North Macedonia, 2019
85 minutes
directed by: Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov

This brilliant documentary started its international journey as a multiple winner of this year’s Sundance festival - the best film in the world film selection, the best camera in the world documentary film selection and a special jury prize for its influence and change.

“Honeyland” is a film that takes us to the picturesque heights of one of the Macedonian mountains and leads us into the world of true, primeval values and relations between the man and the nature. This is a story of an awe-inspiring woman of not so pleasant physical appearance but yet surprising tenderness and delicacy. Atidže, the heroine, lives kilometers away from the civilisation, surrounded by the remains of the village, with no roads, electricity or water. She is the last one to share honey from the rocks with the bees. Just like old times, she relies on her skills of an experienced hunter to find the “gold” in the stone and manages to make a pact with the bees and the nature in her own, magic way. Even though coarsened by the way of living in the cruel surroundings, she is a surprisingly caring person, both to her old and feeble mother and the bees, which are regarded as her children. All of a sudden, the idyllic world of the overwhelming harmony is interrupted by the dramatic experience that challenges everything that Atidže is doing. Seemingly gifted by the presence of other people, especially by the presence of numerous, playful children, she is actually confronted with the actions and deeds that indicate more and more how modern man is distant from the real and vital sources of nature and how these sources are destroyed by his clumsy and insensitive actions. At the same time, just like in tragedies that happen naturally, Atidže also teaches us how to build up endurance and maintain dignity.

A small team of dedicated documentarists gave outstanding contribution to this glorious documentary. The camera and the photography of the two awarded cinematographers, Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma, created magical sights of the mountains, villages and village life and especially refined painting-like nocturnal scenes lit by the fire. The directing duo, Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, take us gradually and without any questions into the impressive world made of lyrical and sharply worded moments of intimacy and visually rich and dynamic scenes. On top of that, the experienced producer and editor, Atanas Georgiev, creates an interesting and dramatic narrative through which he develops a rhythm that transforms the “Honeyland” into a real cinema treat.

http://honeyland.earth/

Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, 2018
80 minutes
directed by: Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonys

This is a simple, but at the same time a very complex road movie, an unusual detective search and a documentary essay of supreme poetics, a time machine envisioned as a bridge in time created to testify to the existence of the “Bridges of time” and their creators.

Similar to cinema sagas where a group of retired veterans is gathered, Latvian director, Kristine Briede and her Lithuanian colleague, who is also one of the greatest European authors, Audrius Stonys, embark on their journey through Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in search for old authors of the Baltic school of poetic documentary from the ‘60s. Assimilated into the place they live in, which contributes to the confirmation of their glorious talent, these documentarists, these grand, old men with their sharp views and their deep thoughts agreed to document and poetize reality one more time, without holding cameras in their hands, as if creating a masterpiece of their own. They start and develop an unusual philosophical dispute over the nature and the meaning of a documentary with only few words, always open to the world, listening attentively to their discrete yet powerful inner voices. During this uninterrupted live dialogue with the camera, altogether with the film crew that recorded and accompanied them, in the combination with the breathtaking frames of their films made a long time ago as well as with creatures and the world that surrounds them emerges a breathtaking magic circle which represents the venue of metaphysical interfusion.

This delicate documentary stands for a magnificent manifesto of documentarism and an ode to great masters of poetic expression in films - Herz Frank, Uldis Brauns, Ivars Seleckis, Mark Soosaar, Andres Sööt, Robertas Verba, Henrikas Šablevičius and Aivars Freimanis. Truly inspired by their glorious predecessors, Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonys cooperate with one of the most important Baltic producers, Uldis Cekulis, to create a detailed study of an exquisite period of the artistic documentary, author’s ideas and method of operation, thus creating a complete work on the phenomenon of time and endurance.

http://nkc.gov.lv/en/get-to-know-a-film/bridges-of-time/

Denmark, Canada, 2018.
89 minuta
directed by: Christy Garland

“What Walaa Wants” is a documentary that is not only aimed at screening the tempest but that also provokes one. Ever since the Berlin International Film Festival and the special jury prize at Hot Docs festival, this story of an untamable girl, Walaa, has started drawing the attention of all world festivals

“What Walla Wants” represents a perfect and almost universal question raised by this surprising documentary. This is a question raised by many teenagers and at the same time it is also a question about them. This question does not have a unique, satisfying answer, because it comprises all - rebellion and love, rejection and acceptance, walking out and coming back at the same time. When these internal struggles and tempests are confronted with drastically different environment that is additionally burdened with constant violence and threats, this already bewildered girl turns into a volcano threatening to erupt any minute. By living in a ghetto that does not offer a way out, Walaa passionately admires what is actually related to violence, and, on top of that, is also regarded as some kind of heroism by her and her peers. Her mother, who is leaving jail, is one of her main role models. Walaa dreams of transforming her immense energy into a fierce fight for what represents the meaning of her life. However, the highest goal that she can reach is becoming a member of a special ghetto security unit, despite the strong disapproval of her close ones. As a result of these constant obstacles and prejudices, Walaa becomes a member of Special Police Unit and confronts an extremely demanding and cruel training aimed at keeping only the toughest and the most tenacious. This represents the beginning of a completely new and unexpected drama and real, tough fight for her.

For Christy Garland, the director and cinematographer, this exquisite documentary venture represented an uncertain, six-year-old adventure that started by observing the life of a rebellious 15-year-old girl in the Palestinian ghetto in the West coast. By using her camera to delve into the forbidden or never even filmed areas, this adamant author creates a story not only about a dramatic fight and the maturation of a girl who needs to beat herself in order to face the reality but also, above all, an impressive document about the contemporary world of turmoil and the young who live in it.

http://murmurfilm.com/what-walaa-wants/

Italy, France 2018
84 minutes
directed by: Claudia Tosi

Do you have an attitude? Do you have ideas? Do you have a vision? Do you have a dream? These are the questions posed by the winner of the “Golden Dove” and the FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics) award of the great European festival in Leipzig, which, in its title, paraphrases the famous sentence at the beginning of Martin Luther King’s speech.

Claudia Tosi, a dedicated Italian author and filmmaker, devotedly followed two remarkable women for ten years, two spirited compatriots, Manuela and Daniela, in their activities and fights for ideas, values and dreams. In constant movement, from place to place, from one event to another, from one significant social change to another, these two charismatic women activists show us the strength, endurance and persistence, the energy they selflessly put into each of their gestures, words and thoughts. Motivated by sincere needs to change and enrich their surroundings, they begin to fight and encourage others to take part in making changes. As self-declared spokespersons for women’s rights, from being ordinary citizens they become politicians – Manuela as a member of the Italian parliament, Daniela active in her own town, and they readily face the traditional prejudices and intolerance. Constantly turned to requisitioning the fundamental social, Italian and European values, Manuela and Daniela do not give up, not even during the toughest moments, above all, aware of the great responsibility which they have been entrusted with. Nevertheless, the world keeps changing dramatically, bringing along big dilemmas and doubts with these changes.

With a magnificent documentary idea, in the style of the best cinéma verité, the author, Claudia Tosi who herself, it seems, in time, became part of the struggle she is dynamically documenting, poses her documentary in front of the two protagonists as a sort of a mirror. In the darkness of the movie theatre “I Had a Dream” gains its exciting cinematic layer. The magic of the movies, the magic of mirrors, which makes everything more realistic and greater than life, provokes and inspires the protagonists to comment and criticise themselves, in a humorous, emotional and brisk way. The testimony of time, people and actions turned into a cinematic event becomes a living, present actor.

https://deckert-distribution.com/film-catalogue/current-affairs-politics/i-had-a-dream/