Awards and Good News from Lithuania

The Vilnius Documentary Film Festival ended Saturday night and the jury headed by Leonard Helmrich, whose films were shown in a retrospective series, gave out the awards in the Baltic documentary competition, this year with a very strong line-up of films.

Difficult to object to the main award going to Davis Simanis from Latvia for his ”Chronicles of the Last Temple” (photo), a superb interpretation of the new and much discussed National Library of Riga, a film that shows Simanis ability to capture the grandeur of a building and its details in a super aesthetic form.

Second prize to wonderful “The Documentarian” by Ivars Zviedris and Inese Klava, also from Latvia, and third prize to Lithuanian “Father” by Marat Sargsyan.

And then some great news from the hosting country, Lithuania, that has decided the following, according to the internet magazine FilmNewEurope: “The minimalist Lithuanian documentary Conversations on Serious Topics directed by Giedre Beinoriute is the latest of the announced entries for the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film.  The film, produced by Monoklis www.monoklis.lt and shot in a spare style with children speaking on subjects ranging from disability, the existence of God, violence, love, and work, is among a number of films from Central and Eastern Europe vying for an Oscar nomination.”

http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/region/106435-cee-gets-serious-with-oscar-hopefuls/menu-id-384

http://www.vdff.lt/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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