Berlin/EFM 2023

Dearest Fiona, an art film by Fiona Tan having its world premiere in Berlinale’s Forum section, consists of two very different elements. We see scenes from silent Dutch documentaries, showing life at the beginning of the 20th century. And we hear an actor reading letters her father wrote to her around 1988/89. I went looking for a way to connect the two. The production company behind the film is called Antithesis Films. That’s an interesting name. Let’s use that as a starting point…

These have been tough years in Lebanon. Political corruption, inflation, economic problems and the 2020 explosion in the port in Beirut have made the lives of Lebanese citizens increasingly difficult. But as Lea Najjar shows in her new doc, some folk turn to very alternative pursuits to find respite, such as pigeon competitions. The director takes flight with Business Doc Europe.

February 17 saw the launch at EFM of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) to give voice to independent artists from Belarus working in the film industry. Co-founder Volia Chajkouskaya explained that the need to found BIFA was clear following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February, and how “a period of unprecedented mass repression” and “rigged elections” in Belarus convinced the country’s independent filmmakers to “reunite” and “to oppose any form of state collaboration.”

Piotr Pawlus and Tomasz Wolski’s distanced approach to everyday life in war-torn Ukraine may make for uncomfortable tension as its impersonal concept seems to prevent real human connection, but this more measured and sociological take gives the viewer time to reflect on the daily realities of war away from the frontlines. And there is much to be said for this approach.

In a film which blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, a European filmmaker [Dieutre himself] drives around LA in a Ford Mustang in the company of Dean, a man reminiscent a lover from years before. “Creative documentary is the place where you’ve got the maximum possibility of really thinking about the language of cinema, the form,” Dieutre reflects to Business Doc Europe.

This year’s European Film Market focused on the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. One of the industry initiatives, the Baltic Doc Rough Cut Showcase, promotes new non-fiction feature projects nearing completion. The Estonian project Kelly - Someone Else’s Dreams was initially planned as a sports documentary revolving around the record-breaking freestyle skier before it turned into a much darker story…

It was only by chance that Georg Gruber noticed that his Berlin-based film sales company, founded in 2003, is celebrating its 20th anniversary. No big events are planned but he gives his word that when the company turns 25, there will be a party. "It's so funny, we kind of realised in January, oh, Jesus Christ, 20 years! It really took my surprise a bit," he tells BDE of his dawning realisation that his company has now been in existence for two decades.

The Ukrainian/German filmmaker team were making a feature documentary about the former US military base at Schweinfurt in mid-Germany when it was re-purposed in Spring 2022 to house displaced mothers and children who had fled the war in Ukraine. In their poignantly titled short doc, in equal part playful and melancholic, we see the world through the eyes of the children now living on the compound.

Prolific Oscar-winning producer John Battsek talks to Business Doc Europe about why he was determined to document the life of the German tennis great. “I’m a massive sports fan and a huge tennis fan,” says Battsek. “Talking to Boris, I got a real sense of a life lived achieving incredible things; not least six majors, an Olympic Gold, coaching Novak and being a brilliant commentator.” The film is directed by Alex Gibney.

The seventeen up-and-coming European documentary film producers were introduced to the Berlin Film Festival guests at an event hosted 17 February by the Ji.hlava IDFF, together with the European Film Market. The educational, promotional and networking EMERGING PRODUCERS programme is curated by Ji.hlava IDFF and includes workshops in Jihlava (October 2023) and Berlin (February 2024).