Tag: Luis Ospina

Yamagata Doc Film Fest, report – day 2

  
Here I am after my second day in Yamagata, a less intense one compared to yesterday, but nonetheless an eventful day (Oct 11th). 

My day kicked off in the motning with 2 shorts by Luis Ospina, shot in collaboration with Carlos Mayolo, Listen, Look (1972) his debut and The Vampires of Poverty (1978), it is the last  one that impressed me more. Partly parody, party documentary and partly mockumentary, the movie satirises a certain way of making cinema and TV that exploits the poor, a tendency to use the less fortunate to prove a pre-established political or social theory. Very creative in the way it’s constructed, Ospina mixes color and B&W photography, funny, improvised, but also scripted in some of its parts, overall it was a refreshing experience for me. The discovery continued with the afterscreening talk, when Ospina elaborated and explained a bit more about the movie, the so-called Cali group in Colombia and the concept of poverty porn, he also talked about how he was ostracised in Latin America by the Marxists and the left after the mivie was released.You can watch many of his movies (legally and for free) on his homepage, here. 

The afternoon started with a short (30′) from Myanmar, When the Boat Comes In by Khin Maung Kyaw, a depiction of a small fishermen village and its difficulties to survive, a situation that worsened when the government  decided to issue a one-month fishing ban. An interesting exploration of the daily life of the villagers and their unhappiness, had the documentary been longer, it would have probably beneficiated in term of quality and depth, hopefully the director will expand it into a longer version one day.
The third movie of the day was Trip Along Exodus by Hind Shoufani, the daughter of a famous politician and revolutionary Palestinian who after fighting for many years for the liberation of his land , decided toabandoned the scenes and live in Syria, far from his family and relatives.
The work is made as a diary-movie, the director talks with his father, asking him questions, in person or by phone, and trying to bridge the gab between the two, the man has been always more interesting in the revolutionary cause than in his family. It’s a “pretty” movie, in the sense that it uses some cute animation here and there to cheer up the somber tone of the film, and also the sense that is more a personal movie than a political one. 
The day ended with the weakest work of all, PYRAMID: Kaleidoscope Memories of Destruction by Sasakubo Shin, a wanna-be experimental documentary shot in 8mm, to which I couldn’t connect at all. The music was good but it seems to me more a sort of long music video than an attempt to create something more concrete. 

Like every day, from 10 o’clock at night, almost everybody went to Komian, a sort of nomiya where directors, film-lovers, journalists and whoever else meet, talk and drink until 2 or 3 in the morning, a very special place that makes Yamagata even more unique. 

 

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2015 – Perspectives Japan and Latinoamérica

This year Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is kicking off today Oct 8th in the Japanese city, and promises an intense and full week of non-fiction cinema and all its forms, a must for everyone interested in documentary.
This is the second post I dedicated to this year event and its line-up. While in the first one I wrote about Competition and New Asian Currents (you can read it here), today I’d like to take a look at Perspectives Japan, a selection of new Japanese docs, and Latinoamérica—The Time and the People: Memories, Passion, Work and Life, a retrospective on the so called Third Cinema (Tercer Cine) and its resonances with the contemporary non-fiction production in Latin America.

Perspective Japan, as stated on the official page, will introduce “Five dynamic films that defy convention (…) in a display of the powerful contemplation and fresh vibrancy being explored in Japanese documentary filmmaking.”
Of the 5, the only one I had the chance to see is THE COCKPIT, a relatively short documentary (just a bit more than an hour) about a group of hip-hop musicians working on a new song. A static and almost hypnotic work, especially in its first part where the camera in a fixed position is showing us the rapper OMSB at work on his mixing console chatting to his mates. The Cockpit is a nice piece of non-fiction cinema, minimalistic in its approach, but interesting and watchable not only for wannabe-musicians. Okinawa: The Afterburn, directed by John Junkerman – an American who has lived in Japan for almost 40 years (and for a certain period in Okinawa itself) – is a deep look at the recent history of the islands, always a crucial geopolitical space to understand Japan and its tensions and relationship with the outside. Completing the line-up for Perspective Japan: PYRAMID: Kaleidoscope Memories of Destruction (Sasakubo Shin), Under the Cherry Tree (Tanaka Kei) and Voyage (Ikeda Sho).

As for the Latinoamérica section, it’s going to be an incredible journey at the heart of what was happening – social and political changes, resistance, upheavals, revolutions, massacres -during the 60s and 70s in Central and South America. Milestones of word documentary such as Patricio Guzmán‘s The Battle of Chile 1,2 and 3 will be screened alongside works of Luis Ospina and a mini-retrospective of short chilean documentaries, including films from Raúl Ruiz (The Suitcase, 1963) and Joris Ivens (. . . A Valparaiso, 1963, with commentary written by Chris Marker), almost 30 works in total, a visual feast not to be missed.

As written before, I’ll be there for 3 days (Oct 10th to 12th), if time permits, I’ll be posting, or more likely twitting, about it. Stay tuned.