A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
The nominations are announced for the Academy Awards (Oscar), the Danish Film Academy Awards (Robert) and the Danish Film Critics Award (Bodil). In the feature documentary categories it goes like this: Oscar ”Amy” (Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees), ”Cartel Land”…
If in Aarhus, second largest city in Denmark with a very active cultural life, don’t miss the art museum Aros that has always interesting exhibitions and a fine collection of new Danish artists like Per Kirkeby, recently portrayed in a…
The Baltic documentary festival in Aarhus, in the wonderful art house cinema Øst for Paradis (”East of Eden”) took off saturday with a full house screening of the classic ”Ten Minutes Older” by Herz Frank and Lithuanian Giedre Zickyte’s ”Master…
So, there it is, the film about the Lithuanian photographer Vitas Luckus (1943-1987), his life, his art and first of all his love story with muse and wife, Tatyana. (Screened at the cinema Øst For Paradis, Aarhus at the festival “Baltic Frames“)…
on the Oscar Trail … is the headline of an interesting article in New York Times by Cara Buckley, January 6. It mentions the changed rules for documentaries and reflects a bit on the who could be the winner this…
Below you find my list of ”Best Documentaries 2015” as well as a list of ”Documentary Talents of 2015”. I could also – like the DOKLeipzig did – have called the latter ”Next Masters”. Anyway, here they are, in a…
A Syrian Love Story, Sean McAllister Brothers, Wojciech Staron The Wolfpack, Crystal Moselle Listen to Me, Marlon, Stevan Riley Amy, Asif Kapadia Varicella, Viktor Kossakovsky The Event, Sergei Loznitsa Twilight of a Life,…
The Gleaners, Ye Zuyi Lampedusa in Winter, Jakob Brossmann Elephant’s Dream, Kristof Bilsen When the Earth Seems to be Light, Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze & David Meskhi. Train to Adulthood, Klára Trencsényi Ukrainian Sheriffs, Roman…
The IDA, International Documentary Association, pays tribute to Haskell Wexler: “In his rich and impactful career, Haskell Wexler inspired, mentored and befriended scores of filmmakers, who, spurred by not only his artistic verve but also his unwavering commitment to social…
Legendary Haskell Wexler died yesterday, 93 years old. Long obituaries giving information on his impressive career are to be found in Hollywwod Reporter, Variety and Indiewire (links below), several FB friends salute his strong contribution to film history and social…
Yes, this is how one the partners, CPH:DOX, of the very generous DocAlliance, ends the year with a Disney quote. And it IS a veeery good present that you should accept. The online platform – after a brilliant series of…
It starts with a symphony in image and sound. Close up on the earth, the soil somewhere in the universe, focus on small bubbles that become bigger, take a different shape and tune, sounds that take different notes, suddenly it…
Some facts: Full title: When the Earth Seems to be Light Full names of directors: Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze & David Meskhi. A Georgian/ German coproduction. Produced by Goslab & Jörg Langkau. Co-Produced by Zaza Rusadze, Zazarfilm. … and a…
This film was awarded as the best in the ”Next Masters” section of the DOKLeipzig festival this autumn. Very well deserved as Klára Trencsényi already before (primarily with ”Bird’s Way”) has shown how masterful cinematography looks, when she is behind…
Always with a camera at hand, be it to catch a moment in life… THE JEWISH STREET (1992) by Allan Berg Nielsen The camera from high above shows me Riga. The city set in its landscape. I’m drawn…
… it becomes indirectly an adaption of Ginsberg’s poem. And at the same time it is a film about Frank’s doubts about filming this. It sounds wild and it is. It is radical and most unique. Avant-garde and uncompromising, not as…
Three persons in one room. Plus a film crew. Not a lot of space but the great Czech director and cameraman Mira Janek manages to move around to observe and catch the intense atmosphere of quite a unique family:…
This text is taken from the FB page of film director and visual artist, Palestinian Khaled Jarrar, whose documentary “Infiltrators” has been reviewed on this site, as well as his visual happenings. This scary, visually strong written report comes from…
I have run into a slate of giving verbal flowers to documentarians, whose work I appreciate a lot and who are to be highlighted right now for one reason or the other. Earlier today it was Sérgio Tréfaut who visits…
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…