Writer
David Kinsella, funded by the Norwegian Film Institute, arrived in North Korea ready to make a documentary about a young poet at the invitation of the North Korean government, but filming hadn’t gotten very far when Kinsella realized that everything he was filming was fiction not fact, even the young poet. Each day the government brought in extras and staged every scene too essentially create a propaganda film for the country. Not to be deterred Kinsella took the manipulation of his work in stride and started to capture large expanses of industrial areas to alter later with animation and create an amazing film.
Director
Documentary on the ‘forgotten’ artist Berthe Morisot, who was the only woman among the founders of impressionism. Her life was riddled with obstacles, but she eventually succeeded in reaching her goals in life. Still, shortly before dying, she said that she had failed in life. What had prevented her from becoming successful and happy? Was this the dark side of her enormous commitment and drive?
Writer
Diary of a Times Square Thief documents a journey of discovery: the search for the writer of a mysterious diary that the filmmaker found on Ebay. This manuscript describes the adventures of a young man who, in the late eighties, left the Midwest of the United States to go to New York to realize his big dream: to find a publisher for his work and become a writer. He fails, and the diary gives a frank and confronting account of the author's subsequent downfall. This is where the diary ends; its last pages have been cut out with a knife. Diary of a Times Square Thief consists of small, intimate portraits of some of the colorful characters described in the diary, who could have known its writer. Through these encounters clarity gradually emerges about the fate of the talented but failed author, and about the value of chasing dreams. In addition, the film paints a vivid picture of the world-famous Times Square area when it was still a dramatically brutal urban jungle.
