Geoffrey Macnab

Scottish director Martyn Robertson talks to Business Doc Europe about his new surfing documentary screening at London FF this week. The film isn’t just about a teenage prodigy tackling the breakers. It is, as importantly, a story “about love, about family, about growing up and parenting,” says the filmmaker.

Now in his early 50s, Dries Meddens is finally making his documentary feature debut. His film, pitched at RE>CONNEXT this week, is a deeply personal project with a gestation stretching back almost 20 years, to when his father was still alive. In it he asks why his father, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was so badly treated, both by psychiatrists and by society in general. BDE reports.

Being showcased as a work in progress at RE>CONNEXT is the documentary series Capturing The Pirate King telling the story of the Somalians who hijacked a Belgian ship and were later arrested by the Belgian Federal Police in an elaborate sting involving a fake movie production company. It is being made through Diplodokus and directed by Lennart Stuyck who draws swords with BDE.

Ruben Desiere’s new documentary Echo (screening this week at the online RE>CONNEXT showcase) had its origins in Parade, a fictional dramatic feature he had been planning to make. This was an adaptation of novel which he had decided to set in a military camp. He explains more to Business Doc Europe.

Flemish filmmaker Annabel Verbeke talks to Business Doc Europe about her Four Seasons In A Day, screening at RE>CONNEXT and part of the Borderline collection, one of six creative documentaries about unknown but fascinating borders in Europe.

When the director first discussed his documentary idea to profile the great Iraqi photographer Latif Al Ani, the subject thought that it would entail him sitting on a chair, talking to the camera about all the pictures he had taken. “I said Latif, our ambitions are higher than that! We have bigger goals!” Khalif corrected him. This is a film for the cinema, a work of scale and grandeur, he tells BDE.

Filmmaker Rachida El Garani is dealing with deeply personal and traumatic subject matter in her new project, which is being presented at the virtual RE>CONNEXT showcase. The film focuses on the Belgian-Moroccan director’s relationship with her father, a stern patriarch whose decisions many years ago threatened to ruin her life. El Garani speaks to Business Doc Europe.

“An audacious shot on goal, both bold and delicate,” reads the slogan on the Panenka website. The Belgian company, founded in 2004, has taken its name from one of the most famous penalties in the history of football. The company’s Kristoffel Mertens attempts to put one past Business Doc Europe.

A diplodokus (or diplodocus) is a dinosaur with a long neck and a very long tail. It’s also the name which has been taken by one of Belgium’s most adventurous independent production companies. Since 2014, Diplodokus has been making documentary films, TV dramas and web-docs which have won awards and been shown at many international festivals. The company’s Maarten Bernaerts explains the rationale to BDE.

Joost Vandensande, editor-in-chief at production house Panenka, talks to Business Doc Europe about his company’s new 4-part doc series, to be pitched during the upcoming Flemish showcase, about the former Congolese dictator who, even now, very much divides opinion. “He is still a very, very delicate subject. It’s like opening a Pandora’s Box,” Vandensande tells BDE.