Festival

A good advice: If you have the time – go for a festival and stay there for the full period, it goes on. I had the luck – with my wife – to be for the 20th edition of ZagrebDox,…

Love that film. It’s beautiful shot, it has a modest and yet charismatic Amber as the main protagonist, who – with a colleague – is conducting – on behalf of the authorities – interview sessions to find out whether Bhutan…

The Barcelona International Documentary Film Festival DocsBarcelona presents the titles that will be part of its 27th edition, a showcase of the best of the world’s documentary production, which this year renews its structure and proposes a program to question colonialisms.  On…

Director: Luka Beradze Georgia. Countryside. A village with the name No Name. In 2012 Misha (Mikheil) Saakashvili came to the village to promise – part of his televised presidential campaign for re-election – the villagers new teeth and smiles (!)…

The perfect combination! First we watched the film “The Makedonium Band” directed by Danish Andreas Johnsen and then the musicians from the film (most of them) – Danish and (North) Macedonians – went on stage performing for a full hall…

I think the still photo says all about the approach and the intention of the director: In the middle of the horrible war an old woman writes and reads poems, surrounded by flowers; here in the beginning of the film…

Two films about/from Hungary. “Democracy Noir” by Connie Field and “Kix” by Bálint Révész & Dávid Mikulán. The first “Democracy Noir” is primarily informative with a lot of tv archive on Victor Orban, but also material shot during demonstrations in…

This film is to be made, well HAS to be made. I was not at the pitching Forum yesterday, where it was presented but I saw the trailer, which proves very much, why it got the top price at the…

I was in the cinema Dagmar the other night to watch the Georgian film “Blueberry Dreams” produced by Elene Margvelashvili from Georgian Parachute Films and directed by Elena Mikaberidze. It is a masterpiece from a director, who has stayed long enough…

Stepping out of the Metro on Kongens Nytorv yesterday morning on my way to the Royal Theatre’s “Stærekassen”, Danish poet Peter Laugesen was steps ahead of me. It threw my thoughts back to my dear friend and co-editor of this…

A brief and warm recommendation of the Danish debutant Zara Zerny’s film on a group of men and women between 80 and 100, who lost their husband, wife or partner and how they have overcome the grief connected. But mostly…

… Knud Brix took part in the creation of the film as did producer Andreas Dalsgaard, Elk Film. And many others… Again it is beautifully demonstrated, how important Time is, when you do documentaries. This film is shot over a…

Early in this amazing film a boy says about the balloon phenomenon: It’s an art form. People express themselves through the balloons, I’ve heard… cut to a policeman who is in the middle of a balloon on ground. Do you…

At the Latvian National Film Awards ceremony the other day two awards were given to “Everything Will Be Alright” by Stanislav Tokalov. The film-to-be was pitched at the Baltic Sea Docs 2021 with the working title “Stranded” and described as…

A woman’s face with running water in nature behind her. She looks at you or she does not look. Beautiful face, eyes seldom blinking. A river with waterfall and its sound. Focus on a rock and its cracks. A city…

Co-directed by Krista Burāne. Italy and Latvia unite in this documentary shot in both countries, i.e. a co-production, a true one, where Italy provides the dancing, Latvia the music. A super-skilled editor is needed to connect and Ilaria de Laurentiis…

Historic Grand Slam for Norwegian cinema at Sundance: Awards for “A New Kind of Wilderness,” “Ibelin,” and “Handling the Undead.”The documentary film “A New Kind of Wilderness ” won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, while “Ibelin” received The…

Always a fine experience to attend the yearly presentation of upcoming documentaries developed at the dok.incubator workshop that has its address in Prague due to its Czech founder and manager Andrea Prenghyova. There was a presentation at IDFA this year,…

“This year marks the 20th edition of the Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. From 22 to 29 November, the prominent film festival, a cinematic reflection of our current world, will present a renewed logo, a fresh image to…

A quote from an interview made by Aseem Chhabr for rediff.com (you can google it) October 12 2023: “In his latest documentary, The World is Family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam), Patwardhan takes us through the lives of his late parents and other…

Share The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced the winners of this year’s festival.

I was not in the jury of the CPH:DOX this year but I agree totally with the motivation to give the film an award: “Urgent and Political, this award goes to a powerful and intimate coming of age story about…

This is the IDFA catalogue description: Nastia is a gymnast in Kyiv, training intensively with her four teammates for the Ukrainian National Championships. At other times they make dance clips, perform acrobatic feats, and giggle a lot. Nastia knows that…

At IDFA we believe in the value of life, and in the universal dream of a peaceful world. We respect the pain and the huge loss on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the on-going conflict. We stand by…

Earlier this evening, the 36th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) officially opened in the Royal Theater Carré with the world premiere of A Picture to Remember by Olga Chernykh.   IDFA 2023 takes place from November 8 to 19 in more…

… with the first names Ivan and Pavol are known by me for their “Velvet Terrorists”, that I called “an original, intelligent and humorous” film in a review from 2013 (). If you take away “Humorous” and use “poetic” instead,…

There is quite an interview in this both entertaining and scary documentary: Mohammad Sadic Akif Mujahir, spokesman for the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and prevention of Vice, says that music is a satanic art… and reflects, rather he states…