A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
With its fifth edition the organisers of this still very young Tbilisi Georgian festival, director Archil Khetagouri and coordinator Ileana Stanculescu, took the decision to move the event from October to May 11-16. Argumentation: Too much happens in October. And…
I was a jury member of the first DOKer festival in 2015 and am very happy to see that the filmmakers behind the event are able to continue their pioneer work of bringing films from around the world to the…
Luckily I live in a country where subtitling of films is the rule – no dubbing as in German or France, where as an example European cultural channel Arte is the big sinner in the language killing discipline. In Denmark…
I have met Shorena Tevzadze and producer Nikoloz Gogochuri several times at workshops in Georgia, where this fine film was developed. Their dedication to the theme and their love towards the characters of the film was always there; watching the…
The IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) has published a very informative, well made interview with Polish director Pawel Lozinski, who was at the EastDoc Platform in Prague, where he had a double role: to show his film ”You Don’t Know…
This is a clip from an interview with Slovak Robert Kirchhoff, whose ”A Hole in the Head” was reviewed on this site: Cineuropa: In your previous documentary, Normalization, you investigated a sensitive issue, and you are now pursuing another difficult theme,…
It feels unfinished, sketchy this personal film by Syrian Yaser Kassab. It is one long reflection and interpretation of, as the director has formulated it in the catalogue of Cinéma du Réel, “loss and grief”. Far from mainstream. In dark…
It’s a handmade cinema, Roman Bondarchuk said, after our pleasant tour to Lviv Film Center, where we visited the rooftop sunday morning. Saturday night a party had been held and Mr. Mykhailo, responsible for the running of the place, was…
Do you remember the film by Kostomarov called Together, Roman Bondarchuk asked me on the Virmanska Street, when we sunday were walking around in sunny Lviv in Western Ukraine. The couple in the film, Ludmila and Vladimir Loboda, were sitting…
A press release came out last night: The 14th International documentary films about human rights festival has ended in Kyiv. The awards ceremony was held in the Cinema House. The closing ceremony began with a gesture of solidarity with Ukrainian…
What kind of world do we leave for our children? A banal and pathetic question maybe. But it came to my mind this morning, when I attended the Warscape pitching in Kiev at the Docu/Pro section of Docudays. 6 projects…
… which is of course a simplification but I was thinking of it several times during the days here in Kiev, where the Docudays goes on, one of those many festivals, less known, compared to IDFA, CPH:DOX, DOKLeipzig and Hotdocs…
LOTTE MIK-MEYER: RETURN OF A PRESIDENT The Danish filmmaker Lotte Mik-Meyer has made a documentary about a very important and interesting subject and a region that certainly could need our attention. Return of a President is about the fight for…
It was one of those lovely moments, where a huge audience had come to celebrate the premiere of a film, ”Dixie Land”, that was 7 years on its way – for many reasons, one of them being that the director…
… and runs until March 31. I am happy to be here participating at the Docu/Pro, the industrial platform of a festival that celebrates its 14th edition this year. The platform includes talks from knowledgeable people like Brigid O’Shea from…
2 days of Forum at the CPH:DOX March 22-23. I was there to check out what is happening with the ”creative and visually strong film projects”, that the CPH:FORUM ”financing and co-production event” is set up to help. Are great…
…of the festivals many sections are – in an edited and shortened Danish version of the press release of the festival of tonight: DOX:AWARD:’De sidste mænd i Aleppo’ (“Last Men in Aleppo”), instrueret af Feras Fayyad samt debuterende co-instruktør Steen…
… was one of the around 30 projects pitched at the CPH:FORUM that took place wednesday and thursday this week. Director Danish/Swedish Maria Bäck, producer Anna-Maria Kantarius. Who did a strong presentation of a project that in CPH:DOX terminology is…
As the /2 says I have written about Kachkin’s film from Perm before – in August 2016 – where he told me that the film – the most obvious place to show it – was rejected by the local Flahertiana…
ANITA MATHAL HOPLAND & JENS LENGERKE: ON THE EDGE OF FREEDOM/ PÅ KANTEN AF FRIHED I heard myself saying “don’t do it, stop” several times, alone in front of the screen, when the young Russians and Ukrainians were climbing unfinished…
90 minutes with Kirsten Johnson thursday morning 23rd of March at Cinemateket, that’s a good time investment. I can guarantee that knowing Kirsten’s knowledge and commitment, and having attended her classes and Q&A sessions several times. Of course it is…
ERIK LIESHOUT a.o.: TO STAY ALIVE – A METHOD If you are a fan of either Michel Houellebecq or Iggy Pop or both: read no further and go and see this film immediately. For those of us who is something…
PIERRE BISMUTH: WHERE IS ROCKY II? Since he saw an old BBC documentary from 1980 about American pop artist Ed Ruscha, the director has seemingly had an obsession to find the topic of that doc; a piece of artificial rock that…
LARS FELDBALLE PETERSEN: THE PRESIDENT FROM THE NORTH/ PRÆSIDENTEN FRA NORDVEST 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…
LARS FELDBALLE PETERSEN: THE UNFORGIVEN 1992. Celebici in Bosnia-Hercegovina. A prison camp for Serbs. Esad Landzo, 19 years old was a guard. He killed and tortured, he was one of the worst, say survivors who remember what ”Zenga”, his nickname,…
ASKOLD KUROV: THE TRIAL … with the subtitle ”The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov”, a film that premiered at the Berlinale, now to be shown at CPH:DOX and at DocuDays in Kiev on the 25th of March with the…
First day of the 2017 CPH:DOX. I went to the new festival centre, Charlottenborg, got my accreditation, ran into always energetic Frank Piasecki Poulsen, who ordered me to go up to see the impressive colourful so-called social cinema, where the…
The 19th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival were giving out awards a couple of days ago. The Danish production ”Dream Empire” by David Borenstein got the main prize, the Golden Alexander, with a Special Jury Award for the amazing ”Machines” by Rahul…
FERAS FAYYAD: LAST MEN IN ALEPPO The tone is set in the opening, this story is of a universal scope. It is a film about life in a world of death and violence, of humanity surviving endless destruction. Last Men…
As usual the Prague-based festival delivers precise and informative press releases. Here is the one about the winners… The juries of the 19th annual One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival granted seven awards to films that were screened…
Saturday morning I attended the pitching of 18 projects and an award ceremony, including 9 awards – they will be announced on the site and/or the Facebook page of the organizing IDF, Institute of Documentary Film. As usual with a…
Of course it was a scoop for the organisers, IDF (Institute of Documentary Film), to have an editor capacity like American Joe Bini as a tutor and to have him deliver a masterclass like he did yesterday at the Cervantes…
Elena Subira, colleague from DocsBarcelona, asked worried to my health after wednesday night’s football miracle, where Barcelona beat Paris 6-1 after having lost the first match 4-0. Heart attack…? No, but close to, amazing, 3 Barca goals in the dying…
LEA GLOB & METTE CARLA ALBRECHTSEN: VENUS My colleague at the DocsBarcelona festival, who is also a visual artist, Martina Rogers, 28 years old, has written this review of “Venus”: REVIEW BY MARTINA ROGERS I enjoyed Venus (great title…
The first names of the filmmaking couple are Petr and Corinne. Maung Aung Pwint is according to a text at the beginning of the film the ”most famous living dissident poet” in Burma He was imprisoned several times for his…
… and many others. But very happy to see that the juries in Zagreb agreed so much with filmkommentaren.dk in its praising of the films by Salomé Jashi, Ognjen Glavonic and Jon Bang Carlsen. If you click on ”The Dazzling…
IDF stands for Institute of Documentary Film, is based in Prague with this slogan: We support the emerging stars from Central and Eastern Europe. Link below, but let me sum up what this impressive film institution is doing: training (Ex…
It’s spring, 1st of March, from where I sit in Copenhagen it’s cloudy and windy but milder. I have the window open. It’s spring and the CPH:DOX festival announced its program at noon today. The festival has moved to March…
It’s very easy if you want to see what will be shown at the festival. Go to the website, link below, and you will see the many sections arranged by the programmers. The classical ones are there like Dox:Award, New:Vision…
”Industry”, that is what CPH:DOX, and all the other big festivals call – quoted from the site – ”the various activities offer professional development, networking, and business opportunities to filmmakers and industry professionals at all levels of experience”. So when…
… with the Docs & Talks at Cinemateket in Copenhagen. Filmkommentaren has been happy to be a so-called media supporter of a festival with a different profile than the ones we usually know and write about: Films were shown and…
On the last day of the short February month, let’s take a look at the many festivals coming up in March. And let me apologise in advance for those I have forgotten to mention… One has already started, the Croatian…
Loznitsa was in Belgrade at the beginning of this month, did a masterclass – I was there to pick up some of his interesting bon mots on his way of making films – my text turned out to be –…
This is a text written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about Loznitsa’s film that was recently screened at the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade and will be shown at Cinemateket Sunday February 26: Premiered at the Venice Film Festival,…
McEVVOY/FAROUKY: TELL SPRING NOT TO COME THIS SPRING The Docs & Talks festival in Copenhagen screens this excellent film saturday night at 17.45, followed by a debate, at the Film House, Cinemateket. Two years ago I made this review of the film:…
It’s great to have people like Simon Kilmurry from the IDA to remind us of the importance of the documentary genre. He does so in a guest column entitled ”Why Documentaries matter more than Ever” in Hollywood Reporter, in an…
På tirsdag sender DR2 DOKUMANIA Spenders film fra 2015. Filmkommentaren.dk har tidligere bragt en anmeldelse fra visningen på festivalen CPH:DOX i København af Sara Thelle og en præsentation af filmen fra festivalen Magnificent7 i Beograd af Sveana and Zoran Popovic.…
Bravo! It’s quite a festival that the Danish Cinemateket and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) presents next week in the Film House in Copenhagen. And yet it is not “only” a festival with high quality documentaries from all…
The 13th and last post from the 13th edition of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade. The photos shown are from the closing night, where ”In Loco Parentis” by Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane was shown to an audience of…
”This is a sacred place, like a church and suddenly we hear this crazy sound. This man takes tourists to this place. He is the sign of civilisation. A sign of a new time. The reality is that these guys…