Geoffrey Macnab

Greek director Angelos Tsaousis’ obsession with documentary began during his childhood when he used to watch National Geographic films on battered old VHS tapes. “I was fascinated by this form of storytelling,” he tells BDE. “I was fascinated by the fact of travelling, meeting new cultures in those remote areas and exploring our world.”

Stalin had lots. Saddam Hussein employed several and his son Uday had one of his own too. Gaddafi kept his share and pock-marked Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega maintained four of them. Welcome to the world of body doubles and political decoys. A singular Mads Brügger tells more…

It isn’t the typical school run, at least as understood by pushy parents in the west. Kids on their way to class in Mohamed El Aboudi’s new documentary School Of Hope (international premiere: Hot Docs’ Spectrum Competition) walk or cycle or ride on donkeys for many miles across the desert.

It is a strange combination of projects to tackle side by side: the horror of Utøya and the blissful, escapist music of Norway’s favourite pop band, A-ha. Director Aslaug Holm discusses how she juggled the two projects, and also how they in some ways overlap.

US director Lisa Immordino Vreeland discusses her Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation with Business Doc Europe ahead of its UK release this week by Dogwoof.

Heather Millard is British and proud of it, but has been based in Iceland for 12 years now, heading up international production and financing at Compass Films, the company she founded in 2012 and runs alongside Thordur Jonsson. She directs BDE about her upcoming Forum project Band.

Documentary has been pushed up the agenda at the Icelandic Film Centre in recent times with around €1.3m is set aside to support feature docs each year. IFC director Laufey Guðjónsdóttir talks to BDE of a concerted attempt to “get the overall framework stronger for docs.”

French director Julie Ramage discusses her new documentary How To Order Online, about the creative lengths prisoners can go to maintain human and economic exchange when access to communication is limited or denied.

“To me, it was clear from a very early point that I am not doing a film about the murder. I am doing a film about the news [reports] of the murder,” Jan Ijäs emphasises to BDE of his intentions behind Belgrade Forest Incident, in which he visits the Istanbul locations associated with the shocking death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Liisa Karpo, boss of Finnish outfit napafilms, speaks to Business Doc Europe about “Finnish weirdness,” why she is happy to embrace both documentary and fiction, and how she draws on her early film marketing expertise whenever she launches a film.