Geoffrey Macnab

The presence of outsiders - whether missionaries, doctors or illegal gold prospectors - leaves a deep impression on the lives of indigenous Wayana folk living on the border of Surinam and French Guyana. These Invasive encounters continue to reshape their daily lives. The film is shot in black and white to echo the films of earlier missionaries. Another reason was to introduce nuance. “There is no good and bad - but a lot of grey,” co-director Zaïde Bil tells BDE of life in the region.

Cassette for timescapes producer Emmy Oost discusses Belgian-Turkish director Volkan Üce’s new project, a work-in-progress at Flanders Film Days. It is a film very much about men and masculinity. “Through the lens of the military service, [Volkan] will be looking at the patriarchy, but the conclusion is the same - that men and women are equally victims of patriarchal structures,” she tells Business Doc Europe.

“Initially a small, obnoxious collective of like-minded film students,” is how Brussels-based production outfit Visualantics describes itself. At the inaugural Flanders Film Days, the company is presenting four diverse works-in-progress. “For most of these projects, it is the very first time they have been shared with such a large audience of film professionals. It’s a good opportunity to see how they are received and what feedback we get from the room. Anything else is a nice extra, already a plus,” producer Steven Dhoedt tells BDE.

When Jona Honer first visited China, he soon worked out that the easiest way to connect with the young and extremely affluent sub-strata of Chinese society was through their favourite nightclubs. He was also fascinated by the rituals of capitalism, which resembled more a religion in terms of its structure and the social support it offered. “They [the club goers] create their own symbols, maybe without knowing it consciously,” Honer tells BDE. “Every religion has its own symbols. They create their own value system…it’s more than a night out.”

In his new documentary, Tom Fassaert returns to the subject of his family, this time the strained but fascinating relationship between his father Rob and uncle Rene, two men who seem to be polar opposites. “They can’t live without each other and yet when they’re together….” Fassaert sighs as he reflects on the odd couple dynamic between the brothers. “The bittersweet taste - that is what made me make this film.”

Scottish author Irvine Welsh is put under the microscope in Paul Sng’s new documentary, which closed Edinburgh FF last month and which will be released in UK cinemas on September 26. “It was having Irvine walk through his memories…Irvine has appeared in a lot of adaptations of his work but I think he gives his best performance in this one,” director Sng tells BDE. He is joined in interview by exec producer Sarah Drummond.

In the hybrid film Memory, Vladlena Sandu, a survivor of the war in Chechnya, studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via cinema. “The bad memories, I have a chance to look at them - and I feel myself more calm,” she explains to Business Doc Europe how it helps her to confront the demons from her childhood through her art. Her hope with her filmmaking is to try to break “the circle of violence” that has for so long surrounded her.

Leading Argentine director Lucrecia Martel takes the plunge into documentary with her latest feature, a complex and hard-hitting story about the murder of an Indigenous community leader and the community’s subsequent fight for justice on his behalf. “It is very important to convey to young people that filmmaking and cinema can have a huge power,” Martel tells Business Doc Europe. “They can use it for good or bad reasons but it has a huge power - and I’ve never felt it so much as in this film.”

Revered US director Ross McElwee’s new documentary is a deeply painful exploration of his relationship with his son, Adrian, who died suddenly in late 2016 after a drugs overdose. “It has the opposite effect of therapy. It makes me more anxious about living,” McElwee tells Business Doc Europe, when asked if making the film was a cathartic experience. In the case of Remake, there is “no consolation that I can fathom at this point: no consolation in making this film, little consolation in actually working on it.”

Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus’s feature doc Cover-Up tells the story of Pulitzer Prize-winning Seymour Hersh and his relentless investigative reporting - from the My Lai massacre to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, from Nixon and Watergate to the sabotage of the Nord Stream platform. “He was, I think, the most important voice of dissent in national security reporting,” co-director Poitras tells Business Doc Europe.