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“Meeting with two legendary Latvian documentary filmmakers and life partners, Ivars and Maija Seleckis.”
The film "Kino diena" (Cinema Day) is a meeting with two documentary filmmakers and life partners, Ivars and Maija Seleckis, for "the length of a single film screening," reviewing the films they have made together and attempting to articulate the phenomenon of the Riga documentary film school and the essence of the documentary filmmaker's profession, which is difficult to express in words.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
EN

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing two years, and millions of dollars, the gigantic project ended in failure; but the artists Jodorowsky brought together to carry it out continued to work together, and ended up laying the foundations for modern science fiction cinema.