Amir Labaki on It’s All True

Festival director and film critic Amir Labaki is in Amsterdam for IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) and is interviewed for the fine Daily News of the festival – an online press service of the festival, in general to be recommended, in this case specifically to know why the high quality documentary festival has the name it has. Here is a small quote from the interview by Nick Cummingham:

”… And then there’s the festival name, inspired by Orson Welles’ unfinished ‘masterpiece’ about Rio. “Welles came to Brazil and tried to make his film, but he couldn’t finish it. The Americans called him back, cut his budget, took away the prints and he could never work on it again. When I was starting the festival two things happened.

In Berlin, I saw the documentary (also called It’s All True) about the Welles film and it was obvious that it was as important to Welles as Que Viva Mexico was to Eisenstein. And then Beatrice Welles, Orson’s daughter, came to Brazil in 1995 and I immediately thought of the festival title, to say thank you to Mr Welles because he came to Brazil to make a great film about my country – but also because it’s a great title for a festival…”

Indeed it is – the 20th edition takes place April 9-19 in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo – I was a jury member in 2002, pure pleasure, and the winner was ”August” by Avi Mograbi, a film that by no means has lost its actuality.

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/daily/newsfeed/more-than-amir-festival.aspx

http://www.itsalltrue.com.br/en/home/

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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