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Hi everyone, Aylin Gökmen here, with a new episode featuring a conversation with Pablo Álvarez-Mesa about his film, The Soldier’s Lagoon (2024), which received the Docs in Orbit Invitation Award at Cannes Doc-Marché du Film last year.

The Soldier’s Lagoon  is a strikingly beautiful and multi-layered piece centered on the Colombian páramo region. The film explores the land’s history, encompassing Bolívar's political legacy, colonialism, and the presence of armed groups, shedding light on how past conflicts persistently impact both the land and its people. Additionally, it addresses the urgent environmental issue of ecosystem preservation, which has become even more pressing this year due to an unprecedented wildfire season that has devastated the páramo. As a result, The Soldier’s Lagoon already feels like an archive—a part of the region's historical fabric.

Blending evocative and mystical elements, Pablo Álvarez-Mesa unveils the unseen, emotionally connecting us to the páramo’s past, present, and speculated future. In this conversation, we delve into these themes as well as Pablo’s artistic process. 

For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit

Hello everyone. This is Hosein Jalilvand in Geneva with a new episode for Docs in Orbit featuring a conversation with Matthew Lancit about his latest film, Play Dead! (2023).

Play Dead!  is a funny, tender video diary on living with diabetes, where Lancit playfully transforms his personal experience and fear of dying into a body horror film, where an invisible disease crawls inside his body.

The film premiered in the Camera Lucida sidebar of Dok Leipzig in October 2023 and available to stream on Arte TV in France until 16 March and at Jean Rouch International Festival in May.

I hope you enjoy our conversation and his film as much as I did.

GUEST BIO:
Matthew Lancit is an award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker currently based in Paris, France. After leaving his advertising job as a director in a New York animation studio to live in Cameroon, Lancit embarked on the making of his first feature-length documentary, Funeral Season (2011) – which has since been chosen for preservation by the Library and Archives of Canada and selected to over 50 international festivals.
Lancit is known for his autobiographical films that intertwine his personal life with philosophical subjects. His films are marked by his simultaneously poetic gaze and self-deprecating humor, which sometimes borders on the burlesque.
CONTRIBUTOR BIO:
Hosein Jalilvand is an Iranian film director-scholar based in Geneva. His films play with the intersections of history and cinema. After completing his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, Hosein began pursuing his long interests in cinema with a Master’s in Film Studies at the University of Tehran and a Master of Arts in Documentary Film Directing from DocNomads. His short documentary “Song of the Bell” (DocLisboa, 2018) won the best director award in the Green Years competition section. Since then, he has been researching a series of texts about colonialism and its manifestation in wildlife movies while developing a feature documentary on the topic.

For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit

We are releasing a conversation recorded on Tuesday, November 14th, 2023, at IDFA, where I met with Julian Ross and Farah Hasanbegović to recap Corresponding Cinemas.

Corresponding Cinemas was a new series at IDFA this year, and in many ways, it was an experiment to see what invisible connections surface when an institution decides to transfer over its curatorial control to filmmakers.

The idea is simple and compelling. It would be a series of films and conversations with filmmakers who have inspired one another, and the day would follow this chain of inspiration, with each filmmaker selecting the works of the next.

The series was planned months in advance and formally announced in September; in the very first announcement the festival made about its program - it reported that the event would kick off with Sky Hopinka and include Basma al-Sharif, Jumana Manna, Ibrahim Shaddad and Abderrahmane Sissako.

In this episode, Farah, Julian, and I run through the events leading up to Corresponding Cinemas as we experienced them on the ground. We first discuss the opening night and the release of IDFA’s statement apologizing for a protest banner that appeared during the ceremony and condemning a slogan that was on the banner proclaiming it should not be used in any way and by anybody anymore - despite a recent ruling by the Dutch Court of Appeals that this is not considered hate speech. In response to IDFA denouncing this slogan, Jumana Manna, Basma al-Sharif, and Sky Hopinka circulated a joint statement refusing to comply with IDFA’s statement the evening before their participation in Corresponding Cinemas.

The series took place, and Farah, Julian, and I recount how the day unfolded, detailing how each filmmaker used their screenings in different ways to transform a cinema space into a forum for urgent, meaningful, and needed exchanges.
 
TIMECODES:
0:00  INTRO & GUEST INTROS
4:23: OPENING NIGHT + IDFA STATEMENT
12:30 CORRESPONDING CINEMAS - FILMMAKERS REFUSAL TO COMPLY 
14:30  SKY HOPINKA SESSION
17:40 BASMA AL-SHARIF SESSION
25:14  JUMANA MANNA SESSION
39:10 IBRAHIM SHADDAD SCREENING SESSION
43:12 SOLIDARITY ACTIONS FOLLOWING CORRESPONDING CINEMAS

STATEMENTS REFERENCED:
Opening Night: Workers for Palestine Intervention
IDFA Statement #1: IDFA and Artistic Director’s Statement about the Opening Night
IDFA Statement #2: IDFA Calls for an Immediate Ceasefire
I/We Do Not Comply - Artists' Refusal
IDFA Statement #3: A Message from IDFA to the Documentary Community

RELATED PODCAST EPISODES
Orwa Nyrabia on Corresponding Cinemas, Docs in Orbit, Episode 71
Jumana Manna on Docs in Orbit, Episode 44
Basma al-Sharif on Docs on Orbit,  Episode 27 

For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit

Today is the first day of the 36th edition of IDFA, the world's largest documentary film festival - a twelve-day event in Amsterdam featuring more than 250 titles in 22 sections. 
Earlier this week, I sat with Orwa Nyrabia, the Artistic Director of the festival, to speak with him about the role, responsibility and relevancy of film festivals and how IDFA is meeting the current moment. 
We also discuss some of the new sections in the program, including SPECIAL SCREENINGS,  SIGNED, and the highly anticipated introduction of CORRESPONDING CINEMAS, a unique program featuring a series of films from filmmakers who have inspired one another, including Sky Hopinka, Basam al-Sharif, Jumana Manna, Ibrahim Shaddad, and Abderahmane Sissako.  We end the conversation with an amusing story of how Wang Bing came to be this year’s Guest of Honor. 

[Image from the short film, Deep Sleep by Basma Al Sharif, which is screening in the Corresponding CInemas section on Saturday 11 November]

Time codes and Films Referenced
00:03:30 How is IDFA meeting the current moment00:08:22 Films in the Program on Orwa's mindOccupied City (2023) by Steve McQueenSocialist Realism (2023) by Raul RuizArna's Children (2003)00:12:00  SPECIAL SCREENINGS00:13:34  SIGNED00:16:28 16 WORLDS ON 16, including works by Agnes Varda, Sarah Maldoror, Chantal Akerman, Maya Deren, Robert Frank, and The First Year (1972) by Patricio Guzman and First Case. Second Case (1979), by Abbass Kiaristami 00:21:30 FABRICATIONS, including notable works from Shirley Clarke, Rosine Mbakam, Safi Faye, and David Schickele00:26:26 CORRESPONDING CINEMAS, including works of Sky Hopinka, Basma al-Sharif, Jumanna Manna, Ibrahim Shaddad Abderahmane Sissako 00:40:00 - 00:46:00 WANG BING, Guest of Honor and his curated TOP 10 films
For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit

An abandoned house opens the door to revisit the past by bringing to life a unique, nearly destroyed image archive from the unrecognized territory on the border of the Black Sea: Abkhazia. A place normally inaccessible for Georgians because of the ethnic conflict that happened between Georgia and Abkhazia back in 1993. Combining voice, archive, and recent footage, the film examines a lost and split identity stuck between the margins. The audio-visual fragments of this archive are intricately woven together to create a personal and political biography that recalls the complicated and controversial historical past of Georgian-Abkhaz relationships.
The highly personal narration delves into the complexities of nationalism and identity in times of war and global displacement. Ultimately, these reflections on recent history become a potential manual for what can come next, once the wars are over.

Conversation moderated by Hosein Jalivand as part of Docs in Orbit coverage of films at Dok Leipzig. 

For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit

It's been a few days since Dok Leipzig wrapped up, but we are still reminiscing about the films we encountered and the people we met. So, we made a little souvenir of our time there, featuring a collection of voice memos from a cross-section of festival attendees sharing their favorite film discoveries from this year's event.

FEATURING: 
Juliette Menthonnex, director of Tale of the Three Flames, speaks about Man In Black by Bing WangEka Tsotsoria, editor of Self-Portrait Along the Borderline speaks about The Der Wind nimmt die mit by Ann Carolin Renninger Adheep Das, director of Moonless speaks about Drijf by Levi Stoops Pauline Blanchet, co-director of 2 or 3 Words About the Cité 4000 speaks about No Changes Have Taken In Our Life by Xu Jingwei Sara Jurinčić, director of Valerija speaks on Zima by Tomek Popakul & Kasumi Ozeki Tess Martin, director of 1976: Search for Life on Zoopticon by Jon Frickey, Thies Mynther, & Sandra TrostelDaryna Mamaisur, director of Smoke of the Fire on Universe Department Store by Taewoong Won Mariana Cadenas Sangronis, director of Draw for Change: We Exist, We Resist on The Mother of All Lies by Asmae El MoudirAnn Carolin Renninger, director of Der Wind nimmt die mit on It’s Just a Whole by Bianca Scali Jani Peltonen, director of 30 Kilometres per Second on The Tuba Thieves by Alison O’Daniel 
For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit