Claude Lanzmann's Les Quatre Soeurs (The Four Sisters) clockwise from top left - Ruth Elias in Le Serment d'Hippocrate (The Hippocratic Oath); Hanna Marton in L'arche De Noé (Noah's Ark); Ada Lichtman in La Puce Joyeuse (The Merry Flea); Paula Biren in Baluty
During the 55th New York Film Festival in 2017, Claude Lanzmann presented the World Premiere of The Four Sisters (Les Quatre Soeurs) in the Special Events programme. At Lincoln Center prior to the public screenings, I spoke with David Frenkel, the producer of the four films, edited by Chantal Hymans. Frenkel is also a producer for The Last of the Unjust with Jean Labadie, Kurt Stocker, and Danny Krausz (Maria Schrader's Stefan Zweig: Farewell To Europe).
David Frenkel: "What's great working with Claude is that he always surprises you. It was the same with The Last of the Unjust and Benjamin Murmelstein. He was so striking.
During the 55th New York Film Festival in 2017, Claude Lanzmann presented the World Premiere of The Four Sisters (Les Quatre Soeurs) in the Special Events programme. At Lincoln Center prior to the public screenings, I spoke with David Frenkel, the producer of the four films, edited by Chantal Hymans. Frenkel is also a producer for The Last of the Unjust with Jean Labadie, Kurt Stocker, and Danny Krausz (Maria Schrader's Stefan Zweig: Farewell To Europe).
David Frenkel: "What's great working with Claude is that he always surprises you. It was the same with The Last of the Unjust and Benjamin Murmelstein. He was so striking.
- 7/8/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Four Sisters: The Hippocratic OathIn a review of Claude Lanzmann’s memoir, Adam Shatz observes that “self-flattery is characteristically Lanzmannian.” This sort of self-regard often manifests itself in interviews that the filmmaker grants to journalists and proved grating indeed in Napalm, a Lanzmann documentary screened as a “Special Presentation” at Cannes in 2017. During a recent trip to North Korea enshrined in Napalm—which offers a cursory look at the historical roots of the hermit kingdom’s totalitarian impulses—Lanzmann emerges as considerably more preoccupied with celebrating his youthful dalliance with a North Korean nurse during an earlier visit in the 1950s as a member of a leftist delegation. With Lanzmann, however, it’s often necessary to swallow a little of his self-aggrandizement in order to appreciate his genuine accomplishments. Contradictions abound inasmuch as his best work, such as the magisterial Shoah, is both formally audacious and historically focused while a minor work like Tsahal,...
- 11/14/2017
- MUBI
Politics drama that upset France’s Front National party to market premiere at Rendez-vous with French cinema.
The French release of Lucas Belvaux’s populist politics drama This Is Our Land (Chez Nous) will go ahead as planned in February and without cuts in the face of fierce criticism from France’s far-right Front National (Fn) party, distributor Jean Labadie of Paris-based Le Pacte has vowed.
The Belgian director’s film has been in the eye of a political storm this week following the release of the first trailer on Dec 30, ahead of its scheduled Feb 22 release.
Le Pacte’s international sales team will hold buyers-only screening at Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris next week. It will get its festival world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam at the end of this month.
“The film will be released in February as planned and in its current form. There will be...
The French release of Lucas Belvaux’s populist politics drama This Is Our Land (Chez Nous) will go ahead as planned in February and without cuts in the face of fierce criticism from France’s far-right Front National (Fn) party, distributor Jean Labadie of Paris-based Le Pacte has vowed.
The Belgian director’s film has been in the eye of a political storm this week following the release of the first trailer on Dec 30, ahead of its scheduled Feb 22 release.
Le Pacte’s international sales team will hold buyers-only screening at Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris next week. It will get its festival world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam at the end of this month.
“The film will be released in February as planned and in its current form. There will be...
- 1/6/2017
- ScreenDaily
★★★★★Claude Lanzmann is the custodian of the memory and oral tradition of the Holocaust. His life's work has encompassed numerous films from his grand opus Shoah (1985) to Sobibór, 14 Octobre 1943, 16 Heures (2001) and Un Vivant Qui Passe (1999). With The Last Of The Unjust (2013) he revisits an interview he made with Benjamin Murmelstein in 1975. To say that Murmelstein is a conflicted, contradicted character who creates divisive opinions is the understatement of all understatements. He was the last president of the Jewish Council in the Theresienstadt ghetto: the disguised concentration camp in the city of Terezín.
- 1/11/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Claude Lanzmann’s fascinating interview with the only Jewish ‘elder’ who negotiated with Adolf Eichmann is a subtle study in survivor non-guilt
At 87, Claude Lanzmann is still capable of enforcing his film-making personality on European cinema: he is a landmark in the shadow of his great subject, the Holocaust. His film, Shoah, is now best seen not merely as an incomparable record, but as an intervention in history, an insistence on eyewitness testimony and compelling truth. This new film is a remarkable companion to his masterpiece Shoah: a fascinating encounter, recorded in Rome in the 1970s, while working on his great film but not used at the time, for reasons that Lanzmann leaves us to ponder.
It is an interview with Benjamin Murmelstein, an Austrian Jew and last surviving “chairman” of the Theresienstadt ghetto, near Prague, a supposedly comfortable Potemkin-style arrangement that was part of a sickening pantomime of...
At 87, Claude Lanzmann is still capable of enforcing his film-making personality on European cinema: he is a landmark in the shadow of his great subject, the Holocaust. His film, Shoah, is now best seen not merely as an incomparable record, but as an intervention in history, an insistence on eyewitness testimony and compelling truth. This new film is a remarkable companion to his masterpiece Shoah: a fascinating encounter, recorded in Rome in the 1970s, while working on his great film but not used at the time, for reasons that Lanzmann leaves us to ponder.
It is an interview with Benjamin Murmelstein, an Austrian Jew and last surviving “chairman” of the Theresienstadt ghetto, near Prague, a supposedly comfortable Potemkin-style arrangement that was part of a sickening pantomime of...
- 1/8/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
How come you're alive?
Claude Lanzmann spent over a decade to produce Shoah (1985), a ten-hour epic oral history of the Holocaust, consisting of conversations with survivors, German officers, and others. In constructing the film, Lanzmann found that some sections did not fit his overall vision for the documentary and, over the past fifteen years, released these as their own documentaries. The latest of these is The Last of the Unjust (2013), about the Theresienstadt ghetto and Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein, its last to lead its Council of Elders, and only such person to survive the Holocaust. But survival, as it becomes clear during the interview with Mumelstein, was not a thing to be celebrated. These Elders administrated the ghettos and camps under the orders of Eichmann and the Nazis and were, as such, collaborators. After the war, to be a collaborator was to be both a traitor and a coward. But such...
Claude Lanzmann spent over a decade to produce Shoah (1985), a ten-hour epic oral history of the Holocaust, consisting of conversations with survivors, German officers, and others. In constructing the film, Lanzmann found that some sections did not fit his overall vision for the documentary and, over the past fifteen years, released these as their own documentaries. The latest of these is The Last of the Unjust (2013), about the Theresienstadt ghetto and Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein, its last to lead its Council of Elders, and only such person to survive the Holocaust. But survival, as it becomes clear during the interview with Mumelstein, was not a thing to be celebrated. These Elders administrated the ghettos and camps under the orders of Eichmann and the Nazis and were, as such, collaborators. After the war, to be a collaborator was to be both a traitor and a coward. But such...
- 11/29/2014
- by Jason Ratigan
- JustPressPlay.net
The 18th annual Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival takes place 23-28 October 2014. From over 2,800 submissions, the programming committee has selected over 200 films from 42 countries, including 57 world, international or European premieres. These premieres include 10 Czech films in competition in the Czech Joy section.
Over the course of its existence, the Jihlava festival has become an indispensable Czech and worldwide documentary event, and an active contributor to the promotion and distribution of documentary films. The Jihlava festival is a co-founder and member of Doc Alliance, a prestigious union of seven important European documentary festivals.
Program – Year Eighteen
As in past years, the largest celebration of original documentary film in Central and Eastern Europe will present a diverse range of Czech and foreign films, with many world, international, European, and Czech premieres.
“This year’s festival is a true tribute to the artistic and independent film scene. This tribute will take place in the presence of such special guests as Kidlat Tahimik (which translates to “Quiet Lightning”), founder of independent Filipino cinema, whose films from the 1970s were declared by Werner Herzog to be among the most free to come out during that time, and noted Chinese director Wang Bing, winner of awards at festivals in Venice, Rotterdam, Yamagata and Marseilles,” said festival director Marek Hovorka.
The Face Of The Festival
The central motif of the 18th festival is a stark black-and-white symbol of a factory. It’s not only the dominant visual feature of the festival, but has also found its way into the films themselves. The poster was designed by artist, educator and publisher Juraj Horváth. This year’s festival trailer was created by the legend of Czech and world cinematography Jan Němec. This was his very first experience with this format; the intensity of the final form, however, can be felt in his short statement on the trailer’s filming:
“There are no ‘small’ or ‘big’ films. Twenty seconds expresses concern about the possible demise of film. I sound the alarm myself and the shadow of my hand is my signature.”
1. Organization And Awards
The festival is organized by the Jsaf civic association. In 2013, the festival issued more than 2,900 festival passes. Of these, 782 were for film professionals and festival guests from the Czech Republic and abroad, and 156 were for journalists. The festival screenings were attended by a total of more than 30,000 viewers.
The following awards will be presented as part of the 2014 Jihlava Idff:
· 2014 Best International Documentary Film Award (Opus Bonum competition)
· 2014 Best Central and Eastern European Documentary Film Award (Between the Seas competition)
· 2014 Best Czech Documentary Film Award (Czech Joy competition)
· 2014 Best Experimental Documentary Film Award (Fascinations competition)
· 2014 Best Debut Film Award (First Lights competition)
· 2014 Best Short Film Award (Short Joy competition)
· 2014 Contribution to World Cinematography
2014 Spectators Prize 2014 Respekt Award for the best television or video reportage · Silver Eye Award in the categories of short, mid-length, and feature documentary
(part of the East Silver market organized by the Institute of Documentary Film)
· 2014 Award for the Most Beautiful Festival Poster
· 2014 Audience Award for the Most Beautiful Festival Poster
2. New At The 18th Jihlava Idff
This year’s festival brings two new competitions: the former non-competition section Short Joy, focusing on short films, has received competition status, and in the new competition First Lights, the jury will choose the best debut film from the Opus Bonum, Between the Seas and Czech Joy sections. And of course there’s our annual retrospective of distinctive personalities and unique thematic sections.
The Complete Letters
This unique project is the brainchild of the Centre for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, in which five pairs of world-renowned directors exchanged audio-visual “letters”. These letters will be presented at Jihlava in their Eastern European premiere. Filmmakers such as meditative artist Naomi Kawase, legend of the New York avant-garde Jonas Mekas, “lone wolf” Albert Serra and critical chronicler of contemporary China Wang Bing invite viewers into their private lives and into the secrets of their artistic poetics.
“It’s remarkable to see how much each letter reflects the personal style of each of the directors. Never have two directors with such radically different styles come together like this,” commented festival programmer David Čeněk.
Forgotten Filmmaker JIŘÍ PolÁK
This photographer, director and sensitive individual who escaped to the “place where dreams are made real” – the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf prior to the August occupation of Czechoslovakia – is one of the forgotten figures of Czech cinema. Jiří Polák was able to film Hospital in Kuks, but did not enjoy any domestic recognition. After his emigration and short stays in Vienna and Switzerland, he accepted film assignments in Iran.
Tribute: Alain Resnais
“Renowned French director passed away on 1 March 2014 at the age of 91. In memory of his work, we have prepared two screenings of his lesser-known or completely unknown films. He himself was instrumental to an unprecedented extent to the development of documentary filmmaking in France, and showed its new stylistic possibilities,” says festival programmer David Čeněk about this unique presentation of Resnais’ (mainly) early work. Alain Resnais The majority of Resnais’ works being presented at this year’s Jihlava Idff have been shown only a few times in France, and are being screened in the Czech Republic for the first time ever.
Retrospective: Kidlat Tahimik
A special guest at this year’s Jihlava festival will be the “father of Filipino independent film” – director, actor, screenwriter and producer Kidlat Tahimik, the founder of the so-called Filipino New Wave and an influential commentator on post-colonialism and power imbalances throughout the world, praised in the West by Werner Herzog when he said that [Tahimik’s] films from the 1970s are among some of the most free works on film of their time.
3. Jurors
The jury for the competition section Opus Bonum traditionally consists of just one person – a notable personality from world cinema. This year, this honour has been bestowed on a significant figure from the Yugoslav Black Wave – Želimir Žilnik.
The best film in the Between the Seas section will be chosen by:
· French film theoretician Raymond Bellour
· Spanish director Albert Serra
American artist Deborah Stratman Artist Kateřina Šedá Czech Joy Jury:
Poet Petr Hruška Former director of Czech Television Ivo Mathé Film historian Tereza Czesany Dvořáková Documentary filmmaker Bohdan Bláhovec The winner of the experimental competition Fascination will be determined by the Austrian master of found footage Peter Tscherkassky and his wife, filmmaker Eve Heller.
The historic first judging of the Short Joy section will be conducted by members of the art group Rafani.
4. Competition Sections
Czech Joy
Competition for the Best Czech Documentary Film 2014.
A prestigious selection of new Czech documentaries, including 10 world premieres. Films include Daniel’s World (Veronika Lišková), a look at the last taboo of modern society – paedophilia. The delightful film Long Live Hunting! (Jaroslav Kratochvíl) takes aim at Czech hunting. Shadows of the past are revealed in the film Pavel Wonka Commits to Cooperate ( Libuše Rudinská), which examines whether the last Communist prisoner was a dissident and symbol of the revolution – or an StB collaborator. The section also includes a pair of family portraits: Family Business / from Videodiary (Jakub Wagner), and Marislav Janek’s eagerly awaited new film The Gospel According to Brabenec, about Vratislav Brabenec of the Plastic People of the Universe.
World Premieres · Daniel’s World, Veronika Lišková, Czech Republic 2014, 75 min
· The Gospel According to Brabenec , Miroslav Janek, Czech Republic 2014, 85 min
· Long Live Hunting! , Jaroslav Kratochvíl, Czech Republic 2014, 62 min
· Pavel Wonka Commits to Cooperate , Libuše Rudínská, Czech Republic 2014, 73 min
· The Plan , Benjamin Tuček, Czech Republic 2014, 91 min
· The Czech Way , Martin Kohout, Czech Republic 2014, 90 min
· Family Business / from Videodiary , Jakub Wagner, Czech Republic 2014, 60 min
· František of His Own Kind , Jan Gogola Jr., Czech Republic 2014, 26 min
· Lets Block , Martina Malinová, Czech Republic 2014, 47 min
My Farm Is My Castle , Jiří Stejskal, Czech Republic 2014, 87 min
Opus Bonum
Competition for the 2014 Best World Documentary Film
Opus Bonum selects the best noteworthy documentaries representing diverse trends from around the world. Sixteen films are in the Opus Bonum competition for best world documentary film, including 5 world premieres, 5 international premieres and 1 European premiere. Films in this section include Rock On Bones, a personal view of the Russian independent music scene, and the film-poem Fovea Centralis, which skirts the fringe of video art, composed of multiplied images from the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s closed-circuit cameras.20 Cents shows what happens when public transportation fares in São Paulo are increased and the carnival atmosphere is replaced by one of guerrilla warfare.
World Premieres · Aged , Philip Hoffman, Canada 2014, 45 min
· Rock on Bones , Caroline Troubetzkoy, France 2014, 145 min
· I Am the People , Anna Roussillon, France 2014, 110 min
· In Your Eyes , Pietro Albino Di Pasquale, Italy 2014, 78 min
Fovea Centralis , Philippe Rouy, France 2014, 50 min International Premieres · Chasing After The Wind , Juan Camilo Olmos Feris, Colombia 2014, 60 min
· Water to Tabato , Paulo Carneiro, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal 2014, 45 min
· 20 Cents , Tiago Tambelli, Brazil 2014, 52 min
· Buenos Aires Free Party , Homero Cirelli, Argentina 2014, 74 min
The Shelter , Fernand Melgar, Switzerland 2014, 101 min European Premiere The Beijing Ants , Ryuji Otsuka, China 2014, 88 min
Between The Seas
Competition for the 2014 Best Documentary Film from Central and Eastern Europe.
Between the Seas is a competition section for the countries and nations of Central and Eastern Europe. Between the Seas presents 17 films, of which 4 are world premieres, 2 are international premieres, and 2 are European premieres. The Serbian Lawyer is one of the films seeing its world premiere at Jihlava – a film about the man who defended Slobodan Milošević and Radovan Karadžić, criminals from whom he had fled during the old regime. Another premiere in this section is Zuzana Piussi’s Transference , which sketches a dark picture of the state social care system for threatened children in Slovakia after the death of an abused child. Also in competition is the latest film by unsparing Austrian analyst Ulrich Seidl. In the Basement reveals that the basement is a rather important place for many Austrians, where you’ll find the usual hunting trophies and unusual bars, but also town council members and their swastikas, sadomasochism and other “hobbies”.
World Premieres · Transference , Zuzana Piussi, Slovakia/Czech Republic 2014, 57 min
· The Serbian Lawyer , Aleksandar Nikolić, Germany/Great Britain/Serbia 2014, 82 min
· Pill Junkies , Bartosz Staszewski, Poland 2014, 76 min
Ocean , Tamara Drakulić, Serbia 2014, 77 min International Premieres · 6 Degrees , Bartosz Dombrowski, Poland 2013, 81 min
A Last Year in 114 Minutes , Daniel Nicolae Djamo, Romania 2014, 114 min European Premieres Euromaidan: Rough Cut , Roman Bondarchuk et al., Ukraine 2014, 60 min Don’t Breathe, Nino Kirtadzé, France 2014, 86 min
Fascinations
Competition for the 2014 Best Experimental Documentary Film.
Fascinations is a competition screening of experimental films that offer us unique approaches to the depiction of reality. The section will present 33 films, including 7 world premieres, 6 international premieres, and 4 European premieres.
Premiere films include:
An animated work based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philisophicus (Active Image O directed by Becky James); the unguided choreography of white points in black space (Fascinating Moments by Yoshiki Nishimura); a memorial to one’s father using old photographs and chemical manipulation of the film itself using salt and seaweed (Dark Matter by Karel Doing); and a journey through a digitally manipulated landscape (L by Jacques Perconte).
World Premieres
· Active Image O , Becky James, USA 2014, 8 min
· Dark Matter , Karel Doing, Netherlands/Great Britain 2014, 20 min
· Fascinating Moments , Yoshiki Nishimura, Japan 2014, 4 min
· L , Jacques Perconte, France 2014, 15 min
· Our Hands Are Empty , Sj Ramir, Australia/New Zealand 2014, 10 min
· Jupiter Lolopop , Charlotte Dunker, Belgium 2014, 5 min
Study of Synchromy , Patrick Bergeron, Canada 2014, 3 min International Premieres
· Cut Out , Guli Silberstein, Great Britain 2014, 4 min
· The Civilization Desire , Carolina Astudillo, Spain 2014, 7 min
· A.D.A.M. , Vladislav Knežević, Croatia 2014, 13 min
· Digital Landscaping , Sangsok Ko, South Korea 2013, 4 min
· Field , Yi Myun, South Korea 2014, 6 min
Salers , Fernando Dominguez, Argentina/France 2014, 9 min European Premieres
· Beep , Kyungman Kim, South Korea 2014, 10 min
· Callisto , Youjin Moon, USA 2014, 14 min
· Droga! , Miko Revereza, Philippines 2013, 7 min
Frame Walk , Hayoung Jeon, South Korea 2014, 6 min Short Joy
Competition for the Best Short Film 2014 .
This year, this originally non-competition section devoted to short films has been transformed into a new competition section. The fifteen competition entries include films from all over the world, dealing with a wide spectrum of topics, and representing many current trends in contemporary documentary filmmaking. The Czech entry, Arguments by Andran Abramjan (who received an honourable mention in last year’s Czech Joy competition), considers the possibilities of dialogue on the Ukrainian crisis from both the eastern and western points of view. The purely observational film The Limits of Europe, underscored by the noise and sounds of protests, explores the spontaneous architecture of seven Kiev barricades erected in the streets leading to Independence Square. The contemplative and imaginatively filmed The Length enters the world of jazz legend Ted Curson.
First Lights
Competition for the Best Debut of 2014
Further evidence of Jihlava’s mission to support the film industry and share in the discovery of new talents is the presentation of a new competition section that rewards the best first work. Debut films presented as part of the traditional competition sections Opus Bonum, Czech Joy and Between the Seas have the opportunity to “battle it out” in a space that is not limited by territory. Comparing Czech and other Eastern European documentaries with their competition from the rest of the world can be a valuable experience, an opportunity to see commonalities and differences. It can also provide mutual inspiration not only for the films’ creators, but also for producers and other film professionals.
5. Non-competition Sections
Exprmntl.Cz
Experimental films from the Czech lands
This section is a non-competition survey of contemporary trends in Czech experimental film. Screenings will include films by renowned artists as well as filmmakers who just starting out.The unsettling video art of Zbyňek Baladrán, who focuses primarily on “archaeological” work with found material, can be seen in Dead Reckoning, showing the sterility of modern man’s life in four sequences featuring statistics, psychoanalysis, income and paranoia in the leading roles. Alice Růžičková’s film Autonomous Calábek takes a look into the plant kingdom. Made from a montage of scientific and film experiments, her portrait of a pioneer in plant physiology takes on surrealistic qualities.
Special Event
New world and Czech films, pre-premieres and festival hits
Alice Nellis presents Adoption: A Piece of Fortune, a kaleidoscope of stories with the same ending – a longed-for child. This opening film of the Jihlava Idff is a documentary exploration of a complex topic. In contrast, American master Errol Morris’ film The Unknown Known is a chilling look at former Us Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. The Last of the Unjust by Claude Lanzmann captures the testimony of Benjamin Murmelstein, the “puppet king” appointed at the end of the Nazi era to the position of the last “Ältester” of the Judenrat at a model Jewish ghetto. Also worth mentioning is Regarding Susan Sontag, director Nancy Kates’s portrait of one the most important intellectuals of the 20th century.
Doc-fi
Documentary and fiction are not opposites
Doc-fi expresses the conviction that the boundary between documentary and fiction is permeable. This year, three unusual films will be screened. Requiem for Beauty by Chinese author and Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian examines the space between film, poetry and painting. His multi-language monologues touch on themes that people do not speak about much anymore. In Beyond Icebergland, a man, a woman and a child occupy an invisible common film space, but not the same reality. It’s an ephemeral chronicle of a frozen time and a collage of images from a disappearing world, a film on the frontier of documentary, mystification and delightful genre games. Czech filmmaker Ondřej Vavrečka’s Among Us is an experimentally tinged love story that takes place during the time when the country was coming to grips with the death of Václav Havel.
6. Doc Alliance
Doc Alliance is the result of a creative partnership of seven key European documentary film festivals: Cph:dox Copenhagen, Doclisboa, Dok Leipzig, Fid Marseille, Jihlava Idff, Planete Doc Film Festival and Visions du Réel Nyon.
The aim of Doc Alliance is to help documentary films reach as many viewers as possible, and to systematically support their distribution through their festival markets and through the alliance’s online platform www.DAFilms.com.
Over the course of its existence, the Jihlava festival has become an indispensable Czech and worldwide documentary event, and an active contributor to the promotion and distribution of documentary films. The Jihlava festival is a co-founder and member of Doc Alliance, a prestigious union of seven important European documentary festivals.
Program – Year Eighteen
As in past years, the largest celebration of original documentary film in Central and Eastern Europe will present a diverse range of Czech and foreign films, with many world, international, European, and Czech premieres.
“This year’s festival is a true tribute to the artistic and independent film scene. This tribute will take place in the presence of such special guests as Kidlat Tahimik (which translates to “Quiet Lightning”), founder of independent Filipino cinema, whose films from the 1970s were declared by Werner Herzog to be among the most free to come out during that time, and noted Chinese director Wang Bing, winner of awards at festivals in Venice, Rotterdam, Yamagata and Marseilles,” said festival director Marek Hovorka.
The Face Of The Festival
The central motif of the 18th festival is a stark black-and-white symbol of a factory. It’s not only the dominant visual feature of the festival, but has also found its way into the films themselves. The poster was designed by artist, educator and publisher Juraj Horváth. This year’s festival trailer was created by the legend of Czech and world cinematography Jan Němec. This was his very first experience with this format; the intensity of the final form, however, can be felt in his short statement on the trailer’s filming:
“There are no ‘small’ or ‘big’ films. Twenty seconds expresses concern about the possible demise of film. I sound the alarm myself and the shadow of my hand is my signature.”
1. Organization And Awards
The festival is organized by the Jsaf civic association. In 2013, the festival issued more than 2,900 festival passes. Of these, 782 were for film professionals and festival guests from the Czech Republic and abroad, and 156 were for journalists. The festival screenings were attended by a total of more than 30,000 viewers.
The following awards will be presented as part of the 2014 Jihlava Idff:
· 2014 Best International Documentary Film Award (Opus Bonum competition)
· 2014 Best Central and Eastern European Documentary Film Award (Between the Seas competition)
· 2014 Best Czech Documentary Film Award (Czech Joy competition)
· 2014 Best Experimental Documentary Film Award (Fascinations competition)
· 2014 Best Debut Film Award (First Lights competition)
· 2014 Best Short Film Award (Short Joy competition)
· 2014 Contribution to World Cinematography
2014 Spectators Prize 2014 Respekt Award for the best television or video reportage · Silver Eye Award in the categories of short, mid-length, and feature documentary
(part of the East Silver market organized by the Institute of Documentary Film)
· 2014 Award for the Most Beautiful Festival Poster
· 2014 Audience Award for the Most Beautiful Festival Poster
2. New At The 18th Jihlava Idff
This year’s festival brings two new competitions: the former non-competition section Short Joy, focusing on short films, has received competition status, and in the new competition First Lights, the jury will choose the best debut film from the Opus Bonum, Between the Seas and Czech Joy sections. And of course there’s our annual retrospective of distinctive personalities and unique thematic sections.
The Complete Letters
This unique project is the brainchild of the Centre for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, in which five pairs of world-renowned directors exchanged audio-visual “letters”. These letters will be presented at Jihlava in their Eastern European premiere. Filmmakers such as meditative artist Naomi Kawase, legend of the New York avant-garde Jonas Mekas, “lone wolf” Albert Serra and critical chronicler of contemporary China Wang Bing invite viewers into their private lives and into the secrets of their artistic poetics.
“It’s remarkable to see how much each letter reflects the personal style of each of the directors. Never have two directors with such radically different styles come together like this,” commented festival programmer David Čeněk.
Forgotten Filmmaker JIŘÍ PolÁK
This photographer, director and sensitive individual who escaped to the “place where dreams are made real” – the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf prior to the August occupation of Czechoslovakia – is one of the forgotten figures of Czech cinema. Jiří Polák was able to film Hospital in Kuks, but did not enjoy any domestic recognition. After his emigration and short stays in Vienna and Switzerland, he accepted film assignments in Iran.
Tribute: Alain Resnais
“Renowned French director passed away on 1 March 2014 at the age of 91. In memory of his work, we have prepared two screenings of his lesser-known or completely unknown films. He himself was instrumental to an unprecedented extent to the development of documentary filmmaking in France, and showed its new stylistic possibilities,” says festival programmer David Čeněk about this unique presentation of Resnais’ (mainly) early work. Alain Resnais The majority of Resnais’ works being presented at this year’s Jihlava Idff have been shown only a few times in France, and are being screened in the Czech Republic for the first time ever.
Retrospective: Kidlat Tahimik
A special guest at this year’s Jihlava festival will be the “father of Filipino independent film” – director, actor, screenwriter and producer Kidlat Tahimik, the founder of the so-called Filipino New Wave and an influential commentator on post-colonialism and power imbalances throughout the world, praised in the West by Werner Herzog when he said that [Tahimik’s] films from the 1970s are among some of the most free works on film of their time.
3. Jurors
The jury for the competition section Opus Bonum traditionally consists of just one person – a notable personality from world cinema. This year, this honour has been bestowed on a significant figure from the Yugoslav Black Wave – Želimir Žilnik.
The best film in the Between the Seas section will be chosen by:
· French film theoretician Raymond Bellour
· Spanish director Albert Serra
American artist Deborah Stratman Artist Kateřina Šedá Czech Joy Jury:
Poet Petr Hruška Former director of Czech Television Ivo Mathé Film historian Tereza Czesany Dvořáková Documentary filmmaker Bohdan Bláhovec The winner of the experimental competition Fascination will be determined by the Austrian master of found footage Peter Tscherkassky and his wife, filmmaker Eve Heller.
The historic first judging of the Short Joy section will be conducted by members of the art group Rafani.
4. Competition Sections
Czech Joy
Competition for the Best Czech Documentary Film 2014.
A prestigious selection of new Czech documentaries, including 10 world premieres. Films include Daniel’s World (Veronika Lišková), a look at the last taboo of modern society – paedophilia. The delightful film Long Live Hunting! (Jaroslav Kratochvíl) takes aim at Czech hunting. Shadows of the past are revealed in the film Pavel Wonka Commits to Cooperate ( Libuše Rudinská), which examines whether the last Communist prisoner was a dissident and symbol of the revolution – or an StB collaborator. The section also includes a pair of family portraits: Family Business / from Videodiary (Jakub Wagner), and Marislav Janek’s eagerly awaited new film The Gospel According to Brabenec, about Vratislav Brabenec of the Plastic People of the Universe.
World Premieres · Daniel’s World, Veronika Lišková, Czech Republic 2014, 75 min
· The Gospel According to Brabenec , Miroslav Janek, Czech Republic 2014, 85 min
· Long Live Hunting! , Jaroslav Kratochvíl, Czech Republic 2014, 62 min
· Pavel Wonka Commits to Cooperate , Libuše Rudínská, Czech Republic 2014, 73 min
· The Plan , Benjamin Tuček, Czech Republic 2014, 91 min
· The Czech Way , Martin Kohout, Czech Republic 2014, 90 min
· Family Business / from Videodiary , Jakub Wagner, Czech Republic 2014, 60 min
· František of His Own Kind , Jan Gogola Jr., Czech Republic 2014, 26 min
· Lets Block , Martina Malinová, Czech Republic 2014, 47 min
My Farm Is My Castle , Jiří Stejskal, Czech Republic 2014, 87 min
Opus Bonum
Competition for the 2014 Best World Documentary Film
Opus Bonum selects the best noteworthy documentaries representing diverse trends from around the world. Sixteen films are in the Opus Bonum competition for best world documentary film, including 5 world premieres, 5 international premieres and 1 European premiere. Films in this section include Rock On Bones, a personal view of the Russian independent music scene, and the film-poem Fovea Centralis, which skirts the fringe of video art, composed of multiplied images from the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s closed-circuit cameras.20 Cents shows what happens when public transportation fares in São Paulo are increased and the carnival atmosphere is replaced by one of guerrilla warfare.
World Premieres · Aged , Philip Hoffman, Canada 2014, 45 min
· Rock on Bones , Caroline Troubetzkoy, France 2014, 145 min
· I Am the People , Anna Roussillon, France 2014, 110 min
· In Your Eyes , Pietro Albino Di Pasquale, Italy 2014, 78 min
Fovea Centralis , Philippe Rouy, France 2014, 50 min International Premieres · Chasing After The Wind , Juan Camilo Olmos Feris, Colombia 2014, 60 min
· Water to Tabato , Paulo Carneiro, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal 2014, 45 min
· 20 Cents , Tiago Tambelli, Brazil 2014, 52 min
· Buenos Aires Free Party , Homero Cirelli, Argentina 2014, 74 min
The Shelter , Fernand Melgar, Switzerland 2014, 101 min European Premiere The Beijing Ants , Ryuji Otsuka, China 2014, 88 min
Between The Seas
Competition for the 2014 Best Documentary Film from Central and Eastern Europe.
Between the Seas is a competition section for the countries and nations of Central and Eastern Europe. Between the Seas presents 17 films, of which 4 are world premieres, 2 are international premieres, and 2 are European premieres. The Serbian Lawyer is one of the films seeing its world premiere at Jihlava – a film about the man who defended Slobodan Milošević and Radovan Karadžić, criminals from whom he had fled during the old regime. Another premiere in this section is Zuzana Piussi’s Transference , which sketches a dark picture of the state social care system for threatened children in Slovakia after the death of an abused child. Also in competition is the latest film by unsparing Austrian analyst Ulrich Seidl. In the Basement reveals that the basement is a rather important place for many Austrians, where you’ll find the usual hunting trophies and unusual bars, but also town council members and their swastikas, sadomasochism and other “hobbies”.
World Premieres · Transference , Zuzana Piussi, Slovakia/Czech Republic 2014, 57 min
· The Serbian Lawyer , Aleksandar Nikolić, Germany/Great Britain/Serbia 2014, 82 min
· Pill Junkies , Bartosz Staszewski, Poland 2014, 76 min
Ocean , Tamara Drakulić, Serbia 2014, 77 min International Premieres · 6 Degrees , Bartosz Dombrowski, Poland 2013, 81 min
A Last Year in 114 Minutes , Daniel Nicolae Djamo, Romania 2014, 114 min European Premieres Euromaidan: Rough Cut , Roman Bondarchuk et al., Ukraine 2014, 60 min Don’t Breathe, Nino Kirtadzé, France 2014, 86 min
Fascinations
Competition for the 2014 Best Experimental Documentary Film.
Fascinations is a competition screening of experimental films that offer us unique approaches to the depiction of reality. The section will present 33 films, including 7 world premieres, 6 international premieres, and 4 European premieres.
Premiere films include:
An animated work based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philisophicus (Active Image O directed by Becky James); the unguided choreography of white points in black space (Fascinating Moments by Yoshiki Nishimura); a memorial to one’s father using old photographs and chemical manipulation of the film itself using salt and seaweed (Dark Matter by Karel Doing); and a journey through a digitally manipulated landscape (L by Jacques Perconte).
World Premieres
· Active Image O , Becky James, USA 2014, 8 min
· Dark Matter , Karel Doing, Netherlands/Great Britain 2014, 20 min
· Fascinating Moments , Yoshiki Nishimura, Japan 2014, 4 min
· L , Jacques Perconte, France 2014, 15 min
· Our Hands Are Empty , Sj Ramir, Australia/New Zealand 2014, 10 min
· Jupiter Lolopop , Charlotte Dunker, Belgium 2014, 5 min
Study of Synchromy , Patrick Bergeron, Canada 2014, 3 min International Premieres
· Cut Out , Guli Silberstein, Great Britain 2014, 4 min
· The Civilization Desire , Carolina Astudillo, Spain 2014, 7 min
· A.D.A.M. , Vladislav Knežević, Croatia 2014, 13 min
· Digital Landscaping , Sangsok Ko, South Korea 2013, 4 min
· Field , Yi Myun, South Korea 2014, 6 min
Salers , Fernando Dominguez, Argentina/France 2014, 9 min European Premieres
· Beep , Kyungman Kim, South Korea 2014, 10 min
· Callisto , Youjin Moon, USA 2014, 14 min
· Droga! , Miko Revereza, Philippines 2013, 7 min
Frame Walk , Hayoung Jeon, South Korea 2014, 6 min Short Joy
Competition for the Best Short Film 2014 .
This year, this originally non-competition section devoted to short films has been transformed into a new competition section. The fifteen competition entries include films from all over the world, dealing with a wide spectrum of topics, and representing many current trends in contemporary documentary filmmaking. The Czech entry, Arguments by Andran Abramjan (who received an honourable mention in last year’s Czech Joy competition), considers the possibilities of dialogue on the Ukrainian crisis from both the eastern and western points of view. The purely observational film The Limits of Europe, underscored by the noise and sounds of protests, explores the spontaneous architecture of seven Kiev barricades erected in the streets leading to Independence Square. The contemplative and imaginatively filmed The Length enters the world of jazz legend Ted Curson.
First Lights
Competition for the Best Debut of 2014
Further evidence of Jihlava’s mission to support the film industry and share in the discovery of new talents is the presentation of a new competition section that rewards the best first work. Debut films presented as part of the traditional competition sections Opus Bonum, Czech Joy and Between the Seas have the opportunity to “battle it out” in a space that is not limited by territory. Comparing Czech and other Eastern European documentaries with their competition from the rest of the world can be a valuable experience, an opportunity to see commonalities and differences. It can also provide mutual inspiration not only for the films’ creators, but also for producers and other film professionals.
5. Non-competition Sections
Exprmntl.Cz
Experimental films from the Czech lands
This section is a non-competition survey of contemporary trends in Czech experimental film. Screenings will include films by renowned artists as well as filmmakers who just starting out.The unsettling video art of Zbyňek Baladrán, who focuses primarily on “archaeological” work with found material, can be seen in Dead Reckoning, showing the sterility of modern man’s life in four sequences featuring statistics, psychoanalysis, income and paranoia in the leading roles. Alice Růžičková’s film Autonomous Calábek takes a look into the plant kingdom. Made from a montage of scientific and film experiments, her portrait of a pioneer in plant physiology takes on surrealistic qualities.
Special Event
New world and Czech films, pre-premieres and festival hits
Alice Nellis presents Adoption: A Piece of Fortune, a kaleidoscope of stories with the same ending – a longed-for child. This opening film of the Jihlava Idff is a documentary exploration of a complex topic. In contrast, American master Errol Morris’ film The Unknown Known is a chilling look at former Us Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. The Last of the Unjust by Claude Lanzmann captures the testimony of Benjamin Murmelstein, the “puppet king” appointed at the end of the Nazi era to the position of the last “Ältester” of the Judenrat at a model Jewish ghetto. Also worth mentioning is Regarding Susan Sontag, director Nancy Kates’s portrait of one the most important intellectuals of the 20th century.
Doc-fi
Documentary and fiction are not opposites
Doc-fi expresses the conviction that the boundary between documentary and fiction is permeable. This year, three unusual films will be screened. Requiem for Beauty by Chinese author and Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian examines the space between film, poetry and painting. His multi-language monologues touch on themes that people do not speak about much anymore. In Beyond Icebergland, a man, a woman and a child occupy an invisible common film space, but not the same reality. It’s an ephemeral chronicle of a frozen time and a collage of images from a disappearing world, a film on the frontier of documentary, mystification and delightful genre games. Czech filmmaker Ondřej Vavrečka’s Among Us is an experimentally tinged love story that takes place during the time when the country was coming to grips with the death of Václav Havel.
6. Doc Alliance
Doc Alliance is the result of a creative partnership of seven key European documentary film festivals: Cph:dox Copenhagen, Doclisboa, Dok Leipzig, Fid Marseille, Jihlava Idff, Planete Doc Film Festival and Visions du Réel Nyon.
The aim of Doc Alliance is to help documentary films reach as many viewers as possible, and to systematically support their distribution through their festival markets and through the alliance’s online platform www.DAFilms.com.
- 10/28/2014
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
Every documentary leaves good material in the cutting room. Crafting a contained narrative from reality entails exacting editing of reams of footage gathered by the filmmakers. For the acclaimed Shoah, director Claude Lanzmann and his crew shot over 350 hours’ worth of interviews with Holocaust survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders that they winnowed down to a nine and a half hour final cut. Lanzmann was gripped by the subject, and even after eleven years of production on his epic, he couldn’t let it go. In the decades since Shoah‘s release, he’s used “outtakes” from his interviews to make more documentaries about the Holocaust. The Last of the Unjust is the fourth of these films. In 1975, Lanzmann sat down with Benjamin Murmelstein, the only Judenälteste to survive the war. These were the Nazi-appointed heads of the councils of elders who would oversee each of the various Jewish ghettos and concentration camps. Acting...
- 2/18/2014
- by Dan Schindel
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The power of Claude Lanzmann’s haunting, three-and-a-half-hour documentary The Last of the Unjust isn’t in his usual overbearing longueurs — the train tracks and long walks down empty streets, the break for a cantor to sing Kol Nidre for the Viennese Jewish dead. It’s in how he backs off and lets his subject, Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein, expound at length on his time as the “Jewish elder” of the showpiece Czech concentration camp Theresienstadt and make the case that he wasn’t — as he has been branded in Israel — a Nazi collaborator and a war criminal. The interview took place in Rome in 1975 and was part of Lanzmann’s research for Shoah, and it’s likely the filmmaker thought that Murmelstein, like so many other Lanzmann subjects, would hang himself with his own words. But as Murmelstein talks, we begin to see the world through his eyes. We understand...
- 2/7/2014
- by David Edelstein
- Vulture
Above: Lanzmann and Murmelstein in Rome, 1975.
Claude Lanzmann has created a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for his monumental Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with Lanzmann's visits to the locations featured in Murmelstein's narration and the history surrounding it: the town today,...
Claude Lanzmann has created a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for his monumental Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with Lanzmann's visits to the locations featured in Murmelstein's narration and the history surrounding it: the town today,...
- 2/7/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The Last of the Unjust
Written and directed by Claude Lanzmann
France/Austria, 2013
Anyone who has ever experienced the full 9-hour version of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is likely humbled by such a powerful and riveting document, a witness statement culled from the incomprehensible and unendurable recollections of the victims and perpetrators of the unfathomable horror of the 20th century – the Holocaust. As he was assembling the many hundreds of hours of footage back in the 1970s, Lanzmann conducted a significant and lengthy series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial figure who was one of the so-called Elders of the Jews coerced into working with the Nazi regime in Austria. Murmelstein’s story maps the escalation of persecution to genocide, first as a senior bureaucrat as the anti-Semitic climate began to gain a terrible traction, then as the senior liaison officer in the Theresienstadt ghetto, where thousands were killed...
Written and directed by Claude Lanzmann
France/Austria, 2013
Anyone who has ever experienced the full 9-hour version of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is likely humbled by such a powerful and riveting document, a witness statement culled from the incomprehensible and unendurable recollections of the victims and perpetrators of the unfathomable horror of the 20th century – the Holocaust. As he was assembling the many hundreds of hours of footage back in the 1970s, Lanzmann conducted a significant and lengthy series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial figure who was one of the so-called Elders of the Jews coerced into working with the Nazi regime in Austria. Murmelstein’s story maps the escalation of persecution to genocide, first as a senior bureaucrat as the anti-Semitic climate began to gain a terrible traction, then as the senior liaison officer in the Theresienstadt ghetto, where thousands were killed...
- 2/7/2014
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Return to the Void: Lanzmann Resurrects Murmelstein
Claude Lanzmann’s unfathomable devotion to exposing the truths of the Holocaust is incomparable in the history of cinema. No other filmmaker has devoted his professional career almost entirely to a single topic, say nothing of one so densely despicable. And yet, since the 70s, Lanzmann has been hard at work, totally immersed in research regarding Hitler’s mass extermination of the Jews, and the resulting 9 hour aural history that is Shoah turned out to only be the beginning. The documentarian has returned to the subject with leftovers from his Shoah era interviews in a series of riveting shorter films – Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m, The Karski Report and his first feature to focus on Theresienstadt, A Visitor From The Living. Once again, at the age of 87, Lanzmann takes us back to the Nazi staged propaganda town, this time seeking the perspective of Benjamin Murmelstein,...
Claude Lanzmann’s unfathomable devotion to exposing the truths of the Holocaust is incomparable in the history of cinema. No other filmmaker has devoted his professional career almost entirely to a single topic, say nothing of one so densely despicable. And yet, since the 70s, Lanzmann has been hard at work, totally immersed in research regarding Hitler’s mass extermination of the Jews, and the resulting 9 hour aural history that is Shoah turned out to only be the beginning. The documentarian has returned to the subject with leftovers from his Shoah era interviews in a series of riveting shorter films – Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m, The Karski Report and his first feature to focus on Theresienstadt, A Visitor From The Living. Once again, at the age of 87, Lanzmann takes us back to the Nazi staged propaganda town, this time seeking the perspective of Benjamin Murmelstein,...
- 2/6/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
New Release
Nurse 3D
R, 1 Hr., 24 Mins.
Consider this deliriously trashy erotic thriller Single White Female in a hospital. With her steamy, screw-loose smile and breathy, sex-kitten voice, Paz de la Huerta vamps it up as a psychotic angel of mercy obsessed with a new co-worker (30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden). (Also available on iTunes and VOD) C+ —Chris Nashawaty
New Release
12 O’Clock Boys
Not Rated, 1 Hr., 15 Mins.
Documentary filmmaker Lotfy Nathan explores the outlaw appeal of an inner-city Baltimore dirt-bike gang through the eyes of a 13-year-old wannabe member named Pug. Daredevil danger is one attraction for the pint-size protagonist,...
Nurse 3D
R, 1 Hr., 24 Mins.
Consider this deliriously trashy erotic thriller Single White Female in a hospital. With her steamy, screw-loose smile and breathy, sex-kitten voice, Paz de la Huerta vamps it up as a psychotic angel of mercy obsessed with a new co-worker (30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden). (Also available on iTunes and VOD) C+ —Chris Nashawaty
New Release
12 O’Clock Boys
Not Rated, 1 Hr., 15 Mins.
Documentary filmmaker Lotfy Nathan explores the outlaw appeal of an inner-city Baltimore dirt-bike gang through the eyes of a 13-year-old wannabe member named Pug. Daredevil danger is one attraction for the pint-size protagonist,...
- 2/5/2014
- by EW staff
- EW - Inside Movies
Veteran documentarian Claude Lanzmann, now 87, is best known for directing the groundbreaking ten-hour documentary on the Holocaust, "Shoah." His new film, "The Last of the Unjust," returns to the dark chapter of the Nazis but via a different route. Revisiting footage from "Shoah," Lanzmann constructs a film centering on Benjamin Murmelstein, the last president of the Thereseinstadt Jewish Council, who was forced to have daily negotiations with Nazi Adolf Eichmann (whose trial in Jerusalem was famously and highly controversially chronicled by philosopher Hannah Arendt). The film, which played this year's Cannes, Tiff and Nyff, hits theaters in New York December 13, ahead of its national release on February 7. Clip and new poster (a Toh! exclusive) below:...
- 11/8/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
Jc Chandor with Robert Redford (Our Man), who decides to shave Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze Robert Redford and Bruce Dern in 1974's The Great Gatsby were battling over F Scott Fitzgerald's Daisy Buchanan. At this year's New York, London and Cannes film festivals they battle their demons on land and at sea respectively in Alexander Payne's Nebraska and Jc Chandor's All Is Lost. Another grand ageless man, Shoah director Claude Lanzmann, gives us a powerful look at The Last Of The Unjust, his film about Theresienstadt Elder Benjamin Murmelstein, whom he interviewed in Rome in 1975 and whose statements about Adolf Eichmann and the conception of Theresienstadt need to be heard.
All is Lost
Hardly any words are spoken. Robert Redford as "Our Man," is alone at sea on a sinking ship after a floating container carrying a freight of sneakers rams his sailboat. At the New York Film...
All is Lost
Hardly any words are spoken. Robert Redford as "Our Man," is alone at sea on a sinking ship after a floating container carrying a freight of sneakers rams his sailboat. At the New York Film...
- 10/12/2013
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Cohen Media Group has picked up the distribution rights to The Last of the Unjust, a documentary feature from Claude Lanzmann, the director of the 1985 nine-and-a-half-hour documentary Shoah. The film, which is currently showing at Tiff, tackles the Holocaust, this time focusing on Theresienstadt concentration camp (located in what is now the Czech Republic), where tens of thousands died and many more were held before being sent to their deaths at Treblinka, Auschwitz, and other camps. The film revolves around Benjamin Murmelstein, the last president of the Theresienstadt Jewish Council. Lanzmann originally intended to include
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- 9/10/2013
- by Borys Kit
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cohen Media Group has acquired North American distribution on The Last Of The Unjust, the documentary that’s playing Toronto and will follow with a New York Film Festival berth. The film is directed by Shoah helmer Claude Lanzmann and will be released theatrically next year after a qualifying run for the Oscars. The film reveals a little-known yet fundamental aspect of the Holocaust, and sheds light on the origins of the “Final Solution.” Lanzmann tells the story of the Theresienstadt concentration camp (located in what is now the Czech Republic), where tens of thousands died and many more were held before being sent to their deaths at Treblinka, Auschwitz and other camps. The central figure in the film is Benjamin Murmelstein, the last president of the Theresienstadt Jewish Council, a fallen hero condemned to exile. He was forced to negotiate day after day from 1938 until the end of the...
- 9/10/2013
- by MIKE FLEMING JR
- Deadline
Cohen Media Group has acquired all North American rights to Shoah director Claude Lanzmann’s Toronto entry The Last Of The Unjust.
The documentary will screen in the New York Film Festival and is lined up for a 2013 theatrical release for awards season qualification followed by traditional theatrical release in 2014.
The Last Of The Unjust chronicles the efforts by Theresienstadt concentration camp intern Benjamin Murmelstein to negotiate with Adolph Eichmann the freedom of tens of thousands of Jews.
Cohen Media Group’s John Kochman and evp Gary Rubin brokered the deal with Le Pacte CEO Jean Labadie and head of international sales Camille Neel.
Sundance Channel has acquired Us broadcast rights to the supernatural drama The Returned from Music Box Films. The eight-part French series distributed by Zodiak Rights was created by Fabrice Gobert and is based on the feature film Les Revenants by Robin Campillo. Own: Oprah Winfrey Network will broadcast later this year Barbara Kopple’s documentary...
The documentary will screen in the New York Film Festival and is lined up for a 2013 theatrical release for awards season qualification followed by traditional theatrical release in 2014.
The Last Of The Unjust chronicles the efforts by Theresienstadt concentration camp intern Benjamin Murmelstein to negotiate with Adolph Eichmann the freedom of tens of thousands of Jews.
Cohen Media Group’s John Kochman and evp Gary Rubin brokered the deal with Le Pacte CEO Jean Labadie and head of international sales Camille Neel.
Sundance Channel has acquired Us broadcast rights to the supernatural drama The Returned from Music Box Films. The eight-part French series distributed by Zodiak Rights was created by Fabrice Gobert and is based on the feature film Les Revenants by Robin Campillo. Own: Oprah Winfrey Network will broadcast later this year Barbara Kopple’s documentary...
- 9/10/2013
- by [email protected] (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The Toronto Film Festival is off and running, which means deals are being made. Here’s a look at what’s happened so far :
Indie distributor A24 Films (The Bling Ring, Spring Breakers) has acquired the rights to Jonathan Glazer’s sci-fi thriller Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson as a seductive alien who feasts on humans. [Deadline]
Millennium Entertainment secured the U.S. rights to John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo, in which Turturro’s character becomes Woody Allen’s pimp. The comedy also stars Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara. [Deadline]
Claude Lanzmann’s (Shoah) Holocaust documentary The Last of the...
Indie distributor A24 Films (The Bling Ring, Spring Breakers) has acquired the rights to Jonathan Glazer’s sci-fi thriller Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson as a seductive alien who feasts on humans. [Deadline]
Millennium Entertainment secured the U.S. rights to John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo, in which Turturro’s character becomes Woody Allen’s pimp. The comedy also stars Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara. [Deadline]
Claude Lanzmann’s (Shoah) Holocaust documentary The Last of the...
- 9/6/2013
- by Samantha Highfill
- EW - Inside Movies
The Last of the Unjust
Written and directed by Claude Lanzmann
France/Austria, 2013
Anyone who has ever experienced the full 9-hour version of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is likely humbled by such a powerful and riveting document, a witness statement culled from the incomprehensible and unendurable recollections of the victims and perpetrators of the unfathomable horror of the 20th century – the Holocaust. As he was assembling the many hundreds of hours of footage back in the 1970s, Lanzmann conducted a significant and lengthy series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial figure who was one of the so-called Elders of the Jews coerced into working with the Nazi regime in Austria. Murmelstein’s story maps the escalation of persecution to genocide, first as a senior bureaucrat as the anti-Semitic climate began to gain a terrible traction, then as the senior liaison officer in the Theresienstadt ghetto, where thousands were killed...
Written and directed by Claude Lanzmann
France/Austria, 2013
Anyone who has ever experienced the full 9-hour version of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is likely humbled by such a powerful and riveting document, a witness statement culled from the incomprehensible and unendurable recollections of the victims and perpetrators of the unfathomable horror of the 20th century – the Holocaust. As he was assembling the many hundreds of hours of footage back in the 1970s, Lanzmann conducted a significant and lengthy series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial figure who was one of the so-called Elders of the Jews coerced into working with the Nazi regime in Austria. Murmelstein’s story maps the escalation of persecution to genocide, first as a senior bureaucrat as the anti-Semitic climate began to gain a terrible traction, then as the senior liaison officer in the Theresienstadt ghetto, where thousands were killed...
- 9/6/2013
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Karlovy Vary’s industry days continue today with the Pitch & Feedback initiative, now in its second year. Czech and Slovak filmmakers presented projects in development which have international co-production potential.
The jury of experts featured Matthieu Darras from the Torino Film Lab, producer Mike Downey of the UK’s F&Me, Loic Magneron of Wide Management, Riina Sildos from the Baltic Event and Brigitta Manthey of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.
The projects pitched are:
The Red Captain (Cerveny Kapitan) (Slovakia)
Dir. Michal Kollar, prods Kollar, Viktor Taus
A slow burning thriller adapted from the bestelling detective novel novel by Dominik Dan. The film is set in the early 1990s when a homicide detective investigates the former secret service and the religious elite. The first Slovak feature supported by Media single project support.
Little Crusader (Krizacek) (Czech Republic)
Dir. Vaclav Kadrnka, prods Kadrnka, Alice Tabery
The Eighty Letters filmmaker returns with this drama about a father and son’s relationship...
The jury of experts featured Matthieu Darras from the Torino Film Lab, producer Mike Downey of the UK’s F&Me, Loic Magneron of Wide Management, Riina Sildos from the Baltic Event and Brigitta Manthey of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.
The projects pitched are:
The Red Captain (Cerveny Kapitan) (Slovakia)
Dir. Michal Kollar, prods Kollar, Viktor Taus
A slow burning thriller adapted from the bestelling detective novel novel by Dominik Dan. The film is set in the early 1990s when a homicide detective investigates the former secret service and the religious elite. The first Slovak feature supported by Media single project support.
Little Crusader (Krizacek) (Czech Republic)
Dir. Vaclav Kadrnka, prods Kadrnka, Alice Tabery
The Eighty Letters filmmaker returns with this drama about a father and son’s relationship...
- 7/2/2013
- by [email protected] (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Take the first official look at Claude Lanzmann‘s The Last Of the Unjust (Le dernier des injustes) documentary which premiered Out of Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Great but a pretty creepy look at one of history’s darkest times – that’s what this film is all about. It reveals the true face of Eichmann, and exposes without artifice the savage contradictions of the Jewish Councils. Described as an unprecedented insight into the genesis of the Final Solution, The Last of the Unjust revolves around Benjamin Murmelstein, the last president of the Theresienstadt Jewish Council, who was forced to negotiate with Nazi commander Adolf...
- 5/25/2013
- by Fiona
- Filmofilia
The Last Of The Unjust (Claude Lanzmann, France/Austria)
Out Of Competition
Above: Lanzmann and Murmelstein in Rome, 1975.
Claude Lanzmann has brought to Cannes a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for the Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with...
Out Of Competition
Above: Lanzmann and Murmelstein in Rome, 1975.
Claude Lanzmann has brought to Cannes a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for the Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with...
- 5/24/2013
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
In almost four hours of relentless interviews and reflection, filmmaker Claude Lanzmann returns to the ghostly lands of Shoah, his 9½ hour documentary which has been a watershed for human knowledge about the Holocaust since it appeared in 1985. The Last of the Unjust refers to Benjamin Murmelstein, the third and last “Jewish Elder” appointed by the Nazis to run the Theresienstadt ghetto camp in Czechoslovakia, interviewed by Lanzmann in Rome in 1975. Accused by some of having been a collaborator, including historian Gershom Scholem who called for him to be hanged, he is fully vindicated in the film as a courageous man
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- 5/20/2013
- by Deborah Young
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Last of the Unjust – Claude Lanzmann
Section: Out of Competition
Buzz: The guy who made Shoah made this. Period.
The Gist: 1975. In Rome, Claude Lanzmann filmed a series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, the last President of the Jewish Council of Elders in the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, the only “Jewish elder” (according to Nazi terminology) not to have been killed during the war. 2012. Claude Lanzmann, at 87, exhumes these interviews from Rome, returning to Theresienstadt, the town “given to the Jews by Hitler”, a so-called model ghetto, but a deceitful ghetto chosen by Eichmann to dupe the world. Through the various periods, from Nisko in Poland to Theresienstadt, and from Vienna to Rome, the film provides an unprecedented insight into the genesis of the Final Solution.
Section: Out of Competition
Buzz: The guy who made Shoah made this. Period.
The Gist: 1975. In Rome, Claude Lanzmann filmed a series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, the last President of the Jewish Council of Elders in the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, the only “Jewish elder” (according to Nazi terminology) not to have been killed during the war. 2012. Claude Lanzmann, at 87, exhumes these interviews from Rome, returning to Theresienstadt, the town “given to the Jews by Hitler”, a so-called model ghetto, but a deceitful ghetto chosen by Eichmann to dupe the world. Through the various periods, from Nisko in Poland to Theresienstadt, and from Vienna to Rome, the film provides an unprecedented insight into the genesis of the Final Solution.
- 5/15/2013
- by Blake Williams
- IONCINEMA.com
Claude Lanzmann's new film focuses on a figure too complex and controversial for his seminal Holocaust documentary, Shoah – the Jewish Council president who collaborated with the Nazis. Agnès Poirier talks to the director about coming to admire a pariah
There are two men on a balcony looking out at the panorama of Rome. It is the summer of 1975. "Are you happy in Rome?" says one. "As happy as an exiled Jew can be," says the other. The man asking the question is Claude Lanzmann. He has just started work on what will take him 10 years to finish: Shoah, the ground-breaking, nine-and-a-half-hour film about the Holocaust, composed of first-hand testimony and eschewing historical footage. Simone de Beauvoir, his one-time lover, later called the film "a monument – one that for generations to come will enable everyone to understand one of the most sinister and enigmatic moments in history".
The man answering the question is Benjamin Murmelstein,...
There are two men on a balcony looking out at the panorama of Rome. It is the summer of 1975. "Are you happy in Rome?" says one. "As happy as an exiled Jew can be," says the other. The man asking the question is Claude Lanzmann. He has just started work on what will take him 10 years to finish: Shoah, the ground-breaking, nine-and-a-half-hour film about the Holocaust, composed of first-hand testimony and eschewing historical footage. Simone de Beauvoir, his one-time lover, later called the film "a monument – one that for generations to come will enable everyone to understand one of the most sinister and enigmatic moments in history".
The man answering the question is Benjamin Murmelstein,...
- 5/14/2013
- by Agnès Poirier
- The Guardian - Film News
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