A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Some call their films author driven, some call them auteurs, all agree they make creative documentaries, are artists in the field of filmmaking. They are very different, have their own style, some would call it a hand-writing, which is personal.…
Paul Simon’s 1986 album, “Graceland”, is a pivotal album and more than anything it revealed to us western mono-culture consumers that South Africa is a rich source of rhythms, harmonies and just plain good grooves. Also, the album and the…
… and as usual there are many interesting side programmes like this one, text taken from the site of the festival, headline “Putting the Material At a Distance”: Peter Voigt’s films reveal his special relationship to image material: He has…
… say the DocAlliance people, who again are advertising their vod repertory, including several films that can be streamed for free. The reason for celebration NOW is of course that two of the festivals that are part of the Alliance…
I took this photo from the FB page of Jana Cisar, who was one of the tutors in Tbilisi at the DocStories Georgia workshop that ran parallel to the Cinedoc festival. Cisar has a premiere coming up of her film…
The 1st International Documentary Festival in the Caucasus is going towards its end. Today the awarded films – and others – are being screened and last night the award ceremony took place in the Rustaveli Cineme. I was member of…
The Main Award at the 1st Cinedoc Tbilisi festival went to Lina Luzyte for her ”Igrushki”. The motivation of the Jury of the International Competition THE FIRST PRIZE IS AWARDED – BY A UNANIMOUS JURY DECISION – TO A DOCUMENTARY…
The Special Jury Award at the 1st Cinedoc Tbilisi festival went to Pawel Kloc for his ”Phnom Penh Lullaby”. The motivation of the Jury of the International Competition: THE SPECIAL JURY AWARD GOES TO A DOCUMENTARY THAT VERY MUCH SEDUCED…
The Jury Mention at the 1st Cinedoc Tbilisi festival went to Julia Panasenko for her “Outro”. The motivation of the Jury of the International Competition: A DOCUMENTARY THAT HITS THE VIEWER LIKE A ROCK: PUNK DOCUMENARY FILMMAKING! ONE OF THE…
It was too much, something had to be done so I asked one of the staff members of Cinedoc here in Tbilisi to ask the audience to refrain from talking on their phone and send text messages during the screening.…
Sitting in Tbilisi I see a press release from the Danish Cinematheque that hosts a ”Festival of Central and Eastern European Film” from October 24 till November 7. Among them the feature hit from Georgia, ”In Bloom”, but also several…
Voila, the 1st International Documentary Film Festival in the Caucasus started last night in the Rustaveli cinema in Tbilisi. Totally full was the cinema hall for the opening ceremony that included a promise from festival director Artchil Khetagouri, that a…
Stasik is one of the most obvious talents in young Polish documentary. His “Last Day of Summer” is a masterpiece in cinematography and compressed storytelling. This new film from his hands, which was at the Krakow festival, and now has…
”Cinema for me is a visual poem of time suspended”, says Tamara Stepanyan, according to the festival vod festivalscope. This sentence fits to characterise her fine personal film that takes its start at the grave of her (we learn) charismatic…
It’s one festival after the other publishing its programme. Lisbon, Leipzig, Amsterdam and today there is a programme party in Copenhagen for cph:dox… Idfa programme yesterday, the biggest festival in audience numbers and considered to be the most important –…
Big numbers in the press release of DOK Leipzig, sent out yesterday with an announcement of the so-called official programme. 56th edition, ” a total of 88 films from 34 countries will compete in the five competition categories. While there…
The programme of the 11th edition of the DocLisboa, that starts October 24 and ends November 3, was made public yesterday. Again you just have to say Respect! For the quality of the selection and for side programmes like ”Research”,…
It is not only in Colombia – see below – that festival organisers play with the word closeness between docs and dogs, when a new fest is to be launched. Look at the logo for a festival that starts today…
… which (Medellin) is a city in Colombia that October 15-20 will have its first documentary festival, built on the DocsBarcelona model with film screenings and industry activities, all thought out by Joan Gonzalez from Parallel40 in the Catalan capital,…
The following text was sent to filmkommentaren.dk by the organisers of Doclisboa’13: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is barred from leaving his country, he will not be able to attend Doclisboa’13. Mohammad Rasoulof has been invited to chair the Jury of…
The 1st international documentary film festival in the Caucasus runs from 15-20 October. The organiser is the Noosfera Foundation supported by – among others – the Idfa Bertha Fund and Georgian National Film Center. The festival has an International Competititon…
in the EU… I write ”dangerous” instead of ”stupid” and continue by saying ”here we go again” with the EU. One thing is that it has been decided to put the well established brand MEDIA into a new scheme under…
The IDFA Academy which I can highly recommend – I attended as observer last year – has asked me to help find young talents, who could qualify for their 2013 training programme. Here is the text, I am sure that…
The Vilnius Documentary Film Festival ended Saturday night and the jury headed by Leonard Helmrich, whose films were shown in a retrospective series, gave out the awards in the Baltic documentary competition, this year with a very strong line-up of…
But why don’t we know about it, one of the Russian directors said on the second and last day of the Conference in Hotel Vedensky in St. Petersburg, DoxPro, on financing of international creative documentaries. He referred to the ”Farewell…
First day of the Conference in Vedensky Hotel in St. Petersburg running parallel to the Message to Man festival. Theme of the meeting: Financing of International Creative Documentary Projects in the Northern Dimension Area: Cutting Edge and Trends. The opening…
It took 90 minutes to fly from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg and another 90 minutes to reach the hotel from the airport. Moskva Prospekt is veery long but I had good company in Viktor Skubey, producer and together with Ludmila…
No surprise in Malmø where the The Best Nordic Documentary Award was given last night to ”The Act of Killing”. Here is the motivation of the jury (Christian Bonke (director), Cara Cusumano (Tribeca Film Festival), and Kate Townsend (BBC Storyville)):…
Voilà, there you are in Malmø so close to Copenhagen, the home city of your correspondent, who after a good half hour of train trip took the escalators up from the deep Triangle Station to be at a square named…
I asked film director Mikhail Zheleznikov to explain to me what lies behind the section In Silico at the festival, for which he works. He answered like this: About In Silico. It’s the newest competition at Message to Man, and…
Scroll down some days of this blog and you will find a general presentation of the film programme at the festival in St. Petersburg that starts this coming Saturday. The festival has a fresh look, as you can see on…
A review by Sevara Pan: “There was a cartoon, when I was young called Jungle Book,” recounts Wolf, one of the characters in the film Neurotypical. “Now, at the end, Mowgli goes off with the man, with the fire. And…
It is my impression that many readers of filmkommentaren.dk are filmmakers or – consultants or academics, who teach documentaries at various places. This is the reason why I with pleasure forward this text to you from John Burgan, who together…
15 documentaries, long ones, 3 from each country, selected by national committees… that’s the new scheme for the Nordisk Panorama that this year has found its home in Malmö, Sweden for its 24th edition, September 20-25. This democratic approach will…
I was there last year, in Sibiu, where the Astra Film Festival this year can celebrate its 20th edition from October 14-20. The international competitive section of 9 films includes ”Leviathan” by Castaing-Taylor and Paravel, Marc Schmidt’s ”Matthews Laws”, Philibert’s…
I was there two years ago and was impressed of a good programme and had it not clashed with other obligations, I would have enjoyed to go to wonderful Vilnius for some days during the festival, that runs from September…
It is festival time – September, October and November – all over the world and it is a good time for the documentary genre. Gianfranco Rosi won the main award in Venice with his ”Sacro Gra” in competition with feature…
Palestinian artist and documentary filmmaker Khaled Jarrar received the Jury Documentary Award at the Malmö Arab Film Festival that ended a couple of days ago. More important, in terms of audience, is it maybe that the film has been chosen…
The Baltic Sea Pitching Forum ended Sunday afternoon. On the second day the hall on the 11th floor of Hotel Albert in Riga was again full of filmmakers, observers and a panel of tv editors, fund people and sales agents…
Training days for the pitching part of Baltic Sea Docs are over, Saturday and Sunday are the days for the projects to be presented at the Hotel Albert in Riga. And it is quite a range of projects that will…
Full house for the opening film of 2013 Baltic Sea Docs, “The Act of Killing”, director’s (Joshua Oppenheimer) cut (editor Niels Pagh Andersen), 158 mins. The film was screened not only in Riga but also in three other Latvian cities/towns:…
Sunshine. Wonderful view from the 11th floor of Riga’s Hotel Albert, named after a certain Einstein. ”If you don’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”, is one the sentences that are presented in the hotel that is…
It’s September 26-27 that an important documentary conference takes place in St. Petersburg. And you can sign up NOW by clicking the link below. It is for free and you can take part in person or via the internet. If…
Sevara Pan writes this in-depth review of a film, that has become a classic within the animation doc genre. For those who are interested there is at the end of the article a link to a review written on filmkommentaren…
… is a high quality magazine on documentary and the name of a very strong strand on SVT (Swedish public television) that has published its autumn repertory, opening this week with ”Pussy Riots” by Mike Lerner. ”The Act of Killing”…
New director of EDN (European Documentary Network) Paul Pauwels blogs to his members, and to those who want to/consider become a member of a very useful and unique organisation. As former privileged director of EDN, I warmly recommend you to…
Taken from the website of the festival: Jury members were Joslyn Barnes, Writer and producer (USA), Jasmin Basic, Film historian and Curator (Switzerland), Vibeke Bryld, Director and Writer, editor of DOX Magazine (Denmark). HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM:…
French producer Estelle Robin-Yu talks well and long in an interview brought and made by EDN (European Documentary Network). She talks about her background, about why and how she has been involved in international co-productions, and about the new construction…
Here are the descriptions of the five films that took part in Rough Cut Boutique session in Sarajevo: Baglar – Turkey, directors and producers Berke Bas, Melis Birder, Inhouse projects An underdog basketball team from hard scrabble Diyarbakir in Southeastern…
And here they are, the awards from the workshop for projects at a rough cut stage, text taken from the site of the festival: Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Documentary Center proudly announce official awards for the 3rd edition of…