Festival

One year ago good friend, producer Stefano Tealdi sent me a rough cut of what is now a finished film that has been screened in Locarno, Chicago and is in the programme of DOKLeipzig, that starts next week. I found…

There he was, Orwa Nyrabia, the new artistic director of IDFA, to be watched through streaming yesterday afternoon. I saw the first half of his presentation and could only nod, when he started telling us press people that documentaries are…

Here comes IDFA’s response to the question of no Eastern European projects in the selection of IDFA 2018’s Forum, sent today by the artistic director Orwa Nyrabia: The fact that there are no East European projects in IDFA’s Forum 2018…

Below you have the presentation from IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival) of the Forum, no doubt the gathering of documentary film professionals, who want funding and/or publicity of the film, that they are working on. The event has been there…

The Forum at IDFA is for documentary filmmakers the place to launch the new projects, they want the documentary community to be aware of, and eventually be interested in, eventually to invest in. Projects are presented/pitched followed by meetings. It…

Well, I should have been in Riga now, where the International Film Festival is one day old, and were it goes on until the end of the month. It is a festival with many sections: a tribute to Ingmar Bergman,…

… on a big screen… for free, read what DOKLeipzig has to offer its film interested audience, taken from the website, what a good idea: The East Hall of Leipzig’s Central Station is turning again into a festival cinema during…

The IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) based in Prague hosts a yearly so-called Silver Eye Award that has been granted annually since 2009 to the best East and Central European documentary films in two categories: short and feature documentary film…

Demand the Impossible! In his essay The Ultimate Display from 1965, Ivan Sutherland formulated the almost prophetic dream of a computer display of reality that creates a perfect illusion of materiality. Films like The Matrix interpreted this as a nightmare,…

The festival in Leipzig works apparently according to film editing rules: Don’t give all the information up front, give it piece by piece. The official programme is not announced yet but the festival introduces a new section called Late Harvest.…

 A mail arrived from IDFA announcing quite a film historical event as part of the festival: “You are cordially invited to the IDFA 2018 world premiere of Dziga Vertov’s recently found and restored film, The Anniversary of the Revolution. Possibly the first…

I could not be there – Sunday in Malmø at the Nordisk Panorama, where 8 projects developed at the Dok.Incubator were presented. For that reason I was happy to receive an email from the organisers saying “play the trailers” –…

The festival in St. Petersburg is over and awards were announced yesterday after a grandiose (experienced through photos on Facebook) closing evening that had Viktor Kossakovsky’s “Aquarela” on the program, of course, this is his home town! Grand Prix and…

”El Pepe, a Supreme Life” is a new documentary by Emir Kusturica about the former Uruguayen president José “Pepe” Mujica, loved by his nation, being President 2010-2015 after having spent 13 years in captivity. (Photo of the two in Venice).…

At the third edition of a mountain film festival in South Korea, Lithuanian Arunas Matelis received the award for the best adventure and exploration film. Here are some words about the festival, followed by the clever jury motivation for the…

24 projects were presented in Riga at the big hall of the Ministry of Agriculture (!) Saturday and Sunday. To a panel of 9 women and 5 men representing television or sales companies. Mikael Opstrup and I moderated the sessions…

Diversity is the word to characterize this selection of Nordic documentaries. Veterans and young talents, classical documentary language as well as so-called hybrid storytelling including fiction and animation in the documentary narrative. The selection shows that the documentary environment in…

We have to wait until October 10 before the festival in Leipzig, that takes place from October 29 to November 4, announces its official selection. But the efficient press department of DOK Leipzig warms us up with news. This time…

Enfin, someone wrote on FB, when it was announced that the film «Fahavalo» by French company Laterit had been chosen for a festival, the World Film Festival/Festival des Films du Monde in Montréal, a festival for fiction, shorts and documentaries,…

I was there last year for this gem of a festival for creatice documentaries. It is done with a very personal touch by the couple Petra Seliskar and Brand Ferro. It’s primarily an outdoor screening festival – the weather invites…

Would have loved to be in beautiful St. Petersburg again for the festival Message to Man, that I have visited many times. The dates are September 15-22 and I am “anderswo engagiert” . The festival has a huge program –…

Happy to say that I agree with the competent decisions made by this jury: Leena Pasanen (Festival Director of DOK Leipzig, Germany), Luciano Rigolini (Artist-photographer, producer, Switzerland), Marina Gumzi (Producer/ Scriptwriter, Slovenia). I give you the links for the reviews I…

Here comes a copy-paste of the press release from Jihlava FF. The presentation of the projects took place at the same conference room in Hotel Europe as the Rough Cut Boutique, this time, good for the presenters, they were in…

Yesterday morning the Rough Cut Boutique presented the five projects that under the leadership of Rada Sesic and Martichka Bozhilova were developed with the tutorial help of people like editor Tom Ernst, producer Stefano Tealdi, commissioning editor Hanka Kastelicova, Katrine…

There he was on screen and in persona among the audience, 22 year old Amir Śeśic, whose story was presented by Mirna Buljugic from BIRN, that stands for Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. And what a story: Amir has never seen…

Back in Copenhagen. Thinking of the many documentary adventures I take with me from the Sarajevo Film Festival. To be part of the training team of representatives from ngo’s and human rights organizations was the experience for me. Engaged, committed…

The theme was how to deal with archives in a creative way; it was a bit more than one hour skype conversation with Mila Turajlic talking to us from her home in Belgrade – the flat those of us, who…

As part of the “Dealing With the Past” there was a talk with producer Siniša Juricic, who co-produced and was a character in “Chris, the Swiss”, a film that was taken to the Cannes Film Festival, a film not loved…

  Sarajevo hosts an amazing film festival. The variety of programs and projects is overwhelming. Films in many cinemas, discussions and presentations after the screenings, and in the Hotel Europe where workshops take place and the Atrium has full houses…

This is a copy paste of a text from the website of the Sarajevo Film Festival to show you a photo taken by the wonderful Turkish director: Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of today’s most acclaimed filmmakers, will receive…

Surprise me, give me something extraordinary, make the form important, challenge me, make me learn something new. This Turkish film, 45 minutes long, fulfilled the wishes of this old documentary addict. It has many layers and instead of me trying…

The film, that has its world premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival August 14, is a psychological drama featuring a young man and his mother with the young man’s girlfriend as an important side-character. I wrote man but take a…

This is a copy paste of a text from the website of the festival, written by Maša Markovic, the programme manager of the Dealing with the Past project of the Sarajevo FF supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung: In 1991,…

Oh, it’s lovely this short film by veteran Momir Matovic from Montenegro. A 22 minutes love declaration to a small group of people somewhere in his country with the vehicle TAM 4500 as the car that transports kid(s) to school,…

… and a review of the third film praised by Sarajevo FF documentary programmer, Rada Sesic who in her catalogue foreword writes: … The debut feature length film by Serbian new talent Senka Domanovic, Occupied Cinema, with which we open…

I made the decision to take a look at the three documentaries praised for their editing by Sarajevo FF programmer Rada Sesic. After “Srbrenka” here comes my comments to “4 Years In 10 Minutes”. Sesic wrote this:   “Mladen Kovacevic……

The festival that starts August 10 and continues until August 17 has again this year an impressive competition programme put together, again, and of course, by Rada Sesic, who is also the mastermind (together with Martichka Bozhilova) behind the Rough…

I can only echo what Sarajevo FF documentary programmer Rada Sesic writes above about this film that has already won the DocAlliance Award, announced it was in Cannes: … brilliantly edited and through editing smartly directed… Background for the film…