"Maybe I'm stupid," the woman at the screening said, "but I don't know what your film means." Then, a couple of hours later at the next film, another audience member: "Could you explain your film to us?" And the next day, at the master class I moderated, an audience member to the director on stage with me: "Last year you won the prize for the Best Documentary. Do you think your film is a documentary?"

Of course, I'm in Copenhagen at CPH:DOX, where the festival's entire raison d'etre is to prompt such searching, perplexed questions. CPH:DOX has carved out a unique position in the fall's crowded array of non-fiction showcases by programming films that, in the words of festival director Tine Fischer, incorporate "the real" as opposed to those that merely follow documentary orthodoxies. (CPH:DOX is also known for doubling down its radical agenda by giving purposefully confounding awards, like its citation of Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers as Best Documentary two years ago.) For the director whose masterclass I moderated, Le Quattro Volte's Michelangelo Frammartino, "the real" consists of the animal and mineral subjects of his transfixing film practice, which often involves the gradual but persistent removal of human subjects from the frame. As for documentary vs. fiction, Frammartino said he was uninterested in the question. What was more interesting for him was talking about the image, and how his frequent wide shots and long-take, observational approach (inspired by Tati and Charlie Chaplin) allows the audience to choose what to focus on, and is a reaction to the "image culture" that has pervaded contemporary Italian life. Speaking on the day that Berlusconi announced his plans to step down, Frammartino said that he sees his filmmaking style as oppositional to a visual language linked to a conservative political regime headed by a media baron. Definitely a more interesting binary opposition than "doc vs. fiction"!

I'll have more from CPH:DOX in the coming days on the blog, including work on some of the new films here, including Charles Atlas's collaboration with Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, Turning. And if you haven't checked out our website recently, please visit. There is a lot of new content from quite a few new writers.

See you next week.

Best,
Scott Macaulay
Editor

BEST FILM NOT PLAYING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU SCREENING SERIES - NOVEMBER 18 - 21 The annual Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Screening Series, presented in partnership with The Museum of Modern Art, kicks off November 18th at MoMA. The Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award, sponsored by Royal Bank of Canada, is given annually as part of the Gotham Independent Film Awards to the most outstanding independent film of the year without theatrical distribution in place. The five nominated films - singled out from the 2011 festival circuit - will screen at MoMA from November 18 - 21. The nominated films are Codependent Lesbian Alien Seeks Same, directed by Madeleine Olnek; Green, directed by Sophia Takal; The Redemption of General Butt Naked, directed by Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion; Scenes of a Crime, directed by Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock; and Without, directed by Mark Jackson. All screenings will be followed by Q & A's with the directors. Nominees for the award were selected by the editorial staff and contributors to Filmmaker, and Josh Siegel, Associate Curator, MoMA Department of Film, from recommendations by critics, festival programmers and curators. More details here.
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