A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
Have to confess that my knowledge of The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar was very limited until my former colleague from EDN Anita Reher got the job as executive director and put me on the mailing list for news. Frequently press…
One more generous free offer from ”your online documentary cinema”, the vod DocAlliance, starts tomorrow and runs until June 23: 7 films by Nicolas Philibert, who once wrote the following about his method: ”I feel the need to create a…
On the National Day of Sweden, June 6, SVT (Swedish national public tv broadcaster) had a present for its viewers. At 8.20 in the morning a broadcast was made of the classic documentary by Jan Troell from 1988, Sagolandet (Land…
The job given to Michael Glawogger at DocsBarcelona was very simple: find 7 clips and talk about them in your master class. He found 6 and surprised this blogger, who thought he knew the work of the Austrian filmmaker, by…
The trade magazine Screen Daily has a long article (May 20) on the big presence of documentaries in Cannes. The article, written by Melanie Goodfellow, mentions films to be shown and sold as well as statements from people who sell…
The Guardian published a very interesting article Tuesday May 14. Agnès Poirier had seen the new film by legendary Claude Lanzmann about Benjamin Murmelstein, who collaborated with the Nazis as the last Jewish Council President in Theresienstadt. Poirier talks to…
Normally we do not do promotion for training programmes but there are exceptions. As this one, the Ex Oriente Film workshop based in Prague, that enters a new decade, after – this is how the organisers, led by Veronika Liskova…
The following text in Danish is praising the Copenhagen Cinemateket, part of the Danish Film Institute, for its programme for May and June. A real treat for film lovers, film history with the giants Luchino Visconti and Satyajit Ray in…
You can easily spend some hours at the Parisian Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaisme with the excellent exhibition of works of the three photo documentarians Capa, Taro and Chim (open until June 30), also called photo journalists, also called…
Let me pass on some words from the Aleksei German obituary in Guardian February 26 (written by Ronald Bergan) – he died 74 year old after he … for more than 10 years, (German) had been struggling to complete History…
The festival is over, awards were given last night, again the Red Hall in the Cinema House in Kiev was packed with primarily a young audience full of enthusiasm. You may have head-shaking opinions about the architecture of the Cinema…
Friday night two old boys in the documentary community, Italian Stefano Tealdi and Catalan Joan Gonzàlez got the EDN Award 2013. I allow myself this characterisation of dear friends, who were there, when EDN (European Documentary Network) started and who…
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…
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…
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…
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…
… 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…
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…
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…
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…
… 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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 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…
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…
… 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 ……
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…
”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…
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.…
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:…
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…
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…
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,…
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…