A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Festival
Verzio DocLab Budapest

The public pitch of the 6 selected projects of the 9th Verzió DocLab workshop and pitch platform! Verzió DocLab is the only workshop and pitch platform dedicated to nurturing new voices in Hungarian documentary filmmaking and supporting filmmakers of the region and…
DOK Leipzig 2024 Awards

Copy Paste of the press release tonight from the festival: “La Jetée, the Fifth Shot” by Dominique Cabrera Triumphs with the Golden Dove at DOK Lepzig’s International Competition Documentary Film Long animated film “Pelikan Blue” receives Golden Dove | Long…
Jihlava FF: Support to Kovalenko, Turajlić and Kerekes

Strong move from Jihlava FF, copy paste from press release of today. Personal note – all three are for me important directors, who have in previous films shown their talent. And here comes what is to be expected: 110,000 EUR…
Olha Zhurba: Songs of Slow Burning Earth

I had big expectations after Olha Zhurba’s first long documentary “Outside” – – and I was not disappointed. “Songs of Slow Burning Earth” is a film that will stay in Ukrainian documentary history. And internationally as a film that…
IDFA 2024 International Competition: The Guest

Sometimes with the announcement of films for main documentary competitions you do not know the films or those who have made them as the festivals in some categories go for premieres, world or international. This is the case for IDFA…
Ji.hlava IDFF

IDFF stands for International Documentary Film Festival, number 28 it is, high quality always. A quote from the email I received yesterday from the festival: “We are thrilled to announce titles, which have been selected to the Opus Bonum and First Lights International Competitions…
DOK Leipzig Opens with new Film by Thomas Riedelsheimer

“We all think we know what light is. But if we take a closer look, we realise that we don’t,” the film “Tracing Light” tells us. DOK Leipzig will open at the CineStar in Leipzig on 28 October with the…
Verzio 2024: Reality Uncovered

The 21st Verzió program has been curated by a new programming team. Running from November 6-13, it offers both award-winning films and hidden gems. This year, Verzió will dedicate special sections to the themes of decolonization and disinformation, and will…
Nordisk Panorama 2024: City of Malmö’s Audience Award to Balomania
by Sissel Morell Dargis, 94 min, Denmark, Spain, 2024. Synopsis:In the heart of Brazil’s favelas a secret society of hot air balloon-makers risk arrest to create and fly their illegal masterpieces, painting the sky with colour. Condemned by the authorities…
Nordisk Panorama Forum 23-24.9 2024

This was the 21st edition of the classic Nordic meeting for documentary directors and producers held parallelly to the Nordisk Panorama festival here in Malmö, where it has had its home for years after – as in the beginning –…
Göran Hugo Olsson: Reframing Documentary. A Talk at Nordisk Panorama

90 minutes at the Nordisk Panorama yesterday afternoon. With a great filmmaker, Swedish Göran Hugo Olsson, who together with Cecilia Lidin gave the audience an excellent introduction to his working method, and who characterised himself as a documentarian of existing…
Virpi Suutari: Once Upon a Time in the Forest
One of the most important European authors, one of the pioneers of modern documentary, Virpi Suutari creates a film in her own unique style, creating scenes in which we perceive reality as dreamlike and surreal. But this time she contrasts…
Petr Lom: I am the River, the River is me

The Whanganui River in New Zealand is the first river in the world to be given the legal status of a person, a living and indivisible being. This happened in 2017 and confirmed the belief and philosophy of the Maoris…
Claudia Tosi: Mr. Beau

Claudia Tosi shared her brilliant, engaging film “I Had a Dream” with the viewers of Magnificent Seven 2019, but at the same time she herself was inspired by the great Hedy Honigman’s film “Buddy”. So, from this festival she brought…
Magnificent7 Opening Night 2024

You only have your 20th birthday once and that is to be celebrated. Even on a Friday the 13th… The celebration of the 20th edition of the Magnificent7, the European Feature Documentary Film Festival, took place at the MTS Hall…
Juha Suonpää: Lynx Man
This text is written by the festival directors of the Magnificent7, Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. This is one of the films that deal with the burning issues of today. We are in the middle of a process of galloping disappearance…
Anna Rubi: Your Life Without Me

A great work that was premiered at just ended festival in Sarajevo, where it had the honor to open the main competition programme for documentary films and where it was awarded with a special award for its exceptional values that…
Sissel Morell Dargis: Balomania

This text is written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, the Magnificent7 festival directors. The film will be screened tonight at MTS in Belgrade. If you also want to read my review of the film, click here Brazil, favela labyrinths…
Jakub Piątek: Pianoforte

This text is written by Magnificent7 Festival founders and organizers Svetlana and Zoran Popovic introducing the opening film of the 20th edition of the festival: A masterfully created documentary that in one fell swoop won over audiences at festivals in…
Magnificent7 – a Festival with a Big Heart

I am in Riga for the Baltic Sea Docs. I am with Uldis Cekulis, who has been to Magnificent7 twice. As the producer of “Ramin” by Audrius Stonys and “Bridges of Time”, that Stonys directed together with Kristine Briede. I…
DOK Co-Pro Market 2024 Selects 35 Projects

Projects explore family stories and various forms of resistance The 20th edition of the DOK Co-Pro Market welcomes 35 documentary projects from 30 countries that will have the opportunity to find international financing and co-production partners. This year sees a…
Baltic Sea Docs Riga 2024/ 2

One afternoon – a tradition – I left the pitching venue at the Baltic Sea Docs to have a couple of hours with Davis Simanis Jr, documentary and fiction director, and now also rector of Latvian Academy of Culture. We…
Baltic Sea Docs Riga 2024

You must have been at least 50 times to Riga, the driver next to me said. Uldis Cekulis is his name, a key person in Latvian documentary, producer and cameraman, a man who cannot sit still, always in action, and…
Baltic Sea Docs 2024

28th Edition of Baltic Sea Docs set to showcase 26 film projects… The 28th edition of Baltic Sea Docs documentary pitching forum is set to take place in Riga, 1-8 September. This year, the forum will feature the presentation of…
Baltic Sea Docs Film Program

As usual the Baltic Sea Forum launches a strong film program parallel to the Industry section with its development workshop and pitching. Let me mention the wonderful “Agent of Happiness” by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, reviewed on this site,…
Zlatko Pranjic & Nanna Frank Møller: The Sky Above Zenica

A brief content description taken from the catalogue of the Sarajevo FF, where it was shown at the 16th Human Rights Day, a beautiful initiative this is: A quarter of the Bosnian city of Zenica is a giant steel plant.…
Docu Talents from the East

It was the 20th edition of this precious initiative developed at the Jihlava FF and co-hosted here in Sarajevo by the festival. Head of the festival in Czech Republic Marek Hovorka and Sarajevo Industry boss Masha Markovic led the presentation…
Sarajevo FF True Stories & Your Life Without Me Premiere

Early departure from Hotel Europe, the classic Sarajevo hotel with a fabulous outdoor terrasse, an indoor swimming pool, a huge breakfast assortiment, with the same elderly waiters I have met year after year, indeed my wife and I feel at…
Sarajevo FF CineLink Talks

In collaboration with various partners, the panels will cover a wide range of relevant topics, including best practices in managing intellectual property, co-productions, artificial intelligence, gaming, representation, and intimacy coordination. The 2024 CineLink Talks will revolve around three core themes:…
Sarajevo FF Cinelink News

These days I receive many press releases from the Sarajevo FF. About films to be shown and about what is going to happen at the industry platform CineLink that as usual brings makers behind films-to-be together with potential funders. In…
Sarajevo FF Documentary Competition 2024

… With a programme curated – as usual – by Rada Šešić, who picked 21 films for the programme. Nineteen films are competing for awards: 3 will have their world premieres, 5 their international premieres, 1 its European premiere, 8…
Isabela Tent: Alice

This debut film premiered at the Krakow FF and has been awarded at the Romanian Transilvania festivals. No doubt for me that it will receive more recognition at festivals this autumn. Because it is excellent told as a film and…
Verzio DocLab

Apply for the Verzió DocLab international documentary workshop on story development and editing! The 9th Verzió DocLab is a 5-day intensive editing workshop for directors and editors, organised during the 21st Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Budapest…
Maryna Stepanska and Darya Bassel on Docudays

Darya Bassel: “Documentary cinema speaks better to people about events happening right here and now” A conversation between the Ukrainian filmmaker and screenwriter Maryna Stepanska and Darya Bassel, the Director of the DOCU/PRO Industry Platform and film producer, about the…
MajorDocs 2024

MajorDocs 2024 focuses on cinematography with Nicolas Philibert as guest of honor Palma – With just three months to go before the start of its sixth edition, the MajorDocs festival is beginning to reveal some of the ingredients of its…
Winners of the inaugural Georgian National Eliso Awards Revealed

Written by Vladan Petkovic for Cineuropa, 18.6.2024 The winners of the new Georgian national Eliso Awards, established by London-based actress Natalia Jugheli through the Nato Vachnadze Foundation, named after her great-grandmother, a pioneering actress of Georgian cinema, were revealed on…
Baltic Sea Docs 2024

We are thrilled to announce the 26 selected projects for this year’s Baltic Sea Docs! As usual, we will meet in Riga where the forum will take place on 1-6 September (industry dates). 22 new projects, currently in development and…
Aistė Stonytė: The Mammoth Hunt Wins Silver Crane in Lithuania

All right, let’s have the synopsis (Scanorama Festival Kaunas 2023) first: ““The Mammoth Hunt” is a story about a film reel that for many years has been thought to be lost. On the reel, under conspiracy conditions, an abolished anti-Soviet…
Truth and Film – Danish Film School

The ‘Truth & Film’ symposium (June 22-23) will bring together leading international filmmakers from documentary, fiction, and visual arts at the National Film School of Denmark to engage in discussions about cinematic truthfulness, current global challenges, and the possibilities for…
Two Dragons. Jacek Petrycki and Godfrey Reggio win the Dragon of Dragons award

This year, the Dragon of Dragons award will go to two outstanding creators: a legendary American director and an eminent Polish cinematographer. Godfrey Reggio’s films are a cultural phenomenon – visually captivating and pioneering essays that have left their mark…
DocsBarcelona Winners 2024

At least some of them, films I have seen: Docs Award for the Best Film in the Docs&Pearls Official Selection: Laura Plancarte: Mexican Dream. The jury motivation goes like this: “For emerging as a generous and vibrant film, courageously delving…
Efthymia Zymvragaki: Light Falls Vertical

Thanks to my membership of the European Film Academy I could watch this emotionally strong, storytelling-wise original film after a masterclass at DocsBarcelona yesterday arranged by the festival and DocIncubator, whose founder and director Andrea Prenghyova was in a fine…
ZagrebDox 2024 – Being There

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,…
Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó: Agent of Happiness

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…
DocsBarcelona Announces its Film Programme

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…
Kumjana Novakova: Silence of Reason

I have done some copy-pasting to give you words about the masterpiece that is Silence of Reason, watched tonight at ZagrebDox, having missed it at IDFA and Sarajevo FF: Foča is a municipality in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina where women…
Smiling Georgia Opens ZagrebDox

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 (!)…
ZagrebDox – take 20!

Saturday, February 20, 2005. An attempt to rehearse the opening of ZagrebDox, which should start tomorrow at the Europa cinema. Four technicians are bringing in the “beast” of an HD projector that came from Switzerland to the top of the…
Anca Păunescu: Eyal Sivan at One World Romania

Eyal Sivan is a documentary filmmaker, theoretician, and lecturer, renowned for his uncompromising political stances and for using cinema as a tool to question and review dominant narratives of the past and present. A noteworthy figure among politically engaged filmmakers,…