Avi Mograbi: Between Fences
There is a lot of good mood in this new film by Avi Mograbi – as there always is in films by this great Israeli filmmaker, who in his films for decades has raised a critical voice to the way…
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.
Læs mereAvi Mograbi: Between Fences
ZagrebDox Winners 2016
ZagrebDox ended sunday and awards were given. I mention some of them with ”smartlinks” for you to see what we have written about them on this site. But go to the festival website to get the whole picture. Festival director…
Catherine Bernstein: T4 – Un médecin sous le nazis
I know the French director Catherine Bernstein from the Paris-based European training programme Archidoc and from several of her awarded documentaries. She is a master in dealing with archive material, which is so brilliantly demonstrated in this film that will…
Sara Broos: Reflections
You have to catch the attention of the audience right from the beginning. The opening of a film is so important. Here you have to make an invitation to the viewer, give some basic information that indicates, what he/she can…
Tibaldi & Lora: Thy Father’s Chair
It’s a very fine film, I placed it on the 2015 Talent List and am pleased to see that the Copenhagen audience will get the chance to enjoy it. Cinemateket has chosen Antonio Tibaldi and Alex Lora´s ”Thy Father’s Chair”…
Asma Bseiso: Aisha
Thank you for letting me be in the company of Aisha for 70 minutes. You invited me to get to learn a young girl and woman full of Life living in a country I know very little about, Jordan. And…
ZagrebDox 2016 Starts Tomorrow
… and runs until February 28. Here is a brief introduction text from the site of the festival: “A documentary about an ordinary family with extraordinary secrets, directed by Karen Guthrie, on Sunday, 21 February, opens the 12th edition of…
Alexander Gutman 1945 – 2016
A fine filmmaker and a good friend has passed away. Suddenly, two days ago. I got the message from Ludmila Nazaruk from St. Petersburg, the hometown of Sasha. I saw him last time at the ”Message to Man” festival in…
02-16-2016 Vilnius The President and Us
So this is the official photo from the award ceremony. The President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite is in the middle with (from left to right) Alge and Arunas Matelis, my wife Ellen and me, the President, Audrius and Aida Stonys,…
02-16-2016 Vilnius Lithuania
Look at the photo, taken by Giedre Beinoriute just after the award ceremony. It is the Independence Day of Lithuania and the ceremony is about to start. On the red carpet former President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus welcomes Vytautas Landsbergis…
Georg Zeller: A Second Birthday
I am biased. I have known about this film to be done for years. I was a teacher at the Zelig film school in Bolzano, when Georg worked there, he showed me material that was very interesting, and I met…
Swedish Documentaries in Krakow
And the festival in Krakow has decided to put focus on Sweden at the upcoming festival. Here is a clip from the press release of today, with a photo of Polish-Swedish Jerzy Sladkowski taken last week, when he presented his…
Dragon of Dragons to Marcel Łoziński
My first reaction to the press release sent out by the Krakow Film Festival was… why not before? But I will not use it against the fine people of a festival that I have always loved a lot and intends…
AmDocs Honours Joe Berlinger and Creates NSDN
… which stands for North South Doc Network, more about that below. The festival that runs from April 30-March 4 opens with the premiere of director Joe Berlinger’s latest film ”Tony Robbins: I am not Your Guru” and includes three…
IDA: Getting Real
Simon Kilmurry – previously at the POV, now in his new position as executive director of the IDA (International Documentary Association) – asked me to write about the upcoming conference of the association, ”Getting Real”, that has the headline ”Art.…
Magnificent7 Belgrade/Final Report
I am back in Copenhagen after another unforgettable version of the Magnificent7 Festival, number 12 it was and of course there is reason for the organizers to be proud of what they have achieved with a festival of 7 films,…
Staron’s on Brothers
Wojciech and Malgorzata Staron were in the vip room yesterday after the screening of their masterpiece ”Brothers” that was shown in the big hall of the Sava Center in Belgrade at the Magnificent7 festival. Almost 1000 viewers attended and I…
Jerzy Sladkowski on his film Don Juan
Jerzy Sladkowski’s ”Don Juan” was shown here in Belgrade the other night and his Q&A meeting with the audience in the vip room of the Sava Center lasted for more an hour in a packed room, where many were sitting…
Cosima Spender: Palio
Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: For centuries, one of the…
Wojciech Staroń: Brothers
Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: From the very first moment…
Sylvain Biegeleisen
I just said goodbye to him, the director of ”Twilight of a Life”, who has played an important role in this 12th edition of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade. He came with his film about which I wrote – before…
Jerzy Śladkowski: Don Juan
Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: This year’s winner of Europe’s…
Magnificent7 Belgrade/ Report 3
They got up from their chairs but did not leave right away, they stayed to honour the filmmaker, whose ”Mallory” had just ended. Helena Třeštíková received standing ovations for her film at the screening at the Sava Center, where it…
Jakob Brossman: Lampedusa in Winter
Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: Is there anything emptier than…
Magnificent7 Belgrade/ Report 2
Last night. Look at the photo – Sylvain Biegeleisen, director of ”Twilight of a Life”, is on stage with festival director Zoran Popovic in Belgrade before the screening of his film at the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade. Biegeleisen is about…
Helena Třeštíková: Mallory
Colleague Allan Berg wrote a review of “Mallory” when it was shown at CPH:DOX, here is how festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic introduces the film that will be shown at Magnificent7 tonight, taken from : The most recent documentary…
Magnificent7 Belgrade/ Report 1
12. Festival Evropskog Dugometraznog Dokumentarnog Filma… the Serbian language version for 12th European Feature Documentary Film Festival that started last night with the screening of German Kral’s ”Our Last Tango” – click on www.filmkommentaren.dk and watch the photo to see…
Sylvain Biegeleisen: Twilight of a Life
Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: A refined documentary pearl, woven…
German Kral: Our Last Tango
Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the opening film, Friday January 29: Buenos Aires nights echo with the sounds of the bandoneon, with…
DAFilms Portal Celebrates 10 Years
… and you will, as one of the presents from this excellent ”online documentary cinema” vod, be able to watch 5 films for free, three of them by directors Peter Liechti, Viktor Kossakovsky and Sergei Loznitsa… until January 31. More…
Mark Cousins: Dear John (Grierson)
I love Mark Cousins, his passion for film and his constant pointing at the fact that film history is so much more than American and French and British. That goes for documentary as well. Read this text of his and…
ARTE Europe – a New Initiative
… that you can only welcome because it brings – for free – some arte programmes, including documentaries, to you with English subtitles (or Spanish), not to all regions but to many. Not bad at all even if you have…
Iikka Vehkalahti: A Good Documentary is
Thanks to our own archive at www.filmkommentaren.dk I am able to bring forward clever words from Iikka Vehkalahti, who – it has been announced – is to receive an award at the upcoming Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. Here they…
Flaherty Seminar 2016
The 62nd Robert Flaherty Film Seminar… an institution, have only heard good about it, and not only from my former EDN colleague Anita Reher, who is head of the Flaherty, has something in common with the Danish folk high school…
Tabitha Jackson – Interview
A couple of days ago the trade magazine Indiewire brought an interview (by Chris O’Falt) with Tabitha Jackson, the director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program. Jackson who, when she was working for Channel4 in England, was a very much…
Avi Mograbi in Berlin Forum
Israeli Avi Mograbi is one of the most remarkable “auteurs” of our time. If you want to know more you are welcome to check posts made on this site on his work – since 2008, more than 30 that includes…
Sylvain Biegeleisen – Interview
A true artist, presented in the interview as ”film director and producer, writer, painter and video artist, photographer and musician, group moderator and singer…”. Sylvain Biegeleisen is interviewed by EDN, that does monthly conversations with members, this one being very…
Miroslav Janek – Interview
As a follow-up on our ”collected posts” on Czech documentary maker Miroslav Janek here are some quotes from an interview made a month ago by Doc Alliance, below is a link to the whole interview, absolutely to be recommended. Janek…
12th Magnificent Seven in Belgrade
… with the long subtitle ”European Feature Documentary Film Festival” starts on January 29 and goes on until February 4… Time for a small warm-up to this yearly celebration of the documentary film on the screen in the Sava Center…
Oscar, Robert and Bodil
The nominations are announced for the Academy Awards (Oscar), the Danish Film Academy Awards (Robert) and the Danish Film Critics Award (Bodil). In the feature documentary categories it goes like this: Oscar ”Amy” (Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees), ”Cartel Land”…
A New Dynasty – Created in China
If in Aarhus, second largest city in Denmark with a very active cultural life, don’t miss the art museum Aros that has always interesting exhibitions and a fine collection of new Danish artists like Per Kirkeby, recently portrayed in a…
Baltic Frames Aarhus
The Baltic documentary festival in Aarhus, in the wonderful art house cinema Øst for Paradis (”East of Eden”) took off saturday with a full house screening of the classic ”Ten Minutes Older” by Herz Frank and Lithuanian Giedre Zickyte’s ”Master…
Giedre Zickyte: Master and Tatyana
So, there it is, the film about the Lithuanian photographer Vitas Luckus (1943-1987), his life, his art and first of all his love story with muse and wife, Tatyana. (Screened at the cinema Øst For Paradis, Aarhus at the festival “Baltic Frames“)…
Peteris Krilovs: Klucis – the Deconstruction
Det har været med stor fornøjelse, at jeg har fulgt det store arbejde, som var forbundet med produktionen af denne film (Peteris Krilov: Klucis – the Deconstruction of an Artist, som i går blev vist i Øst For Paradis i…
The Power of Documentaries…
on the Oscar Trail … is the headline of an interesting article in New York Times by Cara Buckley, January 6. It mentions the changed rules for documentaries and reflects a bit on the who could be the winner this…
Best Documentaries 2015 Introduction
Below you find my list of ”Best Documentaries 2015” as well as a list of ”Documentary Talents of 2015”. I could also – like the DOKLeipzig did – have called the latter ”Next Masters”. Anyway, here they are, in a…
Best Documentaries 2015
A Syrian Love Story, Sean McAllister Brothers, Wojciech Staron The Wolfpack, Crystal Moselle Listen to Me, Marlon, Stevan Riley Amy, Asif Kapadia Varicella, Viktor Kossakovsky The Event, Sergei Loznitsa Twilight of a Life,…
Documentary Talents 2015
The Gleaners, Ye Zuyi Lampedusa in Winter, Jakob Brossmann Elephant’s Dream, Kristof Bilsen When the Earth Seems to be Light, Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze & David Meskhi. Train to Adulthood, Klára Trencsényi Ukrainian Sheriffs, Roman…
Haskell Wexler 1922-2015/ 2
The IDA, International Documentary Association, pays tribute to Haskell Wexler: “In his rich and impactful career, Haskell Wexler inspired, mentored and befriended scores of filmmakers, who, spurred by not only his artistic verve but also his unwavering commitment to social…
Baltiske dokumentarfilm i Aarhus
En glædelig meddelelse til alle os danskere, der er glade for baltiske dokumentarfilm: Aarhus biografen Øst for Paradis lægger hus til en fire dag lang festival straks i det nye år, 9-12. Januar 2016. Jeg iler med at videregive den…