EDN Bylaws Violated – Action Needed

Calling all EDN members!!
It has come to our attention that dramatic changes have happened within the EDN organization – and as the members have not been notified, we hereby take it upon ourselves to point out a number of actions that are in direct violation of the EDN By Laws.

In § 6 of the EDN By Laws it is stated ‘The General Assembly annually elects the Board from candidates suggested by the sitting Board of the Association’.
The current board has not been elected by the members.

According to the EDN website the current board consists of 3 members – where 2 of them resides in Holland . 
According to the EDN By Laws, no less than 3 out of 4 members of the board must reside in DIFFERENT European countries.

The EDN office is in the process of moving from Copenhagen to Amsterdam.
In the EDN By Laws it is stated in §1 that ‘The association has its principal place of business in Copenhagen, Denmark with the right of having offices in different places elsewhere in Europe.’ To change this it needs to be brought to a vote amongst the members. Again, this has not happened.

Finally, we understand that all the EDN staff members that have worked with content at EDN, will stop during this summer.

Why have the EDN members not been informed of the abovementioned actions, and by this been stripped of our democratic rights as EDN members to vote on such essential issues? With this total lack of transparency, how can we as members trust that EDN as an organization represents the values and the needs of the members that for many years have supported the organization and its goals faithfully?

We call to action among all EDN members to make it clear to the new management of EDN, that nothing less than total transparency and democracy within a membership organization is acceptable, and violation of this should have grave consequences.

Expressing our deepest concern

Joan Gonzalez, Docs Barcelona/ Parallel 40, Claire Aguilar and Simon Kilmurry, IDA, Uldis Cekulis, VFS FILMS, Lelda Ozola, Baltic Sea Forum, Orwa Nyrabia, IDFA, Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, IDFATor Vadseth, Anita Reher, Gitte Hansen, Iikka Vehkalahti, Tue Steen Müller, Ivana Pauerova Milosevic, Filip Remunda and Tereza Horska IDF, Emma Davie, Scottish Documentary Institute, Diana El Jeiroudi, Cecilia Lidin

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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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