Festival

At the end of last week the winners of the 23st idfa festival were announced. From the site of idfa I have taken this press report with easy references to content description of the films awarded, many of which will…

The festival in Amsterdam has a nomination system like the one used at the Oscars – three films in each category of competition are shortlisted – and the directors have to wait until saturday night to hear if they are…

Of course idfa with an audience of more than 100.000 must have an audience award parallel to the awards given by juries of film professionals. If you go to the website you will find an updated list that goes by…

The long-awaited Short List of feature-length documentaries in consideration for Academy Award nomination was finally released, and here are the lucky 15: Client 9:The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (Dir.: Alex Gibney; ES Productions LLC) Enemies of the People…

We have written about the Cinema Vérité documentary film festival, held in Tehran from November 7-12 under the slogan “Reality for All” – see below. The winners of the festival have been announced like this: Iran’s 4th Cinema Verite International…

… and is, as mentioned above, also the place to go for professionals who are looking for films for their tv channels, or for festival programmers. Around 500 films are available for the accredited guests, who are there to select…

November is the month of documentary films in France, Le Mois du Doc opens this weekend for the 11th time: More than 1200 sites, nearly 3000 showings and an audience of around 150.000. This event was created by the association…

Last year 142 Iranian filmmakers appealed to the documentary community worldwide to boycott the festival Cinema Vérité, see below. Yesterday EDN (European Documentary Network) posted the following text on its site: ”EDN will be present at the The 4th annual…

… which is a Czech city where the documentary film genre is celebrated every year at the end of October through a huge market programme for selling (pitching) film projects and finished films to television stations all over the world…

November 4-14 is the time to watch documentaries in Copenhagen. An excellently edited and layouted website – address below – takes you through the huge programme with its many competitive sections, its industry programme, seminars, concerts, paries and events. There…

… stands for Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal and is a 10 day long festival event with ” Dozens of activities: workshops, roundtables, master classes, tributes, kids’ screenings, receptions and parties, and a market “with the mission of supporting…

The night of making some people happy, others disappointed. The award ceremony to hand out more than 70.000€ and statuettes. Speeches and clips. Main prize, The Golden Dove, went to the Swedish film “Vodka Factory” by Jerzy Sladkowski (PHOTO), The…

Every monday the opponents to the GDR regime met at the Nikolai church in Leipzig. With candles in their hands – speeches, “stille und schweigend” as said one of the leaders, former priest at the church, Christian Führer, who also…

He has only made 5 films, Sergey Dvortsevoy, but he is one of the most wanted documentarians for the so-called masterclasses. His popularity is huge as the attendance proved at the festival, where the room was packed for the 2…

… and a jury member means that you are treated well, very well indeed. You are in a nice hotel, you get a per diem so you can go and buy yourself a wienerschnitzel or a curry-wurst, and a beer…

The opening of film festivals is something that veterans like me normally avoid because of boring official speeches and/or a moderator trying to be funny and/or blonds or brunettes in high heels being there for their looks, knowing nothing about…

… and the local Leipziger Volkszeitung has an interview with festival director Claas Danielsen, who stresses that the 53rd edition of the festival could need a couple of days more for a festival that he predicts will have many full…

… is one the best progrqmmed festivals in Europe. The 2010 edition goes from October 14-24 and has several interesting film historical highlights parallel to the international and Portuguese sections. The directors who are presented to the local and international…

The upcoming festival in Leipzig (October 18-24) has an interesting retrospective with films from the conflict zone in Caucasia. Here is the site introduction text: “Eight programmes with some twenty films will give you sufficient opportunity to deal with a…

The festival has a fine offer for – taken from the presse release – ”all those who are so excited they can hardly contain themselves. They can now (re)discover outstanding, award-winning filme even before the festival is underway! From 12…

Breathless is the word that characterises the feeling you get when you browse through the site of the upcoming DOK Leipzig programme that was published a couple of days ago. 12 cinemas, more than 300 films to choose from, lots…

The great art documentary film about avantgarde pioneer photomontagist and Stalinist propagandagist Gustavs Klucis, mentioned and presented on this site several times during the last couple of years, has received the first prize of the 40 year old International Film…

The first spring day in Buenos Aires, Argentina: Cool it is, was much warmer yesterday, and rain will come, says the receptionist of the hotel. I am here with Danish colleague Mikael Opstrup to tutor at a workshop for 24…

As always perfectly organised by the team at the National Film Centre of Latvia, and supported by the EU MEDIA Programme, the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries was held in Riga September 7-12. There was a festival programme of new…

The Baltic Sea Forum 2010 was very much a place for new talent to present their ideas at the same time as it was refreshing to see an old master like Ivars Seleckis, in this mid seventies, come forward with…

Alina Rudnitskaya has previously been praised on this site – for her fine films ”Civil Status” and ”Bitch Academy” that have travelled the world festival circuit with success making her name mentioned as a big talent. Last year she pitched…

There is a street in Riga. A quite extraordinary street inhabited by ordinary people like you and me. I know them very well. Through films, of course. Actually I have known them for more than 20 years. Skersiela is the…

Today the audiovisual trade magazine Realscreen brings an article that informs about a new documentary coming out about Danish environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg, a controversial character in Denmark – though one of former prime minister Anders Fogh’s experts – but a…