AmDocs Honours Joe Berlinger and Creates NSDN

… which stands for North South Doc Network, more about that below. The festival that runs from April 30-March 4 opens with the premiere of director Joe Berlinger’s latest film ”Tony Robbins: I am not Your Guru” and includes three of the director’s previous works: ”Brother’s Keeper”, ”Under African Skies” and ”Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger”. Berlinger will receive the “Seeing the Bigger Picture” at this year’s edition of the Palm Springs-based American Documentary Film Festival.

And here follows the press release of the festival explaining the brilliant initiative behind the new festival alliance. Yes, festival should collaborate, not compete as it so often happens:

In a move that is sure to create new opportunities for documentary filmmakers all over the world, the American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs) has forged an alliance with three other International Documentary Film Festivals, designed to allow each of them to share content.

“From the very beginning, one of our primary goals for AmDocs was to provide independent documentary filmmakers with greater access to worldwide audiences,” says Ted Grouya (photo), Founder and Festival Director for the American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs).

“This new alliance, the North South Doc Network (NSDN) not only allows documentary filmmakers to reach as many people in the world as possible, it also helps bridge the gap between cultural understanding, societal nuances, politics and the lives of those in and around diverse locations throughout the world.”

Founding members of NSDN include DokuFest (Republic of Kosovo), DocsDF (Mexico), EDoc (Ecuador) and AmDocs (United States of America). “We certainly hope to grow the Film Alliance,” Grouya continues. “But these four festivals provide a great base from which to move forward because they represent very different geographical regions and very different cultures overall.”

Initially, NSDN partners will share films from each of their own festivals with the other partners. This will not only expose their home country and/or region’s culture and identity to NSDN partner festivals and their audiences, but also provide the films’ creators with an unprecedented opportunity to expand the audience for their films. The sharing of films will also allow each festival’s home audiences to see works they may never have been able to see, had NSDN not existed.

Additional opportunities provided by the NSDN alliance include an opportunity for each alliance partner to expand the potential scope of their sponsors’ market outreach. Partners will also provide complimentary advertising opportunities for each other in their event program materials, on their websites, and on other print collateral materials. They will promote jointly as possible, and work to create joint press opportunities, as well as work diligently to create a “brain trust” designed to explore additional avenues for shared growth, including, but not limited to educational outreach programs, filmmaker partnership productions, additional fund-raising opportunities, and ways to increase the overall visibility and ongoing viability of documentary film, as well as the independent documentary filmmakers around the world who bring knowledge and awareness to audiences through their stories about real people and issues.

If you want to know more, go to the FB page of the festival through the website:

http://www.americandocumentaryfilmfestival.com

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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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