Berlin/EFM 2023

Was there really a historical and cultural bond between Iran and Romania? Until watching Between Revolutions that possibility never even crossed my mind. But this personal and visualised exchange of letters between two friends sketches, both organically and lyrically, the connections and parallels between the dark histories of these two countries.

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.

Five new doc projects have been selected for the 13th edition of Docu Rough Cut Boutique. Created by the Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Doc Center, the programme is organized in three working modules: Sofia (first week of April 2023), Budapest (June 2023) and Sarajevo (August 2023). “The selection process was one of the hardest in these last thirteen years of the program,” write organisers.

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.

Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s portrait of war-torn Ukraine, focusing on President Zelenskyy, is a personal exploration of the conflict in the simplest terms, aimed at reaching an American audience that knows little about the country. As such, it works, and if it manages to reach and inform its target audience, inspiring them to support Ukraine, then Superpower, in its chosen genre, should be deemed a good film.

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.

Seven Winters in Tehran is a tough watch. This has nothing to do with the qualities of the film but with the incredible injustice the main protagonist and her family are subjected to. The kind of injustice we unfortunately have grown accustomed to when watching documentaries from Iran. Even so, this one still manages to put a knife through your heart.

The Netherlands-based artist and filmmaker discusses her latest film, world-premiering in Berlin, which juxtaposes Dutch archive of working life from a century ago with letters sent to her in 1980s by her late father. “Basically, it was our only contact,” Tan says of her father’s letters. “For the first five to ten years that I lived in Europe, there was this weekly rhythm. I always wrote on Thursdays…They would also reply very faithfully.”

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.”

Anaïs Clanet, head of sales and acquisitions at French outfit Reservoir Docs, is in ebullient mood on the eve of the European Film Market (in its first physical edition since 2020). “All our buyers are coming back. Whether it is from America or Asia, everybody is back. It feels like there is an energy and a willingness to meet up and discuss what they can buy for next year,” she tells Business Doc Europe.