Interviews

For their debut documentary world-premiering at Edinburgh, intrepid filmmakers Cat and Hannah set off on a 3000-kilometre odyssey along Central Asia's Pamir Highway, which runs from Uzbekistan, through Tajikistan and into Kyrgyzstan. With women “both behind the wheel and behind the camera,” the pair wanted to use the journey to examine the lives of women in the region. Cat and Hannah explain more to Business Doc Europe.

Oscar-nominated Danish documentary producer Sigrid Dyekjær, who set up her new company Real Lava in 2021, is spending the next few months in LA where she is overseeing the US launch of Alex Pritz’s The Territory in more than 100 cities. As well as discussing the film she opines on current funding policies within Danish documentary, and discusses her upcoming slate of films, which include the Venice pick Innocence and the upcoming Merkel.

In Husband, world-premiering at Edinburgh, successful academic Devorah has accepted an invitation to go to New York and give a series of talks on ‘feelings’, and to promote her new book on the same subject. Husband Josh, an equally successful but somewhat self-obsessed filmmaker, has agreed to look after the kids and offer loving support. And while he’s at it, why not make a film about the whole process? What could possibly go wrong? The loving couple tell Business Doc Europe.

For four years director Dvořáková has followed Marie Tomanova, the Czech-born darling of the New York photography scene, and her partner (both in life and work) Thomas Beachdel, an academic and curator. Produced by Prague-based Evolution Films, the film has HBO Europe on board as a co-producer. Dvořáková talks to Business Doc Europe ahead of the presentation of her project in Sarajevo.

Olha Tsybulska’s debut documentary couldn't be more poignant, comprising a collective portrait of Ukrainians at war. In the film, the director engages in conversation with friends and family, with each interviewee (and the director herself) seeking ways to navigate the new reality of life during wartime. On the eve of Sarajevo 2022 Tsybulska discussed the work with Business Doc Europe.

Slovak filmmaker Diana Fabiánová’s latest feature doc project ventures into the taboo area of infidelity within a marriage, albeit consensual and designed to shore up the union rather than dismantle it. The film is described as “an intimate probe into society, partnerships, their dark places, and our innermost selves.” The director explains to Business Doc Europe the background to the documentary.

Migrant workers from North Macedonia may have profited greatly from their recruitment by the US to work in military bases across Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades. But building vast palaces and driving high-end cars will never erase the trauma of war that they still suffer from. Director Anabela Angelovska, German by birth but the daughter of a North Macedonian father, explains her film, selected for Documentary Competition, to BDE.

The Italian-based but Sarajevo-born Srdan Perkic can’t hide his pride that, at this relatively advanced stage of his life, he has finally made a movie. In his 50s, Perkic has belatedly completed his debut feature film, the documentary Lights Of Sarajevo, which is a world premiere in the Sarajevo Festival Documentary Competition this week. The late debutant talks to Business Doc Europe.

Young Ukrainian filmmaker Marta Smerechynska, whose new feature doc is selected for Sarajevo Doc Competition, is the daughter of a priest and the sister of a nun. “From early childhood, I was observing nuns. This phenomenon was very interesting and strange for me. I question myself a lot why they were choosing this way [of life],” she tells Business Doc Europe. “As a child, I even had a fear that maybe it is my vocation too.”

In October 2013, Anikó and Laci, a poor, middle-aged Hungarian couple struck it rich on the lottery. Their story is told in Mátyás Kálmán’s new film, Paying A Visit To Fortuna (screening in Sarajevo’s Documentary Competition). As the director tells BDE, he was welcomed into their lives as, unlike almost everyone else they met, he didn’t want a hand-out and nor did he wish offer advice on how they should use their new-found wealth.