Memorimage 2010/1

In Reus, a city a bit more than one hour’s drive from Barcelona, there is a film festival called Memorimage. It is quite unique in its basic philosophy. It deals with ”today’s films with yesterday’s images”, as it is being formulated by one of the organisers of a documentary festival that offers its audience to watch films based on the creative use of archival footage.

Around 20 films in the programme, 6 awards, and a diversity of subjects that range from a found, unfinished nazi propaganda film from the Warsaw ghetto ( ”A Film Unfinished” (PHOTO) by Israeli Yael Hersonski) to a film (”All the Night Long” by Isaki Lacuesta) that evokes the memories of when Ava Gardner came to Costa Brava in 1960 to play in a film called ”Pandora”.

Audience? A nice number of people were entering the cinemas and great it was to see students from the local university in the dark. The organisers had done a lot to target their audience and got around 200 students to be involved. They had chosen to watch documentaries on a big screen as part of their studies and got curriculum credits for that. For many a new world to discover away from the online downloads of films or the dvd loans from the local videoshop. Film education in other words. The programme also included morning screenings for seniors, and for school children, who had conversations with the international directors present.

”Once again we are setting out down the memory lane”, another quote from the organisers. I was there for the second time to sit on the jury. Read more about it below and on the site.

www.memorimagefestival.org

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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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