Bridging the Gap
I was in Edinburgh this weekend to meet the 12 candidates for the 2010 Bridging the Gap production scheme, headed by SDI, Scottish Documentary Institute. Pure pleasure it was to listen to and comment on the presentation of the 12,…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Articles/Reviews ENGLISH
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ZagrebDox
From February 28 March 7 the sixth edition of ZagrebDox will take place in the capital of Croatia. I have attended previous editions – but have other obligations this year. But this should not refrain me from making publicity for…
Katrin Ottarsdóttir: Sporene gror ud af ord 2
Så er den trefløjede tavle færdig. Tre film med først Hans Pauli Olsen dernæst Tóroddur Poulsen, som begge blev færdige i 2008 og nu den tredje med Jóanes Nielsen, Sporene gror ud af ord, som har været vist i København…
Klara Trencsenyi & Vlad Naumescu: Birds Way
First the annotation as it appears on the cover of the dvd and on the site of the production company, Libra Film in Romania: “Birds Road is a creative documentary that follows the daily routine of a Russian Lipovan community…
Marc Eberle: The Most Secret Place on Earth
… which was praised on this site, see below, is being screened on arte this coming wednesday 17th of February at 20.35 with a re-run on the 23rd of February at 10.25am. arte shows the 52 mins.version titled CIA-Operation Laos.…
Mumbai Festival awards Alexander Gutman
The documentary by Russian Alexander Gutman, ”17 of August”, was chosen as the best documentary at the Mumbai International Film Festival (for docs, shorts and animation). Here is a clip from the review that was written on filmkommentaren.dk: This…
Sergio Basso: Giallo a Milano
Made in Chinatown is the subtitle of this stylistically different but very fresh and well made, kaleidoskopic look at Chinese in Milano. Several – mostly young – Chinese, first or second generation, take part in a documentary that does not…
Rada (Sesic) on Rasa
Zeljko Mirkovic, Serbian documentary director-producer (his company is called Optimist Film) and occasionally a very good interviewer, has published a long conversation with Rada Sesic, a very well known documentary director and teacher and festival programmmer – and an expert…
Rabbit Website
The producer of the Oscar nominated Polish film ”Rabbit a la Berlin”, Anna Wydra, has asked me to add the information about their new website www.rabbitalaberlin.com where you can read about the road to the nomination as well as watch…
Fritz Lang: Metropolis
The 60th Berlin International Film Festival starts today and goes on until the 21st of February. The European cultural channel arte celebrates by dedicating a whole evening to the showing of “la version longue inédite du chef-d’oeuvre de Fritz Lang,…
Menstruation Film Travels
Some filmmakers are (also) born public relation stars. Diana Fabionova is one. First she presents her film as a first timer, then she starts to promote and pitch it, then she raises the funding… and makes the film ”The Moon…
Czech Them Out!
An addition to what I wrote below – in Danish – about the Czech films in Cinemateket in Copenhagen. The films also tour to other places in Denmark: De tre fine dokumentarfilm “Citizen Havel”, “Czech Dream” og “René” (foto) bliver…
Jussi to The Living Room of a Nation
It is not only abroad that the Finnish documentary masterpiece ”The Living Room of a Nation” by Jukka Kärkkäinen is being praised (search his name on this site and you will have reviews and report on the film), it is…
Cinemateket
Special service for our Danish readers – about many fine documentaries to be watched at the Film House in Copenhagen at Cinemateket, run by the Danish Film Institute: Der er meget at komme efter i Cinemateket i februar måned, hvis…
DOCSBarcelona
… is running until this sunday, February 7th. It includes an international film festival and a pitching forum, with a variety of masterclasses, award ceremonies and professional meetings. A meeting place for professionals and a generous offer of films to…
DOCSBarcelona Pitching Forum 1
24 projects were presented at the 13th Pitching Forum of DOCSBarcelona February 5-6. 15 broadcasters, film funders and distributors were around the table to comment and eventually show interest in what was verbally and visually pitched. Most of the project…
DOCSBarcelona Pitching Forum 2
What were they about, the 24 film projects at the Pitching Forum – what films can you expect to be ready within the next couple of years, what were the themes and stories presented at DOCSBarcelona 2010: The invention of…
DOCSBarcelona Pitching Forum 3
A special tribute was given to the Swedish commissioning editor Vera Bonnier, who had her last pitch at DOCSBarcelona. For 34 years Bonnier has worked for SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster, and has now decided to retire. She comes from…
DOCSBarcelona Festival
The same philosophy as always: To build a dialogue among film, audience and director. This is how Joan Gonzàlez, DOCSBarcelona director, phrases what he wants the young festival to be, he himself being very much dedicated to the introduction of…
Oscar Nominations 2010 – Documentaries
What a pleasure to see that two documentaries by committed and skilled documentarians – as they have been praised on this site – both of them non-American in a very American classement, have made it to the grande finale: “Burma…
Bartek Konopka: 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…
Short Film Studies – Call for Papers
Short film expert par exellence Richard Raskin, Associate Professor at the Information and Media Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark has asked us to post the following, which we do with great pleasure: “I have been asked to start a…
Komeda – the Soundtrack for a Life
Krzysztof Komeda… was the one who made the music for several of the films of Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimovski, Andrzej Warda, Danish Henning Carlsen and Jørgen Leth. He died in 1969, 38 years old. I am sure you remember the…
Fipa
Fipa means Festival International des Programmes Audiovisuels and has been going on in Biarritz for 23 years. It is a festival for television orientated programmes, including creative documentaries, reportages & current affairs, music and performing arts programmes, short films, panoramas.…
Archidoc at Fipa
10 projects were presented at the third and final session of the EU MEDIA Training Programme, Archidoc, initiated and run by the French film school la fémis. With a constantly changing, rather dramatic weather outside the Casino Bellevue in Biarritz…
Magnificent7 – Full Houses
Last night of a festival with a small amount of films and a huge audience. With the focus on the authored films and with the authors – or other creative persons from the crews – present and taken care of…
Magnificent7 – Nina Hedenius
In ”Way of Nature” (”Naturens Gång”) Swedish filmmaker Nina Hedenius uses a radio piece to convey to the audience that there is a world outside the farm that is the location of her film. In a workshop session at Magnificent7…
Magnificent7 – Asylum Seekers
Take a look at the photo. The young woman leaning forward is Caroline. She is a social worker at a reception centre for asylum seekers in a municipality of Paris. The woman with her back to the camera is Zaleh,…
Magnificent7 – Striptease
Eric Cardot is in Belgrade because of his co-direction of ”Kill the Referee”. At a session with young filmmakers from Serbia, he revealed how the film came about. It was the football association UEFA, that wanted the film and addressed…
Magnificent7 – Finnish Living Rooms
Jukka Kärkkäinen (JK) and his cameraman J-P. Passi (JP) are in Belgrade to present their film ”The Living Room of a Nation” that has been highly praised on this site several times. The JK presentation of the film and himself…
Magnificent7 – Opening Night
The Sava Center in Belgrade hosted two films for the opening of the 6th European Feature Documentary Festival, Magnificent7. The big hall made last night room for around 1500 spectators for each of the two films, that were introduced to…
Magnificent7 – a Sexy Festival
The 6th European feature Documentary Festival opens tonight in the big hall of the Sava Centre in Belgrade. My guess – based on ticket office information and on experience from previous years – is that more than a thousand spectators…
TV3 Awards
The Catalan public broadcaster TV3 has since 1990 performed a very honourable competition for reports and films that ”raise a voice against the violation of human rights. The goal is to defend the rights of individuals and democratic values such…
Kalandia – a Checkpoint Story
This is one of those films that stays in your mind. Not because it is a high-quality visual experience, not at all, almost on the contrary, but because here is a filmmaker, who has committed herself to act by doing…
Cinéma du Réel
The 32th (!) edition of the festival in Paris takes place March 18-30. Both bloggers of this site will be there to report in Danish and English. Here is an overview of what the programme includes, taken from the site…
Jarmo Jääskeläinen: Marcel Lozinski
This text about Polish master Marcel Łoziński is written by grand old man in Finnish documentary, for many years a producer, director and commissioning editor at YLE, Jarmo Jääskeläinen. The text is taken from the site of the international film…
Nicolas Philibert: Imagination takes flight
This text is taken from the site of the Finnish documentary film festival Docpoint, that goes on 26-31.1.2010: I never made the decision to become a documentarian, to place myself in some fixed category. I don’t even like the word…
Forgotten Transports to Göteborg Film Festival
”What an achievement! I don’t recall, when was the last time that I witnessed so captivating a historical documentary, here told by Czech Jewish survivors of the holocaust. They were interviewed between 2000-2006 by Lukas Pribyl, the researcher, writer and…
Zelig
… does not only refer to the fictional documentary, mockumentary, of Woody Allen, but is also the name of the film school in Bolzano in the Alto Adige region of North Italy. Documentary films are being taught and made here…
Lars von Trier in St. Petersburg
Yes, it is him on the small poster, that advertises a fine programme to be performed by The Danish Institute in St. Petersburg. For four days a Film Festival Denmark will take place showing an excellent programme of films from…
Shalva Shengeli: Unknown Soldiers
Recruit training in Georgia. From Recruit Gurchiani to Private Gurchiani. A symphathetic young man from Upper Abkhazia is the main character in this documentary from Georgia. He is followed through some months in 2008 that leads up to the Russian-Georgian…
Georgy Parajanov: I died in my Childhood
This is the second impressive documentary that I have seen ABOUT Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) (the first one by Vartanov is previously written about on this site), this time made by his nephew, who gave the film to me when we…
Dhondup Wangchen
Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen has been sentenced to six yearsʼ imprisonment. This is a press release from the site “Leaving Fear Behind” where clips from the film of the same title is to be found. Zurich, 6. January 2010. Dhondup…
Monique Mbeka Phoba: Between Cup and Elections
In two days the big football event Africa Cup of Nations 2010 will kick off. DR Congo did not qualify even if they were close to get there and do what they did in 1968, when they won the tournament,…
Alina Rudnitskaya
At the DoxPro workshop in November 09 in St. Petersburg I met many talented Russian documentary directors, who deserve more attention from Western European broadcasters and festivals. I took several dvd’s back home to watch and comment, and I still…
Salome Jashi: The Leader is Always Right
The title of the film indicates where the director stands. As does the building of this observational documentary from one of the patriotic youth camps in Georgia. With a fine eye for details young director Salome Jashi (previously written about…
Lida/Miso Suchy:Pictograph.Portrait of a Village
I got this dvd by Slovak Marek Sulik, the editor of the two original documentaries by Peter Kerekes, ”66 Seasons” and ”Cooking History”. Sulik has obviously enjoyed this new job of making the impressive b/w photos of Lida Suchy into…
Cayan Demirel: Prison Nr. 5 1980-84
The director of the banned film ”38” (see below) touches upon another black spot in newer Turkish history with this enormously touching documentation of the horrible atrocities that took place in the Diyarbakir prison in the military coup period 1980-84.…
Cayan Demirel: 38
The old man asks for the camera to be turned off. He has a lot to say but he is worried. No broadcasting, he almost shouts loudly… no broadcasting, the voice behind the camera assures him, but turn it off,…
The 10 Best Documentaries 2009
Here follows what were the best 10 documentaries in the world according to what I saw and reviewed in 2009. In alphabetical order. All reviews can be found by writing the titles in ”search”. Happy New Year! Cash and Marry,…