Loparev & Kurov: Children 404
It’s one of those films, that had to be made and that you hope will be shown everywhere to pass the information about the absurd and inhuman condition that the LGBT community lives under in Russia after a law was…
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 MoreLoparev & Kurov: Children 404
Askold Kurov: Leninland
They have some verbal battles in the office, Natalya and Eugenia. They get on each other’s nerves. They both work at the museum, have done so for a long time, but where one is for the material side of the…
Does a Festival Critique Exist?
As a follow-up to the post below… here is a personal essay that I wrote for an academic book on festivals. It did not fit in, so here it is for you, a reflection on what is written on documentary…
Questions to Festival Programmers
It happens quite often. Mails arrive with sad news – ”they” did not take my film, nobody likes it, what should I do? Filmmakers are disappointed, the film that took them a couple of years to make are rejected by…
Arthur Sukiasyan: Our Atlantis
It’s an inviting start: Beautiful Istanbul, boats on Bosphorus, people fishing on the bridge, a man in a car, a man doing dummies for clothes, a woman taking out her photo album and more people getting ready to tell what…
Jon Bang Carlsen Retrospective in Leipzig
DOKLeipzig 2014 presents an ”homage to Jon Bang Carlsen”. A long text from the festival site follows below. The director is also to make a masterclass at the festival. To be recommended. Masterclasses with Bang Carlsen are always lively and…
Kurt Jacobsen & Warren Leming: American Road
As one who does not have English as native language this film demands attention and concentration. You have to get used to the constant bombardment of words, archive photos and films, interviews but if you succeed to do so, it…
Cinedoc-Tbilisi Second Edition
The Georgian international documentary film festival has launched its programme for its second edition (October 14-19), well thought and competent, with competitive sections and side bars like ”Ukranian Voices”. Here you find ”Euromaidan” put together by Darya Averchenko and Roman…
Nordisk Panorama 25!
Nordisk Panorama 25! – a documentary tour down memory lane. Yes, the first one was in Grimstad, this idyllic and romantic spot on the South coast of Norway. I was there and so was she, with whom I have shared my life…
Nick Read: The Condemned
Filmen vises i morgen tirsdag den 30. september på DR2’s Dokumania kl. 20.45. Den kan stærkt anbefales. Den danske titel er forklarende, ”Ruslands værste fængsel”, en direkte oversættelse af originaltitlen ville være ”De fordømte”. Her følger en kort anmeldelse på…
Message2Man St. Petersburg/ 4
Politics. Freedom to say what you want. In films as well. The Message2Man – that had its 24th edition this year – and its organisers are of course backing this basis for any film festival. Nevertheless the festival cancelled a…
Message2Man St. Petersburg/ 3
It was a Swedish documentary that got the Grand Prix at the Message2Man 2014 festival: Forest of the Dancing Spirits (photo), directed by Linda Västrik (104 min. | 2013 | Sweden, Canada). I copy-pasted a description of the film from…
Laura Poitras Opens DOKLeipzig
A scoop for DOKLeipzig. Read the festival’s press release: The 57th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film will open on 27 October 2014 with the long-awaited film “CITIZENFOUR” by Laura Poitras. In the last instalment of her 9/11…
Helena Trestikova Free Online Retrospective
Yes, she is a documentary superstar, Helena Trestikova. Filmkommentaren has had many posts about her films, which are shot over decades, always with a warm heart for its protagonists, and a social perspective. Now the DocAlliance gives you an offer…
Russian Censorship Debate
Well, I was definitely away from my comfort zone… Around the table were Russian critics, journalists, a writer of a book on the banning of films in Soviet Union – and some younger filmmakers, who were there to say something…
The Future of DOX Magazine?
My wise advisor asks me to de-personalise the important debate about whether DOX has a future or not. I will do my best to suppress my frustration. Starting with a concrete, constructive proposal: Don’t stop DOX and – inspired by…
Message2Man St. Petersburg /2
Second day in St. Petersburg started with a lovely tour to Russian Museum downtown at the square where a statue of Pushkin stands, always with birds resting on his stretched-out arm. The newly renovated rooms with the Russian avant-garde I…
2nd Edition of AegeanDocs /2
We already told that for the second time the AegeanDocs festival is running, it opened on the 20th of September (and runs until the 28th) with a screening of “The Act of Killing”. Producer of the festival Chara Lampidou sent…
Message2Man St. Petersburg /1
Do you know the situation for Russian artists, was the first question that came from the audience at the Q&A after Danish Andreas Johnsen’s ”Ai Wei Wei” screening last night at the St. Petersburg documentary festival. The film about the…
Nordisk Panorama 25 Year
I attended the opening of the 25th edition of Nordisk Panorama friday night in Malmö, Sweden. It was a grand event because the organisers had picked the right film to start the festival. Below is the website description of Garden…
Documentary Talents
There is no photo attached to this post, you have to look up to the right, where you get three of them. Co-editor of filmkommentaren.dk, Allan Berg, suggested that I chose three obvious talents, who have made films which travel…
EDN Terminates DOX/ 3
Emanuele Vernillo, didactic tutor at Zelig School for Documentary, Television and New Media in Bolzano calls the decision “absurd”. Here is his text: I am reading with big interest the discussions about the closing of DOX on paper. I want…
EDN Terminates DOX/ 2
PeÅ Holmquist, director and producer of documentary films, first President of EDN has written a letter about DOX: In EDN Newsletter, week 37, I get the news about our magazine DOX:Doesn’t exist anymore! DOX has been there nearly from when…
Michael Moore:Filmmakers not Documentarians
Last week Michael Moore, at the Toronto International Film Festival Doc Conference, 25 years after his “Roger and me” (photo) was released, presented 13 rules for making documentary films. A manifesto. He stressed that documentary filmmakers should not be called…
EDN Terminates DOX Magazine
A ”EDN Weekly” newsletter came out. In a subordinate clause there was shocking news: ”… I had to decide to terminate the publishing…” of DOX Magazine. Just like that. Voilà. A big big mistake! After more than 100 issues the…
Scorcese on his new Book Film
Copy-paste quote from RealScreen on Martin Scorcese talking about his new documentary “The 50 Year Argument” on New York Review of Books, co-directed with David Tedeschi. A talk taking place in Toronto at the international film festival, read more, link…
New Danish Documentaries to Message to Man
“GlobalDoK: Danish Film Institute Present” is the title chosen for a presentation of new Danish documentaries in St.Petersburg at the Message to Man festival (September 20-27). In collaboration with the DFI and with me as a helper for the programmer…
Uldis Brauns photo by Uldis Cekulis
The photo in the post below is a bit small but shows the wonderful screening situation in the house of Uldis Brauns. Here you have him in the garden.
Uldis Brauns
During the many years that I have followed Latvian documentary cinema, the name Uldis Brauns has always been like a magic enigma. Who is he, where is he, what is he doing? The master, that is how he is characterised…
Baltic Sea Docs 2014/ 3
Hotel Metropole, Kuldiga, Latvia. Early monday morning, still wonderful ”indian summer”. I am waiting for my colleagues, to take breakfast before we go back to visit Uldis Brauns, Latvian documentary master, 81 years old, a gentle man. We were there…
Baltic Sea Forum 2014/ 2
Are you on drugs was the question, jokingly asked by panelist Esther van Messel from First Hand Film, when Russian producer Vlad Ketkovich was pitching the project ”My Beliefs” to be directed by Tatiana Chistova. Could be… Ketkovich, wearing a…
Across the Roads, Across the River – 7 on Riga
It was presented last year at Baltic Sea Docs and there it was on the big screen at Splendid Palace, the film that was made on the occasion of Riga being the Cultural City of Europe. A so-called omnibus film…
"The Flaherty Presents”
Press release (edited) of today from The Flaherty, great initiative: Cinema Guild and The Flaherty announced today an exclusive digital partnership to create a curated series spotlighting the work of groundbreaking artists and filmmakers. Volumes in the series, titled “The…
Leena Pasanen New DOKLeipzig Festival Director
Press release of today from DOKLeipzig: Leipzig Mayor Burkhard Jung is proposing the Finnish documentary expert Leena Pasanen (49) to become the next director of DOK Leipzig. The City Council will decide on the appointment on 15 October. A selection…
Baltic Sea Docs 2014/ 1
I am sitting on the 11th floor of Hotel Albert in Riga. We are into the third day of the workshop that preceeds the pitching of the weekend. 22 projects will be presented after two days of intense discussions of…
Khaled Jarrar: Infiltrators
For everyone who has followed the tragic events in Gaza it is a must to watch the Palestinian artist and filmmaker Khaled Jarrar’s Infiltrators. I have written about Jarrar several times on filmkommentaren (one link below) and am happy that…
Mark Soosaar
… is a phenomenon. I have known him since the Balticum Film & TV Festival on the island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea, going on from 1990-2000. He came there several times and 6 of his…
Phie Ambo: Så meget godt i vente
For én der trådte sine barnesko i SFC (Statens Filmcentral), er alt omkring Phie Ambos nye film den rene fryd. Debatten søgte vi med filmene, som blev sendt rundt til alle hjørner af Danmark – og de skulle gerne være…
DOKLeipzig 2014 Statistics
Press release from the festival in Leipzig, says a lot about volume of documentaries world wide, plus animation films on top of that!: 2,350 film productions from 119 countries have tossed their hat in the ring for this year’s International…
Festival Director Dancing in the Rain
Well, you might not see it but it was pouring down in Copenhagen sunday, when Magnificent7 festival director Zoran Popovic, caught by his co-director Svetlana behind the camera, was expressing his joy to be close to Hans Christian Andersen in…
Ashraf Mashharawi and Ken Loach in Sarajevo
I have copy-pasted from Guardian of today, where Simon McBurney interviews Gaza documentarian Ashraf Mashharawi (photo), “joint winner of the Katrin Cartlidge award” that was given out at the Sarajevo Film Festival, that the director travelled to in spite of…
New York Film Festival
The photo refers to the film ”Red Army” by Gabe Polsky that at indiewire.com (link below) is described like this: Soviet hockey players? As in the ones that were defeated by a young, inexperienced American team at the 1980 Olympics? In fact, the “Miracle…
Message to Man 2014
St. Petersburg, end of September (20-27), programme has been announced for the 24th edition of Message to Man. On top of the list, very much appropriate, is local master Alina Rudnitskaya with her latest fine b/w work ”Blood” (photo), one…
The Power of Silence – Docs in Riga
The Baltic Sea Docs has announced its mini film festival programme that runs parallel to the pitching of 24 new documentary projects primarily from the Baltic countries but also producers from Western European countries turn up with proposals that have…
2nd Edition of AegeanDocs
New documentary festival in Greece, actually the second edition it is – the official selection has been announced. Some words from the site of the festival: ”The AegeanDocs International Documentary Film Festival announces the selection of the 54 documentaries, which…
San Sebastian Eastern Europe series
Yes, the international film festival in the beautiful Basque city, taking place for 62nd time this year (September 19-27) launches an impressive retrospective called ”Eastern Promises. Autobiography of Eastern Europe… a look at movies produced since 2000 in the countries…
Hungarian DunaDOCK Withdraws from Festival
The Jameson Cinefest International Film Festival in Miskolc, Hungary will not include the DunaDOCK masterclass as planned. On facebook, in the ScreenDaily, on Spiegel Online and of course in the Hungarian media, that I can not read, the matter has…
DocAlliance Celebrates Sarajevo Film Festival
… by offering a selection of short Balkan documentaries for free until August 17. On the occasion of the 20th edition, Rada Sesic, the festival’s programmer of documentaries, has picked what she herself calls ”… pearls of the documentary expression,…
Sergio Tréfaut: Alentejo, Alentejo
An old man stands at his kitchen sink. He is being addressed by his daughter. Cut. He sits down at a table, cleans his glasses, puts them on, takes a piece of paper, looks into the camera, looks at us…
Alan Berliner: First Cousin Once Removed
Lucky film enthusiasts in Copenhagen: The award-winning documentary by Alan Berliner has been chosen to be “Documentary of the Month” at the Cinematheque in the Film House of the Danish capital. It will have five screenings. A fine Danish language…