Last Men in Aleppo..in Kiev

I have just come back from giving an introduction to a screening of “Last Men in Aleppo”, written and directed by Feras Fayyad, produced by Kareem Abeed and Søren Steen Jespersen Larm Film Denmark, co-directed by Steen Johannessen. A screening in Ukraine Cinema in Kiev within the program of the Docudays ua festival. Full house = close to 500 people in the cinema. Most of them young people. The reason for me giving this introduction was that the Danish ambassador could not be present – I did not mind saying some few words about the film that is winning awards all over = meaning, much more important, that it is shown globally. And I passed some words about my personal experience being in Damascus for the DoxBox documentary festival until it had to stop in 2011, alas. The director of the festival, Orwa Nyrabia, is now appointed director of IDFA festival Amsterdam! There IS an audience for documentaries, also in Kiev at the Docudays festival, I have attended three screenings with full houses and one with 300 spectators, Arunas Matelis, “Wonderful Losers”, this afternoon. It’s all very professionally organised. More will follow, and on behalf of the Embassy of Denmark and Danish documentary it’s nice to see not only “Last Men in Aleppo” but also “Distant Barking of Dogs” by Simon Lereng Wilmont, “Lida” by Anna Eborn and “Bobbi Jene” by Elvira Lind.

http://docudays.ua/eng

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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