Verzió..BLOG

Somewhere in Israel, a hip hop crew of  immigrants from the former Soviet Union wants to win the international Battle of the Year. Dance is the key for them to get through the difficulties in their private life. Roman Shumunov’s documentary gives an insight into a hidden part of Israeli society: a part which tries to integrate, but frequently faces hostility. A review of Babylon Dreamers, winner of the We're changing section of Budapest International Documentary Festival 2018.

The documentary Resettlement is the story of two people, Tadeusz and Maria, who are forced to move out of their house, because after more than six decades of living there the the owner is interested in one argument only - money. The genesis of the film is simply an eviction but the director Filip Antoni Malinowski, the grandson of Tadeusz and Maria manages to show a captivating character study from this starting point. The documentary was presented in this year’s Verzió in the section Your Own City, dedicated to films about human rights issues connected to urbanization and housing.

Lauri loves walking in the forest, listening to the songs of birds, and let his mind wander around thoughts which later become poems. The viewer can easily feel the protagonist's inner peace in the documentary film My Secret Forest. Besides observing the daily routine of a young man living with autism, the film brings into focus his complex personality, his way of thinking and creativity. We interviewed Niina Brandt, the director of the film at the 14th Verzio Film Festival, who created Lauri’s poetical vision with the help of blurry and enlarged images, sounds of the forest and fragments of his poems.

It is a real discovery to listen to the imaginative and delicate thoughts of Lauri, a privilege for which we should thank Niina Brandt, the director of My Secret Forest. Presented this year at Verzio, it is a poetical story of love, silence, deep and powerful feelings, self-determination and understanding.

David Borenstein, a scholar of Chinese received his training in anthropology at the City University of New York. He went to China with Fulbright Scholarship to study urbanization and real estate speculation. It was the high time of real estate investments: villages disappeared into thin air and new, luxurious metropolises were built instead. He became friends with Yana who was ambitiously getting into her business at a time that was organizing gigs with foreign performers typically in order to attract potential customers. The director also performed as a musician in these so-called “white monkey gigs”. An interview with David Borenstein about Dream Empire and China at the 14th Verzió Film Festival.

Forever Pure grabs your attention from the beginning until the very end, triggering in you feelings that you don't know what to do with when the lights are on again. As Maya Zinshtein suggests, these complex feelings should be put into actions to change things for the better.

When watching Dust, we can discover different layers of meaning. The first that unfolds is a distant world of a distant country. Children aged 8-10 that carry heavy bricks becomes a natural sight after a while and the viewer does not question the legitimate nature of this reality.

Verzio has a relatively small, but definitely enthusiastic team, who are working on preparing the festival for some intensive months, or some of them during the entire year. In this series of mini-interviews we would like to present some of the faces working behind the scenes, getting to know more about their relations to Verzio and to documentaries.

The opening film of the 14th Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival is Nowhere to Hide, an outstanding documentary directed by Zaradasht Ahmed, which takes us to the central part of Iraq, to the triangle of death, where we follow the life of nurse Nori Sharif for five years.

The opening film of Verzio tells the story of an Iraqi hospital nurse and how he survived the war between ISIS and the Iraqi militia. It is an expressive opening of a festival tackling contemporary social issues, and offering us to face burdens of the past as well as our own humanity.