Too many Production Companies?Written 31-03-2009 08:50:55 by Tue Steen Müller  Yves Jeanneau, well known character in French documentary, ex-television editor and ex-producer at Films d’Ici, now producer and CEO of the Sunny Side of the Docs, was interviewed by le Monde (March 29-30). One of the questions went like this:Many producers fear that their companies will not survive after France Télévisions (FR2, FR3, FR4 and FR5) will have one documentary unit. And it is being said that France has too many and too fragile production companies. What is your comment? Jeanneau: I have said so for 10 years. Most of these companies have had one year with one succesful film but will have to give up because of insufficient financing to do the necessary project development. It may sound provocative but talking in economical terms the French documentary production could very well be placed at 5 times less companies than the 700 that exist today. Categories: TV, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments KriegskinderWritten 31-03-2009 08:44:02 by Tue Steen Müller  German public channel Das Erste (”The First”) currently runs a four part series (of each 45 minutes) about and with war (WW2) children. The series made through the MDR, that is based in Leipzig, and produced by local company LE Vision, includes a huge research work that has been done to let personal stories come forward before it is too late. As the participating children are now in their late 70’es or 80’es.I saw the 3rd part and It is moving stories that come forward about children, who lose their parents, about children who were at the front as teenage soldiers, about children who still in their old age have traumatic experiences. It is amazing that they have survived, you often think. The archive material presented is very impressive. The voice-off commentary that takes us by the hand is very well chosen text- and tone-wise. The use of music is balanced. It is a work full of respect for the characters. In a non-sensationalistic frame, yet of course you sense a sometimes too schematic and predictable structure fit for prime time television. The 4th part is on monday April 6, the series can be watched online for a limited period and is son to be released on dvd. http://www.mdr.de/kriegskinder/ http://www.levision.de/
Categories: DVD, TV, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Family FeelingWritten 28-03-2009 09:10:55 by Tue Steen Müller  In Kolin where the 1st session of the Ex Oriente MEDIA supported training programme takes place, we had a fruitful visit of the German cameraman Lars Barthel. He showed us the new film of Helga Reidemeister, ”War and Love in Kabul” (photo), that he had shot. On 16mm and with pure beauty and thought in all scenes. The masterclass with Barthel following the screening was full of eye-opening comments from a cameraman, who in this way gave us a profile of himself. Asked about his collaboration with directors, he stressed that the relationship on a human level is far the most important. Topic and professional matters come second. ”The good relation has to last after the film”, he said, ”it has to be like a family”. ”As a cameraman I always try to look for the truth, to see and film the moments. Every movement has a choreography in itself. You have to look into the eyes of the people. The room has to be told”, were some of the sentences I liked and picked from the meeting with Barthel, a FILM cameraman, who believes in composition. And who also talked about lenses and light – ”I use fixed lenses, never zoom” – and who ended by showing us his beautiful personal film, ”My Death not Yours”. Categories: Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Magic MomentsWritten 26-03-2009 09:00:00 by Tue Steen Müller  The direct cinema or call it the observational is still alive and strong. I thought about that yesterday here in Kolin in Czech Republic, where director and editor Erez Laufer showed the film of Laura Poitras from 2006, ”My Country, My Country”, edited by the director and Laufer.Laura Poitras was 8 months in Iraq and she was here, there and everywhere with her small camera. She had access to the American army, to the security people who were there in connection with the elections, she was up North with the Kurds and first and foremost she got close to the charismatic dr. Riyadh, a political candidate for the Iraqi Islamic Party, and the main character of the film. The director’s presence and sense of situations is second-to-none. Let me just mention two scenes out of many that will stay in my mind: A woman sits in her appartment searching for a fly that is disturbing her. She is totally concentrated on this mission while we as viewers hear the sound of the city being hit by strong bombardments... A pure magic moment, says so much,,, as does the next example also where she catches a moment of Americana in a hall where an officer talks to Iraqi security people. ”We are gonna run this show, you will be on television all over the world...”, he says. ”Show”, one of the men silently remarks, ”ok, this is real life”, the American superior replies, ”yes, it is a bit different than a show”, the man ends up commenting silently. Voila, a small dialogue, that also says so much without anyone explaining to us anything. Think, please, and this is the quality of this film that the filmmakers invite us to do so. Observational documentary, this is ”being there” as Richard Leacock so often has put it. (The film has previously been reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk by one of the Zelig film school students, Georg Bocher.) Categories: Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Andrej Tarkovskij: SpejletWritten 24-03-2009 09:51:24 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Tue Steen Müller fortalte os under sin workshop i Randers, 7BEST om Audrius Stonys "The Bell", som betog os alle ved sin ro, dybde og skønhed, at instruktøren "kan sin Tarkovskij forfra og bagfra". Det får vi nu lejlighed til at se nærmere på i morgen aften, onsdag i FOF filmklubben, hvor vi skal studere "Spejlet". Allerede ved at se klippet her, med scenen med kvinden på hegnet, på You Tube, går det op for én, hvad Müller mener. I billede efter billede ser man det, og tydeligt bliver det med den helt direkte reference til ild/vand motivet og i scenen med det brændende hus og i åbningsscenen (billedet), hvor en pludselig vind bevæger kornet og løvet og hans jakke, da han igen efter deres møde, hvor han har fortalt hende om den besjælede natur, går ned mod vejen ved busken. Alt det er med i Stonys film, hvor han så videreudvikler tankerækken efter sin Tarkovskij-læsning, lægger sit dokument ved siden af, dokument ved dokument er kunstens metode, og begge film bliver rigere for øjnene af os. Read more / Læs mere
Categories: DVD, Film History, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Doc a TunisWritten 23-03-2009 23:31:43 by Tue Steen Müller  Documentary festivals flourish. For the 4th time ”Doc a Tunis” takes place, April 1st to 5th. A lot of films are shown from the host country, and from Marocco, Algeria and Libanon, and from Syria comes the film ”Dolls. A Woman in Damascus” by Diana el Jeiroudi, one of the organisers of the festival DoxBox in Damascus, written about on this site. The French influence is clear in the selection, focus is on the auteur tradition, nothing wrong in this, absolutely not. And another tribute to the festival for inviting Ferenc Moldovanyi to come to Tunis to present his film, ”Another Planet” which includes, among many qualities, a masterly done piece of cinematography. Moldovanyi will do a ”lecon du cinema” at the festival.With a reference to the previous text: This festival is supported by Jan Vrijman Fund. http://docatunis.nesselfen.org/ Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Jan Vrijman FundWritten 23-03-2009 09:00:09 by Tue Steen Müller  The Idfa based Jan Vrijman Fund, named after the late Dutch documentarian, who made several great films, including one about the COBRA painter Karel Appel, has finished the first round selection for 2009, second round deadline June 1st. The fund considered 248 projects from 42 different countries. In total, an amount of € 223.900 was granted to 21 projects. The committee selected five projects for script and project development, ten projects for production and post-production, as well as six festivals and/or workshops. Photo from The Caviar Connection, by Dragan Nikolic, supported by Jan Vrijman Fund. http://www.idfa.nl/industry/vrijman-fund/supported-projects/selection-february-2009.aspx Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Vaclav Havel AwardWritten 21-03-2009 00:48:26 by Tue Steen Müller  The excellent "One World Human Rights Film Festival" in Prague is over and awards have been distributed. One of the awards not only carry the name of Vaclac Havel but when I was there years ago, I was told that the author-president himself, from a shortlist presented to him, personally decided to whom the prize should be given. What an honour for Anders Østergaard, among many other prizes, to get one in the name of Vaclav Havel! Here is the fine motivation of the jury/Vaclav Havel:As a young boy in 1988, Joshua witnessed the Burma military junta's brutal intervention against demonstrators, which resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people. He decided to fight for democracy from that time onwards. Armed with a small camera and a mobile telephone, he and three dozen other brave Burmese from the Democratic Voice of Burma organisation decided to make a detailed record of anti-government demonstrations in September 2007 and their subsequent brutal suppression. Footage of the dramatic events from the cameras of these reporters appeared in the news bulletins of all important global media outlets and for a time it was the only way in which the world could find out about the actual situation in Burma. This impressively compiled documentary offers an in-depth and extremely authentic record of the events of that time, when Burmese overcame their deeply rooted fear of government repression for the first time in 19 years and came out en masse to support Buddhist monks on the streets of Rangoon. Using the detailed evidence provided by the work of Joshua and his colleagues (who risked their lives to do it) this film illustrates the indisputable importance of independent media in the fight against totalitarian power. Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country. 2008 / 84 min. www.oneworld.cz. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments EDN Award to Nenad PuhovskiWritten 20-03-2009 23:50:45 by Tue Steen Müller  The annual EDN award for 2009 goes to Nenad Puhovski and his ZagrebDox. The motivation goes like this: ZagrebDox is a documentary event initiated by Nenad Puhovski, consisting of a weeklong festival and a financing forum entitled ZagrebDox Pro. Within the five years ZagrebDox has existed, it has reached an amazing audience number of 21.000 and spawned a strong financing forum. At the forum, new documentary projects from the region are pitched to a panel of international financiers. Among the documentaries coming from the ZagrebDox Pro financing forum are Corridor #8, The Caviar Connection and Cash & Marry, which have all circulated international festivals with big success. What Nenad Puhovski has accomplished within the five years of ZagrebDox is quite amazing and a point of inspiration for all of us working with documentaries. Not only has he brought international film to Zagreb, he has also managed to bring documentaries from the region to an international audience through the ZagrebDox Pro financing forum. Taking into consideration that all this has been accomplished in a region which has been through struggles and internal battles, makes the achievements by Nenad Puhovski and ZagrebDox all the more admirable. For EDN it was an obvious choice for the 2009 EDN Award. More about ZagrebDox and the 3 films mentioned, use the "search" of this site. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments National Film Board 1939-2009Written 19-03-2009 16:06:51 by Tue Steen Müller  For 70 years, the National Film Board of Canada has been breaking ground in socially-engaged documentary, auteur animation, alternative drama and more! This is how the NFB/ONF (Office National du Film du Canada) modestly, in small letters, celebrates itself on its site, see address below. Luckily, the upcoming Hotdocs festival rightfully raises the voice and celebrates the unique importance of NFB for the world history of the documentary film. At the festival that takes place in Toronto April 30-May 10 2009, this is done through a “special program that will bring together some special guest programmers – filmmakers, film professionals and other public figures – to select their favourite NFB documentaries of the past 70 years.”As a true NFB fan I visited the Montréal studios in 1979 and 1989 to celebrate, and to get inspiration for new distribution and production policies. But also to watch films that would fit in our Danish non-commercial distribution. We had dozens of NFB animation films (Norman McLaren, Caroline Leaf) in the catalogue as well as wonderful important documentaries by Colin Low, Kroitor/Koenig and Michel Brault. When I was asked to pick my favourite for the Hotdocs programme, I started humming “put your hand on my shoulder”, remembering one of the many beautiful scenes from the 1962 Kroitor/Koenig cinema vérité classic with and about Paul Anka, “Lonely Boy”. There are many other “auteurs” to highlight when talking about NFB, and they are not appreciated enough in the “official” documentary history literature, that always goes American and British. One name stands out, Pierre Perrault, the film poet from Quebec. You can buy dvd’s of NFB films, you can watch some online, it is simply a good old centralised and efficient distribution mechanism, that works. http://www.hotdocs.ca/ http://www3.nfb.ca/index.php Categories: Festival, Film History, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 10Written 19-03-2009 08:17:23 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Pier Paolo Pasolini og Chris Marker, ja, de gamle meget forskellige mestre var med. Havde hver en sag med. Pasolini en lille og en mindre og Marker en lille bitte. Vægtige på hver sin måde alle tre... Pasolinis rejsefilm fra 1963 (billedet), hvor han tænksomt, omhyggeligt og kritisk gennemrejser de hellige steder i Palæstina sammen med sin kirkehistoriske rådgiver pater Carraro for at finde locations til "Matthæusevangeliet", er fascinernede og forbavsende i sin sære naivitet som dokument, men tydeligt. En lille film, hvor han laver prøveoptagelser med unge zigøjnere uden for Rom til en film, som ikke blev til noget, er simpelthen rørende. Chris Marker i sin "Détour Ceausescu" fra 1990 har på en chokerende ærlig måde klippet standrettens overfladiske brutalitet sammen med tv's overfladiske forbrug af den absurde begivenhed ind i dens egen verden af æstetisk og moralsk uforståelighed. Categories: Festival, Film History, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 9Written 19-03-2009 08:09:55 by Allan Berg Nielsen Atelier Denis Cheerbrant, en hel dag med den flittige og koncentrede dokumentarist fra Marseille.. "La Totalité du monde", 2009, 13 min. Grebet i den lille perle af en film er forbavsende enkelt. Et langt, grundigt, improviseret interview med en mand på en café, hvor den medvirkendes synspunkter er det, som vægtes, tages alvorligt af det iagttagende, sørgende og især lyttende kamera. Et eneste langt, langt billede, som altså er skrift og alligevel et øjebliks billede. Scenen, bykvarteret, som titlen hylder, er inde i det store billede, det lange take som en række vignetter og omgiver som stemning den intense enetale, som kun ledes ved små korte spørgsmål fra bag kameraet, altså fra Cheerbrant...
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 8Written 19-03-2009 08:03:13 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Mesteren lader en stedfortrædende mester åbne sin film. Med en gedigen og flot reference til Jørgen Leth og Dan Holmberg blander den fortællende bartender byens foretrukne drink. Udvider billedet til begyndelsen til en krønikeskrivning på film, det store essay om byen. Som Pessoas Lissabon, Magris' Triest, Pamuks Istanbul. Her blot den bortrejste og her tilbagevendendes beskrivelse, to perspektiver altså. Byernes poetiske historie ligger der bare, ser det ud til. Lige til at samle op. Mesteren og kronikøren er Heddy Honigmann, byen er Lima, filmen hedder "El Olvido", og hendes greb er iagttagelsen, det at se, at se, at se, som hun sagde efter kørslen. Valget af medvirkende har været det næste, castigen af en perlerække af artistiske dygtigheder, akrobater, jonglører, tjenere, en digter og altså en bartender, som sættes - og det er det tredje greb - underholdende, ja, meget, meget morsomt i modsætning til de uduelige politikere, de latterlige præsidenter, som fremstilles i en kedsomhedens række af ens tv reportager fra edsaflæggelserne. Ægte kompetace over for falsk storhed. Der er så grimt i parlamentet. Ustandselig finder Honigmanns kamera skønheden i de ærlige ansigter, almindelige, ja, de fleste fattige, nogle meget fattige.. El Olvido var på Magnificent 7 i år. Honigmann har tidligere vavet en film om sin by Lima, "Metal og melankoli", også et mesterværk, som man husker fra Statens Filmcentrals distribution. ¨¨
Categories: Cinema, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 7Written 19-03-2009 07:59:46 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Med sit kamera på skulderen er instruktøren på sentimental rejse hjem til sin molesterede by. Han møder som de første tre drenge, som præcist og bevægende nøgternt viser om i ruinerne. Her boede deres navngivne handlende, naboer, skolekammerater. De er væk nu. Nogle helt væk. Og så møder han med sit aldrig moraliserende eller sentimentale kamera - muntert, ja, muntert faktisk - sin fantastiske mor, sin flittige bror og sin solide søster.. Vi bygger bare op igen, siger de, siger man der i byen. Broderen er i gang med at plante figentræer. Hassan Zbib har eksamen fra det libanesiske universitet, fakultetet for kunstvidenskab og i 1987 fra École Supérieure d'Études Cinématographiques i Paris. Har siden 1988 arbejdet som filmreporter for en række tv stationer. Han har produceret to kortfilm derudover. Hassan Zbib: "Creative Chaos: Round One", Libanon / Irland / Frankrig 2008, 66 min. Distribution: hzbib@yahoo.com
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 6Written 19-03-2009 07:57:28 by Allan Berg Nielsen  De taler om nederlagene, som var de sejre. Disse palæstnensiske veteraner fra krigene. De bærer skaderne efter sårene som stolte minder, deres egne skæbner i slutspillet som begyndelser til en samlet stolt fortsættelse. Vreden er deres styrke - eller er det ydmygheden og accepten af resignationen, som er det? Filmen, Sandra Madis "Thakira Mathkouba (Gennemhullet erindring)", skildrer det vel, som det er. Den gør ikke så meget ved det. Altså stoffet, den samler ind. Den overlader vemodet og eftertanken til mig. Det er naturligvis ok. Det manglede bare. Sandra Madi er fra Amman. Har eksamen fra det arabiske filminstitut. Hun er skuespiller og arbejder free lance som forfatter og producer ved tv, blandt andet Aljazeera. Jordan 2008, 62 min. Red Carbon Productions sandra.madi@yahoo.com
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 5Written 18-03-2009 09:20:18 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Min anden festival favorit var Aljona Poluninas "The Revolution That Wasn´t" med Anatoly, som en kort periode greb magten og partiformandskabet i det russiske kommunistparti og havde gyldne dage som en af lederne af demonstrationerne mod Putin. Han mistede imidlertid kammeraternes tillid og blev skubbet ned til menigt partimedlem. Så vendte han sig indad og søgte Kirkens fællesskab. Og oppositionen mod Putin, kommunistpartiet og "Det andet Rusland" tabte jo valget. Polunias film besidder fra først til sidst en fuldstændig sikker styring af casting, set-design, iscenesættelse og fotografi i rekonstruktioner og reportageplanlægning og -indsats. Jeg er spændt fast i denne intellektuelle diskussion og kamp lige ud af de russiske romaner, i disse begivenheder, hvis udfald jeg jo kender. Moderne russisk politisk historie skildret som dokumentarisk thriller til fem penne.. Aljona Polina tog afgang fra universitetet i Moskva 2004 efter studier i kunst, arkitektur og design samt film med filmen "Yes Death". Estland 2008, 96 min. Produktion og distribution: Matila Röhr Productions og Kuukulgur Films jaak@kuukulgur.ee Filmen modtog i forgårs to af Cinéma du Réels specialpriser, det franske nationalbiblioteks pris og den røde komites pris.
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 4Written 17-03-2009 12:36:42 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Jeg havde jo mine favoritter på festivalen, især to. Den første af dem er Rosemarie Blank: "Job en de hollandse vrisjtaat". Hendes forbavsende værk konstrueret på tre årtier gammelt filmmateriale i flere forskellige formater, som hun optog, dengang fristaden i Amsterdam levede så festligt, farverigt, er aldeles suverænt anvendt poesi (i Aristoteles grundbetydning af ordet), en lille film sådan i denne industrielle sammenhæng, men en stor film i cinematografiens fortsatte og på sin måde lige så energiske historie. Og så er den smuk, billedskøn. Den autistiske aldeles tavse og introverte Job konstant fordybet i meditation over sine objektsamlinger på hver sin lille bakke opdager ikke, at fristaden forsvinder en brutal nat. Han lever længe også uopdaget i ruinerne og fortsætter der sine studier, til han også en dag er væk. Tankevækkende og sandt. Rosemarie Blank er uddannet fra kunstakademiet i Berlin og har levet i Amsterdam siden 1979 som forfatter, og siden 1982 har hun realiseret talrige filmprojekter. Holland 2009, 48 min. Produktion og distribution: Casa-Film, casafilm@telfort.nl
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 3Written 17-03-2009 10:30:33 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Den dansk/ægyptisk producerede film "Over Jorden, under Himlen" af Simon Lereng Wilmont fik festivalens pris som bedste kortfilm. Den er om ambition og træning, med den lille Mahmoud, som elsker cirkus og drømmer om at blive akrobat i det ægyptiske nationalcirkus. Han har en mentor, Kamal. Han træner ham, jonglerer den lille fyr halvanden meter over jorden i farlige, dristige akrobatnumre. Simon Lereng Wilmont er studerende ved Den Danske Filmskole. Han er medarbejder på filminstitutprojektet "Travelling with Mr. T". Danmark/Ægypten, 2009, 29 min. Den Danske Filmskole. Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 2Written 16-03-2009 16:15:49 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Den næste film i programmet, Nathalie Loubeyres "No Comment" fortsætter uden at vide det, hvor "Mirages" slipper. (Programlæggeren ved det, havde set det..). De overlevende rejsende er kommet til en by uden navn, markeret ved et markant tårn. En havneby, jeg ser færgerne til England. Jeg ser det atter og atter. De ser det oftere end jeg. Ser det nok ikke mere. De har været der længe, sidder fast i den by. Og jeg lærer, hvordan det må være. Sådan føles det, mens jeg ser filmen, men jeg lærer det selvfølgelig ikke. Jeg lærer ikke at være rejsende på den måde, de er det. Uden andet håb end 4-5 procent chance for at få asyl i England. En kvinde dukker op i en lille bil. På eget initiativ, ser det ud til. Deler mad ud til de nærmeste. Hun er en engel i alt dette. Det kunne jeg lære af. Folk omkring dem ignorerer dem i det store hele. Filmen består af en række afsluttede scener med overskrifter, men ingen kommentarer jo. Heller ikke fra de medvirkende. Scener tavse i deres fotografiske skrift. Snapshots. Det er ligetil at forstå. Og ufatteligt. Som katalogredaktøren, Yann Lardeau skriver, er billederne og lyden af hændelserne alene om at røbe noget virkeligt, som ord undertrykker, nemlig at der er præcis information i materialets formløshed, og at filmen opererer i denne ånd. Jeg må sige, den lykkes med det. Stilfærdigt og indtrængende. Nathalie Loubeyre har lavet film siden 1992, har især for canadiske produktioner skrevet manuskripter til film. 2003 modtog hun Jean Vigo prisen for sin "La Coupure". Frankrig, 2008, 52 min. Froggie Production prod@froggie-production.com
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments Cinéma du Réel 1Written 16-03-2009 16:10:03 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Festivalen begyndte forrige torsdag, som denne festival bør, i det fremmede. Som jeg troede, jeg kendte. I Sahara. Olivier Durys "Mirages" handler om at rejse i ørkenen, om sandet overalt, om farens konstans. Om at være lille og ubetydelig, her i ørkenen kan man forsvinde uden spor, og mange gør det. Man kan godt stable mennesker på en pick-up som man stabler fyldte sportstasker. Man kan stable tasker og mennesker sammen og oven på hinanden. Tasker og mennesker. For om muligt ikke at gå tabt får de yderste en solid kæp at stikke ned mod ladets bund. I spænd. Den kæp holder de fast mellem knæene og med begge hænder. Den kæp klamrer de sig til. De yderste. Filmen er én situation, ét stort billede af vor tids ørkenkaravane. Et billede, jeg ikke glemmer igen. Jeg troede, jeg vidste. Jeg vidste ingenting. Olivier Dury er fra Paris. Uddannet fra Vancouver Film School. Dette er hans første film. Frankrig 2008, 46 min. Les Productions de l'Oeil Sauvages.
Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 7Written 15-03-2009 10:52:08 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Så er vi i gang med sidste dag af FOF's og Filmkommentaren.dk's festival med Tue Steen Müller. Her et sidste citat fra hans katalogtekst til den sidste film, "Black Sun af Gary Tarn: ... Jo, "Black Sun" er noget ganske særligt, et one-man-work af Gary Tarn, hvis debutfilm det er. Han kommer fra musikken og besluttede sig for at skifte spor efter mange år i reklamefilmbranchen som leverandør af musikbidder til hvadsomhelst. Penge havde han tjent og dem brugte han så på at lave "Black Sun". Han købte sig et 16mm stumkamera, lærte hurtigt hvordan det skulle betjenes - og fotograferede, klippede og producerede filmen fra ende til anden. ... sammen med Hugues de Montalembert, filmens subjekt, manden der i 1978 blev groft overfaldet i New York med blindhed som resultat. Tarn havde læst den bog som Montalembert havde skrevet om sit nye liv som blind, var fascineret af den og opsøgte ham i Paris, hvor dage blev brugt på at optage det interview, som danner den fortællemæssige bund for filmen. Tarn tog hjem, redigerede interviewene så de fremstod som én lang monolog og tog derpå fat på at lave billeder, der kunne bruges til teksten. Og til den musik som han derefter komponerede. For "normale" dokumentarister lyder det her som en måde, hvorpå man ikke laver film! Selv understreger Gary Tarn (der er interviews med ham på YouTube) at alt for få dokumentarfilm er "cinematic", hvilket (min kommentar) ikke er så underlig en bemærkning fra en mand, som lever i England, hvor BBC og C4 har dikteret den filmiske stil for dokumentaren med kommentar, interviews osv. Fortællingen, bragt frem af Montalemberts magiske franske accent tilført det engelske sprog. Visualiseringen, Tarns ekstreme fugleperspektiver, slørede billeder, abstrakte former, farvefyldte realoptagelser, vredne perspektiver, fra hele verden, New York først og fremmest, men også Indonesien, Tibet, lufthavne, gader, nærbilleder af mennesker osv. osv. Og den underliggende musik, der får én til at dvæle ved nogle billeder, gå ind i dem, lave egne historier, altså på en måde forlade filmen for en stund for så at komme tilbage til den blinde mand, den tidligere maler og filminstruktør, nu forfatter, tilbage til den intensitet, som hans stemme rummer, når den taler om den verden som han lever i nu, hvor hjernen konstant producerer billeder, nogle gange stærkt erotiske billeder som det kan være svært at have med at gøre når han taler med andre mennesker om hvadsomhelst. Gary Tarn: "Black Sun", UK 2008, 75 min. På FOF filmfestival i Randers. Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles på FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 6Written 14-03-2009 14:49:50 by Allan Berg Nielsen  I morgen 15:00 køres Juraj Lehotskys "Blind Loves". Om den hedder det blandt andet i katalogteksten: ... Hvordan fortæller man fire kærlighedshistorier, som har det til fælles, at de elskende er blinde? Hvordan kommer man tæt på sine karakterer uden al den velmenende gumpetunghed, som normalt klæber til film om blinde, hvor det sociale aspekt - jamen hvordan klarer de sig dog - er i centrum. Juraj Lehotsky valgte episodefilmen, som vi kender så godt fra Eric Rohmer. Fire episoder, fire hovedkarakterer, fire kærlighedhistorier, fire kærlighedserklæringer fra en ung instruktør, som demonstrerer en helt fantastisk modenhed med sin fortælling. Det starter med Peter. Han og konen er blinde og instruktøren overstår straks det banale - hvordan bevæger de sig rundt i lejligheden? Informativt. Klip til Peter der i slapstickkomedie-stil nærmest falder ned ad gaden i en herlig billedkomposition. Humoristisk tone. Så Peter ved klaveret, han underviser blinde børn. Informativt igen. Og så en lille fugl på klaveret og over vinduespanelet. Som ikke er der for at være fyld men fordi steminingen i scenen skal anslås, instruktørens holdning til sin hovedkarakter. Tilbage til Peter, der hører fjernsyn og gætter sig til hvor mange meter skihopperne springer. Og senere konen der tager mål til en sweater, som hun skal strikke til sin mand. Peter komponerer musik og instruktøren lader ham være optaget af Jules Vernes Rejse til Jordens Midte - og digter herligt videre ved at lade ham være undervands i en animationssekvens, som henter sin inspiration i tjekkiske Karel Zemans film... Juraj Lehotsky: Blind Loves, Slovakiet, 2008. På FOF filmfestival i Randers. Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles på FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 5Written 14-03-2009 10:29:16 by Allan Berg Nielsen Festivalen er i gang. Første film i morgen søndag klokken 11 er Ferenc Moldovananyis "Another Planet". Citat fra Tue Steen Müllers katalogtekst: ... Uden kommentar og uden at vi bogstaveligt får at vide, hvor i verden vi er. Moldovanyi går fra sekvens til sekvens, fra verdensdel til verdensdel, i ét langt flow, og med en højstemt værdighed, en respekt for sine personer, børnene, som udtrykkes gennem et fuldstændigt formidabelt kameraarbejde (fotograf: Tibor Máthè) i samspil med komponeret musik af Tibor Szemsö. Det er en film, som benytter sig af en mise-en-scène, af drømmeagtige tableauer, som brydes af tætte atmosfærebilleder fra de steder, hvor instruktøren har fundet sine personer. Med andre ord, hans fotograf har været i stand til både at være til stede i bedste direct cinema stil og lægge sin instruktørs fortolkning ind i billeder fra de smukkeste steder på denne planet. Det bliver aldrig banalt, nærmere subtilt. Og der gøres ingen forsøg på at sentimentalisere, samtidig med at det godt nok er følelsesmæssigt hårdt at leve 90 minutter med disse stakkels børn, der hutler sig igennem en nådesløs hverdag og prøver at få et liv ud af det... Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles på FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 4Written 13-03-2009 15:26:43 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Så er den lille eksklusive festival i gang. Et publikum er samlet om Tue Steen Müllers farverige viden og hans omhyggelige valg af syv film til denne week-end hos FOF i Randers. Men man kan sagtens nå støde til. For eksempel lørdag aften 19:00 hvor Müller lægger op til hvad han betegner som et i ordets forstand enestående filmværk, Timo Novotnys "Life in Loops". Han skriver dette om det i sit essay til festivalen: ... Det er interessant at vide lidt om, hvordan filmen blev til: For år tilbage blev Novotny inviteret til en såkaldt live-act i en festival i Bruxelles. Det var det, han gjorde på det tidspunkt sammen med vennerne fra bandet Sofa Surfers. De tog rundt på filmfestivaler, viste levende billeder med musik-ledsagelse, oftest musik, der blev lavet på stedet inspireret af de levende billeder, som var Novotnys egne super 8mm optagelser. Ved festivalen i Bruxelles ønskede Novotny at bruge klip fra andres film og blev kolossalt inspireret af Glawoggers film, fik fat i instruktøren og spurgte om han måtte bruge hans film ved lejligheden i Bruxelles. Han fik lov og viste senere Glawogger resultatet. Han blev begejstret og gav Novotny carte blanche til at gøre, hvad han ville med filmen og udleverede også rushes fra "Megacities". Så fulgte en lang finansieringsfase og overspilning til digital billede og lyd - og så var det, at han var så heldig at få Glawoggers fotograf med til Tokyo til ekstra optagelser. Optagelser på film i samme fantastiske kvalitet, som samme fotograf havde leveret til Glawogger. Og resultatet er en totalt ny film, et musikalsk båret filosofisk essay om det at være menneske i en verden af storbyer. (I dette tilfælde New York, Mexico City, Bombay, Moskva og Tokyo). En film som jeg bruger hver eneste gang jeg møder nye filmfolk, for at inspirere dem til at opdage at sådan kan en dokumentarfilm altså også se ud. Det første afsnit fra New York, bygget over sætningen "I'll survive" er mind blowing, du kan nærmest ikke sidde stille i biografstolen, du bliver ramt lige i hjertekulen af en ekstremt musikalsk og følsom filmklipper, der rummer mange film i sig... Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles på FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 3Written 12-03-2009 11:00:24 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Lørdag, 14. marts 15:00 vises Peteris Krilovs' "Klucis - the Deconstruction of an Artist". Tue Steen Müller fulgte filmens tilblivelse og vil før og efter kørslen fortælle om det. I sin katalogtekst skriver han: ... Det var her, i den såkaldte dekonstruktion, at filmens sprog og rytme blev fundet. Dekonstruktionen af plakater veksler med konstruktioner af fotomontager, så de ser ud som Klucis lavede dem dengang, med henvisninger til hvordan hans dekonstruktive elementer den dag i dag inspirerer grafikere, der har været taget med på råd i skabelsen af filmens design. Jo, lad os bare kalde det design, selvom det kan lyde fælt i mange ører, men ned til de mindste detaljer som font til tekster er der arbejdet på at finde harmoni i disharmonien. Man kan også sige, at mange sekvenser repræsenterer en rekonstruktion af en kunstnerisk produktionsproces. To sekvenser er på den måde veritable små kortfilm - udspringerne i Moskva som bliver til en plakat. Og hænderne der klapper i lang tid, Stalins hænder som fifler ved et stykke papir, formentlig noter til en tale, som hele tiden bliver udskudt på grund af jubeltilråb ned mod nationens fader. Men også andre hænder er der i denne sekvens som bliver til en plakat med hænder. I solidaritetens navn. Og i troen på det socialistiske paradis. På fremskridtet... Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles på FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 2Written 12-03-2009 08:07:36 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Lørdag 14. marts 11:00 "The Bell": Tue Steen Müller præsenterer Audrius Stonys film. I kataloget skriver han udførligt om sit møde med denne litauiske instruktør og hans betydningsfulde filmværk. Her et par citater fra teksten: "Et af de steder, vi besøgte på vores Litauiske rundtur, var søen Plateliai, rammen om "The Bell", og stedet hvor der angiveligt skulle ligge en kirkeklokke, ifølge de mange historier, der florerer herom. Men om "The Bell" i virkeligheden handler om om noget helt andet, vil jeg lade stå et øjeblik. Det er ihvertfald klart ret tidligt i filmen, at der er ikke er tale om en reportageagtig dokumentar á la National Geographic, hvor plottet er: finder de klokken eller ej? Ikke desto mindre sender instruktøren et hold dykkere ned på søens bund for at kigge efter klokken, samtidig med at instruktøren tager rundt til folk i regionen for at spørge dem om de har hørt noget. Om den forsvundne klokke. Det er der mange, der ikke har og nogle, der har. Der var vist noget om... er et svar, der dukker op... ... Der er ingen faste fortællestrukturer i "The Bell", som der aldrig har været hos Stonys. Det virker som om han konstant bliver nødt til at dvæle ved en ny opdagelse eller reflektere over det materiale, som hans fotograf har givet ham. Når han går fra nutid til datid til undervandsbillederne, er der ingen speciel dramaturgisk logik, der er blevet fulgt. Og det er tydeligt at han bliver mere og mere optaget af at arbejde med arkivmateriale, hvilket kommer til fuldt udtryk i hans seneste film "Four Steps", som er en reflektion over kærlighedens vilkår med udgangspunkt i bryllupsritualer, som de har udspillet sig over fire årtier... ... Myterne, legenderne, ritualerne, det er omkring det, jeg ser Stonys hele oeuvre dreje sig: det irrationelle, det uforklarlige, det spirituelle, det som ikke kan og ikke skal forklares. I utallige sammenhænge har jeg som ordstyrer ved filmforevisninger forsøgt at få ham til at forklare. Men altid stritter han imod de hurtige fortolkninger og konklusioner, hvor ord efter hans mening banaliserer den visuelle oplevelse og følelse, han ønsker at give sin tilskuer. Og hvorfor lige det klip og den overgang. Kunne det være fordi... måske, siger han, det er op til dig..." Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles på FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments 7BEST 1Written 12-03-2009 08:01:14 by Allan Berg Nielsen  "Citizen Havel" 13. marts 19:00. På fredag begynder festivalen 7BEST i Randers med den store film om Václav Havel, som Tue Steen Müller kommenterer og diskuterer med publikum. Fra hans katalogtekst dette citat: "... Det er her - i 1993 - at filmen starter midt i et møde mellem Havel og hans rådgivere, i en af mange tilsyneladende ganske afslappede og åbne rådslagninger om hvad præsidenten skal sige og forholde sig til og hvordan han skal stå og se ud og hvad der ellers hører sig til. Sådan cirka 20 minutter varer dette møde indtil meddelelsen kommer om at parlamentet har valgt ham. Det dækkes med et årvågent, bevægeligt kamera, vi er til stede, vi kommer tæt på Havel fra starten, og det er tydeligt, at forsamlingen kender filmholdet og føler sig trygge ved dets tilstedeværelse. I 12 år fulgte Pavel Koutecky og hans hold Havel, i det offentlige og i det private rum og ud af det er kommet en helt vidunderlig, morsom og gribende fortælling om en helt vidunderlig mand, der hele vejen igennem beholder sin integritet og viser at den ærlige og kærlige mand naturligvis ikke kan undgå at løbe ind i problemer, når han skal have med politik at gøre. Specielt da han filmen igennem skal have med den nuværende præsident, det politiske dyr Vaclav Klaus at gøre..." Tue Steen Müller: 7BEST - et essay om syv film, FOF-Randers, 2009, 32 sider. Kan erhverves på festivalen eller bestilles hos FOF til@fof-randers.dk Categories: Festival, Artikler/anmeldelser DANSK 0 comments DoxBox 9Written 11-03-2009 16:06:26 by Tue Steen Müller  ”Six Ordinary Stories” by Syrian director Meyar Al Roumi is a quite refreshing report on six ordinary taxi drivers and their work and life in Damascus. Ordinary, well also extraordinarily open they are as well as critical to the life that is offered to them. One has a double job as a fireman and a taxi driver in order to earn enough, another used to have a shawarma shop, be a creative person, a chef, whereas now he is not really appreciated, because ”anyone can drive a car”. A third one is a religious person, who drove a taxi also during his studies and now aims to be an imam... The taxi-driver-format is well known, and maybe the film is not to be considered a creative documentary, but a courageous one and funny it is in a country with censorship. The conclusion of this film: Life in Damascus, Syria is tough with low salaries for looong working days.No female drivers of course, nothing about women in this film, but two other documentaries made up for that through a strong focus on women in the Arab countries. ”Women without Shadow” by Saudi Haifaa Al-Mansour, said to be the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia, is shocking to watch with its filming and interviews of women totally covered, either protesting against the position of women in the society or saying that this is how it is. This film is from 2005, the other one to be mentioned is ”In my Father’s House” by Dutch living Fatima Jebli Ouazzani, from 1997, awarded many times for its touching story about a woman (the director), who has not seen her father for 16 years because she did not marry according to Maroccan wedding rituals and rules, including being a virgin when she married. We attend a Dutch-Moroccan couple who marries in Marocco, we see wonderful scenes with Fatima and her grandparents, we see a small girl running after her father in the small streets of her childhood, and we hear the tragic story about her mother who passed away after having been left by a father, who took a new wife. The mix of documentary and fiction scenes are beautifully done, the film is an early demonstration of the docu-fiction that is so common today. We take a taxi back to the hotel flying back tonite to Copenhagen with one day left of a very succesful festival. Thanks. www.dox-box.org Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 8Written 10-03-2009 09:35:25 by Tue Steen Müller  Another fine new initiative from DoxBox 2009 is the "Point of View" festival newsletter. Editor-in-chief is Danish Ulla Jacobsen, who by this year decided to leave the post of the DOX Magazine after more than a decade as the brilliant editor of (my biased opinion as former director of EDN, the organisation behind DOX) this best independent documentary film cultural publication. Ulla Jacobsen now works free lance as a journalist and video photographer. Here follows a clip from her intro to the "Point of View": ... the intention is to create a space for reflection on and debate about the films that will be shown at the festival and the subjects they deal with. Each day a new edition will be published that will include reviews of the films at the festival, interviews with the filmmakers, reports from the corridors and highlights of the programme. One of the pages in the bulletin will be reserved for the side programme titled "Voices of Women" as this bulletin will also have a special focus on gender issues. The bulletin is written by 9 young women from Syria, Morocco, Jordan and Denmark - and it also a product of a workshop that takes place during the festival which is training the nine participants to write about cinema and gender issues, and more specifically about documentary films and how gender issues are represented in this film genre... The results can be read on Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 7Written 10-03-2009 09:29:48 by Tue Steen Müller  The writing workshop is over. An amazing development from Day 1 to Day 3. 5 documentary projects are ready to be piitched internationally. Projects with quality and passion. The doors should be opened for these filmmakers to proceed to the European pitch fora and markets: "The Virgin Mary, the Copts and me" by Namir Abdel Messeh from France/Egypt, a young director who wants to travel back to his homeland, where his father was jailed during the Nasser time, and his Coptian relatives consider him, a non-believer, with both scepticism and love. "Take me Back to Sydney" by Louly Seif from Egypt, an intriguing project about gender identity from a director, who at the age of 16 years wanted to have her hair cut short as a boy. It turns out that her grandfather was one of the first to make transexual operations in Sydney. The director goes back to meet a drag queen, one of the patients of the grandfather. Elias Moubarak from Lebanon has access to children in a refugee camp (the film has no title yet), where he has been as an aid worker. He has great characters: "Hamada, George, Junior, Evel, Hiba are children refugees, asylum seekers or migrants living in an unstable country: Lebanon." Dalia Fathallah, from Lebanon as well, calls her project "Little Sunshines" with the subtitle "redheads from Lebanon", a quite unusual hair colour for this region. She sets out to meet others with the same "handicap" to produce a film, that " will be light and humorous, even if dealing underneath with deep issues". Finally, maybe the most courageous of the film projects, "Those Days" - Noha El Meadawy from Egypt wants to make a film that starts from her strong experience of fiiling a case against corruption in Egyptian television finding herself abandoned by people who before supported her. She loses the case and wants to integrate her story into the tragic story of two women from the 70'es. Photo from Dalia Fathallah's previous film "Mabrouk at Fahrir". If you want two page descriptions of these film projects, you can contact: Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 6Written 09-03-2009 12:57:35 by Tue Steen Müller  Second day of a workshop organised by DoxBox that really has put an emphasis on establishing a so-called industry section of the two year old festival. Mikael Opstrup and I tutor 6 filmmakers with projects and 6 with no projects. The projects have been selected by the organisation - there are people from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Most of the film proposals have a very personal starting point, very European I would say, the author driven film tradition, auteur tradition, thank you Truffaut and Godard, high quality, but little money to be found in this region. Most of them have been abroad, two live abroad, and they have collected some funding from foreign sources. To generalise: The reason to support them and not the Europeans who come here for a couple of weeks or months to shoot their documentaries... they know their world much better, they live here, they have personal experiences and so on. It sounds banal, so why are there not more Arab documentaries shown in Europe. One thing is of course lack of knowledge from our side, and promotion from the part of the region, this is what DoxBox rightfully is working on, the other is that we ask for producers to be involved when we open for calls for the EDN development and pitching sessions, and the training sessions supported by the EU MEDIA Programme. But we dont have producers in this region, they say, and those we have are not good enough. We can make everything by ourselves. Build teams from your own generation are our easy answers, easier said than done, but the only way. Workshop is over tomorrow monday, 6 two page project descriptions will be ready to be presented the days after, to invited funders and filmmakers. More about that later. Photo: Loyly Sief, Egypt. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 5Written 09-03-2009 12:56:33 by Tue Steen Müller  Nicholas Philibert is here. Three films have been shown, "Le Pays des Sourds", "Retour en Normandie" and "La moindre des choses". Last year the Syrian audience could enjoy "Etre et Avoir". Philibert did a master class, denied to be called a master, talked for two hours with a lot of charm and commitment, especially about "La moindre des choses", which is for sure a Master's Piece. Shot in 1995, the director went to the psychiatric clinic called la Borde, filmed the people in the institution, staff and patients, and followed the rehearsals and staging of a theatre piece by Polish Witold Gombrowicz. What comes out of it is a beautiful hymn to life and to us, the actors on the big stage of life. Wonderful characters with whom Philibert made a film, as he said, the film is not about but with. A director's vision and what I admire in this film is the almost caressing rythm of the montage, with which Philibert slowly introduces his gallery of characters. Constantly looking for beauty... my work consists of creating the conditions for something to happen, he said, this great filmmaker, who masters the art of listnening to the other. I am a documentarian and not a fiction filmmaker, I do not want people to play roles. Maybe I ask them to repeat something or ask if I can be present on a special occasion but they are themselves. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 4Written 06-03-2009 08:57:52 by Tue Steen Müller  It is sometimes difficult to understand the mechanisms of censorship. I saw the funny, maybe a bit repetitive documentary by Massoud Bakhshi, "Tehran has no more Pomegranates", a playful and well made film about the big city, using wonderful archive, quite critical to the society in a soft ironic tone. I was told that the film has been screened in the national festival, and won a prize. When I was inTehran in 2000 several films were on the shelf forbidden for the local audience. But being shown abroad at whatever festival. So are times-a-changing? Or did the rulers just see that documentaries are not that dangerous? Orwa Nyrabia, festival director at DoxBox, told me that there are many critical films shown in Iran, paradoxically some of these films can not be shown here in Damascus as the censors here do not want to annoy their allies in Iran! Full house for this film, lots of laughter, always good to see humorous documentaries, is it not? Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 3Written 06-03-2009 08:56:07 by Tue Steen Müller  It is one of those minimalistic films that subject-wise has been seen so many times: Man lives alone outside the cities, big house, animals - cows, chicken, horses, cats and dogs - he has retired from the noisy world full of pollution and he has a fine life. A bit excentric, yes, but clever and sweet to the filmmaker, his nephew, the Lebanese film director Simon El Habre, who masters a narrative full of warmth and surprises with the behind the camera nephew getting closer and closer to his uncle and his story. And why are you not married, have you ever been in love, what happened to your parents... questions are asked, the uncle demonstrates his passion for the animals, gets into his old, rusty car to go downhill with the milk, and slowly we understand that the village is emptied because of what happened in the civil war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. The film has an extraordinary sound design and you are not bored for a moment. It was in Berlin, it goes to Nyon and Hotdocs, well-deserved. Tell your local festival to screen it. Here in Damascus the audience enjoyed the film with big applause. What an uncle to have! Charismatic, energetic, with a smile in his eyes all the time, a happy man. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 2Written 06-03-2009 08:55:05 by Tue Steen Müller  Orwa Nyrabia, together with Diana el-Jeiroudi the founder and director of the festival: We considered 300 films. 90 of them we requested for the selection. 100 passed for the selection committee, 6 people, and out came the around 40 films that we show... a very democratic selection process in a country that can not be characterised as democratic!... was my comment. But we (Nyrabia and el-Jeroudi) did the side bars, the two series called "Voices of Women" and "Voices of War". It is a festival for the audience, there is no other international documentary festival in the region, so we have no competition, Nyrabia says, this is why we do not refrain from showing films, that are not completely new. Great films that our audience has never seen before. Which gives me the chance to re-watch the 1991 masterpiece by Polish director Maciej Drygas, "Hear My Cry" (photo) about Richard Siwiec, who in 1968 set fire to himself in protest against "the evil of tyranny, hate and lies possessing the world". As well as three films by Nicholas Philibert and others. Check the site of DoxBox. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments DoxBox 1Written 06-03-2009 08:53:28 by Tue Steen Müller  Second edition. Second time that Damascus has an international documentary film festival. The programme is enlarged, there is an industry section, sidebar retrospectives, it is all there. Impressive it is to be back. Full house at the opening film, "China is still Far" by Malek Bensmaïl, shot in Algeria and dealing with the question of what it means to be Algerian. Let me give the floor to the director: " A school somewhere in the Aurés. Between the North and the South. Between an oasis and the steppe.I decided to set up my camera in a classroom of the last form of a primary school for a few months so that I could seize, through the look of the children as well as through that of their teachers and families, what has been passed on in an Algerian school, 50 years after the independence..." It is beautifully shot, the children and their teachers are great, there are some very touching and funny moments between them, other sequences do not have the same focus and intensity, is felt to be a bit too long, but a very relevant choice for the opening of the festival. Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments ZagrebDOX 5Written 03-03-2009 17:38:14 by Tue Steen Müller  Just a brief follow-up note from Zagreb where the votes from the audience gave the following result: Best film "The English surgeon" by Geoffrey Smith. Second "Cash and Marry" by Atanas Georgiev. Third "Burma vj" by Anders Østergaard. ... they had a good audience in Zagreb. Photo. The English Surgeon Categories: Festival 0 comments DOXBOX09Written 02-03-2009 15:00:52 by Tue Steen Müller Second edition of the documentary festival in Damascus, Tartous and Homs in Syria. Reports from the 1st edition can be found on filmkommentaren.dk.I dont have the programme schedule yet but have seen the list of films and guests who will be there. It demonstrates that the organisers, filmmakers Diana el Jeroudi and Orwa Nyrabia have made a big effort to enlarge the cinema programme. It includes a very impressive list of films to be offered to the Syrian audience is. More than 40 films where half of them are new for me... who watch quite a lot as loyal readers have discovered. There is an official selection with an audience award. Let me mention 3 known titles (”Family” by Sami Saïf and Phie Ambro, ”From Father to Son” by Visa Koiso-Kanntila and ”Mosquito Problems and other Stories” by Andrey Paounov) and 3 I am looking forward to watch (”China is Still Far” by Malek Bensmail, ”One Man Village” by Simon el Habre and ”Six Ordinary Stories” by Meyar Alroumi). There is a series called ”Voices of Women” with films – among others – by Kim Longinotto, Eva Mulvad and Alina Mazzarati. There is 3 films by Nicholas Philibert in the ”Meet the Master” category. There is a series of ”Notes on War” with films by PeÅ Holmquist, Werner Herzog – among others. And ”Best of Fest” introduces ”The English Surgeon”, ”The Mother” and ”René”. What a fest to expect. Photo: Burma vj by Anders Østergaard, closing film in Damascus. Plus several industry arrangements, including one where Mikael Opstrup, EDN chair and producer and I are doing a writing workshop for 12 filmmakers. http://www.dox-box.org/ Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments Maysles Brothers CompetitionWritten 02-03-2009 13:52:54 by Tue Steen Müller  It is the fourth time the programmer Cian Smyth organises the documentary festival ”within” the Belfast Film Festival, March 26- April 4. And again it is a pleasure to see a varied selection of high quality films, 44 in all, ” from experimental to cinema verite in form” as said in the press release, with observational “gaze” perspectives in the spirit of Albert Maysles like Helena Trestikova’s manyfold awarded “Réné”, and more “staged” titles like “Blind Loves” by Jura Lehotsky and “Z32” by Avi Mograbi, and several new Irish films.From the press release: Finally, a section of the festival that is extremely important to us, Truth/Memory/Transition, attempts to present and discuss documentary films and their worldwide stories in the context of conflict resolution, managing the emotional impact of history and the flexible nature of memory. This strand centres around debate and Pray the Devil Back to Hell will provide a thrilling centrepiece discussion in the presence of filmmaker and subject as it sits alongside a fascinating discussion about the consequences of fame in politics with world-renowned Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner Bernadette McAliskey (nee Devlin) and the film Bernadette. Photo: A mural with Bernadette Devlin. The films in this category: Pray the Devil Back to Hell: dir. Gini Reticker, USA, 2008, Ireland Premiere. Bernadette: dir. Duncan Campbell, Northern Ireland/Ireland, 2008, World Premiere. AWingBigCell: dir. Seamus Harahan, Miriam deBurca, Northern Ireland/Ireland, 2008, World Premiere. For the Record: dir. Mairead McClean, Northern Ireland/Ireland, 2009, World Premiere. An Phailistin - Disturbing the Silence: dir. Sonia NicGiolla Easbuig, Ireland, 2004 www.belfastfilmfestival.org Categories: Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments e-MEDIAWritten 02-03-2009 13:28:08 by Tue Steen Müller  … stands for the excellent, weekly electronic newsletter published by the MEDIA Desk France & Antennes Media Strasbourg & Grand Sud. Editor Christine Mazerau.Excellent, because it is so rich in information, goes far beyond the promotion and information on only French events and matters, but gives solid and accurate details on markets, festivals, training programmes with links and photos. All that you need and a fine demonstration of all the good the MEDIA Programme supports. Language is French but even for non-French reading people you can catch the info and proceed through the links if more is needed. Last Friday numéro 134 came out. And it is for free. Contact below. Photo is from Margarida Cardoso’s fine documentary “Kuxa Kanema. The Birth of Cinema” to be screened soon in Paris as part of the MEDIA supported “Un Tour d’Europe du doc”. newsletter@mediafrance.eu Categories: Cinema, Festival, Articles/Reviews ENGLISH 0 comments 7BESTWritten 01-03-2009 16:21:36 by Allan Berg Nielsen  Nu er det snart... Om mindre end to uger er der festival i Randers med FOF og Filmkommentaren.dk som værter og Tue Steen Müller som kommentator hele vejen igennem. Se program og tilmelding her.
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Latest posts / Seneste indlægLatest comments / Seneste kommentarerPaul Pauwels: I hope I'm too pessimistic - and I will find out soon - but I've learned that it's not all gold that glitters... we'll see and in the mean time I'll k... John Burgan: Sounds like a great initiative - just the sort of exchange that both schools can really benefit from.... Benoit F: J'ai déjà acheté mes places de concert...... matala: Wow, my exact feelings and thoughts could not be articulated this perfectly about Kievan film fest audience; what I saw in Molodist three yrs ago was ... Tue Steen Müller: The films mentioned in the text of Sevare Pan are available on arteeast.org... Relevant websites
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