Geoffrey Macnab

If there is one filmmaker who can cope with lockdown, it is Victor Kossakovsky. Put it to the director of porcine-themed Gunda that you could put him in a shoebox and he’d be able to make a documentary, and he readily agrees. Kossakovsky gets cosy with Business Doc Europe.

British doc director Oliver Murray (whose film Ronnie’s about legendary jazz club proprietor Ronnie Scott is still screening on the festival circuit) is preparing an ambitious new three-part documentary series about the Montreux Jazz Festival. BDE reports.

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 to Business Doc Europe.

“I am making this film for my family, for my people, for me,” Swedish-based Iranian director Nahid Persson tells Business Doc Europe ahead of her impact documentary Be My Voice’s world premiere in Nordic Documentary Competition at Göteborg Film Festival.

Ebullient producer-distributor-sales agent Frank Mannion, boss of London-based Swipe Films, is taking the plunge into directing with Sparkling: The Story Of Champagne, a feature doc that looks into the origins of one of the world’s most favourite and fizziest of luxury tipples.

International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) founder and former director Ally Derks has paid tribute to British director Michael Apted, who died in Los Angeles last week, aged 79.

Like many other Georgian citizens, filmmaker Salomé Jashi was startled to see images of a gigantic tree floating down the Black Sea. It was on its way to the home of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire former Prime Minister of Georgia, who wanted it for his garden. Jashi branches out with BDE.

“Structurally, I wanted to make a film whose experience was akin to peeling back layers of truth, one that seems like a history documentary but becomes a psychological thriller.” UK docmaker Sam Hobkinson talks to BDE about his Sundance selection Misha And The Wolves.

One documentary predicted to be a strong awards contender in coming weeks is Sam Pollard’s MLK/FBI, which tells the story of how the FBI eavesdropped on Martin Luther King Jr. The director talks surveillance, heroes and human complexities with BDE.

Stephan Pierre Mitchell’s short doc Deleted, about his short friendship with a neighbour facing eviction, is now screening on Amazon with half the proceeds earmarked to help fight homelessness in the UK. Mitchell tells BDE about the genesis of the project.