A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Idfa – International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam – asks every year a prominent director to choose her/his 10 Best Film list, whihc are then screened at the festival. This year the director is Finnish Pirjo Honkasalo and her list goes…
We have written about it since the start of filmkommentaren.dk and we will continue to do so as this excellent initiative is exportable: You find a documentary and short film addict – and connaisseur – with a wide network and…
Richard Leacock, 90 years old in 2011, a master of cinema vérité, always energetic and inspirational… finally gets a filmic homage. It happens now at the Telluride Film Festival and it takes place in association with the first public screening…
Deadline on Monday, September 6, for applications for the unique European training programme Archidoc for filmmakers with archive based documentaries. I have been working with this training programme for many years and have with great pleasure seen fine films come…
In 1995 a special Danish documentary award in the name of documentary pioneer Jørgen Roos was initiated. For 2010 the award (as of tonite) was given to the cameraman Lars Skree, who together with director Janus Metz created the mega-success…
Autumn is coming and the documentary festival season opens. The festivals start to announce their programmes. DOKLeipzig is one of the bigger – this blogger will be there to report and be in a jury – that at this time…
As of August 13 2010 this Finnish documentary had sold around 63.000 tickets in national cinemas. An amazing number for a documentary film about a drug addict, I thought, before watching it. How do you pitch that to friends… want…
This film insists on being a Film. From the very start. This is a story to be watched – it follows the old mantra: don’t talk about it, show it. No commentary. No formatted tv. And oh yes, they succeed…
Good news for a good film reviewed on this site a couple of days ago, edited from the press release of the festival DOK Leipzig: “All That Glitters” by Tomáš Kudrna, developed at the Documentary Campus Masterschool 2007, has been…
Our American readers can watch (on PBS, 10pmEST) Amy Hardie’s great film tonite. If you live outside the U.S. you can watch it online for free from tomorrow and for the next three months. On the site mentioned below. I…
Energetic festival director (ZagrebDOX) and producer (Factum) Nenad Puhovski is also a film director, and a very committed one. With his new film he has for years been following people who – with his words – ”were, are or wish…
Den danske dokumentarserie, bestående af fire film med hver deres egen stil og ”håndskrift”, bliver nu vist på DR2’s tirsdags-strand ”Dokumania” den 24. august og 31. August klokken 21.30. Jeg skrev en artikel til tidsskriftet DOX om serien, her er…
The 25th edition of the festival in Odense, Denmark takes place 23-28. August. There are many reasons to congratulate the municipality of Odense for keeping alive this film festival for all these years in spite of constant battles to raise…
I have never heard about Kalmykia before. Have you? I checked it: An autonomous republic it is, member of the SNG, close friends to Russia with ONE leader, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who himself was a chess champion and wants to turn…
If you think you have read about films by Mirkovic from Serbia before, you are right! He has developed a special touch in documentary filmmaking and he chooses subjects that appeal not only to a local audience but also internationally…
It is a very rich film that Czech director and journalist Kudrna has made from post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. From the gold mine Kumtor, co-owned by a Canadian company. The creative documentary elements are obvious. Cinematography is stunning – there is a…
The Danish Cinemateket, that is part of the Danish Film Institute, and works from the Film House in the centre of Copenhagen, shows many documentaries (at one or two screenings) in their fine monthly programme. Recently, Cinemateket, the festival cph:dox…
The importance of the EU MEDIA Programme for the creative documentary can not be underestimated. Since 1990 the countries, who are members of the EU (plus now also countries like Norway, Switzerland and Croatia), have been able to achieve funding…
Documentarians meet in Riga at the beginning of September. The Baltic Sea Forum includes a meeting for professionals – film projects will be presented to broadcasters, mostly by filmmakers from the region. But the Forum – organised by National Film…
The tenth edition of the festival “Flahertiana” takes place in Perm, Russia October 14-20. The selection for the competition programme (including of course several “Nanook” prizes) has been announced, and it is a pleasure to see a list of films…
Herzog is – mostly due to this blog’s Allan Berg – a true admirer of the work of the German director – one of the most noticed and praised names of this site. If you write his name in the…
The International Documentary Competition jury at Dokufest in Prizren, Kosovo, composed of Pamela Cohn (USA), Sonja Henrici (Scotland), AJ Schnack (USA), Adriatik Kelmendi (Kosovo) and Doug Block (USA) awarded the Italian film La Bocca Del Lupo (The Mouth of Wolf)…
The International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Prizren, Kosovo ended two days ago with an award ceremony – The Balkan Documentary Competition Award went to Romanian film The World According to Ion B. (photo) by Alexander Nanau. The jury…
The Toronto International Film Festival (September 9-19) is first of all known for its high quality feature film programme focusing on originality and innovation but due to the renaissance of the creative documentary, the festival now also treats that genre…
This is a special announcement for our Danish and Swedish readers concerning the broadcast of the film by PeÅ Holmquist, ”My Gaza” August 8 at SVT2 22.05. In other words, this coming sunday, with Danish subtitles for Danish viewers. For…
One year ago the humourous ”Disco and Atomic War” by Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma, a mix of archive material and reenactments, charmed the audience at the Baltic Sea Forum due to its originality and the story about what it…
The French CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image Animée) has published a study on the market for documentaries in France. According to the French Media Desk and their weekly newsletter no. 194 (newsletter@mediafrance.eu) the study concerns the creative…
Stories from Life. Stories brought to the screen by Finnish men. Stories mostly told in saunas where the men are naked. To be naked can also be a metaphor for being vulnerable. Which is exactly what the men are in…
… the subtitle being ”city veins”. I wrote about it in June and promised to come back with a review when the film was finished. Which is now. Angelo, Roky, Frida, Reno, Darius, Gerardo, Jasmina… names of people, who have…
A street is Athens is the stage for this warm and very well made documentary. The director has come there for years, and again this confirms the simple sentence: Time is quality. If you are a good filmmaker, know your…
Italian Pippa Bacca, peace activist dressed in a wedding gown, decided to travel to Jerusalem. By hitchhiking. She did not make it. In Turkey she was raped and killed. Bingöl Elmas, Turkish filmmaker, decided to finish the travel of Pippa,…
Russian countryside village and a family. Mother and father and 4 children. We have seen it many times before, and we will see it again. With pleasure. You smile, you think ”how the hell can they survive under these poor…
During the Message2Man International Film Festival (se below) I had the pleasure to run a small doxpro workshop for around 10 young and younger Russian filmmakers. Through three hot mornings (July 17-19) the group discussed four projects that had been…
If you are spending time in Paris in August, here are a few ideas, which might not be in your travel guide. The Forum des images (recently renovated and situated down in Les Halles, great cinema and great program) organises…
Two festivals are coming up in Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo: 1) The 16th Sarajevo Film Festival runs from July 23 through July 31, 2010, with eighteen mid-length and feature documentaries from the Balkans, Turkey, Cyprus and Austria competing in the…
An almost two year old boy running around observing what goes on. And touching the Golden Centaur statuettes lined up to be given to the winners. A conferencier shouting Russian words into the microphone trying to make a festive atmosphere.…
The 20th edition of the St. Petersburg International Film Festival ended with an award ceremony yesterday night in the Dom Kino. There were a large number of prizes to be given, I will limit this posting to include those in…
The Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan in Armenia (July 11-18) ended as a triumph for Russian director Pavel Kostomarov, whose fine film ”Together” (reviewed on this site) got the first prize, the Golden Apricot, for the Best Documentary Film…
The international competition included yesterday the film ”17th of August” by Alexander Gutman, reviewed and commented several times in this site. Here is a reprint of the review: This fine Russian director has, apart from the masterpiece ”Frescoes” from Armenia,…
… but there has been time to visit the Hermitage museum and fight one’s way to study the great collection of Rembrandt works (oh, documentarians, go and study how he caught the magical moments when he did his portraits) and…
Mikhail Litvyakov is the director of the festival in beautiful St. Petersburg. He has passed the seven decades of age but there was no sign of lack of energy when he was on stage to welcome guests and audience in…
Young Palestinian filmmaker Nagham Mohanna, who took part in the mediterranean/middle east documentary training program Storydoc (see below) sends this report on her journey back to her home via Egypt. I have made some small edits and language corrections: Hello…
The Danish documentary “Armadillo”, directed by Janus Metz and filmed by Lars Skree, about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan has been running in Danish cinemas for 6 weeks. More than 100.000 tickets have been sold, and the film is still running.…
What a wonderful and well deserved piece of news. The Best Documentary film (category: under 30 mins.) at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was yesterday given to the Lithuanian documentary ”The River” by Lithuanian filmmaking duo Julija Gruodienė and…
The World Cup final on Sunday with Holland and Spain has English Howard Webb as the referee. For doc-foot addicts he is a very well known person as the main character in the brilliant insight to the world of referees…
While Cannes is still waiting for Godard, we had the great pleasure in Paris to spend the evening of June 18th in his company after a special screening of Film Socialisme in le Cinéma des Cinéastes near Place Clichy. The…
Storydoc is an EU supported training programme ”for filmmakers with Mediterranean projects”. The first 2010 session took place July 5-7 in Corfu, where these words are being written the day after a workshop that was full of heat outside and…
The festival in Budapest ended with the main award being given to Peter Kerekes for his excellent ”Cooking History”, reviewed and mentioned on this site several times. The jury consisted of Bojána Papp director (Hungary), Adina Bradeanu director and film…
The yearly documentary gathering in Bardonecchia in Northern Italy starts this coming wednesday. Bardonecchia is a small winter sport resort that has a fine cultural centre that is used for documentary film screenings, case studies, a so-called matchmaking where directors…
This film is in production. The filmmakers are from the Basque country and were the ones behind the beautiful music documentary Nomadak reviewed on this site. I know Igor Otxoa who fights for his projects and does it with charm…