DocuDays 2019 Opening

Of course, sadly, the opening of the DocuDays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival could only start with the yearly declaration of solidarity with filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and the other Ukrainians held in Russian prisons.

But there was also an audiovisual live project performed by musician Stanislav Ivashchenko in collaboration with Laser Studio: “750 litres of water, lasers, led lights and only one person, whose every beat is synchronised with its own element and its own sound”. A lot for the eye and for the ear followed by lots of clip presentations of the sections in the festival, a speech from a representative from the Swedish Embassy – as Sweden again is the main supporter of the festival and its focus on human rights and this year the focus on what the digital world we live in come up with of challenges.

Therefore it was natural that the opening film was the Dutch (director Hans Pool) “Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World” with a group of journalistic activists, who investigate cases as the MH17 incident where an Ukrainian flight was shot down in the Eastern part of the country. It was interesting to follow how they work – in a film that was more of a reportage than a creative documentary. Fair enough, here you can say that “content is King”.

The festival has started, more will follow from the festival in Kiev that runs until March 30.

www.docudays.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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