A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
The director and cinematographer Klara Trencsenyi and her husband, anthropologist Vlada Naumescu made the beautiful documentary Birds Way that was reviewed on this site some months ago. In the review I used the words ”hospitality and openness” and they could…
… is taking place right now in Budapest, last day today for a programme of ”European Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival”. Festival director is Zoltan Füredi, a film director himself, I met him years ago where he was working on…
… takes place July 2-10 and has a fine short trailer with Milos Forman. Take a look at the site below. The festival has through the last years paid more attention to documentaries and this year 16 titles have made…
Italian director Paolo Campana has for years developed a film project on ”vinylmania”, i.e. on people who are addicted to the wonderful old records that many of us still have on shelves in our homes without using them in this…
On this site we have written about Mazia Bahari several times. For readers who have not seen his films here is a unique chance to get to know his work. Idfa, the world’s biggest documentary festival has published this press…
He was Ulysses and Zorbas, a traveller of the world and a man who enjoyed Life. This is the way, a Greek summarizes the legendary Ferenc Puskas in this entertaining and informative documentary about him. And the Greek loved him…
Subtitle: In Search of a Budapest Girl… Take a look at the photo and read this text presentation of the film taken from the IDF website, address below: “The November 10th, issue of Paris Match in 1956 featured a report…
They launch it as “From Yamagata through IDFA to Oscar”, the documentary section of the 32th Moscow International Film. They are Russian documentary director Sergey Miroshnichenko and producer Grigory Libergal. The two competent people make the selection for the fifth…
The DocWeek 2010, see below, organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute, hosted a one day pitch event that included 11 documentary projects, presented by American, UK, Chinese, Irish and Spanish filmmakers. In the panel to react to the pitches were…
It takes place at the same time as the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute that ”run annual programmes which develop filmmakers and producers such as Bridging the Gap (previously written about on this…
This photo was sent to me two hours before World Cup in football kick-off in South Africa. By Don Edkins, producer and distributor and promoter of documentary films in Southern Africa, and a dear guest of all important film events.…
There are many reasons why a documentary tradition grows or is being established. In the posting below you can read about some interesting people and companies. The one that produced the City Veins film is called BabyDoc and that characterises…
… is the beautiful Italian title of a film that is about to be completed. I saw it in Turin in connection with the first session of the DocuRegio training session and it is as beautiful visually as the title…
More than a museum. Indeed it is. It can only be described as magnificent the National Film Museum of Torino. I was there for hours and want to go back as soon as possible. To visit the fine collection of…
In the name of the Father, the Son and Diego Maradona. Amen… is the subtitle of this new Danish film that for a football addict, who will spend hours watching the coming World Cup, was a gift to watch at…
Good subject: Old (some of them veeery old) people who are still fit for life and take part in an athletic World Champions competition in Lahti, Finland. But what about the treatment of the subject, can this sustain a feature…
For viewers worldwide and for free – IDFA, the biggest documentary film festival in the world, based in Amsterdam, invites you to go online with IDFA TV, where there is an excellent selection of excellent documentaries. IDFA staff is at…
MakeDox is inspired and financed by people who love documentary film. People with a great desire to make their own festival, the kind of festival that I would like to visit myself. Petra Seliškar, Programme Selector.. I graduated in social…
More than 35 years ago, I broke my cousin’s Contaflex. Why? I wanted to see how that fascinating “eye” worked. I fixed it and ever since then I have been seeing with only one eye. I lived to be fascinated…
Wonderful. Well done and good luck are the best words to congratulate the organisers of a new documentary festival in Macedonia. It starts tomorrow. My text –The following is taken from the IDF site: As nutritious and beneficial as the…
In France kids have Wednesdays off from school. For those who have the possibility, it is a day to discover the multiple activities Paris has to offer children. Le centre Pompidou, Beaubourg to Parisians, holds every Wednesday of the school…
The Danish documentary “Armadillo” which premiered in cinemas last friday is a huge audience success. 22.282 tickets have been sold in three days, which is absolutely unusual for a documentary in Danish theatres. Earlier this month “Armadillo” by Janus Metz…
This is first of all information for those of our readers who are active filmmakers and producers. Given to you by someone who worked in EDN (European Documentary Network) from the beginning in 1996 until 2005, so I am totally…
Under the headline “Nordic ‘arte’ Channel Closer to a “Go””, the excellent newsletter FkN Newsletter, published by Filmkonakt Nord (in English, free subscription) gives hope for quality television: The talks of establishing of a joint Nordic TV channel based on…
Filmkommentaren.dk has recently written about the digital plans for documentaries in Lithuania and Denmark. Now a piece of text taken from the newsletter of Filmkontakt (see above) demonstrates that some countries also have throughts for the screening of films, at…
Sorry, your English language blogger goes national again… but he has to tell you that from today a website on the most esteemed Danish film director ever, Carl Th. Dreyer (1889-1968), is available. Go to the site address and check…
Our Paris correspondent has previously (search Godard) dedicated a posting to the one and only JLG, Jean-Luc Godard, whose ”Film Socialisme” was screened in Cannes. I found this clip from an overall festival article by Jason Solomons, The Observer, May…
Good news from one the most interesting countries for documentary cinema, Lithuania, whose post-independence documentaries have been and are awarded everywhere. Names like Sharunas Bartas, Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis, Rimantas Gruodis, Janina Lapinskaite and Giedre Beinoriute (photo from her 2005…
… and it is a road movie that talented Zeljko Mirkovic has made. Informative and done in an unpretentious way, this tv documentary takes the viewer from Austria in the North to the border between Macedonia and Greece in the…
The news agency AFP reports tonight from CANNES: A controversial Danish movie set in Afghanistan and a first feature from a Vietnamese director on Thursday scooped awards in Cannes’ Critics Week section… “Armadillo”, about the growing cynicism and adrenaline addiction…
Sund fornuft sejrede: ARMADILLO FÅR PREMIERE DEN 27. MAJ – 6 UGER FØR PLANLAGT. Klip fra pressemeddelelse: Siden den overvældende modtagelse ved verdenspremieren på filmfestivalen i Cannes har Armadillo været omtalt massivt i både danske og internationale medier. Filmen har…
Russian stories… why are they so attractive, why do they travel so well? Is it because we still know so little about this huge country and its Soviet past? Is it because their stories, like Tankograd, are so much more…
I did not watch the final film yet but followed the film project, when it was developed at the Ex Oriente workshop in Czech Republic and when it was presented at the most important market place for new documentary projects,…
Did you read the report from our Paris correspondent, Sara Thelle – see below. The core of the article is the hommage to wonderful Agnès Varda but Thelle also mentions the success of the Danish documentary, Armadillo, that not only…
Every year in Cannes, at the opening of The Director’s Fortnight, la Quinzaine des réalisateurs, the international society of filmmakers, la Société des Réalisateurs de Films (SRF), hands out the award The Carosse d’Or to honour “the innovative qualities, courage…
Take a look at the boy. Look at his eyes. See the fear of a soldier. A very young Danish soldier who has just been hit. He serves in Afghanistan, he fights Taliban. He is caught at that very moment…
1000 Danish documentaries and shorts will be made available for the Danish audience. The films, all from 1975-1990, will be digitalised and made accessible through the free streaming service, ”Filmstriben”, that includes all new docs and shorts supported by the…
The headline is taken from a small report by Camillo de Marco, who from Cannes Film Festival writes for the CinEuropa website. About one more documentary that puts its focus on Berlusconi… Italian documentarians do not have so go far…
The prestigious film festival in San Sebastian (September 17-25), one of the so-called A-festivals, has announced a special celebration of what on this site often has been called the new Golden Age of the documentary film genre, in the text…
It is always to be noted that the Cannes Film Festival picks a documentary for a competition screening. This time a Danish one, Armadillo by Janus Metz, has been taken for the Semaine de la Critique. The first screening in…
… stands for ”museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di trento e rovereto”. I went there to see the museum in the small and nice provincial town of Rovereto which is on the road between Bolzano and Verona. The museum…
The legendary French photographer is always considered as the documentarian within the art of photography. Now, according to an article written by Richard Lacayo in Time (May 3) a focus is put on his short but remarkable surrealist period. Here…
This spring Paris is under the sign of Kitano. Japanese filmmaker (Sonatine, Hana-bi, Zatoichi a. o.), actor, TV presenter, comedian, painter, singer, poet and writer Takeshi Kitano (born 1947 in Tokyo) is everywhere. He has a big exhibition at le…
The Canadian documentary film magazine POV asked me to write an article on festivals. I did so, it has been published in connection with the HotDocs festival that is running right now. You can read the article below and for…
Think Big! Is what young Latvian producer and director Ilona Bicevska is doing. For a couple of years she has been pitching a project that I have praised on this site with a simple Bravo! Now the potential directors have…
The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) has announced the winners of its Documentary Film Program Grants for the year 2010. The grant of a total of 300,000 USD was given to 15 winners, along with a series of…
This years festival Cinéma du reel had a program called Nous deux – Both of us, featuring films made by filmmakers in couples or pairs. Amongst those shown where The Old Place (1998) and Reportage amateur (maquette expo) (2006) by…
More free viewing for documentary addicts. A generous offer is given by the Doc Alliance (the four festivals in Nyon, Leipzig, Jihlava, Warsaw and Copenhagen). Below is their promotion text, and the films are available from April 21-25. When you…
8 excellent documentaries can be watched for free on the net, made available for screening by idfa, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Let me just mention three of them – Florin Iepan’s Romanian ”Children of the Decree” about the atrocities…
The following text is in Danish as it includes information on the excellent documentary service that is provided by SVT, Swedish public television, that is available for viewers in the Nordic countries. There are not many broadcasters – if any…