Baltic Sea Forum: New Talent/2

Alina Rudnitskaya has previously been praised on this site – for her fine films ”Civil Status” and ”Bitch Academy” that have travelled the world festival circuit with success making her name mentioned as a big talent. Last year she pitched a project about people at both ends of the blood donation business in the St. Petersburg region; it is now being developed with German producer Heino Deckert. This year the director was represented by producer Anastasia Lobanova and script writer Mila Kudryashova who told the panelists that they wanted to make a follow-up of the ”Bitch Academy” to see how life is for the girls 3 years after they were trained to seduce. They pitched with humour and stressed that the film will not point fingers at the girls but treat them with respect.

Another couple was convincing in their presentation – the Ukranian Ramon Bondarchuk and Dar’ya Averchenko. Their subject was the rock singer Igor, who is making a career in Moscow fighting not to lose his roots in the Ukranian town of Kerson. The Ukranian filmmakers were supported by experienced Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis, who met them during the preparation of the project ”15 Young by Young” (mentioned on this site), where they are to make a film about chldren playing Dixie music.

Estonian Jaak Kilmi is at the Forum every year. This is where he presented ”Disco and the Atomic War” (mentioned on this site) that selles well internationally. This year he had just come back from research in Siberia on a film named ”Jesus of Siberia” on the notorious guru, Vissarion. Observational, he says that the film will be, but it would be a surprise me if the humourous touch of Kilmi will not be visible and hearable!

Humour there was in a film project from Georgia, that does not deal with war or Sakashvili! ”Auto-Tour” is the title of the project that – presented by producer Tinatin Kajrishvili –  follows the life of a couple of Georgian men who travel to Germany to find, buy and take back cars to their country – to try to sell them. It is a life style for them, they don’t get a lot out of it, financially speaking!

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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