Still in Motion

BURDEN OF MY HEART - A Rwandan Lamentation

In early 2010, Finnish filmmaker, Iris Olsson, got a call from CPH:DOX, inviting her to a workshop where she would be paired with a director to make a film.  Still a student pursuing her Master's at the Finnish national film school in Helsinki, Olsson is already an award-winning filmmaker (Summer Child, Between Dreams.)  For CPH's program, she was partnered with a young Rwandan director, Yves Niyongabo.  Once she arrived in Rwanda, she realized there was a bigger story to tell.

Burden of My Heart is a portrait of the people left in the country, an empty, shattered place filled with the ghosts of murdered Tutsis sixteen years after genocide.  We have vague memories of this sixteen years on, don't we?  Under the orders of insane leaders, members of the Hutu tribe began killing people on 15 April 1994.  A mere 100 days later, 800,000 people were dead, and many of those who survived the slaughter fled in a mass exodus from the country of their birth, never to return.  We remember this, don't we?

Olsson, who shot the film herself, takes us through Rwanda in a stunning visual articulation of the unending grief and persistent remembrance of the few individuals who managed to survive and hang on, deciding to stay and live out the rest of their lives in daily vigil over both the physical and spiritual remains of their murdered families.  Without any exposition, with contemplative photography, Olsson and Niyongabo imbue their 45-minute piece with plenty of breathing space, allowing both participants and viewers to take in the internal experience of despair, the feeling of complete existential failure, the ways in which someone can struggle to find the words to express the absurdity of living a corporeal life when your spirit has already passed on, accompanying your loved ones into nothingness. 

There is balance here, as much as there can be, for Olsson and Niyongabo show us that, on the one hand, this grisly experience is so overwhelming that forgiveness is impossible.  But on the other side of this can be a deeply penetrating and profound experience of spiritual joy, serenity and peace of mind that can derive from faith, and the awareness of a presence that some have chosen to call God. 

A young man can speak eloquently of shattered faith and express understanding that his generation might be relieved of the obligation of forgiveness.  He acknowledges the loss of the "best part of himself," his ability to feel anything at all.  "I'm really sure there is a part of me that's dead; there is a kind of emotion, a kind of love, I don't have."  The only hope he holds out is that of a new generation, that will know only of this time through passed-on stories.  This is the only thing that keeps him alive.  He acknowledges that the next generation will have a chance to be born into a world where the entire spectrum of human feeling can remain active and intact.  His experience will be an historical one, repeated in rote recitation as part of a school lesson on genocide, like multiplication tables, or a poem, or a song.

We meet the constant mourners who have an open dialogue with God and shout not only their grief to that entity, but also their joy and gratitude at being alive.  There is the young mother of three young children, who had her legs cut off during the massacre, who has turned to the church for some solace so that she doesn't burden her children too much with her overwhelming grief. 

The burden of grief might be bearing witness long after everyone else has moved on, when just the "reconciliators" are left to try and mend some things.  Most of the world barely paid attention to what happened in Rwanda in 1994 until hundreds of thousands were already dead.  Olsson and Niyongabo capture a respectful portrait of those that remain.  They listen; they record; they  bear witness.  In that process, the two have created something all the more emotionally searing for its distance, its economy, its quiet observation.  (Niyongabo and Olsson, pictured)

Burden of My Heart will have its premiere this Thursday evening at the 54th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film as part of the International Young Talent Competition--Generation DOK program.

Finland in New York

Next month, as part of the ongoing celebration of its ten year anniversary this year, the Helsinki-based DocPoint film festival, founded by filmmaker, Arto Halonen, will bring a slew of Finnish documentaries to New York audiences. There will be a program of 47 selections hosted by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Scandinavia House, 92Y Tribeca, UnionDocs, and Tribeca Film Institute.  The films will include festival faves and award winners from the past decade, student films, and selections from the always wonderfully curated program for kids, DOKKINO.  I have been privileged to be involved in this festival for the past three years, and cannot speak highly enough of the calibre of work coming out of this small country and the talent coming out of its film schools.

International multiple award winner, Steam of Life, by Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen, FInland's entry for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards this year, will be shown at the MoMA with five New York and five US premieres. Reindeer Spotting--Escape from Santaland (2010) will be the program's opener and will have a week-long run at the museum.

The program at 92YTribeca will include Mika Kaurismäki's ode to Brazilian music, Moro No Brasil (2002), Visa Koiso-Kanttila's Father to Son (2004), and Arto Halonen's Shadow of the Holy Book (2007).

Scandinavia House will exhibit twenty titles and host two panel discussions, one of which will be hosted by The Flaherty Seminar.  And, UnionDocs in Brooklyn will host a fantastic program of student work from Finland's fine film and technical schools.  The entire DocPoint NYC program has been organized collaboratively in New York with MoMA, Scandinavia House, 92YTribeca, UnionDocs, Tribeca Film Institute, The Flaherty Seminar, the Consulate General of Finland, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland; and in Finland by AVEK--Audiovisual Promotion Center, the Finnish Film Foundation, the City of Helsinki Cultural Office, Aalto University, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and YLE.

You can check out the full schedule of films and other events at the links above. Don't miss out on any of these superb programs and experience the beauty and elegant storytelling of Finnish nonfiction filmmaking. Happy 10th anniversary, DocPoint! 

 

INTERVIEW: Helena Trestiková, Director KATKA

The 13^th edition of the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will take place in Prague, Czech Republic next month from 8 – 17 March.  This has become one of the most important high-profile human rights film fests internationally, exhibiting over 100 films over the course of a week and a half.  It is there that I will get to re-meet Czech filmmaker, Helena Trestiková, a multiple award-winning documentarian who has been débuting her latest piece, Katka, on the international circuit this year.  Perhaps most people might not necessarily categorize Trestiková’s films under a “human rights” rubric.  She, herself, is quick to point out that she does not think of herself, necessarily, as any obvious kind of social activist.  (The filmmaker, pictured, on the ferry ride across the sea from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia, courtesy Evelin Kask, January 2011.)

What does distinguish this filmmaker’s work is her unique, and intense, involvement with her protagonists, most of whom she follows with a small film crew for well over a decade and her singular commitment to her subjects goes beyond filming them.  She shows us what it is like to be a particular human being in a particular set of circumstances—circumstances which are harrowing, off-putting for most, and all too real for the people acting out the passion plays of their own lives for years on end for her camera.  Katka is the most recent work in a series of films that are observational studies of people who find themselves utterly lost and cast adrift.  The first two are called René, released in 2008 and winner of the European Film Academy's Documentary of the Year Award, and Marcela, released in 2007, also a multiple award-winner. She has been following these subjects for most of the past 20 some-odd years and continues to do so today. 

When we first meet her, Katka is a gorgeous, vibrant young woman, a recovering drug addict in a halfway house, trying to relearn the basics of life as a drug-free person.  Trestiková spent the next fourteen years following her as she relies on precarious and violent relationships with two different men and embarks on misadventure after misadventure into a variety of criminal activities, including working as a street prostitute, to sustain her habit.  She never kicks it--even when awaiting the birth of a daughter.

This powerful film, like Trestiková's others, raises many complex moral and ethical issues concerning the filmmaker relationship to his or her subjects.  Nevertheless, Trestiková’s film is big box office in her native country since so far, over 100,000 Czech moviegoers have turned out to see Katka in cinemas. 

I sat with Trestiková, a very elegant and soft-spoken woman in her early 60s (hardly your average crusading, rampaging social activist) in a quiet café in the midst of the DocPoint festival in Helsinki Finland in late January. [Note to those who haven’t seen Katka yet, this interview contains “plot” spoilers.]

 

Still in Motion (SIM): As a teacher of documentary filmmaking at FAMU [Filmová a televizní Fakulta Akademie Múzickych Umení v Praze, Czech Republic's national film school], what are you seeing from young filmmakers in terms of certain philosophies or schools of thought about making this kind of vérité or direct cinema documentary?  The world moves at a particularly fast clip, for the most part, but your own films have a deliberate pace and timbre to them that requires loads of time, untold days and weeks over the course of several years.  (Trestiková pictured above with Marcela.)

Helena Trestiková (HT):  It’s true that young people look at the world and experience the world in their own ways.  And they don’t want to really imitate anyone.  They also have a very personal attitude and experience to certain topics and they want to help implement change by being active participants in their own films. They are one of the objects in their own films, directly in front of the camera.  Some of them admire someone like Michael Moore and his way of documenting his stories where he is very active in his own films; he wants to move a situation.  He wants to make the world a better place; this is a kind of social activism.  This is the main part of the young filmmakers’ activity.

Antithetically, I have an observational method.  I observe for a very long time.  And some of my students think that this is too passive of a way to make documentary films, that a filmmaker has to be active and change the world with his or her film.  My thought is that I will observe and record and the viewers of my films will think about things.  And, then, perhaps, something in their own mind will change.  It’s a much deeper reaction, I think, than watching someone crusade on behalf of others.  This other method can be problematic in many ways.  I would rather force people to think rather than to react.

SIM:  However, you are incredibly present in your films.  Your subjects interact with you in a very intimate way--they are addressing you directly in many instances.  Your lack of interference, at least on camera, speaks to giving the lion’s share of attention to your subject.  And that qualifies as social activism in a much more profound way by moving aside, allowing us to hear their voices and see their lives play out in a more authentic way—as authentic as one film can represent a whole life, that is.

HT:  No, stillness for young people is not their way.  They want to be seen and heard.

SIM:  What’s so staggering about what you show us in your long-form portraits is the persistence of your subjects in their self-destructiveness.  In the cases of René and Katka, they never reform; they never “get better,” or improve their lives in any way.  In Katka’s case in particular, things go from bad to worse quite relentlessly.  There simply is no happy ending in sight no matter how long you stay with this woman.  What is the general audience reaction to this, do you find?

HT:  Most of the viewers I’ve had contact with describe a physical, visceral reaction to my films and to the subjects.  There is an experience of physical pain.  The story is, as you said, relentlessly depressing.  But when I sat on a panel after showing the film to a group of young teens, ages 12 to 14 or 15, they said it was a good experience for them to see it.  In our generation, we had Christiane F—We Children from the Zoo Station [1981], such a personal story about someone’s relationship with drugs.  They realize, watching Katka’s portrait, the danger of beginning a relationship with drugs; there is a real fear.  But that’s only one aspect.  It shows how far a drug addict will go—the impossibility to do anything else with one’s life once the body and mind are addicted. And there is the attitude of society when encountering this kind of person since we have to understand that there is nothing anyone can do for a drug addict who does not want to be hospitalized or cured in any way.  I was asked why I didn’t take Katka to the hospital right away and I said it was impossible—a hospital is not going to take someone being brought there by force.  If it’s not his or her personal decision, then it’s impossible.  We all have free will and free will works the same way in that situation as it does in any other situation.  (Pictured above, a several months' pregnant Katka in Prague.)

What’s important about this long-term observation is that, as a viewer, you can see the whole story—it’s there for you.  But me, as the filmmaker, I don’t know at the start what I will encounter, what will happen.

SIM: I’m sure your own emotional state, your own innate hope that things will get better for this person you’ve come to care deeply for, must really be intense and quite difficult to sustain at times.

HT:  Of course, I had hope the whole time.  Especially when Katka was pregnant and told me that this was her motivation to get clean and find a home.  And I believed her, feeling that this would be a very good impulse for her stopping.  But it was probably this moment when she left her daughter in the hospital and escaped, that was the most difficult.  Because it was in this moment that I felt the greatest disappointment, the greatest doubt.

SIM:  That if she could give up her child for drugs then it was truly hopeless?

HT:  Yes.  There was just one day, just one day before she was to get her daughter back.  And she escaped.

SIM:  It is a great moment of despair because we really don’t want to believe that someone could do that.  And yet she does.  When I watched René, I had the same thoughts—can a person really do that?  Yes, he can really do those things and he does. In René’s case, there is the self-satisfaction of being so utterly irredeemable.  But this, of course, is not the case with Katka; she’s a prisoner of her own addiction and she stays chained there no matter what.  You, as an individual, must have to be capable of putting up some kind of wall at certain points between you and your subjects, just as you would have to do with anything or anyone that has a profound impact on your life in a negative way.

HT:  Yes, well, a viewer sees this film in 90 minutes.  I lived it for 15 years.  So it was not so intensive in that way because during that time, I also made other films, did other projects and so on.  But yes, also, there were moments and incidents shooting with Katka that were so horrible.  When she was a street prostitute, I discovered her there by accident; it was a chance meeting because I was shooting something else nearby.  At the time, I didn’t know she was working as a prostitute.  We were returning from a shoot and we saw her on the street.

In terms of this “wall” you mention: It’s my task to make a film.  And yes, I am a person, too.  The emotions I experience and how I handle all of it is complicated.  But I think and I hope that my position in Katka’s life is good because I want to help her.  I spent a lot of time with her without a camera.  We gave her some money or paid for her mobile phone.  One summer, she wanted to have a tent and asked me if I had one.  I didn’t but asked many friends and we got a tent for her.  For the times I filmed with her, I paid her.  But that’s my normal method.  I always give some money to my subjects, not only her.  But for her, this is the only legitimate money she’s ever made, a salary for her.  This gave her some pride.  She was contributing to the film and getting something in return.  Her only other financial resources come from stealing things in stores, prostitution and making drug deals.  Contact with me was okay for her because it was safe.  She wasn’t afraid and I always treated her with respect, asking if it was all right to film her.  I was one of the few people in her life that didn’t judge her or suspect her of doing bad things.  Her contact with me was not dangerous for her.

SIM:  The people who accompany you on your shoots do extraordinary camera and sound work and I know you always work with the same colleagues, so there is probably a very intuitive way in which you work together which is especially useful in some of the more dangerous or risky situations in which you find yourselves.  You’re not exactly shooting in very safe places most of the time since your subjects live very close to danger every day.  It’s also very obvious that they’re emotionally involved; that shows in the camera work and the way in which they capture things.  Can you speak a bit about those collaborations?  (Pictured above, Trestiková and crew filming with René.)

HT:  This is a stable of constant collaborators, yes, and so they are very intimate with the situations.  [The three DPs who worked on Katka over the years are Kristián Hynek, Vlastimil Hamernik and Martin Kubala.  The soundmen are Stanislav Hruska, Václav Hejduk and Jaroslav Jedlicka.] During filming, most of the time it is impossible for us to speak together about how to take these pictures.  But they know what is needed and they can work on their own without me.  Especially in this case of Katka and her life, it’s important because they’re not afraid of the situation.  It wasn’t always safe.  The railway station in Prague is especially not safe at night.  Katka and her friends were our friends and we were connected to them.  They were not in conflict with us, but there were some other people that didn’t want to be filmed so it could get complicated.  But nothing ever happened and we all survived.  But these cameramen always had to be ready for anything.

SIM:  I think it’s important to show how very dangerous life is for Katka every day she’s out on the streets.

HT:  Yes, we can’t close our eyes to that; such a world exists.   Life on the streets has special rules.  She never has a proper flat, anything stable or comfortable; she never owned anything except the clothes on her back.  This life on the street also requires her to always be in contact with a man.  She cannot be on her own.  It’s impossible for a woman to live alone on the streets.  If she has a conflict with her boyfriend and wants to leave him, she cannot.  (Pictured, Katka and her boyfriend, Roman.)

SIM:  Yes, she’s trapped there, too.  What’s your relationship with her now? Are you still documenting her life?

HT:  I am still filming her as I am the other protagonists from my films.  It’s a type of life for me.  I consider myself a chronicler.

SIM:  Your storytelling technique is like that of a novelist.  That’s the closest way of working creatively I can think of to describe what you’re doing in film.  Going back to someone like Michael Moore or many other documentarians working in the genre these days and the films they make “to change the world”—it’s a total contrivance, this idea that these films are made with the express purpose of creating social change.  They certainly can—some have.  But these films actually have very little to do with the protagonists and their lives.  We’re just not talking about the same level of commitment you display in the way you work.  What is so unique and beautiful about your work is that you provide absolutely no resolution where there isn’t one.  It’s a rare way to storytell.  Who do you admire in filmmaking today?

HT:  Obviously, I like highly observational films.  I think of Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard’s 2009 French film, The Arrivals, which also won the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig the year René received the same prize there.  It was such a perfect study of the situation of immigrants and the problems and issues of the social workers and how complicated it is to help.  Frederick Wiseman’s work I admire so much.  These are some of my favorite colleagues.  Michael Moore is not my cup of tea [smiling].  In his first film, probably, yes.  But in Sicko, his portrait of the health services in Cuba is completely false.

SIM: I want to talk about this one particular scene in Katka that was deeply affecting for me.  Towards the end of the film, Katka and her boyfriend, Roman, are living in a little shed beside the railroad tracks and the police come to kick them out.  Roman is extremely frightened and because he’s also strung out, his fright borders on hysteria.  He starts calling you by name for help and he tells you how scared he is, as if to say it’s time for you to step out from behind the camera and become an active participant in what’s happening.  I love that moment so much because it’s so select.  You’re so rarely a physical presence on camera in your films but the times you choose to appear are very powerful for that reason and they speak volumes about your relationship to your subjects.  Can you talk a bit about the choice to include those moments in the film when you become an active participant, when we actually see and hear you?

HT:  The times when I am an active participant are many, much more than a viewer will ever see in the final film.  This particular situation you’re referring to was a real SOS situation.  They really thought they were going to be attacked by these policemen.  So I wanted to talk calmly to the police officers and try and allow them to stay longer in this little railway house where they were.  So we did resolve the situation and it was such a big victory since the incident happened without any attack or anything.  I always wanted to help her in any way I could but it often was very limited what I could actually do to help.  That was one situation where I could do something.

SIM:  It goes a long way towards establishing this relationship for the viewer, especially when it comes so late in the film.  I think most people do wonder what the involvement might be between Katka and you and your crew and this seems to be your answer to those questions.  Is this your solution to obliquely confront the criticisms of “merely” being an observer without any kind of interference or aid? It adds a layer of complexity at such a key moment.

HT:  There is such complexity in the relationship; it is unavoidable.  My relationships with René and Katka and the others--well, our “friendships” are obviously limited by the way in which we meet.  I am always the filmmaker.  Of course, most of the time I met with them it was without a camera but they cannot forget that I am a filmmaker and I cannot forget that they are the protagonists of my films.  It’s a persistent issue between us.  It’s the limitation of those relationships.  (Pictured, poster from the film René.)

SIM:  But those limitations serve both parties, in a sense.  You want a film; they want their stories told.

HT:  Yes, of course.  I often wonder how audiences from other countries can accept or come to my films, how they can connect with our daily realities in Czech Republic, the intricate ways these films are related to this nation and to the culture?  It’s always, somehow, surprising to me.

SIM:  Well, I can only speak to the country I come from, one that has dire immigration problems right now, social services problems.  All of it layered upon the persistent myth that the USA is still some “land of opportunity,” to which all are invited equally to partake of the riches there.  There are millions of US citizens living in abject poverty, no home, no health care, no protection from the state—in the midst of staggering wealth.  Just like life in any number of places on the planet—no different. 

It is a rare and wonderful thing to witness this kind of commitment, this kind of obligation, on the part of one human being to another.  This is what translates no matter what culture or language.  How has Katka received the film?

HT: After she saw the film, someone asked her what she thought she had managed to do in her life that she could redeem as something good, something positive. Katka replied that she had had a child.  And that she had “made this film with Helena.”  (Pictured, the director and her subject.)

 

"Trusting the Strength of Ordinary People": A Masterclass with Pirjo Honkasalo at IDFA

At this year’s 23^rd edition of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Finnish filmmaker, Pirjo Honkasalo, was invited to make the “Top 10” selection for the festival.  These were her choices—The Earth by Aleksandr Dovzhenko (Russia, 1930); The Mad Masters by Jean Rouch (France, 1955); The Earth Trembles by Luchino Visconti (Italy, 1957); Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami (Iran, 1990); Kyoto, My Mother's Place by Nagisa Oshima (Japan, 1991); Quince Tree of the Sun by Victor Erice (Spain, 1992); Brass Unbound by Johan van der Keuken (Netherlands, 1993); Tell Me What You Saw by Kiti Luostarinen (Finland, 1993); The Smiling Man by Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann (Germany, 1996); and Blockade by Sergei Loznitsa (Russia, 2005). 

Perhaps, ten “exercises” one can fold into one’s film school curriculum.

All of these works were selections that resonated profoundly with Honkasalo while she was just learning the craft of filmmaking in her late teens. In the two-hour masterclass she hosted, moderated by Iikka Vehkalahti, commissioning editor of Finland’s YLE, we saw clips from these films filled with images that initially inspired Honkasalo back then—not just as an artist, but as a human being.  Listening to her talk, one feels quite strongly that filmmaking was just one of the many artistic avenues she could have explored, for this 63-year-old who “feels an attraction and attachment to the logic of the dream,” and who “trusts the simple poetry of image,” can capture the revelations of deep emotional intelligence through her camera lens like very few can.  I feel this might be true if she had chosen a musical instrument, a paintbrush, a quill and parchment, or what have you.

For me, watching a work by Honkasalo is a singular experience, one not easily described in words, particularly the limited language used for critiquing a work within the context of a certain cinematic style or milieu.  Even though she has worked in documentary for much of the latter part of her career, her definition of the genre speaks foremost to the craft of image making:  “Making the image for me is the documentary; the visual aesthetic is the essential part.” When she composes her stories, like the best minimalist musicians, it is in a very circumscribed and disciplined way.  During the talk, she laughingly recalled her producer’s predicament in the initial stages of making her latest piece, Ito—Diary of an Urban Priest, about a young Buddhist man residing in Tokyo.  She had come back to Finland from an extended stay with her subject in Japan, accompanied by barely any footage.  Her producer pleaded:  “Please start shooting something!"  (Masterclass still of Honkasalo and Vehkalahti, courtesy Felix Kalkman.)

Yet what engages Honkasalo is the steady pulse, or gradual transformation, of the smaller moments, her compass set for an interior quest for the answer to something only she herself might know she is investigating.  It struck me that calling this talk with this particular filmmaker a masterclass was a misnomer, of sorts. (Especially one set up as an over-lit chat show with Honkasalo and Vehkalahti sitting, seemingly, miles away from the “live audience.”)   Like most master filmmakers who have worked for decades at their craft, her personal process is one fraught with more mystery than practical advice. In fact, most of the ways in which she works is completely antithetical to what any “film expert” these days might have to impart to a budding film director.  But then again, not too many of us can create works of art from “fresh chaos,” particularly the interior variety which she is able to glean so eloquently from her protagonists.  Providing an opportunity to choose an infinite variety of ways for a viewer to “walk through the landscapes of my films” are of greater import to her than linear story, narrative, exposition.  “I trust the audience and that enables me to create a certain style.  I leave space to think your own thoughts.  . . . Film can talk about what we cannot talk about—there is the power of silence, the beauty of stillness.”  (Still from 3 Rooms, pictured above.)

As we now all live in a world of constant “image noise” (Honkasalo’s phrase), grappling with films like hers, like Dovzhenko’s, like Visconti’s, Erice’s, et.al., is akin to learning a new language, or rather learning to re-listen, to re-look. I have seen most of her films more than once, read numerous critical essays and reviews, have listened intently to her talk about her work when I’ve had the opportunity. Still, I oftentimes feel as if I am only scratching the surface of something innately impenetrable. Yet, the inestimable rewards have been glimpses of profound beauty (Mysterion, Ito—Diary of An Urban Priest); insights into devastating psychological traumas (3 Rooms of Melancholia); the searing personal, familial and cultural pain of her 1998 drama, Fire-Eater; unflinching intimacy and a magnificent portrait of stubborn dedication in Atman.  (Still from Ito, pictured above.)

Honkasalo’s films are complex, often disorienting, providing the polar opposite of any kind of conventional narrative structures we rely upon to ease our way into strange and foreign worlds. Acquiescence, a voluntary surrender, is required on the part of the viewer.  These days, especially, there is something liberating in drifting in a sea of ambiguity, always off-center, a giving of oneself over to someone who, in the core of her being, believes that something exists beyond the reach of our five senses; this is what she sets out to discover anew with each new project. In essence, this is her life’s work.  In return, this work is based on the director’s own erasure of self, a submission to the world around her, an obeisance to the uncontrollability of life. Her expansive interior stories are odes to the accidents of everyday experience, whether they be trivial or momentous—and who is to say which is which, she always seems to ask us. Consistently, she is able to intuitively calibrate all this through the agency of her camera, and bestow extraordinary cinematic gifts on us all.  (Still from Fire-Eater, pictured above.)

Like many of the master filmmakers to whom Honkasalo paid homage in her Top 10 picks, she leaves wide swaths of room in her films for personal discovery.  “If a personal self-discovery is experienced while watching a film, it’s a success.”  This speaks to the generous nature of a filmmaker who is intent on communion with her audience, not the opposite intention, of which works like hers are often accused.  She shares the very personal spiritual journeys she embarks upon quite generously in the language in which she is most fluid—the language of pictures.  Those pictures bring collective longings, fears and questions to the forefront, prodding our collective hidden psychic terrains. In the process, she is willing to expose her own weaknesses, her own vulnerabilities, doubts, half-formed beliefs, knowing that she will likely be misinterpreted and misunderstood.  Thankfully, she doesn’t really seem to care.  (Still from Atman, pictured above.)

Externally, I may not be able to interpret and articulate all this very well, but I recognize the strength of an ordinary person when I see it portrayed in Honkasalo’s films.  It is always a welcome sight—as is the strength of this extraordinary artist.

 

The DocPoint Festival Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary in Helsinki

My first foray of the new year outside my new hometown of Berlin (two-year artist visa, bay-bee!) will be to the spot where I've "wintered" for the past two years, to attend the excellent documentary film fest there.  2011 marks the 10th year of this fest, and will also mark a changing of the guard for the festival's artistic director, as Erkko Lyytinen steps down.  The best part of any fest, besides seeing many fabulous films, is getting to see wonderful friends I don't get to see too often, and meeting today's most talented nonfiction filmmakers.  Helsinki also offers some of the most luxurious cinemas and coziest places to eat and drink, and, of course, there is the sauna, plenty of nice vodka and running naked in the snow--in that order.  (Photo courtesy Mike Palmieri, Uunisaari, January 2010.)

This year's program, January 25th to 30th, is especially expansive due to this important anniversary and an extensive list of international guests, as well as the superstars of Finnish cinema, will be on hand to celebrate.

This iteration of the festival will concentrate on stories of "single human destinies and current social
phenomena."  There will be a special program featuring the experimental documentary work of Jean Painlevé, scientist and surrealist, in cooperation with the Finnish National Audiovisual Archive and the French Cultural Centre of Finland.  The Fusion Doc selection contains eight fantastic films that combine both fictional and documentary storytelling.  Irish filmmaker, Ken Wardrop, maker of His & Hers, and Italian director, Pietro Marcello, maker of the exquisite La bocca del lupo / Mouth of the Wolf, are part of this program.  I am looking forward to seeing the delightful Mr. Wardrop again, and meeting Mr. Marcello whose film sent me over the moon.  This year's guest of honor is controversial Swedish director, Stefan Jarl, director of thirty films.  Jarl will have a retrospective, including his "mods trilody," which deals with the subculture in Stockholm and their stylish (and violent) rebellion against the petty bourgeoisie.  And Helena Trestikova from Czech Republic, whose latest film, Katka, will be screened at the festival, will be there, as well, and I am thrilled to report that I will have the privilege of interviewing this incredible filmmaker, so look for that soon.  (Still from Science Is Fiction, Jean Painlevé, this year's film for the annual silent movie concert.) 

Djo Tunda Wa Munga, the producer of the film Congo in Four Acts: After the Mine and the director of State of Mind, will be there.  Every year, DocPoint picks a "theme country" to visit through a distinctively-curated film program.  This year, there is an extensive look at the Democratic Republic of Congo which examines the present situation of the former Belgian colony featuring filmmakers that come from both Congo and its ex-colonialist countries of Belgium and the Netherlands.  German director Martin Baer, director of Kinshasa Symphony, will also attend the fest.  Other international guests include Alexander Nanau, the Romanian director of the beautiful, Emmy Award-winning film, The World According to Ion B., and Polish  director, Jerzy Sladkowski of Vodka Factory, winner of the Golden Dove for Best Documentary at last year's DOK-Leipzig.  (Still from Life of the Watermen, Ernest Genval, 1938.)

DocPoint will also, of course, be celebrating their own native constellation of award-winning films and filmmakers, showing classics, as well as introducing new voices and exciting collaborations.  One of the new Finnish films is Mantas Kvedaravicius’s début, Barzakh, produced by Aki Kaurismäki.  The film is about a Chechen city where a man disappears after the war.  As daily life goes by, those in search of him are drawn into a world where encounters with diviners and legal advisors, torturers and the tortured, secret prisons and mythical lakes, become commonplace.  When the disappeared return in dreams, it is said they come from "Barzakh," a land between the living and the dead.  (Still from the film, pictured.)

To read about other films and special programs, visit the fest's website.  Koskenkorva!

 

Palmieri and Mosher on the BOMB Blog

Read my latest interview with the directors of October Country here.

Pirjo Honkasalo Presents Top 10 at IDFA and Ellsberg's in NYC

Not only is this the year I will finally have an opportunity to revisit one of my favorite documentary festivals, but one of my favorite contemporary artists, Finnish filmmaker Pirjo Honkasalo, will be making the selection for the Top 10 for the 23rd edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.  The festival was started over two decades ago by Ally Derks and is still running under her impressive leadership today.  As Honkasalo has done for nonfiction film, so has Derks done for nonfiction festivals.  In fact, in my report from the festival in 2007, I recall using the word "Mothership."

In terms of Honkasalo's work, I can hardly ever properly articulate my feelings for her films, they move me so deeply, in particular, The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (an unmitigated masterpiece), and her latest, the quietly powerful, exquisitely beautiful, Ito--A Diary of an Urban Priest.  The images from her films resonate and haunt me forever, it seems.

Honkasalo's selected films place an emphasis on cinematography, and also show off the exciting territory between fiction and nonfiction storytelling some of the best filmmakers of the 20th / 21st centuries have explored.  A retrospective of her own work will be exhibited and Honkasalo (pictured) will be holding a masterclass at the festival, as well.  The IDFA will be held from 17 to 28 November and will be staged, as it has been for the last four years, around the Rembrandtplein.

Here are Honkasalo's selections: 

The Earth by Aleksandr Dovzhenko (Russia, 1930); The Mad Masters by Jean Rouch (France, 1955); The Earth Trembles by Luchino Visconti (Italy, 1957); Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami (Iran, 1990); Kyoto, My Mother's Place by Nagisa Oshima (Japan, 1991); Quince Tree of the Sun by Victor Erice (Spain, 1992); Brass Unbound by Johan van der Keuken (Netherlands, 1993); Tell Me What You Saw by Kiti Luostarinen (Finland, 1993); The Smiling Man by Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann (Germany, 1996); and Blockade by Sergei Loznitsa (Russia, 2005).

Also, something of note coming up In New York City:  The New York Times and P.O.V. are holding a free event.  There will be a panel discussion entitled, "The Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg and The Times," moderated by Jill Abramson, the paper's managing editor.  The panelists are Daniel Ellsberg, Adam Liptak, Supreme Court reporter, and Max Frankel, the Times' former executive director.  The event will take place on Monday, 13 September from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the TimesCenter (also home of the Cinema Eye Honors).  RSVP to [email protected]. 

On Tuesday, October 5, P.O.V. will broadcast the Oscar-nominated film, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith.  If you can't make it to the live event, it will be edited and broadcast along with the film next month.

The Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing

This piece is featured in the current autumn issue of DOX Magazine (you can subscribe here):

In May of this year, artistic director, Artur Liebhart, launched the seventh iteration of the Planete Doc Review Film Festival, an event that is fast becoming an essential destination for documentary makers and producers.  As a juror for the Millenium Award competition, I got to stay in Warsaw for well over a week which enabled me to pay visits to several of the city's film and arts institutions.  I was cordially invited to visit the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, by the dynamic Joanna Skalska, the school's distribution and festivals manager.  The Wajda School is a key institute to highlight for many reasons.  At this year's 50th Krakow Film Festival, the school was awarded the Best Polish Producer for Shorts and Documentaries for the second time.  (A bit later in this post, I will also feature a French filmmaker named Thierry Paladino.  Paladino attended the Wajda School after meeting famed Polish film director and screenwriter, Marcel Lozinski, who has been instrumental in creating the documentary program.  Our jury awarded Paladino's accomplished and beautiful début feature, La machina, with an honorable mention.)

Sitting on a quiet, tidy campus in the middle of Warsaw, the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing is a postgraduate institute for film professionals working in both narrative and nonfiction.  The foundation of the curriculum is project development.  According to Adam Slesicki, head of PR and coordinator of the documentary program, the school's basic credo is "from idea to film."  Participants prepare and produce films with intense feedback from colleagues and steady mentorship by master tutors every step of the way.  In a very direct and intimate structure, exchanges happen in an intensive workshop environment where all students evaluate each other's work.  From these dynamic conversations (said to be brutally honest) and work-in-progress screenings, films are born.  This set-up is obviously not for those without the conviction and authenticity of vision they already can bring to a program like this.  Students are partnered with a tutorial staff, some of the most renowned and professionally active Polish and European filmmakers of today, enabling the school to maintain a close working relationship with the film industry.  Trained filmmakers come for the one-year courses to hone their craft, but more importantly, to make their first professional films.  Students come from disciplines as diverse as journalism, screenwriting, or the visual arts, as well as from film schools.  As with any professional school with merit, the Wajda School looks for candidates who have a certain amount of life experience.  (Pictured above, master filmmaker Andrzej Wajda at work.)

Depending on the project, the school helps with production and distribution.  According to Slesicki, for documentary projects, the trajectory could be as follows:  "A project is developed during the course.  If it is a bigger, more expensive project, we do the research and some preliminary shooting which enables the filmmaker to make a trailer with which to apply for funding.  We apply to the Polish Film Institute (PISF), or other regional film funds for support, find co-producers, and/or make presales to broadcasters.  In the case of first time directors, we can count on up to 90% of funding from PISF, the rest coming as in-kind contributions from the school.  After completion, we collaborate on a festival strategy and prepare promotional materials.  When a festival takes a film, we make sure the director makes it there.  If it is an important market, a school representative will also go to make sure all possible opportunities for international distribution are realized."  In other words, they offer substantial support, beyond theory, beyond the classroom. 

In terms of the philosophical approach the school embraces, it is one that looks for "truth and authenticity."  What specific tools these young directors use is up to them, as long as the film works emotionally, with an accompanying personal vision.  Lozinski:  "In our opinion, the point of documentary is not to describe reality, but to interpret it.  Documentary is born out of the confrontation of reality with the individual self of the author: with his [her] thoughts, intensity of perception, his [her] sensitivity and intuition.  The director's inner life is to the same degree the element of reality as the one he [she] encounters while making the film."  (Lozinski, pictured.)

Looking ahead, the school will continue to emphasize its film production activities, remaining a working studio that supports young talent from Poland, and elsewhere.  Since its foundation in 2001, the school has produced over 40 professional short documentaries and fiction films, and more than 200 student films.  Soon, the Wajda School will implement a new course for creative producers, filling an important niche in the marketplace.  "We believe that a creative producer should be a partner for a film director, not only in taking care of the financing of the movie and assisting with production design, but also in helping the director make crucial [creative] decisions," says Slesicki.

Thierry Paladino's journey to the Wajda School was a unique one.  He told me that at the Aix-en-Provence Fine Arts School where he was studying in his native France, "I didn't fit with the atmosphere, with this 'artistic way' of thinking which makes the things you say about your work more important than the work itself."  Several years ago, when Marcel Lozinski and his wife went on holiday to France, Paladino had a chance to meet the filmmaker through his Polish girlfriend's family.  They bonded over the songs of Georges Brassen, spending one whole night singing together, accompanied by Paladino's accordian.  (Paladino, pictured.)

Two years later in 2001, Lozinski got in touch with Paladino and told him that they had just created a new film school in Warsaw with Andrzej Wajda and Wojciech Marczewski.  The French minister of culture had been there for the opening ceremonies with director, Roman Polanski, and had promised a full scholarship to two French students.  "Of course he thought that nobody would come and learn such a difficult language in such a cold country," but when Lozinski asked Paladino if he would be interested, he said yes, and enrolled in 2004.  "I can say that I didn't really choose to study filmmaking, but to live a new experience in a new environment.  And it was a really good choice, because the way of teaching in this school was, for me, the best I ever had.  You make, you fail; you remake, you succeed.  You learn to confront your work, to be humble and accept criticism and develop a real understanding of the collaborative nature of filmmaking."

Paladino had a very close relationship with fellow filmmaker, Marcin Sauter.  "One day, we were talking about our childhoods, and I told him about my happy one, part of it spent with a puppet master when I was seven years old when I learned the art of making puppets; the master and I performed 'spectacles' in summer from town to town.  Marcin convinced me that this was a good idea for a documentary film and this is where this idea was born."  (To be clear, La machina was not supported, technically or financially, by the school.  They did co-produce Paladino's award-winning film, At the Dacha, while he was a student there.  I just showed this fantastically hilarious "silent" film here in Berlin to a delighted audience.  Still from film, pictured.)

Paladino ended up making the film with Sauter and Michal Marczak as his camera operators, and Jacek Naglowski and Agnieszka Janowska as his producers.  All met as students at the school.  "Marcel [Lozinski] became my artistic supervisor.  He had total trust in me and only weighed in with certain suggestions about how to portray the relationship between the puppet master and the young boy in the film.  When the first rough cut of the film was edited, I came to Wajda to show it, to take the necessary distance and work further."

Paladino created a short synopsis for La machina in 2008 so that he could  take part in the Ex Oriente program with Tue Steen Müller and Paladino's creative group developed the film over the course of the next year.  After bringing on a French producer in May of 2009, the crew went to Nice, where with the help of the puppet master, Sergio, they discovered 10-year-old Adrien.  The boy's extraordinary "performance" makes the film an absolutely transcendent experience.  La machina could easily be mistaken for a narrative film, so cinematically is it told and executed.  Paladino notes that many producers expressed a lot of concern, fearing the film would not be credible, that there might not be enough "documentary truth."  But, he says, "I didn't want to show all the negative aspects of modern society; I wanted to show how life, especially one of a little boy, could be better.  I was, therefore, very personally involved with my subjects in trying to realize that."  The film is currently applying for exhibition at various international festivals.  (Pictured, Sergio, Adrien and The Beast in a scene from La machina.)

Paladino continues to express admiration for the Polish documentary filmmaking tradition.  "At Wajda, the documentary feature is a film, the same way a fiction feature is a film.  Documentary uses the same vocabulary--strong dramaturgy, good pictures, good sound, developed scenes.  However, the film must be the point of view of the author.  He or she must have something to say, to share."

For more information on the Wajda School's programs, visit www.wajdaschool.pl.

Dokufest!

The 2010 edition of Dokufest in the ancient city of Prizren, Kosovo, starts tomorrow, July 31, and runs through the 8th of August.  Like many small areas with nascent film industries, lucky local audiences and international guests will get a chance to partake of a program containing 156 films from 34 different countries, a truly international selection of the best of world nonfiction film.  Because of where Prizren is located, audiences will also get to take advantage of warm-weather screenings amongst the naturally beautiful terrain--a river does, indeed, run through it.  (Pictured, one of three open-air theaters at the festival, the new Fortress Cinema, installed on the highest peak of the town.)

Executive director, Aliriza Arënliu, visionary artistic director, Veton Nurkollari, short film programmer, Samir Karahoda, and their team have put together a fantastic program with five competitions, a look at the best of international cinema (out of competition), a special strand of films from Finland (have we figured out that something special is happening in Finland, yet?), a spotlight on Afghanistan, a Zelimer Zilnik retrospective, a shorts program by Philippine wunderkind, Khavan De La Cruz, Cities on Speed, and much more.  As well, there is special programming for kids, workshops, and tours of the local area.  Sean Farnel, Hot Docs' head of programming, has called Dokufest "one of the best festival experiences I've ever had."

Look for impressions, wrap-ups, and reviews here on SIM, Hammer to Nail and in DOX Magazine from the new Republic of Kosovo.

Carnivalesque to Release OCTOBER COUNTRY on DVD--Queue It!

David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, filmmakers extraordinaire and co-directors of Carnivalesque Films, their distribution company, have added another title to their growing catalog of independent films.  In October of this year (appropriately enough), they will be releasing Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri's multiple award-winning film, October Country. 

The reason I'm writing about this now is that, at this juncture, it's imperative that all you fans of the film out there add October Country to your Netflix queue to maximize overall interest for the film since they pre-order DVDs based on the amount of requests in a film's queue.  You can click here to add it. 

Also, the new DVD package will include some great added bonuses in the extras!  And in yet another bid at shameless self-promotion (and isn't that the whole reason Facebook exists--that's enough about me, what do you think about me?), I am honored to say that one of the two critical essays included in the package for sale is written by moi, the other stellar one written by the brilliant Dodie Bellamy.

THE LIVING ROOM OF THE NATION Plays Brooklyn Independent

Monday, May 3 at 7:00 p.m., the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series run by filmmaker, Joe Pacheco, will present this award-winning Finnish film at Barbès in Park Slope.  This was the opening night film at the DocPoint festival in Helsinki last year, and had a very successful national theatrical run in its native land.  They are currently looking for international distribution.  Not only did I fall in love with the film, but also with its director/producer team, Jukka Kärkkäinen and Sami Jahnukainen (I know, those Finnish names are a killer), two young lads who have been known to do their Q&As in the nude, or to sing songs in response to difficult questions from the audience.  These are filmmakers to watch (and not just for their shenanigans).

An homage to Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor, Living Room is a poetic tribute to every day Finns, six of whom are shown in captivity in their living rooms.  Humorous, touching, irreverent and profound, the film is beautifully shot in wide-angle, static portraiture with the subjects (all men) acting out their stories in mini-passion plays.  These are human stories of life changes, loneliness and the irrevocable passage of time.  These men are in different phases of life, each of them looking for understanding and communion.  You can watch the trailer here.  The screening is free and you can drink booze while watching!

OCTOBER COUNTRY Opens in New York

Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's multiple award-winning début feature begins its theatrical run in New York City this Friday, February 12, at the IFC Center.  Don't miss the opportunity to go see this gorgeous piece of work.  You can now buy tickets online by clicking here.   

There will be six screenings a day for a week-long limited engagement.  The Mosher family, the subjects of this fine film, will be in the house for a Q&A with the filmmakers at the 6:50 p.m. show on Friday, and Palmieri and Mosher will be appearing throughout opening weekend at select shows.  Also, look for the beautiful DVD package coming soon from Carnivalesque Films.  Read more about the film and watch the trailer here.

The Woman With the 5 Elephants

In Vadim Jendreyko’s gorgeously shot documentary feature, we meet the indomitable 85-year-old Svetlana Geier, a woman considered to be the greatest translator of Russian literature into German. She is a woman acutely aware of the echoes and reflections that bounce back to us when we really see, when we really listen, when we really absorb what surrounds us.  And that the exact right words, somehow, contain the ability to say something wordlessly.  “I believe that each spiritual experience leads us to treat one another better, to not strike others dead.  Quite elementary. And I believe that language is a very effective remedy.”

When we meet her, she has just completed new translations of 19^th-century literary genius Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s five great novels, the “elephants” of the title:  Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils, A Raw Youth, The Brothers Karamasov. Before Geier came along, the tome known as Crime and Punishment was known in German as "Guilt and Atonement,” and the different emphasis takes on extra significance as we gradually learn details of Geier's complex biography.  The heft of her life is just as substantive, just as heavy with hidden detail, as each of these seminal literary works.

Her life is ordered, peaceful, purposeful in every way, from the type and variety of vegetables she buys at the town market (everything she cooks is made from scratch) to the way she irons her handmade linens, explaining to Jendreyko that the fabric being caressed under her hands, the warp and weave of each thread, creates a distinct texture and could only have been made in this particular way by its maker; the soft, flowing, beautiful piece of cloth wouldn’t be able to exist without each and every thread laid together just so.  There is a wonderful sensuality to her life that is reflected in Jendreyko's filmmaking, a luxurious sense of time passing, each moment an inspired one when life can change forever because of a gesture, a glance, a lifting of the eyes.  Geier has extraordinary eyes and a riveting presence.  She constantly reminds us that there is enough beauty in the world if you can just see beyond your own circumscribed view.  She offers Jendreyko, a consummate listener himself, a multitude of intelligent reflections and he takes them in in the spirit in which they're given, always gently probing, questioning, building a quiet maelstrom of emotion, never afraid to meet her challenging gaze.  It's an exciting collaboration and she grows more and more beautiful before his lens.  I'm hard pressed to remember the last time a woman in her 80s was represented so in film.

Still razor sharp, a fierce light emanating from laser-beam blue eyes, Geier is introduced in her home office where she continues her meticulous translation work, aided, in scenes loaded with droll humor, by collaborators who are themselves exacting and precise in everything they do, one of whom is a musician who is tasked with reading her translations to her out loud.  The rhythm of language and the exact right word are held to impossible standards, argued over vociferously, he always valiantly conceding to her final decision. She notices when things are “ridiculously ugly” and she is determined that language, above all else, “works.”  Punkt.

Born in Ukraine, Geier's teenage precocity and facility with languages brought her to the attention of the country's Nazi occupiers during World War II. Some fellow countrymen saw the Germans as saviors after the excesses of Soviet Communism. While she doesn't apologize for her youthful collaboration with the fascists--and is clearly still bereft when recounting the massacre at Babi Yar, where one of her closest friends was killed—it’s telling that she left her homeland for good when the Germans were driven out in 1943. She describes her life's work as repaying her "enormous debt to Germany."

Geier: “Right from the start, it is clear to Dostoyesvsky that the most important characteristic of a human being is his need for freedom.  And this freedom expresses itself in self-determination.  One does what one wants to do.  And our intelligence plays a fatal role here because our reason constantly offers us reasons, when we want to justify something.  We can offer a reason for anything, in fact.  . . . Here, Dostoyevsky is in sharp contrast to all the potentates of this world.  And for him, there is no doubt: there is no end that could ever justify a wrong means.”

When her son suffers a serious head injury and is confined to hospital, this sets off memories of her ill father whom she cared for in Russia after he was released from one of Stalin’s death camps and she drops everything to care for him.  This also unleashes an impulse to return to Ukraine, a place she has not returned since she left as a young girl.  When we enter Kiev on the train, we become aware of how and why beauty and function have become so vital to her existence.  The light in her eyes, the aura around her, dims a bit as she looks out the window of the train.  She tells her granddaughter, at one point, that the Russian and German languages are incompatible while the filmmaker slyly illustrates this by filming the gauge change for the trains that will travel through Ukraine.

The film interweaves the story of Geier’s life during this journey, her chosen dedicated vocation to literature, and the secrets—some very dark and painful—of this inexhaustibly hard-working and exacting woman who possesses a love of language that outshines everything else. “One cannot exhaust an excellent text, and that is probably the sign of the most superb quality.”  In his exceedingly intimate portrait, Jendreyko shows us a human being living an inexhaustible life, a life that celebrates the beauty of each small moment and, more importantly, the spaces between them.

 

 

DocPoint Helsinki Picks for Saturday and Sunday and DocPoint Tallinn

Hello from snowy, snowy Finland.  It has been lightly snowing now for almost two days straight and it is truly a winter wonderland here.  Hard as hell to get around and, unfortunately, audience attendance for screenings took a bit of a dip yesterday because of it, but the weekend promises to be full of fun things to do and see and the weather will be a bit warmer.

Personally, my afternoon today will be spent in one of the oldest saunas in the city, followed by a "big, noisy dinner" hosted by our dear friends at Mouka Filmi Oy at Ravintola Martta's, run by the Pesunkestävä martta, a Finnish home economics organization founded in 1899 (wow!) to promote the quality and standard of life in the home.  Their ethos: to enhance the use of nutritious food, take care of the home and garden kitchens, and help families manage their household budgets.  And after that healthy, eco-friendly meal, everyone will move to Café Moskva to drink vodka.  Also tonight, the American Ambassador to Finland, Bruce Oreck and his wife, Cody, will host a small party at a local restaurant.  At 9:00 p.m., Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher will have their national premiere of October Country (débuting their new 35mm answer print) at the Maxim theater.

Also on tap tomorrow, we go international:  DocPoint Tallinn in Estonia starts today and goes through Sunday.  In Helsinki, films start at 1:00 p.m., including Nicolas Philibert's Louvre City at the Maxim 1, Frederick Wiseman's La Danse--The Paris Ballet Opera at the Maxim 2, Lucy Gaffy's Century Witness and Vadim Jendreyko's The Woman With the 5 Elephants, Michael Madsen's Into Eternity, and Renzo Martens' Episode 3--Enjoy Poverty all at the Kiasma, José Padilha's Garapa at the BioRex, another repeat performance of Miesten Vuoro (Steam of Life), the opening night film, at 7:00 p.m. at the Bristol (don't miss it!), Nicolas Philibert's classic To Be and To Have at the Maxim 1, more selections from Robert Flaherty at the Orion, and Peter Liechti's challenging The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy at 9:30 p.m. at the Bristol.  All of the visiting American filmmakers and I are taking a trip to Tallinn, a two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride across the sea, to be hosted there by the festival staff and Kimberly Reed will be screening Prodigal Sons at 6:00 p.m. at the KUMU, Art Museum of Estonia.  Field trip!

Sunday, the last day of the fest, brings many great films to catch and Philibert's Master Class from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Media Centre Lume (and who wouldn't want to look at that smile for six hours?).  Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's The Most Dangerous Man in America plays at the BioRex (and plays in Tallinn this day, as well), October Country has its second screening at 1:00 p.m. at the Maxim 1, Mehran Tamadon's Bassidji plays at the Ateneum, Visa Kolso-Kanttila's new film, Miehen Kuva, plays at the Bristol, Mads Brügger's brilliant Red Chapel plays at the BioRex and Lixin Fan's Last Train Home (which I'm very excited to see) plays at the BioRex, as well, at 9:00 p.m.

Due to a full schedule of events and hosting duties, reviews and other blogging delights will be a bit delayed until early next week, I'm pretty sure.  Check the DocPoint web site for times and theaters and more news from Helsinki and Tallinn.

Mid-week, next week, I depart for the festival in Göteburg, Sweden to (very proudly) represent Nicole Opper's international début of Off and Running (opening TONIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY at the IFC Center).  The filmmaker and her subject, and lots of other special guests, will be there for afternoon and evening screenings this weekend.  You can read my newly-posted conversation with Nicole on Hammer to Nail here.  Yes, I've been a busy girl.  More news from Helsinki soon.

DocPoint Picks for Thursday and Friday

On tap Thursday, my picks for a don't-miss viewing opportunity.  Well, lots: 

The inaugural DocPoint Encounters program will take place in the morning and afternoon at the Atheneum.  (I'll be there for the morning session of pitches.)  Starting at 2:00 p.m., there is a free screening of Marcel Lozinski's classic Poste Restante at the Kiasma and there's a chance to take another look at what's coming out of the Finnish film schools with a screening of five fiction and nonfiction pieces at the Maxim 2.  At 5:00 p.m., the Lozinski retrospective continues (with the director present) with five of his short works, and Darius Marder premieres Loot at the Bristol.  I'll be conducting the Q&A with this whip-smart American filmmaker on the rise (still from film pictured).  The tribute to Kiti Luostarinen continues at the Maxim 1 (her speech last night was charming, even though it was mostly in Finnish, and she recited a long poem she had written about the joys and vagaries of being a documentary filmmaker to a very appreciative audience at the opening ceremonies upon accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award).  Erik Gandini's award-winning (and infuriating) Videocracy plays at the Maxim 2.  Moana and Twenty-Four Dollar Island by Robert Flaherty plays at the Orion.

From 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. at Painobaari, Finnish filmmaker, Iris Olsson, will host American filmmakers, Samantha Buck and Kimberly Reed, at the nightly Meet the Filmmaker chats.

At 7:00 at the Bristol, Samantha Buck débuts her film, 21 Below (still from film, pictured), a particular favorite of DocPoint artistic director, Erkko Lyytinen's, with a Q&A to follow with Buck and co-creator and producer, Jenny Maguire, moderated by New York-based producer, Danielle DiGiacomo, currently community manager of the IFP.  At 9:00 p.m., Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons plays at the Bristol followed by a Q&A with moi.  This film is about to launch its national run all across the US at the end of February with Reed slated to appear on Oprah very soon--stay tuned!  (We will have just come from a filmmaker dinner and sauna excursion on the island of Uunisaari, so forgive us if we're too relaxed.) 

Friday the 29th:  At 2:00 p.m., visit The Story Tent (free entry and they'll be there all afternoon) at the Kiasma and come contribute your story to the hundreds of voices already collected in this traveling installation.  The Bristol will play Jukka Kärkkäinen's Matkalla Vanhuuteen, Tomorrow Was Yesterday (love this film!) and Arthur Franck and Oscar Fotstén's twelve-minute, Ruuhka.  Kärkkäinen's brilliant The Living Room of the Nation opened the DocPoint fest last year and has had a very successful international festival run.  At 5:30 p.m., Virpi Suutari premieres her latest, Auf Wiedersehen Finnland at the BioRex while Nicolas Philibert's Animals and More Animals plays at the Maxim 1 (with the director present).  At 7:00, Philibert's Every Little Thing plays the Maxim 2 and Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran plays at the Orion.  At the Maxim 1, Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher will be present for their first screening in Finland of October Country (still from film pictured).  I'll be chatting with the filmmakers post-screening.  They are set to open at the IFC Center in New York the 12th of February.  If you miss this, another screening will take place Sunday afternoon at the same theater.

Up next, my thoughts on the exuberant and emotional opening night screening at the BioRex yesterday of Miesten Vuoro (Steam of Life), a film dedicated "to the men of Finland."

The Most Dangerous Man in America

While watching this superbly crafted, and deeply emotional, film by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, I kept thinking about, and hoping, that there might be a Daniel Ellsberg figure (or several) that will soon blow the lid off the 9/11 "conspiracy," the resultant Iraq invasion, and the Bush Administration's culpability in waging a war based on lies and deception, a grand-scale swindle on the citizens of the United States, not to mention those citizens of a country we've helped to destroy through the auspices of, once again, shoving a misunderstood notion of democracy down an unwitting nation's throat.  And killing so many innocent people in the process on both sides of the line.  Our invasive actions, waged for no valid reason except "empire," are problematic.  But what's even more scandalous is the rhetoric set forth for public consumption by national government and corporate media and the concomitant complicity in the charade--by us all.  History will not look kindly.

The surface story of The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, is of a man who in 1971 transformed himself (again, the immediacy of recent history brought to life through one individual's experience) from a leading Vietnam War strategist, dedicated Cold Warrior, and Washington insider holding many powerful cards, to a private citizen who decides to place himself squarely in the center of a maelstrom that exposed devastating national secrets, acting as the catalyst (with the help of a few brave people including his second wife and  soulmate, Patricia Marx, and fellow RAND Corporation colleague, Anthony Russo) that set irrevocable things in motion, including the resignation of a twice-elected US president, Richard Nixon.  This series of events also saw profound changes in our understanding of "separation of powers" because of his actions.  He was a man who knew how things worked from the inside and this enabled him to grasp and expose the powerful proof he needed to crack things open.  But what Ehrlich and Goldsmith can, and do, illustrate since they have Ellsberg himself to narrate and tell his own story, along with a highly articulate Greek chorus of subjects who were involved, is the personal memory of the ideological and spiritual awakening of an individual stumbling through the labyrinths of the deepest parts of himself.  The excruciating pain and effort this took, the personal sacrifices that had to be made, is this story's real backbone.

I think the reverberations that resound through the last several decades to the present day give this piece an even more substantive heft than it already has, its object lessons about an asleep-at-the-wheel citizenry and the ramifications of mass lethargy and passivity, dazzlingly clear.  The film's artifice is in its presentation of Ellsberg's story, in the mood and tempo of the cat-and-mouse nature of a true crime thriller, setting forth the rapid unraveling of a whole nation's most cherished institutions.  Even the dopey, child-like animation that's used to describe the "heist" as it happened, is fitting in its portrayal of the absolute absurdity of a man in his office late at night xeroxing 7000 pages of incriminating evidence, his teenage kids in the room with him helping him get through this Herculean task, one manning the copy machine, the other cutting off the TOP SECRET stamps on the tops and bottoms of every single page with a pair of scissors like a runaway school art project.  Now, of course, this could be sent by a push of a button on a computer keyboard.

The research and presentation of archival material is absolutely superb, most especially the recordings of an, obviously, deranged and unhinged Richard Nixon, whose personal vendetta against Ellsberg was his ultimate undoing.  Nixon to Attorney General John Mitchell in June of '71, the day after Ellsberg surrendered to federal officials in Boston:  "Just because some guy's going to be a martyr, we can't be in a position of allowing the fellow to get away with this kind of wholesale thievery, otherwise it's going to happen all over the government.  I just say we've got to keep our eye on the main ball.  The main ball is Ellsberg.  We've got to get this son-of-a-bitch."  It turns out it wasn't really the Watergate Hotel break-in that was the event that broke everything open in terms of exposing the Nixon administration's many crimes, but the discovery that Ellsberg had been recorded on illegal wiretaps for two years.  In May of '73, Tony Russo and Daniel Ellsberg's trial was dismissed by the judge because of massive government misconduct and all charges, including theft and conspiracy, against the two men were dropped.  Nixon again (to Alexander Haig and HR Haldeman):  "Son-of-a-bitchin' thief is made a national hero and is gonna get off on a mistrial.  The New York Times gets a Pulitzer Prize for stealing documents.  They're trying to get at us with thieves.  What in the name of God have we come to?"

With exceedingly well-crafted and intelligent interviews, deft, expertly-paced editing by Michael Chandler, Lawrence Lerew and Goldsmith, and a tightly written script by Lerew, Goldsmith, Ehrlich and Chandler, The Most Dangerous Man in America should be required viewing for every citizen in this nation.  The film opens at the Cinema Village in New York this Friday.  Check here for opening dates in theaters in other cities.

For DocPointers:  the film screens in Helsinki again at the BioRex at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday.

Truth Is an Inspiration

In preparation for talking about Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's new film, The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, a film that moved me profoundly, I thought I would share an article I wrote that was published in the last issue of DOX Magazine about hybrid historical documentaries.  While Ehrlich and Goldsmith's film differs a bit from the three films I talk about here, there are innate connections to how creative documentarians can create works that reference "history" in nonfiction storytelling.  It's a theme I've addressed before, particularly in terms of this propensity on some critics' parts to judge a piece of cinema that mixes fiction and nonfiction to tell a true story in a very negative light.  My essay on this blog, written after last year's True/False festival, about one of the films talked about here, Burma VJ, in fact was fueled by one of these reviews, a particularly boneheaded one for its intense myopia and lack of generosity in reviewing nonfiction cinema on its own terms.  It made my blood boil, but it also made me think deeply about these issues.  So here it is:

There are several new films which use re-constructions of events of the recent past that are standouts for their vigilant practice of every nonfiction filmmakers’ imperative: the freedom to be honest. Within that exploration, what connotes “honesty” in documentary and how the blending of fiction (re-enactments) and reality (archival and live interviews) enhance one another, create a singular type of storytelling. 

There is a new facility in doing a re-constructed historical documentary that, to my mind, is revolutionary for the form.  There are still a lot of very stodgy ways of cinematically presenting "History" that essentially act to remove us even further from past events still strongly resonating in our collective consciousness.  Emotionally engaging with the story, and the subjects involved, is a whole other set of issues with which a few filmmakers working in the current feature-length nonfiction genre have chosen to grapple, enticing audiences to actively participate and deeply think about the ever-changing, politically-motivated interpretations of seismic events through one individual's, or one particular group's, very personal experience.  (Still from Ari Folman's multiple-award winning Waltz With Bashir.)

The featured filmmakers here have chosen to use various creative tools in their arsenal, not only to re-envision an authentic account of how things went down, but to craft their films in very cinematic ways, borrowing much from the narrative tradition. It's a very dynamic, engaging, and, most importantly, highly emotional type of storytelling, providing an intense participatory experience for a viewer.  And isn’t that why we go to the movies?

The Fixer:  The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi

Ian Olds’ latest film is, in essence, a tribute to a young man (an Afghani journalist, “fixer” and interpreter for foreign journalists from the West) who lost his life by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. One could also say, he was born in, lived out his life, and worked in a country where a man of his intelligence and dedication could easily be fodder for a wide array of parties with various agendas. The Fixer, which aired on HBO late summer 2009, maintains its primary commitment throughout—to tell the truth.  As Olds stated in an interview with Robyn Hillman-Harrigan on The Huffington Post site:  “I felt that just to focus on loss does a profound disservice to the truth, and to Ajmal. A focus on this devastating loss is something that we as a Western audience can relate to, but to focus on this man's life in the context of what's really going on in that country, is history empowered.”  [italics mine]

The viewer knows from the first few seconds of the film that the main subject has died under some pretty brutal circumstances at the hands of Taliban captors.  Olds continues:  “. . . he died at a very specific moment, in a specific place.  The aim of the film is to invoke this web of history and power in which he was caught, while never losing sight of the man.”  Olds has edited the piece anti-chronologically to great effect, in part because  he distinctly did not want to use Ajmal’s death as any sort of dramatic device. After knowing the outcome of the featured subject, the rest of the film tries to answer the question “why” by spooling out the event backwards and forwards in time in a structurally complex storyline. In this way, the filmmaker provides a key, or guide, which can unlock the past, including as many subtleties and complexities as he can muster along the way. Rather than a strict linear narrative, the film flashes back and forth for the sole purpose of “unraveling meaning.”

Olds talks about Afghanistan as a “buffer state,” a land divvied up between various power players, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, etc.  He also sees Ajmal as a  “buffer” individual, insinuating himself between the Italians, the Taliban, the Afghan government and the U.S., providing a human analogy for the place within which he resides.  In other words, Afghanistan is essentially powerless on the world stage, yet provides the perfect stage to be played upon by world powers and therein lies the human- scale tragedy of its inhabitants.  The film supplies the emotional through line in which we can explore those themes.  It allows for a human-scale contextualization, something mass media rarely, if ever, sets out to do.

Paying attention to that context at all times, Olds began to simply “follow the trail,” swept along by the events that had already unfolded, organically searching for (and finding) ways in which to tell the story, knowing that a film “shouldn’t be just a drama unfolding or a certain circumstance or set of circumstances. It should be about an idea.” In this way, the best of nonfiction filmmaking can be engaged with the world through its own language, the one of cinema. Ideas are important, certainly, but it is the emotional movement across the surface of the tale that is the overarching resonant factor for both the director and the viewer. Speaking subjectively, Olds can say that by “bringing my own [personal] experience of discovery accompanied by the memory of moving through that space, showing what it felt and sounded like acts as the litmus in making a film that reflects that emotional spectrum. Rhythms are the key to creating a deeply resonant experience for your viewer since that rhythm reflects the pace of one human life.”

Sergio

In the last years of his life, consummate diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello was reluctantly persuaded by Kofi Anaan, then Secretary General of the UN, Condoleezza Rice, then US Secretary of State under George W. Bush, and Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister, to take up the post as United Nations ambassador to a freshly invaded Iraq, a war to which de Mello was vehemently opposed. He would die in the midst of that invasion, despite his personal point of view. On August 19, 2003, a deadly bomb struck the UN headquarters in Baghdad where de Mello was working, marking a watershed moment: for the first time in history, the United Nations had become a target of terrorism. Filmmaker Greg Barker recreates the events of that day in a very forceful and visceral way by expertly melding harrowing, and extremely emotional, testimony from Sergio’s fiancée, Carolina Larriera, and the military paramedics who risked their own lives to try and save de Mello.

Sergio is based on historian and activist Samantha Power’s biography, Chasing the Flame: One Man’s Fight to Save the World. The film interlaces the haunting archival footage shot on the day of the bombing in Baghdad, and the dramatic reenactments of the rescue attempt by two US Army reservists, Bill von Zehle and Andre Valentine, to save de Mello and Gil Loescher, a civilian expert on refugees, both trapped underneath the rubble from the explosion. They would successfully rescue Loescher; they were not, however, able to save de Mello.  The two men, in operatic and devastating re-enactments, re-live that day again in the film, generously sharing that pain and fear with the rest of us.  The emotional impact of watching this cannot be overstated for it resides in the marrow of a collective traumatic memory.

With a background in international relations and economics, Barker has filmed and worked in more than 50 countries on six continents, always drawn to “character-driven stories that also illuminate how global politics really work—who wins, who loses, what the real priorities are behind politicians’ lofty rhetoric,” finding the truth out of a very complex reality. Sergio de Mello also immersed himself in the world’s complexities, inhabiting the shades of gray between “right” and “wrong.” This is the same gray area where Barker finds he can tell complex stories, the place where real progress in our understanding of the world around us is made, enabling him to make a film through the retrospective lens of history by using one man’s experience and commitment to making peace between warring nations.  

In the tradition of Herzog’s Little Dieter Needs to Fly, we watch as the subjects who were there that day relive the event on the screen. Barker directed the two men in long takes to let the re-enactment of their partially successful rescue mission play out completely, all in one go.  So, as highly directed and expertly created as these segments were, there is also a strong nod to the vérité tradition, capturing something as it’s happening in the moment, and the emotions, of course, are very, very real.  Sergio will broadcast on HBO this spring, with special screenings planned at the UN and other overseas festivals throughout the year.

Burma VJ

With Joshua, the Burmese VJ (video journalist) of the title as our conduit, the radical condition of the “hidden” country of Burma is brought to lush life, creating a deeply resonant experience of the human fight against oppression. Burma VJ displays visceral insight into civilian journalism and dissidence in a police state while providing thorough, painstaking, and outright thrilling, documentation of the dramatic days of September 2007, when Buddhist monks led a citizen march for peace and freedom against a repressive régime.

Danish filmmaker Anders Østergaard has been making nonfiction cinema for years and is well schooled in the organic process of crafting a story, patient enough to let it reveal to its maker how it should be told. This feature-length tour-de-force was originally meant to be a 30-minute film on Joshua and his experiences working as a clandestine operative in Thailand, orchestrating both professional and amateur video journalists in capturing the uprising in the capital city of Burma when it was closed to outside journalists so that footage could be smuggled out and disseminated throughout the world.

Østergaard explained to me in a phone conversation that this documentary short would, out of necessity, have had to have been made using mostly recreation, a much higher percentage than was used in the final film.  Yet when it became possible to use the authentic footage, it enabled the director to create a timeline with immediacy, a story played out moment by moment. Directly because of this, the fictional elements or re-creations, take on an even more powerful role in knitting together the whole story.

Østergaard’s overriding desire when making nonfiction films is to “go inside space and time, to fight the ‘provincialism’ of time.” He also explains that there is a whole way of working with archival footage as a graphical element, an element that enhances the creation for context, emotion, mood, tension, and a deep connection with the material when positioned within that specific context. The desire to “really go to places in time and space” is essential for a full experience, but Østergaard is careful to note, it still qualifies unequivocally as documentary since its main interest is in what actually happened; there is no indication that what is being presented is supposition or conjecture.  “The truth is an inspiration and the details [of that truth] give one the texture of the story.”

The political energy of the footage speaks for itself, framed for the biggest emotional impact possible.  Yet as Østergaard points out, “The filmmaker is a chronicler, certainly, but we can never be a slave to the footage.  It is not the quality of that footage so much as its political relevance that is utmost in importance.  You lose clarity otherwise, and the focus of the main event; the ‘History’ gets submerged in irrelevant footage and other elements that only help to cloud the story, not reveal it and set it forth.”

It is the revelation of these little-known heroes’ stories in the shadow of history’s big events that will, hopefully, continue to push the way historical documentaries are crafted.  We need more stories that feature different racial, ethnic and gender perspectives on history; we need to continue to re-create those intimate moments of a life hidden from history for this tells us everything about what it means to be human and creates a revolutionary dialectic in form and content, proposing no final answers except the unending struggle of human beings making something out of what history has made of them. The hard and fast categories of fiction and documentary melt away; there is an insistence that both forms are equally mediated by the intention of the filmmaker, and that that hybrid thus requires a fresh critical stance and a more precise notion of this dialectical imperative on the part of a thinking audience.  It can help redefine some of the more cherished assumptions of a documentary film experience.  These filmmakers have beautifully shown us that the drama of one human life deserves as much.

 

 

DocPoint Program Picks and the Inaugural Session of "Encounters"

The 9th DocPoint fest starts the day after tomorrow, so I thought I'd share my picks of top films to see (in my humble opinion) for Helsinki-ans.  Definitely try and catch the Finnish film student program right before the opening night film at the BioRex on Tuesday.  Four selections will be screening at the Ateneum from 5:00 - 6:00 p.m.  (There's another student program screening at the Maxim 2 at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday the 28th.)

At 6:30 p.m., the opening night film, Miesten Vuoro (Steam of Life) will screen after what I'm sure will prove to be a fresh (and weird) opening night ceremony, if it's anything like last year's--and I hope it is.  Also this same evening, Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran will play at the Orion, the first of a week-long program of his films, Erik Gandini's Videocracy plays at the BioRex, and Topaz Adizes' Americana, one of the selections in the US program, will screen at the Maxim 1.

On Wednesday, don't miss Aho & Soldan Life Achievement Award recipient, Kiti Luostarinen's Sanokaa Mitä Näitte and Marcel Lozinski's How to Live (directors will be present).  Simultaneously at the Maxim 2, Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly's The Way We Get By will exhibit for the first time in Finland.  Unfortunately, Gaudet and Pullapilly were one of the few American feature film directors not able to come to Helsinki, but their film is not to be missed--it's gorgeous.  Join me and filmmakers, Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, for a discussion and program of American short films at the Kiasma at 7:00, or attend the 8:00 p.m. silent film concert at the BioRex with the Five Corners Quintet.  (When we're done at 8:30 at Kiasma, I'm going to zip over there to catch the last part!)  At 9:00, definitely go see Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's superb The Most Dangerous Man in America, one of the strongest and most deeply moving documentaries on America I've seen in a while.  Look for a review of this film soon on this blog (and in the pages of the next issue of DOX Magazine coming out in March).  For New Yorkers, this will open at the Cinema Village on Friday.  Don't miss it.  (But also go see, and don't miss, Nicole Opper's Off and Running at the IFC Center that weekend, too!)  Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith's pulse-pounding and artfully-told real-life thriller Presumed Guilty plays at the Maxim 1 this evening, as well.  A plethora of cinematic riches.

Later this week, I will post my don't-miss list for the rest of the fest, a very packed remaining four days, including more from Flaherty and the Lozinskis, and masterclass guest, Nicolas Philibert (still from his Etre et Avoir (To Be and To Have), pictured above).  I'm also hoping to make it to Tallinn, Estonia on Saturday for Kim Reed's screening there of Prodigal Sons (playing in Helsinki on Thursday at the Bristol at 9:15 p.m.)

On Thursday morning, I will be participating in the inaugural DocPoint Encounters that takes place at the Ateneum Hall the 28th and 29th.  This is the launch of this festival's foray into a distribution, funding and networking project for Finnish nonfiction filmmakers.  They're starting small with five Finnish projects, a unique opportunity for these filmmakers to present their works-in-progress to some of the top professionals in international documentary.  (I did a whole lecture series on this stuff at the TaiK this past week and hope my students will come and see things in action.  I urge all of you to introduce yourselves to these very important commissioning editors.  Bring samples of your work.  You can do it!)  The aim, of course, is to increase knowledge and visibility of Finnish documentary films abroad (and they should have that exposure; superior work is made here).  The five projects are From Next Door by Tuija Halttunen, Elokas Cooperative, Love is Enough by Mia Halme, Avanton Productions, Once I Dreamt of Life by Jukka Kärkkäinen of Mouka Filmi Oy, Reindeer Spotting by Joonas Neuvonen, Bronson Club, and Red Forest Hotel by Mika Koskinen.  Special industry guests will include Claire Aguilar from ITVS, Peter Jäger from Autlook Filmsales (also here representing the excellent Enjoy Poverty: Episode 3 by Renzo Martens playing in the festival), Esther van Messel from First Hand Films, Greg Sanderson from BBC, and Anne-Laure Negrin from ARTE.  Click here for more info and to see the rest of the Encounters program. 

Tomorrow, my review of the Ellsberg film and more, stay tuned.

DocPoint Celebrates Pioneers of Finnish Documentary Film

The Helsinki-based DocPoint festival will kick off this Saturday with a screening of Dreamland by Iceland's Thorfinnur Gudnason and Andri Snaer Magnason at the beautiful Maxim.  (Photo: a nighttime game at the ice rink in my neighborhood of Kallio just north of the city center.)

The 9th iteration of the fest will take over the
cinemas of Helsinki from the 26th to the 31st.  This year, DocPoint will be celebrating the pioneers of Finnish documentary film, producers Aho & Soldan. This year marks the 85th anniversary of this company and in honoring the occasion, the festival will feature a major Aho & Soldan retrospective, curated in association with the National Audiovisual Archive.  At the opening ceremonies Tuesday night, documentary film director Kiti Luostarinen will receive the Aho & Soldan Lifetime Achievement Award which comes with a 5,000€ prize sponsored by the Finnish Broadcasting Company.  A pioneer in Finnish color photography, Claire Aho, will be on hand to bestow the honor.  Also as part of the A&S festivities, the festival’s traditional silent film concert presents films by Aho & Soldan accompanied by the renowned Finnish jazz group, The Five Corners Quintet.  The celebrations will take place at the BioRex.  Can't wait!

DocPoint 2010 will world-premiere Auf Wiedersehen Finnland by Virpi Suutari and Steam of Life by Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen.  Both films will have national theatrical distribution following their festival premieres.  The fest will also feature films that have garnered notice at other international festivals and several directors from this year’s theme countries, the US and Poland, will attend, among them, the renowned Polish father-son team of Marcel and Pawel Lozinski, American director and actress Samantha Buck (21 Below), Mike Palmieri and Donal Mosher (October Country), Kimberly Reed (Prodigal Sons) and Darius Marder (Loot).  There will also be a program of American short films presented, hosted by me, with special guests Palmieri and Mosher at the Kiasma Museum.  To see the full program, click here.  (Photo:  one of several sex shops on my street--tervetuloa!  Love my 'hood.) 

Other filmmaker guests include French director and DocPoint Masterclass lecturer, Nicolas Philibert, and Ross Whitaker, director of Saviors, as well as Vadim Jendreyko, director of The Woman With the 5 Elephants.  Both films are featured in the "From One Generation to Another" program.  Also, the new sister fest, introduced for the first time this year, DocPoint Tallinn, Estonia, a two-hour ferry ride from Helsinki, will begin on Friday the 29th.  More impressions, reviews, etc. from the fest very soon.

Also, just finished my first day of lectures at the TaiK--what a gorgeous facility--wow!  Will post pics soon.  I learned as much from my Finnish students as (hopefully) they did from me.  My host professor, filmmaker Kanerva Cederström, sent me home with a bagful of student films to watch and I'm looking forward to seeing what's coming out of the documentary program there.  (In fact, Cederström and six of her students will be visiting New York in early February.  Contact programmer Steve Holmgren at UnionDocs if you'd like to meet them.)  I was deeply impressed by the student films I saw in last year's program. 

I'm also sure you will be able to find many scandalous photos on Facebook when the other Americans descend.  Challenge to self this year?  A roll in the snow straight from the sauna.  :)

New Hammer to Nail Film Series

Just flew over the pond today and am chilling (literally) in Helsinki, Finland where I'll be for the next month or so, guest-lecturing at the documentary program at the TaiK and working at the DocPoint festival, which takes place the 26th through the 31st of this month with concurrent festivities in Tallinn, Estonia. 

I have a cozy, lovely studio adjacent to a sex toy shop and a café called Las Vegas and couldn't be happier.  After a massively delinquent but ultra-pleasurable couple of weeks, promises of much more regular blogging to come and all that but, first, some cool news from home: 

Michael Tully, our ace editor-in-chief at HTN is kicking off the new Hammer to Nail-hosted series, Misunderstood Gems at the 92YTribeca this Thursday night, January 14th at 8:00 p.m.  With a desire to curate films that are fun communal viewing experiences, Tully is starting off the series with Jackass Number Two.  Click here for more info and to purchase advance tickets to the show.

More soon from northern climes and my adventures in Wonderland.

A Whole Lotta This and That

Long radio silence since I haven't posted anything since mid-December!, so apologies for being out of touch.  It happens from time to time.  That is not to say that there hasn't been a hell of a lot happening, with much more in store on another continent starting, gulp, in less than a week.  Sometimes, just trying to keep  up with your own life is a full-time endeavor.

This Thursday, the 8th, in conjunction with my outreach and social engagement work for filmmakers David Heilbroner, Kate Davis and Franco Sacchi for their film Waiting for Armageddon (opening at the Cinema Village this Friday), there will be an interfaith roundtable at the Puck Building's Rudin Auditorium at 295 Lafayette Street that is free and open to the public starting at 6:30 p.m.  The filmmakers will be joined by panelists, Richard Cizik, an influential, left-leaning Evangelical leader; Professor David Elcott, Taub Professor of Practice and Public Service and Leadership, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU; Rabbi Justus Baird of the Auburn Theological Seminary; Minister Galen Guengerich of the All Souls Unitarian Church, NYC; and Sabeeha Rehman, director of Interfaith Programs at the American Society for Muslim Advancement.  The panel will be moderated by journalist Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.  Should be a fascinating talk with select clips from the film being shown to galvanize discussion.  A small reception will follow in the Rudin hosted by our partners, The Fledgling Fund and The Foundation for Jewish Culture.  (Pictured, filmmakers Kate Davis, David Heilbroner and Franco Sacchi at the film's premiere this past fall at the New York Film Festival.)

In other news you might find interesting / pertinent:  the Full Frame Garrett Scott Documentary Grant applications are now being accepted.  This grant funds first time doc makers for travel to and from, as well as accommodations at, The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, April 8 - 11, 2010.  For four days, grant recipients will be given access to the full film program, participate in master classes and be mentored by experienced filmmakers.  Two filmmakers will be chosen for the grant which is now in its third year.  It was started by filmmaker, Ian Olds (Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi) and Garrett Scott's family in memory of Scott who passed away suddenly in 2006 at the age of 37.  Previous grant recipients include Elinyisia Mosha and Cameron Yates (2009), Rebecca Richman Cohen, Nathan Fisher and Mai Iskander (2008), and Robin Hessman and Lee Lynch (2007).  Click here for more info.  The deadline is the 5th of February.

Also:  the 2010 Flaherty Seminar is now open for registration.  They are now accepting applications for the 56th seminar taking place June 19 - 25 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.  You can find all the details about the upcoming seminar and info about registering here.  Media makers should take advantage of attending this; it's really an essential event to experience at least once.  And, Dennis Lim is on board as the curator this year which is another strong reason for considering going.  Space, however, is very limited, so making your decision early is wise.

I'll be slipping out of New York in just a few days to spend the next month in Helsinki, Finland to teach some film seminars in the documentary program at the TaiK, the national art and design school, and will also take a trip out to Lahti, one hour outside of Helsinki,  to teach at the Folk High School there.  Amongst other activities, I will be attending the DocPoint Film Festival representing all the wonderful American short and feature-length films that will be playing at the fest in a special strand of this year's program (the "Family Chronicles") and welcoming American filmmakers to Helsinki, including Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, makers of October Country; Kim Reed, director of Prodigal Sons; Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, makers of The Way We Get By; and Darius Marder, director of Loot, among others.  Visit the site to find out about more info on this year's program.  Also look for more information coming soon for special events in New York in support of DocPoint's 10th anniversary next year. 

I will also be attending the DocPoint festivities in Estonia where the festival will be held for the first time in Tallinn.  Estonia hasn't ever had a festival that focused only on documentary film and since the Estonian and Finnish cultures are so similar, Erkko Lyytinen, the artistic director of DocPoint, felt like it was a natural collaboration when approached by the folks in Tallinn.  I will be attending with filmmaker, Kimberly Reed, whose film will play in both Finland and Estonia.  Much, much more to come on the Prodigal Sons front very soon.  The film will open at the Cinema Village here in New York on February 26th, and then open widely at Landmark Theatres across the country through March and April.  Visit the First Run Features site for more info and play dates.

I will then be headed to Sweden to attend my very first Göteberg International Film Festival, its 33rd iteration, January 29 - February 8.  I will be representing Nicole Opper's début feature doc, Off and Running.  One of their programmers saw it at its festival premiere at Tribeca last year and snagged it right away.  It will be the film's international premiere.  And why will I be there and not the filmmaker?  Well, I'll be next door in Finland (and I've been collaborating on outreach and social engagement for the film) and the director will be busy with the New York theatrical run at the IFC Center which starts the 29th of January.  Keep checking the site and here and here for updated info on special events happening this month leading up to the run, as well as news on special co-hosted evenings at the IFC that week.  Also, look for my interview with Nicole soon on the Hammer to Nail site as part of our "In Conversation With" series.  Good stuff.

Let's see, what else?  Oh yes, after Sweden, the plan will be to attend my first Berlinale (their 60th), as a journalist and critic for Hammer to Nail (thanks, Ted).  Look for daily postings from Berlin on HTN and SIM in mid-February. 

Okay, that's the latest and greatest.  I have duly blogged and promise to be a bit more vigilant.  Back to work.

Nicolas Philibert and Marcel Lozinski at DocPoint

The DocPoint Documentary Film Festival in Helsinki, Finland, has just announced that French filmmaker, Nicolas Philibert and Polish filmmaker, Marcel Lozinski, will be attending the festival as its honored guests and Master Filmmakers.  The 9th edition of the festival will take place on the 26th through the 31st of January 2010. 

The program will include a comprehensive retrospective of Lozinski's work; he's been making films since 1972.  His oeuvre highlights portrayals of people living under a socialist system and his works often question the prevailing conditions of his own society.  He lectures at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, influencing and inspiring several generations of young Polish filmmakers.  There is a shocking amount of great nonfiction work coming out of this country.

French filmmaker, Nicolas Philibert will also be honored with a small retrospective of his work, which will include his new film about a 40-year-old orangutan raised in captivity named Nénette.  His wonderful cinéma vérité piece, To Be and To Have (Etre et Avoir) (2002) garnered a huge amount of success around the world.

Also, as part of this year's program, carrying on the tradition of visiting a country in a themed way, DocPoint will present a selection of short and feature-length American films called "The Family Chronicles," co-curated by yours truly.  I'm very excited to be bringing these films to Finnish audiences.  More details soon on the program and other special Yankee guests.

In preparation for my work with them this year, I was invited as a guest of the festival last year.  Read my coverage here, here, here, here and here.  More news from Helsinki in the coming weeks.

DOX BOX 2010: The Little Nonfiction Festival That Could

Today, DOX BOX festival co-founder and co-director, Orwa Nyrabia, sends word that the 3rd iteration of the Damascus, Syria-based event is ON.  There is a new website and the call for submissions is open.  The festival will take place in Damascus from 3 - 11 March with select films, including the Audience Award-winner, traveling to the nearby cities of Homs and Tartous. 

DOX BOX is organized by Proaction Film, the only independent documentary production company in Syria, in collaboration with international cultural partners.  The festival is under the patronage of the National Film Organization of Syria with local partners, The Tartous Cine-Club and The Homs Cine-Club.  Arab partners are ArteEast, Cinémathèque de Tanger in Morocco, Metropolis Cinema in Beirut and the NAAS Network.  International partners include the European Documentary Network in Denmark and the International Documentary  Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in the Netherlands.

DOX BOX is looking for creative documentaries that have a "unique and organic point of view from filmmakers about their lives, families and societies."  Click here for rules and regs and to download the entry form.  The deadline for entries is the 20th of December 2009.  If you're a North American filmmaker, contact me for a personal recommendation.  Read my coverage from last year's festival here and here and here and here. 

This is a festival in need of endowment and support; they are working miracles with very small budgets and very little in the way of resources.  I'm sure they would welcome any financial help they can get from the international film community. 

The DOX BOX organizers also offer a small Documentary Campus from the 3rd to the 8th and they are calling for applications--six days, ten international tutors, twenty-five participants.  The deadline is 5 January and regulations and application forms can be downloaded here.  For more info, you can send an email query to [email protected].

Missive from UK

Hello from Sheffield, where I'm knee-deep in the hoopla of a very bustling festival and market.  Last night at the big party at the local roller skating rink (fast becoming a Sheffield tradition), the 2010 Cinema Eye Honors announced their nominees for the ceremony that will take place at the Times Center in NYC in January.  Visit the site to read about all the nominees, and the latest and greatest on the best of nonfiction. 

Umbilically connected to New York wherever I happen to go, I wanted to say "hey," and mention a few things coming up: 

I've been part of the "getting butts in seats" brigade, aka Outreach Producer, for Four Seasons Lodge, a beautiful documentary film opening at the IFC Center this coming Wednesday, November 11.  The director, New York Times' journalist, Andrew Jacobs, some of the subjects of the film, and other crew and special guests, will be there for Q&As throughout the week, and some of our best indie film orgs will be on hand to co-host and join in the festivities for after-screening drinks shindigs.  Shooting People will host Friday night, Arts Engine / DocuClub will be with us on Sunday night, and UnionDocs will host on Monday evening.  Visit the website to get all the info you need, watch the trailer, and meet the extraordinary subjects, the last living generation of Holocaust survivors (two of them, pictured above).  Don't let the "H" word keep you away--it's an exceedingly heart-warming, uplifting and life-affirming film.  You can also visit the First Run Features site to keep abreast of where else the film will be opening across the nation.  Next up on December 11, Four Seasons Lodge will run in Los Angeles and Boston.  If you live in those cities, contact me to learn how you can help us get the word out and plan some special events around the screenings there.  The IFC Center puts up showtimes very close to the opening, so keep checking there and buy your tickets in advance.  There are discounts for groups of 10 or more.

Also on the 11th, which is Veteran's Day, The Way We Get By will have its national broadcast début on P.O.V.  The film is now also available for purchase on DVD--probably will become one of the top 10 stocking stuffers of all time, I would wager.

Rooftop Films sends news that their 2010 submissions have opened and they are welcoming entries for their summer series next year.  You can find downloadable information here or submit through Without A Box.  The superb series runs from May to September and will feature more than 200 films in various outdoor screenings throughout New York City.  All genres, formats and lengths are welcome.

On Monday, November 9, The Flaherty has a hot animation program on tap at Anthology Film Archives in the East Village.  "Experiments With Animation" will feature short works by such talents as Phil Solomon, Martha Colburn, Signe Baumane and Jeff Scher.  Go here for more info.

Okay, gotta pull myself back into the fray here.  I will be having lunch shortly with filmmaker Geoffrey Smith, director of the glorious The English Surgeon and co-director of Presumed Guilty which débuted at Toronto in September and is playing the fest here before moving on to CPH:DOX in Copenhagen next week.  It's a tremendous film and it will be fascinating to see the furor it will cause in Mexico where the story is told.  I'll have a full review soon, but watch for this one.  It will be one of the most important films of 2010.

I will have much more from Sheffield in the next couple of weeks, but back to just taking it all in--seeing great nonfiction films and getting to visit and converse with new filmmakers bringing groundbreaking talent and expertise to the field.  It's so awesome to be in the company of thousands of others who are as equally rabid about nonfiction cinema as I am.  Right now, off to Digital Bootcamp with Ingrid Kopp--woo hoo!

HOT DOCS 09: Up the Ass of the Beast; Or, Finding Love in the Most Unexpected Places

First off, welcome to the refreshed SIM:  did a little make-over and brought out my spring/summer look--light, breezy, sophisticated, easy on the eyes.  You can whistle if you want.

Before you get all smart-assy on me, no, I did not pose for that sculpture.  It's an extract from a photo I took on a hot summer's day in a park in Prague filled with weird and wonderful art work by local artists.  The piece is highly evocative of how I aspire to live my life:  naked* under the sun and a deep blue sky on a high roof with an unobstructed view, desired by those who also spend inordinate amounts of time daydreaming or going to see films, which pretty much amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?  (*Consider the word "naked" a metaphor, please; I only take my clothes off in public for cash or multi-colored bead necklaces.)  Designer and filmmaker, Eliane Lazzaris, did me a kindness, so obrigada minha cara menina.  On with the show: 

When you go to a big international documentary festival like Hot Docs, you notice certain trends that are engaging the entire documentary community.  Not just the little insular one we have here in New York, fabulous though it is, but the larger community out in the world interested in pushing this fascinating art form to its limits.  There are seemingly higher and higher stakes involved for doc makers, creatively, narratively, cinematically, idealogically.  What you have in Toronto, as well, (twice a year, yet!) is some interesting force fields coalescing when you bring what amounts to one of the most sophisticated film audiences in the world together with some of the best and brightest cutting-edge filmmakers, smart people engaged in crafting work that truly speaks to the zeitgeist.  Even our 22-year-old waitress at dinner one night rushed us along, telling us we needed to go see (Audience Award-winner) The Cove or Winnebago Man or Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty, or something equally as wonderful in just a half hour, so she'd better bring us our check straight away.  That did my heart good, let me tell you.

The parties and various industry gatherings, too, bring an international flavor to North America.  We live on giant land masses here; we tend to get a bit myopic about the rest of the world.  Hot Docs was where I first met friend, Massoud Bakhshi, filmmaker and director of the new Iran International Documentary Film Festival which I was privileged to attend last year.  Through that connection, I met Orwa Nyrabia, filmmaker and director of the new DOX BOX in Damascus, Syria, which I also had the privilege of attending in March because I re-met Orwa in Helsinki, Finland at the DocPoint festival where I was a guest this past January because of meeting festival coordinator Helena Mielonen in Tehran.  And like that.  This is not unusual since festivals are the places where unique and exciting collaborations emerge: between filmmakers, filmmakers and producers, programmers and artistic directors, funders and fundees, and other industry folk who work to keep nonfiction, or factual programming, alive and flourishing.  And then you have Mr. Sean Farnel, one of the most talented programmers out there who also rockets around the planet making discovery after discovery so that Hot Docs can keep providing the wealth of riches it's been known for for the past sixteen years.  (Farnel, pictured, announcing this year's fest line-up, courtesy James McNally and photographer, Jay Kerr.) 

So without further ado, in the next few posts, I'll talk about some of the films I saw there that left a particularly deep impression, starting with my two faves--two films that, upon first blush, seemingly have very little in common.  What they both do provide are some of the most fascinating threesomes I've come across in cinema.  The triangle is fast becoming my favorite geometrical shape; when something is "triangulated," both the fixed baseline, as well as the angles that radiate from it, form a pretty damned accurate survey of certain systems and  relationships.  Interestingly, one film takes place in the rural hinterlands of South Korea (I know next to nothing about South Korean cinema), the other in the dystopic urban nightmare of  Pyongyang, North Korea (and no one really knows about North Korean cinema, do they?) which has gone out into the world as a Danish film, but it is very much a North Korean one, as well, a chilling and fascinating glimpse of that clandestine place.  One film is presented as a touching pastoral fairytale but turns out to be pretty much wall-to-wall laughs; the other a seemingly Python-esque charade played for laughs manages to provide plenty of fiercely sobering moments due mostly to a brilliant script master-minded by its director.

The Red Chapel's shorthand log line, if it needed one, would probably be something along the lines of "The Yes Men do North Korea."  (Take a look at part of it here.)  Shown in the International Spectrum, aptly-named Danish director Mads Brügger's wild adventure takes us into the maw of Kim Jong-il's secret empire.  How these Danes got permission is anyone's guess but we'll chalk it up to kismet since this filmmaker does not squander a moment of his time there to explore and extrapolate upon the nature of this country that has cut its population off from the rest of the world while eating hundreds of thousands of its own through mind control, starvation, torture and life-long imprisonment.  In other countries, one can be labeled a dissident and still go home and have dinner with the kids.  Not in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.  You're "disappeared" permanently.  Enough of what goes on has been leaked over the decades to know that to, not only get in there, but to get in there with cameras, is an impressive feat, indeed.   

The chilling brilliance of this film shows itself in its leadership on both sides of the fence.  On the official site of Denmark, there is an essay on the personality of the Danes by journalist Victor Andersen that says, "Common to all Danes is their tendency to take the ups and downs of life with a touch of irony, often self-irony. . . .  They tend to say the opposite of what they think, in keeping with the nature of [that] irony."  In other words, they could make great spies and get away with a hell of a lot in a place that doesn't know what irony is. 

However, it says that over the years, "there have also been traces of local insularity, snobbery and conformity.  It was best not to be different or odd."  So a Dane might feel a certain sympathy with the North Koreans, perhaps, conformists par excellence?  Brügger brings some friends with him, namely, two young Korean comedians, both raised from a young age in Denmark; they consider themselves Danish, not Korean.  They are there to stage a comedy revue for a select audience in the capitol.  One is a big strapping, tattooed young lad called Simon, the other an 18-year-old spastic with a severe central nervous system disorder which affects his physical movements and speech, making most people think that he's retarded when he's far from mentally deficient.  He finds himself in a place where children like him are given away or hidden from the rest of society, or as is intimated more than once, done away with completely.

He is the deepest thinker, the most intensely emotional, most adversely affected subject in this whole shebang, incessantly articulating why following an ironical conformist into a conformist society with no irony can be a bloody dangerous thing.  And so young Jacob turns out to be the steadfast baseline of this particular, oddly-shaped triangle.  While Brügger is unscrupulously giving the North Koreans a run for their money, Jacob is questioning the evil nature of his own leader, the man who brought him there to help perpetrate a fraud on a grand scale.  This is not a highly nuanced film for the most part; it is broad and slapstick in nature, delivering punch after comedic punch while exposing the underlying dis-ease of an oppressed people. 

To Brügger, who constantly compares current-day North Korea with Hitler's reign (the title references a communist spy cell that operated in Nazi Germany), the mad clapping and smiling and crying and puppeteering that go on like a mass case of Tourette's amongst its citizens connotes sheer terror, a terror these people live with day in, day out with no respite since everyone is watching everyone else for the slightest sign of unrest or unacceptable actions and thoughts.  His earnest wish that the local people accompany Simon singing the Oasis song "Wonderwall" is his own idea of not-so-subtle thought control:  "And all the roads we have to walk are winding / And all the lights that lead us there are blinding / There are many things that I would like to say to you / But I don't know how.  Because maybe / You're gonna be the one that saves me / And after all / You're my wonderwall."  Like the Yes Men and others like them, Brügger is a ferocious cultural insurgent, the camera his most potent weapon.  I'm anxious to see what land he'll infiltrate next.  I'd actually love to see him focus the lens on his own culture.  Wouldn't that be ironic?

The love triangle in Lee Chung-ryoul's Old Partner involves a man, his wife and the man's best friend, an ox that's worked beside him for forty years.  The first South Korean film to compete for the Grand Jury Prize in Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, the film played to enthusiastic crowds in Toronto, as well.  It also happens to be the most popular documentary ever in its native land, creating a groundswell of a fan base, many of whom troop out in a daily touristic mass to the quiet, rural land of farmer Choi Won-gyoon (which is kind of horrifying, actually).  In this film, which also exhibited in the International Spectrum, Chung-ryoul captures the last year of the ox's life as it limps out the last days of its existence as a beast of burden alongside his master, also a beast of burden.  80-year-old Choi steadfastly and stubbornly tills his plot of land no differently than a farmer of centuries ago would have done (albeit without the beat-up radio tied to the ox's harness).  He and his wife have put nine children through school and university with sheer, backbreaking labor, ensuring, of course, that none of their offspring will be farmers.

The funniest moments occur mostly because the ox and the old man display such similar personality characteristics.  When a creature, human or otherwise, nears the end of its life, it's not unusual to find that it's become somewhat intractable, unwilling to veer from a proscribed and deeply circumscribed course, especially if that course has been pretty consistent for decades.  A certain fortitude is displayed which trumps physical limitations and in this mutually faithful partnership of animal and master, we see true kindred spirits.  Choi says more than once that the ox is "his karma."  The foil comes in the figure of Choi's wife, Lee Sam-soon, a perpetually complaining shrew of a woman who cannot for the life of her understand why they don't deep-six the ox and use more modern conveniences for farming like machinery and insecticide sprays.  Through all of this, daily life on the farm, intrepid visits to the small nearby city (by ox cart) to get checked by doctors (the old man's been diagnosed with cancer) and have their funeral portraits taken, Chung-ryoul creates a deeply personal portrait of a dying way of life in Korean culture. 

Crafting a beautiful screenplay to accompany his gorgeous cinematography, the film does falter at moments due to scenes that are awkwardly contrived (versus gracefully contrived).  They're funny as hell, but obviously set up for the laugh or to force a particular emotive response as when he shoots a close-up of a tear falling down the ox's face when Choi attempts to sell him at the market.  The thing is old; it has rheumy eyes that spill water regularly.  This is romantic cinema-making at its best with lingering shots filled with transcendent light that speak volumes about the silent bonds between ourselves and the natural world that can never be severed, even after one's mortal coil is shrugged off for greener pastures.

In my next post, Conference Session 4: What's Next for Film Festivals and the first North American Good Pitch at the Toronto Documentary Forum.