Rafal Skalski: 52 Percent

Short documentaries of international quality are hard to find. The television stations have long ago given up slots for shorts, with a few exceptions like Arte, and the film institutes and the public funding systems do the same – because where can the films be shown?

But they are produced, in film schools first of all, and by young filmmakers who finance their films by themselves and put them online.

This Polish beauty, however, has made the festival circuit and wone the prizes it deserves. I have no objections at all to a film that has a title that refers to the ideal proportion of one’s leg length to height. One of the most important admission criteria set by the State Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, and the one that 11 year old Alla has to conquer. Look at the face of this girl, a perfect cast, conveyed with brilliant cinematography by Jakub Giza in a film that has the right rythm and duration and a universal appeal… we have all met these ”52 percent” in our lives.

The film was made under „Russia and Poland. New Gaze” project, 2nd edition. The project was realized by Eureka Media and Adam Mickiewicz Institute with financial support of Polish Film Institute.

Poland, 2007, 19 mins.

http://www.eurekamedia.info/index.php?id=37

http://www.iam.pl/en/site/aktualnosci/krakowski_festiwal2  

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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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