A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
… 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,…
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…
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…
I got a letter from a friend from the Russian Documentary Guild with a link (see below) to an article that starts like this: ” Two amendments about distribution certificates and prohibition of offensive language in movies entered into force…
So this is my choice for the Sight & Sound “The Greatest Docs Ever”. I have chosen films that I have used in my work as a teacher and consultant, films that I have come back to because they have…
The international film magazine Sight & Sound has ”polled 340 critics, programmers and filmmakers in the search for authoritative answers”, which are now published in two parts (click on link below) – ”the top 50 documentaries as nominated by 237…
Richard Leacock died 2011 and yesterday one more from the Direct Cinema movement of the 1960’es that changed the documentary history, passed away: Robert Drew. As USA Today puts it in their factual obituary: Drew formed Drew Associates in 1960…
Every thursday I receive the French newsletter@mediafrance.eu called e-MEDIA, last week number 387. It gives for the professional sector useful and precise information about upcoming deadlines for applications to get support from the (now) Creative Europe – Media, as well…
August 27 until September 6 it’s time for the 71st edition of the festival in Venice, a festival that in its selection increases its interest in showing documentaries – remember that the winner last year was ”Sacro Gra” by Gianfranco…
At the same time as Sarajevo has its festival with a documentary competition programme, the Prizren, Kosovo based DokuFest takes place, August 16-24 with quite an extensive selection – quote from press release, ” Culled from a record number of…
The competition programme at the upcoming film festival in Sarajevo (August 15-23) has been announced. Nicely put in categories there are 5 world premieres, 5 international premieres, 5 regional premieres and 4 B&H (Bosnia Herzegovina) premieres. All together 19 films…
There are no users of the library in the provincial town in Georgia. But there is quite a number, around 20, of employed librarians and administrative people. Who do a little or nothing at all. They sit, they move along…
For those of you who want to know more about Caucasian documentaries, go to the website below, the one of Caucadoc, where you can find around 40 films described with all necessary information and trailers to watch. People from Russia…
Morning atmosphere. Sitting on the balcony outside the restaurant room of Hotel Pirosmani (for those who don’t recognise the name of the painter, link below), fresh air, 8am. It’s already hot so a bottle of mineral water is within reach.…
Below there is a post explaining what is Caucadoc. And here are some words about the workshop which is at its second day out of four. On the photo you can see that the atmosphere has the playfulness that is…
It is the fourth time that I am in Georgia and I love it. This time I am not in the capital Tbilisi but in Sighnaghi in the Kakheti region in Eastern Georgia. A four day Project Development Course is…
… of the Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, running now and until July 27, initiated and run by film director, visual artist, politician and showman, Mark Soosaar, whose mark is still very strong on a festival with a…
From tomorrow and until end of September the New Museum in New York will have ”a major exhibition of contemporary art from and about the Arab world, entitled ”Here and Elsewhere”. Palestinian multi-artist Khaled Jarrar based in Ramallah – we…
Not a lot of energy, so It’s copy-paste time right now here in Copenhagen’s tropical heat… and it is easy when good news arrive online like the one about the upcoming ”remarkable creative documentary projects from Central and Eastern Europe”,…
Another press release from idfa (see below) refers to the now finished Summer School, where projects at different levels are being tutored. Some are still on paper, some are bringing rough cuts to experienced editors. One of them was ”Ollie…
Copy-Paste quotes of a press release of today from idfa and its IDFA Bertha Fund, whose action one can only applaud: The IDFA Bertha Fund has concluded the May selection round of 2014. Nineteen documentary projects from countries like Nicaragua,…
So many documentary films have been shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences. This heralds a new era of distribution for the continent… words by Don Edkins, who is the Executive producer of AfriDocs and…
In the post about the Moving Docs project that will take off next year, supported by Creative Europe, I wrote “”Brave New Culture” from Cyprus is also on board. Regret to say that I have never heard about it before…”…
… is the name of a new support scheme from EU’s Creative Europe – Media Programme. Its task is ”To stimulate interest in, and improve access to European audio-visual works, in particular through promotion, events, film literacy and festivals. Film…
With EDN (European Documentary Network) as the natural umbrella organisation for a project concepted and developed by Rea Apostolides, strong and visionary Greek producer and member of EDN’s Executive Committee, the ”Moving Docs” project was, by Creative Europe, granted 150.000€,…
I like this tradition so much – the plaques that are put on the walls of the houses, where great artists have been living and working. To honour them and remember. They do so a lot in the Baltic countries…
A triumph for the young Polish director Jan Matuszynski in Moscow yesterday where the Best Documentary Award was announced, given to him for his ”Deep Love”. I have seen this film twice before, read what I wrote from the American…
Short enough for an overview – detailed enough for your co-production strategy… this is the one-liner from EDN about the new baby of the organisation: A Co-Production Guide which is available online for the members of an “… organisation for…
This is a sentence I have used again and again when talking to film students, who are still in their film school protected environment… and then suddenly they have finished their studies, want to work, want to learn more, want…
The Austrian Film Museum (celebration of its 50th year) has a present to all who are interested in film history and Dziga Vertov and history of course, read here, click and watch, it is so well presented: The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week)…
I am sure that many readers of this review do not really know anything about Abkhazia… I was in the same situation until I came to Georgia, saw terrible archive images from the war in 1992-93, where Abkhazia broke away…
Many years ago, at my time in EDN, I asked Hans Robert Eisenhauer to come to Italian Bardonecchia to the yearly Documentary in Europe session as a keynote speaker on the theme ”public service television”. I had known him from…
Below, Yves Jeanneau, CEO of the Sunny Side of the Doc welcomes the delegates to the 25th edition of an event this blogger has visited numerous times, when it was in Marseilles. Now the location is in la Rochelle and…
15 films from 12 countries, 15 world and international premieres… that is what the FID (Festival International de Cinema) in Marseilles presents in the international competition programme, when it takes off July 1 and runs until July 7. The festival…
Big words from the two curators of the documentary programme at MIFF, Moscow International Film Festival, whose 26th edition includes a competition of 8 films and a panorama of 15 films under the label ”Free Thought”. Sergey Miroshnichenko and Grigory…
It starts today, the yearly Flaherty seminar at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York and runs until June 20. Programmers are Gabriela Monroy & Caspar Stracke – you can read more about them on the website of Flaherty, link below. Here…
”You’re nobody till somebody loves you” is the well known song that, among others, accompanies the visit to one of Japan’s 37.000 love hotels, the one in Osaka, Angelo Hotel. This song underlines the tone of a film that works…
… is the title of a film made by Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova. It was on its way for several years and is now out and has raised strong controversy in the country of origin, Bulgaria. But I have…
For the seventh time the Documentarist festival is running in Istanbul – until June 12 – under the leadership of, among others, director Emel Çelebi. There is a Turkish Panorama, a focus on Syria, a tribute to Johan van der…
I have posted several texts on Ukraine and the brave filmmakers there. Here is one more after contact with Dar’ya Averchenko and Roman Bondarchuk. The two of them have taken part in the admirable work “Euromaidan. Rough Cut”, which is…
It was quite moving to be an observer outside the Aribau Club on the closing night of the DocsBarcelona festival. Syrian refugees lined up to hug the director Talal Derki, who got the main award for his ”Return to Homs”.…
Festive closure of DocsBarcelona 2014. The film ”Five Days to Dance” by Rafa Molés and Pepe Andreu were shown to a full house. The film that was pitched at the festival 2013 describes how two dancers are able to get…
Sunday morning in Barcelona, last day of the festival, awards to be given tonight. Walked home to hotel from the Aribau Club Cinema around 1am after quite a long festival evening. Accompanied by Irina Shatilova, whose film ”Linar” had been…
Looong, well deserved applause to Talal Derki last night when ”Return to Homs” was shown at CCCB. The director, who is now living in Turkey and Berlin – all his family is out of Syria – talked with the audience…
Wednesday night, full house in the Aribau Club cinema, where Israeli Shirly Berkovitz (photo) showed her amazing ”The Good Son” and told the audience how the film took off: A young man contacts her with some video tapes that he…
Colombian director Juan Pablo Rios was the first of three filmmakers coming for the rough cut sessions of DocsBarcelona 2014. The concept of the sessions is very simple: the filmmaker turns up with his work at a rough cut stage,…
I am in Barcelona. The DocsBarcelona festival and its associated activities for professionals start today. I am in the Pulitzer Hotel next to Plaza de Catalunya, nice room with a look to a street wall covered by a photo of…
The Czech production company Film&Sociology was so kind to send me a vimeo link so I could watch Janek’s film on Olga Havlova, which I had read about passionately because of ”Citizen Havel”, where she is very much present with…
The website synopsis is precise so I quote that: “Every day in Finland alone, two people commit suicide. Thousands of people are affected by suicide yearly. Once I Dreamt of Life is a feature length documentary film about suicide —…
At DocsBarcelona 2013 Michael Glawogger asked me if I could write a piece on ”Megacities” and the remix of it done by Timo Novotny, ”Life in Loops”. Compare the two, he said, and he gave me the dvd’s of the…