This film has toured to festivals all over and won several awards. I was in the international jury at WatchDocs in December 2025, where it took the first prize in the National Competition. No need for me to repeat wise praising words of the jury, so here they come:

“It is an emotionally moving, multidimensional, intellectually ambitious, sharp social criticism, at the same time intimate and taking on public, private and political issues, talking about a historical issue but also extremely relevant. It’s a movie about how long the teddy bears are — it touches several generations every time. It’s a story about a moving absence of a father, about racial discrimination, and about a system that, although it seems to try to save a man, abandons him back to fate and separates him from his family again. It’s a visually beautiful image, with tenderness following the hero’s long and painful journey to regain his identity, sense of dignity and peace of mind. Tears of sadness and tears of joy of Mr. Sang, the extraordinary hero of the movie “Dust Child” directed by Weronika Mliczewska, will stay with us forever.”

… though I don’t understand the sentence a movie about how long the teddy bears are, please help me,,, Anyway what moved me mostly were the scenes with Sang and his grandchild, who loves him and wants to fly with him to America. These scenes are full of love, they are true documentary moments, that’s why I chose the photo above, where Sang is cutting the hair of the little boy. The story itself is more or less predictable, we know it will be more than difficult for Sang to settle, he does not know how to write in Vietnamese and now he is to learn American. The film captures that in an excellent way. And for the story it is of course a scoop that the American family has a lot of problems; the father, Sang’s father, comes out sympathetic but had not really been a father for his American children… oh yes, as someone has put it, “family is the worst institution we have invented”. Thanks to the daughter in the American family Sang gets a place to stay and a job, and the father comes to visit. Sang stays in America, he wants to give the little boy a better life than the one, he had growing up in, in Vietnam without a father. The director has tread carefully towards her protagonists, not easy I guess. She is not pointing fingers, leave it to the audience. Thank you! The music… a matter of taste, for me too much here and there. Conclusion, impressive work, for brain and heart.

Poland, Sweden, Qatar, Vietnam, Czech Republic

92 mins.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

For readers who do classes in documentary films and want to teach how to start a film, the opening, take an inspirational look at “Silent Flood”:

A scenery at a river, hard to grasp because of a dense fog that slowly is lifting, accompanied by old voices off screen telling stories from the past. Stories about bridges that took people from shore to shore but were bombed and destroyed during two wars. The first and the second WW. And never built up again. An amazing opening of a film, that is the filmmaker’s prologue to a film, like one rich painting turned into a film. I felt like I was in a museum going closer and closer to a painting to discover.

A kind of raft is taking people across the river Dnister in Ukraine. A text announces the first chapter: The Shores of Eden. A magnificent sequence follows with a boy on horseback in the river. He and the horse have a hard time in the water but they enjoy. Paradisiacal.

Cut to children playing, a male voice off tells us with whom we are, “the saved ones”, later called the “Old Believers”, similarities to the Amish in the US – no electricity, no machines, no smoking, no drinking, no electronic devices. It is a very playful chapter and it goes from winter to summer images keeping the framed images. And the women washes their clothes in the river like the mother of Hans Christian Andersen did 200 years ago. Adventurous.

Next chapter is “Bread”. A male voice from the village talks about floods that Dnister has experienced. And about the villagers – “they call us the “dark people”. From 1850 we have stayed away from “modern life”, we believe in helping each other, we don’t go to war. He anticipates that there will be a Third WW, where a third of the world´s population will perish…

Bread… a woman kneads the dough, makes it into the form of a bread and puts it into the open fire oven. A mother cuts slices of bread, the father in the background, all women have their hair covered, the men wear hats, we don’t see them but we see a huge storage room, where the bread goes before it is taken to the front, to the soldiers 1300 km away to the East of Ukraine…

… to “Echoes of War”, the name of that chapter, where – wonderful sequence – the soldiers are enjoying christmas in a hut. They eat the bread from the religious community, talking about the villagers, about the young girls in the community, who are not given the chance to study as their mission is to give birth. They talk with respect and they talk about the varynyky, the wonderful Ukrainian dumplings (that I was introduced to when in Kyiv for the festival years ago)… The chapter, contrary to the rest of the film, ends with close-ups of faces of (some of) soldiers. Here they have a rest, but next day(s) is back to the front. Beautiful!

Epilogue. Soldiers with minesweepers moving slowly. The camera makes a 360 degree movement, bombed environment. A girl talks about explosions, about her father losing a leg, an unexploded mine is set to explosion, the girl sings a song, hope?

MUST mention the names of the camerapersons:

Ivan Morarash,
Oleksandr Korotun,
Viacheslav Tsvietkov,
Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk

Ukraine, Germany, 2025, 90 mins.

The film is part of the Arte commissioned series of 12 films: https://ui.org.ua/en/sectors-en/en-projects/en-films/showcases-of-ukrainian-cinema/generation-ukraine-2/

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

World premiere of this Ukrainian documentary, great title!, took place at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in November 2025. It is a film that has been on its way since 2019, when Maryna Nikolcheva started filming her husband Max in a film that, as says the title, is a love story, with beautiful scenes and a tone that changes as time changes ending up with the war from February 2022. Short glimpses of their life together and separated, Max being fed up making commercials for them to survive, diving into repairing a car, some repairments taking place on the balcony, not pleasing Maryna, phone calls with Max father, an old frail man, conductor he was, as it is being shown in a sequence where Maksym Vasyanovych is invited to attend a screening of his awarded documentary from years back. Maryna is next to him observing his reactions to his own film, one of the fine moments of the documentary. Filming with love.

For me the title goes both ways and this is also a compliment to the editing of the huge material Maryna has had to choose from. She is the one, who is sad and scared of what happens in their country and with him, who suffers from not having a proper director’s job but he is also often the one, who tries to cheer her up making faces to the camera, in one scene wearing a gas mask, while they are to celebrate a new year. He wants to see her happy. That’s how love should be, caring. Yes, the film has several moments of joy and fun, thanks for that and thanks for keeping everyday scenes like Max shaving, Maryna washing her feet – and the cat or is it cats that are there all the time in their bed or behind the computer to be caressed in between Max editing.

Towards the end of the film the two get a job to go and film people, who are taken away from the territories, where the Russians have done their occupational terror. An old woman is being transported from the train saying “why this war, we just had the war against the Germans!”

The film will after its premiere in Tallinn hopefully travel to other festivals. It deserves to meet a wide audience and I am happy to see that the Ukrainian company Moon Man is taking care of its distribution. Good choice!

Ukraine, France, 2025, 82 mins.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

There was an impressive annual report in my email of today: Looking Back at 2025, the Year With DOCA Georgia. The Documentary Association Georgia says in the foreword to the report, which btw is set up in a very inviting manner, easy to overview, factual but also all the time stressing what is important, as it is phrased here:

2025 was a year of immense challenges for Georgia, affecting a wide spectrum of professions and activities, arts and culture among them. Against the backdrop of the absence of public funding for independent filmmaking and increased attacks on freedom of expression, DOCA Georgia continues to support the documentary film scene. Year 2025 was particularly marked by expanded international collaboration and a growing audience for documentary films in the country.

The report outlines the film screenings that have been organized, the international initiatives, the talks and workshops, awards to films and film projects, in other words a lot of energy put into activities, and it looks like all the documentarians are members, so much talent I can say having worked with the SakDoc and CinéDoc for years.

You can see for yourself here: https://doca.ge/so/8cPjfqSJb?languageTag=en&cid=9154f8df-d606-4ab6-9a70-e13350904332

The wonderful photo is from a workshop: Amateur Documentary Filmmaking Workshop in French (!) Mentor: Elene Mikaberidze

The judges of this year’s edition of the Green Competition were: Michalina Czervoonska, Urszula Jabło ska, Robert Jurszo.

The jury awarded the Green Docs Award to Dmytro Hreshka for the movie “Divia”.

“Who will clean up after the war?” Who will disarm hundreds of thousands of landmines and missiles? Who will purify the water and recycle the tons of scrap that war machines turn into? Who will feed abandoned cats and who will restore a place to live for traumatized animals?

All these questions are provoked by the Divia movie. War is an unimaginable tragedy for everyone: people and other animals, plants, land. Dmytro Hreshko consciously refuses words and allows paintings to speak: hectares of burned forests, the fear of animals deafened by bomb explosions. War equates human and animal deaths, the earth treats every body the same way. However, we cannot hope that nature will always be revived. The movie Hreshko does not allow to take your eyes away from the ecocidal, which is part of the war in Ukraine. “

The distinction in the Green Competition was given to the film “Close to the Earth” directed by. Thomas Elshik.

“How to act when the case seems like a defeat?” Why renovate a dead endangered peat field or look for the perpetrators of poisoning wildlife if the sentences always seem too low? Where to get perseverance and hope from?

In the movie “Close to the Earth” the meaning seems to come from the action itself, the opportunity to participate in the richness of the tangles of earthly life, which in an age of flash and often irreversible change, seems more valuable than ever. Tomas Elsik allows us to look at plants or birds from a distance usually inaccessible to us, building intimacy between the viewer and many film characters. Human and inhuman threads intertwine, jumping between the scales of time and space. “

Academic Cinema Association Awards

Jury in the team: Michał Konarski, Michał Surówka and Maja Gomulska awarded the film “Silver” directed by. Natalie Koniarz

“For the extraordinary combination of form and substance. Photos and camera work deserve attention and appreciation, showing how moving silence can be. The use of a wide frame in a documentary creates a sense of claustrophobic danger, in which various forms of goosebumps combine with human greed. However, breaking the editing key and the introduction of elements of magical realism does not undermine its documentation, but only complements the other elements of the film, so they form a well-thought and cohesive whole.”

“Silver” also got a Special Mention in the New Polish Films section, where the winner was “Child of Dust”. The jury consisting of Michał Merczy Jski, Paulina Reiter and Anna Wydra awarded the Grand Prize to the movie “Child of Dust” by Weronika Mliczewska. Motivations:

“We give the main prize to the movie, about which we can say with full responsibility, is an excellent document.

It is an emotionally moving, multidimensional, intellectually ambitious, sharp social criticism, at the same time intimate and taking on public, private and political issues, talking about a historical issue but also extremely relevant.

It’s a movie about how long the teddy bears are — it touches several generations every time. It’s a story about a moving absence of a father, about racial discrimination, and about a system that, although it seems to try to save a man, abandons him back to fate and separates him from his family again. It’s a visually beautiful image, with tenderness following the hero’s long and painful journey to regain his identity, sense of dignity and peace of mind. Tears of sadness and tears of joy of Mr. Sang, the extraordinary hero of the movie “Dust Child” directed by Weronika Mliczewska, will stay with us forever. „

Natalia Koniarz’s film “Silver”:

“For a staggering image of the profit that, unfortunately, we are all beneficiaries from, using electronics or using artificial intelligence.” “Silver” represents the fate of families — mothers, fathers and children — who are living in extreme poverty and working at risk in a Bolivian silver mine.

We observe environmental degradation and lack of social solidarity. An image that raises objections and questions as to how the world is still like this? Photos in the mountains are terrifying. We want to reward not only the weight of the topic and its take, but also the courage of the team. ”

This year, 12 outstanding documentaries were competing for the DOCS Award. The judges of the Main Competition were: Emi Buchwald, Niklas Engstrøm, Andrej Kuciła, Tue Steen Müller and Laura van Halsema.

“The jury of the Main Competition was impressed by the outstanding selection of films that took us to very different realities, viewed from multiple perspectives and told using a variety of visual languages.” First of all, we would like to thank all filmmakers and festivals for collecting their works and giving us the opportunity to watch and discuss together.

And while we agreed that there is something strange about comparing and classifying documentaries that represent a world in crisis on so many levels, we were unanimous in deciding which film to award the Best of Them.

“This film invites the viewer to a world rarely seen from the inside. With precision, care and without judgment, it shows the human faces of ideology and regime not usually associated with sensitivity or ambiguity. This is a movie that carefully composes each frame, and tells both what is in front of our eyes and what is left out. We have been transported to an unknown, sinister world in a subtle and moving way. The movie maker is completely in control of his material and shows outstanding cinematic talent in every frame and scene.”

The award for the best film in the Main Competition goes to the movie “Kabul. Warrior’s Prayer by Aboozar Amini

En herlig lille bog! Jeg fik den i hånden forleden i Warszawa. Den lå til mig på hotel Metropol, som ligger lige overfor Kulturpaladset – den omstridte gave til Polen fra Sovjetunionen efter krigen. Den vender jeg tilbage til. Jacob Dammas og Józefina Jarmuzewska står bag den fine udgivelse, små 100 sider og som de skriver på omslaget “rigt illustreret”. Jørgen Leth og Polen, reportager, digte, essays. Det var min godnatlæsning under opholdet i den store by, hvor jeg var jurymedlem i festivalen WatchDocs.

Jeg nød at læse reportagerne fra Jørgens besøg i Warszawa og Krakow. Jeg vidste jo godt, hvor godt han skrev, men de seks artikler, som bogen bringer, sprudler af ungdommelig veloplagthed. De stammer fra 1958-1962 (Jørgen er fra 1937) blev bragt i Demokraten og Aktuelt og fokus er på jazz og jazzmusikere, med vidunderlige observationer af steder over- og undergrund. Lad mig lige komme tilbage til Paladset, som han skriver om sådan:

“På Warszawas største plads står Kulturpaladset og skraber bunden af himlen. Det er imponerende. Men hvis De tror, det er smukt, tager De fejl, og hvis De tror polakkerne elsker det palads, tager De endnu mere fejl… De hader det.” (Polske Notater, side 25). I dag er det vist kun Weekendavisen, som tiltaler sine læsere i De-form.

… tænkte på Jørgens ord hver dag, når vi så film i én af biograferne i omtalte bygning eller besøgte dens hyggelige festivalrestaurant, som selvfølgelig kunne byde på den vodka, som Jørgen kom til at elske på sine besøg. Her er en tekst, et fragment, bliver det kaldt, fra “Det uperfekte Menneske” (2007):

“Jeg husker aftner og nætter i studenterhuset ved foden af det hæslige kulturpalads i sovjetstil, hvor vi turede rundt på mærkelige, øde barer som scener fra en usædvanlig desperat polsk film, vodkaflasker og glas, som hele tiden blev fyldt op. Vodka har den særlige kvalitet, når den drikkes på den måde, at den flytter ens bevidsthed op i en slags hallucineret tilstand. Alting er syner.” (Fragmenter, side 64).

Jamen, jeg kan jo ikke blive ved med at citere fra bogen, men alligevel… læs lige med her fra artiklen “Polske Notater”:

“Polen. Vi måtte være indenfor nu. Er der noget, der hedder Ingenmandsland i fredstid, så måtte det se sådan ud. Se ud? Eller føles sådan. Vi passerede et par trætårne, der kunne se ud som brandposter. De var bemandede. Ellers skove, marker og træklynger. Og færre trætårne. Så sagtnede toget farten. Stoppede helt. Vi fik travlt med at kigge ud…”. JørgenLeth, Journalist og Dokumentarist, 23 år. Fornemt!

Og der er digte og jazzen fylder, specielt legendariske Krzysztof Komeda, som er Jørgens helt, som han skriver et digt om og til, får inviteret til Danmark, får introduceret til Henning Carlsen, hvis film Komeda laver musik til og Bronislaw Malinowski, antropologen som Jørgen ofte har henvist til som en inspirationskilde, specielt til filmen “Notater om Kærlighed”.

Mit møde med Jørgen går 50 år tilbage. I Statens Filmcentral, hvor han blev ansat som programredaktør og jeg som pressekonsulent. Senere, som konsulent og medlem af programredaktionen, var jeg med til at støtte flere af hans film, bl.a. “66 Scener fra Amerika”, som han lavede sammen med Ole John. På WatchDocs blev han æret posthumt med visning af “Det perfekte menneske”, “Livet i Danmark” og “Aarhus” (Photo). Jeg var der sammen med 50-60 mennesker, polske undertekster og en grundig introduktion på polsk, som jeg så ikke forstod.

Jacob Dammas skrev til mig, at bogen kan købes i:

Thiemers Magasin i Tullinsgade 24, København V, til 125 kr.

– alternativt skriv en email til mail@jdmedia.dk om at få den sendt med posten.

Og de to redaktører har også udgivet bogen på polsk. Imponerende. Køb den!

A program celebrating 25 years of the International Visegrad Fund

Over the past quarter-century, the Visegrad region has become one of the most dynamic spaces for documentary cinema in Europe. Its filmmakers have continually redefined how we understand reality on screen, blending formal innovation with political urgency, intimate observation with sweeping historical reflection.

For 25 years, the International Visegrad Fund has backed a wide range of events that have played a crucial role in developing documentary filmmaking in the region, contributing to its current international standing. On the occasion of the Fund’s anniversary, DAFilms and Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival join forces to present a curated journey through 25 years of Visegrad filmmaking: one film for every year of the Fund’s existence.

This selection traces the evolving concerns, aesthetics, and identities of Central Europe from 2000 to 2024. It begins with Karel Vachek’s grand, genre-defying fresco, moves through formally bold experiments from Hungary and Slovakia, and includes landmark portraits of personal and political transformation from Poland and the Czech Republic. Along the way, the program highlights recurring themes that have shaped the region: the struggle for democratic values, the resilience of communities in transition, the presence of borders both visible and invisible, and the intimate dramas unfolding within everyday life.

Many of these films have become canon within European documentary cinema: from the social satire of Czech Dream to the exquisite observational works of Helena Třeštíková and Paweł Łoziński, from the human rights testimonies of A Woman Captured to the radical cinematic language of FREM. Others are rediscoveries: restless, daring, and deeply reflective works that deserve renewed attention.

Twenty-five years, twenty-five films — a cinematic portrait of a region continually reinventing itself.

Click here and you will see the 25 titles: https://dafilms.com/program/1746-visegrad-visions-25-years-25-films#:~:text=Twitter-,Visegrad,itself

Photo: Peter Kerekes “66 Seasons” is of course one of the 25 films, love that film!