Zelig Student Films Travel
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…
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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Good Docu News from Czech Republic
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,…
MoMA Doc Festival
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…
Forgotten Transports in Copenhagen/Again
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…
Danish DocuTurbulence
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…
Pernille R. Grønkjær: The Monastery
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…
Piotr Stasik: The Last Day of Summer
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…
Michal Marczak: At the Edge of Russia
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…
Jørgen Leth – Master of Dox
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…
DocAlliance offers Love – for free
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…
New Talent/Andrea Deaglio
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,…
New Talent/Jànos Richter
“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,…
Cinema Komunisto in Cinema
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…
van der Valk & Gavan: Geert Wilders – the Movie
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…
DocsBarcelona Step by Step
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…
DocsBarcelona Winners
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…
DocsBarcelona – Films to Come
… 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,…
DocsBarcelona Pitching Forum
… 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…
Peter Greenaway in Barcelona
Greenaway needs no big introduction and no need to stress his importance for European cinema as a master constantly searching for new possibilities for expression. I was not able to attend (with 300 others) his masterclass, that he – taken…
Latin America Documentaries are Coming
… indeed they are, as it was proved at the 14th edition of the DOCSBarcelona pitching forum section. With the help of Ibermedia, a financial support mechanism that links the Iberian countries Spain and Portugal with countries in Latin America,…
Cinema Komunisto Closes Magnificent7
It was one of those evenings that you will never forget – and that Mila Turajlic will never forget. A totally packed Sava Centre in Belgrade gave her a minute long applause for her great work on making the 100…
Mark Cousins: The First Film
”Look at this landscape, it makes you want to film it”, he says, Mark Cousins, film historian and writer and with ”The First Film” also a brilliant essayistic filmmaker. With his wonderful Scottish accent, or is it Northern Irish, that…
48 at Magnificent7
If you click 48 on this site, you will have numerous hits. The film of Susana de Sousa Dias has been given many postings for its innovative, artistic exploration of the documentary language. It was one of the first films…
News from Paris: Armadillo in France/2
Janus Metz’s Armadillo has now been running in theatres in France for over 6 weeks and can still be seen on the big screen around the country until mid-March. So far, the film (originally put out in 26 copies December…
Cinema Komunisto Awarded
Cinema Komunisto, the documentary about Yugoslav film history, made by young Serbian film director Mila Turajlic, had its international premiere at idfa in Amsterdam a couple of months ago – and will have its national premiere on sunday at the…
Nicholas Philibert at Magnificent7
The festival opened with an image of Nénette, the more than 40 years old orangutang that since the age of 3 has been living in a zoo in Paris. A close up of someone looking at you and another beautiful…
Magnificent7 Starts Tonight
It is below zero but sunny here in snow-white Belgrade where the 7th edition of the Magnificent 7 European feature length documentary festival kicks off tonight with two opening films on the programme: ”Nenette” (Photo) by French veteran master Nicholas…
DocsBarcelona Programme
Two days ago the programme of the festival part of the DocsBarcelona was published, see site below or click on the links of the following press release: DocsBarcelona is back in full force between 2 and 6 February 2011, with…
Dokumania: Annie Leibovitz
Next week’s Dokumania on Danish DR2 this coming tuesday at 9pm, prime time, is the film about American Photography icon Annie Leibovitz, reviewed on this site. If you can not watch Danish television and want to update your knowledge about…
Månedens Dokumentar i Filmhuset
… i København er “The Parking Lot Movie”, se min anmeldelse nedenfor. Filmen vises fra 18. januar – 23, januar, én forevisning dagligt. Hurra for dette fine initiativ, som siges at være en succes med hensyn til antal tilskuere. www.dfi.dk…
Meghan Eckman: The Parking Lot Movie
At the end of the film a song comes up – called ”Life in a Nutshell” – which is exactly what the director of this classic observational and interview born documentary aims it to be. It takes place in Charlottesville…
Cinéma du Réel 2011
Loyal readers of filmkommentaren will know that both bloggers have a faible for this yearly festival in Paris – next year the dates are March 24 – April 5. Today the programme was announced in overall terms and the appetite…
Sergei Loznitsa In Lisbon
Loznitsa (b.1964 in USSR (Belarus)) (photo) is one of the gurus at the European film festival circuit. Respected for his film language and for his extraordinary use of archive material. His last film is ”My Joy”, a fiction film, the…
Presidential Docs
The trade magazine Realscreen – that calls itself ”the best in non-fiction” – announces the American HBO’s upcoming slate of documentaries. Two interesting documentaries are to be broadcasted, made by well-known documentarians – they deal with JFK and Ronald Reagan.…
Stan Neumann: The Surrealistic Photography
The Czech born, based in Paris, director Stan Neumann is a real auteur, who has been working a lot for the French-German cultural channel arte as one of the directors trusted by Thierry Garrel, when he was leading the arte…
Forgotten Transports in Copenhagen
The Czech Embassy has asked filmkommentaren.dk to announce the screening of one part of the extraordinary documentary series by Lukas Pribyl, previously praised on this site. We do so with pleasure by re-posting the review from 2009 below. The screening…
3 Scenes of Celebration
DocsBarcelona (February 1-6) is under preparation. But today the staff is not working. Last night Executive Producer Elena Subirà I Roca explained in three filmic scenes how Nit de Reis is performed in Catalunya, and she sent a cell phone…
Films to Remember
Tue Steen Müller and Allan Berg, the bloggers of this filmkommentaren.dk met during the holidays and agreed to make a list of films that have stayed in our minds. We have picked films that have been reviewed or noted on…
Magnificent 7 Number 7
The website of the 7th European Feature Documentary Film Festival is up and running. You can now see what films have been selected by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, and me, to be screened from January 25 to 29 at the…
Magnificent7 Welcome Words
Welcome to this special edition number seven! Did we really have 7 editions, that means 49 films including those of this year. Wow… And we have had almost full houses in the Sava Centre during most of the years! And…
Yuri Khashchevatsky: The Kalinovski Square
It seems to be a never ending story that comes out of Belarus every time an election is being held: The – it seems – life-time president Lukashenko pushes his gorillas to attack his political opponents, who are being beaten…
DOX – European Documentary Film Magazine
For the readers of this text: I am absolutely biased. I was one of the founders of the DOX magazine way back in the first half of the 1990’es at the time where the EU MEDIA Programme had its office…
DocuNotes 2010: Chile
Chilean documentary is much more than the master Patricio Guzman and his films on Allende and the suffering during the time of Pinochet. There are many talents and many authored voices to keep an eye and ear open for. I…
DocuNotes 2010: Ceausescu
It is 180 minutes long, it is from 2010, the director is Andrei Ujica, if you can talk about a director, when it comes to this amazing work ”The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” that must be obligatory in all film…
DocuNotes 2010: Rabbit a la Berlin
”Yes, this is the way to make a different film for the celebration of the 20 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Playing masterly with the film language, wanting to surprise us. To tell us the same story…
To Leave a Film School
… after three years of studies having graduated to be ready for real work. Out there in ”the jungle”. This is the situation for 27 students from the Zelig School for Documentaries, television and new media in Bolzano. I was…
StoryDoc – Teargas in Athens
Filmmakers, broadcasters and sales agents were safe at the Goethe Institute in Athens, while riots were going on outside in the streets. While discussing upcoming projects in development, watching films, listening to clever and inspiring lectures or getting concrete information…
Storydoc – Music in Documentaries
Sanna Salmenkallio, Finnish composer, working both in film and theatre, talked to the participants about music in documentaries stating from the start of her lecture that for her there is actually no difference in making music for documentaries and for…
StoryDoc – the Creative Documentary?
Emma Davie, Scottish filmmaker and film teacher at the Edinburgh College of Arts did a brilliant lecture on what a creative documentary can be. She was adressing her colleagues with advice and reflections that came from the clips from the…
StoryDoc – Storytelling
Film is an emotional stream, Niels Pagh Andersen said, Danish editor, living in Finland, and working with films from many different countries. TV documentaries, feature duration docs for cinemas. Andersen has a long and strong cv. And he delivered an…