Geoffrey Macnab

In October 2013, Anikó and Laci, a poor, middle-aged Hungarian couple struck it rich on the lottery. Their story is told in Mátyás Kálmán’s new film, Paying A Visit To Fortuna (screening in Sarajevo’s Documentary Competition). As the director tells BDE, he was welcomed into their lives as, unlike almost everyone else they met, he didn’t want a hand-out and nor did he wish offer advice on how they should use their new-found wealth.

New York-based Erica Jong, who turned 80 earlier this year, has been a full blown literary celebrity for going on half a century. She has written many books, including the much-lauded and provocative ‘Fear of Flying,’ and has been a regular fixture on US talk shows. But nobody has made a proper documentary about her. Until now. Swiss filmmaker Kaspar Kasics talks to BDE about his new doc, playing Out of Competition in Locarno.

The esteemed Austrian docmaker talks to Business Doc Europe about his new film, selected for Concorso Internazionale, which tackles the global problem of trash and its disposal…or rather its relocation. As he points out in the starkest of terms, rubbish may be buried in landfill, recycled, burnt or dismantled - but it doesn’t vanish.

In their new film, world-premiering at Locarno, co-directors João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata pay tribute both to Paulo Rocha, a titan of Portuguese cinema, and his highly influential film from 1964, The Green Years. But while Rocha’s work is a piece of drama, Where Is This Street? is strictly documentary. It is also a personal portrait of the directors’ home city of Lisbon during the pandemic.

Sara Dosa’s tale of intrepid French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft opens July 29 across the UK, released by Dogwoof. As director Dosa told BDE earlier this year, in making the film she took inspiration from François Truffaut’s New Wave classic Jules et Jim. Her film is also about a love triangle, the passion French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft felt for each other – but also their romantic obsession with volcanoes.

Intrepid British photographer/filmmaker/climber Jonathan Griffith won Best VR story at Cannes XR last month for his latest project, Alex Honnold: The Soloist. It’s an astonishingly realistic film in which viewers wearing their VR headsets accompany Honnold as he clambers up the sheerest rock faces high up in the Alps. The director invites BDE to join him.

The new doc A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, directed by Mark Cousins and produced by Adam Dawtrey and Mary Bell, is one of the most high profile projects presented at this week’s MeetMarket at Sheffield DocFest. “When you look inside her imagination, you encounter this kind of Leonardo Da Vinci untrammeled thing where science and art, left and right, all combine,” Cousins tells BDE of his subject, the late Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

BDE talks to producer Lorine Plagnol who will be in Sheffield this week taking part in MeetMarket with her company Sungazer’s latest project Dalton’s Dream. This is a feature doc about UK X Factor winner Dalton Harris. As a young, queer musical star from Jamaica, he is seeking love and acceptance in a world that isn’t always sympathetic toward him. The film, currently in post-production, is co-directed by Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown.

Monday 27 June sees the world premiere “cine-concert” of Esther Johnson’s bold and innovative new feature documentary Dust & Metal at Sheffield DocFest 2022. It’s a Vietnam story but don’t expect any of the clichés of apocalyptic western war movies set in the country. The focus here is on bikes, not guns. Johnson gets in tandem with Business Doc Europe.

A group of dogged cinephiles who meet every Monday night to socialise, drink cups tea and show their films are the heroes of Kim Hopkins’ new documentary A Bunch Of Amateurs, sold by MetFilms and receiving its world premiere in International Competition at Sheffield DocFest this week. The director sits down for a brew with Business Doc Europe.