02-16-2016 Vilnius The President and Us

So this is the official photo from the award ceremony. The President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite is in the middle with (from left to right) Alge and Arunas Matelis, my wife Ellen and me, the President, Audrius and Aida Stonys, Giedre Beinoriute and Mindaugas Survila, who were all so kind to be there for the ceremony on the Day of Independence of Lithuania, 02-16-2016. I like the way the President supports me with her right hand!

Anyway, there are so many other Lithuanian film people I would love to thank, around the whole process first of all Liana Ruokyte-Jonsson from the Lithuanian Film Centre, who together with my wife did all the paper work necessary.

And looking back – the icon of Lithuanian documentary Henrikas Sablevicius, teacher and inspirator for the film people on the photo, a charismatic and lovely warm man, who came to the Balticum Film & TV Festival through its 10 years of existence. This festival on Bornholm – from 1990 – directed my professional life towards the East of Europe thanks to people like Sablevicius. Yes, as good friend Uldis Cekulis from Latvia, said, “it all started on Bornholm”, which makes me express many thanks to those who started the festival, Bent Nørby Bonde and Sonja Vesterholt, and to Simon Drewsen Holmberg, who was there with the Baltic Media Centre and made the Forum for Financing come to Riga, from where he now as director of the Danish Cultural Institute initiated a (so far) small Baltic Film Festival in Aarhus Denmark.

My colleague on filmkommentaren.dk Allan Berg has done the whole Baltic journey as well – from Bornholm till now where he has made a collected post on this site http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3453/ with the texts I have written on Lithuanian documentaries since August 2007. Some newer texts are still to be placed. Thank you Allan.

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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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