Pollution out, pollution in. I am in Paris for one day passing to the fipa festival in Biarritz. I see all cafés having added an outdoor terrasse for the smokers. And I see – and experience – that it is no longer possible to have a montecristo cigar with your coffee after a wonderful meal of oysters and a crème brulèe!

A consolation… is that you now can watch television in most of the Parisian cafés! So you dont have to talk to your companion if you wish to watch fashion models doing the catwalk or football or music videos.

Congratulations to Parisian culture… that was once. Hello to Degas and Toulouse Lautrec and all your fine café paintings that we can now study in the museums. And hello to Truffaut and Godard and all the others… “Jules et Jim” and “A bout de souffle”, Moreau and Belmondo, always with a cigarette!

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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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