Interviews

Kathryn Ferguson’s multi award-winning Nothing Compares has its subject, the brilliant Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, as its narrator. ‘Powerful’ and ‘heartrending’ are among the terms that reviewers have used to describe the film, which premiered at Sundance 2022. After its European premiere at CPH:DOX earlier this year, Ferguson explained to BDE why she was drawn to the life and work of the mercurial artist.

Simon Lereng Wilmont’s heart-rending (and Sundance-winning) film charts the experiences of kids temporarily removed from their parents in an orphanage in eastern Ukraine. During a recent screening in Kyiv the ombudswoman for children’s rights was in attendance. “She saw it and came over afterwards. She was in tears and asked if she was allowed to show it at a closed screening to [President] Zelenskyy,” the director tells BDE.

The momentum behind Myanmar Diaries, which Dutch-based outfit Zindoc co-produced on behalf of the anonymous Myanmar Film Collective, continues to grow. The film deals with life following the brutal military coup of February 2021. “We are a super underdog effort, but it still feels that if this film could get a proper spotlight, we could move mountains when it comes to policy,” says Zindoc’s Petr Lom, partner of producer Corinne van Egeraat.

They seem to come from different sides of the filmmaking universe. Robert Downey Sr (1936-2021) was one of the high priests of US underground movies, famous for his anarchic and satirical humour. His son, Robert Downey Jr, 57, is one of the highest paid mainstream movie stars in history. Their relationship is the subject of Chris Smith’s Netflix doc “Sr” which has just launched on Netflix. The director explains all to BDE.

Margaret Brown’s new documentary looks at the legacy of suffering and injustice left by The Clotilda, the last ship to carry African captives to the US – even though legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves had been written and passed over 50 years before. Brown and co-producer, co-writer and folklorist, Dr. Kern Jackson spoke to Business Doc Europe about their film during the recent IDFA.

Family Affair Films producer Floor Onrust talks to Business Doc Europe about the remarkable feature documentary, directed by Bianca Stigter, which analyses, re-analyses and then analyses again three minutes of pre-WW2 home footage showing the Jewish inhabitants of the Polish town of Nasielsk. The archive is unbearably poignant as only a few years later most of the town’s inhabitants would be massacred by the Nazis.

When a former US Marine plots a terrorist attack on a small-town American mosque, he undergoes a radical change when he comes face-to-face with the Muslins he had set out to kill. He is literally disarmed by their kindness. Stranger At The Gate is the latest in a long series of short films Joshua Seftel has made about Muslims in the US, post-9/11. “I felt maybe I could do something with my filmmaking to counter this hatred that Muslims were facing,” he tells BDE.

A change in Californian law allowed Eli Timoner to end his own life. The founder of Air Florida was in his early 90s, paralysed and in pain. He wanted to die on his own terms. His daughter, documentary maker Ondi Timoner, recorded his final 15 days in her new documentary, Last Flight Home (released in the US by MTV Documentary Films). “I thought I have to film him, I have to interview him…I have to record his final moments on earth,” she tells BDE.

My Name Is Happy tells the story of Kurdish aspiring singer Mutlu who, on the verge of stardom, suffers a terrifying and life-changing attack by a deranged suitor. Five years later, her carer & beloved sister Dilek is killed by her boyfriend. Despite her injuries Mutlu, now a huge TikTok star and ardent campaigner against femicide, pursues justice for her sister, supported by her ever-present family. Filmmakers Nick Read and Ayse Toprak discuss their feature documentary with Business Doc Europe.       

Hidden Letters may ostensibly be about Nushu, an old secret Chinese language used by women to communicate among themselves in periods of patriarchal oppression when they were prevented from reading and writing. Its real subject, however, is the situation of women in China today, co-director Violet Du Feng tells BDE. “It’s a film about them…about the challenges they are facing.”