The DOX Comeback!
It took some thinking before I came to this positive conclusion. In the 20th year of the existence of EDN (European Documentary Network) you will from now on be able to study one of the organization’s main contributions in the…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Articles/Reviews ENGLISH
Read MoreThe DOX Comeback!
Stefano Lisci & Co: Bar Mario
Take a look at the photo from last week in Bolzano. Marina in her Bar Mario advertising the premiere of the film Bar Mario at the Rome Independent Film Festival later this month. Congratulations! To Marina Fronza, her husband Roberto…
Zelig – First Year
There they were, 30 new faces at the Zelig film school, and I was to be the first teacher of their three year long education at the school for ”documentary, television and new media”. Thank you Emanuele Vernillo and Heidi…
Ukrainian Sheriffs in Copenhagen
… as documentary of the month of the Danish Cinemateket, running for a week with the start of November 11. This wonderful, charming, funny and – it takes place in Ukraine – serious film won the IDFA Jury Special Prize…
The Leth Legacy at DOKLeipzig
It was the idea of festival director Leena Pasanen: What about bringing together Danish filmmaking icon Jørgen Leth and his two filmmaking children Karoline Leth and Asger Leth? Such an obvious idea, why had noone done that before? Two generations,…
DOK Leipzig Winners 2016
I liked the award ceremony of DOK Leipzig last night at the CinéStar 4. Instead of hiring some entertainer, or having two people talking to each other trying to be funny, the festival had a host, Jörg Taszmann, film journalist…
Awards According to Filmkommentaren
This is written four hours before the official award ceremony of the 59th (!) International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, DOKLeipzig. I have no idea of what the jury for the international competition will choose as their favourite(s)…
Mariam Chachia: Listen to the Silence
Just left – with a smile on my face – the screening of the Georgian documentary in a full house cinema at DOKLeipzig. The film that is a debut for the director and takes part in the ”Next Masters Competition”…
From Minsk to Vilnius With a Hero
If you ever want to make another cold war movie, we got the location for you. And a protagonist, a hero from the real world. More authentic than Tom Hanks. Yes, he IS a hero, Uldis Cekulis, the Latvian producer,…
Northern Lights Documentary Hub Minsk
Producer and festival director Volia Chajkouskaya launched a two-day documentary workshop in Minsk for young filmmakers and students at the Academy of Arts in the capital of Belarus. Arranged and funded by the Danish Cultural Institute based in Riga. The…
Jihlava IDFF Winners
… were revealed yesterday and again Salomé Jashi from Georgia was praised for her ”The Dazzling Light of Sunset”, that got the award in the ”Between the Seas” section that covers ”countries and nations of Central and Eastern Europe”. She…
CinéDOC Tbilisi Winners
Some days ago the award ceremony for the CinéDOC-Tbilisi took place. The young festival that by many, including me, is characterised as a ”warm festival”, with a high quality selection. And no need to say that the winner in the…
Antalya Film Forum 2016
There you are in Antalya in Turkey at a cool design hotel, totally in white, mirrors all over, the weather is between 25 and 30 degrees, the hospitality is superb, it’s a royal treat and your job is to give…
Jihlava International Documentary FF 20 Years
It starts the coming tuesday October 25 and runs until October 30, the documentary film festival in provincial Czech town Jihlava. I have been there many times, I have enjoyed it a lot, watching films and/or being part of the…
Pavel Medvedev: Joseph’s Land
Let me start with a synopsis that precisely communicates the unpretentious tone of the film: ”This story could only take place in one city in Russia – St. Petersburg. Here communal poverty rubs shoulders with the palatial luxury of the…
Amy Berg: Janis: Little Girl Blue
…Just as with Scorsese’s Dylan portrait No Direction Home, Berg owes some of Janis’ finest moments to D. A. Pennebaker. Not only with the strong scenes from his legendary concert film Monterey Pop (1968, filmed by Pennebaker, Leacock and Maysles, probably the…
Andrej Nekrasov: The Magnitsky Act /2
But slowly disappears the drama documentary and the film director Nekrasov becomes the investigative journalist, who goes from place to place, from Moscow to London to New York, searching for the truth, discovering that Magnitsky was called upon as a witness in the financial…
Mihajlo Jevtic: Four Passports
For someone who for 15 years regularly have been visiting Belgrade, and who have been traveling Serbia South and North with local friends, it is upfront very interesting to see a film made by and about a man, film director…
Docs All Over – Is that Good?
Are there too many documentary film festivals? NO – those who complain are professionals, who say they can not be in two places at the same time. Understandable argument if you want to attend all so-called industry events with pitching…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /9
“…A documentary work is not intended for the esthetic connoisseur or the preoccupied consumer, but rather for people in vital need of increasing their knowledge: of transforming communicated environments, epochs, nature scenes into personal experiential substance – something with which…
IDFA 2016 Program
From IDFA Industry & Press on FB two days ago: ”The complete line-up for IDFA 2016 has been announced! The program contains 297 titles (from 3,495 submissions), of which 102 documentaries will have their world premieres during the festival… with…
DOK Leipzig 2016 Program
… was announced yesterday with an extensive press release for the 59th (!) edition of the documentary and animation film festival that runs October 31 till November 6. Let me, who will be there, as usual, for some days, enjoying…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /8
… they had plenty of time – the ultimate documentary resource – they themselves became something of experts in geography and agriculture. They were also sensitive and capable of the profound empathy with the subject matter that transforms certain photographers…
Magnificent7 Doc Xtra
I have to confess that I was a bit worried, when I saw that Belgrade friends Svetlana and Zoran Popovic and their team launched a documentary retrospective of films that we had selected and screened during the years of the…
Monika Pawluczuk: End of the World
They keep on coming these strong philosophical cinematic essays from Poland. This time one from 2015 that I had not seen, a film that after touring at several American festivals with success has the chance to end up on the…
Lisbon Docs and Words from Paul Pauwels
It’s number 17, the workshop and pitching session in Lisbon, the Lisbon Docs 2016, organised by EDN (European Documentary Network) and Apordoc. Running parallel to the DocLisboa festival. Happy to see that the event is still alive and kicking after…
Message2Man Winners
The festival that ended last week has finally published the list of awards of the 26th Message to Man festival – in English, the Russian version was on the site right after the festival had ended. Having delivered this a…
Americans in Paris
To be honest we lost our way at the big Cimetière Montparnasse. We had been talking about paying a visit to Sartre & Beauvoir or why not Gainsbourg, but suddenly my wife points and says, look, here is Joris Ivens.…
Salomé Jashi on Information and Form
The fine website of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) also – besides concrete info on workshops and festivals – includes small interviews. Today one is published with Salomé Jashi, whose “Bakhmaro” and “The Dazzling Light of Sunset” have been written…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /7
… Knowledge also affords artistic freedom. Experienced and versed, the author can move within his subject matter. His depiction of reality then becomes “macro realistic” – that is, a concrete expression of an inner reality. NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th By…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /6
… The ideal situation, of course, is that in which the photographer is his own client. Then the assignment is a vital function of the photographer himself; then his depiction of reality will occur at that point where he himself…
Brian McGinn & Rod Blackhurst: Amanda Knox
I refrain from a classic review of this shocking documentary that was launched yesterday on Netflix after having been premiered at the recent Toronto Film Festival. There has already been several praising texts in New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Telegraph…
Nick Fraser to Documentary Streaming Platform
“How Docs Reach the Audience” was the headline of the conference I was involved in here in Saint Petersburg with presentations of several interesting streaming services for documentaries in the Nordic and Russian environment and with only one broadcaster involved,…
Erarta, Yuri Abramochkin, Salgado
My introduction to Russian documentary and to wonderful Saint Petersburg is very much due to Viktor Skubey and Ludmila Nazaruk. The latter (and her artist husband Ilya) has taken me year after year to Erarta, museum for contemporary art, brilliant…
M2M How to reach the Audience/ 4
And some words about the male interventions at the conference in Saint Petersburg on the second day, and some small conclusions or call it reflections. Festival director (and film director and producer) Pavel Pechenkin from Flahertiana in Perm had just…
M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 3
No discussion, the female presenters at the Saint Petersburg conference on how to reach an audience saturday/sunday September 24/25 were the best prepared, spoke good English, were used to communicate and had clear power point figures and texts, mixed with…
M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 2
Maria Muskevich, director and producer, on her way to the Warsaw International Film Festival for the European premiere of the film ”Putin Forever” (director Kirill Nenashev) – the first lines of the film’s synopsis: … ” The day before Vladimir…
M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 1
Three Danes on stage. And a Russian technician, whose job it was, not always easy, during the whole first day of the conference, to have the computers connected to the system at Lendoc, where the conference ”How Docs Reach the…
Message2Man Opens
It was a grand opening last night of the 26th edition of the Message2Man festival in Saint Petersburg. It took place on the monumental Winter Palace Square, a historical place as it was shown through archive material from 1916, as…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /5
… The verbal accompaniment must create new relationships and angles of approach to the pictorial material (even laconic): … Småbrukaren och kyrkogårdsarbetaren Hjalmar Nyberg, Nyåker, gräver grav för avlidne banmästaren Henrik Carlsson (Sune Jonsson) NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th By…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /4
… Their documentation is a distillate of reality itself. Their pictures are freed of all ephemeral, fashionable, and sentimental trappings. They nakedly describe universal situations that are allowed to speak right into the camera. (Sune Jonsson) NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING…
Nordisk Panorama Forum 2016/ 2
The second day of the Nordic documentary meeting had a lighter atmosphere at the table with decision makers from the region, the rest of Europe and North America. There was still the usual ”thank you for the pitch” remarks but…
Nordisk Panorama Forum 2016/ 1
The family has gathered again. The Nordic documentary community, whose members know each other so well, and who help each other. And who often do coproductions. The family had invited friends from other European broadcasting and sales companies, well some…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /3
… One thereby denies that photographs can represent a pictorial manifestation of experiences and personal views, that photographs can be personal messages having aesthetic qualities of communication. (Sune Jonsson) NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th By Sune Jonsson (1978) 3 In the…
DOK.Incubator 2016 Preview
It proved to be a lucky first round of cooperation between the Nordisk Panorama and DOK.Incubator, the rough cut workshop for documentaries. The Nordisk Panorama is a festival that through its industry activity, the Forum, was able to gather a…
Ivar Murd: Ash Mountains
Yes, we have seen many documentaries from Eastern part of Europe and from Russia about industrial cities that were active, because there was work and now there is no longer work, the cities are dead and have no plan for…
Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /2
NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th By Sune Jonsson (1978) 2 An action, a façade, a room in someone’s home, a face – any of these is always a sum. This sum can be described, if one wishes, as heritage, environment,…
How to Reach the Audience
… is the title of a two-day documentary film conference that takes place September 24-25 in Saint Petersburg within the frames of the documentary festival Message2Man. It is a Nordic-Russian look at documentaries in cinemas, festivals, vod’s, self-distribution, screenings at…
Baltic Docs – Flying Back in Time
It’s 9.45am June 13th 1997. The location is the old Kino Gudhjem on Bornholm, the island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The first Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries is to take off, there is a panel of commissioning…
Baltic Sea Docs Riga/ 3
I have mentioned so many times the old masters like Herz Frank, Ivars Seleckis, Mark Soosaar, Henrikas Sablevicius, Uldis Brauns and their younger students like Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis (who are no longer the young generation but masters who belong…