Reflecting Images – Panorama
Citadel
Ciudadela Diego Mondaca
WORLD PREMIERE
Situated high up in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, the San Pedro Prison is a bustling city within a city. It has its own church, soccer field, dental practice, shops, workshops, and carnival parades. Around 2,500 people are packed into San Pedro, but by no means are all of them prisoners: the spirited Mechita and her son keep their husband and father company – and they are not the only ones. Director Diego Mondaca received support for this film from the Jan Vrijman Fund, and he also participated in the IDFAcademy Summer School. Mondaca focuses exclusively on recording everyday goings-on in the colorful, narrow alleyways. He uses bold and counterintuitive shots from the most improbable positions and angles to record Mechita preparing the evening meal, her husband getting a false tooth, and the priest providing a daily ration of hope. There would appear to be neither bars nor guards in this prison. The people of San Pedro give all the appearance of self-sufficiency, but the outside world beyond the high prison walls is a constant temptation. Their lives could have been far more wretched than this, but there is still a glimmer of hope and the lure of freedom.
Bolivia, Germany, 2011 HD, color, 48 min
Diego Mondaca: directing debut
Director: Diego Mondaca Photography: Andrés Boero Madrid Screenplay: Diego Mondaca Editing: Aldo Alvarez Sound: Ruben Valdés Music: Canela Palacios Production: Paola Gosalvez for Pucara Films Co-Production: Blinker Filmproduktion GmbH Distribution for the Benelux: Jan Vrijman Fund Screening Copy: Pucara Films
Jan Vrijman Fund
Reflecting Images – Panorama
Coffee, Cake & Crematorium Kaffeefahrt ins Krematorium Sergej Kreso
People who choose to be cremated because they don’t want to be eaten up by worms haven’t done their homework – worms don’t live six feet under. And aversion to burning because of the heat is baloney, of course. The German funeral director Karl Schumacher knows that only the Bible is right: It’s “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and nothing else. The well-spoken Schumacher is the key figure in this film. He has built up the family company that was founded by his grandfather into a successful business that handles 3,500 bodies a year. Nowadays, simple cremation or burial is passé. His company’s website has a section for “mourning chats,” and visitors can sign up for a “Kaffeefarht,” a trip to a relatively cheap crematorium over the border in the Netherlands, where they can find out more about their future interment. We accompany them on their day out. Scenes from the trip are interspersed with interviews at the homes of people taking part, in which they talk (or argue) about their thoughts on death. But it is Schumacher who steals the show with his detached attitude to death and the unresolved trauma of his own father’s demise: “An undertaker who commits suicide isn’t good publicity.”
154
The Netherlands, 2011 HD, color, 55 min Director: Sergej Kreso Photography: Wiro Felix Editing: Menno Boerema Sound: Mark Wessner Music: Jeroen Goeijers Production: Joost Seelen for Zuidenwind Filmproductions Executive Production: Rosan Boersma for Rosan productions Screening Copy: Zuidenwind Filmproductions Involved TV Channel: IKON Website: www.kaffeefahrt.nl
Sergej Kreso:
Symfonie voor een straatmuzikant (2004) Graffiti Street (2007) Jack, the Balkans and I (2008)
www.sergejkreso.com
IDFAcademy Results