Festival

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…

”What an achievement! I don’t recall, when was the last time that I witnessed so captivating a historical documentary, here told by Czech Jewish survivors of the holocaust. They were interviewed between 2000-2006 by Lukas Pribyl, the researcher, writer and…

A quote from my welcoming words for the Magnificent7 Festival: What is a good film festival? You will not be surprised when I answer that question by saying: Come to the 6th edition of Magnificent7! Again we – Svetlana and…

January 21-25 2010 are the dates for the 6th edition of Magnificent 7, the European Feature Documentary Film Festival. A unique festival with a selection of only 7 films that are shown once in the Sava Center in Belgrade, Serbia.…

The CMCA (Mediterranean Centre for Audiovisual Communication) has finished its 14th festival edition, and the publicity around the awards, the juries (2, one for documentary, one for reportage) and the films have never been bigger. The awards were given in…

The 12th edition of a festival that has grown in volume and importance. You felt it immediately when you were with the Turkish organisers and their young group of volunteers – all together people from or linked to the Association…

Learning by watching – still the key quality challenge for the documentary film maker. At the festival in Istanbul your film-journey constantly took you to places, where you could not go yourself or where you would never dream of going…

“VTR Film Directing Research Production” is run by director Enis Rıza and executive producer Nalân Sakızlı. Husband and wife. Around them they have young committed and skilled women – the festival director of this year, Bahriye Kabadayı, the conference director…

no-one, when it comes to the exclusivity rules of film festivals! There is nothing new in the fact that major festivals insist on having premieres (world, international, European or whatever they want to call it) and therefore block for screenings…

The premiere of a new documentary by Nino Kirtadzé, ”Something About Georgia”. High expectations after her award-winning documentaries ”The Pipeline Next Door” and ”Durakovo: Village of Fools”. And big disappointment, I have to say. Pure propaganda for the politics of…

The Pitch.Doc day included 10 projects to be pitched after a couple of days of training done by Georgian filmmaker Salome Jashi and me. The public pitching panel, arranged and organized by Anna Dziapshipa, had around 10 people to react…

The short name is ”Nationality: Human”, the long one is the South Caucasus Documentary Film Festival of Peace and Human Rights. The festival is supported by the Open Society Georgia Foundation (Soros) and partners and the woman running it is…

The Pitch workshop has started. 10 projects have been selected from 5 countries: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbjadan, Ukraine and Moldova. A diversity of themes were presented by filmmakers with a different background. They met each other, heard about the state of…

Arrived early morning in Tbilisi coming from Copenhagen via Istanbul. Turkish Airlines, to be recommended for its service. Drove on George Bush Street to the hotel, yes, George Bush Street! Says something about in which direction Georgia wanted and wants…

It is the 10th edition of the international film festival that starts tomorrow in Tbilisi, capital of Goegia. And goes on until the 6th of December. Mike Leigh is guest of honour and makes a masterclass and there is an…

MOMA in New York needs no further introduction as the museum of modern art. Less known – at least in Europe – is it that this museum, often much more precise and professional than festivals all over, put together interesting…