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…
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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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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…
Niall McKay: The Bass Player – A Song for Dad
It is one of those films where you wonder if this is going to be private OR personal = something that would have been better to keep in the family circle OR a film with a universal appeal. The latter…
The Danish Roos Award
The award, named after the documentary film pioneer Jørgen Roos, was established in 1995 for the purpose of rewarding outstanding efforts in Danish documentary filmmaking – went this year to director Anders Østergaard and producer Lise Lense-Møller, the duo behind…
Sergey Dvortsevoy – Letter to the Director
Dear Sergey. Around 10 years ago you were in Copenhagen to present your film school diploma work, ”Paradise”. You declared yourself as a dedicated documentarian, and you proved to be one of the best with the films that followed: ”Bread…
Cinemateket i September
2nd message to the lucky Copenhageners about a film offer – presented in Danish: Så kom der endelig en lejlighed til at glæde læserne med et foto af Juliette Binoche, den fremragende franske skuespiller, hvis evner kan nydes i 11…
Mandagsdokumentar
1st message to the lucky Copenhageners about a film offer – presented in Danish: Så er det sæson for MandagsDokumentar. Utrættelige Ebbe Preisler inviterer som sædvanlig og han insisterer vanen tro på at det er en god idé at filmskaberne…
Karin Westerlund: God, Smell and Her
My colleague, Allan Berg, has posted two texts in Danish about the new film by Karin Westerlund, Swedish visual artist and filmmaker, based in Denmark and Cairo, Egypt. I saw the film yesterday, it is as Allan Berg writes, quite…
Lukas Pribyl: Forgotten Transports 1-4/ 1
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…
Lukas Pribyl: Forgotten Transports 1-4/ 2
I had an email contact with the director of ”Forgotten Transports”, Lukas Pribyl. Here follows some quotes from his side – and please do also go to the very good site of the film: How did you make the people…
Film Programme at Baltic Sea Forum
It is a high quality film programme that the organisers of the coming Baltic Sea Forum offers its local Riga audience and the visiting filmmakers and tv editors. Under the title ”Revolution starts at Home” (and from September 2-6) you…
Odense Film Festival 2009
The national Danish film festival in Odense is over. Under the competent leadership of Cecilia Lidin a big competitive international programme of short fiction films supplemented the competition of new Danish short films and documentaries. The Grand Prix for the…
Docu Awards in Sarajevo
What a pleasant surprise and a well deserved prize from the Sarajevo Film Festival audience – to nominate ”Sevdah” by Marina Andree as the best film of the festival. I have previously introduced the film, that had its premiere in…
Sheffield Doc/Fest new Initiative
Here is a follow-up to the text about joiningthedocs, quite interesting and if I get it right, you don’t have to travel to Sheffield (which by the way could be quite nice!) to watch a selection of the films in…
Iranian Filmmakers: Boycott
142 Iranian filmmakers have issued a boycott of the 2009 edition of the (Iranian) Cinema Vérité International Documentary Film Festival, that is scheduled for October 2009. The Iranian filmmakers express that in the current situation of the country, there are…
D-Word 10 Years!
A worldwide community of documentary professionals it is, the D-word that announces that by September 3 it has existed for 10 years. As a place for documentary people from all over the world to talk to each other, as colleagues…
The Beetz Brothers
The Beetz Brothers … sounds like a film title but is the name of a very active independent production company in Germany, which I would like to draw your attention to as an example of a production company that not…
Glawogger Masterpiece Available
Time for a commercial – to illustrate through just one example that many of the creative documentary films reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk are available to be watched whenever you want and for little money: “joiningthedocs.tv is a new documentary channel offering…
Paul Pauwels Interview
He is now the head of The European Television & Media Management Academy in Strasbourg. Before he was a documentary film producer, one of the best in Europe, and for a short while a commissioning editor at the VRT in…
Football Referees get their own Film
According to the newspaper The Guardian (August 13) a new documentary about football referees has been premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Director is Yves Hinant and the film runs time-wise a bit less than a football match: 77 mins.…
Muslim Cinema Festival
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 4. 14 films have been selected for the documentary competition,…
Latvian Film 3
… and as a follow-up this mail from Ilze Gailite Holmberg, managing director of the National Film Centre of Latvia, to the big amount of European colleagues and film funds/centres/associations/institutes: Dear Colleagues, This is to thank you for all your…