EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2018 DOCUMENTARY SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Wednesday October 31st, 2018

We announce the Documentary Special Screenings of the 26th edition of EnergaCAMERIMAGE Film Festival.

Battle of Hastings, The

The Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition is one of the world’s leading and fastest growing competitions for young international pianists. Every year most promising young pianists from all over the globe gather in Hastings for a week to test their skills and compete with each other in order to win a chance to perform concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and go on tour abroad. In 2015, director Mike Figgis was invited to film a documentary of the weekly Competition to show the entire process of it, also from behind the scenes.

Director: Mike Figgis
Cinematographers: Mike Figgis, Geoff Searle
Produced by: Red Mullet
Country and year: UK, 2017

Bergman: A Year in a Life

In 1957, Ingmar Bergman secured his place in the cinematic pantheon. He had just released two of his masterpieces: The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Jane Magnusson’s film, which premiered at Cannes, shows this crucial period from behind the scenes. The portrait she created – not just another over-sentimentalised picture praising Bergman – explores the mythomania, despotism and egoism that cast a long shadow over his well-deserved recognition and many awards.

Original title: Bergman - ett år, ett liv
Polish title: Bergman - Rok z życia
Director: Jane Magnusson
Cinematographer: Emil Klang
Produced by: B-Reel Films
Polish distributor: Stowarzyszenie Nowe Horyzonty - New Horizons Association
Country and year: Sweden, Norway, 2018

Blue Scallies

Cezary Grzesiuk had been filming the lives of Ruch Chorzów supporters for a decade (2008–2017). Within this time period, the club and its fans had their ups and downs: from being the country’s second-best team to getting relegated from Ekstraklasa (Poland’s top league). Many years of the filmmaker’s work resulted in a portrait of the Polish supporters’ community groups. We observe them not from the sideline, hidden behind the backs of policemen, but from the very centre of the stadium crowd. The director penetrates different supporters’ groups, giving voice to fans and fanatics alike while trying to define what a contemporary football fan is.

Original title: Niebieskie chachary
Director: Cezary Grzesiuk
Cinematographers: Cezary Grzesiuk, Paweł Labe, Jan Mamoń, Tomasz Szołtys
Produced by: Blue Dream Film
Country and year: Poland, 2018

Born in Gambia

Hassan is a child living on the streets of the Gambia. His brother was accused of witchcraft and burned alive in front of him. Hassan runs away to avoid a similar fate after his stepfather tells him the devil is inside of him. The boy carries around a tape recorder with which he tells us about his life and those of other children in this beautiful country.

Director: Natxo Leuza Fernandez
Cinematographer: Natxo Leuza Fernandez
Produced by: Ignacio Leuza Fernández
Country and year: Spain, 2018

Ceres

Ceres tells the story of four children who are living on remote farms in the southwest of the Netherlands. They want to live like their parents according to tradition of generations and learn the profession of their ancestors from a very young age by observing the seasons going by, crops sowing and harvesting, and animals who are born and slaughtered. As they reach the early years of puberty, the outside world begins to intrude on their universe and they have more and more doubts about their choice. Ceres is an intimate story about life in isolation, dreams and most of all growing up that will move every viewer.

Director: Janet van den Brand
Cinematographer: Timothy Wennekes
Produced by: Diplodokus
Country and year: Belgium, Netherlands, 2018

Concerto for Two

Jerzy Maksymiuk is a conductor, a composer, and a pianist. At the age of 80, he could be considered by many to be excessively active – he never slows down and is demanding of himself and others. The film depicts him at work with outstanding musicians and orchestras, as well as while in the process of composing his music. We also get to know the artist who is tremendously private. This second portrait, full of colourful episodes and little weaknesses illustrates one of the most extreme versions of the artist’s fate, and proves that an outstanding talent often entails loneliness in the ordinary world. His wife, Ewa, is a character of equal importance. Although not sharing his gift, she is absolutely indispensable for him in terms of his art and existence. This is a story of great passion and talent, that shows an even greater price is paid for that talent.

Polish title: Koncert na dwoje
Director: Tomasz Drozdowicz
Cinematographer: Andrzej Wojciechowski
Produced by: Studio Filmowe AUTOGRAF
Country and year: Poland, 2018

Deminer, The

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Fakhir, a father of eight and a major in the Iraq armed forces, goes on a mission to disarm the thousands of mines that have been laid across Mosul. Shown via home movie footage shot by his fellow troops and discovered by his son years later, the videos show how Fakhir manages to disarm thousands of mines with just a simple knife and a pair of wire clippers. Despite many near misses, Fakhir knows he cannot stop while there are still mines in the city – if he doesn’t continue, innocent people will pay the ultimate price.

Director: Hogir Hirori, Shinwar Kamal
Cinematographers: Firas Bakrmani, Shinwar Kamal, Erik Vallsten
Produced by: Lolav Media
Country and year: Sweden, 2017

Ex-Shaman

The Paiter Surui, a previously uncontacted tribe living in the Amazon has been encroached by modernity since their first contact with a white man in 1969. Smartphones, electricity, gas tanks, guns, and Facebook have replaced traditional forms of life. In the midst of this new world, an ex-shaman who was forced into evangelical Christianity, struggles to cure the suffering people of his village, and faces the wrath of the spirits of the forest, who are upset he has abandoned them.

Original title: Ex-pajé
Polish title: Eks-szaman
Director: Luiz Bolognesi
Cinematographer: Pedro J. Marquez
Produced by: Buriti Filmes, Gullane,
Country and year: Brazil, 2018

Faces Places

She is Agnès Varda, a French photographer and film director, laureate of the Honorary Oscar® for lifetime achievements. He is a famous French photographer and graffiti artist, hiding behind the initials of JR. She is almost 90, he is 33. She worked with Godard, he creates enormous murals. What brings them together is their love for paintings. They met in 2015 and instantly decided to make a film together. For the location, they chose a remote area in one of the French provinces, and as their means of transport, they opted for an ancient van, transformed into a camera. The result was a documental road movie – a portrait of the slowly vanishing French hinterlands and their residents.

Original title: Visages villages
Polish title: Twarze, plaże
Directors: JR, Agnès Varda
Cinematographers: Oberto De Angelis, Claire Duguet, Julia Fabry, Nicolas Guicheteau, Romain Le Bonniec, Raphael Minnesota, Valentin Vignet
Produced by: Cohen Media Group
Polish distributor: Against Gravity Sp. z o.o.
Country and year: France, 2017

I Grew Up As You Slept

Out of the 30 students that graduated from Karalina’s class at a Minsk conservatory, only one chose to remain in the country. The totalitarian Belarus is gradually becoming deserted, and well-educated people are migrating in droves to the furthest reaches of the world in search of happiness, better career opportunities and a dignified life. I Grew Up As You Slept is a story about emigration, nostalgia and longing for one’s family, friends and country. Karalina’s film journey, during which she visits her grandmother, who lives in the depopulated Belarusian village of Achaniany, is primarily a journey through time to the land of childhood and memories.

Polish title: Urosłam kiedy spałaś
Director: Marcin Sauter
Cinematographer: Marcin Sauter
Produced by: Fundacja Bydgoska Kronika Filmowa
Country and year: Poland, 2018

Love Express. The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk

A documentary celebrating the work of Walerian Borowczyk, a director of unparalleled sensitivity, revered in the 1970s, who was later labelled as a maker of erotic movies. Love Express features interviews with his closest collaborators, filmmakers and leading intellectuals who put his work into perspective, including Terry Gilliam, Neil Jordan, Andrzej Wajda and many others. It offers a rare insight into Borowczyk’s work and poses questions about artistic freedom. This unique artistic chronicle sheds light on his professional philosophy and artistic achievements and investigates his transition from creating a cutting-edge works to being labelled as an erotic filmmaker.

Polish title: Love Express. Przypadek Waleriana Borowczyka
Director: Kuba Mikurda
Cinematographers: Radosław Ładczuk, Piotr Stasik
Produced by: CoLab Pictures, Maagiline Masin, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza, Otter Films, HBO Europe
Polish distributor: HBO Polska Sp. z o.o.
Country and year: Poland, Estonia, 2018

Moving Pictures: Filmmakers and the Art of Cinematography

Moving Pictures: Filmmakers and the Art of Cinematography takes viewers on a rare journey of personal, inspiring stories exploring the art of the moving image from celebrated cinematographers like Roger Deakins, Vittorio Storaro,
Rachel Morrison, Christopher Doyle, Rodrigo Prieto, Matthew Libatique, Mahmoud Kalari and more. Compiled of intimate, insightful conversations from some of the greatest filmmakers of our time, this rare documentary explores
the artists behind the world's cinematic treasures.

Director: Sophie Kill
Country and year: Germany, 2018

Next Guardian, The

The contrasting dreams of two generations clash within the microcosm of an ancient Buddhist monastery in Bhutan, when Gyembo, an ordinary teenager, is chosen as the next guardian of the family monastery by his father.

Director: Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó
Cinematographer: Arun Bhattarai
Produced by: Éclipse Film
Country and year: Hungary, Netherlands, 2017

Photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond

“What makes a simple photo a good one?” asked Vilmos Zsigmond on the opening night of his first photography exhibition. The Oscar®-winning cinematographer guides us through his life by sharing his most intimate photographs, kept as a secret diary for years. On this unique, last journey of his life, we get to know the man behind the camera and further understand who Vilmos Zsigmond really was as a human being and the sources of his limitless inspiration.

Original title: Fényképezte Zsigmond Vilmos
Director: Noémi Veronika Szakonyi
Cinematographers: Kristóf Becsey, Zoltán Lovasi, Iván Márk, Ferenc Németh, András Táborosi
Produced by: SPARKS Camera & Lighting
Country and year: Hungary, 2018

Playing Men

In a time that may or may not be ours, men play somewhere by the Mediterranean. While they may seem deadly serious, there is an air of joy about them. Wrestling, rolling a wheel of cheese through village streets, or rapidly reciting correct numbers are occupations of the highest importance. The director of the film captures everything with a light earnestness until he hits a creative block. To continue, he needs to rethink the rules of the game.

Polish title: Zabawy mężczyzn
Director: Matjaž Ivanišin
Cinematographer: Gregor Božič
Produced by: Nosorogi
Country and year: Slovenia, Croatia, 2017

Thanks Jimi

The film Thanks Jimi is about the joy of creating positive energy within a united and diverse community. This is shown with the example of a guitar festival, celebrated for 16 years in Wrocław, and its purpose is to beat a Guinness World Record. Thousands of guitarists, led by Leszek Cichoński, play Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix. This time, they are also celebrating the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining its independence.

Director: Krzysztof Pulkowski
Cinematographer: Krzysztof Pulkowski
Produced by: PASSION Krzysztof Pulkowski
Country and year: Poland, 2018

Village of Swimming Cows

Three ecologically aware Berliners spend their holidays looking for places where people live close to nature. They travel to the countryside in Podlasie, where they rent an old wooden house from a dairy farmer. The Berliners meditate, pray to the Moon, take naked baths using water from a nearby well, and eat vegetables found in trash. To the locals, they are considerably more exotic than the people they know from TV. Will the communication barrier and huge cultural differences between the neo-hippies and farmers prevent their mutual understanding?

Polish title: Wieś pływających krów
Director: Katrzyna Trzaska
Cinematographer: Andrzej Wojciechowski
Produced by: ZYGIZAGA Robert Zygmuntowski
Polish distributor: Solopan Sp. z o.o.
Country and year: Poland, UK, 2018

Who Will Write Our History

In November 1940, a Oyneg Shabes band of Jewish journalists, scholars, and community leaders decided to fight back. This clandestine group vowed to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda, not with guns or fists, but with pen and paper. Who Will Write Our History mixes the writings of the Oyneg Shabes archive with new interviews, rarely seen footage, and dramatisations to transport us inside the Ghetto and the lives of these courageous resistance fighters. They defied their murderous enemy with the ultimate weapon – the truth – and risked everything so that their archive would survive the war, even if they did not.

Polish title: Kto napisze naszą historię
Director: Roberta Grossman
Cinematographer: Dyanna Taylor
Produced by: Katahdin Productions, Match&Spark
Country and year: USA, Poland, 2018

Wounded Healer, The

Criminologist Dr Dan Philipp has devoted his career to treating sexual offenders. This intense encounter with evil has not shaken his belief in the basic humanity of even the worst criminals. At 87, Dr Philipp travels to his native city of Aachen to attend a memorial ceremony for Gisela, his first love. Returning to Germany, he relives childhood experiences he repressed for decades that confront him with his choice to engage with the dark side of life.

Original title: HaMerappe HaPatzua
Director: Yochay Rosenberg
Cinematographer: Danor Glazer
Produced by: Ron Ofer Films
Country and year: Israel, 2018