Category Archives: EN

Doc-making, EN

DOK. Incubator’s workshop

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SUNDANCE DOCUMENTARY AWARD goes to a debut film from the DOK.Incubator´s
workshop!
The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, a low budget documentary,
developed within the DOK.Incubator workshop, has just won the award for
World Cinema Documentary Directing at the SUNDANCE Festival! For the
Gurchiani sisters, was the first time both producing and directing a feature
lenght documentary.

„Living for a long time in Europe, I wanted to return to Georgia and make a
film about young people there. So I organised a casting – and suddenly I
saw, that those faces have their own touching stories – and I decided to
listen to them,“ describes Tinatin Gurchiani, the debuting documentarist,
the very start of her road to the amazing success of this visually stunning
movie. The film was developed within DOK.Incubator, workshop focused on
editing and distribution, that provides an individual tutoring for
documentary projects from the rough cut stage to their release. After a half
year of intensive work, The Machine… achived sophisticated editing and a
precise distribution strategy, helping them to approach the prestigious
sales agency, Deckert Distribution, and achieve international distribution.
Their road to success started with their premiere at DOK Leipzig Young
Competition and finished with the most prestigious international competition
at Sundance.

The DOK.Incubator project has been launched in 2012 by a creative think-tank
DocIncubator (CZ), DOK.Leipzig festival (DE) and the Institute of
Documentary Film (CZ) , in cooperation with the Association of Independent
Producers (SK) and Centrala Filmproduction (PL). After the first edition,
beside DOK Leipzig and Sundance, two participant films have competed also at
IDFA, CPH:DOX and they participate soon in MoMA´s Documentary Fortnight.

More information about the workshop you can find at www.dokincubator.net
DEADLINE for the 2013 edition is March 5th.

Doc-making, EN, Interviews, Uncategorized

Making of … A Film Unfinished

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listen to the interview with the producer Itay Ken-Tor.

Doc-making, EN

Master Class Werner Herzog online

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The Polish Planete+ Doc Film Festival and the VOD platform DAFilms.com present a master class with Werner Herzog at DAFilms.com. Meet the living legend of feature and documentary film, author of more than 50 films and the director who throughout his life has posed questions about the limits that nature and mankind impose on each other. As a filmmaker, he overcomes these limits and presents to the audience what he has found on the other side.

Stream for FREE until 20 January.

dafilms.com

Doc-making, EN, Interviews

Madeleine Avramoussis (C.E. ARTE) about co-producing in Greece

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Madeleine Avramoussis, ARTE's renowned Commissioning Editor has a long experience in Co-Producing. She has been doing it for the past 20 years! In this television interview she gave me for ERT in Spring 2012 she talks about co-production in Greece, the festival, the prices and future plans. Arte is planning a special theme day about Greece in August 2013.

Watch the complete interview:

Doc-making, EN, Festivals, Interviews

A new documentary about Greece and Democracy

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Democratia, the way of the cross
An independent Greek feature-length documentary made by Marco Gastine about the campaign for the parliamentary election on May 6 2012 in Greece. The film follows four candidates, giving us a unique opportunity to explore the current political situation in Greece from a different perspective. The politicians belong to four different parties - a former minister from PASOK, a young politician with a family tradition in politics (his father was also MP), a woman from the left-wing SYNASPISMOS, and a candidate from Golden Dawn, the extreme right-wing party.Everybody tries to reach out to their voters and no-one has any real answers to Greece's pressing issues.
Demokratia the way of the cross is an observational, character-driven documentary without narration, a great insightful portrait of Greek politics.
Even though it's about the May 2012 election, Unfortunately for Greece it's still topical. Things don't change so quickly, especially when they have been in the same status quo for so many years.
It would have been better if it had been possible to have had this hot documentary ready sooner, but Marco Gastine told me that he preferred to have the premier in festivals, which is understandable.
The documentary was directed and produced by Marco Gastine jointly with Katerina Patroni, Nikolia Apostolou, Haris Raftogiannis, Christos Georgoutsos and Yiannis Misouridis. Each of these Greek filmmakers and camera-men and -women followed one politician. They had already worked together as a team for the series Docville, produced by Gastine.
The documentary (91 min, 52 min) was in the Market at DOK Leipzig and will be distributed in theatres in Greece in January.
On Wednesday December 5, the film will be screened at the French Institute in Athens (Sina 31, Kolonaki).

Marco Gastine
Director Marco Gastine

Listen to the interview (English) Marco Gastin gave me in November 2012 in Athens.

EN, Festivals, Screenings-Events

A great Greek feature-length film at idfa 2012

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One step ahead (Ena vima mprosta) is the portrait of the unconventional Greek wine producer Yannis Boutaris and his bid to become the mayor of Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, in 2010. Athiridis' camera follows closely the charismatic entrepreneur throughout his political campain and personal moments, while Greece sinks further into the financial crisis. What I liked the most about this film is its balance, with its second layer where he talks about his background and private life, his alcoholism and the death of his wife, while we watch great previously unseen family footage. In 132 min. (could be 10 min. shorter) Dimitris Athiridis provides  us with a deep look into the Greek society and helps us to understand the current situation in Greece. Artemis Anastasiadou has done a good job in the editing room and both Stavros Gasparatos and Terry Papadinas have chosen great music for the soundtrack of the film. The film is co-produced by ZDF/ARTE, ERT and YLE. It is a world premiere at idfa and will be broadcast on ARTE's special theme day on Greece, in June 2013.

You can still watch it on Thursday November 22 and Saturday 24 at idfa.

Thursday 22/11, at 21.45 Munt 13 and
Saturday 24/11, 14.45 Munt 13

Watch One Step Ahead trailer at idfa

EN, Festivals

Greek productions at idfa (Amsterdam)

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Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the greatest European documentary festival,idfa, is taking place until November 25 2012 in Amsterdam.
Follow the proceedings at idfa's well-laid-out website.
To premiere and compete in Amsterdam is Dimitris Athiridis' film One step ahead on Yannis Boutaris, mayor of Thessaloniki. In Greece, the film will be screened in the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in March. It will also be aired during the ARTE special day-long feature on Greece, in May 2013.
Also participating in the EBU pitching: Agora (Εxandas), The New Plastic Road (Myrto Papadopoulos and Angelos Tsaoussis) and Little Land (Nikos Dayandas, Anemon Productions-Rea Apostolides). Based on my idea and research, Little Land is taking place on the island of Icaria. It will be aired as part of the day-long television tribute to Greece by ARTE in May 2013. Also in idfa's main pitch on Monday November 19 2012 in Amsterdam, the Greek-produced and -directed documentary Kismet (Nina-Maria Paschalidou, Anemon Productions-Rea Apostolides) on Turkish TV soap-operas.

http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.idfa.nl%2Findustry%2Ftags%2Fproject.aspx%3Fid%3Db9a824a0-de9b-4c8e-a86a-6f9e0f454409&ei=TQrJUJr3Ised0QXh4ICIDw&usg=AFQjCNGkuIaIaRr3DKCGG7Xhu7MLkHbwSg&sig2=SynFUKHsZqHLYOigJj0hXg&bvm=bv.1355272958,d.d2k

Doc-making, EN, Festivals

Meet the Fokkens!

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Meet the Fokkens (Ouwehoeren), from the Netherlands!

Listen to director Rob Schröder's interview by Dimitra Kouzi at Prix Europa 2012 (2 parts)

EN, Screenings-Events

«WHY POVERTY? – ΦΤΩΧΕΙΑ ΓΙΑΤΙ;» σε Avant Premiere 12 Νοεμβρίου 2012

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ΔΕΥΤΕΡΑ 12 ΝΟΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ, ΑΠΟ ΤΙΣ 18.00 έως τις 22.00

ΣΤΟ ΓΑΛΛΙΚΟ ΙΝΣΤΙΤΟΥΤΟ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ (Σίνα 31)

Η ΕΡΤ παρουσιάζει, σε avant première, τέσσερα ντοκιμαντέρ του τμήματος  Διεθνών Συμπαραγωγών της ΕΡΤ, στο πλαίσιο της διεθνούς πρωτοβουλίας «WHY POVERTY? - ΦΤΩΧΕΙΑ ΓΙΑΤΙ;».

Τα ντοκιμαντέρ που θα προβληθούν είναι :

EDUCATION, EDUCATION, σε σκηνοθεσία Weijun Chen

WELLCOME TO THE WORLD,  σε σκηνοθεσία Brian Hill

POOR US – AN ANIMATED HISTORY OF POVERTY,

σε σκηνοθεσία Ben Lewis

SOLAR MAMAS, σε σκηνοθεσία Mona Eldaifef και Jehane Noujaim

Ποιό από όλα τα ντοκιμαντέρ σας ενδιαφέρει περισσότερο;

Στο πλαίσιο αυτής της βραδιάς θα παρουσιαστεί το 25ο Φεστιβάλ Ντοκιμαντέρ «Κινηματογράφος & Πραγματικότητα» που διοργανώνεταιαπό με την υποστήριξη του Γαλλικού Ινστιτούτου της Ελλάδος και του Ινστιτούτου Goethe.

Xορηγός επικοινωνίας είναι η ΕΡΤ.

Η είσοδος για το κοινό θα είναι ελεύθερη

 

EN, Screenings-Events

The winners at DOK Leipzig 2012

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The winners at DOK Leipzig 2012 are out! Read all about it.

From the German films I saw at the Leipzig screenings I really liked two:
The Last Catch, by Markus CM Schmidt, about the European bluefin tuna - overfishing in the Mediterranean Sea and the situation of the fishermen, who are also facing extinction. After watching this film I think twice about sushi... 

The other film I liked is The Venice Syndrome by Andreas Pichler. It's a feature-length documentary about the consequences of mass tourism in Venice and the remains of urban life in this lovely city. The film argues that in 2030 there will be none of the 58,000 inhabitants living in Venice today. An elegy to the last Venetians and a thriller about the consequences of tourism. And a universal story: quite a few fantastic places around the world are faced with the same issues.  Watch the official trailer.