CPH:DOX 09/1

It’s show time in Copenhagen. The international documentary film festival starts November 6 and runs until November 15. A huge programme is set up to satisfy the local documentary addicts and the visiting professionals.

BUT they don’t get the best of the best. A close study of the programme shows that there are no films from Eastern Europe, so often praised for originality, strong human interest topics and cinematic quality on this site. Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland. Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia etc. Films from these countries, films that win awards in festivals are simply not there – Czech Republic is represented with one film, and that’s it. The festival has sections that group the best films of the year, there is an amnesty award, there is a section for ”new vision” – but there are no films by Sergei Loznitsa, Audrius Stonys, Marko Skop, Jan Gogola, Peter Kerekes (Photo from “Cooking History”), Atanas Georgiev, Pawel Lozinski, Bartek Konopka, György Nemes – all names that loyal readers of this site know, and I could have mentioned many more. Not good, actually quite insufficient programming.

www.cphdox.dk

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.

Articles: 3931