PROGRAMME ADVISORY BOARDS

Two in the bush is a reason for living

On our 2023 selection for the Long Documentary competition

At first glance, this year’s competition may seem eclectic and inconsistent. There were years when the focal point was on, say, life on islands, subsistence in one’s environment or migration. But the eight stories we selected this time don’t seem to have much in common when you look at them. They take us around the world, from Colombia via Africa and Europe to India. They tell of the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, of a tiny trade venture between Portugal and Senegal, of pigeon breeding in Lebanon and environmental pollution in Italy. We can marvel at jute production in an age-old factory, by industrial standards, search for words of love with Amazonian aboriginals in a deeply plaintive story, witness the construction of a holiday resort in the Allgäu mountains and even visit a gym in the German Breisgau. Destruction, love, labour, sports – that’s a broad range of topics.

But all of the films reveal something that seems like the overarching theme of our day and age: people’s need for hope and something to hold on to. And these are things that emerge from cultural activity. It’s not enough to eat and sleep, although food and shelter are among the most elementary human needs, still denied to many. But in order to endure all of life’s nasty challenges big and small, to be able to wake up in the morning and do what has to be done, we craft ourselves a coat made of language and confidence. A garment we put on every morning to protect us and keep us warm. This garment is our culture, which turns the burden imposed on us into something of our own that is home to plans and opportunities as well. The poisoned river might be a healing water, the ill-paid duty a tradition, the birds in the bush a form of self-affirmation. We find challenge in sports and are lifted up by the common cause in a community project. The small trader, by fulfilling other people’s long-cherished desires, is tenaciously working his own way towards anticipated prosperity. The indigenous people of the Amazon need their traditional shamanic background to cope with life. And the women in Nagorno-Karabakh dye their hair. Under their precarious conditions, it may not seem a lot, but it’s a form of culture.

The world as we experience it now seems to be made of proclamations – dangers have been averted, enemies conquered, states of emergency keep coming back in a seemingly endless loop. But we are humans. We want to laugh, hope and enjoy, and we need a reason to go out and face life every day.

Dokumentarfilm Programm Beirat
Kenneth Anders, Sven Wallrath, Gregor Glass

Caring for those around you

When governments care for their citizens, bureaucracy calls it ‘services of general interest’ – what a transformation of a genuinely human behaviour into an administrative act. By contrast, the seven short documentaries at this year’s festival introduce their very own ideas of how people can take responsibility for each other.

The Good Doctor and Postman, both from the Russian-speaking world, portray two men who take their aspirations to a virtuous life very seriously and reinterpret official caprice by their social commitment.

In Border Conversations, set in the primeval forests near the Polish-Belarussian frontier, activists try to help refugees escape from the misery they were thrown into by inhumane regimes.

Washers for Rent from Colombia shows a very unusual service by European standards whose provider takes his burdensome task surprisingly easy.

In Romania, authorities have pushed through the construction of a copper mine and dam over the locals’ heads, and Geamăna shows one of the last residents to stay put to the very end when the toxic sludge arrives.

Kayu Besi tells a story from Indonesian Papua about independent loggers in the rainforest whose hazardous toil, meant to get them into the tropical timber trade, is deemed illegal.

And, again, we have a film featuring sheep: All Sounds Within. Outside Madrid, shepherds with their flock and dogs roam the municipal woods that have been devastated by a heavy storm, which makes for a unique aural background.

Buen Vivir, the teaching of a good life, is a philosophy from parts of Southern America that aims not at growth but at staying in balance. To achieve this, to provide for everyone and give them the opportunity to live in dignity, requires making efforts and taking initiative. The films we’ve selected show just that.

Short Documentary Programme Advisory Board
Thomas Winkelkotte, Sven Ahlhelm, Julia Hebestreit

To stay or to go

Provinziale’s 20th anniversary comes with a newly formed Short Feature Film Programme Board made up of Imma Harms, Lars Fischer, Sascha Leeske and me. Two old-timers versus two newbies – that’s almost as diverse as it gets, so some friction was inevitable, as showed in our five meetings so far. I haven’t seen much fiercer debates in a while.

The 366 submissions we reviewed could hardly have been more diverse either, in terms of both contents and quality. But like every year, some kind of golden thread was to appear soon to guide us through the worlds pictured in the films and let us experience them through other people’s eyes.

Amidst an intense period of global transformation, we are faced with the same big old questions again: Who am I? Where do I belong? Who and what do I really value? Should I stay where I am or move on to pastures new? These are films about stagnation and change, holding on and letting go, life and death, staying and going. Or, sometimes, about putting up with things you cannot change and feeling liberated just therefore. All of this can be found in our selection of eleven films from six different countries.

Two long-time besties meet in their childhood village and plunge into excessive partying, just like in the good old days. But is it really preferable to stay, or should one move on to the city? A farmer boy is to slaughter a pig for the first time in his life. To kill or not to kill? A group of committed young men are planning a project in their hometown. But who knows what it takes to win over the local politicians? Two men decide to live together in the province. But how openly can they show their love, and will they manage to curb the neighbours? A young widow and her daughter carry on working on their late husband’s and father’s tomato farm. Will they be able to keep it going and make up with each other? On a holiday with his parents, a boy explores his mother’s birthplace on his own. Will he make friends there, and will he get the attention from his parents he so wishes for? Tobi returns to his notoriously rainy village and tries to persuade Lotte of the new life he has found. But what is the difference between tight and nice, and what does it all mean? A young man’s hometown is converted into a holiday resort, and he waits patiently for the changes to come. What’s next, and what happened to the water buffalo? An old fisherman finds a soaked coat with documents in it on the beach. Whose is it, and how did it get there? On a mystic ferry trip, the fragments of passengers’ conversations assemble into a mosaic, but where does the ferry go, after all? A young couple dream of starting all over again together, but will they manage to let go of the things that stifle them?

Where all of this leads us and whether the young couple will leave their home – you will learn it if you stay with us to watch the films. Come and travel with us through all these different worlds and have a look at their inhabitants.

Adrian Stuiber on behalf of the Short Feature Film Programme Board

Short Feature Film Programme Advisory Board
Imma Harms, Adrian Stuiber, Sascha Leeske, Lars Fischer

Showing an inner world through the outward appearance of things, defying physics, time and space in absurd plot twists – animation opens up a field of opportunities and artistic license where live-action film cannot tread. We, the Animated Film Programme Board, have always focused on whether and how filmmakers use these creative liberties to make their stories tangible and touching.

With this in mind, we have selected a set of eight out of 66 submissions from fourteen countries that reached us this year. They use the artistic devices at their disposal in very different ways.

Some rely on visual drama, like when people turn to a swineherd and a vengeful lioness in the Russian abuse story Vanlav, or when lost property grows out of a war refugee’s body and comes to the rescue in Rest in Piece. Or take the dead goat in drug-feverish Atari design that unhinges the entire world in A Goat’s Spell.

Other films, like the French À bicyclette and À coeur perdu and the Belgian La bride, are more leisurely in their pace and expression. Their authors use delicate and vibrant strokes of the pen to draw pictures of three very different personal journeys which, however, each involve some sort of liberation. Freedom, in a very physical sense, is also the theme of the German entry Make or Break, which subtly hints at the acts of violence and repression in East Germany’s youth penitentiaries without ever actually showing them on the screen.

The power and creativity of aptly used animation is embodied also in the pretty and colourful patchwork-like scenery of our opening film, Ferme les yeux, which all the more lets us suspect how fragile its characters are.

Once again, we’re looking forward to taking you on a journey through the artists’ worlds of imagination, and we hope that the screenings will be inspiring and exciting.

Animated Film Programme Advisory Board
Florian Wolf, Almut Undisz, Kathrin Welke, Dominik Zwicky