Documentarist Istanbul
For the seventh time the Documentarist festival is running in Istanbul – until June 12 – under the leadership of, among others, director Emel Çelebi. There is a Turkish Panorama, a focus on Syria, a tribute to Johan van der…
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 MoreDocumentarist Istanbul
Ukraine: A Country at Rough Cut Stage
I have posted several texts on Ukraine and the brave filmmakers there. Here is one more after contact with Dar’ya Averchenko and Roman Bondarchuk. The two of them have taken part in the admirable work “Euromaidan. Rough Cut”, which is…
Away from Home – After DocsBarcelona Thoughts
It was quite moving to be an observer outside the Aribau Club on the closing night of the DocsBarcelona festival. Syrian refugees lined up to hug the director Talal Derki, who got the main award for his ”Return to Homs”.…
DocsBarcelona 2014/ 6
Festive closure of DocsBarcelona 2014. The film ”Five Days to Dance” by Rafa Molés and Pepe Andreu were shown to a full house. The film that was pitched at the festival 2013 describes how two dancers are able to get…
DocsBarcelona 2014/ 5
Sunday morning in Barcelona, last day of the festival, awards to be given tonight. Walked home to hotel from the Aribau Club Cinema around 1am after quite a long festival evening. Accompanied by Irina Shatilova, whose film ”Linar” had been…
DocsBarcelona 2014/ 4
Looong, well deserved applause to Talal Derki last night when ”Return to Homs” was shown at CCCB. The director, who is now living in Turkey and Berlin – all his family is out of Syria – talked with the audience…
DocsBarcelona 2014/ 3
Wednesday night, full house in the Aribau Club cinema, where Israeli Shirly Berkovitz (photo) showed her amazing ”The Good Son” and told the audience how the film took off: A young man contacts her with some video tapes that he…
DocsBarcelona 2014/ 2
Colombian director Juan Pablo Rios was the first of three filmmakers coming for the rough cut sessions of DocsBarcelona 2014. The concept of the sessions is very simple: the filmmaker turns up with his work at a rough cut stage,…
DocsBarcelona 2014/ 1
I am in Barcelona. The DocsBarcelona festival and its associated activities for professionals start today. I am in the Pulitzer Hotel next to Plaza de Catalunya, nice room with a look to a street wall covered by a photo of…
Miroslav Janek: Olga/ 3
The Czech production company Film&Sociology was so kind to send me a vimeo link so I could watch Janek’s film on Olga Havlova, which I had read about passionately because of ”Citizen Havel”, where she is very much present with…
Kärkkäinen & Liimatainen: Once I Dreamt of Life
The website synopsis is precise so I quote that: “Every day in Finland alone, two people commit suicide. Thousands of people are affected by suicide yearly. Once I Dreamt of Life is a feature length documentary film about suicide —…
Bill Siegel: The Trials of Muhammad Ali
The press kit for this film makes a point out of that this is no conventional sports documentary. It is true that the actual boxing scenes are quite limited and maybe the film makers find this fact as radical as…
Glawogger and Novotny
At DocsBarcelona 2013 Michael Glawogger asked me if I could write a piece on ”Megacities” and the remix of it done by Timo Novotny, ”Life in Loops”. Compare the two, he said, and he gave me the dvd’s of the…
Miroslav Janek: Olga/ 2
Have to confess that I did not know about the online documentary film magazine DOK Revue. Now I do, and it is no surprise that this fine initiative comes out of the Czech Republic, this time from the Jihlava International…
Penny Lane: Our Nixon
… will be shown on Danish Dokumania (DR2) tonight. It was written about on filmkommentaren last August with a quote from NY Times critic A.C. Scott: ”Apart from some old news clips, most of the images come from Super-8 home…
Miroslav Janek: Olga
This is a film, that I can’t wait to see. The main character is Olga Havlová, the director is Miroslav Janek. It guarantees the quality. Janek made “Citizen Havel” into an unforgettable film, when he took over the material that…
Emel Celebi: Ain’t No Cinderellas
It’s on the political agenda in most countries, it is being discussed in the EU – undeclared work – and of course it is also the case in Turkey. When it comes to the profession of domestic workers, which does…
Simon Lereng Wilmont: Chikara
with the subtitle ”The Sumo Wrestler’s Son” – is a fine documentary for children. The production company Final Cut for Real estimates the primary target audience to be between 6 and 12, but it is also one of those films…
Football Film Festival
The timing is fine, it’s a warm-up for the World Cup in Brazil. 4 days of football films in wonderful Grand Teatret in Copenhagen after an American concept, if I get it right – over there they call it soccer.…
Gianfranco Rosi on DocAlliance
Again a generous offer from DocAlliance, concerning Gianfranco Rosi, Italian documentarian, who won the Golden Lion in Venice last year with Bernardo Bertolucci as chair of the jury. This is the text from the vod and view the three great…
interDocsBarcelona Conference 2014
DocsBarcelona includes for the second time webdocs and interactive productions in its programme. This is how it was announced in a press release of today: Find out about the latest developments in research and production of webdocs. Do not miss…
NFB/ONF celebrates 75 Years
National Film Board of Canada/Office National du film du Canada is the oldest national film institution in the world, as far as I know. It started in 1939, and is being celebrated in and outside its own country because of…
DocsBarcelona 2014
Young directors, fresh views and interpretations of the world today, resistance movements, new ways of storytelling – it is a golden age of the documentary and that is strongly reflected in the programme that the DocsBarcelona festival has just published!…
M. Obert: Song from the Forest/Sange fra skoven
Citat fra pressematerialet: Essensen i Bayaka kultur er deres ældgamle polyfoniske sang. Louis Sarno har gennem sine indspilninger af Bayaka folkets musik sikret en af verdens vigtige kulturarve; i 2003 fik Bayaka folkets musik UNESCO World Heritage Status. Louis Sarno…
Viesturs Kairiss: Pelican in the Desert
This new film by Latvian film and opera director Kairiss will have its international premiere tomorrow at Visions du Réel in Nyon. Here is an article I wrote for the promotion of the film: The first film work I met…
EDN Today and Yesterday
The EDN website is a rich source of general information for documentarians around the world. Available, even if you are not a member – which you definitely should be to get all the service provided by the organisation. For instance…
Glawogger – Collected Posts on his Works
”A World of Troubled Beauty…” HEADLINE NY Times brought the most precise headline to an article about the films of Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger’s impressive work: A World of Troubled Beauty – referring to his…
Michael Glawogger 1959-2014
Shocking news – Michael Glawogger has died from malaria during the shooting of a film in Africa. So young! My deepest condolences to family and the many, who were close to him. In June last year I had the privilege…
Baltic Responses to Ban of Russian Channels
Is this a wise decision, I wondered, when i read a text on “Film New Europe” a couple of weeks ago: Governmental bodies in both Latvia and Lithuania have banned broadcasts of Russian state TV channels. A three month ban…
Bill Brummel: Erasing Hate
Danish DR/Dokumania shows tomorrow the American tv (NBC) documentary “Erasing Hate”. I got a link to watch it for a review, I could go through the first third of the film then the link went on strike. So no points…
Carmen Cobos: Imperfect Harmony
Louis Andriessen, charismatic Dutch composer, and Mariss Jansons, charismatic Latvian chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. The two characters in the fascinating observational documentary drama, which is very well told, interesting and entertaining. The drama evolves as…
Cucic & Skoric: Mitch – Diary of a Schizophrenic
It is rough. It is provoking. It is touching, poetic and shocking because you experience the difficulties of a man’s aim to come to terms with himself and life as it goes on in his head and around him in…
Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Berdirxan: Silvered Water
A mail came in today with the headline: Good News in Bad Times! It came from Orwa Nyrabia from Syrian Proaction Film, together with French Films d’Ici the producer of ”Silvered Water. Syria, An Auto-Portrait”. Orwa Nyrabia: It is with…
Vladislava Plancikova: Felvidek
… with the subtitle ”Caught in Between”. ”An Animated Documentary” it is said in the press material, and indeed it is, including all kind of animation techniques that I don’t have knowledge enough to characterise correctly. But what I can…
Documentaries and Shorts for All Danes
It’s gonna be a bit personal/sentimental as I worked with Danish short films and documentaries for 20 years. At the Danish Statens Filmcentral, where the distribution on 16mm was huge to the whole non-theatrical sector – schools, community groups and…
Peter Liechti 1951-2014
Today I got this emotional FB message from Sevara Pan, who has written many reviews for filmkommentaren, including one on “In My Father’s Garden”, an absolute highlight in modern documentary: Dearest Tue, I hope my email finds you well. I…
Docudays Ukraine Winners
A bit late, but you should know… taken from the website of the festival: 11th International documentary films about human rights festival has ended in Kyiv. The awards ceremony was held On March 27 in Cinema House in Kyiv. Hosts…
Ke Guo: Thirty Two
At the end of the film photos of old Chinese ladies come up on the screen. They have had the same experience in their lives: They were captured by the Japanese during the war and kept as prisoners in a…
The American Documentary Film Festival/ Winners
Amdocs distributed several awards on the final evening of the festival. I was involved in the pitch competition and a juror for the Best American Feature Documentary. For that reason they come first on the list with some comments from…
American Documentary Film Festival/ 4
As some other documentary festivals, DOKLeipzig is an example, Amdocs screens animation films. A good choice I thought after having attended a programme of 8 short ones from Germany, mostly from the film school in Baden-Württemberg. Puppet animation with beautiful…
IDFA Bertha Fund Supports Talents
Press release from IDFA, know several of the projects and people, great choices: For the February selection round of 2014, the IDFA Bertha Fund (previously Jan Vrijman Fund) considered around 300 projects from more than 65 different countries. In total,…
American Documentary Film Festival/ 3
Festivals would not be able to function without volunteers. People who help without being paid. The American Documentary Film Festival in Palm Springs is no exception. In its third edition the help you get from local people who support the…
American Documentary Film Festival/ 2
Opening night in Palm Springs: Julie Cohen’s ”I Live to Sing”, or in xhosa language: Ndiphilela Ukucula. A warm film with three black, young upcoming opera stars from South Africa, who tell their stories, which are sad and uplifting at…
Theodor Christensen 100 År
The Danish Cinemateket celebrates the founder of Danish documentary Theodor Christensen from May 1st with an exhibition and a retrospective. In Danish: Ja, ham ville jeg gerne have mødt og røget en cigar med… Men han døde allerede i 1967,…
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2014/ 2
A short trip to Thessaloniki it was, but I managed to attend a Docs in Progress session at the Olympion Cinema as well as the first 7-8 projects which were pitched at the Docs in Thessaloniki Forum, arranged by the…
EDN Award 2014
I have just returned from Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival after a (far too) quick visit for the following reason – thank you so much! – this is the press release of the festival: The European Documentary Network (EDN) award, which…
Nicolas Philibert in Thessaloniki
Dimitri Eipides, founder and director of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, had made the obvious choice to present two tributes at the festival, one for the late Peter Wintonick, who came to the festival so many times to pass his wisdom…
DocuDays Ukraine with Euromaidan Chronicles
The organisers of the festival in Kiev has this text on their website: 11th Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival opens on March 21 at 7 p.m. with Euromaidan chronicles: Three months of revolution. From indignant protest to…
Architecture and Film Festival
In Copenhagen, starting March 27, running until March 30, the first of its kind, an ambitious set-up with discussion, tours around Copenhagen, and films, more than 80, new and old from all over the world. It is indeed an impressive…
Cathedrals of Culture
6 3D documentaries by Wim Wenders, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Margreth Olin and Karim Ainouz. Executive producer: Wim Wenders. Each film is 26 mins. long. Subtitle: ”If Buildings Could Talk” and this is where the overall problem lies…