A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
… 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
… 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…