Festival

This is gonna be a bit longer blog text than usual. Simply because this is an extraordinary film that calls for more than an ordinary review. My co-blogger Allan Berg wrote – in Danish and after having seen 30 minutes…

Painters have done it for centuries – chosen their motif literally close to themselves. ”View from my window”. Not many filmmakers have done the same. Kossakovsky did it with Tische! He looked out of the window from his appartment in…

Asliuk is a veteran at Cinéma du Réel. He has won prizes at the festival for his lyrical short documentaries from the countryside of Belarus. It is therefore only natural that he is invited back with his new one-hour long…

In his Danish language texts from this year’s Cinema du Réel, my co-blogger Allan Berg reveals avec plaisir that his prejudice about the festival being for the pure observational documentary maybe is wrong. It is indeed, both because the development…

It is such a good story carried by a charismatic old man, who is full of humour and charm. You are simply entertained contrary to what you thought when reading that this was one more holocaust survivor documentary: Elie Buzyn…

A graduation work from the film school HFF in Potsdam. Respect for the ambition: to describe the Vietnamese countryside life through a family that fights to build a new home in an area where the flood has spoilt their old…

The director has made two films before but is more known in Italy as an actor and theatre director. The French Forum des Images gave him a mobile phone with camera and said to him: do what you want. He…

Koepp is, if anyone, the chronicler of life in the former GDR. In numerous films he has described the work and the social conditions of ordinary people in the GDR that he was born into – in Stettin in 1944.…

“(…) Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant…

The director of this impressive documentary is also the director of the impressive drama therapy project at the Roumieh prison in Lebanon. Zeina Daccache worked for more than a year “inhouse” with a group of inmates – and her work…

The 12th edition of the Greek festival is running since the 12th of March and goes on until the 21st. Under the leadership of Dimitri Eipides you will find a high quality programme accompanied by debates like “The Earth after…

Clip from press release: The third edition of DOX BOX, the independent documentary film festival in Syria closed its curtains on the evening of March 11th, 2010 in Damascus. With over 65% rise in audience numbers (+7000 first edition, 12000…

Summing up this morning in the lobby of the Fardoss Tower Hotel before colleague Mikael Opstrup and I return home from a Syrian capital, warm as an extraordinary Danish summer would be. Summing up after a breakfast chat with Omar…

Saw two films – one about older people, one about children. One with Bari in Italy as location, one taking place in a quarter in Damascus. ”Housing” by Federica di Giacomo is a film about people, who – as said…

I was surprised when I saw that ”The Moon Inside You” by Diana Fabianova, a film and a director that has been written about several times on this blog, was selected for the Dox Box Festival here in Damascus. Surprised…

Nagi Esmail from Egypt made a 9 mins. long city film during a workshop in Cairo, the title is ”171”, which refers to the steps you take from the train platform in the metropole until you are in the street.…

Mail from the producer of the film of Sergio Basso, English title: “Made in Chinatown”, reviewed on this site not long ago: You can see our new web-documentary MADE IN CHINATOWN (the first in Italy on the web-site of one…

4 Polish documentaries and a Syrian. And again bravo to the organisers for putting an emphasis on the short documentary which is of course well targeted in a country with limited funding possibilities – where short film can be made…

German cameraman Peter Badel is one of the mentors of the Campus – together with Dutch producer Joan Morselt, Danish colleague Mikael Opstrup and myself. The participants in the workshop are aspiring young filmmakers, who have been grouped according to…

Bravo Dox Box, was the shout from the last row of a full cinema on the opening night of the festival. And ”Shout” was the title of the opening film, from the Netherlands, directed by Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Ester…

”To our guests who come here every year and fill our hearts with pride and support: we promise to surprise you with our imperfections just the way we like our life, and cinema, to be!”. These catalogue sequence taken from…

A text quote from the site of an amazing film festival that has it all – a thematical focus, a distribution strategy, debates, and a catalogue full of strong films: “Over 100 films, dozens of foreign guests – primarily film…

From February 28 March 7 the sixth edition of ZagrebDox will take place in the capital of Croatia. I have attended previous editions – but have other obligations this year. But this should not refrain me from making publicity for…

The documentary by Russian Alexander Gutman, ”17 of August”, was chosen as the best documentary at the Mumbai International Film Festival (for docs, shorts and animation). Here is a clip from the review that was written on filmkommentaren.dk: This…

… is running until this sunday, February 7th. It includes an international film festival and a pitching forum, with a variety of masterclasses, award ceremonies and professional meetings. A meeting place for professionals and a generous offer of films to…

24 projects were presented at the 13th Pitching Forum of DOCSBarcelona February 5-6. 15 broadcasters, film funders and distributors were around the table to comment  and eventually show interest in what was verbally and visually pitched. Most of the project…

What were they about, the 24 film projects at the Pitching Forum – what films can you expect to be ready within the next couple of years, what were the themes and stories presented at DOCSBarcelona 2010: The invention of…

A special tribute was given to the Swedish commissioning editor Vera Bonnier, who had her last pitch at DOCSBarcelona. For 34 years Bonnier has worked for SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster, and has now decided to retire. She comes from…

Last night of a festival with a small amount of films and a huge audience. With the focus on the authored films and with the authors – or other creative persons from the crews – present  and taken care of…

Take a look at the photo. The young woman leaning forward is Caroline. She is a social worker at a reception centre for asylum seekers in a municipality of Paris. The woman with her back to the camera is Zaleh,…

Jukka Kärkkäinen (JK) and his cameraman J-P. Passi (JP) are in Belgrade to present their film ”The Living Room of a Nation” that has been highly praised on this site several times. The JK presentation of the film and himself…

The Sava Center in Belgrade hosted two films for the opening of the 6th European Feature Documentary Festival, Magnificent7. The big hall made last night room for around 1500 spectators for each of the two films, that were introduced to…

The 6th European feature Documentary Festival opens tonight in the big hall of the Sava Centre in Belgrade. My guess – based on ticket office information and on experience from previous years – is that more than a thousand spectators…