Global Lens: the International Documentary Instructor: Michael Fox Tuesdays, 12:00-1:30Pm Sept. 22-Nov. 10, 2020 [email protected]
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Global Lens: The International Documentary Instructor: Michael Fox Tuesdays, 12:00-1:30pm Sept. 22-Nov. 10, 2020 [email protected] Foreign filmmakers speaking primarily to viewers in their own countries offer us a refreshing and occasionally jarring view of the world. In this course, we will explore a range of documentary approaches used by films from abroad and discuss strategies, aesthetics, and ethics. We will examine central aspects of nonfiction filmmaking, including the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject, the representation of reality, the properties of storytelling, the line between journalism and activism, and the interplay between advocacy and art. The instructor will email a letter each week with the link to the film(s) and more links to supplemental readings than those listed here. If you miss a class, a link to the video can be found in the Course Materials folder. Sept. 22 Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance Alanis Obomsawin (Canada, 1993, 119 min) the film: www.nfb.ca/film/kanehsatake_270_years_of_resistance/ This moving documentary on native rights, resistance and courage chronicles the 1990 fight by First Nations members to protect their burial grounds from a golf course expansion. One of the most acclaimed Indigenous directors in the world, Alanis Obomsawin came to cinema from performance and storytelling. Hired by the NFB as a consultant in 1967, she has created an extraordinary body of work—more than 50 films and counting—including landmark docs like Incident at Restigouche (1984) and Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993). The Abenaki director has received numerous international honors and in 2019 was named a Companion of the Order of Canada (its highest distinction). https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2019/10/15/alanis-obomsawin-an-overview-of-a-cinematic-legacy/ The original note from the 1993 Toronto Film Festival program: https://web.archive.org/web/20071012050904/http://www.filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layi d=44&csid1=83&navid=46 NFB (the comments are of interest): www.nfb.ca/film/kanehsatake_270_years_of_resistance/ filmmaker quotes and biographical info: http://femfilm.ca/director_search.php?director=alanis-obomsawin&lang=e 1987 feature story: http://povmagazine.com/articles/view/the-long-walk-of-alanis-obomsawin 2019 story: https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2019/10/15/alanis-obomsawin-an-overview-of-a-cinematic- legacy/ BAMPGA curator Kate Mackay’s note on the occasion of Alanis Obomsawin’s 2016 visit: https://bampfa.org/program/committed-cinema-alanis-obomsawin This 2002 essay is pretty academic, but the first two paragraphs offer a helpful perspective: www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/obomsawin/ Wikipedia has some interesting info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanehsatake:_270_Years_of_Resistance Immerse yourself in Obomsawin shorts and features: www.nfb.ca/directors/alanis-obomsawin/ Sept. 29 The Other Side of Everything Mila Turajlic (Serbia, 2017, 102 min) Amazon Prime https://smile.amazon.com/Other-Side-Everything-Srbijanka- Turajlić/dp/B07DP9YJJW/ref=sr_1_3?crid=11LWBXYWMRG6R&dchild=1&keywords=the+o ther+side+of+everything&qid=1594666036&sprefix=the+other+side+of+everything%2Caps%2 C223&sr=8-3 An apartment becomes a metaphor for both the former Yugoslavia and the region’s current political climate. In a space where past and present are in constant dialogue, we are introduced to the filmmaker’s mother, who has dedicated her life to political activism. The Other Side of Everything received the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary “for its textured cinematic language that artfully blends the historical with the personal.” The film also won an award at ZagrebDOX, where the jury said: "A film that fluently brings together a narrative of extreme opposites, combining the ordinary and the epic. Intimate scenes of a mother-daughter relationship play out against the backdrop of a turbulent history, in a country that continues to change. We admired the clear structure of a complex narrative, as well as the sensibility to capture great documentary moments.” Mila Turajlic, was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1979. Her first film, Cinema Komunisto (2010), also premiered at IDFA and screened at the S.F. International Film Festival. www.idfa.nl/en/film/f4b46c3d-9054-4a9a-a9c3-d3bc195c2c8f/cinema-komunisto Cinema Komunisto won the Gold Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival, where the jury wrote: “An exquisite matching of form and content. This film uses cinema as both a metaphor and a mechanism for the telling of unique national, cultural, and personal histories. Archival and contemporary footage are deftly interwoven to yield a result that is at once intimate and universal.” Turajlić is a founding member of Serbia’s association of documentary filmmakers, DOKSerbia, and produces Belgrade’s Magnificent 7 Festival of European Feature Documentary Film. “I wanted to use this very peculiar space as a microcosm for telling a wider story, because I felt that this story had never been told in the way I had lived it,” she says of The Other Side of Everything. “Everything I’ve ever seen about the breakup of Yugoslavia, the ’90s in Serbia, and what was happening in Serbia during all this time, never corresponded to what I had lived.” Director’s statement: www.othersideofeverything.com/story.html A short video interview with the filmmaker (with film clips): www.idfa.nl/en/article/97987/report-interview-met-mila-turajlic-regisseur-van-winnaar-the- other-side-of-everything?cookiesAccepted=1 Print interview: https://seventh-row.com/2017/09/27/mila-turajlic-other-side-everything/ Program note from ACT Human Rights Film Festival at Colorado State Univ.: Focusing on her mother, Srbijanka, a former professor at Belgrade University whose decades- long commitment to socially progressive causes would be an inspiration to any activist today, Mila Turajlic brings together personal memory and public history to quietly devastating effect. Set largely within Srbijanka’s home, which was partitioned by the Communist government decades ago and left in a state of internal division, this film explodes the literal and figurative walls that might otherwise contain its firebrand protagonist, giving her an opportunity to talk back to Serbian nationalists who have labeled her a “traitor” and to government officials who once subjected her to state surveillance. The Other Side of Everything keeps the past alive and reminds audiences that the hard-earned right to protest—to raise one’s voice against ruling forces—is essential to democracy. The U.S. distributor’s site has pull quotes from reviews: http://icarusfilms.com/if-others The film’s site has direct links to a slew of full reviews (and other information): https://www.othersideofeverything.com Oct. 6 Forever Heddy Honigmann (France, 2006, 95 min) Hoopla free, Amazon Prime $4 This little-seen film spirals outward from Paris’s Pere-Lachaise cemetery, final resting place of countless great composers, writers, painters, poets and other artists from around the world. A poignant meditation on the relationship between the living and the dead, and the immortal power of art. Heddy Honigmann (b.1951, Lima, Peru) studied biology and literature at the University of Lima. She left Peru in 1973, traveled throughout Mexico, Israel, Spain and France, and studied film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. She has received major awards and career honors including the Living Legend Award at IDFA, the Hot Docs Outstanding Achievement Award and the award for her Contribution to the Art of Documentary Filmmaking at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. She has lectured in master classes, seminars and workshops in Berlin, Rome, Beijing and the Netherlands. Filmography: www.imdb.com/name/nm0393322/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/movies/giving-voice-to-life-s-emotion-a-documentarian-s- calling.html?src=pm&auth=forgot-password&referring_pv_id=wWJAorLQJgtV3- 8AKmqw7Hh_&login=email&auth=login-email print interview: www.documentary.org/online-feature/memory-honigmanns-forever-explores- cinema-exile a very short excerpt from Honigmann’s onstage interview at the 2007 SF International FF: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWBYf7Je0AM Stuart Klawans’ review: www.thenation.com/article/archive/grave-thoughts/ Bonus film: O Amor Natural (Heddy Honigmann, 1996, 76 min) Brazilians’ relationship to the erotic poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and to their own sexuality. www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0FlvmEGdjo&t=372s Oct. 13 Softie Sam Soko (Kenya, 2020, 95 min) After years of fighting injustice in Kenya, political activist Boniface “Softie” Mwangi decides to run for political office. Softie received the Special Jury Award for Editing in the World Cinema Documentary competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Film website: www.softiethefilm.com Sam Soko is a director and producer based in Nairobi. His work on sociopolitical projects in music and film has allowed him to connect and work with artists around the world. He is co-founder of LBx Africa, a Kenyan production company that produced the 2018 Academy Award–nominated short fiction film Watu Wote. Softie is his first feature documentary. Oct. 20 Beloved Yaser Talebi (Iran, 2018, 54’) + Summa Andrei Kutsila (Belarus, 2018, 50’) Life as a herder is difficult and solitary, but 80-year-old Firouzeh loves the ever-changing nature, the hard life and her faithful cows. She hikes across the rugged landscape, hauls bundles of wood and still nimbly climbs trees. Firouzeh as she toils and tells the story of her life, with work and fate the dominant themes. When she was a girl, a marriage was arranged with an older man, with whom she had 11 children. Not one comes to visit her now. Spending the winter in the low-lying village, she tries to get closer to them while looking forward to another summer in the mountains with her cows. Beloved received the IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary, and went on to screen at the Berlin Int’l Film Festival, Istanbul Int’l Film Festival and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (Montana), among others.