European Film Awards Documentary Shortlist

You may discuss whether this is the right way to do it: to have 10 documentary film festivals recommend to the European Film Academy one film each to be nominated for the European Film Awards, followed by a decision taken by a small documentary committee. A look at the list reveals that the committee has done its best to get as many countries represented as possible, and yet there are no films from the Baltic countries, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia… why?

Anyway, I am not complaining when on the list of 15 I see Piotr Stasik’s impressive ”21 x New York City” (photo), Pietro Marcello’s hybrid ”Lost and Beautiful”, ”Mallory” by master Helena Trestikova and Loznitsa’s wonderful archive work ”The Event”. And makes me happy to see Marianna Economou being there with her refugee story ”The Longest Run”, and ”Becoming Zlatan” by Gertten brothers as well. Surprised to see Jon Bang Carlsen with ”Déjà Vu”, love that director and love that film, but was he not already listed last year? Gianfranco Rosi is there, of course, with ”Fire at Sea” – an obvious favourite for the award?

The whole list to be found on

http://www.europeanfilmawards.eu

And for the selection procedure:

EFA Members will now vote for five documentary nominations. Based on these nominations, the EFA Members will then elect the ‘European Documentary 2016’ which will be announced during the awards ceremony on 10 December in Wroclaw, European Capital of Culture 2016. 

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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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