Opening in limited cinemas around the country tomorrow is Errol Morris’s new documentary called “Standard Operating Procedure”, winner of the Silver Bear Award at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.

In the film Morris investigates the power and limitations of documentary photography by means of the horrific images taken by young soldiers at Abu Ghraib in 2003. Not only did the pictures’ impact change the war in Iraq but also America’s collective self image. Morris believes that the images function both as exposé and cover-up. “An exposé, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Gharib; and a cover-up because they convince journalists and readers they had seen everything that there was, no need to look further.”

By interviewing five of the seven soldiers directly involved, Morris seeks to further understand who these people are, what they were thinking, and why these pictures were taken? “My last film, ‘The Fog of War,’ was about a person that was at the apex of power, Robert McNamara. With this new one, I wanted to make a film about the people at the bottom of the pyramid, ‘the little guys.’ A story that I think the world needs to see and hear.”

As many crucial questions are asked throughout the film, many remain unanswered. The explicit and horrendous images of torture and sadism shown in cinema-screen size also call for viewer discretion. To see some of the film’s interviews and read a Q&A with the director, check out the SOP’s website.

Hungarian filmmaker Péter Forgács produced the first installment of his Private Hungary (Privát Magyarország) series roughly two decades ago.

In these films, he reconstructs personal family histories, predominantly through home movies and photographs (shot roughly between the 1930s and 1950s), presenting ordinary lives shattered by historic social and political upheavals of the 20^th century, which are significantly missing from these amateur visual records of private histories.

“Amateur films are human stories, which have more or less happened to everyone: we are born, we toddle, we bathe, we laugh, we celebrate, we’re surrounded by family. There are virtually no deaths, divorces, abuses, aggressions to be found in them. This is why, a home movie is essentially the representation of our pursuit of happiness. And happiness is nothing else than an attempt to flee death in all of its representations, all signs of perishability.” (Péter Forgács)

Here is a fragment of Forgács’ latest work, the 15th installment of Private History:

I am Von Höfler – Variation on Werther

here for Péter Forgács’ website

The much talked-about Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, opens in wide release this week.

Set in Romania in the 1980s, towards the end of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, the film’s straightforward narrative explores ‘a day in the life of’ a college girl who arranges an illegal abortion session for her pregnant friend.

The way director Cristian Mungiu treats the story reveals his extraordinary talents as a writer as well as a director. His visual style –a realist technique that occasionally adapts cinematic forms of various film genres, including the thriller– and the seemingly improvised, but in fact meticulously authored, dialogue turn the film into a masterpiece that goes beyond a simplistic discussion of the pro-choice debate.

Instead of taking sides, Mungiu explores the moral implications of the characters’ decisions, as “attention is focused on choice itself- the countless choices we make every day- as the determining factor of our character and of our humanity,” notes film critic Amy Taubin.

Today, Romania seems to have overcome the challenges of reconstructing its film industry along with the country itself, following Ceauşescu’s communist dictatorship which ended in 1989. Recent films as The Death of Mr Lasarescu and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days have won prizes internationally and film series presenting this Romanian New Wave appear in cinemas worldwide.

One name stands out from the list of recently lauded filmmakers. While most of these directors began their filmic careers in the decades directly preceding or following the political change, Lucian Pintilie got his start in the 1960s. His subtly subversive masterpiece Reenactment (1968) was banned by Romanian officials, who forced the filmmaker into exile.

The tragic and the grotesque merge in his latest work, the medium-length film Tertium Non Datur (2005). According to the director, the film “is a tragicomic parable about the integration of the poorest of the poor, ridden by complexes, into the fiction which we provisionally call Europe.” Exploring the notions of national identity and dignity may seem somewhat anachronistic in an era of transnationalism. Pintilie, however, is using these themes to relocate his country into the larger framework of the European continent. This question is especially pertinent in the face of Romania’s recent accession to the European Union in January of 2007.

Some of the recent films have found wider distribution. Check your local listings.

National Gallery of Art: here.

Pacific Film Archive: here.