Tbilisi

I took this photo from the FB page of Jana Cisar, who was one of the tutors in Tbilisi at the DocStories Georgia workshop that ran parallel to the Cinedoc festival. Cisar has a premiere coming up of her film ”Böhmische Dörfer” at the Hofer Filmtage, that starts today. I have a dvd of the film and will watch and write about it asap. Link below.

The photo is taken from the Hotel Villa, where we were staying and represents very well the impression you get of the capital of Georgia, when you walk around and leave the noisy Rustaveli Avenue for backyards like this, lovely and charming to watch, probably difficult to live in, a lot of in-house discussions going on here and there, comments from the windows, Fellini and Iosseliani.

In FB language this is what I liked in Tbilisi: the food in general, the eggplant with nut cream, the katchapuri, the chinkali, the chacha (got home with two silver bottles and two gold) (thank you dear friends), the decadence, the cafés that are hidden from the streets, the hospitality, Pirosmani, the bookshops in the backyards, the fine weather in the beginning of the week, the organisation of the workshop by Nikos and the volunteers, the outdoor café at the Goethe Institute… and the dislikes: the constant overall smoking, the phone calling and text messaging and small talk in the cinemas, the child sitting on a cardboard begging on Rustaveli placed there by the mother, the disrespect of the car drivers for pedestrians, the sour red wine I got (my fault, could have researched better), the night flights out of the city, the information about the Russian provocation regarding the upcoming Olympics having a soldier hero from Ossetian war carry the torch, the young woman born in Abkhazia who with tears in her eyes told me her father was killed in the 1991- 93 war…

Yes, you are constantly reminded about the recent history and the hard conditions  the Georgians live in – and how priviliged you are coming from a small country where a stupid debate the last week has gone around the scandalous overspending of a former prime minister, who went by first class flights all over the world as chair of an international organisation, luxurious hotels etc.etc. What a different life we live.  

http://www.hofer-filmtage.com/en/festival2011/movies-2012-details/film/boehmische-doerfer.4237/

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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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