Tsimintia Ana: Biblioteka

There are no users of the library in the provincial town in Georgia. But there is quite a number, around 20, of employed librarians and administrative people. Who do a little or nothing at all. They sit, they move along the bookshelves, they browse the newspapers and magazines, they talk to each other about food, they knit, small things surrounded by literature, that nobody apparently wants… All women, well there is one man who uses the library, he is reading a newspaper, and in the group photo that the director lines up in the beginning of the film, there is man in the back. Some of the women have a desk, one has been moved away from her desk, she sits in the corridor, looks at some magazines and dreams of going to another country to meet a man. Or she argues with the others and tells them that they should all go on strike as their salaries are too low! As a viewer (and as a librarian educated 1972 when people read books…)  you think that it might be more obvious to cut down in the staff… The women are single, this is their world, their lives are there, you imagine, this is where they go to have a good time. To pass the time.

Ana Tsimintia has made a fine film. She has an eye for people and situations and she knows the place. She knows how to wait for moments to come, her camera reads faces. And she knows the place: Her mother works there and she – Ana – has come there since she was a child. Private photos in the beginning of the film give this information.

It is the first feature duration documentary of the director. She demonstrates an impressive sense for rythm and montage, music comes in a natural way, dancing feet to national music take the viewer to what must be another floor of the building, there are great wordless sequences… it’s all very promising and this film must have a long festival life waiting for it. The Georgian National film Centre and Finnish YLE (bravo!) have supported the obvious talent, who is now working on a project called Pioneers, presented at Caucadoc (see below) about children, who are attending activities at the Pioneers Palace. The director did that when a child… ”I will never forgive my mother that she sent me”, she writes in the exposé!

Georgia, 54 mins., 2014

 

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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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