Verzio Budapest Announces its Program

It´s the 21st Verzio Film Festival and it takes place in Budapest November 6-13. A festival with a selection of documentaries that are sectioned into competitions for national and international films as well as “Doc Future Competition”, where new talents (what about “old talents” by the way…) are to be found like “Balomania” by Sissel Morell Dargis and Ukrainian Olha Zhurba’s “Songs of Slow Burning Earth“. Impressive works!

A quote from festival director Enikő Gyureskó “Our goal with Verzió is twofold, to celebrate films and their creators made creatively, intelligently and empathetically, and to come together as a community with their help and to let people know that we are not alone in our curiosity, sensitivity and desire to do something.“We want to provide a space for dialogue, an opportunity for a deeper understanding of important issues...”

I counted 66 films in the program divided into sections like “We are Here” and “We will not be Silent” that word-wise goes perfect with the lines of the festival director’s quote. A humanistic approach to the themes. At the same time as “documentary is an artistic film genre” is not forgotten. I see many films listed that have been written about/reviewed on this site: “1489” by Shoghakat Vardanyan, winner at IDFA, Slovenian Petra Seliškar’s “Body” is there of course, thoughtful “Dahomey” by Mati Diop, one of the most festival-wanted docs of his year, Danish Kristoffer Juel Poulsen and Christian Als will have their “Daughter of Genghis” in the international competition, The masterpiece “Intercepted” by Oksana Karpovych is one of several films from Ukraine, the multi-awarded “My Stolen Planet” by Iranian Farahnaz Sharifi is in the international competition as is Palestinian “No Other Land” by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, probably one of the favourites as I guess it is for the European Film Awards, and the extraordinarily beautiful and touching “Queendom” (PHOTO) by Agniia Galdanova that is part of the “We are Here” section, that also includes the fascinating film on the Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková by Klára Tasovská, “I’m not everything I want to be“.

Sorry for this title and name dropping but I wanted to illustrate the diversity in countries represented by pointing at films I have seen and written about and there are many more I am looking forward to see. I have been invited to be a juror for the Hungarian documentaries, will not mention the titles from that competition but leave the word to the festival intro:

“The Hungarian Competition was curated by Fanni Somlyai, Zsuzsa Debre, Asia Dér, Enikő Gyureskó, Péter Horányi and Szabolcs Szirony. The underfunding of Hungarian documentary production is one of the reasons why only six films were selected for this year’s Hungarian competition, but the selection of films that have not yet been screened in Hungary was also a consideration…

Hungarian films will again feature prominently in the program of the Verzió Documentary Film Festival. This year’s Hungarian Competition program will feature six new films that have won accolades internationally and will be making their debut at Verzió in Hungary. Stories will include rock climbers battling addiction, unusual childbearing and a road trip for people with special needs. You can meet the filmmakers after the screenings…”

See you there in Budapest.

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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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