DocsBarcelona Starts Tonight

… and goes until May 18. The opening film is “RIEFENSTAHL” by Andres Veiel, a film that premiered at the festival in Venice and goes all over, of course, praised by critics. I will not be in Barcelona for the screening (only one) but the film is in cinema (Grand Theatre) here in Copenhagen and I will watch it before going to the festival on Monday the 12th, where the Industry section will start, more about that below.

Opening the website of the festival, six of the films from the “Official Competition” are listed: The extraordinary “9 Month Contract” (PHOTO) by Georgian Ketevan Vashagashvili that I recommend warmly, the nice content-wise predictable “Facing War” by Norwegian Tommy Gulliksen, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” by David Borenstein and Pasha Talankin, the latter the protagonist of a well-made personal documentation of a brave teacher, who could not endure to be a propagandist, Danish Robin Petré with “Only on Earth” that I have not seen but the other day I met Frank Paulsen, now former film consultant at Danish Film Institute, claimed that Petré is THE documentary director in Denmark right now, and two more that I have not heard about, Iranian Mohammadreza Eyni’s “Cutting Through Rocks” and María Mauti’s “Miralles” – “Enric Miralles is considered an essential figure in contemporary architecture”, the site says.

The Industry section starts on Monday the 12th, you can read all about it on the website – there are Public Pitch, Speed Pitch, Rough Cut pitch, thematic discussions AND “Artistic Consultancies”, which are not public, but let me tell you about it as I am the one in charge:

9 rough cut projects have been chosen to meet experienced knowledgeable tutors. The projects come from all over world and the filmmakers will be present in Barcelona AND/OR online to meet their tutor for an 80 minute long conversation, that first of all has a focus on content and storytelling. I can assure you that the tutors, handpicked by me, are prepared for their job and will come up with inspirational comments. I say so as they – the tutors – have tried it before. They are Scottish Emma Davie, Danish Cecilia Lidin, American/Danish Robert Goodman and Montse Bartui and Pol Roig, both based in Barcelona. The latter, Pol Roig, film director and former artistic director of the festival will be present in the background together with me during the sessions, ready to step in if needed.

After each session I will post a screenshot of the participants on FB,

Enjoy the festival.

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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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