Festival

News about festivals and their selection are pouring in to the mailbox. Yes, it is indeed festival time now for documentaries as well, after the Berlinale that is strong in documentaries nowadays and “steals” a lot of attention and people.…

… in NY is running now and until February 27 with many interesting titles, like ”Of Men and War” by Laurent Bécue-Renard, ”Domino Effect” (photo) by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski, and ”Around in the World in 50 Concerts”, the…

Festival director Nenad Puhovski and his ZagrebDox team has announced its programme for the 11th edition – around 150 films in 16 sections. The Croatian festival runs February 22 to March 1, take a look at the (as always) inviting,…

Finnish Virpi Suutari visited the festival for a very short time. She had just left the national documentary celebration DocPoint on Finland where her ”Garden Lovers” got the Jussi award as the best Finnish documentary and composer Sanna Salmenkallio received…

Full house for the Q&A of Jorge Pelicano after the screening of his ”Suddenly My Thoughts Halt”, a film from a Portuguese hospital for mentally ill people, very well received by the Belgrade audience, again around 1000 spectators – to…

Maja Medic took these photos of two men on the stage at the Magnificent 7 Festival in Belgrade. It was on the night when the film on “Messi” was to be shown. From left the body language signals the mountain…

One day takes the other here in Belgrade that has the most changing weather I have experienced for a long time. Yesterday Portuguese director Jorge Pelicano, Danish director Camilla Nielsson and I, accompanied by two young students of painting and…

Take a look at the photo. This man is the one that emotionally carries the Oscar-nominated ”Virunga” by Orlando von Einsiedel. Whenever André is in the picture with his mountain gorillas, you understand how important the message of the film…

Press release from the upcoming film fest in Berlin: The Berlin International Film Festival (February 5-15) has long been committed to documentaries in their diverse forms. This is reflected in the programmes of the Berlinale’s different sections and initiatives, as…

”I was asked to do that film”, Oeke Hoogendijk said at the Q&A session after the opening screening of ”The New Rijksmuseum – the Film” friday night January 30 at the Sava Centre in Belgrade. The hall was full, more…

I warn you – it is my intention to report from the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade that starts tonight with the screening of ”The New Rijksmuseum – the Film” by Oeke Hoogendijk. The reporting will include a lot about films,…

Realscreen reports from the ongoing Sundance festival. And documentaries are shown and discussed. Last saturday a panel of three directors were talking about ”the blurring lines between journalism and non-fiction storytelling”. Laura Poitras (Citizen Four etc.) (Photo): “It’s not a…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Rules of the Game” that will be screened February 5th as the closing film of the festival. The text also includes words from the director: There’s a rumour…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Garden Lovers” that will be screened February 4th at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: One of the most important Finnish and European documentary…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Suddenly My Thoughts Halt” that will be screened February 3rd at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: Outstanding photography takes us into the space…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Democrats” that will be screened February 2nd at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: One of the best Danish documentaries in past several years…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade present ”Messi” that will be screened February 1st at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: When one of the most important Spanish directors, Alex de…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade presents the Oscar-nominated ”Virunga” that will be screened January 31 at the festival. The text also includes words from the director: Depicting the best and the worst in human…

Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, directors of the Magnificent7 Festival in Belgrade presents ”The New Rijksmuseum” that will be screened January 30 as the opening film of the festival. The text also includes words from the director: In 2003, the Rijksmuseum…

The 11th edition of the Magnificent7 Festival for European feature length documentaries takes off January 30 and continues until February 5. As in previous years filmkommentaren publishes the introduction to the 7 films written by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic. That…

From the website of Göteborg Film Festival (January 23 – February 2): French sadomasochism, Canadian social workers and an American free zone for convicted pedophiles are all found in the eight films nominated for the Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary…

Sergei Loznitsa was awarded one more time for his ”Maidan” (photo) at the festival in Firenze. The brief jury motivation goes like this: Timely in this current passage of History, the filmmaker calmly and masterfully engages in the unfolding of…

The 55th edition of the Firenze based documentary Festival dei Popoli is running now – until December 5. A rich programme and it’s all very professionally presented on the website. And I liked the welcoming words of the festival director,…

How should a jury work? Is there a recipe? No, of course not. Should a jury talk after each screening or… how to remember the films you have seen? The idfa jury 2014 for First-Appearance competititon did like this, an…

Here is the full press release from idfa – it came in late last night: The winners have just been announced in IDFA’s various competition programs in the Compagnietheater in Amsterdam at the awards ceremony of the 27th IDFA. Of…

I met her in Damascus during the DoxBox festival and later again in Cairo for a workshop, so I know how hard Nadine Sahib has been working to complete her film, that now (bravo!) is at idfa, in the First…

From November 30th till December 7th the DEFC (Documentary & Experimental Film Center) organizes the 8th edition of Cinema Vérité Iran International Documentary Film Festival. There have previously been appeals for boycott of this festival, that of course is supported…

The 22nd edition of Camerimage in Poland, a festival that has its focus on cinemetography ended on the 22nd of November. The festival includes documentaries in its award-giving and distributes life-achievement awards as well. One was given to a well-known,…

The main competition awards of this year’s cph:dox, the DOX:AWARD went to two brilliant documentaries according to the jury – and the filmkommentaren.dk editors, who have praised both ”The Look of Silence” by Joshua Oppenheimer and his many named and…

As someone close to the philosophy of Eurimages (the cultural support fund of the Council of Europe. Established in 1989, currently numbers 36 of 47 member states), that is not the EU, I am happy to bring this message from…

Press release from the Copenhagen festival “that has yet again experienced a severe demand from the audience and a great number of films has guaranteed full theaters during the festival – now CPH:DOX sets up even more screenings of the…

DEMOCRATS Af Camilla Nielsson Jeg havde egentlig tænkt mig at anmelde Camilla Nielssons ”Democrats” på engelsk, men da jeg så Kim Skottes slappe afvisning af filmen, på ti linier i dag i Politiken, skiftede jeg mening og skriver dette som…

Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado: THE SALT OF THE EARTH Arrogant as I am, films about still photography (or paintings) are not something I usually pay much attention to. The relationship between the timeless photography and the time-dependent moving image…

IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? by Michel Gondry Wow, the theatre is almost packed. Average age is around or even under 30 and several hipster beards are in sight. I suspect these are fans of either Gondry or…

ESCAPING RIGA by Davis Simanis One of those screenings where everything worked out as it should. Young Latvian director Davis Simanis (looking at you from above on this page) travels to Copenhagen, where he has never been before. He walks…

Cph:dox fills our columns these days – reviews, reports etc. BUT the second largest city in Denmark, Aarhus, has its own festival, Aarhus Filmfestival that includes shorts and docs, the latter with themes like ”fights”, ”life”, ”female”, ”ex-Soviet” and titles…

THE LOOK OF SILENCE by Joshua Oppenheimer       It’s horrifying, it hurts to watch the scenes that shows these brutal perpetrators re-enact their killings committed around 1965 in Indonesia, where the slaughtering of communists were performed by a…

Scenes to remember… one of the many good things about being at a festival is the conversations you have with colleagues in the breaks. Conversations that very often bring up scenes that have impressed you, scenes that will stay in…

Here follows the jury motivations for the main competition winners and for the German competition winner, Domino Effect, a film that has been reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk Golden Dove: Claudine Bories und Patrice Chagnard (Frankreich) for the film Les règles du…

The winners have been found. And apart from “my” main prize the juries agreed with me, awarding “Les Regles du Jeu” and “Toto and his Sisters”. Here is the press release and notice that you can find the motivations on…

Your filmkommentaren.dk correspondent has seen the 12 long documentaries in the Dok International Competition 2014. He thinks it would be fun to make HIS list of winners for that category. I.e. a main prize and two honorary mentions. The films…