EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2020 DOCUMENTARY SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Monday November 9th, 2020

We announce the Documentary Special Screenings of the 28th edition of EnergaCAMERIMAGE Film Festival.

ACADIANA

May 2017. The city of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, is the theatre of the mythic Crawfish Festival. It’s just another day in America.

Directors: Guillaume Fournier, Samuel Matteau, Yannick Nolin
Cinematographer: Yannick Nolin
Produced by: Jean-Pierre Vézina
Country and year: Canada, 2019

ALONE TOGETHER

Photo by Einav Giat Goodman

Ravit spends all her time sharing her love wherever it is needed. During the day, she cooks for hundreds of Tel Aviv’s homeless, and in the evenings, she hugs abandoned babies in the postnatal ward. Without human touch and the warmth of a hug, the abandoned babies won’t develop properly and can even die. Ravit always wanted children of her own, but life dictated otherwise. As she turns 50, she decides that she too wants to be on love’s receiving end, but that may prove to be a lot harder to find.

Original title: Beyachad Levad
Director: Maya Tiberman
Cinematographer: Einav Goodman
Produced by: Sol Goodman
Country and year: Israel, 2019

BABENCO: TELL ME WHEN I DIE

“I Have already lived my death, and now all that is left is to make a film about it.” So said the filmmaker Hector Babenco to Bárbara Paz when he realised he did not have much time left. She accepted the challenge to fulfil her late partner’s last wish: to be the main protagonist in his own death. Babenco made cinema his medicine and the nourishment that kept him alive. The film is about filming so as never to die.

Director: Bárbara Paz
Cinematographers: Stefan Ciupek, Carolina Costa
Produced by: HB Filmes
Country and year: Brasil, 2019

BLACK MUD

Zbigniew Jaskólski is a goat breeder, running his farm in an environmentally sustainable manner. He also struggles with bipolar disorder (BD). The key to successful treatment lies in correct diagnosis and careful selection of medications. Zbigniew discovered another effective medicine – the therapeutic effect the surrounding nature and contact with his beloved goats have on him. Respecting nature, he treats the world as a place of harmony that should develop in a sustainable way in order to ensure a healthy and safe future for all beings.

Original title: Czarne błoto
Director: Ryszard Kruk
Cinematographers: Józef Romasz, Ryszard Kruk, Kajetan Pochylski
Produced by: Ryszard Kruk
Country and year: Poland, 2020

CAVE, THE

For besieged civilians, hope and safety lie underground inside the subterranean hospital known as the Cave, where paediatrician and managing physician Dr Amani Ballour and her colleagues Samaher and Dr Alaa have claimed the right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts, doing their jobs in a way that would be unthinkable in the oppressively patriarchal culture that exists above ground. Following the women as they contend with daily bombardments, chronic supply shortages, and the ever-present threat of chemical attacks, The Cave paints a stirring portrait of courage, resilience, and female solidarity.

Polish title: Jaskinia
Director: Feras Fayyad
Cinematographers: Muhammed Khamir Al Shami, Mohammad Eyad, Samer Qweder Ammar Suleiman
Produced by: Danish Documentary Production
Country and year: Denmark, Germany, France, UK, USA, Qatar, Siria, 2019

CITY HALL

City government touches almost every aspect of our lives. Most of us are unaware of or take for granted these necessary services such as police, fire, sanitation, elder support, licensing of various professional activities, recordkeeping of birth, marriage, and death, as well as hundreds of other activities that support Boston residents and visitors. The film shows the Boston city government's efforts to provide these services, as well as illustrates the variety of ways the city administration enters into civil discourse with Boston citizens.

Director: Frederick Wiseman
Cinematographer: John Davey
Produced by: Zipporah Films
Country and year: USA, 2020

EARTH IS BLUE AS AN ORANGE, THE

To cope with the daily trauma of living in a warzone, Anna and her children make a film together about their life in the most surreal surroundings. The creative process raises the question of what kind of power the magical world of cinema could have du¬ring times of disaster. How does one picture war through fiction? For Anna and her children, transforming trauma into a work of art is the ultimate way to stay human.

Polish title: Ziemia jest niebieska jak pomarańcza
Director: Iryna Tsilyk
Cinematographer: Yuri Gruzinov, Tsvetkov Vyacheslav
Produced by: Albatros Communicos, Moonmakers
Country and year: Ukraine, Lithuania, 2020

EPICENTRO

Waves come crashing down on a solitary wave breaker at the edge of the sea – this dramatic opening image conveys the spirit of a place that has withstood decades of external pressure. On the streets of Havana, residents of all ages share their views on living in a colonized country, as well as on the internal freedom they experience in spite of the severe sanctions. Academy Award®-nominated director and cinematographer Hubert Sauper offers an immersive and symbolic portrait of a postcolonial, “utopian” Cuba.

Polish title: Epicentrum
Director: Hubert Sauper
Cinematographer: Hubert Sauper
Produced by: Paolo Calamita, Gabriele Kranzelbinder, Daniel Marquet, Martin Marquet
Polish distributor: Against Gravity
Country and year: Austria, France, 2020

HOMECOMING - MARINA ABRAMOVIC AND HER CHILDREN

The occasion is The Cleaner, a travelling retrospective exhibition with its final destination in Belgrade, the artist’s hometown. It contemplates her whole life, including dilemmas from her youth in Belgrade, misguided love affairs, and a special kind of loneliness. It centres around reperformance as a phenomenon. Who are reperformers?

Original title: Povratak Kući - Marina Abramović I Njena Deca
Director: Boris Miljkovic
Cinematographer: Andreja Leko
Produced by: Jovana Karaulic
Country and year: Serbia, 2020

HOPPER/WELLES

Hopper/Welles is an intimate and revelatory 1970 conversation between two film giants – Dennis Hopper, then riding high on the massive success of Easy Rider, and Orson Welles, ever the iconoclast and offscreen interviewer of probing authority. Both had emerged from notoriety to change the face of cinema. It seems only natural that they would meet, so they did, over a long, boisterous dinner. Captured during the guerrilla shooting of Welles’ troubled, long-in-the-making The Other Side of the Wind, the back and forth yields two fascinatingly similar characters: the elder lion in winter and the younger firebrand headed for a fall from grace.

Director: Orson Welles
Cinematographer: Gary Graver
Produced by: Royal Road Entertainment
Country and year: USA, 2020

KITES

This documentary tries to get a closer look at kitesurfing and the people that practice it. In Poland, it can be captured specifically on the Hel peninsula, where enthusiasts cooperate with the unpredictable power of the wind to soar into the sky and, at least for a second, break away from the water’s surface. For some, it’s a passion, and for others, it’s a matter of achieving professional success. The youngest of all have to face a big decision – whether to engage themselves in this dangerous and demanding but also impressive sport or to remain an observer.

Original title: Latawce
Directors: Franciszek Dźwierżyński, Łukasz Stryjewski
Cinematographer: Franciszek Dźwierżyński
Produced by: Warsaw Film School
Polish distributor: Warsaw Film School
Kraj i rok: Poland, 2020

LADY CAMERAMAN

A feature documentary highlighting some of the leading women in cinematography and inspiring those of the future. Did you know there are less than 15 women out of more than 350 members of the American Society of Cinematographers? Lady Cameraman is a documentary focused on the leading women in the industry and their struggles and successes of how they got there. It is a film about past challenges, present ambitions, and the future impacts women are making in the world of cinematography.

Director: Julia Swain
Cinematographer: Julia Swain, Teodora Totoiu
Produced by: Pamela Robinson, Julia Swain
Country and year: USA, 2019

MOTH

Summer, 2016. The French region of Drôme Provençale is invaded by swarms of white moths. As night approaches, everyone caulks at home. As the wave approaches, Lou discovers her feelings for her friend Sam. By the end of the season, the moth will have devastated the century-old box trees in the region, leaving behind a landscape of ruin.

Original title: Pyrale
Director: Roxanne Gaucherand
Cinematographer: Raimon Gaffier
Produced by: Quartett Production
Country and year: France, 2020

ONE MORE ORBIT

A daring team of astronauts and aviators fly a high-speed Gulfstream jet around the earth faster than anyone ever has to set the pole-to-pole circumnavigation record. Beginning their mission from the same spot Apollo 11 launched for the moon 50 years before, this tribute to the past, present, and future of space exploration breaks the boundaries of what was previously thought possible.

Director: Terry Virts
Cinematographer: James Neihouse
Produced by: Untitled
Country and year: USA, Qatar, Russia, Mauritius, 2019

OVERSEAS

In the Philippines, women are deployed abroad to work as domestic workers or nannies. In doing so, they frequently leave their own children behind before throwing themselves into the unknown. In one of the many training centres dedicated to domestic work, a group of trainees gets ready to face both homesickness and the possible abuses lying ahead. During role-playing exercises, they alternately play the roles of the employee and that of the employers.

Director: Sung-A Yoon
Cinematographer: Thomas Schira
Produced by: Clin d'Oeil Films, Films de l’Oeil Sauvage, Iota Production
Country and year: Belgium, France, 2019

PAINTER AND THE THIEF, THE

Barbora Kysilkova, a Czech painter living in Oslo, learns that two of her paintings displayed in a local gallery have been stolen. Footage from security cameras results in the criminals being quickly identified and arrested. Barbora appears at the trial and asks convicted Karl-Bertil Nordland for a meeting. Desperate to get her paintings back, she is also fascinated by the personality of the thief. She decides to paint his portrait. A thread of friendship soon develops between the painter and the thief.

Polish title: Malarka i złodziej
Director: Benjamin Ree
Cinematographers: Kristoffer Kumar, Benjamin Ree
Produced by: Ingvil Giske
Polish distributor: Against Gravity
Country and year: Norway, 2020

REWILD

This film shows a new forest-restoration site on the borders of the Leuser Ecosystem and reveals a rewind symbol carved into a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. The narrative runs in reverse, rewinding the clock on deforestation to undo the damage caused by the unsustainable production of one of the world’s most versatile commodities.

Directors: Nicholas Chin, Ernest Zacharevic
Cinematographer: Nicholas Chin
Produced by: Studio Birthplace
Country and year: Indonesia, 2019

WALL OF SHADOWS

Will your gods forgive you the sins committed out of love to your child? Ngada Sherpa and his wife Jomdoe from Nepal, break taboo and climb Kumbhakarna – one of the most holy of mountains, to earn money for their son’s school and save him from a dangerous and degrading work as a porter. The East face of the mountain is one of the most difficult challenges in alpinism today. A group of leading alpinists from the Western world take part in the expedition. The Holy Mountain confronts both the climbers and Sherpas with equal harshness.

Original title: Ściana cieni
Director: Eliza Kubarska
Cinematographer: Piotr Rosołowski
Produced by: Monika Braid
Polish distributor: Against Gravity
Country and year: Poland, Germany, Switzerland, 2020