Film for Carlos
Renato Borrayo Serrano
What’s the worst thing that could happen to a jubilant young father? A visit from the in-laws. Sharp tongues, skilfully edited.
D
Film Archive
Film for Carlos
Documentary Film
Russia
2017
31 minutes
subtitles:
English
What’s the worst thing that could happen to a jubilant young father? A visit from the in-laws. What’s worse, they are citizens of Mother Russia, while the filmmaker father’s native language is Spanish, which means that the baby isn’t named Alyosha but, exactly, Carlos. It’s for him, “Carlushka”, that he wanted to record this hilarious and painful new family constellation unfolding between national chauvinism and loving, well-worn marital arguments, the director says. Sharp tongues, skilfully edited.
Barbara Wurm
Honorary Mention in the International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film
Barbara Wurm
Honorary Mention in the International Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Harmony
Lidia Sheinin
Grandmother needs nursing now and so five of the younger family members take command. A film about being old, a child, a mother and about sad farewells – to things, to life.
Harmony
Credits
Lidia Sheinin
Lidia Sheinin
Lidia Sheinin
Lidia Sheinin
Lidia Sheinin, Makar Akhpashev, Andrey Fonin, Pavel Doreuli
It’s difficult to decide whether one should resent the slightly-built grandma for being grumpy. Her granddaughter is moving in to cook and care for her. But she is trailing four little children who brazenly hog the tiny average Soviet-era flat, crawl under their great-grandmother’s feet, leave crumbs everywhere and vividly demonstrate the modern school of educational methods. Babushka becomes a stranger in her own home. She tidies and mops up (after them) – it’s a miracle she never stumbles over the stretched woollen threads and diapered bottoms that are everywhere –, she whines and scolds. But the tears only start to flow when her beloved piano is to be “liquidated”, as she puts it …
Lidia Sheinin captures the emotional oscillations in this daily family chaos with a sure sense of closeness and distance. She surveys generations and attitudes in the smallest spaces, studies characters and relationships – and creates, in the midst of this frenzy, almost infinite zones of reflection about what ties us to each other.
Barbara Wurm
Nominated for MDR Film Prize
Lidia Sheinin captures the emotional oscillations in this daily family chaos with a sure sense of closeness and distance. She surveys generations and attitudes in the smallest spaces, studies characters and relationships – and creates, in the midst of this frenzy, almost infinite zones of reflection about what ties us to each other.
Barbara Wurm
Nominated for MDR Film Prize
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Of Huge and Small
Artem Funk
The question is not whether we’re afraid. The question is what we do when we’re afraid, says the activist Zhanna, who lives in Murmansk and has been classified as a “hostile agent” by the security forces for the past few years.
Of Huge and Small
Documentary Film
Germany,
Russia
2017
25 minutes
subtitles:
English
The question is not whether we’re afraid. The question is what we do when we’re afraid, says the activist Zhanna, who lives in Murmansk and has been classified as a “hostile agent” by the security forces for the past few years. Zhanna lives with her fear and still speaks out about the present political situation – in Russia and elsewhere. It’s the only way she can reassure herself that we ourselves are writing our story.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Periphery
Sasha Vasiliev
Alyosha would rather play than take the garbage out.
Periphery
Animated Film
Russia
2017
4 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Alyosha would rather play than take the garbage out. Especially since the garbage chute is a giant turtle that carries his home on its back.
Lina Dinkla
Lina Dinkla
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
The Wolf and the Seven Kids
Elena Gutkina, Genrikh Ignatov
Father and son live in a house on the edge of the forest. An unusually close look at their daily life which nonetheless – or perhaps because of this – does not yield a general view.
The Wolf and the Seven Kids
It’s as if a curtain was pushed aside. But there is no long shot of the stage or any interaction discernible from the distance. In Elena Gutkina’s and Genrikh Ignatov’s film we’re very close to everything. Very. As if a camera had focused on the interior of a doll’s house, standing fixedly still on thresholds and waiting, or lurking in front of a bed. The frame is just big enough to show the lower body and thighs. This is what we get for a while: a young man pulling up his underpants and pulling them down again, making sounds, perhaps singing.
Gutkina and Ignatov take their time. And so do the two men in whose world they are staying, albeit not moving. A father and his adult son, living in a shabby house on the edge of a forest. It’s hard to know what’s going on here. But something is going on, all the time, this much we know: fingers move, hands grasp. The unusual framing makes the content look abstract, even though everyday life is observed here. Gutkina and Ignatov offer no answers to the question of what to make of it.
Carolin Weidner
Nominated for MDR Film Prize
Gutkina and Ignatov take their time. And so do the two men in whose world they are staying, albeit not moving. A father and his adult son, living in a shabby house on the edge of a forest. It’s hard to know what’s going on here. But something is going on, all the time, this much we know: fingers move, hands grasp. The unusual framing makes the content look abstract, even though everyday life is observed here. Gutkina and Ignatov offer no answers to the question of what to make of it.
Carolin Weidner
Nominated for MDR Film Prize
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.