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the town of pordenone pop 52 000 just shy of an hours travel north of venice and spitting distance from the venetian alps it s difficult to not view the festival goers as an invading horde as the slew of international visitors completely take over the city for the week english is the language the lingua franca you hear echoing in the streets and silent cinema if not film history seems to be the only topic on everybody s lips at times you really have to remind yourself there actually is a city of italians who live here for the other 51 weeks of the year charming as the city is with its reasonably priced wine coffee gelatos the film programme is the chief attraction and pordenone is the pre eminent place to see premieres of the latest discoveries and restorations from the fading world of silent cinema to describe the programme as eclectic would be an understatement as within the narrow remit of non sound cinema it still manages to capture film from across the world to take the first day as a prime example i had the good fortune of seeing a norwegian tiger tamer a brief documentary about romany travellers from 1932 an occasionally dream like city symphony in honour of chicago a daft take on romeo and juliette in snowy austria followed by a ludicrously funny italian war film where the italian strongman maciste effectively won the war against austro hungary by defenestrating every enemy soldier he could find that is when maciste wasn t too busy snacking on a joint of ham or the like a certain pleasure of the festival is the repeated confrontation with the unexpected and the complete absence of critical consensus on almost everything talk to a gaggle of festival goers after any screening and more often than not the opinions will stretch from pillar to post romeo and juliette despite it s light and cheeky humour true to director ernst lubitsch somehow had friends in raptures while sending me to sleep others found maciste a colossal bore but i couldn t stop laughing at his ability to just end any conflict by either a sitting on someone or alternatively b throwing them out the window that and his undying need to eat and smile constantly through out daft and humourous but also incredibly dark if you consider how it dramatizes an extremely dark and tragic chapter of the alpine front of world war one either ways the one critical consensus we did establish was the film probably could have benefitted from being a reel shorter but that opinion may have been informed by the fact that the screening started at ten in the evening and wrapped up not long before midnight now at the start of day two i m already running late for some more city symphonies but uncharacteristically it is absolutely pissing it down with rain or rather intermittently so and the last shower started and stopped in the time it took me to write that last sentence better run while the sun still shines off to go and sit in a darkened room for another 9 to 12 hours mustn t grumble 14 august 2015 leave a comment film at doc fest the confessions of thomas quick has the moment arrived to call time on scandi noir the new release of the confessions of thomas quick might be the film where the concept finally reaches its breaking point a documentary about a huge travesty of swedish justice the film unquestioningly plays out a true crime story in the register of scandi noir in a deeply problematic manner playing fact against fiction the film switches constantly between straight talking head testimonies and hammy crime recreations for the un initiated the story plays out along the familiar beats of a wintry crime drama but as someone who has grown up with the story unfurling over the last twenty years the whole sat very ill to use an extreme comparison imagine the story of the moors murders retold as a hard boiled film noir intercut with uncritical testimonies from ian brady and myra hindley and well you start getting an idea of why this film felt so disturbing to this poor half swede the tale is that of the titular thomas quick the assumed pseudonym of sture bergwall who grew in horrific infamy during the 1990s as sweden s first high profile serial killer while incarcerated in a high security mental facility in 1993 quick started confessing to a string of murders 30 in total of which eight led to trial and conviction he was the boogeyman your friends warned you about the kiddie snatcher with the weird name and the creepy glum face a known figure locked away for good he dropped out of the spotlight but remained in the public consciousness all the same that is until the whole story unravelled in december of 2008 when sture bergwall retracted his story on national tv and admitted to fabricating every one of his confessions the absurdity of this dramatic twist is that the swedish justice system had managed to secure convictions against bergwall based on little more than his testimony countless observers had criticised the process especially since bergwall was unable state where he had buried the bodies or give any evidence which only the killer could know instead he was held up as the examplar of a particular kind of serial killer whose behaviour chimed in with an elaborate theory established by the team of psychiatrists treating him the problem was bergwall had worked out what his therapists wanted to hear and he spent the better part of ten years playing along every step of the way the documentary is built around the candid testimony of bergwall himself and he is quite clear that the pay off for his elaborate lie was a heightened degree of psychiatric attention and a ramped up prescription of sense deadening drugs for an attention starved recovering addict this reward far outstripped the risk of lying and so he became incredibly adept at playing along with the head psychiatrist s pet theory reflecting on the process almost twenty years after the event bergwall s personal testimony is unnerving and astute and there is a delicious irony in the redeemed killer psycho analysing the psychiatrists who fundamentally failed him as a patient the scale of the lie and the institutional failings behind this travesty shook sweden when it first came to light and a straight re telling of the story would be enough to hold anyone s attention sadly the filmmakers didn t think so as the film plays out with bridging sections of dark wintry scenes swelling moody music and the bleak colour palate of ever scandinavian crime series of the last ten years bergwall s back story an important element in understanding the motivations behind the troubled figure are recreated onscreen but still play out like the deleted scenes from an episode of wallander somehow bergwall is both a character ripped from the pages of crime fiction while also being the institutionalised victim of a self perpetuating psychological myth the film flits between wanting to condemn bergwall but also giving him enough screentime to let him charm the viewers to win our sympathy for his plight the documentary struggles to make sense of the figure that bergwall has become and the unquestioning space and sympathy that the film affords him is deeply problematic the serial killer that never was is portrayed as the real victim but what justice is there for the parents of the children whose murders bergwall cruelly claimed and later disowned the catharsis of the film is seeing bergwall reconciled with his once estranged brother surveying a glorious nordic landscape and making plans for the future and the new life as a free man a life alone away from the spotlight you might think but if you re curious to see how he s doing then go find him on twitter sturebergwall pictures of said nordic landscapes retweets from the filmmakers premiering the film the odd link to a positive review a serial killer no more but no less a media figure for that the film s complicity in pandering to his ego with the romantic trappings of scandinavian noir remains deeply disturbing and more than a little problematic tagged addiction based on a true story crying men doc fest documentary film festivals sweden swedish crime 9 june 2015 1 comment film at doc fest circus dynasty the show must go on the old show business truism never fades and the old promise is as much a cry of resilience as it is an affirmation of the status quo from the performer gritting their teeth and riding through the pain to the notion that the traditions of circus must live on a quiet note of defiance holds across both in the documentary circus dynasty we see this truism first hand and are allowed to witness the tireless momentum which carries these performers forward in life despite the many trials they face in their chosen profession at the heart of the doc we find the young couple of patrick berdino and merrylu casseley the oldest children of two respected circus families working out of denmark while patrick is being lined up to inherit the ringmaster role from his grandfather merrylu has made a name for herself as a spectacularly agile animal acrobat together they have devised a spectacular act where patrick throws merrylu around himself while riding on the back of two harnessed horses the film showcases such staggering acts and despite their breath taking qualities it s the human drama which shines above all else like watching spinning plates in a shooting gallery as the circus patriarchs admire their love bird prodigies perform in the ring beaming at the box office potential you just feel the weight of the crash that s coming with their families futures unrealistically put on the shoulders of two 19 year olds you don t have to be a fortune teller to know the relationship cannot last while the split happens off camera countless sparks fly between the two youngsters and the parents stand by glum faced as the rift slowly starts to pull the families apart but the show must go on and so it does despite kicks from horses despite awkward falls off grown elephants the tears are always held behind the scenes and ringside they always put on their firmest smiles and their best performances only once do the cameras capture the facade crumbling when in a moment of jealous fury patrick calmly walks up to merrylu and starts sniping at her as she sells programmes to the audience the scene is caught in medium shot in the hub bub of the audience but far away enough to not be caught by the mics in this closed and mute drama the tensions of their unresolved relationship play out unguarded and illcitly performed in the sacred space of the ringside this riveting scene is the death of all lingering romantic notions still held onto by their parents and marks the start of the film s final act as the families professionally break from each other the drama sails extremely close to the winds of soap opera but as the filmmaker himself stated in the q a after the screening he did everything he could to downplay the story s melodrama his care in this regards is thankfully evident in the finished product as the film avoids caricaturing either villains or victims the story ends on a departure and an emotional note for love lost and familial ties broken the romance the film holds for its young couple for the history of the circus and for the future troupe that could have been persists throughout yet its strength ultimately lies in the emotion it chooses it temper rather than the story it might have chosen to exploit tagged acrobatics cinema of attractions circus crying men danish doc fest documentary elephants 5 june 2015 leave a comment film television looking forward to doc fest 2015 doc fest it s been a good while 8 years in sheffield gave me more than ample opportunity to get to know you heck i even remember when you still went by the more austere name of the sheffield international documentary festival one year as a volunteer two years covering it for the steel press and plenty more besides just stuffing myself with brilliant docs a move away from the city and some absurdly prohibitively exhaustingly expensive rail fares have kept me away of late but that s not to say i haven t missed you then something really quite special gets announced my old boss is putting on the world premiere of the greatest shows on earth which is to say an archive doc built wholly on materials from my archive alma mater directed no less by the icelandic gent behind one of my favourite films of last year and scored by an icelandic duo who are also no mean shakes well i really liked their first album at least an all singing all dancing multimodal spectacular at sheffield city hall you say well maybe that rail fare bullet is just going to have to got bit because i sure as shit ain t going to miss that show when prof vanessa toulmin decides to put on a show then you do well to clear the schedule and book early on sunday she will be repeating her famed inaugral lecture as part of doc fest and the show of her twenty performing wonders is quite the sight to behold not least for the chance to see the deeply uncanny dancing pig 1907 on the big screen but hauling myself up to sheffield for a long weekend of doc fest is an exciting prospect and while i will only be able to get a whiff of all the festival has to offer there are a couple of films high on my hit lists on the back the greatest shows opening gala there runs an invisible strand with a carny theme of sorts and i ll be doing everything i can to catch them a thumbnail sketch of circus dynasty paints it as a romeo and juliesque story of two young proteges of rival acrobatic clans coming together in a frought romance how that plays out in a documentary remains to be seen but i ll be hoping for some breathtaking feats at the very least the story of tyke the outlaw elephant also looks like an intriguing one being the archive re telling of the american circus elephant that went crazy killed it s trainer before rampaging through a city the staged execution of colossal caged beasts is a spectacle that goes back to thomas edison s notorious film and as morbid a draw as the doc s tragic conclusion is i ll be interested to see how the story is spun maybe a land based blackfish is on the horizon as an unimaginative sort i m also drawn towards the swedish productions which have been accepted to the festival and perhaps most noteworthy of those is the confessions of thomas quick the serial killer that never was a highly peculiar story of swedish jurisprudence thomas quick was the boogey man of my youth he who killed dozens and was sent down for a long time only it turned out mr quick s only sin might have been a hyperactive imagination being a mentally unstable fellow who for reasons unknown was more than happy to accept the blame for countless crimes he might not have committed a justice system all to eager to close these cases took his word without following due process and over time did it actually come out that mr quick might have been telling porkie pies the story was an absolute sensation in sweden...