The twentieth century was a lot of things, we might say. Liberating, totalitarian, atrocious, technologically advancing, a century of film. But also a triumph of capital. The unrestrained capitalo-parliamentarism has proceeded also into the 21st century where pardon can be obtained in shopping centres and where the wars are not ‘cold’ or removed from gentrified neighbourhoods but stirred up regularly by politicians inside the country they govern. The ideology of division is constantly sublimely inhaled, even when unaware.
The breakdown of this year’s EFA programme of the best 2019 European shorts according to a range of film critics reflects a multitude of frustrations of today’s society, pertaining not only to European (Freedom of Movement, Dogs Barking at Birds) but also intimate social problems which individuals alienated from everything and everyone cannot solve (Egg, Weightlifter, A Worthy Man, Watermelon Juice). The selection proves versatile both in its aesthetically technical documentaries, animations, and fiction films as in the power of their messages.
Nevertheless, three films should be highlighted since they, in my opinion, best outline the state of the world we live in. Reconstruction by Jiří Havlíček & Ondřej Novák follows a young delinquent named Olda during his prison work and simultaneously reconstructs the crime that clarifies the reason for his sentence. While watching this documentary, I was immediately reminded of the refined film Damian’s Room (Damjanova soba, 2008) by Jasna Krajinovič , who delved into a similar topic. She said that filming documentaries opens up new dimensions and questions – including where the protagonists get their courage to face the situation they are placed in. ‘In time they take you deep enough so that you yourself are changed. They alter your view of things. I change, the protagonist changes, and the whole team changes with us.’
Although Krajinovič deals with Damjan’s return to society, Reconstruction also reveals a potential problem of post-penal treatment of juveniles. We should rightfully ask ourselves who helps such juveniles and how, and whether they can be successfully accepted into the society. Which should further get us thinking about other people from the brink and the help they receive.
Excess Will Save Us continues along the same lines and shows the clear idiocy of certain people’s conservative and fearful thoughts which border on insanity but will not be declared as such because they find their affirmation in politics. And so Villereau, located in the far north of France, with its 996 inhabitants is a true échantillon of scared, cast-off notions that can still thrive and develop in that town. As viewers, we may at first be amused but if we turn our cynicism off, we should be genuinely anxious since those are the people that vote not only for the extreme rightist Marine Le Pen but also for the current president Macron. How is the socially accepted then decided? From where to where does madness stretch and how come madmen can lead countries?
I conclude the exposed three with another documentary: Freedom of Movement by Maroan el Sani and Nina Fischer. The film recalls the Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila, the first African athlete to win the gold medal at the Olympics – a surprising event as the Games took place in Rome in 1960 (and Italy occupied Ethiopia during WW2) and because he was barefoot. With scenes of a reconstructed race through a fascist memorial erected by Mussolini, the filmmakers rethink the meaning of Bikila’s race for liberation from colonialism. We think of present generations of black people and their struggles and the racial question – a question that is indisputably one of the biggest in the history of mankind, regularly overlooked by the predominantly ‘white’ male cameramen. We remember the interracial conflicts in the USA and the African Americans killed by the police. Globally more and more people begin to realise that the police is not an apparatus that solves problems but at the foremost a protector of the rights of the governing politicians and a handful of privileged people, while it progresses to racially oppress the non-white population. Racism is inert, fascism is here!
It will be interesting to see how the European film production develops after 2020, as the year signifies a new milestone of the century after the refugee crisis in 2015. How emphatic are we still, how caring and involved? Will we surpass the apathy and cynicism and who are we still going to help? Currently, it appears as if we were trying to periodize history in a new way because we feel that this year might change us and that everything will be different after it. However, we do not yet know how much different it will actually be after C19E (* COVID-19 Era).
Rok Govednik