Sidabrinė gervė 2022

The national award ceremony in Lithuania takes place 6th of June. With many categories and a lot of nominations attached. I take a look at the ones for Best Documentary that has a very strong line-up. 

I had seen four of the five but got a link to the fifth Mončys. emaitis iš Paryiaus (Re. Linas Mikuta, Prod. Jurga Gluskinienė), a well-made classical (good cinematography, fine mix between archive, shots from France and Lithuania including interviews with his sister and sons) bio about the interesting Antanas Moncys, who performed his sculpturing art in – primarily – Paris but kept his cultural roots in his works, being a samogitian, i.e. from a region in the North-East of Lithuania. Shame on me who has been to Lithuania so many times, being ignorant about Moncys, but now I know about a great artist working from wood and at the next voyage I will try to visit the museum dedicated to him in Palanga.

No further intro needed to  Mr. Landsbergis. Sugriauti blogio imperiją (Re. Sergei Loznitsa, Prod. Uljana Kim)that I saw at IDFA, where it received the main award and where the protagonist, professor Landsbergis, was present to talk to the audience after the screening for more than an hour. Charisma is the word. What a man!Read more here: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4991/

And I am getting sad to write about  Pavyzdingas elgesys (Re. Audrius Mickevičius, Nerijus Milerius, Prod. Rasa Miškinytė), such a great film (English title: Exemplary Behaviour), read all about it here: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4648/ The sadness comes from knowing Audrius M. and his long preparation for a film that he could not see finished himself, he died in 2017.

And ”The Jump” by Giedré Z, an international film success, loads of festivals and awards already, an amazing achievement by the director, who has been present at so many festivals to meet the audience and has taken care of the national distribution herself.  Šuolis (Re. Giedrė ickytė, Prod. Giedrė ickytė, Uldis Cekulis) Read more: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4125/

Švelnūs kariai (Re. Marija Stonytė, Prod. Giedrė ickytė) – ”Gentle Warriors”, a debut of the young talented director with Giedre Z. as producer. I saw it being pitched, I saw a very promising rough cut but have not seen the final film that also has had a fine distributed in Lithuania. 

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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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