A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
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…
“…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…
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…
… 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…
… 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
… 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…
… 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…
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…
“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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
… 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…
… 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…
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…
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…
… 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…
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…
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…
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,…
… 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…
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…
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…
A week ago I was in Mariupol with Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, whose ”Mariupolis” made a big impression on me. And now I have returned to the city in Ukraine with American director Steve Hooper, who is here in Riga…
The first day of pitching at the 20th edition of the Baltic Sea Forum ended with the presentation of the project ”Baltic New Wave”. The initiator and co-director of the film-to-be Kristine Briede was the presenter in front of four…
I had to have a photo of the grand old man in Latvian documentary Ivars Seleckis (born September 22 1934) and me just before the pitch rehearsal at the 20th edition of the Forum for documentaries being held in Riga…
No, I can not make a real review of this film… But why not? I know the two makers too well, and the project. I have seen them pitching the film at several workshops. And I am just so happy…
… with the subtitle “Sibiu International Film Festival” has existed since 1993. This year it takes place October 17-23. The Romanian festival in Sibiu sent an email about the selection that has been done and the interesting thematic grouping of…
Let’s start with this information: Mariupolis is a city in Ukraine at the Azov Sea and with the river Kalmius. Half a million citizens. The war in Eastern Ukraine has reached Mariupolis. A quote from a Cineuropa interview with Mantas…
Så har The War Show haft premiere i Venezia. Jeg var der ikke og kan ikke skrive anmeldelse, men nu vi her på Filmkommentaren et par gange har skrevet om filmen i blinde, vil jeg da også lige citere de første anmeldelser. ZYTOON, EN…
DOKU.ARTS is one of those festivals that is different because it puts a focus on the essay film and adds a very attractive symposium to its film program. The symposium takes place October 7, the festival runs in Berlin from…
The new film by Andreas Johnsen is already touring internationally – Started at Tribeca and has recently been in Prizren, Kosovo and in Skopje, Macedonia. But a Danish premiere is coming now, read this taken from the website of the…
I am writing this text to support a filmmaker in trouble – Russian Sergey Kachkin, who, in these days, 25 years after the fall of USSR, experiences problems in getting his new film, that he has been working on for…
… is the name of the awards given at the Sarajevo Film Festival, distributed last night in the beautiful city with Romanian Monica Lazurean Gorgan as the winner in the documentary category for her “A Mere Breath” (photo) (the heart…
Two hours drive from Prizren, is Skopje, capital of Macedonia. After Dokufest in Kosovo, Sarajevo in Bosnia, it is MakeDox that takes the documentary scene from last night and until friday 26th of August. It’s a festival that names itself…
I warn you – you are going to hear quite a lot about Baltic Sea Docs in Riga. I will be there – have been “part of the furniture” since it started on the island of Bornholm – to tutor…
For two more days you will be able to watch, for free, Sergei Loznitsa’s masterly done archive film ”The Event” through the DocAlliance, ”your online documentary cinema”, a fine editorial choice for us to remember what happened in those memorable…
You may discuss whether this is the right way to do it: to have 10 documentary film festivals recommend to the European Film Academy one film each to be nominated for the European Film Awards, followed by a decision taken…
It was visually crazy to be in calm Prizren for the Dokufest. Prizren that in its centre is full of cafés, where people drink tea and coffee, smoke cigarettes and eat cakes (they have sweet teeth in this area). They…
Last night in Prizren the Dokufest award ceremony was held at the Lumbhardi cinema followed by one more tribute to late Kiarostami, the screening of his “Close Up”. I take the liberty to mention the winners in the section, where…
Of course it’s not only about film screenings here in Prizren. There are masterclasses, pitching, koncerts, photo exhibitions… Kirsten Johnson arrived to have her ”Cameraperson” shown and to do a class that was led by Pamela Cohn, and expectedly turned…