EFAs 24

Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias; Dahomey by Mati Diop; In Limbo by Alina Maksimenko; No Other Land by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra & Hamdan Ballal, and Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d‘Etat were unveiled November 5 as the 5 nominees in the European Documentary category of the 37th European Film Awards. All 5 are also nominated in the European Film category. The winners will be revealed in this year’s award ceremony on 7 December in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Jazz and decolonization are inextricably linked in Johan Grimonprez’s masterful study of Congo’s independence from Belgium in 1960, the rise of pan-Africanism, the inevitable neo-colonial backlash, and the murder/assassination of Congo’s newly elected PM Patrice Lumumba in February 1961. And about the CIA’s use of jazz legends as a smokescreen for covert operations far beyond US. “History writing is always about re-writing,” Grimonprez tells BDE. “It's trying to look at what's not been written, at what's fallen between the cracks.”

Mati Diop’s stunning Dahomey, winner of the Berlinale Golden Bear and nominated for the European Film Award for Documentary, is a magical work about the restitution of colonial treasures. Diop follows these precious cultural artefacts from the ‘prison’ of a Parisian museum depot back to their home country of Benin, where they once more assume living and mythical significance.

Chaplin, Spirit of the Tramp (screening at Festival Lumière in Lyon following its world premiere last month in San Sebastián, where it won the Irizar Basque Film Award) is a deceptive affair. The documentary offers startling new insights into the family background of Charlie Chaplin, arguably the most famous movie star of the 20th Century…and his son Michael for whom Charlie’s celebrity was a huge burden. Director Carmen Chaplin, Charlie’s grand-daughter, tells more to BDE.

Ukrainian director Alina Maksimenko talks to Business Doc Europe about her film, nominated for Best Film and Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, in which she joins her mother and father in their village after the Russian invasion of February 24 2022. The director films their daily lives, in which the tension of their enclosed world and uncertain future seems to grip them all…and the animals they look after.

In At Averroès & Rosa Parks (long-listed for Best Documentary, European Film Awards 2024), French documentary master Nicolas Philibert continues his exploration of mental illness and its treatments in French hospitals. “Making movies is my solution to keep balance in my life,” the director tells BDE. “The people I film are very vulnerable but they reflect back something I have inside me too.”

The Palestine/Norway/US film bagged the Best Feature Documentary and Best Director Awards December 5 during the International Documentary Association Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles. The Best Cinematography gong went to Ruslan Fedotov for Queendom, while Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat picked up two prizes; for Best Editing and Best Writing. All awards…

Paris-based French-Palestinian filmmaker Lina Soualem talks to Business Doc Europe about her new film (long-listed for Best Documentary, European Film Awards 2024) that documents four generations of women in her family, one of whom is the internationally renowned actress Hiam Abbass, the director’s mother. “It's as if the women of my family…each represent a piece of history, a piece of time that doesn't exist anymore,” says Soualem.

Hot on the heels of its IDA Awards success, No Other Land (Palestine/Norway/US) by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra & Hamdan Ballal, was named winner in the European Documentary category of the 37th European Film Awards. The European Young Audience Award went to The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Norway) by Benjamin Ree, produced by Ingvil Giske.

Direct Action, long-listed for Best Documentary ahead of the European Film Awards 2024, documents the everyday lives within one of the most high-profile militant activist communities in France. The filmmakers’ intentions were straightforward. As co-director Russell puts it, “the goal was to spend time with people we really admired and to spend time in a place that is mysterious, and to understand [it] for ourselves.”