Geoffrey Macnab

Holding Moses, shortlisted for the Short Documentary Oscar, is a deeply personal project for filmmaker Rivkah Beth Medow, she explains to Business Doc Europe. It follows Medow’s partner, dancer Randi Rader, as she learns to live with her young son’s severe disability. Medow directed the film alongside Jen Rainin with whom she founded Frankly Speaking Films.

Ben Proudfoot (whose Queen Of Basketball won the Oscar for Short Doc in 2022) has two more shorts in contention for 2023. Mink! concerns Japanese-American politician Patsy Mink who was behind the groundbreaking legislation which banned sex discrimination in education programmes, while The Best Chef In The World is about pioneering Californian chef, Sally Schmitt, founder of the revered restaurant, The French Laundry.

Ryan White’s Good Night Oppy tells the story of the two Mars robot rovers, Opportunity [“Oppy’] and Spirit sent to the red planet in 2003 on what was intended to be a 90-day fact-finding tour. Over time, the NASA scientists formed an emotional attachment with the robots and the doc is somewhat of an unlikely tearjerker. “This was my [first] film about non-humans but it was the same - I treated it like any of my character-based films,” White tells BDE.

Director Lizzie Gottlieb talks to Business Doc Europe about her documentary which profiles one of US publishing’s great double acts, writer Robert Caro and his editor and friend Robert Gottlieb, Lizzie’s father. When asked what her initial inspiration was to make the film, Lizzie remembers a response Caro gave to a question about what he and Gottlieb would fight over. “We have very different feelings about the semi-colon,” he responded.

Director Reginald Hudlin tells the remarkable story of the late, great Sidney Poitier in his new feature doc, backed by Apple TV+ and produced by Oprah Winfrey together with Derik Murray. “Although [his] parents had practically no resources, they had the resources he needed the most. They gave him love. They gave him a moral compass. They gave him curiosity. They gave him a work discipline,” Hudlin tells BDE.

Matthew Heineman talks to BDE about his film that starts at the end, as the Taliban has seized back control of Afghanistan, as American forces are pulling out, after trillions of dollars have been spent and thousands of lives lost - and it’s all ending in utter chaos. “We all know how it ends, but we are going to give you a different view of these final moments,” explains Heineman.

Swedish Magnus Gertten’s documentary Nelly & Nadine has now been selected for more than 100 film festivals and has received more than 20 international awards. It is also among the documentaries that have qualified for submission in the Best Documentary Feature category. The director spoke to Business Doc Europe before its world premiere at Berlinale 2022, where it won the Teddy Jury Award.

It has been a while but two years after its premiere in Venice, Luca Guadagnino’s feature documentary Salvatore: Shoemaker Of Dreams has finally been released in US cinemas by Sony Pictures Classics. The film, about the legendary Italian shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo, is being tipped by some as a potential Oscar contender. Writer Dana Thomas and Ferragamo’s daughter Giovanna tell BDE about their involvement on the film.

Kathryn Ferguson’s multi award-winning Nothing Compares has its subject, the brilliant Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, as its narrator. ‘Powerful’ and ‘heartrending’ are among the terms that reviewers have used to describe the film, which premiered at Sundance 2022. After its European premiere at CPH:DOX earlier this year, Ferguson explained to BDE why she was drawn to the life and work of the mercurial artist.

Simon Lereng Wilmont’s heart-rending (and Sundance-winning) film charts the experiences of kids temporarily removed from their parents in an orphanage in eastern Ukraine. During a recent screening in Kyiv the ombudswoman for children’s rights was in attendance. “She saw it and came over afterwards. She was in tears and asked if she was allowed to show it at a closed screening to [President] Zelenskyy,” the director tells BDE.