Jihlava 09/2

The small town in Czech Republic is full of people, who are here to watch films. There is a big local, young audience. There are professionals who come from all parts of the world to buy films for their tv channels, pick up films for their festivals, filmmakers with films to be presented and discussed with the audience and filmmakers with film projects to be developed and pitched for eventual financing. Documentaries all over.

I had the chance to see a film that is not yet released: ”Katka” by Helena Trestikova, who had a huge success with her previous film, ”Réné”. That will also happen with ”Katka”, which is a touching and tough drama about a young girl over a period of 10 years where she gets into a drug addiction that she is not able to leave. Railway stations, squatted totally devastated houses, meetings with social workers, tears and violence. Katka gets pregnant, her Teresa is born, she wants to keep her child but can only do so if she gets clean. The film is on its way to theatres in Czech Republic and festival goers all over the world will meet it, I am sure.

Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti from the national broadcaster YLE presented the web-doc project that he has initiated in Finland. Lönrott it is called – small stories from Finnish people inspired by the David Lynch supported, American Interview webdoc compilation that has been written about before on this site. Vehkalahti travels the festivals right now (he will also go to Sheffield and Amsterdam) to spread out his Finnish concept to become a global series.

www.docuinter.net

http://www.negativ.cz/en/films/katka/

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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