The Syrian Revolution/ 17
From a Syrian FB page accompanied by this text: Al Atareb Olympic Games 2012 Al Atrareb, Aleppo, Syria.
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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Read MoreThe Syrian Revolution/ 17
Chris Marker (1921-2012)
Chris Marker died today, filmkommentaren has written far too little about him, but here is a quote from the obituary of today in Guardian, please read the whole article and below also two links to what we have written about…
TIFF Non-Fiction Line-Up
… will be revealed tomorrow, according to Realscreen, TIFF being Toronto International Film Festival, prestigious and like other big festivals (Berlin, Cannes and Venice) nowadays putting a good focus on documentaries, or as they call it in the trade magazine,…
Emmanuel Laurent: Two in the Wave
A tour down memory lane. And can’t help it – It still brings a tear to the eye to watch Jean-Pierre Léaud run towards the sea, stop and look at us in the end scene of ”The 400 Blows”, the…
Malik Bendjelloul: Searching for Sugarman
A newspaper page: ”American Zero. South African Hero”. The South Africans were right, Rodriguez, the musician the film is about, was/is a song writer and singer on the level of Bob Dylan, but he never made it in the U.S.,…
Timo Novotny: Trains of Thoughts
After the original, masterly done ”Life in Loops”, the remix of Michael Glawogger’s ”Megacities”, accompanied by music by the Sofa Surfers, Austrian Timo Novotny has gone underground to investigate the magic of the subways and metros of – again –…
Patricio Guzman: The Power of Memory
The BFI (British Film Institute) has been running a retrospective (ends July 26) with films by Patricio Guzman, having ”Nostalgia for the Light” as the recent highlight of the Chilean master director. In an article to be read on the…
Jake Auerbach: Lucian Freud Portraits
The film is made together with Freud’s biographer Willam Feaver, who voice-off introduces the method of the film up-front: We will go to the people he has portrayed to get an idea of who this genius artist is – the…
DocMontevideo/ 1
It started yesterday and runs until July 27. It is the fourth edition of DocMontevideo in the Uruguayan capital. And it has a very professional approach to why and how to reach a goal that is both regional and international.…
DocMontevideo/ 2
In the four years it has been in existence DocMontevideo has established a space in the continent for contacts and reflection using the information and communications media. Our mission is to contribute to constructing a market in Latin America that…
The Syrian Revolution/ 16
… and this one accompanies the photo below.
The Syrian Revolution/ 15
Let the photo talk for itself, this cover photo from the FB page of Orwa Nyrabia.
Rebellious Football Players
arte has declared “Summer of Rebels” and post-euro championship in Ukraine/Poland a 90 minutes long documentary is being broadcast on the German/French cultural channel and published on dvd. Eric Cantona, in his career himself quite a controversial, and brilliant, football…
Ravello Observations
Classic Italian town: Piazza Duomo, with the dome on the main square surrounded by cafés, meeting points for locals (only 3000 outside the season) and in July tourists like us, who enjoy the overwhelmingly bella vista to the Amalfi Coast.…
Magnificent7 Summer Edition 2012/ 2
Filmkommentaren received this fresh and happy summer report from the Magnificent 7 team, Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, in Belgrade – after the open air screenings at the Belgrade Fortress, July 9-11: Dear Tue. We had three wonderful evenings with films…
Inspiring Docu-Bloggers
The Centre for Production and Research of Documentary Film at University of Westminster, long name but good that it exists, writes the following on its website, address below: “We all have our favourite cinema magazines and academic journals, but for…
Golden Apricot
The festival in neighbouring country to Georgia, Armenia, started yesterday. This 9th Yerevan International Film Festival runs until July 15 and has a fine international documentary competitive section within its red carpet profile programme that has Agnieszka Holland and Alexander…
DocStories Black Sea/ 4
Young Georgy Molodtsov, participant at the first session of DocStories, film director graduated from VGIK 2008, took the floor on the last morning to – with great commitment and energy – introduce the work that is being done to promote…
DocStories Black Sea/ 3
There are often too many viewings, too many opinions which can make the directors confused trying to please everybody and thereby losing their own voice, said Menno Boerema, Dutch editor, at the first session of the DocStories Black Sea workshop…
DocStories Black Sea/ 2
During the first session of the doc storytelling workshop DocStories Black Sea presentations were made. One was – naturally – about the Georgian National Film Center, whose director Tamara Tatishvili (photo) came up with a very clear and encouraging status…
DocStories Black Sea/ 1
The first session of the new documentary storytelling workshop DocStories with around 20 participants from the countries surrounding the Black Sea is coming to an end in wonderful Tbilisi, Georgia. Films have been screened and discussed and analysed, and the…
Robert B. Weide: Woody Allen: A Documentary
I tend to avoid topical documentaries with no artistic purpose of its own, so why do I want to see a documentary about Woody Allen? Furthermore, I believe I know most things about Allen so a biographical film would almost…
Magnificent7 Summer Edition 2012
On the 9th, 10th and 11th of July the Belgrade feature documentary film festival Magnificent7 organises a high quality programme of music documentary films. This is how it is announced on the website: ”“The Magnificent Seven” at BELEF is an…
26th Festival in Pärnu
Legendary Estonian documentarian, artist, politician etc. Mark Soosaar lives in Pärnu at the Baltic Sea, and has since 1987 been, he calls himself so, “the chief” of Pärnu Int. Documentary Film Festival, the oldest film festival in Estonia. According to…
Zeljko Mirkovic
Two of his films have been reviewed on this site (”I will Marry the Whole Village” and ”The Long Road Through Balkan History”). I have known him for a decade, admired his commitment and seen his strong development as a…
Sunny Side 2012: Yves Jeanneau Interview
The excellent French-language Le Blog Documentaire (more about that on a later occasion) has published an interesting interview (this time in English) with the director of the Sunny Side of the Doc that opened yesterday in la Rochelle: Here is…
Documentary Day in Edinburgh
If you happen to be in Edinburgh today read what you should do to watch films, have a drink, eat some takeaway and go to tango nuevo… If you are not in Edinburgh, well enjoy the tone of this text…
MakeDox 2012/ 2
The innovative festival in Skopje is over and awards have been distributed. Apart from two of the films, frequent readers of filmkommentaren.dk will know the winning films very well from reviews and notes. Here you are, and below you get…
Sunny Side of the Doc 2012
June 26-29, la Rochelle, the 23rd edition of an event that used to be in Marseilles but now has moved to the Bay of the Bascay on the Atlantic Coast. Among professionals it has been stated that the Sheffield DocFest…
MIFF 2012
Miff stands for Moscow International Film Festival that started its 34th edition last night, again with a strong documentary element. For the second year the MIFF has a documentary competition programme with 7 films plus a section with 18 long…
The Edinburgh Pitch 2012/2
A small afterthought to the fine pitching session in Edinburgh, see below, related to comments to one of the films presented on this occasion. Comments from a panel with good people from good tv stations and distribution companies. But also…
The Edinburgh Pitch 2012
”Make Docs Happen” on the catalogue and on the posters surrounding the theatre where the pitch of 11 projects from all over Europe – to a panel of 11 broadcasters and distributors – took place. And make docs happen is…
MakeDox 2012
It is the third edition, it takes place in Skopje, it goes on until June 22nd, it is a festival with its own, original profile and a special communication strategy – subscribe to its free newsletter, from where the following…
Marcel Lozinski
The work of the Polish master of documentary (born 1940) is being very well introduced in an article by Katerina Surmanová on the website of IDF (Institute of Documentary Film). And for newcomers to the impressive filmography of Lozinski it…
Doc à Tunis
Emanuela Macchniz, student at Zelig School for Documentary, Television and New Media, placed in Bolzano Italy sent this report to filmkommentaren.dk: Last April (25 – 30) the Association Ness El Fen organized for the seventh year the new documentary film…
The Guardian: Destination Docs
The British newspaper, always strong on cinema, has launched a series of (sponsored) articles named “Destination Docs”, published in connection with the Sheffield DocFest. The headline goes like this, “Despite new documentary formats, traditional fact-based films still attract impressive audiences…
Moscow Exhibition of Film and Art
As part of the upcoming MIFF (Moscow International Film Festival) that runs from June 21 – 30 and again this year includes a competiton programme of documentaries as well as Panorama documentary section, you can go to Moscow to attend…
Photography and Photographers
Copenhagen Photo Festival runs until June 17 with exhibitions all around the city. The Danish Film Institute joins the event with an offer to access 6 fine films online – if you are living in Denmark. Therefore this change to…
Euro 2012
Football starts tonight, will try NOT to write too much about it unless there are real great creative moments documented, but I could not resist this wonderful piece of Irish humour taken from facebook. Enjoy that and some fine matches,…
Karlovy Vary Announces its Programme
It has always been important for a documentary to be screened at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary that this year runs from June 29 to July 7 with a strong programme that was announced two days ago. There…
25 Best Documentaries – American View
It is old news, but still interesting to look at, as it lists the 25 films that the 3000 members of the IDA (International Documentary Association) announced as the best documentaries ever in connection with the celebration of the association’s…
Namir Abdel Messeeh: The Virgin, the Copts and Me
If all goes wrong, you can always turn to Mother, which is what the director of the film does in the film, when his producer no longer wants to support him. This storytelling tool, including the making of the film…
Award to Catalan Film Company
You should know that I am totally biased, as I work for the company, Parallel 40, that among other initiatives stand behind DocsBarcelona, nevertheless I find it important to post a congratulation greeting to visionary Joan Gonzalez (photo) and his…
Lee Miller
The Danish Øregård Museum in the North of Copenhagen hosts currently an exhibition of works of legendary model, surrealist and war photographer Lee Miller (1907-77). Her role is known as part of the surrealist movement in the Parisian Montparnasse period,…
Sokurov Retrospective in Copenhagen
Danish Cinemateket presents 8 films in a retrospective of the Russian master Aleksandr Sokurov. Even if 8 is not a lot when you take a look at the impressive, huge filmography of the director, whose latest work ”Faust” received the…
Phie Ambo: Free the Mind/ 1
Below, in Danish, in connection with the national premiere on June 6, a review of the new film of Phie Ambo, who brillliantly invites her audience on a both emotional and informational journey into the traumatised lives of two American…
Phie Ambo: Free the Mind/2
Du bliver grebet om hjertet fra første øjeblik. En lille dreng er rædselslagen ved tanken om at skulle ind I en elevator. Det er den tanke og følelse, der skal ændres hos Will, der lider af ADHD og ofte hamrer…
Phie Ambo om Free the Mind
Vi er på vej ind i en ny æra, – en renæssance hvor alting bliver vendt på hovedet. På alle niveauer opdager videnskaben nye sammenhænge, som betyder at vores verdensopfattelse hele tiden ændres og intet er længere er, som vi…
Dan and Noit Geva: Noise
It has so many layers this Israeli documentary about a man, who lives in the middle of Tel Aviv and suffers from the noisy surroundings, to the point where he goes bananas, and into an action with surveillance cameras and…
Bassel Shihadeh
Filmmaker and DoxBox Campus organiser Diana el Jeiroudi posted this text on facebook one hour ago: “I lost a dear friend and colleague. Syria lost Syrian Filmmaker Bassel Shihadeh who was killed by a mortar grenade in Homs this evening.…