Articles/Reviews ENGLISH

The IDFA festival sent out a newsletter with these words included: “Are you in the mood to reminisce about your last two weeks in Amsterdam, or have a look at what you missed? The IDFA website’s got it covered in text,…

Hanka Kastelicová from HBO Europe posted a photo and a text on FB that caught my attention: Miha Čelar and Nenad Puhovski just pitching at IDFA. Good luck, guys, you are only pitchers from Eastern Europe at IDFA Forum this…

The festival in Amsterdam is still going on – until November 29. The awards, however, were presented yesterday, For the first time ever, two prizes were awarded per competition: a prize for the best film and a special jury prize.…

While IDFA is running, CPH:DOX communicates that it will move from November to March. Festival director Tine Fischer puts it like this: “This year’s festival has been outstanding. We have once again had great response from our audiences, and the…

… or how I could not get rid of the football player, whose last name is Ibrahimovic, the man who with two goals last week made sure that we Danes do not have a team at the upcoming European Championship.…

The IDFAAcademy for young filmmakers from all over the world started yesterday. Joyful Meike Statema is the head of this important section of the Documentary Paradise that IDFA was called in the KLM flight magazine I had in my hands…

Irina Demyanova came up to me at the Baltic Sea Forum in Riga: Tue, it is time for you to come back to Minsk. You were there 20 years ago! I would like to invite you back. Right she is,…

I have had the pleasure to follow from the sideline how Ukrainian filmmakers and friends Dar’ya Averchenko (DA), Roman Bondarchuk (RB) together with Latvian producer and friend Uldis Cekulis have developed their “Ukrainian Sheriffs” that will have its premiere at…

The winner of the DOX:Award, a section characterised like this by the festival: ”The films nominated for DOX:AWARD reflect CPH:DOX’s selection of the best international documentary films. They stand out for their strong personal qualities and cinematic vision and deserve…

Last night the first award at the closing ceremony of CPH:DOX was given to Elvira Lind. This is a copy paste from the press release of the festival, photo stolen from the FB page of producer Sara Stockmann. I was…

They insist on being different – they are and they are not. CPH:DOX launched its two day Forum within its Industry Section as ”Business as Unusual”, being performed in a huge tent in the Royal Garden in Copenhagen opposite the…

All right I thought after the first day – but where are the weird, ambitious, non-subject, non-linear, personal artistic projects that can only be pitched at CPH:DOX Forum. A couple came on the second day but raised for me the…

Don’t miss out on the last screening of Cosima Spender’s Palio at CPH:DOX on Sunday November 15th. It is a feast for the eyes! Il Palio is the world’s oldest horserace. It takes place at the famous Piazza del Campo in…

  Before the review you will first get a slightly shortened version of the precise description of the film taken from its website. In the post below you will find information about the upcoming distribution during the CPH:DOX. The international…

  It’s not every day that a documentary makes me cry with laughter, I cherished the moment! For 20 years the social activist duo The Yes Men have performed their happenings around the world. The Yes Men are Revolting is…

I am writing this in the train back to Copenhagen from Leipzig. The journey is 8 hours long but for one, who has done enough airports in the last 25 years it is just a nice and relaxing experience that…

  Last Wednesday I got off the train in Leipzig and walked to the Museum of Bildende Kunst, that serves as Centre for the DOK Leipzig festival, also this year, with space to meet for a coffee or a fine…

… directed by Melisa Üneri, who has a Finnish mother and a Turkish father, the protagonist of this unpretentious, light in tone and yet tough and moving, well told story about the relationship between the young girl (the director) and…

Vitaly Mansky has been in North Korea. If I understand it correctly called in as a professional helper of a local film team that is to make a propaganda film for the regime. He helps, I guess, but he also…

I have already saluted the jury’s choice of Wojciech Staron’s ”Brothers” as the winner of the feature length competition. I would also like to salute the festival for making a good selection of films for this section. I agree that…

I just came from the award ceremony of the 58th edition of DOK Leipzig with a smile on my face, happy that the jury chose, what I also found the best film in the main competiton, “Brothers” by Wojciech Staron.…

From a reporter’s point of view this could have been put on the site last night but I wanted to watch the winning film of the Stiftung Friedliche Revolution Prize today and so I did and it was a good…

Let’s leave our bikes here, Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis said when he, Ukranian directors Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko met me last night at the Museum, the Festival Centre of DOK Leipzig. They had been doing their presentation at the…

The festival opened last night and the press people sent out a Release under the heading ”Political Voicings at Opening of DOK Leipzig”. I quote from the text: Leena Pasanen: “DOK Leipzig traditionally stands for peace and human dignity. Today…

If you click the link below you will find an overview of the programme for the DOK Leipzig 2015 festival that starts tonight, see post below. There is the Official Selection, the Special Programmes, Discussions and Events. There is so…

The Press department at Dok Leipzig presents below what happens to night at the opening of the 58th edition of the international festival for documentary and animated films – tomorrow we will be able to report on what has happened…

With his permission I break into the slate of CPH:DOX previews and reviews of colleague Allan Berg to tell about the Forum of CPH:DOX, which published its programme yesterday, and it is exciting reading: 32 projects – presented ”in four…

Look at the photo – it says Pasanen down in the corner on a name tag, Leena is the first name, she is the new director of the DokLeipzig that starts October 26 and runs until November 1st. She presided…

Yes, it is documentary festival time, indeed. In this and in the coming month. My mailbox is full of news from festivals that want to tell the film communities about the selection that has been done for competitions, for retrospectives,…

… starts this coming week, the 15th of October and runs for 10 days. With many interesting films to watch. Below you will find a review of ”Double Aliens” by Ugis Olte, that is on the programme that includes several…

 It starts October 21st and runs until the 25th – the documentary film festival in the Georgian capital. A quote from the website of the festival: ”After a long and difficult selection process, we are very happy to unveil the program…

The English version of the M2M in St.Petersburg awards and statistics was published today on the website of the festival. I have taken some clips from the long text, the whole press release you can find clicking the link below:…

One film festival follows the other and the months of October and November is high season. Tonight the veteran Astra Film Festival in Sibiu Romania starts and runs for 7 days with an exciting programme that is both looking back…

A non-urban selection, indeed. Most of the films in the national competition took place outside the big cities. And very often in Siberia. Films about people and culture, clashes between indigenous people and the so-called civilisation like in ”The Land…

I came to M2M for Russian documentaries and have so far been watching 16 of the 23 in the ”National Competition of Documentary Films” in the Velikan cinema number 4 – good seats, almost full house for all screenings. With…

I hope the audience will become infected, Kossakovsky said to me with a smile before the world premiere of his children documentary, ”Varicella” (Chickenpox). He was there on stage with one of his stars, Polina and with a twelve year…