EDN & DocAlliance join Forces
Here is an offer you can’t refuse, taken from the EDN website: EDN is happy to announce that all members, who are part of the organization on April 12, will get free access to over 700 documentaries at Doc Alliance…
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Filmkommentaren.dk
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Film History
Read MoreEDN & DocAlliance join Forces
Thessaloniki Doc Fest 15
The 15th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival started two days ago and runs until the 24th of March. The programme is as always impressive – as is the communication from the festival that in a classical journaistic form…
Jon Bang Carlsen – The Inventor of Reality
Danish master Jon Bang Carlsen is in Bucharest these days. He has been invited to present a retrospective of his works at the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, One World Romania, that runs until March 17, like the one…
Iris Olsson: Between Dreams
As the third edition of Cinetrain arrived at its finish line a few weeks ago, it might be just the right time to have a look at one of the first films produced within this unique creative documentary project, which…
Ally Derks Goes to New Zealand
… to be honoured for her work at The Documentary Edge International Documentary Festival in April. Director of the festival, Alex Lee, asked filmkommentaren to convey the news, which we do with pleasure. Some clips from the press release: “We…
Agnès Varda Online Festival
What a feast! And don’t say you can not afford it – it is for free! And it lasts until February 17! I am referring to another generous offer from ”your online documentary cinema” provider DocAlliance. 17 films of Agnès…
Magnificent7 2013/6
The 9th edition of the European Feature Documentary Film Festival ended Sunday night at the big hall of the Belgrade Sava Centre. Manuel von Stürler presented his ”Winter Nomads” followed by Helena Trestikova’s ”Private Universe”. For the first film, that…
Nicolas Philibert with Film on Radio France
For this blogger Nicolas Philibert is one of the most important documentary directors of out time. Filmkommentaren has written about his films frequently, below you have a link that will take you to ”collected posts” about the French director, who…
Godard, Pennebaker & Leacock
… and 7 wonderful minutes with Jefferson Airplane performing from a roof in New York Midtown in 1968. Yes, it is film and music history at its best as Richard Brody, cinema editor at The New Yorker, wrote yesterday urging…
P.P.P.
Taken from a newsletter from FID, the International Film Festival in Marseille (July 3-8), where a passionate director Jean-Pierre Rehm writes: Concerning our upcoming 24th edition… a retrospective will be devoted to Pier Paolo Pasolini. A Mediterranean figure, certainly, since…
DocPoint Helsinki
The programme of the Finnish documentary film festival reflects again that the festival selectors know what they are doing – and they should in a country that has such a high standard in documentary culture. From January 22-27 more than…
Cinema Eye Honors 2013
Awards are being lined up to be distributed these days. The Oscar nominees will be announced in a couple of hours and in three days the Golde Globe comes up. Good for cinema with all this artificial competition?, maybe, good…
Apted & Miroshnichenko: The Up Series
As the 56Up landmark documentary has started to roll out in US theaters past weekend, it might be just the right time to take a look at its Russian equivalent that was broadcast on ARTE in winter of 2012. Inspired by the UK-based…
DOX Winter 2012/13
Beginning of January, no markets or festivals or workshops. Time to read the European Documentary Film Magazine, number 96. And time for a review of a magazine that has a strong and good focus on reviewing documentaries (critiques it is…
DOCAlliance Offers Free Streaming
Again the excellent vod DOCAlliance – calls itself very rightly ”your online documentary cinema” with over 700 quality films – invites (documentary) film lovers to watch films for free, this time its 11 most watched documentaries of 2012. From December…
Jonas Mekas: My Paris Movie
Jonas Mekas loves Paris. So does this blogger and his wife. We were there in December last year. Funny to sit in New York, the home of Mekas, one year later, in his Anthology Archives cinema, in the hall named…
Maysles Cinema
Oops, suddenly you stand in front of a small cinema with the name Maysles Cinema. In the window there is a poster for ”5 Broken Cameras” that runs the same night with a skype Q & A with one of…
Pop in TV and the Movies
The well composed and entertaining exhibition on Whitney in New York runs until March 2013. It has the title ”Dark and Deadpan: Pop in TV and the Movies” and invites you to a dark room with a dozen of screens…
POV – Visiting Simon Kilmurry
I have during the last years tried my best to understand the organisation of the POV, that had its 25th season in 2012. I have – as many others – always been impressed by the commitment of Simon Kilmurry, Executive…
Jean-Louis Trintignant
Michael Haneke’s ”Amour” has Jean-Louis Trigtignant in the leading male role. In connection with the opening of that film in New York, the art cinema house Film Forum is running a retrospective of films with the actor. A unique chance…
Michael Apted: 56 UP
Does it need an introduction this magnificent achievement in the history of documentary cinema and television? Lucky you who have not seen the series that started in 1964, when the children were 7 and have continued every 7 years until…
Jonas Mekas Turns 90!
Legendary underground filmmaker and tireless defender of the independent cinema Jonas Mekas turns 90 years old and is of course celebrated in New York in the Anthology Film Archives with a small retrospective that runs December 17-23. Here are some…
South African Apartheid Documentary Exhibition
The Treason Trial 1956-61 (photo), The Sharpville Massacre 1960, the Soweto Uprising 1976… it is all in its immense brutality very well documented in ICP (International Center of Photography) in New York – runs until January 6 2013 – there…
Picasso in New York
118 black and white works by Picasso at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition runs until January 23 and is highly recommended. As the curators put it on the site of Guggenheim: the first exhibition to explore the…
DFP 10 Years Celebration
DFP stands for Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund and has existed for 10 years which is the reason that realscreen, the fine trade magazine that calls itself ”the best in non-fiction”, brings an interview with the director Cara…
Nikolaus Geyerhalter at DocAlliance
Pleased to recommend a new offer from the vod DocAlliance, this time related to Austrian documentarian Geyerhalter. Here is a slightly edited version of the promotion text from the vod site: We offer a selection of the best films by…
Cinema Komunisto Success
It was one of those nights – the premiere of Mila Turajlic’s ”Cinema Komunisto” – that will be remembered. A totally packed Sava Centre in Belgrade were present for the closing film of Magnificent7 Festival 2011. Standing ovations. It was…
Janus Metz, samlede blogindlæg om hans film
Janus Metz and Lars Skree seek and succeed perfectly, from a humanistic point of view, to bring us into a world that we could not imagine existed in the way it is documented and interpreted here. Even the most horrendous…
IDFA Opening
The opening ceremony of the 25th edition of idfa took place in the Tuschinski theatre close to Rembrandtsplein in Amsterdam. The mother of the festival, as she is called, flamboyant Ally Derks made the opening speech full of passion and…
Jørgen Leth – Collected Posts on his Works
… the Danish director, who has been an inspiration for generations of Danish filmmakers. With Lars von Trier as number one as readers will know from the film”The Five Obstructions”. (Tue Steen Müller) TIL LYKKE MED FØDSELSDAGEN ……
Jørgen Leth
Mid wednes(day) off from Copenhagen with troubled SAS to Amsterdam to attend the 25th idfa (International Documentary Film Festival). On board is also Jørgen Leth on his way to idfa as several times before. This year to be in the…
Grierson
”Celebrating 40 Years” is the title of the 3 mins. montage done by Peter Symes and Mandy Chang. A montage because of the 40 years since the death of John Grierson, the father of documentary, and the setting up of…
Jørgen Vestergaard, alle blogindlæg om hans film
Præsten i Vrensted, Karsten Erbs, havde den torsdag i oktober 2012 inviteret pensionistforeningen og alle ældre til en eftermiddag i præstegården. Han skrev på sin hjemmeeside, at noget særligt havde været på færde: ”Vi havde bagt boller og lavet lagkage.…
New Executive Director of Flaherty
This blogger worked with Anita Reher for a decade at EDN (European Documentary Network) in Copenhagen, now she has a quite an important job in the US, carrying the name of one of the founders of the documentary genre, Bravo:…
Documentary Pearls at Copenhagen Cinematheque
From the site: “The Cinematheque in the heart of Copenhagen offers a rich programme of more than 60 films every month, many of which are in English or with English subtitles. In October, we present roadmovies, East by Southeast, women’s…
Sergey Miroshnichenko: Born in the USSR: 28 Up 1-2
Based on the original idea of Michael Apted – the 7UP series – Sergey Miroshnichenko has filmed a group of Russian kids when they were 7, 14, 21 and now 28 years old. The two-part series (each of them around…
RIDM 2012
A press release from Montréal, where the RIDM Festival resides, this year from November 7-18. The festival has chosen to celebrate its 15th edition with a “special anniversary program, 15 Years, 15 All-Time Favourites”… “to mark our first 15 years,…
DOK Leipzig
Crisis… maybe, but films are made, just received this press release from DOK Leipzig: Some 2,850 films from 77 countries were submitted to this year’s International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, among them 2,200 documentaries and 650 animated…
Message to Man St. Petersburg
There are 11 feature length documentaries in the international competition of the Message to Man festival that takes place September 22-29. There are well known festival hits and winners like ”Bad Weather” (Giovanni Giommi), ”The Collaborator and His Family” (Adi…
Viktor Kossakovsky: My Top 10
Every year the film festival in Amsterdam, idfa, asks well known filmmakers to pick their favourites. This year Viktor Kossakovsky has made his choice. This is a text taken from the website of idfa: According to Kossakovsky, the films in…
Baltic Sea Forum 2012/ 1
It is the third day of the Baltic Sea Forum 2012. A workshop goes on during the day, where 24 projects are being evaluated, trailers and teasers are being adjusted, wordings discussed – in order to have the filmmakers be…
Fatima Varhos: Bergmans video 3. afsnit
OK, det er et tv-program, og jeg finder mig i rammerne, når jeg får disse interviews, disse møder med instruktørerne rundt om i verden så generøst. Og heldigvis i samlede blokke, én ad gangen, så jeg lige kan nå at være…
Fatima Varhos: Bergmans video 2. afsnit
Så er Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel og Biutiful) igen kommet til Fårö, som for ham er et af filmhistoriens vigtigste valfartssteder, ja, for netop ham, tror jeg, det allervigtigste. Her er han på stranden, location for Persona, og han er…
Jean Rouch Tribute
Icarus Films in New York has a strong, high quality catalogue, including several works by Chris Marker, who died end of July this year. This week the company pulished the good news that it has acquired North American distribution rights…
Theodor Christensen: Det gælder din frihed
Theodor. Han blev aldrig kaldt andet, manden der optræder i enhver dansk filmhistorisk fremstilling som den danske filmiske dokumentarismes store teoretiker, manden bag besættelsestidens mesterlige modstandsfilm ”Det gælder din frihed”. Theodor, som Cinemateket har kredset om ved et par lejligheder…
MandagsDokumentaren 10 år
Se, hvad turisten ser, den navnløse by, strømmen, som bærer København og dens ry, de tusind cykelpi’er, et brus af nikkelstyr, sikke pi’er, tag og kys dem alle fra mig! – Poul Henningsen, Cykelsangen (1935) Jo, det er den herlige…
Glawogger Visits Copenhagen
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 trilogy ”Megacities”, ”Workingman’s Death” and ”Whore’s Glory”. The latter, ”Whore’s Glory”…
Georges Franju
A great director, not very well known today, but for this film blogger his “Le Sang des betes” (1949, 22 mins.) from a slaughterhouse in the Parisian suburb, is a unique masterpiece in the history of documentary films. The film…
Chris Marker (1921-2012)
Chris Marker died today, filmkommentaren has written far too little about him, but here is a quote from the obituary of today in Guardian, please read the whole article and below also two links to what we have written about…
Kevin Macdonald: One Day in September
Den er fra 1999, den er en klassiker i dag, og den vil blive stående som klassiker i filmlitteraturen i fremtiden. Som sådan er den altid aktuel, ikke kun fordi der nu er olympiade (den foregår som bekendt under olympiaden…