Showing posts with label Nick Fraser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Fraser. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 June 2015

A round-up of events* at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 (@sheffdocfest)

This is a summary account of events / screenings at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 June




This is a summary account, in a sentence each (well, almost), of events / screenings at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 (5 to 10 June)




Saturday 6 June

* 12.30 – A Young Patriot (2015) (Showroom Screen 2, Vimeo) – inadvertently raises questions both about one’s reasons for choosing a subject and what one has meaningful consent to film (reviewed here) – probably 10+ minutes too long

* 3.45 – Match Me ! How to Find Love in Modern Times (2014) (Odeon Screen 8) – the Q&A essentially confirmed what one had really already suspected, that it was not really about match-making, but had been made to be to complement the story of a couple who had met through a type of arranged yogic marriage – also probably 10+ minutes too long

* 7.00 – (screening at around 9.45) Mavis ! (2015) (The Botanical Gardens) – Mavis Staples is a figure whose musical significance is worth bringing to greater prominence, with the sort of voice that is normally called lived in and an impressive career, but fairly conventional / unremarkable in documentary terms themselves



Sunday 7 June

* 12.15 – Containment (2015) (Showroom Screen 2, Vimeo) – a title that IMDb (@IMDb) will have to disambiguate, as there are also two features of this name, but they will not skilfully look at a range of issues such as where nuclear waste comes from, serious mistakes in our understanding that prove to have been made in attempts to store and process it, and how (perhaps not a wholly integrated theme ?) we warn those in AD 12,000 of its existence / presence (reviewed here)




If one had not tarried, to talk to directors Robb Moss and Peter Galison after the Q&A, there might have been a chance to get to Imperialism or Inquiry : How Fair is Our Foreign Filming ? at 2.30 (ITV Town Hall Council Chamber) (or, at 3.30, How Interactive Content is Shaping the Future of Cinemas and Film Festivals (Memorial Hall, City Hall))...


* 5.45 – Iris (2014) (Odeon Screen 8) – unlike with Mavis !, a film that was not exactly awash with humility, although Iris Apfel is a great encourager and collector with definite tastes and flair, and where doing a deal – having justified the concept of haggling in its appropriate place – seemed part of the thrill of the chase in remorseless acquisitiveness (although tempered by giving archive material, both temporarily and permanently)





Monday 8 June

* 12.00 – The Nine Muses (2010) (Showroom Screen 1, AP Archive) – excellent melding of readings (Naxos Audiobooks) from sourced such as Dante, Homer, Beckettt’s trilogy (Molloy and The Unnameable) with music, images and displayed quotations – directive, but largely through meditative juxtaposition of powerful source and new material (reviewed here – and as prophetically Tweeted ?) :






Little White Lies (@LWLies) had this to say : Even more of a revelation was the screening of Akomfrah's The Nine Muses (2010), which effectively demands the cinema experience. Abstract, demanding but never less than compelling, we can't pretend to have grasped its every free-associating allusion, but its intoxicating riffs on diasporic identity and memory are assembled with the eye of an obvious master.




* 2.15 – Jungle Sisters (2015) (Showroom Screen 2, Vimeo) – the combination of an incipient headache and motion-sequences that felt overly jerky did not make for a screening that could be sustained




* 4.00 – Influence Film Club : Almost There (2014) (The Adelphi Room, The Crucible Theatre) – a pleasant chance to meet, off Twitter, the directors and producers and share and chat with them, as well as seeing a trailer and a clip, and hear them interviewed




Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden (directors) and Tim Horsburgh (Kartemquin Films)


* 6.00 – The Making of Long Lost Family (The Crucible Theatre) – apologies if it is wrongly recalled as in Rotherham, but, anyway, the story of Yorkshire twins, only one of whom knew of the other’s existence, and what the programme did to help her track down her sister, who turned out to have been living just three miles away the whole time, and even to have been registered with the same medical practice – as Nicky Campbell tellingly described it, they became young girls again as they ran towards each other, and Davina McCall could scarcely contain herself that they were there to join the panel on the stage of The Crucible, which was just one unexpectedly moving moment in this session about Long Lost Family, and its commitment to quality and care for its subjects

* 8.15 – Meet the Makers : The Revolution will be Televised (The Crucible Theatre) – despite the fact that the chat was ably chaired by Owen Jones (@OwenJones84), nothing altered the fact that comedy’s effects can be wildly subjective (in a Freud-like way, one can see that something is amusing, but not laugh), and this seemed less hard hitting than much other British satirical work, and more like Dom Joly’s stunts (with a political slant)


Owen Jones



 
Tuesday 9 June

* 10.30 – The BBC Interview : Charlotte Moore (Controller, BBC1) interviewed by Alex Graham (Festival Chair) – proof (one has done it in Q&As, and in interviewing Ken Loach) that one can be so keen that those listening are aware of the store of one’s knowledge that one swamps the interviewee with propositions (mixed up with a question somewhere), and then, lively to engage, irritatingly (?)** cuts short the answer…

* 12.45 – Newsnight and documentary : Ian Katz (Editor, Newsnight) interviewed by Nick Fraser (Executive Producer, Storyville) – Nick Fraser, by contrast, used fewer words, but to better effect, and integrated clips highly appropriately into talking to Ian Katz (@iankatz1000), who spoke with such a fluency and command of language that he well conveyed what helped us understand his editorial approach and decisions at, and hopes for the use of documentary for, Newsnight and in relation to other BBC factual output



Ian Katz


* 3.00 – The Channel 4 Interview : Dan Reed (maker of documentaries (and feature films)) interviewed by Ralph Lee (Deputy Chief Creative Officer, Channel 4) – flagging too much for little other than sustenance by caffeine and chocolate brownie (courtesy of those welcoming people upstairs in The Influence Film Club) and an energy drink (donated by delegate Ravinder Surah), but with little glimpses through Dan Reed’s lens into worlds of depravity, violence and threat


Ralph Lee (L) interviews Dan Reed (R)


* 6.15 – A Sinner in Mecca (2015) (Odeon Screen 8) – despite director / cinematographer Parvez Sharma’s hope that his film was not self indulgent, and the insights that he wished to share – through going on a Hajj – about Mecca and other holy sites, and the ruling Saudi dynasty and its attitude to the past, how he pursued, and attained, the object of his quest seemed to stay very personal to him and his experience (unsure now : see after-thought – and, which is more considered, the review now here)





* 8.45 – DS30 (2014) (Odeon Screen 8) – three films (the first two, being contemporary to the NUM strike, between them totalling around 14 mins, and the third around 33 mins) that, respectively, documented or revisited (a commission for AV Festival in 2014) the mood and music of the time, the latter as made by Test Dept and The South Wales Striking Miners' Choir :










[...]



Wednesday 10 June


* 11.00 The Awards Ceremony (The Crucible Theatre) – a pleasure to be 'inside' this event, hearing the wit and versatility of Jeremy Hardy as host first hand, both before and during :






* 2.00 – Volunteers' Secret Screening : The Confessions of Thomas Quick (2015) (The Void, Sheffield Hallam) :




* 6.30 Monty Python : The Meaning of Live (2014) (The Crucible Theatre) – to Holly Gilliam’s (Terry Gilliam’s daughter’s) impulse to get a camera to document what happened at the script-reading for Monty Python (Almost) Live, and afterwards, much is owed, in this skilful snapshot of the surviving Pythons by Roger Graef and James Rogan (reviewed here)







To be expanded / continued...






End-notes

* These Tweets refer :





** Assured by Charlotte Moore that the style of the interview had not felt antagonistic, one still felt uncomfortable watching more than short sections of it, and others did not disagree with having been disquietened.

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Tuesday, 3 December 2013

The great hip hop film

This is a Festival review of The Great Hip-Hop Hoax (2013)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

3 December

This is a Festival review of The Great Hip-Hop Hoax (2013)

It is my approach, with films, to know as little as possible about them as is consistent with being able to make a choice whether to see them.

This one sounded as though it might share common ground with The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) - to which one member of the audience indirectly alluded in the Q&A with director Jeanie Finlay, by asking whether Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain are actually any good at hip hop - but it is far more interesting : in anything that has someone pretending to be something so long that it becomes questionable whether there is a way back, and, when there is a slide into the sort of existence that kept John Cooper Clarke out of circulation and composition so long, one is facing greater concerns than what The Pistols were in it for.

Mocked by A&R people when they travel down for 13 hours on the bus from Arbroath to London, because they are Scottish, but trying to get recognized for their skills in hip hop*, Boyd and Bain are only spurred on to make themselves be what is necessary to be taken seriously, and immerse themselves in sounding, in words and accent, as if they are from San Jacinto, California (under the name Silibil N' Brains). An initial gig gets them spotted by Chris Rock, who wishes to sign them and, as they need a manager first, sends them to Jonathan Shalit - who gets them a deal with Sony instead. Not, though, the end of their problems but, just before that deal, where they all begin...

Bringing the expectant original journey and disappointed return to life, where at least one of the young men is so hurt that he says that he did not speak all the way, Finlay uses shots of passing scenery to amplify the sense of what they had invested and how cheated and abused they felt. In between, waiting for and before the panel, we have the first use of John Burgerman's colourful and quirky animation, again with Boyd and Bain's comments in voiceover, and its character fits well the tone of the film. A third strand of material, other than recent interviews with Bain and Boyd, and withtheir friends, family and colleagues, is what was recorded on home video made at the time, along with gig and MTV footage and stills, all put together creatively and with flair.

As hinted already, the real focus of the film turns out to be what becomes of the relationship between the two men (although it is now seemingly healed, after they separately contributed to the film, on its being shown on the festival circuit) - it turns out delaying giving the go-ahead for the release of their first single, because Bain is not happy with it and wants to re-record it, means that, because Sony then enters a merger, it never happens, and Boyd essentially tires of waiting around, rather than getting on with life with the woman whom he had recently married.


It is clear from what Finlay says that, with the men giving or publishing accounts of what happened that differ from each other (or from verifiable fact, such as, as Finlay reported, contrary to one's claims to have crashed the BRIT awards and drunk with the stars), she had a difficult time trying to piece together a version of events for the film. She has a telling quotation from Boyd :

Lying is like a drug. Eventually you get carried away, and that’s where you’re out of control. Telling the first lie’s a bit like smoking weed, but after a while you need a stronger hit.


I also confess to having had trouble, which may be personal to me**, remembering which of Boyd and Bain I was seeing in the later interview footage, and in consistently relating that identification to the animation / period material - although, when they made it their business to behave madcap and provocatively to avoid serious questioning, they could act interchangeably (but, though no one realized why, even included the names of fellow hoaxsters Milli Vanilli in a lyric). For real deliberate grossness, for example, we see one openly urinating in public, whilst the other receives the urine on his palms and wipes it on his face ! At such times, it seemed to matter little which of them was playing which part.

This is a thoughtful and interesting piece of film-making, because, behind the antics, the two were so set on staying in character that they even kept in it with the sister of one of them, with whom they stayed when first in London, and also freaked out Boyd's bride not a little. The pressures that they put themselves under by living a lie may not be those weighing on a Raskolnikov, but, past the first steps, they had much to lose, if found out. Remarkably, Rock and Shalit are in the film, but, Finlay told me, the latter only agreed to be interviewed after three years, and she said that Sony had completely distanced themselves.

In the Q&A, someone tenaciously questioned why what he thought the standard of a t.v. documentary (indeed, the film commissioned by the BBC's Storyville series) was being called 'a film'.


I asked about Shalit's response to learning of the deception, describing it as 'philosophical, even amused', and wondering why he had not been more bitter - not appreciating that, as we were told, he was booed in the screening at Edinburgh Film Festival for denigrating Boyd and Bain's background as 'nothing'. It seems that Finlay believes that what Shalit chooses to express as what he thinks of it all now may be a convenient representation of his position...

Having seen Nick Fraser in interview at Aldeburgh Documentary Festival, I asked Finlay whether, as editor, he persuaded her to do or not do anything (having seen something of him in action). She said that he is a formidable figure, and explained that he had commissioned the film, but she had been working with others on the staff.

That said, he had had her pitch the project to him in the BBC canteen, with all sorts of famous faces around, and had banged the table, saying, for example, Make it better ! However, as the film and Finlay testify, he was duly satisfied that it would make a good documentary, which it does.


End-notes

* Apparently, the phrase rapping Proclaimers was derisively used.

** Since it is in the nature of a documentary only to give you the name in a caption on the first occasion (whereas a feature film will typically drop the name in where you cannot miss it and fail to make the association), and here we had two names for Bain.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Wednesday, 20 November 2013

The soul of solar power : components of a new life

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 November

This film was screened in a special session on Saturday 16 November 2013 at Aldeburgh Documentary Festival


* Contains spoilers *

This is a review of Rafea (2012)

Rafea is not quite the star of this film, because there is also the other solar engineer, her relative, Umm Badr (not mentioned in the IMDb summary) – both sent as ambassadors from Jordan to Barefoot College in India to bring back the technology and knowhow to introduce producing electricity from solar resources.

If it had been a straightforward ride, it would just, as series producer* Nick Fraser said after the film that he did not want it to be, have been about transistors and the work of the college, but, although selected to go, Rafea faces opposition from her family, principally her mother and her husband (he has two wives, and she is the second), who do not easily give their blessing for her to be in India for six months.

Rafea has to leave her four children to the trust of their grandmother (who was a bit abrupt, but some in the audience did not laugh in a kind way) and in the hope that their father will, for once, spend some time with them. We see all this from very close, because another trust has been established in the period of two years (all in all) that it took to make this film, that between the families and the film-makers, Mona Eldaief and Jehane Noujaim.

When Fraser talked afterwards in conversation with Mary Ann Sieghart, he explained how the two had worked with Rafea’s family, because she and the audience were quite curious to know how Rafea had been found, and whether her story had been shot in parallel with that of other women (it had not) :

Shooting with a very small team helped, he thought, for people to forget that the camera was there, although the opposite view was expressed by a director in the audience, that bringing a deliberately large team into someone’s living-room and rearranging the furniture could also work to focus on him or her being open and direct.

There was no doubt that, when Rafea’s husband has pestered her when she is away and claimed that her daughter is sick, he feels absolutely free to express his views when she flies back. Before she went, the danger was that he would do as he said, divorce her and take away the children, throwing her onto the dilemma whether she wanted to continue the same life, or take the opportunity, and risk her husband doing as threatened.

The Minister of the Environment (?) has sought for all this to happen as a pilot project, and his interaction with Rafea’s family is interesting at all levels – not only that he has confidence in the women (in a male-oriented world) and that they will return and spread their knowledge in their homeland (rather than being drawn to the city), but also in the level of excessive civility in the dialogue between Rafea’s husband and him when she visits his office to talk about the problems.

The place in which the Jordanian two study gives them scope for mixing with women from other nations and cultures, both building up a good relationship in the classroom, and socializing. Abu Badr, who has accompanied his wife on the trip, shows himself to have a love of dancing, and Rafea and his wife enjoy themselves, and, elsewhere, Umm Badr shows herself to be a wit of an eccentric kind.

They do not know what things will be like when they return, and some of what they have learnt is neatly reserved to show us when they do, but they throw themselves into the work of study. Umm Badr, not to be thrown in the shadow because illiterate, even determines that she is able to write and starts making marks in a notebook, much to Rafea’s amusement.

The film is heartfelt at a genuine level, and was immensely well received at Aldeburgh, both in itself, and – as the discussion widened out – as an example of what Fraser has been doing with Storyville. He is a man who just does not believe in some things about what films do, and is sceptical what films like this can achieve in changing attitudes at some levels, e.g. (as I understood his point) to have some power to educate by example, but he was clear to state his views and that he was not seeking an argument by it.



End-notes

* The series is ‘Why Poverty ?’ (a title that Fraser did not like), as part of BBC’s Storyville, for which he is editor.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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