Interviews

The morning after the world-premiere of Moonage Daydream, Brett Morgen answered questions posed by Mandy Chang (Global Head of Documentaries at Fremantle) before an audience of doc professionals. “I was definitely interested in creating a non-biographical experience,” he said. “With Bowie, it was perfectly suited for that, because David Bowie is all about projection.”

Sundance-winning director Shaunak Sen discusses his remarkable vine documentary, selected for Cannes Special Screening section. It’s a film not only about the majestic black kite, whose numbers darken the sky above Delhi, it’s also a film about kinship, about shifts in our ecology and about devotion to a cause. And it’s a fascinating portrait of a city.

A delegation from Al Jazeera Documentary, comprising by Mehdi Bekkar (Senior Producer, pictured) and Jamel Dellali (Production Manager), is attending Cannes Docs both to search for projects in which to invest, as well as pitch two new works in the Spotlighted Projects section. Additionally Al Jazeera Documentary will hand out the AJD DOC Award, for which the company will board the winning project as a co-producer, with a minimum contribution of $15,000.

Chiledoc Director Paula Ossandón and Chief Executive Diego Pino outlined the Chilean offer at the Cannes festival and market in 2022 ahead of the May 23 Chilean Showcase. “Chile has a tradition of documentary but in the last 10 years we have had an internationalisation of Chilean films. We created Chiledoc thinking about how to support new filmmakers and [to help] experienced filmmakers be present in these kind of festivals,” says Pino.

Jane Campion is one of the towering figures of world cinema. She was the first woman to win the Palme D’Or in Cannes and has made a string of hugely powerful and influential movies, among them An Angel At My Table, The Piano, Portrait Of A Lady and, most recently, the Oscar winning Power Of The Dog. Nonetheless, the New Zealander still doesn’t always get her due, director Julie Bertuccelli tells BDE.

Docudays UA in association with the Ukrainian Institute presents May 21 a showcase of four new creative documentaries at production or post-production stage. “The section we curated were all started before the current war but each of them was highly impacted by the events that are threatening the existence of our country. These 4 exceptionally cinematic projects present the reality of Ukraine before and during the war,” write the two organisations.

The May 21 Scandinavian Showcase is one of eight country/regional presentations of soon to be finalised docs-in-progress, presented at Cannes Docs. The showcases are primarily designed for decision makers looking for new titles, in particular festival programmers and sales agents. In some cases the projects are also looking for post-production funding or general gap financing, and some are still open to co-production opportunities.

Hot Docs award-winning producer Johannes Schubert (Austria) outlines to BDE his plans for the 2022 EFP programme and explains his fascination both for the doc form and its practitioners. "Documentary filmmakers are incredibly kind and open-minded people. They are ambassadors for a better world and are courageous. I am longing for collaboration with them, and together we always try to challenge the status quo."

It’s a mind boggling number. China, as Gary Lennon’s new film Piano Dreams reveals, has 40 million piano students. They practise for 10 hours a day or more - and they nearly all dream of emulating the success of China’s global superstar, Lang Lang. The director duets with Business Doc Europe about the new doc, sold by MetFilm Sales and a market premiere in Cannes.

Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa discusses his latest documentary, about the little attention paid to the suffering of Germans after the 2WW carpet bombing of cities such as Dresden. It is a film with much contemporary resonance, as it is selected for Cannes even as the war continues to rage in Ukraine.