As the awards momentum behind Romanian director Alexander Nanau’s Collective (sold internationally by Cinephil) gathers, one executive who can justifiably feel pride is Hanka Kastelicová, Executive Producer of Documentaries for HBO Europe. She talks doc to Business Doc Europe.
Hanka Kastelicová has been one of the key figures in Alexander Nanau’s emergence as an internationally recognised name and in the success of Collective, which is released in the US by Magnolia Pictures and Participant. Since 2012, when she joined HBO, she has also overseen an extraordinary boom in documentary making in eastern Europe and beyond.
Romanian state funders used to shun Nanau’s work because it depicted downbeat elements of Romanian life that the authorities did not want to see highlighted abroad. HBO, though, was always more adventurous.
Nanau’s feature The World According To Ion B (2009), about a tramp who becomes recognised as an important contemporary artist, was backed by HBO. A couple of years later, when Kastelicová joined HBO in 2012, her first trip was to Romania and the first director she met was Nanau. By that time, he had already shot part of Toto And His Sisters (2014), about three kids in a Bucharest slum, which HBO also supported.
In late 2015, Kastelicová was with Nanau at the European Film Awards ceremony in Berlin (where Toto was nominated for Best Documentary) when they were approached by an actress.
“It was one month after the Collective fire [the horrific nightclub blaze in Bucharest] and she said to us: ‘you should do something about the Collective.’”
Nanau and Kastelicová looked at each other. A few days later, the project was already under way. “I spoke to my bosses and we supported the development. We became basically Alexander’s first partners [on Collective].”
Samsa Film Luxembourg co-produced the doc. There were other backers too, among them Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera and YES Docu. Kastelicová produced for HBO Europe and Bernard Michaux produced for Samsa Film (Luxembourg). The executive producers were HBO’s Antony Root and Cinephil’s Philippa Kowarsky.
“I think we complement each other very well,” Kastelicová says of the ongoing collaboration with Nanau. “What I like about Alexander is that he’s extremely hard working. When he decides to spend his time and the time of his collaborators, he always looks for something really meaningful.”
From that initial meeting with the actress in Berlin, Collective could have gone in many different directions. The filmmakers were starting with a story about a tragedy which happened because of government negligence and graft. She talks of Nanau’s uncanny instinct for choosing the best protagonists.
In this case, investigative journalist Cătălin Tolontan became the main character. Courageous and relentless, he exposed corruption that stretched right to the highest echelons of the Romanian government.
“We basically got that anger which exists in many places and Alexander succeeded in translating it into cinema,” Kastelicová says of a documentary which hinges on the disaster in a Bucharest nightclub but which turned out to have a universal resonance.
“I knew from the very beginning that this would be a story which would be very important for European audiences, but I must say I was very surprised that also people in America felt so strongly about this story. It means that they are dealing with the same troubles as everywhere in the world.”
Kastelicová doesn’t just work with Nanau. HBO Europe has been involved in a string of successful, hard-hitting feature documentaries, many of which have screened at major festivals while also winning awards locally. Her filmography includes such titles as Communion, Something Better To Come, Chuck Norris vs Communism, Return To Epipo and The Network. She is currently involved in Hanna Polak’s Angels Of Sinjar, about the ISIS atrocities against Yazidi women.
As well as screening at festivals, HBO’s documentaries can reach huge audiences on the HBO platform. For example, Return To Epipo was one of the most watched documentaries in Hungary last year.
HBO Europe is also becoming more involved in documentary series, among them the Spanish-made The Pioneer, about football and politics mogul Jesús Gil. HBO is also aboard another major new Spanish series, director Fèlix Colomer’s Vitals, about a Barcelona hospital trying to cope with the first wave of Covid. In Sweden, HBO is supporting new true-crime series Pray, Obey, Kill from Henrik Georgsson.
With feature docs, HBO Europe acts as co-producer but fully finances the documentary series it makes.
Kastelicová is clearly excited about the potential for HBO Europe when it upgrades to HBO Max later this year.
Like many others in the eastern European documentary industry, the Prague-based HBO exec is missing human interaction and feeling the strain after more than nine months of continual, Covid-induced virtual festivals and pitching forums.
“In our work, I feel that it is important to connect emotionally with the [film]makers,” she expresses of her frustration at a few too many exhausting meetings held over Zoom. “Let’s see if the vaccination goes fast enough…”
