Interviews

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.

EFM’s Baltic Doc Rough Cut Showcase promoted new doc feature projects nearing completion. Stanislavs Tokalovs’ project forms a portrait of Latvia’s Russian-speaking community, following three women from his own family – his grandma, who came to Latvia from Russia in 1955 at the age of 93; his mother, a former university lecturer, and his sister, who is starting her adult life by trying to break away from her family.

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…

“Kiss the future!” rock star Bono of band U2 shouted at the crowd during the historic concert in Sarajevo in 1997. The city was then emerging from siege and war. It was time, the Irishman was telling them, to look forward after the years of horror. Now, the story behind the concert, and how it happened, is told in the new feature doc directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain and written by Bill S Carter, who speak to Business Doc Europe.

When D Smith (whose Kokomo City won two awards at Sundance last month) made her transition from male to female, she was startled by the hostility she encountered from her colleagues in the music industry. She was an award-winning producer and songwriter who had worked with some very big names, including Katy Perry and Lil Wayne - but all of a sudden, it was as if no-one wanted to know her, she tells Business Doc Europe.

Before the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, five kids from Donbas were transported to the Himalayas, away from the conflict and the bombs and the ruins, and were briefly shown a glimpse of paradise. After they returned, full scale war broke out. “This film is about this last light of teenagers from this generation before the darkness swallows their dreams,” director Kovalenko tells BDE.

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 prolific Mario Martone talks to Business Doc Europe about his documentary profile of the legendary Italian actor, comedian and director, Massimo Troisi. Born 70 years ago, in 1953, Troisi died in 1994, aged only 41, just after appearing in Michael Radfords’s Il Postino, a performance which secured him an Oscar nomination.

Chilean auteur Maite Alberdi talks to BDE about her Sundance winner recently acquired for international sales (excluding US) by Dogwoof. Like her Oscar-nominated The Mole Agent (2020) Alberdi’s new film is also an investigation of old age, this time about the marriage between brilliant writer Augusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia, an actress and former Minister of Culture. They’re a devoted couple, still madly in love after over 20 years together, but Augusto has Alzheimer’s. His memory is fading.

The German feature doc follows workers cleaning up nuclear power plants in France. It’s tough, itinerant work, exposing them to radiation, potentially dangerous for their health and entailing huge amounts of travel. “Following these nomadic workers, we needed also to be nomads,” Friedrich explains why they hired their own camper van which they worked out of, and slept in, during production.