One World Romania/ 3
Went to watch ”Queen of Silence”, full house, a film directed by Polish Agnieszka Zwiefka, her first film, produced by Heino Deckert and shown at this festival as one of four films in a well deserved homage to Deckert as…
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 MoreOne World Romania/ 3
One World Romania Festival/ 2
I arrived a couple of days ago to Bucharest for the One World Romania. Together with EDN’s Mikael Opstrup we were taken to the hotel, I was given one of those rooms, where you can not open the window so…
Albert Maysles – The Eye of the Poet
Realscreen News publishes today (editor Manori Ravindran) a tribute to Albert Maysles, who passed away on March 5. We take the liberty to bring to you what colleague and cinema vérité pioneer as well D.A. Pennebaker wrote: “I was on…
The Great Kate
In the middle of all (the necessary) documentary films about wars and conflicts, going on now and/or some decades ago, it is nice to receive a newsletter from the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, with a report from a press conference on…
DocuDays UA 2015
“May you live in interesting times.” This Chinese curse pops up in my mind when I think about you, Ukrainians. To a documentary filmmaker, times like these are not only a curse, but also an opportunity. After all, we are…
IDFA Offers Video Reports
For those of us who were not able to visit the documentary film festival in Amsterdam, the good news is that the festival (link below) is bringing out videos from the festival. You can watch the opening and closing ceremonies…
Copenhagen Architecture Festival x 2015
Denmark has a new festival. The first Copenhagen Architecture Festival took place last year and the second edition is coming up soon and has spread to the city of Aarhus as well. More than 70 events in 19 different venues:…
Flying Film Festival!
Why not? Yes, why not activate us frequent flyers and all the others, who sit up there in the air for hours? Why not give us passengers quality (short) documentary and animation to watch and ask us to vote. Three…
DocAlliance Offers Kino Maidan Online
Voilá – 5 films for free taken from the upcoming festival programme of One World Romania (see post below)… words from the site of DocAlliance: …For the eighth time, the international festival One World Romania brings a critical voice as…
One World Romania.. Festival
… or to take the long version: One World Romania International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, taking place March 16-22. 35 films in 10 categories – like ”Agents of Change” (with films like ”Citizenfour”, ”Euromaidan.Rough Cut” and ”Iranian”, ”Comrade Capitalism”…
One World Festival Prague The Winners
The press releases from the festival in Prague are comprehensive and informative so here is a copy-paste of the one about the awards to be given at… the closing ceremony of the festival in the Lucerna cinema in Prague on…
Manon Loizeau: Chechnya, War without Trace
French journalist and documentary maker Manon Loizeau has made a remarkable film about todays Chechnya that premiered on Arte last week and just received the Grand Prize of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) at the International Film Festival and…
Albert Maysles 1926 – 2015
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our founder, legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles. Albert was a loving husband, father, brother and friend to many. For more than five decades, Albert created groundbreaking films, inspired filmmakers and…
Avi Mograbi in Paris
The French love the Israeli film artist Avi Mograbi – and do so this film blogger, who has followed his carreer with great enthusiasm. From March 14 the prestigious museum Jeu de Paume has invited Mograbi to meet the audience,…
Jestem Oleg Sentsov
The following is a text excerpt from the site of Human Rights in Ukraine: In a wonderful show of solidarity, members of the Polish Film Academy have called on Russia to release Crimean film director Oleg Sentsov and have promised…
Film Themes Accepted in Russia
Yesterday Guardian brought an article on the official Russian film political line for 2015. It was taken from “The Calvert Journal” that is (taken from its site) … a daily briefing on the culture and creativity of modern Russia. From…
Alain Cavalier: Le Paradis
In the mid 1980’es I fell in love with the French film ”Thérèse” by Alain Cavalier. Like many others did. Let me refresh your memory and let newcomers know about it – The back cover of the dvd, according to…
Bodil Award to The Look of Silence
The Danish film critics yearly ceremony took place last night and Joshua Oppenheimer, director and Signe Byrge, producer were on stage to get the statuette, named after the two important actresses in Danish cinema Bodil Kjer and Bodil Ipsen, an…
ZagrebDox 2015/ 2
Awards were given out last night in Zagreb. ”Virunga” (photo) by Orlando von Einsiedel got the Big Stamp for best film in International Competition with mentions to Finnish ”Garden Lovers” by Virpi Suutari and Polish Hanna Polak for ”Something Better…
Festivalists on Magnificent 7 Festival
I have often been calling for festival criticism coming from outside the festivals themselves. The site Festivalists is a place to check once in a while. Here is what it is – quote from the ”about” on the site: …Festivalists…
Festivals All Over
News about festivals and their selection are pouring in to the mailbox. Yes, it is indeed festival time now for documentaries as well, after the Berlinale that is strong in documentaries nowadays and “steals” a lot of attention and people.…
Tibor Kocsis: Barca’s Untold Legends
At the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade two weeks ago I had the pleasure to make a short class about football documentaries. I did so as a follow-up to the showing of “Messi” by Alexis de la Iglesia, enjoyed by more…
Silvered Water/Syria Self-Portrait/3
In its important tour around the world, to festivals but also to a theatrical release in some countries, the film by Wiam Simav Bedirxan and Ossama Mohammed was at the Istanbul Independent International Festival to get a big award. The…
Nadav Schirman: The Green Prince
På fredag viser Cinemateket i København – i forbindelse med Jewish Film festival – ”The Green Prince”, her anmeldt på engelsk. In 2010 Mosab Hassan Yousef wrote a book, ”Son of Hamas”. A feature film adaptation of the book is…
Farouky & McEvoy: Tell Spring Not to Come this Yea
I have been there before. Danish director Janus Metz went to the Helmand Province in Afghanistan to make ”Armadillo” about ”our” soldiers on mission. After more than a decade in the country, the NATO troops have withdrawn leaving the job…
Citizenfour: Filmmaking as an Act of Justice
… is the headline of an article written yesterday by Cara Mertens from Fordfoundation. Read the whole article, here is a quote: …CitizenFour reflects the historical moment in which it was made, and influences it at the same time. It…
Awards – Olga, Joanna, Ida, Snowden
Ok. if you say A, you have to say B as well: Let’s make a conclusion to the award postings we have made on this site: Olga by Miroslav Janek won the Czech Lion, Joanna by Aneta Kopacz did not…
Mladen Matičević: My Craft
Of course it is difficult to write about a film on the for me unknown singer, composer, poet and actor Arsen Dedić, who is very well known in the ex-Yugoslav countries, 76 years old and still going strong, as the…
Training Possibilities
Knowing that many of our readers are looking for ways to improve their skills, meet colleagues, develop their documentary projects… here is (below) a link to a very useful Guide to “Training and Networks”, published by Creative Europe MEDIA, giving…
Documentary César to Wenders & Salgado
Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado were given the French Documentary César at the ceremony last night in Paris for their film on photographer Sebastião Salgado, ”The Salt of the Earth”. The film competed with Stéphanie Valloatto’s ”Cartoonists – Foot…
Let Joanna Win an Oscar!
I subscribe to the Realscreen trade magazine, which gives sometimes very valuable and reflective articles, among many others that line up who has left Discovery Channel and who comes, and who has bought the rights for that series etc. The…
DocAlliance puts Focus on Czech Documentaries
Energetic Andrea Pruchova from DocAlliance invites you to watch 5 new Czech documentaries that compete for the Czech Lion, read what she writes: “Already this Saturday, February 21, the statuettes of the major Czech film award, the Czech Lion, will…
Alexandru Solomon Tribute
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival is one of the best when it comes to communication – and programming. This text is taken from the website, a very well deserved tribute to Alexandru Solomon is planned for the festival, that takes place…
MOMA Documentary Fortnight
… in NY is running now and until February 27 with many interesting titles, like ”Of Men and War” by Laurent Bécue-Renard, ”Domino Effect” (photo) by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski, and ”Around in the World in 50 Concerts”, the…
Away From Home…
CoExist is what it says the photo of the poster we took today in Paris, when visiting Institut du Monde Arabe. A fine statement after the events in Copenhagen – and Paris. On the wall of the building was written…
Vladimir Tomic: Flotel Europa
There were no Danish feature films awarded at the Berlinale but out of almost nowhere comes a Danish/Serbian documentary “Flotel Europa” and wins an award according to a press release of today from DFI, the Danish Film Institute: Vladimir Tomic’s…
ZagrebDox 2015
Festival director Nenad Puhovski and his ZagrebDox team has announced its programme for the 11th edition – around 150 films in 16 sections. The Croatian festival runs February 22 to March 1, take a look at the (as always) inviting,…
American POV’s Summer Season
Good for the Americans who love non-American documentaries that POV exists. The channel’s summer season has been launched yesterday – a quote from the announcement below taken from the website – and includes Chilean Maita Alberdi’s wonderful “Tea Time”,…
Pioneers Flaherty and Linklater
Tom Roston, film blogger with his own column, Doc Soup, on the site of American POV, writes today on Flaherty and Linklater, an elegant reflection on the two’s pioneer work with each their own genre. Here is a quote: ”……
Russian Documentaries
It is very difficult to make documentaries in Russia. It is very difficult to organise film festivals in Russia. It is very difficult to touch upon controversial subjects in Russia. We know that, but we also know how important it…
Magnificent 7 Belgrade Day 6 & 7
Finnish Virpi Suutari visited the festival for a very short time. She had just left the national documentary celebration DocPoint on Finland where her ”Garden Lovers” got the Jussi award as the best Finnish documentary and composer Sanna Salmenkallio received…
Magnificent 7 Belgrade Diary 5 & 6
Full house for the Q&A of Jorge Pelicano after the screening of his ”Suddenly My Thoughts Halt”, a film from a Portuguese hospital for mentally ill people, very well received by the Belgrade audience, again around 1000 spectators – to…
Democrats on BBC
Monday 9th of February Camilla Nielsson’s Democrats will be shown on BBC Four within the strand ”Storyville”, headed by Nick Fraser. On that occasion the director has been interviewed for the website of ”Storyville”, one of those small talk promotion…
Messi
Maja Medic took these photos of two men on the stage at the Magnificent 7 Festival in Belgrade. It was on the night when the film on “Messi” was to be shown. From left the body language signals the mountain…
Magnificent 7 Belgrade Day 4 & 5
One day takes the other here in Belgrade that has the most changing weather I have experienced for a long time. Yesterday Portuguese director Jorge Pelicano, Danish director Camilla Nielsson and I, accompanied by two young students of painting and…
Democrats to be Shown in Harare
Camilla Nielsson, director of ”Democrats” that was shown here in Belgrade (see post above) monday night, told me that the film will have its premiere in Harare Zimbabwe this coming friday. A press release from the Danish embassy goes like…
Magnificent 7 Belgrade – Day 3/4
Take a look at the photo. This man is the one that emotionally carries the Oscar-nominated ”Virunga” by Orlando von Einsiedel. Whenever André is in the picture with his mountain gorillas, you understand how important the message of the film…
Documentaries at the Berlinale
Press release from the upcoming film fest in Berlin: The Berlin International Film Festival (February 5-15) has long been committed to documentaries in their diverse forms. This is reflected in the programmes of the Berlinale’s different sections and initiatives, as…
Magnificent 7 Belgrade – Day 2/3
”I was asked to do that film”, Oeke Hoogendijk said at the Q&A session after the opening screening of ”The New Rijksmuseum – the Film” friday night January 30 at the Sava Centre in Belgrade. The hall was full, more…
Magnificent 7 Belgrade – Day 1
I warn you – it is my intention to report from the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade that starts tonight with the screening of ”The New Rijksmuseum – the Film” by Oeke Hoogendijk. The reporting will include a lot about films,…