A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
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…
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…
… 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…
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…
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…
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,…
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”,…
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: ”……
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
”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…
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,…
Realscreen reports from the ongoing Sundance festival. And documentaries are shown and discussed. Last saturday a panel of three directors were talking about ”the blurring lines between journalism and non-fiction storytelling”. Laura Poitras (Citizen Four etc.) (Photo): “It’s not a…
The Flaherty has announced its 2015 seminar, June 13-19 at the Colgate University, Hamilton NY. The programmer is Laura U. Marks. There is a focus on Arab film artists – you can read much more about the event by clicking…
Of course we Danes must have an award carrying the name of Dreyer: “Every year on Dreyer’s birthday, the Carl Th. Dreyer Memorial Fund awards a prize primarily to a young film director, or other artist working in film, in…
Jeg har ikke tid til at skrive en egentlig anmeldelse af André Singers imponerende og vigtige film, som jeg så på SVT i går aftes. Allan Berg vil muligvis stå for den. Men filmen er som historisk dokument naturligvis unik,…
If you happen to be in Barcelona this week, it is a must to visit the exhibition at La Virreina Image Centre, La Rambla 99. It is the last week of an exhibition that I was lucky to see in…
”Cinematekets egne premiere-dokumentarer – håndplukkede historier fra virkeligheden”, sådan præsenteres et fint initiativ, som også kaldes ”månedens dokumentar”, som vises i Filmhuset ved 6 forevisninger, således også januar måneds bemærkelsesværdige ”The 50 Year Argument”, der vises i sin originalversion og…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Rules of the Game” that will be screened February 5th as the closing film of the festival. The text also includes words from the director: There’s a rumour…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Garden Lovers” that will be screened February 4th at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: One of the most important Finnish and European documentary…
Yes, of course it is the unique Doc Alliance that brings to us – FOR FREE – seven of Kossakovsky’s film online – UNTIL FEBRUARY 1ST. It is “the first time that they enter the virtual online world and thus…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Suddenly My Thoughts Halt” that will be screened February 3rd at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: Outstanding photography takes us into the space…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Democrats” that will be screened February 2nd at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: One of the best Danish documentaries in past several years…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Messi” that will be screened February 1st at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: When one of the most important Spanish directors, Alex de…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade presents the Oscar-nominated ”Virunga” that will be screened January 31 at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: Depicting the best and the worst in human…
This morning Joan Gonzalez, director of DocsBarcelona, sent me this message from his iPhone conveying hope for what documentaries can do in Catalonia: “Last 24 hours has been very explosive in doc terms. Yesterday the documentary “Ciutat Morta” (corruption, police,…
Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade presents ”The New Rijksmuseum” that will be screened January 30 as the opening film of the festival. The text also includes words from the director: In 2003, the Rijksmuseum…
Mens jeg fortumlet tænker videre over alt det, som skete i mig ved at lytte til de to dages samtale mellem Joshua Oppenheimer og Werner Herzog på Den danske Filmskole for en uge siden, hjælper kollega Tue Steen Müller mig ved at hitte dette…
The 11th edition of the Magnificent7 Festival for European feature length documentaries takes off January 30 and continues until February 5. As in previous years filmkommentaren publishes the introduction to the 7 films written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. That…
… and for the rest of course, but let’s focus on the nominees in the documentary feauture, the first mentioned is/are directors, the names that follow are producers: The favourite unique document ”Citizen Four” (photo) (Laura Poitras (dir.), Mathilde Bonnefoy…
Trieste – the city of Claudio Magris – still miss a creative documentary on this magnificent author – hosts a fine festival that starts tomorrow January 16th and runs until January 22nd. The documentary programme has quality and is also…
For those of us travelling to festivals like DOKLeipzig and idfa it has been obvious that something good is happening with documentaries in Chile. Good fims are made and delegations arrive to the festivals to launch films through the ChileDoc,…
The excellent French language ”Le blog documentaire” posted today a text with the headline above. The editor C.Mal has listed (some with links to clips/trailers) films made on some of killed cartoonists (like Cabu, photo) or on the satirical cartoon…
From the website of Göteborg Film Festival (January 23 – February 2): French sadomasochism, Canadian social workers and an American free zone for convicted pedophiles are all found in the eight films nominated for the Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary…
I know it looks stupid and tabloid, but I have been using that headline so many times and I do believe that there is a lot of documentary talent and originality to be found in the Eastern European countries. More…
Grand old man and enfant terrible of French militant cinema René Vautier died Sunday January 4th in his home in Cancale, Brittany, at the age of 86. Originally from Brittany, René Vautier fought the Germans as a very young member…
DocAlliance starts its new year with a present to its (hopefully) many viewers: ”Olga” by Miroslav Janek is available for free viewing until January 11. It is a film that was on my Best of 2014 – here is a…
On the way to the Zelig film school in Bolzano a stop was made in Berlin for some days. Apart from enjoying oysters in KaDeWee or la Fayette the city’s many good restaurants often have Kalbsleber in its classic version…
First text of 2015. Happy New Year to all our readers! I sit in the armchair of my room, the place to be when football is to be watched on the small tv screen, or documentaries on the computer via…
It was almost ”business as usual”, when the DFI (Danish Film Institute) proudly could announce that 15 Danish documentaries were selected to be screened at IDFA, for most documentarians the festival for films that have been categorized to be a…
Back to film blogging after holidays. Michael Haneke is the right one for a comeback. In the Paris Review winter 2014 issue there is a small excerpt from an interview with the director – if you want to read the…
Here we go again. A year has passed. I have seen films at festivals and in cinemas around Europe and in the US. I have seen films at home via links sent to me, thanks to many for their generosity.…
Alphabetical order: 1989 by Anders Østergaard and Erzsebet Racz, Denmark/Hungary 20,000 Days on Earth by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, UK Alentejo Alentejo by Sergio Tréfaut, Portugal Citizen Four by Laura Poitras, Germany/US Democrats by Camilla Nielsson, Denmark Garden Lovers…