Friday presented a bounty of great documentaries to see, panels to attend and special programs and lectures throughout the day. Here's a sampling of what I caught after an early-morning press/filmmaker breakfast at a local coffee house:
Nomadak Tx was a real audience-pleaser. Director, Raul de la Fuente, creates an amazing journey as he follows two Basque traveling musicians, Harkaitz Mtnez. de San Vicente and Igor Otxoa, as they convoy to some of the most desolate parts of the world with their txalaparta, a unique musical instrument (sort of like a gigantic wooden xylophone), that is played by two people. They journey to India, Lapland, the Sahara and Mongolia to fuse their music with that of the nomadic peoples that inhabit those places. They cross frozen wastelands and deserts, on horseback in the mountains of the Siberian border and by train in the west of India in search of sounds. Like some crazy road movie fueled by musical passion and a desire for connection, Nomadak Tx is a visually stunning melange of motion, music and human connection. It's a fantastic journey. After the screening, the Full Frame audience was treated to a live performance by Harkaitz and Igor.
Filmmaker, Jessica Yu, had the east coast premiere of her film Protagonist at Full Frame following its debut at Sundance. Through four male characters--a reformed gay Christian, a violent criminal, a left-wing German terrorist and a bullied child who becomes a kung fu disciple--she weaves a cross-cut of some very emotional puppeteering, playing out scenes from Greek tragedian, Euripides, with riveting interviews and personal footage and stills from her four characters, to illustrate and reflect on the relationship of an individual's life to the archetypal human experience. Commissioned to do the project three years ago at this festival, Yu has created a unique and stunning piece of work. Go back and check out her film Realms of the Unreal. Definitely a filmmaker to watch.
Angels in the Dust is Louise Hogarth's second feature doc as a director. There was literally not a dry eye in the house by the time the film ended. On a trip to South Africa several years ago, Hogarth met Con and Marion Cloete, a couple who gave up a very comfortable upper-middle class life in Johannesburg, and with their twin daughters, built and operate a sanctuary for hundreds of South African orphans. Bothshabelo is a special place that offers a village and school for the surrounding rural areas providing shelter, care, food, guidance and love to children and teenagers whose lives have been ravaged by HIV/AIDS sickness and death, rape, abuse and poverty. Participant Productions is distributing the film and there is a whole social action campaign for which the film will serve as an outreach tool, encouraging viewers to get integrally involved in helping to make a difference for the overwhelming task of making sure this generation does not grow up trapped by the same ignorance and desperation that has been perpetuated generation after generation in these villages. The number of orphans from HIV/AIDS is in the hundreds of millions on the continent of Africa and will continue to grow unabated to staggering proportions. This is an important film and one done with heart, beauty and grace for its subjects and a palpable respect for the place in which they live. You are not likely to meet too many characters like Marion Cloete, a force of nature clothed in the guise of an earth mother to beat all earth mothers. No one will stand in the way of this woman's mission to save the children of South Africa.
The Monastery by first-time feature director Pernille Rose Gronkjaer is one of the best films, let alone documentaries, I've seen this year. Her main character, Mr. Vig gives his Danish castle to the Russian Orthodox Church for a monastery. When the church accepts and sends a head-strong nun to come check out the place, Mr. Vig finds a kindred spirit to tussle with. Alternately funny and moving and beautifully photographed, what makes this film extra special is the relationship that grows between this young filmmaker and her subject. They spend five years together and come to understand and respect one another. It's a gorgeous film. The judging panel of the twelve films considered for the big Grand Jury Prize saw fit to deem this piece the winner--in fact, jury members Ric Burns, Kirby Dick, Laura Poitras and John Sinno told the audience at the awards ceremony that it was pretty unanimous between them that this contained all the ingredients of, not only a great documentary, but a great work of cinema.
First-time director, Peter De Kock, comes from the world of high-fashion photography and advertising. A strange conversation in a bar about thirteen years ago started him on a journey of discovery to find out what happened to The Hands of Che Guevara. At just under an hour, this film plays like a murder mystery full of creepy intrigue and riveting interviews as we follow the severed hands of Guevara from the discovery of his remains buried underneath an airstrip in Bolivia to a still-unknown hiding place in Havana, Cuba. The film befits the intrigue and absurdity of Che's legacy--an icon that appears on hats, T-shirts and other consumer paraphernalia representing freedom through revolt and ultimate martyrdom. The courage and commitment of the men who risked their lives to preserve his remains is the backbone of this wonderfully shot, moody piece by this Dutch cinematographer. It is one of the films being considered for the Full Frame/Emerging Pictures Audience Award.
Another astounding accomplishment from a first-timer, Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), a top prize-winner at Sundance this past year, is director Jason Kohn's crazy ode to modern-day Brazil. It played to a packed audience for its east coast premiere at Full Frame. The film explores the country's systemic corruption in, what at first, seems like bi-polar storytelling. But the story of politician-thug Jader Barbalho, a frog farm that acts as pointed metaphor for Brazilian society and interviews with a kidnapper/terrorist who's just trying to feed and take care of his wife and ten kids, Rambo-like cops that consider themselves warriors and the brilliant surgeon who restores cut-off ears of kidnapping victims, all blend into a melange of a vivid portrait of a country run amok. With a thrilling soundtrack of gorgeous Brazilian music and some of the most artful editing out there, Manda Bala is an E-ticket of a film.
In a special screening Friday night, video artist Jem Cohen presented three new works. Two short films, the 10-minute Blessed are the Dreams of Men and the 7-minute NYC Weights and Measures opened the program. The first captures a group of anonymous travelers as they sleep and dream in a train car drifting through an unidentified landscape. It's ethereal feel and haunting music make this a beautiful visual and aural meditation. The other short is Cohen's elegiac comment on street photography post-9/11 in the city of New York where he makes his home. Shot in 16mm, Cohen says that "sometimes I just wander around with my camera--I like to see whatever comes around the corner, and sometimes I just like the corner itself." Even though plagued by severe jet lag, Cohen gave the audience a lively and humorous Q&A session following his longer piece, a concert film that captures one performance at The Knitting Factory of the Dutch band The Ex, 25-year veterans of the underground avant rock scene. With fierce, driving music and a portrayal of these band mates communicating in ways only people who have been playing music together as long as they have can do, it's a "you are there but super close up" version of attending a hot, sweaty space where the musicians and the audience lose themselves in waves of sound.
The day ended with a convivial party at a local Durham Italian bar and restaurant where filmmakers, press and film lovers gathered to talk well into the night about the exciting, ground-breaking work being done in nonfiction cinema.
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