A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
The film magazine realscreen writes today in its newsletter: The International Documentary Association (IDA) and the Sundance and Tribeca Film Institutes are among nearly 30 organizations and festivals calling for the release of missing Syrian filmmaker and festival director Owra…
It is the third day of the Baltic Sea Forum 2012. A workshop goes on during the day, where 24 projects are being evaluated, trailers and teasers are being adjusted, wordings discussed – in order to have the filmmakers be…
Under overskriften ”Ingen livstegn fra syrisk dokumentarist” har dagbladet Information, ved journalist Rasmus Bo Sørensen, som de første i dansk presse, skrevet om Orwa Nyrabia, som ingen har hørt fra siden 23. August, hvor han forsvandt i Damaskus lufthavn på…
Big names are of course important, the French have commented, here is what Martin Scorsese says: “I was alarmed by the news that the Syrian actor and producer Orwa Nyrabia has been arrested by the Syrian regime, held in an…
Respect for the French filmmakers, who – initiated by Nicolas Philibert – have launched a petition for Orwa Nyrabia: De Wes Anderson à Jet Li en passant par Elia Suleiman, la Société des réalisateurs de films (SRF) a lancé une…
For a documentary person, who normally sits in a cinema or in front of a tv/computer screen, when he watches – it is something special to visit an art exhibition that has its focus on a theme that is regularly…
Danish Dokumania, the Tuesday creative documentary tv slot of DR, broadcasts Asif Kapadia’s great archive based documentary tomorrow, August 28th. To be highly recommended. Here is a repeat of one of many previous texts about the film: In a report…
While waiting for further news about the detaining of Orwa Nyrabia, and while international media like al jazeera and France24, as well as documentary organisations and festivals like EDN, idfa and DOKLeipzig spread the news and concern – a facebook…
Shocking news! This text came in 5 hours ago from Diana el Jeiroudi, filmmaker, producer, co-founder of the Dox Box Film Festival in Damascus and partner of Orwa Nyrabia: “Syrian film producer Orwa Nyrabia disappeared this afternoon on on his…
Det er sjældent, at en films synopsis-tekst rammer plet. Som regel er den båret af ønsket om at sælge billetter og forfalder til superlative salgsklichéer. I dette tilfælde (fra DFI (Det danske Filminstitut) hjemmesiden) har jeg kun kunnet nikke genkendende.…
Det er mildest talt ikke hver dag at en tjekkisk/slovakisk dokumentar finder vej til en dansk biograf. Men her er én, takket være de brave folk fra Øst for Paradis og Gloria i Aarhus og København. Den har premiere i morgen,…
The Baltic Sea Forum in Riga – September 5-9 – includes several interesting film projects from the Baltic countries, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine plus some Western producers with themes relating to the East. The 16th edition of this classic forum that…
The Danish director behind ”The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” and ”My Playground” was praised by filmkommentaren last year through the words:”A multi-artist, an original talent, who also makes films… definitely a refreshing new talent in Danish documentary”. In his new…
Det er det med de skuffede forventninger… Jeg gik til pressevisning af ”Lej en familie A/S” af Kaspar Schröder i højt og positivt humør med erindringen om, hvordan han i april 2011 på en Dok-dag i Cinemateket havde bjergtaget mig…
The text about Docs for Education (see below) made Scottish filmmaker Nick Higgins draw attention to a Scottish initiative that could inspire filmmakers in other countries to do the same. Here are some text clips from the website: … This…
Icarus Films in New York has a strong, high quality catalogue, including several works by Chris Marker, who died end of July this year. This week the company pulished the good news that it has acquired North American distribution rights…
Every year late August the French documentarians go to Ardèche to discuss and to watch, and have a good time. This year (August 19-25) the seminars include themes like ”The Necessity of Criticism?” and how to ”build a Political point…
Israeli director and editor Erez Laufer gave me a link to his father’s film website, Docs for Education, an amazing initiative, in Nahum Laufer’s own words ”devoted to distributing high quality creative documentaries suitable for educational purposes”. For those of…
Pierre Bergé, the life long partner of Yves Saint-Laurent (1936-2008), is the one that tells the story about the artist and his troubled life as the fragile and modest designer, who – helped very much by Bergé’s organisational and financial…
Theodor. Han blev aldrig kaldt andet, manden der optræder i enhver dansk filmhistorisk fremstilling som den danske filmiske dokumentarismes store teoretiker, manden bag besættelsestidens mesterlige modstandsfilm ”Det gælder din frihed”. Theodor, som Cinemateket har kredset om ved et par lejligheder…
Se, hvad turisten ser, den navnløse by, strømmen, som bærer København og dens ry, de tusind cykelpi’er, et brus af nikkelstyr, sikke pi’er, tag og kys dem alle fra mig! – Poul Henningsen, Cykelsangen (1935) Jo, det er den herlige…
NY Times brought the most precise headline to an article about the films of Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger’s impressive work: A World of Troubled Beauty – referring to his trilogy ”Megacities”, ”Workingman’s Death” and ”Whore’s Glory”. The latter, ”Whore’s Glory”…
A great director, not very well known today, but for this film blogger his “Le Sang des betes” (1949, 22 mins.) from a slaughterhouse in the Parisian suburb, is a unique masterpiece in the history of documentary films. The film…
It already created problems at the premiere at the idfa (Amsterdam) festival in November last year, and now Danish newspapers reveal a new controversy around the Danish documentary “The Ambassador” by Mads Brügger, who appears in his film as the…
Five years ago Allan Berg called me to pitch an idea he had: Should we make a film blog where we could express opinions and spread information on our common passion: Films. Allan (who lives in Randers in Denmark, whereas…
Info to our film professional readers: The 16th edition of DocsBarcelona will take place May 28 – June 2. In other words, the event will be moved away from the freezingly cold weather in Barcelona in February 2012, where the…
The fine documentary festival in the capital of Portugal celebrates its 10th edition this year, October 18-28. There are changes in the direction, which is now a collective, and there are exciting novelties in the programme. Here is the press…
… yes, what does that stand for? The answer is Festival International du Film Insulaire, taking place on the island of Groix that lies in France in Brittany. From August 22 to 26 the 12th edition of this festival takes…
From a Syrian FB page accompanied by this text: Al Atareb Olympic Games 2012 Al Atrareb, Aleppo, Syria.
Chris Marker died today, filmkommentaren has written far too little about him, but here is a quote from the obituary of today in Guardian, please read the whole article and below also two links to what we have written about…
… will be revealed tomorrow, according to Realscreen, TIFF being Toronto International Film Festival, prestigious and like other big festivals (Berlin, Cannes and Venice) nowadays putting a good focus on documentaries, or as they call it in the trade magazine,…
A tour down memory lane. And can’t help it – It still brings a tear to the eye to watch Jean-Pierre Léaud run towards the sea, stop and look at us in the end scene of ”The 400 Blows”, the…
A newspaper page: ”American Zero. South African Hero”. The South Africans were right, Rodriguez, the musician the film is about, was/is a song writer and singer on the level of Bob Dylan, but he never made it in the U.S.,…
After the original, masterly done ”Life in Loops”, the remix of Michael Glawogger’s ”Megacities”, accompanied by music by the Sofa Surfers, Austrian Timo Novotny has gone underground to investigate the magic of the subways and metros of – again –…
The BFI (British Film Institute) has been running a retrospective (ends July 26) with films by Patricio Guzman, having ”Nostalgia for the Light” as the recent highlight of the Chilean master director. In an article to be read on the…
The film is made together with Freud’s biographer Willam Feaver, who voice-off introduces the method of the film up-front: We will go to the people he has portrayed to get an idea of who this genius artist is – the…
It started yesterday and runs until July 27. It is the fourth edition of DocMontevideo in the Uruguayan capital. And it has a very professional approach to why and how to reach a goal that is both regional and international.…
In the four years it has been in existence DocMontevideo has established a space in the continent for contacts and reflection using the information and communications media. Our mission is to contribute to constructing a market in Latin America that…
… and this one accompanies the photo below.
Let the photo talk for itself, this cover photo from the FB page of Orwa Nyrabia.
arte has declared “Summer of Rebels” and post-euro championship in Ukraine/Poland a 90 minutes long documentary is being broadcast on the German/French cultural channel and published on dvd. Eric Cantona, in his career himself quite a controversial, and brilliant, football…
Classic Italian town: Piazza Duomo, with the dome on the main square surrounded by cafés, meeting points for locals (only 3000 outside the season) and in July tourists like us, who enjoy the overwhelmingly bella vista to the Amalfi Coast.…
Filmkommentaren received this fresh and happy summer report from the Magnificent 7 team, Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, in Belgrade – after the open air screenings at the Belgrade Fortress, July 9-11: Dear Tue. We had three wonderful evenings with films…
The Centre for Production and Research of Documentary Film at University of Westminster, long name but good that it exists, writes the following on its website, address below: “We all have our favourite cinema magazines and academic journals, but for…
The festival in neighbouring country to Georgia, Armenia, started yesterday. This 9th Yerevan International Film Festival runs until July 15 and has a fine international documentary competitive section within its red carpet profile programme that has Agnieszka Holland and Alexander…
Young Georgy Molodtsov, participant at the first session of DocStories, film director graduated from VGIK 2008, took the floor on the last morning to – with great commitment and energy – introduce the work that is being done to promote…
There are often too many viewings, too many opinions which can make the directors confused trying to please everybody and thereby losing their own voice, said Menno Boerema, Dutch editor, at the first session of the DocStories Black Sea workshop…
During the first session of the doc storytelling workshop DocStories Black Sea presentations were made. One was – naturally – about the Georgian National Film Center, whose director Tamara Tatishvili (photo) came up with a very clear and encouraging status…
The first session of the new documentary storytelling workshop DocStories with around 20 participants from the countries surrounding the Black Sea is coming to an end in wonderful Tbilisi, Georgia. Films have been screened and discussed and analysed, and the…
On the 9th, 10th and 11th of July the Belgrade feature documentary film festival Magnificent7 organises a high quality programme of music documentary films. This is how it is announced on the website: ”“The Magnificent Seven” at BELEF is an…