IDFA Docs for Sale – Films
I have for years (decades?) benefited of having access to the Docs for Sale catalogue of IDFA to be kept up to date on new films as a programmer and first of all as one, who writes on this site,…
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
Read MoreIDFA Docs for Sale – Films
Magnus Gertten: Nelly & Nadine
“This is a film reel from April 28 1945…” beautiful material, black & white… of people arriving with the “white buses” to Malmö from German concentration camps. The third film by Swedish director Gertten digging into the 35mm footage…
Docpoint Finest Market 22
The festival in Helsinki is running until the 6th of February with a national and international competition, a Finnish and an international selection, a retrospective of the master Pirjo Honkasalo – it’s all very good in terms of films to…
Hugues Le Paige & Jacques Bidou
A tour down memory lane together with important names in modern documentary history. 10 years ago – on this site – I wrote about Belgian writer, director and journalist Hugues Le Paige : ”The director of this film (Le Prince et son…
Saeed Taji Farouky: A Thousand Fires
Let me start with a quote from a mail sent to me by good friend, excellent French producer Estelle Robin You, who has been working with the director for years to make this film meet the audience: ”A Thousand Fires”…
Vareikyte & Dejoie: I’ll Stand by You
Their full names being Virginija Vareikyte and Maximilien Dejoie, a Lithuanian and an Italian, who is also the cinematographer, which makes me start by praising the camerawork for a film that is so much subject-related: It tells the story of…
Laila Pakalnina: Homes
”I call my method of work “Fishing in the river of time”. As life is extremely talented, we just put camera, set composition and wait. And life happens. So film happens…” From an interview with Laila Pakalnina in connection with…
Mikael Opstrup & Salomé Jashi and Football
The other day there was a El Classico football match: Real Madrid against FC Barcelona. Mikael Opstrup sent me a text message expressing that he did not feel fantastic before the match. He felt UNCERTAIN about the result to come,…
FIPADOC 2022
It’s all there: Competitions, Industry events, a focus on Benelux – and it’s all superprofessionally conveyed at the website – www.fipadoc.com Is it like any other international documentary film festival? Yes, with national and international, short and long films and the industry…
Sergei Loznitsa: Mr.Landsbergis
Jury words IDFA 2021 on the film: “It is not easy to bring history to life. It is even more difficult to make it thrilling, urgent, and totally enriching, to make it feel like we are living through it as…
Peter Kerekes: 107 Mothers
2017, on this site: High expectations. What else can you have with a project from Slovak film director Peter Kerekes, who won a big award at the Karlovy Vary festival the other day. Let me remind you of the many innovative, entertaining…
DAFilms launches ”Best Of” 2021
An article by the always competent Vladan Petkovic in Cineuropa – link for the whole text below – gives me the opportunity to praise the DocAlliance platform as so many times before. Due to the pandemic, I guess, DAFilms has…
Ana Barjadze: Bitter Sugar
More than well done by Georgian young director Ana Barjadze and her producer Irina Gelashvili, who have now won the Adami Media Prize, ”Project Pitching Winner”. What that is you can read by clicking below – and via another link…
Joan Gonzàlez is Honored
It was a happy and proud man I talked to the other day. A man who had been honored, and wanted to share his joy with me. So well deserved the honor! First an edited and translated version of a press…
Ai WeiWei: Rohingya
Almost a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live in the biggest refugee camp in the world, Cox Bazaar in Bangla Desh… Ai WeiWei has made a film from the camp. Danish editors Niels Pagh Andersen and Charlotte Munch Bengtsen watched,…
Karim Kassem: Octopus
The IDFA website intro to this remarkable hybrid documentar-fiction goes like this: ”The aftermath of the explosion that took place at the Port of Beirut in August 2020 is revealed in quiet stillnes, from the destroyed buildings and the despair…
Nidal Al Dibs: Homemade Stories
The website intro text to the film, which was in the Envision Competition at IDFA: „As the revolution turns into war; Nidal, a Syrian filmmaker, is forced to leave the country. He locks his Damascus home door and travels with…
Ruslan Fedotow: Where are We Headed
The winner of the IDFA Award for Best First Film and the IDFA Award for Best Cinematography. No objection from my side. Observational documentary cinema with a location so well known, the Moscow Metro. And yet a film with several…
IDFA Winners 2021
Mr. Landsbergis wins IDFA Award for Best Film in the International Competition and Octopus wins IDFA Award for Best Film in the Envision Competition Last night, IDFA announced the winners of the competition programs during the IDFA 2021 Awards Ceremony.…
De Sousa Dias & Schaefer: Journey to the Sun
… their first names are Susana and Ansgar, well known by the editors of this site due to their films “Still Life“ and „48“, (). This new film by the Portuguese couple demonstrates again how perfectly they know how to combine…
IDFA: Kapanadze & van der Horst
A debutant and a veteran director, two very good films, award candidates I guess, I watched them, I give you some brief texts about them. Recommendations: Ketevan Kapanadze’s ”How the Room Felt” and Aliona van der Horst ”Turn Your Body to…
Niels Pagh Andersen: Order in Chaos Launch
I have already posted (on FB) advertising texts about Danish editor Niels Pagh Andersen and his book launch at IDFA sunday morning through a debate with IDFA director Orwa Nyrabia. The launch was set up as a masterclass with the…
Mikael Opstrup: The Uncertainty
Subitled: «A book about Developing Character driven Documentary» ”I am painfully aware that this book is risky business. I am trying to rationalize the irrational, to break down the bumpy documentary film process into conscious decisions and structures, yes even…
IDFA: Amsterdam Global Village
Full house at beautiful Tuschinski last night – for a 25 year old film, a classic in world documentary history, Johan van der Keuken’s Amsterdam Global Village. 4 hours (!) plus one hour with the film’s producer Pieter van Huystee,…
IDFA Starts Tomorrow
… the 34th edition and this is what the IDFA staff luckily communicated the other day: ”IDFA is delighted to share that the festival continues in person next week, and cinemas remain open. Following the measures laid out by the Dutch…
Sérgio Tréfaut: Paraiso
White plastic chairs are being arranged in a circle in front of a palace. A show is to begin. A show with lovely people – with a twist from the Beatles text: “All the lovely people where did they all…
Srdan Keca: Museum of the Revolution
To safeguard the truth about us, were the words architect Richter used, when he presented his plan for a Museum of the Revolution to be built in Belgrade in 1961… Director Srdan Keca takes this – with great propaganda archive…
DOKLeipzig Awards 2021
“Father” earns Golden Dove in International Competition at DOK Leipzig Golden Dove in the German Competition for “A Sound of My Own” | Audience jury awards “Dida” a Golden Dove The award-winning films of the 64th edition of DOK…
Maradia Tsaava: Water Has No Borders
First some background: Since the end of the civil war in the early 1990s, the region of Abkhazia has been acting independently of Georgia. This has turned a massive dam into a border. But the hydroelectric power station also connects…
Nikola and Corina Ilić: Dida
Full names: Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić – I had seen (some of) their previous short works, the lovely ”Rakijada” and the aesthetical perfect ”All Inclusive”, both films that have travelled to short film festivals all over – and…
DOK Leipzig 2021
“At this year’s edition of DOK Leipzig, a total of 63,250 euros in prize money will be awarded. In addition, there are non-cash benefits worth 10,000 euros that filmmakers will be able to use in developing their films…” A quote…
Ji.hlava IDFF 25 Years!
25 years, still alive and kicking, young and fresh – is the impression I get from going through the website of the film festival in the Czech provincial town that is full of films, of Cinema from October 10 till…
Andrei Kutsila: When the Flowers are not Silent
There is still a media focus on Belarus – but now it seems that the first priority is the latest criminal action by Lukashenko and his regime: the flying in of migrants to Belarus pushing them on to the Polish,…
Samir Karahoda: Displaced
With the working title ”Table Stories”. The producer Erol Bilibani asked me for feedback on the film – no objections, on the contrary, love it. The film shows perfectly how strong a short film can be if you master the…
Diane Weyermann Passed Away Yesterday
So sad news. Only 66 years old. Lucky us who met Diane and learned from her generosity, passion and knowledge. Always with a smile. My wife and I visited her briefly in Venice CA, had brunch in the sunshine and…
Camilla Nielsson: President
This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, festival directors of Magnificent7: A brilliant film awarded at the Sundance Film Festival as the best cinéma vérité film, made in a style that directly places it alongside the legendary “Primary”,…
Andrei Dăscălescu: Holy Father
This text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic This is an exclusive road movie in search of answers hidden deep in silence and oblivion. Andrei Dăscălescu is facing a situation that announces a major, important change in…
Heddy Honigmann: 100UP
This text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. One of the world’s most important authors took on an incredible, unusual endeavor and made a unique film in her elegant style. Heddy Honigmann is a documentary filmmaker who…
Kim and Bouillot: The Man Who Paints Waterdrops
Oan Kim and Brigitte Bouillot are their full names. This text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. A superb documentary work that ranks in style with the films of some of the most important French authors. This…
Marc Isaacs: The Filmmaker’s House
“The Filmmaker’s House” is masterly made film by one of the most important documentary authors in Great Britain, created in facing a space that we usually think of as a set of walls and things. What makes the house we…
Mohamed El Abudi: School of Hope
This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic Morocco. Vast desert. People living under tents. And a house like a grain of sand, the grain that becomes a pearl in a shell. Mohamed El Aboudi comes to his native…
Mladen Kovačević: Merry Christmas Yiwu
This text is written by the festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic This is not a film about China. This is a film about people’s dreams. This is a film about everything that makes a dream about China. Wonderful and…
Magnificent7 – Salomé Jashi: Taming the Garden
In this text the directors of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade (October 2 – 6) gives their reasons for showing the film at a special screening followed by their intro-review for the film that is shown on the last day, October 6…
Magnificent7 2021 Belgrade
”My headline is ordinary people”. Director Marc Isaacs is behind the camera skype-talking with his producer, who gives him the information that the broadcasters of today only want to give money for more commercial/sensational stories. Not ordinary people stories. For…
Mads Hedegaard: Cannon Arm and The Arcade Quest
To sit in a cinema watching documentaries! In Malmø where the 32nd Nordisk Panorama takes place. Anita Reher, my colleague from the time where EDN (European Documentary Network) was alive and kicking, invited me to be a juror in the…
Baltic Sea Docs 2021: Courage
I wrote this in connection with CPH:DOX festival in April/May this year. The other day it was screened in K-Suns cinema in Riga. First time for me to see it on a big screen. And Aliaksey Paluyan was there on the screen…
Baltic Sea Docs announces the programme
The 25th Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries will run on 1-12 September in Riga and online, with a total of 18 film projects to be presented at the training and pitching forum, as well as a programme of masterclasses and…
Stefan Pavlović: Looking for Horses
The film received the Special Jury Award at the Sarajevo FF’s documentary competition. And before that also an award at Visions du Réel in Nyon. The first feature documentary of the director, a gem, a very original work by a young…
Documentary Awards at Sarajevo FF 2021
Jury: Cecilia Lidin (Film Consultant, Denmark) Jean-Pierre Rehm (General Delegate of FIDMarseille – International Cinema Film Festival, France) Mila Turajlić (Director, Serbia) HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM LANDSCAPES OF RESISTANCE Serbia, Germany, France Director: Marta Popivoda Award in…
Stefani: Days and Nights with Dimitra K
If you want an excellent written and precise analysis of the latest work of Greek filmmaker Eva Stefani, click below and read Neil Young’s text written after the Thessaloniki Doc Festival, where Stefani won an award. As “Uncle Tue” to…