Magnificent7 Diary/ 2
The morning after the opening of the 10th edition of Magnificent 7 Festival in Belgrade. The sky is clear but the wind outside is close to become a hurricane. A constant sound of wind enters the hotel room and is…
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 MoreMagnificent7 Diary/ 2
Mahdi Fleifel: A World not Ours
The Magnificent 7 directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic write about the film: From the moment of it’s appearance, this film and it’s young author received great accolades: a world premiere at the Berlinale, top prizes at leading cinema festivals including…
Magnificent7 Diary/ 1
The festival in Belgrade opens tonight. I dare write that the hall will look very much like the photo that accompanies this text: hundreds, maybe a thousand spectators, for the opening film ”Leviathan” that the festival directors write about below,…
Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor: Leviathan
Directors of Maginificent 7, Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, write about the film that opens the festival tonight: The first great cinematic hit of a new visual era which is taking over the world. Something you have not seen before! A…
The Siege of Leningrad
On 27th January 2014 it was 70 years ago that the catastrophic and tragic siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) was lifted. I wanted to watch again the much acclaimed ”Blockade” by Sergei Loznitsa. Deckert Distribution was so kind to…
Talal Derki: Return to Homs/ 2
… while diplomats and politicians talk about Syria these days in Geneva, mentioning Homs in every sentence, news came today about the excellent film “Return to Homs”: It was Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the…
Magnificent7 Festival Belgrade
The Magnificent7 festival starts thursday the 30th of January in Belgrade. Opening film is “Leviathan” (photo). From thursday and the following seven days a report will be posted from the festival as well as a presentation review by festival directors…
New Danish Screen – 10 Years Celebration
The Danish Film Institute publishes regularly – in English – its magazine Film. A printed issue is always available in connection with the big festivals in Berlin, Cannes and Amsterdam (idfa), and on top of that you can find digital…
The Swedish Guldbaggen 2014
Guldbaggen (The Golden Beetle), the yearly Swedish cinema award ceremony, took place yesterday and again documentaries played an important role – as last year where two films stood out: Palme by Kristina Lindström and Maud Nycander and Searching for Sugarman…
The Documentary Oscar Goes Political/ 3
The nominations have been done. At least three of the films deal with current political conflicts (these ones): “The Act of Killing”, Cutie and the Boxer, The Square, Dirty Wars and 20 Feet from Stardom compete for the Best Documentary…
Jehane Noujaim: The Square
I watched this film online (on the fine festivalscope, link below, subscription-based) after it had been announced as one of the five nominees for the Oscar award in the feature documentary category. The film has this synopsis description on the…
Richard Rowley: Dirty Wars
I watched this film online (on the excellent idfa “docs for sale”) today after it had been announced as one of the nominees for the Oscar award in the feature documentary category. The film has this synopsis description on the…
Zachary Heinzerling: Cutie and the Boxer
I watched this film online (on the excellent idfa “docs for sale”) today after it had been announced as one of the nominees for the Oscar award in the feature documentary category. The film that runs theatrically in the US…
The Documentary Oscar Goes Political/ 2
Yes, it does, ”goes political”, it is to be said after the nomination has been done. At least three of the films deal with current political conflicts (these ones). My source – Realscreen news, this came into my mail box…
Dheeraj Akolkar: Liv & Ingmar
Liv Ullmann is a true film star and one of those, who can catch your attention, when she performs ”outside” the films in interviews. Her autobiographical book ”Changing” (1977) is highly praised among others by legendary American critic Roger Ebert…
Merin and Fraser on "The Act of Killing"
Jennifer Merin, American film journalist and critic, has again and again written against “The Act of Killing”, some days ago when it was awarded 2 big prizes at the Cinema Eye Honors. Merin is not the only one, BBC Storyville…
Dimitris Koutsiabasakos: The Grocer
They are bent, they have crooked legs, they live in the Pindos mountains up NorthWest in Greece, far away from everything. Most of these old people have passed their lives here for decades. And for decades Nikos Anastasiou, his wife…
Footballkommentaren: Barca
Loyal readers will know that football is of great interest to one of the editors of this filmkommentaren.dk – the one to the left on the photo together with another enthusiast, Zoran Popovic from Belgrade, who with his wife Svetlana…
Cinema Eye Awards 2014/ The Oscars
No objections at all to the fact that the most important Cinema Eye Awards 2014 went to “The Act of Killing” by Joshua Oppenheimer and “Stories We Tell “ by Sarah Polley. The latter for “Outstanding Achievement in Direction”, “The…
Peter Zach: Böhmische Dörfer
Here is one more proof that old people (like children) are good for documentaries. This is what I experienced watching this sympathetic, informative documentary that plays with the expression ”böhmische dörfer” – English title is ”Bohemian is all Greek to…
Rithy Panh: The Missing Picture
Co-editor of filmkommentaren.dk Allan Berg did not like the still picture that I had picked for the article on the Oscar race for documentaries. I am sure it is because he has not seen this amazingly strong hybrid documentary that…
Louisiana: DOX
Louisiana, the Museum of Modern Art, a wonderful place at the Øresund, the strait between the Northern part of Zealand and Southern Sweden, one hour by train from Copenhagen, there are always interesting exhibitions, it is a place for relaxing…
The Documentary Oscar Goes Political
15 films have been shortlisted for the feature length documentary Academy Award. 5 of them will be nominated for the final round by January 16th. In other words – in a couple of weeks it will be decided which 5…
Copenhagen Jewish Film Festival
There is a good climate for documentaries in Israel. Broadcasters invest more in the genre than you experience in Western Europe, there is public funding and private funds, there are film schools, the festival DocAviv and the unique CoPro, headed…
2013 – Best Of & Talents
All right, here it comes, on the last day of 2013, from filmkommentaren’s travelling observer of the documentary worldwide. The film lists below are based on screenings at festivals, in cinemas or online via vod’s, or via dvd’s. These are…
2013 – Best Documentaries
Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verana Paravel: Leviathan. USA, 2012, 87 mins. Claude Lanzmann: The Last of the Unjust. France, 2013, 220 mins. (photo) Talal Derki: Return to Homs. Syria, Germany, 2013, 87 mins. Rithy Panh: The Missing Picture. France, 2013, 85…
2013 – Talents
Youlian Tabakov: Tzvetanka. Bulgaria/Sweden, 2012, 66 mins. Aneta Kopacz: Joanna. Poland, 2013, 45 mins. Andreas Johnsen: Ai Wei Wei – The Fake Case. Denmark, 2013, 79 mins. Juan Alvarez Neme: Avant. Uruguay, 2014, around 75 mins. Daria Khlestkina: The Last…
Slovak Documentary Masters Online
… for the first time. This is how the vod DocAlliance presents its christmas present to us viewers. It is quite a generous offer that comes up in collaboration with the Slovak Film Institute that celebrates its 50th anniversary. If…
Wojciech Staron in New York
“It has a story, a point of view, a humanistic approach and a director, who is also the cameraman and who has the skills to catch magical moments as they happen in life. A decade ago the director made ”Siberian…
Ukraine Euromaidan
“There is a choice”, was the slogan expressed in connection with the DocuDays UA festival in Kiev in March 2013. I was there as member of the jury and enjoyed a very professional and committed reception from the filmmakers behind…
Sara Ishaq: The Mulberry House
It is such a good beginning of the film. A family gathered around food, eating, discussing, among other matters the usual one, you think, about man/woman, boy/girl in a society with pretty conservative traditions, seen from our part of the…
DIFF
Dubai International Film Festival is running right now. It has several documentary sections in its extensive programme even if it indeed is red-carpet festival for feature films with hommage(s) to stars of the cinema world, this year Martin Sheen (Apocalypse…
Bang & Sundstrøm: Angrebet på Shellhuset
Først tænker du, jamen det har vi jo hørt om igen og igen. Så begynder du at se filmen, som er fortalt i et klassisk dokumentarisk sprog, som du kender ud og ind fra historiske film: sort/hvid arkivmateriale, interviews med…
Jeddah Doc Workshop /1
If you want to know who I really am, go to facebook… was the comment from one of the participating filmmakers at the workshop for Saudi filmmakers in Jeddah. It was on the second and last day we spent together…
Jeddah Doc Workshop /2
Yes, ”we were blown away” as Kirsten Johnson, American filmmaker and tutor at the workshop, said on the second day, where several of the young visual reporters and artists, who took part in the workshop, presented their projects of online…
Jon Bang Carlsen: I Kærlighedens Navn
This is a Danish language review of the new film by Danish director Jon Bang Carlsen, whose work has been written about on filmkommentaren several times. ”Just the Right Amount of Violence” is a multi-layered, personal documentary in the hybrid…
The Oscar Shortlist Announced
So now the list is down to 15 films that compete for the nomination of the Oscar. Several online sources have published it, the guessing about the winner has started. The 3 films Filmkommentaren has reviewed, we have put first…
Idfa 2013/ awards/ 2
So, see below, the juries have made their choices at the idfa 2013 edition. In most of the sections nominations had been made in beforehand with 3 films competing. It is a good rule as it means something for a…
idfa 2013/ Awards
The English version of the idfa press release arrived this morning: Michael Obert won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (€ 12,500) for Song from the Forest. The film focuses on American Louis Sarno, who has lived for…
The Syrian Revolution/ 19
I heard about it when at the idfa festival from Dox Box Guevara Namer, herself an excellent photographer, and now I read about it and want to share it with you: Lebanese The Daily Star brings an important article under…
Idfa 2013 /2
… the headline could also have been ”3 Days at idfa”, with the subtitle ”personal small talk”, so now you are warned about this piece, written at Schiphol airport waiting for the SAS 548 to take me home to Copenhagen.…
Talal Derki: Return to Homs
I met Talal Derki at a workshop in Athens a couple of years ago. He showed me some footage with Basset, the young revolutionary leader – and talented football goalkeeper – from Homs, fighting Bashar and his gang. What I…
Peter Wintonick and DOX 100
The news about the death of Peter Wintonick (see below) (photo) made me sit down with DOX 100 that was in the mailbox the day before. The issue is built up as conversation pieces between documentarians who talk professional matters…
Peter Wintonick
Peter Wintonick has died. FB pages, newspapers and websites are full of warm words and sadness from the documentary community. My former colleagues at EDN wrote these fine words: It is with great sorrow that we, at EDN, have received…
Claude Lanzmann: The Last of the Unjust
The film of Lanzmann is extraordinary in all aspects: The story about how the film was made and why it did not come out before now has been dealt with in numerous interviews with the author, journalist and film director…
CPH:DOX 2013 /Awards
We got this press release from Copenhagen. CPH:DOX is still running today and tomorrow, and due to a huge audience interest, the festival adds a couple of days of screenings. But awards have been distributed: On Friday, November 15th, CPH:DOX…
Håvard Bustnes: Shirley og Hinda
… English title: Two Raging Grannies. It’s easy for this reviewer to identify with Shirley (born 1923) and Hinda (1929) in their search for an answer to why we always must believe in economic growth as the answer to the…
CPH:DOX 2013 /6
Richard Misek’s film ”Rohmer in Paris” will be screened at CPH:DOX November 14th and 16th. At a certain point while watching this film I considered to call it ”Murder on Rohmer”… as the director has no reference to what was…
CPH:DOX 2013 /5
Karen Stokkendal Poulsen’s film The Agreement will be shown at CPH:DOX on the 11th, the 13th and the 17th of November. EU chief negotiator Robert Cooper (photo) is the main character of a film that follows the negociations between Kosovo, delegation…
CPH:DOX 2013 /1
The festival in Copenhagen has started. For Copenhageners it started a long time ago with prologue events, the programme newspaper in cafés, banners and posters in the streets… the organisers are masters of marketing… but now the festival programme runs…