Baltic Sea Docs 20 Years
I warn you – you are going to hear quite a lot about Baltic Sea Docs in Riga. I will be there – have been “part of the furniture” since it started on the island of Bornholm – to tutor the pitching Forum participants, and to go and watch films. Dates 7-11. September. The film program is now announced, here are some words about it, first from the selectors from the National Film Centre in Riga:
“Our 20th anniversary’s visual identity with tremendous storyteller Laurie Anderson and her terrier Lolabelle is here! This year’s film programme will focus on phenomenons, persons and events that are beyond good and evil…”
And from me – Laurie Anderson’s “Heart of a Dog” is there, a film, that I have not seen yet even if it has been released theatrically in Copenhagen, as I have not seen Steve Hoover’s “Almost Holy” from Ukraine – Hoover will be tutoring the pitchers as well – the Dutch “Banana Pancakes and the Children of Sticky Rice” by Daan Veldhuizen shot in Laos, and Norwegian Paul Refsdal’s “Dugma: The Button”, that I missed at Dokufest in Kosovo.
But I can recommend Jerzy Sladkowski’s “Don Juan” and “Our Last Tango” by German Kral, both big hits at the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade, “Sonita” by Iranian Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami was the opening film at DocsBarcelona, where Erik Gandini’s “Swedish Theory of Love” was met by a huge audience. Danish journalistic documentary “Warrirors from the North” has also been screened at many festivals.
My guess is that the BSD screenings will be full as they have been before.
