Pärnu Estonia – 28th edition

… of the Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, running now and until July 27, initiated and run by film director, visual artist, politician and showman, Mark Soosaar, whose mark is still very strong on a festival with a huge number of films, competitions, out-of-competition screenings, from all over the world.

… including, I have mentioned this before as an example for other festivals to follow, ”a competition on air of Estonian Television… based on nation-wide televoting of the TV-audience”. There are five titles in this category and there are nominations (awards to be decided by the international jury) for three films ”for the important social message and the best artistic achievement” being Alina Rudnitskay’s ”Blood”, Niewiera and Rosolowski’s ”Domino Effect” and ”Ramin” by Audrius Stonys.

In another category, called ”Portraits of Neigbours” you find Ivars Zviedris and Inese Klava’s ”Documentarian”, in ”Survival of Indigenous Peoples” ”Abu Haraz” by Polish Maciej Drygas, and in ”Docs for kids” there are fine works like ”Joanna” by Aneta Kopacz, ”The Wild Years” by Ventura Durall and ”Happiness” by Thomas Balmés.

Take a look at the website, impressive it is with its list of films. There is a true international perspective.

I was in Pärnu twice for the festival and I can assure you that the atmosphere, the discussions and the hospitality is different from the main stream documentary festivals I know.

http://www.chaplin.ee/filmfestival/index.htm

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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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