DOCSBarcelona 2009

Step by step the DOCSBarcelona has grown into an international documentary event of great importance in the city that right now hosts the best football team in the world. It is now a festival and a pitching forum. The organiser is Parallel 40 with Joan Gonzalez as the mastermind, the pitching forum being co-organised with EDN. The forum has again been quite popular when it comes to applications. 165 projects was received from 35 countries, 24 were selected. This number reflects an increase by 15%. 68 came from Spain, the rest from countries like Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Chile, China, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, Netherland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela. Yes, they want to make docs all over the world.

The festival programme includes several sections. There is a history documentary section that among others presents the masterpiece by Brian Hill, ”The Not Dead”, written about on this blog. There is a so-called ”Dernier Repas”, where the selector Joan Salvat from local TV3/TVC has chosen ”Burma VJ” by Anders Østergaard. There is programme of new Catalan documentaries, a section with films by young talents, and one for a young audience. I have been consulting the festival and the pitching forum, and I am responsable for the selection of a Panorama section: ”Recipes for a Disaster”, ”Amour, sexe et Mobylette”, ”El Olvido” and ”Z32”, all written about on filmkommentaren.dk The director of ”Z32”, Avi Mograbi, gives a masterclass at the festival.

Photo: Recipes for a Disaster. Dates: January 27 – February 1. More information

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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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