A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Tom Roston, film blogger with his own column, Doc Soup, on the site of American POV, writes today on Flaherty and Linklater, an elegant reflection on the two’s pioneer work with each their own genre. Here is a quote: ”……
FOF-Randers har også en højskole. Der havde jeg for nogle dage siden et foredrag, som noget pompøst var slået således op i aftenskolens katalog: ”JON BANG CARLSENS FILM – mellem digt og virkelighed. Jon Bang Carlsen har lavet film siden…
The Flaherty has announced its 2015 seminar, June 13-19 at the Colgate University, Hamilton NY. The programmer is Laura U. Marks. There is a focus on Arab film artists – you can read much more about the event by clicking…
Of course we Danes must have an award carrying the name of Dreyer: “Every year on Dreyer’s birthday, the Carl Th. Dreyer Memorial Fund awards a prize primarily to a young film director, or other artist working in film, in…
Jeg har ikke tid til at skrive en egentlig anmeldelse af André Singers imponerende og vigtige film, som jeg så på SVT i går aftes. Allan Berg vil muligvis stå for den. Men filmen er som historisk dokument naturligvis unik,…
Yes, of course it is the unique Doc Alliance that brings to us – FOR FREE – seven of Kossakovsky’s film online – UNTIL FEBRUARY 1ST. It is “the first time that they enter the virtual online world and thus…
Grand old man and enfant terrible of French militant cinema René Vautier died Sunday January 4th in his home in Cancale, Brittany, at the age of 86. Originally from Brittany, René Vautier fought the Germans as a very young member…
On the way to the Zelig film school in Bolzano a stop was made in Berlin for some days. Apart from enjoying oysters in KaDeWee or la Fayette the city’s many good restaurants often have Kalbsleber in its classic version…
First text of 2015. Happy New Year to all our readers! I sit in the armchair of my room, the place to be when football is to be watched on the small tv screen, or documentaries on the computer via…
Back to film blogging after holidays. Michael Haneke is the right one for a comeback. In the Paris Review winter 2014 issue there is a small excerpt from an interview with the director – if you want to read the…
There has been quite a film party going on in the Latvian capital. Not only has the city, as Cultural Capital of Europe, hosted the EFA Awards – films have been shown at the Riga International Film Festival that ran…
Denmark’s oldest film journal Kosmorama (first issue in 1954) presents a slate of articles (online and in English as well) that could interest the true film buffs among our readers. The articles are written by film historians and academics. The…
Got this press release from Andrea Pruchová from DocAlliance this morning – concerning an early super-generous xmas gift to all of us documentary fans: His films tend to attract general attention. While festival juries churn out awards, as seen in…
Festival director and film critic Amir Labaki is in Amsterdam for IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) and is interviewed for the fine Daily News of the festival – an online press service of the festival, in general to be…
I was there yesterday – on the bowery in New York. And of course remembered the 1956 docufiction classic by Lionel Rogosin. That carries the title “On the Bowery”. Back in the hotel I watched the trailer of the film,…
This is by every standard a remarkable film – not because it tells us about the extensive surveillance of all but everybody, but because we get to meet an otherwise obscured person of such significance to today’s society and because…
Sundance Documentary Film Program director Tabitha Jackson talked at the DOC NYC, the documentary film festival that runs in new York right now, until the 20th of November. Jackson who used to work at Channel 4 in London, and was…
I have just left a nice chat with a former Zelig film school student – one of a handful who go to Leipzig to watch films and meet people, build contacts and enjoy masterclasses. It helps that Leipzig is such…
The premiere was in 2008, in Riga, the film about Klucis, ”The Deconstruction of an Artist”. Directed by Peteris Krilovs. And here I stand in front of the Arsenals Exhibition Hall of the Latvian National Museum of Art, where there…
I am in Riga – again – to take part in a “Baltic Sea Region Documentary Film Research Seminar” arranged by LAC Riga Film Museum. It starts today and my job is to give a brief introduction to the Danish…
DOKLeipzig 2014 presents an ”homage to Jon Bang Carlsen”. A long text from the festival site follows below. The director is also to make a masterclass at the festival. To be recommended. Masterclasses with Bang Carlsen are always lively and…
Nordisk Panorama 25! – a documentary tour down memory lane. Yes, the first one was in Grimstad, this idyllic and romantic spot on the South coast of Norway. I was there and so was she, with whom I have shared my life…
Yes, she is a documentary superstar, Helena Trestikova. Filmkommentaren has had many posts about her films, which are shot over decades, always with a warm heart for its protagonists, and a social perspective. Now the DocAlliance gives you an offer…
Well, I was definitely away from my comfort zone… Around the table were Russian critics, journalists, a writer of a book on the banning of films in Soviet Union – and some younger filmmakers, who were there to say something…
I attended the opening of the 25th edition of Nordisk Panorama friday night in Malmö, Sweden. It was a grand event because the organisers had picked the right film to start the festival. Below is the website description of Garden…
Last week Michael Moore, at the Toronto International Film Festival Doc Conference, 25 years after his “Roger and me” (photo) was released, presented 13 rules for making documentary films. A manifesto. He stressed that documentary filmmakers should not be called…
“GlobalDoK: Danish Film Institute Present” is the title chosen for a presentation of new Danish documentaries in St.Petersburg at the Message to Man festival (September 20-27). In collaboration with the DFI and with me as a helper for the programmer…
The photo in the post below is a bit small but shows the wonderful screening situation in the house of Uldis Brauns. Here you have him in the garden.
During the many years that I have followed Latvian documentary cinema, the name Uldis Brauns has always been like a magic enigma. Who is he, where is he, what is he doing? The master, that is how he is characterised…
Press release (edited) of today from The Flaherty, great initiative: Cinema Guild and The Flaherty announced today an exclusive digital partnership to create a curated series spotlighting the work of groundbreaking artists and filmmakers. Volumes in the series, titled “The…
I am sitting on the 11th floor of Hotel Albert in Riga. We are into the third day of the workshop that preceeds the pitching of the weekend. 22 projects will be presented after two days of intense discussions of…
… is a phenomenon. I have known him since the Balticum Film & TV Festival on the island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea, going on from 1990-2000. He came there several times and 6 of his…
… by offering a selection of short Balkan documentaries for free until August 17. On the occasion of the 20th edition, Rada Sesic, the festival’s programmer of documentaries, has picked what she herself calls ”… pearls of the documentary expression,…
So this is my choice for the Sight & Sound “The Greatest Docs Ever”. I have chosen films that I have used in my work as a teacher and consultant, films that I have come back to because they have…
The international film magazine Sight & Sound has ”polled 340 critics, programmers and filmmakers in the search for authoritative answers”, which are now published in two parts (click on link below) – ”the top 50 documentaries as nominated by 237…
Richard Leacock died 2011 and yesterday one more from the Direct Cinema movement of the 1960’es that changed the documentary history, passed away: Robert Drew. As USA Today puts it in their factual obituary: Drew formed Drew Associates in 1960…
I like this tradition so much – the plaques that are put on the walls of the houses, where great artists have been living and working. To honour them and remember. They do so a lot in the Baltic countries…
The Austrian Film Museum (celebration of its 50th year) has a present to all who are interested in film history and Dziga Vertov and history of course, read here, click and watch, it is so well presented: The Kinonedelja (Kino-Week)…
It starts today, the yearly Flaherty seminar at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York and runs until June 20. Programmers are Gabriela Monroy & Caspar Stracke – you can read more about them on the website of Flaherty, link below. Here…
The Czech production company Film&Sociology was so kind to send me a vimeo link so I could watch Janek’s film on Olga Havlova, which I had read about passionately because of ”Citizen Havel”, where she is very much present with…
At DocsBarcelona 2013 Michael Glawogger asked me if I could write a piece on ”Megacities” and the remix of it done by Timo Novotny, ”Life in Loops”. Compare the two, he said, and he gave me the dvd’s of the…
Han siger, at han nu ved, hvordan det var, hvor forfærdende. Og Joshua Oppenheimer replicerer fra sin plads ved kameraet: Jamen, dine ofre havde det meget værre, de vidste, de skulle dø. Du ved, at dette er film. Anwar Congo…
Have to confess that I did not know about the online documentary film magazine DOK Revue. Now I do, and it is no surprise that this fine initiative comes out of the Czech Republic, this time from the Jihlava International…
This is a film, that I can’t wait to see. The main character is Olga Havlová, the director is Miroslav Janek. It guarantees the quality. Janek made “Citizen Havel” into an unforgettable film, when he took over the material that…
National Film Board of Canada/Office National du film du Canada is the oldest national film institution in the world, as far as I know. It started in 1939, and is being celebrated in and outside its own country because of…
”Niels Jensen behandler på sin umistelige lyriske malerbaggrund indforstået Palle Kjærulff-Schmidts ‘Der var engang en krig’ og når efter et langt tilløb om den tids stemning frem til Claus Loofs fotografi. Som, ja altså, så forunderligt præcist rammer den stemning.…
Det var en herlig tirsdag eftermiddag på Den danske Filmskole. Niels Jensen var tilbage i rollen som den inspirerende, vidende og altid veloplagte filmpædagog og –historiker. Her er historien: ”Indtil sin død (december 2010, red.) arbejdede Niels Jensen på et…
”A World of Troubled Beauty…” HEADLINE NY Times brought the most precise headline to an article about the films of Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger’s impressive work: A World of Troubled Beauty – referring to his…
Shocking news – Michael Glawogger has died from malaria during the shooting of a film in Africa. So young! My deepest condolences to family and the many, who were close to him. In June last year I had the privilege…
Jeg er ved langsomt at lære FILMCENTRALEN / FOR ALLE at kende. Den er ikke Statsbiblioteket eller Det Kongelige Bibliotek, jeg kan ikke bare komme med min seddel over de filminstrktører, jeg har brug for i mit arbejde, og så…