Magnificent7 2009/1

It is such an adventure to go to the cinema for four days to watch 7 films that are received with enthusiasm and emotion by the most wonderful audience I know, the one in Belgrade. You can not overestimate the experience it is to sit in a hall full of spectators of all ages. There were full houses, 500 for the screenings in the small hall, 1500 for the closing film in the big auditorium of the Sava Centre.

The films were Blind Loves (Juraj Lehotsky), The Mother (Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov), Shake the Devil Off (Peter Entell), Vesterbro (Michael Noer), Oblivion (Heddy Honigmann), All White in Barking (photo) (Marc Isaacs) and Sleep Furiously (Gideon Koppel). The directors were present and did a masterclass with young Serbian filmmakers the day after the public screening. To represent Vesterbro the main character Julie Pedersen took part, for Oblivion the producer Carmen Cobos was in Belgrade.

The festival was organised by Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, filmmakers themselves, running the film school Kvadrat. The young documentarians Mila Turajlic, Sonja Blagojevic, Jelena Stankovic and Andrijana Stojkovic were managing and coordinating this unique festival. I had the privilege, as in the previous five years, to co-select the films.

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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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