Soviet Barbara, The Story of Ragnar Kjartansson in Moscow This 12 months’s thirtieth anniversary version of Sizzling Docs, North America’s largest doc fest, (which ran from April 27 to Might 7) was, maybe unsurprisingly, jam-packed with so many world-premiering movies and one-of-a-kind trade occasions as to be a bit overwhelming. (Thankfully, Sizzling Docs additionally boasts one of many smoothest pageant apps round to assist alleviate all that scheduling stress.)
That stated, I did handle to benefit from my 4 days in Toronto, even popping in on the celebrated Sizzling Docs Discussion board (which was each spectacular and hard to cowl with three initiatives topic to a complete media blackout, and one other 9 with myriad restrictions). There was additionally the newly expanded Sizzling Docs Podcast Competition Showcase, which featured each the trade facet held on the fantastically designed TIFF Bell Lightbox, together with 5 reside public occasions on the Sizzling Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, from a night with the Radiolab guys to a different that includes the Canadian cohosts of Wondery’s Scamfluencers. And naturally, Kara Swisher obtained her personal evening, too. (I additionally wrote dispatches from Podcast Competition Showcase panels “Podcasts and Op-Docs at The New York Times: Meet the Decision Makers” and “Non-Fiction Without Borders: A Co-Production Case Study with The LA Times and CBC Podcasts.”)
Then there have been the docs themselves—one other wealth of nonfiction riches from which to choose. Most sudden although was the truth that, whereas as soon as once more there was rightly a whole program devoted to the continuing front-page struggle (“Made in Ukraine” consisted of 5 options, and likewise 4 shorts below the defiant banner “Movies That Deliver The Victory Nearer: Civil Pitch 2.0 Profitable Movies offered by Docudays UA”), it was a number of movies as an alternative set in Russia in the course of the lead-up—all expertly crafted by outsider eyes—that the majority rocked my world. Certainly, with the illegal invasion as backdrop, versus the principle occasion, the next trio of movies (from comedic to tragic, oftentimes each) offered a glimpse into day by day surreal life on the “different facet.” And left me with that head-spinning feeling I’m going to formidable fests like Sizzling Docs for.
Soviet Barbara, The Story of Ragnar Kjartansson in Moscow
I’d by no means heard of Ragnar Kjartansson earlier than seeing the identify of the world-renowned, Icelandic multimedia artist within the eye-catching title of Gaukur Úlfarsson’s Soviet Barbara, The Story of Ragnar Kjartansson in Moscow. However I’d most definitely heard of Santa Barbara, having first encountered the town as a child watching the addictive cleaning soap opera of the identical identify. (Although, admittedly, I can’t recall a lot concerning the campy collection aside from that it starred a younger and harmless—i.e. pre-Penn—Robin Wright.) And on this sense I had one thing in widespread with the newly capitalist-minted residents of the previous USSR, who additionally tuned in week after week to see how these within the wealthy and well-known West lived (and died, often in nefarious methods).
For sure, Soviet Barbara doesn’t star Robin Wright. Mainly, Kjartansson, a jovial provocateur who appears to have by no means met a medium he didn’t like (in accordance to Wikipedia his “video installations, performances, drawings, and work incorporate the historical past of movie, music, visible tradition, and literature”), takes up the too-good-to-refuse provide to each current a retrospective and stage a brand new creation inside an enormous energy plant turned museum (designed by Renzo Piano’s agency)—and takes Úlfarsson and his digicam alongside for the experience. Although upon nearer inspection, that provide likewise turned out to be too good to be true. For the “GES-2—Home of Tradition” sits not removed from the Kremlin, and is owned by the Putin-aligned oligarch Leonid Mikhelson. In different phrases, political shenanigans positively not allowed.
So Kjartansson brilliantly chooses to resurrect an internationally beloved cleaning soap by enlisting 70 Russians to reenact one episode of Santa Barbara reside each day (in Russian), culminating in 100 works to run all through the exhibition. However then rumors of an impending struggle start to floor. And Putin all of the sudden decides he desires a preview of the present earlier than it opens. Which implies that, in hindsight, enthusiastically giving Masha of Pussy Riot that non-public tour may not have been probably the most good thought.
Calls from Moscow
Although Luis Alejandro Yero’s Calls from Moscow takes place in the identical metropolis, and likewise in the course of the lead-up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it’s worlds away from Soviet Barbara in each material and tone. Certainly, the placing doc performs extra like a psychological horror movie, the struggle offscreen looming like an unseen bogeyman. Shot just about fully throughout the claustrophobic confines of a small barebones flat, it stars 4 queer Cuban males who merely go about their day by day, repetitively monotonous, remotely-connected lives as finest they will. There’s on-line peddling, checking in again dwelling, and performing for TikTok, earlier than they rinse up and repeat—even because the dreariness and sense of foreboding develop into an unbearably suffocating combine. Between the stillness and empty areas, the ambient sounds and ominous alien droning, the beautiful framing of rooms and the determined exiles “trapped” inside them, a jarring existential portrait emerges: Like watching Tolstoy body-snatch Havana.
The Final Relic
The final Russia-set doc with the struggle buildup as backdrop, lensed by veteran Estonian filmmaker Marianna Kaat, The Final Relic takes place each close to and much from the seat of energy. Town of Yekaterinburg is round a thousand miles from Moscow, nevertheless it’s likewise dwelling to the stays of Tsar Nicholas II and his household, murdered by the Bolsheviks there a century-plus again. And the proud locals nonetheless maintain each a torch and a grudge.
In actual fact, not solely are these nationalistic people nostalgic for these good previous imperialist days, nevertheless it’s baked into the town’s very tradition—from glamorous debutante balls to bombastic navy parades, at the same time as most Yekaterinburgers wrestle simply to place meals on the desk. And but there’s additionally a small cadre of dissidents, rivetingly break up alongside a generational divide, who strive (and fail and debate after which strive once more) to interrupt by means of the deafening drumbeat, the propagandistic noise. That’s till a modern-day Romanov curse, within the type of that Kremlin crackdown, threatens to come back for them.
