Interviews

Take two women. Marion’s mother committed suicide after suffering sexual abuse as a child. Ida was raped as a teenager. What they have in common is that they are both part of close-knit Sapmi communities where discussing such horrific experiences is considered taboo. Filmmaker Liselotte Wajstedt talks to Business Doc Europe.

In his heartwarming doc short-listed for the Best Doc at the European Film Awards, director Einari Paakkanen introduces us to a cast of Finns for whom karaoke is more than mere entertainment, rather an emotional support mechanism. During Finnish Film Affair producer Marianne Mäkelä of Napafilms pitched the project to the international distribution community.

Director Juha Suonpää discusses his new project, about a man and his search for the elusive Eurasian lynx, with Business Doc Europe. The ancient relationship between humankind and predator “is something that goes paradoxically to the origins of the Finnish mentality, how we came to be here in the north, how we survived here in north,” the filmmaker says.

In her documentary selected for FFA, Elli Rintala profiles forensic scientist Helena Ranta who, back in the late 1990s, led the Finnish research team that conducted independent investigations into evidence of war crimes against the Serbian army in Kosovo, led by Slobodan Milošević. The filmmaker discusses her film with Business Doc Europe.

In Power of the People we follow the extraordinary young Finnish activist and poet Laura Eklund Nhaga as she embarks upon a journey to the US to meet fellow activists in Chicago. She also encounters Heather Booth, leading activate for ‘organization’ and the processes needed to transform words into action. Director Mervi Enqvist discusses her film with Business Doc Europe.

In Iiris Härmä’s latest documentary, two well-meaning environmental scientists travel to the ‘Cradle of Humanity’ in Kenya to reintroduce the culture of storytelling to nomadic tribes people. But they soon find out that the needs, practices and indeed frailties of the local villagers are not so dissimilar to those of people living elsewhere in the world. The filmmaker talks to Business Doc Europe.

40 years on and Rock in Reykjavik is back, lauded at this year’s Malmö-based celebration of Nordic docs and shorts. “It was very important for all of us because we made it without any subsidy from the government,” Icelandic maverick Fridrik Thor Fridriksson tells Business Doc Europe. “We were very brave.” He also remains optimistic that his beloved Manchester United will rise phoenix-like from the footballing ashes…

Filmmaker Isabel Castro discusses her new film, about two daughters of undocumented immigrants from Mexico attempting to build careers in the music business in the US, which launches this week on Disney+. “I just filmed all the time,” Castro tells BDE of her approach, as she grew very close to her subjects. “I saw so many different parts of myself in Doris or Jacks’ experience.”

Ukrainian producer Ivanna Khitsinska talks to Business Doc Europe about director Yuliia Hontaruk’s project which was pitched both at AJB Doc and Toronto; a documentary about war, trauma and self-sacrifice as three young Ukrainian veterans return home from battle on the frontline, only to be thrown back into the turmoil after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

In Petra Seliškar’s new project, Zekir, Zarif and their brothers and sisters have always been shepherds in the beautiful Sar mountain in North Macedonia. But when Zarif, who has just turned 17, begins to dream about a life elsewhere, all sense of family balance is disrupted. “Can we expect the boys to maintain that very demanding life while they have Instagram in their pocket?” asks producer Sara Ferro.