A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Yes, online again this year for the 18th International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival that I have visited several times with many memories in and outside the cinema. Yesterday Ileana Stanculescu from CinéDoc Tbilisi reminded me and Lithuanian Audrius Stonys…
… on creative documentaries under the headline “Artistic Consultancies for Rough Cut Projects”. Prominent documentarians have agreed to take sessions – let me do the name-dropping: Salomé Jashi, Gitte Hansen, Noemy Schory, Elena Fortes, Marc Isaacs (PHOTO), Carles Bosch, Pawel…
3 years ago I posted a positive review of the short film «Sand Men” by Tal Amiran. () Now the director is back with another social engaged, well crafted short film that likewise deserves to be highlighted. It takes place…
I have not talked to anyone, who prefers zoom to face-to-face meetings. On the other hand the zoom or teams or skype make it possible to see and talk to each other in these times of pandemic. And it works…
Thanks to Veronika Zýková from IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) in Prague I got access to watch the pitches and trailers of the East Doc Platform that went online some days ago (). 10 projects were selected for the presentation plus the 12…
… is in its second day, it’s online, it goes on until March 1st and it has an interesting programme of fiction and documentaries. The films can be streamed in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Faroese Islands. For that reason…
I am hooked from the very first moment. Director John Webster puts a pillow behind the back of Jörn Donner (1933-2020) as the start of the last interview Donner did. He sits in an armchair, it’s December 2019, he has…
This is a copy-paste of a press release from DocAlliance’s excellent platform DAFilms, written by Martin Černý: The DAFilms streaming portal is paying tribute to Dušan Hanák, one of the most important Slovak directors, by presenting thirteen digitally restored films in…
In these times of lockdown all over, where kids sit at home meeting their classmates, and their teacher(s), via a computer, this is a film that can show us how important it is that children are together, when they are…
I got a mail this morning that made me sad but also made me think of many many good visits to the bar next door the Zelig Film School in Bolzano. The mail came from Stefano Lisci, here is the…
… In le Monde by Jacques Mandelbaum, film critic at the newspaper since 1995. You have to be a subscriber of le Monde to read the whole interview. I have taken the liberty to quote from the excellent meeting with…
Andrea Prenghyova wrote me a couple of days ago, asking if I could mention that the 10th edition of her dokincubator is coming up. Really, 10th edition (!), I thought, and I dare say that Prenghyova has managed to put…
“I wanna be a jockey…” is a sentence that my wife and I always remember, when we talk about and recall the UP series by Michael Apted, who passed away yesterday. We got acquainted with the series at a festival…
The film is co-directed by Sead Šabotić & Lea Vahrušev, the latter is also the producer. Take a look at the still above. Marko is trying to find out if his new sneakers fit him. His wife has sent them…
… well, they are so far nominated « For Promoting Lithuania Globally », the directors and producers Arunas Matelis and Giedre Zickyté, by an organisation GLL (Global Lithuanian Leaders), that is a non-profit association for professional individuals that identify with Lithuania and care…
This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. A dramatic documentary exclusive insight into the world behind the facades of top art, the author who amazed us with a saga about the…
This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. The celebrated author of the film about saunas, one of the greatest documentary hits in Finland, reveals in his latest work the world of…
Just a quick note of enthusiasm. They had less than a week to announce the 16th edition of Magnificent7 that is running right now in Belgrade. I am not there as at the 15 first editions but contrary to pandemic…
This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. Buenos Aires nights echo with the sounds of the bandoneon, with stories of love, and with the unique and unmatchable beauty of tango. During…
This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. A documentary that tells an equally exciting story about the colorful world and the music that fills and transforms it. A poignant drama about…
This text is written by Magnificent7 Festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic: Awarded a special prize for artistic excellence at a major international festival in Moscow, this film by a young Danish director with its exceptional style is one of…
This text is written by the Magnificent7 festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic: The work of a great master of studies on the finest emotions, the master who charmingly and unobtrusively delves into the deep secrets of the soul, an…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, Magnificent7 directors: A masterful film by one of the most important documentarians in the world. Premiered at the Berlin Festival and the New York Festival. The film that was made for the big cinema screen! Gunda…
Words from Svetlana and Zoran Popovic:Here we go again! After a delay due to the pandemic from which we all suffer, and from which we have learnt to take measures into consideration; Where we are, Whatever we are doing. Let’s continue…
The is an excellent vod for documentary lovers. Not only bringing new documentaries to their subscribers but also giving us a chance to go back in film history to pick important works. The seven members of DocAlliance, all of them…
A mail came in with the announcement of the films selected for the Sundance Festival in Utah in the US. That starts January 28. I have been looking at the list of the 10 films selected for the World Cinema…
I have had the pleasure – a couple of times – to present Russian master director Viktor Kossakovsky at festivals. For instance at DocsBarcelona, where I was meant to be the moderator. Not really a possible job as the director takes…
I enjoyed the show. Professional it was. Festive Onlining. Warm and respectful to the filmmakers. It opened at 17h and closed at 19h. Many awards were to be given. The programmers of the different sections came to the stage, where…
Copy-Paste from idfa.nl: This year the jury of the Feature-Length Competition watched the nominated submissions from their homes, and we met over the internet to discuss and deliberate on the films. Although we felt it went well, we…
Yes, IDFA awards today. Many, really many and bravo for also giving awards to editing, directing, cinematography… Here is the list of awards to be given in two of the main catagories: In the Competition for Feature-Length Film, four awards will be…
Loved that match. Watching the film, more than two hours from Paris. Images of today, images from the city in the sixties, accompanied by Ottinger’s voice unfolding her personal memoirs. AND then one hour talk – with a couple of…
It was here that it started, Gianfranco Rosi said looking at the almost empty Tuschinsky Theatre, where his very interesting and inspiring talk with artistic director of IDFA Orwa Nyrabia took place. I attended the first part of it and…
It does not take long in this fine film that you connect to Mateo, the man on the photo, who (from IDFA catalogue) “started recording Ayoreo conversations, stories, and songs in the 1970s, and is still traveling to Ayoreo communities with…
Obituary for a 42 year old filmmaker. So sad. The last time I saw Valentina was at DocsBarcelona, where she won the main award for her “Faith”. The moderator of the ceremony had a short conversation with her, online, before…
I had the pleasure – indeed it was – to observe the online pitch of Rough Cut projects yesterday. There were five of them and the atmosphere was much more relaxed than several of the pitches, where projects were new and…
Two quotes from the opening of IDFA 2020, wise words from a minister and an artistic director of this unique meeting place for people in the documentary community – and for the audience, in the cinemas and online. “Standing in…
… “then I will remember things we said today”. Beatles. “The influence they had on our generation”, as said Ujica, who is from 1951, I am four years older, and also I grew up with Beatles. And enjoy very much…
The other day I was in Budapest for the DunaDock workshop… well online of course, me sitting in Copenhagen. I was invited by the engaged Hungarian documentarians Diana Groo, Julianna Ugrin and Klára Trencsényi and their helpers. To do tutoring at…
It’s a scoop to have the constant tableau-like returns to the room in the house in Tehran. It’s beautiful to look at – in the beginning I associated to Danish Hammerhøi and his paintings of interiors – here (except for…
In the situation of sharp increase of Covid-19 cases by the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia an Emergency Situation is introduced for the period of November 9th – December 6th, 2020. In this regard we are forced to…
It’s from start till end beautiful. It is seldom that form and content go so well together. Because the director succeeds to catch the charisma of Swetlana Geier, the translator of Dostoyevsky (and many other big Russian authors) from Russian into German.…
You might ask why there is a photo of Fellini on top of this post about the St. Petersburg festival that starts tomorrow. The answer is simple, the festival wants to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Federico Fellini. To…
The Golden Dove as well as the Silver have been given out at the DOK Leipzig festival. ”Downstream to Kinshasa” by Dieudo Hamadi won the Golden, a coproduction ” from the Democratic Republic of Congo, France and Belgium that focuses…
This is a world premiere of an excellent film, that will travel all over. Shot in the Eastern part of Jerusalem in Palestinian families with the focus on the children. How they cope with living close to settlers and therefore…
Zane Balčus, film critic and journalist, colleague and manager of Baltic Sea Docs, writes for the FNE, Film New Europe, that I can only recommend warmly you to subscribe to if you want daily film news from Eastern and Central…
You don’t know if she is crying or laughing. The grandmother of the director, who came to France from Algeria with her husband in the fifties. She is born in 1937, the two were married for 62 years, then decided…
I saw (most of) the IDFA press conference, 2 hours!, with artistic director Orwa Nyrabia on stage in de Balie on Leidseplein, which used to be the main meeting place for IDFA. Nostalgia! Nyrabia presented the sections, also those that…
It’s a good film. Not because of the theme (a mine is closed, miners are without job, what to do?) that is pretty much known. This time it takes place in Silesia, a region that has also been described before,…
I have copy-pasted a FB post coming from the Head of the IDFA Academy Meike Statema.The IDFA Academy program is as always very inviting – the 60 selected young filmmakers, even if all is online, will get food for thought…
… Gevar, Natasha, Shevan. A family. From Syria, now living in France. English title: Gevar’s Land. The joy of seeing something grow. Plants, vegetables – at home on the balcony and in the garden. In a scene Natasha looks at her phone…