Wonderful Losers Wins Two Awards in Minsk

Photo of a happy man, Lithuanian Arunas Matelis, on stage in Minsk at the Listapad Minsk International Film Festival. As I wrote some days ago the selection for the main documentary competition was very strong – http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4077/ – so also from that perspective it is a true appreciation of the work by Arunas Matelis that he received not only an award as the best documentary film but also the audience award for the best documentary. The film ”Wonderful Losers: A Different World” (with coproducers from Lithuania, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia, UK, Ireland, Spain!) has now participated in two festivals (first one in Warsaw) and won 3 awards! Matelis is – by the way – used to receive awards. His previous film ”Before Flying Back to the Earth” got the main awards at DOK Leipzig and at IDFA.

The Georgian ”City of the Sun” by Rati Oneli (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3995/) received the Special Jury award and there was a diploma for the Polish masterpiece ”The Prince and the Dybbuk” (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4052/ by Elvira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski.

Both of these films are screened at the upcoming IDFA but not the film by Arunas Matelis, why not? However, it is available at the festival’s Docs for Sale.

Also to be mentioned: there were a couple of special prizes for the wonderful ”The Last Waltz” by Russian Yulia Bobkova (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3984/ and one for the fine ”Country of Women” by Aliaksei Paluyan (http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4071/)

None of them are at IDFA.

Read more on the website, link below.

Photo taken by Lithuanian film critic and festival programmer Edvinas Pukšta. Thanks.

http://listapad.com/en/

PS. The jury for the documentaries – Andrei Zagdansky, Dmitri Makhomet, Zanete Ašcuka, Anna Zamecka and Gennady Kofman – advocated at the festival for ”Free Oleg Sentsov”. Respect! http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3943/

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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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