A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
It is good and bad at the same time. Bad because it reflects that international cooperation for the production of non-mainstream documentaries no longer happens between the national film funds and/or the national broadcasters, good because it reflects that festivals…
The French based (in Marseilles) promotion and distribution mechanism Aflam, which has its focus on Arab cinema, pays a tribute to the late Syrian documentary film director, Omar Amiralay, who died in February this year. Amiralay was a persona non…
Quite a different text has to be written under this headline – compared to the one below from Egypt. From the atrocities in Syria, let us call it as it is, a massacre by the government on its own people,…
I was watching the Danish news magazine Horisont (modelled after the BBC Panorama strand) last night, prime time on DR, our public service channel. They had 25 minutes on Egypt. I sat down with some expectation that was competely let…
Tommy Seebach, popstjerne, vinder af det danske melodi grand prix adskillige gange, blev 53 år gammel. Han var, som det vist hedder, hård ved sig selv, knoklede for at få anerkendelse for sit talent, nåede toppen, faldt dybt, druknede sig…
Danish documentary master Jørgen Leth was challenged by his admirer von Trier in the very succesful film The Five Obstructions, that gave Leth a very well deserved international breakthrough outside the world documentary circles. Retrospectives of his work were arranged…
Wonder how many documentaries will be screened in Cannes this year? The stars are there, the most fascinating is Faye Dunaway on the gorgeous poster of this year.
AFAC is the name, it is based in Beirut and “The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) is an independent Arab initiative established by local cultural lobbyists and a group of international donors in 2007. AFAC funds individuals and…
I have written about and praised the DOX magazine a couple of times as the magazine for the creative (artistic, authored, call it what you want) documentary. But if you want to follow what happens in the more commercial sector…
He lives in Bulgaria in Svishtov a town by the Danube. He is a building worker. And a fan. Of Manchester United. He orders a visit card that says “fan” as occupation and he wants to change his name to…
For the second year the Balkan Documentary Center organises a workshop for 7 creative documentary projects from the region. During one week the participants met tutors like Aleksandar Manic (”The Shutka Book of Records”), Boris Mitic (”Goodbye, How are You”),…
I felt priviliged to attend the so-called demo screenings of the first 3 films under “the informal label “buldoc”. Arranged in connection with the first session of the Balkan Documentary Center, and created by Martichka Bozhilova from the documentary production…
Syrian human rights activists disappear… The statement below was originally issued as an online petition, but for safety reasons, this petition has now been closed down. Around 1000 film people from all over have signed. However, you can still show…
What do you do when you sit in an airplane, don’t want to read any more newspapers or have done enough mails for today? Well, I was lucky to have received the new DOX magazine, summer 2011, the 90th edition…
Zanda Dudina from the National Film Centre in Latvia read my text about the film on Rudolf Ming, see below. She tells me that Rudolf – 13 at the time of the film, 16 today – now have a real…
It seems to be in the middle of nowhere, and isolated it is, what was meant to be (25 years ago) a place to live, in noble decency, planned to house the Romas by the socialist government. Today block 20…
Good news it is that this Latvian documentary, produced by the studio that carries the name of documentary legend Juris Podnieks, has made it to the Hot Docs festival (see below) and will have three screenings in Toronto in the…
Want to share this beautiful photo from Belgrade, from Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, Magnificent7, European feature documentary festival, next edition January 2012.
Good news for the documentary interested audience in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Monthly Documentary in May at the Film House is Leonard Retel Helmrich’ masterpiece “Position Among the Stars” that runs every day from Thursday May 5 till Wednesday May 11.…
Conversations with documentary filmmakers from Italy is always full of head shaking over the situation in Italian television, which is basically run by the main character in Italian documentary of today: Silvio Berlusconi. There are public funding mechanisms, and they…
If idfa in Amsterdam is the biggest in Europe, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market. It returns for its 18th annual edition from April 28 to May 8, 2011. Showcasing the…
Well, it is first and foremost for us Northeners, who can read Swedish… but I write this text in English anyway to praise the documentary profile, quality and volume of the SVT, Swedish public broadcaster, that publishes a very good…
The excellent vod (video on demand) portal DocAlliance, set up by five European film festivals, makes a generous offer: to watch five films by Polish documentary master Marcel Lozinzki. The five films, including the masterpiece ”Anything can Happen”. Here is…
Nothing happens. Or a lot happens. Up to you as audience. It depends on how you define ”a story”. In mainstream definition terms one would say that there is no story, and yet here is an outline of the short…
It is not unusual that we do proper promotion for events that we are involved in ourselves. This is no exception! Loyal readers have read my texts from Israel and Palestine – where a workshop was held that ended up…
It was a scoop that DFI (Danish Film Institute) had invited James Roberts, assistant director general from National Film Board of Canada (NFB), to come to the Danish DOK-dag (Documentary Day, see more below) to talk about the online film…
I have been surfing around on the site of NFB for an hour now. I have seen some trailers, I have seen clips from some of the films that I remember from a long festival life, and from the imports…
Twice per year the Danish Film Institute (DFI) invites the national documentary filmmakers, distributors, promoters and bureaucrats, including television people, to meet for information and inspiration. The first meeting took place on monday this week, a so-called ”DOK-dag” (Documentary Day)…
From the DOK Dag (see above): Could have listened to and watched much more of the work of multi artist Kaspar Schröder, an original talent, who also makes films and has got a lot of well deserved praise for his…
Below is a text about a new Danish television documentary, ”The President”, which describes the absurd process that lead to the nomination of totally unknown haiku-poet and politician, Belgian Herman van Rompuy, as President of the EU – according to…
I met Pawel Lozinski at DocsBarcelona, I have known him for many years, appreciating the films he has made (in Barcelona was shown “Sisters” and “Chemo”). He told me about the film project he and his father, Marcel, is working…
20 years after the change – in Romania after the end of the Ceaucescu regime. How would he, Ceaucescu, look upon/see his country today, if he came down from the skies? Solomon, experienced Romanian director, lets the dictator come back…
The director of this film used to be a strong and passionate commissioning editor at RTBF, the French language Belgian public broadcaster. He left when the channel decided to be less active in the commitment to the creative documentary. Le…
It is not the first time a film about a village with unmarried singles is being made these years. Seems to be a trend! And as the Greek one (”Sugartown”) and the Serbian one (”Village Without Women”) this one from…
His name was originally Stephen Apostolof, but having fled communist Bulgaria, entering the American Film Dream factory, Hollywood, he changed to an artist name, A.C. Stephen, which is not and will not become a big name in film history, apart…
On this site we have been writing about this film a couple of times. It came out of the European training programme called DocuRegio, where I met it, and I was surprised that the festivals in Leipzig and Amsterdam did…
It is almost as minimalistic as it can be, this 9 minutes long documentary by Polish Pawel Lozinski, who goes directly in medias res to convey faces and hands, that lift a stone in a forest to start cleaning it…
It is a graduation film from a film school, The Sam Spiegel in Jerusalem, it is strictly personal, it is filmed by the young woman, who is the main character of the film, it is very private, and yet it…
It was a nuisance to leave Israel as I did this monday morning. It made me sad and angry. Upon arrival on a sunday night a week ago I went straight through the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, got…
To make a follow-up on the text above, it goes without saying that this reality, well not for a traveller like me, but for a Palestinian like the taxi driver, for someone who lives in the West Bank, for someone…
Two of the four Palestinian projects selected for the Storydoc sessions in Corfu, Greece in July and in Athens in November are at a stage between production and postproduction. For these two film projects the Corfu session of Storydoc will…
Isra’ Odeh is a young Palestinian photographer who is supported by Anis Barghouti, experienced director, producer and teacher, and the man behind The Young Palestinian Filmmakers Society, which is going to arrange a festival for new films in October 2011.…
The International festival of documentary films Cinéma du réel March 23rd -April 5th 2011 opened this Wednesday in Paris at le Centre Pompidou for the 33rd time. Readers of this blog are used to a broad coverage of this festival,…
… is to be recommended if you go to the White City by the sea. They have a nice website, take a look at their YouTube clip. Here is a quote from the site text: The building was constructed in…
It is pitching session edition number 13 that is arranged by Orna Yarmut and her crew. Amazing how it has developed, take a look at the site and see the many activities that are offered Israeli filmmakers. Here is a…
We have posted texts about the master of documentary, Herz Frank, at least 6 times on this site. He is for this blogger the intellectual observer and interpretor of Life, where Richard Leacock (see below) was the instinctive reporter and…
I am in Ramallah in Palestine and have just completed a three day workshop with filmmakers from the West Bank and Gaza – the ones from Gaza connected through a videoconference. I am on the 8th floor of the Red…
Sad news. Documentary pioneer Richard Leacock died this Wednesday in his home in Paris. He would have celebrated his ninetieth birthday in July. He played a crucial role in the history of documentary film, as a filmmaker and cinematographer and…
.. is the name of the newsletter of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival that also carries the name: Images of the 21st Century. A clip from the newsletter text: The 13th Thessaloniki Documentary – Images of the 21st Century ended on…
POV means Point of View and is the name of ” American television’s longest-running independent documentary series”, part of the PBS in the US and led by executive producer Simon Kilmurry, who is a frequent visitor to documentary events all…