DOK-Leipzig Programme Ready
A festival that is very dear to me has made its selection. I am working as a scout for Leipzig festival director Claas Danielsen and his team, when it comes to films from the Baltic and other Eastern European countries.…
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 MoreDOK-Leipzig Programme Ready
Don Edkins: Why Democracy
Its been an interesting weekend, politically speaking, in South Africa. I had been away travelling for a week and came back on Saturday to find out that the President of South Africa – Thabo Mbeki – had been deposed. He…
Gibney:Gonzo:Life and Work of Hunter Thompson
I had hoped for more from this film about a journalist legend that I had heard so much about, read so much about, but never seen a film about. A journalist whose work I had read only a little of,…
Audrius Stonys Interview
I have written – and so has Allan Berg – many times about Lithuanian documentary poet Audrius Stonys, who by the way is a big admirer of the films of Jørgen Leth, who is on the cover of filmkommentaren.dk for…
BFI: Documentary Film History
The BFI (British Film Institute) celebrates its 75th birthday by publishing a collection of dvd’s including one of documentaries from the golden period 1930-1950. What a discovery for those who dont know about it, and what a revisit for us,…
Jørgen Leth: A Midsummer Night’s Play
Thure Munkholm writes in the booklet in the box-set: “At first glance, it might seem to be quite a leap from these two fictional travel stories to Leth’s earlier TV production of A Midsummer Night´s Play, a classic from 1803…
Jørgen Leth: Interference
The Danish director Christoffer Boe writes in the box booklet: ” For one scene alone Interference is a must see. The scene: an extended medium close shot of Hanne Uldal, as The Woman, lying naked on the metal floor of a…
Riga Diary…tv and Artistic Docs 2
I (Tue) wrote from Riga about the theme in the headline after a pitch at the Baltic Sea Forum. I made Iikka Vehkalahti comment on it and now there is a contribution from Marje Jurtshenko at Estonian Television, who was…
Geoffrey Smith: The English Surgeon
Three persons are presented in a parallel montage. An Englishman in his garden preparing for his trip to Ukraine. Henry Marsh is the surgeon, as is the man he is to visit in Kiev, Igor Kurilets, and the patient to…
Albert Maysles Interview
Take 5 minutes break and go to the website of British newspaper Guardian and watch an interview with good old observational documentary hero Albert Maysles, this mild man who is a true believer of the classical approach to reality. This…
Riga Diary… tv and Artistic Docs
Iikka Vehkalahti, YLE Finland had this comment to Riga Diary 5: “Dear Tue. I have to admit, that we (YLE TV 2 Documentaries) have a slogan: ” don´t look at tv, look at TV 2 Documentaries”. It´s implement is actually…
James Marsh: Man on Wire
It is more than 30 years ago. I remember it vaguely. I remember that he did it. The tightrope walking between the the twin towers in New York in 1974. But I did not remember the story behind it. That…
British Documentary History Online
Need to brush up your documentary film history? If so, the BFI (British Film Institute) can help you. I have just spent a little hour in company with two brilliant British actors, Derek Jacobi and Malcolm McDowell, who have introduced…
Carlo Lo Giudice: Padre Nostro
Scratch me! Hug me! Don’t act stupid! The father is 90 and the son around 50. They live together, they sleep in the same bed. They caress each other in the bed. The son constantly scratches the father´s back and…
Riga Diary 5
I attended the first handful of projects that were pitched at the Baltic Sea Forum. Before I had to leave back to Copenhagen. Again I heard a sentence that is often expressed at pitching sessions by the commissioning editors present.…
Riga Diary 4
The Boy from Riga: Sergei Eisenstein. Born in 1898, son of Mikhail and Julia. Lives in the city until 1915 where he goes to St. Petersburg to study. His father becomes the architect of beautiful Jugendstil buildings that are still…
Riga Diary 3
Salome Jashi is from Georgia. She is here for the Baltic Sea Forum. She has an interesting documentary project called ”Restaurant Bakhmaro and Those Who Work There” that is to be pitched in this coming weekend to television editors and film…
Riga Diary 2
Guard dog or lap dog? Seems to be a very actual and relevant question that journalists in Belarus (and other countries as well) have to ask themselves. In the country of Lukashenko no criticism of the President and his regime…
Riga Diary 1
I am writing this in my room on the 8th floor at Hotel Albert (Einstein) in Riga, where the Baltic Sea Forum and the ”Is it Easy to be Different” mini festival starts today. Yesterday I had time to take…
Doc Air Impressive Online Catalogue
If you want to make your own festival, faced in front of your computer, Doc Air offers you quality. Check it yourself, and be aware that here you find an excellent selection of Czech directors to be carefully studied –…
Documentaries in Riga
Riga hosts two important documentary events this coming week. On wednesday, September 3rd, a small festival opens for everyone under the title: “Is it Easy to be Different”, a reference to the Juris Podnieks perestroika classic, “Is it Easy to…
Gary Hustwit: Helvetica
Why is it that I – without really reflecting upon it – always choose helvetica as my font when I write emails or write a text on this site? Why don’t I take Lucida Bright or TrueOfficinaSansBooKItalic or Times New…
Anne Andreu: Isabelle Huppert
Normally documentaries about actors are built around anecdotes, told by the actor in question him/herself or by people with whom the actor has been working. With Isabelle Huppert it is different. She says herself in this tv documentary that she…
Odense Film Fest Documentary Prizes
The festival has finished and prizes have been given:Grand Prix: “Milosevic on trial” by Michael Christoffersen.Best Danish Documentary: “Kun med hjertet kan man rigtigt se” by Ulla Boye.Audience Award: “Fra Thailand til Thy” af Janus Metz. All three films have…
Yang Fudong
I went to an art exhibition in Copenhagen. It was a wonderful, surprising experience. I am normally not into video installations but here I met an artist, who has entered film and photography from painting with a subtle sense of…
Ben Kempas:Upstream Battle:The Story
This is one of those films that you can only appreciate: It takes you to a place in the world that you (I) don’t know anything about. It has some charismatic characters who fight for a cause. You get to…
Sally Mann
Copenhagen, The Royal Library, The Black Diamond: I went to see the exhibition with photographs by Sally Mann. Wonderful experience. Made me think about her approach to her work. I found an article by Richard Woodward from NYTimes, who calls…
Kites 3
If you search “Kites” on this site, you will find both a salute to a very fine film and a warm congratulation because of the selection to take part in the prestigious Locarno Film Festival – that has just ended.…
Odense Film Festival Anmeldelser/Reviews
Hvis du er interesseret i at læse flere anmeldelser af danske dokumentarfilm fra Odense Film Festivals program, så kan du søge følgende titler på denne hjemmeside. De har alle været bragt i årets løb: If you find interest in reading…
Paradise
Three Danish male directors stand behind this reflecting impressionistic collage on Life and Death, joy and pain, sorrow and happiness. The background is Denmark in this beginning of a new century, a country that is at war in Iraq, a…
New Wave of British Feature Documentaries?
A week ago British newspaper The Independent brought an interesting optimistic article about the return of feature lenght documentaries to the cinemas. Read yourself the article that I found through the website of the Sheffield Doc Fest: https://sheffdocfest.com/ under “Latest…
Enemies of Happiness
At the tv festival in Copenhagen, organised by Danish Producers, there was again a prize for “Enemies of Happiness”, directed by Eva Mulvad. We have before pointed to the excellent dvd sales site initiative of directors Mulvad, Pernille Grønkjær and…
Solange on Love
They have the same name. One lives in Santiago, the other in Valparaiso at the coast. One has a hard life as a parking guide in the big city, with a drug addicted husband and two small children totally dependent…
Gonzo
Wow, that sounds exciting, a film about the reporter legend Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005). Has been released, at least in connection with the Sundance festival, link below. I met it on the fine film website of Guardian, where the director…
The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema 1,2,3
… presented by Slavoj Zizek, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, is simply a gift to all film teachers. In three parts Zizek takes us on a Freudian, but not only, trip through wonderful clips that he comments on from his point…
Danish Documentary Issues
Just a brief on the Danish language articles below, three of them, dealing 1) with a cine-essay series at the Cinemateket in the Film House in the middle of Copenhagen. Lovely programme with films by Joris Ivens and Chris Marker…
Swedish short documentaries
At the Odense Film Festival one of the special programmes is very much welcomed. It is a selection of short documentaries, a genre that is very rarely seen. Read what Cecilia Lidin, festival director of Odense Film Festival writes on…
Odense Film Festival
If you want a qualified overview of what has happened in Danish documentary, short fiction, animation and children film during the last year – you should go to the 23rd Odense Film Festival that takes place next week, August 19-24,…
Happy Birthday / Tillykke
www.filmkommentaren.dk has today been alive and kicking for one year. What started as an idea in the head of Allan, has now become a regular “con amore” passion for the two of us. We are proud and happy to have…
Georg Misch: A Road to Mecca
… with the subtitle, The Journey of Muhammad Asad. Who was originally Leopold Weiss, Jewish, born in Austria, but converted to islam in the 1920’s and became, as said by a Palestinian on the West Bank, ”an enlightened Islamic thinker,…
Bazzoli/Lelong:Amour,Sexe & Mobylette
What a charming film, full of Life and Love! Taking place in a small town in Burkina Faso, it is built as a film for cinema release with several parallel stories circling around the St. Valentine´s Day. Old people´s love,…
Lithuanian Classics
I write this in a summer house on Bornholm. On this island I met – for ten consecutive years – Henrikas Sablevicius, the godfather of the so-called poetic Lithuanian documentary. I never spoke directly to him (no English from his…
Masterpieces with Children
3 new photos on the title page of www.filmkommentaren.dk. All with children, all from masterpieces that have been written about: From left “Ten Minutes Older” by Herz Frank (USSR/Latvia), “Before Flying Back to the Earth” by Arunas Matelis (Lithuania) and…
Svetoslav Draganov: Tell me What is the Universe
A short piece of observation that was done by one of Bulgaria´s most talented young documentary directors – in connection with the shooting of a feature film by Stephan Komandarev. The characters are extras from the film, the village is…
HYPE The Obama Effect
Some documentaries get a lot of publicity even before they are ready to be seen. Not surprisingly a film about Barack Obama made by a producer, who is characterised as the direct opposite of Michael Moore, is talked about on…
Radovan Karadzic and BBC
Just a brief note on this day where Karadzic has been flown to the Hague Tribunal. Actually just a link to the BBC website where you can see not only yesterday’s images from the Belgrade protests against the catch of…
Baltic Tour: Lithuania
I have just left Vilnius, this beautiful spiritual capital of Lithuania. I had two nights at the Shakespeare Hotel, which I would like to (an exception on this blog) recommend to everyone. Anyway, I can report to you that the…
Baltic Tour: Latvia
Riga, the city where came to life so many great documentaries during Soviet times and around the fall of the empire. I was invited to teach at the Discovery Campus session that was held at the coast, 40 minutes from…
Baltic Tour: Estonia
I went to Tallinn, Estonia to update my almost 20 year long love story with Baltic documentary. And to watch films for DOK Leipzig. I saw more than a dozen from last year’s Estonian documentary production at the premises of…
Brook Lapping: The Blair Decade
This two part series is made by the famous British company Brook Lapping that has made countless high-budget series for television, broadcast all over the world. About the Vietnam war, about the crisis in the Middle East, about many other…