International Documentary Films

The following selection of films is provided courtesy of Middlebury College

Arabic
Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam
[MUHAWWILAH 'AN SADD AL-FURAT]
Directed by Omar Amiralay
Syria, 1970
13 min. Arabic with English subtitles.

&

A Flood in Bath Country
[TUFAN FI BALAD EL-BA'TH]
Directed by Omar Amiralay
Syria/France, 2003
Color. 46 min. Arabic with English subtitles.

In 1970, Omar Amiralay made a short documentary, Film-Essay on the Euphrates Dam, in praise of the ruling Baath party's project to construct an impressive system of dams. Today, after fatal construction flaws have been discovered, his controversial new film, A Flood in Baath Country, explores the metaphorical implications of such weakness. Without commentary or criticism, Amiralay's film exposes Baath party propaganda and its debilitating effects on the people of al-Mashi village, 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Damascus. The camera moves slowly from students to teachers to government officials, with everyone reciting the exact same praises for the president and slogans glorifying the Baath party. The film is the harshest indictment yet of the regime, portraying the devastating effects of 35 years of rigid Baath party rule on Syrian society.

“There is nothing enigmatic, by contrast, about Omar Amiralay's documentaries. They're as outspoken as can be--and yet they, too, convey their argument through unforgettably strong images.”

– Stuart Klawans, The Nation

Japanese
Kokoyaku: Highschool Baseball
[の日本人の野球]
Directed by Kenneth Eng
USA, 2006
Color. 53 min. Japanese with English subtitles.

Trailer:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/kokoyakyu/#
http://www.projectilearts.org/kokoyakyu

You want pure sports spectacle? You want the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?" Forget about Olympic athletics, the American pros and even Friday-night football in Texas. Take a look at high school baseball in Japan. As shown in "Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball," the first English-language film to examine the phenomenon, baseball has become a national rite of passage for the country's youth. For thousands of Japanese teens, their families and teachers, as well as millions of spectators, the annual tournament that begins with some 4,000 teams and finishes with 49 teams competing for the national championship at Koshien Stadium in Osaka manages to be both pure baseball — and purely Japanese.

“Kids from a very young age, as you'll see in the documentary, take the game very seriously. They practice year-round. They are fundamentally sound. …Outside the lines, the fans cheer for their teams in a very fanatical way… In Japan it's a supportive, "we're with you from beginning to end." You'll see in the high school tournament that the score can be 13-2 in the last inning and the fans are still singing their songs in total support of their team.”

- Bobby Valentine, baseball player and manager


Mandarin

Kekexili: Mountain Patro
[可可西里]
Directed by Chuan Lu
China, 2004
Color. 85 min. Mandarin with English subtitles.

Trailer: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mountainpatrol
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol is a film inspired by a people's remarkable mission surrounding the illegal Tibetan antelope poaching in the region of Kekexili, the largest animal reserve in China. The story is brought to the screen with great detail by director Lu Chuan. Set against the exquisite backdrop of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Chuan tells the tale of brave local Tibetans who face death and starvation to save the endangered antelope herds from a band of ruthless hunters.

Based loosely on real events, the film documents efforts by Ri Tai (Duobujie) to stop the animals' slaughter by persuading teachers, soldiers and others to join him in patrolling the Tibetan Plateau. The opening shows poachers machine-gunning an antelope herd, then killing one of Ri Tai's men, captured when he fell asleep in his jeep. Ga Yu (Zhang Lei) travels to Ri Tai's armed compound to investigate the murder for a Beijing newspaper. He accompanies Ri Tai and seven of his men as they set out to capture the poachers. The director's strong, vigorous style suits the setting perfectly, making Mountain Patrol the closest thing to a Hollywood western in years. And as in the best westerns, the landscape assumes its own character in the story. Mountain Patrol captures a world of harsh extremes, of snow-covered mountains surrounding featureless deserts, of isolation so complete that simply entering the area is a matter of life and death.

– Daniel Eagan, Film Journal International

French
The Other Side of the Tracks
[DE L'AUTRE COTÉ DU PÉRIPH]
France, 1997
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier & Nils Tavernier
Color. 90 min. In French with English subtitles

*Note: Total Duration 149min. (2 parts): 1. “Le Coeur de la cite’’ (90min) ; 2. "Le meilleur de l'âme" (60 minutes)
One of 66 film-makers to protest against the Debré immigration law, Bertrand Tavernier with son Nils took up the invitation extended by the French Minister for Municipal Affairs to spend a month living in the Grands Pêcheurs suburb of Montreuil. Once there, the people they met revealed their own views about the difficulties of integration, amidst economic and social deprivation. —BecauseFilmsInspire.org.uk

German
Berlin Babylon
Directed by Hubertus Siegert
Germany, 2001
Black & White/ Color. 88 min. German with English subtitles.


A documentary about the architects who rushed into Berlin after the fall of the Wall in 1989 to rebuild the newly vacated area where the structure stood, BERLIN BABYLON follows the rebuilding process over a period of five years--from early 1996 through 2000. Teams of designers, builders, city planners, and architects came together to erect buildings that would not only commemorate the Berlin Wall, but also unite a long-divided city. In the midst of this activity, politics intermingle with artistic tastes, resulting in a veritable storm of pointed, serious, meaningful construction. Using dramatic aerial photography that contrasts the old Berlin with the new Berlin, the film shows buildings being imploded to make room for more modern architecture to emerge from the rubble. These shots are set off with a grating and abstract soundtrack from ambient group Einsturzende Neubauten, along with more spirited songs by Richard Wagner. BERLIN BABYLON is a history charting endeavor that is a spectacle to forsake.

"...Beautifully photographed..." - Elvis Mitchell, New York Times

Italian
A Beautiful Memory: A Mother and Her Sons Against the Maria
[Un bel ricordo]
Directed by Anthony Fragola
Italy, 2006
Color. 40 min. Italian with English subtitles.

This forty-minute documentary is based on an interview with Felicia Impastato, whose son was killed by the Mafia in Sicily twenty-six years ago because of his relentless and open struggle to break its control of civil society. What is eventful in this film is that Peppino’s father was a mafioso, and it was the first time a mafia son openly rebelled against his father. In addition, Felicia Impastato was one of the first women to openly speak out against the Mafia and to bring civil suit to bring justice to her son. The authorities, perhaps in collusion with the Mafia, tried to make it appear that his death was a failed suicide terrorist attack.

Spanish
In The Pit [En el hoyo]
Directed by Juan Carlos Rulfo
Mexico, 2006
Color. 84 min. Spanish with English subtitles.

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/inthepit/trailer/

According to Mexican legend, the devil demands one soul be offered up for every bridge built, as a guarantee for the structure’s durability. In Juan Carlos Rulfo’s internationally-praised documentary, this age-old adage takes on mammoth proportions. En el hoyo looks into the daily lives of construction workers building the Second Deck of Mexico City's Perifrico Freeway.

En el hoyo is a Sundance-winning documentary about Mexico City workers building the humungous ‘El Segundo Piso’ elevated freeway. Captured toiling, bantering and philosophizing in director Juan Carlos Rulfo’s raw, wobbly DV footage, the curious cast of characters invoke the social problems you’d expect (corruption, poverty, perilous working conditions), but it’s the rich mix of lives that grips. There’s poor picked-on, good-natured ‘Shorty’; the woman who talks about her encounters with God and the Devil; ‘El Guapo’, who hits on every woman he sees; a cowboy planning on retiring when he’s 32; as well as the unsympathetic ‘El Grande’, who brags about battering his wife so much she couldn’t open her eyes. You long for more context on both workers and project, though a breathtaking five-minute-plus helicopter shot along the snaking concrete-and-iron colossus at the close helps distract from any moans.

—Nigel Funnel, Time Out London

Portuguese
Maria Bethania: Music is Perfume
Directed by Georges Gachot
Spain, 2006
Color. 82 min. Portuguese with English subtitles.

Trailer: http://www.commeaucinema.com/news.php3?nominfos=46381&Rub=BA
Documentary about Brazilian singing star Maria Bethânia and her 40-year-old career. The film features her concerts and her family, including her famous brother, composer/singer Caetano Veloso.

Georges Gachot, best known for his portrait of volatile pianist Martha Argerich, follows Bethania through rehearsals and recording sessions, where the unique chemistry of her relationship with great songs (often by Chico Buarque or old-timers like Vinicius de Moraes) is revealed in detail. She slowly warms to the camera, making observations about the music in general ("Samba is a sadness that cradles us," she quotes from one tune) and the unique atmosphere of birthplace Bahia in particular. In that heavily Africanized town, there are memorable visits with her famous brother, Caetano Veloso, and their big-hearted mother.

– Ken Eisner

Russian
Girls [девушки];
Boys [МАЛЬЧИКИ];
Sisters [СЕСТРЫ]
Directed by Valeriia Gai Germanika
Russia, 2006.
Color. 46 min; 36 min; 16 min. Russian with English subtitles.

Photos & Review: http://www.kinokultura.com/2007/15r-devochki.shtml

Girls [девушки]
As the critic Michelle Kuhn writes, “Girls is a 21st-century coming-of-age film. It depicts the summer adventures of three girls encountering the rollercoaster of adolescence—though with more “downs” than “ups.” Katia, Sveta, and Sasha, pure post-Soviet, post-modern babies, blossom into “womanhood” through self-destruction. Their grown-up act entails the run-of-the-mill deviant behaviors: drinking, smoking, piercing each other’s bellybuttons, suicide contemplation, and naked carousal with boys. These girls seem determined to prove themselves by acts of masochism. Seeking to harm their bodies in every imaginable way, they essentially demonstrate how, though the manifestations have changed, the traditional notion defining (Russian) womanhood as burden—physical and otherwise—remains intact. These 21st-century girls are in the process of becoming the 19th-century hysterical woman. To put it more precisely, the girls are downright Dostoevskian. In perfectly calm, seemingly happy episodes, they burst into amazingly cruel acts and tirades against each other. In the next moment, they treat each other with perfect civility, all nastiness and inflicted wounds apparently forgotten. The film’s rollercoaster of adolescence is driven by petty demons. The character study at the core of the narrative derives the real power of its punch, however, from the fact that Katia, Sveta, and Sasha, after all, are merely girls: in the final scene, the three stand in a crowd of 6- to16-year-olds participating in the ritual festivities of the first day of school. Is the film suggesting that girls are becoming women sooner, or that these girls’ behavior is now the norm for all girls? The title seems to confirm that yes, this behavior is universal, but the meaning ultimately is left open and the film carefully avoids judging its characters.”

Boys [МАЛЬЧИКИ]
The odyssey of two brothers, ages 9 and 10 that takes place in many settings: the apartment building in Strogino, their mother’s apartment, a children’s detention center, a gypsy camp, and an unhappy return home. Their dramatic adventures, as in any road movie, teach the heroes a great deal about the world, acquainting them for the first time with loneliness and treachery.

“Boys” closely corresponds with Germanika’s previous film, “Girls.” However, if in the earlier film the adult world is passive and exists for the most part apart from the main characters, in “Boys” the world is as cold as a wintry landscape seen through a window.

Sisters [СЕСТРЫ]
A candid conversation between two sisters about the death of their mother against the background of the daily life of the older sister.