A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
At the beginning of December 2012 15 documentary flms were shortlisted. Tomorrow (I am writing this January 9 late evening) 15 will become 5. Originally there were 126 official submissions, that were taken down to these 15: Alison Klayman’S “Ai…
Sevara Pan is the name of our first 2013 guest writer. She is of Uzbek-Korean origin, was born in Siberia (Russia) back in the 1980’s. She was raised in Central Asia in the post-Soviet period and moved to Germany where…
As the 56Up landmark documentary has started to roll out in US theaters past weekend, it might be just the right time to take a look at its Russian equivalent that was broadcast on ARTE in winter of 2012. Inspired by the UK-based…
“I wasn’t sure if I felt special or left out”, Frank Senior reflects on a moment of realization of being blind. Thought-provoking and insightful, this 8-minute documentary, conceived as part of the International Documentary Challenge, captures a glimpse of a…
DOX editor and documentarian Truls Lie has written an article for the Norwegian Le Monde Diplomatique, in Norwegian and now also printed in the film magazine Rushprint. Lie attended a documentary meeting for the Norwegian documentary film community in December,…
They are proud, and they, the filmmakers, have all reason to be. Both because the Swedish film around the banana company Dole trying to block the US showing of Bananas (reviewed and praised here in Danish by Allan Berg), a…
I had seen ”Mapa” pitched in DocsBarcelona and at idfa. With verbal passion and with a teaser that was totally out-of-the-box for how trailers should be according to us ”pitch doctors”. A Film-Film teaser, a brilliant piece of montage with…
More Sugar Man (this is what they call the film in France), where a twitter on Le Blog Documentaire calls it a ”véritable scandale du cinema” that the film is released in only 3 ”salles”! On the same Blog there…
The last couple of days the nominations for the Danish Bodil (named after the legendary actresses Ipsen and Kjer) and the Swedish Guldbaggen (the Golden Beetle) have been announced. Documentaries are very much present. The international best known of the…
Beginning of January, no markets or festivals or workshops. Time to read the European Documentary Film Magazine, number 96. And time for a review of a magazine that has a strong and good focus on reviewing documentaries (critiques it is…
Yes, it was again a good year for the documentaries. New forms, hybrid, personal, came up with the classical engaged and committed Film still going strong in times of crisis. Yes, Film with a capital F. Yes, most of the…
Alan Berliner: First Cousin First Removed (USA) Catalina Vergara: Last Station (Chile) (Photo) Emma Davie & Morag McKinnon: Breathing (Scotland) Helena Trestikova: Private Universe (Czech Republic) Ilian Metev: Sofia’s Last Ambulance (Bulgaria, Croatia) Joshua Oppenheimer: Act of Killing (USA, Denmark)…
Camilla Magid: White Black Boy (Denmark) Carlo Guillermo Proto: El Huaso (Canada/Chile) Chico Pereira: Pablo’s Winter (Scotland) Dana Budisavljević: Family Meals (Croatia) Khaled Jarrar: Infiltrators (Palestine) Nahed Awwad: Gaza Calling (Palestine) Namir Abdel Messeeh:The Virgin, the Copts and Me (France)…
Again the excellent vod DOCAlliance – calls itself very rightly ”your online documentary cinema” with over 700 quality films – invites (documentary) film lovers to watch films for free, this time its 11 most watched documentaries of 2012. From December…
You have the feeling of being in a theatre behind the curtain. You are very close to the players with their elegant quick and professional use of their tools. In their white dresses and with their Japanese smiling politeness they…
Super-active young Russian director Georgy Molodtsov has before provided information to filmkommentaren. This time he informs us about a new activity that he is involved in as one of the newly elected members of Russian Guild of Documentary Film and…
It is quite a daring storytelling format that Georgian Tinatin Gurchiani has chosen for her first feature length documentary. She has invited (mostly) young people, some of them kids, for a film casting, where she from behind the camera asks…
There is so much to say about this first feature documentary by young Brazilian director Petra Costa. So much positive because of its visual brilliance and so much because of the way it treats its painful theme. Not to talk…
Jonas Mekas loves Paris. So does this blogger and his wife. We were there in December last year. Funny to sit in New York, the home of Mekas, one year later, in his Anthology Archives cinema, in the hall named…
Some Danish film professionals adviced me to watch Canadian Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell. They saw it at cph:dox, where it did not get the attention it deserved, it was all about ”Act of Killing” at that festival. I watched…
Oops, suddenly you stand in front of a small cinema with the name Maysles Cinema. In the window there is a poster for ”5 Broken Cameras” that runs the same night with a skype Q & A with one of…
The well composed and entertaining exhibition on Whitney in New York runs until March 2013. It has the title ”Dark and Deadpan: Pop in TV and the Movies” and invites you to a dark room with a dozen of screens…
I can not write a review as I have not seen the final edit of the film, and as I have seen material shot by Khaled Jarrar as well as cuts during sessions of the Storydoc programme, I would definitely…
I have during the last years tried my best to understand the organisation of the POV, that had its 25th season in 2012. I have – as many others – always been impressed by the commitment of Simon Kilmurry, Executive…
Read and enjoy the following – so well deserved and chapeau also for DR’s Horisont (the Danes can watch it online), which dedicated their whole monday programme to tell about the two Syrians and their meeting with the regime’s brutality.…
The film project “Kismet” was presented at the idfa forum in Amsterdam last month. A behind-the-scene documentary which is described like this at the website of the Greek production company, Anemon, that stands behind several professional, internationally distributed works: “Turkish…
Max Tuula and Maria Gavrilova from Marx Film in Estonia sent this important report: We address you because this situation does not only concern Russia and Russian politics, but also the freedom of expression and the rights of the artist…
Michael Haneke’s ”Amour” has Jean-Louis Trigtignant in the leading male role. In connection with the opening of that film in New York, the art cinema house Film Forum is running a retrospective of films with the actor. A unique chance…
Does it need an introduction this magnificent achievement in the history of documentary cinema and television? Lucky you who have not seen the series that started in 1964, when the children were 7 and have continued every 7 years until…
Legendary underground filmmaker and tireless defender of the independent cinema Jonas Mekas turns 90 years old and is of course celebrated in New York in the Anthology Film Archives with a small retrospective that runs December 17-23. Here are some…
The Treason Trial 1956-61 (photo), The Sharpville Massacre 1960, the Soweto Uprising 1976… it is all in its immense brutality very well documented in ICP (International Center of Photography) in New York – runs until January 6 2013 – there…
118 black and white works by Picasso at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition runs until January 23 and is highly recommended. As the curators put it on the site of Guggenheim: the first exhibition to explore the…
DFP stands for Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund and has existed for 10 years which is the reason that realscreen, the fine trade magazine that calls itself ”the best in non-fiction”, brings an interview with the director Cara…
For one who was around 20 in the short lifetime of Cream – 1966-68 – with ”White Room”, ”where the shadows run for themselves”, as one of their songs that still gives you the chills when you hear it, and…
… were announced three days ago. 15 films that later will be taken down to 5 nominations that are made by January 10. 126 films qualified to be considered. Have chosen to take text clips from Variety to mention the…
Pleased to recommend a new offer from the vod DocAlliance, this time related to Austrian documentarian Geyerhalter. Here is a slightly edited version of the promotion text from the vod site: We offer a selection of the best films by…
Samer lives in Ramallah, his mother is Safa, who lives with his father and siblings in Gaza. Mustafa lives in Gaza, his mother, Hekmat, and his sisters live in Ramallah. The distance between Gaza and Ramallah is around one hour’s…
The Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhagen is of course a must for all art lovers, who visit Denmark. A new web-initiative by the museum deserves to be promoted. Here is the text from the museum: “Louisiana Channel delivers…
It was one of those nights – the premiere of Mila Turajlic’s ”Cinema Komunisto” – that will be remembered. A totally packed Sava Centre in Belgrade were present for the closing film of Magnificent7 Festival 2011. Standing ovations. It was…
Sometimes you are lucky because normally you leave a festival having NOT seen the winner. Not this year where this blogger was privileged to take part in the idfacademy where the first point on the agenda was a screening of…
To be repeated: You can watch 7 of Jørgen Leth’s films for free on the vod Docalliance (link below), a – too use one of the director’s favourite words – generous offer to film lovers all over to see ”A…
Danish text to inform the Danes where they can watch the series of films ”Why Poverty”, see more below in previous posting: Det danske Filminstitut (dfi) har sammen med DR støttet produktionen af serien og DR står bag kampagnen, der…
Today, Idfa guests and idfa audience had the chance to watch the eight long films in the long awaited and now well promoted series “Why Poverty?” – with four days to go before the worldwide launch that you can read…
Emotional moment when Emma Davie welcomed her audience at the premiere of the film at Munt cinema. She stressed how much her main character, Neil Platt, who died three years ago, wanted the film to be made, to have a…
Yes, see previous posting, there are more and more funds which invest in documentaries, most of them in docs with a social content, but some also stressing that they want cinematic quality. Let me make a commercial for the organization…
… edition Number 20! In itself a marvellous event where filmmakers from all over the world meet to present their projects, catch up on professional and private matters, it is indeed a clear sign of the both warm and professional…
… was the headline of the afternoon session that I attended, run by EDN’s Mikael Opstrup with a (maybe too) small introduction by Jesper Osmund on the nature of what he (good choice) calls pitch trailers. Osmund, who has edited…
Was it because people were a bit tired hearing about crowdfunding that there were less people in the auditorium this morning. Or because of all the parties that are offered from the side of idfa? To idfacademy participants who are…
The programme is ”an intensive four-day training program for emerging filmmakers, producers, and film students”. As coach for the group of filmmakers from the Black Sea Docstories workshop I am there as well and have enjoyed the well composed and…
Famous for his film about his father, ”Nobody’s Business”, clever and funny with an excellent, playful montage, it was simply great to watch the newest documentary by Alan Berliner, also with a family member as main protagonist, also with a…