A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
In a break of the Danish television 3 hour long coverage of the re-election of President Putin – instead of falling asleep – I checked facebook and saw that the organisers of the independent documentary festival in Moscow had chosen…
”I’ll try to tell you the story”, says the weak old man in a blue shirt with a hat on his head. He is adressing the camera crew. ”I was 22 in 1947”, the year that is the focus of…
… Oscar Rabin and Valentina Kropivnitskaya, their lives and their art. I knew the name Rabin in beforehand and that he is exiled, living in Paris now, 90 years old, but I had never really heard the story about him…
Huge cinema for the highlight of the East Doc Platform 2018. After masterclasses, presentations, individual meetings at the market, receptions – all held in the good atmosphere that the IDF (Institute for Documentary Film) is so good in creating, and…
– EDP standing for East Documentary Platform. Photo: The Last Relic (d. Marianna Kaat (to the left), p. Dorota Roszkowska) and Angels of Sinjar. Yazidis – 21st Century Genocide (d. Hanna Polak, p. Simone Baumann (to the right). Photo: Michal…
… with the subtitle ”The European Documentary and Non-fiction Magazine” is out with its 3rd printed version, and let me start with a strong promotion of what is ridiculously cheap, 28€ per year: ”A yearly subscription gives you the spring…
Adam Ślesicki and Katarzyna Ślesicka receive the 2018 EDN Award for their work in establishing and running DOC LAB POLAND, which is the largest and most multi-faceted program for documentary filmmakers organized in Poland for Polish projects. The initiative supports…
There was not a lot of power in the panel discussion at the Institut Francais yesterday where a panel discussion was held with good people like Estonian Max Tuula, Bulgarian Vesela Kazakova, Kenan Aliyev from Current Time TV, local hero…
We had to put it as the last film to be presented, ”In Mosul” by war photographer and cinematographer Jana Andert, who for 8 months was following the battle of Mosul with Golden Division, an elite Iraq squad. Jan Macola,…
I am in Prague for the East Doc Platform, organised by Institute of Documentary Film. It is as always a very welcoming and generous tribute to the documentary, where projects are being presented and discussed – and parallel the festival…
Oh, really… The documentary film festival in Thessaloniki has existed for 20 years! I remember with pleasure, during my time at the EDN (European Documentary Network) the collaboration we had with the founder of the festival Dimitri Eipides. A man…
Finally I get the chance to bring to you a still from one of my favourite scenes in ”The Other Side of Everything” by Mila Turajlic: Srbijanka Turajlic, the mother of the director and the protagonist, is polishing the silver…
The Oscars are to be given out in a couple of days. The media are full of articles, where film journalists and reviewers tell the readers, who their favourites are and who they think will be the winners. It’s all…
Every year the festival in Kiev picks a theme that is reflected upon in the festival programme – and at the opening of the festival that has always been a fest in itself… This year – according to the organisation…
… is a festival that I like a lot – because of its atmosphere, its dedication to what is going on in the world, its always innovative set-up, and critical approach to its own country and its social and political…
From wintercold Copenhagen it looks good – the documentary community performs well in many corners of the world. Facebook and newspapers bring back news from the Berlinale, where a hybrid doc/fiction, Romanian “Touch me Not” takes the Golden Bear, ZagrebDox…
REVIEW WRITTEN BY GEORG ZELLER „Democracy. Ever heard about?“ asks the guide to the visitors of the German parliament. They have. But through little role plays and corny jokes, they are taught in a more practical way how the MP’s…
ALICE DIOP: ON CALL Monsieur Mamadou Diallo. Doctor Geeraert calls for the next patient at the Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny. The patient comes into the small consultation room, where he sits for hours listening to the migrants, who come to…
According to NY Times, journalist, tv-host and political activist Karza-Murza, was in coma one year ago due to, what could have been an (the second one) attempt to poison him. Performed by Russia. He survived. The journalist, who is vice…
ZANBO ZHANG: THE ROAD It worked very well: The screening of the Chinese film followed by a talk with a good panel and an interested audience. There was full house in the cinema last night at Cinemateket in Copenhagen for…
Here comes the website description of this original Romanian documentary, so precise that there is no reason for me to add anything, after that my thoughts about the film: They talk about the beautiful game, but for Laurențiu Ginghină, it’s…
The title in French is Visages Villages – more precise than the English one, as it is mostly villages the two artists visit to meet locals, take their photos, make them grand format, large scale and paste them on big…
This text is taken from the newsletter that came out some days ago from Doc Society with the headline “Victory for Freedom of Speech in Zimbabwe”: We’ve just heard great news that in a groundbreaking court order, Zimbabwean High Court…
I went for the link (see post below) that presents the programme titel-wise a-z to give you 20 recommendations, could easily have been more. Allan Berg and I will review and report when we get closer to the festival that…
Well, how can I introduce the 15th edition of CPH:DOX that takes place March 15-25, with a programme that was launched yesterday? It’s impossible to give you the full picture of such a huge event, an hommage to the documentary…
– with the English title “Everywhere We Are” has this catalogue description: Heiko, 29, is a fun-loving dance teacher from Berlin. For the past seven years he has battled with a fatal illness. Just when his family and his friends…
Master of documentary film Herz Frank made in 1989 “There were Seven Simeons”, a film that deals with a famous jazz family, who during Soviet time hijacked a plane to get out of the USSR. They were not the only…
Cineuropa is a good source if you want to know, what happens in the film world. In the latest edition of the newsletter you will find a brief but informative interview with EDN director Paul Pauwels, who talks about the…
It’s the 14th edition of ZagrebDox that starts in the Croatian capital February 25th to run until March 4. And it is as usual well edited, the best of the best for the audience, with an international and a regional…
DYLAN BANK, DANIEL DiMAURO, MORGAN PEHME: GET ME ROGER STONE MARC EBERHARDT: MEUTHEN’S PARTY There are still some weeks before the kick-off of Docs & Talks but I have had the chance to watch two of the films, that will…
A press release came in from Krakow Film Festival two days ago. Here comes the essence of it, followed by a post of some references, we have made to films of a very productive and excellent director of short and…
… and here are some quotes from Loznitsa films, we have been writing about on filmkommentaren. It’s very few, only documentaries. If you want to see the full filmography go to Loznitsa’s own website, link below. The Event (2015) –…
Iva Plemic Divjak, one of the many Serbian film people helping to set up the festival has made this English summing up for me and you readers, of the article in blic.rs of today Members of the Independent Cultural Scene…
Bravo! It’s quite a festival that the Danish Cinemateket and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) presents in the Film House in Copenhagen. And yet it is not “only” a festival with high quality documentaries from all over, it…
Dear audience, dear friends of the Festival, After thirteen magnificent years of the Festival’s continuous growth in quality, after its extraordinary contributions to the Belgrade, Serbian and European cultural landscape, the Festival has faced insurmountable difficulties. These difficulties have unfortunately…
Orwa Nyrabia (1977) is the new artistic director of IDFA. Nyrabia, who was born in Syria, is well-known in the documentary world as a producer, festival director, curator and mentor. Nyrabia started his career as an actor and journalist. In…
Sooo, today was the day where the 15 documentaries on the shortlist that we brought in December, link below, was to become the 5 to be nominated. No Ai WeiWei, no Wiseman, no Matthew Heinemann but good and very good…
The Helsinki Documentary Film Festival DocPoint takes place January 29 to February 4. It is as usual a festival that picks the best of the best and of course has a focus on new Finnish documentaries. But allow us to…
He died in 2016, Andrzej Wajda, 90 years old. A quote from Guardian’s obituary: ”Polish cinema burst upon the world in the 1950s with Andrzej Wajda’s war trilogy, A Generation, Kanał and Ashes and Diamonds, with the director becoming the…
Some films do not need the pressure of actuality that many broadcasters and festivals want for their audience. Many films would benefit from resting in the editing phase for the maker(s) to come back and look at the material with…
It’s a period of nominations for awards here there and everywhere. The national ones, the international ones. ”Who can bear to be forgotten”, as a line in a famous classic documentary goes. It means something to be on a list,…
Julén with the first name Staffan, experienced Swedish documentarian, shares the same appreciation for Svetlana Alexievich as I do. Click the link below for a text I wrote about her after reading her beautiful book ”Second-Hand Time” during the summer…
It’s not only because he is Danish… but also because it is such a good poster that reflects, what the film is about, the hard job that Chris Anker Sørensen (nickname in Danish: Oksen fra Hammel) and many others have…
“It was the last shooting for our upcoming documentary THE JUMP, starring former United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger. It was a huge honour to have the opportunity to conduct this interview for our…
It’s a Dane writing this review. Important to say as the main character of this film, Ahmed Dualeh, is Danish, well he is born in Somalia but has been living in Denmark for 47 years – and he speaks the…
Per tradition I have gone through the texts on this site to find, what I see as the best documentaries of 2017. I stopped at 16 titles – half of them come from the Eastern part of Europe. Am I…
Marta Prus: Over the Limit Leonard Helmrich:The Long Season Talal Derki: Of Fathers and Sons Simon Lereng Wilmont: The Distant Barking of Dogs Mila Turajlic: The Other Side of Everything Mohamed Siam: Amal Mindaugas…
In the beginning of this month, December 2017, the Armenian photographer published a slate of photos and a text for ajjazeera, click the link below and you can see and read it all. Here is some of Grigoryants text: In…
The times they are a changing… Years ago I met Yulia Grigoryants several times in the Caucasus region. In Tbilisi and in her own country Armenia’s capital Jerevan. She worked with local Bars Media and was the producer of the…
Ahhh again! Someone asking you to fill in a questionnaire – were you happy with the festival, the workshop, the hotel you stayed at, the dinner you enjoyed and paid for… You know it and you don’t like it. And…