Cannes 23

With their documentary Occupied City, director Steve McQueen and screenwriter Bianca Stigter have made their own contribution to the sacred tradition of Holocaust remembrance. Strikingly, in a film that tells of the city’s occupation by the Nazis 80 years ago, yet one which eschews 2WW archive, relying instead on contemporary images and measured voiceover, it is the hometown of Amsterdam itself that ‘never forgets.’

In her documentary, Asmae El Moudir rebuilds the Morocco of her childhood using hand crafted models as she tries to unravel long concealed family secrets. Along the way she discovers small lies that lead to disturbing revelations about the entire society. “There is a lot of pain here but there is a lot of laughing also in the film. We can laugh, we can cry, we can have every emotion in this film. For me, cinema is emotion,” she tells BDE.

Producer Denis Vaslin, who runs Rotterdam-based Volya Films together with Fleur Knopperts, discusses why he boarded Wang Bing’s epic 3.5 hour documentary Youth (Spring), itself the first part of a 11-hour essay on contemporary China. The film is selected for Cannes Competition 2023. “He is a unique filmmaker, very courageous in his method and perseverant,” Vaslin says of the Chinese director.

UK-Chinese filmmaker Paul Sng’s Tish, about the brilliant British social documentary photographer Tish Murtha and which opens the 30th Sheffield DocFest next month, also features in the Cannes Docs Scotland Showcase of upcoming documentaries May 19. “Tish refused to compromise. She refused to lose any of the integrity about her work and how it was used and made,” Sng says of his subject.

When, in November 2022, the great British artist and agitator Banksy stenciled his artworks onto ruined buildings across Ukraine, little did he know that these beautiful, melancholy works would be instrumental to a major new (and quite brilliant) immersive installation world-premiering at Cannes 2023. Or maybe he did, such is the MO of the art world’s most elusive Pimpernel. Directors Artem Ivanenko, Alex Topaller & Daniel Shapiro discuss their Murals with BDE.

The leading Dutch producer talks about Steve McQueen’s epic documentary, world-premiering at Cannes, which draws parallels between 2WW Amsterdam and the city during the pandemic. “I felt the importance of keeping those stories alive,” Onrust underlines of the wartime experiences that the film re-awakens. “We should never take it for granted that we live in a free world.”

A few days after the Russian invasion last year, Polish filmmaker Maciek Hamela began driving into Ukraine to pick up civilians and bring them to the Polish border. The footage he shot of his many journeys is brought together in his new documentary, selected for Cannes ACID and Millennium Docs Against Gravity (Poland). “We were trying to concentrate on the human stories and not to be splashing the screen with fear and war,” the director tells BDE. “This is not a typical film shot in the trenches…”

It’s an irony, but what critics are calling one of the most perceptive films about British life in the wake of Brexit was actually made by a…German. Jens Meurer’s Seaside Special has been warmly received at festivals in the UK while also turning into a surprise hit in Germany. “Continentals love the British. We want the Brits, we need the Brits,” Meurer tells BDE of the surprising levels of affection that still exist toward the UK across the EU.

Cannes Classic docs on the Croisette in 2023 include works on the late Jean-Luc Godard, the Rassam-Berri dynasty, Liv Ullmann and filmmakers discussing the future of cinema, a la Wim Wenders’ Room 666 (1982). Other subjects getting the doc treatment, as announced May 5, are Agnès Varda, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Anita Pallenberg, Michael Douglas and Warner Bros, as the studio celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2023.

Angeliki Vergou, Head of Agora at Thessaloniki Doc Fest; French producer Karim Aitouna, and Brazilian Fernanda Lomba, EP at Mundi Filmes and co-founder of Nicho 54, will deliberate over 32 docs-in-progress, presented across 8 showcases May 19-22 during Cannes Docs, the dedicated documentary programme of the Cannes Market. The Awards Ceremony is scheduled for ‘Doc Day’ on May 23.