Dialëktus Festival/1

The director and cinematographer Klara Trencsenyi and her husband, anthropologist Vlada Naumescu made the beautiful documentary Birds Way that was reviewed on this site some months ago. In the review I used the words ”hospitality and openness” and they could very well be used again to characterize how Trencsenyi welcomed her colleagues from Poland, Slovakia and Hungary in the workshop she organised in the framework of the Dialëktus festival, see more about that below.

The workshop was named ”My Deer. Project Development Workshop” and had the very simple aim to have the 9 projects looked at, discussed, rewritten and/or re-edited for the trailers that had been made for presentation at the workshop, where Hungarian director and professor Andras Peterfly and I were the teachers.

Projects included ”Cracow by Polanski” based primarily on the autobiography of the director and presented by the Polish producer Jarek Manka. There was the very promising ”Hungarian Style” (photo) about Hungarian men with impressive moustaches – manhood and patriotism – to be directed by Nora Lakos. ”A Place to Win” by Petra Pelsöczy about old people from Budapest who won a flat in Lotto half a century ago. ”Regina Jonas” by Diana Groó who has a strong filmography of fiction films, animation and documentaries, many of which, like this about the first female rabbi, are Jewish stories. ”Rise of the Snow Leopard” by András Kollmann, a film about a mountain climber who had one leg amputated but wants to go back to climb. The charming ”Roma Rally” by Gabor Hörcher about two young romas who fix cars and want to compete in a race. And another gypsy story by Iraqi director Koutaiba Al-Janabi, himself a foreigner in Hungary, ”7 Days with Gypsies”, it had a great trailer. And ”Young Forever” by Diana Fabianova who will go from menstruation (her first film, ”Moon Inside You”) to questioning the aging.

The film projects were at the end of the week presented to a panel, that included representatives from Hungarian and Czech television, a film critic, an experienced producer, a festival director and a represenative from IDF, Institute of Documentary Film in Prague. One project which is in its editing phase, ”Wonderful Gladiators”, produced by Hungarian HBO, and made by Zsofia Varga-Kabarcz and Panna Boros, was not pitched but I had the privilege to watch a trailer from this film about mentally handicapped actors – looked great, the finished film will travel.  

To read about the projects, go to

www.dialektusfesztival.hu

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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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