Helen Fripp

The feature documentary Dispatch - a prose poem to life and a paean to grief, longing and nostalgia - immerses us into the mind of Indian director Anu Vaidyanathan after the death of her much-loved mother-in-law, a mathematician from pre-Partition Punjab. “The making of it felt a bit like a fever dream,” the director tells BDE of her feature doc, which world-premiered at BAFICI (Buenos Aires). “I think the upside of grief is you have extreme clarity about what you don't want, and I did not want one more day, one more hour spent imagining a time when I would have a completed film.”

Shot on 16mm, its carefully graded black tones echoing the shadowy, ever-shifting levels of diffused light-and-shade as experienced by unsighted people, A Blind Song documents the tac-til Choir on their visit to Japan to explore the ancient tradition of the Goze - blind nomadic female musicians whose tradition dates back to medieval times. BDE talks to directors Stefano Canapa and Natacha Muslera, along with Cécile Sans, responsible for both writing and voice.

Chronicling one person’s experience of travelling across continents to escape a North African prostitution ring, Coming From the Sea follows a young Nigerian woman who embarks on a perilous odyssey across Europe to rebuild her life and protect her child - but the ghosts of her past are never far behind. “I don't like this word migrants we use in France. I prefer exiled people,” producer Emmanuel Gras tells BDE. “I want us to see them not as just figures of people who come, but as human beings, and above all as adventurers and explorers.”

‘What we are trying to depict is this volcano as a mirror of the world… we cannot control it, so we have to be in contact with nature, and somehow co-exist together,” says Jasmina Sijercic, producer of a new documentary about the island of Stromboli, where the active volcano is a perpetual presence. Business Doc Europe caught up with her ahead of the ParisDOC Work-in-Progress screening of The Island, directed by Sara Rastegar and Simone Pozzi, on 25th March.

Chilean René Ballesteros’ feature documentary, world-premiering in Paris, follows the stories of two Mapuche men, Juan and Daniel, who were taken from their Chilean homeland as children and adopted by European families in dubious circumstances. A trained psychologist, the film has a personal undertow for the director. “Once I met Albert Maysles…and he told me that the link between being a psychologist and making documentaries is listening,” he tells BDE. “With both Juan and Daniel there was a connection, because I was trying to listen to myself, too.”

The 48th edition of the Paris-based festival and market kicks off March 21. "It is interesting how ParisDOC now covers the full spectrum of documentary filmmaking, from early writing stages to near-completion, and through to questions of circulation and heritage,” enthuses Anaïs Desrieux of the festival’s professional component. “This creates a coherent ecosystem and reinforces our role in supporting the valorisation of documentary cinema in all its forms.”

When the Swedish woman of his dreams fails to return to him after their whirlwind romance, the ‘untouchable’ PK Mahanandia sets out on a treacherous 6000-mile cycle ride across deserts and mountains, and over dangerous borders, to find her. No map, and with only $80 in his pocket. “The story of PK’s cycle journey is an epic adventure filled with magic, but it also really moved me,” says Oscar-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel of his new film, receiving its European premiere in Copenhagen. “His story covers such a rich tapestry of universal themes, from love and destiny to the idea of enduring hope.”

Xuban Intxausti’s Live Till Death examines the experiences of Basque women as they confront cancer “through a collective, feminist, and transformative lens.” It follows members of the Iñurri association as they defy the stigma often attached to the disease. “It’s a little thing, you know, a little story in a little country, but somehow I think that it's something amazing, because they are facing the illness in a new way,” director Intxausti tells BDE.

Valley of the Heart (CZ) tells the story of Purna between the ages of 24 and 33. He is a young man who has grown up in a secluded valley deep within Nepal, but he longs for escape. When his father dies, he leaves the valley for the first time to settle in the Czech Republic. “The emotions of beginning anew, of estrangement and adaptation, are deeply familiar. I believe that whatever melancholy emerges from this dimension of the story will be balanced by the vitality of the courtship scenes and the cultural collisions that ensue,” producer Jiri Konečny tells BDE.

What if the Iran-Contra affair had turned out differently forty years ago? Would there be peace in the Middle East now? Tal Barda’s Israeli/German three-part series Strings of Power poses this question. With “incredible” access to some of those involved, director Barda unearths archive footage and documents, alongside new material that has come to light. The director talks to Business Doc Europe.