Vilnius Diary 7

Jurga Ivanauskaite is a cult figure in Lithuania. Born in 1961, the writer died young in 2007 leaving behind her a strong reputation as a writer with star quality, a writer who did not only write beautiful books and poems but who was also a political activist. A controversial personality who got into trouble when she took part in demonstrations against the Chinese oppression of Tibet, the country she travelled to and lived in for a long time.

A film has been made about Jurga Ivanauskaite, whose books have been translated into several languages. A good film that combines in a fine way public and private archive material – with methaphoric imagery (the title, see below) and pieces of read poetry, in other words – this film is a fine intro to a very charismatic Lithuanian writer, who passed away far too early.

Dance in the Desert. Lithuania, 2009, 71 mins. Director: Agne Marcinkeviciute. Producer Zivile Gallego

http://www.booksfromlithuania.lt/index.php?page_id=20

http://www.fralita.com/news.html

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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