VIVISECTfest.

VIVISECTfest was a 4 day festival a couple of weeks back at good old OKC Abrašević. It is run by various human rights groups and is currently travelling all around the Balkans. It was good, very good! Very depressing, but hey, its all jokes really.

The first half of it all is a photography exhibition entitled 'People with Margins', by Mance Juvan. This involves a series of photographs taken around the world about human rights injustices. The first set is about the treatment of Roma in Slovenia, the second about transvestites in Thailand, the third about life on the streets of Iran, the forth of Hugo Chavez's 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela, and finally about women in Kabul, Afghanistan who are in jail for moral crimes. Whilst being short, it is a moving slideshow of human rights abuses, with the Afghanistan pictures in particular being a little difficult to deal with. That so much ill can exist in our supposedly evolved forward thinking world is continually shocking.

The second half of the festival is a series of documentaries being shown in the evening. Unfortunately, on Tuesday I missed 'Bananas!*' (which looked fantastic, I'll definitely be looking it up over winter) and 'World Poll'. Actually, both of these look like they would have been most excellent, so its a shame that I decided to watch the disappointing football game. Heartbreaking.

Anyway, I did manage to catch all the other documentos, so here is a quick capsule review of each and every one of them. And I might mention Spanish Elaine. I will mention Spanish Elaine.

Zajedno
So, Zajedno translates to 'Together', and this was a documentary all about everyones favourite subject, love. Or as some awesome people like to call it, luuuurve. It followed 5 different stories in Croatia of people who were either in, had been in, or wanted to be in emotional relationships. The main story was of Milka and Ratko, who were a lesbian couple. Basically spoke of the troubles they had had through the years, how they got together and what their parents thought of it all. However, it was hard to feel any empathy for them whatsoever, on account of one of them (I think it was Milka, I can't remember) being a drug addled chump. I don't know, I just tend to lose interest once drugs are mentioned. Drugs are for fools. The other stories were more interesting, in particular the story of Hrvoje, who is physically handicapped and was essentially looking for a girl who was not handicapped, in order to validate himself as a human. It was a pretty sad story truth be told, especially when Hrvoje's friends spoke of his life and searches. He was a good example of modern day elevation of wants really. The other stories were all interesting, some more so than others, and the film ended with nothing really resolved. In fact, with the exception of Peter and Mary (a mentally disabled married couple), everyone ended up sad. Moral of the story? Love sucks, but its all that we want.

One Day
This was rubbish. I had high hopes for it, as anyone would when told the documentary would be about an Ghanaian prostitute living in Denmark, but my expectations were dashed when it became clear that the film was essentially 30 minutes of phone conversations. One half of these were from the lady of the night back home to Ghana with her family, and the others were to prospective clients about their wants. Strange stuff, the way it was filmed didn't help either, blurry shot of mouths talking into telephones does not a gripping documentary make. The worst of the lot. Moral of the story? Prostitution is lame, even in documentary form.

Two Kosovar Summers
Now this is what I'm here to see. A documentary about an area that was once in Yugoslavia, about how life is these days. And what was it? It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. From a viewers point of view obviously, I'm sure the main protagonists would disagree. Despite the independence they achieved in 2008, Kosovo is without doubt still an extremely divided country, something that was both clear and mentioned frequently throughout this documentary. One interesting thing about this was that both the Serbs and the Kosovars came off in an almost positive light, and were both united on a single thing. That being that the UN have only succeeded in making greater division between the 2 groups of people. A fantastically interesting documentary, and you believed in every thing each person interviewed was saying. Moral of the story? The UN is for chumps.

Lockerbie Revisited
Ah, Lockerbie. So this was a Dutch documentary, re-investigating the Lockerbie air disaster. The Libyan secret service was accused of perpetrating the disaster, and a Libyan man was sent to jail for it. This documentary examined the evidence that came from the disaster and finds some very interesting results. Interviews with various CIA and FBI fools also show the laxness of the investigation, including the shocking revelation that the main bit of evidence that pointed to the Libyans was never actually examined by specialists in that field, and had never even been to the States, where the investigated was going on. It was a pretty shocking documentary, and one that I would suggest looking up if possible. Moral of the story? If America decides you are guilty, you are guilty.


Juvenile Delinquents
Another pretty shocking one this, all about the justice system in America with regards to young people. In a large number of cases, people under the age of 18 are tried as adults, and get adult sentencing. This leads to, as in the case of numerous kids in this documentary, kids as young as 12 getting life sentences in prison. Now, I know this is a bit of 'I am not touching that' scenario, the Bulger case in Merseyside being an example, but the documentary did a great job of touching the subject from a humane point of view. Humane from all directions. I was surprised at the quality of it to be honest, especially when the first things you seen are 'Narrated by Mark Wahlberg' and 'Poems read by Mos Def'. That didn't give me a great deal of hope to be honest. Really thought inducing documentary though. Moral of the story? Crime is crime, kids are kids.

Whilst this last documentary was on, I had a missed call from Majda. I unfortunately have no credit, so could not call or text her back. It seemed urgent, so I thought I should try and get in touch with her by asking someone if I could borrow their phone. Only one girl stayed in the room for the photography after the film, so I tapped her on the shoulder to ask if I could use her phone. The girl was the spitting image of Elaine from Seinfeld, and was Spanish. I almost fainted. Seriously. Blimey.

Comic Books go to War
A documentary focusing on the relatively new art of Comic book journalism. I was skeptical before hand, and am probably still skeptical now. On one hand, it seems like a very easy way for people to learn the intricacies of world wide conflicts, and puts the issues in a very understandable light. However, on the flipside (I've always wanted to say that convincingly), all of the comic book journalists interviewed throughout came off as being incredibly self important, constantly talking of the importance of what they are doing. Particularly interesting were the comics who had acquaintances in places such as Sarajevo during the war. The way they spoke of these stories, gave the impression of nothing but exploitation. I don't doubt comic book journalism as a useful tool for understanding conflict, but the writers themselves just came across as idiots. Moral of the story? War journalists are strange folk.

Afghan Girls Can Kick
The last documentary followed the story of a young Afghan girls football team. I can't really comment on this one too much, it was in a language my feeble Welsh mind could not understand. All I'll say is that the girls looked pretty happy when they were playing football, the Talibans treatment of women was vile, and the actual technique of the football being played was poor. Especially the goalkeeping. Moral of the story? British people need to learn more languages, and Afghan girls are poor goalkeepers.

Vivisectfest was awesome. Spanish Elaine was awesome.