Rückblick und ein Blick voraus
Das European Documentary Film Symposium in Riga
Das Internationale Dokumentarfilm-Symposium in Riga (6. bis 10. September 2003) wird 25 und wirft in seinem diesjährigen Symposium einerseits den Blick zurück bis in die 60er und 70er Jahre und diskutiert anderseits neuen Ideen und dokumentarische Sichtweisen für die zukünftige Dokumentarfilmarbeit. So werden sowohl historische Filme wie auch ganz aktuelle, neue Produktionen zu sehen sein.
Ziele des Symposiums sind:
- der Austausch von theoretischen Überlegungen und praktischen Erfahrungen,
- das Erforschen und Evaluieren der kreativen Fortschritte,
- die Diskussion der gegenwärtigen Suche nach neuen Qualitäten im Dokumentarfilm.
Die Teilnehmerinnen kommen aus den Ostseeanliegerstaaten und aus Zentral- und Osteuropa. Deutschland ist im historischen Teil mit der Produktion “Floret Academica” (1965) des Kieler Filmemachers Kurt Denzer und bei den neuen Produktionen mit “Meier, Fuchs und Loeffelbein” (2003) des Kielers Ulrich Bähr vertreten. Im theoretischen Teil des Symposiums wird Bernd-Günther Nahm, Geschäftsführer der Kulturellen Filmförderung S.-H., über die Produktionschancen des kreativen Dokumentarfilms in der Region “now and then” referieren.
Das Symposium wird simultan in Englisch und Russisch durchgeführt. Organisatoren der internationalen Veranstaltung sind das European Documentary Film Symposiums, Ltd in Riga mit Unterstützung durch das European Documentary Network, EDN aus Kopenhagen.
Infos zum Symposium finden sich unter www.latfilma.lv/symposium/index.html.
Wir dokumentieren an dieser Stelle den englischen Text der Veranstalter über das Symposium (in Auszügen):
CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY NOW AND THEN – European Documentary Film Symposium, 25 years
The Symposium will be held 6 – 10 September 2003 in Riga, the capital of Latvia. The previous Symposium held in 2001 and devoted to the “Riddles of Globalization” gives the ground to think that the boom of new technologies sometimes makes filmmakers forget that there can be other cinematographic means of expression. Perhaps turning to the past experience of documentaries will help us find some new ways and ideas for the future. Besides it might make for better understanding of the processes going on in the modern European documentaries.
Let’s take the period of the 60s to 70s as it is known as one of the most prolific periods in the history of documentary cinema. Exactly at that time documentaries of the former Soviet Union and some Eastern European countries underwent changes. There appeared some films with clear author’s position and which were addressed not to an abstract audience but to each spectator personally.
This was the birth of film d’auteur behind the “iron curtain”. Yet the term was not known there and the phenomenon was called differently. In Latvia we knew it as “poetic documentary”.
Meanwhile on the other side of the division, in the Western Europe, new trends in documentary appeared as well. There the term film d’auteur was coined.
Riga Documentary Symposium has been gathering filmmakers and film theoreticians for the quarter of the century. However, the participation of Westerners has become possible only in last ten years. This period was the time of great changes in all “post-communist” countries when the present was saturated and needed to be documented. Thus we started the process of getting know each other and sharing experience with what we had at that time. That’s why turning to documentaries of the 60s to 70s would also contribute to the better understanding of each other.
We are sure that the proposed theme could make for the revelation of various opportunities and we should not forget that each author creates his or her own world (by the way in the ancient world auctor was used for those who make augeo – an action distinctive first of all of gods as the sources of the cosmic initiative). (Ivars Seleckis, Baiba Urbane)