Mat Hodgson: QPR: The Four Year Plan

A classical story, and a wonderful tv documentary for football freaks like this blogger. This is the text that gives the background, taken from the BBC’s programme site:

”In 2007 Queens Park Rangers Football Club, facing relegation and bankruptcy, was rescued by four high-profile billionaires. Their vision: to take a community of reluctant fans, semi-talented players and a roster of ever-changing managers to Premiership glory. The new owners, risking ridicule and commercial failure, allowed cameras unprecedented access to record the roller-coaster ride. Though they paid for much of the filming they did not control where the cameras pointed or what ended up in the film.”

QPR succeeded but after years of struggling on the pitch and mostly backstage, where the film stays with the protagonists, where – luckily, as they live up to all the clichés about Italians – the Italian owner and the Italian sports manager express their strong emotions according to the results, which in the first years were terrible and where the coaches are changed whenever there is a slate of defeats... ”he is an idiot”, is being said about the men who were saluted just months ago as the savour of Queens Park Rangers, the London club with the address Loftus Road.

It is a well-made observational documentary, it lives through the details, and through the long time it has been filming, with the right warm and humourous touch, with a lot of f... words, but also hugs and vanity – if they dont stop booing me, I will leave, says Flavio, one of the moneymen behind the club, the mafia-looking guy on the photo. And the films includes great lines to pick up like ”this season we don’t scream at the players”.

PS. QPR is now fighting to avoid the relegation to Championship again, the coach is no longer Neil Warnock but Mark Hughes. Hoping the best for the club!

UK, 2012, 90 mins.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d7kd7

Vurdering:

Michel Wenzer: At Night I Fly

New Folsom prison in California. A film made over several years. Literally an inside insight to a world we have no idea about existed, even if we have seen loads of prison films, most of them fiction, and many of them very good as (to put on the domestic Danish glasses) the recent ones by Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. Yet this film by Swedish Michel Wenzer goes so much closer in his cinematic interpretation of a life in a totally tough environment with armed guards, ”isolation, closure, loneliness” to ”keep us contained” as one of the inmates say.

The film has a sketchy, fragmentaric structure, but the impressionistic approach slowly adds up sequence by sequence, and you get some characters, who are reflective when it comes to their own situation and to the actions they take to fill their days to make it all bearable, or you could say to make sense of it all. The focus is on ”the arts in correction programme” in the prison, arts as a lifeline to sanity, and there are great scenes from this room where (some) inmates meet with people from other races, as they say, in a world where the white normally do not meet with the black, or the black with the latinos, or... Music, poem reading, writing, religious meetings, they are well articulated.

There are footage from riots, there are scenes where the brutality of the environment is evident, but the goal of the director is to show the strength of the inmates, who have chosen to express their life and pain in a creative manner.

The sound and music design is marvellous. In times where so much music is wall-to-wall ”this is what we want you to feel”, the work of Wenzer is respectful to the characters situation and to the equally strong visual circling around the isolated mini-world. 

Sweden, 86 mins., 2012

http://www.story.se/films/at-night-i-fly

http://www.filmstriben.dk/fjernleje/       

Vurdering:

Visions du Réel 2012/ 2

Another edition, the 18th, of the exclusive Visions du Réel in Nyon, Swizerland, a small festival in terms of audience, around 25.000, but important for the professionals, especially, it is being said, for the directors, is over and awards have been given. The competent jury of the long documentary competition section chose Dutch documentary ”Matthews Laws” by Marc Schmidt for the Grand Prix (CHF 20.000) (so far unknown for this blogger) and the Special Prix for the Finnish upcoming festival-hit, the warm and entertaining ”The Punk Syndrome” by J-P Passi and Jukka Kärkkäinen (CHF 10.000).

Two other films were awarded which I am looking forward to see: ”900 Days” by Dutch Jessica Gorter that takes its story from the sige of Leningrad during the ww2, and ”Snake Dance” by Belgian excellent director Manu Riche and the writer Patrick Marnham. Here is a quote from a description of the film:

”Snake Dance” (photo), the new film by the Belgian documentary-maker Manu Riche and the English-Irish writer and scenarist Patrick Marnham, is about the genesis of the atomic bomb. The journey leading up to this story was a long one.
  
We plunge into the jungle of the Congo in the footsteps of Leopold II in search of the place where uranium is mined. We cross the ocean to Los Alamos, the base in New Mexico where Robert J. Oppenheimer developed the atom bomb assisted by the best physicists in the world. We follow the bomb to Japan, where it destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

http://www.visionsdureel.ch/festival/palmares/2012.html

Dokville

... is the name of a ”Branchentreff Dokumentarfilm” in Ludwigsburg, taking place in Ludwigsburg the coming week, May 3-4. Organised by Haus des Dokumentarfilm the event, that has the title ”vom Dokumentarfilm leben”, among other issues has its focus on webdocumentaries with the intervention of producer Christian Beetz, who will give the story about the multimedia project ”Farewell, Comrades” (Photo), entitled ”Crossmedia – Chance für den Dokumentarfilm?”.

On the subject of webdocs - Thomas Schneider writes on the site of Dokville (read the rest as well): Bei Arte – aber nicht nur dort – wird schon seit einer ganzen Weile mit diesem neuen Medienkonzept gearbeitet. Entstanden sind so in den letzten Jahren gut ein Dutzend Webdokus – die besten von ihnen zum Beispiel über »Prison Valley«, eine Gegend in den USA, die nur für den Strafvollzug genutzt wird oder über den arabischen Frühling im Jahre 2011. Sie sind alle über die Website www.arte.tv abrufbar – in der Navigationsleiste haben die Webdokus einen eigenen, prominenten Bereich spendiert bekommen. Auch beim MDR hat man geschichtliche Dokumentarthemen mit Webdokus begleitet: zum Mauerbau und zur Geschichte des Trabis zum Beispiel.

Pepe Danquart, German director and producer, is invited to make the introductory keynot speech. The director of a recent film on Joshka Fischer, and the coproducer of Michael Glawogger’s ”Whores' Glory”, will for sure make a both entertaining and critical kick to the present situation of the documentary, here in special in Germany.

And there are many other issues on the agenda of the two day event. Sometimes it is good to stop the flow of festivals and discuss the state of the art. Which is what the Germans do here.

http://www.dokville2012.de/

Doc à Tunis 2012

Not bad for documentary interested people to be in the capital of Tunisia these days, where the yearly festival takes place, for the seventh time organised by the the Ness El Fen association with the support of arte France, CMCA, Institut Francais and Mairie de Paris (!). The festival opened yesterday and runs until Sunday the 29^th of April.

In the programme there are many unknown titles, new films I suppose, from Palestine, Tunisia (9 films), Lebanon, Palestine (including 5 Broken Cameras) and Algeria. Ness El Fen is also a organiser of dance events and has chosen to show Frederick Wiseman’s fílm from the Opera in Paris.

Closing film, with the director present, Vivan las Antopodas! (photo) by Viktor Kossakovsky. Bravo!

http://docatunis.nesselfen.org/

Marathon Dok 2012

… or you could call it a mini-festival, is what the EDN (European Documentary Network) arranges every year in collaboration with and at the Danish Film School. This year it takes place May 12, from 14.00 to 22.00. This is how the event is introduced by the organiser:

“Marathon Dok is a looooong day full of funny, fascinating and fantastic documentaries. This one-day screening program brings new international high quality documentaries to the big screen in the beautiful cinema of the Danish Film School… Of course this is mostly relevant for the Danish EDN members and other professionals close to Copenhagen, but the model could be exported to other destinations, right? (ed.)”

In Danish: Programmet I år indeholder to af de mest spændende nye film, som er mere end anbefalelsesværdige, jeg ville kalde dem “musts” for dokumentarinteresserede:

Planet of Snail (2011, color, 87 min, South Korea, Japan) by Seung-Jun Yi. Vinder ved idfa 2011,

og

Five Broken Cameras (2011, Palestine/France color/b&w, 90 min) by Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi, vinder ved Sundance, bl.a.

Det koster 120 kr. at deltage i Marathon Dok, som du betaler kontant når du kommer til arrangementet.

Mere om filmene:

http://www.edn.dk/activities/edn-activity-texts/edn-activities-2012/marathon-dok-2012/

Ilian Metev: Sofia’s Last Ambulance

Croatian producer Sinisa Juricic mailed me yesterday with the happy news about a film that he has been co-producing. It has been been selected for the Semaine de la Critique in the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. I post you the French description of the documentary, that you for sure will meet in many festivals, and hopefully tv channels in the coming year. AND my spontaneous comment when I saw a rough cut of the film some times ago. Watch out for it:

Dans une ville qui ne possède que 13 ambulances pour deux millions d'habitants, Krassi, Mila et Plamen sont nos héros improbables : gros fumeurs, bourrés d’humour et sans cesse en train de sauver la vie à autrui, malgré le grand nombre d’obstacles. Cependant, le système brisé les met à rude épreuve. Combien de temps vont-ils encore tenir à sauver les écorchés de la société jusqu'à ce qu'ils perdent leur empathie?

TSM: I write to tell you that I saw Sofia's Last Ambulance this morning and it is an impressively strong work, masterly done simply. I was with the film the whole way through, and with these brilliant characters. I am looking forward to hearing more about the technical solutions, the placement and operation of the cameras and much more. It is a reading-faces-film.

Bulgaria, 2012, 80 mins.

http://www.semainedelacritique.com/EN/films/2012/2012_selection.php

Helena Třeštíková

The strength of the time consuming observational documentary, in times where many stylistically move in the area between documentary and fiction (example Glawogger, see below), is one of the most obvious thoughts that comes to one’s mind watching the films of Czech director Helena Třeštíková, whose newest work, shot over a period of 37 years, Private Universe is the title, is going around the world, with a world premiere at HotDocs in Toronto very soon.

According to the website that carries the name ”film new europe” Trestikova is to be awarded in Krakow at the upcoming festival:

Czech documentary filmmaker Helena Trestikova will receive the Dragon of Dragons honorary award at the 52^nd Krakow Film Festival (www.krakowfilmfestival.pl), 28 May-3 June 2012.

Třeštíková won the European Film award for her documentary René.

A graduate of FAMU Prague Film School (www.famu.cz) in 1974, she specializes in long-form documentaries using the time gathered method, filming her subjects for years and even decades. Since 2002, she has been a professor at FAMU. Her latest film, Private Universe (www.negativ.cz) gathered over the course of 37 years, will have its international premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto.

Třeštíková will be awarded the Dragon of Dragons on 30 May Festival. The festival will present a retrospective of her films accompanied by the meeting of the director with the public. She will also conduct a Master Class as part of the festival's Industry Zone. Photo from "Katka".

http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/poland/festivals-krakow-laurels-for-trestikova

Michael Glawogger Retrospective in N.Y.

The IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) website informs that the first retrospective of the Austrian documentarian is taking place in New York at the Museum of Moving Images until April 29. The website of the Museum includes interesting text excerpts from a soon to be published book on Glawogger. Here comes the series intro by the museum:

One of the most versatile and original talents in contemporary world cinema, the Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger has made an art of crossing boundaries, both geographic and formal. He spans diverse, far-flung locations within a single film, often dealing with ambiguous notions of home and foreignness, and moves back and forth between fiction and documentary, sometimes combining and subverting both modes. Glawogger’s career resists classification at every turn, but whether set on the margins of the developing world or in precincts of privilege, his surprising, beautifully photographed films are testaments to his own boundless curiosity and to the endless complexity of the human condition. This retrospective, his first in the United States, includes his widely acclaimed and much debated documentary trilogy on harsh working environments, as well as a selection of fiction features and experimental short films. Photo from Whore's Glory.

http://www.dokweb.net/en/documentary-network/articles/michael-glawogger-retrospective-in-nyc-2083/?

http://www.movingimage.us/

Mandagsdokumentar: El Bulli

In Danish: Den fremragende filmserie Mandagsdokumentar, som bestyres af Ebbe Preisler, viser i morgen aften i PH Caféen, Halmtorvet 9a, klokken 19.30, Gereon Wetzel’s El Bulli – Cooking in Progress fra 2010. Den unge kok Nicolai Tram, der har arbejdet i Ferran Adrìa’s nu lukkede restaurant vil være til stede for at supplere filmen. Filmen blev, bl.a., vist i Beograd på festivalen Magnificent7. Festivalens direktører, Svetlana og Zoran Popovic, skrev i kataloget:

A process, undocumented as of yet, in the alchemic laboratory of the world’s most exclusive restaurant, and an encounter with passion and creativity of its creator, Ferran Adrià, one of the most famous and innovative chefs of today.

This is an exciting quest – from the initial experiments to the premiere of the finished dish. In the course of that process, various basic ingredients are examined in a completely new way. Taste and texture are systematically analyzed: by boiling, roasting, frying, steaming; by vacuumizing and freeze-drying; and finally, by tasting. Ideas emerge, are discussed and all the results, whether good or bad, are thoroughly documented – on a laptop beside the cooking spoon. And according to that extensive documentation, a grandiose finale is prepared – topped with the final touch of the great chef, incredible and marvelous bites are finally presented to the guests.

Ferran Adrià would ask himself in jest, "And what were they serving at El Bulli?" only to instantly answer: “Water!” That is a concept that is at the same time both complex and simple, just as is often the case with great ideas. Gereon Wetzel recognizes the multiple layers and importance of this simple creative process. With complete devotion, not letting a single detail escape him, he conveys the excitement of the alchemist who is once again about to examine and discover the world and nature.

A masterfully precise and sophisticated documentary approach, completely in line with the marvellous process it documents.

www.mandagsdokumentar.dk

Visions du Réel 2012

... starts tonight and runs until April 27. As usual this festival offers a big programme – Switzerland is still a rich country, untouched by the international crisis? – with a lot of competition sections (7 different juries!) and a Doc Outlook International Market with a Videotheque, Consultancy on projects, a Pitching du Réel two-day event for feature length documentaries, a Doc Think Tank and two versions of Rough Cut presentations: One where 10 minutes are screened of a rough cut version and one where 3 hours are reserved for the filmmakers to meet specially invited professionals. Likewise the festival programme includes 13 (!) different sections with the international sections for long, medium duration and short documentaries as the ones that bring to light new films.

It is obvious that also the festival in Nyon does not like the philosophy of ”less is more” and for this blogger and hunter for new films, it is a good sign that he has only seen one film, wonderful ”The Punk Syndrome” (photo) by JP Passi and Jukka Kärkkäinen, out of the 17 titles in the long competition category. Looking forward to seeing, on another occasion, the new film by Swiss Peter Entell, “A Home far Away” that has this description from the site of the festival: “Lois, an American actress, and her husband, Edgar Snow, the first journalist to have reported and filmed the Chinese revolution, are suspected of Communist sympathies and forced into exile. They end up in Switzerland, near Nyon, half way between the US and China. Long after, when Edgar has passed on, Lois tells all. A story of utopia and disillusionment takes shape before the camera.” Also exciting it will be to see what the couple Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov (”Mother”) comes up with in their film about Russian director Alexei Guerman.

”Vivan las antipodas!” by Kossakovsky closes the festival, and Kossakovsky himself is in a film by a Chilean colleague, Carlos Klein, ”Where the Condors Fly” that has this site description: ” This is a story of the encounter of two filmmakers: the prizewinning Russian documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky is in the middle of shooting his newest film, ¡Vivan las Antipodas! and the Chilean Carlos Klein films the passionate Kossakovsky at work. In the conflict and slipstream of Kossakovsky's efforts, Klein rediscovers his own path to filmmaking.”

http://www.visionsdureel.ch/en.html

Shlomi Elkabetz: Edut

Last summer I was asked to make a review of a new Israeli film that created controverse at a festival in Sderot, protests from the minister of culture, before it went to Venice Film Festival and Toronto. I saw the film without any background information and wrote this long text for the Israeli web film magazine Takriv:

You look at the image of what you sense as a long and winding road, deserted, apart from a woman who walks closer and closer to you. You, the viewer, have time to wonder what is going to happen. She stops in front of you, looks at the camera, adresses it, adresses us the viewers, waits a moment and starts to talk. In Hebrew. Her story is shocking...

You get immediately the impression that the woman talking is an actress. Her sentences are clear and well formulated, well delivered, she knows her lines, she does not hesitate, it is like a monologue, that is written for her to say. She makes no speaking errors, it is important that the language is understood, as well as the reality behind the words. She speaks and keeps her face neutral, cool in a way, with dignity, her face does not express the horror she has gone through. And yet, at the end she fights not to give way to emotions. The camera, our eyes are on her face. The road, the surrounding landscape is her stage, you, the viewer, the target. The audience.

This first testimony goes on for 8 minutes, and you understand that the film director has chosen a hybrid form between fiction and documentary to tell his story. With this start he ”makes a contract” with the audience, we know that it is a narrative that uses actors to tell stories from real life. At least we know that this first story, told by the woman on the road, sounds like it comes from real life. From an occupied territory in Israel. From Palestine. The woman tells us that she goes to Israel to clean houses, illegally of course, that she was

Vurdering:

Chainsaw Massacre on Canadian Documentary

Below there is a posting on the upcoming HotDocs documentary film festival in Toronto and the budget cutdown of legendary NFB, National Film Board. Realscreen makes a follow-up on the story that also involves the broadcaster CBC’s documentary commitment as well as the Telefilm Canada, the federaæ agency for support of Theatrical documentaries. In the Realscreen article – written by Adam Benzine – read the whole article, link below, the director John Kastner expresses the anger like this:

““Canadian documentaries are on the critical list these days, as one broadcaster after another retreats from the documentary business. What was desperately needed here was the most delicate surgery to resuscitate a great Canadian art form, one that is hemorrhaging badly. What we got was the ‘Tory Chainsaw Massacre.’

“Why should the Canadian public care? Canadians face a challenge unique in the world: the overpowering cultural influence of U.S. television and movies. Perhaps no other country’s national identity is threatened this way as we are. The danger posed by the cutbacks is not just that broadcasters will air fewer Canadian TV shows and the NFB make fewer Canadian films, it is that our children will end up behaving increasingly like Americans because American life is mostly what they will see on our TV and movie screens.”

It is kind of back to the start of the NFB that was set up to make films on Canada for the Canadians. And which brought us great works by Pierre Perrault, Michel Brault, Colin Low, Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig. Photo from "Lonely Boy" (about Paul Anka) by Kroitor & Koenig.

http://realscreen.com/2012/04/18/canadian-doc-makers-slam-cutbacks-we-are-dropping-like-flies/#ixzz1sPdagKOG

Marina Goldovskaja: A Bitter Taste of Freedom

“En bedre dokumentarfilm om den myrdede russiske journalist Anna Politkovskaja end den prisbelønnede ‘A Bitter Taste of Freedom’ er næppe mulig”, så håndfast begynder Vibeke Sperling sin omtale af filmen i Politiken. Det handler ikke alene om Politkovskajas afdækning af krigens rædsler ved sine berømte reportager fra Tjetjenien, ”hun viste også tilbageslaget for demokrati overalt i Rusland, efter at Putin rykkede ind i Kreml i 2000.” Marina Goldovskaja har netop kombineret disse journalistiske indsatser, hvortil kommer, at hun, da hun studerede ved filmskolen i Moskva og lavede A Taste of Freedom om Gorbatjov-tiden, havde Anna Polikovskaja og hendes mand, Sasja Politkovskij som medvirkende i filmen, og at Goldovskaja efter dette fortsatte med at følge Anna Politkovskaja med filmoptagelser til kort før, hun blev myrdet eller likvideret 7. oktober 2006. Samme dag opfordrede sønnen og datteren Marina Goldovskaja til at lave filmen om deres mor færdig.

MARINA GOLDOVSKAJA

De kendte formodentlig hinanden godt og gennem mange år, de kendte til de løbende filmoptagelser, og de vidste naturligvis, at deres mor og filminstruktøren delte synspunkter. Filmen fik premiere foråret 2011 på filmfestivalen Tempo i Stockholm, august sidste år var den bedste dokumentar på filmfestivalen i Montreal. Marina Goldovskaja (født 1941) er da også en erfaren filminstruktør, hun har mere end 30 film bag sig. En gruppe på 15 dokumentarfilm skildrer stadier i Ruslands udvikling siden Sovjetunionens opløsning. I dag lever og arbejder Goldovskaja i Los Angeles, hvor hun er lærer på en filmskole samtidig med, hun følger udviklingen i de arabiske lande, som hun ser som en parallel til den russiske, og arbejder på en dvd-udgivelse med alle sine optagelser med Anna Politkovskaja.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAJA

(1958-2006) var en systemkritisk, russisk journalist, som gentagne gange i sine artikler og bøger påpegede russiske overtrædelser af menneskerettighederne. Hun er især kendt for sin dækning af krigen i Tjetjenien , som korrespondent for avisen Novaja Gazeta. Da hun i 2004 var på vej i fly til Beslan for at følge gidseltragedien på Skole 1, blev hun tilsyneladende forgiftet. Men hun overlevede og fortsatte arbejdet på avisen, til hun en oktoberdag 2006 blev dræbt med flere pistolskud, en stadigvæk uopklaret forbrydelse.

Ib Bondebjerg: Virkelighedsbilleder/ 2

In Danish a late promotion for en aften med Anne Wivel og Eva Mulvad, der taler med Ib Bondebjerg i anledning af hans bog ”Virkelighedsbilleder”.

Cinemateket fortjener igen ros for at tage dette initiativ. 213 minutter – i følge programkataloget – er sat af til et fokus på portrætdokumentaren og vise Anne Wivels ”Svend” (2011) og Eva Mulvads ”Vore lykkes fjender” (2008), to meget vellykkede eksempler på film af høj kunstnerisk kvalitet.

At Anne Wivels film blev forbigået ved såvel Bodil- og Robert-prisuddelingerne, hvor Mads Brüggers ”Ambassadøren” blev kåret som årets danske dokumentar, er skammeligt for såvel kritikerne (Bodil) som kollegerne (Robert). Publikum vidste bedre, ”Svend” blev set at 35.000 i biografen, ”Ambassadøren” af 16.000.

Arrangementet finder sted i Cinemateket torsdag den 19. April kl. 19

www.dfi.dk

Herzog on Death, Danger and the End of the World

Steve Rose from The Guardian brings Saturday April 14 a very interesting article on and interview with Werner Herzog, whose ”Into the Abyss” is screened all over the world in these months. I have taken out this quote from the article that you should definitely read in its full version:

”Into The Abyss (photo) is not overtly about capital punishment. Herzog describes it more as "an American Gothic" – a survey of a Texan landscape of poverty, intoxication, incarceration and death. But he's explicit about his opposition to the death penalty: "I was born when Nazi Germany was still around, and simply because of all the atrocities and the genocide and euthanasia, I just can't be an advocate of capital punishment. There's something fundamentally wrong in my opinion, but I would be the last one to tell the American people how to handle criminal justice."

As well as the documentary, he made another four 50-minute documentaries interviewing other death row inmates. "Not interviewing," he corrects me. "I'm not a journalist; I'm a poet. I had a discourse, an encounter with these people but I never had a list of questions."”

Into The Abyss is out on DVD and Blu-ray on 30 April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/apr/14/werner-herzog-into-the-abyss

Humphrey Jennings: Listen to Britain

It is still pure pleasure to watch the 17 minutes long short masterly montaged documentary masterpiece by British Jennings, the first of his war-time trilogy. And bravo for the BFI (British Film Institute) for publishing the film, and other films by the director in a double dvd, where the second comes out the 23rd of April.

And also bravo for the Guardian that often brings knowledge about film historical issues to the knowledge of its readers. This is what they wrote as intro to the small clip from the film:

Humphrey Jennings's work for the Crown Film Unit in the 1940s gives us a fascinating insight into Britain during wartime. Here, in a clip from his 1942 short film Listen to Britain, we get a glimpse of his talent for picking out the details in the lives of ordinary people that was acclaimed by the likes of Lindsay Anderson and Kevin Macdonald.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film

http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_20521.html

Docaviv 2012

The international documentary festival in Tel Aviv, that takes place May 3-12, opens, like the Canadian HotDocs, with Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry by Alison Klayman, and another upcoming hit, Marley by Kevin MacDonald is also offered the Israeli audience.

The festival programme includes an Israeli as well as an International and a Student Competition programme, AND a lot of good works in Special Screenings from all over the world. Films to be noticed in the international section is Petr Lom’s Back to the Square, the idfa winner Planet of Snail by Yi Seungjun and the excellent work of master Marcel Lozinski Tonia and her Children (Photo), which has not travelled as much as it deserved.

From the Israeli competition attention should be drawn to the film by Miri and Erez Laufer, One Day after Peace, a cinematic humanistic appeal, here is the catalogue description:

“Can the means used to resolve the conflict in South Africa be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Robi Damelin, who experienced both conflicts firsthand, wonders. She was born in South Africa during the apartheid era; later on she lost her son during his service with the Israeli army reserve in the Occupied Territories. She embarked on a journey back to South Africa to learn more about the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission established to overcome years of enmity. Damelin's thought-provoking journey is driven by deep personal pain and a strong belief that a better future is possible.”

Other films that will please the audience are Audrius Stonys Ramain, Steve James The Interrupters, Alina Rudnitskaya’s I will forget this Day and Sean MacAllister’s The Reluctant Revolutionary 

http://www.docaviv.co.il/en/2012

Petr Lom: Back to the Square

Of course the director goes back to the Tahrir Square in Cairo, the symbolic location for the Egyptian revolution but one of the many qualities of this new documentary by world travelling Petr Lom - a director who in his approach is an excellent example of how questioning journalism and observing documentary can be beautifully combined - is that he goes to the countryside, to the places that we did not see in the news reports or in the many films that have been released about Tahrir Square and what happened during the dramatic days in early 2011.

Lom gives the viewer ”five stories from the Egyptian revolution”, a revolution that did not do good for everybody, not at all, on the contrary, the film says by presenting to the audience interesting characters, who do not hesitate to speak out their frustration and anger. Not only the boy on the picture whose family almost lost their business fundament as pyramid tourist guides when their horses were kind of confiscated but also the minibus driver and the young woman, whose husband is in prison without court case – it is a film about corruption in the police and in the army, not to talk about human rights being neglected.

Two stories stand out in the film that of course, having chosen to focus on five stories, in some cases leave the characters at a moment where you would have loved to stay. One is the terrible case of a strong young woman, accused of having an affair with a man, being forced to take a virgin test, undergo torture, her family going against her, as well as the village security officer, who enters the room while filming is going on, asking all kind of questions and stating the the film crew ”could be Israelis”! At the end of that chapter she is in the car of the film crew away from provincialism. The other is the touching and painful story about a young man, whose brother is sentenced to 3 years of prison because of blogging words that the army did not improve of. The brother is on hunger strike, a later text declares that he is now released.

You might argue that it is too much for one film, and that the final film sometimes seems to get out of balance, but this is the place where it can only be repeated that Contents is King. 

Norway,Piraya Films, 2012, 83 mins.

http://www.backtothesquare.com/#/english/film/about

Vurdering:

Svetoslav Draganov: City of Dreams

Bulgarian documentarian Svetoslav Draganov has a special touch, when it comes to catch so-called ordinary life as it is lived in his own country, very often in provincial cities. His gift is to make people and their dreams of a better life, or of fame or of success, interesting for the viewer, and he does so with an eye for situations and with a positive and warm approach to his characters, never wanting to judge or to make fun of them. Well the audience is invited to have many smiles and there is definitely a satirical tone, but it is never sarchastic.

Life is wonderful, isn’t it – was the title of a previous film of Draganov, and the people in Dimitrovgrad aim at the same, to make life wonderful. They did so when the city was meant to be a communist model city (the film has wonderful b/w propaganda archive material from the Stalinistic times), and they do so today in a city where music plays a strong role for many. It is called chalga, pop-folk Bulgarian style, most often performed by young girls in very short skirts, who do not hesitate to show their talented bodies. The focus is on sweet Simona, who moved with her parents to the city to reach the stars, fighting hard to have her first record out accompanied by a music video, supported by her boy friend and (to a certain degree) by her mum and dad. Helping her is the former rock star, who is now a music producer (the bald man on the photo) and who seems to be ”the spokesman” of the director composing a piece that brings the melancholic tone and lyrics like ”you no longer have dream... all there is back is sorrow”. Actually a pretty good earhanger.

Draganov uses a mosaic storytelling structure which gives the broader picture of then and now, past and present. He has fabulous moments with meetings of the old brigadiers who built the city, he creates a drama between a father and a son, who is opposed to the communist past, he gets close to Simona and the bald music producer and his family. And yet the danger of having a structure like that is that you often want to stay longer with one character or go deeper, but then you are brought to the next one. Sometimes – like with Simona – emotions are conveyed, other times, like with the son of the composer, you would have loved to have more. Nevertheless, respect for Draganov, happy for what he is giving the viewer, a director who has found his personal style and method of observation of human life. 

Bulgaria, 2012, 75 mins.

http://www.cine-ma.com/

http://www.eastsilver.net/en/east-silver/guests/draganov-svetoslav-6037/?aYear=2011&off=25

Vurdering:

Hot Docs 2012 – and NFB Cuts

The Canadian International Documentary Festival that takes place April 26-May 6 and that describes itself, and its selected films, as ”outspoken and outstanding”, has launched its programme and it is indeed an amazing selection of films in variety of themes and geography. Contrary to many American festivals the Toronto-based doc fest is really going to all continents to present films from smaller regions. There are sections like ”Made in Southeastern Europe”, and there are films from the Baltic region like the Estonian fine portrait of a chimney sweep, a woman, Breath by Kular Viimne, and Lithuanian beautiful debut film ”The field of Magic” by Mindaugas Survila. To be found in sections titled ”International Spectrum” and ”World Showcase”.

And there are great films written about on this site like: Private Universe by Czech Helena Trestikova, Five Broken Cameras by Guy Davidi and Ema Burnat, and Vivan las antipodas by Viktor Kossakovsky.

And ”star” films like the one that opens the festival Ai Wei: Never Sorry (photo) by Alison Kleiman and Kevin MacDonald’s Marley.

A special tribute is given to Michel Brault, one of the pioneers of Canadian documentary. Among the shown is the classic Pour La Suite du Monde that he made with Pierre Perrault in 1963. This film, thanks to the brilliant NFB online catalogue, you can watch free of charge, link below. Sad news about the NFB (National Film Board), according to Realscreen, is ” In the wake of the Canadian federal government’s budget, released last Thursday and which called for cuts to the budgets of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the CBC and Telefilm Canada, the NFB has unveiled several measures that will be implemented over the course of the year, including job cuts, cinema closures, and the reduction of the scope of the Filmmaker Assistance Program (FAP) and the Aide au cinéma indépendant du Canada (ACIC) program.

http://www.hotdocs.ca/

http://blog.nfb.ca/2011/04/07/pour-la-suite-du-monde-the-perrault-classic-in-english/

http://realscreen.com/2012/04/04/nfb-to-reduce-scope-of-filmmaker-assistance-program-cut-jobs-in-wake-of-budget-cuts/#ixzz1rkFO6bRv

Diane Weyermann

Hot Docs gives a Doc Mogul Award every year and there shall be no objection, not at all, on the contrary, to the choice of recipient this year. For this blogger, when he was at EDN (European Documentary Network), Diane Weyermann was a key person for the development of the documentary scene in a new and free Eastern Europe way back in the middle of the 1990’s. She came to many of the EDN workshops in the region and she was precise, warm and generous in her support to documentary films when she launched the Soros Documentary Fund in 1996. Personally I remember having made an interview for DOX with Diane in New York and met a committed and modest person with a big love to the creative documentary. And a woman with a working and walking pace (down the streets of Manhattan) that was quite different from the Nordic tradition! She managed to transform the Soros Documentary Fund into the Sundance Documentary Fund before she went to (taken from the HotDocs site) “Participant Media, where she has overseen such documentary projects as the Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning FOOD INC., WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”, STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM PLAINS, DARFUR NOW, and the Academy Award-winning AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.” In the funds and in the company, Weyermann has been involved with the production of over 300 documentary films from around the world. The most well deserved documentary recognition I could think of. Congratulations!

http://www.hotdocs.ca/

Laura Poitras

Shocking reading, taken from the Indiewire Newsletter: This weekend, in a post on his popular political blog, Salon's Glenn Greenwald posted a story about the ways that the Department of Homeland Security has routinely intimidated and violated the fourth amendment rights of documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (photo), who is currently at work on the third of her three post-9/11 documentaries (following the Oscar-nominated "My Country, My Country" and the critically acclaimed "The Oath").  According to Greenwald, "Poitras is now forced to take extreme steps — ones that hamper her ability to do her work — to ensure that she can engage in her journalism and produce her films without the U.S. Government intruding into everything she is doing. She now avoids traveling with any electronic devices."

From the Cinema Eye organization an open letter has been released to the Obama administration:

As members of the nonfiction filmmaking community, we want to express our outrage over the ongoing harassment of our colleague Laura Poitras by the US government and the Department of Homeland Security. We call on the Obama administration to investigate this abuse of power and to bring an end to this persistent violation of

Making Documentaries in Israel: The External Eye

Midnight East, the Israeli online magazine “dedicated to obsessive involvement with the Israeli cultural scene”, has published a long, precise and informative article by Ayelet Dekel based on interviews with three mentors, two from the North of Europe and one from Israel. Here is the beginning of the article, go to the link and read the rest:

“I have read 102 Israeli projects, 20 of them have been selected for Copro and these are the people we are talking to here,” said Tue Steen Müller, one of three mentors in the Master Class for Israeli documentary filmmakers that took place from March 18 – 20, “That’s a lot. Reading these 102, and looking at the clips, it’s like looking at the soul of a nation.”

Promoting the making of Israeli documentaries as an independent marketing channel for the past 13 years, CoPro’s main event is the Israeli Documentary Screen Market which will take place from May 29 – June 3, 2012. In preparation for pitching their projects to an international panel of television network executives and other industry professionals, the filmmakers selected to participate had the benefit of individual consultations with three mentors: Tue Steen Müller, Iikka Vehkalahti and Erez Laufer. Midnight East had the privilege of conversing with all three consultants individually, between their sessions with the filmmakers…. Continue on… midnighteast.com

Photo: The Collaborator and his family by Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash.

Werner Herzog: Ned i afgrunden

Anmeldelserne forlanger simpelthen, at man finder frem til en biograf, hvor filmen vises:

EN MEDMENNESKELIG NYSGERRIGHED 

”Til at begynde med virker Herzogs anti-form næsten demonstrativt umoderne. Men efterhånden som flere talende ansigter afleverer deres vidnesbyrd, efterhånden som filmens tema bliver belyst, giver formen mening…”

”Werner Herzog har tydeligvis opbygget en form for tillid og forståelse med de mennesker, han taler med i 'Ned i afgrunden'. Måske fornemmer hans interviewofre en medmenneskelig nysgerrighed i stedet for en journalistisk professionalisme hos Herzog. I hvert fald sker der noget forbavsende, da præsten Richard Lopez lige har fortalt om det græs, de køer og de egern, der fylder hver af hans dage med glæde. 'Kan du fortælle om de egern?' spørger Herzog, og som tilskuer sidder man og tænker på hvad dælen det er for at bizart spørgsmål, men knap er præsten færdig med at beskrive de frejdige gnavere før han sammenligner dem med de mænd, han be'r den sidste bøn for - og så bryder han ud i tårer. Var det Herzogs sjette sans, der slog til?” (Per Juul Carlsen)

HVER FILM SOM KAMMERMUSIK

“Herzog er (ved siden af en fortsat, men svækket række spillefilm, red.)… blevet en myreflittig dokumentarist, der i essayistisk form undersøger alle mulige emner, som optager ham: renæssancemusik, alternativ luftfart, buddhistisk fordybelse, menneskers overlevelse på udsatte steder, idealisters store selvbedrag og lejlighedsvise sejre. Herzog anbringer sig selv i billedet, interviewer, kommenterer, reflekterer og strukturerer hver film som kammermusik.”

”Into the Abyss bærer undertitlen ’A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life’. Sagen er dødsstraf, og Herzog gør emnet konkret ved at analysere en amerikansk forbrydelse i alle faser af forløbet. Tonefaldet er langtfra lidenskabeligt. Filmen er en disciplineret øvelse i at anskueliggøre et problem, så tilskueren selv kan tage stilling, men må være gjort af forstokket stof for ikke at reagere på dét, som Herzog har vist ham.” (Bo Green Jensen)

I DET MILDESTE TONELEJE

”Med sin læspende tyske accent lyder Herzog som en parodi på Djævlens advokat, men faktisk er han en beundringsværdig interviewer, der stiller alle de rigtige, fordomsfri og svære spørgsmål til en række hårdt prøvede mennesker. Hans instinkt for at trykke på skjulte knapper i det mildeste toneleje er forbløffende. Det sker med spørgsmål, som kvalificerer undersøgelsen, snarere end de søger kontante svar. Herzog gør, hvad han altid gør: vælger et blødt punkt og graver sig ind i menneskelivets verden. Hvad han finder dernede i små og store afgrunde, er hvad han viser frem. Så må vi selv blive klogere. Hvis vi da synes, dét er en pointe.” (Kim Skotte)

Werner Herzog: Ned i afgrunden (Into the Abyss), USA, Storbritannien og Tyskland 2011. 106 min. Fotografi: Peter Zeitlinger. Dansk distribution DOXBIO www.doxbio.dk Litt.: Per Juul Carlsen, Filmland 4.4.2012, Bo Green Jensen, Weekendavisen 4.4.2012, Kim Skotte, Politiken 4.4.2012. 

Filmen havde premiere i aftes ved en enkelt samtidig visning i 50 biografer. Og fra i dag kan den ses i Café-Biografen i Odense og i Grand i København.

The freedom to see

Emma Davie, Scottish filmmaker and teacher at Edinburgh College of Art, and tutor at numerous workshops for filmmakers from Europe and elsewhere, was in Ramallah at the Storydoc/Ramallah.doc workshop that has previously been reported from on this site. She has generously given us permission to post this beautiful text:

THE FREEDOM TO SEE

by Emma Davie

It’s a bar in Ramallah called Beit Aneesh. Apparently named after an old lady that lived there. A laid back place with posters from the history of the struggle of the Palestinian people. We had just completed a documentary workshop in Ramallah and Tue (Steen Müller), who has helped so many emerging filmmakers from all over the world, suggested anyone who likes, joins us for a beer or coffee at 8.

Few have come. Most have long, unpredictable journeys through the occupied territories where they will undoubtedly be stopped several times.

Khaled (Jarrar) has turned up though - just arrived from France where his work as a radical conceptual artist has become celebrated. We’re so pleased to see him - a filmmaker of huge promise as well as an artist. Tue has just seen the rough cut of his first film which is about the wall. He shows us a scene with him with a tiny chisel, chipping little bits of the wall off. Tue suggests he end his new film like this. It’s a futile act of defiance, made funny by its impotence. Khaled is also funny and strong in a way that only gentle people can be. I had seen scenes from his film the year before when we were working with him at the Storydoc workshop in Greece. I remember a mother and daughter who could not see each other due to the wall which now carves right through between the West Bank and Jerusalem, splitting up areas. They were forced to slip photos and letters under it to each other. I remember them touching hands through a gap under the wall.

I also remember seeing a boy pushing bread through one of the holes on the wall. What struck me was not the bizarre act itself, but the look on

Werner Herzog, Collected Postings on his Works

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… (Tue Steen Müller)

INTO THE ABYSS

by Tue Steen Müller

Steve Rose from The Guardian brings Saturday April 14 a very interesting article on and interview with Werner Herzog, whose ”Into the Abyss” is screened all over the world in these months. I have taken out this quote from the article that you should definitely read in its full version:

”Into The Abyss (photo) is not overtly about capital punishment. Herzog describes it more as "an American Gothic" – a survey of a Texan landscape of poverty, intoxication, incarceration and death. But he's explicit about his opposition to the death penalty: "I was born when Nazi Germany was still around, and simply because of all the atrocities and the genocide and euthanasia, I just can't be an advocate of capital punishment. There's something fundamentally wrong in my opinion, but I would be the last one to tell the American people how to handle criminal justice."

As well as the documentary, he made another four 50-minute documentaries interviewing other death row inmates. "Not interviewing," he corrects me. "I'm not a journalist; I'm a poet. I had a discourse, an encounter with these people but I never had a list of questions."”

Into The Abyss is out on DVD and Blu-ray on 30 April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/apr/14/werner-herzog-into-the-abyss

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

by Mikkel Stolt

What does a cave being enclosed for thousands of years sound like? Or smell like? This film actually tries to tell us, but first of all it shows us what it looks like. Or to be more precise, it shows us what the 30.000 years old cave paintings look like. And let me tell you right away, that despite being a 3D sceptic I was really flabbergasted by the effect that this format gives you; a unique sense on how the ancient artists used the curves and hollows of the cave walls to create effects that are right down spectacular. Even from today’s perspective this is world class art!

The paintings do take up a lot of time in this film and you actually get the strange sensation that even Herzog himself was overwhelmed by the art in these caves and thus has made a slightly more conventional documentary. We do get a lot of his trademarks, though: The philosophical narration, the “leading” questions to interviewees and the oddball characters, for instance the “perfumerist” who is skilled in finding hidden caves using his nostrils. Also, a typical Herzog-moment comes when his voice narrates that the footprints of a wolf and an 8-year-old boy were found next to each other. Did the wolf stalk the boy, did they walk together as companions or were the footprints sat 10.000 years apart? “We will never know”. Herzog also wants to put art, music and the understanding of human evolvement into perspective and it really does work. But first and last are the paintings themselves of paramount interest to him. Even when we almost think the film is over, we get the best seven or eight minutes of them all: the camera dwelling on the walls with very simple lighting effects and some really beautiful music - an original score by Ernst Reijseger as far as I can detect.

However, a few “buts” arose in my mind. At an early point in the film, one of the scientists asks the crew to be silent so we can hear the sounds of the cave. Herzog can’t stand that silence more than 10 seconds but soon adds a heartbeat and then music, and shortly it gives you an uneasy feeling about the director’s choices. And apart from when we see the paintings themselves; the 3D format is interesting at best and somewhat annoying and distracting at worst.

But in the end the film is just wonderful and Herzog does the unthinkable: he lets us feel that he put the matter of the film in a predominant position because he didn’t have a choice. These paintings are essential to mankind, the film says, and I agree. 5 point nibs (Posting November 14 2011)

2 comments to Cave of Forgotten Dreams:

Leena Pasanen wrote 16-11-2011 22:49:18: Why can't we just face the fact that even the masters can be out of their comfort zone and not fully know what they are doing?! 5/6 is very generous in my opinion.

Mikkel Stolt wrote 21-11-2011 11:27:58: Hi, Leena. Good to hear from you. I usually don't have any problem critisizing the masters (or anybody else :) ). I didn't find Scorsese's Harrison-film especially good and Herzog's "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done" was an even bigger challenge to watch. However, in this film the problem was maybe that Herzog was too much in his comfort zone. But I must admit I was truly moved by it.

WERNER HERZOGS FILMS FOR PURCHASE

by Tue Steen Müller

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.

News from Paris: Awards Cinéma du réel 2012

This years Cinéma du réel is coming to an end, here is the list of awards given Saturday:

Louis-Marcorelles Award:

Five Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi

Special mention of Louis-Marcorelles Award : Dusty Night by Ali Hazara

Intangible Heritage Award:

Habiter / Construire (Living / Building) by Clémence Ancelin

Special mention of Intangible Heritage Award: River Rites by Ben Russell

Librairy Award:

La Cause et l'usage (The Common Place) by Dorine Brun and Julien Meunier

Special mention of Librairy Award: Habiter / Construire (Living / Building) by Clémence Ancelin

Young jury Award:

East Punk Memories by Lucile Chaufour

Special mention of Young jury Award: La Cause et l'usage (The Common Place) by Dorine Brun and Julien Meunier

Joris Ivens Award:

The Vanishing Spring Light by Xun Yu

Special mention of Joris Ivens Award: A Nossa forma de vida (The Way You Are) by Pedro Filipe Marques

Short film Award:

Dusty Night by Ali Hazara

Scam International Award:

Earth by Victor Asliuk

Cinéma du réel Grand Prix:

Autrement, la Molussie (Differently, Molussia) by Nicolas Rey

The Grand Prix winner 2012, Nicolas Rey’s Differently Molussia, was an audacious choice from the jury: Nine chapters shot in 16mm based on fragments of the Günther Anders’ 1930’ies novel The Mollusian Catacomb, about the imaginary fascist state Molussia. A film, I must admit, way beyond my attention span!

Five Broken Cameras (Burnat, Davidi) continues its success (Special Jury Award IDFA, World Cinema Directing Award Sundance a.o.). This important Palestinian-Israeli-French production, a personal story of a Palestinian farmer filming the non-violent protests of his village against the barrier erected by the Israeli army on their land, deserves as much screening as possible. There is talk about a French theatre-release…

Also a note on the section Arrested Cinema featuring news from Syria this year: The event attracted a huge crowd and we were many not being able to get a seat. Maybe this event could be promoted to the Cinema 1 next year?

Personally, my strongest experience this year was to get to know more about the work of Susana de Sousa Dias and her experimental way of treating historical archives. Again, the festival is to be praised for its extensive side-programmes.

Still: Autrement, la Molussie de Nicolas Rey