Geoffrey Macnab

Spanish director Alba Sotorra talks to Business Doc Europe about her doc in which she she explores the plight of the so-called ISIS brides, including the divisive Shamima Beguma from the UK and the American Hoda Muthana.

After an eight-hour phone conversation, Russian filmmaker Julia Sergina and the charismatic, outspoken, ranting and highly unusual taxi driver Viktor decided to work together on a doc. The resulting film screens in Krakow Documentary Competition. The director flags down BDE to explain more.

To call Walk With Angels a tough documentary to make is somewhat of an understatement. During shooting in the townships surrounding Johannesburg, Polish director Tomasz Wysokiński had a shotgun pointed in his face and saw someone murdered in front of him. He tells all to BDE.

Norwegian Magnus Skatvold gets to grips with legendary New York cop Bob Leuci who exposed corruption in the NYPD in the 1970s, inspiring filmmakers such as Sidney Lumet. But the man Skatvold came to know wasn’t the hard-boiled and divisive whistleblower, rather a genial grandfather in his 1970s. Skatvold explains all to BDE.

Series director Asif Kapadia, director Danielle Peck and James Gay-Rees (exec producer) tell Business Doc Europe about their epic Apple TV series that chronicles 12 marvellous musical months during which the world was knocked right off its axis.

In Marina Belobrovaja’s film about motherhood and children conceived through sperm donorship, the Zurich-based director seeks to challenge traditional, patriarchal notions about parenthood and family, she explains to Business Doc Europe.

“I went deeper into the story and asked the questions that have never been asked before,” explains director Melanie Lischker to BDE about a film that attempts to solve the mysteries of her mother’s life after the discovery of a cache of home footage.

Julia Teichmann, Head of Documentary & Regional Desk Central and Eastern Europe at German Films, explains to Business Doc Europe why she expects the German documentary sector to bounce back quickly after the Covid crisis.

“Amazon…member of a fabled tribe of female warriors,” reads the dictionary definition quoted at the start of Thaïs Odermatt’s prize-winning feature doc, Urban Amazons. The film is intended as is a paean to strong women. It celebrates modern-day Amazons - females living in Berlin who have all fought to overcome sexist stereotyping.

Polish director Krzysztof Kasior has a phrase which sums up perfectly his approach to documentary. He talks to Business Doc Europe of the “patient eye.” When he was a student at the Krzysztof Kieslowski Film School, his teachers emphasised the importance of filmmakers taking the time to win the trust of their subjects.