Mladen Kovačević: Merry Christmas Yiwu

This text is written by the festival directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic

This is not a film about China. This is a film about people’s dreams. This is a film about everything that makes a dream about China.

Wonderful and enchanting, this film immediately breaks through all barriers and introduces us to the very center of the intimate circle of dedicated manufacturers of New Year’s decorations. The city of Yiwu, hidden by the shadow of huge Shanghai, every year in December, before Christmas in the western world, becomes one of the most important points on the map of the world for the success of Christian holiday. In that place, series and series of magical, shiny, colourful balls and decorations for Christmas trees around the world are created. This film reveals to us human touches that create colourful Christmas glow. With masterly created long one shot-scenes, Mladen Kovačević brings us closer to faces and secrets, personal stories, hidden desires, hopes. He introduces us to people who become close, dear, interesting to us. At the same time, this is a testimony about leaps in time, about the people who face the world that came out of their vague ideas about the future in which they turned up miraculously. All individual stories exceptionally fit into a vivid, dynamic composition of constant change and never-ending discoveries. Life captured by discreet observation is revealed to us in its exciting fullness and beauty.

A superb modern documentary that amazes with scenes shot for a real cinematic experience.

Serbia, Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium, Qatar 2020, 94 minutes

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/en/index.php 

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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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