Interviews

You won’t find many documentaries that were conceived in more unlikely fashion than Lin Alluna’s Twice Colonized (opening CPH:DOX following its world premiere in Sundance). The director spotted Greenlandic Inuit lawyer and activist Aaju Peter by chance on the streets near the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. They’d never met before yet Peter was to become the subject of a film which would take seven years to complete.

CPH Dox is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2023. “The belief that we can expand on what documentary is and what it can be, that is the red thread that has gone through the history of the festival,” comments Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm. “We want to present all the different formats and colours that documentary comes in.” (But he also wants to party, he tells BDE.)

At FIFDH co-directors Nick Read and Ayse Toprak outlined the Impact strategy for their documentary about Turkish teenage singing sensation Mutlu Kaya as she makes a remarkable journey from gunshot victim to fearless survivor. “Our impact goal is to offer victims a roadmap for survival. With her beaming smile and creative energy, Mutlu has the potential to be a role model both inside Turkey and beyond,” said Read.

Impact producers Miriam Ayoo and Chloé Genga came to Impact Days in Geneva to describe the campaign they devised for Sam Soko’s 2020 Sundance winner Softie, a film about the brilliant photographer and political activist Boniface "Softie" Mwangi as he runs for office in a regional Kenyan election, a decision that puts pressure both on his young family and on his convictions.

Dutch director Johan Kramer discusses his doc that examines the inseparable bond between pets and their owners. The director acknowledges that it would have been easy to portray his human protagonists as eccentric oddballs. He was determined, though, to treat them with respect. After all, as the owner of a whippet called Paco that he dotes over, he often finds himself talking to the dog as if it’s a human being…

The new film, commissioned by the festival and put together by curator Jo Reid, is a celebration of women and bicycles…and emancipation. “That was my brief, to make an archive film about women and cycling,” Reid explains her remit to Business Doc Europe. “It’s nice and broad which meant I could make it my own.”

Between March 12-14, Impact Days, the industry programme of FIFDH (International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights) will look to facilitate strategic collaborations between filmmakers and NGOs/governmental organisations, all of whom believe in the power of doc to effect radical change, whether in terms of policy or across society in general. Impact Days chief Laura Longobardi explains her programme’s mission to BDE.

“Have you ever imagined Pippi Longstocking being old? Well, that’s Maomi,” said director Judit Oláh during the presentation of her doc feature Maomi – Larger Than Life, currently in late development and produced by Inez Matis for Pi Productions (Hungary), Annika Mayer for Majmun Films (Germany) and Anna Stylińska and Katarzyna Slesicka for My Way Studio (Poland).

20-year-old Constantina is the protagonist of Holy Human Angel, a new creative documentary feature directed by Athens-born Angeliki Aristomenopoulou (Citizen Europe) and presented at this year’s Thessaloniki Pitching Forum. The project, currently in development, is produced by Yuri Averof and Rea Apostolides for Anemon Productions (Greece), Vicky Miha for Asterisk* (Greece) and Heather Millard for Compass Films (Iceland).

Focusing on the years 1959 to 1964, the feature doc Cassius X: Becoming Ali, screening at the Glasgow Film Festival this week, offers insights into the ‘Greatest’ that many viewers will not have heard before. Director Muta'Ali Muhammad and writer/broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove, on whose book the documentary is based, go the distance with Business Doc Europe.