Ventzislavova/Ničić: Fokus Pokus €uromat

It is an obvious story- to go to the amusement park in Vienna, the Prater, famous also for the Harry Lime tune, Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, but in this case it is a documentary that brings us stories about people, who work at the Prater, many of them coming from the former Yugoslavia and other Balkan countries. As do the Bulgarian and Serbian directors of this impressionistic documentary with a somewhat enigmatic title. There are some quite charismatic and colourful characters among those, the two directors have talked to, and there are some great pieces of montage in the film that follows the back stage life of Prater during a year. The two directors do not come from the classical documentary environment, but from the art scene and the documentary is best when they go for the visual bombardment, whereas some of the talks with especially the foreigners are felt repititive in the global context.

A methaphor for the society it is described to be on the site of the film, and it can be seen like this, including a dose of xenophophia and unfulfilled dreams of a good life from all those who left their countries to live in €urope.

Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia, 2005/2006, 60min

http://www.fokus-pokus-euromatik.net/

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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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