Best Documentaries 2019 Intro

On this last day of 2019, and of a decade, Filmkommentaren wishes you all the best in the new year.

It’s been a pleasure for us to give you news and opinions about the (mostly) documentary world. We intend to continue in the same way in 2020.

To close 2019, below you will find a list of 16 documentaries that was seen and highly appreciated by us.

Like last year we ended up with 16, that follow in a random order.

If you wonder… where are “Aquarela”, “Bridges of Time”, “Putin’s Witnesses”… – they were on the 2018 list, the year they premiered.

If you think… why not this or that one… the reason could be that we have not seen the film! Or we did not like it! Or we had to make the limit by 16.

Filmkommentaren is run by Allan Berg and Tue Steen Müller, our policy with this con amore blog is to first of all write about what we like.

Hope you enjoy the list, and the links that will bring you to the reviews.

Photo – from the MakeDox festival in Skopje – of director Artemio Benki, who won an award at the festival, and whose “Solo” is on our list.

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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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