Claus Mueller

From February 15 to 26 The Museum of Modern Art presented its 17th annual edition of Doc Fortnight with more than 20 documentary feature films and numerous short films. The international program included filmmakers and artist leading post screening discussions. Virtually all documentary features were shown for the first time in New York, including several world premieres. The program carried several productions shown before at major film festivals like Sundance and Berlinale. The selection reflected new story telling perspectives relayed through innovative narrative forms and the application of approaches ranging from 3D and experimental cinema to data artistry.  The struggle of marginalized outsiders and groups, refugee conditions, encounters with distinguished intellectuals and artists,  violence in contemporary and developing societies, and a seminar  illustrating the intersection of storytelling and new technologies  presented by the MIT  Open Documentary Lab  were some of the themes of the broad spectrum covered by the program. A new component of Doc Fortnight This year was week long runs  of two premiere films George (Jeffrey Perkins, 2017,USA) on the founder of Fluxus art movement and  Out of My Head ( Susanna Styron, 2017, USA) on the neurological migraine disorder affecting close to a billion people. Also in the second program week, a three-day retrospective of five documentary productions by Jonathan Demme was added, a most valuable enrichment of Doc Fortnight. Hopefully in future editions of Doc Fortnight retrospectives of other outstanding documentary filmmakers will also be included. Exposure to the documentaries shown was as in past editions of Doc Fortnight a veritable learning experience, specifically the presentations of cultural configurations  and social conditions in societies we are rarely exposed to.

Mama Colonel, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2017   Dieudo Hamadi

Colonel Mama  Honorine leads a special police unit which is charged to fight widespread violence against women and children and  she serves as the commanding officer  of mostly male subordinates in rural Bukawa. The Colonel Honorine has been posted to a new assignment in Kisangani city and villagers she leaves express fear of not getting the services she promised. She  is underfunded and  works in communities that have suffered frequent armed struggles with gangs of marauding armed  soldiers victimizing the civilian population. Survivors report having been raped and describe murders of family members in their presence. There is no trust in the authorities since past promises have not been met nor crimes prosecuted. The impoverished villagers are illiterate and survive through subsistence farming. They follow archaic beliefs including witch craft and are easy prey   for aggressors. Traveling through the new areas the Colonel stresses in her welcoming talks to skeptical villagers the need to cooperate with the police and report of violence against women as well as child abuse.  Mostly women constitute her audience and describe the devastation of their families through rape and killings and the failure of governmental agencies to protect them. They doubt that change is possible. Yet some optimism prevails.  Colonel Honorine rescues small children that has been held by in a draconian manner by a local prophetess for alleged witchcraft as attested by  parents and family members who blame their supposedly possessed children for all the mishaps they endure. The Colonel finds new homes for the children. Poor women living in deprived settings adopt them and provide the Colonel with a small amount of money they collected to support her struggle.

The Silent Teacher, Taiwan, 2017, Maso Chen

Overcoming a widely shared public and cultural  opposition to the donation of bodies for medical purposes the Taiwanese Lin family decides to provide their mother’s remains to the College of Medicine at a Catholic university. Silent teacher is the term used by the faculty and students in the anatomy classes for the body they will be dissecting after it has been soaked in formalin for a year. Father Lin Hui-tsung  visits his wife's  corpse in the mortuary, periodically touching her hair and speaking with her sharing his emotions. He also talks to the students who relate to the body of his wife as their silent teacher. It helps them to become better doctors and their training is carried out embedded in the religious rituals their religion provides. Thus they have a serious demeanor showing respect for the teacher. Following her use as a silent teacher the Lin decide  to have the mother’s remains cremated and bury her ashes. Both the film maker Maso Chen and the professor teaching anatomy support having Silent Teachers but are not sure if they would donate their own bodies.

 Becoming Who I Was, 2017, South Korea, Chang-Yong Moon, Jim Jeon

This compelling documentary follows 8 years of the life of Padma Angdu, a young Ladakhi boy who was identified as the latest reincarnation of a high-ranking Tibetan monk.  His destiny is to reunite with that monk’s monastery but there are apparent insurmountable obstacles for getting there. At an early age, there was indication of his chosen status, with Padma recalling memories attributed to the monk who passed away many years ago.  Thus he earns the designation of a Rinpoche, a living Buddha and master who is accepted by the monks and his community. But he has to go through a rigorous education with several lama teachers becuase in his destiny he is held to know more than the others. He is supposed to be claimed by a representative of the monastery of the monk he reincarnated but no one searches for him. That monastery is located in Tibet and Padma lives in the Indian province of Ladak. To reach his goal he engages with his guardian lama, in a long perilous journey to reach the monastery in Tibet and has to overcome mountains and the seasons, though is exposed in his travels to a modern world unknown to him. When getting close to Tibet villagers advise him and his guardian that they will not be allowed to enter China. They persist and eventually reach a place with a monastery that the Rinpoche boy, now aged 8, will be entering. His guardian leaves him.  The documentary received the Grand Prix at the Berlinale and is outstanding in its non-directive careful recording of the journey of Rinpoche’s and his companions, with their environments the central figures of this film. The filmmakers deliver a marvelous plausible story respecting the beliefs of their protagonists and are able to produce a superb film on a Spartan without a supporting crew.

Out of My Head, 2017, USA, Susanne Styron

Styron’s film certainly meets expectations attached to an outstanding documentary. It covers an important issue, provides new information to the audience, identifies ways of adding to the solution of the problem addressed and is executed in an exemplary fashion. 75% of those suffering from migraines are women. It is a frequently misdiagnosed disorder, a devastating neurological condition that has been part of  our medical history for centuries with many prominent individuals like Thomas Jefferson and Sigmund Freud suffering from it. However, given the scarcity of funding for scientific migraine research there is today only one medication available, Triptan, which was approved 20 years ago. Those affected have frequent problems getting insurance coverage. Medical scientists report that the disorder impacts mental and bodily functions and that about half of the children born to migraine sufferers inherit the disorder. There is a need for an early identification of the disorder in children, a need frequently not met. The same holds for veterans with post traumatic stress disorder who have this disorder. The film maker offers information by a wide range of experts from the neurological migraine disorder field. Millions of individuals in the USA suffer from the disorder. About 113 million workdays are lost each year  due to migraine disorders at the cost of $13 billion. But effective medication beyond Triptan does not exist, though external approaches such as yoga are used to reduce stress. Current federal funding for migraine research is $20 million. Testimony by experts indicate that a minimum of $253 million per year for research funding is needed to have a significant impact on coping with the disorder, a goal difficult to meet under the Trump administration.

Claus Mueller,  filmexchange@gmail.com