Festival

Politics. Freedom to say what you want. In films as well. The Message2Man – that had its 24th edition this year – and its organisers are of course backing this basis for any film festival. Nevertheless the festival cancelled a…

It was a Swedish documentary that got the Grand Prix at the Message2Man 2014 festival: Forest of the Dancing Spirits (photo), directed by Linda Västrik (104 min. | 2013 | Sweden, Canada). I copy-pasted a description of the film from…

A scoop for DOKLeipzig. Read the festival’s press release: The 57th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film will open on 27 October 2014 with the long-awaited film “CITIZENFOUR” by Laura Poitras. In the last instalment of her 9/11…

Second day in St. Petersburg started with a lovely tour to Russian Museum downtown at the square where a statue of Pushkin stands, always with birds resting on his stretched-out arm. The newly renovated rooms with the Russian avant-garde I…

We already told that for the second time the AegeanDocs festival is running, it opened on the 20th of September (and runs until the 28th) with a screening of “The Act of Killing”. Producer of the festival Chara Lampidou sent…

Do you know the situation for Russian artists, was the first question that came from the audience at the Q&A after Danish Andreas Johnsen’s ”Ai Wei Wei” screening last night at the St. Petersburg documentary festival. The film about the…

Copy-paste quote from RealScreen on Martin Scorcese talking about his new documentary “The 50 Year Argument” on New York Review of Books, co-directed with David Tedeschi. A talk taking place in Toronto at the international film festival, read more, link…

Are you on drugs was the question, jokingly asked by panelist Esther van Messel from First Hand Film, when Russian producer Vlad Ketkovich was pitching the project ”My Beliefs” to be directed by Tatiana Chistova. Could be… Ketkovich, wearing a…

Press release of today from DOKLeipzig: Leipzig Mayor Burkhard Jung is proposing the Finnish documentary expert Leena Pasanen (49) to become the next director of DOK Leipzig. The City Council will decide on the appointment on 15 October. A selection…

Press release from the festival in Leipzig, says a lot about volume of documentaries world wide, plus animation films on top of that!: 2,350 film productions from 119 countries have tossed their hat in the ring for this year’s International…

Well, you might not see it but it was pouring down in Copenhagen sunday, when Magnificent7 festival director Zoran Popovic, caught by his co-director Svetlana behind the camera, was expressing his joy to be close to Hans Christian Andersen in…

I have copy-pasted from Guardian of today, where Simon McBurney interviews Gaza documentarian Ashraf Mashharawi (photo), “joint winner of the Katrin Cartlidge award” that was given out at the Sarajevo Film Festival, that the director travelled to in spite of…

The photo refers to the film ”Red Army” by Gabe Polsky that at indiewire.com (link below) is described like this: Soviet hockey players? As in the ones that were defeated by a young, inexperienced American team at the 1980 Olympics? In fact, the “Miracle…

St. Petersburg, end of September (20-27), programme has been announced for the 24th edition of Message to Man. On top of the list, very much appropriate, is local master Alina Rudnitskaya with her latest fine b/w work ”Blood” (photo), one…

The Baltic Sea Docs has announced its mini film festival programme that runs parallel to the pitching of 24 new documentary projects primarily from the Baltic countries but also producers from Western European countries turn up with proposals that have…

Yes, the international film festival in the beautiful Basque city, taking place for 62nd time this year (September 19-27) launches an impressive retrospective called ”Eastern Promises. Autobiography of Eastern Europe… a look at movies produced since 2000 in the countries…

August 27 until September 6 it’s time for the 71st edition of the festival in Venice, a festival that in its selection increases its interest in showing documentaries – remember that the winner last year was ”Sacro Gra” by Gianfranco…

The First World WARM Festival took place in Sarajevo June 28 to July 4, concurrent with 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. This new festival focuses on contemporary conflicts through exhibitions, film screenings and conferences. Behind…

At the same time as Sarajevo has its festival with a documentary competition programme, the Prizren, Kosovo based DokuFest takes place, August 16-24 with quite an extensive selection – quote from press release, ” Culled from a record number of…

The competition programme at the upcoming film festival in Sarajevo (August 15-23) has been announced. Nicely put in categories there are 5 world premieres, 5 international premieres, 5 regional premieres and 4 B&H (Bosnia Herzegovina) premieres. All together 19 films…

… of the Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, running now and until July 27, initiated and run by film director, visual artist, politician and showman, Mark Soosaar, whose mark is still very strong on a festival with a…

In the post about the Moving Docs project that will take off next year, supported by Creative Europe, I wrote “”Brave New Culture” from Cyprus is also on board. Regret to say that I have never heard about it before…”…

A triumph for the young Polish director Jan Matuszynski in Moscow yesterday where the Best Documentary Award was announced, given to him for his ”Deep Love”. I have seen this film twice before, read what I wrote from the American…

15 films from 12 countries, 15 world and international premieres… that is what the FID (Festival International de Cinema) in Marseilles presents in the international competition programme, when it takes off July 1 and runs until July 7. The festival…

Big words from the two curators of the documentary programme at MIFF, Moscow International Film Festival, whose 26th edition includes a competition of 8 films and a panorama of 15 films under the label ”Free Thought”. Sergey Miroshnichenko and Grigory…

For the seventh time the Documentarist festival is running in Istanbul – until June 12 – under the leadership of, among others, director Emel Çelebi. There is a Turkish Panorama, a focus on Syria, a tribute to Johan van der…

I have posted several texts on Ukraine and the brave filmmakers there. Here is one more after contact with Dar’ya Averchenko and Roman Bondarchuk. The two of them have taken part in the admirable work “Euromaidan. Rough Cut”, which is…

Festive closure of DocsBarcelona 2014. The film ”Five Days to Dance” by Rafa Molés and Pepe Andreu were shown to a full house. The film that was pitched at the festival 2013 describes how two dancers are able to get…

Sunday morning in Barcelona, last day of the festival, awards to be given tonight. Walked home to hotel from the Aribau Club Cinema around 1am after quite a long festival evening. Accompanied by Irina Shatilova, whose film ”Linar” had been…

Looong, well deserved applause to Talal Derki last night when ”Return to Homs” was shown at CCCB. The director, who is now living in Turkey and Berlin – all his family is out of Syria – talked with the audience…

Wednesday night, full house in the Aribau Club cinema, where Israeli Shirly Berkovitz (photo) showed her amazing ”The Good Son” and told the audience how the film took off: A young man contacts her with some video tapes that he…

Colombian director Juan Pablo Rios was the first of three filmmakers coming for the rough cut sessions of DocsBarcelona 2014. The concept of the sessions is very simple: the filmmaker turns up with his work at a rough cut stage,…

I am in Barcelona. The DocsBarcelona festival and its associated activities for professionals start today. I am in the Pulitzer Hotel next to Plaza de Catalunya, nice room with a look to a street wall covered by a photo of…

DocsBarcelona includes for the second time webdocs and interactive productions in its programme. This is how it was announced in a press release of today: Find out about the latest developments in research and production of webdocs. Do not miss…

Young directors, fresh views and interpretations of the world today, resistance movements, new ways of storytelling – it is a golden age of the documentary and that is strongly reflected in the programme that the DocsBarcelona festival has just published!…

This new film by Latvian film and opera director Kairiss will have its international premiere tomorrow at Visions du Réel in Nyon. Here is an article I wrote for the promotion of the film: The first film work I met…

A mail came in today with the headline: Good News in Bad Times! It came from Orwa Nyrabia from Syrian Proaction Film, together with French Films d’Ici the producer of ”Silvered Water. Syria, An Auto-Portrait”. Orwa Nyrabia: It is with…

A bit late, but you should know… taken from the website of the festival: 11th International documentary films about human rights festival has ended in Kyiv. The awards ceremony was held On March 27 in Cinema House in Kyiv. Hosts…

Amdocs distributed several awards on the final evening of the festival. I was involved in the pitch competition and a juror for the Best American Feature Documentary. For that reason they come first on the list with some comments from…

As some other documentary festivals, DOKLeipzig is an example, Amdocs screens animation films. A good choice I thought after having attended a programme of 8 short ones from Germany, mostly from the film school in Baden-Württemberg. Puppet animation with beautiful…

Festivals would not be able to function without volunteers. People who help without being paid. The American Documentary Film Festival in Palm Springs is no exception. In its third edition the help you get from local people who support the…

Opening night in Palm Springs: Julie Cohen’s ”I Live to Sing”, or in xhosa language: Ndiphilela Ukucula. A warm film with three black, young upcoming opera stars from South Africa, who tell their stories, which are sad and uplifting at…

I have just returned from Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival after a (far too) quick visit for the following reason – thank you so much! – this is the press release of the festival: The European Documentary Network (EDN) award, which…

Yes, it does, wish you all the best, you are so brave and clever and thoughtful as this text documents, taken from the website of the festival: Three times I started writing an address on behalf of the Docudays UA…