2010

Issue 84
Winter Dec./January/February 2010

Main Cover

Issue 85
Spring March/April/May 2010

Main Cover

Issue 86
Summer June/July/August 2010

Main Cover

05 NORTH-KOREA In North Korea, prison camps, murder, rape, gnawing starvation and freezing temperatures are all par for the course. 08 HOT DOCS Hot Docs 2010 mixed the business of filmmaking with the ideals of making documentary. It's a winning formula. 10 ARMADILLO The Danish film on Afghanistan takes us into the carnal reality of war. And the experience is disturbingly ambiguous. 14 BERLINALE: Wieland Speck He is as the programmer sculpting a dauntless collection of progressive worldviews, of both fact and fiction, which unites artistic vision with commercial interest. 16 DOX:LAB This Danish workshop makes creative matches between young directors from North and South. Tue Steen Müller reports. 18 ANIMATION DOX is for the second time looking at trends in animadocs. Four recent films offer ways of thinking about animation in today's documentary films. 21 Russian Lessons / Restrepo Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing, shooting, and looting during the intense 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia. Two other filmmakers focus on the everyday life of a single US army platoon stationed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan - showing just how easy it was for the Taliban to defend their positions in the mountainous terrain. 24 STEREO 3D 3D is the driving force behind current digital development. But stereo 3D cannot save a bad film. At this year's Insight Out workshop, participants asked how stereo 3D affects dramaturgy, framing, editing strategies, camera movement, and lighting. 26 TIME/DOCUMENTARY Three documentaries show that history can be understood in terms of time periods of different duration: A single event such as an airship trip in 1929, a long running campaign to distort Palestinian history, or the memories of a father connected to world events. 32 MARWENCOL A film about the redemptive power of creative imagination. Mark Hogancamps impulse to create an alternate reality is primal, and universal 34 ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE Director Sambath conducts a one-man truth and reconciliation process. His film Enemies of the People is not just winning awards on the festival circuits, but is also having wider ripples in the Cambodian community. Will those responsible for the killing fields ever be brought to justice or let us understand why these atrocities occur? 37 THE CAMBODIAN ROOM The Cambodian Room takes us into the uncompromising and claustrophobic world of D'Agata's search for the intrinsically human. 38 THE CIA COVERT WAR The "secret war" takes us into the inconcievable reality of a war conducted in the shadow of the Vietnam war. As the film impies, the "secret war" is an ancestor of today's U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 40 STEAM OF LIFE Against tremendous odds, dozens of naked men and countless beers and tears, Finnish filmmakers Joonas Berghall and Mika Hotakainen created an ode to their country's men and its most soulful ritual. 42 BHUTTO What did Benazir Bhutto really achieve as Prime Minister of Pakistan? 44 SONS OF CUBA Is the film Sons of Cuba a portrait of sacrifice, social hardship and political indoctr ination? Or is it about a country full of love and passion and the rewards of dedication to the cause, be that sport or communism? 46 Michel Houellebecq Last Words makes a virtue out of the inapproachable nature of its subject: the seclusive Michel Houellebecq - a controversial author, loved and loathed. 48 CHILDREN OF THE PYRE The dominant colour of this film is orange. Does it show that Western burials are designed to shelter people from much of the reality of death? 50 CZECH PEACE The creators of 2004's fake hypermarket, Czech Dream, return with a second feature documentary, moving away from their country's consumerist tendencies and to its knack of being occupied by military forces. 52 ESSAY: DZIGA VERTOV The history and geography of political regimes may vary but some aspects of documentary filmmaking remain the same. In these extracts, Dziga Vertov describes experiences that are both unique and universal.

Issue 87
Fall September/October/November 2010

Main Cover

05 PASOLINI: The war of the spirit<o:p></o:p>

Pier Paolo Pasolini was an ardent critic
of his age. A recently reconstructed documentary film by him gives us an
insight into many of his critiques - on war, the media, beauty, work and
religion.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

06 ISLAND: Victim of economic hit men<o:p></o:p>

Two Icelandic films from the producers at
Ground Control Productions show us Iceland past and present and look at the
impetus to protest in the face of capitalist ecology.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

08 CANNES: How did it happen?<o:p></o:p>

How can cinema reflect and explain the
complexities of the 2008 economic crisis? Three films presented at Cannes this
year may an totally different ways. A fiction blockbuster like Wall Street:
Money Never Sleeps; a
talking head documentary like Inside Job, and a mock trial featuring real witnesses, lawyers
and judge: Cleveland versus Wall Street.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

10 SUNDANCE: The semantic web<o:p></o:p>

Internet was the social media revolution
that created connections between people and pages. The new Web 3.0 is more of a
"semantic web" that understands content. We visited the Sundance Panel on Net
Evolution.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

12 ANSELM KIEFER: Village of ruins<o:p></o:p>

Imagine a painting crammed full of details
but all you actually see is a vast texture. DOX met Sophie Fiennes to talk
about her translation of Kiefer's art into documentary film.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

15 POLAND: Andrzej Wajda school<o:p></o:p>

DOX takes a look at The Andrzej Wajda
Master School of Film Directing, Warsaw, Poland.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

16 POLAND: Warsaw and Krakow<o:p></o:p>

In Warsaw the events focus on bringing
acclaimed foreign documentaries to Polish audiences, in Krakow the Festival
concentrates on promoting Polish films to an international audience.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

18 POLAND: Short matters<o:p></o:p>

Krakow film festival knows how to
appreciate the short genre. One of the beauties of short film is its lack of
dramaturgical rules and restraints and the opportunity it presents to
experiment with form.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

20 WORKSHOP: Binger Filmlab<o:p></o:p>

DOX reports from an 18-month workshop.
This is the first of three reports from the Amsterdam-based Binger Filmlab.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

22 RWANDA: 'Disease' of humanity<o:p></o:p>

Beate Arnestad is proving to be one of
Norway's most interesting international filmmakers at the moment. From
addressing the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, she went on to track a major
court case after the genocide in Rwanda. Her documentaries depict individuals
under extreme pressure.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

24 DISASTERS: Empathy and action<o:p></o:p>

Features, reality TV series, blogs and
websites provide new ways to document and help the victims of earthquakes
around the world.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

28 FORMATS: Taste of a film<o:p></o:p>

Swedish commissioning editor Tove
TorbioΕNrnsson reflects on what formatting does to the ways in which we shape
reality.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

30 PHOTO: Tine Poppe<o:p></o:p>

This time DOX presents the Norwegian
photographer Tine Poppe, who has been back stage in the old opera of Oslo and
on the streets of Buenos Aires.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

34 EDINBURGH: About absence<o:p></o:p>

The orangutan Nenette in Philibert's film
is like the Mona Lisa: a victim of her rarity, drained by curiosity. The
Edge of Dreaming also explores the
"unseen".<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

36 EL SALVADOR: Family substitute<o:p></o:p>

The director's tragic destiny in the
aftermath of the making and release of The Crazy Life adds to the documentary's already
dubiously macabre tensions. He introduces us to the Mara members.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

38 US: The twilight people<o:p></o:p>

Stonewall Uprising illustrates another great step forward in
the story of human rights. The gay community organized en masse in 1968, and
fought back with a vengeance.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

40 US: Surrogate families<o:p></o:p>

The American car is a dominant metaphor
for the proverbial American way of life. Going against the grain, the workers
at General Motors form the strong emotional core of this film.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

42 BOXING: Two films<o:p></o:p>

In To Fight For we see the European approach based on
dialogue and consensus versus The Streets Stop Here where the American approach employs threat
and confrontation.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

42 GREECE: Unemployment<o:p></o:p>

Grief: Little Tales of Unemployment: A unique insight into the psychologically
fraught world of the unemployed in Greece. p.42<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

46 IRAN: THER CRITIQUES<o:p></o:p>

For Neda: the tragic story of the 29-year-old Neda Agha Soltan
who was shot dead, during a street protest in Iran. p.46 <o:p></o:p>

Iran's Revolutionary Guard points to fresh
dissent within oppressive regime in film from Guardianfilms. Mark Taylor
comments. p.47<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

44-54 THREE THER CRITIQUES<o:p></o:p>

Collapse: A defeatist bombast that hopelessly debunks
alternatives to saving economic civilization. p.44 Bill Cunningham: He travels about New York City on his
bicycle shooting photos of people. A man with immense integrity. p.48 A
Small Act: About supporting an African. Education
is the only thing that can change someone's life. p. 54<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

52 ESSAY: A film about a film<o:p></o:p>

Pier Paolo Pasolini recasts the classical
documentary structure into a kind of meta-film or third genre between film and
documentary. The result is a spurious, hybrid product, writes Maria Tarantino.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

55-58 NOTEWORTHY FILMS