Milena Holzknecht: Why Editing?
The following text was written by a student from the Zelig School for documentary as a motivation from her to go for editing studies in the next two years after the first year of general studies: Editing is like a…
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
Læs mereMilena Holzknecht: Why Editing?
Corina Radu: Bar de Zi and other stories
My story has no importance, there is nothing special about me, says one of the characters in this fine social story set in Sibiu, Romania. The filmmakers have got the permission to film a group of citizens, who all come…
Spain-Germany 1-0
Just one small note on the Euro 2008. Which included many fine matches, some drama, but first of all the return of elegant fast forward – let the ball do the work – football. We saw it with Holland, we…
Mikala Krogh: Everything is Relative
Surprise me, please, it is often said to filmmakers when films are to be thought of, written, pitched, filmed and put together. Nothing is worse, or more boring, than the predictability in narration where you know where it goes, from…
Nicolas Barthez: Great Run
The start is wonderful. Young runners on the road in sunset light, in the middle of the car traffic. The narrative follows one of them home, Fassika, 14 years old – she wants to run for fame and to get…
Thierry Garrel – stops at/farvel til arte
Thierry Garrel, who has been head of Arte France’s documentary department, has quit the channel after 21 years. He is taking up a job in a multi media project. I have interviewed and discussed the state of the (documentary) art…
Camille Ponsin: Les demoisellesDeNankin
There are loads of documentaries about the changing China made by Westerners and/or by the Chinese themselves. This one is made by French filmmaker Camille Ponsin, who unlike several Western crews got access to the University of Nankin and took…
Johnny White: Padraic Ó Conaire –An Fear
I was in Galway, Ireland twice this spring. And had a chance to combine with a couple of days at the sea near Clifden. Yes, sheep and stone walls, small winded roads, pure pleasure to visit. I met Johnny White,…
Ivana Milosevic: Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White)
Here everything is complicated, says one of the women in the film. It is Cuba she talks about, and she and the 11 other interviewed women in the film both talk about and demonstrate what a life means where you…
Roberts Vinovskis: Working Class Ballet
In the middle of the Euro 2008 I take time to watch a documentary by talented Latvian director Robert Vinovskis about football, seen from an original angle far away from the banality of the commentators that fill my ears every…
Edmunds Jansons: Little Bird´s Diary
A documentary animation film. Quite innovative. Based on a visual diary made by Latvian Irina Pilke, an old woman, who has drawn episodes from her life since 1947. Made into a film through the script and interview from writer Nora…
Jonathan Demme: Jimmy Carter. Man from Plains
The biggest part of this hommage to Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the US and nobel prize peace winner for his tireless international work for peace in the world, is about his promotion of the book ”Palestine. Peace not…
Edkins & Vehkalahti: Steps by Steps 2
Dont we too often think that documentaries should have simple narrative plots: a lead character, a conflict and the Aristotelian three-act structure? Doesn’t that easily lead to documentaries that are cheap imitations of fictional movies – minus the big screen?…
Edkins & Vehkalahti: Steps by Steps 1
The subtitle of this book is ”the making of the Steps for the Future documentary series”. The writers are the two key initiators of this, the most important international documentary coproduction and training initiative, I know of. To remind you…
John Webster: Recipes for Disaster
This film is funny, clever and makes you think. If it makes you (=me) change lifestyle, is another question. Could be, let’s see. The synopsis of the film taken from the website: Director JW convinces his wife and two small…
Robert Flaherty
I am on the West coast of Ireland not far from the islands of Aran. Tomorrow I am going to talk with Mac Dara Ó Curraidhín about a brilliant proposal for a film on Flaherty. Here is a small quote…
Alison Millar: At Home with the Clearys
I am in Ireland, in Galway, for the workshop DOCURegio, where a dozen of documentary projects from regions of Europe are to be discussed and adviced on further development. I take the opportunity to watch a film that I was…
S.Neuenschwander-Gindrat:Schneeweisse Schwarznasen
You watch this film with a smile on your face. You do so because you like the characters and you like them because the director likes them and is able to convey her feelings to the audience. We meet them…
Jon Bang Carlsen: Purity Beats Everything
Miriam Lichterman lives in Cape Town with a view to beach and sea. Jon Bang Carlsen lives in a farmhouse with a fine view to a beautiful landscape in Denmark with family, cat and dogs. She is a holocaust survivor,…
Edvins Snore: The Soviet Story
The crimes committed in the name of Marx and Engels are of the same infamous character as those performed by the nazis. The two regimes, nazi Germany and communist Stalinistic Soviet Union worked together, and learned from each other when…
Lazhari Abdeddaïm: hip-hop(e) in the favela
Lamartine Silva is the main character in this committed road movie that takes us around Brazil to discover what MHHOB is doing. Lamartine is one of the hip-hop musical artists, who dedicates energy and time to this activist movement that…
Rafal Skalski: 52 Percent
Short documentaries of international quality are hard to find. The television stations have long ago given up slots for shorts, with a few exceptions like Arte, and the film institutes and the public funding systems do the same – because…
Arto Halonen: Shadow of the Holy Book
Classical documentary approach: Something is wrong, we have to tell about it, let’s go and get the facts and convey them to the world. That’s what Arto Halonen, Finnish documentary director, and journalist Kevin Frazier decides to do. With a…
Saartje Geerts: Nollywood Abroad
It starts as a film about a third ”…wood” after Holly- and Bollywood: Nollywood from Nigeria. But it takes place in Antwerp, where a young man, John, wants to be a superstar in this kind of right-to-the-heart, often moralistic, home-movie…
Peteris Krilovs: Deconstruction of an Artist
Tuesday evening May 6, Riga, the old fine cinema in the middle of the city. I am invited to the premiere of a film, that I have had the privilege to follow for a couple of years. The director Peteris…
Gonzalo Arijon: Stranded
I don’t need to write a lot about this film, do I? The winner of IDFA 2007, screened and awarded at an enormous amount of festivals, broadcast all over, including in Denmark. A well constructed dramatic story with a wonderful…
Stefan Schwietert: Heimatklänge
This music documentary film is about Swiss music – the famous and for many, including me, unbearable yodel – and Swiss artists who have developed their music from the yodel into a great innovative and fascinating rythmic play with the…
Muntean & Stankovic: Journey of a Red Fridge
What a darling! Very simple idea, charming main character, a film for all ages about a young student, who earns his money as a porter, and carries a coca cola fridge up the mountain to a place where it can…
Remy Tezier: Au delá des Cimes
Catherine Destivelle is the name and after numerous films (at the Trento Film Festival) about people dying in the mountains, and about heroes who save people, or fight the mountains – it was such a relief to meet a female…
Jiska Rickels: 4 Elements
Normally you say that something must be wrong if you leave the cinema to say that the cinematography was excellent, but the rest of the film… You do say so with this ambitious film but it is justified because it…
Trento Diary 5 – Awards
Here are the results of the jury work. 4 of the films will be reviewed in the coming 3 days. Plus one that did not get a prize: Stranded. Gran Premio “Città di Trento” – Gold Gentian and 5000 Euro…
Trento Diary 4
Time for banalities. My own ones and examples from the films I have seen. Word banalities. My own first: Wow, how much the viewing situation means for your evaluation of a film. Being in a jury you will always watch…
Trento Diary 3
Last day of watching. I write this while another commercially thought tv documentary is running on the screen. Makes me think about this genre where you can argue that the scenography – the mountains with or without snow – is…
Trento Diary 2
The jury has seen 25 films in 3 days. Diversity is the word that applies to the selection. But also quality in most of the films, in very different formats and storytelling traditions. Diversity because there are several films for…
Juraj Lehotsky: Blind Loves 2
… have to break the news that “Blind Loves” made it to Cannes! As expected and as so well deserved. Juraj Lehotsky is in the Director´s Fortnight section with names as Jerzy Skolimowski and Claire Simon. Congratulations and may this…
Trento Diary 1
I am in Trento, in the jury of the Trento Film Festival that has the thematic subtitle: Montagna. Esplorazione. Avventura. The festival starts today and goes on until May 4. 34 films are in competition, short and long. It is…
Michael Glawogger: Megacities
Renata Medero, documentary film student at Zelig, Bolzano, Italy, writes this review of a neo- classic: Unforgettable images… whether you like it or not. Some films deliver images to never be forgotten, some beautiful, some not. But – what happens…
Thierry Paladino: At the Datcha
Holiday. The family goes to the countryside, to the datcha. We don’t know if it is far away, probably not if you judge from the condition of the car, that has severe problems in getting started. It can not have…
Original Documentaries… Vehkalahti
A quote from DOX Magazine 74 (www.edn.dk), page 16, from a discussion between Neelima Mathur and Iikka Vehkalahti on “Universality vs Diversity”. Vehkalahti from YLE Finland writes: … perhaps it is that in the genre of cinéma vérité – as…
Flying is Hell
A good title for a documentary? At least a title that calls for sympathy for the one flying? And for some experience shared by other people: A man comes to the airport. He wants to check in, goes to the…
East Beats West
A Love Affair – and a small follow-up on the review of “Blind Loves”: It all started around 1990. Even though I had been working for the National Film Board of Denmark since 1975, my knowledge was very limited when…
Juraj Lehotsky: Blind Loves
I saw this beautiful film sunday morning in Vienna during the Ex Oriente first session ( www.docuinter.net ). The director Juraj Lehotsky took the short way from Bratislava to show us a feature length, four chaptered (following the loves stories…
Life in Loops – on DVD
This is a pure commercial for one of the most important documentaries from the last years. Timo Novotny’s film has been shown all over the world, it has been awarded for its innovation of the genre, it is a vision…
Catch the Moment – about Marianne Greenwood
Make extraordinary film about ordinary people, and ordinary films about extraordinary characters! It is very easy to apply this slogan to the film about Marianne Greenwood, a citizen of the world, an adventurer, a writer and photographer. A woman with…
Michael Laudrup
I know it is rather subtle but I have to express my boyish entusiasm after a football match tonite where Michael Laudrup, the best football player Denmark has ever had, made his underdog team, Getafe from Madrid play 1-1 in…
The Jørgen Leth Collection
It is a fairy tale. Could only happen in the country of Hans Christian Andersen! Danish film director, poet and journalist Jørgen Leth meets a Danish millionaire and expresses how much he would like his films to be published on…
DFI: Film Art or Journalism?
The letter below, written to film consultant Dola Bonfils from DFI (Danish Film Institute) reacts to the fact that more and more of the support from the DFI is allocated to journalists with current affairs issued to be made into…
Brian Hill: Sangfugle
To the Danish readers and tv viewers, in Danish: HUSK AT SE DR2 21.40 I AFTEN hvor “Sangfugle” bliver vist, et hit over den ganske verden. Here is an excerpt from the review written on this blog (the film is…
Fitna, amateur-like and clumsy
Can you write about ”Fitna” as a film? Can you separate it from all the furore the film has already created due to its content and the fear for consequences? Can you do so with a film everyone talked about…
It’s All True
Wish I were in Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo! For the 8th time Amir Labaki (it started yesterday) launches his documentary film festival with the provoking Orson Welles inspired name “It’s All True”. I was there years ago as…