Kaspars Goba: Inga Can Hear
Jeg har kendt Kaspars Goba i mere end et årti. Måske før, måske mødte vi, da hans fremragende ”Seda. People of the Marsh ”(2004) kom ud. Senere havde jeg fornøjelsen at følge “Homo @ lv” fra 2015, hvor hans partner…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
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European Film Academy Documentary Shortlist
… was announced today with 12 candidates to compete for the final 5 seats, from where the winner of the Documentary Award will be chosen and published on December 7. “Aquarela” (Viktor Kossakovsky) is there, “Honeyland” (Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir…
Message2Man Festival in Saint Petersburg
By this time, end of August, I am always pleasantly bombarded on FB with Messages from the (sorry!) Message2Man festival (September 14-21) in Saint Petersburg, a festival that I have attended so many times, enjoying the city and the rich…
SFF Awards for Documentaries
A CopyPaste from the website of the Sarajevo Film Festival, click the titles of the winners and you will get the description/synopsis: HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW / XURMALAR YETIŞƏN VAXT Azerbaijan, Austria Director:…
Top Docs to be Screened in Riga
Or you could say the best of the best of current international documentaries will be screened in the mini-festival that per tradition runs parallel to the Baltic Sea Docs development and pitching workshop. 8 films, Riga, Cinema K-Suns, from September…
Sarajevo FF: True Stories
Here we are after the presentation of 4 stories that take its start in the past: From Left Nataša Damnjanovic (tutor and editor of visuals), Ishak Jalimam (organiser), me (tutor), the four storytellers Mirna Buljugic, Senija Jakupovic, Iva Radic and…
Sarajevo FF: Pawlikowski and Documentaries
It’s not every day that one Oscar-winner takes a photo of another Oscar-winner. It happened the other day, where my friend, photographer and filmmaker Georg Zeller sat behind Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant), who was in the first row…
Current Time TV – Also at Sarajevo Film Festival
Note the little ”also”… because when it comes to Current Time TV, they have been here, there and everywhere in Central and Eastern Europe, a great new player in the documentary community, in pitching panels, active and enthusiastic. I have…
Sarajevo: Docs Go Big!
Documentaries at the Sarajevo FF is Rada Sesic. She selects the competition program, she runs the Docu Rough Boutique (together with Martichka Bozhilova), the DocuCorner, running from place to place… And she is semper ardens as you can read in…
Sarajevo Mon Amour
Well, I have not yet been through all the catalogues to find out, why the festival speaks French! But indeed it sounds and looks nice! I am here again at the big festival for features and documentaries and shorts with…
DokuFest Winners Announced
Prizren, Kosovo. The 18th edition of a documentary festival (it ended four days ago) that filmkommentaren has covered since 2010. Always with words of praise and in persona in 2016, where I was invited to be a juror in the…
Makedox Number 10
It’s in Skopje end of August (21-28) and it’s organised by Petra Seliskar and her family. Those who have been to the festival will agree with my impression: The hospitality is second to none, the atmosphere is relaxed, there is…
Don Edkins: Creating an African Voice
Variety (July 20) brought an article (written by Christopher Vourlias) from Durban Intl. Film Festival, where Don Edkins was talking. Characterised in the article as « veteran filmmaker and executive director of non-profit group Steps », I can only add from many…
Leaving CinéDOC Summer Film School in Gori
Istanbul airport, gosh it is big. Lot of walking from gate to gate. And the two times I have been going to/from Tbilisi via Istanbul, gates have been changed – and flights delayed. But this has given me the time…
Pennebaker 1925-2019
You can find many obituaries on D.A. Pennebaker, who passed away August 1. I have chosen to copy-paste from this site a text I wrote when in Syria for the DoxBox Festival: This is one of the highlights of Dox…
CinéDOC Summer School Gori – Bunescu and Ceaucescu
Did you see it : ”The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaucescu” (director : Andrei Ujica, editor and sound designer Dana Bunescu) from 2010, 3 hours long, a true masterpiece. You have to ! Archive the whole way through, no commentary, no explanations of where…
CinéDOC Summer School – Talent Development
They have just left the room, the nine students and filmmakers, who have been sharing their projects, their ideas, their visuals, five of them are from Konrad Wolf Filmuniversität, taken here by teacher and cameraperson Merle Jothe, who talked to…
In the Cinema in Gori Georgia
… Well, actually there is no cinema in Gori so the Cinédoc-Gori Mini Festival takes place in the big theatre that was built in 1937-38 to honour Josip Stalin, who was born in Gori… he never visited the theatre, it…
CinéDOC Summer School in Gori
It’s too hot to be outside during the day, and the organisers of the CinéDOC Summer School know that. The brilliant team from CinéDOC has made the 15 participants (10 from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbadjan plus 5 students from Konrad…
Sergei Loznitsa: State Funeral
There he goes again, the master of dealing creatively with archive, Sergei Loznitsa. His new film, to be premiered at the Venice International Film Festival (August 28 – September 7), entitled ”State Funeral” is – I have copy-pasted from Screen…
Welcome to the Documentary World
29 film Zelig students got their diplomas recently, as last moment of the three years professional course in documentary filmmaking, edition 2016-2019, which just ended at the end of June. The final exams have been conducted by a commission formed by external experts in…
Luke Moody Leaves Sheffield Doc/Fest
In a very interesting article, written by Nick Bradshaw, in Sight & Sound, the head programmer of the Sheffield Doc/Fest Luke Moody reveals why he decided to leave the festival after 20 months as director of programming. Bradshaw writes about…
Jola Dylewska: Marek Edelman… and there was Love
in the Ghetto… made in cooperation with Andrzej Wajda and Agnieszka Holland Marek Edelman (1919-2009): Holocaust survivor and the last leader of the Warsaw Ghetto. When being interviewed – close up of his face, smoking one cigarette after the other…
Alexander Mihalkovich: My Granny from Mars
Yevpatoria, Crimea, Ukraine, occupied by Russia since 2014. A song from the film about the city: “Here the sea gives me so much tenderness and love and health for years to come. Gardens and wonderful colors are all around, the…
IceDocs Iceland Documentary Film Festival/2
From FB I copy who were the winners of the new documentary festival in Iceland: In our closing screening we didn’t only see a wonderful documentary, The Human Shelter (by Danish director Boris Bertram, ed.), but also gave awards to…
IceDocs Iceland Documentary Film Festival
This is how the organisers introduce the festival: Welcome to IceDocs! “The first ever edition of Iceland Documentary Film Festival takes place in Akranes on 17th-21st of July 2019. Our mission is to introduce quality documentaries to local audience and…
Artemio Benki: Solo/ 2
Via the FNE (FilmNewEurope) I find a good interview with the director of ”Solo”, the Czech/French director and producer Artemio Benki, who reflects on being a French, yet living in Czech Republic for quite some time, chosing a theme for…
Baltic Sea Docs 2019 Announces Selected Projects
The Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries (BSD) is the most important documentary training and pitching event in the Baltic countries, taking place in Riga, Latvia, from September 3 to 7 and mostly focusing on the projects from a greater Baltic…
Yamagata
… in Japan hosts a bi-annual documentary film festival of high quality. I have previously – see – praised the festival for its modest pr activity and seriousness. Old-fashioned some might say, I would say refreshing that in the…
DokuFest Announces Its Program
”More than 100 wonderful documentary films as well as a great array of short fictions and experimental cinema representing 40 countries, is what characterizes the film competition…”, are words from the press release sent out a couple of days ago…
Ksenia Okhapkina: Immortal
This film had its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary Festival that ends tomorrow, July 6. It has had three screenings, and let me start this review of a film, that will conclude with the highest marks on this site…
Marco Gastine: As Far as the Sea
It’s a strong piece of observational public service documentary, Greek/French director Marco Gastine has made. “Public Service” reminding us about, what legendary Scottish John Grierson thought should be the role of documentaries: to make the audience, the civil society understand…
Laila Pakalnina: Spoon
… her 65 minutes long documentary has its premiere in Karlovy Vary tonight. The play- and colourful Latvian director is very busy on Facebook, where she for a long time has posted great photos, the last couple of days also…
Beniamino Barrese: The Disappearance of My Mother
This film that I first got to watch yesterday having heard and read about it, only positive words… Here is the annotation from IDFA’s Docs for Sale: “Benedetta (Barrese) wants to disappear. An iconic fashion model in the 1960s, she…
Joris Ivens
“The film screen is not a window through which you look at the world, it is a world in itself.” DAFilms.com presents yet another documentary film classic, Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens. Recall his works from the golden collection of European cinema.…
Ai Weiwei on Documentary
The BFI Doc Society publishes a very good newsletter. In the one I received yesterday, there was a text about the presence of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, whose last film ”The Rest” was screened at the Sheffield Documentary Festival. He…
Images
At the first session of the Ex Oriente the directors taking part were asked to write a text “I am your character” in a couple of hours. I used the two hours before meeting the directors with their texts to…
Ex Oriente First Session 2019
… with the subtitle ”Find Your Way – Vision – Space and Storytelling” here in Banská Stiavnoca in Slovakia – is going to its end. Two more program points, exiting both of them, and then a summing up tomorrow. First…
Kirchhoff & Remunda: Steam on the River
It was a very entertaining afternoon experience yesterday in Banská Stiavnica attending the screening of the 2015 documentary by Robert Kirchhoff and Filip Remunda (they call each other Robo and Filo!) followed by a masterclass with the two that gave…
Jan Gogola on Dusan Hanak
I am in Banská Stiavnica in Slovakia, where the first session of the Ex Oriente workshop takes place. I have been invited as a substitute for Iikka Vehkalahti and I am happy to attend at the workshop of which I…
Orwa Nyrabia Talks about IDFA Changes
Readers of filmkommentaren will know that I am very happy with Syrian Orwa Nyrabia being the artistic director of IDFA. Step by step he is changing the festiwal together with his competent Staff. This post aims at making you read…
Jakob Brossmann & David Paede: Listen to the Radio
With the Austrian title: «Gehört, Gesehen – Ein RadioFilm“… 5 years after maestro Nicolas Philibert made his „Maison de la Radio », here is another equally fascinating visit to a radio broadcasting channel: Ö1, part of the ORF in Austria,…
Yuriy Shylov: Projectionist
I have met Valentin, the projectionist, on screen, at several workshops and presentations, and I have seen how fragments, all these clips, of his life slowly have become a film that now – bravo – is to have its premiere…
Kristof Bilsen: Mother
”Me No Worry, Me No Care, Me Go Marry a Millionaire, If He Dies Me No Cry, Me Go Marry Another Guy”… are the words Pomm uses to wake up Elisabeth, who reacts with a smile. Pomm calls Elisabeth mother…
Michal Bielawski: The Wind. A Documentary Thriller
The Halny? Shocking film! Says someone coming from a flat country after having watched a film about the power of the wind in a mountain area. I had never heard about the halny before so I made a visit to…
Sheffield Doc/Fest Opens With Maradona
… the new film by Asif Kapadia („Amy“ and „Senna”), one of the masters in archive based documentaries, „The movie melds personal recordings with omnipresent reportage to portray the turbulent years of a gifted footballer burning brightly in late 1980’s…
Krakow Film Festival – And the Winners Were
– a copy paste from the festival’s FB page: Having watched all the competitive films the International Documentary Jury of the 59th Krakow Film Festival consisting of: Jacek Petrycki – chairman (Poland), Talal Derki (Germany), Marja Pallassalo (Finland), Shane Smith…
Krakow Film Festival – Who Will Win
I was not in Krakow for the festival this year, but I saw the films in the main international competition and gave my points together with other film journalists – and made 4 texts for the Daily Newspaper, which is…
DocAviv Awards to Honeyland and Advocate
A lot of awards were distributed last night in Tel Aviv at the 21st edition of DocAviv. Let me mention the two main awards and give you the link – below – to the festival website. Winner of Israeli Competition…
DocsBarcelona The Baltic Way
He said many clever things, Audrius Stonys, at DocsBarcelona, where his film ”Bridges of Time”, directed with Latvian Kristine Briede, at two screenings had a good audience as had the masterclass with the Lithuanian director. Festival director Joan Gonzalez, whose…