Baltic Sea Docs Riga

I had to have a photo of the grand old man in Latvian documentary Ivars Seleckis (born September 22 1934) and me just before the pitch rehearsal at the 20th edition of the Forum for documentaries being held in Riga these days. Seleckis will together with producer Antra Gaile close the pitching sessions on Sunday with the presentation of a project called ”To be Continued” that features 7 children, who are 7 years old and thus have just begun to go to school. It is the company Mistrus Media that produces this film that will picture Latvia of today thorugh the eyes of kids, who have grown up in a free Latvia.

Seleckis showed a beautiful trailer to his film that so far is supported by the National Film Centre of Latvia.

25 projects will be pitched tomorrow saturday and sunday to a panel of 17 so-called decision makers – distributors, sales agents, broadcasters.

Some name-dropping of well-known filmmakers who will pitch – Seleckis already mentioned, Victor Asliuk from Belarus, Audrius Stonys from Lithuania, Giedre Zickyte from that same country, Laila Pakalnina from Latvia, Arkko Okk from Estonia, Martichka Bozhilova from Bulgaria, Sami Paul-Anders Simma…

Parallel to the training of those who are to pitch, there are film screenings going on in the K-Suns cinema in Riga – and the cinema is full every night. Last night it was the masterly ”Don Juan” by Jerzy Sladkowski that was shown.

More reports will follow, until then check http://balticseadocs.lv/ 

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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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