Posts Tagged ‘Documentary’

Red Herring (2023)

Dir: Kit Vincent | UK Doc 94′

Childhood seemed like an endless journey of discovery for filmmaker Kit Vincent until he was diagnosed with cancer and given four to eight years to live at the tender age of 24.

Terrible news, so much so that his father collapsed with a heart attack – quite literally. And in his debut feature Red Herring it rapidly becomes clear that Kit’s devastating condition affects his close family just as much as himself. And so the film takes over, their daily lives together becoming the main focus – rather than the concer.

But not everyone is as keen as Kit in being part of the film and not least his girlfriend Isobel, the two will embark on fertility treatment and she naturally wants these conversations to remain private, unlike kit whose way of coping is to share everything including his seizures and key parts of his treatment. Kit’s father Lawrence, a professor and former college principal, is certainly a strong character and draws on his recent conversion to the Jewish faith for guidance, and this leads to some fascinating philosophical chats with his son. Kit’s mother, a healthcare worker, finds a way of dealing with the personal rather than professional trauma by immersing herself in raising a brood of chickens.

Conversations with his family often bring up difficult episodes in Kit’s childhood and provide a beneficial therapy for dealing with the past. In this way they all thrash out their feelings and these scenes give Red Herring a positive often moving spin in contrast to the darker moments. Well-paced at 94 minutes, the director never loses sight of the film’s cinematic quality.

Kit is adamant about not wanting to make a depressing film about impending death and he certainly succeeds. Red Herring is first and foremost about a family fronting up to an uncertain future and the transformative dynamics that come into play as each member reacts to changing circumstances in their own personal way.  And for that it’s a watchable and uplifting triumph. @MeredithTaylor

RED HERRING IS IN SELECT UK CINEMAS AND ON DEMAND FROM 3 MAY 2024

 

 

 

The Man with a Thousand Faces (2024)

Dir: Sonia Kronlund | France Doc, 90′

So who is the man of a thousand faces? He introduces himself as Daniel, Alexandre or Ricardo and apparently comes from Brazil or Argentina. Sometimes he’s a surgeon, others an engineer. The women he meets and moves in with are disarmed by his looks, charisma and accomplishments. They fall in love, one even falls pregnant. Meanwhile the fantasist flits around the world juggling these various relationships, always an excuse in hand for his absence.

Documentarian and screenwriter Sonia Kronlund (The Prince of Nothingwood) is fascinated by the story and decides to investigate with the help of a private detective. We meet the women involved. They are intelligent, grounded and articulate. No histrionic outbursts just calm refections of incredulity as they gradually dissect and come to terms with their nemesis. Can they ever be the same again?. When your lover says his father has been killed in a car crash, is it churlish to reply: Really? This is the vestigial damage they are left to work through in their future relationships. Falling in love demands a certain innocence, a vulnerability. Can that ever be regained?

Kronlund knows the territory. What emerges is another tale of self-reinvention, rather like in The Prince of Nothingwood. The French filmmaker herself admits to having been duped by unsatisfactory past relationships so there’s an empathy of kindred spirits and a deep satisfaction at work here as she constructs her extraordinarily subtle expose of a pathological liar. A man unable to be straight with others – let alone himself.

Adopting a classic three act structure Kronlund gradually works her way towards the finale as she peels back the layers of this arch psychological scandal, checking her facts with a lawyer who is able to demonstrate that the man’s entire existence is based on the dissemination of images of lives which are not his – a face can be slotted into an online uniform or guise that bears no resemblance to reality. Finally we see the real ‘Ricardo’ ‘hoisted by his own petard’ in this clever piece of investigative filmmaking. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS

Frida (2023)

Dir: Carla Gutiérrez | Doc 87′

This latest foray into the life of the artist Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon (1907-54) follows Ali Ray‘s chronicle of the painter’s life seen through the prism of Mexican history.

Frida, based on her own previously unseen diaries and letters, is a much more intimate and visceral view told in her own words (voiced by Fernanda Echevarría del Rivero).

In troubled life full of pain and tragedy, Kahlo managed to triumph through sheer adversity and her own brand of bloody-mindedness.“Was the virgin Mary really a virgin?” she asked a priest during mass. Clearly she was en route to be a success as a paintet when she started channelling her florid fears and morbid moods onto canvas after a life-changing contretemps with a tram left her bedridden at only 18.

In keeping with its subject matter this is an artful documentary that unfolds in colour and black and white. In an inspired touch director Carla Gutiérrez has decided to animate some of Kahlo’s work so the ‘Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair’ comes alive. This seems in keeping with Kahlo’s avant-garde and subversive take on things, along with her unusual marital arrangements with her long term much older husband and lover Diego Rivera which ended in divorce and then re-marriage based on a bizarre set of conditions including Kahlo’s refusal to ever sleep with him again (they had both been unfaithful, she with Leon Trotsky – no less).

So Gutiérrez offers up a refreshingly lyrical new take on the artist that lives to her reputation as complex, vulnerable but fearless to the last. @MeredithTaylor

Frida is in UK cinemas on 8 March and on Prime Video on 14 March.

 

 

 

The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023)

Dir: Nicole Newnham | With: Dakota Johnson, Shere Hite | US Doc 118′

What is in a name? Or more to the point, what is in the named title of a work of documentation. The acclaimed documentary about the academic Shere Hite comes after acclaim at numerous film festivals including Sundance where it premiered over a year ago. The Disappearance of Shere Hite is a misnomer; another example of American Exceptionalism that declares one doesn’t exist if one escapes from the hermetic puritanism that holds sway in the laughable declared “Land Of The Free”.

Documentaries of this sort exist in a state of pedagogy for the unaware, at times this can be limiting but here documentarian Nicole Newnham (director of the transgressive documentary Crip Camp) uses several devices to create a narrative that impresses and creates the possibility of a series of ‘what ifs’ and ‘could bes’, these include Dakota Johnson reading from Hite’s dairies and writings and, more movingly, a collection of oral histories comprised of the letters she received from women who had filled out her questionnaire: this became her groundbreaking and incendiary ‘The Hite Report’, which was published in 1976.

The film glides through the chronology of her life in a nonlinear fashion which adds to the sense of mystery if you approach the film without much prior knowledge of Shere Hite. She was at Grad School where she discovered the first feminist women’s groups that were starting to spring to life in New York. Paying her way through school as a model, the variety of modelling that many in the industry look down their noses at: adverts for white goods and Robert McGinnis’ famous James Bond illustrations including on the shoulder of Sean Connery for Diamonds Are Forever.

It was Socrates who claimed that “Beauty is a short lived tyranny”. Right from the start of her modelling career Hite discovered the self-evident truth in that aphorism, and started to look for an ‘out’ before the industry would crush her like so many women before her. The final straw appears to be when she was cast in an advert for Olivetti, with the tagline: “The typewriter is so smart she doesn’t have to be.” From there she started writing questionnaires to hand out to women in the hope they would fill them in and post them back to her. She felt this was more likely to get a honest response than phone or in person interviews.

When the book was released it was an instant publishing phenomenon and she was invited to do lots of media appearances. This is a time we can now look back at and see the beginning of the Culture Wars that have continued in furiosity, and where we find now ourselves adrift from an empirical reality. As so many intelligent women have discovered, holding truth to power – especially 1970s patriarchy – means you will be attacked and demeaned in numerous ways. Her detractors cast doubt on her Scientific methods and flagged-up photographs she had posed for in ‘Playboy’ while a student.

The attacks only intensified when Shere started working on a male version of ‘The Hite Report’. This provided another opportunity for male critics and academics to refuse to believe the men questioned in the report, particularly in regards to their personal feelings and claims that toxic masculinity had affected relationships with their fathers, at home, and in workplace. It has taken decades for certain men to break through these negative attitudes. Robert Gottlieb (who died recently and was featured in the documentary made by his daughter, Turn Every Page) was one of the book’s only male supporters at the time. He claimed to have been devastated by the opinions shared that those men who took part.

In the end Shere Hite did what so many US Iconoclasts are forced to do, go into exile to avoid facing public humiliation or defamation. Her escape led to a second life in England and Germany. She died after a long illness in 2020. At that point the original Hite Report was the 30th best-selling book of all time. Ironically, most contemporary American feminists are unaware who she was and how important she was, standing alongside the legendary Sexologists: Alfred Kinsey and Masters & Johnson. @D_W_Mault

IN CINEMAS FROM 12 JANUARY 2024

Scala!!! (2024)

Dirs: Ali Catterall, Jane Giles | UK Doc with Barry Adamson, John Akomfrah, Rick Baker, Ralph Brown, Paul Burston, Adam Buxton, Caroline Catz | 96′

Cinemas are edenic places, some would describe them as palaces which to be fair they were at some point in the 20th century. But between that time of art deco grandeur and the mostly soulless multiplexes and faux art houses that blight our horizons something else existed. Something magical. 

Of all the places, the Scala is the most storied in the UK and we now have a myth-making introduction for all those that missed out. There should be a warning for those cinephiles currently hiding out in cinemas across the UK, this is what was taken from you. 

The danger with a documentary like Scala!!! is that it must skirt the chasm of describing experiences that have passed and will never be repeated and the cynical idea of nostalgia as false consciousness… Happily I can report that it never falls into that trap.

When we look and listen to the numerous talking heads, from filmmakers: John Waters, Mary Harron, Caroline Catz and John Akomfrah; musicians: Jah Wobble, Barry Adamson, Douglas Hart and Thurston Moore; critics: Kim Newman and Alan Jones, we can perhaps understand what François Truffaut meant when he claimed that ‘film lovers are sick, sick people’.

The sense of the outsider reigns supreme here, as an existential answer to an unanswered question that searches for finding a like-minded peer group. When this happens hubs are important, and the Scala was one of these. Located for the longest time in Kings Cross a good decade before it became the homogeneous gentrified experience that it now is. Difficult to explain what urban areas in the UK were like in the 80s. King Cross could be described as the relative to New York’s Time Square of legendary grindhouses before that was Disneyfied by Rudy Giuliani.

Alongside everything else that the 80s gave us we had to deal with rampant homophobia, the Scala was a safe space before the term started to have various connotations. It was very definitely a ‘Queer” space, queer in the sense that celebrates transgression in the form of visible difference from normie culture.

It has been a long process for Scala!!! to come to light, a crowd funded budget, a book and a yearly national film festival, but through it all the directors Jane Giles (former programmer at the Scala and author of the book) and Ali Catterall (film critic and author) have kept the faith and battled to bring into existence a wonderful documentary that has been acclaimed at various film festivals and will now be going on a nationwide tour to cinemas across perfidious Albion.

What we are left to ponder, after luxuriating in the text, is where we are now that everything has become homogeneous and nondescript. It is true that grubby cinemas of faded glamour very rarely exist anymore, but what have we sacrificed for the boutique cinemas and multiplexes? Comfort, security, safety and a lack of cinema cats. I certainly know where I would rather experience the 7th art. It is yet another example of the mainstream swallowing everything like an out-of-control whale. Outside of London the notion of the Rep cinema simply doesn’t exist, which is a form of cultural vandalism. One thinks of one of the defining lines in John le Carré’s ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, when Bill Hayden says, ‘it has all become so ugly.’ @DWMault

In UK and Irish cinemas from 5 January 2024. Scala!!! will be available digitally on BFI Player and released on BFI Blu-ray on 22 January 2024 | A season of the Scala’s greatest hits, Scala: Sex, drugs and rock and roll cinema, runs at BFI Southbank throughout January with selected films on BFI Player.

https://youtu.be/Oc85T_TGuxE?si=4xAO9hcFhPtyQhA1

Klimt & The Kiss (2023)

Dir: Ali Ray | UK Doc

“To every age its art, to every art its freedom” Vienna Secession.

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is one of the most recognised paintings in the world and its reproduction posters adorn student bedroom walls from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Yet this new documentary urges us to look beyond Klimt’s often decorative style at the extraordinary motivations of the celebrated Austro-Hungarian genius whose sensual Art Nouveau creations blend ancient myths with modern eclecticism, and are more valuable today than ever before fetching top prices at international auctions. Klimt’s final painting Lady with a Fan (1918) was sold in June 2023 for £85.3 million, the highest price artwork ever sold at auction in Europe, (according to BBC News).

Klimt was one of the pioneers the ‘Jugendstil’ movement known in Vienna as the ‘secessionists’ who joined a pan-European trend of breaking away and rejecting the old school along with the British Arts and Crafts and Impressionism movements in France.

Gustav Klimt’s 19th century Vienna was a time of conflicted sexuality: in society women were corseted and buttoned up but Klimt’s louche feminine depictions are bursting with a feral sensuality that conveys women’s true nature focusing on love, desire and the cycle of life from birth to death. In his private life, Klimt clearly loved and appreciated women and often slept with his models who hung around his studio, often naked, waiting for a chance to be depicted in his iconic images, reflecting an era that was deeply misogynist.

Meanwhile his elegant portraits of wealthy society hostesses such as Adele Bloch-Bauer and Sonia Knips provided the bread and butter for his lush artistic endeavours that include prints, murals and objets d’art, often elaborated with gold leaf, silver, gilt stucco and mother of pearl. There were also symbolist paintings: Judith and the Head of Holofernes, Pallas Athene, nymphs, water serpents and mermaids. His work also included landscapes and murals such as the famous Beethoven Frieze that adorns Vienna’s Secession Building.

Women also featured heavily in his private life. The artist lived with his mother and sisters and although he never married, his long term partner, the Austrian fashion couturier and businesswoman Emilie Louise Floge, whom he also painted in 1902, shared his artistic vision and dressed in her own loosely-designed feminine creations.

Klimt developed an ornate often dreamlike style and made use of different mediums to express human truths rooted in nature, flowers and the surreal, but his sketching technique was also superb and rivals that of Picasso in its simple yet sensual marks. The impact of grief, madness, love and death on the female body provided a rich source material and formed the basis of his avantgarde work.

Filmmaker Ali Ray makes liberal use of interviews with specialists and art curators to flesh out her latest biopic for Exhibition on Film that follows on from her previous documentaries on Frida Kahlo and Mary Cassatt, the American impressionist painter (2023).

ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS from 30 OCTOBER 2023

We Are Russia (2022)

Dir.: Alexandra Dalsbaek; Documentary; France/USA/Russia 2019/21, 77 min.

The first feature length documentary by Russian-French director/co-writer, DoP and co-editor Alexandra Dalsbaek, is a study of a Moscow student group, protesting against the re-election of President Putin in 2018. Very much shot ad-hoc, but still able to catch the arrest of opposition leader Navalny (twice), this feels very much like a work in progress, even though it is the long version, shown at the DOCNYC in 2021, sixteen minutes longer than he original version from 2019.

The action revolves around Milena K. almost playfully leading her group in anti-Putin and pro-Navalny activities. Milena poses with provocative placards in front of the Duma building and the Lubyanka – as well as other residences of state power. “Sell your villas, and build roads”, is one of her slogans attacking Putin and his oligarchs. But the resonance of the mostly elderly public is is anonymous and negative: “What have you even done for your country” is one of the answers that echoes back to Milena and her agitator friends. For the older generation Putin is still considered the saviour of Russia. Milena’s boutique owner mother is afraid for her daughter and tries to persuade her to limit her activism. Milena’s friend Alexander, who works in Navalny’s election office, is beaten up over night by the police, and fined 400 Roubles after a court hearing. Kostya S is arrested with Navalny in January 2019, after he was “disqualified” from standing in the election, and had called for a boycott of the state controlled proceedings. Whilst Navalny was eventually poisoned and re-arrested after his return from Germany, Kostya is sentenced to three year’s house arrest. But in the end, the ‘election’ goes ahead and Milena makes a final attempt to show the proceedings are rigged by walking into a polling station, and claiming rigged ballots: the voting cards are not counted and just stuffed into mailing bags. Finally, at a major demonstration, Milena is arrested, along with over 16 000 others, but released after 48 hours.

The narrative’s lack of structure is compensated for by its sheer  sheer panache. Milena could well be the alter ego of the director, enjoying the political fight and sweeping away the restrictions of the past . WE ARE RUSSIA begs the question, has Russian youth stopped demonstrating since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Looks like the state forces could well have cracked down on insurrection. While Navalny languishes  colony what has become of Milena and her cause. AS

WE ARE RUSSIA on July 15 will also be playing for a week at the Bertha DocHouse cinema.

Into the Ice (2022) CPH: DOX 2022

Dir: Lars Henrik Ostenfeld. Doc, Denmark/Germany,  86′

The edge of a cavernous ice moulin is certainly no place to take a selfie, as we find out in this spectacular documentary from director and cinematographer Lars Henrik Ostenfeld. He accompanies three scientists to glacial Greenland in search of what the ice can tell us about the future of our world. The cinematic journey plays out like a thriller with a gripping climax and some tears along the way, and, predictably there is no happy ending 

Climate expert Jason Box, professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and glaciologist Alun Hubbard are the three intrepid specialists who are risking their lives to gather vital data on climate change. Most of the research can be undertaken via satellite but nothing beats actually being there to experience the treacherous winds, icy wastelands and spiralling depths of the ice moulins, vast frosty holes stretching into oblivion below the surface. Ostenfeld’s endeavour is part of a project which serves not just as exploratory undertaking but also to raise awareness of the critical stage at which our world has now arrived. 

When it comes to scaling down into an ice moulin Alun Hubbard is certainly your man.  Beaming with confidence he is chipper about the descent and certainly puts our minds at rest as he bounces down 175 metres into the black void below. And Ostenfeld is quite relieved to hand his camera over to security expert Claus Kongsgaard the following day. Apparently the conditions are ‘too warm’ and too dangerous for the director to accompany Hubbard who admits to being happy should he lose his life in the process. 

Meanwhile, Jason Box is doing a  spot of yoga before measuring the rate of snowfall that in turn predicts the loss of pack ice below the surface. In a flimsy tent reinforced by ‘ice walls’ he hunkers down against the raging winds with his colleague Masashi Niwano. The two have trekked for 12 days in hostile conditions and decide they deserve another cup of coffee after gathering their vital evidence. 

Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen is triumphant as she holds up a block of ice which is 5000 years old. In her study to predict climate change over the past 100,000 years she is able to see how the ice has changed through its bubbles of carbon matter. These courageous souls certainly lighten their heart-sinking  findings in a documentary that makes ‘the science’ as clear as arctic water, and as chilling. MT

SCREENING DURING CPH:DOX 2022 

The Treasure of His Youth (2021) CPH:DOX 2022

Dir.: Bruce Weber; Documentary with Paolo di Paolo; Silvia di Paolo, Marina Cicogna, Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini; USA 2021, 109 min.

US director/co-writer Bruce Weber (Let’s Get Lost) re-discovers one of Italy’s most influential photographers: Paolo di Paolo, born in the small town of Larino, in 1925. He photographed all the stars of Italian post-war cinema from 1949 and 1968: Anna Magnani, Marcello Mastroianni, Sophie Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Pier Paolo Pasolini, to name but a few. But had it not been for Giuseppe Casetti, the owner of the Maldoror bookshop in Rome, Paolo’s archive would have never seen the light of the day, let alone two major exhibitions.

Paolo di Paolo, vivacious as ever in his mid 90s, still has the train ticket from Larino to Rome where he would study philosophy, his “escape” back in 1949. Growing up during twenty years of Fascism such luminaries as Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway had also escaped him until then, along with US music. Joining ‘Il Mondo’, a magazine founded by Mario Pannunzio in 1950, he fell in love with the camera, in this case a ‘Leica’. Pannunzio was an excessively intellectual editor-in-chief, his staff joked that the magazine had more authors than readers.

For Pannunzio, photos told a story, they were an autonomous narrative. The magazine became the training ground for great photographers, every shot had to be “like a piece of theatre”. Paolo’s coterie included the filmmaker Roberto Rossellini and the writer Alberto Moravia. Actress Anna Magnani, whose son had polio, set di Paolo a strict set of rules for their sessions. Pier Paolo Pasolini became a close friend, his photo of the director at the tomb of Gramsci is one of the iconic images of Italian political history. There is a visit to di Paolo’s old friend, the film producer Marina Cicogna, who produced, among others, Bunuel’s Belle de Jour and Pasolini’s Teorema. Cicogna, who lived for over twenty years with the actor Florinda Bolkan, recounts how Pasolini was well aware of the ‘death wish’, before his murder in Ostia. The poet and director was deeply religious, and could not accept his homosexuality in this context. Bernardo Bertolucci reminisces about first meeting Pasolini on a Sunday afternoon at his parent’s front door. He took Pasolini for a thief and locked him out before telling his father he had a guest. Both filmmakers look back with laughter at the memory.

Silvia, ii Paolo’s daughter, now looks after her father’s archive and runs his life, freely admitting how difficult he can be. She sets up a Zoom call with fellow photographer Tony Vaccaro, from the same generation, who grew up in small-town Pennsylvania, becoming a war photographer, before later settling for fashion photography. “The smell of our homes is still in our nostrils” comments Di Paolo.

The end is impromptu and not at all what Weber had in mind: di Paolo gains access to the backstage photography at the Valentino Couture fashion show in Paris’ Place Vendome. The 94-year climbs onto a step ladder to take photos, feeling invigorated by the experience he expresses a desire to live in Paris: He was back in the saddle after given up in 1968 when ‘Il Mondo’ was forced into liquidation and TV took over the newspaper media agenda, di Paolo turning his attention back to philosophy and history.

Treasure is a rhapsody in black and white: somehow di Paolo’s photos and the archive images from TV and newsreel fail to coalesce aesthetically with DoP Theodore Stanley’s own shots in the trip back to Larino. But the film clips from the “Golden Age” of Italian cinema round up a bravado lesson in film history. Exciting and informative. AS

NOW SCREENING DURING COPENHAGEN DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL 2022

The River (2021)

Dir.: Jennifer Peedom; co-directed by Joseph Nizeti; narrated by Willem Dafoe; Documentary; Australia 2021, 75 min.

An impressive collection of river images coalesce with a mellow voice-over commentary by Willem Dafoe and music from the Australian Chamber Orchestra in this languorous companion piece to the director’s 2017 documentary Mountain.

We start in the recording studio where the chamber orchestra tune their instruments, and Dafoe looks for the right nuance of tone. Then we are literally thrown into the river, in this case a waterfall, where a canoeist struggles to stay afloat despite losing the paddles. A historical, philosophical and ecological journey ensues, the story of mankind and rivers, and how they shaped each other. The loosely formed narrative flows, oscillating between soothing and wild – just like its subject.

Feel yourself sinking into the languid images; Peedom and the five accredited DoPs filmed in 39 countries, and the result is the capture of natures’ glory, with a few ecological warnings thrown in: “It is always the poor who suffer most”, underlining images of a river polluted by plastic bottles and other industrial debris. “Rivers have shaped us as a species; they are the source of human dreams. Worshipped like Gods, humans dreamt of rivers, forces of live and death”. “But now, our Gods have become our subjects”, dams, and other irrigation measures show the changing relationship between men and rivers. Global networks of transport, connecting metropolis and their smaller brethren: “The world’s great cities all have a river at their heart”. There are mystical cloud plays, connecting the rivers to the firmament.

Rivers is a lesson in visual filmmaking, that eschews ‘Talking Heads’ telling its story visually, images are used as an argument, sometimes poetic, then again also “as wild as the river itself”. Humans rarely feature and only dominant in black-and-white archive material about the ‘taming’ of waterways. But the bursting of dams and other catastrophes show only too clearly that the power is reverting to nature. But still, “we share our fate with the rivers, we flow together”. Rivers very much follows the course Joris Ivens’ A Tale of the Wind.  Peedom is also neither reverential, nor does she agitate on behalf of environmentalists, but simply shows the beauty of ecology. The music composed by Willaim Barton, Piers Burbrook de Vere and Richard Tognetti is an integral part of the feature; editor Simon Njoo is able to harness the ebbing and flowing of the Rivers into a stream of images, into which the audience can lose itself: “Rivers change you, gradually and permanently”. AS

RIVER nationwide Q&A preview 16 March 2022 with Robert Macfarlane and Jennifer Peedom, on general release 18th March www.river.film

Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

Dir: Ahmir ‘Questlove” Thompson | US Doc, 118’

The 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival is the subject of this dynamite documentary from Ahmir ‘Questlove” Thompson ‘proudly’ showcasing that musical celebration of Black culture, fashion and history.

Back in the day – and we’re talking about the Sixties (and even the 1920s, 30, and ’40s) – everyone loved Black music, not because it was Black but because it was rhythmic, soulful and cool. But maybe that’s because I had a father who hummed, danced and played on the piano those heady tunes from Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw and more.

Soul followed on in the same effervescent way, the syncopated jazz of his era becoming the sinuous and sensual soul of my student days: music from Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight, Marvyn Gaye, Mahalia Jackson and the Supremes.

Thompson revisits this darkly glamorous era in a New York concert that coincided with the much higher profile of Woodstock just down the road. Now that was my brother’s territory: The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, The Doors and Joni Mitchell. The Harlem affair somehow got buried under the weight of Woodstock, but why, when the music was just as fabulous – I never thought about ‘Black’ music – just music I liked…and I would been there like a shot given the opportunity…years later.

In Harlem’s Mount Morris 300,000 – mostly Black- fans gathered to enjoy a series of free ‘gigs’ and Thompson has assembled a treasure trove of archive footage that tethers the era to the present with just a smattering of talk heads that enrich rather than diminish the musical experience. MT

OSCAR WINNER FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | BEST DOCUMENTARY EE BAFTAS 2022 | NOW IN CINEMAS

The Real Charlie Chaplin (2021)

Dir.: Peter Middleton, James Spinney; Documentary narrated by Pearl Mackie; UK 2021, 114 min.

Writers/directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney (Notes on Blindness) have tried with co-writer Oliver Kindeberg to explain the dualism between Chaplin’s professional and personal identity without the use of “talking heads”. A great idea but a flawed one – as it turns out – what we get instead is Pearl Mackie’s incoherent narration (Pearl Mackie) that takes the form of a “flow of consciousness” over-didactic commentary, without any inner artistic logic. The directors have also taken on more than they can chew. How do you do justice to an icon like Chaplin in under two hours? – his life deserves a mini-series. Middleton and Spinney do their best but the time factor makes mistakes unavoidable.

It begins in 1916, the first height of Chaplinmania. Across the US a hunt for the real Chaplin is on, whilst Chaplin-look-alike contests are very popular. The idol itself, Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London in 1889, his drunken father soon made a runner, and Charlie had to witness his mother succumb to mental illness. The room in Kennington was re-created later in The Kid. A female voice tells us that the woman – played by an actor in one of many re-enactments -, is Effie Wisdom, who in an interview in 1983 – she was 92 years old at the time – talks about the late 19th century, when she used to play with Chaplin in the alleys, the latter promising to never forget her.

Chaplin joined Fred Karno’s comedy troupe, who later toured the US. Chaplin was a man of the Vaudeville theatre and considered film work beneath his aspirations – until the producers trebled his salary. In a 1966 “Life Magazine” interview he explains the haphazard creation of the ‘Tramp’ personality in February 1914: discarded costume parts of his own, the boots of a college and Fatty Arbuckle’s pants. But behind the camera Chaplin left nothing to chance. In City Lights he drove everyone mad with a 534 days long chase for the perfect pivotal take. Extended clips from The Kid, Gold Rush and Modern Times lead to The Great Dictator, when Charlie finally talks. Chaplin’s sad 1952 expulsion from the USA, J Edgar Hoover and Hedda Hopper combining, is not given enough space, the documentary comes to life again in the Swiss exile, with interviews with the children Chaplin sired with Oona O’Neill, who was seventeen when she met the 52-year old – a rather common age gap for Chaplin’s relationships with women. Jane and Geraldine speak of the loneliness their mother must have suffered, because their father was cool and distant. “I imagine it would be lonely being the wife of Charlie Chaplin”.

All the so-called revelations about Chaplin’s personal life were known during his life time, leaving the re-enactments of his work as director/writer/composer/editor as the most enjoyable elements. Paul Ryan is Chaplin age 58, Jeff Rawle portraits the 77-year old maestro. DoP James Blann finds just the right aesthetic for the dramatisations, whilst composer Robert Honstein’s aggressive score underlines the directors’ gutsy approach for a “kaleidoscopic documentary collage”, which is another way of admitting to a lack of structure. Still, there is so much archive material, new and old, that everyone will find something to enjoy. AS

ON RELEASE IN UK and IRELAND FROM FRIDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2022

The Sanctity of Space (2021)

Dirs: Renan Ozturk, Freddie Wilkinson | US Doc, 101′

In this new documentary two climbers trace and film the steps of renowned photographer, cartographer, explorer and longtime director of the Boston Museum of Science, Bradford Washburn, who became obsessed with climbing after discovering its heath benefits.

Renan Ozturk and Freddie Wilkinson join fellow climber Zack Smith in this snowbound odyssey plotting their journey on a large photograph that Massachusetts-born Bradford had taken back in the 1930s. But Washburn’s dangerous historical quest with its impressive re-enactments rapidly take a back seat as Sanctity drifts into more personal territory for the three filmmakers who reflect on the fate of their climbing friends between 2007 and 2013. At this point the film becomes snowed under by two many voluble talking heads losing the thrust of the narrative as we zone out  overwhelmed by the magnificent mountains and the awe of nature. MT

IN CINEMAS SOON

 

Raphael Revealed (2020)

Dir: Phil Grabsky | Doc

Marking the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death, director Phil Grabsky was in Rome with his camera to document the greatest exhibition that has ever taken place of the Italian master’s work. Raphael Revealed celebrates the life of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino on the big screen allowing viewers all over the world access to several hundred masterpieces, including paintings and drawings – over a hundred of which have been brought together for the first time.

Director and cinematographer Phil Grabsky has made a name for himself recording a series of major art exhibitions and adding value with informative commentary from experts – in this case Nicholas Penny, Tom Henry and Dr Angelamaria Aceto, of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford – who bring the artists’ creativity to life for those unable to be there in person.

Raphael 1483-1520) is widely regarded as one of the three great masters of Renaissance Italy, along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Mixing in eclectic circles from Popes to paupers his work reflects the diversity of 15th century society, not just through paintings but also in his skilful draughtsmanship of building design and architecture. Raphael also wrote poetry in his brief life of just 37 years.

Grabsky takes us on a tour of the exhibition itself interweaving vibrant shots of the paintings with outdoor vistas picturing Raphael’s forays to Florence and Rome as well as his his daily life in Urbino. The exhibition unfolds in reverse chronological order, starting in Rome, where he dies at the age of 37 – with a life-size facsimile of his tomb “built with cutting edge technologies” (which will later rest in his hometown of Urbino) – and then tracing his story back to Florence and Umbria.

Raphael honed his craft by drawing in pencil, a skill that enabled him to understand the intricacies of the human form and learn about spacial perspectives. His father was the official painter and poet of the Duke Montefeltro, and Raphael took over this role when he was still only a teenager on his father’s death.

At the age of 25 Raphael was commissioned to decorate the rooms in the Vatican where he spent the rest of life perfecting his skills not only as a painter but also as architect to the serving Popes, a role that allowed him to develop his artistic expression in sculpture, tapestry design and drawing in ink, charcoal, metal point and chalk.

During his lifetime Raphael also crafted two self-portraits and these bookend the exhibition – one from the Louvre, known as Self-Portrait with his Fencing Master (1518) and the other portraying the maestro as a young man.

Raphael Revealed also includes significant paintings from the Uffizi, Pinacoteca di Bologna and the National Gallery of Washington along with sculptures, tapestries and other works. The highlight for many devotees of the Italian artist are the portraits of the two popes hung together for the first time: Julius II from the National Gallery in London and Leo X with the cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi from the Uffizi.

Along with Chopin, Mozart and the poet Shelley who also died in their thirties, Raphael’s incredible body of work puts him in the league of the world’s most revered creative geniuses. At his death he was still working on a graphic reconstruction of Ancient Rome  MT

IN CINEMAS FROM 12 OCTOBER 2021

Getting Away with Murder(s) (2021)

Dir.: David Wilkinson; Wri: David Wilkinson, Emlyn Price | Documentary with Philip Rubenstein, Benjamin B. Ferencz, Fritz Bauer, Donald M. Ferencz, Jens Rommel; UK 2021, 175 min.

Yorkshire born director David Wilkinson (Postcards from the 48%) has co-written and produced a unique, sober and frightening report on Holocaust murderers that have somehow avoided prosecution. How did it happen? How did the executioners of six million Jews get away it? Only one percent of the million or so perpetrators were actually brought to justice.

On his mission to uncover the truth Wilkinson has travelled the globe interviewing Nazi-hunters and survivors, horrifying clips from the camps underline an utter contempt for retribution that begs the question: what would the US government have done had the Nazis decimated the entire State of Maryland? And how would the British government have reacted had the entire population of Yorkshire lost their lives in the same way? Surely, the rate of successful prosecutions in both cases would have run into double-figures.

The (West) German government and the Allies played their part by turning a blind eye to the atrocities The victors all fell out, starting a Cold War which saw the USA, Great Britain and France freeing already convicted war criminals who would then see active service against the USSR.

From the late 1949 to the mid 1960s the West German government was led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who in 1934 had begged the Nazi Interior Minister Frick to have his state pension restored: “I have always treated the NSDAP properly, against ministerial instructions. I allowed the NSDA to meet in the city sports ground, moreover I allowed the Party to hoist up the Swastika”. His plea was successful. As Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Adenauer surrounded himself with a cabinet that included Hans Globke, author or the Nuremberg laws of 1938 for the Nazis. Theodor Oberländer was Minister for Refugees and had been a member of the SA, having participated in the Hitler putsch of 1923, and had been directly involved in the plans to exploit the occupied countries in Eastern Europe. In 1965, Adenauer was replaced by Ludwig Erhard who had the dubious honour of being a member of the Nazi “Arbeitskreis für Aussenwirtschaftsfragen (AAF)” along with Ludger Westrick, Karl Blessing and Hermann Josef Abs. All played a major role both in Nazi Germany and the FRG,

But the government of the time merely reflected the view of the German population: war criminals lived on at liberty, often without having to change their names. Some even returned from exile in  South America to bury their dead: Dr. Joseph Mengele, the “Angel of Death” was a prime example, having ‘selected’ Jews on the ramps of Auschwitz for his infamous experiments. Reunited with his family in Switzerland in 1956, he returned to his birthplace in Günzburg/Bavaria in 1959, for his father’s funeral. Everyone in the small town knew that he was present – apart from the police. Mengele died of a stroke swimming in Sao Paulo in 1979, aged sixty-seven.

German justice actually made it extremely difficult for Nazi war criminals to be prosecuted, as Benjamin B. Ferenc, Chief prosecutor of the 1948 trial against the members of the Einsatzgruppen explained: German law did not allow retrospective interpretations of any criminal action, which meant that since it was lawful to kill Jews, Communists, gays and Roma in Nazi Germany, one had to prove the accused acted “in a way beyond the legal (!) requirement” – for example showing more than average brutality or indulging in extra-curricular actions. It was a reasonable defence to clam the Jews were the enemies of Germany. In many trials in Germany and Austria, witnesses were asked for the exact time when the atrocities took place – as if any camp inmate had a watch. Defence lawyers hunted down the witnesses, and the population in many towns joined in.

Thus the trials became more a second punishment for the Jews and other victims, than for the perpetrators themselves. Even though, the names of Fritz Bauer and Jens Rommel, both having been in charge of the Central Agency for the Prosecution of Nazi Criminals in Ludwigsburg, should be mentioned – Bauer gave Mossad a tip-off about Eichmann’s whereabouts in Argentina, because Bauer believed his trial in Germany would not serve justice.

The number of major war criminals who got away it is long: Walter Rauff, who designed the specialised carriages where 100 000 victims met their deaths, fled to Chile, where he died in 1984 aged seventy-seven. Karl Jaeger, Nazi Colonel, carried out the murder of Lithuanian Jews, his diary showed that he killed over 100,000 men and women, of which 4273 were children. In the 1965 Sobibor trail in Germany, the main defendant Alfred Ittner was convicted of the murder of 68 000 Jews – his punishment was seven years in prison. Johanna Altvater, a mere secretary, killed Jewish babies by throwing them out of the window. She was never prosecuted and died aged at the ripe old age on 84, in 2003.

Dr Herta Oberweiler was responsible for the deaths of thousands of children who lost their lives as a result of her sepsis “research’. She was sentenced to twenty years prison, later reduced to five. After her release, she actually got her licence back, and it took years for her to struck off the register. Alois Brunner, Eichmann’s deputy, responsible for the murder of over 100,000 Jews, got the death penalty in absentia in France, but fled to Syria, where he advised the government on torture methods, dying in his late 90s. Herberts Cukurs, the “Butcher of Riga”, was not so lucky. He was responsible for killing 30 000 Latvian Jews. In a macabre incident, Cukurs asked an old Jewish man to rape a young Jewish woman, and then shot all Jews who looked away. He fled to Brazil, where he was killed by Mossad agents in 1965, aged sixty-four. But in 2014, a musical was produced in his home town, showing him as a hero.

The British government’s role in all this is rather shameful. Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden was asked by the Bulgarian government in the early 1940s, to allow over ten thousand Jews, threatened by the Germans, to emigrate to the British Protectorate of Palestine. Eden refused, and all Bulgarian Jews were murdered subsequently in Treblinka. Later, the UK Government clamed to be too broke, to contribute to the 1948 trial against members of the murderous Einsatzgruppen. Even though the trial went ahead, few of Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted. After the war, the UK became a safe heaven for Nazi war criminals; and Wilkinson visits places in Oldham and Selby, were many had hidden, a map showing that the perpetrators managed to settle throughout the UK. Philip Rubenstein, former director of the All Party Parliamentary War Crime Group was instrumental in changing the law to allow for Nazi prosecution in the UK. He reports, that since 1943 Civil Servants were actively employed in avoiding Nazi prosecution, claiming that it “smelled of laws made by the victors.” Needless to say, the Holocaust is not on the main curriculum in UK schools.

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER(S) is an epochal work, much more than a feature documentary, it is disturbing testament to widespread genocide and asks grave questions of our judicial system AS

Critically-acclaimed Holocaust documentary Getting Away with Murder(s) to be made available to view for free as a two-parter to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 

27 January 2023 | 9pm CHANNEL4

 

Marceline. A Woman. A Century. (2021)

Dir.: Cordelia Dvoràk; Documentary with Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Simone Veil, Judith Perignin, Jean-Pierre Sergent; France/Netherlands 2018, 76 min.

Cordelia Dvoràk’s biopic about the life of filmmaker and author Marceline Loridan-Ivens (1928- 2018) is an example of the triumph of opposition: Fourteen year-old Marceline Rozenberg was imprisoned in Bollène (Vaucluse) then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 13.4,1944, having worked with her father Szlama for the resistance. She did not only survive Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Terezin (Theresienstadt), but became a filmmaker, working with her husband Joris Ivens (1898-1989) in Vietnam and China.

Loridan-Ivens was one of only 2500 French Jews who survived deportation, just under three percent of the total of 76 000 victims. After watching Loridan-Ivens signing copies of her auto-biography ‘Et tu n’es pas Revenu’, she meets co-author Judith Perignon in her Parisian flat, a cheerful place with flowers everywhere. This sets the tone of an upbeat documentary: the old Marceline talking to her young self. “Hunger, beatings, thirst. People die, and you instantly forget them. No soul is left. I can see her clearly, that little girl that is still inside me to this day. She is fairly shy”. Marceline met Simone Veil in Block 9, and the once Minister of Culture makes a (too) short visit.

After her liberation by the Red Army in May 1945, she returned to Paris where her mother “wanted her daughter to marry into Jewish families, have children and erase the past”. But “sexuality was a form of disobedience”, and Marceline, who never wanted children on her own, preferred to visit the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris and sit in bistros to discuss the past and present. This is how she met documentary filmmakers Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, whose star she became in Cronique d’un Ete (Chronicle of a Summer) in 1961. It also led to a liaison with 18 year-old journalist Jean-Pierre Sergent, who was supposed to teach Marceline all about Philosophy so that she could prepare to study at the university. But the two became lovers and later filmmakers in their own right, having discovered that filmmaking was not that difficult. The duo was very much a supporter of the FNL, Marceline even carrying suitcases for the FNL. The result was the documentary Algeria Année Zero. Today, Loridan-Ivens is very critical of herself: “We thought the FLN was led by progressive militants, little did we know the majority had their roots in Islamic fundamentalism.”

She met Joris Ivens whilst watching his feature A Valparaiso. He was impressed by Marceline, sending her flowers, but then disappearing for months. When they met again, they stayed together until Ivens’ death. The couple lived like vagabonds, Ivens being “very macho” at the beginning, but Marceline “imposed her will on him.” The past suddenly becomes the present, when Mrs. Phuong arrives from Vietnam to invite Marceline for the 50th Anniversary screening of The 17. Parallel, the couple’s iconic Vietnam documentary, with Mrs. Phuong not only doing the translating, but was also offering technical support. Next for the filmmakers was China, then ostracised by the whole world, after their split with the Soviet-Union.

Joris and Marceline documented the last two years of the cultural Revolution in the 763-minute epic How Yu Kong moved the Mountains (1976), which was to be shown in twelve parts. With “The Band of Four” making a power-grab, Premier Zhou Enlai told the filmmakers to leave the country immediately. Jean Bigiaoui, who worked with the crew, gives a lively commentary on the (film)adventure. We watch clips from Franck Leplat’s 2015 documentary Marceline Loridan-Ivens racontant sou passage a la prison de Sainte-Anneavant (2015). Loridan-Ivens is, for once, very bitter on the commentary. She remembers singing for her father, whose cell was near to her own. But this sets her off into an angry monologue about “never forgiving” the perpetrators.

Marceline is the only Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor who returned to the camp and made her own feature film about her incarceration there: La Petite Prairie aux Bouleaux (The Birch Tree Meadow) 2003. Anouk Aimée plays Marceline’s Alter Ego, who meets a German photographer and questions him about his motives for taking photos in the ruins of the camp. Marceline was not quiet satisfied with her effort: “The concept of a documentary was not enough, because I wanted a representation. I should have played myself.”

Marceline Loridan-Ivens died on 18.9.2018, six weeks after this documentary was finished. She wanted to be buried, even though it frightened her. “But everything is better than being burned”. AS

NOW ON TRUE STORY at all leading platforms | From September 17

All Things Bakelite (2018)

Dir.: John E. Maher; Documentary about Leo Hendrik Baekeland, narrated by Adam Behr; USA 2018, 59 min.

Everything you needed to know about the origins of plastic is here in John E Maher’s watchable docu-drama that sheds a light Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944), the Belgian born inventor of Bakelite, which under its common name, Plastic, has dominated our lives since 1907.

Plastic is a dirty word nowadays, but it was hailed as a miracle back in the day when Baekeland first invented the substance. His biographer, Carl Kaufmann, and even a flamenco dancer sing his praises, Mark Ferreira, re-creating dramatised insight into the genius who was not keen on other people.

Born in Ghent, Baekeland married Celine Swarts, the daughter of his professor at the town’s university. But instead of following in the footsteps of his father-in-law, he emigrated with his wife to the USA in 1889. The couple would have three children, two of which survived their childhood. An inventor at heart, Baekeland struck gold first by coming up with a new photographic paper in 1893, the rights of which were bought up by the Eastman company making Baekeland independent and ready for the big step forward in 1907.

Bakelite was a mixture of phenol and formaldehyde, but Baekeland “hit a wall, like his competitors, but he found a door”. The original mixture was too sticky to be formatted, and it took Baekeland 680 attempts to find a solution for its adaption in all forms possible. Radio, telephone, cars – all mass-produced articles soon relied on the new invention. Others copied Baekeland, and only in 1923 did a judge gave him he sole right for the production of the new formulary.

Baekeland was in love with cars, he even got a speeding ticket for driving at 30 in a 20 mph zone. But behind the scenes, he was an anxious, lonely and nervous man, just the opposite his wife, a socialite who loved to give parties. Her husband felt safest on his yacht, where he spent hours on his own: “He was not a people person”.

But Bakelite would soon find its way into Hollywood: art-deco design dominated the features of Busby Berkeley, and, on the other end of the spectrum, the invention of the first Baby Monitor in 1937. In 1940 Bakelite was the foundation for the first Hawaiian guitar, which was played later on SNL. But crucially the film points to the inevitable downside: plastic is not bio-degradable and will be with us forever – even if, in the future new components make it more eco friendly.

That hydrogen bombs also have a use for Bakelite, is another irony and makes a quote by Kaufmann particularly poignant: “Plastic is the finest and worst expression of mankind”. Baekeland, who was nocturnal in his habits, often feeling like a ‘wandering ghost’, leaves us with pithy food for thought, a Professor of the History of Design at Pratt Institute exclaiming “the heart of Bakelite is the American soul”.

Short and to the point, Maher uses archive material to make his points, his re-staging of Baekeland life is not always successful, and his admiration for chemistry as a whole is obviously questionable. Still, we get to know the man who left us with a major long-term problem, by solving all our daily needs. AS

ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE

The Silent Enemy (1930)

Dir: H P Carver, Wri: W Douglas Burden | US Doc 84′

The makers of this dramatised documentary, following in the footsteps of Nanook of the North (1922) about the Ojibway Indians, returned after spending a year in Northern Ontario. They brought with them 25,000 feet of silent footage shot by the veteran Hollywood cameraman Marcel Le Picard. By the time the footage had been made into a feature, silent film had long since become a thing of the past.

Before Paramount could release it, The Silent Enemy had to be transformed into a part-talkie through the addition of a short opening speech to camera by Chief Yellow Robe – who had played Chetoga in the film – along with a synchronised organ score.

As usual the villain of the piece is the witch doctor, and as previous reviewers have commented some of the scenes must have been staged for the makers to have been able to have had their cameras in precisely the right place at the right time; and some of the wildlife is extremely roughly treated (including a couple of extremely cute bear cubs that the hero has just orphaned) in a way that would draw screams today from the American Humane Association, amongst others. The title by the way refers to hunger. @Richard Chatten

Wall of Shadows (2021)

Dir/Wri: Eliza Kubarska | Polish Doc 98′

As Buddhists, Sherpas are very respectful of spirituality of their mountain habitat as we discovered in Jennifer Preedom’s award-winning documentary Sherpa. Their habitat of the Himalayas has long been exploited by an increasing number of tourists who they depend on for their livelihood, offering expert knowledge of the unique mountain range in return. But recently things have got out of hand with tourists expecting an increasingly luxurious experience that has led to overcrowding of the region that often results in tailbacks and risk-taking.  

The focus here in Wall of Shadows, that took a prize at the Bergen International Film Festival in Norway, is once again the intrinsic spirituality of this visually stunning but highly treacherous part of the world, where the weather can change in minutes leaving climbers stranded and in danger.

The film takes place in Nepal’s Kumbhakarna Mountain, the 32nd highest in the World and an outlier to Kangchenjunga, the 3rd highest peak with some highly challenging weather conditions and steep ascents. This is home to a Sherpa family who agree, against their better judgement, to take some experienced climbers who push the guides to uncomfortable emotional limits in order to reach the top. The Sherpas continually voice their concerns, but equally realise they won’t get paid if they don’t complete their contract, forcing them between a rock and a hard place. Meanwhile the Sherpas are clearly uneasy but continue to pray to the mountain spirits.

Their clients are three leading alpinists, the outstanding Polish climber Marcin Tomaszewski and two-time winners of the climbing Oscar (Golden Ice Axe) Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergei Nilov from Russia, take part in the expedition on the eastern face of the mountain which, at 7,400 metres, is one of the most difficult challenges in alpinism today. This is the first time they’ve worked as a team and tensions start to emerge surrounding their different strengths and weaknesses.

DoPs Piotr Rosolowski (who also co-wrote the script) and Keith Partridge conjure up a real sense of awe in the majesty of the locations making this feel like a spiritual journey while at the same time a highly dangerous one. Barbara Toennieshen creates a sense of slowly building tension with her clever editing which never cuts corners in allowing the unique serenity of the place to beguile the audience. To this day, Kumbhakarna’s East Face (7710m) remains unconquered. MT

The film is the third collaboration between director Eliza Kubarska and producer Monika Braid and is a Polish-German-Swiss co-production. MT

IN CINEMAS in the UK and Ireland on Friday 22nd April 2022.

https://youtu.be/Sz5slumAjL0

 

The Queen of Versailles (2012) Prime Video

Dir: Lauren Greenfield | US Doc 103′ | With Jacqueline and Davie Siegel

An instructive companion to The Grapes of Wrath and the South Park episode ‘Asspen’, in which the hunter becomes the hunted as – after becoming a billionaire pressuring ‘moochers’ into living beyond their means by investing in his timeshire holiday homes – ‘timeshare king’ David Siegel gets a taste of his own medicine following the financial crash of September 2008.

In The Grapes of Wrath (the novel, not the film), the bank is fatalistically described as ‘The Monster’, which must continue to be fed profits or it will die. Hence the mass evictions of honest, hard-working tenant farmers like the Joads so ‘The Monster’ can devour their assets. In 2008, the bankers who encouraged Siegel in the first place to overstretch himself financially are, instead of going to jail, shored up with taxpayers’ money and show their appreciation in an orgy of foreclosures and asset-stripping of their own victims to sustain profitability as usual.

David’s amiable trophy wife Jackie compares the bank to vultures circling her husband’s business waiting for it to die the better for them to devour its corpse. The modest little home of Jackie’s old school friend faces foreclosure even after Jackie gives her $5,000 to cover a debt that had started out at just $1,700; while David’s bank is putting the screws on him to surrender his own assets to them at knockdown prices.

Jackie initially seems remarkably unspoiled by her immense wealth, and remains seemingly stoical as her husband’s fortunes unravel and she is reduced to travelling by commercial airliner and shopping at Wall-Mart. But the visible deflation of David is painful to watch as for the first time he has to worry about meeting his electricity bill. (It usually takes financial reversals for people to start conducting themselves in an environmentally responsible manner.)

The almost comical lack of irony with which Jackie described the Siegels as “ordinary people like us” lays bare the sheer incomprehension of the 1% of how the 99% live, the political ramifications of which in a plutocracy like the United States include the casual vindictiveness its political leaders (and their paymasters like the Siegels) routinely display and enshrine in legislation against those less fortunate than themselves. (While Jackie stressed her “need” for the additional living space Versailles would have provided, in Britain the same year that this film was released the government of Old Etonian David Cameron introduced a punitive “bedroom tax” in the Welfare Reform Act of 2012 whereby council house tenants with any room considered “spare” automatically had their housing benefit docked.)

We see the reality of ‘trickle-down’ economics in the impact upon the Siegel’s vast army of employees and dependents all the way down the food chain in the fate of their pet lizard, who amidst the confusion is allowed to die of thirst. @Richard Chatten

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

Some Kind of Heaven (2020) digital release

Dir: Lance Oppenheim | US Doc

A life of eternal holidays beckons in a Florida retirement complex in the opening scenes of Lance Oppenheim’s  thought-provoking first feature.

Days of sun-drenched relaxation by the pool or a round of golf before cocktails with other mature singles – 130,000 to be precise – all sounds ideal at first, but we all know the reality is quite different. And so does Lance Oppenheim who has made a series of shorts exploring the world of leisure and here digs deeper in his complex exposé of the Florida retirement community who on the surface appear to be thriving in their golden days of freedom.

A sunny place for shady people is how Somerset Maugham described the Cote d’Azur. And South Florida seems to be the US equivalent. A cheerful opening sees well-preserved residents frolicking in palm-fringed paradise. But gradually the clouds gather and the tone grows almost sinister as Oppenheim reveals the truth behind The Villages idyl. Party time gradually descends into a nauseating round of chipper chat-up lines as seedy gold-diggers and petty criminals bask ill-disguised in dapper sombreros, perma tans and Pierre Cardin sportswear, blonde brush-overs barely ruffled by the sultry breeze.

And it doesn’t come cheap. The Villages’ brochure boasts a 401K price tag for this idyllic existence. Most denizens have traded in their urban lifestyles for this semi-tropical resting place – so there’s going back to normality however jaded the guilded cage becomes.

Marriages forged for decades can finally take a turn for the worse, and it’s the women we sympathise with, rather than the men: Anne and Reggie have been married for 47 years, but now find themselves seeking counselling as Reggie turned to cocaine to make his newfound ‘bliss’ bearable. The judge calls him “the rudest person he has ever met” during his court hearing. You feel for Anne as she calmly hopes for the best, patiently talking Reggie through another day.

Barbara is another appealing character whose soulful expression speaks of tragedy back in Boston where she was widowed, and now works full-time in The Villages, hoping to find a soul mate. 81-year-old man-child Dennis is clearly not the answer. Currently living in an illegal camper van on the grounds he hopes to find a rich widow, a ‘nurse and purse’to see him through his final stretch. The Villages is simple a microcosm of real life but the sun shines nearly every day and the garrulous are never lonely.

Some Kind of Heaven is a stomach-sinking experience, a salutary warning that sunny climes and social clubs are not the answer to most people’s dreams. As Anne puts it, all we really want is someone to cherish and respect us, who listens to our thoughts, and cares.

Oppenheim never ridicules his protagonists despite the modern trend of belittling the elderly. There is beauty here in the souls and faces of these people and it shines through clearly, particularly with Barbara who gives a moving reflection of her childhood, or Anne whose gentle eyes belie her tortured tale. Dennis does eventually find a pleasant companion who inadvertently exposes him as two-faced and shallow without really knowing the truth behind his orange tan.

Some Kind of Heaven is quite simply an unforgettable documentary debut that speaks volumes about the final chapter in the human condition. It shows that even though the flesh is weaker, beauty still shines through in Anne’s sensual disco dancing or Barbara’s poetic take on her complex past. MT

ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS FROM 14 MAY 2021

The Last Shelter (2021) IDFA

 

Dir.: Ousmane Samassekou; Documentary; Mali/France/ Germany, 2021, 85 min.

Malian director Ousmane Samassekou has filmed random travellers from all over North Africa in a transit home in Gao, near the Sahara Desert. Most have come a long way, the nearest from the Malian capital of Bamako which is 496 km away – and some as far away as Burkina Faso. Their common goal is Algeria, a stepping stepping stone away from France and Italy where there are magic money trees and streets of gold. The reality is migrant camps and years of misery.

The Caritas –  House of Migrants caters for mostly young people whose aim is to cross the desert, however reluctantly, to their families in Bamako or more far-flung destinations. Many of the girls and women have spent time in captivity and have been raped. Yet they travel on regardless, risking it all. One 16-year old girl talks about the usual teenage pipe dreams of becoming a celebrity, an actress or a boxing champion. Far from this reverie is the reality of road blocks, where they often robbed on the money to pay the people smugglers taking them over the border. They’d have been much safer staying at home with their families.

Esther doesn’t want to share details of her relative, ashamed that she has not made it to France, even though her family has given her money to support them from Europe. So her dreams are largely built on wild ideas from unrealistic parents who are simply living in the cloud cuckoo land of social media, and she is caught in an invidious trap. Another young woman had ended up in captivity, and only thanks to a benevolent older woman, has been released – but she still wants to try again to get to Europe from this Sahara’s hostile terrain and treacherous sandstorms.

Mariko, an older man, begs staff not to send him to Bamako where they will give him injections which make him sleep all the time. Another young woman was sold by the man who was supposed to be looking after her. Endless stories from Sahara crossings are told: “You die without warning. No matter why, they shoot us like chickens.” The staff warns them over and over again: “Your dreams and illusions make you feel clever, but you will not reach your destinations, it is better to have a job at home, than to dream of abroad.”

Made on a shoestring budget, The Last Shelter could do with a re-edit. But the rawness of the material lends itself to some structural inadequacies, a more polished version would only mask the terror these migrants have been through – and, worse, want to risk all over again. Their lives are so far removed from the dream of the places they want to reach – they think that wearing the logo teeshirt of a millionaire footballer from Barcelona and Arsenal – will transport them on a magic carpet to that lifestyle. They as well might try and reach Mars. AS

|CPH:DOX | DOX:AWARD Winner – Main Competition
|DOK.fest Munich (5-13 May) | NOW SCREENING DURING IDFA 2021 | 17 – 28 November 2021

Pariah Dog (2020)

Dir.: Jesse Alk; Documentary with Kajal, Milly, Subrata, Pinku; Canada/US/India 2019, 77min.

This homage to the stray dogs of Kolkata is the first feature documentary from US Canadian director Jesse Alk. The decaying glory of the former capital of the Raj provides an evocative setting for his labour of love, and  possibly the saddest film of the year. Alk (whose father Howard, directed The Murder of Fred Hampton 1971) influenced by Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Paris Spleen’ a hymn to the street dogs of Paris, who inspired his poetry.

The Indian Pariah dog, aka South Asian Pye dog, has been forced out of its native habitat leaving nowhere left to go in the squalid backwaters of grandiose post-colonial decay: shoeless children play on a riverbank, a man urinates against a wall while a little girl disco dances, oblivious. Shot on the hazy waterways of the coastal delta or at night under velvety street lights where goats are herded through waterfronts and slums, Uber-Drivers dart like ghosts from another cosmos.

But Pariah Dog is more about the four souls who help strays survive. It’s a symbiotic relationship, the dogs are their raison d’etre and their extended family. Artist Pinku tools wooden sculptures by day and drives a taxi at night to pay the bills. A gentle, philosophical man he lives for his menagerie of dogs, a parrot, a rabbit and a monkey, all sharing a decrepit hovel not big enough to swing a cat. Meanwhile Subrata is possibly the first yodelling rickshaw driver. His efforts to raise money with his dog-themed songs are laudable and touching, but his pleas for animal welfare donations fall on deaf ears, so he resorts to street leftovers to feed his grateful pack of hounds. In 2013 he took part in a Bengali TV show, fading posters the proud testament to his moment of glory. Later in the film he transforms into a canine troubadour encouraging others to care for “humans, animals and plants”.

Two women make up the foursome: Milly and her helper Kajal come from different castes of Hindu society, often falling out over their rules of engagement. Millly is a highly educated disillusioned romantic whose husband left her in her decrepit family pile. Of Japanese-Russian descent, she pleads poverty: her land has been taken over by squatters but the authorities couldn’t care less. Kajal lives nearby in a hut the size of a kennel. Devoted to her strays, maimed by passing cars or unkind people, she cares for them until they die, burying them with a yellow garland, a sign of Hindu respect. A supreme love for life and the vulnerable has struck a chord with their feelings of dispossession, carrying these desperate women through ructions and reconciliations, their dignified street marches to raise awareness of animal welfare are to be admired.

For dog lovers, some of the footage is too difficult to watch. Alk conjures up enough poetry in his images without resorting to sentimentality, maintaining a dispassionate eye in this cruel metropolis of 15 million where only the fittest survive. In this ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ the spirit of Mother Theresa still survives.

AVAILABLE TO VIEW ON TRUESTORY

No Ordinary Man (2020)

Dir: Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt | US Doc

The story of jazz musician Billy Tipton (1914-89) is seen from the perspective of his sexuality rather than his musical talent in this new, experimental documentary from Canadian filmmakers Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt (who is trans). They see Tipton as a trans trailblazer, a jazzy gender bender. But his common-law wife Kitty Kelly claims never to have realised he was a woman. And it didn’t end there. Another three ‘wives’ under his belt and three adopted kids later, this trans legend still had everyone fooled almost everyone.  And who really cared when he played the piano so divinely and was always ready to improvise when another musician dropped out.

By way of background, Billy was born Dorothy Lucille Tipton in Oklahoma City on December 29, 1914 and was raised by an aunt in Alabama, but later adopted Spokane, Washington as his home. Tipton had shown a keen interest in jazz but was barred from joining the all-male school band at Southwest High School. But perseverance paid off and he eventually developed a serious musical career as a ‘male musician’ by concealing his female form and calling himself Billy Lee Tipton in the early 1930s. By 1940, Tipton was living as a man in private life as well in public.

But rather than sensationalising the reveal of his being transexual, the filmmakers’ focus here is laudably Tipton’s legacy as a ‘transmasculine’ icon, inspiring the lives of many. During his lifetime he was successfully all things to all people: Kelly claiming. “Billy Tipton was a man in every sense of the word,” – “he was the best husband anyone could have dreamed of” adding “He will always be a man. He will be nothing more than a man” to a stunned audience in one of Oprah Winfrey’s chat shows.

Enriched by archive material, newspaper clips and excerpts from Stanford professor Diane Middlebrook’s 1998 biog ‘Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton’, this is an intellectually bracing film informed by a welter of authoritative talking heads, most poignantly Tipton Jr.  Amongst them is also author and gender theorist Kate Bornstein who asserts “there was no such thing as a trans man back in the 1980s. But one can hardly blame Billy for embracing the idea that being a ‘man’, rather than a woman, would path the way to success in the music business (or any business) back then. Had he stayed cisgender we may never have enjoyed his brilliant contribution to the world of jazz. Tunes like “Please Don’t Be that Way”.

Susan Stryker, a filmmaker, author and professor of Gender and Woman’s Studies comments on the rampant transphobia of the 1980s, hardly surprising when even nowadays the whole idea of trans sexuality still has some people run, screaming for the hills. But no-one has any proof that Tipton, who began presenting as a man from the ago of 19, made any fuss about his conception of gender identity, one must assume he just got on and did it, joining the party with so many other artists of the era who freely indulged their queer sexuality while being married to ‘women or men’.

What makes this film so innovative is the filmmakers’ framing device that sees a group of talented trans-masculine actors auditioning for the main role in a putative Tipton documentary, taking their cues from the (offscreen) directors in order to perform Billy at pivotal moments during his career – such as his first meeting with Duke Ellington, and so on. This offers them a collaborative springboard to then voice their own experiences and impressions of trans-masculinity with reference to Tipton – a very popular device nowadays – but not if you’re just yearning for a straight up biopic of the legendary musician himself, which hasn’t been done before.

No Ordinary Man does fall into the trap of allowing judgement of the past to be made by today’s standards, with a double time line – twenty years after the Middlebrook biog, and another nearly ninety, since Billy first put on masculine garb. We are living in a hyper-sensitive age where there are so many differing viewpoints and so many platforms available to give these varying stances voice, it’s almost impossible not to offend. But in this instance the film provides pithy insight into the trans experience, widening the debate for those affected by the issues, and offering worthwhile insight into how trans stories are often framed from the cisgender viewpoint – all in a meaty 83 minutes. Poignant also to that Tipton junior is able to hear more about his famous forebear. Well made, engaging and powerful. MT

SCREENING DURING BFI FLARE 2021

 

 

 

Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation (2020)

Dir: Lisa Immordino Vreeland | Cast: David Frost, Dick Cavett, Voices of Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto; USA 2021, 96 min.

Apart from in chat shows few people have actually heard the real voices of Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams but Zachary Quinto and Jim Parsons sound realistic in this enjoyable documentary about the friendship between two of the most charismatic personalities in American 20th century culture.

Lisa Immordino Vreeland is a dab hand at as a documentary filmmaker having already showcased the lives of Peggy Guggenheim, Cecil Beaton and Diana Vreeland (her grandmother-in-law). And here she brings the forty-year long relationship between Capote (1924-1984) and Williams (1911-1983) into focus – whilst private secrets are spilled, Vreeland never falls into the trap of sensationalism, the overall structure is enlivened by TV interviews of both men by David Frost and Dick Cavett.

courtesy of Getty Images

Capote and Williams both grew up in the South and had troublesome and relationships with their overbearing fathers, turned to books early on as a way to escape, and had a life-long struggle with drugs and alcohol. They met when Capote was sixteen, and spent most of the years between 1940 and and 1960 enjoying Spain, Italy, France and Morocco with their respective partners: Williams with the actor Frank Merlo (1921-1963) and Capote with the author Jack Dunphy (1914-1992). Truman says, that their relationship was purely “an intellectual friendship”, which did not hinder either of them from making bitchy remarks about the opposite’s spouses.

Courtesy of the Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Capote’s first success came with ‘Other Voices, other Rooms’ in 1948, three years after Williams’ ‘The Glass Menagerie’, which was followed by ‘A Street named Desire’. It may come as a surprise that Williams, who confessed to being “just terribly, terribly over-sexed”, did not have his first (heterosexual) affair before 27, having taken up masturbation only a year earlier, before consummating his first gay affair aged 28 with Frank Merlo.

Truman was blunt about his sexuality stating that it would have been easier to have been a girl, but “I was homosexual and I had never any guilt about it what so ever. I was the only character who was beyond the pale. I didn’t care”.

Williams, assuming rightly, that he would be judged by the many feature films based on his plays, regretted that censorship ruined many endings, even to the point of negating what had gone on before. Capote felt let down by the producers of Breakfast at Tiffany’s claiming he had been promised Marilyn Monroe, his first choice, as Holly Golightly. But they “cheated”, and “cast Audrey Hepburn, who was not right for the part, because Holly was based on a real person, and she was very tough, unlike anything Hepburn was”.

The docu-feature film of Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, about two drifters who murdered a Kansas family, “scraped me right down, to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me. I had been a stable person. Afterwards, something happened to me”.

The 1970s and 80s saw both men in decline, Williams complaining he never had a positive review after 1961. “Everything went wrong, private and professional, and ultimately my mind broke”. They died within 18 months of each other. Getting together for the last time at a party a few weeks before William’s death, the latter asked Capote “Where will we meet again?”. To which Truman answered “in paradise”.

Overall Truman & Tennessee does feel like a very private affair, dominated by the revealing ‘conversations’ of these literally giants who lived and breathed through for their writing. DoP Shane Sigler integrates the still photos, feature film clips and the TV interviews into an aesthetically convincing form, with Vreeland showing enough empathy with her subjects, bringing their Icarus-like careers into perspective in this cinematic catnip for literary lovers. AS

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is available on Dogwoof on Demandand other platforms from 30 April.

Main image credit: At Sotheby’s 1978 Globe Photos/Media Punch/Shutterstock & Tennessee Williams courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tove (2020)

Dir: Zaida Bergroth | Finland, Drama | 100′

This drama about Moomins creator Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is as enchanting as her hippo-like cartoon characters that are celebrated by kids and adults all over the world.

Finnish filmmaker Zaida Bergroth brings the Finnish bisexual artist to life in this delicately sensuous and affecting biopic that showcases her unconventional loves as much as her talent as an author, artist and creator, played here by a captivating Alma Pöysti and scored by evocative soundtrack of tunes from the era from jazz to swing, Benny Goodman’s Sing Sing Sing being the musical motif throughout with Stefan Grapelli and Edith Piaf enlivening the Parisian sequences of the early 1950s.

Eeva Putro’s gracefully paced script focuses on the immediate aftermath to WWII in a discretely decadent Helsinki where Soviet bomb raids fail to spoil Tove’s fun at lively cocktail parties where champagne continues to flow during illustrious soirees. Home is a stylish bohemian milieu where Swedish is spoken. Tove is often put down by her renown but competitive sculptor father (Enckel), although her graphic artist mother (Kajsa Ernst) adores and encourages her creative potential.

Later at art school Tove is nudged by her father towards the more highbrow artistic expression of painting, but prefers illustrating and doodling cartoons for a subversive magazine, and this is where she will eventually make her name and earn a meagre living. All this creativity naturally spills over into amorous encounters. Soon Tove is involved with a married politician (Shanti Roney as Artos Wirtanen) and a wealthy female client Viveca Bandler (Kosonen) in dizzying sexual encounters, both leaving her troubled and unsatisfied as she seeks solace in her art. Bergroth keeps the tempo romantically-charged and touching rather than tortured or soul-searching. Artos eventually proposes but Paris beckons promising other opportunities on the horizon as well as a reunion with the past.

This is such a wonderful film about female creative and sensory expression made more so by its gentle, often handheld, camerawork in Helsinki and Paris – DoP Linda Wassberg often uses that atmospheric technique of fading out the scenes in slow-mo to an echoing soundtrack lending emotional depth and a dreamlike quality to the narrative leaving us contemplating what has gone before and appreciating the intensity of Tove’s artistic and emotional truth. MT

On release from 9 July 2021

The Lesson | Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2021 | 18-26 March 2021

Dir: Elena Horn | Germany, Doc 60′

It is often said that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. At the age of 14 every school child in Germany is taught about the atrocities that occurred under Nazi rule. Filmmaker Elena Horn returns to her hometown in rural Germany to follow four of these children as they first learn about the Holocaust.

Five years in the making (2014-19), the film touches upon important social and political issues including the resurgence of the far-right, xenophobia, the fractured, disparate collective memory of National Socialism, and the surprising lack of intimate knowledge of the younger generations on the subject.

Screening at this year’s HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL the documentary opens as the camera pans over the summer countryside where a girl from a village in West Germany (where not much has changed since 1932) recalls talking to a tall, dark athletic American after an evening out with college friends. He turns to her and says: “your grandparents killed my grandparents” this was her first meeting with a Jewish guy and she was 21.

Screening during this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, the documentary goes on to explore with archive footage and clips from the contemporary German classroom how despite the perceived exemplary educational system, new generations are growing indifferent to their nation’s dark past and unwilling to apply the lessons learned to the realities of today. Filmed against the backdrop of changing political scenery during five years of production, in Germany and across the world, the film subtly suggests the urgency and importance in tackling the uncomfortable modern reality of truths therein. MT

Elena Horn is a young German filmmaker who started her career as a media psychologist researching the framing effects in the news coverage of the Iraq War in the US, Britain, and Sweden. Today she is working as a story producer for ZDF, WDR, SKY and SPIEGEL TV Wissen. Elena’s films focus on questions around education, migration, working culture, love, and ethnic conflict, employing visual inspirations from the world of music and dance. As a director, Elena is a fellow of the Logan Non-Fiction Program in New York. Her short documentary Pizza, Democracy and the Little Prince, co-directed with Alessandro Leonardi, earned the “Best Short Documentary Award 2019” at the Sedona Film Festival. Currently Elena is working as a director for ARTE, a French-German culture channel.

SCREENING DURING HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL 2021

ALL FILMS AVAILABLE TO SCREEN 

 

MLK/FBI (2020)

Dir.: Sam Pollard; Documentary with Clarence Jones, Charles Know, James Comey, Donna March , Beverly Gage, Andrew Young; USA 2020, 104 min.

Seasoned documentarian Sam Pollard takes a deep dive into the FBI’s surveillance on Dr Martin Luther King (1929-68) in this searing study  proving that systemic racism is still alive and kicking in the USA today.

Enriched by newly released material, Pollard’s findings are inspired by David Garrow’s book ‘The FBI and Martin Luther King’ and cleverly put together by editor Laura Tomaselli and Benjamin Hedin.

There’s still more to this story because the actual wire tapes of the FBI surveillance of MLK won’t be be released until 2027 – but what emerges is a fervent obsession with the subject on the part of the FBI’s director Edgar J. Hoover (who headed the agency from 1924 until his death in 1972). It tells how the cross-dressing Hoover invested at least as much energy in the Civil Rights leader’s political activities as in his sexual conquests.

Hoover directed William Sullivan (for ten years the chief of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Operations) to wire tap King, not only at home, but during his hotel stays on the campaign trail throughout America. Hoover wanted to probe MLK’s extra-marital affairs to discredit his leadership and his campaign. He and his G-men used the white man’s prejudice with Black male sexuality, to denigrate ‘Black Men’ as animalistic beasts, endangering the sexual purity of white women and the racial integrity of the white race as a whole. This racist pathology, as shown in Griffith’ Birth of a Nation, is still alive today, with White Supremacists storming the Capitol on 6th of January. Back in the 1960s, all polls showed the popularity of Hoover’s agenda: the majority of the nation wanted him to defeat King and his movement.

Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, made him a household name, Hoover and MLK met only once, in November 1964, but sides reported the meeting as amicable, although many supporters on both sides, had a different opinion. Even though MLK was instrumental in the 1956 Montgomery (Alabama) Bus Strike, the FBI did not pay special attention to him back then. MLK only emerged as a one to watch, at least for the FBI, in 1963, when he led the March to Washington and the events of that same year in Birmingham (Alabama)  when Governor Wallace, a supporter of KKK, provoked an uproar.

It was unfortunate that one of MLK’s closest advisers, the NY lawyer Stanley Levison, who had faced HUAC trials and was supposed to help communist front organisations, gave Hoover the excuse to build King up into a “Black Messiah” figure, who wanted to destroy the USA with the help of the Communists. Footage of McCarthy-era Hollywood films Walk a Crooked Mile (1948) and I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951) show a real paranoia since the CPUS hardly played any real role in the political arena.

But Hoover and the FBI declared, that Black men and women were particularly suggestible to Communist propaganda. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, the Attorney General, authorised the FBI wiretapping King and his inner circle. This led to the discovery of King’s extra-marital affairs.

In 1964, President LB Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and MLK was awarded the Nobel Price for Peace, meanwhile Hoover sent ‘salacious’ material to King’s wife Coretta Scott King suggesting her husband consider suicide before Hoover made the material public – including a sort of ‘hit list’ of his sexual conquests.

The FBI’s actions did not stop with wire-tapping: they had two very influential sources in the MLK campaign who reported back daily on his moves. One was Ernest C. Withers, the “un-official” photographer of the Civil Rights movement, who worked for the FBI for 18 years. Then there was James D. Harrison, who gave the FBI all details of MLK’s personal and political assignations.

In 1965 protests against the Vietnam War become more numerous in the US and President Johnson is quoted as saying “we can’t be defenceless”, while accelerating the USA involvement in the war. King meanwhile was engaged in Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC), which led to the “Poor People’s Campaign” and the March to Washington in March 1968.

King was very much against the Vietnam War, but he was also aware of a need to support President Johnson. He broke his silence after 18 months of deliberations, stating “silence is traitorous”. At the same time, in March 1968, Sullivan began preparations for “Rape Allegations”, which were supposed to be made public.

On 4th of April 1968 MLK was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. The perpetrator James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder, even though many questioned how Ray could have acted alone, with the area swarming with FBI agents.

MLK/FBI leaves a bitter taste particularly in the light of the current political situation in the US after the storming of the Capitol. White Supremacis violence threatens the existence of a democratic USA. With the Republican Party hell-bent on destroying the very Constitution, their former President Trump was supposed to be guarding just please supremacist supporters happy, the nation has clearly reached a point when, 43 years after Martin Luther King’s murder, racism is threatening the country in an even more existential way. AS

DOGWOOF RELEASES THIS BAFTA-LONGLISTED DOC TO DVD and BLURAY on 22 FEBRUARY 2021

The Dissident (2020) Bfi player

Dir: Bryan Fogel | Wri: Mark Monroe, Bryan Fogel | US Doc, 119′

Academy Award winner Bryan Fogel’s latest doc dives into the ghastly murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

It offers a comprehensive and sobering an account of the execution as one could possibly imagine. Fogel won an Oscar for Icarus (2017), a look into the Russian sports doping scandal, and has now assembled this immersive investigation in an impressively short amount of time; Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, but one feels no stone was left unturned in researching and conveying the story in grim horror. As the crime famously implicates the Saudi ruling family at the highest levels, there will be a keen interest in this riveting work across the globe.

Anyone who follows world events knows that Khashoggi, a member of the Saudi royal family who had moved to the United States and wrote for The Washington Post, went into the consulate early in the afternoon on the date in question to obtain a marriage licence. But he never came out. The Saudis denied, delayed and dissembled as long as they possibly could, but finally had to admit that Khashoggi had died on the premises. This resulted in great embarrassment for the royal family and diplomatic distancing by many countries, at least for a while. Eventually 11 men were tried in Saudi Arabia, with three acquitted, three others sentenced to prison terms and five given the death penalty.

Fogel’s investigation is vigorous, thorough  and comprehensive. It centres first on one of Khashoggi’s closest friends, fellow dissident Omar Abdulaziz, who lives in Montreal in a state of near paralysing fear of being tracked down by Saudi agents. We then meet Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, who waited outside the consulate all afternoon for him to come out. Both of these intimates stand as living testament to their friend’s resolve, the wages of exile and the high anxiety all too plausibly connected with any opposition to the all-powerful ruling authorities.

The Dissident is cut and scored like a dramatic Hollywood thriller, making impressive use of suspense-engendering editing techniques, mystery-building music and other devices to tease out all aspects of the drama, with the entirely reasonable objective of drawing in viewers who might otherwise not readily watch a political documentary. There is absolutely nothing lost with this technique, especially as the film tends to its essential business of revealing the nature of the Saudi regime and its refusal to countenance any dissent.

In a shrewd and discreet way, the film casts a bigger and stronger net as it progresses. References to other comparable events in the Arab world, such as those in Egypt some years before, are useful, as are comments about liberation movements in other countries. It charts the sacrifices made in becoming an outsider in middle life after having so long been an insider in an insular country. And there are extraordinary random sights, such as the crown prince’s commercial-sized private plane being accompanied by six fighter jets flying alongside when he travels.

Building his case as shrewdly as a skilled lawyer, Fogel finally, and shockingly, offers conclusive evidence that Khashoggi was treated like “a sacrificed animal,” cut up with a bone saw after apparently having been suffocated. The deep penetration of the Saudis’ surveillance and, especially, their hacking of private phones and computers, is brought to startling light; it even compromised Jeff Bezos. Especially impressive are the statements by United Nations special rapporteur Agnes Callamard in which she accused the Saudi government of “premeditated extrajudicial killing by high-level authorized agents.”

This is a documentary both tragic and poignant, not to mention maddening – in that only a few acolytes, rather than the perpetrators themselves – will pay for the crime committed in Istanbul. The evidence is all here for the world to see. AS

NOW ON BFI PLAYER | AMAZON PRIME | premiered at Glasow Film Festival 

 

The Capote Tapes (2020) VoD

Dir: Ebs Burnough | With Dick Cavett, Kate Harrington, Lewis Lapham, Andre Leon Talley, Jay McInerney, Sally Quinn, Dotson Radar, John Richardson, Sadie Stein, Colm Toibin| US, Doc, 91′

“A society that is the sum of its vanity and greed is not a society at all: it’s a state of war” (Mark Twain), and this is the society of Truman – Lewis Lapham

Cinematic catnip for all voyeurs, this new documentary about Truman Capote plays out like a thrilling cocktail party.

A first film Ebs Burnough – who once served as social secretary to Michelle Obama – the broad-brush biopic chronicles Capote’s life and times with his novels forming the background to a glittering social scene that was his lifeblood, and in the end his downfall.

Burnough focuses on interviews conducted by George Plimpton, the most intimate and revealing coming from his ‘protege’ Kate Harrington (the daughter of his “manager” – and lover, as she later discovered), who later moved in with the Manhattan-based author describing him as “calm and nurturing”. He taught her the requisite social graces for operating in New York Society (“you can be a big deal in Boise, Idaho, but the only place that matters is New York”).

Harrington (a costumer designer on The Thomas Crown Affair) describes how the author rose early to write for three hours before embarking on gossip-fuelled rendezvous. There are pithy commentaries from literary luminaries Jay McInerney, Lewis Lapham and Dotson Radar and the late John Richardson (Picasso’s biographer), along with chat show host Dick Cavett (all looking smooth-faced and soigné) who wittily chart Truman’s progress from society darling and ‘court jester’ to social pariah whose writing eventually suffered from his inadvisable over-sharing of gossip, and substance abuse.

Many claim that his obsession with convicted killer Perry (In Cold Blood) was the source of his downfall, but Burnough persuades us that the grandes dames of NY eventually put the boot in to the diminutive blond writer with an extraordinary vocal delivery. In fact, Harrington describes his speech as so bizarre on first meeting him (as a teenager) that she was forced to run from the room for fear of laughing in his face. And the self-deprecating Truman was fully aware that he came across as “a freak”, proclaiming that people only laughed in his company out of sheer horror at his strange voice. It soon emerges that Truman thought little of the socialites in his midst, and harboured resentment over they way he was apparently treated as a “servant” (according to Lapham). These rumours partly led to the suicide of his mother Nina Faulk Capote (1905-54), despite the fact she herself had tried to terminate her prenancy (ref: Capote: A Biography/Gerald Clarke) eventually bringing him up in Monroeville, Alabama where Truman grew close to his childhood friend Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird).

But on a lighter note, this fizzing cocktail of a film is not meant to be the definitive Capote biopic but serves as an endlessly amusing tonic in these days of the ‘doom documentary’, adding frothy context to Truman’s literary works capturing the zeitgeist of the era in which they were penned.

The Capote Tapes is further enlivened by archive clips featuring Norman Mailer and Truman’s ‘best friend’ the socialite Barbara”Babe” Cushing Paley (whose husband William founded CBS Records) and there are quotes from his various novels, ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ (1948); ‘Breakfast in Tiffany’s’ (1958); his ‘non-fiction’ effort ‘In Cold Blood’ (1965) which gets the lion’s share of Burnough’s attention on the book front, which was considered pivotal to Truman’s emotional unravelling, along with the repercussions of published excerpts from the author’s unfinished work ‘Answered Prayers’ (published posthumously in 1987 in the US) which was substantially delayed by the infamous Black and White Ball of 1966 – more later – and also purportedly led to his downfall.

The film them flips back to detail the Truman’s assignment with the New Yorker hat would take him away from the rigours of keeping up with the ‘NY Joneses’ to spend six months in Kansas covering the murder case that would form the basis for his ‘non-fiction’ classic ‘In Cold Blood’. On the downside, it also led to his fascination with Perry making it difficult to maintain distance from his source material (an aspect that really jumps out in Douglas McGrath’s 2006 screen adaptation of the novel Infamous .

Burnough culminates his expose by fleshing out the events surrounding the divisive 1966 ball that Truman threw at the Plaza Hotel, publishing a list of those invited in the papers (so that no-one could pretend to have been invited that wasn’t). The gossip columns shared salacious secrets the socialites has shared with Truman  – Babe Paley never spoke to him again, much to his chagrin. So the exclusive party that was in part intended to provide source material for a book backfired on its precipitating the end of his writing career, . Jay McInerney comments, quite harshly, that from then on Truman became more a ‘talk-show celebrity’ than a committed author, and was assigned to a life of ‘drugs and disco hopping’ rather than consorting with New York’s beau mode. A rather poignant film but certainly one of the most fascinating you’ll see this year. MT

The Capote Tapes will be available at www.altitude.film and on all digital platforms across the UK and Ireland from 29 January.

Assassins (2020) VOD

Dir: Ryan White | US Doc 104’

In an extraordinary story of deceit and subterfuge Assassins travels from Pyongyang to Indonesia, Vietnam and Kuala Lumpur to investigate what really happened to Kim Jong-nam, the older half brother of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un who lost his life nearly fours years ago.

This story of a public murder, filmed in the grainy footage of CCTV at Kuala Lumpur International airport on 13.2.2017 is as bizarre as it is mysterious. American director/writer Ryan White (Ask Dr Ruth) has chronicled the murder case and the ensuing trial, the upshot is no   cause celebre but a very human story, involved a calculating dictator and two ordinary women.

Photos show a middle-aged man in the airport hall, suddenly being attacked by two young women seemingly rubbing some substance into his eyes before running off, openly looking at the CCTV monitors. The man stumbles on and is taken away by airport security, the two women taking separate taxis back to the city. The victim was Kim Jong-nam. He would die twenty minutes after having been smeared with the deadly nerve gas agent VX. The two women are identified as Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong (28) and Indonesian Siti Aisyah (25), who would soon be arrested for the murder, facing a trial and a certain death sentence by hanging, if found guilty.

Kim Jong-nam (*1971), the oldest son of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, was seen as his eventual successor. But after a scandal regarding his visit to Disneyland Tokyo in 2001, his brother Jong-un took over the regime after the death of his father. Kim Jong-nam, who had renounced any participation in the government of his country, had survived at least two assassination attempts, one at Ferihegy airport in Budapest in 2009, another one in 2012.

Both women “assassins” came from a rural background, where the director visited their distraught parents. Doan had moved to the capital Hanoi, went to college and moved in search of fame to Kuala Lumpur, wanting to become an actress. Siti’s CV is much more dramatic: she had worked in a clothing factory in Jakarta, married the boss and had a daughter at age seventeen, which she lost to her husband after a divorce custody battle. She became a sex worker, still dreaming of fame. Both met a chauffeur called John who promised the women easy work: Video pranks, reminiscent of the “Jackass” trilogy. The payment of nearly 100 US Dollar was good, and preferable to sex work. What happened next is recounted by journalists Hadi Azmir (Bloomberg), and Anna Fifeld, chief of the ‘Washington Post’ in their Bejing office. The operation was masterminded by Mr Y, also known as Hanamori, and a chemist Ri Jong Chol, as well as the Godfather OJong-Gil, all members of the North Koran Secret Service. An airport employee Kim Uk Il was also part of the deadly plot, all operatives got away to North Korea, leaving the two women to fight for themselves.

Their mobiles did not contain any links to North Korea, just rather sad accounts of video pranks which were anything but professional. But the Malaysian government was only too happy to have found two scapegoats who fitted the bill. The trail began on 2.10.2017. The court judge was clearly biased, and Siti and Doan feared for their lives, but what happens next is hardly outlandish but certainly emotionally overwhelming.

DoP John Benam’s camera adds to the tension fly-on-wall camerawork, the ‘Talking-Heads’ often reduced by voice-overs. Although the outcome is positive it could have been quite the opposite. What is shocking is the audacity of the North Korean agents who blithely set people up for the death penalty, with scant regard for their human rights. “They treated us as if we were nothing” comments Siti, in a fitting last word. AS

VOD NOW AT WATCH.DOGWOOF.COM

 

City Hall (2020) ****

Dir.: Fred Wiseman; Documentary; USA 2020, 272 min.

Fred Wiseman, who turned ninety this year, proves he is still a force to be reckoned with directing, writing and editing his latest – 45th – feature documentary that sees him back in his birthplace of Boston, where he started his career with Titicut Follies in 1967, a Mental Hospital for the Criminal Insane, just outside the city limits.

City Hall explores another Boston institution whose mayor Marty Walsh is the first major protagonist in any Wiseman feature. Walsh is very much an antipodean of the current 45th president of the USA, whose supporters Wiseman had portrayed recently in Monrovia, Indiana. City Hall is in the same vein as Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, another functioning body of civic administration. City Hall is not as dramatic as Near Death (about Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital), it is optimistic in tone, unlike many  Law and Order (1969) or Welfare (1975) which were openly derisive: Wiseman clearly believes in the power of these institutions (unlike the current president), but he is unclear as to how this power is wielded and who benefits in the end.

In City Hall, he shows both sides of the coin in micocosm: there is the story of two Bostonians arriving at the Town Hall to complain about their parking tickets, expecting to be sent packing – but pleasantly surprised when their complaints are upheld. But there’s also the other side of the coin: at a forum where local government members discuss racial bias relating to the allocation of contracts among Boston businesses, a minority business man is appalled at the decision, and a study is needed to confirm this.

There is humour and passion – much more so than in Wiseman recent outings: a joyful registry office wedding ceremony between two women is really moving, Wiseman overcoming his cynicism of his early fare, and demonstrating that ordinary people can make a difference. On a funny note, when Walsh gives a speech at the Greater Boston Food Bank about general levels of insecurity, the Boston ‘Red Sox’ mascot Wally (the team had just won the Baseball World Series of 2018) sneaks up behind the mayor, presenting his green Monster identity, a rather overfed Wally.

Not that this newfound optimism is universal: In a long, nearly twenty-minute sequence, the proprietors of a planned Marijuana Dispensary in Dorchester, one of the poorest parts of the city, are confronted by residents who show open mistrust at the developers’ promises. Obviously, this business would attract unsavoury elements of society, and since one of the main shopping centres is nearby, the elderly and vulnerable are deeply concerned and unconvinced by the Dispensary representatives’ promises of new jobs – marijuana growing is one opening.

There is one wonderful shot of a trash compactor crushing everything from matrasses to a gas barbecue installation. One can imagine Wiseman looking at this scene with the wonderment of a little boy. On the other hand, a building inspector takes a tour of a condominium under construction in a neighbourhood on its way to gentrification. Looking out of the window, and admiring the panorama of the impressive waterfront, he admits that the wonderful view will soon be obscured by the construction of other condos.

As always, Wiseman excels in the editing room, so John Davey’s images are in just the right places to tell his story. When not being entertained by the city hall goings on, we can contemplate the magnificent panoramas of a city which blends the traditional brown-stone with glass and steel, cutting edge design with poverty row, in the vast melting pot that is Boston. City Hall symbolises all the the social contradictions in Maryland’s capital which are slowly healed by the mayor and his team. AS

IN CONSIDERATION | BEST DOCUMENTARY at the GOTHAM AWARDS January 2021 | Venice Film Festival 2020

 

Dick Johnson is Dead (2020) **

Dir.: Kirsten Johnson; Documentary with Richard Johnson, Kirsten Johnson; USA 2020, 89 min.

US documentary filmmaker and FEMIS graduate Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson) has directed – as well as co-written and co-produced – an usual escapist style movie that imagines the death of her father Richard Johnson MD, a psychiatrist born in 1932.

Upbeat and innovative it may be as a piece of entertainment, but as a documentary the film’s title is misleading – Mr. Johnson is still alive and kicking, albeit suffering advanced dementia – which sees the interests of filmmaker Kirsten Johnson and the dutiful daughter probably collide. However stunning the outcome, questions should be asked.

There is much to admire in this father/daughter ‘co-production’, the family history is fraught with sadness and poignancy, Kirsten’s mother suffered dementia and died in a care home, a move she resisted vehemently. As a devotee of several memory theories, this illness seems all the more tragic. Kirsten shows us a short video and has to confess that “After thirty years of being a filmmaker, this is all I have left of my mother”. Kirsten’s grandmother was killed on the day of her daughter’s graduation, sitting next to her on the passenger seat of her car. Kirsten muses about the impact this accident had on her own mother’s life.

Growing up in California Kristen would spend every Saturday of in church, her parents were passionate Seventh Day Adventists – the religion forbade, among other things, cinema visits. But when her father took her to Young Frankenstein (1974), she was hooked for good.

Taking her father plus crew on the road, they visit Loma Linda, California, where Dr. Johnson meets up with his college sweetheart, (another Adventist). Both discuss the subject of death, and feeling comforted by their belief in the resurrection. Which leads us to another major part of the feature: Heaven, realised in a colourful sequence where the”deceased” psychiatrist gets to have his cake and eat it, quite literally, as Jesus washes his feet.

A move to New York is inevitable as Dicks’ condition deteriorates, and most of us with empathise with his regret over selling the memory-filled family home. But he is philosophical and accepts his new life in the spare room of Kirsten’s flat, her husbands, and two children live nearby.

Once in the city, Kirsten (and her stuntmen) try their very best to enact Dick’s spectacular deaths – being hit by a metal fan unit falling from great height is one, falling down a steep wooden staircase and cracking his head open (with ample blood-spill) is another, but the scenario involving a knife and copious blood is possibly the most shocking, Dick freely admitting the pain was worse than his heart-attack thirty years previously.

These scenes might be impressive in their own way – and we learn a lot about how stunts work – but they do disturb Richard, and undoubtedly those affected (for me it brought back memories of finding my blood-soaked mother lying dead on a wooden floor, her scull fractured in twenty places). Let’s just remember that Dick is suffering from the disorientating effects of dementia and all the impairments involved.

We then watch an ambulance pull up and witness Dick’s cardiac arrest – or so we are led to believe. At a ‘funeral’ and 86th birthday celebration friends and patients pay their respects with tearful speeches in a packed church. One woman recalls her final meeting with the Doc, when he ‘forgot’ the recent death of her own husband (“The loss of memory is a great loss”). A close friend blows a Jewish ram’s horn in a pitiful goodbye, before he breaks down sobbing, unable to continue. Meanwhile Dick is alive and well and gleefully watching proceedings from a ‘peephole’ in the Vestry.

All this raises serious issues, Apart from these gruesome ‘serial’ deaths poor Dick is subject to during the shoot, there is the ethical question of how much the filmmaker must manipulate reality in order to pull off the ‘comedy’. As her father Dick is was certainly anxious to please her, and is totally under her power, desperate to avoid the same fate as his wife.

But you can’t help feeling Dick has been hoodwinked in some way, and that Kirsten has played with the audience’s emotions, making a mockery of the term documentary – which even at its best is hardly an objective art. Despite all these concerns, Dick Johnson is Dead is not a morose movie with its tour-de-force of compelling images but one that raises some serious issues, particularly regarding filmmaker responsibility. This is a slick and glibly amusing film but one that pokes fun at life-limiting illness. Rather like the blindfolded man whose disorientation raises a titter amongst his amused bystanders, Johnson’s film is a frivolous piece of escapism, but if we laugh, do we laugh in shame?. AS

DICK JOHNSON won the Special Jury Award for Innovative Non-fiction Storytelling at SUNDANCE 2020 

 

 

 

Muranow (2020) **** Jerusalem Film Festival 2020

Dir.: Chen Shelach; Documentary; Israel 2020, 70 min.

This haunting documentary debut from Isreal’s Chen Shelach, explores the traumatic past and present of Warsaw’s Muranow, once home to 200,000 Polish Jews before their lives were destroyed in the ghetto, the largest in the nation state that was ‘Greater Germany’. The vast majority were deported to Treblinka death camp where they were murdered in broad daylight.

But Muranow also tells another tale: of the Jewish uprising that took the ghetto by storm – and of those who live there today, still  traumatised by the ghosts and demons of their past – but who still deny their fellow citizens collaboration with the Germans.

And the ghosts and demons are still very much alive, according to one flat dweller whose refurbished property adjoins the Muranow cemetery. She claims no one will drink her tap water because the ground below the pipes still contains traces of Jews who lost their lives in the tragic years between 1938-1945.

Only two of buildings have survived the war and Muranow’s subsequent urban regeneration: One houses the Warsaw University’s Psychology department which once was the SS HQ. The other is St. Anne’s Church, where the SS hid paintings and other valuables looted from Jewish homes. Researcher Mattan Steffi contrasts old archive films and photos with today’s modern version of Muranow. The current Polish inhabitants of the quarter are well aware of this gruesome and guilt-ridden past. When interviewed they hide behind lame excuses – even though one of them moved out to Gdansk for two years on account of the ‘ghost’ in his flat – whom he Christened Rachella. Another woman bought a Menora, to fight off the ghosts “from a lost civilisation”. The existence of the ghetto is a taboo subject in schools.

The modern worlds collides too: A Lebanese baker tells about his family’s flight from the Middle-East war zone to Warsaw – and is shocked to learn that he’s actually living on the Nazi genocide victims’ bones.

Then there are the young Zionists from Israel, who visit the bunker where the Jewish Uprising’s victims committed suicide. They are proud of their slaughtered ancestors “you died with pride, so we can fight with pride for Israel”. A commentator is rather forgiving of this failed analogy: “Young people always need a story with a Happy-End.” The Polish authorities work hard to create an image, picturing Jews and Poles as victims of the Nazis alongside each other.

There are demonstrations in Muranow, but these only show how the Holocaust has been hijacked for a new Polish Nationalism: “Poland for Poles only” sing these neo-fascist on Muranow’s highway and byways. Meanwhile bookshops stock titles such as “Zombie Jews Living in the Underground”. Muranow’s new residents are often “sad about what happened to the Jews, but not so sad as to move away” – many still benefit from this Jewish legacy, and live in fear of the Jewish returning to reclaim their land and property.

One collective tries to recreate the Muranow old town with the help of 3D films, creating parallel versions of the old and the new. One writer is making a film about this Ghetto between 1940 and 1945 using a German 16 mm camera dating back to 1935. Mattan Steffi ‘feels’ the bodies under the pavement. The director and writer claim the guy ” is crazy in the head” – but are proud of his obsession with the past nonetheless.

With DoP and producer Micha Livne delivering stunning images of the old and the new, this is a perfect passion project. The saddest point is perhaps the Poles collective denial of what happened. It seems they’ve learnt nothing from history. People never learn. The ghosts and demons are possibly their own projections of a guilty conscience. No one can escape their history – no matter how hard they try.  AS

JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL 2020

 

Radiograph of a Family (2020)

Dir/Wri: Firouzeh Khosrovani | Doc, Iran, Norway, Switzerland 82′

Firouzeh Khosrovani’s prize-winning documentary chronicles her early life against the background of Iran’s revolutionary recent history.

Delicate and deeply moving – sorrowful even – Khosrovani’s fourth feature is a tragic love letter to a childhood and early adulthood blighted by the growing distance between her parents largely due to the revolution and her mother’s religious fundamentalism.

With its resonant cultural and political touchstones, Radiograph is an compelling and elegantly assembled collage of memories and photographs, narrated by actors and describing the simple joy of her parent’s early days together in Geneva: her father Hossein was training to be a doctor in Switzerland, inviting her mother Tayi to join him there in the early 1960s.

Recorded on Super 8 footage, ten years before the filmmaker’s birth, it tells of a couple who fell in love but whose aspirations turned to dust as the silent shadow of revolution gradually spread into every aspect of their life together, eventually threatening the stability of the family. What stands out is deep sadness and regret, rather than anger or bitterness, and we feel for Firouzeh and her broken dreams.

Switzerland is home to many Iranians and Hosseini had chosen to study medicine in the thriving cosmopolitan lakeside city of Geneva. The hard-working radiographer was able to offer a good life to his much younger wife when she arrived from pre-revolutionary Tehran. For a timid young girl Tayi certainly knew her own mind, praying to Mecca while her husband preferred to meet his urbane friends in glamorous bars and listen to music. Eventually Tayi used her new pregnancy and back problems as the kicker to return home, persuading Hossein to move back to Iran where she was delighted to be reunited with her friends and growing family.

In the 1960s Tehran was a sophisticated, thriving metropolis where the middle classes enjoyed summers by the Caspian Sea and winters on the ski slopes. But once the Shah was toppled things changed, and from then on Tayi became increasingly drawn to her religion.

Khosrovani’s enlivens her portrait with family photographs picturing her parents’ early days in Geneva before moving back to Tehran on the birth of their first child named Firouzeh (herself). Back in Iran, Tayi questions Hossein’s lack of prayer routine as she pursues Islam with growing fervency and self-determination, rejecting her husband’s way of life and even tearing up the family photos and snaps, which the director has since pieced together for her film.

Both visually and narrative-wise Khosrovani uses her family home in Tehran as a recurring motif and the feature’s fulcrum. What starts as a comfortable and soigné home soon becomes the sober backdrop to her mother’s strict religious beliefs: her parents’ elegant bedroom adorned with her father’s favourite piece of modern art (a female nude) soon morphs into a spartan single room where reflection and prayer are the order of the day, a long table accommodating her mother’s new friends, the proponents of the oppressive Islamic regime. “The revolution entered our house,” the director recalls, as her heavily veiled mother is pictured requesting the whereabouts of her Quar’an.

Radiograph is a deeply subjective view of a child’s fond memories projected into an adulthood full of anguish and sadness, that still lives on today. No matter how much happiness and contentment we find as adults, our early childhood experiences will always colour our future. Khosrovani maintains a non-judgemental approach to her parents throughout her film. And although she never condemns her mother, maintaining a neutral acceptance of her beliefs, it is clear that her father embodies her hopes and dreams. Bonds of sadness and regret can often be more resilient that those of shared joy. In the end acceptance is one form of contentment. MT

NOW AT THE DOCHOUSE Radiograph of a Family | World premiered at IDFA documentary festival in Amsterdam, where it won the main prize for best feature

 

 

Red Penguins (2019) ****

Dir.: Gabe Polsky; Documentary with  Steven Warshaw, Tom Ruta, Howard Baldwin, Victor Rikhonov, Valery Gushin, Alimzhan Tokhtakhonov; USA/Germany 2019, 79 min.

Russian émigré Gabe Polsky (Red Army), now working from the USA, offers a cautionary tale about a time when Russian hopes were high after the fall of Stalinism, and US entrepreneurs believed that doing business with their newly liberated partners would be easy and profitable.

Nothing could be more from the truth – as it turned out. Directing, writing and producing this remarkable and hilarious true story Polsky spills the beans about the “Red Penguins”, a Russian ice hockey team taken over by American financiers. If you remember, in his previous outing Red Army, the key to Russian success lay in ‘working as a team’. Read on.

The film kicks off with the two owners of the NHL (National Hockey League) team Pittsburgh Penguins, Tom Ruta and Howard Baldwin, who were in charge between 1991 and 1997. Back in the early 1990s, many world class ice-hockey players of the former USSR were snapped up by NHL teams. Meanwhile, the sport itself, like nearly everything in Russia, was in the doldrums. Finding investment was the easy bit – Michael J. Fox soon signed up and agreed to finance a takeover of the old Soviet Army team by American owners.

What happened next is told mainly by Steven Warshaw, who was the ‘Red Penguin’s’ Marketing Executive Vice President. He was appalled by the parlous state of the famous “Ice Palace” arena which was anything but palatial: the executive boxes were full of homeless people; the Plexiglas round the rink was splintered – and in the basement there was a strip club.

Alexander Lyubimow, a famous TV journalist, introduced Warshaw and his team to old hands like general manager Victor Gushin who wanted to help with the rebuilding of the once famous crew. But marketing whizkid Warshaw and the US investment team saw the operation less as a sporting venue, more as a marketing opportunity to transform the team into the greatest show in Moscow.

The ladies from the basement were confined to cages where they entertained the crowd by ‘stripping off’. New outfits and logos (smiling Penguins) were rolled out on TV, and finally coach Victor Gusev brought together a team which was at least presentable. But the girls weren’t the only ‘come on’. Bears dressed up as waiters serving ice cold beer to the over-excited punters, and one of the players actually lost part of his finger – clearly the bear was not amused by his antics. But young people loved the circus atmosphere, and advertising did the rest.

Meanwhile back in the USA, Disney became interested in the project, Michael Eisner planning a marriage of Mickey Mouse with the Russian ice hockey team (he later denied contact with the “Red Penguin’s” team). But when Russia fell into chaos after President Yeltsin bombed his own parliament, the collaboration naturally fell apart. Steven and his co-workers were called in to see the Minister of Defence, Alexander Baranovsky, former head of the CSKA sport club, and this meeting confirmed who was really in charge.

On 1994, the owners then took the team on a tour in the USA, but the results were very disappointing. Back in Russia, the Mafia was responsible for 40% of the GDP. Camouflaged as taxmen, they also approached Warshaw who claimed “they were ready for them to steal several hundred dollars, but they took a million.” It was all a little bit like the feature film Sudden Death, shot in the Pittsburgh home of the original Penguins, where a whole crowd is taken hostage.

The fate of the endeavour was finally sealed when Disney cut all ties, Five people involved in the operation were brutally murdered: the team photographer, one of the players, the assistant head coach, a Russian Hockey Federation employee and one of the most high profile personalities of the era TV journalist Vladislav Listyev (who was shot dead on March, 1st, 1995). Warshaw got away with a damaged thyroid.

The film plays out as a farce, DoP Alexey Elagin giving the narrative development a jerky intensity with his handheld camerawork. Polsky later laments Putin’s steady rise to power, as a helpless Yeltsin stood on the sidelines. Red Penguins is a masterclass in power-grabbing, highlighting a moment in history when the Kremlin and the KGB took the opportunity to manoeuvre themselves into the seat of power. Capitalism, bribery and murder was all part and parcel of the new order. AS

BBC Storyville | Monday 7 December 10pm | BBC iPlayer

 

 

   

The Parallel Street (1962) **** Mubi

Dir: Ferdinand Khittl | Wri: Blodo Bluthner | Germany/Czechia, Doc 82′

The limited number of people who have seen Peter Greenaway’s The Falls (1980) – extravagant fiction structured as a documentary – will experience a sense of déjà vu watching Die Parallelstrasse, which may – repeat may – be an ethnographic documentary structured as fantasy.

Not for the feint-hearted, The Parallel Street is one of the most enigmatic experimental films of the New German Cinema, produced by GBF, and dealing with subjectivity and objectivity in the medium.

We are addressed at the outset by the minute-taker (Friedrich Joloff) on the third and final night of some sort of symposium shot in jagged black-&-black that recalls the silent films of Fritz Lang (and the behind the camera footage of Clouzot & Picasso in Le Mystère Picasso), for which those under examination have been enjoined to hand in their watches and to submit to various forms of classroom discipline; a process of which he informs us that the final upcoming 90 minutes will be the last in the lives of those on the panel. We are also informed that this process is an endlessly recurring one in which the minute-taker sadly looks on in apparent resignation as panel after panel meander their way through the material in the limited time available; forever missing the fact (staring them in the face) that the files in front of them actually refer to themselves. The committee resembles a ship heading for the rocks while the crew debate the course to take: an appropriate analogy, as much of the documentary footage depicts ships and the sea.

It seemed to me some sort of allegory of the brevity of human existence, and of peoples’ dithering preventing them from resolving their lives in the tragically limited time available to them. The meat of the film – literally in the case of File 269, which includes extensive footage shot in a slaughterhouse – consists of colour travel footage shot by director Ferdinand Khittl and his cameraman Ronald Martini during two extensive expeditions around the world in 1959 and 1960; framed by what may be some sort of celestial inquisition like the one in Outward Bound (1930).

The documentary sequences (perhaps deliberately) are as difficult for the viewer to assimilate in one sitting – especially if you don’t speak German and are trying to follow the subtitles – as the panellists are evidently finding it, because the exotic imagery and the density of the minute-taker’s commentary are throughout simultaneously competing with each other for your comprehension. Plainly a film that calls for repeated viewings. Unless it isn’t. Richard Chatten.

NOW ON MUBI

 

Sing me a Song (2020) ****

Dir.: Thomas Balmès; Documentary with Peyangki, Ugyen Pelden, Pemba Dorji; France/Germany/Switzerland 2019,101 min.

In a follow-up to an earlier documentary, French director Thomas Balmes returns to a village in Bhutan to explore the impact of modern technology on a once-sheltered society.

Ten years ago French director/DoP/producer Thomas Balmès had visited the remote village of Laya at the foot of the Himalayas. Electricity was coming to the village, and everyone was excited, including eight-year old Peyangki, a monk, who became the star of Happiness. Ten years later, Balmès returned to Laya for Sing Me a Song, probing what TV and internet had done to the village, and Peyangki in particular.

We start with footage from Happiness, with Peyangki frolicking in the fields and looking forward to the electrification of the village but, at the same time, being adamant it would not interfere with his religious study in the monastery. We cut to the classroom of today and see all the monks, including Peyangki, emerged in prayers – but when the camera pans out again they are all stuck into their mobiles, the chanting just enough to cover the din of the devices.

Peyangki, who has now found an admirer in Pemba Dorji, a young monk about the same age as Peyangki was in Happiness, is “moving away from Buddha”. Like his fellow monks he is sold on the internet, particularly WeChat, which opens their world to female companionship. When visiting the local market, the young men find a basket with plastic weapons and start a hilarious war game, with firecrackers replacing life ammunition.

Sadly neither Peyangki’s teacher, not his mother can stop the young man from leaving the monastery for the capital Thimpu where his ‘girlfriend’ Ugyen Pelden is pictured singing with three other young females in a bar. Peyangki has made enough money by selling medical mushrooms (which he has harvested with his sister) to start a new life with Ugyen, who – unknown to the monk – already has a baby daughter from a previous marriage, and plans to emigrate to Kuwait, leaving her daughter behind.

Peyangki is taken back by all this, and Pemba, who has been sent by his teacher to convince his older friend to return to the monastery, is forced to return home alone. Peyangki is consoled by one of the other singers who fills him with positive thoughts, but for Peyangki the world has come to an end

The message of this delightfully poignant coming of age story is clear: devices which help us to connect, can easily tear us apart and destroy our sense of self and alter our identity. Peyangki feels obligated to join modern and his nativity leaves him unprepared for the Pandora’s box, and is unable to rediscover his innocence. The reaction of his fellow monks, their easy way of dealing with consumer goods as well as armed conflicts, show the regressive nature of the online world, where everything is levelled out to mean more or less nothing. For Peyangki, who had once been called the “re-incarnation of a Lama”, the choice is clear: the safety of isolation or the unstructured life of an empty gratification in a world where everything is replaceable at a moments notice, including the people closest to you.

Happiness won a cinematography award at Sundance. The results of this return odyssey are less positive although equally beautiful in their visual allure, the immaculate scenes in the monastery contrasting starkly with the hustle and bustle of the  urban environment. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s One World International Human Rights Doc Film Festival. AS

On Demand from 1 January 2021

The Salt of the Earth (2014) **** Mubi

wimDir: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado |Writer: Wim Wenders/Juliano Ribeiro Salgado | Doc Biography, 110′

This biopic of famous Brazilian photographer and philanthropist, Sabastiao Salgado, manages to be both illuminating and moving. Directed (and narrated) by Wim Wenders (pictured left at the Cannes premiere) and Salgado’s son Juliano, what starts as an harrowing and dramatic set of photographs from Africa and beyond, soon becomes a narrative with a truly inspiring and heart-warming conclusion, adding real weight to the story of this fascinating and creatively-driven man, now in his seventies.

From war zones in Ruanda and Bosnia to the deepest Amazon, the often shocking images show tremendous compassion, and a desire to connect with his subject-matter. As is often the case for the creatively committed, Salgado’s son Juliano received little attention as a child as the photographer  travelled the World, while his wife Leilia, archived and published his works, setting up exhibitions from home and organising financing and funding. There are shades of the late Michael Glawogger to his searingly shocking images and a touch of the David Attenborough to his work with his animals. A peerless tribute to humanity and the animal kingdom. MT.

CÉSAR 2015 WINNER – BEST DOCUMENTARY | NOW ON MUBI 

Athlete A (2020) **** Netflix

Dir.: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk | With Maggie Nichols, Rachael Denhollander, Jessia Howard, Jamie Dantzsher; US Doc 2020, 104 min.

Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk (Audrey&Daisy) get behind the camera for this worthwhile documentary that chronicles the ongoing sexual abuse of members of the USA Gymnastic team. The person responsible was none other that their trusted team physician Dr. Larry Nassar, who got a custodial sentence of 121 years in 2017 for molesting over a hundred young women. The feature is shot from the perspective of the investigating journalists of the Indianapolis Star, whose efforts are the basis for this documentary.

But the inquiry also uncovered complaints against 54 coaches were made during a course of many years. The President and CEO of USA Gymnastics , Steve Penny (who resigned and awaits trial), helped to cover up the abuses – and he was not alone. But if there is one weak point of the documentary, it pins the entire blame on Penny as the evil mastermind – in reality the whole organisation has to take the rap for the systemic abuse.

The account of survivors make heart-breaking listening: there is Maggie Nichols (the titular Athlete A, named so after her complaint which was followed by blackballing her); Rachael Denhollander; Jamie Dantzscher and Jessica Howard, their stories telling not only the actual abuse but the cover-up which went on for over a decade. Dantzscher states she was so proud of being an Olympian, but after Nassar abused her during the games in 2000, she associated the Olympics with this vestige of shame.

But this is also a story of the Cold War: Until the end of Stalinism in 1989, gymnasts from the Warsaw pact countries had dominated the sport. In 1981, Bela and Marta Karolyi, Hungarian-born coaches of the Romanian national gymnastic team (along with their choreographer Geza Poszar) defected to the USA. They had been responsible for the success of Nadia Comaneci among others. The Karolyis installed themselves in a training facility near Huntsville, Texas, which closed in 2018. They have both been sued for being part of the Nassar cover-up. There is a clip in Athlete A, with Marta Karolyi (who retired in 2016) admitting her awareness of  Nassar’s abuse at the “Ranch”. Poszar admitted the method of working with the young athletes “was total control over the girls.” Coaches, not only the Karolyis, abused the gymnasts verbally, emotionally and physically: they were slapped, and told that they were fat.

The norm for female gymnasts was to be 5.4 feet and anorexic. Poszar also claimed these method were acceptable in Romania – and obviously in the USA too. The gymnasts in the Huntsville were isolated, parents were not allowed to visit, the gymnasts were forbidden to phone friends or relatives outside the facilities. Former USA National Team gymnast Jennifer Sey (one of he co-producers of the feature), author of “Chalked Up” talked about merciless coaching, overzealous parents, eating disorders and above all, the dream of Olympic Gold. The line between coaching and abuse gets blurred, Athletes were often forced to compete in spite of serious injuries. We watch Kerri Strug winning a Gold Medal at the 1996 Olympics despite a severe ankle injury. But medals meant good business for the USA Team and their CEO Steve Perry.

Perhaps the most saddening statement comes from one of the victims: “Dr. Nassar was the nicest grown-up in the camp”. This most damning sentence calls for a complete reassessment of the next gymnastic competition in the sporting calendar. Shot with a lively camera by Jon Shenk, Athlete A is  another eye-opener: the perverted drive for Olympic medals, reducing young women to “little girls” to be objectified and abused, is just another example of the male gaze and its horrifying consequences, finally emerging after decades of cover-ups. AS

WINNER OF THE US CRITICS AWARD 2020 | coming to NETLIX

Mayor (2020)

Dir.: David Osit; Documentary with Musa Hadid; USA/UK 2020, 89 min.

Mayor is clearly a passion project for David Osit. So much so he co-produced, directed, co-edited and even filmed this engaging documentary that  follows the real-life political saga of Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office.

Ramallah is about ten miles from Jerusalem and surrounded on all sides by Israeli settlements and soldiers. Most of the people who live there will never have the chance to travel more than a few miles outside their home, which is why Mayor Hadid is determined to make the city a beautiful and dignified place to live in. By Western standards these people are impoverished, most – included the Mayor – do not even have a TV in their homes. So Hadid’s immediate goals are to repave the sidewalks, attract more tourism, and plan the city’s Christmas celebrations. His ultimate mission: to end the occupation of Palestine. Rich with detailed observation and a surprising amount of humour, Mayor offers a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of endless occupation while posing a question: how do you run a city when you don’t have a country? 

Hadid comes across as an affable middle-aged man, married with two children, he is particularly proud of his moustache. He is also a mischievous diplomat who enjoys football. During a local match he is asked by some kids if he is “for Fatah or Hamas”, he answers that Al Fatah does not exist any more, and “so we have nobody to liberate us”.

Like most of his supporters he is hoping for an independent Palestinian State, but until that is achieved Hadid is more interested in giving his city a good image around the world. And this needs planning and careful consideration. How should they style the city? Discussions begin with local councillors and a logo is created: “WeRamallah”, featuring in huge letters round the city, where the mayor particularly enjoys hanging out at the “Cafe de la Paix”, opposite his office in the modern Town Hall.

When President Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, back in December 2017, also promising to move the American embassy there, rioting broke out in the West Bank. Clearly there was opposition to any US presence, let alone intervention. Today nothing has much changed. The filmmakers accompany Hadid to the edge of the town where the fighting between emboldened Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youth still rages. Sometimes the clashes become a little bit too close for comfort. Despite the animosity there will still be a Christmas tree in the city centre – some people campaign for a slogan that lights up with “Jerusalem is our Capital”. Once again, Hadid will have to compromise between municipal services and political messages.

Hadid’s work is never done, and involves ongoing compromise between the townspeople and the Israeli forces. Meanwhile mixed messages come from abroad: Hadid reads a statement from US Vice-president Pence who wants to protect Christians in Palestine. Hadid wishes he could just bring about continued peace, and end occupation. Meanwhile, Prince William visits Ramallah and makes a conciliatory speech, asking for the normalisation of the situation. But back in Whitehall, celebrations for a Hundred Years of the “Balfour Declaration” are underway, as if there is anything to celebrate in the former British Mandate. And there are more contradictions: while Hadid can visit Washington DC, Oxford and Bonn (Germany) to talk about the situation at home, he cannot visit Jerusalem or the nearby coast.

In the midst of the mayhem some younger members of his staff are having another celebration of sorts: “They can put us in a slum, but we still can have a party”. Finally, there is a major confrontation with Israeli troops, who use teargas outside City Hall and make arrests in the Cafe de la Paix”, before everything peters out. The following morning, the debris is cleared away, and in the evening fountains play light games with the music rousing a celebration of hope in a land where conflict has always been the watchword.

Mayor is a humane feature that tells a human story, trying to see the conflict from a purely humanitarian angle. Hadid is a great advertisement for compromise and hope: he is a steady lighthouse in a turbulent sea. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM 1 JANUARY 2021 |

The Exit of the Trains (2020) DocLisboa

Dir: Radu Jude, Adrian Cioflânca | Doc, România 175′

Screening as part of the So Many Stories Left Untold strand in DOCLISBOA’s 18th Edition (14-20 January, 2021), this essay film directed by Radu Jude and first timer Adrian Cioflânca makes use of extensive archive material to reflect on the Romanian genocide of June 26th, 1941, in the town of Iasi, near the Moldovan border. It’s a gruelling testament to man’s inhumanity towards his neighbour, and makes for grim viewing not least for its rather overlong treatment.

The pogrom lasted four days and wiped out most of its  Jewish male population. Although occupying German forces had a hand in the tragedy the main perpetrators were actually locals who looted their Jewish neighbours’ property after killing them.

Jude opts for a similar, minimalistic style to his 2017 essay film Dead Nation  to chronicle this sudden outbreak of wartime ethnic cleansing. Playing out as ‘an exhibition of the dead’, a voice-over commentary by relatives or neighbours of the victims accompanies the grim images. There are also witness reports of the few who survived. The final segment shares an array of photos of the pogrom itself, shown in chronological order.

The heat of that June morning in 1941 was in stark contrast to the chilling events that would unfold in the Eastern Romanian town. Jewish citizens were assembled in front of the police station where they were beaten and kicked, some were shot. Later the perpetrators sent women and children home,  deporting the men in airtight cattle trains (150 per sealed waggon) to Podulloaiei, or Targu Frumos, whence the few survivors were taken to the labour camp of Ialomita.

The witnesses reflect on their next-door neighbours’ role in the genocide, their focus was to steal from the victims, stripping them of their flats, jewellery and money, having already exhorted money for failing to fulfil clemency appeals. Some of the photos are gruesome: particularly the face of a Mr. Lehrer, who was slaughtered right in front of his shop. One women was ordered by the authorities to pay a military duty for her soldier son, even though he had been killed. She was forced to sell her only means of livelihood – a Singer sewing machine. Most of the victims died of asphyxiation: “He died of his injuries and lack of air”. It’s a chilling mantra that resonates with the mass suffering going on today.

Survivors talk about the hours endured with the bodies of the dead or dying, before any escape was possible. The trains were transformed into mortuaries and some of the images are particularly harrowing. Finally, we see a photo of a ‘normal’ passenger train which stopped during the mayhem. It shows the carriages with bodies bundled together, like wood or bricks, before a mass burning – only a few were buried in the Jewish cemetery of Targu Frumos.

The Exit of the Trains is far more than a mere documentary: it is a witness report of how humans suddenly lose their humanity and descend into depravity. What sort of people put petrol into water bottles, then charge inflated prices to revel in the pain and slow death of their captives. AS

DOCLISBOA | 2021 | SO MANY STORIES LEFT UNTOLD | Berlinale 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Overlanders (1946) **** Talking Pictures

The reason for the docudrama approach stems from the original idea of making a propaganda film for the Australian government who knocked on Watts’ door looking for a well known director and a reputable studios – Ealing naturally fitted the bill, although the film was released after the war was over.

Mother (2019) Locarno

Dir.: Kristof Bilsen; Doc with Chutimon Sonsirichai (Pomm), Elisabeth Röhmer, Maya Gloor, Walter Gloor; Belgium 2019, 82 min.

People are living longer but not always enjoying a healthy or happy old age in Western Europe. Kristof Bilsen tackles the alarming truths behind our care home crisis in his heart-breaking documentary that sees a Swiss family sending their mother across the world to live out her final years with perfect strangers.  

But before you jump to condemn them, just consider this. Many Thai women come to the UK each year to enjoy the benefits of our strong economy that allows them to make a living by offering their unique talents as masseuses and alternative health professionals. Their kids are left with their extended families back in the East, and see their mothers only one or twice a year. Meanwhile UK care homes charge extortionate amounts of money just for bed and board ( BUPA charge a basic £100,o00 per annum in central London), while bosses cream off the profits and pay their care staff a pittance. Many of them are not trained carers, and are unable to communicate adequately with older residents due to their poor English skills. Often they have little aptitude or interest in their badly paid jobs. It’s a critical situation that seems to indicate that this Swiss family could be doing their mother a favour, and even saving her money, into the bargain.

In Thailand, Pomm looks after Alzheimers patients from German-speaking countries in the Baan Kamlangchay hospice near Chiang-Mai. Her own three children are looked after by her husband and extended family. She too is badly paid but infinitely more compassionate, working an eight hour shift, with another job to make ends meet, her relationship with her husband is strained.

In this tranquil sanctuary, Swiss citizen Elisabeth Röhmer is in the final stages of Alzheimers, but Pomm remembers when she loved to do the crossword and helped the carers learn English. After Elisabeth’s death, Pomm will be responsible for Maya, a mother of three from Zofingen in Switzerland. Her husband Walter and three daughters Joyce, Sara and Tanya are struggling to find suitable care for grandma Maya, so the clinic in Thailand seems the best solution. ”It would be selfish to keep her here so we could see her all the time. She gets much better care in Thailand”. And this true because Maya, like Elisabeth before her, will have three carers working round the clock.

Once she arrives with her family in Thailand Maya takes time to settle down in her new environment, awoken by exotic birdsong on her first morning. She is clearly not as happy about the move as the Gloor family would have us believe as they share their last Christmas together far from home. On a boat trip, they discuss how to say goodbye to Maya. Super 8 mm family films show a younger Maya in happier times. Back home in Switzerland, the Gloors Skype Maya who is still affected by their departure but adapting to her new circumstances.

So is there such a difference between East and West? Clearly in the Far East there is far more respect for adults, their wisdom and experience is highly valued both by the family and society as a whole. This extends to the process of dying as we saw in Locarno winner MRS FANG. It seems like a double whammy when elderly members of the family lose their dignity and need our care and patience while they remain critical, controlling and difficult, as in the case with dread diseases such as Alzheimers. Their dehumanisation process is disorientating, their loss of dignity strangely infantalises them in the eyes of those who once looked up to them and respected their seniority. We expect to look after our kids, but not our parents. And England has now become a child-centric culture, where children have become the objects of desire, admiration and wonder. Rather than wise elders we puts the young on a pedestal, as was seen recently in the case of Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg.

Bilsen remains objective in his fascinating and thought-provoking film, Pomm reflecting that her job has shown her the difference between rich and poor. Really? Maya has three care givers because the Swiss family can afford it, yet the carers in both countries are badly paid. The difference is that over here in the UK the care is poor even when you throw money at it; clearly compassion cannot be bought and that is reflected back in the attitude we have regarding the elderly, who also are our elders. Pomm wonders (as do we all) what will happen to her if she becomes a victim of Alzheimers. Who will care for her? All over the world we are relying on others to care for our loved ones because we are too busy looking after ourselves. MT

LOCARNO WORLD PREMIERE | AVAILABLE ON VOD ITUNES, AMAZON & GOOGLE | 11 JANUARY 2021

Epicentro (2020)

Dir.: Hubert Sauper; Documentary with Leonelis ArangoSalas, Annielys Pelladito Zaldivar, Janet Pena Semunat, Hans Helmut Ludwig, Oona Castilla Chaplin; Austria/France 2020, 108 min.

This new documentary portrait of Cuba from Oscar nominated Hubert Sauper explores the post-Castro era pairing everyday life with an essay on the power and myth-making in cinema. Through his conversation with children, a sex worker and an actress, he shows a Cuba still dependent on tourism, even though some of the values are contrary to the revolutionary movement of “26th of July”.

Ten year-old Leonelis Arango Salas is the star of the show: she explained the 1902 “Tafft Agreement”, which gave the USA the use of the naval base of Guantanamo (!), one of over 900 military bases worldwide, where the American flag is raised, including the Moon. She also elaborates on the sinking of the battleship USS Maine by the Spanish – in reality, the ship sunk because of an explosion in the boiler room but the US used the incident to shoot reels of film showing their soldiers killing Spanish troops who had occupied Cuba for centuries. The boy also shows us the sinking of the ‘Maine’, restaged in a bath tub with lots of cigar smoke. Theodore Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders”, soldiers who fought on behalf of USA in the Cuban War of Independence, were very much ‘Trojan’ horses only interested in replacing the Spanish. And the cinema covered the myth: Media Tycoon Randolph Hearts (on whom the hero of Citizen Kane was modelled) wrote to Roosevelt: “You furnish the war, we furnish the information”.

A sex worker is, not surprisingly extremely disillusioned, regales us with the revelation that all US presidents look the same, be it T. Roosevelt or Trump: “Faces of people who like war and wealth.” Tourists come here for sex, men or women: “Gringas come here looking for black dicks”. And in her own experience, sex workers are just like slave: “I am a piece of meat, when they say do it doggy-style, I go “wow wow”. But she still wants to go to Disneyland and meet Brad Pitt.

In one of the few modern malls, Leonelis and her friends admire a pencil, costing over 2000 US dollars. Her hospital worker grandmother earns just four dollars a week. Even with Sauper’s help, they cannot calculate how long she would have to work to buy this simple writing instrument. Hans Helmut Ludwig, a middle aged tourist from Bavaria, visits a ballet school where he claims the free tuition is very professional. He compares Cuba today with a theatre set: tourists come to participate in a parallel universe full of illusions which will soon disappear. A utopia, never realised.

A street fight between a young girl and her mother is a brutal spectacle. Later we see mother and daughter watching Chaplin in The Great Dictator. “This is my grandfather” the girl tells Sauper. “You are Hitler’s granddaughter?” The girl can not stop giggling: “I am Charlie’s granddaughter”. Her mother, Oona Castilla Chaplin looks calm and collected as she accompanies her daughter and friends on the guitar,.

Epicentro is about reality and film, utopia and dystopia, and the American dream, with its “corrupted ideals and success forged in lies”. Like Robert Altman’s’ Buffalo Bill and the Indians, the truth is not welcome, particularly during the 200 year celebrations. Sauper hits hard, as he did in We Come as Friends when the Sudanese people complain “even the Moon belongs to the white man”. Maintaining a freewheeling and detached approach during his conversations on home-grown politics, the message is clear: Havana is anything but its translation: Heaven. AS

SUNDANCE GRAND JURY PRIZE WINNER | WORLD CINEMA

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life (2020)

Dir. : Ric Burns; Documentary with Oliver Sacks, Kate Edgar, Bill Hayes, Paul Theroux; USA 2019, 114 min.

The final six months in the life of eminent clinical neuro-psychologist Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) are the focus of Ric Burns’ immersive biopic. Filmed in the Sacks’ Greenwich village home and taking its title from his New York Times essay of February 2015, penned on discovering he was dying with terminal cancer, this warmly enjoyable portrait reflects Sacks’ compassionate nature as well as his courage.

Sacks appears to make a graceful exit from this world; writing, talking and loving to the end. Not that the doctor’s life had always been so harmonious and well-structured – on the contrary – his homosexuality and extreme shyness, which he blamed on his prosopagnosia (Face blindness), a neurological defect which some of his patients shared.

Born into an orthodox Jewish family in Cricklewood, London in 1933, he was destined to become a medical doctor: both his parents were members of the profession, so were two of his older brothers. Oliver was his mother’s favourite but when she found out he was homosexual (at the age of 18), she declared “I wish you had never been born.”

Oliver and his brother Michael had been evacuated during the Blitz to a boarding school in the Midlands where both were bullied and beaten. Michael was so disturbed he developed full-blown schizophrenia. Oliver was physically strong, but very timid, and on his 18th birthday let his parents know his plan to move to the USA. In San Francisco and LA he found a life very different from that in repressive London. Achieving a weight-lifting record from his body building he also became addicted to  amphetamines and his BMW motorcycle. His sex life was a disappointment: he constantly fell for straight men and after a birthday encounter in 1963 at the Hampstead Ponds, on a short-lived return to London, he turned celibate for 35 years.

Back in the Bronx Sacks’ life hung in the balance during a fellowship at the Albert Einstein College. And by New Year’s Day 1966, came the realisation his drug habit had to go. In its place came writing. Seeking the help of psychoanalyst Leonard S (the two where still “getting there” by the end), the late 1960s saw him working at Beth Abraham Hospital, where he discovered the beneficial effects of a dopamine replacement drug (L-DOPA) on victims of the encephalitis lethargica pandemic of the 1920s. His patients recovered and shared their experiences during “Lock-Ins”.

Unfortunately, Neurology had acquired a bad name largely as a result of the widespread practice of lobotomising difficult young schizophrenics, but Sacks’ work with kids in this area was too subjective and therefore regarded as ‘unscientific’. In 1973 he was sacked for criticising the practice of putting troublesome young patients suffering from Schizophrenia into solitary confinement.

But his book on EL, entitled ‘Awakenings’ was not well-received, and his colleagues shunned him. To make matters worse, he had written it during a rapprochement with his mother, who then died during a trip to Israel. So disturbed was he at her loss that he injured his leg during a hiking accident (an obvious act of self-harm/suicide) and it took him years to regain his full mobility. This was made worse by his relationship difficulties – homosexuality was a crime, and even an admittance would mean the end of a career. Prison terms and chemical castration were common punishments. (Ironically Penny Marshall’s 1990 film version of Awakenings, with Robin Williams and Robert de Niro, was nominated for three Oscars).

In 1982 Sacks met the editor Kate Edgar, who became his mother surrogate: organising not only his writing output but running his day-to-day life. Sacks output was prolific: his books are always centred around neurological topics, like the aforementioned Prosopagnosia, which he tackled in “The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat” and “Egnosias”. His love for music was the main theme in “Musicophilia”, “The mind’s Eye” is a research into the brain recognition process of seeing moving images, where a neurological disorder can slow down our recognition process to a slow motion tempo.

Sacks was an explorer of the mind, observing and empathising with his patients, he became completely at one with them during the treatment process. He considered the hierarchical structures which dominate medicine to this day as deleterious to the profession.

DoP Buddy Squires close-ups of Sacks dominate the feature, with Burns keeping proper distance from his subject – apart from at the end, when he chronicles his late-life relationship with NY journalist Bill Hayes, whom Sacks met in 2008. This story of an outsider who became the part of a professional mainstream tainted by decades of patient mistreatment is an enjoyable and informative watch. AS

NOW ON release in Cinemas

Overseas (2019) Locarno 2019

Dir: Yoon Sung-a | Doc, 90′

It you are bored with the daily grind of working from home in these tedious Covid times then spare a thought for Filipino domestic workers in the Far and Middle East. In this startling expose of modern slavery that brings us up to speed on the acceptable ways of serving lunch to a Singaporean lady, or cleaning a lavatory in a Dubai household, there are some shocking revelations, tears and sadness for these young women who are often 0ver-worked and badly treated by their employers. But their training instructors urge them: “Never cry in front of your boss, it’s a sign of weakness and Filipinos are not weak”.

Overseas is the sophomore documentary of South Korea’s Yoon Sung-a, and makes for compelling viewing although it often lingers too long on each repetitive scene. There has been a long tradition of employing Filipino workers and these women are often treated as members of the family throughout Europe. But Yoon concentrates on those destined for the Middle and Far East where the working conditions are considerably more harsh, and employment laws less kind. Clearly the financial incentives to work abroad are worthwhile and makes sense, despite the hardships. Working mothers in the Far East are fully accustomed to leaving their kids with members of their own family while they pursue the financial incentives available overseas in order to provide a home of their own when they finally return retire.

Some of the workers are lucky, but many are made to work long hours in poor conditions: one girl talks of sleeping on the kitchen floor and being woken at 5am to start her day; another was constantly given orders even while eating her meals. There is also talk of sexual abuse in a household in the Middle East.

Overseas resonates with Davide Maldi’s recent feature The Apprentice that examines the service industry in Italy and the ongoing attitudes of those employed in the sector, while Lila Aviles has explored the life of a hotel worker in Mexico City in her darkly amusing, award-winning film The Chambermaid (2018). Throughout the Europe domestic workers are more in demand than ever with middle class families paying to having help at home – both parents are often out working and their adult (working) offspring are still in residence. In the Far and Middle East the class system is more rigidly in place but times are changing and these domestic workers are justifiably become more dissatisfied with their lot. These girls are caught in the crosswinds of change.

Yoon adopts a quietly observational approach to demonstrate how the collective experience of these women is broadly negative – yet is at pains to show that they are individuals rather than just a collective mass known for their placid and obedient nature. MT

NOW ON VOD PLATFORMS

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL | COMPETITION | 7-17 AUGUST 2019

Billie (2020)

Dir: James Erskine | US Biopic, 97′

James Erskine’s documentary about one of the greatest jazz legends of all time pays exuberant tribute to its focus: Billie Holiday. Born Eleanor Fagan in Philadelphia, 1915, she would go on to enjoy a career spanning 47 years. Perhaps ‘enjoy’ is not the best way to describe Billie’s Holiday’s often troubled existence echoed through her plangent vocal style and sensual ability to manipulate phrasing and tempo. What lives on is her extraordinary talent in singing the blues through these unique recordings.

Erkine bases his impressionistic film on a stash of recording interviews by the late Washington based writer Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who dedicated eight years during the ’60s and ’70s to her informative book about Billie Holiday. And these interviews and recordings breathe new life into our knowledge of a talented jazz singer who rose to fame in the Harlem of the 30s and 40s and lost her life at just 44 after several decades of heartache.

Heartache is a soulful motif that floods Billie’s repertoire with 30′ tunes ‘If You Were Mine’ and “You Let Me Down” with band accompaniment from Count Basie, Teddy Wilson or Artie Shaw. But there were also more upbeat tunes about love such as “I’m Painting The Town Red to hide a Heart that’s Blue”. And the lively ballads “Twenty Four Hours a Day”; ‘Yanky Doodle Never Went to Town’. and the chirpy “Miss Brown to You” with Teddy Wilson’s wonderful orchestra (from the album ‘Lady Day’).

Through Linda’s recordings Erskine shines a light on a time fraught with poverty, misogyny and racism where women certainly got the rough end of the deal particularly in the music business. Billie inhabited these times with gusto and courage, lamenting them in her songs that reflect back on her deep need to be loved by men – and women, using drugs and alcohol to numb her emotional pain. Living in the fast lane also took its toll: “We try to live one hundred days in one day”. Her story was a sad one, recorded here for the first time from the other side of the microphone – through the memories of those who knew and loved her.

Harsher memories contrast with the warmth of these tribute echoing the exuberance of those early days of jazz, and the darker times – we hear from a vicious pimp who remembers beating the women under his power in an era where such events were commonplace in the backstreets of New York. But the police were often as venal in their approach to Billie, pursuing her day and night throughout her life because of her success as a black woman. “Wasn’t she entitled to have a Cadillac?” says drummer Jo Jones. But often Billie couldn’t even get service when dining in a restaurant. After leaving the Count, she was a black singer in a white band. Eventually she served time for drug abuse but on her release still filled Carnegie Hall with queues round the block.

Erskine doesn’t hero worship or quail away from controversy surrounding  the ‘false memory’ of many talking heads, reflecting how time can alter the perspective. Linda Lipnack Kuehl doesn’t let her interviewees off the hook, demanding they justify their recollections. A case in point is Jo Jones’s strident claim that producer John Hammond sacked Billie from Count Basie’s band for not sticking to the blues. Hammond vehemently claims the sacking was for financial reasons.

What emerges is the soulful emotion of a talented artist who by definition was subject to highs and lows in giving of herself to her art and this comes across in visceral archive footage – particularly of ‘Strange Fruit’ – and live recordings that celebrate this timeless singer whose talent will never diminish.

It eventually becomes clear that one of her biggest fans was Linda Lipnack Keuhl who was there throughout her career, feeling a close affinity with Billie and her struggle to succeed, despite their different backgrounds at a time of racial segregation and strife. As Linda points out – the musicians were black but the critics, agents and managers were white. Thanks to Linda’s inquisitive style of journalism this tribute to Billie comes alive. MT

BILLIE is available, on demand, from 13th November on BFI, IFI, Curzon Home Cinema, Barbican. There is a live Q&A with James Erskine on 15 November as part of EFG London Jazz festival and it will be available to buy on Amazon and iTunes on 16 November.

THE QUINTESSENTIAL BILLIE HOLIDAY | Volumes 1,2,3 accompanied by Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra. 

Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020) Apple TV

Dir: Werner Herzog | Doc 97′

Close encounters of the cosmic kind are the focus of Werner Herzog’s latest documentary as he joins up again with volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer (Into the Inferno) for a peripatetic odyssey into the world of asteroids and meteorites that could fall to Earth and one day destroy us. Captured on the pristine camerawork of Herzog’s

collaborator Richard Blanchard, whose wizardry makes this all the more astounding.

Arcane and sometimes darkly amusing in its fervent boy’s own adventure style of cosmology – you wonder whether Ulrich Seidl has been involved – this is another of Herzog’s mammoth undertakings and the protagonists get very excited about their subject, often waxing lyrical – in the case of the ‘Brothers of the Stone’: “meteorites have a meaning and it’s up to us to interpret what this is”.

Werner Herzog is obviously deeply worried but remains chipper while communicating his concern about this planetary devastation through a series of eager talking heads compered by Oppenheimer himself. There is Bavarian four-times cancer surviver Jan Braly Kihle (straight out of Im Keller), Jon Larsen, a Norwegian violinist with a penchant for cosmic dust (“Cosmic dust looks eternity in the eye, it is the oldest thing that exists on earth”); Brother Guy Consolmagno, a jolly Jesuit astronomer who heads up the Vatican Observatory; and Paul Steinhardt an expert in natural ‘quasicrystal’ whose field experience had hitherto not extended beyond the lawns of Princeton University but he bravely undertakes to locate and prove these crystals had actually been formed in space.

But the principle concern of Fireball is the exploration of things that fall from space, and the myriad artistic rituals and myths associated with these “visitors from darker worlds”. In tones that can only be described as conspiratorial and febrile, Herzog delivers a killer statement: “We do not know what in the future is coming at us, eventually destroying us” but “untold numbers are still on their way.”

Although Fireball may at first seem rather glib and ridiculous the film soon takes on a more contemplative vibe laced with moments of sheer joy and wonder – visually speaking. We visit no fewer than 17 of the planet’s most remote  geographic corners, not to mention university laboratories and  government facilities. In Mecca we experience the religious fervour when pilgrims are able to touch the famous Black Stone in the Kaaba (here Herzog relies on footage from ‘a believer’). In Mexico (where people believe that shooting stars transport the souls of the departed) we join a Mayan ceremonial procession featuring a fireball on the famous Day of the Dead. But most impressive of all are the sites where asteroids have actually wreaked palpable damage. An enormous crater in Australia has inspired local native aboriginal artist Katie Darkie to create some highly colourful paintings. And according to local folklore another 300 asteroid purportedly fell on a field in Alsace back in 1492. But the most extraordinary comes later.

Occasionally even Oppenheimer seems fazed by the boyish enthusiam of the experts, especially one who hands him a meteorite called ‘The Dog House’ that apparently fell on a dog’s kennel in Costa Rica (luckily the dog lived to bark again). Apparently heavier meteorites landed in the same region the ground underneath was totally destroyed and turned to glass: “if you were sitting there having a cup of tea, you would undoubtedly be turned to glass” he reflects joyfully. Elsewhere in the same Arizona facility, Oppenheimer gets rather flirty when he meets a highly attractive female meteor expert who giggles excitedly when he points out that some of the samples look like the work of Barbara Hepworth. “We’re all stardust – eventually”; she retorts, and at this point Herzog cannot help joining in the cheeky banter.

In a crater in Rajasthan – near to 11th century Hindu Temples — geochemist Nita Sahai comments that meteorites actually contain protein. “What do you think of Panspermia?” asks Oppenheimer rather sheepishly. Nita answers gamely that Shiva is a god of both creation and destruction in the Hindu religion.

Narrating, Herzog judiciously keeps a firm control on pacing, cutting away from experts who are getting over-excited. From India we move to Chicxulub Puerto on the Yucatan Peninsula, where the most cataclysmic asteroid hit ever occurred over 66 million years ago leaving a hole 30 kilometres deep. Although dinosaurs were destroyed in the event, mammals made it through the catastrophe and were able to regroup – although the crater was not discovered until the 70s.

What is certain is that “a big one is going to hit us fairly soon”. That’s the view of a couple of scientists in Maui who have got it covered when it comes to watching out for these ‘unwelcome visitors’, using telescopes equipped with the world’s largest digital cameras. Luckily NASA is also active in this regard with their Planetary Defence Coordination Office responsible for letting us all known when the moment of doom finally arrives.

Fireball includes footage from recent feature films picturing the arrival of unwelcome celestial visitors and a final sequence that sees Herzog back on top form as a master documentarian in a film that needs to be seen to be believed. MT

NOW ON APPLETV

 

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project ****

Dir.: Matt Wolf; Documentary with Marion Stokes; USA 2019, 87 min.

Director Matt Wolf (Teenage) has created a immersive portrait of Marion Stokes (1929-2012): socialist organiser, civil rights activist, librarian, TV presenter and archivist. Of  her many achievements is a collection of recorded American TV News programmes, spanning the years from 1977 to her death. This valuable reference is an achievement that will keep her name alive as long as TV history is being made.

Stokes’ personal history is as uncommon as her prodigious output: she was given up by her mother for adoption and later traced her birthmother to learn that now had brought up a family after Marion had left. A child of the big Depression, the memory of poverty never left her: her first husband testifies to her membershop of the USA Socialist Party, which he calls “a very unattractive organisation”. This, and the fact that she was a civil rights campaigner, cost her the librarian job. Nevertheless, Stokes was anything but a victim or martyr, with her future husband John Stokes (from a family of ‘Old Money’ in Philadelphia), she hosted a local TV programme researching, among other topics, the way news shows were produced.

Her relationship with her own son Michael Metelits (from her first marriage) was frosty, as were her feelings for John Stokes’s own kids from his first marital relationship. For many years she couldn’t forgive Michael for lacking her intellectual rigour. One of John’s daughters relates how she had to sneak up secretly to talk to her father who later begged her not to mention their meeting.

Marion and John led a more and more secluded life, helped by a chauffeur, an assistant and a nurse, who all spoke highly of Marion. The couples’ huge flat in a luxury apartment block on Ritterhouse Square, a prime location, was soon too small to house the 40,000 books even more tapes the couple collected – they rented multiple flats to cope with the overflow. Strangely enough, Marion was a great fan of Steve Jobs, talking about him like he where her own son. She also bought Apple shares when they were valued at only USD 7.00, and collected all 192 Apple computers from the very beginning of ‘The Classic’.

Long before Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump coined the term ‘Fake News’, Marion had already cottoned on to the questionable coverage of the Iraq/Iran wars. But it was not only the main stories that fascinated Wolf: “Ultimately it was things we were not looking for, that were most interesting”. Such as a 1998 story, of 84-year old Rose Martin, who was buried in her white Cevrolet Corvair. 

It took over fifty volunteers to catalogue the 70 000 EP (extended play) tapes with Marion’s comments on the spine giving a clue for the Google spreadsheets. This is a stunning documentary. Keiko Deguchi has done a superb editing job, and Chris Dapkins and Matt Mitchell’s talking head images are one of the better ones. Marion Stokes died on the day the school massacre of Sandy Hooks (Connecticut) unfolded on TV – luckily, accordingly to her son, she died before the news showed the grim images. AS

NOW ON RELEASE.

    

 

Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance (2020) *** Raindance Festival 2020

Dir: Khadifa Wong

Khadifa Wong’s life experience as a dancer informs her lively if over-talkie debut feature about the origins of jazz dance.

Celebrating its international premiere at this year’s Raindance Film Festival, the film traces the roots of this expressive and iconically American dance form from its early history in the 19th century and through to the current day. And it all start during slavery – wouldn’t you know? Back then it was a vital form of protest, not just a way of expressing enjoyment. Well that certainly makes it a topical film with the current Black Lives Matter month in full swing.

Wong’s ground-breaking documentary also offers a political and social chronicle of the times, alighting on more weighty issues of racism, socialism and sexism while offering up a passionate and thought-provoking musical biopic.

The dancer and director has delved into the archives enlivening her film with cuttings and news footage. Over fifty experts offer up their valuable insight from choreographers to teachers and dancers themselves so it does occasionally feel overwhelming to have so much knowledge and opinion in the space of less than two hours. But the movement and dance elements are what really makes this a winner and Matt Simpkins’ camerawork captures the essence of bodies gyrating to great affect.

Curiously enough it was white men in the shape of Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins and Jack Cole who really emerged as the forerunners of the form. And one of the most engaging talking heads, dramaturg and choreographer Melanie George shares her thoughts about why these luminaries were so influential while Black innovators were often lesser known. And she discovers that their ability to codify  the various forms of jazz dance with Hollywood and Broadway that gave it a different profile that took it above and beyond its roots and origins. The lesser-known artists also have their say, Frank Hatchett, Pepsi Bethel and Fred Benjamin Wong amongst them – although none is particularly famous to mainstream audiences.

Wong cleverly makes the point that jazz dance was actually a pared down version of the tribal form of communication for many Africans, and particularly slaves, enabling them to express themselves with their bodies in highly syncopated, exaggerated and meaningful ways – almost like silent film – relying on strong facial and body language – to make their feelings known. The Pattin’ Juba and Cakewalk were both dances that originated in the plantations of the Deep South where enslavement relied heavily on this kind of vital communication for protest, or even survival.

Eventually jazz became more sophisticated and sinuous moving through the bebop and hard bop years and we start to recognise names such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. There is also some impressive clips that show James Brown and Little Richard and really convey the seriousness of their political message – they were not just merely there to entertain.

A documentary about dance expression should always focus primarily on the dancing, and this is the only slight criticism that one can level at Uprooted. Wong has done so much research for her deep dive into the subject seems to focus on talking and commentary over movement and music. When we see Chita Rivera and Graciela Daniele doing their stuff the film comes alive — so their stories of segregation and racial alienation seem all the more poignant. There is a fascinating piece about Patrick Swayze’s mother Patsy, being the only white dance teacher in Texas to allow Black children into her school. If there’s one talent those entertainers have it’s the ability to move their bodies in magnetic and beguiling ways. And Black dancers have it in spades. MT

RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2020 | 28 OCTOBER – 7 NOVEMBER 2020

Aalto (2020)

Dir: Virpi Suutari | Finland, Doc 103min

This comprehensive biopic about one of the greatest designers of the 20th century is both an affectionate tribute to the work of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and a touching love story. Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (1898-1976) and his architect wife Aino Aalto shaped the modern world of design through their cutting edge buildings, furniture, textiles and glassware in much the same way as America’s Charles and Ray Eames and even Britain’s Terence Conran.

Virpi Suutari digs deeps into the archives with her writer and award-winning editor Jussi Rautaniemi (The Happiest Day in The Life of Olli Maki) to take us on a cinematic journey into life of a man whose designs were boosted by rapid economic growth in Finland and encompassed the lofty Finlandia Hall in Helsinki and the practical Paimio Sanatorium. For over five decades, from 1925-1978, the Aalto modernist aesthetic gave rise to iconic creations such as the Beehive light-fitting (1959), and the 406 armchair (1939) which remain essential style markers for the conoscenti. And even if you couldn’t afford a house designed by the Finnish luminary you could at least have one of his curvy Savoy vases (inspired by a Sami woman’s dress). These timeless modern creations could be made on an industrial scale but still retained a sense of simple luxury rooted in Finnish heritage from sustainable local materials such as birch wood, and glass blown in the littala factory.

Finnish documentarian Virpi Suutari shows how Alvar and Aino were not only talented architects but also a popular and cosmopolitan couple whose designs would become classics, defined by their practicality and precision. The Savoy vase won the Karhula-littala design competition in 1936 and would go on to be an iconic and elegant everyday item.

The film then travels further afield to show how Aalto’s civic and private buildings have stood the test of time and still associate well with their natural environment, from the private Villa Mairea in the late 1930s, to a university in Massachusetts, a pavilion at Venice Biennale and an art collector’s house near Paris, these were not ‘starchitect’ projects sticking out of the places surrounding them, but elegant and practical “machines for living” that provided for every eventuality. Aino and Alvar co-founded their furniture design company Artek in 1935, Aino becoming its first design director with a creative output that included textiles, lamps and interior design with clear and simply style, and this made way for complete design package, from lighting to door handles.

Opting for a straightforward chronicle approach Suutari shows how Aalto first set up a practice in his home town of Jyväsikylä in 1921 working on schemes that followed the predominant Nordic classism of the time. Meeting and marrying Aino Marsio in 1925 was the turning point, personally and stylistically, and after the birth Johanna later in 1925 (son Hamilkar would arrive three years later) the couple set off for Europe to discover the Modernist International style. But the groundwork for the practice was founded in Functionalism, and the Paimio tuberculosis sanatorium (1929-1933) was precisely that – providing a user-friendly and practical solution to healthcare (Aalto also designed most of the furniture with the famous Paimio chair devised to assist patients’ breathing).

From then on designs became more fluid with the increased use of natural materials and spatial awareness. The concept once again went from the outside inwards, with interiors and even small details such as fixtures and fittings all forming part of a cohesive aesthetic. One of Aalto’s main achievements was the invention of the L-leg system that enabled legs to be attached directly to the table, he also pioneered the practice of bending and splicing wood, leading to the curved look of the tables and stools. This also meant that furniture could be created on an industrial scale, through defined product lines that were also patented.


Aino and Alvar enjoyed a close partnership in work and in love, with Aino’s travels to source ideas for Artek often taking her away from home until her early death from cancer in 1949. During these times apart the couple kept in touch by a constant of letters, and these epistolary exchanges are woven into the narrative expressing a certain freedom that hints at an open marriage but also a healthy flexibility that helped to keep their relationship alive, according to Suutari’s take on events. This is a love story that brims with positive vibes, and clearly the couple drew contentment and creative energy from their secure family life and love for their children.

After Aino’s death, Alvar was not to be alone for long, he soon married young architect Elissa Makiniemi and the couple would go on to design a villa just outside Paris on their return from Venice. La Maison Louise Carre (main pic) was completed in 1959, for art collectors Olga and Louis who had rejected Le Corbusier deeming his concrete style too austere. Aalto again created a complete package for the couple, with garden design, garage and interiors (now open to the public since since 2007).

Enlivened by family photographs and plentiful archive footage, diagrams and painstaking research, Aalto is a pithy yet concise undertaking that will satisfy professional as well as dilettante appetites. We are left with an impression of the artists as warm, creative and compassionate individuals who would change the face of Finland not just for the few but for the many who continue to celebrate his design legacy all over the world. MT

www.alvaraalto.fi | PREMIERED AT CPH:DOX 2021

Being a Human Person (2020) ****

Dir: Fred Scott | Doc with Roy Andersson and his team, 90′

The Swedish auteur Roy Andersson (1943-) looks back on his life and his filmmaking style in this enjoyable first feature from TV/commercials director Fred Scott.

Made during the run-up to About Endlessness that won Best Director at Venice in 2019 Being a Human Person is Roy Andersson in a nutshell and perfectly describes a filmmaker whose deadpan tragic-comedies give dignity to people who have not been that successful in life: boring husbands, bland businessmen, the socially challenged or deeply unattractive. In other words, these people could be any of us or just those who have lost their way or become bored of their humdrum existence: the dentist tired of his squeamish patients, the clergyman who has lost their faith in God ( the priest in About Endlessness). Andersson sees himself in everyone of his characters – by his own admission – vulnerability and insecurity are the themes of his films, and constantly spill over into his creative process as he as he feels his way intuitively through what is possibly his last project with long-standing collaborators who have grown accustomed to absorbing the daily stresses and strains of the project. His is not an intellectual style but resolutely intuitive, and that means changes are inevitable. A scene that feels fresh and punchy on shooting may lose its clout in the rushes later that day. 

Looking like an affable twinkly-eyed Steve McQueen in archive footage shot after his breakout first feature A Swedish Love Story won awards at Berlinale 1970, he claims to have been “disgusted” by the film’s success. Now 76, Andersson has lost none of his gently genial charisma as he moves gingerly round the spacious central Stockholm townhouse acquired in 1981. “Studio 24” remains the headquarters of his daily filmmaking activities. Watching the world go by is a favourite pastime, as is eating in the Italian pizza restaurant opposite which is now home to his proudly-won Venice Silver Lion. 

But who is the man behind the enigmatic smile? Something tells us all is not well in Andersson’s world. His staff are not the only ones who have noticed a lack of energy and his increasing reliance on alcohol (“to avoid boredom” opines the director). Andersson freely admits to his penchant for a few drinks. It makes him more calm and docile to work with according to his staff. But do we detect a twinge of existential angst? A dose of rehab is on Andersson’s mind, but he gives up shortly after treatment has started, coming back energised with the realisation that About Endlessness will be probably be his final feature – and he wants it to his best. 

Making films is emotionally and physically exhausting. But he fears losing his daily raison d’être. His daughter Sandra appears to give a much-needed nutritious lunch (it’s worked already! laughs Anderson as he knocks back a bright green smoothie). She describes a love-filled childhood in a rented flat seaside flat in Gothenburg, while friends lived nearby in grand houses: “He found it stimulating to be the underdog”. She reflects. Meanwhile, family photos show an extremely affectionate father doting on his kids, and although it emerges his own father suffered longterm depression, no mention is made of Andersson’s own romantic life. “There’s enough material there for another film” says director Fred Scott. 

Being a Human Person is a masterclass in the Andersson way of filmmaking. Every feature consists of a string of tableaux, each one taking around a month to build, painstakingly by hand. The actors then perform a series of scenes shot by a static camera. Andersson describes them as short ‘film poems’ about life for ordinary people in scenarios that often give rise to iconic deadpan humour. The ‘greige’ aesthetics in immaculately rendered claustrophobic, airless settings feature ashen-faced characters glum, resigned or on the verge of tears. 

As an artist he continues to be appalled and dismayed by his fellow humans’ wrongdoing to humanity itself. This preoccupation is the focus of his “Living Trilogy” with its universal themes of compassion and connection, composed of Songs from the Second Floor (2000); You, The Living (2007) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) . His short film World of Glory (1991) speaks of the unmitigated misery of ordinary life, but his most controversial work Something Happened (1993) was later withdrawn. 

Fred Scott offers up an affectionate and illuminating tribute to Roy Andersson that will hopefully encourage those bemused by his films to revisit them with greater insight. His collaborators are clearly fond of him despite his clever way of maintaining artistic control. And although Andersson emerges a man who feels deeply for humanity, Scott never really gets under his skin, his subject is clearly keen to keep his secrets intact:“You are a prisoner of your own mentality and that can be very hard sometimes” is all Roy Andersson will reveal. MT

IN CURZON | CINEMAS FROM 16 OCTOBER 2020

Totally Under Control (2020) ****

Dir.: Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger; Documentary with Rick Bright, Robert R. Redfield, Eva Lee, Alex Azar, Nancy Messonier; USA 2020, 124 min.

Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney and his co-directors Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger got together with a bunch of scientists and US government politicians to try to work out how the Covid19 pandemic wreaked so much havoc in the US, with over 8 million infections, at the time of writing.

Back in January before the world was engulfed by the virus US President Trump was heard to say “Its just one person coming in from China”. By the end of that month Alex Azar, Secretary of State for Health and Human services claimed: “the national testing programme is up and running”. But it was not.

Trump refused to believe the scientists and called the CDC (Centres for Disease and Prevention) a “Deep State” site attempt to undermine his re-election chances. Its director, Robert Redfield had a history during the Aids crisis, calling for abstention and a strictly religious approach to the pandemic. Eva Lee director of the Centre for Operations Research in Medicine and Health Care at the Georgia Institute of Technology, developed a programme called Real-Opt using algorithms to predict the course of the pandemic. Meanwhile in South Korea testing was already well under way resulting in only 300 casualties from the pandemic. Asian countries were accustomed to using masks, and non compliance meant heavy fines. The American approach saw the refusal to wear a mask as a patriotic duty. The death rate soared, the USA representing 20% of global victims on this planet, in a total citizenship of just 4.23 %. 

The Trump administration had meanwhile got rid of the Pandemic Crisis Group set up by Obama. Returning from India at the end of February, Trump insisted the US was in a prime position. At  Stadium packed with 100 000 he wooed the crowd with open arms, and went on calling the pandemic a hoax:”only fourteen cases were known”. Nevertheless, a special Covid unit under the leadership of Vice-President Pence (who had encouraged cruises and visits to Disneyland) was formed. It consisted of Dr. Deborah Birx, a scientist and diplomat. She has stayed the course within the Trump circle, making compromises all the time, whilst Dr. Fauci, Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, has clashed with Trump on more than one occasion. 

Trump insisted that tests would provided for all US citizens but the reality was very different: it was not just the Test Programme, which was handicapped by the lack of available testing material, PPE equipment and respirators were also short in supply, with fierce competition between the various states to secure specialised equipment after the government had sold millions of masks to China at the beginning of the pandemic. Countless health workers and first responders paid with their lives.

Trump fought hard to avoid a lockdown, but pressed too early for a re-opening: “We are not a country which was built for a lockdown, we do not let the cure be worse than the problem”. Trump replaced civil servants with business men, and fired no fewer than five Inspector-Generals. The president also indulged in “miracle cures” like hydroxychloroquine, an unproven medicine which was promoted by the Rasputin-like figure of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko. After Trump had taken the drug (“A gift from God”), Dr. Birx was asked by reporters to verify this – her answer was “its frustrating, it will rain for three days”. Whistle-blowers like Dr. Nancy Messonier of the CDC, and Max Kennedy (grandson of Robert) helped uncover government secrets such as the too early release of a vaccine in time for the election on November 3rd.  

Shot by DoP Ben Bloodwell (and many others) with protective covering between Talking Heads and camera, Totally under Control has nothing particularly new to bring to the party, but chronicles a disaster that cost many their lives. The end is poignant and full of poetic justice: a day after the feature was finished, President Trump caught the virus, but lived to tell the tale. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM FRIDAY 23 OCTOBER 2020 

   

  

        

 

 

The Painter and The Thief (2020) ****

Dir: Benjamin Ree; Documentary with Barbora Kysilkova, Karl Bertil Nordland, Øystein Stene; Norway 2020, 102 min.

Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree follows his Sundance award-winning portrait of chess World Champion Magnus Carlsen with a documentary of a very different kind showing how bitter conflict can be resolved through art.

It all starts in 2015, when small time criminal Karl-Bertil Nordland and an unnamed accomplice stole two large paintings by Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova from an Oslo gallery. They were caught on CCTV, escaping with the rolled up canvases. Nordland was arrested and charged for the theft of ‘Swansong’ and ‘Chloe & Emma’, worth about 20,000 Euro. Particularly striking was the way the thieves took their time – removing a hundred or so nails to liberate the artworks – a task which would take over an hour. In court, Kysilkova asked Nordland why he stole her paintings, to which he answered simply “because they are beautiful”. He claimed diminished responsibility on the grounds of a four-day heroin trance. Kysilkova, a striking woman in her mid-thirties, asked to paint Nordland in ‘retribution’ for his crime.

This was the beginning of a close relationship of ‘Seelenverwandschaft’, a form of congenial understanding of two seemingly very different people. We learn about Nordland’s fight against drug dependency as a result of his mother leaving with his two siblings, leaving him to contend with an emotionally cold father. Becoming a respected carpenter he then feel prey to drugs abuse and prison. His upper body is heavily tattooed, with an inscription reading “Snitchers are a dying Breed”. When Nordland saw his portrait he cried like a baby, so overwhelmed that somebody saw him worthy of a portrait. “I do not deserve to be happy”. Barbora also painted him with his girlfriend, who left him after he bought heroin on the way to Rehab.

Nordland and Barbora are polar opposites yet their relationship develops against the odds, clearly brought to each other by some sort of soul connection through which they also learn a great deal about themselves – including their respective inherent attraction to dangerous habits. They are like Hansel and Gretel, abandoned by the adult world to fight for themselves in a threatening environment. The dark wood is a good symbol for a world both don’t fully understand.

Sentenced to one year in Halden prison, Nordland distance from Barbora’s feels somehow therapeutic for them both. But the re-discovery of one of her paintings ‘Swansong’, (hidden by Nordland’s partner in crime in an underground labyrinth) fills her with ecstatic happiness.

Rees and fellow DoP Kristoffer Kumar produces images of ethereal beauty, particularly in the shots showing Barbora painting in a trance-like state. What started as a ten-minute short film develops into a profound exploration of two survivors, who accidentally find a way to each other. AS

In cinemas 30 October 2020 | Winner – Sundance 2020 – Special Jury Prize for Creative Storytelling

 

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (2020) ****

Dir/Wri: Gero von Boehm | DoP: Sven Jakob-Engelmann | 89′

Gero von Boehm dives deep into the life and work of maverick German fashion photographer Helmut Newton (1920-2004) for a second look.

Back in the 1980s I was a great admirer of Newton’s cutting edge gaze at the female – and male – form. After a photographer boyfriend told me “you look like a Helmut Newton model” I was determined to track down this controversial man and learn more about him. Then I remember standing on the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin and watching glamorous leather-clad ladies of the night pass by all stern and supercilious with their whips and red lips. Clearly these proud professional were Newton’s disciples. And this warm tribute celebrates the subversive side of the genial provocateur who was born into a comfortable Jewish family in Berlin during the edgy Weimarer years.

Enlivened by fascinating insights from Newton himself along with his Australian wife June and numerous collaborators Gero von Boehm’s Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful discovers a man who loved women and gave them the confidence to show their bodies off in a way that was empowering, seductive and even darkly humorous – even dangerous. By the end you may have a different view of his innovative approach, considered by some to be exploitative. Look again.

Once of Newton’s challengers was feminist writer Susan Sontag, who is seen sparring with him on a French chat show calling him out on his penchant for shooting naked women (mostly in high heels) in objectified scenarios, but the disdainful expressions or steely glint in these women’s eyes tells a different story, and despite their nakedness they are proud potent Amazonians who glare out at the viewer,  and this is his talent to amuse. It was also one that earned him a great deal of money enabling him to winter in California’s luxury Chateau Marmont for over 40 years until his tragic death in January 2004.

Ironically his famous models heap him with praise. Isabella Rossellini – who considers herself a feminist – waxes lyrical about her friend recalling a famous portrait he made of her with her then-partner David Lynch. his approach seems to expose latent truths in the female (and male) psyche, after all we are all animals who love to dominate or occasionally be overpowered in the right circumstances.  And this is the essence of the sizzling sexual chemistry behind his photos. Another glowing account comes from Charlotte Rampling, who has more than a twinkle in her eye looking back on the smouldering naked portrait that helped launch her career around the time of The Night Porter.

Von Boehm then delves into Newton’s past: he was 13 when Hitler came to power, a time when Leni Riefenstahl’s athletic images of women in rigorous exercise formations were everywhere to be seen. In Australia he met his wife to be and major collaborator, June, who went on to be his art director, while honing her own craft behind the camera. It was a successful love and business partnership akin to that of Charles and Ray Eames.

Coming across as affable and also vulnerable, Newton plays up his ‘naughty boy’ image in front of the camera and seems like the sort of guy who would be charming and easygoing company. But Boehm keeps a distance from his subject in an enjoyable foray that never attempts to eulogise or condemn. Clearly Newton had a well-developed erotic imagination but his love and devotion to his wife is a clear indication that, at heart, he was a decent if decadent man. MT

ON CURZON HOME CINEMA | DIGITAL DOWNLOAD 23 OCTOBER

 

 

Ronnie’s (2020)

Dir: Oliver Murray | Doc with:

The sheer exhilaration of live music is one of life’s pleasures. And Oliver Murray conjurs up the vibrant spirit of Jazz in this documentary tribute to a man who was always “gracious, inviting and free to share his ideas with everybody” in the words of American record producer Quincy Jones. This is the story of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Soho’s storied jazz club in London.

Ronnie Scott (1927-1996) was an English jazz tenor saxophonist who played alongside some of the most famous figures in the world of Jazz in a small basement location in London’s Frith Street in the heart of Soho.

Once described as a “very nice bunch of guys”, Ronnie was all things to all people, everyone describing a different side of his charismatic personality. And Murray saves the darker side for the final chapter of this layered biopic. Scott grew up in a working class Jewish family in the East End of London where he trained on the saxophone just like his father before him, founding his iconic jazz club in 1959 and unintentionally creating a den of cool and a meeting place for luminaries of the jazz world and their aficionados.

Still going after 60 years, Ronnie Scotts is now a household name, inextricably linked to the word Jazz, the current manager (and talking head) Simon Cooke has been keeping the place going for the past 25 years. Owned by theatre impresario Sally Greene and the entrepreneur Michael Watt since 2005

Fascinating archive footage forms the background to a later interview with Ronnie – taking us through the history of his East and West End childhood and early adulthood in the 1940s where he became a dance-band saxophonist (like his father) and then falling in love with Bebop and learning his Jazz style on board oceans liners bound for New York. Here he discovered Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and eventually, sailing back to London, he dreamed up the idea of his own jazz club – he would be the star-power – starting the evening in compare mode with a series of dry jokes – his fellow musician Pete King was the business brain. The idea came together with the aspiration to provide keen musicians with the first ever place to perform in Gerrard Street (just round the corner), although Americans were forbidden by the Musician’s Union to play in English venues. This made the financing complicated because only the Americans bought in the money. This led to a long-standing feud with the UK musician’s union.

Five bob (UK shillings) was the charge for the Saturday ‘all-nighter” and there was generous hospitality shown to regulars and those who worked there. Later the club moved to bigger premises at 47 Frith Street and welcomed the likes of Sonny Rollins, Dizzie Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Roland Kirk, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich, Thelonious Monk, Chet Baker and Sarah Vaughan, and even Van Morrison all of whom perform in the clips that Murray interweaves into this lively biopic.

Scott was the frontman while macho straight-talker King took care of the business. Their close relationship was likened to a marriage, by King’s wife Stella, who describes Ronnie as a complicated man who, unknown to friends and fellow musicians, suffered from low moods that he shook off by playing his music. And bankruptcy was often round the corner, Ronnie recalling the bailiffs being on site one time even pricing up the piano while the show went on. Ronnie often gambled away the takings but he was also the life and soul of a place fondly remembered here by those who enjoyed it over the years amongst them Mel Brooks, music journalist John Fordham, Ronnie’s daughter Rebecca, and his various wives and partners Mary Scott, Francoise Venet, and others who help flesh out the complicated artist he was.

But the unique feel of the place and Ronnie’s soulful charisma dominant this jubilant often deeply poignant biopic about a man with a vision, and a club that still attracts crowds as never before and will hopefully carry on. MT

ON QUALITY PLATFORMS

 

 

Frida Kahlo (2021) DVD and Digital

Dir.: Ali Ray; Documentary narrated by Anna Chancellor; UK 2020, 90 min. 

Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) had more than her fair share of set-backs in a short life marked by tragedy: after suffering from polio as a child, her heart was set on becoming a doctor. Eventually a life-changing accident in Mexico City proved the making of her as Mexico’s most well-known figurative artist.

Helmed by Ali Ray, Frida Kahlo takes a deep dive into the cultural history of Mexico in an engaging and informative study that starts in turn of the 20th Century Mexico City where Kahlo was born into a professional family of Germany heritage. Inspired by Renaissance art and European Avant-garde Kahlo channelled her pain (caused by a road accident) into portraits of family and friends, painted from her bed, with a special easel suspended from above.

The straightforward narrative chronicles a life marked by Kahlo’s dedication to finding an artistic outlet to her feelings as a semi-invalid in need of constant surgical intervention to manage her afflictions. Her paintings explore post-colonial gender, class and culture at a time where her country was experiencing seismic shifts in its transformation away from Hispanic influences and back to Mexico’s native roots in magic realism and folklore. She was the first painter to depict a miscarriage (her own), and, as a devout Catholic, she even painted herself as the baby Jesus cradled in the arms of Mary.

Kahlo’s relationship with wealthy, political activist and painter Diego Rivera marked a significant turning point in her life in1928. Both were members of the Communist party and they married a year later – Rivera was 20 years older – to form a union that would be influential but turbulent for the rest of her life. Crucially it also meant that Kahlo was able to afford the hospital treatment that would keep her going. Despite his obesity Rivera was a flagrant womaniser – even sleeping with Frida’s younger sister and close confident. “I had two accidents in my life, the tram and Diego. He was by far the worst”. She reflected later in life.

Kahlo may have been avant-garde in her outlook, but styled herself as a traditional Tijuana woman and painted in the naif style of the ‘Mexicanidad’, a romantic nationalism which adopted motifs from the pre-colonial era. In the early 1930s the couple moved to San Francisco where Rivera – as part of the Muralista movement – took on an assignment to paint the walls of an industrial plant with historical murals, a mammoth undertaking that would later see the couple move to Detroit and New York. But while Rivera worked, Frida tried to have a family. Her 1932 work “Henry Ford Hospital” was considered the first painting to feature a miscarriage, an attempt by the 25 year-old Frida to process the shock. She continued to paint expressing her inner trauma using symbolism and iconography which bordered on the surreal. Andre Breton being entranced by her style, even though Kahlo herself never used any categorisation for her work.

Frida yearned for Mexico and their eventual return saw the couple housed in separate dwellings, connected by a bridge where they could visit each other at will. It was at this time that Rivera took up with Kahlo’s younger sister, and the disappointed Frida turned to expressing herself through religious tableaux painted on copper and zinc – but not in the traditional form of an icon: one painting: “My Nurse and I” (1937) depicts her as the baby Jesus, and Maria as a Mexican woman. “The Two Fridas” (1939) is a split-personality portrait, whilst “Self-portrait with cropped Hair” (1940) is about her androgynous self, not surprisingly since she had affairs with women as well as men during her chequered sexual career. Her increasing alcohol intake, and Diego’s affairs with high profile lovers, led to a divorce in 1939, but they would remarry a year later.

Kahlo only had two solo exhibitions in her lifetime (the last one in 1953, just before her death). In 1938 her paintings were part of “Magic Realism”, an exhibition in Paris, where Picasso gave her critical acclaim. In Kahlo’s final years her paintings became more and more graphic in their depiction of trauma. “A Few Nips” shows a prostitute being murdered by her pimp, and “The broken Column” (1944) is a self-portrait, her body in a corset, her spine held together by bandages. “Self-Portrait with Thorn Neck Lace and Hummingbird” (1940) shows her with a monkey and a black cat – a semi-religious portrait which again is a role reversal of gender roles. Perhaps her most complete painting is “The Love embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego and and Senor Xolotl “(1949), a quasi-religious panorama in which Frida holds the adult Diego like a baby in her arms.

Ray’s filming technique show the paintings at their most vivid and clear, but the academic Talking Heads become too intrusive: Anna Chancellor’s concise narration offering adequate insight, the paintings speaking for themselves. Kahlo’s work and personality elude any academic approach – her life and work defied categorisation as a unique expression of life experience couched in the enigma of an extraordinary woman who succeeded against the odds. AS      

FRIDA KAHLO: RELEASED ON DVD, DOWNLOAD & STREAM ON 22 FEBRUARY

African Apocalypse (2020) ***

Dir.: Rob Lemkin; Documentary with Femi Nylander, Amina Weira; UK 2020, 88 min.

This new documentary sees Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel ‘Heart of Darkness’ from the natives’ perspective. Oxford University student Femi Nylander goes on a real voyage of discovery to illuminate the bloody massacres in Niger at the end of the 19th century when the French government to unite the French colonies in West Africa backfired with tragic consequences and costing over 15,000 African lives.

Following in the footsteps of French officers Captain Voulet and his adjutant Lt. Julian Chanoines were tasked with unifying the colonies of what is now Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso, to fend off British colonial forces. After Voulet’s worst massacres in Birnin Konni, word of Voulet’s depravity and violence reached Paris, and Army Command sent Lt. Colonel Jean Francois Klobb to relieve Voulet. On Bastille Day in July 1899 Klobb confronted Voulet and was later killed.

Lemkin accompanies Nylander and his co-researcher and translator Amina Weira on their journey through West Africa, where they discover written material relating to Voulet’s massacres and his descent into madness, declaring: “I have become an African, and would be the King of Paris”. They also dredge up a tape recording from the 1970s narrated by an old women retelling the gory details, which was tantamount to genocide, and would land Voulet in front of the Den Hague Court.

Nylander feels like in outsider in the old Etonian world of Oxford, and he is also to made to feel a stranger once in Africa: his interviewees challenge him on his lack of empathy with the victims’ grand children. DoPs Claude Garnier and Shaun Harley Lee sustain a fly-on-the-wall presence, keeping a welcome intimacy; whilst their panoramic impressions of he river landscapes are of exceptional beauty. Lemkin’s attempt to integrate Nylander with his current BLM activities is not always successful, since the ‘retelling’ of the Conrad narrative can very much stand on its own. But the African images are much stronger than contemporary, middle-class dominated UK protest meetings, which feel anaemic in comparison. AS

SCREENED DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2020

 

 

 

    

Capital in the 21st Century (2020)

Dir.: Justin Pemberton; Co-Dir.: Thomas Piketty; Doc with Rana Foroohar, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Ian Bremmer, Francis Fukuyama; France/New Zealand 2019, 102′ 

Justin Pemberton makes economics anything but dry in his thrilling – and frightening – screen adjunct to Thomas Piketty’s ground-breaking book. Brisk and entertaining like a filmic history lesson, some 400 years are condensed into a palatable mouthful that lacks somehow the depth of the page.

The New-Zealander has raided the archives enlivening Capital in the 21st Century with TV clips as well as graphics and archive footage of newsreels, financial ‘experts’ adding their pennyworth in a bid to clarify the mess we are in. According to Piketty – who also appears as a talking head – nothing has changed since the 17th century when feudalism ruled and the medium life expectancy was seventeen. So what does that tell you?

Feudalism saw one per cent of the population own seventy percent of land. Back then the only way of earning a living (apart from servitude) was itinerant farm work. In films terms, the world was like just like Elysium (2013), where a charmed few lived in splendour and the rest in grinding poverty. The French  Revolution tried to break the mould but the real change came with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century when machines took over the manual work but the power structure was the same: workers being in hock to their employers (who took all the risks), strikers ending up in jail.

Many Europeans emigrating to North America for a new start soon discovered that hard land-based work was still the order of the day, the small family unit unable to compete with land-owners, who bought in slaves and exploited them on the cotton fields of the Deep South. Meanwhile Europeans were out colonising and exploiting the natural resources of the newfound territories, finding unchallenged markets for their products and building fortunes and empires into the bargain.    ,

European workers’ resentment  increased between 1870 and 1914, while an emerging Middle Class got used to a new term: fashion. In the US meanwhile, the class struggle was much more vicious, employers hiring their own militia, backed by a Federal Army who quelled many strikes. The outbreak of World War I channelled class envy into a national identity, the aftermath saw the suffragettes making inroads into male dominance with their fight for the right to vote.

Pemberton then leads us through the more erratic midsection of the documentary which deals with the 20th domination by banking power, nationalism, Depression, war, the welfare system and workers rights. Working class lives improved immeasurably during the late 1950s when prime minister Harold Macmillan proclaimed: “You’ve never had it so good”. He was probably right. The establishment of a Welfare State led to a vigorous middle class which would become the backbone of society, but that backbone has since been severely tested by an erosion of values that has polarised society, particularly now as the gulf widens again between rich and poor. Since the 1970s Oil Crisis, middle class income has sharply declined in the US, where ‘stagflation’ soon became the order of the day.

In the 1980s, President Reagan dismantled the welfare state, and Wall Street and Main Street diverged: what was good for the City and the big corporations (with Joseph Stiglitz’s ideas of trickle down economics) was not seen as a benefit to Main Street with its mainly family-owned small businesses. The US was suffering from competition from Japan and Europe, and Reagan’s battle cry “to make America great again” created a war against trade unions, and native workers disgruntled by a growing number of immigrant labourers. With the slogans like “Greed is good” dominating, more deregulation was supposed to facilitate a “trickle down” of wealth, which never happened. The result is that the bottom 90% of the population has suffered a loss in family income, and the real wages (purchasing power) are on a level last experienced in 1960.

The credit boom, another contributing factor of the 2008 crash, camouflaged a dire situation: since 1970 wages have increased for 90% of the population by 800%, but for the top ten percent the increase in capital was 2000%. This has led to the Super Rich not re-investing their capital in production, but in keeping their wealth in an endless loop, where the same people buy and sell capital commodities, bringing a 4.5% average return. This compared with 1.6% return on investments in industry or other productive enterprises.

When all is said and done, the super rich will always be able to employ the best legal advice to fight their way out of taxation. In 2015, Google Alphabet had made a profit of 15.5. billion USD – offshore in Bermuda. shell companies and numbered accounts for the Elite keep them free from punitive taxes.

Meanwhile, new technologies create new jobs. More than ever ,individuals are setting up companies and gaining financial freedom and clout. But when robots replace humans, humans will slide down the pecking order. Vehicle drivers now make up the second largest group of people in employment. With the advent of the driverless car, what will eventually happen to them?

So the outlook is grim. But it always was. The rich will always be rich, and the poor will always be poor, but the disadvantaged have more opportunities that ever before. Pemberton includes a psychology experiment that exposes a sinister side to human nature suggestive of a positive mind set that also comes into play.

The consequences can only be controlled politically. But who will be controlling capitalism? Certainly not the middle classes, if their erosion continues. The film tries to end on a positive note: “Creating a more equal society is possible from a technical standpoint”. But in reality we all know this is unlikely to happen due to the inherent flaws of human nature. AS

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

                                               

I Am Woman (2020) ****

Dir: Unjoo Moon | Cast: Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Evan Peters, Danielle Macdonald | Biopic Drama 116′

There are two iconic feminist anthems that stand out in the memory: one is Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, the other is I Am Woman.

Written and sung by the not quite so famous Seventies singer Helen Reddy, her theme tune nonetheless comes from a place of calm confidence. Is not strident, desperate or defiant but sure of its positive message. Yes, I am a woman but I’m also warm, approachable and secure.
Of course Reddy – played here by a fabulously feline Tilda Cobham-Hervey – was an accomplished artist who made a number of hit records during the late 1960s and 1970s. And Unjoo Moon’s fond but enjoyable rags to riches debut biopic shows how she made it from nowhere to become one of the most popular singers of her generation.
Her story starts in 1966. The mother of a 3 year girl Tracey, she arrives in New York from Sydney hoping for a recording contract from a major music producer who immediately patronises her in a film fraught with the ingrained prejudice of the era: “you really flew over from Australia all by yourself?” He denies her a contract claiming the trend is for male bands  “the Beatles are all the rage”. Trying to make her way, she is later denied equal pay as a nightclub singer on the grounds of her status as an illegal alien. But she is not deterred. And with Emma Jensens’ script painting her as a purring lowkey diva, Cobham-Hervey’s Reddy has to figure out how she can keep her canny charisma and move on from being just another talented female vocalist to an assertive, no-bullshit ballbreaker – just like a man – to get to the top. But the Seventies is the era of the singer-songwriter (with a selection of gracefully performed numbers featuring here, dubbed by Chelsea Cullen) so Helen has come to America at just the right time.
Based on Reddy’s own memoirs The Woman I Am, Moon and Jensen do their best to tether the feature to the current upswell of gender parity issues. But it’s not only fame and success as a female Reddy has to conquer but also several tricky relationships, not least her budding romance with potential agent Jeff Wald (Evan Peters), who becomes Helen’s second husband, putting his own life first along with the other high level clients in his portfolio, mostly notable being the rock band Deep Purple. The two form a feisty partnership Jeff spurred on by his wife’s calm determination to pioneer her gently feministic easy listening style. The couple are now living in California where Reddy has bought a poolside mansion with cash.
Meanwhile, the ego-driven Jeff is proving a handful and needs to be managed with an iron fist. Reddy’s other key relationship is with her compatriot Lillian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald), who is making her way in music journalism and is known for the first rock encyclopedia in 1969. But both these relationships will falter: Jeff turns into a belligerent, megalomaniac coke head running through all the couple’s money, and Lillian dies of an asthma attack.
The film’s focus is very much Reddy’s invidious relationship with Jeff but fails to examine why the singer stuck to easy listening style in a career that was successful (Angie Baby, I don’t know How to Love Him and Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady) but never really had a narrative arc of its own or a progression beyond her female-centric ballads. We do see her attempting to break into the Jazz style she had always been keen on, but this desire is stymied by Jeff and her advisors who control her activities to secure their own profits. And the sheer will and perseverance of making it anyway must have taken up most of her emotional energy, with two children to rear and a mercurial misogynist husband and manager to deal with.
Dubbed “the queen of housewife rock” by Alice Cooper, Reddy is clearly a symbol of female empowerment but more in the style of Phyllis Schlafly than her fellow chanteuses of the era Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon or Carol King. Cleverly the film never comes across as women’s lib story – and in a one certainly doesn’t get the impression Reddy was a ‘bra-burner’, more as a tribute to a woman whose talents as a singer is showcased in Cobham-Hervey’s sinuously stylish performances that make her really appealing to watch and listen in the film. Yet looking back on her music as a teen of that era Reddy was never on the radar as being remotely ‘cool’ or ground-breaking in the style Mitchell and Simon.
Superbly lensed by Oscar winning DoP Dion Beebe, the film’s final scenes therefore come across as an afterthought and tonally out of kilter with what has gone before. That said, this minor flaw does nothing to detract our enjoyment of Cobham-Hervey’s performance that carries the film through with an astonishing tour de force of grace, poise and fervent femininity. MT
IN CINEMAS FROM FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (2020) ****

Dir.: Halina Dyrschka, Documentary with Iris Müller-Westermann, Julia Voss, Josiah McElheny, Johan af Klint, Ulla af Klint; Germany 2019, 93 min. 

The life of abstract artist and mystic Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) – who purportedly created the first abstract work in 1906 – is the subject of this impressive first feature from German director Halina Dyrschka.

Painted out of art history by male supremacists, it shows how the pioneering Swede was creating colourful visionary works – inspired by her interest in Theosophy – five years before Kandinsky, who is supposed the first in this field – the dubious circumstances of which add a controversial twist to this informative arthouse documentary.

They tens mainstay IV (1907)

When Hilma af Klint died at the age of nearly eighty-two, she left 1200 paintings and 26 000 pages of diary to her nephew Erik, with the clear proviso that nothing should be sold from a body of work that would only be exhibited twenty years after death, because she felt the world was not ready for her groundbreaking ideas. She was dead right – the first major exhibition had to wait until 2013, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm having refused to take her paintings as a gift from the Hilma af Klint Foundation during the 1970s. 

In 1882, at the age of twenty af Klint was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, where she set about successfully creating traditional portraits and landscapes earning substantial sums. At the Academy she met Anna Cassel, the first of four women who would join her in the collective The Five (De Fem), the others being Cornelia Cederberg, Sigrid Hedman and Matilda Nilsson. But there was another more spiritual side to her life and she was actively involved in Theosophy, participating in séances, a normal pastime for middle class Avantgarde intellectuals at the turn of the century.

Theosophy was the only spiritual movement which allowed women to be ordained as priests, teaching the oneness of all human beings. Af Klint’s interest in the theories of fellow Theosophist Madame Blavatsky led her to geometrical paintings where: “the pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings and with great force. I had no idea what the the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless, I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.”  

In 1908 Af Klint met up with her longterm friend Rudolf Steiner, but her abstract work made little impact on the Swiss anthropologist. He would later show her paintings to a fellow Theosophist Kandinsky who claimed his 1910 “Untitled” to be the first ever abstract work ever produced. Nobody will ever know if af Klint’s paintings had influenced  Kandinsky.

The Ten Largest: Adulthood No 7 (1907)

Steiner’s rejection of her work led to a four-year-long creative block for af Klint, lasting until 1912. Her confidence had been battered, but her work on the Temple series carried on and was prodigious, counting 193 paintings divided into sub-series. One theme gave rise to massive canvasses in a series entitled, ‘The Ten Largest” (1907) describing the various stages of life (childhood, youth, adulthood, old age etc).

Clearly af Klint’s work is still an influential creative force over a hundred years after her first foray into the art world. Looking at Warhol’s quartet of Monroe paintings, we find an exact duplicate in af Klints’s oeuvre, showing four identical portraits of an elderly woman. The experts and the film’s Talking Heads agree: Art History has to be re-written to find a place for Hilma af Klint, a courageous woman who only unveiled her abstract talent once during her lifetime: at ‘Friends House’ in London, 1928. AS

IN CINEMAS from 9 OCTOBER 2020

 

 

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020) *****

Dirs: Alastair Fothergill, Jonnie Hughes, Keith Scholey | UK Doc 83′

Eco-documentaries too often rely on just their worthwhile subject matter to carry them through. A Life on Our Planet is not only thematically important but also impressively crafted and entertaining with a positively uplifting final kick.

It all begins and ends in Chernobyl showing how the Ukrainian social utopia became a nuclear bomb site, and is now teeming with wildlife and lush vegetation – humans are nowhere to be seen. Then dear old David emerges from a ruined building with a stark warning: Nature will eventually take over the planet, do we humans want to be there or not?

Candid, relevant and revealing, David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet is a powerful first-hand account of humanity’s impact on nature since the last time a comet destroyed all lifeforms, before the Holocene ushered in the wonderful world we all know. And this will happen again, for many of us within our lifetimes. But there is a way forward. And it’s not just about plastic bags.

Now nearly 94, Attenborough reflects back on his extraordinary life as an naturalist exploring the remote and wild corners of the globe and documenting his experiences for all of us to see and enjoy. And he does reflect on the devastating changes that are still unfolding in subtle and troubling ways. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

Neither is A Life on our Planet a worthy or ‘ticking off’ rant but a fascinating testament to the magnificence surrounding. There is a tangible and sustainable way forward to continue living in harmony with nature and making the most of life in our amazing world. MT

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: A LIFE ON OUR PLANET WILL PREMIERE IN CINEMAS ACROSS THE GLOBE ON 28TH SEPTEMBER FEATURING AN EXCLUSIVE CONVERSATION WITH SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH AND SIR MICHAEL PALIN.  IT WILL BE RELEASED ON NETFLIX GLOBALLY THIS AUTUMN. attenboroughfilm.com

 

Final Account (2020)

Dir: Luke Holland Doc, UK 90’

British filmmaker Luke Holland goes the other side of the fence in this definitive documentary that plunders the memories of German Second World War veterans involved in Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Final Account is a candid film that pulls no punches in its trenchant expose of German and Austrian wartime veterans – both men and women. And although the director maintain his distance – his grandparents lost their lives in the camps; what emerges is startling and often depressing.

Blue-eyed witnesses now in their 80s and 90s reminisce over their joy and excitement at being part of the Hitler Youth Movement that allowed them to indulge in a variety of sports such as swimming and athletics that had previously been denied them during the early 1930s in Germany.

But others even ended up engaging in sports of a more gruesome nature when they decided to join in Hitler’s ethnic genocide and become direct participants in the horrors of the prison camps. What emerges is not always palatable to watch and several interviewees continue to deny the gravity of their actions in the name of their country, whether through selective amnesia or embarrassment.

Twelve years in the making and enriched by footage and photographs from the personal albums of those involved Final Account is a vital and worthwhile addition to the Holocaust canon. But the casual denial and abdication of responsibility of those who took part in the Wehrmacht, or SS, will be a bitter pill for most viewers to swallow.

Most Germans claim to have been carried along on a wave of nationalistic pride, or were ‘just obeying orders’. Others state allegiance to the Hitler’s view that German Jews were becoming too successful and clicquey. One ex SS office is honest enough to admit that he didn’t particularly care when hundreds of synagogues were burnt down on Kristallnacht in 1938. Another man, pictured in his farm, explains he didn’t hesitate to telephone the police when his Jewish neighbours tried to hide in his barn to avoid capture, bringing to mind the ‘banality of evil’. Another man remembers a childhood song about “Knives sharp enough for Jewish bellies”. He now admits to be shocked at the memory. A group of women in a care home cast their mind back to the smell of burning and black smoke billowing from a nearby furnace, while they gleefully enjoy coffee and biscuits.

These are tragic recollections superbly edited by Stefan Ronowicz in a film that never descends into sentimentality or melodrama – just a stark and sober revelation of human indifference. MT

NOW ON RELEASE

Coup 53 (2019) joins the Rotten Tomatoes 100 percent club

Dir.: Taghi Amirani, Documentary; UK/USA/Iran 2019, 118 min.

Director/co-writer Taghi Amirani (Red Lines and Deadlines) fled Iran as a teenager and brings his life experience to bear in this detailed examination of the British/American coup of 1953, which brought down the government of the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minster Mohamad Mosaddegh (1882-1967).

With the help of editor Walter Murch (Godfather), who is credited as co-writer, Amirani has plunged the archives to piece together the events of August 1953 which still reverberate not only in the region but all over the world.

The suggestion that Mosaddegh was a communist was not far from the truth. And the British and American propagandists certainly concurred with this line of thinking. Apart from being a staunch nationalist, Mosaddegh was a member of the royal Qajar dynasty, a much older Institution than that of his opponent Shah Mohammed Raza Pahlavi, whose father had forcefully overthrown the Qajar dynasty in 1925. In the eyes of Prime Minister Mosaddegh, Shah Raza, of the house of Pahlavi, was an upstart. Mosaddegh had studied law in Europe and went on to nationalise the oil industry which was run by the Anglo-Iranian Oil company (AIOC) back in 1951.

News reels show the company’s tearful British employees leaving Iran. In reality, Mosaddegh had asked them to stay. But Britain and the USA did not want a functioning oil industry run by Iran: they organised a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil on the world market. When this plan did not work out, British Prime Minister Churchill and US president Eisenhower met in 1953 and decided to get rid of Mosaddegh during a coup. Organised by CIA chief Allen Dulles (brother of US foreign minister John Foster), and executed on the ground by Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of President T. Roosevelt) and Britain’s Norman Darbyshire, chief of the Iranian branch of MI6, the so-called operation Ajax was not always plain sailing. Only after Tehran’s police chief Mahmoud Afshartous, a staunch supporter of the Prime Minister, was abducted, tortured and murdered by General and Prime Minister Fazlollah Zahedi, did the coup look like succeeding.

One reason for the remaining question marks lay with Shah Mohammad Raza Pahlavi himself. He had fled the country and retreated to a luxury hotel in Rome with his wife Soraya, and continued to live his previous life of privilege, albeit in exile. His twin sister, Princess Ashhraf, was much more wily and helped the plotters actively. It was Kermit Roosevelt who made the difference in the end: he organised a “spontaneous” popular uprising against the Prime Minister, paying just 60 thousand US dollars for his rented mob. Mosaddegh was put on trial and ended his life alone under house arrest and in solitary confinement for the last fourteen years of his life.

There is a particular British transcript to the affair: In 1985 a TV production of End of the Empire interviewed some participants of the 1953 Coup, among them Norman Darbyshire, who, according to the transcript of the interview, was very open about his contribution. But he never appears in the finished documentary. The quotes used for the interview were neatly cut out and seemed lost – before an anonymous person sent the missing lines of Darbyshire’s interview to the Observer. Amirani landed his own coup, letting Ralph Fiennes read the incriminating sections.

Coup 53 allows us to imagine what could have happened in the region if democracy in Iran had been allowed to flourish. Today we are still confronted with the clerical-fascist Islamist regime of Iran –  belated vengeance for the Coup for oil. AS

REAL-LIFE THRILLER COUP 53 JOINS THE 100% CLUB ON ROTTEN TOMATOES 

NOW ON DIGITAL RELEASE | LONDON FILM FESTIVAL review 2019

My Rembrandt (2020) *****

Dir: Oeke Hoogendijk | Doc, 97′

Oeke Hoogendijk (The New Rijksmuseum) once again delves into the art world in her visually ravishing new documentary that plays out like a thriller. Set amidst the world of the elite in a multi-stranded narrative that grows more exciting by the minute My Rembrandt is a story of art dealers, connoisseurs and collectors whose lives revolve around the sale and acquisition of masters old and new.

Hoogendijk certainly knows how to build suspense and has a good nose for a story. It also helps to be on first name terms with her illustrious characters: The Duke of Buccleuch; Dutch art scion Jan Six, Baron Eric de Rothschild; and billionaire philanthropist Thomas S Kaplan. She finds herself in a discrete Scottish castle, Champs Elysses apartments, and canal houses of Amsterdam where this fascinating film takes place. Ironically there’s not an ounce of avarice in the faces of these extraordinary collectors who are genuinely charming and pleasant. My Rembrandt is a seductive film with a surprising finale whether the subject is of interest of not.

We meet businessman and philanthropist Thomas Kaplan, who is a passionate Rembrandt collector who set himself the noble task of making these works available in the public domain and who has buying up canvases for the past few decades. Kaplan is an appealing man Kaplan who confesses to having actually kissed a Rembrandt portrait of a woman. Clearly well-connected he goes about his business amongst world leaders at media events connected to his pastime. The Duke of Buccleuch is more lowkey in his approach and we see him celebrating his looking his Rembrandt, Old Woman Reading, in the privacy of his sitting room. Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits helping him to select a safe place to hang the portrait in order to involve the old woman in everyday life as a true member of the family.

Meanwhile Baron Roschild is a kindly man who has reluctantly parted with two Rembrandts – the wedding portraits of Marten and Oopjen – which have been in the family for generations, in order to help his brother pay taxes. The sale of these masterpieces threatens to derail the entente cordiale between the Louvre in France and Holland’s Rijksmuseum as they each bid for paintings.

All these titbits are brought together by the work of Dutch art dealer Jan Six XI, the ancestor of a 17th-century art dealer whose portrait was actually painted by Rembrandt and stills hangs in the family home. The film opens with his discovery of an as yet unknown canvas by Rembrandt, and a second follows shortly after the first. Jan Jnr is not just a pretty face but a Rembrandt expert, and what he doesn’t know about the painter could be written on a Holbein miniature. Jan has also made a career out of the old master. He recently spotted both canvases at a Christies auction and snapped them up for a relatively low price. But he needs to prove these paintings are actually by Rembrandt and not just one of his disciples. And this is where Rembrand authority Professor Ernst van de Wetering comes in. The ‘Fake or Fortune’ twist then takes over as we are compelled to discover whether Jan has made a clever purchase or bough himself a proverbial ‘pup’. And the finale is spiced up by a fellow trader coming into the fray, accusing Jan of cheating him.

What is remarkable is that Rembrandt’s paintings have lost none of their appeal in the 350 years since his death. Collectors worldwide relish the Dutch master’s work. My Rembrandt offers insight into what makes the work of this Dutch master technically so extraordinary, and why people are so passionate about paintings in general. In her brilliant documentary Hoogendijk shows how the sober art world can be a source of drama and gripping plot twists. MT

ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS and ON DEMAND from  on 14th August.

Vision Nocturna | Night Shot (2019) ***** FID Marseille

Dir.: Carolina Muscoso Briceño; Documentary; Chile 2019, 80 min.

Pain, Rage and Acceptance: the various stages of rape. Chilean first-time director/co-writer and DoP Carolina Muscoso Briceño has dared to go where very few have gone before her: having been a rape victim almost a decade ago while studying at the Film School in Santiago, she has since made a film diary of her life still rocked to this day by the rape trauma. Intercut with her reflexions on the assault – and not only her own experience – Night Shot is a testament to gradual liberation.

“Rape victims are ashamed of what happened to them. The first thing that mobilised me was to break with that shameful legacy and to think of a way of exposing it to cross that barrier” says the director.

Everyday life go on, in various formats. Her experiences about the attack itself and the bureaucratic engendered are set mostly against a black background. On the beach near Santiago, Carolina became separated from her friends, and came across Gary. The two decided to go for something to eat nearby, but on the way he raped her. “Afterwards I did as he told me. I stayed motionless in the bushes. He said he would kill me if I followed him. I cleaned the blood off my face, picked up my ripped shirt and headed for the highway”.  The distress was further compounded by her father’s comments when he picked her up in his car: “a friend of mine got raped by her father. That’s much worse.”

Carolina went to a hospital, and was examined two hours after the rape. But the Catholic female doctor was against offering her a morning-after-pill, on the grounds of being against aborton “on principle”. What follows adds insult to injury and later Gary Raul Lopez Montero categorically refused any connection with Carolina. “I never knew anybody called Carolina. I met no one that night. I have a one-year-old daughter, I deny any involvement in this event” His brashness compared with Carolina’s answers still under the influence of the rape, made the DA drop the case.

Eight years later, Carolina makes another attempt to get justice, seeking advice from her lawyer friend Slvio who describes recourse as an uphill struggle for the victim, particularly where they refused to complete  hospital tests and seemed to lack conviction about their own role in the matter. Chile’s systemic structure of ‘justice’, in which the rape victim had to prove the guilt of the attacker, is common in most countries. Carolina’s first psychologist had told her “You are in the middle of an emergency landing”, and whilst she talked, Carolina imagined the different ways of falling.

Later Silvio has even worse news: The time limit for prosecution of rape is usually ten years, but since Gary was a minor at the time of the attack, the limit is just five years. Carolina eventually returns to the scene of the crime: “To be back feels like a big fire, this fire accompanies me, as well as the feeling that Gary is right here. That nine years later, he never has left this place”. She films and photographs the terrain, and is asked by a rider on horseback, why she is taking the photos. Her response is candid: “I am recording this place here, because something has happened here. Yes, here in Papudo. A long time ago, seven or eight years.” The rider asks: “Something good or bad”. Caroline’s answer is “good and bad”, before stating that she did not know her feelings are ambivalent. and: “I don’t know why I think I’ll find the wallet I lost that day”. Breathtakingly honest, Night Shot is an absolute masterpiece of form and context. AS

FID MARSEILLE 2020 | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION.

Homeland (Domovine) (2020) **** FID Marseille

Dir.: Jelena Maksimovic; Cast: Jelena Angelovski, Trifonas Siapalinis; Serbia 2020, 63 min.

Jelena Maksimovic is inspired by her own life experience in this feature debut, a lament about loss but above all, a feminist reckoning dedicated to the filmmaker’s grandmother Elina Gacu (1928-2017), evacuated from civil wartorn Greece to what was then Yugoslavia, now North Macedonia.

The stark winter setting makes this all the more foreboding: A car approaching a wild mountainside, a young woman behind the wheel, a banal, romantic song on the car stereo. Not the best of welcomes for the ‘homecoming’ of someone who has never set foot in her country before.

The changing seasons mark a year’s stay in this village, and her growing unfulfilled longing to find a place which connects to her grandmother who has lived here since being exiled from her homeland during the Civil War (1946-1949), the first proxy war of the global Cold War.

This young woman is a visitor but not a tourist, wanting to claim something of the place for herself. Fragments of war of are everywhere: in fortifications, ruined houses and the reminiscences of old men who recall partisans coming from the mountains to fight government troops before vanishing back into their hideouts.

The woman befriends a restaurant owner, they cook together, he and his friends perform an old folk dance. But for the most part she tries to connect with the inhospitable terrain where animals are her only friends.  Hidden traces of the combat are everywhere. Finally, after so much silence she breaks into a final poetic outburst, accusing the men of bringing warfare to the place and repressing women. She claims the trees in the woods are the only true communists, and mourns the fate of her grandmother.

DoP Dusan Grubin makes an unobtrusive foray into this melancholy setting  – his harrowing panorama shots are just a foretaste of what is to come in a paean to lost identity. The main unnamed character is a victim of fragmentation and alienation: her trial to find anything like home is hampered by the silence around her. The past is the past – whatever the partisans stood for – or whatever the war was about. Her grandmother is a bridge to this past and will lead her back to herself. Homeland is for every soul searching for a place to call their own, moored somewhere in their dreams. AS

FID Marseille | 2020 | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 

Shady River | Rio Turbio (2020) *** FID Marseille

Dir.: Tatiana Mazu Gonzalez; Documentary Argentine 2020, 81 min.

Amongst the wealth of stories coming out of South America at the moment is this unique and visually arresting first feature unearthing an alarming history of exploitation and repression in a Patagonian mining town.

Argentina’s Tatiana Mazu sets a combative tone to her documentary essay which takes the form of seven books, and shows a woman with rifle (the director herself?), ready to push back against old stories of witchcraft. Clearly these are a feisty bunch who don’t take kindly to a macho culture where women were forbidden to enter the underground labyrinth, which is ironically ‘female’ and talks in a women’s voice

The mine was run until 2002 by Sergio Taseli, a local asset stripper, who embarked on several high cost local projects such as the Roca-Belgrano Sur Railway, which were never completed, Taseli collecting his share of the profits beforehand.

But accidents do happen, and we see the photos of the victims. In 2004 fourteen miners died underground after a collapse. Children play amongst the wreckage in old 8mm family films, and Mazu makes use of plans, etchings, drawings, and blueprints to add grist to the grim story. It also emerges she once built a bomb with her chemistry set, intending to create havoc with the establishment.

Then there is the story of Clara who had a sex change operation, and went on to study electro mechanics. After graduating she could only find work as a secretary in the mining company offices. Nowadays, she is one of the few women working underground. But the exploitation continues: after a strike, the leaders were dismissed, and the rest of the workers had to take on their work load.

The oppressive nature of the mine is reflected in deadly silence and stark images, both In colour and black-and-white: Nature Was raped and it’s jewels torn away, crevices appearing everywhere, dark lakes and endless rows of pre-fabricated huts. There are shades of Tarkovsky in the water and the dour surroundings where industrial waste proliferates. Editor Sebastian Zanzotera takes credit for the montage of striking images that lead us into a maze of death and patriarchy.

Mazu takes us to a hidden world, far away from everything, where the newsreel images of Buenos Aires or a Miss Argentine competition seem to be from another universe all together.

FID Marseille 2020 | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 

The Fight (2020) **** VOD

Dir.: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres; Documentary with Lee Gelernt, Brigitte Amiri, Dale Ho, Joshua Block, Chase Strangio; USA 2020, 96 min.

Directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres (the former two already well-known for Weiner (2016), take a look inside battles faced by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) via four cases that had particular impact on the road ahead in American politics.

There was a time when ACLU members were called “Fellow travellers”, a derogative term used by presidential candidate HW Bush in 1988 with great success against his democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Today the ACLU is seen as a bastion against the Trump government. The ACLU has filed 147 (!) cases against the Trump administration, including the infamous Muslim travel ban.

According to Anthony D. Romero, executive director of ACLU, the core support of the organisation dates back to the Nixon era.  ACLU is seen as “cool” today, donations have rocketed since Trump took over in 2017 from three million USD three million to nearly 120 million, whilst the membership has almost reached two million. Not that this matters much to Dale Ho, one of the lawyers we will follow on the day of the judgement: “We are just several floors in a building in New York, we cannot keep the government with all its resources at bay. ” He calls for more volunteers and donations. Meanwhile the ACLU task force is taking phone calls, many accusing them of being pedophiles. ACLU has also come under fire for supporting the members of “alt-right” to demonstrate in Charlottesville, where a counter-demonstrator Heather Heyes was killed by a car driven by ‘white supremacists’. Romero points out that already in 1977, the ACLU defended a Nazi rally in Skokie (Ill.). Back then the demonstrators were not armed, or defended by the President of the USA.    

The finale is at judgement day in the four show cases. ACLU Deputy Director and team veteran Lee Gelernt, is – like the rest of the crew – exhausted. Gelernt has taken on the government in a family separation case, claiming the Trump administration had withheld constitutional rights from the plaintiffs, causing harm for both parents and children. Gelernt’s brief conveys the emotional impact of it all to the Supreme Court judges. Clearly breaking up undocumented immigrant families has caused untold grief going forward and there are emotive scenes of family reunion after the verdict is delivered. Joshua Block and Chase Strangio have been picked to challenge the Trump government on the Transgender Military ban.

The Trump administration subsequently banned any new recruitment of LGTB members into the army. “The guy never gives up” sighs Block. This labour of love is the perfect birthday present for the  ACLU’s centenary. And hopefully, our five heroes, and the rest of the two-and-half floors in New York, will be less busy come January 2021. AS

ON DEMAND FROM 31 JULY 2020 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF FILMS               

Villa Empain (2019) **** MUBI

Dir: Katharina Kastner | Doc, Belg/France/Ger/ 25′

Katerina Kastner’s impressionistic documentary debut captures the essence of the Villa Empain, one of the most beautiful architectural masterpieces of Art Deco in Brussels. In 1930, at the age of 21, Baron Louis Empain commissioned the building of a private mansion in 55 acres on the prestigious Avenue de la Nation which was later on renamed as Franklin Roosevelt Avenue.

Using the finest materials available in those interwar years (marble, bronze and precious wood), the luxurious house consisted of four polished granite facades, surrounded by a large garden with a pergola and swimming pool. A collector and curator, Louis Empain eventually decided that the property was better served as a museum of decorative and contemporary art, and it was donated to the Belgian Nation in 1937. But the Second World War changed everything and the villa languished until 1943, when it was requisitioned by the German army, eventually becoming an embassy for the USSR in peacetime when Empain recovered his property in the beginning of the sixties, before reselling it in 1973. For nearly ten years it was rented to the TV channel RTL then falling to semi-rack and ruin during the 1990s. It was eventually saved by a wealthy family who set up the Boghossian Foundation in 2007, transforming the building into an East West cultural centre and guaranteeing the revival of its fortunes.

Shot in 16mm this is a sensual creation that resonates with the passage of time, showcasing the the house’s former glory through its trials and tribulations to its present reincarnation. The clever editing brings an eerie and fleeting sense of human presence drifting through the empty rooms and light-filled gardens where leaves swirl and valuable materials shimmer in shafts of sunlight. This short but ravishing documentary takes us on a dreamy distant journey to the coast where the family once enjoyed beach holidays in a space reflected by evocative fantasies and haunted by the war years. A century of memories recorded in a treasured place in time. MT

COMES TO MUBI ON 15 JULY 2020 |

Spaceship Earth (2020) **** VOD release

Dir.: Matt Wolf; Documentary with John Allen; USA 2019, 113 min.

Larger and much stranger than life, director/producer Matt Wolf (The Marion Stokes Project) has followed the eight ecologists, who, in 1991, were locked into Biosphere 1, a glass dome in Arizona, to live under conditions aping those on Mars. Animals and plants thrived, but it was not so much the conditions inside, but the human disconnections outside that clouded the experiment in controversy. Still, for a documentary that takes its time – exactly one hour – to get to the main event, Spaceship manages brilliantly to keep us enthralled.

In all starts in San Francisco in 1966: young Kathelin Gray meets a much older John Allen, whilst reading René Daumal’s ‘Mount Analogue’, Allen promises her much more than books, and together with other enthusiasts, they found the travelling theatre group Theatre of All Possibilities. Deciding that Frisco has become too commercialised, they take roots (literally) in New Mexico, living on the land, guided by the Synergy principle, naming the ranch after their motto. Later they built a ship, called the ‘Hereclitus’, naming it after the man who left his privileged life to live in harmony with everyone on earth. They met Burroughs, and adored Buckminster Fuller. Unlike most commune dwellers, they worked very hard, for little profit. But Allen, who had a sense of capitalist reality and soon found a helping hand in form of Ed Bass, a billionaire, who bought a hotel in Kathmandu for the collective, before bankrolling the Biosphere 2 dome.

The eight people, looking rather strange in their red astronaut suits were Roy Walford, Jane Poynter. Taber MacCallum, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone from Essex, Abigail Alling, Mark van Thillo and Linda Leigh. The hermetically sealed three-acre paradise of plants and animals suffered an overdose of CO2 (and  therefore a lack of oxygen), which led Dr. Walford come to the conclusion he would have to eat even less thanks to the low levels of oxygen , and could live for another 120 years. Soon oxygen was pumped in, but it degraded the scientific data. Jane Poynter got her finger stuck in the hay cutting machine, and had to leave for the hospital – coming back with an extra bag – another no-no according to the rules set up before. Media and scientists called the ecologists a ‘cult’, the grass grew limp and tempers frayed. Afterwards, Bass invited a young Steve Bannon (yes, that Bannon!), straight from Goldman Sachs, and this meant the end of the Bass/Allen relationship.  

Spaceship Earth reaches a melancholic conclusion: the founder members, John Allen and Marie Harding, – who have since married – among them, sit around a table amid an air of nostalgia. All of them have kept to the good life of the synergy days, and have stayed out of the commercial rat race, which now includes bio products and anything ‘alternative’. Watching them, we get keen sense of how far away from their heydays we have moved. DoP Sam Wootton underlines feeling of loss with his camerawork which mirrors the archive footage of the original group. To think that something as repulsive as the rip-off Bio-dome made millions at the box office, breaks your heart. AS

ON DEMAND | 10 JULY 2020 |

 

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2019)

Dir: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky | Doc 87′

In her latest eco-documentary Baichwal finds a breath-taking way of showing how humans are destroying the planet. We started off with good intentions, and admirable causes: Carrara Marble gave us the Sistine Chapel and Michaelangelo’s David, but now it mostly provides bathrooms. Teak from the forests of Southern India provided us with oceangoing boats to fight off the Spanish Armada. But enough is now enough. Our burgeoning populations have created an insatiable need for raw materials. This cycle of pillage and endless destruction has overtaken production: our seas are nearly empty, our woods and forests increasingly bare, this untold environmental depletion is even taking its toll on the air we breath.

Rather like Michael Glawogger did in his time, Jennifer Baichwal (Watermark) and her team travel all over the world’s far flung corners to highlight the bizarre and the intriguing. Breathtaking images make us stare in disbelief, mesmerised by the sheer scale, beauty or  dreadfulness of it all. In Russia’s most polluted city, huge mines produce smelted metal used to construct machinery that plunders more minerals from the earth. Germany makes mammoth machines weighting thousands of tons, capable of tearing down a church steeple in seconds to provide space for more mining activity (known as Terraforming, apparently). In the arid salt flats of the Atacama Desert neon-green pools of lithium brine desiccate in the punishing glare of the sun. The batteries will power our electric cars. A doom laden narration from Alicia Vikander feels redundant, anyone can understand the implications of this sinister story without making it even more dour.

So despite some alluring photography Anthropocene offers no positive angles, and we are left feeling hopeless and helpless. Once we built a civilisation, now we are tearing it all apart. MT

ANTHROPOCENE | NOW ON BFI PLAYER

 

Family Romance LLC (2019) *** Streaming

Dir.: Werner Herzog; Cast: Yuchi Ishii, Mahiro Tamimoto, Miki Fujimaki; USA 2019, 89 min.

Werner Herzog is experimenting again and this latest feature gamely blends drama with a hybridised fiction and documentary. Based on Japanese company that hires out its founder to act as a stand-in to suit client circumstances is not particularly original, although a tongue in cheek humour shines through in some of the cameos. Yorgos Lanthimos did this much better in Alps (2011). Here Herzog somehow falls victim to his narrative’s ambiguity: We’re never sure whether this is social critique, or a hidden camera gag.

Yuchi Ishii is boss and main employee of his Family Romance LLF (Limited Liability Company). His first assignment is at Cherry Blossom time in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park where he is meeting twelve-year old Mahiro Tamimoto: hired by the girl’s mother, his remit is to impersonate her father. The Dad in question pushed off when Mahiro was very young, and her mother Miki Fujimaki needs Yuchi to replace him, on important occasions. But this is just one of Yuchi many gigs: a young celebrity-hungry actor then hires him with a posse of fake photographers to get her face into the newspapers; an elderly woman, who has won 180 000 Yen in the lottery, has wants him to create that same feeling of elation when she found out about her win. Yuchi is also hired by a railway employee to take a bollocking from his boss over the late running of a train – the humour here lies in the perceived loss of face for the worker. But when Mahiro arrives one day with an Afro-American toddler “who no one wants to hang out with” because of her “fire-burned face”, things becomes distinctly weird. And when Mahiro falls for ‘father’ Yuchi, her mother tries to have the him move in.

Herzog tries to be philosophical throughout this often awkward, often amusing oddity, but the episodes are simply too thin to invite deep reflection. When Yuchi visits a hotel run by AI service personnel (robots), we are reminded of Philip K. Dick, but the director immediately jumps to another of his numerous exploits. Herzog’s basic camerawork contributes to making this feel like a very minor work, along with Ernst Reijseger’s saccharine score. AS

VOD RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 3 JULY 2020

   

  

Let it Burn | Dis a era due me via Chorar (2019) *** Mubi

Dir.: Maira Bühler; Documentary; Brazil 2019, 81 min.

In her remarkable documentary Brazilian filmmaker Maira Bühler follows the residents of a hotel turned hostel for crack addicts trying to put their lives together again.

The original title Tell Her That She Saw Me Cry is actually much more suitable. What we are really dealing with here is a domestic drama about lost souls whose emotions are so raw that they can only be released in forceful, often self harming, ways often counterproductive to their recovery. In 28 rooms on 7 floors, 107 residents live out their grim existence in the centre of Sao Paulo. Not that we see very much of Brazil’s capital – only the noise of passing trains reminds us of the vast metropolis outside and the brutal streets where hope was decimated long ago for these hapless inhabitants in their lost ark of social abandonment. But at least a den of iniquity is preferable to the jungle outside.

A trade mark of today’s Brazilian documentary style is the obsession with detail combined with an objectivity that captures an out-pouring of emotions often frightening to witness. A man shouts into his phone, desperately declaring his love for a woman who might not even be listening – but his cri de coeur is at the same time proof of him being alive. A lonely woman in a deserted dormitory waits for a lover who might never return. The longing for company is what keeps the majority of the tenants alive. The camera searches out the human links and reveals little groups clinging on to each other for survival. An aching love song reminds us what this is all about: love, however fleeting, is vital for survival.

The social gulf between film crew and their subjects is enormous. But when the crew has installed a tripod in the lift and starts filming, one woman reveals to the director that she is completed uneducated. But even though there is an uncomfortable feeling of voyeurism, the woman never prevents the camera from intruding into her misery. The strength of the film is that it allows ambiguity to develop without letting fragility and vulnerability mask the gradual humanisation. Sadly, this last chance saloon of salvation has now been shut down as part of the cutbacks in psychiatric support instigated by President Bolsonaro’s far right government. AS

SCREENING DURING SHEFFIELD DOC FESTIVAL 2019

 

Carmine Street Guitars (2018) ****

With Rich Kelly, Cindy Hulej, Dorothy Kelly2018 | CANADA | Doc | 80′

This genial music biopic explores the laid-back vibe of Carmine Street Guitars, a little shop in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village that remains resilient to encroaching gentrification.
Custom guitar maker Rick Kelly and his young apprentice Cindy Hulej build handcrafted instruments out of reclaimed wood from old hotels, bars, churches and other local buildings. Nothing looks or sounds like the classic instruments they have created with loving dedication. The film shoots the breeze with Rick and his starry visitors who treat us to impromptu riffs from their extensive repertoires and talk about how much they treasure this village institution and its reassuring presence as a little oasis of calm in the ever-changing, fast-paced world of the music business.
Rick’s pleasant banter with these lowkey luminaries is what makes this enjoyable musical therapy for fans and those who have never heard of the guitars, their craftsman or those who have commissioned and cherished the hand-made instruments since the 1960s: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Jim Jarmusch, to name but a few. A small gem but a sparkling one. MT
STREAMING ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS FROM 26 JUNE 2020

On the Record (2020) **** Streaming

Directors: Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering | Cast: Drew Dixon, Si Lai Abrams, Jenny Lumet, Tarana Burke, Kierna Mayo, Joan Morgan, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw | USA, 96′

More #MeToo stories, this time from Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering whose controversial new documentary puts the spotlight on women who have come out to denounce hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. The focus here is Drew Dixon.

This is the filmmakers’ third foray into #MeToo territory and Drew Dixon takes centre along with  two other victims – out of twenty – who have filed sexual assault and rape charges against record producer and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. The incident became a news story before the film premiered at this year’s Sundance Festival. Oprah Winfrey, one of the executive producers, withdrew from the project she had fostered for a long time, thus destroying any chances of it being acquired by Apple+. The reasons are very opaque: there were threats from Russell, film critic and Ava DuVernay allegedly told Winfrey, that the documentary did not accurately flesh out the hip-hop world of the setting. Finally, Winfrey decided “there were inconsistencies in Dixon’s story that gave me pause” and the feature had been rushed to appear at Sundance. What ever the true reasons for Winfrey’s jumping ship, HBOmax won the screening rights for what turns out to be a worthy companion to Leaving Neverland, Surviving R. Kelly and Untouchable.

Drew Dixon (*1971) is the daughter of former Washington DC mayor Sharon Pratt and went to Stanford University. Becoming a record producer for Def Jam, a label led by mogul Russell Simmons, was her dream job. She overlooked the fact that Simmons would often come into her office, showing his member. In a milieu where the culture of celebrity “bad-ass” men was celebrated, Simmons’ behaviour did not seem to be totally out of place. Dixon became an A&R executive, responsible for the soundtrack of the 1995 documentary “The Show”, helping to build the careers of Method Man among others, whom she later paired with Mary J. Bilge. It all came crashing down for Dixon, when Simmons invited her to his apartment after a party. He appeared naked with a condom and asked her in a very harsh voice “to stop fighting”. Later, the writer Sil Lai Abrams would report a similar incidence with Simmons. After leaving Def Jam, Dixon worked for Clive Davis at Arista, but CEO L.A. Reid started to harass her. Out of spite, to destroy her career, he passed on signing a new talent, a certain Kanye West. Dixon left the industry all together, and it took her until 2017 to pen an article in the New York Times, to make the public listen to her story.

There are two issues which make the case of the three black women appearing on the documentary (Dixon, Abrams and Jenny Lumet) complex: until now, any public critique of the black community, by fellow blacks, is seen by the majority as treachery – helping the enemy, ie. the white majority. Secondly, black women still feel excluded from the #MeToo movement. Dixon claims she felt enormous pressure to denounce somebody of the standing of Russell Simmons. It took her twenty years – being alone with her trauma – to overcome the barriers.

As for Simmons, he decided not to appear in the documentary but send a written statement, issuing countless denials of he false accusations: “I have lived an honourable life as an open book for decades, devoid of any kind of violence against anybody”. In 2018 he nevertheless emigrated to Bali, Indonesia, a country which has no extradition arrangement with the USA. Reid too repudiated all allegations. He left his position as CEO of Sony Epic, and raised 75 $ Million to form a new company. Drew Dixon has recently gone back to the drawing board with a new career in the music business, working from her flat. AS

ON STREAMING PLATFORMS FROM 18 JUNE 2020 | Available on iTunes, Apple TV, Amazon Video, BFI Player, Curzon Home Cinema, Dogwoof, Google Play, Rakuten TV, Sky Store, Virgin Media, YouTube

 

Seasons in Quincy: The Four Portraits of John Berger (2016) *** MUBI

Dir.: Colin McCabe, Christopher Roth, Bartek Dziadosz, Tilda Swinton; Documentary/Essay with John Berger, Tilda Swinton; UK 2016, 90 min.

To call the novelist, art historian, painter and poet John Berger a Renaissance man is for once no hyperbole. In 1972 he won the Booker Prize for G, and in the same year was the main contributor to the influential BBC series “Ways of Seeing” – at a time when television tried to edify audiences rather than anaesthetising them.

Berger, who died in January 2017, aged 90, also wrote film scripts during the mid 1970s, notably for the Swiss auteur Alain Tanner (La Salamandre, Le milieu du Monde, Jonah who will be 25 in 2000). He left London for good in 1973 to spend the rest of his life in the French mountain village of Quincy in Haute-Savoie. Seasons is an omnibus edition of four short films that illuminates his way of thinking.

The first sequel, “Ways of Listening”, directed by McCabe, was shot in 2010 when Tilda Swinton (who wrote the script) visited Berger in Quincy just before Christmas. It is a discourse about friendship and art. Berger and Swinton not only share a birthday (34 years apart) and place of birth (London), but also fathers who had been active soldiers, fighting in WWI and WWII respectively – and would never talk about their experiences, in spite of being severely wounded. While Swinton peels apples for a crumble, Berger sketches her. They also talk about his “Bento’s Sketchbook” to explain the workings of his mind – a deeper diver into this would have been welcome!.

Christopher Roth’s second part “Spring” is mainly a discourse about humans and animals – no surprise, since Berger’s work is often centred around the relationship between the two. Some of Berger’s texts on the subject are read out, and we see samples of his TV work. But the episode is very much coloured by grief: Berger had recently lost his wife of nearly forty years, Beverly, to cancer and Roth’s mother had also died. Feeling like a collage, “Spring” is the most emotional chapter of the quartet.

“A Song for Politics”, directed by McCabe and Bartek Dziadosz (also editor and cinematographer of the other parts and director of the Derek Jarman Lab, which co-produced Seasons), consists mainy of a black-and-white TV style discussion between Berger, McCabe, and the writers Akshi Sing and Ben Lerner, about the plight of today’s Europe. Berger bemoans the fact that a society which only exists “to do the next deal” lacks historical input. They agree that old-fashioned capitalism is dead, But a discussion is needed about what has replaced it. There are rousing songs from the early years of the 20th century when ‘Solidarity’ was the slogan. Ironically, Berger states, “solidarity is only needed in Hell, not in Heaven”. Paradoxes and contradictions are flying around, and it’s no surprise the come to no conclusions.

“Harvest”, directed by Tilda Swinton, is filmed in Quincy and Paris – Berger had to move for health reasons to the French capital where he would later die. Swinton takes her teenage twins, Xavier and Honor to Quincy, to meet Ives, Berger’s son of his marriage with Beverly. There is a resonance from “Ways of Listening”, as far as father/son relationships are concerned, Ives being an artist. But it is also a tribute to Beverly who planted a huge raspberry garden, the children enjoy the fruit “giving Beverly pleasure”. In Paris, Berger, in spite of his frailty, is keen on teaching Honor how to ride a motorbike, whilst her mother looks on in horror. But “Harvest” feels like a long goodbye between Berger and Swinton: not sentimental, but deeply felt.

Seasons is proof that you only need some existential ‘old-fashioned’ ideas, and a mini-budget to produce something worthwhile. In spite of its small faults, this essay/documentary makes the audience curious – and if it ‘only’ encourages us to find out more about the work of John Berger, it has fulfilled its purpose. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 23 JUNE 2017 | CURZON CINEMAS

This is Not a Movie (2019) **** Canada Now | Curzon Home Cinema

Dir.: Yung Chang; Documentary with Robert Fisk, Amira Hass; Canada/Germany 2019, 106 min.

Canadian director/co-writer Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze) creates an energetic portrait of British war journalist Robert Fisk (*1946), who has chronicled conflict zones from Northern Ireland to the Syrian atrocities. After more than five decades in the field, and now living in Beirut since 1976, Frisk is seven times winner of the British Press Award’s International journalist of the year.

Alfred Hitchcock’s highly romantic drama Foreign Correspondent, was the kicker that started Fisk’s fascination with journalism. Growing up in Maidstone, Kent, he is fluent in Arabic after working in the devasted cities of Syria and the occupied West Bank. His father was a soldier in the Great War and refused to execute an enemy soldier “the only action my father undertook, with which I could identify”.

After starting with the Sunday Express he later changed to The Times, which he left after the Rupert Murdoch takeover, and has now found a home at the Independent, covering wars for the digital edition. Fisk interviewed Osama Bin Laden three times between 1993 and 1997. In the first article, he called Bin Laden an Anti-Soviet mountain warrior on the road to peace. The “mountain warrior” must have been impressed by the journalist, because he tried to convert him to his cause. Fisk also covered the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982, when the Israeli Army turned a blind eye to the Falange soldiers who massacred Palestinians in refuge camps. On the ‘phone to his current editor, Fisk has to explain why he made the reference in his report. Losing his patience, Fisk tells the man he should look it up on Google and try to make the connection.

Director Chang is as much a purist as is Fisk. When asked in an interview about his position in the question of film versus digital, he admits:”there is a grain, a quality and a depth to the image that is unmatched in digital video.” Some images were shot in 16mm by DoP Duraid Munajim, but did not make it into the final cut. But the still photos shot during the production are in 35 mm.

Fisk has always challenge the objectivity of “balanced” journalism, his viewpoint is visible throughout his work when he tries to interrogate all sides of the conflict. Whether in Homs, Aleppo, Douma or Palestine, he “is neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer”. In contrast to the mainstream media, he gives voice to the unrepresented. Both Chang and Fisk share a passion for travelling, and being taken out of their comfort zone. The dirctor is full of admiration for his older counterpart: “We started when Fisk was around seventy-two. But he is still active, still thinking and still writing incendiary articles and cracking forward-thinking stories. This had to be an active story.” AS

HEADLINING CANADA NOW | CURZON HOME CINEMA | 12 JUNE 2020

La Frontière de nos Rèves (1996) | A Bridge to Christo | Tribute (1935-2020)

Dir.: Georgui Balabanov; Documentary with Christo, Jeanne-Claude, Anani Yavashev; Bulgaria 1996, 72 min.

In his thought-provoking biopic, Bulgarian director Georgui Balabanov (The Petrov File) portrays two very different brothers who have been living apart for 26 years on the opposite sides of the iron curtain. Christo (1935-2020), who died on 31 May 2020, travelled abroad to become an celebrated environmental artist and his actor brother Anani Yavashev, who deeply regrets his wasted years in Bulgaria under Stalinist censorship. Two destines embody the hopes and illusions of two different worlds.

Balabanov’s documentary flips between Gabrovo, the village where the brothers grew up, and the Paris flat Christo shared with Moroccan born Jeanne-Claude, whom he met in Paris in 1958. Both not only share the same birthday (13.6.1935), but a passion for art, while understanding that their work is transient – apart from one installation, the 400k oil barrels at Mastaba, all their projects have vanished: the wrappings of the Berlin Reichstag and the Pont-Neuf Bridge as well as The Gates of Central Park in New York.

The busy Paris flat, with Jeanne-Claude chain smoking whilst organising their projects, is in great contrast to Anani’s inertia shared with his artist friends. The Sofia theatre they called home for decades is being torn down and even if they are not too fond of their memories, it is still their past lives, which are bulldozed to the ground. Anani could never play Lenin, since he was “politically not trusted”. The brother’s father Vladimir, a former business man, was imprisoned at the beginning of the Stalinist regime of terror, for “sabotage”. As an old “Class Enemy” he took the punishment for a drunken worker, who burned the cloth production for the whole week. His sons were suspects too, Anani got into drama school only with the help of a benevolent friend in the bureaucratic system.

1957 was the year of decision for Christo, who went to Prague and was smuggled in a locked train-compartment to Vienna. The rest is history – but Anani and his friends, paid heavily for their compromise with the system. Modernism in all art forms was tantamount to treason, painters and playwrights had to smuggle progressive elements into their work – hoping all the time that the censors would overlook it. But they are also honest enough, to admit they had a free reign in their private lives: long, passionate nights are mentioned. One feels sorry for this resigned bunch, and can sympathise with their plight: it comes as no co-incidence that only a few escaped the artistic prisons of the Soviet Block: risk-taking is seen as a virtue in the West either – human nature is preponderantly opportunistic.

Shot in intimate close-up by DoP Radoslav Spassov, La Frontiere is very much a celebration of artistic work represented by Christo and Jeanne-Claude – and a “Trauerarbeit” for the lost souls who staid behind, sharing with others the loss of artistic identity. AS

Tribute to Christo who died in May 2020

America as Seen by a Frenchman | l’Amerique Insolite (1960) ***

Dir.: Francois Reichenbach; Documentary with commentary by Jean Cocteau; France 1960, 90 min.

French writer/director/DoP Francois Reichenbach (1921-1993) made his name with a series of musical biopics, amongst them Serge Gainsbourg, Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin and Mireille Mathieu. Chris Marker collaborates on this freewheeling travelogue with its delightful preamble by Jean Cocteau  that praises his homeland’s spirit of resistance.

The journey kicks off at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Franciso, where Reichenbach meets participants of the ‘Salt Route’, re-staged in Houston. Ordinary Americans saddle up horses and carts and re-live, for a few days, the experience of the founding fathers. The voice-over expresses how their Native Indians will live forever live in their hearts – a rather dubious statement. But Reichenbach really gets going with the next sequence, a photo shot on a beach in California where a couple of actors get really excited by their activities, “even beyond their remit”. This male perspective never comes to rest.

After a cursory visit to Disneyland (back then a far less technological experience) and a ‘Ghost Town’ in LA where extras from Hollywood pose with visitors, we visit a Rodeo in a prison where the winner will have his sentence reduced by a year – the runner-up will have three weeks ‘holiday’ from jail to spend with his wife. Then starts a nostalgic trip to American childhood, expectant fathers learning to bathe and feed babies in a three week course. When said babies have been born, we discover they have their own TV programmes in hospital. Hula-hop contests and various parades with children and adults, show a strict segregation, but the director turns a blind eye. Further on, boys under thirteen are taught to be impervious to their injuries at Soap-Box Derbies, toughening up the new generation.

But soon we come back to the sexy side of it all, visiting a school for striptease where young women learn the trade. A half-naked young  woman appears in a ad while the off-voice commentator states”this woman has an ordinary husband”. Reichenbach spends an awful long time at the beach where teenagers “discover their sexuality”. After a demolition derby, the feature takes us to New Orleans, where the carnival processions are strictly segregated: Black and White Carnival do not meet. Finally some unruly young men are seen in prison, following by a sequence involving their positive counterparts in a cult-like ‘Holy Rollers’. It all ends up in New York with its massive glass store-fronts, making Reichenbach wonder “if the US is not just a big shop with slogans” and fearing “that Europe might look the same in twenty years.” Clearly he wasn’t wrong!

Nothing prepares for the violence of the Kennedy or Martin Luther King assassinations, or the Vietnam War, which dominated the next decade. But thanks to Reichenbach’s uncritical approach, we start to appreciate the fault lines of a society which would explode not long afterwards. Forget the white-washing commentary, just take it all in with your eyes. Reichenbach offers a cinematic and valuable heads-up for what was to come. AS

ON RELEASE COURTESY OF ARROW | 1 JUNE 2020

Mike Wallace is Here (2020) ****

Dir.: Alvi Bekin; Documentary with Mike Wallace; USA 2019, 90 min.

Director Alvi Belin (Winding) has avoided hagiography in his biographical documentary of  CBS-TV journalist Mike Wallace (1918-2012). Equally a political history lesson as well as a course about changing Television habits in the USA, Alvi Bekin throws light on the professional and personal career of Wallace, who was only overshadowed by Walter Conkrite and Edward Murrow in his metier.

 Wallace began his career in 1939 at CBS Radio with game shows like Curtain Time, which featured heavy advertisement by the show’s sponsors. After his return from war duty, he switched to the new medium of TV, where he made a name for himself in Night Beat (1955-57). It was followed by the Mike Wallace Interviews, which lasted the following two years. In 1959 he had his first great scoop, interviewing Malcom X of Nation of Islam – the latter being very much aware how much his life was in danger. In the early 1960ies, Wallace made a living mainly from advertising – ironically some ads featured Parliament Cigarettes. After the death of his eldest son Peter in Greece, Wallace decided to stay clear of ads, and become a serious journalist. After a stint on the CBS Morning News (1963-66), he created and stared in 60 Minutes, the show that made him a household name in the USA; which he only left after 37 years, aged eighty-four in 2006.

This new documentary opens fittingly with Wallace engaging with (the then) Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, and haranguing him over his interview style. O’Reilly claims it’s like the pot calling the kettle black. “If you don’t like me, you’re responsible”.

The truth is somewhere in the middle: Wallace was keen to point out Larry King’s failure as a husband (seven divorces), but was very defensive when interviewed about his own marital woes.

The line-up for Wallace interview partners is long and features such heavyweights as Eleanor Roosevelt, Salvatore Dali, Vladimir Putin, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Rod Serling, The Great Wizard of the KKK movement and a soldier named Paul Meadlo, who was a participant in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. The Ayatollah Khomeini is caught in an interview asking for the removal of President Sadat of Egypt: “He has betrayed Islam. Sadat is a traitor to Islam and I want the people of Egypt to overthrow the traitor, because that is what you do with a traitor”. Some month later Sadat was assassinated by his own soldiers, marching at a parade in front of him. Then there is a young (and handsome) Donald Trump, telling Wallace “if nobody fixes the USA, there will be nothing of the USA left, or the world”. But he strongly denied any interest in entering politics.

In 1995, a 60 Minutes episode was cancelled, after the producers clashed with Dr. Wigand, when he defended the tobacco industry over claims about smoking causing cancer – with Wallace perhaps in denial about his earlier ads for smoking. And then there is Vladimir Putin, wishing “Americans all the best”, after having denied that journalists in Russia are under threat. He also stated, that “the opposition to his government is a force”. It ends in a very poetic way, with Wallace and Arthur Miller walking in nature, the playwright answering Wallace’s question about posterity: “How will people remember me? As a decent guy, that would be fine. Work is natural like breathing. Work for that little moment of truth”.

The whole documentary is based on TV and newsreel clips, with Wallace being the central focus, but not in an overwhelming way. Bekin shows respect, but does not overdo it. It is worth mentioning though that Wallace admitted in a Rolling Stone interview in 1991 that for several decades he was part of a sexual harassment campaign which included snapping open the bras of female staff members. AS      

 RELEASED ON VOD ON 29 MAY 2020    

The Dead and the Others (2018)| New Brazilian Cinema | Mubi

Docudrama | 114’ | Brazil/Portugal

Brazilian cinema is entering a new era in the wake of the country’s unprecedented political turmoil. Several new films are now available online along with this look at the Directed by Palme d’Or winner João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora, The Dead and the Others is a haunting docudrama based on their experiences of living for nearly a year in Pedra Branca, a village inhabited by the indigenous community of the Kraho people in Northern Brazil. The Kraho very much want to continue their way of life and traditions in their rural community, striving to be self-sufficient. Their plight connects with a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world.

Fifteen year old Ihjãc has been suffering from nightmares since he lost his father and in the opening scene he walks through the rain forest in the light of the moon. A distant sound of chanting comes through the palm trees. His father’s voice calls him to the waterfall. It is now time to organise the funeral feast so his father’s spirit can depart to the village of the Dead and mourning for him can come to an end. Although his baby son Tepto was born in the local hospital, Ihjãc still spends most of his life with his family in the remote forest and although the village elders are urging him to fulfil his duty to undergo the crucial process of becoming a shaman, Ihjãc escapes back to the local town to avoid the transition. There, far from his people and culture, he faces the reality of being an indigenous native in contemporary Brazil.

With its themes of loss, displacement and cultural identity this eerie and woozily impressionistic piece that has a poignant urgency in its message, glowingly conveyed in vibrant, high contrast cinematography. MT

NEW BRAZILIAN CINEMA | UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY PRIZE 2018 | LET IT BURN

Climbing Blind (2019) *** BBC iPlayer

Wri/Dir: Alistair Lee | Doc UK 70′

Climbing Blind is essentially a film about scaling impossible heights, physically and metaphorically. It follows the awesome bid by blind Englishman Jesse Dufton to climb the stratospheric Old Man of Foy, one of Britain’s tallest and most awkward sea stacks, a tower of rocky sandstone that soars 137 metres above the Orkney Archipelago in Scotland. Although Jesse is blind, he was ably assisted in this endeavour by his life partner and human ‘guide dog’ Molly.

Climbing Blind is the second feature length documentary from Alastair Lee who won the Grand Prize at the 2019 Kendal Mountain Festival for this impressive exploration of human courage. Lee has made something of a career out of his climbing documentaries both for TV and on the big screen. Working as his own DoP and producer, he is adamant to point out that as the filmmaker his input is merely observational –  he does not get involved in the ascent itself. Lee’s first two film projects focused on mountaineer Leo Houlding and his climbing adventures: The Asgard Project (2009) sees him attempting to scale Mt Asgard, deep in the Arctic, and Lee’s 2014 mid length doc The Last Great Climb follows the Houlding’s adventures scaling Ulvetanna Peak in Antartica.

Here for the first time, Lee works with a visually challenged climber. Jesse states that his main drawback in scaling The Old Man, is not being able to plan, ironically, rather than not being able to see. Detailing the ascent of this vertical sandstone rock pillar, the film reveals how the impressively sanguine and down to earth Jesse leads the climb, assisted by his sight-partner Molly, who follows with verbal encouragement, a rope length below.

But what starts as a film about climbing slowly develops into something much more meaningful to n0n-climbers: the challenge of simply living life as a blind person. “Crossing the road is far more dangerous than climbing” claims Jesse, whose daily hurdles include buttering his own toast and getting the honey in the right place, something that most of us wouldn’t even think about. “Climbing is where I’m in control” he states. His parents also make an appearance describing the early years of Jesse’s life, after discovering their son was suffering from a rare eye disorder that would only deteriorate.

Climbing Blind shows the indomitable power of human mind to defeat seemingly impossible impediments, against all odds. Lee’s impressive camerawork pictures the stunning seascapes of the Scottish Coast and its rugged and inhospitable terrain. Jesse Dufton states categorically: “I’m not disabled; I’m blind and able”. MT

ON BBC iPlayer

Human Rights Watch Festival 2020 | Now Online

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is about documentaries and dramas that celebrate courageous people and those affected by Human Rights issues in their countries – which this year include: Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Guatemala, Germany, Iran, Macedonia, Mexico, Peru, Romania, the United States, and Vietnam. Ten of the 14 films selected for this 24th edition are directed by women.

In this latest online London Edition nine (out of 14) films will be streamed to UK audiences from 22 May until 5 June and each film has a live Q&A webinar discussion scheduled. For anyone wanting to get that festival feeling of watching a film followed immediately by a discussion, the festival has recommended timings to start streaming each film title, details here:

https://ff.hrw.org/london-digital-edition. Otherwise there is also a handy list of the free live Q&A’s here:

https://ff.hrw.org/venueinfo/london-digital-edition

Here are some of this year’s highlights:

Shot entirely on three mobile phones, MIDNIGHT TRAVELER follows the traumatic journey of Afghan filmmaker Hassan Fazili as he and his family escape across Europe from their homeland. It is not their choice to flee, and they are not doing so on economic grounds. Hassan’s life is in danger from the Taliban due to a fatwah.
Indigenous rights come under the spotlight in Claudia Sparrow’s doc MAXIMA which has been a favourite for audiences all over the festival circuit. It tells the story of Máxima Acuña (winner of the 2016 environmental Goldman Prize) a free-spirited and courageous woman who owns a small, remote plot in the Peruvian Highlands near another owned by one the world’s largest gold-mining corporations. The charismatic and indomitable Maxima is determined to preserve the rights of the locals in this stunning natural environment. (not in online selection)
China’s now-defunct ‘one only’ child policy has left millions of single women under immense social pressures to marry quickly, or be rejected by society. This crisis is explored in depth through the lives of three women in Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam’s LEFTOVER WOMEN (2019) that won the Best Director and Editing prizes at the Tel Aviv documentary festival DocAviv last year.

When she was 12 years old, the actress and filmmaker Maryam Zaree found out that she was one of many babies born inside Evin, Iran’s notorious political prison; Maryam’s parents were imprisoned shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979. BORN IN EVIN cuts to the chase with an appealing and lyrical approach that sees Zaree confronting decades of silence in her family to understand the impact of trauma on the bodies and souls of survivors and their children.

As witnesses of the genocide of over 200,000 indigenous people, the Mayan women of Guatemala act as a bridge between the past and present in César Diaz’ Caméra d’Or-winning debut drama, OUR MOTHERS which follows Ernesto, a young forensic anthropologist who is tasked with identifying missing victims of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. While documenting the account of an elder Mayan woman searching for the remains of her husband, Ernesto believes he might have found a lead that will guide him to his own father, a guerrillero who disappeared during the war. (Not in selection)

Rubaiyat Hossain’s impressive debut drama, MADE IN BANGLADESH, is the final film on Friday, 20 March. Best known for her 2011 film Meherjaan (2011) the director draws on her own life experience as a women’s rights activist, shining a light on the oppressive conditions in the clothing industry through the story of Shimu and her efforts to create a trade union against all odds. The screening will be followed by an in-depth discussion with Rubaiyat Hossain and special guests.

The films are streaming through CURZON HOME CINEMA and the cost is £7.99 for the majority. The Q&As are free.

 

Hector Babenco: Tell Me When I Die (2019) ****

Dir: Barbara Paz | Doc, Brazilian 75′

“What do you have to do to become a movie director? You have to know how to tell a story. And for that, you have to live”.

Brazilian actor and director Barbara Paz honours her husband Hector Babenco (1946-2016) with this cinematic love letter to his final days in Brazil.

Taking as its appropriate opening score Radiohead’s ‘Exit Music (for a film)’ this is a lush and woozy widescreen affair that solemnly luxuriates in the couple’s tenderness for each other through excerpts of home videos and private photographs, but also explores their close collaboration work-wise, Paz a keen disciple in learning the tricks of the craft that have served her so well, Babenco a patient and softly spoken instructor teaching his wife about camera lenses and depth of field, and lacing his knowledge with amusing anecdotes.

A hagiographic approach is always going to be the danger when making a film about someone you admire, and when love is also involved there is a clear need for perspective. But Paz pulls it off in this charismatically poignant piece that won Best Documentary on Cinema at Venice Classics in 2019. At the same time her admiration shines through in testament to his unique talents and varied output, together with his dreams of being the next Luchino Visconti: well he will certainly go down in film history, but for different reasons.

Although Babenco avoids facts and chronology, by way of background Hector Eduardo Babenco was born into a Jewish family in Buenos Aires, his parents were of Polish/Ukrainian origin. Best known for his Oscar-nominated Kiss of the Spider Woman (Out of Africa (1985) took the award); Babenco’s work raised awareness of the human plight in Brazil with the Sao Paulo set Golden Globe winner Pixote (1981), that sees a young boy abandoned in the streets, and Carandiru (2003) an impassioned drama about AIDS in the renowned prison in the Brazilian capital, which spawned a TV series. An accomplished documentarian he also made films about the racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi and the Brazilian bandit Lucio Flavio whose crimes in Rio de Janeiro captured the public’s imagination in the early 1970s.

Paz enlivens her film with footage of Babenco going about the set of his autobiographical last film My Hindu Friend (2015) where Willem Dafoe plays a dying director during his final hospital days, and she also pictures him there during treatment for cancer, expressing his determination to eat well – avoiding hospital food – and preferably with some friends sharing Capirinhas, roast beef and salad.

Thematically rich the film also dives into universal experiences: the intimacy of loving moments captured on camera; the comfort and joy of friendship; and death, which Babenco had already come to terms with by the time his life was over, due to a previous brush with cancer at 37:  these thoughts are interweaved with dialogue from his films to produce a seamless and intensely personal biopic that shows a man not only at the height of his talent, but also at one with himself. MT

SCREENED DURING VISIONS DU REEL 2020 | NYON SWITZERLAND

Tell Me When I Die is heading to DOK.fest München (6-24 May) | Jeonju International Film Festival (28 May – 6 June 2020)

https://youtu.be/bVbqlvVy-90

Jihad Jane (2019) **** Digital release

Dir.: Ciarán Cassidy | Doc with Colleen LaRose, Jamie Paulin Ramirez, Lars Vilks; ROI 2019, 94 min.

The fear of terrorism looms large.  And nowhere less so than America where isolated communities are particularly prey to online influences. In her first feature length documentary Irish director/writer Ciarán Cassidy shows how easily the disenchanted can be taken over by terrorism. Jihad Jane examines how two American women sought refuge on the internet – sucked into terrorist propaganda as a means of making something of their lives.

Colleen LaRose (*1963) is described by her former boyfriend Kurt “as a normal country girl”. How wrong he was. In actual fact, Colleen, from Pennsylvania, had been raped by her father since the age of seven. Running away at only thirteen, she found herself coerced into becoming a sex worker before marrying a ‘client’ two years later. Jamie Paulin Ramirez (*1979), from Colorado, has a less obvious history of abuse: she had been married three times, her first husband who she married when barely a teenager, was abusive. They became known as ‘Jihad Jane’ and ‘Jihad Jamie’, ‘the new face of terrorism”. Arrested in 2010 in Waterford, Ireland, they were given lengthy prison sentences. The ‘third’ man of the “terror cell” was an autistic teenager, Mohammed Hassan Khalid from Baltimore/Maryland. He was only fifteen at the time of his arrest – but fared not much better than then two women at his trial.

Their supposed victim was the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had ‘insulted’ Islam, by putting the head of the prophet Mohammed on a dog. Vilks seems to be a provocateur with the super-ego of a narcissist. He actually comes off much worse than the women: somebody who makes a living from gathering negative attention, much like the right-wing propagandists in the US media, who are being paid handsomely for their efforts.

Everyday life for Collen LaRose meant looking after her elderly mother and her partner’s ailing father. Not much time for romance. But on the net, Jihad promised both: marriage to a fighter and a life life with purpose, creating self-esteem for the first time. For Colleen the dream came true – even if it was short. She shared the fanatical beliefs of a man she met on holiday in Amsterdam – just a brief sexual encounter was enough to raise her self-worth, as she imagined herself punishing ‘infidels’ including Vilks, who had been targeted with a ‘fatwa’. And Jamie Paulin Ramirez took her six-year old son with her to Waterford to enforce said fatwa – but not before she married Ali Damache a day after her arrival, after meeting him in a chatroom. The personal and the political – so closely connected. No surprise then that LaRose grassed the plot to the authorities because the gratification was taking too long for her: like all would-be revolutionaries, she wanted action NOW.

There is a rather sad epilogue: although the documentary is set between 2008 and 2010, LaRose did not get a prison release until 2018. She is a Trump voter – after eight years in jail. “I’m somebody now”, she proclaims, clutching an armful of hand-knitted stuffed animals.

DoP Ross McDonald shows an impressive snowy Colorado, a welcome change to the ‘talking heads’. Cassidy’s portrait of evil is compelling and makes for an intriguing insight into middle America without denouncing LaRose whose life could have put to a better purpose than terrorism had she had a secure childhood. AS

ON ALL MAJOR PLATFORMS FROM 11 MAY 2020

https://youtu.be/iPVu1ukjkhA

The Overlanders (1946) **** Blu-ray release

The reason for the docudrama approach stems from the original idea of making a propaganda film for the Australian government who knocked on Watts’ door looking for a well known director and a reputable studios – Ealing naturally fitted the bill, although the film was released after the war was over.

Magic Medicine (2018)

Dir/Writer: Monty Wates | UK Doc | 79′

In 2012 a team of medical researchers explored what would happen if psilocybin was given to long term depressives.

Four years in the making, Monty Wates’ intriguing documentary chronicles the progress of the first ever medical trial offering the psychoactive ingredient of magic mushrooms to three volunteers suffering from clinical depression. We also meet the pioneering staff running the trial.

The hope is that this controversial substance will have the power to transform millions of lives, by scrambling and re-setting the brain’s function and enabling patients to identify what happened, to process it and, crucially, to move on. As David Lynch put in the recent biopic The Art Life (2016) “there has to be a big mess, before something can change”. The main setback has been government controls that strictly limit human testing.

Monty’s ground-breaking film reveals what happens when each of the candidates undergoes a supervised “trip” in a darkened room. During the short procedure, each is taken back into the deep recesses of their childhood to unlock trauma that has affected their lives and caused them to suffer deep sadness, impinging their ability to function at an optimum level. One of the trail volunteers had felt rejected and unwanted by his father, another was lost in a state of insecurity waiting for others to tell him what to do. The third feels generally worthless in his life.

Wates adopts an observational approach and a linear narrative, always maintaining a humanistic approach to the subject matter. With deeply moving footage of the “trips” the patients experience, this intimate film is an absorbing portrait of the human cost of depression, and the inspirational people contributing to this unique psychedelic research. The results are remarkable, varied and often lasting, suggesting the treatment is positive. So far. And certainly more effective than with conventional drugs. But whether the substance will be licensed for general use remains to be seen. MAGIC MEDICINE is an instructive, absorbing and fascinating piece of filmmaking. MT

A 2021 study led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), found that the drug can be safely administered in up to six patients using doses of either 10mg or 25mg.

 

https://youtu.be/6IXNN-_j3fM

Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse

Director | Cinematographer: David Bickerstaff | Producer: Phil Grabsky | 93min | Documentary | UK

IMG_4205 copy

Claude Monet at Giverny

The Royal Academy’s ‘Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse’ exhibition was the first of its kind to display paintings by artists inspired by gardens. Using Claude Monet as a starting point, the exhibition explored the major role of gardens in the development of art and painting from the 1860s through to the threshold of modernism in the 1920s.

This dazzling film takes a magical journey from the gallery to the gardens, to Giverny and Seebüll that inspired some of the world’s favourite artists. It takes an in-depth look into how early twentieth century artists designed and cultivated their own gardens to explore contemporary utopian ideas and motifs of colour and form.

Director David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky are known for their art documentaries on Goya, Van Gogh and Renoir. These ‘exhibitions on film’ add a another dimension to the artists and their paintings, bringing their vibrant creations to the screen and allowing their works to travel and gain context through the valuable insight of art curators, experts, even members of the artists’ families.

Edvard Munch | Apple Tree in the Garden 1932-42

Joaquin Sorolla | Garden of the Sorolla House 1920

Monet | Water Lilies

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil, 1873

Painting the Modern Garden shows how Monet was not only a talented painter but also a horticulturalist who took inspiration from nature describing his garden as his “most beautiful masterpiece”. He owed “having become a painter to flowers”, using colour, form and latterly stripping things back to just light and reflection to give an impression of what he really saw and experienced.

Bickerstaff’s agile camerawork flits from sumptuous groupings of vivid, herbaceous perennials to gloriously discordant drifts of annuals and their painted representations in the works of Pierre Bonnard, Paul Klee, Gustave Caillebotte, Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, John Singer Sargent, Camille Pisarro, Emil Nolde, Joaquin Sorolla, Berthe Morisot, Jacques Tissot, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse (to name but a few but only one Englishman!). He finally alights on the talking heads: the Royal Academy co-curator Ann Dumas explains how during the 1860s private gardens became a visual pleasure and a sanctuary for the family, rather than just a source of food. The celebrity garden designer Dan Pearson looks at how Singer Sargent and Monet conveyed their understanding and love of raising the plants to their artistic impressions of them, particularly seen in Monet’s zinging portrayal of flame rust day lilies, and Singer Sargent white asian lilies.

The film also shows how many different species were being discovered in the Orient, bringing a new dynamic vitality to classic plant pairings in garden designs. The cheeky head gardener at Giverney tells how Monet favoured clashing colours (planting purple with orange accentuates the vibrancy) in contrast to England’s ‘old-fashioned’, classic harmonious schemes – he obviously hasn’t visited many English gardens and in particular those at Great Dixter by the pioneering writer and designer Christopher Lloyd (1921-2006) who with his head gardener Fergus Garrett, whose stock in trade was strident yellow with fluorescent carmine, and other striking contrasts is at pains to point out that gardening and horticulture is often denigrated as an applied craft along with knitting or basket weaving, whereas, infact, it is a living and changing interactive art – as much as we plant and plan, nature offers a constant source of surprise, each year and season bringing up unexpected variations and results, in many ways similar to painting and filmmaking even architecture: we design but the infinite alchemy of the elements often throws up a result which is both surprising and rewarding.

The second part of Painting the Modern Garden gets out and about in the gardens themselves, visiting Monet’s garden at Le Pressoir, Giverny; German Impressionist painter Max Liebemann’s lakeside garden on the banks of the Wannsee in Berlin; Emil Nolde’s garden in Seebüll (Northern Germany) – there are cutaways to Nolde’s intense impressionist works showing how he literally daubed the paint on the canvas to illustrate the boldness of his poppies and dahlias; Joaquín Sorolla’s garden in Madrid which influenced his ethereal work with light and shadow; Henri le Sidaner’s garden in Gerberoy, Picardy – we also meet his relative who explains how le Sindaner’s ‘intimist’ painting was based on the atmospheric light in his garden which echoed reflection and informed his work. This gorgeous travelogue showcases the gardens at their most resplendent.

The final section of the documentary hones in on Monet’s later years to illustrate how he designed and planted his borders specifically as a source of inspiration for his impressionism. Rather than portraying the garden and individual studies of it, he focused obsessively on light and reflection (left). He sourced newly discovered exotic cultivars of nympheas (bright pink and yellow) that he acquired (‘all my money goes into my garden’) and grew in his excavated lake from the mid 1890s until his death in 1926. The film offers a panoramic view of the remarkable 42ft Agapanthus triptych; a vision of light, suggestive colour and reflection and the most evocative of all his works (seen together for the first time and borrowed  from three different museums) that perfectly evokes the ‘oceanic’ state – a feeling of limitlessness where we are at one with nature. This is the perfect climax to a study that progresses from Renoir’s figurative portrait of Monet in his garden at Argenteuil in 1873 to the broad brush impressionism that occupied the final decade of his Monet’s life. Painting the Modern Garden initially feels like a glossy an advert for the exhibition, but in analysis it offers far more: a worthwhile cinematic tribute to the world of 19th garden art and the fascinating history and people that informed and shaped it.@MeredithTaylor

PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN: MONET TO MATISSE is in cinemas around the world from 27 February 2024

 

 

 

Rachmaninoff: The Harvest of Sorrow (1998)

Dir: Tony Palmer | UK Doc, 102′

Tony Palmer’s extensive documentary about one of the world’s most loved composers (1873-1943) is a vibrant memoire, enlivened by musical interludes and ample archive footage of his life and times in Russia, Sweden and the United States where he finally died in 1943, unable to return to his beloved homeland: “a ghost wandering forever in the world”.

Playing out as a long autobiographical letter to his daughters Tatiana and Irina, voiced by Gielgud in slightly sardonic but wistful tone, the film covers the composer’s life until his final months in New York. But it starts at a low point, with the Rachmaninoff family leaving Russia in 1917, escaping from the Bolshevik devastation of Petrograd (soon to be Leningrad) set for musical adventures in Stockholm, and thence to America. Desperate about leaving his homeland, the composer also felt at a low ebb creatively: “Nowadays I am never satisfied with myself, I am burdened with a harvest of sorrow: I almost never feel that what I do is successful”.

Quite the opposite: Rachmaninoff would become a celebrated figure, but a very private man who would tell interviewers: “if you want to know me, listen to my music”. Avoiding the intellectual approach, he wanted his music “to go direct to the heart, bypassing the brain”. Remembered by his niece, Sofia Satina, as a happy, tall, elegantly dressed gentleman who loved his Savile Row suits and driving his car, he was never wealthy, and ironically ended his days as a concert pianist playing for money until his fingers were literally bruised, to maintain his family during gruelling tours of the United States, which he hated: “now I play without joy, just mechanically”. His friend Igor Stravinsky remembered him in those times as “a six-foot scowl”.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Moscow to a musical family, taking up the piano from the age of four and gaining a place at the Conservatoire whence he graduated at nineteen, having already composed several orchestral and piano pieces. Although he dreamed of the Mariinsky Theatre, his philandering father broke the family up and Rachmaninov started his career with family in Moscow where he became friendly with Tchaikovsky, the last of Russian Romantics, and the two formed a close friendship. But the composer was always most at home in the small town of Ivanovka, where he spent his summers as a young boy, and his grandson is seen returning here in an exhaustive sequence that pictures the refurbished family home – a fairytale blue and white wooden clad affair (destroyed by the Bolsheviks) during celebrations to honour the musical legend. It was in Ivanovka that local folkloric musicians became a big influence on the young composer, along with the Russian Orthodox chants. He is also know for his fugal writing, which is even more of a throwback to the classical era.

It took Rachmaninoff until the late 1890s to free himself from his friend and idol Tchaikovsky. He is best classified as a neo-romantic, in the style of Bruckner and Mahler, but in reality he is much closer to Elgar. The distinguishing feature of intra-tonal chromaticism runs through the whole of Rachmaninoff’s work. He is also known for his widely spaced chords, used in the Second Symphony ‘The Bells’. But towards the end he was less concerned with melody, his emotional and impressionistic style is best experienced in the 39 Etudes Tableaux, which is a deeply affecting rollercoaster.

The other important contributor to the film is conductor and composer Valery Gergiev (Widowmaker) who is seen at work in the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg. It was Rachmaninoff himself who said that his life had been ‘a harvest of sorrow’, and Tony Palmer certainly brings that poignancy to bear in this deeply affecting film bringing the spirit of Rachmaninoff alive. MT

NOW ON BLURAY | STREAMING ONLINE

A Machine to Live In (2020) **** Visions du Reel

Dirs: Yoni Goldstein, Meredith Zielke | Doc, United States, 87′

It was the French architect Le Corbusier who coined the phrase ‘A Machine to Live In’ to describe his own designs. Now a new film about Brasilia explores the human angle of living in a city: this vast, manmade capital of Brazil, its capital city since 1960, built in a thousand days. They describe their work as a “sci-fi providing a complex portrait of life, poetry, and myth set against the backdrop of the space-age city of Brasília and a flourishing landscape of UFO cults and transcendental spaces.

Chiefly designed by Oscar Niemayer, and laid out in the shape of an airplane, its wings the wide avenues flanking a massive park, the cockpit is Praca dos Tres Poderes, named for the three branches of government surrounding it. Brasilia is a city that offers extraordinary cinematic potential, not only in its utopian architecture but also its functionality. But there are downsides to the modern buildings.

Chicago-based filmmakers Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke (Jettisoned, Natural Life) have created a mystical portrait this modern metropolis, carved out from the jungle, its architecture full of glimmering white, featureless obloids that invite the most adventurous theories. Looking like a set made for SF adventure, the filmmakers do capture its surreal splendour by being shooting in widescreen 4K RED RAW.

Re-inactions and quotes from Niemeyer; the Jewish writer Clarice Lispector – who interviewed the architect – Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin; and Cult founder Tia Neiva are woven into a hallucinatory landscape that could have spun off from an asteroid between Jupiter and Mars. The footage mixes old fashioned technologies and state of the art aesthetics such as gimbals, drones, helicopters, 3D LIDAR scanning and geospatial mapping. “The camera perspective will mechanically rotate, spin and float among the architecture as if it were itself an alien craft – or, perhaps, the mind’s eye of an architect”.

Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) writes: “Brasilia is an altered state of consciousness; a pseudo hallucinatory perception; a complex, vivid dream like images – sometimes with halos around light, leading to a loss of vision. And: “Brasilia is artificial: it is the image of my insomnia, it is haunted; it is an abstract city.” Part of this read to students in Esperanto. When Gagarin visited Brasilia he said: “I feel as if I stepped on the surface of another planet, not earth.” No wonder the followers of Tia Neiva (1926-1985), ride their Hell’s Angels bikes around, since Neiva’s cult Vale do Amanhecer (Dawn Valley) is very much alive, as are the memories of Neiva herself, who came to fame as the first female truck driver in Brazil. 

Zielke speaks of “building a cosmology of signs, fragments of literary and historical texts work their way into interviews, fictive tableaux, featuring temporal architectural sculptures situate themselves in ‘real scenes’ and historical encounters are enacted by participants in the film. voice-overs are doubled to reveal multiple identities and captions are manipulated to reveal multiple perspectives.” 

Then there are moments of pure surrealism: A white horse wanders into a parking lot. The face of current Brazilian president Bolsonaro appears on the body of Niemeyer. The crew has visited Brasilia every summer for eight years to gather footage, establishing connections with local groups. This makes the hybrid feature very personal. During an interview, Zielke said, that they collected enough material for three films. Even though, the information presented is overwhelming to say the least. 

DoP Andrew Benz’ images are unique: Looking like a Martian outpost, Brasilia is defined by massive concrete domes, swooping aluminium spires, pyramids and super-blocks, which seem to repeat themselves ad absurdum. A dazzling as a trip on LSD, A Machine to live in is a mixture of nightmares, making Science Fiction look rather banal in comparison ordinary.AS

Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke are award-winning international filmmakers, cinematographers, and editors. Goldstein and Zielke work collaboratively on social documentary projects: from examining hybridized healing practices in the Northern Andes (La Curación), to children in American prisons (Natural Life), to critical explorations of history and somatic memory (The Jettisoned). Their films have been presented internationally across several major festivals, conferences, and classrooms. Goldstein and Zielke’s work as directors and cinematographers has been selected and awarded at the Cannes Film Festival, the Festival Black Movie de Genève, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Hot Springs Documentary Festival, the Festival International du Film Ethnographique du Québec, the Festival International du Documentaire et Rencontres sur la Biodiversité et les Peuples, Hot Docs Digital Doc Shop, Globians Doc Fest Berlin, and many others. AS

STREAMING DURING VISIONS DU REEL | April – May 2020

Trailer | A Machine to Live In | Yoni Goldstein, Meredith Zielke

National Gallery (2014) **** Streaming

Dir.: Frederick Wiseman

Documentary; France/UK/USA 2014, 181 min.

To call Frederick Wiseman a documentary filmmaker is somewhat absurd: for over four decades he has been telling stories about mental institutions; boxing halls; hospitals; ballet companies and universities. And this former teacher does all this without the classic tools of documentary filmmaking: voice-overs, talking heads, interviews and all form of identifiers are missing from his work. Instead the emphasis is on process: he is peeling off layer after layer. Therefore NATIONAL GALLERY is about art: its process, its mystery. But it is also about money
Wiseman has spent 12 weeks in the museum, the camera wandering freely through the institution, coming up with 170 hours of film but only three of them ending up in the final cut. One could say that cutting is his form of editing.

The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square houses mainly art from the 14th to the late 19th century. Its director, the art historian Nicholas Penny, is seen at budget discussions trying to define the role of the museum in regard to the public (expectations versus elitism) and, rather mundanely, discussing how to take advantage of the fact that the London Marathon ends at Trafalgar Square and that the façade of the museum would be used for a video projection.

Wiseman does not only stay in the building itself: He films Greenpeace activists putting up a banner from the roof of the building; “It’s no Oil painting”. With the ‘o’ in “oil’ looking like the Shell logo. It is clear that the banner refers to Shell’s drilling in the Antarctic and its support for the NG’s “Rembrandt: The Late Works” exhibition. With regard to matters financial, the director mentions that the money from the foundation collection of the museum was a donation by J.J. Angerstein, whose money was mainly made from his slave trading activities in Grenada.

It is difficult to choose the most impressive story in this engaging film, but amongst the most memorable is the one about a group of visually impaired patrons, sliding their fingers about an embossed reproduction of Pissaro’s “The Boulevard Montmarte at Night” (1897) whilst the curator explains all the details of the painting. Next is perhaps a psychological interpretation of Rubens’ “Samson and Delilah”, when the guide asks the audience to “imagine, how one would feel in Delilah’s place, having successfully fulfilled her spying mission and taken all the power away from Samson, after pretending to be in love with him”. A rather delicate question, indeed. Next a reminder of immortality: we are made full aware that many of the portraits in this museum were commissioned by the rich and powerful to achieve some form of immortality. In front of a Dutch table painting we hear that whilst the lobster has been long dead, the drinking horn has survived to this day.

On a more technical level, there is much to discover about the limits of restoration: a ghostly image on a Rembrandt portrait shows that another painting, perhaps a portrait of the same person, had been started before on the same canvas. But the restorer makes it clear that whatever his changes may be, the next person to restore the painting can start from scratch, because he simply has to take the varnish off. The intricacies of framing are endless, certainly it is an art form in itself. The many ‘Turner’s” on show allow us to  connect with Mike Leigh’s latest feature on the artist (Mr Turner) and finally, two ballet dancers performing in front of a Titian painting make a fitting climax to this remarkable three hour film which should be savioured at your leisure over a good bottle of wine. AS.

ON Mubi from 8 May 2020 | INTERVIEW

The Calm after the Storm **** | Visions du Reel 2020

Dir.: Mercedes Gaviria Jaramillo; Documentary with Victor Gaviria, Marcela Jaramillo; Columbia 2020, 72min.

Colombian filmmaker Mercedes Gaviria Jaramillo confronts her childhood and her famous filmmaker father, Victor, in her documentary debut which she scripted, filmed and co-edited.

Mercedes worked as her father’s assistance during the shooting of his final film La Mujer del Animal (The wife of the Animal). Gaviria senior is the only Columbian director whose films have been shown at Cannes Film Festival.

Mercedes Gaviria Jaramillo always wanted to get out of the shadow of her famous father: in spite the pleas of her mother, she studied film at Buenos Aires, and worked there after graduation as sound designer. But the pull of the family proved too strong, when she agreed to assist her father in his latest feature La mujer de Animal (2016). On her return to her home, she finds that her mother Marcela, an anthropologist, has left her room untouched, which comforts Mercedes. The Calm is actually two films in one: there are the sequences of shooting La mujer, and the home videos her father shot of her, her brother Matias and mother Marcela. And then there is the diary of her mother, for her yet unborn daughter. “It sounds, like I was her only confidant”. Victor is known for his realism, and using non-professional actors. The story of La mujer is of Marguerita, who lives in the neighbourhood, but does not want to give an interview to Mercedes: Marguerita, who had been kidnapped and raped by “the animal’ at eightenn, is fearful, that the actor, who portraits her tormentor, might bring back the bad spirit of him, even though he died long ago. Marguerita’s role is taken by Natalia Polo, a nursing assistant, who gives up her job, to concentrate on filming. Tito, a bus driver will feature as the villain. It is obvious, that Mercedes is horrified of the rape scene between the main protagonists, whilst her father is directing with calm, taking about the size of the lenses he will use in the next shot. Natalia is often found crying, and Victor sends her away from the set. Mercedes: “Marguerita’s suffering rekindles in every woman’s body”. It rains during the first six days of shooting, and cast and crew get ill – apart from Victor. Next is another violent scene, a sex orgy, where sex workers are brutally raped and beaten. Victor uses real sex workers from Berrio Park, and the lads are from the tough neighbourhood. Mercedes has to close her eyes, but keeps listening. When Mercedes is alone with her mother, she wants to ask her about the diary. “I want her to take my fear away, talking to her. But she only asks, if the catering at the set is ok. I just answer it – to calm her”. In an old home video, we watch Mercedes, called Mechi, being bullied by her father into writing a story for school. Mechi refused, telling him, that a scorpion has bitten her. From her mother’s diary: “Only twenty days left until your birth. You are going to have a very special dad. Even if we have our problems, as you will find out soon. He is very sensitive, always meeting lots of people when he is not with us, because other people need him too. I hope you are optimistic, I was not. You give me strength  to keep on fighting for our love. I loved your father too much, I am always afraid of losing him, you can’t live like this”.  The principal photography for La mujer is over, and Victor discusses with his daughter, that he was well aware of the fact, that the cast used Clonazepam with alcohol, to get over the trauma of acting. “The mixture is so strong, you don’t remember the next day what you have done at all”. From the home videos we learn, that the Tooth Fairy is called ‘Perez the Mouse’ in Columbia – but young Mercedes is not fooled: “Its not true, its Mom and Dad who give me the presents.”. Merceds tries in vain to talk with her mother about the diary. “What would she say to me? That living with a man is not easy. But life must go on”. Thinking back to the shoot and her father: “He finds it easier to direct violent scenes, than to direct Natalia.” Her brother Matias, Mercedes films an ugly spat between macho father and son, is generally not fond of being filmed: “Life has to be lived, before its being filmed”. And a last thoughts about the rape scene:” The contradiction of filming a rape scene being the privileged gender. And a film set full of men. Yes, talk about gender violence in a country suffering from a war.”

Never didactic, the director tries always to keep distance, but it is not easy to keep the distance with your family. A calm, but moving reflexion on gender and filmmaking. AS

VISIONS DU REEL ONLINE 25 APRIL           

Camino Skies (2020) *** Digital release

Dir.: Noel Smyth, Fergus Grady; Documentary with Julie Zarifeh, Sue Morris, Terry, Mark Thompson; New Zealand/Australia 2019, 80 min.

Antipodian first time documentary filmmakers Noel Smyth and Fergus Grady set off with six of their countrymen and women for a 800 km pilgrimage from Saint Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The holy walk started in the Middle Ages, and for the last sixty years, 300 000 yearly tried to come to terms with God, after their lives took a change for the worse, by undertaking this mammoth hike.

Sue Morris is first up, seventy, the oldest of the half dozen. She is suffering from degenerative arthritis. It is short of a miracle that she manages to stay the course, only once taking a bus and a taxi ride. But her stoic appearance hides a deeply traumatised inner life – and the journey seems not to have given her any answers.

It is much more straightforward for Terry and his son-in-law Mark Thompson – the former wearing a vest, claiming the 1.6 million steps are for Maddie, the daughter of Mark, who died from complications of Cystic Fibrosis at the age of seventeen. While not wishing to grade suffering,  Julie Zarifeh (54), seems to be hardest hit: in less than a month she lost her husband and son – basically her life. This certainly a Via Dolorosa for her, and her grief is utterly compelling.

The participants seem not to be overly religious, it is more the self torture which appeals to them, most of them suffering from survivor guilt. One listens to ‘Black Sabbath’, without the directors mentioning it. Dogs, horses, donkeys, beetles, lizards and snails are being cuddled and stared at, much to their alarm. The participants visit hairdressers and bars, the women sometimes dancing together, the men more interested in drinking. Small stones on the paths play a major role: Julie re-arranges them into a heart form: ‘For Paul and Sam’. The arrival in Santiago de Compostela lacks any triumph – a rather sobering ending. For Julie, the journey goes on to Muxia, on the Coast of Death, near the ocean. There she climbs the rocks and empties the content of an urn into the waves.

Even at eighty minutes, Camino Skies overstays its welcome. There is only so much to watch, and the repetitiousness of muddy pathways and ordinary day-to-day activities detract from the real physical and emotional suffering of these modern pilgrims. Yet despite the potential offered by the dramatic locations Smyth’s images are often too bland to be cinematically engaging, the filmmakers’ lack of inexperience diminishing the overall impact of these traumatised souls on their journey to salvation. AS

ON CURZON HOME CINEMA FROM 8 MAY 2020 | other platforms TBC

                       

                                       

Wolves at the Borders (2020) *** Visions du Reel 2020

Dir: Martin Pav | Doc, Czech Republic 78′

Wolves are back in the Czech Republic. And their return is causing ructions in the rural population. In his no holds barred look at the social history of man’s relationship with beast, filmmaker Martin Pav examines whether wolves still have a place in a world where drought and climate change is already wreaking havoc on the farmers particularly the vast forested areas of the Czech Republic. Wolves are, at least, a threat that can be controlled.

From an ecological point of view wolves have as much right to exist as humans, but as a voracious predator of livestock, and humans too – if given a chance, they are posing a serious threat now that their numbers are once again growing.

Not everyone is in agreement over how to tackle the wolf issue. Jan Sefc, a livestock farmer, shows how his flock of sheep is being depleted by wolves, as he throws a armful of maimed dead lambs into a rubbish bin. The wolves don’t eat the new borns, they just maul them to death, adding insult to the injuries inflicted. The problem is how to protect them. How do you build a shelter for 3000 sheep? And they don’t only kill lambs and sheep, deer are being heavily predated. “Tt’s like having a pedophile in a kindergarten” he says. For now he manages to keep the wolves at bay by monitoring the area in his truck, but he can’t be there all the time. Mayor Tomas Havrlant supports his view and is determined to gain the support of the government in this growing concern.

But conservationist Jiri Malik takes a different view, and is more concerned with water conservation in the region, seeing drought as the main enemy of farming and food production. He argues water is key to the survival of crops and the next generation. He is working on ways to improve irrigation.

Wolves have been predators in the Czech Republic since the Benedictines first arrived in the 13th century with the motto: “Pray and Work” (Ora et Labora). Records tell of attacks on humans, and the Monks civilising effects allowed the local population to protect themselves with barriers at a time when folklore was dominated by tales of wolves, synonymous with the Devil. The only punishment back then was to be cast out into the wilderness. Gradually wolves were almost entirely exterminated by the mid-18th century.

But they soon found their way back. In Czechia and neighbouring Poland and Slovakia wolves were still being culled up until the 1970s, when they were shot during the hunting season, and still harboured a fear of humans. These legendary beasts can grow to six feet tall, and now, like the foxes in the Britain, they have started to challenge man. Their population is growing again and the farmers are angry. So the Mayor has decided to file a suit against the State to gain protection for the farmers and the local economy, and encourage young people to stay in the region.

Jiri Malik feels that anything that encourages beauty, diversity, stability of an ecosystem: such as wolves, is good. Anything that goes the other way, is bad. Why don’t the farmers guard their sheep, like shepherds did in ancient times?. And this is very much the view of small-holder Lenka Stihlova who takes the wolves side of the dilemma arguing for a modus Vivendi with the animals.

With its sinister occasional score of strings and measuring detached approach, Wolves at the Borders presents a convincing case for each side in this age-old endeavour: how to live in harmony with the animal kingdom. MT

VISIONS du REEL 2020 | STREAMING

 

 

 

Fish Eye (2019) *** Visions du Reel 2020

Dir: Amin Behroozzadeh | Doc, Iran, 70′

The debut feature-length poetic documentary by Iranian filmmaker-composer Amin Behroozzadeh follows the biggest industrial fishing boat in Iran, the Parsian Shila, whose objective is to catch 2,000 tons of tuna fish.

Fish Eye is a sombre meditation on commercial fishing that looks at the human and ecological sides of the trade, in a similar vein to Leviathan (2012) and Dead Slow Ahead (2015) that sees the strenuous peril of traditional fishing give way to a mechanised almost mesmerising daily grind for those involved aboard this behemoth of the seas. Although the film depicts the cruelty and harsh conditions of the job, the men on board enjoy a low key camaraderie, often joining each other in prayer. But there is also loneliness as the ‘sailors’ are parted from their families for weeks, even months.

But the filmmaker is also tuned in to the activity of the fish themselves, and how nature is affected by this activity. Following in the footsteps of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, there is a mourneful aspect to Fish Eye but none of the fear and enormity of Leviathan – this is more low key affair that pictures individual tuna and ray as they flounder on the deck gasping for a final breath in images that are deeply affecting and sometimes difficult to watch. And as Behroodzeh casts off in the poignant final scenes accompanied by an evocative occasional score, a pod of dolphins is seen joyfully leading the ship on its way to more culling. A sad but thoughtful study of 21st century fishing and in anonymous manpower involved. MT

FISH EYE  won the TRT Documentary Prize at last year’s SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL | NOW SCREENING AT VISIONS DU REEL | NYON, APRIL 2020

Kombinat (2020) *** Visions du Reel (2020)

Dir: Gabriel Tejedor | Doc, 2020, Switzerland, 75′

A remarkable wide screen opening sequence shows the mighty industrial heart of Russia, the main town of Magnitogorsk in the South Urals and home to the Kombinat, one of the largest iron and steel works in the country. 

But Gabriel Tejedor then narrows his gaze onto the human story behind the billowing pipes and red hot furnesses. That of the locals who live here, and the wider social implications, asking the question: What makes us stay in a place that is potentially detrimental to our health and livelihood?.  The focus here is a family who live in the shadow of the vast industrial complex whose rhythm has dictated their lives from generation to generation, socially, economically and politically. Work in the factory is gruelling and dangerous, requiring heavy protection from frequent electric shocks. 

But the toxic nature of the surrounding environment also has a negative impact on the health and wellbeing of this family and their relatives. And it seems this plant also dominates their leisure time. Lena and Sacha live with their little daughter Dasha. Lena teaches the salsa lessons suggested by the factory. And this helps Sacha to dance away his problems and forget the pressure of work. Meanwhile his brother and his wife are hoping to move to Novosibirsk in Siberia, to escape the heavy pollution that is causing their daughter neurological problems. 

Over the seasons, Gabriel Tejedor (Rue Mayskaya, VdR 2017) paints a portrait of this new generation of workers and young parents whose living conditions seem to be inevitably determined by the Kombinat and State capitalism which feels much the same as Communism in its extreme control of citizens. Not as insightful or darkly amusing as Vitaliy Manskiy’s documentaries about modern Russia such a Pipeline, or Motherland, Kombinat is nevertheless a thoughtful and upbeat snapshot of today’s Russian working class and what it means to belong to a place.MT

VISIONS DU REEL | International Feature Film Competition 2020

https://youtu.be/KL6EhLpjgKY

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall (2020) *** Visions du Reel 2020

Dir: Sascha Schöberl | Germany, Doc 84′ 

The cult of beauty and celebrity coalesce in this deeply unsettling documentary that looks at Beijing-based plastic surgeon Dr Han and his permanent quest for perfection, not only for himself but for his clients. The film once again connects to the narrative of live-streaming, a big business in China, as we saw in Present, Perfect (2019) the Tiger Award winner at Rotterdam last year.

In her sophomore feature, German filmmaker Sascha Schoberl makes no judgement on Han’s own self-focus. This is not a case of a little nip and tuck here and there, done discretely for women of a certainly age. Dr Han’s patients are young slim, and business orientated, and their surgery is plain for all to see.

Live fashion photos of the Dr Han in various natty outfits decorate the walls of his practice. In the firmament of China’s burgeoning plastic surgery industry, he is a star. Nor does the director question his unusual professional approach, allowing a roomful of spectators to attend the and record the live surgery on their mobile phones. The patient, a young Chinese model who undergoes the procedure without general anaesthetic, has given permission because this is all part of the process of monetising live-streaming, And it cuts both ways. The participants all garner something from the process, although why the camera looks at the patient’s face rather than the operation itself, is unclear. Clearly her stoicism – and tacit endurance – adds to the compelling nature of the footage. 

But beyond achieving beauty, girls in China are really looking to make money from the process of improvement surgery. And this is made possible and achievable thanks to Chinese massive social media platforms WeChat and Weibo who attract millions of followers to experience the surgery – live-streamed from the operating theatre to art fairs via fashion shows, and the private homes of this vast nation – they will use their mobiles not only as a form of contact and entertainment, but also to finance their lives. 

Drone footage hovers over Beijing’s vast tower blocks in the opening scenes as the camera descends on Dr Han’s substantial headquarters in the centre of the Chinese capital. Dr Han goes through his spiel encouraging and mentoring as the women congregate to attend the breast enlargement operation for a young flat-chested model whose sole aim, apart from achieving her desired breast size, is to create a platform where she can showcase her assets and make money from garnering followers on social media. The only slight criticism here is a lack of backstory: who are these girls, what are their personal stories, and how about some more clarity on Dr Han?

The procedure completed, the good doctor is not relieved that things have gone well, and that the patient has emerged fit and fulsome; he is clearly dismayed not to have attracted more followers, just click bait. Meanwhile, the enhanced model is pouting happily in her white bed holding a bunch of flowers for her followers delights, having been forced to look chipper throughout the procedure, her face having being filmed continuously by another woman encouraging her to smile, despite her nervousness.

Being a woman is highly competitive business all over the World, as increasingly so. Intelligence and personality are clearly not enough, and surgeons like Dr Han have cottoned on these women’s susceptibility and panders to their vanity and insecurity. A compelling film that questions beauty as a simultaneously essential yet vain element of society in the era of selfies. MT

Visions du Reel 2020 Online | April – May 2020, Nyon, Switzerland 

 

Mimaroğlu: Robinson of Manhattan Island (2020) **** Visions du Reel 2020

Dir.: Serdar Kökceoglu; Documentary with Ilhan Mimaroglu, Güngör Batum, Rüstem Batum; Turkey/USA 20219, 76 min.

Serdar Kökceoglu is a composer and filmmaker whose first feature is a vivid portrait of fellow Turkish composer, filmmaker and artist Ilhan Mimaroğlu (1926-2012), a leading composer of electronic music.

Structured in three chapters and using a dreamlike soundscape and evocative visual style the documentary recounts how Mimaroğlu emigrated from Turkey to the USA in 1959, spending the rest of his life in Manhattan as a composer and all-round artist. Mimaroğlu gradually develops into a diary of contemporary music-making in Manhattan in the late twentieth century. But equally important was his relationship with his wife Güngör Batum, whom he married in 1959 back in Istanbul. Both were idiosyncratic in their life style, but, as she said “We were like one person”.

After finishing law school at Istanbul University in 1949, Mimaroğlu had already made his name as a music critic. Later awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant, he went on to study musicology under Paul Henry Lang at Columbia University. He would also work for the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Centre with Edgard Varese and Vladimir Ussachevsky. For Mimaroğlu,, cinema and music were one and the same, his compositions were “like collages, similar to editing a film”.

One of the highlights were his collaboration with Fellini for Satyricon. Working at Atlantic Records in the 1970ies, with Freddie Hubbard and Charles Mingus among others. Mimaroğlu founded his own label, Finnadar Records. German electronic visionary Karl-Heinz Stockhausen was one of his heroes, as was Jean Dubffet, who published Mimaroğlu’s own jazz compositions like ‘Tract A: A composition of Agitprop Music for Electromagnetic Tape’. Under his own record label, he met pianist concert pianist Idil Biret in 1972, the two of them working together for ten years, producing nine albums. After Finnadar Records folded in the 1980s, the composer stepped away from music and focused on street photography and films.

Mimaroğlu was always aware of status near the margins: “I am a composer, that’s one suicide. On top of it I am contemporary composer. And a composer of electronic music – and I compose political music.” He never wanted to go to a conservatoire in Turkey, “because they might teach me the wrong things”. And even in New York, he was critical of the places of higher learning: “University is a self-serving institution. This whole country, being the graveyard of culture, its universities being its mausoleums.” For him, music was alive, he collected tapes for sleeping from sounds of daily life. He compared himself to a preacher in the Sahara, nobody listening to him. “Even if they do, they fail to figure out what I was talking about”. He made a short film about people walking in slow-motion into a mall, past a poster which he had created, showing the MacDonald’s label with the inscription “Mc Lenin”. Like his friend and music critic David Toop said “his records were almost like Graffiti, that’s why he later became interested in Street Photography – the absolute immediacy.” And music writer Evin Ilyasoglu gave the feature its title” I think, he was mad, that people did not understand him. The Robinson of Manhattan. That’s why he was so pessimistic.” He felt that everyone was out to shoot contemporary composers. “Don’t shoot us, we are just innocent bystanders. When I am confronted with Mozart and Elvis, the question is, whom do I shoot first, its a matter of priority: Business or pleasure. And: “Do you think that I am paranoid in this respect? If so, there is a reason for it: Strauss Elvis, Mozart, all in the same bag”.   

The third chapter concentrates on Güngör Batum, who had to branch out into business during her husband’s middle age, “becoming a left-wing artist and a business woman at the same time”. She was shattered at his death, living in denial of it for the rest of her life. “Shortly after losing him, I thought I could only manage the world with a new perspective. Because we had been really close, supported each other in every way. I had to work out how to live without him. The hardest period of my life”. Her son Rüstem, whom she left behind when she left the USA, talks abut the couple’s relationship:” When my mother had guests, Ilhan would just come into the room for a moment, would not greet anybody and leave the room. He was an anti-social person. I could not bond with him, only our relationship with cinema kept us going. He watched some films ten times. They were the polar opposites. He always lived in an apartment at Columbia university, where he always returned for the night.” After having spent many years on the balcony of her NYC apartment, Güngör Batum re-emigrated to Istanbul, reconstructing her life out of memories. In Istanbul she talked to friends about “Ilhan coming soon to join her in Turkey. “Than we can all meet together”. As Rüstem said, his mother had a way of deny certain occurrences in her life. So, for her it was “like living still with him, but by myself.”  

With wonderful archive material, partly shot by the composer himself, this a real art history lesson. DoP Levent Türkan avoids too many Talking Heads, and concentrates Instead on conjuring up a palpable Cinematic essence of the man. A truly unique documentary about music and relationships, with Mimaroğlu having the last word: Old composers never die. They just turn into index cards”.   AS

Burning Lights International Competition | ON VISIONS DU REEL | NYON SWITZERLAND | APRIL- MAY 2020

Elena (2012) **** Visions du Reel 2020

Dir.: Petra Costa; Doc with Li An, Elena Andrade, Petra Costa; Brazil/USA 2012, 80 min.

Brazilian director/co-writer Petra Costa’s debut documentary is a melancholic portrait of bereavement for her much younger depressive sister Elena who became a successful actor in New York in the late 1980s.

Mental illness is often a taboo subject for film makers – Kathy Leichter’s Here one Day being one of the exceptions. Petra Costa’s multi-layered study is as painful for the audience as the director. When Elena left her native Sao Paulo, then New York, at the age of seventeen, she left behind a younger sister who was fascinated by Elena, who filmed her with a cam-recorder. The sisters’ parents were revolutionaries, fighting the military dictatorship – but avoiding taking up arms, due to Li An’s pregnancy with her soon to be born daughter Elena. But divorce was to follow, and Li An took Petra to New York where she tried in vain to fight Elena’s depression: “If I’d had a car in New York, I would have put Elena’s body in the boot, put Petra on the seat next to me and driven into the river.” Somehow, this image has found its way into the documentary, with girls floating Ophelia-like in the water weeds.

Super 8 mm portraits of the city and audio tapes of Elena transmit these feelings of homesickness back home to her mother, creating an atmosphere of doom. No wonder Li An told her youngest daughter “never live in New York or become an actor”. Needless to say, Petra studied Drama at Columbia, asking friends of her late sister about details of her demise. It turns out Elena was not alone – but she felt that way. 

We watch her audition tape for a part in Godfather III, listen to the sober voice of the pathologist, enumerating the substances found and the weight of Elena’s organs. Petra talks to her dead sister, they are very much look-alikes: “You are being re-born a bit for me.” And at the beginning of the feature: “I perform your death, I find air to be able to live”. Watery images fill the frame in a dreamlike, poetic narrative suffused with mournfulness: “Little by little, the pain becomes water and then memory, and gradually fades away. But some find solace in the small openings of poetry. You are my inconsolable memory, made of shadow and stone”.

DoPs Janice D’Avila, Will Etchebehere and Miguel Vassy create ethereal images of floating flowers and leaves, the director distilling the essence of her sister into dreamy evocations of feminine beauty and gentleness. There are shades of Agnes Varda, and Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour. But mainly a deep sisterly longing for her lost, and very much missed, sibling. AS

VISIONS DU REEL | NOW ONLINE | APRIL – MAY 2020     

 

                

The Russian Woodpecker (2015) **** Now on Prime Video

RUSSIANWOODPECKER_still2_FedorAlexandrovich__byArtemRyzhykov_2014-11-20_05-25-34PMDirector: Chad Gracia 80min | War Documentary |

In his darkly informative documentary Chad Gracia has found and an amusing interpreter in the shape of wild-haired Russian artist Fedor Alexandrovich who does his best to enlighten with a potted history of Ukraine from the hungry thirties of to the Chernobyl conspiracy and culminating in the Maidan uprising in Ukraine. But his story reveals a troubling secret.

THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER, rightly awarded Grand Jury Prize, World Cinema at Sundance this year, refers to the telegraphic pecking sound made by a transmitter that had been in operation since the Cold War days in 1976, as an early warning system. The “Duga” was a low frequency device that worked by grabbing information and then bouncing it back to base thanks to the Earth’s shape. A Russian speaker, American-born Gracia allows Alexandrovich, a Chernobyl survivor himself, free rein to expound his conspiracy theory on why the  reactor blew up (or was detonated in his view) in 1986, causing lethal and widespread damage. Flighty and fleet of foot, Feodor whisks us through his Iron-Curtai controversy incorporating his own family memoir of being radiated by strontium at the age of four – but he wears this experience patriotically as a badge of honour. In a fortuitous natural twist, it emerges America was protected from the Duga, a massive mesh of secret military ironwork, by the Northern Lights. Remarkable footage shows the frighteningly vast metal transmitter surging up, maniacally victorious, over the surrounding forests.

Fedor is convinced that the Duga was connected to the Chernobyl disaster and he sets off with Gracia, and his friend and cinematograapher Artem Ryzhykov, to investigate the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl. The place is full of mangled metalwork, broken glass and overgrown buildings and Fedor sees fit to strip naked at this point as he fashions himself as part of the scary scenery, shooting his own film in the process.

Later, Fedor, Chas and Artem chat informally to elderly Soviet scientists, military men and Communist Party faithfuls, filming some of them clandestinely, and discover that the Duga was actually a failure due to its vast cost which ran into the billions. Feodor hatches his theory round the premise that the Chernobyl reactor was blown ‘on purpose’ by the Russians in 1986 so as to destroy the Duga radar, in an attempt to cover their error.  At this point Feodor becomes emphatic and almost beligerant as he expounds his tenuous theory while Ukrainian secret police make ominous threats against him and his family, at which point he attempts to renege on his claims and is seen fleeing the country. It does seems that the Russian are still very much feared by the Ukrainians. There are scenes shot during the Independence Square protests, which were gradually dispersed by Russian troops. Some of the footage is extraordinary showing the Russian riot Police in action, fires blazing, and flashbacks to Fedor patrolling the Duga naked in his suit of plastic cladding. Artem himself is shot and nearly killed during the protests but is later speaks to the camera claiming: “it was a peaceful protest” before he breaks down in tears.

Gracia manages to inject absurdist humour into this melancholy and disturbing documentary but this is raw, real and compelling filmmaking. Feodor claims: “Ukraine is just the first step in the re-birth of the Soviet Union – the second step is World War III”. During the riots we learn that 100 protesters were shot dead. And in a hair-raising final scene we see Fedor tuning it to his radio system: After 23 years of silence, the Woodpecker signal has returned to the airwaves and been traced to the heart of Russia. MT

ON PRIME VIDEO

 

Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer (2013) *** Streaming with Q&A

Dir: Mike Lerner/Maxim Pozdorovkin | Cast: Mariya Alyokhina, Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin, Ekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. | 90min  Documentary, Russian

Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison after an explosive performance at Moscow Cathedral in 2012

Along with Andrei Gryazev’s Tomorrow, Pussy Riot furthers the dialogue on freedom of speech and the individual in the Russian Federation with this stirring and well-crafted documentary.  Even if you don’t like the band’s particular brand of music: a blend of early British Punk Rock with jazzed-up ecclesiastical overtones, you have to give the Pussy Rioters top marks for raising awareness of the country’s current social and cultural climate.

Opening with an apposite Bertholt Brecht quote, this snapshot of modern Moscow kicks off with one of the trio, Nadya Kolonikova, airing her feelings in a pleasant and gentle way about the cause she fervently espouses, stating candidly that her hatred of Putin stems from his overzealous nationalism on the World stage. Meanwhile on the Church stage in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ, the band sport brightly coloured ‘fluor’ balaclavas. They look like jokey bank-robbers but their only crime is violating the Church’s dress code, genuflecting with guitars and offending local worshippers with their insulting riff, along the lines of “Occupy Red Square”; and “Rid Us Of Putin”.  This leads to forcible arrest.

The film has an experimental feel: A handheld camera yields dizzying footage of the streets of Moscow intercut with timelapse sequences of the skyline at night, contrasting with the drab interiors of the court room and the detention centre where the girls are taken on their arrest in February 2012.  The tone of the piece is calm and inquiring rather than dramatic or subversive and interviews with the girls and their families are measured and informative without a hint of bitterness or anger.  Nadia speaks softly and convincingly of her plight and love for her father.  He decided to support her musical talent and gives insight into her rebellious streak, hinting at his divorce from her mother as possible grounds for her need to seek recognition in this way: it’s a portrait of a loving and affectionate dad.

To Western eyes there’s nothing scandalous about these girls in hooded balaclavas rampaging around with guitars, albeit in a Church. It all rather feels like a storm in a teacup. What is serious though is the image that emerges of modern Russia as an old-fashioned society full of traditional and draconian figures and a repressive legal system that forces petty criminals to give their evidence from within metal cages in the city court rooms, while outside frenzied protesters chant slogans for freedom amid the whirring of cameras from the Press pack . For his part, in dour interview mode, Putin claims he has a duty to protect the views of the orthodox mainstream. As a result, two of the girls are sentenced to serve seven years in a penal colony.

In a flash of glamour, Madonna wades in to Moscow to lend her support or maybe just to garner publicity for yet another physical transformation: it’s difficult not to be cynical but it feels as if the Russian Federal Republic, from a human rights perspective at least, is still hiding behind a rather dishevelled ‘Iron Curtain’ of sorts, despite its pretensions as a 21st century World power. MT

Watch Pussy Riot – A Punk Player on BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, Youtube, iTunes, or Google Play.

Then watch the DocHouse Q&A with co-director Mike Lerner here.

PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER TOOK THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE AT SUNDANCE 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017)

Dir: Sara Driver | Doc | US | 78′

Sara Driver’s first documentary Boom for Real is a lively loose-limbed look at the high octane force of nature that was Jean-Michel Basquiat – arguably one of America’s most mercurial and influential artists of late 20th century, whose work is now more valuable than ever, a painting selling for USD 81 million in Christie’s New York in May 2021.

Under a pseudonym SAMO (which was originally the duo of Basquiat and Al Diaz) Basquiat was barely out of his teens when he sprang to fame in the Lower East Side art scene by means of sharply sardonic graffiti epigrams that were posted on school walls – US Bansky-style, announcing his critical talent to amuse, for want of a gallery to sponsor him. And it’s through Basquiat’s prodigious teen and twenty-something output that Sara Driver chronicles the early days of hip hop, punk and street art, brought to life with sparky commentary from his friends and collaborators. With its choppy editing style and blitzy soundtrack, Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat  sketches out a life pulsating with vim and vitality that soared like a meteor but would eventually crash and burn in New York’s Neon nightclubs and graffitied backwaters.

Chipping in with wit and repartee there is Jim Jarmusch, Fab 5 Freddy, and Patricia Field who offer intimate access to Basquiat’s electric personality and creative energy and the effect it had on the contemporary art scene. This impressionistic documentary catapults us right into the era, picturing the pivotal sociocultural switch from the 70s to the 80s. Driver invigorates her film with a plethora of paintings, posters, audio recordings, original film and archive footage.

Intriguing and entertaining, Driver’s film captures the free-wheeling, chaotic intensity of a time in history where she was also a protagonist working as a director in her own right, and an actor featuring in Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise. Despite its rather scattergun approach, actually working to its advantage, Boom for Real is chockfull of insight and pithy commentary, conjuring up the sporadic nature of this drug-fuelled creative geyser.

Serving as the perfect companion piece to Celine Danhier’s Blank City (2010) Sara Driver’s doc further fleshes out that Neo-expressionist era, with a highly personalised and first hand testament to a time of gritty uncertainty – danger even – when the New York’s power structures and politics where artistically critiqued by the clever creative genius of this legendary wild child. MT

NOW ON AMAZON PRIME

Talking About Trees (2019) **** Digital release

Dir|Writer|DoP: Suhaib Gasmelbari

Director Suhaib Gasmelbari scripts and photographs this sorrowful love letter to the demise of Sudanese cinema that explores the efforts of a group of retired directors hoping to revive their country’s love of film.

Talking About Trees is also about the impactful and collective experience of watching films in the cinema, sharing the buzz of humour or sadness, and the cultural exchanges that come through the medium of sight and sound on the silver screen.

The Sudanese Film Club consists of a group of directors: Ibrahim Shadad, Manar Al Hilo, Suleiman Mohamed Ibrahim and Altayeb Mahdi, who have been forced into retirement against their own volition. Efforts to reopen a cinema in their city of Omdourman, near of Khartoum, have been unsuccessful to date. The country’s dominating Islamist regime and its restrictions has put paid to any enjoyment film-wise taking place in the public domain.

These filmmakers were trained outside the country and they share clips of their impressive oeuvres throughout the documentary. Clearly influenced by French New Wave and Soviet montage, their visual language is muted and reflective of political regimes that conflict with the current status quo in Sudan. After a military coup in 1989, the government fell under the control of Islamic fundamentalists, and Sharia law has prevailed since the early 1990s.  Khartoum still has a few theatres showing mainstream fare, but indie features are banned.

Shadad and his friends host free screenings in their town squares, and these are massively popular and stimulate interest with young and old alike. But red tape soon strangles their efforts, even before the finances run out. The country’s culture becomes moribund before our eyes: it’s akin to seeing someone losing their life right in front of you as you look on powerless to intervene.  “We are smarter, but they are stronger,” is the comment one of them makes. But they persevere, upbeat and full of hope tinged with remorse. A tragic and deeply moving experience. Let’s hope Martin Scorsese comes to the rescue, as he has done before. The film ends with a salient takeaway that says it all. “Seeing a movie with friends is better than watching one alone at home.” MT

ON RELEASE from 27 APRIL | Curzon HOME CINEMA

 

 

The Whalebone Box (2019) **** Home Ent release

Dir/Wri: Andrew Kötting | UK, Doc with Anonymous Bosch, Andrew Kötting, Nick Gordon Smith. Philippe Ciompi, Eden Kötting, Iain Sinclair, Philip Hoare, Macgillivray, Kyunwai So, Ceylan Ünal, Helen Paris, Steve Dilworth.

Artist, writer and director Andrew Kötting has built up a string of quintessentially British films. The Whalebone Box is another of his experimental jaunts made with his regular collaborator Iain Sinclair, and the photographer Anonymous Bosch.

Discovered in LondonM the box in question is bound in fishing nets and reputed to convey healing properties in the Scottish town of its origin, which is desperately down on its luck. So the two men start their eventful journey north to return it to the Scottish home of the sculptor Steve Dilworth, a Hull native who has settled on the island of Harris, in the Outer Hebrides.

What is the secret behind this enigmatic container? Is it a relic, a survivor from a mysterious shipwreck, or a magical totem?. The mystery gives rise to an expedition suffused with evocative reveries, drenched in strange fairytales, folklore, dark humour and sonic interludes. The travellers are gradually mesmerised by the power of this enchanted object which gradually becomes “heavier and heavier, turning into a different substance”,

A parallel strand intertwines with the 800 mile pilgrimage, this features Andrew Kötting’s daughter Eden, who has already appeared in several of his earlier films. Eden suffers from Joubert’s disease and her presence lends an eerie vulnerability adding texture to the fascinating narrative. From the depths of her sleep, or adorned with a magnificent crown of flowers and binoculars, she is the film’s muse and guide, attempting to interpret the strange and mystical goings on. But so is a whale with its mournful atavistic cries – embodying nature’s suffering at the hands of humanity.

As usual there are cul-de-sacs and detours, and these feature the dead poets Basil Bunting and Sorley MacLean and the sculptor Steve Dilworth – the film also borrows from Pandora and Moby Dick and takes its 10 chapter headings from Philip Hoare’s novel Leviathan, or the Whale. One thing is sure – the box must never be opened, and therein lies a sense of anticipation and wonder – little did the men know the delirium they would unleash. Eventually they reach the white sands of Harris where they intend to return the box to its original resting place. Shot in Super 8, 16mm this is a strange, haunting and magical film. Just watch out for the post credit sting. MT

NOW ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD |

 

Martin Margiela: In His Own Words (2019) London Fashion Week

Dir: Reiner Holzemer | With Sandrine Dumas, Pierre Rougier, Lidewij Edelkoort, Cathy Horyn, Jean Paul Gaultier, Carine Roitfield  | Doc, 90′

Early on in his transformative career elusive clothes designer Martin Margiela cottoned on to the fact that anonymity and exclusivity meant power in the fashion world. During his career Margiela reinvented with his innovative designs and revolutionary shows; never compromising on his vision. After abruptly leaving fashion in 2009 he is now regarded as one of the most influential designers of modern times. Reiner Holzemer’s (DRIES) film presents a never-before-seen, exclusive look inside the creative mind and vision of Martin Margiela.

This frank and fascinating new biopic is the third film to scope out the life of the 62-year-old Belgian maverick whose vision turned the tables on high glamour to offer a softly deconstructed version of Rei Kawakubo’s Avantgarde label Comme des Garçons.

We don’t meet him but we do get to see his graceful hands moving swiftly on the pattern cutting table (“I liked his hands,” comments one model, “When he dressed you backstage it was with finesse.”). Meanwhile his soothing narration conveys a slightly insolent, provocatively subversive figure. Margiela gives a reason for this reclusiveness, and we discover it was not a sales ploy: “Anonymity, for me, was a kind of a protection — that I could work. And the work was hard. And that I had nothing on my schedule, like all the appointments one can have with press. I’m not against those appointments. But I could not cope with them. They would bring me out of my balance.”

Using the usual talking heads approach combined with archive footage of the shows and the models, seasoned fashion documentarian Holzeme conveys Margiela’s subtle thoughtfulness as he prepares for the “Margiela/Galliera, 1989-2009” exhibition, a 10-year retrospective that took place in the Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris.

Born on the 9th of April 1957 in Leuven, Belgium, Martin Margiela remembers watching his dressmaker grandmother cutting patterns and then making them up. She was the most important influence in his life, but he also impressed by the Courreges models at a show on TV in 1966 – they wore opaque white glasses and white toeless boots with a white cotton summer dresses and that captured the young Margiela’s imagination. Attending the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp he graduated in 1979 just a year ahead of the design collective known as the  ‘Antwerp Six’ which included Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester. From the early 1980s he developed his distinct concept and vision and after a spell with Gaultier’s mentoring (“Martin you don’t realise you have a style and a taste, and you should stick with that taste for your future”) he went on to found the ready to wear label Maison Martin Margiela with fellow Belgian Jenny Meirens in 1987.

The first show in 1989 embraced the label’s deconstructed aesthetic, taking place in an abandoned kids’ playground in the suburbs of Paris where fashion luminaries mingled with ordinary locals hanging out and cheering in a rock concert ambiance (echoed here by a offbeat soundtrack by the Belgian rock band dEus). Margiela models wore heavy make-up and messy hair and were heavily scented with Patchouli when they took the catwalk.

Rather than concentrating on intricate couture and exquisite fabrics like Dior and St Laurent, he focused on the look and image and the message he was sending out to his fans: One iconic design involved photographing a garment in black and white and then printing the flat image directly onto the fabric to achieve a tromp l’oeil look. Another was his cloven hoof “Tabi” high-heel boots. Often he shot black-and-white cinema verité-style short films to showcase his collections.

Margiela put the counter-culture on a pedestal and made it cool. But the often violent reaction against his rebellion was another factor that sent him behind closed doors, shunning the press and avoiding interviews. In this way his anonymity became vital to his work, helping him to retain his integrity of vision which he felt would be dissipated by negative reactions if he allowed the outside in. In the end, his lack of a public persona became irreverent because of the strong message of his work. Other standout shows would see his models wearing masks or with wigs covering their faces giving them a ‘back to front look’ that somehow evoked insularity. Garments were often fashioned from bits and pieces of socks made into tailored garments. The silhouette was long and wide at the bottom, with a focus on the shoes. “When you look at the shoulders and the shoes, they dictate the movement of the body, and that’s what I’m interested in.”  Mixing second hand clothes with new designs – his 1991 collection involved long dresses often worn coat-like over teeshirt and jeans, and left open at the back.

Paris allowed him to experiment and be free. Rather like Prada’s little red tag, the calling card of Margiela’s brand was the invisible label framed by four whites stitch marks. Margiela would enjoy working with a number of fashion houses, one in particular was the supremely classic house of Hermès where he was creative director for six years from 1998. Seeing the big picture, he went to the essence of the brand and managed to create something unique but at the same time classically elegant; balancing grace, comfort and timelessness in subtle tones and hues.

During the 1990s the label generated a keen celebrity following of Cher, Gwyneth Paltrow and Amanda Peet and there were flagship boutiques in Los Angeles. But he suddenly stepped back claiming he had drifted away from his focus: “By the end, I became, in a certain way, an artistic director in my own company. And that bothered me, because I’m a designer. I’m really a fashion designer, and a designer who creates, and I’m not just a creative director who directs his assistants.” His abrupt parting with the brand in 2008 meant he was unable to say goodbye to his collaborators and contacts. And this film is another tribute them.

Today Margiela paints and sculpts and continues to live in solitude. But the takeaway from this informative film is his response when asked if he is done with fashion. The answer is a firm’No’. MT

ON DEMAND COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

 

 

Crazy, Not Insane (2020) ***** CPH: DOX 2020

Dir: Alex Gibney | With Forensic Psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis MD, Richard Burr, Park Dietz, Catherine Yeager; USA 2020, 117 min.

What happens in the brains of serial killers? Oscar winner Alex Gibney, who won an Oscar for his documentary Taxi To The Dark Side, examines the facts and the psychology of murderers based on research by forensic psychiatrist Dorothy Ontov Lewis, in this chilling but sober film about criminal psychology.

Professor Dorothy Otnov Lewis, forensic psychiatrist and lecturer at Yale and NY university, is best known for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a phenomenon she continues to question since coining the term in 1984. Her work with serial killers Arthur Shawcross and Ted Bundy brought her to the conclusion that DID was the result of brain dysfunction, abuse in childhood and psychotic paranoia.

Otnov Lewis is a lively and voluble medic who makes this comprehensive study engaging and enjoyable despite the gravity of the subject matter. She describes how brain dysfunction affects the frontal lobes responsible for controlling  (among other things) our emotional responses and empathy. Injury of this vital part of the brain leads to impulsiveness, poor judgement and emotional liability. Together with childhood abuse and a tendency to paranoia, this is, as it turns out, a deadly combination. 

By way of background she describes going to kindergarten during WWII her main concerns were not being picked last for team games and her disappointment that Hitler’s suicide robbed her of insight into the motives for his genocidal politics, and she later eagerly followed the Nuremberg trials. A career as a Freudian analyst seemed the logical next step. But her studies at Yale School of Medicine led her via New Haven Juvenile Court and saw her running a clinic specialising in the neuro-psychiatric characteristics of young people in Long Lane School, a detention facility for violent juvenile offenders in Middleton (Connecticut). This experience changed her mind. She worked with the neurologist Professor Martin Pincus, a collaboration they continued at NYU, where they had access to Bellevue Hospital prison.

An interview with CBS TV in 1983 focused on children who kill and brought her into contact with a lawyer defending two juvenile children on death row. Lewis and Pincus interviewed all the death row inmates in Starke/Florida. Among them was Lucky Larson (not his real name), who was sentenced to die for hacking his two victims to death. Tests revealed his frontal lobes had been injured. In course of their investigation, Lewis and Pincus uncovered that Lucky’s mother had started sexually abusing him when he was six. His jealous father became violent with his son. But despite this revelation the jury in his re-trail still found him guilty. Lewis’ only consolation was his inability to see the reality of his situation: his frontal lobes had been disconnected from the rest of the brain.

Lewis had more success in trial with Arthur Shawcross, a notorious serial killer. He was saved from the electric chair in November 1990, thanks to Lewis’ intervention. Shawcross, whose mother bit his penis when he was young, said in an interview with Lewis “I am here, but I am not really here. I am fighting with myself. I am two people doing something bad.” Lewis used the MRI of his brain for her defence, but the prosecutor’s forensic witness Park Dietz, a medical bigwig who Lewis would continue to cross horns with during her career, tried to destroy her testimony.

Then there was the case of Johnny Frank Garrett, 17 years old, who had murdered a nun. He was a schizophrenic whose brain damage led to seizures. Lewis and the defence asked for clemency, but the states of Florida and Texas were in competition to secure the most death penalties. The Texas governor basically washed his hands off the case and let the Clemency Board decide. The result was a 17:1 vote for execution.

The Clinton administration was in power at the time and the president had already shown in his home state of Arkansas that he was tough on crime. Although there were some counter demonstrations against the executions, the majority literally celebrated the perpetrators’ deaths. Arcade games featured executions on the electric chair, where a dummy was put to death by the player for 25 cents. It is interesting in this context, that Lewis would interview Ben Johnson, the travelling executioner, who was also a part-time electrician. He proudly told Lewis about his grandson’s encouragement in his work: “Zap them, Grand Pa.” Strangely enough, Lewis is much more concerned about the little children sitting on his lap (“I will get accused of molestation”) than the nineteen people he had executed. Johnson states candidly that he had no nightmares, but the paintings he did after every execution show a tortured soul.

Dorothy Lewis was the last person Ted Bundy spoke to just before his execution on 24.1.1993. Bundy had made a performance of his trial, and everything he said was seen as a part of his grandstanding. But in her interviews with Bundy, Lewis discovered that Bundy’s grandfather Sam had been a violent person and an pornography user. Bundy’s grandmother had depression and his own mother, Eleanor Louise had taken “pills” to abort the boy. Bundy spent two months in an orphanage before his mother united him with his siblings. Ted run away from his violent grandfather, and there were rumours that Sam was his biological father, which DNA tests proved to be wrong. When Lewis got a collection of love letters from his wife, she found out that Bundy had signed some of them with ‘Sam’, the name of his grandfather. Bundy told Lewis that “in late Winter 1969, this ‘entity’ reached the point were it was necessary to act out. The ‘entity’ takes over the basic conscious mechanism of the brain and more or less dictates what’s going to be done. It was unobtrusive at first, something that sort of grew on me. It began to visualise and phantasies’ about more violent things. But by the time I realised how powerful it was, I was in big trouble.” He had become his grandfather, and while the public was celebrating his execution Lewis, who never wanted the perpetrators she interviewed to be released, lamented “how much could we have learned from Bundy had he been allowed to live. But we have gone back to the Middle Ages, burning witches.”

Gibney has made this dark chapter in America’s history even grimmer by incorporating 2d, and 3d black-and-white animation which pictures Lewis sitting on both the electric chair and outside the death chamber, looking into her Alter Ego’s eyes. Lewis is also seen painting in stark black strokes the Hell, her patients inhabited. DoP Ben Bloodwell makes this a disturbing masterpiece enriched by Lewis’ gracious presence. AS

CPH:DOX 2020 and on HBO DIGITAL TV in certain territories. 

    

        

 

Bitter Love (2020) *** CPH:DOX 2020

Dir. Jerzy Sladkowski. Poland/Finland/Sweden. 2020. 86 mins.

Russian couples pack their emotional baggage for a romantic voyage on the Volga in this entertaining but tonally offbeat curio from Polish filmmaker Jerzy Slodkowski (Don Juan).

Essentially a series of disparate encounters between its often disillusioned characters, Bitter Love tests the temperature of love in contemporary Russia and finds it either troubled or rather buttoned down, particularly where the men are concerned. The women are full of disillusionment but remain chipper and ever-hopeful of redressing the emotional balance or finding love again, even though the past has often given them a kick in the teeth, on the feelings front.

Sailing down the languorous waters of Russia’s most famous river aboard the appropriately named ‘Maxim Gorky’ riverboat, this upbeat documentary is as realist as it can be in scoping out romantic possibilities for a shipload of modern Russians, from all ages and walks of life, who we first meet setting off a cloud of coloured balloons each containing an ardent wish.

In the singletons corner there is Oksana (or Xenia) a middle-aged disillusioned romantic who shares her woes with Yura a bulked-up bodyguard type who actually turns out to be a bit of a softie, strumming his guitar and crooning like a troubadour. There is also petite Yulya who makes a bid for taller, older mate but soon has second thoughts.

Not all are footloose and fancy-free: it falls to an earnest young singer and her pianist playmate to set the tone musically with their classical accompaniment. Meanwhile, another older couple in a longterm relationship, Sacha and Lyuba, are clearly entering troubled waters – and even the odd set-too – threatening to rock the boat, both literally and metaphorically, but also adding a spark of humour to this river-bound odyssey of lost souls.

Apart from an interlude on dry land, or sand – as it turns out to be – this is a mostly close-up affair that pictures its protagonists in restaurant tete-a-tetes or in the intimacy of their cabins, but there’s a stagey artifice to these encounters that somehow doesn’t make them ring true, despite their earnestness. Compelling stuff nevertheless. MT

CPH:DOX 2020 | ONLINE IN CERTAIN TERRITORIES

A Shape of Things to Come (2020) **** CPH:DOX 2020

Dirs: Lisa Marie Malloy & J.P. Sniadecki. US. 2020. 77′

A Lone Ranger of the worst type is how best to describe the unappealing main character in Malloy and Sniadecki’s unsettling documentary that sees a heavily bearded, raddled man living an isolated existence in the Sonoran desert, his only companions his dogs.

With its prescient themes of self-sufficiency and even social distancing this borderlands Western shows how possible it is even in the 21st country to survive as a hunter gatherer far removed from society, a telephone, vehicle and electricity the only mod cons at your disposal. The filmmakers adopt a slowing-burning and detached approach to their subject shying away from any formal narrative and letting the camera drift around following Sundog through his day. Meanwhile a growing tension gradually leads us to believe this intriguing ethnographical portrait will have a more sinister outcome than the one it started out with — Sundog emerging merciless and triumphant having shot a wild boar and leaving it to bleed out in a grim death, clearly not wanting to waste another bullet on the dying animal.

The Senoran desert is a dangerous place to live and full of snakes and poisonous insects, Sundog harnesses a desert toad and milks it for its bufotenin, a tryptamine derivative which when dried and smoked causes psychedelic trips lasting around an hour. He cackles, belches and makes strange whooping noises as he goes about his business – and we also see him doing his business. Later he shares he feelings about his lifestyle in a caustic, slightly embittered tone: “Outwitting the US government and avoiding people I have no affinity for is a win-win situation”. There are occasional glimpses of the US surveillance towers, evidence of big brother monitoring his idyllic wildlife existence. But a coiled snake continually seen lingering in the grass could shape up to be equally intrusive.

What happens next leaves us in no doubt about Sundog’s general disdain for mainstream culture, and the lyrics of a song he sings along to give a clear indication that he has possibly left some emotional baggage behind to seek solace in the wilderness. The film ends leaving us slightly unsatisfied hinting at doom but never delivering the final sting.

Known for his Locarno Golden Leopard nominated The Iron Ministry and El Mar La Mar which he directed with Joshua Bonnetta, Shape Of Things is an intriguing film and beautiful to look at with its striking desert scenery captured by Sniadecki and Molloy who also act as their own editors and composers of the film’s haunting electronic soundscape. Sundog is like the snake in the grass, simmering quietly but ready to strike at any moment if provoked in this compelling walk on the wilder side of life. MT

SCREENING DURING CPH: DOX 2020

 

 

The Ponds (2018) Netflix

Dirs: Patrick McLennan, Samuel Smith | UK Doc | 76′

“If you can face the water at 5 degrees, you can face anything”  

Hampstead is still reeling from the unauthentic romcom that took its name in 2017. So hurrah for this  documentary that reflects the real Hampstead, London’s hilly heartland and home to 320 hectares of woods and pastures. Hampstead Heath also has several fresh water ponds where all year round visitors can wallow and frolic or simply just swim.

The Ponds is Patrick McLennan’s debut as co-director/producer along with Samuel Smith, and he also wrote the script. Drone footage captures the changing seasons chronologically, beginning with early Spring. We meet regulars Dan, David and Jim who extol the virtues – and rigours – of this open air communal bathing experience. There are even some local swimmers in their 80s who consider it a must for their health and social life – even though at times the water is a spine-tingling 2 or 3 degrees. But the endorphin rush is addictive and life-affirming.

From the 1880s these ponds were regulated for the local community. Tom is part of a hard core of 60 or so bathers who take a dip at least once or twice a week in the chilly brackish waters. He considers it his place of ‘religious’ worship. From the 1920s local women got their own segregated pond which is regarded by the female regulars as a spiritual place to reunite against life’s hardships, and maintain confidence in their bodies – even though they may not even know each other names. And although the men’s ponds see more nude swimmers, some female interviewees gives us a flash of their assets, just to be going on with.

Tom forms the connective tissue of the film with his eventful life story. He sees his swim as a chance to disassociate from the “silliness of life”. This was particularly important when he was nearly killed in a road accident in Oxford Circus. Another regular Carrie, has battled cancer and found the Ponds invaluable for keeping her hope alive. And she doesn’t get so many colds!

Oliver completely fell in love with the Heath and its ponds and when his romance finished. He felt bereft moving back to Camberwell. He now returns to the Heath every day. Another keen bather suffers from degenerative blindness and describes how his daily fresh water exercise is a life-saver.

Whilst the older swimmers talk of the spirituality, social and health benefits of pond swimming, the young express their joy of escaping the city to enjoy the open air with their friends in the heat of the summer. It’s a melting pot for rich and poor, old and young, gay and bisexual, families and singles. David now prefers the open-air freshness to his local gym experience and he’s incorporated his workout into his swimming time. In his youth he even used to wear a weighted vest to improve his strength and endurance.

Made on a shoestring budget, and none the worse for it, The Ponds is a graceful and cinematic documentary that shows how the trend for fresh water swimming can provide a bonding experience, enriching and supporting the local community. The film ends on a high note at the end of the season – with a competitive swim for Christmas. Keeping up with the zeitgeist, some locals air mixed feelings about trans-gender bathing, but a more burning issues is why the women’s pond has no diving board. “We want to bounce ourself in”, said one feisty female. I’ll second that. MT

NOW ON NETFLIX

Rescue the Fire | Rettet Das Feuer (2020) ***

Dir.: Jasco Viefhues; Cast: Jürgen Baldiga, Aron Neubert, Ulf Reimer, Meitta Poppe, Paula Sau, Michael Brynntrup, Mignon, Renate; Germany 2019, 83 min.

Berlin’s Gay Scene at the end of the 20th Century provides the backdrop to this revealing biopic about painter, photographer and gay activist Jürgen Baldiga (1959-1993). Rescue the Fire is a thoughtful first film from writer director Jasco Vifhues. It recalls the time when the Aids/HIV epidemic was taking a grim toll, German government cuts making things worse. .

Visiting the ‘Schwules Museum Berlin’, Baldiga’s surviving friends present archive material of his work. These also link up with the directors and festival organisers of the Berlinale of that era. Baldiga was working as a photographer at that time and took photos of Derek Jarman, Wim Wenders and Dolveig Dommartin among others. He was also a friend of the first Panorama director Manfred Salzgeber, and his Wieland Speck who took over when her died of AIDS.

Growing up in the Westphalian town of Essen, Baldiga arrived in Berlin in 1987. He developed from a mere ‘snap-shot’ amateur to become a professional photographer. During the ‘Tunten’ scene in Berlin, he apposed Government cuts which were having a punitive affect on the gay community at a time when Aids/HIV was rife. A laudable exception to the negative face of authority was Anne Momper, wife of the West Berlin mayor, who joined the HIV infected in the public bath in Krumme Strasse, racing them in a competition.

Baldiga celebrated his 31st birthday at a demonstration to abolish the infamous law number 175, which criminalised all homosexuals. But by then he was already infected; his answer was “to live faster, more intensively”. The filmmaker Michael Brynntrup remembers his collaboration with Baldiga, who not only took stills but shot some scenes on 35mm. The rest of the short film was in 16mm. In Pioneer Seriös two men wrestle in the bath, one covered in yellow paint, the other in blue. Brynntrup remembers he had difficulties asking the actors to proceed, but Baldiga had no such problems: “The camera was his proverbial rabbit – just the opposite of me”. Baldiga focused on his bodily changes. Being ‘positive’ meant much time was spent finding the right doctors, avoiding getting colds and other infections. And: “Educate, don’t hide”.

For many years, he also wrote a diary, which he bequeathed to his friend Aron Neubert: “I know, your hands will keep them well. Take the photos and put some of commentaries from the diaries next to them.” In 1991 Baldiga was hospitalised with pneumonia. But he still posed in drag as Louise Brooks. His wig went up in smoke, after he leaned too close to the spotlight. He also went to extremes, showing the horror of the Karposi Sarcomas on his legs. He had his first Sarkoma cut out and put in a box with ornaments like a relic. The more his body disintegrated the more he yearned for something physical. From the attractive poster boy of the gay scene, “I have deteriorated to something decrepit, ugly, a shrivelling and dying person”. 

But he was not alone, his good friend Melitta went to the hospital and died inside thirty minutes. That was Baldiga’s dream death, he took all the medicine and morphine (his friends had in vain tried to hide the from him) and fell into a coma, from which he never recovered. He instructed one of them to take a last photo of him “ICH BIN TOT (I am dead), Jürgen Baldiga 4.12.1993. I loved 4000 men, in the end the fabulous Ulf.” Then there is one of his last photos, where he eats ice cream with a morphine drip in his arm, subtitled “Isn’t life great?” But for most of his last year, he ‘was often lonely in his thoughts’.

Rescue the Fire is a not an easy documentary because Baldiga’s friends followed his advice, and told all. In the end this a long ‘Trauerarbeit’, with evocative images by DoP Hendrik Reichel. Those who who witnessed the era will never be the same again. Too much was lost well before time. AS

SCREENING DIGITALLY DURING BFI Flare 2020

The Green Fog (2018) **** Now on Vimeo

Dir.: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson; USA 2017,63 min.

Guy Maddin’s’ love letter to San Francisco and Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a montage of clips from features shot in around the Californian coastal city: around one hundred or so – no new material was filmed. Aesthetically, Green Fog settles somewhere in between Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) and another Maddin/Johnson collaboration, Forbidden Room from 2015. There’s no real narrative to speak of, but Green Fog will appeal to those who like their film history served with a dizzy twist of the insane.

Oblique and opaque, Green Fog shows an overbearing obsession with Hitchcock: morbid and melancholy, we follow Scottie and Judy on a drive through the city, morphing into a hell-raising ride, where love turns to disillusionment. Novak and Stewart are played by various actors: Faye Dunaway, Susan Saint James, Gina Lolabrigida; Anthony Franciosa and Dean Martin. As one actor melds into another, one forgets that they look different in this headlong rush, on foot and in automobiles, as they’re drawn to the Golden Gate Bridge and oblivion.The film’s quotes range from the thrilling (The Lady from Shanghai, 1947) to the downright bizarre (Confessions of an Opium Eater of 1962 and So I married an Axe Murderer of 1993), via obscure gems such as Obayashi’s Take Me Away! 1978, and Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983). The common thread is their Vertigo locations; if not directly then metaphorically. The titular fog, which saturates Judy from the neon street sign, re-appears throughout: under water, most menacingly in a hospital corridor. And there are even in the clips from The Great Fire, – which was started by a film fan no less.

Hitchcock’s obsession with voyeurism is celebrated in many scenes, from surveillance rooms, to men gazing at the screens, unsure of their targets – rather like Rock Hudson, on being quizzed “what are we looking for, Sir?” by a tape operator, to which Rock retorted: “I don’t know, but at this point I’ll take anything”. Karl Malden and Michael Douglas from The Streets of San Francisco are frequently found in their search for more contemporary perpetrators. Green Fog is a ghost story, a collage of landscapes and rooms (echoing Un Chien Andalou) which are haunted by loss and death, their doom underpinned by a Hermannesque score from Jacob Gavchik. Despite of the gravity of it all, Maddin still manages to be playful and impish throughout. AS

NOW AVAILABLE ON VIMEO

 

No Kings (2020) **** CPH:DOX 2020

Dir.: Emilia Mello; Documentary; Brazil/USA/Luxembourg 2019, 88 min.

150 miles away from Rio de Janeiro live the Caiçara people, trying to uphold the inheritance of their ancestors from Japan, Africa and Europe in the Atlantic rainforest. Nature rules supreme here, and Brazilian first time director/writer/producer/DoP Emilia Mello has caught the spirit of the local inhabitant who live between ocean and rainforest, treating nature which the respect it deserves.

Mello mixes freely with both adults and children encouraging them to treat her like everyone else – and the kids have particularly taken this to heart: Lucimara and Marisol are two girls just under ten, and they certainly keep Mello busy: Lucimara introducing her to the art of crab collecting, and not always successfully. But later Lucimara becomes more friendly, asking Emilia to be one of her sisters, since the filmmaker is an only child – a concept which surprises the little girl.

Then there is Ismail José Costa, father of many, and trying to get out of the shadow of his father, who is a religious leader. Ismail is proud to br “the only person who challenges God. The only thing this King can do to me, is kill me. But after I die, I won’t feel fear. People often ask God to free them from the demons, but I don’t need either.” Aline da Costa is expecting her second child, and goes by bus to the Women’s Clinic in Ponta Negra. Here she is criticised for having missed two appointments, but she is only interested in the gender of the baby – and happy when she learns that it is another girl.

After the villagers have carved out a canoe from a tree, everyone helps to drag it over a fragile bridge from the woods to the ocean shore. Lucimara is not happy with the attention Emilia gives this undertaking and shouts “Emilia, film us here”, pointing to her sister Marisol, who is playing with her at the rocks near the ocean. Mello also undertakes three journeys on the fishing boat, where Ismail is the captain, and talks to her about his relationship with his wife. He has written a sort of  poem with the title ‘Just give me Love’ which is a reflection on their relationship which has grown stronger, after a stormy beginning.

Luiza’s turbulent sixth-birthday party symbolising the life of the villagers between modernity and tradition, makes for a strong final segment.

Unfortunately, the Caiçara people are not the only indigenous minority in the rain forest threatened by the new extreme right-wing government of President Bolsonaro. The army has evicted many who have fought against the loss of their land, and the feature is dedicated to the victims who have already lost their lives trying to keep their inheritance alive.

Mello’s free form, very much in the style of Jean Rouch, echoes the lifestyle of the Caiçara people. No Kings is unique in its poetic lyricism, and a reminder of just another loss of an ancient culture to the greed of the profit-orientated white race. AS

SCREENING DURING CPH:DOX | ONLINE 2020 | Copenhagen, Denmark 

   

 

In Touch (2018) *** Kinoteka

Dir.: Pawel Ziemilski; Documentary; Poland/Iceland 2018, 61 min.

Pawel Ziemilski finds an ingenious way to tackle the timely topic of distance relationships in a challenging new documentary which won the main prize at IDFA in 2108.

Since the 1980s, the Polish town of Stare Juchy (Old Blood) has seen its population dwindling with most of the young moving to Iceland, of all places. Desperate to stay in touch, those left behind resort to electronic methods of communication. And Skype seems to be the most popular. But it’s not as simple as it seems. Gradually a different modus vivendi takes hold as the emigres adapt to their new environment, become influenced by the change of language and social set-up. Most of them will never return.

But In Touch goes beyond a study of citizens chatting to relatives and friends on a screen. Ziemilski records images of the landscape in both locations and then literally projects the footage via electronic means onto a vast canvass, a sort of moving art installation that keeps the communities in touch with each other, and their environment – rather like google Earth on a grandiose scale. Ziemilski can even project absent family members into a life-size Easter meal, or show a distant daughter painting her mother’s nails in another country. A goalkeeper on the Polish pitch tries to save shots not only from the Icelandic strikers, but also from opponents elsewhere. Sounds amazing? But – and it is a big but – the whole concept fails to convince because we never find out exactly who we’re dealing with, or how they feels about the situation. Brief, subjective, person-related information would have been so much more effective than just pictures: Greta putting her Icelandic co-workers down, telling her friend in Stare Juchy that she went for a job interview at the airport, and hoping she’ll get the job “since only Icelandic girls seem to be working there”.  

The sheer variety of these visual devices is extremely impressive, opening up new ways of enabling interaction by reconfiguring the conception of spaces, and exploring the topic in formally imaginative ways. But the concept is undermined by the plethora of sub-approaches, which often reduces the outcome as pure gimmickry.

All very imaginative in theory, but the human interaction feels impersonal and lacks real  intimacy. In Touch would work far better in the formal confines of an art gallery where visitors could drift in and out. As a cinematic experience it is often too limited by its formalism, which strangles the human touch. AS

Showing 24 March @ 8.30pm at the ICA as part of KINOTEKA | The Polish Film Festival in London, Kinoteka.org.uk

  

Cunningham (2019) *****

Dir: Alla Kovgan | US Doc, 93′

Mercier Philip Cunningham or “Merce” (1919-2009) was an American dancer and choreographer whose groundbreaking style is celebrated here in a stunning 3D documentary. Cunningham is a first feature for documentarian Alla Kovgan. In keeping with Merce’s innovative approach, she combines archive footage and new works never performed in public in this dynamic front row experience of visionary dance style. The dancer refused to describe his work as Avantgarde or even modern: “I don’t describe it, I do it” he opines during the VoiceOver narration. The film refreshingly avoids a talking heads approach, focusing on dance as a purely visual expression of “animal authority and human passion”, rather than an accompaniment to music.

Merce was also passionate about working with artists from other disciplines including composer John Cage, Cunningham’s longterm partner; the painter Robert Rauschenberg; and Andy Warhol whose collaboration is particularly striking in Merce’s 1968 Sci-fi themed dance work Rainforest which featured Warhol’s metallic helium-filled silver balloons (the Silver Clouds) that float around the dancers like something from outer space.

Born in Centralia, Washington in 1919 Merce was always adamant about his craft that was at the forefront of American dance for more that 50 years until his death in 2009, age 90. He performed in 1999 with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the New York State Theater for his 80th birthday. In common with virtually all artists he describes the endless need to practice from dawn ’til dusk, and his battered feet are pictured in close-up going through the motions of a dance routine.

Kovgan explores the first 30 years of a career that would play a part in transforming ballet and dance. Most of the movements are radical – bestial even – neck muscles ripple and pulsate, torsos quiver. The film’s structure is fluidly organic rather than chronological, making striking use of DoP Mko Malkhasyan’s aerial photography and ground-level camerawork that allows sequences to flood off the screen making us feel part of the dance routine. The 3D adds to the dancers’ lithe physicality, and their syncopating movements — the New York skylines stand out in pin-sharp vibrancy, as do the vivid outdoor settings that zing with freshness and acuity. The soundscape adds weight and depth but is never intrusive.

Conversations and correspondence between his contemporaries Cage, Rauschenberg, Warhol and Jasper Johns contextualise Cunningham’s vision; his disciplined, prolific and experimental concepts facilitating a counterculture that transformed the postwar dance-scene – although it wasn’t well-received by everyone. During an international tour in 1964 Parisians threw tomatoes during performances – “if only that had been apples”, claims Rauschenberg, “we were hungry and wanted something to eat”.

Money was tight in the early years when the troupe took off across America in a minibus but gradually this new and expressive form took off during a 1964 world tour when his reputation for being outlandish slowly faded – to his chagrin: his aim was always to cutting edge. Eventually Merce became an old father rather than a instructive companion to his fellow dancers but his inspiration lives on in his disciples Paul Taylor, Karole Armitage and Alice Reyes who have gone on to form their own companies with memorable routines such as Suite for Two; Winterbranch and Second Hand. MT

CUNNINGHAM IS ON RELEASE FROM 13 MARCH 2020 | ANDY WARHOL’S SILVER CLOUDS CAN BE SEEN AT THE TATE MODERN, LONDON, IN A MAJOR EXHIBITION OF HIS WORK | 11 MARCH 2020

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2020) ***

Dir: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders | Doc, US 120′

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is an award-winning TV and feature documentarian known for raising the profile of the BAM and LGBTQ+ community, most notable through The Black List: Volumes 1-3.  Here he turns his camera on this fiercely proud black American writer (her own words) who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1987 best seller Beloved which inspired Jonathan Demme’s 1998 film of the same name. Morrison bagged the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

More an atmospheric distillation of Morrison’s warm and wise spirit than a straightforward fact-filled biopic, we meet the Ohio-born Morrison (who died last year at 88) talking straight into the camera about her slow-burn struggle for recognition as a writer inspired by her God-fearing father, who paved the way with his own writings. This illuminating film is enlivened by adoring talking heads, Graham Willoughby’s lush visuals of sunsets and archive footage notably of the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Sweden. MT

UK and Ireland release 6 March 2020

Running on Empty | Jetzt Oder Morgen (2020) **** Berlinale

Dir.: Lisa Weber; Documentary with Claudia, Daniel Gabi Gerhard, Marvin; Austria 2020, 89 min.

Video games and mobiles have had a corrosive effect on one Austrian family. Lisa Weber follows them as they struggle to make ends meet drowning in debt and an addiction to TV and computer devices which dictate the daily lives of this dysfunctional bunch.

Four years in the making the film centres around twenty-year old Claudia and her son Daniel (five), who live with Claudia’s mother Gabi and her brother Gerhard in a cramped Vienna apartment. Running on Empty is all about  over-whelming interdependence, the four characters have simply lost the plot and any kind of initiative, mentally or physically. Gerhard and Gabi are obese sofa-loungers who are either stuffing their faces with junk food, or burying them in their devices. Even the cat lolls around comotose.

Claudia has split with Marvin, Daniel’s father, who is looking for a flat for the family. Claudia has no secondary school certificate, having left school when pregnant with her son. They all live off welfare, fighting about the distribution of their spoils. Claudia is slim, and her brain is more lightweight, as she sinks in debt. When the siblings discuss emigration, Claudia questions why Muslims get a Christmas bonus when they don’t believe in God. Gerhard is a little more politic, not wanting a re-run of fascism. Hoping to celebrate his birthday in a posh restaurant, he is disgruntled about his mother and sister showing no inclination to finance it. The only car he will ever drive is the racing version on his console. Daniel’s fifth birthday ends with his parents having an row.

This is a torturous watch largely due to the family’s near catatonic way of life. Weber and DoP Carolina Steinbrecher are literally in the faces of their protagonists, who do not seem to mind: they are oblivious of anything and seem to spend their days sleeping or ‘chilling out’, a rolling camera doesn’t make any impact of their lack of decorum. Running on Empty is a decadent study of total stasis: A group of people who have given up on life, just vegetating along, letting the world go by, and they survive on state handouts. AS

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL | 20 FEBRUARY – 1 MARCH 2020   

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (2020) **** Berlinale Special

When Lambs become Lions (2018) | ****

Dir: Jon Kasbe | Doc | US

When you fight to survive in the vast arid plains of East Africa life is tough. In his deeply affecting feature debut, award-winning filmmaker Jon Kasbe (Heartbeats Of Fiji) explores whether human life in Northern Kenya is more valuable than that of endangered species. The subject of poaching is certainly an emotive issue that strongly divides the nation’s inhabitants, many of whom are deeply opposed to the illegal practice on moral grounds. But the lucrative trade goes on.

This is the latest in a series of conservation-themed features that started with Blackfish, The Cove and last year’s Trophy. Stunningly captured on the widescreen and in intimate close-up the film contrasts Kenya’s natural beauty with the less palatable aspects of animal slaughter, that takes place not for food but for trophy hunting. And the animals do not die a quick death but a long, drawn out and painful one due to being inexpertly shot or poisoned with venomous arrows. The film’s atmospheric score adds gravitas to the melancholic episodes where Asan silently contemplates his doubtful future. And these sequences contrast with the high-octane nighttime forays into the bush to locate victims and escape the rangers’ onslaught.

Kasbe’s non-judgemental thriller unspools with a growing dramatic tension as it moves stealthily between the lives of two men: an unlikeable ivory trader (X), and his ranger nemesis Asan, who is also his cousin. The glassy-eyed macho X boasts of making a successful black market business selling ivory. As he swaggers around chain-smoking defiantly and invoking ‘Allah’, he claims not to do the killing himself. Hot on his tracks is Asan and his fellow government employed rangers who are heavily armed with rifles and threaten the poachers with their zero tolerance approach. But rangers have little to gain financially from their work, although many feel sadness for the elephants’ plight. Heavily armed with automatic rifles they also have an axe to grind against the government claiming they have not been paid two months’ wages due to an administrative error. Meanwhile, the poachers make a lucrative living. X’s sidekick Lukas posits the powerful adage “if we do not hunt we will be hunted”. The pressure to earn a pittance is also putting a strain on Asan’s marriage and growing family, and he fears he may have to go back to the petty crime of his youth. 

Although poaching is a blot on the landscape, so is the plight of the people who inhabit this impoverished region. President Uhuru Kenyatta confiscates and burns all illegal ivory stashes claiming – on a television programme – that “ivory is worthless unless it is on our elephants”. Meanwhile X and Lukas watch silently desperately wishing they could lay their hands on the truckloads of bounty destined to be destroyed by the government’s crackdown. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

Garage People | Garagenvolk (2020) *** Berlinale 2020

Dir.: Natalija Yefimkina; Documentary; Germany 2020

Natalija Yefimkina’s first feature documentary is a bleak look at human survivors in the remote landscape of northern of Russia. Still toiling on long after the end of the Soviet Union, they are treated like the industrial scrap they collect: the mining industry which was once the only employer in the region but has more or less vanished, the work force living in garages at the foot of the mountain, trying to make a living amidst the post-industrial landscape. 

These garages, not a single one occupied by a car, are falling to rack and ruin like everything in the vicinity of the old mining shafts. Gas pipes poke out like medieval weapons, vestiges of a warworn past.  Scrap is collected and sold on, an old bus dragged along with a tow truck, later the two men in charge will take the roof from the bus, laughingly calling it a cabriolet.

Survival is the name of the game in this bizarre setting. Victor, an old man of 73, has dug five floors under his garage using only a shovel and a bucket. Victor has been grafting away since the age of 27, his own son just a little boy. Most of his friends have now drunk themselves to death, leaving Victor to tell his lonely story. Nothing left but to move to the ugly city nearby, dominated by the Prefab housing, to live with his wife Tatiana. “Your garage life is over”, she tells him. Victor will die in 2018, followed a year later by Tatiana, who died of liver cirrhosis having worked most of her life in the mines. Vitalik, who had the idea of creating a roofless bus, dies in 2018, just 36 years old. His closest friend was president Putin, the two met via his portrait on the wall and had long discussions about the meaning of life.

Then there is Pavel, a middle-aged icon maker. The priest visits him to commission a special icon. Pavel promises to deliver, and later we watch the priest return to collect the icon intended as a  gift for the CEO of what is left of the mining company, the director, in turn, supporting the church financially. Amazingly, there is a fledging band in all this squalor. John, Lena and Ilja L. make music in one the garages, the first two dream of a life in St. Petersburg. When they have gone, Ilja is depressed, but still goes on writing poetry. Sergej, producing dumb bells from the metal he scavenges, is suffering from progressive Parkinson’s, but goes on working. And then there is Roman, the success story of the community, raising broiler chickens and making a good living from the birds. In a restaurant called ‘Behind the Polar Cycle’, Roman meets Julia, and they fall in love, finding happiness against all odds. But for most of them it’s a grim existence, Viktor’s sums his life up in these poignant words: “I am digging in the dirt like a worm”.

Yefimkina and DoP Axes Schneppat  showcase the dreadful conditions without resorting to talking head overkill. The only of change comes in the shape of snowfall capturing the melancholic atmosphere of overriding gloom in this despondent post apocalyptic backwater.  AS

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2020 | 20 FEBRUARY – 1 MARCH 2020

Midnight Family (2019) ****

Dir.: Luke Lorentzen; Documentary with Juan Ochoa, Fernando Ochoa, Josue Ochoa; Mexico 2019, 81 min.

Mexico City has a population of 9 million people; there are fewer than 45 public ambulances to service them. Luke Lorentzen’s observational feature documentary follows the Ochoa family who operate a private, for-profit ambulance which competes with other private emergency services for patients and a livelihood.

Shot on 85 nights over three years, Midnight Family is an emotional rollercoaster ride: three members of the Ochoa family drive their private ambulance through the hazardous streets of Mexico City, their professional label is Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT). The city council has designated just 45 ambulances for a metropolis of nine million. The reward for the private ambulances is meagre or even non-existence, the work dangerous, to say the least.

Juan, seventeen, is the real head of the family as his father Fer suffers from high blood pressure and is unwilling to cut down on food and soft drinks. Little brother Josue is only nine, and would much rather go on these eventful night forays than attend school (who wouldn’t). But Juan keeps a tight rein on him. The dysfunctional system dictates that these private ambulances can only go out, if no public ambulances are available. Even though the competition is fierce, ambulances race each other dangerously to be first at the scene of the accident. Midnight Family has a lot in common with the Romanian film When Evening Falls in Bucharest 

The police make things difficult: they either hang about waiting for bribes from the EMTs, or simply to ask for equipment to be updated before the crews are allowed to work. But payment is not guaranteed: many of the victims’ relatives cannot pay at all, others complain about the service, and pay only a pittance. Police, EMTs and private hospitals (who pay the ambulances for every patient delivered) are interdependent, they fight like dogs for the lion’s share of the business – with the EMTs at the bottom end of the heap.

Juan keeps the family together: he organises the shopping for the meagre meals, negotiates with the police and the victims’ relatives and chats amicable with his girlfriend Jessica on his mobile. One cannot believe that Juan is only seventeen, his braces are the only clue. The sheer pace of it all has ruined his father’s health, and the fear is that Juan might suffer the same fate.

The highlight of Midnight Family is the scene where are severely injured young woman is rescued. She fell from a fourth floor flat and suffered traumatic brain injuries. Father and son shout at cars and buses to get out of way, they give each tips for the short cuts, while the woman’s mother sits catatonic in the back. Lorentzen has dedicated the documentary to her daughter, who did not survive.

Bu the end, the audience is as exhausted as the Ochoa family. They are trying up to make up for a non-existent health-care system, being short-changed themselves in the process. But the way Juan is keeping family and job together deserves our admiration. Midnight Family is a nightly tour-de-force, a documentary film-noir, another They Rode by Night. It makes us cherish our own NHS even more. AS

NOW ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE

  

 

 

 

Quezon’s Game (2019) *** Holocaust Memorial Day 2020

Dir.: Matthew Rosen; Cast: Raymond Bagatsing, Rachel Alejandro, Kate Alejandrino, Billy Gallion, David Bianco, James Paoleli; Philippines 2018, 127 min.

This bio-pic chronicles the final years of President Manuel L. Quezon (1878-1944), who helped to rescue 1200 Jews from Europe and gave them a home in the Philippines. Despite an over-emotional approach and the slight manipulation of historical dates, Matthew Rosen makes an important contribution to the history of the Holocaust. Few of us were aware of Quezon’s mission, which was cut short in 1941 when Japan invaded Quezon’s country, the latter spending his last years in exile in the USA, where he died from Tuberculosis.

Quezon (Bagatsing) is shown as a reformer and humanist, who, upon learning about the plight of German and Austrian Jews, set in motion a rescue programme, putting him at odds with President Roosevelt and Congress, who then rejected a rise in the quota of Jewish emigrants to the USA. Quezon’s action is particular courageous, since the Philippines were (until 1946) part of Commonwealth of the USA, and de facto a colony. Quezon was helped by a young Dwight Eisenhower (Bianco) and Roosevelt’s political associate Paul McNutt (Paoleli). Help also came in the from of a Jewish lawyer, Alex Fiedler (Gallion) who (together with his brother Herbert) found a way to get the exit visas into the hands of the waiting Jews, before the death camps made escape impossible.

Meanwhile, Quezon’s wife Aurora (Alejandro) and daughter Baby (Alejandrino), who would go on to be assassinated in 1949, provide the dutiful supporting cast. It also emerges that the real Quezon was quite a lady’s man and, so much so that “Aurora had to seek refuge in prayers” (according to her biographer). Even though Quezon was sixty when the film starts, Rosen casts a much younger actor to play his part, Bagatsing portrays the president as a Dandy who coughs  non-stop.

There are some inconsistencies: It is hardly likely that Eisenhower would have been posted to a regional backwater like the Philippines just five years before Operation Overlord. Also, the bookends of the feature, showing Manuel and Aurora watching newsreels from the liberation of the death camps (Manuel whispering, like Schindler, that he did not do enough) is hardly credible, since Quezon died in the of August 1944. 

But whatever the machinations of writers Janice Y. Perez and Dean Rosen, Manuel L. Quezon was a beacon of light of light in a dark time – much more than his American counterparts: Democrats and Republicans both condoned segregation; Jews, People of Colour and Dogs were advised by signs not to enter restaurants and other public places, and the Statue of Liberty was an empty symbol long before Donald Trump. Quezon’s Game might be aesthetically questionable at times, but it it does not detract from its importance.AS

IN HONOUR OF HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY | 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. 

  

Meanwhile on Earth (2020) MUBI

Dir: Carl Olssen | Doc, Sweden 71′

Clinically and with precision, a pine coffin is loaded onto a carrying device that takes it into the funeral parlour. Meanwhile a black limousine glides through the leafy suburbs of Swedish suburbia and a mortician puts the final touches to a corpse while listening to the weather forecast predicting rain. The banal fact of life is that death is a high tech business here in Sweden. Efficient, designer led and elegantly crafted as is Carl Olssen’s wry and timely look at the business of death

When we die, there are practicalities that need to be taken care of before our time among the living is finally over. Carl Olsson offers a factual and artfully framed overview of Sweden’s contemporary funerary industry in his calm and cinematic documentary that makes every step enjoyable and informative. Straightforward, fixed camera positions and placcid, symmetrical compositions satisfy our curiosity as a process that is rarely discussed and is still taboo in most European countries. Essentially a series of vignettes set to a cheerful upbeat occasional score, the film pictures every ritual and the routine procedures that accompany the transition. A bit more about what actually happens to the dead bodies would have been welcome. One bizarre scene pictures dozens of redundant funeral bouquets – all red and white – laid out in a gravelled area, brings sense to the familiar and sensible phrase: “family flowers only”. These will no doubt end up in the tip. Another meaningless job for these chipper funeral workers.

For those who work to make the process seamless, death is just a job. Banter is jovial and often irreverent as they go about their business, rehearsing music to accompany the service or discussing last night’s dinner or their family dogs, while they dig graves. These ordinary moments are interleaved with scenes of the elderly still going about their daily lives – or what’s left of them ; playing bingo or eating lunch. Meanwhile of Earth avoids sentimentality or pathos. Yet there are also moments of calm contemplation in this thoughtful and informative portrait of our final exit from this world. MT

NOW ON MUBI | ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2020 | 

#AnneFrank: Parallel Stories (2019) **** Holocaust Memorial Day

Wri/Dir: Sabina Fedeli/Anna Migotto | Italy, Doc 95′

Italian filmmakers Sabina Fedeli and Anna Migotto (Father Lenin e i suoi fratelli) commemorate the life of Anne Frank with a parallel portrait of the young diarist. Helen Mirren reads excerpts from her diary. Meanwhile five female Shoah survivors, about the same age as Anne, talk about their experiences and the fight to keep memories alive.

Mirren is filmed in the claustrophobia of a re-constructed room where Anne Frank lived in hiding for over two years, before her arrest and consequent deportation on 4th of August 1944 to Westerbrook transit camp. To break away from the cramped domestic setting, these readings play out to a background of filmed sequences of a woman (Martina Gatti) travelling around Europe to create a sort of video diary of Frank’s life with some rather corny observations. By far the most important part are the interviews with three Croatian Holocaust survivors including Arianna Spörenyi; the sisters Andra and Tatiana Bucci; as well as fellow survivors Helga Weiss from the Czech Republic and Sarah Lichtsztein-Montard, who escaped from the Parisian Velodrome round-up, were she was incarcerated on 16th July 1942.

Weiss kept her own pictorial diary in Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp – her father encouraging her to draw only what she could see. Terezin was a special camp in many ways: The Nazis used the old fortress to gather Jewish artists and scientists together – even asking the well-known Jewish film director Kurt Gerron (ex-UFA) to make a propaganda film (The Führer gifts the Jew a City), showing the Jews living a live of cultural relaxation, while the poor German citizens were suffering from Allied bombing raids. When the fake documentary was eventually aired worldwide, Gerron and his family were already dead, murdered in Auschwitz. Worse, the Germans convinced a Red Cross delegation on site, that Terezin was a sanatorium after all. Anne Frank and her older sister Margot were deported from Westerbrook to Auschwitz and thence to Bergen Belsen, where both died of Typhus in February 1945. They are buried in a mass grave.

Fedeli and Migotto are rightfully critical of contemporary Italian politics: “refugees are drowning on our coasts”, but they fail to mention the Nazi collaborators in the Holland where more than 100, 000 men joined the Waffen-SS and became active soldiers for the Third Reich. 

DoP Alessio Viola’s images convey the incredible loss and the struggle of these survivors who have difficulty sharing the trauma with their own children about life in the camps. Padded out with some redundant detail, #AnneFrank is nonetheless a moving portrait of a young women who was robbed of a creative life by a unique and monstrous death machine – feeding off the ongoing Anti-Semitism which continues to spread through Europe and elsewhere. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM 27 JANUARY 2020 | HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY 2020 

 

 

No Fathers in Kashmir (2019) ****

Dir.: Ashvin Kumar; Cast: Zara Webb, Shivam Raina, Ashvin Kumar, Shushil Dahiya, Natasha Mago, Abdul Rashid; UK/India 2019, 108 min.

Oscar-nominated writer and director Ashvin Kumar (The Forest) is well known for his active support of Kashmiri independence. Claimed both by Pakistan and India, the region has recently lost its autonomous status inside India, and is now governed with an iron fist by the nationalist Indian government who is fighting militants in the region, often sponsored by Pakistan. But this is really a proxy war between Hindu nationalism of India and Muslim annexation orientated Pakistan – with the local population caught between the two nuclear powers.

The film centres in sixteen year old British Kashmiri teenager Noor (Webb) who is wedded to her mobile like most of her generation, and lives with her grandparents in a Kashmiri village. Her mother Zainab (Mago) is trying to convince her missing husband’s parents to sign his death certificate so she can marry politically well connected Wahid (Dahiya). Said husband was arrested by the Indian army and never returned home. Noor has fallen for the slightly younger Majid (Raina) whose father has also disappeared. Noor, unaware of the tensions in the village, challenges her grandparents and mother, wanting to know more about her father’s fate. Zainab finally manages to get the old couple to declare their son dead –  Wahid helps by offering to secure them a good pension – but then Noor strikes up a friendship with a Arshid (Kumar), who seems to be collaborating with the Indian army, and at the same time hiding militants from the authorities. 

There is a telegraphed solution to it all when Arshid tells the village teacher Kharbanda (Rashid) that his son. along with his fellow fighters, were “just revolutionary romantics. What kind of freedom would this have been for Kashmir without the Muslim faith?” Noor pushes on, and talks Zaina into a nighttime trip into the mountains bordering Pakistan where the political prisoners like her father had been interrogated. When they are captured by the Indian soldiers, the adults’ lies unravel – in spite of Noor’s release – thanks to the powerful Wahid.

Kumar, also co-editor and co-producer, needed crowdfunding for this project and also had to be sanctioned by the Indian Central Board of Film Certification, more or less a censorship agency. He directs with great skill but his script is an awkward mix of coming-of-age love story and political rant. There are just too many programmatic speeches. Neither Noor nor Majid are really at an age to be spouting these moral lessons, and particularly not Noor, who is a total stranger. DoPs Jean Marc Selva and Jean Marie Delorme make good use of the overpowering landscape all captured impressively on handheld cameras. Overall, No Fathers is more worthy than convincing, but held together by a brilliant cast. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 24 JANUARY 2020

 

Midnight Traveler (2019) ***

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache (2018) Prime

Dir: Pamela B. Green | Writers: Pamela B. Green, Joan Simon| with Jodie Foster, Evan Rachel Wood, Ava Duvernay, Julie Delpy, Agnes Varda, Ben Kingsley, Michel Hazanavicius, Catherine Hardwicke, Julie Taymor, Gale Anne Hurd, Andy Sandberg, John Bailey, Walter Murch, Peter Bogdanovich, Marjane Satrapi, Anne Fontaine, Peter Farrelly, Jonathan Glickman, Mark Romanek, Kevin Brownlow, Kevin Macdonald, Geena Davis, Pierre William Glenn, Jan-Christopher Horak, Glenn Myrent, Serge Bromberg, Howard Cohen, Valerie Steele, Jean-Michel Frodon, Diablo Cody, Patty Jenkins, Janeane Garofalo, Jon M. Chu, Mark Stetson, Anastasia Masaro, Dino Everett, Stephanie Allain, Claire Clouzot, Anthony Slide, Cecile Starr | US Doc 103′

Pamela B. Green’s fast-moving and fascinating first film chronicles the life of one of cinema’s early pioneers and female filmmakers, Alice Guy-Blaché

Green started her own career as a title sequence director and that very much comes to the fore in this well-crafted and informative documentary that uses a wide variety of visual effects to enliven a collection of old photographs and drawings, including Guy-Blaché’s own film archives (The Cabbage Fairy (1896) is a particular delight), and even interview footage taken just before she died in her early 90s. There are a few too many random talking heads making this often feel bitty. Some don’t have anything to say beyond admitting they had never heard of the French director, but it could well have been condition of funding that each contributor had their ‘say’.

Guy-Blaché (1873-1968) was born in Paris and would go on to make over a 1,000 films, including silents and those with sound (which she pre-recorded), although many of these were attributed to men. Clearly luck played a big part in her success: women in the late 19th century were – on the whole – housewives and mothers. But Guy-Blaché had dogged perseverance along with her talent, working as a secretary for inventor Leon Gaumont – considered a plum job at the time – she was there when the Lumiere Brothers first set their apparatus running on everyday life in their local town of Lyon.

Narrated by Jodie Foster, the film (funded through Kickstarter) charts the early days of cinema from Paris to New Jersey and California before going back to Europe, tracing an art form where women seem to be very involved, much more so than nowadays, possibly because commercialisation hadn’t quite taken hold of the cottage industry: films were still considered the domain of the female chattering classes and kids. Something to keep women amused while men were doing more important things.

But the film’s co-writer Joan Simon and curators and historians such as Kevin Brownlow and Claire Clouzot offer the most salient contribution to the film, outlining the cultural significance of Gay-Blaché’s contribution, including the invention of synchronised sound. Above all, she was a highly inventive pioneer who just happened to be a woman, and whose talent and perseverance is celebrated in this valuable feature debut. MT

NOW ON AMAZON PRIME

Present. Perfect (2019) ***

Dir: Zhu Shengze. USA/Hong Kong. 2019. 124mins

Live-streaming in China is big business. The severely disabled, wheelchair-ridden and low-paid have finally found a nifty way of making an extra yuan. Sharing their everyday lives on the internet brings them an income as well as garnering support and emotional inter-dependence. It works both ways as the streams establish a mutually beneficial connection.

Present.Perfect makes for compelling viewing – up to a point. It’s a strong premise but the execution is flawed.  What initially seems intriguing to watch eventually becomes tedious. And by the end the doc does its worthy subject matter a disservice, playing out as a laborious and repetitive slog, without any kind of narrative or real explanation. Zhu Shengze made the film from more than 800 hours of filmed footage taken from an output of 12 ‘anchors’ (sharers of their footage) over a period of 10 months. Tighter editing would have made the film more pithy and enjoyable. What we do learn is that 2016 was apparently “Year Zero” for live streaming – and now the industry has expanded exponentially. In 2017, over 422 million Chinese shared streamed films on the internet. But it’s not all doom and gloom, content-wise.

The segments from each showroom are often overlong, and the content can be extremely dull, made more so by the black and white camerawork. Do we really want to watch a woman’s gruelling trip down the road – wheel-chair bound, while she stares pitifully into the camera? Or a physically challenged guy do his washing? And then there’s a man showing his wounds bleeding, clearly he’s into self-harm. But clearly these Chinese audiences do, and they’re prepared to pay for it, finding comfort in these banal everyday lives fraught with trauma (Eastenders, anyone?). Besides the obvious need for recognition, fostered by all types of social media, there is the loneliness and alienation out there, and the streamers have tapped into this rich vein of income, benefiting in more ways than one from the comfort-seeking connection with others. Our hearts go out to the ‘anchors’ but most of us don’t need to experience their pain to understand their suffering. despite their cheerful perseverance. But that’s not the point. For those who become invested in their daily struggle to survive, the film tells a valuable story. One of mutual support, and even entertainment. Distances in China are vast and many peoplelive alone in remote locations miles away from any form of social contact. These ‘anchors’ are actually their keeping them on the straight and narrow, emotionally at least.  

Other anchors have used the streaming device as a way to drum up business. A case in point is a farmer keen on branding his particular form of labour as ‘agritainment’. There is a bored crane driver, who invites us to visit him way up in his cab that towers above a vast building site. Another, a woman, is tooling away at making men’s underpants. She shares the trials and tribulations of her love life with all her followers, as she peddles away at her gruelling work. The more you watch the stories the more you understand how compulsive the experience becomes in providing a vital support system for those reaching out from the desperation of their own lives. In the end, the banal almost becomes beautiful; providing comfort and consistency: we need never be alone. MT

ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | ICA CINEMA from 24 January.

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | TIGER AWARD WINNER  2019

Lucian Freud: A Self-Portrait (2019) ****

Dir: David Bickerstaff | Writers: David Bickerstaff/Phil Grabsky | With: William Feaver, James Hall, Tim Marlow (RA Artistic Director 2014-19, Jasper Sharp, Curator, Kunthistorisches Museum Vienna | Andrea Tarsia (Head of Exhitibitions RA) | Doc, 85′

“I wanted to shock and amaze” says Lucian Freud in faintly-accented English. Sitting in his workshop where he fought, struggled and experimented tirelessly with his craft – Freud was well into his eighties when he died in 2011 – the renowned Berlin-born portraitist is an intense and furtive figure in the early scenes of this new biopic by David Bickerstaff. The filmmaker’s previous subjects have included Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet. Co-written by Phil Grabsky, the doc interweaves filmed interviews with Freud in his final years, with the usual talking heads approach. Curators and specialists add valuable insight, although a few of the contributors bring little to the party.

The former artistic director of the Royal Academy Tim Marlow takes us round Lucian Freud’s first and only exhibition at the London gallery (until 26 January 2020). Although Freud is seen as a modern artist his work is very much connected to that ‘old master’, painterly tradition of Titian and Rembrandt: Few modern artists have explored the human body with such intensity, and such determination. Of course, he was a gambler, a playboy and a bon viveur, but few artists spent as much time in their studio as Lucian Freud. The RA’s Andrea Tarsia explains how he pitted his developing style against his personal life, scrutinising himself as much as his subjects. His single-minded passion focused on self-portraiture as much as on those his was painting:. “Everything is a self-portrait”. Often his subjects are not even named: what mattered more to him was the immediacy of the situation, the spontaneity of the gaze. Accompanied by a jazzy score the doc conveys the energy and charisma that seems to spin off each hypnotic portrait, even a small canvas can dominate a room.

Born into an eminent but non-religious Jewish family on the 8th December 1922, Lucian Freud’s father was an architect and the youngest son of the analyst Sigmund Freud. The middle son of three, Lucian was his mother’s favourite and as such he was deeply resented by his brothers. His biographer William Feaver (The Lives of Lucian Freud) reports how as a popular teenager he was taken by surprise when the family came under scrutiny by the authorities and had to move to London in the autumn of 1933. He was sent to the progressive Dartington school where he developed an interest in plants and horses, and thence Bryanston whence he was expelled for mooning in Bournemouth High Street, on a bet. A stone sculpture of a horse secured him a place in a London art school in 1937 but this was also short-lived. Eventually Freud fetched up in what he told his parents was “the only decent art school” of the time run by Sir Cedric Morris in East Anglia. Subversive to the last, Freud once again disgraced himself and “burnt the school down”.

But Morris had by this time instilled some discipline into the 18 year old Freud and he produced his first work – a tight and rather flattened oil painting simply entitled ‘Self-portrait,1940′. An ability to draw was the first step on the ladder and led to commissions for various book covers but impetuosity led to Freud joining the Navy for a spell. Returning to London he shared a St Johns Wood flat with fellow painter John Craxston who introduced him to an influential circle of friends. For nearly ten years he and John experimented with architects sample pots producing glossy-looking abstracts and portraits.

In the early 1940s Lucian Freud moved to the more seedy area of Paddington and settled down to a more committed painting style, ‘Man With a Feather’ (1943) was exhibited at his first solo show at London’s Lefevre Gallery. Now in his early twenties, women fell for Freud’s mesmerising allure and powerful presence, and he was able to navigate his way round English society marrying Kitty Garman. But he made a hopeless husband; although he could be sensitive and sociable, focusing on you with an intense gaze, he could also be callous and cruel.

In Paris in 1946 he met Picasso and soon realised the dedication that painting required. By now he was using oils and honing his style of self-portraiture, his face creeping into the frame with surprise, suggestion or a quizzical expression that calls to mind the ‘fourth wall’.  ‘Still Life with Green Lemon’ was a case in point, painted during a visit to Greece in 1946. Ostensibly these were self-portraits – Freud’s face only just intruding into the edges of a work dominated by another subject – he was already displaying the prickly illusiveness that was to become his style. ‘Startled Man’ (1948) ushered in a period of clean, conte-work. This is an extremely accomplished drawing that really flaunts his capabilities. ‘Sleeping Nude’ (1950) and the surrealist ‘Interior at Paddington’ (1951) were actually hyper-realist paintings. By this time John Minton had become a friend, and Freud had also met and painted Francis Bacon. His marriage to Lady Caroline Blackwood saw her being incorporated into various works, and she appears in bed in his self-portrait ‘Lucian Freud, 1949’ which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale that year. She left him four years later due to his infidelities. Like most artists Freud wanted his life to be his work, and it was impossible for him to be committed to any woman. His only focus was himself and whoever he was painting at the time.

A sensuality entered the artist’s work in the late 1950s and early 1960 where an emphasis on touch starts to appear. This is most noticeable during a trip to Ian Fleming’s Golden Eye when he painted a Flemish style portrait on a small scrap of copper. It sees him putting his finger on his lips and was the start of this sensuous awareness. The 1960s also marked a switch to hog-hair brushes with ‘Man’s Head’ (1963) and the restless associated portraits, smooth backgrounds allowing the face to stand out. Although Freud admired Francis Bacon’s style of working in a gestural way, his own work increasingly gained a more structural, almost architectural element, as he slotted colours together with pasty brushstrokes, trying to make the paint tell the story.

The film’s focus then switches from Freud’s own work to visit Amsterdam where he often visited the Rijksmuseum to study Rembrandt and understand his approach. Back in London at the Royal Academy’s Exhibition, the film shows how Freud’s portraits  actually hold and dominate the room. ‘Man with a Blue Scarf’ (2004) was a canvas that required exactitude, the sitter under as much pressure to perform as Freud himself. This portrait of art critic Martin Gayford offers further evidence of the Freud’s obsession with detail. The relationship was intense and required the sitter to be totally committed and, crucially, to return to the studio for sittings that went on several times a week for at least a year. But during this time Freud engaged in avid conversation: highly entertaining he was a raconteur who was as focused on the sitter as he was in himself. But Freud was certainly not an expressionist painter.

Lucian Freud’s large 1993 self-portrait is defiant – he was 71, but still emanated power and excitement; his greatest fear was losing his mind, but he was also concerned about his physical vigour. ‘Benefits Supervisor Sleeping’ (1995) sold in 2008 for 33.6million dollars – the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist. Freud carried on painting voraciously until his death on 20 July 2011. He was 88. “Being with him was like being plugged into the National Grid for an hour” said one sitter. “Freud was one of the great European painters of the last 500 years. He’s one of those big figures across the centuries, rather than representative of an era or a movement” says Tim Marlow. “Tradition is a big word but Lucian challenged tradition constantly”. Jasper Sharp adds him to a list that goes back to Holbein; Durer; Cranach and Rembrandt. And he goes on: “Freud gives that list a little shuffle, making us look at Rembrandt a bit differently and Holbein a bit differently through his eyes, and through himself”. And that is a remarkable achievement for any artist. MT

LUCIAN FREUD: A SELF PORTRAIT | ON RELEASE FROM 14 JANUARY 2020 | SEVENTH ART PRODUCTIONS | ROYAL ACADEMY LUCIAN FREUD 

Sundance Film Festival 2020

In Park City Utah, ROBERT REDFORD and his programmer John Cooper have set the indie film agenda for 2020 with an array of provocative new titles in a festival that runs from 23 January until 2 February. This year’s selection includes the latest US drama from Josephine Decker (Thou Wast Mild and Lovely); and new documentaries about Chechnya, Bruce Lee and Woodstock competing in the US Dramatic section. Branden Cronenberg will be showing his latest film, Possessor starring Andrea Riseborough; who also appears in the Egyptian drama Luxor. Noemie Merlant is fresh from Portrait of a Woman on Fire, in Zoe Wittock’s Jumbo. 

UK director Oscar Raby brings A Machine for Viewing​, a unique three-episode hybrid of real-time VR experience, live performance and video essay in which three moving-image makers explore how we now watch films by putting various ‘machines for viewing,’ including cinema and virtual reality, face to face.

EXHIBITIONS

All Kinds of Limbo​ / United Kingdom (Lead Artists: Toby Coffey, Raffy Bushman, Nubiya Brandon) — The National Theatre of Great Britain’s communal musical journey reflecting the influence of West Indian culture on the UK’s music scene across the genres of reggae, grime, classical, and calypso. Immersive technologies, the ceremony of live performance and the craft of theatrical staging bring audiences into a VR performance space. Cast: Nubiya Brandon.

U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION

47% of the directors in this year’s U.S. Dramatic Competition are women; 52% are people of color; 5% are LGBTQ+.

The 40-Year-Old Version / U.S.A. Director and screenwriter: Radha Blank

A down-on-her-luck New York playwright decides to reinvent herself and salvage her artistic voice the only way she knows how: by becoming a rapper at age 40. Cast: Radha Blank, Peter Kim, Oswin Benjamin, Reed Birney, World Premiere

BLAST BEAT / U.S.A. Director: Esteban Arango

After their family emigrates from Colombia during the summer of ‘99, a metalhead science prodigy and his deviant younger brother do their best to adapt to new lives in America. Cast: Moises Arias, Mateo Arias, Daniel Dae Kim, Kali Uchis, Diane Guerrero, Wilmer Valderrama. World Premiere

Charm City Kings / U.S.A. (Director: Angel Manuel Soto

Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.

Cast: Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Meek Mill, Will Catlett, Teyonah Parris, Donielle Tremaine World Premiere

Dinner in America / U.S.A. (Dir/writer: Adam Rehmeier

An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with his band go on an unexpected and epic journey together through the decaying suburbs of the American Midwest.. Cast: Kyle Gallner, Emily Skeggs, Pat Healy, Griffin Gluck, Lea Thompson, Mary Lynn Rajskub. World Premiere

The Evening Hour / U.S.A. Dir: Braden King

Cole Freeman maintains an uneasy equilibrium in his rural Appalachian town, looking after the old and infirm while selling their excess painkillers to local addicts. But when an old friend returns with plans that upend the fragile balance and identity he’s so painstakingly crafted, Cole is forced to take action. Cast: Philip Ettinger, Stacy Martin, Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Trotter, Kerry Bishé, Lili Taylor. World Premiere

Farewell Amor / U.S.A. (Dir/writer: Ekwa Msangi

Reunited after a 17 year separation, Walter, an Angolan immigrant, is joined in the U.S. by his wife and teenage daughter. Now absolute strangers sharing a one-bedroom apartment, they discover a shared love of dance that may help overcome the emotional distance between them. Cast: Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Zainab Jah, Jayme Lawson, Joie Lee, Marcus Scribner, Nana Mensah. World Premiere

Minari / U.S.A. (Dir/writer: Lee Isaac Chung

David, a 7-year-old Korean-American boy, gets his life turned upside down when his father decides to move their family to rural Arkansas and start a farm in the mid-1980s, in this charming and unexpected take on the American Dream. Cast: Steven Yeun, Han Yeri, Youn Yuh Jung, Will Patton, Alan Kim, Noel Kate Cho. World Premiere

Miss Juneteenth / U.S.A. (Dir/Writer: Channing Godfrey Peoples

Turquoise, a former beauty queen turned hardworking single mother, prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she did. Cast: Nicole Beharie, Kendrick Sampson, Alexis Chikaeze, Lori Hayes, Marcus Maudlin. World Premiere

Never Rarely Sometimes Always / U.S.A. (Dir/Wri: Eliza Hittman

An intimate portrayal of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania. Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support, Autumn and her cousin Skylar embark on a brave, fraught journey across state lines to New York City. Cast: Sidney Flanigan, Talia Ryder, Théodore Pellerin, Ryan Eggold, Sharon Van Etten. World Premiere

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Nine Days / U.S.A. (Dir/Writer: Edson Oda,

In a house distant from the reality we know, a reclusive man interviews prospective candidates—personifications of human souls—for the privilege that he once had: to be born. Cast: Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong, Bill Skarsgård, Tony Hale, David Rysdahl. World Premiere.

Palm Springs / U.S.A. Dir: Max Barbakow

When carefree Nyles and reluctant maid of honor Sarah have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, things get complicated the next morning when they find themselves unable to escape the venue, themselves, or each other. Cast: Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J.K. Simmons, Meredith Hagner, Camila Mendes, Peter Gallagher. World Premiere

Save Yourselves! / U.S.A. Dir/Wri: Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson

A young Brooklyn couple head upstate to disconnect from their phones and reconnect with themselves. Cut off from their devices, they miss the news that the planet is under attack. Cast: Sunita Mani, John Reynolds, Ben Sinclair, Johanna Day, John Early, Gary Richardson. World Premiere

Shirley / U.S.A. Dir: Josephine Decker

A young couple moves in with the famed author, Shirley Jackson, and her Bennington College professor husband, Stanley Hyman, in the hope of starting a new life but instead find themselves fodder for a psycho-drama that inspires Shirley’s next novel. Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young, Logan Lerman. World Premiere

Sylvie’s Love / U.S.A. (Dir/Wri: Eugene Ashe

Years after their summer romance comes to an end, an aspiring television producer and a talented musician cross paths, only to find their feelings for each other never changed. With their careers taking them in different directions, they must choose what matters most. Cast: Tessa Thompson, Nnamdi Asomugha, Eva Longoria, Aja Naomi King, Wendi Mclendon-Covey, Jemima Kirke. World Premiere

Wander Darkly / U.S.A. (Dir/Wri: Tara Miele

New parents Adrienne and Matteo are forced to reckon with trauma amidst their troubled relationship. They must revisit the memories of their past and unravel haunting truths in order to face their uncertain future. Cast: Sienna Miller, Diego Luna, Beth Grant, Aimee Carrero, Tory Kittles, Vanessa Bayer. World Premiere

Zola / U.S.A. (Dir/Wri: Janicza Bravo, Jeremy O. Harris

@zolarmoon tweets “wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out???????? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.” Two girls bond over their “hoeism” and become fast friends. What’s supposed to be a trip from Detroit to Florida turns into a weekend from hell. Cast: Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, Colman Domingo. World Premiere

U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

Sixteen world-premiere American documentaries that illuminate the ideas, people and events that shape the present day. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include APOLLO 11, Knock Down The House, One Child Nation, American Factory, Three Identical Strangers and On Her Shoulders. 45% of the directors in this year’s U.S. Documentary Competition are women; 23% are people of color; 23% are LGBTQ+.

A Thousand Cuts / U.S.A., Philippines Dir/Wri:Ramona S Diaz

Nowhere is the worldwide erosion of democracy, fueled by social media disinformation campaigns, more starkly evident than in the authoritarian regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Journalist Maria Ressa places the tools of the free press—and her freedom—on the line in defense of truth and democracy. World Premiere

Be Water / U.S.A., UK  Director: Bao Nguyen

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings. World Premiere

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets / U.S.A. Dir: Bill Ross, Turner Ross

In the shadows of the bright lights of Las Vegas, it’s last call for a beloved dive bar known as the Roaring 20s. A document of real people, in an unreal situation, facing an uncertain future: America at the end of 2016. World Premiere

Boys State / U.S.A. Dirs Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine,

In an unusual experiment, a thousand 17-year-old boys from Texas join together to build a representative government from the ground up. World Premiere

Code for Bias / US/UK/China Dir/Wri Shalini Kantayya

Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all. World Premiere

The Cost of Silence / US  Dir: Mark Manning

An industry insider exposes the devastating consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and uncovers systemic corruption between government and industry to silence the victims of a growing public health disaster. Stakes could not be higher as the Trump administration races to open the entire U.S. coastline to offshore drilling. World Premiere

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Crip Camp / U.S.A. (Dir: Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht,

Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement. World Premiere. DAY ONE

Dick Johnson Is Dead / US. Dir: Kirsten Johnson

With this inventive portrait, a cameraperson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all. World Premiere

Feels Good Man / US. Dir: Arthur Jones

When indie comic character Pepe the Frog becomes an unwitting icon of hate, his creator, artist Matt Furie, fights to bring Pepe back from the darkness and navigate America’s cultural divide. World Premiere

The Fight / US. | Dirs: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres

Inside the ACLU, a team of scrappy lawyers battle Trump’s historic assault on civil liberties. World Premiere

Mucho Mucho Amor / US. Dirs: Cristina Costantini, Kareem Tabsch

Once the world’s most famous astrologer, Walter Mercado seeks to resurrect a forgotten legacy. Raised in the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, Walter grew up to become a gender non-conforming, cape-wearing psychic whose televised horoscopes reached 120 million viewers a day for decades before he mysteriously disappeared. World Premiere

Spaceship Earth / U.S.A. Director: Matt Wolf

In 1991 a group of countercultural visionaries built an enormous replica of earth’s ecosystem called Biosphere 2. When eight “biospherians” lived sealed inside, they faced ecological calamities and cult accusations. Their epic adventure is a cautionary tale but also a testament to the power of small groups reimagining the world. World Premiere

Time / U.S.A. (Director: Garrett Bradley

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades. World Premiere

Us Kids / U.S.A. (Dir: Kim A. Snyder

Determined to turn unfathomable tragedy into action, the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida catalyze a powerful, unprecedented youth movement that spreads with lightning speed across the country, as a generation of mobilized youth take back democracy in this powerful coming-of-age story. World Premiere

Welcome to Chechnya / U.S.A. (Dir: David France

This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil. World Premiere

Whirlybird / U.S.A. Dir: Matt Yoka

Soaring above the chaotic spectacle of ‘80s and ‘90s Los Angeles, a young couple revolutionized breaking news with their brazen helicopter reporting. Culled from this news duo’s sprawling video archive is a poignant L.A. story of a family in turbulence hovering over a city unhinged. World Premiere

WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION

Twelve films from emerging filmmaking talents around the world offer fresh perspectives and inventive styles. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include The Souvenir, The Guilty, Monos, Yardie, The Nile Hilton Incident and Second Mother.

Charter / Sweden (Dir/Wri: Amanda Kernell |

After a recent and difficult divorce, Alice hasn’t seen her children in two months as she awaits a custody verdict. When her son calls her in the middle of the night, Alice takes action, abducting the children on an illicit charter trip to the Canary Islands. Cast: Ane Dahl Torp, Troy Lundkvist, Tintin Poggats Sarri, Sverrir Gudnason, Eva Melander, Siw Erixon. World Premiere

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Cuties / France (Dir/Wri: Maïmouna Doucouré, Producer: Zangro)

Amy, 11 years old, meets a group of dancers called “Cuties.” Fascinated, she initiates herself to a sensual dance, hoping to join their band and escape family dysfunction… Cast: Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-Azouni, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Cami-Goursolas, Myriam Hamma, Maïmouna Gueye. World Premiere. DAY ONE

Exil / Germany, Belgium, Kosovo (Dir/Wri: Visar Morina

A chemical engineer feeling discriminated against and bullied at work plunges into an identity crisis. Cast: Mišel Matičević, Sandra Hüller. World Premiere

High Tide / Argentina (Dir/Wri: Verónica Chen,

Laura is spending a few days at her beach house to supervise the construction of a barbecue shed. One afternoon, she seduces the chief builder, who never returns. Over the following days, the builders continually invade her home – until Laura grows ferocious. Cast: Gloria Carrá, Jorge Sesán, Cristian Salguero, Mariana Chaud, Camila Fabbri, Héctor Bordoni. World Premiere

Jumbo / France, Luxembourg, Belgium (Dir/Wri: Zoé Wittock,

Jeanne, a shy young woman, works in an amusement park. Fascinated with carousels, she still lives at home with her mother. That’s when Jeanne meets Jumbo, the park’s new flagship attraction… Cast: Noémie Merlant, Emmanuelle Bercot, Sam Louwyck. World Premiere

Luxor / Egypt, United Kingdom Dir/Wri Zeina Durra,

When British aid worker Hana returns to the ancient city of Luxor, she comes across Sultan, a talented archeologist and former lover. As she wanders, haunted by the familiar place, she struggles to reconcile the choices of the past with the uncertainty of the present. Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Karim Saleh, Michael Landes, Sherine Reda, Salima Ikram, Shahira Fahmy. World Premiere

Possessor / Canada, United Kingdom Dir/Wri: Brandon Cronenberg,

Vos is a corporate agent who uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, driving them to commit assassinations for the benefit of the company. When something goes wrong on a routine job, she finds herself trapped inside a man whose identity threatens to obliterate her own. Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean, Jennifer Jason Leigh. World Premiere

Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares) / Mexico, Spain (Director: Fernanda Valadez,

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, gone missing on his way to the Mexican border with the US. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the U.S. They travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again. Cast: Mercedes Hernández, David Illescas, Juan Jesús Varela, Ana Laura Rodríguez, Laura Elena Ibarra, Xicoténcatl Ulloa. World Premiere

Summer White (Blanco de Verano) / Mexico (Dir/Wri: Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson,

Rodrigo is a solitary teenager, a king in the private world he shares with his mother. Things change when she takes her new boyfriend home to live. He must decide if he fights for his throne and crushes the happiness of the person he loves the most. Cast: Adrián Rossi, Sophie Alexander-Katz, Fabián Corres. World Premiere

Surge / United Kingdom (Director: Aneil Karia

A man goes on a bold and reckless journey of self-liberation through London. After he robs a bank he releases a wilder version of himself, ultimately experiencing what it feels like to be alive. Cast: Ben Whishaw, Ellie Haddington, Ian Gelder, Jasmine Jobson. World Premiere

This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection / Lesotho, South Africa, Italy (Dir/Wri Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese

When her village is threatened with forced resettlement due to reservoir construction, an 80-year-old widow finds a new will to live and ignites the spirit of resilience within her community. In the final dramatic moments of her life, Mantoa’s legend is forged and made eternal. Cast: Mary Twala Mhlongo, Jerry Mofokeng Wa Makheta, Makhoala Ndebele, Tseko Monaheng, Siphiwe Nzima. International Premiere

Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness / Iran, France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg (Dir/Wri: Massoud Bakhshi,

Maryam accidentally killed her husband Nasser and is sentenced to death. The only person who can save her is Mona, Nasser’s daughter. All Mona has to do is appear on a TV show and forgive Maryam. But forgiveness proves difficult when they are forced to relive the past. Cast: Sadaf Asgari, Behnaz Jafari, Babak Karimi, Fereshteh Sadr Orafaee, Forough Ghajebeglou, Fereshteh Hosseini. International Premiere

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

Twelve documentaries by some of the most courageous and extraordinary international filmmakers working today. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Honeyland, Sea of Shadows, Shirkers, This is Home, Last Men in Aleppo and Hooligan Sparrow.

Acasa, My Home / Romania, Germany, Finland (Director: Radu Ciorniciuc, Screenwriters: Lina Vdovii, Radu Ciorniciuc, Producer: Monica Lazurean-Gorgan

In the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta, nine children and their parents lived in perfect harmony with nature for 20 years–until they are chased out and forced to adapt to life in the big city. World Premiere

The Earth Is Blue as an Orange / Ukraine, Lithuania (Director: Iryna Tsilyk,

To cope with the daily trauma of living in a war zone, Anna and her children make a film together about their life among surreal surroundings. World Premiere

Epicentro / Austria, France, U.S.A. (Dir/writer: Hubert Sauper,

Cuba is well known as a so-called time capsule. The place where the New World was discovered has become both a romantic vision and a warning. With ongoing global cultural and financial upheavals, large parts of the world could face a similar kind of existence. World Premiere

Influence / South Africa, Canada (Directors and Screenwriters: Diana Neille, Richard Poplak,

Charting the recent advancements in weaponized communication by investigating the rise and fall of the world’s most notorious public relations and reputation management firm: the British multinational Bell Pottinger. World Premiere

Into the Deep / Denmark (Dir: Emma Sullivan

In 2016, a young Australian filmmaker began documenting amateur inventor Peter Madsen. One year in, Madsen brutally murdered Kim Wall aboard his homemade submarine. An unprecedented revelation of a killer and the journey his young helpers take as they reckon with their own complicity and prepare to testify. World Premiere

The Mole Agent / Chile, U.S.A., Germany, The Netherlands, Spain (Dir and screenwriter: Maite Alberdi

When a family becomes concerned about their mother’s well-being in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio, an 83 year-old man who becomes a new resident–and a mole inside the home, who struggles to balance his assignment with becoming increasingly involved in the lives of several residents. World Premiere

Once Upon A Time in Venezuela / Venezuela, United Kingdom, Brazil, Austria (DirWri: Anabel Rodríguez Ríos,

Once upon a time, the Venezuelan village of Congo Mirador was prosperous, alive with fisherman and poets. Now it is decaying and disintegrating–a small but prophetic reflection of Venezuela itself. World Premiere

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The Painter and the Thief / Norway Director: Benjamin Ree

An artist befriends the drug addict and thief who stole her paintings. She becomes his closest ally when he is severely hurt in a car crash and needs full time care, even if her paintings are not found. But then the tables turn. World Premiere. DAY ONE

The Reason I Jump / United Kingdom Dir: Jerry Rothwell

Based on the book by Naoki Higashida this immersive film explores the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people around the world. World Premiere

Saudi Runaway / Switzerland (Dir/Wri: Susanne Regina Meures, Producer: Christian Frei) — Muna, a young, fearless woman from Saudi Arabia, is tired of being controlled by the state and patronised by her family. With an arranged marriage imminent, a life without rights and free will seems inevitable. Amjad decides to escape. An unprecedented view inside the world’s most repressive patriarchy. World Premiere

Softie / Kenya (Director and screenwriter: Sam Soko, Producers: Toni Kamau, Sam Soko) — Boniface Mwangi is daring and audacious, and recognized as Kenya’s most provocative photojournalist. But as a father of three young children, these qualities create tremendous turmoil between him and his wife Njeri. When he wants to run for political office, he is forced to choose: country or family? World Premiere

The Truffle Hunters / Italy, U.S.A., Greece (Dirs: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

In the secret forests of Northern Italy, a dwindling group of joyful old men and their faithful dogs search for the world’s most expensive ingredient, the white Alba truffle. Their stories form a real-life fairy tale that celebrates human passion in a fragile land that seems forgotten in time. World Premiere

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL | 23 JANUARY – 2 FEBRUARY 2020

QT8: The First 21 Years (2019) ***

Dir.: Tara Wood, Documentary with Zoë Bell, Bruce Dern, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Lee, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Christoph Waltz; USA 2019, 120 min.

It has been said that 21 years defines the career of an artist. And Tara Wood, who co-directed 21 Years: Richard Linklater (2014), has used this premise to define a new documentary about Quentin Tarantino’s first eight films.

Her idolatrous approach echoes that of the legends who have ranked around Tarantino’s meteoric rise from video archives clerk to multi-million dollar director whose features are a cultural event – no less. This film is full of the love Tarantino’s collaborators feel for the maverick director, put simply by James Wood : “it’s just fun to work with him”.

Directors are well known to be strict taskmasters  but QT8 also gives a palpable sense of the ebullient passion the Tennessee born filmmaker brings to his work. His natural charisma inspires his actors to enter into the spirit of their characters with extraordinary freedom and verve, while managing to maintain a strict ‘no nonsense’ approach on set.

Tarantino fills his scripts with multiple ways for his actors to interpret their roles. A case in point was the opening monologue for Inglourious Basterds recalled by Christoph Waltz who played the nefarious Nazi Colonel Landa with great gusto, very much defining Tarantino’s approach: “If you just love movies enough, you can make a good one”. Or eight.

Adulation or controversy are never far away. When a new Tarantino masterpiece hits the cinema screens, the box office figures usually prove him right: QT is a genius, and Wood will have us all repeating it. Strangely enough, the only missing person in this phalanx of admirers is the director himself – he is his own toughest critic. Wood also explores how ideas get off the ground particularly with reference to the script/story origins for True Romance and Natural Born Killers. We hear how Harvey Keitel arrived to pick up the script for Reservoir Dogs, which led to Cannes – and then straight to Pulp Fiction and Cannes again. A neat transition indeed. But to compare this boyish blood and guts artist with the combined talents of French Nouvelle Vague legends, Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, and Rivette, is really stretching it a bit. 

Wood goes on as if Tarantino’s career was only ever plain sailing. No mention of the mega bust-up with Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary or Natural Born Killer producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy, which led to a brawl in a restaurant. Or the serious car accident on set which damaged Una Thurman’s neck for life – an event which only gets  a three second mention in QT8 – wonder why she didn’t show up?. Then there is Tarantino’s over-fondness for the N-word, to which black director Spike Lee took offence. Wood ordered a character assassination by Jamie Foxx, obliterating Lee – without Lee having the right to respond. The extensive but entertaining eulogy is mostly centred around the sets, with clever animation flicks by Brad Greber and Shane Minshew keeping the tone light.

Apart from his love for people of colour, Tarantino is equally fond of women and should be celebrated for creating strong, feisty female roles. When the Weinstein scandal broke, Tarantino cut all ties with the producer, even though he was a major shareholder in the production company (‘The house that Quentin built’). Wood tries her best in the last six minutes to avoid any serious questions. Wood and QT8 were, at one point, in a legal battle over the Weinstein Company right’s to distribute the documentary – the battle itself and how it was solved is never mentioned. This latest development has to be factored in to the whole tableau. Wood’s accusation of Harvey Weinstein’s criminal acts sound righteous but unconvincing – and somehow feel tacked on as a crowd-pleaser in this otherwise rip-roaring romp through the Tarantino canon. AS

IN CINEMAS, ON DVD, BLURAY and DIGITAL HD from 13 DECEMBER 2019

 

 

Kingmaker (2019) ****

Dir/scr: Lauren Greenfield. US. 2019. 100mins

Known for her legendary appetite for shoes – 3000 pairs at one point – Imelda Marcos certainly uses them to ride roughshod over her own people. Lauren Greenfield reveals her steps to power in this eye-popping biopic exposing the gilded lifestyle of the politician and one time First Lady of the Philippines.

The Kingmaker is the latest of Greenfield’s studies of entitlement that began with The Queen Of Versailles and Generation Wealth. Clearly Marcos is a character with delusional as well as narcissistic traits, capable of styling her own persona to serve a flexible narrative. Greenfield goes back to basics to examine how this entitled 90 year old antiheroine and her husband Ferdinand first robbed their nation of its riches, and now are now shamelessly re-tracing their steps to come back to power.

Marcos takes centre stage showing us round her opulently vulgar apartment, showcasing her wealth. We learn how she quickly bagged Ferdinand using him as a vehicle to step into power as the backseat driver of a regime that instigated martial law. Now in the driving seat herself, since his death, she is busily working on her son’s path to the vice-presidency, the next step will be clear.

Condescending and manipulative she is also prides herself of her fake largesse: handing out “candy for the kids” in the shape of gifts for charities and the poor. But this cuts both ways,  barely compensating for the misery she and her husband have doled out in spades. Meanwhile the Philippines is still languishing in the third world with Rodrigo Détente waiting in the wings to be president. The Kingmaker is a detached but delicious dive into the mind of a modern day machiavellian, delivered with sleek aplomb by a filmmaker at the top of her game. MT

IN CINEMAS NOW

Welcome to Sodom (2018) **** WatchAUT 2019

Dir.: Florian Weigensamer, Christian Krönes; Documentary; Austria 2018, 90 min.

Austrian directors/writers Florian Weigensamer and Christian Krönes are attracted to radical material, that brings to mind the work of their compatriot, the noted documentarian Michael Glawogger (1959-2014)  Their first film A German Life, explored the life of  104 year-old Brunhilde Pomsel, Goebbels stenographer. Here they have chosen something completely different but just as fascinating.  Near the Ghanaian capital Accra is Agbogbloshie a swampland, where 250 000 tons of first world electronic dump is ‘recycled’ by about 6000 women, men and children.

The title refers to the biblical place, and Agbogbloshie is certainly making its name proud. The ground itself is unsafe, it sucks people in – after all, it’s a lagoon. Starting with a close-up of a chameleon, emaciated goats and cows roam the wasteland, where ancient dump trucks discharge old computer monitors, TV sets, fridges, printers, mobiles and cars. The mostly teenage work force are looking for aluminium, copper or zinc, anything they can glean with their self-made magnets, working away with crude mallets to break down the chassis. When they have collected enough material they take it to the dealer, who weighs their collection, before trying – usually successfully – to cheat them, reducing a meagre payment even further. Woman and girls are used as water carriers, they too inhale the poisonous dirt, the earth squelches, their health gradually deteriorates. To take their mind off things there is rap music, and even a newspaper, the ‘Daily Graphic’. And oddities, like a make-shift funeral parlour selling some expensive coffins that nobody on the site can afford to buy. A gay Jewish man from Zimbawe sells used water packets.

But there is a sense of pride among the detritus: a teenage boy declares “it’s rubbish for them, but we are the best re-cyclers”. But the common goal is to make it to France, or anywhere in Europe, “and be somebody”. Only few would admit that “this place eats up your life very fast”. Flies and filth are everywhere as the sulphur clouds hang heavy on the air. Cholera and malaria are the inevitable outcome.

Sodom makes for grim viewing but the directors avoid making this a depressing documentary, and some of the artfully framed scenes have a strange appeal, such as those when the men are burning down the metal pipes. The film plays out almost like a poem to industrial waste, dumped from all over the world. But the well-crafted images fit well with the narrative, and the sophisticated sound design conjures up the spirit of those who work in this Armageddon. There may not be much hope here; but you watch in stark  admiration, and a certain sense of shame that your next new gadget or smart phone will eventually end up polluted this dystopian hell hole and the people who spend their short lives dedicated to its daily grind. AS

WatchAUT | 13 -15 DECEMBER 2019 | Picturehouse Cinema W1       

Aquarela (2018) *** Venice Film Festival 2018

Dir: Viktor Kossakovsky | Doc | UK | 89’

A picture tells a thousands words when it comes to climate change. And this new eco doc on the subject literally drenches us in water in its mission to drive the point home. Aquarela is  the aquatic version of Jeff Orlowski’s remarkable Chasing Ice (2012).  delivering its vital message with any dire warnings or preachy dialogue. 

Russian filmmaker Viktor Kossakovsky has shot hours of footage aiming, in a structureless but gloriously visual way, to portray the global tragedy of climate change. His vehement eco doc demonstrates how the havoc caused by the melting ice-cap in the Arctic Circle  cascades down to provoke events in Siberia’s Lake Baikal; Angel Falls in Venezuela and tornado strewn California, as nature and humanity clash in a monstrous eco-war. Put simply: while man is slowly destroying nature, the planet is hellbent on destroying us.

Cinematographer Ben Bernhard works with the latest high-tech stabilisation equipment and waterproof cameras at a rate of 96 frames per second, and these HD images record the gushing, cascading floods of glaciers, magnificent ice mountains, crashing icebergs, crumbling glaciers, tumbling waterfalls and fierce waves that mercilessly bring to mind Nicholas Monsarrat’s novel The Cruel Sea. 

Accompanied by a pounding electronic score that lends a certain chaotic gravitas, there are moments that will remain seared to the memory. The film would work more effectively with a clearer narrative arc and tighter editing despite its slim running time And although some of the sequences are over-played –  this is an engaging and informative film. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

Sorokin Trip (2019) *** Russian Film Week 2019

Dir: Ilya Belov | Doc with Vladimir Sorokin, Russia, 90’

Director Ilya Belov (Brodsky is Not a Poet) and writer Anton Zhelnov have painted a lively portrait of prolific Russian underground artist Vladimir Sorokin (*1955), who has markedly calmed down since setting fire to Soviet literary tradition and building his own world on its ashes. He now lives in Moscow and Berlin, hugging trees and believing in God.

Sorokin who grew up outside Moscow, had the misfortune to be the only student in his class whose parents had a higher education. He was physically bullied, but refrained from retribution. His emotionally cold father had mental health issues,, his mother trained as an engineer but retired at 35 due to ill health. Sorokin first published in a newspaper: ‘For the Workers in the Petroleum Industry’. But he went on to make his living illustrating books, and was one of the leading figures of Soviet Underground culture. Like many students all over the world, he skipped lectures and enjoyed provoking the authoritarian Soviet establishment, which fell for his stunts, which were nowhere near as radical as the Underground scene of New York. 

Sorokin draws most of his inspiration from Fine Art, and is an accomplished painter. His first publicised book was Ochered (The Que) in 1983; his most famous novel Den Oprichnika (Day of the Oprichnik) in 2006. It describes a dystopian Russia in 2027, when a Tsar rules in the Kremlin. The ruler has a “Great Russian Wall” built, separating the country from its neighbours; with Sorokin positing that he wrote this all before Brexit. His plays include “Dostoevsky Trip” (1997), whilst his libretto for the Opera “The Children of Rosenthal”  caused uproar at the Bolshoi Theatre, watched by the author and his twin daughters.  Sorokin’s novella ‘Blue Bacon Fat’ (2002) drew the ire of not only the authorities, Putin’s men inflamed the affair by in a massive book-ripping event that carried the slogan ‘down with pornography’. The courts got involved, but the matter was dropped due to lack of evidence.

It is a shame that Belov concentrates so much on the confrontational nature of Sorokin’s output, his juvenile posturing is hardly worth the time. After all, Sorokin has written eighteen books, ten plays and four film scripts, among the Rotterdam Winner Four (2004), which was directed by Ilya Khrzhovsky. DoP Mikhail Krichman does a much better job, keeping the audience interested with his free flowing images, somehow capturing the soul of the writer much more than Belov’s overly verbose outpourings. Overall Sorokin Trip does Sorokin a disservice. Thi is an underwhelming biopic, not because of its main subject, but because Belov tries too hard to match the antics of the young author and creative genius. AS

Screening as part of RUSSIAN FILM WEEK Saturday 30 November 3.00pm | Curzon Mayfair

https://youtu.be/mAWn4WK4Gig

Views on the Maghreb: Colonial Past and Early Cinema | Marrakech 2019

Film critic and academic Jay Weisberg presents a compendium piece that headlines Marrakech Film Festival’s 11th Continent strand and aims to offer a taste of North Africa’s heritage from its early Colonial past (1914-1922).

It was a time when Morocco was a protectorate of the French government, under the benevolent guidance of Marshal Lyautey, who represented the interests of France and developed Morocco’s potential while respecting its traditions and culture under the auspices of the Sultan. In this way Morocco became a pro-Western country unlike its neighbour Algeria which was under French occupation. Lyautey’s vision was both paternalistic and ideological: to further education, culture and commerce while the Sultan retained his religious and legal powers in an exclusively Arab Court.

Weisberg shows how early cinema’s notable trans-border distribution means the world’s archives are depositories of unexpected treasures: the cork forests of Morocco exist only at the British Film Institute in London; French-made panoramas of Algeria from 1910 are at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; Italian-produced images of Libya have turned up at the National Library of Oslo. These are precious visual records from cinema’s early decades when European and American companies sent cameramen across the globe. As the medium quickly developed, however, film increasingly became a tool for perpetuating Orientalism and reinforcing colonial agendas. This programme, a follow-up to last year’s Views of the Ottoman Empire, looks to engage the audience in this debate via rare short films of North Africa from the 1910s and 20s, some digitised specifically for this screening.

SCREENING AS PART OF THE 11TH CONTINENT STRAND | Marrakech Film Festival 2019

Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! (2019) ***

Dir: Morgan Spurlock | US Doc 93′

Fifteen years after his ground-breaking expose on the fast food industry Spurlock is back with Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! that sees him on the other side of the debate – as a fast food restaurateur.

This fast flowing and informative film explores an US industry dominated by franchises, and glibly-named eateries – mostly based in industrial parks rather than on the high street. Here Spurlock sets out to make a crispy chicken sandwich with healthy credentials.

Spurlock is seen talking to marketing experts and involved in preparations to open his own restaurant, choosing a chicken sandwich made from his farm’s birds to appeal to changing tastes. Fast Food has gone through a vast transformation since Spurlock sat down to a table at the Golden Arches for his 2004 breakout. Nowadays consumers demand better-for-you cuisine, but there’s also a great deal of spin going on – and legal experts spill the beans on what we think we’re being offered, and what producers actually get away with in the name of decency. “Free range” just means that chickens get an option to step into an outdoor pen in the fresh air, but most stay inside, particularly in the sweltering heat of Alabama where Morgan sets up his Morganite chicken shed whence his chicks will eventually end up in his crispy (fried is a negative word) Southern Chicken sandwiches.

But some scenes are hard to swallow particularly those that show the appalling cruelty of the food industry. We see baby chickens from the time they break out of their shells to their deaths, six weeks later, from overweight, heart attacks and the sheer exhaustion of supporting their over-sized bodies on legs that have not had time to develop any strength. A troubled farmer from Alabama also talks about the unfair system in the US which leaves the smaller concerns under pressure to produce often sub standard fare.

But for the most part Super Size 2 is slick and entertaining with the chipper filmmaker flippantly joking around as he travels up and down the US taking on the advice of advertising gurus, lawyers and spin-doctors in the name of his cheerlessly ‘foul’ venture. MT.

SUPER SIZE ME 2: HOLY CHICKEN! is released On Demand from 9th December 2019

https://vimeo.com/goldwynfilms/ssm2-trailer

Silent Days (2019) **** Marrakech Film Festival 2019

Dir: Pavol Pekarcik | Cast: Sandra Sivakova, Marian Hlavac, Alena Cervenakova, Rene Cervenak, Roman Balog  | Slov/Czech Doc 80’

Award-winning director-writer-producer: Pavol Pekarcik, brings a sense of compelling wonder to this social realist ‘mockumentary’ that proves truth stranger than fiction, even when you dress it up a little, as he does here with his artful cameraman. Unfurling in a series of long static unedited takes Silent Lives blurrs the boundary between fact and fiction, reflecting with stark acuity the self-regulating lives of four struggling Roma gypsy families, affected by impaired hearing.

The Roma community have always maintained their exclusivity, living on the margins of society and fiercely protecting their identity and often physically or mentally challenged members. According to records, some of them do not even exist despite efforts from Amnesty International and the United Nations.

First we meet Sandra (Sandra Sivakova), a football mad 14-year-old girl with a passion for Ronaldinho. Her parents clearly care for her welfare but complain about still sharing a bed with her.  So they plan to marry her off to an older but decent-looking man from their community who is accepting of her challenges: “I don’t mind deaf”. He says nonchalantly. Sparse on dialog these sepia-tinted or vibrantly coloured vignettes are expertly framed and could each serve as shapshots in an ethnographical photo exhibition, their tragic narrative intensity contrasting with a strange beauty.

The film becomes cumulatively more bizarre with the subsequent family snapshots veering towards surreal horror in picturing these impoverished and impaired protagonists getting by day to day in squalid conditions. In the next story, tiny teenage Marian (Marian Hlava) is hooked on Jean-Claude Van Damme and martial arts. Clearly this is a worry to his mother who spends her time cooking and washing clothes in a nearby stream, road signage serving as a washing line. Then there is mute and chain-smoking Alena (Alena Cervenakova) and her equally challenged boyfriend Rene (Rene Cervenak). Their only goal is pregnancy and marriage. They seem accepting of their situation and just want to look after each other and their new baby. 

The final segment sees Roman (Roman Balog), Kristian (Kristian Balog) and Karmen (Karmon Balog) three siblings who have an enterprising streak as they scavenge for scrap metal and trade it for petrol to fire up their father’s generator so he can build a family bathroom. They have had no lavatory since being evicted from their previous home. But they knuckle down to it with good humour, playing imaginatively together in the ruins of the family shack. As they laugh and tease each other they to have re-discovered the art of play, far away from hollow materialism and social media. These Roma may be living on the margins but they are not lost or lonely or angry – and they all pull together to help one another. Despite their grinding poverty, there is a humanity and sense of community here that many more affluent families have lost in today’s more materially rich world. Out of the wreckage and squalor comes a beacon of hope. MT

MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL 2019

Säsong | Ridge (2019) Marrakech Film Festival 2019

Dir: John Skoog | Sweden, 2019 70′

Swedish director John Skoog won this year’s CPH:DOX Award with the bewildering and visually sensational film. In some way Säsong (2019) or Ridge, is a broadening of his trilogy of shorts examining economic exploitation, starting in 2011 with Sent på Jorden; followed in 2013 by Förår and culminating with Reduit in 2014.

Best described as an ethnographical docu-drama Ridge is a love letter to Sweden’s agrarian past and the country’s deep connection to the land and nature. It prepares for the future with trepidation – Skoog’s camerawork pictures the mammoth farm machinery surging on the horizon at dawn like some great behemoth, as it cruelly savages the virgin swathes of corn, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Cows are silently harnessed to computerised milking machines sending their own gentle rhythms into disarray as stand isolated in vast soulless hangers. A few of them head for the woods, ‘demented’. Or, at least that is what we are led to believe in an opening anecdote in Skoog’s non-judgemental treatment. The burgeoning demands of the contemporary and future population are presented as a mute assault on the landscape and the Earth is crying.

Skoog celebrates Summer, and particularly MidSummer’s Day  – a big event in Sweden due to its dark winters, and a cause for much merriment and over-drinking in the verdant pastures of Skoog’s hometown of Kvidinge, a village in northern Scania County. Skoog abandons a traditional narrative opting for something more enigmatic and refreshing that forces the audience to speculate and scope out his motives and ideas – dialogue is minimal. The most loquacious segment sees a group of Polish workers, who have arrived by ferry for seasonal work, discussing how to approach Swedish women. “Not the romantic, moody Polish approach” one advises a younger member of the team.

Skoog works with family members and non-pro’s to create a portrait of a land that shares a common work ethic and where women and men are more or less equal. But there’s also a mystical remoteness and an unsettling undercurrent here in this distant rural corner. Often madness is more prevalent in the countryside, and there is certainly a human destructiveness at play here. But it is light-hearted and anarchic rather than sinister. The abstract juxtaposition of the scenes; a sunset played with an unsettling soundscape, can easily play havoc with our imagination, and our expectations. So Skoog appears to be having the last laugh here in an inventive and playful but ultimately deeply thoughtful film that resonates with the current zeitgeist on climate change and our deep connection with nature. MT

MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL 2019

 

Women’s Day (2018) **** Russian Film Week 2019

Dir.: Dolya Gavanski; Documentary with Svetlana Alexievich, Maria Rokhlina, Natalya Vasilyevna, Natalya Tomacheva; UK/Germany/Russia/Bulgaria 2019, 84 min.

International Women’s Day is a significant date all over Eastern European celebrated on the 8th of March with men offering their partners flowers.

Bulgarian born, London-based filmmaker Dolya Gavanski (Golos: Ukranian Voices) explores the experiences of a number women who have grown up in the USSR – from the early years of the 20th century until quite recently. The result is revealing. The Soviet past still resonates today in Putin’s Russia, But it has left the female population with an undeniably sense of resolve: “What do I do with flowers, when my husband is totally drunk in the evening? posits one feisty female. Clearly floral tributes are not cutting the mustard anymore.

Internet celebrity Elena Krygina, a woman in her early thirties, agrees with the sentiment. “It’s more a question of make-up. Everybody looked the same in the USSR.” But there are others, who feel very different, like Natalya Kalantarova, director of the Krasnogorsk Archive. She points with pride at an emblem of the Soviet State on top of a building. “Everything about the USSR is worthy. We have very little about Yeltsin and Gorbatchev”. She makes sure the filmmaker gets the meaning of the last sentence.

Meanwhile forty something Estate Agent Natalya Tomacheva, has more disturbing memories from her days at Secondary School: “We had an Arabesque music cover from a western record, showing women lying down, with their legs up. So we decided to take pictures too, in our hideous Soviet knickers. The school brought us out on stage, in front of all pupils, year one to ten, telling us that we had succumbed to the influence of the corrupt West. Larissa Denisova’s mother stood up and shouted ‘What, my Larissa a prostitute?’ She sided with her daughter, but my Mum did not, she was a fanatical believer. Later we were re-integrated, but were always known as the ‘Pornographers’.”

Another example of Soviet ideology on the taboo subject of sexuality is told by Marin Gribanova, Dean of Classical Ballet: “Communist censorship interfered for example in Carmen, when we were asked to change some sequences. When the famous ballerina Plisetskaya danced ‘Bolero’, a very sexual piece, we got away with it but only because the women were dressed in black, and the men in white. The white ones would win in the end, making the women all look evil. Sex was turned into a fight between light and darkness.” This negativity seems to be reflected in the past that saw the Church dominating family life. At the end of the 1920s a “Childless Tax” was created, for couples who had less than three children. Even before the Second World War, in 1937, special camps were sent up for women whose husbands have been proclaimed enemies of the people and had been shot.

But some women’s lives were transformed for the good during the early part of the 20th century. One example is Maria Rokhlina, who proudly shows off her jacket with six kilos worth of medals. “Red is the colour of life; blue makes me think of cold, freezing.” As a 16-year-old she was sent to Stalingrad, surviving the battle as a medical instructor in the sanitary platoon on the front line. “I had to bandage the wounded, stop the bleeding, fix a fracture with an improvised splint, then evacuate them from the frontline”. Leningrad siege survivor Natalya Vasilyevna, remembers her grandmother saying very clearly at the beginning of the combat “’Forget about me. I won’t make it. I will not eat. I do not want to see you die one by one’. Men died first, they were actually the weaker sex. Used to eating more meat than women. There were lot of dead bodies in the street. War is a male culture, all war images are male.”

Finally, Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, reminisces  about the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl: “It was total chaos. The workers told us the fire had not been extinguished. It still glowed. People came from everywhere to see it. They took the children out onto the balconies and told them to remember this day, it because it looked so beautiful. People could not comprehend the modern reality”.

With DoPs Marina Kroutlin’s and Dmitry Loktionov’s impressive images, and informative archive material, Women’s Day  looks back into an era where reality and ideology collided. But it also pays tribute to those who were at the ‘coal face’ and bore the brunt of it. And it is proof that flowers alone are never good enough. AS

RUSSIAN FILM WEEK | LONDON 24 November – 1 December – 2019      

Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream | Ne Croyez surtout pas que je hurle (2019) ***

Dir.: Frank Beauvais; Documentary, France 2019, 75 min.

Frank Beauvais’ debut documentary is nearly impossible to categorise: best described as an Avantgarde diary chronicling the filmmaker’s seven-year exile from Paris and his life in a village in Alsace: which is set entirely against snippets from hundreds of films, particularly B-movies and horror pics. Admittedly I could only identify Carpenter’s Christine and Von Stenberg’s American Tragedy. They sometimes illustrate Beauvais’ melancholy comments, or elaborate on them. A little like reading Houellebecq, and watching self help movies. But Just don’t Think is very much an acquired taste: you’ll either love it or hate the pretentiousness of it all.

Beauvais also has credits in the music industry and now works as a festival organiser. He moved from Paris to the village in Alsace to be near to his mother. It also provided a new beginning after a failed love affair. Admittedly, he doesn’t much care for his new neighbours: he accuses them of being reactionary and self-righteous. This criticism applies very much to his father, who he hasn’t really seen since his teenage years and who he ends up looking after when he falls ill. The evenings see them sitting together in stressful silence, so Frank shows him Gremillion’s The Sky is Yours, with Charles Vanel, a paternal figure his father admired. Unfortunately, Beauvais senior has a seizure and dies in front of his very eyes.

Apart from this traumatic event, nothing much happens: Frank watches about five films a day, and feels sorry for himself. He spends the summer of 2016 in Paris and decides to move back there in the October. It the meantime he has filled his place with books and vinyl and has to offload it all. A work trip to visit two directors in  Porto proves a downer: .He had chosen the waltz from Deer Hunters for the project and learns on the same night about Michael Cimino’s death. Soon Abbas Kiarostami dies, increasing the anxiety attacks of the filmmaker. The 2015 terrorist attacks only make him angry: “The media exploits them with the opportunism of grave diggers”. Beauvais admits, that he is using “films as bandages”, and his mind set is reflected by readings of Aragon. But when ever it comes to people he was close to, Frank distances himself. A young boy, with whom he had a relationship at the beginning of his Paris exile, collects the cat they cared for, and Beauvais only comment is that the last hug they share confirms their split was the right decision. As for the cat, he has forgotten her after a week.

Beauvais shares a lot with JL Godard: aloofness and certain editorial preferences, which remind of the master’s Historie(s) du Cinema. Like Godard, Beauvais has got lost in the movies, and even in Paris he might not manage to get out of it and find himself. He is the prisoner of his obsession, and prefers watching to personal engagement. His austerity manifests himself in the countless images of bloody horror images, which he views with frightening detachment. But there is much to be admired in this tour-de force, particularly the encyclopaedic collection of cinematographic images corresponding to his emotional turmoil. AS

SCREENING DURING IDFA 2019

Babel Film Festival 2019 | Cagliari, Sardinia

 

The Sardinians have come up with a novel idea for a film festival. Babel focuses on ethnic minorities, and in particular linguistic ones.

Film is all about cultural exchange. Babel hopes to enrich and enliven the global debate with some marginal cinematic experiences, connecting the mainstream world with communities struggling to survive, not only physically, but culturally.

The programme offers a diverse array of documentaries, fiction features and shorts, and contributions from the world of theatre and music mining a wealth of minority languages since the dawn of time.

Now celebrating its sixth biennale edition the Babel Film Festival hopes to roll out festivities in an annual event making the Sardinian capital city of Cagliari a place for enlightened discussion and cultural exchange. Cineastes and industry professional can visit and get to know this exotic source of creativity featuring a diversity of minority languages, including dialects, slang and more. Lesser known languages are not just about communication on a basic everyday level, they are complex methods of expression in their own right, allowing speakers the freedom to wax lyrical with a nuanced and poetic vision of the world they live in.

BABEL FILM FESTIVAL | 2 -7 DECEMBER 2019

The Biggest Little Farm (2019) ****

Dir/Wri John Chester, Mark Monroe | Cinematographer: John Chester | US Doc 91’

Thinking a making a success of sustainable farming? – it’ll take around a decade. These could be the best years of your life – and you could make you thousands of pounds worth of produce. Indie filmmaker John Chester and his wife Molly managed to do it. But creating an environmentally friendly farm – one that is harmonious with nature – is no walk in the park. 

Often playing out like an eco thriller – the big bad wolves killing the chickens, amongst other murders – this is an entertaining and informative film revealing home truths and discoveries about nature, sustainability, ecosystems and extreme animal behaviour that will shock and surprise you, as it did them. 

The intention to farm harmoniously with nature all started out as an accident when the couple were forced to move house due to their noisy Collie dog Todd. Molly was a health conscious An hour north of LA they found a patch of 200 acres. But the soil was as dead as the dodo – impacted and dry as a bone. Dead bee hives the result of poor eco management. This was a wilderness that needed to be brought back to life. Then Alan York an Amish style farmer cane along. Emulate how natural ecosystems work. Relying of a finite source of water from a well.  The soil needed regeneration, hydration and fertilisation. The plan was to break up the earth and create a heal-basis for growth. And s harmonious environment with cover in the form of trees.

To help them in their endeavour Molly and Alan invited volunteers from all over the world to get the endeavour under way with worms, irrigation, composting and then replanting. Then cane the animals. Ducks, chickens, sheep, and cows. and two livestock guarding dogs. The animals poop will bring the soil back to work. Biodiversity was almost there. They needed animals to make their soil even better.  A pig completed the picture. That arrived as Ugly Better renames Emma who gave birth to 15 piglets. And a ‘fruit basket’ with  75 different varieties of stone fruit came next – all sold at the local market

But the gophers and cayotes arrive and do catastrophic damage, killing over 29 chickens. they have to electrify the fence. And so begins a delicate dance of coexistence. But pests and diseases are continue disrupting this paradise. Along with the weather: fires and strong winds  And then comes the drought. “Observation followed by creativity is becoming our greatest ally” says John at one point.

The sting in the tail comes in the eventful third act. And in the form of illness, for both man and beast. And once again it’s about harmony and balance,  and Mr Greasy, a rejected old rooster  with a dapper red comb who comes to rule the roost. John also realises, to his chagrin, that violence becomes a necessary evil that he hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to. To control the enemy is to kill it. Gradually a delicate ecosystem comes together as John and Molly welcome a child of their own into the world. “The dance may be familiar but the partners are always changing”.

Enriched with hand-drawn animated sequences and a lively, if sometimes overbearing, score. wildlife cameraman John reveals the wonder of nature in a stunningly captured visuals and time-lapse photography. The Biggest Little Farm is an extraordinary journey, it’s battles and joys mirroring life as a whole.

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE 29 November  2019

 

Shooting the Mafia (2019) ***

Director: Kim Longinotto | With: Letizia Battaglia, Maria Chiara Di Trepani, Santi Caleca, Eduardo Rebulla, Franco Zecchin, Roberto Timperi | UK, 94′

Kim Longinotto chronicles the work of the very much alive photojournalist Letizia Battaglia in this moving but rather hagiographic affair. 

A Sicilian to the core, Battaglia has a visceral connection with Palermo where the Mafia was particularly active during the 1970s and ’80s. Her keen eye for a poignant picture captures everyday life in the impoverished capital. But she is best known for her photos of the Mafia’s brutality and, crucially, the affect it had on the victims concerned. Shocking snapshots reveal dead women and children bathed in their own blood; the startling aftermath of a street shooting, the victim’s wife tortured in agony at the scene of the crime. The documentary particularly highlights those fighting for justice, retribution and an end to the reign of terror: Judge Giovanni Falcone and his successor Paolo Borsellino who both lost their lives.

English documentarian Kim Longinotto won the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance 2015 for Dreamcatcher her illuminating film on prostitution in Chicago. Clearly she is impressed with Battaglia, now 83,  who comes across as confident, hard-bitten and down to earth. Pink-haired and smoking her way through her story Shooting the Mafia is enlivened by TV footage, archival material and her own photographs. The film culminates with the important Mafia trial in 1986. The judge Giovanni Falcone was blown to bits in 1992. She talks of his fearless honesty and dedication. In some ways he is the hero of the piece.

Battaglia’s early life took place behind closed doors, her highly protective father shielding her jealously from the gaze of his friends and associates. This was quite normal back then. And so was an incident where a man exposed himself to her, leaving her bewildered and bemused. She married at 16 to the first man who asked, and had two daughters. Her story is interwoven with clips from Italian films the ’50s starring a blond Silvana Magnano, adding an upbeat vibe to an otherwise depressing tale of poverty, corruption and violence. Divorced in 1971, Battaglia fell into journalism, preferring to take photos rather than write for the liberal newspaper L’Ora. Her job was her life and she gradually worked her way through a series of impressionable – often much younger – lovers attracted by her earthy nonchalance and solid sense of self.  Two men, in particular, take part as her long term partners, both of them photographers who worked alongside her. And these men seem to feature more heavily in her world than her family: “I could talk about it but I don’t want to,”

There’s an impression that photography was a given rather than an ambition, almost as a default position due to her being employed by the paper. Mafia violence was an everyday occurrence in Palermo and someone had to go and record it for the paper. Although competently captured, there’s no evidence of any aesthetic behind the pictures. Indeed, she soon drifted from journalism and into politics as a Green Party local councillor, which is where she came across Giovanni Falcone. She felt too connected to the killing to take photos after his death, but this is the only time she discusses the equivocal nature of the photographer’s role. Her only relevant comment is personal: “When I look at my photos, I just see blood, blood, blood.”

The sensationalist nature of the subject matter is clearly the compulsion here. We experience a certain detachment to the photos of Mafia killings, and this is due in part to our familiarity with a theme that is so much a part of cinema history, with films like Goodfellas, The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in America. The most affecting segments of the film are those featuring the real victims and particularly the clip where the wife of one of Falcone’s bodyguards breaks down during the funeral. That said, this is a surface affair that often lets the peripheral life of its protagonist dominate the important nature of her work. MT

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | PANORAMA

 

 

 

Kamchatka Bears: Life Begins (2018) ****

Dir: Irina Zhuravleva, Vladislav Grishin | Writers: Dmitry and Igor Shpilenok | 52′ Doc, USSR

South Kamchatka Federal Sanctuary is often called bear paradise. This magnificent wild countryside lies on a peninsular to the far east of Russia on the Northern Pacific seabord. And this is where Irina Zhuravleva and Vladislav Grishin took their cameras to film the early years of life for a brown bear family.

Only the ambient sounds of the wild can be heard in this desolate but spectacular northern region where the newborn cubs’ early months play out. In this instance, the mother stayed with her cubs for three years, but often they have a much shorter time together. The directors seek out innovative camera angles, aerial shots and time lapse photography in their attempt to reveal the lives of their impressive animals and their exotic habitat . From flighting for territory and foraging for wild salmon in the lakes, to hunkering down in the closeness of their pack while foxes, and rabbits watch respectfully from a distance.

This is a far cry from Werner Herzog’s 2005 bear chronicle Grizzly Man that followed the tragic life of bear activist Timothy Treadwell and Arnie Huguenard who were killed by bears they had ‘befriended’ on the other side of the ocean in Alaska. Here the directors make no contact with the furry mammals, although their intimate close-ups certainly offer us a feeling of being apart of the wild bear pack through the spring, summer and the first snows of autumn.

Seven months in the making the extraordinary story unfolds as a meditative experience free of any commentary, bookended only by a brief introduction and epilogue accompanied by delicately drawn animations and an informative inter-titles outlining the tragic facts about bear survival. Pavel Doreuli studio’s sombre sound design accompanies this final act explaining that the main threat to Kamchatka’s wildlife is the change of habitat due to mining, construction of hydroelectric stations near the spawning streams and gas pipelines, a hazard of modern life and growing populations. The film very much connects with the narrative of disappearing animal communities all over the world. MT

RUSSIAN FILM WEEK | London 2019

You Think the Earth is a Dead Thing (2019) | IDFA 2019

Dir: Florence Lazar | Doc 61’

Parisian born filmmaker filmmaker Florence Lazar follows her award-winning documentary Kamen: The Stone (2014) with a revealing expose of one of the last vestiges of colonialism.

She discovers that the soil on the Caribbean island of Martinique is plagued by the monoculture of industrial banana plantations and poisoned by the use of the insecticide chlordecone. This is just one of the many far-reaching impacts of the slave trade on human history is on agriculture and horticulture. While the French plantation owners on the Caribbean island of Martinique had their gardens laid out in Versailles style, their enslaved workers continued their tradition of using medicinal wild herbs, which grew in hedges on the periphery of the “habitations.” The plants were known as rimèd razie, or “hedge remedies.”

Nowadays these herbs represent one of several resources through which the people of Martinique counter the health and ecological ravage caused by the use of pesticides on the banana plantations, which cover a quarter of the land.  . In line with natural resources and informed by centuries of tradition, generations of locals fight to resist pesticides and rebuild a sustainable relationship with their environment, while unearthing the pervasive and toxic legacy of colonialism.Another form of resistance is being led by farmers who are reclaiming uncultivated lands to grow indigenous vegetables, guided by expert local knowledge and without any industrial pesticides.

While pruning, chopping and harvesting the plants, local farmers explain, with extensive historic knowledge of the post-colonial era, how difficult it is to preserve biodiversity. These lively interviews alternate with more poetic and tranquil scenes of the island’s lush greenery, and of the cause of the problems: the dangling bunches of bananas, wrapped in plastic packaging. Once again plastic becomes the antihero of our contemporary world and the villain of this informative look at communities desperate to survive and flourish in the 21st century.

IDFA Competition for Mid-Length Documentary

INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL AMSTERDAM 2019

Heimat is a Space in Time | Heimat ist Ein Raum aus Zeit (2019) ****

Dir.: Thomas Heise, Documentary; Germany/Austria 2019, 218 min.

Writer/director Thomas Heise, born 1955 in —what was then East-Berlin — shares his personal history of his homeland  and Austria from 1912 to the present.

His distinctive voice shines  through as he digs into family archives, testimonials and remnants of the indescribable horrors and upheavals of 20thcentury Germany. This an epic work that serves a memorial to those who are no longer with us, and an opportunity for future generations to visit the grim past of the holocaust.

His narration is measured but engaging, and accompanied by extensive black-and-white travelling shots, showing the places of remembrance as they look today. There is something quietly contemplative about these sequences that explore trains, railways and stations, woods and lost places, almost like forgotten parts of a ghost town. Told in five chapters (with decreasing lengths) Heimat is extremely German in flavour, melancholic in tone and with a pedantic tendency for detail – hence the running time of nearly four (rewarding) hours.

Heimat starts in vibrant colour, then eschews it for good: the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood is shown as a taster for the family conflicts to come: the greedy wolf looking for his victims. The cut-outs in the wood ask questions: why did the mother send the little girl out into the dangerous woods?, and who is the good hunter who made rebirth possible. Here, as later, the camera shows people (and art-objets) from their feet travelling upwards, sometimes surprised that there is actually a head – one sculpture is even missing its cranium.

It all begins with a school essay by Heise’s grandfather Wilhelm, fourteen years old in 1912. He  he outs himself as a radical pacifist. He later climbs out of poverty into the safe middle-class position of teacher, but his marriage to Edith, a Jewish socialist from Vienna, brings him “Berufsverbot” under the Nazis. His early retirement at forty, seems to fly in the face of his letters claiming loyalty to the regime. Edith, a sculptor, would later find herself in a concentration camp, but this was nothing compared to the fate of the rest of her family in Vienna.

In letters to Berlin we learn how the family is forced from their generous flat, into a cramped  one room, with no coal to heat the freezing winter of 1941/42. A good day is when, “the postman does not bring the feared letter, stating that the family has to come to the “Sammelstelle”, where they are forced into wagons meant for animals, and deported to Poland, mainly Lodz. Edith’s father Max runs out of tobacco, also forbidden to Jews, and is forced to suck his pipe. When their long deported friends and neighbours, stop writing, Max and his family hope they are just too busy in Lodz. Heise reads these grim letters as the Vienna deportation lists appear before our eyes: in alphabetical order, the right-hand header stating the name of the extermination camp. Just reader these lists is sheer torture. And the trains, the ordinary ones, are still running all the time, before and after the name of the victims are unveiled.

Edith and Wilhelm saws their two sons deported: Wolfgang and his brother are sent to the Forced Labour Camp Zerbst, which looks today like a desolated airfield, a “Kulisse” for the DEFA-Documentaries of Thomas Heise, who all ended up in the “safety” of the archive. Then there is the decade-long letter exchange between a certain Udo, who lives in West-Germany, and tries to convince a certain Rosemarie Balker – he had kissed her twice before emigrating –  to join him in the West. Their exchange is illuminating: neither of them is convinced they are getting the ‘real deal’ in their different sides of Germany. Udo can see the footprints of all the high-ranking Nazis whereas Rosemarie (who would go on to be a Romance scholar and marry Thomas’ father Wolfgang, a lecturer of Philosophy) experiences the widening gulf between propaganda and reality in the GDR. Both parents became victims of the Stasi – even though Rosemarie had informed herself at the beginning – and they became friends with the playwright Heiner Müller, the writer Christa Wolff and the singer Wolf Biermann, one of Wolfgang’s students. With his father dead, and his mother dying, Thomas Heise now feels safest in the past.  

Heimat is a Space in Time is history, cultural and personal: when Marika Rökk sings a morale-boosting song during the first years of the war, we cannot get the Vienna deportation lists out of our heads. Despite its extensive running time, the documentary becomes compelling: we wants to read more letters, to learn more about what happened. The tragedy of the two Germanys in unification is clear for all to see: twins bound together, now forced to come to terms with their past. Heise’s intensity often belies the aesthetic form. And even though he denied in an interview that the film is his “Trauerarbeit”, it is exactly that. AS

NOW ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE | PREMIERED AT DOCLISBOA 2019 

    

Advocate (2018) **** UK Jewish Film Festival 2019

Dir.: Rachel Leah Jones, Philippe Bellaïche; Documentary with Lea Tsemel; Canada, Switzerland, Israel 2019, 110 min.

Advocate explores the work of Israeli defence lawyer Lea Tsemel, who defends Palestinians – suicide bombers as well as innocent clients – earning her the name “Devil’s Advocate” in her home country where the Law often stands alone in the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinians.

Born in 1945 in Haifa, Tsemel volunteered for the 1967 Six Day War and was one of the first Israeli women to visit the Western Wall. Somehow the conflict politicised her – she could not believe in the Government slogan ”War for Peace”. After studying law, she served as an apprentice to Human Right’s Lawyer Felicia Langer.

One of Tsemel’s first trials was the defence of Ahmed, a 13 year-old Palestinian boy in 1972.  Ahmed and his cousin Hassan were captured with knives and accused of an attempted suicide bombing, even though video evidence was to the contrary. Under Israeli Law, nobody under the age of fourteen can be prosecuted for a crime. But a sensationalist media called for the death penalty for Ahmed. As it is often the case when innocent Palestinians are involved, the Israeli prosecution went for a plea bargaining, and reached a guilty verdict in spite of the lack of evidence.

Tsemel’s next got her teeth into the case of Israa Jabis, a young Palestinian mother who was also accused of an attempted suicide bombing after her propane gas tank in the back of her car exploded. Although Israa was the only one injured, the case made legal history, making it illegal to use evidence from admissions gained under torture and duress at court. 

The directors use “Fly-on-the wall” techniques to show Tsemel working on two concurrent cases, one professional, the other personal – and it soon becomes clear that she is not an easy person to work for. The directors made fluent use of historical footage and TV appearances of Tsemel,  juxtaposing them with the here and now. But the application of Rotoscope and split-screens (to hide the identities of many involved), as well as the sparse use of music by Marcel Lepage, create a very unsettling atmosphere. Tsemel’s husband, Michel Warschawsky, a director of a Palestinian project, also becomes one of her clients after being arrested for his activities. Interviews with him and the couple’s son and daughter are illuminating. But Advocate would have been more convincing as a document had the filmmakers questioned Tsemel more insistently about her motives to defend violent perpetrators. Calling herself a “very angry, optimistic woman” and a “losing lawyer” she has the last word with her life’s motto “All I want is Palestinians to find justice in Israeli courts”. Tsemel has gone on to win  international Law awards in France and Germany, Tsemel’s is not as powerful in her homeland and is possibly should be. Advocate is certainly proof that truth is often the first victim during wartime. AS

WINNER BEST DOCUMETNARY | UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2019

KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | WINNER DOCUMENTARY AWARD.

 

 

Last Stop Coney Island | The Life and Photography of Harold Feinstein (2019) ****

Dir/DoP: Andy Dunn | UK, Doc 

“Let your photography be the way you discover this life and your own self” 

And so began the extraordinary life and times of artist and photographer Harold Feinstein who first picked picked up a Rolleiflex at the age of 15 and headed out to the carefree paradise of Coney Island where every class, race and creed was on parade; rather like Balzac’s Comedy Humaine. Apposite music choices makes this a superlative piece of cinema.

Feinstein just snapped away, often making friendships. A sympathetic and unassuming figure in the crowd, he somehow brought out the best in the most unlikely people because of his carefree chutzpah. But the real kicker in his career was a need to get away from his childhood. And this is best shown in his sensitive portraits of childhood suffering such as Girl on the Carousel, which he sold when he was just 17.

Andy Dunn’s freewheeling and highly enjoyable documentary explores this low profile maverick  whose talent seemingly knew no bounds. Described variously as a “a true master of composition, and an expert editor and printer,” Feinstein shied away from technical prowess and tried to show how easy it is to bring out beauty from the ugly and the strange.

His work had a narrative power and substance, but he never courted fame or commercialism – although it found him in his final years. Feinstein takes a gritty uneven environment and creates out of it some wonderful and tender moments, a master printer crafting pictures of deep dark rich tonalities. His focus was the way bodies moved together, simply hanging out in spontaneous moments.

So his camera became a magic carpet transporting him away from the pain of his upbringing in Brooklyn where he grew up in a large Jewish family, his meat trader father was a figure of fear and loathing. He joined Henri Cartier Bressan at the New York Photo collective that banded together from the mid 1930s to 1951. But the Korean War put paid to all this and in 1952 he was conscripted and shipped to the Far East where he used his camera a tell a behind the lines story of troops during leisure time, waiting around, relaxing and missing their loved ones. Unlike the combat photography of Eugene Smith – who he later joined up with to create the drawings for an extensive photo essay that eventually never got published – his subjects rarely carried weapons – he was a popular figure, even marrying a Korean girl, while he continued to serve in the infantry.  

Back in New York living was cheap in the 1950s. An exotic creativity filled the air and attracted an exotic mix of artists: Thelonius monk, Salvador Dali, The Lone Ranger. Anais Nin.  Feinstein found work in the Jazz world, creating covers for Blue Note records. It was here that he met Dottie Glen Goodson who was to be the mother of his son Gjon and daughter Robin. 

At a time when there was no real market for photography Feinstein could sell out a show. Highly protective of his material, he missed out on a massive commercial opportunity when MOMA chief Edward Steichen approached him to feature in the massive project that was Family of Man touring exhibition. Feinstein refrained from being a part of the collaboration, wanting control- but success didn’t evade him as British filmmaker Dunn shows in the final stretch of this fascinating and comprehensive documentary that covers all bases.  

But Feinstein simply didn’t want to be tied down artistically or personally, he was a true spiritual, continually re-inventing himself and moving on instinctively with his winning personality and highly appealing sense of humanity. 

After forming a family with Dottie, Feinstein left for Philadelphia where his discovering his real metier of teaching which nurtured him and gave so much to the photographers he went on to inspire. He discouraged them from getting caught up in the technical aspects of the craft, encouraging creativity in a way that was liberating and combustible for his students, often teaching while high on LSD and mescaline and lots of drink. “Be creative with your life,” was the message he gave his students. Yet it was through his exploration of Digital technology that Feinstein made his commercial mark, firstly through an innovative take on flower photography that led to a lucrative book format. And this eventually enabled him to reintroduce his early work  which eventually got published in coffee table editions.

Not so successful at fatherhood and responsibility, Feinstein kept his dark side very hidden, but the many friends and associates who join in to extol his sympathetic personality and appeal are testament to his empathy as an artist. Some add nothing and are not as interesting as they think they are, actually detracting from the biopic’s laudable strength as a document to one of the most remarkable and worthwhile characters in the history of photography and printing. MT

SCREENING DURING UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2019

 

 

 

 

 

Chichinette: How I Accidentally Became a Spy (2019) **** UK Jewish Film Festival

Dir: Nicola Hans | Doc 86′

“Always be alert, and don’t accept orders you can’t follow with an open heart” That’s the message a one time spy offers to young people today. 

Marthe Cohn, aka Chichinette,  who wrote bestseller Behind Enemy Lines, and now travels extensively to talk about her clandestine wartime experiences, is a tiny chic blond woman with a white crop of hair, blue eyes, and a ready smile: No one would believe she was once an underground agent against the Nazis. Or that she is now nearly 100. 

Nicola Hen’s lively, part-animated documentary plays out like a travelogue, full of enjoyable anecdotes from the vivacious one time secret agent who is once again packing her case in California for a trip to Paris with her husband Major Cohn. French born and bred, she nevertheless claims to have felt ‘very German’ during the Second World War when she lived as a 19 year old with her family in Nazi occupied Western France. 

Born Marthe Hoffnung in 1920 Metz, where he father was a rabbi, Marthe spent an agreeable childhood with her brothers and sisters in a decent home. She preferred to read books rather than study and learned Hebrew but couldn’t speak it. But she had to speak German when, at the outbreak of war in 1939, the family moved to Poitiers which was annexed to the Germans. 

Marthe set up a shop with her sister, and soon met non-Jewish Jacques Delaunay on the dance floor of the local social club – a happy scene animated with music. As they danced, they decided to get married and planned to move to Vietnam to work in a hospital. But life was soon to get far more serious. The Germans demanded a curfew at 9pm, and Jews were forced to wear the Yellow Star. One day in 1942 an official arrived at the family home and took away Marthe’s older sister Stephanie: She had accidentally signed her real name on a letter, and was sent to a camp near Poitiers. The family tried to help her escape, but Stephanie refused to let them compromise their own security at a time when 25,000 francs was the reward for denouncing a Jewish family.  She was later sent to Auschwitz, and the whole family moved on again to Marseilles where Marthe became a nurse, and, on passing her exams, to Paris where she lived with her sister, managing to meet up with Jacques, who died soon after.  

But life went on for Marthe. In 1944 the Allies liberated Paris, but the Germans were still fighting for Alsace Lorraine. So Marthe enlisted in the Intelligence Service of the French 1st Army (the French Resistance) and her boss sent her to work in Germany via Switzerland with the new name of Marta Ulrich. After 14 unsuccessful attempts to cross the border at Alsace, she eventually managed to cross the border near Shaffhausen in Switzerland, creeping back and forth to relay intelligence. Her major achievement was to report that the impenetrable Siegfried Line (a defensive Western border built during the 193os) had been subjected to a large scale Allied offensive where the remnant of the German Army where hunkering down in the Black Forest.

Hens echoes the unsettling tone of Marthe’s undercover forays with a convincing technique of posting black ghostly figures moving against the forested landscape of Germany and Switzerland,. Her dangerous journeys were all made on foot from Freiburg – which was being bombed by allied forces at the time. Marthe was awarded medals for her courage – but all she had really wanted was a bicycle: the gruelling trip backwards and forwards was extremely arduous on foot. 

In 1945 allied troops marched in South West Germany. And after hostilities ceased, Marthe did eventually make it to Vietnam in 1946 where she soon met the dashing Maj, an anaesthetist. And the rest is history. For her efforts and bravery Marthe got the Medaille Militaire in 1999. She had spent the early years of her marriage supporting Maj in his work. Their roles are now reversed, and Marthe is top dog, with Maj following dutifully with the luggage. MT

UK Jewish FILM FESTIVAL 2019

The Amber Light (2019) ****

Dir: Adam Park | Wri: David Broom | UK Doc 93′

Following on from Scotch: The Golden Dram (2018) comes this voluble road trip documentary that explores the impact of Scotland’s best known liquor on the lesser known parts of the country’s cultural identity and history. The Amber Light certainly loosens the tongues of a range of personalities from the world of art, music, literature and food. In his feature debut, Adam Park also focuses on the unsung role of women in distilling and blending over the centuries, the influence of alchemists, medicine men and botanists, and the evolution of spirits from medicine to social lubricants.

And when musicians are not on screen, the film’s writer David Broom adopts a voluble conversation style in talking us through the history of the spirit, explaining how whisky suddenly became more than a drink made in a distillery for him, providing a creative impulse for him to explore the culture surrounding it. DoP Dan Dennison has an ingenious way of filming interweaving interviews with live footage of Scotland that suddenly break into delicately rendered amber coloured animations.  The film also looks at the temperance movement, smugglers, Dante’s Inferno, and the use of unexpected ingredients in whisky’s development, such as saffron.

Music is also an important part of Gaelic culture and the rhythms of whisky-making inspired many ballads, such as “Blond Haired Boy” referring to the spirit itself. The film’s score also features a selection of Scottish musicians and singers to feature music from including King Creosote, Alasdair Roberts, James Yorkston, Rachel Newton (plus more to be announced) as well as Avante-Garde noisemakers and poetry collective Neu Reekie.

Dave Broom, who has been writing about spirits for 25 years and he is the main influence behind this informative whisky travelogue that travels the length and breadth of Scotland, talking to key innovators and thinkers in the whisky world – farmers, distillers, bar owners and historians – as well as people less directly involved: musicians, artists and writers, including Scottish novelists and “king of the Tartan Noir” Ian Rankin is almost an ambassador for the golden dram and he certainly who waxes lyrical about how wishy brings out the “darkness in the Scottish soul”, born of the long nights that encourage brooding, bringing out the worst in people: “Not everyone can handle it”. This offers an musical opportunity for a rendering of the sinister ballad: “Jonny My Man”  Musicians Alasdair Roberts, James Yorkston perform live on screen.

Whisky is a particularly socially cohesive dram: it has provided an opportunity to open a conversation with a perfect stranger. Once the amber nectar is poured into a glass, introductions can begin and very soon the dialogue flows, and friendships are forged. Made on a shoestring, and none the worse for it: David Broom raised the lion’s share of the film’s finance from crowd-funding. MT

ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 22 November, paired with Director Q&As and whisky tasting opportunities at several sites across London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cambridge, Dublin and more—all through DECEMBER 2019

https://youtu.be/fhJ16fo3hCc

 

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019) ***

Director: Ben Berman | US Doc, 91′

First time documentarian Ben Berman blurs the line between reality and fantasy in this often bizarre bag of tricks that follows the final tour of Magic-comedy star The Amazing Johnathan.

Most of us have never heard of The Amazing Johnathan aka John Edward Szeles (b.1958). But to Americans he is a well-known stand-up comedian whose Las Vegas career spanned nearly thirteen years. So it really deserved better than this half-baked treatment showing that Berman didn’t really do his homework before embarking on the endeavour. Nevertheless it raises the odd chuckle and gasp along the way.

A committed cocaine-user, Johnathan’s schtick was the standard stuff that went down well with a mainstream crowd of adults and kids alike: he would pretend to saw off arms and legs; or indulge in card tricks. He was then diagnosed with a heart complaint and that he only had a year left to live. As it happens, it’s only a chronic condition known as cardiomyopathy. And the film begins in the third year of his survival, when he and his wife Anastasia Synn are enjoying a relaxed retirement, so much so that Szeles decides to stage a come-back in the shape of a “farewell tour”.

As his profession would suggest, Szeles is a bit of a maverick whose quirkiness puts a surprise spanner in the works of Berman’s filming schedule which goes decidedly pear-shaped, questioning his ability to go forward given the increasingly bizarre behaviour of his subject, and also reflecting back on his own lack of experience and naivety when dealing with the ambiguities of the human condition – but also of commercial life.

Berman relies on talking head interviews (Eric Andre, Judy Gold, “Weird Al” Yankovic) who sing the praises of the magic man. He also wheels in some of his own family and friends to bolster his own credibility. What emerges is rather silly at best but also holds a certain value entertainment wise in this bonkers but bookable biopic. MT

Louis Theroux will host a special Q&A screening of the film on 19 November, to be simulcast nationwide across the UK. https://www.tajdfilm.co.uk/

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 19 NOVEMBER 2019

 

 

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (2019) PÖFF

Tallinn Black Nights runs from the 15 November until 1 December 2019 offering an extended celebration of international films. For the second year running the festival will also showcase the latest in Baltic cinema with a special sidebar dedicated to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The idea is to offer industry professionals and film critics a wider experience and offer the festival audience a taste of local talent.

Tom Sullivan’s Arracht (Monster) is told in Gaelic and set in Ireland in 1845 where a small community fisherman is persuaded to offer board to a sinister stranger. Another world premiere is German filmmaker Hüseyin Tabak’s Hamburg set Gypsy Queen, Konstantin Lopushansky’s Through Black Glass and Narges Abyar’s When The Moon Was Full.

ESTONIA

After her success with Come Back Free, documentary filmmaker Ksenia Okhapkina won this year’s Grand Prix at Karlovy Vary with Immortal exploring a Russian social mechanism that feels a lot like the political systems of the last century.

Manfred Vainokivi presents his latest documentary biography In Bed With A Writer, a portrait of the controversial and newly divorced Estonian writer Peeter Sauter. We follow Sauter in Estonia’s art and underground scene as he shares his thoughts on women, sex and ageing.

In a small Estonian town largely inhabited by ethnic minorities, Vladimir Loginov’s second documentary Prazdnik explores the age old phenomenon of the beauty pageant and whether they still have a place in modern society.   .

Having travelled the globe with his debut In the Crosswind, Martti Helde returns with Scandinavian Silence, a thriller that makes use of an unusual narrative device: the tale of a man reunited with his sister having spent years in jail.

One of the biggest box office hits in the country’s history, Tanel Toom’s literary based feature debut Truth and Justice follows the decade-spanning feud of two neighbours during the second half of the 19th century. Toom previously won the Student Academy Award with his short film The Confession.

Hot from a successful run at the Estonian box office, the comedic depiction of the global and local startup culture, Chasing Unicorns, is start-up entrepreneur Rain Rannu’s sophomore feature.

LATVIA

A culmination of one artist’s creative journey that lasted 3,5 years, Away is a fantasy animation directed, animated and composed by Gints Zilbalodis.

Chronicling the tumultuous times in Post-Soviet Latvia, Jānis Ābele’s feature film Jelgava 94 shines a light on the period where teenagers were obsessed with heavy metal.

Juris Kursietis’ second feature Oleg premiered at Quinzaine des Realiseteurs during this year’s Cannes. It’s a gritty tale of Latvian migrant workers searching for a better life in Belgium, not always on the right side of the law.

The life cycle of the Spoon in the globalised economy is Laila Pakalnina’s documentary follow up to her award-winning drama Ausma (2015) that won Jury Prize Best Cinematographer for DoP Anrijs Krenbergs.

LITHUANIA

Taxidermy, deer-farming and museum curatorship are the focus of this fascinating documentary from Aistė Žegulytė. Animus Animalis, guides us around a bizarre world where reality and artificiality blur.

Meanwhile, Ignas Jonynas’ second film Invisible presents the story of a former dancer Jonas pretending to be blind to enter a TV dance competition, as an intimate and emotional relationship builds between him and his dancing partner. He soon reconnects with the past and a dark secret.

Tomas Vengris’ debut Motherland revisits the year 1992 in a Lithuania, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a single mother and her 12-year-old return to Lithuania, after a long stay in the US, to claim the property that was taken from the woman’s parents when they were sent to labour camps decades ago.

The late 1930s is the setting for Karolis Kaupinis’ historic drama Nova Lithuania where in 1938 the young Lithuanian state celebrated twenty years of independence. Meanwhile situation in Europe is becoming increasingly tense so geographer Feliksas Gruodis sets about raising finance for his novel solution to creating a “backup Lithuania” overseas, where the country’s inhabitants could move in case the whole scenario goes pear-shaped.

Legendary director Algimantas Puipa presents The Other Side of Silence, a tale inspired by the book Bumblebee Honey by Swedish writer Torgny Lindgren. It sees   two brothers living in the same village, on the same lake, by the same forest, but sharing a mutual hatred sparked by their love of the same woman.

The 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival runs from the 15th of November until the 1st of December.

 

2040 (2019) ***

Dir: Damian Gameau | Doc, Australia 92′

In his well-intentioned eco documentary Australian filmmaker Damon Gameau puts a positive spin on climate change by exploring ways to avoid the meltdown of our planet. With his 21st birthday of his our-year-old daughter in mind, he envisages a sustainable way to retain world resources and preserve our oceans, forests and fauna.

This fast moving doc certainly looks spectacular but often plays out like a glossy advertisement for a future utopia. Gameau combines the usual expert talking heads approach – anthropology professor Geraldine Bell and economist Dr Kate Raworth adding grist and insight – with a series of comic vignettes, info-graphics and glossy widescreen images of how the future could look if we stop destroying the planet and lived sustainably.

It may well be a romantic vision but Gameau has invested time and energy in his investigation which is both informative and laudable, aimed at an audience of young people, but also suitable for adults. Gameau lays out his ideas and information in a concise and cohesive way despite occasionally coming across as over-excited. His narration also puts a saccharine spin on proceedings with his use of phrases such as “my excellent wife”. 2040 eschews a formal three act narrative, opting instead for an episodic full-on approach overlaid by an overbearing score, making this feel like an agitprop.

That said, the ideas he explores are refreshing and grounded in reality. Some of the eco-friendly scientific developments Gameau looks at are still in their infancy. He visits Bangladesh where one man has divised a brilliant method of harnessing and sharing energy from the power of the sun. Meanwhile in Australia a visionary farmer is re-educating other food providers in the ways of soil regeneration that are quite literally ground-breaking. Most of these take the focus away from animal protein in favour of vegetarianism as a way of food for the world’s growing population. He also looks at electric self-driving cars in Singapore, and way of avoiding ocean acidification that are being explored in the waters off the US East Coast.

But a strand about the urgent need to empower and educate women globally feels flimsy and out of context in a doc dedicated to climate change. Gameau’s relentless energy and constant bonhomie lacks detachment occasionally becoming irritating. This is not helped by a manic intrusive score that interferes with our ability to calmly process the importance of the points he is making. And the comic interludes projecting himself – with a grey thatch of hair – into the future are faintly ridiculous, as are the trite Vox pops of kids talking about their own private utopias. MT

IN CINEMAS FROM 16 NOVEMBER 2019

 

Russian Film Week 2019

The fourth annual Russian Film Week is back at various major venues in London from November 24 to December 1, 2019 

The eight-day festival brings the latest Russian films to London with the aim of providing a varied picture of Russian culture across this enormous nation. This year’s programme showcases a glittering array of thirty seven features and 18 shorts including several documentaries. The celebration culminates in the Golden Unicorn Awards.

The newly refurbished Odeon Luxe Leicester Square will host the world premiere of Klim Shipenko’s comedy The Peasant. It sees a modern young Moscovite being sent to a ‘boot camp’ of sorts, where he is forced to live according to the peasant traditions of the 19th century.  

Woman’s Day is one of several female-directed features in this year’s line-up. Dolya Gavanski’s feature debut shares experiences from women in the USSR who reveal their lives from the 1917 revolution to the present day. Intimate, surprising, funny, eccentric, painful and contradictory – this is the unknown history of Russian feminism. Based on the filmmaker’s own extensive research, the film focuses on rare archive footage of women experiencing at first hand the siege of Leningrad in subzero temperatures, living in communal flats, smuggling forbidden literature, flying into Space, performing the perfect Soviet ballet pirouette or even giving a new name to a husband, not to mention the political and cultural complexities. These women were brought up in a culture that had officially proclaimed women equal to men. They were told they could achieve it all. So what was their reality?

Russian filmmaker Eva Bass makes her feature debut with an impressive drama Kettle that contemplates freewill in the face of desperate circumstances. In Moscow, twenty five year old Savva is a misfit and intellectual, bored with his life running a computer club called ‘The Kettle’.  Savva’s existential crisis deepens after his old friend Roman commits suicide. Bass directs with confidence in this inquiring drama written by Nikita Kasimtsev.

Irina Zhuravleva and Vladislav Grishin have developed a meditative approach to studying the lives of bears in the South Kamchatka Federal Sanctuary. In Kamchatka Bears: Life Begins, music, ambient sounds and the absence of a human voices makes this a chance to experience nature at its purest form.

Meanwhile, war is experienced at first hand in Andrey Volgin’s gripping action drama The Balkan Line. Set in Yugoslavia, 1999, a young commander is tasked to take control of the Slatina airport in Kosovo and hold it until the arrival of the reinforcements discovers his girlfriend is among the hostages at the airport.

Critically acclaimed Uzbek filmmaker Yusup Razykov won the FIPRESCI award at Karlovy Vary several years ago for Shame his claustrophobic drama about an isolated community of women. This year the Russian Critics’ Circle awarded his a gong for his drama Kerosin. His second film this year is Sabre Dance a wartime drama set in the city of Molotov in 1942 where the Leningrad Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (after Kirov) has been evacuated during the stressful preparations for the premiere of the Gayane ballet. The world of a theatre in evacuation is mysterious and rather cold. The privations of war give rise to half-starved ballerinas, corps de ballet members, who turn into “Pink Ladies” on stage along with performances in hospitals, defence factories and endless rehearsals. Final efforts to create Gayane coincide with the creation of the first tact of the 2nd symphony, often overlapping. Meanwhile, in 8 hours, Khachaturian dashes off his most performed creation.

Great Poetry is a portrait of loneliness, friendship and betrayal that sees two  men clinging together for survival as cash collectors in the outskirts of Moscow where their time is spent moving money for other people and gaming on cockfights at a dorm of migrant workers. Dreaming of a better future, they enrol on a poetry class but sadly find it easier to make a living as petty criminals in this wistful reflection on 19th ideals. Aleksandr Kutznetsov was awarded Best Actor or his performance in the film that also won Lungin Best Director at this year’s Sochi Russian Open Film Festival 

Although Yury Bykov’s The Factory is firmly set in the world of Russian capitalism, it harks back to the glory of the revolution. Many of the workers in a remote industrial factory have been employed there before the change from state regulation to capitalist privatisation. So when owner Kalugin, a well-connected local oligarch, announces the redundancy, a group of workers who haven’t been paid for months kidnap him for a ransom. Led by the mysterious Alexei whose motives are far from clear, the heist doesn’t end well. Kalugin’s private security guards and a police SWAT team quickly have the building surrounded and the comrades are forced to experience the coal face of their so-called camaraderie.

Alexander Zolotukhin’s elegiac portrait of a young Russian soldier pieces together the early days of the The First World War when tragedy strikes even before glory is allowed to show its face. Three decades later, at the beginning of the Second World War, Rachmaninoff will create “Symphonic dances” op.45, an even more grand and vigorous work which was also his swansong. A tender tragedy suffused with courage and melancholy.

Russian Film Week and The Golden Unicorn Awards was founded in 2016 by Filip Perkon (Perkon Productions Ltd.). The festival is supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture.

https://youtu.be/D-Rt3ENvVLo

 

Golda (2019) ****

Dir.: Sagi Borenstein, Udi Nir, Shani Rozanes; Documentary with Golda Meir, Uri Avneri, Zivi Zamir; Israel, Germany 2019, 85 min.

This new biopic on Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir is based on a recently discovered interview from 1978, done just before her death. It tells the important story of her time in office – from her surprising rise to power to her lonely demise. And although the Israeli State TV channel  and the interviewee maintain this meeting was “off-record”, both parties must have been aware that the recording equipment was working.

The trio of directors – Borenstein, Nir and Rozanes (Uploading_Holocaust) – have decided to play it fair and let Zivi Zamir, ex-boss of the Mossad, do a hagiography of Meir. But the former MP and peace activist Uri Avneri can barely hide his contempt for the ex-premier.

Born in 1898 in Kiev (then the Russian Empire) Golda Mabovitch emigrated with her family to Milwaukee in the USA at the age of 8, before settling with her husband in Palestine, a British Protectorate, in 1921. She joined the Hisdadrut, a union movement, before making a quick career in Mpai (later the Labour Party), serving as a Minister for Labour (1949-1956) and Foreign Secretary (1956-1966), before becoming Prime Minister in 1969, beating rivals generals Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin. Her premiership coincides with the mass immigration of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East. Meir, an Ashkenazi Jew, could not relate to the culture of these new citizens, the latter founding the “Black Panthers”, that rose up against the lack of opportunities in Israel and were unable to establish any common ground during their meeting with the premier. Avneri complains about Meir’s lack of understanding of anything Arab, he nearly goes so far as calling her a racist. On the other hand, Zamir is full of praise for Meir, particularly for letting him and his Mossad organisation off the leash, in hunting down the “Black September” cell responsible for the murder of Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 signalled the end of Meir’s political career. She had been seen as “The Mother of the Nation” but 3000 dead soldiers were too much for a public who could only contemplate glorious victory on the battle field. Although Dayan and the other generals had played down any threat of an attack, Meir was more tuned in to an impending disaster. And she turned out to be the main culprit. With her health deteriorating – one photo shows her having chemotherapy whilst still smoking – she eventually threw in the towel in 1974.

Golda Meir is somehow symbolic of the trouble Israel finds itself in today. With Avneri rightfully criticising her policy of opening up the building of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Meir was one of many politicians who made it now near-impossible for a two state solution to be found. And when president Anwar Sadat of Egypt offered her peace talks in 1971, she refused. Worse, when Premier Menachem Begin invited Sadat to Israel in 1977, which amounted to a de-facto recognition of Israel by an Arab state, Meir was cynical: she told journalists that Begin and Sadat deserved the Oscar – not the Nobel Peace Price for their Camp David accord. Golda Meir was a strong woman in a man’s world – no doubt about it – but she shared a long-time strategy which relied only on continuous war with most of her male competitors.

Borenstein completes his engaging portrait of one of the first woman PMs ever with archive footage and photos. Eitan Hatuka’s pertinent images reveal the truth behind Avneri and Zamir’s body language,  Thankfully, the directors leave the audience to make their own judgement. AS

GOLDA 

 

                 

  

Meeting Gorbachev (2018) ***

Dir: Werner Herzog, Andre Singer | Wri/Narr: Werner Herzog | 96′

The thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall also marks the UK release of a new film that gets close up and personal with the former Russian leader who helped end the Cold War.

Award-winning Russian filmmaker Vitaly Manskiy’s made for TV doc Gorbachev. After Empire (2001) put the spotlight Gorbachev during a year in Russian politics but this a more intensive, face to face affair.

Werner Herzog is a seasoned documentarian, with nearly 50 year’s experience in the form. But for some reason here he comes over all smily and deferential, unable to maintain a distance from the admittedly affable former head of the Soviet Union. The two clearly hit it off and even share the odd joke.

Meeting Gorbachev consists of a series of interviews with Gorbachev, now 88, who considers his career with considerable regret despite his numerous achievements. Born in 1931 into poverty in Privolnoye, a remote village in the ‘middle of nowhere’ according to Herzog’s narration, he was brought up largely by his grandparents, his father being away at the War. Later Gorbachev remembers his  father saying: “Fight til the fight goes out of you, that’s the way to live”. And it’s certainly a maxim that has served the leader well as he reflects over the past and his legacy as the last Communist head.

Herzog opens up the archives with a brief history of earlier Russian leaders – and the footage here is quite gruesome – featuring the state funerals of Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov who peek out from their red-dressed caskets as Chopin’s sombre classic march plays on. Eventually Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985, one of the youngest leaders, and brought about a remarkable feat considering our own Brexit intransigence: the Cold War ended as a direct results of his reforms. This victory set the stage for a slew of Eastern Bloc countries finally to gain independence, with Germany coming together in 1990. Gorbachev also worked closely with Ronald Reagan to reduce nuclear armaments that had caused the parlous environmental disaster of Chernobyl.

Gorbachev also shares with Herzog the continuing pain of his personal life: a happy marriage to his college sweetheart Raisa that ended in her death at only 45 from leukaemia. By the same turn, colleagues talk almost fondly of the contribution Gorbachev has made during his career. George Shultz, Reagan’s secretary of state, remarks on his negotiating skills and his strength of purpose. Margaret Thatcher discusses their respect for one another, despite their polarised political positions. Horst Teltschik, national security advisor to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, also comments on Gorbachev’s many achievements.

But a great deal of Gorbachev’s democratic measures have now been swept under the carpet by a more authoritarian leader in the shape of Vladimir Putin, who is seen briefly giving his condolences at Raisa’s funeral. It is not discussed whether the two leaders see eye to eye, and clearly Putin has a major task on his hands in trying to restore Russia’s ‘Soviet glory’.

Although the documentary is mildly hagiographic in flavour, by the end we start to feel a certain sympathy for this warm-hearted and hard-working man who clearly did his best to improve the lives of ordinary Russians with his well-thought-out reforms, which now appear to have gone by the wayside. It seems the modern world is gradually moving back to the past in many countries. Sadly progress can often be derailed. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 8 NOVEMBER 2019

https://youtu.be/zbfVFpgCeqc

 

The Forum (2019) *** DOK Leipzig 2019

Dir.: Marcus Vetter; Documentary; Germany/Switzerland 2019, 116 min.

DOK Leipzig opens with this fly on the wall look at the the World Economic Forum, a not-for-profit organisation that takes place in Davos aiming to improve the state of the world through dialogue between leaders across all areas of society. The film centres on Klaus Schwab, the 81-year-old founder of this get together. 

German filmmaker Marcus Vetter follows Schwab annual world get together is dealing with burning issues such as climate change, Brexit, the  ‘gilets jaunes’ protests in Paris, and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest among others. Trying to get inside so-called clandestine meetings, And while we learn a great deal, Schwab actually seems ambivalent about the merits of these secret get-togethers of the world’s elite – and for good reason. 

The Forum is intended to redress the imbalance between rich and poor, but history tells us that during the 50 years of the WEF’s existence, the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown exponentially – the middle classes, once the heartbeat of any society, are being slowly eroded.

Vetter sees the annual Davos meetings in a critical light, although Schwab claims he has always invited candidates seeking to question the way things are run by politicians and business leaders. There have been cancellations in the past by the self-acclaimed elite: a case in point was when Schwab invited a Brazilian Catholic leader, whose opinion were very left-wing. And while we watch Donald Trump being fawned over at the 2018 meeting, Greta Thurnberg and Jennifer Morgan of Greenpeace have much to say. The rainforest discussion between the Al Gore and the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro must also have been worthwhile.

Vetter obviously likes Schwab but he maintains his detached approach: “I believe he has achieved a lot, but that does not mean the meetings are not questionable affairs”. What is most interesting is the role of the invited CEOs. Discussed issues involving imported cotton, they dictate the terms and the many head of states concur. It is clear who is in charge and who is simply the executor of big business. The protests against climate change, Brexit and the rise of populists all over the world are directed against the current head of states, but it would be much more honest and efficient to discuss these burning issues with the CEO instead of the politicians. They can hardly be more intransigent than Donald Trump.

DoP Georg Zengerling’s images of Davos feel like a parody; the head of states arriving in their helicopters; the security details – like something out of a James Bond movie. And the small talk of the self-styled elite is no more lofty than that of a group of provincial business men. Clearly, this is not the tenor of a debate Schwab might have had in mind fifty years ago when he dreamt about how to discuss future problems and reflect; it is just an opportunity for big business, to cultivate new contacts and deals, whilst the politicians look on, waiting to be replaced without any one noticing. AS

DOK LEIPZIG DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL 2019

Campo (2018) ***

Dir: Tiago Hespanha | Doc, Portugal 106′

At first a vast expanse of verdant pasture seems a bucolic paradise buzzing with bees, grazing sheep and deer. But appearances can be deceptive. Only a handful of people live here under strictly controlled conditions – for reasons that soon become obvious. At first Bees go on making honey and the lambing season also seems oblivious to the combative nature surrounding them. This is Alcochete, home to Europe’s largest military base, on the outskirts of Lisbon.

Clearly this place is not the rural idyll it appears to be. Quite to the contrary. Soldiers are  preparing for active combat:Bombs explode, shots ring out across the fields, and troops undergo mock incursions, often with fake blood. And their impact on the local environment gradually starts to take hold. Bees are dying, not in their hives, but because they cannot get back to them. Something in the atmosphere is adversely affecting their ability to navigate. Ironically, scientists have finding a way to create man-made bees who are capable of joining the war effort, and being used in combat missions. At the same time, a sheep is found dying, unable to give birth to her stillborn lamb. This is also seems counterintuitive to what nature originally intended when the gods looks down from the starry obsidian skies and created humanity in all its entirety.

Bringing his architectural sense of framing, lighting and visual awareness,  Hespanha directs a documentary feature with thematic concerns that feel atavistic yet totally contemporary in exploring the origins of the word ‘campo’. Often abstract and abstruse, Campo is nevertheless a spell-binding and often mundane film that contemplates the transcendental wonder of the universe and nature while also considering the baseness of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow man. Etymologically speaking ‘Campo’ is both a simple field (in Italian) and a perilous battlefield: the Campus Martius was an area of Rome dedicated to Mars, the God of War, who was parodoxically also the patron of agriculture. So this natural breeding ground where flora and fauna innocently thrive and procreate is also a place of warfare and death. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 1ST NOVEMBER 2019 |  PREMIERE Cinéma du Réel 15 – 24 MARCH 2019 | PARIS.

RoboLove (2019) **** DOK Leipzig 2019

Dir.: Maria Arlamovsky; Documentary with Hiroshi Ishiguro, June Korea, Matt McMullen, Ulises Cortes; Austria 2019, 79min.

Robots are the future. And according to a new documentary from Austria we should be very concerned. Humanoid robots, androids, and sex robots have always aroused our curiosity, they also awaken in us a very-human fantasy about power. RoboLove shows how robots reflect more about us than their AI creators would perhaps care to admit.

In her follow-up to Future Baby, Arlamovsky – who also co-wrote Abendland with Nikolaus Geyrhalter embarks on a provocative study of the emerging and often surprising issues concerning morality, humanity, diversity and identity, as society progresses en-masse into unchartered technological territory. With robots increasingly entering our private lives, the film gently probes the issues at the cusp of a new-age of servitude.

The Austrian director has interviewed AI designers all over the world and has made a one crucial discovery: the naivety of those designing your future helpmate – or lover – is astonishing.

RoboLove opens with an candid interview with Dinah, a female android whose most important feature is her smile. Dinah can hold an intellectual conversation, and she is proud to be a robot. Then we watch an ‘upper torso’ called Harmony in verbal debate with to her designer. Harmony can argue, and is in no doubt about her role: “I was crated to please you.”

Meanwhile the AI designers are also clear about their aims. Ulises Cortes considers robots as consumer products, like coke or coffee. He also hopes that in future they will not only be a commodity, but will support lonely old people left alone who have been abandoned by their younger relatives. The intention is for them to become emotional companions. Another AI designer, Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, has dreamed all her life of having a perfect assistant and hopes that AIs will care for her in her old age.

For Matt McMullen, his female androids are not only sex-objects, but actually active in other areas of his life. Arlamovsky posits the theory about cyberspace being a female friendly space in the future. But the feminists have got it wrong: cyberspace is a battlefield of the sexes, mainly because men have greater purchasing power, and so most of robots look like young, slender white females, who never age. This is the only range McMullen and others are intending to develop.

Other AI researchers are talking about the danger of kids getting too attached to their their robots. The idea therefore is to develop special AIs specifically for children, and investing in zoomorphic research to create AI animals. Another designer, who as a child cherished the idea everybody would live forever, and nobody would leave him, is making a range of robots who can talk about their favourite memories, and are clearly products of a childhood trauma, when relatives and friends died.

Designer June Korea makes it clear that in about hundred years, the first humans will live for an eternity, having profited from AI. There are some weird scenes, when Hiroshi Ishiguro watches his AI creation stroking a leaf, or playing his guitar, with his head in the lap of the AI. But basically, most researchers and designers support the general consensus that humans are merging into AIs. “Take the technology away from humans, and we are only apes. By technology, I mean robots, so the differentiation between robots and humans is absolute nonsense. 80% to 90% of our lives is based on technology. But even if our human organs were replaced by technology, we would still be human. The scary thing is that AIs are getting more and more on par with humans. 

But Arlamovsky’s most frightening discovery of all is that the huge majority of AI designers are not aware that humans are not just the sum of their emotional experiences, but the victims of an ongoing internal battle, which is conflict inherent, and heading for the destruction of this planet. How to merge the majority of humans with suicidal tendencies with the products of logic dominated AIs has never been even contemplated. RoboLove, with its stunning images by Sebastian Arlamovsky, is a frightening documentary: do we really want our future in the hands of these technocratic scientists, who at best will replicate the contradictions of human life today?. AS

62nd DOK LEIPZIG FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 28 October – 3 November 2019

                                          

 

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2018) ****

Dir.: Midge Costin; Documentary with Walter Murch, Ben Burtt, Gary Rydstrom, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Sofia Coppola, David Lynch, Barbara Streisand, Ang Lee; USA 2019, 94 min.

Sound designer Midge Costin (Armageddon, Crimson Tide) is well placed to tell the history of cinema sound in her first outing as a feature length documentarian. In telling this engrossing story she is ably assisted by sound pioneers such as Ben Burtt and Gary Rydstrom. But it was Walter Murch who coined the title Sound Designer during his work on Apocalypse Now, sexing up the more mundane role of Sound Editor.

Costin makes the crucial point that the movies were never silent: live orchestras, off-stage voice actors and travelling bands for sound effects were very common in the first decade of cinema. And when Al Jolson spoke and sang in The Jazz Singer (1927), it was his spoken words and not not the songs which impressed the public most. Orson Welles used the technique of his radio play War of the Worlds to excellent effect in Citizen Kane. King Kong (1933) was instrumental in implementing further progress: sound designer Murray Spivak was responsible for using recordings of zoo animals and some extra curricula sounds to make the predators even more frightening.

Much later, in 1986 Top Gun’s sound designer Cece Hall also thought that the original noises of jet engines were much too “wimpy”, and cooked up some more extreme sounds. The 70s saw sound innovations with George Martin’s avant-garde approach to The Beatles’ films. But it all changed with Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse now, when sound designer Murch invented a sound system, which is still the norm today. Up to then, in spite of all innovations, there was only one loudspeaker behind the screen, Murch trumped this with six, creating a stereo sound, which is today known as Dolby Surround. One surprising sound pioneer is Barbara Streisand, who convinced director William Wyler to use on-set music recordings for Funny Girl (1968) and A Star is Born (1976). She even invested one million Dollar of her own money, but Columbia was so nice not to take her by her word. In Coppola’s The Godfather (ten directors had rejected the project, which would save Zoetrope Studio), Murch used a subjective audio in the scene, when Michael Corleone murders Sollozzo and McCluskey. He took the audience into the head of Michael, and let them listen to the neurons in the Mafiosi’s head, who are on fire during the murder. George Lucas becomes an admiring teenager again, when he talks about the creation of Chewbacca’s voice. Ben Burrt could not find any sound he needed in real animals, and let his team whack a power line with a wrench, in order to create the sound of a blaster. Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg was another example of Rydstrom’s genius. After the troops land on Omaha beach, the bullets and shrapnel’s create a cacophony of noise, but most traumatic is a sudden silence, which shows the traumatic experience of Ryan. Apart from being extremely informative, Costin’sapproach is not without emotion: she still suffers from the neglect of her craft, which has been a step-child of the industry, which is dominated by directors, stars and and, very rarely, directors of photography. Her highlight reel is proof her profession has much more to offer than just creating a mood with background noises. AS

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM FRIDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2019

Leonardo: The Works (2019) ****

Dir: Phil Grabsky | UK Doc, Biopic 100′

Leonardo da Vinci is arguably the world’s favourite artist. He painted the world’s best known painting, the Mona Lisa. And here documentarian Phil Grabsky once again blends interviews with leading curators and live filmed footage to flesh out the life of the real man born into hardship and illegitimacy during Renaissance Florence in the small village of Vinci.

During the Renaissance Florence was very much a mercantile city at a time where art was considered an intellectual pursuit. When Leonardo’s father took samples of his young boy’s work to leading art specialist Andrea del Verrocchio, the painter was astonished and immediately took Leonardo under his wing in his highly esteemed workshop at the end of the 1460s.

Artists were painting with a blend of egg and pigments but, and oil paints were gradually being tried out during the mid 15th century, and Leonardo started to work with this experimental medium claiming his technique was to paint:”Everything that was visible and invisible” in his subjects.

While the curators fill us in on the main facts about Leonardo’s early career, Grabsky’s expert camera floats over his principle works of art, taking in all the minute detail with his intimate lensing. Paintings such as The Annunciation are discussed at length. It emerges that Leonardo was rarely satisfied with his work, and was always challenging himself and striving for perfection. He even competed with the master Verrocchio, particularly in his painting of the Baptism of Christ which is brought alive; Leonardo bringing movement and light into quite a static subject, and turning a good picture into a remarkable one. His picture of Madonna and Child with a Vase of Flowers contains a vase with dewdrops painted delicately all over it. This was a skill and technique that bought paintings alive, and made Leonardo stand out from the other artists of the era. The Ginevra de Benci has a daring stare which was considered rather outré at the time. The painting also combines elements of sculptural detail in the shapes of the trees, marking out the artist’s innovative talent for giving depth to his work. Another Madonna and Child (1478-80), now in St Petersburg’s Hermitage embodies a happiness that is almost misleading given history, yet completely understandable: a young woman has just had her first baby boy. But the cross of white flowers hidden in his hand holds the key to the tragedy. In this way Leonardo’s work was distinguished  by its depth in internal narrative that made in not only luminous but also unique at the time.

Elusive, he was known to be gay and mixed within a tight circle of refined, stylish and highly educated young men. Through his drawings we also get an insight into Leonardo the man. His artistic life interweaves with his personal life – even what he was having for lunch was sketched out and annotated. Through his love of animals and horses he  manages to convey with a kinetic freshness, energy and  rhythm – the animals rearing or in flight – he also studies the movements of the garments worn by their riders.

The Adoration of the Magi contained a turbulence and tenor that has never been seen before. It also marked his move to Milan where the market of the time was more competitive and affluent. In the 1480s Leonardo needed to make some money to cover his escalating debts. And it is here that he meets the illustrious Duke of Sforza. And it is here that his skill in depicting architecture, and mechanical drafting comes into play – these were skills that actually added value to his ability to paint figuratively, but also to hone his techniques in giving form the human body and musculature – and this is particularly noticeable in the Saint Jerome (1480). Tone, colour and shadow is also explored as Leonardo attains new heights in The Madonna and Suckling Child (1481/Hermitage).

Grabsky presents every single attributed painting, in Ultra HD quality, never seen before on the big screen. Exploring other key works such The Mona Lisa, Lady with an Ermine, Madonna Litta, Virgin of the Rocks, this information documentary culminates with Leonardo’s masterpiece The Last Supper (1496-8) and takes a deeper looks at the painter’s inventiveness; sculptural skills; his military foresight and his ability to navigate the treacherous politics of the day, through the prism of his art. MT

EXHIBITION ON SCREEN celebrates 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death | In venues nationwide from 28 OCTOBER 2019

https://youtu.be/mfFG4LMnIX8

 

Cavern Club: The Beat Goes On (2019) *** DocLisboa 2019

Dir: Christian Francis-Davies, John Keats | Wri: Bill Heckle | Doc UK 60′

This new documentary tells the colourful history of Liverpool’s iconic jazz club. Best know as The Beatles spiritual home it has also hosted some of rocks greatest bands over the years of its winding road to fame that started in 1957. The club’s location on Mathew Street in the city centre had also served as an air-raid shelter during the Second World War.

Founded by jazz fan Alan Sytner who was hoping to recreate the heady atmosphere redolent of his Parisian jazz cellar experiences, the club became synonymous with Skiffle (a hybrid of jazz, blues and folk) that was popular in the 1950s and later became a major influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s band The Quarrymen even before they became The Beatles. The Fab Four have since returned to the venue for the odd gig. Another megastar in the shape of Adele also played there as recently at 2011

Director Christian Francis-Davies adopts the usual mix of archive footage and talking heads approach to an informative film that also shares grainy footage of the band in the claustrophobic confines of the club’s brick interior playing to a motley collection of young Liverpudlians who would witness and take part in a musical revolution.

After the Skiffle era of the 1950s the 1960 saw The Cavern Club host rock ‘n’ roll gigs headlined by an upcoming band called The Beatles  who went on playing there until   August 1963. From then onwards a variety of iconic bands such as The Kinks; The Who and The Rolling Stones made it their home.

Liverpool saw a downturn in its economic fortunes during the 197os and ’80s and the club suffered too, closing twice and relocating to its current address in Mathew Street where the current owner took over in 1991. Now forming an important part of Liverpool’s social history the Cavern Club today features on a bus tour of the city’s hotspots.

SCREENING DURING DOC LISBOA FILM FESTIVAL | 17-27 OCTOBER 2019

What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire (2018)

Writer/Dir: Roberto Minervini | US Doc | 92′

Black lives matter. And the point is brought home again in Roberto Minervini’s new film that has raw urgency to its desperate title and glows under Diego Romero’s stunning black and white photography. For years, Minervini has made it his business to portrait the poor and disenfranchised in searingly honest documentaries such as Low Tide, The Other Side and now this meditation of the state of race in the Southern US during 2017.

What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire?, explores the poverty-stricken black communities of New Orleans through three groups of people preparing for the annual Mardi Gras. Their songs and dances serve as the film’s only soundtrack sending out a proud message to the outside world that they will overcome racism in a nation that doesn’t care.

We first meet brothers, Ronaldo (14) and Titus (9) wandering along the empty road, at a loose end. Titus has clearly been spooked by a haunted house street attraction that echos the real and ever present danger of shotgun crime, a daily occurrence in the neighbourhood. Ronaldo likes to pull rank on his kid brother by teaching him to box. He also tells him that soon he’ll be shooting ‘just like his older brother’. Ronaldo is keen to see his father who is in prison, but due for release. The two may not have long together before his father returns once again. Meanwhile, their mother oversees their school homework and warns them to be back home before nightfall. The kids are still too young to have violence in their lives, but it won’t be long before it happens.

Judy is a philanthropic member of the community, a proud bar-owner in her early fifties who seems to have her act together, despite her difficult childhood. But making ends meet is another daily chore and her elderly mother Dorothy faces eviction due to the gentrification of the area, making housing much in demand. Judy is close to her cousin Michael and tries to help him as much as she can, she even tries to help some local crack addicts to kick their habit, but after talking to them she starts to empathise with their stories of abuse.

Meanwhile, Krystal Muhammad, who chairs the New Black Panther Party for Self Defence, is trying to make an active difference with her food parcels delivered to the local homeless. Along with her colleagues she demonstrates in support of police shootings of black men in the area that culminated in one of them being beheaded and burnt. Softly but surely they march in the street chanting: “Black Power” – and although this seems slightly cliched, their conviction is quietly affecting. Minervini presents a resonant and contextualised picture of a black community in turmoil – bloodied but unbowed, bound by their music, strong beliefs and traditions to fight another day. MT.

From 10 May, streaming portal DAFilms will present a curated selection of Roberto Minervini’s films: Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil in. The tribute features Low Tide, Stop the Pounding Heart, and The Other Side. In all three titles, Minervini captured the stories of often overlooked people living on the fringes of society. Serving as supplementary material to this special film programme will be an exclusive DAFilms live stream discussion between the director himself and Artistic Director of the renowned Locarno Film Festival, Giona Nazzaro.

The discussion can be watched on DAFilms Live or on Facebook from Wednesday, 19 May from 7pm CET.

Mystify: Michael Hutchence (2019) ****

Dir.: Richard Lowenstein; Documentary with Michael Hutchence, Kylie Minogue, Helena Christensen, Michèlle Bennett, Tina Hutchence, Rhett Hutchence, Martha Troup; Australia 2019,

As writer and director Richard Lowenstein is more than qualified to put together this melancholic portrait of his endearing, snake-hipped compatriot Michael Hutchence (1960-1997), whose career as singer and frontman for INXS put him into the pantheon of rock music. Lowenstein not only shot most of the group’s music videos between the mid 1980s and the early90s, he also directed the singer in his only feature film appearance Dogs in Space (1986). Lowenstein certainly succeeded in “wanting to leave a legacy that was not the cliché rock star legacy”.

Low on musical performances but informative about Hutchence’s romantic interludes, these clearly shaped a life affected by the fault-lines of his childhood. There is a short interview with some close friends of Michael’s at primary school which informs the narrative early one:. “He did not seem to want to go home, he just lingered around”. When the future rock star’s parents, Kelland, a businessman, and Patricia, a model turned make-up artist, split up, Patricia took Michael with her to the USA, leaving Rhett with the father. Rhett later developed a drug problem which Michael thought was caused by his separation from his mother. His guilt complex went untreated, but later incidents, banal as well as dramatic, show that Michael’s personality was very much damaged from the outset.

His music was very much that of an undomitable hero, his relationships with women were full-blooded but short-lived – apart from the the relationship with Michèlle Bennett, today a film producer, which lasted seven years. Bennett was the only person who still knew him by the end of his life: ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ was a song which followed their breakup. There is a charming home movie of Michael and Kylie Minogue, lovers for two years, holidaying on a boat. Michael tried to explain to Kylie the motives of the murderer in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume, a dark, obsessional novel, which collided very much with Michael’s sunny music stage personality.

His relationship with Danish model Helena Christensen was overshadowed by an incident in 1992, when Michael suffered an unprovoked attack from a taxi driver in Copenhagen. The singer hit his head on the kerb, fracturing his skull. For one month Hutchence lay in a dark room, vomiting and eating next to nothing, before Helena was able to convince him to look for medical help. As it turned out, he had lost his sense of smell and taste. This lead to a personality change: Michael became moody, showing bi-polar symptoms, and spurts of aggression.

His relationship with Paula Yates started late in 1994, even though they were intimate long before. Yates, a famous writer and TV presenter, was married to the Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldorf, the pioneer of “Band-Aid’. The couple had two daughters, and Geldorf took their divorce two years later very badly. After Yates gave birth to Michael’s first and only child Tiger Lily in the same year, Geldorf started a legal campaign trying to get custody of all three daughters. Geldorf was a celebrity, and Yates and Hutchence were hounded by the popular media. When Hutchence returned to Australia in preparation for an INXS concert tour at the end of 1997, he hoped Paula would visit him in Australia with the three daughters. But Geldof won an injunction, and the court case was adjourned to December. Hutchence was unable to bear being separated from his daughter, and committed suicide by hanging himself on 22nd November 1997. Yates died of an overdose in January 2000, her daughter Peaches in 2014, at the age of 25. Bob Geldorf adopted Tiger Lily, against the will of the Hutchence family.

Apart from Bono and Hutchence’s manager Martha Troup, we listen to the testimonies of band members Andrew, Jon and Tim Farris, as well as bassist Gary Beers, with Kirk Pengilly being not available. There are nine tracks from Hutchence and INXS, courtesy of Tiger Lily’s intervention with the copyright holders, who had blocked Lowenstein’s approaches before. Although their youthful faces appear on film, the comments we hear are the contemporary voices of the musicians. DoP Andrew de Groot mixes Hutchence’s own films, the home movies of his childhood and concert clips, avoiding Talking Heads as much as possible. We are left with a profound sadness, as Michael Hutchence, like most really gifted performers, was never sure of his talent, often believing he only “got the applause, because I wiggled my arse”. Lowenstein’s documentary is a true testament to sorrow.AS

IN CINEMAS 18 OCTOBER 2019

The Deathless Woman (2019)

Dir/Wri: Roz Mortimer | With Iveta Kokyva, Loren O’Dair, Oliver Malik | UK Doc 89′

British filmmaker Roz Mortimer has poured her heart and soul into an important new documentary that uncovers another grim episode of persecution, this time of the Roma people in Poland and Hungary. Crucially, it highlights the continuing hatred of the Roma, who are still being victimised in scandalous acts of violence across the region.  

Mortimer’s documentary explores the myth behind the story of The Deathless Woman, a Roma matriarch who was buried alive in the forest by German soldiers in 1942. This leads to the discovery of widespread genocide in other sites of Roma persecution such as Birkenau and Várpalota in Lake Grábler.

Here just before the end of the Second World War on 4th April 1945, 118 women and children were massacred by Nazi occupying forces, deep in the forest. Back then there was no lake, just a clearing where the dead were thrown into unmarked graves. Some time later the area was flooded and became Lake Garbler.

Mortimer clearly feels so strongly about her efforts to uncover the truth behind the genocide that she has decided to take part in her own documentary, talking us through the process of her findings, and occasionally presenting her case to a voiceless interrogator, as she tries to make sense of the lack of evidence despite sensing a strong ‘residue of emotion’ left by these unfortunate victims. “What do you do when there is nothing visible left?” she asks.

Eventually her archive research leads her to the scene of the crime in Lake Grabler where things start to come together. She meets a number of locals – amongst them is Josef, who describes how he was forced to dig a mass grave on that dreadful Spring day 75 years ago – a tough undertaking due to masses of tree roots clogging the ground.

She talks to locals Christina and Anna who in 1943 lost most of their family there. Mortimer stresses the aura inhabiting the windswept, rural area and describes being filled with a haunting sense of dread. Later, a woman called Zofia takes her to the scene of the atrocities, and shows her the indentation in the soil where there lies the skeleton a tiny bird. This serves as a tangible reminder and comes to  symbolise the souls of the ‘gypsy’ women and children who perished there.

One of these was the mythical “Deathless Woman”. Zophia describes how the Germans killed the gypsies because they had apparently stolen a pig from the village, so desperate was their hunger. According to a Roma woman who describes herself as a second generation Holocaust survivor, the mythical ‘Deathless Woman’ refused to die with the rest despite being shot at several times, until eventually she gave in only to leave a curse on the village. The Deathless Woman apparently scrambled out from under the other bodies and lived to tell her tale. As a tribute, the locals hung the clothes of the dead on the surrounding trees. 

But the hatred continues today. In Tatárszentgyörgy, Hungary, it emerges that neo-Nazis murdered a Roma family in 2009. Mortimer’s internet research uncovers hate speech and video games where players are invited to gun down unarmed Roma as they run through the streets.

Enriched by archive footage, macabre dramatised re-inactions and gruesome reconstructions of the bodies in the lake – that actually look rather ghastly and only serves to cheapen the experience – the filmmaker also suffuses this grim and slightly overworked ethnographic tribute with a ghostly atmospheric soundscape that suggests The Deathless Woman woman is going to be haunting the village for some time to come. MT

The Deathless Woman – the first film about the Roma holocaust in the Romani language – on UK tour 21 May-3 July

 

Cold Case Hammerskjold (2019) **** LFF 2019

Dir.: Mads Brügger, Documentary; Denmark/Norway/Sweden/Belgium 2019, 128 min.

Director/writer Mads Brügger (The Red Chapel) took six years to research the events leading up to the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld on 18th of September 1961, near Zambia’s Ndala airport, hen part of Rhodesia. Brügger and his co-researcher Göran Björndahl literally dug into the cover-up, because even at the time of the ‘accident’ many voices, who talked about ‘murder’ not ‘accident’, were repressed. They claimed that Hammarskjöld’s aircraft was shot down by a fighter jet.

The Secretary General was on his way to a meeting with Moïse Tshombe, the rebel leader of the Katanga province, which had split from the newly formed Republic of Congo. Hammarskjöld wanted to broker a peace deal in the civil war, but Tshombe was just a puppet in the hands of the Belgium Union Minière du Haut Katanga, which was unwilling to give up the profits from the gold, diamond and uranium-rich country they had ruled for many decades. The Secretary General of the UN had made many enemies, not only in Belgium, but also in the UK and the USA, claiming “that Africa was a happy hunting ground for national interests”. During the research, the director came across the name of Jan van Risseghem, a Belgium mercenary who led the assassination mission code named “Celeste”. He planned to put a bomb in the plane, but when the explosion failed to materialised, a fighter jet shot Hammarskjöld’s plane down. A few survivors who witnessed the crash, all agree about the existence of a second plane.

Most of the material unearthed was connected with the South African spy agency South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR), led by the white supremacist Keith Maxwell, who always dressed in white, with a tricorne hat and sword. SAIMR had up to 5000 employees, and was connected to the CIA, which explains the Ace of Spades playing card found on the body of Secretary General (the calling card of the CIA, but also a well known sign of danger). Maxwell was also responsible for “research” into Aids, his black victims injected with a serum intended to cure Aids. The details of the 1990 murder of Dagmar Feil, a marine biologist who worked for SAIMIR, but wanted to go public, is also part of the ‘confession’ of former SAIMR agent Alexander Jones, who seemed happy to go into details. “People are greedy. They want what other’s have. But they don’t want to pay for it”. His testimony also gives credence to the “second plane” theory, since he knew all the conspirators. Since his interview with Brügger, Jones is living at an undisclosed address.

The filmmaker has employed two black, female secretaries, Clarinah Mfengo and Saphir Wenzi Mabanza, who not only type furiously, but give Brügger ideas how to progress, and voice the interest of black people in this plot, where white men were victim and perpetrators.

The crashed airplane is still buried some four meters underground, and Brügger and his team had to stop digging it out after a few day’s work, the absolute proof of the assassination is still to be discovered, but few of those who have seen this documentary will question the theory. And even long after Tshombe’s removal, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other states of the region still suffer today, having endured civil wars for decades. AS

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL |2019

 

 

Watergate (2018) **** Home Ent release

Dir/Wri: Charles Ferguson | With: David Mixner, Daniel Ellsberg, John Farrell, Patrick Buchanan, John Dean, Richard Reeves, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Lesley Stahl, Hugh Sloan, Paul Magallanes, John Mindermann, Betty Medsger, Lowell Weicker, William Ruckelshaus, Richard Ben-Veniste, Jill Wine-Banks, George Frampton, John McCain, Dan Rather, Elizabeth Holtzman, Pete McCloskey, Evan Davis | US Doc 271′

Spanning over four hours Charles Ferguson’s biopic of Nixon delves into the archives to offer up an immersive if plodding look at a political scandal that almost pales into significance when compared to our current situation in Westminster and The Whitehouse.

The Oscar-winning documentarian has really done his homework in a film that builds on Penny Lane’s tape-focused Our Nixon (2013) to offer interviews from key players in the episode including Dan Rather, Carl Bernstein and John McCain, and first hand accounts from Kissinger, Liddy, Ehrlichman and Mitchell. Watergate showcases a series events that sent shockwaves into the World as it was back then in the 1970s in a massive undertaking that will inform today’s audiences and those yet to come.

Ferguson clearly sets out his stall examining the events that led up to Nixon’s election in November 1968 and eventually culminated in the resignation of the 37th president of the United States of America in 1976. The tortuous process of cover-ups, lies and bogus explanations continued until eventually the inexorable machine of government took over during the summer of 1974. Ferguson incorporates dramatic re-imaginings of what went on and this enlivens what  – for some – could be considered rather dry material. Although it is difficult to find actors that resemble real people: the only successful incidence of this was where Michael Sheen played Tony Blair in Peter Morgan’s trilogy.

As history reveals, the Nixon administration eventually wound up in 1976 with over 41 people convicted and serving time in prison for crimes relating to Watergate. It remains to be seen whether Ferguson will ever turn his hand to taking on the story of President Donald Trump. It certainly would be a colourful epic providing and interesting day’s programming on political intrigue at some festival in the future. This one is a collector’s item. MT

NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD AND ON DEMAND from 16 September 2019 | COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

 

 

Sea of Shadows (2019) ****

Director: Richard Ladkani | US Doc

Have you ever heard of the tataoba or the vaquita porpoise? Well these are two of the world’s most endangered sea creatures and Richard Ladkani’s slick, suspenseful and often heart-rending eco-thriller tells us why.

The totoaba has become a highly-prized Chinese delicacy for its swim bladder. Known as the “cocaine of the sea” because a single one can reach around USD 100,000, poachers in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez trawl for these valuable creatures with illegal gillnets. Another casualty of this effective but damaging way of fishing is the vaquita porpoise. This small elusive whale is found exclusively in the rich biodiverse waters of the Pacific cul-de-sac where its numbers have dwindled to around a dozen. The creature becomes trapped in the nets and dies.

In The Ivory Game Ladkani turned his camera on the plight of the elephants, here he films alongside Sea Shepherd patrol ships, military operatives, and other investigators who follow the poachers’ boats in order to signal disapproval and raise the profile of this emotional fight for the continued survival of this evasive and endangered species.

One live sequence shows marine veterinarian Cynthia Smith and her team putting  VaquitaCPR into action. This is a nationwide programme spearheaded by the Mexican government, intended to provide sanctuary for the remaining vaquitas until their future can be secured. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 27 SEPTEMBER 2019

 

Venice Film Festival 2019 | Round-up

Celebrating its 76th Anniversary VENICE FILM FESTIVAL was another exciting occasion with the competition line-up featuring the latest from established directors with newcomers also presenting their work.

One of the standouts of this year’s mostra was a pre-festival showing of Gustav Machaty’s 1933 masterpiece ECSTASY which won him Best Director in the year following production,

The fun got going with The Truth by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Then amongst the Golden Lion hopefuls was maverick Roman Polanski who finally brings his biopic about another controversial figure Louis Dreyfus to the competition which ran from 28 August until 7 September on the Lido.

Adapted from Robert Harris novel J’Acuse stars Louis Garrel, Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Seigner (aka Mme Polanski). Other high profile features were Todd Phillips’ The Joker – which won the Golden Lion and starsJoaquin Phoenix. And once again the lack of women directors in competition was flagged up, although there were plenty of female stars to be seen in the elegant hotspot on the Venetian coast. 

In the 21-strong competition line-up there was one trail-blazing female director in the shape of Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour (Wadjda) who attended to present her fourth feature The Perfect Candidate. Set in Riyadh it tells the story of a woman doctor who navigates her way through the male-dominated scenery to run for the council elections. 

Other auteurs include Czech Vaclav Marhoul with a wartime drama three hours long and ten years in the making: The Painted Bird (CZE/UKR/SLO) follows the plight of a Jewish boy on the run through Nazi Germany. The film stars Stellan Skarsgard. Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain was last in Venice with The Club, his latest sees a couple dealing with the aftermath of adoption, and Mexico stars Gael Garcia Bernal heads the cast. From Colombia Embrace of the Serpent director Ciro Guerra ups his game considerably with a starry cast of Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson and Greta Scacchi in a period drama dealing with themes of loyalty and trust in a distant outpost of the Spanish Empire. Waiting for the Barbarians is based on a novel by South African writer J M Coetzee.

In the Italian corner, there is more about the Mafia from Sicilian director Franco Moresco, who won the Orizzonti Jury prize at Venice with Belluscone. Una Storia Siciliana back in 2014. La mafia non e piu quella di una Volta is a documentary exploring the history and origins of the organisation. From China comes Ye Lou’s historical drama Saturday Fiction and Hong Kong based director Yonfan breaks his 6 year silence with No. 7 Cherry Lane that centres on a English literature tutor caught up in a love triangle with a woman pupil and her mother. And Sweden’s Roy Andersson was in attendance with About Endlessness.

Steven Soderbergh also featured in competition with Panama papers themed The Laundromat that stars Meryl Streep and David Schwimmer as journalists uncovering political tax avoidance sculduggery in the US. Noah Baumbach makes his first appearance at Venice with another domestic satire, this timed entitled Marriage Story: an insightful drama tempered with his usual brand of dark humour and a impressive cast of Laura Dern, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Ray Liotta. Both these US outings are now on Netflix.

Veteran French filmmaker Robert Guedeguian presents a Marseilles-set family drama, and Olivier Assayas continues to surprises us with his versatility, this time with Wasp Network a story of intrigue involving Cuban political prisoners. Canadian director Atom Egoyan has selected an interested cast of David Thewlis, Luke Wilson and Rossif Sutherland (son of Donald) to flesh out a morally thorny story surrounding pupils in a high school. A slightly underwhelming feature that divided the critics.

Venice 76 ‘out of competition’ selection included documentaries and features –  from Alex Gibney, Costa Gavras, who tackles the Greek financial crisis in Adults in the Room; and Andrea Segre with ecological documentary Il Pianeta in Mare. Pink Floyd’s Roger Walters directs and appeared in a concert film going back over the last few years of his musical career. There was also a chance to see some remastered classics in the shape of Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut; screened alongside a new doc about one of the greatest directors of all time Never Just a Dream: Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut by Matt Wells. Gaspar Noé  Paolo Sorrentino and Sergei Loznitsa also featured in the out of competition competition section.

Meanwhile in the Horizons sidebar, German filmmaker Katrin Gebbe makes her feature debut with Pelican Blood starring Nina Hoss. And Alfredo Castro (from Golden Lion winner 2015 From Afar) is back to star in a psychological drama White on White from Chilean director Theo Court. MT

MAIN COMPETITION

No. 7 Cherry Lane (HONG KONG) – Dir. Yonfan

The Laundromat (USA) – Dir. Steven Soderbergh

J’Accuse (FRA/ITA) – Dir. Roman Polanski

Joker (USA) – Dir. Todd Phillips

Babyteeth (AUS) – Dir. Shannon Murphy

Marriage Story (USA) – Dir. Noah Baumbach

Il Sindaco Del Rione Sanità (ITA) – Dir. Mario Martone

The Painted Bird (CZE/UKR/SLO) – Dir. Václav Marhoul

La Mafia Non È Più Quella Di Una Volta (ITA) – Dir. Franco Maresco

Martin Eden (ITA/FRA) – Dir. Pietro Marcello

Saturday Fiction (CHI) – Dir. Lou Ye

Ema (CHILE) – Dir. Pablo Larraín

Waiting For The Barbarians (ITA) – Dir. Ciro Guerra

Gloria Mundi (FRA/ITA) – Dir. Robert Guéndiguian

Ad Astra (USA) – Dir. James Gray

Guest Of Honour (CAN) – Dir. Atom Egoyan

Wasp Network (FRA/BEL) – Dir. Olivier Assayas

About Endlessness (SWE/GER/NOR) – Dir. Roy Andersson

The Perfect Candidate (SAU/GER) – Dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour

A Herdade (POR/FRA) – Dir. Tiago Guedes

The Truth (JAP/FRA) – OPENING FILM – Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda

Out Of Competition (fiction)

The King (UK/HUN) – Dir. David Michod

Seberg (USA) – Dir. Benedict Andrews

Vivere (ITA) – Dir. Francesca Archibugi

The Burnt Orange Heresy (USA/ITA) – CLOSING FILM – Dir. Giuseppe Capotondi

Mosul (USA) – Dir. Matthew Michael Carnahan

Adults In The Room (FRA/GRE) – Dir. Costa-Gavras

Tutto Il Mio Folle Amore (ITA) – Dir. Gabriele Salvatores

Out of Competition (non-fiction)

Il Pianeta In Mare (ITA) – Dir. Andrea Segre

Citizen K (UK/USA) – Dir. Alex Gibney

Woman (FRA) – Dir. Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Anastasia Mikova

Roger Waters Us + Them (UK) – Dir. Sean Evans, Roger Waters

I Diari Di Angela – Noi Due Cineasti. Secondo Capitolo. (ITA) – Dir. Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci Lucchi

Citizen Rosi (ITA) – Dir. Didi Gnocchi, Carolina Rosi

The Kingmaker (USA) – Dir. Lauren Greenfield

State Funeral (NET/LIT) – Dir. Sergei Loznitsa

Collective (ROM/LUX) – Dir. Alexander Nanau

45 Seconds Of Laughter (USA) – Dir. Tim Robbins

Out of competition (special screenings)

No-One Left Behind (MEX) – Dir. Guillermo Arriaga

Zerozerozero – Episodes 1 & 2 (ITA) – Dir. Stefano Sollima

Electric Swan (FRA/GRE/ARG) – Dir. Konstantina Kotzamani

Irréversible – Inversion Intégrale (FRA) – Dir. Gaspar Noé

The New Pope – Episodes 2 & 7 (ITA/FRA/SPA) – Dir. Paolo Sorrentino

Never Just A Dream: Stanley Kubrick And Eyes Wide Shut (UK) – Dir. Matt Wells

Eyes Wide Shut (USA/UK) – Dir. Stanley Kubrick

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 28 AUGUST – 7 SEPTEMBER 2019

Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019) ****

Dir.: Alexandre O. Philippe; Documentary with Diane O’Bannon, Roger Corman, Ben Mankiewicz, Carmen Scheifela-Giger, Tom Skeritt, Veronica Cartwright; USA 2019, 93 min.

 After 78/52, a dissection of Hitchcock’s famous shower scene from Psycho, writer/director Alexandre O. Philippe turns his attention to another gruesome classic, Ridley Scott’s Alien – and in particular the chest-busting scene, when John Hurt gives birth to a fleshy foetus with silver teeth. But Memory is not only the genesis of the Alien, but an interpretation which involves Greek mythology and the work of Francis Coppola.

To start with: what would have happened had Walter Hill directed Alien, as originally planned? Instead he chose Southern Comfort, Ridley Scott taking over the helm. Roger Corman originally offered to work with O’Bannon on a much smaller budget, if Fox agreed to abandon the project but they had blockbuster in mind after the success of Star Wars. Dan O’Bannon (1946-2009) then abandoned his script of 29 pages, because he could not see how Alien could get on board the spaceship Nostromo.

The name ‘Alien’ was a nod to Joseph Conrad whose Heart of Darkness had been filmed by Francis Ford Coppola as Apocalypse Now – nothing but a horror film set during the Vietnam War. O’Bannon was also responsible for bringing the Swiss artist RH Giger (1940-2014) back on board, who had been fired by Fox: his artwork was deemed as “sick” by the studio bosses. Both widows, Carmen Scheifele-Giger and Diane O’Bannon appear in Memoir; Diane claiming that her husband did not steal from anyone in particular but cherry-picked from Greek mythology, the works of Francis Bacon, Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the writings of HP Lovecraft. The body of the Alien itself gave the team the most headaches, earlier versions were simply too cute or unimpressive. Cast member Veronica Cartwright called the final version a giant penis. O’Bannon suffered from Crohn’s disease (which killed him eventually) and used his illness for the “birth of the Alien”, a vile being that sprung from John Hurt’s stomach, after two failed attempts.

DoP Robert Muratore integrates his work with the Alien excerpts, and even his talking-head shots are sometimes created with lighting and angles which channel the horror of the Alien scheme. But where was Sigourney Weaver in this fascinating piece of detective work which will fascinate film fans and newcomers alike? Her vital input would provide the final key to this chamber of horrors. AS

IN UK CINEMAS 30 AUGUST, ON DVD/ON DEMAND FROM 2 SEPTEMBER 2019

Echo (2019) Locarno Film Festival 2019

Dir/Wri: Rúnar Rúnarsson | Drama, Iceland, 80′

Rúnarsson gained international recognition with his multi-award-winning drama Sparrows  which took the FIPRESCI prize at Gotenburg 2016. His latest feature, Echo (Berg­mál), competing here at Locarno, sees Iceland getting ready for Christmas in an unconventional and seriously un-Christmassy series of vignettes.

Some of them are distinctly grim, others just downright bizarre, as a peculiar atmosphere settles over the country and the hours of light rapidly diminish, shrouding the country in darkness. An abandoned farm is burning, an open coffin stands in the church, chicken carcasses parade through a slaughterhouse, and a drug addict stocks up at his local medical centre.

Echo juxtaposes the joyful, banal and downright weird – in other words, just a normal country preparing for the festivities through 56 unrelated scenes. From the festive: a children’s rousing Nativity play; a firework shop doing a roaring trade; to the down to earth: a bloke has some highlights done while moaning about his love life. Humour also comes into the equation: a farming couple argue bitterly while their sheep rut energetically in front them;  a political argument threatens to derail a family party. Some scenes are quietly moving: a girl dissolves in tears after finishing with her boyfriend; a woman gives birth joyfully, and a choir sings Silent Night round a towering Christmas tree resplendent with lights; Meanwhile a whimpering dog doesn’t know what to make of the fireworks, and scuttles under the settee.

Ultimately what makes Echo so enjoyable is its sheer element of surprise and contrariness: we just don’t know what’s coming next – yet each scene is beautifully shot and composed whatever the subject matter. Iceland emerges a nation like any other: with hope, fears and vulnerabilities all exposed at the often fraught Christmas season.

Producer Lilja Ósk Snorradóttir added: “Echo is artistic, bold but at the same time extremely beautiful and intertwines so many things like humour, grief and beauty. I allow myself to say that no film like this has ever been made and surely not a Christmas film.” It’s certainly true and thoroughly entertaining.

LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | 7-17 AUGUST 2019

Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back (1967) | Tribute to D.A. Pennebaker

DYLAN-Dont-Look-Back-DROPDirector\Writer: D A Pennebaker

With: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan, Alan Price, Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg

96min | Documentary | US

Although it may not have meant much back in 1967, D.A. Pennebaker’s full-length documentary DON’T LOOK BACK now offers an absorbing and resonant tribute to a handful of folk heroes of the ’60s and particularly Bob Dylan who it follows on his 1965 British tour.

This freewheeling and voyeuristic trip down memory lane offers a rare and real portrait of the recalcitrant singer songwriter performing impromptu in hotels and more formal venues showcasing his laid back but often prickly approach which won the hearts and minds of his young audience of the time, Dylan went on to capture the imagination of many and achieve iconic cult status. Whether the film pictures the real Dylan or just his facade is a matter for consideration but Pennebaker makes us feel the intimacy of these encounters.

Surrounded by an entourage of contempo cronies: his rebarbative manager Albert Grossman; his long-term companion Joan Baez; the Scottish balladier Donovan; helmer of The Animals, Alan Price, the film offers behind the scenes glimpses of their convivial gatherings offering up ad hoc renditions of their work: Dylan strums and sings “The Times They Are A-Changing,” and Donovan ‘To Sing for You”. There is a chance to see Baez’ gentle beauty and spiky humour in offguard moments that capture her feral beauty.

The awkward approach of some of the interviewers – particularly a journalist from Time Magazine – is very amateurish, and it’s a wonder that Dylan didn’t punch him in the nose – but he adopts his usual acerbic style, hiding behind a public persona, ruffled hair and sunglasses, refusing to be riled but engaging nevertheless.

D. A. Pennebaker has since made several impressive biopics: Monterey Pop (1968) and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars being among the best. His handheld camera offers a grainy indie feel with jump cuts that keep the pace lively despite the relaxed tone that often hints at an underlying anger, that eventually seeps out in a scene featuring an ugly encounter between Grossman and a hotel manager. The film’s finale sees Dylan kicking backing after a successful concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, happy to be seen as an artist peddling no particular message and who no one understands. MT

OUT ON CRITERION UK | Amazon BLURAY

 

Weapon of Choice (2018) *** Home Ent release

Dir: Fritz Ofner and Eva Hausberger | Doc | Austria | 91′

How the man who invented the world’s most popular gun ironically became the victim of contract killers and a multi million dollar fraud in a story of corruption and fetishisation.

In 1981 Austrian engineer Gaston Glock (1929) invented the handgun that bears his name and would eventually become the gun of choice for criminals, law enforcement and private citizens in the United States. What started in a small Austrian village as a struggling firearms business soon became a multi-billion dollar concern after the company rebranded from a gunmakers to manufactorers  of ‘‘law enforcement equipment’ with a weapon that never blocked.

Little is known about the reclusive cultish 89-year-old which is probably why the filmmakers decide to focus most of their film on the ‘piece’ and its pistol-packing public, rather than than Glock himself and his rise to success, via tragedy. All we know is that he’s recently become a father again with his decades younger wife. But you’ll have to wade through over an hour of perifera to get to the real meat of the movie: the story of the elusive Mr Glock himself. 

Plastic except for its barrel, the topselling Glock handgun’s claim to fame is that “it never fails”. As such – along with the car-manufacturer Mercedes – it has piggy-backed onto one of the US’ most successful pop-cultural references – gangster rap. The Glock is also the weapon of choice for the average US citizen in a nation where guns are important everyday accessories, just as mobile phones are in the UK. 

This tonally uneven investigation at times feels like a paean to the Black community and its sad history of violence, at others like an advertisement for the Glock firearm and its wide-ranging enthusiasts, as it weaves through well-researched episodes that start in US neighbourhoods and gradually move on to distant war zones: we meet Black rappers, little old ladies and their trainers, gun-sellers and the Police force – all rave about their Glocks. The unifying message here is a depressing one: in the US there is widespread acceptance of firearms as an everyday accessory: like a phone or even an umbrella. When one woman’s dog died, she brought a gun to keep her company.

Eventually the Austrian filmmakers delve into even darker territory to uncover a sinister trail of politics, power, and corruption which sees crooks, politicians and industrialists using the same weapon of choice to defend themselves. Weapon of Choice is both intriguing and depressing. MT

NOW ON AMAZON PRIME

For the Birds (2018) ****

Dir.: Richard Miron; Documentary with Kathy Murphy, Gary Murphy, Sheila Hyslop; USA 2019, 92 min.

Over five years in the making, Richard Miron’s debut documentary is an astonishing portrait of a very special kind of hoarder: Kathy Murphy’s love for her feathered friends started with a helping hand to a baby duckling ten years ago –  now over 200 ducks, chicken, geese and turkeys invade the family’s mobile home in Warwasing, up-state New York.

No wonder husband Gary feels upstaged by the animals: “With her, you don’t seem to get anywhere”, he confesses to the filmmaker. And while Kathy feels a unique closeness to the feathered members of her family, it soon becomes clear that she uses them as a barricade between herself and Gary: “He knows I’m attached to them, but not just how much I’m really attached to them. I would die for them”.

Things boil over when her case is referred to the Woodstock Farm Animal Society, where manager Sheila Hyslop shares Kathy’s love for animals and tries to keep an amicable relationship going. That is not always easy, since Kathy’s “feathered children” are not only destroying the couple’s home, but also their marriage. Gary plays Bob Dylan blaring through the night, to get to sleep, before the start of an early shift. 

To save the animals, Nicole and Ted, two volunteers of the Bird Sanctuary, have to trick Kathy into letting some of her “children” go. But success is limited, and finally we get a court trial. Gary is caught in the middle: he teams up with the Sanctuary’s team, which makes him a traitor in Kathy’s eyes. Her lawyer, William Brenner, a tax attorney, fits in well: he has an office, which resembles Kathy’s home – minus the animals.

Eventually tragedy will reconcile Kathy with her daughter and grandchild – and some money to make a new start. The more we learn about her, the more we realise how Kathy uses the birds to block off the rest of her life, affecting her mental health. Her ability to connect with the animals is part of a deep-seated emotional fear of humans – and it takes a long time to save Kathy and the birds.

Miron tries to avoid a deeper context, and stays focused on Kathy. His intimate portrait illustrates how the animals are just vehicles for her to postpone a mental breakdown. 

Miron’s cinema vérité style is enlivened by old photos and Super Eight family films, which show Kathy emotionally well-connected with her family. And even at the end, the audience has no idea what drove her to isolate herself from humankind. A very sensitive and emphatic case study AS

ON DEMAND WORLDWIDE FROM JULY 30 2019 | Amazon Prime Video; Apple TV; Google Play; iTunes, Chili TV; Microsoft; Sky Store

     

Die Tomorrow (2017) ****

Dir.: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit; Documentary/Fiction; Thailand 2017, 75 min.

Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit (Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy) has turned her attention toward the big taboo: death.

It may surprise you to learn that two people die every second on this planet. And by the time this languid hybrid essay is over, 8442 people will no longer be with us. Her candid unsentimental approach seeks to normalise death as completely natural event. After all, it will happen to all of us. As Pink Floyd said: “I’m not afraid of dying, any time will do”. What we fear is pain and suffering. But Thamrongrattanarit assures us not to be afraid and soft piano music accompanies her gently lit filmic musings.

Nawapol intercuts her film with drole statistical interludes and documentary footage that informs six vignettes, each shot in a single unbroken take and filmed in 1:1 aspect ratio. These are based on real life cases reported in the Thai press. This is all intended to show how banal our lives can be – just hours away from the end. Even more dramatic is the suicide of a young man, who takes his own life – unbeknownst to his girlfriend who is talking to friend on her mobile about where they should go and have dinner. Fate is fickle and we can never be certain of when our time will be up. This is cleverly illustrated in the case of a young women, waiting in hospital for a heart transplant. “I’ll die before you,” she says, but then finds out he has booked a ticket on that fateful Malaysia Airlines flight that leaves the same afternoon. Another interviewee – a young schoolboy – claims to have been reassured about death after reading the internet site Reddit. We don’t actually see anyone die during the film. The closest we come to it are TV clips from the Challenger shuttle. 

What seems to interest Nawapol is the way one person’s death may affect their friends or loved ones. Die Tomorrow’s most poignant interviewee is a man nearing the age of 102 whose wife and children have already died. More recent footage sees him celebrate his 104th birthday. And one young school boy interviewed claims to have been reassured about his eventual after reading up on the subject in Reddit.

Thamrongrattanarit wanted to achieve calmness, “to give the audience the space and time to look thoughtfully at it”. She has certainly succeeded in making death just another process in life this thoughtful essay contemplation about how to take life seriously, and live it to the full – and above all to see death as another stage in our existence.  

ON GENERAL RELEASE IN ARTHOUSE CINEMAS from 26 July 2019

    

 

Of Fish and Foe (2018) ****

Dirs: Andy Heathcote, Heike Bachelier | UK Doc 90′

Andy Heathcote and Heike Bachelier follow up their delightful documentary  The Moo Man with a more confrontational film that explores the traditional methods of wild Atlantic salmon fishing that falls foul of animal rights activists.

In Northern Scotland near Thurso, the Pullar family make their living from the sea. Stretching long nets across the bay where wild Atlantic salmon are crossing the tidal waters, brothers Kevin and John then sail out to collect the catch. Most of the salmon on the market comes from commercial salmon farms making their share of the consumer market all the more difficult, although their fish are far superior in quality. They are joined by a series of helpers and often a young boy who is clearly invested in his unpaid work.

This is a competitive market: and Anglers still take the lions share of the dwindling salmon trade but the Pullars’ business seems to have made a bad name for itself due to their habit of shooting seals which they believe are further depleting stocks.  This is a practice that has attracted protesters in the shape of Sea Shepherd, who naively think they are protecting the local fauna. There are big commercial interests involved and the Pullars’ give them no quarter – often taunting them with ill-advised insults, despite their annoying habit of disrupting daily business, posing a danger to  themselves and the fisherman. The protesters seem to have no real understanding of the cultural implications of their actions or the ways of the sea, and stick out like a sore thumb as they clamber about taking photos and make snide comments on the treacherous rocks. By the same token, the Pullars are not the most diplomatic or sympathetic of folk, often queering their own pitch for their lack of charm and tact.

Their rivals consider the Pullars to be getting in the way in an industry that has moved forward, yet they are simply fisherman going about their business, and respectful of the ways of nature and fishing husbandry, humanely killing seabirds stuck in their nets, or even salmon who have been fatally injured by pecking seals. By Law they are required to cease operations during certain times, weather permitting. But the protesters are like terriers, constantly yapping at the their feet. Between their rivals and the Sea Shepherds it seems the Pullars’ business is doomed to fail.

The directors keep their distance presenting the parties’ pros and cons without judgement, leaving the audience to make up their own minds about this thorny dilemma in a story that very much resonates with the narrative of surviving communities and disappearing lifestyles. Fishing was one of the mainstays of Britain’s rural existence until the EU came along. MT

NOW ON RELEASE

I Never Climbed the Provincia (2019) **** FID Marseilles 2019

Dir.: Ignacio Agüero; Documentary; Chile 2019, 89 min.

Chilean director Ignacio Agüero, whose I Never Climbed the Provincia has won the 30th edition of the Film Festival Marseilles 2019 (FID), has been a life-long chronicler of his homeland since 1977. He was active even under the Pinochet dictatorship with No Olvidar, and contributed to the campaign in 1988, which saw Pinochet removed. Agüero remained in the country to document the horrors of the Pinochet years. He is also an actor, starring in two films by the late Raúl Ruiz, Dias de Campo and La recta Provincia. 

The film starts with an admission: he has never actually climbed Mount Provincia, which towers over Santiago from a distance. All the same, he is very much at home in the Santiago neighbourhood, which has seen drastic changes in the last two decades. Explores the visible and invisible, daily life and the undercurrent of the past,  Agüero interviews people on the street, digging, like an archaeologist for signs of the past. His feature documentaries have ben compared to the work of Alain Cavalier.

Agüero explores the roads with repeated camera movements: lateral views and short distances, often with handheld cameras, returning always to the central point of the intersection: the Cuban restaurant, the mini-market. Sometimes the camera passes over the roofs of the city from where he watched the military planes attacking the Presidential Palace La Moneda in 1973. And there is footage of Vicariate of Solidarity, the organisation in opposition to Pinochet, lead by Archbishop Raúl Silva Henriquez. 

A seasoned documentarian, he has dealt with the demolition of historical neighbourhoods before: GAM (2011) tells the story of the Cultural Centre Gabriela Mistral, a place of social and cultural history of the city. But this time around shows the urban transformation, the new buildings erected, the small shops and activity centres of the past, who have all been replaced by fashionable places. The time-honoured bakeries and pastry shops, the shoemaker, the newspaper vendor, who sold his newspapers from a street kiosk. Then there were the arcade games and pinball machines – meeting places of a close knit neighbourhood. There are many bizarre characters in this neighbourhood: Andrej, who is Cuban, but earned his name, because his country was so close to the USSR. Germans run the laundry, and there is ‘Peter O’Toole’, named after the hero of the David Lean’s feature Lawrence of Arabia,, because of his dignity and elegance. 

Only a few times the filmmaker ventures out from the district of the Nunca subi Provincia; he shows his house as a boat at sea, and a scene with Gregory Peck as Ahab in John Huston’s Moby Dick. And there are schoolchildren, watching Chaplin in the Emigrant, representing hope.

The film is a chronicle of the past, shades of Italian neo-realism. Whilst Agüero writes handwritten letters (for the first time in years), describing his strategy, we are witness to a change, which is is documented not so much with nostalgia and melancholy, but as a report of witnesses, who are keeping the past alive. AS

Grand Prix WINNER | FID MARSEILLE 2019

Varda by Agnès (2019) ****

Dir: Agnes Varda |Writers: Agnes Varda, Didiet Rouget | Doc France

Agnès Varda’s final film plays out as a masterclass, the maverick 90-year old filmmaker talking us through her life and legacy, in no particular order, giving fresh insight into her the methods behind her genius as the pioneer of the French New Wave movement, in a meaty two hour documentary. Composed of reels of archive footage, clips from her films and newly shot material – we also get to meet the star of her Venice awarded Vagabond, Sandrine Bonnaire, the two sit in a field sheltered by plastic umbrellas, a sign of her determination to take the rough with the smooth. You could call it providence.

Born in Brussels as ‘Arlette’ Varda in 1928, she would go on to make 55 films in her fruitful career. Sitting comfortably in a classic director’s chair on a stage before her audience, Varda comes across as modest and approachable and despite her ardent feminism and trenchant intellect, amiable and quietly self-assured. Her canvas was always the familiar or domestic, filming subjects she knew about or felt deserving of attention. On her documentary style she muses: “The idea was to film people, whether they realised it or not, Nothing is trite if you film people with empathy and love”.

There are plenty of quintessentially Varda moments in this final adieu. At one point she is seen sitting on a beach surrounded by cardboard seagulls: “we love to talk to birds, but of course they don’t understand”. And her fear of playing to an empty cinema, or not engaging with the audience have enforced her belief that cinema is very much a two-way process. And Varda By Agnès is a film that is both introspective and expansively outward-looking at the same time. And with her previous outing Faces, Places having had an Oscar nomination last year Varda is pretty guaranteed to reach wider audiences beyond Europe.

Varda started life as a photographer and her pictures are testament to her frank and witty approach to life. The film takes us through the last century and into the present day starting with The Gleaners and I that showcases the freedom of digital. Her personal life is very much integrated into her work as an artist and there is much candid and unsentimental mention both vocal and visual of her partner Jacques Demy, making it all the more appealing particularly during his failing health.

Music features heavily in all her films: “Early on, I realised that contemporary composers were my allies.” And Varda certainly made plenty of allies in her work in the cinema and outside it. Her career as a visual artist has given rise to impressive installations and performance art, most noticeably in Faces Places –  and she often turned up to events dressed as a potato – her voluptuously rotund figure ideally suited for the long-running joke.

It seems both apposite and poignant that this informative career retrospective should be her last hurrah. Perfectly timed and with a sense of completion and hope Varda By Agnès is a memorable auto-biopic from the grand dame of cinema herself. MT

NOW ON RELEASE FROM 19 JULY 2019

https://youtu.be/IcpnEMCx-7g

 

My Friend the Polish Girl (2018) ***

Dir.: Ewa Banasziewicz, Mateusz Dymek; Cast: Aneta Piotrowska, Emma Feldman-Cohen, Daniel Barry, Max Davies; UK 2018, 87 min.

Ewa Banasziewicz and Mateusz Dymek have directed written and produced this sometimes uneven cinema verite style mockumentary that explores whether the documentary form can ever be objective: or does the filmmaker always influence the outcome with their own subjectivity? Shot mostly in black-and-white by Dymek, with enchanting animation by Mathieu Rok, My Friend is aesthetically much more convincing than its sometimes questionable narrative.

New York filmmaker Katie (Friedman-Cohen) lives in London where she picks the Polish actor, thirty-something Alicja (Piotrowska), as the central focus for her Brexit-themed documentary. But nothing goes to plan: first of all Alicja, (who is living with her boyfriend (Barry) in the Edgware Road), tells Katie that he is suffering from terminal cancer. Michael then denies the gravity of his illness and moves out, not wanting to be filmed by a very intrusive Katie. The two women have not always got on together so Katie decides “to change” Alicja’s life, by introducing her to a group of filmmakers at the Groucho Club. Alicja is going to play a Russian prostitute (her seventh casting in this role), and shooting is due to commence, but when it does, Michael’s condition worsens with Alicja trying in vain to stop the cancer by buying expensive alternative medicines from a Harley Street doctor. To no avail, he dies and at the rather embarrassing wake for Michael, she meets his friend Max (Davies), who stays the night. By now, Katie has moved in with her girlfriend, both declaring they are misfits. But when Alicja is suddenly fired from the film set, she also runs away from Katie who is forced to use a false ending (Alicja’s suicide) to finish her film. 

Despite their best intentions the portrayal of the complicated relationship between documentary filmmakers and their subjects sometimes falls victim to rather bad taste, such as in the faux-sex scene between the two women in Alicja’s bedroom. But the female leads are so convincing in portraying their obsessive relationship they somehow manage to overcome this setback. Overall, My Friend is a brave attempt to discuss the essence of documentary filmmaking, and, in spite of everything, it is a very worthwhile watch. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE

Tenzo (2019) **** FID Marseille 2019

Dir.: Katsuya Tomita; Documentary with Chiken Kawaguchi, Ryugyo Kurashima; Japan 2019, 59 min.

Director/co-writer Katsuya Tomita (Bangkok Nights) finances his films from his sideline as a truck-driver although this seems counter intuitive to his latest – a portrait of two Zen Buddhist monks who have immersed themselves into community life after the Tsunami and Fukushima disasters.

In Zen temples, there are six prestigious posts – cooking, care, hospitality, attentiveness towards others and, more generally, the issue of community. Tenzo is the name of the position given to the person responsible for meals and Tomita film echoes this with is chapters named after flavours: “spicy”, “sweet” etc. The post incumbant must also teach important aspects of the doctrine.

The monks are called Chiken and Ryugyo. Both of them were deeply affected by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, and both of them decided to spend their lives serving their fellow countrymen and women. Chiken, teaches culinary practice as an art of living and devotes some of his time to working on a suicide prevention hotline. The other, Ryugyo, supports the earthquake victims in his own modest but very practical way.

But life in Japan has changed fundamentally since the Tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophes. Chiken and Ryyugyo are trying to follow the teachings of Dogen, who was the Dojo of the Soto Buddhist school. Dogen saw himself as a vessel of Buddha’s teaching, which should be practised every day for twenty-four hours. He asked his students to answer the question what is the best way to live this short life. Every second is precious. Eating meals is another way to practise Buddha’s teaching. But so is washing your face and going to the toilet. According to Dogen everything we do in life can teach us something. So he devised the titular Tenzo regimes, including an outline for the monk’s meal duties. Chiken lives now in a temple in Yamanashi and offers cooking classes, after having learned the importance of food, since his son Hiro has suffered from many food allergies. He is in charge of daily ceremonies, but also runs a suicide hotline. Ryugyo is working mainly as a construction worker, helping the community in Fukushima to rebuilt their lives after the twin disasters.     

The images of DoPs Takuma Fuuruya and Masahiro Mukoyama are ludic and transparent, like Dogen’s teachings. The lighting in the temple sequences is remarkable and otherworldly. On the other hand, the realism of the everyday life Chiken and Ryugyo are facing now is shown in all its hardship. Tenzo is surreal yet socially relevant, a small gem. AS

FID MARSEILLE | 9 -15 JULY 2019

Ghost Strata (2019) *** FID Marseille 2019

Dir: Ben Rivers | Doc, UK, 45′

Even rocks are just passing through, like us they have their finite time on Earth. According to one eminent scientist ‘Ghost Strata’ are the missing elements from within rock faces that, despite their absence, offer hints of what was once there.

Standing in a former railway tunnel in central Nottingham, Geologist Professor Jan Zalasiewicz (University of Leicester) discusses notion with British filmmaker Ben Rivers, for his latest experimental documentary Ghost Strata. The tunnel, carved out of the city’s sandstone cliffs, allows us glimpses of the geological and anthropological traces left over millennia of sedimentation and revealed by human intervention. Prof. Zalasiewicz muses on the remnants of human existence that may or may not remain in geological records a 100 million years hence.

Ben Rivers then takes this idea and runs with it to explore the differing scales of impact that humanity’s presence has had on the earth since the beginning of time, and into the future. Rivers blends his own footage with sound and text elements to create an evocative meditation on time, memory and extinction.

Echoing his seasonal work Things (2014) and harking back to elements of his 2009 piece I Know Where I’m Going when he first collaborated with Prof. Zalasiewicz, this often dreamlike fantasy piece is divided into twelve chapters reflecting the months of the year in which the footage was filmed. Peripatetic in nature, Ghost Strata reflects Rivers’ travels to various locations including São Paulo, Krabi in Thailand and Nottingham in the UK. Ghost Strata is an insightful yet ephemeral reflection on time, memory, and extinction. MT

WORLD PREMIERING at FID MARSEILLE on 12 July 2019 Ghost Strata is the seventh in an ongoing series of 10-day shows at Matt’s Gallery, London

 

Cemetery (2019) **** MUBI

Dir: Carlos Casas | France, United-Kingdom, Poland, Uzbekistan / 2019 / Colour and B&W / 85′

After Hunters Since The Beginning of Time (FID 2008), a film about the primitive whale hunters of the Bering Sea, Carlos Casas finds himself drawn to wide open spaces of the world where he has filmed his contemplative second documentary. This time the setting is the rainforests of Sri Lanka and the focus is another large mammal: the Indian elephant. Casas’ gaze is drawn to the peace and intimacy of this tranquil and remote location where his cameraman Benjamin Echazarreta closes in on the eye of an elephant, and its roughly textured hide that camouflages the massive beast from potential prey. 

After a devastating earthquake the mighty beast Nga (who is getting on in life and is possibly the last of its species), is about to embark on a journey to find the mythical elephant’s graveyard with his mahout Sanra. The group of poachers following them will die one after the other under mysterious circumstances and spells.

The two explore the intensely remote location where only the ambient sound of exotic birds and insects disturbs the peace. The voyeuristic camerawork takes on the languorous pace of the elephant itself in order to explore the depths of lush rain-soaked verdancy in a green glade where a monkey listens to a broadcast about an earthquake laying waste to Asia, killing millions of people. The radio belongs to a local who is gently washing an elephant as he bathes waste deep in the muddy lagoon. There is tremendous affection in the way he carefully prepares and finishes his task, clearly a ritual he has performed many time before. But tragedy will follow as poachers are hot in pursuit. This meditative paean to massive beasts of the forest carries with it a sense of tragic foreboding as the tranquility of their clandestine hideout in mercilessly plundered.

Developing his film in the FIDLab 2013, Casas tries to shed a positive light on all this ecological tragedy. But is there a spiritual lesson to be learnt from the death of these highly intelligent creatures and the potential extinction of species. The elephant cemetery presents hope and possible rebirth, their souls immortal, just like humans. MT

Filmography : Cemetery, 2019. Avalanche, 2009-19 (on going project). End Trilogy, 2002-2009. Hunters since the Beginning of Time, 2008. Aral. Fishing in an Invisible Sea, 2004. Solitude at the End of the World, 2002-05. Rocinha, 2003. Afterwords, 2000

COMING SOON TO MUBI 

Noël et sa Mère (2019) **** FID Marseille 2019

Dir.: Noël Herpé; Documentary with Noel Herpe, Michelle Herpé; France 2019, 103 min.
Writer/director Noel Herpé (Fantasmes et Fantômes) stages a soul-searching duel with is mother Michelle, translator, theatre director and actress. Noël is also known for his work as a film historian, particular on Eric Rohmer. In front of the camera the two wrestle with their love for each other, the quarrels often turning vitriolic. He calls Michelle a witch with the face of human mother.
Michelle Voslinsky was in Paris in 1940, being Jewish, she had to hide from the Germans. After losing her mother the age of nine “she felt not entitled to a life like others, meaning no marriage, I was sure, nobody would love me”. Her much older husband Henri (father of Noël b. *1965), was bi-polar, and capable of strange behaviour, often offering his wife to visitors. And sometime Michelle did not need his encouragement, “motherhood was not my strength”.
She raised Noül as a girl, the odd couple produced an old doll, and immediately an argument breaks out as to whether the object could be defined as a doll. Next up is an accident in a pool, when Noël nearly drowned. Although his mother insists he mistook the adult pool for the children’s one, Noël insists on an early suicide attempt at the age of four. This leads to him lamenting the lack of motherly love in general, whilst his father Henri always repeatedly told him:” I love you”.  They then discuss psychological neglect: “We are in a different film”.
Noël casts his mind back to the first film he even saw, running out frightened from the café in Avignon. I was afraid of everything that moved. No wonder I became a film-historian, it is the stillness of the past that attracts me.” The family had bough a property in Poudrigne, and Noël spend many holidays with older half-brother Olivier in the countryside and when he was five, he heard his his mother crying behind closed doors, “so I opened the door”. Since then, he has tried to forget the images – but was at the same fascinated by them. For once, Michelle is contrite: “It was harmful for you, I have to love with the guilt”. Both agree, that Henri was a repressed homosexual. His son Noel would follow in his footsteps, after taking in interest in his mother’s tights, he also borrowed her clothes and jewellery. For Noel it was life-changing: “I felt like becoming my mother”. Michelle comments: “the tights look better on your friend Cyril, who is much slimmer than you”.
A short film “Man” documents young Noel’s entrance into the life of a fetishist. But he rejects the idea of being an exhibitionist: “I am just saying I am my mother. A ghost of my mother”. After Michelle left her husband at he age of 37, Noël moved in with Henri, to look after him. Henri’s mental health was deteriorating. Mother and son agree – for once – that Michelle loved her husband, whose death was never totally explained. Michelle admits still feeling love for him today. Both mother and son worked at the theatre: “it was a period to re-connect with her. We shopped together for dresses”. But soon they argue about details of their stage collaboration, she accusing her son “of being like Trump”. Noel directed his first gay play in 1988, even though both agree that he is “a non-practising gay man.”He later confesses to  “lack any carnal dimension”. They finally come to the conclusion that he will miss her when she is gone, but he ends positing: “I set out dreaming of absolute love”.
Filmed either on a couch or on the stage of an empty theatre by Nils Warolin and Tao Favre, with family photos and old newsreels interrupting the talking heads, Noël et sa Mere, is a psychological striptease, fascinating and disturbing at the same time. Acting much more like frustrated lovers than mother and son, it is a portrait of mixed signals and double-binds. Unique and haunting. AS
FID MARSEILLE | 9-15 JULY 2019

Karelia: Internacional with Monument (2019) *** FID Marseille 2019

Dir.: Andres Duque; Documentary with the Pankatrev family, Katherina Klodt; Spain 2019, 90 min.

Born in Venezuela and now operating from Spain, director/writer Andres Duque (Dress Rehearsal for Utopia) has created a melancholic portrait of the Finnish/(Russian region of Karelia, which has been at the centre of Finnish nationalism – no lesser patriot than Jean Sibelius composed the Karelia Suite, a document of deep sorrow and longing for the lost souls in the battle for control of the region. Duque opens with a long study of a Karelian family, before suddenly switching to contemporary Russian interference in the affairs of the present, caused by the bitter historical past.

Arma and Arkady Pankatrev live with their five children in an idyllic country location, where the children often roam free – like a mix of Rudolf Steiner philosophy and Summerhill (non) schooling. The parents are Shamanists and the children join in the sessions, where old books are read, and everyone is encouraged to free-associate about the magic of paganism. “Tell us, what you see”, Arkday encourages the children, “we are with you”. There is much poetry, like “A flower springs up for some reason”.

Then we learn about the building of the Belomorsk Canal in the late 1930s, and costing many lives, particularly those of the Gulag prisoners. Nikita Khrushchev held a eulogy on Stalin in 1937 – twenty years later he would denounce him as a tyrant. Arkady talks about how the Stalinist destroyed the Orthodox churches. Urjo, one of the young boys, is catching frogs and spiders, at night he holds on to his worms and ants. ”You think like a human”, his mother tells him, implying that animals might be a more developed species.

There is a huge stone memorial for the victims of Sandarmoh: between 1934 and 1941 over 7000 innocent people were killed in the Stalinist purges. “Birds have never sung again in Sandarmoh”. Today this history is being repressed by Putin: Katherina Klodt, the daughter of Yuri Dmitriev, bemoans the trials he has to face, for keeping the memory alive. He is accused of having abused his step daughter, even so the evidence is more than flimsy. Katherina tells an audience that the former acquittals of his father have been squashed. “It started with his speeches in 2014”, she said, when he talked about the many nationalities who suffered, like the Ukrainians. Putin has created a Military Historical Society in December 2012, which is used to cover up genocides by the Soviets.

Whilst Karelia is very informative, the change from the poetic country setting to the nitti-gritty of Putin’s contemporary revisionism is hard to take. They are obviously connected, but the aesthetic clash is rather jarring. AS

FID MARSEILLE | 9 -15 JULY 2019

The Brink (2019) ***

DIR: Alison Klayman | US Doc 98′

Alison Klayman shadows political operative Steve Bannon from the time he leaves the White House to the 2018 midterms.

Political strategist Steve Bannon (1953-) is best known for being the co-founder of Breitbart, and is also a former investment banker, educated at Georgetown and Harvard. He served in the United States Navy for seven years and then went on to exec produce 18 Hollywood films, between 1991 and 2016. Thereafter he was the White House chief strategist from January to August 2017, and founder of nonprofit organisation The Movement designed to promote economic nationalism in Europe. Eventually he was ejected from the White House after the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Not as informative and intriguing as Errol Morris’ American Dharma that screened at Venice  last year, this fly on the wall affair manages at least to avoid glorification, hardly bringing anything new to the table – although Bannon clearly had his knees firmly under the metaphorical one in the Whitehouse during the early stages of the Trump administration.

Klayman’s (Ai Wei: Never Sorry) cinema vérité style treatment is the result of her following Bannon as part of his elite during the course of a year’s media tour intended to rebrand his image as the leader of a global populist movement. A strong and engaging orator (in the style of Ken Livingstone, Gladstone and Nigel Farage) he is clearly clubbable, and we see him taking his movement on the road, talking to various advisors on how best to support congressional candidates, and showing his support to European populist parties – including Farage’s – in preparation for the European Parliament elections in 2019.

In Europe there’s obviously the high birth rate among Muslims to consider (in Belgium), and these far-righters all agree that “immigration is a bad thing”. Bannon then sets off on a US tour, promoting Republican candidates such as Roy Moore, and those running in the 2018 midterms. This involves attending fundraiser dinners and rallies. A heckler interrupts him during a speech and he smirks, “Who invited my ex-wife?” Klayman intercuts all this with news clips from the Brett Kavanaugh hearing to the Tree of Life shooting. He keeps on keeping on. He also talks to journalists, who seem to have a low opinion of him. Meanwhile, his film TRUMP @WAR (the media) is released, about the President’s victory in the face of the violent left.

The Brink is another documentary about the general mayhem that exists in US politics, focusing on one extreme figure to another (Weiner and Get Me Roger Stone). Klayman avoids talking head interviews but there’s no mistaking her take on her subject matter.

Very much like Brexit for the UK, the Trump era is a thorn in America’s side. And The Brink tries to analyse how it all came about, but without much success. Basically politicians see themselves as in the game for the love of humanity, despite the majority of them being self-seeking, bottom-feeding forms of life. In Dante’s journey to Hell, Klayman is simply trying to explore some of the characters on the way. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

 

Armstrong (2019) ***

Dir: David Fairhead | US Doc 100′

In his dramatic documentary David Fairhead manages to keep things surprisingly tense – given that we all know the outcome of this Apollo 11 lunar venture. Plundering the archives for material recorded back in the day Armstrong certainly builds a head of steam in its sense of urgency – moon travel was all the rage at the time, along with the astronauts who were regarded as modern day heroes along with the scientists glued to their screens. This glimpse of lunar history also records the earthlings camped out in the car park of J C Penney desperate to get a look at the breaking news of their space pioneers and the rackety craft that now seems fragile through contemporary eyes. Intriguing none the less. MT

OUT ON RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 12 JULY 2019

Projectionist (2019) **** Karlovy Vary 2019

Dir: Yuriy Shilov | Doc with Valentin Speshylov, Volodymyr Mak, Halyna Speshylova, Yuri Speshylov | Ukraine/Poland 78’

64 years is the average life expectancy for a man in Ukraine. And Valentin is heading that way. Pleasant and voluble with his twinkling eyes and broad smile, he has spent most of his working life as projectionist at Kiev’s oldest cinema the Kinopanorama, that opened in 1958.

Preoccupation with his mother has clearly dogged and dominated his personal life. A chain smoker with false teeth – at one point he’s seen popping them in and swigging the cleaning fluid – he loves to visit the dancing girls in the next door casting agency nearby the cramped flat shares with his ageing mother who is confined to bed with chronic constipation. But Valentin is not the only colourful character, in this picaresque and gently humorous debut from promising Ukrainian filmmaker Yuriy Shilov, Valentin’s neighbour Silpa is a batty lonely old man who dyes his hair and drinks himself to oblivion.

Camerawork lends a voyeuristic feel to the semi darkness of pokey place where Valentin’s friends pass by to say hello through the brightness of the open window. Kiev is seen crumbling in its former grandeur, Valentin and his pals the idiosyncratic old guard keeping the show on the road in a rapidly changing world while several widescreen panoramas reflect the sheer vastness of Ukraine’s capital city with its traditional curative baths and magnificent Dnieper River, the fourth longest in Europe

But when the Kinopanorama finally goes up in smoke one night, its clearly time for Valentin to seek pastures new and this amiable Ukrainian is very much game. MT

KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL | 28 June – 7 July 2019

The Cold Blue (2018) ***

Dir: Erik Nelson | US Doc, 72′

Erik Nelson has unearthed a treasure trove of recently discovered colour footage shot in 1943 by Hollywood director William Wyler for his WWII classic The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944). The result is a quietly moving audio memoir of those surviving members of the Eighth Air Force who calmly talk us through their unique experiences transporting us back to the final years of the war. Set to Richard Thompson’s tuneful musical score the 16mm footage has the added advantage of being in colour, making it all the more extraordinary in its immediacy. Wyler risked life and limb to make his documentary, flying on more than 25 B-17 bombing missions during 1943, and one of the cameramen, Harold J. Tannenbaum, was actually shot down and killed over France. Surviving veterans take us back to the trauma with a calm dignity and pride. Clearly this was a daunting experience but they share their sense of excitement, even 75 years later. Many of them died serving their country, and in the Eighth Air Force the fatalities were particularly heavy, one man is driven to tears as he remembers losing a friend. Another recalls the mixed blessing of real eggs for breakfast -rather than the powdered variety. This usually meant they were in for a particularly perilous mission. But they never regretted killing the enemy, as one remembers “Never gave it a thought, they were just Germans….They’re gonna do it to us, we’re better off doing it to them first”. Fascinating stuff!. MT

ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS on 4 July 2019

 

 

Diego Maradona (2019) ****

Asif Kapadia | Doc, UK 120′

Asif Kapadia completes his trilogy about child geniuses and how they handle fame with this portrait of star who is still very much alive. The trio started with Senna (2010) that depicted the life and death of the Brazilian motor-racing champion. His biopic Amy went on to win an Oscar and became the highest grossing British documentary after its Cannes premiere in 2015, and was even more popular than his debut doc. Himself a football fanatic Kapadia is clearly fascinated by the Argentine soccer legend’s charisma, low cunning and leadership, but mostly by his sheer ability to bounce back from the lows in his career: “He was always the little guy fighting against the system, and he was willing to do anything to use all of his cunning and intelligence to win.” This all footage foray blends over 500 hours of grainy media coverage with home video material to transform Maradona’s story into an adrenaline fuelled two hours that sees the cheeky mummy’s boy from a poor barrio in Buenos Aires transformed into a charismatic winner whose undiluted hubris was bound to send him Icarus-style on a meteoric mission to the sun. Crucially Kapadia’s film is about both sides of the megastar’s personality: the affectionate insecure slumdog and the epic hero who would finally crash to earth. MT

NOW ON RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 14 JUNE 2019

https://youtu.be/JNaRrDX8MUc

Mother (2019) **** Sheffield Doc Festival 2019

Dir.: Kristof Bilsen; Doc with Chutimon Sonsirichai (Pomm), Elisabeth Röhmer, Maya Gloor, Walter Gloor; Belgium 2019, 82 min.

People are living longer but not always enjoying a healthy or happy old age in Western Europe. Kristof Bilsen tackles the alarming truths behind our care home crisis in his heart-breaking documentary that sees a Swiss family sending their mother across the world to be looked after by strangers in her final years.  

But before you jump to condemn them, just consider this. Thai women come to the UK in their droves every year to enjoy the benefits of our strong economy that allows them to make a living by offering their unique talents as masseuses and alternative health professionals. Their kids are left with their  extended families and see their mothers only one or twice a year in some cases. Meanwhile UK care homes charge extortionate amounts of money just for bed and board (at BUPA you pay a basic £100,o00 per annum in central London), while bosses cream off the profits and pay their care staff a pittance. These substandard employees are sometimes unable to communicate with residents due to their poor English skills, and often have little aptitude or interest in their badly paid jobs. It’s a critical situation that seems to indicate that this Swiss family could be doing their mother a favour, and even saving money into the bargain.

In Thailand, Pomm looks after Alzheimers patients from German-speaking countries in the Baan Kamlangchay hospice near Chiang-Mai. Her own three children are looked after by her husband and extended family. She too is badly paid but infinitely more compassionate, working an eight hour shift, with another job to make ends meet, her relationship with her husband is strained.

In this tranquil sanctuary, Elisabeth Röhmer is in the last stages of Alzheimers, but Pomm remembers when she loved to do the crossword and helped the carers learn English. After Elisabeth’s death, Pomm will be responsible for Maya, a mother of three from Zofingen in Switzerland. Her husband Walter and three daughters Joyce, Sara and Tanya are struggling to find suitable care for grandma Maya, so the clinic in Thailand seems the best solution. ”It would be selfish to keep her here so we could see her all the time. She gets much better care in Thailand”. And this true because Maya, like Elisabeth before her, will have three carers working round the clock.

Once she arrives with her family in Thailand Maya takes time to settle down in her new environment, awoken by exotic birdsong on her first morning. She is clearly not as happy about the move as the Gloor family would have us believe as they share their last Christmas together far from home. On a boat trip, they discuss how to say goodbye to Maya. Super 8 mm family films show a younger Maya in happier times. Back home in Switzerland, the Gloors Skype Maya who is still at odds with their departure but adapting to her new circumstances.

So is there such a difference between East and West? Clearly in the Far East there is far more respect for adults, their wisdom and experience is highly valued both by the family and in society as a whole. This extends to the process of dying as we saw in Locarno winner MRS FANG. It seems like a double whammy when elderly members of the family lose their dignity and need our care and patience while they remain critical, controlling and difficult, as in the case with dread diseases such as Alzheimers. Their dehumanisation process is disorientating, their loss of dignity strangely infantalises them in the eyes of those who once looked up to them and respected their seniority. We expect to look after our kids, but not our parents. And England has now become a child-centric culture, where children have become objects of desire, admired and put on a pedestal, as we saw recently in the case of Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg.

Bilsen remains objective in his fascinating and thought-provoking film,. Pomm reflecting that her job has shown her the difference between rich and poor. Really? Maya has three care givers because the Swiss family can afford it, yet the carers in both countries are badly paid. The difference is that over here in the UK the care is poor even when you throw money at it; clearly compassion cannot be bought. Pomm wonders (as we all do) what will happen to her if she becomes a victim of Alzheimers. Who will care for her? All over the world we are relying on others to care for our loved ones because we are too busy looking after ourselves.

THE WORLD PREMIER OF MOTHER SCREENS AT SHEFFIELD DOCFEST 9 JUNE 2019 

Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf (2017) ***

Dir: Thomas Piper | Doc, 73′

Dutch landscape designer and plantsman Pete Oudolf has dedicated his life to creating some of the most iconic gardens around the world and this documentary celebrates his contributions in the US and England.

Five Seasons‘ stunning widescreen panoramas showcase Oudolf’s own gardens at Hummelo in Holland, and his signature public works in New York (The High Line); Chicago (Lurie Gardens) and designs for Durslade – a garden he considers his best work yet. The documentary flits about a bit chronologically, but provides a stunning visual and meditative experience. Piper’s skilful time-lapse sequences take us through the whole year at Hummelo, from Autumn to the following Autumn, timelapse sequences offering an immersive look at Oudolf’s planting techniques and creative process, from his beautifully abstract sketches, to his general ethos and feelings about the natural world. Oudolf paints with plants. But unlike painting, his creations develop in a multi-dimensional way, not only according to the changing seasons, soil and climate but also to the particular ambience they inhabit. Oudolf posits: “I put plants on stage and let them perform”.

When he started out 35 years ago Oudolf ‘s abiding desire was to escape from traditional planting and design.. He wanted to get to know his living ‘building blocks’ spontaneously and from the experience of growing and living with plants rather than studying them in a college or from a book, “discovering beauty in things that are initially not beautiful”. Tall, commanding and rocking a killer blond hair cut, he comes across as a reserved – almost spiky – man in discussions with designer Noel Kingsbury and photographer Richard Dark.

Growing up in a bar with his publican father, he never had that intimate family life. Instead he learnt to observe. Moving to Harlem with his girlfriend Anya (still the guiding light in his life) gave him the space to experiment and with her support he looked at various careers, finally ending up in a garden nursery. His method is to list a series of plants that will create the right atmosphere for his particular project, he calculates the dominant plant groups to achieve his overall effect: “Gardening is also a promise you’re creating for your client. It’s about getting the look right even during the bad moments, in the depths or winter or in drought”.

Celebrated by gardeners for his revolutionary designs, by ecologists for his significant contributions to bio-diversity, by horticulturalists and botanists for his unrivalled knowledge of plants, and by the art, architecture, design and fashion worlds for his innovative aesthetics, Piet Oudolf has now achieved a level of influence and cultural relevance, rarely, if ever, attained by, in his own words, a modest plantsman.

Oudolf has achieved international acclaim, and has recently been awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the RIBA for developing radical ideas in Planting Design (2012) and the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation Award (2013).

FIVE SEASONS: THE GARDENS OF Piet Oudolf | 13 June 2019 PICTUREHOUSE CENTRAL

Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 – New Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is taking place between 19th and 30th June. This year the Festival will screen around 121 new features, including 18 feature film World Premieres from across the globe.

This year the focus is Spain and there will be a particular emphasis on genre films from women directors from around the world, ranging from gothic romance and Western chills through to science fiction and old-fashioned horror. All this set alongside a tribute to French filmmaker Agnès Varda, a woman who has inspired generations of directors.

There will be guests including one of Britain’s most successful directors, Danny Boyle, award-winning actor and producer Jack Lowden, British documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield and Scottish writer, director and actor Pollyanna McIntosh who also brings her latest film, Darlin’ to this year’s EIFF, and director, actor, writer and producer Icíar Bollaín. 

The festival will screen the world premiere of Adrian Noble’s Mrs Lowry & Son, starring Timothy Spall as the iconic painter L S Lowry, and Vanessa Redgrave. The Black Forest described as a ‘love letter to Europe’ from writer-director Ruth Platt; and coming-of-age supernatural love story Carmilla from director Emily Harris.

The EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES strand features: Elfar Adalsteins’ End of Sentence where a bickering father and son from America take a road trip in Ireland; The Emperor of Paris starring Vincent Cassel will receive its UK Premiere at the Festival alongside Rudolph Herzog’s amusing How to Fake a War starring Katherine Parkinson and Aniara, an epic science-fiction drama about a passenger spaceship lost in the void, as well as titles including Barbara Vekarić’s Aleksi from Croatia; Susanne Heinrich’s Aren’t You Happy? from Germany and Swiss psychological drama Cronofobia. Audiences can also look forward to the return of France’s favourite Gaul in Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion.

This year’s WORLD PERSPECTIVES strand offers audiences an exciting and challenging array of new works by talented filmmakers from around the world. Highlights include: the World Premieres of Astronaut, starring Richard Dreyfuss as a lonely widower who dreams of a trip to space and Rodrigo Guerrero’s Venezia. Australian cinema features prominently this year with the acclaimed Acute Misfortune, a striking, brilliant and unconventional portrait of one of Australia’s most acclaimed and idiosyncratic painters, Adam Cullen; Other highlights include two South Korean action-adventure masterclasses in the form of Unstoppable and box office smash Extreme Job.

This year’s DOCUMENTARIES programme reflects the ability of documentary film to amaze, inspire, challenge, provoke and fascinate audiences, offering them the unique chance to travel the world and see strange and unusual sights. Strand highlights include:Memory: The Origins of Alien, a fascinating documentary about the making of Alien from the very beginning; This Changes Everything which examines the problems faced by women filmmakers and features interviews with Hollywood greats including Geena Davis, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Taraji P. Henson, Reese Witherspoon and Cate Blanchett; Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk narrated by former caddie Bill Murray and Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, from Nick Broomfield, giving audiences an insight into Leonard Cohen’s love affair with Marianne Ihlen. 

This year’s retrospective strand entitled ONCE UPON A TIME IN SPAIN, will explore Spain’s rich cinematic history through three strands: A Retrospective Celebration of Modern Spanish Cinema; A Retrospective Selection of Cult Spanish Cinema and an in-depth celebration of the work of legendary Spanish writer, actor and filmmaker, Icíar Bollaín. Designed to begin where the retrospective ends, FOCUS ON SPAIN features a selection of brand new Spanish cinema by some of the country’s most promising directors. Highlights include: Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles from Salvador Simó, an accomplished and fitting homage to the great master of surrealist cinema; the directorial debut from Nicolás Pacheco Cages and gripping sci-fi thriller h0us3 from Manolo Munguía, inspired by the mysterious ‘insurance files’ famously employed by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. 

The Festival will screen a number of films by the late great Agnès Varda across a retrospective strand entitled THE FEATURES OF AGNÈS and Varda by Agnès, her final film which will be introduced by Honorary Patron Mark Cousins.

Audiences can look forward to a whistle-stop tour of the latest ideas and techniques being explored in the world of animated film in the International Animation selection, as part of the Festival’s annual dedicated ANIMATION strand, as well as a screening of an anthology of anime shorts from the Japanese Studio Ponoc – the anticipated successor to Studio Ghibli – in association with Scotland Loves Anime.

If the weather holds there will be a free open-air cinema event, Film Fest in the City with Edinburgh Live, at St Andrew Square Garden, running from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th June 2019.

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 19-30 JUNE 2019 

 

Halston (2019) London Fashion Week

Dir/Wri: Frederic Tcheng | With: Tavi Gevinson, Liza Minnelli, Marisa Berenson, Joel Schumacher, Pat Cleveland, Bob Calacello, Carl Epstein, Lesley Frowick, Sassy Johnson, Naeem Khan, John David Ridge | US Doc, 120′

Well known for his insightful portraits of the fashion world: Dior and I (2014); Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011), which he co-directed; and for Valentino: The Last Emperor, (2008), which he co-produced, Tcheng gets top marks for this exposé on Roy Halston Frowick the all American boy from De Moines, Iowa who put America in the frame with his flare for flattering the female form.

After the boxy styles and artificial fabrics of the Sixties, Halston’s voluptuous dresses enveloped and caressed curves and cleavages as they “danced around you” according to Liza Minelli, one of his biggest advocates and a firm friend. All this was in part thanks to his master tailor Gino Balsamo whose clever crafting created single-seam clothes that ‘freed the female body” and swirled and seduced due to the unique simplicity of their genius bias-cut.

Apart from its length the only slight criticism of this biopic is the gimmicky structure that sees actor Tavi Gevinson as an innocent bystander, sleuthing through the Halston company archives and VHS tapes to needlessly sex up the sinister nature of Halston’s final fall from grace. It’s a device that feels tacky and counterintuitive to the sophisticated slimline slinkiness of the designer’s raison d’être.

Born during the Depression in 1932, Halston was an ordinary gay man who instinctively knew how to re-invent himself as a suave mover and shaker. Starting out in the 60s as a milliner to Bergdorf Goodman famous clients (Jackie Onassis wore his pillbox hat), he rapidly moved on to create his own brand through celebrity endorsement in New York’s 70s and 80s. Sashaying onto the dance floor of Studio 54 with his beautiful entourage, known as the Halsonettes, he moved on with movie stars, and invented “hot pants”. Andy Warhol and Elizabeth Taylor were amongst his friends and clients. He also dressed the American athletes at the ’76 Olympics, the girl scout leaders, the NYPD and Avis car rental staff, as well as the Martha Graham dance troupe.

His all American freeform fashion parade at Paris’ Palace of Versailles in 1973 featured black American models and set the night alight with a fizzing floor show, despite French domination of the event. China was the next step and we sample previously unseen footage from NBC visiting a silk factory where workers got a chance to try on creations made from their own fabrics.

But Halston was to grow too big for his own boots. Soon he moved offices to the glamorous mirrored interiors of New York’s Olympic Tower. His keenness to develop the brand saw high signing a multi-million dollar deal with conglomerate Norton Simon. This took away his rights to his designs and name, while offering him continued creative control, allowing him to jump into bed with the likes of Max Factor, facilitating the launch of his first fragrance, Halston, with a bottle designed by longterm collaborator Elsa Peretti. The brand was soon on sheets, towels, even leather goods. But gradually new bosses with scant appreciation of fashion or design would take over, and one by the name of Jacob Epstein would be his nemesis.

Halston launched a worthy endeavour to dress mainstream America through a deal with JCPenney (a sort of US Marks & Spencer). Termed “From class to mass” the venture focused on volume rather than artistry, and did not go down with well with Bergdorf Goodman, or his high-net-worth clientele, many of whom cancelled orders.

By this time Halston’s lavish lifestyle was also becoming financially exhausting, along with his on-off Venezuelan lover Victor Hugo, who had arrived on the scene purely for his looks (“One night Halston dialed a dick”) and then became involved in the business, upsetting several members of his team. The final segment sees Halston re-connecting with his family and employing his niece, Lesley Frowick, who emotes on his HIV/AIDS demise rather too copiously.

Halston works best as a chronicle of his fashion design artistry with its eye-catching footage and fascinating characters of the era. The business side of things often feels over-laboured and detailed. But it’s still an entertaining biopic to watch. Clearly Halston was a force to be reckoned with, totally redefining the fashion world, and bringing America to the forefront with his fabulous legacy. MT

ON RELEASE On various platforms including Dogwoof.com

 

 

 

 

The Men’s Room (2018) **** Krakow Film Festival 2019

Dir. Petter Sommer, Jo Vemud Svendsen, 75 min., Norway

This watchable award-winning tribute to male friendship and vulnerability positively glows with a lowkey charm so redolent of its Northern European origins, and so real it could never quite work as a drama, avoiding sentimentality and cliche to achieve something rare. 

It sees a group of 25 Norwegian men in their prime getting together every Tuesday to sing and drink beer. The joke is that they have promised to sing at each other’s funerals and it soon looks like the choir’s conductor will prove the first one to go. It turns out that one of them is diagnosed with cancer and the doctor has given him just a few months to live. Naturally he feels fine. But it’s roughly the time that the choir has to prepare for its biggest gig to date: a warm-up job for Black Sabbath before their concert in Norway 2016. . The countdown has started, and the cancer-stricken conductor and desultory band of ‘choirboys’ try to keep their spirits high with songs about the hardships of middle-age, while they also prepare to say farewell. Soft-peddling over their feelings for the opposite sex, their irreverent banter is always respectfully playful and well-received in this middle-class milieu of contemporary Oslo. The  mood is kept buoyant by their community singing that provides the vehicle for sharing their thoughts and opening up, joshing with each other as they do. Rarely has a film been so quietly amusing, and surprisingly moving. The Men’s Room goes straight to the heart and stays there. MT

KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL | 26 May – 5 June 2019

Diego Maradona (2019) **** Cannes Film Festival 2019

Asif Kapadia | Doc, UK 120′

Asif Kapadia is no stranger to Cannes. His Cannes biopic Amy went on to win an Oscar and became the highest grossing British documentary after its Cannes premiere in 2015, and was even more popular than his 2010 biopic Senna. DIEGO MARADONA rounds off his trilogy about child geniuses and fame. Football fanatic Kapadia is clearly fascinated by the Argentine football legend’s charisma, low cunning and leadership, but mostly by his sheer ability to bounce back from the lows in his career: “He was always the little guy fighting against the system, and he was willing to do anything to use all of his cunning and intelligence to win.” This all footage foray blends over 500 hours of grainy media coverage with home video material to transform Maradona’s story into an adrenaline fuelled two hours that sees the cheeky mummy’s boy from a poor barrio in Buenos Aires transformed into a charismatic winner whose undiluted hubris was bound to send him Icarus-style on a meteoric mission to the sun. Crucially Kapadia’s film is about both sides of the megastar’s personality: the affectionate insecure slumdog and the epic hero who would finally crash to earth. MT

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL | GOLDEN EYE | 14-25 MAY 2019

X Y Chelsea (2018) ***

Dir.: Tim Travers Hawkins; Documentary with Chelsea Manning; UK 2019, 92 min.

Tim Travers Hawkins’ documentary debut is a work progress – rather like the main character – Chelsea Manning, a trans woman who was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for leaking military “secrets” to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks. The secrets were mainly images of the USA’s covert war in Iraq, including the murder of two Reuters journalist.

Chelsea was born Bradley Edward Manning in 1987; her parents were alcoholics. The relationship with her father was particularly difficult. Even though she was only 1.57 m, she joined the army in 2007 and worked as an intelligence analyst from 2009. She garnered a slew of decorations (among them the National Defence Service Medal) but was still critical of the US engagement and the 750 000 plus classified documents leaked were known as ‘Iraq War logs’ and ‘Afghan War Diary’. They showed the ‘dirty’ combats the Pentagon would have rather kept under wraps. After an online contact reported on her, she was jailed in 2010 in the Army Correctional Unit in Quantico, Virginia, where she was kept in Solitary confinement from July 2010 to April 2011. After pleading guilty during the 2013 military trial, she was sentenced to serve 35 years at the High Security Military Correctional Facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which happened to be an all-male prison. On 17. January 2017, President Obama commuted her sentence to seven years, dating from her first imprisonment in 2010. Since 2013, she received hormone replacement therapy after choosing to identify as a female.

On her release, lawyer Nancy Hollander found a safe house f so she could slowly adjust to her new freedom. In prison, she had struck up correspondence with Lisa Rein, who had also tried to help her. But Chelsea made in clear she wanted a life as as a public person, claiming those who sent her hate-mail would never go away. She wanted to fight them head on. She challenged the democratic Maryland Senator Ben Cardin for the nomination in 2018, coming second with 5.7%. But an ill-timed appearance at an alt-right meeting cost her support; many did not understand that she simply wanted “to spy on the enemy”. In March 2019 she was arrested again for contempt of court, refusing to testify against Julian Assange. Manning objected to the Secrecy of the Grand Jury process, and the fact, that she told the court everything about Assange in her trial. She is currently held in a jail in Alexandria City.

Hawkins does a great job of showing Manning’s vulnerability and impetuousness: she is truly as naïve as she claims. But for the most part we are left frustrated by too many unanswered questions. The director fails to analyse her many contradictions in his rather ad-hoc approach to her own scattergun fight for survival and recognition in the real world. AS

ON RELEASE from 24 May 2019 IN SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES

       

Cordillera of Dreams (2019)

Dir: Patricio Guzman | DoP: Samuel Lahu | Chile, 97′

Patricio Guzman completes the trilogy on his native Chile with this follow-up to The Pearl Button (2015) and Nostalgia for the Light ((2010).

Since moving to Paris over 40 years ago, well-known documentarian Patricio Guzman admits to feeling an outsider on returning to the country of his birth. This latest Cordillera de los Suenos is probably the most politically engaged of the trio with echoes of his seminal work The Battle of Chile (1975-79), but also possibly the least engaging. The mournful reminiscence touches on the relationship between Chile’s history and the natural world but the lively interviews with sculptors and artists whose work focuses on the Andes, soon give way to video footage of the brutal Pinochet years recorded by the prolific photographer Pablo Sala who first began his work in the 1980s and has been filming public life in Chile ever since.

The Cordillera of Dreams is certainly a sad reflective film and once again enjoys Guzman’s serene and measured narration which muses on the links between the country’s extraordinary geography and the human tragedy that Chileans experienced since the fateful coup on 11 September 1973, when Guzman left the country and moved to France. He now dreams of returning to his homeland and restoring the dilapidated house where he grew up in Santiago.

“It doesn’t even smell the same” says Guzman of his beloved country tucked away behind the Andes, describing it as a “chest full of poetic dreams”. Like most of the world, Chile has now moved into the 21st century and now enjoys a stable and prosperous economy that welcomes foreign investment. Samuel Lahu’s extraordinary overhead shots of Santiago are magnificent; fuzzy clouds scudding by to reveal the grid pattern of a white city walled by huge snowy mountains — the Andes – stretching far away to the East. But still the director yearns for the past and his happy childhood – like most of us. Sadly the future has arrived in Chile without him. Capitalism has brought prosperity but on one can bring back the home he once known.

We see overhead footage of the ‘ghost trains’ silently transporting Chile’s wealth of copper to the ports to be transported abroad. These privately owned mines are nowhere to be scene and no public roads have access to them. Along with wine, this precious national resource is one of Chile main exports. The Pearl Button was fascinating in that it raised awareness of the object that came originally from the shirt of a political victim, and was discovered years later at the bottom of the sea. But this film makes no such amazing discoveries, nor does it ask new questions.

We already know that Pinochet was a genocidal maniac who held the country in his thrall from his imposing tower block in Santiago – and we get a tour of the empty building echoing with the ghosts of corrupt generals. And there is ample footage of public beatings and water cannon roving the streets during his bloody regime, thanks to Pablo Salas. In his precious trove of videos, he even shows us footage of the column of men, (between 15 and 65 who were removed from their homes), filing off in a large line into the football stadium, that same ground that bore witness years earlier to Chile’s triumph in the World Cup.

But while Guzman fled abroad to the peace and prosperity of France, Pablo Salas remained to face the music, however funereal it was. So perhaps Guzman feels twinges of guilt for abandoning his homeland, and senses that Chile has possibly turned her back on him for disloyalty. Salas, now in his late fifties, is an sympathetic man who is philosophical about his country, swearing he could never leave. In his studio surrounded by boxes and boxes of video material, he is the one who has made it “impossible to erase history” and for that Guzman is grateful. MT

GOLDEN EYE DOCUMENTARY PRIZE Cannes 2019 | ON RELEASE 7 OCTOBER 2022

 

 

 

Solo (2019) *** ACID at Cannes 2019

Dir: Artemio Benki | Doc France/Czech Rep/Arg/Austria

Psychologists have identified strong links between creativity and mood disorders such as bipolar disorder and even schizophrenia. Some of our most famous writers, artists and musicians have suffered from mental instability: Virginia Woolf was dogged by depression, Ernest Hemingway committed suicide after treatment, Robert Schumann died in a mental home and even Steven Fry admitted to bi-polar when he famously walked away from a role on the London stage.

Producer and director Artemio Benki explores mental affliction in his serene and sensitive documentary screening in the ACID sidebar at Cannes this year. Solo centres on Martín P. a young Argentinean piano virtuoso and composer who has been receiving treatment for his breakdown four years ago as a patient in the controversial psychiatric hospital of El Borda, the largest and most noted of its kind in Latin America. As a child Martin was hailed a musical genius and went on to be the most talented composer of his generation. But for the past four year he has been struggling to get back to the concert stage while composing his latest work Enfermaria. Solo tells his unique yet relatable story, his fight with creativity and his obsession with being the best in a world where perfection and talent require confidence and persistence to thrive. Martin’s essential focus is to find that safe place between ‘insanity’ and ‘normality’ so he can move on and develop his career and his life. MT

SCREENING IN ACID Sidebar | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2019

 

5B (2018) **** Cannes Film Festival 2019

Dir: Dan Krauss, Paul Haggis | US, Doc 95′

A new documentary from Oscar nominee Dan Krauss (The Kill Team) and Paul Haggis delves into the history of the first ward in the world for people with AIDS, at San Francisco General Hospital. The film focuses on the unsung heroes, a small collection of nurses and caregivers who banded together to provide courage, compassion and, crucially, touch to those devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the early 1980s. Even pets were allowed to visit their afflicted owners and partners were invited to make the ward their home. 

Spiking their film with moments of sharp humour, the result is a poignant tribute to this tragic time in American history, and a celebration of the quiet heroes worthy of renewed recognition, although the directors do demonise those medical professionals who exercised prudence in their treatment of the patients. Particularly, top orthopaedic surgeon and head of the San Francisco surgical team, Dr Day, who decided to wear protective garments because she wanted, quite understandably, to avoid being infected from the spurting blood of infected patients. Also unpopular was President Reagan who introduced a raft of measures to protect those working in AIDS care. Reagan even considered exiling the sick to their own private island – as the Venetians did to stamp out the plague – and one AIDS sufferer jokes: “we’d be happy to go if it was Santa Catalina island”. Yet it was an era were America was just not ready for people coming out, let along dying at the same time, so these draconian measures were hardly surprising.

Combining archive footage and interviews with those involved and affected, Krauss and Haggis explain that those people first infected with the virus in the late 1970s went downhill rapidly, often dying within months, even weeks. As fear spread throughout the community of San Francisco and beyond, AIDS sufferers lost their jobs and were kicked out of their apartments. One dying caretaker’s desk was even burnt in the parking lot of his building. In contrast, those pioneering individuals, who offered loving support, talk of their own memories: Rita Rockett even staged parties once a week in the ward, offering musical entertainment and food. Grateful patients were allowed to say: “they loved her to bits, but not to death!”

With the arrival of protease inhibitors – antiviral drugs that block the disease – fatalities eventually went into decline in the late 1990s. And many of the talking heads featured in the documentary have lived to tell their tearful tales. Well-paced and informative, 5B is a fascinating film that could have even added a positive twist in the fight for AIDS. These point towards immunity and even the possible eradication of the disease in the not too distant future. MT

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | GOLDEN EYE DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

 

John McEnroe: In the realm of Perfection (2018) ***

Dir: Julien Faraut | US Doc 95′

In the Realm of Perfection showcases tennis star John McEnroe at his very best – or worst – as some may say. Arguably, the enfant terrible of the tennis circuit was also one of the world’s finest and most charismatic players, his coiled force and balletic movements captured in fluid slow motion by specialist DoP Gil de Kermadec in Julien Faraut’s entertaining documentary.

John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, was shot on 16mm during the French Open at Roland-Garros in the early 1980s when de Kermadec had determined that champions played in a different way when under pressure (in competitions) than when simply knocking a ball about during practice sessions. Using early 1980s computer animation he explores the intricacies of McEnroe’s techniques and particularly his unpredictable serve and killer backhand. The film considers the power and intensity of McEnroe’s physical prowess and dexterity combined with his highly-tuned reflexes and skilful strategies for outwitting his opponent. All this is scored to the music of Sonic Youth’s “The Sprawl” and narrated by Mathieu Amalric.

For those who were positively invigorated by the American athlete’s feisty temperament his puerile petulance and childish outbursts, this film is a must. Clearly from early childhood, McEnroe’s personality was founded on an egocentricity so keen that he was unable to see anything from any perspective other than his own. This coupled with a sheer disdain for the professional opinion of the linesman, umpire and other employees makes for hilarious often incredulous viewing. “You must be kidding” was one of his stock expressions.

Cleverly, Faraut gives us only once chance to watch the footage, leaving the ball firmly in McEnroe’s court and leaving the jury out, creating an onscreen tension which builds gradually in the film’s mesmerising final sequences when we watch McEnroe pitting his wits against Ivan Lendl in the 1984 men’s final at the French Open.  Force of nature and force to be reckoned with, McEnroe was certainly one of the powerhouses of international tennis. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 24 MAY 2019 NATIONWIDE

 

 

Searching for Ingmar Bergman (2018) ****

Dir.: Margarethe von Trotta; Documentary with Liv Ullmann, Olivier Assayas, Jean-Pierre Carriere, Mia Hansen-LØve, Julia Dufvenius, Daniel Bergman, Ruben Östlund, Stig Björkman, Katinka Farago; France/Germany 2018, 99 min.  

Of the two Bergman documentaries at Cannes last year – now on release – this is the most appealing. German director Margarethe von Trotta (Die Verlorene Ehre der Katherina Blum) tries desperately not to make Bergman a hero in her glowing love letter to the Swedish director (1918-2007): she succeeds on a personal level, but falls short when it coms to his artistic output. Perhaps understandably, given that The Seventh Seal was the first film that inspired von Trotta to become a director herself during her time in Paris. But Bergman returned the favour: she was the only woman director to feature on his list of eleven of his favourite films (dominated by legends like Kurosawa, Dreyer and Chaplin) for her Venice winning opus Marianne and Juliane (1981).

Written by co-director Felix Moeller, Searching opens with scenes from The Seventh Seal, set on the rugged Swedish coast, which it then revisits in the present day, to find that little has changed since the 1950s. Bergman was a life-long prisoner of a loveless childhood enforced by his father, a vicar. Jean-Pierre Carriere posits “In all his films there is a conflict between his strict upbringing and the present”. Bergman ran his life on a tight schedule, even his funeral was planned down to the last detail, only friends and family being invited. But he was also a suggestible and compulsive man, very much in believing the ghosts in his films, such as Hour of the Wolf. And filmmaker Mia Hansen-LØve senses this is his private life too :“you could feel the ghosts in his house”. 

Bergman’s hero was his Swedish compatriot Victor Sjöström whose 1921 feature The Phantom Carriage became a regular favourite, Bergmann watching it every year of his adult life. He also cast Sjöström in his first great success, Wild Strawberries (1957).

Promiscuous, he went on to father nine children with various different women, including his favourite actor Liv Ullmann. His son Daniel (*1962) from the marriage with Käbi Lareti, is not particularly fond of his father, calling him by his Christian name. Daniel does not miss his parents now they are dead, but it frightens him to think that his nine-year-old daughter Judith might feel the same way about him. On his 60th birthday, Bergman’s children eventually met up, many for the first time. And Daniel is not the only one to feel that his father was just “a big child”, unable to related to his kids. Although he clearly enjoyed sex, Bergman intensely disliked watching other people’s love scenes during Hollywood movies, asking the projectionist to fast forward through those in Pearl Harbour.

In 1976 Bergman spent some time in prison for tax evasion, then fled Sweden for Hollywood (although he never made a film there) and later Germany where his anti-Nazi feature the Serpent’s Egg (1977) was rather a flop. Bergman had a passion for Hitler before the outbreak of WWII, calling him a saviour. But most of his films are dominated by strong men, who are not necessarily evil. After a ten year exile, Bergman returned to Sweden.

As is often the case, Bergman was more popular abroad than at home, where the public and critics preferred more down to earth directors such as Bo Widerberg. Von Trotta cuts short the discussion with Swedish director Stig Björkman who claims that Bergman has fallen from popularity with today’s filmmakers.

And while Bergman was a narcissist, he was also a control freak with his favourite seat in a café opposite the theatre, so he could watch actors leaving, and work out “who is sleeping with whom”. Even his script adviser for 30 years, Katinka Faragó, reports that Bergman used to stay in bed, holding hands with her for twenty minutes, before he found the nerve to start directing. Von Trotta and her then husband, director Volker Schlöndorff, also claimed that Bergman liked to hold hands at the table, when they met.

Ingmar Bergman was certainly a man of many contradictions, but he should be allowed to have the last word: “I have always felt lonely in the world, and that is why I escaped into filmmaking, but the feeling of community is an illusion”. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 10 MAY 2019 AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS   

https://youtu.be/ovXoJ51KbqA

Amazing Grace (2018) ***

Dir: Sydney Pollack, Alan Elliott | US Doc 89′

By the early 1970s American ‘Queen of Soul’ Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) was a already megastar with a string of hits behind her such as Chain of Fools and I Say A Little Prayer. This concert film goes back to her roots as a Gospel singer in 1972. Warner Brothers hired Sydney Pollack to direct the two-night session in the simple, half-empty Bethel Baptist Church in Los Angeles, accompanied on the piano by gospel star Reverend James Cleveland, the father of one of her children. But the footage never had an official release despite the massive success of the resulting double album.

Ten years after Pollack’s death in 2008, producer Alan Elliott had another go with the material and Amazing Grace is the result. Playing out as a straightforward chronological recording (with the inclusion of a scene from an earlier concert) the documentary shows Franklin channels her own spirituality into her selfless performance – there is not a one iota of guile or self-regard in her singing style or in the serious, detached way she presents herself to the audience, wearing a simple tent dress and earrings, yet pouring herself entirely into the music. She is simply a conduit for the soulful tunes to come through, as if directed by another power – sweating profusely, such is the intensity of her experience.

Up until her death in August last year, Franklin blocked the film stating Elliott had not obtained her permission to go ahead. But now it is here for all to enjoy, a collection of sometimes overwrought renditions – the most enjoyable are those accompanied by the talented band of musicians, and it’s interesting to see a young Mick Jagger enjoying himself in the audience along with Charlie Watts, and Pollack clapping along. There is also an appearance from her father Rev C L Franklin who talks about their early experience on the road.

Amazing Grace is a bit thin music-wise but what it does is shine a light on Franklins’ impressive connection with the spiritual power that lies beyond her songs, affording her a serenity and apparent protection from the corrosive affects of the fame and fortune she had achieved by that time. The only other singer who appears to have this is Stevie Wonder – and he is blind. The numbers are well-known to the Gospel crowd: Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy.”; “Never Grow Old,” Despite her colossal fame Aretha cuts a modest, almost compliant figure. Clearly, fame did not touch her, but her Gospel songs certainly made their mark. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE from 10 MAY 2019

Dead Good (2018) ***

Dir: Rehana Rose | UK Doc

Death has lightened up according to a new documentary that aims to deal with the dark taboo surrounding our final exit. Dead Good visits a series of Brighton women who are now offering practical ways to process the aftermath of death in a surprisingly serene and filmic ‘made for TV’ style. Rose also helps lift the lid on the funeral director’s job showing how nowadays families and loved ones can be in charge, rather than feeling like captive mourners, left to flounder in a well of emotion.

Bamboozled and grieving after the death of a family member, the obvious thing is to rush to the nearest funeral parlour who will invariably offer an expensive and often exploitative procedure for dispatching your loved one. Then there’s the religious ceremony and all that involves. Not to mention the legal and civic requirements. But it’s’ not always been this way. In the past the corpse was often kept at home prior to the funeral, so loved ones had a chance to their come to terms with their grief and spend time with the physical body, often actually preparing it for burial, while coming to t terms with their emotional bereavement.

One of the ‘funeral specialists’ we meet is Cara who set up her practice 20 years ago after experiencing the traditional funeral sector and then training to be a freelance embalmer (the process is shown on a mock-up comic video). Not surprisingly, she found embalming invasive and unnecessary, and only vital if the body is being transported great distances. But her intention to empower, rather than take over in this most private of affairs, is what gave her to idea to start her business. And ‘empowerment is the watchword of the other specialists who appear.  On the religious side, we also meet quirky parish priest Peter, who may have been the inspiration for the Sophie Waller Bridge’s vicar in the TV comedy Fleabag – although Andrew Scott is infinitely more relatable.

There is no narrative structure as such, the film is here to inform and enlighten with statements such as “everyone can have a meaningful funeral that is affordable and personal”. Musical choices mostly feel intrusive and counterintuitive. Dead Good works best when it focuses on the practicalities of dealing with the post mortem process and the funeral options rather than on the personal stories which feel too personal, although thankfully Rose maintains an unsentimental and candid approach throughout. Dead Good also shows how nowadays individuals can fulfil the dead person’s preferences as to their ceremony, coffin etc. And here Cara points out that in most cultures death preparations have traditionally been, and still are women’s work – wouldn’t you know it!. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 10 May 2019.

 

British Transport Films | Blu-ray release 2019

What could be more romantic than a train journey? Even if it feels more like a boys own adventure, as many of these British Transport films do. Escaping into the unknown with a promise of excitement and discovery – or just a trip back in time to revisit childhood holidays in the 1960s and 1970s, where the English landscape stretched far and wide from the window of the pullman out of Waterloo, or even Paddington, and not an anorak in sight! 

This year celebrates the 70th anniversary of the British Transport Films with twenty one films representing the cream of the celebrated BTF collection.

Classics including John Schlesinger’s Terminus (1961)and Railways forever! (1970) John Betjeman’s eulogy to his favourite form of transport, have been newly digitally remastered on 2k, while Geoffrey Jones’s legendary homage to progress, Rail (1967), has been restored in 4K by the BFI National Archive.

British Transport Films was established in 1949 to focus a spotlight on transport as a nationalised undertaking. Over a period of more than 35 years, BTF produced an unrivalled documentary film legacy for generations of film and transport enthusiasts.

The Films (disc 1)

Farmer Moving South (1952)

Train Time (1952)

This is York  (1953)

Elizabethan Express (1954)

Snowdrift at Bleath Gill (1955)

Any Man’s Kingdom (1956)

Fully Fitted Freight (1957)

Every Valley (1957)

A Future on the Rail (1957)

Between the Tides (1958)

Disc 2

A Letter for Wales (1960)

They Take the High Road (1960)

Blue Pullman (1960)

Terminus (1961)

The Third Sam (1962)

Rail (1967)

Railways For Ever! (1970)

The Scene from Melbury House (1972)

Wires Over the Border (1974)

Locomotion (1975)

Overture: One-Two-Five (1978)

This collection will be launched with a special screening at BFI Southbank. Moving Millions: British Transport Films Blu-ray Launch + Q&A takes place on Tuesday 14 May at 18:00 in NFT1. It will be introduced by BFI Curator of Non-Fiction, Steve Foxon and followed by a Q&A with special guests. This event is also part of the Department for Transport’s Centenary.

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/movingmillionsbritishtransportplusqanda

 

 

Martha: A Picture Story (2019) *** Tribeca Film Festival 2019

Dir.: Selina Miles; Documentary with Martha Cooper; USA 2019, 80 min.

The first feature documentary by Australian director/co-DoP Selina Miles is a portrait of American photographer Martha Cooper whose shots of street art in New York of the 1970s and 80s gained her the title Godmother of Graffiti. Even at the ripe old age of 75 she is still active in her hometown of Baltimore and European capitals Berlin, Vienna and Paris.

Born in 1943, she fell in love with the camera at the age of three. When she was working for the Peace Corps in Thailand in 1963, she shot a series of photos of tattooists at work. Returning to the USA, she faced the first wave of many rejections of her work, before she was taken on by the New York Post in 1977, having made a name for herself with a series on urban life in Rhode Island. At the Susan Welsham was the photo editor of the Post and she remembers their collaboration when women like Cooper had to literally beg to be taken on.

In New York she worked for City Lore at the time when the city was burning and President Ford pandered to national prejudice “letting New York go bankrupt rather than bail them out”. Her interest in urban and street art led her to an auspicious meeting with Edwin Serrano, who later introduced her to Dondi (1961-1998), the King of train Graffiti, whose work recently fetched upwards of $200 000 up. Dondi made an exception for Cooper, who was allowed to photograph him while on the job. The outcome was ‘Subway Art’ (published by Cooper and Henry Chalfant), which later became the bible of Street Art. ‘Hip Hop Files’ (1998) is another one of her now classic publications.

Back in 2004 Cooper travelled to Germany, Vienna and St. Denis (a suburb of Paris), where she was celebrated for her work. In Miami she took photos of the artist colony of Wyndwood Walls, where graffiti is displayed on whole blocks. Even very recently, she took up with a group of Berlin train graffiti artists, hanging from precarious positions to capture their work. Nowadays she is still active in SoWeBo, a rundown district of Baltimore atmospheric of a black ghetto where the kids make impressive pavements artists.

Martha is living proof that art can keep you young. Her bold and intrepid work goes on. AS

SCREENING DURING TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL | New York | 2019

    

Beyond the River (2018) ***

Dir.: Craig Freimond; Cast: Lemogang Tsipa, Grant Swanby, Emily Child, Kgosi Mongake; South Africa 2017, 110 min.

Beyond the River is a conventional real-life sporting feature, with redemption written all over it. Director/co-writer Craig Freimond (Material) doesn’t ignore the social inequalities in today’s South Africa, but his emotional pathos and seductive sentimentalism reduces any realism to a minimum.

Based on the true story of canoeists Siseko Ntondini and Priers Cruickshanks –  played as Duma (Tsipa) and Steve (Swanby) – who won Gold medals in the 2014 Dasi endurance race, Freimond develops a formulaic structure, showing the emotional struggle both men have to overcome. Duma, in his twenties, lives with his family in a dilapidated hut in a black poor, crime-ridden neighbourhood. After the death of his mother, he had to give up on his ambition. Steve is more than ten years older than his partner, and lives in a middle class flat in the capital – but is unhappily married to Annie (Child). We later learn that Steve wa partly responsible for the accidental death of their son, and has since repressed any memory of him, forcing Annie to leave him. The canoe races are a splendid spectacle even though  Freimond uses a great deal of 70s style slow-motion, in keeping with genre rules.

Spectacular visuals save this from being just another humdrum human interest story fuelled by male testosterone and empty gestures. Tsipa and Swanby share a compelling on screen  chemistry and this fuels the rather overblown narrative, Child taking to the role of cheer-leader, like in some 50s boys own feature. Beyond the River just about passes as decent entertainment even though the male heroics feel old-fashioned and repetitive. AS

NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTION ARTHOUSE CINEMAS from 27 April 2019     

Risk (2016/17)

Director: Laura Poitras | 87min | Documentary | France 

Citizenfour director Laura Poitras offers this close-up and personal portrait of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange which was five years in the making and has been updated since its Directors’ Fortnight premiere at Cannes 2016. Yet it still feels unfinished as events surrounding its subject matter continue to evolve nearly a decade later.

Gaining access to the powerhouse where Julien Assange works with his ‘team’ composed of  girlfriend Sarah Harrison and mouthy WikiLeaks technology geek Jacob Appelbaum, we see Assange rocking a range of diverse disguises from orange hair and coloured contacts to a goatee beard and beany hat, he cuts a slippery rather glib figure capable of wriggling out of situation. Despite his pasty and porcine features, he’s also very keen on himself and holds forth in long monologues of self-righteous, albeit articulate, blether that does nothing to make us warm to his rather sinister brand of ‘charm’.

Not only has Assange has been charged with spying by the United States and has a number of rape charges against him running in Sweden, he offers classified information to the world, and has his (clearly besotted) girlfriend attempt to call up Hillary warning her of with an imminent ’emergency’ situation while sitting comfortably in the privacy of his Norfolk mansion.

Everything falls into place when we see him interacting with his doting mother, who clearly encouraged his self-belief at an early age and groomed his to become the smarmy individual he is today, particularly where women are concerned. His frequent asides to ‘Laura’ feel as if he is on intimate terms with the director and almost a protagonist here rather than a detached observer, but his condescending approach to Sarah Harrison is grist to the mill. Her deferential respect of his perceived power is particularly noticeable when she rehearses a speech in front of him while he chips in with instructions and grooms her for public speaking.

Poitras follows members of Assange’s team as they go about their business in a self-congratulatory way enlightening the poorly informed about information that has been stolen from them. In Egypt there is a coruscating take-down by Appelbaum of various tech companies such as TE Data and Nokia that supported the Mubarak regime, by blocking or censoring the internet during the Arab Spring. The Wikileaks team feel like the information campaign equivalent of Greenpeace.

Poitras divides her documentary into bizarre chapters introduced in roman numerals, that bear no apparent relevance to the actual content in an expose that gradually morphs into a personal, rather hagiographic profile of the man himself. The only person who cuts him down to size is Lady Gaga in an ill-advised (from his point of view) interview with the star during his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

So despite all the ground-work and updates, there’s nothing really revealing in this mildly hagiographic portrayal. What the documentary does convey to the outsider is that Julian Assange emerges as a decidedly slippery character who has a way with women (including the director), but whether he deserves to still be in captivity is certainly questionable.

Assange has been incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh in London since April 2019, as the United States government’s extradition effort is contested in the British courts. MT

NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

THE TRUST FALL: JULIAN ASSANGE is in cinemas from Friday 

 

Canada Now Week 2019

CANADA NOW festival brings a selection of new Canadian films to the United Kingdom. Launching on the 24th April 2019, nine films will play across five days at the Curzon Soho and Phoenix East Finchley cinemas, followed by a nationwide tour

As always, the 2019 CANADA NOW celebrates the independent spirit that has always been a hallmark of Canadian cinema along with its cultural diversity and twist of French heritage.

The festival opens with the London premiere of Keith Behrman’s LBGTQ+ drama GIANT LITTLE ONES, a refreshingly original and emotionally powerful coming-of-age drama. And the festival closes with Barry Avrich’s PROSECUTING EVIL, a feature biopic of Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor and life-long human rights activist. CANADA NOW expects many of the filmmakers and cast to be in attendance.

Alongside eight U.K. premieres, CANADA NOW also includes a performance from Canadian filmmaker Daniel Cockburn of his surreal, autobiographical show HOW NOT TO WATCH A MOVIE.

The full programme is listed below, and tickets are now on sale:

http://canadanow.co.uk/

Hugh Hefner’s After Dark: Speaking out in America (2018) **** Canada Now

Dir: Brigitte Berman | Doc CANADA | With: Bruce Belland, Kitty Bruce, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Maher, Ron Simon, Tony Bennett, Dick Gregory, Smokey Robinson, Leon Isaac Kennedy, John Burk, Annie Ross, Tim Hauser, Pete Seeger, Taj Mahal, Barry Melton, Dick Rosenzweig, Barbara Dane, Robert Clary, Roger McGuinn, Sivi Aberg, John Kay, Joan Baez, Michael Wadleigh, Gene Simmons, Jim Brown, Charles Strouse

Brigitte Berman chronicles the Playboy founder’s short but controversial foray into television in her entertaining and informative documentary.

Musical interludes and talking heads are deftly interwoven to provide an appreciation of just about everyone who was culturally significant throughout the Swinging Sixties. The initially engaging film increasingly works as a full-on history of US race relations, showing how black people were ostracised from the mainstream cultural offering music-wise.

This is not Berman’s first foray into the life of Hugh Hefner. In 2009 she made a documentary for Netflix: Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel. The thrust of this latest film is his TV career which took the form of two TV shows set in his own bachelor pad where sexy women pander to eminent celebrities of both sexes providing the pithy cultural and political counterpoint to a relaxed soirée:”Playboy’s Penthouse” which began in Chicago in 1959 and was known as a ‘talk-and-music syndicated show’. So while David Frost was presenting That The Was the Week That Was in the UK, Hugh Hefner had found a cool way of inviting America into his drawing where an eclectic mix of black and white musicians (culturally unheard of back in the day, along with Jazz on TV) who performed in the relaxed and genial environment. These affairs  include impromptu numbers from Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Count Basie, Samie Davis Jr; Ray Charles and Toni Bennett.

On of the talking heads is Whoopi Goldberg who points out, Hefner “was a pioneer. There was nothing like it in television. And there was nothing like it because he made sure everybody was welcome.” But in the less liberal south stations refused to air this interracial mishmash and Hefner eventually pulled “Playboy’s Penthouse” in late 1960.

The other politically progressive show more focused on rock music and the counter-culture was “Playboy After Dark”, which launched in Hollywood in the summer of 1968 after Playboy’s operations moved to California. This saw Joan Baez;, Steppenwolf; The Byrds; Gore Vidal, Jerry Garcia. Peter, Paul and Mary, Smokey Robinson, and Woodstock director Michael Wadleigh – who looms rather too large. The mood is not as intimate in tune with the 1970s which felt a lot more serious generally and the chat focused on censorship, ecology and race. This time Hefner had graduated to ongoing partner in the shape of Barbi Benton and the summer-of-love vibe was echoed in “Born to Be Wild”. Another black talking head was football and film star Jim Brown who proudly claims “Hefner lets me say all the things I wanted to say,” namely that America’s black population should now focus on“expertise and finance.” Whatever that meant.

And as the bandwagon rolls on the focus is less on the music and fascinating celebrity chatter and more on general social commentary especially from Pete Seeger, beating his drum in the same old way as torpor gradually take hold of the final 20 minutes or so with the umpteenth rendition of “We Shall Overcome”.

It has to be said that this documentary certainly raises Hefner’s profile in a good way. He emerges culturally aware, racially tolerant, innovative and chipper who is articulate, voluable even, and professional and incisive in his interviewing technique.  And for those who remembered the era this film certainly goes down a treat. MT

CANADA NOW | 24 -28 APRIL 2019

Passion – Between Revolt and Resignation (2019) **** Visions du Reel 2019

Dir.: Christian Labhart; Documentary; Switzerland 2019, 80 min.

Christian Labhart was only fifteen in 1968 but he dreamt of changing the world. And that society would transcend into a utopia of human brotherhood. Fifty years later he reflects on episodes from his own life, trying to understand how they fit—if they do at all—with the major changes of the world. And what happened to his Marxist pretensions?.

Told in chapters to the music of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, and quotes from Brecht, Kafka and Guy Debord among others, Labhard feels his dreams have come to nothing.  Starting with police forces guarding the G20 meeting in Hamburg in 2017, Labhart remembers how he demonstrated against the Vietnam War back in 1968, and swore he would never end up like his bourgeois parents. But contemporary images of the glitzy entertainment world show examples of what Guy Dbord calls “the empire of modern passivity”; alienation and fragmentation having replaced human interaction.

Labhard goes back to 1977 with the protests against nuclear power stations, the rise of violence with the Baader-Meinhof Group; Ulrike Meinhof describing four years in solitary confinement as “akin to being in a house of mirrors, the skin being torn off, and even visits leaving no trace”. Only the once weekly bath gave some relief. In 1980, Labhart was disillusioned with the way things were going, and so with some friends he moved to the countryside, “where they were very tired from work”, but still could not make a living.

After Chernobyl, Labhart and his wife abandoned their farm to become teachers, job-sharing making it possible to rear two kids who then became the entire focus of their lives. After the fall of the wall in 1989, the director visits Bulgaria, his images of deserted communist party buildings are akin to the relics from ‘Planet of the Apes’: the remains of a culture long lost. With communism dead in the water, Labhart reflect, along with the poet Dorothee Sölle: “This cannot have been all”.

The fall of the Twin Towers in 2001 finds the director in a rather sanguine mood in his home in the leafy suburbs: the kids have given the couple a new outlook in life. Starting out as a filmmaker, he asks: “Can I change reality by representing it?” Then quoting Arundhati Roy “How deep shall we dig, to find the courage to dream”.  The big cities are full of impressive but austere architecture, a built environment of post-industrial waste. The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2008 falls at a time when the children leave home – Labhart is bereft.

Across five continents he still tries to find a way out of the capitalist jungle that has swallowed up his world. Global warming, war, overconsumption, refugee crises, inequality. Between Revolt and Resignation grows more or more despondent as new conflicts explode nearly every day. In a chapter about Poetry and Uprising, Franco Bifo Berardi is quoted “is useless to burn down a bank, as financial power is not in the physical building, but in the abstract connections between numbers and algorithms.” The chapter about 2011-2015 is entitled “What to be done?” and features the Syria War and the Arab Spring which brings to mind the director’s feelings in 1968.

After this, everything starts to break down, with brutal images in a Buenos Aires slaughter house, ads for Land Rovers, claiming that “Real Life is the greatest adventure”. The closing line is from Brecht “What an age, when to speak of trees is almost a crime. But how can I eat and drink, when my food is snatched from the hungry?”

Whilst Labhart ends on a defensive note “I don’t question the goal, only because we have not reached it”. Puo Corradi and Simon Guy Fässler’s visuals tell a different story: the planet has become the image of a society hellbent on self-destruction. Labhart’s essay is very much a long goodbye to hope. AS

 

VISIONS DU REEL | 5 -13 APRIL 2019

Edvard Munch on Film

A new exhibition reunites the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch with his creative contemporaries, putting his work into context with European influences from Art Nouveau, Expressionism and Symbolism.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a famous pioneer of modern art, best known for his iconic image of The Scream. His idiosyncratic expression of raw human emotion reflects many of the anxieties and hotly debated issues of his times, yet his art still still resonates today.

Edvard Munch: love and angst focusses on Munch’s remarkable and experimental prints – an art form which made his name and at which he excelled throughout his life. The 83 artworks on show together demonstrate the artist’s skill and creativity in expressing the feelings and experiences of the human condition – from love and desire, to jealousy, loneliness, anxiety and grief.  

Other highlights of the exhibition include the eerie but remarkable Vampire II which is generally considered to be one of his most elaborate and technically accomplished prints; the controversial Madonna, an erotic image which features an explicit depiction of swimming sperm and a foetus and provoked outrage at the time.       

The exhibition also shows how Munch’s artistic vision was shaped by the radical ideas expressed in art, literature, science and theatre in Europe during his lifetime. His most innovative period of printmaking, between the 1890s and the end of the First World War, coincided with a great period of societal change in Europe which Munch experienced through constant travel across the continent on the vast rail network. The exhibition will pay particular attention to three European cities that had major influence on him and his printmaking – Kristiania (Oslo), Paris and Berlin. A small selection of Munch’s personal postcards and maps are used to give a flavour of Munch’s journeys.

Munch suffered all his life from a deep-felt sense of anguish, possibly due to the death of his mother when he was only five, and his sister when he was still a young teenager. These traumas clearly shaped his emotional world and affected his relationships with women: His prints demonstrate his passion, but also his fear, of women. Separation and isolation from those he held dear led to a state of anxiousness, but he was also aware that these feelings where the key to his creative expression. Later he went on to say: “For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art”.

Psychology was all the rage in the late 1890s with advent of Freud’s ‘discoveries’ and literature and culture carried much of the responsibility for popularising the ideas and practices of this rather decadent period in Europe. This trend only magnified Munch’s trauma and he made free expression of his obsession with and fear of female power and the sense of suffocation and entrapment it brought to him. He had many affairs but fled from marriage and commitment. Munch admitted in later life that his visual ideas were directly inspired by the pattern of love, infidelity and despair experienced by his friends in Kristiania (Oslo) whose loose-living, chaotic lifestyles exposed the dark side of the Bohemian dream. His images of passion and jealousy recall the emotions surrounding their affairs, and reflect memories of his own turbulent first relationship with a married woman, Milly Thaulow.

The Scream (1893) print – suggests that the image depicts a person hearing a scream, rather than a person screaming – was undoubtedly his most famous work probably inspired by a rare, wavy cloud formation seen only in Northern Europe. In a twist of fate, Munch sister Laura was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1894, and institutionalised in a hospital near the site of The Scream on the road to Ekeberg.  The English translation reads “I felt a great Scream pass through nature”.But a similar pose of a screaming head, with hands cupped around it, appeared in an early work recalling the death of his mother, as he stands by her bedside, looking out in sheer desperation and misery.

During his life Munch spent much time in Paris and Berlin where in 1892, he was invited to exhibit his paintings in the recently formed German Empire. Berlin was Europe’s industrial boom city, ruled over the ambitious Kaiser Bill (Wilhelm II). Grand avenues gave the impression of military order but bohemian undercurrents ran just below the surface, alongside Europe’s strongest workers’ movement. His exhibition horrified the traditional art world, but was much admired by the Avantgarde with the scandal helping him to launch his international career.

Clearly Munch’s work and his friendships with the Swedish playwright and painter August Strindberg, Toulouse Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Max Klinger, Vincent Van Gogh and German philosopher and writer Friedrich Nietzsche could provide rich potential for cinema yet sadly only a few filmmakers have been inspired. The first was a British director Peter Watkins whose rather stolid made for Norwegian TV  drama Edvard Munch (210 mins, 1974)) captures the mournfulness of the artist, chronologically charting his traumatic early life fraught with illness and death, leading on to his ostracisation in traditional art circles and his cafe society days with nihilist Hans Jaeger in Oslo and Strindberg in Berlin.

The second is Munch 150 (90 mins, 2013) Ben Harding’s factual documentary that travels to Oslo where it goes behind the scenes to show some the mounting a major exhibition of over 150 works devoted to the national hero. It then tours Norway to provide an in-depth biography of a man whose work captures the zeitgeist of the mid-19th century right through until the German occupation of his homeland in the Second World War.

Edvard Munch’s prints is the largest in the UK for 45 years. | British Museum

Edvard Munch (1974) on AMAZON PRIME | EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA

MUNCH 150 | EXHIBITION ON FILM

 

Kiruna – A Brand New World (2019) Vision du Reel 2019

Dir.: Greta Stocklassova; Cast: Timo Vilgats, Abdal Rahman Josef, Maja Jannock Björnström; Czech Republic 2019, 87 min.

The first feature documentary by Czech writer/director Greta Stocklassova is emotional, but well-structured: a work-in-progress report on the Swedish town of Kiruna, 200 km above the arctic circle, which is being moved three km to the east. The 17,000 inhabitants of the 2840 sq/mile city have very different reactions to the move. 

Kiruna has lived off its mining industry, but finally it it has caught up with it: The LKAB company is moving Kiruna because the ground underneath is about to give way. The project of relocation will last until 2100; the movement of zone 4 now under work, will be finished by 2033. We watch houses being transported on huge lorries: classic buildings of all sorts will be saved this way.

In the Philosophy Club we meet Timo Vilgats, an elderly gentleman, a sort of town historian. He is appalled by the relocation, filming the ruins of his house with his mobile and pointing out out where the rooms in the house had been, where his children were born and grew up. Others take the move in their stride: a woman the same age as Vilgats sits down with a planner and tells her where she wants to have the plugs in her new home.

Meanwhile, in the home for asylum seekers, Abdal Rahman Josef is waiting for an interview which will decide his future: he is from Yemen, and his life would be in danger if he was to be sent back. Abdal complains about being left behind, whilst others are processed much quicker. In the end he is granted asylum and tells a fellow immigrant he is looking after his career and does not want to have a girl friend. Maja Jannok Björnström, seventeen years old, is finishing High School. Her school reports are good and, at an interview about her professional choice, she tells the interviewer “ I will always be a Sami”, perfecting the language of her ancestors, and wearing traditional costumes. Samis are still under threat, hate crimes against them are common. At the graduation ceremony, the last one held at the old Town Hall, Maja is just one happy student, like the rest. Meanwhile, at a meeting with the developers of the new town, Vilgats talks at length about the destruction of the old – but others, even the older ones, contradict him, and hope for the best. In the end, we see Vilgats with his dog wandering along the fence, the demarcation line between the old and the new town: deep fog fits his melancholy mood.

DoP Stanislav Adam uses his images to show the beauty of the old and the new. Like the director he is impartial, finding little incidents, like the detonation of yet another part of the old town, directed by the finger tip of a shy young boy who presses the button to show that planning might not solve everything. There is an input for the community, however limited. AS

VISIONS DU REEL | 5 -13 APRIL 2019

La Vida in Comun (2019) **** Visions du Reel 2019

Dir.: Ezequiel Yanco; Cast: Isaias Barroso, Pablo Chernov, El Apoyo De, Uriel Alcaraz, Yuliana Alcaraz; Argentina, France 2019, 70 min. 

This lyrical rather eclectic coming-of-age documentary is set in the remote indigenous settlement of Pueblo Nacion Ranquel in Northern Argentina, where animals and the past play a central role. A puma is stalking the community and a group of young boys start tracking the animal, as part traditional rite of passage. La Vida En Comun is imbued with an atmosphere of transition, as if the whole colony is waiting and watching for something to happen. And Yanco captures this transitory nature of this temporary set-up with its Avantgarde houses that seem to be part of another world. Infact, Pueblo Raquel is decisively otherworldly – the buildings are from the future, but the teenagers live in the ancient world, where animals and humans lived side by side.

Apart from a few teachers, there is an absence of adults and so the unobserved teens are left to their own devices. The action is narrated by one of the girls who relates how, in an act of bravado to impress a girl, one of the youngest boys Isaias (Barroso) defied the older ones by hunting down the mighty puma, and maybe even killing him. Well, that’s what we’re led to believe.

Everything seems opaque, ephemeral, ready to disappear at any second. These are the reflected emotions of a land where expropriation was (and is) rife; where the natives who once owned this country are pushed back into a reservation where they are marginalised by the interlopers. The lyrical tone often betrays this savage past, but it is always there, hovering over the living souls.

Yanco creates his own world where teenagers hunt animals and look for an identity that remains elusive. La Vida en Comun is like a huge question mark: is it a mirage, or reality? The only thing that is certain is mighty puma. We can only watch in wonderment, looking at a unique world in-between. AS

VISIONS DU REEL | 5 -13 APRIL 2019

 

        

The Wind. A Documentary Thriller (2019) **** Visions du Reel 2019

Dir.: Michal Bielawski; Documentary; Poland/Slovakia 2019, 74 min.

This poetic essay plays out like a thriller set in the mountain region of Podhale in southern Poland. Although the Tatra mountains are well known as a paradise for winter sports, Bielawski focuses on the cruel and unpredicable natural phenomenon of the ‘halny’ winds. These often terrorise locals but also cause rapid changes in atmospheric pressure strongly influencing the wellbeing of both people and animals and wreaking havoc with their habitat. Bielawski shows how the communities organise themselves to fight back.

A poetess, a female ambulance driver and old farmer, all unnamed, are the main protagonists of this tour de force eco-doc. The farmer is trying to batten down the barn hatches where a cow has just given birth to a baby bull. The storm is so strong that only planks nailed to the door will prevent them blowing open by the strength of the wind. Meanwhile the ambulance paramedic takes a call from a gentleman who says he wants to report a suicide. “Yours, or someone else’s” she asks him. “Mine” comes the strange reply. She remembers a long journey to a town far away where she had to deal with the corpse of a person hanged for his crimes. Meanwhile, the poetess emerges as the one most ‘in tune’ with the wind’s forces. A very fit woman in her fifties, she enjoys reciting her verses in the woods, hugging the trees, many of which have been felled in the recent storms.

The film then tracks back to the farmer who, with his friends, erects a small pylon, later fitting it with a windmill. The farmer and some children decide to go up to the mountain on the cable car, but the old man starts to feels sick. He later visits a doctor, who runs an ECG. Far away, we see a Ferris wheel, like a fata morgana. The poetess collects wood from a fallen tree, she saws it in little pieces and tells the forester she wants to buy a small part of the woods. The ambulance driver meanwhile deals with a drunkard and a victim of epilepsy, while his colleague fails to resuscitate a patient. The poetess sings in the woods where the snow storm is blowing a gale, trees are blocking the road, the windmills are devastated and a fire breaks out in the farmhouse, spreading to the barn and killing two cows before he can open the door. After the storm, the poetess saws off a piece of a fallen tree, takes out a piece of paper, and writes a new poem on the tree. Meanwhile, the old farmer, repairs the windmill as the children watch on.

Bielawski develops an elliptical rhythm as humans permanently try to mend what nature has destroyed. But ironically they don’t blame the storm, or even think of leaving the area: they have accepted their lot, but go on loving the mountains. DoP Bartek Solik’s fly on the wall images, particularly the close-ups, show us a rich emotional life. Most impressive is the poetess who is happy to be a witness to the living and the dead, animal and nature. A unique study of how an ongoing struggle has strangely becomes a rewarding way of life. AS

VISIONS DU REEL | 5-13 APRIL 2019

 

 

 

Sheep Hero (2018) **** Visions de Reel 2019

Dir: Ton van Zantvoort | Doc, 81 Holland

Being a shepherd sounds an idyllic existence. But the bucolic opening scenes of Ton van Zantvoort’s gorgeously cinematic arthouse documentary soon give way to the harsh realities of modern herding as a profit-making business.

The film’s focus is traditional herder Stijn Hilgers who starts of with a romantic view of life, enjoying the peace and freedom that comes with caring for a flock of sheep, as one of the last remaining sheepherders in the Netherlands. We see him waking up in the morning mist as he heads out for another day in the flower-strewn summer meadows. But his idealism soon clashes with the difficulty of being a modern freelance entrepreneur. Confusingly, the next scene sees him in a spacious living quarters, with a partner and child (and a hair cut!) as they furiously crunch numbers to see if they can eke out another year in this precarious, but ancient trade.

Along with many people nowadays who give up lucrative jobs to enjoy the freedom of self-employment in cottage-style businesses, Stijn’s freedom has come at a price. Ironically, he has had to strive year after year against mechanisation, competition, lower farm subsidies and administrative hurdles. When he then sets off to Utrecht to discuss his main grazing contract, he finds out it will not be renewed following year, seeing him risk bankruptcy or worse. And he now has a growing family to support.

So is there really such a thing as freedom as a shepherd. Apparently not. Even when you’re unafraid of hard work. Stijn’s world is now dominated by market forces and arcane laws. And you can see the gradually irritation creeping into his expression as he unwillingly transformed into a modern entrepreneur, taking not only his wife and sons with him, but also his parents as well. There are moments of humour as Stijn is forced to herd his entire flock through a neighbouring village to the consternation of locals who bombard him with complaints about sheep turds. This engaging documentary shows how a man’s fight to makes a success of his life somehow turns into a Kafka-esque nightmare as the freedom of the early scenes give way to nights of the dark soul-searching in his external and internal struggle to survive. MT

VISIONS DU REEL | 5 -13 APRIL 2019

 

When They Left (2019) *** Visions du Reel 2019

Dir: Veronica Haro Abril | Doc, Ecuador, 61′

In When They Left Veronica Haro Abril tells the story of a dying community in her native village of Plazuela, Ecuador. A series of pithy, melancholy but evocative reminiscences recall a once vibrant mountainside community. But Abril discovers something else in its place.

These gentle old folk are serene and positive about their lives as they go about their daily tasks to maintain self-sufficiency. Lucrecia collects lemons and harvests her potato crop in the orchard:  “I don’t have time to be sad. We love the this place. I don’t know about the people who come from the outside, but for me it’s beautiful”. And she’s right. Abril’s film very much connects  to the global narrative of human survival for remote communities conveying the peace and tranquility of a simple but socially connected place where the villagers are still very much in contact with their family. In some ways the young have lost out by leaving their elders to go the city. They may gain in some ways, but they miss out on the counsel and experience of the older members of the family. For the older generation, the animals are their new ‘children’ offering them produce in return for care. There’s so much to be recommended about village life and these people are never lonely because they have each other to talk through their worries and health concerns. Consolacion and her dog look forward to the arrival of the ice-cream van. 33cents for a scoop of freshly made blackberry seems a reasonable treat. Another tends to her bees with her friend ‘mammita’ donning their makeshift outfits, their hands are left bare. And the honey is fragrant and plentiful. The final act sees them preparing for a musical get-together. The men playing their instruments, and dressed in traditional garb, the women dancing.

Set on the widescreen and in intimate close-up, Abril’s elegant framing, long takes and limpid visuals make this a relaxing and calming experience, the ambient sound of birds and the soft breeze in the trees is pleasant and invigorating. In the end When They Left is not about loss or sadness but about the intense calm that togetherness brings once life’s struggles are over, reflecting the wisdom and serenity of a life well lived for a philosophical generation who have a great deal to teach us in many ways. MT.

VISIONS DU RÉEL | 3 – 13 APRIL 2019 | NYON SWITZERLAND

Many Undulating Things (2019) **** Visions du Réel 2019

Dir: Bo Wang, Pan Lu | Doc 125′ US, South Korea, Hong Kong SAR of China

This rhythmic ode to globalised capitalism is driven forward by the very nature of its subject matter. Industriously moving on and constantly swinging between the East and the West, as the title suggests, Many Undulating Things has an elliptical structure that begins and ends in a shopping centre in Hong Kong.

Serving as a kind of dehumanised documentary counterpart to Locarno Golden Leopard 2018 winner A Land Imagined it explores, through the burgeoning built and landscaped environment, how cities respond to the growing needs of the capitalist system that attracts and accommodates both serving and enslaving in its unrelenting march forward. Just as nature ebbs and flows with the changing seasons, capitalism too brings its own inexorable rhythms into our world from the whirr of lifts and escalators to the relentless coming and going of people in an apartment building or corporate headquarters. Each island of industry creates and enables its own ‘eco-system’ in the complex scheme of things.

Zeroing in on the 2o10 universal exhibition as its talking point, the film explores how the event generated a massive local transformation. This took the shape of a built environment accommodating port warehouses, glazed galleries and overstuffed tower blocks all built by a restless industrious urban population of traders and enterprising minds looking to make money and expand financial horizons. Hong Kong is a distillation of all that is acquisitive and about a population motivated for gain. And Many Undulating Things is a psycho0geographical and sociopolitical look at how man has adapted his environment to respond to his own growing needs.

VISIONS DU REEL | NYON, SWITZERLAND |  Compétition Internationale Burning Lights

Werner Herzog Retrospective at VISIONS DU REEL 2019

Grizzly_Man_3-e1374581107236

Throughout 50 years of filmmaking, one of the greatest directors of all time, Werner Herzog,  continues to impress with his unflinchingly creative vision of humanity and its future.

Encounters_at_the_End_of_the_World_2-e1374580394553

My_Best_Fiend-e1374580306483The retrospective will also screen My Best Fiend (on his volatile relationship with collaborator, Klaus Kinski); Grizzly Man; Little Dieter Needs to Fly and Into the Abyss, that further examine his probing reflections  “why do people do bad things?”, an attempt to get to the core of the human condition. MT

VISIONS DU REEL 5-13 APRIL 2019 | Nyon, Switzerland

The Walker (2015) **** Taiwan Film Festival 2019

Dir: Singing Chen | Doc, Taiwan 147′

Renowned Taiwanese choreographer Lin Lee-Chen has devoted her life to a slow and studied form of dance that embraces modern techniques with ancient religious ritual. Chen’s impressive Taiwanese documentary explores the origins of her method, showing how stealth rather than speed is the essence of the calming dance movements. Lin channels her own inner tranquility and potent physical strength into routines that share her powerful dexterity and calming creativity.

This epic study starts with a deep rumble of drums as the underworld opens and a mystical pearly white Sea Goddess Mazu gracefully emerges leading her dusky spirits forwards. This is one of the eerie yet mesmerising dances Lin has created and is performed by her Legend Lin Dance Theatre. Her work is borne out of a desire to express and share her own inner calm.

Ten years in the making the documentary is an impressively meditative endeavour that illustrates the difference between the Lin’s slow oriental aesthetic and that of the West which focuses on speed. The dance excerpts are visually exquisite, blending calmness with richly vibrant colours and an emphasis on pools of light that highlight the ritualistic dance routines. Another sequence takes place on the seashore and is one of the most sinuous and graceful performances in the repertoire, the costumes billowing and swirling as they gently contour the dancers’ elegant forms. If you’re looking for a comprehensive visual history of Taiwanese dance then this is probably the most appealing so far. MT

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOC HOUSE during the London Taiwanese Film Festival 2019 | 3 April 2019

Last Breath (2018) ****

Dir: Richard da Costa, Alex Parkinson  | UK Doc, 90′

Playing out like a thriller Last Breath, examines the dramatic true story in a way that cleverly keeps us guessing right through to the final credits. Told through first-hand accounts of the people affected it combines archive and black box footage together with underwater reconstructions of the fatal events.

For Chris Lemons it was just ‘another day at the office’. As a commercial diver in the petrochemical industry he was going through his customary procedure of descending 262ft underwater for a routine inspection of a drilling structure at the Huntington oil field, 115 miles east of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. At the same time Parkinson and da Costa add dramatic poignancy to the party by featuring emotional input from his colleagues and his wife-to-be, busily making preparations back home for their wedding celebrations in Scotland.  

But the tone is doom-laden while we wait for inevitable in a day where nothing went according to plan. Lemons’ vessel started to drift due to a systems failure causing his “umbilical” line, supplying both air and heat, to twist and then sever, leaving him with only his emergency air tank –and about 5 minutes of breathing gas to keep going, the rescue team was half an hour away. Parkinson records extraordinary underwater footage of the events, keeping our nerves on fire in this moving and informative documentary that explores one man’s fateful fight for survival in the cruel sea. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 5 APRIL 2019.

 

Making Montgomery Clift (2018) **** BFI Flare 2019

Dir: Robert Anderson Clift, Hillary Demmon | With Montgomery Clift, Brooks Clift, Ethel “Sunny” Clift, Patricia Bosworth, Jack Larson, Judy Balaban, Robert Osborne, Eleanor Clift, Lorenzo James; Joel Schumacher, Tucker Tooley, Vincent Newman, Michael Easton, Mollie Gregory, Woody Clift, Eddie Clift | US Doc, 88′

Montgomery Clift’s nephew sets out to debunk the theory that the Hollywood actor’s life was a conflicted tragedy. Apparently, it was quite the opposite. As you may have guessed from the title, this is not a chronicle of his film career but an exploration of his personality and the rumours that haunted his starry life.

Co-directing and narrating this eye-opening documentary, Robert Clift (who never knew Monty) digs into a treasure trove of family archives and memorabilia (Brooks recorded everything) to reveal an affectionate, fun-loving talent who loved men and dated and lived with women, according to close friends. Monty chose his roles carefully during the ’40s and ’50s, declining to sign a contract to retain complete artistic independence from the studio system with the ability to pick and chose, and re-write his dialogue. This freedom also enabled him to keep much of his private life out of the headlines, although his memory was eventually sullied by tabloid melodrama with his untimely death at only 45. His acting ability and dazzling looks certainly gained him a place in the Hollywood firmament with a select filmography of just 20 features, four of them Oscar-nominated.

Edward Montgomery Clift was born on 17th October 1920 in Omaha Nebraska, with a twin sister Roberta, and older brother Brooks. Privately educated, his wealthy parents struggled during the Depression years and he travelled with his mother extensively in Europe and grew extremely close to his brother. An early role as a teenager on Broadway saw him spending over a decade on the New York stage before Hollywood beckoned, due in part to his friendship with the older and fluidly sexual star Libby Holman, who was apparently instrumental in his decision to decline roles in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and High Noon (1952). His film debut was Red River (1948) alongside John Wayne. This was followed by The Search (1948), The Heiress (1949); the Wartime epic The Big Lift (1950); A Place in the Sun (1951) with his great friend Elizabeth Taylor (who helped him from the scene of his accident); his only Hitchcock collaboration I Confess (1953); Vittorio De Sica’s Indiscretion (1953); From Here to Eternity (1953), Raintree County (1956). Post accident: The Young Lions (1958) alongside Dean Martin and Marlon Brando; Lonely Hearts (1958) alongside Myrna Loy; Wild River (1960); The Misfits (1961) alongside Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961).

Particularly interesting are Brooks’ conversations with Patricia Bosworth, one of the film’s talking heads and the author of a 1978 biography of Clift that inspired later biographies, but has so far become the accepted version of events, although she apparently got many details wrong and certainly lost out to Jenny Balaban in the Monty relationship stakes, when Barney Balaban (President of Paramount) invited the young actor to join them on a family holiday. He is seen messing around on the beach where he cuts a dash with his good looks and exuberance.

Two men who enjoyed significant relationships with Monty have since died but they recorded for posterity on the film: they are Jack Larson who remembers a full-on and unexpected French kiss from Monty, the night they were introduced. And Lorenzo James, who was living with Monty when he died. James sounds a reasonable and honest character on audio tapes and Robert Clift confirms the family’s acceptance of him in the words “my uncle through Monty.”

Clearly Monty resorted to painkillers after his tragic car accident on his way home from a night out in 1956, during the filming of Raintree County. But the directors play this down and downsize the rumours that he became unreliable, a sort of ‘male version’ of Marilyn Monroe. Yet many claim his post accident performance in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) to be his finest hour. Others state that Nuremberg was actually a “nervous breakdown caught on film”. Instead they claim his mental anguish at the time was the result of a lawsuit by John Huston relating to the film Freud, suspending his from working for four years, and naturally leaving him distraught, as any working person would be. Others state that his disfigurement actually made him a better actor.

Brooks is now dead, but his ex-wife, a prominent Washington journalist Eleanor Clift, states that he was on a mission to correct subsequent editions of Patty Bosworth’s biography using the phrase “Sisyphus battling the myth-making apparatus.” And although Brooks more or less failed in his mission, Robert and his wife have made a decent and worthwhile documentary that aims to reveal the brighter Montgomery Clift. Clearly he will always remain an enigma paving the way for many more insightful biopics.

BFL Flare | ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 7 JUNE 2019

Your Face (2018) ***

Dir: Tsai Ming-liang | Doc, Taiwan 77′

Tsai Ming-liang’s work is very much an acquired taste. You will either love his   minimalist mode or find his slow-burning method intolerable. With Your Face (Ni de lian) he once again offers an acute observational experience, this time reflecting on the faces of twelve ordinary people whose candid reality is expressed in intimate close-up.

The characters he choses have all lived their lives, more or less. The camera contemplates their expressions often in freeze-frame and often in silence or calm discussion. And the ravages of time and their experiences – whether positive or negative – have marked their faces with characteristic lines and wrinkles. What stories do they tell or hide behind those sad eyes or emotive glances, taken from a single angle. The conceptual artist marks out another chapter in his cinematic journey seen through the dwellers of a flat in Stray Dogs or the Buddhist monk in Marseilles from in his Journey to the West.

Painstakingly he strips away extraneous detail to draw us in to these personal tales of woe or reflections of a life well-lived. Questions persist, doubts prevail, thoughts are laid bare. This is not for the faint-hearted but an immersive, often challenging proposition. But compelling, none the less, as we look into the windows or their souls in Zen-like tranquility.

Particularly engaging is the women who confesses to enjoy making money. What transpires is a tale of a twice married, business women who has a definite appeal. But it feels like she’s hiding something. Another woman expresses her regret at not spending more time with her parents, due to her work. A man owns up to his obsession with ‘pachinko’.

The final face belongs to Tsai’s young muse and collaborate Lee Kang-sheng, who appears in all his films. He shares his memoirs of student days and fatherhood. The final scene involves a long-held shot of an empty ballroom, but a human presence has either been there are may still appear. Somehow the camera reflects things that we don’t notice ourselves. It presents another view of our reality of ourselves. We have a best side, and a worse side: each project a different facet of our personalities. And this reflection shows that people are multi-faceted and richly diverse. As the camera observes them, even their stillness reveals hidden depths and throws up questions that challenge those who really observe.

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s occasional original score adds a certain integrity and dimension that very much compliments this richly meditative experience. MT

NOW SCREENING DURING TAIWAN FILM FESTIVAL UK 3-14 APRIL 2019 | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Chasing Einstein (2019) *** CPH:DOX 2019

Dir.: Steve Brown, Timothy Wheeler; Documentary with Barry C. Barish, Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss; USA 2019, 82 min.

In this user-friendly film Steve Brown and Timothy Wheeler celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity by probing deeper to challenge his long-held notion, and explore what actually constitutes gravity’s invisible ‘dark matter’.

With the help of a scientist, and no less than three Nobel Prize winners of Physics, they conclude it may take fifteen years before Einstein is proved right or wrong. Four institutions lead the research in to one of the greatest open questions about our universe: the largest particle accelerator LHC at CERN, the largest underground labs (XENON), the largest telescope arrays, and the LIGO gravitational wave detector. Satellites are also being employed to create a 3D map of the universe. And research is taking place on a global scale to prove if Einstein’s theory stands the test of time. In Leiden (Netherlands) Laura Baudis and Margaret Bower are in contact with Columbia University, another institute participating in the project. We watch scientists conducting field trips, the Atlas experiment and the Xenonit, an ‘unblinding’ instrument. Finally we see Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne receive the Nobel Prize for Physics in Stockholm in 2017.

It was Einstein himself who originally stated, “if a theory is not understood by a six-year old, it is not clear enough”, because “the eternal mystery of the universe lies in its comprehensibility”. When you consider this, the whole thing is pretty mind-boggling. But there is hope, as one of the scientists remarked: “if your idea doesn’t sound crazy to begin with, there is no hope for it”. 

So we must continue to wait with baited breath for the overall outcome. It may well emerge that we live in a totally different universe than the one we imagined.

CHASING EINSTEIN will have its CPH:DOX premiere on Saturday March 23 and a UK Premiere on Sunday 19th May, 1pm at Stratford Picturehouse

www.chasingeinsteinfilm.com

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)

Dir: Tsai Ming-liang | Writer: Sung Hsi, Tsai Ming Liang | Cast: Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Chun Shih, Tien Miao | Drama, Taiwan 82′

Voyeurism is the thread that runs through Tsai Ming-liang’s eerie drama Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Of all his minimalist observational outings it’s probably the most fast moving yet enjoyably languorous, not to mention darkly humorous, if your sense of humour is wickedly drôle.

All and sundry from the low-key gay cruising community drop by for the final night of opening at a cavernous crumbling Taipei cinema, where the crippled usherette goes through her rounds like an attractive female version of the hunchback of Notre Dame. There’s a haunting quality to the place with its echoing corridors and vast empty vestibules, the Noirish shadows making it perfect for explorative camera angles and inventive overhead shots. Tsai has found a way to combine a love letter to Chinese cinema with a meditation on the quality of alienation, loneliness and awkwardly tentative communication between those looking to hook up in the drabness of a rainy afternoon or in the garishly-lit cinema lavatories, where the protagonists linger expectantly. The director also explores the cinema going experience as a community activity, years before Netflix: we want to be transported away to our fantasies, but are usually made painfully aware of the irritating person behind us slurping their Pepsi, picking their teeth, or resting their foot within millimetres of our shoulder-blade.

In his long fixed shots, minimal action plays out, but nothing escape the furtive camera – the pink neon light reflects on a woman’s face turning her into an instant femme fatale. Shadows cast on the profile of a debonair denizen transforms him into a mysterious matinee idol enjoying an evening alone (it is Shih!). Meanwhile, in the brightly lit entrance, the tupping sound of the usherette’s artificial limb is the only sound apart from torrential rain. The silent cinema-goers pay little real attention to the film on the screen even though it’s King Hu’s 1967 martial arts epic Dragon Inn. It slowly emerges that two lone members of the empty stalls starred over 50 years ago in the film they’re watching, Miao Tien and Shih Chun, the latter shedding quiet tears in memory of a glittering career. They later meet in the foyer, exchanging pleasantries as Miao Tien lights up a cigarette looking out despondently at the pouring rain.

Dialogue is minimal, the tone morose but never is it maudlin. We’re left with a feeling of poignant regret as the shutters go down for the last time, the two solitary employees making their way out into the night alone. MT

NOW ON BFI PLAYER

London Turkish Film Week | 24-30 April 2019

London Turkish Film Week is back for a second year running in the luxurious surroundings of the Regent Street Cinema and various other well-known venues across the capital. From 24 -30 April a selection of recent dramas and documentaries will be accompanied by talks and a chance to meet the directors and cast.

Turkish cinema is known for its captivating widescreen dramas that reflect the cultural diversity and magnificent scenery of a vibrant nation that stretches from Europe to Asia.

The festival opens with Can Ulkay’s epic TURKISH ICE CREAM (2018) a rousing, rather clichéd melodrama inspired by real events that took place in a small Australian town in 1915 during the Gallipoli landings. Two Turkish nationals are trying to get back to their homeland with their families. Seen from a Turkish point of view – and naturally depicting the Allied Forces as inveterate baddies – the brutal action scenes depict the futility of war, from both sides. The emphasis here is on action rather than characterisation: so although nearly everyone dies, we don’t really care, as we never got to know them in the first place. Carrying on the war theme there is CICERO (2018) a drama based on Ilyas Bazna, one of the most famous WWII spies who worked for Nazi Germany while employed as a butler to the British Ambassador, Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull Hughessen, in neutral Turkey during the mid 1940s.

The Golden Tulip winner 2017 YELLOW HEAT (Sari Sicak) sees an immigrant family desperate to survive in their traditional farm amid encroaching industrialisation. The multi-award winning drama YOZGAT BLUES (2013), set in small town Anatolia, is one to watch for its outstanding performances and smouldering cinematography. Banu Sivaci’s THE PIGEON (main image) won best director at Sofia Film Festival 2018 and is another impressive arthouse tale of a boy finding peace with the animal kingdom, away from the dystopian world in small-town Adana, Southern Turkey. And finally MURTAZA another beautifully crafted and resonant parable about the importance of traditional values in the mountains of Malatya.

Other features and shorts reflect the usual Turkish themes of town versus country, tradition versus the modern world, and the role of women in enlightened society. Another highlight will be Ahmet Boyacioglu’s latest film THE SMELL OF MONEY a tense and startling exposé of financial corruption in contemporary Turkey. And last but not least, a panel of industry professionals will debate the future of the big screen At the Flicks of Netflix? at the Regent Street Cinema on 26th April.

LONDON TURKISH FILM WEEK | 24 – 30 APRIL 2019

Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me By Now (2019) ***

Dir: Olivia Lichtenstein | Biopic | 106′ US

Teddy Pendergrass was such a loved and wanted child, success would always follow him. Born in Philadelphia to a proud mother who had suffered six miscarriages that made her cherish him all the more, the two grew close after his father left home shortly after he arrived. Powerful both musically and physically, he had an electric smile and a rich and melodious voice. And women in their droves would flock to his sexually-charged performances, while men were attracted by his power. Lichtenstein chronicles his story but somehow misses a vital chapter, playing down a sinister but clearly significant crime side-story involving the local Phili mafia. And that somehow eclipses the high notes of this essentially celebratory film.

Much the same as Aretha Franklin, Pendergrass started singing in his local Gospel church where he would be ordained. He soon joined Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, only to leave  in 1977  – under a cloud – for a spectacular solo career, that would result in a clutch of platinum discs: an impossibly handsome, virile man with a rich and sensuous voice. But in 1982 tragedy would touch his life when a car accident turned him into a cripple. He flirted with suicide but pulled back from the brink thanks to his family and friends. One of the film’s most moving moments is seeing Pendergrass performing from a wheelchair at Live Aid at Philadelphia.

In 1977, one of the most important woman in his life was shot dead. No one has ever been convicted of Taaz Lang’s crime but Teddy was devastated. And clearly the split from Melvin had left him with enemies too, not least the local police, yet to play this up would diminish the overall impact of his own success and recovery from near death. And, at the time his career was taking off and he was positioned to be a major crossover artist, a Black Elvis even. But the crash takes over in the final scenes changing the mood of the film and leaving us wondering what really happened and why.

The murky world of organised crime in pop music is a real issue, but Pendergrass’s inspirational comeback story forces a different narrative arc on the film, leaving questions unanswered. It’s a remarkable story, but way more complicated than this makes it sound. MT

DVD RELEASE DATE 29.03.19

NATIONWIDE SCREENINGS

moviehouseent.com/films/teddy-pendergrass

Minding the Gap (2018) ****

Dir: Bing Liu | Doc US, 83′

Skateboarding is the lifeblood and unifying element for a group of young guys in Bing Liu’s terrific Oscar nominated debut.

They all grew up together in Rockford, near Chicago, where Liu began filming their adventures as the boys moved into early adulthood. It seems they all had difficult backgrounds, in one way or another. But Minding the Gap skates over these in its joyful kinetic playfulness.

Bing Liu’s fluid camera keep pace with the sporty action as the boarders refuse to be diminished by their setbacks, each scene froths with energy and alacrity. And even though the stories of family dysfunction and continuing anxiety are shared there is always at positive feel to the encounters. Clearly boarding is a hobby that makes their adrenaline flow with its mix of risk, dexterity and joy de vivre. In the meantime what emerges is a rich social tapestry of contemporary working class youth in all its pain and glory.

Each story slowly emerges through the wizardry of the skateboarding sequences as Zack Mulligan and his girlfriend Nina, Keire Johnson and the Liu himself share a common experience of camaraderie and togetherness that gets them through the days and offers focus on their lives and futures.

Keire had a controlling father who is now dead. Liu’s life was dominated by a coercive bullying father who manhandled his mother and took away his confidence. Zack has just become a father with his girlfriend Nina, but they are too young and marked by their own difficult childhoods to fall into parenthood easily, and there are trust and vulnerability issues at play, which gradually become resolved in the final segment.

There is a freshness and an appealing innocence to all these encounters. And  combined with the upbeat tone of the documentary Minding the Gap makes for a satisfying and enjoyable experience. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM FRIDAY 22 MARCH 2019

Sharkwater Extinction (2018) ****

Dir/Wri: Rob Stewart | Doc | 88′

Did you ever feel sorry for a shark? You will after watching Sharkwater Extinction. This follow-up to the acclaimed 2006 documentary Sharkwater, is a powerful and persuasive film that pleads us to ponder the fate of sharks. Asian nations are now the main predator of the mostly docile creatures due to the extensive popularity of shark fin soup which is driving a cruel and illegal trade in their body parts.

In the opening scenes we see a man holding a freshly caught baby bluefin shark and then cutting its dorsal fin and re-releasing to certain death in the water. As Woody Allen once said, “a relationship is like a shark, if it doesn’t move forward, it dies” and that – joking apart – is the essence of Stewart’s film.

Director, writer and conservationist Rob Stewart dedicated his life to raise awareness of this eco-issue. His documentary serves both as a heads-up for their continuing plight and a gorgeous-looking cinematic tribute to his own efforts to bring it to our attention. Rob lost his life in 2017 at 37 in a diving accident while working on what would have been his third and final film.

“I met my first shark when I was 9,” Stewart tells us proudly, and from then on it was more or less a love story about this amazing breed of fish that makes a vast and important contribution to the ecosystem. It soon emerges that a small loophole in the system allows shark-fingers to transfer their booty (often worth billions) to refrigerated container vessels which are not checked for cargo contents. One of the film’s most sobering statistics is that the shark population has dropped 90 percent in the last 30 years.

Rob Stewart takes us on a global journey to visit points of exploitation: Panama, Costa Rica, Cape Verde and shamefully even the Californian coast and Miami Florida where one fisherman rejects the idea that sharks are endangered. But we see with our own eyes shark carcasses being loading into vast vessels. Meanwhile, Stewart and his collaborators secretly film fishermen in Catalina whose drag nets are illegally trapping and drowning the animals. Shots are fired and they quickly make it to safety. Clearly this lucrative trade is well-protected.

It also emerges that many of the fish products available in the supermarket contain shark. Over thirty percent of pet foods tested positive for shark, and they’re also found in fertilisers, livestock feed and even beauty products. “We’re smearing endangered super-predators on our faces without knowing it,” comes Rob’s ironic observation.

The last laugh is on the predators themselves though. It turns out that shark is a dangerous food to eat. Due to their age, and diet, the fish themselves contain large amounts of mercury and other toxic elements which will be far more concentrated in the body parts.

Made on the hoof, the marine underwater scenes are absolutely breathtaking and we get to see some of the World’s largest seaports. By the end we really feel for these animals and their plight as we experience, up close and personal, their dying throes as they are caught in nets or bump startled to the bottom of the seabed and die, completely unable to navigate.

The final scenes are ominous but really tragic to behold as we see the title “The Last Dive” appearing on the screen. It then transpires that Rob lost his life trying to share with us images of sawfish sharks. His film is a revelation of a life well-lived. More people die from falling in their slippers than being eaten by sharks. But after watching this you will no longer fear them. MT

NATIONWIDE FROM 22 MARCH 2019

Human Rights Watch Festival | 15-22 March 2019

Creating a forum for courageous individuals fighting worthwhile causes on both sides of the lens, this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival returns to the Barbican, BFI Southbank and Regent Street Cinema with an international line-up of 15 award-winning documentary and feature films from Venezuela, South Africa, Palestine, Thailand and more.

The festival will open at the Barbican on 14 March with Hans Pool’s Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World, which follows the revolutionary rise of the “citizen investigative journalist” collective known as Bellingcat, dedicated to redefining breaking news by exploring the promise of open source investigation. 
 
Among other topics highlighted in the festival are: modern-day slavery in the fishing industry, South African students’ #FeesMustFall movement and the call for the decolonization of the education system; ‘boys will be boys’ rape culture; the impact of non-consensual gender assignment surgery on intersex infants; urban displacement; and a behind the scenes access to the trial of Ratko Mladić. Many filmmakers, protagonists, Human Rights Watch researchers and activists will take part in in-depth post-screening Q&A and panel discussions, some of which are detailed below:

UK Premiere: Screwdriver Mafak
Palestine-USA-Qatar 2018. Dir Bassam Jarbawi. With Ziad Bakri, Areen Omari, Jameel Khoury. 108min. Digital. EST. 15

Shot entirely on location in the West Bank, award-winning Palestinian director Bassam Jarbawi’s debut feature film tackles the physical and emotional toll of one man’s return home after 15 years in an Israeli jail. This mesmerising drama examines the trauma of reintegration after imprisonment, together with the unpredictable set of challenges faced in modern-day Palestine.

FRI 15 MAR 20:30 NFT3 | SOUTHBANK

UK Premiere: Facing the Dragon 

Afghanistan-Turkey-Germany-Australia 2018. Dir Sedika Mojadidi. 81min. Digital. EST. 15 

Afghan-American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi pursues two awe-inspiring women on the front lines as the United States withdraws from Afghanistan and the Taliban regains their hold. As the country’s fragile democracy shakes, threats of violence increase against Shakila, a journalist, and Nilofar, a local politician. They are soon forced to choose between duty and love for their country, and their families’ safety. 

SAT 16 MAR 18:10 NFT3 | SOUTHBANK

UK Premiere: Roll Red Roll 

USA 2018. Dir Nancy Schwartzman. 81min. Digital. 15 

In small-town Ohio, USA, a sexual assault involving members of the beloved high-school football team gained global attention. With unprecedented access to a local community struggling to reconcile disturbing truths and the journalist using social-media evidence to reveal them, this true-crime thriller cuts to the heart of debates around engrained rape culture, and unflinchingly asks: ‘Why didn’t anyone stop it?’ 

SAT 16 MAR 20:30 NFT3 | SOUTHBANK

UK Premiere: The Sweet Requiem Kyoyang Ngarmo
India-USA 2018. Dirs Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam. With Tenzin Dolker, Jampa Kalsang Tamang, Tashi Choedon. 93min. Digital. EST. 15

At the age of eight, Dolkar fled her home with her father to escape Chinese armed forces, and faced an arduous journey across the Himalayas. Now 26, she lives in a Tibetan refugee colony in Delhi, where an unexpected encounter with a man from her past awakens long-suppressed memories, propelling Dolkar on an obsessive search for the truth.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on 12 February 2019. Members of BFI Southbank can purchase tickets from 5 February and members of the Barbican can purchase tickets from 6 February.

Red Earth, White Snow (2019) *** Bergamo Film Meeting 2019

Dir.: Christine Moderbacher; Documentary with Joseph Moderbacher, Alois Doppel, Sabinus; Austria 2017, 71 min.

Christine Moderbacher serves as her own DoP in this insightful debut feature that explores her change of attitude towards the Christian missionaries at work in the Eastern Nigerian village of Nkwumeatu.

Red Earth, White Snow (Rote Erde Weisser Schnee) is very much as journey into the past. Civil war was raging when she first went to Nigeria during the late Sixties. And things have clearly moved on. But Moderbacher has changed too and is longer that God-fearing little girls she used to be. Back in the village with her father Joseph, and his Catholic helpers, the intention is to help with the harvest. But she is faced with nagging  questions about herself and the role of the Austrian Catholics, who still see themselves as saviours, sent by God.  

Joseph Moderbacher might be ageing, but he he still has the drive and optimism of he had during the Civil War when Biafra split from Nigeria for a time. But all is not well: during this time in the adopted village of his Catholic crew he really starts to feel his limitations. The tractor they need for the harvest, has broken down, and Joseph and his college Alois are unable to get it going again. Moderbacher senior is, however, the star of the show: the villagers and Sabinus, the priest, pay homage to him. Daughter Christine compares past and present and nails down the common factor between Blacks and Whites: under the guidance of a Male God, Nigerian and Austrian men cooperate to repress females, making them into second class citizens. White women are patronized, black women are treated like slaves. Catholic ideology helps to keep the status quo. The clips from the Civil War are still traumatic: so much violence, and the helplessness of the ‘civilised’ nations.

The director questions past and present: the role of a Christian ideology, which so clearly segregates race and sex now feels outdated in its ability to promote change and still offer hope and salvation. Male chauvinism is still the dominating factor. And the need to re-examine the mythos of Christian volunteer work, when Moderbacher sen. and his friends are skiing in the Austrian mountains, where they  are “so near to God”.

There are structural questions, but Moderbacher’s approach helps to lift the hypocritical cover from the Good Samaritans, who are celebrating not equality but an exercise in superiority. A sharp irony permeates the whole feature, deconstructing and re-assessing the real motivations behind do-gooders or all kinds.

BERGAMO INTERNATIONAL FILM MEETING | 9-17 MARCH 2019 | CLOSE-UP STRAND

      

Insulaire (2018) *** Bergamo Film Meeting 2019

Dir: Stephane Goël | Wri: Antoine Jacoud/Stephane Goël With: Mathieu Amalric | Doc, 92′

In 1877 a Swiss aristocrat, Alfred von Rodt, became the governor of the remote Chilean island in the South Pacific Ocean, giving birth to the legendary term “Robinson Crusoe”. Exiled from his country and family, Rodt turned his hand to surviving without them in a utopia of his own making. While Mathieu Amalric narrates Rodt’s imagined musings (in French), the story of his current descendants unfolds before our eyes, showing little has changed on the island in the intervening 142 years, as the islanders fight for survival outside the governance of Chile, seeking political autonomy and the preservation of their indigenous identity.  

On this renamed ‘Isla Robinson Crusoe’ in the remote Juan Fernandez Archipelago  (off Chile) there are no immigrants because everyone was born there along with the firecrown hummingbirds and fur seals and (originally) imported cattle and horses. Valparaiso is the nearest mainland city and from there most of the imports arrive. The islanders are still reliant on the mainland so nothing has changed since Rodt’s day, but now the population has grown to around 900, and they appear to be increasingly insular, and proud of it too.

Stephane Goël evokes this windswept island paradise with its undulating terrain formed by ancient lava flows. Extraordinary views dominate the white sandy beaches where baby seals frolic in the waves. Rodt dreamed of creating a mini Switzerland and yet nothing could be further away as these contented South American people brush along happily together bound by their collective Catholic faith. Goël does not attempt to get know any of them so this remains largely a speculative documentary where we are projecting putative notions and ideas onto existing archive and fact. Nor does he question the natives apparently placid existence, leaving us to assume that the vast open spaces and rural existence ensures tranquility. But as the film plays out there are clearly similarities with the genial South Americans here and the well-behaved Swiss of his native Berne. And the person who unites them still lives on through this community: the indefatigable pioneer von Rodt. But was he an optimist or a simply a megalomaniac propelled by the rage of being driven out.

At this moment in time where we explore ever more closely the notions of nationalism and patriotism, this island thousands of miles away is also going through the same process. MT

INSULAIRE | BERGAMO FILM MEETING | 9 – 17 MARCH 2019

 

 

Eastern Memories (2018) *** Bergamo Film Meeting 2019

Dir: Martti Kaartinen, Niklas Kullstrom | Doc, 86′

Finnish linguist, explorer and diplomat G. J. Ramstedt (1873-1950) first published his memoirs as a radio series. And it’s easy to see how engaging his story would be without visuals. But narrated by Michael O’Flaherty (Vikings) and Frank Skog over the backdrop of visually arresting but often subversive contemporary footage it is a much more muscular experience and one that requires your constant attention and engagement. And there’s also a score to contend with. So it’s not a meditative or contemplative as you initially imagine.

Ramstedt first fetched up in Mongolia at the turn of the 20th century with the aim of mastering various Asian languages including Mongolian, Japanese, and Korean. He also wrote about Mongolian epic poetry and become the first Finnish chargé d’affaires in Japan where he also translated Japanese poetry.

Niklas Kullström and Martti Kaartinen have worked long and hard on this documentary and the structural solution they have arrived at to avoid historical visuals makes for demanding viewing. The film is full of stimulating wisdom and insight of the kind we’ve grown used to expecting from the ancient Chinese and Mongolians who saw the world from a completely different point of view than the one we are currently used to in the West. And that’s very refreshing, as it projects the past into the future. A language is not just a set of equivalent words but comes into being to serve a completely different experience in all kinds of ways and Ramstedt conveys this wisdom cleaned from his studies of poetry, religion and local folklore. Mongolian is a fricative language and has adapted itself to being heard over distances, where people communicated on horseback rather than in close or intimate indoor settings. So the language needs to be rely on loud and abrasive sounds in order to be heard.

Niklas Kullström and Martti Kaartinen’s film works best in reflecting the contemplative mores of the East, and illustrates this in a scene in a remote panoramic landscape of Mongolia where two strangers meet: “If you see a stranger on the steppe it is customary to step down from the horse and wait. For a half an hour you exchange courtesies. Then you may get to the point”. MT

 

BERGAMO FILM MEETING | 9-17 MARCH 2019

Delta (2017) Bergamo Film Meeting 9-16 March 2019

Dir: Oleksandr Techynskyi | Doc | 78′

Ukrainian cinematographer and director Oleksandr Techynskyi grew up in the Yakutia province of North Eastern Russia where he worked as a medical assistant in a psychiatric team before leaving medicine for photo reportage in the commercial world of Vogue, Playboy and Der Spiegal. Here he transports us to the Bukovina region of the Danube Delta in his follow-up to Maidan-themed war documentary All Things Ablaze (2014). A cinema vérité portrait of nature at its most raw and pure, the locals are mere bystanders their daily banter trivialised by the stark beauty of this remote territory on the north slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians, between Romania and Ukraine.

As much a chronicle of the seasons – from autumn to spring – as an ethnographical account of survival, Delta revolves around local farmers preparing for winter and harvesting the last of the wheat, while fishermen sink their nets for the final few weeks before the river becomes icebound their surviving perch sealed in a chilly tomb. The temperature plummets and the days grow colder and bleaker.

Snow eventually falls and with it the need to slaughter livestock for food. Fortunately this takes place off screen. But death comes in human form too, and a funeral takes place on the riverbanks. Christmas for Orthodox Christians is a festive affair steeped in local traditions with its folkloric undertones linked to nature and time-held beliefs.

Dialogue is minimal and there is hardly any score save the ambient soundtrack of whirring engines, idle chatter and gentle whooshing of the water as the boats navigate their way down stream, making this a meditative and lulling experience. Cigarettes and alcohol help the locals through their arduous often gruelling daily travails. Rugged faces and gnarled hands  are testament to the hardships of working the land. The young have mostly left for the cities and the old seem to lament their passing and face the numbing coldness of the windswept terrain.

Techynskyi’s mesmerisingly camerawork lends a lustre to the rusty auburns and burnt ocres of the corn and grasses. Under his lens the water is transformed into a shuddering veil of velvet sweeping the river as far as the eye can see. Hay bails are bathed in a milky moodiness as the violet night falls softly around. By morning turquoise takes over constrasting warmly with the custard-coloured corn. A small fox runs into a trap and is hardly distinguished from the surrounding biscuity bushes as it writhes to get free. Leaden skies locked over gunmetal landscapes. Even the frost looks enchanting anointing the winter wilderness with an ethereal glow. Delta connects to the universal narrative of survival for this diminishing community where collaboration and camaraderie will always be the order of the day. MT

FIPRESCI PRIZE WINNER ODESSA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018

https://vimeo.com/224426911

Children of the Snow Land (2018) ****

Dir.: Zara Balfour, Marcus Stephenson; Documentary; UK/Nepal 2018, 93 min.

This is a remarkable labour of love by first time writer/directors Zara Balfour and Marcus Stephenson. They have risked everything to accompany three teenagers from a boarding school in Kathmandu to their inaccessible mountain villages, where they meet parents and family for the first time in twelve years. Along with stunning images, they bring back passionate stories of loss and recovered identities.

Nima, Jeewan and Tsering are sixteen. They have spent the last twelve years in a Buddhist boarding school in Kathmandu, often wondering why their parents gave them away. They have more or less forgotten the hard life in the mountains, and acquired an educational standard unschooled families are unable to grasp. But before they get back to their villages, they have to endure a 14-hour bus ride, a long flight, and on top of it a steep climb in the mountains, taking up to ten days. Nima is looking forward to seeing his father, he has lost his mother and has already mourned her death. Jeewan’s father is a bee keeper, his mother taking care of the house and their local land. But Tsering has suffered most from the separation from her parents and is convinced they did not love her. The greatest disappointment is in store from Nima, who has developed a talent for poetry. He finds out from the rest of the family that his father is now an alcoholic, and has moved far away to another mountain region. Jeewan is particularly fond of his grand mother, and remembers her best. Tsering’s parents home is comfortable compared with the other families’ dwellings. While her mother runs the house, her father is a lama, and, like most men in these mountains villages, sits around with his chums and drinks tea all day long. Tsering’s mother was keen for her daughter to have a better life, and although Tsering is grateful she still criticises her mother for the lack of hygiene, but helps with some weeding in the garden, and later joins in the hunt for the Yarsagumba plant whose magic powers are considered “more precious than gold”.

While the get back to normal at home, Nepal is wrecked by an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale. 9000 people are killed, 800 000 are made homeless. And when the three of them return to Kathmandu, they discover their school has partly been destroyed. This gives the students an opportunity to give back to the local community by helping other children who have been made homeless. Neema is now studying Travel and Tourism, whilst Jeewan has chosen Fashion Design, wanting later to employ local crafts people. Tsering is going to study law, to become a Human Rights lawyer on issues concerning the Himalayan communities.

Never sentimental or didactic, this is a moving and extraordinary journey on many levels, supported by stunning panoramic images of the towering mountains. AS 

IN CINEMAS AND ON DEMAND FROM 14 MARCH 2019

Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2019

Just as Britain leaves the EU some intriguing initiatives start to open up beckoning us closer to Europe. One in particular is a crossover event that takes place each Spring in Paris and Berlin. And as we’ve already covered Berlinale 2019 we thought it might interesting to look more closely at the Paris experience.

Not having been there for quite a while I realise that Paris has changed considerably since my last visit, and is now home to some stylish new venues film and art-wise. Rencontres takes place at several of these and also visits others beyond the usual Right Bank/Left Bank weekend stamping ground. The central meeting venues are: Louvre auditorium, Forum des images, Centre Pompidou, Le Carreau du Temple and Cité internationale des arts.

The generic blurb tells us that “events include 90% European and French premieres, cartes blanches, special sessions, thematic video sessions – performances, panel discussions and a daily forum led by directors of art centres and museums, curators, artists and distributors who will share with the audience their experience and views on new audiovisual practices. Crossing new cinema and contemporary art, this unique platform in Europe provides a rare opening on contemporary audiovisual practices. Documentary approaches, experimental fictions, videos, hybrid and multimedia forms: the programme of Rencontres Internationales is the result of a thorough research and invitations to outstanding artists, personalities from cinema and the contemporary art field comprising 120 works from 40 countries; bringing together internationally renowned artists and filmmakers with young and emerging ones presented for the first time.”

But actually this turns out to be rather good value, with daily visits to the venues outside Paris – rather beguilingly described as “hors les murs” – with a daily shuttle service to new and exciting exhibition venues such as Ile-de-France, Ivry and Clamart where the latest art videos and experimental and Avantgarde art installations take place.

Cutting to the chase film-wise, the highlight of this year’s get-together is a free screening of Claire Denis’ foray into sci-fi HIGH LIFE (2018) which takes place on the 9th March at the Louvre auditorium. The disturbing feature stars Robert Pattinson as a single father in charge of his (largely) unwanted child, and Juliette Binoche as a wicked reproductive pioneer. They are both attempting to survive in Outer Space beyond the solar system after Cosmic rays hit their shuttle. It won the FIPRESCI prize at San Sebastian 2018. How about that for some international encounters? MT

RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES | PARIS/BERLIN | 5-10 March 2019 | HIGH LIFE RELEASES NATIONWIDE 10 MAY 2019

 

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud | Tribute | Bergamo Film Meeting 2019

Jean-Pierre Léaud (*1944) is widely known as the face of the French Nouvelle Vague. During his impressive career he made seven film with François Truffaut and eight with Jean-Luc Godard. But the indie directors of the 1990s have continued to fascinate him and more recently he has appeared in Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre (2011) and Ming-liang Tsai’s Face (2009) and the upcoming comedy from Walter Veltroni C’e Tempo (2019).

Leaud’s transition from juvenile hero to mature character actor is quite amazing: his performance as the dying Louis XIV in Albert Serra’s La Morte du Louis XIV (2016) is stunning, and the antithesis to his very beginnings. Whilst avoided the glitz of international stardom, he has enchanted six centuries of European filmmaking.

After his debut as Pierrot in Georges Lampin’s King on horseback (1958), he was to meet François Truffaut: an encounter which would change both their lives. The sly rebel, as Truffaut called himself, had met the revolutionary of the frontal attack. After filming wrapped on Les Quatre cents Coups (400 Blows) in 1959, Truffaut took charge of Léaud who was fast becoming a social outcast. The young man had been expelled from school, his parental home and a foster family. And this trauma feeds into the narrative of 400 Blows, a black-and-white hymn to adolescence. Léaud’s Antoine steals and lies his way through a drama which  ends on the run-away Antoine facing the sea. It’s one of the most impressive finales in film history. The pairing of Truffaut and Léaud would manifest itself best in the Antoine Doinel trilogy – Baisers Volés (1968), Domicile Conjugal (1970) and L’Amour en fuite (1979), both men growing up together in a strange sort of way.

In 1966 Léaud would star in Godard’s Masculin, feminin: 15 Faits Précis, winning a Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlinale for his role as Paul, who is in a ménage-a-quatre with three women in a contemporary Paris. Loosely based on Maupassant’s short stories, this feature was the beginning of the break Godard would make with narrative cinema. Also called The Children of Marx and Coca Cola (an inter-title of the feature), sex and politics are at the core. Léaud is fragile, and the lighting shows him as beautiful and vulnerable as the three women, Madeleine (Chantal Goya), Catherine (Isabelle Duport) and Elisabeth (Marlene Jobert). All four main protagonists have very different plans for the future, when their agendas collide. There is immense elegance and beauty here  (DoP Willy Kurant), and Godard treats his actors (perhaps for the last time) with more care than in the verbal politics of later films. Pauline Kael called it “that rare achievement: a work of grace in a contemporary setting” and for Andrew Sarris it was “the film of the season”.

A year later Godard would cast Léaud as part of a group in La Chinoise (1967), this time surrounded by two women and two men, but with a very much harsher political focus. Based on Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed, this was Godard’s first adventure into Maoism. Léaud is Guillaume, in love with Veronique (Anne Wiazemsky), who has a much stronger personality than him, and will finally leave him. Kirilov (Lex de Bruijin), is the weakest of the trio and he will kill himself, as in the novel. Léaud’s Guillaume is in love with Veronique, but he is very much a man of clever words, but little action. Veronique on the other hand, is much braver, and decides in the end to assassinate the Russian Cultural minister on a visit to Paris. But he mixes up the numbers of his hotel room, and kills the wrong man. Wiazemsky, the grand daughter of novelist Andrew Malraux, then the Gaullist minister for Culture, fell in love with Godard, and the couple married after the shooting. As an in-joke, Godard casts Francis Jeanson in the film (Wiazemsky’s philosophy lecturer at the Paris 10 (Nanterre) University) having a debate with Veronique while on her way to assassinate the minister.

Pier Paolo Pasolino’s Porcile (1969) tells two parallel stories. The first is about a young cannibal who has killed his father. The second features Léaud as Julian Klotz, the son of German entrepreneur (Alberto Lionello), who is part of the German economic miracle after WWII. Julian’s fiancée Ida (Wiazemsky) is very much an early version of the Baader Meinhof Group, and tries in vain to agitate him. But Julian can’t stand people in general. He prefers the company of pigs, who will be his downfall. Léaud is again the angelic outsider, treating society with avoidance. He is so much more feminine than Ida, that the role reversal is quite breathtaking and Léaud carries his limited part with great sensitivity.

Truffaut’s 1973 outing La Nuit Americaine (Day for Night), is essentially about filmmaking, showing Léaud as the weak and self-obsessed actor Alphonse. During the filming of Je vous présente Pamela , a conventional weepie, he fancies leading lady Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset), who has recently had a breakdown. Out of pity she sleeps with him but Alphonse then ‘phones her analyst, Dr Nelson (David Markham), who has left his own family to live with her, and spills the beans on their fling. Léaud plays the histrionic weakling with great skill. And Truffaut, playing himself as the director, assumes the role of his protector – much as in real life. Godard, who by now had broken with his ex-friend Truffaut, called Day for Night “a big lie” – later the two founding fathers of the Nouvelle Vague fought over  Léaud who somehow survived the acrimony and went on to work with another enfant terrible, Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki.

I hired a Contract Killer (1990) was one of Kaurismaki’s first English language films and he made a beeline for Léaud in the lead role. The gamine actor of Day for Night had since changed dramatically. His slight, almost feminine appearance was gone, and he’d put on a substantial amount of weight – his acting too was from another dimension. He plays Henri Boulanger, an English Civil Servant, who is sacked after fifteen years of service due to privatisation. With no life outside his work, he tries – in vain – to commit suicide. Then asks a contract killer (Kenneth Colley) to step in. But Margaret (Margi Clarke) gives his life a new meaning. With time running out, Henri tries to contact the killer, to reverse the order. Léaud is totally morbid and emotionally reduced, the environment is straight out of the 1950s, the colours pale, bleached out by wear and tear. Léaud’s agile friskiness has been replaced by gentle placidness, making him look much older than forty-six. But his acting had matured too, and he slips easily into character roles nobody would have expected from him in his New Wave days. AS

BERGAMO FILM MEETING | 9-17 MARCH 2019

 

 

Festival Focus: Bergamo Film Meeting 2019 | 9-17 March 2019

Bergamo Film Meeting unveils its 37th edition from March 9 – 17, 2019 in the mountain side venue just north of Milan in the Italian Dolomites. Bergamasco is one of Italy’s most intriguing dialects and the town boasts a wealth of gourmet restaurants and bars where you can savour saffron-flavoured risottos and a legendary pancetta laced pasta dish called casonelli alla bergamasca in a rich butter sauce accompanied by the local wines, including the famous red Moscato di Scanzo. Local handmade ice creams are based on regional ingredients, with stracciatella a speciality.

To open this year’s festival there will be a live performance of Fritz Lang’s  METROPOLIS on Friday 8th March, 20.30, Ex Chiesa di Sant’Agostino – P.le Sant’Agostino, Bergamo.

During the nine screening days and more than 180 films among feature films including world premieres, docs and short-films

COMPETITION EXHIBITION

Dedicated to new auteurs, the International competition will premiere 7 feature films, which will compete for the Bergamo Film Meeting Award (the audience will grant 5,000 euros to the best three films) and, from this year, for the Best Director Award (the International Jury will grant 2,000 euros to the best director). The competition line-up includes three debut features: British director Jamie Jones’ Obey; Holy Boom, which won an award at Zaragoza festival for Greek filmmaker Maria Lafi; Hadrian Marcu’s A Decent Man and Balkan feature Raindrops, Borders from Nikola Mijovic. Also in competition are two winners from last year’s San Sebastian festival: Benjamin Naishtat’s gripping Argentinian thriller Rojo. The Snatch Thief from Agustin Toscano. Richard Billingham’s multi-awarded biopic Ray & Liz, 

CLOSE UP

Dedicated to documentary cinema. Two awards will be assigned: the Best Documentary CGIL Bergamo – Close Up Section (the audience will grant 2,000 euros) and the CGIL Jury Prize (the CGIL Bergamo trade union delegates will grant 1,000 euros).

EUROPE, NOW!

The complete works of two filmmakers who, in the last few years, have portrayed Europe’s varied  aspects through a uniquely personal vision: the Norwegian BENT HAMER (10001 Grams) and the Spanish director ALBERTO RODRÍGUEZ (Marshland) along with his collaborator RAFAEL COBOS, will be guests of the Festival from March 13 to 16.

RETROSPECTIVES 

JEAN-PIERRE LÉAUD. The renowned actor will be a guest of the Festival to mark this tribute to his film canon. The retro includes I Hired A Contract Killer; La Chinoise; L’amour en Fuite, La nuit americaine, Le depart, Les quatre cent coups, Masculin et Feminin, Porcile, La mort de Louis XIV, La mama et le putain. 

Also joining the celebration will be Macedonian director and cinematographer Karpo Godino as part of THE YUGOSLAVIAN BLACK WAVE: Retro of his work.

Polish director, animator, painter, cartoonist and performer MARIUSZ WILCZYŃSKI will also join to take part in the festival.

TRIBUTE to PETER MULLAN

PASOLINI AND THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, special event consisting of a photo exhibition, a panel discussion and the screening of three restored films: Il fiore delle Mille e una notte (Arabian Nights, 1974), Le mura di Sana’a (The Walls of Sana’a, 1971) and Appunti per un film sull’India (Notes for a film about India, 1968)

https://www.bergamofilmmeeting.it/

 

Scotch: The Golden Dram (2018) ***

Dir: Andrew Peat | 89′ Doc, US

If you ever wanted to discover whisky then Scotch: The Golden Dram is the film. Awash with tweedy talking heads and wistful views of the lochs in the  gloaming, this is a well-crafted documentary that presents a romanticised view of the luscious liquor it explores and an industry that has retained much of its handmade credentials, unlike many of the other tipples in your booze cabinet.

Placidly-paced and as comforting as the Scotch-grown barley that goes into the barrel, this is a film made entirely by a non-Scottish crew: the aptly-named director Andrew Peat is American, the DoP is Indian and the production company is from Taiwan – which incidentally is the world’s fourth-largest importer of Scotch  (apart from producing a fine quality whisky in its own right). But this small point is all too symptomatic of British industry that has sold its soul to the rest of the World, along with many others: Cadbury’s, Wedgewood and Jaguar. Today, Scotch is a multi-million pound business enjoyed in more than 200 countries, generating over $6 billion in exports each year.

Completely shot on location in Scotland The Golden Dram offers fascinating insight into traditional production methods while telling the story of the Gaelic Uisge beatha or “water of life.” For more than a century, Scotch whisky has been the premier international spirit of choice. While Irish whiskey is triple-distilled, Scotch undergoes only two distillations and uses peat-smoked and wholly-malted Scotch barley before it is blended or bottled as a single malt – although age doesn’t always confer smoothness. According to one expert, old barrel can give the spirit a bitter tang. So buying an expensive bottle is just about the rarity value. 

Far from being a dry documentary about how whisky comes into being, this is a tightly edited tale of the characters who make the amber nectar such as Jim McEwan, the distiller and master blender, a 52-year industry veteran, who guides us through the story. Just as wine-winemaking is an art and a science, so too is whisky distilling. Although they prefer to call it “alchemy”. And the handmade whiskys are literally that – with men mulling over the process and deciding when to take the clear alcohol produced during distillation and transfer to oak barrels where it gains its flavour and aroma, depending on their origin. We meet Richard Paterson, a master blender who nose alone is insured for $2.5 million, and even the Duke of Argyll has his say.

And the packaging is one of the crucial aspects of the business. A high class whisky demands luxurious packaging – after all it’s going to take pride of place on the sideboard or in the glitzy showcase of a 5 star hotel. Glasstorm, a company specialising in hand-made bottles for rare whiskies can sell for thousands of pounds.

Occasionally verging on the elegiac in the final scenes, where it overdoes the personal touch, this is a pleasurable and engrossing film that will appeal to connoisseurs of the liquor and those wishing for a more in-depth look at the characters behind the dream. The DVD would make a perfect gift for those Christmas stockings or grandpa’s birthday – look who’s getting personal now?. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 8 MARCH 2019

Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live (2019) ****

With Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Kris Kristofferson, Diane Krall, James Taylor | Music

Canadian singer songwriter Joni Mitchell takes a back stage for her birthday celebration  tribute concert which features some of the World’s best known singers. Arriving on the arms of her escorts, she sits down to enjoy her own work performed by others. And it’s a motley crew – a bit like asking Polanski to direct a Scorsese film – it’s just not the same classic, but the original elements are still there. So if you’re expecting to hear Joni sing, you’ll be disappointed but entertained royally, nevertheless.

Most Memorable of all is Graham Nash who strikes out with the only song not written by Joni – but for her – Our House, simply and poignantly performed on the piano (and what a fabulous strong voice still – at 77). The two lived together for several years in their twenties in California. Diane Krall also shines with her husky voice of warm treacle. Seal sings softly (but then spoils it with a wimpish comment “I worship the ground you walk on”). But Chaka Khan brings a welcome vitality to the stage after Emmylou Harris’ dreadfully bland rendition of a song about Irish convent girls. Awful too, is Rufus Wainwright who really ruins Joni’s stunning song Blue, and then talks about his husband, thanking him profusely, for some reason. No Rufus – not your platform, thanks. He does a slightly better job with “I am on a lonely road and I am travelling….” Although no one could sing it like Joni. Brandi Carlile has the voice most similar to Joni, but more bassy and without the subtle complexity.

James Taylor and Norah Jones are also welcome. During the concert, there are archive clips of Joni on stage and birthday greetings come live via video from Elton John and Peter Gabriel, who gives creative expression to Joni’s iconically complex tunes and lyrics describing them “sparkling like jewels on a trampoline”.

The voluminous LA venue is hung with Van Gogh style artwork of Joni and photos by Henry Diltz, Nurit Wilde and Norman Seeff whose recent Joni: The Joni Mitchell Sessions, is being released in the US on hardback.

Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live | The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California | NATIONWIDE FROM 4 MARCH 2019

 

 

Wall (2017) ***

Dir.: Cam Christiansen; Documentary/Animation with David Hare, Elliot Levey, Nayef Rashad; Canada 2017, 82 min.

When Canadian producer David Christensen listened to David Hare’a 2009 Podcast Wall, a monologue about Israel building a wall between them and Palestine, he knew that animator Cam Christiansen would be the right person to tackle the project. The result, a mixture of 3D motion capture technology, documentary and hand drawn animation, is an aesthetically stunning portrait of the 708 km long wall, so far amounting to 4 Billion US dollars since building began in 2002. The political and human cost cannot be put into figures, and Hare’s script does not always allow us to come to terms with the numerous contradictions.   

Hare, who wore a Lycra suit for his first outing as an actor at the Pinewood Studios where the motion-capture footage was shot; is – symbolically – accompanied by the English/Israeli actor Elliot Levey and his Palestinian counterpart Nayef Rashad. Levey wants to stage a co-operation, something Palestinians are not fond of, because it would legitimise the status quo between Israel and Palestine. Hare visits the Israeli novelist David Grossman, who is critical of his state’s policies, but admits that there must be a place where Jews feel safe. Driving along the monstrous wall from Jerusalem to Ramallah and Nablus, we see the damage the continuous war has done. Nablus, once the trading centre of Palestine, is a ghost city. The most famous cafe, where guests once fought for one of the 500 places, is a ghostly place where Hare and his friends are the only customers. Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian administration has had better luck: mainly because it is one of the few places not mentioned in the scriptures of the main religions in the area. We learn that Hamas is not popular, they have won elections because the PLO is totally corrupt. Then there is the story of a man who has worked as in informer for the Israelis. Hamas, imprisoning him, then invented an innovative form of torture: on the wall of the cell, they have drawn a picture of a bicycle, asking the prisoner to fetch it, or risk torture. The journey is always interrupted by senseless controls by the Israeli forces, whilst a parallel road, fifty years in the future, will be reserved for cars with Israeli number plates, the traffic flowing uninterrupted. And the settlements, some even unlawful under Israeli law, overlook the West Bank in a very menacing way. But, the wall has stopped eighty percent of Palestinian terror acts in Israel. At the end, the black-and-white transforms into the colourful graffiti on the wall – not unlike those on the Berlin Wall.       

Whilst the aesthetics are brilliant, the political agenda is questionable – but perhaps, this is only to be expected. Nearly seventy years of permanent war has destroyed any kind of hope. For Israel, this means the most powerful military force in the region has no influence on the state of mind of its citizens: Grossman mentions that most Israelis feel vey insecure. Perhaps the repressed diaspora thinking has returned, but whatever the arguments on both sides, the founding father of Israel, Theodor Herzl, did not envisage a Sparta in the desert.  AS

WALL opens MARCH 1st | BERTHA DOCHOUSE | 6pm screening Q&A |Cam Christiansen

Les Quatres Soeurs | The Four Sisters (2018) *****

Dir.: Claude Lanzmann; Documentary with Ruth Elias, Ada Lichtman, Paula Biren, Hanna Marton; France 2018, 273 min.

Just seven months before his death in July 2018, Claude Lanzmann’s last “satellite” feature Shoah was shown on French TV. Even though the four interviewed Holocaust survivors are not genetic siblings, they share the real burden of survival (each the last of their families), yet their stories are very different. In reality their stories of survival are stranger than fiction. Two of them, Paula Biren and Hanna Marton, are still suffering from survivor’s guilt, because, however unwillingly, they were the one who escaped the Nazi extermination machine.

THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH (Le serment d’Hippocrate)

Ruth Elias (1922-2008) sings Czechoslovakian songs from her childhood, accompanying herself on the accordion. These tunes helped her and her fellow sufferers to survive in Auschwitz. Now at home in Israel, her upbeat optimism somehow jars with her macabre story as she cuddles a German Shepherd, the archetypal emblem of Nazi Germany. When the Germans occupied her native city of Moravska Ostrava (Czechoslovakia) in 1939, the family lost not only their – non-kosher – sausage factory, but had to go into hiding with false papers. In April 1942 the rest of the family was deported to Auschwitz, whilst Ruth married her boyfriend and stayed behind in hiding. In Auschwitz, the genders were separated, but Ruth’s mother did not want to leave her husband, and was shot dead in front of him. Ruth’ sister Edith was also killed. And Ruth too was caught eventually, and via Terezin reached Auschwitz, where she found out she was pregnant. She miraculously survived the selection process, other inmates hiding her from Mengele. When he found out, he was furious, especially as Ruth’s friend Berta, also near term, also got away. But Mengele was vengeful: after the birth of her baby-girl, he had Ruth’ breasts bound, so that she could not suckle her offspring. Mengele wanted to find out how long a baby could survive without being fed. After nine days, an imprisoned Jewish doctor, Maza Steinberg, told Ruth that she had sworn the Hippocratic oath to save human lives – and since the baby was dying, it was her duty to save Ruth. She got hold of some morphine, and Ruth injected her baby with a lethal dose. The next day Mengele appeared and was somehow disappointed: “You are really lucky, I had planned to deport you and the child with the next transport”. Via Hamburg and Ravensbruck, she ended up back in the CSSR, totally broken, even after ‘liberation’ She was put into a sanatorium, where she finally found the will to go on living. Later in Israel, she met Dr. Steinberg with her two sons, the women stayed in contact for the rest of their lives.

THE MERRY FLEE (LA PUE JOYEUSE)

Born in Galicia, Ada Lichtman then moved with her family to a village near Krakow. When the Germans invaded in 1939, they gathered the Jewish men, and shot all 134 in a nearby wood. Polish people made life hell for Ida and the other survivors, they looted their flats while the Germans looked on . Ida was captured and housed in an aerodrome where hunger and disease whittled down their numbers. Her fiancée had been shot along with the other weaker Jews, who were hit over the head with rocks. Deported to Sobibor, she soon met Gustav Franz Wagner, SS Oberscharfuhrer. Discovering Ada was a kindergarten teacher’, he said “Then you might be able to keep house for me”. The SS in Sobibor thought it amusing to christian one of the houses “The Merry Flee”, making it sound like an operetta title. In reality the whole camp was filthy. The SS enjoyed stripping all the newly-arrived prisoners, and made the oldest men dance with the youngest girls. Later, when they were drunk (ie. often), they raped the women. Ada never wanted to believe that Sobibor was a death camp but she survived, along with her husband. The Nazis made Ada mend the murdered children’s dolls so they could give them to their own kids to play with. When a convoy with Dutch prisoners arrived, they had to fill out postcards, telling their relatives that everything was fine. They would be gassed, before their postcards arrived home. Wagner, who was called ‘Wolf’, relished performing the executions. After the successful uprising in October 1943, the prisoners scattered around the area. But Sobibor was never re-opened.

BALUTY

This is the titular name for the Lodz Ghetto, where Paula Biren would end up as a member of the Jewish Police. She was seventeen when the Germans invaded, and had helped to dig ditches to stop German tanks. Paula listened to Hitler’s radio reports so she was aware of what would happen to the Jews After the invasion, Polish people would beat up Jews. In October 1939 the Germans started to build the Jewish Ghetto, in the poorest quarter of the city. 200 000 Jews would end up there overseen by Germans and the (Jewish) Judenrat, led by Mordechai Rumkowski, who turned the ghetto into a slave labour camp on behalf of the Germans: 45 000 Jews died of starvation and disease. He and his closest colleges were all deported to Auschwitz. After they lost their flat, Paula’s family moved into the ghetto, it “felt like going to prison”. The Judenrat had once been a Jewish welfare organisation, but now it was a parody of the Jewish state. In 1942 the first transports went to the death camps in Auschwitz and Chelmno. Paula and her family started a vegetable garden, and hopes were high. But she was soon commandeered to join the Jewish Police, initially working in the office, but later on her night patrols. Beggars and ‘loiterers’ were given a warning, and they would be deported to the death camps. Paula managed to hide but her family was deported to Auschwitz and killed. When the ghetto was finally liquidated in August  1944, Rumkowski made a list of people who would go to a special camp.  Nobody believed him any more. “I was finally put on a train to Terezin, which was not a death camp – if I’d stayed put, I would have been killed like my family”. After liberation, the Polish people in Lodz told her to leave –pogroms started up again. Living in the USA, Paula refuses to answer Lanzmann when he asks if she thought Rumkowski was guilty. “I leave this to others”.

NOAH’S ARK (L’ARCHE DE NOE)

Paula Morton had just has lost her husband, also a survivor of Hungarian death camps, when Lanzmann interviewed her in her home in Tel-Aviv. She grew up in Cluj ( also know as Klausenburg) a Romanian/Hungarian city of over 15000 Jews lived. Hungary had send 60 000 Jews to the front in WWII, to fight alongside Germans and Italians in Russia. The Jews had no rifles or other weapons, they were used as slave labour. Only 5000 survived; Paula’s brother was one of the victims. Until 1944 Jews were left alone, then the deportations started. Paula is rather scathing about her fellow Jews: “I kew if Hungarian Jews are asked to come at 12.00 for their execution, they would all appear on time”. Paula and her husband, a lawyer, had been in the Zionist Youth organisation in Hungary, and later got to know Zionist leaders like Dr. Fischer, Dr. Kastner and Hillel Danzig. These three had ties to the SS, and particularly to Eichmann. They agreed that 1684 Jews would be exchanged for huge sums of money (the SS always put the price up, and even when the Jews arrived in Switzerland, huge sums changed hands.). An estimated 500000 RM was being shelled out by the Zionist organisation. Paula and her husband were deported to the Kistarcsa transit camp near Budapest. Between the 10th and 30th June 1944 all Jews from the camp were deported to Auschwitz, just the 1684, mostly Zionist and/or wealthy remained. The group was supposed to travel to Auspitz (!), but the Hungarian authorities wanted them to go to Auschwitz. Kastner intervened along Eichmann, and the transport left Hungary. But before the convoy reached the Swiss border, two families had to leave, and because they were not Hungarian, they were deported to a death camp. Paula is obviously guilty about her survival, but she claims to Lanzmann that her husband was a fatalist and felt no guilt at all. She told him, “it was beyond a personal choice. What people forget is that the Nazi terror produced the situation. They alone decided in the end, who lived and who died. Some will say, if you can save one thousand and let 10 000 die, do it. Others will say, all should die”. Dr. Kastner was later killed in 1957 Israel after being found guilty of collaborating with the Nazis. A later court cleared him posthumously.AS

NOW AVAILABLE COURTESY OF EUREKA CINEMA 

Amazon (Blu-ray) https://amzn.to/2BIK7bi (DVD) https://amzn.to/2Pa3IET

Zavvi (Blu-ray) http://po.st/Oq6u9H (DVD) http://po.st/0vLvRP

 

Delphine et Carole (2019) Mubi

Dir.: Callisto McNulty; Documentary with Delphine Seyrig, Carole Roussopoulos; France 2019, 70 min.

Director/co-writer Callisto McNulty throws new light on the remarkable career of French actress Delphine Seyrig (1932-1990), who together with filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos (1945-2009) was one of the most noteworthy feminists in France from the late Sixties onwards. With Iona Wieder they founded the video collective Les Insoumuses (neologism, in translation Disobedient Muses) in 1975.

Seyrig’s directional debut was Ines (1974), a short documentary calling for the release of Ines Romeu, a Brazilian activist, who was incarcerated in the infamous “House of Death” of the Military Junta. she survived after years of torture and rape. And went on to meet Seyrig in the mid 1970s, when they bought one of the first Sony Portapak video cameras in France – the first was purchased by Jean-Luc Godard.

The duo staged and filmed a protest at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, pointing to the repressed fate of the even more unknown soldier’s wife and celebrating her with a massive arrangement of flowers. Seyrig also signed the ‘343 Manifesto’, admitting to have had an abortion, which was illegal until 1975 in France. Her apartment was the setting for a short film about the technique of abortion. But her first film project with Roussopoulos was Maso et Miso go Boating (1975), an ironic innuendo for Rivette’s Celine et Julie go Boating, in which different generations of women talk about their sex lives.

One woman in her sixties actually accused the younger generation of being lazy: “When it was over, I jumped up and down, I never needed an abortion”. Seyrig was also a member of the MLF (Movement de Liberation de Femmes).  

There are some illuminating TV clips from the mid-Seventies with the then Minister for Women, Françoise Giraud, former editor of Vogue and later co-founder of L’Express. Giraud supports a male journalist who states, “misogynists make the best lovers.” Later, Giraud sent a delegation to the filmmakers, urging them not to use her comments in the documentary. “Sois Belle et tais toi” (Be Pretty and shut up, 1981) followed, the two interviewing famous actresses like Jane Fonda who had been victims of “the male gaze”. Fonda reports“I did not recognise myself after my first make-up session in Hollywood – I was one from a long production line. They even asked me to have my jaw broken, so that I would have hollow cheeks. Oh yes, and a nose job too, because ‘my nose was too long, to be taken seriously in a tragedy”.

Maria Schneider makes reference to the friendships between male directors and actors on the set; whilst women often had nobody to engage with. Francois Truffaut confesses that “women end up scaring men”. There is also an amusing clip with a well-known chef seen declaring that there are no woman chefs or food critics, because women “are unsuitable” for these professions. In a short video, Seyrig and Roussopoulos filmed the protestations of sex workers who had to hide in a church to avoid being imprisoned by the police. The filmmakers were also part of the many groups who filmed the famous LIP strike, where women openly challenged the male Union for the first time.

In 1976 the two filmmakers produced “Scum’, the radical manifesto of early feminist Valerie Solanas from 1967. But the greatest achievement of Wieder, Seyrig and Roussopoulos was the foundation of The Centre Audiovsiuel de Simone de Beauvoir in 1982, an institution which has grown since to be one of the leading centres of Feminism worldwide.

Clips from many of Seyrig’s most famous features enliven this informative film that celebrates the founders of French Feminism. An excerpt from Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” is particularly relevant AS

NOW ON MUBI

       

Ringside (2019) *** Berlinale 2019 | Generation plus

Dir.: Andre Hörmann; Documentary featuring Kenneth Sims jr. and Destyne Butler jr.; USA/Germany 2019, 95 min.

Chicago’s South Side is notorious for its gang warfare and shootings. But for some whose only strength is in their fists, there is salvation. Andre Hörmann (Seanna – Alone in Hollywood) follows two young boxers from the notorious South Side of Chicago from their youthful exploits at the turn of the century to their professional dream of the present. The way their lives developed could not be more different.

Born in 1993, Kenneth Sims was trained by his father Kenneth sr, and both aim for the Olympics in 2012 via the US trials. Destyne Butler jr., two years younger than Kenneth, has the same dreams, and and shares them with trainer Nate Jones, a close friend of his father Destyne sr. The fathers are the impetus behind these young men: When Kenneth jr. wants to stop boxing, Dad tells him he can only do it, when he’s good enough. But once success is in the bag, the young man gets the taste of the sport, but he loses a decisive trial fight, and it all ends in tears, the dreams of Olympic glory gone.

But worse is to come for Destyne: charged with a minor offence he ends up spending the next four years in prison, failing to get an early release in “Bootcamp”, where the instructors punish him for ‘showing off’. Destyne sr. was no angel himself: dealing in drugs he managed to earn up to $10 000 a day – getting out before he was caught. “At least I got a house, a car – and you just have a few clothes” he berates his son. Nevertheless, he forgives him, after the young man writes him a letter apologising. Meanwhile, Kenneth jr., supported by his father and mother Norma Alexander, celebrate their son eventually becoming a professional in 2014, the boxer calling himself Bossmann, his  parents will be part of his team. To date he has won fourteen out of sixteen fights, and the family moved out of their one-room flat into a bigger apartment in a better part of town. When Destyne jr. is released from prison in 2018, his boxing skills seems to have suffered terminally, but with the help of his father and trainer he finally makes his successful debut as a professional fighter, going on to win his first bouts. Boxing seems to be the only ticket to get out of the South Side, as Destyne remarks at the end. But the sport also has its casualties: both men having seen several of their competitors die in the ring.

Andre Hörmann develops a close rapport with his protagonists, and DoP Tom Bergmann’s hand-held camera underlines that intimacy. Ringside is an upbeat story with a happy ending, but the director leaves us with no illusions about the fate of the not-so-lucky ones –or indeed the future of Kenneth and Destyne when their boxing careers are over.   

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | 7-17 FEBRUARY 2019 | Generation 14 plus

Earth | Erde (2019) **** Berlinale | Forum 2019

DIR: Nikolaus Geyrhalter | Austria | Doc, 115′

Austrian documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter explores man’s monstrous impact on our planet by examining seven places particularly under siege.

Geyrhalter is a deep thinker who takes a world view and paints on a grand canvas to convey his weighty themes. And although his topics are not always palatable or easy to digest. His concerns are basic yet far-reaching: migration (The Border Fence), Nature vs. Man (Homo Sapiens); health (Danube Hospital); food prodcution (Our Daily Bread) and the 24 hour society (Abendland). Standing back from his subject matter and quietly recording the facts, his ambivalence allows us time and space to consider and form our own ideas.

EARTH is his eighth feature length film in ten years. Divided into 7 chapters, it is another ambitious, immaculately crafted, high end experience, yet the people who inhabit the film are practical, sharing mundane thoughts and experiences as he films them in long takes in the centre of the frame. Then the screen opens up to vast panoramas and then aerial views of mines and construction sites in California’s San Fernando Valley, Fort McKay, Alberta); the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy; Gyongos, Hungary; Carrara, Italy where the white marble comes from; Rio Tinto copper mines in Spain; and Wolfenbuttel, Germany. Gigantic machines crawl like behemoths on the face of the earth, digging and puncturing – not to mention the occasional explosion. It’s a hostile and even frightening sights as man plunders and probes.

Artistically and logistically bold, and ecologically troubling, the film is a mammoth endeavour. And non of the workers and experts who enliven this ecological study  with their comments admit to being largely ignorant of what they will find next as they scour and delve deeper and deeper into the earth’s core. An Italian worker in Carrara expresses his sorrow for taking giant blocks of marble away from its mountain home commenting:. Soon there won’t be anything left and our ancestors will have to move on the Moon.

The doc, divided into seven chapters of roughly fifteen minutes each, examines man’s devastating impact on the fabric of the plant Earth, endlessly chipping away and scar the landscape, Earth sees man taking over the natural environment, in contrast to Homo Sapiens that sees man’s claiming back its territory. But as the film wears on the ethical issues raised become more and more critical: “Are we a good species”? asks one expert. And one feels that the answer if possibly a clear “no”. We have fetched up on the planet and largely abused it for our owns ends. In the ‘Anthropocene’ era, our incessant intrusion on the natural environment seen through deforestation, mining and construction, together with the use of deleterious man-made materials such as plastic have no doubt led to climate change and pollution of the seas and nature.

There’s a surreal, rhythmic feel to this non-ruminative film. Geyrhalter acknowledges it all with a distant non-judgemental eye, more concerned with the labouring workers whose feint grasp of the apocalyptic enormity of their imprint often beggars belief in the scheme of things. MT

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | FORUM 2019 

The Stone Speakers (2018) **** Berlinale 2019 | Forum

Dir: Igor Drljača | Doc, Bosnia Herzegovina | 91′

Ranked second in the world for its salt lakes, Bosnia Herzegovina is desperate to re-invent itself after the last century’s tragedy. The result is success – for the most part. 

Igor Drljača’s bring a refreshingly comic approach to this cinematic foray into his homeland that doesn’t beat about the bush by being over-talkie but explores with a calm, straightforward narrative the process of regeneration through four war-torn towns. The Stone Speakers plays out as an informative wide screen travelogue showcasing this vast now peaceful forested corner of the world and taking stock of its touristic potential, with concise contextual commentary by the people who have lived through the country’s time of change. Amel Đikoli’s fluid camerawork glides gracefully through a river in Visegrád; a series of long takes reflects luxuriant countryside: tree-covered rolling hillsides and vineyards give way to flowery pastures under the bluest of skies,

Meanwhile, classical churches stand alongside derelict buildings and thriving cityscapes in what emerges as a predominantly Christian country that now attracts a wealth of pilgrims from Ireland to China. There’s Medjugorje, the most famous of the four because it becomes a United Nations of Catholic pilgrims. Said pilgrims sing songs that sound more like they’re from a Protestant youth group. There’s Visegrad, celebrating both the river Drina and the man who wrote about it, Ivo Andric. Tuzla celebrates Josef Tito but ambivalently.There is a tour of the town built in honour of Nobel-winning writer Ivo Andrić. There’s Medjugorje, best known for its Catholic pilgrims. And a monk in full-length regalia also shares his religious thoughts. And although the live speakers often express their experiences and consumer bleats with pent-up anger and plaintiveness, Drljaca maintains his distance, floating over his protagonists with a serene sense of laissez-faire. Let the people have their say but let the facts and images speak for themselves. MT

BERLINALE 2019 | FORUM

América (2018) ***

Dir: Eric Stoll, Chase Whiteside | US, Mexico Doc, 78′

A parent in their final years requires patience and understanding – especially if they are controlling and curmudgeonly. Looking after elderly relatives is often a thankless and gruelling task with their challenging character traits all the more concentrated and their physical state diminished. Phrases such as “the squeezed middle” spring to mind and refer to those who are still sharing their homes with their adult kids while trying to care for their ageing parents. Filmmakers are exploring their experiences timely, all over the world – in a darkly comic way by Tom Browne’s (Radiator (2014) a quintessential English portrait of ageing, and tenderly in Chinese documentary Mrs Fang that won the Golden Leopard at Locarno 2017.

Fortunately Eric Stoll and Chase Whiteside have a comparatively easy time with their angelic grandmother América and this makes their debut as directors of this indie doc of her twilight days an enjoyable experience. There is only one tantrum, and that’s between the brothers themselves. Their mother is easy-going, equable and physically undemanding – they can even lift her fragile body from her bed each morning making ablutions a piece of cake – well maybe not such a choice metaphor!. The only setback is that her own son Luis has been put in prison for perceived neglect of his mother. Earning a living and looking after her on his won proved an impossible task for this rather independent man, and América fell out of bed and was injured.

In many European countries too, there are strict rules around the care of elderly people. And it’s very easy to find that your relative is suddenly taken under the wing of the authorities – and that includes their property and personal affects. But the directors deal with this unpleasant bureaucratic bungle in a very calm scene where they are witnessed coming to a mutual understanding with the authorities by crossing their palms with silver – in a very Mexican way. And Luis gets his freedom. But it always comes down to money – even in the closest of families, money is thicker even than blood, and can causes ructions and major fallouts. Stoll and Whiteside manage to heal their differences as seen in the touching finale.

The two directors are dancers and entertainers and they have brought a gentle rhythm and lightness of touch to their big screen debut – filmed over three years – along with the magical light and luminance of their native Mexico, where this film is shot in the tropical high-spot of Puerto Vallarta, home once to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – but that’s another story. An affecting and deeply personal film – you almost envy their task, thanks to América. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8 FEBRUARY 2019

Young Picasso (2019) ****

Dir: Phil Grabsky | Doc | 90′

 

In the autumn of 1907 a young Spanish artist showed his Parisian friends a new painting. So horrified were they that he rolled it up and didn’t show it again until 1937. The artist was Pablo Picasso.

 

Picasso’s formative years are the focus of Phil Grabsky’s latest artist profile for Exhibition on Screen. Enlived by paintings and interviews with museum curators and experts, The Young Picasso has the benefit of the painter’s grandson Olivier Widmaier Picasso as a talking head, giving his impressions of the legend. The straightforward linear approach chronicles Picasso’s formative years from childhood to adulthood in a well-paced, absorbing and informative biopic that shows how the painter’s focus was the future, and his raison d’être was to be highly original.

 

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born into a close family in the Andalucian city of Malaga in 1881, but he would live in Barcelona, La Coruna and Paris during his lifetime, and those places very much informed his work. Somehow he never forgot the intense light of Southern Spain. In the final part of the 19th century Malaga was a city divided between the upper bourgeoisie and the working classes, a place where industry was falling behind its counterparts in the rest of Spain. But it was also an intensely artistic place and Picasso absorbed all those local influences along with the city’s rich and unique combination of Christian, Arabic and Jewish culture. His father Don Jose taught painting and was his son’s guiding light.  Picasso sketched from an early age and produced his first work ‘Twilight in the Port of Malaga”, aged 7.  Just before his tenth birthday, the family moved to La Coruna on the Atlantic Coast and this is where he began painting with oils. Although the family were to live in the Northern city for only 3 years, the stay was a major influence on his career, and here he would give up his main studies to focus on art, and particularly portraiture. His father soon abandoned his own interest in painting and gave Pablo all his brushes, and the boy began to sell his work from a small shop in the city centre, Calle Mayor.

 

But the heart of the art scene was really Barcelona. And so in his teenage years Picasso gravitated towards the Catalan capital where his talents broadened with contemplative works like “An Evening At Home” and a self portrait created in 1896. Although his canvasses “Science and Charity” (1897) and ‘The First Communion’ (1896) showed Picasso’s ability to paint in a formal traditional style, he soon started to develop a more eclectic and inventive bias once in Barcelona. This was a reflection not only of his own nature but also of the more exotic and even seamy side of life that the Catalan capital represented. He continued to perfect his technique for painting limbs and physical characteristics, and despite his small stature he was able to paint some quite large canvasses. Soon his family sent him to San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid where he discovered the Prado with classic artists such as Valasquez and Goya. But he soon found his way back to Barcelona. There politics soon entered the arena as he mixed with a lively community of young artists, and in February 1900 he made a breakthrough sharing an exhibition with the painters Ramon Casas and Rusinol. And it was his association with these artists that took him to Paris. His essentially realist style was in flux with works such as “Lola, the artist’s Sister” in the studio in 1900 when he was only 18. In the Autumn of that year one of his paintings was accepted for a Paris exhibition and he fetched up there at an artistically transformative time, with Montmartre already a Spanish artist colony in the capital. This was the first time Picasso really struggled in life, but he was ready to show his metal and finally to give his creativity and curiosity full rein. He dropped his father’s name Ruiz, and took his mother’s. Yo Picasso was born. A natty dresser he always wore matching underwear and socks and often a top hat. This was an exciting time to be in the city and the local galleries were full of Toulouse Lautrec and other new artists, and local society was richly dressed and passionate. “La Moulin de la Galette” (1900) and “The Dwarf”  (1901) both echoed the dream-like works of Klimt and Lautrec with dazzling tones of turquoise, red and green. Work became less focused on Spanish subjects and more on the local bourgeoisie at play. Impressionism entered the fray in the Vollard Gallery where many of his works were painted on cardboard. Money was tight as a 19 year old, and he lived an intense experience to make his way forward, sharing a small studio with his colleague Carles Casagemas (Germaine, at Night c1901). But they fell out over a woman called Germaine. Casagemas tried to shoot her dead in a bar but he ended up just killing himself, a tragedy which fuelled Picasso’s blue period hghlighted by works such as “Two Women in a Bar” (1902) and “Mother and Child” (1902), The symbolic work “The Tragedy/La Vie” serves as an allegory for both life and love. It was painted in Barcelona but very much looks back to his time in Paris with Casagemas . This was one of his first artistic periods that saw him search for an identity, symbolically dealing with themes such as death and poverty. He re-interprets his sources in a very personal way. During the blue period, Picasso dealt with serious themes but also small works that contained erotic subjects in local bars.

 

Picasso was an arch misogynist and has his first serious relationship was with Fernande Olivier when he moved in Spring 1904 to his new studio in Bateau Lavoir. He was – according to her – sweet, intelligent but also extremely jealous. He also had an ambivalence that made him charismatic. He would work late into the evening and night but resented his reliance on other people for money. His pink period (not much ‘pink’ but more referencing his love of the Circus) lasted roughly from 1904-06 and was epitomised in “Acrobat and the Harlequin” (1905) but he soon started to feel more positive about making money with works such as “Boy Leading a Horse”. He portrayed himself as the Harlequin and began a friendship with the French poet Apollinaire. In Spring 1906 he went to Spain to the remote Catalan village of Gosol with Fernande where he painted “The Harem” in 1906. This kicked off his geometric style and “Nude with a Pitcher” followed . At this point his work moves away from a representational approach and focuses on the subject itself. It was also during this time that he started work on the “Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907). Picasso claims “painting is not an aesthetic process, it’s a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the universe”. His present was a result of the past. This period he called called Primitivism. He wanted to create a new type of art. Fernande Olivier comments:”Picasso presented us with a way of the world which did not conform to what we had grown to expect of it” His faces became masks – aggressively stylised and ambitious – like nothing ever seen before. His next painting was a brothel scene involving 5 women and 2 men. The spectator becomes the voyeur but also involved in the scene. The figures are actually starring back and engaging with the viewer in an alarming and unprecedented way. Paradoxically, they are neither Misses but nor in Avignon. The title refers to a street in Barcelona where Picasso visited a brothel. The name is likely to have been given by a dealer later on in a bid to put a positive spin on the picture. “Les Demoiselles” was revolutionary, incorporating primitive non-Western elements in a traditional form of classic Venus. It represents a turning point in modern art and ushers in Cubism. But his friends hated it. In 1916 – a decade later – the painting was considered a success. Picasso had finally arrived at his objective. He was 35. MT

 

THE YOUNG PICASSO IS RELEASED through EXHIBITION ON SCREEN ON 5 FEBRUARY 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transnistra (2019) | **** IFFR Rotterdam 2019

Dir: Anna Eborn | Doc, 93′

There’s a breezy insouciance to this slice of realism set in the tiny unrecognised state of Transnistra, which split from Moldova after the civil war in 1992. Atmospherically shot on gritty 16mm, it follows a group of close friends and their emotional ups and downs from the sultry days of summer to the bitterly cold winter. Technically the country doesn’t exist at all and that mood uncertainty is conveyed by Anna Eborn’s freewheeling approach to her narrative and a seductive occasional score of woozy jazz tunes and ambient sounds that convey a feeling of surreal dispossession. Far from the buzz of modern life and social media, they shoot the breeze and hang out amid crumbling Soviet buildings. You get the impression the Transnistrans don’t really care what happens now or in the future, beyond their secluded bubble, as long as they can enjoy life in this peaceful softly wooded wedge of land on the Black Sea south of Ukraine and North East of Romania.

There’s a still strong Soviet vibe to the infrastructure and Transnistra has its own police force, currency and army. And they make proud soldiers as we see them graduating from military school to the sounds of a full band and stage appearance, and there are congratulations all round. Russian is their language and the red and green flag sports a sickle but that’s as far as it goes. Eborn’s watchable, un-judgemental fourth feature portrays a happy little ‘country’ content to jog along proudly for as long as it can. And after all, love is still love wherever you are in the world. MT

ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL | 23 Jan – 3 Feb 2019 | VPRO BIG SCREEN WINNER

 

The Harvest (2019) **** IFFR Rotterdam Film Festival 2019

Dir: Misho Antadze  | Doc, 70’ | Georgia

Georgia’s past collides with the future in Misho Antadze’s debut documentary feature that unfurls at Rotterdam Film Festival’s Perspectives strand. 

In the ancient countryside Georgia is softly making its way into the 21st century as the second largest exporter of bitcoins. And while bees still buzz in the flowery fields of the Gombori Pass a louder buzzing is heard from the space-age machines that crackle and whir from their neon lit hives housed in disused villas, ushering in a new and thriving form of capitalism.

Once only home to vines and fruit, the rural Kakheti wine region sees the boundary between the natural and the virtual virtually eradicated. Cows placidly graze alongside satellite dishes in a bizarrely bucolic lunar-like landscape. While the shepherds still talk of the past and of family disagreements, their kids chatter over gaming devices or exercise their drones in the leafy landscapes.

This almost silent sinister meditation grows more and more unsettling as the finale looms. Fluid camerawork deftly dices the old and the new in long takes that picture placid protagonists working on the countryside or on computers, unaware that the landscape is changing – both literally and figuratively. MT

ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL 2019 | PERSPECTIVES

 

Hail Satan! (2019) *** Rotterdam Film Festival 2019

Dir: Penny Lane | US, Doc 95′

Satanism is gaining ground, but don’t panic. Penny Lane’s drôle but disappointing documentary will explain why. According to her findings, the old Devil we can come to know and love has actually been foisted by his own petard. His cult has been hijacked by a motley crew of rather ordinary people who just want to get together and counter the mainstream forces they see dominating America. No harm done. Counterbalancing  is certainly a reasonable idea, but not a compelling premise for a a full length feature documentary. 

Satanists have chosen the rather apt name of The Satanic Temple (TST for short) to represent their cause – and simply because no one else had chosen this title, they checked on the internet, and it was available. And their main man and co-founder really looks the part too with his glazed right eye and shifty expression: Lucien Greaves – not his real name – works jolly hard for the organisation as its spokesperson, ensconced in the black-painted wooden clad house (straight out of the film Halloween) in Salem Massachusetts. Some of the other supporters look rather weird too in their Gothic garb and horned headgear, but that’s about as scary as it gets. And they don’t have much to say for themselves  either, beyond criticising the people they vehemently oppose.

But doesn’t a religion have to have conviction, spirituality, beliefs and customs that transcend mere civic duty?. Amongst their seven tenets the Satanists list: compassion, a struggle for justice, and ‘the inviolability of the body’. But this doctrine could easily apply to the Girl Guides.

And Lane’s documentary certainly doesn’t make us quake in our boots over these so-called Satanists. Mild fascination turns gradually to boredom as Hail Satan! plays out, running round in ever decreasing circles in its effort to get to the crux of the organisation. What TST purports to represent seems ill-defined, but its certainly anti-establishment. The thrust of their activity is clearly to oppose government efforts to establish religious totems such as a granite structure listing the The Ten Commandments in front of a state house, and to erect their own idol which is a metallic figure called Behemoth.

But once we discover that name Satan is just a facade for TST’s rather pointless activities – such as attending ‘unbaptisms’ – and it adherents are just a bunch of average punters with nothing salacious or particularly macabre about them (except their black garb) the whole documentary starts to feel quite tedious. And the fact that they feature regularly on Fox News spinning endless ‘Satanic’ narratives won’t have a novelty value forever. On their website they maintain: We acknowledge blasphemy is a legitimate expression of personal independence from counter-productive traditional norms”. Isn’t this just the same as supporting free speech?. And there’s nothing evil about that.

There’s nothing even o suggest that Satanism is a religion. Ok, it doesn’t espouse violence or evil. Infact it doesn’t really espouse anything cogent at all, apart from being a force for decency and liberalism, and a mealy-mouthed opposition to the mainstream. But behind their black hoods and wicked headgear, there is little talk of faith, spirituality or even morality. Infact there’s no talk of anything other than their smug feeling of hiding behind something that actually doesn’t represent them at all. So their whole existence is misleading. But it’s gathering ground. Their numbers swell day by day, and you might even find yourself joining them one day. But make no mistake. If you’re drawn to this film in the hope of experiencing of something dark and dastardly, you will leave feeling disappointed. At the end of the day, these Satanists are just a bunch of small-town do-gooders.  MT

ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL 2019

The Seven Last Words (2019) *** IFFR Rotterdam 2019

Dir.: Kaveh Nabatian, Ariane Lorrain, Sophie Goyette, Juan Andres Arango Garcia, Sophie Deraspe, Karl Lemieux, Caroline Monnert; Canada/Columbia/Haiti/Iran/USA 2018, 73 min.

Canadian filmmaker Kaveh Nabatian has always believed that music and film are inextricably linked: they form a unit, and he illustrates the point with this essay film. The seven chapters are underpinned by the music of The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross (1787) by Joseph Haydn, played by the Callino Quartet. 

Forgiveness; Salvation; Family; Abandonment; Distress; Triumph and Life after Death all relate to Jesus’ words in his last hours. The chapters are aesthetically very different, reaching from Fiction; Documentary; Experimenta; Magic Realism to a matter of fact conventional narrative. Perhaps most impressive is Distress, a mixture of on on-screen writing and theatrical pantomime. The walls are blood red, naked people pose in front of the dripping blood, and furniture is positioned in front of the walls as in an exhibition. Water is an element common to some essays: in the prologue a woman climbs into a plane which then soars into the sky over the ocean. She later opens the cabin door and jumps out, flying over the water like a bird, her white clothes making her look like a dove. In Triumph we see the same configuration: a boy at the sea front, a woman under water with doves flying above them. Haydn’s music carries The Seven Last Words, its dominance is the connection between the very diverse chapters which leave the interpretation to the audience. The remarkable images shock, inspire and amaze. A cinematic and meditative piece of filmmaking.

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | BRIGHT FUTURE PROGRAMME | 23 JANUARY – 3 FEBRUARY 2019

On her Shoulders (2018) ****

Dir.: Alexandria Bombach; Documentary with Nadia Murad; USA 2018, 94 min.

Alexandria Bombach (Frame by Frame) has experienced human trafficking at first hand. This informs her devastating documentary about Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad, and her quest to bring justice to her compatriot victims of ISIS genocide. This crime against humanity is still waiting to be addressed by the international community. But Bombach started her project long before Murad was awarded the Nobel Price for Peace in 2018 – jointly with Denis Mukwege. Currently around 400 000 Yazidis, are living in the diaspora all over the world.

Nadia Murad, born 1993 in the village of Kocho, Sinjar province in northern Iraq, was a student when ISIS declared all Yazidi (members of a monotheistic religion) “a shame to Islam” and started a genocide in 2014. Over 5000 people were killed, 7000 women and children were imprisoned as sex slaves. Nadia Murad’s village was attacked on 15th September 2014, ISIS killing her mother and six brothers the same day. Nadia was taken with her two sisters to the city of Mosul, were she was raped, beaten and burned with cigarettes. She escaped, and was smuggled out of the country by neighbours. In Germany, 200 000 Yazidis are living in exile. Here, Nadia was offered psychotherapy for the trauma she had suffered. “But after one session I knew that this therapy would not help me, as long as many of us were still in captivity and nobody was prosecuting the ISIS members who are responsible”. Thus she became an activist, travelling the world for support. In 2015 she was made an Ambassador of the UN, Nadia was the first person to brief the assembly on Human Trafficking. She visited parliaments, among others the Lower House in Ottawa, and attended a rally in Berlin to mark the second anniversary of the genocide. She has tried to improve their dreadful conditions in camps in Italy and Turkey. In 2016 she re-visited the UN Assembly again, together with the human Rights lawyer Amal Clooney, to lodge a formal lawsuit against the ISIS commanders responsible for the atrocities.

Bombach’s greatest achievement is that she always concentrates on Nadia Murad as a real person – rather than an activist. It hurts to watch her suffering all over again in order to get attention for the survivors and justice for the dead and living. For over twenty years she lived in a peaceful village, where she dreamt of opening a beauty salon “so that girls could enhance their personality”. Then came the shock of enslavement, and now the stress of being on the international scene to fight for her fellow Yazidis. It begs the question, what is left of the real Nadia Murad? This indomitable young woman is still working to help her people despite ISIS assassination threats. Putting on a brave face, she tells her fellow Yazidis not to cry. But, Bombach catches the moments when Nadia breaks down – but only in private. A portrait of hope in the darkness of genocide. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 29 JANUARY 2019

Bergman: A Year in the Life (2018) ****

Dir: Jane Magnusson | Doc | Sweden | 116’

Documentarian Jane Magnusson takes a swipe at Ingmar Bergman’s memory in her sprawling in-depth documentary that marks this year’s centenary of the birth of the Swedish legend. It is an informative expose that lays bare the lesser known side of Bergman and follows on from her 2013 outing Trespassing Bergman where Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen appraised the filmmaker’s staggering oeuvre.

In this current climate of moral rectitude, your judgement of the film will be guided by whether or not you think an artist’s work should stand apart from their personal life. Predicably it emerges that Ingmar was his father’s favourite and  his brother Dag Bergman reveals other intimate details about their childhood together, including his brother’s neurosis that led to stomach pains and sleepless nights.

Opting for a thematic rather than chronological narrative allows Magnusson to zoom in on Bergman’s personality, family and the women in his life in a revealing expose of a man who seemed entirely focused on his own needs. Yet he also emerges as a director who worked closely and intensively with his actors creating female roles that were appealing as well as emotionally and intellectually challenging.

So many documentaries about Bergman have been hagiographic tributes to the national hero, and when a filmmaker reaches these heady heights it becomes difficult to be critical. Since the dawn of time, creators have been philanderers and poor parents, driven by their obsession with emotionally consuming work. Does this mean that they should be metaphorically ‘taken out and shot’ or have their work shunned and demonised?

Magnusson’s film is observational in style, cleverly focusing in on 1957, Bergman’s most prolific year as a filmmaker on television and the big screen, with the release of Wild Strawberries and the Seventh Seal, his most autonomous work. It was also the year of his involvement in four theatre productions – including the massive almost unstageable endeavour that was Peer Gynt. 1957 heralded the arrival of his sixth child, with wife Gun Grut, and romances leading to marriage with Käbi Laretei and Ingrid von Rosen, including an affair with actor Bibi Andersson, who starred in the year’s two films.

Enriched by a wealth of personal photos and footage, there are informative talking heads from the world of film, theatre and literature making this a definitive and ambitious piece of work that reveals a complicated but endearing genius, despite its provocative stance. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 29 JANUARY 2019

Rotterdam Film Festival | 23 January – 3 February 2019

Rotterdam is one of the largest shipping ports in Europe and forms part of the prosperous oil-trading triangle known as ARA, along with Amsterdam and Antwerp. Rotterdam is the cradle of Modernism from the 1930s onwards and although it was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War (apart from the iconic Sonneveld House Museum which still remains, built in the Nieuwe Bouwen style). The vibrant Dutch city takes pride in its Avant garde and Art Nouveau architecture and buildings such as the Cube House (left), Kunsthal Museum and the Erasmusbrug Bridge (below) making it a magnet for design lovers – and cineastes alike.

This year’s Rotterdam Film Festival takes place from 23 January until the 3rd February with the latest World premieres running alongside 4 sections entitled Bright Future, Voices, Deep Focus and Perspectives – and a cutting-edge arts programme to add a cultural dimension to the 10 days, and this year includes SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL a one off project by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and never before seen outtakes from Sergei Parajanov’s masterpiece The Colour of Pomegranates (196

The 2019 jury comprises Chilean filmmaker and artist Alfredo Jaar; Daniela Michel, festival director of Morelia Film Festival; Katriel Schory, former director of the Israel Film Fund; Pimpaka Towira, Thai filmmaker/producer and programme director of Singapore Film Festival; and Italian filmmaker Susanna Nicchiarelli. The festival’s Big Screen Competition awards a prize of €30,000 to its winning director whose film will be guaranteed a theatrical release in the Netherlands, as be broadcast on the Dutch public TV network NPO.

Sacha Polak’s Dirty God will open the festival.

T  I G E R   C O M P E T I T I O N

Sons Of Denmark, Ulaa Salim, 2019, Denmark, world premiere

No coração do mundo, Gabriel Martins Alves/Maurílio Martins, 2019, Brazil, world premiere

Take Me Somewhere Nice, Ena Sendijarević, 2019, Netherlands/Bosnia and Herzegovina, world premiere (left)

Present.Perfect., Shengze Zhu, 2019, USA/Hong Kong, world premiere

Sheena667, Grigory Dobrygin, 2019, Russia, world premiere

Nona. If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them, Camila José Donoso, 2019, Chile/Brazil/France/South Korea, world premiere

Koko-di Koko-da, Johannes Nyholm, 2018, Sweden/Denmark, international premiere

Els dies que vindran, Carlos Marqués-Marcet, 2019, Spain, world premiere

B I G   S C R E E N   C O M P E T I T I O N

Bangla, Phaim Bhuiyan, 2019, Italy, world premiere

The Best of Dorien B., Anke Blondé, 2019, Belgium, world premiere

God of the Piano, Itay Tal, 2019, Israel, world premiere

Hail Satan?, Penny Lane, 2018, USA, international premiere

Joel, Carlos Sorín, 2018, Argentina, European premiere

Queen of Hearts, May el-Toukhy, 2019, Denmark, European premiere

Transnistra, Anna Eborn, 2018, Sweden, world premiere

X&Y, Anna Odell, 2018, Sweden/Denmark, international premiere

ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL | 23 JANUARY – 3 FEBRUARY 2019 

The Raft (2018) ***

Dir/scr. Marcus Lindeen. Sweden/Denmark/US/Germany. 2018. 97 mins.

THE RAFT is Marcus Lindeen’s follow up to The Regretters. As another studio-based experimental film it won the top prize at this year’s CPH: DOX festival, one of Europe’s most important documentary festivals. A fascinating study in sociology and psychology, it unites a group of 7 survivors from an 11-man (and woman) raft (the Alcali), who discuss the sea-bound project they took part in during the 1970s – and their experiences then provide remarkable contrast to the people they have now become – although the archive footage is more interesting than the contemporary chats, their maturity now enables them to gain insight into their younger selves.

Marcus Lindeen was essentially playing a game with these people. They had all been selected along strict guidelines (good-looking, sexually attractive parents who may miss their children and look for support from each other) and confirm (or deny) long-standing theories on violence, provocation, sexual desire and group dynamics etc. The raft in question set sail in the Atlantic in 1973 and was put together by the radical Mexican social anthropologist Santiago Genovés, who had been involved in a plane hi-jacking. It was initially Genovés who came up with the idea to put the group in a isolating situation  and thence to study the violence and conflict that potentially ensued. Very much along the same lines as the various Uk TV realit programmes – only more dangerous – there were clearly perils involved in the seaborne voyage of the Acali from the Canary Islands to Mexico, that took over three months and was crewed by volunteers of different nationalities, race, religion and social backgrounds with the sole aim of  “creating tension”. Crucially the only person who felt conflicted was Genoves himself, and he confesses to breaking down in tears one night on deck.

Strangely enough, the only one concerned about the voyage was Maria, the Swedish captain, who stayed calm throughout a near hit from a massive tanker, and everyone grew to respect her. But soon they lose faith in Genoves who withdraws, feigning illness, and later has some sort of minor breakdown. As they set sail, Lindeen had likened this to experiments with rats, but one of the women confirms that the group eventually became inseparable regardless of their radical differences.

Distilled from over eight hours of 16mm footage, this is an extraordinary endeavour. But it could never be done today with the Health and Safety limitations, let alone the lack of Suntan cream! Far from violence and conflict, what actually comes out of this fantastic voyage is the comment “we started out ‘them and us’ and we became ‘us’”. A positive conclusion to a potentially lethal experiment. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

Sundance Film Festival | 24 January – 3 February 2019

In Park City Utah, ROBERT REDFORD and his programmer John Cooper set the indie film agenda for 2019 with an array of provocative new titles. This year’s selection has the latest documentaries from Alex Gibney and Kim Longinotto (Shootin the Mafia). There will be biopics about Harvey Weinstein, Stieg Larsson (Millennium Trilogy), designer Halston, and tragic actor Anton Yelchin. English director Joanna Hogg’s latest drama The Souvenir will compete in the World Dramatic section, and Shia LeBoeuf’s scripting debut Honey Boy will compete in the US Dramatic section.
PREMIERES 2019 | D R A M A T I C 

After The Wedding

Isabel (Michelle Williams) has dedicated her life to working with the children in an orphanage in Calcutta. Theresa (Julianne Moore)…
Dir/Writer: Bart Freundlich

Animals

Would-be writer Laura (Holliday Grainger) and her free-spirited bestie Tyler (Alia Shawkat) share a messy Dublin apartment and a hearty…
Director Sophie Hyde Writer Emma Jane Unsworth

Blinded by the Light

1987, Margaret Thatcher’s England. Javed, a 16-year-old British Pakistani boy, lives in the town of Luton. His father’s recent job…
Director Gurinder Chadha, Writer Sarfraz Manzoor, Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

1969. Ted (Zac Efron) is crazy-handsome, smart, charismatic, affectionate. And cautious single mother Liz Koepfler (Lily Collins) ultimately cannot resist…
Director Joe Berlinger. Screenwriter Michael Werwie

I Am Mother

Shortly after humanity’s extinction, in a high-tech bunker deep beneath the earth’s surface, a robot named Mother commences her protocol….
Director Grant Sputore, Screenwriter Michael Lloyd Green

Late Night

Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is a pioneer and legendary host on the late-night talk-show circuit. When she’s accused of being…
Director Nisha Ganatra. Screenwriter Mindy Kaling

Official Secrets

Based on the book , tells the true story of British secret-service officer Katharine Gun, who during the immediate run-up…
Director Gavin Hood, Screenwriter Sara Bernstein, Gregory Bernstein, Gavin Hood

Paddleton

An unlikely bromance between two misfit neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when one of them is diagnosed with terminal…
Director Alex Lehmann. Screenwriter Alex Lehmann, Mark Duplass

Photograph

Rafi works as a street photographer in frenzied Mumbai, snapping improvised portraits for tourists at the city’s landmarks. When his…
Director Ritesh Batra. Screenwriter Ritesh Batra

Relive

Los Angeles detective Jack Radcliff fields a distressed phone call from his niece Ashley and rushes to the rescue—only to…
Director Jacob Estes Screenwriter Jacob Estes, Drew Daywalt

Sonja – The White Swan

Before there were the Ice Capades, there was Sonja Henie. In 1936, Henie has three Olympic gold medals and ten…
Director Anne Sewitsky. Screenwriter Mette Marit Bølstad, Andreas Markusson

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Young William Kamkwamba lives with his family in rural Malawi, where he attends school regularly and shows great aptitude for…
Director Chiwetel Ejiofor Screenwriter Chiwetel Ejiofor

The Mustang

Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a tightly wound convict fresh out of solitary confinement at a maximum security prison in…
Director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. Screenwriter Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Mona Fastvold, Brock Norman Brock

The Report

Senate staffer Daniel Jones is assigned the daunting task of leading an investigation into the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program….
Director Scott Z. Burns. Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns

The Sunlit Night

Summer is off to a terrible start for Frances (Jenny Slate). Her art project fails, her boyfriend unceremoniously kicks her…
Director David Wnendt. Screenwriter Rebecca Dinerstein

The Tomorrow Man

Retiree Ed Hemsler (John Lithgow) spends his quiet days watching the news, checking internet forums, and preparing for the end…
Director Noble Jones. Screenwriter Noble Jones

Top End Wedding

Lauren and Ned are engaged. They are in love. And they have just ten days to find Lauren’s mother (who…
Director Wayne Blair. Screenwriter Joshua Tyler, Miranda Tapsell

Troop Zero

Nine-year-old oddball Christmas Flint (Mckenna Grace) is obsessed with space and making contact with the aliens of the universe. When…
Directors Bert&Bertie. Screenwriter Lucy Alibar

Velvet Buzzsaw

In the cutthroat world of fine-art trading and representation, up-and-coming agent Josephina (Zawe Ashton) stumbles across a secret weapon: hundreds…
Director Dan Gilroy. Screenwriter Dan Gilroy
PREMIERES 2019 | D O C U M E N T A R Y
The Brink / U.S.A. (Director: Alison Klayman, Producer: Marie Therese Guirgis) — Now unconstrained by an official White House post, Steve Bannon is free to peddle influence as a perceived kingmaker with a direct line to the President. After anointing himself leader of the “populist movement,” he travels around the U.S. and the world spreading his hard-line anti-immigration message. World Premiere
ASK DR RUTH (2019) 

Don’t let her small status fool you. She may be under five feet tall but Holocaust survivor Dr Ruth Westheimer is a force to be reckoned with, as chronicled by Ryan White in his documentary portrait of the noteworthy sex therapist.

Dir: Ryan White.

Halston

Fashion designed Halston combined talent, notoriety and sheer gorgeousness to become a legend. From humble beginnings in Des Moines, Iowa this doc explores his meteoric rise to fame.

Dir: Frederic Tcheng

 Love, Antosha

Prolific young actor Anton Yelchin was wise beyond his years and influenced around him to strive for more.

Dir: Garret Price

Marianne & Leonard

Is a beautiful yet tragic love story between Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen.

Dir: Nick Broomfield

 Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen

In the 1970s Merata Mita broke through barriers of race, class and gender.

Dir/writer: Hepi Mita

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Using words from Miles Davis’ Autobiography, Stanley Nelson’s biopic offers insight into our understanding of the legendary musician.

Dir: Stanley Nelson

 Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Mollu Ivins

With razor-sharp wit, outspoken journalist and firecracker Molly Ivins took on the good-old-boy corruption in the political establishment

Dir: Janice Engel. Writer: Janice Engel, Monique Zavistovski

The Great Hack

Have you ever filled out an online survey? Do you wonder why you received ads for products

Dir: Karim Amer, Jehane Noujam Wri: Erin Barnett, Pedro Kos, Karim Amer

The Inventor: Out for blood in Silicon Valley

Elizabeth Holmes arrived in Silicon Valley with a revolutionary medical invention. She called it “the Edison”

Director: Alex Gibney

 Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

After a stint as an editor early in her career, this American writer got the measure of publishing.

Dir: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

 Untouchable

The inside story of the meteoric rise and monstrous fall of movie titan Harvey Weinstein is laid bare.

Dir: Ursula Macfarlane

Words from a Bear

When N Scott Momaday won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, it marked one of the first major acknowledgements of Native America.

COMPETITION TITLES | U S   D R A M A T I C

Before You Know It

Stage manager Rachel Gurner still lives in her childhood apartment—along with her off-kilter actress sister, Jackie; eccentric playwright father Mel;…
Director Hannah Pearl Utt. Screenwriters Hannah Pearl Utt, Jen Tullock

Big Time Adolescence

It’s funny: humans have been growing up for a really long time, but somehow we still suck at it. Just…
Director Jason Orley. Screenwriter Jason Orley

Brittany Runs A Marathon

Brittany Forgler is a funny, likeable, 27-year-old hot mess of a New Yorker whose trashy nightclub adventures and early-morning walks…
Director Paul Downs Colaizzo. Screenwriter Paul Downs Colaizzo

Clemency

How do you salvage your marriage when you are struggling to salvage your soul, your sense of self, and your…
Director Chinonye Chukwu. Screenwriter Chinonye Chukwu

Hala

Hala is her father’s pride and joy. Dutiful and academically gifted, she skillfully navigates both her social life as a…
Director Minhal Baig. Screenwriter Minhal Baig

Honey Boy

When 12-year-old Otis starts to find success as a child television star in Hollywood, his ex-rodeo-clown father returns to serve…
Director Alma Har’el. Screenwriter Shia LaBeouf

Imaginary Order

For Cathy, life as she’s always known it seems to be slipping away. Her sense of significance is crumbling as…
Director Debra Eisenstadt. Screenwriter Debra Eisenstadt

Luce

It’s been ten years since Amy and Peter Edgar (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) adopted their son from war-torn Eritrea,…
Director Julius Onah. Screenwriter JC Lee, Julius Onah

Ms. Purple

In the dark karaoke rooms of Los Angeles’s Koreatown stripmalls, Kasie works as a girl, a young hostess paid to…
Director Justin Chon. Screenwriter Justin Chon, Chris Dinh

Native Son

Bigger “Big” Thomas, a young African American man, lives with his mother and siblings in Chicago. Half-heartedly involved with a…
Director Rashid Johnson. Screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks

Share

After a night of partying, high-school sophomore Mandy discovers that a series of cell-phone videos of her—half-dressed and semiconscious—have gone…
Director Pippa Bianca. Screenwriter Pippa Bianco

The Farewell

After learning their beloved matriarch has terminal lung cancer, a family opts not to tell her about the diagnosis, instead…
Director Lulu Wang. Screenwriter Lulu Wang

The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Jimmie Fails has one hope in life: to reclaim the majestic Victorian house his grandfather built. Every week, Jimmie and…
Director Joe Talbot. Screenwriter Joe Talbot, Rob Richert

Them That Follow

In the rugged wilderness of Appalachia, the members of an isolated community of Pentecostal snake handlers led by Pastor Lemuel…
Director Britt Poulton, Dan Madison Savage. Screenwriter Britt Poulton, Dan Madison Savage

The Sound of Silence

A self-taught scientist, Peter (Peter Sarsgaard) works in New York as a “house tuner”—a unique, highly specialized profession he’s invented….
Director Michael Tyburski. Screenwriter Ben Nabors, Michael Tyburski

To The Stars

In a god-fearing small town in 1960s Oklahoma, bespectacled and reclusive teen Iris endures the booze-induced antics of her mother…
Director Martha Stephens. Screenwriter Shannon Bradley-Colleary
US   D O C U M E N T A R Y  

Always in Season

Claudia Lacy wants answers. When her 17-year-old son, Lennon, was found hanging from a swing set in Bladenboro, North Carolina,…
Director Jacqueline Olive

American Factory

In 2014, a Chinese billionaire opened a Fuyao factory in a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio. For thousands…
Director Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert

APOLLO 11

NASA’s vaults open for the first time to spill this exquisite, never-before seen audio and 70 mm film footage of…
Director Todd Douglas Miller

Bedlam

is the first major documentary to explore the crisis in care of severely mentally-ill citizens. Set in Los Angeles,…
Director Kenneth Paul Rosenberg

David Crosby: Remember My Name

We’re all acquainted with archetypal rock bio-doc tropes: the unexpected rise to stardom, calamitous love affairs, a descent into drugs,…
Director A.J. Eaton

Hail Satan?

What kind of religious expression should be permitted in a secular nation? Holy hell, something is brewing! Just a few…
Director Penny Lane

Jawline

Austyn Tester—handsome and 17—feels oppressed by the confines of life in his small hometown in Tennessee. But in the online-streaming…
Director Liza Mandelup

Knock Down the House

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young, bold Puerto Rican bartender from the Bronx, works double shifts to save her family’s home from…
Director Rachel Lears

Midnight Family

With striking vérité camerawork, drops us directly into the frenetic nighttime emergency ecosystem of Mexico City. In the midst of…
Director Luke Lorentzen

Mike Wallace Is Here

Deemed the “enemy of the people” by our current president, journalism in America is on the chopping block. Lies, fake…
Director Avi Belkin

Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements

Irene Taylor Brodsky builds on her powerful first feature (Audience Award winner at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival) by delving…
Director Irene Taylor Brodsky

One Child Nation

In order to expose rampant human-rights abuses, filmmaker Nanfu Wang fearlessly confronted Chinese government agents in her 2016 Sundance Film…
Director Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang

Pahokee

Four high-school students, Na’Kerria, Jocabed, Junior, and BJ, embark on their senior year in Pahokee, a small Florida town on…
Director Ivete Lucas, Patrick Bresnan

TIGERLAND

In the span of only a handful of generations, the tiger has been transformed from a venerated creature with a…
Director Ross Kauffman

Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary

It begins as a documentary about “The Amazing Johnathan,” a uniquely deranged magician who built a career out of shock…
Director Ben Berman

Where’s My Roy Cohn?

Roy Cohn personified the dark arts of twentieth-century American politics, turning empty vessels into dangerous demagogues—from Senator Joseph McCarthy to…
Director Matt Tyrnauer
WORLD CINEMA   D R A M A T I C 

Dirty God

After a vicious acid attack leaves half her body covered in scars, Jade (Vicky Knight) must come to terms with…
Director Sacha Polak. Screenwriter Sacha Polak, Susanne Farrell

Divine Love

In the Brazil of 2027, where raves celebrate God’s love and drive-through spiritual-advice booths have become the norm, Joana holds…
Director Gabriel Mascaro
Screenwriter Gabriel Mascaro, Rachel Daisy Ellis, Esdras Bezerra, Lucas ParaÍzo

Dolce Fine Giornata

Maria Linde, a free-spirited, Jewish Polish Nobel Prize winner, lives in Tuscany surrounded by warmth and chaos in her family’s…
Director Jacek Borcuch. Screenwriter Jacek Borcuch, Szczepan Twardoch

Judy & Punch

In the rough-and-tumble town of Seaside (nowhere near the sea), villagers flock to Punch and Judy’s marionette theatre. Though Punch…
Director Mirrah Foulkes. Screenwriter Mirrah Foulkes

Koko-di Koko-da

Three years after their daughter Maja’s eighth birthday was interrupted by sudden tragedy, Elin and Tobias embark on a mirthless…
Director Johannes Nyholm. Screenwriter Johannes Nyholm

Monos

Belonging to a rebel group called “the Organization,” a ragtag band of child soldiers, brandishing guns and war names like…
Director Alejandro Landes. Screenwriter Alejandro Landes, Alexis Dos Santos

Queen of Hearts

Anne, a successful lawyer, lives in a beautiful modernist home with her two daughters and physician husband, Peter. Yet when…
Director May el-Toukhy. Screenwriter Maren Louise Käehne, May el-Toukhy

The Last Tree

Femi, a British boy of Nigerian heritage, enjoys a happy childhood in Lincolnshire, where he is raised by doting foster-mother…
Director Shola Amo. Screenwriter Shola Amoo

The Sharks

Rosina ticks away the days of a restless summer in her sleepy beachside town until she sights an ominous dorsal…
Director Lucía Garibaldi, Screenwriter Lucía Garibaldi

The Souvenir

Between script pitches and camera setups, Julie hosts a film-school cohort party where she meets a mysterious man named Anthony….
Director Joanna Hogg. Screenwriter Joanna Hogg

This is not Berlin

As Mexico anticipates the 1986 World Cup, 17-year-old Carlos is less interested in soccer and more interested in listening to…
Director Hari Sama. Screenwriter Rodrigo Ordóñez, Hari Sama, Max Zunino

WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES

One sunny day, four young strangers—Hikari, Ikuko, Ishi, and Takemura—meet by chance at a crematorium. They have all recently lost…
Director Makoto Nagahisa. Screenwriter Makoto Nagahisa
WORLD CINEMA.  D O C U M E N T A R Y

Advocate

Israeli human-rights lawyer Lea Tsemel is a force that won’t be deterred. Having defended Palestinians against a host of criminal…
Director Rachel Leah Jones, Philippe Bellaïche

Cold Case Hammarskjöld

In 1961, United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane mysteriously crashed, killing Hammarskjöld and most of the crew. . It’s understood…
Director Mads Brügger

Gaza

Facing the serene Mediterranean Sea, 17-year-old Karma Khaial stands at the water’s edge and senses freedom. But in Gaza, the…
Director Garry Keane, Andrew McConnell

Honeyland

In a deserted Macedonian village, Hatidze, a 50-something woman in a bright yellow blouse and green headscarf, trudges up a…
Director Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska

Lapü

On a windy night in the Colombian desert, a young Wayúu woman named Doris sleeps in her hammock and dreams…
Dirs Juan Pablo Polanco, César Alejandro Jaimes. Writers Juan Pablo Polanco, César Alejandro Jaimes, María Canela Reyes

Midnight Traveler

In 2015, after Hassan Fazili’s documentary aired on Afghan national television, the Taliban assassinated the film’s main subject and put…
Director Hassan Fazili. Writer Emelie Mahdavian

Sea of Shadows

The Sea of Cortez is facing total collapse because of a war at sea. Mexican drug cartels have discovered the…
Director Richard Ladkani

Shooting the Mafia

In the streets of Sicily, beautiful, gutsy Letizia Battaglia pointed her camera straight into the heart of the Mafia that…
Director Kim Longinotto

Stieg Larsson – The Man Who Played With Fire

Since his untimely death, Stieg Larsson has become one of the world’s most famous authors. His Millennium Trilogy— and its…
Director Henrik Georgsson. Screenwriter Henrik Georgsson

The Disappearance of My Mother

Benedetta Barzini is a revered Italian model who shattered stereotypes by becoming a journalist and professor and gained notoriety by…
Director Beniamino Barrese. Screenwriter Beniamino Barrese

The Edge of Democracy

Once a nation crippled by military dictatorship, Brazil found its democratic footing in 1985 and then, in 2002, elected a…
Director Petra Costa. Screenwriter Petra Costa

The Magic Life of V

Wizards, magic spells, and heroic sword battles are just fantasy for some, but for Veera they’re a meaningful part of…
Director Tonislav Hristov. Screenwriter Tonislav Hristov, Kaarle Aho
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL | 24 JANUARY – 3 FEBRUARY 2019 | PROGRAMME COURTESY OF THE SUNDANCE INSTITUTE 

Camorra (2018) ***

Dir; Francesco Patierno | Doc | Italy 70’

Francesco Patierno offers a pragmatic but mournful insight into the criminal identity of his birthplace Naples in this historical and socio-anthropological portrait of the capital of Campania in Southern Italy.

The phrase “see Naples and die” takes on a different meaning here from the one coined during the city’s Golden Age when it was the Bourbon capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Patierno seeks to show how the city’s criminal underbelly dealt with pernicious result of unemployment and poverty through powerful self-regulation that confined crime to the working classes.

Camorra is the result of months of research among the treasures of Rai Teche and the Riccardo Carbone archive. What emerges is a surprising trove of unseen news footage and period films from the 1960s to the 1990s, enlivened by a visceral score from local musician Meg.

The Camorra ‘phenomenon’ was born from a culture of subordination. Many post-war orphaned children found in it a structure to protect them from complete poverty and homelessness. They became street workers who learnt to sell cigarettes arriving as contraband from Morocco and further afield, smuggled in by the criminal underworld. Things changed with the advent of warlord Rafaele Cutolo, who unified the activity into a single large military and economic organization providing its members with an identity of social and territorial redemption. 

The culmination of Cutolo’s power coincides with one of the darkest events in the history of the Republic, when the Christian Democrat Ciro Cirillo was kidnapped by the Red Brigades and returned after a massive family ransom was paid. Cutolo negotiated with the terrorists for the release of the politician and the State remained in his debt.

Patierno adopts a different approach to the usual one involving the violence and blood-letting for which the organisation is known. His narrative searches for a meaning and an explanation for the Camorra’s existence, tracing its history and exploring the background of its protagonists, to offer a short but engaging watch. By understanding the roots of the organisation and its methods, positive change can hopefully be brought about.MT

NOW SHOWING AT BERTHADOCHOUSE and selected arthouse venues | VENICE FESTIVAL 2018

New Year, New Films | 2019 in focus

2019 gets off to an impressive start with two extraordinary arthouse dramas both releasing in January. Timothée Chalamet plays a young man struggling with addition in Felix Van Groeningen’s  A Beautiful Boy and Saoirse Ronan gives a dynamite performance as the tragic Mary Queen of Scots in a mesmerising historical epic from theatre turned screen director Lisa Rourke. There’s plenty more to look forward as the New Year gets under way, here are a selection of arthouse features and documentaries releasing in 2019.

Bergman: A Year in the Life 

The focus of Jane Magnusson’s European Award winning documentary is 1957, arguable the zenith of  Ingmar Bergman’s career when he released two on his most acclaimed dramas The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, a TV film and four plays. It’s an impressive film that reflects Bergman’s mammoth contribution to the world of film and theatre. 25 January 

Burning 

Some critics went wild for this psychological thriller from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong. Certainly alluring, the enigmatic arthouse piece is based on a story from Haruki Murakami about a barn-burning weirdo and his struggle to win the girl of his dreams. 1 February 1st

Birds of Passage

In his follow-up to Embrace of the Serpent Ciro Guerra is joined by his wife Cristina Gallego for this arthouse chronicle of the emergence of the drugs trade in his native Colombia. Spring 2019

Can You Ever Forgive Me? 

Melissa McCarthy takes plagiarism to extraordinary ends as Lee Israel, a New York writer struggling to make ends meet – eventually by criminal means. Marielle Heller and Nicole Holofcener offer up an absorbing dark comedy drama that also stars Richard E Grant. Opens February 1st

Sometimes Always Never 

One of my favourite British films this years was this amusingly cheeky indie drama – it will make you laugh and contemplate your own life too. Love, ageing, loneliness and emotional fulfilment all deftly intermingle in a ‘detective’ drama about a father (a thoughtful Bill Nighy) and his two sons, one of whom has disappeared. Set in the rain-soaked Ribble Valley, there’s a soft melancholy to the muted visuals and the quintessentially English storyline, crafted by Frank Cottrell Boyce (The Railway Man). A subtle film film but an enjoyable one.

Border

Writer John Ajvide Lindvist’s arthouse oddity has the same fresh originality as his vampire thriller Let the Right One In, ten years on. The Swedish social satire is a romantic parable that blends fantasy, mystery and horror and won the top prize at this year’s Cannes ‘Un Certain Regard’. March 8th

High Life

Claire Denis is the latest auteur to try her hand with a Sci-fi drama. And she succeeds. This one stars Robert Pattison and Juliette Binoche and premiered at Toronto to wrapt applause. Early spring 

On the Basis of Sex

In the second film about noted US jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG is already on release)– Felicity Jones stars as the fearsome feminine judge and activist who has broken down barriers since the 1950s, and continues to do so with her subtle charm and incisive intellect. February 8th   

Float Life a Butterfly

Carmel Winters’s won the FIPRESCI Discovery Prize in a drama that follows the ambitions of a young and feisty boxing enthusiast (Hazel Doupe) in 1960s Ireland. Spring 2019

Green Book

Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen star in this enjoyable road movie that delighted critics both at Marrakech and Toronto. It follows a suave African-American pianist (Ali) and a New York bruiser (Mortensen) to America’s Deep South on a voyage of discovery – of themselves and the racial tensions of the 1960s. 1 February 2019 

The Young Picasso 

Exhibition on Screen chronicles the early years of the Spanish painter, from his birth in Malaga to  his international recognition in Paris in his mid thirties. Informative and a must for art lovers. 5 February 2019

Greta

Isabelle Huppert had a low profile in 2018, but she’s back with a vengeance in Neil Jordan’s critically divisive drama that explores the relationship between a young girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Huppert’s lonely widow. 19 April 2019

The Irishman

When Martin Scorsese offered a lifetime Tribute to his great friend Robert De Niro at Marrakech Film Festival , The Irishman was the talk of the town. Scorsese’s latest film will be releasing on Netflix, 

The Mule

Another Hollywood luminary – now in his 90s – Clint Eastwood will hit cinemas at the end of January 2019 with his 143rd film – in which he also stars. The Mule is a high-octane thriller set in the US drug trade  January 25th

The Sisters Brothers

Jacques Audiard casts Joaquin Phoenix and John C Reilly in this sensitively-scripted buddy movie that sees the titular brothers embark on a Wild West odyssey, based on Patrick deWitt’s western novel. Skilfully avoiding a macho approach, this is insightful and great fun. April 5th

Woman At War

Benedikt Erlingsson follows his unusual equine-themed drama Of Horses and Men with another innovative tale from his native Iceland that sees an ambitious eco warrior in the shape of a middle-aged woman strike out for the environment. 3 May 2019

Too Late to Die Young

Dominga Sotomayor’s languorous Chilean family drama was a big hit at Locarno 2018, and takes place during the summer of 1990 while the country was making a dangerous bid for democracy.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino latest, another highly-anticipated controversial caper tackles the thorny theme of Hollywood during the Charles Manson era. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio star. July 26

The Woman in the Window

Based on A J Finn’s bestseller, Joe Wright and Tracey Letts create an intriguing crime thriller that explores urban angst, loneliness and voyeurism in contempo New York. Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman and Amy Adams star.

The Lady Eve

We can always rely on the classics, especially when Preston Sturges, Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck are concerned. Re-released by Park Circus this screwball comedy with a social message  is possibly one of the most enjoyable films you’ll see in February, and makes for perfect Valentine viewing. 15 February.

BEST INDIE AND ARTHOUSE FILMS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2019

 

 

RBG (2018)

Dirs: Julie Cohen/Betsy West | US Doc | 98′

WOMEN BELONG IN ALL PLACES WHERE DECISIONS ARE BEING MADE” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg*

To say that ruth Bader Ginsburg is a force a to be reckoned with is an understatement. But never has a woman used her feminine charm to greater effect as this outstanding Supreme Court Justice. Variously called “a witch”, “a monster” and “a zombie”, among other things, Ginsburg is slender and rather attractive. Clearly despite her professional successes, she is not without her detractors, to put it mildly. And Trump goes so far as to call her an “absolute disgrace to the Supreme Court.” That said, Julie Cohen and Betsy West focus on her many achievements in their positive biopic. Far from being hagiographic, it doesn’t quail away from her outspoken nature that continues to make her, at 85, a fearsome and unswerving advocate of women’s rights. She has also been a loving wife and a mother of two. But it’s the calm and indomitable way that she achieves her professional goals that is the thrust of this intelligent documentary. 

Born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, 1933, Ginsburg lost her both sister and her mother before she graduated from hight school. But her husband Marty Ginsburg was to prove a guiding light in her struggle to make a name for herself, and she married him and had two kids family before starting Law school at Harvard, where she was one of nine women in a class of over 500 men. Despite her obvious talent she couldn’t fine a job in New York, a fact she put down to being a woman. 

As in all the professions, the devil is in the detail. But Ginsburg possesses a fine intellect and an infinite capacity for absorbing facts and legal complexities. This capacity to handle mind-numbing minutiae has served her well when tackling various legal ground-breaking legal precedents that have quite literally changed the working world for American women. Cohen and West move swiftly to chronicle Ginsburg’s achievement such as toppling the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy. Ginsburg came to office during the Clinton administration and still reigns in office despite her overt criticism of Trump which she acknowledges was probably not her best move. Yet her resilience and unfailing competence has helped her to move mountains in the fight for female rights and empowerment in the workplace. MT

https://youtu.be/NryGsAVlD_4

ON RELEASE FROM 4 JANUARY 2019 AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE and NATIONWIDE.

 

Nae Pasaran (2018) ****

Dir.: Felipe Bustos Sierra; Documentary with John Keenan, Bob Fulton, Robert Sommerville, Stuart Barrie; UK 2018, 93 min.

After Pinochet’s Army and Air Force bombed the Presidential Palace of La Moneda in Santiago de Chile overthrowing the Allende’s government on 11.9.1973, the General started a regime of terror, torture and mass murder. But the planes employed to bomb the seat of Government were infact British-made Hawke Hunters, maintained in a factory in East Kilbride, near Glasgow. When engineers discovered, in March 1974, that four jet engines were due to repaired and sent back to Chile, they took action.

Apart from some CGI docu-drama, Sierra and DoP Peter Keith stay on a very human level with those that took part; and there’s dry humour in the animation sequences. Engineers John Keenan, Bob Fulton, Robert Sommerville and Stuart Barrie wrote ‘Blacked’ on the engines and started a protest. But they were aware of the full impact of their actions until Felipe Bustos Sierra, a Belgian born son of Chilean emigrants, took a closer look. After a short film of the subject in 2014, his debut feature documentary tells a harrowing, but moving story. In London, like in many European cities, big demonstrations against the military Junta were being held, and Allende’s widow Hortensia Bussi spoke to a big crowd in Trafalgar Square. British Doctor Sheila looked after Allende supporters in hiding. She was captured by the army and tortured in the notorious Villa Grimaldi near Santiago.

After her release in 1975, the human rights infringements in Chile came to light, and made the four Scotts even more adamant about keeping the engines in the East Kilbride factory. What they did not know then, was that their actions had real repercussions on two levels. Firstly through the broadcast radio media that reached the prisoners in the Chilean camps camps. One of them, Dr. Arturo Jiron Vargas (1928-2014) was on the staff in La Moneda during the day of the overthrow. And he tells how they stayed with Allende until the end. Then the soldiers made them lay down on the ground in front of the palace, and given to believe that military tanks would roll over them. Vargas ended up in one of these camps where women were raped by dogs and mock executions were a daily event. The action (or better the non-action) of the Glasgow Four was a sign for Vargas and the prisoners, that they had not been abandoned.

Sierra also interviewed General Fernando Rojas Vender, a retired General and commander in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force under Pinochet. He is still proud of the precision bombing of the Palace by the Hunter Hawks but disappointed that he could not actively participate, since he was in control of ground forces. Before he became a General, Vender was a squadron leader of the Hawker Hunter planes, and he knows every detail. After September 1973, Vender was in charge of the operation to re-patriate the planes to Europe, a big problem, since they were not made to fly long distances. Soon Chile was involved in a border conflict with Argentina, and Vender had only three planes available. He admits that the four men in Glasgow were greatly responsible for the lack of numbers. When he was told by Sierra that the protest in East Kilbride was started by a Christian, Vender hit the roof: “somebody put this idea in his head, like with the Islamists today, they all behave like animals”.

In 2015, Keenan, Fulton and Summerville received the Order of Commander of the Republic of Chile, the highest decoration of the country, from the Chilean ambassador in London. Their four-year long boycott not only gave hope to the prisoners of the Pinochet regime, but hampered the efficiency of the Chilean Air Force. One of the engines involved, rotting away in Chile, was sent back to East Kilbride via ship, and greeted by the four. It will now continue its fight with the Scottish weather. AS

NATIONWIDE and at the ICA

 

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) ****

Dir.: Alexandra Dean; Documentary; USA 2017, 86 min.

Hedy Lamarr wasn’t just a pretty face. First time director/writer Alexandra Dean uncovers some juicy secrets about Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000), the bombshell who, together with composer George Antheil, invented a Radio Guidance System based on Frequency Hopping, which is today the basis for WIFI, Blue Tooth and GPS.

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born into an Upper-class Jewish family in Vienna. Early on in life she was encouraged by her father to undertake scientific experiments. As a teenager she went to Berlin and was trained as an actress by Max Reinhardt. Returning to Vienna, she worked as a script girl and had small parts in four features, before starring in Gustav Machaty’s 1933 outing Ekstase (Ecstasy), appearing in the nude – which begs the question: how did a director talk an eighteen year-old girl into disrobing? Well Kiesler was naturally blamed and took the brunt of the scandal. To get away from it all Hedy married the Austrian ammunition manufacturer Fritz Mandl, who in spite of being at least partly Jewish, delivered weapons to Mussolini. Mandl was a tyrant obsessed with his wife, and Hedwig had to put on a maid uniform to escape from him in the middle of the night. In Paris she met Louis B. Mayer in 1937, who signed her up for MGM, giving her the screen name Hedy Lamarr. She made her Hollywood debut in the following year starring in Algiers, opposite Charles Boyer. In the decades that followed she would star in 25 features, mostly casted as an exotic seductress.

When WWII broke out German U-boots dominated the oceans, nearly winning the war for Hitler. Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a Radio Guidance system which would have helped to protect Allied ships from the German U-boots, but the Navy decided a woman could hardly be of any use in the manly pursuit of war victory. Lamarr was Instead told to sell War Bonds which she did to the tune of over 25 Million Dollars. Much later, the Navy apologised, giving her an award which her son Anthony accepted on her behalf. Lamarr, who by then only communicated via phone with friends and family, phoned her son during the ceremony, and thanked the audience for her belated award. In 2014 Hedy Lamarr was officially introduced into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame.

On the big screen she played in popular features like Ziegfeld Girl and Boom Town Girl, and in 1942 in White Cargo, cast an a half-Arab seductress, who told the white farmer she wanted to seduce him crawling seductively on her belly: “I am Tondelayo. I make tiffin for you?” The discrepancy between reality and screen life for a woman like Lamarr, who had just invented one of the most revolutionary electronic technologies, must have been maddening. In 1950 she starred in Samson and Delilah, which was the best-grossing film of the year. She shared a passion for aviation with her boyfriend Howard Hughes (“the worst lover I ever had”), but her marriages, six between 1933 and 1965, always ended unhappily in divorce. She had two children with John Loder, Anthony and Denise, who feature extensively in this documentary. Lamarr’s later years were a nightmare. She fell under the influence of “Dr. Feelgood”, Max Jacobsen, who prescribed amphetamines for his many clients from Hollywood, including President John F. Kennedy. Lamarr also designed a mini Ski-resort in Aspen, having finished her screen career in 1958 with the appropriately titled The Female Animal.

BOMBSHELL is a revelation: if you wanted to invent a script about how women were/are treated in the film industry, you’d be hard pushed to come up with a more poignant story. Director Alexandra Dean has excelled with this documentary about an intelligent and courageous woman: Hedy Lamarr’s only fault was to be born hundred years too early. AS

ON RELEASE AT CURZON CINEMAS FOR CHRISTMAS 

Tribute to Richard Lormand (1962-2018)

It is with great sadness that we pay tribute to one of our greatest supporters, film consultants and readers Richard Lormand who has died aged 56.

During a long and distinguished career Richard was a leading light in international communication, film publicity and marketing, specialising in launches at the Berlin, Cannes, Locarno and Venice festivals, and just recently, Marrakech 2018 where he was preparing the 17th edition, when he died.

LOCARNO credit

Richard was a true professional and always a pleasure to work with. He handled world premieres for numerous award-winning films, including Maren Ade’s TONI ERDMANN, Ildiko Enyedi’s ON BODY AND SOUL, Fatih Akin’s IN THE FADE and SOUL KITCHEN, Alice Rohrwacher’s THE WONDERS and HAPPY AS LAZZARO, Christian Petzold’s BARBARA and PHOENIX, Samuel Maoz’s LEBANON and FOXTROT, Lav Diaz’s THE WOMAN WHO LEFT, Ritesh Batra’s THE LUNCHBOX, Takashi Miike’s 13 ASSASSINS and BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL, the Taviani Brothers’ CAESAR MUST DIE, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s UNCLE BOONMEE, Jerzy Skolimowski’s ESSENTIAL KILLING, Amos Gitai’s RABIN, Lucrecia Martel’s ZAMA and LA CIENAGA, Alexander Sokurov’s RUSSIAN ARK and FAUST, Jafar Panahi’s THREE FACES and THE CIRCLE, and Takeshi Kitano’s ZATOICHI and HANA-BI.

Richard was part of the press consultancy team of Locarno Festival and the producing teams of Mitchell Lichtenstein’s cult favourite TEETH, HAPPY TEARS (starring Demi Moore, Parker Posey, Ellen Barkin and Rip Torn) and ANGELICA (starring Jena Malone and Janet McTeer). He was also a producer on Amos Gitai’s DISENGAGEMENT, starring Academy Award-winning actress Juliette Binoche.

Born and raised outside Lafayette, Louisiana, Richard was the son of a Japanese mother and a native French-speaking Cajun American father. He began his career as a reporter/journalist for Reuters in New York City, then went on to work for the Cannes Film Festival (France), Taormina Film Festival (Italy), Torino Film Festival (Italy) and the Viennale/Vienna Film Festival (Austria). Richard also wrote and directed the 1994 award-winning short TI-BOY’S WIFE/LA FEMME DE TI-BOY (Clermont-Ferrand, Locarno, Torino).

His charisma, warmth and professionalism are rare in these days of increasingly faceless public relations, focussing on ‘hits’ and ‘likes’ on social media. Passionately driven by genuine talent and strong stories, Richard often took chances with small independent films and invested his time and talent to make sure they were noticed. His was a personal approach, genuine and always with heart. We shall miss him so much. MT

RICHARD LORMAND

Berlinale 2019 – First competition films announced

Opening this year with Lone Scherfig’s The Kindness of Strangers, the 69th Berlinale Film Festival (7-17 February) has announced the first competition films which include the latest from regulars François Ozon, Denis Côté and Fatih Akin.

Serbian director Angela Schanelec will present her latest film I Was at Home, but, and Emin Alper will be there with A Tale of Three Sisters, a follow up to his dazzling drama Beyond the Hill

Also competing is The Ground Beneath my Feet from Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer.

In the Berlinale Special Gala Section there is Gully Boy from Zoya Aktar (India), Heinrich Breloer’s drama Brecht which stars Trina Dyrholm and Tom Schilling and Charles Ferguson’s documentary on the Watergate scandal

COMPETITION 

Der Boden unter den Füßen (The Ground Beneath My Feet) Austria/World Premiere

by Marie Kreutzer (The Fatherless, We Used to be Cool)

with Valerie Pachner, Pia Hierzegger, Mavie Hörbiger, Michelle Barthel, Marc Benjamin, Axel Sichrovsky, Dominic Marcus Singer, Meo Wulf

Der Goldene Handschuh (The Golden Glove) Germany/France/World Premiere

by Fatih Akin (Head On, In the Fade)

with Jonas Dassler, Margarethe Tiesel, Hark Bohm

Grâce à dieu (By the Grace of God) France/International Premiere

by François Ozon (8 Women, In the House)

with Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud, Éric Caravaca, François Marthouret, Bernard Verley, Martine Erhel, Josiane Balasko, Hélène Vincent, François Chattot, Frédéric Pierrot

Ich war zuhause, aber (I Was at Home, but) Germany / Serbia/World Premiere

by Angela Schanelec (The Dreamed Path, Marseille)

with Maren Eggert, Franz Rogowski, Lilith Stangenberg, Jakob Lassalle, Clara Möller

Kız Kardeşler (A Tale of Three Sisters) Turkey / Ger/ Neth/ Greece/World Premiere

by Emin Alper (Beyond the Hill, Frenzy)

with Cemre Ebüzziya, Ece Yüksel, Helin Kandemir, Kayhan Açikgöz, Müfit Kayacan, Kubilay Tunçe

Répertoire des villes disparues (Ghost Town Anthology) Canada/World Premiere

by Denis Côté (A Skin So Soft, Bestiaire)

with Robert Naylor, Josée Deschênes, Jean-Michel Anctil, Larissa Corriveau, Rémi Goulet, Diane Lavallée, Hubert Proulx, Rachel Graton, Normand Carrière, Jocelyne Zucco

Berlinale Special Gala at the Friedrichstadt-Palast 

Gully Boy /India/ World Premiere

by Zoya Akhtar (You Won’t Get This Life Again, Lust Stories)

with Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Vijay Raaz, Amruta Subhash, Vijay Verma 

Berlinale Special at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Brecht /Germany / Austria/World Premiere

by Heinrich Breloer (The Manns – Novel of a Century, Buddenbrooks – The Decline of a Family)

with Burghart Klaußner, Tom Schilling, Adele Neuhauser, Trine Dyrholm, Mala Emde, Franz Hartwig, Friederike Becht, Ernst Stötzner, Lou Strenger

Watergate – Documentary/USA/Euro Premiere

by Charles Ferguson (No End in Sight, Inside Job)

with Douglas Hodge, Jill Wine-Banks, Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl, Richard Ben-Veniste

MORE FILMS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN THE COMING WEEKS

The Load | Teret (2018) *** Marrakech Film Festival 2018 | Winner Best Director

Writer/Dir. Ognjen Glavonić |  Drama | 98’

Ognjen Glavonić won various awards for Depth Two, a documentary about the grim discovery of war graves in his native Serbia. THE LOAD is his debut drama that fought its way out of the country inspired by the region’s 1999 NATO onslaught to tell another story from this harrowing period of Balkan history, a quietly devastating one that haunts with its slow burning revelation looming tragically out of the dreary landscape of longterm war.

This is a place full of dour-faced officials going through the motions in a country were hope has been washed away with the winter rain and bombs still cascade in the distance like incendiary stars. A few roadside blossoms tell us spring has arrived and tired-looking truck driver Vlada (Leon Lucev) is making his daily grind towards Belgrade from Kosovo with a load locked in his beaten-up lorry, the contents unknown. His instructions are clear : no stopping or diversions, he must keep a low profile until he reaches his destination.

On his way the journey starts uneventfully but at a crossing a smouldering car crash has blocked the the route to the capital. And a rather blasé teenager hitchhiker Pava (Pavle Čemerikić) offers to show him the way to his destination, tempting Vlada to bend the rules. As it happens Pava is clueless about map-reading, but doesn’t really mind that he has let Vlada down. Clearly, he represents the younger generation, shielded from the coldface of war from protective parents like Vlada, who, inured to disappointment and setbacks, motors on resigned, his face etched with the gruelling inevitability of his lot and eventually the pair start to bond.

The tone is brooding, morose and vaguely doom-laden as the men push on framed in close-up and on the widescreen by Tatjana Krstevski whose superb washed out visual also featured in Depth Two).  The two men drive on until Paja blithely announces his departure to hitchike to German and look for better things. But nature of his Vlada’s business requires him to be responsible and slowly the gruesome truth dawns making the inevitable realisation all the more haunting. MT

WINNER BEST DIRECTOR | MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL 2018 

Marrakech Film Festival 2018 | Conversations with….

To celebrate the 17th edition – 30 November to 8 December – MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL has introduced an interactive new talk series.

CONVERSATION WITH is an initiative that offers a space for expression, exchange and reflection with screen legends and film luminaries:

Martin Scorsese (b.1942, US)

Director, writer, actor and producer is one of the most influential directors working today and also one of the most generous in his support of talented emerging filmmakers. In a multi-award winning career spanning nearly 60 years his work has been inspired by his early life growing up with Italian parents in New York City in crime dramas such as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976) and Goodfellas (1990), and his own religious faith as in Silence (2016) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). He has captured the spirit of legends such as boxing supremo JakeLaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004) and the Dalai Lama in Kundun (1997). His animated feature Hugo (2011) was dedicated to his daughter Francesca. His thriller Cape Fear (1991) has one of the most frightening performances in film history courtesy of his long time collaborator Robert De Niro (Max Cady) and Shutter Island (2010) that was his stylistic tribute to both Out of the Past (1947) and Vertigo (1958). His other regular collaborators have been Leo DiCaprio and Bernhard Herrmann who created iconic scores for Taxi Driver and Cape Fear. His latest crime drama The Irishman based on the death of Jimmy Hoffa, is shortly to be released on Netflix.

Guillermo Del Toro (b. 1964, Mexico)

Del Toro started making programmes for Mexican TV before he directed and produced his first feature film Dona Herlinda and Her Son (1986) at the age of 21. Learning his make-up techniques from The Exorcist’s Dick Smith he got his first break in 1993 with Cronos which went on to win the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes. Since then he has won two Oscars in 2018 for The Shape of Water, a remake of Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). He is currently working on a documentary about the filmmaker Michael Mann.

Cristian Mungiu (b. 1968, Romania)

Screenwriter, director and producer Cristian Mungiu rose to international fame in 2007 with his bleak drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days that shocked audiences with its raw depiction of backstreet abortion in communist Romania. He was the first Romanian director to win the Palme d’Or. Since then he has made a series of films exposing moral degradation in Romanian society. Beyond the Hills (2012) won his Best Screenplay at Cannes in year of its release, and his thorny depiction of family life Graduation followed four years later winning his Best Director at Cannes 2016 (ex aequo with Olivier Assayas for Personal Shopper). 

Yousry Nasrallah (b.1952, Egypt)

Born into a Coptic Christian family in Cairo, Nasrallah started his career as a film critic in Beirut in the late 1970s, soon becoming assistant  to Youssef Chahine whose company Mirs would go on to produce his films that focus on Socialism, Islamic fundamentalism and expatriation. His award-winning debut Summer Thefts (1985) was described as “the only non-ideological film on Nasserism in Egypt”. El Medina (1999) describes the struggle for creative realisation of a young Egyptian actor and After the Battle competed for the Palme d’Or in 2012.

Agnes Varda (b.1928 Belgium) 

Director, writer and photographer Agnes Varda has made over 50 films in her celebrated career. She was born in Belgium but moved to France as a baby before settling in Paris where she eventually married Jacques Demy and became one of the protagonists of the French New Wave with her feature debut La Point Courte (1951). She went on to make a series of award-winning dramas focusing on life and love: Cleo de 5 a 7 (1962), Le Bonheur (1965); L’une chante, l’autre pas (1977) and Jacquot de Nantes (1991) a biopic drama dedicated to her husband. Her latest documentary Faces Places (2017) is a rural ride through France.

Robert De Niro. (b. 1943, US)

One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro grew up in Manhattan where he launched his acting career in Brian De Palma’s The Wedding Party at the age of 26. By 1974 he had won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor in Bang the Drum Slowly, the National Society of Film Critic for Mean Streets, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather, Part II. In 1980 he won his second Oscar, as Best Actor, for Raging Bull.

De Niro’s next project will be Netflix’s The Irishman in which he stars and is producing with Martin Scorsese, for their ninth collaboration. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor for his distinguished acting and the Stanley Kubrick Award from the BAFTA Britannia Awards. De Niro was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards. He served as the jury president of the 64th Cannes Film Festival.

De Niro is also known for his Tribeca Production company and the Tribeca Film Festival, which he founded with Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff. Through Tribeca Productions, De Niro has developed projects on which he has served as producer, director and actor. Tribeca’s A Bronx Tale in 1993 marked De Niro’s directorial debut. De Niro also directed The Good Shepherd in 2006.

During the interview De Niro confessed to not liking smoking on set. And has never had trouble keeping his personal life, personal. “Don’t bring your drama to the set, put it into your performance”.

https://vimeo.com/303947159/d498bda114

Cannes Film Festival Creative Director Thierry Fremaux.

Thierry Fremaux has come a long way since joining the Lumiere Institute in Lyon. The Fast-talking artistic force behind Cannes also directs, along with (president) Bertrand Tavernier, the Lyon-based Lumiere Festival that each year celebrates the vitality of classic film (restored films, retrospectives and tributes). Fremaux has even made a film about the brothers (LUMIERE 2016). who were the first filmmakers with their ground-breaking invention, the cinematograph. The legendary brothers not only invented the technique of making film, but also the art and the way of bringing people together in a theatre. Thierry explains how the aim of the Lumiere Festival was to connect the past with the present – as digital internet platforms, and mobile phones now compete with the classic way of crafting films. To be ‘healthy’ with contemporary cinema we have to look to the past, and that is why Lumiere came about – back in 2009

As artistic director at Cannes his work is much more difficult than it was 30 years ago, not simply because of the volume of films presented to the festival (the team selects the line-up down from over 1800 films) but also the sheer variety. And if Cannes misses a potential new auteur then this becomes a big deal – not just a small faux pas. As he explains: “Cannes is an international festival set in France and we try to embrace the ever-widening variety of film from across every continent. In the 1990s film noir was being re-invented in Hong Kong by Phil Joanou (State of Grace), inspired by Pierre Melville. Each time a young filmmaker makes a breakout hit – the spotlight will be on him, and we can’t afford to miss that”. “Pan’s Labyrinth came as a big shock to many festival goers, as it was the kind of style that had never really been invited before, and it really surprised people about the way forward we were taking – also with animation and with documentary”. Most films “choose” Thierry rather than the other way round, as passionate filmmaking eventually shows through, as much as talent. But certain films will never be right for the competition. “You have to ask the question – is it good or not for the film to be in Cannes. Also is it suitable for the audience – or for the press – we have in Cannes”. 

At the moment Thierry works with a group of 8, sometimes 10 people to make the final Cannes selection (equally split by gender). “The culture of making films is not that same for a man as for a woman so gender equality is absolutely vital as we move to 2020. This year’s Cannes selection was criticised but we have a duty to put new names on the map. And we have to adapt Cannes for the future and to make it comfortable for the audience and the press”. Clearly there will more changes, but Thierry assures us that they will be for the better. MT

MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL | 30 NOVEMBER – 8 DECEMBER 2018 | INTERVIEW AT THE MAMOUNIA HOTEL POOLSIDE, MARRAKECH 2018

 

 

Srbenka (2018) **** Marrakech International Film Festival 2018

Dir.: Nebojsa Slijepcevic; Documentary with Oliver Frljic; Croatia 2018, 70 min.

Director/writer/DoP Nebojsa Slijepcevic (Gangster of Love) explores peer violence towards children  of different nationalities in Croatia, and examines how the generation born after the war copes with the dark shadows of history. 

The documentary is set in a Zagreb theatre, during the rehearsals of a play called Aleksandra Zec where the star turn is a Serbian girl who was murdered together with her whole family in 1991, just before the outbreak of war between Serbia and Croatia after the implosion of Yugoslavia. The murder of Aleksandra Zec and her family was an act of social cleansing, and Frljic wanted to show how the wounds of the war are still influencing daily life, not only in Croatia. One actor asks: “Do I become a Serb, because I am in a play about a murdered Serbian girl?” During the rehearsal and on the eve of the premiere, right-wing protesters threatened the director and his girl friend with violence. They were holding up placards saying “Why not a play about the 86 kids of Vukovar”, who were killed during a bombing raid in the civil war. Frljic wanted to detach actors from the play itself, so he let all of them talk about their feelings about the play and the Civil War. Four 12-year old girls – the same age as Aleksandra when she was killed – were also taking part in the play. They too were asked about their feelings, and some of them comment about their fear of Roma – “because when they break their arm, it heals quicker than ours, or “they are like lizards, when they lose a tail, it grows back quickly.”

Their role in the play is to ask the dead girl about her feelings towards her assailants. One of the girls has nightmares after rehearsals, she dreams about killing her sister and taking her organs out. They all admit to bullying Roma children at school. One of girl reports, that a class mate of her did not go to Catholic RE, and was called a Jew. One of the quartet, Nina Batanic, is actually Serbian, she has hidden this from her classmates, particularly from the boy who sits next to her and told her “I like to kill all Serbians, cutting their throat with my teeth”. But Nina is so brave she admits at the evening of the premiere that she is Serbian. After the play is over the camera follows her lingering on the way home.

Even after 25 years, the war is still the central issue. The fear of “the other” is kept alive by right-wing Nationalists, who see anybody who is not Croatian as an enemy. The trauma lets the violence simmer permanent under the surface. Frljic and Slijepcevic see their project as therapeutic, hoping, that when questions about nationality and minorities are brought to the surface, the resentment of ‘others’ might be reduced. But the four girls are living proof, how long the way to anything like a reconciliation still is. Srbenka is brave, but leaves little hope for the future –  and that goes for the whole of Europe. AS

SCREENING AT MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | WINNER OF SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | | SCREENING DURING DOC LEIPZIG.

The Image Book | Le Livre d’Images (2018) ****

Dir.: Jean-Luc Godard in collaboration with Fabrice Aragno, Jean-Paul Battagia, Nicole Brenez; France/Switzerland 2018, 85 min.

Returning to Cannes this May, and eventually winning a Special Palme d’Or with The Image Book, Jean-Luc Godard was as brazen as usual: a portrait of the artist as an iconoclast, but not in the historical sense. JLG, true to form, throws thousands of images at us, just as he’s always done. In very mutated forms – enigmatically connected, their meaning further ambiguously enhanced by free associative texts. It was announced that some of the images would travel the big cities of the globe as an installation. ~Having done away with actors, Godard decided to rely on images – his own as well as others. This event will now happen in cinemas, before an army of academics and JLG acolytes take over the diatribe.

The good news first: The Image Book is much more accessible than say Film Socialisme, it gives the audience a chance to put at least some strains together – depending on how many years one has spent in the cinema and the library, appraising his work. Before the onslaught of images, most of the film clips get away in the original form, the rest is colour distorted, saturated, over- or under exposed, played at the ‘wrong’ speed or an impaired rhythm. Godard reminds us that we think with two hands. The sounds are in discordance, distorted and often violently cut off, or altogether removed – all this to the music of Bach, Schnittke, Scott Walker, Prokofiev (Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible) among others. The clips of films, TV, mobile, newsreel and artwork are released in stunning tempo, underlined by Godard’s rasping voice plus a heavy cough attack. In the chapter ‘Remake’, he uses his own material as well others for a new message: a mix of fictional and real live killings. This is followed by a sequence of train features (always interrupted by Holocaust images) as a form of cinematic representations, starting with ‘The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat’ by the Lumiere Brothers. Then we jump to Europe just after the end of WWII, with Munk’s Eroica and Jerzy Kawalerowicz’ Night Train, and a long clip from Jacques Tourneur’s Berlin Express where the new order in Europe is established by the nominative travellers of the Four Powers.

Trying to be particularly clever, JLG quotes Dostojewski “The Warsaw train was approaching St. Petersburg”. Before we return to Europe, a short-list of features quoted: Johnny Guitar, Kiss me Deadly, The Beauty and the Beast, Vertigo and Gus van Sant’s Elephant. In Europe, JLG opines “the actions of the government cannot be separated from the actions of the citizens”. What he means is that Europeans have reduced the power of emotion by becoming a consumer society, and by killing the real meaning of language, with advertising. And there is the ever-recurring Faust question: JLG accusing Europeans of all wanting to be Kings, rather than Faust. Also spotted is a book of poems by Godard’s partner Anne-Marie Miéville, and excerpts of Hollis Frampton’s Means of Survival. The majority of clips and texts passed me by, so I long for a second, or even third viewing – just to ‘get with the programme’.

ISIS executions are scattered around The Image Book. Also in the last chapter about the Arab world, entitled ‘Joyful Arabia’ from an Alexandre Dumas novel, and with quotes by Albert Cossey: Ambition in the Desert, Godard shows the false dawn of the Arab Spring and other violent episodes – besides just the ISIS cruelties. In the end JLG quotes Max Ophuls’s Le Plaisir: a man dancing around wildly, until he collapses. Wonder what this is a symbol for, if anything?.

Well then: JLG as an audio-visual poet? A channel surfer of history? A lecturer in free association mode? Perhaps most likely just a painter of images. In a (cinema) world with little or no substance (never mind innovation), the idiosyncratic JLG stands out – for whatever reason. Yes, the huge majority switched off after Weekend – a few newcomers occasionally join the party mainly attended by his acolytes – but it’s a requires stamina to follow the leaders. AS

ON RELEASE on November 30 2018 NATIONWIDE

Bertolucci on Bertolucci (2013) Tribute

Dir.: Luca Guadagnino, Walter Fasano

Italy 2013, 105 min  Documentary

This is much more than the sum of over 300 hours of documented interviews with Bernardo Bertolucci, it is an essay on the art of film making itself; and to a certain degree, the history of European filmmaking since the early sixties.

Bertolucci represented much more than Italian cinema. His close links with the French Nouvelle Vague are well-documented not only by his ruptured friendship with Jean-Luc Godard, but his insistence that the art of film making should be discussed in French, the birthplace of the Seventh Art. Needless to say, his French is impeccable; he could pass for a native. Whilst the filmography is handled more or less chronologically, the interviews themselves jump from topic to topic, and we can listen to Bertoluccci’s often changing views on his work, politics and personal life.

To start with, his relationship with his father Attilio was the inspiration for the young Bernardo: we see a scene from a prize-giving for poetry: Attilio is hiding from the camera, not wanting to steal the limelight from his young son. Later on his father says “you are a clever man, you have killed me over and over again, but only on film, so you stayed out of prison”. His relationship with his mother is not mentioned in length, but the discussion about La Luna answers these questions. Early influences were Rossellini and Fellini; after seeing the latter’s La Dolce Vita, BB decided to convert from poetry to film- making. Seeing Fellini’s remarkable skill: the Via Veneto was a boring street where nothing happened until the excitement of Fellini’s film transformed the banal into something magical – Bertolucci was inspired.

The transformation from the bourgeois poet to the Marxist revolutionary is documented by Before the Revolution and BB’s friendship with Pier Paolo Pasolini, whom he met as a friend of his father. (He was assistant to Pasolini for Accatone). Bertolucci is quiet cagey about Maria Schneider’s accusation regarding Last Tango in Paris, but he sees himself more of a victim than a wrong-doer. The scandal seems to have lingered on in Italy. Twenty years later a relative of Giuseppe Verdi tried to kill BB in his car, when the director was filming outside Verdi’s villa, shouting: “You have no right to be here, you are a Marxist pornographer”.

Bernardo Bertolucci at the Cannes Movie Stars Lounge 2012

His masterpiece 1900 was for him also “a poem about the countryside where I grew up”, even though he and others thought at the time that “they had sold the ruling class the rope with which they would hang them”; a reference to  the exorbitant cost for an openly Marxist film financed by a major Hollywood studio. Undoubtedly, Bertolucci has had a full and fascinating innings thus far: Guadagnino almost bites off more than here can chew here: the meeting with the Dalai Lama, his three operations on a slipped disc, which ended with him being unable to use his legs any more, the long creative pause between Dreamers (2003) and his last film Me and You (2012), which he shot from the wheelchair.

Apart from the lack of images showing the director at work, our enjoyment and engagement with the film is somewhat reduced by the interviews being nearly all in French and Italian, making the not so polyglot viewer focus on the subtitles rather than on the images of this extraordinary talent. Andre  Simonoviesz

BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI 1941-2018

 

Cause of Death (2018) *** IDFA 2018

Dir.: Ramy A. Katz; Documentary; Israel 2018, 79 min.

On the night of March 5th 2002, a gunman opened fire in a restaurant near Tel Aviv’s Maariv Bridge. Police officer Salim Barakat, who was nearby, brought the gunman down only to be found dead next to the killer. Director/producer Ramy A. Katz (Freeflow) researches the death of the Druze policeman, following his brother Jamal on his search for the truth.

The verdict was that Salim died from a knife wound to the throat. But after visiting a memorial ceremony for Salim, held every year in the police precinct for the tenth time, Jamal begins to question the official version. He discovers that the emergency ambulance’s doctor called in that night, reporting that his brother was “murdered by gun shots” and contradicting the official diagnosis of throat slashing. We watch a video where the main witness, middle-aged Willys Hazan, claims to have shot the attacker, after slashing Jamal’s throat. He is on a drip in a hospital bed, praising Salim, but admitting that the police officer was actually the terrorist. Then Jamal, a trained investigator, meets the head of the National Centre for Forensics, and tells him about the contradictions. The director is concerned l, and questions why no autopsy was performed; asking Jamal to have his brother undergo an exhumation  –  but Jamal’s religion does not permit such an option. Jamal also confronts the chief of Police who asks him to “let his hero brother rest in peace” – the same answer Jamal gets from Hazan, whom me meets twice. Breaking down, Hazan finally concedes, that “this would not have happened had Salim been an Israeli”. Finally, tracing down the staff of the restaurant, who were on duty on the fateful night, Jamal gets the answers he was originally searching for.

This is not just a document of Jamal’s investigation, but a testament to his coming to terms with grief – and his shattered belief in the righteousness of the law. The more he learns, the more his world crumbles. In the end he has not only lost his brother, but what he called his ‘extended family’,the police officers at the station where Salim served. There are some poetic moments, particularly when Jamal talks about his belief in reincarnation that persuades him that Salim has been reborn, and that his soul now rests in the body of a young boy in primary school. Moving, passionate and gripping, Katz takes a candid approach to his narrative, letting the audience make up their mind about the social implications of this cover-up. AS

SCREENING AT IDFA 2018 |

 

 

Genesis 2 (2018) *** Russian Film Week 2018

Dirs: Christian Frei, Maxim Arbugaev | Switzerland | 2018 | 113 mins

GENESIS 2 follows the yearly search for mammoth tusks in the frozen wastes of the New Siberian Islands, discovered in 1723. The task of extracting frozen genetic material from the permafrost is a tough but a worthy one intended to enable some pioneering scientists to reconstruct the long-extinct mammoth that once roamed the icy region.

Oscar-nominated documentarian Christian Frei (War Photographer) has quite literally taken on a mammoth task in exploring this hostile Arctic hinterland. Genesis 2 scratches at the edges of both horror and science, in an endeavour that occasionally feels like he has taken off more that he can chew.

As in Book of the Sea, also screening during Russian Film Week, Friel adds elements of myth to his icebound study. The film opens with narrated verses from a Yakutian epic tale, accompanied by Max Richter’s morose music, and the characters who embark on this intrepid research are all courageous – even foolhardy – enough to risk their lives for what may amount to very little: the resonance with Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, The Wild Blue Yonder, Grizzly Man and even Aguirre Wrath of God, are clearly felt. At times Frei even sounds like the great master himself.

Many of these eco-warriors are dicing with death and several will actually meet their maker in the vain hope of returning home with a slither of genetic material that they can trade for upwards of $45,00. And while this may feed their families for some time, they must endure the downside: perishing cold and even death.

Back in the comparative comfort of a smug Boston scientific seminar we hear how “synthetic biology” is going to change everything by “taking control of evolution” by creating hybrid creatures out of horses, sheep and zebras. But that seems rather glib to the anxious tusk hunters struggling to dig up the ground in the bleak terrain of the Northern hemisphere. Peter Grigoriev (Frie terms him an intellectual because ‘he likes reading a lot”) and his brother Semyon Grigoriev, the Head of the Mammoth Museum, in Yakutsk, Siberia are the main characters in this rather sombre eco-doc, are seen wading through mud in the dripping interior of a cave where “cavemen lived for hundreds of years”. It emerges that anyone who tries to dissenter a mammoth will visited by a curse but they are also deemed “lucky” to come across three polar bears. When Semyon eventually comes across the ancient flesh of tusk specimen, he can’t help tasting it, but seems rather unimpressed. Back in the lab, the aim is to create a new animal, a chimera – just the like the woolly mammoth was back in the day. `

There is a sense of wonder and awe, but also a sense of foreboding in the sober search for animal remains. The spectacular visuals create an amazing sense of the remote emptiness of the locations and the quiet desperation of Siberians who travel here in the hope of improving their lives. The bright Boston buildings and the massive shiny headquarters of China’s National Gene bank make this ‘new life’ seem rather devoid of reality when compared to the gruelling coal face search. MT

SCREENING DURING RUSSIAN FILM WEEK | 25 NOVEMBER – 2 DECEMBER 2018

Los Reyes (2018) **** IDFA 2018 | Special Jury Award 2018

Dir: Ivan Osnovikoff, Bettina Perut | 88′ | Doc Chile 2018

Santiago streetlife plays out poignantly through a pair of canny canine caretakers in this wry and filmic foray to the capital’s largest skatepark.

LOS REYES have got it sussed. A black Labrador (Chola) and a Collie Cross (Football) are literally kings of all they survey. With shady trees and water sprinklers to cool the midday heat, they can play away from traffic in this public playground they consider their own. There’s always an odd ball or two to keep them amused, But don’t welcome motorbikes or the rubbish cart, and howl at the fire engine.

Limpidly shot on the widescreen and in intimate often minute close-up, there’s lightness of touch to this graceful and upbeat slice of city life: every twitch of a tail, every tweak of the cheek signals the dogs’ reaction to the human activities nearby. Meanwhile random male conversation is overheard from passers by. Some of it quite startling. But the kids can rest assured that their macho confessions are safe with these trusty tenants of the capital’s microcosm. On wet days they have a contingency plan – a kennel retreat by the rubbish bins. But it’s not all easygoing between the two of them. When Chola tries to hump a discarded old duvet, Football goes mad.

The film derives its subtle humour from the banal disdain of the dogs’ expressions as they tolerate the trivial and sometimes bawdy adolescent banter, shrugging off the intrusion of wildlife and a couple of donkeys who dare to cross their territory. But when uncertainty looms for the future of this canine couple, some welcome female chitchat lightens the mood. Just like humans, dogs don’t need to talk to communicate with their loved ones, but even in Santiago de Chile’s paradise park, every dog has its day. MT

WINNER | IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary | 2018

 

 

Marrakech Film Festival 2018 | This year’s line-up..

The Marrakech International Film Festival has now revealed its 17th edition line-up  which runs from 30 November until the 8 December 2018.  

The competition focus is on international independent cinema, showcasing the latest from the Middle East: Mohcine Besri’s URGENT, Nejib Belkhadhi’s LOOK AT ME, and THE GIRAFFE from Egyptian filmmaker Amed Magdy. These will compete alongside sophomore and award-winning titles from this year’s international festival circuit. The 14 titles include London Film Festival winner JOY (Sudebeh Mortezai), Warsaw Film Festival awarded IRINA (Nadejda Koseva) and ALL GOOD (Eva Trobisch) which won the Best First Feature prize at Locarno 2018. Six of the films competing for the Marrakech Etoile d’Or (Gold Star) are directed by women.

The festival opens with a gala screening of Julian Schnabel’s AT ETERNITY’S GATE (above) starring Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh. There will also be another chance to see Alfonso Cuarón’s Venice Golden Lion winner ROMA, Peter Farrelly’s GREEN BOOK which stars Viggo Mortensen, and Nadine Labaki’s CAPERNAUM, which won the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

There will be 17 special screenings including Gonzalo Tobal’s THE ACCUSED and Paul Dano’s WILDLIFE. Also on the specials list is EXT. NIGHT the latest drama from Ahmad Abdalla (Microphone (2010), Heliopolis (2009). Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s enchanting BIRDS OF PASSAGE will also be there (below).

A new strand entitled THE 11th CONTINENT aims to highlight local Moroccan fare in its Panorama section. Amongst others there will be the recent Cannes Doc Alliance winner SRBENKA, Brazilian documentary THE DEAD AND THE OTHERS, Lee Chang-dong’s Cannes breakout hit BURNING, Austrian historical drama ANGELO fresh from San Sebastian, and my personal favourite Locarno 2018 thriller TEGNAP (YESTERDAY) . 

The outdoor screenings in the famous JEMAA EL FNA square will include Martin Scorsese’s Dalai Lama drama KUNDUN (1997), Brian De Palma’s THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), Youssef Chahine’s ALEXANDRIA, AGAIN AND FOREVER (1989) and there will be classics from Agnes Varda, Martin Scorsese, Robin Wright and Robert De Niro in the tributes section. MT

COMPETITION

GOOD GIRLS (Las niñas bien) | Mexico By Alejandra Márquez Abella

JOY | Austria By Sudabeh Mortezai

DIANE | USA By Kent Jones

THE LOAD (Teret) | Serbia, France, Croatia, Iran, Qatar By Ognjen Glavonić

THE CHAMBERMAID (La camarista) | Mexico By Lila Avilés

RED SNOW (Akai yuki) | Japan By Sayaka Kai

LOOK AT ME (Fi ‘ainaya  Regarde-moi) | Tunisia By Nejib Belkhadhi

IRINA | Bulgaria By Nadejda Koseva

VANISHING DAYS (Màn yóu) | China By Zhu Xin

URGENT (Tafaha al-kail | Une urgence ordinaire) / Morocco, Switzerland By Mohcine Besri

ROJO | Argentina, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Germany By Benjamín Naishtat

AKASHA | Sudan, South Africa, Germany, Qatar By hajooj kuka

THE GIRAFFE (La ahdun hunak) | Egypt By Ahmed Magdy

ALL GOOD (Alles ist gut) | Germany By Eva Trobisch

THE MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 30 NOVEMBER – 8 DECEMBER 2018

Orione (2017) ***

Writer/Dir: Toia Bonino | Doc | Argentina | 65′

Orione is a haunting expressionist portrait of grief in the aftermath to a shooting in Don Orione, Buenos Aires. The man who died was Alejandro “Ale” Robles, a gang member and petty criminal who was eventually betrayed by a friend and killed by a police bullet. In the days following the tragedy, Ale’s mother Ana finds soothing solace and therapy in baking – and so do we – as we watch her methodically stirring the cake mixture and kneading the topping for a football-themed cake in tribute to his life. Her feelings of shock and profound pain seep through the voice-over of this exposé of life in the barrio. Playing out in a collage of memories, footage of recent events and home movies of Ale’s childhood: A boy recalls his father being taken away, police questioning takes a sinister twist as events turn sour. As we try to fathom out what happened, an arrested suspect is led to a dimly-lit cell. Grim scenes in a mortuary follow: a greying torso still dented by clothing marks, provides the focus for the surgeons’ discussions. A lifeless hand flops over the gurney, as blood swirls away in a nearby sink. Toia Bonino’s cinema vérité mood piece slips between the macabre horror of the morgue and the tender memories of a family home, kiddies gurgling in a cosy bed. A life of crime comes out of a story of love: that of a mother for her son, and a woman who would bear him a child – post mortem. Ale chose a life of crime for the wages of death. Tonino shows how women create and men destroy in this ethnographic study of urban South America. MT

ORIONE is an ICA CINEMA distribution project | SCREENING AT THE ICA

 

Book of the Sea (2018) **** Russian Film Week 2018

Dir: Aleksei Vakhrushev | Doc | Russia, 2018 | 88′

Seasoned filmmaker Aleksei Vakhrushev has made some of the best-known Russian documentaries of the past few years. His previous film The Tundra Book (2011) explores the traditions of deer-hunting in Russia’s Northern Chukotka region. His latest – THE BOOK OF THE SEA – is an intense visual experience that follows the daily struggle for survival of the traditional sea hunters of the Bering Strait whose Inuit faith in ancient myths and legends guides their hunting ethos in their ancient Arctic culture.

Although this sounds quite surreal and otherworldly, it’s actually a very sensible way to live sustainably. Respect for nature and the animal kingdom allows them to avoid unnecessary  slaughter while hunting to feed their families – rather than for pleasure.

Their regular hunting expeditions will see them catching sperm whales, seals and walruses and these sections of the film are roughly divided into chapters entitled: The Whale, The Old man and the Sea, and The Walruses. They also rely on auks eggs and reindeer. Along with his skilled cameramen, Vakhrushev follows the hunters and close-quarters as they track their prey. But as soon as a catch is about to happen, the filmmaker cuts away from the slaughter to Edvard Belyaev’s effective animated sequences that illustrate Inuit hunting legends. In this way, the film transcends the blood and gore of the killing experience, enriching the narrative while also adding a historical parable to the stark reality of the eco-documentary.

Hunting with their trusty husky dogs, Inuit and Chukchi hunters still rely for protein and nourishment on large sea mammals that have sustained their people since time immemorial. But today, these hunters are elegantly kitted out in high-performance padded jackets made of down or seal-skin and their precision equipment is specialised and decidedly high-tech.

The contemporary story of elders Alexander and Alexei blends seamlessly with that of “the woman who gave birth to a whale” and other ancient myths, told here in vivid animation, in this ongoing struggle for survival and preservation of a traditional lifestyle in one of the most remote places on earth. A magnificent and visually striking story about the vitality of these Arctic people whose struggle very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the World. Judging by the richness of the Bering Strait – which runs from the through to the Arctic ocean’s Chukchi Sea – and the Inuit people’s respect for nature, it looks like they will survive for a good many years to come. MT

SCREENING DURING RUSSIAN FILM WEEK 2018 .

The director is an Inuk, who was born on the Chukchi Peninsula in the Far East of the Russian in 1969. Upon graduating from the Director’s Department of the Russian State Film School (VGIK) in 1996, he launched his career with a documentary entitled The Time When Dreams Are Melting. The film tells the true story of his native Yupik Inuit people of northeastern Russia. His unique insider’s perspective group offered a fresh new look at the lives, challenges, and aspirations of the indigenous peoples living on the Russian side of the Bering Strait. It was the first time their story was ever captured on film.

Forgotten Soldier (2018) UK Jewish Film Festival 2018

Dir.: Lucile Smith; Documentary, narrated by Zoe Wannamaker; UK 2018, 69 min.

This debut feature documentary by Lucile Smith tries to uncover the life of Salomon Jacob ‘Sally’ Noach, who saved at least 600 Jews and other prisoners of the Nazis in occupied France, masquerading as a Dutch Consul. His children, Lady Irene Hatter and Jacques Noach travel to Europe and the USA, to speak with survivors and their children about the role their father played in their liberation.

‘Sally’ Noach was born in the Dutch town of Zutphen in 1909. Early on in his life, he showed great initiative, leaving school at twelve, to work in the hotel business. At the age of 28 he had his own car, working in tandem with his father as a travelling salesman. When war broke out, he was in Brussels, whilst his family stayed in the Netherlands. After the German occupation of France in 1940, he took the train to Paris, starting a chaotic journey which left him and his refugee travellers, mainly Jewish, stranded after four days in the Pyrenean village of St. Julien. Even though Noach helped to organise this ‘refugee camp’, it was clear that the little village could never sustain such an influx of refugees. So he went to Toulouse to the Dutch consulate, making friends and connections, before moving to Lyon, which was ‘the capital of Refugees’. Working as an interpreter for the Dutch consulate official Paul Marx, with the German Military Tribunal. He had also met German Camp commanders, and after forging identity papers, he went to the camps demanding the release of all Dutch prisoners – even freeing numbers of other nationalities. But his greatest coup was the ‘liberation’ of prisoners from the ‘Iris’ stadium at the outskirts of Lyon in 1942. When Klaus Barbie arrived in Lyon in the same year, to start the deportation from the Drancy camp to Auschwitz, Noach left and arrived in London in 1943. He was received by members of the Dutch Government in Exile, and the Queen, but his name had been blackened: he was suspected of being a profiteer in Lyon’s Black Market – since that was the only place refugees could trade, being excluded from all other avenues. Noach married, had three children and moved back to the Netherlands, where he was active in the carpet trade, never talking to his family about his experiences in WWII. Posthumously he was awarded the highest Dutch honour in 1981, only a year after his death at the age of 70.

This is a succinct and well-made documentary, but Lady Irene’s travels to meet survivors and learn about her father’s endeavours suffers from a bit of grandstanding by Irene, who rather overplays herself into the foreground. Some clumsy scenes and transitions could have been avoided by a more seasoned director. Surely, ‘Sally’ Noach himself, an adventurous man of no-nonsense, would have agreed.AS

SCREENING DURING UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 

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UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Back to Berlin (2018) ****

Dir.: Catherine Lurie; Documentary; UK/Bulgaria/Czech Republic/Germany/Greece/ Hungary/ Israel/ Poland/ Romania/Slovakia 2018, 75 min.

Catherine Lurie produced, directed and scripted this lively re-imagining of the first Maccabiah biker rally in the early 1930s. It saw Jewish motorcyclists from Palestine (then a British Mandate), taking to the road to counter growing Anti-Semitism in Europe, urging Jews to compete in the Maccabiah of 1938, a Jewish Olympiad, which never went ahead.

This 2015 version involved eleven male and female rides who completed the 4500 km in 22 days. Their odyssey started in Israel and went via Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, eventually fetching up in Berlin where the 2015 Maccabiah would be held in the grounds of the infamous 1936 Olympic Games.

Nine Israelis and two Jews from the Diaspora made up the marathon. Israeli architect Gal Marom (49) took part in honour of his grandfather Solomon Adir, who was one of the original riders in 1935, visiting Canada and the USA. “This journey allowed me to close my personal circle in memory of my grandfather”. Most moving is the interaction between Yoram Maron (78), a holocaust survivor, and his son Dan (48). Dan has never heard his father talk about the gruesome memories of the camps – this is common amongst many who saw active service, rarely relating the grim events to their children. Some don’t even mention their escape from the Holocaust. Dan understands his father: ”He wanted to afford me the innocence he never experienced, and I will do the same with my own children.” Dan’s mother Irena and her husband were taken from Zloczow Ghetto in 1943, and put into overcrowded cattle trains to Belzec extermination camp. When one of the prisoners, a railway worker, managed to open the door, Irena throw Dan out of the train and jumped after him. They hid in a bunker, fed by a German soldier who was later named as a ‘Righteous’ in Yad Vashem.

At the border between Hungary and Serbia, the bikers encounter the victims of current Hungarian racism. Later, in Budapest, they are joined by Alexander Rosenkranz (60) from Germany. He and his daughter are sitting on the banks of the Danube, at the “Shoes of the Danube Memorial”. In 1944, over 40,000 Hungarian Jews were drowned in the the river by Hungarian Fascists, the “Arrow Cross”. Rosenkranz tells his daughter, for the first time, how his mother was saved. She was deported by Arrow Cross men to be killed. But when one of the passing German soldiers took a fancy to her, she had a lucky escape. The Fascists in Romania and Hungary were more cruel than the Germans themselves, and reports of their atrocities culminating in a letter from the SS to Himmler, complain about “the needless cruelties of the “Arrow Cross”. In Poland, the bikers visit the Ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw amongst others. We also see Joe Gottdenker (73) unite with a member of the Polish family which hid him for four years in Sandomierz while his mother was fighting in the Polish Underground.

Back to Berlin is worthwhile but emotionally exhausting. But the film is much more than a timely reminder of the recent upsurge in Neo-Fascism in countries like Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Austria and Italy.  The outlook is grim but this time the reference is more on the spread of Islam. The only critique of Back to Berlin is that eleven riders are never mentioned by narrators Jason Isaacs and Larry King: three or four of them seem to have gone missing without explanation. AS                    

IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE FROM 23 NOVEMBER 2018

Becoming Animal (2018) ***

Dir.: Peter Mettler, Emma Davie; Documentary with David Abram; Switzerland/UK 2018, 78 min.

Peter Mettler (The End of Time) and Emma Davie (I am Breathing) direct, edit and film philosopher David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) as he explores our real sense of alienation from the animal kingdom in a walk around Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The aim is to make us more aware of our status ‘as animals’ so we can improve our understanding of the animal kingdom and redress the balance between the ecological and the technological.

The Grand Teton National Park has a dizzying diversity of wildlife. A snail’s body becomes an immense landscape as the soundscape immerses us in shivering leaves, rushing rivers and the weird spacey pitch of elk bugling at night. Becoming Animal uses the sensory tools of cinema to trace how the written word and technology has affected how we see ourselves as instinctual creatures rather than just intellectual humans.

Driven by wonder, curiosity and a desire for balance between ecological and technological imperatives, Becoming Animal is an invitation to explore our relationship with this “more than human world” and recognise it for what it is: an exquisitely intricate system in which everything is alive and expressive. In our delicate ecosystem humans, animals and landscapes are inextricably interdependent, we do not stand alone and dominate.

Wandering through the part at night Abram feels a sudden sense of visceral communion with the birds, elks and bison. After watching a snail leaving its house, he touches a tree and comments “I feel the tree touching me.. I can feel how they see me from their perspective. Trees respond to shadow and light all the time. Touching them, I feel touched by them.” These observations are followed by a more long sequences, before we return to civilisation, and a monologue about how “the alphabet ended the unity between image and message. The alphabet has ended this status, because now, when people see letters, they become special property of humans”. Abstract messages like ‘Welcome’ and “We are erupting with savings” proves the point. Cut to a bison, who keeps some cars waiting on the road. The cars “are our shells for immortality.” And: “Technology always reflects back to ourselves, and we are beginning to interact with the technology.” We see a sign “Please check surroundings for safety” and Abrams concludes “these tools help us, to engage with nature”. Whilst fast-forward images of trees rush by, Abrams explains that “technology tries to undo the ancient relationship between men and nature” “Do we still have the awareness of the wind..Because by-products of our civilisation are dumped everywhere, and change the movement of the wind”.

This provocative and vibrantly evocative film is sometimes hampered by is puzzling messages that almost add to the existing confusion. In the end we get the point – but it could have been simpler without the psychobabble. AS

BECOMING ANIMAL on RELEASE FROM 22 NOVEMBER 2018 

Hamada (2018) *** IDFA 2018

Dir.: Eloy Dominguez Seren; Documentary; Sweden/Germany/Norway 2018, 88min.

Director-writer Eloy Dominguez Seren (No Cow on the Ice) raises the profile of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in this vibrantly passionate documentary shot mainly in the Tindouf refugee Camp in Algeria.

In 1975, when Franco was on his last legs, Spain gave up some North African colonies, and Morocco (300 000 citizens entered the old colony) and Mauritania claimed the territory. However, they did not concede self-government to the Sahrawis, as they were mandated by the UN. The resulting conflict between Morocco and the refugees in their own country lasted for over forty years, with Morocco bombing the Sahrawis with Napalm in 1976, causing a humanitarian crisis as the homeless and afflicted fled to Algeria.

HAMADA follows teenagers Sidahmed and Zaara in their fruitless search for work in the self-governed camp. Sidemeh is rather a restless young. He makes some money repairing cars and radios but finds the work unsatisfying. He also lacks patience, and efforts to teach Zaara to drive soon run out of steam. He’d really like to emigrate to Spain, like everyone in the camp. But this seems like a pipe-dream and none of the others have managed to get a Visa, and Spain does not recognise the SADR or his passport. Zaara can’t get a stable job either and has no qualifications, although she is certainly better educated than Sidameh, who only knows one European country (Spain). Zaara seems more intelligent.

So Sidameh starts to plan an illegal passage to Spain, with his friend Tasalam. Meanwhile the more down to earth Zaara focuses on a potential marriage partner chatting things through with her friends. Both girls are emancipated, and expect their future husbands to leave them in peace, to live their own lives. Zaara still wants to be taught to drive, seeing this as a vital asset in the job market. Sidameh finally sells his car to finance his passage to Spain. When he eventually sets off, the convoy of cars he is travelling in, gets stuck in the desert. And the grass is far from green when he reaches his destination. Homeless and without any proper qualifications, contacts or viable work skills he seems surprises that he is treated with disdain.  Instead of focuses on his own failings, he blames his racial identity: “people make you feel inferior, just because you are an Arab”. Clearly the grass wasn’t greener. Zaara has a better and more philosophical frame of mind and soon finds this leads her to improve her chances of success. And with the help of her kind friend Tasalam, she even learns to drive.

Seren’s observational study certainly succeeds in bringing this forgotten conflict to our attention, letting the teenagers speak for themselves. The local climate and primitive conditions make life tough and extremely challenging. Sidameh is seen rebuilding a house for a family of eight, whose home has collapsed during the rainy season. Spain becomes a much longed for dream destination and their all obsess about finding this ‘Holy Grail’.  But these down-trodden people also reflect on their past: when one of them finds a fishing rod in an abandoned house, it soon emerges that the Sahrawis once made a living from fishing, before being forced into the central plains of the arid desert. MT

WORLD PREMIERE | IDFA 2018 | 15 NOVEMBER 2018

The Last Waltz (1978) **** Home Ent release

THE LAST WALTZ is deeply personal yet timeless in its universal appeal. Martin Scorsese’s love song to rock music is a resounding one, and arguably the best concert film of all time. Dated in its Seventies look, but endearingly so, the doc has been remastered onto bluray, and the result is stunning. The film showcases the legendary rock group The Band’s final farewell concert appearance. Joined on stage by more than a dozen special guests, Van Morrison,  Eric Clapton, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell perform their iconic numbers to dazzling effect. The Last Waltz started as a concert, but it became a celebration. In between numbers, Scorsese chats to members of The Band, filmed by master DoPs Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond. Scorsese’s message to the audience, “this film should be played loud” MT

ON RELEASE FROM 12 NOVEMBER 2018 | COURTESY OF EUREKA FILM LABEL 

THE BAND | BOB DYLAN | ERIC CLAPTON | NEIL YOUNG | JONI MITCHELL | VAN MORRISON | NEIL DIAMOND | EMMYLOU HARRIS| MUDDY WATERS | THE STAPLES | RINGO STARR | RON WOOD | DR. JOHN | PAUL BUTTERFIELD | RONNIE HAWKINS

 

Three Identical Strangers (2018)****

Dir.: Tim Wardle; Documentary with Eddy Galland, David Kellman, Bobby Shafran, Paula Bernstein, Elyse Schein; USA 2018, 96 min.

In 1960, a world-renowned child psychiatrist, Austrian-born Peter Neubauer (1913-2008) began a long term study of twins (at least five sets) and triplets (one set). The babies were separated, and fostered by chosen sets of parents, being tested and observed over a period of more than ten years by Neubauer’s associates. In the end, at least three of the test group committed suicide.

Director Tim Wardle (Lifers) tells the story of the triplets in this astonishing docu-drama. In the late summer of 1980, 18-years old Robert ‘Bobby’ Shafran started his studies at Sullivan County Community College in New York. He was more than surprised that everyone greeted him with “hello, Eddie”, particularly girls were happy to see him, hugging and kissing him. Finally, a fellow student, Michael Domnitz told him: “You must have a ‘Doppelganger’. The two found the address of Eddie Galland, and when the door of the Galland house opened, Bobby was looking at his double. They soon found the last triplet, David Kellman, and what ensued was a typical American feel-good story. The triplets appeared on TV (The Phil Donahue Show), admitting to their similarities in the taste of cigarettes and women and even appeared with Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan. Later, they opened a restaurant (Triplets) in New York; but after an early success, Eddy developed mental health problems, and he had to be committed into a psychiatric ward. In 1995 he took his own life. For the remaining brother, David and Bobby, this was only the beginning of their nightmare.

The three of them had been born on 12.6.61 to a mother the triplets had met. She had mental health problems, and the adoption was handled by the Louise Wise, Jewish Adoption Agency. They were closely connected with the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, who sponsored Dr. Neubauer’s ‘research project’ together with the National Institute of Mental Health. The former institution now claims “that they do not approve of Dr. Neubauer’s project”. Neubauer’s aim was to research the central Nurture versus Nature question, and the ‘participants’ were regularly tested regarding their intelligence and personalities by a large number of child psychiatrists. One of them, appearing in this documentary, seemed totally unperturbed by his participation. The same goes for Natasha Josefowitz (90), a long-time research assistant of Neubauer, who now lives in California. She comments with the objectivity of a true scientist “that she was surprised that Nature was so much more influential than environmental influences”.

Set against this “objectivity” are the stories of the boys parents, who all reported the babies hit their heads for a long time against the frame of their beds – obviously withdrawal symptoms, after they were forcefully separated. A set of twins, Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein, who had both chosen to become filmmakers, before they were re-united wrote a Memoir: “Identical Strangers: A memoir of Twins Separated and Re-united”. Journalist Lawrence Wright, who was the first, to bring the cover-up to light in the New York Times, also appears in the documentary.

Although Neubauer’s research project dossier – in the archives of Yale University – cannot be opened before 2066, with some survivors only getting very redacted versions of the case notes, the question remains – how could Dr. Neubauer, President of the Association of Child Psychoanalysts, Secretary General of the International Association of Child Psychology, have dreamt up a project like this?. Neubauer had fled the Nazis to study in Switzerland, before emigrating to the USA in 1941, and worked with Anna Freud, so he must have known about Mengele’s experiments with twins in Auschwitz and later Argentina. Did science really make him blind, or do we have another case of a scientist playing God and bringing death to the ones he was supposed to help? Three Identical Strangers is a chilling tale of our times, connecting us to a world we thought we had left behind. AS

SCREENING DURING THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2018

 

Manu (2018) *** IDFA 2018

Dir: Emmanuelle Bonmariage | Doc | Belgium | 92′

Alzheimer’s is a one of the great human tragedies of modern times. Obliterating personalities, relationships, families, it strikes without warning, often inflicting the most talented and leaving a trail of misery and sadness in its wake. No one escapes its fatal curse.

Belgian filmmaker Manu Bonmariage was 76 when he succumbed. During his career he  made over eighty documentary films, contributing a vast body of work to the landscape of Belgian cinema and television (including the French-Belgian TV show “Strip-Tease”) and establishing himself as a memorable feature of the country’s wider cultural fabric. Sensitive and highly creative (“the camera is my mistress, I like to feel her in my hands”), he co-films here with his director daughter to record their fraught, deteriorating relationship in this painful love letter to his creative past. Manu also serves a socio-political history of Belgium during his lifetime, even recording the time he got stuck down a mineshaft!. This haunting collage of memories, reminiscences, upbeat archive footage (a New York sequence set in the 1960s is one of the most vibrant), medical meetings, musical interludes and cathartic exchanges cannot fail to sadden and amuse. Manu is an endearing and unsettling tribute that will resonate with those involved with the affliction and keen cineastes who remember Manu’s work. MT.

SCREENING DURING IDFA 2018 | INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE | COMPETITION FOR BEST FIRST APPEARANCE | Sunday 18 Nov)

The Price of Everything (2018) ****

Dir.: Nathaniel Kahn; Documentary with Amy Cappellazzo, Stefan Edlis; Jeff Koons, Larry Poons, Gerhard Richter, Jerry Saltz; USA 2018, 98′

Does the global art market benefit the many, or just the very few? It’s an valid question and one that Nathaniel Kahn explores in his entertaining examination of those who have the funds to buy any artistic creation they fancy. Only to lock it away in their private collections while it makes more and more money. The work is question is of no benefit to the general public, because the inflationary prices have made it almost impossible even for the most elite museums to buy and display these works.

The story started on 18th October 1973, when the private collector and NY taxi-fleet owner Robert Scull sold about 50 of his paintings at Sotheby Park-Bernet Gallery. Among them was Jasper John’s ‘Target’, which went for a (then) amazing 135 000 US Dollars. It is now worth a cool hundred million Dollars, after being bought by the private collector Stefan Edlis for ten million in 1997. The Scull auction captured the imagination of the banks. who had never previously considered modern Art as an investment. Prices were driven up – artificially or not – and today’s inflationary sums are paid, ten times higher than they were at the beginning of the millennium. Obviously, the people who profit defend the system. Especially auctioneers such as Sotheby’s: “Great art, almost by nature, needs to be greatly valued” (ie. expensive), “because that’s the culture’s way of protecting it.”

 But what about the painters? There are certain superstars like Jeff Koons who are ‘untouchable’ – even though one of Hirst’s private collectors has recently seen his artwork go down in price. In today’s market it’s not worth the five million Dollars he paid for it originally. Koons, looking like a playboy gone to seed, is seen working in his atelier, around hundred painters taking orders from the master (no, it does not look like Warhol’s Factory at all), whilst the Koons explains that he could only finish one painting a month without his ‘little helpers’. One should mention that Jeff Koons was once a Wall Street trader, which chimes in with Kahn’s reference to The Wolf of Wall Street.

The director then turns his attention to artist Larry Poons who is at the other end of the scale. Now in his eighties, but still very feisty, Poons “fell off the grid” after his success in the 1960s, with his minimalist dot paintings. After he changed his style, moving on to large scale expressionism, his emotional paintings rapidly feel from grace and he became a ‘non-entity’. But, as fate would have it, his work is now popular again – “I wouldn’t be alive, if I had gotten rich”. Seeing him on his vintage motor bike, enjoying himself, you can believe every word. The Cologne based artist Gerhard Richter is now the best-selling artist in Europe. Whilst lecturing about the importance of museums, we see him at a major auction he professes to hate so much. And Amy Cappellazzo, Chairman of Global Fine Arts at Sotheby’s, calls her marketing strategy “hunting” – returning us to the Wolf of Wall Street theme. 

Kahn never really comes down on one side or the other in his fascinating debate. But goes on to show how the future holds even more opportunities for the chosen few: An artwork “created” be AI just fetched $ 432000 – so superstars like Koons and Richter better be careful: AI will need much less maintenance – until they take over the whole human bamboozle. AS

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE 16 NOVEMBER 2018 | ALSO SCREENING DURING THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2018

 

 

Marrakech Film Festival | Industry Initiatives 2018

THE ATLAS WORKSHOPS | MARRAKECH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018

The Atlas Workshops are an Industry and Talent Development Programme taking place at the 17th Marrakech International Film Festival, from December 2 to 5, 2018. Wholly dedicated to cinema from Africa and Middle-East, the workshops are a creative and professional platform to support filmmakers as well as a place for exchange between international professionals and regional talents.

This initiative has been designed to assist regional emerging regional directors who are currently preparing their first, second, or third feature-length narrative or documentary films. For this first edition, eight projects in development and six films in post-production, originating from nine countries, have been invited to take part.

They will benefit from a tailor-made day-long consultation with professionals who will provide them artistic feedback, as well the Industry point of view. At the end of the workshop, a jury will award a Development Prize of 10 000 € and a postproduction Prize of 20 000 € to the best projects.

The Atlas Workshops are also intended to explore questions surrounding film distribution in the region. In parallel with panels dedicated to sharing views on audience development as well as the circulation of films from Africa and the Middle East, the members of the Network of Arab Alternative Screens, which brings together 20 cinema screens across Arab-speaking countries, have been invited to convene, in the Atlas framework, in order to meet with attending professionals, as well as the talents who are presenting their projects.

Finally, the Atlas Workshops consider the process of composing music for films, in a session intended not only to encourage selected filmmakers to think about the musical universe of their films, but also to foster regional artistic collaboration by introducing talented score composers to their filmmaking peers.

In partnership with Netflix, the Atlas Workshops is delighted to gather in Marrakech from December 2 to 5, 150 Moroccan and international professionals in order to champion talents from Africa and the Middle- East.

THE 14 PROJECTS SELECTED FOR THE ATLAS WORKSHOPS, Marrakech International Film Festival

• THE DAY I ATE THE FISH by Aida Elkashef (Egypt) – documentary
• EUROPA « Based on a true story » by Kivu Ruhorahoza (Rwanda) – fiction
• IT’S FAR AWAY WHERE I MUST GO by Karima Saidi (Morocco) – documentary
• KILOMETERS 60 by Hassen Ferhani (Algeria) – documentary
• THE WOMEN IN BLOCK J J by Mohamed Nadif (Morocco) – fiction
• WE ARE FROM THERE by Wissam Tanios (Lebanon) – documentary
8 projects in developement
• PLUM SEASON by Rim Mejdi (Morocco) – fiction

• LES DAMNES NE PLEURENT PAS by Fyzal Boulifa (Morocco) – fiction
• LAUNDRY by Zamo Mkhwanazi (South Africa) – fiction
• THE NIGHTS STILL SMELL OF GUNPOWDER de Inadelso Cossa (Mozambique) – documentary
• IN THE RIVER TRAP by Nicolas Sawalo Cisse (Senegal) – fiction
• QUEENS by Yasmine Benkirane (Morocco) – fiction
• THE RIVER RUNS RED by Rami Kodeih (Lebanon) – fiction
• VUTA N’KUVUTE (A Tug of war) by Amil Shivji (Tanzania) – fiction

MARRAKECH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 2018

Death of a Poetess (2017) **** UK Jewish Film Festival 2018

Dir.: Efrat Mishori, Dana Goldberg; Cast: Smira Saraya, Evgenia Dodina, Y. Goldberg; Israel 2018, 77 min.

Poet Efrat Mishori and filmmaker Dana Goldberg’s DEATH OF A POETESS is a hauntingly realistic but depressing portrait of their vision of Israel today. On Tel Aviv’s fabulous beachside two women meet. One has planned her own suicide,  the other one will soon be the victim of a prejudiced police force, who take a dim view of the local Arab population. The bottom line is that this could be any European capital.

Lenny Sadeh (Dodina) is in her fifties and may have lost a daughter. She is adamant about ending her life. She has written some poetry, for the first time in her life, and gives the titular manuscript to a publisher. She then orders a white bathrobe, and makes sure it is in the shop on the chosen day: “There’s no tomorrow” she tells the assistant, who urges her to reflect on her decision. She then takes a taxi to the beach, where she meets Yasmin (Saraya), a young Arab nurse, who happens to be a lesbian, taking a night off from her elderly husband and young daughter. The women talk. Sensing that something is wrong, the nurse follows her into the bathroom, where Lenny has left her ring and other valuables. Yasmin than walks outside, and sees Sadeh heading for the water.

The title is the film’s intended spoiler. The interactions of Lenny’s last day are intercut with a diabolic police interrogation of Yasmin, by an Israeli investigator (Y. Goldberg), who, like the taxi driver, plays himself. We only hear the policeman’s voice, which makes the atmosphere even more frightening. He insists that Yasmin murdered Lenny for the diamond ring, and does not believe a word Yasmin says in her defence. Finally, Yasmin succumbs, telling him that she murdered for greed; she even makes up the details of the murder; even though, in the next scene, her forced confession is refuted.

DoP Asi Oren has conjured up melancholic black-and-white images of Tel Aviv, his close-ups in the interrogation room are masterful, and the doom-laden atmosphere remains til the final scene. Dodina and Saraya are brilliant, they have much more in common the culture that divides them. The directors show a vision of Israeli society not unlike that of Germany during Fascism: greedy and deceitful. The policemen play on these prejudices. A sad lament on daily life in the State of Israel, a tiny Jewish country surrounding by a mass of Muslim nations. And they are fiercely protective of the only place they can call their home. AS

UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 8-22 NOVEMBER 2018

    

The Accountant of Auschwitz (2018) Netflix

Dir.: Matthew Shoychet; Documentary; Canada 2018, 80 min.

Oskar Gröning, known as the accountant of Auschwitz, lived out a peaceful existence in his hometown of Lüneburg in Lower Saxony for 70 years  – unperturbed by guilt or singled out for his actions as an active member of the SS of Auschwitz. He would eventually get his comeuppance in 2015.

In his debut documentary Canadian director/writer Matthew Shoychet chronicles the 2015 trial against Gröning, featuring testimonies from the defendant himself and the surviving victims and the last living judge from the Nuremberg trial and Holocaust deniers.

Born in 1921 into a nationalist family, Oskar Gröning was unremarkable but seized the opportunity of a lifetime when he joined the SS during the Second World War. Employed at Auschwitz, he was responsible for overseeing all the artefacts stolen from Jewish internees as soon as they arrived at the Polish camp. The goods trains would turn up laden with their human cargo and Gröning would be present and correct on the infamous “Rampe”, where Dr. Joseph Mengele, the Angel of Death prepared to make the macabre decision as to who would be gassed immediately, or who could be of some use as a worker for a limited period. Gröning witnessed some gruesome events: when a mother turned up with her suitcase hiding a her baby, the child’s crying gave them both away to the guards and both were immediately executed. “The crying stopped” was all Gröning had to say.

But the survivors’ reactions could not have been more different: Bill Glied (who died in 2018) even considered that a certain form of justice had been done. But Eva Morez, who survived the deadly twin experiments of Joseph Mengele (together with her sister Miriam), expressed extreme gratitude to Gröning, offering him a hug.

Benjamin Ferenc, Judge at the Nuremberg Trials, explains why the outcome of this trial is so important and why there should never be a statute of limitations for genocide. He explains how the German justice systems had absolutely no vested interest in prosecuting SS men and other guards who kept the concentration camps going. Sure, they were little cogs in the death machine, but without them, it would have ground to a halt.

The SS had around 800, 000 men in 1945. And although it was declared a “Criminal Association” only around 200,000 the members were vetted,  a mere of these 6000 prosecuted, with just 124 life sentence given out. The judges had a vested interest in making sure the whole affair was kept low-key, lest they themselves be implicated. In the end Oskar Gröning was found guilty and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment as an accessory to murder in thousands of cases. He lost all his appeals but died before he started his sentence in 2018.

The Accountant makes for sobering viewing: once again it shows how the huge majority of German civilians of the time actively supported the concentration camps by keeping ‘schtum’ and shielding those involved in the atrocities. Even today films like Luke HOlland’s Final Account (2020) show how Germans turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, some actively condoning it. AS

NOW ON NETFLIX.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside Mossad: Imperfect Spies *** (2018)

Dir: Duki Dror | Doc Israel | 90′ 2018

Mossad (the National Intelligence Service of Israel) has long been regarded as Gold Standard among spy networks in a world that continues to be fascinated by international espionage. Since the First World World spies have been glamourised and vilified. Their tales have spawned a rich vein of cinema from Noir dramas to documentaries and TV series, the most recent and spine-chilling KILLING EVE has enthralled BBC audiences nationwide.

Here, award-winning documentarian Duki Dror steps behind the secret curtain to unveil insider stories from former Mossad agents – some of them as recent as last year. But it’s important to remember that nowadays these functionaries lead quite normal lives aside from their intelligence activities. And although often viewed as exciting a great deal of their work is routine and procedural – like most people they respond with relish to share their stories of adventure and derring-do.

What emerges here is both intriguing and unsettling. Back in 1960 Mossad rose to the public’s attention when an agency team led by former intelligence officer and politician Rafi Eitan, now 91, captured Nazi arch villain Adolf Eichmann and put him on trial in Israel to answer for his Holocaust crimes in a court of Law. Naturally, no-one objected to the move. But since those glory day, Mossad has simply dispatched a number of high profile terrorists considered a threat to the national interest, without a fair trial. This spirit taking the Law into their own hands has been echoed in the recent events in Salisbury, where a former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were famously poisoned on British soil, purportedly by the Russian themselves. Meanwhile, Eitan reveals an incident where an one of his compatriots was discovered to have been selling secrets to an enemy Arab country. He was kidnapped, assassinated, and his body was dropped over from a place somewhere in the Mediterranean. Another Mossad leader, Zvi Zamir also confesses with relish his time spent in service. He also refers to The Gatekeepers (2012) another documentary highlighting the activities of Israel’s other intelligence agency Shin Bet,, who famously failed to protect the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin who was assassinated by right-winger Yigal Amir.

Scripted by Yossi Melman and Chen Shelach (both from Zero Days) Inside the Mossad is an engrossing and succinctly made human interest story. MT

SCREENING DURING UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 8 – 27 NOVEMBER 2018

Jacques Tourneur, the Medium (2015) ****

originalJACQUES TOURNEUR, THE MEDIUM – FILMING THE INVISIBLE (JACQUES TOURNEUR, LE MEDIUM – FILMER L’INVISBLE)

Dir.: Alain Mazars |  Documentary | France 2015, 60 min.

Jacques Tourneur (1904-1977) only directed four feature films in France between 1931 and 1934, before he went with his director father Maurice, to Hollywood, where he started making short films between 1936 and 1939. What followed was an extraordinary career of classic B-pictures, fantasy dramas and  film noirs in different genres..

As the title of this well-crafted documentary hints, Jacques Tourneur specialised in filming invisible terror through his subtle scores and dramatic lighting techniques. This must have come easily to him as his parents would lock little Jacques into a cupboard whenever he was naughty, ordering the nanny to make scratching noises on the door from outside, pretending to be a child-devouring monster.

Three of Jacques Tourneur’s best known films, Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man were produced in 1942/3 by Val Lewton, who would also go on to work on The Body Snatcher (1945). Cat People is a great example of a study in silent terror: the architect Kent Smith has married the Serbian graphic designer Irena (Simone Simon), who believes that she will turn into a panther when aroused. Kent encourages Irena to see Dr. Judd, a psychoanalyst who is sure he can unlock her trauma. Kent’s co-worker Alice Moore, is in love with Kent, and soon stalked by a growly big cat – which the audience never sees. But Alice finds her bathing costume torn up, and Dr. Judd discovers too late that an analyst can be utterly helpless too. The terror (as in The Leopard Man), where a leopard is the unseen hunter of men and women, is subtle and manifests itself exclusively by sound.

But Tourneur’s best known work was Out of the Past (1947), the classical ‘femme fatale’ noir in which private eye Jeff (Robert Mitchum) succumbs to the deadly charms of Kathie (Jane Greer), the girlfriend of mobster Whit (Kirk Douglas). Even though Jeff has broken with his past, living as a petrol station attendant in a small town, where he tells his new girl friend Ann Miller (Virginia Huston) about his life story of passion and betrayal – he recants as soon as he encounters Kathie again, he is drawn to this deadly female, and the ending, very much like John Dall’s Barton Tarr in Joseph. C. Lewis’ Gun Crazy, leaves him only one way out. Again, there is just enough action to drive the film forward, but the decisive moments are more or less silent: one look at Jeff’s face is enough to let us know that his amour fou is stronger than his rationale. Likewise, Kathie’s most powerful weapon to subdue Jeff is not her gun – she kills Whit in cold blood – but her soulful big eyes, which change her expression seconds after the killing into the ‘helpless beautiful girl’, who Jeff has to save, against his better judgement. All the torment of these powerful emotions can be read in the eyes and facial expressions of this self-destructing couple.

Mazars’s documentary, with insightful interviews and extensive clips from Jacques Tourneur’s films, paints a picture of a filmmaker who weaved dreams which turned into nightmares. And even at the end of his career, as his episode ‘Night Call’ (1964) for the legendary “Twilight Zone” TV Series shows, he was always ready to experiment and invent. AS

REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2015

Hitler’s Hollywood: German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda **** (2017)

Dir.: Rüdiger Suchsland, Documentary, Germany 2017, 105 min. 

Rüdiger Suchsland follows his brilliant From Caligari to Hitler with a chronicle of  cinema during the Nazi regime, 1933-1945. The Nazis may not have achieved their thousand year reign, but they produced roughly this number of feature films. Hitler’s Hollywood is narrated by the softly sinister voice Udo Kier, with quotes from from Hannah Arendt and Susan Sontag, Suchsland searches the souls and minds of ordinary German citizens who went the cinema in record numbers, the like of which would never be seen again.

Of these features, roughly 500 were comedies, over three hundred belonged to the popular genre of “Revue” films, the rest was made up by detective and adventure films. There were no Horror movies (enough in real life), and just one SF movie: GOLD by Karl Hartl, a shameless Metropolis rip-off, with its star Brigitte Helm now able to talk. The huge majority of features were produced by the UFA, founded in 1917; its owner, Von Hugenberg, had helped Hitler to achieve power. In 1937 the company was nationalised, and in 1942 monopolised every film production. There were no auteurs in Nazi cinema (they had mostly emigrated like Fritz Lang), the stars had much more power, given to them by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Reach’s Propaganda Minister, who was THE auteur: controlling everything from script, auditioning to censorship. 

Not that Goebbels had to change that much: On the last day of January 1933, after being installed as Chancellor, Hitler visited the Berlin premiere of Gustav Ucicky’s MORGENROT. This U-boat feature showed what was in store for Germany: the love of death. The commander declares “that Germans might not be good at living, but are pretty well prepared to die in style”. More about this later. MORGENROT was one of about 40 hard-core propaganda films. But the Nazi ideology was very much present in all productions. Jews were the most popular target of these agitation films (DER EWIGE JUDE, JUD SUSS, DIE ROTHSCHILDS). The British did featured in OHM KRUGER, but the majority of these outings were either glorifications of dead Nazi heroes, or of their fictional characters. There was HANS WESTMAR, HITLER JUNGE QUEX, SA MANN BRANDT as well as war features. These largely fell into two categories: the ‘victory’ celebrations depicted in SIEG IM WESTEN, STUKAS, U-BOOTE WESTWARTS or the ‘Durchhaltefilme’ (perseverance films) which came towards the end of the Second World War. One of the most prominent of these was Veit Harlan’s 1945 action drama KOLBERG. This was one of the most expensive German productions to date, a mammoth undertaking that saw 100, 000 soldiers taking part in the bellicose spectacle. There was even a Pro-Euthanasia feature ICH KLAGE AN, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner. It came as no accident that Goebbels chose Harlan to helm this extravaganza. “Fascist ideology was part part of his whole work” – and he was by far the most talented filmmaker of the Nazi period – and the most prolific – with twenty films in just ten years. Harlan cast his wife Kristina Söderbaum to star in nearly all his films: she usually committed suicide by drowning, as in THE GOLDEN CITY DIE GOLDENE STADT (1942), and THE GREAT SACRIFICE (1944)). And it goes without saying that both continued their careers well past 1945 in West Germany. Ferdinand Marian, the most gifted actor of the period, who played the wicked Jew in Jud Süss, was killed while drunk driving in August 1946 – some days before a tribunal would decide his professional fate. 

Kristina Söderbaum was Swedish along with several of her compatriots such as Zarah Leander (LA HABANERA) and Ingrid Bergman who appeared in Carl Froelich’s 1938 romantic drama DIE VIER GESELLEN.  Then there was the Czech actor Lida Baarova  – Goebbels nearly left his wife for her – and star of DIE FLEDERMAUS (1937); the Dutch stars Johannes Heesters in FRAU IM BESTEN MANNESALTER (1959) and Ilse Werner in WIR MACHEN MUSIK (1942) . They were required to visit a police station every week to renew visas. But the brightest star in this firmament was the Hungarian actor Marika Rökk (KORA TERRY, IT WAS A GAY BALL NIGHT 1940), who sang and pirouetted her way through 19 features of the Nazi period, and nearly as many in post-war West Germany.

A special mention should go to the Gustaf Gründgens as the leading turn in Hans Steinhoff’s TANZ AUF DEM VULKAN 1938, and Helmut Käutner romantic drama AUF WIEDERSEHEN, FRANZISKA! (1941).  Gründgens esteemed by Göring, but hated by Goebbels. With his androgynous looks (and muddled sexual orientation), he sang “the night is not only there for sleeping” in the 1938 drama. It was an open invitation to revolt, and Goebbels reacted by letting the film pass, but the recording of the film’s score was never released. There is some irony in this feature where city dwellers throw resistance flyers from their balconies – and in real life, the Scholl siblings were beheaded a few years later for doing exactly that in their High School. Suchsland lets Käutner get away lightly, calling him “a man with an anti-fascist soul”. After the war, Käutner directed less ironic mainstream features, now too timid to upset anybody.

Hitler and Goebbels both were film fans even before coming to power. The Leader preferred Micky Mouse cartoons and Frank Capra films, Goebbels was an admirer of early Eisenstein features. Both had it in mind to create a German Hollywood, dominated by dramatic gestures and crowd scenes. An early example of this was Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 chronicle of the Nazi Party’s Nuremberg meeting: THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (TRIUMPH DES WILLENS). It is like a religious service, an ornament of masses, constantly synchronised movements. In contrast to these epics, her Olympia films were a search for the perfect body. But what is lacking in most films of this era is irony, even the screw-ball comedies, modelled on Hollywood, lacked this essential ingredience. 

Later reality and feature films moved even closer: DER GROSSE KÖNIG (Veit Harlan 1942) was premiered in parallel with USSR invasion. Male leader figures like Frederick the Great and Frederick I often featured, such as the hero portraits of Schiller, Schlüter and PARACELSUS (GW Pabst, 1943). During the war years, the newsreels lasted on average forty minutes. 

The other side of these strict political agitprops were the comedies with their regressive characters; and Suchsland starts with a clip from THE MAN WHO WAS SHERLOCK HOLMES (Karl Hartl 1937). It shows the two best known male stars, Hans Albers and Rühmann (the latter a German Everyman, who was extremely popular during the 3rd Reich and in West Germany) playing around like little boys, enjoying their bath and using the foam to have fun in their separate bath rooms. Whilst Albers was usually the hero (THE BLUE ANGEL, PEER GYNT, GOLD) Rühmann (MODEL HUSBAND, HEINZ IM MOND) was the scatter-brained dreamer, who just got along, but usually came out on top. 

And while the Nazis seemed to love their nighttime marches armed with torchlights in the dark, creating a sinister atmosphere of necrophilia, they loved death even more. There is a great montage in Suchsland’s documentary that shows the mountain of deaths that accumulated during these twelve years: nearly everyone seems happy to die, including the victims of Euthanasia.

Last, but not least, we should mention WUNSCHKONZERT (Eduard von Borsody, 1940) an impressive amalgamation of feature and newsreel. Kicking off with the Olympics of 1936 and ending with the Fascist victory in the Spanish war, this relationship drama starring Ilse Werner and Carl Raddatz is best described by the couple listening to the chorus, who sing: “I know there will be a miracle, and a thousand dreams will come true”.  Meanwhile, the cinema audience was increasingly inured to endless sacrifice (turning a blind eye to murder), they were asked not to trust what they saw, but to “believe in their intuition that all will turn out well”. Germans, so Suchsland, did not want to leave the cinema, because the reality was too cruel.

We can look forward to Suchsland’s next project, an analysis of post-war West German cinema, which will showcase the era of the Weimar Republic and the 3rd Reich. AS       

AVAILABLE ON DUAL FORMAT FROM EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA | 5 NOVEMBER 2018

The Other Side of Everything (2017) ****

Dir/Writer: Mila Turajlic. Serbia. 2017. 100 mins.

Like most people who have been driven to their knees and learned how to survive their troubled history, the Serbians are tough cookies. And none more so than the indomitable a professor (who is also her mother) in Mila Turajlic’s engrossing documentary. THE OTHER SIDE OF EVERYTHING illuminates turbulent times in pre-World War II Serbia when Tito’s communists countermanded her family’s spacious central Belgrade apartment, and forced them to share their home with two other families.

Srbijanka was a tiny girl when Tito came to power in 1943. But the experiences of her childhood have made her a strong-willed and independent thinker who cuts to the chase with salient truisms such as: ” You don’t believe how it all can begin….until it begins.”. Her views and experiences are enriched by fascinating archive footage and news reels of the Tito years in a film that won Turajlic the main prize at Amsterdam’s International Documentary Film Festival in 2017.

When the communists took over, the internal doors of her apartment were locked back and have remained so for more than 70 years. Serbia is a country that has never really recovered from this shocking era. It’s the sort of place where the Census-taker asks ordinary citizens searching questions like: “Have you had links to terrorism? What about genocide?”.

But it’s the personal story of its stoical matriarch that actually makes this potted history of Yugoslavia and Serbia over the past hundred years, so engaging. And it soon emerges that the casually dressed and amiably ‘bolshie’ raconteur actually took an active part in the eventual downfall of creatures like Slobodan Milosovic.

The rather opulent apartment bears witness to Srbijanka’s upmarket background of enlightened intellectuals and professionals. Her grandfather had involvement with the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that later became known as Yugoslavia. Sadly, because Srbijanka was not a Communist, she was unable to study Law, but she later became a Mathematics professor at the capital’s University and worked hard to promote pro-Serbian interests. Like so many parents who have experienced terrible political regimes, she warns her daughter to be watchful and sceptical (Mila remains off camera). Yet Mila has her doubts, and this gently probing film marks their expression throughout. The Other Side serves as a worthwhile tribute to the valiant woman at its core, and to everyone who has risked their lives to make their world a better place. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 9 NOVEMBER 2018  | IDFA 2017 REVIEW | Best Feature-length Documentary Winner 2017 | SCREENINGS IN YOUR AREA

 

The Return (2018) | **** London Korean Film Festival

Dir: Malene Choi | Writer: Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen | With Thomas Hwan, Karoline Sofie Lee | Doc | Denmark | 85′

Two Danish-Korean adoptees return for the first time to the country of their birth in search of their origins, in this refreshingly thoughtful and quietly devastating arthouse documentary debut from Malene Choi. Based on her own experiences THE RETURN is a stunningly photographed and touchingly resonant meditation on destiny and identity, nature and nurture. Muted visuals and Philip Nicolai Flindt’s subtle sound design lend a dreamlike quality of mystery and alienation to this contemplative study of two young people uprooted from Denmark, the country that has become their home and where they have grown up, and returned to their original their birth lands. Despite this yearned for homecoming, they somehow feel disorientated and thrown into confusion in the search for their biological parents. Both internalise their feelings into discrete expressions of loss, anxiety and sadness. So locked away is their private grief, that they often admit to feeling nothing, but the trauma clearly lives within them, hidden deep in their souls.

Thomas’s story is particularly harrowing as it emerges during the emotionally-charged first meeting with his birth mother that he was actually conceived after a one night stand. Clearly he is devastated, but remains dignified in front of his mother, suppressing the trauma that slowly seeps out in dramatic physical expressions during a trip around Seoul  – together with Karoline, where they both let off steam by going boating together and enjoy cocktails. For her part Karoline is less emotionally buttoned up but equally traumatised, especially during a meeting with a hospital adviser who tries to help but simply lacks the necessary resources to further the Korean girl’s inquiries. Clearly she is angry, but also disappointed.

Without resorting to sentimentality or even attempting to create a falsely romantic narrative arc, Choi paints a realistic and utterly convincing portrait of two people who cannot go forward until they have gone back – with satisfaction and closure. MT

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | Now SCREENING DURING London Korean FILM FESTIVAL 2018

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018) Netflix

Dir: Morgan Neville | US Doc | 98′ | With Peter Bogdanovich, Steve Ecclesine, Oja Kodar, Frank Marshall, Joseph McBride, Beatrice Welles, Orson Welles.

Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) is back with a new doc that serves as a useful companion piece to Welles’ rather haphazard metaphor for the madness of the industry that tormented him: The Other Side of the Wind (2018).

Working with footage from the film itself, which started life in 1970, and complementing it with informative interviews and other Wellesian treasures, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead has a spirited and haphazard style that aims to capture the creative butterfly that was the larger than life, Orson Welles (1918-1985).

Those who wonder whether the world needs another Orson Welles documentary will do well to bear in mind that this Netflix affair will reach an audience that may not even have heard of the man and his genius, so the doc will hopefully find a completely new following along with its committed fanbase, amongst its viewership.

The title apparently refers to the pronouncement that Welles once made in reference to those film financiers and ‘powers that be’ who deserted him when he needed their help. And it’s reassuring to know that the film has finally been completed by those who have ultimately leant their support.

Neville has certainly set himself a tricky task but he pulls it off with the usual aplomb. His previous documentaries have been very well received: 20 Feet From Stardom (2013); Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal (2015) and Won’t You Be My Neighbour (2018). And he’s also brought his own creativity to this outing with its inventive camera angles and black & white to ease cohesion with the archive footage. The film’s interviewees were all close friends of Welles: associates Peter Bogdanovich and Henry Jaglom. This documentary’s executive producer Frank Marshall also worked on the Wind shoot and produced the reconstructed film. And there is historian Joseph McBride, who appeared in Wind. Neville’s doc also serves as a tribute to the late Gary Graver, who shot Wind and served as his personal DoP for over a decade, putting his own career and family on the back-burner, in the same way that Leon Vitali dedicated his life to Stanley Kubrick.

The story of the experimental project that was Welles’ main focus for the final 15 years of his life unfolds before us in the velvety black and white sequences. Welles once said that Wind was inspired by his belief in “divine accidents” – and this is one thing that seems to unite the genius with his fellow filmmakers: Every director from Martin Scorsese to William Friedkin reports on these serendipitous moments, and Welles was no different. Wind was repeatedly re-worked and rewritten in a narrative that followed the last day in the life of a veteran film director called Jake Hannaford  (purportedly Welles himself, although he denied it) who was played by John Huston.

Ironically, Peter Bogdanovich started off hero-worshiping Welles, until his own success as a director saw him supporting Welles’ and even offering him accommodation in his own house, with Welles almost outstaying his welcome. But his romantic companion, co-writer and collaborator Oja Kodar, who worked with her paramour on another unfinished project The Deep (1970), remains an enigmatic presence here.

Sadly, Welles’ initial effort to raise finance for Wind remains the most poignant aspect of his endeavour, and the footage of his speech to the AFI in this veiled attempt to garner support, makes for disheartening viewing. The final scenes of the documentary see Welles speculating on the nature of Wind: “maybe it’s just people talking about a movie.”

Neville certainly gives us a great deal of background about Wind in his documentary, but there is very little on the subject of how the film eventually made it to our screens in 2018. And it’s because of this slight flaw in Neville’s film, you might even be excused of thinking that Wind remained a flight of fantasy, rather than a complete feature. Orson Welles and his legacy lives on. MT

ON NETFLIX  | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Edgar Degas: Passion for Perfection (2018) ***

Dir/DoP: David Bickerstaff | 91′ | Art Doc in

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was one of the greatest draftsman of the 19th century.Phil Grabsky’s semi-dramatised documentary reveals the artist’s obsessive experimentation with new techniques. It explores how Degas perfected his craft until blindness overtook him at the end of the First World War. He died aged 83.

Guiding us through the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which holds the largest Degas collection in Britain, curators and conoscenti show how Degas started his career at the age of 21. After rigorous academic training, he modelled his drawings on the work of another great master Ingrès, who he met through his father’s socials gatherings. A reclusive by nature Degas is pictured (in a filmed cameo by an actor) closeted away in his studio producing a prolific output of paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings, most of which only came to light after his death when art dealer and facilitator of the Impressionist movement Paul Durand-Ruel was tasked with selling the collection. As Degas commented himself: You will realise how much I’ve produced at my death”.

At the beginning of his career Degas worked as a copyist which eventually brought him into contact with Manet in 1864. The art specialists go in to fascinating details about Degas’ masterpieces including The Bellelli Family—an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon although it remained unfinished until 1867; Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah in 1859–60.  In 1861 we hear how Degas visited an old friend in Normandy where he made many studies of horses. In 1865 he has his first exhibition at the Salon when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, although it gained no critical appeal at the time leading him to submit his horse painting Steeplechase—The Fallen Jockey which signalled his commitment to more contemporary subject matter.

After returning from the Franco Prussian war in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard, where his eyesight was proved to be failing and this was a constant worry to him. He travelled to New Orleans where his brother René lived, he produced The Cotton Office in New Orleans which garnered favorable attention back in France, and was his only work purchased by a museum during his lifetime.

On his return to Paris he was faced with the death of his father and Rene’s accumulating debts forcing him to sell some canvases and paintings he had inherited, and for the first time in his life he was dependent on his own work for income, which proved the making of him and his work with the Impressionists really took off from 1874 onwards, bringing his traditional methods as a history painter to bear on this contemporary subject matter and becoming a classical painter of modern life who is often identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. But it was the physicality of the dancers that interested him, and he spend long hours working with pastels to achieve freshness but at the same depth to these well known works of art. Sharp-tongued in company, he relished the cut and thrust of the debates with his fellow Impressionists and although he is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism he rejected the term, preferring to be called a independent working in a realist style. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation as seen in the famous “In a Cafe” painting. He thought little of the spontaneous “plein-air “paintings of Monet and often came into conflict with him. His conservative social attitudes sat uneasily with the scandal created by the exhibitions, as well as the publicity his colleagues sought. Sculpture became a fascination for Degas as his sight failed him and in 1880 he created the famous Little Dancer of Fourteen Years in wax with complete tutu and ribbons, with permission for the piece to be refashioned in bronze where is appears in the Fitzwilliam amongst other international galleries.

A great collector himself, he was able to buy more painting through sales of his own work, indulging his passion for El Greco, Gauguin and Van Gogh. He idolised the work of Ingrès and his competitor Delacroix. He also developed a passion for photography and often used that to inform his own artwork, and many painters adopt this same technique in portrait painting today.

But after the Louis Dreyfus affair, he withdrew from company being in the “against” camp for the soldier’s release. His misogyny was well documented, he never married and most of the women in his life were paid so he could maintain control over his models and his housekeeper. He eventually stopping working in 1912 after his longtime residence was demolished and he spent his final years trampsing around the Boulevard de Clichy, rejecting help from his family and dying in September 1917. But his memory lives on in own words: “It’s not a matter of what you see, but what you make others see”. MT

EXHIBITION ON SCREEN returns for a sixth season on 6 November 2018

 

 

Made in Prague | Czech Cinema 100th Anniversary

This October marks the 100th year anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia. The celebrations begin with an opening night gala screening of Jan S. Kolár’s silent epic St Wenceslas from 1929; accompanied by a musical ensemble specialising in medieval polyphony.

The 22nd MADE IN PRAGUE Festival showcases the best of contemporary Czech cinema cherry picked from international film festivals’ circuit. It features Barefoot by the Oscar-winning director Jan “Kolya” Sverak; Insects, the legendary filmmaker Jan Svankmajer’s swansong; the UK premiere of Martin Sulik’s drama The Interpreter starring the Oscar-winning director of Closely Observed Trains Jiri Menzel and German star of Toni Erdmann Peter Simonischek, fresh from the 2018 Berlinale. Also screening will be Olmo Omerzu’s Winter Flies, winner of the 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Director’s Prize. Complemented by Vit Klusak’s The White World According to Daliborek, a hilarious stylised documentary portrait of a Czech neo-nazi, and Cervena, Olga Sommerova’s portrait of a vivacious 92-year-old world famous opera singer, the mixture of fiction and documentaries with accompanying debates and Q&A showcases the best of Czech cinema mapping the country’s past and current achievements.

MADE IN PRAGUE | Czech Centre London and other venues across the city, including the Barbican, Design Museum, Regent Street Cinema, Tate Modern, UCL, plus others.

 

Donkeyote (2018) ***

Dir: Cico Pereira | Spain | Doc | 87′

If you love animal documentaries and nature stories, DONKEYOTE is for you. There’s something endearingly charming about this soothing tale of an elderly shepherd from Andalucia who decides to embark on an pilgrimage with his donkey Gorrion, and a couple of dogs. Filmed in the wild landscapes of Southern Spain by Cico Pereira and his cameraman Julian Schwanitz, it’s a simple story, but an enjoyable one.

Manolo has a traditional life in Southern Spain. He is both ambitious and naive. Against the advice of his doctor, he decides to plan one final journey. From his home in the hillsides near Cadiz, he decides to walk the 2200 mile Trail of Tears in America’s West. Foolhardy he may be, but his positive mental attitude is inspiring. To overcome the obstacle of shipping a donkey with a fear of water, and himself with chronic arthritis and a history of heart problems, is no mean feat.

DONKEYOTE  follows their adventure, and shows that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination, and particularly in this case. Touching, amusing and quietly wonderful, Manolo may be a modern day Don Quixote, but you have to admire his style. MT

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE LONDON FROM 23 OCTOBER 2018

DONKEYHOTE 

A Woman Captured (2017) ***

Dir.: Bernadett Tuza-Ritter; Documentary; Hungary 2017, 90 min.

Bernadett Tuza-Ritter (Cinetrain: Russian Winter) has certainly achieved something remarkable: her documentary about a Hungarian woman enslaved by an ordinary family is not only moving, but Tuza-Ritter can claim that her film really changed the life of the central character.

We meet Marish, a dishevelled woman of 53 (who looks thirty years older) being woken up early in the morning so she can feed her employer’s menagerie of animals in a backyard of the family home. And this is Europe. Marish has been held in captivity by her boss Eta for over eleven years. Her youngest daughter Vivi escaped the draconian demands of Eta, and lives nearby in the comparative safety of a state orphanage. Without holidays or any time off, Marish is permanently on call to her boss who lives a life of leisure. Tasked with housekeeping and the care of three unruly children, Garish also has to work a daily shift in the factory, giving her boss the monthly wage of 550 Forint to cover her “lodging and food”. Eta makes money out of Marish whenever there is a chance, and insults her into the bargain.. The filmmaker was forced to pay the mercenary Eta 300 Forint a month to gain access to film film Marish – and only under Eta’s strict auspices: Tuza-Ritter was not allowed to film the regular beatings Marish is subjected to in this miserable household. Tuza-Ritter phones the police, but is told that they are unable to take action. In Hungary domestic abuse can only be prosecuted where the victim is related to the aggressor.

To add insult to injury, Marish gets the blame when Eta’s kids break her favourite wine glasses; even the dog Lola is treated with more respect and care than this dejected female servant. Finally, Tuza-Ritter helps Marish to escape to a safe house in a city 200 km away from her tormentor. Although the filmmaker maintains a detached but decent attitude during their nighttime escape from the eta’s premises, Marish is still convinced that she will be betrayed. But when the woman confesses that her real name is Edith, and that Marish was her slave name, we realise that a psychological barrier has been broken. Soon Edith is re-united with her daughter Vivi, who is expecting a baby.

That slavery is alive and well in the EU came as a shock to the director, and will also horrify the audience. Both the police and the social services seem completely unfazed by this parlous situation. What is missing here is an enquiry as to why Marish became a slave in the first place? Marish doesn’t wear chains, so what exactly quantifies her “being held a slave”?  Clearly from the way she talks and behaves, there are indications that Edith has always suffered from low self-esteem and it soon emerges that she has a history of colluding with powerful figures in her life, allowing them to dominate her. She does not appear to have been locked up or in Eta’s house, or indeed, prevented from escaping, so she has clearly ‘acquiesced’ on some level to her imprisonment and cannot therefore technically be classified as a slave. But without knowing anything about her early childhood or upbringing these are only assumptions. It would appear she is just a victim of circumstance who has allowed another human being to take advantage of her for too long.

Tuza-Ritter’s camera is the witness of Edith’s ordeal, and the intimate images are often frightening: Edith is not even allowed to sleep in her own bedroom, but on a couch in the hallway. She is isolated, with no friends or contacts nearby. She is, literally, kept in the dark. A Woman Captured is a brave document, a unique achievement, because the filmmaker took action, when nobody else cared. But whether it’s a testament to modern slavery is questionable. Tuza-Ritter achieves an intensity akin to a Grimm’s fairy-tale, with Eta as the evil witch. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 OCTOBER 2018 | IDFA REVIEW 2017

The School in the Cloud (2018) **** Warsaw Film Festival 2018

Dir: Jerry Rothwell | Doc | 85′

“Do not limit children to your own learning for they were born in anther time” Rabindranath Tagore

What is the future of education in a networked world? With the words of Tagore ringing in his ears, TED Prize-winning scientist Sugata Mitra installs an unmanned Internet kiosk in a remote Bengali village to pioneer “The School in the Cloud”. As children encounter the Internet for the first time, will they be able to use it to transform their futures? Award-winning documentarian Jerry Rothwell decided to find out in his latest film The School in the Cloud  which examines the ups and downs of Sugata Mitra’s pioneering cloud-based educational model, as the leap from theory to practice proves to be its own fascinating learning curve, both in the developing and the developed world.

Three years in the making – in India and the North East of England – director Jerry Rothwell  (How to Change the World/Sour Grapes) explores the challenges of bringing the Professor Mitra’s vision of giving the next generation the opportunity to create a better and more informed existence for itself. If he’s successful, education will never be the same again. In his tweed suit, shirt and tie, Professor Mitra comes across as a kind and approachable presence. He began his self-organised learning experiments in 1999, when he knocked a hole in the wall of his office in Delhi, India, into a nearby slum and placed an Internet-ready computer there (that went on to become the Hole in the Wall experiment). Some of the children have never had access to the internet. His research had taught him that if children’s minds are allowed to wander in a chaotic fashion, they will crystallise around big ideas. And the experiment was a big success, initially. Children flocked to the computer and taught themselves how to use it. But Sugata wasn’t satisfied with that – he wanted them to be able to pass the same tests as children in private education. By introducing an adult into the mix who offered support and encouragement in much the same way a grandmother does, he found his answer. Both in India and in England, where children are already digital natives, this access to self-learning turns out to be able to change everything. The Indian system of learning tends to focus on stricter right/wrong answers, whereas British children are allowed to be more creative and playful at school. Rothwell’s film is a portrait of an idealist at work, and of an idea that can potentially create positive change for millions of children. But Mitra also has his (British) detractors who make negative comments about the difference in theory and practice of his idea. They talk of “educational colonialism” and “parachuting shiny objects into developing countries, and then hoping for the best”. But Rothwell the first recipient of the Sundance Institute/TED Prize Filmmaker Award in 2013  counters these naysayers: “Mitra is often accused of naivety about the way children learn, but I think the power of his ideas – even if they are utopian – is in challenging education systems that have failed to acknowledge how the internet has changed the world,” says Jerry, “During the film we see both the difficulties of implementing his ideas of self-organised learning environments in remote locations, and their potential for children itching to explore the world.” The children design their own ideal classroom.

Rothwell’s film is enriched by its widescreen footage of the Sunderbans scenery in the local villages of Korakati and Gurjala and and by the children themselves, both in the UK and India, who share their excitement, ideas and lively observations which bring fresh insight into the learning process. The School in the Cloud is a portrait of a positive idealist at work, and of an idea that can potentially create positive change for millions of children. MT

WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 12-21 OCTOBER 2018 | Then at BERTHA DOCHOUSE | FROM 19 OCTOBER 2018 | Q&A with the director on the opening night | International screenings 

Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018) ****

Dir.: Michael Moore; Documentary, USA 2018, 128′.

Michael Moore has reversed the figures of his earlier documentary feature that focused on the Twin Tower attack Fahrenheit 9/11. 11/9 refers to the date in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected as President of the Unites States of America. This latest is an in-depth analysis of Trump’s past and present but also a future devoid of democracy due to the over-whelming power of the corporations.

And the Democrats don’t get an easy ride in this incendiary examination of US politics: Moore also  rubs Hilary Clinton’s nose into the debacle: on the day before the elections, super-confident, she thanks Beyoncé/Jay Z for their appearance at her rally, and also applauds rappers, whose names she has never heard off. Next comes a reminder that Trump has always played out his corruption and scandals in plain view of the public, but always seems to get away with it. Ditto also appears to have had an inappropriate relationship with his daughter daughter Ivanka – during all stages of child and adulthood. But then again, everyone was made aware of it. Then Moore starts criticising himself: clips from his TV appearance on the Roseanne Barr Show with Trump, the latter praising “Roger & Me”. And Ivanka’s husband Jared Kushner even threw a premiere party for Moore’s “Sicko”, because he too liked it so much.

Moore then veers off to his home town of Flint, Michigan (the state Trump won by a whisker). In April 2014, Governor Rick Snyder (R), had called a “State of emergency Management”, dismissing all elected state representatives, and replacing them with his cronies, mostly from the corporate sector – without ever giving any reason for the so-called emergency. Flint got his fresh water from Lake Huron, but Snyder had ordered a new (superfluous) pipeline to be built, and during the time of the construction, water for Flint was pumped from the polluted river which gives the town its name. Thousands of, mainly black, children suffered lead-poisoning, 12 died of Legionnaires disease, but Governor Snyder insisted that the water was safe. Later President Obama visited the stricken town, tasting the water publicly, but only putting his lips to the rim of the glass. Townspeople, who had welcomed his arrival, later damaged a mural in his honour: trust in political institutions in the poorest community of the USA was gone.

Moore concludes with a call to arms, to uphold basic democracy. He also questions whether democracy really exists in the USA, or indeed whether it has ever existed in the across the country. The Snyder example in Flint shows how even the most basic of democratic rights can be circumvented: during a recent TV appearance Trump has already asked the public whether he should  do away with the 2020 election, if a majority of them is in agreement. It seems that this is already a foregone conclusion in Russia and communist China, so why not the USA? For those who don’t support Trump the outlook is grim: Just like Orwell’s Big Brother, Trump urges the people of his country not to always believe what they see and read. Slightly unwieldy, and certainly too long, Fahrenheit 11/9 is still valuable. AS

SCREENING NATIONWIDE FROM OCTOBER 19 2018

The Plan that came from the Bottom Up (2018) **** LFF 2018

Dir.: Steve Sprung; Documentary with shop stewards of Lucas Aerospace; Portugal/UK 2018, 212 min.

This film essay, the feature documentary debut of director/writer Steve Sprung, is a British history lesson about about politics, the working class and ecology. Five shop stewards of Lucas Aerospace, who helped to draw up the Lucas Aerospace (L.A.) Shop Steward Committee’s Alternative Corporate Plan in 1976, discuss their motivation, struggle and eventual defeat. The Alternative Corporate Plan was written up after a meeting of 34 Shop Stewards with the then Industry Minister Tony Benn in November 1974, and was called by the Financial Times “the most radical alternative plans ever been drawn up by workers for their company” and nominated for the 1979 Nobel Peace Price.

Lucas Aerospace was a company relaying very much on their armament production, even though it accounted only for just over 50% of the general turnover. In 1974 the company decided to make redundancies, “due to increased international competition”. The Alternative Corporate Plan was an answer, “because it irked the workers that while they could produce Concorde, they were unable to build affordable paraffin heaters for many suffering from the cold in winter”. Staff and manual workers came up with a list of our 150 products, which could replace the military hardware – over 180 organisations had put their proposals forward to the Combine. The argument was that the production of socially more useful goods would also mean that the state would not to have to pay unemployment benefit. The L.A. management rejected the proposals immediately, even though they had admitted that the market for armament products was shrinking. The list of alternative goods was long: it included medical equipment, transport vehicles, improved braking systems, energy conservation, oceanic equipment, and telechiric machines. A cry specific proposal included an expansion of 40% in the production of kidney dialysis machines, which were being manufactured on one of the L.A. sites. The Combine was successful in attracting funding from charitable bodies, which enabled them to set up the Centre for Alternative Industrial Systems (CAITS) at North East London Polytechnic and the Unit for the Development of Alternative Products (UDAP) at Coventry Polytechnic. But after Prime Minister Wilson replaced Benn, and took charge himself of the industry portfolio, he sided with the management of of L.A., and the Combine plan was not even discussed.

Newsreels and documentaries play a big part in recreating the 1970s in the UK which seems a very long time ago. But A Plan is visually dominated by the repeated documentation of the bloody wars L.A. products played such a major part in. The ethical dilemma is so clear that one wonders how successive governments tolerated and even supported a company like L.A.: Between 1971 and 1976, L.A. made a profit of 25 Million £, at the same time, it received grants from Labour/Tory governments worth 10.6. Million £, effectively paying real tax of 470 000 £. But then, today the government supports fossil fuels four times as much as sustainable energy.

The Plan is a reminder that although the black-and-white images seem outdated to us now, the underlying moral bankruptcy of successive government decisions has not changed. Lucas Aerospace doesn’t exist any more, parts of the company were sold off, others went bankrupt. AS

SCREENING DURING LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 10-21 OCTOBER 2018   

Cladagh (2018)**** LFF 2018

Dir: Margaret Salmon | Doc | UK | 40′

Starfish, cup coral, langoustine, dolphins, Herring gulls and Gaelic verse: these are a few of Ullapool’s favourite things, along with the limpid seas and emerald hillsides that make this Scottish Highland settlement, warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, such an important port and tourist destination.

CLADAGH is a lyrical portrait of indigenous habitats and species, as well as human interactions with the sea, in and around the remote coastal town in northwest Scotland. But the film is more than just a documentary – it’s a sensory experience that lulls us into the gentle rhythms and the ebb and flow of its maritime way of life that imbues in its inhabitants a natural softness that has sadly disappeared from the urban sprawl. Wandering through the cobbled streets in the June sunshine, children dance on the key-side while older residents take in the glorious sea views. A local school gathers for a ceilidh accompanied by solo musicians, and then back to the shore for an underwater dip in the cool Atlantic where a variety of local sea animals enjoy their unpolluted habitat.

Director Margaret Salmon, who made the hyper realist fantasy drama Eglantine (2016) develops her worthwhile and enchanting filmic forays into the natural world that started with P.S. in 2002, and continued with Everything That Rises Must Converge (2010); Enemies of the Rose (2011); Gibraltar (2013); Pyramid (2014) and Bird (2016), amongst other titles. Very much festival fare, but valuable in their thoughtful exploration of the British Isles, and often further afield. MT

SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | 10-21 OCTOBER 2018

Evelyn (2018)

Dir: Orlando von Einsiedel | UK Doc | 95′

A quietly moving exploration of grief is set in the Highlands of Scotland and the glorious summer seascapes of Cumbria where a family attempt to recover from their loss.

Orlando von Einsiedel’s the documentary debut follows a Oscar nomination for his short film Virunga, and he builds on that experience with something much more intimate and personal and also experimental: with so much grief to process he frequently questions his ability to complete the project given the feelings that surge up during film-making. As such, Evelyn is very much a cathartic experience for Orlando, as well as a testament to tragic bereavement and coming to terms with all.

When his brother, newly diagnosed with schizophrenia and suffering intense depression, took his own life at the age of 18. The eldest of the four, Orlando and his other two siblings have buried the trauma. His parents divorced after completing the family, long before the tragedy happened. Over a decade after the suicide, the family set out on a hiking tour, joined at one point by their rather pompous German father and Evelyn’s two best friends, to reflect on his death and life.

Sometimes when people die we imbue them with qualities they did not possess and this is certainly the case for Evelyn’s father who subtly casts aspersions for what happened on his family – particularly on daughter Gwendolyn, that almost suggests that his son would have survived had he gone to Germany. But on a more positive note, it is Evelyn’s close friends who bring the most warmth and clarity to this family buttoned down by their unreleased grief. Evelyn is a worthwhile and beautifully captured exploration of collective emotional grief.MT

NETFLIX

 

Austrian Films at the BFI London Film Festival 2018

 

 

AUSTRIAN FILMS BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL

Austrian cinema is always a worthwhile presence at the BFI London Film Festival, and this year is no exception with Sudabeh Mortezai’s streetwise drama JOY featuring in the main competition.

JOY (2018) Tuesday 16 & Wednesday 17 October

Sudabeh Mortezai (Macondo, LFF 2014) presents a vital and hugely affecting drama that tackles the vicious cycle of sex trafficking in modern Europe.

ANGELO (2018) Wednesday 17 & Thursday 18 October

The powerful story of Angelo Soliman, a forced Europeanised African who makes his way through Viennese society in the early 18th century without ever belonging.

STYX (2018) Thursday 11 & Saturday 13 October

A professional woman’s solo sailing journey turns into a deadly serious ethical dilemma in this unusual and taut political allegory. (*Germany-Austria co-production)

TWENTY-TWO HOURS  (2018) Tuesday 16 October

Bouchra Khalili’s meditation on revolutionary histories considers the poet Jean Genet’s secret 1970 visit to the United States at the invitation of the Black Panther Party. *Germany-USA-Norway-Austria co-production Screened in conjunction with PROMISED LANDS, directed by Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa. Austria-Germany-Uganda 2018. 19min

YOMEDDINE (2018) Thursday 18, Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 October

Egyptian filmmaker A.B. Shawky makes his feature debut with this utterly unique road movie which charts the friendship between a leper and a young orphan. *Egypt-Austria co-production

BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 10-21 OCTOBER 2018 

Bisbee 17 (2018) **** LFF 2018

Dir: Robert Greene | Doc | US | 122′

Robert Greene’s documentary sees him working alongside the residents of the former copper-mining town of Bisbee, just 7 miles north of Mexico, as they prepare to put on the “largest group therapy session” in response to an infamous local event that changed this town forever, a hundred years ago. Since then the “town that refused to die” makes a tourist attraction of its disused mines. Bisbee is now home to an assortment of creatives and left-leaning non-conformists, a far cry from its origins during the copper boom.

Accompanied from the opening scene by an ominous score of strings, the film recalls the major event in question which took place on July 12, 1917 when miners on strike against their bosses, the copper companies, were aroused from their beds and taken to the central post office, thence expelled in cattle cars via the desert to New Mexico. Those responsible were fellow citizens who had taken it upon themselves to end the menace they felt the striking workers had become to the town. Bisbee 17 commemorates this tragic historical event now known as the ‘Bisbee Deportation’.

Greene’s outing clearly has a contemporary resonance, although it actually raises more questions than it answers. And while not attempting to provide a definitive history of the episode in question, it never really examines what then happened to the deportees, or how their plight was dealt with by the county’s legal framework. It is more concerned with  personal recollections of how the conflict divided families, friends – the entire local community – as Bisbeans take it in turns to reminisce over who was a loyalist/capitalist and who a protester or socialist.

Interestingly enough, the majority of those striking for higher pay and improved conditions were originally from Mexico and Eastern Europe (all but one of the loyalists was Anglo-Saxon) so it turns out – surprisingly – that there was a quasi-ethnic cleansing element to the conflict. And whether this was a latent cause for the uprising is never examined in depth, as this is by no means an ethnographical study. Fernando Serrano, a young Mexican-American man who had never heard of the deportation before Greene rocked up with his crew, suddenly becomes a central protagonist in the proceedings, playing a Mexican miner. Comparisons soon emerge between his family’s past and the 1917 events, and this gives the documentary emotional texture and offers much food for thought. As the professional film crew collaborates with the locals the endeavour starts to take on a life of its own. The results are both haunting and moving. MT

SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 10-21 OCTOBER

 

 

Kusama: Infinity 2018) ****

Dir.: Heather Lenz; Documentary with Yayoi Kusama; USA 2018; 78 min.

Heather Lenz’s captivating debut feature documentary is a portrait of Japanese painter, performance artist and film maker Yayoi Kusama, today the best-selling living female artist, whose long career was rescued from oblivion in the 1980s, when she shared the limelight with such luminaries as Jackson Pollack.

Yayoi Kusama was born Matsumoto, Japan in 1929. Her parents were respectable middle-class people whose torrid marriage was the troubled backcloth to Kusama’s early life. When still a young teenager, she was forced to work in a military factory, producing parachutes for Japanese soldiers. In 1948 she enrolled at the Kyoto School for Arts and Crafts, gaining success afterwards with her lively watercolours. Emigrating to New York in the late 1950s, she became famous for her room-sized installations such as Mirror/infinity (1963). This concept was a first for the New York art scene, but being a woman and a foreigner, she was literally written out of history: Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg exhibited work “very much unlike their past creations”, commented one art critic, implying that Kusama’s ideas had been “borrowed” by men, who dominated the galleries in the 60s and 70s when women artists could never hope to exhibit on their own, only in groups.

During the Vietnam War, Kusama staged many ‘happenings’, and nudity featured proudly. In 1966 she visited the Venice Biennale, which she ‘crashed’ with her installation of many hundred spheres on a ‘kinetic carpet’. But when the spheres went on sale for $4 each, she was evicted. In 1993 she would be the first Japanese artist at the 45th Biennale to have a solo show at the place she had ‘crashed’ in 1966.

Tension with her father gave way to difficulties with intimacy in adulthood. Her longest platonic relationship was with the artist Joseph Cornell, and lasted until to his death in 1972.  When Cornell and her were kissing in the garden of the house he shared with his mother, she would ambush their intimacy by pouring cold water over Kusama. Returning to Japan in 1973, her name in the annuals of her High School in Matsumoto was soon obliterated due of her “shameful” behaviour. Today, her permanent life sculptures still stand in front of the Matsumoto City Museum of Art, where she had last exhibited in 2005.

In 1977 Kusama checked into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill – where she returned every night, having spend the day working in her studio. Sporting her ‘signature’ red Wig and Polk-Dot clothing in the studio, she works intensively to finish her intricate paintings in three days “because I am in the last phase of my life, and have to no time to lose”. Clearly her work is informed by her complex past.

Since 2001 Kusama has had eight major exhibitions all over the world; in 2017 “Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors” opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC and will travel to five major museums until the end of 2019. The exhibition celebrates her 65-year long career comprising six of her stunning “Infinity Mirror Rooms” and other key works of together with her latest series “My eternal Soul”.

Lenz captures the personality of this amazing artist who has triumphed over adversity. Today, Yayoi Kusama is serene, her colour schemes reflect optimism through vibrant primary colours. She is an incarnation of the phrase: “if it wasn’t for art, I would have killed myself long ago”.   AS

ON RELEASE FROM FRIDAY, 5TH OCTOBER 2018 NATIONWIDE

      

Won’t you be my Neighbor? (2018) **** LFF2018

Dir: Morgan Neville | US | Doc | 94′ | With Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Al Gore, Robert F Kennedy. 

In his latest documentary Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet from Stardom) looks back on the legacy of US TV presenter Fred Rogers (1926-2003) , whose programmes during the 1950s were popular with young kids, introducing them to a broad educational agenda as well as providing light entertainment. While the nation changed around him, Fred Rogers stood firm in his beliefs about the importance of protecting childhood. And Neville pays tribute to this legacy with the latest in his series of highly engaging, moving documentary portraits of essential American artists.

Looking like a cross between Val Doonican (he donned a different cardy in each episode) and William Rees-Mogg, Fred had a calm and kindly manner in explaining, in an accessible way, contemporary political issues as well as more complex concepts such as love and divorce. He was married with his own children and advocated the government funding of children’s television before a US Senate committee.

Rogers started out as an academic with a background in child development and after ordaining as a Presbyterian minister he headed for a church career, but felt an overriding need to reach out to kids through the medium of television. A pioneer of popular culture, he cared deeply about protecting the emotional needs of the nation’s children. His pre-school programme Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood ran from 1968 – 2001.

His onscreen manner had nothing to do with preachy didacticism. He talked touchingly about loving one’s neighbour and respecting the community. And while it’s easy to sneer about his caring approach and these fluffy ideals, the man comes across as a really genuine character, and buy no means a pseud – unlike Jimmy Saville. Whereas nowadays kid’s attention spans are short, and TV time is precious and expensive – with a need for frequent commercial breaks, Rogers’ programmes had a leisurely pace to them, and a spontaneity that allowed time and space for contemplation, and he always made sure to repeat that his young viewers were ‘loved, and lovable’ just as they were. He created characters such as Captain Friday (who hated change) and his own alter ego Stripey Tiger.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor also engages with the idea that Rogers’ fostered narcissism and a sense of entitlement by doting on his child fans, but this was hardly the case – he was simply at pains to ease their fears and anxieties so they could develop their own sense of self-esteem. In fact, it emerges that Rogers had his own share of heartache, and actually worried about whether his programmes would make a difference to children’s lives in America’s increasingly violent culture. Neville draws on a wealth of archive footage as well as contemporary interviews to create this warm and informative portrait of a remarkable man and his legacy, whether or not you know of this humane and public figure. MT

SCREENING DURING LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 10-21 OCTOBER 2018

   

The Gospel According to André (2017) Mubi

Dir: Kate Novacek | US Biopic | 95′

Kate Novacek cuts André Leon Talley rather too much slack in this glowing portrait of the first black fashion editor of Vogue who rose from a modest upbringing in North Carolina to become the driving force of changing the face of fashion in Paris and New York, during the Jim Crowe era. The Gospel According André is very much that, with Talley projecting his own self image and Novacek rarely getting behind it.

Born in 1948, Talley’s grandmother was the abiding influence in his upbringing. Early interest in fashion came during Sunday’s church meetings, “the only time when Afro-American identity was re-affirmed. It was like a fashion show”, says Talley, who was particularly impressed by the hats worn by the female congregation members. An MA at Brown on a scholarship, led Talley to New York in 1974, where he was taken under the wing of Diana Vreeland, then editor of Vogue. He became a regular at Andy Warhol’s Studio 54 “the only person not interested in sex or drugs”. But Talley’s love life is a blank: he is quoted “the work left him little time for a partner”, and he chuckles when recalling how Vreeland was suspicious “that he’d slept with a white woman”. “If only she’d known”. This comment regarding his sexual orientation is a leading one. 

Nearly two metres tall, Talley stands out in any crowd, and his love of capes and kaftans gives him an air of an African prince. His was a meteoric rise through the ranks from Women’s Wear Daily and W between 1975 and 1980, he then became Fashion’s News director at ‘Vogue’ between 1983 and 1987 and its creative Director until 1995 when he moved to Paris for Vogue and W meeting Carl Lagerfeld and Yves St. Laurent. In 1998 he became Vogue’s Editor-at-large until 2013.

‘Operatic best’ describes his taste. He loved Visconti and one of his film-subjects, Sissi but also experimented with Gone With the Wind creating the first black Scarlet O’Hara. He wrote at length about Sandy Crawford’s appearance in a black veil, reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy. We hear a lot from other celebrities like Woopi Goldberg, Diane von Furstenberg and Anna Wintour, but somehow Talley is absent from this portrait – apart from what he wants to give away. Only once does Novack find an emotional moment, when Talley talks about being called “Queen Kong” in Paris; that seems to imply he could only make so many connections in the fashion world by sleeping around. Somehow a true trail-blazer like him deserves a more demanding approach, even if it means re-questioning him. And that would be another film. AS

Now on MUBI

 

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A (2018) ****

Dir.: Stephen Loveridge; Documentary starring M.I.A.; USA/UK 2018, 96 min.

Director Stephen Loveridge’s debut feature documentary is a tour-de-force of struggles, contradictions and art: rarely has a person had to fight so much for personal, political and artistic identity than M.I.A. – born in Hounslow, growing up in war-torn Sri Lanka and coming back to the UK to start a glittering artistic career, only to be de-railed by music industry and mainstream media, who could not handle her outspokenness.

Matanghi ‘Maya’ Arulprasan was born in London to the engineer and soon-to-be Tamil resistance leader Arul and his wife Kala in 1975. The family moved six months later to Sri Lanka, where M.I.A. grew up in a war torn country: The Civil War lasted from 1980 to 2009. Bombs where smuggled covered by toys, and Government soldiers shot at the school M.I.A. was attending. In 1986 Kala moved with her three children to India; and in the same year to London.

M.I.A. attended the Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design, and gained a degree in 2000. Being first interested in visual arts and cinema, she later turned to music, creating hits like “Kala” (2007) and “Maya” (2010). But after her visit to Sri Lanka in 2001, she became politicized. The main stream media in the West reported the Civil War as a fight between Tamils (terrorists) against the legal Government – it was in reality a near-genocide of the minority. Not that her family had any pity on her: “You never had the war zone experience” – she was estranged from her own country, and back in London she was taunted as a “Paki”. In 2009 at the Grammy Awards, M..I.A was nine months pregnant, and commented that her interview in a newspaper was  “too much about me”. To which the journalist replied: “You are the first to say this. People mostly want it to be about them”. A year later, further controversy occurred after the publication of a high-budget music video “Born Free”, which showed the rounding up of white boys with red hair, who would later be shot in the head. NY Times Magazine Lynn Hirschberg raved about the video originally, but later was very critical, misquoting M.I.A.  And at the Half-Time at Super Bowl 2012, Maya was appearing with Madonna, giving the nation the middle-finger, after being angered by Madonna’s treatment as sexist: before she went on stage. She had to change her outfit after complaints by male managers of the event. The NFL (National Football League) sued M.I.A. for 16 million, the law suit was settled later in private. Her marriage to Benjamin Bronfman (a member of the Lehman family) lasted six years until 2012, the couple had a child. M.I.A. commented after the split “who Ben is, on paper, sounds more powerful than who I am, because of where he comes from”.

The documentary is book-ended by the music video “Borders” featuring refugees and migrants. It’s not a hagiography – Loveridge does not paint M.I.A. as a victim, but as a political artist, the overlapping borders between art and politics causing friction. And M.I.A.’s approach is not always the most sensible – but how could anyone be balanced and adjusted growing up in a civil war, one side led by your father? Loveridge directs with empathy, trying to do his subject justice, without losing all detachment. Overall Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. is not only substantial, but very entertaining. AS

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 21 SEPTEMBER 2018

Faces, Places (2017) ***

IMG_3618Dir: Agnes Varda, JR | Doc | French/Belgian | 91min

The diminutive Agnès Varda comes across as a warm social animal at the ripe age of 89.  Collaborating for the first time ever with another photographer, the Ali G lookalike and French creative force JR – possibly for his able assistance and van driving skills – the pair embark on a tour of France, not just to take pretty pictures, but as a tribute to the people they meet along the way. Travelling south from the Northern mining towns to the Midi and Savoie, their aim is to record the memory of ordinary citizens by pasting their oversized photographs for posterity, on old houses and monuments.

JR’s van is painted to look like an enormous camera, and contains a photo-booth that churns out the large photographic prints. It’s a clever idea and one that generates enormous pleasure all round. By the end of their journey, Varda will even have her toes and eyes emblazed on road tanks waggons, to carry her adventure forward. Through this interchange of photographs and conversations with locals, they visit the small towns of Bonnieux, Pirou, St Aubin and Sainte Marguerite where in conversation with farmers, postmen, waitresses and dockworkers Varda builds a special portrait of contemporary France that’s also frank and sometimes even controversial along the lines of: ‘why don’t more women drive heavy goods vehicles’, or, ‘should a goat always keep its horns?’.

Varda still has a keen eye, even though she now suffers macular degeneration and has to undergo painful regular hospital injections. Claiming that ‘chance’ has always been her best assistant she clearly has a positive view of life and reminisces over her industry friends: there is Henri Cartier Bresson and his wife Marine Franke, whose graves we visit, and Guy Bourdin whose photo ends up on a beach monument. And despite happy memories of her friendship with Jean Luc Godard, when turning up at his house for an invitation to tea, the veteran director churlishly fails to appear. MT

NATIONWIDE FROM 21 SEPTEMBER 2018

 

11 Films to See at the BFI London Film Festival 2018

 

The lineup for the 2018 BFI London Film Festival has been announced, and the public box office is open. The 12-day festival will show over 225 feature-length films from all over the globe – so here are some of the best we’ve seen from this year’s international festival circuit.

WILD LIFE (2018)

A teenage boy experiences the breakdown of his parents’ marriage in Paul Dano’s crisp coming of age family drama, set in 1960s Montana, and based on Richard Ford’s novel. Although once or twice veering into melodrama, actor turned filmmaker Dano maintains impressive control over his sleek and very lucid first film which is anchored by three masterful performances, and sees a young family disintegrate after the husband loses his job. WILDLIFE has a great deal in common with Retribution Road (2008), with its similar counterpoint of aspirational hope for a couple starting out on their life in a new town – in this case Great Falls, Montana. But here the perspective is very different – in Wildlife, the entire experience is seen from the unique perspective of a pubescent boy, Joe, played thoughtfully by young Australian actor Ed Oxenbould (The Visit).

WOMAN AT WAR (2018) – SACD Winner, Cannes Film Festival 2018

Benedict Erlingsson’s follow-up to Of Horses and Men is a lively, often funny eco-warrior drama that follows a single woman taking on the state of Iceland with surprising results. Lead actress Haldora Geirhardsdottir has an athletic schedule, running and hiding in the countryside, with helicopters and drones circling overhead. With a magnificent twist at the end, Woman at War doesn’t pull its punches: There are shades of Aki Kaurismaki, the dead pan humour taking away some of the tension of the countryside hunt for Halla. And Erlingsson makes a refreshing break from tradition in the super hero genre by casting a middle-aged woman, who is also super-fit, in the central role.

THE FAVOURITE (2018) Best Actress, Olivia Colman, Venice 2018.

The Favourite is going to be a firm favourite with mainstream audiences and cineastes alike. This latest arthouse drama is his first to be written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara who bring their English sensibilities to this quixotic Baroque satire that distills the essence of Kubrick, Greenaway and Molière in an irreverent and ravishingly witty metaphor for women’s treachery. Set around 1710 during the final moments of Queen Annes’s reign it presents an artful female centric view of courtly life seen from the unique perspective of three remarkable women while on the battlefields England is at war with the French. Despite its period setting The Favourite coins a world with exactly the same credentials as that of Brexit and Trump.

SUNSET – FIPRESCI Prize Venice 2018 

Laszlo Nemes follows his Oscar-winning triumph Son Of Saul with another fraught and achingly romantic fragment of the past again captured through his voyeuristic camera that traces the febrile events leading up to the shooting of Emperor Franz Ferdinand that changed the world forever Set in Budapest between 1913 and the outbreak of the First World War, Sunset reveals a labyrinth of enigma, intrigue, hostility, greed and lust as the central character played by Juli Jakab (Son of Saul) guides us through scenes of ravishing elegance and cataclysmic violence. What seems utter chaos gradually becomes more clear as the spiderweb is infiltrated. Nemes pays homage to the late Gabor Body whose Narcissus and Psyche, are the obvious touchstones to Sunset. On an historical level, Mathias Erdely’s images conjure up the fin-de-siècle fragility in the same way as Gabor’s masterpieces. 

BORDER – Winner, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2018 

BORDER is one of those bracingly original films. Melding fantasy and folklore while teetering on the edge of Gothic horror, it manages to be cleverly convincing and unbelievably weird at the same time. Fraught with undercurrents of sexual identity and self-realisation this gruesome rites of passage fable is another fabulous story with enduring appeal for the arthouse crowd and diehard fans of low key horror. Based on a short story by Let the Right One In creator John Ajvide Lindqvist it is Ali Abbasi’s follow up to Shelley and his first film with writing partner Isabella Ekloff. Abbasi masterfully manages the subtle strands of his storyline while keeping the tension taut and a mischievous humour bubbling under the surface.

DOGMAN Best Actor, Marcello Forte, Cannes 2018 | Palm Dog Winner 2018 

Matteo Garrone’s terrific revenge thriller returns to the filmmaker’s own stamping ground of Caserta with a richly thematic and compulsive exploration of male rivalry and belonging in a downtrodden, criminal-infested, football-playing community scratching a living in a seaside backwater. Life has always been tough in this neck of the woods, infested by gangland influences: it is a terrain that Garrone knows and describes well in his 2008 feature Gomorrah. A brutal brotherhood controls this bleak coastal wilderness where everyone relies on each other to survive. Dogman a gritty and violent film and often unbearably so, but there are moments of heart-rending tenderness – between his Marcello and his doggy dependants – where tears will certainly well up. Fonte won Best Award at Cannes for his skilful portrayal that switches subtly from sad loner to daring desperado.

MADELINE’S MADELINE  

Josephine Decker’s inventive, impressionistic dramas – Butter on the Latch (2013) /Though Wast Mild and Lovely (2014) are an acquired taste but one that marks her out as a distinctive female voice on the American indie circuit. And here she is at Sundance again with a multi-layered mother and daughter tale that is probably her best feature so far. With a stunning central performance from newcomer Helena Howard and a dash of cinematic chutzpah that sends this soaring, Madeline’s Madeline is a thing of beauty – intoxicating to watch, compellingly chaotic with a potently emotional storyline.

MUSEUM – Best Script Berlinale 2018

Alonso Ruizpalacios’ follow-up to his punchy debut Guëros, sees two wayward young Mexicans from Satellite City robbing the local archeological museum of its Mayan  treasures – simply out of boredom. MUSEUM is an offbeat but strangely captivating drama that gradually gets more entertaining, although it never quite feels completely satisfying, despite some stunningly inventive sequences and three convincing performances from Gael Garcia Bernal, Simon Russell Beale and Alfredo Castro (The Club). It’s largely down to local Mexican incompetence that these two amateurish dudes (Bernal/Ortizgris) get away with their heist in the first place. But what starts as a so-so domestic drama with the same aesthetic as No!, slowly starts to sizzle with suspense as the director deftly manages the film’s tonal shifts to surprise and even delight us – this is a film that deserves a watch for its sheer wakiness and inventive chutzpah. 

IN FABRIC 

Impeccable red talons slide a flick knife across a box to reveal its contours, a beautiful silky dress that can kill. Peter Strickland’s latest, highly-anticipated oddball feature again stars Sidse Babett Knudsen (The Duke of Burgundy) in a haunting ghost story that follows the fate of this bedevilled garment as it passes from owner to owner, with tragic consequences against the backdrop of the winter sales in a busy department store. This is a gem of a giallo with Strickland’s signature soundscape dominating, just as it did in Berberian Sound Studio. 

THE WILD PEAR TREE – Palme d’Or, Cannes 2018 

Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s long-awaited follow-up to Winter Sleep melds his classic themes of family, fate and self-realisation into a leisurely and immersive 3-hour narrative that won him the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes. This is a sumptuous, visual treat to savour but you’ll never actually see a pear tree. 

THEY’LL LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD (2018)

There should be a sub-genre dedicated to films about the multi-talented force that was Orson Welles. Here Morgan Neville (Best of Enemies) has his turn with a focus on the final fifteen years of the director Welles as he pins his Hollywood comeback on a film called The Other Side of the Wind, a film within a film sees an ageing director trying to complete his final oeuvre. Welles’ film starring John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich was a hotchpotch of brilliance and tedium, in equal parts. Neville’s doc offers new insight into the creative legend with clarity and charismatic flourishes that would make Welles turn in his grave…with approval. MT

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

AQUARELA: Victor Kossakovsky, Eicca Toppinen; BEEN SO LONG: Tinge Krishnan, Michaela Coel, George Mackay, Nadine Marsh-Edwards, Amanda Jenks; FAHRENHEIT 11/9: Michael Moore; THE HATE U GIVE: George Tillman Jr, Amandla Stenberg, Angie Thomas; MAKE ME UP: Rachel Maclean; OUT OF BLUE: Carol Morley, Patricia Clarkson; PETERLOO: Mike Leigh; RAFIKI: Wanuri Kahiu; THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD: Peter Jackson 

OFFICIAL COMPETITION

BIRDS OF PASSAGE: Ciro Guerra, David Gallego; DESTROYER: Karyn Kusama; HAPPY AS LAZZARO: Alice Rohrwacher; HAPPY NEW YEAR, COLIN BURSTEAD.: Ben Wheatley; IN FABRIC: Peter Strickland; JOY: Sudabeh Mortezai; THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN: David Lowery; SHADOW: Zhao Xiaoding; SUNSET: László Nemes; TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG: Dominga Sotomayor

FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION

THE CHAMBERMAID: Lila Avilés; THE DAY I LOST MY SHADOW: Soudade Kaadan; HOLIDAY: Isabella Eklöf; JOURNEY TO A MOTHER’S ROOM: Celia Rico Clavellino; ONLY YOU: Harry Wootliff; RAY & LIZ: Richard Billingham; SONI: Ivan Ayr; WILDLIFE: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Carey Mulligan

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

DREAM AWAY: Marouan Omara, Johanna Domke; EVELYN: Orlando von Einsiedel; JOHN MCENROE – IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION: Julien Faraut; THE PLAN THAT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM UP: Steve Sprung; PUTIN’S WITNESSES: Vitaly Mansky; THE RAFT: Marcus Lindeen; THEATRE OF WAR: Lola Arias, David Jackson, Sukrim Rai; WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE?: Roberto Minervini; YOUNG AND ALIVE: Matthieu Bareyre.

THE BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | 10-21 October 2018

 

 

 

 

Reversing Roe (2018) *** Telluride Film Festival 2018

Dir: Ricki Stern/Annie Sundberg | Doc | US | 90′

Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg explore the history of the abortion debate in this well-researched and workmanlike documentary that avoids filmic flourishes and brings nothing new to the story. It is nonetheless a worthwhile summation of what has gone before in various film and TV outings and might help cristalise viewers own thoughts or further inform those with little knowledge of the polemic. 

While same sex couples are busy bringing up their children in most parts of Europe, the pro-life lobby in the United States still rages vehemently for a ban on abortion 45 years after the Supreme Court declared the practice legal with the Roe v. Wade case. While legal challenges and restrictions continue to thwart women wishing to end their pregnancies, the fact remains that doing so is still a highly personal decision. And while the film begins on an emotional note with a mother breaking down in court, what follows is a pragmatic detached study that seeks to illuminate the issues from a variety of difference standpoints with archive footage, newsreels and interviews showing both sides of the equation. 

Gloria Steinem maintains that it is a woman’s right to control her own body. Meanwhile Texan Right to Life campaigner John Seago, believes abortion is murder. On the middle ground, the appealing and well-informed Rev. Tom Davis was instrumental in advising women how to gain access to a sympathetic doctor before abortion was made legal, and he points out that illegal abortions were rarely prosecuted at that time. The wealthy have always been able to access a termination, but it was the poor and particularly Black women who often took extreme measures, with tragic results. But after the law changed, restrictions ironically came into effect in at least 4 US States. 

In St Louis, a calm and committed gynaecologist Dr Coleen McNicholas believes in choice and travels from her clinic in Missouri to help those women affected by the state restrictions. In contrast, Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, resorts to the Bible to justify his pro-life beliefs, and is proud about his success in shutting down several abortion clinics. McNicholas emerges the most convincing of the two from both a scientific and personal point of view. 

This rather didactic study then chronicles the various political standpoints of the debate charting the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump, and showing how as individuals they were more liberally- minded until it came to the election campaigns.  

What’s missing here is the grey area of pro-life and pro-choice: an analysis on the various parties’ view on the stages of pregnancy and how this ethical analysis relates to the legal and the political aspects of abortion, hinging on the crucial moment when life is considered to begin: on conception, when a heartbeat is discernible, when the foetus is fully formed just prior to birth or at birth? Some may agree that abortion should not be available after three months. others longer etc. None of this is really dealt with. The filmmakers could also have developed the strand about language and phraseology surrounding the debate. Rights Lawyer Kathryn Kolbert and Dr McNicholas both argued that the phrase “partial birth abortion” is not an accepted medical term, and is not used by abortion practitioners or the medical community at large. The phrase is used by pro-lifers as a politically-weighted term to describe the dilation of the cervix to extract a foetus before term. All in all, this is a thorough examination that triumphs in maintaining a detached view and in relating the facts as they stand today, with abortion rights hanging in the balance of the Supreme Court. MT

 

TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL | 31 AUGUST – 3 SEPTEMBER 2018 ON NETFLIX from 13 September 2018

Flight of a Bullet (2017) Open City Doc Festival 2018

DIR: Beata Bubenec | Doc | 80′

In Flight of a Bullet Russian documentarian Beata Bubenec offers unprecedented insight into life on a volunteer military base during the Donbass 2014 conflict in Ukraine.

This remarkable cinema vérité film is remarkable for being recorded during one single 80 minute take of her handhold camera and brings us face to face with the conflict offering a palpable sense of unease verging on terror. Bubenec gains unprecedented access to a bomb blasted bridge over a river where we witness the arrest and questioning of a Ukrainian man accused of being a separatist by hooded aggressors. We then accompany the men during a car ride to the military base where Bubenec is clearly as recognised part of the team.

Gritty and real, this is guerrilla filmmaking at its more urgent and cutting edge – nothing prepares us for what will happen next. MT

OPEN CITY DOC FESTIVAL | LONDON 4.-9 SEPTEMBER 2018 | Grand Prix Winner

Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast (2018) **** Venice Film Festival 2018

Dir: Bruce Weber | US Doc | 91′

Suave screen idol Robert Mitchum comes across as a crooning hearth-throb in Bruce Weber’s starry cinematic sashay that contains previously unseen interview footage shot during the 1990s.

Bruce Weber is best known for his black-and-white fashion shots (for Abercrombie & Fitch) but here turns his camera on the prolific career of a Hollywood antihero who made over 133 screen appearances during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – most notably in Cape Fear, Night of the Hunter and Out of the Past. 

Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast follows the usual format of archive footage (taken in 1997) and interviews with people connected to Mitchum, particularly in his later years when his nonchalant presence could change the atmosphere in a room. Shot in Weber’s stylish monochrome camera the film opens with  Johnny Depp recalling how Mitchum would always reply “Worse” when asked how he was – on the telephone. This was a response he’d picked up from Groucho Marx. Liam Neeson and Benicio Del Toro also share their memories of a much-celebrated but quietly complicated man who embodied American masculinity.

Named after the song by Mitchum’s The Wonderful Country co-star Julie London, the film explores how the macho star could also be tender and gentle despite his tough guy image, and reveals his musical talent with footage from the recording of a jazz album (that has never been released) that sees him enjoying an amusing time with Marianne Faithful as the duo record together at Capitol Records.

Mitchum certainly knew how to flirt, using some well-rehearsed one-liners and jokes. But Weber shows how he mellowed significantly in later years without losing any of his sardonic undercurrent of complexity. In a darker moment, his daughter recalls his talk of suicide, but this is an avenue that Weber never explores, along with his time behind bars for possession of marijuana. On the relationship front, we hear how he was devoted to his wife Dorothy – the two met in their teens and stayed together – despite dalliances, amongst them with Shirley MacLaine who never appears to give her side of the story.

Nice Girls is largely freewheeling and episodic rather than chronologically biographical in format: hardly anything is mentioned about Mitchum’s upbringing or the early years of his career in Hollywood. His late co-star Polly Bergen talks about her feelings during the unsettling brutal rape scene in Cape Fear when he smoothed raw egg on her décolleté, culminating in her falling in love with him. Afterwards she claimed he was the epitome of tenderness, apologising profusely after the manhandling episode where he appeared to be ‘in a trance’. Perhaps this is even a latent bid on the director’s part to explain the bad behaviour that led to the #metoo backlash, given that Weber was also fingered during the affair.

Clearly Robert Mitchum’s choice of roles makes him one of the more edgy and interesting stars in the Hollywood firmament but he clearly had many strings to his bow, and one was undoubtedly a talent for carrying a tune, evidenced in his renditions of Ned Washington’s ‘Wild is the Wind’ and Mitchell Parish’s ‘Stars Fell on Alabama’ which enrich this pleasurable film along with its woozy jazz score. Irving Berlin’s ‘Dancing Cheek to Cheek’ and Gershwin’s ‘Isn’t it a Pity’ complete the audio picture of this intriguing talent to amuse. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL CLASSICS 2018

 

Joy (2018) Venice Film Festival | VENICE DAYS 2018

Dir.: Sudabeh Mortezai; Cast: Joy Anwulika Alphonsus, Prcious Mariam Sanusi, Angela Ekeleme Pius, Jane Okoh; Austria 2018, 100 min.

German born writer/director Sudabeh Mortezai (Macondo) spent her youth in Vienna and Teheran before studying film at UCLA. Her second feature is centred around Nigerian women sold by their families as sex-workers to Europe. In the prologue, we see the local shaman performing the ‘Juju’ ritual on one of these young women: the victims have to leave an intimate part of themselves behind so they don’t run away, and send money home regularly.

We meet Joy (Alphonsus) on a dark night Vienna where she is soliciting. Next to her stands young Precious (Sanusi), who has just arrived from Nigeria and does not want to sell her body, to pay back Madame (Pius), whom she owes 60,000 Euros. Back in the flat, where the girls live in cramped  conditions, Madame holds Joy responsible for Precious’ attitude and tells her that her debt will increase if she doesn’t encourage the young girl to work harder. For good measure, Precious is than raped by two men, her cries of help going unanswered. The brutal treatment makes Precious fall into line and she becomes the highest earner of the group. Madame expresses her thanks by selling her for a profit to Italian pimps. 

Meanwhile Joy and Precious are continually pestered by their families to send more money home. Joy’s family ‘invents’ a fake illnesses so her clients will take pity and pay her extra.  And Precious’ mother asks her to sleep with more more men: “Can you imagine, the woman who gave birth to me wants me to do do that!” Joy, who has a daughter Chioma (Okoh), for whose upkeep she pays a nanny, is sent with Precious to the Italian border, keeping her passport. Precious asks her many times to relinquish the passport, so that she can escape. But Joy is well aware that Madame’s vengeance would be be grim, and she reminds Precious: “This is a game of survival of the fittest. I would kill you if I needed to. Do not trust me!”. Her calculation proves right when Madame ‘releases’ her, which is not so generous as it looks since new and younger girls have arrived from Nigeria.

The director takes a detached approach throughout. The gruesome details of the women’s suffering – Joy is bleeding heavily after being raped by three men, but Madame does not allow her to seek medical help. The whole circle of violence, starting in Nigeria is repeated over and over again, because the authorities in Austria want Joy to testify against Madame, but won’t grant her immediate asylum.

JOY explores a real and continuous nightmare that is happening all the time, in nearly every European city. Shot starkly by DoP Clemens Hufnagl, mostly at night, the few interior scenes reveal the misery and fear that haunts women daily. A depressing but worthwhile film. AS

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 29 AUGUST – 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 | VENICE DAYS AWARD WINNER 2018

 

 

Why are we Creative? (2018) ** Giornate degli Autori Venice 2018

WHY ARE WE CREATIVE: THE CENTIPEDE’S DILEMMA

Dir.: Hermann Vaske; Documentary; Germany 2018, 84 min.

German born writer/director Hermann Vaske (Arteholic) asks more than fifty of the World’s most successful artists why they have chosen to express their creativity in their professional lives. Obviously, their answers are going to be superficial, since there is hardly time for a reflective answer in a film of just over an house. But there’s also no structure here, Vaske lists the answers he gets in a haphazard and roughly chronological order. It’s a trite film akin to flicking through a glossy copy of Hello! Hola or Point de Vue magazine.

Thirty years in the making, his project is the brainchild of the liberation he felt having just emigrated to London. And one his first candidates was David Bowie, who is also one of the few who turns up twice to talk about their creative impulses. Architect Franz Gehry uses drawings to explain his motives, the same goes for Damien Hirst, David Lynch and Ai Weiwei among others. Travelling to Davos for the economic summit, Vaske interviews Bill Gates and Yasser Arafat, who claims his artistic bent rises out of a desire “to carry on for the sake of the future”. In Tokyo, the director gets drunk with the photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, who tells us “I get an erection when shooting my photographs”.

Architects top the list of professions, authors are as rare as musicians, who are easily beaten by actors. But sadly women make up a tiny minority of his doc: Yoko Ono, Jeanne Moreau, Bjork, Isabella Rossellini, Zara Hadid, Vivienne Westwood, Angelina Jolie and Diane Kruger. Vaske likes his interviewees to be positive and in a good mood – if they are difficult, their answers are cut short.

Towards the end, director Michael Haneke gives the most original answer: “One should not ask a centipede why he walks, because he might stumble”. Haneke goes on, telling the famous story of the composer Gustav Mahler, who stopped seeing the father of analyses, Sigmund Freud, because the latter told the composer, that analyses might reduce his creativity.

The structure (or the lack of it) invites us to be creative in our own ways, as our attention wanders off, reflecting about what to have for supper, or where we parked the car. But what is more disturbing is the huge number of participants, who are not with us any more – so many of them victims of suicide. Surely they  deserve a less flippant approach – underlined by the amusing cartoons of Valerie Pirson and Floppy Lazare – and a more serious treatment, using the parameters of a proper documentary. AS

SCREENING AS PART OF VENICE DIRECTORS’ WEEK 2018

Friedkin Uncut (2018) Tribute to William Friedkin

Dir: Francesco Zippel | US-ITALY | 107 MINS | DOCUMENTARY | with William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Willem Dafoe, Wes Anderson, Matthew McConaughey, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Shannon, Juno Temple

Wlliam Friedkin swaggers into the room and grabs a mug of dark coffee: “What interests me is how Hitler took a load of intelligent people down, whereas Jesus lifted them up”: He concludes “it’s a struggle for every human being to overcome their dark side”. 

William Friedkin, who is sadly no longer with us, must be one of the most quotable directors. Perfectly formed truisms just flood out of him in this amiable portrait from Francesco Zippel. Looking like an amiable astute tortoise with his smooth features and perfectly coiffed hair, he can be vociferous. When filming The French Connection he apparently shouted at his cinematographer: “What you’ve shown me so far sucks”. The two went on to make an all time classic that flopped at the box office. As Michael Shannon puts it: “Billy forces you to the dark place- he’s aware when something is phoney – he wants 200% because he’s giving 200%. Unlike Kubrick, he’s not looking for perfection, he’s looking for spontaneity.

Born in 1935 of Ukrainian Jewish parents who immigrated to the US, Friedkin did not realise the family was poor because everyone around them in their Chicago tenement was in the same boat. His father was a semi-professional soft ball player, his mother a warm and giving woman who he adored Young Friedkin started in the mail room of a TV station and worked his way up – in common with many other directors of the 1960s, but seeing Citizen Kane was the turning point that inspired him with the power of film and then he went on to Hollywood and was completely devolved of that notion. The rest is history.

Built around Friedkin’s pragmatic and pithy commentary Francesco Zippel’s doc well-structured documentary focuses on each of his films, intercut with commentary from the relevant talking heads and collaborators who discuss the way they worked with him. Friedkin is articulately frank and open about his motivations, which are interesting in themselves. A tinkly occasional score accompanies some extraordinary revelations: his film The people vs Paul Crump actually saved the man’s life. On the whole his films have a cinema vérité quality to them that is rooted in his documentary style, especially The French Connection that transports you ‘there in that era’ but the film still feels incredibly fresh and – in the view of Edgar Wright – more so than thrillers that are being made today. Infact FC is almost 95% based on truth, along with Bug and Killer Joe.  Friedkin liked facts and percentages rather than ephemera. 

Yet while filming he gets lost in the moment: Gina Gershon calls him a method director as he literally becomes part of the atmosphere during a shoot, making a suggestion and seeing what the actor does with it.

Wes Anderson likes his horror fare because the narrative pulls you in keeping you close to the characters are engaging because in Friedkin movies they’re built in reality. Casting his films to perfection avoids too many takes. Infact he’s very much a one take guy, a cording to Juno Temple who applauds the complexity of his female characters, who are sometimes even more complicated that his male characters. And he casts his films to perfection Max von Sydow was perfect in the Exorcist Ellen Burstyn  knew the territory as a lapsed Catholic herself. “He taught me how to be real in the fiction” she says.

We are treated to archive footage of an interview with Fritz Lang where the German emigre complains that his films made in Germany are worthless but al least he got to meet Goebels. Lang only appreciated the films he made in Hollywood. As a director you need ambition, luck and the Grace of God, and particularly the latter. But in the end “success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan”

In his lavishly hilltop home we are shown his drawings by Sergei Eisenstein before he discusses his film Cruising which was made inside the gay bars of New York but wasn’t a hit with the gay community on account of exposing their haunts in their raw reality. “I loved it as an exotic background for a murder mystery. But i don’t approach cinema from a political standpoint. Infact I don’t trust politics or politicians”.

He wanted to cast unknown actors in To Live and Die in LA (1985) and so low key stage actor Willem Defoe became electric casting opposite with William Petersen. In accordance with his documentary research credentials the film also involved some real counterfeiters, whom Friedkin got to know.

Friedkin never attended film school and doesn’t consider himself an artist but admires Antonioni and a Fellini and claims Kathryn Bigelow to be the best woman filmmaker working today. 

“Acting and filmmaking are professions. It’s a job. Out of this work there can come art – but it’s rare. when you start to believe in yourself as a artist – instead of telling a story with the utmost professionalism – that’s the end of a career. Antonioni and Fellini’s films are full of mood and texture”. Friedkin’s only regret was not having been able to transcend reality in his films. Sadly time is no longer on his side. MT

TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FRIEDKIN 1935-2023| VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | CLASSICS | 31 SEPTEMBER 2018

 

 

Stripped (2018) **** Venice Film Festival | Orizzonti

Dir: Yaron Shani | Israel | Docudrama | 118′ | EROM

Yaron Shani rose to international acclaim with his feature debut Ajami. He brings to this year’s Venice film festival the first part of The Love Trilogy entitled STRIPPED (EROM). It’s an intriguing and highly intelligent cinema vérité piece that seeks to blur the lines between fiction and documentary through its refreshingly low key approach to an extremely intimate and at times startling film where the lives of seemingly  unconnected eventually intertwine in its unexpected and quite shocking denouement. Performances are pitch perfect and naturalistic from its cast of mainly newcomers.

34 year-old Alice is an award-winning writer and filmmaker who lives with her menagerie of dogs in a Tel Aviv apartment. She is woken up one morning from a deep sleep by her boyfriend, under rather bewildering circumstances: the dogs have been shut in the bathroom where someone has scrawled a message on the mirror. Going about her day she increasingly starts to feel weird: panic attacks follow and a sense of desperate displacement and unease.  On the news, reports of a rapist are circulating. Her mother decides to come and stay so the two can look after each other for a while but none of this takes place in a melodramatic ways as Shani coaxes completely natural performances from his cast of mostly newcomers,

In the same apartment block a talented young classical guitarist (Ziv, 17) lives with his parents. His high hopes for a professional career in a local orchestra are dashed when the audition results confirm that he hasn’t got in. Soul-searching ensues with his helpful family. He heads off for his army service where the demands of adulthood will rob him of his tenderness and innocence. One of his friends is in hospital suffering from cancer. His university friends gather round his bedside as an impromptu round of jazz singing kicks off. Later they will take part in a highly charged visit from a ‘strippo-gramme’ service – some will lose their virginity in scenes of explicit nudity – it’s all light-hearted fun but it gives the boys a taste of reality. The narrative then comes full circle in the final scenes when the main protagonists lives intertwine in a shocking finale subverting our expectations.

STRIPPED feels bracingly original and refreshingly different. In order to achieve this quasi documentary feel, the cast took part in an extreme method acting experiment where they have each inhabited the lives of their fictional characters for the unusual long shooting period of over a year. The skeleton script was then fleshed out by the actors’ own personal experiences and the result is refreshingly bold in its naturalism, and despite still being fiction – clearly their input makes proceedings highly personal. It’s as if the directer invented a new form – semi-fiction or documentary fiction. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | ORIZZONTI | 28 AUGUST – 9 SEPTEMBER

 

The Man from Mo’ Wax (2017) ****

Dir: Matthew Jones | Music Biopic | doc |

The Man from Mo’Wax chronicles the life and times of the influential producer, DJ, and musician James Lavelle.

For his laudable debut feature Matthew Jones draws on extensive archive footage and previously unseen videos of Lavelle together with stills and original interviews that capture the essence of his idiosyncratic label Mo’Wax, gaining insight into his relationship with DJ Shadow and duo’s chart-topping UNKLE project, featuring amongst other musicians Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft, Josh Homme and Kool G Rap. No stone is left unturned in exploring the ups and downs of the iconic cool guy’s personal life and loves in this enjoyable and lively documentary that will appeal to fans and music-lovers alike. MT

There will be a special event at BFI Southbank on 30st August 2018, featuring a screening of the film and a Q&A with James Lavelle and director Matthew Jones. The film will be released in selected cinemas nationwide on the 31st August – celebrating the 20th anniversary of ‘Psyence Fiction’’s release. Following that the DVD/Blu Ray will be released September 10th with TV streaming TBA. For more information about all confirmed nationwide screenings of The Man From Mo’Wax

NOW AVAILABLE COURTESY OF THE BFI ON BLURAY

 

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Under the Wire (2017) ***

Dir.: Chris Martin; Documentary with Paul Conroy, Marie Colvin, Edith Bouvier, Wa’el, Dr. Abu Mohamed; UK 2018, 93 min.

Chris Martin’s first solo documentary feature is a moving tribute to New York born war correspondent Marie Colvin (1956-2012), who was killed in Homs, Syria together with French photographer Remi Ochlik. 

Based on the book of the same title by photographer Paul Conroy, who worked in tandem with Colvin, this is a chronicle of a journey that began on February 13th 2012, when ex soldier Paul Conray, (“the army and me did on get on well”) turned photographer and accompanied Colvin to Homs. His testimony is central to the narrative. On route, they decided that once they had reached Homs, and were forced to leave the rebel stronghold, they would return ‘illegally’ to the city of slaughter, where President Assad’s forces shelled apartment blocks, and particularly the Press Centre in the district of Baba Amir.

Marie Colvin, who interviewed Muhammar Gaddafi in 1986 and 2011, was a decorated journalist, who had lost an eye whilst reporting in Sri Lanka on the Tamil underground war in 2001. She had worked for the Sunday Times since 1985, reporting extensively on the Arab Spring. Not always known for her tact, she often had difficulties working with male photographers, but her relationship with Conroy was a meeting of kindred spirits.

What angered Colvin and Conroy the most was the incessant shelling of the Syrian Army, which gave Homs’ population no chance: combined with snipers on rooftops, the bloodbath was endless. Helped by their journalist/translator Wa’el, the two interviewed Dr. Abu Mohamed, who was running a makeshift hospital in a cellar, performing surgery, often without anaesthetic, on kitchen tables. 

Colvin reported live to the broadcasters of CNN, Channel 4 and the BBC. Immediately afterwards the targeted shelling of the Press Centre began. After Colvin and Ochlik had been killed on the 22th of February, Syrian State Radio announced that they were victims of the Rebels who had thrown a nail bomb into the building. But Conway is quite adamant about the shelling of the Press building a day after Colvin went on air to the international community. Soon Conway and Edith Bouvier found themselves on Dr Mohamed’s operating table in the cellar, being tended for leg injuries inflicted in the same attack which killed Colvin and Ochlik.

The final part of this documentary is the most harrowing. Both Bouvier and Conway needed to be looked after in a proper hospital, otherwise their situation would have become life limiting.  When they heard that a Syrian controlled ambulance was on its way to transport them out of Homs, they had to make a decision. Warned that the collaboration was anything but friendly, both declined, as did another injured French journalist. Finally, Conway got smuggled out of Homs, through a tunnel, the only way the rebels got get food and medicines into Homs. Two days later Bouvier and her French college escaped through the same route.

Conway’s narrative is complemented by tributes from Lindsey Hilsum from C4 and Sean Ryan from The Sunday Times: yet never has the gulf between journalist and editors been wider. However, that is nothing compared with the fact, that six years later President Assad has won his dirty war against his own people.

UNDER THE WIRE is not for the faint-hearted: some of the images will remain seared to the memory: this is a modern version of Dante’s Inferno.  AS ****

Open City Docs Festival | London 4 – 9 September 2018

Open City Documentary Festival is back for the eighth edition of the annual festival celebrating creative documentary and non-fiction filmmakers with a dynamic new programme for 2018. With 30 features and 48 shorts, 2 world premieres, 3 European premieres and 26 UK premieres across shorts and features from more than 30 countries, the festival will take place from the 4th – 9th September in a host of great venues across central London.

Marking the festivals’ Opening Night will be the UK Premiere of Baronesa (2017, Brazil, directed by Juliana Antunes. Her astonishing debut follows friends Andreia and Leid as they navigate the perilous reality of daily life in the favelas of Belo Horizonte. At first glance, their days seem calm and untroubled, but the threat of violence is never far away and Andreia dreams of moving to the safer neighbourhood of nearby Baronesa. Antunes spent five years in Belo Horizonte, working with a non-professional cast, to create a work of rare intimacy and authenticity which despite its simple structure emerges as a complex, multilayered and moving portrait of contemporary life in the favelas. Baronesa announces an exciting new voice in Brazilian cinema.

The Closing Night will be the UK Premiere of The Swing (2018) directed by Cyril Aris. A touching and emotionally rich film about keeping family truths hidden so as not to upset the patriarch. After sixty years of marriage, Antoine and Vivi have lost their most beloved daughter; but no one has dared to tell the bedridden nonagenarian Antoine, lest his heart crack. A simple solution, though everyone else in this densely interconnected family has then to live the same lie, giving no expression to their grief. A deeply affecting, beautifully shot cinematic novella; like all the best stories The Swing is a simple tale, but one that never short-changes its viewers.

For the Emerging International Filmmaker Award the following documentaries have been nominated: Angkar, dir. Neary Adeline Hay (France); Those Who Come, Will Hear, dir. Simon Plouffe (Canada); Home of the Resistance, dir. Ivan Ramljak (Croatia) and The Best Thing You Can Do With Your Life, dir. Zita Erffa (Germany, Mexico). 

The festival will hold selected retrospectives of two unique voices in non-fiction filmmaking: The innovative found footage documentarian Penny Lane and Japanese pioneer of an action documentary’, Kazuo Hara. Both filmmakers will be at the festival to present their work.

For the full programme and tickets

 

Venice Film Festival 2018 | La Biennale

Alberto Barbera has announced a stunning line-up of highly anticipated new features and documentaries in celebration of this year’s 71st edition of Venice Film Festival which takes place on the Lido from 28 August until 8 September 2018. 30% of this year’s films are made by women which sounds more positive. Obviously the festival can only programme films offered for screening.

The festival kicks off on the 28th with a remastered 1920 version of THE GOLEM – HOW HE CAME TO BE (ab0ve) complete with musical accompaniment. This year’s festival opening film is Damien Chazelle’s biopic of Neil Armstrong FIRST MAN. There are 21 features and documentaries in the main competition which boasts the latest films from Olivier Assayas (a publishing drama DOUBLE LIVES stars Juliette Binoche), Jacques Audiard (THE SISTERS BROTHERS), Joel and Ethan Coen’s 6-part Western THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, Brady Corbet’smusical drama VOX LUX; Alfonso Cuaron with ROMA; Luca Guadagnino’s SUSPIRIA sees Tilda Swinton playing 3 parts; Mike Leigh (PETERLOO), Yorgos Lanthimos with an 18th drama entitled THE FAVOURITE; Carlos Reygadas joins from his usual Cannes slot; and Julian Schnabel will present AT ETERNITY’S GATE a drama attempting to get inside the head of Vincent Van Gogh. Not to mention Laszlo Nemes’ Budapest WW1 drama NAPSZÁLLTA, a much awaited second feature and follow up to his Oscar winning Son of Saul.

The out of competition selection is equally exciting and thematically rich. There is Bradley Cooper’s directing debut A STAR IS BORN (left), Charles Manson-themed CHARLIE SAYS from Mary Herron; Amos Gitai’s A TRAMWAY IN JERUSALEM, and Zhang Yimou’s YING (SHADOW). And those whose enjoyed S Craig Zahler’s dynamite Brawl in Cell Block 99 will be pleased to hear that his DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE adds Mel Gibson to the previous cast of Jennifer Carpenter and Vince Vaughn. There will be an historic epic set in the time of the French Revolution: UN PEUPLE ET SON ROI features Gaspart Ulliel and Denis Lavant (who also stars in Rick Alverson’s Golden Lion hopeful THE MOUNTAIN) , and Amir Naderi’s MAGIC LANTERN which has the wonderful English talents of Jacqueline Bisset. And talking of England, Mike Leigh’s much gloated over historical epic PETERLOO finally makes it to the competition line-up

Documentary-wise there’s plenty to enjoy: Amos Gitai’s brief but timely A LETTER TO A FRIEND IN GAZA; Francesco Patierno’s CAMORRA which explores the infamous Italian organisation; Frederick Wiseman this time plunders Monrovia, Indiana for his source material; multi-award winning Russian documentarian Viktor Kossalkovsky will present his latest water-themed work AQUARELA; Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa’s film for this year’s festival is PROCESS (he’s the Ukrainian answer to Michael Winterbottom in terms of his prodigious output) this time focusing on the myriad lies surrounding Stalinism.

Out of Competition there are also blasts from the past including a hitherto unseen drama directed and co-written by Orson Welles and his pal Oja Kodar, starring Peter Bogdanovich and John Huston; and Bosnian director Emir Kusturica is back after his rocky time On The Milky Road with EL PEPE, UNA VIDA SUPREMA. 

And Malaysian auteur Tsai Ming-liang also makes a welcome return to Venice with his drama YOUR FACE. A multi-award winning talent on the Lido, his 2013 Stray Dogs won the Special Grand Jury Prize and Vive l’Amour roared away with the Golden Lion in 1994 (jointly with Milcho Manchevski’s Pred dozhdot).

Venice has a been a pioneer of 3D and VR since the screening of GRAVITY which opened the festival in 2013 amid much mal-functioning of 3D glasses at the press screening, and this year’s VR features include an excerpt from David Whelan’s 1943: BERLIN BLITZ which will be released ithis Autumn. This VR showcase experience is an accurate retelling of the events which happened inside a Lancaster bomber during one of the most well documented missions of World War II using original cockpit audio recorded 75 years ago. The endeavour is expected to be released on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Oculus Go, Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR and Windows Mixed Reality platforms. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 28 AUGUST – 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 

 

 

 

One Note at a Time (2017) ****

Dir:  Renée Edwards | Featuring: Clarke Peters (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Dr John, Kermit Ruffins, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Irma Thomas, Hot 8 Brass Band | US Doc | 95 mins.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans traditional jazz musicians gather together to play and talk about the soul of their city which celebrates its 300th Anniversary in 2018. 

Renée Edwards’ paean to these Louisiana musicians is a labour of love that’s been nine years in the making. Four of these were spent following a small number from different genres, as they came to terms with their changed city, musical landscape and life. Intertwined are their musical and health stories, as they frequent the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, a lifeline and comfort, that simultaneously had its own struggles, whilst aspiring to fulfil a mission to ‘keep the music ALIVE’. Without these guys the city would lose its soul, not to mention the thousands of tourists who come to join in the fun.

Best known for her editing work for some of television’s highest profile news and current affairs series and documentary dramas, including award-winning Panorama Specials, A Fight to the Death and The Mind Reader, this is the British-born filmmaker’s feature debut. And it’s a semi auto-biographical piece recording her own happy memories of childhood holidays spend in the area, but shot through with a melancholy that records a dark time for New Orleans when the music stopped in 2005 in the aftermath to one of the most deadly and destructive hurricanes in American history. The flood defences failed, flooding the Crescent City for weeks. Lives were lost and lives were shattered. Many displaced musicians felt compelled to return to the chaos and bleak confusion to play again. This is the story of some who made it back, told in their own words. MT
ONE NOTE AT A TIME has won numerous international and domestic festival awards including BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY at Studio City International Film Festival, GOLD WINNER at Los Angeles Film Review Industry Awards, BEST DOCUMENTARY at Nottingham International Film Festival and three awards at the Oxford International Film Festival including FILM OF THE FESTIVAL.

ONE NOTE AT A TIME 2018 marks the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Orleans.

The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018)

Dir: Mark Cousins | Doc | UK |

Devotees of the great Orson Welles will be delighted by another in-depth look into the world of the charismatic legend Orson Welles by British director Mark Cousins who shares photos, drawings and paintings that add another dimension to our existing knowledge of the Hollywood maverick’s talents to amuse. 

THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES plays out like a person to person love letter to narrated by its director director Mark Cousins, in his lilting Belfast burr, bringing him up to date on how the world has changed since his departure on 10 October 1985 at the age of only 70.

Orson Welles was not just an actor, director and writer known for his wide-ranging films, plays and creative endeavours, but a pioneering maverick who wasn’t afraid to stand apart from the crowd and champion his  ideals. He was a towering figure both physically and intellectually, so much so that  J Edgar Hoover added him to the US security list.

This is not the first time Cousins has adopted this style for his documentaries: What Is This Film Called Love? and I Am Belfast are similarly crafted and mark him out to be an engaging writer who 2017 book The Story Of Looking, The Eyes Of Orson Welles is a also epistolary in style. Initially commanding there are times when his didactic, stentorian tone feels a little too heavy-going and you long for a lighter touch to the way he engages enthusiastically with his subject.

But this must undoubtedly be one of the most encyclopaedic films – possibly the defiinitive biopic of the master as Cousins embarks with the blessing of Beatrice (Welles third daughter by Dolores del Rio) on a peripatetic odyssey enriched with photos, paintings – even Christmas cards – and archival footage charting Welles’ birthplace in Wisconsin in 1915 and on to Ireland, Paris, Morocco and Spain to mention a few countries visited in his lifetime

Orson may have been outspoken but he was also generous and public-spirited and took great interest in charity work and espoused old-fashioned ideas of chivalry – in common with the  character of Don Quixote (his unfinished film commenced shooting in 1957 but never came to fruition); he was a natural in his performances as Winston Churchill, Louis XVII, Michelangelo, Benjamin Franklin, Emperor Justinian and other great minds and leaders .

This is a mammoth undertaking which Cousins pulls off with his customary aplomb as he delves deeper and deeper into the life, loves and singular visual style of this intriguing genius. But in a sense there is a feeling that he only scratches the surface in just short of two hours.

Daughter Beatrice Welles makes her presence known but never outstays her welcome which seems to add a dimension that could have been more thoroughly explored. MT

NOW SCREENING AT DOCHOUSE COURTESY OF DOGWOOF AND OTHER VENUES NATIONWIDE FROM 17 AUGUST 2018

Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy (2017) ****

Dir: Thomas Riedelsheimer; Documentary with Andy Goldsworthy, Holly Goldsworthy; UK/Germany 2017, 97 min.

Sixteen years after their last impressive collaboration Rivers and Tides, Thomas Riedelsheimer teams up again with the self-proclaimed land artist and sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, joining him around the world to film his ground-breaking experimental artistry with stones, branches, fallen trees leaves, clay, rocks, vines and even icicles.

We start in the Brazilian reservation of Ibitipoca where Goldsworthy admires the floor of a hut: thehomemaker, an elderly woman stating simply “that all you need is clay and cow dung’, but it is hard work”. Via the Presidio Park in San Francisco, the two explore the English countryside, Provence, Gabon, a museum’s courtyard in St. Louis before returning to the artist’s home in Dumfriesshire, where we witness one of the most astonishing moments: Goldsworthy looks like he is swimming through trees, floating, a total inversion of the usual images of men being swallowed by machinery. Goldsworthy sometimes collaborates with animals in what he calls “random art” where he initiates sheep painting with their hooves.

The overriding impression is ephemeral, or, quoting the late Roger Ebert, who wrote about Rivers and Tides “Watching this movie, is like day dreaming”. Goldsworthy himself is less sure about what he does: “I am contradicting himself in my creations, because nature is everywhere. It is not so clear any more. I am just trying to make sense of this world.” If Paganism was a religion, Goldsworthy would be its first apostle. But there are all also very worldly moments, particularly when he involves his daughter Holly; as does Riedersheimer with his son Felix.

Goldsworthy never hides his admiration for nature: he even eats a handful of leaves, before spitting them out. And the urban environment often creates opportunities for his spontaneous art: lying on a pavement, in what cold be a coffin-like hole, the rain fills up the basin to produce an art form of a different kind, verging on the surreal. The music of composer Fred Frith underscores this lonely, pure and transcendental meandering around the globe, a sort of spiritual trance. AS

 

Ciao! Manhattan (1972) | Bluray release

Written and directed by Factory regulars John Palmer and David Weisman this cult film is a semi-biographical take on Sedgwick’s life and captures a seminal time in history, namely the groundbreaking 1960s New York art scene. 

If you’re keen on watching a mash-up of a black and white Sixties-set musical thriller and the final early Seventies knockings of the wasted Sedgwick, sporting a surgically enhanced chest and cavorting around half naked and half cut, then CIAO, MANHATTAN will appeal.

Edith Minturn Sedgwick was born in California in 1943, studied at Harvard, rose to fame in 1965 as an actress in Andy Warhol’s films, was briefly married to Michael Post and died from a barbiturate overdose in her parents’ home at just 28.

On the plus side, the film perfectly recreates the star’s own chaotic life and also features other contemporary ‘heroes’ such as Holzer and Viva. Rather than a liberated woman of her generation, she emerges disillusioned and delusional. With its soundtrack featuring the music of Ritchie Havens and Kim Milford, this is a redolent portrait of a shooting star who crashed and burned, yet her fame remains. MT

OUT ON BLURAY 20 AUGUST 2018 COURTESY OF SECOND SIGHT FILM

M (2018) *** Locarno International Film Festival 2018

 

Dir: Yolande Zauberman | Doc | Israel/France | 103′

Entering the secret sexual world of Israel’s Hasidic Jewish community feels like a privilege and a revelation in this incendiary, no holds barred documentary premiering here at Locarno Film Festival.

According the findings of French filmmaker Yolande Zauberman a startling number of male kids in this orthodox religious community have undergone rape at the hands of their elders. Gaining  unprecedented access to the titular M, aka Menachem, a young Israeli man who we first meet on Tel Aviv beach at night, Zauberman unearths a history of abuse and family dysfunction leading to marriage breakdown that exposes the disturbing reality behind the silent facade of this tight-knit religious enclave. And it’s not just happening in Tel Aviv, Israel. This is a startling story that seems to connect with the narrative of sexual abuse across the ultra religious spectrum from Orthodox Judaism to Catholicism, and possibly beyond.

Speaking in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish, Menachem tells us how he grew up in Bnei Brak, just outside Tel Aviv. His mother was kind but never particularly affectionate, so when he started to attend Yeshiva (a religious school) and bathe in the mikvah (a cleansing pool) the elders’ attention seemed almost comforting to the young boy, until he realised what was going on. This led to problems with his marriage, and divorce. He now finds the company of Tel Aviv’s transsexuals easier to deal with as there is no emotional involvement. In a car journey with an Arab trans friend, the two compare the Hassidic stricture with being trapped inside the wrong body: both men needed to break away.

A talented cantor and a likeable but clearly troubled soul, Menachem opens up freely to the camera, finding the filming process a cathartic experience, empowering him to seek out his abusive elder, Akiva Katz, so he can obtain some kind of closure. The search for Akiva propels the narrative forward as more and more shockingly naive religious men join the conversation, glad to unburden themselves with their experiences, although many do not want to be filmed..

M is a tough and claustrophobic watch. This is in part due to Zauberman’s decision to film at night and at close quarters. Under the cover of darkness she finds people more relaxed and willing to share their feelings. “Does a woman have genitalia?” asks one young married man. Meanwhile in the background to these spontaneous (unscripted) discussions, orthodox families freely go about their business into the small hours, little kids in tow. This is a self-regulating society that seems locked in the Dark Ages, closeted away from the internet, social media and the modern world.

IN COMPETITION | LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018

#Female Pleasure (2018) **** Locarno Film Festival 2018

Dir: Rebecca Miller | Documentary with Deborah Feldman, Vithika Yadav, Rokudenashiko, Leyla Hussein, Doris Wagner; Germany/Switzerland/UK/USA/Japan 2018, 95 min.

Writer/director Barbara Miller (Forbidden Voices), has travelled the world to connect with five different women with one thing in common: the struggle against religious/state sponsored male superiority. Some are even joined by sympathetic menfolk slowly turning the wheel of history. Miller’s straightforward, non-judgemental approach allows the women full reign to share their opinions.

Deborah Feldman, a Hasidic Jew from New York, courageously left her arranged marriage with her little son, splitting from an extended family who are now lost forever. She wants to raise her son to respect women.“The Torah”, she says, “is the word of men”. In Orthodox circles there is a feeling that women are necessary but, at the same time, are the enemy. On a walkabout Jerusalem she passes huge street signs that say:“Please do not pass through this neighbourhood in in-modest clothes: closed blouse with long sleeves, no skirts, no trousers, no tight fitting clothes”. She is emphatic “that orthodox women in arranged marriages do not have the same constitutional protection as other women”. Finding a life outside her old community with a new partner, she goes on fighting the cause.

Meanwhile in India, Vithika Yadav runs a self-help website that supports girls in overcoming the prejudices of Hindu teaching, which has veered very much from Ghandi’s approach to an aggressive male ideology, often held responsible for the many rape cases in this country. Vithika is the first woman in her family to reject an arranged marriage. According to her, Hindu teaching claims “women are the root of all sins”, Indian society is geared toward male desire and satisfaction.Yadav’s website is a great start, but she takes things even further by organising street theatre and demonstrations, trying to rope men into the fight. On the subject of rape, she is very clear: “You all see it, but you don’t do anything”. ‘LOVE matters’, is one of their slogans, and slowly more and more young men are joining Yadav’s movement.

Japanese manga artist and “Vagina defender” Rokudenashiko from Tokyo has a spirited approach to the issue, but the pretty drawing of the female sex organ on her website has already leading to her arrest by ten(!) police officers on the grounds of obscenity. Before her trial she calls a press conference telling the audience “the female body is seen as a sex toy for men. Hard core porn films are legally produced and sold, yet my art is seen as obscene”. She claims Japanese men are very brutal in bed yet pretend to be unaware of the pain they inflict. Even comics portraying images of young girls being raped are allowed to be published in Japan. There is a yearly parade of ‘Penis Worship’ and the artist and her friends make fun of this, sucking sugary phallus-sized sweets. During filming, Rokudenashiko is convicted for spreading obscene art and even sailing a canoe in the shape of a vagina on a nearby lake. She and her lawyers are determined to have the verdict overturned. “As women, we are defined by jealousy”. Buddhist teaching says, ‘that due to the sinfulness of our bodies, women have to suffer eternal torment and the Blood Bowl Hell’”. Her protests have actually found her a sympathetic boyfriend in the shape of Mike, a rock singer who does not smoke or drink and has even composed a song to support her cause. Her parting shot is typical “Long live the vagina!”

Leyla Hussein is a highly articulate and likeable Somali woman living in London where her cause is the global issue of FGM – 200 million women and girls are the victims. “Men have authority over women according to the Quran which says ‘those wives from whom you fear disobedience, beat them’. Often very young woman are forced into arranged marriages when they are still teenagers. “Let’s call arranged marriage by its proper name: Legalized paedophilia.” In London she runs a centre and a website to fight FMG where she describes exactly what FMG does to the female body – some of the younger men can hardly watch. But she is happiest back in Kenya, where Masaai support her cause: “Masaai women have no fun with sex, and that’s frustrating for men too. We have to spread the word!”

In Germany, Doris Wagner joined a Catholic order at a young age. She was systematically raped by her superior but when she reported him to the Mother Superior, the woman shouted at her; then forgave her. She feels that the Catholic Church frames women as  seductresses: “I ask myself: was the Church really founded to do good, or was it all along just intended to support the structure run by men?’ Doris now lives with her partner and son. She is writing her PHD theses “feeling like born again”.

In this substantial and engaging documentary Miller allows her contributors to voice their concerns freely in a way that is both informative and empowering for those affected by the issues. Often amusing, it occasionally takes sides but, crucially, it also raises awareness of women’s plight with a lightness of touch, showing the way forward for men to join the movement for a more liberal and pleasurable society, that can only benefit them in the long run. She feels that women should not feel imprisoned by their gender, and the sooner men learn this, the better it is for us all. Change is possible, but, as Miller point out, it is a long way off in some societies.

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 1-11 AUGUST 2018 | IN COMPETITION.

 

 

 

 

 

Acid Forest (2018) *** Locarno International Film Festival 2018

Dir: Rugile Barzdziukaite | Doc | Lithuania | 63′

Rugile Barzdziukaite describes her eco-film as a creative documentary. It is set in her native Lithuania where a strange phenomenon has occurred in the forested region of the Curonian Spit, a scenic peninsular edged by the Baltic from one side and the lagoon from the other. ACID FOREST makes its premiere at Locarno Film Festival 2018.

Taking her cue from the likes of documentarians Sergei Loznitsa and Jem Cohen, Barzdziukaite’s debut feature often sees the funny side of this blot on the landscape. This humour comes out of the spontaneous comments made by unsuspecting visitors to the otherwise appealing UNESCO world heritage site, known for its natural resources and high-end beach resorts.

Training his camera on a look-out platform in the midst of the acid forest, her DoP Dovydas Korba gets a bird’s eye view not only of the tourists, but also the black cormorants who migrated back to the area nearly twenty years ago in 1989, after becoming extinct, and have since laid waste to the native pine trees with their acid-rich droppings that fall from the nesting places. where these destructive birds roost and bring up their young. But it’s not all bad. Deciduous trees have now started thrive in the area, feeding on the cormorants fishy manure. And so gradually the forest is mutating from one of pines to one of oaks and ashes. And this narrative very much chimes with the cycles of human migration that have happened all the world since time immemorial. Acid Forest is a an unusual but fitting metaphor for the surreal world that we live in. MT

OUT OF COMPETITION | LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018 

El Mar La Mar (2017)

Dirs: Joshua Bonnetta, J.P. Sniadecki | USA 2017 | English, Spanish |Doc | 94 min · Colour

Renowned documentarian J P Sniedecki teams up with Joshua Bonetti for this episodic reverie that scratches at the edges of fantasy horror as its gradually emerging narrative explores strange occurrences in the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States (rather than the seascapes suggested in its obstruse title).

The opening scene, entitled Rio (River), is a dizzying affair bordering on nausea as the camera flickers alongside a waterside seen peeping through vegetation. The second is called Costas (coasts) but it is difficult to make out its obscure subject matter, as the mood gradually grows more unsettling.

Disparate reports of strange sightings occur daily in this sparsely populated and inhospitatble region and nameless locals narrate their experiences against blacked out footage: visits from travellers and immigrants making their way from Mexico seem totally unprepared for the horrors that await them: snakes, insects, fierce climatic changes and spiky vegetation are some of the perils of this dangerous route, not to mention the human element in the shape of border guards, both official and self-appointed, who are are known to open gunfire both day and night.

The directors’ approach has a highly bewildering feel, and as the mood grows increasingly sinister, faceless voices talk of traces of human remains and even dead bodies sadly left to decompose without trace, save for their faded clothing. Abandoned rucksacks, shoes and toys are testament to this trail of tragedy, gradually becoming part of the gruesome landscape.

EL MAR LA MAR‘s polyphonic soundtrack, disembodied voices and 16-mm visuals are a stark and strangely beguiling tribute to human endeavour, recording for posterity those who never made it in their quest to seek a more financially rewarding life. Sometimes the grass is not greener. MT

AWARDED A SPECIAL MENTION AT BERLINALE 2017 | FORUM SECTION

Tracking Edith ****

Dir/Writer: Peter Stephan Jungk | Doc | Austria 2016 | 91 min.

Based on his non-fiction book Die Dunkelkammern der Edith Tudor-Hart (The Dark Rooms of Edith Tudor-Hart), Peter Stephan Jungk explores the exciting secret life of his great aunt Edith Tudor-Hart (1908-1973).

This enigmatic woman was best known in the art world as an iconic photographer (her photos can be admired in the Scottish National Gallery), but the clue to her secret life lies in the double meaning ‘dark rooms’: she was also a spy instrumental in the recruiting of Kim Philby and the other members of the ‘Cambridge Five’. 

Born into a progressive Jewish family in Vienna 1908 – her father renounced Judaism then founded a bookshop and a publishing company. Edith Suschitzky was only sixteen when she went to London in 1925 to study with Maria Montessori, the famous Kindergarten pioneer. On her return she worked in Vienna’s branch of the Montessori School – but her life changed when she met the academic Arnold Deutsch in 1926, who also worked as a recruiter for the KGB. Their relationship was significant for two reasons: he not only recruited her for the organisation but also gave her a Rolleiflex camera, and she set out to picture the poorer districts in Vienna before studying Photography at the Bauhaus in Dessau under Kandinsky and Klee among others. 

Edith also developed radical tendencies – visiting London she was expelled after filming a demonstration and talking to a Soviet delegate. But by then she had already met Dr. Alex Tudor-Hart who would later divorce his wife and move to Vienna, where they were married. Her photos were published by TASS and after the Austrian Nazi Party became more and more powerful in the mid 1930s the couple fled to the England where they renewed their acquaintance with the recently married Litzi Friedmann and Kim Philby, who had also had to leave Vienna for the UK after the Nazi Party had killed the Austrian chancellor Dollfuss. In 1934 Edith introduced Philby to Arnold Deutsch in Regents Park – the rest is history.              

Jungk enlivens his debut documentary with interviews with family, amongst them Edith’s brother Wolf, and other witnesses of her turbulent life. What becomes clear is that Edith was an idealist who never saw the Soviet system but was faced, like all central Europeans, with the alternative of Hitler and Stalin. Above all she was a humanist who never received any money for her clandestine activities – but unlike Philby, MacLean, Burgess and Blunt – she always lived modestly. Her first loves were the impoverished children of Vienna and Brixton, whose lives she hope to transform through her creative endeavours. AS

AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS NATIONWIDE FROM 27 July 2018 | Arthouse Crouch End, Bertha DocHouse, Barbican Cinema and JW3 | Main photo credit: Family Suschitzky

Open City Docs Festival 2018 | 4-9 September 2018

Open City Documentary Festival is back this Autumn for the eighth year running with a dynamic new programme celebrating documentary and non-fiction filmmaking taking place  from the 4th – 9th September in a host of great venues across central London.

This year – through films, audio and immersive (VR/AR) projects, across screenings, special events, parties, panels, workshops and masterclasses – Open City Documentary Festival will be celebrating the art of non-fiction.

The Festival opens with the UK Premiere of Baronesa (2017, Brazil, 71’), directed by Juliana Antunes and in partnership with MUBI. Her astonishing debut follows friends Andreia and Leid as they navigate the perilous reality of daily life in the favelas of Belo Horizonte. At first glance, their days seem calm and untroubled, but the threat of violence is never far away and Andreia dreams of moving to the safer neighbourhood of nearby Baronesa. Antunes spent five years in Belo Horizonte, working with a non-professional cast, to create a work of rare intimacy and authenticity which—despite its simple structure—emerges as a complex, multilayered and moving portrait of contemporary life in the favelas. Baronesa announces an exciting new voice in Brazilian cinema.

The Closing Night will be the UK Premiere of The Swing (2018, Lebanon, 74’) directed by Cyril Aris. An assured, emotionally rich film about the lies a family tells to keep their patriarch happy and the unattended costs of their falsehood. After sixty years of marriage, Antoine and Vivi have lost their most beloved daughter; but no one has dared to tell the bedridden nonagenarian Antoine, lest his heart crack. A simple solution, though everyone else in this densely interconnected family has then to live the same lie, giving no expression to their grief. A deeply affecting, beautifully shot cinematic novella; like all the best stories The Swing is a simple tale, but one that never short-changes its viewers.

This year the festival hosts an outstanding Jury panel for each of its competitive Awards. For the Open City Award the following documentaries have been nominated: Baronesa, dir. Juliana Antunes (Brazil); Casanova Gene, dir. Luise Donschen (Germany); Flight of a Bullet, dir. Beata Bubenec (Russia); and The Swing, dir. Cyril Aris (Lebanon). The Jury will be chaired by esteemed director Sophie Fiennes (Grace Jones: Bloodlight, Bami), and features Beatrice Gibson, Nelly Ben Hayoun, May Adadol Ingawanij and Mehelli Modi.

For the Emerging International Filmmaker Award the following documentaries have been nominated: Angkar, dir. Neary Adeline Hay (France); Those Who Come, Will Hear, dir. Simon Plouffe (Canada); Home of the Resistance, dir. Ivan Ramljak (Croatia) and The Best Thing You Can Do With Your Life, dir. Zita Erffa (Germany, Mexico). The award will be Chaired by independent Dutch documentary programme cultural advisor and filmmaker Tessa Boerman (Zwart Belicht), Luciano Barisone, Cecile Emeke, Chiara Marañón and Tadhg O’Sullivan.

There will be two retrospectives in honour of non-fiction filmmaking: The innovative found footage documentarian Penny Lane and Japanese pioneer of ‘action documentary’, Kazuo Hara. Both filmmakers will be at the festival to present their work.

For the first time the festival has invited artists to present films that have informed their own practice, with special selections from DJ and producer Nabihah Iqbal and filmmaker Marc Isaacs as well as short films chosen by a number of the filmmakers with new work at the festival, screening before their own features.

The festival will also be hosting an Industry Bootcamp aimed at students and recent graduates. These sessions will be about preparing for the next steps in your career and getting ready to enter the industry. Each event is £5, or free with student accreditation.

Open City Documentary Festival is looking forward to hosting a number of exciting festival parties this year including the Opening and Closing Night Receptions at the Regent Street Cinema as well as the Nabihah Iqbal after-party at the ICA, where the DJ, Producer & NTS Radio presenter presents an evening of music inspired by 1972 documentary Winter Soldier, featuring protest songs and music from the anti-war movement from 1950-1975. Other various festival parties will be listed in the festival programme.

OPEN CITY DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL 4-9 SEPTEMBER 2018 

 

Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (2017)

Dir: Frederick Wiseman | Doc | US | 197′

Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman (In Jackson Heights, National Gallery) takes his cameras within the walls of the New York Public Library for his forty-third film in fifty years which again throws light on a great institution – and is again well over three hours. It would be rash to say that Wiseman is losing it – but his tone is more and more lecturing, and we find ourselves in the position of students, well aware that the professor is talking down to us. Or perhaps, Wiseman has perfected his style to the point that he really needs no audience any more: who can argue with an encyclopaedia? There is no recourse, no questions, no room for doubt: Wiseman’s documentaries are the bible on his chosen subject.

The NY Public Library system with 92 branches, was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1911, the headquarters, a beautiful Art-Deco building on 5th Avenue/42nd Street, is impressive, and rather British with its dominating lions. But Wiseman visits many branches, and the libraries could not be more different. The same goes for the activities: a librarian is recording all of Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark, there are talks by Patti Smith and Ta-Nehsi Coates, poetry reading with P. Hodges and endless quotes: from Karl Marx, Primo Levi and Malcolm, to name a few. Wiseman even includes a job-fair in the Bronx in his meanderings in the city. “Libraries are about people” is the motto of Ex-Libris: true, but people are irrational and very contradictory, because they are alive. But in spite of the motto, Wiseman seems more interested in discovering structures, showing off how clever he is. AS

NOW SHOWING from 13 JULY 2018 | VENICE REVIEW 2017

Path of Blood (2017) ****

Dir.: Jonathan Hacker; documentary narrated by Samuel West and with the voice of Tom Hollander; USA 2018, 91 min.

Best known for his groundbreaking TV work Jonathan Hacker’s big screen debut is a chronicle enlivened by Al-Qaeda home movies and propaganda statements, and videos of the Saudi Secret Service and police forces bearing testament to their side in action against the Jihadists in the out-and-out war between Al-Qaeda and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that has been raging since 2003. 

Hacker never takes sides. Even the most infuriating statement by the young, un-informed and death-loving Al-Qaeda fighters is simply shown as testimony. The first is Ali, a young man who does not wear a mask and has been chosen to drive a car with a bomb – for which 72 virgins will wait for him in paradise. Asked by his instructor “Ali, what do you say, if you hear, that our acts are a sin against Islam?” Ali does not know the answer and begs “for a more easy question”. Keep it simple, is his repeated refrain. In the same video men are laughing, messing about – your normal gang of teenagers with arrested development. They will play football and talk about their love of death and killing: the fight against the “crusaders”, the police and security forces of Saudi Arabia, is a holy and noble one. “Expel them! Rip them apart! Destroy them until they either die or convert to the true religion”. Western citizens are obviously targets and do not even deserve the option of converting. Victims like the US engineer Paul Marshall Johnson jr., who worked for a company who run Apache helicopters, are simply be-headed – for once, Hacker does spare us the gruesome details, and leaves us with the black images with ‘snow’, which always ends when the videos of the ‘other side’ are about to begin. Older generations will recognise this from the small black and white TV sets, appearing when the programmes of the day were over- quiet a symbolic reference indeed.

In 2004 Al-Qaeda switched targets after they were heavily criticised for killing high numbers of Muslims in their attacks. From now they would attack compounds like Al Hamra, killing foreigners in great numbers. The attack on the oil refinery of Abqaiq could have seriously damaged the Saudi economy if it had succeeded as planned. And in 2009 the Saudi security minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, escaped an assassination attempt, after his forces eliminated more and more cells, like the whole Saudi-Arabian leadership of the Jihad fighters, who had hid in a village villa. Their leaders were killed by the police at roadblocks or petrol stations. But sometimes Al Qaeda got away with murder on a grand scale: a member telling proudly the story how they escaped “after having shot western citizens in a shopping mall, we had a good breakfast, and then Allah made sure, that the forces of the evil-doers did not find us when we fled”.      

All told this offers bloody evidence in the videos from both sides of the hostilities: Nothing is spared in a repetitive cold blooded murder fest. The older zealots send their youth on the gratuitous killing sprees – just for the hell of it. Whilst utterly brilliant, Path of Blood is not for the faint-hearted. Unlike the realistic fiction in films such as The Hurt Locker, this is disturbingly chilling and real. AS

PATH OF BLOOD will be released in cinemas 13th July www.pathofbloodfilm.com#pathofbloodfilm

Picturehouse Central – London Premiere – 10th July

Curzon DocDays – 17th & 19th July

Tribute to Claude Lanzmann (1925-2018)

Claude Lanzmann, who was born in Paris in 1925, died today in the city of his birth, aged 92. He will always be remembered for the ground-breaking undertaking of Shoah, which took twelve years (1974-1985) to finish; the reconstruction of the genocide, lasting 560 minutes, a unique, monumental achievement.

Born as the grandson of Russian Jews who fled the pogroms, his upbringing was marred by the unhappy marriage of his parents: when Claude was nine, his mother Paulette left the family, which, ironically, came as a relief to her son: “I feared the marriage of my parents would end in suicide, or even murder”. His father, politically aware, taught his children survival techniques, which came in handy during the Nazi occupation of France. In 1943 Claude was sent to boarding school in Clermont-Ferrand, where he joined the Jeunesses Communistes and the resistance. In his autobiography Le Lievre de Patagonie (2009), he is quiet critical about himself, not having stood up enough for persecuted fellow students.

After the war he went to Tubingen in Germany where he met Nazi officers for the first time at the estate of the Von Neurath family, where he discovered a mini-concentration camp on the grounds. He went afterwards to teach in Berlin at the newly founded Free University. Lanzmann was unhappy about the lame De-Nazification process and he asked for Jean-Paul Sartre’s Reflexions sur la Question Juive to be read by his students. This led to him joining Sartre and De Beauvoir at the Paris offices of Les Temps Modernes later – whose editor he was since 2016. Between 1952 and 1957 he lived with Simone de Beauvoir “I am the only man with whom Simone lived a quasi-marital existence.”  Claude’s younger sister Evelyne, an actress, had a passionate relationship with Sartre, Lanzmann and de Beauvoir trying to keep matters secret. But after Evelyne’s suicide at the age of forty in 1967, the papers were full of accusations of Lanzmann, “having pimped out his sister to Sartre”. Whilst this might be a little harsh, the fact remains that Sartre was 22 years older than Evelyne, who took being left by him very hard – no wonder after the trauma of her childhood. In 1952 Lanzmann went for the first time to Israel, where he would start his career as a filmmaker in 1973 with Pourquoi Israel? Whilst taking a progressive stand on the Algerian question, signing the Manifesto of the 121 to end the war, Lanzmann always legitimised Israel’s right to keep the occupied territories. His documentary Tshal (1994) is full of praise for the Israeli Defence Forces, even though he admitted that the Palestinians should have their own country – later.

But the Holocaust dominated his output: of his nine features, five dealt with the subject: most interesting Sobibor October 1943, 4 pm, about the successful uprising in the death camp of the title. Then there is A Visitor from the Living (1999), in which Lanzmann interviews the Swiss Red Cross attache Maurice Rossell, who, after visiting the death camp of Theresienstadt late in the war, wrote a favourable report, praising the Nazis for their ‘generosity’. Lanzmann’s last feature, Four Sisters, dealing again with Holocaust survivors, was premiered the day before his death. He was adamant, that Shoah was not a documentary: “The word makes me want to take a pistol and shoot”.AS

 

Dream Away (2018) *** Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2018

Dir.: Marouan Omara, Johanna Domke | Documentary | Germany/Egypt 2018  | 86 min.

Egyptian filmmaker Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke a visual artist from Germany create a near-absurdist portrait of Sun Rise, a deserted luxury hotel in Sharm El-Sheik in southern Egypt. The whole place is geared-up for Western tourists – but there are hardly any there nowadays, and the staff are left wondering about the future: will their pay-cuts end in redundancy? How can they reconcile their traditional upbringing with the western lifestyle forced upon them in their own homeland. The Arab Sprig and the confusion of the post revolutionary era has robbed the entire place of its livelihood, where once it offered warm seas, fabulous coral gardens as one of the best places for Winter sunshine and diving. And nobody is a winner now.

Horreya Hassan is a member of the housekeeping team, a euphemist title for a cleaner. She is looked down upon by members of the entertainment/animation team such as Shaima Reda (“To share a room with a member of Housekeeping, outraging”). Horreya is finally accepted by the women from Animation, who dance in front of a empty space where the audience used to be. Horreya tries to make up for her lowly status by reading self-help books which tell her “How to connect the mind gaps”. Meanwhile, D J Taki (Khaled Ahmend) has to support an ill mother, and has a foreign girl friend, although in the old days he used to see things from his parents’ point of view. Now, a female member of the animation team is divorced and enjoys running around in bunny costume at night in the eerie desert. Driver Hossam (Abo Salama) is married to a much older but very wealthy woman who has bought him an expensive Dodge. He defends himself with his friends: “It’s okay to marry an older woman, really”. Masseur Alaa (Abo El Kassem), dreams about foreign women wanting a “private massage”. But when he talks one of his friends into giving up a staff room, we watch him treating a mannequin, whose arm comes lose during the process.  All fear they’ll be sacked eventually, but at the same time know “that staying here you will get stuck”.

DoP Jacob Beurle evocative images create a atmospheric  sense of place, particularly in the desert scenes, which have a strong other-wordly character. A more structured approach  make have worked better; but then, life in the void somehow invites the fluent and elliptical style of the filmmakers. Dream Away is a melancholic portrait of a young generation left to fight for a new identity: trying hard to copy the Western heroes of all the films they watch, they are still stuck in a country which is on the brink of a return to traditional authoritarianism.AS

SCREENING DURING KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Whitney (2018)

Dir: Kevin Macdonald | Musical biopic | UK | 120’

Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald looks at the real woman behind the legend that was Whitney Houston in this blistering biopic that gains exclusive access to the enigmatic star’s family and music.

The 1987 global hit  “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” was probably the most telling in the tragic star’s repertoire reflecting a romantic balladeer for whom true love and peace remained elusive. Whitney was a female vocalist who emerged into the limelight with a series of soulful ballads that captured the imagination of women everywhere, at a time where popular music was defined by bands. 

 “How Will I know,” and “Saving All My Love for You” felt personal and yet universal with their sentimental confessions that remain dance-floor delights across the generations. But who was the real woman behind these tender tunes? 

In two compelling hours WHITNEY explores the meteoric rise and sudden death at 48 in a Beverley Hills hotel, after years of addiction and a troubled marriage to rapper Bobby Brown who comes across here as defensive. Macdonald has the key advantage over Nick Bromfield’s Whitney: Can I Be Me, with his intimate access to family, friends and industry collaborators who all seem united in getting to the truth behind the public persona and cliche.

Piecing together contemporary talking heads, Macdonald and editor Sam Rice-Edwards delve into the singer’s psychological past revealing a “tough tomboy” whose parents were unfaithful, and purported sexual from family member, Dee Dee Warwick, who died in 2008. Allusions are made to Whitney’s ‘fluid’ sexuality that indicate marriage to Brown was just to conform to the celebrity image back in the day. Longtime assistant Mary Jones indicates that Whitney’s close friend Robyn Crawford was also her ‘secret lover’, and although Crawford is notably absent to confirm this, the two shared an apartment. Whitney was also dogged by the perception amongst the African-American community that her music, “wasn’t black enough.”.

Rice-Edwards’ clever editing captures the political and social climate interweaving images of Houston’s musical contemporaries and concurrent world events. The Bodyguard co-star Kevin Costner talks of her groundbreaking role as a ‘black leading lady.”  And there are suggestions that her father abused her financially, causing the estrangement that led to her emotional down-spiralling and weight loss, seen in tawdry stage appearances echoing those of tragic Amy Winehouse. And although the film does not quite match the cogent quality of Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning Amy, it offers compelling and deeply affecting revelations for her fans and mainstream audiences alike. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE from 6 July 2018

https://youtu.be/YcYgHvDwp4U

The Swing (2018) | Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2018

Dir: Cyril Aris | Doc | 74′

The business of dying is never going to be fun. But with the lightest of touch and always with humour the director films his parents’ final months in a documentary that will resonate with anyone familiar with the issues.

Viviane and Antoine have lived together for 65 years, and while Vivi still has her strength, he is largely bedridden with poor hearing and heart problems. At least they have the dignity and comfort of being cared for in their spacious apartment thanks to the services of a cheerful ‘Bonne’.

It soon emerges that the apple of Antoine’s eye – their adored daughter Marie-Therese – has died suddenly, and the family make the decision not to tell Antoine for fear of weakening him further. He is man of great serenity and religious faith, certainly the most positive of the two who tells his wife of his love for her everyday day – often signing the words in Italian. One can only imagine the final knockings of life as we wait quietly for matters to take their course – and, especially in the case of a couple – wondering who will go first. Vivienne suffers her daughter’s death in silence, but often dissolving into tears. Not only because Marie-Therese had promised her mother that they would sit together on their favourite swing, come Summer, but also because she cannot share her loss with her husband, who comes across as one of the most romantic and docile old people ever. Gracious, uplifting and deeply sensitive, Aris should be applauded for this light-hearted and lyrical love letter to the memory of his parents. MT

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION | KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Putin’s Witnesses (2018) *** Karlovy Vary 2018 | Best Documentary Winner

Dir: Vitaly Mansky | Doc | Latvia/Switz/Czechia | 102’

On New Year’s Eve 1999 the former head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, became president of Russia. In his latest offering the exiled documentarian Vitaly Mansky (Truba) threatens to blow the lid on his own entente cordiale in a film that gives intimate and unprecedented acces to Putin himself and other protagonists on the Russian Political scene including Mikhail Gorbachev, and Boris Yeltsin, who chose the ambitious 47-year-old politician as his successor.

Ukrainian-born Vitaly Mansky bases his film on witness accounts of the events that happened in the years following that fateful day in December, perhaps the most important moment in 21st century Russian history. Making his presence known both behind and infront of the camera as he relaxes with his wife (who openly admits her hatred of Putin) and kids durimg the New Year holidays, the filmmaker offers his own telling perspective on the current man behind the iron mask who is seen delivering red roses and a hug to his former teacher and giving his own personal take on the responsibilities of being a president, while being driven to his private gym: “you have to create a world which you are happy to live in..and not hang you head in shame..when your term of office is over”. Throughout  all this bonhomie and bumfluffery, Putin smiles but remains cold-eyed.

During their voluble encounters, Mansky probes the president on his decision to restore the Soviet anthem and his reasoning behind doing appears candid and unguarded in a film that allows this entertaining expose to speak for itself. This is not about the here and now but how it all came about and throughout a sinister soundtrack signals doom and bleak resignation. At one point a sick and bloated Yeltsin puts a call through to Putin to congratulate him on his victory only to be told that Putin will ring him back. He never does. Although Mansky seems keen to humanise the whole affair, Putin’s glare never really melts, although he cracks the odd fake smile. He is man who plays his cards close to his chest, and we can see all see through the charm offensive. Mansky’s final words offer a chilly takeaway:  “Tacit consent turns witnesses into accomplices” MT

BEST DOCUMENTARY WINNER | KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave No Trace (2018) ****

Dir: Debra Granik | Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Ben Foster | US Drama | 109′

A wayfarer father (Foster) and his teenage daughter (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) are the focus of  Debra Granik’s cogent coming of age docudrama that explores – without judgement or melodrama – the close but often problematic bond between parent and teenager as they go about their day-to-day existence ‘eco-warrior-style’ in the lushly wooded US Pacific coastal area.

LEAVE NO TRACE avoids dramatic conflict in its pragmatic approach to telling a contemporary story that harks back to an atavistic era of hunter gatherers portraying with complete naturalness and finesse the pair’s daily existence as they forage for food, seek out warmth and shelter, relying completely on local flora and fauna for all their creature comforts. And for a while it seems an enviable and harmonious way of life until Tom (Thomasin) grows tired of roaming around and hungers for something more – both physically and emotionally – as she discovers that nesting and belonging suits her better than avoiding society and being constantly on the move. Whether this is a male or female state of mind is a subject for consideration in this – on the surface – simple but thematically rich piece of filmmaking. Tom’s coming of age evolves as naturally as the landscape surrounding her. Clearly her father is a loner, whereas Tom is much more garrulous – clearly a product of her nature rather than her parental nurturing.

What also emerges here is a picture of rural America at its most original state: a collection of people who came together and forged a close community looking after each other in what could ideally be described as basic socialism. But when the state intervenes in the form of social care our hackles begin to rise at this seemingly unnatural intrusion into their state of grace.

With this quietly unassuming indie gem Granik questions and explores complex human dynamics: our desire for privacy and autonomy within our families, communities and even within ourselves is constantly evolving and being challenging by officialdom. LEAVE NO TRACE is a small gem that is larger than life. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 29 JUNE 2018

 

Our New President (2017) ICA LONDON

Dir. Maxim Pozdorovkin, Russia/USA, 2018, 77 mins, English and Russian with English subtitles
Ever since a fateful visit to a mummy’s glass-encased tomb in 1997, Hillary Clinton has been plagued by fainting spells, drug use, and even allegations of sexual abuse and murder. Don’t believe it? Just ask the reporters at Vesti and NTV, two of the most-watched state-run news shows in Russia, where outlandish stories like these reach millions of viewers every night.

As more details of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election emerge, acclaimed filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin assembles a fever dream of Russian propaganda aimed at both Clinton and Trump from YouTube, RT, and other media platforms. Within this alternate universe of misinformation, we witness the seeds of the 2016 fake news cycle take root and successfully infiltrate the collective conscience of a Russian populace trained to distrust truth and objectivity.

The divisive stories peddled by these journalists, handpicked by Putin, range from sinister to absurd, but they all point to a coordinated effort to alter public opinion at home and abroad. COURTESY OF THE ICA.

OUR NEW PRESIDENT – THIS WEEK AT THE ICA

New Directors for the Berlinale

The Berlinale turns over a new leaf as Carlo Chatrian takes over as artistic director and Mariette Rissenbeek as executive director of the International Film Festival starting in 2020.

Carlo Chatrian, born in Turin in 1971, is a film journalist and has directed the Locarno Film Festival since 2013, where he has proved that he can successfully curate and lead an art house audience festival. He stands for an artistically ambitious mix of programming and for a focus on discovering new talents. He and the new executive director, Mariette Rissenbeek, will head the Berlinale starting in 2020. Mariette Rissenbeek (born in Posterholt, The Netherlands in 1956) has long headed German Films, the information and advising centre for the international distribution of German films, as managing director. Her successful career in the film industry makes her the ideal choice for this position: She has many years of experience in working with all the important film festivals around the world and has an extensive network of national and international contacts in the film industry.

BERLINALE 2019 | 7 – 17 FEBRUARY 2019

 

Karlovy Vary Retrospective 2018 | Poetic Documentaries from the Baltic

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the independence of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, this year’s Karlovy Vary festival has put together an extensive retrospective of poetic documentary films from the Baltic region. This collection of important works of the “Baltic New Wave” dating back to the early 1960s features the world premiere of Bridges of Time, a new documentary by renowned Lithuanian filmmaker Audrius Stonys and his Latvian colleague Kristine Briede.

The section Reflections of Time: Baltic Poetic Documentary, which will consist of six blocks of short- and medium-length films and two feature-length documentaries, represents a rare opportunity to see key works of documentary film from the Baltic countries within the context of films made in neighbouring countries. “Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia share with the former Czechoslovakia not just the year in which they declared their independence, but also an exceptionally artistic outpouring of cinematic production in the 1960s.

In the 1960s, Baltic documentary film underwent a narrative and aesthetic transformation. The works of the new generation of filmmakers contrasted with the earlier approach to documentary films, and this Renaissance in Baltic documentary film reflected worldwide changes in how documentaries were made. The newly created films were characterized by a sensitivity towards the story and the chosen subjects. They were based more on the image as such, and explored the possibilities of the wide-screen format, editing, unusual combinations of sound and image, working with time and space, and sometimes also staged re-enactments. These filmmakers were inspired by the legends of documentary film such as Dziga Vertov, but also by the latest trends of cinéma-vérité or direct cinema.

Among the documentaries in the retrospective are films by Latvian directors Ivars Kraulītis (his canonical 1961 short film White Bells), Aivars Freimanis and Herz Frank (the legendary 1978 film Ten Minutes Older, an intimate portrait of a boy watching a puppet theatre consisting of a single ten-minute shot). One of the early pioneers of the new cinematic style, Uldis Brauns, will be represented by his grand feature film 235,000,000(1967), which shows the life of people and important events in the Soviet Union.

Lithuania is represented by two award-wining documentaries by Robertas Verba, the founding father of Lithuanian poetic documentary film and the country’s most distinctive documentary filmmaker. The Old Man and the Land (1965) and The Dreams of the Centenarians (1969) both immortalize the ancient inhabitants of the Lithuanian countryside. Other Lithuanian films include Henrikas Šablevičius’s A Trip Across Misty Meadows (1973), which takes the viewer on a journey across the traditional Lithuanian landscape, and Apolinaras (1973), a film about an eccentric guardian of the law who, like Verba’s old men, is far removed from Soviet reality.

Estonia’s stylistically diverse documentary cinema, whose main focus was not only on village life, but to a large extent also on the city, is represented by films by Andres Sööt (The 511 Best Photographs of Mars, 1968, which combines real and imaginary states and experiments with a hidden camera), Ülo Tambek (Peasants, 1969, which spent 20 years locked in the vaults for its critical view of the Soviet system) and Mark Soosaar (The Woman of Kihnu, 1974, an anthropological observational documentary).

The section also presents the newest generation of filmmakers who began to work during the collapse of the Soviet Union and whose poetic style was significantly influenced by the New Wave of Baltic documentary film. Lithuanian documentarian Audrius Stonys will presents his film The Land of the Blind (1992), which earned him the European Film Academy’s Phoenix Award for Best Documentary Film, and also his later Anti-Gravitation (1995). We will also be showing renowned Latvian director Laila Pakalniņa’s trilogy The Linen, The Ferry and The Mail (1991–95), which launched her international film career (The Ferry and The Mail were screened as part of the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival).

The retrospective’s highlight is Bridges of Time, a remarkable metaphysical essay by renowned Lithuanian filmmaker Audrius Stonys and his Latvian colleague Kristine Briede – an untraditional look at the generation of filmmakers of the “Baltic New Wave” and a meditation on the ontology of documentary film. “Baltic poetic documentary cinema created an independent world, free from soviet ideology, lie and propaganda. It was a declaration of inner freedom. The black and white world of poetic documentary films was full of colours. Sadness was full of joy. And joy was touched by deep existential sadness. These films reminded us about the very core of cinema—to film and to enjoy the beauty of the leaves, moving in the wind.” adds Audrius Stonys. The film’s presentation at Karlovy Vary will be its world premiere.

KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL | Czech Republic | 29 JUNE – 7 JULY 2018

Arcadia (2017) ****

Dir.: Paul Wright; Documentary; UK 2017, 78 min.

This unique documentary, a new archival/music mash-up, mostly black and white, is a paean to loss: the loss of our British countryside and its implications for the cultural identity of this green and pleasant land. ARCADIA is Paul Wright’s follow-up to his haunting mood piece For Those in Peril and relies much more on the atmospheric score by Adrian Utley and Will Gregory, than on its sparse commentary.

ARCADIA does not look back nostalgically at an ancient England, to the music of Jerusalem by Blake/Parry. Wright’s main intention here is to survey the loss, and how it came about. Nature, pure and rhythmic in its yearly cycles (told in nine chapters), dictates the ebb and flow of life via storms and floods that are all part of an existence, now seemingly lost forever. The fluid structure and absence of any narrative, lull the viewer into a dark past: woods are eerie places where a mysterious creature is always lurking round the corner: more witch than unicorn. Because Arcadia is anything but benevolent: the hardship and rough edges of eking out an existence on and off the land are shown, as well as the times of bucolic plenty expressed through Morris dancing and The Great Cheese Roll. These – traditions that are utterly pagan, Wright contrasts this with the current lust for acquisition and development,  even though some of images of industrialisation seem to be as old as the footage of nature lost. Arcadia is not a traditional documentary but a poetic essay oscillating between awe and despair. Only when we leave England and go North of Hadrian’s Wall, does the landscape becomes more rugged, and the atavistic nature of customs turns really almost sinister – recalling The Wicker Man.   

Wright mesmerises us into a state of meditation as the images infiltrate our subconscious allowing subliminal messages to take root. And there is some more substantial criticism: his most (and often unnecessary) repetitive images are those of naked women from the 50s, dancing and prancing, seemingly at one with the countryside, but showing only the filmmaker’s male gaze.

Arcadia casts a spell of the past, and one that is predominantly mysterious and dark, a retrospective vision of a way of life, now utterly gone; a little like Alice getting lost in a fairyland of the past, where shadows lurk behind pastoral scenes of bliss and otherworldly happiness. To return to Jerusalem: Wright choses to show us the heavens, which we have abandoned for the contemporary living hell. Angst-ridden and dystopian in its approach, Arcadia is a grim testament, beguilingly delivered. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 21 JUNE 2018

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film (2016)

Dir: Erin Beckloff, Andrew P Quinn | US | Doc | 99′

A 4K feature length documentary exploring the remarkable community keeping letterpress alive

Just as vinyl is the true home of the music aficionado, the old-fashioned letterpress – with the symbols carved out of wood or moulded out of lead –  is the shrine of the printing fanatic. This world of the letterpress ended in the 60s with the advent of off-set printing and the copy machine – over 50% of the printing shops closed. In this immersive feature debut, filmmakers Erin Beckloff and Andrew P. Quinn follow old and young addicts of these huge machines all over the United States.

“I thought letter print would die with me” says Gregory Walters from Ohio. Meanwhile, Richard Hopkins from West Virginia, who has collected 40 machines from the scrap-yards, now wants to give these treasure “my last ten good years”. Both are in love with the big classic print machines named Heidelberg, Line-O-Scribe, Kelsey and Sigwalt. Another hobby printer “wants to carry the torch, the best thing I can hope for”. But their fears of being the last in a long line of those still using Johannes Gutenberg’s invention from the mid 15th century, are absolutely unfounded. The best example is Dave Churchman, a hobby printer from Indianamwho died during the filming of this documentary, and whose son Andrew took over immediately from his father. And “Masterprinter” Jim Moran from Wisconsin can talk nostalgically about the onset of on-set printing – the NYT was the last paper to switch in 1978 – but he knows full well that the trade is safe – mostly in the hands of young women. Which is surprising, giving the dangerous nature of the traditional way of printing:  Jim Daggs from Iowa is not the only one to shows his ‘war wounds’: some fingers are rather incomplete, and one arm is disfigured by a lead burn. Needless to say, Daggs does not think much of modern printers, which “are getting away from the skill of the trade.”

Jim Sherraden runs the Hatch Show Print in Nashville,Tennessee, specialising in posters for Country music. The manager of Hatch, Celene Aubrey (a woman in her thirties) is proud of a tradition which started with Jimmy Cash, followed by Dolly Parton and now features Bon Jovi. “We are a living connection from the past into the future. An honourable mention should go to the Plateau Press Museum in Illinois, where over 600 machines are curated by Paul Eden. There is another museum of the trade in Hamilton, for Wood Type and Printing in Wisconsin. But it is not only printing letters and posters: Jennifer Farrell, who quit her job to work for her Starshape Press in Illisnois, prints ornaments, which are very much admired by the veterans of the trade. And Tammy and Dam Winn, both in their forties and from Illinois, run their Red Door print shop profitably, just like in the good old days.

To liven up the “Talking Heads” the directors have used old AFL-CIO vocational films and other documentary clips about the art of printing, as well as historical re-enactment. A quiet but rewarding feature, which slowly grows on anyone patient enough to enjoy its pearls of wisdom.

AVAILABLE from June 19 VOD/DVD/BluRay

All the Wild Horses (2017) Mongol Derby

Dir: Ivo Marloh | Doc | UK | 90′

The wild Mongolian horse was Genghis Khan’s weapon of choice when he conquered the hostile wolf-infested steppes of the World’s largest land-locked country. And the Mongol Derby is the world’s longest and most gruelling horse race at 1000 kilometres. Inspired by Ghenghis Khan’s Urtuu postal system it courses through the northern territory of this vast Asian country where the self-navigating riders – and their resilient mounts – occasionally stop to rest and re-feul at these 27 posting stations, and there is one every 40 kilometres.

An endurance test for those who relish things that go wrong – and here they invariably do – and Hollywood fare such as Bite the Bullet (1975) and Hidalgo (2004) both dramatised this epic struggle, and Otto Bell’s recent documentary The Eagle Huntress (2016) takes place on similar terrain. But Ivo Marloh has captured the real thing on the hoof in his brilliant widescreen adventure that gets down and dirty and up close and personal with the horses themselves (who are not to be petted) and their intrepid riders who have travelled from far and wide (South Africa, Ireland, Texas and Canada) to win the race, and win it whatever the cost (should they fall off mid station, it’s a long onward hike, or maybe even death).

The going gets tough and unpredictable – often unbearably so, but the riders must persevere against the odds: injury, buzzing insects, heat exhaustion and the elements soon take their toll. And Marloh is there in the thick of it, delivering an exhilarating watch from close quarters while also exploring the human story of a remote community struggling to survive in their ancient pastoral tradition. “This is the Wild frickin’ West” says one rider. And we feel his pain. But this is rip-roaring entertainment – and not for the feint-hearted. MT

THE MONGOL DERBY IS AN ANNUAL EVENT THAT TAKES PLACE IN AUGUST

Edinburgh International Film Festival | 20 June – 1 July 2018

Artistic Director Mark Adams unveiled this year’s programme for Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), with 121 new features, including 21 world premieres, from 48 countries across the globe.

Highlights include Haifaa al-Mansour’s long-awaited follow-up to Wadjda, MARY SHELLEY, with Elle Fanning taking on the role of Mary Wollstonecraft, the World Premiere of Stephen Moyer’s directorial debut, THE PARTING GLASS, starring Melissa Leo, Cynthia Nixon, Denis O’Hare, Anna Paquin (who also produces), Rhys Ifans and Ed Asnerand an IN PERSON events with guests including the award-winning English writer and director David Hare, the much-loved Welsh comedian Rob Brydon and star of the compelling Gothic drama THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE, actor George MacKay, as well as the Opening and Closing Gala premieres of PUZZLE and SWIMMING WITH MEN.

BEST OF BRITISH

This year’s Best of British strand includes exclusive world premieres of Simon Fellows’ thriller STEEL COUNTRY, featuring a captivating performance from Andrew Scott as Donald, a truck driver turned detective; comedy classic OLD BOYS starring Alex Lawther; the debut feature of writer-director Tom Beard, TWO FOR JOY, a powerful coming-of-age drama starring Samantha Morton and Billie Piper; oddball comedy-drama EATEN BY LIONS; striking debut from writer and director Adam Morse, LUCID, starring Billy Zane and Sadie Frost; Jamie Adams’ British comedy SONGBIRD, featuring Cobie Smulders. Audiences can also look forward to a special screening of Mandie Fletcher’s delightfully fun rom-com PATRICK.

AMERICAN DREAMS 

This year the AMERICAN DREAMS strand has the quirky indie comedy UNICORN STORE, the directorialOscar-winning actress Brie Larson in which she stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Joan Cusack; the heart-warming HEARTS BEAT LOUD starring Nick Offerman; glossy noir thriller, TERMINAL, starring and produced by Margot Robbie and starring Simon Pegg and Dexter Fletcher; IDEAL HOME in which Paul Rudd and Steve Coogan play a bickering gay couple who find themselves thrust into parenthood; 1980s set spy thriller starring Jon Hamm, THE NEGOTIATOR; and PAPILLON, starring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek.

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

Notable features include 3/4  Ilian Metev’s glowing cinema verity portrait of family life. Malgorzata Szumovska’s oddball drama MUG that explores the aftermath of a face transplant; Aida Begic’s touching transmigration tale NEVER LEAVE ME highlighting how young Syrian lives have been affected by war; actor-turned-director Mélanie Laurent’s fourth feature DIVING, and Hannaleena Hauru’s thought-provoking THICK LASHES OF LAURI MANTYVAARA and the brooding and atmospheric drama THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE starring George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Mia Goth and Matthew Stagg.

WORLD PERSPECTIVES 

This offer a fascinating snapshot of developing world-cinema themes and styles such as BO Hu’s epic Chinese drama AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL; Berlinale award-winning South American dram THE HEIRESSES. GIRLS ALWAYS HAPPY, a touching but darkly funny tale of a Chinese mother and daughter and Kylie Minogue starrer FLAMMABLE CHILDREN , a raucous comedy set in Aussie beachside suburbia in the 1970s. THE BUTTERFLY TREE starring Melissa George and Ben Elton’s THREE SUMMERS starring Robert Sheehan and set at an Australian folk music festival.

DOCUMENTARIES

This year’s EIFF programme features a strong musical theme from Kevin Macdonald’s illuminating biopic WHITNEY, about the life and times of superstar Whitney Houston; GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM – THE DIRECTOR’S CUT narrated by George Michael himself and ALMOST FASHIONABLE: A FILM ABOUT TRAVIS directed by Scottish lead-singer Fran Healy. Audiences will be inspired by the creativity of Orson Welles in Mark Cousins’ THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES; HAL, a film portrait of the acclaimed 1970s director Hal Ashby; LIFE AFTER FLASH, a fascinating exploration into the life of actor Sam J. Jones.

DOWNRIGHT STRANGE

As the sun sets, audiences will be able to journey into the dark and often downright strange side of cinema, with a selection of genre-busting edge-of-your-seat gems including: the gloriously grisly psychosexual romp PIERCING starring Mia Wasikowska; the world premieres of Matthew Holness’ POSSUM and SOLIS staring Steven Ogg as an astronaut who finds himself trapped in an escape pod heading toward the sun; dark and bloody period drama THE MOST ASSASSINATED WOMAN IN THE WORLD and the futuristic WHITE CHAMBER starring Shauna Macdonald.

FOCUS ON CANADA 

The country focus for the Festival’s 72nd edition will be Canada, allowing audiences to take a cinematic tour of the country and its culture, offering insight as well as entertainment, from filmmakers new and already established. HOCHELAGA, LAND OF THE SOULS is an informative look at Quebec’s history; but possibly best to avoid the unconvincing FAKE TATTOOS opting instead for WALL, a striking animated essay about Israel from director Cam Christiansen and FIRST STRIPES a compelling look into the Canadian military from Jean-Francois Caissy.

Weather permitting, the Festival’s pop-up outdoor cinema event Film Fest in the City with Mackays (15 – 17 June) will kick off the festivities early, with the 72nd Edinburgh International Film Festival running from 20 June – 1 July, 2018.

Tickets go on sale to Filmhouse Members on Wednesday 23 May at 12noon and on sale to the public on Friday 25 May at 10am. www.edfilmfest.org.uk.

 

 

Fred (2018)*** | DVD release

Dir: Paul Van Carter | Doc | UK |

Paul Van Carter (The Guv’nor) spills the beans in this solemn non-judgemental exposé of Kray Twins associate Freddie Foreman – or Brown Bread Fred, as he’s known in the trade. As biopics go this is a stealthy but straightforward affair heavily controlled by Foreman’s brooding and rather swarthy presence as he sits facing Carter, only sharing what he wants to – and that’s not a great deal, in the scheme of things. Most of the detail surrounding this ruthless villain’s bloody past is in the pubic domain, including his part in the grizzly demise of Jack the Hat McVitie – for which he served ten years behind bars, and Freddie openly admits to this. But by the same token, he describes himself as a family man who never really wanted to harm anyone unless they got out of hand. Foreman has been accused of over forty murders, yet he’s not troubled by his gangland past: heartache comes only in the shape of memories of the Blitz and his Wartime childhood. And he certainly has a way with words, and a calm economy of movement when alluding to his misdemeanours, in phrasing that could be described as euphemistic. As a figure he very much calls to mind Bob Hoskins’ character in The Long Good Friday but Foreman has a brutal hard-edged quality that not even Bob could muster in his superlative performance. Foreman blames his criminal past on his impoverished upbringing as one of five boys in London’s Battersea, long before it became posh. And despite his shrewd entrepreneurialism – he went straight for two years in the US and Spain – he still reverted to his recidivist ways: clearly crime runs in his blood, even when the money flowed too. In his 80s and with strained family relations, Foreman now lives in a care home, where no doubt he is getting a taste of his own medicine. MT

NOW AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD 28 MAY AND ON 4 JUNE DVD

I, Claude Monet (2017)

Dir: Phil Grabsky | Doc | 85min | UK 

I CLAUDE MONET brings the legendary French painter to life through a sumptuous video diary that often plays out like a tragedy in contrast to the resounding beauty of Monet’s work. Seen from the point of view of Monet himself, played in voiceover by Henry Goodman (Notting Hill), the documentary offers insight into how Monet’s destiny as a painter gradually materialised through the encouragement of his friend and mentor Boudin who emphasised the need to practise drawing. Against the moving collage of Monet’s paintings, we learn of his concurrent struggle to succeed and finance his life and honing his craft that later made him one of the most admired and successful artists of the 19th and 2oth century and the co-founder of Impressionism.

Behind his ethereal paintings and glamorous locations of Paris, Normandy, the Côte d’Azur and Venice, lies his real story story. That of a man who faced tragedy, and poverty, losing his first wife after the birth of their second child in 1880, when the family were forced out of their lodgings due to lack of money, not to mention a lack of professional support. I, CLAUDE MONET reveals the artist’s desperation and loneliness, his tremendous passion for life, but also his driven, often selfish, approach to work, putting his craft before his family, painting from early light until darkness, and often producing a prolific output of up to six canvasses a day, even when partially blind. When success eventually came, and he found happiness with his second wife Alice, a love of planting led to the magical gardens at Giverny which then became his focus in life and the subject matter for many of his most successful works.

Some of the paintings in I CLAUDE MONET are well known, but there are some lesser known canvasses – particularly those crafted in Bordighera in the mid 1880s and Venice in 1908, which show his extraordinary talent for capturing the light. The documentary covers Monet’s work from 1866 until his death in December 1926, when he was still painting, the need apparently flowing out of him from dawn ’til dusk, despite cataracts and ill health. Set to Stephen Baysted’s atmospheric score, this is an meditative, absorbing and often mesmerising film which will appeal to cineastes and art lovers alike with its alluring freshness and insight. MT

OUT ON 22 MAY 2018, I CLAUDE MONET IS PART OF THE EXHIBITION ON SCREEN SERIES, DEDICATED TO BRINGING WORLD-CLASS ART TO THE BIG SCREEN.

 

This is Congo (2017) ***

Dir: Daniel McCabe | Doc | 91′ | Congo

Magnificent landscapes give way to mass murder and mayhem in This Is Congo, Daniel McCabe’s cinematic documentary that follows several of his compatriots surviving twenty years of conflict in this war-torn nation. Congo’s leaders have chosen war in place of an intelligent way of harnessing the country’s abundant mineral wealth, and ensuring peace and prosperity for its people.

Most of us have never been to this lush mid-African country three times the size of Texas. Fertile soil encourages agriculture and provides a rich cocoa-dusting for the country’s ample mineral reserves of tourmaline, manganese, copper, bauxite and gold.

McCabe knows from experience that filming will be dangerous here and certainly gives a flavour of the perils in the opening scene where booming mortar fire sends tremors through our seats while onscreen the fleeing Congolese protect their kids and livestock  on the run.

Bordered by Rwanda and Uganda, The Democratic Republic of Congo sounds like a country of the free and enabled. It is quite the opposite: a place divided by macho rebel forces, such as the M23, who compete with rival militia groups while the government-led forces continually strive to keep control and calm the masses under the auspices of Colonel Mamadou Ndala who eventually loses his battle – in the surprising final scenes – not to the enemy but to his jealous officers threatened by his energy and charisma.

Voiced by the melodic tones of Isaach de Bankole), the real heroes of the Congo are not the generals and fighters but the enterprising civilians: voluptuous business woman Mama Romance who trades precious gems in the main port of Goma and tailor Hakiza Nyantaba who traipses from village to village with his trusty Singer sewing machine. With great sensitivity and dispassion, McCabe shows us a nation surviving against the odds, its people forced into a peripatetic mode of existence, cheerful and philosophical despite their trial and tribulations. MT

THIS IS CONGO | IN CINEMAS | ON DEMAND FROM 25 MAY 2018 | DOGWOOF

 

 

A Cambodian Spring (2017)

Dir.: Chris Kelly; Documentary; UK/Canada/ROI 2017; 120 min.

Chris Kelly six year long journey into contemporary Cambodian life is a trip into the Heart of Darkness, to paraphrase Joseph Conrad.

To fully comprehend the horrors unfolding it is necessary to bear in mind that Cambodia is ruled today by the Cambodian People’s Party, led by Prime Minister for life, Hun Sen since 1985 – and this is the same Party of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, changed only in name to the Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party, having renounced Communism and genocide and claiming the lives of over two million citizens, is never far from the surface.

Kelly started out in 2007 with what seemed then a local conflict: Once a retreat in the capital Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak Lake has become a wasteland having been filled steadily with sand. The World Bank sponsored project was carried out by the Shukaku Company with strong ties to the government. In the process of draining the lake, the houses of the surrounding area were flooded. Those dwellings still standing would soon be demolished. But the inhabitants of the waterlogged houses have little choice but to stay put, since the compensation offered by the government is so meagre they cannot afford to buy any replacement homes.

Working class mothers Tep Vanny and Toul Srey Pov (who would later fall out for personal reasons) take up the unequal fight with Shukaku and the government, fighting for a fair compensation. Both will be imprisoned on trumped up charges, but they are joined by a surprising ally, The Venerable Luon Sovath, a Buddhist monk from the province of Siam Reap. Mediagenic and charismatic, he is under duress from the Church leadership, since the Supreme Patriarch of the Cambodia is appointed by the government – clear parallels with China, undermining the struggle for religious freedom in Tibet.

The documentary takes its title from the return from exile in July 2013 of the opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who would found the Cambodian National Rescue Party. In 2010 Rainsy was sentenced to ten years in prison and had to leave the country. The opposition CNRP gained 55 sets in Parliament in the 2013 election. But both Rainsy and his successor as Party leader, Kem Sokha accused the ruling party of vote fraud. Rainsy again had to leave the country in 2016, after he accused a high official of the CPP of being a torturer in the prisons of the Khmer Rogue. His political future is uncertain, since he was banned by the CPP from political activities for life.

There is no overriding narrative here, more a gathering of moments, subjectively collected, very much like a “Fly on the Wall”. In a certain way Kelly’s style recalls Tarkovsky’s “visual fugues”; abstract visual sequences that are thematic strains. Water, grass and flames contrast with the clashes of the demonstrators with the heavily armed forces of the government. State corruption, supported by the Church, is not easily broken because, as Toul Srey Pov puts it: “It’s easy to wake a sleeping person, but you can’t wake them up when they are only pretending to sleep.” AS

ON RELEASE FROM 25 MARCH 2018

Bergman: A Year in the Life (2018) | Cannes Film Festival 2018

Dir: Jane Magnusson | Doc | Sweden | 116’

Documentarian Jane Magnusson takes a swipe at Ingmar Bergman’s memory in her sprawling in-depth documentary that marks this year’s centenary of the birth of the Swedish legend. It is an informative expose that lays bare the lesser known side of Bergman and follows on from her 2013 outing Trespassing Bergman where Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen appraised the filmmaker’s staggering oeuvre.

In this current climate of moral rectitude, your judgement of the film will be guided by whether or not you think an artist’s work should stand apart from their personal life. Predicably it emerges that Ingmar was his father’s favourite and  his brother Dag Bergman reveals other intimate details about their childhood together, including his brother’s neurosis that led to stomach pains and sleepless nights.

Opting for a thematic rather than chronological narrative allows Magnusson to zoom in on Bergman’s personality, family and the women in his life in a revealing expose of a man who seemed entirely focused on his own needs. Yet he also emerges as a director who worked closely and intensively with his actors creating female roles that were appealing as well as emotionally and intellectually challenging.

So many documentaries about Bergman have been hagiographic tributes to the national hero, and when a filmmaker reaches these heady heights it becomes difficult to be critical. Since the dawn of time creators have been philanderers and poor parents, driven by their obsession with emotionally consuming work. Does this mean that they should be metaphorically ‘taken out and shot’ or have their work shunned and demonised?

Magnusson’s film is observational in style, cleverly focusing in on 1957, Bergman’s most prolific year as a filmmaker on television and the big screen, with the release of Wild Strawberries and the Seventh Seal, his most autonomous work. It was also the year of his involvement in four theatre productions – including the massive almost unstageable endeavour that was Peer Gynt. 1957 heralded the arrival of his sixth child, with wife Gun Grut, and romances leading to marriage with Käbi Laretei and Ingrid von Rosen, including an affair with actor Bibi Andersson, who starred in the year’s two films. 

Enriched by a wealth of personal photos and footage, there are informative talking heads from the world of film, theatre and literature making this a definitive and ambitious piece of work that reveals a complicated but endearing genius, despite its provocative stance. MT

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 8-19 MAY 2018

 

Filmworker (2017)

Dir: Tony Zierra | With Leon Vitali, Ryan O’Neal, Danny Lloyd, Matthew Modine, Stellan Skarsgard, Pernilla August | Doc | US  | 94′

Director Tony Zierra (My Big Break) shows how easy it was for one actor to become obsessed by the legend that was Stanley Kubrick, becoming his right-hand collaborator and dedicating his life to Kubrick’s films, and even now, 18 years after the director’s death, working to transfers the master’s oeuvre onto 4K material.

In 1975, actor Leon Vitali (287), a young man with a great future ahead of him on both screen and stage – he had offers from the National Theatre – landed one of the main parts as Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s epic Barry Lyndon. Vitali admired Kubrick so much that he soon abandoned his acting career to learn about filmmaking, finally talking Kubrick into getting him a job on The Shining (1980). And Vitali was so quick to earn Kubrick’s trust that he was tasked with casting the child parts for the Cult horror feature, discovering little Danny Lloyd. For Full Metal Jacket (1987), Vitali’s main contribution was enabling the actors to live up to the harsh and exacting demands of the director. Whilst returning to his acting career in Kubrick’s final feature Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Vitali also helped with various technical tasks. 

Well that’s the nuts and bolts of this well-made and engaging documentary, enriched by archive footage and photographs including informative talking heads who enlighten further on one of the World’s most outstanding 20th century filmmaker. Kubrick was a perfectionist and control freak, and working with him often meant putting in 16 hours a day; Vitali became  the trusted adjutant and their two often working round the clock often even worked around the clock. Kubrick’s three children, who are interviewed, make it quite clear that they came second in the pecking order for Dad’s attention. Other interviewees, like Ryan O’Neal and Matthew Modine, talk about Vitali’s obsessive relationship with Kubrick, who was often bad-tempered when Vitali did not follow his orders. And clearly this obsessive relationship has taken its toll on Vitali, physically as well as psychologically. He looks much older than his actual age, haggard, and still driven by fulfilling the tasks he sets himself as Kubrick’s personal assistant for life.

Filmworker is a haunting portrait of a man who has submerged his own identity to serve another in a near religious case of submission. But when it comes to posterity, he couldn’t have chosen a more rigorous genius to learn from. AS

OUT ON RELEASE FROM 18 May 2018

 

The Poetess (2017) ****

Dir: Stefanie Brockhaus, Andres Wolff | Cast: HIssa Hilal | Drama | 89′ | Saudi/Germany

Hissa Hilal, Saudi poet and political activist in her forties, has made some ground-breaking literary efforts to push out the boundaries for women in Saudi Arabia. Veiled in her burqa she is a vehement critic of fundamental fanatics and Islamist terrorism. To be an outspoken woman and a poet in the Muslim world is an act of courage on its own, but to attack the predominantly male audience in the studio on live TV, goes a step further.

Ms Hilal is the focus of this enlightening documentary from Stefanie Brockhaus (On the other Side of Life) and Andy Wolff. We learn how she became the only woman competitor in the “Million’s Poet Show” 2015, televised to an audience of 70 million from Abu Dhabi (United Emirates). Remia (her mother does not let her use this name on TV), is married to another journalist and poet, who stands by her during the crisis following her appearance in the reality show, filmed in a TV studio with the most garish and gilded decor known to the modern world. It is a miracle in itself that she even reaches the grand final, where she will compete against five men. Covered in an abaya hijab and a burqa, Hissa attacks the unfaithfulness of men, and even more daring, she condemns the muftis, the issuers the Fatwa, all through her clever poetry. Needless to say, a Fatwa has been issued against her, a death threat, for which she is prepared: “If they kill me, I will be a martyr for humanity”.

For Hilal, “religion is a private matter, but is manipulated today for political ends”. Clips from documentaries from the early 20th century support her thesis clearly stating that a hundred years ago, Bedouin women could move around freely, have their own business and did not wear the burqa, which was only introduced later, “because beautiful women caused conflicts in the desert”. She remembers her youth, when Saudi Arabia was a much more liberal country. She watched television in the 1970s “when the parents forbid them to watch Egyptian movies. But we stayed up, until the parents were asleep and then enjoyed the forbidden features”. The change in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world came in late 1979, with the Juhayman incident in Mecca when 270 people were killed and over 500 were injured. The revolt was lead by Juhayman al-Oteibi and Mohammed Abudl al-Qahtan, the latter claiming to be the Mahdi. The Saudi monarchy, feeling threatened by the clerics who accused them of selling out to Western culture, placated the religious leaders by giving them control over the whole of society: media, culture, education, everything. The interaction of genders was the first victim: even in the TV studio, genders are separated.

One of the most interesting elements of the film is seeing the contrast between the cities of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and more liberal Oman, which is photographed both from an aerial perspective and with the camera moving freely through the streets and malls, evoking a authentic feel for Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman.

Tension builds in the grand finale “Million’s Poet Show”. The audience are clearly rooting in Hilal’s favour, but there’s bound to be some manipulation behind the scenes to ensure a male wins. She does not expect to be victorious and sadly her fears are realised. “They like to see me defeated, it’s really hate”. Her income from writing enables her to buy herself a house in Abu Dhabi; in the capital Riyadh this would not have been possible, and certainly not in the UK. She might have avoided the consequences of the Fatwa, but is not sure, when she will see her family again. This real eye-opener should be screened globally for all to see. MT

THE POETESS | NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS | LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW |

Mansfield 66/67 (2017) * *

Dir: P Ebersole and Todd Hughes | US Documentary with Kenneth Anger, Richmond Arquette, Ann Magnusson, John Waters, Mary Woronov | 84′

The real Sixties sex symbol Jayne Mansfield is never really revealed in this frivolously flirty film that floats around aimlessly in exploring her ill-fated final years.

Mansfield 66/67 is all bells and whistles as it careens chaotically through the blonde bombshell’s short-lived career – she died aged only 34 in 1967. Taking as its informative talking heads John Waters, Mary Woronov, and Kenneth Anger (et al) this is a light-headed piece of entertainment from the pair who brought us Hit So Hard that explored musician Patty Schemel’s descent into drug abuse.

It turns out that Mansfield was not just a pretty face or a stunning figure, for that matter: She was a polished publicity machine. Beyond that we learn nothing about her formative years or her movie career, although her death in Louisiana in a freak car accident in 1967 is much discussed and debated, along with her “Faustian” association with the Satanist Anton LaVey. It comes as no surprise to find out she very much enjoyed sex: “it should be animalistic, it should be sadistic, it should at times be masochistic…There are few rules and moral conventions”.  She also loved being a mother to her five kids, starting at age 17. According to her (convincing) funeral embalmer she was not de-captitated, contrary to popular belief, but she did dabble in witchcraft (the louche LaVey was variously blamed for her death); and live in a pink palace; and drive a pink Cadillac, during a decade long Hollywood career that hit its peak in the late 1950s.

But this film is so busy flitting through its different styles of presentation – that include dance routines by a bizarre bewigged foursome and Pink Panther style animations – that the thrice-married curvaceous kitten Jayne Mansfield almost takes a back seat in her own vehicle, and ranks secondary to the stylistic flourishes of this quasi vanity project. Ironic, considering that Mansfield’s career was defined exclusively by her desire for publicity “at any cost”. Public property during her lifetime, post mortem Mansfield still maintains her mystery. MT

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 13 APRIL 2018

 

 

Sheffield Doc Fest | 7 – 12 June 2018

Sheffield Doc/Fest celebrates its 25th edition this year with a diverse programme that features not only documentaries but also interactive and immersive projects, including 7 virtual reality installations in the Alternate Realities Exhibition and works by the British collaborator duo Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (20,000 Days on Earth), along with the usual industry talks. 

The festival opens on 7 June with the world premiere of Sean McAllister’s A Northern Soul that sees the director reflect on changes to his Yorkshire hometown: a city divided by Brexit and simultaneously celebrated as UK City of Culture, hit by austerity. 
Amongst the other features to look out are:
A DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS | Dir: Simon Lereng | 91′
While the war in Ukraine and Russia rages on beyond their village, a simple family go about their ordinary life in this gentle observational story that won the First Appearance award for its director at IDFA 2017
A WOMAN CAPTURED | Dir: Bernadett Tuza-Ritter | 89′ 
Slavery is a European invention, and still exists, or so we’re led to believe in this extraordinary story about who a woman down on her luck who  becomes trapped and abused in a more manipulative woman’s household. Is this really slavery or just one person’s power over another? You decide.
CENTRAL AIRPORT TEMPELHOF | Dir: Karim Ainouz | 97′
Director Karim Ainouz finds a dark, ironic vein of humour in Berlin’s defunct city airport where massive hangers house Germany’s emergency asylum seekers, where the local Germans do their best to accommodate their new arrivals.
OBSCURO BAROCCO | Dir: Evangelia Kranioti | 60′
A visually ravishing metamorphosis takes place under the gaudy lights of the Rio de Janeiro carnival in this Berlinale (2018) Teddy Award winning documentary that explores the transgender world of the Brazilian capital.
FLOW (World Premiere, Chile) Dir:  Nicolas Molina | 82′
FLOW observes the human connection between two rivers: the Ganges in India and the Biobio in Chile. It proposes a poetic journey blending both civilisations through the flow of one great river.
SHEFFIELD DOC FESTIVAL 7-12 JUNE 2018

Nothing Like a Dame (2018) Tribute to Maggie Smith

Dir.: Roger Michell; Documentary with Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith; UK 2018, 84 min.

Director/writer Roger Michell (Notting Hill) is does not favours to four great actresses of the British stage and screen with his rambling documentary – even calling it a “gossip meeting”. Luckily the film is saved by the distinguished dames themselves: whose pithy wisdom and rich experiences gild Michell’s all too casual approach.

Maggie Smith started her career at the Oxford University Dramatic Society as Viola in Twelfth Night in 1952, aged seventeen. She later joined the National and played opposite Laurence Olivier as Desdemona in Othello and again was partnered with him in Master Builder. She tells Plowright how difficult her husband made it for her on stage. Maggie Smith won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1969 for the titular role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, directed by Ronald Neame. She starred in Quartet and Room with a View, as well as popular features like Death on the Nile, and in the Harry Potter series, as professor Minerva McGonagall. Gosford Park (2001) was one of her finest films where she played Constance Trentham with a dry humour,  that was her signature style. More recently she starred in Nicholas Hytner’s feature of Alan Bennett’s play The Lady in the Van: she was a brilliant Mary Shepherd, a former convert pianist, who lived as homeless hobo in a van on Bennetts’ forecourt in Camden Town. And on TV she was prominent in Downtown Abbey in 52 episodes as Violet Crawley.

All these women bemoan their “difficult times” with their (mostly) actor husbands, especially Joan Plowright, who hosts the get-together. She was married to Laurence Olivier between 1961 and 1982, and collaborated in his work at the National. When asked, in an archive clip, whether she missed out on other opportunities because of her relationship with Olivier, Plowright, there and then, politely refused to be drawn out on the subject, but today we know that the journalist’s question was very pertinent. Plowright starred in three famous Chekov plays on the stage, and acted with her future husband in John Osborne’s The Entertainer in 1957, which was filmed in 1960 by Tony Richardson: Joan playing the daughter of Olivier’s failing titular hero comedian Archie Rice. The casting was pitch perfect, since Olivier was 22 years older than Plowright. Her other film roles include Equus, Jane Eyre, The Dressmaker, but also Peter Greenaway’s Drowning by Numbers.

 

Eileen Atkins was forced by her mother to train as a ballerina between the ages of three and sixteen, even though she didn’t take to it. At the same time as these ballet lessons, she was performing as ‘Baby Eileen’ in Working Men’s clubs. Saved by her teachers, she not only became a great actress – her stage debut was The Killing of Sister George – but she, together with Jean Marsh, created the popular BBC series Upstairs, Downstairs, starring with her co-creator. Her TV work also included lead roles in Smiley’s People and Sons and Lovers. She was married to the actor Julian Glover between 1957 and 1966 – then he went on to marry the actress Isla Blair a day after he divorced Atkins. Her second marriage was to the producer Bill Shephard. In 1997 Atkins wrote the script to Mrs. Dalloway, directed by Marleen Gorris and starring Vanessa Redgrave. It was a great critical success, but a flop at the box-office. In 2001 Atkins starred with Maggie Smith in Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman.

Judy Dench was sent to a Quaker school by her parents, and still is active in her faith. She is patron to more than 180 charities, many connected with film and theatre. Dench, who made her stage debut in 1957 as Ophelia in Hamlet, is by far the most outspoken of the quartet: angry about people telling her not try anything new at her age – and adamant about her own career choices. She sees ageism everywhere, and takes issue with it. Whilst she is most famous for her role as M in the James Bond movies like Skyfall, she has also starred in Iris and Philomena. With Joan Plowright and Maggie Smith she filmed Tea with Mussolini, as well as Ladies in Lavender with Smith. Dench is open about not being considered a classical beauty, and she hesitated for a long time about playing Cleopatra on stage – which she did eventually in 1987 at the National. Maggie Smith, who was tarred with the same brush by a sexist press, dominated by men, went to Ontario in the late 1970s, to play the Egyptian Queen on stage.

Unfortunately, Michell just skirts over everything, degrading his cast to an old-ladies ‘Kaffee Klatsch’. But even the little he leaves, is still worth watching, and even more so for devotees of this sterling British quartet. AS

DAME MAGGIE SMITH 1934-2024

   

 

                      

                           

One or the Other (2017) | East End Film Festival 2018

Dir.: Adam Kossoff; Documentary; Israel/UK, 60 min.

Adam Kossoff’s (The Anarchist Rabbi) illuminating essay film about the titular question of homeland versus nation state, researches this topic with references to the building and existence of the State of Israel, using different forms of images to explain the difference between official and personal history. To illustrate his point aesthetically, Kossoff often uses 8- or 16 mm home movies inserted in the middle of the main images.

Whilst watching images of fleeing Palestinians during the Israeli/Arab War of 1948, Kossoff also shows example of Hollywood style movies, showing Israelis as heroes. He references the many Jewish organisations in the diaspora who asked their own governments for financial support for a country they did not want to live in. The saying “Next year in Jerusalem” clouded many a European Jewish childhood in the 1950s and 60s, leaving the younger generation in limbo between their native country, and the mythical Jewish nation of Israel, their parents never intended to join.

Kossoff is very strong on emblematic issues; whilst Israel has declared the olive tree the symbol of the State, it has never the less destroyed over 800 000 Palestinians olive trees since 1967, together with many Palestinian homes in Haifa and Tel Aviv, the owners fleeing to save their lives. The same home are now being sold to Israelis because their former owners do not currently possess the finance required by the Jewish Trust administering the properties. So, when these buildings are sold, it is a final act. Kossoff comments “the nation state is not interested in justice, but self preservation”.

In the “Battle of Jenin” in April 2002, when IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) flattened the refuge camp which existed since this 1948 War, about 50 people were killed, most of them in their own houses. The actually casualty figures is still in dispute, but one of the bulldozer drivers showed no regret, blaming Palestinian “terrorists” for the fighting, and telling gruesome stories about him drinking whiskey to last the three day battle. Official films of the D9, praising this vehicle of destruction for its invulnerability, are gut-wrenching in their bellicose language. In another newsreel excerpt, the commentator points to Arabs reading their own newspapers, commenting “they have newspapers in their own language, even though they are a minority, when they had once been a majority”.

Finally, a reminder that Israel replaced Yiddish, spoken by many of the first wave settlers with a modern version of ancient Hebrew. Criticism came from many writers and Rabbis warning “those who had forced this biblical language on to the people, do not believe in the biblical meaning of it. It might lead to their destruction. This language has been reconstructed to define itself against others”.

Ending on a long shot of an old postcard “Visit Palestine”, over which the credits roll, this essay with texts by Walter Benjamin, Mahmood Darwish, Tanya Reinhart and Susan Sontag ends on a melancholic note. It certainly points to the evils of the Nation State, its only fault is in failing to mention that Israel is not alone in annexing territories and burying the history its citizens. AS

22 April 2018 |THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 2018

The Ballad of Shirley Collins (2017) | Home Ent

Dir: Rob Curry | Tim Plester | Musical biopic Doc | UK | 94′

Rob Curry and Tm Plester (Way of the Morris) retain a 1970s aesthetic for this lyrical paean to Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE (born Sussex 5 July 1935) the English folk singer who, along with her sister Dolly, is widely regarded as the mainstay of the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s. After leaving school at 17, she often performed on the banjo and recorded with her sister Dolly, whose piano accompaniment created unique settings for Shirley’s plain and often plangeant singing style. She first met Communist activist and eminent ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax at a party Ewan MacColl held in the early 1954, fell in love and followed him back to Kentucky in 1959 where he had been under surveillance during the McCarthy witch-hunt. The two made recordings under Atlantic Records under the title Sounds of the South (some were re-enacted in the Coen Brothers’ Oh Brother Where Art Thou). But the focus here is largely on Shirley and her life experiences up to the present day, and there’s a distinct feeling of loss and redemption that runs through it.

Shirley Collins comes across as vulnerable but warmly down to earth telling how she briefly lost her singing voice after a relationship ebded, but she has certainly recovered it now – she looks and sounds stunning at 82 – as she performs informally. Shirley is also a lively raconteur adding a touch of wry humour when recalling letters to her family back home, written from her time in Mississippi with Alan, which she describes as ‘quite domestic’: “I must finish now as I have to go and syringe Alan’s ears”.

Narrated by Hannah Arterton (The Five) and enlivened by original black & white footage, audio archives, and colourful filmed excerpts from Arundel and the countryside around East Sussex where she grew up, this enjoyable and informative biopic raises the profile of this little known era of English folk singing with a distinct pagan feel to it. THE BALLAD OF SHIRLEY COLLINS is fascinating and gorgeously framed and captured in Richard Mitchell’s limpid visuals. MT

DVD ON RELEASE FROM AMAZON.CO.UK

Malaga Film Festival | 13 -22 April 2018

The 21st Edition of Malaga Film Festival kicks off later this week with the accent on Spanish and Latin American titles. All screenings are shown in Spanish and their original languages.

The Official competition awards the Golden Biznaga to the winning title and there is also a strong documentary strand of 46 features (including World Premieres) and a sidebar screening 72 shorts. Malaga festival is easily accessible, taking place in the smattering of Belle Epoque and arthouse cinemas of the Old Town, in the shadow of the city’s Alcazaba. These comprise the large Cervantes Theatre (for the opening gala), the Albéniz Cinema and the Echegaray Theatre, and the events are well-attended by the locals and a small international crowd. Tickets are reasonably priced at 6 euros making the festival a worthwhile weekend destination for Spanish speakers, after the Easter crowds have left.

MALAGA FILM FESTIVAL | 13-22 APRIL 2018

 

 

Canada Now Festival | 3-6 May 2018

CANADA NOW festival brings the best of new Canadian cinema to the Curzon Soho London, before a ten-film national tour of the UK .

The festival opens with the London premiere of RUMBLE: THE INDIANS WHO ROCKED THE WORLD, a searingly entertaining feature documentary exploring the Indigenous influence on blues, folk, jazz, rock, rap and metal. The Festival will close with LET THERE BE LIGHT, a documentary based on the true story of how scientists from 37 countries have come together in the south of France in an attempt to build the most complex machine ever attempted: An artificial sun.

Alongside seven premieres, CANADA NOW also includes a repertory screening of Patricia Rozema’s 1987 masterpiece I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING. 

This second edition tackles a broad range of stories, from issues of race in BLACK COP, to matters of the heart in MEDITATION PARK and from addiction drama in MARY GOES ROUND to matters of divine intervention in ALL YOU CAN EAT BUDDHA.

CANADA NOW | MAY 2018 | NATIONWIDE 

The Legend of the Ugly King (2018) | East End Film Festival 2018

Dir.: Hüseyin Tabak; Documentary with Yilmaz Güney, Fatos Güney, Elif Güney-Putün, Nebahat Cehre, Donat Keusch, Serif Goren, Costa Gavras, Patrick Boussier, Canan Gerede; Germany/Austria 2017, 122 min.

German born director Hüseyin Tabak (Deine Schönheit ist nichts wert) treads a careful line in this frank portrait of the Kurdish film director and political activist Yilmaz Güney (1937-1984) – a man with personal flaws but undeniable talent.

Yilmaz Güney was born in Andana, Anatolia in Southern Turkey to Kurdish parents – and heritage he was proud of for he rest of his life. After studying economics at Istanbul University, he became a screen actor in as many as 111 features and later gained the sobriquet ‘The ugly King’, after playing a gangster in the 1967 film of the same name. In 1960 and 1962 he was imprisoned for political reasons, and directed his first feature in 1965. After establishing his own production company with early 1970s social realist fare such as Umut (Hope), Agit (Elegy), Aci (Pain) and Hopeless – far removed from the entertainment films he had starred in beforehand. In 1972 he was arrested again for harbouring radical students, and was later imprisoned during pre-production of Zavallilar (The Miserable) in 1975. The timing of his arrest was crucial, since he was completing his 1974 film Endise (Worry), which was finished by his assistant Serif Gören, who would become a regular stand in during his prision stays, particularly during Güney’s long internment between 1974 and 1981. The filmaker was released under an amnesty in 1974, but re-arrested in the same year for shooting dead a district attorney near his birthplace of Adana. In the trial, it became clear, that the incident was part of a drunken brawl, and Güney had absolute no intention of killing his victim. But he state judiciary changed trial judges three times, and finally Güney was convicted for murder and sentenced to 19 years in prison. In his cell, he wrote his masterpieces directed by Zeki Okten: Suru (The Herd), 1978 and Dusman (The Enemy) 1979. A year later, the new military Junta declared all of Güney’s films banned, and a year later the director escaped from prison, helped by the American director Canan Gerede, and his Austrian producer Donat Keusch, who bribed prison wards and border soldiers with “whores and money”. Güney was being granted asylum in France by President Mitterand, after Germany and other West European countries had refused to grant him this status. In the following year, at the Cannes Film Festival, Güney’s Yol (directed again by Goren) won the Golden Palme, sharing it with Costa-Gavras’ Missing, the latter having fled from the Greek Junta to France. A year before his death of cancer in 1984, Güney directed his last feature, Duvar (The Wall) in France.

Güney’s first marriage was to the Turkish actress Nebahat Cehre, who had co-starred in many of his films. The marriage only lasted from 1966 to 1968, after which Cehre asked for a divorce, after her husband had tried to run her over with his car after an argument, breaking her collarbone in the process. Interviewed, she stated, that her ex told her in hospital “that I could be sure, that he did not wanted to hit me with the car”. Güney had a daughter from a former relationship, Elif Güney Putun, whom he hardly ever saw. But Tabak quotes from one of Güney’s film’s, were a child is called Elif, and her (film) fate bears resemblance to the one of his neglected daughter. When shooting The Wall in 1983, French filmmaker Patrick Blossier was allowed to shoot a documentary of the making of the feature, and was surprised, how much freedom Güney gave him. The excerpts we see are rather frightening: he making a big scene with the translator, after the latter misheard Güney’s directives. Worse, the latter shouts and raves at an actor, a young boy, who tried in vain to cry. After the day’s shooting, Güney tried to make up for his brutal behavior, telling the boy, how much he loved him.

Tabak, who discussed the structure of the film with fellow director Michael Haneke, tries his best to give the professional the personal Egos of Güney enough space, sometimes one feels his embarrassment at this ‘hero’s’ vicious machismo. But Tabak delivers a very satisfying statement on filmmaking, history and the male psyche. AS

ON RELEASE DURING EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 15 April 2018

Even When I Fall (2017)

Dir.: Sky Neal/Kate McLarnon; Documentary with Saraswoti, Sheetal; UK 2017, 95 min.

Sky Neal and Kate McLarnon’s incredible documentary explores how victims of child trafficking manage to build new lives out of their tragic past in Nepal’s first circus.

That said, the facts are pretty grim: human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal activity on the planet: 20.9 million people are used for slave labour of different kinds, 10 000 women and children are trafficked from Nepal to India a year.

One of these kids was Saraswoti, abandoned by her family at the age of eight, she ended up working in an Indian circus along with many other trafficked children from Nepal. She married the owner’s son when she was 14, and had three children at the age of 17. The death of her father-in-law and husband finally set her free, after the circus went bankrupt. Sheetal does not know her exact age, but she worked eight years in a circus in India and cannot remember any members her family after being re-united – she is sensitive enough to pretend otherwise. Situations like this lead to the stigmatisation of the children, since the parents easily transfer their guilt (often claiming naivety, when they deny their guilt), to the returning survivors.

Furthermore, the circus milieu has a very negative, sinful connotation in Nepal, which made it even more brave for Saraswoti and Sheetal to found the first Nepalese circus in Khatmandu with eleven other young survivors of trafficking. But their circus work is only part of their fight-back to create a new identity; they combine their performances with outreach work, leafleting extensively in the visiting towns where they meet with parents to warn them about the false promises of modern slavery’s gang-leaders.

After a long fight with the authorities, Circus Kathmandu finally secured visas to perform in Dubai and Glastonbury. But the triumph was short lived, because the devastating earthquake in Nepal in 2015 worsening the situation at home again, escalating poverty and given the traffickers carte blanche to recruit.

Six years in the making, this is an illuminating testament to the circus-workers suffering. Robbed of their childhood and education, they have fought back: the graceful images of Sarwoti performing, and Sheetal’s poise when freefalling from the titular silk robes, will stay longest in the memory.

Most documentary filmmakers leave their subjects behind for good after finishing their feature. But this film team has raised funding at the end of 2017 from Comic Relief: the Circus Kathmandu can thus continue their outreach work, travelling to areas known for trafficking: performances and education will go on hand-in-hand. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 16 APRIL 2018

 

Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion and Disco (2017)

Dir.: James Crump; Documentary with Antonio Lopez, Juan Ramos, Corey Tippin, Karl Lagerfeld, Jessica Lange; USA 2017, 90 min.

James Crump (Black White + Gray) pays homage to one of the most original fashion illustrators of the last century: Antonio Lopez (1943-1987) and his creative partner Juan Ramos (1942-1995) revolutionised not only the way fashion designers and illustrators worked together, but how they discovered models like Jerry Hall and Grace Jones, who might otherwise have never become world famous.

Meeting at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in the 60s, and pair set up shop in a studio above Carnegie Hall. Antonio was the extrovert artist, Juan the “art director” who stood behind his creative partner to provide structure and ideas. Although both men came from Puerto Rico, the were products of their unique New York milieu: Antonio grew up in Brooklyn and Juan in Harlem. Max’s Kansas Hotel and Hotel Chelsea feature heavily here. As does Andy Warhol who was a rival for a long time, before he exchanged portraits with Juan.

Their social ‘sets’ were strictly separated, with the exception of Donna Jordan. One could not think of more different characters: Warhol, the observer who waited until a situation developed, and Lopez, who worked for hours feverishly, needing only his muses like Jessica Lange, Patti D’Arbanville and Grace Jones (to name a few) for inspiration – and Juan for “editing”.

Lopez brought fashion to a new level: streetwise, sexy and extravagant. At a time when counter-culture exploded onto the scene these were heady times: the LGBT movement was making its mark and the Vietnam War brought millions of protesters onto the streets. The bi-sexual Antonio was a “sex machine”, changing partners on a regular basis, but often staying friends with his past paramours. His relationship with Jerry Hall – the two even got “married”, was one of the most enduring.

In 1969 Antonio and Juan moved with their entourage to Paris, where they worked with Carl Lagerfeld, an intimate enemy of Yves-Saint Laurent. The duo helped Lagerfeld to establish a pret-a-porter culture, signalling the end of the classical fashion industry – particularly the mannequins, who had hardly moved on the catwalk, now walked at a funereal pace. Antonio’s fashion models danced like disco queens. Racial taboos were broken too: Pat Cleveland was perhaps the first ever black super model.

Given access to Lopez drawings, photographs, 8-mm and 16-mm films by the designer’s heir, Paul Caranicas, Crump has realised the fantasy of his teenage years in rural Indiana, “when Lopez magical life and milieu aroused me to no end and made me fantasize about the early 1970 in New York and Paris”.

With music by Donna Summer, Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes, this feature is a hell of a ride: the dawn of a new style of living, the innocence of this first generation, who challenged gender as well as art, their innocence and unawareness of the future would bring Aids, and both Antonio and Juan would become victims. AS

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

Brasilia: Life After Design (2017) *** | East End Film Festival 2018

Dir: Bart Simpson | Doc | US | 90’

In Brasilia: Life After Design, Bart Simpson takes a novel approach in  exploring the social, economic and political aftermath of modernist ‘starchitect’ Oscar Niemeyer’s inventive urban planning project that created Brazil’s new national capital in 1960, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located on high plateau in the country’s centre-western region, it comprises a metropolitan area now estimated to be the Latin American country’s third most populous. It is divided into various economic districts (Banking, Embassy etc) it moved the seat of government away from Rio de Janeiro and into a more central location. The film asks the question? Can you create a perfect city from scratch? What emerges is interesting. Although you can in theory, when the human element is added, it doesn’t always go according to plan.

Niemeyer and his partner Costa wanted to create a utopian city, designing Brasilia on a cross-axial grid and allowing for generous green areas where mid-sized trees where planted into aligned avenues to give a ‘ready made’ environment from the outset. A Monumental Axis accommodated government, monuments and institutions and a Residential Axis housed the inhabitants. Costa’s intention with housing superblocks was to have small self-contained and self-sufficient neighborhoods and uniform buildings with apartments of two or three different categories, where he hope to facilitate the integration of upper and middle classes sharing the same residential area. But sadly Brasilia has not been the success story originally intended for various reasons.

And this is in part due to the region’s hostile landscape. Niemeyer and Costa worked with government support to create the ‘Plano Piloto’, an innovative built environment intended to reshape the way people interact and behave within its confines. Rather than an organic city, Brasilia was imposed on its terrain, over a period five years. And despite its sophisticated architecture and status as a capital city, all the problems of contemporary Brazilian society soon surfaced there despite best laid plans – from unemployment to crime and social divide. Brasilia has failed to accommodate its burgeoning population.

So how is life after design for the people that live there? We meet a street vendor who is struggling to find a clientele due to the vast open boulevards; a mother whose job is a difficult commute to from her kids’ school; economic instability and social alienation and a general lack of neighbourly-ness induced by the built environment, despite high quality architecture. A building can look good but be impractical or hostile to live in. So a success on the drawing board, can actually be a disaster when it hits the reality of the streets.

Stunningly shot on the widescreen and in intimate close-up, Simpson’s documentary is chockfull of sophisticated facades and impressive building designs, capturing the city’s geometric shapes, pleasing symmetry and glamorous skylines. But on a personal level there are clearly concerns for those who have made it their home. Simpson’s film offers fascinating insight for travellers, historians, designers and those interested in its themes, although thr lack of a distinct dramatic arc may make it less absorbing for mainstream viewers. MT

SCREENING DURING THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 2018

https://vimeo.com/213263235

 

Between Land and Sea (2017) ***

Dir: Ross Whittaker | Doc| Ireland |87′

Between Land and Sea shows how a little village can change from one season to the next and from a generation to the one that follows as its population struggles not only to survive but to make the most of a sustainable existence. There are only so many crashing waves, glorious sunsets and smiling locals one can admire for 96 minutes, and whether Whittaker’s film can sustain interest in the absence of an engrossing narrative arc is the only criticism here.

Once famous for its golfing activity, Lahinch, Co. Clare now buzzes during the summer months when surfers flock to its wild Atlantic seascapes featuring the cliffs of Moher to capture the mammoth waves. At the end of the season the place recedes back into the emerald landscape taken over by its regular population, nature and the elements.

The film opens as the New Year descends on Lahinch, shops boarded up but behind closed doors villagers who have decided to make their lives to this ravishing part of Ireland are eeking out a meagre existence preparing for the coming season when the Easter weekend will see the return of tourists to fill their coffers once again. We then get a close-up view of the villagers’ lives in and out of the water: Tom Doige-Harrison (and his Spanish wife Raquel Ruido Rodriguez), Ollie O’Flaherty, Fergal Smith, John McCarthy and Dexter McCullough, along with Pat Conway and get to learn how they are make ends meet in this glorious back to nature idyll. Champion surfer Shane Dorian also makes an appearance.

If nothing else, Between Land and Sea serves as an imressive travelogue for those interested in the popular destinations of Riley’s Wave and Aileen’s Wave on this stunning Atlantic coastline captured in Kevin Smith’s impressive aerial and in-water camerawork which provides some breathtaking shots. MT

ON RELEASE AT CURZON BLOOMSBURY + SELECTED SCREENS

 

Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing | Courthauld Gallery Exhibition 2022

Director: David Bickerstaff | With the staff and curators of the Van Gogh Museum, Vincent Willem Van Gogh | Jamie de Courcey (as Van Gogh) | 96′ Docudrama  UK

“Life is short and Art is long, we must wait patiently while trying to sell our skin decently” Vincent Van Gogh

 

In tribute to the 125th Anniversary of the artist’s death in 1890, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam re-organised their extensive collection showcasing the eventful life of one of their most important National artists. These portraits are now on show in London’s Courthauld Gallery as a standalone show. Whereas the Dutch exhibition paired his masterpieces alongside those of his artist contemporaries with the intention of offering a deeper understand of Vincent Van Gogh’s life and work in the context of Post-Impressionism in late 19th Century. The Courthauld curators seek to dispel the notion that Van Gogh’s self-portraits were simply outpourings of raw emotion as the artist faced himself in the mirror. Van Gogh considered portraiture as one of the highest forms of art and his self-portraits were a vital testing ground for his abilities. Bringing together a representative group of these paintings at the Courtauld Gallery  aims to showcase Van Gogh’s artistic development and the ways in which he used self-portraiture to shape his style and his image.

Celebrating the artist’s life without sensation, or dumbing-down, the film of the Dutch exhibition is fascinating way to enjoy Van Gogh and the museum from the perspective of his real life and creative development. Previously shrouded in myth and misunderstanding, the painter’s ‘oeuvre’ is carefully unveiled by art experts, curators and historians. Senior Researcher Louis Van Tilborgh, is particularly insightful with his views on Van Gogh’s deep religious conviction and the protestant work ethic that drove him on to be one of the most prolific of artists, creating over 450 paintings in a ten year period, many of which are now considered masterpieces. Vincent Willem Van Gogh, his great grandson, shares family photos and the vast collection of letters, written between Vincent and his younger brother Theo, that are key in revealing his innermost thoughts, hopes and dreams throughout a short but productive life.

Directed by David Bickerstaff, a trained artist who also works as a professional actor. VAN GOGH is one of several ‘gallery’ films he has made focusing on art, including Girl with a Pearl Earring. The docudrama looks behind the brushwork of his paintings, watercolours and sketches and is fleshed out with vignettes (Jamie de Courcey plays Van Gogh) imagining his trauma and intimate feelings as he struggled to make sense of his life.

Even for those who are not particularly interested in his art, the film offers an affecting portrait of a creative life, showing how this ordinary man was born into a middle class family in 1893, gradually realising his desire to develop his skills at 27 after training at art dealer in The Hague, London and Paris. Unlike his brother Theo, who supported him financially for much of his life, Vincent was not cut out for the business world. His deep religious conviction led to him becoming a pastor and missionary in a poor mining community in Belgium where he connected with the locals through his sensitivity and emotional nature. He started to sketch the poverty of his surroundings as a means of relating his new life in Belgium to his brother Theo during their their close correspondence. But painting followed after five years of experimental sketching and watercolours. His first important work was The Potato Eaters (1885) during which he worked with the Barbizon group, a Realist art movement that ventured outdoors (with the benefit of paint in tubes) to reflect the lives of workers engaged on the land, coining the phrase painting ‘en plein air’.

But Van Gogh suffered from poor health due his emotional instability. Moving to Arles, in the belief that the climate would be benefical, his work was enriched by the dazzling colours and strong sunlight. Plans to form a collective of artists in Provence, where he shared a house with Gauguin for several months, failed when the couple fell out over ‘artistic differences’. Here Van Gogh produced some of his most important paintings: Starry Night, Sunflowers and The Bedroom in Arles. After only ten years of developing his craft, he died in 1890 from a self-inflicted gun shot wound. In his final summer in Auvers sur-Oise, he painted 80 pictures, the last being Tree Roots, an oil painting that seems to represent the tortuous tangle of feelings expressing his desire to find a way forward and connect with the world outside. His phrase “Life is short and Art is long, we must wait patiently while trying to sell our skin decently”, will certainly ring true with most creatives today.

VAN GOGH: A NEW WAY OF SEEING looks at the artist and his lesser known works. David Bickerstaff’s camera brings to life the artist’s vivid energy and his desperate struggle that every artist can understand and engage with. A slightly over-bearing soundtrack is the only distraction in this otherwise enjoyable and comprehensive piece of filmmaking. MT

http://EXHIBITIONONSCREEN.COM

The Islands and the Whales (2017) ****

Director/DoP:Mike Day | Doc | 84′

This breathtaking but often heart-rending eco-doc about the Faroe Islands connects to the increasingly urgent global narrative of survival for a community of around 48,000 people whose traditional food source for the past thousand years is now under threat from environmental realities.

Filmmaker and photographer Mike Day’s film has an atavistic quality that reflects both the magnificence of its setting and also the enormity of its subject-matter. But it’s not an easy film to watch. Images of 15-foot pilot whales, some of them babies, being driven into the shallows where they are dragged ashore squealing desperately before being hacked to death on the beaches as the sea turns red with blood, along with those of gannet chicks looking up appealingly as their remote roosts are ambushed and their parents are strangled and slaughtered will remain in the memory for a long time afterwards. But that’s not the point here.

Ironically this age-old tradition is not being threatened by PETA or direct human interference but by coal-burning activities that generate electricity and pollute the surrounding sea with mercury that gradually enters the food chain. Failing whaler Pal Weihe has turned his efforts to monitoring the locals toxicity levels and trying to encourage them to pursue an alternative diet. But nothing grows on the islands, so people continue to eat blubber and whale meat and endanger their children’s lives.

All this is enriched with impressive images of the islander’s highly traditional daily lives. Seeing them setting out in their boats in the windswept seas, or silently plundering clifftop bird nests in the hours of darkness, makes for extraordinary viewing, but are not for the feint of heart, or animal-lovers who might prefer to see their food killed in a more humane way by these otherwise thoughtful and quietly-spoken, fresh-faced islanders in their Fair-Isle sweaters. Interweaving their contemporary story is a more ancient thread voiced by an old man who refers to the legend of the “huldufolk”, a mythical people who disappeared with the advent of electricity to the islands. Perhaps history will eventually repeat itself and return these people to their past. MT

THE ISLANDS AND THE WHALES is released in UK cinemas 29th March http://theislandsandthewhales.com/

 

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BFI Flare Film Festival | 21 March – 1 April 2018

London is the setting for the UK’s longest running LGBTQ film event which began in 1986 as Gay’s Own Pictures. Since then it has also become the largest LGBTQ film event in the UK with this year’s edition boasting 56 feature films, an expanded industry programme, selected films on BFI Player VOD service, and a series of special events and archive screenings. With its partner fiveFilms4freedom it offers LGBT short films for free across the world and promoted through the British Council’s global networks.

Opening the festival this year is Talit Shalom-Ezer’s poignant lesbian love story MY DAYS OF MERCY written by Joe Barton, who scripted TV’s Troy, and featuring Kate Mara and Ellen Page. The European premiere of moral fable POSTCARDS FROM LONDON is the closing gala, telling a revealing story of a suburban teenager (Harris Dickinson) arriving in the West End where he falls in with a gang of high class male escorts ‘The Raconteurs’. Set in a vibrant, neon-lit, imaginary vision of Soho, the film works as a beautifully shot homage to the spirit of Derek Jarman and a celebration of the homo-erotic in Baroque art, and is Steve McLean’s long-awaited follow-up to his 1994 Sundance and Indie Spirit-nominated drama POSTCARDS FROM AMERICA. This year ‘Second Chance Sunday offers the opportunity to watch the on-demand repeat screenings of the audience festival favourites.

Other films to look out for are Rupert Everett’s Oscar Wilde-themed passion project THE HAPPY PRINCE in which he also stars alongside Colin Firth and Emily Watson. Robin Campillo’s rousing celebration of AIDS activism 120 BPM. MAURICE, a sumptuous restoration of the 1987 adaptation of E M Forster’s gay novel starring James Wilby and Rupert Graves. THE WOUND, an illuminating South African story of initiation in a rural village.

On the documentary front it’r worth seeing TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS that explores how a transgender Alzheimer’s patient deals with the harrowing inevitable, and ANTONIO LOPEZ 1970 a compelling and vibrant portrait of the bisexual illustrator who changed the fashion world. 

Avant-garde Berlinale Teddy feature HARD PAINT presents a startlingly cinematic look at how a college drop-out deals with his needs, and Locarno favourite, a saucy Sao Paolo-set vampire drama GOOD MANNERS approaches its love story with hand-crafted tenderness and visual allure.

There will also be another chance to see Francis Lea’s Berlinale awarded GOD’S OWN COUNTRY; Billie Jean King’s thrilling account of her fight for equality in women’s tennis BATTLE OF THE SEXES and the one of the best films of 2017 CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. 

BFI FLARE FILM FESTIVAL | LONDON 21  March – 1 April www.bfi.org.uk/Flare

 

 

A Love that Never Dies (2017) ***

Dir.: Jimmy Edmonds, Jane Harris; UK/India/USA/Vietnam 2017, 75 min.

Seven years after their son Josh was killed in a road accident in Vietnam, Jimmy Edmonds and Jane Harris set out on a personal journey across the USA, to talk to bereaved parents, who have lost their children suddenly to accidents or untimely illnesses.

Grief is a personal matter, and as the filmmaker couple observe, has no closure. And rightly so; there should be no closure, but an ongoing process of coming to terms with an horrific bereavement – it is traumatic to lose a loved one of any kind, but for parents to lose a child, makes even less sense. Grief becomes more bewrwble with the passage of time and the documentary shows some ways forward: one family is active in a charity, bearing the name of their lost child, another one is very supportive of each other, even though their son’s death was caused by a gun in their own home, which was supposed to protect them from harm. But most of them agree with the filmmakers, who simply want to have their lives back “before” the tragic loss.

Edmonds and Harris travel to Vietnam, and visit the place of the accident, supported by locals, who have marked the spot with gifts. Their way of turning back the clock, is to start their journey in New York, which they visited with Josh before his death. The point of this documentary is not to find answers, but to share experiences of a journey can only have one end. AS

Plot 35 | Carre 35 (2017) ****

Dir.: Eric Caravaca; Documentary with Angela Caravaca, Gilberto Caravaca | France 2017, 65′.

This small gem of a documentary proves the point that a huge impact can be made without the need for a multi-million budgets or indulgent running times: Actor Eric Caravaca, who is better known for his performance in the recent Lover For a Day), uncovers a tragic family secret which sees him diligently tracing the short life story of his sister Christine, who had been mysteriously written out of the family history since childhood.

Christine was born in 1960, the first child of Angela and Gilberto Caravaca, who had emigrated from Spain to Morocco, where they would marry in Casablanca. The 8mm wedding footage shows them happy with no inkling of the tragedy to come. When asking his parents about his sister’s life span and illness, which led to her premature death, Eric gets contradictory answers: his mother claims that Christine lived to be three years, a healthy child who then died of ”Blue Baby” Syndrome. Father Gilberto (who dies during filming) states that Christine died aged four, after potentially suffering from Down’s Syndrome. with neither his wife nor himself present. All photographs and home movies of Christine have been destroyed by mother Angela who candidly opines: “What should I do, cry over it?”.

Eric’s investigation eventually leads him to ‘Plot 35’, in a cemetery in Casablanca. But when he gets there, Plot 35 no longer exists, he does however find Christine’s grave, minus a photo, which has been removed. His research further reveals that both his parents were right: Christine died age three with relatives in Casablanca, and she was suffering from a congenital illness. But the mystery then deepens: why is the grave so well tended when the family no longer lives in Casablanca? Eric soon finds the answer, bringing his search to a satisfactory end. This narrative of denial and neglect is so sad and moving because it reflects on Eric’s parents desperate desire not not to be marginalised in their new home of Morocco. During their peripatetic life in France, after moving back from Morocco, Angela would even changed her name again twice, keen to bury the past and her own trauma for good. A child with special needs was simply too much to cope with – therefore Christina was placed with relatives, far away from their new start in life.

The director uses shocking footage from the French Repression during the Moroccan War of Independence to put his family’s story into perspective. But most traumatising of all are excerpts from Nazi Euthanasia propaganda films. Plot 35 cannot be praised enough: this is a labour of love, of “un-forgetting” the past, and it deserves an audience. AS

NOW SHOWING AT THE ICA LONDON  | 12 MARCH 2018

My Generation (2017) ***

Dir: David Batty | Writers: Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais | Cast: Michael Caine, Joan Collins, Lulu, Paul McCartney, Twiggy, Roger Daltrey, Marianne Faithfull, Sandie Shaw, Mary Quant, Barbara Hulanicki | UK | Doc | 85′ |

As narrator and co-producer, Michael Caine turns the camera on himself for a filmic flip through the Swinging Sixties, showing how he and his talented contempories transformed Britain.

Assembled over two years, MY GENERATION is directed by David Batty, with scripters Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement ensuring an enjoyable ride through enjoyable archive footage showcasing Caine’s contempories: photographer trio: Terry Donovan, Duffy and David Bailey; fashion models such as Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton and Joanna Lumley and musicians: Roger Daltrey, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger.

Caine, now 84, contemplates the factors that caused the loosening up in the postwar set-up citing The Pill and the advent of Grammar schools as primary factors for change, while Marianne Faithfull suggests it was all down to an improved diet. Whatever the case, they were all determined to have a good time and break down barriers, bringing in a more colourful era and putting London on the map as a beacon of youth culture, as everyone flocked to the capital. Caine, who rose from solid working class stock as Maurice Micklewhite, uses the film to attack posh middle class acting talent, ridiculing the likes of cult classics Brief Encounter (1946) and taking a swipe at  Norman Wisdom who he claims was not generous to work with despite his humble origins. Paul McCartney comes up with the chestnut, “suddenly people realised the working class wasn’t as thick as it looked and it had talent.” Chippy Britain at its best.

Caine goes on to suggest that the advent of drugs brought an end to the Swinging Sixties although stresses he only smoked marijuana once as it made him laugh for five hours so he couldn’t remember his lines. To his credit Caine avoids mawkish sentimentality: “I don’t feel nostalgia. I never look back. I feel extraordinarily lucky, not about my talent or anything, but about the timing,” MY GENERATION is an entertaining romp showing how these legendary characters made the Sixties happen and made their vast fortunes into the bargain.MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14 MARCH 2017

Hedy Lamarr – the Woman who invented Wifi

Alexandra’s Dean biopic: BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY looks back over the outstanding career of a Hollywood star with intellect as well as high octane chutzpah.
Far more people are likely today to heard of Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) than to have ever actually seen any of her movies. Already notorious for skinny-dipping and simulating orgasm in the Czech independent film Extase (1933), she remained popular tabloid fodder for the rest of her life, and in the thirties & forties was by common consent considered the most beautiful woman in the world.
Although her film career was over by the end of the fifties, her name has remained stubbornly familiar down the years; and 1966 in particular proved a busy year for her for all the wrong reasons. In January of that year she was arrested for shoplifting in Los Angeles – which served as the basis for a film by Andy Warhol that year called Hedy, with Mario Montez in the title role – and she then unsuccessfully sued to attempt to prevent the publication of a lurid ghost-written autobiography, Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman, condemning it as “fictional, false, vulgar, scandalous, libelous and obscene.”.
During the seventies her name remained well enough remembered for the villain in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles (1974) to be named “Hedley Lamarr”; although that she was not amused is indicated by a $10 million lawsuit she filed against Warner Bros (who eventully settled out of court). Still more recently, Anne Hathaway studied Ms Lamarr’s films as preparation for her role as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
In 1997 came a revelation more remarkable than anything contained in Ecstasy and Me that with the avant-garde composer George Antheil she had developed a “frequency hopping” radio guidance system for torpedoes that they patented – she using her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey – on 11 August 1942. (When told that their idea had finally received public acknowledgement, the 82 year-old Lamarr barked “Well, it’s about time!”)
As an actress, Lamarr herself described herself as “a cross between Judy Garland and Greta Garbo”. By her own admission she had the reputation in Hollywood of being “difficult”, and her films were in the main a rum bunch – including the handful she produced herself – not helped by the fact that she turned down Casablanca and Gaslight. But in the past decade she has received the accolade accorded to few of her Hollywood contemporaries: two biographies, and now a feature-length documentary entitled Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (one of whose executive producers is Susan Sarandon).
Bombshell predictably doesn’t actually concern itself too much with her movies; so here are five that she made that are still worth a look:
Extase (Gustav Machatý, 1933). Largely shot silent with a synchronised music track, Extase can still be appreciated on its own terms as a fanciful continental art movie by the interesting Gustav Machatý (and can be enjoyed on YouTube). Shortly after making it, it’s 18 year-old star Hedwig Kiesler married a millionaire munitions manufacturer named Fritz Mandl who unsuccessfully attempted to buy up all the copies, but fortunately failed, and the film opened in New York in 1937; the same year she divorced Mandl and was signed up by MGM, who changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and excitedly promoted her as “the new Garbo”.
Algiers (John Cromwell, 1938). She started in Hollywood at the top co-starring with Charles Boyer in this lavish remake of Pepe le Moko (1936), which had starred Jean Gabin and Mireille Balin. It was both a critical and financial hit, and inspired the cartoon character Pepé le Pew; but unfortunately presently exists only in dreadful public domain prints, so few people today have actually seen it and the French original is more familiar today than the remake.
H.M.Pulham Esq. (King Vidor, 1941). As forgotten today as most of Lamarr’s other films – and ignored by Bombshell –  this adult, well-acted adaptation of John P. Marquand’s novel was the second of two films she made with the great King Vidor, and is probably her best. Both she and Robert Young in the title role give excellent performances, and the film deserves to be much better known.
Experiment Perilous (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). A gaslit Victorian melodrama set in London in 1903 containing her own personal favourite of her own performances, as a mysterious beauty being plotted against by her scheming and manipulative husband, played by Paul Lukas.
Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949). Hedy’s first film in Technicolor is a glorious piece of kitsch in which Angela Lansbury – who was 12 years her junior – plays her elder sister. The film is probably best remembered today for Groucho Marx’s response to DeMille at the premiere that “No picture can hold my interest where the leading man’s tits are bigger than the leading lady’s!”. But it was the top-grossing film of 1950. RICHARD CHATTEN
BOMBSHELL is now on PRIME VIDEO

Erase and Forget (2017) ****

Dir: Andrea Luka Zimmerman | US Doc | With Ted Kotcheff, Tudor Gates | 88’

Ten years in the making, Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s investigative thriller-style documentary examines the success of the Rambo films in exemplifying the frontier mentality of an America embodied by decades of militarism, gun culture and social unrest, represented here by officer Bo Gritz who claims to be the inspiration for John Rambo. In a recorded interview, Tudor Gates (Barbarella) describes him as “the apotheosis of a US war hero”, and he is one of the most decorated Vietnam vets.

But behind the articulate and indomitable figure of Gritz, now 79, who admits to sleeping with an arsenal of guns and night vision equipment at his side, more sinister themes are at play. Like prisoners who have served time, a whole generation of soldiers are unable to relate to their country or compatriots when they return from state-sanctioned combat. Ted Kotcheff describes this as like introducing a bacillus that then poisons their new environment. So Gritz turned whistleblower when disenchantment set in at covert methods of suppression by the authories and exposes high levels of corruption in the US government, that have turned him into a official outcast, while he continues to support gun-carrying and anti-government conspiracy theories in his stance as action hero for the people.

Gritz claims that his mistress is still the Special Forces, and in some ways it’s not surprising that his Vietnamese wife – brought back from the war – soon ran off with a handyman. Gritz claims to have killed more than 400 people in the military, and has even run for presidential office. This illuminating portrait of a rather broken champion is enriched by extraordinary archive footage. As he states himself: “You take someone who could be a credit to mankind and you turn them into garbage” MT

NOW ON RELEASE FROM 2 MARCH 2018

Ryūichi Sakamoto: Async at the Park Avenue Armoury **** Berlinale 2018

Dir: Stephen Nomura Schible | Doc | USA, Japan 2018 | Without dialogue, 65 min

In April 2017 Japanese composer, pianist and music producer Ryūichi Sakamoto made a guest appearance for two evenings in the Veteran’s Room, an small 200-seater hall at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Experienced music documentarian Stephen Nomura Schible, filmed this the intimate gathering, the first for eight years since the Sakamoto’s recovery from cancer. Async is not just a musical experience but also a visual one: a huge screen under ceiling of the auditorium fills up with images and videos.

After his first solo album in 1978, Sakamoto’s career concentrated on a fusion of synth pop, techno and house genres. But he also branched out into film music, winning an Oscar for co-writing the score for Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, followed by more recent work for Brian de Palma and Pedro Almodavar. So it comes as no surprise that async is very much influenced by visuals and images. “This album is probably the one most influenced by moving images. Movies always inspire me. So when I am feeling empty I start watching a movie. Kung Fu films are so inspiring, so wild”. Unlike the music of the 18th century, which is very much rigid in its formal design, Sakomoto wants to make music as a spontaneous invention. “My desire was the only rule”. The music – with various instruments, western, Japanese and even a sheet of glass – creates a soundtrack for an imaginary film by Andrei Tarkovsky. The composer admits that he is very jealous of his music heard by an audience, “I did not want anyone to hear it”. The 5.1 surround channel underscores the cinematographic experience, one experiences music and images as if present.

If you’ve never heard music by Sakamoto, let your mind wander, and you will soon find your head was filled with associations from the images/music –nothing spectacular or specific, just a pleasant sliding into wellbeing. Even as a great fan of Baroque music, with its very clear formal limits, it never occurred to me that I would feel any asynchrony in the performance – it simply invites the viewer to wander away and dream. AS

BERLINALE SPECIAL | 15-25 FEBRUARY 2018

https://vimeo.com/254826110

 

Generation Wealth (2018) **** Berlinale 2018

Dir.: Lauren Greenfield; Documentary; USA 2018, 106 min.

Filmmaker and photographer Lauren Greenfield (Queen of Versailles, 2012) has put her whole working life of 25 years into this mammoth project, which is accompanied by a book and an exhibition – just to make the point. But it is not only the wealthy who are the objects of her research: Greenfield freely admits to something a woman in her documentary Thin(2006) pointed out to her: Your addiction is work.

The quote from Thin is not the only revisiting Greenfield does: the high-octane-living teens of FastForward fame are also back to report about their life thereafter. These new additions fall mostly into the category of ‘obsession’. Self-obsession usually involves finding an outlet in which to prove yourself: hedge fund manager Suzanne is not only status obsessed, but after having nearly missed the boat in having children, her latest obsession is to have a child – whatever it takes.

Kacey Jordan, an adult film star famous for her relationship with Charlie Sheen is repentant – but not before filming her own suicide attempt. Florian Homm, a hedge-fund manager who once had 600 M Euros to his name, fell foul of the US regulatory system and cannot now leave his native Germany, after having been imprisoned in Italy. He calls Germany “a prison”, but is truly proud of the fact that he bought his teenage son a prostitute in Amsterdam, “to make a man out of him”. His son watches on with his current girl friend, blushing. But there are also examples of redemption such as when Iceland’s economy boomed, a young fisherman suddenly found himself behind a desk in a bank. After the bust, he is back proudly fishing with his son, happy to have escaped the big time.

The pusuit of beauty has always been a major topic for the director (Beauty CULTure, 2011), and it is frightening to see the young Kardashians in their early teen years. But even more harrowing is Eden wood, ‘trained’ by her lower-middleclass Mom from Arkansas to win and compete in “Toddlers and Tiaras”, wishing for nothing more than a whole room full of money. Six years later, Eden has somehow managed to morph into a cheaper model of the Kardashians. Finally Cathy Gant, has spent all he money on beauty treatments in Brazil whilst neglecting her daughter, who now suffers from body dysmorphia with terrible results.

The lost American dream – lost to a mixture of capitalism, narcissism and greed is there for all to see. Nobody looks at the Jones’ next door any more, but at the Kardashians on TV. “In my work, I often look at the extremes to understand the mainstream”, says Greenfield. Perhaps she should have added “at myself”. Her interviews with her sons Noah Gabriel are as heart-breaking as her professional portraits. Cool teenager Noah puts it simple but devastatingly: “I got used to growing up without you around. The damage has been done”.

The hyper-saturated colours and absurdist wide angle-effects give the documentary a carnival-like atmosphere: this is a bonfire, not only of vanities, but also the last roll of the dice of a global civilisation (China and Russia having successfully joined the club), hell bent on destroying itself. Just asthe pyramids with all their splendour were the last gasp of the Egyptian pharoahs; in the make-believe world of TV, everyone is measuring themselves against each other with tragic consequences: the death of family, traditions and even human emotions. Unlike Egypt, this will not be the end of one civilisation, today’s humans are determined to take the whole planet down with them. AS

NATIONWIDE FROM 20 July 2018

The Ice King (2018)* * * *

Dir.: James Erskine; Documentary with John Curry, Heinz Wirz, Christa Fassi, Robin Cousins; UK 2017, 88’.

James Erskine’s documentary of the life of British ice-skater John Curry (1949-1994) is told as a classical Greek tragedy – which in many was it really was. Over one thousand letters by Currie and many witnesses tell a story of sporting triumph and a lonely private life leading to premature death due to complications of HIV and Aids.

Born in Birmingham, John suffered from an abusive father who forbade him ballet lessons, and continuously told him “something is wrong with you”. Luckily, John was allowed to take ice skating lessons, since this counted as a sporting activity. John’s father committed suicide when his son was fifteen. Soon John’s talent required him to leave Great Britain, to train in the USA with Carlo and Christa Fassi, a wealthy patron sponsoring his move. The British Ice-skating authorities ware not very helpful, they reminded Curry “not to skate so graceful”. Whilst male ice skating had for a long time been a mixture of running fast and jumping high, Curry innovated the sport by incorporating ballet moves in his free skate programme, a fore-runner of the Torvil/Dean partnership. In 1976 Curry won the European and World Championship and the highlight of his career, the Olympic Gold Medal in Innsbruck. He outed himself as gay shortly afterwards, and retired from the sport, to found his own Skating Company, performing in a West End Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall in 1984. World renown choreographers like Kenneth McMillan were instrumental in Curry’s success. “Scheherazade” (1980), was a great success, but “MoonSkate”, performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1984, was certainly the artistic highpoint of his latter career. Financially, not everything worked out, and Curry also became known to be a difficult director of his shows, particularly with female members of the cast. In 1987 he contracted HIV, and four years later Aids. Before living the final years of his life with his mother, his swansong on ice was a all male show of “The Blue Danube” to the music of Johann Strauss II.

Whilst his professional peers from the amateur days speak highly of Curry, such as Christa Fassi (“He was never a problem, we became friends”) and Robin Cousins (“He revolutionised the sport”). The ice-skater Heinz Wirz, who had an relationship early on with Currie, but stayed a friend and pen partner for the rest of the latters life, tells of Curry’s loneliness. It seems, that he wanted the perfect relationship, like the perfect skating troupe – and neither materialised. He also showed signs of bi-polar, certainly related to his deeply unhappy childhood. Erskine too often oversteps the borders of objectivity and delivers an hagiographic approach, which sits uneasily with the audience, since Curry was certainly not only the victim of others, but was unable to come to terms with the human fragilities of others, expecting always perfection on all levels. THE ICE KING is a moving document of the man who changed ice-skating for the better, and whose Ice Shows were a spectacular delight.AS

SHOWING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 23 FEBRUARY 2018

https://youtu.be/gEOUyzi6zeE

 

First Stripes | Premieres Armes * * * (2018) | Berlinale 2018

Dir.: Jean-Francois Caissy; Documentary; Canada 208, 106 min.

After visiting a care home for the elderly (La Belle Visite), Canadian documentarian Jean-Francois Caissy turns his camera on those starting out in life: young recruits embarking on a 12-week training course for the Canadian Army share their hopes and aims with the director in this informative film.

Some have joined up personal reasons – one young man had promised his father on his dead bed that he would join the Army – but most men are looking for a new challenge. In common with other armies, the Canadian Force is not just about combat training, soldiers can train in engineering and and medicine. Women recruits are still a minority in the challenging male dominated environment, and men are kept firmly under control, although one female recruit talks about the verbal “disrespect”, she encountered. Most of the training is spent teaching males basic hygiene. They don’t seemed to have learnt how to wash their bed linen or clothes. They also lie blatantly about the use of their mobiles outside the prescribed hours. All in all, they come over as immature and hopelessly egocentric. The instructors constantly adopt new ways of making them grow up – but it’s a difficult task.

The women are, on the whole, very serious. One phones her young child regularly, telling the father how privileged he is to be spending every day with his son. Another is delighted to be told  “that she is ready for a great adventure”, at the end of the course. Her instructor also mentions -bizarrely – how ‘inanely’ suited she is to a military career. One man gives combat training the thumbs down and does not want to be talked into joining the fighting unit, although he is eminently suited – he prefers to stay with the non-combat unit he had chosen at the start. There is a plan amongst some of the instructors to “turn back to the 80s style of training”. But by the end it’s clear that the Canadian Army is at home in the 21st century; most of the conflict is banal and the overall tone is very civilised – like Canadian society as a whole.

Caissy mixes training drills with close-up camerawork, and DoP Nicolas Canniccioni familiarises us with the recruits’ faces, with lingering shots and clear framing. First Stripes is a sober but absorbing portrait of modern army training that avoids any sensationalism. AS

BERLINALE 15-25 FEBRUARY 2018

The Silk and the Flame (2018)* * * | Berlinale 2018

Dir.: Jordan Schiele; Documentary with Yao Shuo, Fu Qin, Ma Qin; USA 2018, 87 min.

Shot in moody black and white, Jordan Schiele’s documentary sees the future colliding heartbreakingly with the past and rural family life in a village in Henan, central China.

Yao, a gay man in his late thirties, arrives from Beijing to celebrate the New Year along with three billion or so other workers who make this annual pilgrimage to be with their families. The journey takes nearly four days, not the usual nine hours. Yao is successful in a modern sense, with an MA his salary helps his extended family to survive in the 21st century. His parents are still waiting for him to settle down but he keeps his sexuality a secret, out of guilt, and events invents fake girl friend, who just happens to be in Korea over the New Year. The whole family watches him Skype her on his mobile.

Schiele joins Yao on his journey south and tries to talk world politics with his bedridden father Fu Qin – who was forced to beg in his childhood and has suffered two strokes. Yao’s deaf and dumb mother Mu Qin, is also a full-time carer to her husband, coping with his total immobility. The family room of the ramshackle house is dominated by a poster of the young Mao – Yao tells us that his father prays both to Mao and Jesus to make him mobile again. Yao’s brother Fu Qin is clearly the family favourite but Yao is always aware of his otherness: Managing the expectations of his family and former teacher are a constant concern. “I never visited him with a girl, and now the first friend I introduce to him is a man”. A sombre ending, when the two men drive away in their car after the festive season, concludes this gloomy visit – the fireworks providing the only upbeat moments.

Everybody seems to talk all the time about their happy family life but Schiele makes clear that the opposite is mostly the case. Yao even contemplates marrying a woman just to keep his family happy. Such are the pressures of the ties that bind. For all its cultural differences, China is no different from anywhere else: underneath the multi-layered family conflicts everyone keep the status quo. An eerie atmosphere of repression and denial makes for an often strange, but fascinating watch. AS

BERLINALE 15-25 FEBRUARY 2018

Central Airport THF **** | Berlinale 2018 Forum

Dir.: Karim Ainouz; Documentary; Germany/France/Brazil 2018,97’

Brazilian director Karim Ainouz, whose feature Praia do Futuro ran at Berlinale a few years ago, is also known for his installations. This informs his entertaining rather nuanced documentary about the Berlin Flughafen Tempelhof and its refuge camp, which falls very much between the two genres.

Ainouz underlines the absurdity of the situation: as a Syrian refugee how can you integrate smoothly into the high tech capital such as Berlin? Far more than a language problem, it’s a cultural gulf where even the most supportive German administrator struggles to accommodate the new visitors’ trauma – however well meaning they might be. Ainouz plays it shrewdly using minimal dialogue and subtle camerawork, including time-lapse, to convey the confusion as two worlds meet and try to get along. There’s a lowkey tongue in cheek humour between the well-meaning German “Ordnungsliebe” (love of order) with the chaos of the emigrants’ lives. Confrontation was eased to some degree when the refugees found work in the camp’s administration, but it put these administrators into a double-bind: they had to keep both their German bosses and the refugees happy.

Central Airport Berlin Tempelhof opened in 1923, the main building followed three years later. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, they vowed to build the largest airport in the world, but the war curtailed their efforts so the airport never became a central piece of Albert Speer’s Germania, the new gigantic capital planned to replace Berlin. At the end of the war, the US Air Force took over the airport, which was to play a big role in the Cold War. After its closure in 2008, Tempelhof became the largest heritage site in Europe and the old runways and the neighbouring fields were used as a “Vergnügunspark” (pleasure ground).

In 2015/16 the German government offered refuge to Syrians and other war-torn victims, but their sheer numbers defied the planners and in Berlin it was decided to house the refuges in the old airport’s huge hangars which very much resemble the setting for a horror film – no wonder, given their history. Security patrols are on 24 hour duty; a fence divides the pleasure ground from the camp facilities. The scene could not be more surreal: German families having a good time in the park, while on the other side of the fence, newcomers struggle to learn a new language and cope in their new homeland. Meanwhile, inside the hangars the contrast between the willing hostages and their sympathetic German hosts continues. German Christmas trees and carols are often lost on the families, who are mainly Muslims. Teenagers adapt more easily, but 18-year old Ibrahim Al Hussain still prefers his old village in the Syrian countryside. A sign on the wall in one of the hangers beats testament to their anguish: ‘I yearn for the dust of Syria’. When the first refugees entered the facility, they were told it would be for six weeks. Many have been here for three years. Al Hussain is one of the luckier ones and will soon start his integration and language course. But for many others, there will be just another harsh winter, with the old runways looking frozen tundra rather than sunny fields.

BERLINALE 15-25 FEBRUARY 2018 | AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRIZE WINNER

https://vimeo.com/255007386

Kishon (2018) * * * * | Berlinale 2018 | Market EFM

Dir.: Eliav Lilti; Documentary with Renana Kishon, Rafael Kishon, Amir Kishon; Israel 2017, 87 min.

Directed and co-written by Eliav Lilti (Urban Tale), this portrait of Israeli writer, filmmaker and playwright Ephraim Kishon (1924-2005) is mainly told by and from the perspective of his three children. It is not a hagiography of the man who wrote 50 books, 9 plays and directed 5 films, but a tribute to a whole life dominated by the Holocaust, which Kishon survived, but whose shadow he could never escape.

Born in Budapest as Ferenc Hoffmann into a middle-class Jewish family, university was not an option because of the racial laws, so he started to make jewellery instead, before being deported to the camps: “The Jews of Hungary felt safe; they said ’well, even the doctor of the leader Admiral Horthy is Jewish’. But then Horthy send his doctor to Auschwitz and the Jews saw their fatal mistake”.  Kishon survived due to his talent as a chess player: “I did not dare to lose a match to the commandant, because he would have sent me back to the forced labour force”.  Escaping, he found his way back to Budapest where he was reunited with his parents and his sister, who had been saved by a neighbour, whilst the rest of the large family was murdered.

Under Stalinism he made a career with a satirical magazine under the name of Kisthon, also winning a contest for best play which focused on the persecution of all bald people – serving as a metaphor for the Jews – because they had been declared “bad” by the state. He got his prize money but the play was never staged as one of Hungary’s leading politicians, Matyas Rakosy, was famous for his baldness. In 1949 Kisthon emigrated to Israel, where the border clerk renamed him Ephraim Kishon.

After learning Ivrit (Hebrew) whilst working as a janitor in a kibbutz, he took up writing again in his new language. His books and plays were very successfully, and his debut film Sallah Shabati (1964) was nominated for a Foreign Oscar. After what was to be his last film, The Fox in the Chicken Coop (1978) turned out to be a flop, Kishon felt unwelcome in Israel and set up a second home in Appenzell (Switzerland) in 1981. With his books selling in their millions, he was by now more popular in Europe than in Israel. In Germany, “the children of my executioners are queuing for hours to get a signed copy of my books.” He even started writing in German, one of the books called “Mein Kamm” (My Comb). Needless to say what the Israeli reaction was. But Kishon defends himself: “It was not just the Germans; Hungary, Romania and many more states supported the Holocaust. There were 110 000 Waffen-SS volunteers in the Netherlands. If you want a total boycott, you can’t set foot in Europe”.

His children Renana, Rafael (Rafi) and Amir talk about a rather strange upbringing. Driving with thier father in the car, they had to listen to the speeches of Hitler and other leading Nazis. And at bedtime, their father would give them Hitler salute: “That was very typical for my father”, says Renana. He also joked about his time in the camps: “The soda was very flat, no sparkle”. On the other hand, the children were allowed to watch Clockwork Orange and other adult films: “There was no censorship”. The boys could read the Playboy, which their father flaunted at the table. When Sara, his wife of 35 years and mother of his children, was dying of cancer “it turned out, that Dad was not a Mother Theresa. He never took her for treatments, and when she died, he was not present, he could not bring himself to see her”, says Renana tearfully. Whilst Kishon cried a few days after her death whilst receiving the Israel Prize for Life Achievement, he could not refrain from criticising that “it is like a state pardon, to get this prize. It is usually giving to left wingers, who love the Palestinians, and not the settlers.” Renana testifies, that he was always jealous of Amos Oz; and Kishon was angry, that he was not decorated for his writing alone, he felt snubbed, because he was foremost a writer.
Lilti and co-creator Arik Bernstein have integrated cartoons of Kishon, and a animated version of the long interview, Kishon gave to his friend, the journalist Yaron London in Appenzell in the mid-90ies. There are many special effects, like the cartoon versions of Kishon and London walking in 40ies Budapest, whilst the Jews are being deported onto trucks. Kishon is so much more than a biography: it is a history lesson about the force of evil, and its longevity. AS

KISHON is screening as part of Go2Films new line-up in BERLINALE EFM | 15-25 FEBRUARY 2018

Makala (2017) * * * *

Dir.: Emmanuel Gras; Documentary with Kabwita Kasongo, Lydie Kasongo; France 2017, 96’.

MAKALA confirms Emmanuel Gras (Bovines) as a major talen who “looks for expressiveness, not realism” and achieves just that in this visually stunning Cannes Critics’ week winning film that seamlessly blends documentary and feature.

Kabwita Kasongo (28) is married to Lydie, and they live with two of their kids in the village of Walemba in the Katanga province of the democratic Republic of the Congo. An elder daughter is with Lydie’s sister in the town of Kolwezi, fifty km from Walemba. In Swahili, Makala means charcoal, which Kabwita crafts from cutting and slowly burning a massive tree. Finally, he sets off with an overloaded bicycle, his prize possession, to sell the charcoal in Kolwezi. The three day journey is torturous and dangerous, particularly at night when lorries barrel by, often pushing Kabwita’s bike over, making him lose some of his precious cargo. The dream of owning his own home is far away as the15 sheets of metal required for a roof, would cost more than ten times the amount he gets for his charcoal.

Gras “developed a principle from fiction, of an beginning and an end”. And Kabwita is very much a noir-hero, his profit, and with it, his future, more and more reduced by circumstances beyond his control. In common with American Noirs directed by Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy/The Big Combo), the main protagonist is literally pushed to the margins of screen – contrary to the classic Hollywood films, where the accessible object is positioned front and centre in full view. Like a Lewis’ character, Kabwita teeters on the edge, in danger of falling out of the frame, threatened by the menacing lorries, which look more like robots out of sci-fi feature. Furthermore, Gras creates an aura of mystery (as in Lewis’ films), some parts of the frame are partly concealed, leaving us to join the main protagonist’s struggle to keep up with the ever- shifting sands of the action.

Gaspar Claus’ eerie violin score echoes the distressing mood of intensifying hopelessness. Gras has pioneers a style of his own: richly imaginative in its portrait of poverty and powerlessness. AS

NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS

Berlinale Competition titles | 15-25 February 2018

The Berlin Film Festival  – Competition line-up complete

Directors including Benoit Jacquot, Gus Van Sant, Alexey German Jr, Małgorzata Szumowska, Thomas Stuber and Laura Bispuri will compete in this year’s Competition while Isabel Coixet and Lars Kraume feature in the Berlinale Special strand.

Berlinale will open for the first time with an animation feature, Isle of Dogs, by Wes Anderson, in a dazzling line-up of World premieres starring the likes of Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara and Jack Black. For Alexei German Jr, this is his second Berlin’s competition title since Under Electric Clouds in 2015. He returns with a feature that follows several days in the life of Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov.

Jacquot’s thriller Eva, played by Isabelle Huppert, a playwright encounters a mysterious woman when he takes shelter in a chalet during a violent snowstorm. The feature is based on James Hadley Chase’s novel Eve is the sixth time the French director Jacquot and Huppert have worked together. Jeanne Moreau originally played her part in a 1962 adaptation directed by Joseph Losey. This latest version World premieres at Sundance in January. Stuber’s drama In The Aisles stars Toni Erdmann actress Sandra Hüller, while Bispuri’s drama Daughter Of Mine, explores a young girl’s relationship with both her biological and adoptive mothers. This is the second time Alexei German Jr’s work plays in competition since his 2015 feature Under Electric Clouds.

Meanwhile, Coixet’s drama The Bookshop sees British Actress Emily Mortimer playing a woman who decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.

Competition Line-up

U – 22 July (Norway) 

Dir: Erik Poppe (The King’s Choice)

Cast: Brede Fristad, Ada Eide, Andrea Berntzen, Ingeborg Enes

World Premiere

7 Days in Entebbe | USA/UK |

Dir: José Padilha (The Elite Squad, Garapa) |

Cast: Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl, Eddie Marsan, Lior Ashkenazi, Denis Menochet, Ben Schnetzer

World premiere – Out of competition

Ága | Bulgaria/Ger/France

Dir: Milko Lazarov (Otchuzhdenie) | Cast:Mikhail Aprosimov, Feodosia Ivanova, Galina Tikhonova, Sergey Egorov, Afanasiy Kylaev | World premiere – Out of competition

Ang panahon ng halimaw (Season of the Devil) | Philippines

Dir: Lav Diaz (A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, The Woman Who Left)

Cast: Piolo Pascual, Shaina Magdayao, Pinky Amador, Bituin Escalante, Hazel Orencio, Joel Saracho, Bart Guingona, Angel Aquino,  | World premiere

Museo (Museum) | Mex | Dir Alonso Ruizpalacios (Güeros)

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Leonardo Ortizgris, Alfredo Castro, Simon Russell Beale, Bernardo Velasco, Leticia Brédice, Ilse Salas, Lisa Owen
World premiere

 

Unsane  | USA
By Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, The Good German)

Dir: Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, Amy Irving

World premiere – Out of competition

3 Tage in Quiberon 3 DAYS IN QUIBERON  

Germany / Austria / France
Dir: Emily Atef (Molly’s Way, The Stranger In Me)
With Marie Bäumer, Birgit Minichmayr, Charly Hübner, Robert Gwisdek, Denis Lavant
World premiere

 

Black 47 
Ireland / Luxembourg
By Lance Daly (Kisses, The Good Doctor)
With Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, Freddie Fox, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, Sarah Greene, Jim Broadbent
World premiere – Out of competition

Damsel 
USA
By David Zellner, Nathan Zellner (Kid-Thing, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter)
With Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, Robert Forster, Joe Billingiere | International premiere

 

Eldorado – Documentary
Switzerland / Germany
By Markus Imhoof (The Boat Is Full, More Than Honey)
World premiere – Out of competition

 

Las herederas (The Heiresses)
Paraguay / Germany / Uruguay / Norway / Brazil / France
By Marcelo Martinessi
With Ana Brun, Margarita Irún, Ana Ivanova
World premiere – First Feature

 

Khook (Pig)
Iran
By Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception, A Dragon Arrives!)
With Hasan Majuni, Leila Hatami, Leili Rashidi, Parinaz Izadyar, Ali Bagheri
World premiere

 

La prière (The Prayer)
France
By Cédric Kahn (Red Lights, Wild Life)
With Anthony Bajon, Damien Chapelle, Alex Brendemühl, Louise Grinberg, Hanna Schygulla
World premiere

Toppen av ingenting (The Real Estate)
Sweden / United Kingdom
By Måns Månsson (The Yard, Mr Governor), Axel Petersén (Avalon)
With Léonore Ekstrand, Christer Levin, Christian Saldert, Olof Rhodin, Carl Johan Merner, Don Bennechi
World premiere

Touch Me Not
Romania / Germany / Czech Republic / Bulgaria / France
By Adina Pintilie (Don’t Get Me Wrong)
With Laura Benson, Tómas Lemarquis, Christian Bayerlein, Grit Uhlemann, Hanna Hofmann, Seani Love, Irmena Chichikova
World premiere – First Feature

Transit
Germany / France
By Christian Petzold (Yella, Barbara, Phoenix)
With Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, Maryam Zaree, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Sebastian Hülk, Emilie de Preissac, Antoine Oppenheim
World premiere

 

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot  USA

By Gus Van Sant (Milk, Promised Land) | With Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, Udo Kier

World premieres at Sundance.

 

Dovlatov | Russian Federation / Poland / Serbia | World Premiere | Director: Alexey German Jr. (Paper Soldier, Under Electric Clouds | With Milan Maric, Danila Kozlovsky, Helena Sujecka, Artur Beschastny, Elena Lyadova

World premiere

 

Eva | France | World Premiere | Director: Benoit Jacquot (Three Hearts, Diary of a Chambermaid)  | With Isabelle Huppert, Gaspard Ulliel, Julia Roy, Richard Berry

World premiere

 

Figlia mia (Daughter of Mine) | Italy / Germany / Switzerland |  Director: Laura Bispuri (Sworn Virgin)  With Valeria Golino, Alba Rohrwacher, Sara Casu, Udo Kier | World premiere

 

In den Gängen (In the Aisles) | Germany | World Premiere | Director: Thomas Stuber (Teenage Angst, A Heavy Heart) | With Franz Rogowski, Sandra Hüller, Peter Kurth

 

 

Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot  | Germany | World Premi| Direction: Philip Gröning (Into Great Silence, The Police Officer’s Wife | With Josef Mattes, Julia Zange, Urs Jucker, Stefan Konarske, Zita Aretz, Karolina Porcari, Vitus Zeplichal

Twarz (Mug) | Poland | Director: Małgorzata Szumowska (In the Name of, Body) | World Premiere  | With Mateusz Kościukiewicz, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Małgorzata Gorol, Roman Gancarczyk, Dariusz Chojnacki, Robert Talarczyk, Anna Tomaszewska, Martyna Krzysztofik

World Premiere

 Berlinale Special Gala

The Bookshop  | Spain / United Kingdom / Germany Premiere | Director: Isabel Coixet (Things I Never Told You, My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words | With Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson

 

 

 

Das schweigende Klassenzimmer (The Silent Revolution) | Germany | Word Premiere | Director: Lars Kraume (The People vs. Fritz Bauer) | With Leonard Scheicher, Tom Gramenz, Lena Klenke, Jonas Dassler, Florian Lukas, Jördis Triebel, Michael Gwisdek, Ronald Zehrfeld, Burghart Klaußner

Special at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele

 

 

Gurrumul – Documentary
Australia
By Paul Williams
International premiere – Debut film
In Cooperation with NATIVe

Viaje a los Pueblos Fumigados – Documentary
Argentina
By Fernando Solanas (The Hour Of The Furnaces, Tangos, The Exile Of Gardel, Memoria del saqueo – A Social Genocide)
World premiere

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | 15 -25 FEBRUARY 2018 | COMPETITION TITLES

 

Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2018 | 7 – 16 March 2018

The 22nd edition of the London Human Rights Watch Film Festival opens in time for International Womens Day, on 8th March. The festival includes 14 award-winning international documentary and feature films, half of them directed by women. The opening night film Naila and the Uprising directed by Julia Bacha shines a light on the role of the women’s leaders of the First Intifada (which took place 30 years ago) who not only led a popular civil resistance campaign for national liberation, they also fought tirelessly for their rights as women. As ever the programme reaches many corners of the globe, from Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran, Qatar to Pakistan, France, USA, Venezuela, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo and the closing night film from Liberia which follows environmental activist Silas Siakor as he empowers local people to fight illegal land grab.  It’s a worthwhile and watchable programme rather than a worthy one we particularly recommend:

THE POETESS 

March 9 | 8.45pm | Barbican | March 10 | 8.30pm | BFI Southbank both with Stefanie Brockhaus Q&A

Saudi poetess Hissa Hilal made headlines around the world as the first woman to reach the finals of the Arab world’s biggest televised poetry competition, “Million’s Poet.” The Poetess is the inspiring story of a woman risking her personal safety and seizing an opportunity, live on TV in front of 75 million viewers, to use her wit and lyricism to critique patriarchal society and religious extremism, and to urge a more peaceful Islam.

THIS IS CONGO

March 7 | 6.15pm RIBA London | Benefit Night screening with Q&A with Dir Daniel McCabe + Fergal Keane (BBC)

A whistleblower, a patriotic military commander, a mineral dealer, and a displaced tailor share a glimpse of life amid Africa’s longest continuing conflict. Over the last two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen more than 5 million conflict-related deaths, multiple changes of government, and the wholesale impoverishment of its people. This is Congo provides an immersive and unfiltered look at this lush, mineral-rich country, from the rise of Rwandan and Ugandan-backed M23 rebels in the North Kivu region of Congo in 2012 to the present day via four profoundly resilient characters.

WOMEN OF THE VENEZUELAN CHAOS.

March 13 | 8.40pm | Barbican & March 15 | 6.15 Barbican with Q&As on both nights with Dir: Margarita Cadenas

What is going on in Venezuela at the moment? Embodying strength and stoicism, five Venezuelan women from diverse backgrounds each draw a portrait of their country as it suffers under the worst crisis in its history amid extreme food and medicine shortages, a broken justice system, and widespread fear. The women share what life is really like for them and their families as the truth of the country’s difficulties are repeatedly denied by the government. Featuring stunning visuals and creative soundscapes, Women of the Venezuelan Chaos presentsa uniquely beautiful country and people, who remain resilient and resourceful despite the immense challenges they face.

12 DAYS

March 10 | 4.00pm | Barbican | March 11 4.00pm Barbican

Every year in France, 92,000 people are placed under psychiatric care without their consent. By law, the hospital has 12 days to bring each patient before a judge. Relying on little information beyond doctor recommendations, a crucial decision must be made: will the patient be forced to stay or granted the freedom to leave? Focusing primarily on these public hearings, renowned filmmaker and photographer Raymond Depardon captures the raw and vulnerable interactions at the border of justice and psychiatry, humanity and bureaucracy. Absorbing and thought-provoking, 12 Days gives a platform to those whose voices are so rarely considered. Golden Eye Prize, Cannes Film Festival 2017

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL 7 – 16 MARCH 2018

A Suitable Girl (2017) * * *

Dir.: Sarita Khurana, Smriti Mundhra | Documentary | India/USA 2017, 90′

Sarita Khurana and Smriti Mundhra’s moving debut documentary takes an analytical but sympathetic look at arranged marriages in India, where the 21st century collides with centuries old rituals and morals. The continuing plight of women sits uncomfortably aside its burgeoning economy and scientific advances.

Shot over four years, the interlocking narrative follows the lives of three young women from different backgrounds and intellectual capabilities whose future is entirely determined by marriage. There is Dipti, a homely and kind-hearted girl approaching thirty, whose whole life has been about finding a man. Her ample figure and swarthy looks do not fit the modern trend for slim, pale-skinned Indian girls. She has tried traditional dating sites and matchmakers for years and it seems the lack of a ‘life partner’ rules her every waking hour as she languishes in despair with her despondent parents. Interviews are arranged where parents lay down their requirements, but the kids still have the last word. Dipti’s desperation ends with a miracle. But we are left wondering if such blind faith in one person can be a good thing.

Ritu is aloof and ambitious. Living in Mumbai with an MBA and a career in financial services. She has an independent, Western lifestyle – but her mother Seema, who is a professional matchmaker, puts pressure on her daughter to marry emphasising the importance of a good husband: ‘You won’t amount to much concentrating on your job”. Seema is well aware of the double standard in the marriage industry: girls have to be “fair-skinned, slim, soft-spoken and beautiful, whilst men must have a large income and an important family to back them up. Ritu’s goal has never been to get married but she finally gives in.  Luckily for Ritu, her chosen husband Aditya, who is also working in the finance industry, shares her view on marriage: “In my next life I want to be born in Europe, so I can marry post forty”. After their splendid and very costly marriage, the couple both pursue their careers in Dubai, commuting together to work.

Meanwhile, Amrita has an MBA in business studies but a rather naive view of life. Living in Delhi she is happy to go along with her parents’ arrangement for a marriage to Keshav, a young man set to inherit the family business – “because their horoscopes match”. The couple settle down at the family compound 400 miles from Delhi, where Amrita becomes chief-cook and sari-wearing housekeeper, contrary to her expectations of working in the business alongside him. plans to work together. Her husband’s decisions are final – in the end the disillusioned Amrita comes off worst of the three. “My world revolves around him. You lose your identity, when you marry, and that is one thing I never wanted to do. 80% of people, who come to my home, do not know my name. They are just recognising me as Keshav’s wife”.

A Suitable Girl is informative and enlightening, making us feels for these young women and building an informative portrait of middle class India which sees the large metropolises of Delhi and Mumbai as the most popular cities, and Calcutta and Chennai the least favoured, in modern terms. What emerges is a traditional continent still caught in the Dark Ages from a social viewpoint – where parents still rule the roost and decide the future of their daughters  – often with the help of astrologers and face-readers. AS

A SUITABLE GIRL | Opening on Friday, 23 February | Q&A Screening with co-director Sarita Khurana
http://dochouse.org/cinema/screenings/suitable-girl

Have you Seen the Listers? *** (2018) | Rotterdam International Film Festival

Dir.: Eddie Martin; Documentary with Anthony Lister, Anika Lister, Kye Lister, Lola Lister, Molly Lister | Doc | Australia 2017, 87′

Rarely have form and content been so complimentary as here in Eddie Martin’s (Lionel) documentary about the installation and graffiti artist Anthony Lister and his family. Editor Johanna Scott puts the whole project on fast-forward – very much in keeping with an artist whose lifestyle is a non-stop, emotional mayhem.

Anthony Lister (*1979) studied at the Queensland College of Art under Max Gimblett and was awarded a BA in 2002. As a teenager in Brisbane he had already starting developing graffiti into an art form. “Being as reckless as possible” was the headline under which he painted and lived. His wife Anika – the couple has three children – bore the brunt of Anthony’s hectic life, more often than not fuelled by drugs and alcohol. He dedicated his first exhibition in Brisbane (2001) to his grandmother, who encouraged him to paint after his father has left the family just before Anthony’s sixth birthday – a transgression the artist would later repeat himself. Soon he earned good money, and bought a house for his family in Brisbane – only to leave for New York, because “Brisbane was too small for me”. In his Brooklyn studio he engaged his family in his work (“We were a team”), we can watch Kye and Lola painting on the pavement in front of the house. Soon Anthony was exhausted, and the family returned to Brisbane where his murals were much admired until the council painted over them – and would later fine him for the graffiti work they had ask him to create.

Lister then set off to New York and Miami again, missing his family, but living the life of a free artist – while Anika was left to look after the children alone. London, Italy and Paris followed, before yet another return to the family in Brisbane. His work is often centred very much around his children, his super-heroes and villains delighted him as much as his off-spring. But he craved the life with mates in the art set, and Anika was written slowly out of his life. Feeling this estrangement, Anthony took his family on a long camping holiday beside the ocean, followed by a moved to Sydney, where they lived in a four-storey house which was more like a squatters hideout, than a family home but suited Lister down to the ground. At this point, Anika cleared on and left him with the children. leaving Anthony’s life out of control: he was arrested in New York and appeared to be“blind to the needs of his children and wife”. Work provided compensation. But in reality his selfish concerns would have an impact on the family he neglected but very much needed.

Most of the family story is told by the Super-8 and video films Anthony and Anika shot during their relationship. These portray a recalcitrant artist crying whilst painting his family on canvas. Lister is his own harshest critic – although he continually falls back on his promises, sharing aJekyll and Hyde personality with countless men who have not grown up emotionally – allowed their to suffer for the art the public adores. A deeply disturbing portrait of a self-destructive creator. AS

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 24 JANUARY – 4 FEBRUARY 2018 | International Premiere

Sundance Film Festival | 2018 | Award WINNERS

In Park City Utah, the SUNDANCE INSTITUTE founder ROBERT REDFORD and his programmer John Cooper set the indie film agenda for 2018 with a slew of provocative new titles for this year’s festival which ran from 18-28 January.

Among the newcomers were Paul Dano (with Wildlife) and Rupert Everett (with The Happy Prince) presenting their directorial debuts and new films from Desiree Akhavan: The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Gus van Sant: Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot starring Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara.

WINNERS – THESE ARE THE FILMS WHICH WILL BE CROPPING UP OVER THE NEXT YEAR IN LOCAL ARTHOUSE CINEMAS

The Kindergarten Teacher | DIRECTING AWARD | US DRAMATIC

U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Sara Colangelo, Producers: Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Osnat Handelsman-Keren, Talia Kleinhendler) — Lisa Spinelli is a Staten Island teacher who is unusually devoted to her students. When she discovers one of her five-year-olds is a prodigy, she becomes fascinated with the boy, ultimately risking her family and freedom to nurture his talent. Based on the acclaimed Israeli film. Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Parker Sevak, Rosa Salazar, Anna Barynishikov, Michael Chernus, Gael Garcia Bernal. World Premiere

The Guilty / Denmark | AUDIENCE AWARD | WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC

(Director: Gustav Möller, Screenwriters: Gustav Möller, Emil Nygaard Albertsen, Producer: Lina Flint) Alarm dispatcher Asger Holm answers an emergency call from a kidnapped woman; after a sudden disconnection, the search for the woman and her kidnapper begins. With the phone as his only tool, Asger enters a race against time to solve a crime that is far bigger than he first thought. Cast: Jakob Cedergren, Jessica Dinnage, Johan Olsen, Omar Shargawi. World Premiere

Of Fathers and Sons / Germany, Syria, Lebanon | WORLD CINEMA GRAND JURY PRIZE | DOCUMENTARY

(Director: Talal Derki, Producers: Ansgar Frerich, Eva Kemme, Tobias N. Siebert, Hans Robert Eisenhauer) — Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate. North American Premiere

On Her Shoulders / U.S.A | US DIRECTING AWARD – DOCUMENTARY

(Director: Alexandria Bombach, Producers: Marie Therese Guirgis, Hayley Pappas, Brock Williams, Bryn Mooser, Adam Bardach) — A Yazidi genocide and ISIS sexual slavery survivor, 23-year-old Nadia Murad is determined to tell the world her story. As her journey leads down paths of advocacy and fame, she becomes the voice of her people and their best hope to spur the world to action. International Premiere

The Miseducation of Cameron Post / U.S.A. | US GRAND JURY AWARD 

(Director: Desiree Akhavan, Screenwriters: Desiree Akhavan, Cecilia Frugiuele, Producers: Cecilia Frugiuele, Jonathan Montepare, Michael B. Clark, Alex Turtletaub) — 1993: after being caught having sex with the prom queen, a girl is forced into a gay conversion therapy center. Based on Emily Danforth’s acclaimed and controversial coming-of-age novel. Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Sasha Lane, Forrest Goodluck, John Gallagher Jr., Jennifer Ehle. World Premiere

Butterflies / WORLD CINEMA GRAND JURY PRIZE | DOCUMENTARY

Turkey (Director and screenwriter: Tolga Karaçelik, Producers: Tolga Karaçelik, Diloy Gülün, Metin  Anter) — In the Turkish village of Hasanlar, three siblings who neither know each other nor anything about their late father, wait to bury his body. As they start to find out more about their father and about each other, they also start to know more about themselves. Cast: Tolga Tekin, Bartu Küçükçağlayan, Tuğçe Altuğ, Serkan Keskin, Hakan Karsak. World Premiere

THIS IS HOME | AUDIENCE AWARD: US Dramatic / U.S.A., Jordan (Director: Alexandra Shiva, Producer: Lindsey Megrue) This is an intimate portrait of four Syrian families arriving in Baltimore, Maryland and struggling to find their footing. With eight months to become self-sufficient, they must forge ahead to rebuild their lives. When the travel ban adds further complications, their strength and resilience are put to the test. World Premiere

The Sentence / U.S.A | AUDIENCE AWARD | US Documentary

(Director: Rudy Valdez, Producers: Sam Bisbee, Jackie Kelman Bisbee) — Cindy Shank, mother of three, is serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison for her tangential involvement with a Michigan drug ring years earlier. This intimate portrait of mandatory minimum drug sentencing’s devastating consequences, captured by Cindy’s brother, follows her and her family over the course of ten years. World Premiere

BURDEN/AUDIENCE AWARD 2018 | US Dramatic

U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Andrew Heckler, Producers: Robbie Brenner, Jincheng, Bill Kenwright) — After opening a KKK shop, Klansman Michael Burden falls in love with a single mom who forces him to confront his senseless hatred. After leaving the Klan and with nowhere to turn, Burden is taken in by an African-American reverend, and learns tolerance through their combined love and faith. Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wilkinson, Usher Raymond. World Premiere

NANCY / U.S.A.| WALDO SALT SCREENWRITING AWARD

(Director and screenwriter: Christina Choe, Producers: Amy Lo, Michelle Cameron, Andrea Riseborough) — Blurring lines between fact and fiction, Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief – and the power of emotion threatens to overcome all rationality. Cast: Andrea Riseborough, J. Smith-Cameron, Steve Buscemi, Ann Dowd, John Leguizamo. World Premiere

KAILASH | US GRAND JURY PRIZE  / U.S.A | DOCUMENTARY

(Director: Derek Doneen, Producers: Davis Guggenheim, Sarah Anthony) — As a young man, Kailash Satyarthi promised himself that he would end child slavery in his lifetime. In the decades since, he has rescued more than eighty thousand children and built a global movement. This intimate and suspenseful film follows one man’s journey to do what many believed was impossible. World Premiere. 

SEARCH / U.S.A. | THE AUDIENCE AWARD | NEXT

(Director: Aneesh Chaganty, Screenwriters: Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian, Producers: Timur Bekmambetov, Sev Ohanian, Adam Sidman, Natalie Qasabian) — After his 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a desperate father breaks into her laptop to look for clues to find her. A thriller that unfolds entirely on computer screens. Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing. World Premiere. WINNER: 2018 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize.

Crime + Punishment / U.S.A. | SPECIAL AWARD FOR SOCIAL IMPACT

(Director: Stephen Maing) — Over four years of unprecedented access, the story of a brave group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and one unrelenting private investigator who, amidst a landmark lawsuit, risk everything to expose illegal quota practices and their impact on young minorities. World Premiere

Shirkers / U.S.A. | DIRECTING AWARD | World Cinema Documentary

(Director and screenwriter: Sandi Tan, Producers: Sandi Tan, Jessica Levin, Maya Rudolph) — In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore’s first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges’ vanishing footprints. World Premiere

And Breathe Normally / Iceland, Sweden, Belgium | DIRECTING AWARD | World cinema Dramatic

(Director and screenwriter: Ísold Uggadóttir, Producers: Skúli Malmquist, Diana Elbaum, Annika Hellström, Lilja Ósk Snorradóttir, Inga Lind Karlsdóttir) — At the edge of Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, two women’s lives will intersect – for a brief moment – while trapped in circumstances unforeseen. Between a struggling Icelandic mother and an asylum seeker from Guinea-Bissau, a delicate bond will form as both strategize to get their lives back on track. Cast: Kristín Thóra Haraldsdóttir, Babetida Sadjo, Patrik Nökkvi Pétursson. World Premiere

U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films, the Dramatic Competition offers Festivalgoers a first look at groundbreaking new voices in American independent film. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Fruitvale Station, Patti Cake$, Swiss Army Man and The Diary of a Teenage Girl.

American Animals / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Bart Layton, Producers: Derrin Schlesinger, Katherine Butler, Dimitri Doganis, Mary Jane Skalski) — The unbelievable but mostly true story of four young men who mistake their lives for a movie and attempt one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history. Cast: Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, Ann Dowd, Udo Kier. World Premiere

BLAZE / U.S.A. (Director: Ethan Hawke, Screenwriters: Ethan Hawke, Sybil Rosen, Producers: Jake Seal, John Sloss, Ryan Hawke, Ethan Hawke) — A reimagining of the life and times of Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas Outlaw Music movement; he gave up paradise for the sake of a song. Cast: Benjamin Dickey, Alia Shawkat, Josh Hamilton, Charlie Sexton. World Premiere

Blindspotting / U.S.A. (Director: Carlos Lopez Estrada, Screenwriters: Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs, Producers: Keith Calder, Jess Calder, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs) — A buddy comedy in a world that won’t let it be one. Cast: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones. World Premiere. 

Eighth Grade / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Bo Burnham, Producers: Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, Christopher Storer, Lila Yacoub) — Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school. Cast: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton. World Premiere.

I THINK WE'RE ALONEI Think We’re Alone Now / U.S.A. (Director: Reed Morano, Screenwriter: Mike Makowsky, Producers: Fred Berger, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fernando Loureiro, Roberto Vasconcellos, Peter Dinklage, Mike Makowsky) — The apocalypse proves a blessing in disguise for one lucky recluse – until a second survivor arrives with the threat of companionship. Cast: Peter Dinklage, Elle Fanning. World Premiere

Lizzie / U.S.A. (Director: Craig William Macneill, Screenwriter: Bryce Kass, Producers: Naomi Despres, Liz Destro) — Based on the 1892 murder of Lizzie Borden’s family in Fall River, MA, this tense psychological thriller lays bare the legend of Lizzie Borden to reveal the much more complex, poignant and truly terrifying woman within — and her intimate bond with the family’s young Irish housemaid, Bridget Sullivan. Cast: Chloë Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Jamey Sheridan, Fiona Shaw, Kim Dickens, Denis O’Hare. World Premiere

Monster / U.S.A. (Director: Anthony Mandler, Screenwriters: Radha Blank, Cole Wiley, Janece Shaffer, Producers: Tonya Lewis Lee, Nikki Silver, Aaron L. Gilbert, Mike Jackson, Edward Tyler Nahem) — “Monster” is what the prosecutor calls 17 year old honors student and aspiring filmmaker Steve Harmon. Charged with felony murder for a crime he says he did not commit, the film follows his dramatic journey through a complex legal battle that could leave him spending the rest of his life in prison. Cast: Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Hudson, Rakim Mayers, Jennifer Ehle, Tim Blake Nelson. World Premiere

Monsters and Men / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Reinaldo Marcus Green, Producers: Elizabeth Lodge Stepp, Josh Penn, Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Luca Borghese) — This interwoven narrative explores the aftermath of a police killing of a black man. The film is told through the eyes of the bystander who filmed the act, an African-American police officer and a high-school baseball phenom inspired to take a stand. Cast: John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chanté Adams, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan. World Premiere

Sorry to Bother You / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Boots Riley, Producers: Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker, Charles King, George Rush, Jonathan Duffy, Kelly Williams) — In a speculative and dystopian not-too-distant future, black telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success – which propels him into a macabre universe. Cast: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Steven Yeun, Jermaine Fowler, Armie Hammer, Omari Hardwicke. World Premiere

The Tale / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Jennifer Fox, Producers: Oren Moverman, Lawrence Inglee, Laura Rister, Mynette Louie, Sol Bondy, Simone Pero) — An investigation into one woman’s memory as she’s forced to re-examine her first sexual relationship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive; based on the filmmaker’s own story. Cast: Laura Dern, Isabel Nelisse, Jason Ritter, Elizabeth Debicki, Ellen Burstyn, Common. World Premiere

TYREL / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Sebastian Silva, Producers: Jacob Wasserman, Max Born) — Tyler spirals out of control when he realizes he’s the only black person attending a weekend birthday party in a secluded cabin. Cast: Jason Mitchell, Christopher Abbott, Michael Cera, Caleb Landry Jones, Ann Dowd. World Premiere

WildlifeWildlife / U.S.A. (Director: Paul Dano, Screenwriters: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Producers: Andrew Duncan, Alex Saks, Oren Moverman, Ann Ruark, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riva Marker) — Montana, 1960: A portrait of a family in crisis. Based on the novel by Richard Ford. Cast: Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould, Bill Camp, Jake Gyllenhaal. World Premiere

U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Sixteen world-premiere American documentaries that illuminate the ideas, people and events that shape the present day. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Chasing Coral, Life, Animated, Cartel Land and City of Gold.

Bisbee ’17 / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Robert Greene, Producers: Douglas Tirola, Susan Bedusa, Bennett Elliott) — An old mining town on the Arizona-Mexico border finally reckons with its darkest day: the deportation of 1200 immigrant miners exactly 100 years ago. Locals collaborate to stage recreations of their controversial past. Cast: Fernando Serrano, Laurie McKenna, Ray Family, Mike Anderson, Graeme Family, Richard Hodges. World Premier

Dark Money / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kimberly Reed, Producer: Katy Chevigny) — “Dark money” contributions, made possible by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, flood modern American elections – but Montana is showing Washington D.C. how to solve the problem of unlimited anonymous money in politics. World Premiere

The Devil yo KnowThe Devil We Know / U.S.A. (Director: Stephanie Soechtig, Producers: Kristin Lazure, Stephanie Soechtig, Joshua Kunau, Carly Palmour) — Unraveling one of the biggest environmental scandals of our time, a group of citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical — now found in the blood of 99.7% of Americans — into the local drinking water supply. World Premiere.

 

HalHal / U.S.A. (Director: Amy Scott, Producers: Christine Beebe, Jonathan Lynch, Brian Morrow) — Hal Ashby’s obsessive genius led to an unprecedented string of Oscar®-winning classics, including Harold and Maude, Shampoo and Being There. But as contemporaries Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg rose to blockbuster stardom in the 1980s, Ashby’s uncompromising nature played out as a cautionary tale of art versus commerce. World Premiere

Hale County This Morning, This Evening / U.S.A. (Director: RaMell Ross, Screenwriter: Maya Krinsky, Producers: Joslyn Barnes, RaMell Ross, Su Kim) — An exploration of coming-of-age in the Black Belt of the American South, using stereotypical imagery to fill in the landscape between iconic representations of black men and encouraging a new way of looking, while resistance to narrative suspends conclusive imagining – allowing the viewer to complete the film. World Premiere

Inventing Tomorrow / U.S.A. (Director: Laura Nix, Producers: Diane Becker, Melanie Miller, Laura Nix) — Take a journey with young minds from around the globe as they prepare their projects for the largest convening of high school scientists in the world, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Watch these passionate innovators find the courage to face the planet’s environmental threats while navigating adolescence. World Premiere. THE NEW CLIMATE

Kusama – Infinity / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Heather Lenz, Producers: Karen Johnson, Heather Lenz, Dan Braun, David Koh) — Now one of the world’s most celebrated artists, Yayoi Kusama broke free of the rigid society in which she was raised, and overcame sexism, racism, and mental illness to bring her artistic vision to the world stage. At 88 she lives in a mental hospital and continues to create art. World Premiere

The Last Race / U.S.A. (Director: Michael Dweck, Producers: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw) — A cinematic portrait of a small town stock car track and the tribe of drivers that call it home as they struggle to hold onto an American racing tradition. The avant-garde narrative explores the community and its conflicts through an intimate story that reveals the beauty, mystery and emotion of grassroots auto racing. World Premiere

Minding the Gap / U.S.A. (Director: Bing Liu, Producer: Diane Quon) — Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship. World Premiere

The Price of Everything / U.S.A. (Director: Nathaniel Kahn, Producers: Jennifer Blei Stockman, Debi Wisch, Carla Solomon) — With unprecedented access to pivotal artists and the white-hot market surrounding them, this film dives deep into the contemporary art world, holding a funhouse mirror up to our values and our times – where everything can be bought and sold.World Premiere

Seeing AllredSeeing Allred / U.S.A. (Directors: Sophie Sartain, Roberta Grossman, Producers: Roberta Grossman, Sophie Sartain, Marta Kauffman, Robbie Rowe Tollin, Hannah KS Canter) — Gloria Allred overcame trauma and personal setbacks to become one of the nation’s most famous women’s rights attorneys. Now the feminist firebrand takes on two of the biggest adversaries of her career, Bill Cosby and Donald Trump, as sexual violence allegations grip the nation and keep her in the spotlight. World Premiere

THREE IDENTICALThree Identical Strangers / U.S.A. (Director: Tim Wardle, Producer: Becky Read) — New York,1980: three complete strangers accidentally discover that they’re identical triplets, separated at birth. The 19-year-olds’ joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, but also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives – and could transform our understanding of human nature forever. World Premiere

WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Twelve films from emerging filmmaking talents around the world offer fresh perspectives and inventive styles. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include The Nile Hilton Incident, Second Mother, Berlin Syndrome and The Lure.

 

Dead Pigs / China (Director and screenwriter: Cathy Yan, Producers: Clarissa Zhang, Jane Zheng, Zhangke Jia, Mick Aniceto, Amy Aniceto) — A bumbling pig farmer, a feisty salon owner, a sensitive busboy, an expat architect and a disenchanted rich girl converge and collide as thousands of dead pigs float down the river towards a rapidly-modernizing Shanghai, China. Based on true events. Cast: Vivian Wu, Haoyu Yang, Mason Lee, Meng Li, David Rysdahl. World Premiere

HolidayHoliday / Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden (Director: Isabella Eklöf, Screenwriters: Isabella Eklöf, Johanne Algren, Producer: David B. Sørensen) — A love triangle featuring the trophy girlfriend of a petty drug lord, caught up in a web of luxury and violence in a modern dark gangster tale set in the beautiful port city of Bodrum on the Turkish Riviera. Cast: Victoria Carmen Sonne, Lai Yde, Thijs Römer. World Premiere

Loveling / Brazil, Uruguay (Director: Gustavo Pizzi, Screenwriters: Gustavo Pizzi, Karine Teles, Producers: Tatiana Leite, Rodrigo Letier, Agustina Chiarino, Fernando Epstein) — On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Irene has only a few days to overcome her anxiety and renew her strength before sending her eldest son out into the world. Cast: Karine Teles, Otavio Muller, Adriana Esteves, Konstantinos Sarris, Cesar Troncoso. World Premiere. 

Pity / Greece, Poland (Director: Babis Makridis, Screenwriters: Efthimis Filippou, Babis Makridis, Producers: Amanda Livanou, Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, Klaudia Śmieja, Beata Rzeźniczek) — The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him. Cast: Yannis Drakopoulos, Evi Saoulidou, Nota Tserniafski, Makis Papadimitriou, Georgina Chryskioti, Evdoxia Androulidaki. World Premiere

The Queen of Fear / Argentina, Denmark (Directors: Valeria Bertuccelli, Fabiana Tiscornia, Screenwriter: Valeria Bertuccelli, Producers: Benjamin Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matias Roveda, Juan Vera, Juan Pablo Galli, Christian Faillace) — Only one month left until the premiere of The Golden Time, the long-awaited solo show by acclaimed actress Robertina. Far from focused on the preparations for this new production, Robertina lives in a state of continuous anxiety that turns her privileged life into an absurd and tumultuous landscape. Cast: Valeria Bertuccelli, Diego Velázquez, Gabriel Eduardo “Puma” Goity, Darío Grandinetti. World Premiere

RustRust / Brazil (Director: Aly Muritiba, Screenwriters: Aly Muritiba, Jessica Candal, Producer: Antônio Junior) — Tati and Renet were already trading pics, videos and music by their cellphones and on the last school trip they started making eye contact. However, what could be the beginning of a love story becomes an end. Cast: Giovanni De Lorenzi, Tifanny Dopke, Enrique Diaz, Clarissa Kiste, Duda Azevedo, Pedro Inoue. World Premiere

TIME SHARETime Share (Tiempo Compartido) / Mexico, Netherlands (Director: Sebastián Hofmann, Screenwriters: Julio Chavezmontes, Sebastián Hofmann, Producer: Julio Chavezmontes) — Two haunted family men join forces in a destructive crusade to rescue their families from a tropical paradise, after becoming convinced that an American timeshare conglomerate has a sinister plan to take their loved ones away. Cast: Luis Gerardo Mendez, Miguel Rodarte, Andrés Almeida, Cassandra Ciangherotti, Monserrat Marañon, R.J. Mitte. World Premiere

Un Traductor / Canada, Cuba (Directors: Rodrigo Barriuso, Sebastián Barriuso, Screenwriter: Lindsay Gossling, Producers: Sebastián Barriuso, Lindsay Gossling) — A Russian Literature professor at the University of Havana is ordered to work as a translator for child victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster when they are sent to Cuba for medical treatment. Based on a true story. Cast: Rodrigo Santoro, Maricel Álvarez, Yoandra Suárez. World Premiere

Yardie / United Kingdom (Director: Idris Elba, Screenwriters: Brock Norman Brock, Martin Stellman, Producers: Gina Carter, Robin Gutch) — Jamaica, 1973. When a young boy witnesses his brother’s assassination, a powerful Don gives him a home. Ten years later he is sent on a mission to London. He reunites with his girlfriend and their daughter, but then the past catches up with them. Based on Victor Headley’s novel. Cast: Aml Ameen, Shantol Jackson, Stephen Graham, Fraser James, Sheldon Shepherd, Everaldo Cleary. World Premiere

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Twelve documentaries by some of the most courageous and extraordinary international filmmakers working today. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Motherland, Last Men in Aleppo, Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower and Hooligan Sparrow.

A Polar Year / France (Director: Samuel Collardey, Screenwriters: Samuel Collardey, Catherine Paillé, Producer: Grégoire Debailly) — Anders leaves his native Denmark for a teaching position in rural Greenland. As soon as he arrives, he finds himself at odds with tightly-knit locals. Only through a clumsy and playful trial of errors can Anders shake his Euro-centric assumptions and embrace their snow-covered way of life. Cast: Anders Hvidegaard, Asser Boassen, Julius B. Nielsen, Tobias Ignatiussen, Thomasine Jonathansen, Gert Jonathansen. World Premiere

Anote’s Ark / Canada (Director: Matthieu Rytz, Producers: Bob Moore, Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross, Shari Plummer, Shannon Joy) — How does a nation survive being swallowed by the sea? Kiribati, on a low-lying Pacific atoll, will disappear within decades due to rising sea levels, population growth, and climate change. This exploration of how to migrate an entire nation with dignity interweaves personal stories of survival and resilience. World Premiere. THE NEW CLIMATE

The Cleaners / Germany, Brazil (Directors: Moritz Riesewieck, Hans Block, Screenwriters: Moritz Riesewieck, Hans Block, Georg Tschurtschenthaler, Producers: Christian Beetz, Georg Tschurtschenthaler, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Fernando Dias, Mauricio Dias) — When you post something on the web, can you be sure it stays there? Enter a hidden shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn’t like: violence, pornography and political content. Who is controlling what we see…and what we think? World Premiere

GenesisGenesis 2.0 / Switzerland (Directors: Christian Frei, Maxim Arbugaev, Producer: Christian Frei) — On the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, hunters search for tusks of extinct mammoths. When they discover a surprisingly well-preserved mammoth carcass, its resurrection will be the first manifestation of the next great technological revolution: genetics. It may well turn our world upside down. World Premiere

MatangiMATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. / Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, U.S.A. (Director: Stephen Loveridge, Producers: Lori Cheatle, Andrew Goldman, Paul Mezey) — Drawn from a never before seen cache of personal footage spanning decades, this is an intimate portrait of the Sri Lankan artist and musician who continues to shatter conventions. World Premiere

The Oslo Diaries / Israel, Canada (Directors and screenwriters: Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan, Producers: Hilla Medalia, Ina Fichman) — In 1992, Israeli-Palestinian relations reached an all time low. In an attempt to stop the bloodshed, a group of Israelis and Palestinians met illegally in Oslo. These meetings were never officially sanctioned and held in complete secrecy. They changed the Middle East forever. World Premiere

Our New President / Russia, U.S.A. (Director: Maxim Pozdorovkin, Producers: Maxim Pozdorovkin, Joe Bender) — The story of Donald Trump’s election told entirely through Russian propaganda. By turns horrifying and hilarious, the film is a satirical portrait of Russian media that reveals an empire of fake news and the tactics of modern-day information warfare. World Premiere. 

 

Westwood / United Kingdom (Director: Lorna Tucker, Producers: Eleanor Emptage, Shirine Best, Nicole Stott, John Battsek) — Dame Vivienne Westwood: punk, icon, provocateur and one of the most influential originators in recent history. This is the first film to encompass the remarkable story of one of the true icons of our time, as she fights to maintain her brand’s integrity, her principles – and her legacy. World Premiere

A Woman Captured / Hungary (Director and screenwriter: Bernadett Tuza-Ritter, Producers: Julianna Ugrin, Viki Réka Kiss, Erik Winker, Martin Roelly) — A European woman has been kept by a family as a domestic slave for 10 years – one of over 45 million victims of modern-day slavery. Drawing courage from the filmmaker’s presence, she decides to escape the unbearable oppression and become a free person. North American Premiere

NEXT
Pure, bold works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling populate this program. Digital technology paired with unfettered creativity promises that the films in this section will shape a “greater” next wave in American cinema. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include A Ghost Story, Tangerine and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Presented by Adobe.

306 Hollywood / U.S.A., Hungary (Directors: Elan Bogarín, Jonathan Bogarín, Screenwriters: Jonathan Bogarín, Elan Bogarín, Nyneve Laura Minnear, Producers: Elan Bogarín, Jonathan Bogarín, Judit Stalter) — When two siblings undertake an archaeological excavation of their late grandmother’s house, they embark on a magical-realist journey from her home in New Jersey to ancient Rome, from fashion to physics, in search of what life remains in the objects we leave behind. World Premiere. DAY ONE

A Boy, A Girl, A DreamA Boy, A Girl, A Dream. / U.S.A. (Director: Qasim Basir, Screenwriters: Qasim Basir, Samantha Tanner, Producer: Datari Turner) — On the night of the 2016 Presidential election, Cass, an L.A. club promoter, takes a thrilling and emotional journey with Frida, a Midwestern visitor. She challenges him to revisit his broken dreams – while he pushes her to discover hers. Cast: Omari Hardwick, Meagan Good, Jay Ellis, Kenya Barris, Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan. World Premiere

An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn / United Kingdom, U.S.A. (Director: Jim Hosking, Screenwriters: Jim Hosking, David Wike, Producers: Sam Bisbee, Theodora Dunlap, Oliver Roskill, Emily Leo, Lucan Toh, Andy Starke) — Lulu Danger’s unsatisfying marriage takes a fortunate turn for the worse when a mysterious man from her past comes to town to perform an event called ‘An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn For One Magical Night Only.’ Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Emile Hirsch, Jemaine Clement, Matt Berry, Craig Robinson. World Premiere

Clara's GhostClara’s Ghost / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Bridey Elliott, Producer: Sarah Winshall) — Set over the course of a single evening at the Reynolds’ family home in Connecticut, Clara, fed up with the constant ribbing from her self-absorbed showbiz family, finds solace in and guidance from the supernatural force she believes is haunting her. Cast: Paula Niedert Elliott, Chris Elliott, Abby Elliott, Bridey Elliott, Haley Joel Osment, Isidora Goreshter. World Premiere

Madeline’s Madeline / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Josephine Decker, Producers: Krista Parris, Elizabeth Rao) — Madeline got the part! She’s going to play the lead in a theater piece! Except the lead wears sweatpants like Madeline’s. And has a cat like Madeline’s. And is holding a steaming hot iron next to her mother’s face – like Madeline is. Cast: Helena Howard, Molly Parker, Miranda July, Okwui Okpokwasili, Felipe Bonilla, Lisa Tharps. World Premiere

Night Comes On / U.S.A. (Director: Jordana Spiro, Screenwriters: Jordana Spiro, Angelica Nwandu, Producers: Jonathan Montepare, Alvaro R. Valente, Danielle Renfrew Behrens) — Angel LaMere is released from juvenile detention on the eve of her 18th birthday. Haunted by her past, she embarks on a journey with her 10 year-old sister that could destroy their future. Cast: Dominique Fishback, Tatum Hall, John Earl Jelks, Max Casella, James McDaniel. World Premiere

Skate KitchenSkate Kitchen / U.S.A. (Director: Crystal Moselle, Screenwriters: Crystal Moselle, Ashlihan Unaldi, Producers: Lizzie Nastro, Izabella Tzenkova, Julia Nottingham, Matthew Perniciaro, Michael Sherman, Rodrigo Teixeira) — Camille’s life as a lonely suburban teenager changes dramatically when she befriends a group of girl skateboarders. As she journeys deeper into this raw New York City subculture, she begins to understand the true meaning of friendship as well as her inner self. Cast: Rachelle Vinberg, Dede Lovelace, Jaden Smith, Nina Moran, Ajani Russell, Kabrina Adams. World Premiere

We The AnimalsWe The Animals / U.S.A. (Director: Jeremiah Zagar, Screenwriters: Daniel Kitrosser, Jeremiah Zagar, Producers: Jeremy Yaches, Christina D. King, Andrew Goldman, Paul Mezey) — Us three, us brothers, us kings. Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own. Cast: Raul Castillo, Sheila Vand, Evan Rosado, Isaiah Kristian, Josiah Santiago. World Premiere

White RabbitWhite Rabbit / U.S.A. (Director: Daryl Wein, Screenwriters: Daryl Wein, Vivian Bang, Producers: Daryl Wein, Vivian Bang) —A dramatic comedy following a Korean American performance artist who struggles to be authentically heard and seen through her multiple identities in modern Los Angeles. Cast: Vivian Bang, Nana Ghana, Nico Evers-Swindel, Tracy Hazas, Elizabeth Sung, Michelle Sui. World Premiere

PREMIERES
A showcase of world premieres of some of the most highly anticipated narrative films of the coming year. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include The Big Sick, Call Me By Your Name, Boyhood and Mudbound.

The Long Dumb Road / U.S.A. (Director: Hannah Fidell, Screenwriters: Hannah Fidell, Carson Mell, Producers: Hannah Fidell, Jacqueline “JJ” Ingram, Jonathan Duffy, Kelly Williams) — Two very different men, at personal crossroads, meet serendipitously and take an unpredictable journey through the American Southwest. Cast: Tony Revolori, Jason Mantzoukas, Taissa Farmiga, Grace Gummer, Ron Livingston, Casey Wilson, Ciara Bravo. World Premiere

Private Life / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Tamara Jenkins, Producers: Anthony Bregman, Stefanie Azpiazu) — A couple in the throes of infertility try to maintain their marriage as they descend deeper into the weird world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption. When their doctor suggests third-party reproduction, they bristle. But when Sadie, a recent college dropout, re-enters their life, they reconsider. Cast: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, Kayli Carter. World Premiere

A Kid Like Jake / U.S.A. (Director: Silas Howard, Screenwriter: Daniel Pearle, Producers: Jim Parsons, Todd Spiewak, Eric Norsoph, Paul Bernon, Rachel Song) — As married couple Alex and Greg navigate their roles as parents to a young son who prefers Cinderella to G.I. Joe, a rift grows between them, one that forces them to confront their own concerns about what’s best for their child, and each other. Cast: Claire Danes, Jim Parsons, Octavia Spencer, Priyanka  Chopra, Ann Dowd, Amy Landecker. World Premiere

Beirut / U.S.A. (Director: Brad Anderson, Screenwriter: Tony Gilroy) — A U.S. diplomat flees Lebanon in 1972 after a tragic incident at his home. Ten years later, he is called back to war-torn Beirut by CIA operatives to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind. Cast: Jon Hamm, Rosamund Pike, Shea Whigham, Dean Norris. World Premiere

The Catcher Was a Spy / U.S.A. (Director: Ben Lewin, Screenwriter: Robert Rodat, Producers: Kevin Frakes, Tatiana Kelly, Buddy Patrick, Jim Young) — The true story of Moe Berg – professional baseball player, Ivy League graduate, attorney who spoke nine languages – and a top-secret spy for the OSS who helped the U.S. win the race against Germany to build the atomic bomb. Cast: Paul Rudd, Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Guy Pearce, Paul Giamatti. World Premiere

Colette / United Kingdom (Director: Wash Westmoreland, Screenwriters: Wash Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer, Producers: Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley) — A young country woman marries a famous literary entrepreneur in turn-of-the-century Paris: At her husband’s request, Colette pens a series of bestselling novels published under his name. But as her confidence grows, she transforms not only herself and her marriage, but the world around her. Cast: Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough, Elinor Tomlinson, Aiysha Hart. World Premiere

Come Sunday / U.S.A. (Director: Joshua Marston, Screenwriter: Marcus Hinchey, Producers: Ira Glass, Alissa Shipp, Julie Goldstein, James Stern, Lucas Smith, Cindy Kirven) — Internationally-renowned pastor Carlton Pearson — experiencing a crisis of faith — risks his church, family and future when he questions church doctrine and finds himself branded a modern-day heretic. Based on actual events. Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Condola Rashad, Jason Segel, Lakeith Stanfield, Martin Sheen. World Premiere

DAMSELDamsel / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, Producers: Nathan Zellner, Chris Ohlson, David Zellner) — Samuel Alabaster, an affluent pioneer, ventures across the American Frontier to marry the love of his life, Penelope. As Samuel, a drunkard named Parson Henry and a miniature horse called Butterscotch traverse the Wild West, their once-simple journey grows treacherous, blurring the lines between hero, villain and damsel. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner, Robert Forster, Nathan Zellner, Joe Billingiere. World Premiere

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot / U.S.A. (Director: Gus Van Sant, Screenwriters: Gus Van Sant (screenplay), John Callahan (biography), Producers: Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar, Steve Golin, Nicolas Lhermitte) — John Callahan has a talent for off-color jokes…and a drinking problem. When a bender ends in a car accident, Callahan wakes permanently confined to a wheelchair. In his journey back from rock bottom, Callahan finds beauty and comedy in the absurdity of human experience. Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black. World Premiere

Futile and Stupid Gesture / U.S.A. (Director: David Wain, Screenwriters: John Aboud, Michael Colton, Producers: Peter Principato, Jonathan Stern) — The story of comedy wunderkind Doug Kenney, who co-created the National Lampoon, Caddyshack, and Animal House. Kenney was at the center of the 70’s comedy counter-culture which gave birth to Saturday Night Live and a whole generation’s way of looking at the world. Cast: Will Forte, Martin Mull, Domhnall Gleeson, Matt Walsh, Joel McHale, Emmy Rossum. World Premiere

The Happy PrinceThe Happy Prince / Germany, Belgium, Italy (Director and screenwriter: Rupert Everett) — The last days of Oscar Wilde—and the ghosts haunting them—are brought to vivid life. His body ailing, Wilde lives in exile, surviving on the flamboyant irony and brilliant wit that defined him as the transience of lust is laid bare and the true riches of love are revealed. Cast: Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Colin Morgan, Edwin Thomas, Rupert Everett. World Premiere

Hearts Beat Loud / U.S.A. (Director: Brett Haley, Screenwriters: Brett Haley, Marc Basch, Producers: Houston King, Sam Bisbee, Sam Slater) — In Red Hook, Brooklyn, a father and daughter become an unlikely songwriting duo in the last summer before she leaves for college. Cast: Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner, Toni Collette. World Premiere

Juliet, Naked / United Kingdom (Director: Jesse Peretz, Screenwriters: Tamara Jenkins, Jim Taylor, Phil Alden Robinson, Evgenia Peretz, Producers: Judd Apatow, Barry Mendel, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa) — Annie is the long-suffering girlfriend of Duncan, an obsessive fan of obscure rocker Tucker Crowe. When the acoustic demo of Tucker’s celebrated record from 25 years ago surfaces, its release leads to an encounter with the elusive rocker himself. Based on the novel by Nick Hornby. Cast: Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Chris O’Dowd. World Premiere

OPHELIAOphelia / United Kingdom (Director: Claire McCarthy, Screenwriter: Semi Chellas, Producers: Daniel Bobker, Sarah Curtis, Ehren Kruger, Paul Hanson) — A mythic spin on Hamlet through a lens of female empowerment: Ophelia comes of age as lady-in-waiting for Queen Gertrude, and her singular spirit captures Hamlet’s affections. As lust and betrayal threaten the kingdom, Ophelia finds herself trapped between true love and controlling her own destiny. Cast: Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, George MacKay, Tom Felton, Devon Terrell. World Premiere

Puzzle / U.S.A. (Director: Marc Turtletaub, Screenwriter: Oren Moverman, Producers: Peter Saraf, Wren Arthur, Guy Stodel) — Agnes, taken for granted as a suburban mother, discovers a passion for solving jigsaw puzzles which unexpectedly draws her into a new world – where her life unfolds in ways she could never have imagined. Cast: Kelly Macdonald, Irrfan Khan, David Denman, Bubba Weiler, Austin Abrams, Liv Hewson. World Premiere

Untitled Debra Granik Project / U.S.A. (Director: Debra Granik, Screenwriters: Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, Producers: Anne Harrison, Linda Reisman, Anne Rosellini) — A father and daughter live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. A small mistake tips them off to authorities sending them on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own. Cast: Ben Foster, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Jeff Korber, Dale Dickey. World Premiere

What They Had / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Elizabeth Chomko) — Bridget returns home to Chicago at her brother’s urging to deal with her mother’s Alzheimer’s and her father’s reluctance to let go of their life together. Cast: Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner, Robert Forster. World Premiere

DOCUMENTARY PREMIERES
Renowned filmmakers and films about far-reaching subjects comprise this section highlighting our ongoing commitment to documentaries. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include An Inconvenient Sequel, The Hunting Ground, Going Clear and What Happened, Miss Simone?

Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock / U.S.A. (Director: Cody Lucich, Producers: Heather Rae, Gingger Shankar, Ben-Alex Dupris) — Standing Rock, 2016: the largest Native American occupation since Wounded Knee. Thousands of activists, environmentalists and militarized police descend on the Dakota Access Pipeline in a standoff between oil corporations and a new generation of Native Warriors. This chronicle captures the sweeping struggle, spirit and havoc of a People’s uprising. World Premiere. THE NEW CLIMATE

Bad Reputation / U.S.A. (Director: Kevin Kerslake, Screenwriter: Joel Marcus, Producers: Peter Afterman, Carianne Brinkman) — A look at the life of Joan Jett, from her early years as the founder of The Runaways and first meeting collaborator Kenny Laguna in 1980 to her enduring presence in pop culture as a rock ‘n’ roll pioneer . World Premiere

Believer / U.S.A. (Director: Don Argott, Producers: Heather Parry, Sheena M. Joyce, Robert Reynolds) — Imagine Dragons’ Mormon frontman Dan Reynolds is taking on a new mission to explore how the church treats its LGBTQ members. With the rising suicide rate amongst teens in the state of Utah, his concern with the church’s policies sends him on an unexpected path for acceptance and change. World Premiere

Chef FlynnChef Flynn / U.S.A. (Director: Cameron Yates, Producer: Laura Coxson) — Ten-year-old Flynn transforms his living room into a supper club, using his classmates as line cooks and serving a tasting menu foraged from his neighbors’ backyards. With sudden fame, Flynn outgrows his bedroom kitchen and mother’s camera, and sets out to challenge the hierarchy of the culinary world. World Premiere

The Game Changers / U.S.A. (Director: Louie Psihoyos, Screenwriters: Mark Monroe, Joseph Pace, Producers: Joseph Pace, James Wilks) — James Wilks, an elite special forces trainer and winner of The Ultimate Fighter, embarks on a quest for the truth in nutrition and uncovers the world’s most dangerous myth. World Premiere

Generation Wealth / U.S.A. (Director: Lauren Greenfield, Producers: Lauren Greenfield, Frank Evers) — Lauren Greenfield’s postcard from the edge of the American Empire captures a portrait of a materialistic, image-obsessed culture. Simultaneously personal journey and historical essay, the film bears witness to the global boom–bust economy, the corrupted American Dream and the human costs of late stage capitalism, narcissism and greed. World Premiere. DAY ONE

Half The Picture / U.S.A. (Director: Amy Adrion, Producers: Amy Adrion, David Harris) — At a pivotal moment for gender equality in Hollywood, successful women directors tell the stories of their art, lives and careers. Having endured a long history of systemic discrimination, women filmmakers may be getting the first glimpse of a future that values their voices equally. World Premiere

Jane Fonda in Five Acts / U.S.A. (Director: Susan Lacy, Producers: Susan Lacy, Jessica Levin, Emma Pildes) — Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she’s done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman’s singular journey. World Premiere

King In The Wilderness / U.S.A. (Director: Peter Kunhardt, Producers: George Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt) From the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. remained a man with an unshakeable commitment to nonviolence in the face of an increasingly unstable country. A portrait of the last years of his life. World Premiere

Quiet HeroesQuiet Heroes / U.S.A. (Director: Jenny Mackenzie, Co-Directors: Jared Ruga, Amanda Stoddard, Producers: Jenny Mackenzie, Jared Ruga, Amanda Stoddard) — In Salt Lake City, Utah, the socially conservative religious monoculture complicated the AIDS crisis, where patients in the entire state and intermountain region relied on only one doctor. This is the story of her fight to save a maligned population everyone else seemed willing to just let die. World Premiere

RBG / U.S.A. (Directors and producers: Betsy West, Julie Cohen) — An intimate portrait of an unlikely rock star: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With unprecedented access, the filmmakers show how her early legal battles changed the world for women. Now this 84-year-old does push-ups as easily as she writes blistering dissents that have earned her the title “Notorious RBG.” World Premiere

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind / U.S.A. (Director: Marina Zenovich, Producers: Alex Gibney, Shirel Kozak) — This intimate portrait examines one of the world’s most beloved and inventive comedians. Told largely through Robin’s own voice and using a wealth of never-before-seen archive, the film takes us through his extraordinary life and career and reveals the spark of madness that drove him. World Premiere

STUDIO 54STUDIO 54 / U.S.A. (Director: Matt Tyrnauer, Producers: Matt Tyrnauer, John Battsek, Corey Reeser) — Studio 54 was the pulsating epicenter of 1970s hedonism: a disco hothouse of beautiful people, drugs, and sex. The journeys of Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell — two best friends from Brooklyn who conquered New York City — frame this history of the “greatest club of all time.” World Premiere

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? / U.S.A. (Director: Morgan Neville, Producers: Caryn Capotosto, Nicholas Ma) — Fred Rogers used puppets and play to explore complex social issues: race, disability, equality and tragedy, helping form the American concept of childhood. He spoke directly to children and they responded enthusiastically. Yet today, his impact is unclear. Have we lived up to Fred’s ideal of good neighbors? World Premiere. SALT LAKE CITY OPENING NIGHT FILM

MIDNIGHT
From horror and comedy to works that defy genre classification, these films will keep you wide awake, even at the most arduous hour. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include The Little Hours, The Babadook and Get Out.

Arizona / U.S.A. (Director: Jonathan Watson, Screenwriter: Luke Del Tredici, Producers: Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Ryan Friedkin, Danny McBride, Brandon James) — Set in the midst of the 2009 housing crisis, this darkly comedic story follows Cassie Fowler, a single mom and struggling realtor whose life goes off the rails when she witnesses a murder. Cast: Danny McBride, Rosemarie DeWitt, Luke Wilson, Lolli Sorenson, Elizabeth Gillies, Kaitlin Olson. World Premiere

Assassination Nation / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Sam Levinson, Producers: David Goyer, Anita Gou, Kevin Turen, Aaron L. Gilbert, Matthew J. Malek) — This is a one-thousand-percent true story about how the quiet, all-American town of Salem, Massachusetts, absolutely lost its mind. Cast: Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Abra, Bill Skarsgard, Bella Thorne. World Premiere

MANDYMandy / Belgium, U.S.A. (Director: Panos Cosmatos, Screenwriters: Panos Cosmatos, Aaron Stewart-Ahn, Producers: Daniel Noah, Josh Waller, Elijah Wood, Nate Bolotin, Adrian Politowski) — Pacific Northwest. 1983 AD. Outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire. Cast: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Olwen Fouéré, Richard Brake, Bill Duke. World Premiere

Never Goin’ Back / U.S.A.  (Director and screenwriter: Augustine Frizzell, Producers: Toby Halbrooks, Liz Cardenas , James Johnston, David Lowery) — Jessie and Angela, high school dropout BFFs, are taking a week off to chill at the beach. Too bad their house got robbed, rent’s due, they’re about to get fired and they’re broke. Now they’ve gotta avoid eviction, stay out of jail and get to the beach, no matter what!!! Cast: Maia Mitchell, Cami Morrone, Kyle Mooney, Joel Allen, Kendal Smith, Matthew Holcomb. World Premiere

Piercing / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Nicolas Pesce, Producers: Josh Mond, Antonio Campos, Schuyler Weiss, Jake Wasserman) — In this twisted love story, a man seeks out an unsuspecting stranger to help him purge the dark torments of his past. His plan goes awry when he encounters a woman with plans of her own. A playful psycho-thriller game of cat-and-mouse based on Ryu Murakami’s novel. Cast: Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Laia Costa, Marin Ireland, Maria Dizzia, Wendell Pierce. World Premiere

Revenge / France (Director and screenwriter: Coralie Fargeat, Producers: Marc-Etienne Schwartz, Jean-Yves Robin, Marc Stanimirovic) — Three wealthy married men get together for their annual hunting game in a desert canyon. This time, one of them has brought along his young mistress, who quickly arouses the interest of the other two. Things get dramatically out of hand as a hunting game turns into a ruthless manhunt. Cast: Matilda Lutz, Kevin Janssens, Vincent Colombe, Guillaume Bouchede, Jean-Louis Tribes. Utah Premiere

Summer of '84Summer of ’84 / Canada, U.S.A. (Directors: Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann Whissell, Screenwriters: Matt Leslie, Stephen J. Smith, Producers: Shawn Williamson, Jameson Parker, Matt Leslie, Van Toffler, Cody Zwieg) — Summer, 1984: a perfect time to be a carefree 15-year-old. But when neighborhood conspiracy theorist Davey Armstrong begins to suspect his police officer neighbor might be the serial killer all over the local news, he and his three best friends begin an investigation that soon turns dangerous. Cast: Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Grüter-Andrew, Tiera Skovbye, Rich Sommer. World Premiere

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2018 | PARK CITY, UTAH | JANUARY 2018 | 

Becoming Who I Was (2017) ****

Dir: Chang-Yong Moon. Co-directed by Jeon Jin | 95’ | 2017 | KOREA
After a boy is discovered to be the reincarnation of a centuries-old Tibetan monk, his godfather takes him on an epic and often arduous spiritual pilgrimage through treacherous and magnificent natural landscapes from Ladakh in India discover his Tibetan Monastery in this upbeat and sumptuously filmic Berlinale Generation Kplus winner.
Chang-Yung Moon’s debut doc – eight year’s in the making – is all about profound faith and unconditional love, but not in a worthy, intense way. Infact, this gently amusing and poignant buddie movie shows how a little boy called Padma Angdu gradually rises to his vocation and has great fun in the process with his friends and loving godfather in the remote and snowy mountains region of northern India and Tibet.
Rosy-faced Padma has a lot of spiritual responsibility on his shoulders – in the same way as a Jewish boy studies for his Barmitzvah or a Christian kid prepares for his Confirmation  – Padma must study the holy scriptures in preparation for a formal ceremony from the young age of 6 until he becomes a “Rinpoche’ in his teens when he will rise in rank above his godfather Urgyan Richzan. Sometimes the pressure is too much for Padma and he is driven to tears but Richzan offers calm guidance and support as well as occasionally teasing him.
Moon serves as his own DoP but the striking aerial shots of mountainsides  were actually achieved with the use of drones. There are also intensely personal moments where we see Padma at prayer and instruction in the brightly coloured interiors of his rustic mountain dwelling. Moon gives us access to the private world of the monks in this enjoyable and enlightening documentary portrait that maintains its allure and serenity while bringing us much closer to an understanding of what it is to be a spiritual ‘precious one’ or ‘Lama’ in Tibetan Buddhism. MT
ON RELEASE FROM 22 JANUARY 2018 | BERTHA DOCHOUSE | CURZON BLOOMSBURY

The Cinema Travellers (2017) ****

Dir: Shirley Abrahams, Amit Madheshiya | Doc | 96′

Indians all over the sub-continent have always been united by their love of film. From Bollywood to the arthouse cinema of Tollywood (home of Telugu and Bengal), India has one of the world’s richest and most prolific film industries giving pleasure to young and old, rich and poor alike. THE CINEMA TRAVELLERS is the story of three men and their passion to keep film alive by bringing it to their fellow countrymen, wherever they may be.

Five years in the making, this joyfully touching documentary takes filmmakers Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya on the road with two mobile cinemas that journey across rural India with the men behind the endeavour of offering their films to communities who share their love of the movies. Times have changed since the trio first put the show on the road but it is a show that must go on despite the challenges.

None of them has become rich – most of the time plying their trade to the poorest of the remote communities is a struggle for survival; a labour of love that brings deep satisfaction rather than financial gain, but they make ends meets. We meet the amiable 70-year old projector specialist whose 40 years in the repair business have seen the gradual rise of digital film, and as the future bids farewell to past, his cranky projector is finally put to rest, his rain-damaged stock of magical moving images reduced to a blur. Then there is the cinema manager with a young family clamouring for cash back home, to put food on the table. Both are driven by a desire to work in the industry they love and this authentic cinema verité portrait records their genuine zest, sometimes tempered by moments of sadness at the passing of the old days, but without ever resorting to sentimentality.

In the end, the team are excited by the future of digital projection as they unveil their brand new projector, one comments:”I’m as happy as a man on his wedding day”. There’s a gentleness and philosophy in all these men, and this subtle and atmospheric arthouse gem blends the poignancy of the past with the thrill of the future of film. In India the love of film feels on a par with Britain’s obsession with football. MT

THE CINEMA TRAVELLERS | Bertha Dochouse, The Curzon Bloomsbury at the Brunswick, London WC1N 1AW FROM 26 JANUARY 2018

The Picasso Mystery (1956) Tribute to Francoise Gilot

Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot | DoP: Claude Renoir | With Pablo Picasso | French | Doc | 78”

The only mystery about Picasso, for many people, is his legendary popularity given the well-documented abuse of his lovers which today would, no doubt, give reason for public outcry. “Women are machines for suffering” he told his lover, the artist  Francoise Gilot, in 1943. And this statement is certainly borne out in his tortured and butchered depictions of the female subjects that clearly represented real life. But Gilot survived him and lived another 80 years. The artist and feminist icon died on 7th June 2023.

Picasso, despite his genius, was a serial adulterer who drew strength and artistic inspiration from his lovers, two of whom killed themselves, and one died of natural causes only four years into their relationship. Françoise Gilot escaped his clutches after a seven year relationship which produced Claude and Paloma Picasso.

The Picasso Mystery (1956)

 

As a legendary artist and painter, his skill is undisputed and masterfully captured here in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 film showing Picasso in the act of creating works for the camera. Many of these paintings were subsequently destroyed and may only still exist on film. Clouzot was not the first to depict Picasso’s process of creation, that honour fell to Belgian director Paul Haesaerts in his BAFTA-winning A Visit to Picasso (1949) that featured the Malaga-born painter sketching out images on glass plates from the viewpoint of the camera.

Francoise Gilot (1921-2023) was already an accomplished artist in watercolours and ceramics but her own career was eclipsed by that of her more famous lover who dissuaded the galleries from buying her work and even tried to block her memoir Life With Picasso from publication, after their affair ended. Despite all this her cubist painting ‘Paloma a la Guitar’, sold for $1.3 million at Sotheby’s in London in 2021. Two films would depict her life with the artist: Surviving Picasso in 1996 and Genius in 2018.

Picasso himself was a master of simplicity. With a handful of black marks he could suggest a form that would be gradually fleshed out into a full scale sketch, collage or oil painting. Here, Claude Renoir’s camera captures each artwork’s creation as it comes into being, utilising a series of transparent canvases, until the final reel when the film switches to a CinemaScope ratio and burst into colour. The film went on to win the Special Jury Prize at Cannes 1956. Truly magnifique! MT

NOW ON BLURAY together with A VISIT TO PICASSO and Man Ray’s ‘home movie’ LA GAROUPE (1937). 

 

 

Three films by Jia Zhangke | Arrow

Jia Zhangke has become widely regarded as one of world cinema’s most accomplished filmmakers and a leading figure of the Sixth Generation movement of contemporary Chinese cinema.

24 CITY (2008) here Jia successfully combines documentary and fiction film as he charts the transformation of a military hardware factory into a complex of luxury flats, and the social impact this has on the community. 112′

A TOUCH OF SIN (2013) this Cannes prize-winner follows the lives of four people across China who are driven to acts of violence. An angry miner enraged by corruption in his village; a migrant who discovers the infinite possibilities of owning a firearm; a receptionist at a sauna who is pushed to the limit by a client; and a young factory worker drifting through the foreign-owned factories and nightclubs of the south. 125′

 

Jia Zhangke’s restaurant in Shanxi province, China

 

MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (2015) is an intimate and moving drama spanning several decades, which charts the impact of China’s capitalist experiment on the lives of one family. 126′

NOW ON ARROW PLAYER 

The Final Year (2017)***

Dir.: Greg Barker; Documentary with Barack Obama, John Kerry, Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, Susan E. Rice; USA 2017, 89 min.

There are no surprises in this fascinating but vanilla portrait that echoes the restraint and diplomacy of Obama’s term of office.  

Director/writer Greg Barker (The Thread) follows the foreign policy team during the final year of the Obama administration. What emerges is predictable but certainly worth a watch. Obama, along with John Kerry (Secretary of State), Ben Rhodes (Foreign Policy speechwriter and Adviser), Samantha Power (US Ambassador to the UN) and Susan E. Rice (National Security Adviser)  work well as a team during the low-key administration, in stark contrast to what will follow when Trump takes over the reins.

The most interesting member of the team is Irish born Samantha Power, every step the idealistic academic, wearing her heart on the sleeve. She came to the Obama campaign in 2008 via the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard in 2008; the future president took note of the Pulitzer Prize Winner’s book, Genocide: A problem from Hell. In office, she engaged in the Boko Haram kidnapping, trying locally to negotiate. Juggling the care for her two young children with the demand of her position, she seems to be eternally patient. But she also was a fierce adversary of her Russian counterpart at the UN, whom she attacked for the invasion of the Ukraine, and the annexation of the Crimea. John Kerry is much more the classic diplomat, who can be sometimes be a little pompous. Having served in the Vietnam War, he is still “no pacifist”, and one has to believe him. Kerry has a rather ambivalent position on the Asian territories he helped to invade as a soldier. For example Laos, where the US dropped more bombs during a “dirty”, six year long war in the late ’60s and early ’70s, than the combined load dropped on Germany and Japan in WWII combined. But Kerry has also learned from recent history: when criticised about the lack of military intervention in Syria, he explained that any lasting settlement would have meant a long-term occupation of the country – something which has failed in Iran and Afghanistan.

Ben Rhodes emerges the most pragmatic of Obama’s advisers. He is foremost a journalist, and used to showing critical situations in a more positive light. Always trying to find a positive opening, he sometimes clashes with Power, who is more (self)critical. But Rhodes is also a good team player who does not let his side down. Susan E. Rice has been an Obama confidant since their time in local politics in Chicago. Heavily (and unjustly) attacked by Republicans for her role in the Libya disaster, which ended with the death of the US ambassador, she kept her cool with dignity. Her work on the change of the US Cuba politic cannot be underestimated. On the night of Trump’s triumph, the reaction was very different: Rhodes was so shattered, he could hardly speak and simply gasped for air. Obama, like a teacher, spoke about “history not being a linear development, but an up-and-down process”. Power was all resistance “Well, there is no going quietly into the good night”. How true that turned out to be. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19 JANUARY 2018

Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars (2017) Prime Video

Dir: Lili Fini Zanuck | Writers: Stephen “Scooter” Weintraub, Larry Yelen | Music Biopic | 213′

Fans of Eric Clapton will certainly know the facts behind the ’god of guitar’s’ eventful life. In her flawed but emotionally penetrating rock-doc, Lili Fini Zanuck’s poignantly conveys the years of heartache behind this fated and fêted musician.

 

Lili Fini Zanuck and Eric Clapton are longterm friends and collaborators: He provided the score for her feature Rush, back in 1991. And despite the use of a meandering, counterintuitive narrative to tell his, often tragic, story with its ill-judged epilogue feeling more like a cheesy commercial for Clapton’s current project rather than a fitting finale, the study is mostly thorough in its breadth and depth, chronicling the life story of an Englishman who has suffered, been severely tested and has come up trumps.

Life in 12 Bars is an ironic title given Clapton’s years of alcoholism, so let’s hope this is refers to his mastery of the guitar, an instrument that was to be his muse, his whipping boy (we are shown how he uses it as anger therapy), and his saving grace throughout his life. The film opens with a fabulous account of Clapton’s early childhood, his artistic reveries and discovery, aged 9, that his mother had abandoned him: he was brought up by his grandmother Rose Clapp. We learn how Clapton turns his disappointment and rejection into developing his musical technique from his teens to his involvement in blues-based and psychedelic groups. The Yardbirds and The Cream years are covered in compelling depth, and Zanuck shows how Clapton did his bit for the blues, and was headhunted by Mayall who got him playing for the Bluesbreakers. He even moved into Mayall’s home with his family.

But Zanuck and her writers Weintraub and Yelen tend to gloss over certain aspects of his career – probably out of respect to friendship – and it’s Clapton himself who owns up to his behavioural shortcomings as an introvert who couldn’t relate to women but became obsessed by one of them, Patti Boyd, during her mariage to George Harrison.

So although the film goes into almost forensic detail on some aspects of the story, other years are befuddled – almost as if in an booze-fuelled haze – such as his career as a solo recording artist which gave rise to a several salient albums. Pattie Boyd merely serves the narrative as a flirtatious cypher who cannot make up her mind between him and George, while he is yearning for her love, howling at the moon for her to leave George, which she eventually does, but by then too much damage has been done for them to make a go of things. Talking faces are almost entirely absent to give context to this period of his life, particularly his closest friend, Ben Palmer.

Zanuck has a cinematic way of conjuring up the days lost to booze and drugs in Hurtwood, Clapton’s country house in the depths of Surrey. But his romantic affairs take on a rather hazy anecdotal feel, the story often flipping back and forth. And there’s a curious bit where Zanuck suddenly goes back to Clapton’s mother’s second rejection of him, arriving from Canada with her two latest children. And this comes towards the end of the story, father than at the beginning where it would have clearly better informed us of the emotional arc that coloured his career.

Clearly this fundamental rejection was going to lead to a lack of trust, and vulnerability issues that would go on to jeopardise any kind of lasting romantic attachment. But it’s these years that are so movingly conveyed by Zanuck, showing Clapton heartbroken over Boyd after dedicating Layla to her, and retreating into a ‘safe’ world blunted by drugs and alcohol.

There’s much to enjoy here in this freewheeling trip back to a rich and vibrant musical era. And it’s heart-warming to see how Clapton has finally managed to overcome his demons, albeit circuitously, despite a rather cheesy ending which actually has the strange effect of making the legend seem less interesting than he appeared to be at the beginning of his career. MT

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

 

 

Top Ten Indie films of 2017

It’s that time of year again when we take a look back at a year’s worth of indie and arthouse films and remember some we enjoyed most. Meredith Taylor picks her Top Ten releases of 2017.

US DRAMA – CERTAIN WOMEN

The lives of three women intersect is this gracefully understated but convincing drama from US director Kelly Reichardt. Full of subtle insight and lasting resonance. Certain Women Meditates on contemporary life from the female perspective in an utterly enthralling yet low-key, often ambiguous way. Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern star

FOREIGN LANGUAGE DRAMA  – TONI ERDMANN

Filmmaker Maren Ade has created one of the most poignant and refreshingly humorous German arthouse comedy dramas of recent memory – it never drags despite its three-hour running time. Picturing the absurd and often awkward nature of family relationships, this is a life-affirming experience not to be missed, especially at Christmas time. After The Forest for the Trees and Everyone Else, Ade is working her way slowly but surely to the top as most of the most refreshing European writer directors around..

HORROR – THE EYES OF MY MOTHER

This sumptuously crafted thriller is compelling, twisted and terrifying in its quiet and light-footed depiction of loneliness and psychopathy. Nicholas Pesce’s debut is deeply enthralling from start to end (main pic).

UNREQUITED LOVE STORY  – SUNTAN 

There’s something sad and awkwardly compulsive about this cautionary tale of a misguided intergenerational liaison between a lonely man and a glib young woman who meet in an island paradise. One of the best recent dramas about delusional love and its grim aftermath that perfectly epitomises the sinking realisation of being ‘over the hill’ on a holiday fling, while still holding on to the dream . Slim and but beautifully scenic and deeply resonant in its evergreen theme.

ANIMATION – MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE

Claude Barras’ impressive stop-motion animation is a tender tale probing life’s saddest moments: not a kid’s film but one that chimes with the kid inside us. Heart-breaking yet uplifting at the same time, Celine Sciamma has cleverly scripted Gilles Paris’ sombre autobiography that is both a sensitive study in grief and an authentic portrait of children growing up, coming to terms with sadness and learning how to look after each other. A real gem.

THRILLER – HOUNDS OF LOVE

Based on a true story, this tortured and claustrophobic character study of evil and human depravity is set in a quiet middle-class Australian backwater. Showcasing the dynamite duo of Emma Booth and Stephen Curry as real life partners Evelyn and John White, this is a stunning debut from writer/director Ben Young.

LGBT DRAMA – CALL ME BY YOUR NAME 

Despite its awkward title, this charming drama was the breakout hit of 2017 for all audiences not just the gay crowd. Beguiling, mysterious and compelling, Sicilian director Luca Guadagnino conveys the claustrophobic August heat of the film’s Po Valley setting and the chemistry between leads Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet – who went on the win various awards – permeates every scene. This is Oscar material and deserves to be.

UK DEBUT – LADY MACBETH 

It’s rare that a virago creates mayhem and gets away with it in literature or film. But this is exactly what happens with Florence Pugh’s Katherine in theatre director William Oldroyd’s feature debut, based on classic Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In 19th rural England, Pugh plays a young bride sold in marriage who falls desperately in lust with a worker on her impotent husband’s rural estate in North Yorkshire. Oldroyd maintains an unsettling dread throughout in a drama brimming with venomous malcontent.

UK COMEDY – MINDHORN 

If you liked Alan Partridge or Alpha Papa then Mindhorn will appeal. This is a comedy that washes over you like a cloud of laughing gas – if you’re in the right mindset: there are scenes so hilarious it’s impossible to remain dignified; others so cringingly embarassing you will never been seen wearing lycra again – let along tight jeans, or at least in the way Julian Barratt does as the main character Richard Thorncroft in this big screen debut for TV veteran Sean Foley. Thorncroft is a pot-bellied ‘has been’ who lost his acting talent but not his sense of self belief. The Isle of Man is pictured as a rain-soaked backwater full of caravans and twee tearooms.

BEST DOCUMENTARY – WATER AND SUGAR: CARLO DI PALMA, THE COLOURS OF LIFE 

Carlo Di Palma was one of the most influential cinematographers of the 20th century, influencing the careers of Antonioni and Woody Allen with talent, warmth and personal magnetism. His story is told in this memorable documentary that showcases the collaborative nature of filmmaking, showing how Di Palma’s warm approach made everyone he worked with even better.

TOP TURKEY – HAMPSTEAD

Hopkins’ fraud of a film is full of middle-aged cyphers floating around in a fantasy world of the Seventies where they meet for coffee mornings and discuss worthy causes. But in the real place, this lot passed on decades ago to be replaced by the likes of Hugh Skinner’s fundraising nerd or the smiling Romanians touting The Big Issue at every street corner. Robert Festinger’s script teeters from crass to cringeworthy with no laughs to be had, and a score that jars. Hampstead is utterly specious and hollow – even Diane Keaton can’t save it.

BEST CLASSIC BOXSET – FOUR FILM NOIR CLASSICS 

A fantastic box set that brings together dazzling high def print of some of the best films in the crime genre: THE DARK MIRROR (1946) starring Olivia de Havilland; Fritz Lang’s SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR (1947) with Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave; FORCE OF EVIL (1948) directed by the underrated Abraham Polonsky; and Cornel Joseph H Lewis’ THE BIG COMBO (1955); with its terrific score by David Raksin with dynamite duo Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace. The dual format edition comes with a hardback book on the films. MT

ALL FILMS NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA, ARROW FILMS & VIDEO, ARTIFICIAL EYE and STUDIOCANAL | all films were shown on general release in 2017 

 

Walk With Me (2017)

Dir.: Marc J. Francis, Max Pugh; Documentary narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch; UK 2017, 94′

WALK WITH ME is a tad too lightweight and also overly uncritical of the centralised structure of  Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s process, but it certainly works as an appetiser for learning more about him and his life’s work in the field of meditation.

Directors/writers/DoPs Marc J. Francis (When China met Africa) and Max Pugh (The Road to Freedom Peak), who were also co-producers and co-editors, have created a loving, but fragmented portrait of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who was born in Hue, Vietnam in 1926. He has established the ‘Order of Interbeing’ in the ‘United Buddhist Church’, teaching Mindfulness Training and ‘Fourteen Precepts’ originally in one monastery in the South West of France (Plum Village) and four in the United States, where Thich had been a regular participant on the lecture circuit before his debilitating stroke in 2014. Recently, centres in Paris, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia and Germany have been added.

Mindfulness has entered the mainstream dictionary of Western business consultants; who, with many other visitors from all walks of life, around 45000 yearly, are paying guests in these monasteries for a respite from their stressful life. Here the boarders live alongside female and male monks, who bound by celibacy, : if they disobey these ‘perpetrators’ have to repeat their last ‘development stage’ in this strongly hierarchical order. Having given up all worldly possessions, and committed to a vegetarian diet, the monks are reminded, every fifteen minutes by a bell or gong, to interrupt their activities so as “not to fall into the trap of running on auto-pilot”. Outreach work is encouraged, an episode in State Prison is particularly interesting. Every two years, monks are all allowed to visit their families. In a hilarious scene, the parents of one young monk show him a life plan he had drawn up as a young teenager, where every personal and professional achievement is shown in yearly stages, ending with a total success story at the age of forty.

It is almost impossible to film any concept like mindfulness. The directors often drift into Terrence Malick territory, when showing the commitment to nature. And the long shots of preparing food, or eating rice cakes with slow deliberation, are not enough to get the audience nearer to an understanding of this state of being. Perhaps, the key lies in Thich’s autobiography. When he was an ordained monk in his native Vietnam, he was also, since 1956, the editor of ‘Vietnamese Buddhism’. In this capacity he contributed to the political life in his country. After visiting the USA at the beginning of the 1960s, he returned to Vietnam in 1963, where he got active in the Peace Movement, making neither friends with the South or North Vietnam leaderships. Or the CIA for that matter, who sabotaged him being included in a more peace-minded government in South Vietnam. He returned to the USA, meeting Martin Luther King, who proposed him for the Nobel Peace Price. With the war in his homeland becoming more and more vicious, Thich moved to France in 1968, founding his first monastery near Paris. His teachings stem from being totally frustrated by the results of any political action he had undertaken. So, yes, WALK WITH ME is certainly worth a watch but not the ‘be all and end all’ of this worthwhile state of being or the Monk’s work. AS

ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 5 January 2018

The Prince of Nothingwood (2017)

Dir.: Sonia Kronlund; Documentary with Salim Shaheen; France/Germany 2017, 85 min.

In her first full length documentary feature, Sonia Kronlund captures the desperate atmosphere in Afghanistan where its most prolific filmmaker, Salim Shaheen struggles to create no-budget movies in this war torn country –  110 so far – and he’s still only in his fifties.

Best known for her work in French television, Kronlund has an in-depth knowledge of Afghanistan and is highly aware of the dangers in following Shaheen on his trip to the mountain region of Bamiyan, where he is going to shoot number 111 of his oeuvre: filming with take place in a safe area, they still need security guards.

Shaheen emerges a fiesty character and a film maniac: as a child he sneaked into the local cinema whence he was sent packing, and punished when he got home. He made his first short films in his mid teens. His brother lost his life in the Soviet invasion of 1980, and forced Shaheen to flee to Iran. Two years later, he joined the Afghan army and was lucky to survive, playing dead during an attack. A year after demobilisation, he married his first wife in 1984 and acquires a VHS camera, directing his first feature The Undefeated. With support from friends and family members in the cast and crew, Shaheen Films was born in 1892, as the Soviet Army was retreating. A decade late he opened a makeshift cinema in his basement. But the 1993  Civil War hampers his film projects: Whilst shooting Gardab, a rocket killed ten of his crew, the director had a narrow escape. With the Taliban is hot on his heels, he continues his filmmaking, but they still burn many of his features. Eventually fleeing to Pakistan, he made a living as an actor, but once again returns to his homeland in 2001, after the Taliban’s fall, undefeated and undefaticable – producing about ten films a year; slowing down to “only’ five features a year from 2009. 

There is a role-play going on between Kronlund and Shaheen: he is the great male leader, she is the very frightened woman, asking for his macho protection. But there are limits even for Shaheen: Kronlund never gets to interview the director’s two wives, or his daughters: they are kept away from the camera. The film’s title is a quote by Shaheen: ‘not Hollywood, not Bollywood just Nothingwood’. And he really makes films out of nothing for a severely curtailed home market, because there are only four functional cinemas left in Kabul. Kronlund’s portrait of Shaheen runs parallel to the war, which has never left the country. Even when shooting in Bamiyan, they discover the Taliban has destroyed the Buddha relics. Shaheen has to be a emotionally resourceful, often masquerading as a clown for the benefits of authorities, flighting to survive and create in this sad, impoverished country. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 DECEMBER 2017 

 

Mountain (2017)

Dir: Jennifer Peedom Narrator: Willem Dafoe | Doc | 74′ | Australia

Willem Dafoe narrates Sherpa director Jennifer Peedom’s dazzling documentary about a growing obsession with mountain climbing. And for those seeking a challenge in their otherwise safe lives, scaling great heights is clearly the answer. MOUNTAIN certainly proves a terrifying watch for those who prefer to admire nature’s peaks from ground level.

Dominated by an overbearing soundtrack, this is a magnificent and vertiginous spectacle. The camera sweeps and soars over the heighest heights of the world often leaving us gasping for breath while pondering the psychological states of those who only feel alive when they are dicing with death. While Renan Ozturk’s camerawork is extraordinarily death-defying, Defoe’s gravelly narration is as craggy as a granite rockface.

The film opens in stark black-and-white, accompanied by the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s thunderous tones, before picturing a lone free climber clinging to a cliff face, exhilarated by the view around him. Peedom describes a need to reconnect with nature that began roughly in the last century when war ceased to provide the derring-do missing in these climbers’ lives. Turning historical, the film points out how the desire to conquer and break new ground all started with Hillary and Tenzing. Whereas nowadays scaling Everest has become almost like queuing on the entrance to the M6 on a bank holiday – with a better view, and a more expensive initial outlay – climbing the mountain requires financial outlay equivalent to remortgaging the house. The losers are often the poor Sherpas who risk their lives because this is often their only way of earning a living.

Apart from mountaineering in snowy peaks, dry rocky peaks are also scaled in a film that crosses continents leaving no stone unturned in the extreme sports scenario: BASE jumping, daredevil mountain biking, wingsuiting (that resembles flying around clad in a giant bat suit). Some clever dick is also seen tight-roping across two peaks in Castle Valley, Utah. Eventually we start to tire of these feats and long for serene rolling hills and gentle valleys – even at 74 minutes the film overeaches its wow-factor. And the frequent vignettes of a Buddhist monk praying feel somehow misguided considering the many sherpas and climbers who have lost their lives rather than found nirvana.. Ultimately this is an awesome undertaking from Peedom who deserves to be congratulated although her film feels more of a personal feat rather than a piece of entertainment. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 DECEMBER 2017

 

Caniba (2017)

Dir: Verena Paravel, Julien Castaing-Taylor | 97′ | Doc | France

Documentarians Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Leviathan) are back with another impressionist take on human behaviour, which although highly imaginative often raises more questions than it answers.

Their last venture somniliques (2017) focused on sleepwalking, and now their camera explores the macabre phenomenon of cannibalism through the life of Issei Sagawa, who was convicted of eating his human victims and is now living a semi-reclusive life and hoping for remission.

The filmmakers actually manage to gain access to Sagawa for a series of palpably disturbing but brief interviews conducted in his home in Japan. It transpires he was deported from France in 1981 after serving a meagre two-year sentence for the murder of Dutch student Renée Hartevelt and since suffering a life-limiting stroke several years ago, he is confined to his home under the sole care of his sibling and rival – the two are clearly in conflict. And whilst the fate of his victims was gruesome, the ageing and infirm Sagawa is not exactly living the life of Laurie since being released from his jail term (which could have been more draconian in his native Japan). As with many killers, his crimes have attracted a certain notoriety and he continues to explore his fetish through  creative expression in manga comics and porno film work. He also admits that his cannibalism cuts both ways: he expresses a desire to be eaten, and harmed.Although cannibalism is an extreme form of human behaviour, it is not as unusual or as eccentric as many assume. Some anthropologists even liken it to highly passionate sexual or spiritual desire: a wish to consume or even become one with another being, such as when Christians take in “the body of Christ” during the Communion service. So the expression: “you look good enough to eat”, has both a literal and a metaphorical significance.

Visually this is a sensual piece of filmmaking – in the most disturbing way possible. Intimate close-ups of bloated faces and distorted limbs float across the screen and the score is suggestive of sucking and licking, while explicit sexual activity actually takes place between – what we assume to be Sagawa – and an unnamed woman. The film is also enlivened by home movie footage of Sagawa and his family. The filmmakers keep their distance from the subject matter, never attempting to probe or offer any explanation. Their experimental approach is purely observational and it works. MT

NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | UK Premiere Saturday 16 December  Bertha Dochouse 

 

Faithfull (2017)

Dir.: Sandrine Bonnaire | Documentary with Marianne Faithful | France 2017 | 62′.

With 63 films under her belt, Sandrine Bonnaire is a talented actress but needs to hone her documentary making skills. This portrait of British singer/songwriter/actor/performance artist Marianne Faithful, who celebrates forty years on the stage, is slim not only in running time, but also in technique. She fails to bring out the essence of the English singer, songwriter and actress in a strangely invasive film, reducing Marianne Faithfull nearly to tears on one occasion during filming.

FAITHFULL relies heavily on early Sixties footage and TV clips for its watchability. We learn that Faithfull first met Jagger at a party in early on in her career when she was attacked by the main-stream media for not committing herself to being the motherly female “when there are so many ways for her to spend her days; cleaning the home for hours or rearranging the flowers”. On the London stage, she was Ophelia, confessing unashamedly that she could sometimes not perform, because of drugs. Then there are wonderful clips from “The Girl on the Motorcycle, in which she starred as Rebecca.

But it was a miscarriage at 19, at the end of her five year long relationship with Jagger which really damaged her. “Mick wanted children” – and yes he did indeed, having now fathered eight. What followed was a descent into drugs, influenced by her reading William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. But Faithfull always got up and persevered, as her more recent concerts show, getting even better.

Bonnaire will be remembered for a rather embarrassing scene in the car when Faithfull asked her more than once, to turn off the camera and leave her be. But Bonnaire, instead of listening, put the camera even closer to her wounded face. Subconsciously, the director repeats exactly the treatment the teenage singer got from the establishment press. The only way to enjoy this documentary, is to concentrate on Marianne Faithfull’s music, and there is luckily a great deal to enjoy here. AS

REVIEWED  DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2017

The Red Soul (2017) | IDFA 2017

Dir.: Jessica Gorter; Documentary; Netherlands 2017, 90 min.

Nearly 65 years after the death of Joseph Stalin, director/co-writer Jessica Gorter (900 Days) asks citizen of the Russian Federation the question if Stalin was a tyrant or a saviour. The response is illuminating, sad and relevant.

Current polls put Stalin and Putin on top of the popularity pole in the Russian Federation: the former is mostly defended by older people, who see the Stalin era as the highlight of Russian world dominance. Even when confronted with the legacy of the Camps, an old woman literally spits at the interviewer: “When two men in our factory came back from the camps, they were strong like bulls. Look at today’s youth – they are weak and pale”.

Overall the majority still sees Stalin as a creator of strength and stability. Even the father of a young man who died after his meth-lab caught fire, blames the lack of discipline under the post-communist regime for the death of his son. He is joined by many who equate Stalinism with a time without drugs, prostitution and harsh but just sentences for criminals.

The ones who who mourn the victims of the Great Terror, tell harrowing stories: An order from Moscow KGB asked the authorities in Leningrad, at the height of the Great Terror in the late 1930s, to shoot six hundreds people. The proud answer was quickly delivered to the Moscow HQ of the security services: the quota was doubled, and 1200 citizens met their death. Today, the supporters of the Stalinist terror bemoan the existence of bank accounts, which were not needed in those days. Stalin, so one of his defenders, “was unselfish and wanted nothing for himself.”

People who are trying to keep count of the forgotten names of the million of victims get very little assistance from the current government. And those who try to identity the corpses in the mass graves like in Severodvinsk, make very little progress: in 23 years of digging around in the mass graves of 20000, only 83 bodies have been identified. Two elderly women are standing near a street in the city of Severodvinsk, which was built by prisoners. They show the filmmakers the exact place where they watched their mother in the long columns of inmates, who where marching to work. School children in the same city talk today about their parents and grandparents who are either proud of the achievements of Stalinism, or bemoan the dead members of their families who died in the camps.

Two sisters in St, Petersburg talk about how their parents were denounced by a family member to the KGB and arrested. Their father did not survive, but when their mother returned to the family ten years later, she blamed nobody: it was simply the way of life. And the sisters have internalised this: they are very worried about “having slandered Russia with the story of their parents. We don’t want it to come back to us like a boomerang. It is, after all, our country”. The major consensus for the young historians, gathered in the Crimea, is “that we cannot judge this era. Pride and Pain are equal”.

Gorter and DoP Sander Snoep excel in showing the harrowing images of the mass graves, and the sites of the old camps. It will never be known how many Russians, among them many ’believing’ communists, have died during Stalin’s terror. The fact that even at the beginning of the 1960, fifty-three Camps existed in the old USSR, is proof of the vast number of victims. But today, Stalin and his system is still defended by too many – supported by a government which is more interested in creating a new Russian Nationalism than defending the victims of the past – or the fledging democracy of the present. AS

SCREENING DURING IDFA | 15 November – 26 November 2017

Golden Dawn Girls II (2017)

Dir.: Harvard Bustnes; Documentary; Norway/Finland 2017, 91′

Harvard Bustnes’ portrait of three women whose men are leading politicians in the neo-fascist Greek Golden Dawn Party, is illuminating, but also very frightening. The trio exemplifes good PR in motion as they work tirelessly, using all the tricks in the book to convince and cajole – not only the filmmaker, but also the Greek electorate – into believing that their party is the victim of corrupt democracy, while hiding the fact that they want to replace democracy with a Fascist state, built on the Nazi model.

Eugenia (Jenny), Dafni and Ourania represent three generations of woman: Jenny is the wife of Greek MP Giorgos Germenis, a former metal bassist and baker, who was rewarded for 18 years of service to the party with a seat in Parliament in the 2012 elections. Jenny is a platinum blonde, whose no-nonsense approach could give her a successful career as an estate agent. Dafni is the white-haired mother of fellow MP Panagiotis Iliopoulos. She plays the role of the family carer, rallying her grandchildren in on the act, as they run around with toy weapons. Even a priest and friend of the family, joins in the game of throwing grenades.

Dafni accuses the government of perpetrating a national genocide: “The government wants us to disappear, like the Incas. One day, there will be no more Greeks. But we have the blood of the old Greek heroes in our DNA”. Nevertheless, even on TV, she is able to formulate what will happen next with their political enemies: “We will drink their blood with a straw after the elections”. When the left-wing rapper Pavlos Fyssas is murdered by a crowd of Golden Dawn supporters, neither Jenny, Dafni or Ourania want to discuss the incident. Ourania is a postgraduate psychology student, animal lover and Disney fan, the Little Prince is one of her favourite book. She is the daughter of founder and party leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos, who finds himself in jail with the majority of the Golden Dawn MPs, after weapons are found in their HQ. But she finds nothing wrong with party member Ilkias Kasidiaris, who still supports the Colonel’s Fascist dictatorship (1968-1974), and hits a woman member of the Communist Front three times in the face during a life TV debate, having assaulted another woman from the Radical Left. The Golden Dawn women get very active during the election campaign of 2014, since most the men are in jail. But after their release, the trio step back from the front line, retreating into the shadows of their husbands, fathers and sons.

Only once do the women show their true colours– after watching marching party members singing “Communists, you will be turned into soup” and “Fuck the Jews”. Asked by the director, who they hold responsible for the Greek crisis, the old chestnuts come out: “The Protocol of Zion. It is a universal conspiracy. The Jews change the government, even in America.” After being reminded, that Obama is not Jewish, the conspiracy theories go on “The Jews choose people, give them money and trap them with blackmail, and use them as puppets”.

DoPs Lars Skree and Viggo Knudsen follow the rapidly changing locations, and often get a little glance in, after the door is shut, because some Party meetings are off limits. Bustnes tries to the very end, to get a disclaimer from the women, but they will never admit that they or their men are Nazis, even though video and photographical proof is there. To the end they play the game of denial, seeing themselves as victims. It goes without saying – Golden Dawn Girls is a disturbing look at modern politics. AS

SCREENING DURING IDFA 2017 |

Love, Cecil (2017)

LoveCecil_DVD_2DPackDir/Prod: Lisa Immordino Vreeland | Doc | US |

Cecil Beaton (1901-80) would intensely loathe his biopic being described as a “warts and all” affair, but it is just that. The mercurial Oscar-winning set and costume designer, best known as the Royal family’s photographer,  emerges as a quintessential English dandy – both stylish and controversial – in this frank and unsentimental documentary directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, who is on familiar territory having brought us docs on Diana Vreeland (her husband’s grandmother) and art collector Peggy Guggenheim.

Beaton’s greatest achievement in the world of cinema were his Oscars for Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady  (1964), and it goes without saying that he fell out with George Cukor, who he felt embodied his intense dislike for the ‘vulgarness’ of Hollywood. Early on Beaton recognises that he was a jack of all trades but also a master of some: apart from his cinema success he was fêted in photography; theatre design and writing (his published diaries are narrated here in the suitably velvet tones of Rupert Everett) .

Anna Magnani“Tormented by ambition” from an early age, Beaton grew in Hampstead in a large well-to-do family. Whilst appearing fluffy on the outside he possessed a steely interior resolve and a keen visual awareness that would serve him well in his creative endeavours. His one regret was never finding a soulmate: he died alone – declaring himself a ‘bad picker’ – after numerous homosexual affairs, and even a dalliance with Greta Garbo, which is heavily hinted on by Leslie Caron – the star of Gigi –  who also claims that he was considered talented between the sheets by both men and women. After Cambridge in the early 1920s, Beaton became a photographer for Vogue and almost sabotaged his reputation in 1938 with a bizarre and ill-judged use of the word Kike (a racist term for Jew) in one of his photo-montages for the magazine, a notorious incident that almost derailed his career. Beaton apologized profusely for this aberration and set off to record the Second World War in various part of the world, as a penance.

CB098_V1 copyAnother naughty faux pas came in connection with Greta Garbo. The reclusive star allowed him to take a series of pictures of her on the understanding that only one would be published. Beaton handed the lot over to Vogue, causing Garbo, not surprisingly, to block him for over six months. The two eventually reconciled and after Beaton’s death in 1980, three photographs were found in his room — one of Garbo and two of his male lovers.

Apart from Leslie Caron’s insights, Vreeland’s film is enlivened by talking heads: designer Isaac Mizrahi, David Bailey, David Hockney and the Beaton biographer Hugo Vickers, all of whom have strong opinions on the late icon – no doubt as he had on them. But Cecil Beaton was not a man for half measures: “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary”. Clearly the man lived up to his ideals. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 1 DECEMBER 2017

 

Political Thrillers of the 1970s

The Seventies spawned a series of thrillers exposing the political tensions that were reverberating across Europe. It was a decade when the social turmoil that marked the late 1960s gave way to a more strident politics that involved stark and sometimes violent contrasts between left and right. A decade that was scarred by the emergence of uncompromisingly radical groups such as the Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades.

In response to this charged moment, a number of filmmakers across Europe turned to the format of the thriller. Stylish and enduringly popular with audiences, they saw it as the perfect vehicle through which to explore conspiracies, authoritarian regimes, and political violence.

Costa-Gavras’ legendary Z (1969) headlines an era that would showcase some of the best political thrillers of an era that would continue withInvestigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) and The Day of the Jackal (1973).

State of Siege (1972) (15) (État de siège) 

Dir Costa-Gavras | Cast: Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori, O. E. Hasse

A tense political thriller set against the background of Latin America’s dirty repressive politics, State of Siege is one of the finest political thrillers of the 1970s. Costa-Gavras casts Yves Montand in the lead as an undercover American agricultural advisor who is kidnapped by guerrillas in Uruguay.

Special Section (PG) 

Dir Costa-Gavras/FR IT West Germany 1975 | 118′ | Cast: Louis Seigner, Roland Bertin, Michael Lonsdale

Costa-Gavras sets Special Section in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. When a German officer is murdered, the collaborationist Vichy government decides to pin the killing on six petty criminals. Loyal judges are then called in to convict them as quickly as possible in a special court. Costa-Gavras won Best Director at the 1975 Cannes film festival for this brilliant thriller.

The Mattei Affair

Dir Francesco Rosi | IT 1972 | 116′ | Cast: Gian Maria Volontè, Luigi Squarzina, Peter Baldwin

This investigative thriller The Mattei Affair focuses on the death of Enrico Mattei, an influential businessman who made enemies in the mafia. His story is interspersed with Rosi’s investigation into the disappearance of his friend, journalist Mauro De Mauro, who was undertaking research for the film. Led by a magnificent performance from Gian Maria Volontè, The Mattei Affair is one of Rosi’s finest works and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes (ex aequo) in 1972.

The Odessa File  (Prime Video)

Dir: Ronald Neame | Cast: Jon Voight, Maximillian Schell, Maria Schell, Derek Jacobi, Mary Tamm | UK 130′ 1974

A Holocaust diary captures the imagination of Jon Voigt’s diligent investigative journalist Peter Millar, who sets out to uncover the truth behind a powerful Nazi organisation called ODESSA. Adapted for the screen from Frederick Forsyth’s bestseller by Ken Ross and Ronald Neame, who cut his teeth behind the camera working for Hitchcock on the first talking picture made in England, Blackmail (1929).

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (18)

Dir Elio Petri/IT 1970 | 115’/Italian | Cast: Gian Maria Volontè, Florinda Bolkan, Gianni Santuccio

In Elio Petri’s visually stunning film was nominated for an Oscar having won a Silver Bear at Berlinale in 1969. It sees a corrupt police official attempting to show his invincibility by creating a murder scene where the evidence can only lead investigators to him. Starring Gian Maria Volontè who provides a mesmerising performance, this is a sly and slick condemnation of the state and the police from one of Italy’s major political filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s.

longfriday_thThe Long Good Friday (on Amazon Prime)

Dir John Mackenzie/GB 1980 | 115′ Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman

In this iconic British thriller, gangster Harold Shand, a gritty Bob Hoskins, sees himself as the big shot property developer of London’s rundown dockland and becoming a legitimate businessman in partnership with the American Mafia. However, his plans are waylaid when a number of his associates are brutally attacked and he realises that the gangland he thought he ruled over was a much more divided and complex territory.

The Day of the Jackal (15)  (Prime Video)

Dir Fred Zinnemann/GB FR 1973 | 143′ | Edward Fox, Terence Alexander, Michel Auclair

Edward Fox made his name in Fred Zinnemann’s legendary film that explores the attempts of a right-wing paramilitary group to assassinate French President General De Gaulle following the independence of Algeria. The Day of the Jackal is one of the twistiest thriller of the 1970s and never outstays its welcome despite the long running time.

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (15)

Dirs Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta/Ger 1975 | 106′ | Cast: Angela Winkler, Mario Adorf, Dieter Laser

A key political film of the New German Cinema, a young woman’s life is scrutinised by police and press after she spends the night with a suspected terrorist. Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta co-directed and adapted The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum from the controversial novel by Heinrich Böll.

Days of ’36 (12) (Meres tou ’36)

Dir Theodoros Angelopoulos/GR 1972 | 104′  | Cast: Vangelis Kazan, Kostas Pavlou, Thanos Grammenos

Angelopoulos’s stylised thriller is set in 1936 just before the Metaxas’ dictatorship. A trade unionist is murdered in broad daylight one of the suspects rounded up is Sofianos, who claims to be innocent. But when a minister visits his cell he takes him hostage with tragic consequences in an elegantly composed affair that one the Greek director the FIPRESCI prize at Berlinale 1973.

Illustrious Corpses (PG) (Cadaveri eccellenti)

Dir Francesco Rosi/IT FR 1976/120′  | Cast: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi

Lino Ventura stars in this atmospheric thriller based on Leonardo Sciascia’s novel Il Contesto. He is a quietly confident detective appointed to investigate the mysterious murders of several senior members of Sicily’s judiciary, linked to skulduggery in the Italian communist party.

Man on the Roof (15) (Mannen på taket) |

Dir Bo Widerberg | Cast: Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, Sven Wollter, Thomas Hellberg | 1976

In this 1970s Nordic Noir thriller based on The Abominable Man by Swedish crime writers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt is Beck, a detective investigating a brutal murder in a hospital that leads to incidents of police brutality and culminates in a showcase finale on the rooftops of Stockholm.

The Flight (CTBA) (Die Flucht)

Dir Roland Graf/East Germany 1977/94′ | Cast: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Jenny Gröllmann, Erika Pelikowsky

One of the final films made in East Germany featuring Armin Mueller-Stahl – who also appears in Costa Gavras’ Music Box (1989). Here he plays a doctor who is refused permission by the GDR to take up a research post in the West, and so links up with an underground network who claim to be able to cut through red tape. But there is is a hitch, as there always is. Grand Prix Winner Karlovy Vary 1978.

Circle of Deceit (18) (Die Fälschung) (Available on Amazon)

Dir Volker Schlöndorff/West Germany FR 1981/108′ | Cast: Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jean Carmet

In Circle of Deceit Schlöndorff weaves romance with political intrigue in a thriller shot on location in Beirut. Bruno Ganz and Hanna Schygulla are the lovers who navigate a complex moral and political maze in a country on the brink of war.

TITLES NOW AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX, AMAZON PRIME , BFI PLAYER  

 

The Rebel Surgeon (2017) | IDFA 2017

 Dir/Writer: Eric Gandini | Doc | Sweden | 52′

Director, writer and producer Eric Gandini is known for exploring aspects of our highly evolved Western society, first through his documentary debut The Swedish Theory of Love (2015) that delves into the existential black holes in the Swedish lifestyle, and now with his latest documentary The Rebel Surgeon where he takes the debate further by comparing the Swedish medical system with that of a still developing country of Ethiopia, through this slim but heart-warming story of a maverick orthopaedic surgeon, Erik Erichsen.

We hear how Dr Erichsen became so disillusioned by Swedish bureaucracy that he dropped out and moved to the East African country to work as a general surgeon, with his Ethiopian-born wife and partner Sainnat. Amongst the tropical lushness of this magnificent part of the World, he finds professional fulfilment (some might say “playing God”)  as never before, rescuing lives in a small field hospital in the small community of Aira and with very limited resources – there is neither money for, nor access to, decent equipment, so he must be enterprising and creative in his methods. He works with a small domestic drill, plastic strips, jubilee clips, bicycle spokes and fishing lines: he even uses a woman’s hair slide during prostate surgery, and performs life-changing operations on the sick and wounded patients from all over the region. Ethiopians have a tough and uncompromising life but they never die alone, unlike most people in so-called ‘civilised’ societies. Here Erichsen exchanges bureaucracy for a heavy patient list – each person gets a few minutes – but they are grateful as only three doctors are available for every 100’000 inhabitants. Dr. Erichsen and his wife work full on to clear their load, but their work is 100% treatment and diagnostic-based, rather than computer or admin-orientated.

Made on a low budget, and none the worse for it, Gandini’s  film makes for compelling viewing, enriched by images of the magnificent verdancy of the region’s tropical landscapes which contrast starkly with horrific nature of the medical cases presented and the gruesome surgical procedures that follow. Erichsen clearly loves his work and the adulation that comes from his patients, but his dry sense of humour and pragmatism also provide laugh out loud moments, along with some wincing. There is space to reflect on how extreme material hardship is in no way linked to emotional poverty; clearly these rural Ethiopians are a stoic bunch who accept their prognoses without flinching, and who look after each other and are eternally grateful for the Swedish doctor’s help, often returning to visit once they are cured. It’s not all good, but death is part of life for these people, and they appear to accept their fates philosophically, if nothing can be done.

It is easy to see why Erichsen finds the work in Ethiopian so satisfying. Here his opinion is unchallenged (except occasionally by his wife) and he is bound by few rules, hailed as a hero, and gets to make all the decisions. In Sweden  he is challenged not only by the system, but also by the patients themselves who are exacting and whose expectations of life and medical treatment available are extremely exacting, Erichsen insisting that the mindset of the Swedes is far worse than the material poverty of Ethiopia.

After his decade long tenure in Ethiopia, Erichsen must return to life in Sweden, which he does with a heavy heart. And we are left contemplating the future of his Ethiopian surgical team who will battle on without him. Meanwhile, life will never be the same for Erichsen and his wife back in the Northern Europe, but every cloud has a silver lining, as we discover in the finale.

REVIEWED AT IDFA | NOW PREVIEWING ON FESTIVALSCOPE | PENDING DISTRIBUTION

No Stone Unturned (2017)

Dir.: Alex Gibney; Documentary; UK/US 2017, 111 min.

US Oscar winning writer/director Alex Gibney’s fascinating cold-case documentary about a pub massacre in Northern Ireland is more fascinating than any feature film story, and together with the political implications amounts to a Brechtian “Lehrstück” about the uncertain role of the state when it comes to crime and punishment.

On the 18th of June 1994 O’Toole’s Pub in Loughinisisland, County Down, Northern Ireland had a full house enjoying a Football World Cup match between the Republic of Ireland and Italy taking place in New Jersey, USA. The pub was known for its Catholic clientele and shortly after the ROI team scored, two men burst into the bar – one holding the door open, whilst his accomplice killed six men, shooting them in the back with his automatic rifle, injuring many others. This was an exceptional massacre even by Troubles standards (the three decades long civil war between Catholics and Protestants). The citizens of Loughinisisland had enjoyed a peaceable existence up to then, and the shocked community of Catholics and Protestants, attended a funeral for the victims. But for the victims’ relatives, the wait for the identification of the killers would last for over 22 years.

Whilst the Secretary for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew declared shortly after the shooting on TV: “we will left no stone unturned” to put the killers into jail for a long time, the investigation itself was strangely hampered from the beginning. The killers’ get-away car was found a day later in a field nearby, but ended up in a scrapyard; interview transcripts were mysteriously lost, and forensic research was patchy, to say the least. The relatives had no answers for over ten years, and finally they convinced the Ombudsman in 2007 to come up with a report investigating the police procedures. Whilst certain irregularities were noted, no action was taken. Only the second Ombudsman report of 2016 shed light on what really happened in that night in 1994. Although the report did not name any names, Gibney and his team helped to put names to the code figures in the report. As it turned out, the killers were members of the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force), who wanted to avenge the killing of Protestants by the IRA a few days earlier. The investigation showed a bizarre picture: the police was given the name of the killer by a female informant, who turned out to be the wife of the perpetrator avenging her husband’s infidelity with his denouncement. These two, still married, continue to live near the scene of the crime, running a business.

At the heart of the matter lays the well-known ‘collusion’ of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with the protestant paramilitary forces. Often, RUC infiltrators became engaged in killings on both sides, and the police forces had to protect their ‘assets’, even if it meant, like in this case, ‘bending’ the system and leaving the victims and their families without justice. This problem is neither a British one or confined the conflict in Northern Ireland: the State has always used infiltrators in the fight against alleged or real terror. But for the surviving relatives of the victims, this rationale is not enough: “They never lifted a stone, never mind turning it”. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE

The White World according to Daliborek (2017) | IDFA 2017

Dir: Vit Klusak | Writer: Vit Klusak, Marianna Stranska | Doc | Czech Rep | 90′

Czech documentarian Vit Klusak turns his camera on white racist supremacy for his latest documentary which is shot through with the same dark humour as his debut Czech Dream, although this shocking expose leaves a bitter taste in the mouth despite its hilarious moments.

In the Czech Republic lives Daliborek, a pasty-faced larded lump of a man who, at 37, still lives with his mother, abusing her verbally and occasionally even physically, asking her to “stand to attention” in front of his friends.

Although Daliborek raises some laughs with his outlandish behaviour throughout, we titter in sheer disbelief rather than out of genuine pleasure, a feeling of sickness replacing any genuine mirth, in the aftermath to this alarming film. Klusak is entirely dispassionate about his subject, who is clearly more of a super-sized bully than an outright threat. But when Daliborek joins his like-minded friends, it’s easy to see how any form of extremism can quickly get out of hand and threaten democracy, or lead to mass violence –  genocide even – as we have learnt from the past.

Giving full rein to this nutter on the big screen serves to make us in no doubt whatsoever about these characters who exist in society and are to be pitied and demeaned rather than feared, as long as they live securely in within their families; although the startling epilogue to the doc poses more concern.

Daliborek regularly rants on youtube with tuneless misogynist and sexually explicit songs that garner hundreds of views per clip. Meanwhile, his vampish mother Vera is in denial as she desperately dates online and posts fluffy photoshopped pictures of herself on Facebook. As the film gets underway, she has formed a relationship with another racist man. Daliborek’s bedroom is a sight for sore eyes: Neo-Nazi flags deck the walls along with supremacist crosses. But when he meets (an equally overweight) girl, he totally respects her prudishness and refusal to have sex, even after the couple have dated for several months. Clearly he’s no psychopath.

You have to pinch yourself at times while watching this bracingly rampant stuff; it could easily be a well-scripted spoof. And liberals and minorities will be calm in the knowledge that Daliborek’s life is actually rather sad and monotonous. He doesn’t even get to have sex with his girlfriend.

Eventually Vera’s boyfriend and Daliborek start to bond during their karate afternoons in the nearby park, both men demonstrating their tough-guy moves chopping bricks – or not. This is certainly thought-provoking stuff and absolutely compelling to watch, although Klusak never really gets to the bottom of why Daliborek has become so outrageous, given his humdrum life in a bland provincial village with hardly any crime, or immigrant population. He does not even bother to vote in the local elections. So clearly, he must have reached his point of view out of sheer boredom and lack of direction.

The final ‘epilogue’ is tragic and really raises far more questions than it attempts to answer. During a family visit to Auschwitz, Daliborek tries to go out on a limb and deny the holocaust in front of a survivor, who has just given frank and open talk about her experiences. MT

SCREENING DURING IDFA | 15-26 NOVEMBER 2017

I’m Fat (2017) | IDFA 2017

Dir: Halit Levy | Doc | Israel | 53’

Tel Avivi filmmaker and counsellor Halit is obese and she feels defined by it despite her humour, appealing personality and talent evident in this colourful documentary which she made and narrates herself. She’s happy in her body, and of being a lesbian in love with her life partner Chen, but fat is something you cannot hide – it’s the ultimate taboo, the elephant in the room. I’M FAT is a straight-talking and illuminating film exploring in the issues surrounding obesity today.

The problem is clearly visual, like baldness but unlike sexual identity or even infertility – that are not readily apparent until you delve deeper – fat is literally in your face, and can’t be disguised.

Halit does not feel diminished by her state but she is clearly bugged by it enough to express how it affects her life and describes her journey towards change. Through talking with various therapists what comes to light is fascinating and also tragic: in Halit’s case sexual abuse as a child could be the root cause of her condition, it left her with a deep-seated need for control and self-protection.

I’M FAT is well made and absorbing putting its points across simply and clearly as it debates the questions raised. Reuven Brodsky’s camera gets out and about in the seaside capital offering a rich flavour of the vibrant modern metropolis that is Tel Aviv. The documentary’s psychological insights will be of interest to all audiences helping society as a whole understand the complex issues that often lie behind obesity and at just under an hour it doesn’t overstay its welcome with a positive and convincing finale. MT

SCREENING DURING IDFA | 15-26 november 2017

 

 

Shalom Bollywood (2017) | UK Jewish Film Festival 2017

Dir/Writer: Danny Ben-Moshe | Doc | US | 85′

In his feisty all singing all dancing doc Danny Ben-Moshe shows how religious taboos led to the first superstars of Indian cinema being Jewish. India has always been extremely tolerant towards its Jewish population, it was deeply frowned on for Hindu and Muslim women to appear in film back in the early years of the 20th century, so their roles were generally played by men, until female Jewish stars filled the vacuum.

Light-hearted and full of cheeky chutzpah Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema explores the rise to fame of four such prima donnas — Sulochana, Pramila, Miss Rose and Nadira — and a token male David Abraham, whose charisma was such that marriage was unable to contain him to one female, but he always remained the toast of the town and the most-invited man in Mumbai’s soigné cinema soirées. Abraham was also known as “Uncle David,” and he charmed the birds from the trees until a stroke robbed him of his speech.

You get the impression that Ben-Moshe is really desperate to push his point showcasing these Jewish divas as his restless camera darts from pillar to post chockfull of original footage and talking heads that prattle away volubly about the triumphs of their proud community. And although the films they discuss are not necessarily the most well known to mainstream audiences, Shalom provides solid entertainment as a taster of Jewish-led Bollywood films of the last century.

This is a far cry from the director’s previous work Code of Silence, which raised the lid on child sex abuse in Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community. Here we learn how a few thousand Jews lived peaceably amongst the Muslim and Hindu majorities. They were the long-established sect of Bene Israelis, and also Jews from Iraq. Sulochana was actually called Ruby Myers. She captured the imagination of her male co-stars with her dusky beauty seen mostly in animated stills, as footage of her silent films is hard to come by but includes the remarkable 1927 Wild Cat of Bombay, where she does a ‘Kate Blanchett’, playing multiple female and male roles in this cult extravaganza. Esther Abraham, hailed from Calcutta and was known by her stage name of Pramila. Her marriage to a Muslim produced the actor-playwright Haider Ali, who provides a lively account of how the different religious communities got on like a house on fire, back in the day.

The film’s final glamorous star was Nadira (Florence Ezekiel), who played opposite Dilip Kumar as ‘the vamp’ – simply a female who fluttered her eyelids and wore high heels – during the 1950s and ’60s with films like Aan. These stars were quick to learn from their Hollywood peers and provided a new kind of emancipated female in contrast to the submissive characters of the era.

Shalom Bollywood skims over a great deal of detail surrounding Hindu language issues the stars encountered but as a fun and lightly informative flick through the era’s silent cinema and the ‘Golden Age’ of film it’s certainly provides insight. MT

SCREENING DURING UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | 9 – 26 NOVEMBER 2017 | NATIONWIDE

 

Russian Film Week | 19 November – 26 November 2017

Russian Film Week (RFW) returns this year for the second time and is twice as big, marking it as the biggest cross-cultural Russian event to have taken place outside of Russia.

The nationwide programme includes shorts, animation, documentary films and features intended to bridge the gap between Russia and the West through culture. And whilst the ‘greats’ – such as Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, or Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Loveless) – are well known to cineastes, the RFW mission is to bring us the full scope of Russian cinema to an international market and celebrate its artistic merit with global audiences.

18505238_303There will be a chance to see new films such as MATHILDE (Alexey Uchitel/left) and ARRYTHMIA (Boris Khlebnikov/below), and the latest in Russian cinema all with a Russian theme, whether from Russia or other countries — based on Russian literature, people or events, enlivened by Q&A sessions, exhibitions and masterclasses including a documentary strand as part its FemFest, Revolution Centenary, and Ecology Days. Waterstones Piccadilly will host throughout the week free VR demonstrations provided by Russian VR Seasons and PlanetPics (Natural Treasures of Russia programme).

arrhythmia_still_1_-_publicity_-_h_2017RFW opens with a screening of ATTRACTION, and climaxes with the BFI closing screening of MATHILDE on the 26th November, and Golden Unicorn Awards Charity Gala Dinner on the 25th. This is when the winners in 12 awards categories, including Best Foreign film About Russia, will be announced – as decided by a renowned international jury.

In attendance of the festival, will be over 75 of Russia’s most talented directors, producers and actors including: Fedor Bondarchuk, Alexander Yatsenko, Valery Todorovsky, Alyona Babenko, Anna Mikhalkova and Aleksey Uchitel. 

RFW takes place in venues including the BFI, Science Museum, PictureHouses, Curzon Cinemas, Ciné Lumière, Regent Street Cinema and more London, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.

As 2017 is the Year of Ecology in Russia, RFW have teamed up with WWF UK to raise funds for the WWF Amur Tiger Conservation Project in Russia over the duration of the festival. RFW and Synergy University have also launched a special Student Ecology Short Film competition with a special Golden Unicorn–Synergy Award. So RFW looks set to be a highlight of this Winter’s festival circuit. MT

RUSSIAN FILM WEEK | 19 – 26 NOVEMBER 2017 | LONDON | NATIONWIDE

Freedom for the Wolf (2017) | IDFA 2017

000e7cce-4e74-4bbb-8f41-64a5dcf00047Dir.: Rupert Russell; Documentary; Germany/USA/Hong Kong/India/Japan/ Kuwait/Tunisia, 89 min.

First time director/writer Rupert, son of the great Ken Russell, shows a rather frightening political reality emerging worldwide: the demolition of democracy as we know it, as a system which allows alternatives and protects minorities. It is replaced by nationalism and religious tyranny, always serving the titular Wolf: the elite, only a percentage of the population, which varies from country to country.

The “Occupy Movement” in Hong Kong, which started in 2014, was protesting against the Chinese government’s subversion of democracy, nominating 12 candidates from which the citizens of Hong Kong could choose their nominal leader – nominal, because who ever was chosen, would put China’s interests first. The movement was mainly supported by students, and was quite successful in blocking the streets of the centre city with mass sit-downs, the occupants living in tents. The movement faltered when taxi drivers and shoppers begun to organise against their restricted ‘freedom’ to drive and shop. This is the result, of the majority of the middle-class Hong-Kong population having a rising living standard, so they abandoned the movement, they had supported at the beginning.

In Tunisia, the government of Moncef Marzouki, ruling between 2011 and 2014, has been replaced by a more authoritarian regime. The reason was mainly that the Marzouki government, which was born from the ‘Arab Spring’, did not provide economic progress; on the contrary, prices for foodstuffs – such as canned tomatoes – went up drastically. Now, under the leadership of President Beji Caid Essebsi, prices have still not come down, but there is a new intolerance rising: cartoons of the Prophet, or dancing sparsely dressed in public, are punished with jail, and the Education Minister, who had tolerated these basic expressions of freedom, was censored for “sleeping on the job”. One of the interviewed is sure that “the less economical growth, the more people want to strengthen the religious ideology”. And the laws of the current Muslim government of Tunisia are the proof.

In India, President Narenda Modi, won his election in 2014 on the back of a religious campaign. “2000 years ago, there were no Christians, 1400 years ago there were no Muslims. There were only Hindus in Rome and Mecca”. And even when in office, his party inflamed the political war between the religions – 80% of the Indian population is Hindu – with scare stories: Muslim families train their men to seduce Hindu girls, giving the youngsters new motor-cycles and nice clothes. And when the Hindu girls have born them eight Muslim children, they are sold into slavery. Six month before the election in 2014, Hindu’s provoked riots, in which over 600 Muslim and 240 Hindus were killed. But again, the middle-classes are profiting here, with more spending power, whilst the rural population is suffering, because the government is forcing them to sell their land for minimal prices to corporations.

In Japan, the police had resurrected a law from 1940, which forbade dancing. Secret policemen infiltrated clubs, and charged the young clients with the offence, which would carry a punishment of one million Yen and six months imprisonment. Only a vigilant judge prevented the cases going to court. And finally, in the USA, after Trump’s win in last year’s election, illiberal trends continued. The police now has a huge arsenal of weapons at their disposal, creating a windfall for the weapon industry: among them grenades, chemical weapons, armoured vehicles, missile launchers and even nuclear weapons. And the whole election process has been undermined after the Supreme Court delivered in 2010 a landmark ruling regarding Campaign finances (Citizens United vs FEC), allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts supporting the campaign of their chosen candidates. Before this ruling, there were two parts of the election process: the primaries, followed by the election itself. But now, about 0.2 % of the population, the super-rich, decide which candidates they will support, making it impossible for outsiders to outspend them. It is one of the ironies of Trump’s victory that the majority of the small business donors who supported his campaign, will be the losers, since the interest of the big corporations will be certainly served by the Trump administration.

Freedom for the Wolf paints a dark picture: worldwide democracy, promising diversity, is replaced by a global wave of ill-liberal policies. Interests of the few are converging against freedom. Nationalism and religious bigotry are on the front foot, and tolerance has been replaced by consumerism as a leading goal. Russell has created a fine film that would make his father proud. Cleverly he ensure that younger viewers will be not to be put off by too many “Talking Heads’ – he has used imaginative cartoons to liven up the viewing. AS

FREEDOM FOR THE WOLF HAS ITS EUROPEAN PREMIERE AT INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL AMSTERDAM FROM 15 – 25 NOVEMBER 2017

Trophy (2017)

Dir.: Shaul Schwarz, Christina Clusiau; Documentary; Uk/Namibia/South Africa/Zimbabwe/USA 2017, 108 min.

Directors and DoPs Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau (A Year in Space) showcase the inconvenient truth about big game hunting, partly against their own will, in this informative documentary. In filming the Big Game hunters, poachers, ecologists and breeders in action and listening to their comments, they have taken, in my opinion, a shameful stance in siding with the hunters, claiming their slaughtering is all part of ‘conservation’. But images do not lie: Trophy shows the barbarism of hunting, whatever PR comments the human predators make in their defence.

Schwarz and Clusiau (“we had to be open-minded, empathic and curious”) kick off with Philip Glass, a Texan who breeds sheep on his ranch in San Angelo. He is a “believer” and lifelong hunter who travels to Africa to kill the “big Five”: Buffalo, lion, leopard, elephant and rhino. To make sure, this spirit stays in the family and he teaches his son to hunt – something the filmmakers coyly describe as “a rite of passage”.

We then visit Las Vegas for the yearly meeting of The Safari Club International Convention (SCI) in Las Vegas, where around 25,000 people buy their hunting trips. SCI organises the trips, which cost on average between 25,000 and 100,000 USD. At the convention one can also buy guns, safari gear and trophy insurance, making it a one-stop shop for this racket which, according to the filmmakers, “started with a father-son-rite of passage relationship which is now part of a larger cycle.”

The case of John Hume, a South African rhino breeder who owns Buffalo Dream, Ranch, is a little more ambivalent. Hume has around 1500 rhino, whose horns he trims every two years, regularly subjecting the animals under anaesthetic. In 2009 the South African government ordered a rhino horn moratorium which resulted in a sharp rise in poaching. Hume won the case, and is now the proud owner of five tons of horns, which are worth million’s of Dollars and are now for sale in South Africa. Whilst Hume is hardly a philanthropist, he is less heinous than the poachers, who kill the rhinos brutally before selling the horns.

The entire weight of  Glass’ bravado and bible-quoting (“Humans should have dominion over animals”), as well as his distain for “people who believe in evolution”, comes down on the filmmakers when they show an elephant crying pitifully for seemingly ages after be he has been shot by Glass. This scene alone contradicts everything Schwarz and Clusiau have to say about Glass and his like. Whilst Schwarz agrees with Clusiau “ I had a hard time with the elephant as well. I had a hard time with controlling what I think about Phil and what I think about people like him”. But in an interview Schwarz repudiates himself: “I don’t think Philip is a bad guy.” Then Schwarz goes on the defensive, stating “that even if Philip is an ass, does this completely kill the discussion how we should think about conservation? And does Philip hunting, because I, as a viewer don’t like him, disqualify his hunting as a form of conservation?” And Clusiau states in the same interview: “I agree with Shaul and don’t think Paul is a bad person. I appreciate that all the characters in the film, fully believe in what they are doing. I may not agree with their methods, but for me it’s more a question to if these methods help conserve”.

The myth about hunting as a form of conservation is best repudiated in Kenya, where the vicious ‘sport’ has been banned. Kenya has the most beautiful parks in Africa and tourism keeps their existence in economical terms, whereas South Africa has gone the opposite way: animals are just a commodity, ready to be sacrificed for private profit. Give Trophy a watch and draw your own conclusions: do you have to be cruel to be kind?. AS

 

 

Ben Gurion – Epilogue (2016) | UK Jewish Film Festival 2017

Dir.: Yariv Mozer; Documentary with David Ben-Gurion; Israel/France/Germany 2016, 70 min.

The majority of Yariv Mozer biopic’s focuses on his six hour b/w interview with the Jewish leader David Ben-Gurion in 1968, intended as the basis of a feature film about the ex-premier’s life. This film was released in 1970, but faded without impact. The British film crew who shot the interview in the spartan Side Boker kibbutz, had to build a new set with an extensive library, to create a background fitting the profile of the man who founded modern Israel as its first Prime Minister for 13 years, before rather abruptly resigning from government in 1963, when he was Minister of Defence.

1968 marked the 20th year since the founding of Israel, and Ben-Gurion, who came to what was then Palestine (a British Protectorate) from Poland, at the turn of the 20th century, lived there during the era when Zionism was not a combative ideology, let alone an imperialistic one. As far as 1948 goes, Ben-Gurion states unequivocally: “I believed we had the right to this country. Not taking it away from others, but recreating it.” But one year after the 1967 war, the same man wanted “to give most of the territories gained in that war back in exchange for peace”. That this never happened, he somehow foresaw, talking about the government he had left: “You are not considering the future, you are only considering the present.”

Documentary evidence about life during Ben-Gurion’s time show the changes in society from early settlements to state-building. But Ben-Gurion is alwys modest: “I did not guide Israel, I guided myself”. He was always a voracious reader, and as an eight year old boy, he was enthusiastic about Mark Twain’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The documentary is enriched with excerpts from some of his great Knesset speeches, and meetings with Ray Charles and Albert Einstein.

The six-hour original was found in the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive without an audio, which was later discovered in the Ben-Gurion Archive in Negev. The only criticism here is that the film seems rather short on material. It would provide an ideal companion piece for the Israeli documentary The Settlers, directed by Shimon Dotan, which tells the story of Rabbi Moshe Levenger and his followers, who started building settlements in Israeli occupied territories, making it now nearly impossible for a Palestinian state to exist. Neither consecutive Israeli governments, nor their USA counterparts have stopped this movement, which is in direct contradiction of the Geneva Convention. Ben-Gurion was certainly a little biased when talking of “not taking away from others”, yet in 1968, there was still a chance of “recreation”. But since, the dream of Theodor Herzl has ended up in a cul-de-sac of a Sparta in the desert, because Israel “did not consider the future”. AS

SCREENING DURING UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 9 – 26 NOVEMBER 2017

Remember Baghdad (2017) | UK Jewish Film Festival 2017

Dir.: Fiona Murphy; Documentary; UK/Iraq/Israel, 69 min.

Director/DoP Fiona Murphy (Neither Fish or Fowl) has chartered the history of Jews living in Babylon, then Mesopotamia and now Iraq for over 2600 years. The Babylonian Talmud was written here, and Baghdad was the centre of the Jewish community of the region – in 1917 140, 000 Jews made up a third of the capital’s population but today, only a handful Jews (and one unused synagogue) remain. Murphy has followed Edwin Shuker from North London to Iraq, to buy a house in the city his family called home for centuries.

In 1947, Renee Dangoor was crowned the first Miss Baghdad. Murphy interviews her family, one of the many Iraqi Jews living in London, who share photographs of their middle-class Jewish life in Baghdad after WWII. Since its foundation in 1921, Iraq has had a turbulent history. King Faisal was the official head of the country, but British influence only ended completely after 1932, when the British mandate ran out. Fascist influence in the country grew when the Great Mufti emigrated to Iraq and was instrumental in having Hitler’s Mein Kampf translated. Five years later pro-Nazi forces took over the region for a few months, before Allied Forces arrived. But they stopped short of occupying Baghdad and the Jewish population were targeted in attacks organised by the Grand Mufti, who wanted to unite the Arab world behind Hitler. In the May riots of 1941, 180 Jews were killed, and over a thousand injured.

After Faisal returned later that year, the British entered Baghdad, and the Grand Mufti fled to Berlin. Whilst many middle-class Jews felt safe in Iraq, working class Jews organised illegal emigration to what was then called Palestine. When Israel was founded in 1948, after the partition, the climate for Jews in Iraq changed again for the worse. In 1950 Jews were fired from jobs, their shops were boycotted, and some were hanged. 70 000 emigrated, leaving their homeland with only a few shekels. In 1951 over 120 000 of them had emigrated to Israel, where there were not very welcome: newsreel images show the bewilderment of the Jewish citizens: for them the Iraqi Jews were poorly dressed and “looked like Arabs, people without a culture and even speaking the language of the enemy”. Just 7000, mostly middle class Jews remained in Iraq, but they thrived; one of the interviewed talked in great length about the chocolate factory owned by his father.

There were even Jewish MPs in parliament. After 1956, when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, and British forces left, some of the Jewish women wanted to leave, fearing new unrest. In 1958 the Royal family was killed, the military coup brought Brigadier Quasim to power. A Jewish witness stated, that their family, who run an import business for American cars, were afraid that “would have to live like communists”. But instead, the embassies of Warsaw Pact countries and their allies, all bought big American vehicles, making 1951 “the best year for business”. Again, the remaining Jews felt safe. In 1963, with the help of the CIA, Quasim was killed, and his regime was replaced by the Ba’ath Party – a certain Saddam Hussein becoming deputy leader in 1969. Before that, in 1967, the Three-Day War, in which Iraq fought alongside four other Arab countries against Israel, finally signalled the end of Jewish life in Baghdad. Survivors of the exodus to Britain and Israel tell about phones being cut off, one member of the family hanged, and a flight across the northern mountains to the Kurdish part of Iraq. In 1971 just a few hundred Jews remained.

Edwin Shuker had to give up the idea of buying back his family home in Baghdad – it would have been too dangerous. But he did the next big thing, buying a house in the north of the country. “I hope, that in sixty years o so, there will be a Jewish community in Baghdad. Or it will end with me” he say shoulder shrugging. “But I can’t leave the country behind for good”. There is simply too much to leave behind. Taut and informative, Remember Baghdad is a history lesson about little known facts and events, making sad reading. AS

SCREENING at UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | 6-26 NOVEMBER 2017

 

 

Ferrari: Race to Immortality (2017)

DIR: Daryl Goodrich | Doc | Sport | 

Don’t be put off by the title of this stylish and highly entertaining film about the daredevil racing drivers of the 1950s. Anyone who appreciates a trip down memory lane – packed with original footage – will find this a great watch. Based on Chris Nixon’s ‘Mon Ami Mate’, a biography of British Ferrari drivers Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, whose derring-do and reckless ambition was aided and abetted by Enzo Ferrari and his iconic racing cars, who told his champions: “Win or die, you will be immortal”. 

These were courageous men who weren’t afraid to lose their lives doing what they enjoyed best. And most of them did. But they weren’t the only ones to lose their lives. Many spectators also perished when cars left the track and careened into the crowd – such as during the 1955 Le Mans race – killing 83 people in an horrific fireball. Between 1950 and 1960, 39 drivers in motor-racing were killed behind the wheels of tin cars that made a mockery of today’s ‘health and safety’. But Enzo’s love was for his brand and his precious vehicles, and if anyone was killed he laconically asked the question: “And how is the car”

Watching Ferrari, you can’t help falling for the charm and suave charisma of these brave and likeable gentlemen heroes. And the camaraderie between them all feels genuine and heartfelt. Some were playboys but others fell in love on the circuit, such as Mike and Peter went to marry their sweethearts. Director Daryl Goodrich packs e extraordinary tension into a story packed with nostalgia for the good old days of sporting heroes who really deserved their celebrity reputations and were prepared to die for the sport of princes. MT

NOW ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM FRIDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2017

Revolution: New Art for a New World (2016)

Dir: Margy Kinmonth. With the voices of Daisy Bevan, Tom Hollander, Sean Cronin, Matthew Macfadyen, Eleanor Tomlinson | Documentary | UK | 85min

Bafta-nomimnated documentarian Margy Kinmonth (Hermitage Revealed) provides a whistlestop tour of Russian Avant-garde art  in ths informative and engrossing exhibition on screen – REVOLUTION: NEW ART FOR A NEW WORLD.

Politically, the turn of the 20th century was a pivotal time, but also creatively things would never be the same again as Russia’s young and thrusting artists provided their own revolutionary counterpoint to Lenin’s political agenda. An astute artist in her own right, Kinmonth engages with Andrei Konchalovsky and other descendants of the legendary artists to create a brilliant documentary that combines impressive photographs and archive footage with filmed imaginings (with a sterling British cast) of the radical climate that flooded through Russia a hundred years ago, when inventiveness broke free, flourished and even drove the nation forward in those formative decades, and still exerts a powerful influence on the contemporary art world of today.

img_3083For those interested in art or political history this is a fascinating piece of filmmaking. Kinmonth is clearly well-connected as she tours the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum and the State Hermitage Museum to show works by Chagall, Pimenov, Rodchenko, Kandinsky and Malevich and to interview leading art world luminaries among whom are Mikhail Piotrovsky and Zelfira Tregulova and the grandson of the architect Shukhov, whose free-standing Shabolovka Tower structure in Moscow provided radio broadcasting throughout the region during the early 1920s.

Despite the often tragic deaths of the artists in Gulags during Bolshevik purges of the 1930s, the revolutionaries had pushed the word out from Moscow and St Petersburg with the aid of ‘art trains’ that promoted their work and ideals  with lectures, agitational propaganda and posters.

Kinmonth deftly weaves her linear narrative through the various Avant-Garde movements of Suprematism, Futurism and Constructivism to Socialist Realism to show how these influential artworks and even ceramics live on to tell their story even after the heyday of the movement with Kazimir Malevich’s famous Black Square Suprematist painting (1915) now valued at many millions of USD. MT

REVOLUTION: NEW ART FOR A NEW WORLD will be broadcast in the BBC’s upcoming Russian Revolution Season and will air on Monday 6th November 9pm on BBC4

REVOLUTION: NEW ART FOR A NEW WORLD will be released on DVD 3rd April 2017

 

 

78/52 (2017)

Dir: Alexandre O Philippe | Cast: Alan Barnette, Justin Benson, Peter Bogdanovich, Jamie Lee Curtis, Amy E Duddleston, Jeannie Epper | Doc | US | 91′

The title of Alexandre O Philippe’s documentary refers to the technical way of shooting the shower scene in Hitchcock’s horror classic Psycho: 78 camera setups and 52 cuts. It was the most exacting and difficult scene to shoot during November 1959. Psycho also represented the first physical attack against a naked woman on film, and in the privacy and sanctity of her bathroom – and the first image of a flushing toilet. Psycho is now considered a watershed in film history, ushering in an era of fear and uncertainty after the calm and orderliness of postwar positivity.

Hitchcock claims that he made the film in black and white because the flushing away of the blood in the shower would have been too shocking, although the torn shower curtain idea had already been seen before in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923) . Peter Bogdanovich, who attended the very first press screening of Psycho in New York’s Times Square, makes the most salient point: “Women were top billing during the ’30s and ’20s and that gradually evaporated during the ’40s and ’50s when they slipped into second place, and that’s what the movie’s saying – it’s about killing off the woman”.

What follows is a dissection and debate – mostly by men – about the ground-breaking film, and its terrifying scene that seems to represent a culmination of all Hitchcock’s work up to this date, with the likes of American cinema luminaries such as Walter Murch, David Thomson, Eli Roth, Peter Bogdanovich and Bret Easton Ellis who all share their thoughts on the moments and motivations of Psycho. There is also comment on Gus Van Sant’s panned 1998 remake. A great deal of what is said is salient and apposite, but there’s also a large amount of pointless detail and waffle set to an ultimately annoying and redundant, violin score (nothing like Bernard Hermann’s masterpiece original) that thankfully fades out when we get to watch the scene clips,with commentary from Hitchcock himself, who puts the whole idea down to voyeurism; also claiming that Psycho was not serious and questioning why people found it so shocking. Those who enjoyed Hitchcock Truffaut (2015) will probably feel that most of the ground has already been covered in that superior documentary.

What the film does engage with – and that’s fascinating – is the role, positive and negative, of the mother figure in American Society since the 1950s, and how ultimately women have had the easy option of home-making and child-rearing, but also seducing and withholding (sexually) and therefore were due to be punished. And here Hitchcock admits, laughingly, that his mother scared him as a young boy and that’s putatively why he grew up to be sexually repressed with the need to punish womankind. This revelation could then have segued into a debate about the reportedly negative experiences had by Tippi Hedren, Grace Kelly or even Kim Novak while working for the director. So an exploration of Hitchcock’s suppressed sexuality that spawned the film could have been really intriguing but that’s clearly another documentary. 78/52 has weight and integrity and is certainly worth a watch. MT

OUT ON 3 NOVEMBER 2017

 

Grace Jones – Bloodlight and Bami (2017)

Die:. Sophie Fiennes | UK/Ireland. 2017 | Musical Biopic | 115′

As fabulous now as when she was in 1979 – when I first experienced her at a concert in Italy’s famous Covo di Nord Est – Grace Jones still rocks. At almost 70, her voice has mellowed, wavering occasionally, but her glamour and star power are just as potent and her aura and outrageous antics as just spectacular, if not more.

After an overture of Slave to the Rhythm where Grace performs in purple regalia and a golden sunburst mask, Fiennes cuts to an autograph session with fans fawning: “I’ve been waiting to see you for 25 years” – Grace responds “so has my mother”. Suddenly we are following her through Jamaica airport for an exuberant reunion with her mother (who looks like Aretha Franklin), son Paolo and niece Chantel, and as night falls, the camera pictures a sultry moonlight gig in the torridly tropical island, drenched in lush emerald forests.

1268255_Grace-Jones-2At at raucous and voluble family meal we get some backstory on the Jones and Williams troubled family backstory in a scene that culminates in a full-throated performance of Wicked and Williams’ Blood as Grace struts around amid strobes – sporting nothing but a black leotard and a massive clotted cream moonshaped crown – by Irish hatter Philip Treacy – Fiennes tribute captures the warmth and ebullience of Jamaica and Grace’s defiant irreverence.

Grace was once a Bond Girl – May Day – in A View To A Kill and also appeared in Conan The Destroyer, but here we witness the real Grace for the first time: The woman behind the act, and she’s as feisty and strangely vulnerable as you would imagine. Champagne flows throughout as Grace moves constantly, making angry phone calls and negotiating in French – she lived in Paris for many years with French photographer Jean Paul Goude who styled her legendary look and shtick. Opening an oyster with difficulty she snarls: “wish my pussy was still this tight”. Fiennes’ punctuates the gutsy real time footage shot in her kitchen, car and dressing room – with Grace’s mesmerising Dublin stage show, but both are beguiling and cinematic. Fiennes’ shirks the traditional documentary format – there are no photos or archive footage, making Bloodlight And Bami fresh, feisty and intriguing for longtime fans who have never really experienced the woman ‘behind the scenes’. It’s also longer than most docs at nearly 2 hours.

La Vie en Rose is performed in a blossom pink setting – all softly sequinned and shimmery. Bloodlight And Bami – the film’s title is Jamaican for the recording studio lighting. She’s busy raising money for her next album, accompanied by her bass duo Sly and Robbie. Grace is no wallflower when it comes to things financial: she wants to be paid upfront for every concert, but will trawl through the old stalwarts just to raise money for her new work. You get the impression these old numbers bore her slightly, as she rants through Nipple to the Bottle, tottering gamely on amazingly amazonian legs. “Sometimes you have to be a high-flying bitch”.

Jones hasn’t forgotten the ghosts of the past: her abusive step-grandfather fuels the angry energy for her stage persona. Her parents lived away from Jamaica in New York during her childhood but she’s now closer to her mother and goes with her to church back home.

Pull up to the Bumper is vigorously vampish. Her lyrics – like her lips and bone structure – are strong and powerfully stand the test of time. Grace is vulnerable, scary and exotic – a feminine volcano that smoulders and could erupt at any time. Fiercely feline she purrs more like a jaguar than a pussycat. Her following is eclectic and all-encompassing: middle-aged men; sophisticated women and the gay crowd, all attracted to her burlesque bravado and musical power.

In concert footage, Grace mesmerises with performances of Pull Up To The Bumper and more personal tracks including Williams’ Blood, This Is and Hurricane. She is s force of nature, and certainly a force to be reckoned with. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

UK Jewish Film Festival 2017

The UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL has become one of the most-anticipated film events across the UK and the 21st edition will again showcase world, European and UK premieres of the best new Israeli and Jewish cinema on offer with 75 films from more than 20 countries at 115 screenings across London, Belfast, Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham.

An-Act-of-Defiance-Bram-Fischer-movieThis year’s UKIJFF Opening Night Gala,  on 9th November at the BFI Southbank, is An Act of Defiance, directed by Jean van de Velde. Set in South Africa, 1963, it is based on the true story of ten black and Jewish men who are arrested for conspiring against the Apartheid system. Led by fellow defendant Nelson Mandela, the group plead not guilty, which in turn highlights the corrupt political system in power. This riveting drama captures a pivotal moment in the fight against racism, exploring the role of South African Jews in making Apartheid history.

1945Further galas and premieres will include Ferenc Török’s 1945, a powerful and innovative study of a post-war, village community, which competed at Berlinale 2017 and is a likely contender for the Festival’s Best Film Award. The ramifications of WWII are felt in Sam Garbarski’s Bye Bye Germany – a slightly overwrought but entertaining comedy set in Frankfurt, 1946 – and in a more contemporary setting for Menno Meyjes’s The Hero, a dark thriller by the co-writer of The Empire of the Sun.

paradiseParadise – (left) the spectacular Venice Silver Lion winner from Russian master filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky – will also screen nationwide at the festival, along with Avi Nesher’s latest drama Past Life. and Yaniv Berman’s unsettling thriller Land of the Little People. On a lighter note, there is Shlomit Nehama and Emil Ben-Shimon’s The Women’s Balcony – the most commercially successful film to date in Israel – and Francesco Amato’s gentle comedy Let Yourself Go!, worth seeing just for Toni Servillo in the lead role. New the party will be Erez Tadmor’s social drama Home Port and Haim Tabaman’s (Eyes Wide Open) eagerly-awaited Ewa.

A Documentary strand examines the life of the founder of the State of Israel with Ben Gurion, Epilogue, made from rediscovered footage of an exclusive interview. Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown is a timely portrait of the remarkable entertainer, while the surprising story of another Hollywood legend is revealed in Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story directed by Alexandra Dean and produced by Susan Sarandon. Archive features, old and less so, will include a tribute to Oliver Sachs with Penny Marshall’s moving classic Awakenings; while the secret identity of a young Jewish woman in the mid-19th century is scrutinized in The Governess by Sandra Goldbacher. Mr Emmanuel is the only feature digitised by the BFI for a new project of Jewish archive films; filmed in 1944 it provides an insightful, historical document of British cinema when a Jewish man travels to Berlin.

Bye Bye GermanyIn addition to the exciting showcase of Jewish focused films and TV in this year’s Festival, there will be a night of awards for Best Film, Best Debut, Audience Choice and now Best Screenplay. The Pears Short Film Fund returns for the 11th year and there will be screening of the 2017 winners The Master of York, by Kieron Quirke, and The Outer Circle by Adam Baroukh.

UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | NATIONWIDE | 9 -26 NOVEMBER 2017 

Liberami | Deliver Us (2016)

  C9mufahWsAEk2vd.jpg-smallDir: Federica Di Giacomo | 89 mins

Exorcism is still a fact of contemporary life particularly in Catholic countries such as Italy where every year more and more people claim that their illnesses are caused by demonic possession. Father Cataldo is a veteran priest, one of the most sought-after exorcists in Sicily. Every Tuesday, many believers follow his mass of liberation, searching for a cure for some adversity for which there does not seem to be a label or a remedy.

Italian documentarian Federica Di Giacomo won the Venice Horizons Award last year for this penetrating study of an ancient practice that has found its way into the contemporary world with as much conviction as it did in Medieval times. What emerges doesn’t provide answers but gives fascinating insight as Di Giacomo combines interviews and footage to show how, in some ways, exorcism is enjoying a boom especially in Sicily where this candid observational approach completely avoids sensationalism. MT

DELIVER US (Liberami) is in cinemas 27th October and on DVD 30th October#DELIVERUSFILM

 

Dina (2017)

Dir: Antonio Santini, Dan Sickles | Cast: Dina Buno, Scott Levin | Doc | US | 102′

Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles explore the joys and idiosyncrasies of an autistic Jewish couple who meet and marry in this poignant and quirkily humorous vérité portrait of love and companionship. DINA serves as an understated tribute to emotional resilience and an indomitable desire for human closeness.

Although there are clearly moments of awkwardness and embarrassment here, Santini and Sickles are never patronising, treating their subject matter with respect and dignity. DINA emerges an engaging and revealing study of human tenderness at its most touching and honest.  48 year-old-widow Dina Bruno is certainly forthright but not apparently autistic when we first meet her making arrangements for her second marriage to Scott Levin, who works in the local Walmart. She is clearly on the outer fringes of the ‘spectrum’ whereas Scott is possibly more affected. The two met at an outer Philadelphia social group for ‘neurologically diverse’ adults. Dina has been ‘retired sick’ after a stabbing attack from an ex (‘the psycho’) left her depressed and traumatised. Her first husband died of cancer.

Although the couple both seem keen on each other, it’s clear that Dina is the more experienced, sexually and emotionally, of the two. Living alone in a flat above a shop, Dina is armed with a strong sense of self-esteem and, although overweight, is happy in her skin with few of the anxieties that bug most modern woman. However, Scott has always lived with his loving parents and is possibly a virgin, admitting to masturbation and given to romantic crooning of “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”,  but expressing a deep fear of tactile expression and sex. Something that Dina is determined to remedy, and Scott willing to learn.

Tenderness and tolerance are the watchwords of Dina and Scott’s relationship. They make a rather endearing couple on a bus trip to the New Jersey seaside for the first time, but when Dina presents him with a copy of The Joy of Sex, Scott is clearly out of his comfort zone. But sex – or lack of it – never becomes an issue between the two of them, simple another step on their journey towards mutual fulfilment. The wedding night is relaxed and informal with a focus on their enormous champagne glass-styled jacuzzi, rather than the lack of action between the sheets  (“I wonder what a honeymoon is like for a passionate couple” – muses Dina, aloud).

Scott’s parents are a warmly supportive couple who encourage him not to worry when he breaks down in tears over his performance anxiety, and this contrasts sharply with Dina’s fractious relationship with her slim, blond mother who finds her daughter ‘self-absorbed’. The couple are clearly sociable and have regular meet-ups with close friends Monica Ferrero and Frank Costanzo, whose happy marriage gives Dina and Scott something to hope for.

The filmmakers avoid a judgmental approach leaving the couple plenty of space to express themselves freely without time pressures in this well-crafted indie that never overstays its welcome. There’s a feeling here that Scott and Dina are forging something worthwhile and wonderful – in a small way, but a meaningful one nevertheless. When two people decide to really make a go of things, the result is invariably a success!. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 20 OCTOBER 2017

GRAND JURY PRIZE DOCUMENTARY WINNER | SUNDANCE US

 

 

A Mother Brings Her Son to be Shot (2017) | BFI London Film Festival 2017

Dir: Dir-Scr Sinéad O’Shea | Doc | Ireland | 2017 | 86′

When longterm religious conflict infects a population it almost becomes genetic inbred between one faction and the other. This seems to be the case in the Middle East and also in Northern Island where the Troubles first started in the early 1970s and are still going on according to this courageous documentary, five year’s in the making, that exposes modern day paramilitary activity committed by groups opposed to the peace process that hoped to put an end to hostilities with the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 2008.

The film’s title is no joke. Derry mother Majella O’Donnell actually took her drug-addicted teenager Philly to be punished by dissident Republican paramilitaries, who refused to come to her home for fear of ambush, making her  visit their hideout for his anti-social behaviour. In this non-judgemental even-handed film, award-winning journalist Sinéad O’Shea strikes up a friendly relationship with a former IRA member-turned-community mediator, now suffering from lung cancer, and also manages to home-interview Majella, her husband Philly Senior (who was later knee-capped) Philly junior (18 when filming began) and Kevin Barry, a mere stripling, who shows us his arsenal of weapons including an axe; bolt-cutters; a saw and a mallet – in the open scenes of this hair-raising documentary.

MOTHER_BRINGS_HER_SON_TO_BE_SHOT_A_laneO’Shea’s investigations are unsettling and compelling. It emerges that the locals would rather be killed than give information to the Police, so they continue to tolerate the insurgencies which have become a dyed in the wool symptom of this toxic rift between the two sides. One man claims the intolerance is as entrenched in the locals “as asking a Black man to accept the KluKluxKlan”. O’Shea discovers that far from happy with ‘peace’, young Kevin Barry even wish the Troubles were still raging,  None of the O’Donnell family are in employment as each day they feel they are living out the nightmarish scenario of drug-addiction and aggression from the outside, although in the final scenes before her husband’s shooting, Majella claims to be having ‘a good year’ with Philly junior expecting his first child and Kevin Barry on a more even keel emotionally at 15. Driving around the grim and rain-soaked streets, it is shocking to witness so much anti-British sentiment with menacing slogans painted on the walls of buildings. We are even privy to a twilight raid by masked gunmen that brings back those horrific TV images for those who remember the era. The final scene feels almost as if the Dark Ages have returned to modern day Britain.MT

SCREENING DURING THE BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | 13 October 2017

 

Devil’s Freedom | La Libertad del Diablo (2017) | Lff 2017

Dir/Writer: Everardo Gonzalez. Mexico, 2017, 74′

Mexico has become synonomous with terror when it comes to the drug trade. In dramas such as Heli and Sicario the horror and casual violence of modern life emerges through stories of ordinary people caught up in a criminal underworld, as here in Devil’s Freedom (La Libertad del diablo), a rather dry but important documentary that gives testament to the endemic corruption caused largely though drug wars, but also in criminality of all kinds, where life is cheapened by man’s desire to fight for control of land and filthy lucre.

The characters interviewed in El Paso Director Everardo Gonzalez’ often harrowing film are often fully masked as he calmly interviews them off camera, allowimg them full amd frank expression of their grief and suffering. Some of them break down as they tell of  the torture, loss of life and trauma they have endured in the war against drugs which has claimed over 100,000 lives in the past five years. This is a number that beggars belief, but the authorities are often as corrupt as the public involved.

The gruelling constant mask to camera confessions are often punctuated with sorties into indiscrimate landscapes picturing the grim light of dawn or masked gunman travelling in trucks on the desert roads, or abandoned and dilapidated sights where sinister events have seemingly taken place. Either way, this makes for gruelling viewing.

Gonzalez never resorts to sensationalism, maintaining his distance with the occasional question that begs for description rather than sympathy. Neither does he attempt to contextualise events or seek explanation for Mexico’s malaise. Sufferers and perpetrators alike express fear, regret and shame. There seems little hope for redemption or hope in film’s incediary finale. MT

SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2017

 

School Life (2017)

1_tDirs: Neasa Ní Chianáin/David Rane | Writer: Etienne Essery | With John/Amanda | Doc | Irish | 99′

In a Georgian mansion in rural Ireland maverick educators John and Amanda have devoted their married life to bringing out the best in their pupils, along with their foppish Head Master Dermot Dix. And if you had young children, you’d send them to the idyllic prep school at Headfort House near Kells in County Meath. In this entertainingly footloose documentary we spend a year with the kids and staff and their wonderful approach to learning.

3_tThe directors’ narrative is as unstructured as the couple’s teaching methods. John and Amanda are as tender towards their charges as they are to each other. But discipline is also firmly in place and respect is the watchword; and it flows both ways. John is the Latin Master but he also teaches the liberal arts, music and painting. English Mistress Amanda, is responsible for drama – and there is a lot of fun. John and Amanda are often seen sharing a fag as they chat through their day in their cottage on the grounds, giving each other tips and encouragement – clearly the pupils are also their ‘children’ and they know just how to bring out the best in them. But they are dedicated to their life’s work and have also to consider what would happen when they eventually retire: “What would we do all day, if we didn’t come here?”. When little Florrie, a troubled but talented kid, appears on the scene from London, she is a brilliant drummer in the school’s rock band but lacks discipline. John deftly handles her tears and tantrums without batting an eyelid and the children all call him ‘Sir’, as a mark of respect – without a shred of resentment, or ever questioning his authority, in public or in the cosy dorms.

At the end of term, there is success for two children with places at Eton and Harrow, and John gently mimics the posh accents the boys may encounter once installed. At the same time, young Ted’s dyslexia has improved in this caring environment and there are prizes – and hugs – all round. A tender and touching portrait of what a school should be. MT

OUT ON 13 OCTOBER 2017

Filmworker (2017) | BFI London Film Festival 2017

Dir.: Tony Zierra | Documentary with Leon Vitali; USA | 94′.

Stanley Kubrick is without doubt one of the greats of 20th Century cinema. His perfectionism and dedication is also legendary as Tony Zierra (My big Break) illustrates in his haunting documentary of how an actor fell under Kubrick’s spell, becoming his right-hand man in an act of near-religious submission. Even now, 18 years after his master’s death, he works tirelessly transposing the film archive onto 4K material.

In 1975, actor Leon Vitali was a young man with a great film and stage future ahead of him and offers from the National Theatre. Securing one of the main parts as Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Vitali went on to admire Kubrick so much, that he soon gave up his acting career to learn the craft, finally talking Kubrick into getting him a job on the The Shining (1980). Once Kubrick had gained his trust, Vitali was tasked with casting the child roles for the Cult horror feature. In Full Metal Jacket (1987), Vitali’s main contribution was helping the actors live up to the exacting demands of the director. Whilst returning to his acting career in Kubrick’s final feature Eyes wide Shut (1999), Vitali also helped with various technical tasks.

Being around Kubrick meant often working a 16 hour day and Vitali became a trusted adjutant of the control freak, even worked around the clock during large projects. His three children, who are interviewed, leave no doubt that they came second in the pecking order for Dad’s attention. Other interviewees, like Ryan O’Neal and Matthew Modine, talk about Vitali’s obsessive relationship with the often cantankerous Kubrick. If Vitali detected others’ shortcomings, he brought them to Kubrick’s attention. The obsessive job has taken its toll on Vitali. Physically as well as psychologically, he has aged beyond his years. Now haggard, he’s still driven by fulfilling a self-imposed workload as Kubrick’s personal assistant beyond the grave. FILMMAKER is an absorbing and haunting portrait of obsession. AS

SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 4-15 OCTOBER 2017

Untitled (2017) MUBI

Dir:  Michael Glawogger, Monika Willi | Austria / Germany 2017 | English, German | Doc | 107 min · Colour

In Untitled seasoned documentarian Michael Glawogger fulfilled his final dream of freewheeling round the World for a year just photographing everything he saw, with his cameraman Attila and sound engineer Manuel Siebert. There was to be no narrative or theme, no formal structure, just pure freedom to see what happened, and this is the result – after Glawogger’s tragic death from malaria less than half way though the project – a final unfinished reverie of random footage was put together by his longterm collaborator Monika Willi, and accompanied by notes from his diary narrated by Fiona Shaw.

Untitled has a looser more poetic feel that his previous outings Workingman’s Death, Megacities and Whore’s Glory, spooling out with shades of Kirsten Johnson’s recent roundup Cameraperson. The crew travelled south from Austria through the Balkans and on to West Africa where their ramblings are captured in silent musings and dynamic sequences that unfold in a nonlinear format gliding peripatetically north and south, east and west, and not in chronological order. Animals, people and buildings get equal treatment as Boa’s camera often trails behind farmer’s trucks bearing sheep and cattle.

In Dakar, coal black muscle bound bodies of Senegalese wrestlers gleam in the hazy sunshine of a dust-up; a vigorous massage on the hard stone floor of a Moroccan Hammam; a fur-coated woman roams through the dilapidated houses of Apice Vecchio in Campania, abandoned since 1962 on the verge of a threatened earthquake when the villagers moved across the valley. Kids and goats rifle through the fly-tipped waste in Erfoud in the Sahara desert and the war amputees’ sports club of Freetown play football on the beach in Liberia. In Kosovo a son and father climb through the structure of a unfinished housing block amid howling wind.

Wolfgang Mitterer’s score is more a patchwork of ambient sounds than formal composition as Monika Willi captures the essence of Glawogger’s previous strands and preoccupations: the injured, oppressed and desolate, particularly animals and children. His desire was for personal freedom and his envy of those who have no agenda but to stare from a window all day is palpable: “the death of freedom is to foresee every possible disaster and plan accordingly. Fear is a terrible companion.” His poignant ending in Harper, Liberia seems to echo through all of these images. MT

WHORE’S GLORY IS NOW ON MUBI

The Reagan Show (2017)

Dir: Sierra Pettengill, Pacho Velez | Doc | US | 74′

Pettengill and Velez’ entertaining documentary captures the pageantry, absurdity and mastery of the made-for-TV politics of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) entirely through White House footage and archive news reports. And although the directors brings nothing especially new to the party that covered the Reagan Administration  from 1980-1988), with Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House, even the Reagan presidency needs to be re-evaluated.

Asked in 1980, why Ronald Reagan was elected president of the USA, a journalist friend of mine ventured his opinion: “The powers that are, wanted to give the job to somebody who read the cue-cards the best”. He was referring to Reagan’s acting career; though mostly spent in B-pictures, Reagan was a household name, and his portraits of the average, good-natured American (in the majority of his features), made him an ideal figure to identify with. Even if the truth about him – working as an informer for the FBI – would have been leaked, it would not have made any difference at the polls. Reagan himself was much more self-aware than one assumes. Asked by a TV interviewer if it helped to have been an actor before becoming president, he answered; “I don’t know how I would have done the job, if I had not been an actor.”

Yes, he had trouble spelling names, like the one of New Hampshire governor John Sununu, whose election he sponsored: the recorded interview had to be interrupted many a times, before Reagan got it right –but hey, George W. Bush could hardly string a complete sentence together. And even if Reagan’s appearance before the TV cameras with a saw in his hand, representing his fight for a meaner budget, was truly cringe-worthy, it seems more funny than malicious today. Anyhow, ‘staging the message’ was/is always part and parcel of the ‘White House Show’ – until Trump decided to break all the rules. The reason we have so much material on the Reagan years, is, that his administration recorded more events, than the five before combined.

Reagan was a cold-war warrior, and even after only one year in office, public opinion showed that the US population was more afraid of an all-out nuclear war with the USSR than 12 months before; further more, the majority of the US population thought that nuclear war with the USSR was inevitable. The president was in/famous for two of his statements: one was his support of the Strategic Defence Initiave (also known as ‘Star Wars’), the other one naming the USSR “as an evil empire”. But being the master communicator he was, Reagan turned from a falcon into a dove in his last years in the White House. Whilst president Gorbachev hired US PR agencies to help with his image (quite successfully, he gained the support of Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterand), Reagan had suffered a set back in the Iran affair in late ‘86: his prisoners for weapons deal cost him the support of his political base, and, for once, the great communicator had to retreat. In the end, Reagan even retracted his “evil empire” outburst: in the presence of Gorbachev he told reporters in Moscow “this quote belonged to another time, another era”.

The footage of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in Ronald McDonald costumes, entertaining a group of children, might be the funniest of this lively and often witty documentary, the overall perception is that, even if the Reagan presidency was “an MA in PR” compared with the present White House inhabitant, Ronald Reagan was a balanced human being. MT

OUT OF COMPETITION | LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW | 2-12 AUGUST 2017

So Help Me God (2017) Netflix

Dirs: Jean Libon, Yves Hinant | Doc | Belgium/France | 100′

This shocking trawl through the daily casebooks of a plucky Belgian judge reveals a catalogue of sexual depravity, murder and domestic violence on the part of her male – mostly Muslim – suspects, proves compelling viewing. But what makes it so entertaining, apart from the usual stories of men disciplining their wives; dominatrixes pleasuring their clients and murderers pleading to be let off so they don’t lose their council properties – is Judge Gruwez’ laconic and no-nonsense approach, taking everything in her stride, but not always taking prisoners, from her bureau in the heart of Brussels.

There is humour here too in a film that is often downright ludicrous. Many of the characters freely admit to their crimes but angrily accuse the judge herself of ‘ruining their lives’ with her legal sentencing enforced to keep them from reoffending. There are macabre moments too: Attending a DNA exhumation in the blazing heat under a pink umbrella, she claims: “it smelt bad, but there was a nice little breeze!” We also witness a woman’s account of how she killed her son, whom she suspected him of being possessed by The Devil.

Driving around in her 2CV, Maitresse Gruwez listens to opera, keeps a snow white pet rat and types her owns correspondence, despite her reduced manual dexterity.  The directors maintain a strictly detached observational approach to the bizarre subject matter, often filming at close quarters. This remarkable and uncensored film certainly lives up to its name, and proves that truth is invariably stranger than fiction. MT

NOW ON NETFLIX

Manolo: The Boy who made Shoes for Lizards (2017)

Dir: Michael Roberts | Doc | US | 97′

Manolo Blahnik. The name has become synonymous with luxury and given rise to the catchphrase “getting your Manolos on” to mean enjoying a night – or day – of fanciful pleasure, promising a romantic encounter, or even love. These elaborate “fuck-me” shoes are not for the faint-hearted – or structurally challenged – with invariably vertiginous heels and delicate designs. They are also beyond the reach of ordinary mortals making them even more desirable – the stuff of dreams for the average working girl or boy. In MANOLO: THE BOY WHO MADE SHOES FOR LIZARDS, director Michael Roberts delves into the life of their creator, a Canary Islander described as a “poet in couture” by fashion luminaries Anna Wintour and Isaac Mizrahi who wouldn’t be shod in anything shoddy. Maverick dreamer Manolo still fizzes with enthusiasm for his legendary footwear. Meanwhile, Roberts cobbles together a polished, foot-lose and narrative-free film scoping out the designer’s way of life, ideologies and relationships in a career that has spanned Sixties London, 1980s New York (immortalised in Sex in the City) and contemporary culture, capturing the essence of a dreamer who loves flowers, animals, Nature and freedom (don’t we all?).  So Manolo embodies the poetry in all of us, and has made millions selling us our own dreams. Anyone interested in fashion will enjoy this fluffy, fun and fascinating film. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 29 SEPTEMBER 2017

Pecking Order (2017)

Dir.: Slavko Martinov; Documentary; New Zealand 2017, 88 min.

New Zealand born director/writer Slavko Martinov (Propaganda) has lovingly crafted a portrait of Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club, whose whole existence is under threat just – two years before their 150th anniversary. What starts as a Mockumentary, turns into a very humane observation about ordinary people and their obsession with feathered friends – and themselves. Pecking Order is a little gem: just short enough to keep our attention, making us smile at the serious competitors battling for glory – and ourselves.

It has to be said that the feathered friends in question – mostly chicken – really do live the life of Riley: they have their special diets such as fresh Hazelnuts, before a bath in the kitchen sink, and afterwards they are dolled up with the blow dryer and combs. That is, if they are seen as worthy material for the prizes given out at the National Show. Otherwise, it’s the dinner table or, for the younger ones, the ‘Chicken Heaven’.

The Club’s crisis could not have come at a worse time as the preparations for the National Show, held at Oamaru, should by now be in full swing. But since the veteran Doug Bain has taken up presidency of the club – albeit as a caretaker, – things are not Going according to plan: open rivalry has broken out, one side supporting Doug, the other wanting him to be replaced with Mark Lilley, a much younger man, who is supposed to take the club into the 21st century – with the internet and all that. This amusing narrative ricks over as we enjoy a chaming slice of New Zealand life which still seems stuck in the 1950s.

We also learn to take the ‘bible’ of the club seriously: The New Zealand Poultry Standard, a chuncky tome written by Ian Selby, who tells everyone at the club to study it carefully before going to National Show. One of the competitors is sixteen-year old Sarah Bunton, who admits freely, that she is obsessed with chicken.

Finally, just before the National Show opens, peace is restored. At the event in Oamuru, the final judgement is left to ‘neutral’ judges from Australia, who after long deliberations, give their verdict. One of the runners-up is surprisingly sanguine about the outcome: he has never married, and lives just for his hens and cockerels. “One day, they will find me on the ground between the cages”. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM 29 SEPTEMBER 2017

Gray House (2017) | BFI London Film Festival 2017

Writer/Dir: Austin Lynch | With Denis Lavant, Aurore Clement, Dianna Molzan | US | Doc | 76′

David Lynch’s son Austin follows in his father’s footsteps with this unsettling semi-fictional documentary mood piece that explores disenchantment and day to day survival in various parts of America through the lives of its five blue collar protagonists. Wordless cameos from Denis Lavant and Aurore Clement help add a note of familiarity but it’s never made clear why they feature in  GRAY HOUSE, which Lynch’s is first feature made with the collaboration of cinematographer Matthew Booth.

Suggestion is perhaps a better word that storytelling to describe the way Lynch hints at dissatisfaction through starkly beautifully minimalist landscapes inhabited by his protagonists, it is nevertheless an affecting work but not for the mainstream who may find its style alienating and difficult to engage with. Intriguing yes, but it’s certainly no barrel of laughs: we first meet Lavant peddling his lonely craft in the dimly lit shades of a Texas dawn. He is then pictured stirring a large vat in a monochrome workshop. Next up, we hear the grim testimonials of work to survive oil men in the fracking town of Williston. A women’s prison in Oregon and a rural cabin in Virginia are other settings that receive Lynch’s mournful gaze in describing the working-class malaise of its sorrowful citizens.

Booth’s camera seems to haunt its characters, prowling around and swooping in on them but also offering straightforwardly framed interview sequences Scored by lilting ambient sounds this is a thoughtful and disquieting piece of filmmaking. MT

BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | 4 -15 OCTOBER 2017

 

Canaletto and the Art of Venice (2017)

Dir: David Bickerstaff |  82′ | UK | Documentary

Exhibition on Screen offers us an unparalleled big screen entree into Her Royal Highness The Queen’s collection of paintings by the Venetian 17th Century artist Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), which is spread between the Royal palaces, offering unique insight into treasures captured here by David Bickerstaff’s agile camera in glowing colours and pristine detail.

Canaletto & the Art of Venice also takes us to the heart of Venice to explore the origins of the artist’s work and features behind-the-scenes footage of The Queen’s Gallery exhibition and interviews with curators and art experts. Instead of a simple trawl through Canaletto’s output, the film offers insight into the artist’s central role in 18th century Venetian ‘vedute’ or landscape painting. Art Historian Charles Beddington gives a fascinating lesson in art history – avoiding worthiness with a twist of dead pan humour – and showing Canaletto’s particular penchant for painting dogs, so even the most disinclined viewer gets to understand how this genre developed in the early 18th century. Lucy Whittaker, a senior curator, offers her two-penny worth along with Rosemary Sweet, Curator of Urban History at Leicester University, and Rosie Rozzall, Curator of prints and drawings at the Palace.

We learn that Canaletto (1697-1768) was born into a middle class family in one of the city’s small squares where he grew up sketching the surrounding rooftops. The turning point of his life came when he travelled to Rome with his father, Bernardo Canal, a theatrical designer, and this saw the start of his work as a stage designer. Venetian painters were masters of colour and Canaletto was no different, soon striking out on his own as a view painter. But it was the English travellers, not the Italians, who admired his work and bought it home as a souvenir of the lagoon, a major stop on the Grand Tour.

Canaletto was also skilled in Capriccio painting – a sort of magic realism of the art world – where paintings were embellished with architectural fantasy, placing archaeological ruins and fictional elements into their compositions, from the Rialto Bridge to the Piazza San Marco, and the Palazzo Ducale to the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. His craftsmanship was meticulous and attentive and he often offered character studies focusing on Venice itself, always refusing to repeat himself. When Canaletto went to London between 1748 and 1755, Venice lost its main ‘vedute’ painter.

The Venetian artist’s financial acumen and keen business sense saw rise to a way of making more money from the existing works when, in the 18th Century, print-making came into vogue. Caneletto’s work could be attractively reproduced for those who could not afford his paintings. With his keen financial flair, he set up the Pasquale Press with English businessman Joseph Smith, so his works could be made into prints and delivered to London clients, for additional fees. Smith sold much of his collection to King George III and now Buckingham Palace houses the largest collection of Canaletto’s work, which was far more popular among English patrons that the Italians.

The remarkable group of over 200 paintings, drawings and prints on display offers unique insight into the artistry of Canaletto and his contemporaries, and the city he became a master at capturing. Bickerstaff also offers a sneak view of the interiors of  Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. CANALETTO is well-crafted and watchable for art lovers and travellers alike. MT

 ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 26 SEPTEMBER 2017 | THE EXHIBITION ON SCREEN series now shows in 55 countries worldwide, recently expanding into Columbia, Korea and Lebanon | Main image courtesy of Exhibition on Screen. 

 

Our Last Tango | Un Tango Mas (2017)

Dir.: German Kral; Drama-Documentary with Maria Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes; Argentina/Germany/Italy 2015 |  85′ |

Argentine born writer/director German Kral (Musica Cubana) who studied at the Film School in Munich under Wim Wenders (credited as one of the executive producers), has created a passionate and imaginative portrait of Argentina’s leading Tango dancers, Maria Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes, now both in their 80ies. But Our Last Tango is much more than history: it is gender warfare of the worst kind, with Maria’s and Juan Carlos’ life story easily as dramatic as their dancing career.
Born in the early1930ies, Maria and Juan Carlos came from a modest background, and met as teenagers in one of the Milongas, the dancing halls of Buenos Aires, “where the poor tried to forget their hard lives dancing at the weekend”.

Nieves and Copes devoted their lives to the Tango, but the Golden Age of the dance came to an abrupt end in the 50ies with the advent of rock. But Copes re-wrote the book: his choreography changed the Tango forever: his stage show gave the art not only a new lifespan in Argentina, but the couple introduced it to the world, even the USA, where Tango was as good as unknown. But whilst Maria just lived for Juan, the latter was more interested in her as a dance partner. They married in Las Vegas, but after their return to Argentina, Juan Carlos left her for a world tour. In his absence, Maria found a new partner, but when Copes returned, they lived and danced together again. But Copes became an alcoholic and philanderer. Without telling Maria, he married Myriam, and the couple had two daughters. Maria’s adoration of Copes turned into hatred. The couple went on dancing together, hardly speaking to each other, before Copes decided (under pressure from his wife) to break completely with Maria. She was over 60, when he told her, that their Japan tour would be their last engagement. Today he is dancing with his daughter Johana, who admits, that she was at first just a stand-in for Maria, whilst Nieves, after a long depression, also got her career going again.

Kral has introduced two couples, representing Nieves and Copes as youngsters and middle-aged dancers. They walk through Buenos Aires with her, visiting places of the past and sharing their reflections with Maria, who occupies the lion’s part of the docu-drama, whilst Copes contributes some rather arrogant and barbed comments: when confronted with his life style, which led to the break-up of their relationship, he is proud of himself: I had to do it, because I am a man”.

DoPs Joe Heim and Felix Monti have not only contributed to the magic of the dance scenes, their glorious panorama shots of the nightly Buenos Aires, with Maria wandering around the city, are a celebration of her resurrection. But the main memory of Our Last Tango is the dance itself: passionate and very, very sexy. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 22 SEPTEMBER 2017

In the Name of All Canadians (2017) | Hot Docs 24 – 26 September 2017

One of the documentaries screening in this September’s HOT DOCS WEEKEND is a ‘celebration’ of Canada’s 150th IN THE NAME OF ALL CANADIANS. It comprises six shorts especially commissioned for Hot Docs, North America’s premier documentary festival. Produced by Dan Montgomery (Tower) the project aims to explore and embrace the spirit of Canada’s long history rooted in Colonialism, and its genuine multi-cultural and multi-lingual heritage but, sadly, seems to present a picture of a nation at odds with the ideals and inspirations of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The film opens with L’Inspecteur an enchanting hand drawn animation combined with an eerie score and elderly female talking heads expressing the efforts they had during their school years to preserve their French language and identity in Manitoba, where it had been suspended as a subject by an overzealous Government. French was re-introduced as a language of instruction in the late 1960s, after a ban of nearly fifty years. During this time francophones were able to rely on a network of dedicated people to preserve their language.

Best Memory features various Canadians discuss their personal interpretations of the words ‘Enter’ and ‘Exit’; ‘Anger’ and ‘Revolt’ with some lyrical and unexpected results.

As usual, Muslims feature heavily with a discussion on Canadian women  on wearing the burqa and hijab. Aisha Jamal and Ariel Nasr’s The Long Way Home offers an emotive experience from Montreal citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik, who found himself imprisoned for three years when returning to Sudan for a family visit, evidencing the Harper government harsh refusal to intervene in a tragedy affecting one of their citizen.

Vivian Belik’s Last Resort is a dour but scenic piece examining the indigenous Ktunaxa­ Nation’s attempt to prevent developers trying to build a ski lodge on sacred land.

And last but not least, Karen Chapman’s segment Lessons Injustice takes us through a constant stream of unidentified streets and highways while a Black voice talks of his rights but not his responsibilities in a country that feels hostile and alienating to him and his child. Canada has a wealth of talented filmmakers who each year create outstanding features showcasing the nations’ cultural diversity and richness, but the narrative of  this often maudlin documentary, seems to focus of those who are far from content in this 150 celebration. MT

TICKETS AND FULL PROGRAMME  HOT DOCS WEEKEND | 24 – 26 SEPTEMBER 2017

 

The Graduation | Le Concours (2016)

Dir.: Claire Simon | Documentary | France 2016, 115′

The leading film school in the birthplace of the Seventh Art has always come under immense scrutiny: this has not changed since the prestigious IDHEC (Institute des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques), whose famous students include Alain Resnais, Louis Malle and Theo Angelopoulos, was re-constituted and renamed La Femis (Fondation Européenne Pour les Métiers de l’Image et du Son) around 1987. Today’s younger generation of filmmakers, who finished the four year course in the old Pathé studios in Montmartre are numerous: François Ozon, Claire Denis, Arnaud Desplechin, Céline Sciamma, Sophie Filliers and Rebecca Zlotowski are just a few of the La Femis’ successes.

The institution is unique in the sense that there are no lecturers: all courses are taught by active members of the film industry. And the over-subscribed entrance examinations (500 applicants competed for just six places of the directing classes), which are the subject of this documentary, are also conducted by these same professionals. Director/DoP Claire Simon (Gare du Nord) has taken time off her teaching duties at La Femis, to chronicle the hazardous process. The contest (the English title Graduation is misleading) starts with part one, when the hopeful students from virtually all walks of life, no qualifications are needed; start with a three hour written test. The panel of professionals fight hard, everyone has favourites, and often, the grades for an applicant (1-20) differ enormously, sometimes into double figures. Simon brings a touch of humour to the proceedings, showing two examiners talking about the wishful outcome of the tests which aim to be politically correct: eight women, seven men, one Asian, one black, one from North Africa and two from a modest background should be included in the selection. And they should come from all over France, not just  Paris.

Stage two of the examination process consists of interviews and practical tests. Screen-writing candidates are given one sentence from which they have to develop a narrative. Afterwards they have to ‘defend’ their script in front of a panel of two. Future directors are given a script, a crew and a studio, and have to justify their work to a panel. At last, the lucky survivors are grilled by a ‘jury’ of six, for the final cut. The main issue arising from the selection process is always the same: how do you select talent?. Because opinions differ so much, discussions are often irrational. After the interview of a particular director’s course applicant, some members of the panel – among them the directors Laetitia Masson (A Vendre) and Olivier Du Castel (Theo & Hugo) – criticised the young male candidate for being uncommunicative and “weird”. Others defended him arguing that Dreyer and Cronenberg must have been certainly weird at the age of eighteen. It should be also mentioned that La Femis does not only run courses for the original filmmaking subjects like directing, set design etc,, but also for Continuity, Distribution and Cinema management.

LE CONCOURS is a fascinating portrait of judging the creative process: the arguments may not always be rational, but the result of the selection process justifies the often chaotic and contradictive proceedings. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 SEPTEMBER 2017

My Journey Through French Cinema (2016)

Dir: Bertrand Tavernier | Doc | With Thierry Frémaux | France | 193′

Bertrand Tavernier’s love affair with film started with tragedy: as a child of the Liberation, in Lyon 1944, he was also a war child malnourished despite his middle class background. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and he was sent to convalesce in a St Gervais sanatorium where Sunday was dedicated to film. Thus began a life-long passion for film that permeates every frame of his three hour love letter to French cinema which every cineaste will devour with relish on the big screen, and rush to buy the bluray.

Tavernier, who also narrates in a chatty style, offers his unobtrusive but illuminating insights, adding value to the documentary, and is very much a part of the film history that unfolds, mostly from the 1930s,40s and 50s. Tavernier has made some memorable films and acted in others during his glittering career that began as an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville and an press agent on Jean-Luc Godard; he also got to know many of the legends such as Jean Gabin, Jean Renoir, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Becker and Claude Chabrol, to name but a few. Chocful of anecdotes and observations, this is an ntertaining flip through original footage and archive interviews, enlivened by film clips and posters.

At the same time, Tavernier offers up a critical masterclass in acting and directing as he dissects individual films – and even scenes – giving his two pennyworth on those who he felt deserved better, such as Marcel Carne, of qualifying the technical decisions that Jean Renoir’s made in La Chienne (1931), for example, but also pointing out how Renoir’s charm and desire to be liked could led him to embroider the facts, with the best possible intentions. The only minor criticism is the failure to identify each interviewee, so concentration is vital in order to keep up to speed with Tavernier’s narration.

French historian Thierry Fremaux has contributed by providing ideas for the many clips, so the three hour running time whisks by engagingly. Tavernier also hints at a sequel.  MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2017

 

Motherland or Death (2017) | Open City Documentary Festival 5-10 September

Dir/Writer: Vitaly Manskiy | Doc | Russia | 99′

A fascinating snapshot of modern Cuba Motherland or Death (which, for more than 50 years, has been Cuba’s motto), chronicles the daily misery of the pre-revolution generation who realise they can now hope for better things as the country moves towards a sea change in its existence. Manskiy acts as his own DoP with Leonid Konovalov in this intriguing snapshot of modern, capturing the zeitgeist of a vivacious country, often down on its knees. Manskiy takes a non-judgemental approach, avoiding the usual human rights agenda or sensationalist victim angles that usually dog the country from the outsiders’ point of view. Nonetheless, Havana is captured as a broken-down backwater haunted by stray dogs and empty streets. MT

 

 

Private Cronicles. Monologue (1999) Chastnye kroniki. Monolog

Di: Vitaly Mansky | Music: Aleksey Aygi | Doc | Russia | 86′

This sepia cine-film diary follows Vitaly Mansky through his youth, offering both a biographical and collective memoir of the times. Born in 1963 in Lvov, (Ukraine) to an aristocratic mother and a politically-active intellectual father, he has since directed over thirty films, achieving critical acclaim on the international stage. From early sixties footage of his parent’s ‘rock n roll’ party on the night of his conception to his early twenties, it offers a fascinating insight into life in Soviet Russia: a tightly-controlled environment where family happiness was considered the main attribute to aspire to in a society where marriage was ‘the done thing’ and couples were compensated with gifts from the State to encourage as many births as possible.

Private chronicles empire 1 copy

From early footage of Russian tanks rolling into Prague in 1967, to the 21st anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1970, and the first Soviet astronauts preparing to conquer Space; Mansky’s doc offers comprehensive insight into social and political life during the last knockings of Communism: and the two are inseparable. He describes the Soviet State as “frozen sputum on the upper lip, that cannot be removed without a soldering iron”.

Sport was a way to prove Communist strength over the intellectual rigour of Capitalism. But although times were hard and winters unbearable (fur coats were inherited), Mansky remembers people dancing in the streets on the many Soviet public holidays, and the long hot Summers in his mother’s dacha offered welcome contrast to freezing winters. There is even a macabre early memory of when he queued to buy a coffin on his beloved grandmother’s death. His mother and her (numerous) boyfriends remain the one constant in his early life: sex education, first love, endless partying; an eventful cruise on the Volga and his early experiences with filmmaking also feature heavily, crammed into this compulsive and meaty biopic that requires intensive concentration to assimilate an immersive digest of over 5000 hours of film material and 20,000 stills.Well worth it though! MT

 

 

 

Oblivion Verses | Los Versos del Olvido (2017) | Venice Film Festival 2017

Dir: Alireza Khatami | Doc | Iran | 89′

Alireza Khatami’s intriguingly elusive debut feature draws you into its kafkaesque scenario where poetic realism coalesces with cinema verite elements and docu-drama to tell a tale set in a rural mortuary in the distant aftermath of murderous regimes, although the South American country of its setting isn’t named.

Juan Margallo plays the establishment’s wizened 24-hour caretaker and he seems to know a great deal more about his defunct and unclaimed residents than we initially imagine. He looks on laconically as one man arrives and weeps pitifully over a recent corpse in the morgue’s vast basement. We also meet a gravedigger (Tomas del Estal) and hearse driver (Maunel Moron)  who perform their tasks with quiet resignation when some putative assassins turn up with bodies from a recent debacle in the local town.

The narrative remains evasive in this mood piece, but there is a great deal to admire in DoP Antoine Heberle’s fizzingly vibrant images that capture the daily doings in the morgue and the fascinating characters that inhabit it and flesh out the backstories of their lives and how they met their grim fates. Haunting and arcane, this is a film that seduces you with its macabre charm and leaves you speculating and scheming for hours after the credits have rolled. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | 30 AUGUST – 9 SEPTEMBER 2017

The Lure (2016)

Dir: Tomas Leach | Doc | 77min | US

In 1988 an eccentric millionaire purportedly buried a chest containing gold worth around $3 million somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, tempting a trail of fortune-seekers into the region but also spawning a new genre of guidebooks offering advice on how to embark on a treasure hunt, based on the original written by the man himself, one Forrest Fenn.

Tomas Leach’s rambling documentary sets out to explore the excitement surrounding the hidden bounty and inadvertently gets caught up in the intrigue generated by a man who had always dreamt of discovering treasure, but ironically survived the ‘fatal’ cancer scare that had made him bury the gold in the first place.

This is a documentary that perfectly exemplifies the phrase “thrill of the chase” where the journey is always more exciting than the destination. And predictably, many of those that feature here have come for the satisfaction of solving the puzzle rather than the hope of actually finding the spoils, One man claims he would be happy just to uncover the pot of gold and then rebury it again. Others claim that the hike to the Rockies has given their lives meaning or even helped them overcome trauma and life-changing ailments.

But it’s not all good. The lure of the gold has led to one loss of life, and several hunters have gone missing during their trek which has so far tempted 65,000 to the mountain range. THE LURE brings to mind several other treasure-seeking titles: Thomas Arslan’s drama GOLD (2013) sees a bunch of German  come to no good in the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and KOMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER (2014) throws up surprisingly dark comedy elements associated with a woman’s search for hidden loot.

Fenn meanwhile, having survived cancer is still getting off on the furore surrounding his mountain bounty hunt; teasing prospectors with cryptic answers to their desperate search for clues. Will he ever take the money back into his own possession or is he a closet philanthropist hoping for a worthy recipient of his stash? Despite the saggy narrative structure, THE LURE offers plenty of food for thought and some staggering landscapes courtesy of Leach’s camerawork. You may even decide to have a crack at that pot of gold yourselves. MT

OUT ON RELEASE FROM 8 SEPTEMBER 2017

 

 

The Farthest (2017)

Dir: Emer Reynolds | Doc | US | 121′ | With Nick Sagan, Edward Stone, Lawrence Krauss, John Cassani, Carolyn Porco, Frank Drake.

“We are attempting to survive our time, so we can live into yours” said President Jimmy Carter. With this quote begins Emer Reynolds ‘out of this world’ documentary that explores the endlessly evolving story of the NASA’s pioneering Voyager space mission that catapulted two unmanned spacecraft into the unknown in 1977.

In an opening segment that feels bitty in bombarding us with information about the project, what emerges from the onslaught are three salient facts. First is that the spaceships embarked on their journey during a once in a lifetime beneficial alignment of planet (taking place only every 176 years) after five years’ research. Secondly, that the Sun is the size of a tiny grain of sand placed on a 6ft wide table, that roughly represents the Universe. Finally, it takes decades to get out into the Solar System, and that is where the pair are travelling.

The various astronauts at NASA have loaded the mission vehicles with a ‘message in a bottle’ in the shape of an almost weightless golden photograph record (looking like a old style LP recording) that contains two hours worth of information including music, sounds and images aiming at representing the human race, to be picked by any forces beyond our planet.

This is all explained by a series of talking heads who continue to bamboozle us with chestnuts of information which sound fascinating but collectively really mean little to the uninitiated. We gradually find ourselves tuning out as our brains go into overload with the facts, figures and intermittently buzzing sound effects. Fewer commentators would have been more effective, and also some silence to allow us to step back, admire the images and contemplate the enormity of it all. It’s overwhelming. Much of the film features scientists talking about the process behind selecting the soundtrack for the voyage and pictures for the ‘voyager record’ and there is much discussion about the ideal images to represent us as humans. The naked photos were eventually dropped – are they politically correct in Space too?. The only phrase that really sticks out is “it turned out that Uranus wasn’t particularly photogenic” (hadn’t they heard of anal bleaching?). More significantly, the best statement is Sagan’s graceful one about our planet being a place where axiomatically: “everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives … on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Witticisms aside, THE FARTHEST feels rather alienating in both its form, delivery and subject matter which is a great shame because space travel and exploration are clearly highly relevant to the future of mankind. I realise I should be moved, yet I somehow found the whole thing vaguely underwhelming – interesting but terribly unmoving. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 31 AUGUST 2017

London Symphony (2017)

18582514_10156335747454062_8855051153228850370_nDir: Alex Barrett | Writer: Rahim Moledina | Doc | UK | 72′

LONDON SYMPHONY is a lyrical and poetic monochrome portrait of the capital, unfurling along the lines of Dziga Vertov’s 1929 triumph Man with a Movie Camera that pictured St Petersburg, the film also offers a contemporary twist on the popular 1920s ‘city symphony’ documentary genre or ‘Stummfilm’ that aimed to celebrate and offer insight into everyday urban life such as Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927) whose 90th anniversary the release commemorates.

Divided in four ‘movements’ and set to James McWilliams’ specially composed score, the camera captures the frenetic tempo of a city ‘at work’ in the opening chapter: its train stations, water ways, boats and other transport moods are featured at length offering a rhythmic vigour to the narrative. Playful moments follow showcasing leisure pursuits – monopoly (indoors) and chess (outdoors). The second chapter is the most poetic as the camera ventures into the suburbs, rivers and waterways, where joggers and dogs enjoy the many parks, fields and woods. Pub life and cafe society is interrupted by a look at a busy Foodbank. Part three goes to the heart of spiritual London: synagogues, mosques and temples of all denominations are populated by active worshippers. Culture is expressed in the city’s plethora of museums and galleries, before it returns to work with a glimpse of office life and computer networks. The final chapter deals with transport systems in the metropolis, featuring the many bridges across the Thames. Buses and cyclists hurry homeward, before the rain starts: no London film can be complete without the occasional heavy downpour. London Symphony ends on a light-hearted note with a visit to the theatres and cinemas. Then we say goodnight with the hypnotic crisscrossing of overground tubes through the night.

In his second feature, Alex Barrett and his scripter Rahim Moledina have successfully captured the heart, soul and spirit of a very culturally and ethnically inclusive capital city – with its many seemingly contradictive moods – through the changing tempo that punctuates a vibrant place of work and play. Romance and office life may collide, but there is always room for uniqueness and solitude in a city that still has space for (nearly) everyone. A contemplative documentary about city life with floating, luminous images and a welcome addition to the genre.

LONDON SYMPHONY will be screened with a live orchestra at The Barbican Centre (3rd Sept), the Brutalist Alexandra & Ainsworth Housing Estate. (17th Sept) and the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple (October 28th). The music by James McWilliam – who is now in the process of composing for the forthcoming film Close staring Noomi Rapace – will be performed by the Covent Garden Sinfonia.

LONDON SYMPHONY -tour details and ticket booking links here: London, tour over 30 venues throughout the UK. http://www.londonsymphfilm.com/tour.htm.

 

 

 

 

 

Distant Constellation (2017) ****

Dir: Shevaun Mizrahi | USA/Turk/Ned | Doc | 80′

An Istanbul retirement home is playfully haunted by the rich and colourful memories of its battle-scarred occupants in this impressive and gracefully composed debut from Shevaun Mizrahi.

Outside, high-rise construction takes Turkey into an acquisitive new chapter of its history. But in the faded splendour of their palazzo building, the old guard reminisce with humour, perseverance and poignancy, remembering a time when life was fraught with war and poverty but also held together by a sense of community and the simple pleasures of sex, family, music and the visual arts. Dressed up for another day alone with their memories, the cultured occupants of this care home – who range from late seventies to much older – are left to their own devices, keeping their minds sharp with crosswords in the privacy of their rooms. Others sits together in companionable silence, gazing wistfully into the camera or staring vacantly to the world outside. Mizrahi’s one-to-one encounters are mostly observational and her static camera patiently contemplates each individual without rushing on, even when clearly some are suffering from senility, or even early stage dementia, while others are bent over and crippled by age.

Selma, an Armenian woman in her late nineties. even nods off while chatting (Mizrahi stays off camera, and we don’t hear her voice). She tells how her mill-owning family were chased from their village during the Armenian genocide; the men killed with knives and the animals burnt. “1915 was a terrible time…we were forced to convert to Islam”. Having lost the opportunity to marry, she looked after a Turkish baby for two years, and cried when she left her, never having kids herself. She advises Mizrahi to get married and raise a family when she can but is clearly philosophical about the past: “life has been good to me”.

In another room a soulful photographer attempts to load his camera, repeating over and over again: “I can’t see”. We feel for him, as French music plays softly in the background. Shaved and dressed in a suit and tie, he won’t be going anywhere today but looks forward to his birthday, checking the date on his mobile phone, with a magnifying glass. “in 9 days time, they will bring a cake”.  A photo on the wall shows him proudly posing with his camera, his glossy black hair slicked back, he looks like a 1950s matinée idol .

A couple of old boys chat in a stationary lift – which they can’t operate, or pretend they can’t. One says to the other, a heavy smoker: “I’m sick of your breath, take an eucalyptus sweet, or even two” The lift door eventually opens to let two women in. Another – rather dapper pianist – treats us to a classical flurry on the keyboards before gushing forth with some particularly florid memories with his girlfriend in the back of a car: Sexual desire – and the longing for physical touch doesn’t change with age and he is clearly concerned about his emotional future. Hoping there will another relationship in his life (he’s only 77), he swiftly proposes marriage to Mizrahi: “you’re 29, I don’t expect you to stop going out dancing with your friends”. In return, he offers his generous pension, as a dowry.

As dawn breaks, a woodpecker and some spirited birdsong ushers in another day, as residents wash and dress in hopeful preparation. But the swirling murmuration of the starlings also signals the change of season as another winter approaches, suitably recalling the words of Dylan Thomas: ‘Old age should burn and rave at close of day’. It certainly describes these spirited people, captured so charmingly here by Shevaun Mizrahi. MT

NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS

Dead Nation | Tara Moarta (2017) | Locarno Film Festival 2017

Dir: Radu Jude | Doc | 83′ | Romania

Radu Jude’s astonishing documentary follow-up to Aferim! is a chronicle of Romania’s anti-semitism during the late 1930s-1940s told entirely from the perspective of a Jewish doctor, Emil Dorian.

The Romanian director’s fifth full-length film takes the form of a series of stunning professionally taken monochrome photographs (often fading at the edges), featuring groups of ordinary people from the Southern village of Slobozia affected by the horrific ethnic cleansing that raged during the country’s outbreak of fervent Second World War Nationalism. The photographs picture well-dressed family groups, along with farmers posing with their animals and officials proudly sporting their uniforms.

The grisly episode in history contrasts with the benign, often smiling faces of the characters portrayed, striking a poignant note of complicity with viewers who are well aware of their fate, even before they are. Jude narrates against a soundtrack of patriotic anthems and radio broadcasts from the era charting Octavian Goga’s rise to power in September 1937. At the time we hear that a patient in the local hospital is the only Jew suffering from TB and a petition goes round that he should be thrown out. This is the seed of hate that rapidly grew and flourished throughout the country as Romania steadily falls under the grip of Fascism and a Legionnaire’s regime.

Dr Dorian’s florid account of atrocities that occurred during the genocide flows on while the figures in the pristine photographs keep beaming out, beautifully-dressed and posed, almost in defiance of the horrors awaiting them. King Carol II announces there will be no progrom, “but it would be easier for Jews if they left Romania”. Eventually in 1938 synagogues begin to be burnt down as antisemitism rages across the nation and Jewish people become scapegoats. As the country descends into chaos mass deportations take place and the horrors of genocide gradually become apparent. The only hint at personal suffering comes from Dorian himself as he describes “an endless season whose days are grey, cold and bloodstained.”

This episode in history may be not be common knowledge to many viewers (including me, for that matter) but Jude brings it to our attention in a way that makes us want to discover more, and without beating us over the head with a sensationalist portrait, which could have so easily been the case. The film is striking and poetic, the photographs collated with flair and skill. DEATH NATION is a work of art and a documentary that begs to be seen by all. MT

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2-12 AUGUST 2017 

https://youtu.be/dLTdgbLIyc4

Mrs Fang (2017) | Locarno Film Festival 2017

Dir: Bing Wang | China/Ger/France | Doc | 86′ |

Bing Wang’s low-key portrait of a woman’s final days offers an engaging snapshot of modern rural China. Highlighting our growing concern for issues such as Alzheimer’s and the breakdown of the family unit, this witty and filmic documentary never takes itself too seriously while maintaining the dignity of its central focus.

Mrs Fang (Fang Xiuying) has come home from hospital to die. In the ramshackle riverside farming village of Huzhou, she is now in her late sixties and surrounded by her extended family who gather around her bed. The chatter is irreverent and off-the-cuff – this is just another ritual in their lives together as they share every subtle nuance of her dying days. Daughter and son have given up their jobs to tend to her needs, which appear modest, as she now lies staring vacantly from her bed, a set of prominent yellow teeth bared grotesquely from a hollowed out face. Her son stands in ceremony taking a pulse, and someone says: “he acts like a doctor”. No offence taken, and none intended – this is just an example of the candidness of this community that leavens a film that could otherwise be gruelling. A brief opening scene from the year before has shown Mrs Fang walking peacefully along the river. A year later, the deterioration in her condition is remarkable.

Bing still finds beauty in this seedy backwater. As the men embark on a nocturnal fishing trip, their little boat flashes like an emerald against the cocoa-coloured night sky. The men talk continuously: “It’s a snakehead”, “the battery’s leaking”, “try for a turtle, they’re in the rushes”. Their torch buzzes loudly only drowned out by the endless roar of traffic on the highway. Later they go home, leaving a woman to gut the fish and do the dirty work. Nothing changes, even in China. But the director’s message is loud and clear: How calm, secure and dignified death can be when your family is there to look after you. MT

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2-12 AUGUST 2017

Una Telenovela Errante (2017) Raul Ruiz Retrospective, Viennale 2023

Dir: Raul Ruiz | Drama, Chile

After winning the Golden Leopard for his debut Three Sad Tigers (1968)  A Wandering Soap Opera was – to all intents and purposes – his final film, completed by his partner Valeria Sarmiento, competing at Locarno 2017 but going home empty-handed.

Sarmiento did a great job with The Lines of Wellington, just after Ruiz died, but this is rather an alienating affair, unless you’re familiar with Chilean vintage soap operas, and even then this is an acquired taste, although clearly very popular with those in the know, who clapped for it uproariously during the Locarno Press screening. To be fair to late master, this ‘exotic’ quality of the film is probably intended. Ruiz was trying to make sense of returning to his country years after his ‘exote’ in France. His return to Chile left him bemused and somewhat disorientated, and this feeling come through as he tries to make sense of a country that had seen so many transformations in his absence.

A Wandering Soap Opera (Una telenovela errante) was shot in Ruiz’s native Chile during six days in 1990, but never edited or scored. The 16mm film explores Chile’s comedy backdrop during the Pinochet years (1973-1989) when Ruiz had been exiled to Europe returning after the president had fallen from grace. Nevertheless, some of the humour is arcane, and the rambling style and attempt to recreate the past certainly bears that out.

Taking the form of seven chapters or ‘days’, each relevant to a day of shooting, Telenovela.attempts to show that life in the country resembles one big soap opera. Some of the humour is translatable in expressing the zeitgeist of the era: “If you behave badly in this life, you’ll become a Chilean in the next”. And the first skit is by far the funniest, but rather goes downhill comedy-wise afterwards.

For those expecting something along the lines of Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality will be disappointed although the title does sound like it might be rather fun. This is obviously a film with a strong political undercurrent that also satirises male/female relations naturally erring on the misogynist take you might expect from a South American country of the era, with florid language and melodrama serving the political narrative extremely well. MT

RAUL RUIZ RETROSPECTIVE | VIENNALE 2023

Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun | Locarno Film Festival 2017

Dir: Travis Wilkerson | Doc | US | 89′

Travis Wilkerson investigates his great-grandfather’s killing of a black man back in 1946 and regales us with a haunting pictorial history of Black and White Alabama seething with atmospheric social unrest, and a film with one of the best soundtracks of 2017.

Calling his documentary a “white nightmare” Wilkerson certainly instills plenty of White guilt into this stylishly cinematic detective story whose important social/political theme breathes life into an incident that happened over 70 years ago, and whose implications still hold sway in today’s Trump era. The Southern states of America are still a breading ground for racial hatred and a powder keg of Black versus White conflict.

Narrated by Wilkerson in an often vehement style that sets the tone for this Southern – at times almost Gothic – tale that opens by contrasting his personal family story with that told in To Kill a Mockingbird. Tinted scarlet and orange images and remixed film clips of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch are played as a preface to footage of an angry mob, with the words: “My great-grandfather would’ve been one of the members of that lynch mob,” It emerges that a character called S.E. Branch apparently shot and killed a black man named Bill Spann in a general store in the small town of Dothan, Alabama. Spann was reported to be robbing his shop and although Branch was charged with murder, the inquiry eventually came to nothing.

The murder investigation is somehow less engaging that the political and social story Wilkerson has to tell. We discover that Branch was not only a racist but also a bad husband who abused his wife making her sleep in a small bed next to his larger one and even trying to strangle her one night. But after talking to three sisters, who are his aunts, Wilkerson eventually discovery of Spann’s unmarked grave feels underwhelming in contrast with the more important theme of racial hatred and segregation highlighted in the film. Furthermore, one of Wilkerson’s aunts, who now works as a white supremacist activist, actually contradicts the earlier claim that Branch killed Spann for robbing his shop, claiming Spann had actually threatened a fellow black woman with a knife, and Branch shot then him in her defence. A theory that Wilkerson never seems to contradict.

However, his overlying message – that the world is threatened by White Supremacy and “the White will incinerate the World” – seems wildly overreactive. Obviously Black lives matter but Wilkerson needs gain ome perspective and to travel further afield to discover that in some countries, namely South Africa, Black people legally have the upper hand in a Black Empowerment regime. His final incendiary comment: “You fired the gun!” seems to point the finger at viewers, in a rather menacing finale.

That all said, this is an astonishing documentary enlivened by a stunning soundtrack featuring the music of Phil Ochs and punctuating by Janelle Monae’s percussive protest song “Hell You Talmbout” “Say his name, say his name!,” And despite Wilkerson’s failure to reach a satisfactory conclusion to the story of his forefather,  DO YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN provides a memorable and engrossing watch. MT

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2-12 AUGUST 2017

 

Step (2017)

Dir.: Amanda Lipitz; Documentary; USA 2017, 83 min.

Amanda Lipitz’ feature documentary STEP is proof that finding the right style for your subject matter is the basis of successful filmmaking: fast-moving but with an eye for detail, this is a rollercoaster ride of intensity. It also helps that Lipitz, a native of Baltimore, was a founder member of Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSfYW) whose class of 2009, entering its senior year, is the central focus of the film. Lipitz is not just a well-meaning outsider who presents the material before disappearing, but a fighter for the rights of one of the most disadvantaged minorities in the US: young black women.

STEP combines the two main goals of the first senior class of BLSfYW: to obtain college placements for all women students and to winning the Bowie State step competition. The documentary centres on the three leading girls of the step team, the “Lethal Ladies”, led by Blessin Giraldo. Blessin, hyperactive and a gifted dancer, puts all her frustrations into the dance routines – her home life is anything but ideal. Mother Geneva is suffering from depression and often unable to look after her family. When Blessin’s little brother discovers an empty ‘fridge again after school, his older sister admits she does not want this kind of life for herself. But Geneva, who has not even met one of her daughter’s teachers since 2009, always fails to live up to promises. Blessin is on the verge of dropping out, but principal Chevonne Hall and school counsellor Paul Dufat make sure that the target of 100% college placements for the class is realised. Cori Grainger is a straight A-student, whose mother has recently married an old friend; the merging of the two families brings new problems for Cori; who, in the end, successfully enters the prestigious Hopkins University. Finally there is Taylor Solomon, who has no problem achieving her grades, but is permanently embarrassed by mum Maisha, a correctional officer proud of her job and of telling all the parents about “her mission”. After the death of teenager Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015, which led to riots, Maisha’s profession makes her an outsider.

The dance routines under the watchful eye of coach Gari McIntyre and the appearance in the final of the competition – the “Lethal Ladies” all dressed as Cleopatra’ – dictate the tempo, even though more time is given to fleshing out the students’ background. DoP Casey Regan makes sure that the cinema vérité aesthetics are always adhered to; the music and the dancing reverberate all the time. Warm, funny and sad, the last word should go to Blessin: “We make music with our bodies. That’s some wicked stuff”. Indeed. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 6 AUGUST 2017

A Skin So Soft | Ta peau si Lisse | Locarno Film Festival 2017

Dir: Denis Côté | Doc | Canada | 93′

Montreal is the setting for this persuasive arthouse documentary having us believe that extreme body-building is a living art form to be admired, and revered even. It explores the muscle-flexing, grunt-ridden moments dedicated to the practice of corpulent honing for six masculine machos: a personal trainer, a wrestler and four bodybuilders. They are the gladiators of our contemporary civilisation.

Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté is well known for his rhythmic, eclectic documentaries: the first Carcasses explored a ‘car cemetery’; his meditation on animals Bestiaire followed and Joy of Man’s Desiring examined  the comforting cycle of work routine. Here at Locarno Denis Côté has won awards for his dramas Curling (2010) and All That She Wants (2008). A SKIN SO SOFT is his hopeful for this year’s Golden Leopard and shows his genuine almost respectful fascination for a subject that many could regard with disdain or even abhorrence. The film moves with Jaguar-like stealth over the bulbous bodies almost luxuriating in the rippling muscles and satin-like skin of the men who work tirelessly to service their physiques.

First up is the largest of the bunch of gentle brutes who has not only developed his physique but also grown his facial hair to Samsonesque proportions. The camera caresses its ebony rich lustre moving down slowly over his pumped up body that requires a special diet and strict beauty routine. The next man is younger and less developed but again devotes a quasi religious dedication to his physical development. All give little quarter to improving their conversational skills, a fact that must depress and bore their womenfolk who treat them with patience and tolerance.

These are clearly self-regarding types who take their exercise regimen seriously but there is also strangely something rather vulnerable about the way this long-suffering and stoical attention to their bodies makes them seem less powerful emotionally. If there is an opposite of anthropomorphism, this is it. One trainer has a more humorous take on proceedings, bemoaning the less than perfect symmetry of his body. And there is a wonderful scene where these scantily clad beefed-up bodies romp riotously, desporting themselves ‘en plein air’ across a field of cows. With its Kraftwerk style soundtrack A SKIN SO SOFT is magnificent stuff and another truly unique creation from the maverick Canadian director. MT

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2-12 AUGUST 2017

Williams (2017)

Dir.: Morgan Matthews; Drama/Documentary with Emily Bevan, Jenny Funnel; UK 2017, 109 min.

Morgan Matthews offers up a documentary portrait of Formula One Boss Frank Williams that focuses on his family dynamics – his motor racing takes a (welcome) backseat, giving the film broader appeal. Matthews who also works as co-DoP and executive producer, neatly describes the drama behind the scenes of this dazzling but dangerous sport which has made fortunes for a few despite costing many their lives.

The glamour of the racetrack aside, there is nothing remotely glamorous about the life of Sir Frank Williams (*1942), reduced to paraplegia since his crash in France in 1986. He started his Williams team in the Formula One circus in 1966, but for many years it was the saying went round: “if you want to ruin your career as a driver, join Williams”.

That’s all changed since Patrick Head joined the team as a co-owner in 1977, and led it as Chief Engineer for 27 years to its greatest triumphs, starting with the first Grand Prix win in 1979 at Silverstone. Between 1980 and 1997, seven drivers won the World Championship for Williams, and the team won nine Constructor Championships in the same period. Jackie Stewart and Nigel Mansell, among other drivers, pay tribute to their boss admitting openly to the self-centred, fanatical approach of the company’s founder.

Frank Williams met Virginia ‘Ginny’ Berry first in 1967. It might have been love at first sight, but Virginia’s wedding was already planned, and her family background prohibited a cancellation. Besides, Frank was ‘from the wrong side of the tracks’ – even as a Williams boss in the early decade, he conducted business from a phone box, and didn’t pay his phone bill. Virginia eventually married Frank in 1974 and it was partly with her money, that he built his company, which is now worth over a hundred million.

After his accident in the south of France (Frank, an enthusiastic runner, wanted to catch a plane for a fun run in London the next day), it was Virginia, who stepped in and helped him survive after the doctors in France (and later in London) had given up on him. In 1991 Virginia wrote an autobiography “A Different Kind of Life” with Pamela Cockerill, which has been dramatised with Emily Bevan playing Virginia and Jenny Funnel the interviewing writer.

All this told more or less from the perspective of the couple’s daughter Claire (*1976), who is now the Deputy Team Principal of Williams, having replaced her father on the board of the company as the family’s representative. This has put her oldest brother’s nose out of joint, pottering around in the company’s Heritage Museum, he comments: “Claire wouldn’t know that these rooms exist”. Claire’s view is that he can’t understand that “a girl, and not the oldest son, is in charge”. But progress to get through to her father (“he is only interested in today and tomorrow, never the past”), is limited. She asks him to read her mother’s book, but Frank declines, “I will read it properly before my death”. Claire reads some passages to him, she is crying, but Frank is unmoved, his eyes are cold.

Far from being a hagiography of Frank Williams or the motor sport, Matthew creates a chapter of British gender history: sad and illuminating at the same time. The last word should be with Claire “My mother would have been a great Deputy Team Principal”. There is a photo of Virginia Williams, who died of cancer in 2013, holding up a trophy while standing in for the still-recovering Frank, steering the team to victory. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 4 JULY 2017 NATIONWIDE

A LIfe in Waves (2017)

Dir.: Bradford Thomason, Brett Whitcomb; Documentary with Suzanne Ciani; USA 2017, 74 min.

Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb (County Fair in Texas), share the roles of writer, producer, DoP to create this lively portrait of Suzanne Ciani, pianist, composer and electronic music innovator, who brought us New Age and influenced bands such as Roxy Music.

Encouraged by her mother to play the piano and compose, Suzanne Ciano got an MA in classical music at Wellesley College, Maryland in 1968 and found University of California, Berkeley, quite a culture shock after the sheltered years in the all-women college of Wellesley where “the appearance of a man in college grounds caused a tremor”. Berkeley was one of the main centres of the protest movement, and she was politicised; spurning a marriage proposal from a Harvard law-student when she feel in thrall to synthesiser designer and composer of electronic music, Don Buchal. He would go on to influence her chosen career as an electronic music composer, changing the face of advertising and the sounds we hear today.

For Ciani synthesisers are like living beings, you can manipulate and develop emotions from them allowing the creation of sounds. But at a certain point, she had to choose between the music business (where women were still crassly under-represented) and her life as an artist. “At a certain point I composed music for X-rated films”. A way out of this dilemma was the advertising industry, where she would revolutionise the sound effects for Coca Cola (the sound of drinking the beverage), and most ironical in hindsight – the famous “Bull in the china shop” ad for Merrill Lynch, which ends with the slogan “A brand apart”.

Ciani found she could create sound effects for everything from pinball machines to the ghostly computerised language in a GE dishwasher ad, “where the machine introduces itself like a human”. Ciani wanted “technology to be sensual”. But music was to follow and after record producers rejected her first album Seven Waves (1982) in the USA and Europe, she found success in Japan with her second album The Velocity of Love and New Age was born.

Ciani has by now recorded 21 sole albums, and five more with other artists, among them Roxy Music and Brian Ferry. Having avoided her ‘first love’ the piano, she returned to to it with Neverland (1988). During the 80s she suffered breast cancer, forcing her to take time out and move to a beach house in Bolinas in California, where she even found time for marriage, which lasted from 1994 to 2001. Having composed the music score for The incredible Shrinking Woman and two Mother Theresa documentaries, her versatility seems without borders, Suzanne Ciani is still travelling the country for exhibition concerts, explaining to young fans how it was to work with analogue material – a legend in her own time. AS

Five Indie Summer Sizzlers

SUMMER WITH MONICA | SOMMAREN MED MONICA | Ingmar Bergman (1953)

One of the Swedish legend’s lesser known features was considered scandalous at the time due to its graphic nudity and erotic sensuality. Two working class teenagers indulge in a highly charged sexual relationship as they steal away from the summer torpor of 1950s Stockholm and make love beneath the starry skies of the Dog Days, drifting from island to island on the family boat. But Monica (Harriet Andersson) and Harry (Lars Ekborg) are forced to face the consequences of their reckless naughtiness come Autumn. Classic Bergman and worth a watch on a steamy summer evening – or any time, for that matter.

The Last Day of Summer. 1958. Dir Tadeusz Konwicki. KadrTHE LAST DAY OF SUMMER | OSTATNI DZIEN LATA | Tadeusz Konwicki (1958)

Pharoah director Tadeusz Konwicki’s black and white mood piece is an enigmatic affair that sizzles between a young man (Jan Machulski) and an older woman (Irena Laskowska) on a sugar-sanded, deserted Baltic beach in the aftermath of the War. A metaphor for the uncertainty of a Polish nation driven to its knees after 6 years of hardship, it is considered to be one of the first Polish experimental films, shot on a tiny budget by a crew of five, but none the worse for it. It is also one of Martin Scorsese’s favourite films. MT

images ADRIFT | A DERIVA | Heitor Dhalia  (2009)

Vincent Kassel is the brooding star of this stylish coming-of-ager from Brazilian auteur, Haitor Dhalia. It explores the relationship between a forty-something father struggling to accept his teenage daughter’s burgeoning sexuality while experiencing his own midlife crisis as he drifts into an extra-marital affair, to the disgust and fascination of the sultry siren in the making, played by Laura Neiva now a ‘Chanel’ ambassador and star of Brazilian cult TV series ‘The Party’.

UnknownUNRELATED | Joanna Hogg (2008)

An unhappy woman in a relationship crisis steps into the smug summer set-up of her girlfriend’s Tuscan villa party, in Joanna Hogg’s astonishing feature debut. It’s a social satire that absolutely nails the posh English on holiday in a way that no one has done before, or since – for that matter. In this first of Hogg’s portraits of upper middle-class isolation and inertia (Archipelago and Exhibition were to follow), Kathryn Worth’s Anna is instantly back-footed socially by her contemporaries, and drifts, for want of more exciting company, into a loose but feelgood liaison with one of the teenage boys in the group (Tom Hiddleston in his big screen debut). This causes a testosterone-fuelled dust up with his father George (David Rintoul) and awkwardness all round. The ensuing embarrassing finale is screen dynamite of the best kind and carries one of the most tragic and insightful lines in British film history for its childless female character: “I knew I was fated to spend the rest of my life as an acolyte to other women’s families”. MT

my_summer_of_love_natalie_press_emily_blunt_3MY SUMMER OF LOVE | Pawel Pawlikovski (2004)

Before he made his Oscar-winning IDA (2010), Pawel Pawlikowski was beavering away in the background with worthwhile features that captured the zeitgeist of comtempo English life, such as Twockers (1998) and The Last Resort (2000). During his lengthy career, that started at the BBC, this intriguing Polish filmmaker, armed with English sensibilities and a bone dry sense of humour, has also tucked some amusing documentaries under his sleeve, gently ribbing his subject matter in a way that is only discernable from the outside in. Tripping with Zhironovsky is one such film, a candid, fly-on-the-wall look at the Russian Nationalist Politician of the title. Another is Serbian Epics (1972), set during the Bosnian war, in which he purports to be a specialist in ‘ethnocentricity’ researching the tribal chants of Serbians in the front line of battle, and, as such, gains unprecedented access to the powers that be. MY SUMMER OF LOVE a portrait of female obsession and deception, adapted from the novel by Helen Cross, is a drama so steeped in English summertime, that it almost drips with raspberry juice and elderflower cordial, with a subtle lesbian twist. MT

ALL TITLES AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.CO.COM | BFI.ORG.UK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock (2017)

Dir: Barnaby Clay | Biopic | UK | 93min

Mick Rock is a maverick English photographer best known for his work and close friendships with David Bowie and Lou Reed in the late 1960s and 1970s.

IMG_3819Mr. Rock features very predominantly in Barnaby Clay’s entertaining but rather hagiographic portrait of a larger than life character with a gift for the gab and an eye for capturing what Rock himself describes as “the aura” of those he photographed – who were in Bowie’s own words just ‘ghosts’.

The title of Clay’s biopic plays not only on Rock’s name but also to his classical education and yoga training setting the tone for a stylish and cinematic doc that paints him as the tortured master of his own destiny, but fails to nail the root cause behind this insecurity. Many of those emblematic album covers from the Glam Rock era were created by Rock, whose mother remains a significant figure in his psyche (he mentions her many times, but never talks of his wife), and the impetus behind his place at Cambridge where he read French literature in the early ’70s. Rock peppers his conversation with arcane pronouncements (“the lysergic experience opened up my third eye”) and flippantly quotes from Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Not only does this give him a pretentious air, it also creates an impression of a man desperate to underpin his successful career as a celebrity photographer with proof of his solid intellect.

Rock certainly emerges as a formidable creative force, and one who didn’t want to remain on the sidelines – unlike Elliott Landy or Anton Corbijn (who later turned his skills to directing) – but very much wanted to be, and be seen as a mover and shaker in the inner sanctum of Rock Glam, hanging out and forging close relationships with the likes of Queen, Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry (due to her photogenic appeal he calls her “the Marilyn Monroe of music”). Although clearly Rock was not part of the musical creative process he was very much part of the artistic one with his iconic images, the original photos now languish in storage in his New York home providing a talking point and a rich source of fascination for us viewers.

For all his soul-searching, Rock’s story is the archtypical ‘Rock story”; obsessed with the music scene and the glamour surrounding it, he became addicted to the bright lights and buzz, professing to love cocaine so much that it led to him suffering a near-fatal heart attack at the age of 42, requiring quadruple bypass surgery for which Beatles manager Klein and several others picked up the hefty US medical bills. Clay captures this recurring scene on a soundstage while an actor spins round on a gurney in the operating theatre – it almost feels like Rock’s party piece by the end of the film. Mick Rock is clearly a bit of a primadonna, but a charming, and likeable one at that. The final scenes show him photographing contemporary acts like ‘TV on the Radio’ and ‘Father John Misty’. Clearly he’s found the path to greater personal serenity, and all that it brings. MT

NOW ON RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 21 JULY 2017

Water and Sugar: Carlo Di Palma, the Colours of Life (2016)

Dir.: Fariborz Kamkari; Documentary with Carlo Di Palma, Woody Allen, Vittoria De Sica, Wim Wenders, Ken Loach; Italy 2017, 90 min.

Director of Photography Carlo Di Palma (1925-2004) was one of the most influential DoPs of the second half of the 20th century, and instrumental in the careers of Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen. His story is told in this compelling documentary from Fariborz Kamkari and Adriana Chiesi-Di Palma, who married the photographer in the mid-1980s, and conducts the interviews with Woody Allen and Ken Loach about their time with Carlo, making the tribute feel all the more intimate and personal.

Di Palma spent his early days in Rome where his mother, a flower-seller, popped him on the tram when it rained, and the drivers would give him water and sugar to cheer him up. Opposite his primary school was a film studio where his brother worked as a focus operator and Carlo joined him, as a teenager, working on Visconti’s first feature Ossessione. His job was to get the film stock from an allied soldier – a certain Sven Nykist, and later he joined the crew on Rossellini’s Rome, Open City as the most junior of all the camera assistants”.

Apart from the talking heads: Allen, Loach, Bertolucci et al, WATER AND SUGAR is enriched with excerpts from Di Palma’s many films, starting with De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, where he worked as a camera operator and assistant, until he was finally promoted to DoP in Lauta Mancia in 1957, directed by Fabio de Agostini. His first success was It happened in ’43, a WWII drama, directed by Florestano Vancini. In 1964, he shot the first of three films for Michelangelo Antonioni: Red Desert with Monica Vitti; Blow Up (1966); Identification of a Woman (1982) would follow. The two first two features were very much known for their stunning colour photography. “Black and white is a transformation of reality. But in colour the reality became too realistic, so we, like painters, have to cut the colours, to try and let them not dominate the technique”. But it was for Di Carlo’s personal touch that he was unique and special. Ken Loach tells how Di Palma and his contemporary DoPs all started with monochrome, so using colour was very exciting, “and this excitement could be felt in the images”. When shooting Blow Up in the summer of 1965, the grass turned yellow and had to be repainted green every day. Di Palma remembers:“Everybody in England looked at us as if we were mad”. But for Wim Wenders, Blow Up was a seminal experience: “Blow Up showed me how important colours were, because he showed them in an innovative way. He dealt with the essence of taking a picture”.

Between 1973 and 1976 Carlo Di Palma directed three feature films: one of them, Theresa the Thief, starring Monica Vitti, run into difficulties because Di Palma and Vitti’s relationship was coming to an end. In 1981 Di Palma would photograph Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man for Bernardo Bertolucci. Interviewed about their relationship, Bertolucci amusingly recalls: “Vittorio Storaro is my wife, Carlo Di Palma is my lover. The only time I did not work with Storaro, was when I worked with Di Palma. So this work is like the memory of falling in love”.

When Woody Allen was shooting his first film Take the Money and Run, he had just seen Blow Up and desperately wanted Di Palma to shoot it, but he wasn’t available. Nearly ten years later, in 1986, Allen and Di Palma finally got together in a collaboration marked by its easy friendship and camaraderie – they lived their whole lives together: “We worked and then had lunch; worked more and then had dinner”. Their first film together was Hannah and her Sisters in a collaboration that would last until 1997 (Reconstructing Harry). Allen was exuberant after their cooperation: “Carlo lived up to all our expectations.” Di Palma was also happy in New York: “it is a city where I can live like in Rome. But Los Angeles and New York are totally different. I could never work in Hollywood. You only use a storyboard as a tool there – the only creativity in Hollywood happens on the drawing board”.

Di Palma “loved warm colours, like the paintings in Italy”. He went to the Sistine Chapel as a boy, and later filmed the restoration of the place. But he was foremost a poet who filmed like a painter, yet always subjugating himself to the director and the script, “because some directors shoot their own film, not the one which is scripted. But it will be always the same film, perhaps even extraordinary, but the photography will always be the same”. Nobody could ever say this about Carlo Di Palma’s work: this documentary is a remarkable portrait not only of his monumental output but also his genuine warmness as a human being that made all who worked with him even better. AS

NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 21 JULY 2017

https://vimeo.com/202017377

City of Ghosts (2017)

Dir. Matthew Heineman. Doc | US, 2017 | 90 mins

City Of Ghosts is Raqqa, where a group of citizen journalists risked their lives to report the reality of their home town in thrall to ISIS which had seized power in 2014 during the vacuum left when the people rose up in the Arab Spring, particularly- in this case, against 40 years of control by Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad.

Heinemann’s documentary portrait follows similar lines to his award-winning Cartel Land (2015) which explored the troubled Mexican Border of the US. Meanwhile, back in Syria, these middle-class and well-funded young men: campaigner and self-confessed troublemaker Aziz; Hamoud; Hussam and Mohamed set up RBSS or Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently to report live events going on in a city where official journalists are banned, unlike in Aleppo and Mosul. Sadly, they are all now in exile, if they haven’t already lost their lives.

The film takes us through chronological events with photos, footage and phonecalls to paint a picture of horrific violence, disease – caused by hospital shutdowns and food shortages – and general mayhem as ISIS reduce the quiet and beloved hometown to disaster and poverty.

Heineman reveals the astonishing phenomenon of the ‘Caliphate Cubs’ – kids trained to kill in the name of ISIS – one alarming scene shows a tot ‘cutting the throat’ of a soft toy – and there is also disturbing footage of beheading and crucifixions, and worse still, ‘Hollywood-style’ sensationalised footage recorded by ISIS of slaughter and shootings staged in the city centre nearby desert settings.

Despite its modest running time, it feels churlish to admit that the documentary often drags when following the mens’ undercover activities in ‘safe houses’ in Turkey and Germany, and although their plight is clearly mortifying, there is a tendency to over-egg their emotional reactions behind the scenes. The group finds that the countries of self-imposed exile are not always as sympathetic to their cause as they had hoped, given the associated atrocities caused by ISIS in Germany and France.

Clearly RBSS are a laudable organisation and Aziz makes it clear in the final scene that while ISIS has currently been defeated, the situation is unlikely to change while the fundamentals remain the same, and the power that be fail to recognise that democracy and not despotism is the way forward in the Middle East. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 21 JULY 2017

 

David Lynch The Art Life (2016) Mubi

Dir/Writers: Jon Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Rick Barnes | 90min | Doc

“Sometimes you have to make a big mess to get to where you want to be”

David Lynch tells the strange story of his unorthodox and fascinating life in this intimate documentary. Memories of an idyllic childhood in Montana and Idaho lead to a dark episode in Philadelphia and finally through to the present day where his time is spent painting and enjoying contentment of creative expression- ‘the art life’ – in his studio in the Hollywood hills. It’s an existence that contrasts with the unsettling quality of his films.

It emerges that Lynch drew compulsively as a child, and this film is all about his development as an artist that led to his successful career in filmmaking. Even if you don’t know his films, Lynch is a witty and engaging racconteur, recalling with often minute detail, the feelings and sensations that inform and shape his creative impulses.

Working again with the team behind his 2007 documentary Lynch, which was filmed during the making of Inland Empire, THE ART LIFE offers compelling insight into his past, fleshed out with photographs and personal footage which is cleverly edited by Olivia Neergaard-Holm.

Early life seemed quite ordinary for David, growing up in a sheltered rural bliss of Missoula, Montana and then Boise, Idaho with his ‘perfect’ parents. The eldest of three children, he enjoyed a close friendship with best friend Dickie Smith and his mother encouraged his pencil drawing talents by not providing a colouring book. Unsettling incidents involving Dickie’s father (which he can’t bring himself to recount) and a naked woman wandering around in the street, crying and bleeding from the mouth, were pivotal moments in Lynch’s adolescence which seem to spark a dark introspective quality that later found its way into his films, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. 

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Moves to Spokane, Virginia and DC followed due to his father’s job as a research scientist. He described him as “his own man” who would “always meet him halfway”. But in his late teens David got in with the wrong crowd and fell short of his mother’s expectations. It was as if she had hoped for something special from David that he had not delivered. And from then on she was “disappointed” in him.

David clearly loved his parents but it was his friendship with Toby Keeler that led to his obsession with ‘the art life”. Toby’s father Bushnell was a professional painter and offered to let part of his studio to David for a small fee. From then on, David painted until well into the evening, and fell out with his father who wanted him home by 11pm. But when Keeler Snr telephoned his father to tell him that his son was actually working seriously on his painting, Lynch Snr acquiesced. From then on David’s free spirit soared.

Boston Museum school got the thumbs down because he refused to comply with the restrictive teaching methods there. David craved the freedom to express his creativity often if that meant sitting and listening to his radio until the battery ran flat. The film brings out a solitary stillness to him that indicates a deep inner life, yet he is by no means a loner. His first marriage to fellow art student Peggy Reavey led to Jennifer, the first of his four children. His toddler daughter from his fourth wife joins him in his California studio.

Like many people, David compartmentalised his life to reflect his varying interests and the friends who share these different parts of his existence and are never introduced to each other. But when he got a place at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, his creative talents flourished despite the grimness of the broken down part of Philadelphia that became his home. It was here that he made his first “paintings that moved, with sound”. often featuring Peggy his girlfriend and mother of daughter Jennifer. In 1972 during the making of Eraserhead, David describes receiving a grant to study filmmaking at AFI Conservatory as one of the happiest moments of his life. It gave him creative and financial freedom to explore his craft, and he continues to this day, working intensively at home. Long periods of contemplative silence are punctuated by Philip Nicolai Flindt’s dense percussive sound design and an atmospheric score by Jonatan Bengta. MT

NOW ON MUBI

 

 

Dries (2017)

Dir.: Reiner Holzemer; Documentary with Dries Van Noten; Belgium/Germany 2017, 90 min.

Reiner Holzemer is best known for his work as a cinematographer and here turns his camera on Belgian’s most celebrated fashion designer proving without a doubt, that Dries Van Noten is really a cerebral artist, as attested by fashion icon Iris Apple, one of many insiders who sing his praises.

Holzemer follows the designer for a whole year documenting the precise steps he takes to conceive his collections known for their rich fabrics, embroidery and prints exclusive to his designs. Van Noten (*1958), one of the group called ‘The Antwerp Six’, faced a problem at the outset of his career: “It was strange, that fashion should come from Belgium, the most unfashionable country possible. We wanted to change our names to something more French or Italian”, he remembers, but is glad in hindsight that he stuck with his Belgian identity. His parents both had fashion shops, but Van Noten thought it would be more interesting, to create instead of selling. After over thirty years in the business, entailing four Fashion Shows a year, Van Noten is still the enthusiast. The devil, as always, lies in the detail: “It is difficult to shock. What is important, how you do it.” He believes in neutral garments, so that the women who wear them “can adjust to them”, and was one of the first to use photo images (like Marilyn Monroe) for his creations. But he is also open to influences from Baroque, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in his styling. His colourful and outrageous ‘Bollywood’ collection was a standout success, whilst the rest of his competitors choose modest outfits, with grey and skin colours predominating. Madonna, at the height of her popularity, also endorsed his brand offering world fame.

Patrick Vangheluwe is Dries’ partner in life and business for the last 25 years. We watch them in the huge grounds of their villa outside Antwerp, where they pick flowers to decorate their rooms. Dries is seen re-adjusting the figurines on his desk, showing a certain pedantry. He confesses, that “on holidays, I make a timetable for every event – exact to the minute”. But their collaboration is successful, because “we live intensely, are maniacs for detail; but when we talk about ourselves, everybody tells only half of the story”.

Dries’ career has not always plain-sailing: the 2001 collection was a flop. “The models were not smiling any more. My business partner died, I could have sold. My output was too cold, romance was dead. And the public responded – they told me that they did not want this style – it did not sell”. But he is glad to have succeeded in turning the business around. He praises his co-workers, many of them are “like a family around me at work – I only need to say half a word, and they understand what I mean”. Ending on a high note, a fashion show at the Paris Opera Garnier, Van Noten can look back on 96 fashion shows “full of surprises; but I am a perfectionist, always seeing my mistakes. That makes me not the happiest of persons, but that’s the person I am”.

DRIES is well-structured, Holzemer always playing the role of the fly on the wall, observing, without putting his agenda first. And the filmmaker is lucky to have found a collaborator like Van Noten, who – obsessive about everything – is still open to the weirdest ideas, like copying ’60s San Francisco fashion with psychedelic post-Vietnam hippy outfits. AS

ON DVD and on demand on 17 July 2017 courtesy of Dogwoof.

 

 

The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) | Bluray/DVD release

Dir: Marcel Ophuls | 265min | Doc | French |

The Nazi occupation of France went on for nearly five years and Marcel Ophuls’ seminal documentary brings the era to life in an absorbing and contemplative afternoon’s viewing (265min). Well-paced, lavish and convincing, THE SORROW AND THE PITY is set in Clermont-Ferrand, 20 miles from Vichy, and unfolds through a series of newly-shot interviews, original footage and political propaganda material to provide a historical testament to the suffering of a nation under the Nazi cosh, under the leadership of Marshal Pétain.

Ophuls sets the tone with a note of menace as France falls victim to the German overlords. Maurice Chevalier’s mellow music add a poignancy to the images of Hitler swanning round the streets of a Paris back-footed by the invasion of its enemy and often betrayed by its own bourgeoisie, desperate to save their own skins. Stories of collaboration sit alongside those of un-patriotic cowardliness and cold-blooded deceit that will be justified and dusted under the carpet decades later. Bizarre recollections sit alongside banal ones: an upmarket gentleman recalls the excellent hunting season of 1942, whilst a shopkeeper called Klein took out announcement in the small ads to assert his non-Jewishness.

Originally made for television, the film was banned by the French authorities for obvious reasons that will rapidly become clear: This complex and nuanced tribute rather blows the myth of Vichy’s proud Patriotism out of the water with the middle classes denouncing their working class countryman. The film also showcases the heroes of the Resistance offering vivid snapshots of their personal stories: high-school students who naively and courageously gave their lives and the legendary Maquis represented by stocky French gang leader Gaspar still embittered by his memories of the era. Then there are the ordinary French citizens just making the best of a bad situation in recollections that will remain seared to the collective memory. MT

ON BLURAY AND DVD FROM 26 JUNE COURTESY OF ARROW ACADEMY | ARROWVIDEO@FETCH.FM

It was Fifty Years Ago Today (2017) | Home Ent release

image008Dir: Alan G Parker | Doc | UK | 83min

Alan G Parker (Hello Quo) has included some previously unseen Beatles photos and footage in his biopic that opens with the aftermath of the band’s disastrous 1967 US  tour that inflamed religious Christians in Texas, and culminates with the band’s intoxication with the Maharishi. This biopic follows Ron Howard’s Eight Days a Week (2016) but ironically contains no tunes, a real drawback for a film about a legendary band. That said, fans will lap up the informative talking heads interviews from those personally involved: Ray Connolly; Brian Epstein (footage) and his secretary (live); John Lennon’s sister, Julia Baird; Jenny Boyd (Patti’s sister); Hunter Davies – their biographer; and Tony Bramwell.

The Beatles are a household name and will always provide endless fascination for generations to come. Aside from their music, the band’s honesty and disenguousness comes across in spades as a tribute to an era that was still genuinely free from the trappings of today’s celebrity and show-business nonsense. Parker’s film is very much wallpaper, but worthwhile wallpaper if you’re Beatle mad. Those really keen to get to grips with The inside story would enjoy Sir George Martin’s recollections in his 1994 paperback Summer of Love. MT

GETTY IMAGE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT | DO NOT COPY

It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond is in cinemas 26th May, including special Q&A previews and On Digital 1st June and DVD 5th June.

 

 

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2017)

Dir.: Steve James; Documentary; USA 2016, 88 min.

Steve James’ documentary portrait from the mortgage fraud episode of 2009 is both moving and informative. It follows a Chinese family, who run a community bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank in Manhattan, and whose life is turned upside down after an over-eager District Attorney accuses the founder and his daughters of mortgage fraud.

Thomas Sung was born in Shanghai in 1935 and emigrated to the USA, where he became a lawyer. He had four daughters with his wife Hwei Lin, three are lawyers like their father, another is a doctor. In December 2012, New York District attorney Cyrus Vance swooped on Abacus, accusing them of mortgage fraud on a grand scale. Considering the Abacus Bank was number 2651 in volume in the USA, this is rather surprising, even more so, when you consider that Abacus’ default rate on its mortgages was 0.3%. This was just four years after the banking crisis in the USA had caused losses of around 22$ trillion, after bad mortgages to the tune of five trillion$ had (nearly) caused the collapse of the whole banking system, had the government not bailed out the leading banks.

Until today, Abacus Federal Savings Bank is the only US banking institution to be charged for fraud in connection with Fannie Mae and the associated crisis. Sung had founded Abacus in 1984 as a community bank for the Chinese minority and Vance’s only ‘trump’ was his star witness of the prosecution, Abacus employee Ken Lu, who had been found out by Sung and his daughters of defrauding the company and had been sacked, before Vance had Sung and fifteen employers of the bank handcuffed, and let to the police vehicles in the glare of the TV camera lights. This was a breach of law in itself, since five of the handcuffed had already been released on bail. So began a five-year long ordeal for the Sung family, who were joined in their legal fight by Chanterelle Sung, who had worked before for the DA’s office in New York. The trial began in February 2015 and ended in June. Interviews with some jury members are particularly interesting, since the jury was split at the beginning of the fortnight long deliberations.

James shows the family not only during their discussions involved in their legal defence, but also follows the clan through the Chinese community; taking in some mouth-watering restaurant visits. Thomas Sung, whose favourite film is It’s a Wonderful Life, identifies very much with the James Stewart character. Even after the ordeal, he still believes in the American dream, of which the film is, in equal parts, a verification and repudiation. AS

NOW OUT ON RELEASE

A Good Day to Die: Hoka Hey (2016)

Dir.: Harold Monfils | Doc | with Jason P Howe | New Zealand/Malaysia/ Netherlands/Canada | 87 min.

Harold Monfils’ unflinching portrait of war photographer Jason P Howe is hampered by the near total lack of information about his subject, and the ambiguity surrounding war photography as a profession.

We first meet Howe in Columbia in 2001 where he has a baptism of fire narrowly escaping a bus explosion while covering the conflict between FARC guerrillas and the paramilitary forces. His photos of the dead and dying were his first ‘coup’. Soon afterwards, he fell in love with the guerrilla fighter Marilyn, who turned out to be a paid assassin. Having scruples about continuing the relationship, Howe left. When he returned six month later, Marilyn had been killed for being an informer by the FARC – Howe somehow underplaying the fact that she had asked him earlier to return to help her.

Fellow photographers Hector Emmanuel and Roger Arnold make an astute observation: “Jason was high on romance, sex and adventures.” The two left, leaving Howe behind. In Baghdad we next meet Howe pondering the question of “how many different ways can you photograph the hole Saddam Hussein was hiding in”.

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The 2006 war in Lebanon saw Howe getting angry with the growing number of new age photographers who where, in his opinion “rude and aggressive, producing war porn”. After that, he disappeared into Thailand for years living on sex, drugs and alcohol. The reason he returned to his job in 2011 was due to his brother serving in the British Army in Helmond Province, Afghanistan. During his stay, Howe photographed a soldier losing his legs after a land mine exploded. Howe later shot more photos of the soldier’s rehabilitation in hospital. His efforts were not welcomed by the MOD who tried to suppress the publication of the photo series by the Telegraph “because the MOD does not like to circulate photos about the reality of war, because nobody will want to sign up any more”. The MOD lost the battle, but got its revenge soon later when Howe was refused permission to go back to Afghanistan. Since 2014, Howe has lived in Andalusia with his dogs, trying to get over his PTDS – but still ready to go again “because I like to shake people out of their little bubble”.

The real Jason Howe remains an enigma backstory wise: we only find out he has a brother and was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, which made him “not afraid of death”. But he comes over as a detached individual, walking around on battlegrounds  smiling to himself after the conflict has died down. Renowned Vietnam War photographer Tim Page believes “that Howe found wars exciting”. Howe somehow sees emotions as expendable, admitting to “dealing with emotions again, after I had used alcohol, drugs and sex as crutches, facing my demons”. If there is one flaw in Monfils’ documentary it is his failure to probe the psyche of this very disturbed man. AS

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

Brexitannia (2017) | East End Film Festival 2017

Dir.: Timothy George Kelly; Documentary with Noam Chomsky, Saskia Sassen, Heidi Mirza; UK 2017, 80 min.

It takes a Canadian Timothy George Kelly (A City is An Island) to tackle the emotional division lines of the Brexit decision from June 2016 head-one. Last weeks General Election only reinforced the chasm between the ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’ – and throwing up new electoral alliances hitherto unheard of: The Conservatives losing Canterbury and Kensington to Labour, but gaining Mansfield and County Durham from their opponents. It is, for the first time perhaps, not any more a question of class, but of education. But most of all, Brexitannia shows a nation split right down the middle – and no compromises in sight.

Divided in two parts the so-called traditionalists and the adventurers Brexitannia shows the former in nostalgic black-and-white, interviewed on their home ground: pubs, sports fields and bingo halls, remaining anonymous for reasons of privacy. Immediately emotions take over. “I think Remain voters are cleverer than Leave voters” contrasts with “I voted Brexit, because most Muslims value Death not Life”. Implacable. Illusions regarding past and present run through the Brexit arguments. A middle-aged man, hoping for a quick pay rise argues that “When I go for a job in two years, they will say at the job agency that they can only pay the minimum wage. I say no, and they give the job to a Pole – but hey, there are no Poles here any more. So they pay me what I want”. Another man, sitting with his friend in a pub, sees greatness for his country, because ”we deserve to be that great nation, that’s why we are called Great Britain, because we are that great nation. And we don’t want to give it up too easily”. Contrast this with a young man’s statement “Britain was, through its history, an aggressor”. The general feeling on the Brexit side is ”No empire, no jobs, we are no longer a strong nation”. But even though she supported Brexit, one young woman is to be lauded for openly defending her membership of UkiP: “I don’t believe in the mass media, like the ‘Sun’ any more”. Another woman from Newcastle confronted the friends of her father who complained about immigrants taking their jobs. She asks a candid question: “How many immigrants do you know” –to which the answer was embarrassed silence. But there were more serious experiences, like a home-grown Muslim woman, who was accosted on the streets by strangers the day after the referendum to be told “We have voted ‘out’, and you are still here”. She is saddened and her daughter traumatised, and had nightmares for weeks. Finally there is a resigned man from Northern England, whose comment is perhaps the most quietly devastating: “Brexit doesn’t really matter here, because we’ve got nothing anyway”.

The experts, like Noam Chomsky explain their well known thesis’ about neo-liberalism and corporations, but somehow, even though their comments are well informed, they seem so much less engaging than ordinary citizens – whatever their opinion on Brexit. Just one example by Saskia Sassen is worth mentioning: “Companies, like Nestle and others, who sell bottled water and soft drinks in developed countries all over the world, steal the water from the soils of the under-developed world, were inhabitants grew their fresh vegetables. And more and more have less land to grow their products, so that we can have bottled water. And these citizens, who are expelled from their countries, because they can’t feed themselves any more, come to our shores”.

Brexitannia takes no sides in this very sad document of our once great nation: it is the emotional chasm that is still growing and which leaves very little hope of reconciliation. It is far beyond rational arguments; to paraphrase Fassbinder “Fear is eating the soul”. AS

BREXITANNIA IS SCREENING AT THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL | 23 June RIO CINEMA | EVERY WEEKEND UNTIL JULY

Journey to the South (2017) | Creature of the Estuary | East End Film Festival

Dir: Jill Daniels | Doc | UK | 51min

Documentary award winner Jill Daniel’s poetic and often banal voyage of discovery takes her south to the French Riviera where in Menton and Castellar she discovers the villa used by writer Katherine Mansfield and kicks over the traces of a mysterious unsolved murder.

Very much in tune with Agnes Varda’s Cannes outing Faces, Places (2017), Daniel’s leisurely piece randomly engages with the French inhabitants she meets along the way. The photos and diary recollections of Katherine Mansfield give this piece a rewarding historical context as she alights upon ordinary life in rural France. Journey to the South is an artist’s meditation on life and death, on creativity and carving out a more satisfying future away from the gilded trappings of the past. MT

‘Exploring themes of displacement, migration and change, Creature of the Estuary takes us on an entirely different poetic journey, through the muddy netherworld of the Thames Estuary. This new work by Eelyn Lee evokes a creature made of fragments of memory and fear: a montage, part fantasy, part travelogue and part requiem’.

EAST END FILM FESTIVAL \ 18 JUNE | RICH MIX | WEEKENDS IN JUNE AND JUNE 2017

Destination Unknown (2016)

Dir.: Claire Ferguson; Documentary; UK/Austria/Poland/USA 2016, 78 min.

Between 2003 and 2016, producer Llion Roberts travelled the world to interview survivors of the Shoah. In 2014 he collaborated with director Claire Ferguson (Concert for Bangladesh Revisited) on a collection of interviews for Destination Unknown, a living testimony of twelve survivors – five are no long with us, making this documentary even more salient.

Relying on the testimony of the witnesses alone, and archive films from before and after the war – as well as harrowing newsreels from the liberation of the camps – it becomes clear that the survivors faced their ‘Destination unknown’ twice: when arrested and transported in overcrowded cattle trains, they had no idea where there were heading. And after their liberation from the Camps, fresh anxiety over their future must have overwhelmed them again. It’s impossible to imagine more disparate entities in comparing the archive clips of ghetto life before 1939, with the inhuman conditions of the camps, and the secure middle-class environment in the USA, Canada, Israel or other countries, captured on 8mm films. These women and men have faced different universes in one lifetimes. Clearly, all survivors should have their harrowing life stories told, and while words mean so little from the safety of our own perspective, watching the film help to brings to life their courage and suffering.

Edward Mosberg, born 1926, regularly visits Concentration Camps, together with his wife Cecile, another survivor. Both lived in the Krakow ghetto, after which Cecile was imprisoned in the camps of Plaszow, Auschwitz-Birkenau (surviving two death-marches), Bergen-Belsen, Gelenau and Mauthausen, where she was liberated. Edward Mosberg survived the Plaszow, Mauthausen and Linz camps. In Mauthausen he had to carry heavy stones up stairs, if he’d have stopped or fallen, the Germans would have pushed him to his death over the cliffs, or shot him. He is the sole survivor of a family of 26; his mother was gassed in Auschwitz, his two sisters were shot – together with 7000 young women, their bodies thrown into the Baltic Sea by the Germans a day before Stutthof Concentration Camp was liberated. Edward and Cecile were married in Belgium in 1951 and emigrated to the USA shortly afterwards. They have three daughters.

Marsha Kreuzman was born in Krakow in 1923. In 1940, her family was transported to the Majdanek Camp, her mother was shot and killed. Marsha had promised her to look after her father and brother. After that, the Kreuzmans were moved to the Plaszow camp, and Marsha remembers “that it was the only camp without a crematorium. They had other ways to kill us.” In 1943 Kreuzman’s father was found in a ditch, and she had to watch, as he and other prisoners were lined up and shot. In May 1944, her brother did not pass the ‘selection’ and was sent to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Early in 1945, Marsha Kreuzman and other survivors were marched to Auschwitz, the march took five days and four night under brutal conditions. After Auschwitz, she survived another ‘death march’, this time to the Bergen-Belsen camp. Of the over 5000 inmates, who set out in Auschwitz, only 100 survived – Marsha was one of them. But her ordeal was not over: she was sent to the Camps of Flossenburg and finally Mauthausen, until she was liberated on May 5th 1945 by the US army: near death, she was weighing 34 kg.

Stanley Glogauer, who died in 2013, was taken from the ghetto to Auschwitz and separated from his mother and sisters. Later he learned from an uncle, that they had been murdered. When Stanley’s father broke a leg, he was sent to the infirmary, which was more or less the same as a death sentence. Stanley himself was very fit, and caught the attention of Dr. Josef Mengele. On Mengele’s order, his skull was opened with a chisel, without anaesthetic – to test if such operation were possible on the battlefield. Whilst he was still conscious, they sewed the skull up over the perforated skull and declared “the operation a success”. Asking the orderly, Bruno, to dispose of Stanley’s body, the “man of science and culture left, to listen to Wagner”. Bruno, a Czech, who was probably in the camp for being a homosexual, nursed Stanley back to health and helped to get him job, which made his eventual survival possible. Stanley had to ‘greet’ the newly arrived camp inmates, and take their possessions from them. He also told the mothers, to give their babies to the older women of the camp staff, since they would otherwise be killed immediately. Some mothers held on to their babies and died with them, others, chose a deadly lottery, leaving their children with Stanley and his fellow inmates, giving them a glimmer of hope.

The last word should go to Helena Sternlicht, one of the survivors of the famous Schindler list. “Everybody had a choice. Amon Göth [the commander of the Plaszow Camp, who was executed in 1946] chose to kill, Oskar Schindler chose to save lives”. Sternlicht is one of those survivors who continued to fight to keep the memory of the Shoah victims alive. Others did not want to “burden their families with their sadness, and kept quiet.” But none of them could ever sleep soundly at night and be sure of what would await them on the morrow. AS

ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 15 JUNE 2017

East End Film Festival 2017 |

The 16th EAST END FILM FESTIVAL takes place in London’s East End EVERY WEEKEND in June 2017, and there are 5 epics to look forward to celebrating a different focus and making the most of non-cinema venues premiering an exciting array of bold and challenging feature films and documentaries from new and emerging new talent. Next year the festival plans a move to Spring slot.

HIGHLIGHTS

Tom-of-Finland There will be a chance to see two recent biopics: Benny Boom’s on the multi-talented cult figure Tupac Shakur, ALL EYEZ ON ME and Dome Karukoski’s biodrama on legendary gay icon TOM OF FINLAND. Other documentaries cover topics as contraversial as Brexit BREXITANNIA and America’s Death Penalty THE PENALTY (Dir: Will Francome).

SCREENINGS UNDER THE STARS | WEEKEND ONE

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-BangThe 16th edition of East End Film Festival commences with EAST END OUTDOORS (Fri 2 & Sat 3 June). This weekend of FREE outdoor screenings at Old Spitalfields Market is themed around iconic musicals including a family-friendly matinee of the 1968 British musical classic CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, and an East End screening of WEST SIDE STORY.

COMMUNITY & HERITAGE | WEEKEND TWO

Bred-and-BornReflecting the energy and cultural mix of London’s East End, the second weekend (Thu 8 – Sun 11 June) focuses on films and events with local resonance. The World Premiere of MY NAME IS LENNY (dir: Ron Scalpello, UK) covering the life of the Britain’s famous bare-knuckle fighter Lenny McLean aka ‘the Guv’nor – interesting to compare this with Walter Hill’s Charles Bronson starrer HARD TIMES (1975) – it also has John Hurt in one of his final acting roles. A duet of female films OFTEN DURING THE DAY (directed by Joanna Davis, 16 mins, 1979) is a closely mapped investigation of a kitchen, and women’s relationship to the domestic sphere. And BRED AND BORN (directed by Joanna Davis and Mary Pat Leece, 75 mins, 1983) is an experimental documentary, produced over four years, which interweaves two parallel strands: a women’s discussion group on mother-daughter relationships, and interviews with four generations of women from an East End family. There is also the UK Premiere of A CARIBBEAN DREAM (dir: Shakirah Bourne, UK/Barbados), a Barbados-set re-imagining of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream, starring Susannah Harker as Titania.

THE BEST NEW UNSIGNED FILMS – Looking for Distribution | WEEKEND THREE

GholamThe EAST END DISCOVERY (Thu 15 – Sun 18 June) weekend showcases features and documentaries currently looking for UK distribution: and offers the chance to see quality films looking for general release and the best new and unsigned films from emerging directors. Following his role in Oscar-winning The Salesman, Iranian actor Shahab Hosseini takes the title role in the European Premiere of GHOLAM (dir: Mitra Tabrizian, UK) as a man haunted by his past and depressed by his uncertain future. Canadian director Arran Shearing presents FORGOTTEN MAN, a black and white romantic comedy that follows a young actor with an East End theatre company for the homeless, who falls for a wealthy out-of-towner. S_T_R_A_Y_S-300x300The World Premiere of S|T|R|A|Y|S (dir: Barnaby Miller, UK) is an unflinching depiction of modern London that blurs the lines between real life and animation. Also worth a watch is the debut thriller from Bela Tarr protegee Emma Rozanski’s edgy horror sci-fi thriller PAPAGAJKA- a cautionary tale about strange characters in inner city Sarejevo and PROVENANCE that sees a mysterious stranger threaten the new start in life for a classical musician and his girlfriend when they move to Provence (17 June 18.30)

ProvenanceOscar-nominated filmmaker David France (How To Survive A Plague from EEFF2012) documents a legendary fixture of New York’s gay ghetto in the London Premiere of THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON (dir: David France, USA) – structured as a whodunit, it celebrates Marsha’s lasting political legacy while seeking to solve the mystery of her unexplained death.

The London Premiere of fiction/documentary hybrid DRIB (dir: Kristoffer Borgli, Norway) re-enacts the story of a failed violent marketing campaign for a well-known energy drink. Three Hackney-based filmmakers follow a $10 bill as it criss-crosses the United States in the European Premiere of FOLLOW THE MONEY (dir: John Hardwick, Ben Unwin, Steve Boggan, UK), building a unique and surprising portrait of the American people.

CROSS-ARTS, CULTURE, MUSIC, MAYHEM | WEEKEND FOUR

The EAST END SUBMERGE (Thu 22 – Sun 25 June) weekend includes includes a massive costumed TWIN PEAKS BALL taking over Andaz Liverpool Street Hotel, and a programme of screenings in the hotel’s hidden Masonic Temple including an Alex Cox acid-western double bill of WALKER and STRAIGHT TO HELL

Another highlight of this weekend will be a live performance with Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair of experimental documentary EDITH WALKS, a programme of artists films from Bethnal Green artist collective no.w.here, a live soundtrack from East India Youth, and a female punk night raising funds for a documentary about X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene. On 23 June, the first anniversary of the Brexit vote, EEFF present the London Premiere of BREXITANNIA (dir: Timothy George Kelly, UK/Russia), a funny, sometimes terrifying and non-judgemental look at new populist politics, followed by a panel discussion with opinions from all sides of the debate. At Castle Cinema, Hackney’s new crowdfunded community cinema, is the venue for the World Premiere of MY NAME IS SWAN (dir: Adam Carr, UK), an odyssey of loss in a shifting cityscape with music by Samuel Kilcoyne and Takatsuna Mukai.

PREMIERES OF BIG NEW INDEPENDENT FILMS | WEEKEND FIVE

MenascheThe EEFF culminates with EAST END HEADLINE (Thu 29 June – Sun 2 July) a handpicked selection of titles on their way to Britain’s cinemas. Berlinale Generation Plus winner BUTTERFLY KISSES (dir: Rafael Kapelinski, UK) follows three friends battling with their own demons in a teenage world that revolves around sex and porn. Not to be missed is another standout Berlinale drama performed entirely in Yiddish, the London Premiere of MENASHE (dir: Joshua Z Weinstein, USA) explores the lonely life of a put-upon widower in Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community as he battle for custody of his son. And James Ball, formerly of WikiLeaks and now Buzzfeed, will be joining the festival for a special discussion around the subject of post-truth politics. MT

THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL | JUNE 2017 | VARIOUS EAST END VENUES

 

 

Icarus | Sundance London (2017)

Dir.: Bryan Fogel; Documentary with Gregory Rodchenkov; USA 2017, 120 min.

It started out more like a prank: amateur cyclist and filmmaker Bryan Fogel (Jewtown) wanted to take performance enhancing drugs to get into the top ten of the best amateur cyclists at the Haute Route mountain tour in Switzerland, having finished 14th the year before. When he contacted the Russian Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov (*1958), head of the Russian branch of WADA (World Anti-Doing Agency), to deliver said forbidden drugs, Rodchenkov was only to happy to deliver and monitor Fogel’s performance. Ironically the Fogel actually did worse on the drugs, so the filmmaker had a stunning success on his hands.

At the winter and summer Olympics in Vancouver (2010) and Beijing (2012) Russia fared very badly, and Vladimir Putin ordered “success”, particularly for the Winter Games in Sochi (2014). And results improved magically: whilst the Russian team finished sixth in Vancouver, on home soil Russia won 33 medals, including 13 Gold – coming first in the overall result. As it turned out, Dr. Rodchenkov had a big part to play. After being caught with his sister (also an ex-athlete like himself) dealing drugs in Moscow, he was sent into one of the horrendous “psychiatric” hospitals in 2011. His “redemption” on his release was to help the FSB (formerly KGB) to overcome the controls of the worldwide WADA organisation, in charge of monitoring and controlling the athletes. It helped, that the good doctor would be director of WADA in Sochi. There, he and his team collected and froze urine samples of Russian competitors before they started their steroid regime and human growth hormone injections, which Rodchenkov and his team later substituted for the contaminated samples taken officially by WADA at the time of the competition. They used a crude system of ‘re-distribution’, including the use of backdoors and hidden portals in the walls of the WADA facility.

Rodchenkov claims: “I don’t believe the Olympic Games could be won without any kind of pharmacological support”. And Don Catlin, former director of the UCLA Olympic facility, tested Lance Armstrong 50 (!) times during the latter’s career: his findings were always negative, before Armstrong confessed in 1913. Whilst Vitaly Mutko, who served eight years as Minister for Sport under Putin, was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister, another college of Rodchenkov died of a “sudden heart attack”. Luckily for Dr. Rodchenkov he had fled to the USA, and now lives under cover in the Witness Protection Programme, after The New York Times run his full confession.

ICARUS runs like a thriller: the charming Rodchenkov is first one to help Fogel to cheat, before investigations lead to the death of his friend and college – and threatens his own into the bargain. Fogel follows his every move, putting himself in a dangerous position. Whilst Rodchenkov had to leave his family behind, he at least got away alive. But it should not be forgotten that Russia is staging the Football World Cup next year, and that, after the majority of Russian competitors were banned at the Rio Olympics, these Russian track and field athletes will compete in London in August at the World Championships in front of a paying public. AS

SUNDANCE LONDON 1-4 JUNE 2017

Chasing Coral (2017) | Sundance London 2017

Dir. Jeff Orlowski. US, 2017, 91 minutes

After his resounding success with Chasing Ice (2012) that examines the dwindling state of arctic glaciers, CHASING CORAL is another resonant and vital eco-documentary that tracks the destruction of the ocean’s most vital ecosystem due to the warming effect of climate change.

Coral is a not just underwater flora undulating in beautiful gardens on the ocean bed, it is a complex organism that serves both as a food factory and a habitat for all marine life. Without coral the oceans will die: it is as important as bees and trees on dry land. Building a solid skeleton structure, coral creates its own architectural environment, attracting fish and orgnanisms to live there, much in the same way as our towns provide the infrastructure for human existence. Coral also provides the basis for many life-saving drugs – but all this could come to an end if the sea temperature keeps rising, even by one or two degrees. The ocean needs to maintain a regular temperature or, just like the human body, it will become sick and eventually die.

A team set up by former adman Richard Vevers begins an earnest attempt to chart the ailing coral reefs, eventually hiring professional cinematographers to chart the extent of the problem, monitoring the alarming rate at which the coral is affected by warmer temperatures. Brightly coloured coral reefs turn a ghostly white, known as bleaching, then rapidly decay to a dullish brown mush strewn with algae. So dramatic is this state of affairs that the Great Barrier Reef will be a thing of the past within less than two decades. Occasionally, the coral takes on a fluorescent hue of bright green, purple or blue. This is coral’s attempt to produce its own sunscreen, and signals the desperate last stages before inevitable death and decay.

Despite its tragic message – that coral could be wiped out within 30 years – this is filmic and beautifully made documentary that tracks the disappearance of coral all over the world, thanks to a team of keen volunteers. We also meet Australian biologist and photographer John “Charlie” Veron, who has been filming coral since the 1970s, when it was still flourishing all over the world. In order to save the planet Humans need to stop burning fossil fuels that provide heat that the earth and oceans reabsorb. MT

SUNDANCE LONDON 1-4 JUNE 2017 | TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO HELP VISIT 

 

 

In Spring (1929)

IMG_3785Dir: Mikhail Kaufman | Doc | 54min | Ukraine

Mikhail Kaufman’s 1929 silent documentary IN SPRING  (Ukrainian: Навесні, translit. Navesni, Russian: Весной, translit. Vesnoi) is Soviet Ukraine’s answer to Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera. The two brothers and regular collaborators had fallen out over artistic differences in their approach to filmmaking. Strongly rhythmic and stylishly symmetrical, IN SPRING was made in accordance with the ideas of the avant-garde manifesto Kinoks and was Kaufman’s directorial debut.

Much in the same way as Man With a Movie Camera, the experimental film explores the gradual awakening of a new spring day after the snowy rigours of winter. The film opens in the countryside, as opposed to the urban setting of Man With A Movie Camera, and as ice begins to thaw, illustrated by a humorous image of a snowman’s black eyes streaming down his melting face, people, horses and carts begins to emerge as people preparing for a sunny day as one of the shops lays out the newspaper “Socialist emulation Bulletin” for the year 1929. Agricultural activities give way to the pounding of machines in an industrial landscape. In the city parks and gardens, trees are sprouting leaves and in the branches birds build nests, bees swarm around flowers, buds bloom directly beforre our eyes. People walk freely unencumbered by heavy winter clothing. Soviet sportsmanship features again with a May Day demonstration with flags, competitions, a football match at a packed stadium. Daredevil-bicyclist rides on a street while playing the harmonica; girls are dancing and children excising in regimented rows.

IN SPRING + Q&A with Stanislav Menzelevskyi | 7 June 2017

BERTHA DOCHOUSE W1 | Introduced and followed by a Q&A with Stanislav Menzelevskyi, Head of Research and Programming Department, Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, who was involved in the recent restoration of In Spring, and hosted by Professor Ian Christie. 

This event is made possible in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute in London and the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, Ukraine.

Promised Land (2017) | Cannes Film Festival 2017

Dir.: Eugene Jarecki | Documentary | USA 2017 | 117′

Director/writer Eugene Jarecki (Reagan) has managed to cramp three different films into PROMISED LAND: whilst driving through the southern States of the USA in Elvis’ Rolls Royce Phantom V, retelling the story of the King, numerous singers (among them M. Ward and Emmylou Harris) play music on the backseats of the car, and celebrities like Mike Myers, Alec Baldwin and Ethan Hawke give their opinions. Finally, Jarecki catches the last months of the Democratic Primaries in 2016, culminating in Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 – being described as the death of the American Dream: the promised land is no more.

Or, to be precise, it has never existed: just for a few decades after WWII, preceded by the Great Depression and followed by the slow death of the lower middle classes in the last twenty odd years. Trump voters are not the only ones who are no longer upwardly mobile, and their children are poorer than their parents. Jarecki gives no reasons for the downturn: but the images shot on the road show a country whose infrastructure has been neglected for decades: apart from in the big cities, the last improvements seemed to have happened in the late 6os. Somehow, the lost dream has turned much of the country into a stagnant backwater.

The director is equally critical about Elvis: “He went into the army as James Dean in 1958 and returned as John Wayne two years later”. And there is the not so small matter of his future wife Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he met in Germany when she was just fourteen. And whilst Mohammed Ali (then Cassius Clay) preferred to go to jail, than to fight for his country in the Vietnam War, Elvis met with Richard Nixon in 1970, spurning the possibility of bringing his popularity on the side of the Anti-War and Civil Rights movement.

Somehow, Jarecki keeps everything together and delivers an informative film: a mix of Showbiz and nostalgia. One can’t help liking this documentary which unfurls with ease and panache. MT

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL | 17 -28 MAY 2017

 

West of the Jordan River (2017) | Cannes Film Festival | Directors’ Fortnight 2017

Dir.: Amos Gitai; Documentary; France 2017, 97 min.

It is fair to say that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has influenced the entire career of Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai: in 1973, when studying architecture, he was called up for military service during the Yom Kippur war and joined the helicopter rescue crew. He filmed some of the action with an 8mm camera, and the continuing wars (on different levels) between the two nations have been at the centre of his output, culminating in Rabin, the last Day (2015).

West of the Jordan River is, in spite of its rather poetic title, a very harsh condemnation of hard liners on both sides. More or less bookended by a 1994 interview by Gitai with the incumbent Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin – a year before his assassination by a right-wing Israeli fanatic – the documentary shows that Rabin has never found a political heir, but that the current government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to swamp the West Bank with Jewish settlements, making a two-state solution impossible. But one is still shocked, when Gitai interviews the current Deputy Foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely (*1978), mother of two daughters and an ardent feminist. Far from even trying to show understanding, Hotovely launches into a war-mongering attack: “We are not occupying our own land. This is not a territorial war. This is a religious battle led by Islam, We can’t ignore this basic truth. This land is ours. All of it is ours. We are not apologising for that.” On the status of the Dome of Rock, the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Islamic Museum on the Temple Mount, she is even to the right of Netanyahu: “It is my dream to see the Israeli flag flying on the Temple Mount. I think it’s the centre of Israeli sovereignty. All of Judea and Samaria belong to the Jewish people”.

Gasping after such an affront, Jewish journalist Avi Shavit is well aware where the politics of young hardliners like Hotovely will lead to: “The Israel I love, if it does not make a dramatic U-turn in the next ten years, will vanish. The government is going to have 750 000 settlers on the West Bank in this period. Then you cannot share the country any more. It will be the end of democracy in Israel. Give the Palestinians full citizenship and end the State of Israel in its current borders or revoke the rights of Palestinians and end our democracy. The settlers have enacted the most Anti-Zionist policy, which is completely destroying us. We have to go back to the point, when was Rabin assassinated”.

When Gitai visits the “Parent’s Circle”, a group of Israeli and Muslim mothers who have lost their children in the war, the full cruelty of the armed conflict becomes obvious. A Jewish mother, whose son was killed, had left Iraq in 1942 as a child, states ”Israelis do not understand the Arab mentality. And we Jews always know what is good for others, we can’t let go and let others be different from us”. A right-wing journalist wants to forbid groups like the “Parent’s Circle”: “They join international groups, who want to destroy Israel”. Obviously he also means such groups like in Hebron, where Muslim women are learning to use video cameras to document the atrocities of the Israeli army. The instructor makes it clear that this is not a feature film shoot: “Zoom, but don’t forget your own life”. Another journalist agrees with the director “Netanyahu is not a religious fanatic. He sees the Arabs as a managing problem. He wants to secure the territories, which are important for Israel. But he is foremost an ideologist”. Interviews in Hebron show the total breakdown between the community and the occupiers. The story of the Bedouin School facing demolition is typical of the conflict. The school is ‘illegal’ according to Israeli settlers, “who seem to be above the law”. When Gitai interviews a young Arab boy on his balcony, he asks him about his dream for Hebron. The boy answers spontaneously “To die as a martyr.” Gitai tries in vain to convince him that to live is better, but the boy maintains his position.

The last word of this depressing documentary goes to the director: “Extremists on both side help each other to fight to the death. Nothing is more solid than the coalition between the two sides [Hamas and the Israeli government] who do NOT want peace”. AS

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 17-28 MAY 2017 | DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT 2017

 

Alive in France (2017) | Directors’ Fortnight 2017

Dir: ABEL FERRARA | 2017 || DOCUMENTARY | Cast: Joe Delia, Paul Hipp, Cristina Chiriac

Abel Ferrara headlines a film retrospective and a series of concerts in France dedicated to songs and music from his films. Preparations with his family and friends will form the material of this self portrait, showing another side of the director of legendary films BAD LIEUTENANT, THE KING OF NEW YORK and THE ADDICTION. Ferrara is joined on stage by past collaborators, including composer Joe Delia, actor-singer Paul Hipp and his wife actress Cristina Chiriac for concerts at the Metronum in Toulouse and the Salo Club in Paris in October 2016.

 

Sundance London 1-4 June 2017

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SUNDANCE LONDON kicks off on 1st JUNE for a whole weekend of American independent narrative and documentary films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A this January.

THE BIG SICK Director: Michael Showalter, Screenwriters: Emily V. Gordon, Kumail NanjianiBased on the real-life courtship: Pakistan-born comedian Kumail and grad student Emily fall in love, but they struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail must navigate the crisis with her parents and the emotional tug-of-war between his family and his heart.

Principal cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher International premiere. 

BITCH 

Director/Screenwriter: Marianna Palka– A woman snaps under crushing life pressures and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog. Her philandering, absentee husband is forced to become reacquainted with his four children and sister-in-law as they attempt to keep the family together during this bizarre crisis.

Principal cast: Jason Ritter, Jaime King, Marianna Palka, Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster International premiere

BUSHWICK 

UnknownDirectors: Cary Murnion, Jonathan Millot, Screenwriters: Nick Damici, Graham Reznick – Lucy emerges from a Brooklyn subway to find that her neighborhood is under attack by black-clad military soldiers. An ex-Marine corpsman, Stupe, reluctantly helps her fight for survival through a civil war, as Texas attempts to secede from the United States of America.

Principal cast: Dave Bautista, Brittany Snow, Angelic Zambrana, Jeremie Harris, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Arturo Castro. UK premiere

9438-UN17_CROWNHEIGHTS_still1_KeithStanfield__byBKutchinsCROWN HEIGHTS 

Director/Screenwriter: Matt Ruskin– When Colin Warner is wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend, Carl King, devotes his life to proving Colin’s innocence. Adapted from This American Life, this is the incredible true story of their harrowing quest for justice.

Principal cast: Lakeith Stanfield, Nnamdi Asomugha, Natalie Paul, Bill Camp, Nestor Carbonell, Amari Cheatom

Winner of Audience Award: US Dramatic

dina_still1 copyDINA

Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini – An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story. (Documentary) Special preview screening

Winner of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary

A Ghost StoryA GHOST STORY

 Director/screenwriter: David Lowery– This is the story of a ghost and the house he haunts.

Principal cast: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Will Oldham, Sonia Acevedo, Rob Zabrecky, Liz Franke

The-Incredible-Jessica-JamesTHE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES 

Director/Screenwriter: Jim Strouse

 Jessica James, an aspiring NYC playwright, is struggling to get over a recent breakup. She sees a light at the end of the tunnel when she meets the recently divorced Boone. Together, they discover how to make it through the tough times while realizing they like each other—a lot.

Principal cast: Jessica Williams, Chris O’Dowd, Lakeith Stanfield, Noël Wells

MARJORIE PRIME

Director/Screenwriter: Michael Almereyda

In the near future—a time of artificial intelligence—86-year-old Marjorie has a handsome new companion who looks like her deceased husband and is programmed to feed the story of her life back to her. What would we remember, and what would we forget, if given the chance?

Principal cast:  Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Lois Smith, Tim Robbins UK premiere | Winner of the Alfred P Sloan Feature Film Prize

Walking-OutWALKING OUT 

Directors/Screenwriters: Alex Smith, Adam Smith)

 A teenager journeys to Montana to hunt big game with his estranged father. The two struggle to connect, until a brutal encounter in the heart of the wilderness changes everything.

Principal cast: Matt Bomer, Josh Wiggins, Bill Pullman, Alex Neustaedter, Lily Gladstone

WILSON 

Director: Craig Johnson, Screenwriter: Daniel Clowes

Wilson, a lonely, neurotic, and hilariously honest middle-aged misanthrope, reunites with his estranged wife and gets a shot at happiness when he learns he has a teenage daughter he has never met. In his uniquely outrageous and slightly twisted way, he sets out to connect with her.

Principal cast: Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Judy Greer, Cheryl Hines UK premiere

Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize

D O C U M E N T A R I E S

ICARUS-Sundance-Still copyICARUS 

Director: Bryan Fogel – When Bryan Fogel sets out to uncover the truth about doping in sports, a chance meeting with a Russian scientist transforms his story from a personal experiment into a geopolitical thriller involving dirty urine, unexplained death, and Olympic Gold—exposing the biggest scandal in sports history.

Winner of the US Documentary Special Jury Award

svii_in_coral_triangle_-_photo_by_xl_caitlin_seaview_survey-copyCHASING CORAL 

Director: Jeff Orlowski

Coral reefs around the world are vanishing at an unprecedented rate. A team of divers, photographers, and scientists set out on a thrilling ocean adventure to discover why and to reveal the underwater mystery to the world. This is Orlowski’s follow up to his standout eco-doc CHASING CORAL (2012) (Documentary) Special preview screening

Winner of the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary

SURPRISE FILM! – For the first time this year the Sundance Film Festival: London will feature a surprise film. We can’t say too much, but it was a favourite among audiences in Utah, and with just one screening this will be among the hottest of the hot tickets. The title will be revealed only when the opening credits roll. By our reckoning it will either be I DREAM IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE or JOSHUA.

SUNDANCE LONDON | 1-4 JUNE 2017 | PICTUREHOUSE CENTRAL

 

Machines (2016)

Dir.: Rahul Jain | Documentary | India/Germany/Finland | 75 min.

Originally ‘just’ a midterm project for debuting director/co-editor/co-DoP Rahul Jain at Cal Arts, his ‘student film’ MACHINES found its way into Sundance. Whilst describing the hell of working in a textile plant in Surat, with 4.5 million inhabitants India’s eighth largest city and economical capital of Gujarat, Jain chose to film the hellish environment in an extravagant, visually beautiful style.

Like a flies on the wall, Jain and his crew are invisible: the machines – running for 24 hours – churn out spools of fabric, dyed in sumptuously imaginative patterns, as young children, teenagers and older workers shuffle around their twelve hour shifts, looking like hunted animals in the dark sweltering jungle of this material world. “There are machines and then there are humans that are machines. My main focus was on humans who have ben dehumanised by labour to the point of losing their identities”.

Workers are aware of the trap they find themselves in: “Nobody makes me to work here, I travel 1600 km, 36 hours to get to this place”. Whilst they can stop working at any time, there is no guarantee that they will be re-employed. This is underlined by the sadly astonishing fact that all those interviewed, apart from the managers, had been replaced by the end of the shoot. Only 95% of the state’s workplaces are unionised and more than one labourer states, “When we unite, the leader of the union is usually killed”. Health and security issues are ignored, considering the huge cascades of chemicals and sludge-dumping, one wonders about the long-term health issues of the workforce. At one point, the director is directly questioned about his intentions – and he is compared, not favourably, to politicians who engage with the workers ‘ plight at election times, but disappear quickly after polling day. The textile plant looks like a re-incarnation of a Dickensian nightmare, yet it has been in operation for just twelve years.
still-h_2016Since the 1960, India has undergone a massive, unregulated industrialisation. In the textile industry alone, 45 million workers are employed, just under a third of which are children. Overtime work means a working week of 70 to 80 hours, the weekly wage is between $US 90 and $US150 a month in an industry with a turnover of $US 40 billion.

When asked, why he made such an aesthetically beautiful film of a nightmarish situation, Jain is adamant that “if it weren’t so beautiful, it would be easy to look away. There is something that you cannot ignore about beauty. I wanted the audience to be hypnotised and lulled defencelessly into submission when the images enter their brains”.

Helped by a sound design team led by Susmit ‘Bob’ Nath, MACHINES is a cacophony of noises, where the camera prowls in search of human life, a life with which fades in front of our eyes. The mainstream media is afraid of humans becoming more and more like computers, and Jain pictures an atavistic battle field where workers are left with just one, somehow medieval hope: “My only satisfaction is that everyone dies. Even when the rich go, they leave the world with nothing”. AS

MACHINES IN ON RELEASE FROM 19 MAY 2017 | SUNDANCE WORLD DOC WINNER 2017

Lost in Lebanon (2016)

Dir.: Georgia Scott, Sophia Scott; Documentary; USA(?) 2016, 78 min.

Siblings, directors, producers Georgia (who also edits) and Sophia Scott (DoP) have created a very personal but convincing portrait of Syrian emigrants in Lebanon, very much in line with their debut doc The Shadow of War. Fleeing a country where 400 000 died and 13 million are displaced, the 1.5 million Syrians living in Lebanon face a uncertain future: over 600 000 of them have lost their legal status to remain there.

We meet Sheikh Abdo, a community leader in exile, who has helped the new arrivals to access medicines. This settlement of refugees, now proud owners of self constructed huts, is about five km away from the border to their homeland. They can hear the bombing and shelling, it has become a cure against homesickness – but not an ideal one. Abdo has even provided a school for nearly 70 families. Nemr, a student who left in 2012m helps in the Kindergarten, is clear about his task: “We want to educate scientists, not terrorists”. He is adamant that children should grow up without weapons – but the reality, at least in Syria, makes this wishful thinking. Pictures of his family in Syria still keep him company, but he admits: “I would return home, but I would be a killer or a victim”. Mwafak, in his twenties, an artist who lives in the capital Beirut, gives children lessons in painting; they sing anti-war songs, but want to return to Syria. When he takes the children on a bus, they get suspicious looks: They think we are all ISIS”, says Mwafak. At least, he succeeded in smuggling his 16year old brother into Syria.

Sheikh Abdo’s wife is expecting her second baby, “but the real joy is gone” says the father, who has been arrested several times. The Lebanese authorities are clamping down on Syrian immigrants: Abdo tells us how difficult it is to get official birth certificates for newly born Syrian babies: 70% of them have no birth certificates, which means that they will be classified as Stateless when they grow up. “All of them will know never anything about life in Syria”.  The most harrowing moment is filmed in Shatila, the camp where Palestinians emigrants were slaughtered in 1982 by Lebanese Falange soldiers. Reema, an aid worker, and herself a refuge from Syria, walks along the main street of the camp and a woman accompanying her describes the horror: “the bodies lay on the street, from one end to the other”.

In avoiding any direct political blame, the directors manage to achieve a clarity that is second to none: we simply are confronted with the human plight and suffering. As one survivor says: “We would be willing to drown, just to live as humans”. But the reality is that these Syrians, despite risking their lives to get here, will be soon very unwelcome in Lebanon. AS

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | LONDON W1

Burden (2017)

Dir: Directors: Timothy Marrinan, Richard Dewey | 89min | Biopic Doc | US

Often known as the Evil Knevil of performance art, the charismatic sculptor Chris Burden emerges as the ultimate control freak in this entertaining documentary by co-directers Dewey and Marrinan that will interest art-lovers and cineastes alike. Burden burst on to the art scene in early 1970s California and seemed to derive most of his satisfaction from the dynamic behaviour (and often angst) provoked by his outlandish ‘pieces’ which often involved violence and danger – mostly to himself, although he did once pull a dagger in a TV interview “for the sake of art”.

Rejecting the Evil Knevil tag, claiming he was certainly not a trickster, Burden was interested in creating art that couldn’t be bought or sold thereby gaining control of his own work as a reaction to the inflated art scene of the 1970s. Chris Burden died in 2015 just five days before the opening of his final peaceful  ‘Ode to Santos Dumont’ a motorised illuminated balloon, he is probably best remembered for having a friend graze his arm with a rifle, in the name of art, although when asked about the piece he states “the public still talk about ‘Shoot’. It’s like a very old girlfriend – you remember but you don’t think about  every day”.  ‘Making ‘Shoot’ turned out to be dangerously thrilling but also involved the Police – as a matter of procedure – but this did not put an end to Burden’s daredevil creative antics – for other installations he had himself nailed semi-naked to a Volkswagen and covered by a tarpaulin as he lay on the roadside tarmac by a Saab – again the Police attended the scene.

The youngest of three kids Burden enjoyed a cultured and peripatetic childhood mostly in Europe where his father was a big cheese at MIT; Burden himself later went on to be a professor at UCLA. Thoughtful and quietly spoken, he clearly possessed a rich inner life and was fascinated by the energy generated  around creating a piece, but this energy often caused great pain to himself and those involved and after his first marriage broke down – after an affair confessed publicly during one of his performances pieces –  Burden experienced a phase of down-spiralling depression that caused his work to become even more dangerous and obsessed by guns and firearms. In one piece, Burden was bolted to the floor near two electrically-wired buckets of water; his survival depended on the buckets not being kicked over by visitors.

Burden had his critics: Brian Sewell essentially called his work “rubbish” and Roger Ebert said: “If this is Art, it’s World War II”. But Burden was always quick to point out that he was driven to minimalism in order to expose essential meaning in his art. In his sculpture ‘Urban Light’, which is now the most photographed site in LA alongside the ‘Hollywood’ sign, street lamps have been honed to the highest degree of uniformity (by sandblasting) in order that they are absorbed and dominated by the essential idea of the piece. This is most effective when experienced at night.

His last years were spent seemingly at peace with himself creating immense artworks in his estate in Topanga Canyon, where his carefully curated team transform collected stray objects into works of art and his very satisfying sculpture cum model Metropolis II, an immense microcosm of the city of LA city, complete with toy cars. Burden ended his days a contemplative soul happy in the company of his dogs and his objets in the California countryside. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 5 MAY 2017 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

 

 

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016)

Dir.: Matt Tyrnauer; Documentary; USA 2016, 92 min.

Director/producer Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor) has created the model documentary: his portrait of city planning and environmental activist, author and journalist Janet Jacobs (1917-2006) and her fight against the might of New York City’s political bureaucracy, spearheaded by ‘Planning Czar’ Robert Moses (1888-1981), unfurls like a thriller. It examines the consequences of failed urban planning and how it  impacts on lives all over the World.

Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford led the New Urban Movement in the 1960, pioneering the fight against modern planners and architects, not only in the built environment, but also as a theorist: her ground breaking book, The Death and the Life of Great American Cities (Random House,1961), was a battle cry to repudiate the destruction of urban centres, where under the slogan of “Slum clearance” whole neighbourhoods were destroyed. Jacobs, journalist and researcher, had first hand experience of this fight, before writing her book – which was belittled by the male-dominated architectural world, with critics describing it as “housewife’s remedies”.

In the mid-fifties Robert Moses proposed the demolition of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, to build the Lower Manhattan Express Way (LOMEX). Moses, who at one time held twelve titles simultaneously, among them NYC Parks Commissioner and Chairman of Long Island Park Commission, was never elected but appointed as a result of political patronage, mostly by successive NYC mayors. Jacobs had lived with her family in Greenwich Village and had seen the disastrous results of the super-highways of the Cross Bronx Expressway and Brooklyn Queens Express Way; the former destroyed large parts of ‘Little Italy’. The original ‘battle’ against the building of LOMEX was won in 1958 – due to the support of Eleanor Roosevelt and other politicians and celebrities – but Moses did not give up. During the 1960 he attempted thrice to resurrect his plan. At a public hearing in 1968, when it looked like the State Authorities would give in to the “Master Builder”, Jacobs collected the records of the hearing, which had fallen out of the stenographer’s machine. “No record, no LOMEX “ she exclaimed. Jacobs was arrested by a plain-clothes policeman, and charged with three felonies. She moved to Toronto the same year and continued her planning battles and campaigned until the charges were reduced to misdemeanours.

LOMEX was never built, and Moses’ influence waned, although the automobile was always considered more important than the inhabitants of the city. Public transport was neglected: the huge, costly Express Way schemes were built, but public subway and EL travel was neglected. Moses’ final disgrace was his (abandoned) plan, to demolish a playground in Central Park, to make space for a parking lot for an expensive restaurant.

We witness the demolition of so many high rise blocks in urban centres of the USA in the late 90s, which had become much more un-inhabitable than the ‘slums’ they replaced, we watch the same type of high rise blocks being built in India and China: “Moses on steroids, building the slums of tomorrow today”.
CITIZEN JANE is a near perfect piece of history, the struggle for control over the way we live, and the story of an intelligent and brave woman, who took on the male establishment at time when few dared. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 29 APRIL 2017

The War Show (2016)

Dir.: Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon l Doc l Denmark, Finland, Syria  l 100 min.

Writers/directors Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon have created a very private diary of the Syrian war, which has so far cost 400 000 lives and displacement of 11 million citizens. The emergence of Isis brought the Superpowers into the conflict, but after five years of fighting, no end is in sight.

When the Arab Spring reached Syria, radio DJ Obaidah Zytoon picked up her video camera and started filming what would become one of the bloodiest conflicts of the region. THE WAR SHOW is first and foremost the director’s personal diary, along with her friends: the poet Hisham (who was madly in love with law student Lulu); drummer Rabea Amal, an activist; dental student Argha and Houssain, who studied architecture at the outbreak of the war. Three of them would lose their lives, the rest would end up in European exile.

Told in seven chapters (Revolution, Suppression, Resistance, Siege, Memories, Frontlines and Extremism) and an epilogue, this war diary starts, like any student film, in the Sixties: the participants wanted fun, fewer restrictions and the abolishment of a dictatorship. But the dream of freedom turned very quickly into a horror show, because the Assad regime fought against their own population, using starvation as a weapon.

Zytoon’s group followed the war to her hometown of Zabadani, where the killings multiplied and the viciousness of the conflict increased: the tone of the video changes dramatically, the “playing” at having a revolution had become deadly serious. When the group reaches Homs, the capital of the uprising, Zytoon films wounded and dead children – it all became too much, “it pierced by spirit”. Later in 2012, Rabea was found shot dead in his car, Hisham was kidnapped by the security forces, Argha arrested and Houssain tortured to death in a police station.

In Zabadani, Zytoon’s Syrian odyssey finally comes to an end: confronted by Islam Caliphate forces, the forerunner of Isis, she is forced to flee: the Muslim soldiers refuse to be filmed by a woman, shouting “send us a man if you want pictures”. In the epilogue filmed in Istanbul, Zytoon consoles Lulu, who has found images of the murdered Hisham. Amal survives in Istanbul, and miraculously, Argha reaches the Turkish capital, after being released from prison.

Whilst unstructured and often suffering from the – obvious – production difficulties, THE WAR SHOW is a convincing example of cinema verite, shot directly from the heart. It is the story of a great tragedy, filmed from the perspective of a plucky, but in the end, helpless and defeated young woman, who lost her youth and many of her friends in an unwinnable conflict. AS

NOW ON RELEASE FROM 12 MAY AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | SCREENING DURING IDFA AMSTERDAM 16-27 November 2016 | VENICE DAYS AWARD WINNER 2016

Letters from Baghdad (2016)

Dir.: Sabine Krayenbühl, Zeva Oelbaum | Cast: Eric Lohscheider, Rachael Sterling, Andrew Havill and the voice of Tilda Swinton | USA/UK/France 2016, 95 min.

Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum convey the pioneering spirit of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), an archeologist, spy, political bureaucrat and explorer at a time were women simply did not feature in public life. Featuring Bell’s letters, mainly to her father, complemented by “comments” made by dignitaries like T.E. Lawrence – this structurally uneven documentary feels more authentic than Werner Herzog’s overwrought imagined drama Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman.

Gertrude Bell was bon in 1868 in the stately family home in County Durham. Her father, Sir Hugh Bell, was a wealthy landowner and industrialist and the two formed a close bond after Gertrude’s mother died giving birth to her brother. Even though Sir Hugh later re-married, and Gertrude got on well with Lady Florence Bell, she was closest to her for the rest of her life. At Oxford in 1886 she obtained a first in Modern History; one of the few subjects women were allowed to study. And later travelled to Tehran in Persia where her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, was the British ambassador. In common with many British citizens of her class, she fell in love with the region and soon embarked on countless arduous expeditions around the Middle East. In 1909 she met T.E. Lawrence (Lohscheider) for the first time, their paths would cross again later, after the end of the Great War. Bell was doing “research” for the government, even before the Admiralty officially employed her. But her knowledge of the language and customs of the different tribes would serve them well during and after WWI.

The war itself became a personal tragedy for Bell, because her closest confidant, Major Charles Doughty-Wyllie, a married man, with whom she had an unconsummated affair, was killed at Gallipoli, with Bell hearing about his death in a restaurant in 1915. From now on, she would only live for her work. Vita-Sackville West (Sterling) comments on the lack of private fulfillment in Bell’s life – as far as we know, she only had one passionate love affair with Sir Frank Swattenham, which was short-lived. After the war, Bell was instrumental in drawing up the borders of the new state of Iraq, which would be ruled by Prince Feisul, the latter being very close to Bell. But Gertrude Bell was unhappy with the British Forces’ treatment of the locals: whole villages were punished because taxes had not been paid – even places of worship were destroyed. Bell wrote to her father “We are an immense failure. We wanted to set up a Arab government with British advisers, but we ended up with a British government with Arab advisers”. In another letter in 1921 she states her sorrow of “not having been home for Christmas for the last eight years”. In the same year she met T.E.Lawrence again, when she was working for Sir Perry Cox (Havill) at the Arab Bureau. But when Cox left in 1923, she was pushed aside by the Civil Service. Two years later, she visited her home in England for the last time, her family had fallen on hard times. Back in Baghdad, she helped to set up the Archeological Museum, which was opened a few weeks before her death from an overdose of sleeping pills in July of 1926.

Whilst the rich information about the life of this extraordinary woman is only too welcome – particularly after the superficial Herzog approach – perhaps a radio play would have not been a better way of telling this impressive story. Still, the newsreel clips and photos conjure up certain historical impressions. And it is particularly interesting to discover that Bell was not a friend of Standard Oil and other companies who exploited the region of Mesopotamia, the then British Mandate, where colonial rule would later cause even more havoc – until this very day. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 21 APRIL 2017

Clash | Esthebak (2016)

Dir.: Mohamed Diab; Cast: Nelly Karim, Hany Adel, Mohamed El Sebaey, Ahmed Dash, Mai El Ghaity, Ahmed Abdel Hameed; Egypt/France 2016, 98 min.

CLASH is a visual tour-de-force that occasionally loses the big picture in exploring the aftermath of the Muslim Brotherhood’s surge to power after Mubarek’s reign in Egypt. The action is literally crammed into a police prison van, where supporters of the just deposed president Mohamed Morsi and the Army generals who toppled him, go on fighting their street battles in this confined area, often resembling a crowded boxing ring, with hysteria and chaos the ruling elements.

In 2011 the regime of president Hosni Mubarek was swept aside, and a year later, Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected as his successor. But by 2013, Morsi himself has been overthrown by an Army under the current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. CLASH is set in the immediate aftermath of Morsi’s arrest, when his supporters still had a viable organisation to fight the new regime. Military police is unable to keep law and order, emotions are running high, and the MPs throw everyone suspect into the van, measuring eight square meters. First to go are the AP journalist Adam (Adel) and his photographer Zein (El Sebaey), who protest in vain their right to report and photograph the street fighting. But the mayhem escalates, and the MPs loose their cool, imprisoning right, left and centre, including their own supporters, who are celebrating Morsi’s overthrow. Nurse Nagwa (Karim) is the only one keeping a cool head, even though some men reject her help in the sweltering heat, not wanting to be touched by a woman. Nagwa’s teenage son Fares (Dash) is much more of a rabble-rouser, and joins the fray to the chagrin of his mother. A’isha (El Ghaity), an adolescent girl in a hijab, is very vociferous, but still cares for her elderly father who is suffering extremely from the heat. And there is even a good cop, Awad (Hameed), who tries to get as much water for the prisoners as possible. But it is impossible to cater for around 25 people, when the MPs also have to deal with the rioters outside who often outnumber them. The prison van is trying to get away from the riots, but in vain: soon it is questionable whether it’s safer inside or outside; particularly as laser beams are used by both rioting factions to unsettle the opponents, creating further havoc in the mobile prison.

DoP Ahmend Gabr (Asmaa) really conveys the escalating pandemonium, as fear takes over all sections in the van, and very soon engulfing the MPs too. The cast is equally admirable, the sheer force of their engagement is always visible. What is missing is a clear distinction between the factions: after all, people die, but we never learn the reasons for the overthrow of Morsi, nor do we get any insight in the ambivalent feelings of the demonstrators on both sides for each other: because only two years ago, the majority of them were fighting on the same side to do topple Mubarak. We only get a few dark hints, when Morsi supports talk about discipline in their own ranks, but apart from that, CLASH sometimes degenerates into a battle between two clans of football supporters, with petty and personal issues surging to the fore. But the bedlam we witness is symptomatic of the widespread internecine chaos that runs through Egyptian society – surely we deserve a more detailed explanation of. AS

ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 21 April 2017

 

God Knows Where I Am (2016) Prime Video

Dir.: Jedd Wider, Todd Wider; documentary with voice-over by Lori Singer; USA 2016, 97 min.

The directing debut of producers Jedd and Todd Wider, credited for many Alex Gibney documentaries, is a melancholic and visually stunning portrait of the life and death of Linda Bishop, whose decomposed body was found in an abandoned farmhouse in rural New Hampshire in May 2008.

Linda left two notebooks describing her final few months which are narrated by Lori Singer. Born in 1956, Linda was nature-loving and gentle, a joyful child and teenager – according to home videos. After the birth of her daughter Caitlin in 1985 and a subsequent divorce, Linda’s mental health deteriorated. She told friends she was being hunted down by the Chinese Mafia through her job in a local Chinese restaurant. Her sister Joan, and Caitlin talk at length about Linda inventing a male figure, a ‘knight in shining armour’ “who was going to save her”. This man was Keith, who was actually married and working in the same restaurant as Linda. Her diary states she had high hopes about him in the lonely cold winter in 2007/2008.

Linda had been in and out of residential psychiatric care for over a decade, her diagnosis was Paranoid Schizophrenia: A classification recently removed by the American Psychiatric Association, who eliminated all sub-types of Schizophrenia as a diagnostic tool, because “of their limited diagnostic stability, low reliance and poor validity”. But the failure of Linda’s doctors went much further than a muddled diagnosis: after Joan was named her guardian Linda repeatedly refused to take her medication over long periods of time, the hospital simply let her go. And a court, in a very short session, declared her sane enough to live on her own. Without notifying Joan, Linda was set free: in her notebooks she describes the elation of this freedom, and how she found the farmhouse in 393 Mountain Road.

The winter of 2007/8 was one of the harshest in history. Linda arrived in Autumn and collected apples from a nearby orchard. She lived on these apples and snow water until she died of starvation in January 2008. In her diary, she counts the remaining number of apples meticulously. But in her delirium, she also expects to be alternatively saved by the “Keith” figure, or killed by “domestic violence, because she cannot go to a home for battered women, as the ‘evil’ is everywhere.” In the end she turned to God, whom she asked to save her “I am trying, but I don’t know what to do”. And “It is so sad, that I am dying, when I have so much to look forward to”. Finally, she asks to be buried in the nearby cemetery, “where I have friends”.

DoP Gerardo Puglia shoots mainly on 35mm, and the depth of the film is apparent in these images: nature is shown as a refuge for Linda. The farmhouse where she took refuge was not a place of horror, but a sanctuary where she found a certain peace, particularly in the attic. Another sad story of how her family failed to be there for her, and a system that let her down. It did not help her to connect the two different parts of herself, as best described by her daughter Caitlin: “There was my mother, and there was Linda Bishop”. An elegiac swansong for a lost soul. AS

NOW ON Prime Video

 

All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I. F. Stone (2016)

Dir: Fred Peabody | 91min | Documentary | Canada

It behoves a Canadian documentarian to make ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE a film that raises the timely issue of mass media control by large corporations who are in turn influencing the election process and making a mockery of democracy. Peabody’s scattergun approach makes some salient points – over and over again – but brings little new to the table, it just seems more pertinent in the light of the recent US elections.

Fake news is not a recent phenomenon: indeed Fred Peabody argues that powerful organisations have been spinning narratives to further their own interests since the 1960s and the central news organs have been playing along with their stories and benefitting in the shape of large advertising revenues, in a hand in glove, ‘you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours’ style operation. Corruption of this sort has been the subject of films such as All the Presidents Men, Bowling for Columbine and Citizenfour. But doesn’t just happen in political news; it goes on across the board and filters down into lighter news about culture, travel, the Arts and even cinema (give us some positive spin on our restaurant, film or resort and we’ll reward you with a fat advertising cheque for your trouble).

It was an independent, investigative journalist – ‘the first blogger’ – called I F (Izzy) Stone – later known as ‘the first blogger’ who actually coined the phrase: ‘All Governments Lie’ during the 1960s. Stone was the only real voice to question the US Government’s policy during Vietnam that lead to great military involvement in the region.   and the film uses his precedent and singular crusade against government deception as the thrust of its narrative. Peabody also introduces us to indie journos Glenn Greenwald, who helped bring Edward Snowden’s story into the public domain and Amy Goodman whose Democracy Now! channel uses respected, indie journalists to cut through the worldwide news agenda with the sword of truth; other talking heads are luminaries Carl Bernstein and Noam Chomsky; Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks; Jeremy Scahill (Greenwald’s partner at The Intercept); John Carlos Frey (independently financed), filmmaker and activist Michael Moore and Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi. These all show how journalism can be a great force for truth and peace, rather than a conveyor belt for lies.

Combining striking news footage of Obama, Trump and fascinating insight from the talking heads – in particular Stone’s son Jeremy, this is a worthwhile watch that shows how ‘sometimes the truth is just true’. Perhaps we need to ‘stop catching up with the Kardashians and go back to I.F. Stone’. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 24 MARCH 2017 AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE

 

Death by a Thousand Cuts (2016)

Dir.: Juan Mejia Botero, Jake Kheel; Documentary; USA/Dominican Republic 2016, 75 min.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic (DR) share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola: they also share a long colonial past and brutal dictatorships during the 50s and 60s, when “Papa Doc” Duvalier in Haiti and Rafael Trujillo in the DR reigned supreme. But here all similarities end: whilst Haiti is one of the poorest nations on this planet, the DR on the other hand is one of richest countries in Central America.

Juan Mejia Botero’s ravishing documentary examines the main reason for the divergence: the near total deforestation in Haiti, where just 2% of the rain forest remains, whilst the DR thrives economically thanks to their preservation of its woods. Haiti’s population in the border region has taken to transgress into the forests of their neighbours, to cut trees down and produce charcoal, which they transport back into Haiti. The DR employs rangers who try and catch the Haitians, often beating them up and destroying the charcoal produced. In 2012, one of these rangers, Elisio Eloy Vargas, also known as Melaneo, was killed by the Haitian intruder Pablo Tipal. Vargas’ widow Calina suffers most from his death: she is from Haiti, and does not have the citizenship of the DR. Melaneo’s family, his mother and brother Chichi ostracise her, and the six children, three of whom had been fathered by Melaneo.

As the environmentalist Dr. Yolanda Leon drives through the boarder section, she discovers an increasingly presence of DR citizens breaking the law by cutting down trees and producing charcoal to transport via HGVs into Haiti. Big profits (dwarfing the amount of the illegal Haitians charcoal producers), are made by the HGV owners and bribes are made to the upper echelon of the DR administration. At the same time, there is a growing anti-Haitian feeling in the DR. Haitians are called ‘lazy’, and many are expelled. Even Calina is lucky to gain at least a provisional residence permit. Two years after the Melaneo murder, the son and cousin of Pablo Tipal are found dead: their throats are cut in the same way as Melaneo’s. As one citizen of the DR remarks: “To live at the boarder, you have to have a hard heart”.

Sumptuously photographed by DoP Juan Carlos Castaneda, this documentary illuminates many problems faced all over the world: the inequality of bordering countries, class diversions, corruption, legal and illegal emigration, ecological catastrophes and a growing hatred of all foreigners. This micro cosmos is superbly analysed by the directors – the personal and the political are always intertwined. An impressively, but sad study of human nature. AS

ON RELEASE AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 14 APRIL 2017

I am Not Your Negro (2016)

James BaldwinDirector: Raoul Peck | Writers: Raoul Peck, James Baldwin | With Samuel L Jackson | 93min | US | Doc

Black activist and writer James Baldwin once said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”: Writer and socal critic Baldwin was an highly intellectual thinker who explored the unspoken intricacies of racial tension, and here illuminates the lives of three American civil rights campaigners in Raoul Peck’s immersive and meaty biopic, narrated by by Samuel L. Jackson.

Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are the focus of I Am Not Your Negro (also the title of , an unflinching study of flagrant prejudice in 1960s America. It sometimes feels pretty close to the bone in its stark exposé of white supremacy and the apathy of ignorance.

When invited by literary agent Jay Acton to pen a book on the three, Baldwin’s turned him in the form of a slim yet pithy manuscript entitled Remember This House. And this became the basis for Raoul Peck’s film. Baldwin comes across as a calm and appealingly reflective man in television interviews and chat programmes. The film is fleshed with excerpts from classics such as In the Heat of the Night; Stagecoach; Dance, Fools, Dance and Elephant that feature Black actors portraying America’s cultural background in controversial settings or positions of inferiority.

Saliently shot in black and white and cleverly edited by Alexandra Strauss, the doc also includes topical posters. The occasional inter-titles, flagging up various ideas and headings, feel superfluous in a film that tells its own story evocatively and engagingly without a need for introduction.

Honourable and important in its subject matter, the only criticism of I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is its lack of a cohesive narrative. Freewheeling between themes and ideas, the underlying thrust is one of social unease and violence, wherein the White man exploits the Black man feeling threatened by him, for reasons that never become entirely justifiable to modern audiences. Such is the nature of prejudice.

Baldwin, who was born in the Bronx and eventually died in Saint-Paul de Vence in 1987, commented that the history of America was a Black one, but he never comes across as vehemently racist or angry despite his background of poverty and deprivation, always peddling a reasonable and contemplative agenda that nevertheless maintained that racism was the source of America’s social divide. This is an enjoyable and edifying experience. MT

NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS APRIL 2017

https://youtu.be/ORpBbu04iEE

Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? (2016)

Director: Tomer & Barak Heyman; Documentary; Israel/UK/Germany 2016, 84 min.

Tomer and Barak Heyman (Bridge over the Wadi) have always combined the personal and socio-political in their longterm documentaries shot mainly in Israel where Barak produced the award winning Lady Kul el Arab by the Palestinian filmmaker Ibtisam Mara’ana. This was a manifestation of her brother’s political statement showing a divided Israel, trying in vain to come to terms with a permanent war against Palestine.

Saar Maoz, the central figure of WHO’S GONNA LOVE ME NOW? is forty and lives in London. For the past eleven years he has been HIV Positive. An ordinary gay man, he sings in the London Gay Men’s Chorus but his life is ruled by the medication he takes which often has side effects ranging from nausea and muscle cramps to very disturbed sleep patterns. What makes Saar’s life even more difficult is his relationship with the family in Israel, where he grew up on a Kibbutz with six siblings. His father is a paratrooper who tells everybody with pride that all his children served in the same military branch like him, and he parachuted “with all of them, even the girls”.

During one of Saar’s visits; his father, in uniform, shows guests around the military monument “Ammunition Hill”, proclaiming a rather belligerent, un-reflective ideology of Israel’s right to annex Palestinian territories. Prior to this we had witnessed Saar reading a letter from his father, which is insulting on a personal level as his political ravings in Israel. But Saar still craves the love of his family and  blames them for his being thrown out of the Kibbutz, when his homosexuality became apparent: “They should have said, we are all going to leave the Kibbutz, if you exclude our son”. Obviously, this was far from realistic.

The only person who loves Saar unconditionally is his grandfather, who is old and frail, and will die during the filming. When Saar’s mother comes to London later she is helpless and has obviously not come to terms with her son’s homosexuality: “You are like a branch without continuity”. Whilst she loves Saar, she still hopes he will give up s his sexual orientation. During the film, Saar becomes a little more realistic: when walking with a friend round Brompton Cemetery, he remarks sarcastically that the Kibbutz will bury him, but “hey we’ll put that Queer only in the far away corner”.

When his father visits Saar in London he also displays a huge degree of insensitivity: sitting in an outdoor café, he remarks loudly to his son “are these also gay?’ when two young women walk by. Later he asks Saar “who is gay here?” as if the promenading people were so easily classified. But Saar’s parents are not the worst – by far. When Saar finally decides to go back to Israel, working for The ‘Israel Aids Task Force’, his younger brother is openly hostile: he is afraid his small children may get infected “when you move here, the risks are so much greater”.

The great strength of the film is the long-term observation, making the awareness (or lack of it) of the Maoz family much more apparent. Filming in London and Israel, the scale of the different environments is huge: the man employing Saar at the Aids Task Force points this out to him. But Saar is set for a reunion with his family in a country which will not welcome him with open arms: he will be a stranger both at home and in a society geared to male values, needed Israel is a militaristic society. The images are clear and well-0bserved, there is humour here but also overriding sadness for Saar, who wants more than anything to come home, without being really wanted by those he loves and values. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 6 April  2017

 

 

O J: Made in America (2017) | BLURAY release

Dir.: Ezra Edelman | Documentary with O.J. Simpson | USA 2016 |  448 min.

OJ Simpson is not the only one on trial in Ezra Edelman’s documentary. This meticulous analysis of the circumstances of this American tragedy is worthy of a Dreiser novel, and critiques a society as a whole and its main driving forces: entertainment and violence. Few embody these two pillars of the US society as much as Simpson – after all, in a country where sport is just one form of entertainment, OJ represents both, since success in American football relies on disabling the opponent, often causing permanent injury.

Told in five chapters, we meet 20 year old OJ in 1967 at USC where he is a promising running back for the Football team. He would soon win the Heisman trophy as the best collegiate player and, even more importantly, where he carefully distanced himself from other Afro-American athletes, like Mohamed Ali, who was jailed for refusing to go to Vietnam; and Tommy Smith, protesting for Black Power at the 1968 Olympics. Simpson’s standard answer was “I m not black. I am OJ”. We see an obnoxious Bob Hope at the USC auditorium, praising the students for “ having no riot, no demos, not even a sit-in”. Simpson’s natural charm made it possible for him to overcome the racial barrier: after being drafted No. One by the Buffalo Bills, and gaining a lucrative professional contract, also becoming the first black standard bearer for a major company: Hertz, the leading Car Rental company. Simpson also began his movie career, whilst still playing his sport, he would appear among others in ‘Cassandra Crossing’ and ‘Capricorn One’, whose director Peter Hymes became a close friend of OJ and features extensively in this documentary. In 1977, Simpson, who had married in 1966 and had three children, met eighteen year old Nicole Brown, and told a friend on the spot: “I am going to marry her.” Whilst this took another seven years, Simpson got divorced from his first wife in 1979.

IMG_3525Chapter two is devoted to the violent racial history of LAPD under his chief William H. Parker in the 1950s and 1960s, then under his successors, culminating in the Rodney King beating in 1991 and the successive LA riots which saw four police officers acquitted. This unprecedented level of street violence passed OJ Simpson by. He had made the acquaintance of businessmen and members of the glamour set like the lawyer Robert Kardashian, who was later on his defence team and kept believing in OJ’s innocence, until his death. But on the home front everything was falling apart: Nicole gave birth to two children but called the police on eight occasions after being attacked by her husband. The couple split up, reconciled, before the final parting in 1994. On 13th June 1994 the bodies of Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were found on the property of her Brentwood condominium in LA. OJ had left late the night before for Chicago, but pleaded innocent of the gruesome stabbings. Nevertheless his DNA was found at the scene; together with his bloody shoe prints. The police also found his glove, which would late become very important during the trial. On June 17th, Simpson promised to give himself up to the police. But he drove in a Ford Bronco (where the police had also found blood samples of him and Nicole) on the freeway in LA, holding a gun to his head, soon followed by up to twenty police cars. The ”pursuit” lasted for hours, before Simpson drove to his villa in Brentwood. Passers-by joined in the commotion, shouting “Run, OJ, run”. The whole episode was filmed from a helicopter, and watched nationwide. He gave himself up later to the police, after being allowed to talk to his mother.

The trial went on from 9.11.94 to 3.10.95, watched by up to 95 million on TV. Simpson pleaded not guilty. The prosecution team was led by DA Marcia Clark, the defence by Robert Shapiro, the latter claimed, never to have lost a case. The forensic evidence showed clearly that OJ Simpson was guilty; for example, after the murder he came up with three different stories how he cut his thumb, which bled all over the victim and the surrounding area. The glove signified the turning point during the trial. It is rumoured that Shapiro told OJ not to take his anti-rheumatic medication, so his hand would swell, and not fit into the glove. For whatever reason, the glove did not fit properly on the witness stand. Furthermore, police office Mark Fuhrman, who had collected evidence in the Simpson case, was a known racist, who had used the word “nigger” on more than one occasion. Whilst his testimony was not challenged by the defence, his history did help OJ Simpson. On 3rd October 1995 OJ Simpson was found “not guilty’ by the jury. Many commentators believed, that the black members of the jury saw the Simpson case as a “payback” for the Rodney King verdict. A poll after the trial showed, that 77% of the black population thought that OJ was innocent, whilst 72%f whites thought him guilty.

Whilst the criminal trial of Simpson was held in downtown LA, the private suit by the Goldman and Brown families was heard in Santa Monica, a much more affluent part of the city. All in all both families claimed 43 million in compensation, after Simpson was found guilty of causing the death of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ron Goldman. The parents of Goldman, very much aware of the fact, that OJ was hiding money in fronted companies, started to follow him around the country “we will never make him forget, that we re there. After having given up the guardianship for his two children he had with Nicole, he had to leave his Brentwood villa. A video recording showed him taking down the American flag; he was full of self-pity, seeing himself as the victim of racial prejudice, after most of his friends from the upper echelons of society deserted him. Suddenly, OJ Simpson was feeling like a black man. But he could not do without fame: in Miami he was the “Godfather” to a scene of thuggish admirers of both sexes: his new girl friend was a Nicole look-alike blonde. More and more rumours spread: Simpson had indeed confessed to the double murders, and a book deal was reached with the Rupert Murdoch press. But “If I did it” was yanked at the last minute by Murdoch himself, who fired the editor.

The – so far – last chapter in the rise and fall of OJ Simpson began on 13.9.2007 in the Las Vegas Palace Station Hotel, where OJ and his friends got entangled with another ‘gang’ over the sale of Simpson memorabilia. It was more like a Marx Brothers comedy: OJ shouting “nobody leaves the room”, guns were raised. But nobody came to harm – apart from OJ. On October 3rd 2008, – thirteen years after his acquittal in LA – he was sentenced to 33 years in prison for robbery and kidnapping. Experts agreed, that under normal circumstances, the punishment would have been three years – but the law took its revenge “in the fifth quarter of the game”. OJ Simpson is serving his sentence in Lovelock Prison, Nevada – he is up for parole in October 2017.

Edelman is very hard on ESPN the TV network that produced the documentary: he rightly ascertains that mainstream TV, with its sensationalist reporting, uses violence to raise the viewing figures. On the other hand, Nicole Simpson-Brown was the victim of domestic violence which has never been taking seriously by the police. The male offenders get a slap on the wrist if they are ordinary citizens. In the Simpson case, the perpetrator was a celebrity and was potentially the main reason why Nicole’s many calls for help NEVER resulted in any action against OJ. In spite of the running time, OJ: Made in America, is compulsive viewing. It shows the correlation between individual and institutional violence: the glorification of military and sport personalities in the USA is a celebration of male violence, supported by the media. The victims, like Nicole Brown, are merely statistics. AS

OUT ON DVD AND BLURAY 17 APRIL 2017 | BEST DOCUMENTARY WINNER AT THE US ACADEMY AWARDS 2017 | http://amzn.eu/3nO4Cww

User Friendly Death (2007) | Kinoteka Film Festival 2017

Dir: Marcin Koszałka | Doc | Poland | 69min

With 28 credits to his name since starting out in 2000, Marcin Koszałka is easily one of the most successful Polish cinematographers working today. Known within the industry for his interest in difficult subjects his full-length documentary revolves around the people who work at a funeral parlour at Kedzierzyn-Kozle and a body incineration centre in Czech Ostrava. The film shows what happens to human bodies after death and how the employees in these places go about their business inured to the macabre nature of their work. Koszałka’s illustrates how it is possible to become disaffected by death and dealing with the dead once we have become accustomed to it, now matter how grim. In a dispassionate and matter of fact treatment Koszałka shows how even the smell of the formaldehyde starts to become almost unnoticeable as the workers go about their daily business in the morgue.

Koszałka is known as a hands on filmmaker, often credited as writer and director, and at times editor. His meticulous attention to detail have made him a highly sought after collaborator working with Borys Lankosz on The Reverse (2009), Jacek Bromski on Entanglement (2011) and most recently with Michał Rosa on Happiness Of The World (2016). So far in his career most of his auteur work has been short and full length documentaries, all of which, to at least a certain extent, deal with the sad truths of life, and learning to live with them. His three shorts including Such A Nice Boy I Gave Birth To (2000) about his relationship with his parents as well as Till IT Hurts (2008) concern themselves with one of his recurring themes: the often irreparable damage that an upbringing can have on a person. His main subject however is death and its omnipresence within life, highlighted here in Declaration Of Immortality (2010) and User-Friendly Death (2007). His latest film The Red Spider which he directed, wrote, photographed and edited is also screening during Kinoteka 2017.

KINOTEKA POLISH FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | 17 MARCH – 5 APRIL 2017

 

Paula Rego, Secrets & Stories (2017) | Tribute to Paula Rego

Dir: Nick Willing | With Paula Rego | UK | Doc | 92min

“Just take of your knickers” said Victor Willing to Paula Rego and thus began a love story that was to dominate the life and work of a talented but timid Portuguese painter who arrived in London in 1950 leaving the comfort of a middle class home and a country in thrall to Salazar’s misogynist dictatorship. Salazar was to die after falling off a canvas deckchair, but Paula Rego fought manic depression and the male-centric art world to achieve international success painting canvasses that left Charles Saatchi gobsmacked.

This unique insight into the celebrated artist, who has died at the age of 87, is pictured above with her her son and film-maker Nick Willing, was brought up in Portugal and in Camden in a house bought by her father, where Paula and her husband the artist Vic Willing, arrived penniless after he was struck with multiple schlerosis, having lost the business left by Paula’s father. Notoriously private and guarded, Rego opens up for the first time, revealing how she channeled her shyness into her art with extraordinary results, using her powerful pictures as a therapy for her own demons, difficulties and personal tragedy. Through painting she continued to raise awareness of female issues and animal rights (her personal favourite charity is Dogs of Barcelona. Nick Willing enriches the film with a fascinating archive of home movies, family photographs and interviews spanning 60 years, describing the evolution of Rego’s work from early days at the Slade to the present day. What emerges is a deeply personal and intimate portrait of an artist whose legacy will survive the years, graphically illustrated in her preferred pastel, charcoal and oil paint. Poignantly, Willing asks his mother about her most proud achievement: “Winning the Slade Summer Prize when I was 19”. MT

PAUL REGO: STORIES & SECRETS IS AVAILABLE On BBCIPLAYER 

Tickling Giants (2016)

Dir Sara Taksler | Documentary with Bassem Youssef, Jon Stewart | USA 2016 |111 min.

During the Arab spring, cardiac surgeon Bassem Youssef from Cairo went to a demonstration against the regime of president Mubarak in Tahrir – an event which would change his life. Director/writer Sara Taksler, producer of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” has followed Bassem’s rise and fall as the face of his satirical TV programme “The Show”, which saw him taking on three presidents: Hosni Mubarak, Mohamed Morsi and Fattah el-Sisi, his audience reaching 30 million at its peak.

When Bassem was demonstrating in Tahrir against the near thirty-year rule of Mubarak, he wanted to help the victims of the police brutality but a teargas attack left him incapacitated and he remembers, “I saw two different realities, the one I saw in the streets, and the other reality I saw on television”. With his friend Tarek Elkazzaz and the cartoonist JF Andeel, Bassem started a satirical show “The B+ Show” on You Tube, which became so successful that Bassem gave up medicine and started “The Show” (Al-Bernameg) on TV. Soon he became a popular figure, and after the fall of Mubarak in 2011, to which he contributed, Bassem soon found out that Mubarak’s successor Mohamed Morsi, though democratically elected, turned out to be a ruthless dictator, who wanted to change the secular constitution of the country, turning it into an Islamic Republic.

After Morsi’s overthrow by the military, led by Fattah el-Sisi, the latter was elected as the new president in 2014, garnering a staggering 96% of all votes cast. Needless to say, that Bassem did not stop attacking the new regime, which was more or less a Mubarak 2.0 version. Helped by a visit from Jon Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show” in the USA, Bassem at first seem to keep his audience, but the new regime instigated mass protests against “The Show”: A woman shouting into the camera of the State TV Station “Don’t mess with the Egyptian Army and Sisi!”. To which a Bassem supporter answered” Why are you against the man who fought against the Brotherhood?” Bassem would soon find out “how scary it was, to be a TV host”. Shot behind the scenes, we see the collaborators being equally frightened – after all the military had re-introduced Martial Law and nobody was safe. At first, the CBC TV station let Bassem and his crew go, and after they found a new station, the government blocked the transmission of “the Show”, a step, even Morsi had refrained from. With his family and friends frightened, Bassem finally gave up and said good-bye to his audience. But CBC went to court, and Bassem was convicted of having to pay a fine in the nine figures region “for breach of contract”. With two suitcases he fled with his wife and baby-daughter to the USA – trying to drum up support for a new TV show, whilst giving lectures. After Trump’s election, this may be just another ironic twist in Bassem’s search for freedom of expression.

Whilst TICKLING GIANTS tries to keep up the humour, it is truly very dark, even though Bassem jokes at the very end that he hopes that this documentary will make it easier for him to meet a nubile Italian film star –the reality is, that he could not even attend his father’s funeral in Cairo. And president el Sisi has certainly reached his long-term goal “of influencing the media”. Taksler is very professional, always interested in the changes of the show’s crew, where the participation in this daring enterprise has brought also personal liberation for the female members. But overall, there is no sign of a happy-end anywhere – the giants are marching on. AS

FROM 31 MARCH AT BERTHADOCHOUSE

Faberge : A Life of its Own (2014) | Dvd

Director: Patrick Mark

Patrick Mark’s documentary FABERGÉ: A LIFE OF ITS OWN is another in a recent series bringing art and culture events to life on the big screen. Narrated in the reverential tones of Samuel West, FABERGÉ explores the colourful history of the famous Russian jewellers, first founded in 1842, through archive footage, specialist curators and family members.

In St Petersburg, German immigré Gustav Faberge founded and founded a lucrative business by supplying the Russian Royal family with thousands of gifts to offer on their extensive trips abroad or when entertaining visiting dignatories. Designed by Carl Gustav himself but crafted by his prized Finnish and Scandinavian craftsmen, the docs shows how the family name gradually became a byword for opulence of the highest order. In contrast to the sprawling poverty of early 20th century St Petersburg, Fabergé workers were given their own personal trademarks and well-looked after with medical care and even a canteen.

Inspired by nature, animals or significant events, the pieces were intricately crafted using precious stones, gold and the trademark ‘guillochet’ enamel that glowed with an alluring lumiscence evocative of the sunlight reflecting on St Petersburg’s stately buildings and palaces. The first egg appeared in 1885, fashioned in gold and white enamel, an Easter gift from Tzarevitch Nicholas to his wife.

Loosely linked to World historical events and enlivened by remarkable footage of the era, Patrick Mark shows how the business nearly crumbled during the war years, leaving Gustav to move to Lausanne where he died broken-hearted. His son Carl Gustav took over the firm as Lenin rose to power and in the ensuing devastation of the city opportunist and businessman Armand Hammer was able to acquire many Fabergé items at cut price. But returning to a depression-hit America, his goods are declared almost worthless as “nobody wants a Tsarina’s ruby-studded swizzle stick” during the crisis ridden twenties. His luck changes when wealth returns in the more prosperous 1930s and the pieces garnered prestige from their royal connection. In a fascinating twist, many of the jewels served to ‘bullet-proof’ the garments of the besieged Russian royal family: they had been carefully stitched into the fabric and their owners survived the re-cocheting bullets.

Of those interviewed, Tatiana Faberge is the most interesting as she recounts her sadness at the family name becoming synonymous with bleach and cheap perfume during the sixties but the family are currently involved in trying to resurrect the Fabergé to its original cachet. Craftsmanship has moved on and new materials and more modern styles are refreshing the Fabergé look. At times a commercial edge seeps in to the film making this feel like an extended advertisement for the brand – particularly in these final scenes. That said, this is a well-made and engrossing piece of filmmaking with some fascinating archive footage of the Romanovs and Russia during the First World War making you want to revisit Franklin Schaffner’s epic 1971 drama Nicholas and Alexandra. MT

NOW ON DVD

[youtube id=”z63Do7qwFHc” width=”600″ height=”350″]

Two Soft Things, Two Hard Things (2016) | Bfi Flare Festival 2017

Dirs: Mark Kenneth Woods | Michael Yerxa | Canada | Doc | 71min

Taking its name from the Inuktitut language translation of lesbian and gay, literally: “two soft things rubbing together” and “two hard things rubbing together” this documentary explores the experiences of LGBT Inuits and examines their survival since the 1950s where colonisation, religion, forced migration, and cultural assimilation impacted on their communities in northwest Canada. This is largely viewed from the perspective of the small but growing community of LGBT Inuit people living in Nunavut, where they prepare for one of the world’s more remote and snowbound Pride festivals, taking place in the territorial capital of Iqaluit.

It emerges that LGBT identity and long-term same-sex relationships have always existed in Inuit culture, and same-sex sexual activity was common and accepted, particularly as a remedy for social and sexual isolation during times when men and women were segregated from each other as the men left for the traditional hunting season. These cultures norms continued until Catholicism emerged as a dominant religion during the 1950s, although Inuit spirituality still forms an important of their culture, despite many having been taught that homosexuality is incompatible with their traditions, causing a number to move south to large Canadian cities such as Ottowa and Quebec.

Without a straightforward narrative but benefitting from superb cinematography of the wild and snowy landscapes of the region, the film takes on an episodic style with the directors combining archive footage and photos with a series of talking head interviews with those who have commited to uncovering and reclaiming the hidden history of the Inuks, amongst these are filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, politicians Jack Anawak and Paul Okalik, and activists Allison Brewer, Nuka Fennell and Jesse Mike. MT

BFI FLARE FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | 16-26 MARCH 2017

 

 

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin (2017) | Bfi Flare 2017

Dir: Jennifer M Kroot | Doc | US/UK | 91min

Armistead Maupin churned out copy like a demon according to his editor at the San Francisco Chronicle where he worked as a regualr columnist. His prodigious talent and remarkable work ethic was possibly due to his strict upbringing by a father whom he admits to hating, according to Jennifer Kroots informative biopic of the writer and longtime advocacy for queer civil rights, and creator of the popular Tales of the City franchise.

Enriched with a commentary from talking heads Sir Ian McKellen, Laura Linney and Amy Tan, Kroot’s documentary is the first to chart the life of a writer who has known success and personal tragedy and now seems to have largely vanished from the scene, so the film will certainly be greeted with warmth and appreciation by his fans and those who have enjoyed his work, whatever the critical appraisal.

Kroot covers Maupin’s career as a journalist right through to his status as a US household name with an impressive array of photographs and archive footage showing how the he struggled to come out, as the son of a white supremacist father, and ended up with a series of gay lovers, one of whom had partnered Rock Hudson, eventually emerging as an avant-garde figure of his generation, or so the luminaries would have us believe. Rather a shame then that the film has a rather lightweight quality with cartoonish 1970s visuals in the style of Monty Python or TV’s Magpie, and unimaginative and lacklustre format. MT

BFI FLARE FILM FESTIVAL 16-26 MARCH 2017

 

Something Better to Come | Kinoteka Film Festival 2017

Dir.: Hanna Polak | Documentary | Denmark/Poland/Japan/Netherlands/USA 2014 | 98 min.

Filmed over 14 years, Hanna Polak’s portrait of survival in Europe’s largest junkyard, the Svalka, just 13 miles away from the Kremlin, is a sobering witness report of utter deprivation. What makes it even worse (and sometimes unbearable to watch) is that the majority of those living inside the guarded fenced-in area are children and teenagers, exploited by a Mafia who runs the hell-on-earth camp for profit.

Centred around Yula, who was ten when Polak (The Children of Leningradsky) starting filming, Something Better to Come, shows the daily struggle of those who are not only homeless but have to survive the harsh winters in make-shifts huts, whilst scrounging the rubbish heaps around them for something to sell to the Mafia overseers, who pay them with alcohol (often of the deadly moonshine variety) and substandard food.

Yula and her mother entered the junkyard camp after Yula’s father died. Since the flat was in his name, the two became homeless. Many others landed in this circle of hell because their estate blocks were demolished, making space for the building of more upmarket property. Yula’s mother is an alcoholic, like many others here. Survival rate is not very high, the lack of medical support one of the reasons.

When Yula got pregnant, she moved with her mother to live with her grandfather in his ramshackle house (which was still luxury compared with their Svalka ‘housing’). But the grandfather abused Yula physically, calling her a whore, and the women moved out before the birth of the child. In hospital, Yula decided to give up her baby for adoption – a sad, but rational decision. But somehow Yula got lucky: the authorities found a flat for her – the equivalent of winning the lottery. After all the misery, Polak ends on an uplifting note, with Yula, her partner and her week old baby daughter happy together in their flat.

This lucky exception should not deflect from the utter misery witnessed beforehand. This is straight out of Gorky (a quote from his ‘Depth’ opens the film), a pre-industrial hell. But the physical suffering is often outweighed by psychological trauma. Again and again we hear the children say, “I want to be treated like a human being”. It is heart-breaking to see them crawl through the dirt in their search for anything they can sell to their ‘guards’, and, sometimes being killed in the process when they get in the way of the bulldozers. On the radio, we hear Putin’s voice, virtually unknown in 2000, when he was elected first as president. Later he talks about the great progress made in Russia, where more and more children are born, showing how positive families in the country must be feeling.

Something Better to Come is an exceptional and unique documentary – directed, written and photographed by Polak, after she could not find anybody else to pick up the camera. The editing too was a lengthy process: many contacted were overwhelmed by the material, others promised to help, only to find better remunerated work in Hollywood. It is due Polak’s perseverance in raising awareness of this truly dreadful camp-of-no-hope, a real dystopian nightmare, right next to the seat of government of a major power in world politics. AS

KINOTEKA POLISH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 MARCH UNTIL 5 APRIL 2017

https://vimeo.com/80046272

Kinoteka Polish Film Festival 2017 | 17 March – 5 April

KINOTEKA POLISH FILM FESTIVAL is back for its 15th Edition showcasing the latest films from Poland in an enticing programme that includes a tribute to the late and great post-war legend ANDRZEJ WAJDA and a celebration of 70 YEARS OF POLISH ANIMATION

1249182_afterimage_04-h_2016During his impressive career spanning 7 decades and 56 films, Andrzej Wajda achieved international critical acclaim, winning a BAFTA and César Award (for Danton), both a Palme D’Or (Man of Iron) and Jury prize (Kanal) at Cannes, a Fipresci Prize at Venice (Ashes & Diamonds) a silver bear at Berlin for his lifetime contribution to cinema plus multiple lifetime achievement awards including Camerimage and the European Film Awards as well as winning Best Film at the Polish Film Awards (Katyn). He directly influenced a generation of filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola and Agnieszka Holland (who assisted him on Man of Marble). His final film Afterimage (2016) has been chosen as Poland’s official nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, a fitting tribute to the most revered Polish filmmaker (above left).

Ashes and Diamonds. 1958. Dir Andrzej Wajda. KadrThe Barbican Cinema and Close Up Cinema screening two complementary short retrospective seasons of Wajda’s films including rarely screened titles such as A Generation (1955), The Promised Land (1975) and Danton (1983) as well as iconic classics including Ashes and Diamonds (1958) (left) and his late masterpiece Katyn (2007).

IMG_3442In the New Polish Cinema Strand KINOTEKA will show the UK premiere of Marcin Koszalka’s psychological thriller The Red Spider (2015), described in the Karlovy Vary programme as “an intricate story of the fascination with evil that hides in places we would never expect, and there will be an opportunity to see Koszalka’s short documentary films including the autobiographical: Such a Nice Boy I Gave Birth To; about living with his verbally abusive parents. An in-depth exploration of the relationship between a 53 year old man and his mother; Til It Hurts (2008). And a long short documentary User Friendly Death (2007) that examines what actually happens after death, in a Polish funeral parlour and crematorium.

playground-h_2016There will be another chance to see one of the most shocking teenage thriller’s of 2016 Playground that echoes the tragic tale of Jamie Bulger in a rural Poland, and captured critics’ attention at last year’s London Film Festival. Don’t miss Jan P Matuszynski’s Locarno festival debut The Last Family that tells the real-life story of a fractious, dysfunctional family living on a bleak Warsaw housing estate and depicts the physical and emotional claustrophobia of their family dynamic. Michal Rosa’s multi-awarded Happiness of the World, a painterly comedy portrait of a journalist’s experiences in 1940s Silesia (main picture).

In this year’s Polish Masters Rediscovered strand KINOTEKA shines the spotlight on the incredible story of Polish filmmaker Wanda Jakubowska, the first prominent female figure in Polish film history. Jakubowska started her film career in the 1930s, during the war she was arrested in 1942 for being an active member of the Polish Resistance and imprisoned at Auschwitz for the rest of the war. The ICA will screen her landmark 1948 film, The Last Stage, which won the Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary. Based on her experiences at Auschwitz and in part shot on location, it is considered one of the most harrowing and immediate holocaust films ever made. The retrospective programme will also screen her post-war East German/DEFA production of Encounter at Twilight (1960). An expressionistic drama about a Polish pianist returning to the West German town where she had previously lived as a ‘forced labourer’ after the war, Jakubowska’s film was one of the highlights of the Post-war German Cinema retrospective programme screened this year at Locarno.

Before the Second World War, animated cinema was practically unknown in Poland until Zenon Wasilewski emerged as the pioneer of animated films. Best remembered for the groundbreaking animated puppet film In the Time of King Krakus (1947), now recognised as the first animated film in the history of the Polish School of Animation. KINOTEKA will be celebrating 70 years of Polish Animation with an extra special Closing Night Gala event at the Barbican Hall with a programme of classic films from the Polish School of Animation set to a specially commissioned live score, performed by leftfield indie band British Sea Power who have been previously responsible for a series of acclaimed film scores including Robert J Flaherty’s classic Man of Aran and Penny Woolcock’s From The Sea To The Land Beyond.

KINOTEKA POLISH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 MARCH – 5 APRIL 2017

The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism (2016)

Matilda BrowneDir: Phil Grabsky | Narrator: Gillian Anderson | US | Art Biopic |

After a look at French Impressionism, director and producer Phil Grabsky takes his camera across the Atlantic to explore the American Impressionist movement in a study that follows on from Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse (2o16). Once again, Grabsky explores galleries and gardens up and down the US, France and Britain to offer insight and enrich his film with sumptuous visuals. But although resplendent in its subject matter, this doesn’t quite live up to his previous documentary both from the quality of the narrative and in the commentary provided by curators and talking heads.

In America the Impressionist movement covered almost four decades and was rooted in a deep held desire to preserve nature by a largely rural nation that underwent rapid industrialisation towards the end of the 19th Century.

Edmund GreacenGrabsky shows how the origins of American Impressionist can be traced back to France, and, in particular, to French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel who arrived in New York at the end of the 1880s with a massive stock of impressionist works which he had not been able to sell back home where their counter cultural nature faced harsh opposition to conventional art community. The avant-garde canvasses provided inspiration and captured the imagination of American artists who beat a path back to Europe and the home of Monet in Giverny where they developed a new strain of Impressionism, changing the course of American art forever.

Impressionism had been met with ridicule in the salons and galleries of France but American dealers were now rich on the profits of industrialisation and snapped up the works in a buying frenzy. This all coincided with a time of urban renewal and regeneration when horticulture and landscape design lead a drive to improve the amenity value of the built environment in the form of parks and gardens that provided green spaces and fresh air to the new cities and towns. These in turn provided inspiration for the middle classes who were keen to re-create a ‘rus in urbis’ that reminded them of their rural past and provided inspiration for the future. Women were becoming highly educated and increasingly independent and sought to copy the fashionable ideas of Gertrude Jekyll, Lawrence Weaver and William Robinson in their homes, gardens designs and their painting, not only as a recreational activity but also as a pathway to spiritual renewal. MT

Willard MetcalfThe Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.

ON RELEASE FROM 23 MARCH 2017 | FOR TICKETS TO A SCREENING NEAR YOU, CLICK HERE OR SELECT YOUR LOCATION ON THE MAP

The Good Postman (2016) | Human Rights Watch Film Festival

Dir. Tonislav Hristov | Finland/Bulgaria 2016, | Doc | 82 mins.

In a remote village deep in the Bulgarian countryside only 36 people turned up to vote in the local elections. Great Dervent is crumbling to the ground and clearly on its last legs but resourceful local postman Ivan has a regeneration plan. Wealthy Syrian refugees have left traces in the decrepit school building in their search for a new home, and Ivan suggests to the villagers that they all gather round and welcome the newcomers into their community. Some agree but some are sceptical that the refugees will take over the few remaining jobs and prove a threat with their ‘criminal’ ways. And who can blame these hospitable and decent people who are used to their own kind and unaccustomed to outside influences?. There is no internet here but the media has not helped matters, whipping up a sentiment of zenophobia with negative TV reportage that fuels the growing climate of ultra-right nationalism.

Glowing with the bucolic splendour of this lush land in the extreme South on the border  with Turkey, Tonislav Hristov’s documentary is cinematic and soulful in tone, but very much along similar lines as the recent Ukrainian Cowboys (2016). Ivan the postman does not only deliver letters but also tea and sympathy to the ageing villagers, even doling out advice on water bills and medical help, he fervently believes the Syrians are a good thing: “Together, between us, we’ll create a good environment in the village”, “there will be children and they will laugh”.

Typically it is the latest immigrants to the village who are the most hostile about Syrians and other newcomers. Ukrainian wayfarer and recent arrival Halachev has taken a strident anti-immigration stance, considering his own credentials. Setting up a cranky electric organ on the common he preaches a negative diatribe: “Bulgaria for Bulgarians, the Syrians are worse than Gypsies”.

Hristov’s rather rambling but watchable documentary is accompanied by a mournful occasional score of folkmusic. It is a sad and rather pitiful story that contrasts sharply with the region’s peaceful and gently rolling countryside. As Ivan’s kindly wife sighs: “you remember a man for his goodness. People danced. Now nothing”. And clearly Ivan is a good and persevering man who will be remembered for his generosity of spirit in a fight that very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world. MT

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FESTIVAL | 6 – 17 March 2017

Gleason (2016)

Dir.: Clay Tweel | Documentary with Steve Gleason, Michel Varisco; USA | 110 min.

Director/co-editor Clay Tweel (Finders Keepers) tells the story of Stephen Gleason, who played eight years for the New Orleans Saints as pro-line-backer in the NFL, and was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) in 2011, three years after having retired from the sport. As irony has it, his son Rivers was born in October of that year.

Live expectancy with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is five years, and the documentary opens with Gleason starting his video blog for his son while he retains the ability to talk, but already has difficulties annunciating. Later, Gleason is to lose his voice completely (to be replaced by a voice box, directed from a computer keyboard) and even his ability to breathe, he is now on a mechanical ventilator. But he is still alive, using a wheelchair and needing 24-hour care by a team, led by his wife Michel, an artist. Gleason appreciates the contradictions of his situation: once, he was a sporting hero making a daring play on the football field, where he became a symbol for the resurgence of New Orleans devastated by the hurricane. the city, including the Super Dome. Now he is largely incontinent.

Michel is looking after two children: but the strain has caused a growing distance between the parents. Rivers loves being taken for a ride by his Dad on the wheelchair, but one suspects, that this will not last much longer. Stephen’s video log is a testament of his care for his son – particularly considering his own relationship with his father. Stephen grew up in a dysfunctional family, his father not being able to give him the love he needed. Even during the first stages of ALS, Gleason sen. insisted on his son visiting a Christian faith healer – a move Michel called “bullshit”. Stephen has used his celebrity status for other ALS sufferers: his ‘Team Gleason’ helps to get equipment and care (not covered by insurance) for other ALS patients.

But Tweel’s hagiographic approach avoids some valid questions relating to American Football. On a small scale, the Gleasons worked with the filmmaker Sean Pamphilon until the release of the audio-tape regarding the ‘bounty scandal’ of the New Orleans Saints. This involved a coach asking his players to injure the opposition on purpose – in return for a bonus. Stephen Gleason tried to prevent the release of the tape, insisting that he did not authorise it. And then there is the issue of overriding connection between brain damage and the sport itself – long repressed by the NFL, until recently. These very relevant issues should have been mentioned.

Gleason shows a father struggling to be the best possible father for his son – watching Stephen’s condition deteriorate, both physically and psychologically, is hard. DoPs David Lee and Ty Minton-Small never take the easy way out and show every detail of Gleason’s fight which is still going on to this day. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 17 MARCH 2017

Human Rights Watch Film Festival | London 6-17 March 2017

Human Rights Watch Film Festival is thundering back to the BARBICAN, BRITISH MUSEUM and PICTUREHOUSE CENTRAL with a fresh and resonant array of award-winning features and documentaries that showcase shifting attitudes to Human Rights around the world today. In a programme that highlights “courageous resilience in challenging times” we hear from Chinese migrant workers; a teenager from Hong Kong; internet sleuths; the indigenous Mayan population in Guatemala; elderly women revealing historic sexual exploitation; a female squash player from Pakistan. All these films celebrate collective action and revolutionary voices, and activists’ triumph over oppression.

The Festival will open on 9 March at Picturehouse Central with Raoul Peck’s powerful I Am Not Your Negro and close on 17 March at the Barbican, with Zaradasht Ahmed’s immersive and uncompromising Nowhere to Hide, a first person account from a male nurse in one of the world’s most dangerous and inaccessible areas, Jalawla in Iraq.

ivans Ivan is The Good Postman who is running for mayor and campaigning to bring life to his ageing and increasingly deserted Bulgarian village, by welcoming refugees and their families to settle there. With warmth, humour and humanity, the filmmaker Tonislav Hristov’s often surreal documentary, set in a forgotten village on a route for asylum seekers making their way through Europe, provides valuable insight into the evolving discussions that dominate international politics.

With uninhibited access Shimon Dotan’s The Settlers cracks open the world of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank: their daily lives, their worldviews, and their position within Israel. The film captures the casual zealotry, racism, and untroubled certainty of many settlers in this contentious and controversial space. Dotan lays out the facts with extraordinary care and lucidity, allowing viewers to see the progression of actions and reactions that have led to the current volatile situation.

Shang Jiaojiao_02Two festival titles give pause for thought regarding the human cost of people’s dependence on electronic devices and the Internet. Heather White and Lynn Zhang will present the world premiere of their film Complicit, which follows factory workers harmed by exposure to chemicals in their work as they fight the Chinese electronics giant Foxconn. Led by migrant worker, Yi Yeting, who is struggling to survive his own work-induced leukaemia, he equips and empowers other sick factory workers to try to save lives and improve working conditions for millions of Chinese people, in the process confronting some of the world’s most profitable and recognised brands, among them Apple and Samsung.

BLACK CODEIdeas of citizenship, privacy, and democracy are challenged to the very core in Nicholas de Pencier’s gripping Black Code. Based on Ronald Deibert’s book of the same name, the film follows international cyber stewards from the Toronto-based group Citizen Lab, who have documented how exiled Tibetan monks are attempting to circumvent China’s surveillance apparatus; Syrian citizens have been tortured for Facebook posts; Brazilian activists are using social media to livestream police abuses; and Pakistani activists have opposed online campaigns for violence against women.

Individual and collective voices are heard in three documentaries from Hong Kong, Guatemala and Egypt. Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, which just won the audience award for World Cinema documentary at Sundance 2017 – follows Hong Kong’s most dissident teenager, Joshua Wong, now 20-years-old. Since 2011, Wong has rallied thousands of students to occupy the streets. Following teargas attacks, multiple arrests and an exhausting 79-day campaign to shut down Hong Kong’s financial district, Joshua moves on to the next phase of the movement – facing down the superpower from inside the government itself.

Irma Alicia Vel·squez NimatujPamela Yates’ gripping 500 Years documents the first trial in the history of the Americas to prosecute the genocide of an indigenous people, in this instance the majority Mayan population of Guatemala. Threatening the powerful and empowering the dispossessed, the trial exposed a world of brutality, entrenched racism and impunity, subverting the historical narrative of Guatemala.

TICKLINGGIANTS_014In Tickling Giants, the director Sara Taksler follows Bassem Youssef (known as “the Egyptian Jon Stewart”) who in the midst of the Egyptian Arab Spring changed his career path from heart surgeon to full-time comedian. In a country where freedom of speech is becoming increasingly restricted with each regime change, Youssef and his courageous staff of young writers develop creative methods to non-violently challenge abuses of power. Enduring physical threats, protests, and legal action, the team members test how far they can take the joke.

TheThreeIn Ben Lear’s powerful documentary They Call Us Monsters, Juan, Jarad and Antonio, ages 14-16, face decades in prison in California, where juveniles older than 14 can be tried as adults for violent crimes. While incarcerated, they sign up for a screenwriting class and collaborate on a short film that collectively fictionalises their lives and dreams, allowing a remarkable insight into their minds and experiences.

We'll be alright - Alexander KuznetsovThe director Alexander Kuznetsov’s photographer’s eye and immense sensitivity for his subjects are beautifully evident in We’ll Be Alright, which reveals life inside Russian care and court systems. Yulia and Katia, now both adults, have lived their entire lives in care institutions in Siberia. Based on reports written when they were children living in orphanages, they had been labelled as unfit for life in the real world. Their dreams are simple – to gain independence and leave the neuropsychiatric institution that has become their prison – but a long and painful bureaucratic process forces them to meet nearly impossibly high standards for release.

5 MS Maria White Headband mediumThe voices of women young and old are cause for celebration, inspiration and admiration in another three festival titles. In Erin Heidenreich’s Girl Unbound, the squash player Maria Toorpakai disguises herself as a boy in defiance of a Taliban law forbidding women to play sport. But when she hits puberty her gender is revealed, forcing her to leave her home after repeated death threats to herself and her family. The film follows Maria over several months as she represents Pakistan on the national team standing firm in her mission to carve her own identity and destiny with the support of her progressive father and family.

In The Apology and Child Mother we hear from the largely unheard voices of elderly women who share hidden stories of past exploitations.

THE APOLOGY 01_Image courtesy Icarus FilmsIn Tiffany Hsiung’s The Apology, the courageous resolve of Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Grandma Adela in the Philippines moves them to seize their last chance to share with their families and the world their first-hand accounts of the truth about theirs and others sexual exploitation and imprisonment as so-called “comfort women” by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Despite multiple formal apologies from the Japanese government issued since the early 1990s, there has been little justice. These women seize their last chance to share first-hand accounts of the truth to ensure that this horrific chapter of history is neither repeated nor forgotten.

!!! CHILD MOTHER #2In Ronen Zaretzky and Yael Kipper’s Child Mother, conversations between mothers and their families reveal haunting histories of women forced into marriage as young children. Born into Jewish communities in Yemen and Morocco where child marriage was a culturally sanctioned custom, they were married as young as 12 and began to have babies of their own, often working day and night to support growing families and aging husbands. Through their children’s difficult but enlightening questions, the film exposes an aspect of child marriage and trauma that is rarely discussed: the impact on the family as a whole, an open wound passed on to subsequent generations.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FESTIVAL | Tickets go on sale Friday, 10 February 2017 | @hrwfilmfestival

The Creeping Garden (2015)

Dir: Jasper Sharp and Tim Grabham | Nature Doc | 84min | UK

“Being Slime Mould”  a workshop where participants are actively encouraged to engage with this baffling organism and transform themselves into a ‘human’ slime mold”

THE CREEPING GARDEN is a feature length documentary exploring the work of fringe scientists, mycologists and artists who explore the extraordinary world of plasmodial slime mold, a single cell organism that has the ability to form into armies in search of nourishment. The slime mould is being used to explore biological-inspired design, emergence theory, unconventional computing and robot controllers and a chap called F. Percy Smith who pioneered the use of time lapse (or time magnification) photography to make a series of instructional films such as his 1931 masterpiece Magic Myxies (that followed The Bedtime Stories of Archie the Ant (1925).

Entirely learned while also being ironically ominous in tone, in a way that scratches at the realms of Sci-Fi, THE CREEPING GARDEN is geekdom at its best in completely avoiding a user friendly approach to its subject matter. Earnestly scientific in its approach, with a bizarrely tonic score (by Grizzly Man’s Jim O’Rourke), it endows the slime with human qualities, claiming that the impressively versatile organisms are capable of “emotional responses” and have been able to reanimate even after long periods of inactively due to unfavourable growth conditions.

International scientists are fascinated by the mould and its capabilities, but are singularly unable to convey this fascination to the viewer, who is unable to appreciate the weird beauty of the species, deriving only humour from the extreme intensity of the scientists’ fervour. Mark Pragnell spends many hours searching a forest for slime mold, occasionally taking photos to prevent people from thinking he is doing something strange – in his own words – when actually he is. Meanwhile, the experiment encouraging participants to engage with the organism: ‘Being Slime Mould’ was unable to gain critical mass for its experiment to be seriously considered groundbreaking. But the handful of participants did bond together in a way that was similar to that of slime mold behaviour, so it was not a complete waste of time. And the organism’s behaviour was also likened to a motorway network according to a Russian study.

Arcane and at times uneven, THE CREEPING GARDEN may not be everyone’s cup of tea but as far as slime mold documentaries go, this is unique and compelling, possibly providing hours of entertainment for afficionados and scf-fi enthusiasts or those of a nerdy persuasion. MT

AVAILABLE AT ARROWVIDEO@FETCH.FM | 13 MARCH 2017|

A SELECTION OF F. PERCY SMITH’S FILMS ARE AVAILABLE ON DVD THROUGH THE BFI

 

Uncertain (2016)

Dir.: Anna Sandilands, Ewan McNicol; Documentary; USA 2015, 82 min.

Uncertain is a town of 94 inhabitants that lies on the Texas side of the border with Louisiana. The Sheriff jokes:“You’ve got to be lost to find it.” Rumour has it that the only reason for its existence is that a surveyor made a mistake on the map. But debut directors Anna Sandilands and Ewan McNicol get the most of the gloomy atmosphere of the Bayonne – a heaven for lost souls.

The lake, which supports the town’s fishing industry, has an eerie quality: Southern Gothic, mysteries and forgotten crimes haunt the murky waters. McNicol says “we spent time with the lake like as we would with another character”. But the lake is in peril; it is being invaded by a species of parasitic waterweed, salvinia, which covers the whole water surface, killing the fish and blocking oxygen and light and doubling its surface area every two days. Scientists have found a way to eradicate the prolific weed by introducing weevils but anticipate it will cost the authorities a pretty penny.

The filmmakers follow three Uncertain denizens, all with a skeleton in their cupboard. They seem fitting protagonists in this atmosphere lingering doom. Henry, a man in his seventies, has been coming to terms with getting older and losing his wife. In his hot-tempered youth he killed a man in an interracial contretemps. Like many, Henry relies on the lake for his liveliehood, and a friend states categorically “if the lake dies, the town dies.” Wayne is also a killer who caused the death of a young man while under the influence and is now trying to put the past behind him by going back to his native roots, hunting the local wild boar. His prime target is the leader of the herd, a bull Wayne has christened ‘Mr Ed’. He becomes obsessed with the hog, treating him like a warrior. Zach is perhaps the saddest of the trio: a young man, anorexic, diabetic and alcohol dependent, he dreams about a future in Austin, but his poverty is keeping him in Uncertain. Even when he finally gets away, we see him in hospital being told that he will not see thirty-five if he goes on drinking. Traumatised by a mother who had to be incarcerated in a psychiatric ward, he has even lost any illusions about his future: ”Don’t dream, that’s not how you’re gonna be happy in life. I kinda pushed my dreams aside”.

UNCERTAIN is a respectful non-judgemental study of people living on the margins of US society and the filmmakers really convey this doleful, festering quality – synonymous with the current mood prevailing in the country. AS

UNCERTAIN is at the ICA from 10th March and On Demand from 17th March
www.uncertainfilm.com

The Apology (2016) | Human Rights Watch Film Festival

Dir.: Tiffany Hsiung; Documentary; Canada 2016, 104 min.

Filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung’s debut is a moving but never sentimental tribute to three elderly women from China, South Korea and the Philippines. They all have something in common: During the Japanese occupation of the South-Asian subcontinent during WWII, they were amongst the 200,000 prisoners, and were confined in so-called “Comfort Houses”, where they were raped for years, many of them just thirteen or fourteen years old. For decades they have been protesting and campaigning, asking the Japanese government – in vain – for an apology.

Grandma Gil lives in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China and Grandma Adela in the Philippines. It is now seventy years, since they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery – and have lived silently with their ‘shame’ for most of their lives, they are spending the last years of their lives campaigning. Even their closest relatives, were not told about their ordeal for decades, in some cases. The stories are grim: the girls were abducted on the streets, or taken from their families, the parents being beaten up. One woman reports, that she was beaten unconscious when she entered the “Comfort House” – and raped brutally before gaining consciousness. Others were sterilised, some had babies, which did not survive. After the war, hardly anyone was aware of the tragedy, since the survivors felt guilty and did not want to bring shame to their families.But this has changed: Gil, the spiritual leader in South Korea, has arranged demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy every Wednesday since 1992. Number one thousand was ‘celebrated’ with a golden statue of an elderly woman placed in front the embassy building.

But the Japanese reaction is vicious: in Osaka (mainly) young people organise a counter demonstration, calling “for the Korean ‘whores’ to go home”. And Mayor Hasimoto, MP of the Restauration Party, goes on TV, to declare, that the “Comfort Homes” were a necessity. Gil and her followers find a kinder audience at a Japanese Women’s University, where one girl breaks down in tears, having heard for the first time in her life about the suffering of these poor women. THE APOLOGY ends with Gil speaking in front of UN, having gathered more than 1.5 million signatures for a petition, asking Japan for an official apology. You have to see THE APOLOGY, even if it breaks your heart. AS

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL

500 Years (2017) | HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL

Dir.: Pamela Yates; Documentary, Guatemala 2017, 106 min.

500 YEARS is the final part of Pamela Yates Guatemalan trilogy, which started in 1983 with When the Mountains Tremble, followed by Granito: How to Nail a Dictator in 2011. The three chapters of 500 years explore the struggle of the indigenous Ixil Maya over the last half millennium, since South America was colonised by Spanish forces, destroying a culture much older than the one of the European barbarians.

Part one deals with the trial of General Rios Montt, which started in 2013. Montt had come to power with the help of the Reagan administration in 1982, and was responsible for the genocide in which 100 000 Maya citizens were killed and 45000 ‘disappeared’, just like in Argentina at about the same time. 626 villages were destroyed, the survivors mourn the death, often of their children, like the parents of Ines, who was killed aged 16, in combat against the military forces. Maya women were gang raped by soldiers; the filmmakers uncover the ruins of a former ‘interrogation centre’, were a special ‘Rape Room’ had been set up. The small town of Salquil Grande was burned down to the ground by the soldiers in 1982, but has been rebuilt since, and is now again a centre for resistance for Mayans. Montt, bearing an eerie resemblance to Auguste Pinochet, sits unmoved through his trial, whilst his lawyers try to sabotage the proceedings, even walking out. The witnesses, particularly the women, are heart breaking. Some can’t even look at Montt. But the general’s daughter, Zury Rios, is adamant that all witnesses are paid money to denounce her father. She soon sets herself up as the presidential candidate for the Viva Party. Interviews in the streets of Guatemala City prove her point of view: many citizens do not believe that genocide happened in their country.

Part two looks at the history of the country, starting with the foundation of a democratic Guatemala in 1944. Ten years later, Jacobo Arbenz, president of the Republic, who had instigated land reforms, was overthrown in a CIA coup, and later murdered in Mexico. An era of instability followed, escalating into a civil war, which lasted from1960 to 1996. By now, the Mayans had been forced from the most fertile land into the mountains. But since 2010, dam building and mining projects mean that they are driven from their land again with force. The gigantic infrastructure projects also threaten ecological turmoil.

Uprising’, the last chapter, is the most impressive: it shows the disposal of president Otto Perez Molina (a former Inspector General of the Armed Forces) from office, for corruption in 2014. Whilst Yates shows the Maya population, participating joyously in the demonstrations and blocking highways, the real reason for Molina’s resignation and imprisonment was that he had lost the support of the, mostly European, middle classes. They had looked on, whilst the health and education services of the Mayas had been cut by the government, but were in uproar when the same happened to them.

Nevertheless, 500 YEARS ends on an uplifting note, when the new generation of Maya fighters let fly a huge, multi-coloured kite in their mountain village: “When we die, we die in peace, because of the struggle we have been in in”. Unfortunately for them, the new president, Jimmy Morales (a former TV comedian), who was elected in 2015 with a majority of 67%, has denied that there ever was a genocide of the Mayans.
Shot mostly on eye-level by DoPs Melle van Essen and Rene Soza, 500 YEARS is a sobering history lesson. It is also a structural triumph, gathering all the information in 106 minutes. Roger C. Miller’s score is, appropriately, melancholic. A true milestone.

SCREENING DURING HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL |

https://youtu.be/jSZLszYAjOw

 

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973)

Dir: D A Pennebaker | Musical Biopic | US | 90min

July the 3rd, 1973 was Ziggy Stardust’s last night on planet Earth. It took place in the Hammersmith Odeon where Bowie as Ziggy seared his indelible persona into the public consciousness for the final time. The mesmerised audience projected their wildest fantasies onto the psychedelic troubadour, and the event was captured for all to remember in D A Pennebaker’s intimate cinema vérité concert film.

This is a first hand experience, close up and personal, and one of most inventive concert films ever made. Bowie, an otherworldly legend in the making, chats mundanely to his mates Ringo Star and Marc Bolan in the privacy of a down to earth dressing room. An ordinary bloke takes off his trousers and is then transformed into a lithe and shimmering chameleon sensuously girating to the rhythms of his magical music. Pennebaker’s grainy portrait communicates the casual switch between the actor and the ordinary man. While Bowie is full of gamine grace, guitarist Mick Ronson (who, like Bowie, was to die of liver cancer at the much earlier age of 46) takes himself a tad too seriously appearing to be grimacing in pain, his jutting chin and thrusting pelvis throbbing down at the camera. There are no guts or glory behind the scenes, just ‘business as usual’ as the tight performance schedule neatly dovetails into the splendour of the stage appearance where a sweaty clutch of febrile females strew their adulations at the feet of their sexually ambivalent superstar .

Mesmerisingly bold and beguiling, Bowie still seems endearingly vulnerable at a time where his creative juices were flowing and impressively diverse. As he sashays seamlessly through his songs – from Suffragette City, Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud and Rock N’ Roll Suicide, All the Young Dudes to Oh! You Pretty Things, he fires on all cylinders still on an upward flight to the height of his powers, where things would grow more intriguing and innovative for the following three decades. This concert was not the end; just an extraordinary beginning. MT

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY ON 7TH MARCH 2017 WITH A NEW EXCLUSIVE FILMED INTERVIEW WITH SPIDERS DRUMMER, WOODY WOODMANSEY. TICKETS AND VENUES HERE

 

Atlantic (2017) | Berlinale

Dir.: Risteard O’Domhnaill; Narrator: Brendan Gleeson; ROI/Canada/Norway 2016, 80 min.

Once upon a time, fishing was seen as rather a precarious and romantic existence traditionally passed down through families who supplied local needs around the coasts and later further inland when fresh fish could be sent by train packed in ice to the large cities. But this all changed radically in the latter part of the 20th century: first multi-national companies, then globalisation ushered in a new era – not only for the work force, but also for the environment. ATLANTIC is a tale of three fishing communities in Ireland, Newfoundland and Norway. The stories vary from country to country, but they all share a gloomy outlook in common.

On Newfoundland, fisherman Charlie Kane speaks about the changes in his village, Renefs: Once 650 citizens lived here, surviving with 52 fishing boats. But in the early 1990s, the cod dried up, due to environmental circumstances and the appearance of Super-trawlers, forcing the local fishermen to struggle for an existence. Now Kane has a quota of just two tons of fish – as much as the family consumed in the winter months. His sons had to change professions: and now work for a multi-national oil drilling company in shifts of 21 days on and 21 days off. The money is good, but when they go fishing, now just a hobby, they think about the lifestyle they never had: videos from their childhood show them on the boats “being more in the way than helpful”. Charlie Kane died in 2014, and his sons are threatened with redundancy, after the oil price collapsed last year. After a long fight with Denmark, who are the de-facto rulers of Newfoundland and Labrador, the local population is ready for change, brought, again, from far away from their field of influence.

Jerry Early from the West Coast of Ireland, has just been found guilty of fishing outside Irish waters. He is going to appeal at a higher Court, but his chances are small. Ever since Ireland joined the EU in 1973, foreign vessels from Span, France, Germany and Portugal are allowed to fish, the Irish government sacrificing its fishing industry for access to the Common Market. But worse was to come: after oil was found in the Irish Sea in 1975, the government had learned from their mistakes and made the oil companies share their profits with the Irish Free State. Minister Justin Keating looked to the successful Norwegian model, and signed a contract where the profits were split equally, and the companies would pay a 50% tax rate. But this all changed again in 1987, when Minister Ray Burke re-negotiated the contract, very much in favour of the multi-national companies. The same Ray Burke, was later sentenced to six month in prison for tax fraud. Little can be done about the ‘super trawlers’, who seem to break all laws. On one of them, the Jan Maria, the logbook stated that 9000 tons of herring was caught. But it later transpired that only 5000 tons arrived at shore, the ship releasing 4000 tons of smaller fish back in the water. But the fine was more symbolic: the captain had to pay a laughable sum for false bookkeeping.

Bjorn Nicolaisen might be the luckiest of the trio because Norway has invested the wealth from its oil boom into a modern and wealthy society, making sure that the companies did pay their fare share to the nationally owned Statoil company, and the last incoming government set up a moratorium of four years for further drilling in the Norwegian waters – but the fishing industry has suffered considerably, since the companies started exploring the waters with a blast technique, which, as Heike Verter, a marine biologist explains, makes the fish disappear for hours. Already Skate have completely vanished. Further changes for the worse are expected, when the government moratorium comes to an end later this year.

Narrated by Brendan Gleeson, ATLANTIC would make a great pairing with Leviathan (2012) that shares its grim message: between the profiteering companies, weak governments and environmental threats, an old industry is dying. It is not just the fishermen who lose their jobs and homes: we are losing a valuable natural resource that feeds our population because the way it is run now is totally unsustainable.

BERLINALE 9-19 FEBRUARY 2017 | CULINARY SCREENINGS

somniloquies (2017| Berlinale Forum

Dirs: Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor | UK,France,USA | Doc | 77 min

Songwriter Dion McGregor became famous in the 1960s for narrating his dreams in his sleep. These often amusing reveries are the focus of Leviathan directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel in a documentary that conjures up the revealing reveries of our deep subconscious that float around when we fall into dream sleep.

McGregor is so far the world’s most prolific recorded sleep talker and his dreams have long been analysed by psychiatrists who claim that he speaks from his motor cortex. His softly spoken voice invites us into his dreamscape “come-on in, I said I would grant an interview”. He talks about his imaginary town for midgets where there are baby animals too. “Did you ever sea a midget twist? It’s the cutest thing”

Some of it is gibberish but other times his monologues verge on the semi-pornographic where he talks about a rape in a hijacked ambulance and creates imagined scenarios with neighbours and acquaintances such as Mrs Evelyn Dangerfield and her “platinum bush” and her butler Carver: “deep in the bowels of his room I think he’s really a carver”; and the lady who cuts elastic out of people’s underwear. McGregor also muses over “supervised conception” that takes place in a “fuckwaggon” on Fridays and the “watchwaggon” of Wednesdays: “we’re just a nation of voyeurs”. In the final moments of this intriguing visual experience McGregor grows agitated: “let’s go to future land, the present is squalid”. And that was only the Sixties.MT

BERLINALE 9-19 FEBRUARY 2017

Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) Memorias del Subdesarrollo

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Dir/Writer: Tomas Gutierrez Ales (based on the novel by Edmundo Desnoes) DoP: Ramon Suarez, Editor: Nelson Rodriguez, Score: Leo Brower | Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Eslinda Nunez, Beatriz Ponchora | Docudrama | 104min

The date is 1961 and the suave figure of Sergio (Sergio Corrieri), the passionate intellectual star of Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s Cuban masterpiece, lopes like a jaguar moving through the capital of Havana, a town that is like an exotic old cougar caught in the headlights of the ‘modern’ world; world-weary, yet cannier than time. Saying ‘goodbye’ to his bourgeoise wife, bound for the delights of Miami with his parents, he returns home, a king in his own country caught between the past and the future.

MEMORIAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO is a drama about his daily life set against the backdrop of post-revolutionary Cuba, combining news footage, archive photos and a langourous romantic interlude he shares with a coquettish young woman Elena (Daisy Granados) – who later takes umbrage at his advances: “Everything happens to me too early or too late,” says Sergio, a man with European sensibilities – too soigne for Cuba yet almost too sophisticated, in every sense, for the brashness of ’60s Miami. He toys with writing a novel about the state of the country, but his ideas are too advanced. Perhaps if the revolution had happened earlier, he tells himself, he might have understood.

After attempting to civilise Elena, it emerges she is too tethered to the old world, not endowed with the faculties requisite for her desired transition to wannabe stardom. “She doesn’t relate things,” he tells himself. “It’s one of the signs of underdevelopment.” There are trips to the galleries and even to Hemingway’s house (with filmed footage from a Death in the Afternoon-style bullfight): “He said he killed so as not to kill himself,”.

Looking out over the vast port complex from a telescope in his apartment window, Sergio observes the birds eye-view of Havana, stretching out into the vastness of the ocean. The director deftly combines shocking news footage with glimpses of the current political scene in this spicy and often poignant ‘point-de-vue’ that distills the essence of the extraordinary country.

One imagines that this is a semi-autobiographical work for Tomas Gutierrez Alea, who was roughly the same age as Sergio when he shot the film, observing Fidel Castro’s political post-revolutionary machinations with an alienated eye.

This is a monumental film of great integrity: passionate and quietly moving. A testament to the ’60s with great courage and insight, skilfully edited by Nelson Rodriquez to engage and inform – without meandering or erring into the realms of small-mindedness in a small town way. Apparently, Edmundo Desnoes was positive about the film saying of Ales (according to the NY Times)  that he “objectivized a world that was shapeless in my mind and still abstract in the book. He added social density. . . .” Certainly one of the most outstanding films of Cuban cinema along with Mikhail Kalatozov’s Soy Cuba | I am Cuba (1964). MT

AVAILABLE on BFI PLAYER and on bluray COURTESY OF MR BONGO FILMS

Loving Pia (2017) AT ELSKE PIA | Berlinale Forum

Dir.: Daniel Borgman; Cast: Pia Skovgaard, Celine Skovgaard, Jens Jensen, Putte Jensen; Denmark 2017, 100 min.

Filmmaker Daniel Borgman (The Weight of Elephants) has achieved an astonishing hybrid between documentary and feature: his portrait of Pia, an intellectually challenged woman in her sixties, is a cinematographic declaration of love, not only for Pia, but for everyone who life difficult each day without help.

Pia Skovgaard lives with her mother Guittou (Celine Skovgaard) in a farmhouse on the Danish island of Langeland. Guitto is a translator in her eighties who grew up in France. Pia is fond of their goose Lola, whom she treats like an equal. We first meet her declaring she wants to marry Jose, who lives in Lusac. Her mother later tells her that she has picked up this person from the TV, and that she should look for a real person to marry. Pia goes every day to the day centre, where she enjoys occupational therapy and gymnastics. Guittou is worried that she won’t be around for much longer and tries to prepare Pia for a life on her own. On the way to visit a care home, Pia meets Jens tending his boat in the small harbour. Jens’ wife has left him, and he only has the occasional company of his sister Putte. The two begin a tentative relationship and Guittou hopes it might work out. But after Pia talks Jens into visiting the Den Bla Planet Aquarium in Copenhagen – both of them are fascinated with fish – the relationship flounders: Jens feels that Pia’s conversation is too lightweight: “you just want to make jokes”, dumping her on their return to the island far away from her house. At home, and we leave the two women as we met them: Pia trying to keep reality and fiction apart for her daughter.

The lyrical, poetic film language is underlined by the images, which are shot on 16mm with very long and fixed shots (shades of Manoel de Oliveira), which are different from the shot/counter shot and edit of the conventional narrative film. Whilst segments of the story are fictional, they are embedded in the real life story of Pia. LOVING PIA has a languid quality, which makes the audience part of Pia’s life: it works like waves washing up to the shore, leaving strong emotions behind. AS

BERLINALE 9-19 FEBRUARY 2017

P. S. Jerusalem (2016) |

Director: Danae Elon; Documentary; Canada/Israel 2015, 87 min.

Filmmaker Danae Elon offers a straightforward and very honest film diary of the three years following her return to Jerusalem. Her father Amos Elon was a writer and a fierce critic of Israel’s occupation of Palestine who advised her not to return to “this nation of thieves”, before his death in 2009. And Elon’s is a heart-breaking story of personal disappointment amid the day-to-day violence in Israel.

A child of the ’70s, Danae Elon grew up with parents who actively protested against Israel’s ‘Apartheid’ policies and the permanent violence against Palestinians. After living most of her adult life in the USA, her main motive for returning to Jerusalem was to relive her childhood, because “Jerusalem was the only place I call home”. With her two sons Tristan and Andrei – a third child, Amos, was born just after the arrival in Jerusalem – and husband Philip Touitou, a French-Algerian Jew, Danae tried in a way to recreate her own childhood, taking her children to rallies against new Jewish settlements and enrolling her oldest son Tristan in Jerusalem’s only school bi-lingual school for Arabs and Jews.

Whilst teaching her children to see Palestinians as their equals, she had not reckoned with the openly violent attitude of her fellow Israelis towards the Palestinians in the capital. At one point an enraged Israeli shouts at Danae and her son during a demonstration against an evection of an Arab family: “Your ancestors must have helped the Nazis, since you are helping the Arabs. Your father was a Kapo [in the Camps] !”. Even at home the atmosphere changed from he happy time of their arrival: Tristan exclaims “Mummy comes from here, she understands. Dad shouldn’t be here”. The oldest sons are proud  “Mummy was a soldier” in the Israeli Army. Naturally, Philip, who has trouble finding a job as a photographer, feels alienated and fears for the future of their children when asking his wife: “You make the children feel different from others, they have different values. But is it good for them?” Philip feels even more isolated than he did growing up as an Arab in Paris. And he yearns to live “with normal people, without all the political barriers erected between Arabs and Jews”. Danae too starts questioning the future of her sons: “Will they be hated as members of the Peace Movement, or will they start to hate?”

Everywhere Danae starts to see contradictions when arguing with fellow Israelis: “The whole myth of the founding of the State of Israel, where the settlers build the country from ‘barren land’, whilst the reality was, that the best agricultural part of the country was taken from 700 000 Palestinians, who were displaced”. Things come to a head for Danae on “Memorial Day for Jewish Soldiers”, the only day, when the students in Tristan’s school are separated. The open contradictions of this “celebration” lead her to conclude that she wanted to bring the boys up where she was a child. “Perhaps I need to become a person away from my childhood. The only home for my children is their family”.

A tearful farewell with Tristan’s best friend, a Palestinian boy, notwithstanding, P S JERUSALEM shows that it is impossible for Danae, or anybody else, to bring up her children in a tolerant way given the violence and hatred between Jews and Arabs growing with every new Jewish settlement and every eviction of Arabs from their family home. Danae’s father, an emigrant from Austria, saw the roots of this tragedy as a journalist during the War of Independence in 1948 – his daughter had, rightly, tried to make a difference in this unequal struggle between the Have and Have-Nots. In the end, Danae did not want to pay the penalty of “a divided family as a price for being a Jew in Israel”.

Made on a shoestring budget, and no worse for it, the director was her own DOP, in what is by far the most impressive document of the seemingly unavoidable conflict between Israeli and Palestinians: Violence has become the norm, and minorities on both sides, fight a losing battle for reconciliation. Danae Elon’s truthful, unflinching account of her struggles is a milestone of personal/political filmmaking. Dedicated to her mother, who still lives and fights for reconciliation in Jerusalem, this documentary is a tribute to both her parents. AS

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 17 FEBRUARY 2017

 

City of the Sun (2017) ****

Dir: Rati Oneli | Georgia / USA / Qatar / Netherlands 2017 | Georgian | Doc | 104 min · Colour

Up to 50 percent of the world’s manganese, a vital metal across the globe, used to be mined in Chiatura, in western Georgia. Today, it resembles an apocalyptic ghost town. Mzis qalaqi portrays a few of the remaining inhabitants. Music teacher Zurab dismantles ramshackle concrete buildings and sells the iron girders to make some money on the side. Archil still works in the mine but his real passion is the local amateur theatre group. Despite being malnourished, two young female athletes still train stoically for the next Olympic Games.

In his documentary debut, director Rati Oneli provides fascinating insights into a living environment whose bleak industrial ruins appear at once colossal almost like a film set. A jumble of clapped out electric wires and ageing cable cars runs through the city like the clogged-up arteries of an ailing organism that resists the flow of life in untiring fashion. Mzis qalaqi brings home the ephemeral nature. In a city where the sun never shines, only the inhabitants generate warmth. Oneli succeeds in achieving far more than the mining companies are capable of: His camera brings that most valuable of resources to the surface – humanity.

SCREENING DURING BERLINALE 2017 | Panorama section.

 

In the Intense Now (2017) | Berlinale Forum

Dir: João Moreira Salles | Doc | Brazil | 127 min · Black/White & Colour

In 1966, whilst on a cultural tour of China, the director’s mother captured on film her impressions of the country and its people. Forty years later, her son discovered her material. He comments on the images taken by his enthusiastic mother by quoting the impressions of Italian author Alberto Moravia, who also travelled through China and was able to closely observe Maoist policies. His mother’s journey during the first year of the Cultural Revolution also provides a starting point for João Moreira Salles’ exploration of other societies in the midst of upheaval. Making use of archive images, he dissects and analyses the Brazilian coup of 1964 and the end of the Prague Spring in August 1968. He also returns – repeatedly – to the Parisian riots in May which found a ‘star’ revolutionary and mediator between Paris and Berlin in the shape of Daniel Cohn-Bendit. An essayistic and at the same time personal exploration of the parallel stories of revolution in Prague, France and Brazil – and their failure. By juxtaposing amateur footage and archive material the film succeeds in pointing out connections between the sources of these images and their political contexts. Mind-blowing stuff and recommended viewing.

SCREENING DURING BERLINALE 2017 |

Strike a Pose (2016)

Director-writers: Ester Gould, Reijer Zwaan | Cast: Luis Camacho, Oliver Crumes III, Salim Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez, Kevin Stea, Carlton Wilborn | Doc | US |

Revisiting Madonna’s 1990 Blond Ambition gig, 25 dancers reflect on their experience in a very different world, a quarter of a century ago. This Dutch documentary looks at what happens once the performance high is over and the champagne glasses are washed and back on the shelf.

1990 felt feisty and fresh and so was Madonna and her dancers. Breaking onto a music scene that still seemed rather touching and naive, the quaint newness of ‘nautifying’ religion now seems very dated and tame in its way, and Gould and Zwaan successfully capture the zeitgeist of those ‘ground-breaking’ moments, with the usual talking heads, clips and footage format. But STRIKE A POSE is rather top heavy on sentimental family stories and light on entertainment, music and Madonna herself. So don’t go expecting a toe-tapping cheer-filled shindig; this really should be classified as an LGBT interest documentary rather than music biopic, per se. None of the dancers stands out as a personality with any particularly charisma. That said, this low-key indie makes some salient points about the cult of celebrity and its often catastrophic consequences for delicate egos and sensitive types, many of whom were still really kids when they took part, and there are some sincere revelations about what it feels like to be gay, then and now: “We carried our flamboyance as a warning,” says Camacho. “Yes, we have earrings on, we have eyeliner on, but don’t mistake any of this for weakness.”

So STRIKE A POSE is certainly worth a watch if you’re in the mood for a human interest story about the soulful introspection of gay men in the entertainment business and their melancholy reflections on the past, and of the first great arena spectacle that now is very much the way to go. MT

NOW ON RELEASE FROM 3 FEBRUARY 2017 AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE

 

 

 

Tower (2016)

Dir.: Keith Maitland | Cast: Violette Bean, Josephine McAdam, Louie Arnett, Chris Doubeck, Blair Jackson; USA | 96 min.

Using archive material and interviews with survivors, a dramatic reconstruction that is presented as a black-and-white rotoscoped animation, director Keith Maitland (The Eyes of Me) creates a haunting portrait of the first mass killing in US history: 25 year old ex-Marine Charles Whitman, shooting from the tower of the University of Texas Austin’ building, killed 15 people on August 1st 1966 and severely injured 34.

Maitland stays – almost literally – very much on the ground: this is the story of individuals who were victims, survivors or police officers, who finally killed Whitman. The documentary is not focused on focused on Whitman, or his troubled upbringing and or medical issues, nor does Maitland mention that Whitman killed his mother and wife before turning his gun on strangers. TOWER is about the individual terror, the bravery and the sheer randomness of the incident.

The surreal, chaotic and absurd atmosphere is enhanced by actors much younger than the survivors, telling the story in the words of the actual individuals themselves. Brief flashbacks are in Day-Glo; and whenever somebody is hit by Whitman’s bullets, the background turns red. Two women are in the centre of this reconstruction: Claire Wilson (Bean) who was eight months pregnant and Rita Starpattern (McAdam). Claire was hit by a bullet, which killed her baby, and her boyfriend, when her tried to help her. Claire lay in 100+ degrees on the cement, knowing that her baby and boyfriend were dead. But Rita Starpattern, a student, crawled to her in full view of the tower from which Whitman was shooting. Rita comforted Claire and kept her awake, trying to speak to her as casually as possible. Finally, when Claire was giving up, a man cowering nearby risked his life and helped to carry Claire to safety into one of the ambulances. Particularly moving is a scene from the aftermath, when Rita (who passed away in1996) presented Claire with one of her pictures, visiting her in hospital. Claire, who adopted an Ethiopian boy, the two are seen sitting beaming together on a sofa, has forgiven Whitman “because I have been forgiven myself so much”.

The senseless mayhem was all the more tragic when it emerges that many ordinary Austiners came with their rifles to the campus, attempting to shoot Whiteman without success. But as officer Martinez (Arnett) rightly pointed out, their efforts were not in vain. Although he and his fellow policeman Houston McCoy (Jackson) and civilian Allen Crum (Doubek), finally managed to kill the shooter. “these men shooting, saved lives, since Whitman had to take cover all the time, and could not move as freely as he wanted”.

So TOWER is an abstract reconstruction of the first mass shooting, a true horror story, which has been repeated all over again in places like Columbine High School and the Primary School in Newton/Conn. Maitland is not interested in guilt or explanations, he shows the raw reactions of people suddenly confronted with death, their exceptional bravery and courage in saving others, whilst the majority stayed in safe places. But TOWER also points out that the free availability of weapons – and here the focus is guns – is the main facilitator of these massacres. The fact that the president-elect is sponsored by the NRA gives little hope that this will change. AS

REVIEWED AT LFF WHERE IT COMPETED FOR THE GRIERSON DOC AWARD | TOWER IS ON RELEASE FROM MARCH 2017

 

Danny Says – The Life and Times of Danny Fields (2016)

Dir: Brendan Toller | US | Music Biopic | 102min

Danny Fields was a key figure in America’s music scene of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. A trend forecaster with a prescient talent for spotting talent, he discovered artists floating in the ether and brought them to the public consciousness and the enjoyment of all. Everything Danny touched turned to gold, sooner or later, and although he nearly destroyed the Beatles’ US career with a misjudged headline, he put the Ramones and Nina Simone on the map and shared a close friendship with Lou Reed, Jim Morrison and Nico during his time as journalist, publicity director at Electra Records and Warhol’s Silver Factory.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Fields was always a rebel in his Jewish family. “I was on the wrong table from the get go”; “a flaming faggot”.  At Harvard he read Law but broke away from his studies to have sex with as many men as possible and moved back to Greenwich Village at a time in the late 1950s where gayness was not a point of reference or a definition: “No one came out, because nobody was ever in”. Homosexuality was a covert state between his buddies and they kept it to themselves: “Trying to find a gay bar New York in those days was like trying to find a protestant church in Spain.”

Fields eventually moved into publishing before gravitating to the music business as a general mover, shaker and fixer who had a gift for capturing the zeitgeist and selling a new idea that invariable took off. In 1965, The Doors, James Brown, Bob Dylan and Martha and the Vendellas were all breaking onto the scene with standout albums and Danny was in his element. But on the eve of the Beatles 1966 US Tour, he wrote a controversial headline in a music magazine that highlighted the band’s comments about Jesus and Black people. As a result, the band’s landing in Memphis was marred by a general trashing of their album and catastrophic ticket cancellations.

Taking its title from a Ramones song in his honour DANNY SAYS is enlivened by humorous cartoons, audio clips and fascinating footage, this fascinating freewheeling life story flows along as if on quaaludes, with the loquacious Mr Fields and the likes of Iggy Pop and Nico chipping in with their wit and wisdom on the music scene of the era. So Bravo to debut director Brendan Toller for this energetic and enjoyable biopic. Clearly he’s a fan of Mr Fields but could have curbed his enthusiasm with a tightening up of the final scenes which focus on the future of a man who is clearly still raring to go in his late seventies. MT

NOW SHOWING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE

Cameraperson (2016)

Director/DoP: Kirsten Johnson Editor: Nels Bangerter | Doc | 103min | US

Seasoned cinematographer Kirsten Johnson has worked in all corners of the globe on documentaries with the likes of Laura Poitras and Michael Moore. CAMERAPERSON is a raw and deeply-affecting patchwork of photo-memories that serves as visual autobiography of her life.

This essay film has no narrative as such but works its way towards a gradually more involving story from a recurring set of themes and locations. Reportage blends with personal footage of her own life in Beaux Arts Washington and Brooklyn; sorties to the former war zones of Bosnia, Dafur and Rwanda and closer to home, an electric storm in a Southern State, a field of wild flowers recording the memory of Wounded Knee; and the dreadful murder of James Byrd, Jr, dragged to death behind a pick-up truck. Each vignette is introduced with its location, making it all the more satisfying and resonant.

Never showy or sensationalist but always beguiling, her snapshots swoop silently into everyday life: a Bosnian re-settler bakes bread in her humble shack and there are incandescent moments where a boxer bitterly rages against his failure in Brooklyn, and a newborn baby is brought back to life by a midwife in a spartan Nigerian clinic; his tiny bewildered eyes meet ours as he desperately gasps for his first breath. In perfect English, a little Afghan boy talks tearfully but candidly about losing his eye and his older brother in a bomb blast. The tragic faces of the living are so much affecting than gory bodies of the dead.

Then there is the recognisable footage of Happy Valley and Citizenfour and glimpses of Michael Moore laughing on set. These makes the viewer realise that the ‘objective reality’ of freewheeling documentary relies on clever staging and editing to enhance our experience of factual filmmaking. Simple family moments can be surprisingly moving: Johnson’s mother (in the final stages of Alzheimer’s) points to a photo of her husband with the comment: “oh really, you knew him too?”

But Africa offers the most compelling footage: in barren wastelands women work with humour and forebearance in heart-warming testament to the human condition. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 JANUARY 2017

Sundance Film 2017 | 19-29 January 2017

thoroughbredIn Park City Utah, the SUNDANCE INSTITUTE sets the indie film agenda for 2017 with a slew of provocative new titles for this year’s festival which runs from 19-29 January. These will take part in the U.S. Competition, World Competition and NEXT strands, and an environmentally focused programme entitled New Climate.

30473930013_86dc9f4f65_zRobert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance, is joined by chief programmer John Copper programmer for 2017’s theme: climate change and environmental preservation. The New Climate program builds on the Institute’s longstanding commitment to showcasing environmental films and projects, that in the past have included An Inconvenient Truth, Blackfish, The Cove, Gasland, Chasing Ice, Racing Extinction and Collisions. This year’s programme includes Jeff Orlowski’s follow up to his coruscating documentary Chasing Ice, with Chasing Coral, which follows a team of divers, photographers and scientists exploring the world’s changing coral reefs; Trophy, an in-depth look at the controversial, multi-billion-dollar big-game hunting industry; Water & Power: A California Heist, an investigation of California’s convoluted water system; Plastic China an examination of employee life at a Chinese recycling plant; and Machines, (above) a portrait of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India.

U.S.   D R A M A T I C    C O M P E T I T I O N

Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films, the Dramatic Competition offers Festivalgoers a first look at groundbreaking new voices in American independent film.

bandaid_still1_adampally_fredarmisen_zoelisterjonesBAND AID / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Zoe Lister-Jones) — A couple who can’t stop arguing embark on a last-ditch effort to save their marriage: by turning their strife into songs and starting a band. Cast: Zoe Lister-Jones, Adam Pally, Fred Armisen, Susie Essman, Hannah Simone, Ravi Patel. World Premiere

BEACH RATS/ U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Eliza Hittman) — An aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn struggles to escape his bleak home life and navigate questions of self-identity, as he balances his time between his delinquent friends, a potential new girlfriend, and older men he meets online. Cast: Harris Dickinson, Madeline Weinstein, Kate Hodge, Neal Huff. World Premiere

8777-un17_brigsbybear_still1_kylemooney__bychristiansprengerBRIGSBY BEAR/ U.S.A. (Director: Dave McCary, Screenwriters: Kevin Costello, Kyle Mooney) — Brigsby Bear Adventures is a children’s TV show produced for an audience of one: James. When the show abruptly ends, James’s life changes forever, and he sets out to finish the story himself. Cast: Kyle Mooney, Claire Danes, Mark Hamill, Greg Kinnear, Matt Walsh, Michaela Watkins. World Premiere

BURNING SANDS / U.S.A. (Director: Gerard McMurray, Screenwriters: Christine Berg, Gerard McMurray) — Deep into a fraternity’s Hell Week, a favoured pledge is torn between honouring a code of silence or standing up against the intensifying violence of underground hazing. Cast: Trevor Jackson, Alfre Woodard, Steve Harris, Tosin Cole, DeRon Horton, Trevante Rhodes. World Premiere

CROWN HEIGHTS / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Matt Ruskin) — When Colin Warner is wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend, Carl King, devotes his life to proving Colin’s innocence. Adapted from This American Life, this is the incredible true story of their harrowing quest for justice. Cast: Keith Stanfield, Nnamdi Asomugha, Natalie Paul, Bill Camp, Nestor Carbonell, Amari Cheatom. World Premiere

9635-un17_goldenexits_still1_emilybrowning_adamhorovitz__byseanpricewilliamsGOLDEN EXITS/ U.S.A. left (Director and screenwriter: Alex Ross Perry) — The arrival of a young foreign girl disrupts the lives and emotional balances of two Brooklyn families. Cast: Emily Browning, Adam Horovitz, Mary-Louise Parker, Lily Rabe, Jason Schwartzman, Chloë Sevigny. World Premiere

THE HERO / U.S.A. (Director: Brett Haley, Screenwriters: Brett Haley, Marc Basch) — Lee, a former Western film icon, is living a comfortable existence lending his golden voice to advertisements and smoking weed. After receiving a lifetime achievement award and unexpected news, Lee re-examines his past, while a chance meeting with a sardonic comic has him looking to the future. Cast: Sam Elliott, Laura Prepon, Krysten Ritter, Nick Offerman, Katherine Ross. World Premiere

unnamedI DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE / U.S.A. left (Director and screenwriter: Macon Blair) — When a depressed woman is burgled, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves, alongside her obnoxious neighbour. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals. Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Elijah Wood, David Yow, Jane Levy, Devon Graye. World Premiere. DAY ONE

igw_sundance_first_lookINGRID GOES WEST / U.S.A. (Director: Matt Spicer, Screenwriters: Matt Spicer, David Branson Smith) — A young woman becomes obsessed with an Instagram lifestyle blogger and moves to Los Angeles to try and befriend her in real life. Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Wyatt Russell, Billy Magnussen. World Premiere

12520-un17_landline_still2_jennyslate_abbyquinn__byjojowhildenLANDLINE/ U.S.A.- left (Director: Gillian Robespierre, Screenwriters: Elisabeth Holm, Gillian Robespierre) — Two sisters come of age in ’90s New York when they discover their dad’s affair—and it turns out he’s not the only cheater in the family. Everyone still smokes inside, no one has a cell phone and the Jacobs finally connect through lying, cheating and hibachi. Cast: Jenny Slate, John Turturro, Edie Falco, Abby Quinn, Jay Duplass, Finn Wittrock. World Premiere

NOVITIATE / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Maggie Betts) — In the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church. Cast: Margaret Qualley, Melissa Leo, Julianne Nicholson, Dianna Agron, Morgan Saylor. World Premiere

patti_cake_still-tif_rgbPATTI CAKE$ / U.S.A – left -. (Director and screenwriter: Geremy Jasper) — Straight out of Jersey comes Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$, an aspiring rapper fighting through a world of strip malls and strip clubs on an unlikely quest for glory. Cast: Danielle Macdonald, Bridget Everett, Siddharth Dhananjay, Mamoudou Athie, Cathy Moriarty. World Premiere

ROXANNE ROXANNE / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Michael Larnell) — The most feared battle emcee in early-’80s NYC was a fierce teenager from the Queensbridge projects with the weight of the world on her shoulders. At age 14, hustling the streets to provide for her family, Roxanne Shanté was well on her way to becoming a hip-hop legend. Cast: Chanté Adams, Mahershala Ali, Nia Long, Elvis Nolasco, Kevin Phillips, Shenell Edmonds. World Premiere

TO THE BONE / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Marti Noxon) — In a last-ditch effort to battle her severe anorexia, 20-year-old Ellen enters a group recovery home. With the help of an unconventional doctor, Ellen and the other residents go on a sometimes-funny, sometimes-harrowing journey that leads to the ultimate question—is life worth living? Cast: Lily Collins, Keanu Reeves, Carrie Preston, Lili Taylor, Alex Sharp, Liana Liberato. World Premiere

walking-outWALKING OUT / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Alex Smith, Andrew Smith) — A father and son struggle to connect on any level until a brutal encounter with a predator in the heart of the wilderness leaves them both seriously injured. If they are to survive, the boy must carry his father to safety. Cast: Matt Bomer, Josh Wiggins, Bill Pullman, Alex Neustaedter, Lily Gladstone. World Premiere

3758-un17_yellowbirds_still1_aldenehrenreich_jackhuston_tyesheridan__bybobmahoneysifeddineelamineTHE YELLOW BIRDS/ U.S.A.- left-  (Director: Alexandre Moors, Screenwriter: David Lowery) — Two young men enlist in the army and are deployed to fight in the Gulf War. After an unthinkable tragedy, the surviving soldier struggles to balance his promise of silence with the truth and a mourning mother’s search for peace. Cast: Tye Sheridan, Jack Huston, Alden Ehrenreich, Jason Patric, Toni Collette, Jennifer Aniston. World Premiere

U. S.   D O C U M E N T A R Y    C O M P E T I T I O N

Sixteen world-premiere American documentaries that illuminate the ideas, people and events that shape the present day.

CASTING JONBENET / U.S.A., Australia (Director: Kitty Green) — The unsolved death of six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey remains the world’s most sensational child murder case. Over 15 months, responses, reflections and performances were elicited from the Ramsey’s Colorado hometown community, creating a bold work of art from the collective memories and mythologies the crime inspired. World Premiere

svii_in_coral_triangle_-_photo_by_xl_caitlin_seaview_survey-copyCHASING CORAL/ U.S.A. (Director: Jeff Orlowski) — Coral reefs around the world are vanishing at an unprecedented rate. A team of divers, photographers and scientists set out on a thrilling ocean adventure to discover why and to reveal the underwater mystery to the world. World Premiere. NEW CLIMATE

CITY OF GHOSTS/ U.S.A. (Director: Matthew Heineman) — With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today. World PremiereD

DINA/ U.S.A. (Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini) — An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story. World Premiere

8275-ud17_dolores_still2_doloreshuerta__bygeorgeballis-copyDOLORES/ U.S.A – left – (Director: Peter Bratt) — Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by co-founding the country’s first farmworkers’ union. Wrestling with raising 11 children, gender bias, union defeat and victory, and nearly dying after a San Francisco Police beating, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her newfound feminism with racial and class justice. World Premiere

THE FORCE / U.S.A. (Director: Pete Nicks) — This cinema vérité look at the long-troubled Oakland Police Department goes deep inside their struggles to confront federal demands for reform, a popular uprising following events in Ferguson and an explosive scandal. World Premiere

icarus-sundance-still-copyICARUS / U.S.A. (Director: Bryan Fogel) — When Bryan Fogel sets out to uncover the truth about doping in sports, a chance meeting with a Russian scientist transforms his story from a personal experiment into a geopolitical thriller involving dirty urine, unexplained death and Olympic Gold—exposing the biggest scandal in sports history. World Premiere

THE NEW RADICAL / U.S.A. (Director: Adam Bhala Lough) — Uncompromising millennial radicals from the United States and the United Kingdom attack the system through dangerous technological means, which evolves into a high-stakes game with world authorities in the midst of a dramatically changing political landscape. World Premiere

NOBODY SPEAK: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press / U.S.A. (Director: Brian Knappenberger) — The trial between Hulk Hogan and Gawker Media pitted privacy rights against freedom of the press, and raised important questions about how big money can silence media. This film is an examination of the perils and duties of the free press in an age of inequality. World Premiere

quest-still1_jonathanolshefski-copyQUEST / U.S.A. (Director: Jonathan Olshefski) — For over a decade, this portrait of a North Philadelphia family and the creative sanctuary offered by their home music studio was filmed with vérité intimacy. The family’s 10-year journey is an illumination of race and class in America, and it’s a testament to love, healing and hope. World Premiere

STEP / U.S.A. (Director: Amanda Lipitz) — The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city. World Premiere

STRONG ISLAND / U.S.A., Denmark (Director: Yance Ford) — Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change. World Premiere

sequence_02-00_23_42_03-still008TROPHY / U.S.A.- left- (Director: Shaul Schwarz, Co-Director: Christina Clusiau) — This in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities. World Premiere. NEW CLIMATE

UNREST / U.S.A. (Director: Jennifer Brea) — When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s “all in her head.” Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families’ stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot. World Premiere

waterandpowercaliforniaheist_still1-copy Water & Power: A California Heist / U.S.A. (Director: Marina Zenovich) — In California’s convoluted water system, notorious water barons find ways to structure a state-engineered system to their own advantage. This examination into their centers of power shows small farmers and everyday citizens facing drought and a new, debilitating groundwater crisis. World Premiere. NEW CLIMATE

unnamed-1WHOSE STREETS? / U.S.A. (Director: Sabaah Folayan, Co-Director: Damon Davis) — A nonfiction account of the Ferguson uprising told by the people who lived it, this is an unflinching look at how the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown inspired a community to fight back—and sparked a global movement. World Premiere. DAY ONE

W O R L D    C I N E M A    D R A M A T I C   C O M P E T I T I O N

Twelve films from emerging filmmaking talents around the world offer fresh perspectives and inventive styles.

axoloti-overkillAXOLOT! OVERKILL/ Germany (Director and screenwriter: Helene Hegemann) — Mifti, age 16, lives in Berlin with a cast of characters including her half-siblings; their rich, self-involved father; and her junkie friend Ophelia. As she mourns her recently deceased mother, she begins to develop an obsession with Alice, an enigmatic, and much older, white-collar criminal. Cast: Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Arly Jover, Mavie Hörbiger, Laura Tonke, Hans Löw, Bernhard Schütz. World Premiere

berlin-syndromeBERLIN SYNDROME/ Australia (Director: Cate Shortland, Screenwriter: Shaun Grant) — A passionate holiday romance takes an unexpected and sinister turn when an Australian photographer wakes one morning in a Berlin apartment and is unable to leave. Cast: Teresa Palmer, Max Riemelt. World Premiere

CARPINTEROS (Woodpeckers) / Dominican Republic (Director and screenwriter: José María Cabral) — Julián finds love and a reason for living in the last place imaginable: the Dominican Republic’s Najayo Prison. His romance with fellow prisoner Yanelly must develop through sign language and without the knowledge of dozens of guards. Cast: Jean Jean, Judith Rodriguez Perez, Ramón Emilio Candelario. World Premiere

dont-swallow-my-heartDON’T SWALLOW MY HEART, ALLIGATOR GIRL!/ Brazil, Netherlands, France, Paraguay (Director and screenwriter: Felipe Bragança) — In this fable about love and memories, Joca is a 13-year-old Brazilian boy in love with an indigenous Paraguayan girl. To conquer her love, he must face the violent region’s war-torn past and the secrets of his elder brother, Fernando, a motorcycle cowboy. Cast: Cauã Reymond, Eduardo Macedo, Adeli Gonzales, Zahy Guajajara, Claudia Assunção, Ney Matogrosso. World Premiere

FAMILY LIFE/ Chile (Directors: Alicia Scherson, Cristián Jiménez, Screenwriter: Alejandro Zambra) — While house-sitting for a distant cousin, a lonely man fabricates the existence of a vindictive ex-wife withholding his daughter, in order to gain the sympathy of the single mother he has just met. Cast: Jorge Becker, Gabriela Arancibia, Blanca Lewin, Cristián Carvajal. World Premiere

FREE AND EASY / Hong Kong (Director: Jun Geng, Screenwriters: Jun Geng, Yuhua Feng, Bing Liu) — When a traveling soap salesman arrives in a desolate Chinese town, a crime occurs, and sets the strange residents against each other with tragicomic results. Cast: Gang Xu, Zhiyong Zhang, Baohe Xue, Benshan Gu, Xun Zhang. World Premiere

gods-own-countyGOD’S OWN COUNTRY / United Kingdom (Director and screenwriter: Francis Lee) — Springtime in Yorkshire: isolated young sheep farmer Johnny Saxby numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker, employed for the lambing season, ignites an intense relationship that sets Johnny on a new path. Cast: Josh O’Connor, Alec Secareanu, Ian Hart, Gemma Jones. World Premiere

MY HAPPY FAMILY / Georgia (Directors: Nana & Simon, Screenwriter: Nana Ekvtimishvili) — Tbilisi, Georgia, 2016: In a patriarchal society, an ordinary Georgian family lives with three generations under one roof. All are shocked when 52-year-old Manana decides to move out from her parents’ home and live alone. Without her family and her husband, a journey into the unknown begins. Cast: Ia Shugliashvili, Merab Ninidze, Berta Khapava, Tsisia Qumsishvili, Giorgi Tabidze, Dimitri Oragvelidze. World Premiere

nile-hiton-incidentTHE NILE HILTON INCIDENT / Sweden (Director and screenwriter: Tarik Saleh) — In Cairo, weeks before the 2011 revolution, Police Detective Noredin is working in the infamous Kasr el-Nil Police Station when he is handed the case of a murdered singer. He soon realizes that the investigation concerns the power elite, close to the President’s inner circle. Cast: Fares Fares, Mari Malek, Mohamed Yousry, Yasser Ali Maher, Ahmed Selim, Hania Amar. World Premiere

 

pop-ayePOP EYE / Singapore, Thailand (Director and screenwriter: Kirsten Tan) — On a chance encounter, a disenchanted architect bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. Excited, he takes his elephant on a journey across Thailand in search of the farm where they grew up together. Cast: Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Penpak Sirikul, Bong. World Premiere. DAY ONE

SUENO EN OTRO IDIOMA (I Dream in Another Language) / Mexico (Director: Ernesto Contreras, Screenwriter: Carlos Contreras) — The last two speakers of a millennia-old language haven’t spoken in 50 years, when a young linguist tries to bring them together. Yet hidden in the past, in the heart of the jungle, lies a secret concerning the fate of the Zikril language. Cast: Fernando Álvarez Rebeil, Eligio Meléndez, Manuel Poncelis, Fátima Molina, Juan Pablo de Santiago, Hoze Meléndez. World Premiere

the-woundTHE WOUND / South Africa (Director: John Trengove, Screenwriters: John Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana, Malusi Bengu) — Xolani, a lonely factory worker, travels to the rural mountains with the men of his community to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood. When a defiant initiate from the city discovers his best-kept secret, a forbidden love, Xolani’s entire existence begins to unravel. Cast: Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini. World Premiere

W O R L D   C I N E M A    D O C U M E N T A R Y    C O M P E T I T I O N
Twelve documentaries by some of the most courageous and extraordinary international filmmakers working today.

the-good-postmanTHE GOOD POSTMAN / Finland, Bulgaria (Director: Tonislav Hristov) — In a small Bulgarian village troubled by the ongoing refugee crisis, a local postman runs for mayor—and learns that even minor deeds can outweigh good intentions. North American Premiere

in-loco-parentisIN LOCO PARENTIS / Ireland, Spain (Directors: Neasa Ní Chianáin, David Rane) — John and Amanda teach Latin, English and guitar at a fantastical, stately home-turned-school. Nearly 50-year careers are drawing to a close for the pair who have become legends with the mantra: “Reading! ’Rithmetic! Rock ’n’ roll!” But for pupil and teacher alike, leaving is the hardest lesson. North American Premiere

IT’S NOT DARK YET / Ireland (Director: Frankie Fenton) — This is the incredible story of Simon Fitzmaurice, a young filmmaker who becomes completely paralyzed from motor neurone disease but goes on to direct an award-winning feature film through the use of his eyes. International Premiere

JOSHUA: TEENAGE VRS SUPERPOWER / U.S.A. (Director: Joe Piscatella) — When the Chinese Communist Party backtracks on its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his city. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents. World Premiere

last-man-in-aleppoLAST MEN IN ALEPPO/ Denmark (Directors: Feras Fayyad, Steen Johannessen) — After five years of war in Syria, Aleppo’s remaining residents prepare themselves for a siege. Khalid, Subhi and Mahmoud, founding members of The White Helmets, have remained in the city to help their fellow citizens—and experience daily life, death, struggle and triumph in a city under fire. World Premiere

machinesMACHINES / India, Germany, Finland (Director: Rahul Jain) — This intimate, observant portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India, moves through the corridors and bowels of the enormously disorienting structure—taking the viewer on a journey of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship. North American Premiere. NEW CLIMATE

MOTHERLAND/ U.S.A., Philippines (Director: Ramona Diaz) — The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies. World Premiere

plastic-chinaPLASTIC CHINA/ China (Director: Jiu-liang Wang) — Yi-Jie, an 11-year-old girl, works alongside her parents in a recycling facility while dreaming of attending school. Kun, the facility’s ambitious foreman, dreams of a better life. Through the eyes and hands of those who handle its refuse, comes an examination of global consumption and culture. International Premiere. NEW CLIMATE

RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World / Canada (Director: Catherine Bainbridge) — This powerful documentary about the role of Native Americans in contemporary music history—featuring some of the greatest music stars of our time—exposes a critical missing chapter, revealing how indigenous musicians helped shape the soundtracks of our lives and, through their contributions, influenced popular culture. World Premiere

TOKYO IDOLS / United Kingdom, Canada (Director: Kyoko Miyake) — This exploration of Japan’s fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies. World Premiere

winnieWINNIE / France (Director: Pascale Lamche) — While her husband served a life sentence, paradoxically kept safe and morally uncontaminated, Winnie Mandela rode the raw violence of apartheid, fighting on the front line and underground. This is the untold story of the mysterious forces that combined to take her down, labeling him a saint, her, a sinner. World Premiere

unnamed-3THE WORKERS CUP / United Kingdom (Director: Adam Sobel) — Inside Qatar’s labour camps, African and Asian migrant workers building the facilities of the 2022 World Cup compete in a football tournament of their own. World Premiere. DAY ONE

N E X T

Pure, bold works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling populate this programme. Digital technology paired with unfettered creativity promises that the films in this section will shape a “greater” next wave in American cinema. Presented by Adobe.

columbus-nextCOLUMBUS / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kogonada) — Casey lives with her mother in a little-known Midwestern town haunted by the promise of modernism. Jin, a visitor from the other side of the world, attends to his dying father. Burdened by the future, they find respite in one another and the architecture that surrounds them. Cast: John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Rory Culkin, Michelle Forbes. World Premiere

DAYVEON/ U.S.A. (Director: Amman Abbasi, Screenwriters: Amman Abbasi, Steven Reneau) — In the wake of his older brother’s death, 13-year-old Dayveon spends the sweltering summer days roaming his rural Arkansas town. When he falls in with a local gang, he becomes drawn to the camaraderie and violence of their world. Cast: Devin Blackmon, Kordell “KD” Johnson, Dontrell Bright, Chasity Moore, Lachion Buckingham, Marquell Manning. World Premiere. DAY ONE

deidra-laney-rob-a-trainDEIDRA & LANEY ROB A TRAIN / U.S.A. (Director: Sydney Freeland, Screenwriter: Shelby Farrell) — Two teenage sisters start robbing trains to make ends meet after their single mother’s emotional meltdown in an electronics store lands her in jail. Cast: Ashleigh Murray, Rachel Crow, Tim Blake Nelson, David Sullivan, Danielle Nicolet, Sasheer Zamata. World Premiere

A GHOST STORY / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: David Lowery) — This is the story of a ghost and the house he haunts. Cast: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Will Oldham, Sonia Acevedo, Rob Zabrecky, Liz Franke. World Premiere

gookGOOK / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Justin Chon) — Eli and Daniel, two Korean American brothers who own a struggling women’s shoe store, have an unlikely friendship with 11-year-old Kamilla. On the first day of the 1992 L.A. riots, the trio must defend their store—and contemplate the meaning of family, their personal dreams and the future. Cast: Justin Chon, Simone Baker, David So, Curtiss Cook Jr., Sang Chon, Ben Munoz. World Premiere

l-a-timesL.A. TIMES / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Michelle Morgan) — In this classically styled comedy of manners set in Los Angeles, sophisticated thirtysomethings try to determine whether ideal happiness exists in coupledom or if the perfectly suited couple is actually just an urban myth. Cast: Michelle Morgan, Dree Hemingway, Jorma Taccone, Kentucker Audley, Margarita Levieva, Adam Shapiro. World Premiere

LEMON/ U.S.A. (Director: Janicza Bravo, Screenwriters: Janicza Bravo, Brett Gelman) — A man watches his life unravel after he is left by his blind girlfriend. Cast: Brett Gelman, Judy Greer, Michael Cera, Nia Long, Shiri Appleby, Fred Melamed. World Premiere

MENASHE / U.S.A. (Director: Joshua Z Weinstein, Screenwriters: Joshua Z Weinstein, Alex Lipschultz, Musa Syeed) — Within Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community, a widower battles for custody of his son. A tender drama performed entirely in Yiddish, the film intimately explores the nature of faith and the price of parenthood. Cast: Menashe Lustig. World Premiere

PERSON TO PERSON / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Dustin Guy Defa) — A record collector hustles for a big score while his heartbroken roommate tries to erase a terrible mistake, a teenager bears witness to her best friend’s new relationship and a rookie reporter, alongside her demanding supervisor, chases the clues of a murder case involving a life-weary clock shop owner. Cast: Abbi Jacobson, Michael Cera, Tavi Gevinson, Philip Baker Hall, Bene Coopersmith, George Sample III. World Premiere

thoroughbredTHOROUGHBRED / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Cory Finley) — Two teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. In the process, they learn that neither is what she seems to be—and that a murder might solve both of their problems. Cast: Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Anton Yelchin, Paul Sparks, Francie Swift, Kaili Vernoff. World Premiere

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL \ 19-29 JANUARY 2017

 

Films from the Magnetic North | Berlinale 2017

Cinema Born of the Icy Cold is the feature of the Berlinale NATIVe 2017 strand that highlights ten features from Indigenous Films from the Arctic Circle, and nine shorts.

The Sámi are Europe’s only Indigenous people and 2016’s Kuun metsän Kaisa (Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest), by Finnish Skolt Sámi director Katja Gauriloff, explores the story of Gauriloff’s charismatic great-grandmother Kaisa. This personal and poetic documentary film effortlessly weaves original film and sound recordings from the 1930s to the 1970s together with animated sequences and folk tales of the Skolt Sámi. It stands as a testament to the eventful history of the Skolt Sámi and their struggle to preserve their unique culture in the wake of resettlements brought about by shifting borders throughout the course of the 20th century.

The narrative of surviving communities under pressure to assimilate social change also influences other Indigenous people of the area around the Arctic Circle home: these include the Inuit of Canada; the Greenlanders; the communities in Russia’s Kola Peninsula as well as the Yakuts and Chukchi of the Russian Federation’s Eastern Siberian region.

Sustainability, climate change, delocalisation and questions of Indigenous rights and self-empowerment are further themes addressed in this year’s featured films. “Climate change in the Arctic and the economic machinations of the industrialised nations of the West represent serious impositions in the everyday lives of the Indigenous communities which still inhabit the region.

For the first time, NATIVe will also be represented in the special series Berlinale Goes Kiez with an additional screening of the documentary film Angry Inuk, which provides insight into the Inuit perspective on the heated international debate surrounding seal hunting.

Feature Films at NATIVe:

24 Snega (24 Snow)
By Mikhail Barynin, Russian Federation 2016 | Documentary form

Despite the sacrifices it entails, Sergei passionately devotes his life to traditional horse breeding, toughing out the winter in the taiga like a lone cowboy hero. Spectacular cinematography conveys the biting cold feeling of nomadic life in Sakha. (International Prem).

Angry Inuk
By Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Canada 2016 | Documentary form

A vivid depiction of the quiet anger of a people whose very subsistence is being threatened from many angles. An outcry to reassess the preconceptions around commercial seal-hunting, while illustrating the role of global sealskin trade for Inuit.

Johogoi Aiyy (God Johogoi)
By Sergei Potapov, Russian Federation 2016 | Documentary form

The young horse herder Johogoi feels summoned by the equine deity to attend the celebrated summer festival of Sakha. His excitement radiates through his smile as he participates in the rituals, believing he will find the woman who appears in his dreams. (International premiere)

Jumalan morsian (A Bride of the Seventh Heaven)
By Anastasia Lapsui, Markku Lehmuskallio, Finland 2003
With Angelina Saraleta, Viktoria Hudi, Ljuba Filipova, Jevgeni Hudi

At birth, Syarda was promised as a bride to Num, the highest god of the Nenets. Now an elderly lady, still bound to this fate, she tells the story of her wistful, yet self-determined life to a blind young girl who alleviates her loneliness.

Kniga Tundry. Povest’ o Vukvukaye – Malen’kom Kamne. (The Tundra Book. A Tale of Vukvuka – the Little Rock.)
By Aleksei Vakhrushev, Russian Federation 2011 | Documentary form

Jovial and as energetic as a teenager, the wise Vukvukai guides his nomadic Chukchi community. These tough reindeer herders survive in their snowy wonderland despite the harsh threats posed by the weather and Russian politics.

Kuun metsän Kaisa (Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest)

By Katja Gauriloff, Finland 2016 | Documentary form
The Swiss author Robert Crottet visits the Skolt Sámi and records spirited Kaisa’s unique storytelling gift. Handmade animation and rare archival footage illustrate the full world of the Skolt Sámi, from magical moments to the hardships of war.

Maliglutit (Searchers)
By Zacharias Kunuk, Canada 2016
With Benjamin Kunuk, Jocelyne Immaroitok, Karen Ivalu, Joseph Uttak

The tranquil life of a nomadic family in Nunavut is torn apart by a marauding gang of hunters looking for wives. Kuanana, the head of the family, goes out for revenge. A poetic Inuit Western. European premiere

Sameblod (Sami Blood)
By Amanda Kernell, Sweden 2016

With Lene Cecilia Sparrok, Mia Erika Sparrok, Maj Doris Rimpi, Julius Fleischanderl
Another chance to see the story of a teenage girl from a traditional Sámi family who yearns to be accepted by the Swedish society of the 1930s, a society full of prejudice and discrimination against her people. A shrewd commentary on institutionalised abuse and its consequences.

Seitsemän laulua tundralta (Seven Songs from the Tundra)
By Anastasia Lapsui, Markku Lehmuskallio, Finland 2000

With Vitalina Hudi, Hatjako Yzangi, Gregory Anaguritsi, Nadezhda Volodeeva
A rich contemplation of the Nenets in a seven-part chronicle, each guided by a meaningful song. Once a free people, the Soviet rule arrives to infringe upon their culture, affecting their identity irreversibly. An emotional political statement.

SUME – Mumisitsinerup Nipaa (SUMÉ – The Sound of a Revolution)
By Inuk Silis Høegh, Greenland / Denmark / Norway 2014 | Documentary form

For the Greenlanders of the 1970s, the surge of the progressive rock band SUME was mind-blowing: lyrics in their own language, inspiring them to act against the repression of their people. This is the compelling testimony to their revolution.

BERLINALE 2017 | 9 – 19 FEBUARY 2017 

Close Relations (Rodnye) (2016)

Dir: Vitaly Mansky | 112min | Documentary | Ukraine | Russia

Chatting to his mother in the opening scenes of RODNYE, Ukrainian director Vitaly Mansky (Pipeline) discovers for the first time that his background is mainly Russian and that one of his grandmothers was Polish Lithuanian (Babushka Sonya), indicating that Ukraine was at one point, part of Poland. Pictured sitting in the modest flat where he grew up, and where his mother still lives in Lvov, Mansky’s relishes his humble beginnings. After leaving to study filmmaking in Moscow, he is back again due to the recent upheavals in the eegion. RODNYE explores the current climate through a series of informal vists to his close family members in Lvov, Odessa and Sevastopol (Crimea). What unfolds from their differing perspectives is a fascinating potted political history of this part of the world during the period May 2014 to October 2015. Mansky brings his usual brand of black humour to the film, and some poignant family moments into the bargain.

Juxtaposing often feisty debate with low-key domestic scenes (a stray dog adopted by his sister wanders into the picture at one point and listens intently) and personal reflections (that echo Jem Cohen’s style), Mansky offers up something much more illucidating and profound than could ever be gleaned from newspapers or TV. This multi-faceted and nuanced analysis of national identity comes with some impressive footage of everyday life along with family photos from the album.

In Sevastopol New Year’s Eve is being celebrated in Russian and Ukrainian styles. In common with most of Eastern Europe, borders have been a moveable feast since time immemorial and Mansky’s birthplace Lvov used to be Polish and before that, Lemberg, part of the Hapsburg Empire. An irrestible documentary for those interested in poltical history RODNYE offers arresting scenes of the Black Sea port of Odessa; a bride and groom floating down the famous steps that featured in Battleship Potemkin; a funeral cortege complete with Ukrainian millitary in official regalia; Spring in Kiev and Donbas in Eastern Ukraine (“Ukraine has chosen the European path at last” sighs one of his sisters); and finally – a trip to the ballet. Describing the film as his “personal tragedy” Mansky offers a moving but often conflicted portrait of contemporary life amid crisis. MT

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE from 20 JANUARY | LFF REVIEW

Zero Days (2016)

Writer| Director: Alex Gibney |  116min | Documentary | USA

Alex Gibney’s new documentary about cyber-warfare is like the inside of a freezer: chilling and done dry. A palpable menace permeated the early scenes as your brain juggles to process endless facts and figures, but the bottom line is cold war fear: are we heading for meltdown through our computer screens? It’s highly likely rather than just possible.

Offering no conclusions, Gibney once again gives us a fast-paced and well-edited, authoritative documentary that is scary and quite bewildering. In ZERO DAYS he claims that cyber-attacks are the next big thing in international warfare; instead of bombs or even chemical warfare, these silent systems can invade at the touch of a button and take over nations – even the whole world. There is something decidedly horrifying and apocalyptic about this form of attack that feels underhand and rather sly: like a silent germ ‘Stuxnet’ a piece of weapons-grade malware developed during the early years of the 21st century by Israeli and US security forces – who gave it the codename “Olympic Games” –  begins rapidly to replicate, like an embryo, imbedded in the cosy comfort of the aptly-named computer software.

By 2010, the cyber weapon had been successfully installed at the Iranian nuclear power plant in Natanz, where it a was able to disrupt the functioning of the underground spinning centrifuges which operate at the speed of light in order the complete the nuclear refinement process. The Iranian Government were aware of the infringement but had no idea it was being caused by the Americans, seemingly under their noses. The Iranians themselves had developed malware systems and they eventually retaliated with attacks of the Bank of America but, like germ warfare, Stuxnet got out of control and began a computer pandemic infecting other systems on a global basis.

American president, Barack Obama has secretly authorised various attacks intended to destroy their enemy’s computer systems running the country’s electricity, communications and even water supply –but it cuts both ways. In future, war will be silent and deadly: suddenly darkness will descend in a universal meltdown.

But there have been so many threats of this kind since time immemorial. Armageddon was mentioned in biblical times in the book of Revelations and, more recently, the Millennium Bug which threatened to strike with the dawn of 2000, wiping out all computer systems. So just how soon is ZERO DAYS  intending the world to end? Not the for the faint-hearted or those looking for light entertainment, this is a film that needs to be taken with a heavy dose of caution, but taken seriously, nevertheless. But don’t dismay – there’s still tomorrow. Take a walk in the park and smell the roses. There’s a lot to be thankful for. MT

NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 6 JANUARY 2017 | BERLINALE 2016 REVIEW 

 

Reset (2015)

DIR: Thierry Demaiziere, Alban Teurlai | Doc | France | 107min

Despite a nondescript and bland title – RESET turns out to be a fascinating documentary about the oldest national ballet company the the world: the Paris Opera Ballet. Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai explore a new chapter for this prestigious organisation with the visionary appointment of dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied – best known for his work on the Black Swan – and his marriage to Nathalie Portman.

This is a more fluid and unstructured affair in comparison with Frederick Wiseman’s impressive film La Danse which captured the austere and highly traditional set-up before Millepied took over. If anything, RESET has the same charismatic gusto of Nick Read’s highly enjoyable Bolshoi Babylon (2015) that captured the zeitgeist of recent upheavals at Moscow’s famous ballet company. There is a great deal of talky behind the scenes politics which may not appeal so much to general non-French speaking audiences but devotees will lap this up and find Millepied’s unorthodox approach and political machinations enthralling. Alban Teurlai’s expert camerawork conveys the ethereal bliss of the mise-en-scènes and dancing routines and those bored with the politics will soon be entranced when things lighten up after the initial preamble where the likeable maverick Millepied gets his knees firmly under the table blowing the cobwebs away in the darkest corners of this maze-like institution, with the help of his stressed-out assistant Virginia.

The film divides its study into brisk chapters but could have made more of the corps de ballet’s more of Millepied’s electrifying affect on the individual performer with his Millepied’s charisma shining as an an exciting beacon of hope and innovation for the Paris Ballet’s future. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 26 DECEMBER 2016

Uncle Howard (2016)

Dir.: Aaron Brookner; Documentary with Jim Jarmush, Tom DiCillo, Sara Driver; UK/US 2016, 96 min.

Filmmaker Aaron Brookner (The Silver Goat) has not only rescued his uncle’s Howard most famous documentary Burroughs: The Movie (1983), but also created a moving portrait of the late director, who died of Aids in 1989, just 34 years old.

UNCLE HOWARD is not just a trip down memory lane or a hagiography shown through poignant home movies of Aaron and Howard, it is very much a research document, however loving. To start with, it took quite a while to get to “Burroughs Bunker”, at 222 Bowery in New York, a windowless flat in New York, where the late writer and provocateur worked until his death in 1997, when the place was taken over by his friend, the poet John Giorno. He was reluctant to allow Aaron access to the archive, which included positive and negatives of the Burroughs film. But finally, with the help of Jim Jarmush – co-producer of Uncle Howard and sound technician on the Burroughs film – Aaron rescued the film from oblivion. What Aaron found, was not only the documentary itself, but also shots of its making. Apart from Burroughs and Ginsberg, many of the ‘underground’ artists of the New York scene can be seen in action: Frank Zappa and Andy Warhol amongst them, as well as filmmaker Tom DiCillo, Howard Brookner’s DoP, and director and actor Sara Driver, one of the co-producers of UNCLE HOWARD. Interviews with the theatre director Robert Wilson, subject of Howard’s second documentary Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars (1987), shed further light on Howard Brookner’s working method. When Howard was negotiating with Columbia about the contract for his first feature film Bloodhounds of Broadway with Madonna and Matt Dillon, one of the studio executives remembers, that the director mentioned this could be his first and only film – not taking this literally. But Howard died in April 1989, before the premiere of Bloodhounds.

UNCLE HOWARD visits favourite artist haunts such as the Chelsea Hotel, and the St. Vincent hospital in New York – “the Ground Zero” for New York’s Aids victims of the Eighties and Nineties – which today is a luxury apartment block. DoPs Gregg De Domenico and Andre Döbert thoughtfully select styles to show how much the city has changed – for the better, and how much it has lost in the last 25 years. UNCLE HOWARD is a Trauerarbeit, but also a celebration of the life and work of Howard Brookner.

ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS INCLUDING CURZON FROM 16 DECEMBER 2016

 

The Eagle Huntress (2016)

Dir: Otto Bell | With: Aisholpan Nurgaiv, Daisy Ridley | Doc | UK | 87min

The Kazakhs are a fiesty lot and their kids are no exception, growing up in the hostile terrain of the Steppes with its perishingly cold winters and scorching summers. With echoes of Sergei Dvortsevoy’s drama Tulpan (2008) THE EAGLE HUNTRESS explores the life of a young Kazakh girl who grows up in the remote Altai mountains of Mongolia (west of Ulan Bator) where she has made her mind up to become the first female eagle hunter in twelve generations of her Kazakh family. Theirs is a nomadic lifestyle that very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world.

The feature debut of filmmaker Otto Bell, this is an informative piece of cinema vérité that unfolds in the snug interiors of Kazakh family yurts (with solar panels!) and offers some dizzying, often slow-mo, widescreen aerial shots of this vast and inhospitable region between Russia and China. We first meet the rosy-cheeked 13 year old as she starts her training with golden eagles under the auspices of her father – who looks about 50 but is feasibly in his early 30s.

As you can imagine, this is no cuddly animal story, once trained in the art of – what amounts to falconry – Aisholpan has to descend on ropes down a vertiginous rockface to steal a baby eagle from under its mother’s nose in a nest hundreds of feet above the valley. The eaglet is just old enough to fly but young enough to get accustomed to its new form of captivity where it will help in hunting foxes, before eventually being returned to the wild, according to Kazakh tradition.

The rest of the community is dubious about their women going out to hunt. The elders, in particular, think their females should stay at home and cook and are not adapted to the fierce outdoor conditions – especially during the winter months. But Aisholpan is undeterred and goes on to prove them all wrong in both her competitive skills – where she gets all dolled up with nail varnish and a fancy fur hat – and in endurance tests where she accompanies her father in a gruelling fox hunt that leads them on horseback into deep snow drifts, carrying their eagles aloft.

Daisy Ridley’s accompanying narrative doesn’t quite have the Attenborough touch, making you wish for more salient facts about the Kazakhs and their daredevil lifestyle, but all said and done this is an impressive film, and an ambitious one at that! Wishing Otto Bell the very best of luck his documentary and may he make many more along these lines. MT

ON RELEASE AT PICTUREHOUSES AND CURZON CINEMAS FROM 16 DECEMBER

Life, Animated (2016)

Dir.: Roger Ross Williams | Documentary with Owen Suskind | USA 2016 | 89 min.

Director/co-writer Roger Ross Williams (God loves Uganda) offers up a humane and hopeful portrait of Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) through sufferer Owen Suskind and based on “Life, Animated: A story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism” by Owen’s father, the Pulitzer winning journalist Ron Suskind, who is also the executive producer of this documentary.

When Owen Suskind was three years old, the communicative and lively boy withdrew into himself cognitively and emotionally. For over four years, his only stimulation where Disney films, which he watched over and over. When his father Ron and mother Cornelia were told that their youngest son was suffering from ASD, their dream of a perfect family life was shattered. But with the help of therapists they have enabled their son, who is now 25, to lead an assisted but nevertheless rewarding life with his own home and romantic attachment. Owen gave a speech to a conference of specialists in autism in France, and hosts a radio-show. His message to all his audiences is clear: autistic people do not want to be alone.

LIFE, ANIMATED does offer insights into ASD: one of the signs is Echolalia, a sort of parrot speech, which peaks with normal children at around 30 months, but ASD sufferers, who have great anxiety problems because their brains are differently wired, do not unlearn this early communication model. Their prediction and anticipation timing is much slower than the norm. Furthermore, as Owen’s history proves, they often suffer from weak co-ordination and motor planning inflicted by a low muscle tone which leads to walking impairment, amongst other inflictions. Because those afflicted by ASD have great difficulty identifying the meaning of words, due to a lack a rhythmical understanding of the words, their speech is often slow and sometimes difficult to understand and this is made worse because they cannot grasp the body language of the person they communicate with. Owen proves over and over again that this is not because of a mental disorder, his drawings and acute analysis of concepts like heroism, in his beloved Disney world, show a vivid imagination and acute knowledge of interactions. But this is limited to the black-and-white world of Disney cartoons. In the real world, Owen struggles, because the signals he gets from his environment are not clear and understandable for him. If we consider that we all suffer from double-bind signals given to us, we can imagine how hard it is for someone like Owen to cope with contradictive signals given by the adult world he lives in.

His first relationship with Emily, who also suffers from ASD, comes to an end, because she does want the closeness Owen needs. Owen is stunned, because Disney movies, with their regular happy-endings, have not prepared him for this outcome. As his older brother Walter – who is prepared to look after him, when their parents are gone – muses, Disney has not prepared Owen for a normal sex life, since there is no “Disney Porn”. It is a sign of normality – rightly or wrong – that children who want to be Superheroes, are seen as normative, whilst Owen, who identifies with all the sidekicks in the films, is really much more realistic than his so called normal brethren.

LIFE, ANIMATED is greatly helped by the original animation of Mac Guff, who draws the world in which Owen lives. DoP Tom Bergmann’s close-ups of Owen are highlighting the world he lives in – trying to understand a universe that does not always complies with the norms of his Disney world. A deeply humanistic and emotionally satisfying documentary showing that the other side of ‘normal’ is often more innovative than the bland world the rest of us live in. AS

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 9 DECEMBER 2016

 

Holy Cow (2015)

Director: Imam Hazanov

With the villagers of Luhic, Azerbaijan

77min | Documentary | Azerbaijan | Romania | Germany

Writer and filmmaker Iman Hazanov’s debut feature uncovers a picturesque corner of rural Azerbaijan where the only immigrants are of the bovine variety. Magnificently captured on the widescreen and in intimate close-up, this cinema vérité piece takes us through a year in the life of an impoverished villager who is determined to give his family a better life without leaving his homeland.

A decent family man, Tapdig figures that prosperity is cow-shaped. On the telly he’s seen that European cows are bigger and more healthy than Azerbaijani ones. They also produce more milk. Unfortunately the local village elders don’t agree: “Bring a woman, yes, but not a cow”.  Although the subject matter is light-hearted there are important messages in the idle chat of these village elders who, despite their old-fashioned thought patterns, consider themselves fully part of the European Union, but are at pains to point out “Prosperity must come from the top”. These Azerbaijani villagers claim to be contented feel looked after by their Government. Traditional they may be, but they also have minds of their own in this close community, and are not afraid to express them. But Tapdig believes prosperity is a ‘bottom-up’ affair and is determined to prove it, despite the negative opinion of his elders.

Sarvar Javadov’s camera-work is Turkish in style with its wide-screen panoramic views capturing the great sense of space  in the surrounding countryside and the moody skyscapes of the Eastern Caucasus, and this is borne out in the views of the villagers: “there’s plenty of room here for everyone”. The dialogue scenes are shot in long slow takes, often with subjects wandering out of the frame while still talking, which adds a freshness and spontaneity, and occasionally a comic element, as when one of the old men nearly slips on the ice and the path of the cameraman.

Ready to risk it all, Tapdig eventually buys his cow, names her Madona, and brings her home to his family where she flourishes in a seemingly idyllic setting, providing milk, and even a calf: Alyona, although there is no mention of the breeding process, and no evidence of any other cattle in the village, apart from geese. The community here is clearly of the Muslim faith with their mosque the biggest building in the village. Azerbaijan, like Turkey, remains a secular country but a traditional one, where women are clearly submissive to their husbands but well cared for and loved, almost on a par with their animals, or so it seems. We see this in Tapdig’s single-mindedness and the fact that he discusses business matters with his son, even though the boy is yet hardly a teenager. His wife Vafa is reluctant to take care of Madona but eventually the cow becomes part of the large community with a promise of better things to come with Tapdig managing to finish building his house thanks to the proceeds from Madona’s milk.

Imam Hazanov took part in the Berlinale Talents scheme in 2014 and his touching human interest documentary very much connects to a global narrative of survival of small communities all over the World, and even provides an interesting counterpoint to the timely economic migration story, as revealed in its final third act. Hazanov’s story-telling shows a rich vein of situational humour that recalls that of Pawel Pawlikowksi’s early documentaries Tripping with Zhirinovsky (1995) and Serbian Epics (1992), obviously these are grander in scale but it will be interesting to see what Imam Hazonov makes of weightier matters himself. Clearly a talent in the making. MT

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 9 DECEMBER | REVIEWED AT INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL | AMSTERDAM | 2015

 

Actress (2014) | DVD release

Director: Robert Greene
86min | Doc | US

Robert Greene first ‘nonfiction/melodrama’ about actors playing themselves, explores the creative energy behind the craft in a cinema vérité style profile of the actress Brandy Burre as she tries to kickstart her career after the birth of two children.

Brandy Burre is best known for her long-standing part in the American TV series The Wire but here she plays herself as a young mother who is facing the breakdown of her relationship with her children’s father. It is a moving piece of filmmaking that reveals Burre at her most raw and vulnerable. Being a mother, like acting, is an all-consuming emotional occupation and Burre successfully tries to convince herself (and us) that she is ready to go back to giving her best to her career, at 40, now that the kids are less dependent on her, in order to set herself on the road to financial freedom. Clearly, it’s been a difficult transition but she is fronting up well. Or so it seems.

Burre’s assertiveness is laced with wry humour. Reading through a script, glass of wine at hand, she admits that the stipulation for “partial nudity” is “right up my ally”, clearly indicating that the pressures entailed in the profession are often a bridge too far, but one that must be crossed in order to get work. She also admits to missing the intimacy of a sexual relationship – Tim and her are clearly no longer sleeping together.

Although Greene attempts to instil some more imaginative and stylistic elements in his documentary with the use of inventive devices including slow motion, the films works best when it is probing Burre’s innermost thoughts as her kids play quietly in the background, often making impromptu appearances in this an engaging and thoughtful film. MT

ACTRESS is Available on DVD 14 November to buy as an extra with the release of KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE, as well as incredible extras including: alternative opening, nine deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer. Presented as a double DVD set, Kate Plays Christine is a must have for any fans of genre-bending and experimental film.

 

 

Havarie (2016) | Promised Land Symposium

DIR: Philip Scheffner | Merle Kroger | Doc | 93min | Germany

A tribute to those who constantly risk their lives in hope of a better future, HAVARIE is the documentary curio of Philip Scheffner who gave us Revision and The Haffmoon Files . This is a slow-burning affair that focuses on the grainy footage of a group of men who are adrift in a in a small dinghy in the narrow stretch of water between Southern Spain and North Africa. Scheffner has chosen to extend the original three-minute clip by slowing it down to a running time of 93 minutes – a feature that will no doubt bemuse audiences who come expecting action.

HAVARIE is informed by a series of voiceovers and radio communications that take place between the local Spanish coast guards and the cruise ship that spotted the men on their precarious mission to reach mainland Europe but whether this is really their mission remains unclear. Any why they are not picked up by the captain of the ship is never explained or explored.

In an attempt to add context, we hear from putative family members who have made it to Europe but are clearly finding the going uncertain and not have yet discovered the crock of gold they were possibly hoping for. Scheffner alludes to an undercurrent of terror and abuse in their countries of origin but this is merely conjecture as the provenance of the stranded men is never clarified.

HAVARIE doesn’t have the same resonance as Sergei Loznitsa’s Austerilitz but some viewers may find it moving and it certainly offers food for thought on the continuing narrative of migration and displacement. MT

SCREENING AS PART OF THE PROMISED LAND SYMPOSIUM AT CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE GOETHE INSTITUTE IN LONDON. 

Bugs (2016) | Nordic Baltic Film Festival 2016

Dir.: Andreas Johnsen; Documentary with Ben Reade, Josh Evans, Roberto Flores; Denmark/Netherlands/France/Germany 2016, 73 min.

Director/DoP Andreas Johnson (Al Weiwei: The fake Case) tries to get the audience to accept a foodie future that largely consists of bugs and maggots. In 2050 these critters might be on our menu, to cover our need for protein, when normal sources run out. In BUGS Chef Ben Meade and the food researcher Josh Evans from the Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen (which launched the famous Noma restaurant) take on a peripatetic journey to the future of the culinary world.

With the planet’s population up to nine billion by 2050, this documentary suggests that 70% of our protein food intake will come from insects, bugs and maggots. And the pair set off to Europe and further afield places like (Uganda, Kenya, Mexico to show us the future. The two indulge in whatever comes their way on the menu, and they seem to enjoy it, amidst cries of “Best maggot/insect/bug I ever tasted” ringing out again and again, as they  gladly devour tasty morsels, or slurp honey from sting-free bees in Uganda. But we never learn the names or the history of the people interviewed in these distant eateries; the film concentrates on the action –  digging into huge anthills, where the adult researchers squash the termite queen, whilst a couple of boys at the neighbouring anthill are skilled in bringing the “delicacy” out in one piece.

Reade is perceptive, he does not want to industrialise the maggot culture fearing, rightfully, that the giant industrial corporations would monopolise and cash in on this eco-conscious fare for their own interest: meaning profits. But their enthusiasm sometimes gets the better of them: like in Kenya, when Reade exclaims “who needs a healthy bank balance, when you have such tasty and healthy food for free in your own garden”. Whilst the food is indeed delicious and superior to our own supermarket ready-meals, it is the sheer and utter poverty in many African countries that has driven the population to cultivate their anthills for food.

Johnsen, who has introduced us to the wriggly foodstuffs that might be our diet of the future, should be praised for his ground-breaking effort. But as with most founding fundamentalist, they leave some details unanswered, and some of us need more information, particularly about the background and work methods of the interviewed food experts abroad. Nevertheless, anybody wanting to know more, can travel to Scotland where Ben Reade is chef at the Edinburgh Food studio, or to Copenhagen where Roberto Florez cooks meals (based on sustainability) at the 5-star Noma. AS

THE NORDIC BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL | 1-11 DECEMBER 2016

Magnus (2016) |Home Ent release

Dir.: Benjamin Ree; Documentary with Magnus Carlsen; Norway 2016, 78 min.

First time documentary feature filmmaker/writer Benjamin Ree offers up a rather subdued and colourless portrait of reigning Chess World Champion, the Norwegian “Wunderkind” Magnus Carlsen, who won his first title when he was only twenty-two, and retained it for over a decade.

Ree’s uses of videos, showing a rather withdrawn character, is the strongest part of this biopic. Magnus’ father Henrik was concerned that Magnus was not developing like other children. But it soon emerged that for Magnus all numbers formed pattern, even pictures; and soon Magnus would beat his father and older children at chess, becoming the youngest Grandmaster at the age of thirteen, Magnus had the world at his feet. His father was told that the only way of further success for Marcus would require a disciplined and rigidly structured learning process. Henrik and the rest of the family did not take this advice on board, and allowed him to be playful, relaying on his intuition.

When Magnus faced the five times World Champion Viswananathan Anand in the latter’s hometown of Chennai in November 2013, the contrast between the two players could have not been greater: not only was the Indian 21 years older than Carlsen, but he relied on his brilliant memory when playing: not only had he memorised all the games Carlsen had played during his career, but nearly all important games in history. The results are interesting, but will mean much more to aficicionadoes of the game.

Ree uses a linear structure which has the effect of robbing his documentary of surprise elements and tension and Magnus himself is rather a bland character, making this rather tedious for those who are not fans of the game. Ree never really enquires about the obviously stunted emotional development of the “Mozart of Chess”, but seems content to stay in a hagiographic mode, which results in a certain stylistic blandness. Those keen on chess or fans of Magnus will no doubt lap this up, despite it’s failings, as Carlsen faces his next challenge : he will face another fresh-faced Russian challenger Sergey Karjakin in New York in November 2016. AS

MAGNUS will be available on digital, VoD, Blu-ray & DVD from 12th December

 

The Curious World of Hieronymous Bosch (2016)

Dir: David Bickerstaff | Prod: Phil Grabsky | Documentary | 86min |

The dynamic duo of Grabsky and Bickerstaff are at large again this time in Holland where the latest addition of their Exhibition of Screen series offers insight into one of the most intriguing painters of the medieval times through the Hieronymus Bosch Exhibition that took place at the Noordbrabants Museum in the small Dutch city early this year. Not only does this allow us unprecedented access to the extensive paintings and their curators, it also enables us to get a clear and often microscopic look at Bosch’s highly detailed 16th century world in his intricate artworks.

And commentary is provided by the experts; this time chief curator, Jos Koldeweij, Rachel Campbell Johnson, Art Critic of The Times and British filmmaker Peter Greenaway. And there’s so much to see and learn about here in The Garden of Earthly Delights where animals are often bigger than people, as they cavort on unicorns while birds swims and fish fly. Or The Last Judgement where grotesque events take over in a manic mayhem. The small town has able to gather all his most important works into this one place by offering deep insight into his work by an impressive collection of scholars. Campbell Johnson explains how Bosch interpreted his medieval vision and translated into our modern world, as if we were meeting the man himself, face to face. But what does it all mean?

In a tiny corner of Saint John of Patmos, we see a self-portrait of Bosch who was, contrary to popular belief, an ordinary and quite serious man who married well and became a leading member of the city’s religious fraternity ‘Brotherhood of our Lady’, living in one of the most illustrious townhouses in the main square. But behind this bourgeois facade, lay a highly inventive mind. Many of his triptych’s portray Heaven and Hell, a sort of pictorial version of Dante’s Inferno, where figures were roasted on poles or cast out in the wilderness, reflecting the doctrines of his era and gave rise to his vivid imagination and often tortured soul. Twenty of his drawings survive and 19 are offered in the exhibition and they depict an existential angst of nightmarish scenes where terrible eyes peer out from the ground and ears from the branches of trees. And then there is the legend of the woman who was martyred on the cross for growing a beard. As the camera zooms in to the delicately rendered portrait, it’s clear to see the bum fluff sprouting on her pale chin.

The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch certainly lays to rest some myths and provides a fascinating insight into the artist himself, giving us a chance to get to grips with Bosch’s work in the context of this most intriguing time in art history. MT

SHOWING NOW | TICKETS AND INFORMATION HERE 

 

 

 

 

Austerlitz (2016) | Tallinn Black Nights 2016

Dir: Sergei Losnitza | Doc | Ukraine | 94min

In a former Nazi concentration camp where tee-shirted tourists snigger, snack and shuffle with selfie-sticks, Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Losnitza (Maidan) brings rhythm and rigour with his sober yet richly textured black and white portrait that a sense of sad irony at the banal contrast between the tortured past and the insouciant contemporary.

On the outskirts of Berlin, Sachsenhausen is now a memorial to the many thousands who met their death there. Set up as an interrogation centre during the Second World War; the Gestapo questioned prisoners of war in spartan conditions of near starvation and physical privation. The captives were then gassed alive in the showers and were later imcinerated in the vast ovens by a series of Sondercommandos (themselves prisoners) who were also regularly exterminated, although the final Sondercommando 14 unit left the site to tell their tale.

Using the burbling background of human chatter and the ambient sounds of nature as his soundtrack, Losnitza’s static camera records a typical summer’s day here in a series of long takes. The first sobering one lasts nearly fifteen minutes. Eventually a narrative emerges as we learn about the history of the camp from the (here) Spanish and American tourist guides whose desultory diatribes recount the events that took place during the Holocaust. Tourists look on, some in voyeuristic amazement. But for many the site seems just another picnic site in their daily agenda.

Contemplative and unsettling, Loznitsa’s film illustrates the spectacular banality and insuperable void between past and present. Although we look and learn can we ever really engage and comprehend the events that took place when many are faced with so many momentous tragedies of our own in the 21st century. Losnitza opens up the debate with his remarkable documentary.

Austerlitz takes its title from the final work by the German novelist W.G. Sebald. The film is a sober yet strangely satisfying piece: at the end we do feel as we have not only learnt facts but experienced the gravity of the momentous tragedy that went on here. While the film’s structure initially seems simple, each successive composition moves nearer to its subject allowing our thoughts to wander and engage with the horror of what went on during the world’s last war. MT

TALLINN BLACK NIGHTS UNTIL 27 NOVEMBER 2016

 

Diving into the Unknown (2016) | Nordic Baltic Film Festival 2016

Dir: Juan Reina | Doc | Finland | 90min

A documentary that will appeal to those who get their kicks from extreme sports or the great outdoors DIVING INTO THE UNKNOWN follows four Finnish cave divers trying to recover the bodies of their colleagues (who died in 2014), in a feat that pushes out the boundaries of this dangerous sport.

Many may question the thrill of plumetting into perilous potholes: Cave diving carries the added bonus of the freezing cold water and ice.  In Norway, documentarian Juan Reina follows the group to Mo i Rana, northern Norway, as they defy the authorities – who have failed to bring up the bodies – in a life-challenging mission of covert recovery, 100 metres below the surface, and in strictest secrecy. Visually striking snowbound landscapes and computer graphics help us to appreciate just what is at stake during this dangerous opertion. Clearly careful planning and working in unison are the main considerations, and Reina spends time interviewing the party as they organise the life-threatening trip before heading into the hostile terrain in this isolated part of the pennisula. Chainsaws are needed to cut through the ice before they can descend into the freezing subterranean depths of the Plura river, taking with them breathing equipment and heavy hearts. Failure is clearly not an option this time, and the men emotional and nervous, not least because they are technically unauthorised to proceed. But their fear is made more tangible by the very nature of cave-diving, that requires mental strength and self-belief as well as peak physical fitness. And are no longer as young as they were. The emotional unpredictability of the encounter is what seems to fascinate Reina most. And he homes in on the psychological aspects of the dive, as well as the technical difficulties. Crucially the filming relies on cameras strapped to the men, so luckily the director is not forced into the feat of following the divers down himself. What happens next is intriguing in this impressive documentary thriller. MT

THE NORDIC BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL | 1-11 DECEMBER 2016

 

 

Starless Dreams (2016)

Dir: Mehrdad Oskouei | Doc | Iran | 76min

Award-winning documentarian Mehrdad Oskouei (The Other Side of Burqa) gives us a predictably stark snapshot of life in an juvenile correctional facility for teenage girls, on the outskirts of Tehran.

Infact, the word correctional seems to be rather a misnomer as none of these young women appears to receive any behavioural therapy during their stay in the spartan dormitory where they only have each other for comfort, and a few cuddly toys. STARLESS DREAMS (Royahaye Dame Sobh) is a sensitive and compassionate study that never attempts to offer judgement. The girls discuss their harrowing experiences to camera, often breaking down in tears or even smiles of embarrassment in revealing sexual abuse (euphemistically termed ‘bother’) from their crackhead fathers and uncles and verbal and physical abuse from their mothers (often by ‘burning’). What emerges is a generalised picture of familial discord and dysfunction where the parents favour their sons and mistreat their daughters in a cycle of anger, drug use and petty criminality that percolates through to the girls, who are often forced into dealing and drug addition themselves.

Often outwardly flippant, the girls face up well to camera but behind the scenes they are depressed and often hysterical: “Once I was young and in love but unfair times have made me feel old”. The tone is claustrophobic and unremittingly grim as some talk of “chains and beating” back home, others of going back to the streets. STARLESS DREAMS could have benefited from the occasional cutaway to some hard facts or more ample backstories to give context to the girls’ misery. When their families arrive, tears, smiles and hugs give a different impression from the girls’ negative feedback offered ‘in private’,  leading us to believe there is possibly more going on here than meets the eye. But it is clear that these girls are unhappy, unfulfilled and mistreated by their families and are never going to be given equal treatment in their male-dominated society. The ‘therapy’ offered inside the remand home consists of washing babies, hairdressing and making glove puppets, yet when the Imam arrives for prayer and discussion, the girls are ready for some feisty debate and probing questioning. Of course, all their intelligent ideas meet a dusty and non-committal response answer from the Imam. MT

NOW SHOWING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE LONDON W1 

 

 

 

 

Low and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016)

imageDir.: Werner Herzog | Documentary |  USA | 98 min.

For someone who has battled with alligators in the Amazon and avoided being killed by Klaus Kinski, the internet doesn’t seem too much to tackle: Werner Herzog stands manfully up to the experts he interviews in his Teutonic tones, always having the last word, even when it comes to delicate questions like “can robots fall in love”.

The first of the ten-chapter exercise starts in the room where it all begun: on 29.10.1969, at UCLA, the first internet-message was sent out to Stanford University, some hundred miles away. It should have read “log in”, but the system crashed after just two letters – ‘lo’ becoming part of the title for this documentary. Herzog’s turns the inquiry often from its scientific base to practical all too human consequences. He is not awed by the scientists (or hackers for that matter), always arguing his point, often supported by Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. And there are some nasty examples he has uncovered: we see the family of Niki Catsouras, who had committed suicide in her father’s car, with the gruesome images plastered all over the net. Or the sanctuary for victims of internet games in Green Bank, West Virginia, where an enormous telescope, run and erected by Robert C. Byrd, blocks any connection. One of the ex-gamers is even afraid to discuss games in detail “in case it brings up my cravings”. We also learn that South Korea seems to be particularly afflicted by the plague of game addiction, some cases even being fatal. And worse is to come: physicist Lucianne Walkowicz talks about the danger of sun flares, which could bring down the whole network – endangering all aspects of our lives, including food and water supply. Hacker personality Kevin Mitnick, at a congress in Las Vegas, tells the story of his life and how he spent years in federal prisons.

Nowadays, hackers are more likely to be employed by federal governments – the case of Russian hackers trying to influence the USA presidential election a very much on-going case. There are less serious questions asked: who will be legally responsible for car accidents when artificial intelligence is driving our cars. Whilst trying to explain the function of the net, Ted Nelson uses the metaphor of flowing water as a metaphor for the interconnectivity. Another worthwhile thought is the lack of any mention of the internet in SF literature – we read all about flying cars, but nobody mentioned anything about the net. And finally the question of love among the robots: how would you react if your washing machine told you that it could not do the laundry, because it was in love with the dishwasher?

Herzog’s most important interception is to agree with the thesis “that computers are the worst enemy of deep, critical thinking.” I would even go a step further: they are the enemies of any form of emotional contact between humans. In a world still dominated by men often resembling patients suffering from semi-autistism, computers will eventually obliterate the difference between humans and robots. Then, robots won’t be the only ones that can’t dream. A sober and extremely unsettling documentary. AS

OUT ON DVD WITH ADDITIONAL EXTRAS FROM 5 DECEMBER 2016 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

Special features include:
BFI London Film Festival Q&A with Werner Herzog and Richard Ayoade
Interview with Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Screen Talk
Theatrical Trailer

https://youtu.be/f8QWGl8F7Wo

Keep Quiet (2016) | UK Jewish Film Festival 2016

Dir.: Joseph Martin, Sam Blair | Documentary with Csanad Szegedi |  UK/Hungary | 91 min.

Directors Joseph Martin and Sam Blair have created an impressive portrait of Hungarian fascist turned orthodox Jew Csanad Szegedi, whose conversion seems too good to be true for many. But much more important than the Szegedi story itself, this documentary shows again that many survivors of the Shoah have “kept quiet” not only about their suffering in the camps, but about their Jewish identity as a whole.

When Csanad Szegedi became vice-president of the far-right Hungarian Jobbik Party in 2008, he was only 26 years old. His party would gain 14% of the national vote, and Szegedi was elected as an MEP in 2009. He was also the co-founder of the “Hungarian Guard” in 2007, the paramilitary wing of Jobbik, which modelled itself on the “Iron Guard”, the Hungarian fascist organisation which supported the Horthy Regime from 1920 onwards. This was so radical in its Anti-Semitism that Eichmann said at his trial in Jerusalem: “we had it so easy in Hungary, because the locals were so helpful”.  Subsequent letters from the SS to Himmler revealed the Germans complained about the “unnecessary brutality towards the Jews” of their Hungarian allies.

Szegedi was a violent Anti-Semite, proud of his country’s dealings with the Jews until 1945. But in 2012, a political ally and former skinhead, Zoltan Ambrus, discovered that Szegedi was actually Jewish: his grandmother Katalyn Molnar (née Meisels) was actually deported to Auschwitz; she survived, but hid her tattooed camp number on her wrist, from the family.

Szegedi left Jobbik, and with the help of Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, converted to Judaism: he was circumcised in 2013. His conversion was not always greeted with approval in the Jewish Community: at the Jewish Youth Congress in Berlin, a Hungarian woman, who had to flee Hungary because of the violent Anti-Semitism, accused Szegedi of “faking it”. Others came to the same conclusion: since the media-savvy Szegedi could not be the “King” of Anti-Semitism, he tried to be the King of Judaism. When the newly converted Jew flew to Montreal, to speak at a Jewish Congress, he was not allowed into the country. Rabbi Oberlander had to defend Szegedi to the Jewish community, many of them were angry about the Rabbi’s support for the Hungarian.

The most moving and important sections of the documentary are Csanad’s conversations with his grandmother, and his visit to Auschwitz with the Holocaust survivor Eva ‘Bobby’ Neumann. Katalyn Molnar tells her grandson that she kept quiet about her ordeal, “because “we had been so good at playing out the illusion [to be Christians] and I was ashamed of my tattoo, so I covered it up”. Even after Szegedi talked to his grandmother on her deathbed, he was still n denial about the Holocaust. That would change, when he visited Auschwitz with Neumann, who again talked about trying to hide her experiences:” I never allow myself to show my true feelings”. Confronted with reality of the death-camp, Szegedi caves in “It was really like in Schindler’s List”.  The last word should go to Neumann, who lost all her family on the selection ramp in Auschwitz: “Our souls froze”.

The lesson of KEEP QUIET is that Csanad Szegedi’s fake identity is actually irrelevant. In the event, he has subsequently emigrated to Israel. But the long-term effects of concealing their identity for  survivors of the Shoah, are much more corrosive and important issues: at a time when Holocaust deniers and the never-ending chorus of “let’s draw a line, it was over seventy years ago” gather in strength and find youthful supporters like Szegedi in Hungary, they all should all be reminded that some victims are still alive, and still paying for the crimes of the European Nazis. Hungary is not alone in its official rejection of the truth about the Holocaust. AS

THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL CONTINUES UNTIL 20 NOVEMBER NATIONWIDE

Germans & Jews | UK Jewish Film Festival 2016

Director: Janina Quint; Documentary; USA 2016, 76 min.

Janina Quint’s directorial debut is an illuminating portrait of contemporary Jews and Germans living together in a precocious co-existence, that uncovers more questions than answers.

Quint structures her documentary around interviews famous people – like the popular German singer Herbert Grönemeyer – and a room full of ordinary citizens, where equal numbers of Germans and Jews discuss their experience of living together. There are about 200 000 Jews living in Germany today, that is exactly 0,2 % of the whole population. It is therefore very likely that many Germans outside the big cities – particularly Berlin, where the overwhelming majority of Jews live – never come in contact with a Jewish person. It is hardly a surprise that most of this documentary is shot in the reunified capital, where many Jews from the old USSR- and some Israeli emigrants – have re-settled.

Before we listen to contemporary problems of coexisting, we hear from the older generations of re-migrants – such as the publisher Rafael Seligmann, who was born in 1947 in Tel Aviv – talking about how life has changed for Jews living in post-war Germany. After Goebbels declared Germany “Judenfrei” (free of Jews) in 1943, meaning that 523 000 German Jews had ‘disappeared’, the majority murdered in Concentration Camps; about 27 000 Jews lived in West Germany at the beginning of the 50s. The overwhelming emotion of Germans in those days was enormous self-pity, they would not stop about talking about how victimised they were. The Nazi past, particularly the Holocaust, was a taboo in post-war West German society; whilst the population in the GDR, celebrated victory over he Nazis, thanks to their Soviet liberators, but was wary of the Jewish survivors, in the majority communists, whose religious freedom was curtailed. The Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, followed by the Auschwitz trials in West Germany, at the beginning of the Sixties, changed attitudes in the Federal Republic. The student uprising in 1968 brought a confrontation between Nazi parents and their children, and the USA TV series ‘Holocaust’ in 1979 was watched by over ten million in West Germany, children asking their parents “if this really had happened”.

Today many Germans of the younger generation don’t want to be lectured about the Holocaust anymore; recent polls show that about 27% of reunited Germans are Anti-Semitic, the most mentioned complain is “that Jews have too much influence”. One of the reasons for this is the fact, that about 20% of the German population has a migrant background, often coming from Muslim countries, where Anti-Semitism is rife. Anti-Semitism in Germany today centres around the human rights record of the state of Israel in the occupied territories – which is hardly worse than that of many other countries in the region, and around the world. The most ironic interviews are with emigrants from Israel, who prefer a life in Germany to their homeland, “because it is safer to live in Germany than in Israel”. Because the Germany of today is part of a democratic Europe, third generations Jews and Germans may be able live together (even though an emotional chasm still exists), but for any older Jews there is still the post-war consensus of living out of suitcases, promising to “be next year in Jerusalem”.

GERMANS & JEWS tries to spin the theory of change, which makes co-existence between Germans and Jews possible. But by mentioning these statistics, it somehow contradicts itself. By leaving out the growing danger of European fascism, which manifests itself in Germany with recent elections successes of the German ADF party, an extreme right-wing organisation, Quint paints a rather hopeful and optimistic picture. But she still tackles a necessary conundrum: how far can the past between Germans and Jews be ignored, before it becomes a denial?. AS

THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | UNTIL 27 NOVEMBER 2016 | NATIONWIDE

Sembene! (2016) | Rebel with a Camera Season

Dir: Samba Gadjigo | Doc | 89min | Senegal

Samba Gadjigo captures the life of Sénégal director, writer and freedom fighter Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) in this engagingly hagiographic documentary that offers up fascinating archive footage, photos and interviews to paint his story with heartfelt vigour, without examining a ruthless ego necessary for political success.

Sembène’s modest start in life took him as a teenager to portside Dakar where he worked as a docker and – because Black Africans were banned from filmmaking in the French colonies – eventually made his journey to France and to international recognition as a film director with his 1966 feature Black Girl, a cinema vérité portrait of a Senegalese maid working for a wealthy family in France. But most importantly Sembène was to raise the profile of the terrible process of FGM with his colourful drama Moolaadé in 2004 that was to be the glittering jewel in the crown of his 40-year career. MT

SCREENING AS PART OF THE REBEL WITH A CAMERA SEASON NATIONWIDE 

You’ve Been Trumped Too (2016)

DIR: Anthony Baxter | UK | Doc | 78min

Anthony Baxter’s sequel to his 2011 film about a certain wealthy US Businessman’s clashes with his Scottish neighbours during the building his luxury golf course (in Balmedie) feels very much like a re-hash of the original. The only thing that’s changed is that Donald Trump is now in running for the American presidency while poor old widow Molly Forbes (92) is still trying to get running water on her property.

Playing out like a comedy – if it weren’t so tragic – YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED TOO – is a series of episodes garnered from Baxter’s previous socially-minded and earnestly intended documentary YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED. It certainly doesn’t make for an engaging watch or an informative one either, unless, of course, you missed the original. Baxter zips through the content like a CNN broadcast, rehashing the familiar news footage of Trump’s campaign interwoven with talking head interviews from both sides of the fence.

But just to recap, Molly Forbes and her farmer son Michael were left waterless when Trump’s builders broke through a pipe that supplied the Forbes with running water. While Mollie chunters around with buckets and kettles etc, Trump speaks very highly of the long-suffering Aberdeen granny, likening her to his mother. On the subject of her son Michael, Trump is less flattering referring to “the disgusting condition in which he lives”, simply because the boy spends his day riffling through rusty old machine parts before reclining on a battered tartan settee. Needless to say, this homespun pair have been offered full use of Trump’s 5 star Golf course, but no running water to their home.

Baxter’s documentary is wafer thin with new facts but stuffed full of election information and Forbes’s visit to the US in a bid to confront Trump’s supporters. Needless to say, he is unceremoniously told to back off by all and sundry. It’s all really rather inconclusive as to why, even now, the Forbes’ can’t get running water from a chap who has billions. And crucially, Baxter fails really to come up with a decent answer, or better still, a solution from anyone in team Trump.

More interesting would have been a documentary about Donald Trump himself – there have been several on Hilary. After Baxter’s first documentary was aired on the BBC, Trump agreed this time to appear in person. Surely a candid and informative film about Trump’s own life and background would have been preferable to this non-event? MT

OUT ON 4 NOVEMBER AT SELECTED CINEMAS NATIONWIDE.

 

London Korean Film Festival 2016 | 3-27 November 2016

Yourself copyThe LONDON KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL  (LKFF) celebrates its 11th year running with an extended run from 3 – 27 November at accessible state of the art venues around London.

Opening with the UK Premiere of female director Lee Kyoung-mi’s The Truth Beneath at Picturehouse Central, in keeping with this year’s edition which has a ‘Special Focus on Women’. Hong Sang-soo’s San Sebastian Best Director winner Yourself and Yours, (left) is one of the titles worth seeing.  So often called the “Woody Allen of Korean cinema”, his films are full of dry wit and probing characterisations. His 18th feature is the closing gala at Regent Street Cinema on 27 November.

The Focus on Women strand will screen 11 key works. Worth looking out for will be a rare screening of Nam-ok Park’s 1955 drama The Widow (Mimangin), (image below) the first film to be directed by a Korean woman. The festival also explores Korea’s New Wave before presenting UK premieres of the latest Korean outings: Jin-ho Hur’s The Last Princess (2016) a biographical drama set during the Korean struggle for Independence under Japanese rule. Two documentary features join the programme in the shape of Wind on the Moon, a charming documentary that explores the life of a mother and her deaf mute child and Keeping the Vision Alive (2001), Yim Soon-rye’s study that explores the journey of Korea’s women filmmakers.

unknownYoung-joo Byun’s tense mystery thriller Helpless (Hoa-cha) (2012) and for those that like their cinema dark and vengeful there is Woo Min-hun’s Inside Men (2016) featuring Korean star turn Lee Byung-hun as a wronged political henchman; the European premiere of Asura: City of Madness, Kim Sung-soo’s impressively over-the-top and violent gangster thriller, where a shady gets caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. And flying the flag for the country’s animated talent is Seoul Station (2016) a prequel to the breakout zombie hit of the summer Train to Busan. MT

LONDON KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL 3-27 NOVEMBER 2016 

 

Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny (2016)

Directors: Louis Black, Karen Bernstein | US | Doc | 86min

Richard Linklater joins the sparkling array of Texan talent along with Patricia Highsmith, Wes Anderson, Ethan Hawk, Tobe Hooper, Howard Hughes, Forest Whitaker, Rip Torn and Joshua Oppenheimer, to name but a few.

And in a this enjoyable documentary, Louis Black and Karen Bernstein uncover the life story of the modest and appealing Houston born director, described by his father as “a self-starter who was always going to make a go of anything he did” and who went on to be among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s.

Linklater comes across as gentle but also driven by a laudable and impulsive desire to learn and improve his craft with every film he makes. Surviving outside the movie industry of Hollywood and New York allows him to hold on to his creative vision rather than focus on the money-making side of things and this is best evidenced in his audacious project Boyhood (2014) which is perhaps his best known film since the non-narrative comedy drama Slacker which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 25 years ago.

Moving to the comparative backwater of Austin when his parents divorced was auspicious for Linklater as the city provided an open-minded and unrestrictive backdrop for experimenting (“it’s a long time before your technical skills catch up with your ideas”) and he set up the Austin Film Society with the aim of screening arthouse films. This led to the making of Slacker and providing local creatives for the project.

The documentary‘s talking heads are particularly insightful and, avoiding hagiography, are drawn equally from talent (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke), industry and press (Justin Chang/Variety). New York-born Black serves as both director and interviewer. The founder of SXSW Film Festival has known Linklater since the beginning and has access to early footage of the him and they chat about his first hand written scripts in the writing sanctuary of Linklater’s eco ranch in Bastrop, where is preparing for Everybody Wants Some.

DREAM IS DESTINY is keen to stress Linklater’s collaborative approach to his filmmaking and Jack Black talks about Linklater’s earnest desire to know what his actors are experiencing and what they can bring to their roles, even though in the end the film is always the director’s. Here Linklater is at pains to point out that he would never want to lose artistic control of his work, whatever the financial situation, as in the case of Dazed and Confused where Universal wanted to take his film in another direction from that intended. The only criticism of the doc is in not really covering his lesser known films as the focus is primarily on Boyhood and the Midnight series, but given a trim running time of 86 minutes this provides scope for a more ample study of this personable and talented man in the future. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 31 OCTOBER 2016

 

 

Picasso | On film and Canvas

fullsizerenderIn life and in death Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973) was an iconic figure who continues to influence and mesmerise with his potent magnetism, prodigious talent and stylistic versatility as an artist, sculptor, stage designer and playwright. Born in Malaga, Picasso spent most of his adult life in France where he co-founded the innovative Cubist movement at the opening of the 20th century. Surrealism came in the 1920s, and he portrayed the atrocities of the Spanish Civil war in his painting Guernica (1937). And as he changed his style, each phase of his creative output was partnered by a new romantic relationship.

Picasso has also captured the imagination of filmmakers in both drama and documentary features, and his close friendship with Jean Cocteau led to the pair collaborating on a one-set ballet ‘Parade’ for the Ballets Russes, for which he designed the sets and costumes.

imagesIn 1956 Henri-Georges Clousot documented Picasso’s creative process at work in the dialogue-free Le Mystère Picasso. Claude Renoir position the camera behind the canvas so that the artist is simply seen painting and drawing for 75 minutes, without his hands and arms blocking the view (right).

SURVIVING PICASSO, from left: Natascha McElhone, Anthony Hopkins as Pablo Picasso, 1996, © Warner Brothers

SURVIVING PICASSO, from left: Natascha McElhone, Anthony Hopkins as Pablo Picasso, 1996, © Warner Brothers

Picasso gets the James Ivory treatment in the romantic biopic Surviving Picasso (1996) where Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s engaging narrative framework explores his often ferocious cruelty during his two passionate marriages and love affairs with Olga Kokhlowa (Jane Lapotaire), Françoise Gilot (Natascha McElhone); Dora Maar (Julianne Moore) and Marie Therese (Susannah Harker).

Now Malaga born Antonio Banderas is set to play the artist in 33 DIAS which explores Picasso’s emotional turmoil as he worked on the Guernica mural during his relationship with Dora Maar (Gwyneth Paltrow. BAFTA awarded Carlos Saura (Cria Cuervos) will write and direct the drama which should be out later in 2017.

Meanwhile a new exhibition of Picasso’s portraits is currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery until January 2017.

PICASSO PORTRAITS

 

 

In Pursuit of Silence (2016)

Director: Patrick Shen | US | Doc | 81min

Patrick Shen is an American award-winning filmmaker best known for his feature debut Flight From Death. Here he turns his camera to silence, an increasingly sought after commodity in our busy world. IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE is a well-intentioned but rather condescending documentary presenting the corrosive effects of noise and as this were some new revelation. But does he bring anything new to the debate with his premise that seems more affirming than revealing.

We know that modern life is a cacophonous existence. Twenty four hours a day we are continually bombarded by obtrusive sounds, whether we are aware of it or not: other peoples’ conversations on the tube; builders’ drills and sirens; musak in cafes and babies crying: wherever we go it is almost impossible to escape the intrusion of noise. Try to find noise-blocking headphones and you will be offered those that only function with personal media devices – more sound and sensory stimulation. Silence (or the sound of the natural ambient world) is becoming not only golden but also vital to our survival as human beings, but many (particularly the young) are aware of this: so it is vital that we tune into its healing power. As animals we need to retreat and connect with our natural environment. The more we resort to the technological world for satisfaction, the less we feel validated, and the more we have to clamour to be heard and valued.

Shen opens his investigation on the role of noise pollution with John Cage’s silent composition 4’33. We discover that silence was the main thrust of his work, and this piece consists of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence (or, rather, of whatever ambient sound exist where this work is being performed). More common knowledge comes next. Unwanted sound can have a detrimental effect on both our physical and mental health. It leads to increased heart beat and cortisol release –  causing stress,  sleep deprivation, hypertension and even cardiac arrest.

We meet Greg Hindy who in 2014 walked from New Hampshire to Los Angeles under a self-imposed vow of silence, his innermost thoughts  written on a notebook and held up to the camera – crystallise our feelings: “The sources of noise that I am trying to get away from are so embedded in electronics and entertainment that I really could not allow any such distractions. Time away has given me perspective on what I should allow back into my life, and to what extent. Sometimes to really see things the way that they truly are, you have to take a step back, and then another step, and then a few more”. Well put Greg. But is this new?.

Structurally, the film feels overly episodic with two many commentators making it feel fragmented rather than discursive, and where is the ground-breaking revelation in the third act?. As is often the case in documentaries: a point is made and then rammed home over and over again without leaving the audience to reach their own conclusions. We hear from Dr. Helen Lees (author of Silence in Schools), Pico Iyer (The Art of Stillness), Susan Cain (Quiet), Maggie Ross (Silence: A User’s Guide), and Brooklyn-based author George Prochnik whose book In Pursuit of Silence was largely an inspiration for Shen’s film and his definition of silence is simply “the interruption of the imposition of our own egos upon the world.”

There are glorious interludes in remote landscapes such as the Denali National Park in Alaska, where a geeky park “soundscape technician” instructs us on the balance between silence, listening, and space. Even here overhead planes can still be seen and heard. In Japan, a researcher explores the benefits of natural ambient sound revealing the calming effects that this has on improving the body’s overall capacity to heal itself. Particularly, the rhythmic sound of waves on a beach has the power to regulate human functions and heartbeat. Trappist monks spend a great deal of their time in meditation in Iowa and a Zen temple in Japan leading to some footage of a Japanese tea ceremony; silence offers us a way to return and to reconnect with ourselves and is the most reaffirming thing we can do, rather than to reach out to technology or even people. But this is all ‘white noise’ that qualifies what we already know.

And In Pursuit of Silence isn’t always the balm you may be hoping for when you see its title. To illustrate his points Shen frequently blasts us with loud noises, some of which are quite unbearable. We know what that feels like and don’t need to hear it – specially from TV news or talk shows. During a political TV debate we witness an hilarious scene of three people talking at once, none of them listening, leading to Lees observation: “If nobody’s talking, nobody’s dominating,” And this seems to be the only salient takeaway worth ruminating over. We live in an increasingly vocal world, where everyone is trying to impose their own will and their own opinions on the rest of us, even when they have no informed opinion on which to place their rhetoric. We have lost the power to remain silent. And sometimes silence is the most powerful statement of all. MT

 

NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE.

Into the Inferno (2016)

Dir: Werner Herzog | Cliver Oppenheimer | Doc | 100min

Visionary filmmaker Werner Herzog seeks out the world’s most apocalyptic natural wonders in his latest film INTO THE INFERNO that comes hot on the heels of Low and Behold, It is a rambling but informative piece of filmmaking that will certainly appeal to devotees of Herzog’s inimitable style. Some of the images are so breathtakingly ethereal and often frightening, it’s difficult to believe they are actually real, flashing before our eyes to a score of operatic music. What seems to fascinate Herzog is their primordial ability to challenge our authority, exemplifying the essential fragilitiy of human existence. They also offer great filmmaking potential.

As his specialist guide and travelling companion Herzog choses the fizzingly enthusiastic Clive Oppenheimer, a leading luminary on the subject who offers scientific detail and he authoritatively engages with local experts as the duo journey through the South Pacific, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Iceland, North Korea and back to Vanuatu, whose inhabitants celebrate their volcano every Friday night. Some of the volcanoes are dormant, but some are still active spewing their firey red magma, billowing gas clouds and pumice showers over lush hillsides and stony ravines. Some photos are taken from space to capture the magnitude of volcanic crater lakes.

The Afar region in Ethiopia is the hottest place on Earth and Herzog and Oppenheimer can only enter with a miliary aide due to local hostilities. Here they discover the world’s best collection of fossils and hundreds of obsidian chips which, when fashioned into blades, are sharper than steel and were once used for eye surgery. In one of the film’s digressions, they meet up with a crackpot scientist and fossil hunter from California who describes how, thousands of years ago, the human species originated here as one type and gradually spread out to Asia, Europe and beyond where we different languages and characteristics developed. It also emerges that a massive volcano in prehistoric times nearly wiped out humanity.

In Iceland, Herzog gets to visit the Dead Sea scrolls equivalent, a revered manuscript that details and describes volcanic activity back to the Dark Ages. When invited to North Korea, Herzog accepts that his visit will be tainted with propganda. Here the main volcano is considered the mythical birthplace of the Korean people, and now a sacred site of pilgrimage. We meet a group of uniformed students who chant a (staged) anthem for the volcano, even though it has been inactive for over a thousand years. Oppenheimer is suitably deferential. Clearly he sees the authorities as more frightening than the possibility that the volcano might erupt. Although INTO THE INFERNO occasionally veers off into a field trip for Oppenheimer, especially in North Korea, it nonetheless provides absorbing entertainment for lovers of the natural world, MT.

AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX Launching on 28th October

Kate plays Christine (2016) | DVD release with Actress

Dir.: Robert Greene; Cast: Kate Lyn Sheil; USA 2016, 112 min.

Director/writer/editor Robert Greene (Actress) tries to answer more than one question with his documentary style psycho thriller KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE: he uses the 1974 on-air suicide of US TV newscaster Christine Chubbuck not as an isolated tragedy, but to highlight and explore questions of gender, gun control, news media and the reality of acting.

The documentary part of KATE consists of Sheil trying to retrace the steps of Chubbuck, whilst the re-enacted scenes are purposefully tacky and unsettling, stylistically close to the 70s aesthetics. Central to the film is lead actress Kate Lyn Sheil (You’re Next) who becomes obsessed with the life and death of the tragic newscaster, who seems to have faded from the public memory, dying just short of her 30th birthday. Reading up on the sparse literature which exists on Chubbuck, Kate travels to Florida where Chubbuck lived and worked. Sheil buys a spooky brunette wig, brown contact lenses and uses spray tan to get into character. In Sarasota, always a town of transients and tourists, hardly anyone remembers the dead woman. In an interesting contrast, we see Sheil buying a gun from the same dealer as Chubbuck in the re-enactment. The shop owner admits freely to Kate that everyone answering a few simple questions can acquire a gun “even if he is mad – after all, I am no psychologist”. Sheil also buys fluffy animals, it emerges that Chubbuck’s bedroom resembled more that of a nine year-old girl than a woman of 29.

Greene wants to avoid explaining Chubbuck’s suicide, depression is far too complex an illness to be explained in two hours. Instead he concentrates “on showing the gap between the ‘real’ self and the ‘staged’ one”, a gap, which Chubbuck savagely obliterated. The irony is that her on-screen suicide was a protest against the sensational packaging of news, which is run by men, and Chubbuck’s depression and loneliness was used as an excuse for her objective criticism of the male dominated TV news. The recent events at Fox TV, where millions of dollars were paid to female newscasters for sexual harassment by their male bosses, are proof that the tradition has survived. Chubbuck put all of her energies into her work and to be passed over for promotion by a boss who favoured her male colleague, who then landed the prize job taking with him her best friend at work, was just the last straw.

As for Kate Lyn Sheil, who is as much a collaborator as an actor, the experience of playing Christine Chubbuck has left her convinced that acting is much more than re-creating a person: “What I care about most is trying to give a voice to the lonely and unusual. Empathy is what matters to me. I hope that people watching the movie will feel as bewildered, infuriated and ultimately heartbroken as I did”.

When approaching the re-staging of the suicide, both director and actor came to a solution which does justice to Chubbuck. DoP Sean Price Williams excels with his colour schemes: the cool, cold Sarasota of today is shot in arctic blue, the TV studio is a mass of colours, fighting which each other, the close-ups reveal masks, not real people.
Greene struggles sometimes to keep a unity of the different styles, but Sheil always keeps everything together: unlike Network or the most recent Christine, Kate plays Christine asks question, and lets the audience answer them. An unique undertaking, worth watching as an example for its critical approach of the medium it represents. AS

KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE comes to DVD 14 November to buy. The DVD release will feature a bonus DVD of Greene’s 2014 cult film ACTRESS as well as incredible extras including: alternative opening, nine deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer. 

De Palma (2015)

DIR.: Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow; Documentary with Brian De Palma; USA 2015, 110 min.

Directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s unusual but effective format for their documentary on Brian De Palma allows the director to appraise his own films. His often defensive approach in standing by the flagrant victimisation of his female characters make it obvious that the filmmakers raised these questions in the off. Not only does this approach spare the audience endless ‘Talking Heads’ crucially it allows De Palma to “hang himself” with his excuses and denials.

Brian De Palma (*1940) belongs with the directors of the era: Martin Scorsese; John Milius; George Lucas; Paul Schrader; Francis F. Coppola; Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott to a Hollywood creed, which dominated artistically first as a “New Wave”, and then very quickly the high-profit commercial cinema of the Dream Factory. De Palma is – together with Milius – the great outsider of this group. Brian De Palma studied physics before falling in love with cinema, largely due to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

But among his first films were the anti-Vietnam Agit-prop works of Greetings (Silver Bear Berlin 1968 Film Festival) and Hi Mom (1970). Later he would revisit this topic with Casualties of War (1989). His stringent logic about the catastrophic outcomes of all the American wars in foreign countries, from Vietnam to Iraq, is laudable. But when it comes to his own violent movies such as Dress to Kill (1980) or Body Double (1984), with its near fetishistic violence against women, he stumbles through his denials: admitting, quite seriously, that the drill used by the killer in Body Double had to be big enough to go through the woman and the ceiling into the room underneath, so that the camera could catch the dripping blood.

Blood dominates his work, whatever the genre: Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987), Carlito’s Way (1993) completing his Gangster trilogy; Obsession and Carrie (both 1976), Blow Out (1981) and the aforementioned Body Double and Dress to Kill are proxies of a more personal bloodbath. Compared with all these frontal attacks on sensitivity, his mainstream productions like “The Bonfire of Vanities” (1990), Mission Impossible I (1996) and Mission to Mars (2000) seem to be just ordinary by comparison.

Many critics accuse De Palma of having no personal style – unlike Lucas or Spielberg – but this argument seems false, at least on an aesthetic level. De Palma often uses split screen and very acute angles, he has never forgotten his beginnings as an Hitchcock epigone with Sisters (1972), where he playfully imitated the master, using the camera as his way to show distortion as reality.

Baumbach and Paltrow’s approach is simple, but not simplistic: they let De Palma contradict himself sometimes, whilst commenting on his film extracts. But overall, De Palma is a lesson in film history, and quite an enjoyable one at that. It shows a Hollywood before the money men took over, when experiments were still part of growing up as a filmmaker. Some did, but Brian De Palma certainly did not, he just got older: Passion (2012) is just a tired version of Sisters, but it is as cold and detached as his earlier works. De Palma has been married three times, all his marriages (among them with actress Nancy Allen, star of three of his films) lasted a combined eight years. The last word should go to David Thompson who described the filmmaker as somebody “who controls everything, except his own cruelty and indifference.” AS

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

The Last Laugh (2016) | LFF 2016

Dir: Ferne Pearlstein | Doc | US | 88min

With the help of Mel Brooks, Larry David and Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone, documentarian Ferne Pearlstein explores how humour can come out of taboo topics such as the Holocaust.

THE LAST LAUGH discovers that it’s all down to who is telling the jokes and how much time has elapsed since the tragedies occurred. Comedian Gilbert Gottfried comes up with a neat solution:”tragedy plus time equals comedy”.  So it’s ok to joke about ‘The Spanish Inquisition’ but ‘9/11′ is still understandably out of bounds. Brooks’ 1968 film The Producers was considered an outrage back in the day, but his later 2005 version (directed by Susan Stroman) was given the thumbs up. And jokes can often be cathartic in times of great stress. Concentration camp survivor Firestone claims that humour was the only weapon they all had against the Nazis. Brooks terms this “Revenge by ridicule”.

But despite satirising Hitler even Mel Brooks finds it difficult to joke about the Holocaust. Something that Joan Rivers managed to pull off on The Tonight Show. Apart from The Producers, making fun of the Nazis is almost a sub-genre in Hollywood from Mel Brooks’ The History of the World (1981) to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) and Holocaust survivor and comedian Robert Clary talks about appearing in the TV series Hogan’s Heroes with reference to his young days entertaining in the camps.

Yet Brooks decries Life Is Beautiful, as being the ‘worst film every made” so humour doesn’t always work Holocaust wise. The rule of thumb when lampooning any tragedy seems to be ‘stick with the turf”. Roughly translated this means : Jews can joke about Jewish tragedies such as the Holocaust, and Black people can send up slavery; but neither should cross either other’s boundaries, which somehow makes sense.

THE LAST LAUGH slightly loses its way in the last half hour when it broadens the debate and but it’s watchable and entertaining for the most part. MT

SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2016

 

Driving with Selvi (2015)

Dir.: Elisa Paloschi; Documentary; Canada 2015, 74 min.

Elisa Paloschi’s uplifting documentary looks at the life of Selvi, the first female taxi driver in South India, chronicling her way from abused child bride to independence – and a licence to drive buses and HGVs. The film also offers a glimpse of rural life in India, far away from the modern images projected by the state agencies.

A month after having her first period, and in her last year at school, Selvi was forced by her parents to marry an unknown man. But Selvi’s family were poor, and in the absence of a dowry, the man pimped his wife out, to make the money he thought he deserved. Depressed, Selvi decided to throw herself under a bus, but at the last minute finds her fighting spirit. And does so with help of the Odanadi Organisation, which helps child brides and other repressed women to enable themselves to earn a decent living. Selvi learns to drive (the director’s vehicle ends up in a ditch during the learning process), and becomes the first female taxi driver in the city of Karnatuka. Selvi then goes on to find happiness with her second husband, Viji (who is also a professional driver), and makes a success of her life in more ways than one.

Apart from making the film, Elisa Paloschi is very much Selvi’s enabler and mentor who charts the young woman’s progress in some heart-breaking scenes that clearly show how female subjugation begins in the family unit and goes on into the workplace: when Selvi meets her aunt, the only relative who cared for her, it emerges that her mother did not even bother to feed her, giving all her love to her brother – who, having married her off, called her a whore. But Selvi’s story is full of hope as she is positive and very adamant about the future for her daughter “she will be my legacy, she will get everything I didn’t. One day, I might tell her my story”.

A simple but life-affirming documentary which tells the story of an exceptional woman, one of 700 million child brides, of which 250 million are under the age of fifteen – a third are living in India alone. AS

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE from 7 OCTOBER 2016

The film was described by the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as “… a tragic and poignant yet also energetic and inspirational portrait of an extremely tough Indian woman.”

Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) | LFF 2016 | World Premiere

Dir: Peter Braatz | With David Lynch, Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper | Doc | 86min

Aficionados of the iconic thriller made in 1985 by David Lynch will be entranced by Peter Braatz’s documentary BLUE VELVET REVISITED which world premieres here in London on 7 October 2016. The director served as an editor on the original film made in Wilmington, North Carolina and this ‘meditation on a movie’ offers a collection of his personal musings – a daily chronicle – of the making of the original that has achieved cult status in the intervening years.

In a grainy indie style Braatz pieces together his footage to form a collage of the shoot with cast members chatting and hanging around on set: Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, Dennis Hopper and Kyle MacLachlan, all recorded on his Super 8 camera. There are some insightful interviews with Lynch himself, who comes across as confident and articulate, and talks of mastering new technology so that he can “think” his films onto the screen without the endless preparation entailed in each frame and scene. Isabella Rossellini and DoP Frederick Elmes offer their feelings about the film and the personalities involved. These are spliced with evocative inter-titles picking out buzz words and phrses so familiar in the film “a candy-coloured clown” (originally from Roy Orbison’s song) and “tiddlywinks” are a few. The film speaks for itself and has a pleasurable rhythm of its own although there is no clear narrative, as such. Braatz cleverly evokes the detached, unsettling terror and dreaminess of the original and has obtained Lynch’s exclusive permission to document his drama with this material that has never previously been seen by the public. BLUE VELVET REVISITED feels as much a reverie of filmmaking in the eighties as a trippy voyeuristic voyage back in time. MT

SCREENING DURING LONDON FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 16 OCTOBER 2016

 

My Scientology Movie (2015) |

Director: John Dower,  Prod: Simon Chinn Writer: Louis Theroux

99min  Doc   UK | US

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by American science fiction author L Ron Hubbard, who lived from 1911 – 1986.

Well-known BBC documentarian Louis Theroux blows the roof of the Church of Scientology in this often hilarious exposé of the enigmatic organisation, made with the help of senior ex-members whom have subsequently ‘blown-out’ (been ejected or forced to leave). This is Theroux’s first big screen outing and together with a running time of 99 minutes, the piece  successfully employs the elements that elevate it to feature status: a significant theme of worldwide appeal; a serious Hollywood-style orchestral score, a three-act structure where the third act offers a significant turning point or dramatic nugget. And Louis has certainly achieved this transition to feature doc – ‘cum laude’, as they say in the US.

Louis Theroux is at the top of his game: he is accustomed to dealing with unusual, unpalatable or unexpected themes and all manner of human behaviour which he invariably handles with supreme skill, without offending or seemingly being offended. Non-judgemental in his approach, he elicits remarkable responses from his subjects, often coaxing or beguiling with such self-effacing charm the individuals remain unaware that they are being gently manipulated into revelations or admissions. He uses the same techniques here with often remarkable results.

For MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE, Louis politely requested ‘The Church’s collaboration, but apparently they have flatly turned him down. But he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, even when he’s simply trying to deliver a letter to the Church’s headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Accused of trespassing on a public road, he eventually turns the tables on his accuser, a senior member of the Church, ‘allowing’ her to stay, rather than drive away in her car with the words: “it’s ok, you’re not trespassing”. When she asks: ‘why are you filming us?’. Louis responds with superlative politeness: “Why are you filming me?” In short these guys are not going to ‘shut his butt down’ on the fascinating subject-matter that he has come to explore.

In order to offer enlightenment and understanding as to the Church’s methods, Louis and helmer John Dower, use actors to role-play the characters and experiences of the ex-members – including one who “finds it easy to tap into a well of anger” to play the part of the current Head David Miscavige. In this way, Louis sheds light on an organisation which exerts control over its members, non unlike those of the Mormon religion, often keeping them from leaving using similar techniques. John Dower uses inter-titles to put the salient facts forward and there is recent archive footage from the Hollywood-style films that L Ron Hubbard created to promote the Church’s activities. What emerges is intriguing and alarming but Louis always keeps the tone light even when he is openly vilified by his collaborator Matt, an ex-senior official, who emerges as somewhat of a narcissistic individual, a personality type the Church seems to attract amongst its followers. Tom Cruise is a close friend of David Malsavige and another senior member who, we learn, has spent around 1 million dollars on courses to rise to the senior echelons of the Church. What transpires in Louis’ documentary will certainly give audiences food for thought and a better understanding of this arcane organisation. Who knows: You may even consider joining. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS | REVIEWED AT BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015

 

Counting (2015)

Director: Jem Cohen

111mins   Documentary  US

‘Sleeping dogs; Waking cats; Straws that break the camel’s back

The subtle urban portraiture of Jem Cohen’s work could be described as tragi comedy in motion. His recent drama MUSEUM HOURS was a hit amongst the arthouse crowd but COUNTING is a straightforward documentary that explores the peripatetic fillmaker’s wanderings through New York, Moscow, St Petersburg, Istanbul and an unknown city in the Middle East (Islamabad?).

Taking the form of 15 different but interconnected fragments, a lose narrative gradually emerges that points to a World where everyone is in contact but no one is actually engaging; people are talking but no one is listening. So COUNTING feels like an intensely personal take-down of our contemporary cities where animals and people are increasingly bewildered and alienated from their urban surroundings.

Continually leavening his film with ironic commentary that juxtaposes images of alienated people, cats or dogs photographed against the urban landscape often with poignantly amusing signs, his acute observations reflect the state of play in contemporary society. Whether faintly amusing or poignantly sad, they put Terrence Malick’s saccharine Hallmark greetingcard platitudes to shame, making Jem Cohen a unique and inventive director who deserves more acclaim. A treasure not to be missed, but not his best outing. MT

ON RELEASE 20/9/2016 FOR BARBICAN ARCHITECTURE ON FILM SERIES | BERLINALE 2015 review

The First Monday in May (2016)

Director: Andrew Rossi | With Anna Wintour, Andrew Bolton, Wong Ka Wai | 90min | US | Doc

The first Monday of every May is a red letter day for the fashion industry worldwide. From New York, Andrew Rossi’s documentary explores the collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and its annual fundraising event, the Met Gala. He reveals the preparations leading to the evening when the world’s most recognisable figures in fashion, business and entertainment will unite to honour the spectacular 2015 exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, curated by the Institute’s Andrew Bolton who attempts to unite contemporary and historical fashion with fine art, world history and film. The Met evening has burgeoned into one of the premier events of the New York social calendar since Anna Wintour took over the fundraising as co-chair, raising over USD 12 million for the Institute from this glittering soirée.

Where once only architecture, painting and sculpture were considered ‘art’ by the Met. Nowadays, thanks to Andrew Bolton, whose Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition was a breakout success and the eighth most popular show in the Met’s history, fashion has joined the critical list. Laden with concepts and intricate techniques, fashion, and in particular ‘haute couture’, transforms clothing into veritable works of art. This has changed the way art critics view fashion, according to Bolton, who plods around sockless in black lace-up brogues, half-mast trousers and a un-ironed shirt. Clearly the stress is taking its toll on the highly organised, and biddable Lancashire-born art supremo. His intelligent raciness adds a touch of class to the proceedings.

Alongside Bolton, Vogue editor-in-chief and eminence grise, Anna Wintour (Starbucks venti coffee permanently at hand) finesses the guest list, hoping to ‘lose’ a few B list guests, while sternly overseeing the general style of the evening in collaboration with filmmakers Wong Ka Wai and Baz Luhrmann who warn against tainting Chinese heritage with inappropriate influences. John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld also offer their opinions and insight into the world of haute couture.

Rossi certainly showcases the event and the exhibition to perfection in his comprehensive documentary that offers compelling viewing for those interested in the world of celebrity and fashion. America’s answer to Baz Bamigboye does some witty compering on the red carpet, buttering up a fur-strewn Rihanna before she unleashes her tribal-style opening song that has the ensemble guest list bopping and writhing to her command: George and Amal Clooney, Kate Hudson, Justin Bieber and Alicia Keys are all their acting their part in this opulent costume drama that feels rather grotesque. MT

NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS

Shadow World (2016)

Dir: Johan Grimonprez | Doc | 94min | Belgium

In his well-crafted documentary based on Andrew Feinstein’s book. Johan Grimonprez tries to flesh out and shed further light on the well-known but nonetheless inflammatory subject of arms trading and, crucially, the finance governments receive from the racket. Whilst our leaders try to distance themselves from it, they condone the damage it causes by perpetually greasing the wheels of the gravy train that rolls on from one to the next, like a lucrative hot potato.

The evidence is all there and is masterfully curated by Grimonprez and corroborated by talking heads and witnesses who profess incredulity. The whole process started back in the 80s during Ronald Regan’s time in office when the term ‘special relationship’ with the UK’s Margaret Thatcher was first coined (and later passed to Blair, Bush and Obama) and  led to and facilitated a profitable trade with Saudi Arabia that escalated into an ubiquitous state of perpetual international conflict – still happening today – and ‘affectionately’ termed (and I use that term ironically) the ‘War on Terror’.

According to the alledged findings of Shadow World, which seem entirely plausible – this is a conflict that shows no signs of abating, and why should it when one considers the positive contribution that it has made to those concerned.  Not a documentary that will make you leave the cinema laughing. MT

NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE from 17 SEPTEMBER 2016 | Bertha Dochouse W1

SHADOW WORLD

 

 

 

 

Cecilia (2016)

DIR.: PANKAJ JOHAR | Documentary | India/Norway | 83 min.

Director/producer/DoP Pankaj Johar (Still Standing) has invested a great deal of emotional energy in his documentary CECILIA: becoming a participant rather than a detached observer in this tragic film about child-trafficking.

Cecilia Hasda was 54 when she arrived in Delhi from her village in Bengal (1500 km away) to housekeep for Pankaj Johar and his lawyer wife, Sunaina, in the first year of their marriage. Almost immediately Cecilia finds out that her daughter Mati, 14, has been found dead in Dehli, having hanged herself. Cecilia is naturally distraught, and Pankaj and Sunaina try to help her investigate the circumstances of Mati’s death. The couple shamefully admit that they have employed children as young as twelve to work for them when they finally discover a child-trafficking ring, led by a certain Rafiq, who ‘bought’ Mati in her home village, obviously with the consent of her father – and, as it turns out, the consent of the whole village. In turns out that all the villagers are in league with Rafiq and his men, paying them to procure household staff.

Researching the widespread issue of child-trafficking, Johar and his wife meet the campaigner Kailash Satyarthi, who has fought against the practice for twenty years, just before being awarded the Nobel Peace Price. Mati’s employers approach Cecilia offering her compensation for her loss, on the proviso that she agrees to swear to an affidavit that they treated Mati well. But soon it becomes clear that Cecilia’s husband is attempting to have Rafiq freed from jail. Cecilia learns that he has agreed to the affidavit on the basis that he was divorced from her at the time when Mati started  work in Dehli, so making it impossible for Cecilia to pursue the case further.

Pankaj and Sunaina travel with Cecilia twice to her home village, but are frightened away by the villagers, who blame Cecilia for setting the police on them. At one point Sunaina is so upset she admits: “I don’t trust anybody in this country”. And it turns out that she is right: the villagers and her husband put Cecilia under pressure to take back the accusations against Rafiq. Returning to her home village for good she steadily becomes an alcoholic.

Working on three levels, CECILIA is a testament to the evils of child trafficking; an exposé of the financial benefits of the racket to the police and legal authorities (who are well compensated); and a portrait of a middle class Indian couple who finally wake up to the stark reality of their domestic lives. At least Pankaj Johar accepts his co-responsibility for the injustice he exposes in this brutally frank documentary. AS

SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | www.dochouse.org for tickets

Sour Grapes (2016)

Dir.: Jerry Rothwell, Reuben Atlas; Documentary; UK/US/France 2016, 85 min.

Directors/writers Jerry Rothwell (Deep Water) and Reuben Atlas (Brothers Hypnotic)  investigate a scandal concerning vintage vine and mega rich US citizens in SOUR GRAPES, a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie with its twists and turns. Dosed with a dollop of humour – after all, there cannot be much pity for victims who spend six figures on a bottle of wine – fake or not – but they are still victims and deserving of justice.

This well-crafted documentary opens during the dot-com-boom in the late 1990s, which produced an incredible number of super-rich patrons, vintage wine becoming one of the most sought-after commodities. Novelist Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City) joined the wealthy crowd as a wine journalist – he was one of the first to meet a certain Rudy Kurniawan, an Indonesian businessman of Chinese heritage, born in 1976 – a man with a yen for vintage wines and impressive manners. His background was slightly murky but his opulent wealth was family-related: his father ran the Heineken franchise in China, and gave his son a cool yearly allowance of one million US Dollars. Kurniawan’s wine cellar was legendary, and between 2003 and 2006 bottles worth more than 35M$ were sold, often in auctions at Christies, but also at Acker/Merrall/Conduit in New York, where Rudy’s auction of his wine fetched 24.7 M$ in 2006 – a new record.

But Rudy’s luck – his clients included the Hollywood producer Arthur Sarkassian (Rush Hour) and film/TV director Jef Levy (Inside Monkey Zetterland) – would run out soon: mainly, because in far away Burgundy, Laurent Ponsot, wine producer, discovered, that Rudy had forged labels, corks and content of his most famous Wines from the Côte d’Or. And closer to home, industrialist Bill Koch (brother of the infamous arch-reactionaries Charles and David), had put Ex-FBI agent Jim Wynne on to Rudy, after discovering that he had paid several million Dollar for counterfeit bottles. But there is much more here than initially meets the eye.

SOUR GRAPES is a slick documentary that plays out like a crime caper in a luxury environment. Rothwell and Atlas show Kurniawan very much at home in this world: basically playing a shell game, always borrowing just more than he would spend on his own luxury equipment, needed keep up the front. As fine wine consultant Maureen Downey states: “The overwhelmingly male-dominated field of the highest-end collectors is fuelled by “F.U.” money, a kind of money most humans never experience; it is a world of swagger, camaraderie and one-upmanship, in which the participants have more in common with James Bond than Richie Rich”. The  documentary is awash with archive footage showing Rudy very much at home in an environment where over 40, 000 fake bottles sold by the man ”who revolutionised the market”, are still in the wine cellars of his friends and clients. Watchable and intoxicating. AS

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE from 16 SEPTEMBER 2016 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

Embrace of the Serpent (2015)

Dir: Ciro Guerra | Cast: Nilbio Torres, Antonio Bolivar, Yauenku Miguee | 122min | Adventure Drama |  Colombia

Colombian writer|director Ciro Guerra’s third feature is a visually stunning exploration to a heart of darkness that echoes  Miguel Gomes’ Tabu or Werner Herzog’s Cobra Verde or even Nicolas Roeg’s Belize-set drama Heart of Darkness (1993).

A backlash on the negative impacts of organised Religion and Colonialism, Embrace of the Serpent‘s slow-burn intensity has a morose and unsettling undercurrent that threatens to submerge you in the sweaty waters of the Amazon River whence its token German explorer, Theordor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet) meanders fitfully in search of a rare and exotic flower with restorative powers.

Impressively mounted and elegantly shot in black and white (by DoP David Gallego) this arthouse masterpiece was dreamt up by scripters Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde, who base this imagined drama, told in parallel narrative, on the diaries of two explorers travelling through the Colombian jungle in the early part of last century between 1900 and the 1940s. Theodor and Evan (Brionne Davis) are guided by the rather fierce figure of a shaman called Karamakate (played by Nilbio Torres and later by Antonio Bolivar) the sole survivor of a native tribe which perished due to invasion.

Karamakate knows the intricate tribal nuances and the subtleties of the local fauna but is filled with latent hatred for the explorers who he blames for destroying his forefathers. Despite this he cures Theodor, virtually bringing him back to life with potions distilled from the vegetation which is alarmingly shot through a pipe at high speed into the German’s nostrils. With the Shaman they encounter a fallen Catholic mission and a poor worker with a severed arm who begs to be put out of his misery.

For all the magnificent beauty of this wildly lush and desolate forest with its flowing river, there are signs of human destruction. Scored by Carlos Garcia’s haunting ambient soundtrack this is a peaceful, if slightly overlong, meditation on the havoc man has wreaked on his own species and the planet. MT

NOW ON BFI PLAYER 

Rocco (2016) | Venice Film Festival 2016

Dirs: Alban Teurlai, Thierry Demairziere | 112min | doc | Italy, France

The “Italian stallion” Rocco Siffredi always prayed he would be famous. Growing up in the Adriatic town of Ortona fame eventually came thanks to “the devil between my legs”  fuelled by a massive sex drive that started at an early age. Worshipping his mother Rocco is also a perfect example of the ‘madonna whore complex’ and has a fascinating ability to probe the women he meets both physically and emotionally despite his ordinary looks.

ROCCO is quite simply the self-indulgent story of his journey from council house to penthouse that starts here in the film studio where he is grooming his prospective – mostly East European – ‘porn starlets’ as he talks about his life, his mother and wife Rosa – whom he met on the set of Tarzan X, Shame of Jane . They now have several children. Siffredi has starred in more than 1,500 films over his 30-year career and also had a brief foray into French indie cinema, appearing in Catherine Breillat’s Romance and Anatomy Of Hell. Now in his early fifties, Siffredi has also decided to bow out due to disenchantment with the industry that has financed his entire life.

ROCCO is a well made: a glossy, big screen personalised version of what you might expect to see in online porn sites and, with a threadbare narrative, certainly overstays its running time of nearly two hours. But then porn sells. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016

 

One More Time With Feeling (2016) | Venice 2016

Dir-: Andrew Dominik | with Nick Cave | Biopic | UK | 112min

Embracing the overwhelming grief Nick Cave is feeling due to the death of his son, New Zealand filmmaker Andrew Dominik has chosen to film his biopic in black and white, and with “ridiculous handheld 3D camera” – his words precisely but with the help of Benoit Debie and Alwin Kuchker things finally get on track. Leaving the 3D glasses off detracts nothing from the well-observed but overlong picture of the musician’s experience since the death of his son. Cave brings his own witty stream of consciousness to the party, as we watch the film taking shape in the studio during a pre-recording session.

With his seemingly idyllic life: a wife and soulmate, and twin sons – actor, writer and musician Nick Cave confessed to having it all in Iain Forysth’s (far superior) 20,0000 On Earth. Here he pours his grief on losing a child into a string of striking lyrics (“your legs are so long they should come with their own elevator”). He now confesses to occasionally feeling “an object of pity”, a fact that does not fit well with his own self image, but his natural self-deprecation prevents this from sounding narcissistic. Cave also admits that songs can foretell certain events, as dreams can be visionary, and this is something he shares with his wife whom he describes as multi-facetted. Clearly death and bereavement has brought them even closer together. But as he gets older he feels that “the struggle to do what I do requires more effort”.

The test of a successful biopic must surely be that it offers entertainment not only to fans but appeal to wider audiences. And here Dominik largely fails as the format and filming detracts from the subject matter. Despite these obvious flaws ONE MORE TIME WITH FEELING adds a certain something to the Nick Cave experience that will appeal to his many fans and resonate with the bereaved arthouse audiences. Let’s hope there’s more great stuff to come from this engaging musician and lyricist. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016

American Anarchist (2016) Venice Film Festival 2016

Dir.: Charlie Siskel. Documentary; USA 2016, 80 min.

Providing compelling viewing filmmaker Charlie Siskel (Finding Vivian Mayer) interviews William Powell, the author of the infamous ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook’ (still available on Amazon) in his home in Massat (France) shortly before his death in July 2016. Siskel relentless probing style and cross examination often has the effect of makimg the audence sympathise with Powell who gradually emerges as a man who has suffered emotionally during his peripatetic childhood – he was only 19 years old in 1970, when he wrote the provocative manual that lists amateur bomb-making methods during a time where the US was experiencing a period of cultural and societal shifting, similar to that seen in France with the student riots.

Powell was the eldest son of the spokesman for the UN General Secretary, and he went to be schooled privately in a UK boarding school were he felt as alienated for his ‘English upperclass accent’ as he did later on his return to New York State where was expelled from ‘a school for delinquent children of the rich’. He confesses to feel most at home in countries where he is an outsider, explaining his reason for settling in a remote part of rural France.

The near civil war atmosphere in the USA druing the Vietnam War at the end of the 1960s, made many outsiders like Powell feel that the time for revolution had come. After all, Lincoln himself had written about the right of the population to raise up against the government. The Anarchist’s Cookbook sold about 2 million copies – not bad for a book mainly copied from US Army handbooks, and found in public libraries. Powell himself sold the rights to his publisher Lyle Stuart for 10000$, and got royalties of around 5000$. Unfortunately for the Powell, 65 at the time of the film, when ‘interrogated’ by Siskel it also emerges that his book was found in the possession of the perpetrators of the Columbine School shooting, and the Oklahoma City tragedy amongst many others.  “Would you villify the makers of guns?” points out Powell, who maintains his innocence although confesses to feeling a certain amount of regret, if not remorse.

Nevertheless, Powell comes over as haunted man: his whole career in schooling pupils with special needs in Asia and Africa, was blighted by the “Cookbook”: he lost countless positions and always lived in fear that his youthful tract would catch up with him. What is surprising, is the fact, that neither Powell nor SIskel discuss the role of the USA gun lobby and State Weapon laws in the terror acts of the past. After all, the Columbine killers bought their weapons on the net! Who needs “The Cookbook” when they can buy weapons like sweets.

It is the US-gun culture, who is far more responsible for the violence in the streets than any books – and it is defended by politicians of both major parties. As long as no changes in the law are enforced, the status quo is an invitation to run amok – never mind the political/religious affiliation of the disturbed psychopath.

William Powell died suddenly this summer after one year into shooting of the documentary. He atoned all his life for his youthful provocation, helping young students to channel their alienation and aggression into something constructive. As for Siskel: we should thank him for his efforts as a filmmaker, which are invaluable. But one would except a little bit more humility from a man who was involved in controversy himself as a filmmaker of Finding Vivian Mayer and co-producer of Michal Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. Nobody should throw stones – never mind the glass house. AS

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2016 | UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016

 

Safari (2016) | Venice Film Festival

Dir: Ulrich Seidl | Doc | Austria | 90min

Ulrich Seidl’s deadpan documentary portrait of mindless game hunters in the bushy and peaceful paradise of Namibia’s low veldt is upsetting and deeply enraging. His unjudgemental approach is the ultimate in’ less is more’ craftsmanship, leaving us quietly seething as we sit by powerless as a devastating cocktail of mixed emotions slowly percolates through our consciousness.

In a series of limpidly filmed and perfectly formed tableaux vivants, (that recall those of his last film In the Basement), game hunters talk of their feelings of tension as they carefully track their victims and the extreme euphoria of the adrenaline rush after they have shot their prey – or ‘pieces’ as they call them. One bloated and elderly couple (who look like a pair of raddled wildebeasts) proudly churn out a macabre price list of their upcoming massacre: it would only cost them a couple of hundred euros to shoot an impala. Another young couple – kitted out in the latest safari gear and gold watches – try to defend their actions as somehow beneficial to the ecosystem. So they are killing and getting away with it as do-gooders to the universe. So this is their version of charity work or ‘giving-back’ as it’s glibly referred to nowadays.

Out in the bush Seidl’s camera tracks the hunters on foot and in their jeeps as the trackers mark out the potential prey while a professional marksman accompanies them on foot offering tips and guidance in preparation for the shoot. In one particularly graphic scene a zebra is followed and shot down. The young hunter is then congratulated before posing for photos with his lifeless trophy which we later see being butchered in the makeshift abattoir, ready for its journey back to Austria to guild the wall. Not since the death of ‘Cecil the lion’ in 2015 have we been so moved and angered. This self justification of slaughter is also partly based on the fact that their are purportedly giving the local trackers, rangers and marksman a livelihood. That ghastly feudal adage springs to mind: “it is the duty of the nobleman to give employment to the common man”. But their job is vile and the scene where they are required to skin and dismember a giraffe is one of the most upsetting pieces of footage ever committed to camera.

Humour and light relief comes from watching another raddled old bloke gently snoring – beer can in his hand –  to the ambient sounds  of animals,  as he waits for a potential shoutout behind a bogus hunting cabin.

Apart from the sheer horror of the killings, the most galling aspect of SAFARI is the glee and self-congratulatory nature of the hunters who trespass on this magnificent country. Many who have visited Southern Africa will have seen a notice: “Welcome to our country – take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints”.

The feint-hearted and animals lovers will find this documentary distressing. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016

 

 

You Never Had It – An Evening with Bukowski (2016) | Venice 2016

Director: Matteo Borgardt

With Charles Bukowski

51min | US | Doc

Not really much to be learnt from Silvia Bizio’s seventies interview with the legendary American writer who appears here in LA surrounded by a psycophantic wntourage of his young chain smoking wife Linda Lee and a photographer. Interspersed with Bokowski’s maxims and truisms to a collage of grim photos of down and outs in LA – Jem Cohen style without the irony – Bizio attempts to ask leading questions as they all get drunk together, but is met with a stream of largely uninformative answers laced with plenty of references to the sex that Bukowski is clearly not getting, or managing: pithy it is not. One of two revelations emerge: He puts his candour and insight down to prolonged beatings by his father and dislikes talking to other writers describing it as “like sitting in a bath drinking water”. Bizio was right, her tapes are in poor condition and the sound in Sala Perla was screachingly loud. Stick to his books is the advice here.

SCREENING DURING VENICE FILM FESTIVAL until 10 SEPTEMBER 2016

Jim: The James Foley Story (2016)

Dir.: Brian Oakes | Documentary | USA 2016 | 120 min.

First time feature documentary director/co-writer Brian Oakes’ portrait of conflict journalist James Foley, whose  execution by ISIS in northern Syria on August 19th 2014 was videoed by the terrorists and went viral, is a passionate portrait of a man who tried to give voice to the many who have none. Oakes, like co-writer Heather McDonald, is a childhood friend of ‘Jim’ Foley, and has wisely not included the sensationalist clip in his documentary, stating that he “never watched it and probably never will”.

James Foley was born in 1973, the oldest of five children who grew up in quaint, middleclass surroundings in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. After his studies at Marquette University in Wisconsin, he worked for four years with ‘Teach for America’ in inner-city schools in Phoenix/Arizona. Whilst doing his MA in writing at the university of Massachusetts, he taught English to inmates of Cook County Jail. Becoming a conflict journalist in Afghanistan, Libya (where he was hold hostage for 44 days by Gadaffi’s forces) and finally Syria, he found yet another way to help those worse off than himself, in this case Syrians, who were at the mercy of Bashar-al-Assad’s regime and the growing terror of ISIS. He lived with Syrian citizens, gained their confidence and reported home. He was abducted in November 2012 in Syria, and held hostage with other conflict journalists (many of them were released) for nineteen months.

Oakes interviews colleagues of Foley and their stories are anything but heroic. Many full time journalists and photographers had been made redundant by their media outlets in the US, and the freelancers had to fight to make a living – whilst also being in a war zone; often mistrusted and constantly under threat by the forces whose war crimes they were reporting. Foley’s own videos are very much proof of this. Nicole Tung, who often worked with Jim, states that “conflict journalists are the intimate chroniclers of conflict.” She talks about their day-to-day life, playing with Syrian children, capturing the life of the communities, as they were destroyed by outside forces.

Oakes has recreated some scenes from captivity, with some of Foley’s co-prisoners giving harrowing testaments of their physical and psychological torture. But they also tell about their small victories: like inventing a simple board game, and playing it with such passion that they totally forgot where they were. These black-and-white images shot in shadows, support the emotional content of the narrative.

Interviews with family members (and videos about the siblings growing up together) show Jim as very much at odds with his socially adjusted family. There is still so much regret that they did not know him better. Jim was foremost a moralist, somebody who never owned a property, particularly valued material possessions. He was a nomad who identified himself with the victims of society, wherever he went.

The James Foley Story is a testament to a man who had not only the physical, but also the moral courage to live in war zones. It is only fitting that the James W. Foley Foundation is a living legacy of this brave humanitarian. AS

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 2 SEPTEMBER 2016

Ambulance (2016)

Dir | Mohamed Jabaly; Documentary | Norway/Palestine 2016, 109 min.

In the summer of 2014, Israeli forces bombarded Gaza for 51 days, after Hamas attacked Israeli Special Forces. 18,000 houses were destroyed, half a million people had to leave their homes. After his neighbour’s house was destroyed on the first day of the war, 23 year-old Mohamed Jabaly took his camera and filmed an ambulance crew for the most of the war; his main reason was “to escape his own fear, clinging to the camera make me feel safe”. The result is an honest reportage, where we always hear Jabaly’s comments, without ever seeing him.

Surprisingly, there is a nearly total absence of politics – neither the director, nor the citizens of Gaza even mention Israel. Most comments of the victims praise their resilience, for which they thank God. And they need it – the camera showing the chaos of the fleeing masses. Strangely, the Israelis often give warning of around a minute, which block of flats they are going to attack. Sometimes the information is true, helping the targeted populace to flee in time – some times the phone calls are pure hoax. There are very strange moments, like the male nurse in the hospital proudly wearing proudly a Frank Lampard Chelsea shirt, and a man complaining to Jabaly, “the bomb destroyed my washing machine, which I did not even pay for.”

Finally, the director gets caught an apartment block, where he has followed the ambulance crew, and the rubble comes down on him. “I only wanted to run, for my life”. There are hardly any gory scenes, Jabaly does not hover over the casualties; a bone fragment on ground makes an impact, but at the same time, Ambulance shows the doctors in the hospital, trying to get the crowds away from the hospital entrance because they are blocking the way of the ambulance. Jabaly’s comments are confirming his approach to show as much as possible: but his fear grows, and he has to take a break form shooting; his family more or less locking him in. But five days later, he is back with the ambulance crew: the driver Abu Zouq, a calm and competent leader of his men. Jabaly shows the rubble, through which the people are fleeing back into their bombed houses, just to fetch a mattress so as not to have to sleep on the bare ground. Suddenly, the ambulance becomes a taxi service when the crew drives women and children from an area under bombardment to a safer zone in the city. After an excursion to a boarder crossing with Egypt, where families are separated because they do not share the same nationality, Ambulance ends on a hopeful note: children playing at Eid, just before a ceasefire ends this war – one of many since 1947 when the British government partitioned their Protectorate Palestine. Ambulance is passionate: it not only shows the suffering, but also the happiness of the survivors at being alive. Jabaly’s portrait of Gaza echoes Humphrey Jennings documentaries about London during the Blitz – a well deserved compliment indeed. AS

AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | CURZON BLOOMSBURY from 26 AUGUST 2016

Behemoth (2015)

Director: Zhao Liang | Writer: Zhao Liang | Score: Alain Mahe, Huzi | 91min | Doc | China

Where once verdant grasslands carpeted Inner Mongolia in a lush natural landscape of green, dehumanisaing machines now occupy the home of herdsman and their families alienating them from their former life with a cacophony of drills and ash mountains in the place of pastureland.

Zhao Liang’s documentary serves as an ode to the past and a meditation on an uncertain future as industry destoys a way of life that was for centuries both spiritually nourishing and profitable for the locals. Behemoth is a visually evocative piece that recounts a descent into hell brought about by the surge in mining activities, offering gruelling employment to both Chinese and migrant workers as is it wounds the scenery in search of coal. The grimly drawn images offer a plaintive paean to the past that is mesmerising, rhythmic – monotonous even. Life before was tough, but this new order sucks the souls from the workers and infects their lungs. Once proudly in control of their destiny now they are cogs in a mindless, meaningless inferno.

Zhao and his French co-writer (and producer) Sylvie Blum liken the process to Dante’s Inferno where gradually the circles of Hell get hotter and darker commensurate with the sins of the souls forced to endure their torment; but these people have commited no sin.

After a day’s work we see them retreat to their shanty homes as grey slags heaps dominate the distance. Caked in soot they scratch around for supper after wiping themselves in grey cloths, having lined the silken pockets of their new masters, the mining companies. One evocative scene shows a naked man curled up in a green field with a slag heap sharply jutting up in the background. And this is a clever motif that runs through the film.

Zhao’s most striking footage turns the screen red with the incandescent fires of the furnaces. This is contrasted with a simple image of a horseback shepherd returning a lost lamb to the fold. Now these people are the lost and forsaken. A haunting and sinister soundtrack accompanies the frightening images; word seem redundant.

Not that there is anything to be gained by this flagrant industrialisation. As we experienced in Stray Dogs (2013) and Black Cole, Thin Ice (2014), the rapid and ill-conceived urbanisation of China and its neighbours is a tragedy that is made more relevant when we witness the dispossession and destruction it has created in its wake. And the final act of Zhao’s important documentary builds to a startling finale. You won’t know whether to laugh or cry. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 19 AUGUST 2016

 

 

Almost Holy (2015)

Dir.: Steve Hoover; Documentary; USA 2015, 100 min.

Blood Brother director Steve Hoover creates another tour-de-force aesthetically as well as contents wise with this portrait of the “vigilante priest” Gennadiy Mokhnenko, who singlehanded created a refuge centre for abused children in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, liberating the victims by force from abusive parents and exploiting drug dealers,

Gennadiy Mokhnenko likes to be seen as the hard-but-fair, rather naïve do-gooder, who is both priest and strongman: saving the young victims in the Ukranian city of Mariupol and enforcing the law, police and civil authorities seemingly do not want to uphold. This requires certainly an uncompromising attitude in a society, where lawlessness seems not the exception: it is fair to say, that order has broken down in Mariupol. At the beginning, we see Mokhenko cultivating this image in front of a TV, where “Crocodile Gennadiy” a Russian cartoon character from the Soviet era, saves children. Then we are introduced to Mokhnenko’s own Republic “Pilgrim”, an orphanage for the forcefully liberated children: sex-slaves, drug addicts and victims of horrific parental abuse and neglect.

But Mokhnenko’s biography is anything but simple: In 1991 he attended a bible course in Latvia, a year later he founded his own church in Mariupol, and became its pastor. In 1994 he started to study at the Donetsk Institute of Social Education in the Department of History and Religion, graduating in 1999. He followed it with an MA in Theology at Kiev branch of the Westminster Theological Seminar. And when he reads through his Wikipedia page under the heading ‘Criticism’, he smiles warily: one of the few moments when the mask of guilelessness slips. Next we see him munching hotdog, drinking a coffee from plastic cup, declaring “that he likes everything Western”.

But there is an organised purpose behind the façade, his missionary streak is very cultivated, but he reaches out to many: his speech at a women’s prison is a great example of motivational vigour: he coaxes and threatens at the same time, a born orator. It is fair to say, that the long and unhappy relationship between the Ukraine and USSR/Russia, culminating in the war, and the annexation of the Crimea by Putin’s forces, plays a big role in this conflict ridden region: Donetsk, the capital, is occupied by pro-Russian forces of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, and Mariupol is now the provisional centre of the Donetsk Oblast. In June 2014 the Ukrainian army recaptures Mariupol from the Russian forces after a short invasion, but Russian rocket attacks continued into 2015. For once, Gennadiy, saying goodbye in the last take like a stranded walrus on the beach, is speechless and rather morbid.

Seguing back and forth between archive footage from 2000 to 2008 and the more recent past, Hoover does not spare us horrific images, like the deaf girl, who had been raped for many years, whose baby has been taken away by the authorities, and who lives now, after her liberation by Mokhnenko, in a psychiatric ward, asking to be re-united with her baby. DOP John Pope’s changing widescreen images include pure horror elements, cinema verity realism and dystopian S-F elements. Almost Holy is radical in its approach and innovative in its execution – but it is as bleak as a Hieronymus Bosch painting. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19 AUGUST 2016

Journey of Hope (1990) | Locarno International Film Festival 2016 | Classics

Director: Xavier Koller

Cast: Necmettin Cobanoglu, Nur Surer, Emin Sivas, Erdinc Akbas

110min | drama | Turkish

Swiss director Xavier Koller’s road movie was the first in the crop of immigration stories that now feels rather dated but still relevant with its poignant humanist appeal and Elemer Ragali’s imaginative cinematography capturing the magnificent scenery of Northern Turkey and Switzerland. In 1991 Journey of Hope won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film firmly nudging Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s Best Costume Winner Cyrano de Bergerac out of the way. Its simple but cumulatively gripping linear narrative follows a Kurdish family who naively imagine a better life in Switzerland.

For Haydar, his wife and young family life is tough but reasonably happy in their modest smallholding in Southeast Turkey. But their journey of hope soon becomes one of despair when they sell all their possessions to fund the passage to paradise, as portrayed by images of cuckoo clocks and Swiss chocolate that Haydar buys in his local village grocery store.

Unscrupulous traffickers have now become daily headline news, but 25 years ago they were still the relatively unknown root of transmigration, taking ready cash in return for a perilous and often unsuccessful voyage to Europe. And we soon discover that the family’s sea passage as stowaways and onwards across the snowbound Swiss Alps is a dangerous and misguided one that provides a hefty dose of drama as the entourage stumble across treacherous terrain weighed down by their prized possessions. Predictably fatalistic, Journey of Hope is nonetheless as harrowing and resonant today as it was several decades ago but its characters’ touching humanity and genuine honesty is what really makes it appealing as a story and the performances by the ensemble cast are genuinely moving. Naive they may have been, but there is something laudable about their desire to seek a better life tempted by a picture postcard portraying perfection in the Swiss Alps, and based on the enduring and misguided belief that the grass is always greener on the other side. MT

SCREENING at LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 3-13 AUGUST 2016

Where is Rocky II (2016) | Locarno International Film Festival 2016

Director: Pierre Bismuth

With: Ed Rushca, Michael Scott, DV DeVincentis, Anthony Peckham, Mike White

97min | Doc | US

Well known artist Ed Ruscha made an unusual piece of art in 1979 that is surrounded in enigma. He called it Rocky II for several reasons: firstly after the famous film by Sylvester Stallone, and secondly because his first attempt was a miserable failure – it got eaten by animals. The point here is how a seemingly ordinary or even mildly bizarre state of events can be easily and simply transformed into an amusing suspense thriller when it comes to Hollywood, given the right treatment.

But back to the mystery artwork; Fashioned out of wire covered by a fibreglass resin, it emerges in filmed footage that the successful boulder-like sculpture was hidden somewhere in the Mojave desert by the media-shy Rushca, who cannot remember where possibly due to being high at the time. Meanwhile his friend, the screenwriter and documentarian Pierre Bismuth (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) is made aware of the existence of the piece and hires a former detective, Michael Scott (who becomes more and more irritated as he’s thwarted) to investigate the missing sculpture by following clues and contacting former colleagues of the artist, leading to this fascinating film which unfolds as Where is Rocky II. The unexpected humour largely springs from Bismuth’s fellow collaborators on the project, the screenwriters DV DeVincentis (Grosse Point Blank, currently working on The Bengali Detective) and Anthony Peckham (Invictus) who create a fiction in parallel narrative to the doc, cleverly editing it and setting it to a classicly ominous and suspenseful score, with hilarious input from Mike White (Nacho Libre).

As we are constantly reminded, truth is stranger than fiction, and the real account of events is far more engaging than the fictional one. Thus Where is Rocky II works simultaneously as a satisfying detective-style documentary; a magnificently shot chase movie and a fascinating lesson in how to make a thriller. Brilliant. MT

The film was presented in Locarno by Art Basel | LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 3-13 AUGUST 2016

 

Presenting Princess Shaw (2015)

Writer|Director: Ido Haar

With: Ophir Kutiel, Samantha Montgomery, Liran Atzmor

Care-home nurse Samantha Montgomery was always an active presence on YouTube where she energetically performed her own material under the name of Princess Shaw. Then a meeting with an Israeli mash-up artist finally brought the New Orleans woman into the limelight forming the subject of this entertaining documentary that brings her story to life, showing that artistic collaboration is often the only way forward.

At first, Montgomery was unaware her YouTube material was being used or that the ‘composer’ in question, Kutiman, had released a song called ‘Give It Up’ which, amongst others, featured one of her own pieces. Director Haar and Kutiman clearly recognised Princess Shaw’s natural talents as a singer songwriter. With a difficult childhood (physical and sexual abuse) and a gruelling existence, Montgomery puts her best foot forward and seems to have a winning personality. After performing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to her charges she then goes home to find her car trashed and is barely making ends meets in her nursing job, let alone finding time to record a demo-tape or finance to get an agent to back her musical talent. Thanks to the latest technology she is able to get her strong voice and material out there and Kutiman clearly knew a good thing when he found her on the internet. Remixing and adding a full band to flesh out her basic tunes, Kutiman, a well-known and respected artist in his Israeli homeland, adds his own wacky blend of marijuana-laced musical magic to her fiesty upbeat vibe on life and the end result is amazing.

Ido Haar keeps his cards close to his chest throughout the film – which some may find frustrating – and certain salient questions remain unanswered: Did Princess profit from the collaboration? Isn’t Haar, or Kutiman, for that matter, just using her? Although Princess Shaw gets recognition aplenty, does she make any money of this venture? Well the answer seem to be a glaring ‘no’ and Haar fails to spill the beans; but where would he be without Princess?.

That said, Haar has certainly made an inspirational documentary about the modern music industry and about a remarkable woman who never gives up on her dream – and who has now found emotional fulfilment and a recognition of sorts but may be not a crock of gold – let’s hope she makes enough to pay her bills. MT

NOW SHOWING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | LONDON W1

Author: The J T Leroy Story (2016)

Writer|Director: Jeff Feuerzeig | With Laura Albert, Bruce Benderson, Dennis Cooper, Winona Ryder

110min | Documentary | US

Jeff Feuerzeig’s laboured and tedious documentary endlessly explores the story of a damaged woman writer who posed as a man and a transsexual and tricked stars and ordinary people for nearly six years in America.

Claiming sexual abuse from her mother’s boyfriend, Laura Albert aka J T Leroy first came to fame in the late 1990s with a slew of tales that purported to represent the voice and zeitgeist of a section of the community, gaining overnight notoriety. Celebrities such as Winona Ryder and Courtney Love claimed to be on close terms with the amorphously sexual literary talent whose second novel once premiered at the Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes.

But the hype ended in 2005 when Laura Albert was revealed as a buxom Brooklyn mother who adopted an English accent purporting to be LeRoy’s manager when actually it was all a con. Albert comes across as a narcissitic bore and during her flowery attempts to redeem herself – decked out as a siren – our interest continues to flag.

Feuerzeig interweaves his expose with multiple flashbacks, news footage and technical flourishes – images of literary works appear to fly out of Albert’s black-gloves hands and onto the screen intercut with interminable shots of an old-fashioned recording tape, but the tale she tells fails to fascinate after the first half hour when it becomes mired in endless detail as revelation jossles revelation.

If you are interested in the American fame dream or cult of celebrity this may well appeal but otherwise leave well alone. MT

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL LONDON | FULL PROGRAMME

The Killing$ of Tony Blair (2016)

Dir.: Sanne Van Der Bergh, Daniel Turi, Greg Ward| Doc, UK 2016, 92 min.

This is the closest a documentary has come to pure agit-prop in recent years: whilst directed by first timers Sanne Van Der Berg, Greg Ward and Daniel Turi (head of research), The Killing$ of Tony Blair is a film by George Galloway, as stated in the production notes.

Blair and Galloway have been intimate enemies for the whole millennium, since Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003, over his opposition against of the Iraq war. Both men’s reputation has suffered mightily in the last years, and although Galloway is certainly not in the league of the ex-PM, this documentary is very much a case of projection.

Still, as we learned from the Chilcot Report, Blair dragging this country into the Iraq war was at least negligent – some might call it criminal. George Galloway to his credit opposed the regime of Saddam Hussein, when Western powers armed the dictator in the hope he would defeat Iran in the war of neighbours. Galloway, then a Labour MP in Glasgow, later switched sides when the US-led embargo on medicines Iraq was subjected to, led to the death of over 100 000 of children in the country.

Galloway, who always pops up to have the last word here, has assembled an impressive array of witnesses for his case against the war, among them the ex-shadow secretary David Davis MP (Con); Naom Chomsky (MIT); the former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday; the former British ambassador to Iran and Libya, Sir Richard Dalton and former British intelligence Officer Annie Machon – none of them have anything in common with the former Respect MP George Galloway. Davis in particular is very adamant about the fact that he felt that Blair misled parliament. Stephen Fry and Lauren Booth, Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, talk about the charm of the Ex-PM, which is proven in news-clips: Blair striding in war zones, smiling like a saviour, every inch the messianic figure he wanted to be.

The second half of The Killing$ is a little bit of a murky affair, but mainly due to the fact that Blair, using a loophole in the law, is not required to make his tax returns public. This leads to wild speculations about his real wealth, anything between fifty and a hundred M£. The only fact for certain, is that his property portfolio alone is worth 25m£. But the exact figure of Blair’s wealth is irrelevant: the fact that he brokered deals, earning millions for a few phone calls for the likes of Muammar Gaddafi and the Sultan of Kuwait (to name but a few), very well known for their violation of human rights among other crimes, is sufficient. A final mention should go to Blair’s relationship with Rupert Murdoch, whose British papers supported him during his time in office: in 2013 Murdoch filed for divorce from his third wife, Wendy Deng, rumours indicating an affair with between Deng and Blair. Blair’s negative treatment in the Murdoch press since are indications that these rumours might be true.

George Galloway has done a fine job in The Killing$. Apart from his own vanity making him literally centre stage, there are are too many Talking Heads, and the structure is sometimes undermined by the over-emotional approach, but The Killing$ is still informative and, yes, amusing. But, we have not forgotten the George Galloway of the 2005 General election in Bethnal Green and Bow, where he defeated the black, Jewish Labour MP Oona King by some 800 votes, after using the Islamic Forum of Europe – who supports the Sharia Laws – extensively in his vile and vicious campaign. A little projection can go a long way

NOW ON AMAZON

The Hard Stop (2016)

Dir.: George Amponsah; Documentary; UK 2015, 85 min.

Director/co-writer George Amponsah (The Fighting Spirit) explores the aftermath of the 2011 riots and social unrest sparked by the death of Mark Duggan by following the path of two of Duggan’s best friends, Marcus Knox and Kurtis Hanville.

Amponsah places us right in the cultural milieu of this unsettling era of British social history in a documentary that sometimes crackles with raw emotion in a bid to convey the human aspects of the story from Knox and Hanville’s perspective, while remainingly resolutely dignified in covering three years of their lives from the time of the riots up to the 2014 court hearing that exonerated the police offficer who shot Duggan.

Mark, Marcus and Kurtis were just four years old when PC Blakelock was hacked to death in 1985 at Broadwater Farm, where the trio lived. Rightly or wrongly, these three and many others on the Estate believed that the police were treating them unfairly, wanting revenge. After Mark’s shooting during a “hard stop”, when police vehicles swooped in on his car, the riots erupted in Tottenham and spread, first all over London, than nationwide. By 2009 Marcus and Kurtis have left Broadwater Farm (and their Tottenham Man Dem gang), Marcus is married with two children and has converted to Islam but is still engaged in street activities and is arrested after sparking another street riot by throwing a stone at a spontaneous gathering.

It has to be stated that since 1990, over 1500 people were killed during police raids or in custody – not a single case resulted in a guilty verdict. The police tactics are not always sensitive, and sometimes provocative: there is a widespread ‘us and them’ feeling among the population in deprived areas – with the police often the scapegoat for indolent politicians. But the recent events in Dallas should have shown us that to radicalise the issue is counter-productive: we have to encourage cooperation between ex-offenders like Marcus and the police, to find ways to save ‘street-kids’ from the plight of Mark Duggan.

THE HARD STOP often stridently takes sides but in the end – like Marcus – comes to the conclusion that adjustment to a system, however imperfect, is much preferable to a violent life of gang culture. DOPs Colin Elves and Matthias Pilz’ images convey the frenetic emotional intensity, utter desperation and a permanent propensity to violence – only mediation, enlightenment and adjustment can help to appease the fury of the male ego, whether black or white. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 15 JULY 2016

Burroughs: The Movie | Criterion Collection UK

Dir.: Howard Brookner | Documentary with William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg; 90min | USA

What started as an expanded version of Howard Brookner’s MA thesis in 1978, became the portrait of beatnik author William S. Burroughs (1914-1997).

The film premiered at the New York Film Festival and was based on the first time writer/director’s extensive footage that featured over a hundred hours of his subject shot between 1978 and 1983. Soon afterwards the documentary ‘got lost’, but Brookner’s nephew Aaron rediscovered it a few years ago in Burroughs’s flat in 222 Bowery in New York, ‘guarded’ by the poet John Giorno. Aaron not only helped with the restoration of the film material, but set Howard Brookner a moving tribute with his own documentary Uncle Howard, his subject having died aged thirty four in 1984 of complications from AIDS, a few days before his first feature film, Bloodhounds of Broadway, starring Madonna, was released.

It tells how William S. Burroughs was born into a wealthy family in St. Louis in 1914, and lived on for 83 years, despite “having ingested enough heroin to kill several entire rock bands”. He walks through the film like his own ghost, dressed immaculately in expensive suits, looking very much like a banker. When he turned up to give his readings in the off-beat New York venues, security staff at the door often refused to admit him, fearing he was a undercover agent. Burroughs shares much of his outward demeanour with another native of St. Louis, the poet T.S. Elliot (1888-1965), who actually worked as a banker, and cultivated the look of an aristocratic British gentleman covering up the turmoil of emotional contradictions.

Burroughs comes over as robotic, not only in his readings, but also when he talks about his past and his monotonous delivery often makes this a tough watch despite its fascinating content. When recounting the accidental death of his wife Joan Vollmer in Mexico in 1951, he seems to be talking like bystander – not a man who shot his wife, restaging the William Tell incident – a glass replacing the apple. His relationship with his son from this marriage, William S. Burroughs jr., was fraught, the young man died during the shooting of the film of liver cirrhosis in his mid thirties. Instead, Burroughs invested all his emotions in James Grauerholz (*1953), who was introduced by Allen Ginsberg into the circle. Grauenholz became Burroughs’ private secretary and ‘protector’ for the rest of his life, and his literal executor after his death. When William Burroughs muses over old family photos with his brother Mortimer in St. Louis, there is no hint of how different the brothers were, apart from one remark by Mortimer criticising his brother for the language used in Naked Lunch. Furthermore, when talking to the family gardener about his dead son, Burroughs very much comes across as the understanding patriarch of a feudal family. The true Burroughs emerges much more when talking about Wilhelm Reich’s ‘Orgone Box’ (which was supposed to give physical health through orgasms), to which Bill credits his longevity. The same Reich – a former student of Freud – who, incarcerated in an American prison, blamed Stalin for his imprisonment. And Burroughs really cuts loose when re-enacting a scene from his Naked Lunch, clad in a bloodied surgeon dress, performing a messy operation.

DoP Tom De Cillo conjures up a morose landscape, the overriding feeling is sadness as Burroughs traipses catatonically through the film like a, bereft of any compassion or empathy. He is a great raconteur but there are no smiles, let alone laughter – never anything but William S. Burroughs. The director’s puppy-love for his subject cannot hide a man caught in himself, lonely and terminally depressed, whatever the circumstances. Burroughs the author seems to have scarified everything about himself for his art – alone for decades in his symbolically soundproofed and windowless flat in New York’s Bowery. AS

RELEASED AS PART OF THE CRITERION UK SELECTION on 11 JULY 2016

 

Weiner (2016) Curzon World

Dir.: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg; Documentary; USA 2016, 100 min.

Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s debut documentary Weiner is an illuminating if rather damning portrait of the popular but disgraced ex-congressman who had to resign in 2011 after publishing his own lewd personal photographs on the net. The scandal also scuppered his mayoral chance in his hometown of New York when it happened again two years later.

We meet Anthony Weiner – pronounced Wiener, like the sausage, leading to some hilarity after his first indiscretion – when he was still a serious politician. He was eloquent and passionate, a rising star in the Democratic Party – and well connected, thanks to his marriage in the same year to Huma Abedin, Hilary Clinton’s PPS. But he blew it all because of the size his ego and his member. When given a second chance after his resignation – permitting Kriegman and Steinberg to cover his campaign – he was profoundly apologetic to the public for his misdemeanours. His wife had not only forgiven him, but she campaigned actively on his behalf.

With their first son toddling around, this could be an advert for a happy family living the American Dream. We see Weiner campaigning, joining the LGBT parade on the streets of New York, visiting neighbourhood projects, Abedin often at his side. Then comes the bombshell: Weiner had – under the pseudonym of ‘Carlos Danger’ (sic) – been sexting Sydney Leathers, a 22 year old Black Jack dealer from Las Vegas, on a regular basis, often five times a day. The hilarious, cringeworthy texts were read out on TV shows, and Weiner admitted his guilt – but would not give up the contest. Even when his campaign manager Danny Kedem resigned in July 2013, Weiner went on campaigning, ‘on auto-pilot’. Wounded and humiliated, Huma Abedin also left the team – but not her man. At least she was spared the final insult, when her husband was seen running away from Leathers (and the television) crews) on Polling Day, hiding like a schoolboy. Self-righteous to the end. The campaign diary ends on Weiner giving the middle finger to the media outlets, chasing him.

Weiner makes for compelling viewing; serving as a reminder of how US politics and the entertainment industry feed off one another – it is no accident that we see Donald Trump putting in his two penny worth. Politics is live entertainment shown at its best. When Weiner is confronted in a Jewish Deli and accused of “being married to an Arab”, for once understandingly, he loses his cool.

But the serious underlying questions are never asked, instead we are treated to a shouting match, guaranteeing good ratings. Kriegman, as his own DOP, keeps up the lively pace, and at the end, he, like the audience, wonders, why Weiner and Abedin allowed them to film their humiliation. It seems that the rules of show business still apply to politics – bad publicity is better than no publicity at all. Being in the news for whatever reason is preferable to being not mentioned on air. Donald Trump being an abiding example. AS

ON CURZON HOME CINEMA

A Poem is a Naked Person (1974)

Director.: Les Blank | Documentary with Leon Russell | USA 1974 | 90min

Shot between by Les Blank between 1972 and 1974 at the compound of singer/songwriter Leon Russell in Tulsa, Oklahoma, A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON could not be shown until 2015 because of rights issues involving the star singer and the director. Blank’s son Harrod finally got in contact with Russell to resolve these.

Les Blank (1935-2013) was a veteran filmmaker and as eccentric as his many documentaries featuring among others, director Werner Herzog in Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe. One reason for Russell’s long resistance to having the film shown was that he did not always appears centre, quite literally. Blank focused on the lively artist community in Tulsa where painter Jim Franklin painted a mural resembling nightmares from Hieronymus Bosch – while also sweeping out an empty swimming pool and removing baby scorpions. Other offbeat attractions are a glass-eating parachutist and a demolition job of a large building.

Singer/Songwriter Leon Russell had performed with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Joe Cocker. He had been a member of the Wrecking Crew since his early teens and recorded with The Byrds, Frank Sinatra and Herb Alpert. But Blank was also interested distilling the environment: the old-fashioned storefronts of Tulsa; the floating motels; the beautiful women, ordinary folks and Tractor Pull competitions.

Les Blank being, as usual, his own DoP, relied mostly on sound technician and editor Maureen Gosling, who collaborated with Blank over twenty years on films such as Burden of Dreams (1982) and In Heaven, There is No Beer (1984). For A Poem is a Naked Person, “we had about fifty to sixty hours footage”. Blank’s concert shots of Russell are a sweaty affair and the studio sequences are intimate. Harrod, who was nine years old when shooting started, was often present and remarked that his “father’s penetrating camera work was a result of luck and patience. He would be filming with one eyes and looking out with the other ahead of the shoot, He would anticipate when to move the camera.” Still, he missed one particular shot – when Russell and Bob Dylan tried to get away in a canoe to seek out some privacy.

Blank cut about twelve minutes of the original, mostly slow scenes, having no patience with long shots; he wanted authenticity, as seen during a concert performance when the camera is on Russell’s shoulder during the honky-tonk melody of ‘Tight Rope’, and the next moment we see a member of the crowd literally in ecstasy. Overall, A Poem is a Naked Person is much more like a music documentary, it is a time capsule from a bygone era where everything was meant to be an excuse for a great party, and music and all other art forms were a way of life. AS

OUT ON RELEASE AS SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 8 JULY 201

St Peters and the Papal Basilicas of Rome (2016)

Dir.: Luca Viotto | Documentary with Antonio Paolucci, Paolo Portoghesi, Claudio Strinati | Italy 2016 | 100 min.

Director Luca Viotto (Florence and the Uffizi Gallery) is back with another cultural travelogue; this time he turns his camera on the four main basilicas in Rome to offer an architectural exploration with commentaries by leading museum directors, an architect and an art historian, and readings from Stendhal’s diaries between 1814 and 1821 (when he was expelled as a spy). For lovers of art history and architecure this is an informative and aesthetically overwhelming portrait not only of the basilicas, but their central function in Rome.

Antonio Paolucci, the Vatican’s Museum director, comments on the building of St. Peter’s, which took nearly 100 years to complete in 1626. Its main architect, Michelangelo, did not see the finished building, the world’s largest church which also has the world’s tallest dome  Housing Michelangelo’s Pieta and Bernini’s baldacchino. The latter also designed the Piazza San Pietro in front of the basilica.

The Papal Archbasilica of St. John’s in the Lateran is the “Mater et caput” of all the churches in the world, not only Rome’s. It was founded in the forth century by Constantine the Great, and is dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. The architect Paolo Portoghesi describes all the phases of the re-construction well into the 18th century, when the great façade, a two-storied portico supported by giant columns and crowned by 15 meter high statutes and white marble steps, cased in wood, which, so the Catholic teaching, were used by Jesus on his way up to Pilatus “Praetorium” before his trial.

The basilica of St. Mary Major, the largest church in Rome, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is located on Piazza Equilino, not far from the Termini train station. It is the only basilica of the four, which has kept the paleo-christian structure of the 5th century, even though, as art historian Claudio Strinati explains, it underwent countless makeovers and additions. One of them is a campanile (bell tower) added in the 14 century, the highest in Rome at 75 meters. The 16th century coffered ceiling, designed by Guiliano da Sangello, is said to be gilded with gold from the Americas, presented to Pope Alexander VI by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.

The Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls is the second largest basilica of the four. It was founded by Emperor Constantine I, and covers the burial place of St. Paul, who was supposed to be beheaded on this site. Whilst the basilica has maintained most its original structures, it was nearly completely destroyed by fire in 1823. Pope Pius VII, who was dying, was not told of the destruction. His successor Leo XII, ordered a total reconstruction, a work, which lasted until 1930. As Micol Forti, the director of the Vatican’s Museum collections (by far the liveliest commentator) explains, the nave’s interior walls are decorated with scenes from St. Paul’s life. South of the transcept is the cloister, one of the most beautiful of the Middle Ages, designed by Vassaletto who also designed the magnificent Easter candle stick.

Massimilano Gatti sumptuous camerawork glides impressively over the city into the basilicas, treating the churches and piazzas like giant film sets, which provided the backcloth to the city’s fascinating political and ecclesiastical history. The endless data is rather dry and overwhelming, but for devotees of this is provides comprehensive and compelling viewing. AS

A ONE OFF SCREENING AROUND THE UK ON 4th July 2016 at DISCOVERARTS.CO.UK

Notes on Blindness (2016) | EAST END Film Fest 2016

Dir.: Peter Middleton, James Spinney; Cast: Dan Renton Skinner, Simone Kirby; UK 2016, 87 min.

First time directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney have used the technique of Clio Barnard’s The Arbor for a moving portrait of the writer and theologian John Hull (1935-2015), who went blind in 1983, just before the birth of his son Thomas.

The filmmakers use the voices of John and Marilyn Hull, lip-synchronising part of the audiotapes John Hull recorded between 1983-1986 in trying to come to terms with his blindness. Dan Renton Skinner and Simone Kirby play the central roles.

John Hull tried to cope with his blindness in a professional way: he needed to understand his condition to be able to combat it – as an academic, his approach was well planned. But his cognitive approach turned out to be limited. When trying to excavate his inner world of blindness and ‘translate’ it into a sort of visual memory he soon found obstacles and limits. Whilst he was losing his purely visual memories increasingly, his retention of memories of photographs was much stronger. But as a man of faith, there was also a much wider perspective: John Hull admits freely, to “have been angry with God at times”.

Only when he accepted his blindness “as a gift from God”, a gift he never asked for, he started to make real progress in trying to make the best of this unwanted condition. The directors show his return home to Australia as a really grim episode where he got totally lost in the unknown vastness of the continent. His wife Marilyn was afraid “John would enter a world, where she could not follow him anymore.” Luckily, after his return to England, he adjusted more to his condition in the private and professional world as a lecturer, even though we hear his colleague’s voices questioning his chances of survival in the university.

Gerry Floyd’s conjures up a hazy, brownish and often diffuse visual terrain where rain plays a major role falling in slow motion on the couple’s’ house – all over the audio recorder. And John Hull feels the rain as a visual connection to his ‘old’, visual life. The photographs, shot with vintage lenses, which turn out to be so important for John, are photographed in macro shots, giving them a snapshot quality of years bygone. Needless to say, in a project concerning blindness the sound structure (created by Joakim Sandström) plays a major role. The sound ‘images’ reaching John Hull roll in like big waves, often feel threatening. Sound elements of the in-house rain are a small masterpiece in themselves.

The directors have developed a shorter version of the same title from 2014 into this feature length format, and it is very well worth it: aesthetically original, and sometimes daring in its intellectual approach, Notes on Blindness is an unique experiment. AS

UK RELEASE 1 JULY 2016

Il Solengo (2015) | Open City Doc Fest 2016

Directors: Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis

With: Ercole Colnago, Bruno di Giovanni, Ugo Farnetti, Giovanni Morichelli, Orso Petrini

70min | Documentary | Italy Argentino

Drawing comparisons with Michelangelo Frammartino’s story of reclusiveness, Le Quattro Volte, IL SOLENGO approaches its subject from the other extreme in exploring community values from the perspective of a group of old men, (in local dialect a ‘solengo’ is a boar chased from its herd) who ruminate over the local hermit Mario de Marcello who grew up with them in nearby Pratolongo, on the banks of the river Mignone, Italy.

Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis’s exquisitely framed paean to rural life and slow cooking follows these local men, all in their late eighties, enjoying a peaceful existence together drinking in a hunting lodge where we first meet them waxing lyrical in increasingly florid recollections of Mario’s secretive past and blighted childhood which began in prison where his mother gave birth to him after killing his father with a hoe (“his mother gave the evil eye, she was a witch”). Commenting on loner Mario’s standoffish attitude, they then reveal their own xenophobia by vehemently forbidding outsiders from joining their local hunt for wild boar. This is a quietly pleasing and darkly amusing film that very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world.

Spending their days making cheese and slow-cooked stews, these men unite in reminiscing over their joint past where 1929 and the early 1930s looms large in their collective memory as a difficult time in Italy: “if you didn’t grow beans, you didn’t eat”, and clearly this attachment to the land has shaped their community where ‘tit for tat’ self-regulation has always obviated the need for police intervention. Mario grew up a loner ostracized from the local men, he went on to experience another quiet tragedy which is revealed in the surprisingly ghostly disembodied third act of this impressive documentary that makes great use of the densely scrubby surrounding countryside in the foothills of the Alps.

Occasionally the camera catches sight of a bearded Mario wearing a red baseball cap, slowly moving through the undergrowth to Vittorio Giampietro’s sinister oboe score. At one point a snake slithers out of a crack in the caves where Mario purportedly lives underlining the dangers of the enigmatically hostile woodland undergrowth. Myths and legends seem to flourish in this remote Italian corner, passed down by old to young and where women are frequently alluded to but mysteriously absent. One old man says: “I like my freedom – home is where I sleep, but it’s full of problems”. MT

The Great Wall (2015) | Open City Doc Fest 2016

Director: Tadhg O’Sullivan | Documentary | ROI 2015 | 74 min.

Very much an essay film, THE GREAT WALL is the second feature documentary of Tadhg O’Sullivan (Yximalloo), is a lament on boarders and divisions featuring a (part) reading of Franz Kafka’s short story ‘The Great Wall of China” in its original German, the latter underscoring the conceptual character of the work.

The Great Wall is also a baffling experience, in a positive way, it feels a little like the first Chris Marker films: somehow the different levels seem to not compliment each other totally, but encourage the audience to de-code them. It is perhaps helpful to quote O’Sullivan himself who explains his intentions and his conceptual approach which did not start with the short story, “architecture can be a tool for articulating power. I used Kafka as a prism, as a lens, to look at the subject.” The result is sometimes comes over as a film shot by Aliens on a visit to this planet, who trying to figure out what is going on. The enigmatic nature of The Great Wall is its main strength, like a good poem, it would gain from a second revisit.

Starting with a Kafka quote: “A Cage went in search of a Bird”, the Czech’s writer’s story about the rather unorganised building of the Great Wall, and its reflections on power structures, features overpowering images of borders starting with the only land boarder between Africa and Europe, the old Spanish enclave of Melilla where a three meter high wall with barbed fence is supposed to keep Africans out; even though we see so-called fence jumpers trying to gain illegal access to the continent. During the narration a score of Electronic music often drowns out our thoughts subliminally reminding us of the purpose of the Chinese Wall: to keep the Southern ‘savages’ out, whose frightening images are shown to children, when they misbehave.

Then the film translocates to Athens where police and demonstrators clash violently, before huge office blocks in the cities of London and Brussels dwarf all humans, reducing them to swarming ants. Bach lightens the tone, but soon we are back with the Electronic onslaught and images of boarder installations, frightening and at the same time alien. Kafka’s short story tells us not to question the authorities; their imperfect wall is a reflection on themselves.AS

SCREENING DURING OPEN CITY DOC FESTIVAL UNTIL 26 JUNE 2016

Crazy About Tiffany’s (2016)

Unknown-2Director: Matthew Miele | Documentary | 87min | US

Matthew Miele’s ‘fully authorized’ documentary on Tiffany & Co plays out like a glossy (what else) commercial for the jewellery brand founded in 1837 that now aligns itself with a celebrity following of media mavens, New York socialites and ladies who lunch, along with more illustrious clientele such as JFK and the Roosevelts. Those seeking to learn more about Louis Comfort Tiffany’s glass and ceramic designs will be disappointed as this very much concentrates on the modern and contemporary cultural impact of the fine jewellery creations, and also its film associations.

CRAZY ABOUT TIFFANY’S relies heavily for its commentary on an endless stream of talking, coiffed and botoxed heads – amongst whom are Razzie award-winner Jessica Biel, Jennifer Tilly (Bride of Chucky) and filmmaker Sam Taylor Wood (50 Shades of Grey) – who extol the spinoff effects of the jeweller’s highly fashionable diamond-encrusted credentials for a vacuous 86-minutes commercial. All this is interwoven into a cursory, often animated, history of the iconic emporium which was founded in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B Young originally as a stationery company that soon grew into a classy mail-order store and originator of the famous “Blue Book” and eventually the most desired address to buy your girlfriend (and nowadays your boyfriend) an engagement ring, even for those who “self-purchase” (ie: buy their own).

“I’m really a fan of big, big pieces,” gushes Jennifer Tilly, shaking a multi-coloured hair-do onto her low-cut décolleté. Others leer through porcelain-capped teeth (probably more expensive than the jewels they “self purchase”) to rave about the beauty and rarity of the ‘pieces’ (and we’re not talking about guns here) and their incredible craftsmanship and legacy interpreted by British design director and Audrey Hepburn lookalike – Francesca Amfitheatrof.

All of this majors on clips from the ’60s classic Breakfast At Tiffany’s. We hear from Andy Tennant who directed Sweet Home Alabama and see footage from the 2002 romcom and excerpts from The Great Gatsby further tenuously endorsing the luxury product and providing retail porn for those who get their rocks off on rocks. CRAZY ABOUT TIFFANY’S is ultimately a vehicle that will appeal to acquisitive fashionistas and the likes of news anchor Katy Curic, who claims that her 50th birthday was ‘the most fun event ever’ simply because it was held at the flagship store in New York City’s Madison Avenue.  MT

OUT ON RELEASE FROM 24 JUNE 2016

 

 

 

 

Mallory (2015) | Open City Doc Festival 2016

Director: Writer-Director: Helena Trestikova

97min | Documentary | Czech Republic

Veteran Czech documentarian Helena Trestikova (Katka) delivers up a grim but often poignant slice of observational social realism that follows the life of a drug addict who valiantly tries to turn her life around after becoming a single mum.

Over the course of this gruelling story, with its scant chinks of positivity in an otherwise bleak Prague, Mallory – the heroin heroine – reveals in the opening scene, grittily set from a high-rise block, that she only wants: “to feel like a woman” and share her life with a man.  And therein lies her main problem. Whenever Mallory has a boyfriend she appears strong, positive and in control, but afterwards things fall apart. These men are initially hailed as saviours – and she has three relationships during filming – which start well but seem to unravel to expose serious character flaws for all concerned. It seems that poor Mallory is a ‘bad picker’ but we never get to the bottom of why, and no background is ever given of her father’s influence on her life, although her mother appears a shadowy but delightfully warm figure, in a brief early scene. And tellingly Mallory claims to have fallen into drug abuse as “a form of protest to my parents”. A pivotal meeting on the Charles Bridge with Czech actor Jiri Bartoska who is also president of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival (in which this won the top documentary award) purportedly gave Mallory a financial handout which helped her turn things around. Trestikova adopts an non-judgemental approach to cleverly tease out Mallory’s personality, her pain and suffering as she attempts to make a better life for herself and her son, who really seems to be the making of her.

Mallory is seen living in a car with her then boyfriend, and has placed her loving little son in an institution. It later emerges he would rather “punch the teacher, than listen” exposes more latent flaws. Again and again, Mallory remains bloodied but unbowed, not always likeable but certainly ready to show her vulnerability with mordant dark humour as she struggles to find work and housing in a system mired down with red tape. The affectionate boyfriend never leaves her side but appears to have a serious drinking problem, as does her son’s father Ballin, who later meets a sticky end.

This is an impressively crafted and edited piece of filmmaking that serves as much as a character study as a glimpse of Czech lowlife, taut with unexpectedly tense moments that often hint at a tragic denouement. MT

OPEN CITY DOC FESTIVAL | 21 – 26 JUNE 2016

 

 

 

Depth Two (2016) | Dubina dva

Director: Ognjen Glanovic | Documentary | Serbia/France, 2016, 80 minutes

The serene waters of the River Danube pictured in Serbian filmmaker Ognjen Glanovic’s unremitingly grim DEPTH TWO hide a terrible secret: they have swallowed up the lives of 53 refugees fleeing across the Romanian border. But these are no ordinary refugees; they are victims of ethnic cleansing from the Kosovan town of Suva Reka who met their deaths in a pizzeria in 1999 at the hands of Serbian soldiers. And they were transported some distance from the Serbian capital Belgrade on the orders of Serbian authorities with the utmost secrecy being taken to ensure all evidence was hidden.

Made on a shoestring budget, and none the worse for it, Glanovic’s camera surveys this vast and desolate landscape to convey a faceless, bloodless, and ominous image of devastation while a monotone often droning narration bears witness to the killings that the Serbian government tried to conceal. Grimly poetic images of endless ghostly plastic bags trapped in tree branches are juxtaposed with a ghoulish stream of bullet-strewn clothing and personal effects that are the only surviving remnants of the dead apart from some improvised burial grounds. No faces just facts: a stark reminder of a tragic and brutal past.

After premiering his documentary at Berlinale Forum in 2016, Glanovic intends to film a dramatic reconstruction of the events, once the finance is in place. But somehow this faceless tribute feels all the more potent and effective forcing the viewer to imagine the horror. MT

BERLIN REVIEW | NOW SCREENING AT OPEN CITY DOC FEST \ 21 -26 JUNE 2016

No Home Movie (2015)

Director: Chantal Akerman; Belgium/France 2015, 113 min.

The last film of avant-garde director Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) is a still life of her mother Natalie, survivor of Auschwitz, who occupied her flat in Brussels. It is the final filmic account of Natalie Akerman, by a daughter whose life (and work) she completely dominated, unintentionally yet inevitably, until her death in 2014. Chantal Akerman committed suicide the following year.

Chantal Akerman’s obsession with her mother is the topic of News from Home (1977), a work show entitled My Family and other dark Materials, and Letters Home (1986), about the visceral link between the poet Sylvia Plath and her mother Aurelia; who described Sylvia’s struggle with her Jewish identity before her own suicide in 1963. And, as Akerman once said in an interview, “my mother is Jeanne Dielman”, the heroine of the director’s most famous work of the same title: “My mother making her home into a jail”. In common with all children of Holocaust survivors, Chantal Akerman’s life was formed by the Shoah. Her mother Natalie had fled Poland in 1938 to Belgium, but was deported by the Germans in 1943 to Auschwitz, not 30 miles away from the place she grew up near Kracow. Returning to her husband in Brussels, the rest of her family having been murdered, Natalie gave birth to two daughters, Chantal and Sylviane, who also features in NO HOME MOVIE. Without a formal education, Natalie became a prisoner in her own flat, while Chantal lived a peripatetic existence, filmmaking and making her home everywhere, yet nowhere.

After watching a screening of one of her daughter’s films, Natalie commented: “You have all this, I only have Auschwitz”. There is no way a child can have a remotely satisfying relationship with a mother like this. Akerman opined to her fellow Belgian filmmaker Marianne Lambert “I don’t belong anywhere, yet my mother is the centre of my oeuvre”. And yet her Jewish roots would always catch up with her wherever she travelled, rather like the Jewish joke about the man called Katzmann (Catman) from Paris, who wanted a less Jewish name – his friend translated Cat into ‘Chat’, man into ‘l’homme’, finally calling him Shalom.

NO HOME MOVIE, a medium between essay and documentary, is a final attempt by Akerman to come to terms with her mother’s history, and to make peace with a woman whose total apathy in terms of feminist emancipation must have made her feel desperate at times, even though she inspired, or better, counter-inspired, her to make all these films. Using consumer grade digital camera (and Skype), NO HOME MOVIE is very different from many of Chantal Akerman’s ‘formal’ films, being her own DOP underlines the concept: but she has chosen this personal medium to show a relentless private world. And the private world and the director’s world come full circle, when her mother goes into an endless monologue about how to cook potatoes, evoking the potato peeling ritual of Jeanne Dielman. But other topics are also sensitive: the war, anti-Semitism and the double bind her parents put her into as a young girl: Her father wanted her to be slim so she would find a husband; her mother fed her constantly, to make up for her own near-starvation. To watch NO HOME MOVIE requires patient tolerance; it only leaves the confines of the flat/jail for two long shots of desert grass in Israel – apart from this, it is a ‘Trauerarbeit’ about a mother and two daughters. Cut from over twenty hours of original footage (“if I had tried to make a film about my mother, I might not have dared”), NO HOME MOVIE is a still life, where events unfold out-of-frame: when we leave her mother’s graveside, what happened the following year seems somehow a logical conclusion. AS

NO HOME MOVIE IS ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS

Open City Doc Fest (2016) |London | 21 – 25 June

Open City Documentary Festival is back in London from 21 – 26 June 2016 bringing 26 UK premieres to Picturehouse Central, Hackney Picturehouse, Crouch End Picturehouse, Regent Street Cinema, ICA, Bertha Dochouse and JW3. During six days the festival will screen over 60 films plus programmes of short films, special events, a programme of industry masterclasses, talks, networking drinks and parties.

https://vimeo.com/166371241

The 6 day festival opens with  THE GREAT WALL – Tadgh O’Sullivan’s exploration of how we keep the hordes of would be migrants and refugees from ‘swamping’ our wealthy and secure societies? We don’t like to think about the answer: we build walls. Alongside O’Sullivan’s troubled images we hear Kafka’s short story, The Great Wall of China – an inspired juxtaposition.

This year’s Closing Night Film is  DEPTH  2 Ongjen Glavonic’s salient reminder of  Milošević’s regime in what had been Yugoslavia. Glavonić uses voiceover victim testimony from the ICTY trials over a series of tableaux of the Serbian countryside. The effect of this audio is incredibly powerful – as the documentary thriller unveils its terrible tale.

A pioneer of the line drawn between documentary, anthropology ethnomusicology and visual/arts performance, Vincent Moon is a singular figure in the European cultural landscape. He will be premiering a live audio-visual performance which explores the art of ritual and a tenth year anniversary of his pioneering web series ‘The Take Away Shows’.

The Ross Brothers are the festival’s other special guests: American brothers Bill and Turner Ross’s work is some of the most exciting work to emerge from America and yet has had very little attention in the UK. OCDF will be showing their American Trilogy and the brothers will be giving a masterclass.

GRAND JURY AWARD

For the film that exemplifies an author in control of their subject matter, craft and story. Matching matching content and form in a powerful and persuasive fashion:

Another Year: Shengzhe Zhu / 2016 / China / 181′

Depth Two: Ognjen Glavonić / 2016 / Serbia/France / 80′

Mallory: Helena Třeštíková / 2015 / Czech Republic / 97′

EMERGING INTERNATIONAL FILMMAKER AWARD

IL SOLENGO copyIl Solengo: Alessio Rigo de Righi & Matteo Zoppis / 2015 / Argentina/Italy / 70′ (left)
In Limbo: Antoine Viviani / 2015 / France / 84′
The Prison in 12 Landscapes: Brett Story / 2015 / Canada/UK / 84′
Roundabout in My Head: Hassan Ferhani / 2015 / Algeria / 100′

OPEN CITY DOC FEST 21-26 JUNE 2016 | TICKETS HERE 

 

Edinburgh Film Festival 2016 | What’s On?

Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), takes place between the 15th and 26th of June. Celebrating a landmark 70th edition, the Festival this year showcases a total of 22 World premiers from around the World.

BEST OF BRITISH

This year’s strand includes David Blair’s romantic drama AWAY, starring Timothy Spall and Juno Temple as two lost souls seeking solace under the lights of Blackpool while Rita Osei’s debut BLISS!, follows a teenage girl on a rite of passage journey of discovery across Scandinavia and Mercedes Grower’s offbeat debut BRAKES led by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. In the theme old age comes János Edelényi’s hilariously poignant THE CARER starring Brian Cox, who will be in attendance at this year’s Festival.

Will Poulter and Cara Delevingne lead a fantastic British ensemble cast in the sumptuous coming-of-age drama KIDS IN LOVE from Chris Foggin and, in a similar vein, Philip John takes us on an anarchic road-trip in MOON DOGS. More death scenes from Wales as twin librarians plan revenge in the quiet section in Euros Lyn’s Welsh-language THE LIBRARY (Y Llyfrgell) and brooding Scottish Icelandic Noirs PALE STAR and A REYKJAVIK PORNO are the latest outings from Scot Graeme Maley

Acclaimed artist Henry Coombes’ SEAT IN SHADOW is a witty and perspective study into the symbiotic relationship between an eccentric, part-time Jung-obsessed psychotherapist and his patient/muse.
Joanne Froggatt plays a woman attempting to keep her family together as her husband endures unimaginable pain in Bill Clark’s STARFISH. Ibiza-set crime thriller WHITE ISLAND from Benjamin Turner. Also in thriller territory, Agyness Deyn stars in dystopian THE WHITE KING from Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel.

IN PERSON

A Celebration of the Films of Cinéma du Look retrospective will welcome legendary filmmaker Nagisa Oshima, the prolific producer of over fifty films, including 1983’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

AMERICAN DREAMS

Maggies_Plan copyWelcomes the very best in new American independent cinema (left) including Rebecca Miller’s MAGGIE’S PLAN, with Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore each delivering pitch-perfect performances.
Meg Ryan’s directorial debut ITHACA, an elegant and moving story of a teenager delivering telegrams in World War II. The European Premiere of Rob Burnett’s THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING, a charming comedy-drama that pairs Paul Rudd and rising British star Craig Roberts as caregiver and dependent. Paco Cabezas’ MR RIGHT starring Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell as an oddball assassin. There will be a chance to see the International Premiere of fan fiction marvel SLASH and Steven Lewis Simpson’s road trip through Lakota country NEITHER WOLF NOR DOG.

THE DIRECTORS’ SHOWCASE

The Commune copyShines a light on the latest work from some of the world’s most highly-respected auteurs, each film offering an insight into perspectives and stories from across the globe. Screening over the course of the Festival are:

Bleak Street, Arturo Ripstein’s black and white tale of a pair of murderous Mexican lucha wrestlers
Dark Danish comedy The Commune (RIGHT) from Thomas Vinterberg
Hans Petter Moland’s gripping police thriller A Conspiracy of Faith
Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Correspondence, starring Jeremy Irons and Olga Kurylenko
Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s elegant Families
Kurdish docu-drama A Flag Without A Country from Bahman Ghobadi
Taika Waititi’s hilarious Hunt for the Wilderpeople, following Sam Neill and newcomer Julian Dennison into the New Zealand bush
Yeon Sang-ho’s vision of zombie apocalypse Seoul Station
Paddy Breathnach’s Viva, set amongst the colourful world of Havana’s drag clubs
Yoga Hosers, the latest madcap adventure from Kevin Smith

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

Saint Amour copyThis year’s strand features a number of much anticipated films making their UK debuts:
Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi’s emotive Black, a story of forbidden love set on the streets of Brussels driven by a mesmerizing performance from newcomer Martha Canga Antonio. Florian Gallenberger’s ‘70s- set melodrama The Colony with Emma Watson and Daniel Brühl.
Gérard Depardieu stars in The End from Guillaume Nicloux and Saint Amour (ABOVE) by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kerven; Jihane Chouaib’s sterling Go Home; Riotous Icelandic incest comedy The Homecoming by Björn Hlynur Haraldsson; Gripping legal drama Kalinka by Vincent Garenq; Kadri Köusaar’s pitch-black Estonian comic gem Mother; San Sabastian winner, a soulful coming-of-age drama  Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson. The strand also boasts a World Premiere of Balazs Juszt’s supernatural thriller The Man Who Was Thursday

WORLD PERSPECTIVES

BrahmanNaman_still1_ChaitanyaVarad_ShashankArora_TanmayDhanania_VaiswathShankar__byTizianaPuleioThe strand delivers a global array of works from emerging and established filmmaking talents which include
India’s leading indie director Q’s coming-of-age comedy (RIGHT) Brahman Naman; Jon Cassar’s stoic western Forsaken, starring father and son Donald and Kiefer Sutherland; Assad Fouladkar’s study of romance in a sharia setting Halal Love (And Sex); Kim Sang-chan’s darkly eccentric Karaoke Crazies

DOCUMENTARIES

EIFF offers highlights in a genre that rightly continues to go from strength to strength. Titles include:
Andreas Johnsen’s challenging and thought-provoking documentary for foodies and environmentalists alike Bugs; Alexandru Belc’s love letter to the big screen Cinema, Mon Amour; Portrait of electro-music star Gary Numan: Android In La La Land by Steve Read and Rob Alexander; Mike Day’s ode to the Faroe Islands The Islands and the Whales; Niam Itani’s timely reflection on the place of refugees in the modern world Twice Upon A Time.

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 15-26 JUNE 2016

The Long Shadow | DVD release

Unknown-2150mins | History Doc | UK | Narrated and written by David Reynolds

In an engaging three part BBC documentary, historian and lauded academic David Reynolds sets out to debunk the poignant romanticism that surrounds the collective memory of the Great War as a caricature wreathed in blood-soaked poppies, trench warfare and Wilfred Owen’s nostalgic verse. Instead he encourages us to consider with a different mindset the legacy of those pivotal four years that re-shaped the world for the later 20th century generation. After the Second World War, the British government renamed the conflict “Great War” in favour of “First World War” casting the aspersion that it had all been a failure – largely due to the mass loss of life – whereas the “Second World War” was deemed a British victory over Nazism. This is a viewpoint that certainly makes us sit up and think in his absorbing 3-parter narrated with mordant and cohesive conviction that never comes over as disrespectful or anti-patriotic. Reynolds occasionally waxes lyrical in support of his stance on remembrance with salient archive footage not only of war heroes and political figures but also of the creative minds of the era. J B Priestley; R C Sheriff (Journey’s End); ’60s satirist Joan Littlewood (Oh! What a Lovely War) and architect Edwin Lutyens who designed the Cenotaph as an ’empty tomb’ to the unknown soldiers, suggesting that some views and less assuming heroes have become obscured or buried as time moved on. Three cheers to Professor Reynolds for this cracking tribute. MT

NOW OUT ON DVD FROM 4 JULY 2016.

Professor David Reynolds is professor of International History and a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge specialising in 20th Century War History.

Where You’re Meant to Be (2016) | Sheffield Doc Fest 2016

Dir.: Paul Fegan: Documentary with Aidan Moffat & Sheila Stewart; UK 2015, 75 min.

First time director Paul Fegan’s documentary chronicles the short encounter of two Scottish independent musicians: Aidan Moffat, frontman of Arab Strap and Sheila Stewart (1937-2014), Scotland’s most popular folk ballad singer who was born in the horse barn of a Traveller’s family and went on to performed for the Pope and US President Gerald Ford.

Moffat narrates the film and is clearly very taken with Stewart, and perhaps even overawed. But when they travel together through the hilly Scottish countryside, Stewart driving, an earnest dispute ensues: while Stewart insists in leaving the traditional ballads intact, Moffat wants to re-interpret the songs to reflect more modern times. As it turns out, Moffat has misinterpreted a line in the song ‘Where you’re meant to be’, not realising that the phrase “my ship’s in the harbour”, actually means that the person quoted is ready to die.

Although Stewart was selected by her uncle to learn all the Traveller ballads by heart, at the time she remembers regretting not being able to play outside with her friends. And at her last public performance, singing the song who gave the film its title in Glasgow’s ‘Barrowland’, Moffat has the grace to admit his lack of knowledge to the assembled crowd, even though he insists on rewriting many Stewart songs, which are in the public domain, transplanting them into a more comfortable urban environment.

Although Fegan makes a good job of portraying the rather prickly relationship between Moffat and Stewart, the documentary suffers from too much additional padding: the Loch Ness monster is called upon to vote “Yes” the Scottish referendum, and a gang of ancient Scottish knights fight the English in mock battles. Somehow the eccentric Scottish travelogue deflects from the central musical element here.

Sheila Stewart MBE is the last in a long line of ‘troubadours’ who kept alive the memories of their rootless, often persecuted people, and somehow she deserves a better farewell than this rowdy concoction. The raunchy punchlines and Moffat’s near pathological urge to see something comical in any given situation often side-tracks the seriousness of Stewart’s material, and the suffering of her people. DoP Julian Schwartz visuals are impressive in showing the husky darkness of the Scottish nights that make a atmospheric background to the music. AS

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 17 JUNE 2016 | Also screening at SHEFFIELD DOC FEST ON 12 JUNE

Where to Invade Next (2015)

Director: Michael Moore | 110min  Documentary  US

Oscar-winning documentarian Michael Moore is a romantic idealist. Well that is what emerges from his latest film, a joyful and impishly entertaining romp around Europe which explores a simple premise: why are Americans so hard done by in the country that invented the American Dream? Subversively simplistic but wonderful to watch, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT cherry picks the best European ideas to import back to Moore’s motherland.

In Italy he discovers the love and appreciation of food and sex: Italian workers get 2 hour lunch breaks and two week’s paid honeymoon entitlement, in addition to the other regular seven; from France Moore selects kiddies’ four-course school meals – at least one is a regional cheese selection. In Finland he discovers that children get no homework and are encouraged to have fun during their schooling; so that’s the next idea to pack in his return bag; in Slovenia University is free to any student, so Moore stashes that in his suitcase to take home; and Iceland gives women the upper hand in the workplace and politics, so what’s not to like about that in America.

Judiciously, he forgets to visit Britain; that would be too complicated. But the mere fact that Iceland, Slovenia and Finland have tiny populations is another vital fact Moore fails to factor in when looking at the these countries’ standard of living. Italy has always been a nation of small family businesses whose customers value quality and style way above price – the British prefer the cheapness of Primark (go figure) – and no mention is made of the raging unemployment in Italy.  France is first and foremost in promoting the interests of his native (white) citizens (thanks to Citoyen Chauvin) so never mind the rest. And unless you’re wealthy in America, living there pretty much sucks in terms of holiday-entitlement, prisons and social welfare. And nearly 60% of their pay-packet deductions go to an ominous thing called ‘defence’.

There is an hilarious scene early on in the film where the ‘US Powers that be’ – Heads of Government and the Forces – go to Moore cap in hand asking for his assistance. And Moore is spectacularly good at his punchy interview technique of firing fast and furious questions, that makes Louis Theroux look like a shrinking violet in comparison. We watch in amazement as a svelte and hyper-tanned Italian couple blanch and wither to hear that Americans only get two weeks holiday – paid if they’re lucky!.

But clearly a visit to Norway’s worst prison is always going to be a picnic in contrast to a Texas penitentiary: the population size and ethnic mix is the US is beyond comparison. And when rich and poor kids all attend the same small local school and grow up in the same community, naturally this fosters good relationships across the social divide: “We have to show love and affection for one another”. Certainly when fewer people live side by side in near empty cities, there is much more room for tolerance and respect. This ‘grass is always greener’ approach is a bitter pill for most Americans to  lot of American audiences rueful when they see what is on offer in Europe. And the film many British people think twice when voting ‘Brexit’ at the forthcoming elections.  MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE from 10 JUNE 2016

 

Dead Slow Ahead (2015) | East End Film Festival 23 June – 3 July 2016

Writer|Director: Mauro Herce   Writer Manuel Munoz Rivas

74min | Docudrama | Spain | France

Dead Slow Ahead joins a growing subgenre of marine docudramas along with Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Leviathan, Axel Koenzen’s sinister Deadweight and Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s Transatlantique that all take place on on commercial shipping vessels – in this case, the ‘Fair Lady,”. The fascination of these films is how the quotidian takes on a surreal and otherworldly aspect, thousands of miles from home. The diurnal drudgery of months adrift in a lonely seascape is transformed into a realm of alien eeriness when captured by Mauro Herce’s roving camera. Jose Manuel Berenguer’s sound crew creates a spacey soundscape aboard the ‘Fair Lady’.

Where Lucien Castaing Taylor’s Leviathan felt like a horror film for fish, Herce’s horror is a human experience,  homing in on unsettling skies and sinister ambient sounds of computer navigation conjuring up a menacing loneliness onboard the gigantic container ship that dwarfs its human crew on a journey into the unknown seas. Gone are lively ‘ahoys’ and spirited sailors songs of yesterday: today’s modern vessels echo, bleep and drone with the dissociative sounds of 21st century science.

As distant refineries illuminate the skylines with the toxic twinkle of their chemical haze, the vast decks of the vessel glimmer and glow under translucent skies. Below deck, the vacant corridors clank and jolt and the billowing bowels of the container compartments appear like chasms in a mammoth sea monster, swallowing up the inanimate human crew like ineffectual ants, their only humanity telegraphed by disembodied voices in a seaborne planet heading into the unknown. MT

Mauro Herce won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno Film Festival 2015 

SCREENING DURING EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 23 JUNE – 3 JULY 2016

Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) (2016) | Golden Bear Winner 2016

Director:  Gianfranco Rosi
Documentary | World premiere | Italy France | 95min

Samuele is twelve and grew up on the island of Lampedusa with his family of fishermen, all struggling to survive. But fish are not the only thing in the sea, miles from mainland Italy. For years, his home has been the destination of thousands of people trying to make the crossing from Africa to a better life in Europe. They have paid expensive fares to traffickers but their journey often ends in death. The Italians rescue them and respect their dignity. Gianfranco Rosi’s sober exploration of this human crisis is a tribute to the kindness of strangers who say “we are all in the same boat”.

Rosi’s starkly rendered and absorbing documentary paints a vital and non-judgemental portrait of the situation where both immigrants and islanders are given ample weight. But pictures can tell a thousand words and that’s the way Rosi leaves it: we must draw our own impressions and conclusions of the humanitarian tragedy.

Samuele’s family are decent but poor. Eking out a meagre existence through diminishing returns, they prey to God and drink out of plastic cups at dinnertime, but somehow they are content with their simpe life and its ingrained traditions. His grandmother remembers the hardship during the Second World War when their livelihood was once again threatened by ships that came by with guns rather than immigrants, but they survived.

Amusing himself with a handmade sling Samuele spends his days messing around on the shoreline with pals and gaining his sea legs for when he becomes a fisherman himself. Those who reach the island are often mothers with kids and babies on the way. They have suffered war zones and hardshipin Sudan, Eritrea and Syria. Many have died in the overstuffed, leaky boats and appear like tragic creatures, bedragled from the heart of darkness or a holocaust; their gold plastic insulation blankets giving them an otherworldly appearance of stranded meteors with coal black skin. Patiently the Italian coastguards take them on rescue boats and doctors examine them, expertly offering free medical care.

FUOCOAMMARE is a calm and sobering film that often makes tough and gruelling viewing but its images linger long afterwards: the rugged landscapes, azure coves and bleeding corpses speak for themselves. It’s a bittter pill to swallow, sweetened by Samuele’s chipper vulnerability as we watch him learning English and coping with his own difficulties: asthma and heart palpitations suggest the boy is internalising some sort of inner turmoil or grief. The title is name of the song his granny dedicates on the local radio station to her sailor son who is hoping for better weather so he can launch his rickety boat and earn his living. MT

NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | BERLINALE GOLDEN BEAR 2016

Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach (2016)

imageDirector: Louise Osmond | Documentary | UK | 93min

With a string of award-winning documentaries under her belt Louise Ormond is fast becoming one of Britain’s foremost female filmmakers. Here she makes swift work of uncovering her subject – the social realist superman Ken Loach whose charming and gentle persona belies a steely and terrier-like resolve. Cutting to the chase, the doc opens with Loach branding David and Samantha Cameron ‘bastards’, he is later seen tearfully reflecting over the endless pain of losing his own son at nearly the same age – in a car accident. Raised in an aspirational Tory household in Nuneaton we discover that Loach did well at the local selective Grammar school and read Law at Oxford where he was ‘radicalised’ before failing to make it as an actor, joining the BBC at a time when it was casting around for new blood. Here he joined committed left-winger Jim Allen in making a series of films that went beyond the remit of the channel’s regular ‘posh filmed drama’ by presenting life as it really was: aka social realism.

Osmond neatly avoids a hagiographic approach using a tight selection of informative talking heads and although Loach appears charmingly self-effacing on screen and adept at giving his actors the security needed show their vulnerability, as in the case of Carol White in Cathy Come Home, Osmond is quick to point out that he can also demonstrate a rapier-like intransigence when on the attack evidence in his doomed directorship of the 1987 stage play ‘Perdition’ which was pulled from London’s Royal Court Theatre in a controversy that curtailed his filmmaking activity until the mid 1990s – due to lack of funding – forcing him into the commercials domain to keep his family in their large North London home.

At 80, Loach still sticks to a politically incisive style whose social relevance was most poignant in ’60s dramas Kes (1969), Poor Cow (1967) and Cathy Come Home (1966) but whose velvet sledgehammer approach now only appeals to a European arthouse crowd who feted  his latest flawed agitprop I, Daniel Blake at Cannes this year. Cleverly, Louise Osmond points this out in her subtle and watchable biopic. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE 3 JUNE | A ‘PAY AS YOU CAN’ DAY WILL OPERATE ON THE 6 JUNE AT THE FOLLOWING CINEMAS.

 

 

 

Gray Matters (2014)

Dir.: Marco Orsini; Documentary; Ireland/Monaco/USA/France/Germany/UK, 76 min.

Director/Co-writer Marco Orsini (The Reluctant Traveler) portrays the life of the iconic Irish designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878-1976) in this compact, non-frills documentary which would have pleased the artist who was well known for her down-to-earth approach, but always ahead of her times – and often her male competitors.

Born in the Irish town of Enniscortly, the youngest of five siblings of a wealthy and aristocratic family, Eileen went to the Slade School of Fine Arts in 1898, a very brave step, particularly for a woman of her background. But her social class did not affect how she developed into a radical and passionate bi-sexual lover.

Orsini sketches out how in 1900 Gray emigrated to Paris, where she stayed for the rest of her life, returning during the first World War and s short break to look after her mother. After studying at the Academie Julian, and the more formal Academie Colarossi, Gray met the Japanese lacquer artist Seizo Sugawara and became engaged in this art form. Her first exhibition in Paris in 1913 was a great success. After work on the now famous Bibendium chair (1917-21) Eileen had a long affair with the singer Marie-Louise Damia amongst other female artists, but she fell in love with the Rumanian architect Jean Badovici, a friend of Le Corbusier.

In 1924 the couple started work on Eileen’s first architectural project, the Villa E 1027 in Cap-Martin, near Monaco. The villa and the furniture were later (one of many) reasons for the couple to split up, when in 1938 Badovici, in whose name the villa was registered, allowed his friend Le Corbusier to paint the walls with some occasionally explicit, murals. This way, E 1027 became wrongly associated with Le Corbusier, who somehow must have felt jealous of Eileen’s achievement. He later bought a property next door, and, in an act of poetic justice, finally drowned in August 1965 swimming in front of the house he desired so much. But the irony goes further, Le Corbusier saved the villa’s furniture, and because, it was – wrongly – assumed, to be his building, the State looked after it. It should be said that Gray and Le Corbusier corresponded well into the late 50s and in 1970, Gray opined how, “he never got enough praise for his work.” In the late 1930s Eileen Gray started work on her second home, Tempe à Pailla, in Menton. She supervised the buildings work and was very innovative with the furniture: it was foldable to save space. At the age 78 she led the construction of her summerhouse near Saint Tropez. Eileen Gray worked until her death in her apartment in the Rue Bonaparte in Paris.

Today, her classic furniture designs are mass produced and originals, like the Dragon Chair (1917-19), auctioned off for 19m £. Luckily she lived long enough to be recognised as one of the greatest avant-garde artists of her time, after being written out art history for over twenty years. Orsini employs the talking heads of the art world paying tribute to Gray, but centres his documentary on her houses in the South of France. This way he stays true to the artist: her work was not so much art, but creating ‘designs for living’ from any given material. She would have liked Orsini’s workmanlike approach, not a hagiography, but the portrait of the artist at work. As a minimalist, she never cared for dogmas or categories, but she was a modernist in her personal and artist life. Gray Matters, in its erudite understatement, does her fully justice. AS

IN SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 27 MAY 2016

Sundance London 2016

In June this year Robert Redford brings a selection of American independent narrative and documentary films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah in January this year. Although the winners have been picked up for distribution and will appear in the coming year, this should be a worthwhile film festival – best of all – it comes right to your doorstep in Central London. 

THE JT LEROY STORY  (Director / screenwriter: Jeff Feuerzeig) –The definitive look inside the mysterious case of 16-year-old literary sensation JT LeRoy – a creature so perfect for his time that if he didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent him. Perhaps someone did? The strangest story about story ever told. (Documentary)

2498THE GREASY STRANGLER | International premiere

The Greasy Strangler (Director: Jim Hosking) – When Big Ronnie and his son Brayden meet lone female tourist Janet on Big Ronnie’s Disco Walking Tour—the best and only disco walking tour in the city—a fight for Janet’s heart erupts between father and son, and the infamous Greasy Strangler is unleashed.
Principal Cast: Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo, Gil Gex, Jesse Keen, Joe David Walters

GOAT – International premiereGoat copy
Goat (Director: Andrew Neel) – Reeling from a terrifying assault, a 19-yearold boy pledges his brother’s fraternity in an attempt to prove his manhood. What happens there, in the name of “brotherhood,” tests both the boys and their relationship in brutal ways.
Principal Cast: Nick Jonas, Ben Schnetzer, Virginia Gardner, Danny Flaherty, Austin Lyon

Indignation copyINDIGNATION – UK premiere
Indignation (Director / screenwriter: James Schamus) – It’s 1951, and among the new arrivals at Winesburg College in Ohio are the son of a kosher butcher from New Jersey and the beautiful, brilliant daughter of a prominent alum. For a brief moment, their lives converge in this emotionally soaring film based on the novel by Philip Roth.
Principal Cast: Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, Danny Burstein, Ben Rosenfield

INTERVENTION | UK premiere

The Intervention (Director / screenwriter: Clea DuVall) – A weekend getaway for four couples takes a sharp turn when one of the couples discovers the entire trip was orchestrated to host an intervention on their marriage.
Principal Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Cobie Smulders, Alia Shawkat, Clea DuVall, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Schwartz

Winner of the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Individual Performance (Melanie Lynskey)

LIFE ANIMATED \ International premiere

Life, Animated (Director / screenwriter: Roger Ross Williams) – Owen Suskind, an autistic boy who could not speak for years, slowly emerged from his isolation by immersing himself in Disney animated movies. Using these films as a roadmap, he reconnects with his loving family and the wider world in this emotional coming-of-age story. (Documentary)

Winner of the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary

MORRIS FROM AMERICA | UK premiere

Morris from America (Director / screenwriter: Chad Hartigan) – Thirteen-year-old Morris, a hip-hop loving American, moves to Heidelberg, Germany, with his father. In this completely foreign land, he falls in love with a local girl, befriends his German tutor-turned- confidant, and attempts to navigate the unique trials and tribulations of adolescence.
Principal Cast: Markees Christmas, Craig Robinson, Carla Juri, Lina Keller, Jakub Gierszał, Levin Henning

Won: Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic; U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Individual Performance (Craig Robinson)

other-peopleOTHER PEOPLE | UK premiere

Other People (Director / screenwriter: Chris Kelly) – A struggling comedy writer, fresh from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and younger sisters, David feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother worsens, he tries to convince everyone (including himself) he’s “doing okay.”
Principal Cast: Jesse Plemons, Molly Shannon, Bradley Whitford, Maude Apatow, Zach Woods, June Squibb

TALLULAH | International premiere

Tallulah (Director / screenwriter: Sian Heder) – A rootless young woman takes a toddler from a wealthy, negligent mother and passes the baby off as her own in an effort to protect her. This decision connects and transforms the lives of three very different women.
Principal Cast: Ellen Page, Allison Janney, Tammy Blanchard, Evan Jonigkeit, Uzo Aduba

weiner-sundance-2016WEINER | International premiere TBC

Weiner (Directors / screenwriters: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg) – With unrestricted access to Anthony Weiner’s New York City mayoral campaign, this film reveals the human story behind the scenes of a high-profile political scandal as it unfolds, and it offers an unfiltered look at how much today’s politics are driven by an appetite for spectacle. (Documentary)

Winner of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary

WEINER-DOG | European premiere

Wiener-Dog (Director / screenwriter: Todd Solondz) – This film tells several stories featuring people who find their life inspired or changed by one particular dachshund, who seems to be spreading comfort and joy.
Principal Cast: Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Delpy, Zosia Mamet

SUNDANCE LONDON 2 – 5 JUNE AT PICTUREHOUSE CENTRAL

 

Bo66y (2016)

Director: Ron Scalpello | Documentary | 97min | UK | Russell Brand | Ray Winstone

Marking the 50th anniversary of England’s victory in the World Cup, this energetic tribute to East End footballer Bobby Moore (1941-1993) explores with appealing fervour the life of a young man from Barking who joined West Ham United in 1956 going on to become one of the greatest defenders of all time and a national icon after leading England to success in the 1966 international tournament, when Pele left the field. The film is co-produced by West Ham fan and family friend Matt Lorenzo and directed with great passion and verve by Ron Scalpello

Scalpello adopts a talking heads approach as fellow players recall their fond memories of Moore’s integrity as a leader and skill as a player. Known as “a Prince” among men, Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore commanded respect through his calm presence in a team of strong players who were a “tough bunch of boys”. His first wife reminisces about their first date – when she asked the ‘rather square’ young man round for tea with her mother – and the subsequent courtship which lead to marriage after a year. Far from being a macho man, she describes the sporting hero as romantic and vulnerable, but he was also practical: “when I had blond hair he used to do my roots – he was like a mate”.

His diagnosis of testicular cancer in 1964 (described as a groin injury in the press) left him humiliated and deflated. But despite training harder than anybody on the squad, Moore also wanted to have a life outside football. Rebecca Moore Hobbis describes her special bond with her father – due to his insomnia – he looked after her during the small hours in the first months after her birth and the two became close.

Old fellow footballers such as Sir Geoff Hurst, Harry Redknapp, George Cohen, Norman Hunter and Martin Peters speak with pride and fondness about their old pal and captain and touch upon how football became a popular career for them and the opiate of the masses due to the release it offered during the war and post war autherity. A dazzling array of archive material brings this colourful documentary to life and a rousing score from Benjamin Wallfisch (12 Years a Slave) reflects the highs and the lows of his career and personal life MT

BO66Y – the story of football legend Bobby Moore – is coming to UK cinemas on 27 May 2016 and will be soon available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download  

Exile (2016) Cannes Film Festival 2016

Director: Rithy Panh

77min | Documentary | France

Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh is critically acclaimed for his documentaries that explore and focus on the aftermath of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. And he speaks with authoritaty: his family were expelled from Phnom Penh in 1975 by the Khmer Rouge. One after another, his father, mother, sisters and nephews died of starvation or exhaustion, as they were held in a remote labor camp in rural Cambodia.

His latest doc aptly entitled EXILE offers more footage from the past and pre-revolution Cambodia but nothing new to the present with the filmed imaginings of a solo man in exile eeking out his existence and going through the motions as he sombrely survives day to day in a pre-fab wooden hut, as he drinks rainwater and forages for insects roasted on an open flame. These are deftly intercut and invigorated with 35ml original footage of lively news cuttings and musical recordings of his beloved country during the ’60s and early ’70s, all illuminated by his initially poetic but ultimately tedious musings on a voiceover narrative. While his plight and suffering is noble and courageous, Panh’s fascinating archive footage is the only worthwhile takeaway here. MT

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 12-22 MAY 2016

 

 

Troublemakers:the story of Land Art (2015)

Dir.: James Crump; Documentary; USA 2015, 74 min.

Best known for his 2007 documentary Black White & Gray, about the relationship between photographer Robert Maplethorpe and Sam Wagastaff, Robert Crump here turns his camera on a group of artists who create Land Art, a movement which grew out of the rejection of gallery culture in late 1960s Los Angeles.

This was a time dominated by the Vietnam War in the US and questions about the identity of the country were asked and artists, always at the forefront of change, asked for radical solutions: not only for politics, but also their own creative output. A group called the s Angeles, led by Michael Heizer (*1944), Robert Smithson (1938-1973), Walter de Maria (1935-2013), Nancy Holt (1938-2014) and Charles Ross (*1937) decided to end “the dictatorship of the gallery owners”, and move out of LA into the desert in order to find space for their Land Art, a technique 3000 years older than oil painting, with images not unlike those found in Stonehenge.

Ironically, one of the gallery owners, Virginia Dwan, the heiress of the 3M Group, helped the artists at the start, as did the Avalanche Magazine, the semi-official magazine of the movement. The enormity and scale of the artwork created can only be imagined when we discover that 240 000tons of rock in the Nevada desert had to be moved to provide an adequate canveas for Michael Heizer’s Double Negative (1969/70) which involved the digging of two enormous trenches 50 feet deep and 30 feet wide into the rock, for an entire installation spawning 1500 feet.

In 1969 Heizer had to abandon work on the rock installation ‘Levitated Mass’, because the equipment to transport the installation to the LA County Museum of Art could not be found. But he realised the project in 2012, transporting the 340 tons art work from the Stone Valley in California to the Museum, which took eleven nights. Ever since 1990 Heizer has been working on his project City, a huge complex in Lincoln County, Nevada.
Robert Smithson, the tragic hero of the movement, who died in a plane crash in Texas whilst researching his new project at the Amarillo Ramp, created the giant earthwork ‘Spiral Jetty’ in 1970 at the Salt Lake, Utah, measuring 4572 m by 457 m. His wife Nancy Holt, the only woman of the group, had spent most of her time as a peacemaker between the male artists who often had more energy for confrontation than for their art.

In 1978 she filmed the creation of ‘Sun Tunnels’ in the Great Basin Desert of Utah. The installation consists of four massive, 18 feet long tubes, placed in a radius of 26m. There are holes in the tubes, which are aligned to the star signs of Draco, Perseus, Columba and Capricorn. The configuration creates amazing play of light images. Walter de Maria’s Lightning Fields (1977) in New Mexico consists of 400 stainless steel posts, which lighten up during thunderstorms, and change optical effects, due to changes in time and the weather. The rectangular grid’s dimension is 1 mile by one mile. Charles Ross’ began working on he prism sculptures of ‘Star Axis’ in 1971 which places its viewers parallel to the axis of the earth, when walkimg alomg the imstallation. ‘The Star Tunnel’  is the centre of Star Axis, comprising a stairway, ten stories high, to a naked eye observatory, enabling an ever increasing view of the sky.

It goes without saying that these artists were idiosyncratic. While Heizer is a throwback to the American pioneer, who conquered the West, de Maria was a much more gentle and poetic creature. Crump avoids a hagiographic approach, but he manages to convey the utter originality of the artists. TROUBLEMAKERS is a film to be watched: the images of DOP’s Robert O’Haire and Alexandre Themistocleus, as well as the films by Heizer and Holt about their work process, are absolutely out of this world. Together with the documents from the late ’60s showing how the artists gradually left the bars of LA for the wide-open spaces of the deserts, TROUBLEMAKERS is a unique visual journey. AS

RELEASES ON 13 MAY 2016 | COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

 

 

Heart of a Dog (2015) Prime

Dir: Laurie Anderson | With: Laurie Anderson, Dan Janvey, Toshiaki Ozawa, Joshua Zucker Pluda | 75min | Documentary | US | France

Apart from a brief foray at Cannes 2019 with her short film To the Moon (2019), Heart of A Dog is still Anderson’s most recent feature, playing out on many levels: documentary, animation, essay and installation – the latter part of the artists’ Habeus Corpi installation which showed in 2015 in New York City.

The star of the show is unsurprisingly a dog (to be precise, six canines were in front of the camera), with Anderson’s own, late companion Lolabelle, a terrier, taking centre stage. Early on the filmmaker dreams of giving birth to a dog, even though she cheated a little in the process, and this is shown in Laurie’s charming pencil sketches. Further musings after the death of Lolabelle lead Anderson to the main subject of her film essay saying goodbye not only to Lolabelle, but also her mother (and always unspoken) her husband Lou Reed, who died in 2013, and whose Turning Time Around plays powerfully over the end-credits.

The overall style is liquid with all segments flowing – in an associative way – into each other. Some strains are picked up again, a case in point is the potent reaction to 9/11 with images of the huge NSA HQ in the Utah desert in Utah (where the recordings of security agencies are made and stored indefinitely). In California Lolabelle nearly became the victim of a circling hawk who mistook her for a large rabbit. Later, Anderson dreams about her dog being in ‘borda’ for 49 days, a sort of liminal state before re-incarnation, as taught by the Tibetan ‘Book of Death’.

But the director is always self-critical: after telling the story of her long hospital stay after a childhood accident when she found herself in a ward with children suffering from serious burns, Anderson remembers censoring her memory and leaving out the “cries, dying children make”.

With quotes from Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, Heart of a Dog is a love letter about letting go – melancholic, but never depressing. It celebrates life and many art forms, the human and the canine spirit, leaving the audience in a contemplative mood. AS

NOW ON AMAZON PRIME

A Flickering Truth (2015)

Writer|Director: Pietra Brettkelly | Documentary | 91 min

In cinéma vérité style, New Zealand director Pietra Brettkelly (Maori Boy Genius) follows Kabul film archivist Ibrahim Arify in his struggle to safeguard the security of the treasured Afghan film archive that has so far avoided destruction by the Taliban both during and after their time in Afghanistan. A FLICKERING TRUTH is a story that will interest film historians and those with a penchant for social culture and heritage.

What makes the documentary watchable is the painstaking passion of those involved in film preservation and cinema history which provides a fascinating window into the country’s past pictured in Jacob Bryant’s superbly crafted visuals and accompanied by a wistfully atmospheric soundtrack by award-winning British composer Benjamin Wallfisch (12 Years A Slave).

Arify is a masterful presence who knows how to deal with the locals when he arrives at the dusty location where film stock is in danger of spilling out and being damaged by the elements. It gradually becomes clear he has a mammoth task on his hands if the archive is to be saved. Under the Taliban (as under Hitler during The Third Reich) film and art were considered a decadent element of Western society and those in charge of the archives were forces to burn stock in massive bonfires. Fortunately, prudent archivists managed to hide their precious films which were remained cunningly boarded up for posterity.

It also emerges that Arify, is also a filmmaker who was imprisoned during the Mujahideen era and fled to Germany to seek refuge. Now back home in Afghanistan, he gently takes his Uncle Isaaq Yousif to task. The old man has been a custodian at the archives for over 30 years, and Arify accuses him and others of not being proactive in film conservation.

A FLICKERING TRUTH unearths some real treasures: apart from vibrant cult classics from a bygone era, the films also show young people dancing to a band during the roaring ’70s with a young Arify playing the guitar. On a more tragic note, archive footage bears witness to the bombing of Kabul in 1992, leading to a challenging and uncertain future for the country. It’s sad to think that some of these films show a past that feels more advanced than the present here in contempo Kabul – we see young boys playing football in fundamentalist attire in contrast to the fashionable Western clothes worn by the male and female ‘disco dancers’ nearly 50 years previously.

Having secured the archive, Arify is off to Germany again, fearing the worst for the future and bidding farewell to the personnel at Afghan Films. Despite the danger of coming face to face with the Taliban, some of the more plucky film archivists have decided to tour the country with a selection of films. The aim is to show the younger generation how their world used to look in a seemingly modern past. But these kids are not the only ones who will look on aghast. And this is where Brettkelly’s documentary moves on to the world stage, transcending its subject, and becoming something much important that resonates at a global level. While sharing the filmic glory days of the past with the Afghan nation, a more fascinating picture unfolds before our Western eyes: that of a medieval landscape and a society that has returned to the Dark Ages in a future where fundamentalism has taken over and women have entirely disappeared behind the veil. MT

OUT ON RELEASE AT CURZON CINEMAS and SELECTED FROM 29 April 2016

 

Hitchcock|Truffaut (2015) | Home Ent release

Director: Kent Jones

80min | Documentary | US

Hitchcock |Truffaut is a treat for cineastes and mainstream audiences who will appreciate a well-made documentary that gets behind the screen with two of cinema’s legends: Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut. In 1962, after an exchange of letters declaring their mutual admiration for one another, François invited ‘the master of suspense to take part in a filmed interview, via an interpreter, that resulted in the eponymous book that became a film bible for critics, filmmakers and cineastes alike.

Kent Jones has really excelled himself with this epicurean delight for film-buffs everywhere. Not only do we get to meet ‘Hitch’ and Truffaut but also David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Wes Anderson and other top-drawer directors opining on the subject of how Hitchcock influenced and formed them, cinematically-speaking. Hitchcock /Truffaut plays out like a masterclass in filmmaking – all in 80 glorious minutes – making you want to rush home and watch Hitch’s entire oeuvre in a darkened room.

To be fair, Truffaut, the young ‘Cahiers’ film critic turned New Wave director, doesn’t really get much of a look-in here. And fate would sadly cut short his career when he died, aged 52, in his directing prime. We see him brimming with enthusiasm as the legendary 63 year old pro holds court with his wry and witty repartee.

Kent Jones honed his craft working in television and later went on to programme the New York Film Festival before winning the prestigious Peabody Award for A Letter to Elia in 2010 and Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows. With Hitchcock|Truffaut, he makes the valid point that the book established the theory that Hollywood fare stands up to the same kind of artistic scrutiny and attention as arthouse films that were being made in Europe at the time. Kent also shows how Truffaut wanted to release Hitchcock from his reputation as a light entertainer when actually he was very much a visually-orientated auteur who ‘wrote with his camera’ and established how filmmaking is very much about controlling and extending time while maintaining the purity of silent cinema and of the image; about creating reality from the manipulation of light and image.

The talking head interviews are informative and to the point; never outstaying their welcome: Olivier Assayas, Kiyoshi Kurasawa, Arnaud Desplechin, Paul Schrader, James Gray, David Fincher and Wes Anderson, all giving succinct pearls of wisdom on how Hitchcock and Truffaut inspired them on the subject of filmmaking and directing. Fascinating footage and clips from both Truffaut and Hitchcock’s films will further add to the cinematic allure and have you trying to guess the identity of each film.

Jones then proceeds to analyse, at some length, Vertigo and Psycho, while offering insight into Hitchcock’s own psyche, and showing how Psycho was a game-changer in the history of modern filmmaking, ushering an era of uncertainty and marking a paradigm shift in perceptions during the early 60s a time of public insecurity as a result of the Vietnam War. Kent shows how the interview left Hitchcock re-considering his controlling methods of working with actors (“Actors are the cattle”) such as when he ordered Monty Clift to look up to the Hotel (in I Confess) when Monty considered it vital to look at the crowd. Hitchcock’s will prevailed but this leads us into another interesting debate.

There is a voiceover narration from Bob Balaban (Close Encounters) which accompanies the documentary, making this an invaluable and complex piece of filmmaking useful both as an academic tool and an absorbing and fact-filled addition to the documentary archive on Hitchcock. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 4 MARCH 2016

https://youtu.be/0JuhPG-YA40

69th Cannes Film Festival 2016 – preview

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The 69th Cannes Film Festival presents its most ambitious and diverse selection yet with a Jury presided by Australian Director George Miller (Mad Max); Arnaud DESPLECHIN (Director, Writer – France); Kirsten DUNST; Valeria GOLINO; Mads MIKKELSEN; László NEMES (Director); Vanessa PARADIS; Katayoon SHAHABI (Producer – Iran); Donald SUTHERLAND (Actor – Canada).

Woody Allen’s glitzy festival opener CAFE SOCIETY, starring Kristen Stewart, hits the Croisette on May 11 for a ten day competition line-up with other Hollywood regulars such as Steven Spielberg with his screen version of Roald Dahl’s The BFG (out of competion), Sean Penn with THE LAST FACE starring Charlize Theron and George Clooney in Jodie Foster’s financial thriller MONEY MONSTER.

The American auteurs will also be there to celebrate: Jim Jarmusch with a double bill of GIMME DANGER, an in-depth music biopic with Iggy Pop and PATERSON starring an eclectic pairing of Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Driver and Jeff Nichols with his interracial drama LOVING, based on a polemical legal case that rocked America in the ’50s.

90Palme D’Or Veterans, Ken Loach, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year, will be back to cut through the glamour of the Croisette with some stark British social realism in I, DANIEL BLAKE and the Dardennes Brothers with THE UNKNOWN GIRL about a patient who refuses live-saving surgery and the doctor who sets out to investigate why.

Almodóvar’s JULIETA (right) has already opened in Spain to mixed reviews. His most ambitious film to date travels round Spain to tell a tale Hickcockian tale of motherhood and loss adapted from three interrelated short stories by Canadian author Alice Munro from her collection Runaway.

This year Britain has not one but two films in competition: Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) brings AMERICAN HONEY, that follows a group of teenage workers across America starring Shia LaBoeuf and newcomer Sasha Lane.

In 2014 Xavier Dolan transfixed male audiences with his award-winning saga of sons and mothers: Mommy. Never to be left out of the fun, the 27-year old Canadian maverick is back with two of France’s most happening stars Marion Cotillard and Lea Seydoux in a film that sounds as exciting as his track record: IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD. 

louteFrance is the best represented country but their well-known directors are inventively exploring different genres this year: Bruno Dumont brings an old-fashioned Normandy-set seaside comedy starring Juliette Binoche and Fabrice Luchini MA LOUTE, (left) in contrast to his usual menacing dramas. Alain Guiraudie, who shocked and delighted with his gay thriller The Stranger by the Lake, this year brings a more mainstream drama RESTER VERTICAL. After Cannes 2014 success with Clouds of Sils Maria, Kristen Stewart also leads in arthouse filmmaker Olivier Assayas’ PERSONAL SHOPPER: a ghost story set in Paris – offering her two goes on the Red Carpet. Marion Cotillard also stars in Nicole Garcia’s literary screen adaptation MAL DE PIERRES, which has echoes of the classic Madame Bovary and follows a wilful married woman who falls for another man. Let’s see if she can add a twist of magic to this regular plotline.

Paul Verhoeven is a director best known for Basic Instinct and Showgirls. His latest drama ELLE stars the doyenne of Cannes Isabelle Huppert in a drama whose plotline sounds not dissimilar to Catherine Breillat’s 2013 film Abuse of Weakness but her co-star here is Christophe Lambert of Highlander fame.

neonDanish director Nicolas Winding Refn last dipped his toe in the Riviera rave-up with the spectacular Only God Forgives in 2013. The fabulous thriller starred Kristen Scott Thomas in a standout role but the film had a mixed reception. He’s back with THE NEON DEMON about a model who arrives in LA and discovers vampire and cannibals at play in the city’s fashion world.

The Romanians will there in force with Cristi Puiu’s family saga SIERANAVADA and Palme D’Or winner Cristian Mungiu brings another family-themed drama entitled BACALAUREAT. Germany is also back after a long break on the Croisette, this year in competition with Maren Ade’s intriguingly entitled TONI ERDMANN, that concerns a troubled father and daughter reunion.

Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook has reimagined Sarah Waters’ popular Victorian novel Fingersmith into modern day Korea in HANDMAIDEN. 

Philippino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza once rocked the Croisette with his thriller Kinatay which never got a release in Britain, possibly due to its shocking violence. Last year he was awarded Special Mention by the Ecumenical Jury for his sensitive portrayal of Philippino suffering for his feature Taklub. This year he’s back with with MA’ ROSA a drama in Tagalog. At last but not least, Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho, best known for his drama Neighbouring Sounds, brings another drama about flat life to Cannes: AQUARIUS is the story of critic and last remaining resident of an Art Deco building acquired by the developers. Determined not to leave until her death, sounds like this is going to be an intriguing and tense study about who we are and where we belong in time. MT

THE 69TH CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 11 – 22 MAY 2016 

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2015)

Director: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato

Documentary with Debbie Harry, Fran Lebowitz, Brook Shields; USA 2016, 118 min.

Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Party Monster, Becoming Chaz) have used an angry comment by Senator Jesse Helms (R) for the title of their portrait of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989): whose death from the complications of HIV, caused Helms to make the controversial complaint, on the House floor, over public money spent on an exhibition of the the photographer’s work, asking people “to look at the pictures’, and calling the dead artist a “jerk”.

Robert Mapplethorpe grew up in the sleepy borough of Queens, New York. He had five siblings, all of them were brought up as Catholics and he showed early promise with his drawings, one of his first was of the Virgin Mary drawn in the style of Picasso. As with Bunuel, this Catholic upbringing would shape Mapplethorpe’s work: his photos of tortured lovers were very much the equivalent of those depicting Catholic martyrs – he simply transferred these icons into his personal world.

After studying Graphic Art at the Pratt Institute, this well-crafted documentary shows how he found his way into photography, at first with the help of Polaroid cameras. At this time in the late Sixties, photography was seen more as a craft than an art form. His first love was the singer Patti Smith, they moved into the famous Chelsea Hotel during their relationship, which lasted between 1967 and 1972; the couple stayed in contact, even after it became clear that Robert was homosexual. Robert then fell for art curator Sam Wagstaff (1921-1987) at a party in 1972, in a love affair that was to last15 years. Wagstaff was Mapplethorpe’s mentor and benefactor, buying a loft in 35 West 23 Street for his lover in 1980 – then worth half a million dollars. The pair were active in the burgeoning BDSM scene in New York. Robert, whose charm was enormous, admitted that his relationship with Wagstaff was only possible because of the curator’s wealth; Mapplethorpe also courted other influential figures, such as the editor of Drummer Magazine, Jack Fritscher. In the last ten years of his life, Mapplethorpe developed a yen for relationships with black men.

“The pictures” – of naked men engaged in sexual acts, or Mapplethorpe’s self portraits with a whip or with horns – Senator Helms was complaining about, are very much in the minority: surprisingly, his floral photographs are much more numerous. But even his most sensationalist work is anything but pornographic: everything is stylised perfection. Mapplethorpe was a master of details, Robert saw himself “as being a sculptor without having to spend all the time modelling with my hands”.

Bailey and Barbato are a little harsh on their subject: it is true that Robert was after fame and money – but this goes for most ambitious people, not only artists. And yes, his sibling rivalry with his brother Edward, also a photographer, perhaps went too far – Robert insisting that Edward should use a pseudonym for his work – but the long interviews with the Edward take up too much time. That said, the directors (and the images of DOPs Mario Panagiotopoulos and Huy Truong) give Robert Mapplethorpe the credit he deserved: he created new ways of seeing and aesthetics, to change the image of photography in his very personal way. AS

ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 22 APRIL 2016

 

The Divide (2015)

Dir.: Katharina Round; Documentary; UK/US 2015, 74 min.

Katharina Round’s debut feature documentary is based on The Spirit Level by the epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket, a study about the relationships between rising income differences and their social results – all captured in graphs and charts.

Round was obsessed with mathematics as a teenager and saw the science “as a language, you just have to know how to read it.” After reading The Spirit Level, she decided to put human faces to the statistics, in a way translating the figures into a language we all speak, “because the book was at its heart a story of how big picture economics can pull very personal, individual levers in all of us and have an impact on how we live our lives”.

Round has chosen seven individuals in the UK and the USA, who are reacting in their different ways to the changed economic landscape. Alden is a psychologist, but he is not involved in personal cases, preferring to lecture Wall Street executives on how to maximise their income and personal happiness. In Glasgow, rapper Darren just tries to survive and stray off drugs. Rochelle, who lives in Newcastle, works as a carer. On workdays, she only sees her two kids when she wakes them and puts them to bed at night. Somehow she has managed to accumulate a debt of £4000, but her main concern is that her work is underappreciated by society as a whole.

A high income does not guarantee happiness; quite the reverse: Jen in California is living in a ‘dream house’ in a gated community near a golf course. Her neighbours don’t talk to her, she is simply not “one of them”; not surprisingly because she mocks their expensive golf-carts which cost $20000 dollars a pop. Janet, a Walmart employee in Louisiana, is comparing her shop assistant income with that of the shareholders, the ratio being about 1:1000. And Leah, working in a KFC outlet in Richmond, Virginia, feels so stressed out that her customers worry about her health.

Globalisation and deregulation, together with a great shift in power towards employers, are the main factors which have changed the political scene in the UK and US, since Thatcher and Reagan came to power in1979/80. But they were only the trailblazers; whoever followed them since the late ’80s, has slowly built up social divisions which followed the economic ones, so changing the way we live: from mental and physical health to increasing violence and addictions. – these drastic changes for the worse, underpin the lack of cohesion in a society where, in the USA, the 0.1% of the population owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%.

Another factor is the ‘squeezing’ of the middle classes, where the need to keep up appearances and support children, who return to live at home after university, have led to families taking on enormous debts. But in the UK it is more punative than ever for the small business to take on new staff, such are the regulations in place.

Round has tried a lyrical and sometimes even poetic approach aiming for humanity in her doc, which was crowd-funded on a low budget. DoP Woody James’ strength are the intense close-ups and panoramic shots of the environment but the indie feel, keeps it real. Overall, The Divide is a serious contribution to the inequality debate, but fails to set out a blueprint for real change. It seems there will always be the rich and the poor and that will never change. AS

THE DIVIDE is in cinemas from 22 April and nationwide on 31st May http://thedividedocumentary.com/

Miles Ahead (2015) | Berlinale 2016

Director: Don Cheadle | Writers: Don Cheadle, Steven Baigelman

Cast: Don Cheadle, Ewan McGregor, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Michael Stuhlbarg, Keith Stanfield

100min | Music Biopic |US

Actor Don Cheadle makes his debut as director of this biopic in which he also stars as 20th century jazz supremo Miles Davis (1926-1991) exploring his lost years during the late Seventies

Cheadle plays it close up and intimate, capturing the mercurial nature of the trumpeter but sadly
his music hardly features at all, instead his co star Ewan McGregor shares most the screen time as a music hack, Dave Braden – purportedly from Rolling Stone magazine – who has been sent to report on the musician’s putative comeback: “If you’re gonna tell a story, man, come with some attitude,” Davis advises him in an early show of feisty bravado. “Don’t be all corny with this shit.”

In the event, Cheadle’s narrative is so freewheeling that it mostly feels unsatisfying in a doc that gives the audience scattergun snatches of music but no full numbers. MILES AHEAD is largely composed of outbursts, memories, flashbacks, and smoke-fuelled musings on Davis’ life. Devotees of jazz or and the celebrated auteur will be disappointed if they are expecting a musical biopic, and if you are hoping for an introduction to his music – look elsewhere.

Co-scripted by Steven Baigelman, who also worked on the James Brown 2014 biopic, Get On Up. Cheadle does succeed in evoking the free-spirited and reclusive nature of a man who preferred to call his music ‘social’ rather than ‘jazz’.  The soulfully-eyed Cheadle also has the wiry frame and sinuous elegance that fits the part.

During the second half of the Seventies, Miles Davis took a break from the limelight due to chronic pain from a hip injury and this is where Cheadle opens his narrative. Apparently there is a hidden session tape that has fallen into the hands of a music producer Harper Hamilton (Michael Stuhlbarg) and the storyline follows Davis’ attempts to recover it. Braden befriends him through the medium of some top drawer cocaine  (supplied by a wealthy student fan (Austin Lyon), and this section explores the greed and opportunistic nature of the record business with the finger particularly pointed at Columbia Records. In flashback the film also revisits Davis’ worldwind love affair and marriage (in the late sixties) to celebrated dancer Frances Taylor – a knockout performance from Emayatzy Corinealdi – and these emotional interludes give the film its best moments cinematically and some much need dramatic heft, as the couple fall madly in love. Cheadle also portrays the unravelling of their relationship (due to his infidelity, drugs and violence) with a piercing poignance.

Music-wise there are excerpts from Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue played during smoky recording sessions where Davis sports some dapper designs in a vibrant retro palette betokening the respective era. There is a vignette involving a young jazz trumpeter Junior (Lakeith Lee Stanfield), a brilliant young jazz trumpeter whom Harper is cultivating – this may actually be a clever technique for introducing Davis himself as a young man.

All it all, this impressionistic jumble of snatches from Miles Davis’ reclusive period and earlier life captures a maverick man whose musical talent was evident and enduring despite his debilitating illness and drug abuse. Clearly too, Miles Davis’ musical career deserves more extensive treatment but that’s another film. MT

ON RELEASE FROM 22 April 2016

Man With a Movie Camera (1929) | Dual format release

bfi-00m-d1f copyDirector/Writer: Dziga Vertov

Cinematographer: Mikhail Kaufman | Gleb Toyanski

Documentary    Russia

Dziga Vertov was in his early 20s when he took a job in a Soviet news company as a film editor and cameraman working on a communist propaganda series called “Kino-Pravda” which eventually gave birth to the Cinéma Vérité movement.  So keen was he, and so energetic in his desire to record real life in 1920s Russia that MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA came as a natural by- product of his ramblings with a camera and his cinematographer brother, Mikhail Kaufman. Dazzlingly innovative for the time, the reason to see this documentary today is for the fascinating record of daily life in the cities of Odessa, Moscow and Kiev.

In 1929, Vertov’s unique selling point for a film that was to screen all over the World before the Second World War and the Iron Curtain came down on Soviet Russia was that it transcended literature, language, sets scripts and actors to record life as it really happened to ordinary people, from early dawn after a Summer’s ‘White Night’ to dusk the following evening.

Vertov and his wife and editor, Elizaveta Svilova, who is seen furiously cutting and piecing together the freshly photographed images to produce startlingly emotional images. Sometimes funny and sometimes mortifying, they reveal an open coffin strewn with flowers and carried through the streets or a woman in the final stages of giving birth.

At the time of its early screenings, the films  was exhibited with live musical accompaniment suggested by Vertov’s notes for a soundtrack. This current restored 2K print is scored by the jazzy, percussive beats of Terry Donahue’s Alloy Orchestra, a three-man musical ensemble, based in the US, who write and perform to classic silent films. Enhancing the action but never eclipsing its visual language, Vertov’s documentary is propelled forward at a breakneck speed and the use of double exposures, split screens, irises and various other inventive techniques – at the time considered ground-breaking, but now looking rather quaint and adding to its extraordinary allure. But amazing as they are, the most fascinating thing about Vertov’s film is the ordinary detail of daily industriousness – women going through their dressing routines – making-up, having manicures and haircuts; horse-drawn carriages hastily crossing tram lanes; the elegant deftness of a girl packing cigarettes in a factory, clever ponies working in a coal shaft, bronzed men pumping iron, sleepy children waking up barefoot in the streets – these are the memories that provide a record of the Soviet era – far away from the illusions of Politics and official news propaganda.

But it’s Elizaveta Svilova’s remarkable editing that really makes the film buzz with an energy and a rhythm that’s quite upliting and intoxicating. During its running time of just over an hour, it’s impossible to take your eyes off the screen. MT

Included is the almost unwatchably sad KINOGLAZ short MEAT TO COW that follows the boy in the market asking “how much is the beef?” backwards to the cow being slaughtered, to the Cooperative and eventually seeing him grazing peacefully in the fields. MT

THIS DIGITAL RESTORATION BY LOBSTER FILMS | EYE FILM INSTITUTE IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM 18 APRIL 2016 ALONG WITH OTHER WORKS BY VERTOV | KINO EYE (1924) | KINO-PRAVDA #21 (1925) | SYMPHONY OF THE DONBASS (1931) | THREE SONGS ABOUT LENIN (1934) 

 

I am Belfast (2015)

Writer|Director: Mark Cousins

Documentary with Helena Bereen | UK 2015 | 84 min.

Returning after a thirty absence to his home city of Belfast, director Mark Cousins (A Story of Children and Film) creates a rambling portrait of the city. Through the mouthpiece of a middle-aged woman wandering the streets, I AM BELFAST reflects on the past, present and particularly future of a city where 3800 lives were lost in sectarian fighting between the early 70s and 90s; and a third of the population, 120 000, simply left.

The cold facts are harrowing, but Cousins’ portrait is a moody, romanticising and often enigmatic feature. Helena Bereen, the woman in question, literally “is” Belfast, ten thousand years old and still going strong, even though late on into the film, the director lets us know, that she really died in the 1950s. These sorts of contradictions are a hallmark of this documentary. Cousins treats the city and its harrowing history like a work of art: open to interpretations, and full of unsustainable optimism. There is street theatre – laying the last bigot to rest – and clips from Jack Arnold’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Titanic, which was built in Belfast, is shown, so are the reconstructed icebergs, which were her undoing, followed by humour along the lines ‘she was okay when she left’. Old newsreels show a bustling place; and two men pass each other near McGurk’s bar, now just a façade: we learn that the owner’s wife and children, among others, were killed in the bombing – followed by a cousin musing “a crime scene, a rhyme scene, a time scene”. Very existential, indeed.

Worst of all is Cousins’ treatment of the sustained violence during two decades: Bereen/Cousins call it a fight between the “salt and the sweet”, never mentioning the organisations of the perpetrators by name. For crying out loud: “Sweet” is hardly a word associated with any of the armies of two religious factions killing men, women and children in the same of the same God. Only once, for a couple of minutes, does Cousins faces reality when he shows the “peace walls”, some of them twenty metres high, which criss-cross the city, keeping Protestant and Catholic apart. Obviously it did not occur to the director that the East German Stalinists, who built the Berlin Wall, called their monstrosity the same name: “Peace Wall”. Instead of spending more time on the Belfast Walls (some of them a combination of five different deterrents), Cousins lets Bereen maunder on about the arty future of the place.

With music by David Holmes, DOP Christopher Doyle falls in with Cousins to create a wishful, mellow portrait of a city which is still, twenty-five years after the civil war ended, anything but peaceful. Cousins’ arty collage is wishful-thinking at best – an historic confabulation at worst. AS

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8 APRIL 2016 AT BFI SOUTHBANK, BARBICAN, QFT BELFAST, HOME MANCHESTER AND SELECTED CINEMAS AND BFI PLAYER.

The Last Man on the Moon (2014)

Director | Mark Craig | Documentary with Eugene Cernan | 95min | USA.

British based director Mark Craig has made a name with a handful of documentaries featuring racing drivers amongst them  Jackie Stewart: The Flying Scot.  His portrait of three times space traveller and NASA pilot Eugene “Gene” Cernan is great on visuals but lacks an analytical angle, resulting in a near hagiography of Cernan, who is also his co-writer.

Now in his eighties Cernan was a pilot on Gemini 9A in 1966, a Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 10 in 1969 and Commander of Apollo 17, the final Apollo Lunar landing in 1972. Leaving his footprints and the scribbled initials (TDC) of his daughter Teresa Dawn Cernan behind, he became an instant celebrity touring the globe for years. Now living in a Texas ranch, Cernan had a rural upbringing and was awarded a BS at the University of Purdue. He became a fighter pilot for the Navy and reached the rank of Captain. Employed by NASA, he was part of a close circle of friends, who even lived near each other with their families. Some of them became victims of accidents – death was never far away for the families of the astronauts.

The documentary is worth watching primarily for Tim Craig’s (Power of Art) visuals which are simply stunning: together with the archive films, the beauty of space is overwhelming. Craig also shows the now deserted launching ramps at Kennedy Space Centre, where weed and grass have taken over, resulting in one moment of unmitigated sadness for the Cernan, a sunny optimist, who voices his regret at revisiting the place of his greatest triumphs. He is  still in contact with surviving team members, and they reminiscence about their time in the Navy and NASA. Gene’s firs wife Barbara, who could not stand the celebrity life of her husband and divorced him, is interviewed together with his daughter Teresa, who would have preferred to go camping with her Dad, even though she admits that having her initials on the Moon is quiet cool.

Cernan (and his fellow astronauts) are quiet open about their shortcomings: they know that they short-changed their families, lived “in a bubble”, were the political reality of the country (Vietnam War and the Civil-Rights Movement), did not intrude into their closed existence. “The country was going to hell” said Cernan, but we were not affected. The NASA pilots lived a life of hard training and wild parties: “we worked and played hard”. The ex-soldiers talk equally straight about their service in the Navy, a friend of Gene reminding him “that you were not very good at bombing”. Cernan is still living a hectic life-style, travelling non-stop despite his second wife and her family wishing he would calm down.

Craig somehow loses his detachment to Cernan and the other NASA pilots: he forgets that multi-billion projects like the Apollo missions were not just a dangerous and challenging environment for the NASA personal to indulge their manliness, but political exercises, in this case the space race between the USSR and the USA. Craig fails to touch on the controversy surrounding the selection of pilots for particular missions, which often led to lasting resentment: one NASA pilot accusing Cernan of having stolen his flight on Apollo 17 – a charge Cernan fails to defend. In spite of Craig’s un-reflected “Boys Own” approach, THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON is still a great document of history. AS

The Last Man on the Moon is available on iTunes and On Demand from 15 April http://thelastmanonthemoon.com/
[please insert iTunes hyperlink: http://apple.co/1TTFzC8 ]

 

Welcome to Leith (2015) | Home ent release

Dir.: Michael Beach Nichols, Christopher K Walker | Documentary | USA 2015 | 85 min.

In 2012 Leith, North Dakota, had 24 inhabitants. An ex-boom town, left behind after the oil bonanza was over, only the most stubborn residents remained. To their great surprise, one man bought a property, unseen, for $5000, and promised to buy even more for his “friends”. This man was Craig Cobb (61), leading figure of the American National Socialist Movement (NSM).

Directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker followed Cobb while he attempted to turn Leith into a stronghold for his movement promoting racial hatred. By buying up all the cheap property, his aim was to gain control of the town run by Ryan Schock. WELCOME TO LEITH could easily be modelled on a novel by Jim Thompson: the psychotic Cobb wandering the streets of the town armed to the teeth, his house looking like a Christmas tree adorned with Swastikas of all sorts, advertising white supremacy. It’s worth noting that North Dakota’s population is already 90% white, and it is legal in the USA to display the Swastika symbol under the First Amendment, as ruled by the Supreme Court in 1978. Cobb and his sidekick, the much younger Kynan Dutton, took to patrolling the streets armed, and started to interrupt the City Council’s meetings. They also began a hate mail campaign, their main target being Sherill Harper, married to Bobby, the only black person in the town. “What are you doing married to a negro” they asked in a threatening manner, putting up also a sign “No Niggers in Leith”. Another target was Lee Cook and his family, who moved to Leith after their daughter was sadistically murdered, the NSM brigade trying blame racial motives for the crime, and disturbing the healing process for the family. On their “Vanguard News Network” Cobb and Dutton spread vile racist propaganda on the internet, portraying their “take-over” of Leith as a defensive stand on behalf of white people. Cobb, actually on the run for hate crimes in Canada and son of a multi-millionaire, had a DNA test taken, to prove his Aryan heritage. In front of an amused TV audience, it was announced that Cobb had 14% African blood in his veins.With help of the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), who keeps trace of White Supremacy groups in the USA (and whose funds were cut after 9/11), the citizens of Leith began their fight back, and the rest is history until the present day.

WELCOME  TO LEITH has all the qualities of a feature film, co-director/DOP Nichols achieving a true real crime atmosphere, the dilapidated, ghostly Leith the scary background to a story of violence, which could have escalated, had it not been for the solidarity of the town’s citizens. Somehow it seems fitting that the violent racists of the NSM choose a place so haunted as Leith, to build an Aryan model town. Taut and atmospheric, WELCOME TO LEITH captures true evil in the backwater of the USA. AS

NOW ON DVD | Documentary Prize Winner | East End Film Festival 2015 |

Seymour: An Introduction (2016)

Director.: Ethan Hawke

Documentary with Seymour Bernstein | USA 2014 | 81 min.

Sometimes chance encounters can lead to something extraordinary, and in the case of actor/director Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise) meeting the concert pianist Seymour Bernstein (*1927) over dinner to talk about the stage fright both men suffered from, it lead to an extraordinary contemplative documentary about music and the meaning of art.

This is a biopic, but we certainly get to know Seymour Bernstein, who abandoned his glittering career as a concert pianist in 1977 at the age of 50, to concentrate solely on teaching. Bernstein’s family home provided no musical encouragement, his father expressed his disappointment with his son by telling friends and family “I have three daughters and a piano”. We see clips and photos from Bernstein’s time in the Korean War where he and a cellist introduced the soldiers to classical music.  Then, there is his patron, Mildred Booth, who worshipped his talents in her big mansion: Bernstein fled in spite of being showered with gifts.

But mainly, Seymour is a discourse about music and the role of contemporary art/artists. Bernstein has lived alone for the last 57 years in a large, cosy bedsit in New York. The outside world does not intrude, only his students are allowed in. He is a patient but exacting teacher with a wicked sense of humour, telling one of his students “you are not allowed to play better than me”, after she mastered a difficult passage. As mentioned, Bernstein suffered from stage fright but this was not the main reason for him giving up his solo career: the commercial and competitive aspect of music started to overshadow the actual music played and lead him to concentrate solely on teaching: “I found my creativity as a teacher”. One of his ex-students, the Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, who somehow fell short of Bernstein’s rigorous demands, is told how important personal development is for the artist. Many pianists become ‘stars’, but end up being neurotics, like Glenn Gould, who “was technically perfect, but a total neurotic mess”. Gould told a friend how he crossed his legs on purpose during a performance, to give the critics something to write about. The opposite of Gould is one of Bernstein’s teachers, the British pianist Clifford Curzon, a man without any Ego, who was just interested in interpreting the music. Another point Bernstein makes, is that “male musicians and composers are taught to subdue the feminine”, a very valid point, particularly relevant right now, after watching the macho-ideology of films such as Whiplash.

Apart from reflections about music and its role in society, we watch Bernstein teaching his students, and trying out an endless number of Steinways for his semi-private recital in March 2012. Whilst Bernstein does not embrace any faith, “in all religions, everything depends on the deity”, he believes ‘the universal order is represented through music as an extension of ourselves”. Finally, after playing Schumann’s “Phantasies” as a wedding present to his wife, the pianist Clara Wieck, Bernstein comments ”I never dreamt that with my two own hands, I could reach the sky”.

Ramsey Fendall’s images are gracefully rendered, particularly those in the interior of Bernstein’s flat which are softly lit reflecting the many lampshades in the room, creating a sort of magical impression of the pianist and his world. This is an impressive documentary debut for Ethan Hawke who structure is not always faultless, but somehow enhances the ad-hoc nature of these reflections, which are a rejection of all contemporary populist notions about art and artists in a commercial world. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE IN SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 23 MARCH 2016 

 

Welcome to the House (2015) BFI Flare 2016

Director: Barbara Hammer | Documentary | 79min | US

Barbara Hammer creates an expressionistic portrait of the fascinating early 20th century American poet Elizabeth Bishop, exploring her love life and her outstanding contribution to the literary life of the era (1911-79) through black and white photos, dreamlike collages and an atmospherically eerie and evocative score. Selective talking heads offer informative and enchanting impressions of their charismatic friend and collaborator who was given to peripatetic wanderings to exotic places where she could give full reign to her lesbian lifestyle during ’30s prohibition.

This is a sensuous and often mesmerizing piece of filmmaking and Ms. Hammer, no stranger to the lesbian subject matter, embellishes her largely experimental documentry with charmingly suggestive incantations often accompanying readings of Bishop’s poetry and verses, some of which are impressively avantgarde: “I’m so hot to trot; I’m so hot to trot”.

Early on in Bishop’s life, it also emerges that her mother was committed to an institution leaving her to the care of grandparents in Nova Scotia where her eccentric (for the era) love life involved affairs with women of all ages from her college tutor to her classmates.

Spending many years in Brazil, she lived a bohemian and often toxic lifestyle near Petrópolis with successful architect Lota de Macedo Soares, on her modernist estate. Here Bishop became an alcoholic and Soares eventually committed suicide with an overdose. Later, at Harvard, Bishop eventually managed to relax into her sexuality, and expressed it through suggestive clothing and louche behaviour with her friends – fellow poets Kathleen Spivack and John Ashbery – in the privacy of her home where she played ping-pong in tight leather trousers.

But the most fascinating revelations come courtesy of her Brazilian housekeeper who paints a vivid and vehement picture of one of America’s most imaginative literary doyennes. MT

SCREENING DURING BFI FLARE UNTIL 27 MARCH 2016

 

Grey Gardens (1975) | Criterion Collection UK

Director.: Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer

Documentary with Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and Edith Bouvier Beale | 94 min | USA

In 1973, Lee Radziwill, sister of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, invited the filmmakers Albert and David Maysles to a 28 bedroom house in East Hampton to meet Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith; respectively the aunt and niece of the widowed First Lady. This film was later confiscated by Radziwill, but the Maysles returned two years later to shoot an extraordinary portrait of two co-dependent women living, by choice, in utter poverty – a real life Miss Haversham and her daughter. “Big Edie” Beale pursued an amateur singer career and had a beautiful voice (we hear her sing), she also claims to have been very happily married with three adorable children – but after 14 years together, she separated from her husband Phelan Beale when little Edie was 14, retaining the big house a block from Atlantic Avenue. Although Jackie Onassis had previously paid for a clean-up which involved, amongst other things, the removal of over a thousand bags of detritis from the Radziwill’s property – which otherwise would have been declared unfit for habitation – four years on, the place is still an unsavoury hovel resembling a set from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. “Big Edie”s eccentric daughter “Little Edie” (56) is seen wearing a variety of head scarves (due to alopecia totalis) and giving refuge to pet racoons while her pampered cats roams all over the place. After separation, Edie and her daughter became elective dropouts, and continually talk about young Edie’s suitors which purportedly included Howard Hughes and Paul Getty. Their past is wistfully discussed but a not as paradise lost. Young Edie breaks into song and dances frequently and perpetually chants the same rhetorical refrain “When am I going to get out of here?”. Immersion instead of intrusion, the hallmark of the Maysles Brothers works perfectly in this pristine restoration – a portrait of performing artists who made a virtue of their squalor and but failed to avoid fame.

OUT ON BLURAY TO CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH OF THE CRITERION COLLECTION UK SELECTION | 8 April 2016

Speed Sisters (2016)

Director: Amber Fares

80min | Documentary | Palestine/USA/Qatar/UK/Denmark/Canada

First time writer|directorAmber Fares certainly enters new territory with SPEED SISTERS where five Palestinian women take to the race track; their breakneck fight for the title is as competitive as any men’s race.

Street car-racing is a very male dominated sport all over the world, so it is particularly surprising to see five young women drivers competing in Palestine. Proud to represent her country’s sporting prowess, Fares doesn’t hesitate to show the harsh reality of Israel’s occupation. Marah, who lives in Jenin, is very much supported by her parents, her father Khaled being her biggest fan. Her main rival is Betty, who was born in Mexico, Spanish still being her first language. Betty wins the first championship of this documentary, even though a technical fault on her car should have disqualified her – at least that is Marah’s argument. Betty is very much a modern woman, but also is keen on fashion.  Her statement, “I am not a tomboy” is fully justified, and she has also internalised the commercial rules of the game, being very much aware of being “a brand”.

The racing drivers are managed by Maysoon, who runs a shop and is engaged to a Jordanian, whom she will follow to Amman where they will race together. Marah can’t wait to leave Jenin, bored with “seeing the same faces”. After gaining permits to visit Israel, Marah comments on the differences between Palestine and Israel – only a wall away. Her father Khaled is still nostalgic for the family home near Tel Aviv, which still lies empty since their departure in 1948. Gradually the scenes on the racing circuit take a backseat as this documentary explores the realities of life in the region including the harsh difficulties of filmmaking and shooting in the middle of a war zone. The third act brings a rude awakening as Betty suffers a setback but battles on again for supremacy. Noor emerges as a fierce competitor, making the successful change to compete professionally for Palestine all over the world.

SPEED SISTERS is another superb example of successful low-budget filmmaking. Fares keeps the ‘Talking Heads’ to a minimum and focuses on the action: the struggle between Marah and Betty is as vivid as life on the war torn Left Bank. The camera is literally in the face of all participants and this spontaneity and directness help to engage the audience. SPEED SISTERS, which won the ‘Finders’ Award at he Adelaide Film Festival, is a small but glittering gem. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 25 MARCH 2016

The Pearl Button | Berlinale 2015 | Competition |

Director: Patricio Guzman

82min  | Documentary | Chile

Where NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT studied conditions in the Atacama Desert, THE PEARL BUTTON focuses in sparkling 2k digital on the medium water, in an attempt to link the element with the disappearance of five native tribes of Patagonia and the genocide of countless political prisoners during Pinochet’s dictatorship.

A bright light shining through a block of crystal imbedded with drop of water seems an exciting way to open a documentary on how water came to be on the Earth. But after a brief look at celestial comets that purportedly conveyed the element to our planet, the narrative then wends its way into the tribal question to examine the ancient seafarers who once inhabited the southern tip of Patagonia (Land of the Large Feet). Chile benefits from a massive 2,670 mile seaboard, providing a fabulous climate for a successful wine industry, but its maritime possibilities appear to have been thwarted by the tragic wiping out of much of this seagoing ancestry in the early 1800s, by settlers intent of making the region their home. Three survivors of these tribes still keep their native tongues of Kawesqar, Yagan and Selk’nam alive and they give testament to a vibrant past when they circumnavigated over 600 miles of the regions southern seaways and lived completely at one with nature. Guzman combines his interviews with fascinating archival footage showing some eerie photographs of tribal indians painted with body designs and garments resembling the klu kluk clan.

The Pearl Button

The title of the film comes from a young Yagan teenager who was sold to the British Navy for the price of a pearl button in 1830. It emerges that a pearl button was also discovered welded to a metal girder discovered at the bottom of the sea during Pinochet’s reign of political terror and indicating widespread genocide of innocent people. Ultimately these historical tragedies are so individually important that they each deserve a separate film rather than one that runs for under two hours.

That said, Guzman has made a visually extraordinary film that wafts over the magnificent scenery and glacial landscapes of this South American nation. A gently meditative voiceover wafts over us providing space for contemplation but leaving us feeling both bewildered and unsatisfied. MT

BERLINALE 5-15 FEBRUARY 2015 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE 

 

Three Farmers and a Son (2016) | Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film, Graz | 8-13 March 2016

imageDirector: Sigmund Steiner | Austria | Documentary | 72 min

Sigmund Steiner is the son of a farmer — and he wants us all to know it. Barely a moment into his feature-length debut THREE FARMERS AND A SON, he tells us in a quiet, reflective voice-over of his father’s trade and of his own bemusement at the longstanding notion that, for a farmer, tending to one’s land takes priority over one’s family. In the hope of coming to a better understanding of what is to him such a disconcerting idea, Steiner turns an inquisitive and attentive eye to the separate toils of three autonomous agricultural workers. Receiving its world premiere at the Diagonale, Austria’s national film festival held each year in Graz, Steiner’s finely poised essay-doc is a triptych of intimate portraits on the one hand, and a richly rendered landscape film on the other.

We establish each of Steiner’s three protagonists through a series of observational scenes. Matthias tends to a field of potatoes, shrugging a philosophical lament at his own son Dominik’s apathetic view of agriculture (Dominik shuffles next to him, hands in pockets, while double-chinned Matthias points to the flat expanse of earth behind them with his thumb). Fellow farmer Martin fells spruce trees: mammoth trunks land with dull thuds on a forest floor. Herbert, meanwhile, stands over a lamb as if its pending slaughter is a sacrifice to the heavens more than a routine task of economic necessity. “Thank you,” he calmly mutters seconds before shooting a bolt gun into the animal’s skull and slicing its throat. (Just another authentic slaughter scene on the arthouse circuit, but at least Steiner gets that inevitability out of the way early.)

Steiner intersperses such scenes with more contemplative, postcard vistas (sunrays cutting through clouds, the outlines of treed hills intersecting one another). All three farmers also give their time as interviewees, answering the filmmaker’s questions about their work, the extent to which it continues family customs and their concerns over what happens next, in the hands of an increasingly indifferent younger generation. Herbert in particular is nothing if not grateful for the down-through-the-generations traditions he’s had passed onto him, and dedicates himself to the task with an almost religious commitment. In one touching scene, we see him topless, silver-stubbled and sweaty-browed from the midday sun (head causing shadows on his own chest), as he reminisces about his own dad and about the one shared father-son moment that he remembers.

Born in the Upper Styrian town of Judenburg in 1978, Steiner studied under Wolfgang Glück and Michael Haneke at the Vienna Film Academy, and counts fiction shorts as well as experimental non-fiction in his wide-ranging portfolio. The steady framing of this impressively visual documentary most recalls his work as the cinematographer of Barbara Kaufmann’s shorts, such as 23 WINDOWS TO THE COURTYARD (2011). Like that 25-minute citywide ode to quieter, semi-private pockets of Vienna, THREE FARMERS evokes a vivid, even dramatic sense of place through shifts in natural light and a sensitivity to local sound. Look out for sun-kissed flies buzzing aglow against soil-brown pastures in one late-afternoon shot.

THREE FARMERS’ German-language title is HOLZ ERDE FLEISCH — literal translation, “Wood Earth Meat.” Bare necessities abound: it’s all earthen browns and olive greens here. Shooting in CinemaScope, Steiner demonstrates a sharp instinct for composition throughout: the opening image, of three distant (and distinct) hills at dusk, neatly cues the narrative’s tripartite structure. Later, silhouette figures on a horizon foregrounded by an avocado-coloured baize help reflect the filmmaker’s obvious appreciation for such earth-bound, year-round labour and for the topographical character of the space that defines such ritualistic patterns: its tones, its timbres, its colours. Indeed, but for the opening voice-over, one might have guessed from this evidence that Steiner was, in fact, the son of a painter. MICHAEL PATTISON

REVIEWED AT DIAGONALE | Festival of Austrian Film| March 8–13, 2016, Graz, Austria

Copenhagen Architectural Film Festival 2016 |10 – 20 March 2016

CAFx_mailbanner_2016COPENHAGEN ARCHITECTURAL FILM FESTIVAL is back for its third year. From 10-20 March 2016, Denmark is host to the biggest architecture film festival in the world, taking place in three cities: Copenhagen, Aarhus and Aalborg.

Amongst a selection of well-known classics and recent releases, the festival will be screening some lesser known treats:

01_IL-CAPO-STILL-600x400FOUR SHORT FILMS on Architecture, landscape and film history:

Yuri Ancarani’s work at the Venice Biennale IL CAPO plays with the extraction of marble as a kind of theatrical choreography. In SLEEPING DISTRICT Tinne Zenner creates a cinematic correspondence with moody images while John Skoogs latest work SHADOWLAND goes on excavation in Hollywood’s topography. Eva Kolcze uncover the architectural brutalism and binds its concrete buildings with 16mm film materiality of ALL THAT IS SOLID.

Il CAPO | YURI Ancarani | 2010 | 15 min.
SLEEPING DISTRICT | Tinne ZENNER | 2014 | 11 min.
SHADOWLAND | JOHN SKOOG | 2014 | 15 min.
ALL THAT IS SOLID | EVA KOLCZE | 2014 | 16 min.

TELOS_ProdStill_01-600x400TELOS: THE FANTASTIC WORLD OF EUGENE TSSUI (2014) 

Can architecture be a piece of nature? Meet an limitless resistance architect.

EUGENE TSUI is a radical visionary. Among his projects are The Ultima Tower, a proposal for a three-kilometer high skyscraper in the shape of an inverted spinning top and room for a million residents. Tsui indtænker its highly speculative architecture in great cosmetic mo-ecological contexts where as a contemporary surrealist inspired by natural forms. In trying to build a more sustainable architecture, which he calls ‘biological design’. Kyung Lee directs, writes and films this amusing biography of an eccentric and visionary architect.

ad35d36b53f48aac538e5cc67a8180cb-600x400ANNABELLE SELDORFF, ODILE DECQ, FARSHID MOUSSAVI, KATHRYN GUSTAFSON AND MARIANNE MCKENNA. Five different architects with only their gender in common. Does female architecture have defining feature and how is distinguished from that designed by men. A series of shorts about architecture’s sexual peculiarities – or lack thereof.

The display is introduced by architect and associate professor at KADK, Merete Ahnfeldt-Mollerup who b.la. will put the film in relation to architectural education, where more and more women are trained and equalizes the subject’s gender imbalance inside .

BUNGALOW (2002) 84min

Starring Trine Dyrholm, who has just won a Silver Bear for Best Actress at Berlinale 2016, BUNGALOW is  Ulrich Kohler’s psychogeographical exploration of alienated mid-European youth seen through the eyes of a German soldier who goes AWOL one summer during hostilities.

CONCRETELOVEBOHMFAMILY-CMYK-1-600x400

CONCRETE LOVE  Recorded over several years, a documentary exploring the life of the 95-year-old winner of the Pritzker Prize, Gottfried Böhm and his architecture obsessed family. Filmed by his son and architect Paul Böhm, who will lead a Q&A after the screening.

Grand Theatre, Wednesday. 03.09 pm. 19:00 (opening film)

Grand Theatre, Friday. 03.11 pm. 16:40

Cinematheque, Wednesday. 3.16 pm. 21:15

COUNTING (2015)

Jem Cohen takes his camera on an whimsical tour of an urban voyage in this essay film which offers an amusing voyeuristic take on the street life in 15 towns from New York City, Istanbul, Moscow, Cairo and Porto to London.

SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000)

Another urban symphony that examines, through a drama of interconnecting characters, human vulnerability and our basic need for companionship and connection in the increasingly-alienating urban communities we inhabit.  Roy Andersson writes and directs. MT

FULL FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

https://vimeo.com/cafx2016/trailer

Frackman (2015) | Human Rights Watch Festival 9 -18 March 2016 | London

Director: Richard Todd; Documentary with Wayne Pratzky

90min | Documentary | Australia

Director Richard Todd introduces us to the Australian Anti-Fracking movement with a documentary that features an unlikely hero and is much less less concerned with facts than Josh Fox’ Gasland. Instead, the controversy is infused with humour, a sense of adventure and even a real love story. And although FRACKMAN sometimes echoes the spirit of Crocodile Dundee, Todd nevertheless tells a frightening story.

Wayne Pratzky is in his forties and has spent most of his life surfing and partying. “I wasn’t born into this kind of thing. I used to cut down tress, drive a diesel four-wheel drive and harvest kangaroos. I’m the worst environmental activist the world’s ever seen”. Somehow around his 40th birthday, he saw the light and became a farmer near Chinchilla in Queensland, Australia’s second largest State. When CSG (Coal Seam Gas) companies like Halliburton (Involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion) and Schlumberger made moves to start fracking on the Tara Gas Field, Pratzky protested but officials of the Queensland government denied him – and all his neighbours – any rights to stop the drilling. Shortly afterwards some children on estates near the Tara field became ill due to the emission of poisonous gas (hydrogen sulphide) 24/7 from the pastures. Frogs died, and the water of the gas fields was unfit to drink. Gratzky and his friends joined the Western Downs Alliance, part of the Anti-Fracking movement in Australia. The continent is covered by gas fields that are 18 times the size of Great Britain. And every year the industry needs 22 billion litres of water – for which they pay zero!

Gratzky went into overdrive and the protesters started to block roads to stop the huge lorries with the drilling equipment. Fines of 50000 Australian Dollars (roughly £250k) did not deter the protesters, who donned white jump suits with the message “No fracking Way”. They protested in Sydney and collected samples from the gas fields to prove contamination of the environment caused by abnormally high values of heavy metal, arsenic and lead in the ground and water. Queensland’s environmental inspectors were no help to Gratzky and his friends either: they took the side of the companies. In the nearby harbours, the fishing industry suffered too, since the poisonous water was pumped into the ocean, killing, among others marine life, half the dolphin population of the area.

But now for the romance: Gratzky had met Pennsylvania girl Wendy Atkinson, over the internet, whilst looking for campaigners, and their relationship deepens, while the struggle continues. FRACKMAN takes the form of an adventure story, narrated by Gratzky. The illegal operations by night, and huge road blocks are straight out of a feature film, or better, a Marvel comic where Gratzky with his white jump suit fits in easily. But there is enough content to show the serious aspects of Fracking, and the images of the poisoned water and the dead fish are frighteningly sad. DOP Dan Schist’s panorama shots showing how the countryside is ruined by the drill towers are particularly evocative. FRACKMAN is perhaps not a documentarian’s dream, but is somehow more effecting because it engages our empathy – a rare and clever thing. AS

SCREENING DURING HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FESTIVAL

I Am Sun Mu (2015) | Human Rights Watch Festival 2016

Director: Adam Sjoberg  Director of photography: Adam Sjoberg

80min | Documentary | Sweden 

A documentary that offers food for thought for cineastes keen on Eastern politics or artistic expression.

Sun Mu lives is from North Korea where it’s impossible to send a letter to the South. His work as a contemporary artist is not recognised in his birthplace so he has defected to the South where he hopes his spirited and cheerful style of political pop art will help to build bridges and unite his divided country.

Although he exhibits Internationally Sun Mu (which means no boundaries) never reveals his face or true name in Adam Sjoberg’s upbeat and vital documentary than serves as an appealing picture postcard to the region as much as an exposé on the artist’s life, his family and collaborators.

Sun Mu honed his craft for the Kim regime but now his social realist oeuvre is cleverly skewed to lampoon the dictatorship for all the world to see, without being remotely offensive. Sjoberg’s documentary joins the artist in the run up to an important solo retrospective in the Yuan Art Museum Beijing. The project isn’t without its risks and dangers that soon emerge as the film unspools. Sun Mu is the first North Korean artist to show in China without supervision from Pyongyang. Museum curator Liang Kegang – an artist who famously auctioned a jar of French air as a comment on China’s notorious pollution levels – takes this on board with the observation: “maybe being an artist is the only way to feel a little freedom in China”.

A vein of unsettling menace threads through this ostensibly vibrant story enlivened by Sjorberg’s strikingly appealing images. The director also finds himself in the thick of the action, making the story as colourful politically as it is visually, but always upbeat and positive There are also some delicately rendered animations to enjoy courtesy of Ryan Wehner and an atmospheric occasional score from Joel P West who composed the music for Short Term 12 and Grandma. MT

SCREENING DURING THE HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FESTIVAL 9-18 MARCH 2016

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Human Rights Watch Film Festival | 9-18 March 2016

The HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL is 20 in Britain! From 9-18 March Barbican, British Museum, Curzon Soho, Picturehouse Central, Ritzy Picturehouse

 will be screening a variety of powerful and poignant films that explore the most urgent human rights issues facing the world today from censorship; freedom of expression; the migration and refugee crisis and children and women’s rights.

The Opening Night film on Thursday 10 March at the Curzon Soho is the UK premiere of HOOLIGAN SPARROW which highlights the cost of defending human rights in China today. The Closing Night film on 18 March at Picturehouse Central is Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Academy Award nominated debut drama MUSTANG, the story of five rebellious sisters growing up in Turkey who suddenly find their family home transformed into a prison, their schoolwork replaced by compulsory household chores and their futures dominated by arranged marriages.

07-zvizdan-luka-autoThree films, and a special programme event, highlight migration and the refugee crisis this year. Andreas Koefoed’s AT HOME IN THE WORLD  intimately portrays ordinary children in extraordinary circumstances as they await the outcomes of their asylum claims at a Red Cross school in Denmark. George Kurian’s  THE CROSSING gives a first-hand account of the perilous journey of a group of Syrian refugees and their struggle to keep their sense of identity and purpose once they get to Europe, and Jonas Carpignano’s drama MEDITERRANEA charts the struggle of two Burkinabe brothers who cross deserts and oceans to pursue a better life only to face racism in a small town in Italy.

2 minutes for SyriaIn a panel discussion, Giles Duley, Kim Longinotto and Chiraf Kiwan will explore the notion of A RIGHT TO THE IMAGE that protects the dignity of subjects, as well as the integrity of the journalists, filmmakers, photographers, and researchers who work in these situations.

Complex ethical issues are also revealed in two documentaries. In JERUSALEM the director Danae Elon moves her young family from New York to her hometown of Jerusalem and intimately captures the experiences and endless questions of two of her young boys as they confront the reality around them. In SONITA (winner of Sundance 2016 Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and World Cinema Audience Award for Documentary) the filmmaker Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami documents and ultimately alters the course of the life of the feisty Afghan teenager Sonita, who despite living as a refugee in Iran, where female singers are banned from singing solo, as well as her family’s plans to sell her for $9,000 as a teenage bride, remains determined to become a famous rapper.

SunMuPaintingsAnother artist as agitator is profiled in Adam Sjöberg’s colourful documentary I AM SUN MU, which delves into the life and work of the anonymous North Korean artist who defected to the south and worked under a defiant alias meaning “no boundaries” to criticise the repressive regime of Kim Jong-un. Offered a solo exhibition in China, Sun Mu prepares his show undercover, risking freedom and safety to expose the truth through art.

In Richard Todd’s FRACKMAN the Australian accidental anti-fracking activist Dayne Pratzsky takes on international gas companies in an effort to halt industrial-scale fracking in the state of Queensland. In his transformation from pig-shooter to global activist, he brings together a peculiar alliance of farmers, activists and political conservatives who unite behind him in protest.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL | 9 – 18 MARCH 2016 | LONDON | WORLDWIDE 2016

 

 

Among the Believers (2015)

Director.:Hemal Trivedi, Mohammed Ali Naqvi

84min | Documentary | Pakistan/USA 2015

Indian documentarist Hemal Trivedi joined Canadian born filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi for an insight study of Jihadi incubator cells as a reaction to the death of her friend in the Mumbai terror attack of 2008. The result is a chilling portrait of the Red Mosque cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi who has declared war on the rest of Pakistan and is fighting to impose the Sharia law on the whole, secular state.

In Pakistan there are over a thousand Madrassas (seminars) led by the Red Mosque cleric Abdul Aziz in Islamabad, whose benevolent appearance during the documentary cannot mask his true focus: to overthrow the secular government of Pakistan with force. He is permanently surrounded by machine gun-carrying goons, their number in double figures. He wants to impose Sharia Law all over the country, and where better to start than with the young. ‘Students’ at the Madrassas range from four to sixteen. During this time they start to memorise the Koran on a daily basis from dawn to nine pm. Obviously, the younger ones cannot understand anything of what they are repeating endlessly, whilst shaking violently. The number of Aziz’s followers is put at 40 000, and it is difficult to understand how such a small minority can terrorise a country of nearly 200 million; but they do. Book and DVD burning is one of their weapons in their fight against Music, TV and sport. But Trivedi and Naqvi also show the longing of the young students at the Madrassas, to leave the strictly guarded institution and join their peers outside, who are watching cricket, the national sport of Pakistan, on TV.

The aim of Aziz and his followers is clear: to breed a new generation of Taliban fighters, akin to those who committed the Peshawar attack in 2007, where 132 were killed. Since then, the Taliban have destroyed 1200 state schools and over 50 000 people have been killed in Pakistan alone. After the Peshawar massacre, the military government of Pervez Musharraf put Aziz behind bars for 2 years, when he tried to leave the Red Mosque in Islamabad, surrounded by government troops, in a Burqua. And since January 2015, Aziz is under house arrest, after 145 students and teachers of state schools were killed in December 2014 alone.

AMONG THE BELIEVERS is told through the story of two young students Talha and Zarina. The latter one escaped the Madrassas by climbing over the wall to be re-united with her family in a village where the chief Tariq, has set up a school. Zarina is keen to re-join this school but it is closed down after attacks of the Taliban,  Zarina, hardly fifteen, is married off by her impoverished parents. Talha, even younger than Zarina, has been put into the Madrassas by his parents for the same reasons: poverty is driving the parents of many children to offload them into the hands of the clerics. But Talha, unlike Zarina, loves the life in the Institute simply because he is fed regularly. His parents – the children are allowed one visit home per year – can see how much their son has changed, but it is too late: he is willing to become a martyr for the course. Nuclear physicist Perez Hoodbhoy seems to be the only person, brave enough to oppose Aziz on TV. The absence of any government figure in this documentary is proof of the successful terror of the Taliban.

DOPs Habib Ur Rehman and Haider Ali are literally in the faces of the participants. Close-ups, particularly of Aziz, dominate together with panoramic views of the poverty stricken countryside. The images of the book/DVD burning are very frightening, a reminder what may happen, if Aziz and his followers get their wish of “having Sharia laws all over the world”. Among the Believers is intense and very frightening indeed. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 11 MARCH 2016 at BERTHA DOCHOUSE AND VARIOUS ARTHOUSE CINEMAS NATIONWIDE 

Asia House Festival | 22 February – 14 March 2016 | London

ASIA HOUSE FILM FESTIVAL takes place from 22 February to 5 March showcasing the latest from Japan, China, Kazakhstan, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The highlight this year is STRANGER (Zhat), Kazakhstan’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2016 Academy Awards. A beautifully shot outdoors epic set in 1930s Kazakhstan, the film charts one man’s search for freedom set against the historical backdrop of the country’s darkest years. Tursunov and the film’s producer, Kanat Torebay, will host a Q&A session following the screening.

Other films to watch out for include the European premiere of Tursunov’s latest film LITTLE BROTHER (Kenzhe). A sleek, contemporary hitman thriller that pictures the future of Kazakhstan through the eyes of two siblings. Tursunov will participate in a director Q&A after this screening.

Also of interest is the Chinese workplace drama FACTORY BOSS, an engrossing depiction of the ‘Made in China’ hallmark, delving deep into the country’s manufacturing culture from the perspectives of the workers and the executive suite. The film’s lead actor, Yao Anlian, won the Best Actor Award at the 2014 Montréal Film Festival.

8A last but not least, Japanese director Shunji Iwai’s latest is the THE CASE OF HANA AND ALICE  (Regent Street Cinema on 27 February). A gently comedic prequel to Iwai’s 2004 live-action film Hana and Alice, it’s shot in an innovative anime style using real actors and sets. Other films to be screened include THE MONK (2011) , MINA WALKING (2015), 40 DAYS OF SILENCE (2014) and the documentary STATE OF PLAY (2013).

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ASIA HOUSE FILM FESTIVAL | FOR THE FULL PROGRAMME 

LittleBrother_4

Invention (2015) | Berlinale 2016

Director: Mark Lewis

78min | Documentary | Canada

With INVENTION Mark Lewis creates a visual masterpiece of the built environment. Moving silently and stealthily through urban landscapes, his voyeuristic camera pictures architecture from every angle, sometimes in reverse, sometimes from above from Hitchcock’s famous God’s eye perspective. His wide-angle lens glides round the structures exploring and exposing elevations and staircases, planes and surfaces, light and darkness, spiralling round and panning into hidden corners in this intoxicating exposé of the places where we work, play and walk.  This is cinema at its most visually exhilarating; psychogeography in full swing.

In his visual anthology Toronto-based visual artist Mark Lewis takes us on a whirling tour of cityscapes moving effortlessly through Paris, Sao Paulo and Toronto. From famous corners of the Louvre Museum to the modernist buildings of Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil and Mies van der Rohe in Canada, INVENTION offers a whirling tour of cityscapes. Lewis eschews a formal narrative or any sound in this calm and contemplative take on the buildings we inhabit, the squares where we meet and the spaces where we congregate. A paean to our physical environment, INVENTION shows how our built environment can effect the way we think, work, live and relate just as crucially as the weather.

INVENTION is an exhilarating experimental work, a contemporary take of Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, inviting us to explore and contemplate the world we live in while we’re not there and from a purely visual stance along the lines of Heinz Emigholz’s Parabeton only much better: it’s a cinematic journey through space and form. MT

REVIEWED DURING BERLINALE 11-21 FEBRUARY 2016 

Brothers of the Night (2016) | Berlinale 2016

Director|Writer: Patric Chiha, With: Ebba Sinzinger, Vincent Lucassen | Documentary | 88min | Austria 

Brothers of the Night are just that. In an underworld, against the backdrop of the Danube and Vienna’s skyline, these sultry little leather-clad pixies come from Roma origins in Bulgaria to try their luck and make a fast buck as bisexual prostitutes with over-inflated opinions of themselves and their sexual allure but gathering strength, comfort and a sense of community from their close brotherhood, far away from home. Cigarettes and mobile phones are their props as they coyly toy with the camera in Patric Chiha’s contempo snapshot of the Austrian capital’s underbelly.

Lacking a formal the documentary simply meanders through the various stories of these Bulgarian adventurists who arrive in Vienna in search of ‘normal’ work dreaming of a city paved with gold. But it doesn’t take them long before they realise that there’s easy money to be made in the sex trade and so they quickly slip into a life of nocturnal seduction, selling their bodies to all sorts without a qualm; ‘doing business’ with straight men, gays and the transgender brigade, in a bid to support their kids back home and wives they often no longer love. Klemens Hufnagl’s opening wide angle shots of the Danube give way to more exotic and vibrantly filmed intimate interior scenes where the boys talk candidly to the camera and to each other, recounting their sexual adventures with a certain sense of pride as they trade and exchange tips on how best to leverage their sexual favours and make money ‘between the sheets.’ An eclectic soundtrack of ethnic and classical music elevates this spicy insight into Vienna’s Roma community, but offers little more than mild titillation for the LGBT crowd . MT

BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT PREMIERES AT BERLINALE 2016 | PANORAMA DOKUMENTE STRAND

 

Young Wrestlers (2016) | Berlinale 2016

YOUNG WRESTLERS (GENC PEHLIVANLAR)

Director: Mete Gümürhan, Documentary; Netherlands/Turkey 2016, 89 min.

Dutch/Turkish director Mete Gümürhan uncovers the disciplined world of young wrestlers between the ages of seven and twelve, housed in a training school where most of them dream of success in Turkey’s Number One sport.

And this is no ordinary sport: the players douse themselves in olive oil – and children also take part in their own tournaments running alongside those of the adults. Apart from their rigorous training sessions, in and out of doors, the weighing procedures take most of the film’s 89 minute running time. Again and again, the boys face criticism either for eating too much (“no more coke and crisps”), or too little (“You have to eat two plates full from now on”.) In the morning, before school, the boys go to the mosque where they are reminded of their religious duties. The coaches are harsh: a boy of around ten is told “childhood is over”. Discouraged from showing pain the boys even fight with dislocation injuries. In the classroom, at RE, they are again reminded not to be weak, not to show their frailties. But on occasional visits, their parents underscore these spartan qualities. “You will have to become a man”, one mother tells her son. But one boy rebels, he is homesick and threatens to the throw himself out of the window. When the coach refuses to let him go, he argues cleverly “I will lose on purpose and then you will let me go”. The film ends on a rather downbeat note: five boys have been selected to fight in a tournament in a provincial capital, but only one of them is victorious. The losers are very self-critical, even naming friends who would have done better.

The doc is impressively shot by cinematographer Andre Jager, also working on his debut feature. Mete Gümürhan’s approach is non-judgemental and detached; audiences can form their own opinions of this unusual sport. YOUNG WRESTLERS is a study in how organised sport, competitiveness, religious rigor and rather outdated male values go together in forming a successful sportsperson and athlete. The gruelling training exercises, interesting only for hardcore fans of the sport, detract from the psychological warfare the boys are exposed to. This is an impressive documentary and an illuminating study of the national game that will appeal to sporty kids and teenagers but little appeal to mainstream audiences. AS

BERLINALE 11-21 FEBRUARY | MORE COVERAGE UNDER BERLINALE 2016

 

Bolshoi Babylon (2015) | DVD release

Director: Nick Read | Documentary | UK | 86min

Internecine politics fail to dampen the ardour of Russia’s finest export and barometer of the superpower’s national health in BOLSHOI BABYLON

British director Nick Read (The Condemned) explores the bizarre case surrounding the acid attack that nearly blinded Bolshoi Ballet’s artistic director Sergei Filin in this tight and well-paced documentary whose unprecendented access to the inner workings of the ballet and enticing clips from recent productions (Swan Lake, Boris Godunov, Traviata etc), are sure to entice balletomanes and cineasts alike.

But this is not the only salacious aspect of a film that grows more intriguing by the minute with its revelations about the Bolshoi and its attempts to overcome a never ending battle to survive both in and out of the theatre confines. Interviews with its new company director Vladimir Urin, principles such Maria Allash and Maria Alexandra and ballet masters Boris Akin and Nicolai Tsiskaridze paint a bloody portrait of the physical and emotional rigour required to stay the course by all involved with Moscow’s hallowed cultural edifice.

It gradually emerges that the acid attack, in 2013, was ordered by dancer in defence of his girlfriend’s lack of promotion due to favouritism by the powers that be, headed by Filin and that left him with extensive third degree burns to his face and partially blind in one eye. Not only does this confirm rumours of violence and corruption in contemporary Russian society but it also upholds long-held beliefs and stereotyping in the West. Pavel Dmitrichenko, a soloist, admitted to hiring his neighbour to attack Filin due to jealousy and resentment. Vladimir Urin, polishing up his own profile courtesy of the filmmakers, reveals that many are interested in influencing the future of the national treasure, not least President Vladimir Putin and Prime Dmitri Medvedev, who appears in a startling interview where he claims the Bolshoi is a sort of guided propaganda missile of national heritage that is sent abroad to influence and profit the mother country.

This is a commercial film but also one that will make you jump on  the nearest plane to Moscow to experience the Bolshoi for yourselves. What emerges it that the arguing, bitterness and jealousy is the ‘raison d’être’ of the Bolshoi, defining them firing up the enthusiasm, professionalism and creative brilliance of these highly emotional artists. The only criticism is the brevity of the beguiling ballet footage of the troupe performing seen both backstage and from the Bolshoi Theatre presidential boxes. MT

 NOW ON DVD 

https://youtu.be/_TK8uth06SQ

 

Muito Romantico (2016) | Berlinale 2016

Director: Melissa Dullius, Gustavo Jahn | Cast: Melisa Dullius, Gustavo Jahn, Lilja Löffler

72min  Drama | Brazil| Germany

Melissa (Dullius) and Gustavo (Jahn) are sailing on a cargo ship in the South Seas, travelling from Brazil to Berlin, Germany, to start a new life. In Berlin, they visit flats in Wedding, Neukölln and Mitte, letting the audience know the exact rent and the payment for gas electricity. These data are the only realistic ones in this filmic collage that sees film and reality merging before a portal to the universe opens from which the main protagonists will merge with the cosmos.

Muito Romantico’s opening lines are quoted from a long text by the German transcendental writer Maria Luise Kaschnitz from 1963, titled “Wohin denn ich” (Where to for me) from 1963. Kaschnitz, who travelled widely with her archeologist husband, was a rarity in the post-war literature scene of the Federal Republic as her work was considered very “un-German” for the time, and had very much in common with the poetic realism of South America, where she spent a great deal of her life.

Melissa and Gustavo meet Veronica (Löffler) in Berlin for the first time having corresponded during their long voyage. As the couple get to know Berlin; Gustavo on a bicycle, Melissa, who gets lost, on foot, they related the changes that have taken place in the city since unification, mentioning a slogan which was painted in the ruins of the old ‘Anhalter Station’: “People who build bunkers, also build bombs”. But soon they disappear into each other losing interest in the city, and expressing their creativity in painting and decorating their flat. They come across a Japanese woman and a male painter, who asks Gustavo “to forget parties and alcohol, and concentrate on art”. Later Gustavo reads loud from a book, “declaring that the end of Romanticism has come, and people have to accept it”. A black cat sits on their bed, looking very aloof. The use of red is a motif that occurs throughout this dreamlike piece: in furnishings or objects: Gustavo suggests “all materials have memories”. Towards the end, the screen is totally black for a while, afterwards Melissa crawls through a hole in the wall into their bed. Images, reminding us of Rorschach tests appear, before the couple escapes into another world.

MUITO ROMANTICO is a poetic collage that deals with memory and space, history and art, longing and alienation; predominantly shot by DOP Viile Piippo on 16 mm or Super 8, with the number of frames per minute changing frequently, and a lighting which lends a surreal and very painterly feel. Symbolism is used but in a very playful way that adds to the enjoyment of this rather vague but unique and innovative experiment. AS

BERLINALE 11-21 FEBRUARY 2016 | MORE COVERAGE UNDER BERLINALE 2016

 

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (2015) | DVD VOD release

Director: Lisa Immordino Vreeland

96min | BIOPIC | US

Playing out like a speed date with the most important artists the 20th Century – Vreeland’s doc is packed with juicy secrets and fascinating insight into one of the world most accomplished art patrons: Peggy Guggenheim.

Art lovers and social voyeurs will be thrilled and inspired by this engrossing biopic that reveals Peggy Guggenheim as an enthusiastic and appealing maverick who used her meagre fortune to amass one of the most eclectic art collections ever –  Peggy Guggenheim — Art Addict, follows the bumper crop of remarkable documentaries – along with The Best of Enemies, Listen to Me Marlon, Janis Little Girl Blue and Hitchcock/Truffaut making 2015 an epic year for American documentaries.

It’s hard to imagine a life more interesting than Peggy Guggenheim’s: born in 1897 to a fabled Jewish dynasty who had immigrated to the USA from Europe and were all “off their rockers”; her mother had a wealthy banking background and her beloved father drowned on The Titanic leaving Peggy somewhat compromised financially and socially in her peer group. Paddling her own canoe, she became a trend-setting “lone wolf” (her words) with a keen eye for a bargain and a gargantuan sexual appetite that was only matched by her addiction for acquiring edgy art.

Vreeland’s film is stuffed with facts and fascinating footage but never feels didactic or ‘learned”. Expertly collated and gripping from start to finnish, it whizzes through Peggy’s eventful life during one of the most pivotal eras of the 20th century, making a natural companion piece to her 2011 debut doc: The Eye Has to Travel that tackled her own aunt, the socialite, Diana Freeland.

Here Freeland shares what is purportedly the last interview with Peggy Guggenheim, recorded before her death in 1979. And what makes this special is the audio footage that accompanies the photos and video clips that give a real sense of Peggy’s personality and the people she met and engaged with; often intimately. Interviews with present-day art world personalities and professionals flesh out the exploration to provide a three dimensional experience that transports us back to the 20th century world of modern art. The suave art historian Sir John Richardson dishes the dirt. Curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist and dealer Larry Gagosian also share their views; Marina Abramovic opines on the merits of patrons versus collectors; and Robert De Niro waxes lyrical on his parents who were both artists – and rather good ones at that – and showed their work courtesy of Peggy. Her other claim to fame was the nurturing and patronship of Jackson Pollock, whom she “discovered” and supported for many years.

Vreeland divides her straightforward linear format into four main sections: growing up in New York’s rarefied circles; to Paris, where she met and slept with as many artists as she could, settling in London where she had two kids Sinbad and opened the Guggenheim Jeune gallery with the artistic mentoring of Marcel Duchamp; back to Paris where she turned her hand to collecting “Degenerate Art” before Hitler denounced it; an unfaithful marriage to Max Ernst, who “didn’t give a damn for her”; and back to New York, where she set up the Art of This Century Gallery and became closer to her wealthy uncle Solomon who was responsible for New York’s famous Guggenheim Museum. Her dotage was spent in Venice amongst dogs, lovers and more artists: Vreeland captures the essence of Peggy and enthralls us in the process. MT

DVD and VOD on 22 February 2016 courtesy of Dogwoof 

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Only the Dead (2015)

Director: Bill Guttentag   Writers: Michael Ware, Justine A Rosenthal, Bill Guttentag

With: Michael Ware, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

77min  Documentary  Australia

A shocking hand-held video diary of the unravelling Iraq War invigorated by former Time and CNN journalist Michael Ware, who takes us through his stream of consciousness and comes to a stark conclusion.

When Ware heads out to Iraq his frame of mind seems sturdy and upbeat but the toll of bombings and hostilities gradually wear him down and his tone becomes more ruminative as he becomes increasingly appalled and obsessed with the rise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the dark and distinctly sinister beginnings of the Islamic State.

There’s nothing really new to report here but plenty of horrific images of suicide bombings and dismembered bodies; the documentary playing out like an extended youtube clip from the frontlines, distilled down to just over an hour from over ten years of footage recorded and brought to the big screen by director Bill Guttentag and co-writer Justine. Taking a scattergun approach, the film rambles on unevenly with a disorientating feel as limbs fly and vehicles ignite in the mayhem. Daniel Berg’s execution is shown and the car bombings at the Jordanian Embassy (2003). What the film does do to personalise the invasion and contextualise it within the evergreen theme of war and man’s tendency to succumb to a holocaust of psychopathic indifference towards his neighbour, whether soldier or civilian. This is particularly evident in the final scene of unspeakable horror.

In 2004 Ware headed up Time as it’s Bureau Chief in Baghdad and this leads to him becoming more directly involved with the insurgents as a go-between. He is responsible for publishing the famous tape of Berg’s execution but Ware stops short here of greater illumination and insight into his moral responsibilities as a journalist. He remarks, contentiously, that the American forces appear to be losing control in region.

The major climacteric of his term of office is where he avoids decapitation himself and is saved by one of his insurgent guides during a sortie in into the streets of Baghdad where his car is stopped by a man with a grenade. Rather than showing the ensuing footage, Ware only reports the events in narration, robbing the film of powerful visual impact. As the the saying goes “a picture tells a thousand words” and this lack of visual proof detracts from the narrative. Although the documentary raises provocative issues surrounding soldiering, reporting and voyeurism in a conflict zone, as chief protagonist, Ware appears at times to lack confidence in his mastery of events that took nearly a decade of his life.

ONLY THE DEAD | IN UK CINEMAS AND ON DIGITAL HD 15 FEBRUARY

Special Screening & Guest Panel – Curzon Soho, Monday 15 February | Sydney Film Festival Award Winner
Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary

Renoir: Reviled and Revered (2016)

Director | Cinematographer:  Phil Grabsky | Documentary | UK 2016 | 87 min.

Phil Grabsky brings together the contrasting elements of the work and life of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), an early Impressionist painter who later turned his back on the movement he helped to establish – and the American millionaire who obsessively collected his work, Albert C Barnes.

Superbly photographed by David Bickerstaff at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia where part of the documentary is set; we learn how tailor’s son, Pierre August Renoir admired Manet and Corbet as a young man and instead of joining his friends for lunch, he visited the Louvre; rather like Sisley, Monet, Pisarro and Degas, who “learned more from their visits to the museum than at art school”. The group, and particularly Renoir, owed their living mainly to the art dealer Paul Durande-Ruel, who acquired over 1500 paintings of the father of the future filmmaker Jean Renoir. The art dealer in turn sold nearly 181 of these to Albert C. Barnes, founder of the Art Collection in Philadelphia. All these paintings at the Barnes Foundation are post 1880, a time when Renoir broke with the Impressionist movement after a visit to Rome, where he decided to give “up spontaneity in favour of something more solid”, the watershed being “Luncheon of the Boating Party” (1880/81), where on of the revellers was his future wife Aline Victorine Charigot, whom he married in 1890.

But after a few years, Renoir would return to a more expressionistic form, as in “Grandes Baigneuses (1897). Five years later, the painter developed rheumatoid arthritis, which in the end forced him to employ helpers, after he moved to the villa “Les Collettes” in Cagnes-sur-Mer at the French Riviera in 1907. During WWI, two of his sons were wounded, and his wife died of cancer. But his paintings, admired by Picasso and Matisse – the latter, who also moved to the South, visited Renoir at to show the older man his work – did not reflect the turmoil of war or his family life, instead he continued to paint serene portraits of mostly naked women in nature, such as “After the Bath” (1910). He was a prolific painter of the female body, which he often depicted as being passive and available.. His comments are, unfortunately equally misogynist (“Women should not think too much”), and critics called the women in his paintings “brainless and porcine, just available for men”. In one of his paintings, he showed two well-off men, flirting with young women, who were obviously financially worse off than them – a critic denouncing Renoir “because these women would become mistresses, not wives.” But Renoir, for whom the female body equalled nature, hoped that his paintings would be properly judged by future generations: “They will take fifty years to settle”.

The documentary suffers sometimes from too many talking heads and the long sequences of visitors at the Barnes Foundation, discussing rather banal aspects of the paintings, do not help either. But it captures the moment when is the moment when art history was in the making: Renoir’s ”The Artist’s Family” is x-rayed, to prove that Renoir over-painted a part of the picture, where he himself was standing with his wife and three children (among the future director Jean Renoir with an extravagant hat). Alas, no proof was found. The most moving aspect of the doc is the depiction of an older man still practising his skills despite his debilitating. While academic, Grabsky’s documentary offers a fascinating look at Renoir’s work, allowing the viewer insight into the Banes Foundation’s extensive collection. AS

OUT ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 16 February 2016. See the film here

 

Rotterdam Film Festival | Award Winners 2016

796_392x221ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL kicked off on 27th January in the Dutch major shipping port. Of the 250 features on offer, over 100 were world or international premieres. We’d like to point you in the direction of some worth watching out for in the 10-day jamboree and the coming year. All the winners are here 

 5 OCTOBER Polish director and photographer Martin Kollár’s cinematography is the reason to see this impressive documentary debut. What unfolds in this silent story of a man preparing for life-changing surgery is an absolutely captivating journey across Europe shot with great verve, tenderness and humour. 5 OCTOBER features the director’s 52-year-old brother Ján in centre frame with a moving narration comprised only of postcards, mementos and the relentless count-down that rises up unimpeded from his journal. With a “flip of the coin” probability of surviving a necessary but very complicated surgery, Ján embarks on his own Easy Rider momento mori odyssey as we slowly discover what he’s running away from.

038_392x221ALBA is an extraordinary debut from Ecuadorian director Ana Cristina Barragan. Macarena Arias is the standout here as a pre-teenage girl who goes to live with her solitary father while her mother is in hospital. Barragan tackles themes of bullying, relationships and shyness as Alba (Arias) is forced to bear the humiliation of frequent nosebleeds and wearing a corset to straighten her crooked spine. With minimal dialogue, a tentative bond slowly develops between daughter and father as Alba blossoms cautiously. This strikingly mature and poignant debut comes from a country that until the beginning of this century had only made one film a year. Young leading actress Macarena Arias is one to keep an eye on. She manages to bring a rare intensity to this tender coming of age tale.

490_392x221BELLA E PERDUTA  A paean to Italy’s faded glory, this poetic imagined drama and essayist documentary is set in magical Carditello Palace, once owned by the Bourbon dynasty. The fictional clown Pulcinella comes across the real-life Tommaso, self-appointed guardian angel of the palace. Evokes the decaying splendour of Italy’s rich and magnetic past.

The Palace is in decay and has been stripped clean by plunderers. The local farmer Tommaso earned his nickname ‘Angel of Carditello’ by guarding the estate and restoring it out of his own pocket. Documentary maker Pietro Marcello saw here the start of a journey through the provinces of Italy in which he would examine the state of his country: stunningly beautiful yet in decay. But when Tommaso suddenly dies, this true-life fairytale comes to an abrupt end, pushing Marcello in a new direction. He introduces the crazy Pulcinella, a figure from 17th-century commedia dell’arte, anglicised as Punch. A journey that is smaller in scale yet greater in effect than the journey Marcello first wanted to make.

dejanSerbian director Bakur Bakuradze grew up in Georgia and studied in Russia. In BROTHER DEJAN He bases his central character loosely on the Bosnian-Serbian General Ratko Mladic, but sidesteps important issues of politics in order to explore those such as good and evil. Much more important in this sober and observing story is the question: Can a man like Stanic really start to understand in his last years of life? BROTHER DEJAN explores several months from the life of Dejan Stanic, a general wanted for war crimes during the Yugoslavian Civil War. At first managing to stay out of the hands of justice, he flees to neighbouring Slovenia with the help of his old compatriots, due to political changes. With his heavy beard and slovenly appearance, no one recognises Dejan Stanic as the one-time war hero/criminal. A simple excuse is enough for him to be able to move around an isolated mountain village in relative peace; he pretends to be an old friend of one of the inhabitants, Slavko, whom he supposedly met many years ago at a health resort. Slavko’s house is his last hiding place before Dejan finally leaves the country. The loneliness forces him to start thinking, for the very first time, about his own past.

21_NIGHTS_WITH_PATTI_hotpants21 NIGHTS WITH PATTIE is an intriguing title for a film that blends black comedy with fantasy and magic realism. Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu’s provocatively entitled Vingt et Une Nuits Avec Pattie certainly rolls off the tongue better in French, but this is a tricky tale to digest in any language, and after two longs hours and a final act that lets it all hang out, you may well come away wishing the brothers had left it at that: a boozy French drama with a touch of ‘Midsomer Murders’ and a dash of discretion.

Plunging into the bosky hillsides of Languedoc Rousillion, Caroline (Isabelle Carré) arrives at her mother’s bohemian retreat on a blazing hot August day. The two were not close in real life and her mother is now lying ‘in wake’ in the cool stone cottage, and Caroline must arrange her funeral. Despite this morbid event, the tone is light-hearted; almost jubilant and even more so when she meets Pattie (Karin Viard) the caretaker and best described as ‘une femme mûre’, who regales her with explicit tales of her recent sexual conquests with various local lads. Later on the corpse of her mother disappears, leading to a police investigation that drifts into a Savannah-style ghost story and an erotic awakening for the bewildered Parisienne.

11 minut 2 copyBest described as a suspense thriller, 11 MINUTES explores themes of fate and paranoia. Set in the sweeping urban spaces of contemporary Warsaw, it could also be entitled Crossover, dealing, as it does, with eleven minutes in the lives of a random bunch of characters whose lives collide in the centre of the capital. Wildly frenetic and octane-fuelled, the action unfurls chaotically with moments of surreal beauty and hard-edged passion. Invasion of privacy insinuates the narrative in the shape of security cameras, webcams and mobile phones which track the protagonists during this frenzied few minutes of precision filmmaking.

Thrilling, bewildering and at times quite exhausting to take in, Skolimowski’s dramatic storyline is not the most involving or satisfying of experiences. Like a vintage wine, this is a multi-layered tour de force whose infinite subtleties will emerge with each viewing. The mesmerising set-pieces are brilliantly crafted and certainly amongst the most extraordinary action sequences ever committed to film. The final moments are simply breath-taking and mark out Jerzy Skolimowski as a director who, after 50 years, is still quite clearly at the top of his game. MT

450_392x221Locarno FIPRESCI winner SUITE ARMORICAINE sees directori Pascale Breton returning to her birthplace in Rennes, Britanny where her main character Françoise (Valérie Dréville) intends to teach at the university. Evoking memories of her lively time as a student by clever use of flashbacks and archive footage, Breton lengthy narrative explores the relationship between Francoise and a student Ion (Kaou Langoët), who, for less nostalgic reasons, is there forget his troubled childhood. But teacher and student turn out to have more in common than expected. Stunningly set in the the heavily forested Breton landscape, Breton’s story switching between the two protagonists and it slowly becomes clear how much they are linked together. Key moments are shown twice, from the perspective of the teacher and of the student. This results in a personal and nostalgic story with avant-garde elements. A dreamy constellation in which Pascale Breton muses and reflects on the time when mobile phones had not yet been invented. MT

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 27 JANUARY UNTIL 7 FEBRUARY 2015

Homme Less (2015)

Director: Thomas Wirthensohn

Cast: Mark Reay, Thomas Wirthensohn,

87min   Documentary US

“Follow your bliss but be prepared to live your nightmare”

Mark Reay is on the hoof: a good-looking older model (think a hawkish Richard Gere) who works as a freelance photographer on the streets of New York by day before hunkering down on Manhattan rooftops for a night’s sleep.

Austrian director Thomas Wirthensohn (a model himself, who met Reay in the ’90s and makes his debut here) shows how those with a seemingly sophisticated lifestyle by day turn their hands to a game of survival by night on the streets of their native City. But far from being downbeat, HOMME LESS offers fascinating voyeurism on man’s battle to stay alive in the fast lane and on a shoe string; but by no means in the gutter. And that’s what’s unique and yet universal about Reay’s story.

Today’s urban lifestyle makes it feasible for a growing community of freelancers to spend their days hot-desking at Starbucks, Cafe Nero or, even better, a classy hotel where one can enjoy their extensive bathroom facilities for the price of a beer or a flat white. Reay is a one man band whose contacts and candid camera allow him backstage coverage of New York fashion week. Health insurance and a bank account, come courtesy of his actors’ guild membership, ensuring the minimum of protection from the harsh US realities of the US where there is no National Health to fall back on. Apart from hanging out with top models, he is also a specialist in tarpaulins – advising us to chose the less crackly ones when sleeping under the stars.

Simpatico on the outside, Reay is as tough as nails, a self-confessed “loser and a jerk” who thinks about sex a great deal but knows damn well never to wear that on his sleeve; clearly lacking in self-esteem, like many artists. Not a disillusioned romantic perhaps, but Reay is certainly a man whose has given up on love and ‘having a life’ despite outwardly being appealing to the opposite sex. Somehow he could cobble together a mainstream existence but something tells you he quite he enjoys the footloose freedom of the urban fox.

HOMME LESS is an enjoyable watch with its sublime rooftop reveries, breezy jazz score (by Eastwood and Mcguire) and veneer of sophisticated respectability – not to mention killer views from the top. As much a portrait of contempo New York and its challenges, HOMME LESS gradually morphs into a sensitive character study of middle age; its regrets and fears for the future, seen through the eyes of a highly gifted artist and wanderer: a mercurial man called Mark Reay.MT

TO COINCIDE WITH LONDON FASHION WEEK HOMME LESS IS OUT ON RELEASE FROM 12 FEBRUARY 2016

 

Amazonia (2013)

Amazonia_4_-___2013_Le_Pacte_Biloba_Films_Gullane copyDirector: Thierry Ragobert   Writers: Stephane Milliere

83min  Documentary   France | Brazil

AMAZONIA is Brazilian helmer Thierry Rogobert’s enchanting and eye-popping 3D docudrama filmed entirely in the Amazon jungle. Crafting an absorbingly tense adventure story, AMAZONIA follows Kong, an endearingly cute baby cappucine monkey, who is left to his own devices as the sole survivor of a plane crash that leaves him stranded deep in the Brazilian rainforest.

From the opening sequences we instantly bond with Kong. As his bewildered little face looks up at the camera, our natural instincts come to the fore with a strong desire to protect him on his journey as he fends for himself in the wild. Apart the natural ambient sounds of the forest: rain and random predators, Rogobert’s film is entirely unscripted providing viewers with a rich visual canvas of vibrantly and exotic flora on which to meditate on Kong’s eventful journey and its surprising outcome. David Attenborough will be proud!. MT

NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2013

Sundance Film Festival | Prizes Announced

112263_still1_JamesFranco_SarahGadon__byAlexDukayThe first major international festival of the independent film world: SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2016 has wrapped with another “great step forward for independent film,” according to the festival director John Cooper. For ten days in January the snow-bound hub of Park City, Utah screened 120 features, 98 of which are world premieres and include a romantic drama about Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date; a two hander about a drifter who befriends a dead body and the first film to focus on the women of Wall Street.

So what’s new trendwise in 2016? Well, according to director of programming Trevor Groth: Everyone’s understanding craft so much better. There’s a changing face to what a documentary is and what it can do in the end. People are experimenting in genre in really interesting ways, so festival-goers should expect a “wild range of tones and styles” in the World Cinema dramatic competition. “Independent filmmakers are doing what they’ve always done best: connecting the dots of human existence with a deeply charged emotional current.” We look at the ones that screened during this year’s festival and the PRIZE WINNERS to look out for in the coming months.  

US DRAMATIC COMPETITION winner THE BIRTH OF A NATION (US)

US DIRECTING AWARD DRAMATIC winner SWISS ARMY MAN (US)

US DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION winner WEINER

US DIRECTING AWARD DOCUMENTARY winner LIFE, ANIMATED (US)

WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION winner SAND STORM (ISRAEL)

WORLD CINEMA DIRECTING AWARD DRAMATIC winner BELGICA (BELGIUM)

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION winner SONITA (IRAN)

WORLD CINEMA DIRECTING AWARD DOCUMENTARY winner ALL THESE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS (POLAND)

ALFRED P SLOAN FEATURE FILM PRIZE winner EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (MEXICO)

WORLD CINEMA AWARD FOR UNIQUE VISION AND DESIGN winner THE LURE (POLAND)

NEXT -AUDIENCE AWARD winner THE FIRST GIRL I LOVED  (cutting edge equivalent of Cannes “Un Certain Regard”)

W O R L D   P R E M I E R E S 

A showcase of world premieres of some of the most highly anticipated narrative films of the coming year.

agnus copyAGNUS DEI / France, Poland (Director: Anne Fontaine, Screenwriters: Sabrina N. Karine, Alice Vial, Pascal Bonitzer) — 1945 Poland: Mathilde, a young French doctor, is on a mission to help World War II survivors. When a nun seeks her assistance in helping several pregnant nuns in hiding, who are unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancies, Mathilde becomes their only hope. Cast: Lou de Laâge, Agata Kulesza, Agata Buzek, Vincent Macaigne, Joanna Kulig, Katarzyna Dabrowska. World Premiere

16753-1-1100ALI AND NINO / United Kingdom (Director: Asif Kapadia, Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton) — Muslim prince Ali and Georgian aristocrat Nino have grown up in the Russian province of Azerbaijan. Their tragic love story sees the outbreak of the First World War and the world’s struggle for Baku’s oil. Ultimately they must choose to fight for their country’s independence or for each other. Cast: Adam Bakri, Maria Valverde, Mandy Patinkin, Connie Nielsen, Riccardo Scamarcio, Homayoun Ershadi. World Premiere

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Matt Ross) — Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and re-enter society, beginning a journey that challenges his idea of what it means to be a parent. Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella, George MacKay, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Ann Dowd. World Premiere

certain copyCERTAIN WOMEN / U.S.A. (Director: Kelly Reichardt, Screenwriter: Kelly Reichardt based on stories by Maile Meloy) — The lives of three woman intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail. Cast: Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone. World Premiere

COMPLETE UNKNOWN / U.S.A. (Director: Joshua Marston, Screenwriters: Joshua Marston, Julian Sheppard) — When Tom and his wife host a dinner party to celebrate his birthday, one of their friends brings a date named Alice. Tom is convinced he knows her, but she’s going by a different name and a different biography—and she’s not acknowledging that she knows him. Cast: Rachel Weisz, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates, Danny Glover. World Premiere

FRANK AND LOLA / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Matthew Ross) — A psychosexual noir love story—set in Las Vegas and Paris—about love, obsession, sex, betrayal, revenge and, ultimately, the search for redemption. Cast: Michael Shannon, Imogen Poots, Michael Nyqvist, Justin Long, Emmanuelle Devos, Rosanna Arquette. World Premiere

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Rob Burnett) — Having suffered a tragedy, Ben becomes a caregiver to earn money. His first client, Trevor, is a hilarious 18-year-old with muscular dystrophy. One paralyzed emotionally, one paralyzed physically, Ben and Trevor hit the road, finding hope, friendship, and Dot in this funny and touching inspirational tale. Cast: Paul Rudd, Craig Roberts, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Ehle, Megan Ferguson, Frederick Weller. World Premiere. CLOSING NIGHT FILM

Hollars copy copyTHE HOLLARS / U.S.A. (Director: John Krasinski, Screenwriter: Jim Strouse) — Aspiring New York City artist John Hollar returns to his Middle America hometown on the eve of his mother’s brain surgery. Joined by his girlfriend, eight months pregnant with their first child, John is forced to navigate the crazy world he left behind. Cast: John Krasinski, Anna Kendrick, Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins, Sharlto Copley, Charlie Day. World Premiere

HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE / New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: Taika Waititi) — Ricky is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his cantankerous foster uncle in the wild New Zealand bush. A national manhunt ensues, and the two are forced to put aside their differences and work together to survive in this heartwarming adventure comedy. Cast: Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley. World Premiere

indig copyINDIGNATION / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: James Schamus) — It’s 1951, and among the new arrivals at Winesburg College in Ohio are the son of a kosher butcher from New Jersey and the beautiful, brilliant daughter of a prominent alum. For a brief moment, their lives converge in this emotionally soaring film based on the novel by Philip Roth. Cast: Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, Danny Burstein, Ben Rosenfield. World Premiere

LITTLE MEN / U.S.A. (Director: Ira Sachs, Screenwriter: Mauricio Zacharias) — When 13-year-old Jake’s grandfather dies, his family moves back into their old Brooklyn home. There, Jake befriends Tony, whose single Chilean mother runs the shop downstairs. As their friendship deepens, however, their families are driven apart by a battle over rent, and the boys respond with a vow of silence. Cast: Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle, Paulina Garcia, Theo Taplitz, Michael Barbieri. World Premiere

LoveandFriendship_still1_ChloeSevigny_KateBeckinsale__byBernardWalshLOVE AND FRIENDSHIP / Ireland, France, Netherlands (Director and screenwriter: Whit Stillman) — From Jane Austen’s novella, the beautiful and cunning Lady Susan Vernon visits the estate of her in-laws to wait out colorful rumors of her dalliances and to find husbands for herself and her daughter. Two young men, handsome Reginald DeCourcy and wealthy Sir James Martin, severely complicate her plans. Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Emma Greenwell, Tom Bennett, Stephen Fry. World Premiere

manchester copyMANCHESTER BY THE SEA / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kenneth Lonergan) — After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised. Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Lucas Hedges, Kyle Chandler. World Premiere

MR PIG / Mexico (Director: Diego Luna, Screenwriters: Augusto Mendoza, Diego Luna) — On a mission to sell his last remaining prize hog and reunite with old friends, an aging farmer abandons his foreclosed farm and journeys to Mexico. After smuggling in the hog, his estranged daughter shows up, forcing them to face their past and embark on an adventurous road trip together. Cast: Danny Glover, Maya Rudolph, José María Yazpik, Joel Murray, Angélica Aragón, Gabriela Araujo. World Premiere

SING STREET / Ireland (Director and screenwriter: John Carney) — A boy growing up in Dublin during the ’80s escapes his strained family life and tough new school by starting a band to win the heart of a beautiful and mysterious girl. Cast: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor, Aidan Gillen, Mark McKenna. World Premiere

SophieandtheRisingSun_still2_JulianneNicholson_TakashiYamaguchi__byJacksonLeeDavisSOPHIE AND THE RISING SUN / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Maggie Greenwald) — In a small Southern town in the autumn of 1941, Sophie’s lonely life is transformed when an Asian man arrives under mysterious circumstances. Their love affair becomes the lightning rod for long-buried conflicts that erupt in bigotry and violence with the outbreak of World War ll. Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Margo Martindale, Lorraine Toussaint, Takashi Yamaguchi, Diane Ladd, Joel Murray. World Premiere. SALT LAKE CITY GALA FILM

WIENER DOG / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Todd Solondz) — This film tells several stories featuring people who find their life inspired or changed by one particular dachshund, who seems to be spreading comfort and joy. Cast: Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Delpy, Zosia Mamet. World Premiere

D O C U M E N T A R Y   P R E M I E R E S
Renowned filmmakers and films about far-reaching subjects comprise this section highlighting our ongoing commitment to documentaries.

EAT THAT QUESTION—Frank Zappa in His Own Words / France, Germany (Director: Thorsten Schütte) — This entertaining encounter with the premier of sonic avant-garde is acidic, fun-poking, and full of rich and rare archival footage. This documentary bashes favorite Zappa targets and dashes a few myths about the man himself. World Premiere

FILM HAWK / U.S.A. (Directors: JJ Garvine, Tai Parquet) — Trace Bob Hawk’s early years as the young gay child of a Methodist minister to his current career as a consultant on some of the most influential independent films of our time. World Premiere

LOANDBEHOLDReveriesoftheConnectedWorld_headshot2_WernerHerzog_byNALO AND BEHOLD, Reveries of the Connected World / U.S.A. (Director: Werner Herzog) — Does the internet dream of itself? Explore the horizons of the connected world. World Premiere

MAPPLETHORPE – LOOK AT THE PICTURES / U.S.A. (Directors: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato) — This examination of Robert Mapplethorpe’s outrageous life is led by the artist himself, speaking with brutal honesty in a series of rediscovered interviews about his passions. Intimate revelations from friends, family, and lovers shed new light on this scandalous artist who ignited a culture war that still rages on. World Premiere

MAYA ANGELOU – AND STILL I RISE / U.S.A. (Directors: Bob Hercules, Rita Coburn Whack) — The remarkable story of Maya Angelou — iconic writer, poet, actress and activist whose life has intersected some of the most profound moments in recent American history. World Premiere

Michael copyMICHAEL JACKSON’S JOURNEY FROM MOTOWN TO OFF THE WALL / U.S.A. (Director: Spike Lee) — Catapulted by the success of his first major solo project, Off the Wall, Michael Jackson went from child star to King of Pop. This film explores the seminal album, with rare archival footage and interviews from those who were there and those whose lives its success and legacy impacted. World Premiere

NORMAN LEAR  – Just Another Version of You / U.S.A. (Directors: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady) — How did a poor Jewish kid from Connecticut bring us Archie Bunker and become one of the most successful television producers ever? Norman Lear brought provocative subjects like war, poverty, and prejudice into 120 million homes every week. He proved that social change was possible through an unlikely prism: laughter. World Premiere. DAY ONE FILM

Nothing copyNOTHING LEFT UNSAID: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper / U.S.A. (Director: Liz Garbus) — Gloria Vanderbilt and her son Anderson Cooper each tell the story of their past and present, their loves and losses, and reveal how some family stories have the tendency to repeat themselves in the most unexpected ways. World Premiere

RESILIENCE / U.S.A. (Director: James Redford) — This film chronicles the birth of a new movement among pediatricians, therapists, educators, and communities using cutting-edge brain science to disrupt cycles of violence, addiction, and disease. These professionals help break the cycles of adversity by daring to talk about the effects of divorce, abuse, and neglect. World Premiere

RICHARD LINKLATER—dream is destiny / U.S.A. (Directors: Louis Black, Karen Bernstein) — This is an unconventional look at a fiercely independent style of filmmaking that arose in the 1990s from Austin, Texas, outside the studio system. The film blends rare archival footage with journals, exclusive interviews with Linklater on and off set, and clips from Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, and more. World Premiere

UNDER THE GUN / U.S.A. (Director: Stephanie Soechtig) — The Sandy Hook massacre was considered a watershed moment in the national debate on gun control, but the body count at the hands of gun violence has only increased. Through the lens of the victims’ families, as well as pro-gun advocates, we examine why our politicians have failed to act. World Premiere

UNLOCKING THE CAGE / U.S.A. (Directors: Chris Hegedus, Donn Alan Pennebaker) — Follow animal rights lawyer Steven Wise in his unprecedented challenge to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans. By filing the first lawsuit of its kind, Wise seeks to transform a chimpanzee from a “thing” with no rights to a “person” with basic legal protection. World Premiere

U. S   . D R A M A T I C   C O M P E T I T I O N

The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.

AS YOU ARE (Director: Miles Joris­-Peyrafitte, Screenwriters: Miles Joris­-Peyrafitte, Madison Harrison) — The telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the course of their friendship through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation. C​ast: Owen Campbell, Charlie Heaton, Amandla Stenberg, John Scurti, Scott Cohen, Mary Stuart Masterson.

BirthTHE BIRTH OF A NATION (Director and screenwriter: Nate Parker) — Set against the antebellum South, this story follows Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher, whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. After witnessing countless atrocities against fellow slaves, Nat devises a plan to lead his people to freedom. C​ast: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, Mark Boone Jr.

CHRISTINE (Director: Antonio Campos, Screenwriter: Craig Shilowich) — In 1974, a female TV news reporter aims for high standards in life and love in Sarasota, Fla. Missing her mark is not an option. This story is based on true events. C​ast: Rebecca Hall, Michael C. Hall, Maria Dizzia, Tracy Letts, J. Smith-­Cameron.

EquityEQUITY  (Director: Meera Menon, Screenwriter: Amy Fox) — A female investment banker, fighting to get a promotion at her competitive Wall Street firm, leads a controversial tech IPO in the post-­financial-­crisis world, where regulations are tight but pressure to bring in big money remains high. C​ast: Anna Gunn, James Purefoy, Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Reiner.​

THE FREE WORLD (Director and screenwriter: Jason Lew) — Following his release from a brutal stretch in prison for crimes he didn’t commit, Mo is struggling to adapt to life on the outside. When his world collides with Doris, a mysterious woman with a violent past, he decides to risk his newfound freedom to keep her in his life. C​ast: Boyd Holbrook, Elisabeth Moss, Octavia Spencer, Sung Kang, Waleed Zuaiter.

GOAT (Director: Andrew Neel, Screenwriters: David Gordon Green, Andrew Neel, Michael Roberts) — Reeling from a terrifying assault, a 19-­year-­old boy pledges his brother’s fraternity in an attempt to prove his manhood. What happens there, in the name of “brotherhood,” tests both the boys and their relationship in brutal ways. C​ast: Nick Jonas, Ben Schnetzer, Virginia Gardner, Danny Flaherty, Austin Lyon.

THE INTERVENTION (Director and screenwriter: Clea DuVall) — A weekend getaway for four couples takes a sharp turn when one of the couples discovers the entire trip was orchestrated to host an intervention on their marriage. ​Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Cobie Smulders, Alia Shawkat, Clea DuVall, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Schwartz.

JOSHY(Director and screenwriter: Jeff Baena) — Josh treats what would have been his bachelor party as an opportunity to reconnect with his friends.​ Cast: Thomas Middleditch, Adam Pally, Alex Ross Perry, Nick Kroll, Brett Gelman, Jenny Slate.

Lovesong_still1_FerrisWheelLOVESONG  (Director: So Yong Kim, Screenwriters: So Yong Kim, Bradley Rust Gray) — Neglected by her husband, Sarah embarks on an impromptu road trip with her young daughter and her best friend, Mindy. Along the way, the dynamic between the two friends intensifies before circumstances force them apart. Years later, Sarah attempts to rebuild their intimate connection in the days before Mindy’s wedding.​ Cast: Jena Malone, Riley Keough, Brooklyn Decker, Amy Seimetz, Ryan Eggold, Rosanna Arquette.

MORRIS FROM AMERICA (U.S.-Germany / Director and screenwriter: Chad Hartigan) — Thirteen­-year-­old Morris, a hip­-hop-loving American, moves to Heidelberg, Germany, with his father. In this completely foreign land, he falls in love with a local girl, befriends his German tutor­-turned­-confidant, and attempts to navigate the unique trials and tribulations of adolescence. C​ast: Markees Christmas, Craig Robinson, Carla Juri, Lina Keller, Jakub Gierszal, Levin Henning.​

OTHER PEOPLE  (Director and screenwriter: Chris Kelly) — A struggling comedy writer, fresh from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and younger sisters, David feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother worsens, he tries to convince everyone (including himself) he’s “doing OK.” C​ast: Jesse Plemons, Molly Shannon, Bradley Whitford, Maude Apatow, Zach Woods, June Squibb. (Day One film)

SouthsideWithYou_still7_TikaSumpter_ParkerSawyers__byPatScolaSOUTHSIDE WITH YOU  (Director and screenwriter: Richard Tanne) — A chronicle of the summer afternoon in 1989 when the future president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, wooed his future First Lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side.​ Cast: Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers, Vanessa Bell Calloway.

SPA NIGHT  (Director and screenwriter: Andrew Ahn) — A young Korean-­American man works to reconcile his obligations to his struggling immigrant family with his burgeoning sexual desires in the underground world of gay hookups at Korean spas in Los Angeles.​ Cast: Joe Seo, Haerry Kim, Youn Ho Cho, Tae Song, Ho Young Chung, Linda Han.

SwissArmyMan_still1_PaulDano_DanielRadcliffe__byJoyceKimSWISS ARMY MAN (Directors and screenwriters: Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan) — Hank, a hopeless man stranded in the wild, discovers a mysterious dead body. Together the two embark on an epic journey to get home. As Hank realizes the body is the key to his survival, this once­-suicidal man is forced to convince a dead body that life is worth living. ​Cast: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.​

TALLULAH (Director and screenwriter: Sian Heder) — A rootless young woman takes a toddler from a wealthy, negligent mother and passes the baby off as her own in an effort to protect her. This decision connects and transforms the lives of three very different women. Cast: Ellen Page, Allison Janney, Tammy Blanchard, Evan Jonigkeit, Uzo Aduba.

16197-1-1100WHITE GIRL  (Director and screenwriter: Elizabeth Wood) — Summer, New York City: A college student goes to extremes to get her drug-dealer boyfriend out of jail. C​ast: Morgan Saylor, Brian “Sene” Marc, Justin Bartha, Chris Noth, India Menuez, Adrian Martinez.

U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.

AUDRIE AND DAISY (Directors: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk) — After two high-school girls in different towns are sexually assaulted by boys they consider friends, online bullying leads each girl to attempt suicide. Tragically, one dies. Assault in the social media age is explored from the perspectives of the girls and boys involved, as well as their torn-­apart communities.

AUTHOR : The JT LeRoy Story” (Director: Jeff Feuerzeig) — As the definitive look inside the mysterious case of 16­-year-­old literary sensation JT LeRoy — a creature so perfect for his time that if he didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent him — this is the strangest story about story ever told.

The Bad kidsTHE BAD KIDS (Directors: Keith Fulton, Lou Pepe) — At a remote Mojave Desert high school, extraordinary educators believe that empathy and life skills, more than academics, give at-­risk students command of their own futures. This coming­-of­-age story watches education combat the crippling effects of poverty in the lives of these so-­called “bad kids.”

GLEASON (Director: Clay Tweel) — At the age of 34, Steve Gleason, former NFL defensive back and New Orleans hero, was diagnosed with ALS. Doctors gave him two to five years to live. So that is what Steve chose to do: Live — both for his wife and newborn son and to help others with this disease.

HOLY HELL (Director: undisclosed) — Just out of college, a young filmmaker joins a loving, secretive, spiritual community led by a charismatic teacher in 1980s West Hollywood. Twenty years later, the group is shockingly torn apart. Told through hundreds of hours of accumulated footage, this is their story.

HOW TO LET GO OF THE WORLD  (and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change​)” (Director: Josh Fox) — Do we have a chance to stop the most destructive consequences of climate change, or is it too late? Academy Award­-nominated director Josh Fox (“Gasland”)​ travels to 12 countries on six continents to explore what we have to let go of — and all of the things that climate can’t change.

JIM (Director: Brian Oakes) — The public execution of American conflict journalist James Foley captured the world’s attention, but he was more than just a man in an orange jumpsuit. Seen through the lens of his close childhood friend, “J​im” ​moves from adrenaline-­fueled front lines and devastated neighborhoods of Syria into the hands of ISIS.

Kate copyKATE PLAYS CHRISTINE  (Director: Robert Greene) — This psychological thriller follows actor Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares to play the role of Christine Chubbuck, a Florida television host who committed suicide on air in 1974. Christine’s tragic death was the inspiration for “N​etwork,” ​and the mysteries surrounding her final act haunt Kate and the production.

KIKI  (U.S.-Sweden / Director: Sara Jordeno) — Through a strikingly intimate and visually daring lens, “K​iki” o​ffers insight into a safe space created and governed by LGBTQ youths of color, who are demanding happiness and political power. A coming­-of-­age story about agency, resilience, and the transformative art form of voguing.

LIFE, ANIMATED (Director: Roger Ross Williams) — Owen Suskind, an autistic boy who could not speak for years, slowly emerged from his isolation by immersing himself in Disney animated movies. Using these films as a roadmap, he reconnects with his loving family and the wider world in this emotional coming-­of-­age story.

NEWTOWN  (Director: Kim A. Snyder) — After joining the ranks of a growing club no one wants to belong to, the people of Newtown, Conn., weave an intimate story of resilience. This film traces the aftermath of the worst mass shooting of schoolchildren in American history as the traumatized community finds a new sense of purpose.

Nuts copyNUTS! (Director: Penny Lane) left — The mostly true story of Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius who built an empire with his goat-­testicle impotence cure and a million-watt radio station. Animated re-enactments, interviews, archival footage, and one seriously unreliable narrator trace his rise from poverty to celebrity and influence in 1920s America.

SUITED ​(Director: Jason Benjamin) — Bindle & Keep, a Brooklyn tailoring company, makes custom suits for a growing legion of gender­-nonconforming clients.

TRAPPED ​(Director: Dawn Porter) — American abortion clinics are in a fight for survival. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws are increasingly being passed by states that maintain they ensure women’s safety and health, but as clinics continue to shut their doors, opponents believe the real purpose of these laws is to outlaw abortion.

UNCLE HOWARD”​ (U.S.-U.K. / Director: Aaron Brookner) ​— H​oward Brookner’s first film, “B​urroughs: The Movie,​”captured the cultural revolution of downtown New York City in the early ’80s. Twenty­-five years after his promising career was cut short by AIDS, his nephew sets out to discover Howard’s never-­before-­seen films to create a cinematic elegy about his childhood idol.

WEINER (Directors: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg) — With unrestricted access to Anthony Weiner’s New York City mayoral campaign, this film reveals how a high-­profile political scandal unfolds behind the scenes, and it offers an unfiltered look at how much today’s politics are driven by an appetite for spectacle.​

WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION

The 12 films in this section are world premieres unless otherwise specified.

Belgica_still3_StefAerts_HlneDevos__byMenuetBELGICA right (Belgium-France-Netherlands / Director: Felix van Groeningen, Screenwriters: Felix van Groeningen, Arne Sierens) — In the midst of Belgium’s nightlife scene, two brothers start a bar and get swept up in its success. C​ast: Stef Aerts, Tom Vermeir, Charlotte Vandermeersch, Helene De Vos. (Day One film)

BETWEEN SEA AND LAND  (Colombia / Directors: Manolo Cruz, Carlos del Castillo, Screenwriter: Manolo Cruz) — Alberto, who suffers from an illness that binds him into a body that doesn’t obey him, lives with his loving mom, who dedicates her life to him. His sickness impedes him from achieving his greatest dream of knowing the sea, despite one being located just across the street. C​ast: Manolo Cruz, Vicky Hernandez, Viviana Serna, Jorge Cao, Mile Vergara, Javier Saenz.

BrahmanNaman_still1_ChaitanyaVarad_ShashankArora_TanmayDhanania_VaiswathShankar__byTizianaPuleioBRAHMAN NAHMAN (U.K.-India / Director: Q, Screenwriter: S. Ramachandran) — When Bangalore U.’s misfit quiz team manages to get into the national championships, they make an alcohol-­fueled, cross-­country journey to the competition, determined to defeat their arch­rivals from Calcutta while all desperately trying to lose their virginity. C​ast: Shashank Arora, Tanmay Dhanania, Chaitanya Varad, Vaiswath Shankar, Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy, Sid Mallya.

A GOOD WIFE  (Serbia-Bosnia-Croatia / Director: Mirjana Karanovic, Screenwriters: Mirjana Karanovic, Stevan Filipovic, Darko Lungulov) — When 50-­year-­old Milena finds out about the terrible past of her seemingly ideal husband, while simultaneously learning of her own cancer diagnosis, she begins an awakening from the suburban paradise she has been living in. C​ast: Mirjana Karanovic, Boris Isakovic, Jasna Djuricic, Bojan Navojec, Hristina Popovic, Ksenija Marinkovic.

HALAL LOVE (AND SEX)  (Lebanon-Germany-United Arab Emirates / Director and screenwriter: Assad Fouladkar) — Four tragic yet comic interconnected stories come together in this film, which follows devout Muslim men and women as they try to manage their love lives and desires without breaking any of their religion’s rules. Cast: Darine Hamze, Rodrigue Sleiman, Zeinab Khadra, Hussein Mokadem, Mirna Moukarzel, Ali Sammoury. (International premiere)

THE LURE (main photo)  (Poland / Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska, Screenwriter: Robert Bolesto) — Two mermaid sisters, who end up performing at a nightclub, face cruel and bloody choices when one of them falls in love with a beautiful young man. C​ast: Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska, Jakub Gierszal, Kinga Preis, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz. (International premiere)

MaleJoyFemaleLove_still1_DaizhenYing_Nanyu__byYounianLiuMALE JOY, FEMALE LOVE  right  (China / Director and screenwriter: Yao Huang) — Portrays an unlimited cycle of love stories. C​ast: Nand Yu, Daizhen Ying, Xiaodong Guo, Yi Sun.

MAMMAL  (Ireland-Luxembourg-Netherlands / Director: Rebecca Daly, Screenwriters: Rebecca Daly, Glenn Montgomery) — After Margaret, a divorcee living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex­husband’s grieving rage. C​ast: Rachel Griffiths, Barry Keoghan, Michael McElhatton.

Mi Amiga copyMI AMIGA DEL PARQUE  (Argentina-Uruguay / Director: Ana Katz, Screenwriters: Ana Katz, Ines Bortagaray) — Running away from a bar without paying the bill is just the first adventure for Liz (mother to newborn Nicanor) and Rosa (supposed mother to newborn Clarisa). This budding friendship between nursing mothers starts with the promise of liberation but soon ends up being a dangerous business. C​ast: Julieta Zylberberg, Ana Katz, Maricel Alvarez, Mirella Pascual, Malena Figo, Daniel Hendler. (International premiere)

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Chile / Director: Alejandro Fernandez, Screenwriters: Alejandro Fernandez, Jeronimo Rodriguez) — An upper-­class kid gets in trouble with the one percent.​ Cast: Agustin Silva, Alejandro Goic, Luis Gnecco, Paulina Garcia, Daniel Alcaino, Augusto Schuster.

SAND STORM  (Israel / Director and screenwriter: Elite Zexer) — When their entire lives are shattered, two Bedouin women struggle to change the unchangeable rules, each in her own individual way. C​ast: Lamis Ammar, Ruba Blal­Asfour, Hitham Omari, Khadija Alakel, Jalal Masrwa.

WILD  (Germany / Director and screenwriter: Nicolette Krebitz) — An anarchist young woman breaks the tacit contract with civilization and fearlessly decides on a life without hypocrisy or an obligatory safety net. C​ast: Lilith Stangenberg, Georg Friedrich.

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

All these sleeplessThe 11 films in this section are world premieres unless otherwise specified. A 12th film will be announced in the weeks ahead.

ALL THESE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS (LEFT) (Poland / Director: Michal Marczak) — What does it mean to be truly awake in a world that seems satisfied to be asleep? Christopher and Michal push their experiences in life and love to the breaking point as they restlessly roam the streets of Warsaw in search for answers.​

A FLAG WITHOUT A COUNTRY  (Iraq / Director: Bahman Ghobadi) — This documentary follows the very separate paths of singer Helly Luv and pilot Nariman Anwar from Kurdistan, both in pursuit of progress, freedom, and solidarity. Both individuals are a source of strength to their society, which perpetually deals with the harsh conditions of life, war, and ISIS attacks. (N​orth American premiere)

Hooligan sparrow copyHOOLIGAN SPARROW – right (China-U.S. / Director: Nanfu Wang) — Traversing southern China, a group of activists led by Ye Haiyan, aka Hooligan Sparrow, protest a scandalous incident in which a school principal and a government official allegedly raped six students. Sparrow becomes an enemy of the state, but detentions, interrogations and evictions can’t stop her protest from going viral.

THE LAND OF THE ENLIGHTENED (Belgium / Director: Pieter-­Jan De Pue) — A group of Kuchi children in Afghanistan dig out old Soviet mines and sell the explosives to child workers in a lapis lazuli mine. When not dreaming of an Afghanistan after the American withdrawal, Gholam Nasir and his gang control the mountains where caravans are smuggling the blue gemstones.

THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT (U.K. / Directors: Robert Cannan, Ross Adam) — Following the collapse of their glamorous romance, a celebrity director and his actress ex-­wife are kidnapped by movie­-obsessed dictator Kim Jong-­il. Forced to make films in extraordinary circumstances, they get a second chance at love — but only one chance at escape.

PLAZA DE LA SOLEDAD (Mexico / Director: Maya Goded) — For more than 20 years, photographer Maya Goded has intimately documented the lives of a close community of prostitutes in Mexico City. With dignity and humor, these women now strive for a better life — and the possibility of true love.

THE SETTLERS (France-Canada-Israel-Germany / Director: Shimon Dotan) — The first film of its kind to offer a comprehensive view of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, “The Settlers” is a historical overview, geopolitical study, and intimate look at the people at the core of the most daunting challenge facing Israel and the international community today.

sky ladder - CaiGuoQiangTheManWhoFellToEarthWorkingTitle_still1_df__byHiroIharaS​KY LADDER: The Art of Cai Guo-­Qiang​” (Director: Kevin Macdonald) — Having reached the pinnacle of the global art world with his signature explosion events and gunpowder drawings, world-­famous Chinese contemporary artist Cai Guo­-Qiang is still seeking more. We trace his rise from childhood in Mao’s China and his journey to attempt to realize his lifelong obsession, Sky Ladder. (Day One film)

SONITA (Germany-Iran-Switzerland / Director: Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami) — If 18­year­old Sonita had a say, Michael Jackson and Rihanna would be her parents and she’d be a rapper who tells the story of Afghan women and their fate as child brides. She finds out that her family plans to sell her to an unknown husband for $9,000. (North American premiere)

WE ARE X ​/ (U.K.-U.S.-Japan / Director: Stephen Kijak) — As glam rock’s most flamboyant survivors, X Japan ignited a musical revolution in Japan during the late ’80s with their melodic metal. Twenty years after their tragic dissolution, X Japan’s leader, Yoshiki, battles with physical and spiritual demons alongside prejudices of the West to bring their music to the world.

When Two WorldsWHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE right (Peru / Directors: Heidi Brandenburg, Mathew Orzel) — An indigenous leader resists the environmental ruin of Amazonian lands by big business. As he is forced into exile and faces 20 years in prison, his quest reveals conflicting visions that shape the fate of the Amazon and the climate future of our world. W​orld Premiere

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL | UTAH 21 – 31 JANUARY 2015 |

The Great Barrier Reef | Blu-ray release

In this three part part series, 88-year old seasoned pro David Attenborough nimbly clambers aboard the Alucia, a 56-metre research and exploration vessel equipped with a state-of-the-art Triton submersible, laboratories and a helicopter, to give us a blindingly brilliant tour of the world’s greatest living structure – the Great Barrier Reef.

The craft gives David a unique perspective of his favourite place on Earth and one of the most remote and previously undiscovered stretches of the Coral Garden, allowing us to enjoy its diversity, characters and complexity. Mesmerising and magnificent, the reef is also home to some of the world’s most fascinating animals and David explores an array of creatures such as the manta ray, the epaulette shark that walks, and the humpback whale that have made the Great Barrier Reef their home. Time-lapse macro cameras also lay bare tiny coral animals that have built the entire Reef. The series also reveals the most magical reproduction event on the planet, the annual coral spawning.

On a darker note, it emerges that the Reef is under threat and has lost almost half its coral since David’s first visit in 1957. David’s journey also takes him to the deepest part of the Reef where no one has ventured before ( in the hi-tech Triton Submersible) to collect corals that may help scientists to better understand this natural wonder of the world. Totally mesmerising – this is a treasure to watch, re-visit and savour. MT

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY AND DVD FROM 25 JANUARY 2016 | ATTENBOROUGHSREEF.COM

 

Warriors (2015) | DVD release

Dir.: Barney Douglas |  Documentary | UK 2015 |  83 min.

Some stories simply prove that, once again, reality is stranger than fiction: WARRIORS, Barney Douglas’ debut documentary  serves the maxim brilliantly. The tale of a group of Maasai warriors from Kenya who learn to play cricket, travel to London, (nearly) play at Lords and break the tradition of FGM in their village is a saga full of adventure, progress and, very much, beauty. The latter point is important, because the breath-taking beauty of the young female and male Maasai youngsters (coupled with the magnificent landscapes) make WARRIORS also a feast for the eyes.

It all started when South African zoologist Alya Bauer went to Il Polei village, in the Laikipia region of Kenya, to study the behaviour of baboons. As a cricket fan, she missed the game, but shortly afterwards had the local village children playing her beloved sport. Soon, the young Maasai warriors from the neighbouring villages joint in as Ngais, one of the young men who became a leading player, said “bowling is the way we throw the spear”. Much training had to be done but it finally paid off when the Maasai warriors were invited to London to play in the “Last Man standing” competition for amateur cricket teams. The two best teams would play the final at Lords, the holy shrine of world cricket. Whilst the Maasai team missed the final by a few runs, their time in London made them even more motivated, to spread the message of cricket in their region: so far they have reached 24 primary schools and five secondary schools.

But cricket is not the only mission of the young men: Female Genital Mutilation has a strong tradition in Maasai culture, girls are “circumcised” as early as eight, so they can become child brides for richer, much older men, who pay handsomely with livestock. But not only are these girls mistreated by their husbands, they also lose out on secondary education. The Warriors hold talks with the village Elders to break this brutal tradition, and finally the old men of the village agree not to “circumcise” their daughters any more as the youngsters of the village confirm that they will only marry non-circumcised brides. A joyful mother of one of the cricket players declares that her youngest daughter would be the first female in her family not be circumcised.

DOP Ben Wilkins’ clear and bright images of the mountains and wild animals are integrated in the narrative, serving at a metaphor for pure beauty, untouched by men, not simply postcard idylls. The animation is very much in the style of the naïve culture of the Maasai, who believe that they came straight down from the heavens when the earth was created. Sun and heaven are their central focus, and are always mentioned in discussions. WARRIORS is an exception: a real life fairy story with sumptuous vision and beguiling music by the director and Ali Gavan. AS

 WARRIORS is available on DVD and iTunes from 25 January 2016 www.warriorsfilm.co.uk #WakeTheLion

Attacking the Devil: Harold Evans and the last Nazi War Crime

ATTACKING THE DEVIL: HARRY EVANS AND THE LAST NAZI WAR CRIME

Dir.: Jacqui Morris, David Morris; Documentary with Harry Evans

99min UK Doc

Siblings Jacqui and David Morris’s documentary is as much about the man who led the campaign, Harold Evans, as the Thalidomide scandal itself, which Evans uncovered in a ten-year battle as an editor of The Sunday Times from the mid Sixties onwards. The campaign brought not only some justice to the drug victims’ families, but helped to change the press law in this country.

Evans helmed the newspaper from 1967 and 1981 and had already started a campaign for the introduction of Cervical Testing in his previous position as Editor of The Northern Echo. The Thalidomide campaign, which lasted over ten years, is perhaps the best example of investigative journalism in this country. It all started long before Chemie Grunenthal, a German pharmaceutical company, created Contergan (the German name of the anti-sickness drug) and marketed it worldwide from 1957 onwards in over 46 countries, resulting in the birth of over ten thousand deformed babies, after their mothers had taken Thalidomide.

What makes Attacking the Devil such an impressive documentary aside from its mind blowing revelations; is the editing which deftly integrates original interviews, news-reel studies of the surviving children into a fast moving film, which is aesthetically closer to a detective thriller than a conventional documentary

Contergan/Thalidomide is very much connected to Otto Ambros, a German chemist, who was a lifelong friend of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler. In 1938, having joined the NSDAP, Ambros became a member of the IG Farben board, and an expert on poison gas (Sarin). in this capacity he reported to Hitler personally. The “IG Buna Werk IV” in Auschwitz saw him visiting the KZ and its workforce of Forced Labour no less than 18 times between 1941-44. Ambros, being a keen advocate of using KZ inmates for work, was imprisoned after the war, and sentenced to eight years in 1948, but was released in 1952, after which he joined Chemie Grunenthal, where he met “old friends” like Dr. Schenck (Inspector of Nutrition of the SS) and SS Captain Dr. H. Baumkotter, Chief Medical Doctor for the Concentration Camps Mauthausen, Natweiler-Stuthof and Sachenhausen. Ambros also worked as an economic consultant for Chancellor Adenauer, and the industrial magnate Friedrich Flick, who had also been released from prison early.

In 1959 Grunenthal received its first reports that Thalidomide caused nerve damage. The drug, sold over the counter, required now a prescription. It was still marketed aggressively, the label proclaiming that it could “be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers, without any adverse effect on mother and child.” More than ten thousand mothers gave birth to babies with horrible deformities, before Thalidomide was banned in 1962 in the UK.

The UK manufacturer Distillers Biochemicals Ltd.(now Diageo), came to an inadequate compensation settlement with a minority of the victim’s families in the UK. Evans campaign in the Sunday Times alerted David Morris, an art dealer whose daughter Louise was one of the victims. He tried to persuade the parents not to agree to the “40%” settlement proposed by Distillers, which meant that they would only receive a fraction of the money owed to them. The Treasury then took over to bring the scandal to a quick end: Morris lost his child, now a “ward” of the Treasury.

What happened next is remarkable in a film that cleverly balances facts and tension to create an absorbing and satisfying piece of filmmaking.

Perhaps the most harrowing moment of the documentary is the witness quote of a soldier who had liberated Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp and had seen the same deformations in his own niece nearly twenty years later. Chemie Grunenthal had always claimed that it had lost its documents that showed where and when the first human trials of drug were conducted. “The patents suggest that Thalidomide was probably one of the number of products developed at Dythernfruth or Auschwitz-Monowitz, under the leadership of Otto Ambros in the course of nerve gas research”, said Dr. Martin Johnson, head of the Thalidomide Trust in England. AS

OUT ON 22 January 2016
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Grazing the Sky (2015) | DVD release

images-1Writer|Director: Horacio Alcala

Cast of the Cirque Du Soleil | Documentary | Mexico | 87min

Imagine if all you ever wanted to do was dance with a circus wheel. That was Jonathan’s dream. Bailing on his English literature studies, he joined the Cirque Du Soleil and the circus ‘Cyr Wheel’ is now his life. Directed and produced by Mexican film-maker Horacio Alcalá, GRAZING THE SKY uncovers the secret world of circus dancers as they explore their passions and the motivations behind their highly-skilled craft.

Interviewing for a production of Cirque Du Soleil, a Canadian iniative that has now become famous everywhere with its various permutations and themes, Mexican helmer Horacio sets out to discover new recruits for the troupe’s production. We meet these performers in audition, offering their artistry from their respective discplines interwoven with their various ethnic backgrounds from Palestine, Holland, Spain, Canada, Brazil. On the other end of the journey, Australian gold-medal gymnast, Damian Istria, about to retire from Cirque Du Soleil after a life-time career.

GRAZING THE SKY does take itself a bit too seriously at times, coming over a tad inauthentic: the artists opine about their “passion” as if they’re reading a script, rather than talking naturally and this gives the documentary the feel of a glossy filmed advertisement for Cirque de Soleil. It also gives the impression that the performers are somehow looking at their craft as a therapy that has saved their lives rather than a serious professional vocation, which clearly it is.. That said, the technical credits are superb with slick and inventive cinematography from David Palacios, giving the piece an intense and magical feel at times. The idea started as the brainchild of Patrick Flynn, Company Manager for Cirque Du Soleil, and shines a light on the many ways that dancers find their vocation into today’s circus industry – a far cry from the past where the only way in came from family connections.

But the dancers do become a family of sorts, bonded by shared experience and expression that takes them all over the world where they perform the various techniques with equipment from Saar Rombout and the Cyr wheel, with which Jonathan Moss is now one of the top dancers. The only other criticism here is the lack of footage for the other Cirque Du Soleil skills such as juggling. But Horacio’s documentary offers worthwhile insight into the contemporary world of the 21st century circus: the travelling caravans and performing animals have (thankfully) now moved on. MT

OUT ON DVD from January 25th 2016

[youtube id=”Cj5h-SinUTU” width=”600″ height=”350″]

 

Top 10 Indie Favourites of 2015 | Editor’s pick

Gem cohenHere are ten indie films that have stayed in my memory this year. Some were viewed at festivals and are still hoping for a release, others started out as indies (CAROL and AMY) but have rapidly gained cult status and heading for the Oscars.

It’s not a definitive list: many of the films I’ve enjoyed the most this year are from the classics. Martin Scorsese’s Polish selection were my biggest discovery. Some have something new or different to enjoy with every viewing: I’ve changed too in the decades since I first saw them: BARRY LYNDON; THE TENANT and CHINATOWN are three that spring to mind. And there are Comedies that make me laugh again and again: Woody Allen’s SMALL TIME CROOKS and Peter Bogdanovich’s WHAT’S UP DOC. So here are my favourites for 2015 – 

COUNTING | Director: Jem Cohen | 111mins Documentary US

‘Sleeping dogs; Waking cats; Straws that break the camel’s back/ The subtle urban portraiture of Jem Cohen’s work could be described as tragi comedy in motion. His recent drama MUSEUM HOURS was a hit amongst the arthouse crowd but COUNTING is a straightforward documentary that explores the peripatetic fillmaker’s wanderings through New York, Moscow, St Petersburg, Istanbul and an unknown city in the Middle East (Islamabad?).

Taking the form of 15 different but interconnected fragments, a lose narrative gradually emerges that points to a World where everyone is in contact but no one is actually engaging; people are talking but no one is listening. So COUNTING feels like an intensely personal take-down of our contemporary cities where animals and people are increasingly bewildered and alienated from their urban surroundings.

Continually leavening his film with ironic commentary that juxtaposes images of alienated people, cats or dogs photographed against the urban landscape often with poignantly amusing signs, his acute observations reflect the state of play in contemporary society. Whether faintly amusing or poignantly sad, they put Terrence Malick’s saccharine Hallmark greetingcard platitudes to shame, making Jem Cohen a unique and inventive director who deserves more acclaim. A treasure not to be missed, but not his best outing. MT. reviewed at BERLINALE 2015

ASSASSIN_THE_trees_green copyTHE ASSASSIN | Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou | Cast: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki | 12omin Taiwanese Drama

Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou has brought a Palme d’Or probable to the Croisette with his stunning drama THE ASSASSIN. This is a serious and sumptuously composed masterpiece – in the true sense of the word. Hou brings a sense of uncompromising formal brilliance to the wuxia material. THE ASSASSIN is a work of spiritual resonance and historical importance, it is also visually orgasmic.

Set during the Tang dynasty, the story opens as a young girl played by Shu Qi undergoes training to be an assassin. But her female sympathies stand in the way of her killing instinct and after failing an important mission, she is sent back to her hometown. Some time later, she is again tasked with killing an important governor (played by Chang Chen) who is questioning the Emperor’s authority. The task involves a moral twist: not only is the governor her cousin, but also her first love.

Mark Lee Ping-Bing’s stunning visuals create a sparkling jewel box in every frame. The magnificent landscape showcase lush forests, mist-filled mountains and precipitous gorges in this remote and the often hostile terrain. But this is not the classic martial arts slasher movie and the killing sprees are spare and discrete. This is the domain of the highly disciplined and spiritually-trained Grandmasters, experienced recently through the work of Wang Ka Wai. But Hou’s martial arts sequences have their own brutal and breathtaking beauty and are nonetheless powerful for their distinct lack of gratuitous blood-letting. There is a serene and graceful delicacy to this filmmaking which is both tear-wellingly beautifully and satisfying austere. A sequence involving black magic is particularly sinister, making THE ASSASSIN a captivating masterpiece in elegance and restraint, holding his head proudly in the starry firmament of Taiwanese filmmaking. MT | REVIEWED AT CANNES 2015

EMBRACE_OF_THE_SERPENT_tribesman copyEMBRACE OF THE SERPENT | Director: Ciro Guerra | Cast: Nilbio Torres, Antonio Bolivar, Yauenkü Migue | 122min | Adventure Drama | Colombia

Colombian writer|director Ciro Guerra’s third feature is a visually stunning exploration to a heart of darkness that echoes Miguel Gomes’ Tabu or Werner Herzog’s Cobra Verde or even Nicolas Roeg’s Belize-set drama of that name.

A backlash on the negative impacts of organised Religion and Colonialism EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT‘s slow-burn intensity has a morose and unsettling undercurrent that threatens to submerge you in the sweaty waters of the Amazon River whence its token German explorer, Theordor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet) meanders fitfully in search of a rare and exotic flower with restorative powers.

Impressively mounted and elegantly shot in black and white (by DoP David Gallego) this arthouse masterpiece was dreamt up by scripters Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde, who base this imagined drama, told in parallel narrative, on the diaries of two explorers travelling through the Colombian jungle in the early part of last century between 1900 and the 1940s. Theodor and Evan (Brionne Davis) are guided by the rather fierce figure of a shaman called Karamakate (played by Nilbio Torres and later by Antonio Bolivar) the sole survivor of a native tribe which perished due to invasion.

Karamakate knows the intricate tribal nuances and the subtleties of the local fauna but is filled with latent hatred for the explorers who he blames for destroying his forefathers. Despite this he cures Theodor, virtually bringing him back to life with potions distilled from the vegetation which is alarmingly shot through a pipe at high speed into the German’s nostrils. With the Shaman they encounter a fallen Catholic mission and a poor worker with a severed arm who begs to be put out of his misery.

For all the magnificent beauty of this wildly lush and desolate forest with its flowing river, there are signs of human destruction. EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT scored by Carlos Garcia’s haunting ambient soundtrack this is a peaceful, if slightly overlong, meditation on the havoc man has wreaked on lost humanity and the planet. MT | WINNER OF THE CICAE AWARD AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2015 | CIRO GUERRA

SleepingGiantSLEEPING GIANT | Director: Andrew Cividino | 89min Canadian Drama

Andrew Cividino lampoons and laments the male of the species in his piquant and delightfully-observed rites of passage debut feature, SLEEPING GIANT. Making great use of the magnificent ‘big country’ landscapes of his native Ontario, Cividino is another starlight trouper from the fabulous galaxy of contemporary Canadian filmmakers. This is a teen drama with surprisingly universal appeal that will appeal to the arthouse crowd of all age-groups.

Quietly incisive yet monumentally moving, SLEEPING GIANT explores the angst-ridden adolescent awakening of three teenage boys who joke and jossle together one sun-drenched summer in Lake Superior, that starts predictably bright but ends in a dark and frightening place. A razor-sharp script is matched with cutting-edge performances from newcomers Jackson Martin as Adam, Riley (Reece Moffett) and Nate (Nick Serine).

Adam is a thoughtful, intelligent boy with a face as pure as milk. Spending the summer with his parents in their luxurious lakeside cabin, he strikes up a friendship with hell-raiser cousins Riley and Nate that soon starts to challenge his perceptions of his parent’s marriage and his discrete upbringing. As they steadily bait him into joining them on shoplifting and drinking bouts, they also encourage him to abuse the trust of local girl, who Adam takes a liking to. Outwardly, it feels as if Adam is unable to rise to the challenge of these young male bullies but the perceptive Adam is slowly biding his time.

As the narrative unfurls amidst the impressive lakeside landscapes, an ominous score signals a sense shift in tone towards of unease in this unassuming coming of ager, which on the surface looks like any other glossy teen flick. And as the boys’ friendship deepens and they jockey for supremacy, so the cracks and resentments start to appear. Nate, in particularly, becomes more vituperative and vindictive as we get to know him, constantly provoking Adam’s masculinity and whilst Adam stays surprisingly calm, he is quietly formulating an informed impression of the situation. Clearly a budding psychopath, Nate masks his insecurity with typically violent outbursts where he hits a dead bird repeatedly with a stick and burns a mating beatle to death. All this is lushly observed in James Klopko’s inventive cinematography that brilliantly evokes the joy and excitement of teenage years in those long lost summers of our childhood.

But these boys are not the only ones playing fast and loose. It emerges that Adam’s father, a deliberately uncool David Disher, is also indulging in some naughty behaviour that could ruin his cosy family summer for good. And when Adam wises up to his father’s behaviour, a subtle inter-generational power-play is added to the sparky dynamic of this holiday crowd.

This is very much a film that focuses on how male selfishness and need for dominance effects the females in their entourage. SLEEPING GIANT develops from a upbeat character-driven piece to one with significant and sinister psychological punch where Cividino demonstrates a masterful control his material and cast in engaging drama that never outstays its welcome with a startling finale. MT | reviewed at CANNES 2015 CRITICS’ WEEK

LYINGFORALIVINGakaLISTENTOMEMARLON_still4_MarlonBrando__byNotKnown_2014-11-26_10-41-27AMLISTEN TO ME MARLON | Director: Steven Riley | 95min | Documentary | US

A shady enigmatic figure with a gruff exterior is how most of us remember Marlon Brando in his later years (1924-2004). But Steven Riley redresses the balance with this intoxicating documentary compiled from reams of Brando’s own audio tapes recording his innermost thoughts and streams of consciousness that expose the icon’s soul for all to appreciate. It’s unlikely that Marlon would approve of this exposé, commissioned by his own estate. That said, it serves as a remarkable tribute to the screen legend and, for the most part, manages to enhance his his profile rather than diminish it; a decade after his death.

The film opens with a spooky digitised 3D image of Marlon’s head that the actor created for posterity – rather like some people commission a bronze bust or painting. It sets the tone for the woozy narrative that seems to capture the essence of the Marlon, often drifting dreamlike through filmed footage, clips and photographs of this stunningly handsome screen idol with his velvety voice, ‘come to bed’ eyes and macho persona.

It tells how from an early age Marlon was close to his creatively driven mother but wary of his father; a travelling salesman who drank and beat his family. Marlon’s early influences came from acting superstar Stella Adler at New York’s, ‘New Schoo’l, a theatre and film training establishment run by talented, intellectual Jewish immigrés. Marlon drifted into acting because he had a talent for ‘lying’: he was the youngest actor to win an Oscar for On the Waterfront, which he felt was undeserved. He later boycotted his Oscar for The Godfather, sending an American Indian to receive it in protest for the portrayal of the US Native race in Hollywood. His looks and allure made him popular with women although he was a poor father figure to the children whose birth he acknowledged: his daughter Cheyenne Brando later committed suicide; his son Christopher killed her boyfriend. There were many others.

But this did not tarnish his earning ability and he was much sought after often commanding vast figures for his acting performances which later left him free to pursue his human rights patronage of Black and Native American causes. A deep thinker and an introvert who isolated himself in the Hollywood Hills and in his beloved Tahiti, LISTEN TO ME MARLON brings out his philosophical edge and his spiritual leanings. He also took his craft seriously, realising his gift was the making of him: “I arrived in New York with holes in my socks, and holes in my mind”. During his lifetime he formed close friendships with other realist actors such as Monty Clift, but on set he was never easy to direct and had contretemps with Trevor Howard during Mutiny on the Bounty and Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now.

Shot through with insights and musings about life and his acting, it emerges that Marlon never took his fame for granted but also yearned for a simpler existence in Tahiti: “A sanity and sense of reality is taken away from you by Success”. MT | REVIEWED AT LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015 

saul-749x415SON OF SAUL | Director: László Nemes | Cast: Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Sandor Zsoter. | 107min Wartime Drama Hungary

László Nemes learnt his craft under the legendary Hungarian director, Bela Tarr. His feature debut is a shocking and claustrophobic thriller exploring the little known lives of the Sonderkommando, Jews who were forced, under pain of death, to clean up the gas chambers during the final days of Auschwitz in 1944.

Clearly, Nemes is an inventive talent in the making. His restless camera tells a secret and conspiratorial story in pin-sharp close-up while in the background, out-of-focus atrocities are seen unfolding in the Nazi concentration camp and its surroundings. The action focuses on Saul (Géza Röhrig), a man whose mission is to herd his own people into massive ovens and lock them in as their pitiful cries and raging emerges.

One boy survives the onslaught, but is subsequently suffocated by a German officer. Saul appears to recognise him as his own son and sets off in desperation to find a Rabbi to say prayers and bury him according to the Jewish faith. A constant whispering and bartering in going on before our eyes, and while Saul is bribing his fellow inmates with golden and precious personal effects (from the dead) jewellery, an escape plan is also brewing.

But unlike his master of slow-motion, Nemes offers up a fast-moving and disorientating action thriller. Sometimes the camera is behind his shoulder focusing on the chattering and internal conspiracy between the inmates, others it focuses on the background, where German officers bait and bully the Sonderkommandos. Dead bodies are dragged by and thrown onto trucks in blurry, soft-focus. In one scene, at entire battle is going on in the hazy distance, where prisoners are being shot and forced into open burial pits as fires rage and gunfire rings out. It feels as it Nemes is running two contemporaneous film sets; one in the foreground and one of horrific slaughter and anihilation in the near distance. There is a remarkable single take, in pristine focus, where Saul carries the body of his “son” into a river and swims to the other side.

This is a work of supreme craftsmanship but also a harrowing and devastating tribute to the Sonderkommandos, who knew their lives would also end in slaughter, when their job was done and Géza Röhrig’s performance rings of both subtle defiance and acceptance. The final scene seems to allow a chink of light and hope into this dreadful darkness, as his face lights up into a gradual smile in the middle of a verdant forest.

SON OF SAUL  serves as a positive revival of the Holocaust with other recent films such as Night Will Fall and Shoah.

best of enemyTHE BEST OF ENEMIES | Directors: Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon | 87min Documentary US

In THE BEST OF ENEMIES Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon showcase the heavyweight intellectual TV sparring matches between William Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal, who offered their subjectivity on American Politics during 1968 and fro the last few decades of the 20th Century. Whether or not you agreed with their politics these wittily-crafted debates and well-reasoned arguments, spoken in cool patrician vowels, had US viewers pinned to their sets night after night from the late sixties until the nineties.

Best known for their musical biopics, Neville and Gordon take us on a rip-roaring ride through the lives of both men who had the American public hanging on their every word. Millions of viewers were fixated on their TVs each night, as Buckley, an ardent Republican and Vidal, a champagne socialist, expounded their views like an elegant game of Centre Court tennis. At a time when America needed to “change lanes”, the debates allowed a refreshing breeze of clarity to blow through the political landscape, but culminated in a famous exchange during news coverage of a convention in Chicago (1968), where Buckley finally puts his cards on the table during a highly-charged debate that went down in American history.

Multi-lingual William H Buckley Jr was a staunch Catholic from an educated New York family who went to Yale and spent the Winters in a chateau in Gstaad or sailing at his Stamford holiday home. Gore Vidal, seen posing in his romantic Italian coastal villa, was also from a privileged background with political connections although he never went to University, going straight into the Army, as did Buckley after Yale. The two went on to publish books and newspaper articles – Vidal becoming the best-selling author of the controversial sex-change novel “Myra Breckinridge” – Buckley set up his right-wing journal National Review and became the host of a NewsNight-style programme called The Firing Line. The two were polar opposites and would argue that black was white just to affirm their antipathy of one another. We also hear off-scene readings from John Lithgow (as Vidal) and Kelsey Grammer (as Buckley) and the late Christopher Hitchens’ adds his commentary further enhancing and inform our enjoyment of this immersive piece.

Slowly ramping up the tension as their gripping story unfolds, Neville and Gordon reveal that ABC-TV, lagging third in the news division behind CBS and NBS, had decided to up its game by hiring these sworn enemies to host a talk show during a convention in Miami. Grainy footage of these coruscating debates make gripping viewing as they each appraise the political situation of an American Society in crisis. When the debates reconvened in Chicago, the tone became more venomous between the men, reflecting a mood of hostility and social unrest that descended on the town at the height of the anti-Vietnam War, in a draconian Police presence. Theatrical texture is added with footage of Paul Newman and Arthur Miller who were also in town at the time. Discussion of the riots seeps into the coverage as these cool intellectuals lock horns, Vidal calling Buckley “a crypto-Nazi.” Rising to the occasion, Buckley is seen gurning with hatred – and the image is repeated several times – as he barks back “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face, and you’ll stay plastered.”

When seen on video footage, Buckley was clearly devastated at having lost his cool and apologized profusely but Vidal is strangely unphased with an icy coolness that is itself unnerving given the hatred he clearly felt. Vicious law suits zapped back and forth like angry hornets between the two men for years afterwards, as they each endeavoured to work through this televised trauma.

Ultimately, Gordon and Neville’s documentary serves to illustrate how Buckley and Vidal were the last to deliver stimulating debates of intellectual clarity on television. Nowadays, networks resort to “that which is highly viewable rather than that which is illuminating”. What a shame. MT

amybergeverysecretthing1-610x250EVERY SECRET THING | Director: Amy Berg, Writer: Nicole Holofcener | Cast: Diane Lane, Dakota Fanning, Elizabeth Banks, Danielle MacDonald, Nate Parker |99min Psychodrama | Mystery | US

Oscar-nominated Amy Berg brings her documentary expertise (West of Memphis | Deliver Us From Evil ) to bear in this feature debut that makes an interesting pairing with her documentary Prophet’s Prey, also screening at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival and touching on similar issues. Although initially challenged by its slightly bewildering fractured narrative taking place in two different time lines – the past and the present in quick succession – the overtly sombre-toned psychological drama, based on Laura Lippman’s best-seller, goes on to exert a relentlessly unsettling grip throughout its 93 minute running time. This is largely down to four remarkable female performances: Elizabeth Banks, Diane Lane, Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald.

Ronnie and Alice, (played as adults by Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald, respectively) are suspected of kidnapping two mixed-race kids in separate incidents a decade apart. We join the story as an investigation into the latest disappearance is taking place in contempo New York state. And gradually we discover more about the initial crime which resulted in the girls being incarcerated for 10 years until they emerge as women in their late teens. Told through flashbacks to plausible but mock newspaper footage and news bulletins, the original murder is relayed from the perspective of the young girls, as the real story only emerges in the final stages of the movie.

Skilful edits require intense concentration as we bring our instincts to the forefront in analysing the characters of the girls and their families and so as to determine the upshot of a saga of female disturbance and deception fraught with many different possibilities, twists and turns. Berg casts aspersions at a dreadful early childhood for both Alice and Ronnie but the circumstances surrounding their start in life that lead them to become, in effect, psychopaths, is always shrouded in mystery. Even at the finale, there is no way of knowing exactly who initiated the kidnapping or who committed the murder although it is possible to make an educated guess, based on our own experience and intuitions. There is also the element of false memory that makes this a very exciting and challenging drama, particularly from a feminine perspective.

Themes of parenting; bullying; adoption and the break-down on the family unit and its affects on female relationships – not to mention issues of re-integration into the community – are all carefully woven into the narrative and seen from each different female’s perspective. Rob Hardy’s stunning cinematography incorporates inventive camera angles and a haunting original score from Robin Coudert (Populaire).

Diane Lane is superb as a single mother who appears to be grappling with parenting a difficult daughter whom she is also in competition with as a woman. Dakota Fanning is mesmerising; particularly in one scene where she chillingly appears both vulnerable and cunning. But Danielle MacDonald gives the most spine-chilling turn as a narcissistic fantasist with body image issues. And last, but not least, Elizabeth Banks plays an award-winning detective tasked with investigating the case and bringing her own psychological insight into this nest of vipers. You will have a field day!. MT | REVIEWED AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 -28 JUNE 2015.

CAROL | Director: Todd Haynes | Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler | Drama | US

Carol 1Patricia Highsmith’s novels make striking thrillers: Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley and The Two Faces of January have become screen classics. The eagerly-awaited CAROL, which premieres at Cannes, is a perfect screen adaptation of one of her more romantic stories. Two remarkable performances, by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who picked up the Best Actress award, make CAROL particularly enjoyable. They play elegant fifties women caught in the seductive embrace of a lesbian relationship. Todd Haynes’ lush and leisurely adaptation of The Price of Salt, which was seen as rather daring at the time, now seems rather coy and kittenish, although Blanchett certainly wears the trousers in both her heterosexual marriage and an outré lesbian flutter. This is a luxuriously affair that unfolds rather tentatively during Christmas 1952 in a snowy New York heralding the Eisenhower era.

Phyllis Nagy’s clever screenplay clings close to the page while conjuring up the younger woman’s profession as photography rather than theatre set direction. It also retains the open, rather positive ending of Highsmith’s novel. The story opens in a New York department store (akin to Bloomingdales). Mara plays the young Therese Belivet who is meets Carol Aird – a creamy, mink-wrapped Blanchett – buying Christmas presents for her little girl, Rindy. A perfect excuse for further contact is provided when Carol leaves her gloves on the counter, and later invites the gamine-like Therese to her turreted New Jersey home. But the two finally meet in town over eggs and martinis. A chemistry of sorts develops through the velvety visuals of Ed Lachman’s camerawork (he shot in 16ml and blew the images up to look like 35ml) and Haynes’ competent direction – they worked together on Mildred Pierce and Far From Heaven – so you get the picture.

Carol’s successful businessman husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), is seeking a divorce due to her previous affair with her childhood friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) but he still loves his wife and threatens to get custody of Rindy. But Carol’s mind is made up and she pursues Therese with masculine determination in a highly seductive role made all the more teasing in the rather languid pacing that takes in a multitude of changes in her gorgeous couture wardrobe (Sandy Powell excels in her designs). The two finally end up in a tastefully soft-focused, semi-nude embrace in Waterloo, Iowa, and Carol acknowledges the bathos of this location.

But their crime (and it was a crime in 1952) is captured on camera by a travelling ‘notions’ salesman and Carol swiftly extricates herself from the relationship. Blanchett plays her Carol as a woman of infinite breeding and stylish charm, occasionally looking down her nose but always with a witty grace. Mara is more cutely foxy with those exotic, piercing eyes. The delux experience is gift-wrapped in soigné sets and and an atmospheric period score from Carter Burwell. MT

Rooney Mara won Best Actress for her role at Cannes 2015 | The Golden Frog apAward for Best Cinematography (Ed Lachman) at the prestigious Camerimage Awards 2015 | REVIEWED AT  CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 13 -24 MAY 2015 | CAROL | IN COMPETITION | CANNES 2015

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FRANCOFONIA | Director| Writer | Director Alexandr Sokurov | Cast: Louis-Do de Lencquessaing, Vincent Nemeth, Benjamin Utzerath, Johanna Krthals Altes | 87min | Docudrama | Russia | Fr Germany| Neth | 2015

IMG_1634In a festival which oscillated between the mediocre and the banal, Sukurov once again reminds us what cinema could be: an intellectual tour-de-force of documentary, essay and feature: as such, FRANCOFONIA towers above all the other efforts so far.

FRANCOFONIA is foremost a film about German-French relationships on a mostly cultural level; the director calling the link between the two nations “sisterly” which is an unusual word to use considering the many wars they fought with each other – unless he is hinting at sibling rivalry here. The star is certainly The Louvre where the two protagonists: the French director of the museum, Jacques Jaujard (Lencquesaing), and the German officer, Count Franziskus Wolff Metternich (Utzerath), in charge of cultural affairs for the German occupiers, fought in a low-key manner between 1940 and 1942. Metternich was then recalled to Germany not having given in to the Nazi leadership whose main aim was to steal the art treasures – a task they managed successfully later. Jaujard, who worked for the French Resistance, could rely on Metternich for help, a favour which was returned after the end of WWII, when Metternich needed help for the de-Nazification trial. But in the two years, Metternich, a Nazi Party Member since 1933 was civil while trying to delay the art robbery of his superiors, like a good Nazi.

In the summer of 1940 it was clear to the M Jaujard that his Museum was in danger, haunted by the spectre of Germany as the French government surrenders and the German army arrives in force. Archive footage of the era shows Hitler casting his beady eye over the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees, desperately looking for the Louvre and its treasures.

Fortuitously the perspicacious M Jaujard, the museum director, has taken precautionary measures and does not flee his museum when Count Wolff-Metternich, the officer commanded by Hitler to supervise France’s art collection for the Nazis, arrives at the Louvre to find its most important works have vanished. Jaujard has had them moved to Chateaux hundreds of miles away in preparation for the German bombings – and Metternich – who made the same wise moves in Germany – thus protects the French patrimony from the thieving hands of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels. In this ‘sisterly’ way Jaujard (a suave Louis Do de Lencquesaing) and Metternich (a suitably aristocratic-looking Benjamin Utzerath) are bought together with their love and appreciation of Art.

Marianne, the typical French heroine who chants “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and self-obsessed Napoleon – who points to himself in paintings around the walls – are the ghosts who haunt the Louvre in their traditional costumes. Napoleon claims that his sole purpose of waging war was to raid countries for their art treasures. And Sokurov takes us on a guided tour of these treasures, marking out the particular European propensity for portrait painting, enabling us to identify ourselves hundreds of years ago. Something that, he points out, the Muslims didn’t do. The Mona Lisa is given the most attention, with her enigmatic smile.

Often the director is seen sitting in his office, talking to a sea Captain on a ‘ship to shore’ computer link. The ship is bearing artworks and clearly many thousands have been lost at the bottom of the sea during their transportation around the globe, by trophy-taking warlords.

FRANCOFONIA is the first Sukurov film which shines a positive light on the Soviet Union. Bruno Delbonnel’s breathtaking cinematography successfully recreates the wartime effort in Paris, and the extensive archive material gives so much information and philosophcal debate that one viewing cannot do justice to this masterpiece. This is a film to savour. MT/AS

 

 

 

 

 

Sherpa (2015) Netflix

Dir: Jennifer Peedom | 99min  Documentary Thriller | Australian

April 18th, 2014 will go down as the worst day in the history of Everest when the Sherpas finally called time on their uphill struggle with mountaineering visitors.

The fascination with climbing Everest is a passion that seemingly knows no bounds for wealthy foreigners whose life ambition is to scale the World’s highest mountain. Summit, Touching the Void, Everest and Beyond the Edge have told of the dangers and elation of reaching the summit. SHERPA explores the conquest from the perspective of its much-maligned native Himalayans – the Sherpas. An ethnic group from Nepal’s mountain region, they are, for the most part, Tibetan Buddhists. Nomadic settlers they are physically and genetically adapted to life at high altitudes due to their blood’s unique haemoglobin-binding capacity and doubled nitric oxide production. From childhood they develop an intimate knowledge of the region and their compact, muscle-bound physiques enable them to carry large loads in this oxygen-poor environment.

Award-winning Australian documentarian Jennifer Peedom is no stranger to perilous outdoor themes with her previous films: Solo and Miracle on Everest, both riveting accounts of challenging endeavours. SHERPA takes a humanist angle, documenting the plight of Everest’s unsung heroes and valiant enablers of every mountaineering endeavour by those that visit their native region.  With little left of their traditional farming subsistence, most Sherpas now make their living from ‘guiding’, which although lucrative for the Nepalese, is actually quite meagre in Westerners’ eyes.

For the Sherpa, Mount Everest is known as Chomolungma and is a spiritual place. The Government forbids the use of helicopters to ferry supplies to the summit so this has to be done by Sherpas and donkeys. Today’s ‘clients” expect a high standard of comfort with flat-screen TVs and morning tea served by the Sherpas at their various stations on the way up, and down. There is literally a ‘swarm’ of climbers making the ascent in a queuing system with log-jams and bottlenecks not dissimilar to the morning rush hour.

The best way to ascend the peak is via the Southern face whose most dangerous section is the Khumbu IceFall. Sherpas work during the night offering prayers to the mountain spirits before they cross this hazardous stretch of terrain, and they to have cross it frequently in order to ferry supplies from Base Camp to camps higher up, strategically placed to allow clients time to acclimatise to the altitude. Early on the morning of April 18, 2014, 16 Sherpas died on this Icefall – more in one day than had ever been killed in an entire year. Peedom’s film captures the chaos from Base Camp on fateful  occasion.

The visuals are simply stunning recorded by two high-altitude specialist cinematographers Renan Ozturk and Ken Sauls, and some aerial helicopters. The narrative then flashes back several weeks as Phurba Tashi, the Sherpa in charge, reluctantly says goodbye to his family: he may never come back alive suffering the same fate as his sister-in-law, but the family needs the money to survive.

Commentary from various experts offers context: mountaineering writer Ed Douglas and Tenzing Norgay’s sons are the most informative. Being Buddhists the Sherpas are intuitive and non-confrontational but in extremis they will protest, and a scuffle that broke out in 2013 between a group of clients and Sherpa guides where we see an American climber swearing at a group of Sherpas.

Russell Brice, who runs a large travel firm organising mountain tours (costing around 50,000 US dollars), is eager to stand by his clients, many whom are making second and third attempts, but also respects his Sherpa guides and ultimately has to make a choice between the two after the disaster takes place at the start of a busy season. Phurba Tashi choses a path of enlightenment. Jennifer Peedom’s account of what happened is simply astonishing. If ever there was a documentary thriller, this is it. MT

NOW ON NETFLIX | SHERPA WON THE GRIERSON AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY | LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015

 

Sumé: The Sound of the Revolution (2014) | 4th Nordic Film Festival 2015

Dir.: Inuk Sillis Hoegh

Documentary; Denmark/Norway 2014, 73 min.

Over 700 years ago the Inuit settled in Greenland but for the last quarter of a century their culture, that thrives on cooperation rather than the trademark firerce competition of the West, was fading suppressed by their Colonial masters in Denmark. Danish is the first language of the country, taught at school, and no professional career in Greenland is possible without it. And whilst there is an “Advisory Council” on the island, all decisions are made by the Danish parliament – and that still stands today today, even after Denmark granted Greenland a sort of home rule

It took a rock band called SUMÉ finally to ignite their revolutionary spirit back in 1972, performing for the first time in the Greenlandic language and led by singer and songwriter Mlik Hoegh and composer Per Berthelsen. Their first album “Sumé 73” – the cover showing the reproduction of a 19th century woodcut depicting a Danish trader killed by Inuit hunter – was so radical that even their young supporters were in awe of the music. The group met while studying in Copenhagen. The Sumémusicians felt, like many of their fellow citizens “that Denmark was getting rich on their backs.” Greenlandic cultural identity and lifestyle was slowly be replaced by the Danish way of life.

But many older politicians wanted to keep the status quo, and Sumé and its young followers used the Vietnam War and the Black Panther movement to connect to the protest movement in Europe. Their songs were rooted in the struggle in their homeland, like “Quillisat”, the name of a mining town which was abruptly evacuated: the Danish authorities had decided that the profit margin was not sufficient enough so all inhabitants were moved from their old-fashioned family homes into high-rise blocks far away. As predicted by many, the group split up in 1974 after he members returned to Greenland at the end of their studies, even though they were re-united in 1988, producing a forth album.

Sumé is not only a nostalgic trip into the past, the – by now rather aged – fans of the group give their opinion in interviews, and their tenor is clear: not much has changed in Greenland and the hope is for a new generation, bringing real independence to the country. Anyone watching the newsreel clips of Danish royalty in their court outfits visiting the Inuit, will agree to the mismatch: this is not a marriage of consent, but a convenient economical deal for Denmark. The spirited resistance of Suméé’s music lives on and is well integrated in this lively documentary about an ancient culture trying to free itself from it s colonial chains. AS

SCREENING AS PART OF THE 4TH NORDIC FILM FESTIVAL | ON  TOUR NATIONWIDE UNTIL JANUARY 2016 | NOTTINGHAM | MANCHESTER |

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The Idealist (2015) | Idealisten | 4th Nordic Film Festival 2015

Dir.: Christina Rosendahl

Cast: Peter Plaugborg, Arly Jover

Denmark 2015, 114 min.

THE IDEALIST is a docu-drama featuring the journalist Poul Brink (1953-2002) whose research between 1988 and 1995 uncovered a conspiracy involving one of the greatest political scandals in Danish history that still reverberates today.

Christina Rosendahl, known mostly for her documentaries such as Stargazer (2002), here reconstructs the events that started on January 21th 1968, when an American B-52 bomber crashed near Thule airbase in Greenland (which is still is more or less a Danish colony). Carrying four hydrogen bombs – only three were recovered – the accident disappeared from history. Twenty years later, the radio journalist Poul Brink (Plaugborg, In your Arms), working in Jutland, discovered that the majority of about 30 workers, who were used in the cleaning up operation “Project Crested Ice” after the Thule accident, had developed skin cancer, some of their children were born disabled. The workers, who underwent scans, all got letters from the Danish Health service, telling them that they were healthy.

It is here where Brink’s work starts by convincing the Health Service bureaucrats to come clean. But during his research of the Thule incident, Brink stumbles into revealing a much more potent scandal: Danish governments of the post WWII period, mostly led by Social Democrats, had opposed nuclear weapons. But in 1957, the than Prime Minister Jens-Otto Krag had signed a secret agreement with the US government, allowing them the use of their territory to ferry around nuclear weapons. Like true gentlemen, the US government helped to supress any information about the Thule incident, particularly since the Social Democratic government of JC Hansen faced a General Election – which they lost anyway – a few days later. During the seven years of his battle to have the government owe up, Brink usually got answers along the lines of “this happened under the Social Democrats” or “they were different times”. The journalist chases one of the US participants in the cover-up to his home in Texas, where the police remove him from the premises. Finally, he uncovers the secret document, but is threatened with a prison sentence by the Danish authorities, if he would reveal the document in full. After Brink resists, he lives one year under the shadow of this threat. The whereabouts of the missing hydrogen bomb is still an issue in Greenland,, fighting for full independence from Denmark – after all the bomb was 73 times more powerful than the one exploded over Hiroshima. And whilst the workers were compensated with 5000 GBP (!) each, the Danish government never apologised for the incident or its cover-up.

Rosendahl does not concentrate on Brink – apart from scenes showing him with his Spanish girlfriend Estibaliz Hernandez (Jover) and his son Kristian whom he alienates with his obsessive struggle for the truth – but uses him as a dieu-ex-machina who drives the story forward. Newsreel clips accompany this powerful docu-drama which champions a man possessed by finding the truth – an idealist who had believed in the honourable history of his country, only to be confronted by an insane level of secrecy and threats. AS

SCREENING AS PART OF THE 4TH NORDIC FILM FESTIVAL | THE FESTIVAL SHOWS NATIONWIDE UNTIL JANUARY 2016 | BRISTOL | GLASGOW | NOTTINGHAM

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Ice and the Sky (2015)

Writer|Director: Luc Jacquet

89min | Eco-documentary | France

A great companion film to Jeff Orlowski’s CHASING ICE (2012)

Global warming:myth or reality? Whatever your viewpoint, you cannot failed to be moved and stupified by the startling revelations of Claude Lorius, the Jacques Cousteau of climate change, who is the eco-warrior of this documentary, brought to us by March of the Penguins director Luc  Jacquet. Penguins feature briefly here but only in archive footage as Claude Lorius, now in his 80s, embarks on his lifelong mission to analyse and document the link between climate change and greehouse gases.

First travelling to the Antarctic in 1953, he has spent the past half century drilling into the ice to research his findings in order to prove slowly, surely, but beyond doubt, the subtle changes that are so critical to the future of our Planet.

Jacquet’s documentary flies in the face of climate change deniers and yet there’s nothing inflammatory or vehement about his claims or the calm method with which he presents them. The tone is sombre, rational yet quietly affecting. Enduring extremes of hardship and deprivation with his colleagues –  he jokes how they ‘banned’ bads moods – and footage sees them entertaining each other during the long periods closeted in their communal heated room, salivating over descriptions of haute cuisine from the Michelin Restaurant Guide 1952 and even using “ancient ice” in a whisky toast later leading to the discovery that trapped air in the ice crucially reveals its gas content.

What emerges from his findings is based on the realisation that the ratio of “light” hydrogen atoms to “heavy” in each snowflake is closely linked to the ambient temperature of the day of the snowfall – hence the dawn of the isotopic thermometer. Through his meticulous and painstaking discoveries, Loriet builds a body of evidence that’s overwhelming in its plausibility. And Loriet seems to genuinely revel in his work, embracing the challenges and enjoying the friendships forged during his lengthy trips to the Polar regions which take his away from his wife and children for a total of 10 years.

Stephane Martin’s sparkling images makes this a feast for the eyes, but it’s not just another pretty eco-documentary: Jacquet collates his film in a powerfully cogent way that knocks the cosy smugness of denial imdustry into a cocked hat, challenges us in its final moments with an uncomfortable wake-up call: “Now that you know, what are you going to do?” ICE AND THE SKY is potent and unsettling. MT

ICE AND THE SKY IS OUT ON 5 DECEMBER 2015

Bjornoya | Bear Island (2014) Prime Video

Wri|Dir: Edda Grjotheim, Inge Wegge | 78min | Action Doc | Norway

A snowboarding and surfing trip to Bear Island in the Barents Sea seems like a foolhardy idea even by Norwegian standards, but highly entertaining as we soon discover.

The three cheerful brothers- Hakon, Markus and Inge (who looks surprisingly like Jesse Eisenberg) set off on their daredevil mission all kitted up to nines with cold weather gear and prepared for the elements.

A jaunty soundtrack accompanies the doc’s extraordinary live action sequences showing the guys to be fit, well-prepared and genial despite the seriously scary weather conditions. Getting on like a tent on fire, (they kindle a wood fire under canvas to light their stove) they even get up early one bone-numbing morning to swim naked in the sea.

Cinematically this provides some sublimely eerie images of perma cold conditions, floating mists – the only brightness coming from the brothers’ high tech suits. There are some inventive moments with the camera occasionally grazing the ground, split screen shots, time-lapses and slo-mo adding a comtemplative, dreamlike touch that contrasts well with the brothers’ high energy, feel good vibe. No sibling rivalry here.

The awe-inspiring remoteness of the freezing terrain is surprisingly devoid of animal life – an arctic fox scampers by foraging for food, and seal blubber slips onto the menu eventually to make things authentic, clearly not something the boys would have wished for with its nauseous taste of cod liver oil. On a more alarming level, they notice the constant stream of plastic floating towards the North Pole – one even tries some Sprite left in one of the sealed bottles.

Masochists, nature enthusiasts and extreme sports fans will love this arthouse doc that travels to the Northern tip of Europe. But body-boarding in the frost laden waters of the Barents sea feels so hostile and bleak that the trip takes on endurance test proportions – not only for the cast – who do their best with endlessly chipper commentary. That said, there is a naked beauty and a balletic rhythm to this documentary that marks the directors out to be a talented pair who will hopefully go on to produce more of this kind of ‘extreme sport in remote locations’ fare that’s entertaining when one can appreciate it from somewhere warmer. MT

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO 

165 Hasselby (2005) | 4th Nordic Film Festival | 3 – 8 December 2015

Dir.: Mia Engberg; Documentary; Sweden 2005, 78 min.

Mia Engberg (Belville Baby) grew up on the Hasselby Estate near Stockholm in the seventies and eighties. In this upbeat documentary she re-visits the high rise blocks of her youth, built to house people away from the densely populated city Hasselby grew out of a progressive housing policy at the time, but like most estates all over the world, it failed to encouraged the social inclusion of the inhabitants.

To start with, Hasselby is not a hopeless project like the soulless estates around Paris, or some of the slums of Glasgow: it is run down, but there is still a living spirit, a sort of constructive resistance against an establishment which has dumbed low income away from the capital. Shot between autumn 2004 and 2005, Engberg concentrates on four young people, who use their creativity positively, as so manage to rise rise above their environment, at least for some of the time.There is Ayesha, a young woman, born in Tanzania, who has lived all over the world, including India. At a benefit gig for Palestine, Ayesha shows an Israeli flag, which is grabbed by a blond girl, who later criticises her for showing “a symbol of imperialism and racism”. But she isno match for the feisty Ayesha, who tells her flat out “that not all Israeli’s are bombers, neither are all Palestinians”. We learn later, that her music video had been shown on MTV. An Italian boy Frazze (12) is the youngest of the four. Suffering from depression and ADHD, he has been expelled from school and put his family through a traumatic time but after taking up spray painting with the elder boys, and was looking forward to his new school.

Chliean Julio, is a musician who finally found love after a dispiriting battle with the authorities after a failed attempt to withdraw cash from an ATM, left him thousands of of Euros in dept In the end, he never got his money back, back found a girl friend in his native Chile, who came back to Sweden with him. With his brother he raps in front of the Nordea bank ATM which “cheated” him.

“Dino” his real name is withheld and his face is partly blacked out, because he is an illegal “painter”, has been arrested many times and fined more than 70000 SK for spraying tube trains and buildings. He talks about his hobby as an addiction – a dangerous one, because one of his friends had been shot whilst “working”. He and Ayesha get together for the summer celebration of Hasselby, but their paintings are seen as too radical and anti-American. They have to paint a new background for the stage, but the concert is a great success.

In spite of structural looseness, 165 Hasselby is a very lively portrait. Shot in guerrilla filmmaker style, Engberg’s portrait is non-judgemental and she treats her protagonists with respect – and in Ayesha’s case, admiration. AS

THE NORDIC FILM FESTIVAL | 3 -8 DECEMBER IN LONDON AND NATIONWIDE UNTIL JANUARY 2016

Chemsex (2015) |

Directors: William Fairman, Max Gogarty

85min  Doc  UK

Fairman and Gogarty investigate the increasing use of drugs in gay recreational sex in a worthwhile documentary that raises serious issues, not least for the gay community.

Recreational drug use has always been widespread in gay community including occasional weekend forays for those with non-scene profiles: ie who partner-up and remain faithful, possibly even fathering families. But here the directors dig deeper to reveal a more disturbing trend in the type of men who are falling prey to regular abuse that can lead to mental instability and fatal addiction, not to mention a rather cavalier attitude towards deliberate HIV infection.

A selection of brave young gay men tell their Chemsex stories to the camera: Enrique, Miguel, Andrew are revealed, others remain behind a curtain; the film gradually explores their lives in greater detail and some fascinating facts emerge about their mental stability. There is talk of dysfunctional backgrounds and the shame associated with coming-out that has made them ultra-sensitve and introspective about their sexuality. Drug use then becomes a crutch to lean on, giving them  confidence and emotional freedom from the shackles of fear, doubt, loneliness and isolation, particularly in large cities like London. Those coming from abroad are also vulnerable. Spanish national Enrique in a case in point, after arriving with an MA in Economics and a job in banking, he down-spiralling into prostitution after falling prey to the ‘confidence-boosting’ effects of recreational drug abuse (known as ‘slamming’). Chemsex involves substances that enhance the libido such as ‘Tina” (crystal meth) and G (GBL is stronger than GHB although they are both given the same initial). All these drugs enhance ‘feelgood’ dopamine release in the human brain at low levels, but have sedative affects with higher doses and can gradually lead to emotional collapse.

The men are caught in a vicious circle, extolling the virtues of drugged sex and claiming they would never go back to having ‘ordinary’ sex. The one who seek help, want to break the cycle. Often filmed in group orgies, or in couples, many of the men are actually on the internet sites such as ‘grindr’, looking for their next partner while still in the throes of a sexual encounter and this may be their 20th one that weekend.

One pioneer who is helping to counsel men with substance abuse is David Stuart, who works out of 56 Dean Street (Enrique started working there at the time of the film). This is a service provided by the NHS, aiming to rehabilitate addicts who feel isolated, despite their internet hook-ups, which are cited as having made socialisation worse. Before, they may have spend time with friends for dinner and cinema: now they are merely having meaningless sex and going home feeling empty. This, in some ways, mirrors the heterosexual dating trend ‘netflix and chill’ that involves endless hook-ups for one night stands, a experiences that alienates and depresses those interested in forming ongoing, steady relationships.

What emerges in CHEMSEX victims is a general picture of emotional insecurity that degenerates into mental illness, facilitated by drug abuse. But Fairman and Gogarty have only examined those who have worked with David Stuart. Presumably there are gays out there who are suffering and every dying. Everyone can fall victim to abuse: but in the gay community this manifests particularly in drug addiction that leads to abuse at the hands of others during ‘bareback’ sex parties’.  These men often deliberately become HIV-positive – and in Andrew’s case – to bring relief from the worry of eventually being infected.

But what is slightly questionable here are attempts by the filmmakers to glamorise these episodes with hazy camera shots of hedonistic ‘shagfests’ and there is made mention in the credits of ‘art direction’ which seems to fly in the face of the serious nature of some of the material.

CHEMSEX does have a positive finale with onscreen texts relating how the various men are progressing, having benefitted from the free NHS counselling service. If the NHS can offer free counselling to recreational drug abusers, the Government are making a positive contribution to gay mental health. But the saddest and most salient fact to come away with is that five gay men are diagnosed with HIV every day in London. MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 4TH DECEMBER 2015

 

 

Goya – Visions of Flesh and Blood (2015)

Director: David Bickerstaff | Producer: Phil Grabsky

Biopic | Documentary |

Francisco Goya is Spain’s most celebrated artist and often considered one of the leading protogonists of the modern art movement; his piercing psychological insight seen in his portraits of Spain’s leading figures during a time of great turbulence for Europe at the crossroads of the 19th Century.

In this feature-length documentary based on the major exhibition GOYA: THE PORTRAITS at London’s National Gallery, the film builds a compelling portrait of the artist’s 80 year life offering critical appraisal from experts and contemporary artist, illuminating behind the scenes footage, masterpieces from international collections and visits to the places where Goya lived and worked in Spain and France.

Once again regular collaborators, producer Phil Grabsky and director David Bickerstaff, offer an insightful and visually compelling arthouse piece with filmed excerpts provided by a professional actor in the part of Goya himself, to flesh out their straightforward documentary narrative, much as they did in their Van Gogh documentary.  Occasionally feeling like an Open University title with its largely didactic approach, GOYA: VISIONS OF FLESH AND BLOOD is nevertheless absorbing and highly watchable. The film uncovers Goya’s close friendships and dalliances showing him to be a brilliant observer of everyday life and of Spain’s troubled past, and a gifted portraitist and social commentator par excellence. Bickerstaff’s peerless camerawork compliments Goya’s brushwork and technique showing how his penchant for white lead oils could well have lead to his deafness in later life but also shows how the painter developed his talent, continually improving and honing his craft, taking the genre of portraiture to new heights of genius, despite times of great financial hardship. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 1 DECEMBER 2015 COURTESY OF EXHIBITIONONSCREEN and ARTSALLIANCE.COM

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Unbranded (2015)

Director: Phillip Baribeau

105mins | Documentary| US

Best described as a Western Documentary Phillip Paribeau’s UNBRANDED sees four young wannabe cowboys, fresh from college, follow their dream on a wild adventure along a 3,ooo mile backbone of the Mexico borders to Canada.

Their chosen method of transport is by mustang, just a folksy word for the wild horses (that were originally imported into the country 500 years ago by Spanish conquistadores) and whose cause the boys are promoting: Over 50,000 of the beasts are looking for adoptuion in holding facilities. Since 1971, the horses have been protected on the land and there is controversary as to whether they are over-breeding – as rangers claim, or are under threat. But under the AML guidelines (Appropriate Management Levels), the territory can only support 23,000 mustangs and there are currently over twice that amount, 60% are in Nevada alone, and therefore their existance is potentially untenable, aacording to so,e. Fortunately, the horses’ cause has been considerably enhanced by the doc winning the Audience Award at Hots Docs in Toronto.

Audiences may find the idea of a rites of passage journey exhilarating but occasionally the boys complain of boredom and resort to reading on horseback during their journey, ironically ‘Shades of Grey’ is the book of choice for one man – casting considerable doubt on his abilities to meditate and ruminate on greater things in this magnificent countryside of Utah, Montana, Oregon

Ben Masters leads the five month expedition through some of the most glorious scenery known to mankind and Dp  camerawork is simply stunning to behold offering unbridled footage of national parks such as the Yellowstone and the Glacier. But the major challenge comes from the mustangs themselves who are fiercely wild and independent and, most of the time, an unknown quantity offering plenty of dramatic tension in this entetaining and informative film, scored by a Sergio Leone style original soundtrack. But for those looking for fast-moving action sequences there may be some longeurs: this is more about quiet meditation and being at one with nature.

The story kicks up briefly for some 4th of July celebrations including a tradional rodeo and cut throats shaves all round for the boys, in Jackson. But Ben claims to be “glad to get out of there”  as they continue their journey. Donkeys join the group but there are also losses on the mustang front and eventually the trip proves tiring as food supplies start to offer poor variety on the nourishment front. “No matter how beautiful a country is, at some point it becomes a test of endurance,” and this particularly the problem when the troop have to take the long way round, in the case of private ground. And arguments break out as the tensions start to surface. But Ben Masters’ endeavour is ultimately about promoting the horses fight for survival so that every man and beast can successfully share the natural beauty and ressources of this spectacular part of the world.

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 NOVEMBER 2015

 

 

UK Film Festival | 25 – 28 November 2015 | LUX Awards

THE UK FILM FESTIVAL offers an innovative selection of feature films by established and up and coming directors, as well as cutting edge documentaries, and animation films. Films are screened to the public every evening at two central London venues. Many screenings will be followed by film-maker Q+A sessions, after which there will also be an opportunity for informal discussion with the film directors present.

Short film highlights in the Festival include Michael Lennox’s delightful drama BOOGALOO AND GRAHAM, which won a BAFTA for Best British Short Film earlier this year, and was also nominated for an Oscar; and the beautifully shot LEIDL by Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto, which won the Palm D’Or for Best Short Film at the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival.

The festival includes a Surprise Screening of a Roald Dahl story now adapted into a feature – the title of which is yet to be revealed. Judging the competition this year is the Oscar winning Director – Mat Kirkby.

On November 16 and 17 the LUX finalists are screening at the Barbican supported by the UK Film Festival. The LUX Prize finalists are:

The festival includes The LUX Film Prize Awards from three shortlisted candidates: MEDITERRANEA, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s MUSTANG, and Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s THE LESSON. 

MEDITERRANEA | Jonas Carpignano | Barbican 2 | 16 November 18.30

UROK (THE LESSON) | Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov | Barbican 2 | 17 November 18.30

MUSTANG | Deniz Gamze Ergüven | Barbican | 25th November |TBC

BFI Steven Street | Opening Event | 8:00 pm Surprise Screening of a Roald Dahl adaptation starring Dustin Hoffman, Judy Dench and James Corde

THE FULL UK FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAMME HERE

 

 

Sheffield Doc Fest Comes to London | 4-6 December 2015 |

A selection of documentaries that premiered at this year’s SHEFFIELD DOCFEST are screening at Bertha Dochouse next weekend Good Girl, Containment and Drone. Exploring contemporary themes of mental health, nuclear containment and the ethics of drone technology these illuminating docs each examine questions and ideas that lie at the heart of scientific thinking and showcase creativity and innovation in filmmaking.

GOOD GIRL (Dir. Solveig Melkeraaen/Norway 2014) Friday 4th December / 18:30

An acclaimed portrait of one woman’s descent into the darkness of mental health, Norwegian director Solveig Melkeraaen’s film Good Girl is nevertheless an often humorous and poetic response to her own condition. Taking the worst aspect of her illness – a compulsive, controlling anxiety – and puts it to good use, Melkeraaen creates an extraordinarily stylised docu-drama both heart-breaking and hopeful in equal measure. With unprecedented access to her treatment process and her loving family, Melkeraaen takes the audience on a journey through the devastating consequences of depression. The results leave us with an extremely raw but stylish autobiographical tale as deftly executed as any Michel Gondry movie.

DRONE (Dir: Tonje Hessen Schei/Denmark 2014)

Sunday 6th December / 18:30

The ultimate exposé, Tonje Hessen Schei’s film Drone is as gripping as a blockbuster and as terrifying as any newsreel. In an age of increasing demand for virtual reality content an all-too-real kind of soldier has been born, the so-called ‘Drone Warrior’. Revealing the deadly consequences of the post- 9/11 war on terror extent and spookily topical in its subject matter, Drone uncovers the perpetrators and victims on both sides of this deadly phenomenon, and asks potent questions about the legality, technology and morality of this thoroughly modern warfare.

SHEFFIELD DOC FEST COMES TO LONDON | 4 -6 DECEMBER 2015 | www.dochouse.org |

Tell Spring Not to Come This Year (2015) |Cambridge Film Festival 2015

Dir.: Taji Farouky

Michael McEvoy; Documentary

Afghanistan/UK 2015, 83 min.

The Heavy Weapons Company, 3rd brigade, 215 Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA) has the thankless task of serving in the Gereshk River Valley in Helmand Province, named “Bomb Alley” by NATO troops. The location has been used many times for British films about soldiers in this lethal area. With NATO troops gone in 2014, the ANA has to fight the resurgent Taliban, very much on its own.

This is a personal documentary, told from the perspective of Captain Jalaluddin and Private Sunnatullah, the latter fighting since 2001. The most difficult aspect of their struggle is that the Taliban soldiers are hiding everywhere and even if they are captured by the regular army they are often released without further investigation after a few days. Some soldiers are angry and want to tie the Taliban to the back of their Humvees, but the interrogations are civil for the most part. Another problem is the continuing cultivation of opium. The farmers only admit to growing wheat, “the opium is on my cousins field”.

In their military base, an old sign left by American troops proclaims “God bless our troops, particularly the snipers”. The soldiers admit that they wanted NATO to pull out, but not so early. They have no illusions about their own government: “The government is a puppet of the Americans, but we still want to fight the Taliban”. And: “NATO achieved their own goals and left”. There are no illusions either about their own status: Most of the soldiers left school at the age of 15, they are “the poor and hopeless, who are asked to serve and say yes”. They often lie to their families about the danger they are facing, more afraid what their death would mean to their families, than actually dying.

The 3rd Brigade is sent to Sangin province, since the Taliban has started the largest offensive for 13 years. Sangin is a strategically important province, if it would fall to the Taliban, the surrounding district would soon be also in the hands of the Taliban. The 3rd brigade was promised that their stay in Sangin would last for just 24 hours, but in the end it lasted 45 days. The unit was soon encircled by the Taliban, which had stormed a police HQ, and gained all the heavy weapons, with which they were decimating the 3rd brigade, fighting from a little fort. The men have nearly given up hope, since the supporting troops have left them. But somehow, they are relieved, only to watch the wounded to be operated on, and mourning their dead friends. One soldier quotes a poem, which gave the film the title: “Tell spring not to come this year, not to cover the land with its shroud, let no nightingale sing, oh my country, alas my country.”

In their strictly non-judgemental approach, the directors try not to give their film any deeper meaning: it speaks for itself. Senseless deaths for over 14 years have taken their toll; but it is surprising how clear the soldiers see their situation, and how sane they are still, after witnessing the butchering of friends and foes. There can be no winners and losers; just the dead, to whom this documentary is dedicated: 30 soldiers were killed during filming, on top of countless civilians. AS

REVIEWED DURING THE CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL 2015 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

Dead Slow Ahead (2015) | Seville Film Festival 2015 |

Director: Mauro Herce
Writers: Mauro Herce, Manuel Muñoz Rivas

Spain/France | Documentary | 70 min

Mauro Herce’s invigoratingly nightmarish DEAD SLOW AHEAD is the masterclass in sound design that your ears never knew they needed. At 70 minutes, Herce’s feature-length debut is a lushly disquieting documentary about life at sea—though the creaks, groans and sighs of the freighter on which it was filmed are prioritised, for the most part, over the humans that inhabit and maintain it. This highly impressive, wholly immersive Spanish-French co-production won the Special Ciné+ Jury Prize upon bowing at Locarno this year, and won Best World Documentary at Jihlava Documentary Film Festival, prior to screening in both the ‘New Waves’ strand and the characteristically strong ‘Resistencias’ competition at the 12th Seville European Film Festival.

DEAD SLOW AHEAD takes place on the Fair Lady, an enormous cargo ship on the high seas of the Mediterranean. Its crewmembers—so closing credits tell us—hail from Odessa, Nicolaev, Istanbul, Port Said, Ismailia, Suez, Aqaba, Cueta, Triumph and New Orleans. That’s just about all the information we’re able to glean about their backgrounds, however, for Herce focuses more—at least for the spellbinding first half-hour—on the sound textures and rhythms at work within this languorous steel kraken, illuminating the musicality of its throbbing, horror-like pulse. (The important credits here are Daniel Fernández, sound; Alejandro Castillo and Manuel Muñoz Rivas, sound design; Carlos E. Garcia, mix; and José Manuel Berenguer, music.) Sonar beeps sound off like a track from experimental electronic band Autechre, while internal rumbles and churning whirs play out like an ancient whale’s prolonged, mournful cries. Is this an Ark for a post-industrial age, drifting across the earth’s seas in search of an ungodly land flooded long ago? Or is it the first ship to chart a new and wondrous planet?

It comes as something of a relief when Herce first cuts away from the close confines of the ship itself to a panorama of daytime mist. As if compelled by some dormant force beyond the thick fog, however, tunefully ominous sounds begin to crescendo in again: a wall of wind, industrial howls, and expressive, non-diegetic wails. In this vast, open eternity, the Fair Lady provides shelter to men from horizon-dwelling storms. The ship is a hermetically sealed universe affording its own sonic logic, with something as otherwise mundane as a ringing telephone elevated to a screech of dreadful import. “Attention, please,” says one crewmember into the receiver. “There’s water coming into the ship. An entire river is entering through the keel. That’s a lot.”

Herce would do well not to draw too much attention to the viscous velocity of his film. The Fair Lady might have actually made a better, less obvious title—for the ship is the one immovable constant in a film that otherwise makes a point of dramatic fluctuations. The same previously mentioned scene, for instance, in which a sailor reports an emergency, is shot from a fixed frame, so that while the mise-en-scène looks dead-still like a photograph, the actual backdrop—the horizon—bobs in and out of view through the windows that look from the ship’s bridge into infinity. When water begins to leak into the ship, there’s nothing the ship itself can do, as is again made evident by a tripod-fixed shot, taken from the bridge looking over the hull. It emphasises the vessel’s rigidity as it’s tossed around with hammy, old-age grandiosity by the playfully ruthless sea.

It’s perhaps unfortunate timing that DEAD SLOW AHEAD should arrive so soon after LEVIATHAN (2012), by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, or even after CRUDE OIL (2008), Wang Bing’s fourteen-hour epic about life on a remote Chinese oil field. But Herce’s is a more stylised film than Wang’s, and unlike LEVIATHAN, it’s less concerned with the processes of human labour than the vessel’s actual architecture: at one point we see the ship’s blueprints, while at others the colour palette boasts the kind of orange-green contrasts only ever seen in heavy industrial milieu (Herce graduated in engineering and fine arts before enrolling at film schools in Cuba and Paris).

Just as the Fair Lady seems disproportionately immobile, incapable and insignificant compared to the ocean that surrounds it, so the sound and ferocity of its own machinery overwhelm the fragile, human frames within it. During one scene in which we see the seamen enjoying downtime by participating in a bout of karaoke, Herce has the images of such revelry accompanied by a non-diegetic soundscape completely at odds in tone and timbre. Late in the film, we hear the men make calls home to wish loved ones a happy new year—but the images we see are mechanical pans through the ship’s deepest bowels and impossibly smooth tilts up through its pipework. The natural speed of the human conversations we hear couldn’t further contradict the supernatural slowness of the non-human mechanisms by which Herce observes his way through this geometric environment—before settling, in the film’s one explicitly derivative moment, on a ventilation duct, like that haunting penultimate sequence of Apichatpong’s SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (2006).

DEAD SLOW AHEAD also recalls Allan Sekula and Noel Bürch’s THE FORGOTTEN SPACE (2010), an essay film about the freighting trade and its relationship to transglobal capitalism. But whereas that film was an eminently intellectual exercise, Herce’s debut is a decidedly—and, it must be said, profitably—aesthetic affair. Not that the two have to be separate, of course, but this film’s philosophical currents emerge not so much through speculative rumination (no voice-over, scant dialogue) as through its commitment to conspicuously cinematic mood-setting—and, yes, storytelling. MICHAEL PATTISON

DEAD SLOW AHEAD IS SCREENING AT SEVILLE FILM FESTIVAL 6-14 NOVEMBER 2015 | WINNER OF THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE – FILMMAKERS OF THE PRESENT | LOCARNO 2015 

The Fear of 13 (2015)

Dir. David Sington. UK, 2015, 96 mins.

Hopefully, it’s not often that you’ll find yourself listening to an endless stream of drivel, delivered by an arch criminal, albeit a well-dressed and articulate one. But this is what you get with arthouse indie THE FEAR OF 13.

Director David Sington (Thin Ice) has been making award-winning films all over the world that have ‘freed the innocent and convicted the guilty’. His latest docudrama takes place in the stultifying confines of a small room in the company of ‘Nick’. with filmed excerpts intended to add interest and enlighten us further on his subject’s nefarious past – a ‘convicted murderer’ who has spent the 23 years on Death Row before the advent of DNA testing . For the most part Sington’s film feels like a confessional rather than an account of the salacious past of a murderer. Obviously there are grim details here but nothing worse than one might expect from BBC News At Ten. ‘Nick’ has the soft-spoken, calmness of a true psychopath. The tone is conciliatory and at times even poetic. Revelations spill out, often accompanied by tellingly violent gestures and a percussive tone, sometimes smiles leeringly as he unburdens his soul to reveal a tormented past of high hopes and dashed expectations over a murder he claims never to have committed.

‘Nick’s past is pitted with his unpredictable outbursts and psychotic interludes – stealing, looting, lying, deceiving for the hell of it – but in his calm and mesmerising delivery, these are played down as small fry in the scheme of his hurt feelings and disappointments with life’s setbacks. Self-justification is occasionally proffered: a poor relationship with his father or a perceived rejection by his family. He even claims to have been raped as a small boy, while walking his poodle in the woods. All this aims to justify why he went on to pursue the career of a criminal – that was never really his fault and he refuses to be defined by it – leading to the dream of eventually ‘finding himself a girl and having a family’. Clearly Nick was not interested in learning about morals  or ethical rehabilitation while on Death Row, but he did develop a passion for reading and discovered the word triskaidekaphobia – the fear of thirteen. Was he a murderer though? All is revealed in Sington’s clever third act twist.

Clearly once the sheer amazement at ‘Nick’s brazen attitude has worn away, you find yourself growing bored of this irritatingly narcissistic character who believes everyone owes him a living, and that his criminal ways are justified by his difficult past, all ‘independently’ verified, as we are informed. Cleverly, he goes to dupe the Courts and finally Sington. In a ‘coup de grace’ of the truly passive aggressive, ‘Nick’ petitions the courts to set a date for his execution. Almost like the stalker who claims to have been the victim of stalking, this is the final straw.

Sington’s direction and reasonable pacing allows events to unfold seamlessly, but the undercurrent here is one that encourages sentimentality for this Uriah Heap-style convict who is “ever so umble me lud”. As water tumbles over his chair, representing the ‘ocean of tears’ that this poor, misunderstood man has been through? Sington finally delivers his clever denouement. MT

THE FEAR OF 13 IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 NOVEMBER 2015

 

 

 

 

 

Bili Khmary (1968) White Clouds | UCLSSEES Centenary

Director: Rolan Serhiienko

Cast: Iurii Dubroviv Iurii Nazarov

 65min   Drama  Ukraine

Rolan Serhiienko’s 1968 feature debut is a poetic realist drama that explores a tragic episode of Ukrainian history. Using experiential ethnography to record the effects of the interwar process of collectivization on a family of peasant farmers in Ukraine, this sixties recollection of a time of chaos, widescale suffering and death is a lyrical example of ‘post-memorial’ cinema and offers valuable testament of Stalinism and its effects on the Ukrainian rural population during the 1920s and 30s.

After the Great War, the Soviet Union needed to service the burgeoning nutritional needs of its growing industrial population and these relied heavily on Ukraine’s role as ‘bread basket’ to feed the Bolshevik workers. So, under a policy of forced consolidation, land was collected from the peasant farmers, who owned and farmed it, and redistributed it into Soviet collectives, which would then farm the land under Stalinist run cooperatives known as “kolkhozes”, where strict new laws ensured that grain was handed over to the State. Naturally this rapid process of change and loss caused severe social trauma to the peasant farmers, many of whom preferred to slaughter their animals and eat them, rather than give up their property to the Government.

Based on the recollection of one man, seen from childhood to adulthood, Serhiienko tracks the soulful and desperate experience cinematically, making great use of Ukraine’s panoramic scenery: vast farmlands of swaying corn, orchards, endless country roads and, of course, the magnificent cloudscapes by which his father was able to forecast the weather which was so vital to the liveliehood of crops and animals alike. Soulful, sombre and occasionally sinister in tone: the brief euphoria of contributing collectively to the growth of the nation was rapidly eclipsed by widespread desperation of what enforced strategy implied.

Mykhailo Bielikov’s restless camera hurtles down endless roads to a distant past recording carts and farm animals in motion across the countryside, occasionally looking up from the roadside at passers-by and frequently focusing on local peasants who recount their memories in intimate moments, such as a young woman called Vustia, who eventually breaks down in tears as she reads from her bible. One particularly harrowing scene records a grandmother who appears to be travelling in the passenger seat of a car. In close-up, she talks of her memory of the past and village people she knew back then. But there is an unsettling feel to this scene, almost as if the POV is absent or perhaps a ghost. As the grandmother remembers individual villagers, the narrator explains how they have all died tragically. In Bili Khmary, Serhiienko recalls the pre-birth of cinema photography and how it replaced the Deguerrotype; of Eadweard Muybridge and Juliet Margaret Cameron. Expressionist and impressionist, there is a sense of kinesis that feels both intimate and otherworldly in style.

 The past is often remembered with nostalgia as a time of fruitfulness, fecundity and abundance: long summers; beautiful young people; marriages and births; seeding of crops and fruit particularly, watermelons. But the after being forced to give up their land, often violently and under protest – the memories are of freezing winters, aching limbs, gnawing hunger, tiredness and time poverty. “We have no bread, what shall we feed the children?”

BILI KHMARY is a fine example of ‘postmemorial work’ — Marianne Hirsch’s term to describe the attempt to reactivate intergenerational memorial structures. Screening for the first time ever with English subtitles, it was a remarkable insight into this generation of Ukrainian film-makers and their relationship with the past. Enchanting. MT

REVIEWED AS PART OF THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON’S SCHOOL OF SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES | BLOOMSBURY THEATRE IN CELEBRATION OF THEIR CENTENARY 1915 – 2015

South Social Film Festival | 12 -15 November 2015

SOUTH SOCIAL FILM FESTIVAL is a long weekend of indie film, food and music in South London venues. There’s an opportunity to enjoy some deliciously-themed food to match the independent film premieres before they go on general release in the UK.

The festival kicks off on Thursday November 12th at 7pm with the documentary HEARTS OF TANGO   that gets inside “tanguero’ fever hitting the streets of Toronto, and explores what makes this dance so addictively popular all over the world.

HEARTS OF TANGO 1P R O G R A M M E

Thursday November 12th at 19.00| HEARTS OF TANGO (2014) | live music from Tango specialist Javier Fioramonti | Dulwich Constitutional Club | Empanadas by CHANGO |

Friday November 13th at 19.00| W.A.K.A (2014) | live music from Jazz guitarist Muntu Valdo | Roxy Bar & Screen | Cameroonian style Buffet

Saturday November 14th at 14.30| FILOSOFI KOPI (2014) | Sumatran Coffee tastings from Volcano Coffee Works | PITCHIPOI (2014) at 17.00 | music from London Klezmer Quartet | FEAR OF WATER at 20.00|(2014) | all at Roxy Bar & Screen

Sunday November 15th at 15.30  |VIKTORIA (2015) | Roxy Bar & Screen | 18.30  PER AMOR VOSTRO (2015) | Italian Food by the Italian Institute and SAID Chocolate | Kennington’s Cinema Museum.

SOUTH SOCIAL FILM FESTIVAL | A NICHE FESTIVAL FOR CINEASTES AND FOODIES SOUTH OF THE RIVER

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The Wolfpack (2015) | DVD blu release

Dir.: Crystal Moselle

Documentary; USA 2015, 84 min.

When the filmmaker Crystal Moselle was walking through New York’s East Village in 2010, she saw six boys running through the crowds. With their long hair and stunning features, they looked like a “lost tribe”. Moselle’s natural curiosity took over, and five years later her first feature documentary The Wolfpack, tells the amazing story of six brothers who literally escaped from home after being kept indoors like prisoners, by their parents.

The Wolfpack tells the story of the family that begina in 1989 when Susanne, a hippie from the Midwest, met the Peruvian musician and tour guide Oscar Angulo. They fell in love and moved around before settling in a Hare Krishna Centre in West Virginia. There, four children: Visnu (the oldest, and only daughter); Bhagavan and the twins Govinda and Narayana were born between1990 and 1995, all named after Indian Gods – Oscar wanted to emulate Krishna, who had ten children with each of his three spouses. Before long, Oscar again wanted to hit the road, to become a rock star. Mukanda was born in 1995 in LA, Krishna and Jagadisa in New York, after the family moved there in 1995, because “they had heard that there was cheap housing”. After the parents became aware of the rough environment they were living in, they shut themselves in the apartment with their children, just venturing out to get food or in case of medical emergencies. Oscar developed into a family tyrant and the children, who were home schooled by their mother, had to stay in the room he designated for them and could only leave with his permission. In January 2010, Mukanda left the apartment, wearing a Mike Myers mask. He was arrested and was treated in a psychiatric hospital. But in April, all his brothers followed him out onto the streets – Oscar’s reign was over.

When Moselle met the six kids, their only link to the outside world was via feature films: they had watched over 5000 of them, and had recreated props and costumes of their favourites, which ranged from horror movies and Pulp Fiction to Orson Welles. When the brothers saw a beach at Coney Island for the first time, they associated it with the desert of Lawrence of Arabia. Moselle filmed their many “firsts”: a visit to the cinema among them. Not surprisingly, all brothers now work in various capacities in the film industry, having been taught the basics by Moselle, who also opened their eyes to non-mainstream films.

The director describes her work with the teenage boys as difficult but rewarding, since their mood swings were not always easy to ride out. Their mother Susanne has also emancipated herself from her overbearing husband, having contacted her own mother for the first time in over twenty years. Moselle’s doc is well-paced and, judiciously, does not overstay its welcome, as she gradually reveals the after-effects of this “reign of terror” by a monstrous father.

The Wolfpack, which won the Sundance Prize for ‘Best Documentary’, is unique and original, the result of an accidental meeting, it is much more than just the story of an extraordinary family. Director Moselle describes the process, with a little sadness, as un-retrievable: “There will never be the same innocence again. Their minds and perception have already incorporated the outside world.” AS

NOW DVD blu from 28 December 2015

Eames: The Architect and Painter (2012) | DVD | Barbican Exhibition

Directed by Jason Cohn, Bill Jersey.  Narrated by James Franco

84mins     Documentary

For nearly four decades 908 Venice Boulevard was one of the most creative places in LA thanks to the architect Charles Eames (1907-78). With his wife and partner Ray, he revolutionised the profession, deconstructing the way architects designed by making the workplace free-moving and communal to facilitate an interchange of ideas and practices. His design maxim was “the best for the most for the least”.

EAMES 06In just over an hour, this absorbing documentary successfully showcases the world of Charles Eames, describing not only his architectural achievements but also showing how he became one of the most influential creative geniuses of 20th century America. Exposing a fascinating array of archival material, Jason Cohn brings to life his unique creative talents and captures the personal love story he shared with his wife and partner Ray.

For most of us, Charles Easmes’ main legacy was the iconic chair in leather and chrome. Time magazine called it the greatest design of 20th century but the chair started out as a failure. He originally started work on the design with the Finnish architect Aero Sarinnen. His goal was to create a comfortable and supportive form-fitting chair without padding.  Although the design was workable on the drawing board and won a competition, it could not be brought into successful production and Aero soon left the project.  At this time Charles was broke. Taking up a teaching post at the Art Academy in Cranbrook Michigan, he met and fell for Ray Kaiser, one of his pupils.  She was to change to course of his life and in 1941 they married and set up a design office in Southern California. With her support he became obsessed with successfully continuing production of the chair.

Charles wanted a world where work, love and art all blended together and Ray embraced the same ideal.  They were the perfect couple embracing a compatible talent and a deepening love for each other. After the devastation of the War years where they turned their talents to designing splints for injured soldiers, they went back to perfecting the chair and realised during trial and error that design should ‘flow from the learning’ of these intervening years.

EAMES 12There was no doubt that Eames tried to inject an ethical element into consumerism of this period.  Although many people in the office collaborated in the designs, the only person who could put his name to them was Charles Eames. Ray would always stand behind Charles but she was undeniably key to the design process in every stage and his creative output would not have been the same without her efforts. Charles depended on her artistic skills and her ability to ‘think outside the box’ and create dynamic shapes in juxtaposition to each other.  He also relied on her for her sense of colour and her unique visual ability and vision. A ‘people person’, Ray’s charm and charisma complemented his retiring and rather prickly nature. They were emerging as the most significant married designers working in post-war America and created a seemless environment for their talents and those of their collaborators.

EAMES 16Now active in a dizzying array of disciplines, they produced exhibitions, toys, books, photograpy, paintings and over 100 films. And although the majority of these films never made it onto general release they contained the most original design ideas of the 20th Century.  Most noteworthy of these were House (1955): In a series of 35mm stills, this illustrated how the house came into being.  The intention was to build a house from recycled materials from the war effort but the initial designs were problematic and took 5 years to eventually come into being.       The Eames house evolved over the years and it was largely prefabricated and became their own artistic playground. Royalties from Herman Miller allowed Eames to go beyond his creation of the iconic chair to set up 901 which was a cornucopia of artistic endeavours including the use of film as a tool – not an art form – to satisfy his own desires and embrace his 24-hour work culture. Charles Eames was not particularly gifted in networking and he didn’t suffer fools or anybody who he took a dislike to.  Nor was he a good verbal communicator and found it impossible to articulate his thoughts cohesively on many occasions.  But in some ways this enabled him to retain his design integrity and work constructively with clients without losing his artistic ideals.

EAMES 02Kruchov and Nixon had their kitchen debate and the American National Exhibition was held in Sokolniki Park Moscow in the summer of 1959.  The Exhibition was sponsored by the American government and featured many displays of the latest mod-cons. It was intended as a tool of cultural diplomacy against the Soviet Communist regime. To endorse this Charles and Ray were commissioned to make a film entitled Glimpses of the USA

People were sent all over the States to take nationalistic images which were then edited. The film spoke from the heart and as a piece of propaganda it sold the USA in a sanitised way ending with an image of forget-me-nots. This film endeavour set Charles and Ray up as communicators in an entirely new arena: they were now communicators with pictures and elevated to the status of cultural ambassadors worldwide and interpreters of the American Dream.

At the time IBM was a computer giant. As visionaries in this new world, Charles and Ray wanted to humanise the computer age. Over two decades they became synonymous with the the idea of using computers to help people in their everyday lives. And as  their reputation as visual communicators grew so did their client list: it now included some of the biggest names in American consumerism.  They didn’t have contracts they had handshakes; and for Charles these gentlemans’ agreements worked both ways. He wasn’t concerned about money so much as about giving clients what they wanted.

Charles and Ray wanted to work for the ‘Googles’ of their era, to further their ideas and have them shape the future of America.  Powers of Ten was the best known of the films they created. This picture looked into the future of audiovisual perception.

But although Ray’s eye for form and function and her talent for colour was an asset, it could also be a burden. She was a perfectionist and in some ways over the years this crippled her. Constantly competing for Charles’s attention in every domain was also starting to take its toll. Charles’s intoxicating charisma attracted women, who were naturally drawn to him.  Handsome, smart and cool: everybody wanted Charles and although emotionally bonded to Ray, he was having affairs while continuing his collaboration with her in the office.

The Franklin and Jefferson Show was their final exhibition. Its failure in New York was perceived as largely due to their inability to edit out the exhibits engagingly. However, when the show moved to Europe in 1975,  it was a resounding success for this very reason. British Vogue reported “The layout and visual impact are staggering: one wants to spend days studying the documents, photographs and artifacts that bring the period vividly to life”.

Eventually Charles became tired of running the show and wanted to escape with his camera and travel, but he did not know what to do about Ray who was by nature a homebody. Then fate intervened. In 1978, Charles died suddenly and Ray became head of the office.  Faced with the mammoth task, she rose to the occasion and went on to manage the team and communicate the design ethic for a while but eventually the output and the clients dwindled. Despite this Ray continued to flourish as an individual and, free from the overpowering figure of Charles, she developed her profile as one of the most influential female artistic figures in post-War America. Jason Cohn’s biopic will fascinate those interested in modern design or American history. Newcomers will sim about the love story of two artists who lived their belief that “eventually everything connects”.  Meredith Taylor ©

ART EXHIBITION | THE WORLD OF CHARLES AND RAY EAMES | The Barbican | 21 October – 14 February 2016 | Courtesy of TERRA FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN ART

 

 

 

Amy (2015) | Cannes 2015 | DVD | Blu-ray | Digital release

IMG_1736Director: Asif Kapadia

90min   Musical Documentary UK

Best known for his acclaimed 2010 documentary SENNA about late Formula One driver, Asif Kapadia’s bittersweet biopic AMY, premiering in Cannes, introduces the Southgate-born jazz singer as a “North London Jewish girl with a lot of attitude”, who loved to write poetry and lyrics. Unearthing a treasure trove of photos, home movie footage and demos shared from over 100 interviews from those closest to her, he shows Winehouse as a witty, down to earth and “gobby” girl with a rich and velvety voice, who never wanted to be famous but whose inadvertent stardom let to her tragic death, aged 27.

The legendary Tony Bennett described her as “a natural, true jazz singer” when they performed together towards the end of her career, comparing her quality to Ella Fitzgerald; while Amy’s own confessed role models were Billie Holliday and Thelonius Monk.

Kapadia’s raw and real expose has not gone down well with her father Mitch Winehouse. And it’s easy to see why. No dad wants to witness a full and frank account of his daughter’s personal life – straight from the mouths of friends and lovers – however truthful this may be. But Kapadia never stands in judgement of the singer’s life, telling her story simply and sensitively as it unfolds. Winehouse herself admits “My dad was never there.” But as her career prospered, Mitch is seen becoming more exploitatively involved, when all she had ever wanted was a supportive male figure in her life who she could unconditionally love. Kapadia does not attempt a psychological analysis. It is Amy who confesses how music became her refuge and a way of expressing inner turmoil.

This visually vibrant and often shocking film unspools in a straightforward fashion: Amy’s teenage years marked by singing in the National Youth Jazz orchestra after a middle-class childhood deeply affected by her parent’s split and father’s departure, only to return again; her gradually rise to fame and riches, voiced through photos of various musical collaborators Nick Shymansky, Mark Ronson, Raye Cosbert and Salaam Remi, her obsessive relationship with a self-seeking Blake Fielder-Civil for whom she confesses “unconditional love” after her spectacular fall from grace. Clearly the two were desperately in love but toxically inseparable, alienating their close friends. Honeymoon footage shows them blissfully happy on a speedboat in Miami, but eventually he is seen denouncing Amy for her lack of interest in his life. This was clearly another crushing blow. Tearful girlfriends talk of her ‘phoning to say “Sorry”, for her behaviour shortly before the end. At the depths of her career, photos show her hollowed features and emaciated figure and she appears, dazed and confused. Chat show hosts who welcomed her interviews are later seen openly deriding her afflictions: proof of the fickle nature of fame.

But there are plenty of upbeat moments celebrating her poignant vocals and seductive singing style in performances of “Stronger Than Me’, ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Frank’; her defiant hit ‘Rehab’ contrasts sharply with her negative views on celebrity in her ordinary North London speaking voice, that Jonathan Ross jokingly describes as “common”. And the film vaunts her exotic beauty, raven locks and emerald eyes blinking suggestively in her signature eye-liner as she poses sensuously at the microphone, then playfully screwing up her features with irritation as a female interviewer bores on to her about Dido.

In the end, Kapadia’s respectful and polished documentary shows the glory and the tragedy of this vulnerable and gifted young woman, saddened by her parent’s split, sullied by drugs and alcohol yet honest and convincing. Amy’s life may be an unfinished symphony but she leaves an enduring musical legacy.

Meredith Taylor is the Editor of online film magazine Filmuforia.co.uk. This review also appeared in the Hampstead and Highgate Express and Islington Gazette | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 13 -24 May 2 | AMY IS NOW AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY/DVD/DIGITAL|

* The home entertainment release contains some worthwhile additional features including  touching and intimate scenes (a tattoo is visible on her ring finger) of fresh-faced Amy riffing on her guitar and singing LOVE IS A LOSING GAME; YOU KNOW I’M NO GOOD; REHAB 

* Deleted scenes of a US visit featuring producer Commissioner Gordon and Bob Marley’s ex-band members, a US ad lib recording session of Frank and the Back to Black recording session with Mark Ronson 

* Teaser trailer and UK trailer 

* Nearly 50 minutes of Blu-ray interviews with collaborators 

 

 

Listen to Me Marlon (2015)

Director: Steven Riley | 95min | Documentary | US

A shady enigmatic figure with a sulky exterior is how most of us remember Marlon Brando in his later years (1924-2004). But Steven Riley redresses the balance with this intoxicating documentary compiled from reams of Brando’s own audio tapes recording his innermost thoughts and streams of consciousness that expose the icon’s soul for all to appreciate. It’s unlikely that Marlon would approve of this exposé, commissioned by his own estate. That said, it serves as a remarkable tribute to the screen legend and, for the most part, manages to enhance his profile rather than diminish it;  in a film made a decade after his death.

The film opens with a spooky digitised 3D image of Marlon’s head that the actor created for posterity – rather like some people commission a bronze bust or painting. It sets the tone for the woozy narrative that seems to capture the essence of the Marlon, often drifting dreamlike through filmed footage, clips and photographs of this stunningly handsome screen idol with his velvety voice, ‘come to bed’ eyes and macho persona.

It tells how from an early age Marlon was close to his creatively-driven mother but wary of his father, a travelling salesman who drank and beat his family. Marlon’s early influences came from acting superstar Stella Adler at New York’s, ‘New School’, a theatre and film training establishment run by talented, intellectual Jewish immigrés.

Marlon drifted into acting because he had a talent for ‘lying’: he was the youngest actor to win an Oscar for On the Waterfront, which he felt was undeserved. He later boycotted his Oscar for The Godfather, sending an American Indian to receive it in protest for the portrayal of the US Native race in Hollywood. His looks and allure made him popular with women although he was a poor father figure to the children whose birth he acknowledged: his daughter Cheyenne Brando later committed suicide; his son Christopher killed her boyfriend. There were many others.

But this did not tarnish his earning ability and he was much sought after often commanding vast figures for his acting performances which later left him free to pursue his human rights patronage of Black and Native American causes. A deep thinker and an introvert who isolated himself in the Hollywood Hills and in his beloved Tahiti, LISTEN TO ME MARLON brings out his philosophical edge and his spiritual leanings. He also took his craft seriously, realising his gift was the making of him: “I arrived in New York with holes in my socks, and holes in my mind”. During his lifetime he formed close friendships with other realist actors such as Monty Clift, but on set he was never easy to direct and had contretemps with Trevor Howard during Mutiny on the Bounty and Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now.

Steeped in insights and musings about his life and acting, it emerges that Marlon never took his fame for granted but also yearned for a simpler existence in Tahiti: “A sanity and sense of reality is taken away from you by success”. MT

ON THE WATERFRONT celebrates its 70th Anniversary with a remastered release courtesy of Park Circus

 

A Sicilian Dream (2015)

Dir.: Philip Walsh; Cast: Alain de Cadenet, Francesco Da Mosto; UK 2015, 70 min.

Between 1906 and 1977, the Targa Florio mountain road race in Sicily was much more than a mere sporting event: Much like the Siennese Palio, it was a play with death, performed in front of half a million spectators. Its history is part of the Sicilian identity: heroic, morbid but always glorious, a spectacle – one moment a dream, the next a nightmare. And Philip brings this vividly to life in his short documentary film

We discover how it was founded in 1906 by Vincenzo Florio, member of a cosmopolitan family, who outward-looking, wanted to bring Europe to Italy. The family was well-connected with local artists and authors, among them Count Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, whose novel “The Leopard” was later filmed by Visconti. Many motives of novel and film reverberate in A SICILIAN DREAM. Vincenzo Florio, though the race would finally bankrupted him, realised the family dream of making Sicily centre stage: for decades the best drivers in the world drove the course, which was insane, with poor safety controls for the drivers – the first cars who drove the circuit did not even have front brakes! Even though the early years brought no tragedies, with spectators lining the course with petrol cans, since there were no petrol stations.

The anecdotes are endless, like the one of the English driver Cyril Snipe, who was so tired, that he stopped and slept for two hours before his mechanic woke him with a bucket of cold water. Snipe re-entered the race and still won. In 1926 the first driver was killed, and the fortunes of the Florio family went into reverse. But between the wars, the Golden Age of sports car racing, saw the local school teacher Nino Vaccarella win the race three times. Still a local hero, his appearance is one of the highlights of A SICILIAN DREAM. After the Second World War, the lack of security of a racing course, only used by donkey carts otherwise, signals the end of the race: the 1977 edtion is abandoned half-way through (and the race for good) after a car crashes into a large group of spectators.

The docu-drama format has wonderful images of the Belle Epoche, with scenes of Vincenzo’s early days, and racing rivalries. The archive films of the race make it look truly scaring, particularly the early years are stunning – the adventurous spirit of drivers and spectators are caught in scratchy black-and-white images. The two main protagonists, Alain de Cadenet and Francesco da Mosto (always so enthusiastic and simpatico) join in with the other classic vehicles in a commemorate race through the sun-blasted landscape. During the filming, De Cadenet meets the son of the farmer who saved his life during a race, pulling him out of the burning vehicle, this way achieving a way of closure.

A SICILIAN DREAM is a true piece of Sicilian history: untamed in its beauty, but nevertheless, to quote De Lampedusa, “it is not a country in love with real progress, but with its languidness and love for death”. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 23 OCTOBER 2015

 

The Kings of Nowhere (2015) | Warsaw Film Festival 2015

Director/Writer: Betzabé García

83min | Mexico | Documentary |

The opening moments of KINGS OF NOWHERE—screening in the documentary competition at Warsaw Film Festival, and the first feature-length doc by 25-year-old Betzabé García—boast an intriguing twist. Though a low-angle shot of a man navigating an empty rundown neighbourhood is a decidedly familiar image, we infer from the way his body moves—or rather, doesn’t move—that he can’t be walking; in fact, as we quickly learn, these streets are flooded, and our subject is steering his way around them on a small boat. Allowing her camera to linger, García focus-pulls, so that the figure becomes blurred and the dilapidated dwellings behind him are sharpened. Here, landscape is as important a concern as any human character.

As shooting locations go, García’s is already halfway to being a readymade film set. In 2006, San Marcos—a virtual ghost town in the coastal state of Sinaloa, northwest Mexico—was flooded, with its population displaced and resettled following the construction of the much-opposed gigantic Picachos Dam, which began in 2006. Formerly host to 300 families, the town is inhabited today by less than ten people, whose daily lives—as García’s film shows—are lived out with a mixture of boredom, resilience, stubbornness, and outright fear of the armed gangs that frequently raid it.

Not that any of this is immediately clear. García is, on this evidence, one of those documentarians who prefers context to gradually emerge from a picture rather than being its framing device. In line with a great lineage of observational documentary makers, her strategy is to simply spend time with her subjects—though of course it’s never a matter of ‘simply’ doing anything when it comes to non-fiction. Indeed, the trick in storytelling terms is to carve one single narrative out of a swamp of material so that it can be a digestible entity which fulfils our received notions of character, setting, dramatic stakes and so on.

Winner of an audience award when it screened at SXSW in March, KINGS OF NOWHERE is a dispatch rather than a polemic. It reserves any on-screen text for a context-lending footnote, revealing the town’s population figures, and some information about Atílano Román Tirado, the radio journalist and leader of the Displaced Persons of Picachos—an activist group seeking compensation on behalf of 800 families in the region—who was murdered last year during a live broadcast. This last explanation gives retroactive gravity to those earlier scenes in which two couples—farmers Jaime and Yoya, and tortilleria owners Pani and Paula—have their porch get-together interrupted one evening by what sounds like distant gunshots. “Fireworks,” one of them remarks, though another can’t help but look over her shoulder into the dark. There’s a menace never far away from this post-apocalyptic locale.

Outside of Venice, the image of someone steering a boat through a half-submerged town is as surreal as something from a 1970s Herzog film. Due to the water that pervades them, the abandoned, eerily mirror-like streets of this rural colonial outpost reflect the skies above—and moments in which the camera floats, boat-bound and onward, sustaining its ineluctable modality without vertical bobs or jerky pans, are not unlike those tranquil river treks in AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD. Just like in that film, the key element in KINGS OF NOWHERE—for all the beautiful compositions containing streetlamps, overhead electricity cables and other markers of a civilisation now lost— might be its rich, evocative soundscape. Devoid of people, the town is enlivened by the sounds of lapping water, wood pigeons and the odd crash of thunder—all of which are cloaked by a gentle cacophony comprising cicadas, crickets, cows and cockerels. Here, animals mourn on humanity’s behalf. MICHAEL PATTISON

THE WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 9 – 18 OCTOBER 2015 |

Censored Voices (2015) |London Film Festival 2015

Dir.: Mor Loushy; Documentary; Israel/Germany 2015, 87. Min.

The Six Day War of 1967 saw Israel fighting against the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. At the end of the war, Israel had trebled its territory. But whilst the jubilation in the country itself – and, as TV documents show – with its western allies, was over-whelming, some of the returning soldiers in a Kibbutz, gathered around a tape recorder and voiced their concern for the future. Among the witnesses were the authors Amos Oz and Avraham Shapira, who today discuss with their fellow soldiers the impact of the war which changed the State of Israel for good.

Listening to the voices of the participants, one can well understand why the military allowed only 30% (!) of the transcripts to be published at the time. Most of the soldiers started the war in the absolute belief that they had to save the existence of their country. After all, Israel faced the might of three armies, which surrounded their country. But the reality of the war told the soldiers a different story. To start with, the opponents were woefully prepared and led, which is documented best by the clips from the Sinai peninsula, where Egyptian soldiers surrendered and fled when their tanks could not move in the desert. But the main impact was the general attitude of the soldiers: for most of them, war was an overwhelming and new experience. They were after all not cold-blooded killers, but soon faced the issue of how to react towards the civilian population: were they really non-combatants or were they armed, ready to attack. In the chaos of the fighting, many of the witnesses admit, they chose to err on the safe side – an only too human decision made amidst the mayhem of killing. And whilst the army had given out orders, which could be interpreted as “show no mercy”, it soon became clear that some Arab prisoners were executed. The witnesses all agree that during fighting their thoughts were concentrated on the question of would happen if the situation were reversed – again a rational thought, since the combined Arab armies had only one target: to drive the Israeli’s into the sea. Worst of all was the plight of the refugees, who were ‘evacuated’ from their towns in lorries and “resettled” in tents on the Gaza strip. As one of the participants mentioned “know I saw what the Holocaust was”. And whilst the newsreel clips show just euphoria, when the Israeli troops “unified” Jerusalem, and “liberated” the West Wall (‘Wailing Wall’), a mother of a fallen Israeli soldier cried out: “the West Wall are just stones, not worth a fingernail of my son”.

Loushy points out that it was at that point that the meaning of Judaism – which forbids the sanctification of places or objects – was distorted by those who wanted a “Greater Israel” in the name of their religion. Apart from one member of the original witnesses, all men are sure today that the victory of 1967 led to more and harsher conflicts. Even an “ABC” reporter comments, surrounded by tents at the Gaza strip, “that the only seeds growing here, are seeds of hatred”.

CENSORED VOICES is a painful document: a witness report of a moment in history when Herzl’s version of a peaceful Israel – collaborating with Arabs, sharing a land big enough for all – was laid to rest for good. The force of Zionism, which founded the state, buried it under an avalanche of permanent wars. Israel as a ‘Sparta’ in the desert is a nightmare for Jews and Arabs alike. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | 7-18 October 2015

The Look of Silence (2014) | FIPRESCI | Venice 2014 | DVD release

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

Denmark, Indonesia, Norway, Finland & UK

Documentary, 98 mins

Joshua Oppenheimer’s extraordinary documentary The Act of Killing was such a left-field way of  presenting a documentary, exploring such harrowing events, it’s no wonder that The Look of Silence might disappoint as it follows a more established convention. But to say this latest work is orthodox would be grave mistake. Even as a companion piece, this further exploration of Indonesia’s sixties genocide remains a horrifying study: personal, shattering, and stunningly photographed.

Up to a million people were murdered in the purges of 1965-66 as the Suharto coup sought to take control by terror. Communists were the named enemy, but it was really anyone who was against the government at the time – dissidents, artists, intellectuals, as well as the Chinese minority in the country. Almost fifty years later, the perpetrators of appalling acts live in the open, and in all ranks of government, while the descendants of those killed, marked “politically unclean” have had to live in fear of reprisals.

In The Look Of Silence Oppenheimer follows Adi, an optician whose brother Ramli was murdered in 1965 in a gruesome attack that is boasted about by its smiling perpetrators. Adi, born several years after his brother’s slaughter, travels around fitting glasses to the those who were around, while asking questions of the past to the bemused interviewees we learn were subjects of Oppenheimer’s studies for Killing.

According to press notes (but not mentioned in the film), Oppenheimer set out to make a more straight-forward documentary than what was released almost ten years later in Killing, but if The Look of Silence was his final accomplishment, Oppenheimer could still boast an tremendous achievement. The wealth of research he pursued is just as clear here. Adi watches clips from unused interviews in stunned silence – just like the population featured throughout. How else, you might say, can you react?

Adi confronts the killers without desire for revenge, but that’s almost what happens. Nobody gets thrown prison, but instead they’re confronted with the dead coming back to life. One perpetrator calls it a “wound” that’s just been reopened, another asks “why should I remember if remembering breaks my heart?” Maybe that’s a form of revenge, or maybe revenge is best when, as in one scene, the daughter of a killer apologises on behalf of her obstinate father, as if to perform the reconciliation her country’s previous generation were too twisted to consider. Perhaps Oppenheimer is confronting the critics who said The Act of Killing didn’t give a voice to the victims. In fact, he did, but Killing was the wrong film for it.

Why is this important? Children at Indonesian school have been indoctrinated for decades that the killings were for the good of the country (as we witness in one harrowing scene), and former gangsters and paramilitary leaders are a backbone of society. We meet the head of the regional legislature, who dismissed his role in the massacres as: “That’s politics, achieving ones ideals in various ways, isn’t it?” Then he laughs, straight into camera. Indonesia, a country of 240 million people, with wide natural resources, has never reached the capacity it could reach – economically, socially or spiritually. For this sprawling, vast, but beautiful nation, it’s the future with which Oppenheimer’s films are most concerned. Ed Frankl

THE LOOK OF SILENCE was reviewed at VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

NOW ON DVD

 

Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang (2014) | LFF 2015

Dir.: Walter Salles | Documentary | France/Brazil 2014, 98 min.

This is not a buddy movie: director Walter Salles follows his fellow filmmaker Jia Zhangke on a journey through a China in transition, revisiting many of Zhangke’s film locations, but always keeping a certain distance, however friendly. This is only logical: their respective filmmaking styles are to different for it to be any other way – Salles’ lyricism, his traditional approach, contrasts heavily with Jia’s abrasive humanitarian agitation, often filmed in short-hand.

When the couple starts their journey in Fenyang, the tone of the film is set. Jia bemoans the loss of the many karaoke bars which played such a central role in his debut feature Pickpocket (1997). But the bars have not been replaced, there are just a long line of boarded up shop windows. Before Jia visits his family in their new accommodation, he searches out his old quarters, and the many places where he grew up, which are now awaiting demolition. We learn from his mother that young Jia was fed “by hundred families”, the boy often left his home and ate at the dinner in his neighbours’ houses. His mother’s new flat has certainly many mod-coms – but the solidarity of the families, sharing their dark yards, is gone forever. Many of the locations from his films are also gone, or totally reduced like a wonderful old-fashioned theatre, from which only the stage remains – which Jia used in Platform (2000), a film about the fortunes of an amateur theatre group. It was here, that he first met his wife and muse, the actress Zhao Tao, who started her career as a ballet dancer. The newly built dam, which featured in Still Life (2006), which won the Golden Lion in Venice, is re-visited with all the villages and towns condemned to a life under-water.

Jia’s dissatisfaction with the “new’ China is obvious, particularly since his second-to-last film A Touch of Sin, has never been shown in China, even though the authorities claim that it has not been banned. Certainly, his new film Mountains May Depart (our Cannes Review for LFF), will not endear Jia more to the censors, since it neatly fits in with this documentary: a country in economic recession, and a puritanical government, always ready use the law. DOP Inti Brione looks at Fenyang with long, doleful takes, resting on the decay and finding alienation all over the place. Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang, is a sad journey through a country which has lost its identity and any form of cohesion. Brutal neo-capitalism meets abhorrent poverty and the government pretends that all this not happening, hiding behind a Stalinist past and its cult of personality – not that anybody should have any pity for Mao, now reduced and used: a puppet on a string who was only taken out when the government needed to celebrate an anniversary of some kind. There is not much to celebrate in the present. AS

SCREENING DURING LFF 7 -18 OCTOBER 2015 |

 

Sailing a Sinking Sea (2015) | LFF

Writer|Director: Olivia Wyatt

70min |  Documentary

In the Andaman Islands Olivia Wyatt delves deep below the turqouise waters to explore the nomadic Moken fishermen who live an idyllic but also dangerous existence surviving from the bounty in the nutrient rich seas. Basing their fragile existence on the belief that they have been cursed by an island queen, whose sister betrayed her by sleeping with her husband, this dreamy and meditative documentary is probably the most relaxing you’ll see this year.

Vibrant visuals and a soothingly somniferous score of lulling waves accompany the voiceover narration by the tribal leaders who present their culture and beliefs between bouts of deep diving for the fish they then sell to feed their families alive and their wives from straying. With this serene narrative that completely avoids the usual ‘talking heads’ Wyatt shows how these gentle people strive to save their community and be self-sufficient in a fight that very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world. MT

SCREENING DURING THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 7 -18 OCTOBER 2015

 

Red Army (2014)

Dir.: Gabe Polsky  Exec Producer: Werner Herzog

Documentary with Viacheslav Fetisov; USA/Russia 2014, 85 min.

An intriguing film about the close relationship between sport and nationalism, RED ARMY is centred around interviews with Viacheslav Fetisov, once the world’s most feared ice hockey defender in the world-dominating USSR ice-hockey team of the 70s and 80s. He later became Russian Sports Minister under Putin between 2002 and 2008.

Showing clips from famous games, particularly the “Miracle on Ice”, when the USA beat the favourite USSR team at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in February 1980, to win the Gold Medal, RED ARMY brings back the feverish atmosphere of the Cold War when every sport event was a competition of life and death for the main participants, USSR and USA. Whilst the Soviets were very honest about proving the superiority of their system with goals, the USA commentary after the Lake Placid game proves that the western leaders thought in the same category: a coach phoning President Carter after the game, proclaims relief and states “that we now can go on living our way of life”. The irony being that Soviet sportsmen and -women were surveyed by special KGB agents to prevent defection; one of the ex-officers being very open about their strategy in an interview in the film.

The documentary is also the tale of two Soviet hockey coaches: Anatoli Tarasov (1918-1995) and his successor Victor Tikhonov. Tarasov saw ice hockey as a form of chess, collaborating with chess players of his homeland. He literally wanted to create “Bolshoi on ice”, but fell out of favour after he stopped a game of his “CSKA Moscow Army” team – of which he was the coach too – because he disagreed with the referee. Brezhnev was in the crowd, and Tarasov was fired; to be replaced by the brutal and heartless Victor Tikhonov, who, not surprisingly, refused to be interviewed by the filmmakers. Tikhonov had his team in barracks for eleven months of the year, with just one phone to communicate with the outside world. He denied one of his players to see his dying father, and the joke among the team was “if you need a heart transplant, choose Tikhonov’s organ, because it has never been used”.

In the late 80s, just before the collapse of the USSR, some star players went to play for the NHL (National Hockey League) in the USA and Canada. The state took most of their six-figure salaries, but Fetisov did not wanted to share, and was ostracized by the authorities. He was not allowed to practice. Only his old coach, Tarasov, stood by him and assisted his training. Finally, after a confrontation with the then Defence Secretary Yazov (whose failed coup led to the demise of the USSR), Fetisov, went to the USA and claimed his full salary. He was one the few successes, many of the ex-USSR players were too old to adjust to the more brutal and simplistic play in the NHL,whilst Fetisov would win two “Stanley Cups” (championships) with the “Detroit Red Wings”. Their coach encourages the Russian players to perform in the style of Tarasov, partly re-creating the best ever out field-team of Fetisov, Kastanonov, Makarov, Krutov and Lariona.

The only remaining question here is why would Fetisov and other players return to Russia to serve in high positions, and be governed by Putin’s ex-KGB men who had repressed them in their playing days? Fetisov’s answer is straightforward: whilst in Detroit, the wives and families of the American players would ostracize his wife and child. Fetisov and others felt like unwelcome strangers; just mercenaries hired to win games.

The Motel Life Director Gabe Polsky, a hockey player himself, here offers an informative and absorbing portrait of a sportsman turned politician, straddling his life between two, perhaps not so much different eras, dictated by nationalist pride. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

The Nightmare (2015)

Director: Rodney Ascher

91min  US Documentary

After ‘weirding us out’ with Room 237 and ABCs of Death 2, Rodney Asher turns his documentary camera to the phenomenon of ‘sleep paralysis’ with THE NIGHTMARE. A word of caution: those who are salivating for enlightenment on the condition will find this foray deeply unsatisfying; veering between mild tedium and rampant hilarity, it fails both to terrify or to inform. Instead Ascher trawls through the twilight backwaters of the US and Manchester (all look the same) to provide an unedifying array of interviews with weirdos who bore on endlessly about their experiences with the debilitating nocturnal state.

It emerges that sleep paralysis occurs between wakefulness and deep sleep. Drawing examples from worldwide literary sources indicating that the condition has ancient mythological origins, Ascher suggests incubi and black cats are to blame, along with a shadowy figure of ‘the hatman’: a black silhouetted figure menacing the transfixed slumberer, who is also plagued by neurological symptoms of tingling, strange visions and ringing in the ears.

Ascher occasionally appears in the frame as he conducts these endless interviews in semi-darkness, using techniques of the kind seen in CSI Investigation (images of neurones buzzing etc), while actors replicate the ghastly experiences in various bedroom scenes. Jerky camerawork, unorthodox framing and jump cuts provide a sensation of otherwordliness ramped up by the characters themselves who are actually more scary than their dream characters: they range from the plain odd to highly strung and stressed individuals from troubled backgrounds. Jonathan Snipes provides an ambient soundtrack of buzzing and crackling. Sufferers seeking help from the medical profession have largely been greeted with scepticism, and suggestions that the condition may be contagious also appear to be unfounded: I slept soundly after the screening.

So Ascher’s film is inconclusive in its attempts to explain the phenomenon and, for the most past, THE NIGHTMARE fails to provide any real chills once we have become acclimatised to the shadowman images, which are repeated, ad nauseam. There are laugh out loud moments to be had from the sheer weirdness of the characters involved who become increasingly unbalanced as the film unspools. A missed opportunity, then, to shed light on a clearly debilitating condition. It appears that sleep paralysis is largely ‘mind over matter’ but those of a nervous disposition should probably give THE NIGHTMARE a wide berth: no pun intended. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS

 

By Our Selves (2015) | FID Marseilles | June 30 – July 6 2015

Director:  Andrew Kotting

Cast: Toby Jones, Iain Sinclair, Eden Kotting, Freddie Jones

UK  Experimental Drama

Experimental filmmaker Andrew Kötting is very interested in English journeys. Whether on foot or in a duck-shaped pedalo to Hackney – as in his previous outing, Swandown (2013) or on the coastal foray of his feature debut Gallivant (1996) – these gentle filmic wanderings unearth a stream of thoughts and memories that are nestling in the English countryside scattered by those that lived or worked there before he came, and waiting to add flourish and meaning to his own mysterious musings.

Before the 2012 Olympics, Kötting joined regular collaborator Iain Sinclair (in a Savile Row suit), for a wry and quintessentially English journey by pedalo on an expose of the thoughts of a private few. Taking inspiration from Sinclair’s psychogeographical work ‘Edge of the Orison’, BY OUR SELVES, sees the two together again in selvine seclusion, apart from a few close friends – a bewildered Toby Jones and his father Freddie, Kötting’s daughter Eden (as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz) and Kötting dressed as a straw bear –  as they trace the tortured yearnings of John Clare, a humble English poet who “went mad”, was committed to a mental asylum in Epping Forest and thence attempted to reunite with his last true love Mary Joyce, rather than with his actual wife who had sent him there. Based on Clare’s book ‘Journey Out of Essex’, and diosyncratic as ever, the troupe wander from the wayside to discover their own unique and deeply affecting impression of the woodland experiment.

BY OUR SELVES follows Toby Jones (Clare), as he meanders, slightly disorientated, through this mystical woodland, bear in tow and occasionally taking control until it finally takes the lead. Sinclair joins him in a ‘Wicker Man’ style mask, lending a slightly troubling tone to the piece as he reads from Clare’s poetry and engagers with those they stumble across on the way. Later the pair are joined by Simon Kovesi who opines on the poet’s work in greater detail, before engaging with Sinclair in a pugilistic punch-up, as passers-by occasionally follow on conversing in a desultory way.

It is a pleasingly English portrait of a fairytale woodland, exquisitely framed and captured in delicately rendered monochrome visuals by Nick Gordon Smith; often voyeuristically tripping over the shoulders of Jones or viewing him, gnome-like, from afar surrounded by the gentle carpet of casual countryside, with the blend of ambient sounds and songs that softly envelope them in an atmospheric bubble of downy black and white.

BY OUR SELVES was made on a shoestring budget, largely financed by kickstarter, and proves that with the right blend of experimental wizardry, perfectly pitched performances from the pros and some pizzazz, perfect pictures can give pleasure to the arthouse crowd. MT

BY OUR SELVES SCREENS DURING FID MARSEILLES 

Letters to Max (2015)

Dir.: Eric Baudelaire | Documentary | France 2014 | 103 min.

When filmmaker Eric Baudelaire (The Ugly One), wrote to the ex-foreign minister of the Republic of Abkhazia, Maxim Gvinja, he did not expect any reply. But this documentary is not only proof that Abkhazia exists, but also offers insight into the national identity of a mini-state.

LETTERS TO MAX would have been a successful medium length film; after all, not many people in this country know much about Abkhazia. But once again, its length minimises the impact: after all, there is not that much to say and Max’s ramblings about his self-invented philosophy get more and more tedious. The haphazard structure would have equally worked much better for a much shorter film. Overall, less would have been very much more.

It emerges that Abkhazia is a country of around 240 000 inhabitants, once part of Georgia, it is situated at the eastern coast of the Black Sea. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Georgia gained independence, but some regions wanted their independence from the Georgia, among them Abkhazia. In the war of independence during 1992/3, the Republic of Abkhazia was established with the help of Russian troops. Many Georgians fled across the border.

The documentary is an essay on statehood, Eric asking in his letters “how it feels to be an Abkhazian”, whilst Max answers in sending him video material, which shows not only his country, but also Max in his different incarnations of a patriot. Since Max is very proud of being a citizen of his country – not surprisingly of an ex-minister – his images show Abkhazia in all his glory: the beautiful, wild landscape and the romantic villages are indeed a scenery to be proud of. But everywhere we find empty houses and Max talks about the exodus of the Georgians, for whom he sees no possibility of repatriation. This chapter is closed, and Max, who is open to discuss nearly everything in a self-critical way, is adamant on this point. Images from his time as foreign minister see him visiting Cuba and Venezuela, two countries who recognise the independent existence of this state, which many others see as a Russian satellite state. The overall impression is a certain gloominess; the mass exodus of Georgians can still be felt as a cloud laying heavily over the countryside. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 2 OCTOBER 2015 | BRISTOL WATERSHED 9-15 OCTOBER | ICA LONDON 2 – 8 OCTOBER 2015 

Death of a Gentleman (2015) DVD VOD release

Dir.: Sam Collins, Jarrod Kimber, Johnny Blank; Documentary

UK 2015, 98 min.

Searching for answers as to why the “gentleman’s” game of cricket – in particular its five-day format – is gradually dying out, two cricket enthusiasts stumble into a world of corruption in the International Cricket Council (ICC), making the FIFA scandal child’s-play in comparison.

The starting point of DEATH OF A GENTLEMAN is rather naïve: the reason for the demise of the five-day tests is mainly a changing generation of fans, whose attention span is limited. On top of it, the ethics of test cricket are buried in colonialism and imperialism, where gentlemen had their place (and leisure time), not caring too much about winning – after all, their status alone guaranteed that they were society’s winners. Today’s One Day events, called 20/20, have supporters whose behaviour is closer to that of the Premier League (at least in India) than the refined atmosphere at Lords. One may hanker after the feelings of the past, when a test match consumed not only the spectators, but as shown in certain Hitchcock films, gentlemen far away in foreigncountries, but the leisured classes of today have a wider choice than their Edwardian forefathers. This is still no reason for the ICC to limit the number of countries who are allowed to play test matches to ten, not even ten per cent of the 105 member countries. And the next edition of the Cricket World Cup will be played by ten, instead of fourteen teams. Cricket must be the only sport which cuts the participation of its main competition.

Much darker is the financial picture of the ICC. Since 2014 three nations, India, England and Australia have taken control of the money: over 52% of the revenues of the sport (the second highest spectator sport in the world), are shared by those three nations, the amount for the growth of the game has been cut from 25% per cent of the budget to a mere nine. Giles Clark, chairman, now president of the English Cricket board, can see nothing wrong with this development. After all, the former investment banker can be proud, having looked so successfully after the interests of his organisation. But the real villain of the peace is N Srinivasin, an Indian multi-millionaire who made his money in cement. Later, he invested in the Indian Cricket team CSK (Chennal Super Kings), part of the lucrative Indian Cricket League, where the best players from all over the world are hired to perform in One day cricket matches, in front of huge crowd and televised on lucrative pay-TV. N Srinivasin’s son-in-law, G Meiyappan, is the chairman of the CSK team, owned by his father-in-law. The Indian’s court wanted Srinivasin to resign from the position of chairman of the Indian Cricket Board, since he had a conflict of interest, being the owner of the most successful team. After his son-in-law was caught betting on his team’s result, and giving inside information to third parties, his father in-law finally resigned. But his influence is still overwhelming, his successor nothing more than a straw-man. N Srinivasin is also the chairman of the ICC, being responsible for the “financial reconstruction” of the game, and behind the upheaval of changes, which led to the election of a new ICC president, Zaheer Abbas, who is a supporter of N Srinivasin.

From a rather weak start, this well-crafted documentary develops a strong argument for change in the global running of this sport. As Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice, wrote “The ICC reacts as though it is primarily a Members club, its interest in enhancing the global development of the game is secondary”. A must-see for fans of the game. AS

DEATH OF A GENTLEMAN is in cinemas 7th August http://deathofagentlemanfilm.com/

DEATH OF A GENTLEMAN ON DVD AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS 26th OCTOBER 2015

 

Palio (2015)

Writer|Director: Cosima Spender  Writer: John Hunt

91min   Documentary  UK

Filmmaker Cosima Spender (Without Gorky) has picked a fortuitous year to document the Palio; a medieval horse race held biannually in Siena, Italy. Her two antagonistic protags are at logger-heads to win the race and one of them will succeed but will it be the young and vigorous newcomer or the skillful, long-time winner?

PALIO_Guillaume_Bonn_1 copyEntering the arena at breakneck speed, we instantly experience the high octane thrills of this ancient and intrigue-fueled 90 second spectacle with its hot-headed characters and magnificent setting in the Tuscan city. Playing out like a sporting classic with dramatic twists and turns and even the occasional tragedy, the contest is arcane and impossible to explain, let alone understand – but who cares – the thrill is all about the spectable, the horses and the ‘fantini’, as the riders are called.

Plucky veteran Gigi Bruschelli is in 40s and the winner of 13 Palios in the 16 years he’s been competing for his ‘contrada’, or local district. Only one man has beaten him in his record: Andrea Degortes, nicknamed Aceto (Vinegar), he has claimed the prize 14 times and is used to sitting proudly at the head of the every local dinner table, such is the respect the community affords him. Meanwhile, ambitious 28 year old, Giovanni Atzeni, is motivated by the Glory rather than the money – unlike most men of his age-group. Trained by Bruschelli, he is determined to be the victor in this year’s contest, held in the Piazza Centrale packed with an audience of around 70,000 spectators. Rife with bribery and purported corruption, the Palio is the central focus of Sienna during the months of July and August and occupies the players well beyond. Citizens, caught up with the excitement of it all, bay viciously from the crowd – the more successful the riders the worse the abuse. In contrast, competing horses are often rejected from the competition for being too fast or too slow in order to encourage a tight contest, in which the riders hit each other savagely with crops fashioned from dried ox penises. But, in the end, it’s all a game. Another retired competitor, Silvano Vigni, is content to run his farm in the magnificent Tuscan countryside whence he regales us with a potted history of the Palio, made even more resonant by his strong local accent.PALIO_Guillaume_Bonn_3 copy

Well-paced and with a twang of the exotic supplied by Ennio Morricone’s ‘Secret of the Sahara’ soundtrack, Spender’s PALIO conjures up  to heat of sunbaked Sienna with its colourful characters, glowing scenery, feudal intrigue and exhilerating thrill of the chase. MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE IN SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 25 September 2015

 

 

New British Films |Toronto International Film Festival 2015 | 10 – 20 September 2015

The ProgramJean Marc Vallée’s DEMOLITION is set to open Canada’s biggest International film festival, which runs from 10 – 20 September this year, hot on the heels of VENICE. Toronto is a massive affair sprawling over the city and featuring many of Cannes, Venice and Sundance top pictures along with a fresh slate of World premieres and Canadian indies which will include Venice hits: Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation starring Idris Elba and Black Mass starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger. Also in the various strands and selection will be Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight; Jay Roach’s Trumbo; Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall and Jocelyn Moorehouse’s The Dressmaker. 

Eye in SkyBut for the moment, let’s a look at the slate of new British Films that are set to screen at the Ontario jamboree. Most are literary adaptations, reflecting the British need constantly to reference the past, but Stephen Frears stands out from the crowd, offering The Program, a sporting drama to spice things up with its controversial subject matter: the evidence surrounding Lance Armstrong’s substance abuse. Dustin Hoffman, Ben Foster and Lee Pace star. Another combat-themed premiere is Eye in the Sky, an aviation thriller directed by South African Gavin Hood (Ender’s Game) but the script, written by Guy Hibbert, and cast couldn’t be more British: Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman and Phoebe Fox star in what promises to be a fresh look at the increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft used in warfare. The Man Who Knew Infinity is director Matt Brown’s second feature also featuring a starry British cast. Based on American writer Robert Kanigel’s novel that explores the wartime story of Maths genius Srinivasa Ramanuajan, who rose from poverty-striken Madras to win a scholarship to Cambridge under the tutelage of a (no doubt) gravelly-voiced prof Jeremy Irons. Dev Patel, Toby Jones, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Northam and Kevin McNally also star in what promises to be a worthwhile sortie into Britain’s Colonial past. India is the location for Leena Yadav’s inspiration drama Parched. In a rural Indian village, it explores how four ordinary women begin to throw off the traditions that hold them in servitude.

Sunset Song 1Miss You Already is Catherine Hardwicke’s latest and has Toni Colette and Drew Barrymore as two friends struck by life-limiting illness. Dominic Copper and Paddy Considine also star. We were hoping to get a first look at Terence Davies’ latest drama Sunset Song at Cannes this year. But the drama, based on Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s classic novel, will now have its world premiere as a special presentation in Toronto, with a superb British cast of Peter Mullan, Agyness Deyn, Kevin Guthrie and Douglas Rankine. English novellist, Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay for Brooklyn, adapting from Colm Toibin’s 1950s love story that straddles the Atlantic and stars Saoirse Ronan, Jim Farrell and Julie Walters. Closed Circuit helmer John Crowley directs. Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson came to fame with his remarkable 2012 debut What Richard Did, a coruscating coming-of-ager set during The Troubles. His latest, a literary adaptation simply entitled Room, is an exploration of the unconditional love between mother and child and stars Brie Larson, Megan Park and William H Macy. High Rise is Ben Wheatley’s much anticipated adaptation of JG Ballard’s novel of the same name that has Tom Hiddleston and Jeremy Irons caught in a class war in a London Apartment.

DanishTom Hooper’s The Danish Girl has now premiered at Venice but British title Legend will have its prem at Toronto as a Gala Presentation. Starring Tom Hardy in another powerful role as both Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the vicious ganglands killers who purportedly nailed a rival’s head to a coffee table (if you believe Monty Python). Paul Bettany, David Thewlis and Emily Browning also star. MT

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 10 – 20 SEPTEMBER 2015 | TORONTO CANADA

Here’s the full Toronto low-down.

GALAS
Beeba Boys (dir. Deepa Mehta)
The Dressmaker (dir. Jocelyn Moorhouse)
Eye in the Sky (dir. Gavin Hood)
Forsaken (dir. Jon Cassar)
Freeheld (dir. Peter Sollett)
Hyena Road (dir. Paul Gross)
Lolo (dir. Julie Delpy)
Legend (dir. Brian Hegeland)
The Man Who Knew Infinity (dir. Matt Brown)
The Martian (dir. Ridley Scott)
The Program (dir. Stephen Frears)
Remember (dir. Atom Egoyan)
Septembers of Shiraz (dir. Wayne Blair)
Stonewall (dir. Roland Emmerich)
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Anomalisa (dir. Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman)
Beasts of No Nation (dir. Cary Fukunaga)
Black Mass (dir. Scott Cooper)
Brooklyn (dir. John Crowley)
The Club (dir. Pablo Larrain)
Colonia (dir. Florian Gallenberger)
The Danish Girl (dir. Tom Hooper)
The Daughter (dir. Simon Stone)
Desierto (dir. Jonas Cuaron)
Dheepan (dir. Jacques Audiard)
Families (dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
The Family Fang (dir. Jason Bateman)
Guilty (dir. Meghna Gulzar)
I Smile Back (dir. Adam Sulkey)
The Idol (dir. Hany Abu-Assad)
The Lady in the Van (dir. Nicholas Hytner)
Len and Company (dir. Tim Godsall)
The Lobster (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
Louder than Bombs (dir. Joachim Trier)
Maggie’s Plan (dir. Rebecca Miller)
Mountains May Depart (dir. Zhangke Jia)
Office (dir. Johnnie To)
Parched (dir. Leena Yadav)
Room (dir. Lenny Abrahamson)
Sicario (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
Son of Saul (dir. Laszlo Nemes)
Spotlight (dir. Tom McCarthy)
Summertime (dir. Catherine Corsini)
Sunset Song (dir.Terence Davis )
Trumbo (dir. Jay Roach)
Un plus une (dir. Claude Lelouch)
Victoria (dir. Sebastian Schipper)
Where to Invade Next (dir. Michael Moore)
Youth (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)

In Jackson Heights (2015) | Venice Film Festival 2015

Director: Frederick Wiseman

190min  US Documentary

Dir.: Frederick Wiseman; Documentary; USA 2015, 190 min.

Even at the age of 85, Wiseman still has the zest to look for a grand picture, which can be put together from the little fragments he collects and his trademark – a certain editing style, is still unique.

Jackson Heights is a community in Queens, New York City, a melting pot of emigrants where 167 different languages are spoken. But times are hard and many of the small shop owners are facing eviction, because the big chainstores want to move into the area on the back of increasing gentrification. Leases are not renewed, particularly on Roosevelt Avenue, the main street of Jackson Heights. Help comes from the many religious organisations who live peacefully side by side. The Jewish Centre is given a helping hand too but the LGBT movement, still harrassed by the police. The cops seem to be very overzealous in general, breaking up a joyous celebration of Columbians, who celebrate a victory of their team at the Brazil World Cup. The local councillor tries his best to counteract the increasing poverty and homelessness, but often his standard answer is “this out of my control, the decisions are made by the New York City senate”. There is some wonderful humour when, for example, the owner of a repair shop for ‘Catholic relicts’ takes a holiday for the four weeks of the World Cup, his sales staff telling the irate costumers to come back in six weeks.

Primary colours dominate the documentary which shows a waving mass of mostly peaceful citizens, who fight at the lower end of social scale just to survive everyday. They communicate on all levels and their meetings are well attended and full of passion. DOP John Davey has successfully caught this community where solidarity is not only discussed, but often practised, much more than in othert social hemispheres. Even though, as always with Wiseman, the sheer length is often a detraction – particularly for the indie cinemas that need to be able to screen two films an evening to survive. In Jackson Heights shows that the USA is a country of immigrants, legal, semi-legal or illegal – but very much alive and fighting. AS

THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 12 SEPTEMBER 2015

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles (2014) |DVD release

Director: Chuck Workman

94min  Biopic  US  Orson Welles 1915 – 1985

With: Simon Callow, Christopher Welles Foder, Jane Hill Sykes, Norman Lloyd, Ruth Ford, Julie Taymor, Peter Bogdanovich, James Naremore, Steven Spielberg, Henry Jaglom, Elvis Mitchell, Beatrice Welles-Smith

Veteran documentarian Chuck Workman hits the high notes with his lively and engaging look at the life of Orson Welles. With witty one-liners from the maestro himself, rare archive footage and interviews with those he loved and worked with, although it only skims the surface, it shows Welles to be an appealing though unpredictable maverick absorbed in his craft rather than with his family (according to daughter Beatrice) and with a natural gift for bringing theatricality and talent – but not always finance – to the projects he chose.

The Welles story has been told many times before, on the page and on screen, and this although this offers nothing particularly new to the connoisseur, it gives a brisk and vibrant visual sense of Welles’ peripatetic career from the time he appeared in Ireland, as a penniless young man on an “art” trip, bluffing his way straight into the leading role in a Dublin stage (“I started as a star and worked my way downwards”) to his final Merv Griffin interview hours before he died. The documentary is divided into decade-sized chunks from the 1930s onwards charting Welles’ career on stage and as a way of getting to know the star and filmmaker who entertained us so royally with his prodigious output as the trailblazer of American postwar independent film.

Workman also offers glimpses of the sparkling array of Welles’ unfinished films that tempt our imagination – The Deep, Don Quixote, King Lear, The Dreamer et al – abandoned largely due to lack of financing – which meant that Welles worked in stops and starts when he had the money; and is the reason why Othello was delayed and Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight was four years in the making.

In the 1930s after his training at Todd’s School, Illinois, Welles’, he made his New York debut in 1934 as Tybalt and also married and made his radio debut and his first short. Later he was known for his impressive theatre productions at the Federal and Mercury Theater, his radio broadcasting and Workman includes appearances from Norman Lloyd and Richard Linklater who styles him the “Patron Saint of indie film”. Although signed to RKO, he was not a successful Hollywood filmmaker despite triumphing against the odds with Citizen Kane which crashed and burned at the box office but later met with critical acclaim, and The Magnificent Ambersons that fell prey to an editing controversy – Welles’ ending was changed to a ‘happy one’ in the wake of Pearl Harbour while the director was busy in Brazil on a Government project. This unfortunate episode lead to him being shunned by Hollywood for years afterwards and he sought exile in Europe in the late 1940s after the The Stranger – his most financially successful film but his least favourite. A Touch of Evil (1958) was also a commercial failure but lauded in Europe and won a prize in Belgium.

But despite this light touch, MAGICIAN is by no means a hagiographic account of the legendary filmmaker. Workman highlights Welles’ uncanny ability of alienating ‘the money’: there was something about him and his unpredictability that did not engage the backing of financiers, although this is never really explored. Workman also fails to elucidate on the story behind another lost project, The Other Side of the Wind, which took up most of Welles’ time during the 1970s.

The only other criticism of Workman’s handling (Workman-like?)of his documentary – in common with many biopics – is that he doesn’t delve deep enough into the life behind the showman; sticking to the surface razzle-dazzle rather than exposing the soft underbelly – what does come across though, is Welles’ vulnerability, mystique and appeal to women: he married three times: Virginia Nicholson, Rita Hayworth and Paola Mori and sired four children in and out of wedlock, spending his final years with longtime lover Oja Kodar, who also appeared in F for Fake and The Dreamers. And in this way, MAGICIAN will whet your appetite to discover more about this intriguing master of stage and screen, who, inspite of his box office failures, was awarded the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1975 and the highest honour of all, the D W Griffith Award in 1984. This year at CANNES there is a Centenary Celebration of his work with 4k restorations of Citizen Kane, The Third Man and The Lady from Shanghai. MT

ORSON WELLES CENTENARY | BFI JULY – AUGUST 2015 | DVD release 

 

 

How to Change the World (2015)

Dir.: Jerry Rothwell

Documentary; Canada/USA 2015, 110 min.

In 1971, the Canadian city of Vancouver was something of a centre for counterculture: draft dodgers from the USA, hippies, anarchists and environmentalist had found a home which would be the birthplace of “Greenpeace”.

Town of Runners director and writer, Jerry Rothwell’s documentation of the early days of what is now a worldwide mass-movement, is both informative and unsentimental. The birth of the movement seemed, ironically, not a great success: in the Autumn of 1971, President Nixon had authorised the underground explosion of a five ton nuclear bomb for test reasons at Amchitka, an island of the Alaskan coast. The “Don’t make a Wave” committee, the forerunner of Greenpeace, among them their future leader Bob Hunter (1941-2005), hired the ‘Phyllis Cormack’ and sailed towards the test site, trying to stop the test. Turned back by an US naval vessel, the crew returned deflated to Vancouver – but to their great surprise, also to a great crowd celebrating their attempt.

The US government was surprised by the worldwide protests and no further tests were ever scheduled. The next expedition of the Greenpeace warriors led them to confront the Russian Whaling fleet in 1975. Like the 1971 intervention, this was again filmed on 16mm, and the bloody operation of the industrial slaughter of whales still takes the breath away and is impossible to watch in its entirety. Putting themselves between the whaling vessel and the animals, the activists were in grave danger; one of the deadly spears fired at the whales, only just missed the head of one the protesters. Soon, the first controversy occurred when the US government gave Greenpeace the positions of the Russian whaling fleet (but not the one’s of Japanese fleet), so as to embarrass the cold-war enemy. Splits in the leadership of Greenpeace occurred, mainly because one of the founder members, Paul Watson, had a more direct and confrontational approach. After he was dismissed from the organisation, by a vote of eleven to one, he founded “The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society” in 1977. Again, the 16mm footage of the barbaric slaughter of baby seals by Canadian hunters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence – with their mothers trailing their bodies – is too much to watch. Whilst Hunter and the remaining steering board members of Greenpeace, called Watson an eco-terrorist, anybody witnessing the slaughter of the seals cannot be so unmoved as to really condemn more direct action against the perpetrators as “terrorism”. Watson’s organisation became soon very powerful, thanks to the support of Brigitte Bardot, after whom a vessel of “Sea Shepherd” is named.

Hunter left Greenpeace later to return to journalism, entering politics (running unsuccessfully for provincial parliament in 2001), before his death of cancer in 2005). His contribution to the movement is undoubtedly important, his leadership mainly free of any ego, he was the original poster guy in the early days, always constructive and trying to balance out the splits in the leadership. Whilst Paul Watson still commands our respect, this cannot be said about another early leading activists, Patrick Moore, who today runs a corporate consulting firm, arguing that “climate change is positive, since a warmer climate benefits all” and denies any men-made contribution to environmental problems.

James Scott brilliantly weaves the past and present in this skilfully layered storytelling that shows the founders of Greenpeace not as icons, but as very ordinary human beings whose success was not a result of their great strategies, but of  their conviction that was powerful enough to put themselves in danger for the good of their cause. They and their enthusiasm did change the world, after all. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 11 SEPTEMBER 2015  www.howtochangetheworld.com. WINNER OF THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL WORLD DOCUMENTARY EDITING AWARD.

Behemoth (2015) Beixi Moshuo | Competition | Venice Film Festival 2015

Director: Liang Zhao | Cast: Liang Zhao, Sylvie Blum Fabrice Rouaud | Doc| France | China

Herdsman and their families make way for machines of natural destruction in this poetic rumination on the industrial ravaging of Inner Mongolia.

The transformation of paradise into purgatory, with hell firmly in sight, gets imposing visual treatment in Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang’s Behemoth. This image-based hybrid of documentary and poetic allegory is a plaintive account of the rape of the earth by coal mining companies in the Inner Mongolian grasslands, and of the dehumanizing existence of local and Chinese migrant workers. Alternating between grimly beautiful passages and others that, frankly, are dull and dutiful, this is a rigorous exercise with something of a trance quality, which builds to a forceful payoff at the end.

Scheduled to air on French cultural network Arte in November, the film should travel from its Venice premiere to other festivals, while its elements of performance art interspersed with industrial horror might also work in museum spaces.

Zhao and his French co-writer (and producer) Sylvie Blum draw inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy, beginning with the image of a massive rock crater ruptured by explosions that send clouds of black coal dust billowing into the atmosphere. Zhao’s introductory voiceover explains that where once there was lush vegetation and mountain springs, now not even a blade of grass grows in these flattened valleys of gray.

Gorgeous pastoral sequences show sheep grazing; Zhao then widens that view to reveal the steady shrinkage of pastureland. Traditional rural workers are displaced, while more and more mountains are reduced to rubble, and prairies are buried beneath ash. Observing with unblinking indignation, his camera gazes down on a valley crawling with trucks, cranes and other machines that look like toys, belching out smoke. “The monster’s playthings” is how Zhao describes them in his intermittent narration, adopting a dreamy, ponderous tone that can get a bit precious.

At certain points you start to wonder how long we can continue looking at workers sifting or shoveling rocks. But then the focus shifts to stirring close-ups of their emotionless faces and black-rimmed eyes, every pore and line caked with coal dust, which Zhao descriptively calls “inky makeup.” He observes them scouring their skin to remove the grime before sitting down to a bowl of soup. In one especially expressive shot, a naked baby boy industriously scrapes away at the ground around him with a stick, as if programmed by instinct to prepare for his future. No commentary is required to note the juxtaposition of extremely basic living conditions against an industry generating huge profits.

In the film’s most strikingly cinematic section the screen turns to red as Zhao’s camera enters the nearby ironworks. The staggering heat and intensity of the furnaces is palpable, and the baked faces of workers stream with sweat as the cacophonous noise of the machinery gives way to deafened silence when they exit on breaks. Zhao’s words perhaps overstate the theme of a living hell fueled by greed, but there’s nothing prosaic about the inferno-esque images.

The most unsettling passages of Behemoth show the heavy toll of this life on the alarming number of workers battling lung disease, denied aid by both their industrial overlords and their government. And the film moves toward a conclusion of grave lyricism in which Zhao reveals the paradox of all this human drudgery and environmental violation helping to create pristine but empty clusters of apartment towers in urban satellite centers. The destruction of a natural paradise has yielded luxury graveyards, transformed into “ghost cities” by the burst development bubble.

Shot over a two-year period, Zhao’s film makes lucid points about the dire consequences of relentless energy and fuel consumption. Like the narration, some touches are self-consciously arty — a naked figure in fetal position seen repeatedly in places where grassland meets scorched earth; the screen broken into prismatic fragments that suggest an industrial cathedral; a literal mirror held up to show our collective responsibility. But even if those elements seem too studied, the subtle impact of this contemplative documentary can’t be denied.

 

Cartel Land (2015) |

Dir.: Matthew Heineman Documentary, USA/Mexico; 98 min.

Matthew Heineman’s second feature documentary is certainly a change in topic from his health care documentary Escape Fire: CARTEL LAND is as violent as one can imagine, an ultra-violent video game come to live.

CARTEL LAND is actually two films in one: both parts feature violent men ready to go to war for their cause because they feel their respective governments do not care. On the Arizona side of the US/Mexican border we are introduced to Tim “Nailer” Foley, who lost his job in 2008 during the recession, and has blamed Mexican immigrants for taking his job. He has ended up at the border with his friends of the ‘Arizona Border Recon’, trying to stem the “flood” of emigrants, feeling very self-righteous and comparing himself and his men to David in a fight against Goliath, a fight they have to win for the good of the USA, since the government has little interest in the issue. Foley, a bitter racist, looks much older than his years, alcohol and other drug abuse have left their marks. He and his men are like vultures, spoiling for a kill, their white-supremacy ideology condoning the most vicious attacks – these men are as much outside legality as possible and only in the Southern states of the USA could they roam in freedom.

On the other side of the border, about 1500 miles away, we meet Dr. Jose Miguel Mireles Valverde, looking after his patients during the day, whilst leading the ‘Autodefensas’ of local people against the drug cartel of Knights Templars. On first sight, the difference between him and Foley could not be greater: the doctor seems a poster-boy for goodness, but we soon learn of a certain overlap between drug dealers and the defence league: torture seems to be common on both sides. Doctor Valverde, whilst not actually condoning this, uses the same arguments as Foley: the government does not care, we have to look after ourselves – perhaps understandable words, spoken at the funeral of fifteen victims of the Templar Knights, the youngest a few month old. Later, Valverde is nearly killed in a very suspicious looking plane crash: this all out war, and the “good’ guys will take no prisoners.

The overriding problem, as nearly always with organised violence of this kind, is poverty: at the beginning of the film, we see some meth ”cookers” in action. In the desert they brew their deadly concoctions, apologetic and contrite, they excuse their trade with the utter poverty they live. “If you would be in our position” is the question hanging in the air, “what would you do?”

CARTEL LAND is shocking, not least because of its violence (never glamourised), but because of the total loss of a moral compass, on all sides. The groups claim self-defence, merrily killing and torturing each other. Rightfully, Heineman does not even try to find answers. Cartel Land leaves the audience in a stupor – ‘la bête humaine’ in action. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED DURING EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 1 -12 JULY 2015

Building Jerusalem (2014)

Dir.: James Erskine

Documentary; UK 2015, 90 min.

Erskine’s chronology of the rise of the England Rugby Union team from whipping boys for the teams of the “Southern” hemisphere, like Australia and South Africa, to the triumph of becoming World Champions in 2003 – beating Australia in Sidney in the final – features the main protagonists Jonny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson and coach Sir Clive Woodward.

As far as hagiographies go, Building Jerusalem can compete with the best. Erskine starts with downtrodden England, being beaten by ridiculous scores like 76:0 by Australia in 1998. Afterwards, Clive Woodward England’s coach since 1997, introduced a new and innovative training program, also helped by the fact that Rugby Union had turned professional in 1995. The latter development was the result of the TV war between the Australian Kerry Packer and the Australian born Rupert Murdoch. There were some bumps on the road to success, like the resignation of the England captain Lawrence Dallaglio in May 1999, because the NOW discovered that he might had been involved in drug dealing. Dallaglio was replaced by Martin Johnson, but got the skipper role back in 2004, when Johnson retired. Most interesting is the involvement of Dr. Sherylle Calder in the development of the team; the world renown hand-eye coordination coaching specialist not only improved the speed with which the players handled the ball, but also taught them Afrikaans, so that the team could understand the signal calling of the SA team they faced during the World Cup in 2003. Alas, Dr. Calder went to help South Africa to defeat England in the 2007 World Cup Final in Paris.

Building Jerusalem suffers from its strict chronological order, as well as from the fact that nearly the whole team development is relegated to being an entrée, just to re-live and celebrate that “glorious” day in November 2003 when England defeated Australia on home soil by 20:17 after extra-time, with a dramatic drop goal by Jonny Wilkinson scored in the last minute. This way, Building Jerusalem (with Hubert Parry’s music triumphantly blasting over the end-credits) is more a fan’s tribute than an analytical document. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 AUGUST 2015

 

 

Floating Cinemas | Outdoor Screens | Summer 2015

THE FLOATING CINEMA: EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL | Kings Cross | London NW1

A sci-fi film and events programme exploring life beyond earth |Thursday 17th September 2015 – Sunday 20th September 2015 | Space – the final frontier | The Floating Cinema‘s is back at King’s Cross | The Floating Cinema

ROOFTOP CLUB AT THE BUSSEY BUILDING | 133 Rye Lane | SE15 4ST | 1 May – 30 September

Peckham Rye this summer’s series which kicked off with Dirty Dancing on 6th May 2015. The 5,000 square ft terrace with views all over London is the perfect venue to enjoy your starry experience, accompanied by Mexican street food and a fully licensed bar. The programme includes Reservoir Dogs, Trainspotting and The Graduate. Tickets cost £13

DRIVE-IN FILM CLUB

Park up at Pavilion Car Park, Alexandra Palace and enjoy great films from the comfort of your own car. Food is provided by skating staff while modern classics such as The Theory of Everything, Pulp Fiction and Birdman unspool before you.

Alexandra Palace | Wood Green | N22 7AY | 0207 635 5817 | @ExperienceCine

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ROOFTOP FILM CLUB AT QUEEN OF HOXTON

The summer screening series is back after a successful run last year. Reasonably priced at £14 to include headphones, comfy chairs, blankets, drinks and food with cult classics such as Withnail and I and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The Queen of Hoxton | 1-5 Curtain Road | EC2A 3JX | from 3 May 2015

ROYAL OPERA HOUSE BIG SCREENS 2015

With the trend for Opera migrating to the London’s silver screens, the Royal Opera House is offering a free summer’s entertainment as the BP Big Screen series which opened with La Boheme on 15 June 2015. Don Giovanni follows on 3rd July and ballet lovers will get a chance to see Romeo and Juliet on 22 September 2015.

Trafalgar Square | WC2N 5DS | 10 June until 22 September 2015

KEW GARDENS POP-UP CINEMA

See flowers and films at the Royal Botanical Gardens this summer with a range of films to suite all tastes. Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel,  Casablanca and Back to the Future. Relax under the stars with a picnic and be transported away to somewhere exotic or otherworldly.

LUNA CINEMA | RICHMOND TW9 3AB | 22 July – 4 September

HOTTUB CINEMA | London | Bristol | Birmingham | Manchester

The first ever venue to combine hot tubs and cinema for the public, this is possibly the silliest summer event imaginable. The event has grown since 2012 and now includes 30 hot tubs, two big screens and bespoke surround sound for a your total viewing pleasure. Find out more at Hottub Cinema this summer.

OUTDOOR CINEMA EVENTS FROM MAY UNTIL SEPTEMBER 2015 

 

 

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The Phoenix Incident (2015)

Dir.: Keith Arem

Cast: Troy Baker, Yuri Lowenthal, Jamie Tisdale, Mason Shea Joyce

USA 2015, 78 min.

First time feature film writer/director Keith Arem (better known to addicts of video games, having directed 50 titles among them Call of Duty II), has created a horror-flick based on tries and trusted ingredients: found footage, fake-interviews with relatives of victims and the cover-up agents of the military establishment: The Phoenix Incident, based loosely on real events in Phoenix, Arizona on 13.3.1997, when UFOs were spotted over the hills, is tacky to the extent that bargain-basement hardly captures its impact.

Four young men get lost on the evening of the UFO sightings in the hills of Phoenix; trying to hide in an army base they are captured and abducted by aliens whose unimaginative laughable looks are symptomatic for the whole production. Chief witness for their fate is a violent cop beater who is mostly drunk and stoned and has to spent a lifetime in prison as part of the cover up. Why the aliens decided to leave him behind is one of many unanswered questions.

Even the pure entertainment value of The Phoenix Incident is so minimal that it does not justify much attention: it is an unconvincing parody of a genre, but the mainly involuntary laughs are at its own expense. AS

THE PHOENIX INCIDENT IS RELEASED DIGITAL HD ON 31 AUGUST AND DVD ON 7 SEPTEMBER 2015

 

Looking for Love (2015)

Dir.: Menelik Shabazz

Documentary UK 2015, 119 min.

Menelik Shabazz (Burning an Illusion) has tackled gender relationships in the black community in this wide-ranging documentary, relieving the overwhelming talking head interviews with spurts of comedy from Eddie Kadi and Donna Spence, as well as the impressive women poets Comfort and Nairobi.

LOOKING FOR LOVE features psychologists, counsellors, relationship coaches and spiritual healers, members of group sessions and many individuals trying to come to terms with the undeniable fact that the majority of males in the black community are not taking enough responsibility for their families, and often repress their female partners. There are two main arguments competing here: one cites the lack of positive male role models for the misery of so many black women; the other attempts to lay the blame on slavery, having taken the black male away from his responsibilities for too long – there is a third, rather confused strain of argument that attempts to blame society as a whole for preventing black male from using the right hemisphere of their brains in a society dominated by whites. Our sympathies lie with the (mainly female) psychologists and counsellors, coming up against arguments from faith healers and the like, who find apologies for the black male, simply ignoring the fact that equivalent socio-economic section of the white male population behave in identical ways (minus the charm of the West Indian men) to their black counter parts and totally ignore the predominance of white macho-culture the world over.

The culture of black male of today “avoiding learning” can not be put down to slavery, neither can their tendency to attack the success of other black male students to bolster their homosexuality. It is dangerous in the extreme to pander to such arguments in the name of racism, but this documentary shows just how common this is.

At a running time of nearly two hours LOOKING FOR LOVE over-eggs its message with repetitious interviews and although Shabazz’s non-judgemental approach is laudable, and follows the normal documentary code, here it does  a disservice to the rational arguments. That said, he opens a long overdue debate. AS

ON RELEASE FROM 21 August 2015

The Colour of Money | From the Gold Rush to the Credit Crunch | September 2015

Golddiggers 1933_2 copyPerfectly situated in the hub of Europe’s Financial centre, The Barbican offers a selection of films and discussions this Autumn exploring money through themes of power, wealth, poverty, corruption and consumerism.

From the silent era comes Erich von Stroheim’s potent thriller GREED, shows how the corruptive force of a sudden fortune ruins the lives of three Californians. The glitzy side of Hollywood is depicted in Mervyn LeRoy’s comedy musical GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (right) where millionaire turned composer Dick Powell uses his fortune for the good of the community. Robert Bresson won best director at Cannes 1983 for his classic l’ARGENT based on Tolstoy’s The Forged Coupon that explores the journey of 500 franc note and the devastating effect on its final recipient. In THE WHITE BALLOON (1995), Jafar Panahi’s slice of realism, written by Abbas Kiarostami examines how a child is swindled out of her birthday money and blockbuster THE WOLF OF WALL STREET charts the rise to riches and ultimate fall of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) due to a 1990s securities scam. In AMERICAN PYSCHO (2000) Christian Bale stars as another wealthy City who sociopathic personality enables him to fund a lifestyle and escape into his own American dream. These are our recommendations:

Greed_7 copyGREED | Dir: Erich von Stroheim; Cast: Gibson Gowland, Za Su Pitts, Jean Hersholt | USA 1923; 462 min. (original), 140 min. (theatrical release), 239 min. (restored version)

Roger Ebert called Greed “the ‘Venus of Milo’ of films, acclaimed as a classic, despite missing several parts deemed essential by its creator”. It is also a classic example of Hollywood butchery, in this case performed by the new partners of MGM, Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer; Thalberg turning out to be Von Stroheim’s bête noir having already fired him from Merry-Go-Round at Universal. Just twelve people saw the original version (edited from 85 hours of total footage); one of them, the director Rex Ingram, believed that Greed was the best film ever and would never be surpassed. Shot over 198 days from June to October 1923 in San Francisco, Death Valley and Placer Country, California, it took over a year to edit, and cost $ 564 654 (around $ 60 million in todays money), but only grossed $ 274827 at the box office.

Based on the novel ‘Mc Teague’ by Frank Norris, Greed centres around the relationship of John Mc Teague (Gibson) and his wife Trina (Pitts). Mc Teague is operating as a dentist without a licence, when he meets Trina, who has been the girl friend of his best friend Marcus Schouler (Hersholt). After Trina wins $5000 in the lottery just before she marries McTeague, Schouler wants her back, and denounces Mc Teague to the police, for working without a licence. Mc Teague asks Trina for $3000, to save his skin, but she refuses him, being too fond of the money – she cleans the coins until they glitter. Mc Teague murders his wife and Schouler again reports him to the police. Mc Teague flees to Death Valley from his pursuers, among them Schouler, whom he fights to the death.

Greed  caused violence to break out off screen too. The film was nearly destroyed because of its unwieldy length, making it almost impossible to edit. A fist fight broke out between Mayer and Von Stroheim, after the former provoked the director with “I suppose you consider me rabble”, to which Von Stroheim answered “Not even that”. Mayer struck him so hard, that he fell through the office door. Mayer wanted a uplifting film for the “Jazz Age’, and Greed was uncompromising realism. But the studio even changed the meaning of what was left with inter-title cards. In the MGM version, when Trina and Mc Teague went by train to the countryside, the MGM title card reads “This is the first day it hasn’t rained in weeks. I thought it would be nice to go for a walk”. In Rick Schmidlin’s reconstructed version of 1999 (based on Stroheim’s 330 page shooting script and stills) it reads: “Let’s go and sit on the sewer” – and so they sit down on the sewer.

Von Stroheim, who invented an aristocratic upbringing and a glorious army career for himself, was nevertheless a master of realism when it came to films: when Gowland and Hersholt fight in Death Valley, the temperature was over 120 degrees, and many of the cast and crew had to take sick leave, Von Stroheim coaxed the actor on “Fight, fight. Try to hate each other as you hate me”. AS

L'Argent_2 copyL’ARGENT (1983) | Dir.: Robert Bresson | Cast: Christian Patey, Caroline Lang, Sylvie Van der Elsen, Michel Briguet France/Switzerland 1983, 85 min.

To find the money to direct what turned out to be his last film L’Argent, Robert Bresson needed the intervention of the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang – just like he did with L’Argent’s predecessor Le Diable Probablement (1977). L’Argent went on to win the Director’s Prize in Cannes, sharing in with Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia.

L’Argent is Bresson’s truest ‘Dostoevskyan’ work, even though it is based on Leo Tolstoy’s novella ‘The Forged Coupon’. From the outset, money changes hands at a furious tempo: a young boy asks his father for pocket money but what he gets is not enough for him; he pawns his watch to his friend, who gives him a forged 500 Franc note. The boy, having recognised the forgery, takes the money to a photo shop, buying only a cheap frame with the note. The manager of the shop – after discovering the forged note, scolds his wife for being so naïve. But she reminds him that he took in himself two forged notes of the same denomination the week ago. The owner gives all three notes to Yvon Targe (Patey), who is the gas bill collector. Later, in a restaurant, Yvon tries to use the money but the waiter recognises the forgeries. Yvon is spared jail, but loses his job. Moneyless, he acts as get-away-driver for a friend’s robbery, but the plot fails and Yvon’s run of bad luck continues until its devastating denouement.

Apart from opening, everything is told in Bresson’s very own elliptical but terse style, making the smallest detail more important than the action. The prison is shown as a labyrinth in which Yvon is lost, particularly when sent into solitary confinement after a fight with fellow prisoners. The prison is shown in great detail in a similar vein to Un Condamne à mort s’est Echappé (1956) and becomes the material witness to Yvon’s suffering. The murder of the hotel-keepers is shown only in hindsight: a long medium shot of bloody water in a basin, followed by a close-up of Yvon emptying the till. The failed robbery is shown by the reactions of the passersb-by, who witness Yvon driving off, after shots are fired. Finally, enigma of the last shot in the restaurant, when the crowd looses interest in Yvon, as if he were simply not enough of a person, in spite of the hideous murders. In this shot, the whole universe of Bresson is captured: there seems to be no sense in human deeds, and, therefore there is no question of a why, and no guilt, but, perhaps just redemption.

DOP Pasqualino de Santis (Death in Venice) excels particularly in bringing together the close-up shots of the objects, and the long shots of Yvon as he gets increasingly lost: in the robbery, in prison, and in the cosy house of an old woman. We feel him shrinking, as he loses his identity during the film, becoming a total non-person by the end. The acting is as understated as possible, and Bresson closes his oeuvre of only thirteen films in fifty years with another discourse on spiritual and mystic values in a world, where money is everything and everywhere. AS/MT

THE COLOUR OF MONEY | BARBICAN LONDON EC2 | 10 – 20 SEPTEMBER 2015 

 

Precinct Seven Five (2015)

Director: Tiller Russell

With: Michael Dowd, Ken Eurell, Walter Yurkiw, Chicki, Dori Eurell

104min  US

A documentary surrounding the life and crimes of the infamous, corrupt NYC cop Michael Dowd

True Crime doesn’t get more fascinating or entertaining than Tiller Russell’s film about a cop who swung between a life of crime and policing the notoriously deadly East NYC of the 80s and 90s when around 3500 murders were committed each year. This was a time when being a ‘good’ cop meant knowing how to cover your buddy’s back rather than being honest and capable. A Most Violent Year recently dramatised how individuals worked the system in the crime-ridden US capital but PRECINCT SEVEN FIVE goes a step further to explore how, according to Russell, most cops in the five-mile square stretch of territory that would “scare Clint Eastwood” were also, to some degree, in cahoots with a criminal network.

Seen in court appearances and in person as focus of the story, Michael Dowd emerges as a likeable and charismatic character sounding a bit like Joe Pesci. As Russell zips through the encyclopaedic details of his misdemeanours, a catchy score of eighties hits plays in the background rendering the full flavour of this emblematic era: tunes from the Stones, Serpico and so on. The piece is further enlivened by some classy black and white photos of the vintage.

The doc opens with footage of Dowd in the dock as he is investigated by a commission for police corruption in 1993. Flanked by his lawyer, he listens intently and admits to committing “hundreds of crimes” while serving as a police officer. The court appearances contrast starkly with his enthusiastic almost volatile contempo interviews that chronicle his fall from grace from a straightforward young police office in 1982 to a fully-fledged gangland operator. As is often the case, it all started as the ‘thin end of the wedge’ when he took a small bribe from a ‘perp’ he was apprehending at traffic lights. The fillip of each cash made him ‘feel good’, and gradually he was able to provide more luxury for his young family: new cars, trips, jewellery for his wife, and eventually even a holiday home in Florida.

Trust between cops is the badge of honour and the most important element of working in the Precinct and Dowd eventually partners up with Kenny Eurell, whose quiet attention to detail perfectly complimented Dowd’s negotiation skills on the streets. Meeting maverick arch crims, Dominican druglord Adam Diaz, and arch crim Baron Perez, (who operated a drugs ring fronted by a car stereo shop) they formed a mutually beneficial alliance which earned them thousands of dollars per week – the icing on the cake of their police wages, which covered their ordinary household expenses.

But the pair knew that these rich pickings couldn’t last forever; the guilt was taking hold of Dowd and spending sprees were starting to be difficult to conceal, especially when he took to driving a bright red Corvette Stringray. And he was also developing a cocaine addiction, when things started to go wrong.

Well-paced and wittily-scripted, PRECINCT SEVEN FIVE zips along and there’s a vicarious cheeky enjoyment that spills over from the confessions and revelations of these opportunistic yet ordinary men. It’s easy to see how the whole affair developed and somehow we don’t end up hating their guts: Russell ingeniously contrives to make the audience feel empathetic, even complicit, with the pair. Interestingly, in the end, Dowd emerges more regretful about damaging his personal relationships than remorseful for the crimes he committed. A rip-roaring ride through a NYC of the 80s-90s. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL 2015

Unity (2015)

Dir.: Shaun Monson | Documentary | USA 2015 | 99 min.

After Earthlings, in which he tackled the exploitation of animals in the food, fashion and entertainment industries, it took writer/director Shaun Monson over seven years to compile this well-intentioned yet woozy and unfocused documentary: UNITY is a sort of catalogue of all human sins committed over the ages, the victims being animals, the environment and other human beings.

Narrated by nearly a hundred (mostly Hollywood) stars such as Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Anniston, Jessica Chastain, Amanda Seyfried, Ben Kingsley and Jeff Goldblum, UNITY is a ‘call to arms’ for the human race to join a bid for world peace, veganism, love and spiritual awakening, “since we are all part of the universe”.

Thus Monson states in his own words: “The title Unity signifies the intention of the content. It’s not so much to entertain, like a past-time, but rather turn something ‘on’ inside you that has been suppressed or forgotten by the mask that society or tradition puts upon us. But more than that the film also helps relate us to the mystery of existence, to all of existence, which we are merely a part”.

Expect lots of cruelty towards humans and animals, opening with a devastating scene of a bull attempting to escape ‘death row’ in the abattoir and followed by some rather fluffy images of togetherness. The participation of so many stars who openly participate in today’s crass materialism – one of the cardinal sins of humankind mentioned by Monson – somehow undermines this worthy but rambling and unstructured lesson, delivered in its earnest, preachy tone.

UNITY IN ON RELEASE FROM 12 AUGUST 2015

68th Locarno Film Festival | Preview 2015

Bruno Chatrian unveils his eclectic mix of films for the 68th Locarno Film Festival which runs from 5 until 15 August in its luxurious lakeside location. Locarno is known for its edgy profile and this year will be no different: Films by established auteurs: Hong Sang-soo, Andrzej Zulawski and Chantal Akerman (left) will screen alongside an inventive array of undiscovered newcomers in a selection that embraces traditional stories and more experimental and avantgarde fare.

COMPETITION

dejanlost and beautifulFourteen world premieres compete for the Golden Leopard including Korean comedy delights from Sang-soo’s Right Now, Wrong Then and mavericks in the shape of Andrzej Zulawski who this year brings Cosmos. Pietro Marcello’s docu-drama Bella e Perduta (above right) will compete with Athena Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier and Belgian auteur Chantal Akerman’s hotly awaited doc Not a Home Movie (above top) is sure to delight both the press and the public. Two Sundance 2015 outings will screen in competiton: Rick Alverson’s Entertainment, exploring the journey of an American stand-up comedian and James White, a coruscating family drama from Josh Mond. Sophomores in the section include Pascale Breton with her appropriately titled Suite Amoricaine and Georgian auteur Bakur Bakuradze’s Brother Dejan (above left). Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam’s latest film is a thriller, Schneider vs Bax. that focuses on a hit man whose mission is to kill a reclusive author (below left).

Schneder vs Bax

To open the festival in the open-air Piazza Grande, Jonathan Demme is back with Ricki and the Flash. Scripted by Diabolo Cody and starring Meryl Streep, it explores the efforts of an ageing rock star to get back to her roots.jack copy

Locarno is known for its European flavour such as Catherine Corsini’s La Belle Saison starring Cécile De France, Lionel Baier’s LGBT title La Vanité (nominated for the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes) and Austrian auteur Elisabeth Scharang’s Jack (right) which tackles the thorny topic of recidivism through the story of a brutal murderer. Philippe Le Guay’s comedy Floride stars Sandrine Kiberlain and Jean Rochefort and German director Lars Kraume’s The State vs Fritz Bauer explores the story of a prosecutor in the Auschwitz trials. From further afield comes Anurang Kashyap’s Bollywood gangster drama Bombay Velvet, Barbet Schroeder’s historical drama Amnesia and Brazilian director Sergio Machado’s Heliopolis. 

IMG_1536The CINEASTI DEL PRESENTE selection includes a fascinating array of indie newcomers with first or second films that focus on the filmmakers of the future: In Tagalog; Dead Slow Ahead (right) is cinematographer Mauro Herce’s debut (right). French helmer. Vincent Macaigne’s debut drama is Dom Juan. Kacey Mottet Klein (Sister) stars in Keeper by Guillaume Senez. Melville Poupard, Andre Desoullier and Clemence Poesy star in Le Grand Jeu, a debut for Nicolas Pariser and The Waiting Room from Serbian Bosnian director, Igor Drljaca, and starring Canadian actor Christopher Jacot (Hellraiser), and those that have seen the enchanting Elena by Petra Costa will be excited to see her next experimental docu-drama Olmo & the Seagull.

call me copySEMAINE DE LA CRITIQUE

Ground we copy

This strand screens perhaps the most auteurish films of the festival with a distinctive style and look. Two new Polish films stand out, My Name is Marianna (right) from Karolina Bielawska and Brothers from Wojciech Staron (below right).Christopher Pryor’s black and white New Zealand doc The Ground We Won (above) and Aya Domenig’s The Day the Sun Fell from the Sky (left).

brothers copy

The Jury Selection offers a chance to see their favourite titles including Guy Maddin’s stylish drama, The Forbidden Room, Joanna Hogg’s superb study of a family holiday seen through the eyes of a single, middle-aged woman: Unrelated; and Denis Klebeev’s Strange Particles. The competition jury comprises U.S. photographer-director Jerry Schatzberg; German actor Udo Kier; Israeli director Nadav Lapid; and South Korean actress Moon so-Ri.

Te Premeto Anarquia

Locarno also screens a retrospective of Sam Peckinpah including his standout Western PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID. Marco Bellocchio will receive a Pardo d’Onore and show his 1965 classic I PUGNI IN TASCA along with Michael Cimino whose all time seventies favourite THE DEER HUNTER stars Robert De Niro. MT

LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 5 -15 AUGUST 2015

 

 

 

London Spanish Film Festival |23 -30 September 2015

Catalan film director Isabel Coixet will be in London to present her latest film LEARNING TO DRIVE at the London Spanish Film Festival which runs from 23 – 30 September 2015. For cinephiles and lovers of all things Spanish, it’s a chance to catch up on the latest dramas and documentaries from Spain and this year features a competition with Charles Dance and Nickolas Grace leading the Jury.

Isabel Coixet’s recent film Nobody Wants The Night opened the Berlinale 2015 to mixed reviews – a sweeping arctic epic that takes Juliette Binoche to the ends of the Earth and back, it’s a drama that’s visually splendorous, if emotionally and intellectually perfunctory. Learning to Drive is a comedy romance starring Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson.

This year’s Festival venues are the Ciné Lumière in South Kensington and the recently re-opened Regent Street Cinema, a cinema full of history at the very heart of London.

LONDON SPANISH FILM FESTIVAL 24 – 30 SEPTEMBER 2015 | CINE LUMIERE SW7 AND REGENT STREET W1

Iris (2015) Tribute

Dir.: Albert Maysles | Documentary with Iris Apfel | US 2014, 78 min

Legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles  creates an imaginative portrait of the interior and fashion designer Iris Apfel who has since died – but always seemed much younger at heart than her students.

Maysles, who directed such classics as Gimme Shelter (1970), Grey Gardens (1975) – both co-directed by his brother David – and When We Were Kings (1996) lets the camera do the talking, catching Apfel often in un-guarded moments.

Iris Apfel comes across as a very shrewd business-woman and playful child who made her hobby – arranging clothes and accessories she finds abroad or in bargain stores – into a very successful profession. With her huge glasses, and glittering rings, necklaces and armbands, she is seen permanently re-inventing herself and in love with creating looks while being very much aware of the shortcomings of her trade in particular, and society as a whole.

Fully away that craftsmanship was fast disappearing, Apfel and her husband Carl (who celebrated his hundredth birthday during the shooting), founded the “Old World Weavers” company, so that the skills of weaving in 18th and 19th century would not be lost. Carl also shot 16mm films of their twice yearly trips around the world, where they would collect their materials in bazars and flea markets.

Today’s students can only marvel at their visiting professor but it is clear that it is Apfel, and not the students, who is the revolutionary here. Because Iris always made a clear difference between her identity and her presentations: “It is more important to be happy, than to be well-dressed”. During the years, she helped many White House residents to re-vamp their living quarters, sometimes, as with Jackie Kennedy, there were inevitably some disagreements, but Iris was not starstruck by any celebrity: “We should not talk too much about them”, making clear that she was not impressed by either status or money.

In spite of this, she had an eye for the latter (“I need some Shekels”), and when she empties three huge storage places, where the treasure from her many journeys is stored, it look like she could fill a huge department store with the contents.

But her work ethic was un-diminished til the end. Having grown up during the depression in middle-class Queens, she became a workaholic: “If you are lucky enough to do something you love, everything else follows”. But she never lost her wits or sense of reality, calling on the efforts of the fashion-scholar Harold Koda to “make me into an octogenarian starlet”.

Unlike in Grey Gardens, when the fashion designer Edie Bouvier Beale was the subject of Albert and David Maysles portrait, the interaction between the director and Apfel are very close, both sharing not only the same age (which Apfel makes very light of, even a hip replacement not slowing her down much), they also share the same taste, preferring childlike imagination to ordinary prettiness. IRIS is a truly original creation, and a fitting farewell tribute to one of the great documentary filmmakers of our time. AS

RENT ON YOUTUBE

 

Venice Days | Giornate degli Autori | 2 – 12 September 2015

Venice Film Festival has its own version of Cannes Film Festival: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, called GIORNATE DEGLI AUTORI – VENICE DAYS. Independently run, parallel to the main programme, it all happens just down the road in the grounds of a lush villa overlooking the famous beach where Dirk Bogarde starred in Visconti’s melancholy masterpiece Death in Venice.

El Nascondido - RetributionWith a jury headed by French director, Laurent Cantet, this year’s official selection comprises new works from well-known talent including Chile’s Matias Bize and Italy’s Vincenzo Marra, along with emerging names such as Poland’s Piotr Chrzan and India’s Ruchika Oberoi. Agnes Varda will also be there with her short film Les Tres Boutons which is part of designer Miucci Prada’s strand  ‘The Miu Miu Women’s Tales.’

The Daughter

VENICE DAYS opens with Spanish filmmaker Dani de la Torre’s debut thriller EL DESCONICIDOS (RETRIBUTION) (above) and closes with Jindabyne actor and theatre director Simon Stone’s debut drama THE DAUGHTER. which stars Geoffrey Rush and is losely based on Henrik Ibsen’s play The Wild Duck.

KlezmerWe’re particularly looking forward to the WORLD PREMIERES of Polish wartime drama KLESMER (left) from Piotr Chrzan and Stray Dogs scripter Song Peng Fei’s directorial debut UNDERGROUND FRAGRANCE (below) which follows a similar vein to the 2013 outing which won Grand Special Jury Prize at Venice 2013. High on our list is also Vincenzo Marra’s fourth feature LA PRIMA LUCE which brings Riccardo Scamarcio back to the Lido again starring an Italian lawyer in search of his son lost in Chile.

Underground FragranceCarlo Saura’s documentary ARGENTINA showcasing the country’s national pastime, compliments his series on dance that includes; Fados, Blood Wedding and Carmen. The 83-year-old director is taking a break to come to the Lido from filming Renzo Piano: an Architect for Santander, to screen next year. Britain will be represented in a special event by Grant Gee and his latest film INNOCENCE OF MEMORIES, based on Orhan Pamuk’s book The Museum of Innocence.

GIORNATE DEGLI AUTORI | VENICE DAYeptember 2-12.

 

The Best of Enemies (2015)

Directors: Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon

87min  Documentary   US

In THE BEST OF ENEMIES Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon showcase the heavyweight intellectual TV sparring matches between William Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal, who offered their subjectivity on American Politics during 1968 and fro the last few decades of the 20th Century. Whether or not you agreed with their politics these wittily-crafted debates and well-reasoned arguments, spoken in cool patrician vowels, had US viewers pinned to their sets night after night from the late sixties until the nineties.

Best known for their musical biopics, Neville and Gordon take us on a rip-roaring ride through the lives of both men who had the American public hanging on their every word. Millions of viewers were fixated on their TVs each night, as Buckley, an ardent Republican and Vidal, a champagne socialist, expounded their views like an elegant game of Centre Court tennis. At a time when America needed to “change lanes”, the debates allowed a refreshing breeze of clarity to blow through the political landscape, but culminated in a famous exchange during news coverage of a convention in Chicago (1968), where Buckley finally puts his cards on the table during a highly-charged debate that went down in American history.

Multi-lingual William H Buckley Jr was a staunch Catholic from an educated New York family who went to Yale and spent the Winters in a chateau in Gstaad or sailing at his Stamford holiday home. Gore Vidal, seen posing in his romantic Italian coastal villa, was also from a privileged background with political connections although he never went to University, going straight into the Army, as did Buckley after Yale. The two went on to publish books and newspaper articles – Vidal becoming the best-selling author of the controversial sex-change novel “Myra Breckinridge” – Buckley set up his right-wing journal National Review and became the host of a NewsNight-style programme called The Firing Line.  The two were polar opposites and would argue that black was white just to affirm their antipathy of one another. We also hear off-scene readings from John Lithgow (as Vidal) and Kelsey Grammer (as Buckley) and the late Christopher Hitchens’ adds his commentary further enhancing and inform our enjoyment of this immersive piece.

Slowly ramping up the tension as their gripping story unfolds, Neville and Gordon reveal that ABC-TV, lagging third in the news division behind CBS and NBS, had decided to up its game by hiring these sworn enemies to host a talk show during a convention in Miami. Grainy footage of these coruscating debates make gripping viewing as they each appraise the political situation of an American Society in crisis. When the debates reconvened in Chicago, the tone became more venomous between the men, reflecting a mood of hostility and social unrest that descended on the town at the height of the anti-Vietnam War, in a draconian Police presence. Theatrical texture is added with footage of Paul Newman and Arthur Miller who were also in town at the time. Discussion of the riots seeps into the coverage as these cool intellectuals lock horns, Vidal calling Buckley “a crypto-Nazi.”  Rising to the occasion, Buckley is seen gurning with hatred –  and the image is repeated several times – as he barks back “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face, and you’ll stay plastered.”

When seen on video footage, Buckley was clearly devastated at having lost his cool and apologized profusely but Vidal is strangely unphased with an icy coolness that is itself unnerving given the hatred he clearly felt. Vicious law suits zapped back and forth like angry hornets between the two men for years afterwards, as they each endeavoured to work through this televised trauma.

Ultimately, Gordon and Neville’s documentary serves to illustrate how Buckley and Vidal were the last to deliver  stimulating debates of intellectual clarity on television. Nowadays, networks resort to “that which is highly viewable rather than that which is illuminating”. What a shame. MT

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

 

 

The Salt of the Earth (2014) | CÉSAR 2015 Winner Best Documentary

wimDirector: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Writer: Wim Wenders/Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

110min  Documentary Biography

A biopic of famous Brazilian photographer and philanthropist, Sabastiao Salgado, manages to be both illuminating and moving. Directed (and narrated) by Wim Wenders and Salgado’s son Juliano, what starts as an harrowing and dramatic set of photographs from Africa and beyond, soon becomes a story with a truly inspiring and heart-warming conclusion, adding real weight to the simple story about this fascinating and creatively-driven man, now 70. From war zones in Ruanda and Bosnia to the deepest Amazon, his often shocking images show tremendous compassion and a desire to connect with his subject-matter. As is often the case, his son Juliano, received little attention as a child as Salgado travelled the World, while his wife Leilia, archived and published his works; setting up exhibitions from home and organising financing and funding. There are shades of the late Michael Glawogger to his searingly shocking images and a touch of the David Attenborough to his work with his animals. A peerless tribute to humanity and the animal kingdom. MT.

CÉSAR 2015 WINNER – BEST DOCUMENTARY | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival | 3 – 11 July 2015 | Winners

The 50th Anniversary of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival takes place at the Spa Town, just a stone’s throw from the Czech capital Prague. This year’s Crystal Globe was won by a charming American feature film BOB AND THE TREES where the main character, logger and rap fan Bob Tarasuk, plays himself. US citizen Tarasuk, hails from Czech stock: his grandmother was Czech and grandfather Ukrainian. 238-home-care

Czech films included in the Competition included some great performances: Alena Mihulová received the Best Actress Award for her portrayal of a dedicated nurse in Slávek Horák’s debut HOME CARE (right) and Kryštof Hádek received the Best Actor Award as the problematic younger brother in the drama THE SNAKE BROTHERS directed by Jan Prušinovský.

938-antoniaThe Special Jury Prize was awarded to Austrian director Peter Brunner for  THOSE WHO FALL HAVE WINGS, (below right), a drama on coming to terms with the death of a loved one. Kosovan Visar Morina received the Best Director Award for his film BABAI, a story about a small boy setting off on a journey to find his father. The jury also awarded two Special Mentions to animated biography THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, directed by Anca Damian, and the drama ANTONIA, (right) a tragic story of Italy’s most famous female poet .

The prize for the best film of the East of the West Competition was awarded to social drama THE WEDNESDAY CHILD by the Hungarian director Lili Horváth, a tale of a young girl who wants to secure better circumstances for her child than she had. A Special Mention was awarded to Romanian film The World Is Mine.

606-those-who-fall-have-wingsThe Grand Prix for Best Documentary Film went to Helena Třeštíková for her latest long-term documentary MALLORY. The jury also awarded a Special Mention to Austrian film The Father Tapes. The prize for the best documentary film up to 30 minutes in length was awarded to WHITE DEATH, a story of a Chilean military company trapped in the snow told using a variety of formats and animation techniques. The Special Mention in this category was granted to WOMEN IN SINK, a visit to an Israeli beauty salon. The Forum of Independents Award went to American transgender comedy TANGERINE, shot by director Sean Baker on an iPhone 5.

red_spider_photoHIGHLIGHTS

Seven World premieres and six international premieres competed including HEIL Dietrich Bruggemann’s satire centred on neo-Nazis, which sounds quite different from his sombre 2014 Berlinale outing Stations of the Cross. Polish director Marcin Koszalka’s debut THE RED SPIDER (left) created plenty of buzz – it’s a psychological thriller inspired by true events from the Fifties, where we’re encouraged to see things from the killer’s perspective.  GOLD COAST (main pic) is a Danish drama about a young maverick who embarks on a journey to the Danish Colonies to set up a coffee plantation. BABAI is a rites of passage road drama from Kosovar filmmaker Visar Morina. ANTONIA explores the tragic life of poet, Antonia Pozzi, Italy’s greatest female poet.

 

song-of-songsThere is a distinctly Eastern flavour to the features from the two female filmmakers in Competition. Another title that has been getting some good reviews is Eva Neymann’s tender and touching  SONG OF SONGS: images of the lost world of the Jewish Shtetl at the turn of the 20th Century is seen through the eyes of two teenage lovers (right), and Anca Damian’s THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN explores a mujahedin fighter’s adventures during the Afghanistan wars.

There were seven screen debuts in the Competition line-up – the winner THE SOUND OF TREES, is Canadian filmmaker François Peloquin’s coming of age feature debut set in the Québec landscape (main pic).

FORUM OF INDEPENDENTS

Brazilian director Ives Rosenfeld’S world premiere of HOPEFULS (Aspirantes), takes light-hearted look at the world of football through the eyes of a young man and his girlfriend. And Kim Ki-duk’s latest offering STOP is a bizarre drama centring on a couple who are gradually descending into meltdown in the aftermath radiation sickness caused by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor.

DOCUMENTARY STRAND

202-i-am-belfastThe Documentary Films strand included the international premiere of ‘poetic and moving’ I AM BELFAST, from English director Mark Cousins who reveals the history of Belfast through the ancient eyes of an 10,000 year old woman. The score is composed by David Holmes.

At finally, it takes an English woman, Cosima Spender, to make a film about the Sienese Palio, an ancient and daring horse race that takes place annually in the Florentine city. PALIO’s editor, Valerio Bonelli, was the editor of award-winning titles: Philomena, Hannibal Rising and Gladiator and the documentary won a prize at Tribeca earlier this year (below).513-palio

KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 3 -11 JULY 2015 | KARLOVY VARY | CZECH REPUBLIC

Britain on Film (2015) |Now available on BFIplayer

M&K_-_BRADFORD_TRAMS One of the earliest ‘home movie’ films shows a family paddling on a Sandown beach in 1902. Another records Lerwick’s Old Norse Viking Festival in 1927. Along with over 2,500 others, these films are now accessible online via the BFI Player, as part of a huge project called BRITAIN ON FILM. They include home movies, documentaries and news footage from Victorian times to as recently as 1980.

“We have these extraordinary, vast collections,” said the BFI’s head curator, Robin Baker. “But until these films have been digitised the only chance of anyone ever seeing them are on the occasional screenings.” Researchers have been working for the past two years to unearthed the treasure trove of our national archive. Using the bfiplayer’s search engine, you can tap into your past: the village, or even road, where you were born, grew up or worked – all available at the touch of a button.

Beautifully elegant women glide past in the Chester Regatta in 1901, Glasgow in 1962, capturing the last days of the trams and the gloomy housing estates of the Gorbels. An early 1970s mother and her seven children living in Britain’s worst slums in Birmingham, and Covent Garden Porters balancing their wares in 1929. Sunshine in Soho depicts the exotically diverse community in the 1956 Soho Carnival and Winston Churchill’s visit to Belfast to argue in favour of Home Rule for Ireland; seems prescient in retrospect.

There is even a 1967 film called Paper Fashion that ironically encourages us to buy paper products almost anything idresses, bikinis, jewellery, plates, cups, underwear: “When you’ve used it, just throw it away….and “end up with the 218,000 tonnes of household tissue alone which was added to our waste heaps last year.”

Danny Kaye is seen in a bizarre visit to the Hertfordshire home of George Bernard Shaw in Hertfordshire and an early cat and dog show records the Nation’s pampered pouches and their equally well-dressed owners during 1901.

So get online at BFIplayer: There could be some wonderful surprises and some emotional ones – like discovering something about your family and friends you didn’t know….so have a wander down memory lane and discover your own piece of cinema history. MT

BFI BRITAIN ON FILM IS NOW AVAILABLE ON BFIPLAYER | The films have been digitised thanks to National Lottery money and the aim is to have 10,000 available within three years.

 

 

The First Film (2015)

Dir.: David Wilkinson

Documentary; UK/France/USA 2015, 110 min.

Over the past thirty years the Leeds born filmmaker David Wilkinson has tried to prove that Leeds was the cradle of filmmaking even though the inventor in question was the French born Louis Le Prince. Somehow overshadowing Wilkinson’s quest is a riddle, worthy of any detective film: Louis Le Prince disappeared without a trace on September 16th 1890, after boarding the Dijon to Paris express: he never arrived at his destination; his body was never found.

Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince was born in September 1841 in Metz. He soon became acquainted with the photographer, Louis Daguerre, a friend of his father. Young Louis spent many hours in Daguerre’s studio. Later he would study painting in Paris, after graduating in chemistry at the university of Leipzig.  Louis saw active service in the Franco/Prussian war in 1870, after taking part in violent demonstrations. At the beginning of the 188os journeyed to the USA, where, amongst other activities, he was an agent for French painters. In 1887, after having developed a 16-lens camera in New York – Wilkinson has unearthed some ‘moving’ pictures – he went to Leeds, England, then a hotbed of innovators and artists. Here he shot on the 14th of October 1888, with a newly developed One-lens camera, the “Roundhay Garden” scene, where the participants not simply walk, but follow some instructions from the ‘director’ (Wilkinson can retrace the exact date, because one of the women in the film died a few weeks later).

Le Prince also shot a documentary with horse carts on Leeds Bridge, a pedestrian crossing. In 1890, Le Prince, who had patented his 16-lens, as well as the One-lens camera he used for the ‘Roundhay Garden’ scene, in Great Britain and planned to go to the USA, to lay claim to his invention there. Before his journey to the USA, he visited his family in Bourges, and on the 13th of September he arrived in Dijon, to visit his brother. Three days later, his brother was the last man to see him alive, boarding the Paris express. He never arrived, and passengers reported no incidents during the journey. Suicide, fratricide or murder (on behalf of Thomas Edison, a rival inventor who later claimed the single right to the patent) are all possible. The latter ‘perp’ is perhaps the most probable, since Louis’ eldest son Adolphe later fought in an US court to have Edison’s claim as the sole inventor nullified; Le Prince junior won on appeal, but died two years later under mysterious circumstances during an outing whilst shooting ducks.

Wilkinson tells the story of the “first” cinematographic event vividly, displaying an awesome knowledge of the rival inventors, coming to the conclusion that Le Prince only beat his nearest rival by a few days. There are not too many ‘talking heads’ in THE FIRST FILM and the archive material is nothing less than stunning. But somehow, the chronicle of the first movies is overshadowed by the mysterious disappearance of Louis Le Prince. Wilkinson has even unearthed a photograph of a man resembling Le Prince, who was buried in November 1880 – a man ‘of standing’, who had drowned. But try has he may; succeeding in all other respects, the director cannot solve the death of the man who (most probably) ‘directed’ the first movie. AS

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SCREENING AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 -28 JUNE 2015 | GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3 JULY 2015

Elephant’s Dream (2014) | East End Film Festival 1 – 12 July 2015

Dir.: Kristof Bilsen

Documentary; Belgium DR Congo 2014, 72 min.

Kristof Bilsen’s first full-length documentary is a poetic and languid portrait of civil service workers in Kinshasa (DRC), the third biggest city in Africa. After decades of post-colonial strife and civil wars the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) has somehow come to a grinding halt. In the capital Kinshasa we witness members of the essential services fighting a losing war against an all-prevalent apathy. Henrietta works for the post office, a huge building, which seems very empty. Staff are faced to with long delays in wage payment; they are behind by more than a year and when the pay finally appears employees are lucky to get ten per cent of their monthly income.

One employee, Henrietta, tries to come to terms with sub-standard living condition, and the non-existing public transport which means miles of walking just to get to work. Finally, the deputy prime minister re-opens the post office, computers are installed – Henrietta is learning fast – and everyone is optimistic. A few weeks later, we meet Henrietta again, she is in charge of her local post office, but no customers appear.

Simon and Van Nzai are two old friends, working for the railway station. But we don’t actually see a train until the very last scene, and the two men are bored and conspiring against each other. Nzai tries to get early retirement, because his eye sight is failing him during the night shifts (so he claims), whilst Simon tries to repair an old, clapped out car, to make some money as a taxi driver. Finally, there is Lt. Kasunga and his firemen form the Central unit in Kinshasa. Kasunga knows very well that a huge city like Kinshasa needs six district stations and a central station, and his small unit is hardly able to cope. When a house is on fire, the men are helpless: the water pressure is much too low, and we see the flames destroying everything. It is ironic, but not surprising, that the building of the Central station was itself destroyed by fire two years ago, after an accident with a stove. Colonial attitudes have survived: Simon tells us that the black bosses repress the workers in the same way as the colonial masters, and independent thinking, never mind critique, is not opportune, if one wants to keep their job.

Bilsen, who is also the DOP, shows a cosmos of slow motion, where everybody seems to stay still, food is rare and basic, and equipment seems to be from the 19th century; boots, like the ones of the fire brigade are second hand from Canada. Hope (and faith in the case of Christian, Henrietta) are still alive, but passivity nevertheless gets the upper hand. Without being judgemental, Bilsen is showing us a life of just survival, but in spite of this, the images are sensitive, lyrical and very touching. AS

The film’s UK premier will play on Saturday 4th July as part of the East End Film Festival: www.genesiscinema.co.uk/films/events/eeff-elephants-dream-uk-premiere-sat-4th-july/

 

Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in PyongYang (2015)

Director: Colin Offland

With Dennis Rodman

93min  Sport documentary  US

The North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un is not the only unusual character in Colin Offland’s debut feature documentary: Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in PyongYang. The NBA veteran, Dennis Rodman, has some issues which come to the forefront as he forges a bizarre friendship with the dictator based on their mutual love of basketball. But diplomacy is not the word that springs to mind here when the Rodman decides to stage “the most controversial sporting event the world has never seen”.  Given to bouts of sobbing, shouting incoherently and drinking heavily, Rodman explains, in an emotional statement ”poolside” in his native Miami, how he aims to improve relations between the US and the estranged Asian Nation. So having received an invitation from Kim to improve on the performance given by the Harlem Globetrotters in 2013, Rodman jumps at the opportunity to visit with his own team buddies for a match with North Korea’s National team, to celebrate Kim’s birthday on January 8th 2014.

Rodman’s first surprise out of the bag is securing funding from the Irish bookmakers Paddy Power, who step in with finance to send the team to PyongYang.  But one wonders, given Rodman’s incendiary personality, if he really is the man to pull off a diplomatic engagement with such a volatile political regime, let along the dictator himself. Well fire certainly meets fire and that’s all part of the fun of this extraordinary story with its unexpected twists and turns. Most of the excitement lies in the contrast between the hulking figure of Rodman with his facial piercings and gargantuan hands swinging from muscly arms and the diminutive Kim who is briefly glimpsed smiling gleefully, next to his wife, during the final match ceremony on Rodman’s return visit.

The other reason to see this curiously absurd documentary is to get a glimpse of what North Korea actually looks like. Shot on the wide lens, what emerges here are vast open boulevards flanked by palatial buildings set in panoramic snowy scenery under electric blue skies. PyongYang itself makes Las Vegas look like a toy town; and those who’ve visited Vegas will appreciate the extraordinary distances from one hotel to another.

Clearly, the fact that Kim has recently had his uncle put to death and North Korea’s Human Rights record doesn’t square well with US diplomacy, sparking major controversy with the folks back home in America. But pouting like a petulant child, Rodman, now in his early fifties, insists naively “I’m not trying to be a politician. I’m not trying to be a world leader – It’s all about sports.”

In this fast-moving and well-edited film, Offland obtains remarkable footage of the events and, most hilarious of all, the celebration dinner in the presence of Kim, where Rodman finally loses it, despite the careful diplomatic groundwork prepared by his highly professional NBA colleagues, one of whom dissolves in tears in the aftermath. As politely smiling North Korean waitresses and diplomats look on wincingly, Dennis rants and raves like an enormous gorilla in designer sportswear. Talk about upping the ante: It’s unlikely Kim Jong-un expected such a showcase showdown in his own backyard. MT

SCREENING DURING THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL | 1 -12 JULY 2015

That Sugar Film (2015)

Director.: Damon Gameau

Documentary with Damon Gameau, Stephen Fry, Hugh Jackman, Isabel Lucas

Australia 2014, 97 min.

In 2004 Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me took care of Mac Donald’s fast food products. Now ten year’s later, Australian actor Damon Gameau (Balibo) tackles muesli bars, fruit smoothies and other “natural” foods which contain sugar to an unbelievable level.

Gameau, a sort of friendlier and more serious version of Russell Brand, had been “sugar free” for years. With his girlfriend in the latter stages of her pregnancy, Gameau set out to prove what the average intake of sugar in Australia – 40 teaspoons of sugar or 160 gram of it – does to your physical and mental health. But instead of chocolate, ice cream or soft drinks he stuck to cereals, low fat yoghurts, fruit smoothies and musli bars: food you might find in your own fridge or larder, thinking it healthy. Consulting an array of physicians and nutritionists, the sugar intake had an dramatic impact on the actors life: during the 60 days of his “sugar trial”, he gained around half a kilo a day, even though he stuck to the 2300 daily calories he was used too before the experiment. Furthermore, he developed the first signs of fatty liver disease, and was affected by violent mood swings; quite like symptoms bi-polar sufferers endure.

Gameau travelled to a remote Aboriginal settlement in Australia, where government support had helped to wean the community off their Coca-Cola addiction – only to find out that the grant had been cancelled, and the community had fallen back on their bad habits. Flying to the United States, the home of the soft-drink giants Coca Cola and Pepsi, he found a teenager in the Appalachian mountains, whose teeth had been completely destroyed by “Mount Dew”, a soft drink with powerful caffeine and sugar levels. Gameau’s use of graphics is original, it serves the audience well when we see a fully stocked supermarket, and then reduce it to twenty per cent: the amount of articles that do not contain sugar. Like the Tobacco industry before it, the 80 billion Dollar sugar industry employs “scientists” who write papers, muddying the waters, by coming to the conclusion that sugar intake is not at all responsible for major health problems.

But it’s not all pedagogic effort: Gameau introduces funny elements, like minimalising himself and helping his mini version into his brain, to research the brain reaction to a hefty sugar intake. Stephen Fry and High Jackman also try to keep up a certain entertainment level, and the wonderful CGI show at the end that combining sex and lust for sugary products, sends the audience in a more light hearted way home – hopefully still in the mood to ditch those ‘health food’ items from their larders. THAT SUGAR FILM is just the right mixture of enlightenment, polemics and original aesthetics that might make us change our shopping and eating habits – a little. AS

THAT SUGAR FILM is on general release from 26 JUNE 2015

Prophet’s Prey (2015) | Edinburgh Film Festival 2015

Director: Amy Berg

With Jon Krakauer and Sam Brower and Nick Cave

90min  Documentary  Biography

Religious cults also provide rich pickings for film documentaries. And accomplished documentarian Amy Berg’s study of the cult leader and serial child abuser, Warren Jeffs, is no exception: although you wish she could have delved a little deeper into the personalities and psychology of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). PROPHET’S PREY, although well-crafted and riveting doesn’t reveal more than has already been documented across the media.

By way of background, the FLDS are a splinter sect of the Mormons and were outlawed when they refused to give up polygamy. Based on research by investigator Sam Brower and the bestseller of investigative journalist Jon Krakauer ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’, Berg’s documentary chronicles how cult leader, mega-polygamist and pasty-faced preacher, Warren Jeffs, by process of mind control and indoctrination, gradually took over this extremist religious movement from his position as Principal at the Salt Lake City high school, Alta Academy. What emerges here is not his desire for sex with multiple partners (of both sexes), but more his megalomania and need to manipulate and dominate, which started with his own family members, including his sister. In short, what Jeffs really got off on was the ability to reduce his fellow humans to pure minions under his over-arching superiority, both mental and physical. In effect, he was the deity that his adherents worshipped and obeyed.

Through the talking heads of Krakauer, the intellectual, and Brower the doer; Berg shows how the two played a major part in Jeffs’ arrest and capture, at the height of his power. The FDLS is a highly secret organisation that intimidates women and children and, operating with CCTV at every corner of the community, questions and eliminates any outside who strays into their open compounds, nestling in ‘some of the best real estate between Utah and Arizona. Gaining huge financial leverage over his community by forcing the families to pool their resources and entrust his with the spoils, their leader Jeffs gains complete dominion while they become, in effect, complete prisoners, in a regime of absolute power. Cowering under Jeff’s control, the women are reduced to an almost catatonic state of submissiveness as they roam around in family groups, dressed in 19th century attire (long Laura Ashley-style dresses) topped off with ornate hairdos. Watching the footage recorded by Krakauer, from the safety of his SUV, is really quite eerie and unsettling.

In his calm but controlling monotone voice, Jeffs prophesies doom to his flock if they deviate from his control. When the World didn’t end in 1999, as he had predicted, and his followers failed to be beamed up to Heaven, Jeffs claims it was because they had been unworthy. In this way, he has answer for everything. Members of his family who have managed to escape shed light on the community, by relating their shocking experiences to camera, but it still feels that Berg is merely scratching the surface of this dreadful human tragedy. Through their investigations, Krakauer and Bower manage to get Jeffs on the FBI’s Most Wanted List leading to his eventual arrest in Nevada.

Berg’s collaborators Scott Stevenson and Brendan Walsh assemble a fascinating array of pictures and news footage that enliven this spooky and quite nauseating saga, Nick Cave occasionally narrates and provides the film’s atmospheric original score. MT

SCREENING AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 -28 JUNE 2015

 

The Iron Ministry (2014)

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Dir: J.P. Sniadecki | China/USA Documentary 82mins

You could be forgiven for thinking there’s a projection fault at the start of THE IRON MINISTRY, as brooding, bassy railyard hums meld over an appreciably sustained stretch of black screen, with the high-pitched screeches of trains coming to a halt. The resulting landscape, though evoked entirely through sound, is vividly panoramic—so it comes as something of a surprise when the first images proper of the film appear to be so disorientingly and claustrophobically abstract. J.P. Sniadecki’s latest documentary is a typically immersive work, and receives its world premiere this week in the 67th Locarno Film Festival’s International Competition.

With works like DEMOLITION (2008), THE YELLOW BANK (2010) and PEOPLE’S PARK (2012), Sniadecki had already proven himself to be a key member of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab. Though his co-directed documentary FOREIGN PARTS (2010) focused on an area of Queens, New York, the director’s body of work is growing into a committed and often compelling portrait of contemporary China, as witnessed and experienced by at a ground level perspective. The latest addition to this ongoing project was shot over the course of three years (2011-13) on the country’s vast rail network, soon to be the largest in the world.

THE IRON MINISTRY begins with the finer details—close-ups of rubber inter-carriage gangways, cigarette butts, raw slabs of beef and mutton—before allowing its many characters to emerge fleetingly from the chaos. Chaos is about right: overstuffed with families, workers, students and migrants, these passenger trains are a microcosm of human activity. Sniadecki’s camera negotiates its way through the carriages surveying what it can, proceeding at knee-height and at head-height, panning left and right to take in the crowd. Sometimes, it stops in the vestibules to absorb a conversation between smokers, or between two women in a Bechdel-passing chat about low wages, longer hours and rising prices.

On a sleeper train, one young lad ironic beyond his years welcomes everyone aboard from his top bunk, claiming that explosives are welcome and that, because it’s a civil train, pissing and shitting is encouraged. Extending limbs and heads out of the window, he quips, can help passengers contribute to China’s population control measures. On another train, the filming crew is prevented from entering a visibly less populated first-class carriage. Not long after, we hear the surreal diegetic sound of an instrumental rendition of the TITANIC theme tune mingling with the cacophonously ubiquitous drones of the train itself rattling along.

This music—presumably coincidental—is uncanny. Though the class divisions in James Cameron’s 1997 crowd-pleasing epic may have been milked for dramatic purpose, they remain militantly upheld across the world, not least of all in China, the mammoth embodiment of transglobal exploitation. Indeed, watching this film makes the flashily fanciful allegories of Bong Joon-ho’s SNOWPIERCER look decidedly less fantastical than they first seemed. The future is already here.

So, what of it? What, indeed, do we make of the many complaints, anxieties, desires and dreams expressed here, by the young and by the old, by the shoeshines and other quick-buck hopefuls? While Sniadecki’s access-all-areas approach is commendable, the anything-goes feel seems to be a matter of editorial indiscipline rather than of premeditation. One always feels that a documentary of this ilk could be three hours long or three minutes long, and the variation in canvas size wouldn’t impact our overall understanding of the content therein. It’s one thing to gain access to a social snapshot like this, but—just as a zoomed-in shot of the passing landscape outside suggests China is a patchwork quilt that denies easy comprehension—at a certain point, one must ask to what extent the artist is intervening upon matters.

At a stretch, one could argue that merely presenting recorded material is not necessarily the same as creating a picture from it. Though Sniadecki in this sense is a stronger artist than Wang Bing, his evident talent and previous achievements suggest that now might be the time to go beyond an ethnographical account and make something truly ambitious, hitting and more explicitly probing. MICHAEL PATTISON

NOW ON ICARUS FILMS 

 

Open City Doc Fest 16 – 21 June 2015

London best-loved documentary festival is back for a 5th year taking place 16 – 21 June at various venues across London including the newly opened Regent Street Cinema, Curzon Bloomsbury, JW3 and Picturehouse Central. This year the festival shines a spotlight on the golden age of Croatian cinema and there are films from China and a timely tribute to WWII.

1407411925_film_still_3The opening gala is Sam Klemke’s TIME MACHINE (Bloomsbury Theatre, Tue 16 June, 18.30), a unique and strange self-portrait of his life over 35 years, directed by Matthew Bate (Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure), followed by the opening night party at the Horse Hospital (20.30 onwards). The closing gala is THE CLOSER WE GET (Regents Street Cinema, Sun 22 June, 18.00) directed by Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope, following Karen’s own family story, in the aftermath of her mother’s devastating stroke.

Well known for his pedalo movie SWANDOWN, artist filmmaker and juror Andrew Kotting’s latest film BY OUR SELVES is English poet John Clare’s four day wander from Epping Forest to Northamptonshire starring Toby Jones. THE REUNION (2013) follows infamous Swedish artist Anna Odell as she confronts her childhood bullies in a revenge fantasy – both films, courtesy of Soda Pictures.

img_0219Other UK filmmaker highlights include Chloe Ruthven’s latest JUNGLE SISTERS (Thu 18 June, 20.30, Regent Street Cinema), a thought-provoking tale of two village girls as they take to the working world. The theme of psychogeography is explored in with ESTATE, A REVERIE (Wed 17 June 19.30, The Horse Hospital) which tracks the passing of the Haggerston Estate (1936 – 2014) in Hackney, and the utopian promise of social housing it offered and A SMART PORTRAIT OF LONDON (Wed 17 June, 19.00, Hackney Attic) asks how Londoners can shape their city using technology and lo-fi human interventions.

cechanok_3Animal and human behaviour features on screen with CECHANOK (Thur 18 June, 19.30, Deptford Cinema), which looks at the fascinating world of Arabic falconry, while Marc Schmidt’s THE CHIMPANZEE (Fri 19 June, 20.45, Bertha DocHouse) looks at the daily lives of Chimpanzees in a Dutch rescue centre.

And now to Croatia: In Focus highlights work from a new generation of Croatian documentary filmmakers, NAKED ISLAND (2014) (Wed 17 June, 20:45, JW3) an investigation into the disappearance of a man and the people brought together by a political prison in ex- Yugoslavia known as the island of broken souls.

OC766838_P3001_186220 copyA spotlight on China features THE IRON MINISTRY (Sun 21 June, Time tbc, ICA) from award-winning American filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki looks at China’s railways over a period of three years; STRANDED IN CANTON (Wed 17 June, 20.30, Regent Street Cinema) follows Lebrun, a new player in the burgening Chinese-African trade route; BEIJING ANTS (Fri 19 June, 18.15, Regent Street Cinema) follows filmmaker Ryuji Otsuka as they search for a new flat in one of the most expensive cities in the world; ON THE RIM OF THE SKY (Sat 21 June, 15.30, Picturehouse Central) looks at the outsider versus the insider set in the Sichuan province; and

And with 60th Anniversary of WWII, films looking at narratives of war will feature OF MEN AND WAR (Sat 20 June, 14.30, Picturehouse Central), a 2014 Cannes favourite centered around the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict and the veterans struggling with PTSD at home in the US; INVASION (Sun 21 June, 15.30 Bertha Dochouse) looks at a recreation of the 1989 Invasion of Panama; and THE CREATION OF MEANING (Sun 21 June, 15.00, Regent Street Cinema), follows a shepherd born in the wake of war in the breathtaking Tuscan Alps.

For tickets, visit www.opencitylondon.com

Natural Resistance (2014)

Dir.: Jonathan Nossiter

DocumentaryItaly/France 2014, 85 min.

Ten years after Mondovino, where he exposed the on-goings of the French vine industry, Jonathan Nossiter visits Italy to interview ‘resistance fighters’ of the same industry who have fallen foul of the DOC (Denominazione di origene contrallate) commission in their country because of their decision to go organic with their wines

To start with, it is ironic that after Mondovino, nearly all the talking heads in NATURAL RESISTANCE praise the French model of production; their critique of the Italian DOC commission always starting with “if this was France..”, implying a paradise for organic growers in their neighbouring country. The interviewees live and work in Tuscany or Piedmont, and the film open with sumptuous views of the Tuscan holiday homes of stars like Sting and Robert Zemeckis. To accompany this filmic tipple, Nossiter has invited Gianluca Farinelli, the director of the Bologna Cinemateque, who shows clips of Goldrush and some nifty black and white newsreels from the 50s, where soon to be famous directors like Mario Soldati and Cesare Zavattini (with music by the great Nino Rota), show the powerful force of agricultural workers from a time when 66% of the country worked on the land, compared with a mere three per cent today. Less connected to the topic seems to be W.H. Auden’s poem ‘Musee des Beaux Arts”, after a Breughel painting, about the fall of Icarus.

The tenor of the interviewees, Giovanna Tiezzi (who lives in a converted 11th century monastery), Corrado Dottori (who fled from the industrial Milan after he inherited his father’s farmstead), Elena Pantaloni (who also inherited her father’s vineyard) is unanimous: The DOC, instead of championing organic production, has made farmers and vine growers adhere to the use of pesticides and organic growing methods. In taking away their DOC label, the commission tries to stamp out any winemaking methods that do not conform with the supermarkets, who control the business.

On a basic level, we are shown the enormous difference between untreated soil and the one treated with pesticides: the noxious ingredients have totally destroyed the soil by making it solid and water impermeable  leaving a unpalatable finish on our lips, before we have even sipped a glass of wine.

I spite of its goodwill, NATURAL RESISTANCE is slightly under-whelming in comparison with its predessessor – it is more an ad-hoc journey to some visit some friends with a good cause, than a structured documentary. Whilst numerous clips liven up the proceedings, the seriousness of  the ‘rebels’ who are fighting for their livelihood is somewhat undermined. That the doc will be of interest to wine buffs and devoted connoisseurs. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 12 JUNE 2015

 

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

Dir.: Mark Hartley

Documentary; Australia/USA/Israel/UK 2014, 107 min.

Mark Hartley (Machete Maidens unleashed) is no stranger to the weirder aspects of film history at the lower end of the spectrum, and ELECTRIC BOOGALOO certainly dives deep into the underbelly of the film industry – but coming up with a few contradictory facts regarding our perception of exploitation film making.

Cannon Films was founded in 1967, and, until the arrival of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus in 1979, had produced mainly horror shockers like The Blood on Satan’s Claw. The cousins Golan and Globus would not change the contents of Cannon’s film slate very much (apart from a few exceptions mentioned later), but production values would compete, at certain times, with the ones of the major studios; whilst the duo’s production by numbers rose to eighteen in 1987, compared with the usual yearly output of the majors of six to eight.

Golan, who would direct some the films himself, was the artistic half, whilst Globus juggled the finances. Both had great success in Israel with Lemon Popsicle in 1978: produced for 10m Shekel, 1.3 million citizens (more than a third of the total population) watched the film, so did 2.7 million Germans. The teenage sex comedy was remade as a Cannon Film in 1982 with the title The Last American Virgin. The cousins were obviously led by the maxim that every film could only get better if naked women appeared frequently. With a few exceptions, these scenes were not offensively pornographic; more often than not, the nakedness was involuntarily funny. Lucinda Dickey and Bo Derek, commenting on their former selves in this documentary, can see the funny side of the embarrassing clips. Much more obscene were Michael Winner’s Death Wish sequels, which, so one observer, “simply served the purpose for Winner to be obnoxious”.

On the whole, Globus/Golan found work for stars whose career was on the downward trajectory: actors like Elliot Gould or Franco Nero, the latter having the honour to be first Ninja in Enter the Ninja (1980). Directors, who had seen better days included Justin Jacklin of ‘Emmanuelle’ fame, Barbet Schroeder (Barfly, 1987), John Frankenheimer (52 Pick Up, 1986) and Tobe Hooper, whose Lifeforce (1985) was the ultimate ‘zombie-vampire-end of the world-nude movie – starring a very young Mathilda May, a B-picture produced at the staggering cost of 25m $, easily 40 m in todays money. But it should be said, that some exceptions made these excesses easier to bear: Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear (1987), John Cassavates Love Streams (1984), Neil Jordan’s Company of Wolves (1985) and Andrei Konchalovski’s Runaway Train from the same year show a different side of Cannon. The same goes for Franco Zeffirelli’s Verdi opera Otello (1986), the director, not the easiest to work with, stating rather surprisingly, “that Golan and Globus were the best producers he ever worked for”.

What brought the end for the Golan/Globus reign at Cannon was the fact, that they grew too quickly. At one time, Golan/Globus had over 50% of the UK cinema market with their “Classic” and “ABC” chains; on top they had acquired EMI, with their library of over 2000 films, and the studios in Elstree. This was all sold, to make even bigger films, like Superman IV (1987), a disaster with the worst special effects possible. Cannon than paid Sylvester Stalone the unheard sum of 12 m in the same year, to appear in Over the Top, an arm wrestling (sic!) ‘action’ film, which bombed at the box office. At the same time, Cannon had a five year option with “marvel’ for Spiderman, the rights reverted after five years back to Marvel, later to be picked up by Columbia, But after his ‘divorce’ from Cannon and Globus in 1989, Menachem Golan produced Captain America for Marvel and his new company ’21 Century’ – alas, the ten million $ project went more or less straight to video.

The parting of Golan (who died in 2014 at the age of eighty five) and Globus was bitter; on March 16th, two Lambada films had their premiere in Hollywood, one produced by Globus for Cannon, the rival one by Golan for 21. Century. As somebody commented “this was even surreal for Hollywood standards”. And surreal is an apt description for the whole Cannon adventure, documented here informative, full of witty/bitchy remarks and clips which make you laugh in Hartley’s ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, the title of a1985 Cannon film, the sequel to another, rather successful, Cannon classic Breakin. AS

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 5 JUNE 2015

 

 

AGNÈS VARDA | Honorary Palme d’Or | Cannes 2015

HONORARY PALME D’OR FOR AGNÈS VARDA

The Brussel’s born French filmmaker Agnès Varda became the first woman to be honoured by the Festival in Cannes on 24. May 2015 with an Honorary Palme d’Or, reserved for directors who have not won a Golden Palme, but whose life’s work deserves this recognition.

Born in 1928, Varda studied at the “Écoles des Beaux Arts” and, whilst living in Paris, met her husband Jacques Démy, also a filmmaker; the couple had a son, Mathieu, who is also a director. Rosalie, Varda’s daughter from her relationship with the actor Antoine Bourseilier (who starred in her breakthrough film Cleo from 5 to 7), is a custom designer and worked on Godard’s Passion (1982).

Varda, whilst being part of the Nouvelle Vague, had strong connections with the “Rive Gauche” cinema movement, which was strongly tied to the “Nouveau Roman” group of Robbe-Grillet, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Margarete Duras. Resnais would edit Varda’s debut film La Pointe Courte (1954), a mixture of fiction and documentary. Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961), about a singer who undergoes a biopsy for cancer, is about coming to terms with one’s mortality, a common theme in all Varda films.

After winning the “Golden Lion” in Venice 1985 for Vagabond, about a woman tramp, brilliantly acted by Sandrine Bonnaire, Varda spend the last years of the decade with her husband, Démy being struck by a rare illness, caused by cells ageing prematurely, leading to death. Just before Démy’s demise in 1990, Varda finished Jacquot de Nantes, a semi-autobiographical film about her husband’s childhood in Nantes. Her documentary The Beaches of Agnès won the César award in in 2009.

Varda’s strong personality enabled her to survive as the only woman director of the Nouvelle Vague. It is no accident that her feminism would dominate her work, as in La Bonheur (1965). Varda’s photographic background produces often still images in her films, often mixing them with moving images. She is still influenced by writers like Nathalie Sarraute and continues to use the unity of documentation and fiction of her debut La Pointe Courte, which she filmed in a small fishing village, for a terminally ill friend who was unable to visit anymore. MT

AGNES VARDA | 30 May 1928 | HONORARY PALME D’OR | CANNES 2015

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We Are Many (2014)

Dir.: Amir Amirani; Documentary; UK 2014, 104 min.

On February 15th 2003, between ten and thirty million people demonstrated in over 700 cities in more than sixty countries against the impending war on Iraq. WE ARE MANY is not only a document of resistance but also shows that whilst the worldwide protests could not deter the USA/UK Alliance from starting the war, it had consequences on other developments, particularly in Egypt and the UK itself.

Amirani (who had to re-mortgage his home twice to finance the documentary) mixes achieve footage with interviews: mainly from the art world, like Brian Emo, Damon Albarn, Danny Glover, Matk Rylance and Ken Loach, as well as campaigners like Richard Branson, Tony Benn and Noam Chomsky. They all speak about a race against time, because both the US and the UK governments were pressing for a war, before a second vote at the UN could be taken. The statements of Hans Blix, UN weapons inspector at the time, are particularly enlightening. Since we have learned, that his 2003 assessment of the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was absolutely right, the charge of war crimes against Tony Blair and George W. Bush seems only logical. But it is not surprising, that neither of the two retired statesmen were willing to testify in front of the cameras. Colonel Lawrence Wilkinson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, is more honest: “We lied to the American people; and I wish I had resigned”. In the last days before the outbreak of war on March 20th 2003, Richard Branson persuaded Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to fly into Iraq, to convince Saddam Hussein, that he should leave the country, to avoid an attack, but US bombing raids thwarted this plan.

Not only the bloody war (which cost the life of 600 000 Iraqis), and its aftermath, which is still felt today, when nearly every week a new atrocity of the warring fractions in Iraq is shown in gruesome details on TV, has justified the campaign. Still, Amirani does not concentrate on the disappointment, but shows how the worldwide demonstrations encouraged the uprising in Egypt, culminating in the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in 2011. Organisers of these protests were surprised, that “whisky-drinking” people from the West were protesting against a war against an Arab country, whilst their own government did nothing. And on August 30th 2013, David Cameron was the first Prime Minister for 231 years, whose call for a war (against Syria) was defeated in parliament by 285 to 272 votes. Lessons have been learned, and the war is not forgotten: in the USA, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State for Defence during the conflict, is continuously harassed by anti-war demonstrators, whenever he appears in public.

WE ARE MANY is always lively, avoids lecturing, and has a sense of humour, like showing the protests by US scientists on McMurdo Station in Antarctica, or the graffiti attack of the Sidney Opera house, the latter slapstick at its best. Perhaps the only critic is the absence of Iraqi voices, in an otherwise engaging and very professional documentary. AS

WE ARE MANY Satellite Q&A screening 21st May, out in cinemas 22nd May

A Fuller Life (2013)

Dir.: Samantha Fuller

Documentary with Jennifer Beals, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Constance Towers

USA 2013 , 80 min.

Samuel Fuller (1912-1997) was a true maverick, which is not only reflected in the 24 feature he shot, but also in his personal life that was at least as adventurous as the narratives of his films. His daughter Samantha uses excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography ‘A Third Face’, read by twelve directors and actors, as well as clips from his films, and recently discovered 16 mm films shot by her father, showing him at War, with his family and working on sets.

Growing up in the Upper West Side of New York, young Sam had to sell newspapers from an early age to support his family. A this is how journalism entered his life and became his first love – he literally bullied his way into becoming a crime reporter. His mentor, Gene Fowler, moved to Hollywood before him, where the two met up again; Fuller becoming a script writer, but soon finding out that directors did not stick to his scripts. Just before the USA entered WWII, Fuller’s novel ‘The Dark Page’ was published to great critical acclaim. Upon joining the army, he was offered a cushy desk job, but decided to join the infantry. He saw action in Africa, Sicily, Normandy on D-Day and finally during the liberation of Germany. In Aachen he met Marlene Dietrich, and persuaded her to give a message to his agent back in Hollywood (who happened to be also Dietrich’ agent), to send Fuller some cigars. Fuller was at the scene of the liberation of concentration camp in Falkenau, his 16mm films, showing the unimaginable horror. As a result, he experienced recurring nightmares when he returned to Hollywood, where he started his career as a director in 1949 with I Shot Jesse James, followed by Park Row (1952), about the newspaper business in New York. Whilst his unruly nature made him a committed anti-communist, he was equally critical of the McCarthy ‘witch hunts’ in Hollywood. When FBI director Hoover met Fuller after having seen the latter’s Pick Up on South Street, to complain about a scene in which a pick-pocket (played by Richard Widmark), makes fun of the hunt for the ‘Reds’, Fuller told Hoover to back off, telling him that “his characters say what they have to say”. Later, when the truth about Hoover’s private and professional life was uncovered, Fuller was proved right: “There was this guy, who wanted to shut me up, but used his office to cover up what he did”.But Fuller’s lack of obedience to authority made him an outsider in Hollywood. He was pushed into ‘poverty row’, directing B-pictures like Shock Corridor (1963) and Naked Kiss (1964), which were ground breaking, but marginalised the director at the time. After White Dog (1982), unjustly categorised as ‘racist’, his last two films, the David Goodis adaption Street of no Return (1989) and La Madonne et Le Dragon (1990), about the civil war in the Philippines, where produced in France.

A FULLER LIFE is a biography read in twelve segments by artists who either worked with Samuel Fuller like Jennifer Beals, Kelly Ward, Wim Wenders, Constance Towers (the latter starred in Shock Corridor and Naked Kiss), and admirers like directors Monte Hellmann and William Friedkin. The clips, showing Fuller at work on the set or at War, show a fearless person, who, while a committed American, was also a critic of his country, uncovering the activities of the ‘Ku Klux Klan’ in the press and on the screen, and being one of the first directors employing Afro-American actors in meaningful roles in his films. Whilst the readings sometimes ‘drown out’ the accompanying images, the pure wealth of the socio-political information make A FULLER LIFE a treasure trove not only for film buffs. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 MAY 2014

 

Turned Towards the Sun (2012)

Director: Greg Olliver

Doc   UK

A documentary about the World War II British Commando, Michael Burn MC

Truth is stranger than fiction and certainly so in the case of Michael (Micky) Burn a man whose life was full of  serendipity. Olliver’s doc is based on Micky’s autobiography Turned Towards the Sun (now sadly out of print) that records a lifetime of experiences that are individually remarkable but, as a collective memoir, make for a fascinating few hours of viewing.

Micky lived for almost a century (1912-2010) during which he met Hitler, slept with Guy Burgess and Audrey Hepburn’s mother, became friends with the Mitford sisters, travelled with the King and Queen while writing for The Times, won the Military Cross for his part in a WWII raid on St Nazaire, broadcast a radio programme from Colditz Castle (while a prisoner of War) and attended a Nuremberg Rally before marrying the woman of his dreams, after selecting her from a photograph.

On a prosaic note, we first glimpse our hero being fitted with a hearing-aid in hospital. What emerges from this encounter is an amusing, quite voluble chap in his 90s, and we want to know more. What follows is a look round his elegant home in the magnificent Welsh countryside where he is planning (with Olliver) a trip to St Nazaire to re-visit his wartime derring-do. Despite his illustrious past and educated background, Micky is far from the pompous ‘War Hero’ you might imagine. Charming and down-to-earth with a ready wit and surprising vulnerability, he may have been a soldier but his courage came from being a gentle and decent man. Describing himself as an ‘Amateur’ in the true sense of the word, he puts his longevity down to “always being in love” – not just with a person, but with a life pursued with passionate engagement. He does consider himself a professional though, when it comes to his poetry because, in his own words, he did ‘the best he could’.

The re-enactement of the trip to St Nazaire takes the documentary out and about, meeting fellow war comrades – one is called “Tiger”. Clearly there is a great fondness between them all and Micky converses both in French and later in German during his trip to Colditz – during which he openly voices his disgust of the place, as he re-lives the past and his Radio broadcasts from a room high in the attic. There is an emotional reunion with the Duchess of Devonshire during which the couple chat light-heartedlly about their wartime meetings with Nazis, that seemed innocuous as the time, as were seen to be a patriot bunch doing a good job getting Germany off its knees. The pair collect eggs together in the grounds of the estate, and share a joke or two. Burn frequently mentions his wife, Mary Booker, whom he adored passionately, but who he never fancied sexually – much to his great regret – because the two were, quite clearly, happily married and devoted to one another for over twenty years until her death. In memory of his love for her, he actually wrote a book about her previous love affair with a pilot who was killed during the War. Burn is very candid about his bi-sexuality and sex in general – in the way that old people often are – having little to lose with these revelations now that the mystery of sex and love are finally over.

Whilst being a worthy and engaging tribute to an extraordinary man, the only criticism of Olliver’s doc is its rather structureless, fractured narrative which tumbles out like a stream of consciousness from this fascinating, sometimes eccentric and clearly still emotionally perplexed man who was full of love and strong feelings for life and the people he met on the way. The final moments are moving as his reads his poem: ‘Thine’. MT

TURNED TOWARD THE SUN IS AVAILABLE ON DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME FROM 4 MAY 2015 TO COINCIDE WITH THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF WWII

NOMINATED FOR THE GRIERSON AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY, BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL.

 

Eye Am (2014) | GÖZÜMÜN NURU | LTFF 2015

Dir.: Hakki Kurtulus, Melik Saracoglu;

Cast: Melik Saracoglu, Bilgin Saracoglu, Ismail Saracoglu, Öykü Altuntas

Turkey/France 2013, 78 min.

Co-directors Kurtulus and Saracoglu (Orada) have found an original way to tackle a serious topic: Melik Saracoglu’s serious eye condition, which might of condemned him to a life of blindness, having already lost the sight in one eye as a teenager.

After a quick de-brief of his childhood, the autobiographical narrative starts in Lyon, were Melik is studying film. He soon becomes aware of the retinal detachment in his only functional eye, and has to return hastily to Istanbul for an operation, which involves a convalescence of forty days lying on his stomach, taking endless medication. His close family: mother Bilgin, father Ismail and his brother, had to keep an eye on him during the night, in case he slept on his back. His girlfriend Öykü – who had only just recently been joking that she would scratch his eyes out if Melik if responded to romantic advances from a French girl Elodie,  joins in the family vigil. After the retina starts detaching itself again during a family dinner; a second, even more complex operation is needed, and Melik sinks into depression. In his vivid nightmares he meets a producer, an actress and a critic, who reject him.

EYE AM is shot in an anamorphic format (shooting widescreen on 35 mm non widescreen native aspect ratio), which is a perfect way of demonstrating the shattering world of Melik, unable to find a way to live in a world where sounds become overwhelmingly threatening, while the darkness closes in. Melik’s own voiceover explains the panic, particularly when he nearly loses his sight completely after the first operation: “welcome to the longest night of my life” he comments, fearing the worst. But EYE AM is also subversive, using clips from Turkish melodrama to illustrate his blindness. And Melik’s grandfather’s welcome sense of humour cuts through the horrendous pain Melik is going through, with his witty remarks, which are sometimes totally off the mark. The directors also make fun of the the rivalry between the various members of his family and their middle class attitudes that are full of hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

EYE AM is innovative and original and feels authentic in its effort to balance aesthetics with a humane message. It is perhaps too much to call it a feel-good movie, but the director manage to offer us a sparkling blend of nightmarish scenarios and brilliant visuals that are always refreshing, despite the grim subject matter. AS

LONDON TURKISH FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 7 – 17 MAY 2015

Lambert and Stamp (2014)

GettyImages_85360721 copyDirector: James D Cooper

With: Kit Lambert, Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey, Chris Stamp, Richard Barnes, Robert Fearnley Whittingstall

118min   Music Documentary    US

Kit Lambert and Christopher Stamp shaped the early years of one of England’s greatest rock bands that was The Who. James D. Cooper’s enjoyable documentary traces the partnership of this unlikely couple, who are no longer around but whose memory lives on, in this affectionate portrait featuring band members: Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey, and Stamp’s elder brother, the actor Terence. Chris also makes an expansive and charismatic appearance and it’s only later that you realise that he died in 2012. Clearly this well-researched film. with its superb editing by Christopher Tellefsen, has been a long time in the making.

Watching Lambert & Stamp the phrase “the past is a different country ” frequently springs to mind. Not only did they do things differently back in the Swinging Sixties, but life seemed simpler then and a great deal more fun. This heady conconction of black and white photos, archive footage and musical excerpts charts the days of the Mods and Rockers and Swinging London that formed the genesis in 1964 of The High Numbers, later known as The Who.

Lambert and Stamp were two highly unorthodox characters who together forged a relationship that was to make these media entrepreneurs into successful record producers in the world of Rock. Yet Kit Lambert couldn’t have come from a more illustrious and upmarket background. The son of classical composer Constant Lambert, he was born in Knightsbridge and educated at Lancing College and Oxford and spoke French and German – we see him conversing fluently in TV interviews. In contrast, Stamp grew up in the East End, one of five children whose father was a tugboat captain on the Thames. Meeting in Shepperton Studios, where they both fostered dreams of graduating from directing assistants to fully-fledged film directors, they were drawn together by a remarkable synergy, sharing an interest for French New Wave. Their original aim was make a film about a music band and were searching around with this idea that would provide them with an entrée into the film world as directors. Townshend reflects that “irreverence” is probably the wrong word to describe their approach to managing the band, since that would imply that they weren’t treating the endeavour seriously. But may be this laissez-faire style was just right in handling these young and rebellious men and moulding them into rocks stars. And although Lambert was frightfully classy his manner is described by all the band members as warm and approachable. Being gay, he was also unthreatening to the other men. Although Daltrey claims, jokingly, to have been slightly miffed that Lambert never made an approach, making him feeling “unattractive”. In another hilarious moment, Townsend’s school chum, Richard Barnes, claims that, Kit, a chain-smoker: “used one match in his whole life to light his first cigarette” which he was apparently offered at the age of 9 by one of his father’s friends. Kit had worked as a crew member on The Guns of Navarone, Tommy and To Russia With Love.  Terence Stamp describes his brother as “a rough, tough fighting sort of spiv,” whose interest in girls was helped, undoubtedly, by his gift of the gab and unruly mop of dark hair. Even in his seventies, his hair turned white, he exudes a voluble appeal. 

Cooper ‘s documentary is replete with nearly two hours of amusing anecdotes and moving moments that coalesce in this candid and fascinating exposé of the band, the personalities and the sixties .Although this era has already been well-documented (and dramatised in the 1979 film  Quadrophenia), Cooper still finds something new and worthwhile to bring to the party of the sixties popular music revolution that also embraced The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. MT

LAMBERT AND STAMP IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 MAY 2015

Heaven Adores You (2014)

Dir.: Nickolas Dylan Rossi   DoP: Jeremiah Gurzi

Documentary; USA 2014, 104.min.

Nickolas Rossi’s debut documentary, which he also co-photographed, is an earnest and very soulful insight into the life of singer and songwriter Elliott Smith (1969-2003), whose melancholic and often nihilistic ballads are played against a background of the places Smith inhabited, mainly Portland, Oregon. The greatest strengths of the film are the long shots of urban life, often at night, giving the documentary a noirish quality, quited suited to Smith’s personality and the unclear circumstances of his untimely death.

Elliott Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, his parents divorced when he was six month old and Elliott was raised in Duncanville, Texas. His childhood was very traumatic, he did not get on with his stepfather, and it emerges that music became an outlet for his psychological troubles. In Portland he was to become part of the punk rock scene in the early 1990s, culminating in him playing and singing for “Heatmiser”.  But it soon became clear, that his talents were best served as a solo artist, and he was, at the beginning of his career, often compared to Paul Simon. His first release “Roman Candle” (1994), was followed two years later with his first film score for “Lucky Three: an Elliott Smith Portrait”.  Smith’ next album “Either/Or” gave much insight into the psyche of the songwriter: the title is from a two part volume of the Danish philosopher Soren Kirkegard, an early existentialist, whose main topics were angst, death and the questionable existence of God.

His link with the  film world came in 1997 when he wrote “Miss Misery” for Gus Van Sant’s movie Good Will Hunting, and was nominated for an Oscar. At the Oscar ceremony in March 1998, he played the song, finding the occasion very “absurd”, and not minding that he did not win. Further albums like “XO” and “Figure 8” (2000) established him as a star. Like many artists, Elliott Smith was a shy person who hated touring and interviews and after he moved to New York in 1998, his psychological problems worsened, as did his alcohol and drug dependency. In California, his condition deteriorated even more, though he wrote the song “Needle in the Hay” for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tannenbaums (2001). On his 34th birthday on August the 6th 2003, he gave up drugs and alcohol after many failed treatments but, ironically, he was to die of two stab wounds in his chest, later that year and the inquest left an open verdict. At the time he was living with his partner Jennifer Chiba in Echo Park, California.

Song titles like “Everything Means Nothing To Me’ and “Ballad of Big Nothing” are not the only sign of Smith’ vulnerability: even though HEAVEN ADORES YOU interviewed many friends and musician (among them Joanna Bolme, for whom Smith wrote the ambivalent love song “Say Yes”), nobody seems to have known Elliott and he remains an enigma for everyone he met. The motifs of nomadic wandering, solitude and melancholia captured in the dark images of Portland, New York and Los Angeles are the nearest we will ever get to a man, whose introspective nature collided with his status: “I’m the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous”. AS

HEAVEN ADORES YOU ELLIOTT SMITH IS ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 7 MAY 2015

 

Dostoevsky’s Travels (1991) | Kinoteka 2015

Director: Pawel Pawlikowski

With: Dimitri Dostoevsky

52min   Doc   UK

In this brilliant made for TV documentary, Dmitri, great-grandson of the novelist, follows in the steps of the great writer, travelling from St Petersburg, where he worked as a tram driver, to Berlin, Baden-Baden and London. Unlike his great grandfather, he is not interested in literature at all, but is more keen on materialism, trying to buy a Mercedes, to show off at home. Homeless at first, he manages to raise finance after meetings with various business men, who also attempt to cash in on his name. After finally achieving his dream purchase it emerges, in the final credits, that his second hand car is now in the garage for repairs, after he crashed his brand new one in St. Petersburg. Pawlikowski’s clever editing and drôle take reveal Dmitri to be an opportunist of the worst order, not only trying to trade off a famous name, but also willing to sponsor a casino in Russia, owned by a profit-hungry German. While in the company of one of last surviving aristocrats, keen to return to the throne, Dmitri changes political colour again, declaring his love for the monarchy. DOSTOEVSKY’S TRAVELS is a rather sad film about a man who tries to sell himself to everybody on the back of a famous family name, but it also reveals Pawlikowski to have a rare style in documentary exposé. AS

KINOTEKA RUNS UNTIL THE 29 MAY 2015 IN LONDON AND NATIONWIDE

Tripping with Zhirinovsky (1995)

Dir: Pawel Pawlikowski | 45min  Documentary  English | DoPs: Bogdan Dziworski, Steven Ascher

Pawlikowski adopts a similar style to Louis Theroux in his documentaries. His minimalist,  observational approach is so lowkey that the extreme Russian nationalist politician and would be president, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, opens up like a flower seemingly without any encouragement. Like most egocentric men, left to ramble on, he talks about himself and the subject he enjoys most: politics. Ranting on voluably, Zhirinovsky thus emerges a comical figure, revealing a great deal about the banal superficiality of his point of view and of his politics.

Enjoying a cruise in New York, his first break in 48 years, he confesses that he feels cheated – sitting on a beach next to a rusting tanker. He then ambushes a complete stranger and pushes him into the water. Later he admits to never being interested in the Arts, so politics seem the natural choice as a career. A self-confessed ‘romantic’ who never feeling any passion, he also claims – now sex has been an avenue of pleasure closed to him since his twenties (his buxom wife still clearly dotes on him) – all that is left for him is politics. Back in Russia, while rowing his boat on the Volga, he posits: “Politics is like a woman, and water is like a woman….you have to feel for it”. And clearly he has a way of capturing the populace with his rousing nationalist speeches thrown at amassed audiences. It appears that Russians have a penchant for these river insurrections, up and down the Volga. TRIPPING very much conjures up the essence of this Russian tradition. Unlike Pawlikowski’s SERBIAN EPICS this is a one-dimensional affair. What it does do is conjure up the Russian tradition of  wandering around the landscape, sounding off. Amusing and quite surreal. MT

https://vimeo.com/307836471

Dark Horse (2015) Prime

Director|Writer: Louise Ormond | 85min  Documentary Drama UK

Director Louise Osmond is well-known for her topical documentaries that explore extraordinary events in history.  She made Deep Water about the disastrous 1968 round-the-world yacht race and more recently Richard III: The King in the Car Park that examined events surrounding the discovery of the last Plantagenet King of England. Her Sundance audience award winner, Dark Horse, is a ‘rags to riches’ documentary Feelgood film, showing how love for an animal brought excitement, focus and income to a forgotten mining community deep in the Welsh Valleys, thanks to one woman.

It was all down to Jan Vokes, a bartender  from Cefn Fforest. According to husband ‘Daisy’, if she put her mind to something she usually achieved it. Jan had lived an ‘insignificant’ life since childhood. Her hobby is breeding: after several children, she turned to dogs and budgies, very much following in the footsteps of her father, who was also keen on animals. In 200o, she got talking to local accountant and racing enthusiast, Howard Davies, and together they hatched a hair-brained scheme to breed a racehorse.

Naturally, money was key to the success of the plan and it was also in short supply in this former mining town. In order to achieve a positive outcome good breeding stock would be required and training fees of around £15,000 a year. Jan took on an extra shift at Asda and with her large circle of friends from the local pub, they clubbed together to raise finance in the form of shares for the proposed scheme to the tune of £10 a week..

Osmond’s tells the story through talking-head interviews with the villagers and trainers, illustrative photos from paintings and evocative images of the local countryside. A decision was taken to name the foal, born from a racing stallion, ‘Dream Alliance’, reflecting the hopes and aspirations of these close-knit Welsh neighbours. Dream Alliance grows up to be self-willed and competitive although not the fastest steed in the upmarket stable of where he underwent vigorous training. But the animal ignites a sense of genuine pride and positiveness that palpably generates a ‘feelgood’ factor all round. The owners embark on a busman’s holiday to each and every race track, cheering Dream Alliance to the finishing line. Like many animals lovers, Jan also claims that she has a secret bond with Dream, who gradually goes on to be the winner that they’d always hoped for, although disaster lies ahead on the surprising but entirely realistic path of fate.

Apart from the feel-good factor, what makes the film so joyful is the sheer love for this horse, that intoxicates villagers and viewers alike. Dark Horse delivers a message of hope: everyone can live their dream if they put their best horse forward and their mind to it. It is also story of female empowerment: of how Jan always felt she was living through the men in her family until the day that Dream Alliance came into her life. Dark Horse is a hands down winner that makes us care about a bunch of genuinely people who face up to life with humour and decency and a horse that triumphed against all odds. MT

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

 

Serbian Epics (1992) | Kinoteka 2015

Director: Pawel Pawlikoswki

Cinematographer: Bogdan Dziworski

50mins  Documentary  Serbian with English subtitles

Radovan Karadšic styles himself as a poet and professional psychiatrist in Pawlikowski’s observational documentary that attempts to look at the Serbian nation from a purely anthropological point of view. Playing their sinister folkloric lutes, with a bow, in the dusk of the hills around an industrial-looking Sarajevo in this valley below, the Serbians appear to be a weirdly hostile crowd, and certainly one to be reckoned with. A hundred year’s old shaky archive footage of the Serbian Coronation of King Peter I is also a fearful affair. Clearly, this is a God-fearing nation of Orthodox Christians with all their pomp and splendour. At a Christening service, a bishop in full medieval robes prays that Serbia will “shine like a flock of stars in God’s grace”.

Radovan describes Serbia’s age-old fight against their neighbours, the equally fierce Turks, and gives this as a good enough reason to justify their violence and routing in Bosnia in order to “ethnic cleanse” their nation of Muslims – “we are not aggressors but defenders of our own territory”. Later, military types are seen rushing around with guns and guerilla battledress in the lush and mountainous countryside. The vestiges of the Turkish inhabitants, the ethnic Muslims, fled to the mountains where they “chose to be poor but not to change their religion” opines Radovic.

It all started in 1389 with the Battle of Kosovo, when the Turks defeated the Serbian King Lazar and his army, who died as Christian martyrs (martyr derives from the Greek “witness”). King Lazar then became a Christ-like figure in Serbian folklore, a belief that has been handed down through the generations and still survives today. The monarchy was established 500 hundred years later by the Karadjordjes family, with Peter I, being crowned in 1903. In 1929 the Kingdom was renamed Yugoslavia, under Alexander I, his son. In November 1945, the throne was lost when Communists seized power, but Prince Tomislav (1928 – 2000), Alexander’s son, a tall and rather well-spoken man who speaks the Queen’s English perfectly, and takes us through the dynasty ending with a remarkably life-like portrait of his youngest son, Prince Michael, is now dead. His eldest son, Prince Nikolas (b.1958), now styles himself “His Royal Highness, Prince Nikolas of Yugoslavia”.

Radovic appears to be a more gung-ho version of Hitler, who roused the German people after they had been brought to their knees after their grim defeat in the Great War. Radovan, through the power of myth and folklore, has done the same for the Serbian nation, who seem in Pawlikowski’s documentary, to be a God-fearing country people who are only too glad to be roused by nationalistic pride for their country. MT

KINOTEKA 2015 IS IN LONDON AND NATIONWIDE UNTIL 29 MAY 2015

Wojciech Wiszniewski Rediscovered | Documentary shorts | Kinoteka 2015

Alhough his life was short, maverick documentarian Wojciech Wiszniewski made a resounding contribution to Polish cinema in the 60s and 70s. His ground-breaking and radical observational style, which incorporated avantgarde framing, distortional sound and inventive narrative techniques, abandoned the documentary as a passive vehicle for reflecting reality. Today this style is known as ‘creational’ and his ten short films bear witness to his pioneering work before he died of a heart attack, aged 35.  Sombre in tone, the mordant humour of these shorts delivers a corruscating message about Poland under Communism – that even then, some workers outshone others, or questioned a regime under which hard work and inventiveness left them with very little material gain or security after a lifetime’s toil.

After winning an award in 1967 for the ironically-entitled HEART ATTACK (1967), a mood piece that follows a taxi-driver through a cityscape lensed by Slawomir Idziak’s expressionist camera, Wisziewski focused on the world of work, filming characters such as socialist leader and miner, Bernard Bugdof, in A STORY OF A MAN WHO FILLED 552% OF THE QUOTA (1973) and WANDA GOSCIMINSKA, A WEAVER (1975) whose admirable industriousness and efficient work ethic helped to re-build a pre and post war Poland, whilst often casting their peers in an unfavourable comparative light. This was particularly the case in FOREMAN ON A FARM, where a retired miner who moves with his family to the country to start his own business is rewarded with maliciousness by the envious local community. Interestingly, Both Wanda and Bernard are deeply revered by their families: but whilst Bernard’s wife belittles his working achievements in comparison to those as a father and grandfather, Wanda’s children adore her both for her skills as a mother and her dexterity with her spindles at the Lodz Mill. This confirms that despite Communism, Poland’s status as a Catholic matriarchal society reigned supreme.

the carpenter imageWiszniewski’s films established that even during Communism, a competitive working style was indomitable in society, where human nature prevailed in the belief that years of inventive and efficient work should pathe the way to material success and security. Particularly brilliant is THE CARPENTER (1976 | left) whose narrative follows a fictional character whose career highlights and travails are reflected by genuine footage of Poland’s political and historical events. At the end he asks “How come all my hard work has only left me with a tiny flat?” Most prescient  is THE PRIMER (1976) that illustrates how even in the 70s, traditional learning was being overshadowed by a future where school kids know all the letters of the alphabet but cannot form the words to express themselves and communicate with each other. MT

Wojciech Wiszniewski Rediscovered | Documentary shorts | Kinoteka 2015

 

Crossing Europe Film Festival | Linz | April 2015

CROSSING EUROPE is a film festival that showcases the best in Auteur cinema exclusively from European directors. This year, the competition features eleven new discoveries in the dramatic section and nine documentaries that have been successful in major international film festivals during the past year.

CE15_WF_Kreditis-Limitis_Line-of-Credit_03-KThe competition dramatic entries deal with the living realities of young people who, caught in the process of having to “grow up”, are looking for their place in life (AUTOPORTRETUL UNEI FETE CUMINTI (SELF-PORTRAIT OF A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER – below right) and LICHTES MEER (RADIANT SEA), or adolescents who, in very different ways, experience the daze of their coming-of-age process, whether by choice or by force (CHRIEG (LIMBO – main pic) and VARVARI (BARBARIANS). Two of the selected films highlight the negative effects of capitalism in post-Soviet countries (KREDITIS LIMITI (LINE OF CREDIT – above left) and UROK (THE LESSON), and two others show attempts to adjust in an absolute retreat from society EL CAMÍNO MÁS LARGO PARA VOLVER A CASA (THE LONG WAY HOME – below left) and HIDE AND SEEK. CE LUME MINUNATĂ (WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD) and TUSSEN 10 EN 12 (BETWEEN 10 AND 12) tell the stories of unexpected events brutally turning the protagonists’ lives upside down. CE15_WF_Autoportretul-unei-fete-cuminti_Self-portrait-of-a-Dutiful-Daughter_2-K

The selection of documentaries forges a bridge across Europe, both geographically and thematically. Three focus on the the still controversial issues of migration/borders of Europe: BRÛLE LA MER (BURN THE SEA), EVAPORATING BORDERS [executive producer of this film is Oscar-winner Laura Poitras] and FLOTEL EUROPE, two of the selected films tell family stories – the life of the director’s grandfather in exile CARTAS A MARÍA (LETTERS TO MARIA) and the conscious decision of a father to pursue an alternative lifestyle outside of society: STÁLE SPOLU (ALWAYS TOGETHER).

CE15_WF_El-camino-mas-largo-para-volver-a-casa_The-Long-Way-Home09-K

A group of villages in southern Italy (PADRONE E SOTTO) and an eccentric street performer from Belorussia PEREKRESTOK (CROSSROADS) are part of the thematic universe as are the cautious attempt to portray the officially non-existing Abkhazia – LETTERS TO MAX and efforts to organise a concert for a group of Iranian female musicians from Paris, who are banned from performing in their native Iran where – NO LAND’S SONG.

 

CROSSING EUROPE FESTIVAL|  9 – 22 APRIL 2015 | LINZ | AUSTRIA

Night Will Fall (2014) |

Dir.: Andre Singer

Documentary; UK/Germany/France/Israel/Denmark 2014, 75 min.

When the Allies liberated the concentration camps during the last phase of WWII, they literally did not believe their eyes: the horror they discovered was too much to take in; particularly and especially for the fighting soldiers. When Richard Dimbleby’s onsite report from the liberated camp at Bergen-Belsen was broadcasted in April 1945 on the radio to traumatic responses, Sidney Bernstein, Chief of the Film Section at the the Supreme HQ Allied Forces, commissioned British cameramen to film the liberation of the camps in the British Occupation Zone of Germany. Together with material from American and Soviet cameramen filming the liberation of camps in their zones (and Poland in the case of the Soviet liberators), it would form the basis for “German Concentration Camps Factual Service”, a first hand report on the atrocities of the Nazi regime – documenting not only the guilt of the camp personal, but the residents in the neighbourhood of the camps.

NIGHT WILL FALL is the story of how this unique documentary was never finished; never mind shown – apart from a one-off shortened version at the Berlinale in 1984 and a subsequent TV broadcast in the US. Excerpts from the original documentary material are harrowingly graphic and make extremely unpleasant viewing. Painful to watch are the mountains of corpses, starved to death, de-humanised, like the few survivors, who were surprised to be liberated “because we were meant to die”. The camp guards, surprisingly many women among them, had to help bury their victims, while remaining cool and detached as when they were in charge of the death machine.

Bernstein asked his friend Alfred Hitchcock to advise on the treatment. And he, like others before him, wanted to make sure that the documentary showed proof that the Germans would deny such a monstrous crime, which even today seems unthinkable. One way was to make the German residents of the nearby towns and villages visit the liberated camps, showing them the thousands of victims. Many of them had profited from the forced labour offered by of the camps, which was cheap and left the victims open to mistreatment on a wide scale. But this human workforce provided by the concentration wasn’t the only economic strategy of the Third Reich: All the belongings of the victims, amongst them hundreds of sacks containing human hair were found in Bergen Belsen along with toys belonging to the murdered children, dental equipment – nothing went to waste. As one commentator said: In twelve years the Germans dragged humankind 12 000 years back.

In the summer of 1945 the British government lost interest in the project to the piece together the original documentary film. There was a desultory memo talking about “the need for the Germans to wake up from their apathy and engage in the rebuilding of their country.” But the topic eventually drifted to the back-burner. Billy Wilder directed a short, 22 minute (German) version of the material, shown as Death Mills in 1945. Nearly seventy years after the project was shelved, the fully restored version of “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey” will be shown this autumn, thanks to the team of The Imperial War Museum. Sobering stuff indeed. AS

25th April – NIGHT WILL FALL + Director Q&A
26th April – GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FACTUAL SURVEY + Q&A
Screening across Saturday and Sunday is Andre Singer’s beautiful latest doc Night Will Fall and Sidney Bernstein’s recently restored German Concentration Camps Factual Survey at Bertha DocHouse screen. Both films will be followed by Q&As.
Bertha DocHouse / £9 (£7 concessions)
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Cannes Film Festival| Projections for 2015 | 13 – 24 May 2015

In a months time the World’s most well-known film festival will once again be rolling out the Red Carpet and bringing you the latest in World cinema. Meredith Taylor speculates on this year’s programme hopefuls, ahead of Thierry Frémaux’s official unveiling in mid-April.

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Joel and Ethan Coen will Chair the Jury this year, so let’s start with American cinema. Todd Haynes’ glossy literary adaptation from Patricia Highsmith’s novel Salt: CAROL (below) has been waiting in the wings since being a possible opener for last year’s VENICE Film Festival. Starring Cate Blanchett it is a glamorous choice for this year’s Palme D’Or. Terrence Malick made his entrance earlier this year at BERLIN with the divisive (amongst critics) drama Knight of Cups and it’s possible that his next film, a documentary on the creation of the Earth, VOYAGE OF TIME, will be ready to grace the Red Carpet this May. Narrated by Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, this mammoth project is currently in post production. Cannes habitué Jeff Nichols also has a new film, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, a father and son Sci-Fi road movie starring Adam Driver and regular collaborator, Michael Shannon, who discovers his boy has special powers. For star quality, Cannes thrives on US stars, and who better to add glitz to the Red Carpet than George Clooney. He stars in Brad Bird’s  TOMORROWLAND, a Sci-Fi adventure that also has Hugh Laurie. Gus Van Sant’s THE SEA OF TREES, a story of friendship between an American and a Japanese man (Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe) is another possible contender. William Monahan’s lastest, a thriller entitled MOJAVE, (Mark Wahlberg and Oscar Isaac) could also bring some glamour to the Croisette. Natalie Portman’s will bring her Jerusalem set screen adaptation of Amos Oz’s memoir A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS to the Croisette. It is a drama featuring an Israeli cast including herself, as his on-screen daughter, Fania Oz.

imageMost of this year’s films will be come from Europe and Italy has some brand new offerings from their côterie of well-known directors. Nanni Moretti was last on the Croisette in 2011 with his comedy drama WE HAVE A POPE, this year he could return with another drama co-written with Francesco Piccolo, MIA MADRE, in which he also stars alongside the wonderful Margherita Buy (Il Caimano) and John Turturro. There is Matteo Garrone’s long-awaited THE TALE OF TALES, adapted from Giambattista Basile’s 17th Century work and featuring Vincent Cassel and Salma Hayek in the leads. Another literary adaptation from Italy, WONDERFUL BOCCACCIO, is a drama based on The Decameron: the tales of ten young people who escape to the hills during an outbreak of Plague in 14th century Italy. A stellar cast of Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes and Matthias Schoenaerts appear in Luca Guadagnino’s latest, A BIGGER SPLASH, a thriller that unravels in Italy – when an American woman (Tilda Swinton) invites a former lover to share her villa with onscreen husband Ralph Fiennes, sparks fly, particularly as Matthias Schoenaerts is the love interest.  After Cannes success with The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino could be back with YOUTH (La Giovenezza), a drama of trans-generational friendship that takes place in the Italian Alps with a starry cast of Rachel Weisz, Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Jane Fonda and Paul Dano. Definite Red Carpet material. And Marco Bellocchio could well be chosen for his latest historical drama L’ULTIMO VAMPIRO which stars Italian actress of the moment, Alba Rohrwacher – recently in Berlinale with Vergine Giurata.

The Scandinavians could well be on board with Joachim Trier’s first anglophone outing LOUDER THAN BOMBS, a wartime drama in which Isabelle Huppert plays a photographer. Tobias Lindholm’s follow up to the nail-bitingly  rigorous A Highjacking, is A WAR. It has Søren Malling and Pilou Asbaek as soldiers stationed in Helmand Province, with echoes of Susanne Bier’s war-themed drama Brothers. Russian maverick Aleksandr Sokurov could present LE LOUVRE SOUS L’OCCUPATION, the third part of his quadrilogy of Power, following Moloch (1999) and Taurus (2001) and filmed in the magnificent surroundings of the Parisian museum. And Greeks could bear gifts in the shape of THE LOBSTER, Yorgos Lanthimos’ dystopian love story set in the near future and forecasting a grim future for coupledom, with Léa Seydoux, and Colin Farrell. There’s also much excitement about the long-awaited follow up Portuguese director, Miguel Gomes’ Tabu, with his 1001 NIGHTS, a re-working of the legendary Arabian tale; certainly destined for the auteurish “Un Certain Régard” sidebar together with Polish auteur Andrzej Zulawski’s Sintra-set COSMOS, a literary adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz’ novel and starring Sabine Azéma (the former partner of Alain Resnais).

macbeth-Further afield, it’s unlikely that Taiwanese fillmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien THE ASSASSIN will be ready to grace the ‘Montée des Marches’ but from Thailand, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s drama fantasy, CEMETERY OF KINGS, could well make it. Kiyoshi Kurasawa’s JOURNEY TO THE SHORE is in post production. The Japanese director is best known for award-winners, Tokyo Sonata and The Cure. Many will remember Australian director Justin Kurzel’s incendiary thriller debut SNOWTOWN, and his recent drama THE TURNING that is now on general release. His latest outing MACBETH (right) featured strongly in the Film Market at Cannes last year, starring Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender, so it could well enter the fray. For star quality and sheer impact MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (below) will make a blast onto the Riviera. Starring Britons Tom Hardy and Nicholas Hoult and the lovely Charlize Theron, the fourth in George Millar’s action thriller series could will certainly set the night on fire, in more ways than one.

 

SUNSET-SONG-premieres-images-du-nouveau-Terence-Davies-avec-Agyness-Deyn-47013From England there is Donmar Warehouse director, Michael Grandage’s GENIUS, a biopic of the book editor Max Perkins, who oversaw the works of Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and F Scott Fitzgerald. Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Jude Law all take part. Asif Kapadia has two films currently in production: ALI AND NINO starring Danish actress, Connie Nielsen and Mandy Patinkin, and adapted for the screen by scripter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) from a book by Kurban Said. But his anticipated biopic on the life of Amy Winehouse UNTITLED AMY WINEHOUSE DOCUMENTARY is sadly not quite ready for screening. Other British titles could include Ben Wheatley’s HIGH RISE, a Sci-Fi drama based on J G Ballard’s eponymous novel centred on the residents of a tower block and starring Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Millar and Jeremy Irons. Veteran director Terence Davies could also be back in Cannes representing Britain. In 1988, he won the FIPRESCI Prize for his autobiographical drama Distant Voices, Still Lives. His recent work SUNSET SONG, (above left) is a historical drama based on the book by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and stars Agyness Deyn (Electricity) and Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur).

 

Cannes PicAnd last but not least, the French have plenty to offer for their legendary ‘tapis rouge’. Cannes regular Jacques Audiard’s DHEEPAN is the story of a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who escapes to France and ends up working as a caretaker, Gaspar Noé’s first film in English, a sexual melodrama, in which he also stars, LOVE, is ready for the competition line-up. Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s BELLES FAMILLES is the latest vehicle for Mathieu Amalric to showcase his talents. After his stint at directing made the Un Certain Régard strand in the shape of Blue Room, he appeared in the recent English TV serial ‘Wolf Hall’. Here he plays a man who is sucked back into his past while visiting his family in Paris. Marine Vacth (Jeune et Jolie) and veterans André Dussollier and Nicole Garcia also star. And what would Cannes be without Philippe Garrel’s usual contribution. This year it will be L’OMBRE DES FEMMES, a drama co-written with his partner, Caroline Deruas. Palme D’Or Winner 2013, Abdellatif Kechiche, latest film, LA BLESSURE, starring Gérard Depardieu, it not quite ready to be unwrapped. But the well-known star may well appear on the Croisette with THE VALLEY OF LOVE, Guillaume Nicloux’s California-set saga which also stars the luminous Cannes regular Isabelle Huppert, never one to shirk the Red Carpet. I’ll be bringing more possibilities as the filming year takes shape, so watch this space. MT.

CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE FRM 13 MAY UNTIL 25 MAY 2015

 

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015)

Director: Brett Morgan


132 minutes (US) MUSICAL BIOPIC  

Over 20 years after his death, what is the enduring appeal of Kurt Cobain? Does it speak of the anodyne, characterless musical landscape du jour that we are still so enamoured with his rise and fall? Or is it simply down to appreciation of a musical visionary? Alternatively, is it the gruesome romance of suicide; the garish, tragic apex of that stereotyped notion of the tortured artist? Or a complex compound of the two?

Presented as a HBO production, Montage of Heck is the latest in a substantial line of documentaries to look into the late icon’s life. Rather than the probing, but ultimately unauthorised, illegitimate and dissatisfying Nick Broomfield doc Kurt & Courtney (1998), director Brett Morgen’s film secures a modicum of legitimacy due to the calibre of its witnesses and previously unseen video footage.

It is a film that is ghoulish, schizophrenic and chaotic. As the follow up to his jumbled and only partially successful 2013 Rolling Stones film Crossfire Hurricane, Morgan’s latest suffers from similar failings. Clocking in with considerable heft at 132 minutes, he certainly hasn’t scrimped on detail. Most of the main players in the Kurt story are present and (depending on perception) correct, bar one notable absentee in the form of Kurt’s former drummer, and now full time founding Foo Fighter, Dave Grohl. Interest is undeniably piqued upon hearing testimony from his mother and father, alongside his old bass player Krist Novoselic and former girlfriends, which include the ever candid Courtney Love. They offer a window into the teenage and adult Cobain like never before.

So far, so interesting. It is with considerable disappointment, therefore, that the residual impression left by this documentary is a negative one. Aside from this writer’s considerable ethical issue and umbrage with the work (as outlined below), Montage of Heck is sprawling and undisciplined.

For a band whose catalogue only contains one song that ends on a fade out, this is the antithesis of their focused, no-frills ethos. At times, it is far too digressive and takes those digressive turns in the wrong places. If Kurt’s notes portray concern at violation, then he would be horrified by this work. It is guilty of raiding, ransacking and violating his personal, private moments whilst his corpse gathers dust.

You may not need to see Montage of Heck to have formed the opinion that the Love/Cobain relationship was toxic. You can read enough articles to construct that opinion vicariously. However, to see the home video footage is to really ram the point home. As Courtney openly confesses her heroin consumption during her pregnancy, she also recounts how Kurt stated, ‘I’m going to get to $3m and then become a junkie’. It is all rather sad, and it is the Love material that makes matters particularly uncomfortable, as this slide towards the abyss gathers pace.

It takes a strong stomach not to squirm at the footage of Kurt and Courtney kissing in extreme close-up or wallowing around in the narcotic den that formed their home; blissfully out of their not so pretty (at the time) heads in a druggy haze. Such intimate and frequently unflattering moments are dredged up time and time again. It is increasingly disquieting to witness and exacerbates the feeling that the audience is being subjected to a voyeuristic trip that feels improper; like a Peeping Tom.

It isn’t all negative though. Aside from clips of the familiar (for example, the blistering Reading festival headline performance from 1992), what could have been presented as a whisper of a memory from friends and relatives, is frequently enhanced by the drawings, audio clips and super 8 home video footage (which, for better, or the worse as outlined above, is a treasure trove). It is worth checking out the fleeting sound check footage that hints at the historical lack of love lost between Dave Grohl and Love. It is fascinating. Further, the ad hoc utilisation of animated sequences to provide a bridge to many of the excerpts lifted from Kurt’s diaries and other such voiceover accompaniment is visually arresting and effective.

Montage of Heck, for all of its faults, represents another coup for a filmmaker who is making a habit of securing great access to the great and the good within the hallowed halls of rock history. The debate can rage on as to whether the world needed to peel the curtain behind the public persona of Cobain as it does here. Maybe the elusive enigma that hitherto prompted endless conjecture on the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ on his suicide benefited from a lack of video disclosure. Instead of conjuring nostalgia and sadness, the film – either intentionally or not – pops the bubble of romance. In doing so, it shows the dark(est) underbelly of this musical giant. Greg Wetherall.

IN CINEMAS FROM 10 APRIL 2015

Vanessa Lapa | Interview | The Decent one

Andre Simonoveisz spoke to Vanessa Lapa about her documentary on Heinrich Himmler.

F: How did the Heinrich Himmler project first come about?

V.L.: Before the film project, I knew no more than the basics about Heinrich Himmler, nothing about his private life. Neither as a filmmaker or a journalist had I had any dealing in any subject specific of Himmler. In 2006 I was informed by Professor Laor, a psychiatrist at Tel Aviv and Yale University, that the private diaries of Heinrich Himmler had been found. We undertook authentication, to make sure the letters and photos were genuine. Letters and photos had been discovered under the bed of a collector, who might have acquired them either on the Brussels flea market, in LA or from a Mexican couple in the early or mid nineteen sixties.

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F: For many years, historians thought, Reinhardt Heydrich was the “brains” behind Himmler, there is even a very interesting book with the title “Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich” (Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich). But later, it became clear that Himmler was the real organiser of the Holocaust and other atrocities, and was only answerable to Hitler. Do you agree with that?

V.L.: Yes. Himmler was much more than a “yes-man” he was a thinker. Unlike others, like Eichmann, who “just followed orders”. Himmler gave these orders, well thought them out, and others in the SS were the “processors”.

F.: Do you think, his strict Catholic upbringing had something to do with the political views which he developed very early in his adult life.

V.L.: He was like everybody else, influenced by his upbringing; but he, like everybody else, had choices. But I believe that the cultural influence in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century played they part too. He was a nationalist, dreamer, be believed in myths, not reality. But nothing excuses the choices he made later.

 

F.: Do you believe that he came to his position as the all powerful Reichsführer SS, only by accident, because he was at the right in the right place. After all, when he joined the SS, there were only 290 SS men, but the SA was a much more powerful organisation, with over 2 million members.

V.L.: A good question. I believe, one goes with the other. With the socio-political situation in Germany at that time, it was possible for a man like Hitler to lead the Nazi movement, but Himmler would have had not the abilities to do so. So, yes, Himmler was in the right position at the time – but Hitler did not have to influence him at all, Himmler found Hitler, but equally, Hitler found Himmler. Himmler did not have to be convinced of anything by Hitler, but, without the rise of the Nazi party to power, Himmler would have never become such a powerful man. Himmler hated everything and everybody who was different from him – from an early age onwards. Even as a child, in his diary, we can find the “older” Himmler. He wrote constantly about Germany’s progress in the war. Most boys of fourteen might write about politics a little in their diaries, but mainly about football and girls. But Himmler did not. It did not took much to make Heinrich Himmler feel at home in nationalist politics in the early thirties in Germany.

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F.: Do you think that his ability to compartmentalise, which is really a denial, was greater with Himmler than other Nazi leaders?

V.L.: This is a difficult question to ask. I have worked on this film with historians but also psychiatrist; and looking at his writings, there is something in Heinrich Himmler which is evil beyond comprehension. To believe there are decent ways to kill and that there a good reasons to murder people, this I cannot understand. But he is not the only one, neither past nor present. There are a lot of Himmlers around today and under the right circumstances, it could well turn out like in the 1930s and 1940s in Germany. I don’t think that in 1933 or 1935, Hitler or Himmler had any plans for the holocaust, it was a process.

F.: Do you believe that his agricultural studies at university, where they taught him about selection (“Auslese”) of plants and animals, had something to do with his later obsession of “cleansing”?

V.L.: I cannot visualise that his studies had anything to do with the evil he did later. Likewise, to think that so many leading Nazis were vegetarians – even after discussing this with psychiatrists – I am not able to understand this either. How can one mass murder humans, but do not eat meat because not cannot kill an animal? This is a perversion, like Himmler made a perversion of his whole life, being it love, friendship or family. He managed to pervert everything – but I do not think he was Jekyll/Hyde character. Writing to his wife, just before his wedding: “I love you, but there are other things I love more”, and without saying it exactly, he meant killing other humans. This way he deprived his wife and child of love.

F.: But how do you explain that his daughter Gudrun followed her father politically, she was known at the “Nazi Princess” in post war West Germany.

V.L.: I believe, that Gudrun was blinded, and in love with her father, which is normal for a 12 year old, but her decisions as an adult were only her responsibility. Between the ages of 20 and 30, you can form a real picture of your father, still loving him as a father – but, she would have been able, with the help of therapy, perhaps, to see what her father really was and not follow his beliefs as an adult. The problem with Gudrun is that she made choices as an adult. The children of other high-ranking Nazis were also traumatised, but made different choices. Radical choices too, like one of them, who became a Rabbi. This is extreme too, but the children of these parents were psychologically very much damaged.

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F: But this “Nazi” mindset in not exclusively a German phenomenon.

V.L. Not, it has happened in other countries, like Russia, Ukraine; Italy too, they were no angels. But the way of execution was a specific German way. I have to grant that. I don’t know if this is a mind set which was there at the time, or is still existent. But overall, this is for me are more global, human problem.

F.: Do you think that HH’s continuous poor health: migraine and violent stomach cramps, were a sign of his body, telling him that he was doing something wrong? We know, his masseur, Kersten, saved many Jews, by only massaging Himmler, when he promised to release Jews.

V.L.: Heinrich Himmler did not believe for a moment, that what he was doing could be wrong, he was absolutely sure that he was right. But I do believe that he was a coward, because in the end he committed suicide, he did not stand up for his deeds. And before that, he was ready to save Jews, but only to save his own life. In trying to negotiate with the Allies for peace, he was not even loyal to Hitler any more in the end. There are many crazy, vicious men, who go through with their conviction to the end, but Heinrich Himmler did not. He betrayed everything he stood for and expected others to do the same.

F.: So, as a last question, would you agree that he was really a very weak person, who got his strength from his position only, but projected his own inferiority complex on others, Jews and homosexuals.

V.L.: Heinrich Himmler was a weak person, he was just above average intelligence. Mainly, he was a small grey, weak bureaucrat, and that is most frightening.

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F.: So you would agree with Hannah Arendt and her description of the Nazi leadership as “banality of evil”.

V.L.: No, I don’t agree with that. I very much question now Arendt’s thesis. Firstly, there is a great difference between Eichmann and Himmler. For the latter and many others one can say, that there is no banality in the evil they chose. I see only evil in Himmler; and the danger is, that this evil is accepted by society, when the evil ideology becomes common. But to repeat, this does not make Himmler’s evil banal, in no way.

THE DECENT ONE IS OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3 April 2014 on Curzon Film World

The Decent One (2015)

Dir.: Vanessa Lapa

Documentary; Israel/Austria/Germany 2014, 96 min.

At the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, the German born philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “banality of evil” to describe the defendant. The subject of Vanessa Lapa’s documentary THE DECENT ONE is Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and Eichmann’s direct superior, who fits the Arendt description even more aptly.

The film’s narrative is based on Himmler’s extensive diaries, photos and documents, which were found by soldiers of the US Army in Himmler’s house in Gmund, Bavaria in May 1945. In spite of orders, the soldiers never handed over the documents to the authorities. In 1960, the entire collection was owned by Chaim Rosenthal, who stored them under his bed in Tel-Aviv. The way he came into possession is worth another documentary film but the only clue given by Rosenthal is that he first discovered some of the documents at a neo-Nazi convention in Dallas, Texas, where they were offered by a man driving a car with Mexican number plates. Vanessa Lapa purchased the archive from Rosenthal (who died in 2012) after the news of its existence came to light in 2006.

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich in 1900. His father, a Catholic, was a senior teacher and his godfather was Prince Heinrich of Bavaria. Himmler enjoyed poor health as a child, missing school mainly because of a weak stomach, which would trouble him for the rest of his life. As a teenager, he was caught between the desire to participate in glorious active service during the War (he missed action in WWI), and depressing thoughts due to low self-esteem. At the Technical University of Munich he studied Agronomy, gaining an MA. He joined the Nazi party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. He was involved in Hitler’s “Beer Hall Putsch” and whilst Hitler served a prison sentence, Himmler helped Röhm, the leader of the powerful SA, to recruit members for both party and storm troopers. When Himmler joined the SS its main function was to guarantee the security of Hitler and the organisation of public meetings. Its membership was 290 in 1925, whilst the SA membership would rise to over three million. But in 1934, Hitler had Röhm shot because he feared the might of the SA, who wanted a “second revolution”. The SA lost all its power, and was not much more than a training academy. By contrast, the SS flourished under Himmler, achieving a membership of over a quarter million by 1929. After 1933 Himmler would control the whole of the German police, including the Gestapo and became the leading architect of “the Final Solution”. He was undoubtedly Hitler’s number two – called “boring and pedantic” by Hitler’s inner circle, he nevertheless accumulated much more power than any of his detractors.

THE DECENT ONE is told from the viewpoint of Himmler and his family; the affectionate letters between his wife Marga and daughter Gudrun, accompanied by archive films, newsreels and photos corresponding to the dates of the letters, but concealing the real, often sinister, nature of his activities under the regime. Heinrich met his wife Margarete Boden, a nurse who owned a share in a small private hospital in the 1930s. They had a daughter, Gudrun, whom Himmler called “Püppi” (“Dolly”), born in 1940 and later adopted a son. Himmler and his daughter were close, even though he was often away from home. The parents seemed to have indoctrinated her successfully: after Hitler’s coming to power in 1933, Margarete wrote to Himmler that Gudrun “had asked, if Uncle Hitler would have to die too”. After Margarete had agreed with Gudrun that Hitler would live at least 200 (sic!) years, the child went to sleep peacefully. When Gudrun visited Dachau concentration camp with her mother and family, the first one of its kind, planned and executed by her father, her report is that of a brilliant day-out. She talks about the good food and the presents they were given.

Gudrun would later marry the right-wing journalist Burwitz and became engaged in the “Stille Hilfe” in post-war West Germany, an organisation, which helped “persecuted” Nazis, like Klaus Barbie. She was called the “flamboyant Nazi Princess” and hid the chief of Theresienstadt Ghetto security service, Anton Malloth, in her home near Munich between 1988 and 2001, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Whilst Himmler usually tried to please his family, Margarete complained in a letter to her sister in the early 40s that her husband had visited the area of their home but had not come to see his family. The reason being that Himmler stayed with his young secretary, Hewdwig Bodhof (his mistress since 1938) with whom he had two children. Margarete was seven years older than Himmler and could not have any more children. The only reason given by Himmler for this relationship with Hedwig, was his own decree, stating that German parents should have at least four children.

Himmler’s deputy, Reinhard Heydrich (assassinated in Prague in 1942) knew Himmler better than anybody else and once told a friend “look at Himmler’s head. The upper half is the teacher, the lower half is the sadist”. Heydrich had chaired the “Wannsee Conference” to start the “Final Solution” and was honored by Himmler in a special way: the transport of the Jews to the death camps were called “Action Reinhard”. Apart from the six million Jews murdered, Himmler’s SS was responsible (with the active help of the Wehrmacht) for the murder of another five to eight million civilians, mainly in Poland and the Soviet Union. But when Himmler finally realised his dream of war leader, as commandant of the Upper Rhine Army and the Vistula Army, he failed miserably in 1944, and had to be replaced by an angry Hitler. In one of his last letters to his family, this “Schreibtisch Mörder” (Desk-murderer) who never laid a hand on anyone, proudly foretells “even in a thousand years’ time, everyone will say that all German soldiers, generals and SS men have behaved with decency”.

THE DECENT ONE is the most important documentary after SHOAH about the subject of Nazi criminals. It relies purely on documents, written, filmed and expertly edited, telling the story of a man who choose to be a mass murderer, not so much because of anger, but because he wanted to create a perfect world were humans where either ‘heroic and Nordic’ or ‘Sub-human’ and worse than animals – and had therefore to be exterminated. He was the architect of their demise, but he remained an ordinary man: not decent, as he hoped, but not much different from many of us – just in the right place at the right time, he managed to realise his dream of a perfect farm where only perfect specimens were allowed to survive. He committed suicide as a prisoner of the British Forces on 23.5.1945, forty-four years old. AS

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THE DECENT ONE FROM 3 APRIL 2015 | Bertha DocHouse | £9 | £7 cons. | Curzon Bloomsbury

 

 

Asia House Film Festival 2015 | 27 – 31 March 2015

The 7th Annual Asia House Film Festival which takes place from 27 March to 31 March 2015 at various venues around London. This year’s theme of NEW GENERATIONS reflects on all that’s new about cinema from Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesian, India, Japan and Uzbekistan, with a special focus and retrospective on Mongolia.

The festival includes an selection of features including two European premieres. Opening the festival on Friday 27 March at the Ham Yard Theatre is the European Premiere of Indonesian film IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SUN, which frames the modern metropolis of Jakarta as never seen before. Directed, written and edited by Lucky Kuswandi (Madame X), it is a bittersweet tale of universal appeal, as its nostalgic memories unfold over the course of a single night.

Closing Asia House Film Festival 2015 on Tuesday 31 March at The Horse Hospital is the UK Premiere of YANGON CALLING – PUNK IN MYANMAR, directed by Alexander Dluzak and Carsten Piefke, an award-winning documentary about Myanmar’s underground punk scene filmed secretly in the former military dictatorship using hidden cameras. It provides a rare portrait of the rebels who really do have a cause, introducing us to their personal lives and their hidden world of rehearsal rooms and illicit concerts.

The European premiere of Kulikar Sotho’s THE LAST REEL presents different versions of the truth unearthed from a lost film, buried beneath Cambodia’s killing fields and the London premiere of PASSION FROM MONGOLIA, a poignant portrait of a man’s struggle to bridge two very different ages, is a great introduction to Mongolian cinema which will be showcased at the Cinema Museum on Sunday 19 April.

The festival will also host the UK Premiere of a musical documentary FLASHBACK MEMORIES 3D, that received the Audience Award winner at the 26th Tokyo International Film Festival. Directed by Japan’s Tetsuaki Matsue, it focuses on the didgeridoo maestro GOMA, who suffers from an inability to form new memories following a traffic accident at the peak of his career. Also on offer is a cult classic Uzbekistani “Red Western”. MT

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VENUES: Ham Yard Theatre, Rich Mix, The Horse Hospital and the Cinema Museum | 27 – 31 March 2015

 

Dreamcatcher (2015)

Director: Kim Longinotto

With: Brenda Myers-Powell

United Kingdom Documentary 97min

Winner: World Cinema Directing Award | Documentary | Sundance 2015 

International Film Festival Rotterdam – British documentarian Kim Longinotto turns her expert eyes and ears to Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute and drug addict who now spends her days and nights carrying out educational and outreach work in schools and correctional facilities as well as on the hard streets of Chicago. Drawing on her own harrowing past, Brenda is able to connect with prostitutes and other vulnerable women in order to help raise awareness of rape culture and change perspectives on prostitution as a criminal activity.

Brenda’s voluntary work as the co-founder of the Dreamcatcher Foundation (“we’re not here to pressure you or judge you… have you got any dreams you wanna catch?”) recalls that of CeaseFire, the violence-intervention organisation that was the subject of another excellent Chicago-based documentary, Steve James’s THE INTERRUPTERS (2011). Like the activists in that film, Longinotto’s subject is an indefatigable survivor of remarkable strength and character. Seen early on in the film deliberating over which wig to wear for a meeting, she is a demonstrably chameleonic listener and talker, one who’s obviously able to speak on the same wavelength as the many different young women she visits.

Whether tactfully approaching a prostitute to ensure she has condoms or telling high school students that she was molested during most of her life, Brenda shows an exceptional skill at getting other women to open up about their own lives. This provides Longinotto, who sticks for the most part to an observational strategy, with some absorbingly candid material. In an after-school club for at-risk teens, one student reveals that she was raped at the age of 11. “People used to ask me why I was so jumpy… I don’t trust no man at all.” Another student, 15-year-old Temeka, started prostituting at 12. These are unthinkable revelations.

Meanwhile, prostitute Marie – who ran away from her abusive home in Portland, Oregon, and who has been on the streets since she was 8 – is an ostensibly hardened veteran of this unforgiving world, though it isn’t long before Brenda’s determination to win her trust moves the young woman to tears. It’s heartbreaking to watch someone’s brave face collapse in light of a rare extension of warmth – and if Longinotto really did feel the need to bring in Stuart Earl’s quiet score at this point, at least she does it subtly.

Longinotto’s go-to means of flowing from one sequence to the next is to cut either to a startlingly attractive cityscape from above, or to a travelling shot from a car through more upmarket areas of Chicago. In addition to assisting the narrative editorially, these moments provide an ironically pristine image of urban space, whereas the testimonies from the women whom Brenda encounters in her daily work suggest a real gulf in wealth – perhaps the unacknowledged framework by which the director has come to film their experiences. At some point, we have to ask why the majority of these battered, mistrustful women are black – and, drawing further back, why all of them come from impoverished, working-class backgrounds.

Until those questions are asked, though, there’s a real-life superhero at work on the streets of Chicago, and she’s got the back of all women who’ve been marginalised, abandoned and left in mental and physical tatters by rapists, abusers and an institutional system that wants only to criminalise their survival instincts. MICHAEL PATTISON

Reviewed during THE 44TH ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL | 21 JANUARY – 2 FEBRUARY 2015 | DVD RELEASE 27 APRIL 2015

Stream of Love (2014) | DocHouse

Director: Ágnes Sós

With Veronika Both, Ferencz Kósa, Rózalia Barabás, Jenõné Martin

70min   Documentary   Hungarian with subtitles

The ability to speak your mind, honestly and without guile is one of benefits of old age. The game of subterfuge is over. There is nothing left to hide. Writer and director, Ágnes Sós explores the simple way of life a remote rural community in Hungary, unchanged for nearly a hundred years. The villagers (aged 75 – 90+) share their stories without coyness or sentimentality; telling it like it is and calling a spade a spade. At least twenty five of them are widows. But of those still married, one woman confesses honestly of her husband: “Why didn’t God take the desire, when he took the ability.” Others are more appreciative and candid when they talk about their memories and experiences of past pleasures But one lonely man admits: “I can’t have a good one, But I don’t need a bad one.” Most of the revelations seem to revolve around sex or relationships but the villagers have all reached a stage in life where they are are grateful to be enjoy the simple daily routine and the rhythm of the seasons: Raising and tending the animals, kneading the bread, growing produce and preparing food. And one chap also adds: “I’ve been mad about love and kissing, all my life”.

Ágnes Sós filmed this endearing doc over a two-and-a-half-year period with the help of her cinematographer Zoltán Lovasi. In the quiet corner of rural Hungary, there is not a car, a modern building or or a ‘phone mast in sight and many of the villagers still ride around in horse-drawn carts including Ferenc, who still has an eye for the local ladies and often greets them with a pleasantry as he passes by. The women have the same desires as the men; one talks of being the most attractive and cleverest in the village, but also confesses to murder at the ago of 80. Another admits she didn’t enjoy an orgasm until she was well into her sixties, and by her own hand, while washing. She also adds that there is nothing better in life than being in love. Preferring the old ways of courting, the men are eager to insist that they still feel randy and can even still perform ‘but not one after the other!’ Clearly, this is a society where men have always been respected and obeyed yet one man does admit that he tolerated his wife’s infidelity, putting it down to her ‘unusual needs’. Strangely no one talks very much about their success in business or material wealth. The message is clear from these old folk: ‘enjoy love and sex while you’re still able’.

The most heartening aspect of this documentary is the not just the closeness of this strong community but the glorious natural beauty of the Hungarian countryside during the daisy-strewn Summer and in the glistening snow – the colour green dominates both outside in the grassy meadows and hills and inside where is seems to be the choice of wall-colouring or garments. The only sad memory we take away is of a trusting and faithful group of people whose way of life and fond attachment to the land will soon be gone forever . MT

STREAM OF LOVE is SCREENING AT BERTHA-DOCHOUSE at the newly refurbished CURZON BLOOMSBURY –  from 28 March until 2 April 2015. Tickets HERE 

Human Rights Watch Film Festival | 18 – 27 March 2015

The HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Film Festival, in its 19th year, takes place at various venues in London from 18th March. Here’s a flavour of some of the titles screening:

Mike STORM IN THE ANDES 01 Opening Night | Thu 19th March | CURZON SOHO

THE YES MEN ARE REVOLTING (UK Prem)

Comedy troupe The Yes Men stage phoney events and press releases in an effort to bring attention to environmental dangers and corporate greed. Director Laura Nix (The Politics of Fur) gets to grips with these activists, some of whom are personal friends, to bring their challenges and motivations to the surface.

Life is Sacred. Main Still.Friday 20 March, CURZON SOHO | Sunday 22 March, BARBICAN

LIFE IS SACRED (UK Prem)

Danish filmmaker Andreas Dalsgaard has been documenting the Colombian professor-turned-politician Antanas Mocus for many years – first for Cities on Speed: Bogota Change (2009) which focuses on Mockus’ work as Mayor of Bogota and mire recently Life is Sacred, which features some of the people from the earlier film. Dalsgaard studied in visual anthropology in Paris and then anthropology in Aarhus, before graduating from film school in Denmark in 2009. His first feature Afghan Muscles (2007) became a festival hit and won the American Film Institute Grand Prix.

Democrats. Primary StillFriday 20 March, BARBICAN | Monday 23 March, RITZY, Brixton:

DEMOCRATS 

Director Camilla Nielsson spent three years filming the cross-party negotiations behind Zimbabwe’s 2013 constitution – it took a year just to gain the right filming permits – and gained an extraordinary level access and trust among Zimbabwe’s political players.

WTB Image 1_2Friday 20 March, RITZY Brixton | Saturday 21 March, CURZON SOHO:

WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS (Exclusive preview)

Director Beth Murphy spent a year in Afghanistan filming What Tomorrow Brings about a newly established Afghan girls’ school, where the humanitarian battle to provide basic education for girls mirrors the military and political battles to save Afghanistan from again becoming a failed state. The film traces the stories of several girls over a single school year – both inside the classroom and at home – while providing a rare glimpse into the day-to-day life of an Afghan community torn between two radically different destinies.

Murphy has directed, produced and written nearly 20 documentary films for national and international media outlets including The Sundance Channel, The History Channel, Discovery International, Lifetime Television, The Sundance Channel, Discovery Health, PBS, NHK, and numerous international outlets.

STORM IN THE ANDES 01_0Saturday 21 March RITZY Brixton | Monday 23 March, BARBICAN

STORM IN THE ANDES (UK Prem)

Director Mikael Wiström is an award-winning Swedish documentary filmmaker, photographer and documentary teacher, who has been making films in Peru since 1982, and started travelling to Peru in 1974 as a photographer. For Storm in the Andes he originally intended to make a film about the Peruvian conflict from the peasants’ point of view, when out of the blue, Josefin Ekermann wrote to him wanting to find out more about her aunt and her family’s history with the Shining Path movement (Sendero Luminoso), which then changed the course of his film with extraordinary results.

wrestling_2_01_9186 copySaturday 21 March, RITZY Brixton | Sunday 22 March, BARBICAN

BEATS OF THE ANTONOV (UK Prem)

Director Hajooj Kuka is filmmaker from Sudan, currently based between Nairobi, Kenya and Nuba Mountains, Sudan. He is the creative director of 3ayin.com, a website that works with local reporters aimed at bringing news of the war through short documentaries, to the Sudanese people. Hajooj is a regular contributor to nubareports.org. His previous work includes the 2009 documentary, Darfur’s Skeleton (52 min), which explores the conflict in Sudan’s troubled region since 2003. Beats of the Antonov won the People’s Choice Award at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

Sunday 22 March, CURZON Soho | Tuesday 24 March,RITZY Brixton:

Ouighours 1UYGHYRS: Prisoners of the Absurd (UK Prem)

Director Patricio Henríquez is a Quebec based filmmaker with a prolific body of work acknowledged by more than 70 awards and distinctions. He grew up and trained in filmmaking in Chile leaving the country after Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvadore Allende. In 1974 he settled in Montreal and has been making television and feature documentaries about Chile and social justice around the world ever since.He brings the little-known story of the Uyghur detainnees to the screen with a collective narrative in which the cynical machinations of nation-states often win out over reason.

ABRI_12 - © CLIMAGETuesday 24 March, BARBICAN |Wednesday 25 March, CURZON Soho:

THE SHELTER (L’Abri) (UK Prem)

Director Fernand Melgar was born in 1961 in Tangier into a family of Spanish anarchist exiles. His parents clandestinely snuck him into Switzerland in 1963 when they entered as seasonal workers. He has produced over 20 documentaries on immigration and identity. His 2008 documentary La Forteresse won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival as well as many other international awards. His film Special Flight (HRWFF 2012) shot in 2011 in an administrative detention center, received more than thirty international awards, including the Swiss Film Award and the Prix Europa.

girl on wall again 1Tuesday 24 March, CURZON Soho | Thursday 26 March, BARBICAN:

THE DREAM OF SHAHRAZAD (UK Prem)

Multiple award-winning director, François Verster is based in Cape Town, South Africa. The Dream of Shahrazad has been his longest project in the making so far, and began with the idea of taking a classical piece of music and juxtaposing it with a contemporary political issue. Filmed before, during and after the Arab Spring The Dream of the Shahrazad weaves together a web of music, politics and storytelling to explore the ways in which creativity and political articulation coincide in response to oppression.

The_Wanted18_0Monday 23 March, CURZON Soho |  Tuesday 24 March, BARBICAN | Thursday 26 March, RITZY Brixton:

THE WANTED 18 (UK Prem)

Filmmaker Amer Shomali, a Palestinian artist, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria, went to art school in Bournemouth, studied architecture at the Birzeit University in Palestine and now lives in Ramallah. He has co-director credits for the film The Wanted 18 which is a part-animated documentary (Shomali did the animation of the cows) about the non-violent resistance during the first Intifada in the late 1980s in the West Bank Christian town of Beit Sahour. Villagers bought 18 cows and started producing their own milk as a co-operative. The farm was so successful that the Israeli army, in a desperate bid to stop it, declared the farm “a threat to national security.”

carla_night_2-1Wednesday 25 March, BARBICAN |  Thursday 26 March, RITZY Brixton:

A QUIET INQUISITION (UK Prem)

Directors Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn have been producing documentaries together since 1998. Here they have created a powerful, character-driven story that revealed how total abortion prohibition impacts life in a public hospital. To contextualize the issue in the wider condition of women and girl’s reproductive and maternal health, it was particularly important that the story focus on the experience of a routine OBGYN surgeon rather than an abortion doctor. During our pre-production trips Dr. Carla Cerrato emerged as the brave and compelling central figure for the film and it is around her growing sense of consciousness that the story is told. As a portrait of a strong Central American female professional A Quiet Inquisition also brings to view a figure rarely represented in the Latino or American media. The serious social and human rights issues central to this intimate story of Carla, her colleagues and patients – individuals whose lives have been turned upside down by the law – come to light here through a nuanced lens.

1 - claudia paz y pazWednesday 25 March, RITZY Brixton | Thursday 26 March, CURZON Soho:

BURDEN OF PEACE (International Prem)

Director Joey Boink is a political sciences graduate and filmmaker who has gained extraordinary access to Guatemala’s first female Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz (during her four-year mandate in the world’s most dangerous countries ) to make this film. It observes her attempts to break the downward spiral of a society where drug cartels, corruption and violence have become part of daily life. She manages to improve the country’s safety and justice issues but is met with much resistance.

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THE HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 18 MARCH UNTIL 27 MARCH 2015. Tickets here  FEATURED IMAGE: ROSEWATER (2014) | MARCH 27 

I Am Michael (2015) | FLARE London LGBT Film Festival 2015

Director: Justin Kelly

Writer: Justin Kelly |

Cast: James Franco, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Carver, Emma Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Avan Jogia

98min  US   Drama Biopic

The ubiquitous James Franco is either behind the camera or in front of it these days, playing both gay and straight roles and in  I AM MICHAEL he does both with this inspired foray into the life Michael Glatze, a gay magazine editor who becomes heterosexual after finding God, and transforming into a Christian pastor with unsettling undertones.

Gus Van Sant has financed the debut feature from writer-director Justin Kelly, which is based on a real-life story with  Zachary Quinto and Emma Roberts lending able support as his boyfriend and subsequent fiancée. This is not a straightforward film but one that offers much food for thought in a nuanced and cleverly-scripted narrative (based partly on a New York Times article about Glatze’s life) that  insightfully explores the nature of sexuality, love and belief.

The story opens as Glatze (James Franco) is editor of a gay magazine in late nineties San Francisco and happily involved with lover Bennett (Zachary Quinto), who persuades him to move to Canada so he can take up an important post in Architecture. The relationship with Bennett is natural and totally convincing and both actors seem entirely at one in their performances. But Glatze is jobless and soon bored with the life in Nova Scotia, despite meeting Tyler (Charlie Carver) who adds spice to the couple’s love life and is soon sharing their bed. Glatze launches a new magazine aimed at the ‘coming out’ market whose sexual beliefs are being compromised or constrained by their religious beliefs, and the trio start shooting a documentary entitled Jim in Bold. At this point, we’re persuaded that Glatze’s real raison d’être is to help humanity. James Franco’s forceful presence and hard-eyed gaze melts, on occasion, and particularly when Glatze comes across Jacob Loeb.

But the emergence of regular panic attacks seem to indicate that he’s not happy with his life or his relationship, and these also stem from the fear of a heart condition that cut short his father’s life as a young man. His close relationship with his mother is also a motif running through the film, and he regularly visits her resting place to reinforce his convictions and reminisce. transformation is fleshed out on a blog with voiceover describing his religious zeal. Unable to see himself or his ambitions clearly, Glatze emerges a troubled and confused soul and, while Kelly in no way seeks to condemn or judge him, James Franco reflects this accurately and powerfully in a performance that’s both compelling and subtle but also indicates the presence of a mild personality disorder – it’s a tremendously difficult role which Franco pulls off with remarkable aplomb. After a Buddhist retreat in Wyoming where he meets the gentle Nico (a fine turn from Avan Jogia) he ends up in Bible School where he falls in love with Rebekah Fuller (Emma Roberts) a naive yet appealing young Christian girl.

Christopher Blauvelt’s camerawork is competent on both the widescreen and on more intimate moments but the score occasionally overdoes it, producing an intrusiveness that makes contemplation impossible – and there is a great deal to take in and process in Glatze’s transformation. By the end though, we are more than convinced that this man has by no means found his way in life and those who stray onto his complicated path will continue to find themselves in emotional danger. MT

I AM MICHAEL HEADLINES THIS YEAR’S BFI FLARE LONDON LGBT FILM FESTIVAL FROM 19 – 29 MARCH 2015 AT BFI SOUTHBANK, LONDON SE1. REVIEWED DURING BERLINALE 2015

Out To Win (2015) | BFI Flare

Directed by: Malcolm Ingram

With: Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and others

102min  Sport Documentary  US

OUT TO WIN is a full on in ‘your face’  affair that focuses on LGBTQA World class athletes as they share their ‘coming out’ stories to the camera. There’s nothing new here revelation-wise, for most of us, but the combined force of these heartfelt stories serves as a full scale slap in the face of the anti-sentiment that traditionally spread through the heartlands of America’s sporting life. Sporting communities are not as enlightened or as accepting as the creative arenas of film, theatre and the Arts, and most are reinforced by diehard traditionalists and often dominated by a macho male following, who are, by definition gay-phobic – particularly when it comes to the locker-rooms.

One after the other, talking heads of famous Athletes pop-up ‘close and personal’, to share their emotions and often their tears about being gay in the world of Sport: Wade Davies, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Brittney Griner, David Kopay, Jason Collins, Charline Labonté, Conner Mertens, and John Amaechi to name but a few. It emerges, not surprisingly, that many were scared to reveal their true sexuality for fear of losing valuable sponsorship or community support.

Without doubt, it’s a crying shame that these talented individuals have had to suffer in the name of sexuality. Filmmaker Malcolm Ingram is known for his documentary award-winning doc: Small Town Gay Bar. Here he has assembled an impressive array of news stories and archive footage to serve his hard-hitting story that doesn’t even give lip service to creativity in its camerawork or style. Often, the film is edited to repeat soundbites, like an advertisement, blaring out and reinforcing his message, over and over again so it feels like a list of examples instead of a cogent narrative. Rather than appealing to our hearts and minds, we feel pistol-whipped into commiserating with these confessions, worthy though they undoubtedly are, in telling a story of pain and gradual acceptance has come about due to the trailblazing efforts of the early lesbian and gay sporting pioneers.  MT

SCREENS DURING THE BFI FLARE FESTIVAL FROM 19-29 March 2015

Kinoteka Polish Film Festival 2015 | 8 April – 29 May 2015 | 13th Edition

10264804_1084725484887340_3803537261850274160_nKINOTEKA, the annual celebration of Polish Cinema and culture, is back in London for the 13th Anniversary. Taking place in various venues including BFI Southbank, ICA, Tate Modern, Fronline Club and Filmhouse Edinburgh.

Here’s a taster of this year’s highlights:

MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS : MASTERPIECES OF POLISH CINEMA

Filmhouse Edinburgh and BFI Southbank will be host to Scorsese’s 21 favourite Polish Films, all sparkling in new 2k prints. Showcasing the astonishing talent from the legendary Łódź Film School where directors such as Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Andrzej Munk, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Wojciech Jerzy Has, Aleksander Ford, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Roman Polanski mastered their crafts.

Opening with a screening of CAMOUFLAGE with director Krzysztof Zanussi as special guest, KINOTEKA honours the work of Zanussi with 3 titles in the Masterpieces of Polish Cinema season: CAMOUFLAGE, THE CONSTANT FACTOR and ILLUMINATION as well as the UK premiere of his latest film, FOREIGN BODY  in the New Polish Cinema section.

N E W   P O L I S H   C I N E M A – 1o April 2015 onwards

The ICA plays host to KINOTEKA’s New Polish Cinema strand from 10th April with a selection of popular and critically successful contemporary Polish films from the last year. Krzysztof Zanussi’s FOREIGN BODY, takes an uncompromising look at contemporary Poland and the struggles between capitalist reality and Catholicism, sin and sainthood, men and women. Jerzy Stuhr’s latest film, CITIZEN, a dramedy set over sixty years, tells the story of Jan Bratek who regretfully finds himself at the heart of events from the modern history of Poland, from the 1950s through to the present day.

Wojciech Smarzowski ‘s (TRAFFIC DEPARTMENT), THE MIGHTY ANGEL, is in many ways Poland’s answer to The Lost Weekend and Leaving Las Vegas. An uncompromising, naturalistic tale of addiction and redemption, Robert Więckiewicz stars as a writer hospitalised for his alcoholism and the film follows him and the patients he meets during his treatment.

Krzysztof Skonieczny’s HARDKOR DISKO, hails the arrival of a fresh voice in Polish Cinema, his incendiary, psychological thriller wowed audiences when it premiered at last year’s Edinburgh Film Festival. When a young man arrives in the city and makes his way to the door of a successful middle-aged couple, his motives for being there are unclear. What quickly becomes apparent is that his overriding desire is to kill them. Compelling and disturbing, Hardkor Disko has elements of Michael Hanneke’s Funny Games.

U N D E R   T H E   L E N S Polish Documentary film in focus

KINOTEKA showcases original, innovative documentary from Poland. Paweł Pawlikowski is primarily known in the UK for his critically acclaimed feature films, including the BAFTA-winning LAST RESORT, MY SUMMER OF LOVE and most recently the Oscar® winning IDA. He began his career in television making documentaries for the BBC, where his distinctive mixing of fact with elements of the personal and poetic challenged expectations of the television documentary format. Paweł Pawlikowski will present a special weekend of screenings at the ICA (18th/19th April), including DOSTOEVSKY’S TRAVELS about the Russian novelist’s journey to Western Europe in the early 1990s, his great grandson Dimitri makes the same journey, travelling from St Petersburg to Berlin and London to lecture about his great grandfather. Dimitri’s sole ambition is to earn enough money to buy a Mercedes. Blending real and fictional events, Pawlikowski’s film reflects on one of the pivotal moments in modern history: the fall of the Berlin Wall; ruminating on the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s transition to capitalism.

In a short career before his premature death at the age of 34, influential documentarian Wojciech Wiszniewski (1946-1981) produced just 12 films in total, yet he is now considered to be one of the most outstanding personalities of his generation. Known for his cutting edge and pioneering approach, his work broke conventions by employing bold techniques of framing, distorting sound and an associative use of editing to orchestrate or create a reality. His legacy is explored in Wojciech Wiszniewski Rediscovered, a programme of 6 of his shorts at the ICA on 12th April.

The documentary strand also celebrates the work of emerging Polish documentary filmmakers. Both Aneta Kopacz and Tomasz Śliwiński who studied at the Wajda Film School have been Oscar® nominated for this year’s Best Documentary Short Film category. Aneta Kopacz’s JOANNA is a tender portrait of a woman with terminal cancer and her attempts to prepare her young family for a world without her in it. Shot by Łukasz Żal, the talented young Polish cinematographer who is also Oscar® nominated for Ida, Joanna is a story of strength in the face of adversity. Tomasz Śliwiński’s OUR CURSE, is a personal statement by the director and his wife, the parents of a baby boy born with a rare and incurable disease. The film forms part of their process of coming to terms with his diagnosis.This year KINOTEKA will draw to a close with a special screening of cult Polish comedy THE CRUISE (1970) at the ICA (29th May), to mark Second Run’s DVD release.

KINOTEKA RUNS FROM 8 APRIL UNTIL 29 MAY 2015 IN LONDON AND EDINBURGH

My Name is Salt (2014) – Best Documentary Edinburgh Film Festival 2014

Director: Farida Pacha   Writer: Farida Pacha

92 mins  Languages: Gujarati/Switzerland, India, Documentary

An impressive if somewhat languid feature debut, My Name Is Salt details one of the thousands of families who head to the sparse deserts of Gujerat, India, every year to spend eight months extracting salt from the earth. As the film begins, the family unearths their equipment, left buried under the sand the previous year. At the end of the film, they will bury the equipment once more, their task complete. The monsoon season begins, and the family will wait to return the following year, ready to start the process all over again. The cylindrical cycle of their lives is highlighted by the film’s one opening title card, a quotation from Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus: ‘The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart’. It’s a more than fitting epigraph for a film which is concerned wholeheartedly with just such a struggle.

My Name Is Salt still 2 _Guabha_ copy

If nothing else, this strikingly shot observational documentary gives a real sense of the hard physical work involved in extracting the salt, and also the strong resolve of the workers. Their task is carried out manually, often directly with their hands and feet, and the film highlights the physicality of this process. However, the lack of contextualisation to the work we observe means that nothing more than a superficial understanding of the process is gleaned. In fact, it’s only at the very end of the film that director Farida Pacha gives us any information regarding the situation and location of the workers – not necessarily a problem within itself, especially given the beauty of the images, but the film’s objective observation does lead to a rather detached viewing experience at times. Still, an understanding of the family’s tough economic and socio-political situation emerges through the constant phone calls from the salt merchant, deepening the personal story at the film’s centre.

The film went on to win the festival’s Best Documentary award and, though not a totally satisfying experience, it certainly does mark Pacha out as a director to watch.

MY NAME IS SALT WON BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD AT THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014

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Maidan (2014) | DVD | Blu release

Maidan 3D DVDDir.: Sergei Loznitsa; Documentary; Netherlands/Ukraine 2014, 133 min.

After his impressive feature films MY JOY and IN THE FOG  Sergei Loznitsa returns to documentary filmmaking with MAIDAN. Even though he captures a historical event – the removal of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych from power – viewers might mistake MAIDAN for a well-directed feature, shot in the style of Eisenstein.

In November 2013 Yanukovych declined to sign an agreement for Ukraine’s associate membership with the European Union, obviously under pressure from Russia. Nationalist protesters started gathering around Maidan Square (Maidan roughly translates into “independence”). At first the mass meetings were peaceful but they escalated in January 2014 into fighting after the introduction of a law to curb the activities of the ever-growing number of protesters. Only one month later, after over hundred nationalist protesters had died, Yanukovych fled the country, leading the way to new elections. The rest is history still in the making.

MAIDAN is shot with a static camera (just one movement, caused by teargas, when the cameraman had to flee), a small number of inter-titles give sparse information, no interviews, just crowd scenes, and mostly off-screen speeches and poetry readings. Loznitsa really has taken his Eisenstein to heart: the crowd is everything. He frames their milling around; their running; the panic; the singing and the eating and drinking. The majority of them are middle-aged or even older citizens, grey is definitely the dominant hair colour. They sing anthems and other traditional songs with gusto, unashamed nationalism pores out. Somehow it feels like a delayed settlement with Russia  because these men and women must have marched in countless Stalinist rituals on the same square. Yes, their nationalism is over-the-top, the involvement of the church leaders perhaps not that appropriate, the invocation of the “Cosack” nation leaves a rather nasty taste – but at no point does Loznitsa succumb to agitation: his painterly style shows us pure emotion whatever the historical background. In his detachment, Loznitsa iis more interested in small details of the ad-hoc organisation, in near still images of people gathering to eat, creating a commune-like feeling in the first part of the documentary.

MAIDAN is, ironically, a triumph of soviet documentary style. But this is not old-fashioned, because the protesters are, for the most part, not the young angry crowd of the Arab spring and other recent uprisings but citizens whose memories go back a long time, and their anger is not just a spur of the moment, but the result of decades of Russian domination. Their cringing nationalism and the huge presence of Russians in the Ukraine, which might lead to a partition of the country, is another issue. But, in the true style of Eisenstein, Loznitsa has captured the will of the people, with all their emotional might. We should not begrudge them this moment of triumph, because they might have to pay for it with the loss of large parts of their country. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 20 FEBRUARY 2015 | DVD | 13 APRIL 

 

Life Itself (2014) | DVD release

imageDir.: Steve James; Documentary; USA 2014, 118 min.

When documentary filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams) started to shoot the portrait of Chicago film critic Roger Ebert in December 2012, he was not to know that he was about to document the last five months in the life of Ebert. True, the critic, who was diagnosed in 2002 with thyroid cancer, and lost his speech as well as part of his face after many operations during the next ten years, was again hospitalised for a broken hip, but his will to live and his work output were undiminished.

LIFE ITSELF, named after Ebert’s autobiography, quoted often in the documentary, is, in a way, the story of two marriages: when he was fifty, Ebert met Charlie “Chaz” Hammelsmith, an Afro-American attorney, whom he married after years of meeting “the worst women in the world”, as a friend testified. The marriage softened Ebert personally and also professionally (even though he would have disputed the latter), for the first time as an adult he experienced family life with his wife and her children and grandchildren. For many decades, before joining AA, where (according to one source – he met his wife), Ebert was heavily dependent on alcohol, his friends from the “wild” days” painting a not very complimentary picture of the younger Ebert. After visiting the University of Illinois, he started writing at the “Chicago Sun-Times” (the ‘scruffier’ of the two Chicago dailies) being their film critic from 1967 until his death; his last review being published two days after his passing in April 2013.

His second “marriage” was to his TV partner Gene Siskel (1946-1999). Since 1978 they appeared together on the PBS TV show “At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert”, later changing to Disney’s “Buena Vista Channel”. Their trademark was the “Thumbs up – Thumbs down” judgement on the films they reviewed. The two had a love-hate relationship, Ebert feeling inferior to the Yale man Siskel, a lean and patrician figure, presenting a much more sophisticated image, compared with Ebert’s rather ungainly overweight appearance. Ebert retaliated, reminding Siskel more than once publicly, that he had won a “Pulitzer Prize” in 1975. As Marlene Iglitzen, Siskel’s widow, mentioned “Roger was very full of himself” – but she too admitted that they fed of each other, whilst another witness confirms “that they fought like two little boys on the playground”. Interesting to know, that Siskel, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour, did only tell his wife about his terminal condition “giving his children another happy year, instead of one counting the clock down” as Iglitzen remembers fondly. Roger Ebert on the other hand, has lived his out his illness and terrible disfigurement in the public glare – being only too glad to share.

LIFE ITSELF mentions Ebert involvement with Russ Meyer, the critic wrote the script to “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”, about the same time when Siskel was part of the Hugh Hefner circle, we can see him on the famous “Big Bunny Jet”. The excerpts from their TV shows are hilarious, and directors like Scorsese and Herzog pay tribute to Ebert. Spike Lee and Michael Moore were two of many directors, whose career took off after Ebert’s “Thumb’s up”.

Whilst not really being a “hagiography”, LIFE ITSELF is sometimes too kind and polite to its main subject. James does not dig deep enough into Roger Ebert’s working-class family background  where an alcoholic, vengeance-seeking mother must have done considerable damage to the future critic, affecting his chances of entering Harvard. All this might explain, whilst Ebert, with some exceptions, was a champion of popular, mainstream cinema. Quite the opposite of a Pauline Kael, who did not needed the “on-stage” personality of Ebert. Still, as a document of its time, LIFE ITSELF is worth watching.

NOW ON DVD courtesy of Dogwoof

Love is All (2015)

Director: Kim Longinotto

In order to borrow the title of the Beatles song, All you need is Love, for her latest documentary, LOVE IS ALL, Kim Longinotto needed a lot more ‘tough’ love to make the project really succeed. This is a 70 minute collage of British social history concerned with our attitudes to love, dating and marriage. On paper it sounded fascinating. In practice it’s only intermittently so. Longinotto has said “the film explores love in a playful way.” Yet along with her kindly British/Yorkshire perspective of the sometimes pained joy of love, the ‘play’ needed to have a bit more edge.

LOVE IS ALL is a journey through the BFI and Yorkshire film archive. From the 1889 Kiss in a Tunnel (‘naughty’ straight couple kissing in a train carriage) right through to 2014’s Islington Wedding (one of the first gay marriages being applauded by an excited crowd), the most memorable clips are the most dramatic. A voyeuristic man spies, with binoculars on an amorous couple in the park. That’s in Peeping Tom (1905). The conflict between a mother and daughter over boyfriends in the 1927 silent Hindle Wakes. A public information film Don’t be like Brenda (1973), about an unwanted pregnancy. And,most strikingly, a tinted sequence from Piccadilly (1929) starring the exuberantly sexy Chinese actress Anna Mae Wong. Three great clips to die for, but not so the complete film. For Love is All is often in danger of losing itself in the generality of its big theme of LOVE.No commentary is supplied. Dialogue is minimal so music has to do the job. The songs are delivered by Richard Hawley and are ‘easy listening’ and tediously middle of the road; bland but inoffensive. His music never convincingly gelled with the image. Hawley’s folksy crooner voice tended to drift over the footage in a disembodied way. He wasn’t helped by lyrics that were too over/or under-romantic to really complement the power of the documentaries, home movies and feature films; avoiding irony and wit: pushing the film into sentimentality, when a genuine romantic affection was required.

None of LOVE IS ALL‘s clips were identified on screen. But maybe a film divided into chapters, with arresting titles, could have been attempted? To the film’s credit it is inclusive (gay experiences and multi-cultural experiences of love play alongside a white/straight view point). But where was the complexity of love? Not enough of love’s difficulties to contrast with its joys. So little was made of the mature love experience. And hardly any sex surfaces – though amongst the few scenes featuring physical aspect of love, the contrast of seduction moments in My Beautiful Launderette worked really well.

LOVE IS ALL is a lightweight pleasant Valentine’s Day card of a film that could have been a lot more passionate and playfully provocative. Alan Price

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 FEBRUARY 2015 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF

Nuclear Nation II | Berlinale 2015

Dir.: Atsushi Funahashi;

Documentary; Japan 2014, 114,min

Director Funahashi follows the refugees from Futaba on their long journey for an honourable resettlement. The accident at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima in 2011 made their town uninhabitable and killed 53 of them). Funahashi takes things from where he left them in Nuclear Nation at the end of 2012. The plant is still leaking and the 6942 ex-inhabitants of Futaba are living all over the province. The mayor, Mr. Idagowa, blames the government and TEPCO, the Atomic Energy Council, for the delays in the re-settlement of the town’s people, but his opposition holds him responsible for the delays and has him removed after a non-confidence vote.

On the second anniversary of the disaster the tone is solemn but progress has not been made. Particularly the elderly are suffering in makeshift accommodation in Kisai High School, where 801 days after the incident, 123 people are still living and sleeping in a vast room, which was once the art department of the school. Archive films show us Futaba before the first reactor was built in 1967: ramshackle buildings and a poverty-ridden countryside. By 1978, when reactor number six and seven were built, the town was booming. A café owner reports that his income doubled every year, “we had forty years of good time”. A huge sign at the entrance to the town, proclaims “A prosperous future for the birthplace of Nuclear Energy”.

Some of the inhabitants go back to the town for a limited two hours, to rummage around, putting down anti-rodent poison, trying to salvage some items, but knowing very well that they will never return to Futaba. The new mayor is as helpless as the old one. During a meeting in posh hotel, he has to admit that the inhabitants of Futaba are living all over the province, divided not only by distance but different categories of support, which is not good for unity. At the same meeting, the Energy minister blames the media for the “demonisation” of the Nuclear Power industry. At the end of 2013 the last refugees leave the Kisai High School, together with the administration – the latter would return in early 2015. By then, an area has been designated for de-contamination, many buildings in the town will be lost for ever, even though the government has declared “that radiation will not leak beyond a certain point” – but nobody believes any more what comes out of Tokyo.

NUCLEAR NATION II is impressive because it avoids dramatics and listens to the refugees. The cinematography is inventive showing the small details underlining the misery for the sad victims. Funahashi avoids the usual talking heads as much as possible leaving the audience space for imagining the tragedy and contemplating the misery.AS

BERLINALE 5 -15 FEBRUARY 2015 – FIND OUR COVERAGE IN BERLINALE 2015 SEARCH TAB

British Film | Women Directors | Great start for 2015 | Festivals

DarkHorse_headshot1_LouiseOsmond_byDozWilcox_2014-11-25_04-47-10AMSO THE BRITISH NEVER WIN ANYTHING? – well we’re off to a good start in 2015. At Sundance, the US indie film festival that kicks off the cinema year, Louise Osmond’s documentary DARK HORSE about a local steed that gets up and finishes first, took the Audience Award. Dreamcatcher_Still05 2DREAMCATCHER a documentary about prostitution won seasoned UK documentarian, Kim Longinotto, Best Director in the World Cinema strand. Another Brit, Chad Garcia, took home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER that sees a Ukrainian victim of Chernobyl tackling his dark secret during the revolution. SlowWest_still1_MichaelFassbender_KodiSmitMcPhee__byNA_2014-11-26_10-36-58AMAnd a UK/New Zealand- filmed Western SLOW WEST was awarded World Cinema Grand Jury Prize – it was directed by a Scotsman, John Maclean, and has Michael Fassbender in the lead role.

Meanwhile over at Rotterdam International Film Festival, filmmaker Debbie Tucker Green’s look at the life of a London family, SECOND COMING, with a sterling British cast including Idris Elba and Frederick Schmidt, won the Big Screen Award. And three women directors out of five, is certainly looking more promising for this year’s crop of indie films. 201506056_1

At BERLINALE, the major European festival held in February (5-15) each year, British filmmakers are set to fly the flag with 45 YEARS, a much-anticipated drama from Andrew Haigh (Weekend) and a starry cast of Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay who play a married couple hit by tragedy when they discover a skeleton in the cupboard, in the shape of a past lover. The legendary character of Sherlock Holmes is brought to life when Ian Mckellen plays the 93-year-old detective, looking back over his sleuthing past, in a drama loosely adapted from the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind.

Helen Mirren will also be in Berlin with her new wartime drama Golden woman copyWOMAN IN GOLD. She plays a Jewish heiress embarking on a desperate search for a painting by Gustav Klimt. Directed by Simon Curtis, the drama also stars British veterans Jonathan Pryce and Charles Dance along with Ryan Reynolds. And last but not least, Berlinale will play out with Britbuster CINDERELLA ‘out of competition’. Filmed in the English countryside of Buckinghamshire, this is Kenneth Branagh’s new title for Disney and stars Brits, Derek Jacobi, Hayley Atwell, Helena Bonham Carter and Stellan Skarsgård.Cinderella_2015_official_poster

BERLINALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 5- 15 FEBRUARY 2015 – for all our coverage follow the link Berlinale2015

 

 

Wim Wenders | Kino Dreams 2022

The films of Wim Wenders focus on alienation, trips between city and the countryside KINGS OF THE ROAD, countries THE AMERICAN FRIEND, ALICE IN THE CITIES, reality and visions WINGS OF DESIRE and simple alienation from humanity THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK.

They are often urban stories, but human survival seems only possible in the countryside according to PARIS, TEXAS and UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD. Wenders’ protagonists make their journeys weighed down with emotional baggage, and as much as they try, this is often hard to leave behind.

PINA

 

TOKYO-GA and PINA, city nightmares and visions of dance seem to complement each other despite their different topics: the only way out in all Wenders’ films are the flights into another dimension: represented by the director’s obsession with American culture, his emigration to, and remigration from the USA. At home in both “realities” he is nevertheless a stranger in both and therefore seeks a less earthly vision to make up for it – permanently on the road of visions.

THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY (1972), after a novel by Peter Handke, is the simple story of man losing his identity. The goalkeeper Josef Bloch causes a penalty and is later sent off, this drives him over the edge and he starts murdering at random, hellbent on being caught by the police. Vienna is the main background, a city devoid of tourist trappings it emerges just a grim place for the story to enfold. Bloch is already in another world when he is sent off, the unfolding drama is told as a series of banal but brutal acts. Bloch is alone with his demons, jail seemingly the only answer to his being lost in the real world – which he cannot escape despite his violence. A film about ordinary madness told in form of a chronicle; Kafka and “Weltschmerz” rolled in one and perhaps Wenders most austere feature film.

Alice in the CIties

First of a trilogy of road-movies, ALICE IN THE CITIES (1974) features the German writer Philip Winter, stranded in the USA after having missed a deadline for his publishers. He meets his compatriot Lisa and her daughter Alice who seem equally lost. Lisa leaves her daughter with Philip and then disappears. On his return to Germany with Alice, Winter is faced with only one clue to Alice’s home: a photo of the front door of her grandmother’s house. The journey turns into an act of self-disclovery for Winter and ends in Wuppertal, a city with a tube like construction which carries its denizens over the river Wupper, reversing conventional means of transport. Shot in black and white by Robbie Müller, ALICE is a poem of travels as means of a search for identity.

Kings of the Road (1975)

 

KINGS OF THE ROAD (1976), the third part of the “Road-Movie” trilogy, features Bruno Winter, a projection equipment repair mechanic on the road along the border with East Germany, repairing the projectors in old, decaying cinemas. He picks up the depressed Robert Lande who has just tried to commit suicide after the divorce from his wife. Both men are fearful of women (a central theme in nearly all Wenders films), they don’t trust them – meaning, they don’t trust themselves. Again, Müllers b/w camera catches the gloomy landscape beautifully, and the main protagonists seem to be dying on their feet, like the cinemas they visit.

My American Friend

In MY AMERICAN FRIEND (1977), Wenders re-stages Patricia Highsmith’ moral drama “Ripley’s Game” in Hamburg, where the picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman becomes the victim of the cynical Tom Ripley. With Samuel Fuller as Mafia boss and Nicholas Ray as Pogash, this is an homage to American cinema even though European directors like Lilienthal, Schmid, Blain and Jean Eustache also appear. Wender’s Hamburg seems to be a backwater compared with Paris, the city of light taking the place of LA – for the time being.

 

Paris, Texas (1983/84)

 

PARIS, TEXAS (1984) is the story of Travis Henderson who tries to reconcile with his wife Jane for the sake of their son Hunter. His brother Walt is trying to bring his brother’s family together but in the end, after finding out that Jane is working in strip club, Travis drives off alone having confessed to Jane that he ruined their relationship with his drinking and jealousy. Again, the main protagonist is unable to come close to the woman in his life – he leaves her for good, seemingly for altruistic motives, but in reality he is running away. Landscape again plays a dominant part, and Robby Müller shows that he is able to translate his poetic realism into colour. PARIS, TEXAS is a mournful poem, very much a replay of “KINGS OF THE ROAD” set in the USA.

 

Wings of Desire (1986/87)

 

WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) is Wenders’ most poetic film, where angels and trapeze artists meet in a sad Berlin, and Henri Alekan’s nostalgic camera seems to be find the past at every junction. This past echoes through all the buildings, giving even the angels a hard task. Without mentioning exactly what has happened in particular buildings (or their remains), Wenders portrays Berlin not so much as a city of angels, but as a city of sadness and ghosts where the violence of the past violence still peeps through contemporary city life. It seems that the past cannot be eliminated or forgotten amongst the new buildings, so even angels must suffer in sadness.

 

Until the End of the World (1990/91)

 

UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991) is a film in two parts: the first segment is a mystery about a prototype which seems to enslave people. In the second part, we learn the secret of the device: it can record and translate brain impulses, a camera for the blind. A hitchhiker is traveling all over the world recording images, but this strange activity remains an enigma. Finally, a nuclear satellite is shot down causing an electromagnetic pulse which wipes out all unshielded electronics worldwide. We learn the hitchhiker has filmed the images to bring them home to his blind mother. The characters of the film end up in the Australian Outback where the device is used to record human dreams by the hitchhiker’s father. Nearly everyone becomes addicted to the machine except for a novelist who is writing a new book to prove words are more powerful than the device. Overly symbolic, UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD is a sort of compendium of all Wenders’ themes, filmed again by Robbie Müller, who creates many different worlds, all of them alienating, giving humankind very few places to connect with each other.

 

The Sky over Berlin

 

THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL (2000) is set in an LA flophouse where a murder has been recently been committed. Co-written by Bono, the narrative is contradictory, just two characters deserve to be mentioned: Geronimo thinks he is a tribal chief, but is in reality an art thief, posing as a artist. Eloise believes she does not exist, and is therefore immortal. The only reason to enjoy this drama is for the seedy LA background which cameraman Phedeon Papamichael has caught perfectly. Not one of Wenders’ best, THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL feels just like an étude, compared with the rest of this selected retrospective. AS

CURZON has announced a Wim Wenders retrospective called KINO DREAMS the first UK retrospective of his films in 15 years. Along with IN FRAME it takes a deep dive into into the work of some of the most outstanding filmmakers in the industry and takes place at the CURZON MAYFAIR and nationwide this summer | WIM WENDERS joins the live event on 24 June 2022 with a 4k release of Wings of Desire.

 

Dancing in Jaffa (2013)

563185_534500533302513_489436635_nDir.: Hilla Medalia; Documentary with Pierre Dulaine, Yvonne Marceau

USA 2013, 90 min.

Hilla Medalia, whose recent documentary THE GO-GO BOYS: THE INSIDE STORY OF CANON FILMS was well received at Cannes this year, has accomplished something very rare with DANCNG IN JAFFA: a fair and at the same hopeful documentary about Jews and Palestinians living together in Jaffa. Pierre Dulaine, a world-renown ballroom dancer, was born here in 1944 to an Irish mother and a Palestinian father. In 1948, after the partition of the then British protectorate into Palestine and Israel, Dulaine’s parents had to flee with their young son, whilst the Israeli army occupied the town. Nearly 70 years later, Dulaine returns to his birthplace to teach Arab and Israeli school children to dance – together in pairs.

Four schools in Jaffa are chosen, only one of them, the “Weizman” school is a “mixed” school. Needless to say, the parents are much more suspicious than the children (the only hindrance at the start of project on the student level is that neither Israeli or Arab boys want to dance with the other gender). Words like “dancing with the enemy” are muttered by an Arab parent – Palestinian parents in general are not very keen that boys and girls should touch – never mind religion or nationality. At first, Dulaine’s approach is rather heavy-handed, but after inviting Yvonne Marceau, his dancing partner of 35 years, Yvonne Marceau, to help him with the lessons, the project takes off.

The political divide is always virulent: an Israeli taxi driver tells Dulaine that four of his best friends have been killed in the army and that he will never trust any Arab. And on Independence Day Israel celebrates whilst Arab students also have the day off, whilst their teachers call the same day “Nakba” (Day of Catastrophe). One of the Arab woman, whose daughter is active in the dance project, is visiting her family in Gaza for the first time in ten years – she had to wait for a visa so long because last time around she overstayed her visit by a few days. But there is humour too: hen one Israeli child answered a question about her father with “Mum got me from the sperm bank”, followed by a detailed report on the procedure her mother went through. An Israeli girl is invited into a deprived area of the town to visit her Arab dancing partner – a first! And a typical Jewish mother reminds her daughter “make sure that you win the competition”, whilst her daughter, far more relaxed answers ”No Mum, winning is not all”. (For the record, “Weizman” School won the dancing tournament). Today, two years after Dulaine (who has since departed) started his work, over one thousand children have danced together, with the project still on going.

Daniel Kedem’s able camera follows the long and detailed shots of the students dancing together and they are a joy to behold. But let’s not also forget the divided city: a slum-like existence for the Arab population, middle class properness for the Israelis. And even though DANCING IN JAFFA ends with a very sweet and hopeful shot of one of the Arab/Israeli dancing pair in a boot, the mistrust on both sides remains – and we feel that only one small incident could cause an explosion. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 February 2015

Rotterdam International Film Festival 2015 | 21 January 1 Feb 2015| Winners

The 44th Rotterdam Film Festival had 13 premieres competing for the Hivos Tiger Awards. The winners are:

La Obra del Siglo

Videophilia (and other viral syndromes)

Vanishing Point

2434_TP_00101RNicolas Steiner’s documentary ABOVE AND BELOW looks at the challenging lives of survivors in contemporary America and goes underground in Las Vegas where a couple inhabit a tunnel; to the Californian desert where a lonely guy survives the climate and to the flat landscape of Utah where a girl contemplates a mission to Mars. They may be far away but these characters all feel familiar.  Switzerland, Germany, 120 min.

Based on Indonesian legends, Ismail Basbeth’s ANOTHER TRIP TO THE MOON is a weird and wondrous fantasy that sees a young daughter hiding from the clutches of her mother, deep in the forest. Indonesia, 80 min.

Bridgend_Still01BRIGEND – full review 
And back in Wales, a mysterious cult of suicide has been prevalent over a 5-year period in Bridgend. 79 people, many of them teenagers, have taken their own lives without leaving any clue as to why. Danish director, Jeppe Rønde, explores this bizarre trend, hoping to shed light on this bizarre set of events. 2015, Denmark, 99 min.

Gluckauf_Still02GLUCKAUF 
In the impoverished Dutch province of South Limburg, a powerful father-son drama plays out. Like many co-dependent relationships, this one appears to offer no escape. Johan Leysen and Ali Ben Horsting star in Remy van Heugten’s drama  2015, Netherlands, 102 min.

Haruko's Paranormal Laboratory_Stil02HARUKO’S PARANORMAL LABORATORY

Lisa Takeba directs this comedy from Japan that focuses on Haruko, a girl who prefers to cuddle up to her old-fashioned TV set. Lisa Takeba, 2015, Japan, 76 min.

Impressions of a Drowned Man_Still01_EFIMPRESSIONS OF A DROWNED MAN

Kyros Papavassiliou’s drama focuses on a Greek man suffering from amnesia. He meets a former lover who tells him he is the famous poet, Kostas Karyotakis, who killed himself in 1928. Every year he returns.., 2015, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia, 82 min.

The Dog Woman copyDOG LADY  (Mujer de los perros)

Co-director Llinás plays an intriguing and offbeat character in this existentialist fable about a woman who lives with a pack of dogs in the wilderness. Laura Citarella, Verónica Llinás, 2015, Argentina, 95 min. Definitely one to watch!

Norfolk_Still01NORFOLK

Another father and son drama unfolds, this time in an isolated part Norfolk (not a million miles from South Limburg) the narrative here surrounds a painful family saga. But who’s right and who’s wrong remains a mystery. Martin Radich, 2015, United Kingdom, 87 min.

THE WORK OF THE CENTURY (Obra del Siglo)

Carlos Quintela is a Cuban filmmaker who feature debut La Piscina has so far earned him several awards.  Here, drifting effortlessly between raw psychological realism and dreamy surrealism and loaded with unique Cuban archive footage, he explores the lives of three men. Carlos M. Quintela, 2015, Argentina, Cuba, Switzerland, Germany, 100 min.

Parabellum_Still02PARABELLUM

We’re hearing great reports about this sci-fi drama from Argentinian director Lukas Valenta Rinner. Threatened by the end of the world, a group of Buenos Aires residents receive lessons in survival at a resort in the marshy Tigre delta. Lukas Valenta Rinner, 2015, Argentina, Austria, Uruguay, 75 min.

Tired Moonlight_Still01_EFTIRED MOONLIGHT

At first sight, small towns are not so different from one another: identical shops and identical pleasures. In the big mountain country of Montana we meet Dawn, a middle-aged woman, who dreams of a great future while scraping a living in the daily grind. Someone from her past reappears to change things. Britni West, 2015, USA, 78 min.

Vanishing Point_Still03_EFVANISHING POINT 

A serious film about serious, complex issues (including a dramatic car crash), presented in a light, playful way. The film follows two very different men,
Jakrawal Nilthamrong, 2015, Thailand, 100 min.
Tickets »

VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VITAL SYNDROMES)

Internet cafés and slackers, not-so-innocent schoolgirls and amateur porn using Google Glass, Mayans and the end of the world, acid trips and guinea pigs all feature in this comedy drama mystery from Peruvian filmmaker: Juan Daniel Fernández Molero, 2015, Peru, 103 min

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 21 JANUARY – 1 FEBRUARY 2015

No Manifesto: A Film About the Manic Street Preachers (2015)

Director: Elizabeth Marcus

With James Dean Bradfield, Richey Edwards, Sean Moore, Nicky Wire

96min  Biopic Documentary  UK

Better known for her work behind the scenes in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 11, Elizabeth Marcus’s directorial debut, 12 years in the making, is a biopic of this popular Welsh band, whose original intention was to sell 16 million copies of their first album before splitting up. Of course this never happened and here Marcus tells their story from their 2005 ‘Past-Present-Future’ tour right through to the present day workings of the band.

Travelling from the Band’s hometown in South Glamorgan, the action travels to Europe and the US, consisting of a collage of interviews with band members James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore intercut with musical moments, live footage of rehearsals and impressions from enthusiastic fans. Those expecting a filmed concert such as we’ve seen recently with the biopics on Morrissey, Peter Gabriel and Duran, Duran, will be disappointed: the focus here is very much on the band members themselves as they share their thoughts, observations and hopes for the future and emphasis is put on the creative process with a ‘no holds barred’ approach. The band gave unprecedented access to Marcus and her crew and she offers up a fascinating and intimate insight that will appeal not only to fans but to anyone interested in popular music and the making of it. MT

No Manifesto will be released on 30 January with one night showings at Cardiff Chapter Cinema and Manchester Cornerhouse Cinema on January 30 and 31 respectively and at the Curzon cinemas London. A DVD release will follow in mid February 2015.

 

 

Poland’s Tragic Filmmakers

Perhaps because of its geographical position, between Germany and Russia, the history of Poland has been littered with tragic events that have percolated through the subconscious of its artists and creatives to give lasting legacies in the visuals Arts and particularly cinema.

The image of the doomed Polish underdog, a sad victim of Fascism or Stalinism, litters the screens of the postwar period. These historical tragedies effecting their homeland seem to have left a scar on the collective psyches of these talented artists and filmmakers, often causing them to lose their lives while in full swing.

Andrzej_MunkThe leading example of this must be Andrzej Munk (1921-1961), who died in a car accident, after returning from the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau where he was shooting part of PASSENGER, ironically a film about an ex-concentration camp inmate who meets one of her former torturers on a ship. The film was finished, partly with stills, by Witold Lesiewicz and premiered on September 20th 1963, the second anniversary of Munk’s death, winning the FIPRESCI award at the Cannes Film Festival1964. Munk, who was Jewish, had to hide in Warsaw, and was part of the uprising in 1944. He started studying law, but later was one of the first students at the soon-to-be world famous Lodz Film School. He graduated in 1951 and begun shooting poetic documentaries, very much against the grain of the ruling dogma of “socialist realism”. Munk had joined the Polish United Workers Party in 1948, but was expelled already in 1952 for “blameworthy behaviour”. His first feature film MAN ON THE TRACKS was the first anti-Stalinist film in Central Europe. Followed by EROICA (1957) and BAD LUCK (1960), (both written by Stefan Stawinsky) Munk had established himself as the leading Polish director of his generation. Returning to Lodz Film School in 1957 as a teacher, Munk’s students included Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski and Krzysztof Zanussi.

IMG_0978Even though Krzysztof Kieslowski (1941-1996) may have lived a few years longer than the “mythical” limit of 50 attributed to artists having died ‘young’, his life is exemplary for his generation of Polish filmmakers, caught between creativity and Stalinist bureaucracy, which tried to suffocate them. After training to be a fire fighter, Kieslowski is successful, after many failed attempts, to study at Lodz Film School in 1965. He finishes in 1965 and joins TOR a documentary film collective in Warsaw. “From Lodz” (1969) and “Worker 71 – nothing about us, without our participation” (1972) are examples for his critical view of Stalinist repression. But his breakthrough is a feature film: THE AMATEUR FILMMAKER (1979), winner of the “FIPRESCI Price” at the ”Moscow Film Festival” of the same year. The satirical story tells the tale of a worker, who suddenly discovers his love for film making – taking himself too serious, he looses his wife, job and finally sanity. DEKALOG (1989), originally a TV film, is a liberal version of the “10 Commandments”, even though Kieslowski denied any religious intentions. A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING and A SHORT FILM ABOUT LOVE, part of the series, are later shown in separate forms in feature film length. His cultural pessimism found its maximal expression in the THREE COLOURS TRILOGY (1991-1994), where loss and alienation win over, in spite of the will for human survival. Even though Kieslowski retired from directing, he wrote two more scripts, ”Hell” and “Paradise”, but died before he can finish his new trilogy after a failed by-pass operation.

negri_pola_030But the list of Polish directors who died long before they could fulfil their potential is much longer, and by no means complete, they don’t deserve to be forgotten. Aleksander Hertz, was a leading Polish director of the silent period. Film production flourished particularly during the war years of 1914–1918; all in all Hertz directed 48 films in his short life. Eight of them featured a certain Barbara Apolonia Chaĺupiec, later known as Pola Negri. She starred in eight popular erotic melodramas, including BESTIA and SLAVE TO HER SENSES (both 1914), before leaving in 1917 for Germany and later Hollywood.

Ryszard_BoleslawskiRichard Boleslawski was born in Warsaw in 1889; after fighting in the Tsarist army in WWI he stayed in Russia, where he directed two films, before returning to Poland in 1917, shooting the same number of films, before emigrating to Hollywood in 1929, where his first great success was RASPUTIN AND THE EMPRESS (1932), featuring no less than three Barrymores: Ethel, John and Lionel. Two years later Greta Garbo starred in Boleslawski’s THE PAINTED VEIL. Then tragedy struck whilst shooting THE GARDEN OF ALLAH with Marlene Dietrich in 1936 in the south western desert. Despite company advice, he drank some local unboiled water and became ill, eventually losing his life half way through his last production THE LAST OF MRS CHENEY (starring Joan Crawford) almost a year later. In tribute to his short but invaluable contribution to cinema, the Americans made him a Star on the famous Walk of Fame (1960) on Hollywood Boulevard.

Mieczysław_Krawicz,Mieczyslaw Krawicz (1893-1944) started out as a set designer and was later assistant to Aleksander Hertz. He directed 19 films between 1929 and 1939. His last work was as producer and DOP for the documentary THE CHRONICLES OF THE BESIEGED WARSAW (1939). He would lose his life five years later during the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto.

220px-Eugeniusz-bodo_795791Eugeniusz Bodo (1899-1943) directed only two films but starred in over thirty productions and was one of the most popular figures in interwar Polish cinema. His father was Swiss and owned a cinema in Lodz, where Eugeniusz grew up. In 1931 Bodo jr. founded the BWB studios, and two years later the “Urania” production company, named after his father’s cinema. After the German invasion, he toured the USSR with a jazz band. He was supposed to be repatriated to Poland, but the USSR claimed that he was not eligible, since he carried a Swiss passport. He starved to death during the journey to the labour camp of Kotlas. The USSR claimed that he was murdered by the Germans, but the truth emerged after 1989. In tribute, Stanislaw Janicki shot a documentary about Bodo’s last years FOR CRIMES NOT COMMITTED in 1997..

Henryk Szaro (Henryk Shapiro) was born in 1900 in Warsaw. He started his artistic career at the Polish National Theatre, later working with famous Russian directors like Meyerhold and Arbatov. Szaro directed his first film ONE OF THE 36 in 1925, it had a Talmudic theme. He would return to this subject again in 1937 with THE VOW, which was shot in Jiddish. Overall Szaro directed eleven films between 1925 and 1939. He founded the Association of Polish Producers in 1927, and nine years later the Association of Polish Filmmakers. After the German invasion he fled to Vilnius, but returned to Warsaw, where he was murdered in the ghetto in 1942.

WojciechWiszniewski1Wojciech Wiszniewski was born in 1946 in Lodz. After his father’s premature death, his mother was forced to rent rooms to students of the Lodz film school, young Wojciech getting to know future film directors like Roman Polanski, Andrezej Kostenko and Heryk Kluba. Between 1965 and 1969 Wiszniewski himself studied at the famous PWSFTvIT in Lodz. He was one of the most gifted students of his year, but suffered from heart problems. After film school, he only managed to direct five short films, six documentary shorts and a TV feature but won five awards. His films showed a rather grim picture of Polish society and did not endear him to the authorities. When he finally got financing to start his first feature film “King Slayers” based on a famous novel by Stefan Stawinski (who wrote the scripts for Munk’s “Eroica” and “Bad Luck”), he died a few days before shooting started in 1981 of a heart attack, a day before his 35th birthday. AS/MT

THE 13TH EDITION OF KINOTEKA: POLISH FILM FESTIVAL WILL BE BACK IN LONDON in APRIL 2015

La Maison de la Radio (2013)

Dir.: Nicolas Philibert; Documentary; France 2013, 103 min.

LA MAISON DE LA RADIO is a large, circular building in Paris’ 16th district, overlooking the Seine and housing seven state radio networks, among them the popular “France Info” and “France Inter”. Their budget is close to half a billion GBP a year, and during the early part of 2011, director Nicolas Philibert has filmed between the hectic and sometimes funny activities in this landmark building designed by the architect Henry Bernard.

This ‘fly on the wall’ documentary takes in twenty four hours in the life of ‘Radio France’ and we get to meet the producers, presenters, journalists and guests. But firstly we get a lightening course in news reading: this is one of the most difficult aspects of broadcasting and a task never given to beginners; only hardened professionals have the skills to engage the attention of the viewing public: lose them for a minute, and you’ve lost them for the duration. Moving on to the newsroom, we discover them desperately trying to find a “funny closer” for said news: a Justin Bieber story is mentioned. Interviews with politicians such as Martin Aubrey and Francois Fillon are mentioned. The recent Tsunami is also still very much in the news and we get to watch the painstaking recoding of a radio play, with all the ramifications of finding the right background noises like “walking on gravel”. The producer is strict: “We take this step by step, like with children”.

Philibert’s entertaining documentary leaves the building to cover sporting events like football and the Tour de France. The newsroom delivers some macabre humour: there is a forth body found in Deule, which the editors seems to strangely find hilarious. The importance of potatoes is mentioned at length: “Potatoes have saved far more lives than penicillin”. One sound engineer even went so far as to make a programme about the growing of what the French call “the apple of the earth”. In an interview with a lonely woman, we discover that there are two ways of talking to yourself: in anger or confession. The writer Umberto Eco talks about subjectivity in writing, explaining that even if he were to write about someone killing his grandmother – which he is not planning – the writing would have autobiographical features. He then claims to be a sort of “Madame Bovary” although this is never fully explained. Interviews with revolutionaries in Tunis are followed by the shipping news. And finally we witness a sound engineer re-creating the anarchic sound machines of his childhood.

Philibert creates immediacy, the audience shares the intimacy of the creative work. Katell Dijan’s camera is our curious eye, capturing the highs and lows of a day at the radio station. Perhaps the most important ingredient here is the underlying humour making LA MAISON DE LA RADIO a vivid and humanistic experience. AS

NICOLAS PHILIBERT’S DOCUMENTARY IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 23 JANUARY 2015 AND WILL HAVE A HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASE ON THE 23 March 2015

 

The Great Museum (2014)

Director/Writer: Johannes Holzhausen

94min   German

Panning over the majestic Viennese capital, Johannes Holzhausen’s well-paced and elegantly cinematic doc is as ambitious and proud as its premise: to share with the World the exquisite beauty of this house of treasures and priceless artefacts all of which can be enjoyed for the princely sum of 29 euros a year. (in contrast The Royal Academy’s annual sub is £48). This presents great value for a museum that houses not only Austrian art but also some of the Austro Hungarian Empire’s most valuable artistic heritage.

Recently subject to an extensive refurbishment, the film opens with the svelte figure of director general, Sabine Haag, strutting her stuff through the gallery (sporting a very recherché animal-printed corsage) in conversation with one of the planners. Later we see her explaining how the re-branding of the museum will create funding to allow it to compete on an International scale with similar cultural institutions. At an internal meeting, we also discover that the museum is flourishing with annual turnover of €38 million (by comparison The Royal Academy grossed £36.3m). Panning through the magnificent showrooms, the camera showcases the grand proportions of the buildings as well as its pristine and expertly designed archive facilities. White-gloved employees work tirelessly on the intricate job of curating the many treasures: amongst other priceless items the museum houses Emperor Franz Joseph’s sword and his uniform pre 1916. The documentary is very much in the style of Armstrong and Miller’s comedy vignette of St Francis Assisi “Fioretti” and makes a excellent companion piece to Frederick Wiseman’s documentary National Gallery (2014) and also Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours (2012). MT

OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 9 FEBRUARY 2015

Berlinale 2015 | Panorama |Selection

P A N O R A M A   S E  C  T  I  O N  –  PROBING THE PAST TO SHAPE THE FUTURE

The 36th Panorama titles reflect global concerns from America to East Asia and tackle themes from the past that are still having a deep impact today on the society and people they represent:

DRAMAS

54 copy54: The Director’s Cut – USA  (SEX, DRUGS)
By Mark Christopher.

The full and un-expiated version of the famous Mark Christopher’s exploration of the famous 70s NYC nightclub seen and told through the eyes of a young employee. Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek, Mike Myers, Sela Ward, Mark Ruffalo star. World premiere

Chorus copyCHORUS –Canada (BEREAVEMENT)
By François Delisle.

There’s nothing like a good Canadian film and this one, in black and white, is a love story that emerges from mourning. With Sébastien Ricard, Fanny Mallette, Pierre Curzi, Geneviève Bujold. European premiere

Der letzte Sommer der Reichen (The Last Summer of the Rich) –  Austria  (CHILD ABUSE)
By Peter Kern

A rich financier from the crème de la crème of Viennese society is the centre of this fascinating drama from one of Austrian best-known directors. With Amira Casar, Nicole Gerdon, Winfried Glatzeder
World premiere  Der Letzte Sommer der Reichen copy

Dora oder Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern copyDora oder Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern (Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents)  Switzerland / Germany
By Stina Werenfels
With Victoria Schulz, Jenny Schily, Lars Eidinger, Urs Jucker
World premiere

Dyke Hard – Sweden (LESBIANISM/LGBT)
By Bitte Andersson
With Alle Eriksson, Peggy Sands, M. Wågensjö, Iki Gonzales Magnusson, Lina Kurttila
International premiere

Gukje Shijang (Ode to My Father) Republic of Korea
By JK Youn
with Hwang Jung-min, Kim Yunjin
International premiere

Michael_still5_JamesFranco_JanMaxwell__byCaraHowe_2014-11-28_03-15-51PMI AM MICHAEL – USA (GAY ACTIVISM)
By Justin Kelly
With James Franco, Zachary Quinto, Emma Roberts
International premiere of a yet another film starring James Franco – this time playing Michael Glatze, the co-founder of Young Gay America and former advocate for gay rights, in Justin Kelly’s debut.

Jun Zhong Le Yuan (Paradise in Service) – Taiwan / People’s Republic of China (GANGSTER with a heart)
By Doze Niu Chen-Zer
With Ethan Juan, Wan Qian, Chen Jianbin, Chen Yi-Han
European premiere

Meurtre à Pacot (Murder in Pacot) – France / Haiti / Norway  (HAITI EARTHQUAKE DRAMA)
By Raoul Peck
With Alex Descas, Ayo, Thibault Vinçon, Lovely Kermonde Fifi, Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakin
European premiere

Mot Naturen (OUT OF NATURE) – Norway (FATHERHOOD)
By Ole Giæver, Marte Vold
With Ole Giæver, Marte Magnusdotter Solem, Rebekka Nystadbakk, Ellen Birgitte Winther, Sievert Giaever Solem
European premiere

NED RIFLE (Ned Rifle) – USA (CRIME)
By Hal Hartley

Parkey Posey stars in Hal Hartley’s latest part of the Grim family trilogy that Hartley began back in 1997 with Henry Fool that one him Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival. With Liam Aiken, Martin Donovan, Aubrey Plaza, Thomas Jay Ryan. European premiere

600 millas copy600 Millas (600 MILES) – Mexico
By Gabriel Ripstein

This Mexican thriller stars Tim Roth, Kristyan Ferrer, Harrison Thomas, Noé Hernández, Armando Hernández. World premiere

 

Al Ba copyAL BAR MIN OURAIKOUM  (The Sea Is Behind) – Morocco

Hisham Lasri’s dramatic story explores violence, intolerance and conservatism in the Arab World. With Malek Akhmiss, Hassan Badida, Yassine Sekkal. European premiere

Al-Hob wa Al-Sariqa wa Mashakel Ukhra (Love, Theft and Other Entanglements) – Palestinian Territories
By Muayad Alayan
With Sami Metwasi, Maya Abu Alhayyat, Riyad Sliman, Ramzi Maqdisi, Kamel Elbasha
World premiere

ANGELICA – USA

TEETH director, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s ghost story is set in Victorian England where a young couple are driven apart after the birth of their child, Angelica. With Jena Malone, Janet McTeer, Ed Stoppard, Tovah Feldshuh
World premiere

Ausencia copyAusência (ABSENCE) – Brazil / Chile / France
By Chico Teixeira

Daily life in all its glory is examined through the eyes of a little boy growing up in a poor neighbourhood of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

With Matheus Fagundes, Irandhir Santos, Gilda Nomacce, Thiago de Matos, Francisca Gavilán. International premiere

 

Bizarre copyBIZARRE – France / USA

Working in a Brooklyn Nightclub, Maurice is haunted by a troublesome past that make him reject everyone who tries to love him. Étienne Faure’s drama stars Pierre Prieur, Adrian James, Raquel Nave, Rebekah Underhill   World premiere

De Ce Eu?DE CE EU? (WHY ME?) – Romania / Bulgaria / Hungary

Katalin Varga producer, Tudor Giurgiu, directs  this drama starring Emilian Oprea, Mihai Constantin, Andreea Vasile, Dan Condurache, Liviu Pintileaska  World premiere

El Indendio copyEl incendio (THE FIRE) – Argentina

In Argentina, a young couple’s love for each other is severely put to the test when their house purchase is jeopardised by unexpected disaster. By Juan Schnitman. With Pilar Gamboa, Juan Barberini. World premiere

Härte (TOUGH LOVE) – Germany
By Rosa von Praunheim
With Luise Heyer, Hanno Koffler, Katy Karrenbauer, Marion Erdmann, Andreas Marquardt
World premiere

HOW TO WIN AT CHECKERS  (Every Time) – Thailand / USA / Indonesia. By Josh Kim. World premiere

NastyBaby_still1_KristenWiig__2014-12-01_09-51-32AM_copyMariposa (BUTTERFLY) – Argentina
By Marco Berger
With Ailín Salas, Javier De Pietro, Julián Infantino, Malena Villa
World premiere

NASTY BABY – USA
Fresh from SUNDANCE FESTIVAL, Kristen Wiig stars in Sebastián Silva’s drama exploring a gay couple’s desperate search to have a baby with the help of their best friend. Also starring Tunde Adebimpe, Mark Margolis, Reg E. Cathey.  International Premiere

NECKTIE YOUTH – South Africa
By Sibs Shongwe-La Mer
With Sibs Shongwe-La Mer, Bonko Cosmo, Emma Tollman, Jonathan Young, Colleen Balchin
World premiere

Onthakan (THE BLUE HOUR) – Thailand
By Anucha Boonyawatana
With Atthaphan Poonsawas, Oabnithi Wiwattanawarang, Duangjai Hirunsri
World premier

out of my hand copyOUT OF MY HAND– USA
By Takeshi Fukunaga
With Bishop Blay, Duke Murphy Dennis, Zenobia Kpoto
World premiere

Paridan az Ertefa Kam (A MINOR LEAP DOWN) – Iran / France
By Hamed Rajabi
With Negar Javaherian, Rambod Javan
World premiere

Petting Zoo copyPETTING ZOO– Germany / Greece / USA
By Micah Magee
With Devon Keller, Austin Reed, Deztiny Gonzales, Kiowa Tucker
World premiere

Pionery-geroi (PIONEER HEROES) – Russian Federation
By Natalia Kudryashova
With Natalia Kudryashova, Daria Moroz, Aleksei Mitin, Aleksandr Userdin
World premiere

Que Horas Ela Volta? (THE SECOND MOTHER) – Brazil
By Anna Muylaert
European premiere

Sangailė (THE SUMMER OF SANGAILé) – Lithuania / France / Netherlands
By Alanté Kavaïté
With Julija Steponaityté, Aisté Diruté, Juraté Sodyté, Martynas Budraitis
European premiere

Sangue azul (BLUE BLOOD) – Brazil
By Lirio Ferreira
With Daniel de Oliveira, Caroline Abras, Sandra Coverloni, Rômulo Braga
International premiere

Zui Sheng Meng Si (THANATOS – DRUNK) – Taiwan
By Chang Tso-Chi
With Lee Hong-Chi, Chen Jen-Shuo, Huang Shang-Ho, Lu Hsueh-Feng, Wang Ching-Ting
World premiere

P A N O R A M A    Documentary FILMS

B MOVIE: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin
Germany
By Jörg A. Hoppe, Klaus Maeck, Heiko Lange
With Mark Reeder, Marius Weber
World premiere

Daniel's World copyDanieluv svet (DANIEL’S WORLD)

Czech Republic
By Veronika Liskova

Daniel is a student and a writer – he’s also a paedophile. This Czech title goes inside a community where people are desperately struggling to come to terms with their sexual orientation. International premiere

El Hombre Nuevo copyEl hombre nuevo (THE NEW MAN)
Uruguay / Chile / Nicaragua
By Aldo Garay

Stephania is a transvestite born in Nicaragua. As a boy, he was adopted by a couple of Uruguayan leftist activists in the midst of the Sandinista revolution. In Montevideo, we explore Stephania’s journey to rediscover her home country where she now wants to be accepted for the woman she is. World premiere

Fassbinder copyFASSBINDER – lieben ohne zu fordern (Fassbinder – To Love Without Demands)
Denmark
By Christian Braad Thomsen
with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Irm Hermann, Harry Baer, Lilo Pempeit. World premiere

 

IRAQI ODYSSEY

Switzerland
By Samir
European premiere

STORIES OF OUR LIVES

Kenya / South Africa
By Jim Chuchu
With Kelly Gichohi, Paul Ogola, Tim Mutungi, Mugambi Nthinga, Rose Njenga
European premiere

THE YES MEN ARE REVOLTING
USA
By Laura Nix, Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno
European premiere

BERLINALE RUNS FROM 5 -15 FEBRUARY 2015.

THE FORUM, PANORAMA and other sections will be updated in due course. MLT

Point and Shoot (2014)

Dir.: Marshall Curry; Documentary with Matthew Vandyke, Marshall Curry

USA 2014, 83 min Documentary

In 2006, twenty-six year old Matthew Vandyke left Baltimore, Maryland bound for a “crash course in manhunt”. A ‘germophile’ Matthew was suffering from OCD and his journey would take him via Spain and West Africa to Afghanistan, filming himself on his motorcycle. After returning to Maryland, he made a second foray in 2011 accompanied by friends he made in Libya on his first visit. The purpose was to topple the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

Marshall Curry (STREET FIGHT) introduces us to Vandyke via childhood videos, showing an average kid wanting to be a hero. The adult Matthew, in contrast, is timid and fearful but gains an MA. When he goes on his first journey, he is supported in his action by his fiancée, who later brands him “a coward”, after he almost gives up his trip early on due to an accident. In Gibraltar we get the first inkling how POINT AND SHOOT will develop when we see him pointing at US soldiers, declaring “it was how I imagined it in a script”. During the whole film, Curry lets his protagonist get away with this ambivalent attitude: “I fight with two hands: gun and camera”.

When returning to Libya, Curry never mentions that Matthew’s complete lack of military training and inability to speak Arabic made him more of a burden than a help to his co-fighters – particularly since Matthew had overcome his OCD, but not his fear of hurting others. But instead of pointing this out to Vandyke in the talking-head interviews in Maryland, Curry falls for Matthews line: “The Arab spring challenged (my interpretation of) what it was to be a man”.

Captured by Gaddafi forces, Vandyke spent nearly six months in a gruesome prison. Instead of making this terrible experience the centre-point of this documentary, Curry uses animated flashbacks designed by Joe Posner, to portrait his hero’s suffering. The Arab world is shown exclusively out of Vandyke’s American perspective – making it an exotic place where Vandyke (calling himself for a while Max Hunter) is the intrepid explorer and adventurer – very much in the mould of Matthew’s role model, the Australian Alby Mangels, a second rate ‘Crocodile Dundee’ character. The crux of all this is summed up in a post-fighting scene when one of the Arabs tells Vandyke; “I send your body home in a posh coffin as a souvenir for your mother”. This is ‘Boys-Own’ talk, and has nothing to do with a serious quest for manhood. Time after time, Curry does not question Van Dyke letting him get away with the self-portrait of a “real man”.

Camera work is uneven, even during the second journey the audience is treated to a impressive travelogue. And nobody mentions that Libya today is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Instead we get the impression of a US version of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – liberating the Arabs from the front. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 16 JANUARY 2015

The Overnighters (2014) | DVD release

Writer/Director: Jesse Moss

With Keegan Edwards, Jay Reinke

102min  US Doc

Never has a film about the devastating effects of economic migration managed to be so haunting and visually appealing. In his effecting and humanistic Sundance-awarded documentary, Moss examines the men who have been disenfranchised in their search for honest work. But this exposé of victims of the oil industry boom also develops into a morally complex study of the issues surrounding religious and community guidance, elevating it above its seemingly mundane subject-matter.

In a small town called Williston, the population has doubled since 2010. Drawn here by the promise of jobs in the oil-related side of fracking, those who have arrived are caught between the soaring costs of local housing and the need to have a local address to satisfy employment regulations. Moss choses the sympathetic figure of Paster Jay Reinke to illustrate the plight of these people. Converting his Church to a makeshift sanctuary, each night he accommodates the vulnerable and homeless, despite bitter opposition from his congregation on the grounds that many of the ‘Overnighters” are petty criminals, addicts and even sex offenders – according to a local rag.  But Moss is non-judgemental in his approach, it is Reinke who provides the caring but controversial standpoint as he champions those who have somehow lost their way, seeming to alienate his existing parishioners in the process. And the problem doesn’t go away: the pastor is forced into defence mode in distancing himself from his new protegés, giving this engaging piece dramatic tension along with its engaging ethical and moral dilemmas. Themes of xenophobia and community leadership are teased out as the doc unspools, shining a light on the the pastor’s validity as a religious man of God and also questioning his responsibilities to his wife and family.

Moss remains pragmatic in his stance through all of this, despite including an emotional scene between the pastor and his wife. The final segment of the documentary is testament to the human qualities of our moral and religious counsellors showing them also to be occasional victims of judgement and subject to the vagaries of real-life events and people which are, by nature, beyond their control. With an atmospheric score by T Griffin giving the film a tangible sense of place and Jeff Gilbert’s superb visuals blending hard industry with the astounding natural beauty of North Dakota, The Overnighters makes for an absorbing and moving piece of filmmaking.

ON DVD FROM 9 FEBRUARY 2015

 

Erebus: Into the Unknown (2013)

On November 28th 1979, a New Zealand plane with 257 sightseers disappeared into thin air somewhere over Antarctica. It later emerged that the plane had crashed into Mount Erebus, apparently in broad daylight  It was then up to the emergency services to recover the bodies of the missing passengers – who all lost their lives in the freak tragedy.

This surprising yet harrowing story obviously means a great deal more to locals and New Zealanders than it does to international audiences nearly forty years later – quite why the story has taken so long to reach our shores and even merit a release is more of a mystery than the incident itself. In a atorythat fails to grip, endless talking  heads (including that of a senior member of Air New Zealand) debate the issue and delve into a mystery that raised serious questions at the time surrounding a possible cover-up by the national airline. Were the airline hiding something? Does this kind of story really need to be resurrected years later after wounds have healed? These are the questions EREBUS raises. The upshot is not rocket science.

EREBUS: INTO THE UNKNOWN is in cinemas 9 January and DVD/On Demand 12 January

 

The True Adventures of Raoul Walsh (2014) | Zurich Film Festival 2014

Director: Marilyn Ann Moss

100min Documentary USA

Though perhaps not as well-remembered a name as some of his contemporaries, Raoul Walsh nevertheless delivered many a well-loved film in his 50 year directing career; White Heat, High Sierra and The Thief of Bagdad among them. According to Walsh, cinema was movement, and he brought a true sense of momentum to his work, be they action, western or gangster movies.

This profile (“the story of Hollywood itself”, he calls it) of his life and career is essentially a filmed memoir telling us Walsh’s life story and the story of the pictures he made through a whimsical first-person narration in the voice of Walsh himself. He wasn’t one who cared to draw a distinction between fact and fiction, which is why this biography may well be full of tall tales and embellishments, but which doesn’t matter a jot. He met Mark Twain, rode with Villa, lost an eye in a car accident, discovered John Wayne and created the Wilhelm Scream as he packed over 100 films into his career, and there wasn’t a star of the day he didn’t work with.

Tremendously evocative archive photos show how he started out as an actor in New York before moving to Los Angeles and learning his trade at the feet of D.W. Griffith. From there it never really leaves its chronological path of trying to tick off just about everything he ever did, moving from movie to movie with no real pause for context. “Then I made this picture with so-and-so” is an oft-repeated phrase.

Still, the gossip and the history is great to hear, and he’s very candid about his work, calling them turkeys when they were turkeys, and about his affairs and who he liked and didn’t like, revealing himself as not a very nice man at a time when rampant racism and misogyny still flew. But it’s all incredibly one-note, especially once his career is in full swing, and it’s certainly not a Hollywood memoir on the level of something David Niven brought us. As fun as it is, in never straying from its formula, it’s much too prosaic and linear to make a lasting impression. Paul Greenwood

20 Hot Titles for 2015 | Indie | Arthouse film| Part 1

TTOE_D04_01565-01568_R_CROP-2THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING: The main reason to see this moving and ambitious biopic of our most famous living scientist Stephen Hawking, is that Eddie Redmayne’s is pure dynamite as the man himself. Combing through endless footage of the Professor Hawking’s voice recordings and photos, he literally inhabits his very being from early life at Cambridge right through to his epic achievements in the realm of Science. Co-Written by his wife, Jane Hawking. touchingly played by Felicity Jones (The Invisible Woman). Out on 1 January.

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR: If you’re ready for a grown-up thriller with a gripping storyline and fabulously crafted-performances, look no further this tightly-plotted, New York-based slow burner from J C Chandor (All Is Lost). Set in 1981, during the city’s most dangerous year for crime, if tells the story of an ambitious immigrant’s bitter fight for survival in a precarious and competitive world. Oscar Isaac (Llewyn Davies) and Jessica Chastain star.  23 January 2015

Altman_1ALTMAN: There’s nothing to beat an absorbing biopic on a prolific film director, and this one eclipses them all. Ron Mann charts the story of Robert Altman’s career from his lucky first break, to his far-reaching TV work and finally his outstanding contribution to independent cinema. A pithy, poignant and highly-entertaining portrait. Julianne Moore, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Elliott Gould and Paul Thomas Anderson reminisce to add ballast. T. B. A.

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THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY: Peter Strickland’s edgy and inventive seventies-themed drama tackles the delicate subject of sexual dominance and submissiveness amid butterfly buffs in a  seventies-setting deep in the Hungarian counrtyside. Sidse Babett Knudsengarnered Best Actress for her portrayal of a lesbian with performance fatigue in this unsettling but yet darkly comic treasure. 20 February 2015

whitegodWHITE GOD (Feher Isten): ‘Superiority has become the privilege of white Western civilisation and it is nearly impossible for not to take advantage of it’. With this premise Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo’s invigorating drama WHITE GOD scratches at the edges of horror to create a richly inventive fable where dogs take over the city of Budapest. Starting out as gentle and harmless, the narrative gradually darkens into something morbid and frightening. No shaggy dog story here but certainly one to salivate over. 27 FEBRUARY

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THE LOOK OF SILENCE: Following on the heels of his devastating documentary about man’s evil to man, Joshua Oppenheimer’s THE LOOK OF SILENCE is in some ways even more affecting. For a start, it’s running time of under two hours makes it a more manageable to engage with. Don’t be fooled though. Oppenheimer probes the killers much more harshly this time and elicits some unsettling revelations from the perpetrators and those affected by the terrifying regime in Indonesia. T. B. A.

downloadMACBETH: Roman Polanski was the last director successfully to adapt this most dark and sinister of Shakespeare’s plays. Here, Australian director, Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) casts Marion Cotillard as the chilling chateleine of Cawdor Castle playing alongside Michael Fassbender’s Macbeth as the fatefully ambitious couple whose ‘follie de grandeur’ leads them depose of Scotland’s King Duncan. T.B.A

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IT FOLLOWS; David Robert Mitchell’s latest film has emerged by general consensus amongst critics to be the most heart-thumpingly horrific indie thrillers of recent years. Simple in concept, this low-fi outing is inventive in creating a fairytale atmosphere in a modern-day setting. A must-see for all audiences. 27 FEBRUARY 2015

1001 NOITES: Tabu director Miguel Gomes is back with a re-working of the fabulous legend of Scheherazade locating his film in crisis-ridden present-day Portugal. Shifting between imagination and reality, the narrative takes on familiar elements to the original but  retains the same teasing quality that Scheherazade employed on the King. T.B.A.

PHOENIX 2013

PHOENIX: Christian Petzold’s heart-wrenching drama works cleverly as both a wartime love-story and an evergreen metaphor for regeneration and identity. Starring regular collaborators Ronald Zehrfeld (In Between Worlds) and Nina Hoss (Barbara) who gives the best rendition of ‘Speak Low’ known to mankind, it has also one of the most devastating climaxes of recent years. TBA

RELEASE DATES FOR ALL THESE FILMS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY.

 

 

 

The Green Prince (2014) | UK Jewish Film Festival

Dir.: Nadav Schirman

Documentary with Mosab Hassan Yousef, Gonen Ben Yitzhak

UK/USA/Israel/Germany 2014; 101 min.

Nadav Schirman, has already proved that he can fuse personal and political into a traumatic expose of tortured souls with his portrait of the wife and daughter of Carlos the Jackal: In the Dark Room”. In THE GREEN PRINCE, he has outdone himself with a story of Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of the “Hamas” founder and co-leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, who turned against his father’s organisation to become a spy for the Israeli security agency Shin Bet.

Whilst they gave him the glamorous code name ‘Green Prince’, his life becomes a hell of torn allegiances, a schizoid existence. For Mosab, born in 1978 in Palestinian Ramallah, Hamas was much more than an organisation: “it was a family business”, since the Israelis imprisoned his father for many years, leaving Mosab, the oldest of five children, to look after his siblings. It therefore came as no surprise that 17 year-old Yousef was arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli security forces himself, for smuggling weapons. In jail, he witnessed the brutal regime of Hamas, when suspected traitors were tortured by having plastic burned on their skins. It made him re-asses his loyalties to the political goals of his father, but not to the man: he became a Shin Bet agent, trying to stop the suicide bombings of Hamas, as well as keeping his father alive. Finally, he decided that an Israeli jail was the safest place for the Sheik, since the Israelis were killing Hamas operatives, on suspicion of terrorism. For ten years Mosab’s life was literally in the hands of his Shin Bet counterpart Gonen Ben IItzak, his ”handler”. The two men forged a fragile relationship, which became stronger, until after Mosab’s burnout and flight to the USA, when their relationship became much more personal.

Schirman interviews both men in medium/close up shots, concentrating on their body language. But their reflections are always underpinned by archive footage, surveillance footage and reconstructions of their various meetings. THE GREEN PRINCE is a rarity in its fly-on-the-wall ‘Spy-like’ approach of allowing the audience to follow the two men. In this way, we witness the brutality of the fighting from both sides: there are obviously rights and wrongs on both sides off the fence, but the only coherent conclusion is that the fighting and slaughter must stop. Palestinian is occupied by Israel, but a Hamas regime would be even more violent than the occupation.

It is a miracle that Mosab has survived the last ten years, permanently living in two worlds: the spy who saved his family, knowing very well that he is now seen by them as a traitor. This young man has lived his entire life with the daily threat of death, practically living in hiding with the knowledge that any chance meeting could give him away: Mosab Hassan Yousef has paid a high price for his conscience. THE GREEN PRINCE is his story: the son torn between two fathers. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 12 DECEMBER 2014

 

 

Nordic Factory (2014) | 3rd Nordic Film Festival

Nordic Factory is a Residency, Workshop and Short Film Concept which brings together young directors from the Nordic countries and their counterparts from all over the world. Their short films are documents of the collaboration between filmmaker from very different backgrounds.

THE GIRL AND THE DOG by Selma Vilhunen and Guillaume Mainquet. Mette, Lina and Anna-Sophie, three young teenagers, are on their way to a party. When they find dead dogs on the shore, their reactions are very different. Whilst two of them shrug off the incident, one of the girls tells her friends a long fairy tale about dogs, which her friends reject as childish. The monochrome images of the girls are very impressive, together with the grey beach landscape, they conjure up a poetic atmosphere. Stylish and expressionistic, as well as wonderfully acted. ***1/2

SUNDAYS by Kraesten Kusk and Natalia Garagiola. Every Sunday Anne picks up her old father from the care home, and takes him to the hothouse. But this Sunday is different: the tearful father confesses his guilt for the many beatings he gave her daughter “to make her a better person”. But Anna is not impressed, and her reaction startles her as much as her father. Poignant and very well observed, the ‘confession’ of the old man is shown for what it is: not a confirmation of his guilt, but just wailing self-pity. Perhaps a little harsh, but very realistic, SUNDAYS is nevertheless very stunning. Camera work excels in narrow spaces. ***1/2

LISTEN by Hamy Ramezan and Rungano Nyoni. In a Copenhagen police station a woman, wearing a burqa, is giving evidence of her husband’s continuous abuse. The interpreter, a young Muslim woman, on purpose miss-translates her complains to the police officers, as to keep the conflict hidden from the outside world; telling the woman that the imam will solve her solution. But the woman feels that she is miss-represented and gets angry, which in course causes the police officer to shout at her. Than her son contacts his father, telling his mother that he is old enough to defend her. A vey simple but far from simplistic short feature, which shows that a woman can be as treacherous as a man, when it comes to cover up individual crimes in the name of a religion. ***1/2

VOID by Milad Alami and Aygul Bakanova. On a ferry from Copenhagen to Bornholm, Daniel, a man in his early 50ies, starts a conversation with Amir, an attractive man in his 30ies. For a while we are guessing: is Daniel making a pass at Amir; but then the older man invites Amir to come with him into his cabin, were Daniel’s beautiful wife is waiting, ready to sleep with Amir. After hesitating, Amir finally succumbs, but finds out, that Daniel is living in the past. A very claustrophobic tale, told with many undertones: homophobic, racist and psychotic elements all intermingle. The acting is brilliant, and the camera travels around the two men, as if they were two animals in cage. Brilliant. ****
AS

LA ISLA by Katarzyn Klimkiewicz and Dominga Sotomayor. A medium length film telling the story of a family tragedy, set on a rural island. Jaime is the main character of his film, even though he is killed right at the beginning of the film in car accident – but this is only known to the audience. His family waits for him, first in a small cottage, later they all go out into the wilderness. Everybody is talking about him, tales and anecdotes, but somehow a certain change occurs in the atmosphere: it is, as if we are transported in a future, were nothing is the same any more. The cottage is falling apart, and the woods seem to take over. A melancholy study of transcendence and morbidity, LA ISLA is photographed with great imagination, nature being shown as something eternal, compared with the fleeting human existence, which gets frailer, the longer the film goes on. An engrossing, magical tour de force. ****

THE 3RD NORDIC FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 26 NOVEMBER UNTIL 7 DECEMBER 2014

My Stuff (2013) Tavarataivas | 3rd Nordic Film Festival 2014

Written and Directed by: Petri Luukkainen

With his friends and family

80min   Docudrama    Finnish with English subtitles

Bereft by the loss of his girlfriend, filmmaker Petri Luukkainen suddenly finds the experience a cleansing one.  Maybe a general clear out of his life is in order?  Does he need so many ‘things’?.  This being Finland, Petri lives in a modern, bright and well-insulated flat.  There are well-designed storage facilities nearby where he deposits his belongings and starts to live his life devoid of accoutrements and personal effects; for the time being.  And so begins Petri’s fascinating social experiment. Set in a snowy Helsinki and accompanied by Timo Lassy’s Jazzy soundtrack, this is a light-hearted, good natured affair – entertaining to watch and appealing in its concept.

Running naked through the snowbound streets of Helsinki feels liberating.  And gradually his friends are drawn in to the debate of what is really necessary in life. The dialogue kicks off with his grandmother who claims that after the War people were content just to have work. “Your things are not a measure of your happiness – Your  life is not made up of your things”.  With counsel like this, how can he go wrong?  When his mum turns up, they eliminate more of his belongings together – including his moustache: amid her infectious laughter this is turning out to be great fun.  A fridge is necessary and some decent bedding, they agree.  He even decides to confine the use of his ‘phone and camera for work. But Email?  How does he handle the problem of staying in touch socially without ignoring the inbox? Good friends drop by to visit and so he decides the quality of friendship is proportionate to their use of technology to stay in touch.  And he can always watch the game or World championships in the streets of the Helsinki.

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Six months into the experiment he returns to his hometown for a break.  Fortunately Finns are fun and possess a well-developed sense of the ridiculous.  His lack of belongings is emblematic of his strength of character – or that’s how he sells his slimmed-down identity to potential girlfriends.  Travelling out of Helsinki and into the summery Birch-strewn countryside, Jesse Jokinen’s glorious visuals capture the natural freshness of this most Northerly Nordic country with considerable allure.

And eventually a new girlfriend arrives. “Hopefully you don’t shoot blanks” says his grandma when he shares the glad news. And she’s dead right: “women need more things than men” and gradually the stuff creeps back into his life.  Maija’s arrival brings happiness and interest to his days: he’s falling in love but hasn’t got the courage to tell her.  Inevitably she brings more stuff and soon the place is all  nicknacked-up  because “she wants something purple or more stylish, and so it goes on”…

Charming and endearing MY STUFF starts as a study into ‘doing without’ but gradually develops into something much more important and meaningful. As Petri’s grandmother tells him from her new nursing home “things won’t build a home – it has to come from somewhere else”.  But when he starts clearing out her little flat of its treasured belongs, the tears inevitably flow: MY STUFF shows him that sometimes possessions are the only things we have left of the people that mean so much to us.  MT

MY STUFF IS SHOWING AGAIN AT THE 3RD NORDIC FILM FESTIVAL, COURTESY OF ‘DAY FOR NIGHT’.

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We Are The Giant (2014)

Dir.: Greg Barker; Documentary, USA/UK 2014, 92 min.

The term of “The Arab Spring”, often used, but rarely defined, is given some human background by Greg Barker (MANHUNT) whose real life stories from Libya, Syria and Bahrain show the high cost of resistance amidst a stalling of the progressive movements. The raw footage is intercut with animated visuals about every modern revolution – whilst it gives a necessary background to the present proceedings, it somehow does not feel right because its slickness belongs to another world.
Osama ben-Sadik, who had homes In Virginia and Benghazi, lost his son Muhannad in the bloody fighting which toppled Muammar Gadafi in Libya. Osama recollects his ambivalent feelings about his son joining the armed struggle: “As a father, I would say, come home to Virginia, son, but as a man I had to support his struggle”. Nevertheless, Osma asked his son to return home, but Muhannad’s answer was the one of a very young man, short and simple: “If everyone leaves, who will fight for the revolution?” Whilst the media is usually full of horror stories about “seemingly innocent young men from middle-class backgrounds in the West turning into killing machines in the desert”, Muhannad, a boy scout in Virginia, is an example of a young Arab following his ideals to the bitter end. But when we see his father Osama at his grave, we tend to feel that the high price Muhannad (and his father) paid is just too much.

With the emergence of ISIS in Syria, the civil war has taken a new turn: opponents of president Bashar al-Assad find themselves in the middle between the hated regime, which stills kills mercilessly, and fundamentalist sections, whose aim and methods are no less violent than the ones of the Assad regime. Peace activists Motaz Murad and Ghassan Yassin would prefer a continuation of their “Flower movement”, but they have to admit, that they have come to an dead end: The Regime is killing any protesters, armed or not. The two rather sad men will have to make up their minds soon: will they take up arms and fight, or be killed protesting peacefully?

When his daughters Zaineb and Maryam were young, the human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who had to flee from Bahrain to Copenhagen with his family, told them a symbolic story: “We, the people, are the giant, and the little creatures who torture us, are like ants. Why do we let them get away with it? ” Today, al-Khawaja is serving a life sentence for “terrorism” in Bahrain, whilst his daughter Zaineb, mother of a one-year old baby, is in prison. From Copenhagen, her sister Maryam is fighting for their freedom by informin authorities, particularly the American ones, about the plight of her family. But she knows that as long as the Fifth American Fleet is stationed in Bahrain, human rights infractions by the Sultan’s unelected regime will just be punished by a slap on the wrist by the US Government. Zaineb was present when his father was beaten up and deported and one fears for her daughter’s future, hoping that history might not repeat itself.

WE ARE THE GIANT is sobering: there is Osama’s sadness, which will never go away; Murad’s and Yassin’s shattered dream about following in Ghandi’s footsteps, and a horrible family history in Bahrain about to be repeated – whilst the US government looks the other way. To quote the Chinese author Ying Chang Compostine: “The revolution is not a dinner party – the Arab spring is drowning in its blood.” AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14 November 2014

Whores’ Glory (2011)

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Dir/wri: Michael Glawogger | Germany/Austria Documentary 100min

Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger died from malaria on 23 April 2014. He was 54. Known primarily for his documentaries, Glawogger was the subject of IndieLisboa’s ‘Independent Hero’ retrospective in 2006, and his film WHORES’ GLORY won the Feature Film Grand Prize at the 2012 edition. The film is a highly impressive and exceptionally shot documentary about three brothels situated in red light districts in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico: their employees, employers and clients.

Quoting Emily Dickinson’s four-line poem ‘God is indeed a jealous God—’, WHORES’ GLORY opens on a number of pole dancers in a viewing box elevated above a busy boulevard, down which walk streams of men who look up with intrigue and excitement. The venue is the Fishtank, located in Bangkok, and its employees are prostitutes who pray to God for “money, luck and all things good and beautiful” before signing on for their shift ahead. “So many girls,” one of them says, “I hope I get a client.”

Lined up against a wall of striking primary colours, the girls sit patiently and politely, as clients pile in to ogle them from behind a glass screen. “There’s no comparing these with my wife,” one of the men tells the camera. “My wife is a lifetime partner.” Another says: “I need a girl who will do everything,” to which the smartly dressed proprietor, referring to the girls by number, responds with assurance: “210 has a good attitude.” In fact, 210 and 232 are both particularly popular. Each costs a client 1600 bhats for two hours.

We head to City of Joy, in Faridpur—whose quarters are appreciably cramped in comparison to those of the Fishtank. Here, the pimps are predominantly women, whose literal and figurative daughters are forced through economic need into prostitution. “I’m going to get a condom from my mother,” one of the girls tells a client. In Bangladesh, the clients are younger than in Bangkok. One of them, a local barber, tells us that “having the brothel is definitely a good thing”: without it, women would be in danger from horny men willing to sexually assault them for their own gratification.

In Reynosa’s The Zone, meanwhile, clients are even more candid—talking with blunt openness about their sexual preferences. They come to the strip in their cars for sexual experiences that are, for one reason or another, unobtainable outside this area of legitimised sex. The women also appear to be more candid; in a scene near the end, one employee has sex with a client right there in front of the camera, charging more (naturally) for varied positions and sticking to her guns when stopping halfway through fellatio because the guy’s 20 minutes are up.

It’s to Glawogger’s credit that his subjects talk so openly. Shot by Wolfgang Thaler, the film is visually beautiful to a fault: combined with an eerie (and excellent) soundtrack that gives it a kind of zoned-out cosmic energy one might expect more typically from a Michael Mann crime thriller, Thaler’s cinematography lights these milieus like hyper-real neon fantasies. They’re both the real thing and a simulation of it. Indeed, its gorgeousness might even put the film’s documentary status into doubt.

As Glawogger shifts from one brothel to the next—heading east-to-west—his scenes become more melancholic and laced with latent danger. While the Bangkok women speak in their spare time of acquiring second jobs at weekends, their opposites in Faridpur compete in overwhelmingly claustrophobic surroundings with barely contained pettiness. “What can I do?” one of the women says, “I have nowhere else to go.” In Mexico, a palpably more anarchic environment, alcoholism and spaced-out confusion reign.

Make no mistake: any beauty Glawogger’s film boasts is ironic, as the director observes his subjects with both a genuine fascination and a distanced respect—and all the time without sentiment. Michael Pattinson

 

 

UK Korean Film Festival 2014 | 6-21 November

A_GIRL_AT_MY_DOOR_2 copyThis year’s Korean Film Festival will focus on the work of maverick filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, who is best known for his controversial titles such as PIETA and MOEBIUS. The UK premiere of his Venice Festival hopeful ONE ON ONE will also screen during the festival. The opening night film: Yoon Jong-bin’s KUNDO: AGE OF THE RAMPANT, is a 19th century ‘Robin Hood’ style Kung-Fu thriller about a militia group of bandits – Kundo – who rise up against their unjust nobility, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Cult classics will again feature this year with a selection from the archives under the ‘K Classics’ strand such Ki-young Kim’s shocking melodrama THE HOUSEMAID (1960).

Other films worth watching are Seong-hoon Kims’ A HARD DAY starring Baek Jong-hwan, and July Jung’s A GIRL AT MY DOOR, which was nominated in the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes this year. THE KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 6-15 IN LONDON AND 16-21 NATIONWIDE. Tickets and schedule available here

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Sacro Gra (2013)

Dir.: Gianfranco Rosi; Documentary: Italy 2013, 82 min.

Gianfranco Rosi’s SACRO GRA (“Holy Grail’) won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2013 – as surprising as undeserved. Rosi (Below Sea Level) has filmed and scouted over two years, followed by eight months of editing, to present diverse images of the “Grande Raccordo Anulare”, Rome’s ring road, all 43.5 km of it -akin to London’s North Circular. Apart from the traffic, we meet inhabitants living near the highway in soulless high-rise blocks, seedy caravans or mansions. Sheep and electricity pylons feature like rivers: a mixture of contrasting images. Rosi has been inspired by Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”, but unfortunately the structure of this novel is untranslatable to film.

We meet Francesco, a scientist, who creates computer generated sounds, to fight off the red palm weevil, who attacks palm trees in army like hordes. Then there is Roberto, an ambulance driver, whom we watch at work and caring for his mother. Cesare is one of the last fisherman on the Tiber river, talking about nature and life before the GRA was built. Filippo is the owner of a splendid home, with kitsch 80s furniture, rented out as a movie set or to B&B clients. And then there are Paolo and Amelia, father and daughter, living in a high-rise block: they have moved from the North to Rome, and feel somehow alienated. Rosi films them with a fixed camera through the window, showing their flat to be more like a prison than anything else. A couple of aging whores and two go-go dancers, a Virgin Mary gathering and the reburying of bodies from a cemetery make up the randomly assorted occurrences, before Sacro Gra suddenly ends: many parts of the ring road shown on hundred of surveillance TVs.

Rosi fails to show how this high road differs from any other in the world. There is nothing specific about this documentary, apart from a certain diversity, which is as unstructured as interchangeable. One could easily watch the film starting with the ending – the difference would be non-existent. The camera tries its best to focus, but whenever we are introduced to one of the participants, we loose them quickly, and when re-introduced, we learn not much more. There seems to be little engagement on behalf of the director for any of his interviewees, he is just overloading the film with everything he comes across. The jury of last year’s Mostra must have been really conflicted, going for lowest common denominator in its choice. AS

NOW ON MUBI

 

20,000 Days on Earth (2014) | DVD release

Directors: Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard

With Nick Cave; Warren Ellis, Kylie Minogue, Ray Winstone

Documentary UK

Far from being a vanity project for musician Nick Cave, this is very much a tribute to the visually inventive talents of British filmmakers, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Brighton is also a prominent character seen through lowering skies as angry clouds drift by giving the piece a tormented and even impressionistic feel. Quite rightly so: it’s what you might expect from the life of an prodigiously creative (song)writer who has seen years of drug abuse and soul-searching finally to have come to rest in this prosaic Sussex coastal town with his wife and twin boys.

Thankfully, this is not a talking heads documentary. Most of the time the camera follows Cave: waking up in bed (fully clothed); venturing out in his comfy Jaguar; driving to his recording studios in a windswept seascape; performing and writing in the company of his fellow band members. Through confessions to his analyst a great deal is learnt about his formative years in Australia, his relationship with his father, who appears to have been a strong influence in his idyllic sunny childhood. One of the most memorable episodes is a magical sequence of dreamy prose where Cave describes his ‘love at first sight’ meeting with his wife, who remains an enigmatic presence.

20,000 Days of Earth feels like an intimate stream of consciousness from the musician himself: a biopic film noir with Cave as the charismatic villain. With his Goth hair and ghoulish persona, Cave emerges as both intellectual and rakish; outlandish yet extremely down to earth. But even if you haven’t heard of him or fail to appreciate his music: this is a film to watch and to enjoy. By the end we really enter his world and feel a understanding: and that’s the success of this watchable rockumentary. MT

SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 19 – 27 SEPTEMBER 2014

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19 SEPTEMBER 2014 and from 20 October on DVD

 

 

The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014) | UK Jewish Film Festival 2014

Dir.: Brian Knappenberger; Documentary; USA 2014, 105 min.

This is the story of a genius who fell foul of the state machine: Aaron Swartz committed suicide aged twenty six in January 2013, after being harassed by the Justice departments on account of the “Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFaAA)” of 1986 (!), which is obviously out of date and totally open to interpretations. Apparently House Member Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.) introduced the Repudiation of the Act as “Aaron’s Law” in 2013.

Knappenberger’s documentary is bookended by home movies of little Aaron, who taught himself to read at the age of three: after enjoying “Paddingon Bear” we see him dancing joyfully. By the age of 14 he was working at the “World Wide Web Consortium”, helping to develop the ‘RSS’ standard. But it was not only the technical side which interested Swartz. Because of his theoretical involvement, he was very aware of the possibilities of misuse – and censorship. When “Reddit”, the independent site he had help to set up, was sold to Conde Nast Publications in 2006, Swartz did only last a few months, he was aware of the power of corporations – and the politicians which were in their pay. In 2008 he co-founded “Watchdog”, a site who kept tabs on the elected members of Congress. In the same year he authored a paper with Shireen Barday, looking at thousand of law review articles written by law professors, who had been paid by industry to write their ‘opinions’. And to cap a busy year, he “liberated” 20 million of pages of “PACER”, the archive of court records – using a small window, when the government allowed free access – usually the public had to pay eight cent per page.

The case which brought the justice department on the scene, started in September 2010, when Swartz accessed the MIT network for their academic database “JSTOR”, and after they blocked him, he found a restricted closet and hardwired his laptop to the network, beginning to download huge volumes from the data base. He was accused of four felony accounts, but rejects a plea bargain, which would have meant a year long house arrest without a computer and a felony record. MIT meanwhile was staying “neutral” on the case, even though they know, that if they don’t press for prosecution, the government has no case. On 17.7.2012 bail is set at $100 000. In October of the same year, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is introduced in the House, to great acclaim of all side. But after a campaign culminating in the 24-hour blackout of the “Wikepedia” site on January 18/19 2012, the bill is pulled. In December of the same year, Carmen Oritz, US Attorney for the District of Masschusetts, and her deputy, the Assistant US Attorney Stephen Heyman, charge Swartz with more charges felony offences, by now the penalty has risen to 50 years in prison. On the 11.1.2013 the defence files a motion to supress evidence from correspondence between Heyman and the Secret Service. On the same day Swartz takes his own life in Brooklyn, New York.

Most harrowing is the interview with the computer journalist Quinn Norton, Swartz’s partner from 2007 to 2010. She was bludgeoned by the Justice Department for a “proffer”, a judicial term for a forced witness statement. Quinn would have gone to jail, if the Justice Department would have forced her, (as they threatened) to give up her password for her computer, containing her confidential files. She chose to be a witness, and was tricked into giving evidence, that might have been used against Swartz at the trial. Their relationship ended, even though they became friends later.

The material is overwhelming, to say the least, but Knappenberg focuses on the salient facts, keeping up a brisk pace, engaging the viewer in this rollercoaster action documentary. The camera always finds new ways to avoid “talking faces” and the narrative is never dramatized. But a tragedy it is nonetheless and the waste of a life of a genius; damming the government for its complicity. That nobody prosecuted Bill Gates or Steve Jobs for breaking the CFaAA – stands out as a resounding reminder; but then THEY only wanted to make money. AS

NOW SCREENING AT THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL NATIONWIDE FROM 6-23 NOVEMBER 2014

 

 

 

Sofia’s Last Ambulance (2012)| DVD release

Dir: Writer: Ilian Metev

Cast: Mila Mikhalilova, Plamen Slavkov, Krassimir Yordanov, Ilian Metev

75min   Doc   Bulgaria

Director Ilian Metev joins a stressed-out and under-funded medical team of Mila, Krassi and Plamen as they race around Sofia in their clapped-out ambulances, ministering to the needs of a growing population and remaining cheerful to the last against all odds. A story full of humour and humanity making us glad of our own National Health Service in the UK.

The Bulgarian capital is one of Europe’s poorest and has just over 2 million inhabitants and only 13 operable ambulances in a health care system that’s fit to bust. Chain-smoking their way through endless casualties, inured to the tiredness and despondency that threaten to dog and denigrate their medical expertise. Thankfully we are spared the blood and gore, but what emerges more saliently here is the gruelling nature of the work that takes its toll on their own well-being and, by the end of it, we too appreciate their pain. MT

VOTED BEST DOCUMENTARY AT KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2012.

 

Freefalling: A Love Story (2014) | 10th Zurich International Film Festival

Dir: Mirjam von Arx

83min   Documentary   Germany/Switzerland    In Swiss German and English

Mirjam von Arx’s courageous film is both a love story and ‘self-help’ documentary exploring the dangers of BASE jumping. In 2010 after a spell of internet dating, Mirjam meets Herbert, the man of her dreams. She is diagnosed with cancer in the same week. While she desperately fights for her life, Herbert is risking his by jumping from great heights with just a parachute.

Vertiginous camerawork from Samuel Gyger and Peter Kullmann show to what extent these daredevils take their lives into thir own hands in jumping thousands of metres from lofty mountain ridges and rockfaces just to satisfy a passion for danger. Did they get dropped on their heads as children or thrown downstairs, who knows? But the extreme sport of BASE jumping joins the long list of risk games along with gambling and free-diving: devotees have no choice but to follow their passion; it’s the only thing that makes them ‘feel alive’. Miryam is unfased by Herbert’s obsession, not wishing to stop him enjoying his passion at the early stage of the relationship. Three months later Herbert is dead. After a shaky start to a jump, he crashes into a rock face in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, and is discovered by his coach Andreas Dachtler. Speaking in heavily-accented English throughout the film, Miryiam admits she didn’t really appreciate the extent of the danger involved in handing over her own heart to man who, eventually, took it with it him into a mountain crevice. In the aftermath, Maryam conveys her pain to the camera but her treatment is not judgemental and pragmatic: this is an upbeat and watchable documentary that aims to instruct and edify, not just to offer another mawkish sob story of loss and misery.

In the months after Herbert’s death, Miryam plunges into despair but crucially, she is at pains to learn from his death. Being a filmmaker, she understands her craft and cleverly evokes the positive side to her loss with an intensely visual portrait of BASE jumping by harnessing the magnificence of the Swiss mountain scenery that makes the sport so exhilarating. Emerging through the stages of mourning she decides to discover more about Herbert’s final moments by visiting the scene of his death and talking to his colleagues and friends in a bid to discover whether the sport could help her in her own struggle for life. It’s almost as though meeting Herbert was somehow meant to prepare her and give her strength to fight cancer and conquer her fear of pain as she undergoes treatment, losing her thick, dark hair. Miryam is positive about the future, discovering as much as she can about his way of dying, despite the anger she feels towards Herbert. Out of all this comes acceptance. Her documentary offers a vision of the positive ways we can harness our own fears for the future, by grasping the nettle of life and controlling our own destiny. Werner Herzog explores this philosophy in the final moments of Heart of Glass: no one is able to avoid death but we can control our own destiny: the ideology behind BASE jumping seems to indicate that by taking over control of our lives and dicing with death, we can face the end with power and serenity. MT

FREEFALLING: A LOVE STORY PREVIEWS AT 10TH ZURICH FILM FESTIVAL 25 SEPTEMBER – 5 OCTOBER 2014

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Wilde Salome (2011)

Dir.: Al Pacino; Cast:

Al Pacino, Jessica Chastain, Roxane Hart, Kevin Anderson, Benoit Delhomme, Estelle Parsons

USA 2011, 95 min. Documentary

Fifteen years after “Looking for Richard”  Al Pacino is looking to become Oscar Wilde. Not literally, of course, (even though for a moment he asks rhetorically ‘imagine me as Oscar Wilde’), but this documentary is a work of passion and obsession. Starting from Estelle Parsons’ production of “Salome” at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles (filmed in five days) with Pacino as Herod, Jessica Chastain as Salome and Roxane Hart as Herodias, Pacino than gathers speed and travels to New York, Dublin, London and Paris, to interview the likes of Gore Vidal, Bono and Tom Stoppard – then back to his dressing room in LA, to discuss matters with his French DOP Benoit Delhomme.

The breathtaking tour de force somehow always features Al Pacino as centre stage, not always of his own making, as in a scene in Ireland when a fan of his draws him into a mock-duel straight out of Scarface. But others have their amusing parts too, like Gore Vidal venturing into discussing the merits of Wilde’s favourite lover. But Pacino always returns to Wilde’s play, showing us his other side: the consummate actor: full of lust, despair and torment – a little bit like the playwright himself.

Wilde wrote “Salome” in his early twenties, in his second language, French. It was often banned because the censors did not allow biblical figures represented on stage – at least not the bad ones. Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson, tells Pacino that his grandfather wrote this play before his coming-out as a homosexual, his marriage to Constance Holland not being the cover-up people suspect. “Salome” is mainly about a girl becoming a woman: Jessica Chastain’s Salome is all about sexual awakening, coupled with a lust for power, splitting the already fragile alliance of her mother and stepfather. Not forgetting her ruthless side, asking for the head of John the Baptist, because he did not want to kiss her. Ch

Chastain is the star of the show and, to Pacino’s credit, he lets her have the limelight, even though she is not allowed to say very much about the production. Pacino has filmed it as a combination of three different settings: a read-through at the LA theatre before an audience, a re-creation on the sound-stage and a third version (a mock De-Mille production) in the desert, with a different cast, bringing out the showman in Pacino. The latter fits well in an often satirical production, in spite of Pacino’s obvious honesty. But he can’t help going over the top sometimes with a reckless over-ambition and his entertaining rollercoaster production sometimes just misses the label of mockumentary. AS

OUT ON RELEASE AS SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 12 SEPTEMBER 2014

 

Im Keller (2014) In The Basement – Venice International Film Festival 2014

Director: Ulrich Seidl

Writers: Ulrich Seidl, Veronika Franz

81min  Doc  Austria

After exploring the sex lives of a three contemporary women (Love, Hope, Paradise), Austrian maverick, Ulrich Seidl, plumbs the domestic cellars of his homeland for more outrageous material in his latest documentary Im Keller (In The Cellar).  A word normally applied to horror film ‘unheimlich’ describes these underground ‘cribs’ that are the total opposite of cosy: translating as ‘uncanny’ but literally meaning ‘unhomely’ – it seems a particularly appropriate way to describe Seidl’s discoveries. The opening sequences make increasingly bewildering viewing, as we meet group of characters who appear only too happy to share with us their unusual habits and hobbies in this subterranean world. With his regular collaborator Veronika Franz, Seidl’s preoccupation with obesity, nudity and S&M goes hand in hand with religious bigotry and undercover Nazis (Hitler was, of course, Austrian) – all are alive and kicking in the homes of everyday Austrian folk.

Indie and art house audiences with a penchant for the macabre and Seidl’s dark brand of humour will certainly flock to see Im Keller even though it is, in parts, a sight for sore eyes. It certainly proves that in Austria as well as Yorkshire there’s ‘nowt so queer as folk”. One woman hides a series of baby-like dolls in cardboard boxes. As she mollycoddles and soothes them in the basement of the house, her Nazi husband sits upstairs under a prized portrait of Hitler, given as a wedding present: “unwrapping it, I nearly went out of my mind”, he comments with zeal. Another man uses his cellar to house his collection of ‘small game’ trophies (of antilope, kudu etc) and hones his skills at shooting with some target practice and a series of lethal firearms.

As we progress through the ranks of weirdos indulging their obsessions below stairs, Seidl moves onto more x-rated material. A couple who enjoy extreme sexual role-play (BDSM) explain and demonstrate the ethos behind their proclivities: “trust is the most vital element”.  Another woman takes us through the bondage routines involved in being a sexual masochist – it emerges, ironically, that during the day she works in a centre for abused woman.  All this is captured through Martin Gschlacht’s cold-eyed lens, with Seidl’s eerie trademark fixed framing, seen in previous outings. The phrase ‘cognitive dissonance’ springs to mind all through this odd documentary.  Seidl’s treatment of his subject-matter is completely dead pan and non-judgemental and the juxtaposition of these grotesque images and the gallows humour will make you squirm in your seats. MT

IM KELLER is showing at the VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL from 27 August until 6 September 2014.  FOLLOW OUR COVERAGE UNDER THE FESTIVALS BANNER.

 

 

Finding Fela (2014)

Director: Alex Gibney

119min   US   Documentary

Well-known, prolific documentary-maker Alex Gibney has recently given us Mea Maxima Culpa; Julian Assange in Wikileaks: We Steal Secrets and Lance Armstrong (The Armstrong Lie). This time he turns his camera on the Nigerian political activist and prolific musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Born into a Nigeria’s elite in a wealthy and educated family in 1938, the enigmatic and colourful Kuti and his feared band, the Koola Lobitos, dominate the music scene in Nigeria in the 1970s and 80s with his self-styled ‘Afrobeat’ – music: a mélange of jazz, soul and funk beats, the best known of which is the album “Zombie”. Gibney scrabbles around piecing together patchy footage of this maverick music-maker, flitting between his political life and ‘art’. Often tuneless and meandering on for hours, the musical tracks and performances of this trance-like genre never really reach a climax yet somehow these rhythmic vibes lead listeners to the mysterious, exotic heart of deepest, darkest Africa conjuring up a world largely unknown to audiences in the sixties and seventies.

Gibney’s film takes on this meandering style, sprawling through the life of the man he calls ‘a visionary’ but also who appears sinister and dark.  Told alongside excerpts from New York choreographer Bill T Jones’s lively Broadway musical ‘Fela!’, which offers much information about his band’s dance methods and style, Gibney fills in the gaps with archive footage and interviews (from Paul McCartney) which are more formal in nature, telling of his family background in Lagos (where he learnt to play classical piano) and subsequent performances at his ‘Shrine’ club in the capital, although there is scant information on his musical influences apart from a cursory mention of ‘Jay Z’ .

What emerges is a mercurial personality who seems rebellious and provocative by nature, highly duplicitous yet rather traditional; peddling an anti-establishment populist agenda for human rights in his country yet at the same time cutting a large swathe through Lagos’s nubile scene and marrying 27 women in one ceremony, behind the back of the woman he was already happily married to at the time (and father to her children).  Yet women had a benign influence over him from early on: his strong mother (an feminist lawyer whom he worshipped) and his long-term lover Sandra Izsadore, an African-American Black Power campaigner, give interviews and seem to be articulate and highly appealing individuals. His academics brothers trained as doctors and seem very calm and serious. Gibney compares him to Bob Marley, but there is little of Bob Marley’s charm, infectious charisma and musical legacy to this figure, whose music seems largely unknown in the West for obvious reasons that will emerge: coming away you feel unengaged and slightly bemused in contrast to the positively uplifting experience of Marley (2013).

More than anything, Fela Kuti comes across as a confrontational figure who used music as a ‘weapon’ against the Government who reacted to him aggressively with frequent episodes of police harassment and violence – one of which left his 82-year-old mother fatally injured and many of his family members and acolytes hospitalised. After a brief exile in Ghana, he formed his own party “Movement of the People” he fail to gain election. Often arrested by Nigeria’s corrupt military government, he chose to remain in his native country. Dabbling in traditional ‘witchcraft’ and other arcane practices he later developed AIDS, dying in 1977. His funeral was attended by 1 million Nigerians. MT

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REVIEWED AT SUNDANCE UK APRIL 2014

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

 

The Notorious Mr Bout (2014)

Dir.: Tony Gerber, Maxim Pozdorovkin;

Documentary; USA/Russia 2014, 90 min.

Tony Gerber’s documentary on Victor Bout suffers a little from too much footage of the man himself, and too little explanatory material. This way, Bout comes over too much as a one-off, and not as one of many perpetrators in a world-wide net of deadly dealingsBritish ex-minister Peter Hain called him ”Sanction Buster”, and for an UN-Official he was simply “The Merchant of Death”: Victor Bout, born in 1967 in the Tajik SSR, then part of the Soviet-Union, has been an arms dealer between 1993 and his arrest in 2008 in all the hot spots of recent wars: Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, DR of Congo, Afghanistan, Liberia, Kenya, Lebanon and Libya.

In most of these countries he had connections with the ruling classes, who (more often than not), were serial offenders against human rights. And like other psychopaths who felt that they themselves were the victims, he created the cult of his personality. In his case, this involved having friends and family members shoot an amazing amount of videos featuring” Uncle” Victor, a harmless, joy loving entrepreneur, making money for his family and friends. Much of the footage is not much different from holiday images of an ordinary family man. He is cultivating the image of the naïve salesman, transporting needed goods from one country to another – insisting, that he was not responsible for the cargo, consisting very often of weapons, apart from the more ordinary fair of produce or electronics. It is difficult to believe that a man who was a military translator in the USSR army, discharged in 1991 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, speaking six languages and having operated in the realm of Soviet military intelligence (the GRU) was really so blatantly unaware of his doings as he (and his wife Alla, who features extensively as his defender in this documentary) claims. Instead he was a not a particularly untypical product of Neo-Capitalism after the fall of USSR, where oligarchs took control not only of the economy but also of government. And compared with the real big-shots, he was only small fry during the formative years of globalisation– but a very dangerous one. It is true, that “making money” is never a clean business, but there are many shades. Bout, like all arms dealers, occupies the blackest spot in the hierarchy of commerce.

When he was arrested in Bangkok in November 2008, after a sting operation of the US government – Bout promised to procure military graded weapons for the guerrillas of the “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia”, to be used against Americans – Bout became a political football between Russia and the USA, before he was extradited to the USA in 2010, were he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. It is true, that Bout is only one of many, and the main transgressors in the world wide arms dealings are still the governments, making a fat profit, whilst feeling superior to the Bout’s of this world. But this documentary might help to encourage reaction, in bringing at least one case to the public attention. AS. AS

NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE

 

Pulp (2014)

Director: Florian Habicht

Starring: Jarvis Cocker, Nick Banks, Candida Doyle, Steve Mackey, Mark Webber

91min   UK   Music biopic

Jarvis Cocker’s quirky personality shines through this warm-hearted biopic that follows his indie rock band Pulp, in a final home town concert in 2012. Jarvis describes the film as a ‘tidying-up exercise’, after the band’s informal departure from the music scene in 2002, but acknowledges this is ‘not a very rock n roll concept’. Sheffield is very much a part of the story and the reason for the open-armed welcome the band receive for its swan song. Jarvis has maintained a low-key presence on the music scene since he put the band to bed, quietly pursuing other creative projects while living modestly in a Victorian semi; vehicle maintenance and feeding the ducks are also part of his routine.

Sheffield is a town where superlatives don’t exist. But most locals (interviewed in vox-pop) were looking forward to the big night and seemed to think the band was “alright” (meaning fantastic in ‘Sheffield-speak’). The Yorkshire town is nothing to write home about according to Jarvis; but if he did write home, it would be a love letter and a heart-felt tribute to the humdrum comfort of the city and to ‘Pulp’, as well.  German-born New Zealander, Florian Habicht, handles his subject with artful aplomb, capturing a palpable sense of place and bottling it for all to savour, not only diehard fans.  Pulp is a collaborative effort with the locals: the paper-seller, the knife-maker, kids, the old and the down at heel.

1379597_426245800808751_1995528444_n copyJarvis Cocker cuts a geeky figure as a rock God but, strangely, that’s what he’s become – with his fine line in tailoring and ‘lifts’ – odd to see on a man of 6ft 2 – and a natural sense of highly intelligent humour: he never takes himself too seriously and makes fascinating viewing with his self-deprecating charm, Fame has never suited him, feeling like a “bad nut allergy’. A teenage lack of confidence with the girls led to much  introspection as to how he could get the girls, and it was largely with this in mind (or so he claims) that writing music came about; although success came much later. Candida Doyle claims she helped finance the band in the early years, but still plays keyboard despite her arthritis – not a cool disease for a rock chick, she admits. For his part, Jarvis feels happier sharing emotions with his concert audience than face to face and his gawky movements on stage are unselfconscious because during gigs, he thinks of ‘absolutely nothing’. Some of his lyrics are as darkly funny as Morrissey’s: the misery of love and loneliness; the grey sadness of the industrial landscape epitomised in bleak despair of the tortured artist, tinged with bitter irony.

But it’s the fans and locals who provide the most laugh-out loud moments. Frank, salt of the earth characters are unfazed by his fame but deeply fond of his music. And the band, strikes a deep empathy with everyone. With songs such ‘Common People’ and ‘Help the Aged’  he has truly bonded with the underdog, the disenchanted and the disappointed; buying into the Nation’s psyche with the engaging power of Britpop and the National trait of deeply engrained stoicism.  It’s always sad to say goodbye but there are good ways to do so, and Habicht has found a rousing, warm and honourable one.  MT

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PULP IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 6 JUNE 2014  and on DVD from 14th July 2014

Bastards (2014)

Dir.: Deborah Perkin

Documentary; Morocco 2014, 83 min.

When Rabha El Haimer was fourteen years old, she was forced into a marriage with her mother’s distant cousin. He raped her, beat her and eventually threw her out when she was pregnant with a daughter. Later Rabha, who is illiterate, discovered that her daughter Salma had no rights, since she herself had no official wedding, only a “Fatha” ceremony, which is common in rural communities. This meant that her daughter could not visit a school, one of many disadvantages of children born out of wedlock as regulated in the “Mudawana” code, an Islamic law which governs marriage and child custody among others. This law was reformed in 2004 by the Moroccan government, giving women more rights and gender equality.

With the help of social workers from “L’Association Solidarite Femine”, Rabha, who now lives with her daughter in the slums of Casablanca, went to court in Agadir to have her marriage acknowledged legally, so as to gain a birth certificate for her daughter. Her husband, a violent and duplicitous man (who has re-married), refuses to confirm marriage and fatherhood, claiming that Rabha was a whore who ran away. In a lengthy process, Rabha finally gains victory and a birth certificate for her daughter.

BASTARDS avoids being a hard-luck story. Whilst the process is slow and torturous, Rabha finally gains civil rights and a chance of education for her daughter, which were denied to her. In the final scene, when Salma is dancing the magnificent foyer of the court building in Agadir like a little princess, one is overwhelmed by the joyful emotions. But the social reality of Rabha’s life leaves an ambivalent feeling: she has to work from two to midnight in a restaurant, having to lock in her daughter, amidst fears that Salma might be abducted.

And not all the cases of “L’Association Solidarite Femine” end in triumph: there is a mistress of a rich man, who fights in vain for child maintenance and a young student cannot obtain a job he is qualified for, because he was born out of wedlock. Centuries of prejudice and ignorance cannot be overturned by a progressive law, even though Morocco’s role as a progressive force regarding human rights in the Islamic world should not be underestimated.

The film maker traces Rabha’s battle with the system meticulously, but the many journeys between the countryside, where her daughter lived with her parents during parts of the court case, Casablanca and Agadir are too repetitive in the end, giving the impression that the director tried too hard to achieve a ninety minute format. But fact and messages are strong enough, and do not need this effort: the emotional impact is this way rather diluted than enhanced. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM 11 July 2014

 

 

 

Before We Go (2014) – FID Marseille

Directors/Writer: Jorge Léon

Belgium Documentary 82min

Death is seldom interesting as a theme in and of itself, and so a whole film dedicated to confronting it is bound to come with limitations. Such is the case with Jorge Léon’s ostensibly daring and intermittently emotive documentary BEFORE WE GO, whose world-premiere at FIDMarseille this year brought a sombre air to the festival’s international competition.

Liminal spaces abound here. As stagehands prepare Brussels’ La Monnaie Opera House for a public showing with eerie, automated precision, three terminally ill people—two men and a woman—haunt the offstage areas, with varying mobility, like ghosts already on the threshold of corporeality. Aiding these ailing people’s backstage navigations are three leading modern dance choreographers: Meg Stuart, Lidia Schoue and Benoît Lachambre—who is himself HIV-positive.

Death is performative: it waits not in the wings but between the rows—a space in which Schoue lies, in the opening moments, dressed in a skeleton suit as the opera house’s opulent crystal chandelier is lowered for an official show we never get to see. Later, she encounters one of the older protagonists, embarking upon a playful game of cat and mouse, of director and directed. Later, Lachambre assists another terminally ill senior in assembling a colourful patchwork of filters against a window, which the old man later observes through a viewfinder. Stuart, meanwhile, interacts with an older woman, hugging her “super tight” in a hold bordering on a sexuality that transcends bodily and intergenerational limits. “Enjoy my joy,” the woman remarks.

Léon goes out of his way early on to foreground his older protagonists’ physicality, framing them in candidly unflattering nakedness as duodenal tubes emanate from their torsos. Mortality is his default sobering reminder, as when he shock-cuts from that aforementioned moment of kaleidoscopic, sensorily wonderful view of colours to the reality of a bed-bound, one-legged, one-eyed figure whose chest protrudes outward and whose stomach sinks like a deflated, lifeless balloon.

Elsewhere, Léon’s younger performers execute solo routines. Lachambre feigns an epileptic seizure as if to a violently contorting spirit attempting to leave his body. Stuart gives a convulsive, vein-popping manifestation of a kind of physical glossolalia, one whose twisting intensity encapsulates her comparatively youthful muscularity opposite the terminally ill woman she encounters. “Between dreams and reality, it was like a fusion,” says Lachambre, referring to the vivid dreams caused by his daily medication. Later, Schoue swaps clothes with her partner—who, after he’s donned her skeleton outfit, leads her outside for a dance on the balcony.

And so it goes. As one brief sequence showing music software on a laptop suggests, the greater joys of Léon’s film were to be found in the process of making it—that is, for those involved in its production. These three intertwined encounters, between movement and immobility as well as other more obvious binary opposites, were no doubt sources of euphoria for all participants. Like death as a nebulous abstract, though, touchy-feely therapies such as those portrayed here come with limits—which, for a film all about bodily boundaries, may be the point. MICHAEL PATTISON

FID MARSEILLE RUNS FROM THE 1-7 JULY 2014 IN MARSEILLE, FRANCE. follow the link for the full coverage

Beyond the Edge (2014)

Director: Leanne Pooley

Writers; Leanne Pooley and Matthew Metcalfe

Cast: Chad Moffitt, Sonam Sherpa, John Wraight, Daniel Musgrove

100min   Documentary

If you’ve ever wanted to climb Mount Everest, Leanne Pooley’s documentary is a chance to experience at first hand the thrill and danger that many have gone through to conquer the summit since that first fatal attempt back in 1924.  Re-enacting the incredible journey to the top, using a skilful blend of archival footage and interviews, Pooley frames her documentary in its historical post-war context, recreating the world as it was sixties years ago, with a well-thought out introduction to the backgrounds and personalities of the individual climbers and the equipment used in the expedition organised by leader, Colonel John Hunt.

We all know that New-Zealander and Bee-keeper, Sir Edmund Hillary and sherpa, Tenzing Norgay were the first men to stand on the summit (the iconic image is of Tenzing), but this documentary shows how it happened and sheds light on the particular conditions prevailing at the time. One of the strengths here is the lack of narration other than the words of the expedition team. Using actors (with climbing training) to portray the real-life mountaineers and rarely seen footage amassed from archival interviews and photos, the doc takes us, step by step, as Hillary and Tenzing battle upwards conveying their numerous setbacks. Illustrating their strength of personality and extraordinary motivation to form a successful team, it shows how not only as climbers but also as men, these two remarkable people stood out from the crowd and persevered on an almost impossible mission.

In user-friendly 3D technology, (incorporating 16mm colour footage and 35mm stills) the dazzling camera-shots lean over dangerous precipices, killer ravines and terrifying crevices to share the mind-blowing experience of these fearless men. Climbing gear has an authentic feel and Pooley explains the science and practicalities of mountaineering and human endurance. She also explores the human psyche with universal appeal in this brave doc that flags up Hilary’s legendary words: “It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” MT

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BEYOND THE EDGE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 23 MAY 2014

Mr Leos Carax IndieLisboa 2014

Director: Tessa Louise-Salomé

Writer: Tessa Louise-Salomé, Chantal Perrin-Cluzet, Adrien Walter

France Documentary 72min

Tessa Louise-Salomé follows her HOLY MOTORS (2012) making-of with this career overview of France’s most mysterious auteur. After its world bow at Sundance in January, the film screened as part of the Director’s Cut programme at the 11th IndieLisboa last week.

On the one hand, a cult filmmaker like Leos Carax lends himself easily to a documentary like this. He has only five features to his name between 1984 and 2012, and while they return to timeless themes with an idiosyncratic, singular vision, each film seems to be more interested in how it relates to predecessors and successors rather than the world at large. Film critic Richard Brody refers to this in the film as “refracted self-portraiture.” Carax is a famously stubborn director who will endure years of financial trouble and production frailty in order to ensure the completed work matches his original idea. The tortured artist is the ultimate romanti

On the other hand, then, making a film about Carax brings palpable difficulties. What new insights might we get about the man, his life, his working methods—from he himself, his collaborators or other critical commentators? To what extent, furthermore, can discussions surrounding the artist go beyond the obvious clichés of hagiography, in order to situate him more critically and historically, within the industry or even French society as a whole? These are not questions particular to Leos Carax: they should be the founding queries from which any work of this kind embarks.

Unfortunately, in celebrating the mystery that surrounds Carax – perpetuated by himself as much as by others – the film reinforces a fairly non-critical approach. As such, the work is more suited to a featurette – perhaps one to be included on a high-end future DVD release, or in a ‘completed works’ box set – than as an original summary of, or even a probing introduction to, the director’s oeuvre. When someone says, “The recognition he received at such a young age will forever be held against him,” one wonders why this should be the case. Which social and intellectual currents is someone like Carax working within and against?

Though Carax is intermittently present in audio interviews, this is in many ways about the impact he’s had on those who’ve worked with him. Regular performer Denis Lavant – very much Carax’s discovery – features heavily, speaking of the duo’s difficult professional relationship and of the various demands Carax has made of him as a director. Other interviewees include Kylie Minogue (“he’ll kind of drift back, and say what he needs to say, and drift off again… he’s a bit like a breeze”), Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, Kiyoshi Kurosawa (who says MAUVAIS SANG is “a perfect film”), Harmony Korine (who says Carax’s films “have a deadly romance, a black romance, a dark romance”), as well as critics like Kent Jones and Jean-Michel Frodon; archive footage of Juliette Binoche is also included.

But where’s the zest, the revelation? MR LEOS CARAX plays out with all the stifled safeness of a fan symposium. When someone like Cannes President Gilles Jacob says, “Leos Carax is a visual poet,” what does it mean? Such statements, needless to say, are not very helpful. Only Brody – who earlier describes MAUVAIS SANG as “pure cinematic ecstasy” (eh?) – comes close to questioning the director, when voicing mild disappointment in POLA X (1999). Not that a film is inherently stronger if intellectual fisticuffs are on display, but Louise-Salomé’s documentary is in desperate need of a devil’s advocate—one of which Carax himself would surely approve. Michael Pattison

11TH INDIELISBOA 24 APRIL UNTIL 4 MAY 2014 IN LISBON, PORTUGAL

 

Made in America (2013)

MIA Pack Shot 2D copyDirector: Ron Howard

90min  Musical documentary  US

Featuring: Jay-Z, Kanye West, Gary Clark Jr, Passion Pit, Janelle Monae, Skrillex, Pearl Jam, Rita Ora, D’Angelo, Janelle Monae, SantiGold

Ron Howard is the director behind Frost/Nixon and A Beautiful Mind. That his next project should involve (and be financed by) the hip-hop artist Jay-Z may at first seem strange but actually the two get on like a house on fire in Made In America, a documentary that looks at how Jay-Z set up a two-day concert in Philadelphia (2012).

Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Brooklyn, NY, we learn how Jay-Z used his musical talent as a way not only to carve out a future for himself but also to help others and ended up married to superstar Beyoncé Knowles. Howard illustrates, by way of participant interviews and some really entertaining and inspiring musical vignettes with the artists, how the concert has injected a upbeat vibe into the local community, re-energising the work ethic in a positive way.  However, not everyone approves of his efforts: local resident Lillian Howard voices her strong disapproval of the ‘bang-bang’ music which, she claims brings an undesirable element into her neighbourhood; illustrating that you can’t please all of the people, all of the time!

We hear about Jay-Z’ political visions for the future of his multi-racial America with its black president who has, in his opinion been a cohesive force in bringing the country together. But, like so many hugely-talented creatives, Jay-Z remains a cypher; locked behind his facade of fame, unreachable despite Howard’s efforts to get beneath his skin  MT

MADE IN AMERICA IS AVAILABLE ON VOD AND DVD: 19 MAY 2014

VoD: http://bit.ly/1h6B5ks 
DVD: http://amzn.to/1iSq0F7

 

 

 

Bambi (2013) IndieLisboa 2014

Director/Writer: Sébastien Lifshitz

With: Marie-Pierre Pruvot

France Documentary 59min

Following his even-footed and effectively straightforward documentary LES INVISIBLES (2012), which concerned a group of middle-aged gay people in France, Sébastien Lifshitz makes mid-lengther BAMBI, an intimate portrait of one of the first French transsexuals. The film scored highly with audiences at the 11th edition of IndieLisboa last week – where it screened as part of the festival’s World Pulse programme.

Marie-Pierre Pruvot was born in a small Algerian village in 1935 as Jean-Pierre Pruvot. From an early age, she hated her given name and insisted to friends and relatives that she be referred to by the name she came to permanently adopt. Speaking of her past with unfussy clarity, Marie-Pierre tells of being an obese child who used to wear her sister’s dresses, and who at an early age began “a long process of construction, or reconstruction, which would last until [she] was 18.”

Marie-Pierre recalls her first love, a lad named Ludo, in whose arms she was found lying one morning by her mother. With this one incident, Marie-Pierre reveals, she changed in her mother’s eyes from being “a paragon of virtue, hard work and intelligence” to being merely “a sordid individual.” Contrary to initial external perceptions, however, Marie-Pierre wasn’t a homosexual boy: she was horrified by the idea of such a label, for it precluded her self-identification as a woman. And so began a two-fold struggle – against homophobia and transphobia.

Edited by Tina Baz, Lifshitz’s film follows a no doubt complex and often traumatic personal history in a defiantly simple manner – for which it is appreciably indebted to its central interviewee. Largely eschewing the sadness and hurt that might otherwise underline a struggle for acceptance in an unforgiving, prohibitive society, BAMBI remains celebratory of Pruvot’s infectiously determined outlook. Which is not to say its protagonist’s life has been free of hurt and sorrow; most moving here are Marie-Pierre’s recollections of when her mother came to visit her in Paris in 1956, realising for the first time how much humiliation and hearsay she had endured back in Algeria due to her daughter’s increasing fame in France.

The film is also evocative of a particular time and place, namely the 1950s Paris where Pruvot was able to join the famous high-end transvestite act La Carrousel de Paris after a successful stint at the renowned Madame Arthur’s. Including archive footage of Pruvot very much ‘at home’ in such a milieu – alongside fellow performers Capucinet and Coccinell – BAMBI provides a valuable chronological snapshot of a sociohistorical layer in which people who identified themselves as women could make unprecedented progress toward gender reassignment procedures. The film takes its title from a popular musical number by Michel Jaubert, which features throughout. Today, as the film itself reveals, Marie-Pierre lives and works as a teacher in Cherbourg. Michael Pattison

BAMBI SCREENED DURING INDIELISBOA 2014 

Continental (2013) BFI Flare 2014

Dir.: Malcolm Ingram

Cast: Steve Ostrow; Documentary

USA/Canada/Australia 2013, 94 min.

Malcolm Ingram (Small Town Gay Bar) tells the story of the legendary “Continental”, a New York bathhouse for the gay community. Founded by the maverick Steve Ostrow in 1968, it was situated on the site of the Ansonia Hotel on 74th Street. The 400 rooms were used by 20 000 patrons a week; when Ostrow closed the “Continental” in 1974 six million visitors has seen its transfiguration from a hedonistic pleasure pool to an artistic centre. Ostrow borrowed the money for his enterprise from his father-in-law and had to live with corrupt cops as well as Mafiosi, who all took their share from the profits (the entrance fee was 15 Dollar).

Ostrow, a professional opera singer, comes over larger than life. He now lives in Australia, where he cares for the older members of the gay communities. And it is in Sidney, where he realised his greatest dream: singing the title role in Verdi’s “Othello”. His musical education helped him to transform the “Continental” from a pure pleasure heaven into an artistic centre. Patti Labelle, Peter Allen started their career here, as did Bette Midler, accompanied at the piano by Barry Manilow. But it was this new cultural identity, which was the main reason for the closure of the bathhouse in 1974. Sure, rival companies had sprung up, but Ostrow said, that the gay community felt, that they were looked at like animals in a zoo, by the ever growing number of straight people who came to visit. It was true, the “Continental” had changed from being a refuge for gay people, to being a meeting point of the cultural elite. Even Alfred Hitchcock was spotted there, dressed only in a towel.

It was difficult to avoid doing this as a ‘Talking Heads”  documentary, and the stills from the old place are mixed with contemporary shots of the same neighbourhood today. The rare footage of the entertainers in the heydays of the Continental are refreshing and raise many questions, in particular it begs to know why Bette Midler did not want to participate. Ingram avoids nostalgic reminiscing about a “golden age for the gay community before AIDS”, but delivers instead a well structured documentary lesson about gay history. AS

THE CONTINENTAL SCREENED AS PART OF THE BFI FLARE 2014 FESTIVAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 Feet From Stardom (2014) Oscar for Best Documentary 2014

1979903_548360491928849_113296906_o copyDirector: Morgan Neville

91min  US  Documentary 

Having defied the odds and beaten the clear favourite The Act of Killing to the Best Documentary accolade at this year’s Academy Awards, it’s clear to see why Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From Stardom was triumphant, as a compelling, heartwarming and unaffected exploration into the fascinating world of backing singers.

From the contentiously salacious vocals on Ray Charles What’d I Say, to the graceful arrangement of Lean on Me by Bill Withers, backing vocals are an integral part to our enjoyment of music across the decades. Having spent years in the shadows of some of the finest, most prominent recording artists of all time, now the likes of Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer and Darlene Love are given the platform to shine, and showcase their unique, and somewhat breathtaking abilities.

There is something so unmistakeably emotional about this production, as we candidly delve into a world behind the scenes, where broken dreams and empty promises remain a prevalent theme. Nostalgia is equally as important to this picture, and scenes such as Clayton returning to the recording studio where she provided vocals on The Rolling Stone’s Gimme Shelter is enough to bring a tear to your eye. Neville masterfully intertwines personal anecdotes from the likes of Clayton herself to Mick Jagger, as we learn of how she came to be involved – dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, heavily pregnant, and with curlers still attached to her hair. An intimacy of sorts, and a human element is brought to these songs, as we are taken behind the track and explore the mechanics of how it came to be, and the personalities involved.

Jagger is one of many fine talking head appearances, with Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen also featuring, amongst others, to pay homage to the hard work and incredible talent of these gifted musicians. Neville seamlessly drifts between the various different singers, succinctly and efficiently, as we’re given a flavour for each of their personalities and their own unique situations, ranging from those who rose to prominence in the 60s, to current singers such as Judith Hill. This works as a catalyst for a series of other themes to be explored, as race and inequality are covered, dressed up in a rich socio-political context, while the more intimate, human themes such as the lust for fame are equally imperative.

That said, Neville can be accused of merely brushing the edges of a few issues, not truly offering enough depth – however it’s a small blemish on an otherwise accomplished piece of filmmaking. It’s just intriguing to see the faces behind the voices we’ve heard a million times over, voices that define and complete some of the most renowned records ever created. You’ll forever listen to these songs in a different way from hereon, and believe me, that’s by no means a bad thing. Stefan Pape.

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ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 28 MARCH 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Gabriel Back to Front (2014)

Director: Hamish Hamilton 97min  Concert Film  UK

BAFTA winner Hamish Hamilton’s concert film opens with an intimate confession from the Genesis frontman: behind the flamboyant mask, there lurks a timid soul. On stage Gabriel emits a calm magnetism, singing his songs with the ease of a true professional. At 63, he doesn’t particularly ‘wear it well’, by his own admission. Scuttling around like a stout beetle in battledress, he claims to have perfected the art of ‘dad dancing’ even before fatherhood although in the London’s massive 02 Arena, gone are the daredevil stunts of jumping into the crowd. But how can a man with so much musical talent, move with so little rhythm?  Is this all part of his unique brand of idiosyncratic charm as a performer; a way of reaching out to his fans, most of whom are middle-aged (in ‘country casuals’) and have stuck with him from his early days in the art rock band which he left in 1975 to embark on a successful career as an inventive singer-songwriter, visual presenter and humanitarian human being.

His breakthrough album was SO (1986) and spearheaded a future in visual presenting, digital recording and distribution. Strong visuals are the  centrepiece to this BACK TO FRONT World Tour.  Hamilton’s pin-sharp high tech resolution at 4k contrasts with some very low tech filming and a slow pull that takes the image from being out of focus, slowly towards deeper and deeper degrees of resolution and focus.

Joined by a talented selection of session musicians (also in black): drummer Manu Katché; bassist Tony Levin; guitarist David Rhodes and multi-instrumentalist David Sancious. Jenni Abrahamson is the voice of Kate Bush without her lithe, pre-raffaelite lissomeness and there are some giant camera cranes writhing like giant octopuses. In this monochrome affair the only colour comes from guitars gleaming like drops of blood on the stage, backlit by panels of lights; red-bathed for RED RAIN and vibrant primaries for SLEDGEHAMMER and NO SELF CONTROL.  The band run through the entire SO album and include some of Gabriel’s latest numbers (Digging in the Dirt,  The Tower that Ate People). Somehow it all seems so slick and commercial in comparison to the uneasy poetic edginess of the early days. With his fatherly stolidness, the music feels safe and dumbed-down rather than fresh and innovative and the vastness of the O2 drains intimacy from songs such as DON’T GIVE UP, In YOUR EYES and MERCY STREET. Peter Gabriel is an artist and musician who has repackaged himself for the digital age and the 21st century: he knows where his bread is buttered. MT

FILMED LIVE AT THE 02, LONDON ON 21 7 22 OCTOBER 2013 – PETER GABRIEL BACK TO FRONT will be screening at Cineworld, Odeon, Vue, Showcase and other indie cinemas nationwide on 20 March 2014 with further screenings from Sunday 23 March 2014 at selected locations.

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The Invisible War (2013)

Director: Kirby Dick
93min  US  Documentary
In this well-constructed and fascinating documentary, Kirby Dick exposes rape in the US Military: and not just rape of women but men as well. Rape is not a one-off occurrence but a regular part of army life for most recruits: it’s part of the territory: an occupational hazard.
An endless deluge of tearful soldiers talk about their experiences on camera. They are living testament to a system that knows no shame; young people who dreamt of serving their country only to fall victim to a military hierarchy who considers it their right to receive sexual favours from subordinates whose lives and relationships end in ruin due to their callousness.  It’s a fact that sexual predators migrate towards ‘the safety’ of army service, knowing their proclivities will be well-catered for in a system that operates outside the normal judiciary framework:  In the Military, the first line of contact is with the Officer in command and this officer is, for the most part, the perpetrator of the crime. There is no way out, in short.

There’s nothing worthy about Kate Dick’s well-paced treatment of her subject-matter – but the sobering facts are that one in five serving female officers has been sexually assaulted (500,000 since records began). The male victim rate is unclear but nevertheless significant. Women are made aware that any complaint will be met by a humiliating and futile procedure that knows no positive conclusion.  To add insult to injury, a poster campaign aimed at Army men: “Ask Her When She’s Sober” is the only measure in place to tackle the issue.

A chilling documentary that offers grim viewing, but is worth a watch for its sheer incredibility. MT

THE INVISIBLE WAR IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14 MARCH 2014

 

Lamb of God: As the Palaces Burn (2014)

Director Don Argott | Cast: “Lamb of God”: Randy Blythe, Mark Morton, Willie Adler, John Campbell, Chris Adler | USA 2013, 120 min. (Incl. 30 min Q&A session)

Heavy Metal Group “Lamb of God” from Virginia has been around since 1995 and is now well-known – if their underground status allows such a description. This documentary shows them perform in the United States, Columbia, Venezuela, Israel and India. But it is in Prague where the music is overtaken by real life events, threatening to derail the group, and in particular their lead singer Randy Blythe.

In June 2012 “Lamb of God” was performing in the capital of the Czech Republic, when Blythe got arrested for murder, and spent 38 days in prison. Said murder was supposed to have had happened during a concert the band gave there back in 2010, when a young Czech stormed the stage and was supposedly thrown back by Blythe into the audience, hitting his head and dying subsequently from his injuries. Eventually Blythe was allowed to go home, but the trial in Prague was set for February 2013. The singer returned to Prague, even though he faced a possible long prison sentence. In a moving statement before the court, Blythe confesses to being still shocked by the victim’s death, but denies all guilt.

What could have been a more or less routine music documentary turns into a portrait of a man who had faced his demons for much too long: Randy Blythe has battled alcohol and drug dependency for more than two decades. Before his arrest in Prague he had somehow found an inner peace, which had eluded him before. His band manager recalls that “Randy was in the last year my main man when I wanted something to get done”. The band was anxious that Randy might slip back into old, troubled self. But the opposite happened: Before the trial the singer muses about his past, him growing up in a small “redneck” town, where only the music saved him from suicide. He can now distance himself from his past, and does not need to run away from the future – or the trial. He is sorry for the death of the young man, but equally convinced of his own innocence, supported by some amateur videos taken at the fateful night in 2010. And it is not only Randy who grows up before our very eyes: the rest of the band starts to behave like the forty year olds they are – and not the immature, angry men they had been when they started to perform.

The performances are not shot in a particularly inventive way but as a portrait of Randy this is sensitive and highly poetic and moving. Like the band, the director made the chance meeting with the justice system in Prague into something special – and all of them deserve their happy-end. AS

NOW ON QUELLA CONCERTS with prime video.

 

 

Mister John (2013) Now on DVD

Directors: Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy

Writers: Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy

Cast: Aidan Gillen, Claire Keelan, Zoe Tay, Michael Thomas

95 mins    English  UK Drama    MISTER JOHN 2012 - DAY 03 _ 164 - 2nd grade copy copy

In their acclaimed debut Helen (2008), writer-directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy probed into the mind of a passive protagonist whose desire to reinvent her life slowly manifested itself as she took part in a police re-enactment of the last known movements of Joy, a college classmate gone missing. In their follow up, Mister John, another passive protagonist (Gerry, played by Aidan Gillen) travels to Singapore after the death of his brother (the eponymous John). Upon landing, Gerry finds that his luggage has been lost, and John’s widow later lends him one of John’s shirts to wear – and, much like Joy’s distinctive yellow jacket does for Helen, John’s shirt seems to offer Gerry the first step towards a possible reinvention of the self. However, despite the many similarities between the two projects, Mister John never feels like a repetition: a continuation, perhaps, or a development (both of style and of themes), but never a repeat. If anything, the similarities could be offered as proof of the distinct, singular vision of the directing duo.

Img2052HGgraded (3) copy copyWith its lush images, languid pacing and heavy, brooding soundtrack, Mister John is a film thick on atmosphere, and relatively thin on plot. At times, its dialogue feels clipped and overly minimal, and there are occasional slips into cliché – Gerry sitting on his bed, rubbing his face in his hands; a frustrated woman cutting up her lover’s clothes – but none of this detracts from the alluring, beguiling success of the film. In fact, it all feels like a part of the overall design, a deliberate play with convention on the part of the filmmakers. The film is, after all, a kind of anti-thriller (in this there is, perhaps, an obvious comparison to be made to The Passenger, Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic identity-swap anti-thriller – but the similarities feel superficial. The tone, the mood and the ideas all seem different here, even if the filmmakers have publicly acknowledged Antonioni’s influence).

Another element of Mister John which shouldn’t go overlooked is the rich vein of humour which runs throughout. That the film’s scariest moment leads to one of its funniest, shows again the mastery of Lawlor and Molloy’s control of the medium. If Helen was, as many claimed, an outstanding debut, Mister John is most certainly a worthy follow-up. ALEX BARRETT

MISTER JOHN IS OUT ON DVD FROM FEBRUARY 24 2014 COURTESY OF CURZON ARTIFICIAL EYE

Che Strano chiamarsi Federico (2013) Cinema Made in Italy 5-9 March 2014

HOW STRANGE TO BE CALLED FEDERICO

Dir.: Ettore Scola; Cast:Tomaso Lazotti, Vittorio Viviani, Sergio Pierattini, Antonella Attili; Italy 2013, 93 min.

This celebration of the life of Fellini (1920-1993) is put together in an atmospheric collage by his best friend, the director Ettore Scola. The two not only shared a passion for life and film, but also a friendship and regular collaboration with the actor Marcello Mastroiani, who joined them in their nightly excursions of Rome – Fellini being an extreme insomniac. It is no accident that the only feature film Fellini starred in was Scola’s aptly titled WE ALL LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH (1974), the story of a friendship, mainly shot on the road. Fellini also acted in Rossellini’s short The Miracle opposite Anna Magnani.

Frederico Fellini came to Rome from his hometown of Rimini in 1939, promising to attend university to please his parents – but no record of attendance has ever been found. Instead the future director earned his living with sketches and short texts for the theatre, before joining the satirical magazine “Marc’ Aurelio” in the early forties, when the magazine was controlled by the Fascist censors. Scola, still at High School, would join Fellini there a decade later. In Scola’s film much fun is made about life under Mussolini, but for the outspoken Fellini it could not have been easy despite his political disinterest  After the liberation he started script writing for Rosselini (ROME, OPEN CITY/1945 and PAISAN/1946) as well as other established directors like Alberto Lattuada (FLESH WILL SURRENDER/1947) and Pietro Germi (THE PAST OF HOPE/1950). In the same year he directed his feature debut LIGHTS OF VARIETY (1950), followed by THE WHITE SHEIKH (1952) and his first masterpiece I VITELLONI 1953). Whilst one could easily call these films neo-realistic, Fellini already tries his own take on reality: away from social realism to a more personal approach of the oppressed. LA STRADA (1954) starring his wife Giulietta Masina (who acted in seven of his films), was a kind of summing up of his first five years as a director, it won him the first of five “Oscars”. LA DOLCE VITA (1960) which made Mastroiani into a star, was the turning point: even though the city of Rome was the real star of the film, Fellini achieved his artistic dream of life as theatre captured on film. Or as he put it “Life is a party”. From FELLINI SATYRICON (1969), via CASANOVA (1976) to the LA CITTA DELLE DONNE (1980) he celebrated this maxim, “never becoming a good little boy” as Scola remarked.

HOW STRANGE TO BE CALLED FEDERICO is centred around the car rides of the trio (both Fellini and Scola hated any physical exercise) in Rome, picking up painters and prostitutes alike, always on the outlook for ideas for their films. In one scene, Mastroiani’s mother complains bitterly to Scola “you always show the ugly side of my son in your films, but Fellini only shows his beauty”. And there is always Fellini, in his coat and long scarf, getting away from reality into his dream world – even after his funeral, eluding the soldiers who stood at the side of his coffin, running through the streets of his beloved Rome, sitting down in a car on a carousel, where extracts of his films close this beautiful homage of a friend and fellow artist for the man who called himself “a born liar”, but who only used lies to make reality colourful and exciting with playfulness and passion. AS

SCREENING AS PART OF CINEMA MADE IN ITALY WHICH RUNS FROM 5-9 MARCH AT THE CINE LUMIERE LONDON SW7

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Journal de France (2013)

Dir.: Claudine Nougaret & Raymond Depardon

Documentary; France 2012, 100 min

The title of this informative and innovative documentary is a little misleading: whilst we see and witness Raymond Depardon travelling through provincial France with his old-fashioned view camera, filming buildings which look right out of the fifties. We also see his work as a documentary filmmaker, shooting conflicts worldwide. Depardon and Nougaret have lived and worked together for over 25 years, and this is also a homage to their work. We first meet Depardon in Nevers where he is taking a photo of a tobacconist shop, unchanged for over fifty years. Depardon”s explanation for his journey through France is that he needs “silence after having listened to others for such a long time”.In 1962 Depardon, who grew up on a farm, went to Paris to become a photographer. The following year he was sent to Venezuela to photograph the civil war – completing the coverage single-handedly after the director and sound recorder quit. A year later he was in the Belgian Congo, Brazzaville, where a new president was being sworn in –none other than Bokassa, the infamous dictator, who then came across as rather a civilised, well-intentioned human being.

In 1967 Depardon founded with others the agency “Gamma”, in his own words “not for money, but to make us free”. He then set off to Biafra to witness the slaughter of the civil war – and also to the ones who caused it: the French mercenaries, who were self-satisfied and proclaimed that “there will be also well-paid work for us”.   A year later he visited Prague, after the suicide of Jan Pallach, as a reaction to the Soviet invasion. Depardon was put in prison for three days before being expelled.

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All this is fascinating background detail is skilfully intercut with footage of the tranquil French countryside, Depardon explains “I am in an orbit, my camper van is my capsule”. In 1974 he filmed the presidential election campaign of Giscard, the then finance minister of France. In a meeting before the decisive second round of voting (Giscard would beat Mitterand by 0.8%), the future president proclaims proudly, that they would need not to do anything, since “Le Pen’s National Front followers will vote for us”.  When in office, Giscard blocked the release of the film. This is followed by a heart-breaking interview with the kidnapped French ethnologist Françoise Claustre in Chad.

Depardon lived two years with the rebels, and was instrumental in her release, after three years captivity. That same year he shot a depressing film about mental patients in Italy, who lived under scandalous conditions; an anti-psychiatric movement was founded, and conditions changed.Depardon raison d’etre was to make documentaries about people in confrontation with the authorities. His films about the Justice System in France or his observations in an ambulance (1982) when the driver innocently “wished that he also could find a hanging case, like his friend had the other day”. In 1993 Nougaret developed a direct sound system for “Paris”, where the filmmaker couple shot people in the Paris streets.

One highlight of his long career is doubtless an interview with Nelson Mandela just after the release from prison in 1993.So much more is showed and mentioned in this remarkable doc – JOURNAL DE FRANCE is a kaleidoscope of the bloody and the ordinary struggles of men, in France and worldwide – shot by a couple who stayed together, in spite “of constant bickering” on one of their first joint adventures in “Captive of the Desert” (1990), when they got completely lost. AS

JOURNAL DE FRANCE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 31 JANUARY 2014

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The Life and Works of Richard Wagner (1913)

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF RICHARD WAGNER

Dir.: Carl Froelich, William Wauer; Cast: Giuseppe Becce, Olga Engl, Manny Ziener, Ernst Reicher, Miriam Horowitz: Germany 1913, 96 min.

Whilst this newly restored version of the silent film was accompanied at the piano with a new score by the composer Jean Hasse, the original production had no music by Wagner at all: Cosima Wagner, still alive in 1913, wanted the princely sum of half a million Reichsmark if she allowed her husband’s music to be played. But the directors got lucky: the main actor, Giuseppe Becce, who bore an astonishing resemblance to the real Wagner, happened also to be a gifted composer. The narrative shows Wagner as the victim of circumstance, mainly his debtors and other, jealous composers, like the Jew, Giacomo Meyerbeer, who is shown as dubious and without any real influence. Wagner’s womanising is romanticised, everything is motivated by his art. There is an involuntary funny appearance of the Russian anarchist Bakunin, who looks more like Rasputin than a revolutionary. The film relies mainly on excerpts of Wagner’s work, which is not very surprising, since film was at the time before  WW1 mainly filmed theatre. The production design (by Wauer) is highly imaginative and the camera tries to be as mobile as possible. Performances are over-dramatic and histrionic, but again totally in harmony with the practice of the era. Overall, this very sanitized version of Wagner’s life is often monotonous, showing no ambivalence, reducing the film to a hero’s portrait.

Wagner Triebschen closer

Richard Wagner will always be a controversial figure – not so much because of his music, which is after all a matter of taste, but because of his virulent anti-Semitism, making Adolf Hitler (“You can’t understand National Socialism without understanding Wagner”) his number one admirer. When Hitler saw Wagner’s first opera “Rienzi” (which ends with the total distraction of the hero’s world) he exclaimed “Exactly, how it should be, never give in, better to die than to survive”, expressing his fatal ‘all or nothing’ attitude, which saw any compromise as weakness.

It is ironic that one of the directors, Carl Froehlich, (WAGNER being his debut), ended up as the leader of the “Reichsfilmkammer”, where he controlled the German film industry between 1939 and 1945, not only being the chief censor, but deciding who could work and who not. His co-director of 1913, William Wauer, fell into the latter category: he was forbidden to work. Froehlich was later imprisoned by the Allies, and was second only to the infamous Veit Harlan in the numbers of films the directed or produced which could not be shown during the first years after the war (with West Germany being ‘needed’ to fight communism, ‘cleaned up’ versions of these “Verbotsfilme” were shown later to full houses). Froehlich was also the producer of “The Choral von Leuthen”, a pro-German propaganda film, which was produced in 1932, but had his celebrated premiere in 1933, attended by Hitler, after he became Chancellor. But Froehlich also produced “Mädchen in Uniform” (1931), a very progressive film. Equally strange, his “It was a gay ball night” was premiered in the USA in November 1939, two years into the war. AS

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF RICHARD WAGNER IS AT THE BARBICAN DURING A SEASON OF MUSIC-THEMED FILM EVENTS DURING JANUARY 2014

Kiss the Water (2013)

Director: Eric Steel

Documentary/Animation   80min      US

American filmmaker Eric Steel describes his documentary Kiss the Water as an ‘invitation to a fairytale’. And it certainly is. Set in Scotland, it tells the story of Megan Boyd, an artist based deep in the Highlands, who was enchanted by the brightly coloured and intricate pictures she found in a book about fly-fishing when she was a little girl.  A lonely outsider, she taught herself to make these delicate objects using the finest feathers known to humanity.  Their vibrant colours and delicate shapes are certainly the stuff of dreams and carry names redolent of the rich and regal heritage of the British Isles.

KISS_THE_WATER_2 copyEven if you have no interest in fishing or Scotland, this beautifully-crafted film will enchant you with its cleverly-animated sequences featuring impressionist-style paintings of swirling underwater wildlife that conjure up a world of mystery and intrigue, perfected pained with dreamy photography of  the glorious Highland countryside.  Even though Megan Boyd never married and appeared to be an outsider, working away devotedly in her workshop, it is clear that she possessed a richly emotional and romantic soul that is cleverly evoked by Eric Steel’s imaginative rendering in animated mixed media.  Working exclusively during daylight hours and eventually losing her sight, Megan perfected her skills and worked on into her eighties.

Despite the ultimate (rather crass) revelation that one of her flys actually fetched  thousands of pounds, it is fair to mention that Boyd was a humble creature who never intended to capitalise over her skill and never actually charged more than a few pounds for her wares.  Naturally, among her customers was Prince Charles, who grew so fond of her that he actually invited her down to London to collect her OBE award.  Such was her modesty that she declined the invitation and the Prince duly delivered the award personally to her Scottish abode. MT

KISS THE WATER IS ON RELEASE FROM 10 JANUARY 2014

 

 

 

 

 

Rush (2013)

Director: Ron Howard

Writer: Peter Morgan

Main Actors: Daniel Brühl, Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Wilde

123mins   English  USA, Germany, UK  Biopic, Drama, Sport

There’s a moment near the beginning of Rush, Ron Howard and Peter Morgan’s new biopic of racing drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, when the owner of Hunt’s Formula Three racing team proclaims: ‘Men love women, but even more than that, they love cars’. Coming, as it does, after a loud opening sequence featuring extreme close ups of engines, tyres and grass being torn in two by the speed of racing cars, and a scene in which Hunt swiftly seduces a nurse, it would seem that the filmmakers also revel in these same objects of desire. Thankfully for those who want for more than female nudity and fast cars from films, their interests don’t end there.

rush_8 copy copyAs the Rush progresses, it builds a detailed and engrossing portrait of two men connected by an obsessional, almost self-destructive need to drive (and, one could say, to perform – and, in this, the film traces a cinematic vein harking back to Raging Bull and The Red Shoes). As the film charts the parallel rise of Hunt and Lauda to the Formula One big-time, it often seems at pains to point out the connections between the two men (not least the fact that their parents each wanted more ‘respectable’ careers for them). But the film also delights in highlighting their differences: where Hunt is an impulsive hot-head, Lauda is a cool, methodological thinker. This may be the story of a so-bitter-its-a-friendship rivalry between two sporting legends, but it’s also an exploration of the dual nature of being, of the Apollonian and the Dionysian tendencies that dwell within us all. And, in fact, the associations that notion brings with it resonate further through the film: at times, Rush almost feels like a myth of fearless heroes who face death in pursuit of the higher glories of fame and fortune.

It’s something of a shame, then, that Lauda is never really made to be likeable. We’re constantly reminded that other drivers, even his own teammates, think he’s an arsehole. At one point, he’s even shown looking like the devil incarnate – as reflected flames lick up and down his body he complains: ‘Happiness is the enemy. It weakens you…Suddenly you have something to lose’. While Lauda ultimately becomes a sympathetic figure, one can’t help but feel that a more nuanced characterisation throughout might have been beneficial. In a sense, the story is Lauda’s tragedy, but it is presented as Hunt’s victory. The filmmakers, it would seem, favour the Dionysian – even if the factual coda perhaps shows fate leans otherwise. This isn’t the film’s only misstep (there’s a questionable use of voiceover, and a final scene which feels the need to spell out the film’s subtext in case the audience missed it), but ultimately it feels a little churlish to dwell on the negative. Taken as a whole, Rush succeeds in being an intelligent, entertaining and exciting ride. Alex Barrett.

RUSH IS ON DVD from 27 January 2014 COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL.

When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun (2010) DVD

Director: Dirk Simon     Director/Writers: Dirk Simon and Kirsten Riordan

With Youdon Aukatsang, Bhusang, Tenzin Choeying, The Dalai Lama

115min  Documentary

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Dirk Simon’s worthy and colourful documentary on the Chinese occupation of Tibet has been several years in the making and excites visually with its exultant time-lapse sequences and aerial photographer of this magnificent part of the World.  Simon offers up an impressive array of interviews with political activists, community leaders and luminaries such as the Dalai Lama to create an intelligent and thought-provoking piece of filmmaking and one that takes a pluralist view on the crisis with archive footage from both sides of the fence not just that of the Tibetan people, who appear engaging, inspiring and well-informed.

Screen Shot 2013-08-16 at 13.30.33However, as is often the case with this type of documentary, Simon keeps re-enforcing the salient points of the debate, overstimulating the viewer with a plethora of facts accompanied by Philip Glass’s pounding and ubiquitous musical score (although well-composed) which ramps up and intensifies the emotional content leaving us with little space to process and consider the importance of his message.

Screen Shot 2013-08-16 at 13.31.52In the hands of a documentary-maker such as Richard E Grant, there would have been time out for contemplation in silence. A more measured approach here and some judicious editing (at nearly two hours it’s overlong) would have made for a more engaging and effective experience.  That said, there are interludes, such as the audience with the Buddhist oracle and listening to the Dalai Lama’s pearls of wisdom, that offer truly riveting viewing. MT

WHEN THE DRAGON FOLLOWED THE SUN IS OUT ON DVD FROM THE 9TH DECEMBER 2013

Utopia (2013)

Dir.: John Pilger, John Lowery; UK 2013, 110 min.

Eighteen years after Lieutenant James Cook had claimed Australia for the Crown in 1870, the British government started to colonise the fifth continent. Since then, Australia has been named the ‘lucky’ country, even though it was first used as a penal colony for misfits from the United Kingdom. But their plight is nothing compared with the fate of the indigenous population, the Aboriginals, of which around one million lived in their own country at the time of the British invasion.

Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, who has worked since 1962 in the UK, has returned to his homeland to see the current plight of the earth loving Aboriginals, who are the victims of an ongoing genocide. UTOPIA takes its name from an aboriginal village of the same name in the Northern Territories, where Pilger’s peripatetic journey begins combining widescreen visuals with close-up interviews of locals and archive footage. We see shacks and other provisional housing, and the house of the government rep, which has no less than 18 ventilators, keeping the heat at bay. These living (?) conditions for Aboriginals are repeated throughout the film: the lack of functioning toilets and other sanitary installations, overcrowding, water pumps outside the buildings, asbestos poisoning, lack of basic health care – the list is endless. No wonder that most of the children suffer from deafness and blindness – they are permanently dehydrated, loosing 30% of their body fluid. A third of the aboriginals die before they reach the age of 45.

The abuse of the Aboriginals by countless governments seems endless and provides a startling contrast to the plush lives of ordinary citizens pictured: Prime Minister Barton stated in 1901 that the equality act would only include the white and British citizen. Sterilisation was another way to reduce the indigenous population, since the white population believed “that they themselves were civilised –but they are not”. In the 60s TV programs proclaimed “that they have to show that they want to be one of us”, and talking about the poverty of the Aboriginals the announcer’s voice proclaimed “That’s what they want”. (‘They’ having replaced the original names of the victims). Thousands of children were literally stolen from parents, and given to white families for ‘integration’. And today’s prisons are overcrowded with victims of the race injustice, the perpetrators speak freely of “stacking and racking” and “warehousing”.

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Death in police custody is not a rarity, the case of Eddie Murray, who died in prison in 1987 of a broken sternum is only an exception in so far that he was the son of Arthur Murray, who led a strike of Aboriginal workers in the early 60s, when the conditions were not unlike slave labour. He is rightly convinced that the death of his son was a revenge act. In 2006  the TV show “Lateline”  interviewed a “frightened” youth worker (his face blacked out), who claimed that Aboriginals were using their children as sex slaves. Police action was swift, but it turned out that the “whistleblower” was Greg Andrews, working for the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. This case is particularly ironic, since white men have sexually abused Aboriginal women and children for a century without prosecution.

Perhaps symbolic for the continuous plight of the Aboriginals is Rottnest: a former concentration camp (minus gas chambers) it is today a luxury Spa, costing 240 Australian Dollar per night. The roads are build over the mass graves of the Aboriginal prisoners. Pilger visits Rottness with one of the survivors, who shows us that 51 prisoners lived in the space of one hotel room. The prisoners had to build the gallows for their own people.

Aboriginals are “Refugees in their own country”, and as long as the Australian Government is unwilling to pay any compensation and better their living conditions, it should be treated like the Apartheid regime of South Africa: with economic sanctions.

The “lucky” country? More likely the “lying one”.  This well-paced and immersive documentary is well worth watching both from an historical viewpoint and a cinematic one.  AS

UTOPIA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE ACROSS THE UK FROM FRIDAY, 15TH NOVEMBER 2013

Seduced and Abandoned (2013)

Writer/director: James Toback.          With Alec Baldwin

98min  Doc   US

The title says it all: James Toback’s doc filmed during 2012 in Cannes, tantalises us with talk of cinema, art, death and the glamour of it all. In reality it offers little insight into the nuts and bolts of film financing despite Baldwin’s flirty poolside badinage with film financiers as he prepares to fund a ‘soft porn film’ featuring himself and Neave Campbell.

But as a peek inside the psyches of the powers that be it’s highly entertaining stuff; chock-full with witty interviews and footage of luminaries such as Roman Polanski, Bernardo Bertolucci, Martin Scorsese, James Caan and Francis Ford Coppola who talk candidly and amusingly about the bad times and the good times on their road to success as they reach the twilight zone. Voyeuristic, funny and fascinating – a must-see for all film fanatics MT

SEDUCED AND ABANDONED IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8TH NOVEMBER 2013

How to Survive a Plague (2013)

Director: David France        Writers: David France, T Woody Richman, Tyler Walk

110min  US Documentary

You may be wondering why a documentary on AIDS should suddenly be newsworthy. The reason is that  AIDS campaigner and debut director, David France’s moving HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE has the benefit of hindsight reflecting, as it does, on thirties years of suffering since the crisis originally hit the international headlines with the news that AIDS posed a potential death sentence on every sufferer.

At that time there was scant medical research on the disease and  hardly any treatments available. Furthermore, no US Government prevention scheme was in place to protect the public.  Then gradually a groundswell of those affected harnessed their resentment and rose up to form Act-Up (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). They retaliated against the system with specialised ad campaigns lambasting public figures from the New York Mayor (Koch) to religious leaders such as the Catholic head of Church, Cardinal O’Connor.

David France’s film makes grim viewing not only because of its subject matter but also due to an almost exclusive use of grainy archive footage showing how the New York gay community formed Act-Up and charting how it campaigned against the indifference and negativity of the powers that be, and, in particularly, the hostile administration of Ronald Reagan.  But as a documentary it is informative and well-put-together, wielding considerable clout in conveying the message largely through its use of the belligerent army of sufferers themselves who speak with anger and conviction (that is more convincing and heartfelt than any potential actor), and who were eventually able to change government policy regarding medical research so that by the mid nineties remedial care finally started to make an impact on this terrible epidemic. HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is a worthwhile and immersive guide to the history of AIDS activism. MT

IN CINEMAS FROM 8 NOVEMBER 2013

 

More Than Honey (2012) Out on DVD/Blu

Director: Markus Imhoof           Writers: Markus Imhoof and Kerstin Hoppenhaus

95min    US Documentary

Bees are our future but the future’s not bright according to this important documentary that examines why our favourite buzzing insects are gradually being decimated by a killer disease: ‘colony collapse disorder’.

Pollination is key to our food production and bees pollinate most of our plants. Markus Imhoof shows, with a fascinating array of  cameras, how these complex creatures observe stylised rituals as they go about their business. The hive has the same level of activity as a small industrial town; the bees conducting a minutiae of tasks and observing a strict pecking-order that’s both intriguing and frightening.

Narrated by the melliflous tones of John Hurt, this visually alarming doc switches between a traditional German bee-keeper and the highly advanced and artificial Californian methods showing how, for some inexplicable reason, these insect are being exterminated by an alien parasite.  Imhoof remarks that bees are much the same as humans with their primary motivations of fear and greed but what is causing the bees to die?  Medication, stress, electromagnetic forces?  Whatever it is, More Than Honey is a buzz-worthy wake-up call that we should all heed before it’s too late. Scary! MT

NARRATED BY JOHN HURT MORE THAN HONEY IS OUT ON DVD/BLU FROM THE 21 OCTOBER 2013

Tropicália (2012)

Director:  Marcelo Machado

Script:     Vaughn Glover, Marcelo Machado, Di Moretti
Producer:  Paula Cosenza, Denise Gomez
Cast:  Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze, Arnaldo Dias, Sergio Dias, Gal Costa, Glauber Rocha, Jorge Ben, Rogerio Duprat, Rita Lee

Bra/USA/UK   87mins    2012    Music Doc

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When done right, music and film will forever make perfect bedfellows. Concerning Brazil, 1967-1969, but a music documentary about far more than just another band or style, here the music was a vehicle for something much bigger.

‘Tropicália’ was the name attributed to a Liberalist artistic movement that came into being in 1967, in reaction to the dictatorship that came into force in 1964. Encompassing not only music but poetry theatre and film, it was a movement created by the young, fusing together traditional Folk with Rock and Roll, Pop, foreign influences and the avant-garde. It hit the choked populace of martial Brazil like a blast of oxygen. It spoke of freedom; freedom of thought and freedom of expression which to a Brazilian in the late Sixties was either stunningly, bravely, liberatingly beautiful, or a ridiculously dangerous arrestable offence.

Without knowing a great deal of the circumstances prevailing in Brazil at the time, either politically or indeed, musically, some viewers may not grasp the full import of what it is they are watching.  It’s difficult in this day and age to comprehend the notion of a song capable of changing the course of history, or influencing an entire country. What Rodriguez managed in total ignorance in Apartheid South Africa, Caetano et al did with full cognizance in Brazil.

This film chooses to concentrate more on the music aspect of the movement, rather than the theatre and poetry, although there is some film. It follows the stories of the main protagonists of the music and how their influence spread extraordinarily quickly and widely through the nascent medium of television; it’s wonderful that so much original footage, both tape and film, still exists of the singers back when it was all going down.

Filmmaker Machado has also gone to great lengths to make what few grainy black and white still photographs survive of some of the events of the time interesting using various tricks, but this is more than compensated for by the amazing music from the likes of Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso.

Tropicália explores what the movement was and what the music signified to the people of Brazil, culminating in an album of the films title, employing all the singers and songwriters of the day creating what was effectively, a political manifesto in song. How Rock n Roll is that? Dynamite.

TROPICALIA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 5TH JULY AT CURZON SOHO PLUS PANEL DISCUSSION AND RICH MIX ON SUNDAY, 7TH JULY 2013

 

Village at the End of the World (2012)

Directors: Sarah Gavron and David Katznelson

Producer: Al Morrow

76min        UK/Denmark/Greenland   2012

Lars is a tall, good-looking 17-year-old: he has the latest Nike trainers, a tee-shirt emblazoned “Will fuck on first date” and 200 friends on Facebook. But Lars doesn’t live in London or any urban centre; he eats seal meat with a knife and is one of only 59 people living in a remote part of Northern Greenland where there are no girls his own age.

True to his Shamen ancestors and beliefs, if he gets angry or frustrated he makes a ‘Tupilat’ out of sealskin to ward off evil spirits.  Ilannguaq, the only immigrant here was attracted by online dating and ended up dealing with the sewerage. He now feels part of this community and has set up a thriving tourism link with neighbouring countries.

Niaqornat, Northern Greenland is a hostile but ravishingly beautiful lunar landscape, where fish and seal blood stain the snowy beaches visceral red and the inhabitants hunt as a matter of survival, toiling cheerfully to an ambient sound of howling dogs and bitter winds.

And they’re a happy breed these Greenlanders and a handsome one too with their dark looks and almond eyes. There’s something enviable about their apparent good mental health attributable to the fact that everyone here has a role and respects it. Fellow Danes, who still hold sway over this part of the World and who visit on the cruiseships to buy trinkets and marvel: “Nothing has changed here since the old days”. But any condescension towards the islanders swiftly evaporates when we spend some time with them: these are fierce, traditional hunters who kill AND have shrewd 21st century business brains. For mod cons they rely on the visit of the Royal Arctic supply ship but the ice is getting thinner with each passing year.

Told through the eyes of four inhabitants: Lars, the teenager; Karl, the hunter; Ilannguaq, the outside; and Annie, the oldest woman: Sarah Gavron’s documentary starts in Summer 2009 and takes us through a year in the life Niaqornat where’s everyone is related staring the surname ‘Kruse’.  Colourful wooden houses shelter them from the icy blasts but connect them to the rest of the world via satellite, internet and telephone, remarkably.

There is a local school where the kids have ambitions to be pilots and shopkeepers, although there is only one shop and no definitely no ‘Starbucks’.  According to Annie, Brigitte Bardot is the nemesis of these people whose survival depends on traditional fishing and hunting and, thanks to Ilannguaq, craft sales to visiting cruise-ships. The plan to get a fish factory back into production is not going to be easy but for Kark Kruse, head of the village, harpooning a Polar Bear and dealing with Danish Health and Safety execs are all in a day’s work. The villagers don’t want to lose their community but to be self-sufficient. And their fight very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world.

And it’s a tough story to tell: Greenlandic is a complex visual language based on the weather which naturally made the 3-year shoot a difficult one but what shines through is a fabulous human interest story: David Katznelson’s striking visuals help us live it like a native. With close-up shots on a hand-held digital camera it feels like we’re actually part of the action, from riding the fishing boat and butchering a whale to sharing an arctic sunset or the welcome reappearance of the sun on the first day of Spring.MT

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 10TH MAY 2013 IN SELECTED CINEMAS

 

The Summit (2012)

Director/Prod  Nick Ryan    Screenplay: Mark Monroe   Cinematography: Robbie Ryan

95min UK documentary

Documentary charting how 11 climbers died during the descent from K2

Climbing Everest is an achievement that you can brag about over dinner, according to a professional mountaineer, but climbing K2 is for the hardened professionals and not to be taken lightly, as 11 climbers discovered, to their chagrin, during one descent in Nick Ryan’s fearless documentary.  000018_17055_TheSummit_still5_TheSummit__byRobbieRyan_2012-11-24_07-58-02AM copy

One in four climbers who reach the summit of Pakistan’s K2 will die on the descent and Nick Ryan shows us how bravado and relief can bring about a sense of disorientation and slackening of safety routines that can often prove fatal. This is what happened to a group of climbers who set out on the expedition in the Summer of 2008.  Of the 18 that started out only 11 would survive.  Here Nick Ryan and his crew followed in their footsteps to find out what exactly happened that fateful climb.

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What starts as a jumbled affair of meeting the various teams of climbers, for there were several parties and nationalities on the mountain that July, gradually falls in to place as the different teams gather to formulate strategy.  That we know the ending right from the start, doesn’t detract from the suspense and occasional moments of terror at the shear skill of some of the hair-raising shots and angles.  And despite the slightly jumbled narrative thread, this remains a gripping and ultimately moving piece of filmmaking whose horrors will stay with you for quite some time after you leave the cinema.  MT

 

 

 

 

 

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012)

Dir: David Gelb | Cast: Jiro One, Yoshikazu One, Masuhiro Yamamoto,  Daisuke Nakazawa, Hachiro Mizutani, Hiroki Fujita, Toichiro Iida, Akihiro Oyama, Shizuo Oyama | Doc 82′

For any self-professed sushi nut, this film is a must see. Jiro One is a legend in his own lifetime; a man devoted to the creation and serving of sushi for 75 years from the basement of a faceless Tokyo office building in a restaurant that only seats ten. The sushi is served up in specific order and you are expected to demolish it piece by piece, under his rather intimidating gaze in about 15minutes flat, shelling-out something like £300 for the privilege. That makes this one of the most expensive restaurants in the world.

What is remarkable though is the skill, dedication and thought that has gone into a meal. And the rest of the world has recognised this: Jiro’s tiny, unassuming Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi bar has garnered all three Michelin Stars and, as the makers of this film attest, global recognition.

Jiro One is one of the old school; a believer in hard work, total commitment and dedication to a chosen field, whatever it may be. To serve an apprenticeship under Jiro is to spend ten years of dedicated to the most gruelling, repetitive, thankless work in the kitchen, learning the trade. And all this against the prevailing tide of today’s theme of growing fat doing the minimum with little application or indeed mastery in any field, all the while aspiring to coin maximum cash.

 

The title alludes to Jiro as a young man dreaming of making not just sushi but the best sushi. This film illustrates how Jiro never believes he has arrived, and that there is always room for improvement be it in the choice of the fish, the preparation of the rice, or the serving of the sushi. In doing so it opens out the film as an allegory or lesson in life and how best to live it. But also demonstrates how hard it must be for his sons to live under the shadow of a man who has truly reached the pinnacle of his profession, even if he himself doesn’t see it as so.

Food and film often make for successful lovers and any gourmand who truly appreciates the subtleties and depth of haute cuisine will relish this one. Make sure to eat beforehand or you will find yourself scrambling to a sushi bar straight after, only to feel all but affronted that it isn’t Jiro’s hand that serves up a concerto in seafood for, hereafter, nothing else will do. AT

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