A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
NITESH ANJAAN: DREAMING MURAKAMI As a writer and film maker who is quite interested in (and even feel an affinity for) the Japanese author Haruki Murakami, I felt almost obliged to be disappointed and a bit bitter after watching this…
ERIK LIESHOUT a.o.: TO STAY ALIVE – A METHOD If you are a fan of either Michel Houellebecq or Iggy Pop or both: read no further and go and see this film immediately. For those of us who is something…
PIERRE BISMUTH: WHERE IS ROCKY II? Since he saw an old BBC documentary from 1980 about American pop artist Ed Ruscha, the director has seemingly had an obsession to find the topic of that doc; a piece of artificial rock that…
This is by every standard a remarkable film – not because it tells us about the extensive surveillance of all but everybody, but because we get to meet an otherwise obscured person of such significance to today’s society and because…
Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado: THE SALT OF THE EARTH Arrogant as I am, films about still photography (or paintings) are not something I usually pay much attention to. The relationship between the timeless photography and the time-dependent moving image…
IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? by Michel Gondry Wow, the theatre is almost packed. Average age is around or even under 30 and several hipster beards are in sight. I suspect these are fans of either Gondry or…
During the closing panel talk Sunday at European Film College, English director Nick Broomfield suggested that all of us in the audience were in fact blessed because we are working in the documentary business of Denmark – the happiest place in…
The press kit for this film makes a point out of that this is no conventional sports documentary. It is true that the actual boxing scenes are quite limited and maybe the film makers find this fact as radical as…
What a treat I got last Friday during the music film festival in Copenhagen: To be able to watch this old Tom Waits-film on the big screen again. It’s from a time in his career when he had almost redefined…
Last night I suddenly remembered that during an animated dinner at a seminar at The European Film College, my business partner accidentally poked the eye of director John Akomfrah while stating a point in some mindless discussion. John had earlier…
Anna Odell: ¨The Reunion (Återträffen), seen at CPH:DOX, november 2013. – Hello? – Yes, hello. Is this Anna Odell speaking? – Yes? – Hi, you don’t know me but I have just seen your film… – Okay – [awkward pause]…
Paul Simon’s 1986 album, “Graceland”, is a pivotal album and more than anything it revealed to us western mono-culture consumers that South Africa is a rich source of rhythms, harmonies and just plain good grooves. Also, the album and the…
Noah is a 17-min. long student film which was showed in the Short Cuts-program at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. Since it is entirely taking place on a teenage guy’s computer screen, it has lately – and logically – been…
Have you ever thought about becoming a doctor or a nurse on a Bulgarian ambulance? Well, as this little marvel of a film suggests, there might be an opening or two coming up. It’s technically an observational film, but what…
This morning, my daily newspaper reminded me of a John Cage-quote: “I like to be moved, but I don’t like to be pushed”. Two days ago in Oulu, Finland, I found myself in a situation which I liked. It might…
I tend to avoid topical documentaries with no artistic purpose of its own, so why do I want to see a documentary about Woody Allen? Furthermore, I believe I know most things about Allen so a biographical film would almost…
Joyce McKinney was hot stuff in the British tabloids back in the 1970’es and the case known as the “Mormon sex in chains case” started out when McKinney allegedly kidnapped her Mormon husband-to-be and forced him to have a good…
What constitutes a documentary film? When is a documentary most trustworthy and/or true to actual facts? Can we depict reality without interfering? Do we WANT to depict reality without interfering? We will never stop argue about these things, but allow…
What does a cave being enclosed for thousands of years sound like? Or smell like? This film actually tries to tell us, but first of all it shows us what it looks like. Or to be more precise, it shows…
I like it when a film slowly seems to get a hold of itself before your very eyes. Like it’s getting smarter as it goes along. That’s how I felt watching this depiction of a huge hospital complex in Rio…
CPH:DOX on a November afternoon. I am watching a filmmaker’s film about her filmmaking and herself. Afterwards, I watch the filmmaker telling us about her film about herself and her filmmaking. I’m always interested in the creative process so I’m…
The opening is splendid: Old b/w footage from the 50’s of an aircraft flying into Rio de Janeiro and an orchestral rendition of “Garota de Ipanema” on the soundtrack. I want to go to Rio and I want to see…
Danish filmmaker Mikkel Stolt made the comment (in Danish) that he had seen “You’ve Been Trumped” at the wonderful Irish festival Guth Gafa International Film Festival. We asked him to write a text about the festival. Here it is: A…
Interessant og relevant diskussion. Personligt glæder jeg mig meget til at se, hvad der kommer ud af NDS’s på papiret meget spændende planer, og jeg forestiller mig de involverede tv-stationer overbyde hinanden i iver over at de mest eksperimenterende film…