A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Many visitors to the festival in Amsterdam (November 17-28) are there to look for films to buy for their national television channels. The buyers sit in their booths and choose among more than 500 films, as do festival representatives from…
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…
I post this article from the idfa site to higlight one of the most appreciated documentary projects that was pitched at the Forum 2010: Twin sisters Ilse and Femke van Velzen, filmmakers and human rights activists, returned last week from…
The Forum for International Co-Financing of Documentaries holds its 18th session. There is a friendly atmosphere at the round table where tv commissioning editors sit to comment on the projects that are pitched. Maybe too friendly for a veteran participant…
The Forum is half way through and my general impression is that 2010 selection has been good. There are many creative documentaries, and they are well received. It started strongly with Romanian Florin Iepan’s project ”Odessa” (PHOTO), his short catalogue…
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…
Ally Derks, director of the idfa festival, held a strong speech at the opening of the festival Wednesday night. Here is the text of the strong cultural political appeal: Dear friends, tonight we are launching the 23rd edition of IDFA…
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…
The without any doubt biggest in audience and most important documentary film festival for the professional community kicks off today in Amsterdam and goes on until November 28. Edition number 23 it is, that will welcome an audience with more…
Many of the 300 films at the festival in Amsterdam have been noticed or reviewed at filmkommentaren.dk. From the programme of today ”Armadillo”, ”Steam of Life”, ”Last Train Home” and ”Erotic Man” can be mentioned… But if I were at…
… 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…
På den nyligt afsluttede Cph:Dox festival modtog Ada Bligaard Søbys De nøgne fra Skt. Petersborg en delt pris Danish:Dox Award (sammen med Jakob Boeskovs Empire North), som bedste danske dokumentarfilm. Juryen begrundede valget af De nøgne fra Skt. Petersborg med instruktørens…
… is the headline of a long, interesting article in the Observer sunday November 7. It serves as a follow-up to the Sheffield Doc/Fest that has been covered excellently by the Guardian, see site address below. The Observer article (written…
In Reus, a city a bit more than one hour’s drive from Barcelona, there is a film festival called Memorimage. It is quite unique in its basic philosophy. It deals with ”today’s films with yesterday’s images”, as it is being…
The main awards of the festival were given to the Israeli film ”Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork” by Eyal Sivan, and to ”La Isla – Archives from a tragedy” by German Uli Stelzner. Both of them are strong political films, rich…
Det har da vist ikke altid været sådan? At næsten hver ny film har mindst to historier, fortællinger, tekster, dagsordener? Der er filmen selv som værk, og så er der, ofte længe før filmen er fremme, historien om dens tilblivelse.…
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…
I have been in contact with EDN’s film consultant Ove Rishøj Jensen, who tells me that there will be no boycott action (see below) from the Iranian filmmakers towards the festival Cinema Vérité. On the contrary, the filmmakers and the…
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…
Amnesty International og Aarhus Filmfestival inviterer til film og seminar om folkedrabet i Cambodja søndag 14. november i Øst for Paradis. Under De Røde Khmerers regime i Cambodja mistede op mod to millioner mennesker livet. De Røde Khmerers regime kostede…
… 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…
Det blev Michael Madsen, der modtog prisen REEL TALENT, som blev uddelt i aftes ved CPH:DOX åbning. I juryens bedømmelse hedder det, at han allerede i sine første film (Celestial Night og To Damascus) har vist egensind og suverænitet, som er værd…
Titlen leder i første omgang på vildspor. Den leder mænd og nok især kvinder på vildspor. Foromtale og stills hjælper til: man forventer pik og patter. Og så er det sådan, at kun mændene får deres syn for sagn, ovenikøbet i en…
For nogle dage siden så vi den alle andre vegne velkendte film i min filmklub i FOF-Randers. Vi fandt os med ét tilbage i zonen i Tarkovskijs film om de tre mænd, som trænger ind i et truende område. Vi…
Young Serbian director Mila Tulajlic has finished her work on “Cinema Komunisto” that will have its international premiere at idfa in Amsterdam and its national premiere as part of the Magnificent/ festival in Belgrade January 25-29. The film will exist…
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…
I am in rainy Belgrade. Wonderful to be back in the city where the magnificent documentary film festival Magnificent7 takes place every year. At the end of January. But this is actually not the main reason for my presence… for…
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…
There were 24 film projects to be pitched to the panel of tv representatives, see below. And on top of that the organisers had reserved two mornings, where another 40 projects and their producers/directors could have one-to-one meetings with tv…
”The first step for your doc” was the slogan for the very succesful pitching forum and conference held in Buenos Aires during the last three days. And for many of the film projects that was presented it was a very…
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…
The Latvians write history with their films. Below a description of the ambition of Ivars Seleckis to make the third part of the epic about the Crossroad Street in Riga. A work that will cover more than 20 years of…
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…
Idfa – International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam – asks every year a prominent director to choose her/his 10 Best Film list, whihc are then screened at the festival. This year the director is Finnish Pirjo Honkasalo and her list goes…