Wonderful Winner at Warsaw International FF

”Wonderful Losers” was the wonderful winner in the documentary competition at the international film festival in Warsaw. Here is what I found on the website of the festival, after the award ceremony last night:

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION Jury: Volia Chajkouskaya – Belarus, Anna Zamecka – Poland, Jude Ratnam – Sri Lanka awarded: Best Documentary Feature: WONDERFUL LOSERS: A DIFFERENT WORLD by Arūnas Matelis, Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Belgium

… competent jury of filmmakers who made a choice that for sure will help the film of Arūnas Matelis in its future life around the world. This is what the film is about, taken from its website:

”For spectators, cyclists in the back of the race are simply the losers. They are called water carriers, domestics, gregarios, and Sancho Panzas of professional cycling. Moreover, they have no right to personal victories – these sportsmen sacrifice their careers to help their teammates.

We follow the magnificent world of the race from the point of view of the doctors’ team situated in a claustrophobically small medical car surrounded with wounded cyclists. The life of the medical team in race reminds one on the frontline of war. Cyclists crash, rise and race again. And amongst this fight, many magnificent things happen.

This film-odyssey reveals the untold world of the wonderful losers, true warriors, knights and monks of professional cycling…”

Lithuania is a country that has a fine tradition in professional cycling with Edita Pučinskaitė as one of the stars. She was in Warsaw for the premiere and she has been helping Arūnas Matelis and Algimantė Matelienė as a consultant and researcher. Read more about her, link below.

topics.revolvy.com/topic/Edita

http://www.wonderfullosers.com/ 

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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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