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    FIPADOC closes 2023 Industry Days with award ceremony

    Industry news Modern Times Review -
    The programme of the fifth #FIPADOC Industry Days has come to a close with its award ceremony. Held between 23 - 26 January, on-site...
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    On 80th anniversary, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival pays tribute to the city’s Holocaust victims

    Industry news Modern Times Review -
    80 years after first train bound for Auschwitz departed from #Thessaloniki, the 25th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival organizes a tribute in honour of the...
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    Documentary
    ECOLOGY / Matter Out of Place (dir: Nikolaus Geyrhalter) Following waste across the planet and the endless struggle of people to gain control over it.
    Bianca-Olivia Nita -
    Documentary
    CONFLICT / The Investigator (dir: Viktor Portel) A film set in the present, about the past, that points to the future...
    Nick Holdsworth -
    Documentary
    CLIMATE / Cobalt Rush: The Future of Going Green (dir: Arnaud Zajtman, …) The cost of going carbon neutral painted in the nightmare colours of cobalt blue.
    Nick Holdsworth -
    Documentary
    ARMENIA / Motherland (dir: Vic Gerami) Through an activist lens, Motherland focuses the world’s attention on the 2020 atrocities committed in Armenia's Artsakh Republic, formerly known as Nagorno – Karabakh.
    Melita Zajc -

    Industry news

    FIFDH kicks of 2023 Industry Days activities with day-long seminar
    FIPADOC welcomes Ukraine as 2023 Guest of Honour
    Sunny Side of the Doc reveals 2023 Global Pitch selections
    Applications now open for 2023 East Silver Market

    FIPADOC announces complete 2023 programme

    Thessaloniki Documentary Festival tributes observational documentary with 2023 retrospective

    FIFDH announces full programme for 2023 Impact Days webinar

    Visions du Réel announces 2023 Honorary Award recipient

    Documentary reviews

    NAM / Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels (dir: Mila Turajlić) In a documentary diptych, Mila Turajlić examines the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement via an expansive unexplored archive of former Tito cameraman Stevan Labudović.
    FID MARSEILLE / Private Footage (dir: Janaína Nagata) Brazilian director Janaína Nagata makes contact with the past somewhere between affect and internet research in Private Footage.
    FID MARSEILLE / Fall (dir: Vadim Kostrov) The nostalgic (re)construction of Vadim Kostrov’s former Umwelt in the film Fall.
    PHOTOGRAPHY / Trained to See – Three Women and the War (dir: Luzia Schmid) Three women and a war seen through their eyes.
    RUSSIA / Holidays (dir: Antoine Cattin) The authoritarian stranglehold of the Kremlin closes in across national holidays in contemporary Russia.
    JOURNALISM / The Etilaat Roz (dir: Abbas Rezaie) Following the team behind the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Kabul as it is recaptured by the Taliban.
    DOCLISBOA / Aurora's Sunrise (dir: Inna Sahakyan) The true story of a young Armenian girl who, along with her family, had to endure the genocide that took place between 1915 and 1918.
    FALKLANDS WAR / Port Desire (dir: Juan Manuel Bugarín) You can take the soldier out of a war, but not the war out of the soldier.
    BIOGRAPHY / Merkel (dir: Eva Weber) One of the longest-serving German chancellors ever, Angela Merkel's eventful tenure as a woman in a bastion of masculinity made her an anchor for Europe.
    RACISM / Racist Trees (dir: Sara Newens, …) A row of tamarisk trees along a huge golf course in Palm Springs begs the question, can a tree be racist?
    DOCLISBOA / Death of a City (dir: João Rosas) The motif of the city of Lisbon and the process of its transformation.
    IRAN / Silent House (dir: Farnaz Jurabchian, …) The fortunes of three generations of an upper-middle-class Iranian family tracked across forty years of turbulent Iranian history.

    Essays / editorials

    NEO-FASCISM / Fascinating fascism and seductive leaders Do many still have fascist yearnings today, or can one always blame seductive leaders? A closer dive into the 100-year-old Italian fascism and its descendants says something about the dangers we are likely to face.
    Avatar photo Truls Lie -

    Festival Report: IDFA Doclab 2022

    Avatar photo Steve Rickinson -

    Prosecution of filmmakers spreads «like a pandemic»

    Avatar photo Sevara Pan -

    «We, the Revolution»

    Avatar photo Dieter Wieczorek -

    Ulrich Seidl’s Sparta and the question of ethics in filmmaking

    Avatar photo Margareta Hruza -

    Book reviews

    MEMOIR / Zarifa: A Woman's Battle in a Man's World (auth: Zarifa Ghafari, …)
    DOCUMENTARY / A Companion to Documentary Film History (auth: Joshua Malitsky [Editor])
    ENVIRONMENT / On the Emergence of an Ecological Class (auth: Bruno Latour, …)
    DISTRIBUTION / The Documentary Distribution Toolkit How to Get Out, Get Seen, and Get an Audience (auth: Rachel Gordon)
    FILMMAKING / The Uncertainty (auth: Mikael Opstrup)
    TECHNOLOGY / Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again (auth: Johann Hari)
    TECH / The Circle of the Snake. Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big Tech (auth: Grafton Tanner)
    SOCIETY / The Web of Meaning (auth: Jeremy Lent)
    JUSTICE / The Secret power: Why they want to destroy Julian Assange and WikiLeaks (Il potere segreto: Perché vogliono distruggere Julian Assange e WikiLeaks) (auth: Stefania Maurizi)
    EDITORIAL / Order in Chaos – Storytelling and Editing in Documentary Film (auth: Niels Pagh Andersen)
    TECHNOLOGY / The Enemy Knows the System (auth: Marta Peirano)
    HEALTHCARE / The Care Crisis (auth: Emma Dowling)
    GENRE / The Process Genre. Cinema and the Aesthetic of Labor (auth: Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky)
    GENDER / Good Wife, Wise Mother (auth: Anne-Stine Johnsbråten)
    ART / Conflictual Aesthetics: Artistic Activism and the Public Sphere (auth: Oliver Marchart)
    MEDIA / The Media Manifesto (auth: Justin Schlosberg, …)

    Interviews

    FIPADOC / «Starting the year in an inspiring location by the sea is the perfect setting for launching new ideas and making new connections» Industry Days Head of Coproduction Forum Ove Rishøj Jensen on the specifics of this year's edition, its role as the first festival of the year, and more.
    Steve Rickinson -
    ENVIRONMENT / Volker Schlöndorff – Full of hope for Africa «It's about changing mindsets», says Volker Schlöndorff. Jokingly, the German veteran director refers to his new documentary on agronomist Tony Rinaudo's reforestation projects in Africa as propaganda.
    Aleksander Huser -
    IDFA / «You can feel the confidence and lack of compromise in the filmmaking» Modern Times Review speaks head programmers Laura van Halsema and Joost Daamen on the breakdown of programming such a vast selection of films, how to maintain a balanced lineup, the reasoning behind its 2022 focus programmes, and more.
    Steve Rickinson -
    MOVIES ON WAR / «We are a festival that tries to make a difference and to uncover injustice» Modern Times Review spoke with Festival Director Øystein Egge on the nature and mission of the festival, the importance of presenting a balanced programme, and, the highlight films throughout.
    Steve Rickinson -

    comments/editorials

    IDFA / New Tech – Manufacturing the Truth?
    Avatar photo Sevara Pan -
    Filmmakers and artists weigh in on old and new technologies in documentary film and their ethical implications.
    UKRAINE / Festival Report: Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival 2022
    Nick Holdsworth Nick Holdsworth -
    From Kyiv, Modern Times Review reports from the 2022 Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival.
    DOCLISBOA / Marked By Slowness
    Viktor Strmiska -
    This year’s edition of the Portuguese documentary film festival once again gave emerging film professionals from all over Europe the opportunity to showcase their short films in the section Green Years.
    UKRAINE / The road to war
    Nick Holdsworth Nick Holdsworth -
    Two films screening at Norway's Movies on War Film Festival look at the lead-up to the February 24th Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    print magazines

    We can be found at all the primary European documentary festivals, on-site for audiences, and in the delegate bags of professionals. Printed two times annually and with regularly updated online content, our archive of nearly 2000 reviews and articles cover political, ecological, big-tech and existential documentary films – and now non-fiction books too. Please donate and you will get the print magazine too.

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    © FILM AS / Truls Lie
    96100 Siracusa, Italy 
    Editor-in-chief: Truls Lie

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