Docu Days Audience Behaviour
I dare the risk of being called a grumpy old man, but why the f… does the audience, quite a good part of it, here in Kiev, at the Docu Days festival, behave so disrespectful to the films being screened,…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
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Docu Days: A Farewell to Cinema
In June 2012 the football championship UEFA Euro took place in Poland and Ukraine. And of course some films came out of that. An Ukranian premiere was arranged at the Docu Days festival. 10 films were collected as a Youth…
DocuDays Opening Problems /2
Through reliable sources filmkommentaren.dk has succeeded to get hold of a translated version of the official document read from the stage at the opening of Docudays festival here in Kiev. As earlier announced negociations were held immediately that secured that…
EDN Award 2013
Friday night two old boys in the documentary community, Italian Stefano Tealdi and Catalan Joan Gonzàlez got the EDN Award 2013. I allow myself this characterisation of dear friends, who were there, when EDN (European Documentary Network) started and who…
DocuDays Opening Problems
Below you can read about the snow storm in Kiev outside the Cinema House, where the festival ceremony took place last night, March 22nd. But compared to what happened inside that was nothing. The nicely dressed presenters on the stage…
Festival Opens with Snow Storm
Childhood memories! Snow, snow, snow. Well, we had it in Denmark the last week but not dramatic in the Copenhagen area and no problem in taking off from Copenhagen airport friday morning or to go by the connecting flight from…
O. Balahura: Life Span of the Object in Frame /2
Ukranianweek.com writes to a still from the film: ” ’Life Span of the Object in Frame’ began with a photograph taken by Oleksandr Chekmeniov seven or eight years ago at Privoz, a huge market in Odesa. The girl on the…
O. Balahura: Life Span of the Object in Frame
A good advice – go to the trailer of this film which is to be found on the website of the upcoming festival in Kiev, Ukraine DocuDays UA. Click below. It will give you a fine introduction to a documentary…
Being a Tutor…
And there you are – hello, nice to meet you and you are the one with which project? A situation many documentary tutor colleagues will recognise from the extraordinary many documentary workshops in and outside Europe, set up for local…
Karla’s Arrival – for free
Got a mail from Koen Suidgeest, whose touching film “Karla’s Arrival” has gone all over the world due to the director’s constant commitment and energy. Here it is, and here is the generous invitation to watch the film for free,…
AFAC and Documentaries
They are doing important work for the documentary at AFAC (Arab Fund for Arts and Culture). I have been privileged to be tutoring at two of their workshops, the last one in Beirut late February. Rima Mismar is the woman…
EDN & DocAlliance join Forces
Here is an offer you can’t refuse, taken from the EDN website: EDN is happy to announce that all members, who are part of the organization on April 12, will get free access to over 700 documentaries at Doc Alliance…
Dox Box Global Day for Syria
… is a project initiated by the film festival DoxBox in Damascus where the festival for obvious reasons do not take place. Instead Syrain films have been shown all over the world – and there has been a “soirée thématique”…
Thessaloniki Doc Fest 15
The 15th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival started two days ago and runs until the 24th of March. The programme is as always impressive – as is the communication from the festival that in a classical journaistic form…
Ken Loach: The Spirit of 45
A new film by Ken Loach, this time a documentary. The director (born 1936) looks into ”the spirit of 45” in England, the post-war time where a welfare state was built on social and human values which are difficult to…
Films for Free from East and Central Europe
We have previously praised the work of the vod DocAlliance, its special collaboration with the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) in Prague and what this institution is doing to promote films from Central and Eastern Europe. Today a mail came…
Jon Bang Carlsen – The Inventor of Reality
Danish master Jon Bang Carlsen is in Bucharest these days. He has been invited to present a retrospective of his works at the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, One World Romania, that runs until March 17, like the one…
Archidoc 2012/13
On the International Women’s Day, March 8, the third session of the EU MEDIA Programme supported training and development scheme Archidoc took place in Prague as part of the East Doc Platform. It was thus very appropiate, that most of…
Iris Olsson: Between Dreams
As the third edition of Cinetrain arrived at its finish line a few weeks ago, it might be just the right time to have a look at one of the first films produced within this unique creative documentary project, which…
Herz Frank – Collected Posts on his Works
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…
Herz Frank 1926-2013/2
Many words today to honour Herz Frank. Russian director Vitaly Manski put it like this: “Years will go by, and only 2-3 documentary film-makers will be remembered from each century.” But even today it is clear – Herz Frank is…
Herz Frank 1926-2013
Last sunday morning I showed Ten Minutes Older to filmmakers from Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Algeria and Morocco. They had not seen Herz Frank’s masterpiece from 1978 before, they loved it and lined up to make a copy so they can…
Documentary Feast Beyond Belief
They are masters of promotion, the Czech organizers of East Doc Platform that runs from next week parallel to the One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. Here is their press release with all the links you need, start with…
Danish Robert Awards 2013
And there you sit in front of your tv set waiting to see ”The Act of Killing” be honoured at the Danish Film Academy Robert Awards 2013 ceremony. It was not to be seen, not even mentioned in the broadcast…
Dokumania: The Gatekeepers & 5 Broken Cameras
Danish prime time documentary slot Dokumania (on DR) shows two of the Oscar nominated films: Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers and Emad Burat and Guy Davidi’s 5 Broken Cameras (photo) on March 5 20.30pm and March 12 20.30pm. And in Danish:…
POV Receives $1 Million Award
Good news (February 27) about the American POV and its commitment to the creative documentary: “The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (that) supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world……
ZagrebDox 2013
… is running until March 3rd with a fine programme put together by the founder and director of the festival, now in its ninth edition, Nenad Puhovski. The international competition includes strong films like ”Elena” by Petra Costa, ”Chasing Ice”…
5 Broken Cameras
This excellent film by Palestinian Emad Burnat, co-directed by Israeli Guy Davidi was nominated for an Oscar but did not win. The film, however, had already before the nomination won several awards in festivals and has had/has a theatrical release…
Flaherty: Epic Encounters
No, it is not a forgotten film by ”the father of documentary”, Robert Flaherty. Flaherty is, of course named after him, ”a nonprofit organization dedicated to the proposition that independent media can illuminate the human spirit. Its mission is to…
Ally Derks Goes to New Zealand
… to be honoured for her work at The Documentary Edge International Documentary Festival in April. Director of the festival, Alex Lee, asked filmkommentaren to convey the news, which we do with pleasure. Some clips from the press release: “We…
Sugar Man
First – to sort of sum up – the following quote from Realscreen after Malik Bendjelloul’s got the Best Documentary Feature prize at the 85th Academy Awards February 24: “The win for director Bendjelloul and producer Simon Chinn (Man on Wire,…
Marathon Dok 2013
Here we go again, EDN has announced the classic, yearly Marathon Dok where Danish professionals and film/tv students are invited to get updated on new original documentary work. A clip from the website: “March 2, 2013. From 14:00 to 22:00. Theodor…
Maria Clara Escobar: The Days with Him
I met Maria Clara Escobar and her producer Paula Pripas in Edinburgh last year in June. They pitched the film that is now finished, original title, in Portuguese, ”Os Dias Com Ele”. A couple of weeks ago the film got…
Audrius Stonys on DocAlliance
For 2.5€ in total you will be able to watch three great films by Lithuanian documentary poet, Audrius Stonys, who is “the event of the week” of the brilliant vod. The films are Uku Ukai (2006) (photo), Countdown (2004) and…
The Act of Killing Wins in Berlin
… of course it does, two awards, the Ecumenical and the Audience Panorama Award. What is more important to notice is the speech given by one of the directors, Joshua Oppenheimer, when he accepted the Ecumenical Award. Here you are:…
In the Belly of the City
A newsletter arrived from Torino sent by Stefilm, now the classic Italian documentary production company, once – when we were much younger – the company that was mentioned by everyone as the only one from Italy, that dared to go…
Paul Pauwels gives Pitch Advice
“Don’t be afraid of showing your passion. Prepare yourself and do your homework. Try to find out who will be present during a pitching session and what kind of slots people are responsible for. Use body language, make sure the…
Ulla Jacobsen 1967-2013
We knew it was serious. Ulla wrote it herself in personal facebook messages. Always in her modest, gentle way, returning the question about her health to ”but how are you” and ”how is the documentary world out there?”. A world…
How to Build a Country from Scratch
… is the title of another fine Op-Doc that you can watch on New York Times website. A bit more than 9 minutes long it is a presentation, full of humour, in 12 steps/chapters of the new country, South Sudan,…
Hybrid Docs at Forum Berlin
The Forum of the Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (runs until February 17) is the section, where you can be sure to find new and exciting works. Including documentaries. Here is a clip from an interview with the Forum director Christoph Terhechte,…
Agnès Varda Online Festival
What a feast! And don’t say you can not afford it – it is for free! And it lasts until February 17! I am referring to another generous offer from ”your online documentary cinema” provider DocAlliance. 17 films of Agnès…
Best Nordic Documentary/2
A short follow-up – Mika Ronkainen got his well-deserved Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary at the Göteborg International Film festival. The jury motivated the award to ”Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart” (photo) with these words: … a touching story of inner…
Magnificent7 2013/6
The 9th edition of the European Feature Documentary Film Festival ended Sunday night at the big hall of the Belgrade Sava Centre. Manuel von Stürler presented his ”Winter Nomads” followed by Helena Trestikova’s ”Private Universe”. For the first film, that…
Magnificent7 2013/5
Magic evening in the Sava Centre last night. 8-900 people had decided to spend their saturday night out in the company of Finnish artist Kimmo Pohjonen. It was a good choice you could hear from the reactions during and after…
Magnificent 7 2013/4
Ilian Metev, director of ”Sofia’s Last Ambulance”, started his friday masterclass at Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade playing Bach on his violin, quite a generous gift to the workshoppers from the young Bulgarian artist, who had a career as a violinist,…
Magnificent7 2013/3
The festival in Belgrade enters into its third day, and the response from the audience has been, yes, magnificent! On the opening wednesday night the film by Swedish Malik Bendjelloul ”Searching for Sugarman” was met by great enthusiasm by the…
Doucet: Afghanistan-The Unknown Country
Two weeks ago after reviewing the documentary on Afghanistan by Murphy and MediaStorm, I came across a film on the subject matter, which exposes yet another face of this wonderful country. Therefore this review: For over a decade, Afghanistan has…
Best Nordic Documentary?
Guest writer at filmkommentaren, Danish Mikkel Stolt watched Finnish Mika Ronkainen’s latest work ”Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart” (photo) at the Nordisk Panorama in September. The original, non-mainstream hybrid documentary made a big impression on Stolt, who concluded – referring to…
Dragan Wende West Berlin
Two important prizes for a film by Lena Müller and Dragan von Petrovic, co-directed and filmed by Vuk Maksimovic, whose uncle is the protagonist of a film that the team itself – on the site of the film – calls…
Op-Docs
The New York Times runs a series of short documentaries that are quite interesting. OP stands for Opinion and here is how the newspaper (you can get a monthly online subscription for 1$) presents its strand: ”Op-Docs is The New…