DocsBarcelona: Artistic Consultancies

Nine projects took part in this year’s edition of DocsBarcelona’s Artistic Consultancies. It was a pleasure to meet the filmmakers, who came from all over the world: Ukraine, Portugal, India, Italy, France, Azerbaijan, Chile, Uruguay, Montenegro, Colombia, Argentina, Spain! Stories about Life and Love, Pain and Joy, Observation, Construction – rough cuts, early cut, close to post production. What a wonderful world documentaries depict, it’s all out there, go and get it, show, interpret, make it personal.

Conversation. Dialogue. Constructive criticism. Suggestions for improvement. 80 minutes.

It is my impression that the makers all took something to be useful for their further work in the editing room. Thanks to the tutors who turned up well prepared and ready to ask questions and say what they found strong and what was weak.

Thanks so much to the tutors Emma Davie, Cecilia Lidin, Robert Goodman, Montse Bartui and Pol Roig. An extra applause to the latter, who was the master of technique at the location, where 8 of the projects were presented. With zoom images of makers, who could not be present and with makers sitting in sofas responding to the tutors on screen – the three first mentioned. Bartui and Roig being in Barcelona.

I chose a photo from the project “Silence is the Enemy of the Sea” with Evgeny Rodin and Dina Karaman as directors of a film shot in Azerbaijan. Pol Roig was the tutor. Description from catalogue:

  

Muffled music seeps in through the thick white fog. Inside, people on the iron beds begin to stir awake under their snug wraps. The barred windows of their rooms face the vast, grumbling sea. The on-site radio plays songs in different languages—some are about the Great Mother Sea, in others the sea is a ruthless killer. Wake-up, meal, leisure, and nap time calls are made in Morse code. After meals, the residents lounge in the vast halls on sofas and carpets. They drift away to imaginary seas, ignoring the real one before them…

I did the selection of the projects. The organisation of the session was done perfectly by Claudia Valero. Thank you to all of you.

  

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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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