ZagrebDox 2019
Step by Step is the way that Croatian ZagrebDox festival has followed to announce its program for the 15th edition. The last couple of days the inviting website of the festival – link below – has told its readers what…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & 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.
Read MoreZagrebDox 2019
Borch Hansen & von Lowzow: Jørn Utzon
Instruktørerne hedder Lene og Anna til fornavn og filmen har undertitlen „Manden og Arkitekten“… og det er, hvad vi får som tilskuere i den kendte Nordisk Film stil, som er designet til et internationalt marked som filmene om Karen Blixen,…
Auteur Filmklub
Efter mange års fremragende filmformidling valgte filmproducent og forfatter Ebbe Preisler at gå på velfortjent pension fra sin Mandagsdokumentaren. Preisler var før Mandagsdokumentaren en vigtig person i både dansk og europæisk dokumentar-sammenhæng. Det kan I læse lidt mere om her:…
Torquil Jones & Gabriel Clarke: Bobby Robson
— with the subtitle “More than a Manager” is a well-made classic football documentary about the legendary Englishman, who played football 20 times for England and was a coach/manager for more than 50 years, not only in England but abroad…
Mads Brügger: Cold Case Hammerskjöld
Fy for pokker… nu ved jeg at der er en organisation i Sydafrika der hedder SAIMR, South African Institute for Medical Research. En hemmelig loge, som var indblandet i mordet på den svenske FN generalsekretær Dag Hammerskjöld i 1961, hvor…
DocPoint 2019 Summing Up
A total of 107 films were screened at DocPoint Festival in more than 260 screenings, a fifth of which were sold out. The documentary film event for children and young people, DOKKINO, organised in connection with the festival, gained 3…
Honeyland Wins 3 Awards at Sundance
He was right Atanas Georgiev, the producer and editor of the film “Honeyland”, when he said that it was close to be a masterpiece and hmmm, I was right when I gave it the highest marks in a review the…
Reetta Huhtanen: Gods of Molenbeek
Oh childhood with all your curiosity and innocence! Where the world is open for you, where you can ask all kind of questions. Where you can wish for everything, which is what the two boys do in Finnish debut director…
Talal Derki: Of Fathers and Sons
DOCS & TALKS 2019 / CINEMATEKET 04/02 14:00 / ØST FOR PARADIS 26/2 17:00 It stands out. I can not avoid superlatives. And I can not express in words, in a language that is not mine, how I feel after having…
Doc People at DocPoint
Lovely to meet documentary colleagues in Helsinki at the DocPoint. You get to talk private matters, food and drinks – and documentaries. Have you seen… ah, you should see… what is your next destination… Already when arriving in the airport…
DocPoint 2019
The 18th edition of the Finnish documentary film festival is going on right now and until Sunday in a Finnish capital full of snow – I have been moving very slow from cinema to cinema, luckily they are very close…
T. Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov: Honeyland
… T for Tamara, L for Ljubomir, producer and editor Atanas Georgiev, camerapersons Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma. Composition of the image. Finding the rythm of the film. The tone. It’s all about form that you have to think about…
Elizabeth C. Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin: Free Solo
Some words in English and then some in Danish, as the film premieres in the best Copenhagen art house cinema, Grand Teatret, that takes in many documentaries, which means publicity for the genre, press reviews in daily newspapers and an…
Simon Lereng Wilmont: The Distant Barking of Dogs
DOCS & TALKS 2019 / CINEMATEKET / SØN 03/02 14:00 The location is Hnutove, Eastern Ukraine, war zone for years. A village from where – for the very same reason – many Ukrainian families have moved away. But not grandmother…
Dušan Makavejev 13.10.1932 – 25.01.2019
Andrijana Stojkovic: I remember when in July 2007 two great film artist – Bergman and Antonioni – “left” during one night… It seemed that the (film) world will never be the same again. And it isn’t. But these last days…
Jonas Mekas 1922-2019
Audrius Stonys: Jonas left us. With the same lightness as he used to live. Silently and gently as if he didn’t want to disturb the image of life. We first met in 1990, when he invited us, 10 young filmmakers…
Film Masterpiece found under Daughter´s Bed!
This afternoon an important mail reached me – attached with the photo you see above. It came from Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis and film director Kristine Briede, who took the photo. It went like this : « Dear Tue and Audrius (Stonys),…
Oscar Nominations Feature Documentaries
Happy for Talal Derki and his “Of Fathers and Sons”, the only non-American of the five nominations for an Oscar. Hope that the promotion made for short-listed films like “The Distant Barking of Dogs” and “Communion” will make it easier…
Emir Kusturica: El Pepe, Una Vida Suprema
They are sitting outside the house of the former president of Uruguay José Pepe Mujica. Pepe and Kusturica. The film director lights his cohiba cigar, Pepe is preparing his mate, spitting out the first tasting, too strong it always is.…
Nicolas Philibert
Filmkommentaren has written much about Nicolas Philibert, French master of documentaries. () I missed his new film at IDFA, but I will catch up asap with a review. In the meantime I have enjoyed reading an interview with the director…
DocsBarcelona The War Room
Well, it was quite friendly but of course there were – and should be – discussions about which films should be taken for the DocsBarcelona 2019 edition in May. On the photo you see the selection group except for the…
Nikolaus Geyrhalter: The Border Fence
This review is written by Georg Zeller, film director & cameraman, Bolzano Italy. I start my review with a spoiler, the last scene of Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s newest documentary: A group of policemen opens a container full of rolls of wire…
Messi 400
I was there when Andres Iniesta stopped at FC Barcelona, last year – and I was there when Leo Messi made his goal number 400 for Barca. Yesterday. At Camp Nou. The first one, his first goal, was made at…
Danish Bodil Nominations
The Danish film critics have made their choice and nominated the Best Danish film, the best male and female performance etc. etc. AND nominated five documentaries for that category. On filmkommentaren we have reviewed 4 of them, links attached Bobbi…
Dostojevskijs Idioten i Cinemateket med mere…
… i et arrangement, som med rette blev kaldt for et maraton, visning af en russisk tv-serie bygget over romanen fra 2003 – 10 afsnit af en længde på 50 minutter. Publikum – vi – sad lørdag i Cinemateket fra…
True Stories Market Research Funding
Quote from filmkommentaren post in August: … thinking of the many documentary adventures I take with me from the Sarajevo Film Festival: To be part of the training team of representatives from ngo’s and human rights organizations was the experience…
Faces and Places 2018
Taking the title of Agnès Varda and JR’s wonderful film as headline, I look back at festivals, pitching sessions, film schools… that I had the privilege to attend in 2018. Privilege is the right word to use, when you board…
The Best Documentaries 2018 – Intro
Per tradition – in the post below you find 16 documentaries listed that I found to be Best of 2018. With links attached to what has been written about them. A choice made after many festival visits, links sent to…
The Best Documentaries 2018
Viktor Kossakovsky: Aquarela Kristine Briede & Audrius Stonys. Bridges of Time Vitalyi Mansky: Putin’s Witnesses Ivars Seleckis: To be Continued Nebojša Slijepčević: Srbenka Anja Kofmel: Chris the Swiss Sergey Loznitsa: The Trial Bernadett…
Wonderful Losers on Vimeo
My dear friend, film director and producer, who if anyone is the one, who follows his film to the audience all over the world, winning audiences and awards, Arunas Matelis has posted this, a xmas gift it is: If you…
Yugoslavian Architecture 1948-1980
… with the subtitle ”Toward a Concrete Utopia” is an exhibition that runs at Moma (Museum of Modern Art) until January 13. For one who has been visiting Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Novi Sad, Pristina, Skopje, Ljubljana… it was a fine…
Oscar Shortlist Long Documentaries
3 of the European documentaries from the EFA award ceremony () are on the Oscar shortlist. The winning film about Bergman and ”A Woman Captured” – a pity – is not there. But on the list of 15 that will…
And the Winner Was Ingmar Bergman…
… at the European Film Awards yesterday, „Bergman, A Year in a Life“ by Jane Magnusson is the title of the Swedish documentary that took home the prize. Which made many angry… Here is what Krakow Film Festival director Krzysztof…
Simon Lereng Wilmont: Olegs Krig
… med undertitlen “En Barndom i Skyggen af Krigen” Freddy Neumann tager sig af pressearbejdet for The Distant Barking of Dogs, som på lørdag måske bliver kåret som Europas bedste dokumentarfilm ved European Film Academy’s ceremoni i Sevilla. Filmen er…
Cordelia Dvorák: Marceline
In the 1980’es I attended Cinéma du Réel in Paris almost every year. It was during the years, where wonderful, charismatic Suzette Glenadel was the director. And where big documentary names like Fred Wiseman and Pedro Costa were introduced to…
Fred Wiseman: Ex Libris – the NY Public Library
Oh, I enjoyed this fresh and inspirational film by the master – is Wiseman really 88 years old – when I watched it, thinking back more than 40 years when I was educated librarian and functioned for some years as…
See Ukraine – through Cinema and Art
Through documentary films, exhibitions and discussions Ukrainians from the art world travel Europe to present their country and its search for an identity. It’s “a cultural diplomacy project of HRDFF Docudays UA organized with support from the Open Society Initiative…
Wang Bing on Doc Alliance
… with the title “The Landscape of Chinese Everydayness” – An offer you can’t refuse! DocAlliance keeps on the high quality in its program policy on dafilms.com. This time with 6 of Wang Bing’s documentaries from China. They are long…
BlekendaalThe Man Who Looked Beyond the Horizon
In a way it’s an old fashioned film. In storytelling. And I mean that as a compliment. The director plays with the film medium, jumps around in time, gives references to slapstick movies, Buster Keaton and others, in the search…
Katarzyna Lesisz: Dancing for You
Get up Wiktor, says grandmother, you have to go to school. Wiktor, 12 years old, goes to a ballet school, where the teacher trains him, and when not in school he plays with a friend, or is with the caring…
IDFA Post-Festival Comments
I was in Amsterdam from Monday till Friday. 4 nights at NH Carlton Hotel, the festival centre close to everything and the place where you meet old and dear friends. Including the busy artistic director Orwa Nyrabia, whose first edition…
Three Russian Documentaries at IDFA
… which all deserve to be mentioned and noticed by other festivals. “How Big is the Galaxy” (Photo) by Ksenia Elyan (Russia, Estonia, 72 mins.), with Max Tuula and Maria Gavrilova as producers as well as late Alexander Rastorguev for…
Andrei Kutsila: Summa
I was very happy to know that the new film by Belorussian director Andreu Kutsila received – in the midlength category – the main award at IDFA for “Summa”, a Belorussian/Polish coproduction with Miroslaw Dembinski as the Polish partner. In…
Viktor Kossakovsky: Aquarela
Normally when I go to an art exhibition, I walk around alone, stop in front of the paintings, it’s silent, maybe I talk with the one who are with me, but I love this chance of stepping into a world…
IDFA at the Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam
I went to the Eye that everyone has praised during its few years of existence. And it is really something. I crossed the water with the ferry next to the Central Station, 2 mins. it took to get to the…
Bettina Perut & Iván Osnovikoff: Los Reyes
The film was screened and there was a half hour talk afterwards. These IDFA talks, I understood, are formatted to have no questions from the audience. I sensed a disappointment in the hall, probably many would have loved to get…
Eszter Hajdú: Hungary 2018
I got a mail from the producer of this film, Sandor Mester: “Hungary 2018 is not at the IDFA Forum because it is already in the Feature Length Competition this year and it was not there last year because it…
IDFA Winners 2018
IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary Anand Patwardhan won the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (€ 15.000) with Reason (India). The film is a broad-ranging examination of Indian society, where secular rationalists are hunted down as they attempt to stem the rising…
Dziga Vertov: Anniversary of the Revolution
Tuesday night I was back in Saint Petersburg after two days at the IDFA festival in Amsterdam. In the cinema. On screen. No, wrong – I was back in Petrograd 1918 through the outstanding film historical event organized so brilliantly…
Piter – My love
I am leaving Saint Petersburg after a few days with a conference and a re-visit of the places, where I have been during the last 20 years… That explains the headline of this post. Tomorrow – I am writing this…