A bench in Recoleta

Saturday in Buenos Aires. Sunshine. Spring has come to the wonderful city of Argentina. We (my wife and I) have just come back from some days in Chile. I met filmmakers who are going to DOKLeipzig and to idfa. The Chileans want to tell the world that they are making documentaries. For that purpose the Ministry of Culture has granted funds to send delegations to the two big festivals and markets coming up in September and November. The Chilean documentary has been and still is dealing with the atrocities committed through the Pinochet dictatorship, the shadow of a nation, but there are also other and more current issues being dealt with. I left with a bag full of dvds and projects. And with a very pleasant impression of a country that had Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende and still has a colourful Pacific Ocean Valparaiso. With Patricio Guzman as the father of Chilean documentary. “The Battle of Chile”, a masterpiece.

Back to Buenos Aires and the sunshine and to the walking in the city on the last day before the loooong journey back to Europe, 17 hours before Copenhagen. We wanted to have lunch at the Lola restaurant where we had dined before, wonderful place in the Recoleta area. I booked a table for 2pm, and we went out and sat in the sun the two of us. I phoned Rodrigo Vila, the organiser of DOCMeeting Argentina and thanked him for his generosity, and told him that he should rest with his family and not care about us.

That proved to be totally wrong… Having finished the phone call, I got up and saw that my bag with computer, passports and expensive glasses, and calendar and notes for several films to be written about on this blog was gone!!! Stolen, simply while we were sun-enjoying. Rodrigo Vila arrived and was our saving angel – in a bit more than two hours we had made a police report, had passport photos taken and had been to the Danish embassy, where we were kind of robbed again: 1100 US dollars for two passports, price for opening the embassy on a saturday! Unfortunately Buenos Aires is going that way, said Vila, an incident like this happens every bloody day.

A day in the life of a film consultant! 

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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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