Ferenc Moldovanyi has become the member of the European Film Academy

Ferenc Moldovanyi director – producer has been invited to join the European Film Academy as a voting member.

“The European Film Academy was founded in 1989 by its first president Ingmar Bergman and 40 filmmakers to advance the interests of the European film industry. Wim Wenders became EFA’s first chairman and was elected president in April 1996. (…)

Voting members are European film professionals whose work is recognised throughout Europe. They declare their willingness to actively support the aims of the European Film Academy and to participate in its training and promotional activities. They are also people whose professional activities are connected with film industry, such as film historians, journalists, politicians, distributors, etc.

EFA members participate in the voting procedure for the European Film Awards. (…)

We would be proud to count you among our members, and feel that your presence and contribution would help the European Film Academy to protect and strengthen European cinema as well as its artistic and commercial values.” – the letter of invitation says.

Another Planet gets Another Award

Skrevet den 08-04-2010 10:30:02 af Tue Steen Müller:

There are many films the career of which we have been following with great pleasure. Another Planet by Hungarian Ferenc Moldovanyi is one of them. The film has won the Special Award from the Ukranian Helsinki Human Rights Union at the 7th International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, which took place in Kyiv from 26th March to 2nd April 2010. (See more about the festival on this site)

Another Planet has won 18 awards and been presented at 58 festivals in 43 countries on four continents and has been broadcast by various prestigious television channels. Congratulations.

Several other films like “Burma vj”, “Cash and Marry” and “The Living Room of a Nation” were also awarded at the festival in Ukraine.

www.docudays-ua

Source: www.filmkommentaren.dk

FILMKOMMENTAREN:

Ferenc Moldoványi in Copenhagen

Skrevet den 17-11-2009 11:11:51 af Tue Steen Müller

Especially for our Danish readers: The masterly done documentary ”Another Planet” by Hungarian director Ferenc Moldoványi will be presented in Copenhagen on November 20 in connection with the celebration of the 20 year birthday of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The director will show clips from his film and give an insight to how he worked with the children in the film.

More about the programme is to be found on the site below. The same goes for more about the film that has been written about on this site numerous times. Go to ”search” and write ”another planet”

http://www.amnesty.dk/artikel/bornekonventionen/bornekonventionen-fylder-20-og-du-er-inviteret-til-fodselsdag

http://www.another-planet.eu/moldovanyi-uk.html

http://www.unicef.org/crc/

ANOTHER PLANET in SARAJEVO

«Another Planet», a documentary that has earned numerous awards throughout the world is a kind of “meditative-essayist” drama of a civilisation approaching its end. The film commences with the cosmic surrender of Tarahumara shaman (a ritual dedicated to the birth of a new life and the dream of an Indian who enters the forest to warn her children of “losing the soul” juxtaposed with the fates of children workers, “prisoners of development”, minors forced into prostitution, killings, rape, recycling, survival. The apocalyptic sight of the photography by Tibor Mathe, the disturbing soundtrack by Tibor Szemzo, the hypnotic rhythm based on the narrative core on exploiting children in Ecuador, Mexico, Congo and Cambodia, are only few of the attributes that describe the exceptional work of Ferenc Moldovanyi who has shaped „Another Planet“ for several years. It is a film whose atmosphere takes over the spectators, the conscience is thrown on its knees towards the screen, while sights are projected of the “secret face of the planet” where half of its inhabitants live with less that 1$ per day. 

Poverty, exploitation, abuse, desperation, humiliation, human shame, unhidden hypocrisy of global politics of deregulation, the planetary senseless fight for the “millennium goals” (OSCE in its report from October of last year has confirmed that “the economic growth in the past decades has contributed more to the enrichment of the wealthy rather than the poor»!?), that is what the Hungarian author symbolically places into the voices of the children who share their fates, while those watching them remain to ponder on the triumph of cinematography and the defeat of humanity - PRAVO LJUDSKI, Human Rights Film Festival Sarajevo, Official Catalogue

Filmkommentaren:

Another Planet Awarded Again

Skrevet den 05-10-2009 01:09:46 af Tue Steen Müller

A couple of months ago this was posted on filmkommentaren.dk: The city of Kazan in Tatarstan in Russia, around 800 km East of Moscow, hosts the 4th International festival of Muslim Cinema, ”Golden Minbar”, taking place September 30 to October 4. 14 films have been selected for the documentary competition, 3 of them have been reviewed on this site: Hungarian Ferenc Moldovanyi’s beautiful ”Another Planet” (photo top right of the site), Czech/Canadian Petr Lom’s actual Iran-film ”Letters to the President” and Polish Beata Dzianowicz film from Afghanistan, ”Kites” (photo).

Prizes were given last night, and first prize went as in many other festivals worldwide to the film of Moldovanyi, "Another Planet", whereas Beata Dzianowicz received the prize as the best director. Both films deal with the lives of children.

www.miradox.ru

ANOTHER PLANET at

SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, June 15-22, 2009,

Sterling World Feature Competition and nominated for SILVERDOCS Cinematic Vision Award and WITNESS Awards

"This globe-spanning film hits hard on many levels—visually, intellectually, emotionally. Beautifully shot in Ecuador, Mexico, Africa and Asia, Moldoványi’s film presents images that sparkle in the eye even as they punch you in the heart. Moldoványi introduces us to children in Cambodia, Ecuador, Mexico and the Democratic Republic of Congo, each of whom is struggling to survive. Working long hours, often in dangerous and dirty conditions, these children show us a side of existence that many have never seen or even imagined. While many in the US hold childhood as a special and protected time of nurtured innocence, this film reminds us all that for many children life is a brutal and precarious game of survival. With subjects that include children scavenging dumps for recyclables, child soldiers and child sex workers, this film offers a sympathetic and unblinking eye. The children themselves are our strongest storytellers, and they open up to Moldoványi’s camera to give us their own perspective. Their frankness astonishes as they talk matter-of-factly about their jobs and the consequences of not earning. The children either are at the mercy of adults—often the parents who force them to work and beat them when they don’t earn enough—or have been abandoned by adults altogether. While the film is not a gentle journey, it imagines a better world, a greater one. The filmmaker relies on your humanity and empathy to be moved by these children, while never directly suggesting a call to action. This film offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore another planet, a trip definitely worth taking."

SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Another Planet received the Südwind Award of 18th International Film Festival Innsbruck, June 9th - 14th 2009,

Jury Statement (of Student Jury composed of 15 youths):

“After due consideration – and vivid discussion – we, the student  jury, decided to present the Südwind-Award to a film that moved us  deeply. Powerfully and skilfully, the film weaves together word and  image, landscape and emotion, thereby exposing the cruel circle of  children’s exploitation from both an intimate and a broader  perspective. The film does not use a voice-of-God commentary, but  rather purely filmic means to provide us with important insights. Its  “here, there, and everywhere-approach”, its images from around the  world make ANTOHER PLANET an outstanding contribution not only to  this festival. Our congratulations go to its director, Ferenc  Moldovanyi.

Another Planet received the Bronze Medal of the 
28th International Grand Prix for Author's 
Documentaries – URTI:

“The Jury of the 28th URTI International Grand Prix for Author's Documentary proclaimed its list of award winners on Monday June 18th, 2009. The jury chaired by the director Gaston Kaboré from Burkina Faso was composed of representatives from 14 countries. 123 documentaries were presented in competition by 81 television channels. The awards were given out in the framework of the Monte-Carlo Television Festival during a ceremony organized at the Hotel Hermitage.”

FILMKOMMENTAREN:

URTI Grand Prix for Author’s Documentaries

Skrevet den 16-04-2009 15:07:11 af Tue Steen Müller

URTI stands for Université Radiophonique et Télévisuelle Internationale, and for the 28th time the organisation will give an award, the International Grand Prix for Author’s Documentaries (what is equivalent to ”creative documentaries” or ”author driven documentaries, ed.) in connection with the TV Festival of Monte Carlo June 5- June 8.

10 films have been shortlisted for the final competition, selected from 123 documentaries from 81 tv channnels from 47 countries.

Let 3 of the films be mentioned, all of them known to readers of filmkommentaren.dk: Hungarian Ferenc Moldovanyi’s ”Another Planet” (presented by MTV, Hungary), ”Burma VJ” (photo) by Danish Anders Østergaard (presented by WDR, Germany!) and Bulgarian Boris Despodov’s ”Corridor #8” (presented by YLE, Finland!).

http://www.urti.org/

Another Planet received the Honour Mention of the International Jury of the 11th International Film Festival on Human Rights in Buenos Aires

“Másik Bolygó”, (Another planet), by Ferenc Moldoványi (Hungary, Finland), “because through an excellent cinematographic language it denounces, in seven different stories, the exploitation suffered by childhood in the planet, in this 21th century”

Press release by UNICEF Hungary:

Bouquet of Flowers of UNICEF’s Highest Appreciation

Film director Ferenc Moldoványi received the recognition of UNICEF for his documentaries featuring children’s issues

“I am sending this bouquet of flowers to Mr Ferenc Moldoványi as the sign of UNICEF’s highest appreciation. Let it become the symbol of a better world which we can create with our love and care for the coming generations.”

This is the message accompanying the Bouquet of UNICEF’s Highest Appreciation sent by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Sir Roger Moore. Civilians, institutions or organizations enhancing physical, mental and spiritual development of children and implementation of their rights are honoured with the bouquet.

The Bouquet of Highest Appreciation was first donated to commemorate the 50^th Anniversary of UNICEF in 1996. On that occasion Queen Margaret of Denmark, Queen Fabiola of Belgium and the Princess of Thailand received this high honour.

In Hungary the bouquet is awarded by the Hungarian National Committee for UNICEF. Among the previous recipients were Mrs Zsuzsa Göncz, wife of the former President of Hungary as well as Prof Katalin Gönczöl, the first Hungarian parliamentary commissioner for human rights. In 2006 upon his visit to Hungary, Sir Roger Moore personally handed over the bouquet to Ms. Judit Halász, a popular actress and national UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

This year UNICEF Hungary awarded the Bouquet of UNICEF’s Highest Appreciation to film director Mr Ferenc Moldoványi. Moldoványi’s feature documentary and docu-fictions present the lives of vulnerable children crippled by the conflicts and fights of adults with great empathy and responsibility. He uncovers with great stamina and persistence how the world treats the upcoming generation entrusted to its care and makes the viewer face the results of his study in an objective manner.

In his film Children, Kosovo 2000 he gave cameras to child witnesses of the Balkan wars to film with, thus helping unfold and overcome their painful memories. His last film Another Planet, made in co-production with the Hungarian Television, depicts the lives of seven children, those of child-labourers, child-prostitutes and child-soldiers. He gives insight into their lives and everyday struggle for survival with great tact. “Another Planet represents a bereft world, which we have to face up to have to come to know and which we must change to make our Planet a liveable place again.” – Moldoványi says.

Moldoványi’s film has received numerous international awards. In recognition of his high standard of work with children, UNICEF invited him to chair the Jury of One Minutes Junior (an international video competition for youngsters) in 2004. Requested by UNICEF he also conducted a workshop for young amateur filmmakers.

Mr István Takács, President of the Hungarian National Committee for UNICEF handed over the Bouquet of flowers of UNICEF’s Highest Appreciation to Mr Ferenc Moldoványi at a screening of the film Another Planet on the 28^th of May.

The Best Documentary Feature Prize, 
"Shaken's Stars-2009", at the Almaty International Film Festival in Kazahstan for Another Planet

Another Planet has won the Best Documentary Feature Film  Award of  the International Jury (Chairman: Nana Dzhordzhadze, famous Georgian film director) at the  Almaty International Film Festival "Shaken's Stars-2009", (May 16-20, 2009)

ANOTHER PLANET SELECTED FINALIST FOR THE BEST AUTHOR’S DOCUMENTARY BY URTI

“Another Planet”’ is a finalist for the 28th International Grand Prix for Author’s Documentaries and is among the 10 films selected by  the International Radio and Television University (URTI)

The ten finalists were selected from 123 documentaries from 81 channels  broadcasting from 47 different countries – according to URTI.

The final competition where the international jury selects the winner form the finalists will take place from Friday, June 5 to Monday, June 8 in Monaco during the TV Festival of Monte-Carlo.

First Visegrad Summer Film Festival Starts

June 5, 2009

The First "Visegrad Summer" Film and Media Festival, a showcase of cinema from Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, will launch on Friday.

The three-week festival, organised by the Hungarian Centre in Cracow, will feature screenings of 24 films in Cracow, Prague, Bratislava and Budapest. It will be launched by the Hungarian director Béla Tarr and Visegrad Fund head Kristóf Forrai on Friday.

The festival's organisers would like to make it into a regular summer event.

On the festival programme will be a motion picture, a documentary, a film by a debut director and three animated shorts from each of the Visegrad Four countries. Hungarian films on the programme include The Man from London (A londoni férfi) directed by Béla Tarr; Another Planet (A másik bolygó), a documentary by Ferenc Moldoványi; Luck (Mázli), the debut by director Tamás Keményffy; and the shorts Lifeline (Életvonal) by Tomek Ducki, Ergo by Géza M. Tóth, and Face (Arc) by Ferenc Cakó

UPCOMING FESTIVAL SCREENINGS FOR ANOTHER PLANET

Another Planet will be presented in the International Competition of DOCVILLE in Leuven held between 2^nd- 9^th May Meanwhile the film is also presented at the Bahrein Human Rights International Film Festival.

Another Planet will be in the Main Competition for the Millennium Award at Planet Doc Film Festival in Warsaw.

ANOTHER PLANET IN TUNIS

Another Planet was presented with great success for the Tunisian public completely filling the Theatre Municipal seating more than eight-hundred people. The audience gave the film an extremely positive reception proven by loud applause and outstanding interest shown during the Q and A following the screening.

Ferenc Moldoványi had  been invited as the special guest of the Festival and also gave a masterclass for the students of the Tunis Film School, which enjoyed great interest on the part of the students of the North African country.

Doc à Tunis

From April 1^st to 5^th the 4th edition of Doc à Tunis is taking place in Tunesia. Besides the selection of well known western documentaries the festival has a strong programme with films from the region. Documentaries from countries like Marocco, Algeria, Libanon and Syria are represented in Tunis. Amongst the selection are also the JVF supported documentaries Dolls - A Woman from Damascus from the Syrian filmmaker Diana El Jeiroudi and Tambogrande: Mangos, Murder, Mining by Stephanie Boyd and Ernesto Cabellos from Peru.

Filmmaker Ferenc Moldovanyi has been invited as a special festivalguest to present his film Another Planet and to give a “lecon du cinema” at the festival.

Doc à Tunis is organized by Association Ness El Fen lead by the lively and inspiring Tunisian woman Syhem Belkhodja. The Jan Vrijman Fund is supporting the festival for the third time. For more information about the programme of Doc à Tunis please check the following site.

Another Planet won the Best Documentary Award of the 8^th Rome Independent Film Festival. The director could not participate in the prestigious festival however he would like to thank the festival for the prize and for the kind letter of the festival director Mr. Fabrizio Ferrari, see below:

You can also find the news about these awards in the publication of MTI, the Hungarian News Agency:

Hungarian documentary on children wins int'l awards

2009.03.30.

The Hungarian documentary "Another Planet" won awards at two international festivals this month, the Hungarian Film Union told MTI on Monday.

The title directed by Ferenc Moldovanyi received the award for best documentary ahead of 17 other productions at the 8th Rome Independent Film Festival that ended on the weekend. At the Thessaloniki documentary film festival it received the prize of the ERT3 public television, which will show the film on its programme soon.

Moldovanyi made the film between 2005 and 2007 about the shocking daily life of children forced to labour, prostitution and killing as young "soldiers" in Congo, Cambodia and Ecuador.

ANOTHER PLANET SUCCESSFULLY SCREENED  IN GUADALAJARA

Ferenc Moldoványi who was on the jury with Karin Hoffinger (Head of the Intl. Relations Dept of the Berlinale) and Lucía Gajá (outstanding Mexican documentary filmmaker) found the Mexican documentary selection very interesting and very fresh in form and content. From among the excellent selection the jury gave the Best Documentary Prize to “Los que quedan” by Carlos Hagerman and Juan Carlos Rulfo and the Special Mention went to “El viaje del cometa” by Ivonne Fuentes Mendoza.

ANOTHER PLANET HAS WON ERT3 AWARD AT THE 11TH INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL IN THESSALONIKI

Another Planet has won the Award of the Greek Public Television ERT 3 at the International Documentary Film Festival held between 13^th and 22^nd of March. Thanks to the Award the Greek public will also be able to view the film on ERT3  channel.

The film awarded several prestigious prizes can be seen in different countries on four continents during the spring film festival season.

The film met great success in Mexico City at FICCO at the end of February and at the same time it started its rounds in various cities of New Zealand such as Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Denein. The screenings will go on until mid-April in the programme of the prestigious DOCNZ.

Following the premieres in Ankara, Oslo, Athens and Rome Another Planet will be screened at the 24^th Guadaljara International Film Festival  for the Latin American public and professionals. The Guadalajara Festival is one of the most important showcases of the Ibero-American films and the outstanding motion pictures of the rest of the world. The rich film selection of the festival and the market running parallel with it are accompanied by other professional events and master classes. The director-producer Ferenc Moldoványi will be on the International Jury of Mexican Long-feature Documentaries. Ferenc will also give a masterclass and present Another Planet in “DOCULAB” for selected Latin American filmmakers.

Another Planet will be seen by the North African public at the 4^th Doc á Tunis where the director-producer introduces his film and his previous work such as Children, Kosovo 2000 at the masterclass event called Lecon du Cinema.

"Another Planet" has won Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary Film of 31^st Starz Denver International Film Festival

31st Starz Denver Film Festival Juried Awards:

The festival's documentary award, named after the great filmmaker brothers, Albert and David Maysles is presented each year to a outstanding documentary.  The jury this year was comprised of Los Angeles Film Festival senior programmer, Doug Jones, the Director of Programming for SILVERDOCS, Sky Sitney, and filmmaker Michael Jacobs.

FILMKOMMENTAREN

Ferenc Moldoványi: Another Planet

Skrevet den 23-11-2008 08:34:23 af Tue Steen Müller

With German master director Edgar Reitz (”Heimat”) as the president of the jury, the International Film Festival of Mannheim-Heidelberg gave the Special Jury Award to ”Another Planet” (see also review, go to ”search”). Here follows the motivation:

"There are films which defy with persistence our willingness to forget quickly. "Another Planet" is such a film. It guides us, without ever striking a false note, into the depressing world of child labour and prostitution, which we never experienced before on the screen with such directness and intimacy. We admire the director Ferenc Moldoványi for his courage and his perseverance - he worked for over five years to accomplish this touching and just as much disturbing masterpiece. With its artistic forms of expression and its deep spirituality it transcends the limitations of documentary film.”

http://www.another-planet.eu/moldovanyi-uk.html

The Laureates of the 57th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg 2008

International Jury:
Edgar Reitz, president (Germany), Alexander Bohr (Germany),Raisa Fomina (Russia), Martin Paul-Hus (Canada), Jaana Puskala (Finland)

Announcement of the International Jury:

"The International Jury wants to express its high regards for the quality of the selection of the films in competition. We have seen 18 films that show in an impressive way how vigorous the auteur film is in all parts of the world and with what an admirable commitment young filmmakers try to express their relation to their personal life, to their cultural background and to their dreams. Despite their diversity all films are very personal and full of solidarity and sympathy for the lives of their protagonists." (...)

The Solemn Premiere of “Another Planet”. Speech of Dr. Michael Kötz, Director of the International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg:

“Poverty and disease, the destruction of the environment, violence and helplessness - who is exposed to these conditions the most, and who can least defend themselves?The children.

Of course, we have all known this for a long time. Yet, we do not want to and cannot really see it. With a knee-jerk reaction, we are turning away our eyes and our thoughts. Who would want to feel helpless?  However, is this any good?

How about looking at things directly for once? In a way that does not merely serve as an "Oh, that" evidence for, naturally, we do sort of know what is going on. What if we would take a real look? Really perceiving what is going on?

A film from Hungary shows us how it works. How different this would be. Concussive, but as a true experience, not as mere words. You will be astounded, ladies and gentlemen.

I am happy to present you this masterpiece in the International Competition of the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome with me - director Ferenc Moldoványi”

At the section “International Competition” 18 films by new-comer directors from fourteen countries compete for the Main Award of Mannheim-Heidelberg, the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Award and the Special Award of the International Jury.

The Solemn Premiere of “Another Planet” will take place 8^th November, on Saturday at 6pm in the Kino in Stadthaus 1 in Mannheim and 12^th November on Tuesday at 8.15pm Studio Europa in Heidelberg both in the presence of the director Ferenc Moldoványi.

The film won the Best Photography and the “Green Raven Award” for the Best Documentary at the 39^th Hungarian Filmweek.

The highly successful international premiere of the film was at the World Film Festival of Montreal, which is the only category “A” festival in North America.

The Asian premiere took place in Pusan in October and the Latin American public could also see the film in Sao Paulo at the prestigious Mostra.

The film has recently been screened at the 53^rd International Film Festival of Valladolid and received excellent reviews.

Parallel with Mannheim the film will also be screened in the official competition of theInternational Documentary Film Festival of Copenhagen where it is nominated for the Amnesty International Award together with nine other works.

Following the Mannheim Solemn Premiere the film travels to the USA to the Starz Denver International Film Festival where from over 40 documentaries screened at the event it is nominated for the prestigious Maysles Brothers Award for the Best Documentary together with 5 other works.

The film will also be screened at the IDFA in Amsterdam, in Oulu in Finland and also at the Kerala International Film Festival in Trivandrum.

The film has recently been invited for the competitive section “Man and his Environment” of FesTroia in the next year.

Another Planet to Show in Brazil, Spain

October 23, 2008

The Hungarian director Ferenc Moldoványi's "creative documentary-feature" Another Planet, about the injustices children face in today's world, will be on the programmes of the Sao Paulo International Film Festival and the Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain.

"Shot on four continents, (the film) presents the hidden face of our planet and the general and moral crisis of our world. We can follow the various, irrational stages of defencelessness as the characters in all seven stories, all minors, accept their fate with quasi humility. The appalling everyday life of child labourers, child prostitutes and child soldiers is revealed to us in Congo, Cambodia and Ecuador," according to the film's website.

Another Planet's cinematographer Tibor Máthé won a prize at this year's 39^th Hungarian Film Week for his work on the film.

Other Hungarian films on the programme in Valladolid are Géza M. Tóth's Ergo and Ferenc Cakó's Face..

ANOTHER PLANET PRESS REVIEWS

(more articles...)

57th Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival 2008

(...) By far, the most impressive competition entry at Mannheim-Heidelberg was Ferenc Moldovanyi's Masik bolygo (Another Planet), awarded the Special Jury Prize. The only documentary contending for top honors, Another Planet was seven years in planning and four years in making. Together with ace cinematographer Tibor Mathé, Ferenc Moldovanyi chronicles the "hidden face of our planet" - namely, the plight of children in Ecuador, Cambodia, and the Congo, whose lives are badly scarred by circumstances beyond their control. As much fiction as documentary, the film's power is generated from recorded testimony with the children, which is then used as overtalk in depicting their deplorable fate as soldiers, laborers, and prostitutes.

Phillip Bergson

(...) Few things can more delight festival and film directors than full houses on the Saturday for such diverse selections, such as Another Planet, Ferenc Moldovanyi's docu-poem on the suffering little children in some not-so-remote corners of our world, a production lovingly crafted  over five years which brought tears to the eyes of some viewers, watching the piteous spectacle of under-age prostitutes or tiny-but not  at all toy-soldiers conscripted in the Congo, somehow facing up to their fates with an unsettling  matter-of.-factness. The Budapest-based director was returning to Mannheim after presenting a short film here  a number of years ago, with a rare documentary selected for the International Competition and which was shot literally around the globe. It topped the poll of the critics published in the bi-lingual festival paper.

Rafael Vega

A little Tarahumara Indian girl walks into the forest to warn that children sometimes lose their souls there and they are unable to return.

A disquieting sense of shame pervades the cinema following the screening of Ferenc Moldoványi's extraordinary film titled "Another Planet", which guides us through the unspeakably hellish everyday life of little boys and girls, living in various parts of the world, in a way that there is not one single shot less or no sequence of narration more than necessary: a small cigarette vendor girl suffering from the cold nights and loneliness in the street being treated as a slave at home too, the little shoeshine boy, another one fabricating bricks for efficiency wages and then another boy whose stepfather threw him into the street, on the pretext of the accusation that he was a witch following the death of his mother, a little girl who is raped at the age of eight and then is forced into prostitution, other small girls who are condemned to sift through rubbish for bits of plastic and aluminium on a garbage dump just to earn few dollars for food, child-soldiers ...

The stories follow each-other on the screen like a nightmare with no end. What we see is not an imaginary planet born in the sick mind of some monster. It is our planet and our times.

Only such masterly and moderate kind of film direction can move the audience to introspection and set them thinking instead of feeling nausea. Moldoványi is able to make a sublime film out of the raw-material of horror and he raises his documentary to the heights of an essay when inserting a Tarahumara ceremony into his film performed in honour of a new-born child to whom the shaman wishes that God bless him with many a good days to come.

"Expanding upon themes he explored in Children: Kosovo 2000 (SDFF 24), Ferenc Moldoványi's latest documentary is at once hypnotically beautiful and acutely disturbing. Shot over a two-year period in four countries on four continents-Ecuador (South America), Mexico (North America), Democratic Republic of Congo (Africa), and Cambodia (Asia)-Another Planet unfolds as a cinematic tone poem in the tradition of Koyaanisqatsi, exposing the unequal distribution of wealth around the world as a major humanitarian crisis. Framed by pastoral sequences in which a Tarahumara shaman imparts a dream of paradise on earth, the film moves quickly and seamlessly between the lives of seven children inextricably linked by their shocking and tragic experiences of daily exploitation and abuse. We meet lonely, aimless urchins, barely eking out a living on the streets. We see child laborers toiling in brick factories, garbage dumps, and brothels, only to be beaten when business is down. And perhaps most harrowing of all, we get to know the child soldiers of Congo as they are turned into killing machines.
Throughout this journey, Moldoványi's unwavering vision reminds us of the eternal coexistence of beauty and horror all over the world. Informed by the haunting cinematography of Tibor Máthé as well as Tibor Szemzö's ethereal soundtrack, Another Planet crosses cultural boundaries to forge a commentary on the human condition as damning as it is open-ended."

A film about children and their exploitation and enslavement through child labour, prostitution and their abuse as child soldiers. The little girl selling cigarettes and chewing gum in Ecuador, the boy working as a shoe shiner, the child soldiers in the Congo, the boy and girl soaked in the rain toiling in a brickworks in Cambodia under degrading conditions, and those children rummaging on a rubbish dump to earn a dollar if they are lucky: the fate of all these children is an expression of a shameful reality in the "International Year of Planet Earth", declared for the year 2008 by the United Nations.

Ferenc Moldoványi is not contentment with just portraying the misery of these people. The fictional framework of his cinematic essay, provided by the suggestive music of the Hungarian composer and experimental filmmaker Tibor Szemző, along with the creation legend of the Tarahumara Indians which accompanies the start of the film, and which blesses a child in a fabulous natural landscape with the words "May your soul be strong and vigorous", as he carries a wooden cross, transcend the image of squalor, of contemptuous exploitation and suppression and turn this into engagingly accusatory and global filmic meditation on the state of planet earth today, in contrast to the cosmology of the Tarahumaras, who still understand how to live in harmony with nature.

57^th International Film Festival Mannheim - Heidelberg  Official Catalogue

Ferenc Moldoványi: Another Planet/CPH:DOX 14

Skrevet den 12-11-2008 09:09:53 af Tue Steen Müller

We met him years ago, this Hungarian director, who stood behind the much discussed, but great film "Children of Kosovo". We, meaning colleague Allan Berg and I, who defended the director's right to use extremely aesthetical cinematographic means to describe the tragedy in Kosovo.

His focus was the children, as it is in this new film where Moldoványi has filmed in four continents, again with a stunning visual result, where you sometimes end up in a breathless state, at the same time as you look at and listen to the stories from children, who are suffering in their daily life. No commentary, no information about where we are, it is not what I want, the uncompromising director seems to say. I want you to come with me on a tour round this wonderful world, where many children live in total misery. The child soldier, the shoeshine boy, the child prostitute who was raped when she was 8 (!), the girl who sells chewing gum in the street, the scavenger. And so on. They give us their dreams. They give us their daily life. We watch it, feel ashamed, depressed, at the same time as we feel that we must believe that a change could happen. If the energy of these fine children could be transformed into something positive. If...
The title comes from Aldous Huxley: Maybe this world is another planet's Hell. Moldoványi, one of the most ambitious documentary directors that I know about, has made another unique film.
Hungary, 2008, 95 mins.

A strong and uncompromising portrait of the planet, seen from a bird's eye perspective

The visionary British author Aldous Huxley once suggested that this world is another planet's hell. 'Another Planet' takes his word for it and weaves together seven stories from three different parts of the world to create a sombre diagnosis of the planet's near future. Child labourers, child soldiers and very young prostitutes represent a generation born into a hard and short life in poverty, while they offer their own take about a possible future - and in one example also a look at deeply disturbing and symbol-laden visions of the end of the world. With 'Another Planet', the Hungarian director Ferenc Moldoványi has lived up to his neck-breakingly ambitious project with a virtuous hand - and has created an intensely up-close film from a planet, which we seriously end up wishing was not our own.

"Shot on four continents and spoken in five languages, this docu-drama studies the problems facing Earth today. Looking at rampant ecological, political, and social unrest and injustice, Moldoványi's two-year survey of where we are and where we seem to be going is an illuminating look at contemporary human experience."

Green Raven Award for Another Planet

http://www.another-planet.eu/index-uk.html

The National Student Jury of the 39th Hungarian Film Week awarded the Prize of Best Documentary “Green Raven” to Another  Planet.

February 9th, Saturday night the annual award ceremony of Hungary's Student Jury took place at one of the most recognized art cinemas of the capital, Toldi. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of participating in the Hungarian Film Week, the National Student Jury held its own festival after the wrap-up of the 39th Film Week. During the event, the Green Raven awards of the 39th Film Week were handout out in six categories but this year a new award has been added to the list.The National Student Jury was founded in 1999. The year 2004 was a turning point in the history of the Student Jury as it was the year in which they became a national organization. Throughout the years the activities of the organization have gradually been extended and today they participate in many film festivals other than the annual Hungarian Film Week. The Student Jury's main goal is to represent the unbiased opinion of the youth interested in films and to discuss which films are the ones most liked by young people of our days. In an attempt to fill in the large gap between laymen and the professionals, members of the Student Jury strive on bringing these two groups closer to each other. Appreciating creative values without being involved in film politics is their objective, says Tamás Teszler, president of the National Student Jury. This is the reason why each year -following the Hungarian Film Week- they have their own award ceremony where they have the possibility of awarding films they deem the best, without any pressure put on them.

Saturday night the first prize to be handed out was in the documentary section. Out of 46 films, Ferenc Moldoványi's  Another Planet (Másik bolygó) won.

(...) An award to be given for the very first time throughout the history of the National Student Jury was in the category of the best Hungarian film of the decade. Five films have been nominated for this prize and out of these five Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister harmóniák) received the title of being the best Hungarian film of the past ten years. Béla Tarr, director of films such as Damnation or Satantango, is acknowledged worldwide for his works. After a few years of silence, his newest film is The Man from London which has already become a big hit in just a short time.

The National Student Jury is an integral part of Hungarian cinematography, representing the pure views of students and the youth interested in Hungarian film. It is important that they continue their work throughout the years without changing their principles. Let's hope that there are many more years to come in their lives!

By Brigitta Bokor

Another Planet received “Best Photography Award” of the 39th Hungarian Film Week

Tibor Máthé  received the Prize the Best Photography for the film “Another Planet” in the category Creative Documentary Feature of the 39th Hungarian Film Week.

http://www.another-planet.eu/index-uk.html