Baltic Sea Docs 2015/ 4

A small PS on the audience numbers in Riga, the cinema part of the event that took place in the capital and 7 provincial towns in Latvia, let me give you the names: Cesis, Ventspils, Valmiera, Jekabpils, Rezekne, Liepaja, Roja. 9 fims were screened in Riga, three of them were selected to go to the towns:

Hubert Sauper’s ”We Come as Friends”, ”All of Me” by Arturo González Villaseñor and ”Chuck Norris vs Communism” by Ilinca Calugareanu.

The organiser of the screenings, Elina Cire, wrote this to me today:

“The total number of BalticSeaDocs2015 audience (Riga+regions) is about 3200. (Most of them (2780) attended the screenings with free tickets (pupils, students, pensioners, cinema professionals, BalticSeaDocs participants), the rest paid 3-1 euro  ticket (3 in Riga, less in regions))…. Many screenings Riga were sold out.

The most “popular” films in Riga were “A Syrian Love Story” (photo by Agnese Zeltina: Director Sean MacAllister on stage in Riga)  & “We Come As Friends”, top 1 in regions was “We Come As Friends.””

Not big numbers if you compare to big festivals but a true sign of great interest for documentaries and a cultural film policy from the side of the organisers of

http://balticseadocs.lv

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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