A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Unfortunately and tragically, we have to return to Syria again. Orwa Nyrabia, filmmaker and co-director of the Damascus-based Dox Box Festival, that filmkommentaren.dk has reported from the very beginning of its existence, reports daily on facebook, several times, from his…
I don’t want talking faces, you often hear documentary filmmakers say. To be understood: it is boring television stuff. In this case, and in many other, of course, the talking faces, at least most of them, are interesting to look…
At a moment where European documentary film festivals are gathering documentarians and a local audience in big crowds to present huge numbers of film (DOK Leipzig, cph:dox, Jihlava, DocLisboa, idfa etc.) it is wonderful to see that other smaller, but…
Tonight the awards of the 54th DOK Leipzig festival were announced. A new record total of 74,500 euros (!) in prize money was granted to a total of 17 awards. The total prize list follows below. The three international competition…
In the train for Copenhagen after 5 days at the 54th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. I had my currywurst mit scharfe sauce a while ago and am ready for the train ride home via Hamburg. Gives…
Festival directors must have visions and points of view. DOK Leipzig festival director Claas Danielsen has. The following is taken from the press release of the festival after the opening of the festival: Claas Danielsen held a very personal speech,…
Please surprise me, give me time for reflections, to smile, laugh, cry, tell me something I did not know in beforehand – or show me something that I have not seen before, or make some unpredictable montage of location connections…
This is where our civilisation has brought us! Is my first thought after this heartbreaking documentation from a rich country in the middle of Europe, Switzerland. A documentary that without doubt will get award(s) at the DOK Leipzig. Deservedly. It…
Subtitle: ”Reda and her 3 daughters”, a very well told human story from the crowded Cairo, about women who earn their money as belly dancers in more or less obscure locations for entertainment, dominated by and set up for men.…
Above I write about films that impressed me mostly, but there were others that deserve mention for the good or for the bad. So here comes some name dropping. Finnish Anu Kuivalainen’s ”Aranda” about people and research on board the…
Obvious to make a series of films from the Arab countries – Arabien as the organisers called it, and it sounds much nicer in German. I saw a couple of them, ”Tahrir 2011”, ”I am in the Square” and ”No…
The industry part of DOK Leipzig introduced a session with three works in progress. I was asked to be one of the commentators of the first film to be presented, which was with Czech Helena Trestikova as the director, well-known…
It is impossible – with a short text – to introduce the programme of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. It is overwhelming to sit with the newspaper catalogue in your hands, putting small X’es for what you want to…
It is such a good idea: To travel to many different countries and take photos of bureaucrats. Dutch photographer Jan Banning did so together with colleague writer Will Tinnemans. Together they made a book – you can browse through it…
Ludmila Nazaruk, who runs the Russian documentary website www.miradox.ru informs filmkommentaren that text entries from our Doc Discussion have been translated into Russian. She writes: Nice and initiative filmmakers from Moscow – here is their blog in the live journal http://albatrossdoc.livejournal.com/78661.html translated…
A couple of months ago filmkommentaren posted three texts about the prestigious Japanese film festival (link 1, link 2, link 3). One text started like this: ”Facing reality, what is to be done?” is the headline of the introductory text of the…
It’s European doc festival time and documentarians like Koen Suidgeest (see below) will go to Leipzig in Germany, Jihlava in Czech Republic, DocLisboa in Portugal and idfa in Amsterdam – maybe asking themselves “what am I doing here” OR “great…
… a good question, put by Koen Suidgeest, who has been extremely busy in the promotion of his important humanistic documentary, “Karla’s Arrival”, that right now also is launched through a kickstarter campaign to collect money to get the film…
This international renowned film by Swiss Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov reaches Danish Television (DR/TV) on tuesday October 11 as part of the strand Dokumania and under the Danish title, ”Den russiske mor”. The film was at the Magnificent7 European…
From the press release of IDFA today: The 24th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) will open on November 16 in Pathé Tuschinski with The Ambassador by Danish filmmaker and journalist Mads Brügger Cortzen. In this documentary, Brügger Cortzen exposes…
Filmkommentaren was invited to look at the new feature length documentary by Danish Mads Brügger (selected for the upcoming idfa festival competition in Amsterdam) and watched the film together with students at the documentary film school Zelig in Bolzano, Italy.…
This is unfortunately another text from the never ending news story to be brought from Syria. This time about a dear colleague from the team of the Dox Box festival. The text below is copy-pasted from the facebook, where his…
The small film festival with the fine programme of international documentaries ends today sunday October 2. The awards for the Baltic Documentary Competition were given out last night. 12 films were in the programme, three received awards – diplomas and…
After the award ceremony of the 8th Vilnius Documentary Film Festival , a new Lithuanian documentary had its premiere in Vilnius. ”The Field of Magic” has been on its way for years and premieres in a version that is full…
They know how to remember and honour their artists in Lithuania, including the documentary filmmakers, I was reminded again today at the Vilnius Documentary Film Festival. Talking to directors Giedre Beinoriute and Audrius Stonys, they told me that a film…
Sunny and peaceful Vilnius hosts for the 8th time a documentary festival, full of fine international documentaries, as well as a competitive Baltic section with 12 films. I am here for the latter to be a juror together with filmmaker…
It was the fifth edition of DOC Meeting Argentina that took place this last week. A workshop for pitch preparation of 24 projects was arranged September 19-21, the pitching forum took place the two following days, September 22 & 23,…
In the ”conferencias”, three broadcasters in a row: History Channel Latin America, ORF Austria, ZDF Three different profiles. And three different ways of presentation. Miguel Brailovsky from History Channel Latin America used power point as the presentation tool, when he…
Stories, stories, stories… a pitching forum like this in Argentina is in a way one long learning process for someone from the North, who has some, but still a pretty limited knowledge about Latin American history, art and culture, religion,…
The most applauded film projects were connected to blindness. The young director Argimiro Wanadi Siso Saldivia (what a name!) from Venezuela presented ”The Labyrinth of the Possible”, which seems to become a strong documentary about the charismatic Sonia Soberats, a…
A film festival is threatened, Punto de Vista in Spain, an important fest for the artistic documentary. A petition has been established, see below. And here are some texts taken from the website of the prestigious festival: The International Documentary…
Press release from DOK Leipzig: In its focus on the Arab world, DOK Leipzig features films from Tunisia and Egypt. The upheaval in the Arab world is far from over, yet the 54th DOK Leipzig will be presenting the first…
Lithuanian producer Dagne Vildziunaite writes after the Baltic Sea Forum in Riga – a perfect follow-up to the doc-discussion on this site: I usually say it was nice to meet you again. But this time I want to say a…
Facebook is a very important tool for us to achieve information about what happens in Syria. Filmmaking friends are bloggers, who constantly convey the hard facts about the daily atrocities – while other media give space for analyses connected to…
So, no more pitching sessions, the young distributor said to me during the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries in Riga? She had followed the Doc Discussion on this blog, and had read the many skeptical texts from filmmakers, who saw…
It was the 15th edition of the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries that ended in Riga yesterday with the presentation of a new project by Herz Frank, ”Without Fear”, to be co-directed by the master himself and Maria Kravchenko, with…
Mikael Opstrup writes: Dear Louise, Thanks a lot for your thoughts on the future for documentary. I think you are pointing out the right issues, I will try to address a few of them. For me this debate started with…
Louise Rosen, who started this Doc Discussion writes: Dear Mikael (Opstrup), Reading the posts is uncomfortable – the humiliation and frustration of the filmmakers, the sense from the CEs/funders of being overwhelmed and likewise frustrated. I feel both sets of…
Charlie Phillips writes: Tue has kindly given us an opportunity to respond to some critical comments about Sheffield Doc/Fest in the last few months on his blog. We think this blog is brilliant, especially with the recent discussions over the…
Documentary filmmakers from the Baltic countries, Russia, Poland, Norway and Sweden gather this week in Riga, Latvia. For the 15th time the Forum, that started on the Danish island of Bornholm, organises a meeting between those who have ideas for…
A film about an ordinary couple, Aleksay and Valya, it could be a story from everywhere… she sits at home in the house far away from big cities, she knits and sews and waits for the husband to call and…
This is a review in Danish language of a new documentary made by Anne Wivel, acclaimed veteran in Danish documentary. For years she followed her husband, politician Svend Auken in his work in- and outside Denmark. Auken, a strongly committed…
Comments on the Doc Discussion have been posted on facebook as well. They take different directions. Producers Marie Olesen, Scotland and Sinisa Juricic, Croatia characterise the pitching as “a fool’s game” and “a showcase of big ego’s from the other…
Iikka Vehkalahti writes: Dear Tue and others. I am delighted, that Louise and Mikael took the cat on the table (or how do you say in it real English?). Anyway, now after one month out from the position of a…
Doug Aubrey writes: Hi Tue, here are some personal comments that I would like to share with you… I’m glad to see that some of the more – shall we call them – mature protagonists are addressing the issue of…
Philippe Van Meerbeeck writes: Dear friends, My heart bleeds when I read your lines. They talk about a past that will not come back. ‘Television is dead but doesn’t know it’: when I said this in 2005 to a room…
Jorge Yetano writes: I was reading the posts from Louise Rosen and Mikael Opstrup, and I must say, I have been reflecting on the subject myself for some time now, like most of us, just trying to guess which way…
If you surf around on websites announcing workshops and pitching fora you might very easily get the impression that everything is fine with documentary financing and coproductions between the countries. It is not, and it should be discussed. This is…
Louise Rosen writes: Dear Tue and Mikael It was a pleasure working with you again at Storydoc this year. Wonderful that we had a really diverse representation from all over the southern Mediterranean and could spend a day on the…
A profile photo was changed on facebook…