheque.fr

Maximilian Schell: Marlene

I’ve been photographed enough, she answers, when Maximilian Schell asks her, why she does not want to appear visually in his documentary. Indeed she had and it does not matter as Schell makes a point out of this, organises a studio so it looks like her Paris apartment where the interviews were made in 1982. Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) gives a wonderful performance on the sound recordings, which are in English and German. I’ve been contracted to be exiting, 3 days in English and 3 days in German, she says to Schell, who during the conversations often is a happy victim of her complaints about the way the conversations go, and very often about the questions that are put to her. She does not want to speak about the person Marlene, she wants to speak profession, and in a a professional way, please!

This documentary classic is entertaining from start till end. About her work itself, her work with people like Sternberg, Billy Wilder, Spencer Tracy (”what a wonderful man”) and her attitude to being an actress. I’ve always been obedient, she says, and corrects again and again Schell. We worked with scripts, she says, when he asks if she never improvised. Improvising, never. Wonderful archive material accompanies her narration, historical material, clips from her films, from her stage performances at older age, and all the stills taken of the beautiful woman. The most moving sequence, however, consists of air images of the totally ruined Berlin after the war with Marlene humming songs from her beloved city. I’ve never looked back, she says, but here the director Maximilian Schell uses the film language elegantly to have her do so.

Thanks to Swedish tv, the strand K Special, for the reprise of a gorgeous hommage to one of the real film stars. The film can be bought on dvd all over.

1984, 94 mins.

http://www.marlenedietrich.org
http://www.marlene.com/

Vurdering:

Sundance Film Festival 2009

Kosmorama 242

Tidsskriftets nye nummer med artikler, der med Morten Hartz Kaplers "AFR" i front kredser omkring den evige problemstilling, fakta og/eller fiktion, udkommer i dag. I aften 18:15 er der stort arrangement med visning af Haskell Wexlers "Medium Cool" fra 1968, som Mads Fuglede indleder. Så er der reception og senere på aftenen vises i 3D animation "Chicago 10" fra 2007.

www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/kosmorama

Herovre i Randers regner jeg med her på siden senere at vende tilbage til nogle af teksterne i Kosmorama 242. Jeg kan jo sidde og læse i aften..

Cinemateket: Tegnedrengene mm.

Agnes Varda: Les Plages d’Agnès

Sight and Sound: The Best of 2008

Volha Nikalaichyk: Khash

Vurdering:

Andrej Tarkovskij: Solaris

"... Wie grossartig dagegen etwa Antonionis Schauspielerarbeit in seinem Film "L'Avventura" oder jene von Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane". Bei ihnen kommt einfach das Gefühl auf, einmalig überzeugende Figuren vor sich zu haben. Doch das ist einequalitativ ganz andere, filmspezifische Überzeugungskraft, die sich prinzipiell von der Expressivität eines Theaterschauspielers unterscheidet.

So kam es seinerzeit nicht zu einer wirklich kreativen Zusammenarbeit mit Donatas Banionis, der die Hauptrolle (Kris Kelvin) in meinem "Solaris"-Film spielte. Banionis Gehört nämlich zur Kategorie analytischer Schauspieler, die einfach nicht arbeiten können, wenn sie..."

Vurdering:

Docpoint Celebrates Documentary Legends

The British Dochouse at the Riverside Studios in London does a lot for the creation of a documentary culture in the UK... but is apparently not only promoting films within the UK but also outside. I found this very interesting press release about the Finnish documentary film festival Docpoint (January 20-25 in Helsinki) that clearly wants to celebrate two documentary icons:   
Nick Broomfield and Richard Leacock (photo) Leacock will attend DocPoint 2009. The 2009 programme includes a retrospective of Nick Broomfield’s work. Broomfield’s early work followed in the footsteps of cinéma vérité, influenced by Frederick Wiseman and Richard Leacock. Later Broomfield’s style became more distinctive. The retrospective is a comprehensive review of Broomfield’s work. The British censorship laws led Broomfield to work in the United States for most of his career. Since the 1990’s in his films Broomfield has focused mainly on various celebrities, including serial killer Aileen Wuornos, rap artist Tupac Shakur and a Neo-Nazi Leader Eugène Terre’Blanche.

Richard Leacock attend DocPoint with his wife and co-film maker Valerie Lalonde. DocPoint Festival presents A Tribute to Richard Leacock programme. Ever since his film debut at the age of 13 (Canary Bananas, 1935), Leacock has believed in showing the viewer the truest possible record of events. During his career he has worked with legends such as Robert Flaherty, Robert Drew and D.A. Pennebaker, the co-founders of cinéma vérité. A Tribute to Richard Leacock includes among others A Musical Adventure in Siberia (2001), a film about an opera production in Russia, put together decades after it was banned by the authorities. At present Leacock and Lalonde are making an autobiographical documentary of Leacock’s honourable 74- year-long career.

http://www.dochouse.org/
http://www.docpoint.info/en

and Sara Thelle`s  recommendation: http://www.richardleacock.com/index.html

Warhol in Berlin

Andrej Tarkovskij: Offeret

"...Die Gegenfigur Adelaides ist die demütig-bescheidene, stets schüchtern und unsicher wirkende Maria, die im Haus Alexanders ihren Dienst als Zugehfrau versieht. Zwischen ihr und dem Hausherrn scheint zunächst keine Annäherung möglich - wie sollte sie auch? Dann aber kommt es zu jener nächtlichen Begegnung, nach der Alexander nicht mehr so weiterleben kann wie zuvor: Angesichts der bevorstehenden Katastrophe erfährt er die Liebe zu dieser einfachen Frau wie ein Geschenk Gottes, das sein ganzes Schicksal rechtfertigt. Das Wunder, dessen er inne wird, verwandelt ihn.." (Andrej Tarkovskij 1984)

Vurdering:

EFA – Sergey Dvortsevoy, Documentary

Sergey Dvortsevoy thinks it is important to reflect on WHY you make documentaries, well film in general. He started late as a filmmaker, he made ”Paradise”, ”Bread Day”, ”Highway”, ”In the Dark” and now ”Tulpan”, the latter a film with actors, nominated for a Discovery Prize af the EFA last night in Copenhagen... as if this brilliant filmmaker had not been discovered before due to his excellent documentaries. There are too many superficial films, he says, you have to go deep, you must have something important to say.The camera can´t think, all starts up here, he says and points at his forehead.

I met him at the Radisson lobby, a happy man, fluent in English contrary to 10 years ago when he came to Copenhagen with ”Paradise” – but expressing the same spontaneous, almost childish joy out of the fact that his new film from Kazahkstan, that took him four years to make, is going very well on festivals, winning prizes to support the director and his family. And with the coming cinema release in several countries.

I went away from documentaries, he said, because of moral problems. I thought I could not any longer make art out of tragedies... I interrupted him, but ”Paradise” is not a tragedy... For you and me, maybe not, but the main character of this small film got a lot of problems from the authorities after the film. How can you allow someone to film a woman washing her hair without shampoo, why do you only show the bad sides of our country and so on so forth. You make us look stupid, they said... The new film with actors and a script that the director followed 20% (!) is also having problems, but they are actors and the audience knows that. Food for thought. His ”Tulpan” is not yet available on dvd.

Photo: The unique scene in "Paradise", the child that eats.

Jørgen Leth: Portrætfilmene 2

Klaus Rifbjerg (han sidder så selvfølgeligt og ubesværet ved sit lille skrivebord foran vinduet, helt anderledes end forfatteren i fortællingens ramme i Notater om kærligheden, dette andet jeg, som er så besværet, fortvivlet, manieret)

Peter Martins - en danser (den perfekte krop, den enestående præstation, den kødelige erotik, trænet op til brug for instruktørens tankes iscenesættelse)

Cinemateket: Den etnografiske dokumentar

Jørgen Vestergaard: At være sig selv

Utrættelige Jørgen Vestergaard har lavet en film om ”Kirsten Kjær og hendes museum” i Langvad ved Frøstrup. Den varer 33 minutter og lader kunstnerens nevø, Harald Fuglsang (billede), fortælle historien om en farverig og kontroversiel personlighed, hvis mange portrætmalerier kan beses på museet, eller rettere kunstcentret, som Fuglsang kalder det sted som han og vennen John Anderson har skabt, hvor der betales entré efter behag og hvor der nu også er et specielt koncerthus at finde.

Filmen giver god besked og viser rundt, og Vestergaard skal have ros for at have sat tre andre film på dvd’en – filmen om Ovartaci fra 1998, portrættet af Jens Søndergaard fra 1995 (hvori salig Flemming Madsen fra vor tv-barndom optræder) og endelig Cementkrucifikset fra 1968 om pastor Anton Laier med stemme og kommentar af vidunderlige Broby-Johansen.

4 film om kunstnere fordelt over 40 år, blot en lille del af Vestergaards omfattende filmografi – se også under ”Hanstholm-historien om en havn”.

Salg og distribution: Forlaget Knakken, 7700 Thisted. E-mail: orpo@thisted-bibliotek.dk  Tlf: 99172843. English subtitles available.

Geyerhalter: Too Many Cheap tv Documentaries

This year’s Top 10 at the coming IDFA festival in Amsterdam is put together by Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter. He has chosen films that have impressed him and that have played a role in his own development. Here is a clip from his motivation, where he praises Pirjo Honkasalo and her last big documentary:

”The 3 rooms of Melancholia” rescued a festival for me, which I would otherwise have left in frustration – I saw a lot of films there, most of which were very interesting in terms of their content, but formally lacked any kind of vision. It increasingly seems to me that people pay hardly any attention any more to the style of their film, as long as they have found a strong subject. At many documentary FILM festivals, I see films that hardly even reach the artistic – and often also technical – level of a cheap television documentary. Exceptional content is not enough to make a film into a good film. And I must also confess that I am not sure, that the film world has really been enriched by the democratisation that has been brought about by the advent of small cameras. True, this has resulted in greater output, particularly in the documentary field, and it is possible to make a documentary on a small budget, but the number of really great works seems to be in inverse proportion to the number of films being made. One of the few really great works of recent times is ”The 3 rooms of Melancholia”, which uniquely rises head and shoulders above the swamp of many small-scale documentaries, which call themselves films.

Still: The 3 Rooms of Melancholia

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/news/background/top-10-geyrhalter.aspx

Terence Davies: Of time and the City/on Narration

Scottish Film Institute: Latest News

I promoted the possibility of watching short documentaries from the Bridging the Gap series a couple of weeks ago. This very active documentary institute in Scotland also publishes a newsletter that you can subscribe to for free, see site below.

What a pleasure to see the programme that is announced for October and November. Two of the best currrent documentary names will visit Edinburgh: Nicholas Philibert and Andrey Payanov, the latter to show among others his masterpiece "Mosquito Problems and Other Stories". And there are themes like "music in documentaries" and "trailers" to be studied. Much to be inspired by, and why not "so ein Ding muss ich auch haben"?

http://www.docscene.org/

Still: Andrey Payanov: Mosquito Problems... 

Frederick Wiseman on Festival Tour

Cahiers du Cinema

BFI: Documentary Film History

The BFI (British Film Institute) celebrates its 75th birthday by publishing a collection of dvd's including one of documentaries from the golden period 1930-1950. What a discovery for those who dont know about it, and what a revisit for us, who was taught that it all started in the UK with names like John Grierson, Humphrey Jennings, Paul Rotha and Basil Wright. Check the website below. 4 discs of brilliant work, a booklet - films and interviews. A gift!

http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_8457.html  

Jørgen Leth: Udenrigskorrespondenten

Jeg mener ikke, jeg har set filmen siden den var ny. 25 år er gået. Og man spørger naturligvis: holder den? Og jeg svarer lige med det samme efter at have set DVD-versionen: Om den holder! Omsider en ligetil og tydelig film. En klog og smuk kærlighedsfilm. En gennemført Leth-film, så genkendelig. Måske falder den lidt sammen til sidst, det må undersøges nærmere, men til da: Ja, hvor den holder.

Gensynet er fantastisk, filmen er meget bedre, end jeg husker den. Igen er der det med den anden uskyld, at glemme alt det, jeg ved om filmen på forhånd, om Haiti og om Leth og hans bøger og andre film, og opleve filmen igen i en tømt tilstand af både forståelse og oplevelse, som er værkets mening og hensigt, som Poul Borum sagde.

Der er i den situation meget at glemme, for der har været meget siden. Hans "Haiti, uden titel" først og fremmest og "Traberg" jo, og Asger Leths "The Ghosts of Cité Soleil". Den politiske udvikling i landet, kup og krige. Alle artklerne og bøgerne. Det ville ikke være Jørgen Leths skyld, hvis jeg ikke genkendte stederne og personerne og begivenhederne. Med alt det stof glemt, men husket et andet sted i systemet, er det, at alt i den 25 år gamle film er tydeligt og ligetil. "Det lignede en erindring, dette sted," som Traberg siger et sted i den film, hvor alt også er så velkendt. 

Jørgen Leth: Udenrigskorrespondenten /Interference, Danmark 1983 i DVD-udgaven The Jørgen Leth Collection 19-21, 2008. Boks 4 indeholder Traberg, 1992, Sanct Hansaften-Spil,1979 og Udenrigskorrespondenten.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345 

Vurdering:

Jørgen Leth: Interference

The Danish director Christoffer Boe writes in the box booklet:

" For one scene alone Interference is a must see. The scene: an extended medium close shot of Hanne Uldal, as The Woman, lying naked on the metal floor of a balcony. And no, it´s not because we´re looking at the best breasts in Danish cinema, but because her declaration of love is the purest image we have of a certain kind of male psyche. Sure, it´s The Woman speaking, but she is expressing The Man´s innermost desire.

His endless desire to combine woman´s total devotion and care with his own self-control and work achivement.

-Use me for anything. I want you to. I will massage your temples with a lemon.

-While I´m writing?

-Yes, while you´re writing.

Writing while a woman loves you - what more could you ask for!"

Jørgen Leth: Interference, Denmark 1983 in the DVD-edition The Jørgen Leth Collection 19-21, 2008. The box no. 4 contains Traberg, 1992, Interference and and A Midsummer Night´s Play, 1979.

All films in the Jørgen Leth Collection have English subtitles.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345 

Albert Maysles Interview

Take 5 minutes break and go to the website of British newspaper Guardian and watch an interview with good old observational documentary hero Albert Maysles, this mild man who is a true believer of the classical approach to reality. This is what it is called:

"The eye of the cameraman should be the eye of the poet": an interview with Albert Maysles. Daniel Tapper talks love and propaganda with documentary maker Albert Maysles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2008/aug/06/albert.maysles

British Documentary History Online

Need to brush up your documentary film history? If so, the BFI (British Film Institute) can help you. I have just spent a little hour in company with two brilliant British actors, Derek Jacobi and Malcolm McDowell, who have introduced me to the GPO Unit film tradition way back in the 30’es with John Grierson as the mastermind – and to the 50’es and the so called Free Cinema with Lindsay Anderson as the main player, who after his contribution to the documentary history picked McDowell to be his favourite actor in films like ”If” and ”O Lucky Man”. This interactive online elementary documentary course that you can reach and use for free is introduced like this:

”The General Post Office may seem an unlikely source for some of the most creative British filmmaking of the 1930s, but with a talent roster including W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Len Lye, Norman McLaren and J.B. Priestley, that's exactly what it was. Here, Sir Derek Jacobi presents an extensively illustrated interactive guide to the history of the GPO Film Unit, with clips ranging from well-known classics like Night Mail (1936) to rarer but equally sparkling gems.”

”Fifty years ago, a programme of short documentary films changed British cinema for ever. In the third BFI series developed in partnership with BT,  Malcolm McDowell introduces an interactive history of Free Cinema, the pivotal but under-recognised film movement of the late 1950s.”  Some of these films can be watched on the FourDocs website, see below.

Photo: Lindsay Anderson and Malcolm McDowell on the set of 1973's O Lucky Man!

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/index.html

http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/archive/

Riga Diary 4

Doc Air Impressive Online Catalogue

If you want to make your own festival, faced in front of your computer, Doc Air offers you quality. Check it yourself, and be aware that here you find an excellent selection of Czech directors to be carefully studied - like Karel Vachek, the late Pavel Koutecky, Jan Gogola, Miroslav Janek. But also films by international "stars" like Chris Marker, Jørgen Leth, Michael Glawogger and Ulrich Seidl. Around 250 short and long films, good annotations for each films and a well written newsletter to subscribe to. And cheap it is. End of my promotion. Here is a clip from the site´s own presentation:

Doc Air is the first and only portal for the online distribution of documentary film in Central and Eastern Europe. It does not matter whether you are a film professional or not. Doc Air is a documentary heaven for anyone who has a great interest and at least a little money... Doc Air offers a selection of important contemporary documentary films from all over the world. Doc Air films are presented in cooperation with various European documentary film festivals

Legally and for a minimum fee, you too can watch or buy a film by mere playing or downloading it in one of the three offered formats. The majority of the films are charged as follows: you will pay 1 Euro for a stream, DivX format download will cost you 2.5 Euro, DVD quality 5 Euro.

Photo from Glawogger: Megacities.

http://www.doc-air.com

The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema 1,2,3

... presented by Slavoj Zizek, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, is simply a gift to all film teachers. In three parts Zizek takes us on a Freudian, but not only, trip through wonderful clips that he comments on from his point of view, turning everything upside down, in a very demanding and inspiring lecture, full of humour with the lecturer ”placed” by the director Sophie Fiennes on a boat near the location of Hitchcock’s ”The Birds”, in the house where ”Psycho” was shot, in the bathroom that Gene Hackmann was in when ”The Conversation" by Coppola was shot and so on.

Indispensable in film teaching and for film lovers in general, because this dvd is so well constructed: It goes in three parts that you can run separately, and within these parts you can find a chapter that will be useful or joyful, or both, for you.

And it is so full of clips from the ones mentioned above, but also David Lynch, Tarkovsky, Bergman, von Trier, Marx Brothers and the one who is better than the rest of them: Charlie Chaplin. Zizek loves films and he really can tell us what he thinks. Buy it!

England/Austria, 2006, director: Sophie Fiennes, 150 mins.

http://www.thepervertsguide.com/index.php

Vurdering:

Mandagsdokumentaren

Ebbe Preisler er en af utrættelige slidere i dansk dokumentarfilm. Han var den fremtrædende producent i midten af 1970’erne, da jeg startede i Statens Filmcentral. Han stod i 1990 bag oprettelsen af Documentary, som var MEDIAprogrammets første kontor, som blev placeret i København. Det kontor som senere blev til EDN (European Documentary Network). Og han har været generalsekretær for både producenter og instruktører. Med meget mere.

Og så er det nu 13de gang at han leverer et veloplagt klassisk efterårsprogram for sin opfindelse Mandagsdokumentaren, hvor han sammensætter korte og lange film i programmer på et par timer inklusiv samtaler med ophavsmænd og –damer.

Et par eksempler: Den helt nye film om Slobodan Milosevic vises sammen med Heynowski og Scheumann’s legendariske ”Congo Müller” fra 1972. Lars Johanssons fine film om Per Højholt vises med ”Gittes Monologer”, som Preisler selv lavede med Sten Bramsen. Og så er der gensyn med én af denne blogs kæledægger, Jon Bang Carlsens ”Hotel of the Stars” og ”Livet vil leves”.

www.mandagsdokumentaren.dk

Still: Katrine Østlund Jacobsens "Aftaler med Gud" med Dan Holmbergs fotografi er også i programmet.

Filminstituttet under kraftig privatisering

Ebbe Preislers indsats for dokumentarfilmen i Danmark er omtalt under Mandagsdokumentaren. At han ikke er bange for at tage bladet fra munden viser følgende klip fra hans forord til programmet. Vi tilslutter os helt hans nødråb vedr. udenlandske kort- og dokumentarfilm:

”... dansk filmkultur har det rigtigt skidt på dette område. Der importeres stort set ikke kort- og dokumentarfilm til Danmark. Filminstitutet er under kraftig privatisering, og indkøbskontoen har været minimal i årevis. Den ene nye klassiker efter den anden går vores næse forbi...Der er mindst 100 kort- og dokumentarklssikere, der burde findes tilgængelige på f.eks. danske biblioteker, men som ikke er der. Filmens Tolstoj, Shakespeare, Virginia Wolf... Flere af dem var tilgængelige, dengang filmene lå på 16mm og kunne lejes af skoler og foreninger hos Statens Filmcentral. Et par af dem overlevede overgangen til VHS. Men meget få synes at have overlevet overgangen til den digitale tidsalder og dvd’en eller det digitale sendenet, der er på vej.

Jeg har spurgt i DFI om ikke importstøtte kunne komme på tale i et forsøg på at genkøbe de vigtigste titler, men reglerne for importstøtte er reserveret spillefilm...”

www.mandagsdokumentaren.dk

www.dfi.dk

Still: Hvor er kopierne til publikum af Audrius Stonys mesterværk - ordets betydning erindret - ALENE ? Hvor han som filmlærer til eleverne må man tro i en overstadig generøs sammenhæng anbringer en mangfoldigh ed af filmiske greb i én bevægelse. Jacob Høgel støttede i sin tid som konsulent produktionen.Men hvor er vores produkt? De tilgængelige kopier? (ABN)

Cine-essays i Cinemateket

Redaktionen på ferie

Forleden hyldede vi os selv i anledning af ét års fødselsdagen for filmkommentaren. På skrift. Samme aften blev der sagt skål i Haut-Médoc og i Vecchia Romagna hjemtaget fra Italien. Det blev vådt og langt her i Allinge, hvor redaktionen holder ferie. Dagen efter var stille, meget stille, men i går begav vi os ud på den traditionelle tur på kyststierne fra Allinge til Gudhjem. Vi huskede det som en 2-3 timers tur. Det tog 4½ time før vi var fremme ved Café Klint og den saltstegte sild og fadbamserne!

Efter frokost ned til det vidunderlige museum for Oluf Høst. 10 år gammelt er museet, som er indrettet i huset, hvor maleren boede og skabte sine Bognemark-billeder. Vi drak kaffe i den smukke have og så filmen om Høst, som journalisten Rasmus Nielsen har lavet. Den har herlige gamle klip med maleren.

Hjem med bus, skøn mad og første del (af 15) af Fassbinders serie ”Berlin Alexanderplatz”. Fremragende. I en ny lækker boks med masser af bonusmateriale og i en såkaldt remastered version.

http://www.ohmus.dk/

www.secondsightfilms.co.uk

http://www.leksikon.org/art.php?n=3994

Foto: Vi er næsten fremme, lige før Gudhjem Havn..  

Lithuanian Classics

Masterpieces with Children

3 new photos on the title page of www.filmkommentaren.dk. All with children, all from masterpieces that have been written about:

From left "Ten Minutes Older" by Herz Frank (USSR/Latvia), "Before Flying Back to the Earth" by Arunas Matelis (Lithuania) and "Three Rooms of Melancholia" by Pirjo Honkasalo (Finland).  

De kongelige på cykel...

På Danmarks Nationalfilmografis website er det nu muligt at se mere end 50 korte historiske filmklip. Filmene stammer primært fra stumfilmperioden, men enkelte tonefilm er også tilgængelige.

Nationalfilmografien er en omfattende database, der indeholder oplysninger om samtlige danske spillefilm, alle danske stumfilm og godt 500 danske dokumentarfilm. Derudover indeholder Nationalfilmografien nu også et mediegalleri med filmklip, plakater, stumfilmprogrammer, stills fra filmene og portrætbilleder af omkring 450 skuespillere og instruktører.

http://www.dfi.dk/aktuelt/Nyheder/historiskefilm.htm

DOKS 100

De hundrede mest bevaringsværdige danske dokumentarfilm... den opgave blev stillet undertegnede og Niels Jensen for nogle år tilbage. Og den liste kan diskuteres, naturligvis, og I skal vide, hvis I kigger os nærmere i kortene, at når Jørgen Roos, Jørgen Leth og Jon Bang Carlsen ikke er med på listen, så er det fordi deres film allerede er sikret bevaring på bedst mulige måde. Husker I det, filmmuseum? Her er teksten fra hjemmesiden, som I kan klikke jer ind på:

http://www.dfi.dk/bibliotekogarkiver/billedarkiv/billederonline/doks100/doks100.htm

"Det Danske Filminstituts Filmarkiv bad i begyndelsen af 2006 to inkarnerede dokumentarfilmkendere, Tue Steen-Møller og Niels Jensen, om at udpege de 100 væsentligste og mest signifikante danske dokumentarfilm. Denne liste, der fik navnet "Doks 100", anvendes som rettesnor for bevaringsindsatsten i forhold til dokumentarfilm i filmarkivets samling (en lignende er tidligere blevet udformet for danske spillefilm). I forbindelse med det filmografiske arbejde blev listen udvidet med yderligere 39 titler, tilskyndet af Filminstituttets ph.d.-stipendiat Palle Bøgelund Petterson."

Still fra Anne Wivels Giselle, som er med på listen "Doks100" (+39). At filmen også er med på spillefilmlisten er selvfølgelig og dog tankevækkende. (ABN red.)

Danmarks Nationalfilmografi

... er et uundværligt redskab for den, der vil søge tilbage i den danske filmhistorie. Jeg gider ikke beklage mig over at dokumentarfilmen ikke får samme opmærksomhed som spillefilmen, jeg vil hellere glæde mig over den nemme tilgængelighed, der nu eksisterer til tusindvis af oplysninger.

Men... den gamle bibliotekar undrer sig over filmografien under Jørgen Roos, dansk dokumentarfilms største navn. Der er et gabende hul fra 1972-1995, hvor Jørgen var temmelig aktiv. Ret lige det, her i ti-året for hans død. Tak!

http://dnfx.dfi.dk/pls/dnf/pwt.page_setup?p_pagename=dnfhome

Barack Obama goes for Casablanca

Stumbled over a funny article in Guardian about the favourite films of American presidents and presidential candidates.

... and Hillary loves Out of Africa. 

... and John McCain's pick is Viva Zapata (Photo)

Read for yourself at:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2285587,00.html#article_continue

Edkins & Vehkalahti: Steps by Steps 1

The subtitle of this book is ”the making of the Steps for the Future documentary series”. The writers are the two key initiators of this, the most important international documentary coproduction and training initiative, I know of. To remind you what that is, here is a quote from the site

http://steps.co.za/index.php

”From seven different countries of the Southern African region comes a unique collection of films. Positive, provocative, humourous, brave - unusual stories about how individuals are confronting their lives and how societies are having to change under the impact of HIV/AIDS.”

The book is as wonderful as the series. It is written and edited with pride and passion by Vehkalahti from Finnish YLE and by producer Edkins from South Africa. They bring the whole story behind the building of the project, the production and the use of the films. The latter, the local distribution, taken care of by Edkins, is still going on 8 years after it all started. In the epilogue, the two write:

”One of our original aims for the project was that the films could be used to reduce stigma and discrimination of those living with HIV and AIDS. We feel that through the films, many people who would not normally have been heard, have been given a voice, and most importantly, as in any good documentary film, they have been allowed to finish their sentences. They have told us that actually, life is a beautiful thing.”

BUT the book, great layout, photos and different colours, includes ALSO a lot of general documentary information that makes it (the book) a must for all documentarists, not to mention film school students. Precisely formulated considerations and definitions of what is a documentary. Far from Academic language. See the next entry.

The book is accompanied by a dvd with 8 of the around 35 films that were made.

ISBN: 9781920196097. Published by Jacana Media May 2008. Recommended Retail Price: R165 incl. VAT. (No European distributor yet). Photo: One of the writers at his desk. 

Vurdering:

Robert Flaherty

I am on the West coast of Ireland not far from the islands of Aran. Tomorrow I am going to talk with Mac Dara Ó Curraidhín about a brilliant proposal for a film on Flaherty. Here is a small quote from the proposal:

A Boatload of Wild Irishmen tells the story of Robert Flaherty, the father of the documentary and one of the cinema’s most influential figures. Over the dramatic footage he took of a currach caught in a monstrous sea (from Man of Aran, 1934), Flaherty’s importance will be explained. He was the first to see that film of the every day life of ‘real’ people could be moulded into dramatic, entertaining narratives: but, by the same token, he is also the father of manipulation and distortion as well as being a bridge whereby stereotypes of exotic peoples (including Aran Islanders of the 1930s) became part of cinema. 

And here are some citations from Flaherty, still very much food for thought:

“Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit.”

And referring to the dramatic scene described above: “I should have been shot for what I asked these superb people to do for the film, for the enormous risks I exposed them to, and all for the sake of a keg of porter and five pounds apiece.” 

Gensyn: Jytte Rex trilogi

Selvfølgelig er film de store enkeltstående oplevelser, suset af det nye, fornemmelsen af at være i tiden. Men film er også tradition, film er også den rolige lagring af værket i samlingen. Hvorfra det kan tages frem atter og atter. Længe troede jeg biblioteket var videotekets sted, men,men video (VHS) er snart helt væk og DVD når næppe ind for alvor. Vi må vente på, spændte, hvad bibliotekerne beslutter sig til.

Nå, jeg laver min egen lille undersøgelse. Ser, hvad jeg kan låne umiddelbart på mit eget dejlige bibliotek og tager Jytte Rexs store undersøgelse af den kunstneriske erkendelse med hjem. Kan heldigvis endnu afspille VHS, som Kollektiv Film for ikke længe siden så forudseende udgav det samlede Jytte Rex værk på. (Finder Christian Braad Thomsen ud af at få det digitaliseret?)

Men så vidt så godt, jeg kan roligt sætte mig ned og fordybe mig i noget af det klogeste, der er lavet på dansk film. Tilsyneladende blot tre "kunstnerportrætter". Men nej, de tre film lukker sig op som én sammenhængende tanke om livets omfang og tankens grænse så smukt castet: Inger Christensen, Palle Nielsen, Pelle Gudmundsen - Holmgreen som medvirkende i undersøgelsen af det særlige ved digtet, billedet og musikken.

Jytte Rex: Inger Christensen - cikaderne findes, 1998, Palle Nielsen - mig skal intet fattes, 2001, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen - musikken er et monster, 2006. Palle Nielsen er forsvundet fra filminstituttets katalog, mystisk og Inger Christensen distribueres kun på 35 mm, også sært. Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen findes både som DVD og på www.filmstriben.dk. Endnu kan trilogien dog lånes på biblioteket. Og næsten alle Jytte Rexs film kan købes (VHS og Palle Nielsen DVD) på Kollektiv Film http://braadthomsen.com/  Fotografi: Pelle Gudmundsen - Holmgreen i Rexs film forklarer, hvordan det hele hænger sammen.. i musikkens verden. 

Vurdering:

Michael Glawogger: Megacities

Renata Medero, documentary film student at Zelig, Bolzano, Italy, writes this review of a neo- classic:

Unforgettable images… whether you like it or not.

Some films deliver images to never be forgotten, some beautiful, some not. But - what happens when the ugliness is so hypnotizing that one cannot stop watching? “Megacities” is a unique film because it brings toghether issues that by themselves seem irreconcilable. The worst of the megalopolis is brought together: dehumanization, cruelty, despair, all wrapped in a glossy and luxurious manufacturing, which makes the film as beautiful as mercyless.

The aesthetization of the poverty is not a new tendency in some films of the international scenario, but “Megacities” is tricky. Has a spotless photography, where the flawless and somewhat mysterious composition of images forces the spectator to keep watching the movie even when he might not want to.

And then, the big lettered question: Do I have the right to see this? What right did the director had to film it? And there is still another ethical issue to deal with: a group of russian street kids reveal that they were paid to be filmed. Does that mean that they were paid for showing the inhuman condition in which they live? How maquiavelic could such an idea be? In any case this film is not advisable to animal right activists, good consciences and weak hearts!

I think it is a masterpiece, because it achieves the impossible even though I don't agree in some of the director's views of the situations.

1998, 90 mins.

http://www.filminstitut.at/  

Vurdering:

Original Documentaries... Vehkalahti

A quote from DOX Magazine 74 (www.edn.dk), page 16, from a discussion between Neelima Mathur and Iikka Vehkalahti on "Universality vs Diversity". Vehkalahti from YLE Finland writes:

... perhaps it is that in the genre of cinéma vérité - as creative and wonderful as it is, too often the camera just records what takes place in front of the camera (of course I know that every shot, angle, direction is already a choice and at best a personal choice) but still, somehow, there is the idea of non-interference, to be objective in the obvious subjectivity.

But in how many films do you feel and see that the creator of this documentary sees the world differently, very differently, in a way that nobody else is seeing? ... I visited MOMA in NY and went to those exhibition halls, where you have old masters of modern art. How recognisable they all are - Léger, Kandinsky, Picasso etc. Or even films of Aki Kaurismaki? I need to see only a litle and I know. How many documentary films have that kind of originality?

See the comment from Iikka to the right under "seneste bemærkninger", Danish for latest comments. 

Gensyn: Baby Doll

På DOK2008 forleden bebudede Morten Udsen, efter han havde fortalt om dvd'ernes dramatiske skæbne og mulige fremtid, at der ville komme en box med fire eller var det fem Jon Bang Carlsen film. I forbindelse med premieren på Purity Beats Everything 23. april i filmhuset vistnok.. Til salg i boghandlen i huset vistnok.. I hvert fald et godt valg. Art People står for distributionen http://www.artpeople.dk/  Men der er god grund til at fortsætte eftersøgningen af instruktørens tidlige film, lige nu opleve værkets fulde udstrækning, for utålmodige jeg ved godt, at det kan have lange udsigter med finansieringen af den planlagte fortsættelse, hele Jon Bang Carlsens værk på dvd-boxe. Og jeg er i hvert fald bange for, at det ikke lykkes at få spillefilmene med.

I 1988 blev Ofelia kommer til byen (repriseanmeldt her på filmkommentaren.dk) efterfulgt af Baby Doll, hvor alt samles i et kammerspil, i køkkenet mest, på en vestjysk gård. En kvinde alene med sit nyfødte barn møder helt alene de dæmoniske kræfter, vi rummer i vores fortrængte erindring, og overgiver sig lettet efter sej kamp til dem og går som Ofelia ud i vandet. Mette Munk Plum gennemfører alene, stort set, denne timelange tour de force. Grethe Møldrup har roligt klippet thriller-kurven i smukke afsluttede scener, som man ikke kan ryste af.. Munk Plum spiller dem igennem lyrisk, men med dramatiske udbrud, med kortere og kortere intervaller fornemmes det, udbrud af vrede først, derefter apati, så angst og endelig overgivelse og hengivelse. En kurve som Deneuves i Polanskis Repulsion, men genkendelig og således farligere. 

For i modsætning til Alexander Gruszynskis mytologiske Bovbjerg, som Ofelia og hendes Hamlet færdes i, har Björn Blixt fotograferet moderen Eva og hendes barn i et dokumentarisk skildret landskab, klitten og stranden er lys lys, og i interiører, som er er nøgternt præcise billeder i en scenografi, der som kunstgreb har gjort sig usynlig i en genkendelig realisme. Dørkarmenes farve, gulvenes fernis, hændernes og de nøgne fødders berøringer så taktilt virkelige..

Og alt er også genkendelige Jon Bang Carlsen billeder. Portrætterne på væggen, penduluret, tørresnoren, et blåt klæde, som pludselig dækker scenen af. Og ude gårdsplads og indgang og trappesten som disse huskes. Grusvejens slyng i landskabet. Både Mols og Vestjylland. Det lange filmværks sammenhæng.

Jeg har en indvending til lyddesignet, en bestemt overdrivelse, som rammer min ideosynkrasi, men det er fuldstændig ligemeget nu efter de mange år. Alt det vigtige er så lykkeligt bevaret.

Jon Bang Carlsen: Baby Doll, 1988. Crone Film Produktion. DVD: www.on-air-video.dk Lånt på Randers Bibliotek, fjernlån. Køb (VHS): DVDCITY http://dvdcity.dk/?52X31X3531XA735353

Vurdering:

East Beats West

A Love Affair - and a small follow-up on the review of "Blind Loves": 

It all started around 1990. Even though I had been working for the National Film Board of Denmark since 1975, my knowledge was very limited when it came to documentaries from the Eastern part of Europe. Of course I had seen films by masters like Kieslowski, Herz Frank, Jerzy Bossak and Mihail Romm. But otherwise, the general talk and writing about documentaries worldwise had always been referring to the English and American.

It is still like that - this lack of balance is wrong and will not last. The Eastern Europeans are getting so much better to promote their contribution to the world documentary cinema, so read my lips: East Beats West.

One day the recognition will come because of: High Quality. Compelling Stories. Artistic Competence. Multi-layered Theme Approach. Humour.

Back to 1990-2000 where I had the chance to watch carefully the development of the documentary in Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. At the Balticum Film/TV Festival on Bornholm in Denmark.

I saw minimalistic and conceptual humanistic masterpieces by Sergey Dvortsevoy (Bread Day) and Viktor Kossakovsky (Wednesday) from Russia. I watched the intelligent cultural etnodocumentaries (Miss Saarema)  by Mark Soosaar from Estonia. The powerful non-journalistic interpretation of the fall of USSR by Juris Podnieks (End of Empire), student of Herz Frank from Latvia, as well as Ivars Seleckis warm collective portrait of people (Crossroad Street).  

The most significant revelation, however, were the films from Lithuania. I got to know a whole school of poetic filmmakers headed by Audrius Stonys (Antigravitation) and Arunas Matelis (Ten Minutes Before the Flight to Icharos). Not to talk about the unique philosophical film of Polish Marcel Lozinski (Anything Can Happen), who lets his small son run around in a park asking all kind of questions to old people. Pure beauty and so far from the mainstream of formatted predictable rationality that is poured out on Western tv stations night after night called documentaries.

I still follow the Baltics closely, but I also moved south in my discovery of Eastern European documentary cinema. Through the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) team and EDN I got closer to the Czech and Slovak situation. There is still a whole world to discover for me, in retrospect, but you should know much better the masterpieces of Dusan Hanak (Pictures of the Old World) and Mira Janek (Unseen). They are true masters of the humanistic documentary. And then there is this strange character Jan Gogola, an excellent dramaturg, who talks about documentaries and the challenge to make ”open structures” and who has helped obvious world class original talents like Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak (The Czech Dream) and Peter Kerekes (66 Seasons).

Further to the South lies Hungary and the name of Peter Forgasz is already well established and his latest film (Miss Universe) is simply superb. As are the films of Bulgarian Andrey Payanov (The Mosquito Problem) and Romanian directors Florin Iepan (Ceaucescus Decree) and Ileana Stancalescu (The Bridge). I will get back to the Serbs, the Croatians and the Macedonians on another occasion.

Foto: Juris Podnieks (1950-1992)

The Jørgen Leth Collection

It is a fairy tale. Could only happen in the country of Hans Christian Andersen! Danish film director, poet and journalist Jørgen Leth meets a Danish millionaire and expresses how much he would like his films to be published on dvd in the best possible technical edition. The millionaire offers his support and there you go - Jørgen Leth's films will be available with competent booklets and English subtitles in all films in 6 dvd boxes. Thanks to the financial help of Møllehegnet Holding A/S.

2 of them have come out so far, "The Anthropological Films" and "The Sports Films", and the third one, the travelogues, the films where Leth travels the world, will be out in a week.  In the first box you will find "The Perfect Human" from 1968, in the second "Motion Picture" from 1970, and in the third "66 Scenes from America" from 1982. Just to mention 3 of his great films. 

Jørgen Leth is rightfully, and not only in our small (rotten) kingdom of Denmark, considered to be one of the true masters of documentary, therefore this commercial and reason to direct you to know more about this initiative at:

www.dfi.dk/shop

Boxes 1 and 2 are Region 2, Box 3 will be Region 0. 

Torben Glarbo: Historien bag kameraet

Ved et lukket arrangement på Den danske Filmskole blev Torben Glarbos dokumentarserie, produceret for og allerede vist på DK4, vist i sin fulde længde. 6 timers dansk kort- og dokumentarfilmhistorie. En præstation, ganske simpelt, af fotografen og instruktøren, der så godt som egenhændigt, og med stor stædighed og kærlighed til sin metier, arbejdede på serien i årevis.

Historien fortælles med vinkel på de mange selskaber og enkeltpersoner, som har skabt den position og tradition, som dansk film kan være stolt af. Det begynder med Theodor Christensen og Karl Roos i 30'erne, går via Minerva Film og Nordisk Film videre op til TV2's etablering, som alle havde store forventninger til, men som endte som vi kan se i dag med en total kommercialisering af den tv station, som blev skabt efter engelsk forbillede - Channel4. Nul plads til kreative dokumentar.

Serien er underholdende fra start til slut, det vrimler med herlige anekdoter og med klip fra de mange perler, som dansk dokumentarfilm har frembragt, via folk som lavede film for erhvervslivet, for Dansk Kulturfilm, Ministeriernes Filmudvalg og Statens Filmcentral. Og for sig selv, ud af egen lomme. Serien er naturligvis den rene glæde for folk som undertegnede, der arbejdede for Statens Filmcentral i 20 år, og vel er der meget "internt" for folk i branchen. Men den generelle appel er også oplagt. Jeg har mødt mange tv-seere, som har rost serien for dens indirekte bidrag til Danmarks historie. Og så er det en fryd at se en tv serie, hvor de interviewede får lov at tale ud.

Herligt at gense klip fra mesterværker som Henning Carlsens "Limfjorden", Ole Askmans musik-digt "Capriccio" om politibetjenten, der dirigerer trafikken på Skt. Hans Torv, Franz Ernsts "Livet er er drøm" om psykisk syge, Jørgen Leth og Ole Johns "Motion Picture" med Torben Ulrich og Jon Bang Carlsens "Jeg ville først finde sandheden" om mesteringeniøren Ove Arup.

Filmen er tilegnet dansk dokumentarfilms største navn: Jørgen Roos. Selvfølgelig! Kristen Bjørnkjær interviewede for nogen tid siden Glarbo om projektet: http://www.information.dk/137318

Interesserede kan kontakte Torben Glarbo på torben@glarbo.dk  for køb af serien. 

Vurdering:

It's All True

Wish I were in Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo! For the 8th time Amir Labaki (it started yesterday) launches his documentary film festival with the provoking Orson Welles inspired name "It's All True". I was there years ago as a juror and it is such a pleasure to see - on the site - that the festival is still high-quality with a strong international focus, and at the same time, if you go there, you will see films from Latin America that never reaches Europe.

As you may read this far away from Brazil, go to the website and watch clips from the programme. It starts with the face of Anna Politkovskaya, very moving and right choice to have her first.

And a bit food for thought taken from the intro to a seminar to be held during the festival:

"The recent acclaim that the engaged documentary school has received – whose most prominent global symbol is the work of Michael Moore – poses a collateral risk for the documentary genre. Non-fictional cinema might be captured through the lenses of this purely instrumental account to the detriment of one of its richest contemporary resources, namely, the autonomization of documentary film as a free authorial discourse.

John Grierson’s model had many lessons in store, while engaged documentary launches campaigns. Both are filmmaking with a cause. The former preaches from the pulpit, the latter from a dais. But contemporary documentary making is not standing at the forefront of artistic experimentation thanks to signature films. Quite the contrary".

http://www.itsalltrue.com.br/2008/home.asp?lng=I  

Chris Marker: La Jetée 2

The interview that Allan Berg refers to in his Danish language article "La Jetée" is in English and is one of the very rare conversations that are printed with the enigmatic French master. The interview is wonderful reading. Here are two bites to evoke your hunger for more:

On film and television:
Godard nailed it once and for all: at the cinema, you raise your eyes to the screen; in front of the television, you lower them. Then there is the role of the shutter. Out of the two hours you spend in a movie theater, you spend one of them in the dark. It's this nocturnal portion that stays with us, that fixes our memory of a film in a different way than the same film seen on television or on a monitor.

And on how ”La Jetée” came into being:
I was filming "Le Joli mai", completely immersed in the reality of Paris 1962, and the euphoric discovery of "direct cinema" (you will never make me say "cinema verité") and on the crew's day off, I photographed a story I didn't completely understand. It was in the editing that the pieces of the puzzle came together, and it wasn't me who designed the puzzle. I'd have a hard time taking credit for it. It just happened, that's all.

www.filmlinc.com/fcm/5-6-2003/markerint.htm

Chris Marker: La Jetée

Jeg skulle jo have noget med hjem til min filmklub. Noget fra Paris. Noget rigtigt. Jeg fandt det i Pompidoucentrets butik. En nyrestaureret udgave af den udødelige film om byen, om kærligheden og om døden. Om tiden og om krigen og om det umulige at undslippe.

Dette billede er fra afsnittet om mødet og forelskelsen og foråret i Paris. Det er et still fra location. Jeg har et andet Paris billede med også. Det er fra samme film. Byen lige før udslettelsen.

Onsdag aften ser vi filmen i FOF filmklubben her i byen.

Chris Marker: La Jetée, 1962. Udgivet på DVD 2003 sammen med Sans Soleil, 1983. Arte Video.  www.filmlinc.com/fcm/5-6-2003/markerint.htm Et af instruktørens meget sjældne interviews, her fra Libération i forbindelse med DVD udgivelsen. Hentet på Film Comment's hjemmeside.

Werner Herzogs poetik 5

5. Herzog slår fast at de findes der i den filmiske konstruktion. I modsætning til den journalistiske reportage, hvor de ville forstyrre. Men det må ikke få os til at det samme gælder film, hvor der findes sådan noget som poetisk og henreven sandhed. Den er mystisk og flygtig og kan kun nås ved digtning, fantasi og stilisering.

6. Cinémá verité folk ligner turister som tager billeder midt iblandt kendsgerningers ældgamle ruiner, erklærer han bekymret. Jeg tror han tænker på om hans egne reportager slår til, om de mange fluen på væggen film nu virkelig tænkes færdige. Jo, ok, mestrenes gør, Dvortsevoys gør. Franks, men Wisemans? Altid? Bang Carlsens? Wivels? Aldrig turismens lethed? Jo, da, som vi andre. Dog, Leth digter, fantaserer og stiliserer hele tiden.

7. Men tordner den evigt kontinent-vandrende Herzog: turisme er synd, fodrejse er dyd!

8. Og så fortæller han en historie om de snesevis på snescootere som i det smeltende forår braser igennem isen på søerne i Minnesota. Presset på guvernøren er stort for at få ham til at lovgive om det. Men denne forhenværende bryder og bodyguard har svaret: man kan ikke lave love imod dumhed.

9. Så er handsken kastet, noterer Herzog. Dette er modstanderen. Og det bliver hovedtema i speaken til Grizzly Man, naiviteten over for naturens virkelighed set gennem mange erkendelseslag i et filmværk.

10. For månen er mat, moder natur kalder ikke, taler ikke til dig, lige meget hvor meget gletscheren giver lyd fra sig. Og lad være med at lytte til livets sang. Bedrøvede råd til Amie Huguenard og Timothy Threadwell, som forførte af et naivt natursyn leverede den ultimative reportage.

11. Så vi skal være taknemmelige for, at universet derude ikke kender noget smil.

12. Werner Herzog konkluderer sin erklæring og filmkunstneriske program: Livet i oceanerne må være et rent helvede. Et umådeligt, nådeløst helvede af permanent og direkte fare. Så meget helvede, at nogle arter, herunder mennesket, under evolutionen kravlede og flød op på nogle små stykker fastland, hvor mørkets lære fortsætter.

Werner Herzogs poetik 4

Tue, jeg tror altså ikke, at Herzog er oppe mod filmhistorien og dens anerkendte helte, han er oppe mod overfladiskhed, naivitet og dumhed i tænkningen med kameraet og i klipperummet. Oppe mod sig selv for så vidt. Så er man modløs, må man tage sig sammen.

En myte fortæller, at han tilfældigt mødte et kamerahold i lufthavnen i Wien. Det skulle til Kuwait, det var lige efter krigen. De var modløse, havde ikke rigtigt greb om opgaven. Derfor ikke lyst til reportagen, som ventedes af dem. Herzog foreslog, at han tog med og instruerede. Det ville være en ære, sagde de, ordnede det med deres tv-station og deres tv-reportage blev til "Lessons of Darkness".

Det afgørende ved den historie er jo ikke, om det faktisk er foregået, det der i Wien og så videre, men om den er sand i sin fortælling om fortælling.

Og sådan er det for mig at se med Herzogs punkter. De er ikke politiske, de er poetiske.

Herzog Footnote 2

Allan refers to the point 5 in the Minnesota Declaration of Werner Herzog:

"5. There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization."

Noone will object to that this is what Herzog at his best has achieved, at least in his "Lessons of Darkness" - it is mysterious and elusive.

But I could mention several "mysterious and elusive" magical moments in films that have been made from the observational approach that Herzog's whole Declaration was made to oppose.

It reminds me about la nouvelle vague in France (Godard, Truffaut et co.), who rejected the qualities of Jean Renoir and Marcel Carne when they launched their programmme.. Or, in a much friendlier way, our own Danish Jon Bang Carlsen, who had to fight for his "staged documentary" style for many years before it was accepted by hard core documentarians. But that was 20 years ago, long time ago, now we can value both Albert Maysles and Werner Herzog and Jon Bang Carlsen and Joergen Leth and Anne Wivel.

Werner Herzogs poetik 3

Jamen Tue, han var da ikke, og er, i sine filmpoetikpunkter, da ikke ude efter disse fine folk, du nævner. Slet ikke personligt. Derfor undskyldningen, vil jeg tro. Fordi, han fornemmede eller fik at vide, at de følte sig personligt stødt. Og han har jo naturligvis heller ikke slettet denne pamflet fra sin hjemmeside. For den handler nemlig om noget inden i ham selv. Og tilbydes os andre som udfordring til vores tanke, som Perse siger om havet hver morgen. Hvordan er det med forholdet mellem sandhed og virkelighed på film?

Om lidt sidder vi på festivalen med det provokerende navn: Cinéma du réel.. vi må nu lige tilbage til Herzog, som i filmen om de to, der bliver spist af bjørnen, udreder, hvordan deres filmmateriale er enestående med hensyn til virkelighed, men naivt i analysen, falskt..

Vi må lige tage nogle flere punkter fra Minnesotaerklæringen.. Punkt 5 stiller virkelig krav til dokumentarfilmens selvopfattelse. Herzog finder der under den filmede reportage, samtale, intervieu i filmen er dybere lag med egenskaber som poetisk, ekstatisk sandhed. (fortsættes)

Herzog footnote

Allan Berg, my fellow blogger, is fascinated by Werner Herzog. And indeed, he is a great filmmaker, who has brought something new to the documentary genre. "Little Dieter Needs to Fly", as an example, is a pure masterpiece.

Allan advises you to go to the Werner Herzog site to read his Minnesota Declaration, which he made to comment on what he calls the cinéma vérité. Allan writes in Danish, the declaration is in English.

Fun to read it is and inspiring, but also nonsense from the side of Herzog to denounce - let´s call it that - the observational documentary cinema. Is there no truth in what Sergey Dvortsevoy does, or what about Herz Frank, Pennebaker, Leacock, Wiseman? Is it reasonable to reduce observational documentary to mere search of facts...

Of course not, and Herzog knows that, and that is why he publicly excused his provocative Minnesota statement at a meeting where all the old boys - Maysles included, he is probably the one that Herzog refers to when he says that he has heard a filmmaker say that he can find the truth by observation, by being there - were present.

But fun reading. The documentary genre is alive and kicking. The diversity is a sign of good health for the genre.

http://www.wernerherzog.com/main/index.htm

Werner Herzogs poetik 2

Blot at tage et kamera og så prøve at være ærlig er naivt og både rigtigt og forkert på en måde, som minder Herzog om nattevagten i Supreme Court, som fortørnes over mængden af skrevne love og tilladte procedurer. "Jeg synes, der bare skulle være en eneste lov: De slemme fyre skal puttes i fængsel." Uheldigvis har han på en måde ret, for de flestes vedkommende, det fleste gange, bemærker Herzog.

Cinéma Vérité forveksler kendsgerninger med sandhed og pløjer derfor kun sten. Og dog, kendsgerninger har somme tider en mærkelig, en sælsom kraft, som gør, at deres nedarvede sandhed forekommer vanskelig at tro på, hedder det i Minnesotaerklæringens tredje afsnit, Herzog fascineres ved visse kendsgerninger, men tordner alligevel i afsnit fire: Kendsgerninger skaber normer, sandhed skaber belysning og viden.

Og netop i filmkunsten er der dybere lag af sandhed... (fortsættes)

Werner Herzogs poetik

Den er fra 1999, denne erklæring om sandhed og kendsgerning i dokumentarfilm, som Herzog kalder Lessons of Darkness. Den er underskrevet 30. april det år på Walker Art Center i Minneapolis, Minnesota. Det er snart ti år siden og Dogme 95 var dengang det filmiske æstetik regelsæt, man talte om. Herzog opfatter von Triers og Vinterbergs regler "som en madopskrift", fortalte han, da han oktober 2006 holdt master class på filmskolen.

Herzog stiller helt andre og inderligere krav til et kyskhedsløfte. Hans tilværelsessyn er ældre og har i sig en ganske anden grundstemning. Og følgelig en anden etik. Der er 12 punkter i hans Minnesotaerklæring, som kan læses på hans hjemmeside

http://www.wernerherzog.com/main/index.htm 

(vælg "Minnesota Declaration" i indexet), og han begynder med at konstatere, at trods sin sin erklæring om det modsatte er den såkaldte cinéma vérité blottet for verité. Det bliver i dens ortodokse naivitet til en kunstig sandhed, til en bogholdernes sandhed. En fremtrædende repræsentant for kunstretningen erklærede engang offentligt, at sandheden let kan findes ved blot at gribe et kamera og prøve at være ærlig.

On Location 2

On location

Oscar til Alex Gibney

Alex Gibneys dybt rystende moralske pamflet vendt imod indførelsen af tortur i USA's krigsfangelejre, Taxi to the dark side har modtaget en Academy Award! Jeg anmeldte filmen her på filmkommentaren.dk da DR2 oktober sidste år viste den som en del af Democracy-serien. Og den fik selvfølgelig fem penne. (Find anmeldelsen ved at skrive Gibney i ruden)

Werner Herzog: Grizzly Man

Vi var noget rystede efter filmen, selvfølgelig, vi på højskoleholdet i går. Men vi samlede os sammen til at tale om den anden mand også, manden, som har lavet filmen: Werner Herzog.

Imidlertid er det jo først historien om de to, som går i døden sammen. Amie Huguenard og Timothy Threadwell. To elskende? Herzog lader det stå hen i det uvisse, for er de på vej fra hinanden? Eller er de vendt tilbage sammen i en ny forståelse? Den bag sin så tydelige ophidselse nøgterne retsmediciner skildrer hvordan de sammen har kæmpet mod bjørnen. Han har skreget til hende, at hun skal flygte, hun er er blevet,har kastet sig ind i kampen. Disse lange minutter, som lydbåndet skildrer, som kun retsmedicineren og Herzog har hørt. Som alene i deres fortællinger er med i filmen.

Werner Herzog, dette barske og blide menneske giver båndet tilbage til indehaveren: destruer det.. og han dæmper sin film ned, gør den tænksom og tyst i en modbevægelse til Treadwells maniske højdepunkter. Han gør det i speaken, han selv læser, den smukkeste speak, jeg længe har hørt, en tekst som slutter sig til den myndige dramaturgi og gør filmen til psykoanalyse, til en filosofisk kritik af vort natursyn.. Så klogt..

Werner Herzog: Grizzly Man, 2005. http://www.wernerherzog.com/main/index.htm DVD, købt i Stereo Studio, Randers.  

Film og orgel

"Carl Th. Dreyers sidste stumfilm er blandt de mest berømte værker i filmhistorien. Den mangler sjældent i "verdens ti bedste film" lister. Få film er blevet studeret og analyseret så omfattende i bøger og artikler, og sommetider føler man, at selve filmen er begravet i teori og æstetik. Men et sandt klassisk kunstværk som La passion de Jeanne d'Arc rammer og bevæger publikum med dets smukke enkelthed. Det er en ren tragedie om en ung lidende kvinde kæmpende i en fjendtlig verden. Den fineste hyldest til filmen er nok Jean-Luc Godards: i hans film Vivre sa vie bliver den prostituerede (spillet af Anna Karina) dybt bevæget af Dreyers skildring af den legendariske heltinde da hun i 60'erne ser filmen i en Paris biograf. Hun kan identificere sig med den plagede unge kvinde i denne tidløse film..." (Ib Monty)

Læs hele artiklen på http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MvTZ6O4GoaQJ:www.filmreference.com/Films-Or-Pi/La-Passion-de-Jeanne-D-Arc.html+%22Jeanne+d%27Arc+%2B+Dreyer%22&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=dk

Nigel Allcoat er født Leicester og uddannet som pianist, organist, komponist og lærer. Som improvisator betragtes han som blandt verdens førende og som virtuos. Han har givet snesevis af koncerter på danske orgler. I Sct. Knuds Kirke i Odense har han indspillet en CD med improvisationer til Claus Bergs altertavle. Hans improvisationer til Jeanne d'Arcs lidelse og død er tidligere blandt andet gennemført i Haderslev Domkirke.

Se yderligere information på http://sctmortenskirke.folkekirken.dk/index.php?id=4153&tx_calendar_pi1[f1]=8246&cHash=713b52410a og på www.fof-randers.dk

Iikka Vehkalahti: A good documentary is

Taken from the site of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film)

www.docuinter.net

commissioning editor from YLE in Finland says:

...something which on one level is very private to the individual. Something that touches my life, but which also has something very universal - universal. A great film is when the private goes through the heavy block of politics/ economics/ media and reaches the universal, is in dialogue with it. Every action a person takes reflects his/her values. There are things which are common to all of us in the world: basic values (like justice), basic emotions (like fear and joy) and experiences (like pain or falling in love) and a good documentary has this universal nature that makes it so dear to so many. Don’t try to make international films. Make films which are more near to you. The most local films are sometimes the most international, because they are universal.

In a good documentary the director and his camera see things, go deeper than just showing things or events in front of the camera. For several reasons I have really started to miss camerawork where the camera really sees. An example: very often now a director makes a documentary following the story of the protagonist in such a way, that the narrative story (will he survive the sickness? will he divorce? etc…) means that it is not so important how the whole film has been shot at all.
A good documentary needs a story, but the story can be something more than just a flat “story”, it can be associative, emotional, fact-based, philosophical. Life is richer than Hollywood describes.

And finally a good documentary will live in time: it has a timeless character. A good documentary is something that you will look at after 10 years and after 50 years its value is still higher.
The film goes deeper and deeper. There must be a moral and philosophical element too.

Belfast Film Festival

It is one of those ideas that is so obvious that normally noone takes it! However, Cian Smyth did and put it into practice. To make a documentary film award, and a festival, in the name of The Maysles Brothers - and in their spirit making a focus on the observational documentary style that Albert and his late brother David have performed so well. "Primary", "Salesman" and so on.

It takes place, the festival, in Belfast, it is the 3rd edition with a documentary award attached. I was there for the first one, where it was so easy and right to give the prize to Kim Longinotto for her "Sisters in Law". Last year the Basque film (se previous note on this under Magnificent7) "Nomadak tx" by Raul de la Fuente won and the choice this year will be difficult when thew festival takes place from 10-19 April 2008.

The festival also presents an out-of-competition Documentary Panorama strand screening the best documentaries submitted to the festival but not necessarily meeting the observational documentary criteria of the competition. The festival will now, for the first time, also offer a Best Documentary Short award. Read the list below:

Maysles Brothers Award - Competitive Programme 2008
END OF THE RAINBOW by Robert Nugent (Australia) UK and Irish Premiere
BEYOND THE FOREST by Gerald Hauzenberger (Austria) Irish Premiere
THE ENGLISH SURGEON by Geoffrey Smith (UK) Irish Premiere
THE LAST BUS STOP by Kai Salminen and Zsuzsa Boszormenyi (Finland) UK and Irish Premiere
BILLY THE KID by Jennifer Venditti (USA) Irish Premiere
HOLD ME TIGHT LET ME GO by Kim Longinotto (UK)
COMBALIMON by Raphael Matthie (France) UK and Irish Premiere
ALL WHITE IN BARKING by Marc Isaacs (UK) Irish Premiere
CALLE SANTA FE by Carmen Castillo (France/Chile) Irish Premiere
EVERY SEVENTH PERSON by Elke Groen and Ina Ivanceanu (Austria/Luxembourg) UK and Irish Premiere
RUBYOVKA: THE ROAD TO BLISS by Irene Langemann (Germany) UK and Irish Premiere
DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD by Mike Mills (USA) Irish Premiere
THE FIRST DAY by Marcin Sauter (Poland/Russia) (Short Category) Irish Premiere
52 PER CENT by Rafal Skalski (Poland/Russia) (Short Category) UK and Irish Premiere
A SON'S SACRIFICE by Yoni Brook (USA) (Short Category) UK and Irish Premiere
CITY OF CRANES by Eva Weber (UK) (Short Category) Irish Premiere
THE TAILOR by Oscar Perez (Spain) (Short Category) UK and Irish Premiere

Documentary Panorama - Out of Competition Programme 2008
Programme as of 05/02/08 - further titles may be added.
TERROR'S ADVOCATE by Barbet Schroeder (France) Irish Premiere
A TRIP TO ASIA by Thomas Grube (Germany) UK and Irish premiere
NANKING by Bill Gutentag and Dan Sturman (USA) UK and Irish Premiere
WAR/DANCE by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix (USA) UK and Irish Premiere
WILD BLUE YONDER by Celia Maysles (USA) UK and Irish Premiere
WAVERIDERS by Joel Conroy (Northern Ireland) UK Premiere
UP THE YANGTZE by Yung Chang (Canada) UK and Irish Premiere
SALLY GROSS: THE PLEASURE OF STILLNESS by Albert Maysles and Kristen Nutile (USA) UK and Irish Premiere
IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA by Daniel Junge and Siatta Scott Johnson (USA) UK and Irish Premiere

Asger Leths Haiti-film

Vi så Ghosts of Cité Soleil i FOF-filmklubben i aftes. En lille bevæget, imponeret og også noget trykket flok. Hvilken film! Og vi noterede, at Leth og filmen for et par dage siden havde modtaget de nordamerikanske filminstruktørers pris, DGA-Award, som vi fornemmer, han sætter mere pris på end en Oscar. Det er jo mine læremestres og forbilleders anerkendelse, som han fortalte Ritzau. Prisen gives for "outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary".

Ja, den er fremragende. Den er den mest sete dokumentarfilm i danske biografer det seneste års tid. Men den er vist ikke på programmet noget sted mere. Nu venter vi spændt på DVD-distributionen her i landet.

I aftes så vi som forfilm de første 15 minutter af Jørgen Leths Haitifilm, som er præcist 10 år ældre. Det viste sig at være storslået. En række sammenligninger mulige: generationsmæssige, historiske, æstetiske, moralske. Og de to film omspænder dertil ti afgørende år i Haitis politiske udvikling, Aristides æra. Men først og sidst, to filmmonumenter, det ene ikke større end det andet. Så forskellige og dog så ens.. Et fyrtårn i hvert sit årti.

Asger Leth: Ghosts of Cité Soleil, 2006. Nordisk Film, i biografdistribution. en amerikansk DVD kan købes i "Laserdisken". Jørgen Leth: Haiti-uden titel, 1996. DFI/DBC distribution. Kan lånes på biblioteket.    

Paris Small Talk

Pollution out, pollution in. I am in Paris for one day passing to the fipa festival in Biarritz. I see all cafés having added an outdoor terrasse for the smokers. And I see - and experience - that it is no longer possible to have a montecristo cigar with your coffee after a wonderful meal of oysters and a crème brulèe!

A consolation... is that you now can watch television in most of the Parisian cafés! So you dont have to talk to your companion if you wish to watch fashion models doing the catwalk or football or music videos.

Congratulations to Parisian culture... that was once. Hello to Degas and Toulouse Lautrec and all your fine café paintings that we can now study in the museums. And hello to Truffaut and Godard and all the others... "Jules et Jim" and "A bout de souffle", Moreau and Belmondo, always with a cigarette!

Jytte Rex: Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen

Komponisten står ude i havet i vand til brystet og forelæser om musikken til "Perlefiskerne", og det er hverken krukket eller noget, for han taler allevegne, uafbrudt, og nogle steder er ret originale. Og netop på det sted i filmen finder jeg det helt i orden, at han nu, så kropslig og flot og alvorlig og kyndig han har vist sig at være, at han nu står nøgen i havet og tydeligt nyder det, som han nyder at fortælle om musikkens væsen.

Og det er netop, hvad Jytte Rex har lavet, en film om musikkens væsen, som det bor i denne mand, som er hendes medvirkende. Som Palle Nielsen var hendes medvirkende i filmen om billedets væsen havde det i sig, som Inger Christensen var det i hendes film om tekstens. Som hun har i sig næsten som den dæmon, komponisten taler om et andet sted i filmen.

Det er en vidunderlig film, og det er SÅ godt, at DR2 sender den. Nu har de til en temaaften om kunstens overtagelse af sit menneske, de kan sende hele Rexs værk, hele den trefløjede tavle med de forunderligste og skønneske billeder.

Jytte Rex: Inger Christensen - cikaderne findes, 1998, Palle Nielsen - mig skal intet fattes, 2001 og Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen - musikken er et monster, 2007.

http://www.dfi.dk/DfiKataloget/Instruktoerer/Instruktoer.htm?instruktoer=1208

Vurdering:

Pirjo Honkasalo: Melancholia

DR2 sendte en meget sen aften for nogen tid siden den finske mesters seneste mesterværk. FILMKOMMENTAREN.DK gjorde udtrykkelig opmærksom på, at den film måtte man ikke miste.

Pirjo Honkasalo er ude i filmfestivalverdenen regnet blandt de største, mest uomgængelige. Og den store ener. Hun researcher selv, skriver selv, filmer selv (på film!), klipper selv. Men denne film har den danske mester, filmklipperen Niels Pagh Andersen skabt fortælllingen i. Med rolig hånd i tre store akter, der huskes som tre malerier, tre kæmpelærreder af stor skønhed og derfor endnu større gru.

"Al filmkunstens styrke og skønhed er til stede her... Et enestående og essentielt værk!" Le Nouvel Observateur

Pirjo Honkasalo: Melancholia, 2006. Kan købes hos co-producenten Magic Hour Films http://magichourfilms.webhotel.net/index.php?specLan=da&specPage=filmbasen_quire&specMovie=ok Den kan også lånes på biblioteket og i Randers vises den i FOF Mandagshøjskolen og Onsdagshøjskolen.

Dorte Høeg Brask: Duften af Beirut

Det var et godt gensyn med den film. Jeg havde første gang jeg så den problemer med den medvirkende vi følger på opklaringsrejsen. Det havde jeg også i dag, men så opdagede jeg, at hun vokser i løbet af filmen, vokser i alvor og vedkommenhed.

Og sådan var det måske med hendes liv. Hun bevægede sig fra overfladiskhed til stadig større livsfylde nu, hvor hun sammen med Høeg Brasks så fint tilstedeværende kamera (og mig) konkret oplever, hvordan livet river konstanser væk, huse skydes i stykker, naboer flygter, venner dør, kærligheden er til låns. Og sin elsker finder hun som knogler i en kasse bag en jernlåge i kirkegårdens skelethus.

Jeg så, dette var ægte. Jeg finder "Duften af Beirut" er en af de mest konsekvente og vedkommende i gruppen af film, som med deres medvirkende rejser tilbage i fortiden for at genfinde dennes medvirkende.

Og så: jeg holder meget af Dorte Høeg Brasks kommentar og fortællerstemme. Her er noget vigtigt på færde, det mærker jeg næsten allermest tydeligt.

Dorte Høeg Brask: Duften af Beirut, 2006. Set på DR2 i dag, og genudsendes nok en gang mere mindst. Filmen kan også lånes på biblioteket.

Ingmar Bergman: Sommernattens smil

Per Arnoldi har et aktivt og selekteret forhold til filmhistorien: Det fandt jeg ud af her i juledagene, hvor han i Politikens serie om kunstneres forhold til andres værker, hvilket har betydet mest? Og Arnoldi overraskede mig ved at røbe at han ser "Sommernattens smil" flere gange om året.

Jeg forstår ham så godt. Har foræret mig selv en lille stak Bergman DVD-er. Og har ladet dagene præge af det. Og den film er da frydefuld. Jeg grinede højt igen (efter disse mange år, hvor jeg i modsætning til Arnoldi ikke har set den). Filmen er for mig så skørt det lyder fuldstændig ny og frisk og meget bedre end nogen vedtaget nutidig komedie, jeg kan komme i tanker om.

Men kritikerne og kommentatorerne har gennem filmens levetid bestemt ikke været enige om det:

"... personerne er talerør for et aforistisk visdomsmageri, som giver sig ud for at være let og letsindigt, vittigt, dristigt, frækt og klogt, men i virkeligheden er tungt og klægt og uvittigt i al sin fingerpegende tydelighed." (Werner Pedersen i Kosmorama, 20, 1956)

""Sommernattens smil" er en ægte komedie, hvor surt og sødt blandes, hvor kærligheden betragtes med kynisme, men samtidig anerkendes som en alle besejrende magt." (Svend Kragh- Jacobsen i Berlingske Tidende 13. september 1956)

"... så man altid går til hans film med en forventning om, at man skal til at opleve noget, der i eminent forstand er spændende. Det ville være synd at sige, at han skuffer os. Hvad han her har præsteret er et stykke stilkomedie af rang og placerer ham som filmens og Sveriges ækvivalent til Karen Blixen.." (Erik Ulrichsen i Information 13. september 1956)

"Det er en komedie af en kunstner, der af en eller mange grunde ikke kan lave komedier. Det har Ingmar Bergman vel også selv indset, eftersom han ikke har lavet komedier siden. Det er verden ikke blevet fattigere af..." (Ib Monty i Kosmorama, 137, 1978)

"... Lad filmen være blændværk på blændværk påblændværk, et artisteri uden mage i sin moderne leg med hele romantikkens klunkeverden, legen vil fortrylle både det store og det lille publikum ved spillets intensitet og situationernes dristighed. Sådan kan det gøres, når man kan." (Harald Engberg i Politiken 13. september 1956)

"Der er en afslørende målestok, man kan anlægge over for så generøse kunstværker som denne helt helstøbte film. Hvornår rammer den? Hvornår bevæges man rigtigt og dybt? Hver gang." (Per Arnoldi i Politiken 26. december 2007)

Og altså for Arnoldis vedkommende flere gange om året.. Man kunne jo prøve disse Bergmanværker af de mange fridage, som slutter dette år, hvor vi måtte tage afsked med mesteren.

*

"På ét niveau findes alle disse filminstruktører, som år efter år forsyner publikum med god og pålidelig underholdning. På næste niveau findes kunstnere, som gør filmene dybere, er personligere, mere originale og mere spændende. Og til sidst, oven over dem alle, findes Ingmar Bergman, som formodentlig er den største filmkunstner siden opfindelsen af filmkameraet." (Woody Allen i Chaplin 2/3 1988)

Ingmar Bergman: Sommernattens smil, 1955. Bergmans film kan købes mange steder. Jeg fik mine i Classico, Nørregade 53, København peter.olufsen@ejby.mail.telia.com

Greetings from Saigon

Been away from Danish December weather and xmas for a long time! 30degrees here in wild Saigon where everyone seems to have a motorbike or to ride on one with the girl- or boyfriend. A lot of energy, but where is it going, Ho Chi Minh, would you like to know, you the official role model of a country that experiences an enormous economic growth right now including consumerism, tourism (yes, we benefit) and total Western life style, at least here in the center, where we feel at home at Hotel Continental - Graham Greenes place, you know, where "The Quiet American" is said to have been written. The book that is sold just around the corner in a cheap photocopied version by one of the street sellers!

I had the idea to write a bit about hotel room zapping for documentaries but has actually nothing to report, other than the Vietnamese official channels seem to broadcast documentary films from the war time every single evening - I can see the pictures but dont understand what is being said. The rest is CNN small reality clips, Discovery and Nat Geo and all that s...

What is much more easy to understand is the War Crime Museum that we visited. A documentation in photos mostly, magnificent photos taken by courageous photographers who risked and for many lost their lives in giving a documentation about what was going on when the Americans were here. It is unbelievable what is to be seen from My Lai, from victims of Agent Orange, from consequences of bombing Hanoi and Haiphong in xmas 1972... a bit more than 30 years ago. Nothing new but good to be reminded about what happened politically when you were young.

Today its Iraq.

Greetings from Hanoi

I am in Hanoi, on vacation going with wife and friends from North to South of Vietnam! Its like going to a place that you think you know a lot about and yet you know nothing. You have seen Vietnam on film, you were standing outside the American Embassy as a young person and suddenly you look at the lit de parade of Ho Chi Minh... or is it really him. The Vietnamese people we have met so far are smiling and hospitality is wonderful, as is the generosity... and the food and the winter weather, which is like spring and summer back in Copenhagen that we left last saturday.

We went to a morning visit at the Vietnamese film school, organised by my travelling companion Ole John, Danish filmmaker and teacher at the Danish Film School. After polite exchange of words with the professors and department heads of the school we had 90 minutes with the students. Ole talked about the Danish Dogme rules and I about documentaries.

For the latter they showed interest, stating however that the audience does not really have an interest in documentaries, yet... which was confirmed later on by the man who is head of directors training at the school. 15 documentaries are supported yearly by the government - for fiction it is the same amount, 5 of them supported by private funding.

Censorship? Well, there is a committee that looks at the proposals for films and at the finished films - and 3 points are not allowed: antigovernmental criticism. sex. violence. Buts there are other films than the governmental ones and things are moving.

The students watch documentaries on tv and on the internet. They know how to get to the sites, its normal for them in a country with internet cafes all over.

Biggest problem: language... the English skills are very bad. Out of 15 students in the room, 3-4 understood most of what we said, the rest were depending on the interpreter.

Jørgen Vestergaard: Hanstholm

Jørgen Vestergaard er en af dansk dokumentarfilms absolutte hædersmænd. Det er altid i orden, hvad han leverer. Fine, varme beskrivelser af mennesker udenfor hovedstaden og af miljøer, som vi københavnere ser alt for lidt til. Nu drejer det sig om Hanstholm, som instruktøren har lavet en halv time lang film om med titlen "Hanstholm - historien om en havn". Arkiv, interviews, nutidige optagelser - som sædvanligt lavet af Orla Nielsen - og en nænsom speak, som tager os ved hånden.

Det er alt sammen gedigen oplysning og når man så ovenikøbet på samme dvd får (instruktørens beskedne ord) "fire ældre film om Hanstholm" med som bonusmateriale, så er der også tid til lidt sød dansk dokumentarfilmhistorie.

Lad mig nævne to af dem: "Vagt ved havet" fra 1965, produceret for Dansk Kulturfilm, vidunderligt fotograferet af Lennart Steen og "Havnen", det 10 minutter lange øjebliksbillede fra 1967, ligeledes med Steen bag kameraet. Produceret for Kortfilmrådet. Oh, disse smukke sort-hvide billeder.

For folk der ikke har denne professionelle skavank er denne dvd et flot lille stykke danmarkshistorie med et vedlagt hæfte, der giver baggrundsinformation.

Salg og distribution: Forlaget Knakken, 7700 Thisted. E-mail: arkiv@thisted-bibliotek.dk

PS. I øvrigt ligger der 15 af instruktørens øvrige film i DFI's katalog: www.dfi.dk eller direkte: http://www.dfi.dk/DfiKataloget/Instruktoerer/Instruktoer.htm?instruktoer=1423

Vurdering:

cph:dox 9-17/11 The Fall by Peter Whitehead

Oh, how joyful it is to discover something new, when you think that you know your documentary film history, have seen it (almost) all, at least what is considered as masterpieces and know where your priorities lie.

And there comes Peter Whitehead from the sixties, a brilliant film director and magnificent cameraman with a short but exciting career. So far I have only seen one of the films in the retrospective at the festival, "The Fall", but that alone is enough to see a talent that was playing with the medium in a mix of Richard Leacock direct cinema approach ("It's all about being there!") and post-Godard staged scenes. A quote from an article: Reviewing Godard’s Pierrot le fou in mid-1966 for Films and Filming, Whitehead wrote: “There is no longer a continuous, flowing, narrative reality, for anyone anywhere; it must be a collage of signs, images, instants, quanta of perception and emotion and thought.”

This is exactly what "The Fall" is. The year is 1968. Its the year of revolution and conflicts. Its New York. Its music. Psychedelic feelings. The war demonstrations. Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh. Washington Square. Pro et contra the Vietnam war. An actress (sexy version of Anna Karina) in the film getting up, getting dressed, making coffee, and love, beautiful she is, 16mm grainy and scratchy images, small episodes and out to the wild NY intercut with the photographer reading the NY Times sunday edition as heavy as always. Its Robert Kennedy in his last year, its me watching a film that was made when I was 21.

Peter Whitehead is the name. Go and watch it. It has more than many other documentaries about the sixties an authenticity in the fictional scenes, facts and the documentary interpretation of reality. And it has a standpoint and I understand this was what made Whitehead leave filmmaking, disappointed with how politics go.

Peter Whitehead: The Fall, 1969

More about the festival: http://www.cphdox.dk/d1/front.lasso

Vurdering:

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)

Da jeg som helt ung gik i biografen Fotorama drejede film sig om cowboys og om sørøvere, og det fandt jeg i orden i den verden selv om jeg også inspireret af min skolelærer læste Oehlenschlæger og Shakespeare fra biblioteket og de tegneserier, jeg kunne komme i nærheden af og Dumas, som jeg fik foræret af en onkel, som ville opdrage på mig. Værkerne tog farve af hinanden og historierne smeltede sammen i ét farvet tæppe af underholdende fascination. Og sådan tror jeg det var med mig og litteratur og film til nogle mere voksne venner inviterede min kæreste og mig sådan rigtigt i biografen. I Kosmorama i den store by.

Filmen var Antonionis Natten, og den var et chok og en åbenbaring. Filmen var jo litterær – og nutidig. Dyb og alvorlig. Det var vidunderligt. Helten var digter og kvinderne var smukke på en ny meget nøgen måde. De levede et tomt liv, som ikke ville vide af dødens nærhed. Men de vidste det godt. De havde indsigt. Moralen var vanskelige valg, og kærligheden var fuld af problemer.

Der fulgte et programhæfte med sammen med billetten. I det var en annonce for filmtidsskriftet med samme navn som biografen. Jeg begyndte at abonnere. Og jeg var fortabt, film var ikke længere blot underholdning, de var skabt af nogen som de gode bøger, de var digteres værker, dem, det herefter drejede sig om. Det blev Michelangelo Antonionis film, som blev min første af den slags.

Dens temaer skulle blive bestemmende for, hvad der optager mig. Helten er forfatter, han sidder træt ved skrivebordet, som herefter er en scene for sig, hvor alt kan opføres. Nu er digteren træt, han lægger sig. I dette rum bliver herefter alle værker til. Film og bøger.

I Antonionis film scenograferes den sene modernisme, digterens lejlighed i Milano, elegant beskeden ren. Og nøgen. Senere er arkitekturen en mondæn villa, hvor nattefesten holdes, elegant, ubeskeden, stadig disse rene linjer. Men villaen ligger i en stor romantisk have, som længere og længere væk fra villaen bliver mere og mere 1800-tal. Her er scenen for slutspillet. ”Den beundringsværdige slutscene..”, som det stod i Kosmorama. Kærlighedens tema er en resignation, en træthed hos manden, et lovløst begær og en ny moral hos kvinden. De to, som er par, Marcello Mastroiani og Jeanne Moreau lever det som ensomhed og smerte, lever det ved siden af hinanden den nat med krisens og tabets afgørende begivenheder, andre tiltrækninger, utroskab, vennens død og en kærlighed, ”.. der dør, uden man forstår hvorfor eller hvordan – på grund af en langsom nedbrydning, på grund af en mystisk afbrydelse af en indre spænding.” Som Kosmorama-artiklen konkluderer.

Slutningen skildrer langsomt og detaljeret, at de to forlader festen, forlader i morgenlyset villaen og den udmattede fest. Måske prøver de atter at nærme sig hinanden. En tekst, et brev er (som ofte i Bergmans film) afgørende. Hun har det i sin taske. Det har ligget der fra hun fik det for nok længe siden. Jeanne Moreau (Lidia i filmen) læser det for Marcello Mastroiani:

”I morges sov du da jeg vågnede. Jeg hørte dit lette åndedrag. Mellem håret som dækkede dit ansigt så jeg dine lukkede øjne. Ømheden vældede op i mig. Jeg ville vække dig, for din søvn var alt for lig døden. Men huden på dine arme og din hals var så levende. Jeg ville røre ved den igen med mine læber, men tanken om, at jeg kunne forstyrre din søvn, holdt mig tilbage. Jeg opfattede dig sådan her, som noget intet kunne tage fra mig. Bag dit ansigt så jeg mit spejlbillede i noget renere, dybere. Det var dig, jeg så i en dimension, som omfattede hele mit liv – min fremtid såvel som de år, da jeg ventede på at møde dig. Det var et under at vide, at du tilhørte mig, ikke kun dette øjeblik, natten forekom mig uendelig der ved din side – hvor jeg mærkede varmen i dit blod, i dine tanker og i vort fællesskab. Jeg mærkede kærligheden til dig, Lidia, så stærkt, at mine øjne fyldtes af tårer. Jeg ønskede, at jeg i al fremtid på samme måde som denne morgen – skulle komme til at mærke, at du ikke tilhører mig, men at du simpelthen er en del af mig – og at intet kan ændre på det, kun vanens ligegyldighed. Det ser jeg som den eneste trussel for os. Du vågnede og kyssede mig, og jeg så, at jeg ikke behøvede at ængstes. Vi skal forblive forenede af noget som er stærkere end tid og vane.”

”Hvem har skrevet det?”, spørger han. ”Det har du..”, svarer hun rådvild og forbavset. Han har altså glemt det.. ? Det er næsten et halvt århundrede siden Moreau og Mastroianni sad der i græsset i parken morgenen efter natten. Antonioni var langt foran mig i tid og indsigt. Og han formulerede det smukt og i ordets forstand tydeligt. Spørgsmålet er om, jeg glemte det..?

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007): Natten, 1961.
Giulio Cesare Castello: Antonionis konsekvens. Kosmorama nr. 54, oktober 1961, 12ff