Max Kestner: Livet – og andre problemer
”Mine børn beder mig – ved deres blotte tilstedeværelse – om at tage stilling til mit aftryk på verden. Som de fleste andre spiser jeg ikke en bøf uden at tænke på, at den engang var et levende dyr. Jeg…
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 MoreMax Kestner: Livet – og andre problemer
Magnus Gertten: Cornelis Vreeswijk – Nogle går rundt i udtrådte sko/Anmeldelse
Jeg skrev hele tiden, siger Cornelis Vreeswijk i et interview optaget på et hospital kort før sin død i efteråret 1987. Hans tekster står klart og tydeligt den dag i dag næsten tyve år senere. Det samme med hans sang.…
Juan Palacios: Før stormen
Medinstruktør: Sofie Husum Johannesen Local is Global. Han sagde det ikke sådan, Orwa Nyrabia, IDFA’s kunstneriske leder, da han på pressekonferencen præsenterede “Før stormen” (Engelsk titel: “As the Tide Comes In”), men det var tydeligt, at han havde fundet en…
Birgitte Stærmose: Afterwar
Made in co-creation with lead cast: Shpresim Azemi, Xhevahire Abdullahu, Gëzim Kelmendi, Besnik Hyseni. It’s such a clever film. That stays with you. Touches your heart. Because of the way it is made and the consequent narrative. Birgitte Stærmose made…
Docu Rough Cut Boutique announces projects
Docu Rough Cut Boutique announces projects selected for 2024 edition Docu Rough Cut Boutique reveals its new slate of projects, marking the 14th edition of the programme. Docu Rough Cut Boutique is the leading regional programme for documentaries in post-production coming…
Magnus Gertten: Cornelis Vreeswijk – Nogle går rundt i udtrådte sko
Magnus Gertten om sin film – foto: Hans Gedda ”I Sverige er Cornelis Vreeswijk et nationalklenodie, og selv om det nu er næsten 40 år siden, han døde, spilles hans sange stadig – til bryllupper og begravelser og på tværs…
Andreas Koefoed: Bendtner
Dokumentarserie i samarbejde med Rune Skyum-Nielsen, som skrev den roste “Begge Sider” om og med Nicklas Bendtner. Serien/filmen har tre dele, hver især 35-40 minutter: “Vejen tilbage”, “Sidste chance” og “Tilbage til Start”. Titler som alle henviser til Bendtners kamp…
Stanislavs Tokalov: Everything Will Be Alright
At the Latvian National Film Awards ceremony the other day two awards were given to “Everything Will Be Alright” by Stanislav Tokalov. The film-to-be was pitched at the Baltic Sea Docs 2021 with the working title “Stranded” and described as…
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
Bobi Wine’s original name: Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu. Directors: Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo. Produced by National Geographic This Oscar nominated documentary is a strong documentation of the suppression by the Ugandan dictatorship under President Museveni, who has been in power…
Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri:Amor
A woman’s face with running water in nature behind her. She looks at you or she does not look. Beautiful face, eyes seldom blinking. A river with waterfall and its sound. Focus on a rock and its cracks. A city…
Erica Liffredo: Tango of Life
Co-directed by Krista Burāne. Italy and Latvia unite in this documentary shot in both countries, i.e. a co-production, a true one, where Italy provides the dancing, Latvia the music. A super-skilled editor is needed to connect and Ilaria de Laurentiis…
Max Kestner Opens CPH:DOX
We’re thrilled to announce that Max Kestner’s ‘Life and Other Problems‘ will be the opening film at the 21st edition of CPH:DOX. The opening gala will take place on March 12 in Copenhagen at the Conservatory’s Concert Hall, where director…
Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret will receive the Honorary DocsBarcelona Award
The International Documentary Film Festival of Barcelona, DocsBarcelona, will pay tribute to the french filmmaking couple Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret during its upcoming edition, which will take place from May 2 to May 12, 2024. The award recognizes Depardon’s…
Historic Grand Slam for Norwegian cinema at Sundance
Historic Grand Slam for Norwegian cinema at Sundance: Awards for “A New Kind of Wilderness,” “Ibelin,” and “Handling the Undead.”The documentary film “A New Kind of Wilderness ” won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, while “Ibelin” received The…
Aistė Stonytė: The Mammoth Hunt
All right, let’s have the synopsis (Scanorama Festival Kaunas 2023) first: ““The Mammoth Hunt” is a story about a film reel that for many years has been thought to be lost. On the reel, under conspiracy conditions, an abolished anti-Soviet…
Finn Larsen: Hække og Stativer
… English title Hedges and Stands… Larsen’s first topographic project, photographed in Randers in the late 1980’s, as it is said on the cover of the impressive book, one of three, two more with focus on Greenland, will come back…
Carl Th. Dreyer Prisen til Lea Glob
Filminstituttet inviterer alle interesserede til reception og fejring af Lea Glob, når hun modtager dette års Dreyer Prisen. Lea Glob er uddannet dokumentarfilminstruktør fra Den Danske Filmskole i 2011. Hun blev Robert-nomineret for afgangsfilmen ‘Mødet med min far Kasper Højhat’…
Netflix: Captains of the World
2012. Hotel Prezident in Sremski Karlovci in Serbia, style Louis XVI, cherubines in the background. It is late sunday evening and our only way to watch el classico Barcelona against Real Madrid was to go online via some unauthorized links…
Viesturs Kairiss: January
It was a fine night at Danish Cinemateket. As the opening film of a min-festival “Latvia Before and Now”, the award winning film of Viesturs Kairiss, “January”, was shown to an almost full cinema hall. Jesper Andersen from Cinemateket introduced…
2023 Online Meetings
Of course the best is to meet face to face onsite but I have got used to online meetings via zoom. To say good morning “how are you” or “where are you”. I prefer the mornings and I also like…
2023 – On the Road Again
Every day of the Christmas/New Year holidays, my wife and I enjoy a wonderful book “Solisterne” by Joakim Garff, where the author brings our Danish literary heroes, Søren Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen together on a trip down Europe with…
Cinemateket 2024
Programmet for det danske Cinemateket i København er på gaden og det er som vanligt med appel til alle filminteresserede, også dem (som os her på flmkommentaren.dk), der sværger til den dokumentariske film eller noget i den retning i en…
Olga Semak: Demiurge
The beautiful landscape in Volyn in the NorthWest of Ukraine is beautifully (!) captured by the fascinated documentary filmmakers, who are Ukrainians – with director Olga educated at the Deutsche Akademie and this being her first feature documentary. Impressive it…
The Best Docs I saw in 2023
What I did was to take a look at this site – www.filmkommentaren.dk – and pick the films I thought could go for being “the best”. They are listed here in a random order: Apolonia Apolonia, Lea Glob, Denmark/Poland, 116…
Giedrė Žickytė: Both of Your Mothers
This is a copy paste of an article in FilmNewEurope of today: VILNIUS: Lithuanian director/writer/producer Giedrė Žickytė is currently in postproduction with her long documentary Both of Your Mothers, which is a Lithuanian/Estonian/Bulgarian coproduction. The film follows the last years of professor…
Peter Mettler: While the Green Grass Grows. A Cinematic Diary
No doubt, Swiss/Canadian Peter Mettler is a great filmmaker. With a long and interesting filmography (8 of his films are to be found here: ). Always searching for new ways of approaching important themes from the life we live, asking…
Jessica Gorter: The Dmitriev Affair
Dutch documentarian Jessica Gorter continues to make films from Russia (“Red Soul” last one I saw, before that one from the Leningrad Blockade) with strong content – and actuality. This one is about Yury Dmitriev, awarded human rights activist, working…
Jeanne Nouchi et George Varsimashvili: Hotel Metalurg
The old woman in the corner of the room, in her bed, keeps shouting out to her relative – and us viewers – that she wants to go back to her house in Abkhazia that she and 250.000 ethnic Georgians…
Doc.Incubator 2023
Always a fine experience to attend the yearly presentation of upcoming documentaries developed at the dok.incubator workshop that has its address in Prague due to its Czech founder and manager Andrea Prenghyova. There was a presentation at IDFA this year,…
Watch Docs Festival 2023
Tomorrow, December 1st, the Watch Docs festival, 23rd edition, opens in Warsaw with an impressive program including competitive sections, Main Competition and Green Doc Competition, plus “I want to see” (human rights focus), New Polish Films with among others “In…
Uljana Kim Receives Big Award
Eurimages and the European Film Academy have the pleasure to award producer Uljana Kim with this years’ Eurimages International Co-Production Award. The award goes to her “to mark her outstanding commitment to co-production and the strong co-producing partnerships she has built…
Verzio Budapest
“This year marks the 20th edition of the Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. From 22 to 29 November, the prominent film festival, a cinematic reflection of our current world, will present a renewed logo, a fresh image to…
Adnan Patwardhan: The World is Family
A quote from an interview made by Aseem Chhabr for rediff.com (you can google it) October 12 2023: “In his latest documentary, The World is Family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam), Patwardhan takes us through the lives of his late parents and other…
IDFA Winners 2023
Share The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced the winners of this year’s festival.
Maj Wechselmann: Min Mor
The film was presented at the Baltic Sea Docs 2013 in Riga and Maj Wechselmann was there, not only to present her film project about her mother but also – with her long experience as documentary director – she helped…
Maria Fredriksson: Miraklet i Gullspång
En Spøjs film. Synonymer: Snurrig, Pudsig. Iflg. en ordbog “sjov på en uventet måde”. Det er ihvertfald svært at kategorisere denne film, som i løbet af sine 108 minutter tager nogle drejninger, som er uventede, og sjove, for personerne i…
Agniia Galdanova: Queendom
I was not in the jury of the CPH:DOX this year but I agree totally with the motivation to give the film an award: “Urgent and Political, this award goes to a powerful and intimate coming of age story about…
Alisa Kovalenko & Simon Lereng Wilmont: Girl Away from Home
This is the IDFA catalogue description: Nastia is a gymnast in Kyiv, training intensively with her four teammates for the Ukrainian National Championships. At other times they make dance clips, perform acrobatic feats, and giggle a lot. Nastia knows that…
IDFA Calls for an Immediate Ceasefire
At IDFA we believe in the value of life, and in the universal dream of a peaceful world. We respect the pain and the huge loss on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the on-going conflict. We stand by…
Olya Chernykh: A Picture To Remember
Hello Olya, how are you sweetheart? The voice of Babuschka Zorya from Donetsk, the hometown of Olya, who is now living in Kyiv with her father and mother. The film is built in a way that I as a viewer…
Guy Davidi: Innocence (Uskyld)
Instruktøren: “Det er en film om, hvad det betyder at blive soldat i Israel, og hvordan samfundet i Israel lægger pres på børn og unge fra en meget ung alder, frem til at de melder sig til militærtjeneste. Med filmen vil…
IDFA Opening Night
Earlier this evening, the 36th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) officially opened in the Royal Theater Carré with the world premiere of A Picture to Remember by Olga Chernykh. IDFA 2023 takes place from November 8 to 19 in more…
Mstyslav Chernov: 20 Days in Mariupol
This text is from the website of the film: “An AP team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain…
DOCA Documentary Association Georgia
… was founded one year ago, November 2022. And has since then performed an avalanche of activities, first of all protesting against the Ministry of Culture and its Reorganization at Georgian National Film Center followed by demonstrations outside the Center…
Pedro Costa at Festival dei Popoli
Retrospective and masterclass with one of the absolute masters of Cinema today, Portuguese Pedro Costa, at the legendary Festival dei Popoli that starts in two days. The festival site has this introduction to Costa: “To go back on Pedro Costa’s…
Ostrochovsky, Pekarcik: Photophobia
… with the first names Ivan and Pavol are known by me for their “Velvet Terrorists”, that I called “an original, intelligent and humorous” film in a review from 2013 (). If you take away “Humorous” and use “poetic” instead,…
Veronika Lišková: The Visitors
Oh, what an intelligent film with many layers, was my thought after the 85 minutes in company with Zdenka and her family in Svalbard. Including not only the young Czech social anthropologist going to the Arctic with her family to…
Anneta Papathanasiou: Laughing in Afghanistan
There is quite an interview in this both entertaining and scary documentary: Mohammad Sadic Akif Mujahir, spokesman for the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and prevention of Vice, says that music is a satanic art… and reflects, rather he states…
Greek Documentary Association
… was built up in May 2013 “by professionals of all disciplines – directors, producers, screenwriters, cinematographers, editors … – with a common passion for Creative Documentary…” with the vision “From the start, we sought to support the Documentary as…
Festival East By Southeast
Under den 12. udgave af festivalen East by Southeast præsenterer Cinemateket 10 af de bedste helt nye fiktions- og dokumentarfilm film fra lige så mange lande i Central- og Østeuropa. Formålet med festivalen er ikke mindst at give et dansk…