The 18th  edition of the Finnish documentary film festival is going on right now and until Sunday in a Finnish capital full of snow – I have been moving very slow from cinema to cinema, luckily they are very close to each other in the centre, to avoid falling. We are not used to that much snow in Denmark any longer.

I was here for the first edition of a festival founded by and still run by filmmakers. Tapio Riihimäki, executive director of Docpoint, tells me that the festival is expected to have around 30.000 spectators – and he says so having already arranged several extra screenings because of sold out films of the over 260 screenings!

107 films, the best of the best from all over the world, masterclasses and two awards, the Audience award for the best Finnish documentary and a critic’s choice. That’s why I am here, as a critic for filmkommentaren.dk to pick the best from my point of view, and write a review to be published this coming Sunday or Monday. 7 screenings, some of them with several films. A nice job to have, a good atmosphere, a couple of full houses I have attended since I came here Wednesday, welcomed by Tapio and an old friend John Webster, who is chairman of the board with a strong filmography. Having three films in the pipeline!

I have met many doc colleagues in the couple of days, I have been here, more about that in another blogpost.

https://docpointfestival.fi/en/

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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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