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…
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 MoreThe Best Docs I saw in 2023
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…
IDFA Opening film
The artistic director of IDFA Orwa Nyrabia announced yesterday what will be the opening film of the 2023 festival: A Picture to Remember. Here are the words about the film from IDFA’s website: Olga Chernykh spent her childhood in Donetsk…
IDFA Press Conference 2023
… was held yesterday afternoon with artistic director Orwa Nyrabia in the leading role after Head of New Media Kaspar Sonnen had introduced the DocLab: Phenomenal Friction. For more than an hour Nyrabia talked us through the 2023 program with…
DOKLeipzig Awards 2023
Last night the DOKLeipzig awards were distributed – and there were many. The festival has always been good at finding sponsors for the awards to their sections of long, short and animations films. Here is a copy paste of the…
DOKLeipzig Partnership Awards
There are so many awards to be handed out in Leipzig today that they had to be split into two ceremonies. Here is a copy paste of the press release about the first round of applauses, that happened this afternoon,…
Ramallah – Documentaries from Palestine
This text was written by Tue Steen Müller in 2010 after a stay in Ramallah meeting Palestinian filmmakers including those in Gaza, with whom we tutors from Western Europe met to select makers to come to Corfu in Greece to…
2012: Emma Davie, Scottish filmmaker and teacher at Edinburgh College of Art, and tutor at numerous workshops for filmmakers from Europe and elsewhere, was in Ramallah at the Storydoc/Ramallah.doc workshop. She has given us permission to re-post this beautiful text. When I asked her for permission, she said “Go Ahead, Words fail for what is happening but good to remember the historical context of this brutality.
THE FREEDOM TO SEE by Emma Davie It’s a bar in Ramallah called Beit Aneesh. Apparently named after an old lady that lived there. A laid back place with posters from the history of the struggle of the Palestinian people.…
ARTE “Generation Ukraine” at DOKLeipzig/ 2
I was there in my armchair with my computer to follow the DOK Industry Talk yesterday afternoon about Generation Ukraine, “a new initiative by the ARTE Group aimed at supporting the Ukrainian filmmaking industry by co-producing 12 documentaries that explore…
DOKLeipzig: Panorama
”DOK Leipzig is opening a window on the world of Central and Eastern European cinema. The short and feature-length works presented here span the range from the socialist past through the times of upheaval to the present – personal, funny,…
Arndt Ginzel: White Angel – The End of Marinka
It makes no sense for me to make a review of this shocking documentary from Hell on Earth with heroes, who literally drive from house to house to help the population be evacuated, mostly old people, convincing is needed for…
Fisher Stevens: Beckham
I could not leave it, the four part series on David Beckham, a superstar in football history, a businessman, one part of a celebrity couple, married to Victoria, one of the Spice Girls, nicknamed Posh Spice. It’s a well made,…
FOCUS ON UKRAINE at CinÉast in Luxembourg
In Luxembourg, from October 5-22, the Central and Eastern European Film Festival puts a focus on Ukraine. This is a copy-paste of the text related to that: One of the key elements of the 2023 programme is the Focus on Ukraine –…
ARTE "Generation Ukraine" at DOKLeipzig
In this year’s edition, DOK Leipzig is presenting a DOK Industry Talk on Generation Ukraine, a new initiative by the ARTE Group aimed at supporting the Ukrainian filmmaking industry by co-producing 12 documentaries that explore Ukrainian reality in the throes…
Marc Isaacs: This Blessed Plot
In 2007 Marc Isaacs made ”All White in Barking”, in 2020 “The Filmmaker’s House” and now “This Blessed Plot”. You should know, when reading this article that I am a big admirer of Isaacs having seen, loved and written about…
CinéDoc Tbilisi Winners
In Batumi the CinéDoc Tbilisi performed their International Documentary Film Festival with a competition for Georgian long documentary films as well as short. Below you will find the jury motivations: BEST FILM FEATURE LENGTH COMPETITION: THE NORTHEASTERN WINDS – DIRECTED…
Nordisk Panorama Winners 2023
Winners – Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2023 MALMÖ, Sweden — Today, Nordisk Panorama Film Festival proudly presents the winners of our 34th edition. The Awards Gala took place 26 September in Malmö City Hall. Out of the 64 films selected to compete in…
Nordisk Panorama has announced its winners for the 30th edition of the festival. Here is a copy-paste of a well written and presented press release: Winners – Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2023 MALMÖ, Sweden — Today, Nordisk Panorama Film Festival proudly presents the…
Carl Olsson Conversation at M7
”Vintersaga” was shown the other day at the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. Scandinavian (born in Sweden, educated and living in Denmark) Olsson had been in Belgrade in 2020 for the festival before with “Patrimonium” about the Danish aristocracy and their…
Luka Popadić: My Swiss Army
This text is written by Magnificent7 Festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic: This film was created from a unique and unexpected angle, from the experience of the author who is simultaneously a Serbian director and an officer of the Swiss…
Christopher Morris: A Year in the Field
This text is written by the festival directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade: BAFTA awarded English author Christopher Morris makes one of the most unusual, artistically superior works of creative documentaries in this year. A film that invites you…
Carl Olsson: Vintersaga
This text is written by Magnificent7 Festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic: A magnificent visual poem by the young Scandinavian director Karl Olsson, the author of a unique style, that enchanted the audience at “The Magnificent Seven” in his exceptional…
Michael Graversen: Mr. Graversen
This text is written by Magnificent7 festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic: A stunning intrusion of the camera into “life not ready for filming”, brilliant cinéma vérité, a superb documentary that is created before the eyes of the viewers through…
Oeke Hoogendijk: Housewitz
One of the best European authors, Oeke Hoogendijk, whose three masterful films on art seen from unexpected and exciting angles we saw at “The Magnificent Seven”, this time turns to a very personal subject in a Kammerspiel style to create…
Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel: She Chef
This text is written by festival directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. Svetlana and Zoran Popovic: Germany, Austria 2022 105 minutes directed by: Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel Screened at the most important festivals, this enchanting documentary is a fantastic journey…