Dokufest Prizren/ 8/ The Winners

Last night in Prizren the Dokufest award ceremony was held at the Lumbhardi cinema followed by one more tribute to late Kiarostami, the screening of his “Close Up”. I take the liberty to mention the winners in the section, where I was part of the jury, the Human Rights Award that was given to “Homeland (Iraq year Zero)” by Abbas Fahdel with the following motivation:

“An uncompromising and monumental documentary that patiently reveals the daily routine of an Iraqi family circling on the edge of tragedy, Homeland personalizes the true cost of war through the filmmaker’s respectful gaze.”

We also gave a “Special Mention” to “Starless Dreams“ by Mehrdad Oskouei with this motivation:

“A documentary film of rare delicacy, Starless Dreams explores the interior world of young imprisoned women in Iran with an indelible emotional precision and sensitivity to its subject.”

Among the many other awards I would like to mention that in the Balkan Documentary section, the main prize was given to “Depth Two” by Serbian Ognjen Glavonic with the motivation like this:

“For a film that we all found to be as cinematically accomplished as it is morally devastating, employing a language to fit its subject that combines audio witness with footage of tragically unpeopled landscapes, putting the viewer in a position of both historical reflection and present outrage, and providing a layered, emotional and intellectual engagement that we won’t soon forget…”

For the rest of the awards, please check

www.dokufest.com

Photo: The photographer, our wonderful jury assistant Gabriela Gojani, James Longley, award winner Abbas Fahnel, Mustafa Kemel Yüksel and me after the screening of his masterpiece.

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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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