Edinburgh DocWeek

It takes place at the same time as the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is organised by the Scottish Documentary Institute that ”run annual programmes which develop filmmakers and producers such as Bridging the Gap (previously written about on this site) and Interdoc (feature documentary)”. (The many activities of the Institute can be read about on the site below.) And it does indeed have all the elements of a well developed international documentary event: pitching training, pitching to a panel of financiers, rough cut screenings, masterclasses, debates with the filmmakers whose films have been taken for screening at the festival etc.

Among those are films that have been praised on this site, first of all the beautiful personal essay of local Amy Hardie, ”The Edge of Dreaming” (photo). It was already screened at idfa Amsterdam 2009 and at DOCSBarcelona, where also Mika Ronkainen’s ”Freetime Machos” about a rugby team in Oulu, Finland met its audiences. Bravo also for programming Nicolas Philibert film about 40 year old ”Nénette”, the orangutang in the Zoo in Paris. All three have been noticed on this site whereas I hope to get to watch ”Two in the Wave”, a film for film lovers of la Nouvelle Vague, about the difficult love-hate relationship between Truffaut and Godard. And ”Out of the Ashes” about a cricket team from Afghanistan and its making it to a World Cup tournament. Again it is nice to observe documentaries to be part of a bigger film festival although the programme  selection seen as a whole does not communicate a clear artistic profile but more a wish to reach a wide audience. Respect for that, of course.

www.docscene.org

www.edfilmfest.org.uk

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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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