European Films

The Danish documentary The Monastery – Mr. Vig & the Nun from Pernille Rose Grønkjær won the VPRO Joris Ivens Award, the top prize at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), which ended this weekend. Two other Danish film also won the top prizes in their sections: Enemies of Happiness from Eva Mulvad won the Silver Wolf for Best Documentary shorter than 60 minutes, and the Silver Cub for best short went to My Eyes by Erlend E. Mo. The jury of the most important documentary festival named Grønkjær’s The Monastery – Mr. Vig & the Nun their “undisputed first choice of perfect filmmaking craft and storytelling.  The unlikely match of Mr. Vig and Sister Ayestleor created a dynamic of humour, conflict, charity and love.” The film tells the story of an ex-priest’s old dream to start a monastery in his castle, when he runs into a stubborn Russian Orthodox nun.

The Russian Zar nezhnykh. Dikyi, dikyi plyazh (Tender's Heat. Wild Wild Beach) from Susanna Baranzhieva, Vitaly Mansky and Alexander Rastorguev won the Jury Prize for its unflinching, tragicomic look at “drunk, dancing, half-naked Russians” at a holiday resort on the Black Sea. Two further documentaries were nominated for the Joris Ivens Award: the German-Romanian Satul sosetelor (Village of Socks) from Klaudia Begic and Ileana Stanculescu (about a poor village in the Romanian countryside that generates some extra income by selling knitted socks to Western Europe under a German immigrant's supervision); and Vardan Hovhannisyan’s Armenian documentary A Story of People in War and Peace, which contrasts the life of soldiers in war and peace time.

 

The festival opened on November 23 with a screening of Jiska Richels’ 4 Elements from the Netherlands, which was also the first of the 18-title strong Joris Ivens Competition. Other European titles included Babice revolucije (Grandfather of the Revolution) from Slovenia; Paolo Muran’s Italian La vita come viaggio aziendale (Life As a Corporate Holiday); Mein Vater der Türke (My Father, The Turk) from Germany’s Ariane Riecker and Marcus Vetter; Scandinavian co-production The Planet, from Johan Söderberg, Michael Stenberg and Linus Torell; Davide Ferrario’s La strada di Levi (Primo Levi’s Journey) from Italy; and Tomorrow Never Knows, from Sweden’s Kirsi Nevanti.

 

Paul Taylor’s British documentary We Are Together (Thina simunye) won the First Appearance Award for best debut and also won he Audience Award. The film looks at a group of South African orphans who, against the backdrop of the AIDS pandemic, draw strength from harmonious part-song.

 

Dutch radiomaker Catherine van Campen won the Documentary Award of the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund, a grant of €125,000 for the best project for a yet to be filmed documentary. Her project Eeuwige Moes looks at the conservation of long-forgotten vegetables.