A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
The reason for this small homage to the Portuguese director, producer and promoter for the documentary film genre is that the Danish Cinematheque in Copenhagen shows a mini-series of the director’s work, starting this coming thursday with the masterpiece ”Alentejo,…
… or you could also say moments from films that don’t leave you even if you have been watching many, really many as I have during the last month or so, in Leipzig, in Copenhagen, in Minsk, in Amsterdam or…
Two days left of a two week holiday stay in Paris. For the third time in the same rented apartment in rue Saint Denis near rue Réaumur and Blvd. Sebastopol. And it was a different stay this time after November…
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,…
I have known Filip Remunda since he and colleague Andrea Prenghyova around the turn of the century came to an EDN workshop in Bardonecchia Italy to get advice on how to set up what became brilliant IDF (Institute of Documentary…
Luckily, they are not all American, the 14 which are now left for later to be taken down to 5 in January… but the new Michael Moore is there, “Where to Invade Next” as well as Alex Gibney’s Scientology-film and…
When in Minsk for the Listapad film festival, I met with several filmmakers, who presented their projects to me to seek advice. One of them was Volia Chajkouskaya, who provided me with a link to “Crossroads”, the winner of the…
Yesterday Claude Lanzmann could celebrate his 90 year birthday. It gave me the inspiration to celebrate him by visiting youtube, where you can find a lot of clips from from Shoah and other of his films plus a long, very…
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…
Extensive and valuable information was sent to me by Russian Georgy Molodtsov, energetic filmmaker and promoter of documentaries from his country – together with Sergei Kachkin, Alisa Stolyarova and Vlad Ketkovich, contact persons for Moscow Business Square, Documentary Film Center…
… 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.…
If you read the post below, ”Viktor Kossakovsky at IDFA”, you will discover his insisting on the form, on the composing of the image, on the aesthetics. If you want to see how this can be done, please go and…
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.…
… New York and Moscow. Strong promotion of the creative documentary takes place these days in the two cities. Or should we call it the cinema d’auteur? Anyway, no-one would object to put that characterisation on French Nicolas Philibert, who…
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…
Nearly two hours in company of Janis Joplin, what’s not to like! I was so ready to just lean back and enjoy and I was… disappointed. Whoa, slow down, hold your horses! I’m being bombarded with talking heads at…
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…
Again and again DocAlliance, “Your Online Documentary Cinema”, brings quality to its users, who are hopefully many. This time a series of filmed masterclasses from the Jihlava 2014 festival. I visited one of them last year, the one with Wojtiech…
In the series “EDN Member of the Month”, Hanka Kastelicová from HBO Europe presents, what her job at the channel is, what her background is, what she is proud of to have supported… It’s very informative and good reading (you…
It’s playing in Mexico these days, it has been at festivals for a year now, I managed to watch it last night on Swedish television and can only add ”I agree” to the many praising words and awards it has…
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…
In early August Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis sent me a link to this co-production between Latvia and Georgia. The film won an award as best documentary at the BIAFF, the Batumi International Art-House Film Festival, it is in the Focus Caucasus competition…
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:…
Under the headline “Always The Trouble With Avi”, the Filmforum at the Museum Ludwig in Köln shows a retrospective of films by Israeli Avi Mograbi, introduced by this great text by the curator Rasha Salti: “He is almost always in…
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…