Syndicate: D-Day 15: Thursday Jan. 20, 2000

[koen.vandaele@guest.arnes.si]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IF YOU NO LONGER WISH TO RECEIVE THESE D-DAY-
ANNOUNCEMENTS, 
please reply with "REMOVE" in the subject of your message.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear,

D-Day begins the new year the way we ended it: on Thursday Jan. 20th
we present two more recent documentaries harvested at the
International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA 99). 

At 8pm we'll screen the winner of IDFA's Silver Woolf (Best Video
Documentary) LES ENFANTS DU BORINAGE - LETTRE A HENRI STORCK, directed
by Patric Jean. 
Shot less than a hundred kilometers away from the Centre of the
European Union, Jean's doc depicts the inhuman life conditions of the
sub-proletarians living in the mining region in the South of Belgium.
It shows them as the by-products of late capitalist society: the
outcasts who are in none of the Euro-statistics... 

At 9.30 pm we'll present an exceptional found-footage "fictional
documentary". From an enormous amount of amateur footage made in
post-war Soviet Union, Vitalij Manskij made the uncensored,
unauthorised biography of the last generation born in the USSR.
Or: How we survived communism and even laughed...

As usual, D-Day takes place in Slovenska kinoteka, Miklosiceva 28,
Ljubljana.

Hope to see you on Thursday.

Best regards,
Koen Van Daele
programme curator & coordinator 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The series D-Day: Dan za dokumentarec is produced by OPEN SOCIETY
INSTITUTE SLOVENIA; in collaboration with OPEN SOCIETY NETWORK
PROGRAMS - SOROS DOCUMENTARY FUND (New York). Executive producer:
SLOVENSKA KINOTEKA. 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PROGRAM DETAILS:

8 pm

LES ENFANTS DU BORINAGE - LETTRE A HENRI STORCK
directed by Patric Jean; phot.: Guy Maezelle; ed.: Nathalie Delvoye;
sound: Jean-Jacques Quinet; prod.: Martine Osteaux (Centre Video
Bruxelles). Belgium, 1999, 54 min., Beta - ENGLISH SUBTITLES.

In 1933 the Belgian avant-garde filmmaker Henri Storck was asked to
make a documentary about the troubled mining area in Wallonia, the
Borinage. Feeling too unexperienced a filmmaker, he invited his
Dutch colleague Joris Ivens to codirect this film. Confronted with
the outrageous misery of the miners, Storck and Ivens felt they had
to give up their "avant-garde principles": instead of capturing the
"beauty" of poverty on celluloid, they  made a stark accusation of
the brutality and injustice of capitalism. MISERE AU BORINAGE became
one of the first shocking portraits of the inhuman living conditions
of the proletarian miners and their families. 

More than half a century later the young director Patric Jean follows
Storck's footsteps. Jean --who himself was born and grew up in the
Borinage-- asks himself what has happened to the children and
grandchildren of this proletarian generation of the thirties. LES
ENFANTS DU BORINAGE - LETTRE A HENRI STORCK shows us that the
heritage of the poverty is even bigger poverty. The subproletarians
live in conditions of total misery and (contrary to their
revolutionary fathers and mothers) they do no longer have hope for
change. Their situation is so desparate that nobody would even
attempt to "expose" them, let alone: think of improving the quality
of their lives. These people are literally unheard and invisible.
Jean's merit is to let us hear "the immense noise of the silence of
the poor". While seeing Les Enfants du Borinage - Lettre a Henri
Storck one keeps on thinking about Bertrand Tavernier's fairy tale on
the same theme and about the same region (albeit south of the border)
CA COMMENCE AUJOURD'HUI.

LES ENFANTS DU BORINAGE - LETTRE A HENRI STORCK won the Silver Woolf
(Best Video Documentary) at the International Documentary
Filmfestival Amsterdam 1999.


9.30 pm

TCHASTNYE KHRONIKI. MONOLOG.
directed by Vitalij Manskiji; ed.: Igor Jarkevic; sound: E.
Praslova; music: Aleksij Ajgi; prod.: MV-studio, REN-TV, YLE-TV 2. 
Russia, 1999, 91 min., 35mm (projection of the English verion on Beta).

In 1995 the Russian documentarian Vitalij Manskij started a unique
project. He began collecting film and photo-material shot by amateurs
in the period from 1950 till 1991. Like any home-movie collection it
contains pictures of marriages, births, funerals, the first school
days, holidays at the seaside, concerts, parties,. From the over 5000
hours of film material (8mm, super 8, and 16mm) and 20.000 pictures
Manskij constructed a fictional biography of an ordinary Russian guy
who was born at the time Jurij Gagarin became the first man in space,
and whose youth ended at the time the USSR fell apart. As the History
passes by (the Cuba crisis, Kennedy's death, Brezhnev's funeral,.), a
voice comments the highs and lows of his own family life: his first steps
as a baby, his parent's divorce, the beach, girls, rock and roll, .

TCHASTNYE KHRONIKI. MONOLOG is a amazing document of a generation
who grew up in a country that underwent huge transformations. 
Or: How we survived communism and even laughed.

Festivals & Awards: Special Prize, Message to Man, St. Petersburg;
Visions du Reel - Nyon, 1999; Critic Prize, Kinotour, Sotchi 1999; XXI
International Film Festival Moscow; IDFA 1999.
<<<END OF MESSAGE>>>
Koen Van Daele
Program coordinator D-Day: Dan za dokumentarec
Miklosiceva 28 - 1000 Ljubljana - Slovenia
phone: -386-61/329.184
fax: -386-61/13.23.092
email: Koen.VanDaele@guest.arnes.si
------Syndicate mailinglist--------------------
 Syndicate network for media culture and media art
 information and archive: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate
 to unsubscribe, write to <syndicate-request@aec.at>
 in the body of the msg: unsubscribe your@email.adress