Robert Frank, Ukrainian Sheriffs and Kossakovsky

If you read the post below, ”Viktor Kossakovsky at IDFA”, you will discover his insisting on the form, on the composing of the image, on the aesthetics. If you want to see how this can be done, please go and see Laura Israel’s film ”Don’t Blink: Robert Frank” (Photo) here at IDFA. It was screened at the Stedelijk Museum thursday night and is an excellent introduction to the now 91 year old legendary photographer and filmmaker made by his editor and collaborator in many films, a warm and generous portrait and a look into the creative process of a lovely man, a great artist, who has suffered personal tragedies in his life, that is very much present in his work, but who has also demonstrated how to catch moments in the lives of ”The Americans”, the title of his masterpiece. There was a retrospective of his work – and there is right now at IDFA, including his Rolling Stones film, ”Cocksucker Blues” – in Copenhagen, Sara Thelle wrote about it on this site.

And then last night at the Munt 11 cinema with around 400 seats, full house to the world premiere of ”Ukrainian Sheriffs” by Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko, which I have had the pleasure to follow from the sideline and with a biased look: it is an excellent film that demonstrates fully the talent of Bondarchuk, also present in his ”Dixieland” that will premiere next year. A breakthrough on the international scene. The film has wisely been taken fo the main international competition by the IDFA, where it still has 6-7 screenings.

Finally, there has been quite some discussions here at IDFA about the Viktor Kossakovsky session the other day. I wrote about it and this morning I got an email from VK, who wrote to me something important, I have to correct from my previous text: … one thing: I was saying Sorry, because Russians or prorussians shot the airplane MH17. And when I was watching The Belovs I just realized that you can see in the film the main element of russian mentality: unpredictable aggression – when we talk about Patriotism and meaning of life…

www.idfa.nl

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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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