Antonioni on China
In 1972 Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni went to China to make a documentary for RAI with a duration of 3 ½ hours. The film, that was shown in cinemas in Italy and on television, and in a shorter version in…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Cinema
Read MoreAntonioni on China
Nanna Frank Møller: Let’s Be Together
7 biografer viser Let’s Be Together i denne måned. In 7 Danish cinemas the new documentary by big talent Nanna Frank Møller is shown. Here is a repeat of the review made in connection with cph:dox last year: That Nanna…
Cinéma du Réel 8
Mesteren lader en stedfortrædende mester åbne sin film. Med en gedigen og flot reference til Jørgen Leth og Dan Holmberg blander den fortællende bartender byens foretrukne drink. Udvider billedet til begyndelsen til en krønikeskrivning på film, det store essay om…
e-MEDIA
… stands for the excellent, weekly electronic newsletter published by the MEDIA Desk France & Antennes Media Strasbourg & Grand Sud. Editor Christine Mazerau. Excellent, because it is so rich in information, goes far beyond the promotion and information on…
Avi Mograbi: Z32
I have written several times about the new film of Avi Mograbi, and about this very important documentary filmmaker. I do it with pleasure again by quoting the review of renowned critique Jacques Mandelbaum, just published in connection with the…
Tereza Nvotová: Take it Jeasy!
Total respect for the 20 year old Czech director, who has completed her first feature length documentary and got it into cinemas where it still runs after a month. And even more respect for her choice of own childhood experience…
Slumdog Millionaire – Anthony Dod Mantle
Prestigious BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) ceremony in London had Slumdog Millionaire nominated in 11 categories. It won in seven, including Best Cinematography, which gives us another chance to say bravo to Anthony Dod Mantle, about whom…
My Iranian Paradise
Katia Forbert Petersen’s & Annette Mari Olsen’s film has a theatrical screening at the Louisiana Museet in Humlebæk, Denmark, february, 10th at 19:30. Tue Steen Müller wrote an interview with the directors published in FILM’s IDFA edition nov. 2008. Read here Katia Forbert…
Anthony Dod Mantle
They were queueing outside the cinema at Odéon in Paris. To get in to watch the new international hit directed by Danny Boyle, ”Slumdog Millionaire”, which is not going to be reviewed here, it has been all over, and touching…
James Marsh: Man on Wire (2)
Special service for our Danish readers as the film opens in cinemas in Denmark tomorrow – I made a review 4 months ago on filmkommentaren. Go to search and write James Marsh: Man on Wire. Here are some words of…
Cinemateket: Tegnedrengene mm.
Hvilken brilliant idé – og det manglede bare! Cinemateket viser i januar Tegnedrengene’s to mesterværker ”Eventyret om den vidunderlige kartoffel” (1984) og ”Eventyret om den vidunderlige musik” (1990). Det gøres i forbindelse med serien af animerede dokumentarfilm, og det er…
Super 16 no. 04 premiere
Syv producere og syv instruktører er færdige med deres uddannelse på Super 16 og de afleverede i dag efter planen deres afgangsfilm i Dagmar biografen. Samtidig med premieren er de syv film tilgængelige på en DVD med titlen SUPER16 NO.04 Det er så…
Ada Bligaard Søby: Black Heart
Vedholdende og inspirerende og fascinerende fortsætter Ada Bligaard Søby sit filmarbejde, hvor hun dels lag for lag undersøger den moderne kærlighed mellem ham og hende og dels i fremstillingen disciplinerer balancen mellem disse to karakterer med en milligram-vægt uden den…
Doc Lounge Malmö
Something to be copied. And easy to do so… Just came back from Malmö from a visit to a so called Doc Lounge. Which is ”the soft hang-out spot for documentary film lovers in Malmö, (where you can) meet the…
James Marsh: Man on Wire
It is more than 30 years ago. I remember it vaguely. I remember that he did it. The tightrope walking between the the twin towers in New York in 1974. But I did not remember the story behind it. That…
Cinemateket September 2008
Nick Broomfield besøger Cinemateket den 12. og 13. September i forbindelse med at 10 af hans film vises i Filmhuset i København. Flot. Jeg skrev her på bloggen en kritik af Cinematekets trykte program. De svage tekster og det falske…
MandagsDokumentar – turné
Vi har tidligere rost Ebbe Preisler og hans formidlingsinitiativ, forevisningerne af nye og gamle dokumentar- og kortfilm i PH Caféen i København. Vi vil gerne fortsætte i samme spor og gøre opmærksom på det flotte tilbud, som Preisler videregiver: at…
New Wave of British Feature Documentaries?
A week ago British newspaper The Independent brought an interesting optimistic article about the return of feature lenght documentaries to the cinemas. Read yourself the article that I found through the website of the Sheffield Doc Fest: https://sheffdocfest.com/ under “Latest…
Bazzoli/Lelong:Amour,Sexe & Mobylette
What a charming film, full of Life and Love! Taking place in a small town in Burkina Faso, it is built as a film for cinema release with several parallel stories circling around the St. Valentine´s Day. Old people´s love,…
Matteo Garrone: Gomorra
I am on holidays in Tuscany, in Montespertoli, a small nice town in the middle of the wine paradise. Yesterday the four of us went for an open air screening of the new, enormously strong quasi-documentary film Gomorra based on the book…
Søren Kragh-Jacobsen: Det som ingen ved
Redaktionen var i biografen. Vi regnede med, at veteranen kunne overraske os. Med en politisk thriller. Det gjorde han også. I negativ retning. Intet fungerer. Historien er kedelig og usandsynlig. Instruktionen er gumpetung og hovedkraften, Anders W. Berthelsen, forsvarer sin…
Mads Kamp Thulstrup/Carsten Søsted: Og det var…
Hvad er det, der får en 60 årig mand til at sidde og småtude af bevægelse, når han ser en film om fodbold, ovenikøbet en film, hvor alt, ja stort set alt hvad han ser, er noget, han har set…
Citizen Havel cinema success
The documentary film about Vaclav Havel (directed by Pavel Koutecký and Miroslav Janek) has now been seen by 100.000 viewers in the Czech Republic. The film was released in January 2008, runs 119 minutes but can now also be seen…
Mechanical Love
The new film by Phie Ambo, another strong talent in new Danish doumentary, premieres this weekend in the cinemas in her own country after having travelled already to several festivals. We contributed on the weblog with a review, write the…
Asger Leths Haiti-film
Vi så Ghosts of Cité Soleil i FOF-filmklubben i aftes. En lille bevæget, imponeret og også noget trykket flok. Hvilken film! Og vi noterede, at Leth og filmen for et par dage siden havde modtaget de nordamerikanske filminstruktørers pris, DGA-Award, som…
Menstruation – a film project
For a year I have been following a young Slovak woman, Diana Fabianova, in her struggle to finance a film on menstruation. Diana, who lives in Spain and has a Spanish producer, has done a huge work to promote her…
Todd Haynes: I’m Not There
“Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is…” Og undertegnede hr. Nielsen fatter i skrivende stund ikke meget af den film. Men jeg er fascineret og provokeret. Og jeg har ikke givet op. (Kunne smutte til Århus…
Djævelens advokat/Terrors Advocate
The film has its Danish cinema premiere today, so this is a repeat of the review written in connection with the cph:dox festival. Go and watch the film! “This is the director’s point of view on Jacques Vergès which may…
IDFA Congratulations
The 20’th edition of the IDFA festival started yesterday and goes on until the 2nd of December. Fantastic, and what a contribution to the success of the genre, Ally Derks and her committed team has performed during these 20 years.…
cph:dox 9-17/11 Mechanical Love
Phie Ambo is one of the most obvious talents in new Danish documentary film. She showed great observational skills in her last film “Gambler” about the filmmaker Nikolaj Refn Winding (the “Pusher” trilogy), skills she is also using in her…
Guld Dok 2007
Ved åbningen af Københavns internationale dokumentarfilmfestival CPH:DOX torsdag den 8. november uddelte Producentforeningen for fjerde gang GuldDok-priser som en hyldest til årets danske produktion af dokumentarfilm. Det Danske Filminstitut uddelte Roos-prisen som en påskønnelse af særlig bemærkelsesværdig indsats for dokumentarismen.…
Jørgen Roos Prisen 2007
Det Danske Filminstituts store dokumentarfilmpris på kr. 25.000 blev tildelt dokumentarfilminstruktøren Steen Møller Rasmussen under dokumentarfilmfestivalen CPH:DOX’s åbningsgalla. Prisudvalget, som i år har bestået af tidligere direktør for European Documentary Network, filmkonsulent Tue Steen Müller samt direktør for European ThinkTank…
Cph:dox 9-17/11 Prisoner
Another strong story from the Iraqi war. This time about a journalist, Yunis Abbas, who was captured by the Americans accused for being part of a cell that planned to kill Tony Blair when he was to visit his war…
cph:dox 9-17/11 The Fall by Peter Whitehead
Oh, how joyful it is to discover something new, when you think that you know your documentary film history, have seen it (almost) all, at least what is considered as masterpieces and know where your priorities lie. And there comes…
cph:dox 9-17/11 Terror’s Advocate
“This is the director’s point of view on Jacques Vergès which may differ from the opinions of people interviewed in the film”. These words are to be found on screen at the start of this fascinating film about a man,…
cph:dox 9-17/11 Elle s’appelle Sabine
One of those films that are hard to watch. A beautiful young girl falls ill and turns into an aggressive young woman full of aggression to end up as a plump adult full of medication that can calm her down,…
cph:dox 9-17/11 Songbirds
Things are moving in the documentary genre. New and original ways of storytelling come out of the blue. Like in this case where British director Brian Hill went to the Downview Prison in Sutton England to make a film with…
Cph:dox 9-17/11 Zoo
Lad mig gøre det kort: lad være med at se den her film. Er du til pornografi, bliver du skuffet, er du til eksistentiel dybde, bliver du skuffet, er du til filmisk skønhed, bliver du først forført, siden skuffet. Folk…
cph:dox 9-17/11 Back to Normandy
It’s countryside again. This time Nicholas Philibert heads for Normandy, where he 30 years ago was the direction assistant of René Allio on the film “Moi, Pierre Rivière”, a “based on a true” story about a young man who in…
cph:dox 9-17/11 The Substitute
An excellent idea. A filmmaker gives a football star a camera and asks him to film from inside during the world cup championship in Germany 2006. And luckily for the film, but bad and sad for the player, he only…
David Cronenberg: Eastern Promises
Det er smukke,smukke autentiske drømmebilleder, Cronenberg konstruerer. Den smukke,smukke luder fra den lille by uden for Kiev ligger og nynner helt stille en russisk folkevise. Efter samlejet med Viggo Mortensen. Et falsk møde, de begge er tvunget til ved vold,…
Documentary on Vaclav Havel
Yesterday in Prague, I attended a sneak preview of a still unfinished documentary on Vaclav Havel. The version (for cinemas and festivals) I saw was 150 minutes, for me it could easily have been longer, simply because the company of…
Michael Moore: Sicko
Midt i utrygheden: Ser det sådan ud det sundhedsvæsen, vi er ved at udvikle her hos os? Som dette i USA, hvor enhver er sig selv nærmest. Midt i denne serie skræmmende cases, som rulles op, er jeg mærkeligt tryg.…
Pernille Rose Grønkjær: The Monastery
On September 21st the awarded Danish documentary masterpiece – after having toured the world – premieres in Danish cinemas. From the DFI magazine FILM (53, November 2006) we bring this extract of an article, written by blog owner Allan Berg Nielsen:…
Sight & Sound on Documentaries
The good old, well esteemed English film magazine Sight & Sound has just published its September issue with a special focus on documentaries, titled “The Power of Documentary”. I did not buy it yet but will do so from reading…
Afghan Muscles
Glinsende, olierede kroppe. Poserende i små tangatrusser. I Afghanistan. Det lyder ikke som en film, som du skulle gå i biografen for at se, vel? Men gør det alligevel, for her venter dig en velkomponeret og fascinerende FILMISK oplevelse. Der…
cph:dox for femte gang
cph:dox har spurgt om vi vil lave et link til festivalens hjemmeside. Med allerstørste glæde. Denne festival har i løbet af fire år markeret sig stærkt i bevidstheden hos et antalsmæssigt stigende dokumentarpublikum, der går i byen for at få…
Translations
ALLAN BERG NIELSEN POSTS IN COLLECTED ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS BALTICUM FILMFESTIVAL (1999) 1990-1999. Nine years of week-long sessions of film and television in Gudhjem, and the tenth festival rapidly drawing nigh. Crème de la crème. Reminiscing: High points? Of course,…
Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)
Manden i huset ved havet. Sådan begynder Bergmans manuskript til filmen om lige netop den mand: ”Første akt nr. 1. Mit navn er Andreas Winkelman. Jeg er otteogfyrre år. Jeg husker at det var en trykkende oktoberdag. Jeg sad på…
Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)
Da jeg som helt ung gik i biografen Fotorama drejede film sig om cowboys og om sørøvere, og det fandt jeg i orden i den verden selv om jeg også inspireret af min skolelærer læste Oehlenschlæger og Shakespeare fra biblioteket…