Posts Tagged ‘Open city’

Flight of a Bullet (2017) Open City Doc Festival 2018

DIR: Beata Bubenec | Doc | 80′

In Flight of a Bullet Russian documentarian Beata Bubenec offers unprecedented insight into life on a volunteer military base during the Donbass 2014 conflict in Ukraine.

This remarkable cinema vérité film is remarkable for being recorded during one single 80 minute take of her handhold camera and brings us face to face with the conflict offering a palpable sense of unease verging on terror. Bubenec gains unprecedented access to a bomb blasted bridge over a river where we witness the arrest and questioning of a Ukrainian man accused of being a separatist by hooded aggressors. We then accompany the men during a car ride to the military base where Bubenec is clearly as recognised part of the team.

Gritty and real, this is guerrilla filmmaking at its more urgent and cutting edge – nothing prepares us for what will happen next. MT

OPEN CITY DOC FESTIVAL | LONDON 4.-9 SEPTEMBER 2018 | Grand Prix Winner

Motherland or Death (2017) | Open City Documentary Festival 5-10 September

Dir/Writer: Vitaly Manskiy | Doc | Russia | 99′

A fascinating snapshot of modern Cuba Motherland or Death (which, for more than 50 years, has been Cuba’s motto), chronicles the daily misery of the pre-revolution generation who realise they can now hope for better things as the country moves towards a sea change in its existence. Manskiy acts as his own DoP with Leonid Konovalov in this intriguing snapshot of modern, capturing the zeitgeist of a vivacious country, often down on its knees. Manskiy takes a non-judgemental approach, avoiding the usual human rights agenda or sensationalist victim angles that usually dog the country from the outsiders’ point of view. Nonetheless, Havana is captured as a broken-down backwater haunted by stray dogs and empty streets. MT

 

 

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