Festival

Copy paste from the FB page of DocuDays: “We received 150 applications for the Civil Pitch 2.0 programme. The jury selected 4 projects that received not only grants for film production, but also mentoring support at all stages of their work. Please welcome the…

I’am in that weird situation that I have not seen the final version of a film that has its premiere tomorrow in Nyon in Switzerland in the presence of the director, a dear friend of me – and my wife…

Copy paste from (part of) article of today’s Cineuropa, written by Vladan Petkovic:  CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator, an exclusive training programme for female-identifying documentary filmmakers, has selected the four projects that will take part in its showcase as part of…

I have written 13 blogposts about Khaled Jarrar on this site – since I met him in Ramallah and in Corfu in the Storydoc workshops organized by Greek Kostas Spiropoulos more than a decade ago. I have talked with him…

 I watched two winners of the CPH:DOX 2023 yesterday. One at home and one in the cinema: “Mrs Hansen & the Bad Companions” by Jella Bethmann (Denmark, 90 mins.) won the Nordic Dox award, so well deserved a recognition for…

I’ve seen it many times before and I love the look of it! A huge room full of documentary people, directors and producers with ideas, more or less developed film projects, clips – called trailers or teasers – meeting with…

“Dialogues on Craft” is the title of four morning sessions at the CPH:DOX in the Charlottenborg Kunsthal, that is turned into a cinema during the festival. 90 minutes per session. With Wendy Mitchell as moderator. I attended the first one,…

Take a look at the top page photos, Chilean director Maite Alberdi is the one to the left. A true documentary star, whose films “Tea Time”, “The Grown-Ups” and “The Mole Agent” have been praised on this site. Her new…

Andriy, Liza, Lera, Ruslan, Illia. Ukrainian protagonists in this heartwarming and also touching documentary from the village Stanytsia Luhanska near the frontline, which after February last year is occupied by Russia. They are teenagers, they have hope, they have dreams, they…

Vesi Vuković won the award endowed with prize money amounting to 10,000 euros for the story “The Hero from Arena” As part of the special edition of the “Dealing with the Past” programme held in Sarajevo and online at Ondemand.kinomeetingpoint.ba,…

The following are quotes from an interview I made for the IDF in December 2021, with Alisa Kovalenko and Stéphane Siophan, producer of the film: What do you learn about yourself from filmmaking? A: We learn to know ourselves through the…

The second edition of CHANGE is now ready to reveal its 2022/2023 lineup. CHANGE is a collaboration between CPH:DOX, EAVE, European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs, Europe’s leading training, development, and networking organisation for producers, and IMS, International Media Support, promoting journalism and documentary film to strengthen…

First some introductory words: A filmmaker, Doug Aubrey, who has had a camera in his hands since he was a teenager, gets thyroid cancer. More than five years ago. He decides to turn the camera towards himself, he who his…

One more documentary film from which I learned – this time about the koli fishing community in India close to Bombay. And one more documentary film where beautiful friendship is conveyed and forms the foreground of extremely difficult life conditions…

It’s a beautiful and elegant website to enter, the one from FipaDoc in Biarritz that introduces itself like this: “We believe in true stories. Stories from here and there, of laughter and tears, stories simple but extraordinary, brave and surprising.…

Always a fine experience to attend the yearly presentation of upcoming documentaries developed at the dok.incubator workshop that has its address in Prague due to its Czech founder and manager Andrea Prenghyova. There was a presentation at IDFA this year,…

Filma Film Fest Ukraine: WHEN TREES BLOOM AT HOME AGAIN migration as a result of military conflict After February 24 we all began to live in a new reality shaped by the full-scale war waged by Russia against Ukraine. The…

The Russian massacre in Bucha in Ukraine is well known and talked about. This film documents the cleaning up after the Russians left. It’s not nice to look at. Corpses in black plastic bags being collected and transported, names spoken…

Main award at IDFA 2022 for Danish director Lea Glob for a film she has been working on for 13 years. A huge achievement to say the least. I saw the film two days ago at home online and was…

I am often asked how boycotting the protesting Russian cinema will help win the war. I found a good example to talk about it with. I came across the project of a documentary film by a Russian director, which is…

When you have been watching scenes and footage from 8 projects at the Verzio DocLab Budapest last week there are moments of what you could call authentic truth that stay in your mind. Let me mention 4 of them: A…

From tuesday till saturday 8 film projects were being worked on in Budapest as part of the Verzio Human Rights Film Festival. The filmmakers came with their material and were met by mentors and colleagues, who gave them feedback in…

Here is how the director Kyrylo Naumko introduces his film “Dear Odesa” on the website of Zelig (): I did not notice exactly how and when life in Odesa became unbearable. But, probably, last 2 years I had a terrible…

The Best Foreign Film Award of 1.000 euros. Shared equally to: Maija Isola (Finland), Leena Kilpelainen. and  Looking for Horses (Bosnia-Herzegovina/France),Stefan Pavlovic     Best Greek Film Award of 1.000 euros with the support of Greek Film Centre: The Bet (Greece)Maria Leonida. The Award…

While in the Greek island: Two mornings with film students from Romania, organised by Ana Vlad, documentary teacher at the university and a film director I have known for many years. Pleasure to work with her. I asked the students…