Ivana Milosevic: Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White)

Here everything is complicated, says one of the women in the film. It is Cuba she talks about, and she and the 11 other interviewed women in the film both talk about and demonstrate what a life means where you have little and bad food, where power goes out very often and where there are restrictions on what you can say and do. And where your dear one(s) are far away from home.

The women are all ladies in white. Mothers or wives of men, who have been locked up in prisons for their oppositional attitude and contrarevolutionary activities in a dictatorship that has developed through decades. They meet and walk in protest marches dressed in white with white umbrellas and prints of their men on the t-shirts.

The film, made secretely, invites us to meet the women in their homes in a very informal and warm atmosphere with children running around, old people resting in the background and telenovelas very often as the sound to be heard. By written text we get to know the fate of the missing dissidents, who the women can see two hours every second month (!), and through a very present and searching-around-the-rooms camerawork and an exceptionally good choice of music, this has become a creative and important documentary film. A human story about a hard life, pain and sorrow, but also about energy and commitment and hope for change.

Czech Republic, 2008, 58 mins.

http://oneworld.cz/ow/2008/popEN.php?id=13458
http://www.damasdeblanco.com/

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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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