DOCUMENTARY FEATURES COMPETITION 2016 LINE-UP!

Tuesday October 25th, 2016

We announce the line-up of the Documentary Features Competition "IMAGE OF THE WORLD AND WORLD IN IMAGES" of the 24^th edition of the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE.

The aim of the competition is to recognize the art of documentary filmmaking as creative interpretation of reality. Putting emphasis on the visual and aesthetic aspects of the selected nonfiction entries, the jury awards the best cinematographers in the competition.

Behemoth

With camera in tow, filmmaker Zhao Liang travels through the prairies of Mongolia’s vast plateau. Unfolding before his eyes are the signs of controversial upheaval due to an aggressive modern economy. Heavenly green grasslands are being covered by the gloomy dust of a growing mining industry. Confronted with the ash and infernal din of incessant mining, herdsmen and their families have no choice but to move away as grazing meadows dwindle. Day and night, miners are busy picking coals out of mountains of rocks. In nearby ironworks, men bake in the scorching heat like the condemned in Inferno. In a sort of Purgatorio, sufferers of work‐related illnesses await death in hospital. A genuine Paradiso has been destroyed in exchange for an urban mirage, the empty new buildings of modern ghost town Ordos.

Original title: Bei xi mo shou
Director: Zhao Liang
Cinematographer: Zhao Liang

Produced by: INA Productions
France, China, 2015

Cameraperson

Exposing her role behind the camera, Johnson reaches into the vast trove of footage she has shot over decades around the world. What emerges is a visually bold memoir and a revelatory interrogation of the power of the camera.

Original title: Cameraperson
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Cinematographer: Kirsten Johnson

Produced by: Big Mouth Productions, Fork Films
USA, 2016

Communion

When adults play house, children have to grow up quickly. Fourteen-year-old Ola takes care of her incapable father, autistic brother and mother who lives separately, but most of all, she tries to reunite her family. She hopes that she will be able to bring her mother back home. The excuse for their meeting is her thirteen-year-old brother Nikodem’s First Holy Communion. Ola decides to organise a perfect family celebration all by herself. Nikodem watches his loved ones struggle from his own, unique point of view. Communion reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weakest, and the need for change where it seems impossible. It is a crash course in growing up which teaches us that no failure is definitive. Especially when it comes to love.

Polish title: Komunia
Reżyseria: Anna Zamecka
Zdjęcia: Małgorzata Szyłak

Produkcja: Otter Films, Wajda Studio, HBO Europe

Polish distributor: Aurora Films

Polska, 2016

Don Juan

Russia, Nizhny Novgorod. The shy, withdrawn Oleg is an economics student with symptoms of Asperger syndrome. He unsuccessfully seeks love and approval. The dominant, neurotic Marina tries her best to drag her son out of his lethargy and find him a girlfriend. She comes up with some unusual treatments, and eventually finds a theatre group preparing to stage "Don Juan." Oleg is supposed to play the main part. The contrast between the lifestyle of the legendary French libertine and Oleg’s shortcomings turns out to be so striking that the treatment becomes somewhat ironic. Help comes from an unexpected source: Oleg meets a beautiful actress named Tanya who completely transforms the awkward student. However, the most effective treatment turns out to be the participation in the play.

Original title: Don Juan
Director: Jerzy Śladkowski
Cinematographer: Wojciech Staroń

Produced by: Firma J.S. Filmproduktion, Ginestra Film

Polish distributor: Against Gravity Sp. z o. o.
Sweden, Finland, 2015

Fight Hate With Love

Michael Ta’Bon had ‘three strikes’ against him: he was black, young, and poor. Like one in every three men in his community, Michael has been caught in the revolving door of the prison system since he was 16 years old. His ex-con father taught him about drugs and crime, and those lessons landed him in prison for 15 years. He initially saw it as his inherited destiny, until he had a revelation – that he could break the cycle of the womb to prison pipeline gripping marginalised communities across black America.

Original title: Fight Hate With Love
Director: Andrew Michael Ellis
Cinematographer: Andrew Michael Ellis

Produced by: MediaStorm
USA, 2016

Icon

‘Where is the soul located? In the heart? In the brain? Or maybe somewhere else?’ ponders an elderly doctor who has dedicated his life to working in a hospital in the Siberian suburbs. This place used to be inaccessible to film crews, but now it is being discovered through its inhabitants. Some of them have spent several decades in the hospital. Discreet and at the same time profound observations of the patients’ everyday lives become a meditation on the impenetrable quality of human nature.

Polish title: Ikona
Director: Wojciech Kasperski
Cinematographer: Łukasz Żal

Produced by: Delta Film
Poland, 2016

Ivory Game, The

From executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio, The Ivory Game is an epic documentary thriller that goes undercover into the dark and sinister underbelly of ivory trafficking. Award-winning director Richard Ladkani and Academy Award-nominated director Kief Davidson filmed covertly for 16 months in China and Africa with a crack team of intelligence operatives, undercover activists, passionate frontline rangers, and tough-as-nails conservationists to infiltrate the corrupt global network of ivory trafficking. A production from Terra Mater Factual Studios and Vulcan Productions, this stunningly photographed exposé follows poachers in pursuit of the ‘white gold’ of ivory. Ultimately, the film becomes an urgent wake-up call that proves time is running out for African elephants, who are coming dangerously closer and closer to extinction.

Original title: The Ivory Game
Directors: Richard Ladkani, Kief Davidson
Cinematographer: Richard Ladkani

Produced by: Terra Mater Factual Studios, Vulcan Productions
Austria, 2016

Notes on Blindness

In 1983, after decades of steady deterioration, writer and theologian John Hull became totally blind. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began documenting his experiences on audio cassette. Upon publication, John’s diaries were described by author and neurologist Oliver Sacks as, ‘A masterpiece… The most precise, deep, and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read.’ John’s recordings form a unique testimony of loss, rebirth, and renewal, documenting his extraordinary journey into ‘a world beyond sight.’

Original title: Notes on Blindness
Directors: Peter Middleton, James Spinney
Cinematographer: Gerry Floyd

Produced by: Archer's Mark
UK, 2016

Paths of the Soul

In a small Tibetan village, Nyima decides to go on a one-year, 2,000 km pilgrimage to Lhasa and holy Mount Kailash to fulfil his uncle’s wish. Some friends, neighbours, and relatives decide to join him. Soon the small group of 11 is at the entrance of the village to start a one thousand-kilometre journey by foot to try to expel their pasts and enlighten their souls...

Original title: 冈仁波齐
Director: Yang Zhang
Cinematographer: Daming Guo

Produced by: Helichenguang International Culture Media (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
China, 2015

Tempestad

Two women, their voices echoing over the landscape and highways of Mexico all the way from the north to the south, speak of how official corruption and injustice allowed violence to take control of their lives, desires, and dreams. An emotional and evocative journey, steeped not only in loss and pain, but also in love, dignity, and resistance.

Original title: Tempestad
Director: Tatiana Huezo
Cinematographer: Ernesto Pardo

Produced by: Pimienta Films, Nicolás Celis and Sebastián Celis
Mexico, 2016

Unseen: The Lives of Looking

Dryden Goodwin’s first feature-length essay film focuses on four individuals, each with an extraordinary relationship with sight: an international eye surgeon, a NASA planetary explorer, a leading human rights lawyer, and the artist/filmmaker himself. Mixing Goodwin’s closely observed drawings, live action, and intricately woven soundtrack, the film explores different scales, forms, and reasons for looking in a poetic and metaphysically charged journey.

Polish title: Niewidzialne. Istota patrzenia
Director: Dryden Goodwin
Cinematographer: Dryden Goodwin

Produced by: Dryden Goodwin Projects, Red Bee Media
UK, 2016

ZUD

The unrelenting forces of nature take control of the lives of people and animals. The unexpected return of winter destroys all possessions of a nomad family. Eleven-year-old Sukhbat has to leave his carefree childhood behind. The life of his family depends on whether he will be able to tame a wild horse and win a race. The intense relationship between the boy, his father and the animal shows how much power nature can have over people’s lives. No one escapes uninjured from the confrontation with the steppe.

Original title: Zud
Director: Marta Minorowicz
Cinematographer: Paweł Chorzępa

Produced by: Otter Films, zero one film GmbH

Polish distributor: Against Gravity Sp. z o. o.
Germany, Poland, 2016