Ranging across the vast Eurasian landmass, director Uldis Brauns and his crew captured extraordinary vignettes of everyday life, both big and small
With Adam Curtis’s ordeal-montage Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone still streaming on BBC iPlayer, and all of us goggling at his extraordinary mosaic of TV news clips about the day-to-day agony of post-Soviet Russia in psychological freefall, now is maybe the time to experience that work’s polar opposite.
This 1967 film, made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the October revolution, is an archival classic from the Latvian director Uldis Brauns and screenwriter Herz Frank: an amazingly audacious attempt at documenting the ordinary lives to be seen all across the vast Eurasian landmass of the Soviet Union, whose population was then 235 million. (The equivalent total figure for the ex-Soviet states now is about 297 million.) This film is ideological of course, celebrating everyone’s harmonious coexistence under communism,...
With Adam Curtis’s ordeal-montage Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone still streaming on BBC iPlayer, and all of us goggling at his extraordinary mosaic of TV news clips about the day-to-day agony of post-Soviet Russia in psychological freefall, now is maybe the time to experience that work’s polar opposite.
This 1967 film, made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the October revolution, is an archival classic from the Latvian director Uldis Brauns and screenwriter Herz Frank: an amazingly audacious attempt at documenting the ordinary lives to be seen all across the vast Eurasian landmass of the Soviet Union, whose population was then 235 million. (The equivalent total figure for the ex-Soviet states now is about 297 million.) This film is ideological of course, celebrating everyone’s harmonious coexistence under communism,...
- 12/12/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
She was the first woman to head an A-list festival.
Erika de Hadeln, the first woman to head up an A-category film festival, has died at the age of 77 after a long illness.
She founded the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival (now known as Visions du Réel) in Switzerland with her Swiss husband Moritz in 1969. de Hadeln oversaw the festival organisation and programmed the selection with her husband who served as director of the festival until 1979. de Hadeln took over at the helm in 1981 to 1993.
It was during these 25 years in Nyon she worked with many leading documentary filmmakers such as Joris Ivens,...
Erika de Hadeln, the first woman to head up an A-category film festival, has died at the age of 77 after a long illness.
She founded the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival (now known as Visions du Réel) in Switzerland with her Swiss husband Moritz in 1969. de Hadeln oversaw the festival organisation and programmed the selection with her husband who served as director of the festival until 1979. de Hadeln took over at the helm in 1981 to 1993.
It was during these 25 years in Nyon she worked with many leading documentary filmmakers such as Joris Ivens,...
- 12/20/2018
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
According to local filmmakers, the recent suppression of documentary Beyond The Fear is just one episode in a quickening erosion of artistic freedom in Israel.
As Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre began to roll on the opening night of the Jerusalem Film Festival in the picturesque Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre in early July, another screening was kicking off just metres above the spectators’ heads.
On a terrace overlooking the event, some 50 film-makers and producers had gathered for a protest screening of Maria Kravchenko and the late Herz Frank’s Beyond The Fear.
They included The Kindergarten Teacher director Nadav Lapid; Keren Yedaya, who won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her debut work Or; Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, whose credits include the award-winning The Law In These Parts; and Shlomi Elkabetz, co-director of the Golden Globe-nominated Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in May 2014 and went on to win best film at...
As Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre began to roll on the opening night of the Jerusalem Film Festival in the picturesque Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre in early July, another screening was kicking off just metres above the spectators’ heads.
On a terrace overlooking the event, some 50 film-makers and producers had gathered for a protest screening of Maria Kravchenko and the late Herz Frank’s Beyond The Fear.
They included The Kindergarten Teacher director Nadav Lapid; Keren Yedaya, who won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her debut work Or; Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, whose credits include the award-winning The Law In These Parts; and Shlomi Elkabetz, co-director of the Golden Globe-nominated Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in May 2014 and went on to win best film at...
- 7/24/2015
- ScreenDaily
Titles in the Feature and Documentary Film competitions unveiled.Scroll down for full list
The programme of Israeli films at the 35th Jerusalem Film Festival (July 9-19) has been revealed, including Feature and Documentary Film competitions.
The winner of the Haggiag Competition for Isreali Feature Films will take home the biggest prize in any Israeli film competition: $32,000 (120,000 Nis).
Prizes are also awarded for best first feature, actor, actress, cinematography, editing, screenplay, music and the audience choice award, as well as the Van Leer Competition for Israeli Documentary Films.
Other competitions include the International Spirit of Freedom competition and the Jewish Experience competition.
The festival will feature more than 200 Israeli and international films.
Full line-up
Synopses provided by Jerusalem Film Festival
Haggiag Competition for Israeli Feature Films
Tikkun (dir. Avishai Sivan; pro. Ronen Ben-Tal, Avishai Sivan, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery)
Cast: Aharon Traitel, Khalifa Natour, Riki Blich, Gur Sheinberg
Haim-Aharon, a Hassidic yeshiva student, collapses and loses...
The programme of Israeli films at the 35th Jerusalem Film Festival (July 9-19) has been revealed, including Feature and Documentary Film competitions.
The winner of the Haggiag Competition for Isreali Feature Films will take home the biggest prize in any Israeli film competition: $32,000 (120,000 Nis).
Prizes are also awarded for best first feature, actor, actress, cinematography, editing, screenplay, music and the audience choice award, as well as the Van Leer Competition for Israeli Documentary Films.
Other competitions include the International Spirit of Freedom competition and the Jewish Experience competition.
The festival will feature more than 200 Israeli and international films.
Full line-up
Synopses provided by Jerusalem Film Festival
Haggiag Competition for Israeli Feature Films
Tikkun (dir. Avishai Sivan; pro. Ronen Ben-Tal, Avishai Sivan, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery)
Cast: Aharon Traitel, Khalifa Natour, Riki Blich, Gur Sheinberg
Haim-Aharon, a Hassidic yeshiva student, collapses and loses...
- 7/1/2015
- ScreenDaily
Minister for Culture and Sport Miri Regev threatened to cut off subsidies if the documentary was not pulled.
In a conflict that some are already calling The Clash of the Regevs, the new Minister for Culture and Sport, Miri Regev, told the director of the Jerusalem Film Festival, Noa Regev (no relation) that she will cut off all of the event’s subsidies unless a documentary entitled Beyond the Fear is taken off the program.
Miri Regev, a former Army censor and a leader of the victorious Likud party which swept recent elections, had already created furor in the media when she first announced that she will not hesitate to clamp down any attempt by artists of any kind to slander the present Israeli policies. Harshly criticized after she threatened to deprive an Arab theatre troupe of all financial assistance because it refused to take its productions on tour through the West Bank territories (that conflict was settled...
In a conflict that some are already calling The Clash of the Regevs, the new Minister for Culture and Sport, Miri Regev, told the director of the Jerusalem Film Festival, Noa Regev (no relation) that she will cut off all of the event’s subsidies unless a documentary entitled Beyond the Fear is taken off the program.
Miri Regev, a former Army censor and a leader of the victorious Likud party which swept recent elections, had already created furor in the media when she first announced that she will not hesitate to clamp down any attempt by artists of any kind to slander the present Israeli policies. Harshly criticized after she threatened to deprive an Arab theatre troupe of all financial assistance because it refused to take its productions on tour through the West Bank territories (that conflict was settled...
- 6/18/2015
- by dfainaru@netvision.net.il (Edna Fainaru)
- ScreenDaily
Edinburgh exhibitor Filmhouse is to tour a season of films about childhood across the UK, curated by documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins.
The season will comprise 17 films about childhood (see below for full list).
Most of the titles in the season are featured in Cousins’ documentary A Story of Children and Film, which premiered at Cannes last year.
The April-June tour will take in London, Belfast, Cardiff, Nottingham, Glasgow, Brighton, Bristol and Sheffield among other cities.
The season is managed by Filmhouse, which has also licensed VoD rights to a number of the titles.
The project is backed by the BFI’s Programming Development Fund. Adam Dawtrey and Mary Bell, who also produced A Story of Children and Film, are producers.
The full list of titles screening in the Cinema of Childhood season are:
• “Willow and Wind” (Bid-o Baad). Iran, Japan, 1999. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 77 mins. A boy breaks a school window, and must mend...
The season will comprise 17 films about childhood (see below for full list).
Most of the titles in the season are featured in Cousins’ documentary A Story of Children and Film, which premiered at Cannes last year.
The April-June tour will take in London, Belfast, Cardiff, Nottingham, Glasgow, Brighton, Bristol and Sheffield among other cities.
The season is managed by Filmhouse, which has also licensed VoD rights to a number of the titles.
The project is backed by the BFI’s Programming Development Fund. Adam Dawtrey and Mary Bell, who also produced A Story of Children and Film, are producers.
The full list of titles screening in the Cinema of Childhood season are:
• “Willow and Wind” (Bid-o Baad). Iran, Japan, 1999. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 77 mins. A boy breaks a school window, and must mend...
- 2/4/2014
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
The 6th Istanbul Documentary Days was blessed with an outstanding location for a documentary film festival: a park which has become a cause and a symbol of an urban uprising movement that has spread to the whole of the country. What makes it even more fantastic is that it was not meant to be so. It all happened naturally, so to speak.
In 2012, an announcement was made that there was a plan to turn Gezi Park, a small historical park in central Istanbul, into a shopping mall area. Activists for environmental as well urban rights launched a campaign to preserve the park. As work which would destroy the park began in the second half of May this year, a small group of activists set up tents in the park to stage a peaceful protest.
As the police reacted violently to push the protesters out of the park, tens of thousands...
In 2012, an announcement was made that there was a plan to turn Gezi Park, a small historical park in central Istanbul, into a shopping mall area. Activists for environmental as well urban rights launched a campaign to preserve the park. As work which would destroy the park began in the second half of May this year, a small group of activists set up tents in the park to stage a peaceful protest.
As the police reacted violently to push the protesters out of the park, tens of thousands...
- 7/22/2013
- by N. Buket Cengiz
- The Moving Arts Journal
Critic and director Mark Cousins is receiving rave reviews at Cannes for his inspirational film about cinema and childhood. He tells Charlotte Higgins why it's the decade of the cine-essay
You can tell a lot about Mark Cousins from his tattoos. The Edinburgh-based, Belfast-born presenter, critic and film-maker, whose richly poetic A Story of Children and Film has just premiered to five-star reviews at Cannes, has arms inscribed with words. There's "Forough" on his right. That's Forough Farrokhzad, "the first great Iranian film director," he says. "Her The House Is Black is one of the greatest movies ever made." On his left there's "Le Corbusier", the French architect; and "Eisenstein", the Russian director about whom he recently made a film while undertaking a three-day tramp through Mexico City.
Then, on the inside of his left arm, are the words "the oar and the winnowing fan". This is a reference to...
You can tell a lot about Mark Cousins from his tattoos. The Edinburgh-based, Belfast-born presenter, critic and film-maker, whose richly poetic A Story of Children and Film has just premiered to five-star reviews at Cannes, has arms inscribed with words. There's "Forough" on his right. That's Forough Farrokhzad, "the first great Iranian film director," he says. "Her The House Is Black is one of the greatest movies ever made." On his left there's "Le Corbusier", the French architect; and "Eisenstein", the Russian director about whom he recently made a film while undertaking a three-day tramp through Mexico City.
Then, on the inside of his left arm, are the words "the oar and the winnowing fan". This is a reference to...
- 5/20/2013
- by Charlotte Higgins
- The Guardian - Film News
This year the Riga International Film Festival ‘Arsenals’ has chosen to honour Latvian documentarist Herz Frank on the occasion of his 85th birthday. Sporting his signature knitted beret and Leica camera, Frank attended the opening of an exhibition on his life and work at Riga’s small but modern Film Museum, where he signed copies of his book, Turn Back on the Threshold (Uz sliekšņa atskaties, Kino Raksti Library).
Frank is a representative of the ‘Riga Style’, a poetic and observational approach to documentary. One of his most celebrated shorts is 10 Minutes Older (Vecāks par 10 minūtēm, 1978) which presents close-ups of children watching a puppet show. Although the film’s spectators never see the puppets, there is a far more interesting show in the childrens’ faces as they are affected by different emotions. Many years later, this film inspired two omnibus features, Ten Minutes Older: The Cello and Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet...
Frank is a representative of the ‘Riga Style’, a poetic and observational approach to documentary. One of his most celebrated shorts is 10 Minutes Older (Vecāks par 10 minūtēm, 1978) which presents close-ups of children watching a puppet show. Although the film’s spectators never see the puppets, there is a far more interesting show in the childrens’ faces as they are affected by different emotions. Many years later, this film inspired two omnibus features, Ten Minutes Older: The Cello and Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet...
- 9/13/2011
- by Alison Frank
- The Moving Arts Journal
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.