Translated material
Optimists
The international documentary film festival “Flahertiana” has ended in Perm.
The festival received the melodious name “Flahertiana” after the father of the filming methodology aimed at long-term observation of people’s lives - the American Robert Flaherty.There are two or three documentary film festivals held around the world every week. Russia accounts for a very small part of them. All the more valuable is Flahertiana, whose competition program represents the “cream” of the latest documentary films. For us, this is the most representative panorama of documentary films of the “novel” variety. “The characters live part of their lives on the screen; directors formulate it according to the laws of drama”—this is the concept of the participating films.
Recognized, rising and potential stars come to the festival. Most are from Europe. It's interesting to know what they did before they had cameras and professional budgets. We identified a stage cleaner, a plumber, a teacher of German literature, a doctor, of course, journalists; only a few immediately took the documentary path. From their comfortable towns they are now rushing to the “mysterious Urals”, to the border of Europe and Asia. The mysterious Russian soul continues to be an inexhaustible source of magnetism. The authors bring to the festival not only films, but also their European thoughts about existence, which are in many ways different from ours. Here rationalism collides with romanticism. There are different interpretations of responsibility. Orthodoxy and Catholicism as cultural traditions, as it turns out, have different effects on the exploitation of real people in documentaries. Both the films and their interpretations are more than just educational.
This year the festival has greatly expanded its venue and audience. Evening screenings became a place of pilgrimage for people fascinated by the moving image. Spectators drag chairs from wherever they can, sit down in the aisles between the rows, and try to sit on the floor; after the screenings, they do not let the directors leave for an hour, plunging them into discussions on existential and everyday topics (film budgets, production nuances). For now - let's be realistic - this applies to small "museum" format cinemas, but it is felt that the festival is threatened with the status of a cult project on an all-Russian scale.
The program catered to the tastes of both gourmets and neophytes, presenting the public with bright characters and unexpected plot twists and turns. A suicide bomber from Sri Lanka fights for freedom (My Daughter is a Terrorist, directed by Beate Arnestad). A Parisian woman is fascinated by the functioning of the city's lost and found office and decides to conduct an experiment with her bag: will someone steal it under the gaze of a hidden camera? Will you be able to find the contents later? (“The Bazaar”, Jeanne Delafosse). Elderly Israelis who went through concentration camps gather at the cemetery to philosophize and also have a snack (“Cemetery Club,” Tali Shemekh). An Afghan youth tries to achieve refugee status in France and cries in despair (“My Dreams Don’t Lie,” Didier Cros). The owners of old Viennese shops part with illusions and family business (“Out of Time”, Harald Friedl). Young Bangladeshi immigrants are forced to leave England, where they grew up, and go home to get married (A Good Marriage Begins with Tears, Simon Chambers). A middle-aged American settles in a four-hundred-year-old oak tree to protect it from destruction (“Oak #419,” Robert Harding Pittman). These are not all the characters and stories, but, you see, it’s already a farce of universal proportions.
The Flahertiana Grand Prix went to the film “In Bondage in Kabul” (Belgium-France, director Dan Alexii). In order to film the lives of the last two Jews in Afghanistan, the director learned Farsi. (Before this, he learned Russian when he went to make a film in Chechnya.) In a dilapidated Kabul prayer house live two middle-aged people - Isaac and Zabulon. Isaac is rosy-cheeked and active, oozing with energy - he makes cognac from raisins and sells them illegally. Zabulon is immersed, it seems, in biblical indifference to reality, overturned into eternity. They do one thing - they protect what remains of the synagogue. And they make trouble like residents of a real communal apartment. In a strange way, they seem to be one whole, every second ready to be torn apart. In the metaphorical system of the film, the characters personify the unity of matter and spirit - so simple and so complex.
The Italian film “Olga and Time” (Manuele Cecconello) was awarded in the “Best Feature Film” category. The black-and-white canvas (precisely a canvas, as they wrote in the old days about an exquisite and precise screen image) slowly tells the story of a peasant woman named Olga, who herds cows and makes cheeses in a Piedmontese village. All alone. Her life is a daily ritual. The seemingly uncomplicated panning and static shots give viewers a physical sense of Olga's subjective time passing. And it flows over the time of day, regulated by the shepherd’s schedule. This movie seems disembodied. By awarding “Olga...”, the jury demonstrated impeccable artistic taste. And thus indicated the orientation of the festival to the highest aesthetic level.
Natal Meshchaninova's film "Herbarium" - about a beauty contest in a nursing home - received a special mention from the jury.
The winner of the short film competition was able to boast of spontaneous cheerfulness - the film “Tolya” by the Israeli Rodion Brodsky, a sketch about a Belarusian guest worker in Israel who tries to call his wife on March 8th. It would seem nothing special, but in the morning his dental bridge broke, so the act of telephone congratulations is associated with difficulties and tricks. Tolya demonstrates a Renaissance spirit of life. A discussion arose on the sidelines: to what extent does the director of “Tolya” record the escapades of the brave builder, and to what extent does he provoke and direct his hero, fitting him into half-imagined circumstances. To get to the truth in such cases, the more talented the film, the more difficult it is.
The Flahertians boldly brought the topics of these usual behind-the-scenes discussions to the forefront. The seminar “Philosophy of Document” was held for the first time. Philosophers (Oleg Aronson, Sergei Vorono), journalists, students, and directors took part. Sergei Vorono commented on the result: “...We thought about whether it was possible to document what exists inside each of us. How to remove excitement, thought, risk, honor? We posed a question to the directors in a provocative manner: if you can, show us...”
With the help of philosophers, Flahertiana set itself - both its future programs and potential participants - a very high bar. Sky-high.
Which is not surprising. The festival is headed by Pavel Pechenkin, a well-known documentary director within our borders. One of those people who like to get into the thick of people's destinies with a camera (35 mm film is a sign of serious intentions). And he doesn’t lose his presence of mind there. Pechenkin transferred his skill and healthy optimism from the film set to the festival stage. He formed a small but mobile (both in terms of organization and in artistic analytics) team. The general attitude is contagious. So much so that this year the contestants sang perfectly for the finale - they united in a choir and performed an ode to the health of “Flahertiana”.