DocsBarcelona 2013/ 1

On the night where FC Barcelona stars travel their city in an open bus, to celebrate the championship with their fans, it is the 22nd league title for the one and only club, this blogger follows on Danish television, whenever they play, it is time to look ahead to the programme of another institution in the Catalan capital:

… DocsBarcelona, which is an International Documentary Film Festival and a Pitching Forum. The festival runs from May 29 till June 2. The pitching forum is scheduled for May 30 and 31. A one-day interactive documentary seminar takes place May 29.

As head of the pitching forum and as co-programmer of the festival’s official section with Joan Gonzalez, director of DocsBarcelona, I will be reporting on this blog both during and (as now) before the event. Let me give you some overall information at this point:

The festival’s official section presents 19 films, including (let point out 5 titles for now) Jay Bulger’s wonderful portrait of the mad genius drummer Ginger Baker, ”Beware of Mr. Baker” (photo) is the title, full of music and archive from the times of Cream. Alan Berliner’s ”First Cousin Once Removed”, what an uplifting and warm film about  Edwin Honig, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, Berliner is a master in montage. Multi-skilled performance artist, Palestinian Khaled Jarrar has made ”Infiltrators” from the Jerusalem wall, important and shameful documentation of humiliation of human beings as it happens right now. ”Noise” is from close-by, in Tel Aviv, where Israeli director Dan Geva experiences a drama of constant noise that in the film is developed cleverly to more than a physical problem. And ”The Act of Killing” by Joshua Oppenheimer, for documentary interested people, I think no further introduction is needed.

Two master classes are scheduled to take place in Gaudi’s masterpiece, La Pedrera: One is with Michael Glawogger, whose ”Whore’s Glory” is in the official section, the other with Fredrik Gertten on ”Bananas!” and ”Big Boys Gone Bananas!”, both films are shown at the festival.

I will come back to the pitching forum and its content on a later occasion.

Football championship is won, the next adventures will come from DocsBarcelona 2013.

http://www.docsbarcelona.com/en/index.php?edicion=2013

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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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