First sneak peak on the program for Kosmorama 2025!

Observations of wartime Ukraine are woven together with eyewitness accounts and reveal the ultimate tragedy: the normalization of war.

Landscapes, short conversations and meetings, as well as sounds that come and go, form the setting for Songs of Slow Burning Earth. Filmed close to the front line over two years, this audiovisual diary shows how Ukraine is gradually being dragged down into total war. The panic and horror that marked the first weeks of the Russian invasion is eventually replaced by an emotionless silence - the acceptance of death and destruction. What becomes the new, tragic everyday life for the local population becomes only a distant thought for the rest of the world. In the midst of this catastrophic landscape, a new generation of Ukrainians is trying to imagine the future.

The film is slowly observing and draws the viewer into the situations that unfold. This makes the film a poetic, but also political, gem.

Text by Movies on War.

This movie is a collaboration with Movies on War, and you can also watch the movie at their festival in Elverum 17.-17. November 2024.

Norwegian premiere of Göran Hugo Olsson's masterful film about Israel and Palestine

- Archive material does not necessarily tell us what really happened. But it tells us a lot about how the story was told

In the years 1958 to 1989, the Swedish public broadcaster SVT's reporting from Israel and Palestine was unique. Their reporters were continuously present in the war-torn region, documenting everything from everyday life to international crises. This extensive treasure trove of footage forms the material for Göran Hugo Olsson's (the man behind films such as The Society of the Spectacle , Om Våld and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 ) new film, in which footage of the creation of the Israeli state is interwoven with the Palestinian freedom struggle . News coverage with Yasser Arafat and interviews with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban during a visit to Sweden are parts of exclusive archival material not shown since the first broadcast.

The film shows us politically important turning points, but also gives us a number of insights into the culture and the people behind the headlines - as the public broadcasters could afford to do before the age of the internet, and is, in a sense, also a tribute to the journalists behind the reports. The film is also remarkably cinematic all the time these clips were made for TV, and several sequences are great cinematic art with the communication intact.The film is a valuable historical document and provides a unique historical insight into how the conflict unfolded - and how it was communicated. Not least, the film gives us valuable context for what is now unfolding in the region. The film is extensive in both length and content, but keeps the interest up with its diverse expression and the weight of the content.

Text by Movies on War.

You can also watch this movie at Movies on War in Elverum 13.-17. November 2024.