ISA of the Day: Doc & Films International
“West of the Jordan River”, “Bones of Contention”, “False Confessions”…
Created by a pool of producers in 1996, Doc & Film International was actively in selling tv documentaries. In 2008 when Daniela Elstner joined Doc & Film as head of the company and shareholder the activities of the company expanded to international sales of feature films and feature length documentaries, working with directors from all over the world and literally premiering their films everywhere in the world.
Their doc “West of the Jordan River” is selected for the upcoming Directors Fortnight in Cannes. Directed by Amos Gitai (“Rabin”, “Free Zone”). who eturns to the occupied territories of Palestine for the first time since his 1982 documentary “Field Diary”, “West of the Jordan River” describes the efforts of citizens, Israelis and Palestinians, who are trying to overcome the consequences of occupation. Gitai’s film shows the human ties woven by the military, human rights activists, journalists, mourning mothers and even Jewish settlers. Faced with the failure of politics to solve the occupation issue, these men and women rise and act in the name of their civic consciousness. This human energy is a proposal for long overdue change.
See Doc & Films International Cannes line-up here.
Last month, the up and coming U.S. distributor Big World acquired their film “False Confessions” starring the great Isabelle Hupert and based on a play by Marivaux. It had premiered in Locarno last August.
Big World’s Jonathan Howell noted, “The combination of this stellar cast, Marivaux’s text and the opulent setting results in an experience that’s equally stimulating for the emotions, the mind and the eyes. We’re pleased to be able to work with Doc & Film again on such a rewarding project.”
Doc & Film’s Daniela Elstner added, “We are equally pleased to collaborate again with Big World Pictures on this very special film. Marie-Louise Bondy contributed, alongside Ideale Audience’s producer Pierre-Olivier Bardet, to the completion of “False Confessions” so as to achieve her late husband’s vision for the piece. Ms. Bondy is delighted to see the film now getting its U.S. release, after being released in Russia and Taiwan.
In the Fajr Film Festival in Tehran, which I attended last month, premiered their film “Paris la Blanche”. Directed by Lidia Terki this is a family film, in French about a 70 year old woman who decides to leave her village in Kabylie to go to Paris. All by herself, she travels across the Mediterranean sea to bring Nour, her husband, back home. From the port of Algiers to the streets of Pigalle, with nothing more than a hotel address on a piece of paper but with the help of new, unlikely friends, she finally finds Nour in the suburbs. But her hero, the war veteran, the one that has been providing for his family from abroad for the past 40 years, has become a stranger.
Premiering at the Berlinale Panorama this past February, the sensitive film “Bones of Contention” by Andrea Weiss set out to search for the lost bones of Federico García Lorca and uncovers the buried and deliberately repressed history of Spain and Franco’s brutal treatment of the LGBTIQ community. Giving a voice to the victims, her documentary tells their stories and their struggle for clarification, justice and human rights as well as their continued efforts to provide those who were murdered and ‘disappeared’ with a dignified burial. Impressive archive material documents this repressed history which finds a painful echo in Lorca’s poetry and music.
Spain is today one of the most progressive countries when it comes to homosexuality, and yet the nation still refuses to account comprehensively for its dark past before a court of law.
There are 120,000 victims of Franco’s regime buried in the unmarked mass graves that line the country roads of Spain, masked by miles and miles of pine trees. One of these victims is the world-renowned Spanish author Federico García Lorca, who was shot and killed by the fascists during the early days of the Spanish Civil War. The mystery that surrounds the exact location of his remains has made him a symbol for both the historical memory and LGBTIQ movements. For those seeking to remember and disclose the hidden stories of gays and lesbians under Franco, people who continued to be subjected to violent repression long after the end of the dictatorship, this is an especially moving history. Within the larger human rights struggle to find some justice for Franco’s victims and how a country excavates a past that is actively suppressed, this is a roadmap.
Doc & Film International deals with a catalogue of more than 800 titles. “We are attending all major markets and festivals around the globe in order to ensure maximum international exposure for our films. Backed by a worldwide network of theatrical distributors, broadcasters and digital platforms, we give all our films the best chance to reach the audience.”
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