Festival

Margot Nash, experienced Australian filmmaker, whom I had never heard about, gave me the best documentary of friday in Palm Springs, ”Silences” (73 mins.) and demonstrated how beautifully English can be spoken with a text of high literary quality. Her…

Same procedure as last year – the festival kicked off thursday morning with a film fund pitch competition led by its festival director Teddy Grouya. A dozen of projects were presented in a more than two hour long session, free…

13th International documentary films about human rights festival has ended in Kyiv. The awards ceremony was held on March 31th in Cinema House. Hosts of the ceremony: festival moderators Marina Stepanska and Oleksandr Vynogradov. Films were competing for prizes in…

Palm Springs, March 31, the official opening of the Amdocs takes place tonight after a morning pitch session and a film programme that runs during the whole day. Actually the festival screenings already started yesterday as one day has been…

Early monday morning. We arrive to the modern airport of Kiev, Borispil, to go back to Copenhagen after far too short a stay but with intense days at the Docudays UA festival. A familiar face meets us at the check…

To say that the opening of the 13th edition of Docudays UA here in Kiev last night was joyous is an understatement. If there was any award for the visually best, most intelligent and funny opening ceremony of a documentary…

The festival poster is to be seen around Kiev – the bears are there and not only ”inside us”, read elsewhere what the creative organizers want to communicate with that. A much more direct communication is to be found in…

… and full names: director Anastasiya Miroshnichenko and producer Volia Chajkouskaya. I met Volia C. in Minsk in connection with the Listapad festival, where she gave me a link to their previous film, “Crossroads”, reviewed on this site. About their…

”The School of Disillusionment”… is the subtitle of this year’s Docu/Class in Kiev at the festival that starts in four days and runs until April 1st. Look at the creative logo for this part of the event, (how do you…

I left Prague yesterday after 7 fine days with the East Doc Platform and its professional and personal touch. I was happy that my hand luggage was not being weighed at the airport, my IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) catalogue…

East Doc Platform Development Award: WHEN THE WAR COMES (dir. Jan Gebert, prod. R. Síbrt, V. Hozzová; Czech Republic) Photo Viktoriá Hozzová receiving the award from Luke Moody, Britdoc. Czech TV Postproduction Award: RUSSIAN VIEWFINDERS (dir. Alexander Abarutov, prod. O.…

The One World festival in Prague, number 18, will have its award ceremony on Wednesday; the winners, however, have already been announced. I mention, via the press release of today, the winners of the main competition, for the whole list,…

”It is too artistic for our audience”… he said so, Erkko Lyttinen from YLE, the Finnish broadcaster that has always defended the artistic documentaries… has the last bastion fallen? I had heard that remark before, but from less important broadcasters…

… having said so, I hurry to say that the films that I mention in this post are also creative, but they have in their presentation thought of television as the channel to an audience, at the same time as…

I know that the headline is mixing harsh reality and entertainment but this is actually how it is to be at EDP, East Doc Platform, here in Prague. During the days I have been giving feedback on documentary projects that…

The Copenhagen Architecture Festival opens this Wednesday March 9th for the third time. The festival has grown rapidly and is now the biggest festival of its kind (I guess we like it big here in Copenhagen), focusing on architecture and…

I am at EDP – East Doc(umentary) Platform – in Prague, that provides ”training and networking for projects, workshops, promotion, financing and awards”. It takes place at the Cervantes Institute and runs parallel to and in collaboration with the One…

This is the statement of the festival in Kiev (25.3-1.4) linked to the logo chosen: “The Olympic Mishka” (Olympic bear) is the mascot of 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, one of the happiest episodes in life of the Soviet Union. You can still see…

ZagrebDox ended sunday and awards were given. I mention some of them with ”smartlinks” for you to see what we have written about them on this site. But go to the festival website to get the whole picture. Festival director…

… and runs until February 28. Here is a brief introduction text from the site of the festival: “A documentary about an ordinary family with extraordinary secrets, directed by Karen Guthrie, on Sunday, 21 February, opens the 12th edition of…

And the festival in Krakow has decided to put focus on Sweden at the upcoming festival. Here is a clip from the press release of today, with a photo of Polish-Swedish Jerzy Sladkowski taken last week, when he presented his…

… which stands for North South Doc Network, more about that below. The festival that runs from April 30-March 4 opens with the premiere of director Joe Berlinger’s latest film ”Tony Robbins: I am not Your Guru” and includes three…

I am back in Copenhagen after another unforgettable version of the Magnificent7 Festival, number 12 it was and of course there is reason for the organizers to be proud of what they have achieved with a festival of 7 films,…

Wojciech and Malgorzata Staron were in the vip room yesterday after the screening of their masterpiece ”Brothers” that was shown in the big hall of the Sava Center in Belgrade at the Magnificent7 festival. Almost 1000 viewers attended and I…

Jerzy Sladkowski’s ”Don Juan” was shown here in Belgrade the other night and his Q&A meeting with the audience in the vip room of the Sava Center lasted for more an hour in a packed room, where many were sitting…

Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: For centuries, one of the…

Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: From the very first moment…

I just said goodbye to him, the director of ”Twilight of a Life”, who has played an important role in this 12th edition of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade. He came with his film about which I wrote – before…

Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: This year’s winner of Europe’s…

They got up from their chairs but did not leave right away, they stayed to honour the filmmaker, whose ”Mallory” had just ended. Helena Třeštíková received standing ovations for her film at the screening at the Sava Center, where it…

Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: Is there anything emptier than…

Last night. Look at the photo – Sylvain Biegeleisen, director of ”Twilight of a Life”, is on stage with festival director Zoran Popovic in Belgrade before the screening of his film at the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade. Biegeleisen is about…

12. Festival Evropskog Dugometraznog Dokumentarnog Filma… the Serbian language version for 12th European Feature Documentary Film Festival that started last night with the screening of German Kral’s ”Our Last Tango” – click on www.filmkommentaren.dk and watch the photo to see…

Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the film to be shown tonight at the Sava Center in Belgrade: A refined documentary pearl, woven…

Taken from the site of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade () this text is written by festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic about the opening film, Friday January 29: Buenos Aires nights echo with the sounds of the bandoneon, with…

A couple of days ago the trade magazine Indiewire brought an interview (by Chris O’Falt) with Tabitha Jackson, the director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program. Jackson who, when she was working for Channel4 in England, was a very much…

A true artist, presented in the interview as ”film director and producer, writer, painter and video artist, photographer and musician, group moderator and singer…”. Sylvain Biegeleisen is interviewed by EDN, that does monthly conversations with members, this one being very…

… with the long subtitle ”European Feature Documentary Film Festival” starts on January 29 and goes on until February 4… Time for a small warm-up to this yearly celebration of the documentary film on the screen in the Sava Center…

The Baltic documentary festival in Aarhus, in the wonderful art house cinema Øst for Paradis (”East of Eden”) took off saturday with a full house screening of the classic ”Ten Minutes Older” by Herz Frank and Lithuanian Giedre Zickyte’s ”Master…

Below you find my list of ”Best Documentaries 2015” as well as a list of ”Documentary Talents of 2015”. I could also – like the DOKLeipzig did – have called the latter ”Next Masters”. Anyway, here they are, in a…