A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
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…
Wish we had a documentary channel in Europe! We do not. The Americans have: The Documentary Channel, that also offers a very valauable newsletter that advertises the broadcasts of the channel AND a so-called Docstore, where films can be bought…
Ukranian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa is being honoured with a big retrospective of his work (11 documentaries) at Doc Fest in Thessaloniki, that runs until March 20. The festival has a fine newsletter (free subscription) from where this press text –…
Here are words about a film project that I have been following for a couple of years. It is in production and will be a good film, I can assure you from what I have seen so far. The producers…
Could not resist, had to bring that photo, even if I have now idea about the film – it has its premiere at the festival. Here is what is written about it on the site: The first big piece of…
The festival in Damascus still runs today and tomorrow. I left this morning and the few times I was in the cinema, it was full. Beyond any doubt, this festival – that has been running for four years – has…
So there we were at the beautiful Danish Institute in Damascus on a rainy tuesday, March 8. The small shops at the soukh were closed, not because of the International Women’s Day but to celebrate the constitution of the governing…
Three projects were given a financial support at the end of the presentation day at Dox Box Campus 2011: ”Brakes” by Bassel Shehade received the ”Best Syrian Project Grant” of 6000$ (previous title: Female Wheels). ”My Uncle. ”The Terrorist”” by…
I am listening to Cara Mertes from the Sundance Institute, she has a power point presentation. Behind her is a quote by Robert Redford: Because audiences are starved for new ideas, voices and visions… as a motivation to set up…
There is no revolution in Damascus – small demonstrations in front of the Egyptian and Libyan embassy were stopped immediately by the authorities – but there are many revolutionaries among the participants at the Dox Box Campus that runs parallel…
Documentary pioneer Richard Leacock will be celebrating his 90th birthday June 18th of this year. He has been working on his memoirs for several years and now the book is finally ready to be published. The Feeling of Being There…
Fourth edition of a festival – without Omar Amarilay, see below – that deserves a lot of respect for its ambition to show creative documentaries from all over the world to an audience that normally has no chance at all…
It can only be a very sad opening of the fourth edition of the Syrian documentary film festival Dox Box, that runs from March 2nd to 10th in Damascus. The reason is that the festival will be without THE Syrian…
Place Clichy, Paris. Montmartre. Where Truffaut shot ”Les Quatre Cents Coups” and Bertrand Blier ”Préparez vos Mouchoirs”. And where Henry Miller found his inspiration for ”Quiet Days in Clichy”, a scandalous success novel. At the restaurant Wepler, to be recommended…
Tomorrow, 2nd of March, it is twenty years ago that the French artist icon, Serge Gainsbourg, died. This is being celebrated by the French. Yesterday the daily newspaper ”Libération” brought a black & white poster photo with ”Gainsbourg nu”, at…
The EU MEDIA programme supported training programme Archidoc, organised by the French film school la fémis had its third and final session February 22-25. At this session the 9 participants, who had been tutored by a team led by Israeli…
Romain Gary (photo, long after Sofia), also known as Emila Ajar, a legendary French writer, right now subject of a photo exhibition in Paris, was in 1946 sent to Sofia in Bulgaria as a member of the French diplomacy delegation.…
Readers will know that I teach at Zelig Documentary Film School in Bolzano. 3 of the new students, who are in their first year of study, have recently written reviews of films on this blog and I am happy to…
On this blog you have often met the sentence ”East Beats West” referring to this blogger´s enthusiasm for original documentaries from Eastern Europe. The central point for spreading knowledge about the situation, and for stimulating the sector through festivals, workshops,…
It is not new that the NY Museum of Modern Art has a very active film department and a very high quality in selection. Neither is it new that the Museum shows a lot of documentaries. But it is maybe…
The Czech Embassy to Denmark has asked us to recommend the documentary film series written, researched and directed by Lukáš Přibyl. One part was shown in Copenhagen in January, with such a success that the remaining three now are to…
For our non-Danish readers: The two postings below in Danish language deal with a current scandal in Danish film administration. At least this is what it has been called. In brief: Danish film magazine EKKO publishes an article by journalist…
First year student at Zelig Documentary film school, Anke Riester, watched this neo-classic for the first time. Here is the review: For 40 years, Mr. Vig, a 82-year old bachelor from Denmark had a dream: to transform his run-down castle…
Livia Romano, first year student at the Zelig Documentary Film School in Bolzano has written this review: “One, two, three …. MARCH FORWARD!” Straight at attention, with polished shoes, well-ironed pants and belt buckles shining, young cadets are marching in…
Lucia Alessi, first year student at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano, Italy writes this review: In the extreme north of Russian Federation, along the twelve thousand kilometres who divide the country from the Arctic Sea, there are twelve military…
This is how Danish veteran Leth is characterised on the site of the coming ZagrebDox (February 27 – March 6) in a quite interesting intro text, that also has a greeting to what is called Danish puritans: “Can ‘eroticism’ be…
The excellent vod (video on demand) portal DocAlliance, a collaboration between the five documentary film festivals in Copenhagen, Leipzig, Jihlava, Warsaw and Nyon, introduces a Valentine’s Day gift from tomorrow. Here is the text from the site: “As part of…
The Italian director Andrea Deaglio and his Turin Based production company Babydoc pass on the information that their film ”Il futuro del mondo passa da qui”, with the subtitle ”City Veins”, has been selected for the festival Cinema du Réel,…
“Guanape Sur” by Jànos Richter has been selected for the Premiers Pas section of “Visions du reel”, that runs in Nyon Switzerland from 7-13.April 2011. The director graduated from the Zelig Documentary Film School in Bolzano last year. His film,…
Mila Turajlic’s Cinema Komunisto closed the Magnificent/ Festival in Belgrade a bit more than a week ago. The reception was overwhelmingly positive and the film is now up for a theatrical release. The organisers of the festival Svetlana and Zoran…
Almost 3 years ago we brought a review of a film signed by Geert Wilders, Fitna – the Movie, an anti-islam 16 mins. long visual pamphlet that stirred a lot of debate – it is to be watched online, if…
It was a proud Joan Gonzalez, director of DocsBarcelona, who texted me this morning. In the newspaper Vanguardia, page 2, Gonzalez was given a ”GreenLight”, a tribute that is given to people, who has done something special for their profession…
It was the first time that DocsBarcelona included awards. At the fifth edition of the festival statuettes and cash prizes were distributed. €6000 was given to the film “Foreign Parts” (photo) by Verena Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki. The description of…
… hopefully, because there were many talented directors with interesting and intriguing project proposals at the 14th edition of the Pitching Forum in Barcelona, see below. This posting does not allow to mention all the 23 projects which were presented,…
… edition number 14 it was on February 3 and 4. For those readers who are not familiar with the terminology – pitching in the film world is about filmmakers throwing film ideas and proposals to broadcasters, film funds, sales…