A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
I have never heard about Kalmykia before. Have you? I checked it: An autonomous republic it is, member of the SNG, close friends to Russia with ONE leader, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who himself was a chess champion and wants to turn…
If you think you have read about films by Mirkovic from Serbia before, you are right! He has developed a special touch in documentary filmmaking and he chooses subjects that appeal not only to a local audience but also internationally…
It is a very rich film that Czech director and journalist Kudrna has made from post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. From the gold mine Kumtor, co-owned by a Canadian company. The creative documentary elements are obvious. Cinematography is stunning – there is a…
The Danish Cinemateket, that is part of the Danish Film Institute, and works from the Film House in the centre of Copenhagen, shows many documentaries (at one or two screenings) in their fine monthly programme. Recently, Cinemateket, the festival cph:dox…
The importance of the EU MEDIA Programme for the creative documentary can not be underestimated. Since 1990 the countries, who are members of the EU (plus now also countries like Norway, Switzerland and Croatia), have been able to achieve funding…
Documentarians meet in Riga at the beginning of September. The Baltic Sea Forum includes a meeting for professionals – film projects will be presented to broadcasters, mostly by filmmakers from the region. But the Forum – organised by National Film…
The tenth edition of the festival “Flahertiana” takes place in Perm, Russia October 14-20. The selection for the competition programme (including of course several “Nanook” prizes) has been announced, and it is a pleasure to see a list of films…
Herzog is – mostly due to this blog’s Allan Berg – a true admirer of the work of the German director – one of the most noticed and praised names of this site. If you write his name in the…
The International Documentary Competition jury at Dokufest in Prizren, Kosovo, composed of Pamela Cohn (USA), Sonja Henrici (Scotland), AJ Schnack (USA), Adriatik Kelmendi (Kosovo) and Doug Block (USA) awarded the Italian film La Bocca Del Lupo (The Mouth of Wolf)…
The International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Prizren, Kosovo ended two days ago with an award ceremony – The Balkan Documentary Competition Award went to Romanian film The World According to Ion B. (photo) by Alexander Nanau. The jury…
The Toronto International Film Festival (September 9-19) is first of all known for its high quality feature film programme focusing on originality and innovation but due to the renaissance of the creative documentary, the festival now also treats that genre…
This is a special announcement for our Danish and Swedish readers concerning the broadcast of the film by PeÅ Holmquist, ”My Gaza” August 8 at SVT2 22.05. In other words, this coming sunday, with Danish subtitles for Danish viewers. For…
One year ago the humourous ”Disco and Atomic War” by Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma, a mix of archive material and reenactments, charmed the audience at the Baltic Sea Forum due to its originality and the story about what it…
The French CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image Animée) has published a study on the market for documentaries in France. According to the French Media Desk and their weekly newsletter no. 194 (newsletter@mediafrance.eu) the study concerns the creative…
Stories from Life. Stories brought to the screen by Finnish men. Stories mostly told in saunas where the men are naked. To be naked can also be a metaphor for being vulnerable. Which is exactly what the men are in…
… the subtitle being ”city veins”. I wrote about it in June and promised to come back with a review when the film was finished. Which is now. Angelo, Roky, Frida, Reno, Darius, Gerardo, Jasmina… names of people, who have…
A street is Athens is the stage for this warm and very well made documentary. The director has come there for years, and again this confirms the simple sentence: Time is quality. If you are a good filmmaker, know your…
Italian Pippa Bacca, peace activist dressed in a wedding gown, decided to travel to Jerusalem. By hitchhiking. She did not make it. In Turkey she was raped and killed. Bingöl Elmas, Turkish filmmaker, decided to finish the travel of Pippa,…
Russian countryside village and a family. Mother and father and 4 children. We have seen it many times before, and we will see it again. With pleasure. You smile, you think ”how the hell can they survive under these poor…
During the Message2Man International Film Festival (se below) I had the pleasure to run a small doxpro workshop for around 10 young and younger Russian filmmakers. Through three hot mornings (July 17-19) the group discussed four projects that had been…
Two festivals are coming up in Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo: 1) The 16th Sarajevo Film Festival runs from July 23 through July 31, 2010, with eighteen mid-length and feature documentaries from the Balkans, Turkey, Cyprus and Austria competing in the…
An almost two year old boy running around observing what goes on. And touching the Golden Centaur statuettes lined up to be given to the winners. A conferencier shouting Russian words into the microphone trying to make a festive atmosphere.…
The 20th edition of the St. Petersburg International Film Festival ended with an award ceremony yesterday night in the Dom Kino. There were a large number of prizes to be given, I will limit this posting to include those in…
The Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan in Armenia (July 11-18) ended as a triumph for Russian director Pavel Kostomarov, whose fine film ”Together” (reviewed on this site) got the first prize, the Golden Apricot, for the Best Documentary Film…
The international competition included yesterday the film ”17th of August” by Alexander Gutman, reviewed and commented several times in this site. Here is a reprint of the review: This fine Russian director has, apart from the masterpiece ”Frescoes” from Armenia,…
… but there has been time to visit the Hermitage museum and fight one’s way to study the great collection of Rembrandt works (oh, documentarians, go and study how he caught the magical moments when he did his portraits) and…
Don’t say that films are not being made… the selection committee of the festival watched 2853 films from 83 countries. 73 were selected for the international competition (documentaries, animation, short fiction) and 24 for the National Documentary Competition, ”Gateway to…
Mikhail Litvyakov is the director of the festival in beautiful St. Petersburg. He has passed the seven decades of age but there was no sign of lack of energy when he was on stage to welcome guests and audience in…
Young Palestinian filmmaker Nagham Mohanna, who took part in the mediterranean/middle east documentary training program Storydoc (see below) sends this report on her journey back to her home via Egypt. I have made some small edits and language corrections: Hello…
The Danish documentary “Armadillo”, directed by Janus Metz and filmed by Lars Skree, about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan has been running in Danish cinemas for 6 weeks. More than 100.000 tickets have been sold, and the film is still running.…
What a wonderful and well deserved piece of news. The Best Documentary film (category: under 30 mins.) at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was yesterday given to the Lithuanian documentary ”The River” by Lithuanian filmmaking duo Julija Gruodienė and…
The World Cup final on Sunday with Holland and Spain has English Howard Webb as the referee. For doc-foot addicts he is a very well known person as the main character in the brilliant insight to the world of referees…
Storydoc is an EU supported training programme ”for filmmakers with Mediterranean projects”. The first 2010 session took place July 5-7 in Corfu, where these words are being written the day after a workshop that was full of heat outside and…
UK based Saeed Taji Farouky came to the workshop with his story about ”The Runner” (photo), the activist athletic who wants, through the running, to raise awareness about the non-recognition of his country Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco. Salah Ameidan…
There were three inspirational lectures at the workshop in Corfu. Louise Rosen, American (from her cv) ”media executive in the international television and film business, project development, production and distribution”, talked precisely and inviting about meeting the audience and urged…
The festival in Budapest ended with the main award being given to Peter Kerekes for his excellent ”Cooking History”, reviewed and mentioned on this site several times. The jury consisted of Bojána Papp director (Hungary), Adina Bradeanu director and film…
The yearly documentary gathering in Bardonecchia in Northern Italy starts this coming wednesday. Bardonecchia is a small winter sport resort that has a fine cultural centre that is used for documentary film screenings, case studies, a so-called matchmaking where directors…
Merete Borkers nye film er professionelt lavet, den har en hensigt, er lavet for at blive brugt, må være glimrende i undervisnings-sammenhænge, pigerne er søde og naturlige og repræsenterer forskellige synspunkter og levemåder. Der er et godt flow i filmen,…
This film is in production. The filmmakers are from the Basque country and were the ones behind the beautiful music documentary Nomadak reviewed on this site. I know Igor Otxoa who fights for his projects and does it with charm…
The director and cinematographer Klara Trencsenyi and her husband, anthropologist Vlada Naumescu made the beautiful documentary Birds Way that was reviewed on this site some months ago. In the review I used the words ”hospitality and openness” and they could…
… is taking place right now in Budapest, last day today for a programme of ”European Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival”. Festival director is Zoltan Füredi, a film director himself, I met him years ago where he was working on…
… takes place July 2-10 and has a fine short trailer with Milos Forman. Take a look at the site below. The festival has through the last years paid more attention to documentaries and this year 16 titles have made…
Italian director Paolo Campana has for years developed a film project on ”vinylmania”, i.e. on people who are addicted to the wonderful old records that many of us still have on shelves in our homes without using them in this…
On this site we have written about Mazia Bahari several times. For readers who have not seen his films here is a unique chance to get to know his work. Idfa, the world’s biggest documentary festival has published this press…
He was Ulysses and Zorbas, a traveller of the world and a man who enjoyed Life. This is the way, a Greek summarizes the legendary Ferenc Puskas in this entertaining and informative documentary about him. And the Greek loved him…
Subtitle: In Search of a Budapest Girl… Take a look at the photo and read this text presentation of the film taken from the IDF website, address below: “The November 10th, issue of Paris Match in 1956 featured a report…
They launch it as “From Yamagata through IDFA to Oscar”, the documentary section of the 32th Moscow International Film. They are Russian documentary director Sergey Miroshnichenko and producer Grigory Libergal. The two competent people make the selection for the fifth…
The DocWeek 2010, see below, organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute, hosted a one day pitch event that included 11 documentary projects, presented by American, UK, Chinese, Irish and Spanish filmmakers. In the panel to react to the pitches were…
It takes place at the same time as the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute that ”run annual programmes which develop filmmakers and producers such as Bridging the Gap (previously written about on this…
This photo was sent to me two hours before World Cup in football kick-off in South Africa. By Don Edkins, producer and distributor and promoter of documentary films in Southern Africa, and a dear guest of all important film events.…