Jos de Putter — «Dans, Grosny, dans» (2002)

Year: 2002
Format: 35 mm
Runtime: 74 min

Copyright © 2002 Zeppers Film / IKON

Written & directed © by Jos de Putter
Director of photography: Vladas Naudzius
2nd camera: Masha Novikova
Edited by Stefan Kamp
Sound recording: Tom D’Angremond
Original music by Vincent van Warmerdam
Sound design: Michel Schöpping
Produced by Frank van den Engel

Portrait of a traditional youth dance group from Grozny, Chechnya, on tour in Europe. Images of daily life in ruined Grozny combined with poetic visuals of performances. The art of survival.

The creation of art within the rubble of war is the focus of this moving Dutch documentary on a children's dance troupe from strife-torn Chechnya. Bombed-out streets and the ruins of homes were the children's training grounds, with dances practiced underneath fighter jets and sniper fire, but a summer tour of Europe finds them in a different world of ornate concert halls and applauding crowds. "Remember, you represent Chechnya," their leader stresses to his young charges (some all of six years old), underlining the troupe's importance as cultural ambassadors to audiences more used to images of Chechens as violent terrorists than as twirling, costumed dancers. "We are not exterminated yet," he declares later, a statement that captures his troupe's other role: to use their artistry to give hope and resilience to a culture now under threat of both political and literal extermination.



Awards:
Best Documentary Award, Chicago Int. Doc Festival, 2003
Best Documentary Award, Festival ‘Message to man’ St. Petersburg, 2003
Miglior Lungometraggio (best film) Cinemambiente Torino, 2003
Copenhagen Dox Award, (best film), Copenhagen, 2003
Best film at Festival des films sur l’art, Montreal, 2004
Best film Music and Arts Documentaryfestival, Rome, 2005
Mention spéciale du jury, Nyon,
Special mention Tribeca filmfestival.

Festivals:
Selected in European Docuzone: release in 175 theatres
Other festivals: IDFA, IFFRotterdam, London, Praag, Durham, New York-Tribeca Filmfestival, Hotdocs-Toronto, Munchen, Marseille, Seoul, Montreal, Vancouver, Tokyo, Bombay, Sheffield, Washington, Chicago, Berkeley.

Sales: Idéale Audience, Paris

https://www.josdeputter.com/dans-grozny-dans

"Copenhagen's first international documentary film festival cph:dox, which wrapped this weekend, saw its major awards go to Jos de Putter's Dutch film Dans, Grozny, Dans and Jose Padilha's Brazilian Bus 174.

"Dans, Grozny, Dans is a deeply humanistic tale of a dance group and their dedicated teacher in a tale of culture as a form of resistance. Jos de Putter's universal and gripping film goes against the stereotypes of hate and propaganda in a war infested setting," said the main competition jury led by Jannike Aahlund, head of programming at the Goteborg Film Festival, who also gave a special mention to Mika Ronkainen's Finnish doc Screaming Men.

The Euros 5,000 prize was sponsored by national broadcaster DR, while the festival's parallel competition, the Amnesty Award, of another Euro5.000, came from worker's union HK.

Jose Padilha's Bus 174 was singled out by a jury led by Iranian director Maziar Bahari "for its grim, penetrating and intensely gripping portrait of the outcasts of Brazilian society, the street kids of the Rio de Janeiro slums". The Amnesty jury also gave a special mention to Carlos Bosch and Joseph Maria Domenech's Spanish Balseros - Cuban Rafters.

81 films screened at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, which managed to attract twice the expected number of admissions, 11,706, despite its meagre budget. This means that the date for next year's event already has been set for Nov 5.

The two most popular films were the two highly anticipated new local films, Kasper Torsting's Rocket Brothers and Lars von Trier and Joergen Leth's The Five Obstructions, which closed and opened the festival respectively.

At the opening ceremony, which even the otherwise crowd shy Lars von Trier attended, documentary filmmaker Anne Regitze Wivel received the Roos Award 2003 for her contribution to documentary filmmaking in Denmark. Her films include Soren Kierkegaard (1994) and Giselle (1991). She is currently working on Faces, a film about Greenland."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos_de_Putter

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