A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
A film blog by Allan Berg Nielsen & Tue Steen Müller
To our non-Danish readers who might have noticed that several recent Danish language articles circle around the name, the very Danish name, Niels Jensen. The reason is that Jensen (photo below) died a week ago, 81 year old after a…
For tre år siden blev jeg af Film, DFI’s blad , bedt om at vælge mig en filmisk julegave og begrunde valget. Jeg valgte en bog af netop afdøde Niels Jensen, som jeg siden da har læst med stor fornøjelse.…
Niels Jensen skrev i Filmkunst (1969) videre om Henning Carlsen, at han med trilogien De gamle, Familiebilleder og Ung (1960-65) var blevet “den førende danske repræsentant for moderne dokumentarisme.” Det var skarpt set og modigt vurderet blot fire år senere,…
Jørgen Vestergaard var ung og begynder dengang i 1961, da han var assistent på Carlsens film fra Limfjorden, men han var som den journalist, han også ville være, herefter erobret af den poetiske måde at rapportere på. På film. Carlsens…
De er rimeligt synlige på Filmstribens forside disse dage, Braad Thomsens film gennem årene, mange af dem, de fleste efterhånden. Som Jørgen Vestergaard har han tilsyneladende selv taget fat på digitaliseringen, så otte af dem nu kan streames af alle…
Så sidder man her på et hotelværelse i Tbilisi i Georgien med tårer I øjnene. En halv time efter at en sms tikkede ind med meddelelsen om Niels Jensens død. Jeg så ham sidst i Filmhuset under festivalen cph:dox, han så…
An early christmas present for documentary lovers: The offer to watch artistic short documentaries from the country of filmmakers who, if any, master the poetic film language: Lithuania. In times where these kind of films have problems in getting to…
The without any doubt biggest in audience and most important documentary film festival for the professional community kicks off today in Amsterdam and goes on until November 28. Edition number 23 it is, that will welcome an audience with more…
Many of the 300 films at the festival in Amsterdam have been noticed or reviewed at filmkommentaren.dk. From the programme of today ”Armadillo”, ”Steam of Life”, ”Last Train Home” and ”Erotic Man” can be mentioned… But if I were at…
… is the headline of a long, interesting article in the Observer sunday November 7. It serves as a follow-up to the Sheffield Doc/Fest that has been covered excellently by the Guardian, see site address below. The Observer article (written…
We have posted several texts on the ever original and non-conventional 79 year old Jean-Luc Godard, especially in connection with his newest film ”Film Socialisme”. This sunday (November 14) Guardian has an interesting article that starts like this: It should…
In Reus, a city a bit more than one hour’s drive from Barcelona, there is a film festival called Memorimage. It is quite unique in its basic philosophy. It deals with ”today’s films with yesterday’s images”, as it is being…
The main awards of the festival were given to the Israeli film ”Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork” by Eyal Sivan, and to ”La Isla – Archives from a tragedy” by German Uli Stelzner. Both of them are strong political films, rich…
Young Serbian director Mila Tulajlic has finished her work on “Cinema Komunisto” that will have its international premiere at idfa in Amsterdam and its national premiere as part of the Magnificent/ festival in Belgrade January 25-29. The film will exist…
At a meeting arranged in connection with the EU MEDIA supported training programme Eurodoc, under the leadership of the former head of documentaries at arte France, Thierry Garrel and current Head of Documentaries at YLE, Finland Erkki Astala, the following…
Our Paris correspondent, Sara Thelle, has already written about Film Socialisme by Jean Luc Godard, and her article was one of the reasons that I, with great expectations and huge pleasure, went to see the film in MK2 Beaubourg, where it…
… means ”Documentary of the Month” and is a strong film-cultural initiative for the distribution of creative documentaries for the audiences in around 40 cities of Catalunya, Comunitat Valenciana, Illes Balears and other Spanish cities. Since May 2009, The Documentary…
Want to see, for free, one of the most charming and creative documentaries from the first decade of 2000? You can do so by very simply making a click on the website of idfa.tv. Here is the description of the…
Sunday in Buenos Aires. As hundreds of other we decide to pay a visit to the St. Telmo market. At the main street of the market I see a stand with videos, and many of the covers are familiar to…
Brassaï, original name Gyula Halász, is on exhibition in Buenos Aires. The photographer was one of many famous artists, who lived and worked in Paris, more specifically in Montparnasse (he lived from1899-1984). The National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos…
The Latvians write history with their films. Below a description of the ambition of Ivars Seleckis to make the third part of the epic about the Crossroad Street in Riga. A work that will cover more than 20 years of…
Idfa – International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam – asks every year a prominent director to choose her/his 10 Best Film list, whihc are then screened at the festival. This year the director is Finnish Pirjo Honkasalo and her list goes…
We have written about it since the start of filmkommentaren.dk and we will continue to do so as this excellent initiative is exportable: You find a documentary and short film addict – and connaisseur – with a wide network and…
Richard Leacock, 90 years old in 2011, a master of cinema vérité, always energetic and inspirational… finally gets a filmic homage. It happens now at the Telluride Film Festival and it takes place in association with the first public screening…
Jeg er stadigvæk høj efter to timer søndag formiddag med Jacob Thuesen, der i en tøvende beslutsom og præcis samtale med Michael Bertelsen simpelthen lukkede op for posen af viden, erfaring og researchresultater fra sit arbejde med filmmusik, siden han…
The 25th edition of the festival in Odense, Denmark takes place 23-28. August. There are many reasons to congratulate the municipality of Odense for keeping alive this film festival for all these years in spite of constant battles to raise…
En lille tur ned ad Memory Lane: Klokken er fem, sagde festivaldirektøren, så er det tid til en kold øl. Der havde vi 4-5 udvælgere siddet fra morgenstunden i et af kommunens mødelokaler og set bunker af kortfilm tilsendt fra…
Herzog is – mostly due to this blog’s Allan Berg – a true admirer of the work of the German director – one of the most noticed and praised names of this site. If you write his name in the…
This is a special announcement for our Danish and Swedish readers concerning the broadcast of the film by PeÅ Holmquist, ”My Gaza” August 8 at SVT2 22.05. In other words, this coming sunday, with Danish subtitles for Danish viewers. For…
… but there has been time to visit the Hermitage museum and fight one’s way to study the great collection of Rembrandt works (oh, documentarians, go and study how he caught the magical moments when he did his portraits) and…
Mikhail Litvyakov is the director of the festival in beautiful St. Petersburg. He has passed the seven decades of age but there was no sign of lack of energy when he was on stage to welcome guests and audience in…
What a wonderful and well deserved piece of news. The Best Documentary film (category: under 30 mins.) at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was yesterday given to the Lithuanian documentary ”The River” by Lithuanian filmmaking duo Julija Gruodienė and…
There were three inspirational lectures at the workshop in Corfu. Louise Rosen, American (from her cv) ”media executive in the international television and film business, project development, production and distribution”, talked precisely and inviting about meeting the audience and urged…
On this site we have written about Mazia Bahari several times. For readers who have not seen his films here is a unique chance to get to know his work. Idfa, the world’s biggest documentary festival has published this press…
It takes place at the same time as the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute that ”run annual programmes which develop filmmakers and producers such as Bridging the Gap (previously written about on this…
More than a museum. Indeed it is. It can only be described as magnificent the National Film Museum of Torino. I was there for hours and want to go back as soon as possible. To visit the fine collection of…
In France kids have Wednesdays off from school. For those who have the possibility, it is a day to discover the multiple activities Paris has to offer children. Le centre Pompidou, Beaubourg to Parisians, holds every Wednesday of the school…
Sorry, your English language blogger goes national again… but he has to tell you that from today a website on the most esteemed Danish film director ever, Carl Th. Dreyer (1889-1968), is available. Go to the site address and check…
Our Paris correspondent has previously (search Godard) dedicated a posting to the one and only JLG, Jean-Luc Godard, whose ”Film Socialisme” was screened in Cannes. I found this clip from an overall festival article by Jason Solomons, The Observer, May…
Good news from one the most interesting countries for documentary cinema, Lithuania, whose post-independence documentaries have been and are awarded everywhere. Names like Sharunas Bartas, Audrius Stonys, Arunas Matelis, Rimantas Gruodis, Janina Lapinskaite and Giedre Beinoriute (photo from her 2005…
1000 Danish documentaries and shorts will be made available for the Danish audience. The films, all from 1975-1990, will be digitalised and made accessible through the free streaming service, ”Filmstriben”, that includes all new docs and shorts supported by the…
The prestigious film festival in San Sebastian (September 17-25), one of the so-called A-festivals, has announced a special celebration of what on this site often has been called the new Golden Age of the documentary film genre, in the text…
… stands for ”museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di trento e rovereto”. I went there to see the museum in the small and nice provincial town of Rovereto which is on the road between Bolzano and Verona. The museum…
The legendary French photographer is always considered as the documentarian within the art of photography. Now, according to an article written by Richard Lacayo in Time (May 3) a focus is put on his short but remarkable surrealist period. Here…
No film-visit to Riga without the thinking back to Juris Podnieks and his contribution to world cinema. With an introduction by Lev Gushin, who took part in the scriptwriting of the five hour breathtaking perestroika documentary made for British television,…
This years festival Cinéma du reel had a program called Nous deux – Both of us, featuring films made by filmmakers in couples or pairs. Amongst those shown where The Old Place (1998) and Reportage amateur (maquette expo) (2006) by…
Indiepix, American distributor of independent films, including documentaries and experimental titles, offer their films to be bought as a dvd, to be downloaded to your own computer (pc and mac) or to be viewed as a vod (video on demand).…
It’s the Maysles! At this years edition of Cinéma du réel, the festival paid tribute to Albert Maysles. The Maysles Brothers: the late David on sound and Albert behind the camera, classic direct cinema. As was the case two years…
Palestine, 4 days, end of March 2010. It’s blue sky but still a bit chilly in Ramallah, where I have been for a couple of days. Lively activity outside in the streets of a nice and calm city, 40.000 are…
You plan and plan for weeks and months, you make the schedule, you ask the directors to be there for the screening, you sell the tickets… and then it all have to be changed, at least for a handful of…