Tag: crime

Dirty, murky and grey: the beautiful crimes of Iceland

Posted on by victorfraga

It was not until the turn of the century that the small and remote country of Iceland entered the global cinematic scene and introduced to the international audiences a unique take on how to craft moody, dim crime stories set in an exotic, wild landscape where darkness permeates every aspect of life. The prominence of gloom, especially during the winter months, is mirrored and reflected in the soporific atmosphere and dim characterisation of the native productions. It is as if the blackness has seeped into the skin of the Icelanders, who carry each their own cross and the burden of harsh climate and temperamental weather conditions. A most fitting terrain for a crime story to unfold is hard to imagine and the Icelandic directors and cinematographers have both invested in and capitalised on the unique, so rich in geothermal energy, Icelandic earth.

Icelandic filmmakers had a solid foundation to build upon as in the literary field, authors such as the so-called King of Icelandic Crime Fiction Arnaldur Indridason and later Yrsa Sigurðardóttir had already earned critical acclaim as well as an all-embracing readership at a worldwide scale. Of course, the country has a well-heeled tradition in literature with the sagas of the 9th, 10th and 11th century – all written in the Old Icelandic Prose – being one of the most prominent exports of the secluded nation. The sagas are filled with hidden symbolism and profound meanings, a testament to the Icelandic people’s infatuation with storytelling that still lives on. It is that symbiotic relationship between the Icelanders and fictional narratives that gave birth to the country’s cinema and during the past two decades, several noteworthy Icelandic crime flicks have been released, leaving the audience reeling with astonishment and buzzing with apprehension regarding what comes next.

Below, I will cite and briefly explore some of the most eminent Icelandic crime titles of the last few years and the directors who succeeded in capturing the quintessence of the Icelandic collective soul, transfiguring the all-encompassing gloominess into visually stunning stories and featuring protagonists who struggle to survive within an almost hostile environment. The movies are listed chronologically.

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1. Jar City (Baltasar Kormákur, 2006):

It is impossible to talk about Icelandic cinema without first mentioning the name of the multi-awarded director, screenwriter, and producer who became the most emblematic figure in Nordic cinema regardless of genre categorisation. Baltasar Kormákur became known to wider audiences from his 2000 romantic comedy 101 Reykjavík and was initiated in crime filmmaking in 2006 when he adapted one of Arnaldur Indridason’s most popular novels in the well-respected Inspector Erlendur series, the gloomy and depressing Jar City. The story gradually merges two distinctive plot threads into a single main storyline, which connects the random murder of a solitary elderly man in Reykjavík with the untimely demise of a little girl due to a rare hereditary disease. The sombre colours of the cinematography command the screen, providing the perfect backdrop for the grumpy and idiosyncratic Inspector Erlendur. Ingvar Sigurdsson literally nails the role and delivers an impeccable portrayal of a difficult character, and that is no small feat for any actor. The grey skies of Reykjavík seem to be mourning the loss of an innocent child in a movie that is bound to afflict your emotions on a deeper level.

Jar City is also pictured at the top of this article.

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2. Black’s Game (Óskar Thór Axelsson, 2012):

Óskar Thór Axelsson first illustrated his directorial panache with Black’s Game, a bleak exploration of Reykjavik’s underbelly and a character study of several main characters, the emphasis given to the protagonist, nicknamed as “Stebbi Psycho” (Thor Kristjansson). The cast features several bigwig Icelandic actors, such as Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson who plays Tóti, Stebbi’s closest friend. The chemistry between the two actors is exemplary and fuels the narrative development which takes place in a rather fast pacing. We follow Stebbi’s descent into the criminal lifestyle that may look promising at first sight, but inevitably leads to destruction and decadence. The supporting characters contribute their own bit in roles ranging from seething psychopaths to cold, calculative criminal minds who ensnare the weak, in terms of moral strength, protagonist. In contrast to the majority of his peers, Axelsson shot this film mainly indoors, reducing the landscape to just another background for the action to take place. This choice proves to be effective as Black’s Game intends to be a character-driven story, not an action flick, with the creators (director and screenwriters) focusing on the various influences imposed upon the protagonist who is confined in a passive role that leaves no room for any form of initiative. This movie can be watched in conjunction with Vultures (Börkur Sigþórsson, 2018) as both films paint a fairly repellent portrait of the city of Reykjavik.

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3. The Oath (Baltasar Kormákur, 2016):

In one of the rare occasions in which Baltasar Kormákur, who evidently prefers to be the man behind the camera, chose to retain for himself the role of the protagonist in the 2016 part family drama and part crime film The Oath. This is one of Kormákur’s most personal projects as he directs, co-signs the screenplay along with Ólafur Egilsson, and plays Finnur, a middle-aged surgeon who gets entangled in a nightmarish scenario when his daughter, Anna (Hera Hilmar) starts to mix with the wrong crowd and falls in love with a brutish thug, Óttar (Gísli Örn Garðarsson), whose primary line of business is drug smuggling. Finnur immediately detects the changes in Anna’s behavior and becomes increasingly more certain that Óttar is an awful influence on her. The worried father will make some attempts at regaining his daughter’s trust, but when they all fall flat on the ground, he will be left with no other choice but to do something drastic, something that would eradicate Óttar from the face of the earth. To do so, he will have to betray all his moral beliefs and conviction and perhaps even break the Hippocratic Oath, hence the movie’s title, something that would previously seem unimaginable for him. Kormákur tries hard to remain subtle both in his direction and performance, leaving the more extravagant acting mannerisms to Gísli Örn Garðarsson who delivers a plausible portrayal of the antagonist. Apart from the performances, the cinematography is simply beautiful, with some shots conveying an aura of opulence that satisfies the audience’s eyes.

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4. I Remember You (Óskar Thór Axelsson, 2017):

Based on the namesake standalone thriller/horror novel by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, I Remember You (which Axelsson directed five years after Black’s Game), is in equal parts a ghost story and a character study of a man who lost what was most precious in his life: his little son, who mysteriously vanished some years earlier. The film’s narrative structure is divided into two major plotlines: the first concerns a group of three friends who travel to the godforsaken village of Isafjörður in order to start renovating an old house to become a hotel for tourists; the second is about Freyr, a respected psychiatrist who still experiences symptoms of grief over the disappearance of his only son, Benny. Freyr’s character arc begins as he becomes embroiled in the police investigation on the horrific murder of an elderly woman which took place inside a church. The two separate plot threads turn out to be intertwined, and the dénouement provides all the necessary explanations for the mysteries that the audience witnesses as the plot unravels. In Óskar Thór Axelsson’s film, the abandoned village of Isafjörður is transformed into a soulful entity that hides secrets from the past and makes its own mind regarding who is welcomed there and who is not. This supernatural aspect is handled expertly by Axelsson who sees something metaphysical brewing in the most isolated parts of his native country. The night sequences in the three friends’ plotline are hair-rising, not in the Hollywood sense of the “jump scare”, and will make your blood run cold. To conclude, I Remember You is nothing short of unmissable.

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5. Vultures (Börkur Sigþórsson, 2018):

Known from his involvement in major television productions such as the majestic Katla and the popular UK show Baptiste, Börkur Sigþórsson explores some critical themes in his 2018 hypnotic feature Vultures, the most prominent being the eternal motif of sibling rivalry that pervades the story as a whole. Promising entrepreneur Erik (Gísli Örn Garðarsson) and Atli (Baltasar Breki Samper), an ex-convict who tries to get his life back on track after his incarceration, are the two brothers who join their forces and decide to smuggle substantial quantities of drugs in the country using a Polish girl, Sofia (Anna Próchniak) as the mule who will transfer the contraband in her own stomach to avoid the search in the airport. But, things take a nasty turn and when the initial plan goes south, both Erik and Atli will have to show their real face both to one another and the audience. The title’s significance becomes evident in the horrendous finale, adding a touch of depravity to the narrative. Everything in Reykjavík seems to be grey in colour or at least that is what the director’s lens captures, the capital city of Iceland depicted in an unprecedented manner. We are all used to thinking Reykjavík as a Lilliputian, fairy-tale town. Sigþórsson attempts to deconstruct this stereotype, using cinematography and the sparse dialogue that is full of pauses and sometimes comes across as disjointed, bolstering the director’s intended tone that desires to provide a realistic portrait of two distressed siblings who will have to cross their boundaries in order save their own skins. Vultures is not an easily digestible, feel-good movie, so beware.

Decision To Leave (Heojil Kyolshim)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

South Korea. City-based detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il from The Fortress, Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2017; The Host, 2006, Memories Of Murder, 2003, both Bong Joon ho) is married to a science nerd (Jung Yi-seo) who works at a nuclear plant in the seaside town of Ipo. Whatever sexual or romantic energy once existed between them has long since evaporated. She tolerates sex with him once a week on the grounds that research has shown it’s good for you and keeps you sharp, but she doesn’t appear to enjoy it much, going through the motions of a necessary chore. There doesn’t seem to be much more to this marriage for either of them than keeping up appearances. She lives and works in Ipo while he spends most of his working time away in the city, often going on nighttime stakeouts to observe suspects and forget about his habitual insomnia.

Which means that when Hae-joon finds himself investigating a case in which skilled amateur climber Ki Do-soo (Yoo Seung-mok from The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, Lee Won-Tae, 2019; also The Host, Memories Of Murder) has fallen from a great height and the dead man’s Chinese-born wife Seo-rye (Tang Wei from Lust, Caution, Ang Lee, 2007) is a murder suspect, the detective is much more interested in her as a romantic subject than as a possible perpetrator, and this sensibility clouds his judgement. Eventually the case is closed, and she gets off scot-free, but the more time Hae-joon spends with her after this, and the more we see of her, the more likely it seems that she was the murderer.

The above constitutes what one might call the film’s first act. This first act and the subsequent second act, in which certain plot elements recur, recalls Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958). In the second act, Hae-joon has moved to the seaside town presumably so that he can spend more time with his wife. One day the couple are wandering though the fish market where they run into Seo-rye, who by coincidence has likewise moved into the area, with her new and shady financial consultant husband in tow. The latter seems more keen than he should be to talk to Hae-joon’s wife and leaves her his card.

It turns out this second husband has a history as a scam merchant and has made a lot of enemies along the way. Before we get to know him much more, however, he turns up dead in his swimming pool. His wife could be responsible, but there is another suspect too, a victim of his sharp business practices, who looks more likely.

Rather than allowing all this to unfold in straightforward linear narrative fashion, director Park works in terms of layers and constantly jumps back and forth throughout. This is at once enthralling and infuriating to watch; enthralling because of the myriad of painstakingly worked out details piled on top of one another, infuriating because there is so much going on at any one time that it’s easy to lose track.

Things might make more sense on a second viewing, but equally they might simply prove as confusing as they did first time round. Without a second watch, it’s impossible to say. Nevertheless, it’s a very rich film, thoroughly engrossing; one to which, having seen it once, you’ll want to return.

Decision To Leave is out in cinemas from Friday, 21st October. On Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Curzon Home Cinema in March.

Streams

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM LOCARNO

There is a great sadness at the core of Streams, as well as a great anger. Depicting a nation in tatters, it constantly surprises and delights despite telling such a dark and difficult tale. The Tunisian system comes across as completely broken and corrupted by a mixture of high hypocrisy and rank misogyny, but the Tunisian people themselves are captured with great resilience and warmth, making for a film that both saddens and inspires. Either way, it announces second-feature Mehdi Hmili as a great talent to watch.

It starts off in a very unassuming fashion, with the young Moumen (Iheb Bouyahya, in a stunning debut) preparing for a football game. He plays in goal and has great dreams of signing for a huge club. His mother Amel (Afef Ben Mahmoud) is incredibly overprotective of her son, going into a minor breakdown when she notices he has pierced his ear. She is right to worry about her son; his father is a full-time resident at the local pub, downing endless beers while hoping that his bets will finally come in. The warning signs are there — all you need is a toxic society and the whole thing can easily fall apart.

It’s really worth knowing as little as possible going in, only that it’s filled with nasty and potentially-triggering moments, taking us on a mother-son odyssey that lays bare the patriarchal, gangster-filled reality of Tunis life. You sense the same post-Arab spring energy that animated the similarly potent Capernaum (Nadine Labaki, 2018). Streams simply fulfils the classic definition of a great film: several great scenes while the rest simply works. It realises that imbuing a film so dark and often depressing with real humanity and joy is not only necessary, but can actually help to deepen the stakes. After all no country, not even the most broken states or brutal dictatorships, is without its joyous moments. In a very strange way, the approach to storytelling actually reminded me of A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) in the way it brings out nuanced acting performances throughout while also bringing real cinematic credentials through fantastic musical sequences.

Veteran actress Mahmoud provides incredible work as a mother constantly making difficult decisions, speaking volumes with just a downward glance or a blink of the eyes. Newcomer Bouyahya is a pretty Timothée Chalamet-type, easily able to hold our attention whether he’s fighting or in the throes of romance. The film cuts between both mother and son at fascinating moments, creating a parallel tension that kept me riveted throughout.

Midway through one dancing scene, the film suddenly changes to widescreen. It’s the kind of move that can come off as pretentious in the hands of a lesser director, but an awesome flex in the hands of someone in command of their work. It’s a bit like watching Ronaldo pull off an extra stopover or Salah — the great hope of North Africa briefly referenced in the film — feinting before bursting into another direction. It’s all the more engaging considering how quietly the film starts. I was expecting a few roman candles and came away dazzled by an immense firework show.

Streams plays in Concorso Cineasti del presente at Locarno Film Festival, running from August 4th to 15th.

Songlap

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

A brotherly drama set against the backdrop of a deadly baby trafficking ring, Songlap has far less edge than its one-line premise suggests. Neither compelling enough to work as drama or dirty enough to engage us in its action sequences, Songlap straddles a line between social realist drama and generic gangland tropes.

Set against the gritty streets of Kaula Lumpur, where getting by appears to be a difficult task, Songlap tells the story of Am (Shaheizy Sam) and Ad (Syafie Naswip). We meet them at the start of the film handing over a newborn baby for cash. This is done in a completely matter-of-fact way, suggesting that this is a routine action for them. They have been roped into working for a ruthless syndicate that ruthlessly profit out of human life.

The younger Am starts having doubts about the business after the death of his friend to a heroin overdose — filmed in a particularly depressing kitchen sink-style. For want of a therapist, he starts patrolling the services of a local, older prostitute. Not for sex though. Like Holden Caulfield, the poor boy just wants to talk. Through these conversations and other revelations, such as finding out that his friend’s sister is being used for her body, he has a change of heart, quite at odds with his brother, who blows most of his cash on gambling. By the end, they butt heads while the world around them slowly closes in.

Songlap (2011) | jazlyntj2j

Since the films release in 2011, both Sam and Nawswip have risen to become two of the biggest stars in Malaysia. You can see why. They both have a natural screen presence, even in a substandard film such as this. While working well together, they can’t do much to elevate a messy screenplay, uninteresting digital photography and a mutual enemy that never once manages to convince.

Additionally, the music, featuring tremolo-heavy guitars, breakbeats and indie songs, blankets the entire film in a strange tone seemingly at odds with the seriousness the material deserves. Neither an ironic counterpoint or particularly suitable to what’s happening on screen, it almost completely disconnected me from the action on screen.

While there is perhaps some potentially rich content to mine here, such as the meaning of family, the conflict between money and morality, and the difficulty of living an authentic life in difficult circumstances, directors Fariza Azlina and Effendee leaves one wanting for something far simpler and more unashamedly entertaining. While deserving credit for the darkness and bravery of its subject matter, they cannot give the material the execution it needs to truly sing. Ultimately, the title of the film — a Malay slang word that either means to make something disappear or to launder funds and make them go away— feels apt: a great idea that disappears under a barrage of needless clichés.

Songlap plays as part of the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors segment, focusing on South East Asian and Mongolian cinema, running online between August 5th and 15th. You can watch the film by clicking here.

Dragged Across Concrete

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Its title speaks of powerlessness in the face of an irresistible force and an involuntary movement in respect of a man-made, industrial era material suggesting a modern urban environment. Several characters inflict and/or are forced to endure suffering in a variety of unpleasant forms. Curiously, the literal dragging across concrete scene late in the over two-and-a-half-hour running length involves the towrope pulling of a wrecked car by a fully working one without any actual suffering at the point of dragging. Before and after, yes, but not at that point. And that scene isn’t in an urban environment at all but rather on a piece of industrial wasteland presaged by a discarded refrigerator and a dead rat on a dark road.

S. Craig Zahler’s third directorial outing after Bone Tomahawk (2015) and Brawl In Cell Block 99 (2017) boasts two starting points. A black ex-con comes out of prison and discovers his mother in debt and working as a prostitute. Two white cops are suspended for excessive violence after being caught on mobile phone video when arresting a Latino suspect. As in those earlier two films, the American director builds on his characters and their separate plights to construct a slow-paced but relentless journey through to his narrative’s conclusion. At the end it all makes perfect sense. However, on your first viewing you won’t see what’s coming. It plays out as a power struggle between various factions of white people at various social levels and black underdogs not content to stay in their place.

Ex-con Henry Johns (Tory Kittles, surely destined for major stardom on the strength of his performance here) is approached by old mate Biscuit (Michael Jai White) who is looking for help on an upcoming job which very quickly places both men well out of their depth. Meanwhile, Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) are the older and the younger cop who although on official leave following their suspension are pursuing leads which may or may not lead them to a crime – with half an eye on making a financial killing rather than upholding the law.

Zahler is a master of characterisation and knows how to direct with a minimum of fuss allowing actors to do what they do brilliantly. He also knows how to plot a movie. The whole thing clocks in at just more than two and a half hours, but you won’t notice the time. He manages to make, for example, two cops sat in a car on a stakeout into compulsive viewing as they interact with one another. There are many similarly low key scenes involving small numbers of characters from which the wider whole would lose something if you cut them out.

The opening image shows the black Henry having sex with a white woman in bed. He always fancied her in school. While he’s certainly having a good time, she maybe isn’t so much. It turns out their meeting was set up by Biscuit as a favour to Henry. The next woman we see is Henry’s mother who got into debt while he was in prison and into prostitution to pay the debt. Now he’s out of prison, Henry vows to take control and sort her debt out. Rosalinda (Liannet Borrego) is the deaf girlfriend of Vasquez (Noel G), the dealer the two cops arrest at the start: she is involuntarily soaked in a shower, stood under a cold air fan and questioned. The two cops “can’t understand” her protests because of her Latino accent.

Soon afterwards, we’re introduced to the nearest and dearest of each of the cops. Ridgeman’s daughter Sara (Jordyn Ashley Olson) is the teenage victim of a bicycling black youth throwing a soft drink in her face near her home, his wife Melanie (Laurie Holden) a former cop struck down with MS who these days needs a cane to get around. Lurasetti’s black girlfriend Denise (Tattiawna Jones), the one woman here seemingly in control of her life, is a power-dressing professional constantly on her mobile to colleagues and clients. We never discover exactly what she does, but it involves a high degree of organisation and self-motivation and her phone conversations suggest she’s really good at it.

Part way through the narrative we meet Kelley Summer (Jennifer Carpenter), returning after maternity leave to her detested but high paying job in a financial district bank at the behest of the manipulative father of their baby. If that sounds grim, it’s nothing compared to the extremely nasty humiliations that will later be inflicted upon her as the plot unfolds.

Apart from Denise, all the women are victims. They are peripheral in this male world, even if their roles as mothers, partners or offspring motivate their menfolk to do what they do. Most of the men locked in to the overarching narrative from start to finish are victims too.

The ruthlessly efficient, criminal gang leader Lorentz Vogelmann (Thomas Kretschmann) spends much of the proceedings with his two masked sidekicks in the back of an armoured van being driven by the two black guys Henry and Biscuit. Elsewhere, memorable male characters are tossed into the mix for little more than one scene each: Police Chief Lt. Calvert (Don Johnson) gives the two cops a hard time, Fredrich (Udo Kier) is a shady character who owes Ridgeman, Mr. Edmington (Fred Melamed) is Kelley’s ingratiating boss at the bank.

Zahler is far more interested in telling a rattling good yarn and exploring character nuance than in playing to political correctness. If you can get past the pervasive misogyny of the piece, this slow-burner of an urban crime thriller with its gripping performances great and small will have you on the edge of your seat. A bleak and original vision of the world – and a dirtylicious treat.

Dragged Across Concrete is out in the UK on Friday, April 19th. On VoD on Monday, August 19th.

Dragged across Concrete is in our list of Top 10 dirtiest films of 2019.

Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

The nuclear family. Dad Osamu (Lily Franky) takes son Shota (Jyo Kairi) to a local convenience store where, through a series of long rehearsed routines, they steal a series of items. Just another day of getting by.

Mum Nobuyo (Ando Sakura), a former sex worker, dispenses advice to her younger sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) – who gets fired from a club where girls display themselves in various states of dress and undress to clients through one way mirrors. Basically, she’s been caught sticking her hands in the till. Grandma (Kirin Kiki) lives with the family making a total of five persons in one small living space.

Dad explains to Shota that he and his partner are bonded here (puts hand on heart) not here (puts hand on genitalia). Yet one afternoon when everyone else is out, she comes on strong and the two adults indulge in an afternoon of passion. Until the children come home unexpectedly.

As if all these familial relationships weren’t complicated enough, father and son spot a little girl (Miyu Sasaki) sitting on the street. She’s hungry, so they take her to their home and give her a meal. That turns into an overnight stay. They try and take her back to her own home, but it’s clear in the street outside from her parents’ clearly audible and highly vocal arguing that neither father nor mother wants the child currently nor ever did. So the family decides to take Yuri in as its newest member.

Shota takes Yuri on a shoplifting trip but it doesn’t go so well. She’s both naive and inexperienced. A shop assistant tells him to quit involving his sister in his shoplifting activities. Much later on, the boy takes the girl on another shoplifting spree which ends in him getting caught, the police questioning the entire family and unexpected revelations about the family itself.

Koreeda has ventured into this territory of the non-nuclear family before. Nobody Knows (2004) featured a group of children left to fend for themselves in an urban environment. Like Father, Like Son (2013) had each of two couples mistakenly bring up a boy as their own after two boys were switched at birth in the hospital. The Japanese director seems fascinated by family function and dysfunction. Why the family unit matters – and when it might be redundant.

All of which is constantly engaging and its assorted characters compelling. One is drawn to them and yet, at the same time, it’s not a family you’d want to be part of when its reality is eventually exposed. The film picked up the Palme d’Or in Cannes and numerous other awards elsewhere. Koreeda seems to be on a winning streak at the moment after The Third Murder (2017). For good measure, Shoplifters also boasts a terrific score by Haruomi Hosono, his first for Koreeda.

Shoplifters plays in the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) on Sunday, November 4th . Buy tickets here. It’s out in cinemas Friday, November 23rd, and on VoD on Monday, March 25th (2019).

Walk this Way with DMovies: Docs from around the World Collection

Posted on by Alasdair Bayman

In an ever-changing world, the documentary film helps us comprehend things greater than our simple daily lives. Owing a debt to the pioneering work Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922), Walk this Way follow in the footsteps of that film in delivering cutting-edge documentaries about topics that really matter to humanity.

Partnering with DMovies this year, The Film Agency, in association with Under The Milky Way, are combining forces again in the Docs from around the World Collection. A means of this, all parties plan to shine light upon films from across the globe which might have escaped audiences upon their initial release. All from a very European perspective (all films are co-productions from the Old Continent).

By using the power of the medium, as well as VoD, DMovies, The Film Agency and Under The Milky Way seek to support true independent filmmaking. In our shared targets, we sat down with Walk this Way Coordinator Nolwenn Luca to discuss this particular collection further.

DMovies – Why documentaries? Are people more likely to watch docs on VoD than the cinema? Is this an opportunity to catch the hidden gems of European documentary-making?

Nolwenn Luca – The Docs from around the World Collection take the main stage, inviting the audience to travel around the world and discover how complex and rich current societies are. The documentary is the place of new interrogations of the man by the man. Not to establish certainties but to reformulate on the scale of human microcosms the essential questions of life.

Walk this Way defends the diversity of European documentary works. The public thanks to the programme have the chance to have access to films that they would not have been able to discover otherwise if they were not available in VoD. The idea is to give a second chance to the movies to meet their audience. If the film has not had the opportunity to have a theatrical release in a country we propose it in VoD as an alternative. In recent years, the VoD offer for documentaries has grown considerably, giving viewers a wide choice to watch quality movies from home.

DM – What is it that these films have in common? Perhaps a desire to reveal the dirty truth, to deep-dive into controversial topics, etc, or something along the lines?

NL – The Collection will take the public through intense investigations from characters going around the world to find answers. Whether they address our love of nature and art, our fascination for criminal minds or our eating habits, these movies will definitely give to the audience food for thought. These films tackle fascinating and relevant thematic with broad interest and are therefore marketable on VoD to several niches.

DM – Can you please tell us a little bit about the curatorship? Roughly how many docs are made for cinema each year in Europe, and how many did you have access to? Any nice figures to give the initiative a grounded aspect!

NL– The documentary is a format that is growing rapidly. Documentary production in Europe has almost doubled over the 2015-2016 period, reaching 698 films in 2016, or about a third of the films of the year in Europe. On average over the period 2007-2016, documentary films represent 1.4% tickets to all genres. In general, feature-length documentaries have a lifetime in room superior to that of all the films.

Documentary is a genre that can easily reach a large audience beyond their country of origin. In general terms, documentaries perform relatively well on international VoD distribution channels partly because they do not request a high level of marketing and promotional expenditure to find their audiences. Already 26 documentaries released in VoD around the world since 2015 with Walk this Way.

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1. 10 Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015):

What will happen when the food runs out of food? Well, in his 2015 documentary Valentin Thurn places this very notion front and centre!

Exploring the scientific, agricultural and environmental ways we can prevent global food shortages, all due to global warming, it’s not a feature filled with bias but educated solutions to an impending world problem. Globe jumping from India to England then Germany, the multifaceted nature of its tone makes the issues it is dealing with a tangible reality for the viewer.

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2. A Symphony of Summits: The Alps from Above (Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann, 2016):

Part of Europe’s natural beauty, The Alps are towering force over every country they touch. Approaching the scope of the natural phenomena in a highly cinematic manner, directors Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann deploy a cineflex camera to capture every inch of its beauty in filmic splendour. Telling the tale of its history, socio-political and geographical story, the sweeping shots of the snow-tipped mountains interpolate you into its vistas. Accompanied by the Germanic tones of Emily Clarke-Brandt, man and nature are combined into one form.

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3. The Key to Dali (David Fernández, 2016):

This Spanish documentary explores Tomeu L’Amo’s maverick purchase of surrealist artist, Salvador Dali’s, first work for a cut-price 25,000 Spanish pesetas in 1988 (£132 in today’s money). Scratching away at the persona of L’Amo, scenes from the documentary allude towards a recent trend of re-creating history or pastness through a post-modern reimagination. Though the elaborate nature of the man could shadow the work, what emerges is a contemporary discussion on elitism, to which is unearthed in many aspects of society. Unlike the recent retelling of the life of Van Gough in Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, 2017) it is undeniable that The Key to Dali is grounded in the real world, opening pathways for art fans or not into the world of painting.

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4. Profilers: Gaze into the Abyss (Barbara Eder, 2015):

Adopting the same global view as 10 Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015), Barbara Eder’s hard-hitting work on the men and women whose job it is to investigate killers does not any soft punches. Intertextually referencing The Silence Of The Lambs, (Jonathan Demme, 1991) in numerous conversations, the grotesque nature of the classic is expressed as a means of the verbal descriptions. Not venturing into sadistic footage of murders etc, it holds respect for the victims. A natural intuition, we as humans constantly seek to explain the un-explainable and Eder’s film elicits this notion poignantly..

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5. Free Lunch Society (Christian Tod, 2017):

What would you do if your income were taken care of? Just a few years ago, an unconditional basic income was considered a pipe dream. Today, this utopia is more imaginable than ever before – intense discussions are taking place in all political and scientific camps. Free Lunch Society provides background information about this idea and searches for explanations, possibilities and experiences regarding its implementation.

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6. Home (Fien Troch, 2016):

17-year-old Kevin, sentenced for violent behaviour, is just let out of prison. To start anew, he moves in with his aunt and her family and begins an apprenticeship at her store. Quickly he adapts to his new home and gets along well with his cousin Sammy, in his last year of high school. Through Sammy and his friends, Kevin meets John. Upon discovering John’s unbearable situation with his mother, Kevin feels the urge to help his new friend. One evening fate intervenes and questions of betrayal, trust and loyalty start to direct their daily lives more than ever.

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7. Mellow Mud (Renars Vimba, 2016):

Loneliness, disillusionment and the experience of first love reveal the character of Raya, a 17-year-old living in rural Latvia with her grandmother and her little brother Robis. A staggering turn of events shakes up their lives, and the young girl must come to decisions that even a grown woman would find difficult to make.

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8. Quiet Bliss (Edoardo Winspeare, 2014):

Three generations of a family have to move back to their picturesque coastal town of their family’s origin and survive off the family farm after their family company goes bankrupt. A feel-good drama about possibilities after a crisis.

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9. Fair Play (Andrea Sedlácková, 2014):

Set in Czechoslovakia in the 1980, young and talented sprinter Anna (Judit Bárdos) is selected for the national team and starts training to qualify for the Olympic Games. As a part of the preparation she is placed in a secret “medical programme” where they begin dopeing her with anabolic steroids. Her performance improves, but after she collapses at training, she learns the truth. Anna decides to continue training without the steroids even though her mother (Anna Geislerova) is worried that she won’t be able to keep up with other athletes and might not qualify for the Olympics, which she sees as the only chance for her daughter to escape from behind the Iron Curtain. After Anna ends last in the indoor race, her mother informs the coach (Roman Luknar) that Anna is no longer using steroids. Together they decide to inject steroids to Anna in secret, pretending it’s nothing but harmless vitamins.

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10. God Willing (Edoardo Maria Falcone, 2015):

A young man’s decision to become a priest affects his whole family, especially his father.

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11. I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Sydney Sibilia, 2014):

A university researcher is fired because of the cuts to university. To earn a living he decides to produce drugs recruiting his former colleagues, who despite their skills are living at the margins of society.

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12. One Wild Moment (Jean-François Richet, 2015):

Two friends bring their daughters with them on a beach vacation and find themselves in an awkward situation. A remake of In a Wild Moment (Claude Berri, 1977).

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14. Heart of Glass (Jérôme de Gerlache, 2016):

Heart of Glass is a journey. A road trip through several countries on two continents in pursuit of a story. The story of a young glass blower with a singular talent: Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert. The film follows him in his daily life working in the studio and on the road. Jeremy recounts growing up in Africa, where he drew inspiration for his first pieces. He speaks of his family of Franco-American origin, difficult events he faced, the challenges of returning to Europe. He speaks of his first encounter with glass at age 19. The first time he saw the hot glass moving at the end of a blow pipe was his seminal moment. The way the glass, fluid, delicate and mysterious, danced that day has forever changed him. The film reveals how passion can undo a tragic fate and is sadly not a Blondie documentary.

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14. Step Up to the Plate (Paul Lacoste, 2012):

In 2009, the three-Michelin-stars French chef Michel Bras decides to hand his restaurant over to his son Sebastien. Between Jonathan Nossiter’s Mondovino (2004) and Raymond Depardon’s La Vie Moderne (2008), this documentary draws a moving and joyful portrait of this outstanding family devoted to the haute cuisine for three generations…

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15. Santa Claus (Alexandre Coffre, 2014):

One night, a burglar in a Santa Claus costume is surprised by Victor, a young boy who believes he is the real Santa Claus. Victor then follows him, and they embark on an unexpected adventure that will change their lives.

All of a Sudden (Auf Einmal)

Posted on by victorfraga

The small town of Altena sits in the Germanic North Rhine-Westphalia with luscious valleys and clearly an idyllic life for some. The antithesis to his tranquil surroundings, Karsten’s (Sebastian Hülk) life takes a drastic change when a girl unexpectedly dies at a house party he is hosting. She is called Anna and prior to her death, Karsten and her are framed kissing before an abrupt cut. Berlin based director Asli Ozge, working in the German language for the first time, constructs a fairly atypical mystery narrative in All of a Sudden. Still, what unfolds is heightened significantly by the performances of all her cast, a deep cinematic style and a riveting final act.

As Karsten runs out of his apartment and towards the nearest clinic, one cannot help notice all his future worries would have been avoided by simply calling an ambulance, rather than leaving the dying Anna alone in his flat. The result of a hasty transition to the film’s titles, the audience are left unaware of what truly happened after Karsten and Anna kissed. Rippling through the whole narrative, this cut leaves every action of the character down to interpretation and second guessing – is our protagonist really a murderer or has fate playing a cruel trick on him?

From the evidence stacked against him, Anna’s underwear is unearthed under his table and his inability to call the services leaves many, including his lawyer, questioning his true intentions. From a cinematic perspective, Muriel Breton’s editing proposes an infinite amount of possibilities for what really happened in the final moments of Anna’s life.

A calm man, it does not appear that Karsten is capable of murder, yet Hülk plays the character with an understated level of vulnerability; as his job, girlfriend and home town turn on him, there lingers a degree of emotional instability to him. This all comes to a head when a local newspaper reports on the incident in the press, resulting in his boss requesting for his imminent leave until the whole situation has ‘blown over’.

The only beacon of hope for him lays in his father’s strong connections to the town as a loyal patron and affluent donor to charities etc. As Karsten’s appearance in court draws nearer, Ozge deploys a tangible class divide in the form of Anna’s familial ties. The family are uncovered to be Russian immigrants to Germany- a juxtaposition to Karsten’s affluent roots in Altena. Extending this class divide, the low key lighting employed in the industrial estate of Anna’s home acts against the natural light of the protagonist’s working environment in a prestigious bank. Further, some scenes are light with a David Fincher-esque quality, strengthening the peculiar and off beat position the audience finds their opinion on Karsten.

Though the trail sequence plays out in a rudimentary manner, All of a Sudden’s most captivating scenes occur after Karsten has been placed under severe emotional and psychological pressure. Using the situation to his advantage with others, he is relentless in the pursuit of his old equilibrium. Hülk transforms from a shy reserved man, into a sinister, depraved human being. Ozge final shot leaves a tactile impression of the real world, a world where the corrupt succeed and exploit others to their own advantage.

All of a Sudden is part of the Award Winners’ series of the Walk This Way Collection, and it’s available for viewing on all major VoD platforms from November 2017.