Peter Waterdrinker TELEGRAAF
(....) The sad fate of the individual is also the theme of Nasha Gazeta (Our Newspaper) by Dutch director Eline Flipse. The documentary shows in a masterfully way how a Russian journalist, with his wife in Uljanovsk,, 800 km east of Moscow and the birthplace of Lenin, edits his own newspaper. Not licking the heels of the authorities, but putting the people and their problems on the front page. As a result, the couple faces opposition everywhere. Constructing a road through a rural village or a new bike for a district nurse could save lives, Flipse knows how to evoke these scenes with stunning images. The film cries out to be shown on Russian television. But the elite in the Kremlin, fearing the wrath of the people, will try to avoid this as long as possible. (...)
GREETINGS FROM LELYSTAD
Greetings from Lelystad is a film commissioned by Omroep Flevoland, which I was given after the success of the film Polder Pioneers
The history of Lelystad is a dramatic one. A completely new city was built where once the sea had been. Mistakes were made, chances evaporated, that's for sure. The film touches them, but then focuses primarily on what came afterwards. Now what became of Lelystad: the plans that the municipality tirelessly continues to develop, the people who live there and comment from the hot tub in their garden, the satisfied or dissatisfied ones ultimately give the city a face.
Lelystad was created by people with a dream. Whether that dream came true is the issue at stake. The fact is that people are still dreaming in Lelystad. The town apparently gives people the feeling that anything is possible, that you can start all over again.
Greetings from Lelystad is not a static architecture film, but a vivid and visual portrait of a city with which many people have a love-hate relationship. For one a nightmare, for another paradise. in Greetings from Lelystad, Director Eline Flipse links in a subtle and humorous way the small stories, personal and intimate, to the grand story: the ideas, the ideal, and shows that dream and reality in the Netherlands often are at odds with each other.