Dokufest Prizren/ 2/ LoveTrue/ Weiner

… and ”I Don’t Want to Sleep with You I Just Want to Make You Hard”, long title, short film, 29 minutes, Japanese, directed by Momoko Seto, French produced, a sweet visit to a Kyabakura, a hostess club, where men pay to come to drink, laugh and play innocent games with young beautiful women with a limit to how far the rendez-vous can go. No sex in other words. Entertaining.

That was the first film I saw yesterday in the DokuKino in Prizren at noon, at a well attended screening, where the second film of the show was one I expected a lot from, the documentary winner of the festival in Karlovy Vary, ”Lovetrue” by Alma Har’et, whose ”Bombay Beach” was impressive – I was not let down. ”Lovetrue” is an amazingly fascinating essay about love told through three very different stories that are woven together in a complicated structure, where you are constantly surprised by the visual phantasy to combine the protagonist’s past and present, as well as the interpretation of their dreams. It’s quite a bombardment, a film you want to see again. On the photo you see the young and old stripper, whose lives you get close to – to say the least.

And then American ”Weiner” by Josh Kriegmann and Elyse

Steinberg, a well made observational documentary about the rise and fall of Anthony Weiner, the congressman whose campaign to become mayor of New York the filmmakers follow. It is one of these full-access films you seldom see made today, where politicians are protected by campaign staff and spindoctors. But Weiner has invited them to get close to follow his dramatic fall from the top, when his ”sexting” addiction is revealed again and again. Jewish Weiner’s Arabic wife Huma is constantly in the picture, it is quite emotional to follow her reactions to the husband’s ”mistakes”. He is trying hard to have her stand beside him, she lives up to that, at the end she stays at home when he is going to vote. You see him transporting his son in a stroller to the voting place… ”a father and his son”, this is America as is the description of the media, who do not want to hear Weiner talk politics. They even try to set up a confrontation between him and one of the women, with whom he – according to her – had phone sex with, up to five times per day… Observational, yes, but Weiner is interviewed after the fall from the sky, and he is actually sympathetic to watch and listen to.

And then the film about the terror regime in Chad, ”Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy” that I am not going to write about now as it is in the competition, where I am a juror.

Ready for a new day, it is raining down here, where the sport interested Kosovo people can be happy that the Republic’s first Olympic medal was won yesterday, one of Gold: The judo athlete Majilinda Kelmindi. Congratulations!

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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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