MY HEART OF DARKNESS
Wednesday 31 October 2012
Saturday 11 February 2012
“MY HEART OF DARKNESS”: AN INTERVIEW
The journey of an international documentary to the United States is an uncertain one. Make its subject a lesser-known foreign war and the post-traumatic effects thereof, and you’ve got what an American agent calls a “hard sell.” My Heart of Darkness, a brooding foray into four veterans’ pasts, has been traveling the international festival circuit since premiering at IDFA in 2010. The years between then and now, where it’s having its U.S. premiere at L.A.’s Pan African Film Festival (PAFF), has been marked by all manner of revelations and misunderstandings—appropriate for a film about the reconciliation of four former enemies of the Angolan Civil War.
As its title suggests, My Heart of Darkness is a personalized take on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. The documentary, directed by Staffan Julén and Marius Van Neikerk, applies the symbolic thrust of Conrad’s book to a meditation on war’s disgrace. The transfer of Conrad’s story from the Congo to neighboring Angola is more than arbitrary. Just as the West used the Cold War as a pretext to intervene in Congo’s affairs—leading the CIA to back the assassination of the country’s first democratically elected president—Angola became a major site of Cold War intervention.
The Angolan Civil War pitted the United States and South Africa against the Soviet Bloc and Cuba. Central to the conflict was the issue of who would control Angola after it gained independence from Portugal: the communist MPLA or the anti-communist UNITA. The war continued sporadically for over thirty years, fueled by competition over the country’s wealth of oil and diamonds. Read more... http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2012/02/my-heart-of-darkness-an-interview-with-marius-van-niekerk/
Our screening at PAFF LA, Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza
Mon, Feb 13@2:pm Screen 13
Wed, Feb 15@3:00pm Screen 13
Fri, Feb 17@600pm Screen 14
Welcome. Me and DoP Peter Östlund will be present during the screening.
Our screening at PAFF LA, Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza
Mon, Feb 13@2:pm Screen 13
Wed, Feb 15@3:00pm Screen 13
Fri, Feb 17@600pm Screen 14
Welcome. Me and DoP Peter Östlund will be present during the screening.
Sunday 8 January 2012
PAN AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL PAFF, Los Angeles 9-20 Feb. 2012.
My Heart of Darkness is in competition for best feature-length documentary at the PAN AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL PAFF, Los Angeles 9-20 Feb. 2012. (Directors &
DoP present).
We welcome your support.
It would be great to establish collaboration with war veterans NGO's and I would be very interested in having screening & debates/workshops/conferences at the different war veterans organisations.
We have lots to talk about.
Warmest regards from a cold Stockholm.
Marius
Our screening at PAFF LA, Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza
Mon, Feb 13@2:pm Screen 13
Wed, Feb 15@3:00pm Screen 13
Fri, Feb 17@600pm Screen 14
Welcome. Me and DoP Peter Östlund will be present during the screening.
Tuesday 27 December 2011
War veterans returned to Angola - Helsingborgs Daily Newspaper HD
Marius van Niekerk joined the army at 17 and was thrown into hell on earth. Much later, after having found refuge in Sweden and worked with other war vet’s trauma, he sought inner peace and forgiveness at former battlegrounds.
Four war vets, former enemies step onto a boat along the Kwando river. A quartet of veterans to travel straight into their hearts of darkness. Mario Mahonga, sergeant in the Portuguese army, feeling that he as an officer had additional debt in the atrocity in Angola and Marius van Niekerk, parachute soldier in the South African apartheid regime's service, baring his soul and throws fuel on the fire of confessions. Samuel Machado and Patrick Johannes, who both were conscripted in the early teens, finds that right here in the bush they were fighting on opposite sides in one of the major battles during the bloody civil war.
- When my daughter started asking questions, I felt that I needed to go back, if only to ask for forgiveness to Angola, says filmmaker Marius van Niekerk. He took this atonement journey, which became the documentary "My Heart of Darkness."
African night sky weaves anguished memories and tares up the mental wounds, but suddenly, around a campfire, lit also sparks of hope. During the journey tells Marius of his war crimes. And the nightmares, alcoholism and violence that became his companion.
- My first assignment was to guard a buffer zone and suddenly we found ourselves in the fire-fight. When all was over, it appeared that there were only women and children, although no civilian was suppose to be in the area. It was quickly repress and collective debt was replaced with a strange feeling, like after winning a rugby match.
He entices the others to open up and bear witness to horror and vile abuse. The journey ends with everyone going through a cleansing ritual where they burn Samuel's uniforms and Marius worn cardboard box with photographs and stale memories.
Marius van Niekerk had reached the age of 17 when he was conscripted into the South African Army. Today he lives in Stockholm. He recently came home from a film festival in the Angolan capital of Luanda, with an honorary award in the documentary category. The day before our conversation, he was in Uppsala Cathedral and listened to Leymah Gbowee, founder of the women's movement in Liberia and one of the three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, who spoke of forgiveness and to look ahead.
- She has done a fantastic job and it's great that reconciliation efforts in Africa noted. Leymah said very wisely, among other things, that every individual has the responsibility for their actions. There is of course more or less debt. For example, in the awful events of 1970 - and 80-century Angola.
- They have not gone through a healing process, just as in South Africa and Liberia, and soldiers from the liberation movement and the guerrillas are still living in hiding in fear of revenge. Ordinary people, but also military, accusing the government for what happened. At the individual level, however, little has happened, says Marius van Niekerk.
After two years he decided to desert, to escape the madness and not have to fight against his countrymen. Instead he was forced to go underground and parents were subjected to threats. When his name appeared on a death list, he decided to leave South Africa. And so, on a kibbutz in Israel, met the war-weary soldier, a young Swedish.
Love brought him to a chilly but peaceful country in northern Europe and he became the father of two daughters. All the time he fought against his demons and trying to hold them back with too much alcohol. He was aggressive and tense and could identify with American Vietnam veterans when he saw a film about their post-traumatic stress. He realized that the number of specialty psychologists were limited. So he started his own self-help groups, and finally came to a point where he realized that the only way out of the darkness was returning to ... the darkness.
It took three years to find fellow passengers before the boat headed straight into the Angolan jungle in desperate search of apocalyptic self- purification. Marius van Niekerk has also had time to process his identity as a white South African.
- I was ashamed of my background when I came to Sweden and while hated the old generation - my parents, church and government. As a “boer” he received a stern, Calvinist upbringing on the family farm outside Bloemfontein. The indoctrination was that apartheid was the obvious norm and that all freedom fighters were communists and should be annihilated.
- At one point I told my parents that the man they hated and called our worst enemy, Nelson Mandela, would one day become the president. They were upset and did not talk to me for many years. But it’s gotten better and they changed their attitude, even if they are worried about the current developments in the country. The next film project called "City of Joy-the raped women, their rapist & healers in DRC" focuses on eastern Congo and the monumental cruelty to women of all ages are exposed to.
- I have spent weeks interviewing victims who tell horror stories, girls with their genitals torn. I want to confront offenders, often young boys, with what they've done. Somehow I want to access the mechanisms that underlie these barbaric atrocities.
Soldiers who rape and desecrates and patriarchal societies that turn out victims. Is it possible to forgive, and it is really reconciliation we want, at every possible price?
- Society must take responsibility and create justice. Whether the it’s possible to forgive is placed on an individual basis. One thing is certain, we men have much to work with.
- She has done a fantastic job and it's great that reconciliation efforts in Africa noted. Leymah said very wisely, among other things, that every individual has the responsibility for their actions. There is of course more or less debt. For example, in the awful events of 1970 - and 80-century Angola.
- They have not gone through a healing process, just as in South Africa and Liberia, and soldiers from the liberation movement and the guerrillas are still living in hiding in fear of revenge. Ordinary people, but also military, accusing the government for what happened. At the individual level, however, little has happened, says Marius van Niekerk.
After two years he decided to desert, to escape the madness and not have to fight against his countrymen. Instead he was forced to go underground and parents were subjected to threats. When his name appeared on a death list, he decided to leave South Africa. And so, on a kibbutz in Israel, met the war-weary soldier, a young Swedish.
Love brought him to a chilly but peaceful country in northern Europe and he became the father of two daughters. All the time he fought against his demons and trying to hold them back with too much alcohol. He was aggressive and tense and could identify with American Vietnam veterans when he saw a film about their post-traumatic stress. He realized that the number of specialty psychologists were limited. So he started his own self-help groups, and finally came to a point where he realized that the only way out of the darkness was returning to ... the darkness.
It took three years to find fellow passengers before the boat headed straight into the Angolan jungle in desperate search of apocalyptic self- purification. Marius van Niekerk has also had time to process his identity as a white South African.
- I was ashamed of my background when I came to Sweden and while hated the old generation - my parents, church and government. As a “boer” he received a stern, Calvinist upbringing on the family farm outside Bloemfontein. The indoctrination was that apartheid was the obvious norm and that all freedom fighters were communists and should be annihilated.
- At one point I told my parents that the man they hated and called our worst enemy, Nelson Mandela, would one day become the president. They were upset and did not talk to me for many years. But it’s gotten better and they changed their attitude, even if they are worried about the current developments in the country. The next film project called "City of Joy-the raped women, their rapist & healers in DRC" focuses on eastern Congo and the monumental cruelty to women of all ages are exposed to.
- I have spent weeks interviewing victims who tell horror stories, girls with their genitals torn. I want to confront offenders, often young boys, with what they've done. Somehow I want to access the mechanisms that underlie these barbaric atrocities.
Soldiers who rape and desecrates and patriarchal societies that turn out victims. Is it possible to forgive, and it is really reconciliation we want, at every possible price?
- Society must take responsibility and create justice. Whether the it’s possible to forgive is placed on an individual basis. One thing is certain, we men have much to work with.
"My Heart of Darkness", or "MItt Mörka Hjärtat" in Swedish. A return journey inspired both by Joseph Conrad's classic novel "Heart of Darkness" from 1902, and Francis Ford Coppola film "Apocalypse Now" (1979), with the document located in the Vietnam War. In "My Heart of Darkness" the names of the main characters Patrick John, Marius van Niekerk, Samuel Machado and Mario Mahonga. Marius and Staffan Julén are the directers and the film, which premiered in April, distributed by Folketsbio and can be purchased at: discshop.se and folketsdvd.se.
Saturday 17 December 2011
WINNER BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD 4TH LUANDA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011
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| Marius and Buca Boavida (Cultural Attaché Angolan Embassy Stockholm), Luanda. |
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| Buca Boavida and Patrick Johannes in Windhoek sharing the award news. |
Sunday 6 November 2011
MY HEART OF DARKNESS at the7th FREE ZONE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
My Heart of Darkness screening 8-11-11 at the Utorak
THE 7th EDITION OF FREE ZONE FILM FESTIVAL
From the 4th to the 9th of November at Belgrade Cultural Center and Dom Omladine
The 7th edition of FREE ZONE festival will take place from the 4th to the 9th of November at Belgrade Cultural Center and Dom Omladine.This year‘s edition is presented by the authors who, through their personal example and their films, deeply commit faith in man and the ability to change, regardless of historical circumstances and personal limitations, religious and social dogmas and pressures.At the opening night of the festival on the 4th of November, at Belgrade Cultural Center we will present “This is not a film“ by Jafar Panahi, famous and award-wining director from Iran.This movie, smuggled form Iran on a USB stick hidden in a cake, represents a great statement of the Iranian director as a response to the circumstances of the house arrest when he finds out that Teheran court has upheld a six-year jail sentence and 20-year filmmaking, freedom of movement and media exposure ban against him.During six festival days, Belgrade audience will be able to see around 40 films that deal with and explore social and political events from all around the world. The program also displays a selection of films from contemporary Swedish engaged documentary production, and the work of graduates of one of the world’s most prestigious film schools - the National Film School of London. The audience will also have a unique opportunity to watch a number of films that explore the position of women in the modern world or the films directed by women.The visual identity of the festival was developed in collaboration with young forces, high school students from Serbia who gave us a new perspective on the topic of TOMORROW. This is exactly the reason why the festival is presenting a line of films that are selected by high school students in view of their representation of perspectives and attitudes.As every year, the audience award for the best film of the festival will be given through purchasing rights for TV broadcasting, and for the third time we will also give the award for the audience – for the best film review of this year‘s Free Zone. The prize is a laptop.The festival warm up will start on the 28th of October at Cultural Center REX at 8PM with a concert of Boris Kovač (Serbia) and David Yengibarjan (Armenia). FREE ZONE audience that is constantly seeking new challenges will have the chance to listen to these two musicians who are ready to cooperate with others and to experiment with new expressions. Their music is characterized by specific expressions that combine classical, jazz and chamber music, improvisation and elements of rich national traditions.Tickets for the festival will be on sale from the October 28th at the ticket office of Belgrade Cultural Center and Dom Omladine. Individual tickets will cost 200RSD, while the revival screenings tickets will cost 150 dinars.Take your seat in the FREE ZONE! TODAY!
http://www.freezonebelgrade.org/en/festival/filmovi/moje-srce-tame/
Tuesday 11 October 2011
I WILL NEVER TALK ABOUT WAR AGAIN - SCREENING & DEBATE FÄRGFABRIKEN 16 OCT 16.00
By screening this film in relation to the exhibition I Will Never Talk About the War Again containing works by artists from former Yugoslavia, also from a society marked by traumatic war memories, Färgfabriken wants to highlight the individual's role and situation in the perverse logic of conflict.
http://www.fargfabriken.se/index.php?sit=arkiv&id=313
http://www.fargfabriken.se/index.php?sit=arkiv&id=313
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