DOCLisboa 09/4
This is the start: A monkey looking into your eyes, an orangutan’s gaze into the camera. At US, those who are outside the glass. Or just looking into nothing. No sound, or very soft sound from the streets around the…
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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DOCLisboa 09/3
”Kill the Referee” is a film of Belgian and Swiss nationality, directed by Yves Hiant, a film for football fans like this blog writer – as loyal readers and friends have noticed. And it is amazing because of its unique…
DOCLisboa 09/2
Opening film at the festival: ”The Fortress” (PHOTO) by Swiss director Fernand Melgar, who was not present at the screening as his documentary was released in theatres in Japan. The story, a real European one, I would say, at least…
DOCLisboa 09/1
Festival director Serge Trefaut launched a passionate attack on Portuguese public broadcaster RTP at the opening of the festival. The young festival (7 years of age with an audience of 40.000 last year!) and its director has managed to get…
Jan Vrijman Fund Films at idfa
It is a very good move that the Jan Vrijman Fund supported films are to be seen at idfa. It is very often among these low budget documentaries that you find films that are made out of necessity and heart.…
The Sound of Insects
The European Film Academy proudly announces that the award EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY DOCUMENTARY 2009 – Prix ARTE goes to the film THE SOUND OF INSECTS – Record of a Mummy by Peter Liechti, Switzerland. The incredible story of how the…
Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy
The Popovics (Svetlana and Zoran), the organisers of the festival Magnificent7, that takes place every year in January in Belgrade, and has done so for five years, with my privileged post as co-selector of the seven films (you can read…
Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 2
There is a golden rule when you are on the road and get hungry – go where the truck drivers go. In combination with the knowledge of our hosts, including Misko, the driver, who take film crews around in his…
Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 3
Yugoslavia, a country that once was. At a time that was much easier for many people. It is absurd when you get to talk to people in Serbia and ask them where they come from… well, my mother was born…
Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 4
Two images came constantly to my eyes when we travelled the amazing landscapes of Serbia – reminded us in many places again and again of Tuscany. One was all the unfinished houses, the reason for which we were told to…
Serbia – Moments of Beauty and Joy 5
And what has Maradona to do with Serbia… a lot since Emir Kusturica made a film about him that I saw in the Stanly Kubrick Cinema in Kustendorf, a village on a hill top set up by the same Kusturica…
Prizes for Deconstruction of an Artist
Latvian director Peteris Krilovs’ documentary about legendary artist Gustav Klucis took several prizes at the National award ceremony in Riga a week ago: best director, best editor (Danish Julie Vinten), best script (Pauls Bankovskis) and best sound mix (Andris Barons).…
Frederick Wiseman
Respect – the idfa has sent out this press release: In honour of his 80th birthday, this year’s IDFA will be devoting special attention to the work of Frederick Wiseman. Wiseman has directed and produced dozens of documentaries, which often…
Best European Documentary Film
A press release from The European Film Academy announces the nominations in the category EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY DOCUMENTARY 2009 – PRIX ARTE. There is a total of ten documentary films nominated, and the jury is Nino Kirtadzé, documentary filmmaker, France/Georgia…
Golden Prizes for Silver films
Sounds enigmatic the title of this blog text. It refers to a new initiative of the Institute of Documentary Film in Prague, often mentioned on this site. Organised together with the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival the East Silver ”…
DR2 Dokumania: Armenien i krig og fred
The title is in Danish because I want our Danish readers to go to DR2 tomorrow, tuesday night at 20.45 to watch a very strong and personal documentary by Vardan Hovhannisyan (photo), who took years to make this honest and…
Another Planet Awarded Again
A couple of months ago this was posted on filmkommentaren.dk: The city of Kazan in Tatarstan in Russia, around 800 km East of Moscow, hosts the 4th International festival of Muslim Cinema, ”Golden Minbar”, taking place September 30 to October…
Festivals: CPH:DOX
… and the still young documentary festival in Copenhagen announces some audience attractions for its coming festival, November 6-15: We are now in the final stages of programming for CPH:DOX 2009, and we will regularly be announcing selected titles and…
Karin Westerlunds andre film
Karin Westerlunds film er fortsat aktuelle for os i FOF-filmklubben efter oplevelsen med Gud, lugt og hende, som ikke bare slipper og bliver til glemsel. Vi må have fat i de tidligere kortfilm og den ene lange film. Desværre kan…
Festivals: MDOX Malmö
It might interest our DANISH READERS that something very interesting for documentarians takes place on the other side of Copenhagen. Cross the bridge and you are there. This is what it is about: MDOX (22 – 25. October) is the…
Festivals: DOCLisboa
”Kill the Referee” is one of the films that are included in the ”foot doc” section of the coming DOCLisboa (October 15.25). It is new, made by Yves Hinant, a Belgian/Swiss coproduction, 75 mins. long. 7 other films are there…
Festivals: Jihlava
You might not know it but Jihlava is in Czech Republic and hosts an international documentary festival (October 27-November 1) with an always interesting innovative selection of films, and a huge industry programme – a pitching session East European Forum,…
Festivals: IDFA Amsterdam
The biggest of them all takes place in Amsterdam (November 19-29). The programme is not yet announced, that will happen on October 15, but here is a press release that again is an evidence of the growth of the political…
DOKLeipzig Competition
Jetzt online, it says on the site of the DOKLeipzig festival that goes from the 26.10-1.11, and it is an overwhelmingly rich programme that the classic festival offers its local audience and many visitors. Read all about it, site adress…
DOKLeipzig Talent Competition
The festival introduced years ago the Generation DOK competition for young talents and it deserves credit for that. It is often there you find the innovative and original, and it brings a freshness to the festival and attracts a young…
DOKLeipzig Panorama
In the festival world, at least at the big festivals like the one in Leipzig, the Panorama section always includes high quality international documentaries that either have been at other festivals, in competition, and therefore do not qualifym or did…
Robert Frank
Calling all documentarians: Take a look at the NY Times site page that brings 11 of the photos that are exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until January 3 2010. Robert Frank is celebrated on the…
New Czech Documentary Films
The IDF, Institute of Documentary Films, based in Prague is THE promoter of new Czech documentary films. This week the IDF was part of the team that organised Panel of New Czech Documentary Films. The following twelve directors and producers…
The Quay Brothers
The reason for this long presentation is the fact that the Danish Film House, in its Cinematheque in Copenhagen, shows an excellent retrospective of two of the greatest film artists of our time. New Danish viewers should go and discover…
Jørgen Leth Box Collection Completed
1st of October is the day where the 6th and final box of films by Danish film icon Jørgen Leth is published. The collection, administered and published by the Danish Film Institute, though financed primarily by a private investor, is…
Andris Gauja: Victor
It is one of those films that slowly develops. Something went wrong between Victor and his wife. He drank too much, he used drugs, he cheated on her, she did not want to go on, and he moved from her…
Bettina Haasen: Hotel Sahara
Mauritania, Nouadhibou, a place at the coast, a place from where Africans want to go to the promised land, Europe, and from where many boats are leaving and have left, with people on board… with many tragic drowning events as…
Aleksander Gutman: 17 August
This fine Russian director has, apart from the masterpiece ”Frescoes” from Georgia, made a couple of very strong documentaries shot in prisons, ”Three Days and Never Again” and ”Blatnoi Mir” (directed by Finnish Jouni Hiltunen, Gutman was production manager), and…
Bichlbaum & Bonanno: The Yes Men Fix the World
Well, no need for a review, the film has already been on the market for a long time, discussed and created debate, it is funny, it is a modern satirical, political film, it raises questions like Michael Moore does, you…
Ton van Zantvoort: A Blooming Business
It is actually ”a dirty business” to be interpreted in different ways: the use of chemicals in the flower farms and the consequent pollution of the Kenyan Lake Naivasha, and the abuse of people living there who have no labour…
It’s (not) only Television
… is the obvious and banal slogan for a professional meeting in Trento, Italy that starts today and goes on in the coming three days. Buyers, tv commissioning editors, festival people, film fund representatives and some critics from around the…
A text about Film by Christopher Pavsek
It is not everyday you see such an interesting thoughtprovoking text about film as the one I saw when visiting the site of Christopher Pavsek, that accompanies his film: To Those Born After (idfa 2005) I firmly believe that film…
IDFA Top Ten
An interesting compilation of films has been advertised for the coming idfa: Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan (Haifa, 1964) will compile this year’s Top 10 for the 22nd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Major themes in his Top 10 include how…
Independence saved for Latvian Film Centre
On this site the development in the critical situation around the survival of the National Film Centre in Latvia has been followed closely. And it seems like the independence of the Film Centre is saved. I wrote an email to…
BANANAS!* strike back at Dole
Swedish director Fredrik Gertten fights back against Dole… the case that we have written about earlier on this site – go to “search” and write bananas to get the background Here comes today’s: From the press release: LOS ANGELES, Calif.…
Pavel Kostomarov: Together
A house in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe a house in the centre of the universe. A couple lives there. They are artists, they do paintings and wooden sculptures. The sculptures have their own home in the house, a…
Herz Frank Tribute
I read on miradox.ru that Herz Frank is going to head the jury of the upcoming Russian festival Flahertiana (October 15-22), previously texted about on this site. Sitting in an airport thoughts go back to the many times I have…
Baltic Sea Forum – Hermanis
I had never heard about him before, Alvis Hermanis, even if the Latvian film team Inese Boka and Gints Grube wrote in their file that he was famous all over Europe. They did so when we met at Ex Oriente…
Baltic Sea Forum – Commissioning Editors
… so who were they, the people at the table who were supportive and constructively critical, well simply wanted to help and in many cases asked for meetings and to be kept updated on the development of the projects. If…
Baltic Sea Forum – Talents
As a member of the organisational staff it is indeed the ambition to promote new people, talents, up-coming documentarians with good subjects and original treatments and an ambition to make them into documentaries that are creative and surprising. Please. And…
Baltic Sea Forum – Humour in Pitching
I can’t mention all projects that were pitched at the Baltic Sea Forum, and there is not enough space to highlight the many that did receive very positive feedback, but I will write about a couple – see above –…
Baltic Sea Forum
It’s over, the 13th session of the Baltic Sea Forum, that started on the island of Bornholm in Denmark and now has its permanent place in Riga. It is very efficiently organised by the National Film Centre of Latvia that…
Blood in Your Mobile
”The making of the documentary film Blood In the Mobile and the campaign and website bloodinthemobile.org is addressing the issue of illegal mining in Eastern Congo: Congolese children from the age of 5 to 15 are staying up to 72…
Alina Rudnitskaya: Civil Status
I am in Riga for the Baltic Sea Forum (BSF) for new documentary projects to be pitched this coming weekend. The BSF, however, includes a hig quality film programme for the general public at the Cinema K. Suns in Riga.…
Protest at the Toronto International Film Fest
This clip from an article in Realscreen makes you think… is he right or wrong: “Filmmaker John Greyson is taking his boycott of Israel to the Toronto International Film Festival. Greyson, who withdrew his film Fig Trees (photo) from the…