Audrius Stonys made a lecture this morning. I have heard him doing so many times and have written several praising sentences on filmkommentaren.dk  – about this filmmaker who is for sure to be considered as a national poet in his own country, and from a world perspective as an excellent representative of a different documentary cinema.

The biggest censors are inside yourself, Stonys said, who grew up in a country occupied by the big empire and who did not really see films in general geting better after the independence. He said so after another pleasant view of the 1978 Herz Frank film ”10 Minutes Older”. I truly believe that film is a conversation between equal partners, Stonys continued, the audience takes part in the creative process, this meeting is the most important part of the filmmaking.

I don’t believe in films without mistakes, he said and went on to show a clip from his own ”Flying over Blue Fields”, where a sport aeroplane lands on a field, a man gets out, parks the plane and goes inside while the camera observes chicken and bushes accompanied by music. No words, I don’t trust them, Stonys said, and showed another clip, from his early work, ”Earth of the Blind”, that has no words at all. I want to catch the impossible, he could also have said the invisible and the emotions in a face, like he demonstrated in the film from 2000, ”Alone”, a film in many layers: a girl that visits her mother who is in prison, a film crew that is (the director’s words) ”using” her, and an atmosphere of melancholy, a feeling that is present in most of Stonys films. He did not show films from recent years, he could have done so, and demonstrate that he can also cope with words as he did in ”The Bell” that you can read about on this site.

Share your love
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.

Articles: 3926