A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Mauritania, Nouadhibou, a place at the coast, a place from where Africans want to go to the promised land, Europe, and from where many boats are leaving and have left, with people on board… with many tragic drowning events as…
This fine Russian director has, apart from the masterpiece ”Frescoes” from Georgia, made a couple of very strong documentaries shot in prisons, ”Three Days and Never Again” and ”Blatnoi Mir” (directed by Finnish Jouni Hiltunen, Gutman was production manager), and…
Well, no need for a review, the film has already been on the market for a long time, discussed and created debate, it is funny, it is a modern satirical, political film, it raises questions like Michael Moore does, you…
It is actually ”a dirty business” to be interpreted in different ways: the use of chemicals in the flower farms and the consequent pollution of the Kenyan Lake Naivasha, and the abuse of people living there who have no labour…
… is the obvious and banal slogan for a professional meeting in Trento, Italy that starts today and goes on in the coming three days. Buyers, tv commissioning editors, festival people, film fund representatives and some critics from around the…
It is not everyday you see such an interesting thoughtprovoking text about film as the one I saw when visiting the site of Christopher Pavsek, that accompanies his film: To Those Born After (idfa 2005) I firmly believe that film…
An interesting compilation of films has been advertised for the coming idfa: Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan (Haifa, 1964) will compile this year’s Top 10 for the 22nd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Major themes in his Top 10 include how…
On this site the development in the critical situation around the survival of the National Film Centre in Latvia has been followed closely. And it seems like the independence of the Film Centre is saved. I wrote an email to…
Swedish director Fredrik Gertten fights back against Dole… the case that we have written about earlier on this site – go to “search” and write bananas to get the background Here comes today’s: From the press release: LOS ANGELES, Calif.…
A house in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe a house in the centre of the universe. A couple lives there. They are artists, they do paintings and wooden sculptures. The sculptures have their own home in the house, a…
I read on miradox.ru that Herz Frank is going to head the jury of the upcoming Russian festival Flahertiana (October 15-22), previously texted about on this site. Sitting in an airport thoughts go back to the many times I have…
I had never heard about him before, Alvis Hermanis, even if the Latvian film team Inese Boka and Gints Grube wrote in their file that he was famous all over Europe. They did so when we met at Ex Oriente…
… so who were they, the people at the table who were supportive and constructively critical, well simply wanted to help and in many cases asked for meetings and to be kept updated on the development of the projects. If…
As a member of the organisational staff it is indeed the ambition to promote new people, talents, up-coming documentarians with good subjects and original treatments and an ambition to make them into documentaries that are creative and surprising. Please. And…
I can’t mention all projects that were pitched at the Baltic Sea Forum, and there is not enough space to highlight the many that did receive very positive feedback, but I will write about a couple – see above –…
It’s over, the 13th session of the Baltic Sea Forum, that started on the island of Bornholm in Denmark and now has its permanent place in Riga. It is very efficiently organised by the National Film Centre of Latvia that…
”The making of the documentary film Blood In the Mobile and the campaign and website bloodinthemobile.org is addressing the issue of illegal mining in Eastern Congo: Congolese children from the age of 5 to 15 are staying up to 72…
I am in Riga for the Baltic Sea Forum (BSF) for new documentary projects to be pitched this coming weekend. The BSF, however, includes a hig quality film programme for the general public at the Cinema K. Suns in Riga.…
This clip from an article in Realscreen makes you think… is he right or wrong: “Filmmaker John Greyson is taking his boycott of Israel to the Toronto International Film Festival. Greyson, who withdrew his film Fig Trees (photo) from the…
It is one of those films where you wonder if this is going to be private OR personal = something that would have been better to keep in the family circle OR a film with a universal appeal. The latter…
The award, named after the documentary film pioneer Jørgen Roos, was established in 1995 for the purpose of rewarding outstanding efforts in Danish documentary filmmaking – went this year to director Anders Østergaard and producer Lise Lense-Møller, the duo behind…
Dear Sergey. Around 10 years ago you were in Copenhagen to present your film school diploma work, ”Paradise”. You declared yourself as a dedicated documentarian, and you proved to be one of the best with the films that followed: ”Bread…
2nd message to the lucky Copenhageners about a film offer – presented in Danish: Så kom der endelig en lejlighed til at glæde læserne med et foto af Juliette Binoche, den fremragende franske skuespiller, hvis evner kan nydes i 11…
1st message to the lucky Copenhageners about a film offer – presented in Danish: Så er det sæson for MandagsDokumentar. Utrættelige Ebbe Preisler inviterer som sædvanlig og han insisterer vanen tro på at det er en god idé at filmskaberne…
My colleague, Allan Berg, has posted two texts in Danish about the new film by Karin Westerlund, Swedish visual artist and filmmaker, based in Denmark and Cairo, Egypt. I saw the film yesterday, it is as Allan Berg writes, quite…
What an achievement! I don’t recall, when was the last time that I witnessed so captivating a historical documentary, here told by Czech Jewish survivors of the holocaust. They were interviewed between 2000-2006 by Lukas Pribyl, the researcher, writer and…
I had an email contact with the director of ”Forgotten Transports”, Lukas Pribyl. Here follows some quotes from his side – and please do also go to the very good site of the film: How did you make the people…
It is a high quality film programme that the organisers of the coming Baltic Sea Forum offers its local Riga audience and the visiting filmmakers and tv editors. Under the title ”Revolution starts at Home” (and from September 2-6) you…
The national Danish film festival in Odense is over. Under the competent leadership of Cecilia Lidin a big competitive international programme of short fiction films supplemented the competition of new Danish short films and documentaries. The Grand Prix for the…
What a pleasant surprise and a well deserved prize from the Sarajevo Film Festival audience – to nominate ”Sevdah” by Marina Andree as the best film of the festival. I have previously introduced the film, that had its premiere in…
Here is a follow-up to the text about joiningthedocs, quite interesting and if I get it right, you don’t have to travel to Sheffield (which by the way could be quite nice!) to watch a selection of the films in…
142 Iranian filmmakers have issued a boycott of the 2009 edition of the (Iranian) Cinema Vérité International Documentary Film Festival, that is scheduled for October 2009. The Iranian filmmakers express that in the current situation of the country, there are…
A worldwide community of documentary professionals it is, the D-word that announces that by September 3 it has existed for 10 years. As a place for documentary people from all over the world to talk to each other, as colleagues…
The Beetz Brothers … sounds like a film title but is the name of a very active independent production company in Germany, which I would like to draw your attention to as an example of a production company that not…
Time for a commercial – to illustrate through just one example that many of the creative documentary films reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk are available to be watched whenever you want and for little money: “joiningthedocs.tv is a new documentary channel offering…
He is now the head of The European Television & Media Management Academy in Strasbourg. Before he was a documentary film producer, one of the best in Europe, and for a short while a commissioning editor at the VRT in…
According to the newspaper The Guardian (August 13) a new documentary about football referees has been premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Director is Yves Hinant and the film runs time-wise a bit less than a football match: 77 mins.…
The city of Kazan in Tatarstan in Russia, around 800 km East of Moscow, hosts the 4th International festival of Muslim Cinema, ”Golden Minbar”, taking place September 30 to October 4. 14 films have been selected for the documentary competition,…
… and as a follow-up this mail from Ilze Gailite Holmberg, managing director of the National Film Centre of Latvia, to the big amount of European colleagues and film funds/centres/associations/institutes: Dear Colleagues, This is to thank you for all your…
I received this mail from Latvian Lelda Ozola last night, and got her permission to publish it like this: Dearest Tue, this is a deja vu situation of some 5 years ago … I start thinking why me, why again,…
”National Film Centre of Latvia is under the threat of reorganization” was the headline of this morning’s daily news from ”Film New Europe”, continued by these lines: ” The financial crisis in Latvia has triggered a chain of reorganization of…
Just this short note to accompany the posted still photo that everybody knows… it is 80 years ago that Bunuel made this 16 minutes long masterpiece with help from Salvador Dali. Lucky you who has not seen the film yet,…
Joint Appeal from DOK Leipzig and DOK.FEST Munich: The Iranian documentary filmmaker Maziar Bahari is currently enduring a show trial in Tehran. In the morning of July 21, Iranian militia arrested Maziar Bahari at his mother‚s house. He has been…
… is a genre in itself and perfect for film, as trains are movements from one place to another, a change in time or destiny, an escape from something or a journey to a better life, or a trip to…
The Danish Cinematheque, situated at the Film House in Copenhagen, launches from this month a new and very welcomed initiative: ”film of the month”, where a film – contrary to the normal 2-3 screenings – gets a Danish premiere and…
The beautiful city of Sarajevo hosts its festival August 12-20. Selected by competent film director, tutor and consultant Rada Sesic there is a strong competition programme for documentaries from (and about) the region. Among them a wonderful film, Sevdah (photo)…
The Russians respect film history. At least, this is what the organisers of the international documentary film festival Flahertiana do. October 15-21 they organise the 9th edition with the reference to Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) and with prizes that are named…
Supported by the MEDIA Programme of the EU ”Film New Europe” brings daily news from the range of primarily Eastern European countries that joined the Union in 2004, plus Croatia and Turkey. The language is English but if you prefer…
There are loads of films and programmes about and with Dalai Lama. Here is one more by Russian star director Manski. He had 24 hours with his protagonist and made a film in two parts, the first one (a televison…
After many journalistic documentary investigations into politics and suppression in North Korea, it is refreshing to watch this work from the hands of Czech director Linda Jablonska, who joined a group on its totally controlled tour to Pyongyang. As no…