A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Text from festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, Magnificent 7 festival in Belgrade: The Magnificent Seven festival, created as a cinema holiday for numerous devotees of modern European documentary film, has successfully presented top achievements and the most significant authors…
Memories… Audrius Stonys was at the Balticum Film & TV Festival in the beginning of the 1990’es. He and Arunas Matelis were the young talents, who showed short documentaries in the Kino Gudhjem on Bornholm. Films like “Antigravitation” and “Earth…
After a long first day of the Baltic Sea Docs, the tutors were invited for dinner on top of Riga. Two of the tutors come from Georgia and Ukraine: Salomé Jashi and Darya Bassel. Both of them play an important…
I had big expectations after Olha Zhurba’s first long documentary “Outside” – https://filmkommentaren.dk/olha-zhurba-outside/ – and I was not disappointed. “Songs of Slow Burning Earth” is a film that will stay in Ukrainian documentary history. And internationally as a film that should be…
The 29th edition of Baltic Sea Docs, the long-running documentary co-production forum in Riga, is set to run from 31 August to 5 September. The forum will feature 26 documentary projects within its industry programme, alongside film screenings for audiences…
Jury Special Award at the Sarajevo FF. And a text taken from the press kit of the best publicist I know, Greek Dimitra Kouzi: “Bulgarian queer artist and songwriter Ivo Dimchev transforms personal and social hardship into provocative public and…
The winner of the Documentary Competition of the 2025 Sarajevo FF. I had not heard about this film before, even if it was at the Berlinale. And to be honest, when I read the synopsis, I thought “ok, here is…
From the documentary competition of the Sarajevo FF 2025 At numerous workshops in Eastern Europe I have told filmmakers from that part of the world that to call all characters or protagonists “heroes” is not a good idea – as…
I have several times on this site praised the film of Ketevan Vashagashvili, that I know – also as a project – for many years due to the CinéDoc Mentoring Program in Georgia. Ketevan came from journalism into documentary film…
The success is understandable for this well-funded super-professional production by Romanian company Manifest – producer Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan – with many co-producers, shot over a long period, with four editors on board, with a complicated structure as it takes place in…
Review written by Allan Berg Nielsen for DOX Magazine 2002, now available at Modern Times Review. In Anything Can Happen, Marcel Lozinski takes his six-year-old son to the park and asks him to ride around on his push scooter and occasionally…
Awards were given in Sarajevo for participants of the Rough Cut Boutique, which has Martichka Bozhilova and Rada Sesic as organisers and leading figures. At the photo (Sarajevo FF) the two are with microphone in hands, Martichka standing, Rada kneeling.…
PRESS RELEASESarajevo, August 19, 2025 DOCU TALENT AWARDS 2025 WENT TO A SONG WITHOUT HOME, FLYING COWS, AND LAND OF FIRE EMERGING PRODUCERS 2026 AND RECIPIENTS OF JI.HLAVA /JB FILMS SUPPORT WERE ANNOUNCED Seven outstanding documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe,…
Aforementioned award will be presented with the official partnership of the Azerbaijan Union of Filmmakers which will be supported by the Azad Mirzajanzadeh Development Program, the Young Filmmakers Association, and the Guild of Azerbaijani Film Critics and Scholars. The award…
Programmed for the Sarajevo FF in the documentary competition. The film won main award in the regional competition of this year’s ZagrebDox, the photo shows the director with her Big Stamp as the festival calls its award. No need for…
Producer Adnan Ćuhara. Shown, world premiere August 16 at Sarajevo Film Festival. I quote Sarajevo Times (March 2 2025), where the film crew gives this congratulatory note the 1st of March, to the independence day of Bosnia and Herzegovina: “The…
Sarajevo Film Festival reinforces its commitment to powerful documentary storytelling with a revitalized concept for its documentary strand at CineLink Industry Days. Building on its longstanding support for filmmakers across Southeast Europe and beyond, the Festival introduces a dynamic platform…
It’s really a small film festival that accompanies the Industry based Baltic Sea Docs with project development and pitching. 12 films for the audience in Riga, screenings from the 2nd till the 7th of September primarily in the Splendid Palace…
Dealing with the Past programme continues to create space for confronting traumas, untold stories, and forgotten perspectives that shape both collective and personal histories. The programme presents feature films, documentaries, and experimental works that delve into the aftermath of conflict…
Aspiring critics and writers interested in documentary cinema are invited to apply for the 4th Verzió Documentary Film Critics Workshop, held as part of the 22nd Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. The event will take place from 11–19…
He texted me yesterday, “watching?”, as he has done dozens of times, when “our” football club FCBarcelona plays. If I am not at the computer here in Denmark, he updates me on how the match goes. I am writing about…
Rada Šešić, the programmer of the Competition Programme – Documentary Film, included 20 films in the competition programme; 12 feature-length and 8 short documentary films, four of which will have a world premiere, four international, 10 films will have a…
This film totally blew my mind. Its freshness, its originality, its playfulness, giving information so it’s never dull and using the cinema language wonderfully. Archive – moving images and photos to make history alive, citizens of Rijeka today, all centered…
I had a very rich experience watching this film. I was pleasantly surprised of the way it was told. The filmmakers took me by surprise by giving me several layers to dig into.Thank you for that but before I go…
And now words about the new photos on top of this site, www.filmkommentaren.dk. I have mentioned the three by their last name. I could also have chosen to name them by first names: Alisa, Niels, Eva. That’s how I address…
There is a short text at the beginning of the film bringing us to the location: “… a network of rural communities (that) provides shelter to individuals struggling with addiction and mental health issues”. A former abuser is running the…
I took this from the website of the producer Onassis Culture to have a precise content description of the film: Filmmaker Eva Stefani follows the preparations behind Transverse Orientation and its tour across theatrical stages in Europe, observing from a close distance Dimitris…
At numerous workshops in Eastern Europe I have told filmmakers from that part of the world that to call all characters or protagonists “heroes” is not a good idea – as in English they are people, who have done something…
Take a look at the photo/still from the film from Bucha, the city that experienced, what has been called a massacre, where Russian crimes against humanity took place in February 2022. Documented it is by several sources. Including the Office…
The 22nd Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival has announced its winners. However, Docudays UA does not end there: the winning films can be watched during the screening day 13 June. Some recordings of the festival discussions will…
How to pitch your upcoming documentary here and now? And how to successfully promote it once it’s completed? On June 11 and 12, the DOCU/PRO platform will host events that will help industry-accredited participants explore the tools of development, effective pitching,…
Look at the photo… A douce painting by Edgar Degas, for me the first true documentarian? No, an edited still from a Danish documentary – coproduced with a Spanish company – directed by Robin Petré and with Ecuadorian cameraperson María…
I am not in Kyiv but I follow what’s going on in a festival that I have visited some times before the war. With pleasure and I have no doubt that the organisers will take good care of every visitor,…
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge“, one of many quotes from Albert Einstein that I was thinking of while watching this well made originally thought documentary from Ukraine. Take a…
Thanks to Filmin I could watch some more documentaries that were shown at DocsBarcelona from a soft armchair in a town at Costa Brava. After the festival. All good, some better than the other of course, some more artistic, some…
Milit – lat. for soldier. Antropos – gr. for human: “A persona adopted by humans when entering a state of war. The chaos of war not only tears apart the physical world but also fractures the Militantropos’ sense of self”.…
If I could, I would take many images from this beautiful documentary and put them on the wall. Most of them B/W images in academy format with many of them colored in blue, yellowish for instance. All is so well…
Tonight the winners of the DocsBarcelona festival 2025 were announced at the ceremony at the CCCB, that hosted industry activities duirng the festival and some screenings as well. Here is a copy paste from the festival’s website: THE FESTIVAL SURPASSES…
Nine projects took part in this year’s edition of DocsBarcelona’s Artistic Consultancies. It was a pleasure to meet the filmmakers, who came from all over the world: Ukraine, Portugal, India, Italy, France, Azerbaijan, Chile, Uruguay, Montenegro, Colombia, Argentina, Spain! Stories…
DocsBarcelona Industry has announced the winners of the 2025 edition this Thursday evening, with Capitán by Laura Otárola taking home the DocsBarcelona Award for Best Project. The awards ceremony was held at Casa Montjuïc and marks the conclusion of DocsBarcelona Industry, the leading…
Gosh, what a film, what a woman, a sad comedy, but also a documentary with a message… Let me give you the precise logline from the website of the director’s company: “Carmen’s life has always been a Quixotesque comedy. Living…
Det er en film med så mange indfald at jeg var forpustet efter først gennemkig. Men filmen satte sig og jeg fandt den røde tråd, min røde tråd. Børnene! Og det er ikke kun fordi Stevie Wonder synger “Give the…
… and goes until May 18. The opening film is “RIEFENSTAHL” by Andres Veiel, a film that premiered at the festival in Venice and goes all over, of course, praised by critics. I will not be in Barcelona for the…
Years ago I was the mentor for a film from Belarus. It takes time – and it should – to make documentaries that follow a young person, who is dealing with very hard family conditions like Katya does. She is…
I have known Heino Deckert for decades. I have a big respect for his contribution to current documentaries that have traveled the world. He has taken risks being the producer of demanding directors like Victor Kossakovsky and Sergei Loznitza, and…
Apr302025 As previously reported, the Azerbaijan Union of Filmmakers announced an open call for applications for AKIDocs – Documentary Film Development and Pitching International Project on April 1, 2025. A total of 11 participants and 4 observers were selected for…
Tomorrow will be the final day of a training week in Baku in Azerbaijan arranged by The Azerbaijan Union of Film-makers (AUF). With filmmaker Afaq Yusifli as the workshop leader, taking care of everything, the perfect organizer behind this project…
“Turning pain into happiness” is a key sentence in the film that deals with a Gaza, before it was totally destroyed after October 7 2023 and the consequent events. The pain of the director Areeb, Palestinian living in the US,…
Wolski pitched “The Big Chief” in Sarajevo last August. During a workshop at ZagrebDox he told me that the film was to have its premiere at Visions du Réel in Nyon. It had, the other day. He sent me a…
Barcelona, April 8, 2025 · The Barcelona International Documentary Film Festival DocsBarcelona will hold its twenty-eighth edition from May 8 to 18 at the CCCB, the Renoir and Phenomena cinemas, and the Filmoteca de Catalunya, the festival’s regular venues, in addition to Casa Montjuïc and Espai Texas.…