Beata Dzianowicz: Kites

Sneak preview of a film from Poland shot in Afghanistan by Jacek Petrycki, master in camerawork as he has shown so many times before with Kieslowski and Marcel Lozinski.

Beata Dzianowicz has written and directed this film about a group of young film students in Kabul, who are offered a film course by the Polish. They are given small video cameras and Polish Jacek (not the cameraman but another J) teaches them what a documentary is. His and the director´s idea is to make the young ones describe their own reality without prejudices, making the expressions coming from within themselves. It is not easy but they fight for it and we as spectators see clips of what they are doing, we see them at work, we see their enthusiasm and curiosity, we hear them talking “official language”, we see them behave like tv-reporters but we also see them, accompanied by Petrycki catching an Afghan urban reality that we very seldom are introduced to in documentaries made by Westerners.

It is informative, it is touching to meet these youngsters who are to build the future of their tormented country.

Once again Bravo to Eureka Media, whose owner and producer Krzysztof Kopczynski directed “Stone Silence”, shot in Northern Afghanistan.

“Kites” is a masterpiece and if I were a festival selector or a broadcaster I would immediately contact the producer to get a screener.

More about the film on http://www.eurekamedia.info/index.php?id=37

Poland, 2008, 80 mins. (TV-version of 52 mins. also available)

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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