Film History

Realscreen News publishes today (editor Manori Ravindran) a tribute to Albert Maysles, who passed away on March 5. We take the liberty to bring to you what colleague and cinema vérité pioneer as well D.A. Pennebaker wrote: “I was on…

In the middle of all (the necessary) documentary films about wars and conflicts, going on now and/or some decades ago, it is nice to receive a newsletter from the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, with a report from a press conference on…

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our founder, legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles.  Albert was a loving husband, father, brother and friend to many.  For more than five decades, Albert created groundbreaking films, inspired filmmakers and…

In the mid 1980’es I fell in love with the French film ”Thérèse” by Alain Cavalier. Like many others did. Let me refresh your memory and let newcomers know about it – The back cover of the dvd, according to…

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: ”……

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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)…