CinéDOC-Tbilisi First Day

… for me, arriving early saturday morning to the Georgian capital to have a wonderful first day at the five year old festival led by Ileana Stanculescu and Artchil Khetagouri. ”Welcome home”, a Georgian filmmaker said to me, and right he is, I feel very much at home here among the many talented Georgian directors and with the Lithuanians, who are here as Lithuania is the Guest Country.

One of them, of course, is Audrius Stonys, who is experiencing a great festival success with his ”Woman and the Glacier”. Just back from HotDocs festival in Canada, the world traveller had a one hour conversation with me about the film and about ”The Baltic New Wave”, his next film where his task is to introduce the audience to what was and is the poetic cinema as it comes out/came out in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

I sat on the first row in the Amirani Cinema, full house for the film of Stonys and for the film that followed, Pawel Lozinski’s ”You Have No Idea How Much I Love You”, the magic chamber play by the Polish director, who took the audience behind the film, how was the casting, how many cameras, the research, the ”why” he wanted to make the film. Anna Dziapshipa, filmmaker, producer, photographer – and professional interpreter gave the long Q&A the rythm it needed. I was happy to be there, also because this was the preparation for the two hour masterclass with Lozinski at the upcoming DocsBarcelona.

Finally an outdoor screening of the Israeli ”Presenting Princess Shaw” by Ido Haar, a film I had heard about and thought ”ah, another of these ”American Dream came through” films”, and it was, but Samantha aka Princess Shaw is such a lively and charming character and the Israeli musician Kutiman, who makes fine art out of her youtube clips is such a sympathetic person, it is a warm film that has its magic moments.

www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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