Television by Ida Frank: Fatimas Drawings

Fatimas Drawings

0 Comments

Short documentary film by
Magnus Wennman & Jenny Svenberg Bunnel
- - -
Quick facts:
- Narrative Documentary
- Duration 05 min 34 sec
- A part of the Award-winning project
"Where the Children Sleep"

Fatima dreams that she is falling from a ship. Together with her mother, Malaki, and her two siblings, she fled from the city of Idlib when the Syrian national army indiscriminately slaughtered the city’s civilians.

Watch

As Aftonbladets photographer, Magnus Wennman followed 9-year-old Fatima´s first year living in Norberg, Sweeden. After she had been in a refugee camp in Lebanon with her family, it became unendurable for the family and luckily they were able to flee on a boat to Libya. It was overfilled, and Fatima saw things happen on the boat, which she will never forget.

We are introduced to Fatima right away in this film, as it both starts and ends with the same frame, her in her bed. The film has a very clear style and mood over it, using voice over as a tool to be able to show more visually instead of telling it. There is only one clip where we see her talk to the camera.

It is a balanced combination of being

- Character driven

- Subject-driven

- Actuality driven

I really wanted to pull this short doc film out as an inspiration and example because I really like this way of telling a documentary story. I love the use of still/animation images combined with film clips. As well as using the cinematography to make it interesting, and come alive rather than having a setup interview where the character is just telling by words, without coming to life.

Key points of things about this film and this style that inspires me:

- Creative cinematography.

- Voice-over, where the sound is "authentic" and there is natural noise included and used to create and bring a more believable realness to the film.

- Photo stills or animation combined with film clips.

I was very lucky to get to attend a Documentary workshop in Norway at the Multimedia camp - DOK:15, running over four days summer of 2015, with Magnus Wennman and Niklas Meltio as mentors. We got to learn, work with and receive advice and mentoring from both of them, which was very fun, useful and interesting!

Here is the finished film my camp-mate Hanna Hjardar and I ended up with.

- - -

"The Glue of Society"

A postman tells his story of how his everyday routine goes about, as well as how his job in the near future, might be in danger of despairing with all of the electronic mail being introduced and entering the mail marked.

(The film is in Norwegian, and it does not have subtitles yet)