Punk Syndrome and Other Master-Docs to Riga

The Baltic Sea Forum in Riga – September 5-9 – includes several interesting film projects from the Baltic countries, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine plus some Western producers with themes relating to the East. The 16th edition of this classic forum that took off on the Danish island of Bornholm, organised by the Baltic Media Centre, a parallel event to the Baltic Film & Tv Festival, is now handled by the National Film Centre of Latvia with local support and with money as well from the EU MEDIA Programme.The meeting for the professionals is added by a parallel audience orientated mini-festival of high quality documentaries with a great opening film, the one that goes all over the world, Finnish ”The Punk Syndrome” (photo) directed by Jukka Kärkkäinen and J-P Passi, the team that also stood behind ”Living Room of a Nation”. The directors will be there for the screening. For those who have forgotten about the band, here some lines from the website:

Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day) is a punk band that was formed in 2009 in a culture workshop arranged by Lyhty, a nonprofit organization. Lyhty provides housing and education services as well as workshops for adults with intellectual disabilities. Pertti Kurikka, the band’s guitarist and front man, writes the lyrics with vocalist Kari Aalto and composes the music. The other two members of the band are bassist Sami Helle and drummer Toni Välitalo.

Among the other films to be screened are ”5 Broken Cameras” By Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, Patricio Guzman’s ”Nostalgia for the Light”, a brand new, exciting Latvian film ”The Documentarian” by Ivars Zviedris and Inese Kļava, Danish ”The Ambassador” by Mads Brügger and ”Argentinian Lesson” by Wojciech Stáron.

Superb programme! Read more on links below and join the Baltic Sea Forum facebook group.

http://www.mediadesklatvia.eu/baltic-sea-forum-for-documentaries-2012/

http://kovasikajuttu.fi/en/

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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