DoxBox festival in Damascus

It must be a good sign for the documentary genre that festivals are starting all over the world. And that the more established ones break their audience attendance records year after year. A Golden Age for the documentary? I think so and believe so, both in terms of public interest and aesthetic development, at the same time as I try to forget that television is getting poorer and poorer when it comes to documentary support and programming.

Two hard working Syrian documentarians, Diana El Jeiroudi and Orwa Nyrabia, who presented their film “Dolls” at IDFA in Amsterdam, launch from friday 15th of February DOXBOX 08 in Damascus with a beautiful mélange of new films, neo-classics and classics. I have the privilege to be a member of the advisory board of the new festival and go there to watch films by Pirjo Honkasalo, Nicholas Philibert, Werner Herzog, Johan van der Keuken, Pernille Grønkjær, Nanna Frank Møller, Filip Remunda, Patricio Guzman, Jean Vigo – plus films by local Omar Amiralay, who is a great filmmaker and far too little known outside his own country and France.

More about the festival http://www.dox-box.org/

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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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