Geoffrey Macnab

“Of course, I do bring my own vision into the film, my own pessimistic vision, my own personal feelings that I am tired of war,” Oscar-winning Mstyslav Chernov tells BDE of his new documentary 2000 Metres to Andriivka, receiving its European premiere. But this is balanced by “the absolute dedication, strength and hope that the Ukrainian soldiers have on this battlefield. If they don’t have those feelings, if they don’t carry those flags, if they don’t have the hope, if they don’t have that resilience, then Ukraine is gone as a country.”

Hannah Papacek Harper’s feature doc is inspired by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris' book The Lost Words, itself created in response to 50 words all relating to nature being summarily removed from the Oxford Youth Dictionary in 2007 - words such as ‘raven’, ‘magpie’ and ‘otter.’ Without these words at their disposal, it becomes harder for the young generation to develop empathy and connection with the non-human world, Harper reasons to BDE.

How do adults make a documentary about the private world of children without intruding into and destroying that world? This was the very delicate challenge facing filmmakers Danny Biancardi, Stefano La Rosa and Virginia Nardelli when they embarked on their project, The Castle, screening in competition at CPH:DOX (and sold by Fandango). The trio explains all to Business Doc Europe.

In Petr Lom’s lyrical documentary about our world spinning out of control, one of the core images is of a baby turtle trapped in fishing nets and garbage, washed up on shore, but trying heroically to make it back to the sea. “There’s an old myth that the world is built on the back of a turtle; that the god came down and put a little dirt on a turtle’s back - and the world is built on that little handful of dirt,” director Lom tells BDE. “We didn’t want to make it explicit but that is why the turtles are representative of humanity and who we are, because if the turtles go, we go.”

Viktor Nordenskiöld’s new documentary The Eukrainian profiles Ukraine's deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna, who is the one spearheading the country’s attempts to gain EU membership. “When I met her, I saw directly that she was somebody who could embody and personalise this complicated story. You felt her energy. She was unspoiled as a politician. She seems very honest and also very sharp,” Nordenskiöld tells BDE.

There are two landscapes in the life of Norwegian filmmaker, Gunnar Hall Jensen. One “normal landscape” existed before his son, Jonathan, 21, was murdered in Brazil in 2023. The other is the world he lives in today defined by sorrow and trauma and for which, as he tells Business Doc Europe, “there are no maps.” Portrait Of A Confused Father world premieres in Copenhagen.

Denmark has consistently been ranked as the best country in the world to be a woman. But what does that mean for the men? They’re being outperformed at school, out earned in the workplace. To put it bluntly, they no longer wear the trousers. “If we want to make new ideal masculinity role models, then we need to give confidence to these nice men,” co-director Exner suggests to BDE. “These men are the ones that are going to give space for a woman like me to have a career.”

In Girls & Gods, Inna Shevchenko, the Ukrainian leader of feminist group Femen, asks female priests, rabbis, imams and theologians if their beliefs and their feminism can ever be reconciled. “Our film is about this. It is about waking the silent masses of believers who don’t want violence, who don’t want patriarchy, who don’t want misogyny in their religions and also don’t want war,” says co-director Arash T. Riahi.

“The idea was to give back to the industry after 25 amazing years,” First Hand Films CEO and founder Esther van Messel explains just why the company created its own First Hand Fund Diversity Fund to give out €25,000 in awards in cash and kind to a wide range of filmmakers and projects. Seven winners have now been chosen from over 100 submissions. She is also eyeing up a busy Spring, starting this week at CPH:DOX.

“I just tried mentally and physically to make myself small and invisible,” Norwegian director and photographer Monica Strømdahl tells BDE how she blended into the background when making her debut feature documentary, Flophouse America (in International Competition in CPH:DOX and also screening in Movies That Matter and Visions Du Reel). The film is set almost entirely within the tiny, cramped hotel room Mikal shares with his alcoholic parents and where he has lived almost all his life.