Latvian Documentaries

… coming up. Grants were given by the National Film Centre. For 8 documentaries, most of them to be realised by producers and directors I have met and valued during the many years, I have followed the documentary scene in the Baltic country.

Super-productive Laila Pakalnina, whose “Spoon” recently was praised on this site, is there with a project called “Homes”, veteran Peteris Krilovs (the wonderful “Klucis”) is there as well with vfs studio (Uldis Cekulis) as production company, Davis Simanis (“Escaping Riga”, Chronicles of the Last Temple”…always testing the aesthetic possibilities of the film language) works again with Guntis Trekteris (Ego Media), title “Frankenstein 2.0” (!!!), Kristine Briede (who made the successful “Bridges of Time” with Audrius Stonys from Lithuania) got funding for “Fluctuations”, whatever hides behind that title and the title “Podnieks par Podnieku / A Man and His Time” is a film to be about legendary Juris Podnieks (“Is it Easy to be Young” and many other classics in Latvian documentary history) of course to be produced by the company that carries his name, Juris Podnieks Studio (headed by Antra Cilinska) with Anna Viduleja as director.

Three other directors/companies were granted: Kārlis Lesiņš (company Mistrus Media, Gints Grube), Una Celma and Andrejs Verhoustinskis.

The whole list of grants (also with fiction and animation) can be found on

https://www.filmneweurope.com/grants/latvia-grants/item/119963-latvian-production-grants-may-2020

Total: 1,768,327 EUR – 371,500 € for documentaries, a bit more than 20%. 

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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