Docudays UA: The Nordic Contribution

I want to say Bravo Sweden. Our neighbouring country has for years been the main sponsor of the Docudays UA Human Rights Festival here in Kiev. From the state organisation SIDA, channelled through the Swedish embassy 4 mio. SEK (426.184 €) has been given to the festival and its travelling distribution scheme. That is indeed something to be noticed.

The Danish embassy gives nothing but we are here thanks to generosity of the organisers of the festival. Yesterday I did a Docu/Class of two hours  about the Danish documentary culture (distribution and production) and support system supplemented by clips from Ulla Boje Rasmussen’s ”1700 Metres from the Future”, Jørgen Leth’s ”Life in Denmark”, ”Traveller’s Tale” by Lars Johansson, ”Into Eternity” by Michael Madsen and Janus Metz ”Armadillo”.

In the evening the first part of a Danish mini-series that we have called ”High Five” was shown in the Blue Hall of the Cinema House – that was totally full, around 200 viewers. The films shown were ”Motion Picture” and ”66 Scenes from America” by Jørgen Leth and Ole John. Tonight it is another master of Danish documentary, Jon Bang Carlsen, who shows and discusses ”It’s Now or Never” followed by a class, where he will invite the audience to understand his way of making documentaries. Later at the festival two more neo-classics will be shown, ”Family” (Sami Saif and Phie Ambo) and ”The Monastery” (Pernille Grønkjær).

Photo from the festival opening: Three Danes in Kiev: My wife Ellen Fonnesbech-Sandberg, me and Jon Bang Carlsen.

See our collected posts on Jon Bang Carlsen:

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2569/ 

www.docudays.org.ua  

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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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